Ch.99Work Record #015 – Prank Call Gone Wrong (1)

I’d have to handle this one alone anyway. Though Fitts & Morrison was the client, the nature of the request meant I’d need to deal with Belwether too… which left plenty of room for things to go wrong.

This coup had variables other mercenaries couldn’t anticipate. If someone digging into related matters happened to find inevitable mistakes left behind by censorship AI, it would be disastrous.

Mistakes weren’t the only concern. If a freelancer hired by Fitts & Morrison—one who believed coup remnants still existed—tried to make contact with them, Belwether might consider it betrayal.

But I was relatively free from such problems. Though a gag order had been issued, the Shepherd knew I was firmly on Belwether’s side regarding the coup. He also knew I was directly involved.

So neither was an issue. I was someone who wouldn’t leak information or betray Belwether. After accepting the request, I started my bike and headed toward the office through the night cityscape.

The air remained acrid. Road maintenance was poor in the outskirts. I could see cleaning team vehicles passing by. Just another ordinary day in Los Angeles.

While the road conditions appeared in the center of my vision, a popup suddenly emerged at the edge. It was a communication request… and the sender, quite predictably, was the Fitts & Morrison security team leader.

His callsign was Talos. The clarity of his voice suggested he was likely using a full-body prosthetic. Like Special Operations? He had definitely mentioned that his body wasn’t suited for the Lobster.

“I don’t know when we started using freelancers, but anyway… seems you’ve accepted the job. Just basic investigation?”

“I figured if it’s something I can’t handle, it should go to the Fitts & Morrison security team directly. I’m assuming I need to identify the culprit, but it shouldn’t be too difficult, right?”

Sometimes even simple tasks need someone to handle them. Talos output a sigh before continuing. The complete disconnect between his breathing and speech confirmed he was using a full-body prosthetic.

“Right. We also think there’s an 80% chance it’s just some nasty prank call.”

The emotion in a full-body prosthetic’s voice is a matter of technology, not sensitivity. His well-calibrated voice was hoping for a prank call.

“But that remaining 20% could fuck everything up. Those foaming-at-the-mouth sheep will get involved. If they see how we handle this, they’ll try to kill everyone involved, and then we’ll have to respond aggressively too. A fucking pride battle.”

What comes first—Belwether’s purge of coup remnants, or punishment for attempted terrorism against Fitts & Morrison? As he said, Belwether was currently a foaming sheep, unlikely to back down.

The Shepherd I trusted was now taking orders directly from Mr. Günter, and I had left after completing only my revenge. No one would understand his sense of calling.

Other team leaders might have sensed something… but those people would support the Shepherd’s methods. Things could spiral out of control in an instant.

“So, what if it’s that remaining 20%?”

“We handle it quietly. If they contact us through secure channels, we’ll send legal assassination team specialists. The perpetrators will be ‘suicided,’ and since they died before arrest, both sides just end up looking like fools chasing chickens.”

Assassination by the legal team’s expertise is much cheaper than dealing with a foaming sheep. The legal assassination team performed their role as a necessary evil quite well.

As I recall, the legal assassination team’s name was always associated with bad things… no, that’s not right. Deputy Manager Dewey Novak was also from the legal assassination team. Generalizations aren’t good. Most are just ordinary employees like the security team.

“I’ll do that. Please send me the work-related information. I’ll investigate thoroughly, considering it an opportunity to prove efficiency to Fitts & Morrison. Oh, does that sound like I’m mocking you?”

“It’s not just a feeling, you’re actually mocking me, asshole. Consider all situations and respond accordingly. I’ll send the data right away. Connection terminated.”

That was Fitts & Morrison’s motto. Consider all situations and respond accordingly. Belwether wanted the organization itself to adapt and lead people like sheep with bells, while Fitts & Morrison wanted individuals to do so.

Just that slight difference in mottos. Yet when labeled as competitors, they end up advocating seemingly opposite principles. Belwether and Fitts & Morrison were closer to a symbiotic relationship.

If symbiotic, it would be antagonistic symbiosis. They simply proclaimed their superior aspects compared to the other and constantly mentioned having a clear competitor to prevent complacency.

After the connection ended, I returned to the night office through the smog. Tina, who was cooking instant noodles made from pseudo-food, waved her lightweight prosthetic hand.

“With the weather like that outside, you’ve been running around all day. Have you eaten anything? If not, I’ll cook another one for you. You must be hungry?”

I connected a tablet with a light touch of my fingertips, pushed in the received information, and locked it with my name. After setting the password to a random number generated by Chance, I turned to Tina.

When was the last time I ate something? Was it just peanuts with yesterday’s alcohol? I think I might have made dinner with pseudo-food when I got home last night.

The downside of having such good fuel efficiency in my body was forgetting to eat. I suppose eating three meals a day would make me feel somewhat more human.

“Please make one for me. With an enhanced body like mine, I tend to skip meals more often. I think the last thing I ate might have been whiskey mixed with synthetic honey yesterday, though I might have had dinner too…”

I heard knocking on the wall of dormitory room #1 where I had stayed. It seemed there were plenty of people here who would scold me for skipping meals. After sighing deeply, I made a request to Tina.

