novelWhich is More Frightening: Shells or Overwork? >> Tank-Accompanied Battle in the Mekong District (2)
| ← Ch.121 | Ch.123 → |
Just then, she received a call.
Plus, it was a video call and her little butt was sticking up right in front of the face camera.
"Princess, we have an emergency ca-... oh, dear."
"Eek!!!??? D-do you need something?"
"Um, well, uh... no, no, you can stay like that.... Now, where did I put that emergency counseling number? Thrill seeking through exhibitionism was certainly not the route I expected from her..."
"No, wait! This isn't bizarre behavior brought on by excessive loneliness! Don't call the counselor, Frolaytia!!"
Part 6
Wraith Martini Vermouthspray looked highly sadistic, but (as long as she could use you as a pawn) she apparently did not completely throw out her kindness. She must have done her part because the Paper Bikini moved elsewhere and the tank unit was not exposed and slaughtered.
"I'm starting to think being on their side wouldn't be all that bad. Being a New Yorker sounds kind of nice, doesn't it?"
"Heivia, that's got to be some brainwashing using the suspension bridge effect or the exhaustion effect. Look at this rationally, compare the size of their boobs, and you'll remember just which commander is better."
However, they had lost some of the carts attached to the backs of the tanks due to the infantry battle with rockets flying everywhere, so the infantry had to take turns walking and resting. Well, that or get into fistfights over who got a spot on the surviving carts.
Then they heard a cute grunt of effort.
They looked up to see the hatch at the top of the tank turret open up. The person who climbed out was a small girl using a barrette to keep her red hair back in a pineapple shape.
"Uhyah. Man is it hot out here. I'm sweating already..."
To prevent hearing loss, she wore something like airtight headphones over her ears. She also had a different small earphone and a wireless mic on her throat, but she was not wearing any sort of helmet.
For that matter, she was not wearing a jacket and she was not wearing pants or a skirt either.
They were on the front line, yet she was wearing nothing more than a white blouse and panties. Her outfit was blatantly just sleepwear.
"Both her thighs and navel are exposed!? Are you a legit shut-in who's forgotten what day of the week it is!? Just how casual are you taking this!? From this low angle, it's impossible to miss those blood-orange side-string panties!!"
"Nn, hh... ???"
After a slight groan, she removed the headgear and placed it around her neck with a puzzled look. She apparently had not heard him, but she was able to guess what his question was based on his lip movements.
"Shut up. We need to wash all this gore off my ride before it dries. I'll give you a bucket, so go get some water."
Based on her, the other drivers may have been wearing pajamas and negligee too. The boy hesitantly accepted the metal bucket dropped down toward him, but then he found some kind of trash in the bottom.
It was the plastic wrapper for a pack of trading cards.
The cards were from a series meant for a female demographic that anthropomorphized the world's machineguns and had you build a unit and give them an idol debut. You were meant to raise the sharp-tongued AI characters through their school life in a boys dorm where they would clash with their rivals and solve mysteries at a café afterschool. Quenser remembered hearing something about using a smartphone app to read the code on the cards to reach even further depths in that inescapable quicksand of a game.
(Don't tell me she's addicted to this stuff? And is she what the Island Nation calls a fujoshi?)
Just as he started doubting his conclusion, he found something more.
It was a receipt for one body pillow and one bottle of men's shampoo.
(She said something about loneliness countermeasures for when she's alone, but if this is a complication of that 'rotten' disease of hers, her case is really severe... !!)
"?"
Not everyone was willing to be open about their secret interests, so he could not predict how she would react if he was honest here. In the worst case, letting that sleepwear girl – whose blouse was unbuttoned on the bottom and revealing her navel – know what he had seen could lead to her chasing after him in that 50-ton tank in the hopes of running him over and silencing him! Sensing danger, Quenser quickly changed the subject.
"The entire tank is covered in reactive armor, so where do you climb down?"
"Over there or over there, " she said while lazily pointing toward the corners of the tank which were likely the hardest points. Quenser used those paths to hold the seawater-filled bucket up as an offering to the pineapple-haired girl.
He had fulfilled her orders perfectly, but she still seemed irritated.
"Ohh, this is just the worst, the worst, the worst... I normally wouldn't want seawater anywhere near my precious ride..."
"Shut up, you're the one that was driving it through all this seawater covering the mangrove!"
"If we start driving again like this, you'll get all the gore right on your heads as you ride your cart. Are you sure you want that?"
The potatoes groaned and gagged as the pineapple girl's words quieted them down. They could not exactly complain when they had done this themselves.
"This is the latest product of Rosenkavalier, a status symbol for the wealthy the world over. Its elegant form manages both a low hit rate and excellent aerodynamics. Plus, the engine provides both quick bursts of speed and high horsepower! Let the rumble of the engine intoxicate you! Well, I doubt some fancy-pants Legitimacy Kingdom nobles would understand when you people are happy in the back seat of something as overly-long as a dachshund and only worth a million bucks. Tanks are doing battle in a world worth ten times as much."
"Then why don't you go ahead and paint that lame penis logo on the front of the tank!?"
"P-penis... !? (blush)"
"What else is that curved thing supposed to look like!?"
It was actually based on the tower card in tarot and represented the company's constant vigilance to make sure they never grew arrogant even when they stood at the top of the world, but that did not really matter here.
"There, I've finished replacing the reactive armor. That should make up for what you lost."
"Th-thanks so much. Oh, you even got the color right so it doesn't stand out. It loses points for not being the maker's official product, but I still appreciate the effort☆"
"It really only needed to function properly, but once I got started, I felt my modeling spirit beginning to burn."
"I know just what you mean."
For the paint, he had used the kit meant to apply makeup to the face, hands, or anywhere else that stuck out from the camouflage. Everyone might have forgotten by this point, but those idiots had just returned from a serious job where they hid deep in the forest and blew up heroin factories.... This seemed to be a world where actual effort only made things worse for you.
