novelRapidly Growing Conspiracy Theory >> Joint Military Exercise in the Kariba District (2)
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Fortunately, they were only lifted about two meters and being slammed back into the soft grassy ground was not going to kill them, but then the second wave arrived.
Far in the distance, the flattened Self Deception's reactor exploded as if it had only just now remembered to do so.
The blast itself did not reach them, but the bright flash of light stabbed into their eyeballs.
"You've gotta... dammit... be kidding me! Damn, that huge-breasted commander! This time... this time I'm going to... !!"
Heivia wailed as he held his head in his hands, but Quenser could not hear what he was saying.
He desperately rubbed his eyes to bring back his vision, but then his blurry vision managed to see yet another explosion.
"You're kidding... The Mobius Infinity's main cannons are skewering the other Objects from above while they're shaken by that first blast!!"
"Oh, goddammit!! You mean another flash is going to blind us!?"
This time, the Faith Organization's Sand Cluster was transformed into scrap metal.
Next, the Rush piloted by the Information Alliance's Oh ho ho was almost hit, but it sacrificed its right main cannon to just barely avoid it.
Heivia was sent tumbling along the ground again and again, but his expression changed entirely when he looked up.
The Objects had scattered wreckage in every direction like a volcanic eruption, so twisted pieces of cannon barrels the size of bridges and armor panels larger than busses were raining down around them.
It did not matter that they were four or five kilometers away.
"Watch out! Dodge!!"
"Dodge where!?"
Quenser attempted a meaningless dive to the side, but Heivia grabbed the back of his neck and forced him to his feet. They somehow managed to escape disaster like an un-athletic player running away from the baseball after being stuck in the outfield to fill an empty spot on the team.
"Can we really beat something like this!?"
"Not if it was just us, but this is the Gigant Hustler! There are plenty of Objects just like it!"
The Mobius Infinity had achieved astounding results, but it was still outnumbered.
If the four remaining non-Capitalist Corporations Objects made a suicidal charge together, they may have been able to defeat the Mobius Infinity.
However...
"Dammit, something isn't right, " spat out Heivia while leaning against the wreckage of a main cannon sticking out of the ground nearby."The Objects surrounding it are getting oddly wary of each other. Have they given up on defeating the final boss together and are instead trying to defeat whatever enemies they can!?"
Gigant Hustler was the world's greatest battle which included eight Objects, but it was also a massive psychological battle between the Pilot Elites.
Who would target who first?
Whose help would they use to attack who and when would they make their betrayal to get ahead?
"This was is a battle to survive. None of them are going to agree to work together when it could easily mean their own destruction."
"Yeah, but if the Mobius Infinity sticks around, they don't stand a chance against it on their own. Don't they all get that!?"
"Then, Heivia, are you going to volunteer as the first to sacrifice himself to help the others? That's what this is about. We can't count on the Objects. They're holding the bottom of their skirt and fidgeting as they try to keep from wetting themselves, so we'll be at checkmate in no time if we rely on them!"
Quenser clenched his teeth as the Objects ended their brief joint fight against the Mobius Infinity and started moving away from the others.
The Princess's Baby Magnum was one of those.
Given her mission objective, it was obvious she didn't want to end the fight against the Mobius Infinity, but if she alone remained, she would be immediately picked off by that enemy Object. She could not fight the current trend of the situation.
So who would be the first one ejected from this deadly game of musical chairs?
The Mobius Infinity was the most powerful yet had used brute force to stop anyone else from targeting it.
The Self Deception had been the weakest and it had already been blown away.
No one knew what would happen next and anyone could be the next one kicked out.
And that was when another unexpected event occurred.
The ground around the Baby Magnum suddenly split apart and a massive amount of water burst out.
Water was the greatest weakness of a static electricity propulsion device.
"What... the hell?" muttered Heivia.
This was more than a water pipe bursting. Cracks covered the entire surface and the Baby Magnum was nearly swallowed up by a great torrent like a South American waterfall turned upside down.
"No, wait. Wait, wait!! The Princess is using static electricity, so she can't cross rivers or the ocean. So isn't all that water really bad!?"
Once it caught her, she would be unable to move.
The Princess spun her Object around as if kicking at the ground like a horse and desperately tried to escape the flooded area, but even if she did escape, the impassable zone would grow as the water continued to surge out. And what would the other monsters do once her freedom of movement was restricted?
"Where did all that water even come from!? The entire map is green and there aren't any obvious rivers anywhere!!"
"No, " muttered Quenser."We were thinking about this wrong. Why isn't this place a desert? Because there's water. I don't know who, but someone searched out an underground water vein and set up bombs at the Princess's feet! They weaponized the water that's keeping this giant plain nice and green!!"
"But how? And who? Was it those mechanized combat engineers from the Capitalist Corporations? It's true I've heard those civil engineers use tunnels and manmade wetlands to stop Objects."
"If they could accomplish this, they would be doing a lot more. And they would stand out so much that we probably would have been sent out to shoot them."
"Then who did this!?"
"I don't know and I don't care. Besides, that isn't the biggest problem."
Far in the distance, an Object made a large turn.
It was the Information Alliance's Second Generation Rush.
The Pilot Elite they referred to as the Oh ho ho mercilessly aimed her one remaining rapid-fire beam Gatling cannon to take advantage of the Baby Magnum's unexpected trouble.
"It doesn't look like she's going to overlook this just because they know each other."
"She's had one of her main cannons destroyed. If she's seen as an easy target, the others will be quick to attack, so she can't let herself look weak."
A few other Objects followed the Rush's lead and targeted the Baby Magnum.
And one of those was the Mobius Infinity.
