Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume12 Chapter 4 (section)

===Part 3===

This was the situation according to Catherine:

“Acquiring a strange virus or bacteria isn’t easy and it’s hard to maintain their destructive ability. It’s an emergency if they escape and, since they’re alive, you have to look after them or they’ll die. You can’t just leave them in an airtight container. They’re known as cheap weapons, but it isn’t actually that easy.”

“Well, yeah. It would be like living in the same room as some influenza with a 0% survival rate.”

Heivia agreed but did not seem to get her point.

Quenser was also out of his element when it came to biology.

“So how is that deadly mold different? Don’t you still have to look after a creature that kills you if you breathe it in?”

“Not necessarily.” Catherine giggled. “It’s called deadly mold, but the mold itself can’t kill you. The mold can be found anywhere. You just have to alter the genetics of the black stuff that grows between your kitchen or bathroom tiles.”

“But that can’t kill anyone, right?”

“Right.” The small girl readily nodded. “So the mold itself is just the carrier. The toxin that kills people is something else.”

“…”

“It can be blowfish or aconite. You just have to make a microscopic powder out of it and mix it with the ever-growing mold. There’s a ton of specialized equipment here, but you really only need to make some slight adjustments to the safe country kitchen equipment to let bread dough ferment. Then when the supposedly harmless mold spreads, the people who breathe it in start dropping like flies.”

“Ugh,” groaned Heivia. “That comes up in a legend about Napoleon, doesn’t it? His health continued to decline while he was kept imprisoned and he finally died a mysterious death, but scholars still argue over whether it was something occult or an assassination. But one theory was that a toxin and the mold in the wallpaper mixed together and slowly ate into his body.”

“I don’t know if this is the same, but I have heard about pollen, dead mites, or other allergens getting in mold.”

“The deadly mold is nothing more than a carrier, so you can control the extent of the damage,” said Catherine. “Even if the mold grows more than expected, the deadly part only comes from the separate toxin. That deadly part can’t be copied, so there’s no fear of it mutating into something incredibly toxic.”

Catherine’s answer was so perfect that Quenser felt a chill down his spine.

“And both the type and density of the material carried by the mold can be controlled. You can make everyone cough up blood and die or you can put them all safely to sleep. To put it another way, it might be easier to think of the mold as a tiny pill or injection.”

“Is there anything it can’t do…?”

It was obvious just how stubborn a life form mold was by the fact that everyone was constantly fighting it in their bathrooms with a sponge and cleaner in hand. The reproducing mold and the deadly toxin were separate, so it could not mutate into something uncontrollable, but it was still not a pleasant idea.

“That would explain why the Rush’s Oh Ho Ho was so desperate to keep everyone here. Mold spores can travel overseas on travelers’ shoes, can’t they?”

Even if they scattered absolute alcohol or lime across the entire city, they could not fully eliminate the mold growing in it. From the grout between tiles to dirt, some would definitely be missed. Even burning the entire city to the ground might not be enough.

And even if not all of it was deadly, the possibility remained, so the entire city would have to be sterilized before they could relax. It may have been the same fear as a minefield.

“But what toxin was Kerukeion planning to have the mold spread to the entire world from this infection base? No one can make a serum or antidote without knowing that.”

“We might be able to figure that out with this.” Catherine looked to the gas mask filter she had opened. “The drying agent would kill the mold, but the toxin itself would remain since it’s a chemical. Just like with a water purifier’s filter, it would all build up here.”

If that was true, they did not need to stay in the infection base any longer. They would need to find an exit and return to Frolaytia at the maintenance base.

However, Catherine’s theory assumed something.

“But wait. That assumes the deadly mold has already been disseminated. If that hasn’t happened yet, there wouldn’t be any in the air and this filter would be clean. The people handling the deadly mold may have worn the gas masks as standard etiquette.”

It was unclear whether the Rush’s Oh Ho Ho had actually sealed off the island ''after'' the deadly mold had been released. It was possible she had done so preemptively.

“Come to think of it, our busty commander said they didn’t find anything in the nearby soil or Myonri’s blood. Same for you, Quenser.”

“The mold is found everywhere, so they might have just overlooked it,” said Catherine with uncertainty in her voice.

If the deadly mold had yet to be released, leaving would be the worst choice. They would have been in arm’s reach of the greatest threat but turned back and thus allowed the deadly mold to spread through Second Venice.

Quenser sighed.

“Catherine, let’s take that mask with us. And just to be sure, we should investigate the infection base’s dissemination equipment. If it hasn’t activated yet, we might be able to stop it. And if the mold is never released, the Rush will have no more reason to keep everyone here.”

“…Right.”

The blonde braid girl sounded reluctant, but she still nodded.

She reattached the can-like filter to the mask and placed it on the side of her head like at an Island Nation festival. She likely wanted both hands free for her handgun. It had been on the pale face of a drowned corpse, but she did not seem to mind.

