Ch.217Work Record #031 – Duty Record #003, Staying One Step Ahead (6)

On a morning when I didn’t need to go to work, I examined Fabian’s documents with Celine one last time, with the mindset that this would be our final attempt. Yet, they remained nothing more than a disorderly array of printed characters.

The only peculiar aspect was that they were handwritten, and the paper… had The Old Way company logo stamped at the bottom. Handwriting on paper. This would be top-tier security clearance.

Did he steal that paper just to write these random numbers on it? Celine grabbed her head in frustration, then leaned back as if something might become visible from a distance as she stared at the paper… when suddenly she sat up straight.

“Ah! You definitely said it, right? If Fabian was truly smart, he wouldn’t lock information that anyone might spread with some lengthy cipher. That’s what you said, right?”

“I certainly did. So, everything written here is…”

“Everything written is fake! Yes, what’s on this paper is all fake. What would be on the paper that nobody wrote?”

Has she found something? After pondering for a moment, I noticed The Old Way company name faintly visible behind the writing.

“Just The Old Way logo printed on the back of the paper. It might sound stupid to say the old way is the hint, but… The Old Way, literally meaning the old method?”

“Remember I mentioned we had a few simple ciphers we used with Fabian? From when we were kids… our old way. The cipher itself isn’t the password. We had given it a name of our own.”

Celine pulled out her phone connected to Fabian’s memory card and entered an incredibly long string of characters. She smiled, seemingly both incredulous and pleased.

“It’s the first letter of each word in ‘That fat idiot might think we’re crazy but he won’t be able to decode this. How does it feel to have a cipher that shares your birthday, Celine?’ Hah, this is…”

Fabian must have been quite a good brother, quirks aside. And naturally, taking the first letter of each word in the sentence made the string long enough and just regular enough to function as a cipher.

“My mother was a fucking bastard. Fabian tried hard to make my childhood less miserable, and this cipher was… a trace of that effort. I never thought it would be used like this. Really.”

And then, it unlocked. Inside were video files Fabian had recorded. Everything from how to infiltrate The Old Way building to footage of the drug cultivation facilities he captured after sneaking in.

Fabian had prepared all this chaos to bring down The Old Way, just as I had predicted. At the same time, he left a cipher that only his sister, who had always prevented him from getting into trouble, would understand.

Perhaps, as I suggested, there might be evidence somewhere that he left hoping “anyone would spread it.” But it didn’t matter. What he intended only for his sister was now in our hands.

I reached out to her. As Celine naturally handed me her phone, I turned on my computational assist device and established a short-range connection to the phone. I downloaded all seven videos and played them.

The evidence was more than sufficient. Fabian had sneaked into The Old Way’s hydroponic tower through underground pipes that supplied fresh air from hydroponic cultivation to Madeleine’s Lot.

And he had clear footage of drug production and transportation… and for processing, although the video was partially obscured, he left enough evidence. Everything we needed.

With my computational assist device on, I connected to the communication channel with Jeff and copied all seven videos recorded by Fabian Diaz to send to him. After hearing Jeff’s voice in my head, the connection was cut.

“I’ll report this up the chain. I’d like to avoid fighting with the Market Keeper… but it’ll take time since it involves making a corporate intelligence agent kill a federal citizen. Get ready to shed your skin, Skinwalker.”

It would be better if approval from higher-ups came after a conversation with the Market Keeper. The worst scenario would be having to face the Market Keeper without a chance to talk if they arrived during a fight.

Arthur Murphy is trying to tear through Matt Collins’ skin. Not yet. I still wasn’t certain whose names besides Harry’s should be on my kill list. It didn’t matter. I knew the infiltration route.

They probably still didn’t know how Fabian had infiltrated, so they wouldn’t be prepared. Even if they were, it would only be for purebloods, so I could just break through.

No. There was an even simpler method. I might not even need to try to break in; there was a way to enter The Old Way using their own hands. The choice was mine.

After turning off my computational assist device, I asked Celine standing before me. These were words I had heard when I was in a similar situation. I activated my implanted jammer before speaking.