"Oh, no, " groaned Quenser."We need something to turn this around. If we let this continue as is, we'll have to see the Princess torn into from every direction!!"
Part 10
The lanky man rested something like a giant steel compass on his shoulder and slowly left the front line.
With its barrel, trigger, ejection port, and cocking lever, the device resembled a simplified bolt-action sniper rifle, but it was not meant to shoot people. It was an explosive underground probe that searched for buried objects using the shockwave of an explosion.
It could of course be used to locate underground water veins.
The device was meant for use in deep forests or deserts with no cars anywhere nearby, so it required miraculous skill to accurately locate anything with all the explosions in the area.
The skinny man looked back just once to view the battlefield he had set into motion.
"Now, then. I've poked the hornet's nest with water from the hose. I look forward to what you do next, gentlemen."
No one noticed the man slipping away from the confused battlefield. Or rather, he appeared on the Objects' anti-personnel sensors and the cameras of drones, but he only looked like a pathetic modern soldier who was trying to find help outside the exercise grounds after getting himself separated from his unit. He had set everything up to make sure he looked that way.
The voices of a broadcast station reached his ears.
"Special commando units that specialize in terrorist attacks on safe country metropolises have been in decline in this age of clean wars using Objects and all related nations have announced a reduction in their usage."
"But at the same time, there are many unknowns about what happened to those commandos 'afterwards'. Some are suspected to have joined antigovernment or anti-Object groups where they plan attacks on safe countries or help smuggle people into the safe countries. Even the previous Soberania Disturbance near the Panama Canal is said to have involved those commandos."
As the tall, skinny man parted the tall grass, he listened to a supposed specialist from a peaceful country.
As he did, he spoke words that were swept away by the wind.
"It really isn't that simple."
Part 11
"Ding, ding, ding, dong. It is now two o'clock and time for a relaxing afternoon oasis courtesy of the Queen's Café."
"Salem Logistics is introducing a brand new online shopping system. Order on your smartphone and the product is guaranteed to arrive anywhere on the globe within twelve hours."
"Leave the first song to me. I've got the perfect thing to put you in a good mood. It's a classic from when the band Boy Racer still had some sanity left."
Inside the cockpit used to control a machine measuring over fifty meters and weighing over two hundred thousand tons, the Princess was swallowed up by a deluge of sound.
She had chosen not to eliminate any of the voices being broadcast over the same frequency because she was desperate for as much information as she could get.
An explosion had occurred directly below her and an unbelievable amount of underground water had leaked out.
The spot she had been in five seconds before was now a giant wetland and the puddle had grown to five kilometers. If she was caught in that, she would be trapped in the bottomless swamp and it was obvious what the other Objects would do then.
New water was continuing to well up from the countless cracks and the Baby Magnum was moving left and right in a desperate attempt to escape the net of water.
Another machine was in hot pursuit.
It used an air cushion to keep the entire Object afloat with the power of air, so unlike the Princess, it could ignore the water as it moved.
"Ho ho ho. Oh ho ho ho ho ho! Once you smell the stench of defeat, it's too late to recover. Sorry, but this is the end for you. I'll make sure to at least send a message and some flowers to your unit. Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho!!"
"You don't even understand how I was giving you a chance to be on the winning side, do you? That head of yours really is empty, isn't it?"
"I will answer all of your questions after I've won. Oh, and after we win the Gigant Hustler, I'll make sure to look after your defeated soldiers. It would be a shame to let that bomb-using student's talents continue being wasted with you."
"I will destroy you."
"Oh ho ho. How could you possibly-... bwah!?"
Countless shells flew from the fleeing Baby Magnum, but they were not fired by its seven main cannons. The Princess was firing the many railguns and coilguns attached all over the spherical body.
Those were not enough to damage the Rush, but that was not her intention.
By sending a downpour of shells toward the Oh ho ho's feet, the ground was filled with holes.
An air cushion device kept the two hundred thousand ton Object afloat using a massive layer of air.
It could compensate for irregular terrain by scanning it with lasers and ultrasonic waves ahead of time, but what happened when the ground below underwent such a rapid change?
The Rush shook violently.
The Oh ho ho used the giant chainsaw-like treads attached as secondary propulsion devices to forcibly regain her balance.
"Wha- Ah, wait!?"
"I hope you get motion sickness and barf. It's time you learned air cushions aren't perfect!!"
The two Objects seemed to kick off the ground as they moved at sharp angles and aimed their main cannons at each other.
An exchange of ultra heavy shellfire was about to begin, but then a familiar boy's voice joined the deluge of noise filling the cockpit.
"Can you hear me, Princess? Our plan failed and you've been kicked out of the game of musical chairs instead of the Mobius Infinity!"
"Is that all you have to say!?"
"So..."
Quenser was not done yet.
He went on to say more.
"It doesn't matter how many hits you take as long as you keep your life, so do everything you can to survive while we change the flow of battle again. We'll hit the Mobius Infinity with a fatal blow, transforming it into some irresistible bait."
The expression on the Princess's graceful, doll-like features rarely changed, but all alone in the cockpit, she gave a look she could never let anyone else see.
"Understood. I'll be waiting."
Shells flew back and forth and she almost seemed to dance as she dodged them.
The transmission ended and she faced her enemy once more.
"As you can see, there's no room for you here. You need to realize which one of us is giving off the stench of defeat! Then you can die!!"
"Oh ho ho. True love is taken by force. If you don't understand that, you truly are a child!!"
Part 12
After ending the transmission, Quenser spoke to his awful friend.
"Let's go, Heivia. It's time to blow away the Mobius Infinity."
"Are you serious? I mean, are you serious!? This is officially a joint military exercise and the Band Station is providing a live broadcast. Obsolete infantry aren't going to be slaughtered by cutting-edge weaponry here, so if we stay quiet and leave the battlefield, we can escape safely!!"
