Ch.23Work Record #004 – Too Many Me’s (8)

“The offliner escaped to the roof. You can go up without worrying about crossfire, Vola. Kay, start with the interior search. They’re the ones who refused to negotiate. Take no prisoners.”

The moment those words ended, I caught a flash of muzzle fire at the edge of my vision. Though muffled by a suppressor, it wasn’t hard to notice in the darkness at this distance.

After a brief delay, the gunshot rang out. The sound echoed dully—if I hadn’t seen the muzzle flash, I wouldn’t have known where it came from. The communication continued.

“Central stairway secured. You can head up to the third floor, Vola. What’s the status on the second floor?”

Ms. Eve’s voice came through the radio. I couldn’t see any other access points to the roof, so I kept my gun aimed at the roof door while waiting.

“Second floor secured. Only six casualties since they fled without returning fire.”

I had killed six, and six more died on the second floor. That left seven out of the original nineteen.

If those seven could escape Vola’s pursuit and make it to the roof, they wouldn’t have been mere militia members to begin with. Belwether would have recruited them for their security team long ago.

But what I heard through my earpiece was a variable. The very variable that Belwether despised.

“There are five people on the third floor. Wait a minute… two seem to be on the first floor? There are signs they jumped down, but they didn’t escape past the electric fence! Are they too scared to think straight?”

There must be a reason why someone would throw themselves toward an approaching cyborg mercenary with a machine gun. If they were scared, they would have run up to the roof and faced my gun barrel instead of waiting on the third floor. They had a purpose.

“Is it okay if I leave the roof? I’ll jump down and search for them. If they had a purpose, they wouldn’t have just jumped out of windows out of fear.”

“Approved, Offliner. Leave the roof to the remaining three.”

Kay’s startled voice came through—he knew my position. In a building with only one main staircase and no auxiliary stairs, this would normally be a foolish idea. But not for a Posthuman Type IV.

“Shouldn’t we tell Vola to cease fire? Offliner might run into her wherever he goes…”

While changing magazines, I reassured Kay in a calm voice, preventing the communication from being filled with his worried tone. The path was clear before me.

“Those guys made it down without running into Vola, didn’t they?”

After finishing my words, I lightly jumped over the roof railing. My body plummeted toward the dusty wasteland below. I felt the ground approaching in real-time, but there was no sensation of my heart being seized.

Just as those who learn to make fire are freed from the fear of darkness, those wearing Belwether Corporation’s military-grade enhanced bodies are freed from the fear of falling and impact. It’s natural.

Besides, it was only five stories high. I landed smoothly in a proper landing position. My shock-absorbing flesh, bones, and joints distributed the impact, raising only a small cloud of dust.

“I’ve reached the first floor. Kay, please let me know when you determine their exact location.”

“Huh… Location confirmed! They’re in the leftmost room from the front of the building! Judging by the signal strength, it seems to be the records room, but they’re not touching any electronic devices!”

They must be shredding paper documents. I checked my control lever and tapped the bottom of the magazine to ensure it hadn’t loosened from the impact of the fall, then headed toward the records room. It would be a room with small windows. Paper is vulnerable to moisture.

I looked for a room with unusually small windows covered with black paper to block sunlight, then headed to the adjacent room. I needed to get to the records room quickly to salvage as many shredded documents as possible.

With my gun lowered, I punched through the window. The glass shards couldn’t penetrate even my combat uniform. I grabbed the well-locked iron window frame and shook it lightly. The frame began to rattle as it couldn’t withstand the force.

After applying greater force, I pulled out the loosened frame entirely and climbed through the window. It looked like an infirmary, but no one was there. It was an ordinary infirmary without even a clone cultivation tank.

Do they usually place records rooms next to infirmaries? As soon as I kicked open the infirmary door, I encountered a militia member who had come out of the records room after hearing the sound of breaking windows. Fear began to spread across his face inside the helmet.

They must know that the infirmary windows have iron bars. The sound of those bars breaking meant I had the means to shatter them.

If both his helmet and chest armor were Belwether supplies, it would be difficult to neutralize him by shooting there. Belwether’s standard-issue helmet could protect my head even from a grenade exploding right in front of me.

Holding my rifle with just my right hand, I pushed down the militia member’s gun barrel with my left. I aimed for his lower abdomen to pelvis and squeezed the trigger. I could manage the recoil well enough even with one hand.

