Ch.322Work Record #046 – Operation Chair Takeover (4)

My heart races. I truly feel alive to the absolute limit. Everything will be fine. I’ll make sure of it.

If tomorrow refuses to come, I’ll beat it into submission and drag it here. If the world is full of tragedy, I’ll carve out all that tragedy and leave only the core that I desire.

I feed, nurture, and continue to feed my childish desire for happy endings, for the happiness of everyone I love, for the absence of misfortune.

Now that desire has gained power. As soon as the shareholders’ meeting ends, I bow my head in greeting to Mr. Günter, who connected me with the Panacea Meditek representative who contacted Belwether.

Mr. Günter has done far more for me than I’ve shown or proven to him. I’ve never felt my back too stiff to bow to someone like him.

“I’ll drive from here to Hollowed Creek at three hundred kilometers per hour and start right away… I’ll have those cheese snacks you like ready and waiting. You know that, right?”

Mr. Günter breaks into a broad smile. There was no sound of beasts howling, no sense of abnormal vitality in his eyes. He simply had the eyes of a father watching his son on the verge of achieving his dream.

There’s no better way to describe it. There were so many rich emotions contained within, seeming to take on different hues with each passing moment. I return his broad smile with equal joy.

“Of course I know. Yes. I look forward to it. Will you be alright without any help from me?”

“Using training wheels is only necessary the first time, right? Though I say that, I haven’t done much with just my own abilities—I’ve just used others’ help at the right moments.”

No cradle lasts forever, so every bird must learn to fly. That wasn’t just for Noah. It applied to me as well.

“Ha! Treating the Chairman of Belwether’s help like training wheels. How impertinent. I wonder who you take after. Well, go on then. Give it your all.”

The car I rode here wasn’t designed for traversing wastelands. I take it outside headquarters to set it for automatic return to Los Angeles, then mount the bike Chance brought here.

I ride at top speed. The surrounding scenery flashes by, replaced by the repetitive landscape of the lightless wasteland. It would take three hours at this speed to reach Hollowed Creek, but the wasteland wind is refreshing.

After riding for about two hours, I arrive at an unmanned outpost created by my Eve and other brokers for Hollowed Creek escapees. Silverlining was waiting there.

Dean was fully equipped, and Sera had finished preparing for net connections… Brandon seemed to be today’s designated driver. Dean throws me combat gear as I arrive in my formal suit.

I put on the black outfit made of bulletproof fabric. With this body I’m wearing, it should provide sufficient protection. I put on the Boogeyman helmet over it.

The cult leader may not fear the darkness. But he should fear what hides within it. His death, dragged into darkness, will be neither fleeting nor glorious.

All of this is for my Eve and far too many women like her, far too many similar people. As I change into my black outfit, Dean also throws off his fur coat and puts on body armor over his bare skin.

The problem was that he wore what looked like a 150-year-old stunt rider jacket over it. It was a custom piece in dark gray with an open-mouthed viper embroidered on the back.

There must be craftsmen somewhere in the world who make such clothes. Otherwise, there’s no way to match the design of snake-scale shimmering black pants, a bulletproof helmet with scale texture, and that jacket.

“Killshot, what about music?”

“Music?”

“What, you work without listening to music? In situations like this, you need something, man. Pick the most awesome song you know!”

While saying such nonsense, Dean gathers a flechette submachine gun and grenades without fragment casings. Dean Ramos puts on the Neonsnake’s skin.

He probably wouldn’t have wanted it originally, but now he was doing it happily enough to look for music. Dean seemed to be enjoying this situation more than anyone.

It was a situation he should be happy about. He had conversations with those who could be reasoned with, and was on his way to slaughter the madmen who couldn’t be reasoned with. In some ways, this was positive.

I place additional equipment, and most importantly, my harpoon, in the equipment drone connected to Chance, which could also serve as mobile cover. I had used it during my work as a Gardner, and it had proven useful.

As equipment checks finish, I think of an answer to Dean’s frivolous question. If I’m talking about singers I really know, there’s only one. Or maybe two would be more accurate.