"But the Baby Magnum can't. I won't let the Princess be disgraced while people watch from their living rooms. We've already worked up a sweat helping her out, so what's wrong with sticking with that to the end?"
"Oh, goddammit!! Why couldn't it be a filthy old man on there!? Then we could just abandon him!!"
Quenser and Heivia motivated each other while traveling across the battlefield. The Mobius Infinity had moved away from them in order to take up the optimal firing spot.
They hid behind scattered pieces of armor wreckage bigger than cars and ran through the tall grass.
"What exactly are we going to do!?"
"That's part of what we need to look into, but I have a general idea."
"You what?"
"Remember that first saturation attack? That colossal weapon can withstand a nuke, but it still shot down all of our missiles to avoid a direct hit."
"The other ones did that too. Remember when the Capitalist Corporations mechanized combat engineers had all their multiple rocket launchers shot down while we were on our way to the Mobius Infinity?"
They spoke back and forth while moving from wreckage to wreckage in quick bursts of speed.
"Then what about my musical-style false report? The Mobius Infinity immediately started firing its prized main cannons. Yet saving that secret weapon until later would have been better."
"Wasn't that because everyone was starting to gang up on it!? It probably just wanted some big fireworks to scare everyone away!"
"Yes. It 'just' wanted to do that."
Quenser's comment made no sense, but he was not done yet.
"Have you forgotten what Frolaytia said in the pre-mission briefing? With the Band Station's analysis and worldwide broadcast, it wouldn't want to fire its precious weapons in front of the cameras.... It needed to scare everyone away and it had a reason worth using its main cannons despite the risk."
"Are you saying that peashooter might have been able to destroy its main cannons?"
"I doubt it's that simple, but it feared something. We need to hunt it down and crush it with pinpoint accuracy. That has to be the shortest route to catching the last train out of here."
That was when they heard a rustling of grass and Heivia held up his assault rifle.
"!! Why now!?"
"Wait, Heivia, it's the Faith Organization Valkyries!!"
"So what!? Do you not want to kill them because it's a women-only unit!?"
Even as he shouted back, Heivia was confused by the lack of bullets flying their way.
"Their Objects were the Self Deception and the Sand Cluster, so they don't have anything left. They won't want to attack another army's unit right now. If we asked for supporting fire, they'd be blown to bits."
Most likely, Quenser and Heivia had only heard the rustling grass because the Valkyries had intentionally given away their position. If they seemed too powerful, an enemy might feel the need to kill them.
Heivia clicked his tongue and aimed his assault rifle a little further upwards.
"Sorry, but I've got somewhere I have to be, so I don't have time for you ladies!... I'll overlook you for now, so make sure to give me your email addresses later."
He was answered with a warning shot over his head.
The two idiots and the Valkyries passed each other by and continued toward their respective destinations.
"There it is. It's the Mobius Infinity.... Hey, Quenser, let's spy on it from behind that leg-like wreckage over there."
The other Objects were not going to start attacking the Mobius Infinity and it did not want to leave its optimal firing position, so it only made quick movements here and there instead of rushing all throughout the forty square kilometer battlefield. If it had done that, Quenser and Heivia could never have kept up.
"Let's check out those main cannons."
Quenser used binoculars to view the back of the Object.
"They're supported at one point. The giant cylinder is just attached horizontally to the back."
"That's the standard method used on tanks and battleships, right? Is there really a weakness there?"
"... No."
Quenser tilted his head back without removing the binoculars.
He seemed to be focused on the very top of the three main cannons towering above them.
"That's exactly it. Tank and battleship guns are both attached at one point, but their concepts are entirely different. Do you know why, Heivia?"
"What? Because the battleship guns are way bigger?"
"Close, but no cigar." Quenser looked entirely serious as he answered Heivia's joking reply."The answer is that tank guns are much thinner. When positioned horizontally, the end of the barrel bends under its own weight.... Check out the end of the Mobius Infinity's main cannons, Heivia. Isn't it a little curved like it's made from glass fiber?"
"What? Can you even use a bent cannon!? The shell wouldn't go where you aimed it and it might even blow up inside the barrel!"
"Long ago, they apparently used to intentionally shift their aim a little for the first shot. The heat of the shot would straighten the barrel afterwards, so they would fine-tune their aim based on that."
"I've never heard of that. Do the Princess and the Oh ho ho do that too?"
"No, this technology is probably unique to the Mobius Infinity."
"I seriously doubt it. That thing fires it shells to extreme high altitude and drops them back down to create destruction on the level of a meteor strike. They wouldn't use such an analog method to determine the exact bend of the barrel."
"Tanks have advanced since those times, so let's follow those advances to their conclusion."
Quenser focused his mind on the nearly vertical cannon barrels as if stroking his fingertips along the kilometer long metal towers.
"Basically, they have to make sure the metal cannon doesn't bend under its own weight or heat. The easiest method is to cool the entire cannon. One method is to use a thermal jacket. That's a system that places a container of water over the barrel to constantly cool it with the power of water."
"Then is that what's going on here?"
"No, the thermal jacket itself was a failure. This has either overcome its weaknesses or is using a system from a later age."
"Like?"
"Attaching small mirrors to the barrel and sending infrared lasers out from the base. The reflected light can be used to determine the bend, so the targeting information can be corrected before firing. I believe that's the method our tanks use."
But from a distance, it was difficult to determine what method was being used here.
Quenser waved the flat monitor to the shoulder-fired missile set.
"Heivia, can we use this to access the military database? The intelligence division has to have been investigating the Mobius Infinity."