"Okay, if we're done sunbathing, let's get back to work. I'm headed back down into my workplace."
"Dammit, I can feel the chilly air-conditioning coming from that open hatch... !"
Their complaints were of course ignored and Dorothea even shivered in her navel-exposing blouse. The difference in temperature seemed to be affecting her. Now that they had washed off the filth and replaced the reactive armor, the girl ducked back into the hatch.
But she forgot to close it.
And that meant the indoor sleepwear girl's odd comment escaped the confines of the tank.
"Ohh, did you miss me, my blond butler? Huggy huggy."
(Is she talking to a two-sided body pillow made to look like a sharp-tongued butler?)
"Yes, I know you're shy, but let's aim your main gun forward. Hwa ha ha. Don't cover your face and blush. That thing is impressive enough to show off to anyone."
(Ehhh!? The tank itself is a guy♂!? Then why have I been working so hard for it? C-come to think of it, little Wraithy had a real butler serving her. She did warn me not to look into it, but what is this Martini Series... !?)
The hatch finally closed.
Had the red-haired pineapple girl noticed her mistake or not?
She once more began driving her prince or butler or whatever. The infantry figured out who got seats on the limited carts and the entirely self-driving tanks resumed their perfectly aligned drive through the submerged mangrove. But eventually, something changed.
"We're about at the midpoint, " said Dorothea."We should be reaching the levee soon."
"We're only halfway? That's depressing as hell."
"Stop complaining when you're just clinging to a cart. You're not even walking anymore."
"It's like riding on the slow train... Y'know, like when you've felt the shaking of the train for hours on end with no real destination in mind."
"But why would they build a levee here?" asked Heivia.
He was probably asking because building a levee in the middle of this submerged area did not seem very helpful.
"It's apparently to create a fish reef instead of preventing flooding, " said Dorothea."Something about redeveloping the zones that were lost due to fires. At least that's what it says on these online tourist guides."
"Ehh? You have air conditioning and the internet on the battlefield? You really have it made."
"Oh ho ho. I even have a simple shower and kitchen."
"I'm really worried by the lack of a bathroom on your list there... I don't want to hear that a girl like you is friends with drink bottles..."
In the distance, they could see a horizontal row of concrete masses with four legs arranged in Y-shapes.
The mangrove's trees had thinned out, so they came to a stop right on the edge.
Quenser and Heivia ended their time as summer Santas of the southern hemisphere and circled in front of the first tank to join the other soldiers in investigating things from between the trees.
"Oh no..." Quenser groaned as soon as he gave a look through his binoculars."Oh no, oh no, oh no! That's a Faith Organization tank unit. They've set up a defensive line."
"What!? How could they block off our route with such pinpoint precision!? Where'd they get that intel from!?"
They no longer heard anything from the radio.
Dorothea and the other tank operators had apparently shut down the radios to remain silent.
They were about 1. 2 kilometers from the levee. The horizontal wall had gaps in places, so it definitely was not meant to hold back any high waves. It was a little hard to tell, but there were tanks waiting behind that wall. Only the turrets stuck up above it while they used the obstacle as a shield.
"It might not just be here." Quenser thought for a bit."Little Wraithy shook the Faith Organization for us, but that only changed their order of priority. The Second Generation Paper Bikini left, but it makes sense that they would send their tanks to investigate the combat region. They blocked off all the routes around the suspicious point and we just ran into one of those blockades."
Would they break through here or send the less-noticeable infantry out ahead to search for a way to sneak through?
"We'll just have to do this. The blockade will only grow thicker as time passes. Look at them: they only have three tanks and a bit of infantry. We outnumber them, so it would be better to trample them before their friends show up from elsewhere."
"..."
"Trying to trick them would only make things worse. We might be in a submerged mangrove, but that won't hide the tanks' tread tracks forever. Once they start tracking us for real, it's all over."
"No, not that, " said Quenser."What's that noise?"
He then looked up at the roof of trees over their heads.
The noise of the main rotor had been reduced quite a bit in recent years, so he had heard they could get quite close before you heard them.
In other words, he heard the sound of a rotor beating at the air as a giant attack helicopter passed by overhead.
Helicopters came in many varieties, but this one was relatively short and stout. Instead of reducing its exposed surface area to avoid being hit, it seemed designed to deflect attacks with its thick armor panels. In addition to simple aerial firepower, it may have carried groups of soldiers.
Another attack had begun.
Instead of accurately pursuing a target, the rockets contained in beehive-like cylindrical containers were launched along straight lines that provided destruction over a fan-shaped area.
Quenser stood there helplessly with his mouth agape, so Heivia tackled him at the waist and tumbled along the ground with him.
"Get down!" he shouted."Everyone, get down!!"
Luck was on their side.
The rockets raining down from above seemed to have their fuses set for an instantaneous detonation, so they detonated on the roof of mangrove branches long before reaching the ground. Thanks to that, the blast blossomed outside of lethal range and the tank armor was not penetrated despite an attack from their greatest weak point: above.
But what about the flesh-and-blood soldiers?
Razor-like fragments of the explosives poured down and their own tanks, which normally acted as their shields, threw deadly stones as their reactive armor detonated erroneously. The carts made from scrap parts were torn apart and blown away and the same amount of damage scattered over the soft and fleshy soldiers.
"That's an attack helicopter!! It's a tank's worst enemy!!"
They could not just lie low and wait it out.
The large helicopter flew in a large circle through the blue sky and was clearly taking aim once more. Plus, the tanks waiting behind the levee of blocks with four legs arranged in Y-shapes began to take action.
The Tank 041s had been waiting in a line, but now they began to move. They broke their perfectly aligned formation and scattered. They had likely switched from self-driving mode to manual driving mode.
While nearly run over by their own side's tanks and nearly hit by the morning stars that the wreckage of their carts had become, Quenser and the others desperately rolled along the ground in search of safety. And they were well aware safety was nowhere to be found.
