Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume7 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 3===

In and of itself, their task was simple.

Their enemy was a unit made up of both the Information Alliance and Capitalist Corporations. This unit had the second generation Simple Is Best, the 1.5 Generation Hornet Storm, and the multiple Ex. Wall mobile barricades that would keep their own Object from moving.

It would be difficult for the princess’s Baby Magnum to deal with it all on its own, so Quenser, Heivia, and the others were secretly infiltrating the communication facilities for the mobile barricades. By directly injecting a virus into the hardware, control of the barricades could be stolen at the crucial moment.

The mobile barricades would remain within the enemy unit until the battle began. At that point, they would be used to block the movements of the Simple Is Best and Hornet Storm.

Normally, they could be easily blown away with the overwhelming firepower of the Objects, but this would occur in the middle of an Object vs. Object battle. When an instantaneous decision could influence the direction a war was headed, a lag of a few seconds could be fatal.

The primary target was the Information Alliance’s Simple Is Best.

The Capitalist Corporations’ Hornet Storm was simply trying to take advantage of the situation, so they were likely to swiftly retreat the instant that advantage disappeared. But if it did not, the princess would then have to defeat that 1.5 generation Object.

Even with two Objects attacking at once, the princess had a decent chance of winning as long as they set up the battlefield so she could fight them separately.

“As usual, this is one hell of a blueprint. Was this really simulated on a super computer?”

“Try to think more positively. If they could draw up this blueprint, that means there’s at least that much hope left. And complaining isn’t going to change anything.”

Heivia took the lead and Quenser followed through the moonlit desert. They were already within the grounds of the barricade facility.

The facility itself was meant to allow the preparation of the large truck-like mobile barricades and provide access to the military network, but it had many other buildings and vehicles.

“Why did they prepare such a large area? The barricades are mobile, so they’re just going to approach our maintenance base once they’re set up. I can understand a convoy, but won’t the prefab lodgings be left behind?”

“The barricades are going to gather around an Object to stop it from moving. Staying away from the front lines is safer. They can retrieve the other things once the battle is over.”

There were a lot of lights. The gondola-equipped cranes used in place of watchtowers had their own spotlights, the vehicles parked around had headlights, and the large halogen lights usually used for stages and construction sites were set up on large stands here and there.

Heading out into the light would have been suicide and cutting in front of a light would cause a giant shadow.

But the lights were not set up to provide even light and there were spots they missed. By circling behind them and mixing in with the shadows, Quenser and Heivia’s silhouettes were hidden by the bright backlights. Lights that produced a lot of light and heat also helped fool different types of sensors.

Even when they were less than ten meters from enemy Capitalist Corporations soldiers, the soldiers could not see them behind the lights.

While walking across the sandy ground, they spoke quietly to each other.

“We have to inject this virus into their system. Where’s the communications facility?”

“That’s it fifty meters ahead. That small prefab building. The one with a lot of antennae on the roof.”

“Will it also be left behind when the barricades close in?”

“I’m sure they have separate armored vehicles for command control. By dividing the system up, there is less of a risk of being cut off from the military network. Of course, that provides more ways into the system for people like us.”

The communications facility was the cornerstone of the mobile barricades, so it had strict security and a lot of lights. They would not be able to reach it by walking through the darkness.

Heivia pointed at a line of military trucks parked nearby.

“Hey, Quenser. Let’s hide under those to get close. It’ll be harder to spot us than if we walk around with our heads down.”

He got down on the fine sand and slid under the back of the nearest truck. That left Quenser with no choice. He imitated Heivia and crawled under the tuck without knowing the right way to do it.

He smelled something that resembled demi-glace.

“Damn them. What do they have loaded in this truck? Why does the enemy get to eat such nice food?”

“They have over 100 people working to set up the barricade. They’re probably busy supplying soap and toilet paper too.”

Suddenly, they heard footsteps on the sand.

And from more than one person. An unpleasant sweat appeared on Quenser’s cheek as he hid under the truck and pressed against the sand.

“(Three, four…no, five. Dammit. This is pretty much up to chance now.)”

As Heivia complained, he pulled his handgun from its holster and attached the suppresser. Quenser’s eyes opened wide.

“(If they notice something’s wrong, the Hornet Storm will rush over here, remember!?)”

“(I’m not preparing this because I ''want'' to use it, you idiot!)”

Meanwhile, multiple military boots were clearly headed their way. Not only could they hear the footsteps, they could feel a kind of pressure. These soldiers were not simply walking around the trucks. They were obviously walking toward the trucks.

