novelParasite Kill >> Battle for Liberation Within Manhattan (2)
| ← Ch.132 | Ch.134 → |
"What do you mean by that... ?"
"111. The Manhattan 000 has not gone berserk because of a major problem. Nor have I, the checker, been broken."
Because it was linked with the Manhattan 000, the giant swim ring hopped up with smooth movements to carry Melly up the stone steps as she got to the crux of the issue.
"Capulet detected a large enough external problem to require bringing the Manhattan 000 onto the stage, so it made a swift request to resolve that problem. That is why I lent it this Object. 901. That seems like the most natural way of looking at this."
"Wait a second. Are you saying... ?"
"I had predicted this was about swiftly purging Piranirie after the Ragnarok Script corrupted her, but it looks like that wasn't all it was. 501."
This was a completely different idea.
Many things shifted around inside Wraith's mind and the brown Martini girl asked a question while peering into her eyes.
"So I have a question. Okay? 331. What happened out here near New Caribbean Island? What kind of monster slumbers in the ocean here?"
Part 5
"Heivia, Heivia."
Myonri had a good reason for sounding so nervous as she called his name.
Sit. Lie down.
The 2m composite armor bull was politely standing directly above Heivia who was collapsed face down on the ground. Even without a server, they were apparently obedient enough to attack delinquent soldiers. They really were well made.
Heivia had been entirely incapacitated and could only squeeze out the voice of a squished frog.
"... Myonri, drag me out of here before this piece of junk starts moving its hips. I wouldn't say I've lived a life that lets me hold my head high in front of the Virgin Mary, but don't you think it's a bit much to let this machine force some bestiality onto me?"
"Um, what are we going to do now?"
Myonri may have gained the ability to automatically filter out anything that would dirty her ears too much. The other potatoes also showed no sign of providing a helping hand.
Myonri was fed up of being spied on by the trumpet or flower-like security cameras that were arranged based on the ability of cross-pollinizing flowers to cover each other's pollen distribution range.
"Manhattan has come all the way to New Caribbean Island, but at the moment, all it has done is come here. Nor does it seem to be preparing to attack anywhere else. In that case... what are we supposed to fight against once we get our guns back?"
"What are you smiling about? Are you interested in what their ass tastes like? This is the enemy's greatest Object! There's no sign of the actual Elite, Capulet is putting in overtime under that crazy Martini's control, and they've already used their electromagnetically-launched reactor cannon for a preemptive strike with no advance warning!!"
"So we're just supposed to shoot the innocent people walking around here? Doesn't that seem like the wrong target?" Myonri placed a hand on her slender chin."It's still unclear whether that... Miss Martini? was using Manhattan to target us in the Legitimacy Kingdom or the Information Alliance maintenance fleet corrupted by Piranirie. We were the ones that infiltrated that fleet, so if they say they didn't know about it, it would mean we were simply caught in the middle of an internal purge..."
An odd groan escaped Heivia's mouth.
That would mean there had been no act of war in the first place and they would have no reason for a counterattack. That would make Heivia and the Legitimacy Kingdom the aggressors in attacking Manhattan and the Information Alliance.
They had done a lot to hype up how frightening the Manhattan was, but now that they were onboard, they found it was peaceful. It was true it had arrived in the ocean near New Caribbean Island, but it was not moments away from vaporizing the Legitimacy Kingdom military with its extreme firepower. It was a mystery who the Manhattan's opponent was and where it had been targeting with that initial attack. Heivia and the others had not been handcuffed or thrown in a cell. They had been released into the city.
There was nothing they could do now.
The potatoes felt silly for getting so worked up about war.
With nothing here, that macho army had lost their reason to fight. It would have been much simpler if they had discovered a plot to wipe out the human race. Like this, it looked more like they were trying to stir up trouble in the perfectly peaceful city to start a war.
This was a fully controlled society.
People were bound by data.
Heivia had glimpsed the fear of a digital city that did not even need to separate out the criminals. Something deep in the delinquent soldier's heart told him it was all over if he let this break him. So he desperately searched for a reason.
"I'm not going to just go along with this and have my bones buried in the Information Alliance. I have noble blood, so I have to inherit the Winchell family."
"That's a nice idea... but what if they say they're contacting our embassy in preparation to hand us over safely?"
They would break.
Even if nothing of the sort was actually happening, Heivia and the others would break if that Melly girl told them that. While she dodged the issue and stalled for time, they would get used to this, lose interest, and decide this was good enough.
Anyone would be afraid.
If you were thrown out in front of such a colossal weapon and told you had to fight it if you had any complaints, anyone would be scared out of their mind. That was why Myonri and the others were clinging to this temporary peace. If they could not find a reason to continue fighting, then why fight? They wanted support for that conclusion.
But that was not good enough.
For one thing, the words of the Information Alliance could not be trusted. They had to assume those words were like disposable bullets meant to manipulate their target and devour everything of value they had.
They should have learned that lesson already.
Back on that ship's deck when their friend had been helplessly shot to death.
"We-..."
Heivia opened his mouth to resume arguing with Myonri and the others who were about to fall for it.
But he was cut off.
It was a dull and unpleasant metallic noise a lot like a poorly-crafted bell being struck. It came from directly above Heivia who still lay pinned to the ground. It came from the side of that Bullmite. A thumb-sized hole had appeared there and sparks flew from it like a handheld firework or smoke bomb.
Except circuit boards would not spew sparks like that no matter how you damaged them.
This was clearly the work of a chemical meant to fry the circuits.
"A sniper... using armor-piercing incendiary rounds!?"
After an especially large burst of sparks from within the electronics, the entire Bullmite went limp. If it had not collapsed to the side, it might have crushed Heivia under its weight.
But Heivia did not look exactly delighted after gaining the freedom he had so desperately desired.
"Who did that... ?"
He asked without thinking, but no one knew the answer. All of the few dozen Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers were gathered in this same location, so none of them could have left and prepared a sniper rifle on a building roof.
But that meant nothing to the people around them.
The Asian passersby widened their eyes, held out their many phones, and produced countless electronic shutter sounds.
Heivia's group could tell they were surrounded by killer intent.
Patrolling Bullmites appeared from around seemingly every corner, as if the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers had triggered the cage of data. And the machines were clearly in a different mode than before. Even if they did not use a server, their simple circuits were apparently enough to pick up on their fellow Bullmite's demise and work together to resolve the situation.
But they were fundamentally wrong. They mistakenly thought the soldiers had broken the rules.
This time, Heivia's group really would be killed.
"What dumbass did that!?"
There were 700, 000 public security cameras and who-knows-how-many phones and drive recorders on top of that. And yet no one could answer that fundamental question.
Who had thrown the stone?
Round 2 had begun.
Part 6
That free and peaceful city looked entirely different now.
The countless security cameras, which were set up according to some big theory about cross-pollination or whatever, were no help at all. They would not clear the soldiers' names of this false accusation.
"What the hell, what the hell, what the hell hell hell!?"
Even if someone else had thrown the rock, they had to deal with the pests that erupted out of the hornet's nest. But Heivia and the others had no weapons, so they only had one option. If they did not run away, they would die. All of them would be killed together. The Bullmite on Heivia's back had collapsed, so he had to get up and run through the Chinatown.
"Wh-where are we supposed to run to!?" asked Myonri."All 20, 000 meters of this place is on top of an Information Alliance Object!!"
"If you really want an answer, then put your hands on your knees, stick your ass out toward them, and take the time to think! Me? I'm running!!"
After turning a corner in the Chinatown, Heivia found an ordinary gun barrel aimed his way.
"!?"
He grabbed and twisted the attacker's wrist and slammed them back-first into the ground only to find it was a college student.
"Why does a civilian have such a big submachine gun!? Are these easier to get than the Island Nation's Stick or Pokemamo!?"
When Heivia fired a few warning shots into the air, the passersby all crouched down and hid below tables and benches. In what seemed to be a sign of surrender, they tossed guns and cartridges out like money offerings. The Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers did not have time to take them all while they fled, but in something like marathon runners at a water station, they all ended up with guns from a variety of makers.
"There is something seriously wrong with the North American market, " said Heivia."Aren't there more guns than on the battlefield?"
"Revolvers, shotguns, submachineguns... are these really all for self-defense?" asked Myonri."Uwehh, there's even some LMGs and sniper rifles... !?"
Guns was more reassuring than no guns, but the serverless and highly-coordinated Bullmites were designed to be used as shields. A machine would not die even if you shot it in the head or chest.
"Normal bullets" was not going to do the trick, so they selected lightweight weapons rather than powerful ones.
