Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume18 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 3===

Of course she was going to run.

At the rocket launch site in the Amazon District of South America, Major Frolaytia Capistrano folded up her laptop, held it under her arm, and wiped sweat from her brow with her other arm.

“Now, where’s the closest shelter!?”

“I will accompany you wherever you go, Major.”

The 12-year-old genius girl’s clever brain had already learned how to suck up.

This giant facility was like a corn field of multi-stage rockets and space shuttles, so it was bound to have a largescale underground shelter in case all that liquid fuel or oxidants were to detonate. Of course, that was not listed on the official site since the management did not want to give people the impression that accidents were even possible.

“Oh.”

“It’s you.”

She ran into an Information Alliance commander with silver hair and bright brown skin.

Lendy Farolito was a lieutenant colonel, but there was no need to show respect to someone from an enemy army.

Lendy was accompanied by a large, muscular man who was presumably a subordinate of hers.

“You too, huh?” she said with a wink.

“I suppose so, yes.”

Even with the treaties protecting space development, it was unnatural to have all four world powers mixed together at one base.

“I didn’t expect you to hire a 12-year-old secretary and keep her around at all times. Does the Legitimacy Kingdom have a project of its own to match the Capitalist Corporations’ talent trafficking and our Information Alliance’s Martini Series?”

“?”

“Hm, but it is a shame to ruin such a wonderful little girl with the Legitimacy Kingdom title. But if you framed it as a poor idol whose every effort goes to waste, she might actually sell very well indeed. You aren’t trying to muscle in on our territory, are you?”

“This short conversation has been more than enough to know you’re a pervert, so please, not another word. How in the world did you know at a glance that she’s exactly 12?”

The Legitimacy Kingdom’s Frolaytia and the Information Alliance’s Lendy both descended some narrow, unmarked stairs and opened a small rusty metal door to find a large door similar to a bank vault less than 2m away. They also had assault rifles aimed at them from either side.

Frolaytia did not even remove the long, narrow kiseru from her mouth.

“I am Legitimacy Kingdom 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion Remote Commander Frolaytia Capistrano,” she said with a wink.

“And I am Information Alliance Lieutenant Colonel Lendy Farolito. That is all the information you get since any more would carry monetary value. Now, is that not enough to grant us entrance?”

“Our apologies, ma’ams!!”

The assault rifles were raised to aim at the ceiling instead.

After working some kind of controls, the large door slowly opened.

Lendy walked right on through with the muscular man in tow, but Frolaytia did not. The silver-haired busty beauty gestured the armed soldiers toward her.

“Those are Legitimacy Kingdom uniforms, aren’t they? You are exactly what I needed, so come with me.”

“But…”

“Do you want to spend earth’s final day standing outside until the shockwave splatters you against the wall? What did you think of the VIPs marching in here with those self-satisfied grins on their faces?”

“…”

“You get why I’m here now, don’t you? Let’s make one of our dreams come true right at the very end, shall we? So again, come with me. This is an order, but it is also one of the few gifts I am capable of giving you.”

“Should we thank you?”

“That is entirely dependent on your morals and conscience. Okay, you will now act as my bodyguards, so throw out those puny assault rifles. You can find SAWs just about anywhere around 
here, can’t you? And make sure to bring plenty of box magazines just in case we need them.”

The area through the door was enormous.

The darkness was swept aside by halogen lights installed at even intervals much like in a school gym, but the area it covered was even larger than a baseball field. The entire space was indoors, but the opposite wall was barely visible as it faded away into darkness. The place had to be measured in units of kilometers. And this may not have been the only space. This was only the entranceway immediately through the front door. The areas branching horizontally off from here were also kept secret.

Lendy turned back and noticed Frolaytia had invited the guards in with her.

“How kind of you.”

“Tell that to the VIPs here.”

The 12-year-old genius girl clung to the side of Frolaytia’s hip. She almost looked like a lost child trying to find her mother.

“This is more than I ever imagined, Major.”

“Yes, I’m sure it officially began as a secret underground bunker in case of a fuel explosion, but it has been continuously expanded on since then.”

Underground shelters were not popular during the post-nuclear age of clean wars, so where had all the funding come from? Objects were said to cost an average of 5 billion dollars each, but they were developed for the prestige of the international world powers. As a star industry, their projects were often given absurd amounts of money.

