Ch.42Work Record 008 – Case Files of Two Detectives (4)

“Even if you lose the command vehicle, prioritize the safety of employee-citizens, Offliner. Undertakers can be caught next time, but dead employee-citizens cannot be restored.”

It’s always refreshing to hear the Assault Section say such things. After switching my bike to autopilot to our destination, I drew the revolver from my waist.

“Understood. What are the engagement protocols?”

“No explosives except for explosive rounds for your revolver. That’s all. For the company and its employees and shareholders, engaging in combat.”

A warning about a sharp curve appeared on my visor’s UI, then the bike on autopilot turned at the minimum angle necessary to avoid throwing me off as it rounded the corner. Ahead, I could see the van from the CCTV footage.

I heighten my senses to maximum sensitivity. I hear everything clearly, from the hum of the electric motor on my bike to the smooth sound of the revolver sliding out from my waist. Unnecessary sounds will be filtered out.

But then, I heard a breath. Behind a car on the opposite side of the van. I turned my head as the armor-piercing explosive rounds fired by Bull Terrier Four lightly penetrated the armored exterior of the command vehicle and detonated.

Bull Terrier Four might be better than me in every other way, but in one thing I’m superior. My natural senses are far better than his. The most he’d be wearing is a Posthuman Type III.

I aimed my revolver loaded with armor-piercing rounds and turned around. If Bull Terrier Four hadn’t warned me, they weren’t armed. Without taking a deep breath, I shouted:

“You, behind the car! If you’re an employee-citizen, stand up with your hands raised! This is Belwether Company’s transport operation zone! If you don’t stand up, I will fire!”

Bull Terrier Four could detect all armed personnel in the vicinity. I didn’t know how. He could detect them even though undertakers mostly used unregistered firearms. But he hadn’t detected this one.

From inside the van came the sound of a revolver-fired explosive round detonating. No need to worry about Bull Terrier Four. In response to my words, someone quietly began to rise from behind the car. They were holding a pistol.

Should I shoot? No, no. If I needed to shoot, Bull Terrier Four would have already detected them. If Bull Terrier Four hadn’t detected the weapon, it probably meant it was legally owned.

What if the undertakers had taken a weapon from a passing employee-citizen and were now holding it? I had about half a second to decide. There was a smell. The smell of blood. Which was right?

The van was already being destroyed by Bull Terrier Four. Neither he nor I would be harmed by a single pistol shot. I could take it with my body. I decided not to shoot. The woman who stood up with the gun tapped her weapon.

Her reaction was strange. Why couldn’t she speak? Between her shimmering lips, medical staples were embedded. Her mouth was sealed. She began to move the pistol she held with both hands toward her own head.

It was a hack. Her full-body prosthetic had been paired with someone else. I immediately holstered my revolver and raised my carbine, pulling the trigger at the gun in her hands. The gunshot echoed like artillery fire. My senses were too acute.

One bullet went through the pistol, and the second bullet precisely pierced the back of her hand, but it was a prosthetic. The woman convulsed, but no blood flowed. It was just neural feedback.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she nodded vigorously. It seemed her face hadn’t been replaced with prosthetics. If it had been, there would have been no need to staple her mouth.

The car Bull Terrier Four shot at must have been empty. The undertakers must have known they were being targeted, so they deliberately exposed themselves and placed a hacked civilian nearby.

“Bull Terrier Four, it’s probably an empty car. There’s an employee-citizen whose prosthetics have been hacked. Please prepare for electronic warfare and locate the hacker!”

I heard Kay’s voice in my ear. Bull Terrier Four also seemed to be listening to Belwether’s IT manager’s voice, as he placed his hand on his visored helmet.

“The transport team is fine! I’m picking up tons of abnormal access attempts near you, are you okay? Signal detected 70 meters ahead! I don’t know the height though… I need to cut communication! Remember just one thing. Anything that sparkles is a trap!”

I looked up. With the eyesight of a Posthuman Type IV that doesn’t need targeting assistance, I gently strained my eyes to zoom in. I could see a faint light on top of a commercial building.

“I can see a light cluster on top of the commercial building. Bull Terrier Four, have you located the hacker?”

Bull Terrier Four cut the communication and spoke with his mouth toward his helmet. The van had already been blown open from the inside, so there was no worry about eavesdropping.

“Found one at 70 meters, another at 280 meters. If they know we’re here, they can deduce that the transport team has changed routes. I’ll handle them and redirect the route. I’ll take the one at 280 meters. I’ll leave the hacker at 70 meters to you. Confirmed?”

I also cut my communication and replied. I might even need to remove my visored helmet, but I didn’t have a bulletproof helmet. This was exactly why analog was sometimes better.

