Ch.95Work Record 014 – Forging a Harpoon (4)

The training manual for nationalists provided by Chance was almost fanatical. It seemed designed to transform all agents into war machines using technology from that war.

From the moment I first connected, they examined my body while mentioning mandatory modification performance measurements. Though my physical condition was rated as extremely excellent, they recommended installing internal weapon systems.

Chance said I could ignore it, but it was definitely unsettling to be recommended neurotoxin injectors or built-in electric shock devices. After the examination finished, a short video played.

It showed a man wearing a uniform different from Belwether’s. He wore crude, outdated mechanical eyes that looked more like camera lenses than human eyes, and his office backdrop showed a wasteland through the window.

He was dressed like the nationalists I had learned about at Belwether, but he wasn’t authoritative like them. Instead, he looked at the camera with a bitter, composed expression before speaking.

“I’ll speak frankly, without any formalities. The situation has already become unmanageable for everyone. Us, our enemies… we’re all just consumed by evil. You probably think it’s some kind of survival game. They all die, we live.”

His voice continued, filled with depression as if he had lost all will, but that wasn’t all. He raised eyes like those of an old beast. Perhaps the mechanical feel of his outdated artificial eyes suited him well.

“Feel free to be cynical. Feel free to find it pathetic. You’ll experience a loss of humanity through this training process. But in exchange, the lives you could save might number ten thousand, a hundred thousand, or even a million.”

He saluted in the nationalist style to those who should have rightfully participated in this training program. Perhaps even before that war, people were still people.

“The few must be sacrificed for the many. And right now, we are that minority. For God and country.”

After the video ended, the training program that began was mostly related to close combat. Looking at the training curriculum, there were also methods for joint operations with unmanned vehicles like Chance, but Chance was no longer present.

Perhaps those were the only things they could teach me without internal weapon systems installed. It’s always overwhelming to listen to lectures for eight hours straight about how humans can efficiently destroy other humans.

Still, I would gladly accept it if it could be used for good. Good things are… pleasant things. I’m naturally rather sensitive, so I like happy endings and hope for good to triumph over evil. All difficult things to achieve.

Meeting Mr. Günter was purely luck. If Mr. Günter had been even slightly more insensitive, I would have failed. Even without that, this Wednesday in Night Watch would have been much gloomier.

To do those pleasant things without help, I need to run toward top speed. To even attempt to touch something pleasant, I need to run at twice the top speed. Speed is everything.

I get up after completing eight hours of training. The virtual reality’s default setting of a training ground from that war era was somewhat disorienting.

As I shake my head to regain my balance, Chance’s voice begins to be heard.

“How was the training? I believe there may have been some overlap with the Belwether Corporation training program the agent completed, but I’m sure there were things to learn.”

“It wasn’t bad. There were some rushed and forceful aspects… but that’s obvious when you think about when it was made. Who was that person? The one in the first video.”

“He was the Secretary of Homeland Security during that war. Conversations with him, like those with the president of Belwether Industries, greatly helped improve my interaction capabilities.”

Those old beast-like eyes somehow resembled Mr. Günter’s. Is that the kind of expression everyone who experienced that war would have? I couldn’t tell. I responded with a leisurely joke.

“So you have two fathers, Chance. What kind of person was he?”

After greeting Tina while wearing a gas mask, I walk out of the office. The smog was already making it nearly impossible to see ahead, but I could still faintly distinguish light when the street lamps turned on.

“You could call it that. And he was a good person. Do you know what killed the most people in the latter half of that war, while strategic weapons killed the most in the first half?”

Without majoring in history at university, one couldn’t know that much about that war. I first learned the term “that war” in high school.

Ridiculously, in elementary school, we were taught that Earth was originally a planet unsuitable for human habitation. Only in middle school did they tell us that people were responsible for making the world this way.

In high school, we learn the term “that war.” We don’t learn details, just that it was something terrible. In university, if you study history, you learn the detailed war history of that war.

I shook my head, and Chance continued. Chance was still an AI trapped in the era of that war. It couldn’t be otherwise.

“It was suicide. It was a period of great despair. When strategic weapons had run out and even the remaining weapons were depleting, people slowly and quietly lost their will to continue living.”