Thanks to my ballistic mask, the smell of blood was somewhat reduced. The militia member, hit in an area unprotected by body armor, collapsed to the floor without even screaming. He seemed to have passed out from shock.

Fortunately, there was no need for a confirmation shot. The sign on the door where he had been standing wasn’t for a records room. It read “Medical Supply Room.” That made sense for it to be next to the infirmary.

Did Kay get something wrong? I could doubt that after completing the mission. I kicked the door open while aiming my gun inside. The door tore off its hinges and flew into the room, causing a scream to ring out.

I immediately pulled the trigger, aiming at the source of the scream through the ordinary wooden door. The screaming stopped. I picked up the door with one hand and threw it into the hallway, then checked inside.

Despite being labeled as a medical supply room, inside was… a records room. There was a whirring document shredder, one nearly shredded document, and that document bore Belwether’s logo.

I closed the eyes of the dead militia member who lay with his mouth open and unfocused eyes, then inserted my hand into the shredder’s motor. A Posthuman Type IV’s hand wouldn’t be injured by a paper shredder.

This would damage the document less than smashing the shredder with my fist. As something that couldn’t be shredded entered the mechanism, the shredder began to spin uselessly.

I spread the shredder’s rollers with my fingers and pulled out the half-shredded document with Belwether’s logo. Only the last line was visible:

‘Considering the above, we hereby authorize the establishment of the Battering Rams Vigilante Group.’

Did Belwether really officially approve these people? Then why were they shredding this document? The most sensible thing for them to do would have been to show us this document.

I placed my hand on the neck mic button and reported. My eyes remained fixed on the document bearing Belwether’s logo. If someone was raising a private army as the Shepherd had said, this militia was one of them.

“First floor records room secured. I’ve also secured the document they were trying to shred. Is the third floor cleared?”

Vola’s voice came through clearly. We were still keeping things professional. The job only ends when the boss declares it over.

“All five resisters on the third floor have been eliminated. You mentioned a document. Have you identified what it is?”

“I’m not certain, but it has the Belwether logo, and it states that Belwether Corporation, considering certain factors, authorizes the Battering Rams Vigilante Group. I’ll bring it to the van.”

The boss’s voice came through the microphone. It was a groan, as if expressing displeasure. It didn’t last long.

“We’ll need to examine that document. Mission complete. I’ll call Belwether’s cleanup team. Everyone return to the van.”

After turning the control lever to safety and slinging the rifle over my shoulder with the barrel pointing upward, I returned to the van. Before entering, I wiped the blood off my ballistic mask with my gloves, but… the smell of blood remained.

Ms. Valentina, who had been waiting in the driver’s seat after raising the bulletproof panels covering the van’s windows and front windshield, poked her head out through the passenger window. She seemed to understand why I was standing there awkwardly.

“Want something to wipe off that blood, Boogeyman? If you go in like that, Kay will start slapping your back saying, ‘Clean yourself up before coming in!'”

“Ah, I’d appreciate that. Since we had to keep things quiet, I ended up fighting at close range. The gunpowder smell is acrid, but it doesn’t cover the smell of blood.”

She tossed me one of the relatively clean cloths she kept for cleaning the car. Wiping myself down made it somewhat better, but the smell of blood still lingered beneath the acrid gunpowder scent.

The unpleasant iron-tinged smell was only now becoming noticeable. It’s a symptom every Belwether security team employee experiences. Though everyone tacitly ignored it because it helped with the job.

“That’s right. Even when there’s a racing accident and gasoline is burning and lightweight frames are being crushed, releasing the smell of metal… no one can ignore the smell of blood. At least it’s not your blood, Boogeyman. Give it here.”

Ms. Valentina, seeming rather accustomed to it, took the cloth and stuffed it into the trash can in the passenger seat. While I was wiping off the blood, Eve and Vola also walked out.

Vola, with her additional armor plating covered in deflected and shattered bullet marks, ran her mechanical hand over her armor plates. After a slight metallic sound, her laughter began to output.

“None of them could even strip off this thin layer of clothing. That’s how these virgin bastards playing militia always are.”

It was a rather absurd joke coming from Vola, who had only about a quarter of a human face left. While I let out a small laugh, Ms. Eve just looked puzzled.

Fortunately, either the smell of blood wasn’t too strong, or it was masked by the gunpowder smell from the three of them. Only then did I climb into the van and remove my ballistic mask and face covering. The boss returned around the same time.

