Ch.229Record of Task #033 – Fear Not the Darkness (3)

I couldn’t resist all abilities that way. It was only possible when the part the mutant was trying to control was something I could move by my own will.

For abilities like the one that killed Noah’s mother—the kind that could manipulate internal organs at will—there was no way to counter them even if I knew about them. I don’t know how to control every tiny part of my own body either.

I exit the virtual reality. A lingering headache, like stubborn water stains, remains. It wasn’t from spending too much time in VR, but from staring too long at the mutant’s eyes that overloaded my processing functions.

The connection device could read my brainwaves and would have cut the connection immediately if the load had been severe enough to cause permanent damage. I take deep breaths, telling myself it’s just a temporary headache.

After just a few dozen seconds, the headache slowly fades. When facing them one-on-one, my mind would only get slightly fatigued. I shouldn’t have to stare at mutant eyes for three hours straight like in today’s training.

Section Chief Gabriel Walker stood up from beside my connection chair, giving a light applause. I was getting used to receiving applause even when I hadn’t done anything particularly deserving of it.

“Honestly, just being able to twitch a finger is impressive at first. Most people can’t even move properly after several minutes and start hyperventilating… You’re not a freelancer for nothing.”

Having your body refuse to obey you is more terrifying than most people realize. Especially for someone used to perfectly functioning implants. I smiled only after my headache had completely subsided.

“I’m quite pleased to hear I’m not a freelancer for nothing. After three hours of practice, I think I’m starting to get the hang of it. If I completely relax my body first and then try to move from scratch…”

I relaxed my body and then reached out my hand. I didn’t touch him, but the Anti-Mutant Section Chief flinched slightly, momentarily losing track of where my fist was. He sighed as if embarrassed and finally nodded lightly.

“That’s better if you’re already under a mutant’s control. Ideally, it’s best not to get within range of their abilities in the first place, but mutants would think the opposite.”

Even mutants couldn’t resist being sniped from a distance while walking down the street. No one could resist that. That’s why mutants hide deeper in the city.

They hide inside buildings, forcing confrontations in urban settings where the entering party assumes all the risks. Otherwise, they flee far into the wastelands. The survival rate was better with the latter, but the former allowed for more of an actual life.

“By the way, are you alright with the neural load? Even though it was in virtual reality, we went for three hours, and I didn’t get a single warning notification on my end. You don’t seem like someone who would push yourself too hard, but…”

“Well, I may be a posthuman without a serial number, but I’m still posthuman. I didn’t change my brain, but somehow the load on it has been reduced. Or maybe I’m just exceptional. I feel fine.”

I answered jokingly. Since my brain was intact, there was no need to give a serious answer. The real reason was probably that the VR connection device was a high-end model used directly by Bellwether.

And Gabriel Walker, aside from being part of the Anti-Mutant Section, seemed like someone I could get along with. As they say, the position makes the person—he just had the image of a human hunter overlaid on him.

Anyone who could properly join Bellwether and earn the title of Section Chief was someone you could get along with. Bellwether’s strength was that only those who proved their abilities and character could be promoted.

“I like your confidence. You seem ready to jump into the field right away… But before that, could you show me the equipment you use? We should at least apply anti-mutant coating to your helmet visor.”

At his request, I took out my display helmet and showed it to him. Given its face-enclosing design, coating seemed problematic. I was the first to voice the concern.

“The shape might make coating difficult. I’d be fine with just an anti-mutant visor helmet like the ones your section uses. There’s no protection more reliable than those.”

I couldn’t say that I hoped wearing different clothes and using different equipment might make me feel a little better. Gabriel Walker seemed somewhat relieved at my words.

“Ah, I was just thinking about taking this to Supply and saying ‘It’s a freelancer’s gear, figure something out,’ and imagining how much they’d curse me behind my back. Fortunately, you’ve offered an alternative. Good.”

Since it was a helmet used within Bellwether anyway, I gave him the measurements of the helmet I used when working with Shepherd Six. He handed me a matte black security team helmet designed to be inconspicuous in darkness.

The visor had the same deep green coating I’d received the morning of Jaina’s terror attack. It tinted my vision slightly, but with the help of a computational assist device, correcting vision was simple.

“You probably don’t need additional training, but would you like to receive the training program anyway? It’s based on data from mutants who have already been eliminated or handed over to the information processing team.”