"Do you really think their report is going to have a big red circle labelled 'there's a weakness here'? If so, we would have been given a different plan."
"..."
Quenser fell silent for a moment.
"Then it doesn't have to be the military database. What about the normal internet?"
"Hey, wait. Don't tell me you just want to check on your favorite swimsuit model's blog!"
"No, that isn't it. The Information Alliance's Second Generation Band Station broadcasts a TV show which gives out tons of prize money to any normal people who come up with an Object's weakness, right? Don't you feel like taking a peek at that show's official site?"
The two of them fiddled with the monitor's settings until they somehow managed to access the normal internet.
The site's address was easily found: it was painted in giant letters on the side of the Band Station.
In order to gather information from as many people around the world as possible, the site did not require an ID or password.
However...
"Are you serious? There's a ton of posts here. Do we really have to look through all of this?"
"That's what happens when you get billions of people fighting over a ton of prize money. The scariest thing out there is human greed."
"Not that we're any better.... Anyway, will this really help? It all looks like posts from safe country amateurs."
"Well, I'm not one to talk since I'm only a student."
Fortunately, the high-priority posts (i. e. the ones closest to the prize money) were ranked and marked with different colors. Rookies were meant to use the top opinions as a starting point to further pursue the truth. That structure intentionally fostered a dead heat situation.
The two idiots read through only the posts marked with the highest priority.
"The heat distribution over the barrels is incredibly low. They probably use a thermal jacket that surrounds the cannon in a giant water tank."
"The cannons have several protrusions surrounding the barrel at about two-thirds out from the base. They might be mirrors for infrared lasers, but I doubt they would use something that would break from the shockwaves."
"If they're using a thermal jacket, there would be a deviation in the heat distribution just like the surface of bathwater growing hotter than the rest. Maybe they're using propellers or jets to continually stir up the liquid inside."
Heivia looked up from the screen in disgust and looked to the true monster on the other end of the scenery.
"So which is it? Don't tell me it uses both a thermal jacket and lasers."
"I don't mind if it does, " replied Quenser."As far as I'm concerned, it can use both or it can use some magical new technology that uses the heat distribution of the thermal jacket to freely bend the barrel and increase its accuracy. Either way, they still have to rely on lasers to get the information needed to adjust their aim, so we just have to destroy those. If we destroy the laser oscillators or the reflectors, it won't be able to use its main cannons. Who cares how powerful it is if it can't hit?"
"Come to think of it, the false report we let the enemy intercept mentioned 'ebony soot', didn't it? If that's what got it so worked up..."
"Did it not want anyone to know dirtying its reflectors would create an opening?"
"But even the amateurs online were saying its weakness couldn't just be the mirrors. It won't be that simple."
"And that's why we still have work to do here on the scene. There has to be something there that made it panic, so let's go, Heivia."
"Go where!?"
"If we can't see the answer from here, we just have to get closer until we can."
Quenser moved out from their cover and started approaching the Mobius Infinity.
Heivia groaned but ultimately followed.
"I really think it's about time to abandon you for once."
"You make it sound like you've been saving me from myself each time, but without me, you'd have died long ago."
Just as they started arguing, they heard a dull sound and the main cannon on one side tilted forward. The giant railgun had resembled a vertical tower before, but it now took a horizontal angle like a tank's gun.
"Wait, what's going on? It's collapsing, Quenser! What the hell is going on!?"
"It's not collapsing. It's aiming?"
It was not aiming at them, but still...
"Uh, oh."
With a deafening roar, a metal shell was fired at terrifying speed. The side effects of it splitting the air were enough to throw the two idiots forcefully to the ground.
At the moment, the Legitimacy Kingdom's two Objects were fighting. The Baby Magnum was being exposed to concentrated fire and the Royal Residence was fighting a defensive battle to shield the other since it was large enough to take a fair bit of damage without issue.
The shell flew horizontally into the middle of that.
And it did so in the shape of a figure eight tilted on its side, an infinity sign, or a Mobius strip.
The shell passed right by the Royal Residence, flew in a large arc in the distance, and shot back in to hit the Baby Magnum from behind.
The sound of destruction rang throughout the battlefield.
The shell had struck the structure containing the attachments for the arms supporting the seven main cannons.
"Shit!! Sparks just flew from the back!"
"I can't believe that bastard.... Did it just fire that giant shell like a boomerang!?"
Quenser and Heivia shouted their surprise despite having their breath knocked from them after landing on their back.
The series of events had occurred too quickly to see with the naked eye, but they had managed to see a tremendous shower of sparks flying from the Baby Magnum's rear attachment joints. The Object was still moving, but it had taken quite a bit of damage. It was possible all of its main cannons had been taken out.
Quenser got up on top of the flattened grass and spoke aloud to reassure himself.
"It's fine. The reactor wasn't hit and it didn't add on the force of gravity like normal, so it wasn't as powerful. So this is fine."
"How about you worry about us before anyone else!?... Hm? What's this?"
Heivia stopped complaining and wiped something cold from his cheek.
He had thought it was rain, but it was not.
The substance he had wiped onto the back of his hand was melting, but it seemed to have been a snow crystal.
"Really, what is this? Aren't we in Southern Africa during the summer?"
"Wait. Could the contents of the thermal jacket be leaking?... No, probably not. But if this isn't a special coolant, then where'd the ice come from?"
Quenser once more observed the scenery cautiously ruled by the Mobius Infinity and spotted quite a few white, cotton-like objects falling from the sky. It did indeed look a lot more like snow than water or ice.
He spotted one that fell on a blade of grass and, without touching it, pulled out a loupe like a jeweler would use.
