Ch.81Aftermath! (2)

#081

-Woooong. Woooong.

As the vibration sound came from his bedside, Dexter’s eyes snapped open.

“I answered the phone.”

Hearing Dexter’s groggy voice, Ximena asked cautiously.

-…Were you sleeping? If you’re tired, I can just tell you tomorrow.

“No, it’s fine. So, did you find out anything?”

-The director must have had some things piling up too. When I told him what you said, he got really angry, saying this might become a bigger issue. Oh, right. I also found out that agent’s name. It’s ‘Zachary Wilson.’

Dexter nodded as he learned the name of the man with the M-shaped baldness.

“That’s good. Of course, the NSA wouldn’t have given any more information than that.”

Zachary had stiffened his face as soon as he heard Dexter was an OSA agent.

Dexter’s actions appeared to him as OSA unofficially protecting William.

Though it was close to being reckless behavior, for the NSA, it was a sufficient threat that implied ‘if pushed, I’ll take out any agent who gets in my way,’ so they seemed to be playing dumb after only revealing the agent’s name.

-That’s right. However, the NSA left a message saying that if they ignore OSA’s warning and approach Pilgrim’s residence or send agents, they’ll take action without notice.

Dexter was impressed by how OSA transformed his angry act of violence into “taking action.”

‘Are they stepping in to prevent this from escalating?’

Though Dexter might take it lightly, OSA is a government department with as much influence as the NSA.

“So, are they actually planning to deploy agents to monitor William?”

-Since official agents would probably draw too much suspicion, they’ll likely use retired agents or informants. Though nothing’s been decided for certain yet.

“Hmm, I see. Please ask them to let me know if anything happens.”

As the matters related to William seemed somewhat resolved, Dexter spoke with a relieved voice.

“By the way, did you work late today because of me? I feel terrible about that.”

-Are we really going to be like that with each other? It’s fine. It was something I had to do anyway, and you can just buy me a meal next time we meet, right?

“Is that enough?”

-Why, are you offering to do something more?

“Well, if that’s what Ximena wants?”

-Oh please.

The sound of Ximena’s laughter came through the speaker.

-I’ll talk to you later then. You really worked hard today, Dexter. I’ll call you from home in a bit.

“Alright, let’s talk soon.”

-Muah.

As Ximena’s call ended, Dexter stretched and muttered.

“Ahhh… Now I can finally get some proper rest.”

It had been another long day.

* * *

Inside a room wallpapered with intense crimson.

Despite being indoors, the person wearing a wide-brimmed white floppy hat was sketching a still life of apples, grapes, and a pear on a canvas placed on an easel.

“This isn’t… working out. It’s difficult, so difficult…”

The person was clicking their tongue while looking at their own painting.

“It’s your first time with oil painting.”

“Still. I don’t think this is what I wanted.”

As the person who had been diligently dabbing the brush on the canvas began shaking their head, the man spoke carefully.

“No. You’ve painted very well.”

“…I’ve only just painted one grape, and you can judge based on that?”

“Of course. Because it’s you… sir.”

“That’s probably just flattery, but thank you.”

After concentrating on painting grapes again, the person spoke as if just remembering something.

“Oh, is ‘that thing’ ready?”

“Yes, it’s prepared. The project manager said it was quite difficult to find such an old model.”

“Shouldn’t something like that be easy to get? Don’t you think?”

“You’re right. If you want it, we should get it by any means necessary.”

“Ah, the black one over there.”

“Here you go.”

As the man handed over the paint, the person squeezed a little onto the palette and skillfully mixed the colors before dabbing at the grape stems while speaking.

“Painting is really difficult, isn’t it? It feels fine while you’re doing it, but when you look at the finished product, it can be disappointing. Crooked lines, strange colors.”

“Though I’ve never painted, I do sometimes get disappointed with results.”

“Yes… With paintings, you can just tear them up and burn them if you’re disappointed, but with work, you can’t do that… can you?”

Though it was casually mentioned, it felt incredibly heavy to the man receiving these words.

“…It will be done as you wish.”

“That’s my hope as well.”

The person picked up a knife placed beside them and swung their arm forcefully, beginning to slash the canvas to shreds.

-Slash, slash!

“…Did it not please you?”

“No, not really. Bring me a new canvas.”

As the man silently cleared away the shredded canvas and prepared a new one, the person washed their brush in solvent and said:

“The serial numbers, they’ve all been removed, right?”

“Yes, they have.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Seeing the person speak in a bored, indifferent manner, the man replied with a stiff voice.

“…Yes.”

“Lately, it seems like I’m constantly being disappointed.”

“I’ll be more careful.”

The person picked up a pencil again and began sketching the fruits placed in front of them.

“I came up with such a fun plan, but it’s frustrating when the results aren’t good, you know?”

“…Indeed.”

The person took a sip of the dark red liquid placed in front of them and said:

“…Shall I try drawing again?”

* * *

-Ring ring ring, ring ring ring.

The phone on the bedside table rang loudly next to Ximena, who was sprawled out asleep on her bed.

“Mmm…”

Still with her eyes closed and brow furrowed, Ximena fumbled around the table and answered the phone.

“Ximena speaking…”

-Agent Libero, are you still sleeping?

“Huh, eh? …What?”

When she heard the voice of the senior agent from the Residence Management Division, Ximena’s eyes flew open and she looked at the clock placed beside the table.

There were still more than two hours left before she needed to leave for work.

Ximena, who had feared she might be late, was startled at first but then sighed with relief when she saw the clock and said in a groggy voice:

“…Aish, what is it… It’s not even time to get up yet.”

