HEAVY OBJECT:Volume11 Chapter 2

Status: Incomplete

3/23 parts completed

   

Chapter 2: Elusive Financial Source >> Ice Breaking Bombardment at Africa’s Cape of Good Hope

Part 1

A structure floated oddly on the lead-colored ocean.

It was somewhere between five and ten meters long and it was spherical in shape, but it oddly did not roll as it was shaken between the waves. The hatch remained on the top at all times and the porthole on the side remained in the same spot.

It was a type of lifeboat.

It had plenty of emergency supplies, communications equipment, a heater, and even a generator making use of the current and the wind. As opposed to something prepared on a ship, it was more of a product for the wealthy disaster-prepper.

Inside that cradle were three blonde girls with red military uniforms meant for parades.

They each had a different hairstyle, but their identical faces made it clear they were triplets.

Alisa Martini Sweet.

Rica Martini Medium.

Orsia Martini Dry.

They were all genius girls created by the Information Alliance’s Project Whiz Kid. It would be hard to find a more severe upbringing in any of the four world powers, but the girls themselves barely seemed to care. They elegantly grabbed tea cakes and reached for the cups inside the round boat.

Instead of coffee or tea, the cups contained an energy drink full of caffeine and other stimulants that was “kind to the body in its lack of sugar, yet somehow unsatisfying”. That showed the Information Alliance side of things most of all.

“A-are you sure this is safe? We left the fleet a long time ago and we’re just floating out here on the ocean with no one to protect us.”

The young man in charge of their care was sweating bullets.

Alisa, the triplet with the largest chest, replied lazily.

“Dooon’t worry. This isn’t some big ship like a cruiser or a missile submarine.”

“Right?”

“Right?”

The other two were not so much agreeing as they were driving away the question because they did not feel like dealing with it. However, the normal young man was too worried to accept anything but a proper explanation.

“B-but we’re in the middle of the battlefield here, the Legitimacy Kingdom Object will be here any moment, um, and all of you are officers with medals hanging from your chest, so it would be very bad if you were captured. In the worst case, you might meet the same fate as someone in a light SM video!!”

“Yes, but there is nothing to worry about. Look, our Laser Cracker 001 was sent out to this region of sea. That’s turned this into an ocean of death, so there’s plenty of wreckage from cargo ships and cruise ships. And of course, there are plenty of lifeboats that dried up after no one detected their SOS signal.”

“You’re just scaring me more!!”

“I’m saying no one will notice us because we’re disguising ourselves as one of those. Do you want us to completely vanish from the Legitimacy Kingdom’s radar? Cutting-edge stealth fighters might be able to reduce their cross-section to a minimum, but not even they can completely vanish. The clever approach is to create a situation where the enemy will remove you from consideration even if you appear on their radar screen. Don’t you think?”

But the normal young man did not grasp that at all. He could not even imagine a chess game three moves ahead, so it may have been asking too much of him to stand in the same world as the Martini Series that would look a hundred years into the future. Blaming only him would be cruel.

After all, the girls were intentionally avoiding a smooth conversation.

Alisa responded to his question by showing off more knowledge than necessary, Rica toyed with some playing cards while feigning apathy, and Orsia feigned disinterest in the opposite sex while clinging to the young man’s arm.

The triplets all held the same thing in their hearts.

It was said these unmanageable geniuses would stage a jailbreak even if they were thrown into a top-security prison, but for some reason they acted like proper members of society when around this young man. That fact explained what was going on here.

“Hey, Dry. It looks like the Laser Cracker 001 has reached its position.”

“I’m monitoring the Legitimacy Kingdom’s movements, Medium. You need to get ready too, Sweet.”

“Understood, Dry. Now, let’s get to work.”

The young man nervously looked around.

His presence was the sweet chain tying the three Martinis to the Information Alliance.

He was the sword that divided genius from eccentric.

He was oblivious to this great feat, but that was exactly what made him so adorable to them. The Martini Series narrowed their eyes in his direction and then spoke in unison.

“Let’s begin the mission. Let’s charm them with our angelic performance.”

Part 2

“Wow.”

“This is awful.”

Quenser and Heivia wrapped their arms around themselves and shivered in the cold on the flight deck of a small gray aircraft carrier. Their breath was white and the sky was the color of lead. Dull vibrations occasionally ran through the deck because the blade hastily attached to the bow was breaking through some pure white drift ice.