It was a personal possession he had brought along in case he could steal some technology from a destroyed Object. Carrying it with him was of course against military regulations, so he was prepared to have Frolaytia kick his ass if she found out.
"It really is ice with bonds at 120 degrees, so it's definitely a snow crystal. Although each and every one of them has the exact same shape."
"That doesn't sound natural then. Where's it coming from? What part of the Mobius Infinity is frozen!?"
"It started falling when it fired, so is it related to the main cannons? Are the shells coated in ice? Or the inside of the barrel?"
"Hey, wait!"
Heivia raised his voice when Quenser licked the mystery ice crystal.
"It has no flavor... That means I'm wrong. Those main cannons are railguns. If the inside of the barrels or the shells were coated in ice, they'd definitely use salt to raise the conductivity. But then what could it-... ?"
Quenser trailed off, frantically grabbed his binoculars, and stared up at the Mobius Infinity's main cannons again.
"... There it is."
"There what is?"
"There are small protrusions on the side of the cannon barrels. They're reflectors for detecting the bend with lasers. It's blowing in ice crystals to make the reflectors instead of using normal glass!!"
Part 13
The protrusions were only about the size of hand mirrors.
Lasers were a convenient way to detect the bend caused by a barrel's weight or heat, but they were not perfect.
The very nature of the method required the reflectors to be exposed on the outside.
And as mirrors, the reflectors were easily broken.
Plus, they would not work as well if dust or paint got on them.
Since they were the key to making targeting corrections, the shells would not hit if they were taken out. It was a lot like breaking a sniper rifle's scope.
That may not have been a huge issue for a normal tank. The reflectors could simply be replaced whenever they broke. However, an Object was a weapon made to endure a nuclear attack. If it would fail to work after a direct hit from shockwaves, nuclear fallout, and heat spread evenly across its surface, it never would have been adopted as a crucial part of the main cannons.
"That's why the Mobius Infinity makes new reflectors." Quenser gulped."Instead of using indestructible mirrors, it uses ones that can be replaced as soon as they break. The snow crystals are made by gathering moisture around the dust in the air and then freezing it. It probably uses nanotechnology to create the core and sprays supercooled water around it to complete the crystal. Unlike normal snow, the crystal didn't 'just so happen' to take this shape. Like a photonic crystal, this is artificial snow designed to have the optimal design for bending the lasers."
"But... what are we supposed to do?" Heivia was confused."I get the concept, but that's not a weakness! We can fire all the missiles in the world at it or dump an ocean of paint on it, but it can keep blowing in new reflectors. There's no point in even trying to take on infinitely reproducible mirrors!"
"Don't be so sure."
Quenser grinned and did the last thing Heivia had expected.
Despite his apparent confidence, he grabbed the flat monitor to access the official site for the Band Station's prize show.
"Wait. After all this, you're relying on other people's knowledge?"
"Quite the opposite, " replied Quenser."After risking our lives so much, doesn't our measly pay seem a little lacking? Don't you want to post our 'answer' in the hopes of hitting the jackpot?"
Part 14
The Princess was just about at her limit.
She was under attack from several Objects, including the Rush, and the Mobius Infinity was firing boomerang-like horizontal shots. With two or three attacks arriving at any one moment, she was gradually running out of space to escape.
For one thing, clean wars were decided by the number of Objects.
One-against-two was considered near hopeless and one-against-three was to be avoided at all costs.
She knew her luck would run out sooner or later.
"Oh, dear. You aren't using your precious main cannons? Are they broken... or are you pretending they are for a chance at a surprise attack? But do you really think the Information Alliance would fall for a cheap trick like that? Oh ho ho."
"You really are stupid. Throwing away your own options like this will only leave you all alone to be crushed by the Mobius Infinity."
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Do you think fighting is the only way to wage war? This is the problem with you uncivilized Legitimacy Kingdom Elites."
"... ?"
"I have a reset button."
The Information Alliance grim reaper laughed over the radio while firing her rapid-fire beam Gatling cannon that combined thousands or tens of thousands of electron beams that were each powerful enough to tear into a shelter.
"This is the world's largest battlefield, but it is officially known as a joint military exercise. I can use those two facts to my advantage. If things are looking bad, I can have the truth leaked via a variety of routes to inform the masses that a battle on the level of a world war is underway. And our ECM110 is gathering all the footage we need to prove it."
"You..."
"Oh ho ho. Once panic spreads throughout the world, no one will have time to worry about clean wars, will they? If the higher ups don't force smiles, shake hands, and pretend to get along, the safe countries would fall apart, wouldn't they? So that makes this a reset button. Once we press it, all of the Objects will be forced to withdraw."
"You knew from the beginning you would lose? You were gloating because you had a way out so you could turn tail and run!?"
"This is war. The game of chess is not just about taking your opponent's king; it is also about keeping your own king from being taken."
She would kill as much as she could.
She would laugh as much as she could.
And once her own life was in danger, she would immediately hit the reset button and escape to safety.
This was a clean war.
These ideal wars were fought as casually as taking an overseas trip or going out for a picnic and it was assumed none of your own forces would be harmed.
"I think I'm going to throw up."
"Oh ho ho. That's exactly what I would expect from an Elite who can't even protect the infantry she brought with her."
Suddenly, a new broadcast cut in to the torrent of sounds from the many military lines and civilian broadcasts mixed together over the radio.
It was the prize show run by the Information Alliance's Band Station, which they apparently called the ECM110. A broadcast station from an enemy nation had the danger of including false information, so the Princess had not been paying much attention to it before. However, the host's tone of voice suddenly grew much calmer.
"Some incredibly useful information was just submitted. Oh, might this settle it right here!? Further work is needed to complete the acceptance of the submission form, but someone might just have won a bathtub full of dollar bills!!"
