Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume10 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 3===

And so…

“This is stupid.”

Quenser’s voice was muffled.

He was wearing something like a thick raincoat over his uniform. The material resembled the fire-resistant cloth that firefighters wore and its shiny surface was incredibly bad for his heart after growing so used to normal camouflage. He felt like he was holding up a placard saying “please spot me” with his email address at the bottom.

“What’s the temperature right now? Not only are we almost right on the equator, but there are fires burning all over the place. I’m sweating like crazy and I’m pretty sure heatstroke is going to kill me before any bullet has the chance.”

“It’s 75 degrees Celsius, but don’t take that thing off. It’s like a sauna out there.”

“Can’t they use a meteorological weapon to make it rain? Why did they even make those things?”

“Don’t be stupid. Adding more moisture would only steam us to death.”

Heivia was also part of the shiny team that included the intelligence division.

“Besides, the Extra Arc is watching from the other side of the canal. Without these sensor-blocking cloaks, we’d be spotted right away and on our way to an international incident.”

“I can’t believe it’s this hot when we’re still upwind. …And do you really think these things will help? If they did, I would think the age of Objects would have ended a lot sooner.”

“Better to have it than not. Especially when the government’s tax money is paying for it.”

They were walking through what had once been a metropolis of metal and concrete, but there was no sign of it now. The structures had not so much burned or crumbled as they had melted. It was not often that not just the metal and plastic but even the concrete would completely melt.

That was the result of Objects firing back and forth at each other from north and south of the canal.

In places, the way forward was blocked by orange rivers or by solid black objects where it had cooled, so Quenser spoke up in annoyance.

“What century have we wandered into? What ever happened to clean wars?”

“Let’s just hope everyone made it to the refugee camp set up by the Blue Cross. If anyone was left here, they wouldn’t have survived. Even divine miracles would run out of gas about an hour into it.”

They knew what had caused this and it had done so without directly showing up here. It had instead fired long-distance from beyond the Panama Canal.

“The Capitalist Corporations Second Generation Extra Arc, huh?”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it? It uses low-stability plasma cannons, but the light and heat is so far off the charts that it screws with any observation equipment and the crucial moment of firing isn’t captured. Just how powerful is that thing?”

Fortunately, their objective here was not to be the dragon slayers from an opera.

They had to slip past the Object, enter the demilitarized zone of the Panama Canal, and rescue Acre Kiss-of-Rose, a Capitalist Corporations VIP. At the same time, they were to assassinate the spy who would be trying to stop them.

“And the Extra Arc belongs to Salem Logistics. It isn’t going to play around if this gets out. It might charge in to save its big boss without worrying about what kind of international incident that’ll cause.”

“The best way to survive this is to find CEO Acre, take him as a hostage, and withdraw to the beachhead while making sure he’s indebted to us. But will it really go that well?”

“If we fail to rescue him, we’ll seriously have a world war on our hands. That’s the death of a CEO of their home country, which is like a king for us. Revenge plots will boil over and the laughable clean wars will be burned away. It’ll lead to an age that could easily annihilate six billion people.”

“I’m not talking about our sense of duty or justice. I’m talking realistically.”

“Well, in that case, it comes down to the specs of the Object and the skill of the spy trying to stop us.”

“Didn’t they say there’s just the one spy and he doesn’t have a huge organization backing him up?”

“What, were you only interested in the information on that huge machine? Just listening in on the intelligence division’s discussions made my head hurt. He goes by Nyarlathotep and his real name is unknown. He’s had so much cosmetic surgery that any old documents are completely worthless. They’ve estimated that he was only active around twenty years ago and it isn’t even known if he’s alive or dead at the moment. The Legitimacy Kingdom’s intelligence division developed so rapidly because they needed to strengthen the organization after the mess he made of things all over the place. He truly is a legend.”

“Sounds like someone who would show up in a stealth spy game.”

“I wouldn’t know. Anyway, his specialty is faking his own death. In the official records alone, he’s already kicked the bucket more than thirty times and even some dictator’s kid was shot as revenge for ‘killing’ him.”

“I stand corrected. He sounds like he would be more at home in an open world zombie game.”

“I haven’t heard a single thing about him that doesn’t make me more worried. I don’t know why he’s gone after this CEO, but we can’t relax just because we’ve finished him off with a bullet or a bomb. This isn’t over till we get home. In fact, we’ll basically be on a nerve-racking test of courage until we get back.”