“Is it like year-end roadwork?” asked Frolaytia. “Did the VIPs of the four world powers dump all their excess budget into this so they wouldn’t have to give it up for the next fiscal year?”

“That would explain why the wars never seem to end,” said Lendy.

“Wouldn’t you be in trouble if war did end?”

“Sorry, but unlike a barbarian like you, I have a second job.”

Some of the people here noticed their presence.

The world was about to end, but one fat noble was wearing a tailcoat. That suggested there was an amusement park or hotel with a casino further inside. He was accompanied by several people, but Frolaytia doubted they were his family. Those young women had to be his mistresses.

“My, my. If it isn’t the Capistrano daughter! I didn’t realize you had the necessary connections.”

“Good day, Mister Waterbury. I have my defense job to thank for this.” The silver-haired busty noblewoman put on her brightest smile. “But this is my first time inside, so I didn’t realize how big the place was.”

“Oh, don’t let this surprise you. This is only the entranceway. We have an entire miniature earth down here. You can race horses and hunt foxes if you want. And there is a large hospital, so your health is assured too.”

“But won’t that large scale require a lot of supplies? I’m worried about the water and food supply.”

“Ha ha ha. Don’t let that bother you. The sunlight might not reach us, but we can still grow vegetables with UV lights. And they can be harvested more than 25 times every year. Plus, those vegetables can be used to raise livestock for meat. They have imported the DNA for all the finest brand-name cows and pigs from around the world, so even if humanity dies out aboveground, we can still enjoy the same 5-star meals we did in our home country.”

“Is that what this place is for?

“Indeed it is.” The man grinned. “No matter how unhospitable the outside environment, we are guaranteed the finest and rarest of biological resources in here. It could be an ice age out there and we would still have all the food and medicine we require. This shelter is all we need. And if some people do survive in the outside world, this will provide us with endless privilege. We will be the kings providing charity to the starving masses.”

“I see. That would explain why I also see Lord Bosom-Caresser and the son of the Bananabliss family.”

“You have a sharp eye. You see the purpose of this place now, I assume?”

“I do,” said Frolaytia as if she were impressed.

No, not “as if”. In a way, she really was impressed.

And then she snapped her fingers.

Things immediately changed.

The guards waiting on her either side each aimed a SAW – a slimmed-down machinegun capable of single-handedly holding off an enemy charge – at the fools gathered here.

Not just at the fat noble.

The rest of the privileged class who had fled to this vast space also froze.

They did not even bother asking what was happening. Frolaytia had been expecting to fight a small war down here, so it was kind of a letdown.

“I can’t believe this.” The dom queen brushed up her bangs with a hand and clenched her teeth hard enough to nearly break her kiseru. “Every last one of them is a noble with a focus on space development. I’m honestly impressed at how shockingly grotesque the Legitimacy Kingdom can be. This world might just be destroyed today, but all you idiots decided to die here ahead of time.”

“Wh-what?”

The bastard turned toward the beautiful commander from the enemy Information Alliance hoping she might save him, but then he froze again.

“I have no interest in tear-jerking discussions of morality and I am perfectly fine with people prioritizing their own survival.” Lendy Farolito had just casually received a full-auto shotgun from the muscular man accompanying her. And not to fight back against the rogue Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers. “But the fact that you did not call off ''her'' space concert means the chosen VIPs here were telling her to stay outside the shelter and die. And while the phrase seems wholly inadequate a punishment for such an act, it will have to do: I hope you burn in hell for all eternity☆”

At this point, it did not matter how many tens of thousands there were in the shelter.

With SAWs and a full-auto shotgun, they had enough firepower to mow down the crowds even if the crowds panicked and rushed them.

Things might have played out differently if the black-hearted VIPs had kept their fully-equipped bodyguards with them, but…

(They’re willing to bring their favorite mistresses with them, but the bodyguards that had risked their lives to protect them for many long years were left to die. The age of chivalry really is dead.)

Frolaytia exhaled some smoke in annoyance.

She was used to seeing the Legitimacy Kingdom elite being garbage, but she did not like for the other world powers to see that garbage.

Of course, this launch site was open to any of the world powers, so Lendy may have been grimacing on the inside after spotting some people she knew.

