Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume15 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 20===

The university had a long history, so the complex and inscrutable building additions made over that time had naturally transformed it into a labyrinth. Gyms 1 through 3 were located relatively close to the edge of campus, but they were surrounded by artificial woods which made the main entrance hard to find. It was so bad that the second story walkways were more well-known.

The gyms were large enough to be used for international tournaments, including the opening and closing ceremonies. They were squares with sides measuring more than 50 meters, so they were more like small stadiums.

“Th-they must have 50,000 people in each one,” said Myonri. “That’s like a small town. Won’t it be hard for the attacker to find their target even if they are in here?”

“Melly. What do your precious cameras say?”

The swim ring girl wearing a two-piece surgical gown made of crimson paper answered the black-uniform girl’s question while holding her precious game system to her chest.

“There is one weakness to cameras that look down from above: extremely dense crowds. The people end up blocking the view of the other people. We really need to find a better countermeasure for molesters on the subway during rush hour.”

“It won’t be that tricky.”

For whatever reason, Wraith and Melly had stopped attacking Heivia’s group with the Bullmites, Multi-Gyros, and other unmanned weapons. That made travel much easier.

…Of course, whether they were always that way or they had been broken by active self-denial, could anything the Martini Series said or did be trusted? That fundamental question remained.

“As you said, the gyms are crammed full of people. I doubt the blast would spread very well even if you did set off a bomb there. Even paper can act as a bulletproof vest if you have hundreds of layers. Human flesh is no different. Enough of it and it’ll stop an explosive blast. If this person wants to kill them all at once, they won’t place the bomb on the flat floor.”

“Th-then…?”

Did Myonri want to hear the answer or not? Or was she afraid to not hear it? Whatever the case, Heivia winked at her and pointed straight up.

“The ceiling. Have the bomb dangle down like a deadly disco ball and it can send its shrapnel down on everyone without the wall of people stopping it.”

“That would be easiest. 177. The ceiling is reinforced with narrow steel beams arranged like a jungle gym. A human could walk on them, but quadrupedal unmanned weapons like the Bullmites couldn’t.”

“They want to kill my father… And they’re willing to kill 50,000 people at once to do it…?”

“You don’t need to focus your justice on the general public,” smoothly said Wraith. “The one family member is more important to you than 50,000 strangers, right? There’s more to relationships than numbers. There’s nothing wrong with feeling that way.”

Her words were not at all blunted and tore sharply into the human heart, so they may have been similar to those of a high-IQ serial killer. They seemed to carry deep meaning, but the more you thought about them, the more your mind was destroyed by a poison of your own making.

And just then, a flat electronic beep came from the game system held by the brown girl. She glanced down at the flat screen in her hands as if peering down at her own chest.

“114. Mr. Royce’s phone has sent out a signal. It appears to be a phone call.”

“Oh, did you give him his phone back when you released him and sent him to the general shelter? What a pain.”

Wraith sounded annoyed, but the swim ring girl continued her report.

“Any idea who he might be calling? 251.”

“…”

The 4m ringlet curls trembled as if stirring.

What was the girl inside the thick armor doing?

“Don’t answer it,” sharply warned Wraith. “There is a chance the unknown third party is monitoring Royce’s phone to gather information. We would gain nothing by letting them know we’re here.”

She knew that.

She really did.

The beeping never seemed to end and that seemed to reveal Royce’s worry for his daughter. Oh Ho Ho seemed to be clenching her teeth. Finally, it automatically switched over to voice mail and the game system in Melly’s hands stopped beeping.

Oh Ho Ho spoke with a tremor in her voice.

“I’m glad…”

Myonri tried to say something, but she did not manage to get anything out.

“I’m so glad he’s alive…”

Heivia sighed quietly like those forced-out words were messing with his mood. He wanted to maintain his purity as an avenger, but it was not working. And he gave a warning with that look on his face.

“Hey, don’t relax just because you know he’s alive. This isn’t over until we’ve actually saved him.”

