Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume10 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 8===

Quenser and Nyarlathotep no longer needed to hide from the Blue Cross civilians, so they approached one and asked where their base was located.

There, they learned the refugee camp and tent hospital were located even further south than the Baby Magnum stationed five kilometers south of here. It made sense when they thought about it. They could hardly let people sleep on the ground when it was ninety degrees Celsius, so they would need to place their base far away from the heat and lava.

But…

“But…I don’t see how we can possibly slip past the Baby Magnum.”

“Agreed. As a First Generation, it was made with enemies other than Objects in mind and has a lot of excess fat to show for it. A Second Generation would be one thing, but we can’t hope to survive a traditional anti-personnel battle here.”

As the two of them discussed the issue, the young volunteer in a fire-resistant suit said more.

“The Panama Canal is a giant entranceway that’s eighty kilometers long in all.”

“And?”

“There’s a water gate maintenance point at the forty kilometer point in the center. It should be protected by international law too. If you can make it there…”

They were near the eight kilometer point on the far western end of the canal, so they still needed to travel more than thirty kilometers through this scorching hell that would be deadly after an hour without a fire-resistant suit.

However, that faint hope was all they had.

As they thanked the young man, they advised that he leave the Panama Canal because the usual rules were not going to apply, but he only smiled and shook his head. But that was not because he did not see the danger.

“The canal gathers the most attention, but there was a lot of vegetation around here. It used to be a famous for its coffee and quite a few corporations came here to investigate rare insects in search of chemical compounds to use in drugs.”

“…”

“Back when the UN still existed, a destroyed Eastern European city was apparently reproduced down to every last crack in the bricks as a symbol of restoration. I’m not going to give up. This is our fight and it’s far more difficult than wielding guns or bombs. So I’m not going to give up the fight until this land is filled with water and vegetation and everyone’s smiles have returned.”

“I see. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“?”

The young man tilted his head at Nyarlathotep’s oddly affable voice.

The three of them turned to face their separate objectives without knowing which one of them was truly approaching almost certain death.

Quenser and Nyarlathotep walked along the scorching concrete bank of the glowing orange canal. Their side of the canal was a world of orange lava and the other side was a burning industrial region partially hidden by a tall, broken double fence. The scenery never seemed to change and simply viewing it seemed to wear away one’s stamina.

Even so, Quenser kept his feet moving.

This work slowly but surely wore down his life.

For some reason, Nyarlathotep did not seem to like walking in silence, so he kept speaking as he walked alongside Quenser.

“I did quite a lot.”

“?”

“The most notable jobs were mostly ways of obstructing an enemy nation’s weapons development and manufacturing. I would infiltrate a fighter jet production line and inject some data that would mass produce defective products. Or I would lure them into making a cyber attack where I would let them steal the plans to a decoy reactor. The scientists in lab coats would construct the test reactor and happily blow themselves up on the other side of the planet. They didn’t even have time to feel any pain.”

“Did you really enjoy tricking people for a living that much?”

“It would be more accurate to say that was the only way I could face society. I didn’t become an expert in faking my own death because I wanted to. I screwed up so many times that I had no other way to get by.”

Nyarlathotep was an expert spy.

He may have wanted to keep the conversation going so he could keep the mental initiative.

But he may not have had any real goal in mind. It may have been more of a habit, like a squirrel hiding nuts.

“I often worked with Acre Kiss-of-Rose…that is, Azathoth who created an ID with that name.”

“What’s with those Nyar and Aza names? I don’t get it.”

“They’re nothing more than common pseudonyms. You need to learn more about recreation, boy. He was originally a Capitalist Corporations’ spy just like me. Other people often don’t accept the things we do for our jobs and it can be difficult getting on everyone’s good side or finding a weakness to exploit, so Azathoth decided it would be faster to send someone to the higher ups and have a ‘system’ created that made it easier for us.”

“Just to be clear, he was the CEO of a 7th Core corporation, right?”

“That just shows how well he did for himself. Although it is true he knew how to use the carrot and the stick to control people’s hearts like a true spy.”

Nyarlathotep stared down the seemingly never-ending path as he continued speaking.

“But once he could command his own Object, a gear seemed to come loose. A change in the earth’s crust transformed the equal round table into a distorted pyramid. From there, it became nothing but a series of uninteresting jobs.”

“And that’s why you took out Acre…I mean, Azathoth?”

“That’s skipping a fair bit.” The man with the neatly parted hair smiled a little. “After my heart was worn down quite a lot, I joined with some others who felt the same and we used my usual method.”

“Faking your death?”

“Even as skilled as I am at it, it wasn’t easy against that CEO of a major corporation.”

While it “wasn’t easy”, he had managed to pull it off.

That summed up the man’s talent and skill.

“Anyway, after erasing all traces of ourselves, we parted ways. I chose my new home in a carefree land near the equator that had plenty of water and a certain level of medical facilities. …In other words, I chose the Soberania District.”

“Oh, so was the Soberania Disturbance started because Azathoth was pursuing you?”

