The Apartment (3)
'A reinforced suit I've never seen before.'
I looked down at the slumped corpse of Officer 112.
'An upgraded model, apparently.'
Its defensive capabilities had improved dramatically compared to the ones I'd dealt with before — if my body hadn't already been enhanced, it would have given me serious trouble. Even tearing open the chest plate with my claws, I was surprised by how tough it was.
On top of that, it had a full-face gas mask over the helmet, a psychic power shield — all elements missing from mid-grade powered armor.
'So it's mid-grade as a base, with a few options from high-grade bolted on.'
High-grade powered armor boasted specs that towered over the mid-grade, and the price matched — roughly half the cost of plasma equipment. Expensive by any measure.
'Looks like they're developing a budget version.'
In the game, MegaCorp players had credits to burn and no reason to care whether their mercenaries lived or died. But this was reality. The equipment protecting living soldiers would evolve moment by moment alongside the new weapons being developed.
Granted, a budget model's shield couldn't hold a candle to true high-grade armor — but it looked like it could barely stop a standard round from a Gauss weapon.
The last line of weaponry an ordinary, non-wealthy person could get their hands on was laser-grade. A shield like this was more than serviceable against that.
By that measure, the enemy had come thoroughly prepared.
If my opponents were 'ordinary humans,' this would have been an easy win.
'If they were ordinary humans, that is.'
They'd come chasing Sander and ended up following the trail to me, so they knew nothing of my true identity. As far as they were concerned, I was probably some Spacedog spy or smuggler.
Before the enemy breached the apartment, I'd sent a thought-wave to Sander to find out whether he'd been arrested too — and learned he'd tried to spill what he knew about me to the police and had been silenced for it.
'Using Sander is off the table either way.'
I'd have to find another broker, or slip into the Port District under cover of the chaos. If I planted a new parasite in one of the police before leaving this apartment, tracking down a broker wouldn't be difficult.
'Then again, the kids are fighting better than I expected.'
The first hunt against the invaders of this apartment hadn't been mine at all — it had been theirs.
Before the police entered the building, I'd taught No. 26 and Adhai the weaknesses of androids and humans: where an android's power core sat, the poverty of its autonomous reasoning, the fact that a human's head was its weak point, and so on.
Thanks to that, Adhai had destroyed one android on the first floor, and No. 26 had taken out one police officer searching the second from her position on the third.
'Adhai was clinging to the ceiling, remember.'
She'd hung from the ceiling and waited until only a single android remained.
Androids currently assumed their enemies were human. Unless it was a special race like a Wolf or an Insectman, clinging to a ceiling was impossible.
So the android never imagined something might be up there, and it had no choice but to crumple under the psychic strike Adhai hurled down — a Psychic Impact.
Psychic Impact sat at the very bottom tier of psychic attack techniques, but against an enemy without psychic resistance it could still deal meaningful damage.
Enough, if aimed precisely, to destroy an android's power source.
'If that android had carried a shield, she'd have failed.'
Had the android taken even minimal precautions against psychic attacks, Adhai's strike would have bounced off. Psychic Impact could be blocked easily enough by ordinary psychic resistance.
'She knew that too — that's why she targeted the android instead of the police.'
Anti-psychic androids existed, but none had come to this apartment. The only enemy equipped with psychic defense was the officer whose powered armor carried a shield, so Adhai had deliberately gone for the machines.
For a young Blue Gallagon, her judgment was genuinely impressive.
Having shattered her android without a hitch, she slipped out through a window and rejoined No. 26 on the third floor.
'No. 26 did her part too.'
Whether it was growth or something else, her psychic power had grown far stronger than before. She could now cast Bind, one of the Sea Demon's signature techniques, without any strain at all.
Bind was a powerful technique in the mid-tier of psychic abilities — it compressed the air around a target with raw psychokinesis and shackled them, and the more powerful the caster, the greater the number of victims it could hold and the stronger its effect became.
No. 26 had hunted alongside me several times, so she knew exactly where a human body was weakest.
Hidden in the third-floor corridor, she'd shown off her finesse by layering a double Bind on a single enemy searching the second floor. Thanks to her, the poor officer's body and mind were now operating on entirely separate schedules.
'Still a long way off, but….'
In the game, a Sea Demon could Bind dozens of players simultaneously and strangle them to death. No. 26 hadn't reached that level yet.
But back then she could barely keep Sihyeon Yujin pinned in place — by comparison, her growth was remarkable. She would only grow stronger from here.