The Princess must not have been the only one to find this odd because the Oh ho ho spoke over the communication device.
"That's strange. This wasn't how the reset button was supposed to work."
A high-speed battle between several Objects was still underway, but this broadcast from a distant safe country reached the two girls' ears.
"The new theory in question comes from Billy the Kid in the Legitimacy Kingdom.... The Mobius Infinity uses lasers to detect the bend of the cannon barrels, but the reflectors are made from artificial snow created with nanotech and supercooled water. No matter how much they're broken or dirtied, it can blow in new reflectors."
"..."
"But whether natural or artificial, snow crystals are made when supercooled water covers the tiny core floating in the air."
"You don't mean..."
"If you investigated the structure and shape of the tiny cores made with nanotech, made cores with a different shape, and scattered them around the reflectors, it would create reflectors with the wrong reflectivity. Once that happens, the Mobius Infinity can't target its main cannons and will be completely defenseless. It says here that our submitter Billy the Kid is going to demonstrate this method on site. Now this is getting exciting! How about a commercial break!?"
Part 15
Back on the battlefield, Quenser and Heivia were incredibly busy.
"Will this really defeat that Object!?"
"Weapons are a type of system, so they're weak against unpredicted situations, just like with a computer error. It doesn't matter how big or small it is!"
What they had done was simple.
They gathered all the artificial snow they could find scattered around the Mobius Infinity. At first, Quenser had made sure to check its shape with his loupe, but he quickly gave up on that. If they melted that snow, they would have a large number of identically-sized materials, so they poured it all into the stainless steel cup from a survival kit and placed it over a fire to get rid of all the moisture.
"Always carry a metal cup you can put oil in, huh? We need to thank that cricket chef."
"The scary thing about survival skills is how you never know when they'll come in handy."
Once only the tiny cores remained, it looked like a pile of pepper almost too small to see at the bottom of the cup. Quenser stuck a spoon inside and mixed it all around as if scraping at the bottom of the cup. He was intentionally destroying the microscopic cores to change their shape.
"We're using homemade techniques against cutting-edge nanotech. It's too bad we can't check to see what shape they are now."
"All that matters is that we know the shape has changed. Once the incorrect snow crystal is made, the laser will be reflected all wrong.... More importantly, Heivia, are the missiles ready?"
"The Slingshot's ready when you are. I've got a special seat reserved inside the magic warheads that can hold anything from explosives to glue. I just have to shove these in there, right?
"We have two shots, but only one chance. We need to aim at the reflector creation points located a little over halfway up the barrels. We're assuming the anti-air lasers will shoot it down, but we only need for the core dust to be dumped down on the reflectors. From there, its own supercooled water will create the artificial snow crystals for us."
"Oh, damn. If that one cannon wasn't aimed horizontally, I could've aimed at them all along the same line."
"That's my point. You have to fire one shot at the horizontal one and then another at the two vertical ones. If either misses, it's all over. If you have any good luck charms, now would be the time."
"Sure, sure! So what are we gonna do with the prize money once it's in that net bank account? That prize rivals the world's biggest lottery jackpot, so we could build a villa on the moon and live surrounded by topless girls."
"Thinking about using it all up like that is why lottery winners tend to go broke. How about we do some day trading until someday we can buy an entire Object and fund some wars?"
"You're the type that dumps it all into investing or gambling and ends up broke in a night, aren't you? C'mon, let's get started!"
Heivia rested the launcher on his shoulder and Quenser used the flat monitor for targeting support.
A long trail of smoke cut straight up through the blue sky. It reached the height of the three main cannons extending from the back of the Mobius Infinity.
A flash of light as if from welding immediately followed.
The missile's fuel was roasted by the anti-air laser and it violently exploded in midair.
Quenser and Heivia ignored that as they loaded the next shot and fired it into the sky as well. It too was shot down.
It looked like a perfect defense system at first and its accuracy was so great they could almost see the smirk on the Pilot Elite's face.
But Quenser and Heivia exchanged a high five.
"All right! Just like we wanted!!"
"Hey, then we need to get out of here. If that worked, it'll probably get pissed and attack us. And if it didn't work, this battlefield is going straight to hell. Either way, running away sounds like a great idea to me!!"
The two idiots exchanged a glance and turned their back on the Mobius Infinity as fast as they could. They no longer worried about leaving a trail in the tall grass and they focused on putting as much distance between themselves and the Object as possible.
An explosive sound burst from one of the tower-like main cannons.
The shockwave struck their backs and they tumbled forward. They choked as they got up and continued running on wobbly legs.
The giant metal shell had flown up into the stratosphere where it added on the gravitational acceleration as it fell back toward earth.
However, there was no Object there. One had not even taken hasty evasive action; it simply tore into already empty ground. The green plain was blown apart and a giant crater was born.
"Talk about luck! It actually worked. Ha ha. Now the Princess's life and the prize money are ours!"
"Hey, but what about the second shot? If it keeps firing, won't the snow crystals be destroyed by the shock? And won't the new ones blown in actual work?"
"The 'wrong' cores will hang around and stick to the area around the reflectors for a while, so it won't be a problem! It might have a system that uses static electricity to deflect dust and other unwanted substances, but it would be difficult to tell apart powder of the exact same size and material. It might be like giving someone a transfusion of the wrong kind of blood!"
It test fired a few more times and must have concluded that all of the shells landed in the wrong spot.
A deafening creaking came from the Mobius Infinity.
The two idiots were sent tumbling to the ground with each shockwave, but now the many cannons attached to the spherical body turned their way.
They could feel clear anger on their backs that could not have come from a mere machine.
"This doesn't look good."
Heivia looked back and almost froze in place.