Just to be clear, it was currently mid-July.

They watched two connected icebergs that looked like giant breasts float past the fleet.

“What happened to our summer? For what possible reason were we sent to the tip of the Southern Hemispheeeeerrrrrre!? The seasons are reversed here, so it’s freezing midwinter! There are penguins jumping into the water over there! What happened to my paradise of the Princess and our busty commander in swimsuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuits!?”

“The pamphlet said the average temperature at this time of year is eleven degrees.”

“Like hell it is! Our breath is white! How could it be that far off average!? There’s a giant tits iceberg right over there!!”

“Heivia, it’s your fault for saying you wanted to get out of the heat after that desert. Our higher ups always take things too far.”

“There could have at least been some swimsuits in there somewhere.”

“Sigh. Speaking of swimsuits, Lieutenant Meena was shot. That’s actually a real shock. Both that she was the one behind all that and that I’ll never get to see that great rack that was about as underappreciated as baby’s-breath.”

“Eh? Why do swimsuits make you think of her?”

“What a shock…”

“Hold on! We’re supposed to keep each other informed in this unit, so tell your pal Heivia what happened!!”

Heivia shook Quenser by the shoulders, but Quenser’s soul had half-escaped his mouth and he would not give a proper answer.

Then something else stopped Heivia.

The handheld device in his pocket rang.

“What? Are you using video chat to pretend you’re having phone sex?”

“This is a little classier than that.”

After checking the screen, Heivia walked away from Quenser.

Once he reached the landing on the narrow stairway from the flight deck to the maintenance area directly below, Heivia leaned against the metal railing, touched the screen with his fingertip, and answered the call.

It was not a soldier contacting him.

It was a blonde noble girl in a white dress.

“Took you long enough to answer.”

“I’m not trading stock, so don’t get so upset.”

“Even if it’s over the internet, we still arranged for this date in advance. You’re a disgrace to the title of nobility if you keep a lady waiting, Winchell boy.”

“If you don’t do something about your attitude, you’re going to be in the news for being divorced on your honeymoon, Vanderbilt girl.”

Even if it was a private conversation (in fact, because it was), this conversation over the military line was being monitored. However, the member of the electronic simulation division monitoring the line may have been wide-eyed in shock.

The Winchell family and the Vanderbilt family were two of the biggest noble families in the Legitimacy Kingdom as well as enemies going back centuries. The dark age that had triggered the collapse of the UN had occurred just under one hundred years before, so they had carried the feud of an older age across the end of civilization.

“Well, um, how should I put this?” said Heivia. “Sorry about interrupting your vacation.”

“My, my! That is like work to me, so I don’t mind. I am currently in the middle of the Atlantic – oh, excuse me –enjoying the world’s greatest fireworks festival, so are you having trouble hearing me?”

“No. And you people have to be insane to gather more than five hundred cruise ships and launch fireworks for a full week. Are fireworks even any fun during the day?”

“Oh, dear. Our rocket fireworks reach an altitude of ten thousand meters, you know? I can’t have you thinking the Technopics is the only festival in the Atlantic.”

Heivia nearly said those were normally called surface-to-air missiles or surface-to-surface rockets, but he held his tongue.

“And once night falls, the fireworks and the aurora will create a wonderful collaboration,” she said.

“Where are you right now? It isn’t the Arctic, is it?”

“Ah ha ha. The aurora is created when solar winds reach the ionosphere. Um, I think it’s a large railgun meant to clear debris, but they said something about chemically producing a massive amount of electricity just like a laser known as a COIL.”

“Oh… So instead of firing a huge shell, it uses debris reduced to a sandstorm of metal fragments measured in microns to directly repel the entire ‘field’?”

“Solar winds are streams of plasma and easily influenced by electric and magnetic fields, so that whatever-it’s-called can alter their course to a certain extent. By guiding it to the desired coordinate in the ionosphere, they can create a manmade aurora.”

“Don’t solar winds and the aurora play a role in electromagnetic pulses? Won’t that violate some treaties?”

“It’s okay as long as we aren’t using it for military purposes. It’s the same as X-rays.”

That was truly entertainment for the rich. Although that kind of performance to say “look what we can do” could be seen as a sort of wartime PR.

“So how did things go with the favor I asked of you?” asked Heivia.

