Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume7 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 11===

The sky was dyed in the orange of evening.

There was no sign of the murderous sunlight which had been raining down so forcefully before. Once evening came, Oceania filled with darkness quite quickly. After only a few dozen minutes, full darkness would arrive.

“It’s a simple setup,” said Heivia as he kicked at the abandoned hospital’s floor with the heel of his military boot. He sounded truly irritated. “It’s human trafficking with no concern for age or sex. This hospital was their relay point or their gathering spot. They abduct innocent people from the nearby cities and carry them out here where the law won’t bother them. The police are too afraid to patrol this area much, so they can fully hide their tracks by swapping out their vehicles here.”

The kidnapping incident which had started with that wrong number was being treated as resolved. The abducted girl had been loaded aboard a military truck which was taking her to the maintenance base zone.

The only people left in the hospital were Quenser, Heivia, Myonri, and Sewax the battlefield cameraman.

According to the girl, thirty to forty men and women of all ages had been there only about half an hour ago.

Quenser raised his hand.

“Then why call up and demand a ransom? If they’re a human trafficking group, they wouldn’t need to do that. They would get money by selling her.”

“It’s probably a secondary source of income. Before selling her to some distant place, they get as much money from the parents as they can. They never intended to give the girl back.”

“But who in the world would buy them?” asked Myonri uneasily.

Sewax answered while performing maintenance on his camera.

“Humans are in demand everywhere.”

“What I don’t get is the variety in age. Whether for organs, soldiers, labor, or a pervert’s toy, the younger the better, right? I doubt a criminal organization like that would go out of their way to abduct and sell old men and women.”

“They might,” replied Sewax without hesitation. “Whether it’s people who starved to death or died in a battle, the world wants obvious victims of war. For example, the leaders of a chaotic country without a proper Object system in place needs a way to obtain humanitarian aid from the peaceful countries.”

“…Seriously?”

“Humanitarian aid such as food and fuel can be sold for money through the proper routes. And that money can buy guns and mercenaries to tighten one’s control over the unsatisfied country that has insufficient supplies. That’s one simple way governments oppress their countries with a dictatorship.”

“So this is a business that exports ‘extras’ to play the role of corpses,” spat out Quenser.

Heivia frowned.

“But wouldn’t it look weird if Oceanians ended up as corpses in other countries?”

“To a certain extent, abducting tourists can help supply people from different regions. There are people like that cameraman who go out of their way to visit dangerous places. If they kidnap a certain number from different regions, they can divide them up to match the requests they receive.”

Quenser sounded disgusted by the idea as he spoke, but Sewax’s expression remained calm.

The student wiped sweat from his face with the back of his hand.

“Well, that explains the wide variety of people. If all the corpses were women and children, it might draw more sympathy from the people leisurely watching TV, but they probably want to mix in a macho old man or two to make it all look less contrived.”

“That means some of these people are being kidnapped and killed for the same reason as the variation in fighting game rosters.”

“Even if it’s a dummy operation, some soldiers might be hesitant to sacrifice their own people. And that goes for dictatorships, too. But some of that guilt can be eliminated by having them kill people from other nations to protect their own people. After all, that’s basically the entire reason the military exists and what soldiers are taught to do.”

That was likely what the abductors were after.

Sewax then changed the subject.

“Any guesses where the guns used here came from?”

“They were old-style assault rifles. Not only that, but inferior ones made by melting down scrap metal and reusing it. That’s the equipment Oceania used in the days of the military nation,” explained Heivia.

“Are remnants of the old military government involved in this?” asked Myonri with a look of disbelief.

Quenser chose his words carefully as he answered.

“Well, I have been hearing about those remnants trying to take back Oceania despite the Objects stationed here giving the coalition forces an overwhelming advantage.”

Sewax smiled thinly.

“I’ve heard they’re desperate to set up pipelines to other chaotic regions that are opposed to having Objects rule over them. But to trade, they need products. The old military government’s resources have dried up, so they want some kind of diplomatic commodity.”