Increasing their firepower was not going to stop the Bullmites.
"Oh, honestly!!"
Heivia raised the submachinegun almost on reflex, but it was no use. He was up against machines. Threats would be useless and a stream of 9mm bullets would only be deflected by the thick armor. Given how many civilians were cowering around them, ricocheting bullets would be too great a threat.
They were not alive.
They did not fear destruction.
Did the rules really change this much when unmanned weapons were sent to the battlefield?
That was when a "silver bullet" arrived in advance of its gunshot.
The armor-piercing incendiary round could punch through the thick armor and fry the circuit boards within using great heat. After being fired down from some roof or another, the sniper bullet punched through the transformer controlling a traffic light, so a large truck drove through and targeted Heivia's group.
Yes.
The problem was that the "silver bullets" were not just targeting the monsters.
"Watch out, dammit!! God, this is a terrible orgy!! You never know when you're going to get a face full of squid stink!!"
The truck drove right over a concrete barrier that doubled as a flowerbed and came to a half-crushed stop just short of hitting the delinquent soldier. But he did not have time to catch his breath. The mystery sniper fired a few more shots into a nearby park, calling that area's Bullmites toward the soldiers. Just like gathering the attention of an isolated enemy in an online game.
"That sniper is following us, " said Myonri.
"Are they jumping from building to building? Hey, if you're not using that plastic sniper rifle, toss it here! Silencing that gloomy Peeping Tom takes top priority!!"
That said, real snipers were not like in movies. You could not just look up and see them leaning out from the building. They seemed to be running along the roofs of the buildings alongside the sidewalk Heivia's group was running down, but it was not clear where exactly they were.
There were countless floral security cameras set up, but they were arranged with the flow of people in mind. Simply put, monitoring the populated streets came first and the sky overhead was less closely watched.
Meanwhile, another Bullmite pushed in to cut off their path.
"That isn't going to work even if you fire at it head on!"
"That's not what I'm doing, you idiot!! Bukkake-ing on a mech's face isn't my idea of fun!!"
Without even using the scope, Heivia fired a high-speed rifle bullet at the fire hydrant at the end of the road. Those animal types had little surface area in contact with the ground for their weight, so they were in trouble when they lost friction. That was obvious when nothing but four small hooves were used to control the same weight as a large motorcycle.
Myonri and the others fired more bullets as the Bullmite slipped and toppled over, but that only sent sparks flying from the armor. Not even concentrated fire on a defenseless enemy had any effect.
"What do you think about that sniper!?" asked Heivia.
"Well, I definitely don't want to be their friend!!" replied Myonri.
"Not that. I'm just talking about their skill."
The torrent from the fire hydrant had knocked over a window washer's bucket of industrial detergent, so the Bullmite slipped even more than expected and could not seem to get up. When it could not move, it seemed to have difficulty using its motions to communicate with the others. Thus, the other units did not move to help it. And the potatoes were not about to stay in one place. Heivia had to click his tongue and jump right over the mass of composite armor that could not return to the fight and kept spinning around and around like a giant pinwheel firework.
"They destroyed a traffic light to send in a truck and they provoked the Bullmites into attacking. Why are they being as indirect as a literary girl with a crush? All they need to do is fire bullets straight into our heads!!"
"Um, maybe they hope to make it look like an accident?" suggested Myonri.
"They're using armor-piercing incendiary rounds. That's more than just repacking a used cartridge bought from a gun shop. These bullets will stand out a lot more than the used gum all over the sidewalks, so there's no room for a conspiracy there."
They fired occasional warning shots into the air to deter the sniper who they still had not located. Normal bullets would not work on the Bullmites who pursued them in a coordinated fashion without using a server. After making sure the sporadic gunfire had rid the area of civilians, Heivia fired his sniper rifle straight into the air.
A crane's wire snapped and several steel beams fell from a building under construction.
"Those things can still move after a direct hit!?"
"You need at least as much firepower as a powered suit!" said Myonri."More importantly, what were you trying to say about that sniper?"
"There's more to sniping than just distance and wind direction. Machine assistance can make up for the scientific side of things, but the more social side of it is harder. You have to predict what your target will do and place the ballistic trajectory where they will be next. This sniper was always targeting things that are easy to predict: Bullmites that have no fear of death and a stationary transformer. For those, all you need to do is line up the crosshairs in the scope."
Realistically, Heivia's group was as cornered as could be.
But he proposed a bold theory all the same.
"This sniper is only an amateur virgin. They're not confident then can satisfy us, so they're firing on the easier mechanical targets instead."
In that case, what was the attacker's field of expertise?
The sniper attacks with armor-piercing incendiary rounds were a lot like extremely small-scale explosions. They were also good at figuring out how gadgets like the Bullmites worked. They ignored the preparations on both sides of the fight to throw the scene into chaos and achieve more than their skill would normally allow for.
... Come to think of it, hadn't someone well known to Heivia nervously attempted some machine-assisted sniping to rescue the Princess in the Alaska District?
(You're kidding, right... ? I'd love it if he's alive, but he wouldn't make his appearance like this, would he!?)
He heard what sounded like a thick metal clasp fitting into place.
He looked back while running and his eyes bulged. At some point, the composite armor bulls had received attachments resembling backpacks or saddles. And attached to those were a light machinegun, grenades, and a small container magazine that resembled a cooler.
It was as unfair as finding the relentless zombies had started cleverly aiming guns your way.
"What the hell is this... !?"
That was when the sign for a subway station entered the corner of his vision.
It was all over if those guns opened fire across the surface street. The Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers and the innocent civilians who had evacuated indoors would be caught by it. Heavy machineguns used bullets thicker than a thumb, so they could tear through glass and concrete like it was styrofoam. Heivia gestured to the other potatoes and they all ran down the stairs.
"Do you really think this will save us!?" asked Myonri.
"How should I know!? Go call tech support!! But this will at least distance us from the sniper on the roofs. And underground, the 2D map alone won't be enough. Plus, Manhattan has turned all around with no concern for the cardinal directions, so we can only hope those things will lose track of where they are..."
War was generally a contest over who could take more lives.
Thus, they would have to change how they fought when up against lifeless unmanned weapons.
Hearing the commotion, some benevolent station workers started to come out with stun guns, but Heivia's group aimed their real guns over to force them back while running through the chaotic ticket selling area and jumping over the ticket gate.
They heard further angry shouts and screams from behind.
Heivia clicked his tongue.
"Damn, did it not work!? Are they using microwaves or submillimeter waves or something!?"
"Could you please explain what this means!?" asked Myonri."I thought the Information Alliance's unmanned weapons were autonomous and didn't need to access a server!"
He did not have time for that. They were dead if those things caught up.
The floral security cameras were installed here too, so the Martini would know where they were. That limited what the potatoes could do. They would be trapped if they kept running and returned to the surface through a different exit. And even if they ran to the platform, Heivia doubted they would find a train conveniently about to depart like in a drama.
"It would only be the same standard wireless LAN that can misdirect the selfie a bored housewife meant to send to the guy she's cheating on her husband with. Could we jam it!?"
"We don't have any equipment, you moron!! Stop asking for the impossible! And why are you so fixated on signal interference? They'll keep coming for us even if we cut off the cameras monitoring us, right!?"
They did not even have 10 seconds to think. Even a human could run across the 100-meter structure in that time.
Heivia clicked his tongue.
"Anyone with a hand to spare, gather as many fire extinguishers as you can!!"
"Heivia?"
"Head down to the platform!! Hurry! It's meaningless if they catch up!!"
The Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers more jumped down the stairs than ran as they rushed to the subway platform. As expected, no train conveniently slid up to the platform. The platform was empty on both sides and the college students and housewives waiting for a train all ducked down in shock when they saw the many guns.
"What are we going to do!?" asked Myonri."Run into the tunnel!?"
"What good is playing tag with machines in a long, straight tunnel? More importantly, give me the fire extinguishers! All of them!!"
Heivia snatched away the red metal containers and aimed the hoses at a surprising location: the track below the platform.
"Subways send the power through the bottom instead of the top."
"What does that matter?"
"How do those bull bastards track their location and their destination while the Manhattan turns? I'm guessing they use EM waves."
"But weren't we told that unmanned weapons can move around while offline?"
"It doesn't have to be on a military bandwidth. It could be signals for TV, radio, cellphones, or whatever else. EM waves are waves, so the Doppler Effect comes into play. By reading the signals flying around, they can tell how Manhattan is moving. The unmanned weapons use that as a virtual compass to track their own location. Wraith said submarines are the ideal form of an unmanned weapon, right? If they're only passively receiving the signals, they don't have to worry about the enemy locating them!"