“Do you think I can’t accomplish a simple task? Besides, I only had to check through the newspapers and the TV news. That was easier than looking up a fish recipe.”

“I see. I’m awful at that formal stuff, so reading through a week’s worth of newspapers sounds harder than sharpshooting from a thousand meters.”

“If you wish to call yourself my husband, you need to be more cultured.”

“Let’s get back on topic,” insisted Heivia.

The girl on the screen sighed.

“Yes, it was just as you said. There was no article on the Special 15th led by Lieutenant Meena Stinger. Of course, there are wars occurring all over the world every single day, so listing out every last death would fill up the entire paper. Plus, they provide a variety of ‘anesthetic’ to ensure the fear of war does not spread to the safe countries. There was a lot of talk about the surprise visit from that…Blue Rose, was it? Heh heh heh. They may not have had any space left after talking about your little sister so much.”

“Nothing about a drug war either?”

“Hm? Is that something from a movie?”

Heivia silently grimaced when he saw his fiancee’s confused look on the screen.

(No sign of Colorful Vanilla, then. So any news that would disgrace the military as a whole might as well have never happened, is that it? I thought they would at least stick in a cover story that pinned the war crimes on Meena Stinger alone, but they aren’t even showing the lizard’s tail.)

When (supposedly) Quenser had shot the Special 15th as they tried to burn away the ergot containers with white phosphorous, he had used a Capitalist Corporations carbine.

Even when Meena Stinger had been shot in the maintenance base zone, the crushed bullet they had later found was the kind that same faction commonly used for heavy machineguns and anti-materiel rifles.

That meant no further investigation would be done.

There was nothing they could do.

Lieutenant Meena Stinger and her Black Uniform Special Platoon 15 had bene killed by enemy soldiers during battle. There was nothing more to say and they were being treated as normal war dead.

That was all.

“If you’re curious, I could look further into it,” suggested the girl on the screen.

“No, knowing what the safe country newspapers and news shows are saying is enough. Besides, what does a civilian know about the military and war?”

“Oh? Nothing is more frightening than the wealthy when they have nothing better to do, you know?”

She bowed with a smile and her image vanished from the screen.

Heivia toyed with the device in his hand for a while and slowly exhaled.

After that, he gave another annoyed comment.

“It’s too clean. Whose plot am I getting involved in here?”

Part 3

The Cape of Good Hope was the southern tip of Africa.

It was hard to tell on the standard Mercator projection maps, but that area was a quick southward trip over the ocean away from the South Pole. Penguins walked through the streets, so it was not the sweaty land of the blazing sun that people normally pictured when they thought of Africa. Latitude-wise, it was about the same as the Oceanian continent, but it looked more like the kind of rough waves, leaden skies, and rocky land that suited a traditional Island Nation enka song. In terms of the North Wind and the Sun, the north wind was going all out, so no one would ever think of trading their uniform for a swimsuit.

Or so one would have thought.

“Ahhh. It’s so hot in here. I know you’re trying to be hospitable, but don’t you have the heat cranked up too high?”

“Blue Rose, the Island Nation has a saying: oden for the air conditioner and ice cream for the kotatsu. This is truly the best.”

Just one of the small aircraft carrier’s rooms had all its windows fogged up.

In that sweltering heat, Frolaytia Capistrano was providing a mistaken sort of welcome and Azureyfear Winchell was accepting that mistaken sort of welcome. They had traded their uniform or dress for swimsuits and were unnecessarily sweaty.

The plastic pool that Black Uniform Meena Stinger had secretly used in the Rio Grande District was filled with water and the two of them sat in chairs with their seductive feet soaking in the pool. They were clenching and unclenching their toes and topping it all off by sucking on vanilla popsicles.

Quenser had been called here for some reason and he had been struck by a thick wall of feminine aroma the instant he opened the door.

He had reflexively raised his voice.

“You people are awful!! You damn bourgeois are killing the earth in about every way possible!!”

“So you’re finally here, commoner. Come closer. Yes, close enough to touch me.”

“Woof woof!”

“Heh heh heh. How wonderfully obedient. Do you like ladies’ swimsuits that much?”

Blue must have been her favorite color because Azureyfear smiled at Quenser in a blue bikini that glittered like a tropical butterfly.

Frolaytia pulled her popsicle from her mouth and pointed it at the student.

