Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume16 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 2===

No swimming!! Lots of sharks this year!

“…”

“…”

The two Legitimacy Kingdom idiots did not bother asking why they had traveled all the way to Hawaii.

A warning was pasted over a sign that normally introduced a legend in which a god fished the islands out of the sea, but the problem was not that warning in the middle of the beach. No, it was the shocking scene before them.

“Why are those cuties in swimsuits running barefoot across the white sand to reach the ocean?”

“Didn’t you know, Quenser? Humans are the creatures that attacked giant mammoths because we wanted to eat meat. Survival is just an excuse since we could have subsisted off of smaller prey like deer or rabbits.”

They were on the beach.

To be more specific, they were at a restaurant that sold nasty frankfurters and toxic-looking sodas at tourist prices. It was like a fusion of an Island Nation seaside restaurant, a gas station, and a motel. It was actually a camouflaged observation bunker prepared by the Legitimacy Kingdom in the Hawaii District since that was technically a blank zone which belonged to no one. They used terms like crime prevention, intelligence, security, data collection, and sampling to make it sound better, but it all boiled down to some peeping by utter perverts. Sitting in an air-conditioned 2nd-story room using binoculars to spy on the skin nearly spilling out of so many bikinis counted as an official duty that earned a stable income from the people’s tax money, so whoever approved it really deserved to be punched.

“Oh, the next bus is here.”

“How many times have we switched busses now, dammit!? We’ve zigzagged around so much I feel like we must have made 3 full circuits of Oahu by now!”

This “bus” was really a canopied truck with the name of a pineapple plantation written on the side in the local language. By now, they were used to their hips taking a beating from the shaking of the poor suspension in the back of the deadly un-air-conditioned trucks. The two idiots and the rest of the potatoes climbed into the back of this new one with dead eyes.

They had been shaken around by those trucks for 3 hours now, but they had yet to be informed where they were going.

“This is the worst. It’s too damn hot for war. We came all the way to Hawaii, so why are we stuck smelling like an Island Nation judo uniform?”

“Neh heh heh.”

Quenser heard an odd noise coming from Heivia, who was curled up in the seat next to him. This was not all that unusual for the harsh Legitimacy Kingdom military. The living conditions were so bad that following your orders and doing your duty was a good way to end up with a runner’s high.

As the boy set off for a dream world with no help from certain substances, words began to escape his lips.

“Quenser, did you hear about the legendary maid that appeared in an Eastern European monastery hotel?”

“Gulp!?”

“The hotel staff said they have no idea who she was. Press from around the world saw her, but all their equipment was broken and no one managed to even snap a photo. ‘Legendary Maid’ is the top trending term right now. Rumor has it she’s the ghost of some super cute maid who made an appearance to tell them how dangerous it would be to forcibly declare independence using an Object.”

An unpleasant sweat soaked Quenser’s back.

The story was taking an unexpected turn.

Legendary Maid Quensette had apparently reached the level of inhuman beauty. At this rate, the Capitalist Corporations’ TechCiv would create a speculative design and the Information Alliance would create a 3D model to give her a life of her own as a Virtual Whatever-tuber.

The pineapple plantation truck arrived at a processing plant on the coast. It pulled up below a roof and Quenser spoke to a man in a work jumpsuit after leaving the truck.

“What do we do now?”

“Take a rubber motorboat out to sea. You’ll join a destroyer battleship waiting there!”

“Damn the navy. Just because Objects have stolen their thunder is no reason to start inventing weird new kinds of ships.”

Quenser and Heivia went in the direction indicated with a giant machete probably used for chopping the leaves off pineapples. Any leisure shop in Hawaii would probably have something nicer than the rubber motorboat they found waiting for them. To keep sharks away, the bottom was covered with bright red and orange warning colors reminiscent of an anemone and it was loaded with sugarcane.

They left the concrete bank.

Traveling straight from the pineapple processing plant to the destroyer battleship would blow their cover, so they made sure to pass below a random bridge and toss all the sugarcane into the sea to change their appearance for the satellites.

And eventually…

“?”

While they soared across the ocean, the water split open right next to them and a large silhouette jumped out.

But this was nothing as adorable as a dolphin swimming alongside them. This was an 8m mass of muscle the size of a truck.

It was a real great white shark.

“Watch out!!”

Once Heivia realized what it was, he drew a military handgun known as the Bear Killer, but the giant shark moved away as if it had lost interest.

Quenser had felt entirely helpless, so he wiped sweat from his brow.

“The entire ocean is learning. The shark understood the threat your gun posed. This is like a river full of black bass that can’t be caught with normal lures.”

“Yeah, this isn’t looking easy.”

Heivia did not return the gun to its holster for a while. It might have an engine, but they were in a rubber boat.

“With this lend-lease program, I can only imagine our mission is going to end in failure and pain.”

Boarding the destroyer battleship as soon as possible was the only option they had.