"This really doesn't look good!! Any one of an Object's cannons can turn us to mincemeat! And I doubt we can escape its sensors at this point!!"
They immediately changed direction and leaped behind the wreckage of an Object's armor lying nearby, but they had no clue how effective it would be.
However, something else happened before that defense had to be tested.
A low-stability plasma cannon blast punched through the Mobius Infinity as if stabbing it in the side.
"What... !?"
"It was the Princess... She finished it off in the very, very end!!"
In a way, hiding behind the armor wreckage may have been the right decision.
The overwhelming surge that followed completely overturned the definitions of sound and light. They felt like even the backs of their eyeballs were scorched white and they lost all sense of up or down. Quenser thought the ground was shaking like a small boat rocking in the waves, but after more than half a minute, he realized it was actually his own limbs convulsing unnaturally. It took him another half minute to remember how to stop his body from moving.
Part 16
The Baby Magnum fired its main cannon right by the Oh ho ho's Rush. It pierced through and destroyed the Mobius Infinity which had been using that area as a safe zone.
The absence of that one Object turned the situation on its head.
The Gigant Hustler was the world's greatest battle which included eight Objects, but it was also a massive psychological battle between the Pilot Elites.
The Mobius Infinity had been defeated despite being the strongest one there.
That title had been taken by the Baby Magnum.
And which Object was most obviously attacking the Baby Magnum while having lost one of its main cannons?
If the other Elites wanted to be on the winning team, who would they turn against now?
"Ho... oh ho ho..."
"Checkmate, " muttered the Princess.
A moment later, the remaining Objects except for the Band Station which was also from the Information Alliance (i. e. the Legitimacy Kingdom's Baby Magnum and Royal Residence and the Capitalist Corporations' Spider Joust) all focused on that one Object.
"Quenser kept his promise. I won't let you have him."
The Oh ho ho's ally, the Band Station, was still an Object, but it would be overpowered in a head-on shootout. Plus, the Rush was damaged and not in top form. Not to mention that the three-against-two structure meant they would be overpowered and killed eventually regardless.
A number of thoughts had to be spiraling through the Oh ho ho's mind.
The Legitimacy Kingdom and Information Alliance both had two Objects while the Capitalist Corporations had one. Could she get the neutral Spider Joust to join her and overturn the current majority?
Or could she hold onto her life by immediately destroying the isolated Spider Joust?
But at the same time, she had to have realized something else.
The Princess would undoubtedly target her first and that Princess had taken control of this situation.
She had no freedom of choice here.
Even a second's hesitation could easily leave the Rush punched full of holes without even giving her time to eject.
"E-ECM110."
So...
"Hit the reset button!! Now!!"
With those few words, the "exercise" was revealed to the world to be a "war".
Comments on the internet exploded and news sites were flooded.
The people in the stands and in the safe countries had learned this was a very real danger.
That villainous switch left no option but to forcibly end the world's largest battle.
And that naturally meant admitting defeat against the enemy before their eyes.
Part 17
The Gigant Hustler exercise was cancelled due to "unforeseen trouble", so Quenser and Heivia were being carried from the battle line in a large transport helicopter.
Not many soldiers had ever had a chance to look down at Objects and all their anti-air lasers from a helicopter. One of the Legitimacy Kingdom infantry on the same helicopter was trying to film the Object from above with his camera.
"Large transport helicopters are weak to crosswinds, so lean out too much and you might get dumped out, " warned Heivia."Anyway, we've really got ourselves a bath full of dollar bills. How many million is that in euros? It might even be ten million euros. Even if we're splitting it between the two of us, it's still more than enough to live on easy street for the rest of our lives."
"We won't get it right away. I'm sure the other participants will try to protest. It'll probably show up in the bank account after the TV show finishes shooting down all those complaints. Let's try to take it easy while we wait for Santa's visit."
"Hah hah! There's nothing like stability! We can actually just wait around now!!"
"I know what you mean. The slow life is for the people who made a ton of money and then moved out to the countryside. If you do that after failing, it just looks like you're running away! Hah hah!!"
As the two idiots laughed vacantly in a sort of exhausted high, Frolaytia contacted them for the first time in a while.
"Hey, the electronic simulation division just told me they found signs of someone opening an illegal port over the military line and leaking highly classified military information to an Information Alliance prize show."
"Oh, hell!! Did they get wind of this money already!?"
"Who cares? I'll still be laughing even if they throw us in a cell for half a year! After all, a bathtub full of money is waiting for us!!"
"Sorry, but that isn't happening, " cut in Frolaytia's icy voice."Even war has rules. The intelligence division is protected by a few different war treaties if they're doing so as a means to gather intelligence, but leaking classified information to a quiz show is entirely unprecedented. The Capitalist Corporations are requesting a significant sum of damages via the international courts. Listen, a single Object costs five billion dollars and that number doesn't shrink all that much when when converted into euros. Do you have any idea how valuable the classified intellectual property you 'illegally' divulged was?"
"Wait, wait, please wait!! All we did was make a submission to an official Information Alliance show. I've never heard of some safe country housewife being sued for that much money."
"That's a gray zone. After all, they're a normal person in a safe country. Plus, the weakness is normally found by combining hundreds or even thousands of different ideas. The situation changes considerably when just one or two professionals working on site perfectly reveal an Object's technological information. There isn't much we can say if they accuse you of stealing and disseminating the plans, even if you didn't do that."
"..."
"..."
"And so the Capitalist Corporations have sent a request for damages that truly shows their love of money.... All told, it's thirteen million dollars. Oh, would you look at that? Isn't that the exact amount you two won on that quiz show? Having the entire army spend years fighting this in court for some worthless soldiers would be a pain in the ass and refusing could easily start a back-and-forth divulgence war of intellectual property and lists of spies, so I've been told to get you to pay up."