Which meant...
"The Bullmites didn't get lost while underground because the microwave and submillimeter wave broadcast signals can penetrate the thick concrete. But if we use jamming to mess with the EM Doppler, they should lose track of their location and stop moving! So let's go with a corona discharge. The third rail is normally kept at a distance so it won't cause any interference, but if we place an impurity nearby, that will change!"
The spraying sound was like an amplified version of a carbonated beverage.
The bubble-type fire extinguishers launched their liquid chemical beyond the platform.
A moment later, they heard a lot of noise from the stairs. The quadrupedal Bullmites with a firearm attachment came crashing down toward the platform.
Myonri and the others immediately aimed their shotguns and submachineguns that way.
Their trigger fingers remained motionless.
The Bullmites had suddenly gone limp, lost their balance on the stairs, and started rolling.
The collapsed unmanned weapons did not move again.
Myonri and the others kept their guns aimed at them for a while afterwards.
"Have they... stopped?"
"A corona discharge doesn't make a bunch of noise like a stun gun, so it can be hard to tell anything is happening. Locating a power line was not easy since New York likes to bury everything from national secrets to broken massagers, but I figured a train's power rail would be enough to jam the EM Doppler."
With this electromagnetic interference, any photos sent from an amateur's phone would not reach their recipient. That meant they did not have to worry about any "unintentional spies". Heivia used his sniper rifles to shoot out each of the security cameras installed directly around the platform.
He was a capable boy as long as he was not up against an Object.
"Okay. We've finally built a blind spot, so let's change clothes and get the hell out of here. Just like swapping cars in a parking garage or below an overpass."
Just then, there was a deep noise and the windowless subway platform was wrapped in deep darkness.
"We truly apologize for the inconvenience. The power to this station has been cut to troubleshoot a problem. Lights, air-conditioning, communications, and other services will be brought back one at a time, so to avoid tripping, please remain in place unless a station staff member provides evacuation guidance..."
The sudden darkness was like having a video game unexpectedly switched off.
Heivia worked his imagination while listening to the unnecessary announcement and then he gave a shout
"Crap!! Cutting the power stops the corona discharge!!"
He could not see his hand in front of his face in this darkness, but he could hear several metallic sounds. Needless to say, machine eyes had a greater visual range than human ones. The power outage meant nothing to them. With no power to the subway's third rail, the EM Doppler would recover and the Bullmites would be unstoppable.
Myonri gave a short shriek right next to him.
"Eek!?"
"Don't fire at random!! You don't know where the civilians are in this darkness!!"
"Then what do we do!? They effectively have night-vision goggles, so they can fire accurately!"
Their firearms were commercial products taken from random people, so they were not up to military standards and were not equipped with the various cameras and sensors those soldiers were accustomed to.
In the end, Heivia Winchell could not become Quenser Barbotage.
And a moment later, the massive machines rushed in like charging bulls.
Part 7
Heivia had no idea what happened in the darkness then.
To start with the result, the Bullmites did not turn them to Swiss cheese. Someone's hands reached in from behind, covered or grabbed his mouth and dominant hand, and then pulled him away. He heard no gunshots in the meantime. This third party was not suppressing the noise and light with silencers and flash hiders. Even those would have left some sign of gunfire.
Nevertheless, the Bullmites did not pursue.
After passing through two thick metal doors, brilliant light stabbed into eyes adjusted to the dark.
His vision did not return for a while.
"When in combat mode instead of marching mode, the Bullmites choose their targets based on microwave anti-personnel radar and walking-pattern analysis instead of simple image analysis using a camera."
Heivia heard a smooth female voice.
It belonged to the mystery person using their hands to keep him from speaking or using his dominant hand.
"Your pseudo-jamming using a corona discharge affected not just the EM Doppler but also the EM scan used for their autonomous decisions. It was a decent idea, but it seems it could not knock out the proper radar equipment."
"Bwah!"
Heivia was finally released.
As his vision gradually returned, he and the other potatoes quickly glanced around to grasp their situation. First of all, they were in a narrow stone tunnel with orange mining lights hanging down at even intervals. His mouth had been covered by someone in an Information Alliance officer's uniform who had long silver hair and brown skin. The soldiers serving her were also from the Information Alliance.
Once his eyes adjusted, it did not seem like enough.
Below those dim lights, the beautiful brown woman with silver hair introduced herself. She had an adult face and voice that were used to smiling.
"I am Lendy Farolito. My rank is lieutenant colonel."
"I'm not going to shake that hand which could have been holding anyone's you-know-what. I'm sick of you Information Alliance people using us as your pawns. Besides, those Bullmites are your unmanned weapons, aren't they?"
"If we were working with the Martini, do you really think we would be hiding in this 'gap'? If we had control over those things, we could have removed ourselves from the list of targets in advance."
The brown beauty named Lendy sounded exasperated, but Heivia and Myonri did not understand what this dark underground path even was.
However, there were no floral security cameras or bull-like Bullmites here. Melly Martini Extradry's ubiquitous eyes did not exist here. That was enough for this dark subterranean path to feel far more liberating than the open city streets.... Although that may have been Heivia admitting that he was Manhattan's enemy.
"Is this city nothing but secrets on top of more secrets... ?"
"This is the Underground Railroad.... And I do not mean it is a literal railroad located underground. This is a free space modeled after the organization that secretly rescued many slaves and helped them escape to safety during the civil war of an older age. The privileged class who were sick of this surveillance society altered the construction blueprints to create this 'gap'. It is primarily used by students of Manhattan's Columbia University and by Wall Street brokers and lawyers who graduated from there.... Since they could dig something like this without causing any real harm, the Manhattan 000 must be built thick down into the ocean."
"N-no matter what anyone is trying to say, it always sounds like they're bragging about the Manhattan's specs. I have no idea if you've saved us or not..."
The problem was the scale of it all.
And Lendy nodded toward dumbfounded Myonri.
"In the Information Alliance, the powerful rule the weak through information management. There is always a risk that the higher ups are well aware that we believe we have fooled them. You should assume there is no such thing as a perfect safe zone."
They had no words in response to that.
They still could not tell what was going on, but it seemed the Information Alliance was not a monolith. There were two groups: the standard one that had sent the Bullmites to finish off Heivia's group, and the special group that had gathered the potatoes and taken them to a surveillance blind spot.
Lendy brought a hand to her slender chin.
"We too are focused on the Manhattan 000's actions. In this case, that means the actions of the Capulet AI Network, which even the military has stopped worrying about the hardware side of, and the Martini, who is constantly conversing with that network. We have decided someone has to apply the brakes on the entire affair. Even if the AI is correct, its decisions will eventually stray from the truth if the inspector Martini continues giving it inaccurate responses. We have an idea of how to apply the brakes, but you need more than a trump card to play a game. We needed to gather enough 'normal cards' to reach the point where we can play that trump card."
"Thank you very much for ignoring everything we've said. You will be pleased to know that being ignored by silver-haired brown-skinned young women has a way of making me nice and hard. Also, what about that sniper? Based on what you said, the natural assumption is that you stirred up that trouble to drive us down into the subway station."
"... That would certainly be nice."
However, Lendy's response was a surprise.
Heivia had expected either a yes or no answer that might be an attempt to deceive them.
"We are at as much of a loss as you are about that, so I don't know what to tell you."
The brown beauty shrugged.
And she said it.
"It seems some other problem has arisen even as the Information Alliance is split in two over the Manhattan 000. This appears to be a different force altogether."
Part 8
The person on a high-rise building roof had also come to a stop.
They were only 70cm away from one of the floral security cameras set up based on the theory of multiple plants providing mutual pollen range coverage, but that did not matter since they were outside the visual range supplied by the trumpet or megaphone shape.
Manhattan's limited land meant it was densely packed even for New York. The building density was even greater than Shinjuku or Hong Kong. Jumping from building to building might sound like a superhuman action, but as long as you had the guts, it was perfectly possible with average muscle strength. You just needed the mentality to treat a tightrope walk the same whether it was 1 meter off the ground or 1000 meters off the ground.
The subway station that Heivia and the other Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes had run inside had 4 entrances. The slender person had taken up a position where they could see all of them, but they finally released a quiet sigh. They left their firing stance and leaned out over the concrete edge using the semiauto sniper rifle as support. Viewing the situation on the surface was more important than that device covered in cameras and sensors.
They set their emotions aside and rationally analyzed the situation.
... The targets had apparently escaped. There may have been a "hole" somewhere.
That was when the person heard an unpleasant buzzing as if from a mosquito or fly.
