Ch.234Work Record #033 – Fear What Lurks in the Darkness (8)

The Anti-Mutation Department of Belwether’s Los Angeles branch was a source of terror for mutants, but they were ultimately just overworked employee-citizens.

If they truly wanted to exterminate all mutants in the Greater Los Angeles area, they would need manpower on the level of the Mobile Department, but the Anti-Mutation Department’s numbers were merely a drop in the bucket compared to the Mobile Department.

That’s why mutants could somehow survive in the Greater Los Angeles area. Even when news spread of someone being captured or shot dead, they could continue living as long as it wasn’t them.

However, the tide was changing. Starting about a week ago, mutants on the wanted list began dying off. At first, two lone mutants were taken out, but yesterday, six were killed.

For mutants capable of surviving alone, cutting ties with other mutants increased their survival rate, but for most mutants, that wasn’t an option. They needed to stick together.

By banding together, they could complement each other’s abilities to better handle raids from the Anti-Mutation Department, and at the very least… if they suddenly disappeared one day, there would be someone to mourn them.

A group of six was not a small gathering among those who lived together. Yet someone had killed them all and vanished without a trace. Anxiety was dissolving into the air.

Of course, Vasiliki, who wore contact lenses resembling artificial eyes to hide her abnormally formed pupils, knew that those six who died were bad people. They had gone too far in their actions.

Still, she wasn’t sure if killing them just for being mutants was right. Yet she lacked the courage to say this aloud. Most of the people she stayed with were criminals too.

People easily become cowardly, and self-justification is always simple. She needed someone who would willingly draw a gun for her when trouble arose, and they needed someone who could move around the city without being stopped at checkpoints.

Interdependent relationships breed comfort. Comfort, like a pillow pressing down on a sleeping face, easily suffocates morality and puts it in critical condition. Bass knew this, of course… but comfort is comfort.

When she finished preparing for work and entered the living room, an everyday scene spread before her eyes. Implants, still bearing traces of someone’s use, were scattered haphazardly across the coffee table.

One of the mutants and scavengers living with her turned his head toward her. He had excessive additional armor wrapped around his neck area. He asked through his voice module.

Since he was the type of ability user who used his abnormally formed vocal cords to activate his power, his voice was always synthetic, but he was at least kind to Bass.

Still, he was ultimately a murderer. Bass tried not to get attached to him, but as mentioned, comfort easily strangles morality. This time too, morality was only making choking sounds.

“Living as an employee-citizen is so stressful that I think being a back-alley scavenger is better, Bass. What time do you get off today? Let me know if you need a ride.”

“You may sound kind… but you forget every day even though I tell you it’s 7:30 every day. It’s 7:30. And why would a wanted criminal show his face in public? These days…”

Bass made a ghostly gesture, waving her hands eerily. She recalled the name the mechanic Jones used to call him.

She wasn’t entirely sure, but he had made Jones quit his work as a mutant escape broker. Jones said it was a favor, but… not for mutants like Bass.

“The Hollow Man is out there, you know. They say he only kills bad guys. Is Rick a good person?”

“I’m good to you, Bass. Aren’t I?”

“Only to me. Still, that’s not a bad thing to say. See you after work.”

Their hideout was a villa in a minimum security zone. It wasn’t an illegally constructed floor. Dying after being discovered by someone inspecting for illegal construction would be a ridiculous death.

Minimum security zones offered housing for almost nothing… and scavengers were among the better-earning criminals. At least enough to maintain a minimal lifestyle.

Before leaving home, she sent a communication request to her informant through her computational assist device. He was someone Rick the scavenger had introduced, and probably a criminal like Rick, but survival was Bass’s priority.

He was the pretentious type who insisted on being called by a codename instead of his real name, but he was kind to those who paid well. Bass sensed something different than usual. He was slow to respond.

This man always said that connecting within three rings was the highest principle an informant should maintain, but this time the connection tone continued for more than a dozen rings.

Eventually, it connected. But instead of his cheerful voice, Bass could barely hear a squelching voice. It sounded like someone squeezing something.

“Vasilisa! Run away now! Don’t hide among people! Guh, damn it, that… go to the wasteland! Head for open ground, that’s the only way you might, might have a ch-chance to do something! Rick and…”

Her name was Vasiliki, but he called Bass “Vasilisa.” She’d heard it was the name of an innocent girl trying hard to survive among bad people.

