Ch.323Work Record #046 – Operation Chair Takeover (5)

No freelancer receives their license without reason. Until now, I’ve been the one proving myself to others, but now someone is trying to prove themselves to me.

The S-Enter freelancer tried to push Dean away, timing it with the breaking of his high-frequency blade, but Dean was faster in extending his leg. Then, his jump jet burst, pushing the freelancer toward me.

With my feet firmly planted on the ground, I draw my ceremonial sword as Dean taught me. I swing it in a precise arc… only to be blocked. What blocked it? A high-frequency blade. The stub of a blade remaining on his wrist.

My enjoyment increases. Seeing him twist the remaining blade to completely twist my ceremonial sword away, I simply let go of the sword. I catch the handle of the ceremonial sword as it spins freely in the air.

I drive it straight down. The tip of the ceremonial sword pierces through the neck of his reinforced suit. The smell of preservative fluid begins to dissolve into the air. The ceremonial sword I pull back out is stained blue.

His arm movements become noticeably sluggish. It would be more appropriate to call it remarkable that he’s still moving his arm even after being impaled vertically through the body starting from the collarbone.

Though he chose the wrong place to apply his tenacity, he clearly possessed it. A chillingly strong tenacity. I can see his eyeballs moving frantically inside his reinforced suit helmet.

He’s looking for a way out. After contemplating for maybe half a second, he found his answer. He has the advantage in weight over me. And he’s an enhanced human who can certainly generate speed. He immediately comes at me with a tackle.

But there was a problem. He wasn’t in a condition to move his arms properly. About half of his strength was being provided by the reinforced suit, not his own power. I need to time this right.

He aims to feint a body charge and switch to a tackle at the last moment. His timing for changing posture was perfect, but due to his recent injury, his arm couldn’t move as quickly as he thought.

After throwing the ceremonial sword upward, I grab his wrist with one hand and throw him against the wall with a light spin. I catch the falling ceremonial sword and drive it down into his head as he lies on the floor.

After pulling the ceremonial sword out of the concrete floor where it had embedded, I grip the handle and twist it lightly to completely destroy the computational assist device and brain. I shake off the gray matter stuck to the sword.

It was the weakness of preservative fluid that I learned from Serena and T-Enter’s patent department. Even with denaturant injected, the total blood volume doesn’t change. With a wound large enough to impale the body vertically, physical abilities aren’t preserved.

Thanks to that, Serena had to move with a creaking reinforced suit rather than her body, and the patent department guy who initially didn’t allow any effective hits gradually became sluggish. The S-Enter freelancer was even simpler.

I lightly jump up and approach the two hackers known as the Eileen twins. They begin speaking simultaneously. I agreed to listen to their questions while Aegis stands guard.

“J-just tell us one thing. So…”

“Yes, just one…”

After hearing only that much, I slice precisely at the height of their computational assist devices with my ceremonial sword. The twins collapsed simultaneously, and only then did I answer. I was willing to listen to their question, but had no intention of letting them hear the answer.

“You chose the wrong employer.”

Personal feelings… I have many. They overflow. If they hadn’t chosen the wrong employer, if they had paid more attention to Belwether News… there would be all sorts of “ifs” and all sorts of different possibilities.

That’s why it’s personal to me, and personal to them. Death is always like this. I won’t deceive. I killed them because of my personal judgment and purpose. I accept the sin.

Dead Eye, who had been sitting with weak legs, follows us while trembling at the series of massacres that occurred in less than a minute. Now only the High Priest remains. Only the High Priest.

We climb up to the ground level through the passage that the freelancers were guarding. We start running along a high passage, like a skyway, overlooking the city within the barrier. Outside the passage, I could see Bill.

“I… I know that not all of you have experienced freedom. I don’t know whether it’s more painful to have your freedom taken away or if it’s a greater tragedy to never have experienced it at all. But…”

And I could see the Inquisitors roaming the downtown area. They seemed to be physically destroying the hologram projectors broadcasting Bill. Bill was doing his job very well.

In the sky, surveillance drones fly around like flocks of birds, and amid buildings that all seem to have similar heights of ten to thirteen stories, as if there was a height restriction… only in the center stands something tall.