“I’m not so sure about that. Personally, I don’t think he knew.” The man rejected the idea. “He was trying to start a new online shopping service known as the Silver Key. It was set to bring in a massive fortune, but that meant it needed a massive amount of jet fuel. That in turn meant he needed a system to safely transport all that fuel by tanker, so he tried to take the Panama Canal while claiming to be wiping out special commandos that would infiltrate large cities and cause largescale damage with detergent, fuel, and other everyday items. That was probably his entire purpose here. Reality isn’t always driven by conspiracies or long, drawn-out plans. If it was, I could have cut him off more quickly.”

Still, he had killed him.

It did not matter if the man had done it intentionally.

Nyarlathotep raised a finger as spoke.

“There were two tragedies for him. The first was not realizing that I, Nyarlathotep, was here.”

He raised a second finger.

“The second was the fact that the self-suggestion I used to seal away my spy skills was broken by the deaths of my wife and son. …If something had been a little different somewhere along the line, I would not have been given that chance to kill him.”

“…”

Inside that half-destroyed house, he had claimed he might have walked a different path had a single person in this world been on his side.

This may have been what he had meant.

What if someone had told him ahead of time and he had been given a chance to escape?

What if a hero had appeared and saved his family before his eyes?

What if, when he decided to walk the path of murder, a small hand had remained to grab at the sleeve of his uniform?

Quenser had no reason to support this man.

He understood that, but he still muttered a few words.

“…That is a tragedy.”

“Ha ha. What, are you going to believe the words of someone who worked as a spy for over two decades?”

“I believe you.”

Nyarlathotep’s expression did not change at the blunt admission.

He may have felt a reason to use his ability to fully block any emotion from showing on his face.

“You deceived a lot of people for your work and for your revenge. …But I don’t see any reason why you would lie about the story you’re leaving behind in the end.”

“That’s true.”

“Even if you’re captured by the Legitimacy Kingdom or sent to the international courts via the Blue Cross, you have no future. You’re a living corpse. You have no idea if you’ll ever come across someone else who won’t twist your words to help their organization or for appearances, so you’ll take this chance to leave behind what it is you hold inside.”

As they spoke, Nyarlathotep suddenly grabbed Quenser’s shoulder and tugged him behind a forklift for some kind of maintenance that was so scorched that its paint looked like a blackened banana.

They were hiding, but from what?

The answer was only three hundred meters ahead.

“It’s the Legitimacy Kingdom,” whispered Nyarlathotep.

“Dammit!”

Quenser just about clicked his tongue on reflex, but he quickly slammed on the brakes. Fortunately, the soldiers had yet to notice them. Even so, the War Hammer felt extremely heavy hanging from its sling belt.

“Why are they blocking our way? Did they predict where we would go?”

“It wouldn’t have been hard since you mentioned the Blue Cross before running off. The safest plan would have been to kill that boy instead of just creating a smokescreen.”

Quenser did not have it in him to respond to that.

They were still more than twenty kilometers from the Blue Cross water gate maintenance camp. Even if they slipped past these soldiers, more Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers could easily be patrolling along the rest of the way.

Would they continue on or make a change of plans?

The extreme situation sent sweat pouring down Quenser’s face, but something even more ominous approached.

It was a long, deep wing-like sound much like the propellers in an old war movie.

When the student looked up from behind the forklift, his expression crumbled.

The drones that acted as the Miskatonic’s anti-personnel eyes in the sky were slowly passing through the dark red sky.

“I can’t believe this…”

He spat out the words and stood up from behind the forklift.

It was hard to tell thanks to the hooded cloaks meant to protect against the heat and the sensors, but a close look revealed the soldiers blocking the way (and being observed from the sky) were all boys and girls even younger than Quenser himself.

“Dammit, and that Second Generation’s locked onto them! If I don’t do something soon, a deadly downpour is gonna fall right on top of them!”

“Can you really save them? They might put a bullet between your eyes the second you show your face.”

“Sorry, but while I might be working against them, I’m not their enemy!!”

Loud gunfire rang out as the panicking soldiers started firing their assault rifles into the sky, but Quenser doubted that would help. It would only call in more drones.

Quenser opened a container the size of a vaulting box that sat next to the forklift. There were thick pipes and safety valves inside, but that was not what he was interested in.

Some thick paper was crumpled up inside as cushioning.

“They may be using reciprocating engines, but they can still move at three or four hundred kph,” whispered Nyarlathotep. “I doubt you can shoot them down with a bomb launcher.”

“Who said that’s what I’m doing? Hey, you help too!!”

“Why should I?”

He looked confused, so Quenser clicked his tongue and spoke.

He did not have time for this.

“Was your kid who died a boy or a girl?”

“As I said, he was my son. What about it?”

“Then if he were alive, how old would he be?”

“Isn’t that a bit of a cheap shot?”

“How different was he from those kids who are about to be killed over there? Answer me.”

“…”

“And this time you can save them. You can make it in time. So think carefully about this.”

It was now Nyarlathotep’s turn to click his tongue.

They may not have looked anything like him. There may not have been anything in common between the dead boy in his memories and the living people before him. Not their build, not their personality, and not their age.

But the associations made by the human mind were powerful.