“Where’s the heart of the infection base? Is there a map anywhere? This underground facility is huge, so wouldn’t the people using it get lost?”

“Heivia, are you the kind of person that gets lost at home if you don’t have doorplates?”

“You clearly don’t know how many rooms my home has. I’m a noble, remember?”

They did not find anything for a while.

They occasionally ran across a drowned corpse, but that did not provide any new information.

With the giant asteroid blocking the way above them, they continued deeper and deeper until they finally found it.

“Wait, wait, wait. This looks dangerous.”

That was Heivia’s opinion of what he saw.

Unlike everything they had seen before, one room had been kept separate with clear glass. The entrance used an airlock, so it definitely seemed designed to prevent microbes from getting in or out.

They saw no one inside.

The glass walls had shattered from the asteroid impact and only the frames remained on the floor.

In the center was what looked like a broken water tank with a water-filled container inside that looked something like a pot or a spring. A thick metal pipe ran straight down, so it was likely connected to some kind of liquid inside. When the plug was released, the microbes would be sent throughout Second Venice, mixed with the soil-improving agar powder, and scattered across the city.

And something was soaking in the center of the witch’s pot.

It was a synthetic bag the size of a college notebook.

Assuming it was not a bag of pre-made curry…

“Oh, no… The deadly mold has already been set up!!”

Heivia held a hand to his mouth as he shouted his warning, but Quenser frowned and stepped over a corpse to reach the center and all its shattered glass.

“Hey, Quenser. That’s dangerous!!”

“No, wait. Look at this.”

Quenser focused on the industrial computers surrounding the broken water tank and large pot. Most of the monitors had broken, but one of them displayed a warning window.

Catherine approached and read it.

“An unexpected error has occurred. Would you like to restart the work task? Or would you like to continue?”

“Good. I don’t know if it was the impact or the switch to backup power, but it stopped running and hasn’t started back up! If we remove the curry from the pot, we can stop it from disseminating!!”

Quenser quickly turned around and reached toward the bag at the bottom of the pot.

And a moment later, he heard a dry gunshot.

Before trying to find where it had come from or ducking down on reflex, Quenser stared at the deadly mold package.

It had a hole in it.

The hole was only as large as a fingertip, but it had torn apart around that as well.

“Big brother!!”

Catherine grabbed his hips and then swept his feet out from under him. They both fell onto the glass-covered floor, but he could not say for sure that not a single drop of the bag’s liquid had reached him. He had been soaking wet to begin with, so he could not say what was seawater and what was the grim reaper’s seeds.

“You son of a bitch!!”

A few more gunshots sounded. Heivia had shot the drowned corpse that Quenser had stepped over earlier. Except the man must have actually been alive, even if just barely.

Catherine lay on top of Quenser and shouted to Heivia.

“Just grab that guy’s mask!! Hurry!!”

The blonde braid girl reached for the gas mask on the side of her own head. The deadly mold had already been released. The infection base’s work task was still stopped and there may not have been any immediate risk of it escaping the facility, but this room was a different matter.

And between the half-drowned soldier Heivia had killed and Catherine, they only had two gas masks.

One of them would be left out.

“Dammit…”

Quenser relaxed his entire body as the small girl lay on top of him.

“I’ll just give up here. But promise me you’ll bring me an antidote or vaccine or whatever before I run out of time…”

This was not his specialty, but even he knew it was not that simple. There were plenty of so-called “killer viruses”, but it took years to develop a vaccine after a sample was acquired. And a lot of them were still far from a successful vaccine. Antidotes were developed for chemical toxins, but the initial amount consumed or a delay in treatment often left the victim suffering from severe after-effects.

But as all that passed through his head, something unexpected happened.

While lying on top of Quenser, Catherine pressed her gas mask onto his face.

At first, he did not understand.

And once he realized what Catherine Blueangel’s choice meant, he yelled at her.

“Wait, Catherine! Wait!! Do you understand what you’re doing!?”

He tried to grab the mask pressed against his face, but Catherine kept him from moving by using her legs to hold his torso and arms in place. He tried to move his hips to knock her off of him, but she was holding him solidly to the ground.

Meanwhile, Catherine’s hands moved along the mask. She grabbed the elastic bands and attached it to Quenser’s head.

Quenser shouted over at his unrestrained friend.

“Heivia, do something!! At this rate…!!”

“It’s too late. I’ve been exposed for too long. Placing the mask on me now wouldn’t solve anything. Removing the mask now would only get us both infected, big brother.”

“…!!”

That clearly stopped Heivia from moving after he put on the mask he had stolen from the soldier he had killed.

“…That’s fine.”

Unable to move anything else, Quenser desperately moved his mouth.

“That’s fine!! I won’t leave you all alone!! I was asked to help bring you back to a safe country and I swear I will! Why do you have to give up your own mask!?”