“Space development just isn’t popular anymore,” stated Frolaytia in an accusatory way. “The Capitalist Corporations may be a special case since their major corporations control their government, but space development is being privatized elsewhere too. The government would prefer to lead space development so a company filled with civilians isn’t the one developing ballistic missiles or some new weapon, but if the profit isn’t there, those efforts are rated poorly. It’s just like the relationship between the wealthy gangs and the poor police during the age of prohibition. We live in a world where bankers and government workers work under a demerit system, so no one wants to take the risk.”

So they had changed their focus.

Using space technology for space would only lead to further debt, so they would instead use space technology for other things. If they could use it in a more agreeable environment, they could greatly reduce the maintenance and inspection costs.

If they had a place to use that tech on earth, they could dig themselves out of the red.

In a massive but enclosed shelter like this, a self-sustained system that endlessly provided food and water was indispensable and thus an endless moneymaker. And if things grew unbalanced and the supplies were insufficient, they could try using cold sleep to reduce the number of consumers. They could rebalance things by temporarily reducing the number of mouths to feed. If even that was not enough, they only had to try putting everyone in cold sleep. When they woke up thousands or tens of thousands of years into the future, the seemingly endless ice age would have ended and an age of plenty would be upon them.

If you were in here, you were one of the winners.

Were there ten thousand or twenty thousand people in here? It could not be more than 100 thousand. But that was enough. As long as they could control the endless cycle contained in this shelter, they did not care at all what happened to the 6 or 7 billion other people up on the surface.

There really were fools who thought that way. There really were people stupid enough to believe that qualified as happiness.

“Why?” asked the silver-haired busty queen.

Even if Louisiana Honeysuckle was a genius scientist, this shelter felt too well prepared. From the materials to the architectural planning, the space elevator had to have involved hundreds or even thousands of specialized fields. She could not have done it all herself even if she was as multitalented as Da Vinci.

Some idiots had helped her.

Enough of them to fill those hundreds or even thousands of specialized fields.

Since 7th Core from the Capitalist Corporations had not known exactly what she was up to despite being the original funders, she had likely received secret assistance from all four world powers.

“And that was enough to construct this enormous facility and fill it with supplies?”

“Yes, they were so well-prepared it makes you suspect they knew this was going to happen in advance.”

Lendy Farolito was thinly smiling even now.

[[Image:HO_v18_BW10.jpg|thumb]]

Frolaytia Capistrano removed her kiseru from her mouth and exhaled.

The military knew exactly how to deal with traitors.

The guards were required to obey orders, so they had only been able to grin and bear it as they guided those chosen people through the entrance.

“Shoot all of them but this one. That’s an order.”

The shelter was quickly stained red.

It made for a decent massacre.

“See, I told you it would go easier with the SAWs. ‘The Southern England Lawnmower’ really is the perfect nickname for them. Truly superb weapons.”

“In what way? I swear the noise was holding them back more than the bullets. And I’m pretty sure you were swapping out the red-hot barrels more often than the box magazines.”

Frolaytia Capistrano’s only response was to relight her kiseru.

Lendy Farolito handed her full-auto shotgun back to her muscular bodyguard now that she was done with it.

Neither one had batted an eye.

“Was there a conspiracy beyond monopolizing possible drug ingredients?”

“…”

“I’ll take that as a no. Or maybe they just never bothered telling you.”

Frolaytia pulled out her own handgun and casually shot the last one.

Louisiana Honeysuckle was not the reclusive sort of genius. She apparently knew how to control people through their common desires. Just like the gangs of prohibition had taken control of society using alcohol, drugs, and prostitution to defang so many government workers and merchants. But that was why Frolaytia doubted this was over. The uniform environment and the shelter had only been bait. Which meant…

(Assuming she didn’t lose sight of her own goal along the way, there must be something more to this.)

“Ew,” groaned the 12-year-old genius girl as the powerful stench of blood reached her while she clung to Frolaytia’s hip.

“S-so we weren’t evacuating to the shelter?”

“Of course not.” Frolaytia exhaled some sweet smoke and winked. “What, were you hoping to be one of them?”

“No, no, no!!” shouted the genius girl while vigorously shaking her head. “We must do something about the falling Capitalist Corporations Object so we can protect our planet and provide a bright future for our Legitimacy Kingdom!!”

Now that they had cut away the excess fat here, it was time to fight the good fight.