“I know that. Ho…oh ho ho. You don’t have to tell me that.”

Melly got them back on topic while kicking her brown legs now that she was used to the potatoes’ rude gazes.

“The signal is coming from the second gym. Unless we assume more is going on than meets the eye, Mr. Royce should be there. But only we should know this. 125. There are three gyms and each one holds more than 50,000 people. Now, does the attacker have any way of accurately locating Mr. Royce?”

“Didn’t you mention the possibility of them monitoring his phone? Well, that’s just a possibility, so let’s set aside the accurate information about that middle-aged man’s location. Which one would be the easiest to infiltrate?”

“551. The middle one. The second gym. You can reach the ceiling’s steel beams through a maintenance hatch on the roof. That should be far easier than climbing up from below.”

“Then that’s the place.”

“W-we’re basing it on which one is easier? Ho…oh ho ho. What happened to my father’s life being in danger!?”

“I really don’t need that giant camel toe in my face, so back up some. And did you forget? There are more than 50,000 people in each gym. Even if there’s no direct damage in one, what will happen if they learn of unthinkable casualties in the one right next to it? It’s an identical facility on the same campus. They’ll assume they’re next, so they won’t just stay put like they were told. But the exits are narrow, so they’ll start trampling each other and we’ll end up with tens of thousands of people caught in the secondary and tertiary damages.”

“…”

“During the winter, the chickens on a farm will gather together for warmth, but sometimes the group in the center will be crushed to death. This will be even more horrific than that.”

They had a plan.

They of course had to keep an eye on the first and third gyms, but the second one was their top priority.

As seen at concert stadiums, it could take 15 to 30 minutes for tens of thousands of people to enter or leave a location. There was no time to evacuate everyone and unnecessary movement could lead the attacker to expedite their plan and start the detonation.

Melly Martini Extradry, the Pilot Elite and New York’s defense commander, did not seem to have any strong feelings on the matter. She must have been worried about the battery because she hooked a hand-cranked generator to her flat game system and began cranking away.

“That powered suit and I won’t be able to do much of anything on the narrow steel beams. 997. And we don’t want to trigger a panic, so firing up from the floor filled with civilians would be a bad idea.”

“I know that. Information Alliance or not, these are safe country civilians. I’m not digital enough to calmly fire within a sea of blood to complete my mission. Unlike a certain idiot who executed a civilian to save her own skin.”

“With that in mind, I have a suggestion. The second gym is the easiest to infiltrate, but it also gives us an advantage. 656. Since the ceiling beams are connected to the flat roof by the maintenance hatch, you don’t have to finish off the attacker there. You can drive them up onto the roof.”

“…What?”

“That concept machine and I can function just fine on the flat roof. Your reports suggest this person is nimble enough to move from rooftop to rooftop, so they’re almost certainly a flesh-and-blood human. I can hardly see how we would be overpowered in a direct fight. 176. It would be nice if we could just fire at them through the roof, but then the bullets could hit the civilians on the floor.”

“Are you kidding, ring girl? You’re going to fight on the front line? Didn’t you say something about your spine being messed up?”

“202. Then try shooting me.”

The brown girl readily said that despite having her butt inside the large ring and her only equipment being the crimson paper surgical gown and the game system. When he stared at her, wondering if she really understood the situation, she began trembling.

“Are you serious? I have more curly hairs in the corner of my room than I have a conscience. To be honest, it’s hard to find any reason at all to hold back against any piece of shit with the Martini name.”

“That’s my point. You won’t trust anything I say. 081. So the only way to teach you is through experience.”

Heivia wrapped a thick and fluffy scarf around a nearby plastic bottle for a makeshift silencer, pressed it against the muzzle of his handgun, and immediately pulled the trigger.

It released a muffled gunshot, but it was not Melly or Wraith who looked surprised.

Melly Martini Extradry had her butt in the large ring and her hands and feet off the floor, so she could not move around properly. There was also nothing for her to hide behind. Nevertheless, her ring spun around like the coffee cups at an amusement park and cleanly avoided all three bullets.