'The kids did their job. Now it's my turn.'
The groundwork was laid.
I felt the vibration of them climbing the stairs.
In the voice of the dead officer, 112, I called out to them.
"Aaagh!"
"!"
Outside, the enemies flinched and tensed.
I counted five humans and two machines. I slipped out the window, the corpse tucked under my arm, and crawled along the outer wall to the next apartment.
While I moved, the two androids took point, smashed down the door of the unit I'd just left, and poured inside.
"Commencing search."
Leaving the androids' flat voices behind me, I cut through the neighboring unit and emerged into the corridor.
I could see the officer at the rear of the column just about to enter another unit. I drove my tail's barb into his neck.
Catching him silently before he could even gasp, I scaled the corridor wall to the floor above.
I pushed open the window of an empty unit up there and hurled the officer and his body inside.
"……"
Terror-filled eyes stared at me from behind his mask. Only now, in my grip, did he seem to fully grasp what he was dealing with.
He was probably thinking it. He should have brought an army, not armed police.
As always, by the time regret came, it was already too late.
He wanted, desperately, to pass on what he knew about me to his comrades. That was impossible. The neurotoxin drifting through his veins was coiling around his entire body like a python that had caught its prey.
I took hold of his head with my combat arm. Understanding what came next, he gave me a pitiful look.
'A shame, but I can't grant that wish.'
I tightened my grip, and the hook-like claws sheared straight through his skull. As the officer's head came apart like a watermelon under a cutter, a delayed reaction finally came from the floor below.
｢This is 106. Officer 110, respond!｣
Understandable panic — the comrade who'd been right behind them seconds ago had simply vanished. I crushed the radio of the officer called 110 in my fist.
'Time to shake them up a little more.'
Confusion and fear erode rational thought.
They still seemed too lucid. Time for another dose. I switched 112's radio back on.
"Aaagh! It's torturing me!"
｢Damn it! Officer 112!｣
｢This is M01. Everyone, remain calm.｣
｢Goddamn it! Officer 110 was right behind us and now he's gone!｣
"AAAAGH! Please, somebody help me! I'm on the fifth floor!"
I cut the radio after that. From below came the sound of them milling about and shouting over each other.
The android telling everyone to stay calm, the officers snapping back — how the hell were they supposed to stay calm with two people missing?
The enemy was sinking into the mire.
While they floundered, I left my unit and destroyed the corridor lights one by one with my tail. Only when glass shattered right outside their own doors did the residents of the fifth floor poke their heads out.
"What the hell is all this racket, you son of a— urk!"
"KYAAAAAH!"
They screamed at the sight of me, steeped in darkness.
One low growl from me and they went white as corpses, scrambling out of their homes. I let the residents stampede down the stairs untouched.
Like a sheepdog, I drove them from behind.
And right on cue, the police and androids below were climbing upward.
"Unarmed target. Hold fire."
"Damn it! Civilians! Everyone watch it!"
In the moment the flustered officers hesitated, I thrust my upper arm toward them. Sawtooth tentacles erupted from my palm and snaked past the civilians to wrap around an android's head. The serrated edges jutting from the tentacle's surface bit deep into its small, hard skull.
"Hostile attack detected."
The painless android raised the Gauss rifle mounted on its third arm toward me — far too late. I yanked my arm back like pulling a rope, and the head caught in my tentacle tore free with it.
"Hostile contact. Requesting permission to engage."
"What the fuck is that thing!"
The android in the rear registered my attack faster than the police did and sounded the alarm. Only then did the officers swing their Gauss rifles in my direction.
Tungsten rounds hammered mercilessly into the spot where I'd stood. One of the slower civilians caught a stray round and came apart like paint diffusing through water.
The human shields had served their purpose — time to fall back.
'Damn.'
I retreated fast, but I'd grown larger than before, and I couldn't dodge everything — a few rounds caught my tail.
Thanks to my Physical Enhancement Type and my various traits, it was nothing serious. Still, the enemy now had a rough measure of my defenses.
An ordinary human would struggle to notice mid-combat whether I'd taken meaningful damage. Androids were different. Unless their power core was destroyed and they shut down, they recorded every exchange with an enemy, without omission.
They would certainly switch to specialized rounds with enhanced penetration.
Armor-piercing rounds could wound even my hide. The androids would no doubt order their units to target my arms and tail, where my carapace was comparatively thin.