As he listened to Heivia, Quenser checked the weight pressing down on his right shoulder. Instead of his normal plastic explosives, he had a special device hanging from his shoulder on a sling belt.

It looked like a bullpup assault rifle (i.e. one with the grip on the front and the magazine attached on the back), but the caliber was quite large at 25mm. However, it was not the kind of fully-automatic human mixer that got the anti-war crowd so upset.

Although in a way, it could cause an even more gruesome scene if directly aimed at a human being.

“Will this thing really help?”

“I don’t understand why anyone would give that thing to an amateur who doesn’t know how to fire a handgun. It’s a sticky bomb launcher, right?”

“It’s called the War Hammer. Once you fire a jelly-like liquefied explosive plus fuse onto the wall or floor, you just have to pull the wireless trigger for a huge explosion. You can apparently stick the bombs on a car or a person’s back as they try to escape.”

“That’s just dangerous. When are we going to see an age of peace?”

“It’s not like I had a choice. This place is a hell of seventy to eighty degrees, so normal plastic explosives would melt. I can’t use my usual Hand Axe here.”

“Ahh, ahh. That reasoning is insane. It’s the same giving a child a grenade because you can’t give them a handgun.”

Heivia was complaining about more than just the War Hammer’s specs. Even with the support of the laser sight, having a firearms amateur behind you created a very real possibility of having that “grim reaper egg” splattered onto the back of his head.

While it was true he would still be fine as long as Quenser did not pull the wireless trigger, that did nothing to slow the racing pulse of the person who had a bomb stuck to the back of their head.

“Look.”

A member of the shiny army physically pointed to gather attention and the voice muffled by the hood of stealth material could have been male or female.

“We’ve finally reached the Panama Canal. The demilitarized zone starts now, so at least the stench of burning fingernails and hair should end.”

“Hey, Heivia. What do you think about the intelligence division’s sense of humor?”

“I deal with it by assuming everyone whose face I can’t see is actually a beautiful girl.”

The eighty kilometer canal separated the American continents between north and south, but it was not that wide. It was only a little wider than a fifty meter pool, so Quenser could probably have swum to the other side if he took off his clothes and jumped in.

Both sides were entirely covered in concrete and metal rails ran along parallel to the canal. They had likely been meant to carry some kind of maintenance equipment.

Even as they approached the water, the temperature did not drop. In fact, the wind had more room, so the intense waves of heat seemed to reach them with even more force.

The canal’s waving seawater was dyed red and black because it reflected the color of the sky. It resembled the sea at twilight, but it was much more sinister looking. It looked like the perfect place for ghosts to appear in any pictures taken.

“This is awful. And the other side of the canal’s covered in a filthy industrial region. If the Soberania Disturbance goes the other way, will that desert spread to this side too?”

A three meter tall metal fence covered the opposite side for as far as the eye could see. Perhaps just to buy time, there was a second fence not far beyond it.

The area beyond that was filled with steel pipes, cylindrical tanks, and smokestacks rising into the sky. Overall, it looked like a petrochemical complex. The kilometers long facility was entirely covered in asphalt like an international airport and it looked like concrete boxes and thick silver pipes were piled up on that.

However…

“Why is that side burning too? Their double fence is completely broken.”

“How should I know? That place is perfect for hide-and-seek, so it was probably easier to create a completely unlivable space than to search out and kill any enemies that might be there.”

Regardless, the opposite side of the canal did not matter, so Quenser focused on their side.

“Where is this Nyarlathotep guy supposed to be hiding?”

“Near the Miraflores Water Gate. That’s not even two kilometers from here. …But I can already see those Blue Cross people busy preserving the canal.”

“You’re kidding. You mean the people we have to kill if they see us?”

Quenser sounded annoyed as he too spotted the people in yellow heat-resistant suits.

Heivia crouched down.

“Let’s stay low as we continue on. I don’t want to mass-produce some PTSD and suffer from nightmares for the rest of my life.”

They were wearing shiny cloaks with nothing to hide themselves, but no one seemed to notice them as they followed the concrete bank. They could of course have used some cover, but with orange flames everywhere, the fire reflected in the silver surface drew the most attention.

The intelligence division took the lead and the two idiots followed them further along the canal.

Heivia checked his sensors from time to time and some areas apparently reached an instantaneous temperature of over ninety degrees. The average sauna was around one hundred degrees, so it was enough for a human to pass out after thirty or forty minutes.

“Is this Mars? This is no place for human life.”