-There’s somewhere you need to go as soon as you wake up. It’s a call from the Science and Technology Department. I called early because it’s a bit far, and I’ll send you the address in a message, so please check it.

“Okay…”

Having woken up more than 30 minutes earlier than usual, Ximena tried to lie back down and go back to sleep, but her eyes were wide awake, so she reluctantly got out of bed.

“Ugh… Now I’m completely awake.”

Renata, the housekeeper, had come to Ximena’s condo as usual for work, but seeing Ximena up earlier than normal, she exclaimed in surprise:

“Oh, Dios mío! Te has levantado temprano, ¿verdad?”

“Huh? Oh, why am I up so early, you ask? Sometimes even the sun has to rise in the west, right? Hehe.”

Seeing Ximena’s awkward smile, Renata looked at her disapprovingly and said:

“Ximena, normalmente quiero que te despiertes un poco temprano….”

“Renata, enough with the nagging! Stop it!”

Covering her ears at the suggestion that she should get up a bit earlier normally, Ximena headed out to work, driving toward a wasteland that took twice as long as her usual commute.

Normally, she would go to the office, receive a brief briefing, and then head out to the field, but being given an address and told to go there directly was unprecedented.

“…Why did they tell me to go to this empty wasteland?”

A parade of question marks filled Ximena’s mind until she spotted the OSA’s Immediate Action Team in the distance, and then she nodded in understanding.

‘If the Immediate Action Team is mobilized, this must be something serious?’

Like what Dexter had done, if an illegal entrant attempted a forced landing into the United States, they would deploy with the State Guard who knew about OSA’s circumstances.

But when the Immediate Action Team was deployed to a scene, it was a different matter.

Biological terrorism through spacecraft or when it was suspected that aliens were causing serious damage to Earth’s security, or when the alien making an emergency landing wasn’t an ordinary alien.

‘And when the initial discovery agent determines that the Immediate Action Team’s deployment is necessary.’

Seeing the Immediate Action Team standing guard like the US Army with bulletproof helmets, gear, and rifles, Ximena took out her universal ID from her inner pocket in advance.

Eventually, Ximena drove her car up to the armed agent of the Immediate Action Team, lowered her window, and showed her ID while saying:

“May I enter?”

“……”

When the armed agent of the Immediate Action Team wearing sunglasses nodded, she parked her car next to the team’s disguised van.

The control line, which was as large as a school playground and under the tight security of the Immediate Action Team, consisted of white metal poles with yellow metal chains connecting them to mark the boundary.

The problem was that inside the control line was just an empty wasteland.

When Ximena naturally entered the control line after getting out of her car, a surprising scene unfolded, unlike the exterior.

“You’re here now?”

A middle-aged female agent with silver-white short hair and sunglasses was welcoming Ximena.

Inside the control line, there were many OSA agents.

Besides the agents, there was a crater the size of a small detached house, and in the center of the crater was a smoking spacecraft that had crashed.

Ximena touched her chin, then pointed at the spacecraft and said:

“Do they still use spaceships like this these days? It’s completely different from Dexter’s ship?”

“Girl, how can you compare this old junk spacecraft with the latest spaceship that Honorary Agent Dexter has?”

The crashed spacecraft in front of them was a saucer-shaped UFO, the kind anyone would draw if asked to depict a UFO, classified on Earth as an Adamski-type.

It was an incomparably older spacecraft compared to Dexter’s sleek, latest model V-shaped boomerang-like spacecraft.

In terms of Earth automobiles, it would be like comparing a 1908 Ford Model T with a 2010s seventh-generation Porsche 911.

“But did you call me here because of a crashed spacecraft? I’m from the Residence Management Division.”

Ximena and the middle-aged female agent belonged to different departments.

The middle-aged female agent belonged to the Science and Technology Department, which helped improve OSA’s information gathering capabilities through exchanges with alien engineers and scientists.

“I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t a bit ambiguous.”

“Ambiguous? In what way?”

“Look over there.”

The place the middle-aged female agent pointed to was an ambulance.

The problem was that there was a being inside the car that didn’t match an ambulance at all.

“A robot…?”

“Yes, and an extremely outdated one at that.”

Like something out of a 1950s sci-fi movie, it had a clunky, streamlined gray metal body, and where a head would be on a human, there was a transparent glass cone with a rounded tip.

Moreover, various mechanical parts were visible inside the glass, making it obvious to anyone that it was a robot.

An engineer from the Science and Technology Department was directly fixing the robot’s rusty body, and every time his hand touched it:

[Bzzt… Th-thank you…?]

Though mixed with static, it was speaking.

“My goodness, it talks too?”

“Yes, it seems to be a robot with artificial intelligence installed. Isn’t that fascinating?”

While the middle-aged female agent was talking as if it was truly fascinating, Ximena was racking her brain to understand the true meaning behind those words.

The middle-aged female agent beside Ximena had a habit of expressing things euphemistically.

If one failed to understand her meaning, they might hear the euphemistic expression for ‘Are you such a blockhead that you can’t even understand this?’

In the end, since that statement was criticizing Ximena’s abilities, she combined the reason she was called here, the identity of the robot, and the work her department did to reach a conclusion.

“…You called me because it’s a robot with intelligence, making it neither alien nor human, right?”

“Yes, make a judgment for us.”

As the middle-aged female agent winked and spoke, Ximena nodded and said as if she had no choice:

“…I’ll try.”

Ximena, who had to speak to a robot that was neither alien nor human, approached the robot in the ambulance and said:

“…Hello?”