“May I ask you one thing, Celine?”

“Sure… as long as it’s not something like ‘Did you really think I was on your side?'”

I laughed softly at that. Wanting to show my harmlessness, I showed her my palms before speaking.

“I am on Celine’s side. Just, if there were a million sinners and a hundred righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, would Celine pour down sulfur fire because of the million, or tolerate the sinners because of the hundred?”

“That’s quite sudden for a Bible study. I… probably the latter. Saying you’d ignore a hundred lives to kill a million makes you just as much a sinner. Why would Matt ask something like that?”

“Someone with the ability to pour down sulfur fire and kill a million could also save the hundred and then pour down the fire. That’s my answer. Save the righteous, kill the sinners.”

She tilted her head as if not understanding my meaning. With an awkward smile, she looked into my eyes and said:

“Making such scary eyes and saying things like that in this situation really gives me the chills. That’s not about Madeleine’s Lot, is it?”

“I’m telling you to leave Madeleine’s Lot. And never look back. Because sulfur fire will rain down on the sinners of Madeleine’s Lot. Before that, I need to save the hundred righteous people.”

She looked at me with a slightly awkward expression. It wasn’t the words that made her uncomfortable. She had suddenly become uncomfortable with the person standing before her. She still seemed to believe it was a joke.

“Your jokes really have bad timing. What’s important now is to use this to somehow make Madeleine’s Lot face punishment, and to find even one more way to ensure they receive proper punishment…”

“No. They won’t be punished by any ordinary means. There are already agents in the FBI who have been bought by The Old Way. And Madeleine’s Lot will get what they deserve one way or another. What matters is…”

A sense of déjà vu flows through my body. Did I also have such a frightened expression back then? Perhaps I had the same expression as Celine now when what I thought was common sense crumbled.

I convey to Celine the words that felt like being hit with a hammer when I first heard them. This was one of the bricks I had taken from Mr. Günter’s words.

“Whether you’re one of the righteous who should be saved. You came here for the right purpose. You searched for the truth while risking your own safety. So, The Old Way will die, and you will live.”

I couldn’t tell if my voice sounded like a beast howling. I just spoke plainly. At least that’s what I thought. I continued naturally.

“My original goal was to find and protect the person who had internally reported Madeleine’s Lot. But then you suddenly got involved with Madeleine’s Lot. I’m grateful, because it’s thanks to you we found the evidence.”

Did that sound like I was destroying whatever friendship, or something similar, we had built briefly? She had the right to be angry with me in this situation. I decided to acknowledge it calmly.

“Protecting you was the right thing to do, and it also brought me closer to the evidence. Honestly, my priority was the former. The latter was secondary, but I accepted an unexpected result. Perfect evidence.”

The regret I felt toward Celine, whom I had deceived, was much greater than what I felt toward Harry, whom I had killed. The latter was minimal, passing like an unpleasant damp breeze brushing against my nape.

“I’m sorry for deceiving you. You have every right to be angry, to react however you see fit. Matt Collins never existed in the first place. What’s been here all along was a high-value external asset of the federal government.”

I peeled off the artificial skin from the back of my hand that I had placed on the table. I showed her the modified matte black back of my hand. I gripped the table with one hand, crushing it to tear off a piece of pseudo-wood to show her.

Celine looked at me with an expression full of confusion, as if wondering whether she should feel betrayed. She smiled awkwardly while looking into my eyes and asked. It was a question I could gladly answer.

“If all this is real… are you giving me one last chance? Or are you treating me like a coward who would abandon even avenging my brother and run away?”

“If possible, I’d like to fight The Old Way with the help of a former soldier, with at least one more comrade. But there are too many variables… including some I can’t handle.”

The Market Keeper I would face tomorrow was a variable I couldn’t handle. Since I wouldn’t stand a chance in a direct confrontation, I would have to somehow persuade them through pleading. I had no room to look after others.

“I’m inherently a fragile person who dislikes tragedy. So I can’t bring myself to involve others in problems I might not be able to solve. Sincerely.”

I took a slow, deep breath. Hoping that sincere words would sound sincere, I continued.