“I may not be one to talk, but she is a powerful noble. And the type who can actually use the Winchell family’s authority. Don’t screw this up.”

“Um, can I ask why you’re calling for me so often today?”

“I’ve taken a liking to you,” said the young lady in a blue swimsuit. “Yes, this visit is something of a performance, but if I’m going to be shown around by someone, I’d like it to be someone I have some slight connection to. I heard what you did. You fought well against those Black Uniforms involved in the drug war in the Rio Grande District.”

“Eh? But that was-…”

Confused, Quenser spoke on reflex, but then a sweet flavor filled his mouth.

Azureyfear had stuck the tip of her popsicle in his mouth.

While he was unable to speak, vanilla-flavored lips moved from extreme close range.

They mouthed the word “no”.

“…”

“Commoner, if you are to be my guide, I would like to know what kind of person you are. As a test, find an online video that can amuse me.”

“Um, eh? Okay, but…”

“Look at this cleavage. I’ll even squeeze my breasts together and give you an upturned look. Do you also want me to put the popsicle in my mouth and faffefaafafhfhefh?”

“Woof woof woof woof!!”

There seemed to be a difference in understanding concerning the previous incident, but the idiot decided to set those issues aside and take advantage of this opportunity.

He began his first mission with his handheld device in hand.

“Wh-what about a kitten chasing a laser pointer on the wall?”

“Old hat.”

“This is the silver snowscape from the peak of Mont Blanc.”

“What’s the point if you don’t conquer the mountain yourself? I climb Mont Blanc twice a year. You need physical strength and knowledge of nature to hunt well, after all.”

“Kh!! …Since it’s come to this, I’ll break out this video showing a breakdown of a chronometer. Look at all these gears! It’s controlled by springs and gears instead of electronics, so just think of the accuracy needed in the mechanic’s fingertips to…pant, pant…make this a reality…uuhhhh!!”

“Calm down, tech nerd. Are you one of those people that would prefer I step on them?”

Quenser thought the exasperated look in Azureyfear’s eyes would crush his soul. Out of ideas, his fingertip accidentally touched the banner for trending news near the search box.

The small screen filled with a greasy middle-aged man’s face. A stand was covered in microphones and cameras flashed like machinegun fire. A female newscaster spoke over the footage of some sort of press conference.

“As a royal and a member of the royal council, First Prince Flag Eggnog’s words gather international attention. This was a portion of the standard press conference after the council session ended the other day.”

“As I have been saying, drug wars only exist in spy movies. Besides, this nonsense is likely only being spread by the weak-willed youth. The addicts who cannot stop abusing Colorful Vanilla must be clinging to conspiracy theories that blame their problems on the military and government.”

“Many groups and individuals have fiercely opposed this statement, including the Legitimacy Kingdom Academics of General Medicine and the White Knights of Women’s Rights. They claim the prince’s statement is inconsistent with the medical facts of Colorful Vanilla’s spread and addiction and they ask whether he is forgetting about the victims who have been forced to use these illegal drugs due to their surroundings. These groups are filling the road in front of the safe country royal palace with various protest signs in hand.”

“If you can say those insane things with a straight face, we can’t let you lead our country!!”

“The royal family needs to kick that bastard out right away!!”

“I’m bored, so I want to cause a scene!!”

“Hooray!!”

Quenser found the festival of anger to be a horrifying scene.

“French fries! Does anyone need some French fries!? Damn I’m going to make a killing out here!!”

“Wait, you idiot! Put the mustard mayonnaise on your own fries! Ahhh! They’re absolutely covered!!”

He doubted any of the news videos could move the heart of a bored noble girl, but…

“Heh heh heh. Ah ha ha!!”

“You’re completely carefree!? I know they say teenage girls find anything funny, but really!?”

“No, no, no. Quenser, you have quite the sense of humor. To nobles like us, the misfortune of others is like the most exquisite honey. Isn’t that right, Major Capistrano?”

“Ahem… I would prefer not to answer that.”

Frolaytia cleared her throat to hold in the laughter, so this was apparently not just Azureyfear’s personal tastes. It did not really make sense to Commoner Quenser.

“Sigh. It must be tough being a royal. He was definitely careless, but any man his age probably says stuff like that with a mug of beer in hand.”

“This is noblesse oblige. Authority brings responsibility. The greater authority of a noble or royal brings just as great responsibility with it. If a royal acts like a gossiping commoner at a press conference, it’s obvious what will happen.”