No teacher would want to teach this to students. I clicked my tongue. But they must have found something at least. The nationalists are still around, after all.

“But the nationalists are still around. They must have found some kind of solution.”

“It was acceptance. Of the tragedy. That they had lost the right to dream. That they had failed. That they had brought it upon themselves. This AI doesn’t know exactly how it helped, but the US government persisted.”

Chance had said it was abandoned without being properly decommissioned, left in a shutdown state when that war ended. It wouldn’t have seen the effects. Still, everyone is surviving in some way.

“And the man in that video was the first to say those words. That’s why I called him a good person. It’s the right thing to make people resist what they cannot resist.”

“Maybe it helped them live. Maybe not. Still, if that’s what you think, I should answer ‘I affirm.’ Even though our ways of thinking are different.”

“As expected, Agent Arthur Murphy’s words are excessively easy to understand. It’s unusual.”

“Belwether people are all unusual like that. What’s your experience with them?”

He had briefly been in the Shepherd’s hands. Given that he agreed with the Shepherd’s plan, they must have talked, and at minimum, he didn’t reject his logic.

“I affirm. Most Belwether Corporation employees have this unusual way of thinking. Nevertheless, it’s unusual within the human category. Not to the point of being unnatural.”

“I’m not sure how different your understanding of natural is from mine. Maybe they’ve adapted. Even if they’ve adapted, they haven’t changed that much.”

The nationalists I had met or seen in videos were all similar to Belwether people. The final words of that Secretary were almost identical, down to the last syllable, to what the Special Operations Division had said.

The day ended like that, and the next morning was gray again, making it impossible to distinguish tomorrow from today. Looking up at the sky, you could only see a faint circular halo of light where the sun should be.

Nevertheless, I washed up and went to work. There probably wouldn’t be any official assignments today either. Friday was my Monday, but for Belwether, Monday was Monday. I’ll probably be overworked next week.

I exchange light greetings with President Yoon, who is already in the office on time. As I put down my gas mask, which isn’t particularly useful, President Yoon, who was flipping through a hologram screen, spoke.

“It seems you’re starting to build mercenary connections. We received a request from Kanun Company to loan out an employee. The president’s name… is it read as Simon Verami?”

“No, it’s pronounced Jimon. It seemed European.”

President Yoon nodded lightly and pushed the hologram window toward me. Once again, Kanun Company’s job was gang elimination. The targets were the Smog Crawlers I had seen at the Hive yesterday.

It seemed the Hive had properly filed a complaint with Belwether to eliminate the Smog Crawlers who had come looking for them. The only reward for that pointless ritual was elimination.

“For a job like this, you could just take it as a personal request and handle it alone. If you paint your armor white like smog color, you could eliminate two or three a day by yourself.”

Although official assignments weren’t coming in by company, the number of requests coming in to resolve the security vacuum caused by the turmoil within Belwether had increased. There were plenty of personal requests to take.

I wonder if they couldn’t just make these official assignments… but using official partners like Night Watch for such things would be inefficient from Belwether’s perspective. The personnel management team would only be handling basic duties.

“Ah, I just want to make friends… and learn from freelancers. I don’t know anyone outside Night Watch, so I shouldn’t be lonely on days when I can’t meet colleagues.”

I heard President Yoon’s soft laughter as she nodded. It was fascinating how she showed such ordinary sides just when I thought she was cold. She spoke while pulling out her porcelain-glazed prosthetic hand.

“Eve said she’ll be away until today for personal reasons, and Enzo and K are on outsourced jobs… Vola and I have personal requests for gang elimination. Do you know what’s going on with Eve?”

“I’d like to say I don’t know… but she probably has some side job. I think I know what it is, and it’s not particularly dangerous, so you don’t need to worry.”

Getting a family of four out of LA wasn’t something that could be resolved so quickly. President Yoon seemed satisfied with my assurance and switched to a matte white prosthetic hand.

“I trust Arthur. It’s better than starving because no official assignments are coming in. But about that Kanun Company president. I found records of him being detained by Fitts & Morrison.”