[[Image:HO_v12_226.jpg|thumb]]

Quenser was shouting so loud he thought his throat would tear, but the girl’s lips relaxed slightly as she sat on top of him.

“That’s the last stamp…”

Her body shook.

She collapsed forward.

“ ‘Think about what you can do for a friend in need’…”

It may have helped that she had been lying on top of him already. As her face approached his, her soft lips bumped into his gas mask’s filter can.

It was a flavorless kiss.

After that, she did not wake back up.

“Goddammit…”

Quenser was finally able to pull his arms out from between the girl’s legs. He wrapped his arms around the Pilot Elite’s abnormally hot back and embraced her with his trembling hands.

With the mask in place, he could not even wipe away his tears.

“Goddammit!! I won’t let it end like this!! Help me, Heivia!! Catherine completed everything for the Civilian Acclimation Assistance System, so I swear I’ll send her to a safe country. We should be able to keep the spread of the deadly mold to a minimum right now!!”

“R-right. Right!!”

Quenser and Heivia both wore the masks they had gained in exchange for someone else’s life and they ran around the heart of the destroyed infection base.

“There has to be some kind of emergency method. It can be lime or absolute alcohol, but there has to be a kit for sterilizing the facility in case a microbe gets out!!”

“There’s something inside this locked cabinet. It’s the powder used to draw lines on the schoolyard during an athletic festival!”

“That’s lime! Heivia, break the glass if you have to, but scatter that around!!”

“What about you!?”

“We can’t disinfect inside Catherine’s mouth, so we have to throw her in a body bag and duct tape up the zipper to keep any more from getting out. She’ll still have two or three hours of air and the mold spores should be larger than pollen. It’s less precise than a virus weapon, so it should be fine!!”

“Oh, I hope you’re right, dammit!!”

Whatever the case, it was a race against time. The fact that everything was soaked from the flooding was a real problem. If the deadly mold began to spread at an accelerated rate, they would have to seal everything off. And that included Quenser and Heivia. If that happened, there would be nothing they could do.

That was the major deciding factor in whether or not they could bring Catherine back to the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion’s maintenance base zone.

Even if there was no vaccine or antidote and even if they could only fight the symptoms, there was specialized equipment and military doctors there. That would be far better than anything Quenser and Heivia could do.

After sealing up the body bag with duct tape, they poured a bunch of lime powder on it. This girl had saved his life, so it drove Quenser insane that he had to treat her like she was unclean.

“Will that do it!?”

“I don’t know, but at least we haven’t passed out yet.”

But things were not over yet.

The heavens shook.

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Oh, please no.”

Heivia groaned as he looked up.

Something gigantic was moving above their heads.

What looked like black rock was actually a 100 meter piece of the Appetizer Asteroid after it had been broken by the Princess’s anti-air lasers. Or so they had thought.

Had they been wrong?

If it was moving, they had to be wrong.

That black rock had looked so sturdy, but now cracks ran through it from within. And several metal towers came into view. No, that was wrong too. The scale was simply so large that they could not see the whole picture from here. That had only made it look like a wall and towers.

If they had been able to step back and view it more calmly, it may have looked different.

They would have seen a 50 meter spherical main body with cannons covering its surface. That colossal weapon could move at more than 500 kph, it had ended the nuclear age, and it contained a JPlevelMHD reactor that provided the firepower for the giant main cannons which were the one thing that could exterminate others like it.

“What dumbass did this!? Were the parts carried ‘up there’ and then constructed like a ship in a bottle!? Was that Object actually embedded inside the Appetizer Asteroid!? Was it hiding there like that was a ghillie suit made of heat insulation and cushioning!?”

The Princess’s anti-air attack had destroyed the giant asteroid and caused it to detonate in midair, but now that they thought about it, it had split apart a little too cleanly. It may have been customized to do that from the beginning. By cutting into and cracking the asteroid with an Object’s firepower, it had been remade into a vehicle for reentry.

But which world power had done it?

Was it the Faith Organization’s Kerukeion who had planned to disseminate the deadly mold? Or was it someone who wanted to stop that by destroying the infection base even if it meant crushing Second Venice?

It had been constructed in space, embedded inside the asteroid, and accurately dropped toward the surface. Its internal systems and the Pilot Elite would also have to have been perfectly preserved, so an unimaginable amount of technology had been poured into this. It would undoubtedly be a cutting edge Generation 2.

“Goddammit… Is this why that old astronomer was attacked? The asteroid was named after him, so he must have checked it on a daily basis. Did he notice something was up, so they came to silence him?”

Quenser Barbotage had come to the battlefield to learn about Object design, but his eyes were not sparkling now.

“Shut up, you…”

He picked up the body bag holding the girl who had saved his life and viscerally felt the approaching time limit. That unarmed boy did not even have Hand Axe this time and his expression was hidden by a mask.

The puny human only had one thing to say.

“This is ''not'' the time, you idiot!! Do you ''want'' me to tear you apart right this instant!?”