Ch.242Work Record #034 – Look-alikes (6)

I had to make sure the informant was escaping until the very end. Based on their whispering, they likely reported that the local gang had called someone.

Now, it was about time for backup to arrive. This ruined town, once a retreat for the wealthy but now reeking of the sea’s foul stench, wasn’t so vast that support would take thirty minutes to arrive.

I could already hear motorcycles approaching from across the road. Did they have a rapid response team? This gang seemed better organized than most second-rate companies.

A worthy opponent makes for a more satisfying confrontation. Well-organized enemies with manuals and protocols are more gratifying to face. I heard voices.

“I found Rena! Shit! Looks like someone attacked her. Even if the gang called in a fixer, they wouldn’t be operating in back alleys like this! They’ve absolutely fucking destroyed everything!”

The report was wrong. They had only seen someone in black making contact and assumed it was someone called by the gang. Incorrect. The motorcycle sounds grew closer. I prepared to run.

Hidden behind a corner, I calmly readied myself in a crouching start position. As the decelerating motorcycle came around the corner, I burst forward with enough force to crack the asphalt beneath me.

I rammed straight into the motorcycle. A heavy impact echoed in my ears, and while I felt the force against my leading right shoulder and forearm, it didn’t hurt at all. Type 4s have bodies capable of causing traffic accidents rather than suffering them.

My body, with metal coils replacing tendons, generated enough power to ram the motorcycle from the side, while my reinforced bones and shock-absorbing physiology minimized the recoil.

They were the ones riding something, but they were also the ones who ended up in a traffic accident. The woman on the motorcycle became trapped between her bike and the still-sturdy villa wall.

The fortunate thing, if you could call it that, was that her prosthetic leg prevented her from going into shock… though calling that “fortunate” would be a stretch. Walking would be impossible. The thigh portion of one prosthetic leg was completely crushed.

Even with one leg pinned under her motorcycle, she immediately drew a submachine gun—a testament to her training. Quick reflexes.

I lightly knocked her wrist away with my fist. The submachine gun rolled across the ground, but she didn’t panic. Instead, I noticed she was holding a smoke grenade beneath the gun.

The pin must have been pulled when the gun flew away, as bright yellow smoke began to billow out forcefully. The woman was already wearing a gas mask, grinning.

It was almost comical. I brought the smoke grenade close to my helmet’s respirator. I pressed it tightly against the opening to prevent any gas from escaping, filled my lungs completely with the gas, and only then exhaled a bright yellow breath.

My tongue detected sweetness. The smell was quite nauseating. I’m sure Director Robin had mentioned something about this before. Gas with a sweet smell is usually anesthetic gas. That distinctive unpleasant odor is the smell of anesthetic gas.

I needed to display dominance. This is show business. While my breath was still yellow, I formed words and tossed aside the now-empty smoke grenade canister.

“Did you think medical anesthetic gas supplied by MediTech would work here? Don’t you know you’re in a city owned by a military corporation?”

“W-we haven’t antagonized Bellwether that much! Th-this is clearly a minimum security zone designated by Bellwether…”

I picked up the empty smoke grenade canister she had thrown. If she thought I was Bellwether Special Ops or something similar, I needed to exploit that.

“This! Spraying this in a minimum security zone…”

I struck her face with the hand holding the empty canister. Despite hitting her lightly, her head slammed into the nearby villa wall and bounced forward from the impact.

I struck again. This time her head was half-embedded in the villa wall. I could faintly see smoke leaking from her neural processing unit through the side of her head. A third strike would kill her.

“Don’t act like you came here thinking, ‘Look, we’ve colored this filthy seaside ruin in pretty yellow!’ You people…”

I pulled her body out from between the wall and the motorcycle. Grabbing her smoking head, I tore off her gas mask and threw her face-down into the bright yellow, potent anesthetic gas.

I crushed her arm under my foot as she tried to push herself up. She attempted to hold her breath while face-down, but during such intense activity, even ten seconds is remarkable.

“As long as someone dies, all you care about is killing Polaris. You don’t care if it’s a minimum security zone or employee housing, do you?”

After finishing my words, I kicked her chest, forcing her to inhale. Without a chance to hold her breath again, she inhaled the potent anesthetic gas to the bottom of her lungs and passed out.

It might not even be just unconsciousness. Her body was severely injured, and she had inhaled anesthetic gas mixed with smoke agent to the bottom of her lungs, without any regard for proper dosage.

I drew a small evil from my waist and finished her with two shots to the back of the head. Taking Rena’s pair of artificial eyes, I headed toward the mansion in the center of the ruins, which was originally the Ashwood Gang’s headquarters.

The entrance had an old-fashioned iris recognition device. I powered up the artificial eyes using my wire-integrated nervous system and authenticated. A terse authentication complete message appeared, and the mansion’s main gate opened.

The interior was dark. The Ashwood Gang had faced numerous challenges since Bellwether’s machinations had left them for dead. Someone must have cut the electricity.