Quenser squeezed his eyes shut when he saw Heivia holding up his handgun in the cramped space below the truck.

He waited for a while.

But nothing happened.

“…?”

He heard the sound of truck doors opening and closing. The truck above them then creaked like a bed. He doubted it would actually happen, but he felt as if it were going to crush him from above. They were on soft sand rather than hard asphalt, so the space between the bottom of the truck and the ground might not remain the same.

Finally, he realized there was something else he had to focus on instead.

“(Hey, hey! Quenser, you idiot! Pull yourself together!!)”

“(Eh? Ah?)”

“(They just climbed into the truck. Why do you think that is? Unless they’re planning to kill some time with some rural car sex, they’re going to drive the truck away!!)”

The engine rumbled to life.

As Quenser’s lungs filled with the unpleasant smell of exhaust, he desperately suppressed the instinctual urge to cough.

If the truck drove away, Quenser and Heivia would gather more attention than a birthday cake.

Heivia had already started to crawl to the next in the line of parked trucks.

“(Hurry up, Quenser! If you stupidly get caught, it’ll put me in danger too, so hurry!!)”

“(Wait, wait, wait! The truck’s about to drive off. If I move now, I could be crushed by the tire!)”

“(That’s better than having your head filled with holes by tons of bullets bought with the money from the donation boxes next to convenience store registers, isn’t it? Quit panicking and get over here!!)”

Quenser felt like he was choosing the better of two deaths as he desperately began to move. He crawled out from under the ominously vibrating truck, passed right by the tire supporting a weight of several tons, and managed to reach the next truck.

He just barely made it out when the truck drove off.

But it was too soon to breathe a sigh of relief.

They once again heard the sound of an engine starting from overhead.

“(What the hell!? What the hell!? What the hell!?)”

“(They’re sending out each truck in turn. They might be forming a convoy to drive across the desert!)”

“(What? Was eating all that delicious-smelling food not enough!? A noble like me can’t even hope for dessert after a meal!!)”

Quenser and Heivia could not have themselves brought into the open, so they rolled along the line of trucks as the trucks drove off, one at a time.

More than ten trucks left and only two remained.

“(What the hell was that? Is it finally over?)”

“(No, wait a second.)”

In addition to the drivers of the trucks, there had been some soldiers who had helped load wooden boxes and other things into the trucks. They were scattering as they returned to their normal posts.

But…

“Hm?”

A single pair of boots stopped.

The boots had their heels pointed toward the two boys, but they quickly turned 180 degrees. The toes were now pointed their way. The ground had been made of soft sand and the trucks had created tire tracks when driving away, but this soldier may have noticed another unnatural trail as if something large had crawled along the ground.

The legs bent as if the solider were crouching down.

A soldier about their age poked his head down to peer under the truck.

Without hesitation, Heivia fired his suppressor-equipped military handgun into the soldier’s face.

Quenser instinctually covered his eyes with his hands.

“(Do you have a death wish!?)”

“(Shut up. If I hadn’t done anything, he would have caused a commotion! More importantly, Quenser, you cover up the blood with sand. I’ll drag the body under here!!)”

“(You could at least let me be the one to shoot him. The last thing I want is to get killed while cleaning up after you.)”

A shot to the brain did not create as much blood as to the heart. Heivia hid the body under the truck as if moving a sack of flour while Quenser did as instructed and hid the blood with the desert sand.

“Either way, they’ll find him as soon as they move the truck. Let’s get this virus in the system and get the hell out of here.”

While ignoring the blood on their hands, Quenser and Heivia crawled out from under the truck and approached the nearby single-story prefab building. To keep sand out, the floor was elevated like with buildings along the beach. Quenser hid under the floor while Heivia pressed up against the door. Heivia removed the parabolic microphone from the front of his rifle and tossed it underhand to Quenser. Quenser caught it and pressed the microphone against the floor above him.

(One set of footsteps in each corner save the east. Also, one hard sound. Chair legs maybe? It’s near the center.)

After acquiring the necessary information, he jotted down a general diagram, folded the memo into a paper airplane, and threw it to Heivia.

Heivia checked it, jammed a large military knife into the gap of the door, and forcibly destroyed the lock.

Quenser hid under the building for a dozen or so seconds and then approached the door.

He peered inside and saw Heivia had already cleared the room.

“Ugh. There’s blood everywhere.”

