Ch.232Work Record #033 – Fear What Hides in the Darkness (6)

Chance allows me to see the world through my eyes. He’ll also help me find Pablo. I park my bike near the café.

The device I received from Kay, which duplicates the signal from computational assistance devices, will be useful again this time. I take it out and put it in my pocket. From now on, this area is an operation zone.

First, I enter the café. I order a café latte with soy milk, then look around inside. Pablo might not have visited this café yet. Simply waiting might be enough.

So I still need to find Pablo. The café is located at the corner of a shopping complex, and since the walls facing the street are all glass, it has a rectangular structure with two open sides.

I sit facing the open walls and bring up several virtual screens in my field of vision. While Chance analyzes the faces of passersby, I scan the surroundings, and a café counter employee approaches me.

“We have a signature cake that our café just released. Would you like to see it? The ingredients are synthetic food substitutes, but our boss’s skills are the real deal. They’re not selling well, so I’m personally putting in the effort.”

I needed to appear natural, and since I had visual coverage through the front camera of my bike parked right in front of the café, I get up briefly. A stakeout with cake. Not bad at all.

Having a cake rather than just nursing a coffee seemed like the best way to sit for a long time without drawing suspicious looks from the staff. The surveillance continues.

The cake she introduces… honestly, I could smell the synthetic food, but it was well-made enough that an ordinary person wouldn’t notice at all.

Thankful for my training at Madeleine’s Lot where I practiced eating meals with synthetic food smell three times a day, I buy a cake and return to find… someone sitting in my seat.

The short-range communication was open, and it was from the Anti-Mutation Department. However, he acted as if he didn’t know who I was, stood up and apologized. He didn’t seem to want to share the table or report, but… he left a bag behind.

A rather familiar item. It’s an emergency preservation fluid container with a one-touch injection system. I’ve never used this item for emergency relief, though. He seems to have come to leave this behind.

“Ah, sorry. I thought the cleaning drone hadn’t cleared the tray yet.”

After naturally moving to another seat, he soon finishes his coffee and leaves the café. Ambushing was my role. The freelancer was someone who could be trusted, and trust should always be absolute.

Thinking about why I left my seat… the café employee must also be someone planted by the Anti-Mutation Department. That woman is the safety measure. Double safety measures are likely to cause inefficiency.

I thought the café employee seemed unusually friendly beyond what she’s paid for. Obviously, anyone would be that friendly if they could work only at the café while receiving an Anti-Mutation Department salary.

After enduring the synthetic food smell and finishing the cake, I wait a bit longer before receiving a communication from the Anti-Mutation Department chief. I wanted to handle my first assignment perfectly, and from the preparations, it didn’t seem difficult.

“The secondary containment line is ready, Freelancer. The evacuation order is also prepared and will be issued as soon as the Mutation Response Department makes contact. Did you receive the item we sent?”

‘I didn’t expect you to hand it over like that. There doesn’t seem to be any suspicious movement around the café. He might have already planted a bomb and made contact… what about the scan results?’

“No unauthorized surveillance devices were found. We haven’t detected any bombs yet, but since he didn’t use wireless detonators last time, it might be similar this time too. Stay alert.”

Then one way or another, I’ll face him here. I push the last piece of cake into my mouth and wash down the subtle fishy smell of soy starch with coffee. It’s cake, but it’s all just soy.

‘Alright. Tell the agent disguised as a café employee to prioritize civilian evacuation rather than responding to emergencies. Also tell them to move efficiently since the jammer will be active.’

Except for being a mutant, he was just a mercenary. That combination was dangerous, but the combination of a freelancer and a Post-Human Type IV isn’t any less dangerous. I consider this.

“Very well. Ah, a delivery bike has been spotted entering from outside the secondary containment line. I understand there were no scheduled deliveries of items significant enough to not use drone delivery.”

Generally, when humans get involved in tasks that could be automated, it means force is involved. Delivery personnel ensure the safety of delivery items. Driving is mostly handled by AI.

As I wait quietly, the delivery bike mentioned by Director Gabriel Walker soon arrives in front of the café. Since it parked right in front of where I had parked my bike, maintaining visual wasn’t difficult.

