The Apartment Complex (1)

William, a detective team leader under the Port District Security Team, was now in the Residential District.

He had come in person to see a friend who hadn't replied to a single message in over a week.

'Busy or not, that man never fails to check in.'

For someone like that to go silent for more than a week could only mean something had happened to him.

William knocked on his friend's door. When no answer came even after a long wait, he pulled out the terminal hidden inside his coat — hacking equipment confiscated from criminals by the Security Team, which he had quietly siphoned off using his authority as team leader.

Once he connected the device and worked it, the door clicked open. He stepped through the unlocked door and inside.

William's friend, true to his military background, had kept the place impeccably tidy. But perhaps because the door hadn't been opened in so long, a stale, dusty odor hung in every corner of the apartment. Even a quick survey suggested no one had lived here for quite some time. Only the muffled sound of a neighbor's virtual TV bleeding through the wall and the echo of his own footsteps broke the apartment's stillness.

Then his eyes caught sight of a coffee cup sitting on the table.

'Half-finished coffee.'

A crust of dried coffee was stuck to the inside of the cup — proof that it had been left sitting in this dry air for a very long time.

'Something did happen to him.'

Convinced now, William began his search. The closet, the space beneath the bed — he went through every spot where his friend might have stashed a weapon, one by one.

In the end, he confirmed that some of the weapons and equipment were missing.

'He armed himself and disappeared — or died.'

Before coming here, he had reviewed every violent incident reported in the Port District. Not one of them had involved firearms above laser rifle class.

Which meant his friend had been quietly eliminated.

'By the organization of that man in pajamas.'

According to recent reports, the person meeting Broker S had been replaced by someone new. Clearly the other side had caught wind of the police surveillance and was pulling tricks to slip out from under it.

William contacted his team over the comm, then sat down and opened the laptop he'd brought along.

"It's me. What came of the surveillance team assignment?"

The police had diligently tracked Broker S and the mysterious man, but in the end they failed to capture him on camera. The man was simply too slippery — just as his subordinate had said during the briefing.

All they could hand the surveillance team was a composite sketch, built from the officers' memories of his appearance, instead of an actual photograph. Because of that, the surveillance team had been forced to compare faces caught on the city's cameras against the composite, day and night.

"What about that pajama bastard from the first encounter?"

A moment later, a notification popped up on his laptop announcing the arrival of a file.

He was reviewing the dossiers of the twenty candidates when his brow furrowed.

"A Commercial District laborer? What do we have on this one?"

"He's a dead ringer for the guy, isn't he? What about ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his workplace?"

"……."

William wanted to demand why no one had looked into it further, but he held his tongue.

Here in the T&C Special Trade Hub, anyone with low capital was, quite literally, less than human — a spare part. So many people flowed into the city that nobody paid much attention to what happened to any given employee.

His subordinate was a member of this city too, and William knew perfectly well that chewing him out wouldn't change a thing.

'A sick, rotting city.'

Not every human inside MegaCorp accepted its unjust structure. Quite a few, sickened by a society where the contempt for human life had seeped down to its very foundations, defected to the Star Union or the Spacedog syndicates.

William had been a soldier himself, and he had never looked kindly on the fact that more people died in the Entertainment District than on any battlefield.

'…No. I serve MegaCorp. Catching the criminals who poison society is my duty.'

He shook his head and shook off the pointless thoughts.

To the subordinate waiting on the other end of the line, he issued his orders.

"Send the kids back to the store and have them dig again. And re-investigate the other nineteen as well — jobs, residences, personal connections, all of it."

"Since I'm already in the Residential District, I'll check this one out myself."

"What's a day ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠off in our line of work? Anyway, good work out there."

William ended the call and closed his laptop.

Before stepping out of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the apartment, he bowed his head quietly toward his friend — a man who was, in all likelihood, already dead.

'I'll avenge you myself.'

According to the dossier, the man in pajamas lived in an apartment complex not far from here.

So after leaving his friend's home, William headed for an apartment complex even more run-down than this one.

'Third floor, wasn't it?'

The moment he climbed the stairs and stepped into the third-floor corridor, a strange feeling crept over him. His friend's building had been the same, but the apartments of the Residential District were hardly pleasant places to live. Built with cheap materials to cut costs, they suffered from problems of every kind — and among them, the soundproofing was truly the worst.

'There's no sound.'

Even for the middle of the day, this much silence was an unmistakable anomaly.

As if no one lived on the entire third floor at all.

"……."

Tense, he drew his laser pistol. After a small, steadying breath, he knocked on his destination's door.

No response came. He knocked several more times, but not a sound rose from within.

'Out?'

Proper procedure called for a search warrant, but William hadn't waited for one. If the man fled while they sat around waiting for paperwork, the whole affair would become that much more complicated.

Resolved, he took out the hacking equipment once more. And when he cracked the door and swung it open, a familiar smell hit him.

'Blood!'

Having served long years as a soldier and then on the detective team, he recognized at once what this briny, rancid stench was.

Yet despite the smell, nothing inside the apartment appeared out of place. Not as spotless as his friend's home, but neatly ordered all the same.

Still, to William, that tidy interior felt like a diorama — something a murderer had staged by hand to bury the scene.

'Nothing?'

The smell lingered, yet there wasn't a shred of evidence. He was half-considering leaving and returning with an actual warrant when his eyes landed on the refrigerator.

As if compelled by something, he opened it.

"…!"

There was no corpse inside.

Only a dried bloodstain, seared vividly into the surface.

William hurried out of the apartment.

"It's me! I've found the one colluding with Broker S! The location is—"

At his urgent transmission, the Port District Security Team finally sprang into motion.

'Oh?'

