Chapter 91
The homeless people all stared at the unconscious Vance Kim with bewildered expressions.
Everyone was thrown into confusion by Vance Kim’s alarming condition as he suddenly began trembling as though he had been struck by lightning.
“…Did he run out of drugs?”
True to form for homeless people living on the streets of the old city, they frantically began pulling various kinds of illegal inhalers from inside their clothes.
(The series called Black Mamba was by far the most common.)
“No, you guys look so scary that he just fainted while standing up.”
“That goes for Hot Dog Man too….”
“Huh?”
Turning my head toward the voice, I saw the homeless man beside him smack the back of the head of the unbeliever who had made that insolent remark.
SMACK!!
“Hey, even if it’s true, watch what you say—.”
“……”
As I gazed at the scene, the homeless man scratched his head awkwardly and promptly shut his mouth.
Anyway.
A new homeless recruit (not really) had fainted on the spot.
The vagrants, their faces drawn like wet puppies, whined as they wandered away into the distance.
Since this misfortune would not have happened if they had not spoken like gangsters from the very beginning, I did not feel particularly sorry for them.
- Keke…. Look how scared he is! What a cute little guy. Should this big brother take care of him a little?
- The way he keeps rolling his eyes around…. Kikikiki, those mechanical eyes don’t seem to be in very good condition. I guess I’ll have to call Walter later.
- Expired… sandwich. Hehe.
There was nothing wrong with the content, but the way he said it was a little….
Personally, I think the person who cackles “kikikiki” or “kekeke” while supposedly looking after a frightened person is more at fault.
Especially the last one. He really sounded like a lunatic.
I should tell Michael to keep an eye on him.
And so, several dozen minutes passed.
Inside the grocery store’s logistics warehouse.
“Gasp!!”
Vance Kim, who had been laid out neatly on the sofa, suddenly sprang upright.
Judging by the way he kept looking around while breathing harshly, he must have had a terrifying nightmare.
His pupils were trembling with fear.
“W-where is this….”
“The grocery store’s logistics warehouse.”
“Eek!!”
Vance Kim immediately let out a frightened voice, like a doll that reacted whenever someone pressed it.
Still, fortunately, he did not faint again like before.
His startled expression lasted only a moment before a strange determination appeared on Vance Kim’s face.
Before he could say anything, he knelt before me at incredible speed.
“Please, just spare my family!”
It sounded like a line you would expect from someone standing before a mad, psychopathic villain.
What on earth had I done….
“……”
Thinking about it carefully, I had made something resembling a threat in the bathroom of that logistics center.
Then Vance Kim moved to slam his forehead against the hard floor and apologize to me.
“Please, please!!”
Before he could, I reflexively reached out and stopped Vance Kim’s forehead from turning red.
His red rooster-comb hair swayed naturally, and the overpowering smell of hairspray brushed against the tip of my nose.
Ugh, what is that smell?
When I instinctively frowned, Vance Kim’s face was once again covered in despair.
“Are you trying to stop me from even apologizing….”
He seemed to be developing another strange misunderstanding, so I quickly corrected him.
“No, it’s not like that…. I have no intention of touching your family, all right?”
“So you can give me hope and then watch me suffer….”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, I really don’t.”
When my hand rose involuntarily, Vance Kim flinched and hunched his shoulders.
His darting eyes watched me nervously.
“R-really?”
“Yeah.”
After saying that much, it seemed my sincerity had gotten through to him to some extent.
“…Thank you.”
“No, you don’t need to thank me.”
“If I can make up for my mistake with my one life, I’ll gladly….”
The conversation was getting nowhere.
When I let out a light sigh, Vance Kim, already terrified of everything I did, pulled his neck into his shoulders like a turtle.
First, I needed to dispel his misunderstanding that I was a lunatic.
But how?
“Hmm….”
After pondering it for a moment, I asked Vance Kim in a gruff tone,
“Hey, give me the address of your e-wallet.”
“Pardon? Ah, yes, sir. I’ll give you all the money I have first!”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
An ancient sage once said.
The best treatment since ancient times was financial treatment.