The First Temple. It’s their Vatican, the waters where my Moby Dick dwells… a place where I need to hold tight to the rope tethered to the ground. I came here only to kill someone with murder skills and murder weapons.

There is no sublimity. Only desire. No meaning, only desire. No morality, only enjoyment. Chance flies over and hands me Hubris, reloaded inside the equipment drone. I take it and lower my stance.

I pull the trigger of Hubris in a posture like sliding along the floor. The smell of ionized air, like a sterilized metal cup, spreads as the tungsten projectile pierces through the door at the end of the passage.

I throw Hubris back to Chance’s equipment drone, push off the floor to stand up, and start running again. I cross a span of history where my Eve suffered with my own two legs. I kick open the door.

Inside stood the High Priest and his Eves. This is the first time I’m facing him directly. I saw an old man in a reinforced suit that mimicked a muscular, perfect body, just as I had seen in Tisha’s photos.

His hair had mostly fallen out with only a few strands remaining, and the flesh of his eyelids had sagged so much that it was hard to tell whether his eyes were open or closed. But his voice was still alive.

The Eves rush toward us, and amid this, the High Priest shouts angrily as if we don’t exist, as if his only opponent is Bill who created this Hollowed Creek.

“If there are ghosts in Hollowed Creek, they are ghosts you created, foolish and weak founder! With God on our side, why can’t the Inquisitors, with God at their backs, remove even one ghost!”

Bill, who was watching from outside, or at least positioned to appear so, looked at him with pity and began to speak. And his words became the strongest justification.

“We are people who endlessly struggle to stand on the Lord’s side, and you are someone who hopes that whatever god you serve stands behind you, John. That’s the only difference.”

God is an ideal. Efficiency is Belwether’s god, and Jesus and his Father and his Spirit are Bill’s god. They look to that god like the North Star and move forward. But the High Priest alone sits in place and calls out to god.

It doesn’t matter what god one serves. Only faith matters. To change the world, one must be able to believe in the god one has created—good yet evil, and incomparably imperfect.

I turn the control lever to fully automatic and scratch away the Eves rushing toward us. The Eves hit by heavy armor-piercing rounds try to stop, but Dean is also spraying them with flechette submachine gun fire.

And at that timing, music starts playing in my head. Because communication is no longer necessary. The goal is clear. The method is simple. Dean and I are just doing what we’ve become accustomed to one more time.

Mia’s voice begins to sing. Under intense guitar riffs, her clear voice cries out love until it cracks. The perfect song to listen to right now. Everything originates from love and returns to love.

Because I loved Belwether, I felt melancholy about the coup at the Los Angeles branch and its aftermath. All Gardner did was help Serena confess her love to the city she so adores.

Chance and Prometheus loved humans so much. They loved us—so imperfect, unstable, and selfish—so much that they tried to create new ways for us to live again. This too is love.

And Marcus Cavendish showed that even this love can have its core rot miserably to weakness, fear, and cowardice. Diversity is sweetness.

I’ve also met countless people who have lost love. Mr. Günter and Dean were people who were very different yet similar. Still, with Dean, I was able to have sincere and honest conversations before it was too late.

The High Priest finally begins to look our way with a hateful expression, his gums squelching together with barely any teeth left. It seems one can still produce an angry voice even without teeth.

“Blasphemy! Bill wouldn’t have done such a thing without something to believe in, but to put people in a place where God dwells. Before I strike down divine punishment for that, I’ll hear you out. Who are you?”

“You’re just another tyrant in an age where reality can be censored and truth can be manufactured. No different from you. The funny thing is, there are only two differences between us.”

I pull out the brick I received from Mr. Günter long ago to fill this hole that has now appeared. It’s always more accurate to borrow someone else’s words to define oneself.

“I’m stronger than you, and unlike you, I got here with my own hands without taking from others. That’s the only difference, John.”

Dean’s ceremonial sword begins to leave neon sign-colored afterimages as it twirls, and my ceremonial sword shakes, shaking off the preservative-mixed blood on it. The High Priest’s reinforced suit looked just like a cathedral.

Made with European technology, it maximizes the advantages of a reinforced suit that reduces mass, with a white robe like papal vestments and additional armor plates, yet it moves as lightly as if he were moving with his bare body.

“You think you can face a relic from the war era with such bravado! Choir, fry that guy’s computational assist device. Don’t kill him. Your god wants it.”