The mangrove's shallow seawater was stained with the red of blood.
A rusty smell mixed in with the scent of salt and mud.
The crabs and shrimp had been acting like docile little animals before, but now they grew energized. They had been waiting for all that nutritious bipedal meat to stop moving.
"Get the injured sitting up and prop them against a tree trunk! Calf height water is enough to drown in! Then gather below the thicker portions of the 'roof'! Another downpour of rockets in an open area and we'll actually be directly hit!!"
"No, that 'roof' would be in the way, " said Dorothea."I'm heading out into the open, so give me a smokescreen."
Just as she said that over the radio, her tank left the mangrove and entered the open battlefield.
The attack helicopter naturally took aim and rushed in toward her, but the other tanks fired smoke and blocked the enemy's vision.
It seemed modern tanks had anti-air equipment.
The Tank 041s had four vertical missiles located behind the turret.
Quenser just about groaned when he saw the missiles fired upwards with the sound of a champagne cork popping amplified over a hundredfold. They were not just short-range; these were the same missiles as the shoulder-fired variety used by infantry.
Attack helicopters were probably easier to target than a supersonic fighter, but this one still twisted around and scattered firework-like flares. That was enough for the puny missiles, which looked like two fire extinguishers attached end to end, to fly off into empty air like rocket fireworks.
And it did not end with that failed attack.
Just as the Tank 041s had moved forward, the Faith Organization tank unit at the levee took action. There were a few lights similar to a camera flash.
Yes, a tank's muzzle flash was faster than the sound of it firing.
"Oh, no!?"
Dorothea's tank tried to return to the deep forest while crushing the cart it was dragging, but a shell flew toward it at Mach 5 from a distance of about 1. 2 kilometers.
Dorothea immediately released the pressure from the hydraulic suspension to abandon her support and let the tank's body sink down. By effectively ducking, she avoided the first shot targeting the top of the turret. The second shot targeted its gut from a different angle, so she turned the body at an angle – so the shell would hit the solid corner of the rectangle – to redirect the shell upwards while the armor was torn away.
She was not using lasers, EM waves, or some other lock-on medium to detect and predict the ballistic path.
Most likely, this was Dorothea Martini Naked's skill which could not be reproduced by the self-driving mode.
(She did that by eye!? She was only basing it on the sunlight reflected from the muzzles!?)
Her defensive actions seemed like a superhuman combination of the digital and analog, but it was obvious where the missed shell was headed: into the forest where the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers hid.
"Goddammit!!"
They had agreed to no hard feelings, but it felt like the ground they had been hiding on had been flipped upside down. A rusty flavor spread inside Quenser's mouth and his inner ear seemed to be having issues because he could not get up. He had no idea which way was up and the shallow seawater blocked his mouth and nose.
"Here's some information... !! I think... enem... shells... rmor pierc... chemical... get through... armo... so be careful!!"
Dorothea was shouting something over the radio, but no whole sentences were getting through to him. Was that because of the seawater in his ears or had something gone wrong in his head?
"These aren't anti-personnel rounds! Don't act like the shockwave alone was too much for you! If you're gonna die, do it after killing the enemy, you dumbass!!"
Quenser finally returned to reality after Heivia kicked him in the gut. He coughed up all the seawater in his throat and nose.
"Uegh, cough!!"
"This operation has failed!! We can't continue on!! There are too many injures and there's an attack helicopter flying around! Dorothea, if you have some extra shells, give them all timed fuses and prepare to destroy the evidence. We just have to make sure no one finds out the tanks were loaded in the Flagship 019, right? File off the serial numbers, get out of there, and blow it up from the inside!!"
"No!!"
But the girl vehemently rejected that idea.
"We have to get these five tanks to the former airfield no matter what. Protect them with your lives! I repeat, protect them with your lives!!"
"Set aside that slender-chinned blond butler in glasses, sleepwear blouse girl!!"
"Sbh!? H-heh hee hee. How did Sir Quenser discover my true form?... No, no!! We can't! It isn't about that! We just can't give up on them!!"
"... Oh, hell."
Quenser got up and pressed his back against a broken tree trunk.
"Dorothea, you can complain if you like, but what's the actual situation here?"
"This RTS session is not looking good. The attack helicopter overhead is especially bad!!"
"But what if it was just their tanks?"
"If they think they're invincible with just their heads sticking up over the levee, they can't be all that skilled. Unlike a stationary turret, a tank is all about its mobility☆"
"Then get to work silencing them. We'll deal with that thing in the air."
Just as he said that, the five Information Alliance Tank 041s left the mangrove forest and entered the open battlefield. If they simply aimed from there, they should not have been able to hit the Faith Organization tanks located behind the levee wall, but...
"Everyone, load explosive shells. Let's do this!!"
"What!?" shouted Heivia."Aren't those anti-personnel!?"
But his complaints did not change anything.
All the nearby potatoes were knocked from their feet by the tremendous noise of shellfire.
Dorothea and the other tanks were not targeting the enemy tanks. They had fired on the levee in front of them. And instead of a single thick wall of reinforced concrete, the levee was made from blocks that supported their weight on four legs arranged in Y-shapes. There was no adhesive or welding. By firing shells that scattered an explosive blast and shrapnel in every direction, the blocks were shattered and knocked from their supports before tumbling back down.
There was no need to crush the tanks themselves.
Their mistake had been taking up a position so close to the levee. Concrete blocks larger than a human head rained down on the long and narrow tank guns, denting and bending those metal tubes.
"Enemies A, B, and C have all taken damage to their guns! The tank unit is useless, or at least not a threat to the Tank 041s. How about the sky? What about the attack helicopter!?"
They had left the mangrove forest for that simultaneous attack. That position allowed the attack helicopter to fly in a straight line and slaughter them all with rockets.
Quenser leaned against a broken tree trunk while holding an Information Alliance radio.