“Look, there’s something like a giant mountain beyond the canal. Is that the Capitalist Corporations’ Extra Arc!?”

Life returned to Quenser’s eyes once an Object was involved, but he was not given time to look back there.

A moment later, his vision was dyed in white.

“…… …………   ………… ………… ………………   ………… ……………… …………   …………… ……………     …………… …………”

For a while, he completely forgot about the passage of time.

He felt a cold liquid flowing into his mouth and finally realized that he had collapsed and Heivia was sticking a water bottle in his mouth.

“Cough, cough! Wh-what…the hell?”

“The Extra Arc fired its plasma right over our heads.”

As Heivia spoke, his hearing gradually returned.

He could hear explosive sounds, but they were not only coming from the Extra Arc. Back in the Soberania District, the Baby magnum was firing back with its different varieties of main cannon.

Those Objects could not set foot in the Panama Canal.

They would suffer an astronomical financial loss if they destroyed the water elevator made from giant water gates and pumps.

“This time, it wasn’t about you being weak. The flash was so bright that a few of the intelligence division are still convulsing on the ground. The shock seems to fade as your eyes get used to it, but I’ll agree that isn’t something you want to look directly at.”

“You’re kidding, right? No normal low-stability plasma cannon goes that far.”

“There’s something to it that goes beyond normal. After all, this is the personal Object of one of the seven corporations that manages the Capitalist Corporations’ home country. …There’s no way I want to take on that thing. Let’s stuff that Acre bastard in a bag and get back to the beachhead.”

Quenser could understand now how the light and heat messed with cameras and sensors. The abnormal plasma was still being fired and it seemed to burn through his optic nerves to torment his brain. Heivia was right about getting used to it, so he was just barely able to avoid passing out again.

“Dammit, we should have brought welding masks with us.”

“You’d sweat so much you’d get athlete’s foot all over your face. But if you’re doing good enough to complain, then get up on your feet. I’m not about to keep nursing a guy any longer.”

He may have been imagining it, but the surrounding waves of heat seemed to have grown in intensity.

Like this, they could easily go blind before being able to see what kind of technology the Object used, so they unsteadily continued along the canal.

The previous exchange must have only been a “skirmish” because an overwhelming firefight had finally broken out.

But at the same time, Quenser and the others let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“Found it.”

That comment came from one of the intelligence division members of their shiny army.

Twenty or thirty meters up a gentle slope was a small lakeside house on a small hill.

That may have sounded nice, but it was still in the scorching hell of red and black that required heat-resistant firefighting equipment to survive even an hour. The paint on the walls was scorched and peeling, the windows were gone, and the roof was nowhere to be seen. No normal person would ever try to hide there.

“This matches the satellite photos taken through the gaps in the flames and smoke. If nothing has changed since then, Nyarlathotep should be in there.”

“Just to be clear, there were two people inside, right?”

“According to the image analysis, yes. But we can’t rely on the heat signatures since this hellish sauna drowns out any human body heat.”

They did not even know if the VIP was still alive, but they had no reason to stop here. The intelligence division silently approached the half-destroyed house and quickly spread out to cover each entrance. Quenser and Heivia helped by pressing against the wall on either side of the backdoor.

The intelligence division passed fiberscopes through the cracks in the doors or the broken windows and sent the footage to everyone’s handheld devices, so Quenser checked it all.

“There are no traps. Or at least, we shouldn’t have to worry about the spy faking his death by blowing the house to smithereens as soon as we kick down the door.”

That was the final sign needed to begin their assault.

“We may know the house’s layout, but we only know the people’s approximate locations. Killing the CEO would make all this effort worthless, so be careful not to shoot the wrong person as we rapidly check every room. On the count of three.”

After the short countdown over the radio, bullets destroyed the locks at each entrance and the intelligence division rushed inside the house.

Quenser and Heivia followed after them.

“Clear!”

“Clear!!”

There were several short bursts of gunshots muffled by suppressors.

Heivia quickly raised his assault rifle to assist, but several members of the intelligence division were already surrounding a man.

There were bullet holes in the wall and the man put his hands up at a battered table.

He wore the same kind of fire-resistant suit as the Blue Cross, but his head was exposed. He had neatly parted hair, but it looked eerily out of place like a stuffed animal floating in a muddy river.

“That isn’t Acre,” groaned Quenser as he showed up late. “Is it Nyarlathotep?”

The man with the parted hair responded from his chair in what had likely been a dining room.