The device looked like a three-sided square frame holding a giant top instead of a globe. It was similar to a gyro, but somehow different. It was a serverless unmanned drone that used coaxial rotors to fly and used its simple circuits to guide its power system.
It did not matter whether or not it was aiming any weapons the person's way. As long as it transmitted their location, a precision-guided missile or special unit could be sent in.
But there was no concern on the person's face.
They reached for their skinny waist, pulled some things from a too-large waist pouch, and attached them to their face: a nose, eyebrows, lips, and – just to be on the safe side this time – left and right cheeks. It looked like the Island Nation's fukuwarai or like a joke nose and glasses.
Or it would have if they had not been acquired by stripping the raw flesh from unknown youths.
It was an utterly grotesque montage, but they could not hide their eyes that way. They dealt with that by covering their eyes with their golden bangs.
"Yay. Peace, peace."
That must have been enough for the facial recognition to fail. The person formed peace signs with both hands and the drone landed on the roof like it had lost sight of its target. It used top-like motions to move around the slender figure a few times, but ultimately flew off into the air again.
The person's face was covered by a cold and damp sensation similar to putting a used shirt back on, but they did not seem to mind.
They caused the existing preparations to crumble away so they could achieve results greater than should have been possible.
And to that end, they would not hesitate to do things that would have been unthinkable under the standards of clean wars.
... The facial feature they had the least of was upper lips at just 3. They had a full 8 sets of 10 fingers for fingerprints. They knew they would have to replace them frequently, but at this point, just the harbor security group did not feel like enough. They might have to head down and "resupply".
The person had infiltrated Manhattan using essentially the same method.
Innumerable uncollected corpses from both the Legitimacy Kingdom and Information Alliance had been floating in the ocean around New Caribbean Island. And Faith Organization ones had joined those after the Olympia Dome incident. The person had made their preparations by collecting a random person, removing their skin, and wrapping that around their body like a costume. Then they had floated on their back as if doing the backstroke to let the ocean current carry them to Manhattan's harbor area while disguised as a corpse.
Of course, if an actual human had seen that, they would have immediately realized something was off about the suspicious figure wearing a bloated skin, but once the person was close enough, that hardly mattered. Defeating the harbor security had been easier than slaying a dragon in a hunting video game and then it had been time for the skinning.
... The person had not expected Heivia and the other Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers to be so concerned for their surroundings. Such a wonderfully extraordinary Object was right in front of them. And what was more important than teamwork?
If they were to crush the Information Alliance, the person really wished those soldiers had gone on an indiscriminate rampage and gathered lots of unnecessary attention.
But a failure was a failure and they would never get anywhere if they did not accept the truth. They set aside the sniper rifle covered in cameras and sensors and quickly switched to a different weapon.
This was the weapon they really wanted to use.
"Yes. Hand Axe."
The person put back on the backpack filled with the clay-like plastic explosive and spun one of the pen-like electric fuses in their hand.
Acquiring the genuine product had not been easy given the circumstances, so they had to make sure they made it count.
Part 9
The Underground Railroad was a very narrow place.
Even so, Heivia and the other Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
"As we explained earlier, we consider the Manhattan 000's current state to be 'berserk'. Capulet itself might be pure, but if the Martini meant to inspect it has given incorrect responses, it will not know whether it is right or not."
Silver-haired, brown-skinned Lendy Farolito began speaking while leading the way through the oppressive-feeling underground pathway. Turning her back on enemy soldiers and walking so that her butt wiggled below her short skirt may have been a way of showing her trust.
"Active self-denial, was it? Regardless, we cannot trust this Martini Series, so I doubt attempting to contact Melly would be of any value. It would only reveal our location to her. Meanwhile, the Pilot Elite has almost zero presence, so the Martini must control the Manhattan 000 through the process of rejecting errors as she and Capulet pit each other's ideas against each other. If we silence Capulet ourselves, the Martini should have trouble controlling the Manhattan 000 on her own."
"You aren't telling us to break this giant island in half like a cookie, are you? Or are we supposed to sneak deep inside the Object and kill the Elite? We're not a toy hidden in some old lady's dresser drawer."
"Our plan is not that reckless."
After the pathway took countless right-angle turns, they finally entered an open space.
It seemed about the size of a city pool. A few dozen people in black uniforms different from Heivia and Myonri's military uniforms were seated on the floor with their backs against the wall. It was unclear how they had gotten them in here, but a few bulletproof off-road vehicles were parked inside.
Lendy took some paper bags from her black-uniformed subordinates(?) and passed them around to Heivia's group.
"What are these?"
"Some New York specialties."
"... They aren't more guns, are they?"
"I don't even want to think about what kind of misconceptions you have about New York."
The brown beauty sounded exasperated as she pulled out things like banana smoothies and salmon bagels that were practically salads. They were colored a toxic blue. There were even some pink cupcakes to fill the dessert category. It was all very Information Alliance-like. The lineup was clearly designed to look good on social media.
When she saw the skeptical looks on the Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes' faces, Lendy took a bite of a bagel herself. Convinced they were not poisoned, Heivia, Myonri, and the others finally accepted the food they had been distributed.
"Dammit, why does food from the enemy have to be so tasty and healthy?"
"If they didn't grow so reliant on doctors and end up marinated in different drugs, they might be unbeatable."
Everyone's focus gathered on Lendy who led the Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes toward one of the off-road vehicles. She knocked lightly on the rear door's smoked glass and spoke.
"We have gathered some usable personnel. Although it seems one of them is missing."
"... Is that so? Oh ho ho."
"Wait..." said Heivia with a frown.
He could not see her and he only had the voice through the intercom to go on. It was possible the vehicle itself was empty and the voice was being sent over the internet from somewhere else entirely.
Still, the delinquent soldier spoke up after removing the banana smoothie straw from his mouth.
"Is that the Rush's Elite... ?"
"The Gatling 033, you mean." Lendy must have been particular about information because she corrected him."This girl's Object contains the Juliet System for testing. The truth is, the Information Alliance's Capulet AI Network is an expanded version of Juliet which is closely related to the Gatling 033, or the Rush as you know it. Of course, Capulet has also been connected to the Montague General Database developed from the Romeo collection of big data."
"Capulet and Montague. Shakespeare's two major families?"
"Yes, but they are no more than project names. Whether there is really a one-to-one relationship between the machines is still a major question. Everyone claims to be an expert, but it's possible no one actually knows what Capulet truly looks like, " noted silver-haired and brown-skinned Lendy."By the way, the research team forced to develop them thought that only tragedy would result from connecting the two to form a single giant system. Regardless, Juliet and Capulet belong to the same family, so they are compatible. Thus, this girl can intervene if she gives it her all. The Martini Series seems to use its thousands of members to divide up the work so each one only converses with a section of the Information Alliance, but this girl can converse with the entirety of the AI network on her own. It feels exactly the same as the control system she is familiar with, so she should be able to work with the entire giant Capulet AI Network."
Lendy breathed a gentle sigh.
"For now, we will sever the connection between Capulet and the Manhattan 000. It is unclear how involved the Martini in charge of New York's defense is, but I doubt she can fully control such a large piece of hardware without Capulet's support."
"So it's like a young wife who is a good cook but is helpless when the power goes out and she can't use all her electronic kitchen gadgets?"
"It may be closer to having the recipe site she relies on shut down. If we can safely stop the Manhattan 000, it should bring a stop to the chaos starting to spread around the world."
"If that was true, you wouldn't be curled up like a hair in this dark underground blind spot. What are you plotting, you damn Information Alliance schemers?"
"There have been issues..."
This time, Lendy Farolito sighed with a truly troubled look on her face.
"The Manhattan 000 revealed itself to be the world's largest Object, but it began as a section of New York that anyone could enter. Thus, it is hardly surprising to find safe country civilians here."
"And?"
"... Around the time the Manhattan 000 revealed itself, this girl's father disappeared."
Lendy turned back toward Heivia's group who were wholly focused on stuffing their mouths with bagels and she leaned back against the side of the bulletproof off-road vehicle.
The voices outside could not pass through the thick door without using the intercom.
"We have searched the best we could, but there is only so much we can do. We have yet to locate him, so her condition could hardly be worse. And our military doctor and battlefield counselor have agreed with that assessment. She could not produce her normal results if she made the attack now."
"..."
That might sound silly for the military where everything was fully controlled by rules and regulations, but psychological condition was one of the factors used when selecting soldiers for special operations like snipers or the bomb squad. And that was all the more true for a Pilot Elite where a single individual was in charge of so much more.
