Ch.274Work Record #038 – Neither Fleeting Nor Glorious (11)

Noah would need to rebuild his body, and on top of that, he had applied for modification surgery, so I wouldn’t be able to see him for a few weeks. Still… this brief farewell felt good.

When I first helped him, I thought… Noah would be standing in Miguel’s place. Though he would have had a bit more justification than that idiot Miguel.

Miguel was nothing but livestock of hatred, having never experienced anything himself, yet gorging on the hatred others spilled like sewage, stuffing it down like a pig or cow with its head buried in a feed trough.

Anyway, today I need to steal a bit of glory from Noah and Kanun Corporation. I need to claim the five minutes that Kanun Corp earned as my own. Today, I put on the Boogeyman’s helmet again. No trace of cleaning solution remains.

Regardless of what the net says about the Boogeyman’s closet, my job was to check nearby civilian evacuation areas and search for any terrorists who might have fled there.

I never regretted not participating in the massacre. Dealing with those pathetic terrorists by calling in two companies’ assault teams, Mr. James, and even freelancers was all to protect employee-citizens.

So, my assigned task was the most rewarding. Others turned 100 into 99, 99 into 98, while I turned 1 into 0, making too many numbers into not too many. That’s why.

Yesterday, I killed just one person. Just a single terrorist who had thrown away his gun and was knocking on the bulletproof panels of a restaurant where civilians had evacuated, desperately seeking salvation that would never come. Miguel wasn’t dead yet. Probably never would be.

With my helmet on, I run to the Belwether building. After exchanging meaningless greetings with Stefanet and receiving temporary access permissions through my freelancer license, I head to the lobby… where the information processing team is waiting.

A face I seem to have seen before when examining art collections that researchers had prepared to turn Prometheus into Mila for cultural education. Features arranged like a Picasso cubist painting.

What they did was absolutely necessary, but at the same time, it wasn’t something a human could endure. I could understand why they all wore prosthetics that seemed to deny their own humanity.

But they all did their jobs well. He handed me a preservation container holding a brain. He salutes with three fingers on a hand that still looks like a cubist painting with its fragmented surfaces and shapes.

“For the corporation, employees, and shareholders. Disposal has been decided. The crime was deemed extremely heinous. Miguel Cruz will be permanently incarcerated in the brain prison. A new immortal of this era, I see.”

“This will be the last time he’s called Miguel Cruz, right? Since no one will ever take him out, there’s no need to distinguish who’s who. He’s literally become a nobody.”

The information processing team member nodded briefly. Belwether’s brain prison was nothing short of an ideal for retributive justice advocates. With minimal resources, it delivered the most definitive punishment that no one would ever want to experience.

It went beyond retribution to true justice. The permanent inmates of the brain prison would suffer eternally, but at least they suffered eternally for deeds that deserved eternal suffering.

Killing instead of putting someone in brain prison only happened when capture was impossible… or when moving to exterminate. I’d never heard of a mutant being put in brain prison.

I decide to shift my train of thought. This was originally Kanun Corp’s job. Sending a criminal you caught to brain prison was a kind of honor in its own right.

It meant you could see the criminal you caught not being released back into the world, but becoming an immortal of this era. I head toward the internal elevator leading to the brain prison.

The elevator descended leisurely underground. When passing the underground experimental level, the display walls that had been showing the outside floors began to play Belwether’s public service announcements.

It was an advertisement showing that during work hours, people consider efficiency—completing assigned tasks properly and on time—as true altruism, rather than small concerns, attentiveness, or kindness.

The ad ends with quitting time arriving, and the boss who had been so rigid in demanding efficiency approaches the employee who had been hesitant to approach, smiling and saying it’s okay to be comfortable outside of work hours.

Chatting during work hours is inefficient. Building human relationships with people in the same department is efficient. Communication during work hours should be clear and intuitive. During personal time, it’s your freedom. Very Belwether.

Of course, not all Belwether people could… literally divide their work-time attitude and off-work attitude as if cut with a knife. If they could, I wouldn’t have needed to start mercenary work.

When that advertisement ended, we arrived at the lowest floor. The brain prison level. The interior was white in typical Belwether fashion, but not the harsh white that strains the eyes—rather, a warm color closer to ivory.

