Ch.283Work Record No. 040 – Faith Alone (3)

Mr. Enzo naturally went to test the module, and soon a connection request came through the communication channel. There was no way that the presence of a freelancer he had smuggled in would have gone unreported.

I connect the communication channel. A slightly reproachful voice came through, but there was no real animosity. It wouldn’t be wrong to say it was somewhat of a welcoming expression.

“Ah. Where are you sneaking around, Boogeyman? If you were planning to come here, you should have given us a heads-up. Then the field staff could have skipped the identity verification process.”

I decide to use this as a bridge. From casual greetings, I naturally shift the conversation topic to the information I received from Mr. Enzo. I spoke using only the voice module.

“Fitts & Morrison has been moving quite secretively these days too. Even though I may not be a Fitts & Morrison certified freelancer, we’re close enough that I received a Calliope module, yet you didn’t say a word?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you pretending not to know? Last time you only demolished the Dollhouse, but now I hear you’re trying to bring down the entire Strip. There’s no way I wouldn’t know about that.”

I turn my head at the feeling of being watched. I wave at the CCTV camera pointed at me. I also give a light wave to a Lobster who is rushing toward me.

He stares at me with an expression full of confusion. I didn’t deceive him by shrugging as if nothing was wrong. Important information had leaked out.

“Talos would like to meet you, Boogeyman. He’d also like you to disclose your source of information… No, I mean, he’s not trying to interrogate you, but… you understand, right?”

I relay to Mr. Enzo that something seems to have come up, exchange brief goodbyes with him as he gives a relaxed, comfortable smile, and head toward the back of the exhibition hall. I don’t know much.

But James doesn’t know how much I know. The reason I always maintain an information advantage is simple. Everything is extremely personal, and the world has no interest in my personal life.

From within the darkness, cameras with three lenses in each eye light up and look in my direction. A matte black body emerges from the shadows. I greet it with a slight nod of my chin, and a sigh comes back in response.

“Who told you? You’re not stupid enough to try hacking into Fitts & Morrison’s servers. You must have an informant…”

“Seeing that you followed me here, I’m guessing the Las Vegas Strip didn’t hire me for the job, right?”

That alone is reassuring for Fitts & Morrison. It would certainly be unpleasant to have the opportunity to deal with things that have been constantly irritating them be disrupted by a mere freelancer.

The Talos cyborg’s eyes scan me up and down. Would the bolt-action railgun slung over my shoulder, being a Fitts & Morrison product, help me score some points? Certainly not.

“It seems to me that you’re hoping Fitts & Morrison will hire you, Boogeyman. Isn’t that right?”

I toss and catch a small mine-like device I took from the brainwashing booth at the exhibition hall, flipping it like a coin. Time to bluff and turn the tables.

Recalling that the last person I did this with was Mr. Günter… it might be a bit rude to say, but the fact that my opponent is Mr. James McKerney isn’t that much of an obstacle.

“How do you think Hollow Creek—that disorganized mega-corporation full of employee oppression that only revolves around the chairman’s desires—has survived until now? There must be a focal point.”

A very unstable focal point. A deity needed a veil. A veil of mystery was needed to hide the parts that weren’t mysterious, weren’t ideal, weren’t beautiful, and weren’t trustworthy.

But the cult leader didn’t have that. He merely packaged his tricks, using technology from the extinction war era, under the name of mystery. That’s why it’s an unstable focal point.

But even that unstable focal point was enough to build a city of fanaticism that had continued since before the extinction war. I subtly suggest that the makeshift focal point I could create might do the same.

“And the Las Vegas Wasteland can’t bring down the Strip because it lacks that focal point. Is it because the gangs have perfect division of labor? That’s impossible. The wasteland gangs have everything to gain…”

“And nothing to lose but gray dust. Why rely on gangs? No matter what, they’re just uncontrollable riffraff.”

“Because that’s the most natural scenario. Even other mega-corporations with non-aggression pacts with Fitts & Morrison would be confused, right? Whether this was Fitts & Morrison’s doing or just… something that happened naturally.”

Poverty doesn’t make people kind. It either makes them work harder or hate the rich—one of the two. But if all that effort still can’t make them rich… all that remains is hatred.

Therefore, it was obvious how much the Las Vegas Wasteland gangs would hate and fear the mega-corporations—successors of the same criminal organizations that they themselves could never hope to match.

“And while I don’t know the exact details of the agreement, I doubt the conclusion was ‘Fitts & Morrison will launch a full-scale invasion to take the Strip and just hand over operational rights to someone else.’ It would have been much more roundabout.”

James looks at me with his triple lenses as if testing me. His voice is purely synthetic, but reading his emotions isn’t that difficult.

“For example?”

“For example… if some incident occurs that changes the Strip’s ownership, Fitts & Morrison would have priority bidding rights for various business licenses. Isn’t that right?”

It could mean they’d turn a blind eye to whatever happens, but probably not to that extent. It means they’d overlook actions that Fitts & Morrison could distance themselves from if necessary.

I decided to take James’s silence as affirmation. Then, I consider what religion might be prevalent in the wasteland… especially in what used to be just north of Mexico before the war.

“Then all that matters is the appearance. There’s bound to be at least one fanatical gang that worships Santa Muerte… and making fanatics believe in a new god isn’t that difficult, is it?”

Belwether employees were efficiency fanatics, which is why some were swayed by Walter’s slightly corrupted version of efficiency. Love or hate, anything excessive tends to ruin things.

It wasn’t an implausible story. Finding morticians who believe in Santa Muerte wasn’t difficult at all in Los Angeles. In the wasteland, it would be even easier.

“You don’t seem to know much about the Las Vegas Wasteland gangs, Boogeyman. Am I right?”