“I wouldn’t dream of refusing. Even though you said I don’t need it, I’ll still spend eight hours a day on it.”

I’d obviously used the security team training programs before, but now I was getting the training manuals from both the Assault Section and Anti-Mutant Section as well. I received the files he transferred with the feeling of collecting items for a collection.

“It seems the path to becoming a freelancer is just through proper methods and diligence. Very well. There’s quite a bit of accumulated data on this wanted criminal since he’s been tracked for a while. Please review it. We’ll inform you if we learn anything new.”

Surprisingly, the path to becoming a freelancer was all about hatred and vengeance. I became a freelancer simply because I was trying so hard to kill Walter. I covered it with a smile, shook his hand, and walked out of the office.

Should I get a VR connection device for my home? My apartment consisted only of a kitchen integrated with a living room and my simple bedroom, but my room was quite empty. It looked almost like an armory, similar to Arthur-2’s living room.

I order a connection device and a comfortable chair for my home. Renting the training room at Nightscape for eight hours a day was becoming somewhat burdensome. My actions couldn’t be as free as my thoughts.

I return home and check the personal information of my target. Age: approximately 29. The age was imprecise because he was born in the wasteland. Occupation… former mercenary.

A mutant with actual combat abilities would be even more dangerous. Mutant abilities simply created variables. The ability to catch those variables had to be developed separately.

He must have been quite successful as a mercenary. Naturally, enemies without anti-mutant equipment would repeatedly fall and stumble just from his gaze.

But all of that collapsed at some point, and he became a mutant terrorist. He seems to have been on the run for several months. The redacted informant was… his wife.

Her specific affiliation wasn’t written, but she was a Bellwether employee. Did she suspect her husband was a mutant? She probably became suspicious when all his opponents seemed to lose their balance as if disoriented.

It seemed she reported him after becoming convinced he was a mutant when he adamantly refused her suggestion to cultivate their child at MediTech. Is that the right thing to do? It’s somewhat chilling.

He had been on the run for months afterward. He must not trust people anymore. That’s why he readily used mutant supporters as meat shields and fled.

He had learned many things as a human: how to live as a person, how to live as an employee-citizen, and even how to live as a mercenary. As a mutant, he had learned only one thing: the meaninglessness of trust.

Where would someone who has lost faith in people live? Ironically, in places with many people. Places where you don’t need to form deep relationships that could lead to painful betrayal, where only fragmentary human connections exist.

Did he not leave the city? If survival were his only goal, he would have fled to the wasteland, but leaving for the wasteland meant abandoning any resolve to return. It meant living as a wandering beast in that hellish wasteland.

Does he have a reason to live as a human? It might be revenge. He might be trying to take revenge on those who shattered everything he believed in. I flip through the report I received from Section Chief Gabriel Walker.

There was an assessment that the criminal’s wandering within the city was largely motivated by revenge against his wife. All the sightings that triggered pursuit attempts had occurred near the Bellwether headquarters.

In every situation, he tried to infiltrate through crowded areas. In crowded places, the Bellwether security team’s attention would be divided between tracking the mutant and protecting employee-citizens. Strategic.

But blinded by vengeance, he crossed a line. His first attempt was the most successful. He disabled the vestibular systems of many employee-citizens, creating chaos without threatening lives, and tried to infiltrate but failed.

The second time, he was more desperate and didn’t consider that it was on the Mobile Section’s patrol route. During a confrontation with the Mobile Section, he killed a citizen he was using as a human shield and fled.

For the security team, casualties are either none or too many. Until then, the mutant had simply been a priority elimination target, but now there was a reason to commit resources to hunt him down, and Bellwether gladly did so.

That’s how he almost got caught in his hideout. Once, he was able to escape at the cost of mutant activists’ lives, but that wouldn’t work twice. Mutant welfare workers wouldn’t help with revenge.

Their purpose was to help docile and cooperative mutants, not vengeful ghosts. And if citizens didn’t gather around him, the Anti-Mutant Section could focus entirely on one goal.

One way or another, he had to be killed. Whatever his story, he had killed someone. It wasn’t impulsive either. He used people for his purpose and killed people for his purpose. It was thoroughly calculated.

