Ch.243034 Work Record – Look-alikes (7)

If I had known this would happen, I should have brought a preservative injector. It didn’t seem possible to subdue her with a small evil shot to the torso and just take the head.

Since both her arms and legs were prosthetics, carrying her with just the limbs removed wouldn’t be too heavy. I slowly examined her prosthetic arms. They were designed for combat.

These were prosthetics with thrusters typically used in jump jets. Not usually meant for one-on-one combat. They’re designed for rushing in with covering fire from behind to pulverize enemies.

The situation just wasn’t favorable right now. The most trusted subordinate she mentioned was currently fighting with other gang members downstairs. He believed the voice he heard in his ear was real.

But in the darkness behind where she stood, I spotted another familiar face. Another woman who resembled Polaris was standing there, her hand resting on an external computational assist device.

This one didn’t have Polaris’s face either. She had light orange hair, almost caramel-colored, somewhat curly, and she was slightly taller than Polaris. But the aura was similar.

Why did she seem familiar? I thought quickly. Talent & Tradition Company has only one star: Polaris. They don’t have many entertainers, which must make the competition brutally fierce.

Normally this wouldn’t be a big issue. People in the entertainment industry die easily. But Polaris had stood at the untouchable pinnacle of that industry for years since her debut.

Moreover, Polaris hated being the sole survivor. Behind her was the chairman of Talent & Tradition. There might have been an overall improvement in survival rates.

If I followed that hypothesis, there would be even less room for promising newcomers. Time for another bluff to sweep the table. I spoke leisurely.

“I thought you resembled my client, and the woman behind you is the same. Were you ones who couldn’t become Polaris?”

I chose the most insulting expression available. It seemed T Entertainment didn’t want to simply discard trainees they had invested in for survival but had no intention of debuting.

I could theorize they decided to give them more security team training and throw them into dirty work rather than write off the sunk cost. And that theory was confirmed by the voice of the woman before me.

“You think we wanted that bitch Polaris’s position? What we wanted was just…”

“Something trivial, I’m sure. But the moment you fell for the offer that they’d fulfill your dream if you handled some dirty work for the company, you must have known there was no hope. Are you too stupid to realize that?”

Evil is evil, and dreams are dreams. Evil doesn’t serve as a bridge to dreams. Dreams don’t justify evil either. It’s like trying to build a life with completely unrelated things.

The woman couldn’t find a response. She finally decided to lash out. I didn’t mind. Words spilled without thought weren’t difficult to counter.

“Acting like you know everything, Fixer. How much do you really know about the entertainment industry ecosystem to talk like that?”

“I know it’s fragmented, myopic, and only cruel. Wasn’t Talent & Tradition the company that started that trend? The chairman seems to be trying to change that atmosphere…”

At least someone trying to lower the mortality rate of their entertainers was worth siding with over someone who would say “that’s just how this industry is” and do nothing. Everything is about value.

“It’s quite amusing to see those without ability or will just following what’s always been done, babbling nonsense about killing Polaris or whatever, you who couldn’t become Polaris.”

With my hypothesis confirmed, I scraped at her with that phrase once more. Judging by Aegis’s voice starting to sound in my head, I must have hit the mark.

“Abnormal connection attempt detected. Tracing attacker through connection point. Trace complete. Connected. Connected to power drive system. Voltage limit released. Increasing voltage.”

The woman began to tremble and shake. Aegis knows nothing about human physiology. It only infers that this method would inflict maximum damage on the attacker.

Sparks flew from her computational assist device. What had been tightly pressed lips now opened in screams. The gang boss started to turn at the tearing screams but stopped.

She apparently didn’t want her head pierced by the small evil in my hand. I did nothing for now. She was too valuable with information to shoot dead immediately.

“The entertainment industry would say this: They’re just extras. Just worthless prospects who couldn’t even pull in ratings. You seemed to like that cruel industry—will you let her die?”

The pain of neural circuits doubling as wiring burning up is terrible. Literally feeling the nerve endings burning away. Now she couldn’t even stand properly and began crawling on the floor.

The gang boss made an unwise decision. Usually in situations like this, my information warfare handler would be quite far away. Even if she managed to take me down by luck, the increased voltage wouldn’t stop.

But she shook off her colleague grabbing at her ankle and charged at me, shielding herself with her pair of heavy prosthetic arms. The performance of legs made by Pathfinder Logistics was excellent.

