Ch.279Work Record #039 – A Pointless Dinner Appointment (5)

The probability of successfully turning the tables on Mr. Günter through bluffing… honestly, I couldn’t think of any. If it were the usual Mr. Günter, that is.

Now I see a thread of hope. He wasn’t the embodiment of rationality I had perceived him to be. He was human. He only appeared supremely rational because all emotional circuits except hatred had been burned away.

Additionally, he saw in me fragments of the era before that war. He was seeing the vivid colors of a time when people could create something better and fix problems.

This is… a vulnerability. He revealed it because he trusted me. I feel guilt rising, like tripping a righteous father by his only uncomfortable ankle. I willingly shake it off.

What does it matter if he’s like a father? Or a mentor, or someone who saved my life, or a compass for my life, or someone I admire—none of that matters at all.

His teaching, above all others, was to be bound by nothing. I won’t die choking on the teachings of someone who taught me not to be bound. Exploiting this vulnerability here is following his teaching.

Did I feel any guilt after killing over a hundred and thirty people at Madeleine’s Lot? I feed fuel to a mind that had been living too humanely for a while. I smell gasoline burning. I start to pick up speed again.

I willingly continued speaking. My voice was… honestly, I’m not sure. It wasn’t difficult to hear the howl of a beast in someone else’s voice, but it was hard to tell if my own voice was human or not.

“You probably don’t have complete information about Operation Prometheus, do you, Mr. Günter? It’s such an old operation… and considering its purpose, there probably wasn’t much information to begin with.”

“You speak as if you know more than I do, Arthur. Yes, my information isn’t complete. But I’ve definitely confirmed one item—that it uses a communication network with almost no risk of external exposure.”

A communication network with almost no risk of exposure. If the mutant connection network Mr. Günter mentioned actually exists, it could be called that. But the reality was certainly different.

The simple command communication network between drones had no risk of external exposure. More precisely, no one would bother to access it. If it were commands from humans to drones, many would be interested.

Prometheus intended to operate by controlling only the isolated drones from that war period. A few low-level drones were captured by Cheoncheon Robotics, but even they couldn’t figure it out.

If even Cheoncheon Robotics, the most skilled at handling drones, couldn’t get a clue… then it was probably safe to say it was nearly impossible for others to detect.

“It did use a communication network with almost no risk of exposure. Originally, it had the highest authority in the nationalist internal communication network, and after that disappeared, it used the drone command network.”

“Source?”

“Chance. I keep him turned off when talking with you due to concerns about eavesdropping… but if I had to name the person I talk to most, it would be Chance.”

“I certainly didn’t reset his cognitive circuits when he was given as a reward. Is there a possibility of deception? The nationalists who knew Chance had been recovered wouldn’t have left such authority intact.”

I naturally pull out work records from the Madeleine’s Lot massacre, when I worked with the nationalists and saw their true faces. It was fake data created to cover up that work.

Now was the time for composition rather than testimony. I learned how to create scenarios by watching over shoulders at Heroism & Hope Company. Plausibility doesn’t matter. What matters is whether someone wants to believe it.

“In typical insidious nationalist fashion, they left Chance’s authority intact to try to find Prometheus through him, since he was the most recently recovered and most actively functioning normally.”

This isn’t true, but it’s something he wants to believe. However, if every story flows exactly as one wishes, people soon grow bored. They start questioning the narrative. I needed to twist it here.

I needed to draw attention with something uncomfortable. I had to naturally transition from the story of insidious nationalists to the story of a child who chose a path different from his own. I spoke casually.

“Still, I discovered it first, so I gained an information advantage. I used that advantage. I dug up information starting from the name Prometheus. If you ask what for…”

“For yourself, of course. You’re trying to build up your rank somehow, and the nationalists wouldn’t refuse at a time like this.”

Mr. Günter spoke with an ambiguous voice that suggested both disapproval and approval. I willingly nodded.