He breathed in and out.
He placed his finger on the button.
But he did nothing.
And said nothing.
"Wait... ?"
Dorothea was clearly shocked. Her tank pitched forward in a way impossible for the self-driving mode and then it frantically backed up toward the forest.
"What happened to our deal!? You said you'd do something about that chopper! Could you not come up with any clever plans!?"
"No, what happened to our deal?"
Quenser did not back down.
He did not lose sight of the odd feeling he had noticed.
"Protect the tanks with our lives? Get them to the former airfield no matter what? Why!?"
"Did the blood rush to your head after seeing your allies killed!? If the affiliation of these tanks is found out, the cooperative action surrounding the Flagship 019 will be nullified and a point-blank battle between the Information Alliance and the Legitimacy Kingdom will break out. To prevent that incalculable amount of bloodshed, the existence of these tanks must be hidden. Wasn't this explained to you!?"
"That's not quite right, Dorothea! There's no point in hiding them at the airfield when we have a bunch of enemies on our tail! I thought that was a temporary hiding place and the tanks would be picked up at a later date!? That won't work if the Faith Organization ransacks the place in the meantime!!"
"... !?"
"Besides, if all we have to do is hide the existence of the tanks, there was no need to keep the Paper Bikini from noticing them! If we managed to escape before that extra-large main cannon blew them away, no material evidence would remain!!... What have you gotten us involved in, Dorothea? What secret are these tanks hiding!?"
"This is not the time... !!"
"Then I'll just wait until you've been blown away. The attack helicopter will target the large metal readings first. Since the rockets detonated in the branches earlier, it must not be loaded with proper anti-personnel sensors like an Object would be. If we fall back into the forest and wait for the heat to die down, we can check the scorched wreckage and determine the truth. I'm fine doing this either way."
"You!!"
"Choose, Dorothea. Which will it be? Tell us now, or have us find out later?"
The approaching footsteps of death reverberated through the sky overhead. They squeezed at the impish girl's heart more than the ticking of a time bomb.
And...
And...
And...
"Okay, fine! I'll tell you everything! This is a project using the tanks' drive-by-light systems to manipulate the number of deaths by self-driving cars in safe countries!!"
The wireless device he had borrowed from the Information Alliance vibrated.
It had received a file via short-range infrared instead of using a military server.
After checking the large attached file on the small screen, Quenser slowly stood up.
"I have your commitment."
"What are you going to-.... !?"
"All tanks, use your smoke!! Make sure you can't be seen from a distance!!"
In addition to naked-eye sight, the smokescreen spread by the tanks obstructed mechanical cameras and sensors by blocking various media, including electromagnetic, infrared, and ultrasound.
The attack helicopter had three options:
1. Recapture its targets using a different type of sensor.
2. Increase the power of the current sensor to pierce through the smokescreen.
And...
3. Simplest of all, move in closer so its radar waves and IR signal could pierce through the smokescreen.
It was the same as asking whether the same voice could pass through a thin wall or a thick wall more easily. That was the fastest way to strengthen its sensors with no need for extra equipment.
But to move closer, it would naturally reduce its altitude.
And that brought it within reach of the group on the surface.
"What are we supposed to do about that thing, Quenser!?"
"We can reach it once it's below 30 meters! Even if it has armor panels, an attack helicopter's belly should be thinner than a tank's!!"
"30 meters!? The missiles from one of those crashed fighters covered in greenery aren't going to work anymore! Or are you thinking of throwing a balled up piece of clay at it!?"
"There isn't time to explain!!"
Quenser shouted back as he pulled a small cooking knife from his survival kit, grabbed a piece of wood floating in the water nearby, and carved something into it with the tip of the knife. Heivia glanced down as if peering at a smartphone, but it was filled with functions and equations that might as well have been an alien language to him.
"Okay, a helmet should work... That just leaves filling it in and adjusting the angle..."
Idiot #1 grabbed a helmet from the ground, filled it with the sand and gravel at his feet, and adjusted the angle. He then attached a thin layer of Hand Axe plastic explosive over the top. For the finishing touch, he stuck a pen-like electric fuse into the deepest part in the center.
There were two varieties of directional landmines: concave and convex.
It worked the same as a mirror. The convex variety would scatter the blast thinly across a wide fan-shaped area. By mixing it with lots of metal balls or something similar, it would become a brutal anti-personnel mine that made short work of all the enemy soldiers in front of it with a single explosion.
So what if it was concave, like Quenser's here?
Just think of it like a mirror again.
Concave mirrors were made to focus light on a single point.
"Directional mines meant for armored weapons can split the door to an office safe from 30 meters away. And it doesn't matter if that distance is horizontal or vertical."
Needless to say, he already knew what aerial course the attack helicopter was using.
It would be unable to resist the straight line that allowed it to slaughter all five tanks at once.
He only had to toss the helmet to a point on that line.
"Did you think you were safe up there in the sky? It's time a landmine dragged you down to earth, you ruler of the air!!"
A lance of fire shot up as if to pierce the heavens.
Concentrating the blast on a single point produced penetrative power that was normally impossible and that tore through the belly of the attack helicopter and fried every last centimeter of space inside.
Part 7
"Oh, god! My legs are so swollen!!"
She belonged to the same military, but Wraith Martini Vermouthspray had no intention of looking after the beached ship. She dove into a beach chair beneath a parasol and pulled off both her boots and her black pants.
All that remained below were her bright white legs. Either due to the length of her jacket or her professional(?) spirit, her underwear was just barely out of sight.
"Frank."
While lying in the chair, the blonde girl called over the young man who always served her.
And she spoke as if this was the usual way of doing things.
"It's time to adjust my performance. Sorry, but could you massage my legs to improve blood flow?"
That was not an issue.
He did not even hesitate.