It’s quite a cozy space for carrying a container of preserved brain. Walking a bit further, I see the entrance to the brain prison. There’s a seat like a bank counter or vault with a small guidance window. Temporarily absent.

The brain prison guard was… honestly, one of the easiest positions at Belwether. I open a virtual screen and press the call button, and a uniformed woman walks out from a door next to the counter.

Through the door crack, I could see a yoga mat on the employee lounge floor, and the screen inside showed a personal training display from an AI exercise assistant. This is why it’s considered the easiest position.

As long as brain prison guards could return to this counter within five minutes, they could spend their time on self-improvement however they wanted. Personal health management? No problem. Reading? Nothing wrong with that. They’re generally left alone.

Their job was to keep brains alive. When functional failures occurred that Stefanet couldn’t fix through central control, they would manually use the culture medium exchange device to keep the brains in the prison alive.

They were, in a sense, the final guards protecting the brains in the prison from release through death. It was just a sinecure where they’d never actually had to work, but still. She asked first:

“If you have documents to show me, please do so. If not, is this permanent incarceration?”

“Permanent incarceration.”

She briefly connected with Stefanet for communication, then nodded lightly.

Impassivity is a virtue for a guard. Being this detached, she probably doesn’t know whose brain this is.

“Verification complete. I’ll open the door, so please go in and place it wherever you want. You can watch the process through the observation window if you’d like.”

The heavy metal door next to the small counter opens. Four holes shaped to fit brain containers catch my eye. She said wherever I wanted. I pushed it into hole number 3.

That completed my task. The container holding the brain of another immortal of this era enters the interior. The container opens, the brain is transferred to a new vessel filled with fresh culture medium, and sealed.

It’s moved into a library-like interior filled with similar brain vessels, mixing with brains that have no name tags, labels, or electronic tags. The observation window is briefly covered as the mixing continues.

When the observation window opens again… even I couldn’t identify which one was Miguel. Eternal non-stimulation, not even allowed to have clouded consciousness or go insane, is given to Miguel. A fitting result.

After completing the permanent incarceration, the guard headed back to the employee lounge. The very existence of the guard was Belwether’s heartfelt contempt and insult toward the brain prison inmates.

Easy positions tend to be boring. No matter how much they didn’t interfere with self-improvement, it was still a job where you had to find your own motivation to move at every moment.

To put it simply, it was a position where nothing was assigned. Even if you could decide what to do yourself, having to find what to do at every moment is quite exhausting.

That exhaustion and boredom mocked the permanent inmates of the brain prison. Placing someone who experiences trivial and insignificant boredom in front of people trapped in eternal non-stimulation was itself a statement.

I take the elevator again, briefly watch the public service announcements while passing the underground research level, then return to the lobby. That pathetic terrorist’s crime ends here. Eternally ruminating on it is eternally his.

I should have contacted Simon originally, but after being assigned to deal with the terrorist, I thought of someone. The person who put me in this position. For better or worse.

I didn’t harbor much ill feeling. After all, he was the one who gave me my last lifeline. I search for Francis’s contact in my mind and connect the communication. I wait briefly.

“Oh, Arthur. What’s up?”

Francis’s voice was better than last time. Better than when he used to become so timid upon receiving my call, as if seeing something crawling out of a grave.

So I joked a little. Even when I was at Belwether, we got along well. He was a close senior colleague simply because I found him personally comfortable. I remember that fact.

“Ah, it’s been so long since I met someone who doesn’t make Boogeyman jokes when they hear my voice. I just finished counter-terrorism work and thought of you, Francis. This time it was 0 people.”

Francis let out a laugh as if releasing a breath he’d been holding. The very fact that I didn’t blame him must have been a pressure, but it seems to have healed quite well now.

“Right. Originally… you were a ghost who came back from the dead only in my eyes, but now the whole city sees you that way. Yeah, I saw it. Some crazy people tried to start a revolution in the restaurant district?”

That would be the public image. Terrorists causing trouble in the restaurant district getting an LA All-Star treatment. I didn’t mind them becoming a laughingstock.

“Some lunatics were really angry that real lettuce wasn’t in their hamburgers. Anyway, Turner & Tucker are probably talking about me more, so… tell me how you’ve been doing, Francis.”