Why did that ship have a name that made it sound both big and small at the same time? Quenser was imagining something like a monstrous magnum that was a handgun but required a shoulder rest to avoid breaking your wrist, but as they continued on in the rubber boat which was (fairly ineffectually) protected from sharks by its anemone warning lights, they arrived at an old-fashioned heavy cruiser with its anchor lowered. The gray ship was nearly 200m long and covered in giant rapid-fire gun turrets and vertical launched cruise missiles. It also had jet stream propulsion devices extending from either side.

“So they’re just trying to make it as powerful as possible? Do they think they can reach an Object’s level by moving faster or something?”

“That’s ridiculous. Think of a car’s speedometer. The max speed on a straightaway is entirely different from the normal speed while making small turns. If this ship tried to sidestep at speed, it would break right in half.”

The ship lowered what might as well have been a rope ladder, so Quenser and the others boarded the baffling destroyer battleship (which had likely soaked up a ton of the people’s tax money).

Before entering the conference room inside, they found Frolaytia in the smoking area partway down the narrow corridor.

There was no definite “right answer”, but their attempt to make a quick exit was a mistake today.

“Oh, oh, oh? What’s this? Shouldn’t you be showing a bit more respect for your commanding officer?”

“Oh, no. She’s sulking even more than I expected! Y’know, it takes some doing to be this much of a pain in the ass when you have the silver-hair, giant tits, 18-years-old, and beautiful commander things going for you!!”

“Curse that clingy commander. If she wants our attention, she’d better change into a bunny suit.”

But in the extreme hierarchy of the military, there was nothing they could do. There was something wrong when they were government workers, but the labor supervisors had no authority here. There was little chance of them getting any vacation time or a mid-day siesta any time soon.

“I had thought this sounded complicated from the beginning,” said Frolaytia.

This was dangerous.

It was like starting a conversation with, “You know how I can be really dumb sometimes?” They were about to have to keep nodding like a machine to get through a long story rivalling a school principal’s speech.

“They said it was a lend-lease program for old model weapons.”

“That thing where we let other people use the weapons we’re no longer using, right?”

Quenser frowned even as he tried to be conversational.

Lending out their old weapons had a number of merits.

By strengthening the enemy of your enemy, you could attack your common enemy from multiple fronts at once. And even when that was not the case, weapons were sometimes lent to outsiders as a bit of a gamble. That was especially useful when you wanted a certain war result but did not want any of the deaths officially counted against you. It could also be lucrative to force an exorbitant asking price onto the buyers.

Needless to say, war cost money and it killed people. If that was a problem, you could always find someone to work some magic on the paperwork and rewrite those numbers in the official records.

“Money and lives. If they’re worried about the numbers on the strategic documents…”

“The year goes by quick, doesn’t it? We’ve already reached the customary end-of-the-year performance. Although if it weren’t for this, we would start seeing anti-war protests demanding we protect the precious lives of the youth and stop wasting tax money.”

Simply put, it was an underground business run by the government.

It was the same as a country spreading white powder around and calling it a drug war. In this case, they were lending out tons of weapons like an arms dealer in order to rebalance the war situation.

In this case, it was about the influence the four world powers had in the Hawaii District.

That said, weapons were full of secrets, so if you let someone else use them, they were sure to be analyzed down to the last screw. It was an odd world where you were telling stealth fighters not to crash and tanks not to get stuck in the mud even if they were destroyed. No matter how thoroughly you checked the buyer’s identity, it was insanity to hand over a weapon with the maintenance manual included. You might as well be throwing all your military secrets in a shared folder.

Frolaytia slowly shook the long, narrow kiseru in her mouth as she spoke.

“That’s why they chose the outdated weapons that are past their expiration date and about to be retired from service.”

“Have they never heard of intellectual property!? You never know when that will lead someone to a breakthrough in whatever tech they’re trying to develop!”

“These things have been in service long enough that they’ll have already been pried from a corpse’s hands and analyzed.”

It was nothing but excuses. It sounded like asking someone if they had done their homework and having them say, “I was about to, but you just killed all the motivation I’d worked up!” The words of an engineer – especially one in training like Quenser – did not hold much weight.

“This was originally meant to send weapons to those that want to break free of the Capitalist Corporations’ control over the region, right?”

“That’s oversimplifying things, Heivia. First of all, the Hawaii District is a blank region, so no one controls it. Even if the Capitalist Corporations act like they own the place.”

“And we’re trying to get in their way?”

“Not yet, Heivia. Don’t be hasty.”

Frolaytia breathed an exasperated sigh mixed with tobacco smoke.

The Hawaii District did not belong to anyone, so each of the four world powers was doing them the “favor” of protecting it. The Legitimacy Kingdom armed the coastguard, the Faith Organization worked to preserve the Hawaii and Polynesian mythology and culture, and the Information Alliance ran the mass media stations, but the Capitalist Corporations had the most control by maintaining the power and water infrastructure. And when you had a monopoly on the schools and hospitals, you would have the most influence.

“The problem is the charity work they’re doing: the Oxyocean Operation. They claim to be bringing life back to the hypoxic area of ocean known as the Sea of Death, but…”

“Are they pumping air in like for a tropical fish aquarium?”