The young man looked like some kind of machine while he reached for the girl's soft legs and applied the perfect amount of pressure to massage Wraith's ankles, calves, and then thighs. He was simply returning the gathered blood up to her torso with movements like someone squeezing sauce inside a plastic container. There was no ulterior motive hidden in the movements of his fingertips and he showed no sign of peeking at the underwear only protected by the skirt-less bottom of her jacket.
"..."
For some reason, Wraith looked incredibly bored.
"Tah."
So she began gently attacking the young man's cheek with the sole of her tiny foot.
She tried rubbing the heel against him, but the young man did not respond. He only continued with his work.
That could be seen as an admirable attention to his duties, but the look in the small blonde girl's eyes moved past anger and arrived at exasperation.
"You really are... how should I put it? A boring guy."
He did not even respond. They had had this conversation countless times before.
Wraith no longer expected anything from him, so she simply left her body in the young man's hands and lost herself in thought as if separating her mind from her body.
The first thing that came to mind was those idiots who were like an incarnation of rebellion.
Now those were people worth bullying.
"Quenser Barbotage and Heivia Winchell, hm?... Interesting. Hoo hee hee. What kind of nonsense should I make them do next?"
Just as her true thoughts leaked out, something odd happened.
She had not ordered him to, but the silent young man began digging his thumb into the bottom of her foot. Little Wraithy's shriek echoed across the white beach like someone had stepped on a kitten's tail.
The young man was this Martini's bodyguard, but he also functioned as a safety to keep her under control.... How each individual bodyguard accomplished this was up to them.
Part 8
The threat of the Faith Organization attack helicopter had passed.
Dorothea had survived, but only after violating military regulations by sending the following file to Quenser:
We ask for assistance in researching the fully self-driving cars which are currently being implemented within safe country cities.
The research in various fields is still underway, but what is ultimately desired is enough experience to qualify as a field test. However, experience on a predetermined circuit or between set hours when traffic is controlled is suboptimal for AI learning.
The world is filled with coincidences and malice.
If a small child runs out in front of the car in a complex downtown area, can it really avoid a collision? Would it mistake a doll or a sign shaped like a child for the real thing and slam on the brakes? Cyber attacks on the program are of course a concern, but will the decision-making program reliant on the GPS map and anti-personnel radar function properly under the effects of powerful jamming?
Can we really eliminate all problems, anticipate all situations, and prevent all incidents of intentional and coincidental accidents?
The answer is simple: no.
Thus, the Information Alliance's Automobile Coordinated Corporate Conference has decided on an acceptable number of accidents. If the number of accidents caused by the implementation of self-driving cars is fewer than the number caused by traditional driver-controlled cars, the corporations can say they improved society and would thus bear no responsibility.
Let us discuss a hypothetical.
If the traditional car culture took 20, 000 lives a year, then an identical loss of 20, 000 lives would cancel out and leave no responsibility.
... And the same applies if the introduction of self-driving cars reduces the number of accidents by less than 10%.
In other words, the 18, 000 deaths leftover are just "excess".
You can say the same thing about the number of people the government or a corporation can get away with killing. Such as the mountains of bodies produced in war year in and year out.
Of course, we will work to reduce the number of deaths.
Taking a program originally used in military tanks and downgrading it for civilian use is one part of that. The vast plains, deserts, and jungles provide much more space to move around in than the complex arrangement of public roads. Plus, the battlefield blesses us with opportunities to test a variety of obstruction tactics such as ambushes, landmines, cyber attacks, and jamming. By repeating field tests here, the driver AI should learn to respond to unexpected situations more flexibly.
Even then, the number cannot be reduced to zero. In fact, it is better this way.
This is a new weapon developed by the military. We are well aware that releasing our "convenient service" will lead to people being killed. More than that, just by messing with the scale on the kind of cold graph seen at life insurance companies, we can wipe out people we dislike. Even entire races or social classes.
We know this, yet we are spreading the technology throughout safe countries.
We wanted to influence the people's opinion of the technology by saying this was a resilient and safe system that had survived harsh military testing and thus the threat of the manual driving age was over.
That was why failure was not an option on this mission.
They could not afford to lose the hardware inside, so those tanks could not be abandoned.
Also.
The Information Alliance placed price tags on all information and wealth was gathered in the hands of whoever has the most data. This naturally led to giant corporations greedily seeking out, feasting upon, and filling their bellies with the private information of the masses.
As long as the number of accidents remained within the acceptable number, the corporation bore no responsibility. They would still be taken to court or sued by individuals, but it would never go any "higher" than that.
What would happen if this was implemented?
Even in the Information Alliance, there were those who refused to have their data indiscriminately collected. Some people would keep their phone's GPS turned off and wear glasses or a mask that confused facial recognition programs.
But that would mean they were no longer "recognized as human" by the cameras of the self-driving cars.
And that mistake would increase the rate of accidents.
A car might not even brake as it ran them over in the middle of a crosswalk.
The odds of each incident occurring might be low, but that would build up over time and they would be doomed to die eventually. Yes, just like gradually increasing the amount of salt or fat in the food they ate.
An obvious cyber attack would leave traces of the culprit and be treated as a crime, but if it was setup to look like a "malfunction" in facial recognition of the victim, the position of culprit and victim would switch around. Just like someone running out in front of a car, the dead would be seen as a nuisance and the one at fault.
Meaning...
They were building a system where the uncooperative would be killed without the rulers having to lift a finger. The conspiracy would never be found out. The numbers would look as vague as with carcinogenic materials, but there would in fact be a clear dividing line between who lived and who died.
In that culture, the demon of statistics would bring certain "death by accident" to any who refused to have their data collected.
Everyone else was constantly monitored by mobile wi-fi bases and drive recorders and, if they showed the slightest sign of refusing cooperation, they would be thrown into the category of "accidental deaths".
"Gh, kh..."
Inside the tank filled with her hobbies, Dorothea Martini Naked curled up and groaned while wearing only panties and a white blouse with the bottom buttons undone.