The skeleton-shaped full-body prosthetic under Ilbelly’s skin became quite a topic. Still, since everyone already knew Ilbelly had a full-body prosthetic, it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Ruiner’s explosives and massacre didn’t become much of a topic. Ruiner was always that kind of woman. Turner & Tucker, for reasons I couldn’t understand, were paying attention to me.

Whenever a blurry figure appeared in any surveillance footage they could get, they’d claim it was the Boogeyman, that the Boogeyman probably killed the most terrorists, acting like third-rate tabloids.

Still, it was superficial interest. They had no interest in who the Boogeyman actually was. They just really liked the scenery the Boogeyman gave them—or rather, never actually gave them.

“Right, they’ve been counting meaningless kill counts all day. Me? I’m just… working as a security manager at a small company. Belwether experience is useful in many places, man.”

Francis wasn’t blacklisted. He simply resigned voluntarily. It probably wasn’t difficult for him to find his place, just as I found mine in Nightwatch.

Except for that one moment of carelessness that lasted terribly long… although he had a tendency to take shortcuts, Francis was a capable person. He’s probably more than qualified for his current position.

Either way, I was glad he didn’t end my life and ruin his own in the process. I didn’t die. I eventually crawled out of the mud and now stand here.

Francis doesn’t need to feel guilty either. I spoke with somewhat genuine sincerity. Not that I was particularly skilled at conveying sincere feelings.

“I’m quite happy to hear you’re doing well. Last time I contacted you… you know? You seemed to be only trying to atone somehow, and although I accepted that opportunity for atonement… it didn’t feel good.”

Francis slowly inhaled, then exhaled with a slight tremor. It might have sounded like words of forgiveness to him. I’m not sure exactly.

“Of course it shouldn’t feel good. I’ve thought several times that if I hadn’t given up my Nightwatch position to you, I might be a four-company certified freelancer by now, man.”

Ending with a light joke was also his talent. We both laughed lightly for no particular reason. It seemed fine to respond with a mischievous joke in return.

“Then I would have become a freelancer certified by one or two megacorporations without any help from my former company. Nightwatch really helped me a lot. I learned both how to live like a human and how to be an excellent mercenary.”

“Ah, I should have asked if two applicants would be okay. If I’d seen that from the sidelines, my guilt might have washed away faster. Well.”

“If you knew Nightwatch was always looking for good recruits, you could have submitted your resume right away. Ah, instead of just communicating like this… let’s meet for a drink sometime?”

I could hear Francis sighing through the communication. After a disapproving clicking sound, his answer came.

“I quit drinking a while ago, man. No, to be precise…”

He trails off, unable to continue. I had some idea what had happened.

“You drank several years’ worth of alcohol in a few months. Right?”

Silence can be taken as confirmation. Just as my path to becoming a four-company certified freelancer wasn’t smooth, Francis’s path to finding his own place probably wasn’t easy either.

“Then, I’ll come by for lunch sometime. A one-hour lunch break with a meal containing no pseudo-ingredients isn’t a luxury for a freelancer, right?”

“You smooth talker. Even if I’m doing okay now, a few months ago… ugh, I was soaked in alcohol even at work. I’m only in this shape because one of the security team office workers scolded me like a dog every time. Lunch sounds good.”

We all meet good people at least once. Everyone gets at least one chance, and every cesspool has at least one shallow spot you can step out from. That was a happy thought.

“Maybe that place was a better choice for Francis than Nightwatch. What’s that security team office worker like?”

“They call it security team office work, but it’s a small company with only three people in security, including her. She probably joined shortly after you entered Nightwatch, an unusual kid. Unusual in the way that…”

Through the communication channel that hadn’t properly filtered out background noise, a woman’s voice began to be heard. She was urging Francis. Scolding him, asking if he was wasting time drinking again.

“This is how unusual she is. Whether she’s from Sin City Dollhouse or whatever. She’s so urgent, as if she’s already wasted half her life, and she makes people’s lives miserable… Aaack!”

There was a sound like someone kicking a shin, and someone with a rather firm voice interrupted the communication channel to speak to me. It was a voice I’d heard at least once before.

“I don’t know who you are, but Mr. Francis Pandy is currently working. If you want to contact him, please do so after 8 PM. Now, hang up, Francis. Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you, thinking you might be drinking again?”

Francis was living well. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one living well. It seemed like a good decision to have deliberately touched on what had felt like a fleeting past.