This isn’t something I need to bluff about. Occasionally not bluffing makes the rest of your bluffs more credible.

“My connections are mostly in the city, not in that gray dust-filled wasteland. That would naturally improve if I could work with Fitts & Morrison.”

I decide not to harbor the meager hope that Fitts & Morrison couldn’t think of what I could. They must have considered the gangs too… and are either looking for a focal point or haven’t found one yet.

Following my suggestion, James ponders for a while before offering a name.

“There’s Los Soñadores. They are—or rather, were—Santa Muerte fanatics. But they seem to be growing tired of a deity that no longer protects them.”

Living in LA, one becomes familiar with at least two of the three common languages from pre-war America. Being close to what was Mexico, I could speak some Mexican.

I believe it was originally called Spanish, but the pre-extinction war federal government wasn’t on good terms with the European Federation.

As a result, the term “Mexican language” had become more common. To the federal government, Mexico was a domestic region, while Spain was just a part of the European Federation.

Anyway, Los Soñadores… it means “The Dreamers.” Isn’t that too warm and cozy a term for a gang name? It would be foolish to expect them to be as gentle as their name suggests.

They are still a gang, still criminals. What matters is that they are fanatics losing their faith. Faith is like a watercourse. The object of faith is the direction.

Water that has lost its direction doesn’t immediately lose its power. There will still be a whirlpool, swirling in place without a path forward.

From what I’ve seen of Hollow Creek… if a new channel is opened, that whirlpool will become a powerful current. Some might notice the dissonance, but it’s not something one or two people can stop.

This is what I learned at Belwether. Günter created Belwether’s efficiency doctrine, but now that doctrine designs itself. Even Günter can’t stop it anymore.

So, small details can be gladly ignored. As I listen to James, I add substantial weight to what was originally an empty plan. Now James was taking a serious interest.

“Still, it would take a few months just to start the investigation. And that brainwashing device… it’s not even pre-war technology, so it would take considerable time and the performance would be crude.”

I’ve always been curious about what America looked like just before the extinction war. The arrogance to name their creations after gods—arrogance that wasn’t entirely unfounded.

But it certainly wasn’t a good place to live. Even if we believe they developed the technology for space exploration… it clearly wasn’t a society good enough to avoid misusing that technology.

They created idealizers from humans, used those idealizers to oppress people… and eventually tried to slaughter those idealizers like cattle. They must have truly believed themselves to be gods.

“Actually, the blurry images it produces might be more helpful. If it inserted clear videos into their heads, they might question anything different from those videos, but blurry images don’t have that problem.”

If someone appears matching those blurry images and, true to their name as Dreamers, brings to life the scenes they saw in their dreams, they will call those blurry images divine revelations.

“Still, you’d need at least three or four months of preparation. As a freelancer, shouldn’t you be taking immediate jobs to build your reputation? Why try to get involved in something so unclear?”

“Because it’s about killing a mega-corporation, isn’t it? I’ve never been afraid to challenge things beyond my limits. I just want to see if I can do it. And if I can, I want to do it well.”

It was an exemplary statement, but it probably didn’t sound that exemplary. It’s not because I don’t know my limits. James must have seen some persuasive elements and possibilities in my words.

He spoke with a somewhat guarded voice.

“At first, you might need Fitts & Morrison as training wheels, but it sounds like you want to ride without them from the second time onward, Boogeyman.”

“Isn’t it always enjoyable to be able to do more? And… humans are beings who enjoy things. If we can enjoy something, we will. Don’t you agree?”

He can easily see that there is absolutely no intention to deflect in my words. He looks at me for a moment before turning his head away in apparent disgust.

“It’s mind-boggling how both your casual demeanor and this current attitude seem equally natural. There aren’t many people like that these days… Enjoyment, huh? That’s the most unpredictable thing.”

“Isn’t it actually the easiest thing to follow? I don’t want anything special. I just want to spend a simple daily life with someone I love. Preferably safely.”

“Are you saying that what I’ve heard so far isn’t ‘I want to try killing a mega-corporation,’ Boogeyman?”

I shrugged playfully at that. There was no need to ramble about the chair-stealing strategy here.

“If I become a more capable person, if I become someone who can do more things, then I’ll be able to handle whatever unfortunate events might occur. I’m just continuing to add a little more.”

“Haa. Let’s say that’s true, and I’ll report to the higher-ups that there’s a suitable freelancer for uniting the Las Vegas Wasteland gangs. By the way, what kind of blurry image would inspire religious fervor?”

It needs to show an overwhelming presence that doesn’t even allow for doubt. Something overwhelming… and overwhelming in the Las Vegas Wasteland would be… rain.

The smell of rain, and rain pouring so heavily you can’t see what’s in front of you—overwhelming, but lacking visual impact. A lightning strike would provide sufficient visual impact.

Now meaning was needed. Comparing to natural phenomena and creating overwhelming visual impact was important, but to appear divine, all these actions needed to seem like they had hidden meanings.

So… rain pouring down, with lightning momentarily illuminating the Las Vegas Strip might be enough. It would be a promise of salvation. A message that all the land they could see would be theirs.

“Whatever it is, we need something that shows the Strip. In this fake temple plan… the ultimate goal is the Las Vegas Strip, right? We need to show that clearly.”

If I were to do this… at the very least, I’d want to share some meaning of an enjoyable life with those gang members and criminals too. I would show them what Las Vegas was originally—a city of joy and celebration.

I would tell them I’d turn it from a city of depravity represented by the Dollhouse, breeding people addicted to cheap dopamine pleasures… back into a place everyone could truly enjoy.

The important thing is to give the Dreamers a dream. A city where everyone smiles happily seemed like a pretty good dream.

I decided to imitate the person I dislike the most, just as I did when dealing with T-Enter’s assassins.