“Welcome to my home, guests.”

“What are you talking about, you bastard!?”

“I don’t remember inviting you over for supper, but you are still welcome. Had the Legitimacy Kingdom not figured out that I bought this house myself by taking out a loan?”

As if to say that did not matter, an intelligence division member grabbed the man’s parted hair and slammed his face against the partially broken table.

Then they turned the man’s head on its side, pulled a handgun from their holster, and shoved it against the man’s head.

“Where is Acre Kiss-of-Rose, CEO of Salem Logistics?”

“He decided to take a nap. He must have been tired after our long trip from Africa.”

“Answer me now. Now!!”

“You’ll find him if you look. I can’t guarantee you he’ll wake up again, though. Have you still not figured out why I didn’t put up any kind of resistance?”

Even with his head shoved against the table, Nyarlathotep’s eyes seemed to be focused on some other place entirely. Quenser followed his gaze and found an opened door, a hallway, and another door.

“…”

He walked over and reached for the knob.

That simple action was enough to get his fingertips trembling.

Not even he was sure why those feelings were welling up inside him.

Some dreadful torrent of emotion was stopping his fingers from moving, just like a mother who had learned the horrifying true identity of the baby formula she had happily been feeding her young child.

It felt like his mind and body were separating.

He grabbed the knob while so unsteady he seemed to be sleepwalking.

He turned it.

With a creak, the wooden door opened away from him.

It was a dark, windowless room. It may have originally been a storage room rather than a living space and it seemed the roof here had survived. In addition to some scattered tools and a pile of broken airplane models, a wooden barrel the size of a small industrial drum sat in the middle of the dusty room.

The barrel was filled with to the brim with a massive amount of pebbles.

And like something sticking above the water’s surface or an egg-shaped brooch inside a jewel box, an old man was buried in the pebbles up to the neck with his tongue hanging from his mouth.

Quenser fell to the ground and screamed.

Some intelligence division members rushed over, saw what was there, and continued on inside. They knocked the wooden barrel onto its side. Most of the pebbles were packed together in a single block. Glue, coal tar, melted rubber, caramel, or some other sticky substance may have been mixed in. In other words, the gaps had filled in and it had grown tighter as it had solidified, slowly and gradually squeezing down on the helpless old man buried inside.

The old man wore only his underwear, his eyes were sunken in, his cheeks were gaunt, and his white hair was falling out. He had looked old in the photograph they had been given, but not this much. His white hair had looked carefully maintained, but now it was coming out like an old carpet. His skin had turned red and purple, but he could no longer complain about the pain. Perhaps due to rigor mortis, his body was bent in an unnatural shape as he lay on the ground like a dried up dead insect. Was that really just the effect of the compression from the stones? How long had it been since he had gone missing? How long had he been soaking in that barrel? Was that really long enough to crush someone to death? Or…

(This wasn’t an issue of the physical damage. He died of shock.)

In movies and dramas it was not uncommon to see people quickly age or have their hair go white due to excessive fear.

But how much fear was necessary to actually reproduce that nearly legendary phenomenon?

This was the work of Nyarlathotep, an expert spy who excelled in madness and psychological change.

“Match…confirmed,” blankly muttered a member of the intelligence division. “This is definitely Acre Kiss-of-Rose, CEO of Salem Logistics. It’s him. The package is dead. I repeat, the package is dead!!”

Quenser’s entire face had paled.

It took over ten seconds for his nearby ally’s voice to enter his ears and reach his mind.

But not just because he had seen a human corpse.

This was not just a normal person like the Blue Cross people, so his death had an added meaning.

“What…do we do?”

Heivia spoke with a scratchy voice as he peered inside the room and his voice quickly rose to an almost tearfully desperate shout.

“That Acre bastard was killed!? But he led one of the seven giant corporations that control the Capitalist Corporations’ home country! That’s a VIP on the level of our royals!!”

If an enemy leader was dead, shouldn’t they be throwing their hands in the air and celebrating?

That reasoning did not apply here.

After all…

“Does this mean the end of the managed clean wars we have now…?”

Quenser looked like he had just witnessed the giant meteor strike that had caused the ice age.

This battlefield was the site of an intense competition between the Capitalist Corporations and the Legitimacy Kingdom.

If the world found out a Capitalist Corporations VIP had been brought there and killed, where would their suspicions land?

“Is this the beginning of a true war of revenge that will erase the distinction between safe and battlefield countries as it burns through six billion people!?”