Now that she had escaped the fear of death, she could appreciate the true gravity of what she had done. But luckily, the radios given to the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers could not transmit a signal very far. They of course had their output restricted to keep them from sending any unnecessary information to the outside world during an operation. Without amplification from the large antennae on the Tank 041s, they could not send anything back to the Flagship 019 or the world at large. And that equipment was borrowed from the Information Alliance. As long as it was retrieved and destroyed, there was no risk of the document making it to the Legitimacy Kingdom military.
She had already been paid.
No, the amount of money the red-haired pineapple girl had did not matter. The question was how much she could make in the future as someone who could greedily gather all that big data. She needed to use this never-drying spring of money.
Even now, chat text was rapidly scrolling by on a corner of the LCD monitor used to display a variety of strategic information. It was a lot like communication in an online game, but the other posters were the other members of the tank unit wearing their own type of sleepwear, be it pajamas, negligee, or whatever else.
"Energy> Nyahoo, what're we gonna do, Dorothea?"
"Magienz> That was a major contract violation. Now our sponsor is gonna hunt us down and kill us!"
"Roxeus> Respond, Dorothea!!"
"Trevor> You're the leader. And you're the one that got us all involved in this business! You started this, so you can't just throw in the towel now!!"
Her companions were in the same boat, so their advice only sounded like threats that squeezed at her heart.
She tried to think up a way to break free of that pressure.
And there was a simple answer.
Dorothea only had one option that would allow her to walk brazenly through the world once more.
"... They can't make it back alive."
Part 9
The threat of the Faith Organization had passed.
Quenser had extra information on his screen-equipped radio.
It was obvious what would happen.
"Get ready, Heivia."
"Huh?"
"Dorothea's group is going to try something. I doubt they'll let us live after this."
"Wait... what!? When did they become our enemies!?"
The answer was simple.
The Legitimacy Kingdom and Information Alliance had been enemies from the beginning. Trust and betrayal were never on the table. So it was only natural for Dorothea's group to slaughter Quenser's group in order to wipe clean this inconvenient situation.
"Why would you do this, Quenser?" asked Dorothea."This is about the traffic infrastructure of the Information Alliance's foundational cities. What does that matter to Legitimacy Kingdom people like you!?"
"This is a more fundamental problem than war. I can't just ignore it..."
"We have a $300, 000 a year contract!! Until the day we die, we get enough to buy a new cruiser in Miami every year! Do you really think we're going to throw that out for your silly reasoning!?"
"I suppose I should've expected the Information Alliance to get philosophical on the battlefield. You're all such pretentious intellectuals." Quenser smiled fiercely with the borrowed radio in hand."But does scum really need a reason to kill each other on the battlefield, Dorothea? I'm not talking about secret deals or common interests; this is just what war is."
"..."
He heard an oddly wet sound through the radio.
Had she bit and bloodied her lip?
Or was it a form of laughter no normal person could imitate?
"... Fine then. It's all-out war then."
"Let's settle this."
"Are you trying to buy time with this? As long as we survive the primetime surprise attack, the difference between tanks and infantry in a pure head-on clash is absolute. You'll be turned to mincemeat before you can get anywhere close. Would you prefer being blown up by an explosive shell or torn to pieces by a heavy machinegun? The choice is yours☆"
If they were simultaneously locked onto from five direction and exposed to all that great firepower at once, Quenser's group could not escape. The mangrove forest might be used as materials for an Object, but the tree trunks would just be torn apart if the soldiers tried to hide behind them. And with nothing to provide cover, they would be killed instantly if the tanks began horizontal fire.
If Quenser shaped his explosives to direct the blast, he could indeed pierce through a tank's belly. But these had reactive armor. He would want to detonate the explosive at least within 15 meters and ideally attach it directly to the armor, but Dorothea's group would never give him the opportunity. After all, those heavy machineguns could accurately target him from 1000 meters and the explosive shells from five kilometers. He would never get close.
To sum up, there was nothing they could do.
And yet, while there was tension, there was no fear on Quenser's face as he brought the radio to his mouth.
And he spoke with a thin smile.
"I have your commitment."
A great tremor shook the earth.
It of course came from the main cannon of the Objects that ruled the battlefield.
What had happened?
Wasn't it the Faith Organization's Second Generation Paper Bikini that ruled this place?
It was not.
Something massive produced a deep whistling as it spun through the air. A main cannon had been torn off and blown away. Each individual sheet of paper looked thin and fragile, but by gathering thousands or even tens of thousands of them, this giant cylinder had gained incredible weight and shock resistance. And now it mercilessly stabbed into the ground between Quenser's group and Dorothea's group.
The paper main cannon belonged to the Paper Bikini, an experimental weapon that looked ahead to the coming Age of Starvation.
This meant it had been destroyed at some point.
"Wha-... ?"
"Had you forgotten? We belong to the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion. We maintain and operate an Object. And that means the Paper Bikini was not the only one on this battlefield. Our Baby Magnum was here too."
"But why now... ? Your borrowed radios can't reach the Flagship 019 and I doubt that First Generation would leave the ocean and come here for no reason!!"
"Remember the diversion I had little Wraithy set up?" Quenser smiled."She sent out a powerful directional signal to hint at the presence of a nonexistent secret base in order to distract the Paper Bikini.... But what if there really was a military installation there?"
"Ah!?"
... Now, where should we send it?
... Let's avoid any villages or access routes people use to travel. Oh, I know. Use coordinate 2282-5465. That shouldn't be a problem.
... Understood. I'll trust your knowledge of the land after going around blowing up those heroin plants.
What had Wraith's trust sent that signal to?
The answer was obvious.
"If a cutting-edge Second Generation suddenly pinpoint targeted a secret Legitimacy Kingdom base, our cute Princess would have to be scrambled and sent out there."
The rest was a chain reaction.