The hard seats of the armored van, which could never be called comfortable, felt more comfortable than a plush hotel bed in that moment. I handed over the half-shredded paper from the document shredder. The boss’s expression contorted again.

“I thought you might have misunderstood a document falsely claiming to be from Belwether… but this is the paper Belwether uses for printing important documents. Let’s check it properly when we get back. We can’t do puzzle games in the van. Let’s go, Tina.”

Wait… if the Shepherd’s talk about a coup plot is true, then Night Watch is already involved? Not because I showed this document, but from the moment we took this job.

A slightly uneasy feeling crept up my spine. It was a bleakness I hadn’t felt even when jumping from five stories high. Since my dishonorable discharge, I could no longer say, “Ah, that can’t be right.”

Just as those thoughts were deepening, Mr. Yoon, sitting across from me, spoke up.

“Let’s put this aside until we get back to the company… Arthur, did Belwether Security Training College specifically train you in acting skills or eloquence? I saw it when you helped that mercenary, as Kay reported to me… and it seems you performed perfectly during your infiltration of Half & Half Company.”

“Uh… no, I haven’t specifically trained for it. I just do what seems appropriate in the moment.”

Is it really such a remarkable talent? Anyone can think of suitable words for a situation in just a few seconds. I thought it was just normal social interaction and basic tact.

“Even so, it seems like excellent improvisation… Anyway, what I want to suggest is a voice recorder. Your close combat abilities are already sufficient, so it’s better to focus on auxiliary equipment, and it would be extremely useful for your preferred method of non-lethal subdual followed by infiltration. I’m not asking you to decide right now, just to consider it.”

A voice recorder, huh… When infiltrating Half & Half Company, I was able to disguise myself by mimicking the speech patterns of that security guy, Frank or whatever his name was, because our voices were similar.

But such luck won’t repeat itself consistently. That much I could be certain of. Luck only peeks its head into mouse holes where hope has been abandoned.

Additionally, this time, despite using grenades for subdual, an office worker survived and tried to counterattack with a pistol. It was because I couldn’t hide the fact that I was an intruder.

The shock absorption capabilities of the Posthuman Type IV were good for moving silently, so infiltrating from the rear wasn’t particularly difficult, but infiltration indoors often had to be abandoned.

A voice modulation module would be better than a recorder, but replacing my vocal cords with a module might make my role as an offliner unclear. Uncomfortable as it was, there were situations where I needed to use this body.

So is a voice recorder the most efficient choice? Probably. I’d need to research how to use it more effectively, but it would clearly help me navigate rear areas.

“If we could have installed a voice modulation implant, that would have been certain… but even with just that, it wouldn’t be hard to detect via radio waves, right, Kay?”

“Probably! Right now, Arthur, if you remove that neck… thing and your earpiece, you’re almost undetectable by radio waves. So unless they’re patrolling with camera drones, it’s hard to find you, but if you install a voice modulation implant or any proper cybernetic implant, it would become much easier. A recorder, a recorder! Your improvisation is amazing! Isn’t that enough?”

I let out a hollow laugh and slightly spread my arms as if to show my current state.

“If I were a seasoned 40-year-old mercenary with twenty years of experience, I might lower my voice and say, ‘Hmm, that sounds good.’ But I’m just a 22-year-old graduate of Belwether’s security training college. My mercenary experience barely exceeds a week. It looks good, but… I don’t immediately see how to use it effectively.”

It wouldn’t be difficult to accept such an inexpensive additional equipment. The problem was becoming overly reliant on it.

Vola’s words when I first joined Night Watch and went to buy a gun flashed through my mind. She said only rookies and psychopaths become mercenaries, and rookies soon turn into those psychopaths.

And she laughed, saying I might be the worst case, trying to appear normal. Perhaps it wasn’t something to laugh about. At Belwether, I would have just said, “Hmm, nice,” about a new helmet, but now I’m questioning a voice recorder.

I decided not to act like I’m suffering from paranoia. The best way to survive in this high-speed era was to willingly trust reliable people who had been verified through sufficient doubt.

“Still, there have been a few situations that pop into my head where having that would have made things much easier. It’s not an expensive auxiliary equipment, so I’ll give it a try.”

The job was completed cleanly, but rest was far from reach. It was time to open the document shredder’s bin and piece together the thread-like strips of the shredded document. Fortunately, the Posthuman Type IV was also skilled at precise repetitive tasks.