Ah, damn. I thought today would be another ordinary day of working and getting paid. But it was time to uncover dark secrets again. I nodded lightly and asked.

“When I met him yesterday, he seemed to really hate Fitts & Morrison. What happened?”

“Assault and attempted murder. Apparently, he shot a Fitts & Morrison security officer with a pistol, but Fitts & Morrison acquitted him considering the circumstances.”

The simple story that follows is that someone at Fitts & Morrison killed his sister, who would have been Noah Verami’s mother. That would be the only way for an acquittal considering the circumstances.

Even if it’s called attempted murder, it would have been a shot to the head, but Fitts & Morrison’s reinforced suits without necks are designed so that a shot to the head doesn’t cause much impact to the neck. It would have been attempted murder in name only.

“If he was arrested for that reason and still walked out on his own two feet to establish a mercenary company, it must be that, right?”

“That’s it. Someone in his family must have died at Fitts & Morrison’s hands, and he shot the person in charge. When you met him directly, did he seem unstable?”

I thought she might tell me not to get involved, but there was no reason to lie now. Night Watch people were people I’d be seeing for a long time. Truth is much better than lies for people you’ll be seeing for a long time.

Remembering each lie I’ve told and crafting a story would be inefficient and likely to fail. Lately, I’ve found myself not talking much about efficiency when discussing what I do.

“He did seem somewhat halfhearted about the mercenary company business compared to others, but I didn’t pay much attention since it could have been an attitude trying to hide his criminal record. I’ll need to watch him closely to see if he causes trouble.”

“So you’ll just stand there with a gun when things go wrong again. Stay out of danger, and call if anything happens. I don’t want to lose a colleague. Losing one twice would be even worse.”

Just when I think she’s cold, she says things like this that make me think she’s not so cold after all. At the very least, it’s not a bad company to commit to. I answered with a smile. I didn’t salute.

“You know I’m naturally the type to be in those situations. I’d be happy to prevent anything from happening. See you tomorrow.”

I didn’t even do the headquarters-style three-finger salute. I didn’t want to violate my own proposal to Mr. Günter.

After gathering my combat suit and gun from the locker, I double-check Small Evil and leave the company. I ride my bike toward the outskirts of Los Angeles where the mercenary company Kanun’s office is located. It must be a place with cheap land prices.

I can see the ruins with the naked eye, and the barrier blocking the coastal road is faintly visible. Yes, definitely the cheapest neighborhood in Los Angeles. And sufficiently far from Fitts & Morrison’s headquarters.

After parking my bike, I touch the van parked nearby. The armor plating was thin. The facilities and equipment seemed inferior to Wolfpack’s. That might be expected since even Wolfpack was one of the official partner companies.

If Jimon is planning something with these, it would be a stupid choice. The chance of accomplishing anything against Fitts & Morrison, breaking through Sin City’s bitches and Fitts & Morrison’s security chief, was 0. Zero without variables.

He must be thinking at least somewhat rationally. With uneasy confidence, I enter the office building. I remove my gas mask and shake my head after entering the old-fashioned building without even an air shower.

Riley had come down to wait for me. Seeing me carrying a rather thick equipment bag that looked like a briefcase, her eyes lit up slightly. She smiled so that only the pupils of her close-combat artificial eyes were visible.

“Everyone was excited about working with a freelancer, and I tried to calm them down saying, ‘Freelancers are in the same industry as us.’ But seeing you in person, my eyes are sparkling too. Can’t help it.”

“Noah seemed quite quiet when I saw him yesterday. Though I might have been mistaken…”

I follow Riley’s guidance up the stairs. The stairs, which tried to imitate granite texture but ended up as crude mottled stone, had metal anti-slip edges that were already worn out.

“You’re definitely mistaken. He’s just a bit shy with strangers, but he’s actually very energetic. Oh, today we’re supposed to catch those Smog Crawlers you helped us with yesterday. Uncle Jimon will do the briefing… feel free to jump in.”

I decide to determine the level of concern after seeing Jimon’s approach once. I push open the office door and enter Kanun’s interior, which unlike Night Watch’s clear division, had the reception area and office as one unit.