“Then… ‘Illuminating an Age Without Love’ by a singer named Amelia Valentine. It’s indie alternative rock, but…”

“Indie in this situation?! And what an amazing genre! No need to hear more! Sera, play it now!”

I should have remembered that Dean was obsessed with indie music, independent films, and all things hipster. A voice that was like Polaris’s but not quite hers flowed through the communication channel.

Hearing Mia’s voice singing alternative rock should be considered fortunate, but I can’t help but smile seeing Dean who turned up the volume and was pretending to play air guitar.

He stomps his foot once and nods his head, as if to show he likes hearing the voice of Polaris from when she still believed in love and hope. He throws his ritual dagger to me.

What he has now is my ritual dagger. I take his clean ritual dagger and throw him mine, still smelling of blood. Dean twists into a coil of neon afterimages, then tucks the ritual dagger at his waist.

“Good. Great atmosphere. Great music. Great people… Perfect! Arthur, as I’ve said many times, we can’t decide what’s right. Yeah, history is too stupid to decide that too.”

I tuck the ritual dagger, wiped clean of blood, at my waist. I had thought about hearing these words face to face with him before, but I never thought I’d be hearing them standing as comrades rather than enemies.

“There’s only one thing we can do. Since no one can know good from evil or black from white, we push forward with what we believe. We’ll be the ones pushing through until tomorrow. Right?”

“That’s right. And stop there. After that, you’ll just be raising death flags one after another. Better to break away from clichés, right?”

“Ha! Break away? You’re listening to rock music with a katana in one hand, a mercenary trying to assassinate a megacorporation chairman and kill a megacorporation, Killshot! Seems like we’re already drowning in clichés, samurai.”

I burst out laughing at his words. It seems I’ve been influenced by Dean. There was nothing in his statement I could refute.

“Ah, damn. Can’t be helped then. Let’s go make those clichés classic.”

I ride alongside Dean, speeding through the wasteland at three hundred kilometers per hour. Though it’s my first time visiting Hollowed Creek directly, I could already guess the city’s atmosphere at a glance.

The last bastion of religion. That description fits perfectly. A city surrounded by massive walls, so high that even the edge of the sky can’t be seen, begins to appear at the edge of my vision.

And I see someone outside the city walls. It’s Deadeye. Wearing the Grand Inquisitor’s enhancement suit, much more elaborate than a regular inquisitor’s, he watches us approaching from the horizon.

We haven’t been betrayed. He loves the name Deadeye more than the name Adam. He wants to be someone other than just one of the Adams. Even the cult leader can’t stop that desire.

We dismount in front of the underground passage door used by Hollowed Creek’s inquisitors. Hearing him swallow nervously as he holds an enhancement suit rifle instead of a flamethrower, I turn off the music briefly and speak.

“Why so cautious, Deadeye. It’s Ahab. This is Neonsnake. A colleague who’ll help with the job. How’s the cult leader?”

“Well… fuck, I don’t know what’s going on… He’s been furious for hours after hearing what came out of the Belwether shareholders’ meeting. He seems to be trying to contact Belwether somehow, is that okay?”

This is an ideal situation. Too many things were happening for the cult leader to handle. The situation is perfect. The opportunity is in my hands. I just need to grasp it.

“Good. Will you come in with us or wait here? It might be dangerous here. We’re going to break through the S-Enter freelancers and go straight to the cult leader, so they might escape this way.”

“W-what are you saying? I’m coming with you. I don’t want to be here if you guys get fucked, and I don’t want to be here in a Grand Inquisitor suit if Hollowed Creek gets fucked. Both options suck.”

“Ha, that’s true. We’ll move fast, so keep up as best you can. Did you see the cult leader’s guards on the way in?”

I pull back the bolt of Hubris, load one tungsten bullet, then push the bolt forward to chamber it. Deadeye pushes a virtual screen toward me.