Apparently having checked the amount that had entered his wallet through his optical HUD, Vance Kim’s eyes flew wide open.
“Th-this is….”
I had emptied out most of the money remaining in my terminal and given it to him, so it was understandable that he was surprised.
“I feel bad about taking away your job, and I also need to keep you quiet. So I thought long and hard about the best way to handle it, you know?”
The genius method that would also take care of the welfare of the homeless living here was none other than this.
“Don’t get too excited. Just think of it as receiving several months’ wages all at once.”
“…Wages?”
Wages (賃金).
In other words, compensation received by a worker in exchange for labor.
When I first met Vance Kim, he was working as a ‘bartender’ at a club operated by Hakuga-gumi.
Which meant….
* * *
“Welcome….”
“Two Black Russians, fucking strong!”
“……Yes.”
Vance Kim got a new job.
Though he had not wanted one.
* * *
Inside a very bright and very spacious room─.
Beyond the expansive glass beneath the high ceiling, a vivid blue sky without a single cloud spread out beautifully.
Those who were quick on the uptake may have already noticed, but this place was above the smog clouds.
At the top of a towering skyscraper.
When capitalism is taken to its extreme, even beautiful scenery becomes the property of those in power.
But the man in the room did not care at all about the splendid view around him and quietly stared down at the small chessboard in front of him.
The chessboard itself, made up of black and white squares, was perfectly ordinary, but the pieces placed upon it were remarkably random.
Chess pieces and janggi pieces were mixed together as a matter of course, and every so often, a go stone of a different color would suddenly occupy a square.
Across the chessboard sat a hunched scrap-metal android with no human skin─real skin─installed on it.
“Hmm.”
The man looked at the android with an unenthusiastic gaze, then turned his eyes to the side.
Strangely, near him, an android’s head hung in place from thick wires.
Naturally, an identification socket signifying that it was an android flashed intermittently at its temple.
[Due to the battle that occurred at the B-Hub logistics center in Area 49, 17.12% of the cargo stored at that logistics center was lost.]
The briefing in a neutral voice reported the outcome of a battle that had taken place in some bottom-level district.
[A subsequent investigation of the cargo being tracked by Beltech International Solutions confirmed that all of it consisted of new weapons developed by our company. The bombardment made detailed identification of the items impossible, but we confirmed that the cargo included a large quantity of firearms along with a bulky mechanical device.]
“A mechanical device?”
It was the first time the man had spoken.
But the briefing did not continue.
It meant they had been unable to determine what the object was.
Immediately afterward, the android across from him suddenly pulled a large human-shaped doll from beneath the table and slammed it down hard onto the chessboard.
BANG!!
The pieces on the chessboard shook from the impact, and several fell to the floor.
The man watched without interest and let out a deep sigh.
“Haaah…. Have you figured out why that cargo was there?”
[We are still investigating.]
“Then I suppose we won’t know going forward, either.”
Seeing that the man appeared to be in a bad mood, the head continued its report.
[Beltech claims that it separately received an anonymous public-interest report from our side.]
“Heh, bullshit.”
Accompanying the low curse, the chuckling man leaned back in his chair.
His loosely undone bow tie slid down beneath his shabby suit.
“Seeing how they ran around hilariously as if their asses were on fire, it doesn’t seem like a self-staged act. Is it the work of another corporation? Hmm, but if that’s the case, there are an awful lot of clumsy parts….”
The man continued muttering to himself before clicking his tongue.
“Tsk, forget it. It would be better to set up this board again from scratch.”
Then he naturally picked up the pistol beside his chair.
BANG─!
He blew the head off the android in front of him.
Though the situation was rather startling, it did not seem to be an uncommon occurrence, because android cleaners silently approached and carried the fallen body away.
“Contact the man from Beltech.”
[Yes.]
The face hanging from the wires twitched.
It soon changed into the handsome face of a middle-aged man.
Then the previously expressionless face twisted into a deep scowl.
[Solar Faust. What is it?]
“Whoa, nice to meet you, Chairman Frederic Kessler. I’m calling to ask you about that thing you say we took.”
[…….]
At that question, Frederic Kessler, the chairman of Beltech, maintained a calm silence.