"That girl is so fond of her father Royce that, no matter how hard her schedule must be as both an idol and an Elite, all it ever takes is a single morning call from him for her to get out of bed."
Lendy narrowed her eyes a bit and shook her head.
"Anyway, forcing her will not give us the result we want. We have to start by collecting her father somehow or another. And he of course must be collected safely."
"That's a nice tear-jerking story, but it's not making my you-know-what any harder. You want us to search for a single person in the densely-packed skyscrapers of Manhattan? Including the visitors, aren't there 10 million people in Manhattan?"
"We have a general idea. I said we had searched as much as we could, didn't I?" Lendy breathed a heavy sigh."When all this began, contact with her father was lost at northern Central Park. There was some chaos when the Manhattan 000 activated. Not enough to cause injuries, but the people at work or sightseeing for the day were stranded with nowhere to spend the night, so the hotels and other lodging facilities have been overwhelmed. It seems some large public facilities have been opened for people to temporarily stay, free of charge."
Lendy raised a hand and one black uniform tossed her a notebook-sized tablet. All unnecessary transmissions had of course been switched off.
"This is a photo of Mr. Royce. The very first thing we tried was his cellphone. We could not reach it or its location information. I seriously doubt a journalist like him would shut off his phone in a situation like this, so a third party has probably confiscated it."
"And I guess that could be more than just a Martini Series plot. A thug would probably see a middle-aged man's smartphone as a source of quick cash. You can find people taking advantage of chaos anywhere."
"That does not change the top suspect, though."
This female commander spoke in a polite but cold way that was different from Frolaytia.
"Since it is not possible to directly contact Mr. Royce, we must follow the manual and predict the flow of people. Past Central Park is Uptown. One landmark of Morningside Heights to the northwest is Columbia University, an Ivy League school. All of the stranded people in that area would have been brought there."
"So we have to drag the Elite's father from there for an emotional reunion?"
"Yes. The northern end of Central Park borders Harlem, but the public order is not exactly perfect in some areas. It is highly unlikely that a large group of outsiders unfamiliar with the local rules would have gone there. If that girl's father is safe, he would probably have gone to the university in Morningside Heights along with the others."
"Unlikely and probably, huh?... You're telling us to risk our lives on something vaguer than a young boy's image of a woman's crotch?"
"We searched as much as we could.... This Underground Railroad is not enough to build a route directly there. The only option is to step out onto the dangerous surface and forcibly fight our way through Manhattan's streets while the Capulet AI Network and Martini Series know where we are."
Heivia's group had already fought and fled from those unmanned weapons, so they understood the gravity of that statement.
Plus...
"As I said, there is also an unpredictable third party on the Manhattan 000. You should know that after they used a sniper rifle and armor-piercing incendiary rounds to send the Bullmites after you. We have no way of managing the risks en route."
Part 10
It was a strange feeling.
"Nn..."
Oh Ho Ho tilted her head and its gorgeous ringlet curls while removing her clothes within the black vehicle. She was changing out of her casual clothing for walking around the city and into her skintight special suit for Object piloting, but there were a large number of eyes directed her way with only a single pane of glass between them.
That said, it was smoked glass, so even though she could see them, they would be unable to see her. She knew that, but she still felt their nonexistent gazes prickling her soft skin as she bared it.
They couldn't actually see her, could they?
They weren't just pretending not to see even though they could, were they?
"It's the same dynamic in miniature."
The information traveled only one way. The powerful had the weak's information, but the weak did not even imagine the powerful were spying on them. That was the essence of the Information Alliance. In this case, was Oh Ho Ho watching the group through the smoked glass, or was the group pretending that was the case while they watched her? Only a higher authority who could view this from a higher perspective could make that judgment. And that authority would be monitored by someone higher still. It continued on and on like that.
It was all so absurd.
Normally, knowing it was smoked glass would settle the issue. The slender girl sighed, removed her surprisingly childish underwear (which might surprise her fans if they saw it) and then put on the special suit designed just for her. Some Pilot Elites wore underwear and others did not, but Oh Ho Ho wore her special suit over an otherwise nude body. The decision often came down to the role the suit played and how the Elite viewed it. Oh Ho Ho saw it as a swimsuit rather than outerwear or underwear, so it felt odd to her to wear underwear below it.
"There we go."
After pulling it up to her neck, the girl finished putting on the special suit. However, every one of Oh Ho Ho's bodylines showed through, down to each and every rib.
Juliet and Capulet.
The two control systems were compatible thanks to their development history.
(It's annoying that the Gatling 033 itself isn't getting any focus, but I can live with that. No one is more suited to this task than me. )
If the Legitimacy Kingdom was involved in this, would that boy make an appearance?
There were not many of them, but it was still a few dozen. She was not sure of exactly who was there.
And she could not deny that she did hope that he was one of them.
"Oh ho ho. I am the star today. I am the heroine in the spotlight!"
Part 11
"Tell me if you get tired. I'm freed from the earth's gravity, so I can't tell when we've been walking too much. 636. It was for times like this that I expanded the number of unmanned taxis and had New York's subway cleaned up a fair bit."
"... Are you planning to bring that ring on a taxi or train?"
"That... might be a good idea. 984. The driver or station attendant helping me in would be watching as my toes wiggled. Would that break the spell over them? They might realize it isn't normal. Heh heh heh heh heh."
That had been a mistake. One careless statement had brought out the perversion that was usually masked by the girl's calm mood. It was scary that she was also an Elite.
While the Martini monsters named Wraith and Melly discussed matters, they entered Central Park.
Manhattan was normally lined with towering skyscrapers, but a rectangular area had been cut out of the city for a giant green park nearly 4 kilometers long.
Except there was no sign of that anymore.
A slit had opened in the center of the ground and then the park opened upwards like double doors. And a giant diagonal tower stuck out from that massive rectangular hole. Two barrels of different sizes were stacked on top of each other like an assault rifle with a grenade launcher attached below.
The black-uniformed girl grimly narrowed her eyes.
"The electromagnetically-launched reactor cannon."
"Really conspicuous, isn't it? 439. The Manhattan 000 actually has 44 different main cannon systems, but everyone focused on this one. It's like they don't even try to imagine what's hidden behind that bright backlight."
The desire for this Object to be a one-trick pony may have narrowed people's vision.
With her game system directly linked to the Manhattan 000, Melly moved the large ring her butt sank inside of to carry her alongside Central Park and the giant opening within. Uptown, Upper East Side, Madison Avenue. This area had a high density of floral security cameras and every bag or piece of children's clothing sold there was as expensive as a piece of art. The brown girl must have been somehow stimulated by this luxurious atmosphere because she desperately pursed her lips and trembled within her two-piece surgical gown made of crimson paper. With Central Park rising up with rows of buildings on either side, there was no sunlight. There was a pond and a museum clinging to the side of that "wall", so it had to look like a surreal outdoor art exhibit.
Either she wanted to fiddle with something or she just liked how it felt in her hands because Melly rubbed her thumbs against the analog sticks on either side of the game system.
"Right, right. That's right, Wraith. I wanted to ask you something since you've been all over the world. 948. Do you know a journalist named Royce?"
"What about them?"
"095. I've collected them."
"... You're attacking the press now? That is the lowest form of information warfare."
"The press... ! Yes, yes, that has such a wonderful ring to it. 707. It has such a formally dangerous sound so different from having your secrets revealed on the internet. Eh heh heh heh heh."
She must have been leaving the calculations to the extraordinary Object because the ring hopped up lightly along with the paper surgical gown girl inside. Wraith watched with cold eyes.
It did not matter that the AI network, that's hardware could be located anywhere, was functioning properly if its observer was broken.
Wraith recalled the method of breaking the Martini Series that Piranirie had mentioned. Melly was an old acquaintance, but she felt an eerie pressure from the very existence of the Ragnarok Script that had driven Piranirie mad with active self-denial. If Wraith was asked if she could place her full trust in this girl, she would have difficulty nodding.
After all, she could not even trust herself.
"Anyway, I didn't mean to do this. He had the misfortune of being on the seam when Central Park opened. 779. To be blunt, he fell down into the classified zone... the main cannon's storage space. He landed on a catwalk, so it wasn't a long drop, though."
"..."
Seeing Wraith's indescribably uncertain expression, Melly gently sighed in just her two-piece surgical gown made of crimson paper. As if to say she had felt the exact same way. After breathing a heated breath on her game screen, she lightly rubbed the screen on the oil paper covering her chest and showed Wraith the screen of that game system that was like the evolved form of a tablet.
"This is the bearded man in question. 153. To be honest, he's not my type. Although having your secrets revealed by someone who isn't your type might be a decent situation..."