The copies that had been filling the High Priest’s room like background begin to attempt infiltration. But they’re all coming at me. Aegis’s voice is heard.

“Parallel infiltration detected. Learning about new devices. I’ve determined they’re close to humans used for computation using brain-computer interfaces. Beginning counter-infiltration. Generating image.”

There have been many who claimed to be gods, but at least the gods of the Extinction War era were much closer to being gods than the High Priest. Aegis continued reporting in an emotionless voice.

“Image has been transmitted. Recording the effect of the Gorgoneion protocol’s brain-computer interface on new devices. Recorded.”

As soon as those words ended, the copies, which normally made no sound, began making noises at will. Choking, screaming… vomiting blood, starting to convulse. A scene from hell unfolds.

Dean and I didn’t exchange many words. As if it were natural, Dean jumped in first, and I caught Hubris, which Chance had reloaded with a new round and thrown from the drone’s spring.

The machine gun attached to the High Priest’s reinforced suit shoulder began firing at Dean, but Chance’s equipment drone appropriately blocked Dean’s front, taking the bullets. It delivers Dean right to the High Priest.

The High Priest’s body was certainly light. Even wearing that massive reinforced suit, he was skillfully parrying Dean’s sword strikes. It would have been too boring if he were someone who could be easily assassinated with a high-frequency blade.

Though his body moves like that, his neck seems to have no strength left as his head moves around inside the helmet. It’s a grotesque sight. Grotesque to the point of being unpleasant. I aim Hubris.

As if sensing that I’m aiming from behind, Dean makes a big slash and jumps back with his jump jet, taking cover behind Chance’s equipment drone. I squeeze the trigger.

One of the High Priest’s arms and shoulders was blown off, but his body remained intact. There wasn’t even blood coming from the cross-section. The High Priest’s torso must be inside that reinforced suit.

I pull out the battery pack and throw it away. While inserting a new battery pack and pulling the bolt to load a new tungsten round, the High Priest rushes toward me with one arm on the ground.

Normally, colliding with that much metal would cause severe injury even to someone like me, but since the High Priest is wearing something with reduced mass, the impact won’t be great.

Because it’s neither overwhelmingly massive nor has it completely given up on mass, its speed isn’t transcendentally fast due to the awkward degree of weight reduction.

I can track it easily with my eyes. After lightly twisting my body to avoid it while holding Hubris upright, I finish loading Hubris. I start charging. What would Dean do in this situation? Simple.

He had been in front of Chance’s equipment drone until now, and he also knew that my Hubris could easily dismantle the High Priest. He would try to buy me time, and Chance had the best tool.

I lightly jump back to avoid. In my field of vision, as I distance myself from the High Priest who crashed into the wall and immediately bounced back, I saw an armor-piercing grenade passing through the edge of my vision. As expected.

The High Priest made a surprised sound, but only people like me and Dean could track that armor-piercing grenade with our eyes. The embedded grenade burrows in and explodes. I hoped the High Priest wouldn’t die.

Still, the arm hit by the grenade was definitely severed. I could see that arm rolling in front of me. The arm was clearly made of something like cables, but looking at it now, it was flowing almost like a liquid.

I approach the High Priest, watching leisurely as another relic of the Extinction War fades away. I pull the trigger toward the leg that’s trying to stand up, supporting the body with only the torso after losing an arm.

With the smell of ozone that pinches the nose, another leg flies off. Now with only one leg left on the reinforced suit, the High Priest… couldn’t escape. There was no one left to help him either.

After throwing Hubris into the equipment storage drone controlled by Chance, I approach the High Priest, who has blood flowing from his forehead. I grab him by the nape and slowly pull him out, like extracting the meat of a sea snail from its shell.

Did I become a bit arrogant to compare it to real food? I tried sea snail at Pier 39 when I went to meet Mr. Günter. It doesn’t come out well if you just pull; you have to grip deeply and extract it following the shape of the shell.

A weak and miserable old man’s body, a body that had aged naturally without any implants despite being similar in age to Mr. Günter, is pulled out in my grasp. I wasn’t curious about his story.

Now I turn off the music. It was for conversation, but not with the High Priest. Sensing his end, the High Priest began to speak. Ignoring him, I spoke to Dean.

