Ch.336The Supporting Character’s Story – I’ll Have Coffee Again Today, Dave! (1)

Dave Cheezman, the manager of Welfare Division 7 in the Human Resources Management Team at Belwether’s Chicago branch, was once again facing an unfamiliar problem this morning that he needed to solve.

It wasn’t about Chicago city, which was jointly owned by the Nationalists and Belwether. Nor was it about security issues in The Loop downtown. It was a much more personal matter.

The problem giving Dave Cheezman a headache was… memorizing the patches and logos of mercenaries his son liked. Ten years ago, memorizing dinosaurs was bad enough, but now mercenaries?

This dad knows how to shoot a pistol, at least. Dave grumbled to himself. Though it wasn’t particularly pleasant, wanting to share the same interests and topics with his son was unavoidable as a father.

The only one Dave already knew was the Boogeyman. He was an unforgettable freelancer who had delivered outstanding speeches both at the shareholders’ meeting five years ago and at the recent foundation anniversary.

Though that’s probably not why his son thought the Boogeyman was cool. Why do kids love the word “tactical” so much? Dave primarily associated such words with the smell of blood.

Strong people aren’t strong because they’re invincible humans without a single wound. Strong people are always covered in scars. They fought to become strong, and because they became strong, they fought, so their wounds never fully heal.

This freelancer called the Boogeyman must have his own pain and wounds beneath that display helmet. Dave hoped not. The world is better off with fewer people suffering from wounds.

Dave hoped his son would dream of becoming a diligent person who fulfills his responsibilities rather than aspiring to be legendary mercenaries like the Boogeyman or Neonsnake… but such admiration is only possible when you’re young.

So it’s better to admire freely while you can. Perhaps by admiring such exceptional people, one might learn valuable things like compassion or responsibility that come from strength.

Love isn’t about binding, confining, and restricting; it’s about letting go, allowing play, and giving freedom. Dave scrolled through the net encyclopedia pages, scanning the freelancers’ logos.

“So, Boogeyman’s logo is a matte black skull on a glossy black background. Neonsnake is an open-mouthed viper. Shahansha is a sword piercing a crown, and whose is this one?”

Among the stickers Dave’s son had given him was one with a logo shaped like a blood-stained hand. When he searched it through his visual connection, the result was… it belonged to the El Sueño cult.

No, that wasn’t right. The cult’s logo was a bloody fist, while the sticker his son gave him belonged to a mercenary who became a freelancer after leaving the cult. The hand was open, making it different from the cult’s logo.

This is so complicated. Still, now that he’d looked up all the stickers he’d received, Dave finally began peeling them off one by one and sticking them on the outside of his thermos. His son would surely be surprised.

The problem was, Dave had forgotten that his son, who aspired to join the security team, had left early for supplementary shooting practice. He would have to wait until evening to see his son’s surprised expression.

The Welfare Division had quite lenient dress code regulations. Except for the rule about not exposing implants, employees could dress freely, and casual attire was even encouraged.

Most employees who came there were people on the verge of suffocation. Rather than showing them attire that would make them feel more constricted, it was better to help them relax with comfortable appearance and demeanor.

Wearing a knit cardigan to work at Belwether was less a privilege and more a required tactical kindness. Dave needed to appear approachable, and he wanted to look that way.

And when you come to work dressed like that, more people recognize you. The security guard in the building lobby acknowledged Dave with just a glance, and Dave leisurely returned the greeting.

“Good morning, Fred. I’ll be reviewing your mental health records today, so you might want to be a bit worried?”

“It’s not bad enough to worry about.”

Despite Dave’s playful remark, Fred only returned a shallow smile and a brief response. Security team members don’t talk much. They don’t hold their gaze for long either. That’s why they’re reliable.

The Welfare Division 7 where he worked was located in the heart of the building. It felt a bit confined but cozy. Not ideal for counseling, but there were separate counseling rooms for that.

The counseling room had windows covering entire walls, overlooking the interior of the Belwether building that owned half of Chicago. Employees who visited would finally take deep breaths there.

Today, there would be no need to go to the counseling room. Dave’s Welfare Division 7 had to organize the mental health examination records of the branch security team. It was one of the few busy seasons for the welfare department.

Seeing the intern looking somewhat tense, Dave spoke in a manner imitating a character from a treasure hunting adventure film he’d seen on the net:

“Hey, rookie. Why the face? Today we’re going to discover something rare and amazing… namely, a welfare department that’s actually busy.”

The rookie laughed softly at that. In that typical new employee tone, as if he had memorized all of Belwether’s mottos, he replied to Dave:

“If the welfare department has nothing to do, it means everything is running efficiently without us, and if we get busy, it means we can correct inefficiencies, so it’s fine!”