So it was definitely her informant who had connected, but the situation was unfolding in a way she hadn’t expected. This was especially bad for a mutant.

A high-pitched scream, too shrill to be a man’s, came through the communication line. Then came the sound of something being smashed repeatedly. Bass’s voice began to fill with panic and fear.

“Tommy, Tommy! What’s going on? What’s happening? Is it the guy Mr. Jones talked about? Please say something…”

As she spoke in a voice filled with shock, drawing the attention of other mutants, there was a cracking sound like someone clearing their throat, and then Tommy the informant’s voice continued.

“You’ll do fine with Rick, Bass. Surprised?”

His voice was remarkably clean for someone who had been sobbing just moments ago. Realizing he had gone to such lengths just to prank her, Bass vented her irritation.

“Wh-what…? I almost died of shock! You’re playing stupid pranks in this situation? And you, me…”

“Even I get tired of saying Vasilisa Vasilisa all the time. I said it right the first time, didn’t I? Oh, what time do you get off work today?”

Bass quickly calmed her emotions. A stupid prank from Tommy the informant was far better than if something like that had actually happened.

“As I’ve told you many times, it’s 7:30. Why, are you planning another prank then? Or why do I have so many criminals offering me rides?”

“No, stop by old man Jones’s place. That old guy suddenly quit his work talking about the Hollow Man and whatnot… but now he’s saying he’ll start again. If you go now, you might not even need a waiting ticket.”

“Really? For information like that… well, I might forgive you even if you pull something like that again. Really! Of course, if you try it twice, I’ll make you the boy who cried wolf. Got it?”

Bass finally exhaled a sigh of relief. She had experience and at least some ability. If she could just get out of Belwether’s city, she could be self-sufficient.

If she went to a city owned by Panacea Meditech, she wouldn’t even need to associate with criminals anymore. So, she decided… to commit one small evil deed.

While she didn’t dislike Rick, she wasn’t stupid enough to seriously date a murderer. She already knew Rick’s favorite food.

“Stupid Tommy. I thought it was an emergency, but he was just playing a prank. He just told me to get along well with Rick… Rick, did Tommy share some important information with you?”

For mutants, life was inherently humiliating. That’s how it was in Belwether. Bass decided to willingly live a humiliating life in a humiliating way. Rick and the scavengers were connections she would eventually have to sever.

“He did say it was information good enough to warrant another stupid prank. Why, is it important?”

“It is important. Tommy told me that you’re crazy about Lorenzo’s pizza. That you like the one with imitation cheese, but on special occasions, you prefer real cheese.”

“That is important information. Were we close enough that you needed to know that?”

A rather pointless part of daily life briefly unfolded, but Bass, already running late for work due to her contact with Tommy, didn’t have time for a lengthy conversation.

Her job was ordinary. She did simple paperwork in an office of a company that was a subcontractor of a subcontractor for Belwether. There was a reason she chose a Belwether subcontractor.

Bass’s company president was a man whose wife worked at Belwether’s Los Angeles branch. Through him, she could hear Belwether internal news in the form of “I heard this rumor,” which was occasionally useful.

Just recently, Bass had been able to move from an unverified villa’s extended floor in a minimum security zone because the president suddenly mentioned that they were going to renovate the minimum security zone.

Originally, Bass had planned to visit Jones’s repair shop right after work, but today she couldn’t. Just before her quitting time, that area had become the operational zone of a mercenary company.

It wasn’t just Jones’s repair shop but the entire surrounding area, yet Bass had an uneasy thought. She imagined that mechanic Jones had been caught starting his mutant escape broker business again and had become a target.

She headed straight home. She was someone who feared Belwether’s security maintenance operations far more than the minimum security zone filled with drug addicts and homeless people sleeping with their eyes open.

But there was an unfamiliar bike parked in front of her home. It wasn’t Tommy’s. The air smelled of gunpowder, and smoke was leaking from the window of her sixth-floor apartment.

That wasn’t all. A man wearing a Belwether security team’s regulation helmet jumped lightly from the sixth-floor window and landed in front of the parked bike. Bass quickly tried to hide.

She didn’t know how they had found out, but the Anti-Mutation Department had come. That was the only conclusion Bass could draw. She began to tremble from head to toe with the fear of death.