I possessed regeneration — even severed limbs would regrow — but slowly. For Amorph, whose body itself is his weapon rather than his equipment, damage to his primary weapons was nothing to celebrate.
Avoiding the armor-piercing rounds was simply the smart play.
'This is why androids are such a pain.'
Their autonomous reasoning was poor, but their capacity for information gathering was superior to a human's. MegaCorp players used them heavily for reconnaissance and support for exactly that reason.
'Which made fighting MegaCorp such a headache back in the day.'
If you failed to wipe out an android squad in one stroke, it broadcast your traits, your patterns, your weaknesses — everything — straight to the opposing player. Utterly aggravating.
'I have to wipe them out here and now.'
The androids destroyed so far had been taken out not by gunfire but by specialized attacks. The fact that I was not human was already stored in their internal recorders.
The police might never know, but I had to destroy every recorder on the androids here before leaving.
Concealed inside the apartment, I sent a wave to No. 26.
[Zzzzz zzzzzz (Come up here and help me)]
｢Okay. Little Baby. Big Baby is calling.｣
While I summoned them, the enemy entered the corridor. Perhaps because they now knew their opponent was no ordinary human, their movements were far more cautious than before.
In the dead officer's voice, I shouted loudly.
"In here!"
They froze at my voice. Then the enemies shuffled positions, arranging themselves to breach the unit.
Boots and gear should have clattered with every step, yet their movements were so swift and silent that from any distance you'd have heard nothing. Clearly, they were well trained.
'They may have been unlucky to draw me as their opponent.'
Against any other enemy, they'd have suppressed the target with ease. No — if I hadn't been Amorph, they wouldn't have been losing like this.
Without Amorph's Super Sense, I could never have read their movements this cleanly.
I took my position beside the door and aimed my spine-launcher.
'About here, I'd say?'
I adjusted my aim until the muzzle of my spine sat some twenty centimeters above where my own head would be, then waited.
The moment the android drew close to smash the door, I fired. With a dull thud like a plucked cello string, the spine drove straight through the door panel.
"En-en-en-enemy fi-fi-fi…"
"Th-the enemy's firing!"
Through the small punched hole, I could see the android — a small hole now bored through its own head — collapse.
I surged forward and rammed the door with my full weight. The hinges tore away like wet tissue, and the android standing before the door shattered into pieces under my charge.
The police, finally seeing me up close at last, sucked in their breath. After stomping the recorder out of the android's wreckage, I extended a sawtooth tentacle and whipped it around one officer's leg.
"Aagh!"
Where the blades scraped past, white bone lay bare. One man went down, and the three officers beside him swung their Gauss rifles toward me.
But I was not the only monster they had to deal with.
Adhai came hurtling in with No. 26 in her grip and crashed into the officers.
Adhai's tentacle engulfed an officer's head. The translucent appendage shattered the glass of his mask and bored its way inside.
"Ghhk— uurgh! Agagkagak…"
The officer convulsed, shuddering, making grotesque sounds — the suckers at the tip of the tentacle had latched onto his face and begun draining his blood.
I could see it plainly: the tentacle gulping and slurping as it sucked down the red liquid. The officer, emptied of a fatal volume of blood in seconds, slid to the floor in shock.
"Gh— guaaah… khh!"
"Ugh!"
The other officers recoiled in horror, swinging their muzzles toward Adhai — and froze mid-motion. Violet energy was coiling around their bodies from where No. 26 had landed in the corridor.
I took the heads of those caught in her Bind, one in each hand, and tore them off. Blood fountaining from the severed throats drifted in midair, floating weightless as if caught in zero gravity, thanks to No. 26's psychic power.
Adhai, who had mummified one officer whole, flicked her tentacle and swallowed the floating blood from the air.
[Zzzzzz (Well done)]
｢Okay!｣
｢Easy｣
It was carnage that would make any witness recoil and vomit — but I was proud of them for assisting me so superbly. I would have loved to give them time to savor their spoils, but enemies still remained.
'This is the first time I've ever fought with someone at my back.'
Playing as Amorph in the game, I'd naturally never experienced anything like it. In the game and in my old life alike, I'd never had friends — so fighting this way felt strangely new.
If I kept deploying them tactically in hunts to come, they'd prove an invaluable asset.
'All that's left now are the androids downstairs.'
Once they were dealt with, nothing would remain to obstruct my escape.
The time to savor the spoils would come after the hunt was over.