“Yes, that. Although the scale is far greater. They’ve set up a ton of ridiculous pumps that dissolve oxygen into the ocean at a rate of tens of thousands of liters per minute.”

“Isn’t there only so much that can dissolve into the water no matter how much they send in?”

“Don’t ask me.” Frolaytia dismissed the student’s question. “Although I was told they draw the seawater into the device, apply a massive amount of pressure while dissolving the oxygen using microbubbles, and send the processed seawater back out. It kind of sounds like the oxygen would separate out and escape as soon as it returned to normal pressure, but I guess the hypoxic Sea of Death does the most damage in the deep sea pits. The pressure is already high there, so maybe it isn’t a problem.”

But why were they so interested in altering the water quality?

Why would their ''military'' be interested in it?

Frolaytia had the answer.

“The Capitalist Corporations apparently want to revive the treasure trove of valuable fish around here. Most importantly, the sharks. Shark fin is a valuable ingredient and used for makeup foundation, so it can be sold as a luxury product.”

“…”

“…”

They had already seen this information in the email they were sent, but they did not look exactly pleased about the reminder.

“You mean they’re intentionally increasing the shark population for profit? Are you kidding me? Not even the protective nets are perfect. Do you know how many surfers were eaten this summer alone?”

Heivia sounded disgusted, but Frolaytia remained somehow apathetic.

“Tourist locations with travelers from every world power are always a spy paradise. That isn’t great news for the Capitalist Corporations who want absolute control over the Hawaii District, so they want to change things. Although they need to show how doing so will also make money if they want approval.”

“So they’re making money off of their own vague conspiracy? Aren’t they afraid of hackers?”

“It doesn’t matter to them if they’re found out. They just want all the tourists to leave. And if they spread a fear of shark attacks, it should enliven the insurance industry. We might even see a boom for cheap disaster B-movies.”

They would always find a way to keep the cash flowing.

And of course, the Legitimacy Kingdom wanted to put a stop to this. They wanted Hawaii to be full of tourists to maintain the spy paradise there. They did not want their binoculars to show all that bikini-clad flesh being chewed to pieces. Quenser did not know how to use a gun properly, but that may have been why he groaned in a know-it-all way for no real reason.

He shrugged in a way that was unusual for him.

“But isn’t that what the leased weapons are for? To hunt down the sharks! Is our coastguard doing that badly?”

“Hard to say. For one thing, it isn’t sharks they’re fighting.”

Frolaytia started down a mysterious digression.

They had not heard this part of the story.

“Now that they have more firepower, they seem to have started targeting the air pumps causing all the trouble. Those things use tons of pressure to process tens of thousands of liters every minute. So unless that oxygen supply is stopped, the shark population will only continue to grow.”

“Ugh.”

“This is what happens when you give an idiot nothing but a tool. And it’s the problem with the lend-lease program. They attacked the Capitalist Corporations base with nothing but some old machineguns that were close to breaking down. And that-…”

Frolaytia Capistrano was cut off by a loud boom.

It sounded a lot like a nearby tree being split in two by lightning and the strange 200m destroyer battleship shook vertically.

It was not that anything had hit them. The ship had only been shaken by the waves created as a side effect.

Frolaytia placed a hand on the wall.

“And that woke a sleeping tiger: the Capitalist Corporations’ Second Generation Over Cavitation. Our Baby Magnum is currently going on a diet to shave off the excess pounds.”

Frolaytia audibly dumped the contents of her kiseru into an ashtray.

That meant she would explain the rest in the conference room.

With the two idiots in tow, the busty silver-haired commander threw open the large double doors and made an immediate announcement.

“Everyone! We are running out of time, so I will keep this short. Make sure you’re ready to fight some sharks!”

She used the projector to display a map of the Hawaiian Islands and the surrounding ocean.

“Currently, the Princess and the Over Cavitation are engaged in a naval battle, but you don’t need the details on that. Sending a bunch of idiots in won’t help her any. Your lives will be used for something a little more useful, so be thankful in your own idiotic way.”

She set that topic aside as readily as a cooking show stepping over and pulling out a version of the dish that had been allowed to sit for 30 minutes.

The Princess really must have been short on time.

“Based on our analysis of past battles, the Over Cavitation is quite skilled. But at the same time, it has an odd tendency to only fight when it has plenty of weather and ocean data support. That’s the kind of demand it can only make because it’s won so often, but it also gives us a target.”

With a sound like an analog camera shutter, another image appeared on top of the map. There were now Xs across Hawaii’s 8 main islands.

“The Hawaii District is a disaster-prone area thanks to its several active volcanos and the more than 30 hurricanes that hit every year. That means it has plenty of weather stations and ocean observation stations. It’s the perfect place to provide the glasses that the ace Over Cavitation desires.”

To finish it off, Frolaytia tapped an extra-large X with her long, narrow kiseru.

“This is the Rocky Coast Ocean Meteorological Research Lab. All the data is gathered here and then sent to the Over Cavitation. Taking out this lab will shake that Object. And if we shake it, the Princess will have a chance for a cross counter.”