Unlike the homeless people in this street, she was dressed neatly. Only then did she realize that it might have been better to pretend to be an ordinary employee-citizen, but it was too late.

The Hollow Man was terrifyingly fast. The moment she turned a corner looking for a place to hide, that Anti-Mutation Department agent, or man who looked like one, grabbed her shoulder from a distance of over ten meters.

She heard Tommy’s voice coming from him. It was a voice module, a component skillfully used by the Anti-Mutation Department. Bass realized her teeth were chattering without her even noticing.

He manipulated a device on his wrist, and the surrounding sounds began to fade as if absorbed by something. Soon Bass felt even her own voice sounding muffled.

“I told you to stop by mechanic Jones, Bass. Don’t run away. Only mutants run from the Anti-Mutation Department. Your lens is crooked too.”

That conversation had been with Tommy, not this man. The Tommy from then was probably already dead. As she began to tremble again, the man who looked like an Anti-Mutation Department agent spoke soothingly.

“Tommy, Jason Hernandez had a long criminal record. So did the man called Rick, and the other two as well. What makes you different from them?”

The fact that he was still using Tommy’s voice, presumably to hide his own, was tormenting Bass, but she couldn’t complain.

“I-I… I’m a pr-proper employee-citizen. Never jaywalked or sped, and I work a proper office job at one of Belwether’s subcontractors, so…”

“I know that well. Every person, just by being thrown into this world, deserves to live. As long as they don’t willingly give up that right themselves. Like Tommy and Rick did. You understand what I mean?”

Bass finally adjusted her contact lenses. She faced the helmeted man while hiding her abnormally formed pupils. She couldn’t see inside the dark green visor. It wasn’t Belwether standard issue.

Nevertheless, Bass shook her head. There was no way she could think clearly in this overwhelming situation. The man explained again in Tommy’s measured voice.

“Just as it’s tragic when someone born outside a Belwether-owned city can’t fulfill their potential, it’s equally tragic when someone can’t develop their abilities simply because they were born in a Belwether-owned city.”

Only then did Bass realize that the Hollow Man was trying to let her go. She could tell that this enhanced human, capable of crushing and smashing people with his bare hands, was showing her kindness.

“Wh-what should I…”

“I haven’t called the Anti-Mutation Department or the Cleanup Department yet, and gunshots are commonplace in minimum security zones. Go inside, gather what you need, and come out. After that, you can flee to a safe place, or do whatever you want.”

Now she understood why mechanic Jones had said it was a favor when the Hollow Man made him quit his broker work. The Hollow Man was truly doing her a favor. A terrifying favor.

The Hollow Man might enjoy hunting mutants who run or fight back. He might be playing with his prey like a cat. But Bass had no choice.

She tried to act natural as she headed toward her villa. Her hands were shaking so much she wasn’t sure if she could insert and turn the key, but that wasn’t a problem. The door had been ripped off entirely.

Rick lay dead on top of the implants he had collected through his scavenger work, with the thick armor plate he wore around his neck pierced by a high-frequency tactical dagger. The other two were in similar situations.

One had been kicked with monstrous strength and lay with his back bent backward over the kitchen’s floor-integrated table, sparks flying from his spine replacement… the remaining one was nowhere to be seen.

But she could guess what the pool of blood and oil under the metal door, which had been torn off and thrown into the villa, meant. She didn’t dare look underneath.

With trembling hands, she came down from the villa carrying her pre-packed luggage bag. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the Hollow Man. Even when she tried, her gaze kept dropping downward. Nevertheless, she asked.

“I-I needed these people too. I used Tommy as an informant even knowing he was a murderer. If you’re going to kill me for asking why…”

The words “just do it now” simply wouldn’t come out. She didn’t want to die, but dying while fleeing pathetically full of hope was even more unacceptable.

“But you’ve never harmed anyone, nor incited the criminals around you to commit crimes. That’s enough. It’s proof that environment doesn’t make people bad.”

With that, the Hollow Man let Bass go. Deputy Director Gabriel Walker began to willingly trust the freelancer who was consecutively eliminating high-risk mutants that were awkward for them to handle.

Los Angeles wasn’t a city where doing bad things increased infamy and doing good things increased fame. All actions existed in a gray area.

That’s why Arthur willingly drank in both fame and infamy until he could access the information he needed. The result of drinking from this poisoned chalice was an invitation from Deputy Director Gabriel Walker. It had been worth it.