Ch.258036th Work Record – Under the Brightest Spotlight (5)

The best part about working as Mia’s bodyguard was… being able to listen to her songs as much as rehearsals allowed. No, there was an even greater fortune than that.

If you entered her real name, Amelia Valentine, into Talent & Tradition’s search service, you could find songs she sang during her unknown days. Her voice and skill were almost identical.

These were songs that only people close enough to know her name, or those lucky enough to stumble upon it, could hear—and honestly, they weren’t very Polaris-like.

While Polaris tended not to sing love songs, Amelia Valentine was someone who mainly sang about love. Perhaps she was from a time when she believed everyone could love each other.

That belief was betrayed, and she chose the next best thing: receiving all the love in the world herself, then sharing it with everyone in equal measure. In a way, it might be agape.

The problem is… this isn’t exactly the right approach either. Yet it helps the world. Of course, even that help isn’t delivered in the cleanest way… perhaps we’re all like this.

Dean’s words echo deeply—that what’s right cannot be determined, only who can hold out stubbornly for one more day. It’s all about results in the end.

Having finished her final rehearsal, Mia lightly jumps down from the rather high stage toward Theo. The man in the reinforcement suit catches her and sets her down with surprising gentleness.

Their actions exude trust—both from her, jumping from a height that could break her legs without worrying about the angle of descent, and from him, always catching her perfectly.

Mia sits on the soft lining of Theo’s thick, sturdy bulletproof shield—never meant to be carried this way—crosses her legs, and begins looking in my direction. Once again, the surroundings fall into a silent zone.

I couldn’t tell where she had the equipment hidden. There were no visible signs of modification on her body. As her always-pleasant voice began to reach my ears, I pushed my wandering thoughts aside.

“Will I be able to put on as good a show as I did in Hope Glove, Gardner? Heroism & Hope Entertainment brought hope to Detroit, but Belwether only brought efficiency to this city.”

“The LA branch management AI loves the word ‘love’ so much. Besides, you know what you did for this concert, don’t you?”

Mia briefly wore an innocent expression, but the words that escaped her lips were anything but innocent. Up close, the contrast is quite entertaining.

“I sent better assassins to the ones trying to kill me, and using those who died… I made it clear to Belwether that Talent & Tradition won’t fight them, just as they wanted.”

Belwether would have understood that Polaris, representing Talent & Tradition, was using the elimination of her political opponents to also settle things with her former corporate war adversaries.

So my response needed to be relaxed and unhurried. There was no need to rack my brain over this.

“I didn’t know you were such a political person, Mia.”

Mia let out a light laugh. It feels less ticklish inside than when I call her Polaris.

“You’d better get used to it, soon-to-be four-corporation certified freelancer with the callsign Boogeyman. By then, everything you say and do while wearing that helmet will look like corporate justice.”

A one-corporation certified freelancer is an excellent mercenary. A two-corporation certified freelancer is someone exceptional. A three-corporation certified freelancer is someone qualified enough to guard Polaris.

By four or five corporations, one would obviously appear to be someone who does anything for corporate justice. However, there was a hint in Polaris’s words. I smiled leisurely.

“Then I’ll have to take off my helmet and relieve stress by taking jobs with a regular mercenary license rather than a freelancer one, Mia.”

“I don’t think I need to teach you more about staying grounded. Good. I hope you don’t wear down in this high-speed era. I don’t like being lonely. I also want to see someone making the world a better place.”

She seemed to feel the same sense of kinship that I feel with the Beast-Howling people. Perhaps it would have been impossible to have a romantic relationship with Mia, or Polaris, precisely because of this sense of fellowship.

Arthur-2 might be different. So far, she was just an ordinary person who could speak similar words to mine. Living like a human, receiving help from many people… perhaps an enviable life.

Despite that day being the final rehearsal, I went home at the usual time. Arthur-2 had already left for her night shift. Those were enviable times. I recall the tension I felt while sitting in an armored van.

The memory had already grown hazy. Still, since Polaris’s concert was on Tuesday… I could visit the night shift the next day. After contacting my Eve, I went to bed early that night.

I had to wake up at dawn. Arthur-2 returning from work at dawn wasn’t a problem, but I heard her rummaging through the closet. Yawning, I went to the living room and saw the clothes Polaris had mentioned.

They seemed to focus more on how she would appear rather than who she was. Clothes that would suit her small, rather petite frame—either Jerome’s taste or following some formula.

A basic vertically striped shirt, a pleated skirt… and amusingly, even loafers were included. This despite the fact that we had worn nothing but work boots until entering Belwether’s employee training college.