“That’s right. So I built connections with the nationalists… but I didn’t really trust them. They weren’t trustworthy when it came to Prometheus.”

“You never contacted me, Arthur.”

“I wasn’t sure if Bellwether knew about Operation Prometheus, and if what was hidden there was the flame from that war era… I thought it would be best if it didn’t fall into anyone’s hands.”

Now the subject of conversation had completely shifted to me. Everything was my judgment, and I alone had delved into everything. That was enough. It needed to appear as if only Mr. Günter and I were facing each other.

“Actually, it was a bit different. Chance, the nationalist, said the flame shouldn’t go to the nationalists, and I, still a Bellwether person, said Prometheus’s flame shouldn’t go to Bellwether.”

This should be a convincing story. Because… it’s true. I mix truth with lies. Or the opposite. I create a fake that everyone can be satisfied with. I repeat. That’s enough.

Mr. Günter nodded bitterly. No matter how much he hated the nationalists, in this high-speed era, Bellwether was the entity most resembling the federal government.

“You acted wisely, Arthur. So, it was near Los Angeles?”

“Yes. I traced back the entity that gave orders to Chance. The transmission source was that abandoned nationalist military base. They had classically hidden a secret door under the carpet in the library.”

“It wouldn’t have been the main entrance. If it was a place to contain such a thing, it would naturally be a top-grade bunker, and would have needed management personnel… It’s more likely they created emergency evacuation passages throughout.”

It was exactly as Mr. Günter predicted, without me needing to add anything. I let Mr. Günter speak instead of me. People don’t contradict their own words.

Now it was time to return to the subject. I leisurely pointed out an overlooked aspect.

“The fact that facilities for those management personnel remained is much more concrete evidence that the purge wasn’t carried out perfectly than the suspicion that mutants might have created a communication network with their abilities.”

Since this was Mr. Günter’s own conjecture, I didn’t need to think of evidence to refute it. At times like this, I feel like a matador. The thrill of handling the bull is immense.

“I went in, met Prometheus… and found out why Operation Prometheus hadn’t been revealed externally. The facility’s power plant had exploded once. Prometheus was damaged too.”

This was also true. But it was also a lie. If asked which part was a lie, I couldn’t answer… but it was certainly not the truth. I had merely glued separate facts together.

“Prometheus was almost broken. Its communication module was damaged, and its power module was barely functioning. That’s why it couldn’t contact the nationalists.”

“It’s… yes, it’s plausible. Fission reactors weren’t used that much, and not many people would have paid attention to where they were installed.”

I naturally turn on Chance. I lend my voice to Chance and make him speak. Chance, who must have been listening to our conversation so far, began to speak leisurely.

There’s an old prejudice that artificial intelligence cannot lie. And for an AI with a blunt manner of speaking like Chance, that prejudice is even stronger.

But I had made a promise with Chance. We promised to end everything by receiving Prometheus’s fire and extinguishing it in my grasp. I kept my promise. Chance will keep his.

“This artificial intelligence’s recognition of voice information was not incorrect. I revise my answer. I have something to say. I confirm. Agent Arthur Murphy destroyed the Prometheus drone.”

“Did he destroy only the Prometheus drone?”

“Negative. After neutralizing the Prometheus drone by destroying its artificial brain, he successfully erased Prometheus’s fire completely from this era by physically destroying the internal storage device.”

Chance lied like that. For me, all of this was to persuade Bellwether to abandon Hollowed Creek and choose Panacea Meditech, but Chance had his own purpose.

Even the purge is a trace of that war. Even Bellwether’s mutant hunting, even this era with its irrational fear and phobia of hope, were traces of that war. Chance wanted to erase that.

That’s why he presents a well-crafted truth. It was a story Mr. Günter wanted to believe. I made my own choices. He might not approve of them, but they were conclusions I reached entirely by my own will.

And regardless of whether he liked the process, the result was excellent. If the Prometheus drone was erased, that’s a welcome development for him. It was for his entire generation that feared that war.