“I’ll eat properly from now on, but please keep this a secret from Senior Eve. Do you have shrimp flavor? It’s somewhat decent, probably because it’s closest to krill.”

I didn’t particularly want to eat noodles made from soybean starch topped with soybean protein flakes and sprinkled with soybean protein. After Tina boiled mine too, I took the cup noodles with hot water and entered the dormitory room.

To be precise, it wasn’t exactly inside the dormitory. If you exited through the fire escape, there was a place where Nadia stayed. I considered looking at my tablet to think about work, but I followed her instead.

If it were a complete fire escape, it wouldn’t be fully sealed, but the door connecting to this place doubled as the building’s back door, so it had an air shower middle door. The air was relatively clean.

This time, Nadia wasn’t surprised by my appearance. Last time she was startled because of my newly modified body, but I was still just a regular employee and junior member of Night Vision.

I craved this synthetic shrimp flavor more often than actual shrimp. While casually eating my meal, I looked around leisurely and asked.

Perhaps because I had just heard from Jimon about Fitts & Morrison’s mutant extermination, unnecessary worries came to mind.

“Is Belwether not doing anything related to mutants these days?”

Tina, who had been staring at me as if surprised by my interest, spoke in her usual drawling voice.

“Of couuurse not. These days they can’t even pay attention to that because they’re busy with coup suppression and aftermath. With the thick smog, it’s actually nice that I can take walks with Nadia. I shouldn’t say it’s thanks to that, right?”

“With the gag order in place, it’s impossible… but from my position with no contribution, I can indulge in some self-deception when I hear such things.”

Living with a gag order while all records are censored… it’s something I can accept, but not what I’d wish for.

Tina glanced at Nadia as if asking for permission to speak, and Nadia nodded. Her sharp gaze returned to its usual round softness as she continued.

“Don’t worry too muuuch. After earning some money at Night Vision, we could move to a city owned by companies that are less harsh on mutants, like Panacea Meditech or Farmers… or maybe even get replacements.”

Nadia’s heartbeat was unstable. Her abnormally formed part was probably her heart, and hearts were quite expensive. Replacing a functioning organ was much more expensive than changing hands or eyes.

Well, it’s not impossible if you have enough money. As always, the problem is money. At least in my view, Tina was worth that much.

“Wouldn’t a sane pro racer earn that much? Powers or not, it must be tough.”

“Whateveeer, you’re talking like you need someone to drive you somewhere for work. And don’t worry, about one in ten people say things like that.”

Abnormally formed mutants didn’t possess extraordinary abilities. It was just an extension of moths or butterflies developing eye-shaped patterns on their backs, and even that was just something that manifested by chance.

The problem was that someone born with a slightly twisted thumb could send abnormal stimuli that paralyze the central nervous system, while someone else with an irregular heartbeat could only send messages to people’s minds.

At least Nadia could send signals that could be used for something practical, while most hunted mutants could only transmit much more useless types of signals.

That’s why Belwether hated them. It was simply hatred of variables that couldn’t be measured. Hunting them was more efficient than providing replacement bodies.

It might be a difference in perspective. While Farmers remembered a past where vegetation existed, Belwether—or more precisely, Mr. Günter—seemed to have forgotten everything before the nuclear bombing of Berlin.

The only past he seemed to follow was his family. I had never heard a single word about who he and his family were beyond what they liked and how they felt about each other.

So for Farmers, abnormally formed mutants were simply victims of that war, while for Belwether and Mr. Günter, they were remnants of that war. I understood but didn’t agree.

Is the world better off without Nadia? There’s no reason it would be. Then anyone has value in living. That’s what I believe.

I had merely created my own statement amidst words that seemed to recollect the Belwether era. Just one statement. Well… I was still only twenty-two.

Feeling my thoughts growing too long, I answered with a smile first. There were always accumulated responses to choose from.

“Then nine out of ten are inefficient people. That’s a higher ratio than I expected?”

“That’s a creepy thing to say… Didn’t you come in after accepting a job?”

If I had been Belwether’s anonymous mercenary tasked with slaughtering inefficient people, it would have been quite a creepy statement, but unfortunately, I was just an insignificant freelancer. I decided to consider that fortunate.

Only then did I remember accepting the job from Fitts & Morrison, so I drank the contents of my cup and left through the dormitory. I began reading through the files Talos had sent.

The source of the threatening call was an emergency phone in the slums. It would be in a drug addict concentration area on the outskirts of the city. That explains why they couldn’t immediately catch the culprit, as the surveillance network would be incomplete.

Even trying to find witnesses would be difficult in an area where few people could properly perceive their surroundings. If the terror threat was heard yesterday, there wouldn’t be any witnesses due to the smog.

Still, going there was the priority. This was what Fitts & Morrison wanted from me—conducting basic and simple investigations without provoking Belwether.