“They’re all gathered at this security vulnerability. That’s three hackers and three assassins, and the hackers are using some strange program. They said it’s S-Enter special…”

Dean naturally interjects. As a freelancer with extensive experience in the entertainment industry, he would certainly know the characteristics of each company.

“Must be that eye implant burner. Those guys are famous for creating no-recording zones where you can’t even turn on eye implants. Sera can block it on our side. What about you, Killshot?”

“Aegis, activate Gorgoneion protocol. That’ll work for me. Since Aegis is an AI that can’t initiate attacks, I’ll take the lead. I just need to make them try to infiltrate me.”

A Medusa’s head drawn with crude fractal shapes appears in my vision before naturally dissipating. The Medusa’s head is engraved on the Aegis defense confirmation icon that appears on my HUD.

“Good. Sera, upload Bill to the Hollowed Creek main system. Give him city management AI privileges. Then Bill will handle the diversion. We’re going in too.”

I run into the underground passage, hiding my footsteps. My vision shows the positions of the S-Enter assassins that Deadeye roughly captured. Deadeye didn’t know how to hide his footsteps, but that worked out well.

I can feel them reacting to the sound of someone running from far away. But in this dark and winding passage, they’ll miss something if they try to locate by sound alone without determining position.

They’ll miss me, running much faster than Deadeye who’s making his footsteps thump loudly, without making any sound. I track their position by leisurely listening to their footsteps. They were misjudging the distance and running toward us.

I stop in place and signal Dean to stop using my voice module. Deadeye was still running toward me. I charge the pre-loaded Hubris. I wait, leaning against the corner.

A freelancer in an enhancement suit misjudges the distance and jumps out from around the corner. Though his gun barrel and body came around the corner together, that’s not enough. He should have seen the invisible too.

I pull the trigger on Hubris, and the tungsten bullet begins to fly at a speed it has never experienced before, propelled between the overcharged rails. It pierces the freelancer’s head, then through the underground passage wall, finally embedding itself in the ground.

Instead of reloading that bolt-action railgun, I throw it into the equipment carrier drone controlled by Chance and draw out only Small Evil as I rush in. Aegis’s voice begins to sound in my head.

“Abnormal access attempt detected. This is an infiltration method I’ve encountered before. According to the Gorgoneion protocol, I’m creating an image containing visual neural network collapse mechanisms. Transmitting now.”

Without stopping at those words, I run around the corner. I trample over a hacker who is bleeding from every orifice in his body, convulsing in pain. Sera’s voice comes through.

“Bill. Upload. Complete. Those guys. Good skills. While. Hacker’s. Neural network. Exploding. Sent. ‘Never look.’ Message. To colleagues. Still. Message tracking complete. Just listen together.”

Sera’s skills were certainly far superior to Kay’s, who had only broken through Belwether’s security system once. A voice from the communication channel being tapped in my head comes through. What I killed wasn’t the freelancer himself.

“Fuck! Retreat for now and ask the cult leader bastard to send more support! Judging by that recoil, it’s a railgun. Eileen twins, can you figure out what happened to Sia?”

The handling is clean. Though that fact being heard makes it useless. What they called the Eileen twins wasn’t a meaningless term—two voices answered simultaneously.

“Something that works visually. The body Sia is wearing now… is screaming. Since there’s no threshold for pain, she’ll continue suffering like that if left alone. Until she dies of shock.”

“They say support is impossible. Seems there’s a problem on the surface too. Apparently the cult leader’s image suddenly appeared in the middle of the city and started preaching to people. It must be an organized infiltration. At least ten people.”

I advance, imagining what expression they’ll have when they discover there are far fewer than ten of us. Deadeye, now realizing his footsteps were being used as bait, deliberately made more noise as he ran.

“Wait. I can hear footsteps now. Judging by the weight, it’s an enhancement suit, probably that Grand Inquisitor who just left. Could it be that Adam?”

“Impossible. That Adam couldn’t possibly have knowledge of net programming.”

“Calculation. Actually, there’s a high probability he’s a collaborator. How else would they know how to get in here? It’s like a maze.”