The build is similar to Pablo’s. The height is close to Pablo’s too. Even the delivery person’s outfit looks somewhat awkward. Is it Pablo? As I wait cautiously, I hear the delivery person’s voice.

“Here are the cleaning drones you sent for repair. One has an expired quality guarantee so there might be additional charges, and one was fixed with compatible parts, so I need to verify…”

A signal comes from the Anti-Mutation agent disguised as a café employee indicating no problems. It seems the café’s cleaning drones were actually damaged and replaced.

Normally this wouldn’t require human delivery, but if there were issues with test operations, quality guarantees, and other matters, it was understandable.

More time passes, and Pablo’s appointment time completely passes. Did he decide to flee rather than take revenge? Even though this would be a perfect opportunity for Pablo to target the pursuing Anti-Mutation Department?

As I wait without needing to suggest waiting longer, Chance and I simultaneously spot a now-familiar face outside the window. It was Pablo. Just standing on his two legs.

As I wonder if he’s foolishly planning to come in like a customer and leave a bomb, a car passing by him… an empty car suddenly accelerates and begins charging toward the café.

Right, Pablo. Since it’s your last stand anyway, you wanted to go out with a bang. Now it really doesn’t matter who started it. Before activating the computational device jammer, I say one thing:

“Prepare for wireless silence.”

I activate the jammer in my head. Chance’s voice cuts off, and the HUDs overlaid on my vision shut down too. Naturally, the vehicle Pablo was remotely controlling lost its balance and speed, but inertia always exists.

Thanks to the Anti-Mutation agent disguised as a café employee immediately raising the external armor plates, only about half the vehicle crashed through the glass wall with a thud, giving people time to escape.

Still, I wanted to reduce the sound of reinforced glass fragments raining down like droplets and people’s screams. I move without reducing my speed.

Seeing a customer who had been sitting by the window barely holding on in an awkward position, about to be crushed by the vehicle, I grab the front wheel and lift it slightly to let them escape. I jump up and rush toward Pablo.

Using the jammer seems to simplify the problem, but the issue is the dead man’s switch. Whether I use the jammer or kill Pablo, there’s a good chance something will explode after the connection is cut for a certain period. I consider this.

At this distance, killing Pablo wouldn’t be a problem anytime. Seeing Pablo hurriedly draw a pistol from his waist, I cover my face with both arms and charge. The gunshots begin to ring out.

The acrid smell of gunpowder is familiar enough now. Pablo tried to shoot my knees, but due to my speed, more than half the shots missed, and one hit my thigh, but it didn’t feel like more than a stumbling step.

When our eyes meet, suddenly… rather than feeling dizzy, there’s a bizarre sensation like the ground is climbing up my body, but it’s manageable. I’m not wearing a human body but a Post-Human.

I ram straight into him. Pablo couldn’t even attempt to resist. Like someone hit by a car accident, he rolls backward and crashes into the raised armor wall of another building. He’s not dead yet.

I grab Pablo’s head with both hands and ensure he can never use his ability again. I throw him toward the vehicle that had half-pushed its way into the café wall.

Pablo’s body, with blood flowing like tears, bounces once on the ground before hitting the vehicle. I controlled my strength, so while he looks terrible, he should still be alive.

I turn on the noise canceller positioned toward the inside of my wrist and approach. I lift Pablo, who is sprawled beside the vehicle, and sit him against the tire. I turn off the jammer and catch the preservation fluid bag flying from inside the café.

After activating the one-touch preservation fluid injector, I crouch in front of Pablo. Now I finally see his face directly. He looks like a bloody mess after being rammed and thrown by an enhanced human.

I open the vehicle door, punch into the computer inside and stir it around to prevent remote operation, then check for bombs. The bomb was on the vehicle’s seat.

Looking at the connection points, there are two ways to detonate it: either send a detonation command through the computational assistance device, or it detonates if the dead man’s switch doesn’t receive a signal from the computational device. A meticulously made item.

For something like this, the preservation fluid container seems unnecessary. It would be cleaner to just copy the signal with the device I got from Kay and kill Pablo outright. I quietly turn off the jammer and bring the signal duplicator to Pablo.

As soon as the message appears that the signal copying is complete, I throw the duplicator into the vehicle and crush the computational assistance device running along the sides of his head with my thumbs. The bomb is now dealt with.