That kind of stiffness in the waist is good, but it would be better to relax the shoulders a bit. The welfare department needed to appear relaxed, which was different from being full of enthusiasm. Dave postponed his lecture for later.

This was an important task at any branch, but especially at the Chicago branch. Given that corporations and the federal government split the city’s management equally, the amount of stress the security team experienced was different.

Chicago wasn’t like Los Angeles where areas of responsibility were clearly divided. The meeting of welfare department managers was likely to be lengthy.

Belwether preferred using incentives. Like calculating additional years of service in Chicago or providing extra promotion opportunities.

Procedural efficiency advocates would prefer rotation assignments. There could be efficiency in rotating employees between difficult-to-manage places like Chicago or Los Angeles and relatively easier locations.

Of course, as a compassionate efficiency advocate, Dave believed that motivation is most efficient when done through positive feedback.

Still, such corporate politics wasn’t Dave’s immediate concern. He had other worries right now.

What worried him now was… that his team members looked tired. While the documentary examination records were easy to review, the issue was with the mind maps of personnel who underwent in-depth examinations.

Well, unlike real mind maps, these were copies… but still, repeatedly playing brain images of stressed people in one’s head couldn’t be good for health.

Even the life response check screen provided to managers seemed to flicker uneasily, so Dave decided to use his secret weapon.

“Well, shall we all have a cup of coffee first? You’ve probably heard this saying countless times: ‘Humans are fragile creatures. Without reward, rest, and safety, they never perform to their full potential.'”

That weapon was… banana mocha latte from the cafe truck parked in front of the Belwether building. Although the banana and chocolate were synthetic, cafes that brewed coffee with real beans weren’t common these days.

Normally, drone delivery would come, but unfortunately not in Chicago. In Chicago, which was split with the Nationalists, delivery drones were prohibited from entering the building. A proper security measure.

The intern stood up as if to go get it himself, but Dave waved him off. He spoke in a smooth tone:

“Sit and wait, rookie. I ordered under my name, so if you go out, the drone will stupidly circle around in the air before returning to the truck.”

Dave decoratively tossed his thermos from the desk, spinning it in the air a few times before catching it. Seeing this, Martha leaned her chair back and said:

“You might want to order a bit later, Dave. I heard the HR team leader’s helicopter is coming in, and if a coffee cup gets knocked over, it would be a disaster. I’d like to extend our coffee break too.”

She wanted to use coffee as an excuse to rest longer. Martha was an excellent IT staff, but she had efficiency issues when not sufficiently caffeinated.

Her eyes lit up seeing the stickers on Dave’s thermos. Self-proclaimed hackers loved freelancers almost as much as teenagers did. Dave still didn’t understand why.

Martha’s job had nothing to do with hacking—she was just a regular IT administrator—but in her spare time, she was a white hat who spent time finding security vulnerabilities in the Chicago branch.

“Oh, wow. Has your son’s taste changed again? I actually like this one. Oh, Dave, did you know the Boogeyman has the strongest hacking defense system in America? They say it’s never been breached.”

A bit of small talk should be fine. Such trivial conversations help replace negative images lingering in the mind with new ones through imagination. It’s efficient. Dave made a disgusted face.

“Stop it, Martha. My son has told me that a million times. I couldn’t understand a word of it though. What does it mean to keep a Medusa in your head?”

“Oh, it’s a nickname. Nickname. I don’t know if it’s true, but some hacker claimed they fought with the Boogeyman and gave an interview to Turner & Tucker. They said they tried hacking but everyone except them turned to stone?”

Without some kind of neurological toxin transmitted mentally, that would be impossible. Dave let out a hollow laugh. When Martha protested, “It’s true!” he dismissed it with “Yeah, yeah. Sure,” just as he would with his son.

Of course, that only lasted until the sound of a helicopter passing by was heard. Hearing the helicopter sound that seemed somewhat hurried, Dave tilted Martha’s chair back again and left the office.

After taking the building elevator down, he gestured a greeting to Fred who was still guarding the lobby. Fred now leisurely returned the greeting. He even initiated conversation:

“Getting that again, sir? That… banana and chocolate flavored caffeine concentrate you always get?”

“If it were just caffeine concentrate, I’d brew it in the office. It’s a more romantic name, Fred. Banana mocha latte.”

“I don’t really get it… but well, if it helps department efficiency. I should try it sometime when I have the chance.”

Perhaps it was natural given that it contained sugar, caffeine, and everything that could give people energy. Just then, a virtual screen alert appeared indicating a delivery drone had arrived outside the building.

After gesturing to Fred that he would go get the coffee, Dave was about to leave the building when suddenly an unpleasant beeping sound started coming from his computational assistant device.