“Are you okay? 444. I appreciate the thought to use a silencer, but when the noise and the actual recoil are different, I’ve heard you can let your guard down and hurt your wrist.”

Her movement could not have been that fast.

But there was no way that could be explained away as a simple coincidence.

“655. To reveal the trick, I slightly tilted the Manhattan 000 below us. And unlike before, it wasn’t enough to notice.”

Melly softly exhaled and used her thin game system’s L and R triggers to rotate her ring right and left.

“The world’s largest Object is always a part of me. I take top priority. Even Capulet is only borrowing it from me. The internal parts that move the Manhattan 000 are essentially the same as the liquid inside this ring. 713. Okay? Are you familiar with carnivorous plants?”

“Carnivorous…plants?”

“Some plants can move quite quickly, like the Venus flytrap. That is done with turgor pressure, the movement of liquid between the cells. That isn’t actually all that difficult to reproduce in a machine. And it’s easier to manage in parallel than something with lots of old-fashioned motors and cranks. 409. It’s also used as the catalyst for the quantum computer needed for the balance calculations to make sure it doesn’t collapse under its own weight. In addition to lasers, Josephson junctions, and quantum dots, quantum bits can be managed with the NMR method using a liquid. You’ll even see it mentioned in comics and novels.”

Quantum computers and DNA computers were the two representative examples of non- von Neumann large-scale processors. Since they had selected something other than the Anastasia Processor that used cancer cells from Wraith’s biological mother, the Information Alliance must have had its own internal competition there, but that was not the point.

“Did you think I was dressed like this for no reason? I control it through physical contact with this ring-shaped device. 333. Simply put, my blood contains the same liquid as the supercomputer. That was the only way to make up for what the game system alone couldn’t do.”

She had predicted the ballistic trajectory in advance.

The girl was one with Manhattan.

“I have perfect calculations and the ability to physically interfere with the field itself. Plus, I command every single unmanned weapon protecting the city of Manhattan. 144. Do you still think I wouldn’t be useful in a fight?”

The Object was based on plants and the unmanned weapons were based on plants and animals. With the serverless artificial life forms and the simple circuits that used swarm intelligence, Manhattan was like a planet of machines.

Wraith did not seem all that surprised and cut in as if simply confirming what she already knew.

“But the Manhattan 000 must be too large to fire on a specific individual hiding in the shelter. You’ll probably have to put together a unit of Bullmites and other unmanned weapons, but will the law enforcement regulations really be enough?”

“You must be kidding. These things’ greatest advantage is a tactic that would run afoul of various treaties if you used it in war. In other words, artificial organic concentration.”

The ring girl spun around the flat screen to show them. It displayed a graph about the contents of the air, but they did not want to think about what it meant.

“It’s the same concept as fish and shellfish absorbing plankton and other toxins from the seawater and storing them in their stomach, but there is no limit when it comes to unmanned weapons. Because you don’t have to worry about the lethal level. And the basic toxins can be found anywhere in the world. How many pollutants do you think you can find in the exhaust and dirty water in Manhattan alone? But it’s not even a ten thousandth of the lethal level, so they say it’s safe and you don’t have to worry about it. 883. So just concentrate that down more than ten thousand times and you have a deadly weapon at zero cost. You can take a human life with the prick of a needle. I don’t normally do that, though.”

“I see. So that’s why they have air purifiers. I thought that seemed out of place.”

It was well known that the hollow point bullets banned by war treaties were commonly used by the police and thugs in cities. The line between humane and inhumane was easily changed for people’s convenience.

Heivia breathed from his nose and fired twice more for good measure, but the result was exactly the same. When he saw Melly spin around in her ring, he decided any more would be a waste of ammo. And if the makeshift silencer broke, he would spread confusion through the attacker and civilians.

“If you’re willing to go and get yourself killed, then be my guest. But your ass doesn’t look too soft, so don’t expect me to support it.”