“So, leave Fabian’s revenge to me. Revenge can be done by proxy, but commemoration can’t be done by others. That’s something only someone precious can do.”

“I don’t even know where Fabian is buried, or if he’s even buried at all…”

On that issue, I could spontaneously think of something. Recalling my head collection work as a Gardner, I said:

“If we send Marcus Cavendish’s brain to a megacorporation’s information processing team, they could recover memories of where they buried Fabian. It would be risky… but I’ll do that for you on one condition.”

“What do you get out of going that far? I mean, at best…”

“Being able to sleep soundly at night. That’s enough for me.”

While pretending to be her friend, every word was a lie, but now that I had revealed I wasn’t her friend, I spoke no lies. A funny irony.

Celine, still with an uncertain expression, responded to my words. She seemed to understand the feeling I had experienced. Perhaps it was natural.

“After doing something shady, when you lie in a soft bed, it feels like… you’re going to drown in that softness, making you thrash about.”

“So you end up setting up a cot and sleeping on it instead of a proper bed. That’s right. Don’t worry, I still have your contact information.”

Celine left without saying anything more, taking Fabian’s belongings with her as she left my house, or rather, what was just called my house but was actually an empty house. We probably would never meet again.

I feel a little loneliness. Did I think we could become friends? Not really… No. Maybe I did. Still, I wasn’t sinking into melancholy. I had to start preparing now.

I learned from Jeff how to perfectly deceive a nationalist, but I never learned how to feel at ease after perfectly deceiving a nationalist. I decide to blame that.

After such a brief relationship ended that way, I bring up the map of Madeleine’s Lot in my mind. Most of the air circulation pipes were near the small central shopping area.

More precisely, they had deliberately set up a massive structure resembling a pipe organ in the middle of the central shopping area. Originally, the pipes wouldn’t have needed to be so wide.

Security vulnerabilities are always in reality. I couldn’t hack The Old Way’s system to gain authorization, or do anything remotely similar, but I could infiltrate as if it were natural.

I should go in and out at dawn. Marcus Cavendish’s residence also happened to use the top floor of that hydroponic tower as a penthouse, so if the opportunity presented itself, I could visit there as well.

If infiltrating the penthouse was the goal, I could use another method. Namely… running up the dome. Climbing that dome with an enhanced body wouldn’t be that difficult.

And then, just like a Gardner moving toward paparazzi, I could crawl toward the tip of the hydroponic tower protruding from the dome. I could infiltrate through the helipad at the top.

Both methods had drawbacks. The air pipe required infiltrating through a crowded area, and I would have to take a long detour to reach my destination, Marcus Cavendish’s office and penthouse.

Climbing the dome and infiltrating would be quite noticeable, and they would surely have security teams stationed at the helipad where the Market Keeper was expected to arrive. It was close to gambling.

I needed to be more cautious since I couldn’t deal with the security team yet. But… it was clear that I could infiltrate quickly and escape quickly.

Since the plan was being moved up considerably, I needed to pay attention to escape routes as well. I should contact Mr. Enzo again and ask him to deploy as soon as possible.

Jeff was fundamentally unreliable and had been consistently manipulated by his superiors. He even concealed the original purpose of the mission from me on their orders, though he could have told me.

And those superiors… or that superior, didn’t seem to like me very much. It would be uncomfortable. They were trying to reject that discomfort even though it would help achieve the goal.

Considering the possibility of betrayal doesn’t seem like an overreaction. If I could just reach corporate intelligence territory, I would be a respected Bellwether-certified freelancer. The bike was just a means to get there.

I could flee straight across the wasteland, but I would be immediately spotted by drone reconnaissance. Would it be better if I could get from Charleston to an airport owned by Pathfinder? Maybe.

Since the airport itself was owned by Pathfinder Logistics, I could safely return to Los Angeles. In that case… I need to devise a way to shake off pursuit in the city.

There was too much to think about and too few people to think with as the morning passed. Madeleine’s Lot remained terribly quiet and peaceful, unaware of my pace or the future that awaited it.