The lighting fixtures placed throughout made it easy enough to navigate the interior. I heard someone running from inside the house, apparently having confirmed the authenticated eye owner’s identity. A voice accompanied the footsteps.

“Rena? Rena! Are you okay? Miley went looking for you and then we lost contact with her too after hearing an impact sound… Rena?”

I closed the front door and rolled the two artificial eyes inside. Only the ominous sound of hard objects rolling across the wooden corridor could be heard.

A hand emerged from the darkness toward the light. I saw a rather fat man with a beard that connected to his sideburns reaching out from the darkness. I drew my small evil.

I watched as he identified the objects rolling on the floor as Rena’s artificial eyes and drew his pistol, then pulled the trigger in a three-round burst from the darkness. Armor-piercing rounds heavily penetrated the man’s head.

Actually, the method of killing wasn’t important. What mattered was the gunshot. The heavy sound of gunfire shook the villa, loud enough to be heard from the backyard. That was enough.

Immediately, the entrance door behind me locked. Not the original lock, but an additionally installed metal bar lock. The gang must have installed it. They had locked themselves in with me.

A voice began to come through speakers additionally installed in the house. This mansion was their hunting ground. Or so they believed. Beliefs aren’t always truth. I recorded.

“Someone took our bait quite eagerly. Do you think we’re just entertainers you can easily catch, Mr. Fixer whose only life achievement is coming from a military corporation?”

It was the opposite. I believed they would be more difficult to deal with precisely because they came from the entertainment industry. To be honest… I was trying to believe that. At best, these were just thugs.

“I can’t hear your answer. Ah, right. You’re the type who thinks it’s cool to keep your mouth shut and slip away after shooting with a silenced gun. Turn off the lights and fill it with gas. We’re hunting.”

The lights went out. They could no longer see. Gas began to fill the space. They could no longer breathe. It was cheap MediTech anesthetic gas again. This time the taste was slightly different. Probably a hallucinogen.

I inhaled it to the bottom of my lungs. I exhaled yellow breath with a hint of purple around me. No problem whatsoever. I heard muffled breathing sounds from a nearby room. The sound of someone checking their gas mask filter.

They were well-trained. Of course, it was training for dealing with humans. They seemed to forget that in this day and age, people often make things that aren’t human from humans. The speaker shouted again.

“Did Bellwether send an android instead of a person? You’re not even showing up on the heartbeat detector. Doesn’t matter. Use night vision and track the footsteps. They should still be near the entrance.”

The heartbeat detector was probably working normally. It just didn’t recognize the quiet pulse that occurred once every four seconds as a heartbeat. I made footstep sounds toward where gang members were preparing.

It was quite theatrical. I made sounds as if I were running, but my position hadn’t changed at all. The sound of flechette rounds cutting through the air. They probably believed they had just missed me.

With gun lowered, he checked in front of the room he had emerged from with a flashlight. There was nothing under the light, obscured by smoke. Gas masks reduce one’s field of vision. So do flashlights in darkness.

After watching him try to look around, I made sounds like I was running in place again. Only then did he look in my direction. He dropped his flashlight without even managing a scream.

What followed wouldn’t be much different. Before he could raise his gun barrel, I rammed into him and stabbed a high-frequency tactical knife into his side. I sliced it across horizontally, making his insides spill out.

I grabbed the wall, waiting for those who would run to the entrance following the sound of a human body collapsing. In an awkward but not difficult movement, like crawling on the floor, I climbed the wall toward the ceiling.

Hidden among the gas pouring from the ceiling, I held my breath. Soon three people approached along the corridor. They began breathing heavily upon seeing their comrade already spilling out his life and existence.

It didn’t last long, which confirmed they were well-trained. They gestured to maintain a four-directional watch and, despite trembling, pressed the side of their neural processing unit to establish communication. Their report was excellent. I recorded.

“Turn on the lights. Since he’s properly prepared for the gas, it would be better to ventilate and not obstruct our vision…”

I approached, making sure my movement through the gas wasn’t too visible. Their four-directional watch was thorough, but they weren’t looking at the wall-blocked side. I grabbed the gas mask of the one reporting and the one beside him.

I tore them off and threw them away. At the sound, the last gang member quickly turned around, and I tore off his gas mask as well. I stood between them. I would need to be careful of crossfire.

I struck the neck of the one who had been reporting—who had managed to hold his breath—between my thumb and index finger. I forced him to inhale, making him choke. Time to see the effects of the hallucinogen.

He seemed to resist the anesthetic gas to some extent. He was an enhanced human. Unlike the other two who immediately collapsed to the floor, he merely seemed to have numbed fingers, struggling to properly hook his finger on the trigger guard.

The effect of the hallucinogen was, frankly, beyond imagination. While I couldn’t tell what hallucination he was seeing, this heavy enhanced human with his head entirely encased in metal parts except for his lower jaw was trembling.

