HEAVY OBJECT:Volume5 Chapter 2

Status: Incomplete

Chapter 2

Part 1

The Technopic Village was prepared in in the space surrounding the dome-shaped stadium. Calling it a “village” was a vestige of the international competition of an older era. It was not really that different from a standard high-rise resort hotel.

Mariydi’s bodyguard spoke to her.

“I’m surprised. I didn’t take you for the type to get glued to the TV like this.”

“I’m interested in the results of the women’s 50 meter.”

Her interest did not come from newly-found nationalism. She was holding what looked like movie tickets in one hand.

“Did you bet on it?”

“I don’t know if it’s to pay for the fraud protection, but even a single bet is expensive.”

That meant this was not some private gamble. She had officially purchased that gambling ticket from Olympia Dome.

But as she watched the sports news digest, Mariydi pouted her lips in displeasure and threw the tickets down on the table.

“What!? How did they get a faster time than 4.77 seconds on a 50 meter sprint!?”

“Everyone with any sense has been choosing the queen of sprinting ever since the qualifiers.”

“Yeah, but you barely win anything for betting on her. That’s why I was betting on the top time.”

The black athlete who won gold had a time of 4.74 seconds, and other miraculous times in the 4 second range lined up after hers. Of course, humans could not run that quickly under their own power. Those abnormal records were achieved by overcoming the limits of humanity with their sportswear, shoes, and the drugs they were taking.

With no more use for it, Mariydi left the TV and started wandering through the large hotel room.

She seemed more annoyed at having wasted money at all than at the specific amount she had lost.

“Maybe you shouldn’t stand near the windows.”

“It’s polarized glass, so no one can see me from outside,” replied Mariydi as she looked out over the night scenery.

Her bodyguard sank into the sofa and shrugged.

“You need to relax more,” he said.

“So do you. You look more restless than when we were travelling here from the stadium.”

“As your bodyguard, I can’t help but feel high-rise buildings like this are dangerous.”

“Almost everyone who would try to attack me is allied with another athlete. When we’re all gathered in this one spot, they lose the option to blow up the entire building. You could say our safety is guaranteed by everyone taking everyone else hostage.”

“If it was really that simple, my pay would not be so high.”

“By the way.” Mariydi finally turned around. “How long are you planning to stay in here? Alicia and Stacy have already returned to their rooms. Don’t tell me you plan to watch me all night long in the name of protecting me.”

“I am simply following my contract. Since I have to be in a girl’s room, I would personally prefer one with a more glamorous body.” The bodyguard shrugged while still sitting on the couch. “I was hired to stay here until midnight. After that, I will remain on standby outside your room. Simple, right? But simple as it may be, I will be charged for breaking my contract if I do not follow those rules. So just put up with me being here for a little longer.”

“…Why do I get the feeling you’re going to be waking me up in the morning?”

“Sorry, but I don’t have to do anything else until you head out for breakfast. If you need someone to wake you, you should hire a maid.”

Mariydi lightly clicked her tongue and looked back at the night scenery outside the window.

“I’m surprised Olympia Dome did not do more to intervene,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“The attack on Erie Greenhat. Even if the individual athletes and the organizations they belong to have bodyguards, Olympia Dome is supposed to put a stop to incidents like that.”

The attack had been carried out by bodyguards who were supposed to be protecting an athlete, but the management at Olympia Dome had to have known what was going on.

While still relaxing on the couch, the bodyguard said, “They have their own issues to deal with. Plus, they don’t want to put their own lives in danger by getting more involved than they have to.”

“…”

“Most of Olympia Dome’s military force is made up of UAVs and UUVs. It’s almost all unmanned. Given that, you can guess how little the few actual soldiers would want to go out and fight, right?”

“But they definitely go all out when it comes to equipment,” spat out Mariydi as she pointed out into the night scenery.

She was not pointing at the artificial land.

She was pointing into the pitch black ocean spreading out beyond it. Lights from ships larger than aircraft carriers could be seen encroaching into what should have been empty night.

“Look at those giant transformer ships. I think they’re called Ocean Substations. The actual power generation is carried out by satellites in orbit and then sent to the ships via microwaves. The power is then converted into a laser and sent to the dome where it provides energy for the various types of unmanned weapons.”

“Power generating satellites, hm?”