“Confirmed. I’ll reconnect after handling it!”

Can I trust Kay? She said anything that sparkles is a trap, but what if it wasn’t? By eye, the light on top of that commercial building seemed about 70 meters away. Should I trust or distrust?

I decided to trust. Anything that sparkles is a trap. 70 meters ahead. The entire commercial building was 70 meters ahead. Kay was only uncertain about the height. The only floor with unreinforced windows was the fourth floor.

Instead of getting on the bike, I ran on the asphalt. The bike would take time to reach zero to sixty, but not a Posthuman Type IV. I drew my revolver again, ran, and lightly jumped up.

There’s a peculiar tingling sensation when briefly parting with gravity. I grabbed the upper frame of the reinforced second-floor window. I pulled myself up lightly and threw myself upward. I grabbed the upper frame of the third-floor window and climbed up again.

Only the fourth-floor window, and only one window, remained unreinforced. Without Posthuman Type IV eyesight, it would have been hard to see in the darkness.

Height couldn’t be determined by position tracking. The hacker probably saw me suddenly running up and stopping in front of the building. The only trackable item I had was this visored helmet.

I removed my helmet. It was a crazy move. But the hacker would know I was an Offliner… and wouldn’t expect me to remove my helmet, so it was a decent strategy.

I threw the removed helmet in a gentle arc toward the building’s roof. Not knowing the height, I threw it in a high oval to make it look like I was slowly entering the building. I heard a voice from inside the window.

Kay wasn’t lying. The hacker wasn’t at the light on the commercial building roof but here on the fourth floor.

“Good. The one coming my way entered the commercial building. He’ll be heading to the roof, so we can buy more time. Make the Assault Section run in circles too.”

Even if he knew I was an Offliner, there was one thing he wouldn’t expect. I was an Offliner who could jump several meters vertically and climb a building floor in one leap.

The helmet would soon fall on the roof. There was no time for quiet infiltration. I pulled myself up, then punched the unreinforced glass window. Glass shards shattered and scattered sharply.

I caught a small piece flying toward my eye with my left hand. I entered the building and followed the direction of the voice. Inside was… a hacker with long hair.

This one also had a full-body prosthetic. Cyan-blue skin that wouldn’t come from human flesh, and cybernetic implants embedded all over the skin. An augmentation addict. One of those modified people with only their brain remaining human.

Worse than the Vola. I heard the sound of servomotors working, and a hand replaced with sharp metal skewers flew toward my neck. They had started preparing as soon as I broke the window. A veteran.

“Viva Santa Muerte, you kebab bastard!”

It was an upward strike using accumulated elasticity, but it wasn’t that fast. This was an enhanced body that could spot an unreinforced window in the middle of the night and see bike wheels turning.

With my right foot as a pivot, I slightly twisted my body to dodge, then aimed my revolver at his head. I pulled the trigger. His face only now began to show panic.

I knew I had missed. Now the hacker’s brain would send commands down the wired nervous system to move the body. But it was too slow.

The trigger had already been pulled, and in the instant the command to cover his face was issued, the explosive round began to fly. The panicked expression hadn’t even faded yet. The round embedded in his forehead and exploded.

I watched it head-on. One hacker eliminated. Behind his blown-apart head, I saw medical staples. So that’s what he used. The employee-citizen was probably free now.

I wiped off the debris that had splattered on my face. He died in a miserable state because he was an undertaker who killed criminals to save criminals. That’s all. I sighed at the wretchedness.

No matter how much of a criminal someone is, a horrible sight is still horrible. No matter how much training I’ve had to become desensitized, my humanity hasn’t run out. The misery was unavoidable.

But there was no time to rest long. I holstered my revolver and drew my carbine. I turned the control lever to full-auto and began searching the floor. After finishing the search, I went to the roof to retrieve my helmet.

Nothing unusual except for a security guard’s corpse at the entrance to the stairwell. I closed the eyes of the guard who died without even seeing it coming, his neck pierced by a metal skewer. My hatred deepened…

There didn’t seem to be any other undertakers in the building. I went up to the roof, saw the amateurish trap of Christmas lights with a battery attached just to make them sparkle, and retrieved my helmet.

I put on the helmet and connected to the communication channel. Bull Terrier Four was already connected. He spoke first.

“Have you handled the hacker, Offliner?”

“Yes. There’s one employee-citizen casualty. Seems to be the building security guard, killed by the weaponized hand of the hacker’s full-body prosthetic.”

There was hatred in Bull Terrier Four’s voice too. The security team’s duty was to protect employee-citizens living in Los Angeles, and the hacker had made him fail in that duty. That kind of hatred.