It was particularly awkward clothing to have in front of a mercenary with mechanical arms, having removed all the artificial skin from my forearms because I needed to work—especially since she was somewhat me.

Still, it was her life now. Without any intention to mock, I smiled. As if to remind me that she was the only person Polaris personally devoted herself to, I said:

“Tomorrow I’ll have to ask Mia why she didn’t give my Eve style recommendations too. It suits you well, Arthur-2.”

Arthur-2 made her characteristic purring sound. She has a cat-like temperament. She needlessly scratched her mechanical leg below her thigh with her prosthetic fingertips, making a metallic sound, then answered:

“Just know I’m letting this slide because I don’t have the energy to get angry right now, Arthur-1. And think about the person who has to wear this tomorrow! If it weren’t for the body Jerome made, I would’ve also…”

“You wouldn’t have survived anyway. One way or another, we’re different people, right? Our personalities are similar but not identical, and the things we can do or like are similar but never exactly the same.”

What Arthur-2 wanted was empathy for her embarrassment and other feelings, so I deliberately chose a roundabout path. But instead of protesting further, Arthur-2 buried her face in her palms.

“Just… ah, Mia has weird tastes too. Can’t you just… I can’t not wear it since I promised her to her face, but how was I supposed to know Mia would give me clothes that Jerome would dress someone in?! Seriously…”

“I’m dying,” she muttered into her palms. It seemed like something I shouldn’t hear, but I decided not to pay much attention to it. She also knew Polaris’s name and how to shorten it.

Only then did I place my hand on Arthur-2’s head and stroke her hair. Come to think of it, her hair length was consistent. Since it wasn’t that it didn’t grow, it seemed she was maintaining it.

“Even if it’s intense, you’re developing your own life and your own past, instead of just having a non-life and a non-past… That seems to be what Mia wants to give you, Arthur-2.”

Arthur-2, who usually would immediately pull away, leaned into my stroking hand this time. Somehow she seemed to have picked up some of Eve’s habits, though Eve was more assertive.

My Eve was the type who would rub her head against my hand until she got exactly the amount of petting she wanted, in the position she found comfortable. Thinking of her, I removed my hand. Arthur-2 reached out.

“That thing you use… what do you call it? Looks like a heavy wristwatch. Similar to a silent zone generator but not quite.”

“It’s a noise canceller. Want to borrow it?”

Arthur-2’s hand jabbed at my chest. Where the voice module was installed. Then she pulled down her t-shirt to show that she didn’t have a voice module herself.

She needed to speak to contact “someone” I could never guess, but didn’t want me to hear. Somehow it felt like having a teenage daughter rather than a younger sister.

I fetched the noise canceller from my room and tossed it to her lightly. She caught it with both prosthetic hands and created a small noise-cancelled space. Out of courtesy, I pretended to go to bed.

The problem was that the noise canceller only had imperfect noise-cancelling capabilities, and a Posthuman Type IV’s senses were terribly sensitive. I could hear Arthur-2 making slightly whiny sounds.

On the other end was Mia’s voice, speaking a bit lower than usual. She soothed, praised, and skillfully calmed Arthur-2 down. I didn’t listen long to Arthur-2 being led along.

I woke up after getting more than enough sleep. I put on an undershirt made of bulletproof fiber, then a bulletproof suit over it. The breathability was terrible, but homeostasis maintenance was working well.

I put on the noise canceller I had lent to Arthur-2 yesterday, positioning it toward the inside of my wrist, and packed my Panacea rifle in its dedicated case. I naturally placed Small Evil at my waist.

I left the house before Arthur-2, who had spent the night almost completely awake. I connected my computational assist device to Talent & Tradition and Panacea Meditech’s networks. Reports flooded in.

People who had lived their entire lives near Belwether’s headquarters with direct security guarantees, yet foolishly sent threatening emails influenced by T&T’s survival-of-the-fittest worship, were sent to brain prison. Just two years.

There were also records of brains being opened overnight. One terrorist who enjoyed introducing himself with a fancy code name tried to infiltrate the venue and plant a bomb for a spectacular debut.

Naturally, he was caught beforehand. The self-proclaimed revolutionary lord didn’t even have the intelligence to understand what it meant when the information processing team used just enough firepower not to kill him.

He became an immortal of this era. It seemed there were about two Panacea Meditech employees who were also drawn to that side. Two researchers were arrested attempting to access Polaris’s emergency drugs.

They were no longer researchers. Panacea Meditech mixed them into the list of humans they cultivate without self-awareness for experiments. They would contribute to progress.