With perfect ground contact even with an imperfect center of gravity, she reached me in just two steps. Activating the thrusters on her prosthetics, she thrust her fist at me at a speed my eyes could barely follow.

Dodging wasn’t difficult. I ducked under the fist aiming for my head. Not wanting to deal with torso bleeding, I struck her side where the bulletproof vest didn’t cover.

There was a momentary feeling of hitting ribs, but it didn’t last long. My fist drove into her side, pushing her heavy body away. I heard choking sounds as she struggled to breathe.

It was a difference in performance. She grabbed her side with one prosthetic arm and slowly powered up her arm again, trying to endure the pain of several broken ribs. She lunged at me again, this time with her hand open.

Seems she wanted to grab and crush me. Again, I forced her hand upward as it aimed for my head. I examined it. I could see the thin groove for emergency detachment covered by a translucent panel.

With the hand that had been bracing her arm, I pushed away the protective translucent panel. With my other hand holding the high-frequency tactical knife, I stabbed upward. Targeting the thin groove on a moving arm wasn’t difficult for a Type 4.

As the high-frequency blade lodged in that groove, there was a mechanical sound from the prosthetic connection, and the arm came right off. The finished surface of the arm designed for prosthetic attachment was exposed.

I grabbed the prosthetic now in my hand and threw it away. When she tried to detach her other hand in confusion, I caught it. I pulled the forearm and turned on the vibration of my high-frequency tactical knife.

I pierced through the thin acrylic protective film with the high-frequency knife and detached the prosthetic. Her expression showed she never expected the detachment groove to be targeted in a face-to-face fight.

Now all she had left were arms about a span long from the shoulder. The edges of the bulletproof vest that had originally covered the connection points fluttered in the air. She fell on her backside.

This would make things easier. I grabbed her ankle as she tried to back away. I pulled hard. The emergency ejection function is an essential feature. After this feature was introduced, the survival rate of modified humans increased exponentially.

But not now. I pierced each emergency detachment groove on the front of her thighs with my high-frequency tactical knife. Pathfinder Logistics’ prosthetic legs detached naturally.

I grabbed the neck of the gang boss who now had no means of resistance and lifted her up. I tore a piece of her bulletproof vest to gag her. I didn’t want to hear any more of her outpourings.

A normal person might feel like they were being hanged, but she didn’t seem to feel much discomfort without her prosthetics. There was hardly any struggling.

I walked over to the other prospect still suffering from Aegis. I drew my small evil and shot her in the head, where the internal burns had risen to the skin, making the back of her head and neck red and inflamed.

After confirming the kill with three shots, Aegis’s voice sounded in my head again.

“Attacker’s connection terminated. Returning to standby mode.”

I requested a communication link with Team Leader Rozashan as I walked down the stairs of the villa. The mercenary named Anton turned out to be truly reliable.

He was coming up the stairs, though covered in blood. One prosthetic arm was completely gone, and the other wasn’t in good shape either. His gun was barely hanging from his shoulder by a strap.

Anton, thinking the footsteps coming down from above were his boss, began speaking with a somewhat hopeful voice. He struggled to speak through his nausea.

“Boss, I, I handled everything but my condition…”

Without answering, I raised my small evil and fired. The anti-reinforcement armor-piercing bullet was sufficient to pierce the head of that heavy reinforced human. Only then did my communication with Manager Rozashan connect.

“This is the freelancer who met with you earlier. Gang elimination complete, and the boss captured. I’m going to open her up—should we go to T Enter? I could also go to my employer, Panacea MediTech.”

“It would be better to do it at Panacea MediTech with someone from T Enter present. If you do it at T Enter, it’ll get annoying with talk about covering up the company’s shame. It would interfere with the work too.”

I went downstairs, avoiding stepping on Anton’s corpse. Ahead in the corridor, I could see windows blown out as if by a grenade explosion, with wind leaking in. I headed for a door that was still locked.

I grabbed the lock with my hand. Even I couldn’t break a metal lock with pure strength, but it wasn’t difficult to tear it from the door. It was as if I’d never been locked in at all.

“Then, could you come, Team Leader? I’ll see you at Panacea MediTech’s LA branch. Since I’m working, and I have a good reputation there, there shouldn’t be any problems.”

It would obviously take time to explain to Manager Robin how I ended up carrying a woman without limbs. I got on my bike after hearing Manager Rozashan’s answer. I connected with Chance.