After seeing my countermeasure, Pablo spits a blood clot at me. Perhaps because he had no strength left in his mouth, it didn’t reach me. I didn’t mind anyway, since the pants would have to be discarded due to the bullet mark on my thigh.

“That f-fucking bitch must have told you everything about how I did mercenary work, huh? Calling a fucking human hunter was more important to her than listening to me… ugh, wasn’t it!”

“No, you showed me yourself. You showed me you’re the type who uses bombs to blow up and kill mutant support activists who came to you. And you showed me that as you became more radical, you were about to leave the city…”

I wanted to grab Pablo’s nape and turn his head to show him the vehicle that had half-crashed into the café, but he couldn’t see now. I spoke slowly.

“You were honest. How many people from the Mutation Response Department were in this café? How many mutant-haters were there? It doesn’t matter to you, right? All that mattered was causing a disturbance here and escaping.”

“I don’t know much, but I can clearly see one bastard in front of me… *cough*… you fucking mutant-hating bastard. Someone who would immediately report to Bellwether if you knew your colleague was just a bit flashy…”

Since it was a noise-cancelled space anyway, there was no need to choose my words carefully. I grabbed his chin, lifted his head, and said with a smile:

“I didn’t think someone doing this would feel guilty. But I wanted to make him feel at least some injustice and resentment.

“Wrong answer to the end, Pablo. You’re just a patient with heteromorphism, not some mutant monster. I hope patients with heteromorphism can choose their own lives sufficiently. I hope they won’t be hunted.”

I grab Pablo’s chin and lift it. I draw a high-frequency tactical knife from my waist. Since I didn’t need to collect his head, I didn’t quickly cut off his neck. I decided to talk a bit more.

“But when someone deliberately becomes such an obvious stereotype of a terrorist mutant… Bellwether will use your case again to cry out that witches shouldn’t be left alive. I really hate that.”

I remove the noise cancellation to let him hear the chaos around us, though we can’t see it. Watching Pablo’s expression contort, I turn the noise cancellation back on.

Silence is always a weapon. Because it endlessly extends the time for a person to reflect on their sins.

“Originally, I wanted to end this quietly too, but you acted stupidly. That’s why you’re ‘a person better off not existing than existing,’ Pablo. Anything else you want to say?”

Pablo’s lips quivered as he tried to say something. Judging by his gritted teeth, it was obvious what he wanted to say. Now it might be better to say something a bit more sincere.

“Yes, yes. Your wife… honestly, even to me, she’s a creepy Bellwether fanatic. The feeling of frustration and anger, like you’ve lost everything… I understand it better than you imagine. Sincerely.”

Probably only Pablo would understand as well as I do the feeling of losing everything overnight. Honestly, it was pitiful to see the moment when efficiency overcomes family love. But we have differences.

“However, I never used people trying to help me as human shields. I never thought about escaping by killing innocent people. So don’t rationalize everything you’ve done with words like frustration and anger, Pablo.”

He was betrayed by someone he loved, but I was betrayed by everything in my life. Until I discovered that betrayal was actually from one bastard named Walter.

Still, I didn’t become a terrorist. I only swung my knife at Walter, only put bullets in Walter. I hunted those who actively joined the coup, not killed civilians to spread fear.

Perhaps because of that, I might have earned the right to say something like this just once. Only the right to say such words once. Forgetting that fact would make a person arrogant.

I wasn’t some greatly moral, good, and perfect human. Emotionally, I’m the same. Just enough to mutter these few words, not enough to give a long speech.

But as I said, I poured out my complaints to Francis… while Pablo took people hostage and killed them for revenge. We were people who deserved to be different.

I had no intention of being sadistic. I push the high-frequency tactical knife upward through Pablo’s chin, twist it half a turn to stir his brain, ensuring Bellwether can’t hold Mechanic Jones responsible.

Seeing the Explosives Unit rushing over, I slowly put down Pablo’s corpse, turn off the noise cancellation, stand up, and step aside.

I didn’t leave. I naturally blended back into the Anti-Mutation Department crowd wearing Bellwether’s visored helmet. This was my place now. Sadly, or perhaps naturally.