After calling a vehicle in front of my house, I headed to Mia’s safe house. The journalists who usually surrounded her were nowhere to be seen today, and the entire wealthy neighborhood containing her safe house had been designated a no-filming zone.

There was no need to use the Panacea rifle that day either. Meeting Mia involved just a hug and friendly greeting, and nothing special happened until we departed for the venue that afternoon.

There were no more stupid self-proclaimed lone wolf terrorists, nor did Arthur-2 call Mia to whine again. After such ordinary hours passed, we headed to the concert venue.

In a sense, I too was provided with a VIP seat. Theo was guarding the front of the venue, while I was assigned to a maintenance walkway high in the dome, considering I was carrying a railgun rifle capable of sniping.

A Type IV’s vision doesn’t consider this much of a distance anyway. If I concentrated, I could see Mia singing, and her voice resonated all the way up here. There were no snipers.

I could see Arthur-2 entering a box seat wearing the clothes Mia had given her, and the night shift crew who had been invited as a group to a similar box seat. Mia knows well how to win people’s hearts.

Contrary to Panacea Meditech’s concerns, the concert ended successfully. Belwether also sent congratulatory messages, and Stephanet personally took charge of traffic control leading to the venue.

Reciprocity. Mia had made it clear in Polaris’s name that there was no reason for conflict between the two corporations to continue, and they responded in kind. I descended into the dome only after the concert ended.

It was too high to jump down bare-handed, so I took the service elevator and jumped from about five or six floors up. I landed next to her as she was saying her final goodbyes, as Mia had requested.

There was no heavy landing sound, and apart from lightly touching the floor as I rose, there were no exaggerated movements at all. Mia’s reason for calling me was perhaps the same as last time. Though purer than before.

The stage where the final farewells continued was hot. Literally hot enough that my homeostasis maintenance mechanism had to readjust due to the temperature of the lights. In people’s eyes… each had their own brick taken from Polaris.

Their enthusiasm poured out. Though Mia wore the microphone, their voices were much louder. Mia faced the people with an expression that looked like she might cry. That expression alone was sincere.

To me, it was all too distant a scene, a foreign landscape—until Mia approached me. She came to my side, stood on her tiptoes, and brought her lips near my helmet.

This time, it wasn’t a kiss. Concerned about lip-reading, she covered her mouth with her hand while turning on the silent zone and whispered to me. This was completely different from last time.

“Last time I called you because you deserved to stand in the brightest spotlight too, but this time you were just a mercenary. So I won’t tell you to enjoy your share like last time.”

Her gaze briefly turned away. People wondered what Polaris was saying to her bodyguard, and I wasn’t much different in that regard. I was curious about what she wanted to show me.

Mia stretched out her hand to show me the scene of countless people looking at her with voices full of ecstasy and jubilation. Her voice was now almost devilishly beautiful. It was just my impression. It was beautiful.

“I called you because I feel like I’ve only told you to keep both feet on the ground. You’re someone who could receive this kind of acclaim if you wanted. Anytime. In any way. So I wanted to let you taste it in advance.”

Mia whispered for me to imagine it. I close my eyes inside my helmet, invisible from the outside, and try to picture it. Cheers, ecstasy, passion—familiar words. Somehow Hollow Creek comes to mind.

And so… I feel aversion. Aversion is unpleasant. It would be amusing for someone who claims they can do anything to say they can’t use this passion and fervor as a tool because ‘it resembles them.’

Polaris let out a voice mixed with sweet laughter. If asked in what sense it was sweet… perhaps ideologically sweet.

“This is Hollow Creek’s weapon. People’s fervor and passion. Killing all human desires and leaving the outlet only in the hands of those at the pinnacle of that world.”

An outlet for desire. What were the cult leader’s lovers like? Why did the cult leader try to summon Eve as soon as she became an adult, and why did he lose her without even touching her due to that security vulnerability?

“Then, uncontrollable flows become controllable flows. You know how dangerous and useful controlled fanaticism can be, Arthur? So, make this uncontrollable.”

The system limits, guides, and ultimately controls human desires. What would be uncontrollable? They say God is uncontrollable. I knew someone who knew God very well.

“Set a wildfire, Arthur. Seeing Hollow Creek die with the very words of faith and belief they’ve been using as tools all along…”

This time it was something I had to say. It wouldn’t suit Polaris to say it. I willingly offered one sentence:

“Would be enjoyable. That’s right.”

Polaris, who last time had passed all the attention and love she received in the brightest spotlight to me, this time showed me how to wield power while always standing in that spotlight.

She had been a good teacher. While credits can be earned in any number of ways, receiving good teaching was always difficult… so once again, I had gained much more than money.