After heading out and engaging the Paper Bikini in battle, the Baby Magnum would investigate the area and notice any other spontaneous combat.
Even if their signals could not reach the Flagship 019 on the distant beach, the Baby Magnum's largescale mobile radio base was a different story now that it had moved inland.
Of course, Quenser had not planned this all out from the beginning.
He had requested the initial diversion when they had thought the Paper Bikini had left but the Faith Organization's pilgrim soldiers had found them and the Second Generation might just come back. He had been hoping to distract that Object and also get the Baby Magnum involved since that was a job for the Princess. That was all he had been thinking initially.
But it had paid off.
He had smelled something fishy, but had not initially found any actual evidence of anything.
But he had not overlooked it and he had persisted to the very, very end.
"She'll have overhead everything we said here. And since the signal could reach her, she'll also have the secret data you sent me. Your Achilles' heel is already inside the Object's recorder."
Quenser heard a rumbling like approaching thunderclouds.
He pointed his thumb over his shoulder and gave a smiling announcement.
"If you want to cover this up, then be my guest. Let's see that precious tank of yours blow away the Baby Magnum."
Part 10
"Well, that's one of the worst things I've ever heard."
Heivia groaned when Quenser explained the situation to him after they returned to that metal beached whale known as the Flagship 019.
"A rule to dodge responsibility while accepting the deaths of tens of thousands every year? Downsizing a program from tanks to civilian cars? You've gotta be kidding me. Was the Information Alliance trying to start a war that covers battlefield country and safe country alike? Not even a thermobaric bomb takes that many lives at once. That'd be like dropping a nuke on their own country as some kind of yearly event."
"The physical hardware that holds the crucial research data was inside Dorothea and the others' tanks. And we had the Princess blow those up after Dorothea's group surrendered and got out of them, right? That settles everything. They've failed to build a 'safe system' they can say withstood military testing. And that also eliminated any evidence of ground forces on the Flagship 019."
"$300, 000 a year for life if you cooperate, huh? That's like winning the lottery."
"Oh, I'm sure they would've been secretly assassinated once all the data was gathered. Agree to pay 'for life' and you don't have to pay a single cent as long as the recipient dies during the first year."
"Ugh..."
"That world power controls everything via information. You have to expect that kind of loophole abuse."
At that point, the two idiots fell silent.
They paused.
After a while, Heivia resumed speaking but more quietly.
"It's hard to say this was really resolved, though."
"You may be right."
They had nipped this incident in the bud.
But what if the planners had a second or third seed planted which simply had not reached the surface yet? If the major automobile makers used some other method to implement self-driving cars under the same system, a traffic infrastructure that used the acceptable number of accidents to automatically assassinate the uncooperative would blossom within the Information Alliance's safe countries.
The rulers need not bother with a cyber attack. If anyone uncooperatively rejected indiscriminate data gathering through drive recorders and mobile wireless stations, the system would automatically kill them in an accident.
"What about that former airbase?"
"The Princess held up another team there. They were probably a retrieval team meant to physically nab the hardware protected by the Tank 041s' thick black boxes. If we'd arrived at the airbase as planned, we probably would've been lined up and shot."
And as they discussed that...
"Hi."
Someone called out to them.
It was a blonde girl in a black uniform unsuited for the beach who had a young man standing behind her like a butler. The young man held a duralumin trunk that was probably the tiny officer's private property. It was the product of a prestigious brand well-known in New York. It was only used to carry luggage, but it had to have cost as much as a car.
This was Wraith Martini Vermouthspray.
Tension filled the air like an ominous electric charge, but Quenser held a hand out horizontally to stop Heivia from doing anything.
The young man smiled pleasantly and bowed slightly.
The next thing Quenser knew, the duralumin trunk had fallen to the young man's feet and his hands were free.
He looked like the slender secretary type, but there was something hidden deep in his eyes. And if Wraith was willing to casually approach people armed with rifles or explosives, she must have had absolute trust in the specs of the young man serving her.
Quenser sighed.
"... But does that come from certain 'rotten' interests, or not?"
"???"
Since she looked utterly confused, our cute little Wraithy must not have had that specialized knowledge.
Having found an answer to that question that had been bothering him, Quenser started again.
"I don't envy you your damage control work here. Your project failed pretty spectacularly."
"So it seems. Well, we are the Stopgap Grim Reaper... troubleshooters brought in from outside. To be honest, I'm not all that interested in what happens to the Flagship 019."
A violent and somewhat comical sound followed.
Had it been unlocked or had the lock weakened from overuse? Wraith kicked at the duralumin case that had fallen to the sand at her feet, forcing open the latch. The mass of metal looked solid enough to use as a shield, but that was enough for it to split open like a bivalve. However, it did not contain stacks of cash, bars of gold, classified documents, tropical clothing, or cute underwear.
It contained a shirt and underwear. More notably, this clothing was worn by a lonely old man with his hands and feet bound behind him and a gag in his mouth. He lacked the dignity he had shown when protected by all those young women.
"... Alfred Silverking..."
"The higher ups have decided to keep the chaos to a minimum by firing him, but his subordinates might put up an ill-advised resistance if we took him away right in front of them. He seemed more interested in enjoying himself than helping the Flagship 019 recover, so I thought I would give the old man some excitement by skipping town in secret."
"How hot is it right now? Will he really survive to the airport?"
While the two frightened idiots watched on, the young man carefully pushed the old man back into the duralumin trunk and closed it once more.
It did not matter that he was also part of the Information Alliance. In fact, it did not matter to them if someone was also part of the Martini Series.
They were probably used to it after all the death and failure they had seen.
"... Oh. So that's what seemed off to me at first."
"Hm?"
"The Flagship 019. It's not a battleship or an aircraft carrier. It's a flagship, so it should be at the center of the fleet.... But isn't that categorization really vague? If the registration on paper is all that matters, you could call a rubber boat or a life buoy a flagship."