It wasn’t just his. Everyone was hearing the beeping sound from their computational assistants, and red emergency lights began flashing inside the building. It was an emergency situation.

Fred rushed urgently to Dave. Though he seemed to be receiving instructions through his computational assistant, Fred’s voice remained calm. He pointed to the building’s main entrance and said:

“It seems terrorists have infiltrated the building. The branch management AI Amaryllis has detected unregistered mercenaries coming from the HR team leader’s office. Evacuate the building immediately!”

Right after his explanation, an emergency broadcast with similar content began blaring throughout the building. Dave couldn’t understand what was happening, but there was something he needed to do before fleeing.

Using emergency forced connection authority, Dave forcibly connected to everyone in Welfare Division 7 and shouted urgently. There was no treasure hunter pretense, no slickness or smoothness now:

“Repeating evacuation order! Everyone get out of the building! Security is currently searching for terrorists who’ve infiltrated, so the best way we can help is to clear out quickly! I’ll wait for you in the lobby…”

Fred, who was trying to point to the door again urging Dave to evacuate, shouted as if frustrated. It was a stress response. Even in that situation, Dave couldn’t help but think that.

“No time to wait! Wait, hold on. Tell them to stand by at the scene! Amaryllis has located them. They’re coming down here via the main elevator. Security Division 4, prepare!”

Dave couldn’t grasp the situation well. It made no sense that unregistered mercenaries who had infiltrated the building would simply take the main elevator in the center of the building down to the lobby.

Even now, anxious questions were coming through the communication channel. He needed to give instructions again. He needed to tell them to wait in the sectioned areas separated by bulkheads since terrorists were in the main elevator.

But at that moment, Dave’s own voice became inaudible. His auditory assist device had temporarily deactivated his hearing due to excessively strong sound waves and shock waves. That wasn’t the end of it.

The world was shaking. An enormous vibration resonated as if the entire building was shaking, and outside the building, the sky that had been blue mixed with the grayish white of smog suddenly turned white.

The white was momentary. Soon it turned red, and acrid smoke, debris from destroyed buildings, and traces of explosions began to pour down. It was a bomb. Not just any bomb. That kind of explosive power was rare.

Dave rolled on the floor as an enormous dust storm burst through the shattered building doors, but thanks to Fred grabbing him, he barely managed to hold on. Fred shook the dumbfounded Dave.

He gestured several times toward the door, indicating Dave should evacuate immediately, then grabbed his carbine and ran to the elevator. Security team members were already gathering in front of the elevator.

Dave, who had barely regained his senses, checked the life response screen, but his team members’ faces were all in black and white. No life response signals were appearing.

Welfare Division 7’s office was in the middle of the building. If an explosion occurred inside the building, it was in the most vulnerable position. Dave retched even though he knew the most efficient action now was to flee.

The shock of the situation was so great that his thoughts were temporarily delayed, like a clogged sewer. Not just temporarily. As if denial and delay were mixed together, his thoughts remained stiffly blocked while his body crawled toward the door.

What’s happening? What the hell is going on? Where’s my banana mocha latte? Dave mumbled incoherently, but he already knew the answer. A terrorist attack had occurred, and his team members were likely dead.

At that moment, the elevator doors opened behind Dave. Mercenaries, each wearing closed reinforcement suits, stepped out, and although the security division fired armor-piercing rounds at them… it wasn’t very effective.

These mercenaries seemed to be some kind of freelancer equivalent. Their movements were fast and skilled, and… the weapons they carried were on par with any mega-corporation security team. The security division couldn’t hold out long.

Fred, who was taking cover while calling for backup and ordering snipers to concentrate on the lead mercenary, was pierced through both his cover and himself by a slug round fired from the lead mercenary’s shotgun.

Though the life support system was forcibly activated, it seemed unlikely anyone would save him in the next three minutes. The rapid response team… their locker room was also inside the building. Could they come? It was uncertain.

Only then did Dave realize his hearing was turned off, and he restored it. It was chaos.

Heavy gunfire like artillery fire mocked the security division’s struggle, but there were no screams.

The security team fought with one foot in death. One or two holes in their bodies weren’t enough to stop them.

But that struggle seemed futile. The security division alone wasn’t enough. Grenades were blocked by projectile defense systems, and the overwhelming firepower was sufficient to neutralize life support systems.

Then one of those unregistered mercenaries, now terrorists, shouted while slicing a security division survivor in half with a high-frequency blade. Dave heard utterly intolerable words:

“How long are we going to hold onto these corporate dogs? Let’s finish them quickly and escape! These fucking lamb skewer bastards must understand what message this is by now. Tomorrow they’ll know this is revolution.”