Not a Single One Gets Away

Beneath the window lay a country of glaciers buried in snow. I was above it aboard a TERA jet, and the jet was not moving at all. It simply hung in the sky. Our target waited below.

"Scientist is down there."

I turned to the others and dropped my voice.

"He is no easy mark. Anyone who steps into his laboratory, he will kill with everything he has. No—he will leave them in a state where death would have been kinder."

He was a man who toyed with life as if it were a plaything. Enemies who smashed a laboratory precious as gold would never be forgiven.

"As I said in the first briefing, the facilities between here and the flowerpot were built with modern technology, so they are relatively soft. That does not mean they will tear like paper. Only three or four of the people here could break them with ease. If you are forced to smash something, keep that in mind."

And then—

"Our first objective, above all else, is Scientist. You will see a great many horrific sights while you move through the laboratory. Do not let pity push you into helping on impulse. Very few of the things still alive in there deserve to be called living."

Sipsado's eyes sank a little. Hong Yumin cracked her fingers, one pop after another.

"Scientist cloned himself to serve as his research assistants. The face is the same. The build is the same. They are not people. They are highly intelligent organisms wearing a human shape."

The copies had been force-grown from infancy on drugs and incubators. Humans raised that abnormally carried a wrongness even an ordinary person could feel.

"Do not mistake a resemblance for a person. They are too incomplete, too broken, to have come from any hot coupling of sperm and egg. When you remove them, throw your hesitation away."

Na Wangrang and Dan Chuyeon swallowed hard.

"The first time you see them with your own eyes, you will have trouble telling the real one from the fakes. But if you ever lay eyes on the genuine Scientist, you will know at once that he is the real thing."

People have an atmosphere they cannot hide. Scientist gave off the air of a madman at a glance, thick and unmistakable.

"If you find the real one, do no more and no less. Kill him on the spot. Leave him alive for even one extra second, and there is no telling what he will do."

I slapped the hatch with my palm.

"Opening. Stand back."

With a rising whine, the jet spread its hatch the way a man drops his trousers. A long strut spat straight down, and through the gap we were laid bare.

A sound rolled over us, less like wind than a whale crying out. The blizzard slammed in. Warmth plunged below zero in an instant.

A winter night received us in place of a clear sky. Below was pitch black. Endless dark spread out there, and it called the void of space to mind.

"I trust the earpieces you were issued are seated properly. Then prepare yourselves. I'll take the vanguard."

A white mask and a black suit. Throat and hands left bare. A fashion that scorned the environment, and yet, for me, the combat uniform that fit best of all.

"Captain Kid, Roadman, Miss Mi Soryeong—I'm counting on you for backup."

Captain Kid held the controls. Roadman was spent from finding the way. Mi Soryeong had come along because she was worried. All three looked our way and raised their thumbs.

Carried by that wordless cheer, I left my last words before the jump.

"All right, everyone."

I kicked off.

Infinite empty air wrapped around me. The ground lay at my back, and the sky pressed against my navel.

The moon was clear tonight.

As it always was.

"Hm?"

Number 773 leaned in and studied the surveillance feed.

"A person?"

Someone was standing at the laboratory entrance.

The figure in the white ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mask stared straight into the camera.

"What?"

A camera ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hidden in the glacier was impossible to pick out with the naked eye. Setting that aside, arriving here on two feet should have been impossible in the first place. More than a hundred surveillance systems watched the perimeter like an iron wall. There was even a satellite radar looking down from orbit, and yet no one had noticed a thing until he reached the door. That was wrong.

"That isn't the problem."

There was a bigger one.

"He pinpointed exactly where this laboratory is, and he came here?"

From the outside, the place was indistinguishable from the Arctic wilderness. There was no reason anyone would come. The glacier was the laboratory, and the laboratory was the glacier. Wild animals ran across it without ever knowing what it was, and a person had found it?

A chill prickled over Number 773.