“Chance, wasn’t there a bag or something in the bike’s storage compartment? Even though I’m a Belwether-certified freelancer, I’m not so free that I can carry this around in the city.”

“I folded and stored the duffel bag you used when carrying the grenade rifle. Considering the size of the cargo, I believe it will fit sufficiently.”

I took out a black bag from the bike’s storage compartment and pushed the gang boss I was holding into it. Since it couldn’t fit in the storage compartment, I slung it over my shoulder and got on the bike. I headed for downtown.

Panacea MediTech’s building was always familiar. It had been since childhood. Manager Robin used to call all of us to the building on our birthdays. I swallowed the memories briefly.

Security personnel in closed reinforcement suits at the building entrance stopped me. After letting them verify my freelancer license, I said:

“I’m a freelancer working with Panacea MediTech on Polaris’s security during a charity performance. Please call the information processing team.”

“Freelancer license confirmed. I didn’t recognize the Miracle Child. You’re asking for the information processing team… Did you bring cerebral matter? The storage container…”

I opened the duffel bag and lifted the gang boss by the back of her neck as she growled and struggled inside. After putting her back in the bag, I answered:

“I brought her alive because I couldn’t. Even though she’s low-ranking, she should know something about the assassins who entered Los Angeles. T Enter’s Team Leader Rozashan should also be waiting.”

“Ah, of course. He’s waiting in the reception room. The information processing team will be called right away, so please wait a moment. You may enter with the cargo.”

Just cargo. Although Panacea MediTech consisted of kind and altruistic people… they were quite far from people who truly loved ‘all’ life.

Carrying the duffel bag, I had Panacea MediTech’s management AI move my bike and entered the building. Having heard that the Miracle Child had arrived, Robin was waiting for me.

I removed my display helmet. She whistled long when she saw me in my black outfit, then patted my shoulder. It felt so awkward meeting someone I knew in my work clothes.

“You’re starting to look like a proper freelancer, Arti! Can you show me the cargo’s condition? We can’t have her die before reaching the information processing team.”

Surprisingly, she didn’t ask ‘why’ or ‘how.’ It was freelancer work, but it wasn’t such high-security information.

I took the black-haired woman out of the duffel bag to show Manager Robin. She felt the gang boss’s waist where my fist had left a mark, then injected preservative into the woman’s neck.

“How many ribs did you shatter? A little harder and she would have died from internal bleeding on the way. Hmm. Judging by her pretty face, she seems made by the entertainment industry. What concept were they planning to debut her with?”

Manager Robin said this while casually shaking the gang boss’s chin left and right. She even wrapped some of the black hair around her fingers, naturally commenting on how enviable the texture was.

“Oh, is that it? The concept of a former megacorporation security personnel—a sharp beauty would sell well… but it’s a common concept. With Serena Vanderbilt right here, would that even work?”

Serena wasn’t even former—she was current. She lightly picked up the gang boss who was trying to resist with her shortened limbs and pushed her back into the bag, then looked at me.

With a face full of mischief again, she gently pushed my forearm and smiled. Her playfulness seemed to have returned.

“This is work, but you know not to develop a taste for this kind of thing, right, Arti? This mother wants a daughter-in-law with all her limbs intact. Really!”

I burst into short laughter at her words. There was a brief, silly exchange of me saying “of course not” and her pressing “really?” but it didn’t last long.

In the distance, I saw Panacea MediTech’s information processing team approaching with Team Leader Rozashan. I gave Robin a quick hug before letting her go. It was time to return to work.

The information processing team always looked inhuman. Perhaps because of the nature of their work. Panacea MediTech’s team was no exception. Only their silhouette was human.

Outwardly they appeared to be wearing long coats, but they didn’t sway up and down when walking… and what reached out to take the gang boss from the bag wasn’t a hand.

It was unusual to see at Panacea MediTech, which possessed the pinnacle of biotechnology. Several metal tentacles intertwined to mimic a human hand as they lifted her.

After having Rozashan confirm, they quietly entered the elevator with her, making only the mechanical sounds of the mass of metal tentacles that substituted for a body. We headed underground.

Exactly 43 minutes later, a mind map was placed in my hand. It was the final form of her life, existence, and being. This high-speed era is especially merciless to certain people.

It was particularly merciless to losers who were neither as charming nor as capable as Polaris, who didn’t share her convictions, yet felt inferior at being called “one who couldn’t become Polaris.”