Ch.83The First Twilight of the Idols – Los Angeles Melancholia (3)

Silence filled Walter’s office. It was filled with people who had different purposes but no reason to share them with each other.

This time, the air was nearly frozen due to the branch manager wearing proper reinforced armor covering up to his chin, and the Special Ops agents with full-body mechanical enhancements surrounding him and guarding the door.

The power players of Los Angeles arrived one by one into this space. The Shepherd and the Legal Assassination Team Leader were first. The Legal Assassination Team Leader stood in front of Walter, while the Shepherd leaned against the door. The reinforced armor was his excuse.

They knew they would betray each other, yet they smiled. To betray someone, one must believe that unlike one’s own smile, the other’s smile stems from inexperience, immaturity, and stupidity—so they exchanged warmth.

After them, the Human Resources Manager arrived, followed by administrative staff, management team, and other office workers taking their places. In the end, it was people who moved Los Angeles. Mostly these people.

When all the team leaders had gathered, the door closed somewhat forcefully. Walter opened his mouth leisurely. Unquestioned belief often became self-confidence and arrogance.

That’s why the Shepherd had told Arthur: doubt before believing, but once you’ve doubted enough, believe willingly. Walter’s Special Ops team apparently hadn’t been told such things.

“If I could have, I would have gathered all the diligent regular employees of our branch in this room… but space is always limited. Still, I’ve called you here to discuss a matter that will be resolved quickly.”

That was true. He lacked space. With the loosely scattered Legal Assassination Team and the Special Ops team missing one of its twenty members, it was impossible to control the entire building.

With the Assault Team of one hundred members minus one, he might have attempted it, and Walter was currently placing his hopes there… but the Assault Team members were now stationed near other security teams.

Besides, what kind of person would “summon” people for a “discussion”? Everyone could easily tell that the situation was developing strangely.

Nevertheless, everyone knew the most terrible things that could happen if they freely expressed their opinions while surrounded by Special Ops agents.

“Do you know how many acts of betrayal I’ve witnessed as branch manager? Betrayals against the company’s sole purpose of efficiency. Do you know how many of those terrible betrayals I’ve seen, where people abandon opportunities for maximum efficiency, buried in worthless humanity?”

To Walter, it was complete deception and betrayal. The company’s purpose was to burn the engine and move forward, and he was convinced that all the engine needed was gasoline.

Humanity was an impurity that lowered the octane rating of gasoline. It was just an impurity that made fuel burn less efficiently and leave more soot. Walter insisted.

“I’m not saying we should replace all our branch employees with machines. I’m just saying we should clearly distinguish between places where humanity should be respected and where it shouldn’t. Everything is for the company.”

Of course, in Walter’s mind, there was no place within the company where humanity should be respected. But what mattered was deception. Getting people to sign first and binding them to contracts.

“Let’s completely cut out unnecessary compassion and achieve truly efficient distribution. Does this city really need so many poor people, drug addicts, and gangs, Administrative Team Leader?”

The Administrative Team Leader was a woman in her late 60s. Instead of transferring to a younger body, she had only replaced worn-out joints with machinery—someone who had experienced that war in her childhood. She briefly shook her head.

“No, it doesn’t need them. But…”

Walter willingly interrupted her. He already knew what would come after that “but.”

But employees who see this will be afraid. They will sympathize with the dead. Efficiency will decrease for emotional reasons. All unnecessary fantasies and delusions! Walter insisted.

“Los Angeles and Belwether don’t need employees who feel guilt or compassion about disposing of unnecessary people. Like those who hold themselves back and fail to achieve maximum efficiency.”

He no longer needed anyone else’s words. He had singled out the Administrative Team Leader only because he needed a straw man to beat, not because he actually wanted to ask a question.

Walter was willing to become a part himself. He could be a cog fitted anywhere if it meant the rational operation of the rational Belwether he believed in.

So he believed he would win. The company would be on his side. He couldn’t understand why those who worshipped efficiency wouldn’t support him, who venerated efficiency.

What Walter needed was one proof. For that proof, the sacrifice of some regular employees was not unnecessary.

“What Belwether needs is a social experiment. Not just repeating the word ‘heretical’ but an actual opportunity to try. That’s how I’ll use Los Angeles. And I’ll accept some sacrifices to do so.”

While “coup” was a convenient word to describe Walter, it was a word he had never considered. He believed this was an undertaking for the company, not for himself.