“Fucking bastard… I’ve issued a route change order to the transport team. The administrative team at Belwether will handle the casualty as a corporate funeral. Today is a transport operation, so we won’t engage with the remaining undertakers. Understood?”

It couldn’t be helped. Over the communication, another gunshot rang out, and the sound of human flesh exploding was heard. It was a confirmation shot in the name of venting frustration. Even the Assault Section isn’t always rational.

“I understand. But instead…”

“No need to worry, Offliner. A capture operation will be assigned soon. We’ll arrest them all and turn them into this era’s immortals.”

Wouldn’t that just create more undertakers? I thought briefly. Very briefly. Even if we killed them, the remaining gang members would still interfere with Belwether, just without wearing the undertakers’ black hoods.

“If we deal with the undertakers who get lured in by those guys, the undertakers will gradually decrease. Let’s meet again at the split location.”

“Confirmed. We’ll complete the operation after joining at the changed route.”

His voice returned to normal after having changed when entering combat mode. I went down to the fourth floor, gave a brief Belwether-style salute to the security guard whose eyes were now closed, then jumped out through the open window.

There were no cars running on the asphalt road as this area was designated as an operation zone. I ran back to my bike.

Bull Terrier Four hadn’t returned yet, so I approached the employee-citizen lying on the ground with her power cut off. The source of the blood smell was the stapler pins forcibly embedded in her lips. I carefully removed them one by one.

It was fortunate that Posthuman Type IV was skilled at precise repetitive tasks. Before long, the staples were removed without causing further injury. Once her mouth was free, she spoke, forgetting her pain.

“Thank you, thank you so much! I knew Belwether would come to save me. When my body moved on its own to aim the gun, I thought it was all over, but you realized I was moving against my will and didn’t shoot… Oh, no. I won’t keep you with my thanks. You’re on duty, after all.”

“You’re welcome to thank me. I’ll request support for you from the agent who came with me. Please wait a little longer. The abnormal connection is completely cut off, right?”

She nodded her head, the only part she could move. After tidying up her limbs that had fallen haphazardly due to loss of power, Bull Terrier Four arrived. He placed his hand on the side of his visored helmet to communicate, then said:

“Sorry you got caught up in this. I’ve called for support and an ambulance. Estimated arrival time is less than 3 minutes.”

After finishing those words and giving another nod, I followed Bull Terrier Four back to the bike. Trusting Kay had been the right choice. Trusting is better than not trusting. Was Belwether’s creed proving true? I couldn’t tell yet.

I rode the bike to join the transport route where the undertakers hadn’t arrived. Without undertakers, the brain transport vehicle smoothly and quickly crossed the road and entered a street full of Changcheon’s drones.

The black-coated curtain walls concealed the interior. There were no people on the street, only rifle-equipped drones patrolling the area. This was the typical atmosphere near Changcheon’s headquarters.

Afterward, I watched a man walk out from Changcheon’s headquarters and briefly discuss the transport process with Bull Terrier Four, then saw thirty brain prisons being removed from the transport vehicle and disappearing into the headquarters.

The operation was now complete. The door of the bulletproof van opened, and President Yoon gestured. After returning the visored helmet to Bull Terrier Four, I returned to the van. Kay was still triumphant.

“See? I was right, wasn’t I, Offliner? Hackers don’t hang around with sparkly things! Only Christmas trees do that! Or gaming keyboards!”

So typical. If this smug expression is an act, she’d be better suited as an actor than a mercenary. I let out a laugh of disbelief before saying:

“It really was just a bundle of Christmas lights with a battery attached. Thanks for the support, Kay.”

With just one word of praise, she puffed out her chest and preened, and I returned to the night watch. I could trust her once, but that doesn’t mean I could trust all her lies.

The van arrived at the night watch, and as Kay tried to escape home again, I briefly stopped her. She spoke in that smug tone again:

“What, you’re not going to buy me a drink to thank me for today, are you? As someone said, I’m not a degenerate hacker but an IT manager, so I should get back quickly for tomorrow’s work!”

“No, I’m planning to get a house near that apartment complex, so I wanted to ask Kay, who seems to have lived there a long time, to explain the local geography. You’re not likely to come out of your house in the morning, right? Plus, having a Posthuman Type IV escort you home is something to brag about everywhere, isn’t it?”

Her fluffy hair swished like a tail, and Kay deliberately added a sparkling effect to her artificial eyes. With a mischievous smile, she said:

“If that’s the case, I welcome it! Follow me! No one knows the inside of the apartment complex better than I do! I’ve even climbed utility poles to access the internal CCTV network!”

It was clearly a crime, but she didn’t seem to care. Was this irresponsible attitude how she had penetrated even Belwether? It was the first time I felt both dismay and suspicion simultaneously.