Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume15 Chapter 2 (section)

===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.”