He had a calling. A calling he had to fulfill even if it meant the unpleasant task of pushing his own brother into an incubator. His job was to save Belwether from the disease of humanity.

The Shepherd prepared to move. He was about to walk forward to show opposition to Walter… but someone moved a step faster. It was the Administrative Team Leader.

Office workers were not supposed to resist. That’s what everyone, whether the Shepherd or Walter, had been saying, but this office worker approached Walter’s desk without minding the Special Ops agents.

She was a picky and irritable person, but this time she spoke with an uncharacteristically warm voice. She drew her gun from her waist, placed it on Walter’s desk, and pushed it toward him.

“You certainly make a valid point, Branch Manager. But…”

Having pushed her only weapon of self-defense toward Walter, she snorted. She willingly revealed her cold, picky, and contentious nature.

“I hear blatant hatred for those inefficient unqualified people in your voice, but isn’t that also quite a human emotion?”

The Legal Assassination Team Leader tried to stop her, but the Shepherd grabbed the approaching armored wrist and shook it off. She spoke without even looking at the Shepherd.

“Besides, it’s very human of you not to utter the word ‘coup’ even once because it creates human revulsion in us. Isn’t that an inefficient disposition? It’s an act of betrayal.”

While other office workers were still unsure whether to speak up in front of the Special Ops agents, people who had experienced that war typically had at least one irreversible mental condition.

Most had explosive anger, vengefulness, despair, and suicidal tendencies. The Administrative Team Leader spoke as if she had almost forgotten that Special Ops agents surrounded Walter.

Though filled with anger, she was rational in the way Walter hoped and idealized, but all Walter felt was revulsion.

“Still, I’m glad you’re so rational. Since you’ve shared such a noble purpose with us, why don’t you purge yourself first, as one of those unqualified people? I’ve received the handover.”

Someone who spoke of weeding out the unqualified had to be prepared to be weeded out when they themselves became unqualified. Market Keepers were people who could do that, but Walter was not.

Walter raised his fist and emotionally slammed it on the desk as he faced the Administrative Team Leader. He growled.

“Do you think insulting me here gives you any chance of winning? Did you believe I would put a gun in my mouth because of your words? Just an old person’s stubbornness in a fight with no chance…”

The Administrative Team Leader cut off Walter’s words in return. As a Belwether fanatic, she spoke like one. This high-speed era was merciless to everyone. Even to Walter.

“Stop acting like a stupid kid. Chances? No matter what anyone’s odds are in a casino, the house always wins, kid.”

The Special Ops agents unlocked their weapons, but the Administrative Team Leader wasn’t afraid. She had seen Belwether triumph. She had seen it exact deserved revenge on inefficient nationalists.

Beyond that one sight, she knew nothing. She didn’t know the Chairman was here, that the Shepherd had made plans, or that a Type IV and a Market Keeper were waiting.

It didn’t matter. This city had rules. In this high-speed era, there was one terribly universal rule. She spoke with a smile on her face.

“The city always wins, and Belwether always wins. That’s the rule. What happens when you try to climb up?”

Whatever he claimed didn’t matter. In the Administrative Team Leader’s view, he was challenging Belwether. He was mistaking the branch manager position, to which he had merely been appointed, as his own property.

Walter, who firmly believed Belwether would take his side and believe in his plan, felt this as the greatest insult.

Those words were meant only for the so-called revolutionaries in the back alleys. Walter muttered.

“I need to make an example. Special Ops?”

For the Administrative Team Leader, not considering her own life before speaking was inefficient. A terrible betrayal. Efficiency is good. Inefficiency is evil!

It was Belwether’s nature—simultaneously human and terribly inhuman. Sensing her end, she began transmitting a message to her administrative team. The content was brief.

‘Branch manager coup attempt in progress. All administrative team to resist. Security team Special Ops and Legal Assassination Team are on the branch manager’s side.’

The Shepherd missed his chance to speak due to this variable, but considering Walter’s goal, he knew this Belwether fanatic’s words were more appropriate than his own guilt-ridden ones.

On a path for atonement, there was no need to desperately try to be the protagonist. The Special Ops agent picking up an unlocked rifle and the Shepherd wrapping his armored arms around the Administrative Team Leader happened almost simultaneously.

An unmuffled gunshot rang inside the branch manager’s office. Bullets not designed for anti-armor couldn’t properly penetrate the Shepherd’s reinforced armor.