At any rate, he had cleared his first mission of amusing her. In her blue bikini that glittered like a tropical butterfly, Azureyfear slowly lifted her small butt from her chair.

“Major Capistrano, may I borrow him for a moment?”

“Yes. But…ehhh!? You’re going out dressed like that!?”

“I have completely boiled, so I could stand to feel the chilly wind for a bit. Quenser, bring that bath towel with you.”

With that said, she really did move to the heater-filled room’s door in her swimsuit. Quenser looked back and forth between Azureyfear and Frolaytia, but his commander only shrugged in her swimsuit. She was apparently ordering him to obey the selfish noble girl.

When they left the room, Quenser was a little chilly even in his uniform.

Much like after leaving a sauna, Azureyfear looked comfortable even in her blue bikini. She raised her hands, bent backwards, and let the chilly air wash over all of her skin.

Quenser asked the main question on his mind.

“Um, about before…”

“Oh, you mean in the sunflower field?”

She did not seem to care much.

She even shrugged while mentioning the sniping attack on the Blue Uniforms at the desert oasis.

“That is simple. The Winchell family is not permitted to hunt humans.”

“No one is!!”

The idiot leaned forward without thinking and the noble girl’s cleavage filled his vision.

She was incredibly cute, but he was not sure what to do when she had the same blood as Heivia. Or rather, that guy’s unwelcome face flashed through his mind and he could not concentrate.

“So it would be convenient if you took the credit for those kills as you were the one to pick up a Capitalist Corporations gun. What must be done and one’s reputation are very different things, especially in noble society. Well, try not to think about it too much, commoner. I suggest you take the credit for saving your unit. More importantly…”

Azureyfear rotated her raised arms behind her back, bent her hips forward, and peered up at him from below.

“I would like to hear about my brother. You are closer to him than anyone, aren’t you?”

“…So that’s it.”

“You look like you want to know why I would not meet him directly when we are brother and sister. I can almost sense the warm image commoners have of family. …But that concept is meaningless among nobles who are constantly in conflict with their own flesh and blood.”

“But if you want to know about it, you must not be completely divided.”

“I can’t tell you how he feels about it, though. Besides, he is something of a heretic when it comes to the Winchell family. When someone is hated by their surroundings, they will in turn hate their surroundings. It’s a sort of defensive measure.”

“Well…I’ll admit he isn’t your stereotypical noble.”

Quenser did not quite understand and Azureyfear laughed. She seemed to like that he could not imagine what it was like to be in conflict with his own flesh and blood.

It was the proof that he had a truly happy relationship with his family.

“Quenser, my bath towel.”

“So it was only a short luxury, huh?”

He held it out and she draped it over her shoulders like a cape to keep some of her warmth.

“Then again, Heivia’s Heivia. It would be heard to find something that’s different from normal. In fact, I can’t imagine his condition would change much even if he ate a rotten egg he found on the side of the road.”

“Oh, my. He must really be spreading his wings here.”

Quenser wondered if the boy had been different in his safe country mansion, but he had difficulty picturing Heivia Winchell during peacetime.

“Is he receiving letters or telegrams with any frequency?”

“I’m not some kind of Echelon Quenser who monitors all of his communications, but he gets calls and emails. It’s monitored by the military server, but everyone here at least plays an online golf game.”

Then Quenser remembered something.

“But I do see him messing with his handheld device a lot lately.”

“My.”

“I asked if he was pretending to have phone sex, but he denied it. I wonder if he was telling the truth.”

“My, my!!”

Azureyfear elegantly brought a hand to her mouth and her eyes sparkled for some reason.

She may have just had too much time on her hands.

“Then he must have a hotline to the Vanderbilt family after all… No, there is no reason to let this get to me… I already knew he had a relationship with our sworn enemy… That is just the kind of person he is…”

“?”

Quenser tilted his head as the noble girl faced the wall and muttered something under her breath.

Then an irregular tremor ran down her spine. She rubbed together her pale thighs, fully wrapped the bath towel around her body, and glanced awkwardly toward Quenser.

“I have cooled down a fair bit. Thank you for the amusing chat, commoner. I need to visit the powder room, so return to your normal post.”

“So nobles really call it the powder room…”

“Do not even think about asking too much about this.”