I speak only in my head through the voice module at my neck. Deadeye needs to hide my body. If they’re calling him a collaborator, it would be strange for Deadeye to be alone, so I send Deadeye forward.

‘Deadeye, take the lead. We’ll hide behind you, so just create an opening for those guys. Then Neonsnake and I will handle it. Don’t get hit too much. That enhancement suit isn’t as sturdy as it looks.’

It could probably block small-caliber firearms well enough, but it would be easily neutralized if the gaps were targeted with a high-frequency blade. That’s the consequence of Hollowed Creek not being a military corporation. I follow behind him, using his bulky enhancement suit as cover.

I match my walking speed to Deadeye’s steps, advancing in a lowered posture. Whether it was meant to be ceremonial or not, Deadeye’s enhancement suit had a cape and emblems attached, providing more than enough space to hide.

After passing through a long corridor like that, we come to a small hall-like area. The claim about it being maze-like wasn’t a lie—tunnels leading to various places were connected haphazardly. This must be the Heresy Inquisition Hall.

Despite its grand name, all that filled this space were displays of the cult leader covering the walls and surveillance drones flying around. Deadeye stops right in front of the passage.

Deadeye had quite good courage. As if trying to hide us, he spread his arms and started speaking as if he couldn’t understand the situation. Still, his acting skills weren’t excellent.

“What the hell is going on! Damn, from my first day as Grand Inquisitor, what kind of shit is happening…”

Before he could finish his sentence, another mercenary dropped from the ceiling of the inquisition hall and began strangling the neck of Deadeye’s enhancement suit with something thin like a wire. His act had been discovered.

If I had passed through the corridor, I would have checked above, but now Deadeye was blocking our way right in front of the passage, preventing us from going out. He was probably trying to hide us, but it was a misjudgment.

I wondered what was wrapped around his neck—it looked like a black, elastic cord, but it easily penetrated the gaps in the enhancement suit. It was trying to cut through the soft parts completely.

It’s a cutting wire. Of course, it can’t actually break molecular bonds, but such items often boastfully carried the name “monomolecular wire.” There was nothing to fear.

Whether Deadeye lived or died here had no bearing on the success or failure of the mission, but still, I hoped he wouldn’t die. I make eye contact with the mercenary who was trying to come around behind after wrapping the cutting wire around Deadeye’s neck.

She tried to escape immediately with cat-like flexibility, but it wasn’t enough to evade Small Evil. I squeeze the trigger of Small Evil once. Three holes arranged in a triangle are punctured in the assassin’s chest.

As she tries to take a couple of steps back before collapsing, I emerge from behind her and take out a flash grenade I had stored in the drone controlled by Chance. I throw it and walk straight out without taking cover.

A membrane comes down under my eyelids to block the light from the flash grenade exploding at close range, and my locked equilibrium organ doesn’t waver from the blast.

I immediately try to aim Small Evil to fire, but the other side wasn’t a freelancer for nothing—their reaction was good.

That S-Enter freelancer, as soon as something came flying, immediately grabbed the twin hackers standing behind him and threw himself backward. True to their judgment of an organized infiltration, they immediately began scattering grenades.

But Dean’s response was faster. Among the fragment grenades that should have scattered fragments evenly, Dean’s caseless grenade flies in and detonates first. The incoming grenades detonate in a chain reaction.

Since the explosion started from our side, the blast had directionality and spread toward where they were. With grenade damage minimized, Dean draws his ritual dagger and charges through the smoke.

I circle around to widen my field of view. After assessing the situation to see if there are other assassins threatening Dean, I aim Small Evil at the freelancer who is barely blocking the ritual dagger with a high-frequency blade drawn from his enhancement suit’s wrist.

The armor-piercing round penetrated the outer shell of his enhancement suit, and the blade attached to his wrist was gradually cracking, unable to withstand the ritual dagger… but he didn’t fall. The blood flowing out was the color of preservation fluid.

Veterans of the entertainment industry’s assassin wars, whether mercenaries or employees… never fail to impress me. I was so delighted that a natural smile escaped my lips.