“Then I will look after it on my own. 111. The best way to shock malicious people is to do sensible things for nothing in return.”

Was the entire Martini Series like this? She too was quite crafty.

The gyms were the size of indoor stadiums. They were as tall as four-story school buildings and they had metal emergency stairs on the outside.

The roof really was entirely flat. It had no slant whatsoever.

Was the attacker already here or would they be arriving later? There was no evidence one way or the other, but they did not have time to stand around.

“Let’s act on the assumption that they’re here. Myonri, come with me.”

“O-okay.”

“What should we do?”

Black-uniformed Wraith asked that, but Heivia only gave a snort of laughter.

“Wipe that smile off your face. Do you want me to shove this right up your ass? It doesn’t matter if you were always crazy or if you were broken by that active self-denial stuff. I’m not going to trust the piece of shit that executed a supposed ally when she was told to.”

“…”

“Whatever the case is now and whatever our original affiliations were, Quenser thought of you as an ally then and he risked his life to protect you from Manhattan’s attack. And you shot him. While looking him right in the eye. That’s not even war. None of that has changed. Don’t forget that your actions are good or bad regardless of your reasons for doing them.”

That was all.

Myonri fidgeted nervously as she listened, but Wraith did not bother with it any longer. Heivia left that lonely girl and slowly opened the square trap door attached to the flat roof.

After climbing through, he found quite a few steel beams arranged like a giant jungle gym.

Naturally, there was no stable floor. If he slipped, he would fall the four-story distance down to the ground level. And people filled the stacked second and third floors as well as the fields and courts. Everyone seemed to have enough space to lie down and stretch out, but if he fell, he could not avoid hitting someone.

“I see him directly below us,” softly said Myonri.

Among the shocking number of human heads, there was one person operating a smartphone. He stood out from the many other smartphone users because he was repeating the same short action over and over instead of focusing on typing text into social media.

“So that’s Royce.”

“How many times has he tried now? He must still be trying to call his daughter.”

Of course, he would never get through since his daughter was not answering. They were on the same university campus, but he could not even get a single word to her.

But no matter how coldly he was being rejected, Royce showed no sign of irritation. He pressed the electronic device’s screen against his forehead, shut his eyes, and seemed to wish for something before repeating the same action yet again. He was simply a father hoping for his family’s safety.

“We definitely have to save him, don’t we?” said Myonri in a quiet voice. “Without even thinking about the four world powers or anything like that.”

“We can’t give her father special treatment. If we’re doing this, we’re saving all of them. It doesn’t matter if the blast actually hits them or not. If there’s an explosion somewhere, they’ll panic and trample each other. It’ll be worse than a swimming tournament full of sumo wrestlers. Once it starts, tens of thousands could die.”

Once they climbed down, they found it was harder to walk than expected. The steel beams had lots of small bumps from all the rivets and there were also thumb-thick power cables running everywhere for the halogen lamps lined up at even intervals.

Nevertheless…

Even so…

Heivia saw a silhouette. He saw a human silhouette at his eye level. They were curled up on the unsteady beam and he recognized the way they moved their thumb to prepare something. It actually felt nostalgic. It was just like that person who had always been by his side, setting up Hand Axe plastic explosives in some unbelievable place for some trick to fight against the world’s most powerful colossal weapons.

He had considered it.

Yes, he would be lying if he said he had not considered it.

Wraith Martini Vermouthspray had shot Quenser in front of Heivia’s eyes. But he had not actually seen what happened to the corpse after it fell into the ocean. So what if? Could it be? Perhaps Quenser Barbotage was actually still alive and following some super secret plan that not even Heivia was aware of.

So.

So.

So.

He clenched his teeth, but it was not enough. The shock was so great that it forced his voice from the depths of his throat.

And his voice formed a single name.

“Skuld…Silent-Third!?”

The person he saw there was a short and undeveloped girl with long blonde twintails who perfectly wore the skintight special suit of a Pilot Elite.

She was also the Faith Organization’s greatest and most horrific serial killer.

It was not Quenser at all.