"Keep this up and I really will hate you."
The screen seemed to display a video file.
An ordinary middle-aged man was looking around anxiously. He looked like the kind of person who cared for his family so much he forgot to look after his own life. He probably worked hard, paid his taxes, used up his bonus and paid leave over the holidays prepared by the higher ups, and got caught in traffic.
"Please let me contact my family. I beg you. I am a journalist, so I understand how your rules work to an extent. I will keep your secrets. I will not tell anyone about this. You can monitor my every move if you wish. Just let me tell that girl that I am safe. This isn't like those online journalists who pursued the legends banned by the Faith Organization. None of this is necessary here. Please, meeting in Central Park was that girl's idea. If I remain missing, she might blame herself. Since I am perfectly safe, there is no reason for her to harm herself like that, is there? Just let me fulfill my duty as her father."
Of course, those Information Alliance geniuses were not emotional enough fools to judge someone based on their appearance alone. Detailed data on his breathing, pulse, perspiration, eye movement, and facial muscle movement was provided with the footage.
After reading the data, Wraith could only respond with a quiet look.
"... Well, this is troubling. He's nothing more than a good person. Even if this is a stressful situation, 220 is high for the top blood pressure number. I'm worried about his bad cholesterol."
They also looked through his past educational and employment history, his bank account data, his search history, his online purchase history, and his statements on social media and message boards, but it all came up clean. In fact, it was so clean that they wondered if this was an alternate account for living a double life.
"This was bad luck for everyone involved. If he was a wolf in sheep's clothing and I had even one reason to abandon him, I was planning to detain him or shoot him, but I have to save such an honest person. 600. I'm going to release him and send him to one of the shelters. The military exists to protect the people, after all."
The brown girl breathed a heavy sigh as she explained that.
... At first glance, she seemed to be a normal and sensible person (if you ignored certain unusual proclivities), but she was the Martini in charge of New York's defense as well as the Pilot Elite. That meant she was the culprit who had fired the electromagnetically-launched reactor cannon on an Information Alliance maintenance fleet. There was also the Ragnarok Script. Active self-denial could be steering her full speed away from the safe choice. Making a hasty decision would be dangerous.
During the fight against Piranirie, it was revealed that Capulet could not "see" New York because its residents hated the surveillance cameras and email spying. The AI itself was pure, but if the Martini Series meant to check on it had gone insane, there was a fear that Capulet would lose its accuracy.
Wraith rationally observed the girl and hid her rational mindset with an indifferent smile.
"Is there some kind of problem with postponing a decision on this mere evacuee?"
"It looks like he's going to die of an ulcer or helicobacter pylori before I got around to it. But if you don't know him, I guess we'll have to rely on the family member Mr. Royce keeps talking about. 657."
"His daughter, huh? Is she in Manhattan?"
"100. Yes, fortunately for his stress levels. And this might surprise you. Okay? To use an Island Nation idiom, it's like a kite giving birth to a hawk."
"?"
"She's the Pilot Elite of the Second Generation Gatling 033. 710."
"... The Juliet's?"
Wraith's voice dropped in tone.
Melly nodded and narrowed her eyes with her butt inside the large ring.
"The one that shared Capulet's development history. They were working on an AI network from a different angle than our Martini Series. This man is an indisputably good person and he's connected to a VIP. I have no excuse to continue holding him in protective custody. 890. Even if this was an unfortunate accident, it will cause a lot of trouble."
Part 12
"... Ohh?"
Part 13
The Underground Railroad seemed to weave through the gaps in Manhattan's structure, but it only went so far.
Heivia Winchell groaned next to a metal shutter thick enough to be a submarine door.
"This is the worst, dammit. Couldn't I go jerk off, take a nap, and wake up to find peace has come to the world?"
Silver-haired, brown-skinned Lendy Farolito responded with no movement of her emotions.
"If one of the four major powers is completely broken, the entire planet will plummet into an uncontrollable war. You need to give up on the idea of being able to escape."
A mixture of several deep metallic noises approached. While pressed up against the wall next to the door, Heivia and Myonri looked puzzled and turned toward the source of the noise just in time to see the approach of a nice body with G-cups and long hair worn in gorgeous ringlet curls.
It was the Information Alliance Pilot Elite and top idol. However...
"She's huge. Isn't she just way, way too big!? Sh-she's gotta be like four meters or something! She could probably make a slam dunk while just standing there!!"
"Oh ho ho. This is technically classified as a powered suit."
"Powered..."
Myonri was shocked into silence, so silver-haired, brown-skinned Lendy explained.
"It is an impractical concept machine that was displayed at an Information Alliance robot show. There is almost no good use for it, but we receive maintenance and inspection funding just by having it sleeping in storage, so it is a profitable treasure for our unit."
Its history involved some unbelievable grownup issues.
"Wh-what are those huge things it's holding like double handguns?" asked Myonri."They look more like exposed lab equipment than weapons."
"Those are rapid-fire beam cannons meant to be carried by truck and fixed to a turret. They were originally meant for assassinations on the surface or in the air. I believe they were developed to vaporize VIP planes and armored cars that are using routes that avoid the Object and all its laser beams. Although they are apparently quite underpowered as they have no reactor to power them."
"Hyehh. Is it supposed to be mimicking the Rush?"
"What do the weapons matter?" complained Heivia."That huge thing could break through a tank's hatch with nothing more than its fists..."
The sense of scale was way off, but the proportions were exactly those of the human G-cup idol. Whatever the actual bust size was, when you looked at it proportionally, the G-cups were still G-cups! And perhaps due to how it was maintained, it gave off a floral scent similar to shampoo or conditioner. It seemed idols really did smell of soap rather than perfume.
And when the 4m G-cups stood next to Heivia's less than 2 meters, he could not help but have a low angle. He slapped his hand against the fake butt.
"Oh, ohh. Now this is a weird feeling. The fact that it's soft is actually creepy. I feel a pressure coming from this ass. I'm afraid I'll be buried alive..."
"The first time I can write off as an accident, but the second time will be considered intentional and I will kick. Oh ho ho. Just like a thoroughbred."
This was no time to be focused on an enemy idol. He could not stop his balls from shriveling up in fear. After all, this would be more than an impact from dual-wielded steel construction beams. Those cutting-edge weapons were meant to be carried by truck and fixed to the ground with stakes, yet she was holding one in each hand. If that solid grip grabbed his balls, it would be the end of the world.
Myonri was also overwhelmed by rapid-fire beam cannons that looked like reinforced glass lab equipment forcibly covered with composite armor.
"Th-those aren't exactly disguised. I thought you had to hide your actions from the main Information Alliance group here."
"The best place to hide a tree is a forest. Melly's side is skilled at gathering information, so we just have to use that against them. Look at this. Glance."
"Made in... Nau Yoke?"
"That's not even close to spelled right. And it has a price tag for $199. 99! There's no way truck-loaded weapons would be that cheap! What, are they like a used car that's cursed to kill each of its owners in an accident!?"
No one would think those were real now. Heivia had trouble believing the way the Information Alliance did things.
"I-I guess it's all about making them realistic, huh? Well, I don't care. Just give me some Information Alliance VR goggles. I'll shut myself in my own world and stroke my you-know-what, so go save the world without me."
Whatever the case, if he hopped in a rowboat and left Manhattan, he would be vaporized by one of countless cannons the instant he was far enough away. Heivia, Myonri, and the rest of the Legitimacy Kingdom potatoes had to solve the Manhattan problem if they were to return alive.
"I don't know or care what hand signs and footwork the Information Alliance uses. We'll do things our own way, so try not to trip us up."
"As long as you act as a shield or a diversion, I do not particularly care."
"Okay, I get it. You can shut up now, plump commander. C'mon, let's get onboard, Myonri."
They could not seem to work together in the slightest.
Without even a basic three-count, the Legitimacy Kingdom and Information Alliance began moving independently.
The 30m, 12ton yellow school bus loaded with the potatoes broke through the thick metal shutter like it was wet paper.
The bright sunlight briefly blinded Heivia and the others as it stabbed into their darkness-adjusted eyes.
They were in Midtown West, Midtown.
"Oh, geez. Here we are on Broadway!!"
"I wish we could've seen it at night."
Electronic signs and giant monitors surrounded a road as large as a runway. World-class theatres lined either side of the street. Needless to say, this was the pinnacle of the theatrical and film world. The flower or trumpet-like security cameras had detected their presence. Many eyes gathered on them. Heivia felt a definite pressure, like the air had solidified. Tires screeched as the giant vehicles were forced around. The three school busses knocked the poor civilian cars out of the way lightly enough to not kill anyone and finally arrived on Manhattan's largest main street.