"Those liars!! Don't you force this crap on us! Do you want me to start another war, you greedy bastards!!"
Heivia began meaninglessly firing his assault rifle down from the helicopter's cargo door, but that was obviously not going to change a thing.
Part 18
Acre Kiss-of-Rose was the chief executive officer of Salem Logistics, one of the seven corporations that directly controlled the Capitalist Corporations' home country. Currently, his made-to-order jacket was soaked on the inside.
However, this was not due to the heat of Africa. It came from sweat brought on by a much more unpleasant feeling.
The Gigant Hustler had been both a giant battle and a giant weapons trade fair. That weapons show had a certain important objective in addition to holding sales negotiations for military weapons and threatening the opposing world powers by showing off one's technological might.
Simply put, it was to create connections.
To do that, it had been assumed that his Capitalist Corporations would win the battle fought between eight Objects. That had been the scenario set up in advance.
But it had all crumbled down around him.
One moment, Acre had been boldly swinging up his fist. The next, he had become a laughing stock. The gentlemen in suits, the ladies in dresses, and the high-ranking military officers in berets and plenty of medals had all given him false looks of pity and those faces were burned into the back of his mind. He might as well have been updating his unwritten execution list.
(I will recover. )
He had a "large physique" that was a fair bit removed from the ideal human body and he had neatly-maintained white hair and an identically-colored beard. He had aged so naturally that it looked like he had been born with hair that color.
But his eyes alone were filled with blazing light.
(No matter what happens and no matter what it takes, I will take back the respect I lost at the Gigant Hustler! Even if it means faking a largescale accident!!)
Heat filled him until it seemed he would burn out the thin circuits in his mind, but then a driver opened the back door of a black luxury car. Acre climbed in without thanking or tipping the man. In a space rivalling a small bus, he sat on the sofa and pulled a chilled bottle of champagne from the mini-fridge.
Instead of speaking to the driver directly, he used a small microphone.
"What happens next?"
"You have special evacuation training as part of the weapons show."
"I know that! I'm asking what kind of accident we'll be faking to recover my... no, I mean Salem Logistics' reputation!!"
"It has all been planned out. The impression left by that battle will be wiped clean and you will stand at center stage once more. Tomorrow, the world will be shocked by the new turn history has taken, CEO."
"As long as you understand. And just to be clear, this is for Salem as a whole, not just me."
He was a man who had no distinction between his work and private life. An enemy of the company was an enemy of his life and his victories were the company's victories. He was the stereotypical example of someone who would have nothing left if his job was taken from him.
So as he fidgeted with the audio set, he could not stand the relatively insignificant broadcast he found.
"Salem Logistics has announced a new generation of online shopping with their Silver Key service. This revolutionary system allows you to order something from your smartphone anywhere on the globe and have it delivered within twelve hours."
"What is this?"
"But the system has a dark side. It's set to use a number of routes used by air tankers, which shows just how much fuel it will consume. And consuming all that fuel requires expanding the tanker routes used to carry it. There's a possibility the international conflicts over the Indian Ocean and Panama Canal have been strongly influenced by Salem Logistics."
"What is going on? This audio set is broken! None of the buttons are working and it won't even turn off!"
Only after shouting in anger and looking up did he realize that the black luxury car was driving through an area he had never seen before.
The area was nothing like the bright international airports, luxury hotels, or casinos the old man was used to seeing. It was filled with people he suspected would punch him in the jaw and steal his gold teeth not five minutes after he started walking around there.
"Let me ask again: what is going on?"
"It's simple: first the Sixth Branch incident in the Arctic and now the pitiful defeat at the Gigant Hustler. Of course, stirring up the battlefield took some doing. I even had to dig up an underground water vein below the Legitimacy Kingdom's First Generation."
A mocking tone filled the driver's voice.
"But setting that aside, this is really quite sad, CEO. All I did was claim this was part of your evacuation training and I easily abducted someone with power rivalling a head of state. The secret service readily opened the way when I told them their boss had selfishly changed his plans and that I couldn't reveal the details. Being a one-man manager certainly has its downsides, doesn't it?"
"You... ?"
There was a questioning tone in Acre's voice, but not because he was questioning who this was.
He was asking why this person was alive.
For one, the skilled abduction could not have been as easy as the man claimed. He would have had to overcome countless barriers to pull it off. And that went beyond the security around Acre. If this man had not had the Gigant Hustler advance as he wanted, Acre would not have been so panicked. In fact, if the negative psychological warfare of the Sixth Branch had not shown itself, the Gigant Hustler would not have happened in the first place. If any one of those pieces had not succeeded, Acre would never have taken the first step toward this abduction.
Acre knew of only one person who could so easily pull off that kind of world-scale tightrope act just to accomplish a single goal.
Meanwhile, the driver continued speaking.
"One: I am a poor man who was swallowed up by Salem Logistic's new service, the Silver Key.
"Two: I am a feeble former spy who had already retired and started a second life in a small household in the Soberania District near the Panama Canal, but had it all taken from me by your money-driven war.
"Three: if I used the name Nyarlathotep, would you still have to ask why you haven't been killed yet, Azathoth?"
Things had yet to truly begin.
An unmanaged war was about to start and it would be far from clean and would surpass the boundaries of a mere military exercise.
The Capitalist Corporations home country was managed by a group of seven corporations known as 7th Core.
The position at the top of one of those corporations was equivalent to being a king in the Legitimacy Kingdom.
And one such CEO's life was at the center of the madness about to burn through the world.
| ← Ch. 080 | Ch. 082 → |