“They generate solar power from outside the earth’s atmosphere. For a while, they were being hailed as the saviors of the earth from global warming, but the use of the technology waned because the large surface area increases the risk of striking orbital debris. And since the solar panels that were struck by debris just became more debris cluttering things up in orbit, there has even been some talk of restricting their use under international law. It really is a roundabout way of going all out.”

The transformation facilities themselves required power to function.

The Ocean Substations secured that power by mining methane hydrate and using it as fuel for gas turbines.

The reason that was not enough for the primary power generation was because the amount of power required was ridiculously huge.

“They have their reasons,” said the man. “They generate the power off the island and send it to Olympia Dome via laser. Then the island’s normal power network brings power to the dome where smaller lasers send power out to recharge the various types of unmanned weapons.” As the bodyguard spoke as if reading from a textbook, he shook his head. “Do you see why the management goes to such lengths to keep the power generation outside the dome itself? They could easily generate the power here, but they don’t. By generating the power for the unmanned weaponry outside of the dome, they are trying to show that Olympia Dome has very little military value. That way it will not be targeted by Objects.”

Also, there was a danger of the microwaves having a negative effect on computers or the unmanned weaponry if they were sent directly to Olympia Dome from the satellites.

Some claimed it also had an effect on the human body, but no scientific basis for those claims had ever been proven. However, Olympia Dome was in the service business. Even groundless fears could prevent people from coming, so they would avoid that whenever possible.

That was why the microwaves were sent down to the sea away from Olympia Dome and then the power was sent via laser.

“So having too much of a military force would be dangerous, but this way they can also take action in an emergency, hm?”

“And the bodyguard business did not have to decline,” commented the bodyguard.

“At any rate,” said Mariydi as she motionlessly stared at the giant transformer ships in the distance. “It looks like we’ll have to overcome any more trouble on our own.”

Part 2

The Bifröst Arch was one of Olympia Dome’s most famous sightseeing spots. It was a collection of seven parallel arch-shaped metal bridges spanning a giant canal that jutted inland. Its name came from the fact that they were lit up at night each with a different color giving a total of 7 lights.

Bifröst was a rainbow bridge appearing in Norse mythology.

It had been designed primarily to provide that sight at night rather than with practicality in mind, so the bridges were built quite close together. When they were all lit up, people often mistook the seven separate bridges for one large bridge.

It was a well-known spot for people to gather if the international sports competition was not enough for them, but there were a surprising number of people there for so late at night when most everyone stayed in a hotel. This was due to some tabloid-style information websites publishing strange data about how it was the perfect spot for a couple to naturally begin an embrace.

A woman was leaning on the handrail of the walking area on the Bifröst Arch.

She was Stacy the pharmacist.

Alicia stood tall next to her.

She looked suspiciously down at the solid bridge beneath her feet.

“It’s shaking. Is that because this is an artificial island?”

“It isn’t that poorly made.” Stacy was more accustomed to Olympia Dome, so she was grinning. “The visitors are just making too much of a commotion. When you have tens of thousands of people running around, a seismometer can pick it up. The last winter games were especially amazing.”

“…But all of the events are over by this time of night.”

“This is from people getting excited with a beer mug in one hand while watching the recorded and edited digests. I hear they have power generation panels set up under the floors of the club halls.”

This level of excitement was for events that they already knew the results for. It had to be even crazier during live broadcasts and in the stadium stands.

However, the Technopics’s ability to draw customers was not what Alicia was there to discuss.

She was solely focused on the monetary transactions she was in charge of.

“What do you think?”

“About what?”

Stacy held a cocktail glass in her right hand. She had made the cocktail herself using the ingredients in the cooler at her feet.

The bright lights around them made it impossible to tell what color the cocktail was as Stacy sipped at it.

With no expression on her face, Alicia replied, “About Mariydi Whitewitch.”

“She is still within acceptable bounds, isn’t she?” After finishing off the contents of the glass, Stacy placed the cocktail glass on the ground and started rummaging through the cooler. “The Technopics are always wrapped in greed and intrigue, so attacks and other forms of interference are not exactly rare. And when such incidents happen, you often get athletes fighting back.”

“If it had been an attack against her, I would understand. But she took action to help an Information Alliance athlete.”

“I doubt you could ever get her to admit that. But it was in incident that will probably make her autograph more valuable.”