But his expression was twisted like that of a savage demon.
‘So there really was something there, just as the rumors said.’
Unfortunately, the contents of the ‘mechanical device’ at the logistics center were empty.
That was the biggest reason the young man called Solar Faust─the chairman of the Ryan Eliens Company─regarded this as the machinations of another faction rather than a subordinate’s independent misbehavior.
One side wanted to discover the identity of the object.
The other was in the strange position of believing that the object had already been stolen.
“About that thing….”
[Thing? Well, to you, I suppose it would be a thing.]
The gears of the conversation were already grinding uselessly, but he continued speaking without noticing anything strange.
“To think you tried to bring something like that into the city. I have a fair amount of nerve myself, but I can’t compare to you, Chairman.”
[…Did you contact me just to mock me?]
Certainly.
If it became known that Chairman Frederic, a toolist technopoly known for neither employing nor creating androids, had secretly brought in an android made to look extremely similar to a human as his secretary, he would be unable to avoid political damage.
Through the phone, Frederic Kessler deliberately bit his lip.
‘That troublesome bastard has gotten hold of my weakness.’
By now, there was not a single clue linking the android, whose ownership had passed into the hands of a certain grocery store’s turret, to Chairman Frederic.
However, the mere fact that the ‘prosthetic body’ had fallen into someone else’s hands was a great humiliation and ordeal for him.
After that conversation, Chairman Solar Faust had almost reached certainty.
‘So the missing cargo really did contain weapons incorporating Beltech’s new technology.’
It could have been a biochemical weapon, an ordinary bomb, or, if one thought of it in the simplest terms, even a robot.
“I was shocked by that thing’s ‘potential’ and ‘destructive power.’ Truly.”
Chairman Frederic’s expression changed strangely.
He probably was not talking about the size of its chest armor.
Since it was an android based on the RS-009, whose sale had been halted by the city government because of its danger, the expression was not technically wrong.
But something about it felt strange, so Chairman Frederic left one final meaningful warning.
[From what I’ve heard, you don’t intend to return it. If you want to start a corporate war again that badly…. Fine. I won’t hold back.]
The call ended just like that.
Chairman Solar Faust clicked his tongue.
How could he return something he did not have?
In this situation, all he could do was solve the puzzle as best he could.
“Then, a new board….”
His words suddenly stopped.
He had noticed a chess piece rolling around on the floor.
“Right. Now that I think about it, wasn’t there a spy deployed to find it?”
[Correct. Designation: Paul Lucas. A new-model android designed to consume organic nutrients and generate energy internally. I will visualize that unit’s movements and schedule.]
Soon, letters and images appeared in a row before Chairman Solar Faust.
Paul Lucas’s movements and schedule.
Every route pointed toward a single grocery store.
Grocery store after breakfast, grocery store after lunch, grocery store after dinner….
Solar Faust’s mouth pressed tightly shut when he saw it.
How long did the silence last? Perhaps several dozen seconds.
“Pff—puhahaha!!”
He laughed so loudly that he kept clapping his hands.
Anyone would have laughed after learning that the spy they had gone to such lengths to deploy had done nothing he was supposed to and merely spent his time touring a grocery store.
If only the report Paul Lucas had written about that grocery store had been transmitted, the course of the conversation would have been entirely different, but unfortunately, he was currently moving extremely cautiously to avoid leaving a trail leading back to Beltech.
After laughing for quite some time, Chairman Solar Faust wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and muttered,
“Honestly…. Making them too human is a problem, too. Who would have thought we’d end up with a thief in the company?”
[What shall we do?]
“What do you mean, what should we do?”
Then he spoke with an expression that had grown cold once more.
“We need to dispose of the broken toy.”
[Understood.]
That was the end of the conversation.
Solar Faust slowly rose from his chair and walked toward the wide glass wall.
The smog clouds created by environmental pollution settled at a much lower altitude than ordinary clouds.
Thanks to that, he had obtained a view that concealed the filthy scenery of the city.
At the very top of the skyscraper, the man quietly looked down at the gray clouds.
As Solar Faust gazed at the scenery where nothing could be seen, a small socket at his temple flashed irregularly….