Aside from my meetings with that scoundrel Sander, I'd been eating my way through the apartment complex's residents. I'd just finished a meal in the last unit on the third floor, and for the first time in a while, a Predation Effect ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had fired.

A trait acquisition at a moment like this — it almost felt as though the text box had sent me a cake to celebrate.

'Beast Claws, huh.'

True to its name, it was a trait that reinforced my claws and aided me in close combat. No special secondary effects, but as with most enhancement traits of this kind, it had never earned a bad reputation.

'Good timing. My physical traits have been running thin.'

With the Contamination Nest consumed as material for the Parasitic Colony, my current physical trait count stood at ten in total.

The Transcendence System required thirteen, so I only needed two more.

'Apply.'

The moment I accepted, my combat arms transformed with a clamorous grinding, as though bone were scraping against bone.

The razor-blade nails on my four fingers thickened and lengthened until they swelled into scythes as massive as reaping hooks. Their keenness hadn't dulled in the slightest — I could have peeled a human body like fruit with them.

When the mutation was complete, a text box rose before me like a status report.

'Good.'

Evolution was proceeding smoothly. I was filling the conditions slowly, but steadily, one by one.

'Lloyd and Lloyd's boyfriend, seven of the nine bodyguards besides the leader and Kate, plus the three humans from the third floor I've eaten over the past few days — twelve in total.'

The man next door and the bodyguard leader had died at my hands, but No. 26 and I had split the corpses, so they didn't count toward the evolution condition. That brought the humanoid total to twelve.

'Wolves: two, counting Kate and today's.'

There were plenty of transformable playable intelligent species besides Wolves, but I couldn't say whether I'd run into any others in this space city. Wolves were the most common, so I'd probably end up fulfilling that condition with Wolves alone.

'Once I've eaten every Wolf in the complex, I'll have cleared roughly half or more — and the humans here alone will more than cover my quota if I finish off this one building.'

Once the other conditions were met, I'd have to start preparing to hunt the Cult as well.

Tied as it was to both acquiring the Psionic Enhancement Type and to my evolution conditions, Cult hunting was the single most important factor for me right now.

'Still, I'm lucky. I already carry psychic-related traits like Monster's Tentacles.'

In the lore, the Cult believed their kind had been chosen by a Great Will, granting them free use of psionic power. Anyone who couldn't wield it was treated as a primitive monkey — arrogant bastards, every one of them.

Of course, psionics were such a devastating power that their arrogance wasn't exactly unfounded.

When they fought someone other than me, that is.

'And if they get careless fighting me too, that only works in my favor.'

Their arrogance would be my gain. They'd dismiss my ambush as beneath their notice — and pay for it.

'Hunting Cults poses no real problem, but the location is the sticking point, as always.'

The Administrative District was where the Cultists clustered most densely, but assaulting it head-on without preparation would be no easy feat. There was a secret passage connecting to it, sure, but with cameras swarming around the manhole, sneaking through the way I did in the other districts was impossible.

'The Administrative District is too risky to hit until I'm stronger — so I'll target somewhere else first.'

The assault on the Administrative District would have to wait until at least after I'd acquired the Psionic Enhancement Type. Until then, my alternative was the Commercial District.

Cultists didn't care for the entertainments MegaCorp provided, but they went mad for relics and rare equipment, so they frequented the Commercial District regularly. With the Board of Directors meeting drawing even more of them to the city lately, filling my evolution conditions there shouldn't be a problem.

'Surveillance is heavy, but it's still leagues better than the Entertainment or Administrative Districts.'

My odds of getting caught would rise, of course — but that couldn't be helped.

'Once the Residential District is cleared out, I'll lay a nest in the secret passage.'

The spores I'd scattered through the passage before losing my Contamination Organ had grown substantially by now. If I installed nests there as well as in the Port District and the Residential District — the two areas I frequented — I'd be able to monitor my enemies' movements without a hitch.

I was still sketching out my future plans when my auxiliary organs caught the faint crunch of footsteps.

'Hm?'

The third floor was completely emptied by now. There shouldn't have been a single footstep to hear.

Stepping out of the Wolf's apartment, I saw a man vanish into the far end of the corridor. Rather than chase him immediately, I focused my auxiliary organs' senses on him.

"The location is Complex C, Building 3! He's not only linked to Broker S — he murdered armed bodyguards as well. Get backup here fast—"

My senses, beyond human, let me catch even his hushed shouting into the comm device.

'A cop.'

From what he was saying, he seemed to be one of the police who had been tracking Sander. I didn't know how he'd found me, but he even knew I'd killed the bodyguards.

'They caught on sooner than I expected.'

I'd meant to finish filling the humanoid species condition before leaving, but that was looking difficult now.

'What do I do?'

Two options: flee, or stand and fight.

'No — running is a bad idea.'

He'd already called for backup; slipping out of the apartment complex wouldn't be easy. And even if I did escape, getting spotted near the secret passage mid-flight would cost me far more. The passage was my last line of defense — no matter what happened, I could not afford to be seen using it.

That left one road.

'I fight.'

I would devour everyone who stormed this place, then slip away when the moment was right.

In numbers, in firepower — in every respect, they held an overwhelming advantage. But strength did not guarantee victory.

One look at the men I'd butchered here would rattle them. Their confusion would be my one and only window to escape.

I woke No. 26 and Adhai, who had been napping.

They believed they had already caught me. But there was one thing they didn't know.

Amorph was a hunter.

Nothing suited Amorph better than pursuit and the kill.

'Ambush.'

They would soon see what form an apartment that promised its residents comfort and shelter could take in the hands of Amorph.

They would soon see what became of the humans who wandered, unwitting, into Amorph's domain.

Very soon.