“I’m not planning to send this image into people’s living rooms. More importantly, it’s time to get to work, Quenser,” said Heivia as he swapped out his handgun’s magazine.

The prefab room had tables chaotically lined up within. Many different pieces of electronic equipment were placed on top, but there were only two obvious computers. The others were mostly old audio equipment and phantom equipment that radio enthusiasts would pursue within an electronics district.

“Ahh, ahh. Everything’s soaked. They’re covered in so much red I can’t read the displays.”

“Don’t complain, student. I went to some effort to keep my bullets from destroying the machinery.”

Quenser ignored the specialized radio equipment and approached one of the computers. The Legitimacy Kingdom had given him a postage stamp-sized chip with the virus on it. Once he infected the system with it, their job was done.

“Huh? Where’s the Shift key on this thing? This one’s Esc, right?”

“This is a Capitalist Corporations machine. It isn’t gonna be exactly the same.”

“It does have a chip slot though, right?”

The two idiots exchanged a glance and frantically looked around at the outside of the computer. Fortunately, the media type used here seemed to be common between systems. There was a small slot for inserting the stamp-sized chip.

“Hey, Quenser. Can you actually hack?”

“If I could, I’d be working somewhere that pays better. I just have to leave all the work to the program here.”

As he spoke offhand, Quenser typed on the unfamiliar Capitalist Corporations keyboard.

“Let’s see… If I just insert the chip in normal mode, it’ll be rejected, so I ignore this. I need to reboot, spam the function key to bring up the BIOS screen, and switch the boot device priority so it’ll boot up from the external media.”

“Hey, how much longer? They’ll discover the dead soldiers from the lack of periodic reports. We need to get ready to leave.”

“Wait, wait. I just need to reboot again! Okay, done!! The virus has begun to overwrite the system before the military security can catch it. We can just leave it now!”

After seeing the blinking of the access light move from the stamp-sized chip to the HDD, Quenser removed the chip from the slot.

He moved over to Heivia who had the door cracked open to check outside.

“We just have to leave now. What’s our escape route?”

“We can’t just walk out.”

Quenser and Heivia had slipped past the guards by crawling under the line of military trucks, but all but two of those trucks had left. They could not use that same route.

“Then what do we do?”

“Let’s climb into the back of one of the remaining trucks. I doubt they’re going to stay here all night.”

As soon as he had finished speaking, Heivia crouched down and ran toward canopy-covered back of the truck. Quenser followed and Heivia pulled him up into the truck.

Half of the truck was filled with wooden boxes, but they did not have the warnings about flammability and shaking that boxes of weapons would have.

“Goddammit! It’s bananas and milk! Are they preparing a nice healthy breakfast!?”

“Should I go see the base counselor if that combination sounds dirty to me?”

The two idiots opened one of the boxes and quenched their thirst with some of the milk inside refrigerated containers.

Then they waited.

A few footsteps approached the military truck. One toward the driver’s seat and two or three toward the back. Heivia hid behind the boxes and used his knife to silently attack them when they had fully climbed into the truck.

After making sure they were all dead, Quenser approached the front of the truck. He knocked twice on the metal panel dividing the driver’s compartment and the back.

The driver mistook it for a sign that they soldiers were all onboard, so he smoothly drove off.

“We need to have a serious discussion about our pay. There’s definitely something wrong with you getting paid the same as me.”

“If you have a complaint, go talk to the people that pay us.”

That was when they heard an unnatural clunk in the back of the truck.

“!?”

“!!”

[[Image:HO_v07_186.png|thumb]]

Quenser immediately took a defensive stance but was unable to do much of anything. Heivia used an arm and a leg to knock Quenser to the ground and used his other hand to draw his military handgun. He had seen movement behind one of the wooden boxes. Whoever it was must not have thought the box would function as a shield because they swiftly moved to eliminate Heivia.

The two of them held their handguns toward each other at a distance of less than a meter, but they both suddenly stopped moving.

Heivia frowned.

“What? Is that a Legitimacy Kingdom handgun?”

“You aren’t from the Capitalist Corporations?”

The person who uttered that confused comment and moved from behind the box (without lowering the gun) was a blonde-haired woman a bit older than Quenser.

Her uniform had a different camouflage design than theirs, but it was a Legitimacy Kingdom format.

The uniform had an unfamiliar emblem sewn into the shoulder.

While lying helpless on the floor, Quenser spoke up.

“Come to think of it, wasn’t there an intelligence division team that went in ahead of us and disappeared?”