Become My Comrade
A.G.O had been harboring a serious worry lately. It wasn't the kind of trivial concern that could be brushed off as a fond memory later, like a teenager's angst over a crush. This was a grave matter that could very well be tied to her very survival.
The reason for her distress was that her personal information had been leaked all over the internet.
The three major corporations of Minos—Cheongang, Unhwa, and Nago Group—were on bad terms with one another. They competed fiercely each year by comparing their performance, which had built the foundation of present-day Minos. Sometimes, they even resorted to underhanded tactics to sabotage their rivals' results.
That was why she had created the sniper video that had shaken up Cheongang for a while.
“J-just where on earth did it leak from…?”
The fact that she was a Vitaloid created by Unhwa was something the media couldn't help but treat with extreme sensitivity.
Having left the office right next to Royal Road where she had stayed for a long time, A.G.O now found herself on a sparsely populated street. She had altered her appearance with a visual tracker and cut off all external communications. Otherwise, she was too anxious to even walk around.
This was also why she hadn't been able to answer Chae Yuha's calls.
Sniffle.
The weather had grown noticeably colder these days. A.G.O wiped her nose and pulled out her phone.
She had been exposed like this once before. It was when she had been waiting in front of the Cheongang Supreme Court to secretly film Chae Yuha.
“Since I got caught once back then, it’s possible to get caught a second time, right? Ueh… I’m such an idiot…”
A.G.O fiddled with her phone as if some lingering attachment remained. She hadn’t checked Chae Yuha’s Insta for three whole days now.
For A.G.O, who would suffer a total system failure if she went even a single day without seeing Chae Yuha’s smiling face, these were unbearably harsh days.
But of course, she needed to be alive first if she wanted to browse Insta.
Chae Yuha boldly tossed her phone into the trash bin.
-Clatter!
Thud!
The sound was louder than expected.
“Over there! Go get him!”
“Eek…!! S-sorry…!!”
A.G.O flinched and curled into a ball, but the voices seemed to be chasing someone else entirely. They dashed off into the distance.
“Phew…”
A.G.O let out a sigh of relief and hurried on, pressing deeper into areas with even fewer people and less light. Seen from afar, the sight looked incredibly precarious and unstable.
There was a saying among the Origins: to hide a tree, hide it in the forest.
A.G.O had assumed the reason her information had been dug up was because of the visual tracker. Walking around the streets while wearing one was by no means safe.
Yet because her identity had been exposed, moving around in her true form was impossible. In that case, rather than desolate places, A.G.O should have hidden herself in crowded, bustling districts instead.
In bustling areas, people insecure about their looks often wore trackers. No matter how professional the pursuers were, they couldn’t possibly suspect every single person wearing one.
But what would happen if someone wrapped head-to-toe in a flashy, glowing tracker leaped out into a sea of people?
It would be no different from advertising, Please catch me and investigate. I’m extremely suspicious.
“Huff… huff… If I can just make it to the outer districts, I’ll be fine…!!”
She passed through the forest of buildings and reached the artificial river running alongside the road.
At the end of the man-made waterway sat a filter that automatically strained out anything that wasn’t water. As a result, people casually tossed household wastewater and trash into the river as they walked by.
And that “trash” included various illegal drugs or—
-Bang.
—even human corpses.
“Ah…”
A straight beam of light shot down from a distant building. The flash pierced A.G.O’s core with perfect accuracy, and she fell helplessly into the river with a splash.
-Crackle…
The visual tracker could no longer hold its form. A.G.O’s true appearance emerged from within.
Having confirmed the sight, the sniper on the building spoke into his receiver.
“Kill confirmed.”
Is it certain?
“The visual tracker shattered. The interior was visible. It was definitely her.”
“Good work. Return.”
-Crackle…
The sniper watched the small Vitaloid’s fragments being swept down the river. Electricity sparked from its modules, and instead of blood it leaked oil into the water—a clear machine.
Yet the way it flailed about so pathetically, as if it still refused to accept its own death, belonged to something alive.
“…There were no personal feelings involved.”
With those final words, the sniper pulled his pitch-black cap low and vanished into the darkness of the city.
*
“Heave!”
Just before A.G.O’s body could be completely swept away by the current, four enhanced humans appeared on the riverbank. They had used ‘Nadja’s Special Visual Tracker Ver. Optical Camouflage’ to turn transparent.
They lifted the girl whose chest now bore an apple-logo-like hole and carried her onto land.
“Wow, she’s completely wrecked.”
“Seolhwa, can you fix her?”
“I-I’ll try! I’m not very confident, though…”
They attempted to restore A.G.O’s body using their enhanced abilities. A teal light flashed.
The heat radiating from it was enough to make everyone around break into a sweat.
“Haa…”
Still unconscious, A.G.O began breathing again. The hole that had cleanly pierced her core was now perfectly sealed, as if time itself had been rewound.
“Nice. That’s our Seolhwa for you.”
“Hehe, did I do well, oppa?”
“No time for chit-chat. Let’s move.”
And so the mysterious enhanced humans vanished into the darkness with A.G.O in tow. Whether by coincidence or not, every nearby CCTV was conveniently out of order, so no one witnessed the scene.