Lendy whispered quietly aboard the same large vehicle.
"We've been spotted."
"Those Bullmites are looking pretty adorable now. We're the big-ass mama who protects the kids on the way home from school!!"
Several boulder-like masses sat in the middle of the intersection. They were the composite armor bulls sitting with their four legs folded up below them. Those serverless unmanned weapons would use flexible actions with just their simple circuits. They would probably function as an immovable barrier in a head-on collision from a normal off-road vehicle, but the yellow school busses rode over them and crushed them instead of knocking them out of the way. Heivia's group briefly left gravity's grasp and passed through the intersection with a dreadful impact.
"Passing the Bullmites will increase the alert level. Keep an eye on the sky."
"Then it's about time we brought out the trick hidden up our sleeve. Let's go, Myonri!"
Just then, a giant shadow appeared overhead. What was it? The silhouette resembled a broad, double-edged sword and it seemed to be loaded with a rocket engine. It even opened something like a square umbrella to make sure it did not overshoot them.
It did not feel remotely real to the potatoes, so Lendy shouted in their place.
"That's a Smart Meteor. It's an unmanned urban aerial bombing aircraft! Watch out!!"
Did it too coordinate using on-site decisions like a bee or ant? Including visitors, Manhattan had 10 million people walking around, but it did not matter that they were at Times Square, the most densely populated area there. The belly of the broad double-edge sword body opened and a precision-guided bomb was released high in the sky. That bomb used GPS and the movements of its tail fins to achieve a margin of error of only 30cm.
A moment later, an explosive was used to slice open the yellow school bus's rear end from within. And like a sword being drawn from its scabbard, a smaller (but still large) truck slid out of the speeding school bus and onto the road.
The school bus was forcefully blown away and the flaming mass collapsed on its side and rolled away, but the large truck carrying the potatoes easily avoided the wreckage it had shed like a snake's skin.
"Self-driving scares the hell out of me! You can just do it all with a smartphone, can't you!?"
"It's a good thing Dorothea's plan using tanks was ended sooner rather than later."
By this time, were the people of Manhattan panicking?
Or did they think a movie was being filmed?
Heivia and the others followed Broadway to leave Midtown West and entered the Upper West Side directly alongside Central Park.
They wanted to say something about the colossal cannon, but they did not have the time with their life being targeted from above in real time.
"The next one is coming."
"Myonri! The next layer! These New Yorkers are connoisseurs, so a garter belt won't be enough to turn them on!!"
The large truck had no one in the driver's seat and the door on the back burst open to allow several bulletproof black off-road vehicles out. With each decoy, they were using up their extra lives and their armor was growing thinner, but it also made them lighter and nimbler.
They were in the nest. Even without a server, these unmanned weapons could coordinate using the social structure of ants or bees, so trying to eliminate the threat by destroying every single one would be a never-ending task.
They had to think up a way to continue forward without defeating them.
"The next is the last one!"
"The fun really begins once we're buck naked."
The luggage-loading door sprang up on the back of their bulletproof off-road vehicle and Heivia and Myonri burst out onto the road riding light off-road motorcycles.
This time, they had no armor whatsoever.
The wind seemed to slice into their flesh.
But it was also true that development of self-driving motorcycles was taking longer than with cars. That eliminated the worry of having them hijacked by a surprise cyber-attack.
"What?" asked Heivia."There's something other than the Bullmites. What's that collapsible umbrella monster thing!?"
"That interpretation is not entirely wrong, " said Lendy over the radio."It is a Gunner Bat. When folded up, it is no larger than a relay baton and it is an offshoot of portable grenade launcher design. When you throw it, the wings automatically open, it flies autonomously, and an external terminal is used to guide it over the enemy's head where it can fire up to three explosives when instructed. Its accuracy is below average, but it can scatter more generalized damage when loaded with white phosphorous grenades or the like. It is a support weapon that uses a quantity over quality philosophy to force enemy soldiers out from behind cover with explosions and smoke."
Heivia remembered the self-rolling grenades that Wraith had used on the Olympia Dome. Even without a server, their simple circuits could take the optimal action by mimicking the movements of insects. These were Information Alliance unmanned weapons. That electronic equipment filled Heivia with self-pity for using those pineapple-shaped explosives that required him to pull the pin and throw it like a rock.... On the other hand, these weapons would probably be vulnerable to an EMP or microwave attack.
"White phosphorous in a densely-populated area? What is wrong with them? Nothing about that makes me happy.... And what is that giant top!?"
"That is a Multi-Gyro. It is a reconnaissance drone that can travel through the air or on the ground. It has no obvious weapons, but it is loaded with a stun bomb. Get within 3 meters of it and it will scatter an 800, 000-volt current. Since it does not need to access a server, it can do so without any adverse effects on itself. Not only is it harmful to human bodies, but it could easily cause a vehicle's electronics to malfunction."
Heivia felt his balls shriveling up as he had it calmly explained to him. And before any of those issues, if he passed out while straddling a motorcycle, he would be killed instantly.
The unmanned weapon had no tires or treads, but it still attempted to tackle the off-road motorcycle with nothing more than top-like spinning. Heivia focused on that while also desperately trying to think.
Even if Manhattan was an extraordinarily large Object, it was still only one borough of the giant city of New York. The distance from Times Square, where they exited the Underground Railroad, to Columbia University was about 10 kilometers at most. While ignoring all traffic laws and flooring it, they could travel that distance in less than 5 minutes.
"Columbia University is being used to house civilians, so it has been designated a noncombat area, " said Lendy over the radio."Reaching our destination ASAP should be the safest plan."
"More importantly, what happened with that Oh Ho Ho!? Did you develop a bike big enough for that fat suit and its huge ass!?"
"It is not fat, nor does it have a huge ass! Ho... ho ho... oh ho ho ho ho ho!! You need to look at the overall proportions. It has the perfect golden ratio, does it not!?"
"Besides, you are not authorized for that information, " added Lendy."It can be easy to forget, but that girl's very presence is a secret our unit must protect."
By the time they heard Oh Ho Ho's shouting and Lendy Farolito's calm voice over their earpieces, Heivia, Myonri, and the others on the off-road motorcycles had entered the university campus.
Heivia clenched his teeth when a bomb fell just barely outside the campus. Those serverless simple circuits had done it.
"Ochre, Nex... !!"
"Keep your balance! Do you want to fall over and end up as mincemeat!?"
Myonri shouted directly at him while driving right alongside him. She had to have noticed the allies behind them had been blown away, but they could not use recovery magic that brought back the dead.
The Smart Meteor had been opening its square umbrella to adjust its speed and keep its broad double-edged sword shape overhead at all times, but it veered away so as not to enter the university campus. Heivia saw that as he rode his off-road motorcycle full-speed along the well-maintained lawn, but...
"!?"
He felt a sudden impact.
His off-road motorcycle's front wheel was crushed like a cake dropped on the ground.
(A Bullmite... !?)
He did not have time to gasp.
He was thrown into the air, so he curled up and rolled across the lawn to reduce the impact. Meanwhile, the mass of composite armor planted its four legs on the lawn to accurately target him once more. The serverless bull used just its simple circuits to teach itself, so it began running in order to smash that soft human body.
Unmanned weapons did not fear death.
He could fire hundreds of 9mm bullets straight at it, but he would not stop it.
"!?"
Without bothering to get up, Heivia aimed his submachinegun (that he had swiped from a Manhattan resident). It was mostly just a reflex, like covering your face when a ball was thrown at it. His rational mind was screaming that firing would be useless.
He had to rethink this.
With all the unmanned weapons, this battle's rules were different.
(Throw out the fundamentals. Work your mind to survive. Preserving your gun and ammo is useless if you're turned to mincemeat. What would that bastard do at times like this?)
"Nwohhhhhhhhh!!"
He shook that from his mind with a bizarre yell.
As the mass of composite armor approached, he removed the submachine gun, grabbed the shoulder strap, and swung it like a caveman. He restrained his fear, stared straight ahead, and threw his precious gun toward the Bullmite's forelegs like a cowboy's lasso. This was only an option if he threw out the fundamental idea that a soldier's gun was their lifeline on the battlefield.
The bulls used in bullfighting had outstanding speed and weight, but unlike an elegant horse, they lacked the strength to clear hurdles and other obstacles. The Bullmite could not avoid the submachinegun that spun at higher than knee height. It was over quickly once the firearm struck the forelegs.
The sling belt tangled around the mechanical legs and the heavy mass sank forward like a table with one of its four legs broken.