“And that commodity is corpse extras of all ages?” muttered Heivia quietly. “The old government’s goal is to retake Oceania. In that case, it does make sense.”

“How?”

“They want a way to control people and we’ve already glimpsed the initial preparations for that.”

After thinking for a second, Quenser grimaced.

“The black market.”

“It’s more of an ally to the people than the convenience stores. Without it, they wouldn’t have any food to eat. But not all of the black market’s products are gathered by crawling through the rubble. Someone has to obtain funds and buy products to sell.”

“Food earned by selling humans,” said Myonri with the same look as someone who had found a giant clump of hair in the food they had been eating. “If the people knew the truth, wouldn’t they begin to hate the old government’s black market?”

“Probably,” commented Sewax. “But by that time, the black market will have become an indispensable part of their lives. No matter how much they hate it, they can’t escape it. They need to get food and water somehow, so they’ll have to approve of what the old government is doing. People have a way of justifying the things they do.”

“They’re using a cruel incident to wash away the standards of good and evil and of common sense in this country. This is a form of terrorism.”

“Screw this,” spat out Quenser.

Sewax smiled.

“Fortunately, this is likely the first wave of human trafficking.”

“What?”

“I’ve been keeping an eye on the black market and the stock of products has been pretty unstable. So far, they have probably only had the products they dug up in the rubble. But as the supply began to dwindle, they started to panic. To prevent the people from turning their anger toward a black market without enough to sell, they put together a rushed plan. If they had already been selling people and earning a steady income, the black market would not have been so unstable.”

“So what?” Quenser glared at Sewax. “Either way, we need to rescue the Oceanian people who vanished here before they’re packed up and shipped away. Thirty people? Forty? They’re going to end up as corpse extras. They’ll be exported somewhere that doesn’t care about the concept of ‘clean wars’ and they’ll end up on some gory picture distributed around the world.”

“That’s the problem, Quenser.” Heivia scratched at his head. “Do you remember what our huge-breasted commander’s justification was? A child was kidnapped and a threatening call was made to a military officer. As a form of self-defense, that officer is sending out her unit to eliminate the criminal organization. Do you get what I’m saying?”

“Yes, I do. This operation began with that wrong number, so it only applies to the girl from the phone call. Now that we’ve rescued her, we have no pretext for military action!!”

“Then what do we do? Are we just going to leave those people to their fate!?”

“I don’t want to be plagued by nightmares of lines of body bags every time I go to bed, but this is a different issue entirely!”

“Either way, Froleytia will receive the same report once the girl arrives at the maintenance base. No matter what we do, the unit will take action in the end. So is there any reason to let the number of body bags grow by waiting until that delayed action begins!?”

“At least get permission!! Acting like a hero is great and all, but I don’t want to be thrown behind bars in exchange for getting a statue made of me in a safe country!!”

Sewax let out an obvious sigh and interrupted the following silence.

“Let’s go over the situation. You just finished your mission and were about to return to the maintenance base zone. You are not allowed to make a preemptive strike on a local force, but you are permitted to fight back in self-defense in the case of an unexpected battle. Is all that correct?”

“Are you telling us to say we lost our bearings in the desert and happened across the abduction organization while driving around randomly?”

“That’s a terrible excuse! That huge-breasted commander of ours would kill us!!”

“Only if we shot at them and killed them,” said Quenser as he gathered his thoughts. “But we should be able to get by if we restrict ourselves to investigation and long-distance reconnaissance. The odds are good Froleytia will act once she hears what that girl has to say. Even if we only investigate what buildings we need to attack and where the people are inside, it might change how many people we can save.”

“You sure are optimistic. What if she doesn’t act? Even if they’re a criminal organization, they still count as civilians. If she can’t justify slaughtering them with the military, there’s nothing she can do.”

“If that happens…” Quenser paused there, threw off his hesitation, and finally continued. “Then we’ll have to resign ourselves to being thrown in the detention barracks.”