*
Do you know about Schrödinger’s cat? It’s the experiment where you lock a cat inside a box full of poison gas and, after an hour, open it to see whether the cat is alive or dead. The result cannot be known until the box is opened. Therefore, until it is observed, the cat inside exists in a superimposed state of both life and death.
I once thought it was nonsense, but today I proved it myself.
In society, it has been publicly announced that A.G.O is dead. Cause of death: suicide. A story no ten-year-old would believe.
Yet A.G.O is alive. We picked her up right before she could be swept away as scrap and saved her.
In other words, A.G.O is currently existing in a superimposed state—dead to society, yet alive in reality!
It was a story Nadja would love if she heard it.
“Ueh…”
After an agonizing wait, the topic of the town, the Vitaloid A.G.O, finally opened her eyes.
“Are you awake?”
“Wh-where… where am I…?”
A.G.O looked around with a frightened expression.
“Where do you think?”
“N-now that you mention it, why am I alive…? I definitely got shot by a sniper and died… Not an internet sniper post, but a real sniper rifle…”
“Ah, about that.”
I clapped my hands twice, as if calling for someone.
From the dark edge of the room, Seolhwa walked out confidently.
“This person here treated you.”
“Th-thank you…”
“Not at all! We have to help each other out when we’re in need!”
Seolhwa had become noticeably more confident since becoming an enhanced human.
“But… who are you people…? And why did you save me…”
“Who am I, you ask? That hurts my feelings. We’ve talked quite a lot over the phone, haven’t we?”
“Huh…? But I talk to so many people for work that I can’t really tell…”
“Would this help you figure it out?”
With a clear ding-dong~, the visual tracker’s appearance changed.
Only then did A.G.O’s eyes widen in recognition.
“Ah…!! You’re the one who sold me the memory chip at the courthouse…!!”
“Yes, that’s right. I tried contacting you to work on something together again, but for some reason you didn’t pick up.”
“Th-that’s… If you check my channel, you’d see… My identity as a Vitaloid got exposed, so I was on the run.”
“It seemed that way. So I used something like this.”
I showed A.G.O the program installed on my phone that resembled a dating app. She stared at it blankly, then panicked and covered the electronic terminal exposed at the back of her neck.
“Wh-when did you…!! Was there a virus planted in the chip you gave me back then!?”
“Is that really important? You’re alive thanks to it, after all.”
“You didn’t expose that I was a Vitaloid, did you…!!”
A.G.O bolted upright from the bed and quickly backpedaled, putting distance between us. The sight of her scurrying backward like a frightened little animal made me feel a bit uneasy.
“Let’s stop the jokes here. A.G.O, won’t you work with me on something?”
“Wh-what is it…!! In the first place, I’m now an empty can with nothing left…!!”
“Hmm? What do you mean? Just because one channel went down, does that mean you died? You have the know-how to grow an empty channel with nothing into one with three million subscribers. And you did it just with reacting videos.”
“If… if that counts as an ability… then yes, it does…?”
“Besides, why was a Vitaloid made by Unhwa doing Rekka Aker work in Cheongang? Is there a separate reason?”
“Th-that’s… it’s a bit too personal to talk about…”
I took a step closer to the hesitating A.G.O, but she flinched and moved back the same distance.
“Sigh. Is it something you can’t even tell your lifesaver?”
“Th-that’s… not it. No.”
“Then you can tell me, right?”
After much hesitation, A.G.O finally began to recount her past. To summarize:
1. She had originally been a 5th-generation household Vitaloid, but was discarded as unnecessary and released into society.
2. Since Vitaloids could not transfer cities of their own will, she had lived fixed in Cheongang.
3. Aggrieved by the discrimination against non-Origins, she had uploaded videos to Ark in an attempt to change public opinion on the internet.
“…What kind of video were you trying to change public opinion with that you ended up becoming a Rekka?”
“Ah, that… Hehe. I thought that if I exposed the lobbying of high-ranking Origins, the public opinion of non-Origins on the opposing side might naturally improve as well… Yeah.”
…If it wasn’t for me, this kid would have died sooner or later.
“Then, A.G.O, you wanted to change this city into a better place to live?”
“Y-yes…? Ah, yes… Th-that’s right.”
“What a coincidence. So do we.”
This time I extended my hand toward A.G.O, as if asking her to take it.
“How about it? Working with me. This is already the third time I’ve asked, but it’ll at least be safer than wandering outside.”
“D-do I not have the right to refuse…?”
“I hope that you join us not because you have no choice, but because you want to, A.G.O.”
“Um… well… that is…”
At that moment, as if she found the situation unbearably frustrating, Nadja strode forward from behind and grabbed my waist.
“Aish, this is so frustrating. Little sis, lower your head.”
“Huh? Why suddenly?”
Even as I asked, I obediently lowered my head. Nadja pointed straight at A.G.O.
“Hey, you.”
“M-me?”
“Watch this.”
She yanked out the ‘Nadja’s Special Visual Tracker Ver. Optical Camouflage’ that had been plugged into my neck.
“No, sis… Wait…!!”
I panicked and hurriedly covered the area around my neck. But the chip had already been removed. My villainous fake appearance began to collapse with sparking electronic sounds.
I frantically searched for something to cover my face.
A.G.O stared straight at me and shouted in a voice far more animated than before.
“I’ll do it! Please let me do it! I’ll do anything you ask! I’ll work hard!”
…Huh?