"Heh. Hah hah! You're mentioning that now, you adorable fools!? That was an electronic information control ship wearing the skin of a battlecruiser. And I doubt you need to ask what kind of data it was exchanging and gathering in this case!!"
"..."
"Well, you can see how well that turned out. But my job is to troubleshoot these seemingly impossible problems, so that doesn't matter to me. Now, gentlemen, until we meet again on whichever battlefield money and information gather on next. Which shouldn't take long."
That Martini Series girl waved her hand and walked past Quenser and Heivia.
But then something odd happened.
The blonde girl gently took Quenser's hand.
And she whispered to him.
"(To be honest, I was sick of that plan for a civilian assassination traffic infrastructure using self-driving cars. You did a lot to help troubleshoot that problem. Out of respect for your righteous anger, I will dig up the rest of the seeds there, so you needn't worry about it yourself. )"
And just once, she pressed her lovely lips against the back of his hand.
After that, Wraith Martini Vermouthspray really did leave without looking back.
Between the Lines 1
"Nnn."
While riding a rented urban bicycle, a small girl pressed one slender leg against the ground to come to a short stop in the bike zone in the wide sidewalk. She had her small butt pressed against the bike seat and she raised her arms to stretch. She wore sporty cyclewear and a groan escaped her lovely lips. Despite being in a large metropolis, there was no smog blocking out the sky and the refreshing breeze carried the scent of greenery. Both facts pointed to some unusual city planning.
She had chosen New York for her first long-term leave in a while. The city's people were walking with a bit too rushed of a pace for a vacation, but she had seen far too much picturesque rural scenery in the battlefield countries. This was supposedly her hometown, but she had clearly not visited in a while since all the electronic billboards and AR markers flooding Times Square felt more strange than familiar.
It had been a long time since she had seen her parents.
As her hometown, she knew it well, but the city changed very quickly. She should have gone around doing preliminary research if she had wanted to properly enjoy her vacation with her family. The data in which the Information Alliance found value was not just what was found scattered across the internet.
(I wish I could have had father show me around, but for a New Yorker, he really is clueless about what's fashionable... )
OLEDs were used to place the world's largest flat-screen monitor on a gigantic building wall.
"Gather popular objects and battle the world! Oh ho ho! The app is free to play, so anyone can enjoy it! 20 billion downloads to date! And a special collaboration with me is currently underway!!"
(That's more than the population of the earth, isn't it?)
After watching a sexy G-cup woman winking and reading off the advertisement on the building wall, the small girl sighed and slowly shook her head. She had performed that herself, but the flow and density of data in the Information Alliance was insane in several different ways.
At times like this, it was a lot easier being a VR idol whose motion data was used for a CG model. She could ride around on a bike without a disguise and not have to worry about any kind of trouble. And with her personal information protected at the level of a military VIP, no essentially-unemployed cyber reporter with too much time on their hands or amateur paparazzi for a cheap tabloid could discover her identity.
That was how the world worked.
You wanted to know everything about them while they could not see your true identity. That was true of the president of a monstrously-large IT company and it was true of the charismatic leader of an international hacking group. That was why people were so fixated on social media friend counts, why housewives fought to control the neighborhood discussions, and why bartenders and taxi drivers acted like they knew everything. At the very least, that was the essence of the basic pyramid structure envisioned by the people of the Information Alliance.
New York was composed of five different blocks and its registered population alone was 8 million. Include people there as laborers, tourists, and the like, and there were more than 20 million people there on a daily basis. But even with that many eyes on the girl, none of them realized she was the genius girl who was both an Object Pilot Elite and a top idol. Or that bodyguard men in suits were mixed in with the crowd at important points and that a bulletproof car was waiting to evacuate the girl in less than a minute if trouble arose.
But as much as the girl acted like she knew everything that was going on, there were definitely some things that she "could not see". The young man selling gelato from a truck may have wanted to hear the voice of a giant IT company president in person, the beautiful woman covered in brand names who walked by may have put too much faith in the power of cards and found herself buried in debt, and the female officer with long silver hair and brown skin who was leaning out from behind a wall may have disguised herself in a lawyer suit and glasses while she writhed in joy with a video camera in hand.
(Hm? Did I just have some kind of strange hallucination... ???)
While taking a break, the girl accepted a cup of vanilla gelato with cream cheese and raspberry as extra toppings from the RV food truck and did a suspicious double-take, but there was no one at that building corner. If she was seeing hallucinations like that, her job may have been more stressful than she had thought.
(Now, I think I'll finish going through midtown while eating this and then I can head on to uptown. They do say you could see all the major Manhattan sites in a single day if you really tried. )
She knew things that others did not and others might know things she did not. It was important to keep that in mind. At the very least, this world power was not kind enough to hand success to anyone who thought they were a true genius who knew everything. If you ever found yourself convinced of that in your daily life, it was best to assume some third party was already twisting your life to their benefit.
Your possibilities are unlimited.
Any dream can come true if you keep working at it without giving up.
Not everything is determined by your position in the world. There is sure to be someone out there who needs you.
The small girl thought of those stereotypical platitudes, realized they could all be found in her songs, and grimaced. And not because the burnt caramel sauce gathered at the bottom of her vanilla gelato cup was so bitter.
(Maybe I should punch that lyricist next time I see them. )
Of course, her determination here was hampered somewhat by the fact that her punches were about as strong as a playful kitten's.
And the girl had yet to realize something else.
... That successful lyricist was actually a huge fan of the hard rock band Boy Racer and wanted a lot more freedom in what they wrote, but a certain silver-haired and brown-haired someone (who insisted on being called a creator despite not being a manager or an agent and having no experience in the field whatsoever) had such a sharp glare that the lyricist was only allowed to use those platitudes that were one step away from being a nursery rhyme.
This was yet another good example of how the Information Alliance worked.
You knew things that others did not and others knew things you did not.
| ← Ch. 121 | Ch. 123 → |