He slammed the emergency bell at once.

The siren screamed, a sound that did not stop at the ears but ground them away. Scientist's face hardened.

"So that is the intruder ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠alarm."

A, beside him, let out a groan. A tremor rose in the eyes of a man who never lost his cold composure.

"Find out what's happening."

"Yes."

When A was gone, Scientist pressed the switch in his hand.

Electricity snarled. A raw, wordless shriek tore through the room.

"......So this is why you kept thrashing."

His fingers bore down harder. Lightning filled the field of vision. The wretched scream climbed over the siren and rang with it, and even as his own eardrums were flayed, Scientist did not so much as blink.

The strength bled out of his fingers with a thin hiss. The scream died.

"What is it you know."

Eyes squeezed shut answered in place of words.

"Right. You won't tell me."

Scientist turned his back.

The sealed door shut, and a dragon was left alone in the room. A body worked to exhaustion for days would not have been strange if it died tomorrow. Its gaze was turned upward. Higher, and higher still, and the gaze that reached that far trembled.

The impact boomed.

"Nice shot, Lady Pele."

Pele, landing right after me, had blown the entrance clean away. A glacier rising hundreds of meters melted like ice cream.

"This was built with modern technology?"

Pele clicked her tongue at the laboratory now laid bare. Where the ice had run away, an outer wall of hundreds of square meters stood with its middle punched clean through.

"I hit that fairly hard, and it didn't even fall."

"The maker is Scientist. It will be some alloy we don't know."

Even so, the fact that it had stopped Pele's attack was impressive.

"The laboratory's underground?"

"Too large to build on the surface."

A place meant to grow the Devil's Tree was a small city at the very least.

"So that's why you told us to smash our way through. It was never going to come down anyway."

"At this scale, wrecking a few sectors won't even show."

"Good. Then I can cut loose in style!"

Pele smiled a vicious smile.

"Head count before we go in. Call out your own names."

The names came back in order. Fortunately, no one seemed to have been lost.

"Enjoy the skydive of several thousand meters? Next up is a heart-pounding dungeon expedition."

I drew a knife from between my wrists and threw it. The muzzle of a turret just rising split in half.

"Before the expedition proper, we deal with the guards on the entrance."

A deep rumble answered. Countless ports opened in the outer wall, and a turret show unfolded, gorgeous enough to drive a military enthusiast mad.

"Party tricks."

Pele stamped her foot. Lava surged and swallowed the turrets, forcing itself through the gaps, and somewhere far off the wiring burst.

"Done?"

"Yes. The entrance is done."

We went in.

Scientist said nothing. Through the surveillance cameras he watched the unmanned weapons being smashed without mercy. Gun turrets, flame turrets, poison turrets—none of them slowed the enemy's advance by a single step. Dropping the bulkheads changed nothing. Styrofoam would have stopped them better.

Who?

A thief ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had broken into the house, and still his feelings were calm. That calm was the rationality of an enemy still wasting time on a worthless upper floor, and the leisure of a transcendent intellect whose reason had long since killed emotion.

"We've identified several of the intruders."

A's mouth worked fast.

Ha.

Scientist could hardly believe it.

Everyone but Japan came out of Korea.

While he was lost in the thought, the enemy broke the floor. The blast shook the room.

"The tenth floor has been breached."

One strike had punched through dozens of meters. The situation was urgent.

"Deploy the entire H and B series. W, MA, M, and A—stand by."

Scientist took up the command baton.

"Bring out the stored D-series as well. Use them."

The short orders went down, and the control room burst into motion. Scientist's brain generated dozens of lines of thought at once.

A festival of asking and answering himself. And yet the divided thoughts traded questions and replies as if they were strangers.

"Separate the intruders who are bunched together."

His thoughts drafted an operation that assumed hundreds of possibilities. The laboratory's data unspooled through his head.

Scientist's eyes gleamed, cold.