The drug injector at the back of the Shepherd’s neck blinked. The brain began to release endorphins, the adrenal glands adrenaline.

The Shepherd, whose blood had been completely replaced with preservative fluid, could chemically feel a happiness he had briefly forgotten since Jaina’s terror attack.

The Special Ops agent immediately changed ammunition, and the Shepherd drew a revolver loaded with explosive rounds and fired at the office door. The bullet tip slightly penetrated the reinforced door before exploding. The lock mechanism was destroyed.

While the Human Resources Manager in reinforced armor rammed the door open, the Shepherd absorbed the shower of bullets. The additional armor plates were certainly useful, but it was impossible to withstand a barrage of armor-piercing rounds for long.

It was time for the plan to begin. Gritting his teeth, the Shepherd pushed the Administrative Team Leader behind him and said. The Shepherd’s job now was to kill as many Special Ops agents as possible and escape.

“Administrative Team Leader, evacuate the team leaders. Security team! Engaging coup participants! Legal Assassination Team is the enemy! Special Ops are enemies too. All terminated without disciplinary committee.”

This narrow space would either become a slaughterhouse or see no deaths at all. Walter had chosen the slaughterhouse. The Special Ops Captain also shouted.

“Protect the branch manager first! Legal Assassination Team alone can’t handle the entire security team, so everyone except those needed to subdue the Shepherd, go downstairs! Leave the team leaders too. We can catch them after going down. I expect maximum efficiency!”

Following the Special Ops Captain’s order, only four Special Ops agents and the Captain remained in the room. The rest broke the office windows and slid down the company building, absorbing friction with the hand components of their assault units.

The Shepherd, lightly flicking his forearm to extract a high-frequency blade, charged at the Special Ops agents instead. The blade pierced the waist of one agent, cutting through the vibration-absorbing material that tried to stop it.

The Shepherd needed to buy more time. Until the Special Ops agents who had gone down spread throughout the building and couldn’t return to the executive wing. Until the perfect timing when Arthur could capture Walter according to the plan from above.

He could take most bullets, but when he saw the Special Ops Captain draw his gun, the Shepherd lifted the agent whose torso he was cutting and used him to block the bullets.

A hole like one made with a cookie cutter appeared in the all-metal full-body cyborg, and the Shepherd’s high-frequency blade passed through that hole to horizontally slice another Special Ops agent in half.

A Special Ops agent with only the upper body remaining was thrown out the window. The Shepherd looked at the Special Ops Captain with a bitter expression and spoke. It was a lament. A declaration of severance. A rising melancholy.

“If only those one hundred and sixty people hadn’t died that day.”

“Yes, Shepherd. If only you had done your job properly.”

Walter had already escaped to the panic room with the Legal Assassination Team Leader. The Shepherd thought it fortunate that he had spent more time helping the team leaders escape than focusing on killing Walter.

Raised gun barrels spat fire at each other. The power of Belwether’s anti-armor bullets, rarely used in actual combat due to over-penetration on most targets, was not excessive for anyone at this moment.

One Special Ops agent had four-centimeter diameter holes at regular intervals from chest to head, and the Shepherd felt his shoulder movement becoming sluggish. Nevertheless, he cut down an approaching Special Ops agent.

He briefly thought that perhaps dealing with the Special Ops Captain here and then dying himself might be a way to take responsibility for those one hundred and sixty people, but it was only brief. That was not the Shepherd’s assigned task.

The Shepherd’s task was to survive and suppress the coup. A Special Ops member with one severed forearm pulled out a new forearm from his torso and equipped it. It was still 3 against 1 numerically.

The armor plates were becoming increasingly tattered, and completing the nearly impossible mission of taking down five Special Ops agents with twenty shots was becoming more difficult. Then, a communication sounded in his ear.

“This is Kangal One, arrived at the executive wing escorting Shepherd Six and a Market Keeper! Extraction point…”

Assigned tasks must be performed with certainty. Two Special Ops agents versus Arthur and one Market Keeper. He decided to deal with them sufficiently before leaving. The Shepherd kicked the ground with the power of his Posthuman Type IV form and reinforced armor.

The Special Ops Captain did something unexpected. It wasn’t high enough to shatter the monstrosity, but he grabbed the Special Ops Captain and threw himself out the window. It wasn’t a suicidal act. The Shepherd responded.

“Above. I’m falling toward the D-7 sector of the employee wing connected to the executive wing. Will rendezvous at that location.”