I got on my bike that I had left at the charging station in the parking lot and started riding with the driving assistance HUD displayed in my vision. This time I had to ride a bit farther, and the roads were quiet due to the weather.

The city landscape was stifling, but it was much more open than now when visibility was barely one meter. The well-aligned curtain walls and drones flying through the sky gave a sense of the city’s vitality.

Well, perhaps their only use is to direct your gaze upward so you don’t see the drug addicts sprawled on the ground. I accelerated. With no vehicles around, it was fine to speed up a bit.

Even in the smog, you can feel the air changing. Ordinary people wore gas masks and generally avoided going out on days like this, but not in the slums.

Coughing sounds echoed through the acrid air. I could even hear scratching sounds like those of smog crawlers. I decided to push my bike rather than park it.

Opposite the three emergency phones lined up on the wall, there was a faint light, and following it led to a convenience store, though I couldn’t even tell if that light was the store sign.

I returned to the emergency phones. Landline phones… I vaguely remembered using them, but I definitely had seen them being used. While Stephanet replaced internal networks at headquarters, that wasn’t the case at school.

Modification surgery before physical growth was completed was illegal, and survival rates were low since implants didn’t grow with the body. I had seen teachers using them in elementary school.

How do you normally hold a receiver? You don’t usually grab the round parts at the top and bottom. You would hold the long part. To avoid disturbing any fingerprints, I gently lifted the receiver by its upper part.

With Post-Human Type IV eyes connected to a computational assist device after re-surgery, I scanned what was probably the handle of the receiver. I captured it and connected to Chance.

“Chance, can you scan for fingerprints or something?”

“Cannot find clear images. Due to heavy use and exposure to acidic rain causing corrosion, the surface is slippery, showing only smeared fingerprint marks.”

It seemed too late to hope that fingerprints would be clearly left behind, allowing me to simply pass information to Fitts & Morrison and conclude this as a prank call. But then, text began to appear on the emergency phone’s display.

It was a sixteen-character message asking “Do you need help?” Following the instruction to press 0 if help was needed, I pressed the button-style number 0.

Not long after, I began to hear footsteps approaching. Not human ones. The mechanical sound was too pronounced. Even replacing all joints and limbs with machinery wouldn’t produce such mechanical sounds.

Soon someone dispersed the smog around and stood before me. It was a drone. It was about a hand span shorter than me but definitely a humanoid drone. It output a voice.

“We are New World Communications Co., Los Angeles branch, a US government partner company providing emergency phone services in this city.”

“I think your language module might be malfunctioning?”

“No. The language module is functioning normally. We are New World Communications Co. We consist of a total of 1,322 management androids.”

It seemed to be operating on hive intelligence. Is this artificial intelligence? The base was AI, but… I decided to call it “he” rather than “it.” He continued speaking.

“Your, Arthur Murphy’s, usage count of New World Communications Co. services is 137 times.”

Had I ever used an emergency phone? As I recalled, the last time I had even seen such a landline phone was in elementary school. Unable to easily share or discuss Fitts & Morrison’s information, I asked:

“Where was it used?”

“All usage records are concentrated from 14 to 12 years ago, and the location was the public phone on the third floor wall of Belwether Affiliated Elementary School in Pasadena.”

I remembered that Panacea Meditech had asked us children to contact them every three days to check if Belwether was mistreating us. That I recalled.

It was entirely possible that children who couldn’t have computational assist devices would use such installed devices, and I vaguely remembered calling the Meditech representative.

I nodded briefly to confirm, and he continued.

“In 97% of cases, you used our services excellently. Therefore, New World Communications Co. has decided with 87% agreement to provide you with assistance. The reasons for refusal of assistance are mostly due to weather conditions. What help do you need?”

“Could I hear a list of users?”

“Rejected with 100% unanimous agreement. Disclosure of customer personal information is prohibited. Do you have any other requests?”

So a direct approach won’t work. After sighing once, I asked for directions back. At least there was nothing in the report to suggest the perpetrator was unskilled in using landline phones.

That means… they made the call normally with something like a dumbbell weighted to one side. It would be ridiculous if there were terrorists who would search how to use landline phones to commit terrorism.

They were clearly familiar with it, had used it well before… and knew that if they just avoided people’s eyes and disguised their voice, tracking would be difficult.

“I’d like to know New World Communications Co.’s main customer demographic. Like where landline phones are common.”

“The main customers are the US government and states under the US government. Considering Belwether-style naming, landline phones are somewhat common in nationalist residential areas. Was that helpful?”

“Maybe. Thanks anyway, so…”

“We are New World Communications Co. This unit represents the direct democratic will of all branch members. Please call me the Representative.”

“Right. Thanks, Representative.”

Though Belwether hates nationalists, they don’t necessarily refuse collaboration where it benefits them. Only nationalists provided services like these.

So, the first clue: the perpetrator is likely a nationalist or of nationalist origin. But I hadn’t discovered much beyond that, and it was insufficient to report. The day was still long, and there were many places to visit.