“So, the throne is yours now. If there’s anything you want to ask…”

“Dean, can I borrow your submachine gun?”

Now that the battle is over, I remove my helmet and show my face to the High Priest. His voice continued, but I paid no attention.

“Besides showing your face, you must have many questions for me! Like where I got this reinforced suit, or about other technologies from the Extinction War era…”

“What are you going to use the flechette for? Didn’t you bring something to catch him?”

I nodded with a light smile at Dean’s words. He wasn’t paying attention to the High Priest either.

“I want to show some respect to our old man who said he wanted to be a god. I don’t have nails, and the closest thing to nails is flechettes, right?”

“Can’t you hear me! If you end this by imprisoning me as I did to Bill, don’t you know that I could be of help to you someday, you fool who’s trying to kill me!”

“That’s certainly true. Should I nail him up there?”

Dean nodded toward the edge of the dome-shaped ceiling where a religious painting was engraved. Ridiculously, it depicted the High Priest himself crucified. I burst into laughter at Dean’s words.

“Ah, shit. That’s hilarious. Aren’t you embarrassed by that? Honestly, calling the copy hackers a ‘choir’ was cringeworthy too. Fine. I’ll nail him up there.”

I take the submachine gun Dean throws me, and lightly throw the High Priest toward the dome ceiling. At the last moment, he might have said something like ‘Wait, wait,’ but… I didn’t really care.

I aim at the ceiling and fire the large-caliber flechettes. The flechettes pierce through the High Priest’s two wrists and overlapped ankles, making him exactly crucified on the blasphemous religious painting he had drawn himself.

Chance’s equipment drone approaches, and from inside it hands me the only weapon that uses neither gunpowder nor power. It was a 100% titanium steel harpoon. I slowly recall the memory of learning how to throw a harpoon from Mr. Günter.

Don’t grip it too short. Spread your legs slightly to firmly plant your feet on the ground, and throw not just with arm strength but with your entire body weight. Remembering the method, I slowly take my stance like a religious ritual.

I look at the High Priest, who is nailed to the religious painting with flechettes and struggling wildly, with strength coming from who knows where in that aged body. Slowly, I recite that verse.

It wasn’t perfectly the same. All of my hatred, or most of it, is directed at him, so I needed different words than what Mr. Günter whispered to me.

“Whale that only destroys, never conquers… I charged at you, fought you to the end, and overcame you.”

Since you tried to take one person’s life, I will take one life in return as fair revenge. Being careful not to get drunk on sweetness, I bury my hand deep in the sugar jar of revenge and scoop out the sugar.

I slowly savor the sweetness of this moment. The meat of the whale called god was sweet. Was his blood and flesh sweet? No. Then what feels so sweet? I get my bearings.

What’s sweet is that I can now put down my hatred. What’s sweet is that I no longer need to leave my Eve in Los Angeles and work for a month at a time to prepare for this.

What’s sweet is not killing him, but that there will be no more sighs behind my Eve’s smiling face. What’s sweet is that my Eve will no longer pity the people of Hollowed Creek.

I decided to remind myself one last time. This harpoon is a murder weapon. I killed many people with murder weapons and murder skills to get here. I have shouldered it. Now it’s his time to shoulder it.

“So now, I leave this harpoon, you, and immeasurable hatred… and that hateful breath here, in this hell made for you. Forever.”

After finishing that one line, I threw the harpoon at my Moby Dick exactly as I had learned from the old Ahab. The titanium steel harpoon, made by a master’s hands, flies through the hellscape of screams, convulsions, and pain.

It slows down gradually. That harpoon pierces through the histories contained in that space—not even a span when seen from the sky—and moves forward. It brushes past all the idols I’ve destroyed and swims toward the final idol.

And then, back to reality. The titanium steel harpoon head, designed to burrow into the flesh of prey, completely shattered the High Priest’s head, turning it into a handful of organic waste. It pours down from the ceiling.

Because he wanted to be the crucified one, I made him the crucified one. The footage of the High Priest’s end, broadcast by Chance’s drone, begins to spread throughout Hollowed Creek.

Now… I wanted to go home. I wanted to hold my Eve in my arms and talk about places we want to go, things we want to do, foods we want to eat, or issues like buying a new house or a new car.