“Let’s go to the helipad, Arthur. I need to see it with my own eyes to believe it. If it’s true… well, mutants are no longer important.”

Mr. Günter didn’t need to have a compassionate view toward mutants. He could hate them as much as he wanted. He could hate the things that caused his trauma, without any excuse, person to person.

But when the pretext of Operation Prometheus disappears, that hatred becomes personal. It becomes part of Mr. Günter’s history, not the flow of the times. That was enough. It’s a compromise with reality.

Following Mr. Günter to the penthouse helipad, a silent helicopter with four chairman security team members was already waiting. The infamous and renowned hammers of Bellwether.

This was a sign that the matter was becoming impossible to resolve by force. I could be a jester here, but not a warrior. Even Mr. Günter was wearing Type 4.

The silent helicopter takes off. From Los Angeles to Bellwether was about an hour and a half by plane. It wouldn’t take long by helicopter to reach the federal government military base in the nearby wasteland.

As soon as the helicopter arrived overhead, the chairman’s security team jumped down, and only after securing the area did the helicopter land. I naturally disembark. It was a place I had visited many times.

Mr. Günter quickly noticed my familiarity with this place. No matter how much I could control the conversation this time and insert my own story instead of the truth, Mr. Günter was still Mr. Günter.

“You seem familiar with this place, Arthur. You’ve been here many times, not just for the operation.”

There was no need to lie. Using this place as my repository of culture was a fact I didn’t need to hide.

“Prometheus’s fire was already extinguished, and Chance wanted me to be more cultured. Conveniently, there was a large paper book library inside the base, which is rare in this era.”

Mr. Günter burst into laughter. He seemed to think it was typical of me. The reason I could build up my culture was mostly thanks to Mila, who was familiar with literature, but there was no need to reveal that.

“If what you destroyed was really Prometheus… yes, I’d want to eat breakfast while looking at Prometheus’s corpse every day too. Still, you should be careful about information contamination.”

“The nationalists didn’t value literature enough to repaint classic literature for propaganda, did they?”

I move on with a casual joke. In Mila’s memory, who was born before that war, literature was always literature.

As I had said, I open the bunker entrance hidden under the carpet in the library and lightly jump down. Going inside… I inhale the now-familiar purified air inside and call out lightly.

“It’s safe to come in! It’s quiet with no one around, as usual.”

Even though it was a nationalist military base, it was in the middle of Bellwether-owned land. The nationalists wouldn’t touch this place. Soon Mr. Günter jumped down too.

Mr. Günter, whose body was over a hundred years old but maintained youth, or at least vitality, through Panacea Meditech’s rejuvenation procedures and enhanced body, jumped in without any hesitation or restraint.

After clearing his throat as if the purified air itself was unpleasant, he looks around. This is beyond the reach of his intelligence network. He too had to rely on his thought process enhanced by computational aids.

The corridor is wide. It’s designed for something larger than humans to pass through. It incorporates the architectural style used in military bases and bunkers from that war era. It was definitely a secret bunker from that war period.

Following the elevator, I first head to the shooting range. After showing him the traces of the storage device destroyed by my grenade rifle… we head even further down. To a place where only emergency lights flicker.

There’s a gloomy smell of death everywhere. It’s the smell of cremated bone powder in urns, cremated without a crematorium in the bunker. It contains Mila’s beloved parents, but that wasn’t important to Mr. Günter.

What was important to him was the sight of the Prometheus drone standing with its head half-destroyed. To him, it would look too broken… and as if I had shown no mercy to that broken thing and killed it.

This was Mila’s idea. To make it obvious to anyone why Prometheus’s artificial brain was destroyed beyond repair.

“More verification will be needed, but…”

Beginning with a negative statement means the content of the words will be positive. The expected words follow.

“Yes. It’s convincing enough, Arthur. A drone I’ve never seen before, managed by the Secret Mission Bureau, in a secret nationalist bunker. Good. I’ll consider it.”

It was the best answer I could get right now.