I naturally created a preset of the voice of the person he had reported to—the woman’s voice who had been broadcasting proudly after renovating this house—and whispered. When there’s no need to dirty my hands, they can stay clean.

“The company must have taught you how to maintain your mental strength. Take care of those traitors who’ve collapsed flat on the floor first. Hurry. Seeing how they tore off your gas mask, it’s obvious they’re in league with the intruder!”

He shook his head. His mental strength was truly admirable. If his drug resistance had been even half as good as his mental strength, he could have overcome it.

“B-boss? No, no ma’am. The gas masks were torn off by hands that emerged from the darkness, not these two people…”

He could still make somewhat rational judgments. I inhaled the gas-thick air deeply and exhaled a yellow breath with hints of purple. I whispered again in the gang leader’s voice.

“Hands emerging from darkness? Ridiculous. Was Shirley taken down by a ‘gun emerging from darkness’? Was our little one’s stomach slashed by a ‘knife emerging from darkness’? There’s a traitor among us.”

In the storm of sensations created by the hallucinogen, people want something to lean on. The system itself is something to lean on. This gang is ridiculously organized.

He finally decided to trust the voice he had always believed in. Though he kept shaking his head as if aiming was difficult, he confirmed the kill on the two unconscious people on the mansion floor. He spoke to me.

“S-sor… ugh, shit! I’m sorry. The hallucinogen is making my mind go back and forth, and my judgment isn’t working properly. The antidote…”

“There are more traitors. Don’t trust anyone but me. Come to me. If necessary, deal with the traitors pretending to be comrades on your way. No, I can only trust you. Understand?”

He retched several times while speaking. Natural, since he was continuously inhaling the hallucinogen. I couldn’t tell how much combat effectiveness he would have… but it’s good for me to have bait too.

I could feel his fairly calm and rational mind becoming dulled by the hallucinogenic stimuli, like visions seen during a high fever. He suddenly burst out in anger. Instability is a good sign. For me.

“How much groundwork did those fucking lamb skewer bastards lay?! People who haven’t even worked with us for a year or two… those… fuck! Those fucking traitors…”

He began to move, leaning against the wall. I prepared the radio interference module in my head and turned it on. Now the real boss’s words wouldn’t reach him.

I moved to the side, watching the man who had become a traitor in his desire to find traitors, firing at people who had been his comrades approaching from inside the corridor. I took the stairs.

The ruins of this ghost town were once beautiful villas, making their structures complex and decoratively unfamiliar. I lightly grabbed the head of a gang member hurriedly coming down at the sound of gunfire.

I slammed it against the stairs. After dragging it up along the edge of the stairs, I released the body and started running. I drew my high-frequency tactical knife. There were a few more people coming down.

I grabbed one’s forearm and stabbed the high-frequency blade into the nape of his neck. I cut off his head smoothly, like slaughtering the unqualified, and used the body as a shield.

The flechette rounds, which lacked killing power against me, had plenty of killing power against them. I took what my human shield was carrying and showered the remaining two with flechettes.

They might have had antidotes, but it didn’t matter much. The flechettes that caught on my skin and got stuck in my muscles without penetrating easily pierced through their bodies.

The only one who avoided vital spots tried to take out an antidote from his thigh pocket to inject himself. After throwing the human shield that had become a porcupine with flechettes, I fired a three-round burst with my small evil.

From the second floor corridor I had reached, a woman I had seen in the informant’s photo began to walk out. She somehow gave off a vibe similar to Polaris. Her form was perfect.

Their faces weren’t similar. Polaris was petite with blonde hair, large eyes, and knew how to make an enchanting eye-smile when she smiled, but this one had sharp features and black hair.

She was nearly a hand taller than Polaris and wrapped in the kind of coldness my Eve used to display for self-defense, making it seem like she didn’t know how to smile. I’d say their aura was similar.

Her arms, thin but quite muscular, connected to heavy gauntlet-type prosthetic hands that didn’t match her size. Looking at the mechanical skeletal structure, her two legs were Pathfinder Logistics products. Heavy-duty type.

I couldn’t even imagine how she intended to fight. She asked in a slow, cold voice.

“To think Anton was a traitor. What did you tempt him with? He was quite… loyal.”

His name was Anton. I activated the preset. I returned her exact words. I mimicked her voice, including the tone and drawl.

“To think Anton was a traitor. What did you tempt him with? He was quite… loyal.”

She exhaled as if taken aback by her own voice naturally flowing from inside this bland display helmet, and by the fact that it wasn’t a recording.

“Ha. Who did we piss off to get visited by something like this? We haven’t caused enough commotion in Los Angeles to warrant a visit from someone like you. We were still in the process of selling our faces.”

“You must have known that karma would come to collect its debt eventually.”

If I capture this woman and hand her over to Panacea MediTech’s information processing team to open her head, more information about the assassins will emerge. Only the soft humming of the high-frequency tactical knife fills the corridor.