Its own speed and weight worked against it and it was incapacitated in no time at all. It plowed toward Heivia with the force of a rolling boulder.
"Watch out!!"
The delinquent soldier still could not get up, but he somehow managed to dodge by rolling to the side. If the Bullmite had all fours legs on the ground, it would have made an adjustment even a millimeter before contact to pursue him.
(This is awful. I feel like I'm being forced to kiss the contents of my own balled-up tissue... )
Had he done it?
It was just like a traffic accident. Humans were not strong enough to destroy a gigantic truck, but if they caused an accident, the truck would reduce itself to a mangled mess. He had lost his precious submachinegun, so he hoped for that level of results. However...
"... Damn, " he groaned.
A straight line had been gouged into the lawn, but the mass of composite armor stood back up at the end of it. The four mechanical legs stood firm on the ground in order to crush that inefficient mass of muscle.
There was really nothing he could do this time.
(What do I do!? Do I use my boot laces next!? Or remove my belt and swing my prized you-know-what around!?)
But just then, something changed.
With a sizzling sound like water on a hot grill, a giant, half-melted top flew in from elsewhere. It seemed to be a Multi-Gyro falling apart in midair. The stun bomb inside it must have malfunctioned because it scattered an 800, 000-volt current that fried the Bullmite's electronics. It no longer mattered that it was a serverless machine that ran on the insect colony theory.
"Owaaaaah!?"
It was more like a rapid series of narrow lights than a single stream of water from a fire truck. The destroyed target had fist-sized chunks torn from its armor, the number of holes grew, and the entire thing melted and was blown away in no time. It was an even worse version of Swiss cheese. Heivia wanted to avoid dying like that at all costs.
The attacks were rapid-fire beams.
Unlike the lasers which had become synonymous with anti-air weaponry, these were visible, but that actually helped them stimulate fear. Heivia doubted this was simply meant as assistance. When the orange spray of melted armor passed right by his face, he frantically got down.
The 4-meter nice body that was "made in Nau Yoke" had arrived later than the off-road motorcycles. The boobs jiggled perfectly in sync with its pace, so it was clearly a crystallization of the designer's blood and tears.
"Oh ho ho. Make sure to thank your lucky stars and the goddess of victory."
Heivia sounded annoyed as he looked at those weapons that looked like reinforced glass lab equipment forcibly covered with armor.
"A powered suit with prototype assassination beam weapons? It always comes down to tech, doesn't it?"
"Of course it does. What do you think war is?"
He had only survived by working up a sweat and rolling through the mud, but she had cleaned it all up by wielding those giant rapid-fire beam cannons like an action star with dual pistols. And with her extra-large boobs jiggling all the while. It was clear she lived in a different world since she could take her time and arrive late while the unmanned weapons targeted her from the air in the Manhattan streets.
Myonri made a shocked comment after making a U-turn and returning on her off-road motorcycle despite the danger.... Except she may not have been motivated by the power of friendship. She may have simply been afraid of being hit by a stray shot of that futuristic beam weapon that was scattering its shots chaotically around.
"I thought Columbia University's campus was a noncombat area!"
The ubiquitous floral security cameras remained silent. They would not disprove false charges and they ignored their own side's rule violations, so their quality could not have been worse. Were they only good for peeping on highly-educated college girls?
"No, wait. I recognize these scratches, " groaned Heivia as he looked at the Bullmite that had flipped over like a dead bug."This is one of the ones that rushed at us in Chinatown. These are definitely the same scratches. You can't fool my clever eyes."
The 4-meter ringlet curls girl tilted her head while firing her rapid-fire beam cannons at the Bullmites and Multi-Gyros that attempted to approach. Those dual cannons were devastating in an open area with no hills.
"I am not sure what you mean."
"That can happen, can it?... Getting the Information Alliance to admit that feels like victory to me."
The Chinatown in Downtown was the opposite direction from Columbia University in Uptown. Since Manhattan was full of these unmanned weapons, it was not logical for the same one to have come all this way.
That meant it was possible someone had brought it here.
That meant the Martini who was suspected of falling into active self-denial just like Piranirie. That brown girl with her butt inside a large swim ring.
And...
"Myonri. And the idol too. Keep your fingers on the trigger."
"Eh?"
In place of his ruined submachinegun, Heivia reached for his hip and drew a handgun capable of firing the same bullets. Wealthy Manhattan was overrun with such things.
He would not have trouble killing someone.
"She's coming. Wraith Martini Vermouthspray is coming!!"
Part 14
"Frank. Prepare for battle."
In a second floor hallway of Columbia University's main building, a black-uniformed blonde girl gave that command. Wraith Martini Vermouthspray's eyes were fixed on the yard visible out the window.
"Heh heh. Eh heh heh. Eh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh. I'm inside a world-renowned Ivy League school in clothing that could be torn with the slightest tug. How☆thrilling!! 008, 774, 868, 229! Tag it, tag it, tag it some more!! The cold, rejecting atmosphere of the school hallway is so good. Ah ha, ah ha ha. I'm going crazy. Completely crazy. The world is such an amazing place... !!"
"Melly, can I just shoot you?"
"Uwebh, cough, cough!! 808. Sorry, I'll take this seriously."
She must have been focused on the footage from the ubiquitous floral security cameras because the brown girl with her butt inside a large swim ring made from the same material as a special operations rubber boat stared at her game system and began folding up her arms and legs that she had spread out. The approach of outsiders may have brought out her shy side.
"438. To get back on topic, Wraith, I've detected the attack, but I have a few questions. You should be cautious."
"Not what I expected to hear from New York's defense commander."
Did Wraith sound so threatening because she suspected she herself was being affected by the Ragnarok Script? Looking at oneself was not easy. Melly, meanwhile, had folded up her limbs like a chrysalis or fetus to enter her serious mode (even if that was only skin deep).
She must have been worried about it overheating because she waved the thin game system like a fan.
"Even with everything I've seen here, it still doesn't add up. I doubt the isolated Legitimacy Kingdom remnant could do all this on their own. 319. We should assume some of our own people are supporting them."
"So they have equipment and our internal information, huh?"
"050. Also, I can't figure out why they would target Columbia University. There have to have been better candidates if they wanted to damage the Manhattan 000 as the world's largest Object. This place is being used as a shelter for civilians because there was nothing of value here. Are they directly targeting me? Or do you have another idea, Wraith?"
"Nope." Wraith waved her hand dismissively and breathed an exasperated sigh."But I am aware they would want to kill me if they had a chance. A dangerous and earnest enemy has given up on safely remaining hidden and has made it this far while so many unmanned weapons pursue them. Since they're actively putting their lives at risk, this has to be more than a whim or just to show off. I doubt a peaceful conversation would get through to them."
"I see. 591."
With her limbs folded up and the game system held between her soft-looking brown thighs, Melly lightly swung one of the remote-style controllers. A Bullmite responded to the magic wand by walking up alongside Wraith. Removing the composite armor around its belly revealed a full supply of weapons and ammunition for human use.
Wraith frowned.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"Wraith, you will put together whatever you need all on your own. This is a school with plenty of workshops, so it should be much better suited to research projects than a home garage. 171. I'll supply the weapons, so it would be great if you could settle this with a sensible amount of equipment. And I mean that from a risk simulation standpoint as well. Okay?"
"That would help a lot, but if something happens, say I stole the weapons."
"Sorry, but I'm not that shameless, Wraith. 903."
The black-uniformed girl snapped her fingers and the young man stepped forward and began checking through the mountain of weapons and ammo like a guard dog given permission to eat.
"Melly, what will you do?"
"Are you asking me to deal with a gun's recoil after what happened to my spine? 749. As usual, I will leave the annoying fighting to the unmanned weapons."
"I doubt that will work, " declared Wraith while grabbing a small self-defense handgun."Not against this enemy."
Part 15
There were more and more sizzling sounds like water on a hot grill.
They were of course coming from the 4m idol piloted by the Information Alliance's Oh Ho Ho. Those bizarre cannons looked like reinforced glass lab equipment with composite armor forcibly added on top. Those giant rapid-fire beam cannons were meant to be carried by truck and fixed to the ground with metal stakes, but she was holding and swinging them around with machine arms. The Bullmites were built to deflect a normal(?) assault rifle bullet, but they could not "hunt" as intended when their opponent was a bipedal powered suit. The Multi-Gyros, those giant tops filled with 800, 000 volts of electricity, were also having little luck.
More and more fist-sized holes were torn into the unmanned weapons' armor and they were soon melted like sugar sculptures and blown away.
| ← Ch. 132 | Ch. 134 → |