Once a connection was made, it was impossible to escape it.

“Fine then… What should I start with?”

“Do you have anything I can tie with? It can be a string, a wire, or whatever else. I need to tie together this paper!”

“And?”

“I’m making a weapon that had its first major debut in the Swedish army’s river crossing operation back in 1701!!”

“I see. That does seem like it would be effective.”

Quenser worked with Nyarlathotep to tie up the thick paper, stuck a War Hammer fuse inside, and threw each of them into the orange canal one after another.

The loud splashing seemed to have clued the Legitimacy Kingdom boys and girls into their presence, but they could not back off now. Quenser pulled the detonation trigger to set off the fuse inside the paper. With an impact greater than a firecracker, the damp paper burst into flames.

The man with the neatly parted hair faithfully raised both hands but spoke with a thin smile on his face.

“The originals were clumps of straw, so I wonder if these will actually work.”

“It doesn’t matter if they don’t burn perfectly. We already proved this would work back at the Miraflores Water Gate!”

A moment later, black smoke started rising from the paper floating on the water. Just like an octopus or squid would muddy the seawater with ink if they sensed danger, a portion of the scenery was quickly filled with the color black. The heated wind immediately swept the smoke over their heads.

Quenser raised his hands as well and shouted to the soldiers that he still believed where his allies.

“Don’t fire! You’ll tell them where you are! The heat and smoke will blind their eyes in the sky. All you need is an impromptu smokescreen weapon! If you don’t cause a commotion, the Miska-…the Extra Arc’s anti-personnel cannons can’t target you!!”

A dull metallic sound rang out.

Despite the countless guns aimed his way, Quenser turned just his head toward the sound.

At one or two kilometers away, it was closer than he had expected.

It was the Extra Arc…no, the Miskatonic.

(What happened back at the Miraflores Water Gate? After the drones lost sight of us, what did that monster do once we ran into the forest?)

With a great roar on the opposite bank, the area around the Miskatonic was surrounded in scarlet flames. Its own industrial region crumbled even further. It may have been scattering chemical incendiary rounds at the same time. Not only did the entire area burn indiscriminately, but it seemed to cover even its own surface in a deep red hood.

The eight flower petals on the back of the spherical main body began to wriggle. The main cannons squirmed through the air like the tentacles of a mollusk capturing its prey and they slowly turned toward Quenser and the others.

Those plasma cannons had abnormal power. They contained a disastrous fire that could instantly transform the entire scenery into orange lava.

Heivia must have contacted the others to inform them of that firepower because the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers started retreating. They were slowly backing away from the canal as if to put as much distance between them and the Object as they could.

But Quenser shouted out as if to tap them on the back.

“No, jump in!!”

As if to demonstrate, Quenser ran full speed toward the Panama Canal, and thus toward the Capitalist Corporations-controlled Azuero District and the Miskatonic itself. Nyarlathotep followed after him with a thin smile on his face.

The Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers aimed their assault rifles at the two, but not a single bullet flew their way.

After a moment of hesitation, several sets of footsteps ran after them.

They all jumped into the water that reflected the orange light. They did not at all feel like they were inside the ocean. It was worse than a hot bath. It was possible all of the fish had long since died.

But they could hardly complain.

They immense quantity of water and the current saved them. The water had an average temperature between sixty and eighty degrees and it would occasionally reach as high as ninety. If the liquid were not being churned up by the current, it might have been the same as boiling water.

Quenser poked just his head from the water and glared at the Miskatonic.

He waited in silence.

And waited in silence.

And waited in silence.

Finally, the Miskatonic’s giant form moved. It slowly backed away and accelerated northward.

“It doesn’t want to get the Panama Canal’s water gates and pumps involved. Looks like those rules are still in effect.”

“That’s no real reason to relax.”

Quenser spat back at Nyarlathotep’s comment.

He then shouted at the boys and girls wearing the same uniform he was.

“Do you know why it withdrew? To come up with a countermeasure! Next time, it won’t be using drones. They might have to throw something together at the last second, but they’ll attach some anti-personnel sensors directly to that thing and resume the hunt. Once that happens, a smokescreen will be useless and we’ll be blown away as soon as it locks onto us. You need to get out of here before that happens! Hurry!!”

“Ah…Huh?”

Nyarlathotep ignored the confused boy and asked a question.

“You can worry about others if you like, but what about us? I think we’ll be targeted first and foremost.”

“Change of plans,” groaned Quenser. “We’re going to swim across to the Azuero District to the north. We’ll slip into their maintenance base and stop them from using what little knowledge they have to find a way to get the anti-personnel sensors they need. …I said I excel at that kind of thing, didn’t I?”

“Didn’t you say you had to be prepared to die about three times along the way?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m sick of babysitting some kids that I’m not sure have even grown any hair down there yet. Let’s destroy the source of the danger so we can safely reach the goal line.”

With that decided, Quenser and Nyarlathotep began swimming across the fifty meter wide canal.

There were armed soldiers behind them, but no one fired at them.

The soldiers may have realized that pulling the trigger could lead to something unpleasant dropping down on their heads.