It feels similar to when I heard I would have to fight the Special Operations Section during the Bellwether coup. People who weren’t originally bad had been completely transformed by misfortune.

But he had already crossed the line. The Special Operations Section had joined the coup forces, and he had thrown away the scales that weighed human lives. Sighing is fine, but killing is necessary.

I need to think from his perspective. Until now, he might have believed, as with Jaina’s terror attack, that a capable mutant could penetrate Bellwether’s security system and infiltrate the headquarters.

He didn’t know about Walter, so he thought that way. If Walter hadn’t opened the door, Jaina couldn’t have entered Bellwether regardless of Francis’s guilt. He overlooked that point, so he couldn’t succeed.

Information control makes proper calculation impossible. He would have discovered that flaw through direct experience, and after failing, his hideout was exposed. Now he has nothing left. He’s a practical person.

He threw himself at the most realistic possibility of revenge and failed… He won’t lead with his head again. Now all that’s left is escape. Will he go to another city? He might.

And if that’s the case, there was one person I could think of first. I naturally connect to Eve’s contact. After a brief waiting period, Eve’s voice comes through.

The noise cancellation feature wasn’t activated this time either, and Pastor Bill Weaver’s voice could be heard in the background. He seems to be giving a lecture. Since he’s a religious person, “sermon” might be more appropriate.

“What is it, Arthur? Right now… just a moment.”

Pastor Bill Weaver’s voice in the background fades, and I hear a door closing.

“Okay. I can talk now. Since the day you spoke with Bill, he seems to have… found some purpose.”

“Ah, by the way, do Creek escapees have any special means they use to get out of Los Angeles? I mean, you don’t personally prepare everything and drive them out to the wasteland, right?”

Sometimes she would be unreachable for a couple of days, so she might drive herself, but Eve wasn’t a posthuman. She couldn’t maintain such a tight schedule and work as a mercenary too.

“Ah, yes. There is one reliable person. Why, do you need to disguise yourself as a Creek escapee, leave Los Angeles, and save the world?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the humor in Eve’s voice. I didn’t tell her I had to hunt down a mutant terrorist with a pitiful story.

“Yes. I heard there’s a cursed full-body prosthetic that only stops working when hit with blessed silver bullets, so I thought I’d try to become religious, at least outwardly. Just kidding, it’s for work. How reliable is this person?”

“He’s a truck driver. Is that enough? Other operators are all people who help mutants escape for money, and they often just abandon them in the wasteland… but this one is a genuine religious person.”

It was obvious how gladly a genuine religious person would view escapees fleeing from Creek’s pagans, and how easily he would make space for them in a corner of his truck.

But I needed to find the former, lower-quality people. That practical mutant mercenary would make a careful move, and to counter a careful move, one must always make a bold move.

“I need some information about the former. Could you give me the contacts of the people you initially looked into? This terrorist has attempted attacks several times and fled, so I think he’ll try to escape this time.”

“I have a pretty good idea which of those guys he might use… But you know I’m not that intuitive. I’ll pass on all the information, so good luck, Arthur. By the way, when are you going to take a break?”

“On the day you take a break. This time I don’t want to impose on Bill… Oh, right. Should we go back to that VR café on the third floor of the Hive? N-Enter may not make good mercenaries, but they make good virtual realities.”

I recall the island we saw with Eve in virtual reality, an island that had disappeared in reality due to being caught in that war. If the maps have been updated, there might be more places to visit.

“Shall we? Though it felt like my body was steeped in smog for a while afterward… Oh, right. Don’t bring credits this time, Arthur. I want to feel that feeling too.”

“What feeling?”

“The feeling of sharing a 20-credit-per-hour paradise with someone. Receiving generosity feels good, but you look happier when you’re giving to others. I’m a bit jealous of that expression, my Arthur.”

A small laugh stretched at the end of her words. I answered with a comfortable smile again. People are defined not by what they have, but by what they give to others.

“I should slowly reflect on how someone who used to run away just from having their head patted can now say such things. It’s bound to be a pleasant reminiscence.”

“It’s simple. I rebuilt my collapsed walls with the bricks that the city’s finest bricklayer brought every day. That’s your ability. Making everything simple. Show me your ability again, Arthur.”

With the noise cancellation feature off, I hear the sound of a kiss being imitated once, followed by a playful laugh as the communication ends. Now it was time to get to work.