“The type that empathizes with others is dangerous. If she goes easy on an opponent after hearing their situation, her actions could negatively affect all of us supporting her.”

“Maybe.” Stacy smiled as she shook the shaker she held in both hands. “But she seems like the type that views competitions as cut off from all that. She would be the type that does not allow those things to affect her decision when she has to kill them in battle.”

“I certainly hope you are right.”

“Well, she is the military type,” said Stacy lightly as she poured the liquid from the shaker and into the glass. As she dropped in a skewered pearl onion for decoration, she spoke as if the topic at hand had nothing to do with her. “Also, she is the strange kind of person that continues to excel as an ace pilot even in this age of Objects. Mariydi Whitewitch is the Capitalist Corporations’ Ice Girl 1. And it isn’t just her. There is also the Legitimacy Kingdom’s Burning Alpha and the Faith Organization’s Rocket Icarus. For the most part, all of those aces who continue in this age hold the same ideal in their hearts: the desire to fly even if it means they must go against the common thinking of the age. It is only natural for her to run counter to the normal thinking here as well.”

“…”

“Surely you looked into this new partner ahead of time. You have seen Ice Girl 1’s records, right?”

Stacy brought the edge of the glass to her lips.

Still standing tall, Alicia said, “She has frequently disobeyed orders in the past. But every time it resulted in her ultimately being praised for her actions.”

“It must be that cute side of her that keeps the Sky Blue PMC air force from letting her go. …Normally, a Capitalist Corporations soldier would never think of risking being thrown into the detention barracks by intercepting a cruise missile that was ‘accidentally’ fired at a safe country city.” Stacy smiled as she lightly shook the cocktail glass. “But it is true that no method is perfect for all situations, so surely she is a better option than some thickheaded muscular idiot, right? They say someone who listens to the opinions of others will live longer, but you also need to know how to manage that information.”

“I tried speaking with her to figure out how she thinks.”

“…You can be that sociable?”

“It looks like this will be difficult as I cannot figure out what she wants. She does not seem interested in fame and she has shown no real fixation on the rewards from her sponsors. If I do not know what her goal is, I will have difficulty controlling her in that way.”

“It’s simple,” said Stacy as she brought the edge of the cocktail glass back to her lips. “At that age, kids can get a bit obsessed with justice.”

“?”

“She came all the way from the long, drawn-out war in the Northern European Restricted Zone to take part in this farce of a festival. From that, it seems obvious there is something here she wants that she could not get there. And since she risked her life to save an athlete from another world power, she does not seem interested simply in the results of the event or in a medal.”

‘Then what is it?”

“Productivity.” Stacy grabbed the plastic skewer between two fingers and bit the pearl onion off. “If she wants something she cannot obtain by fighting and killing, don’t you think that might be it? A record, a high placement, or a medal could be seen as a form of productivity. But unfortunately, it seems she is not willing to kill to gain those things.”

“…”

“See? Doesn’t it make you wish you were still that young and idealistic? She left the battlefield to gain something she could not get there but she charged right back into battle as soon as she saw someone being attacked before her eyes. That’s the cute ego of someone still in the process of growing up.” After she finished eating the pearl onion, she gulped down the contents of the glass at a rapid pace “Just like you, I will work with any athlete as long as I get paid. That’s just how things work in the Capitalist Corporations. But it is true that I feel more motivated when it’s someone fun to work with. And I think I can give my all for this athlete.” Stacy held the empty cocktail glass out towards Alicia like it was a microphone and asked, “How about you?”

“No matter who I am working with, a job is a job. What matters is how much I am getting paid to do it.”

“Hmm.” Stacy pulled the glass back, looking unsatisfied with that answer. “But I never would have guessed someone as straight-laced as you would have a cocktail set like this.”

“I make sure to have a full array of drinks prepared when I am entertaining. I lost the chance for tonight and some of the ingredients will soon lose their flavor.”

“You definitely open a lot of different bottles when making a cocktail, but you use so little of every individual thing. You never seem to run out of anything.” Stacy looked down at the cooler at her feet. “Can I borrow that? I think I’ll drink some more in my room.”

“As long as you pay for the amount you drink.”

“…But you just said you didn’t know what to do with it since it was beginning to lose its flavor.”

Alicia and Stacy’s gazes clashed as intense negotiations began.