The Thing You Must Never Touch (6)
So that was how it was going to be, huh.
I thought this while grinding my teeth.
The robot's outer shell seemed to be some kind of alloy. I could tell because the spot I'd struck with the hammer was slightly caved in—had it been ceramic or the like, it would have shattered rather than bent. I had no idea how much heat it could take, and elasticity and all that was beyond me, but the bottom line was simple enough: beat the living hell out of it, and something would give.
I gripped the hammer.
The flames spouting from its front died away. The moment I eased my grip even slightly, the thing would launch itself forward on its own. But that alone wasn't enough.
I stomped my foot down. With a tremendous crack, the floor where I landed caved inward, and I felt the densely packed rebar inside brush against the tip of my toe. I cranked the hammer's output up and leapt—redirected the thruster trajectories, cut the output for a heartbeat, then blasted off again with everything I had. Every ounce of thrust, front and rear, erupted backward.
BAM!
The security robot's fist collided with the hammer. Metal rang against metal—and still, the hammer came out harder. Fine components were packed inside it, sure, but at its core it was a weapon built as a blunt instrument. Strip away the propulsion housing and it was nothing but a heavy lump of steel. With a rocket mounted on the back that could spike its thrust in an instant, it was essentially a missile without a warhead. Swap the long rod for a steel wire and you could have called it a TOW.
The robot's 'hand,' on the other hand, actually had joints. Only three thick fingers, but a joint was a joint, and joints had a very clear limit to their durability. Through my mana-sharpened dynamic vision, I watched that joint bend—and burst.
What spurted out from inside was lubricant—
—Lubricant, was it?
The color was a little—
THUD.
"...!"
The blow to my side cut my thoughts dead. Wrenching my head around in the instant before I went flying, I saw another robot driving its fist into my waist. And before I could even fly, it seized my ankle and hauled me down. A speed that made my dynamic vision look like a slideshow.
How...?
I swung the hammer downward and maxed out its thrust. My leg joints nearly bent the wrong way from the strain, but at least I spared myself a full-body slam into the floor and the groggy stupor that would have followed.
These things meant to kill me.
I had to destroy them completely—
No, wait.
That lubricant's color was still gnawing at me. Not black. Not clear, either. A strangely red lubricant—
WHAM!
I'd taken the first hit because my eyes were pointed elsewhere, but with my body suspended in midair, I could see the thing flying straight at me. I twisted the hammer sideways, and my body slid just out of the line of attack. BAM. The robot's two feet slammed down exactly where I'd been lying.
Three robots in total. Everything I'd managed so far was shattering one fist on one of them. Impatience began to creep in.
When I wrenched my foot free, my shoe came off and one bare foot slipped out. I kicked the robot's fingers hard with it, again and again, but the joints were built far tougher than the concrete coating the building's exterior—nothing so pathetic as a sprain or a break.
The robot that had failed to stomp me flat began rotating its body toward me—and then its head, probably the main camera, jerked aside as something sizzling struck it.
"James!"
"Let's start with getting back on your feet. I'm afraid the drone laser is only good for drawing their attention."
Not even a shred of concern, huh. Well, to be fair, there had never been room for coddling between the two of us. Thinking that, I bent my knees.
My leg was hoisted up again. As the robot lifted it, my back and waist pressed flat against the ground. Both hands were still raised above me, hammer brandished over the top of them—though "brandished" was a generous word for a girl flat on her back. Whatever. It didn't matter what we called it.
Flames were still roaring out of the hammer, so simply pinning its rear end to the floor demanded every scrap of arm strength I had. I throttled the rear thrust down to a minimum and held on for dear life, blasting fire from the front thrusters with all my might.
The robot kept hauling my leg higher, apparently intending to hoist my whole body up and slam it back into the floor. My waist lifted clear until only my back and the nape of my neck touched down.
"Not a chance...!"
I roared it and maxed out the hammer's thrust, killing the front thruster's flames in the same instant. Since both my hands were locked around the handle, my arms shot upward first.
Then my waist.
With my freed foot planted on the robot's hand to hold myself up, I let go of the handle entirely.
CLANG!
The hammer slammed dead center into the robot's head. The fact that its head didn't crumple told me just how disgustingly solid the thing was built. At least the camera looked finished.
More of that red lubricant seeped out through the cracks.
The 'robot' released my leg. Then it brought both hands up in front of its face.
As if it were in pain.
"...Huh?"
I was still staring at it when I heard something slicing through the air, and threw myself sideways in a panic.
BAM!
I felt the floor shudder through my whole body. I scrambled upright and hunted for my hammer. The robot with the shattered right hand was reaching toward it—the hammer was still powering relentlessly forward. It would have been fine if it had been careening wildly in any direction, but of course the hammer with the Generator inside had its head pressed flush against the wall, grinding steadily onward. The only reason it was holding still at all was that the head was wide enough to wedge itself flat against the surface—
And the problem was that the robot was far, far closer to it than I was.
"Are you insane!? You just threw away something that important!?"
A shrill voice crackled from the drone. James was firing lasers while somehow dodging the robot waving its arms at him—he clearly had no room to spare for me.
"If I hadn't thrown it, the attack wouldn't have landed!"
Those things had absurdly long arms. Like gibbons, I swear.
"What if the Generator falls into their hands?!"
Screaming about it wouldn't change anything now.
"The laser! Hit it with the laser!"
Truthfully, long before I'd said a word, James had already been pouring thick lasers into the robot reaching for the hammer. Whether they were doing anything, I couldn't tell. The beam had to be blisteringly hot, but if whatever was inside couldn't feel pain, all it would do was scorch the outer armor.
I ran flat out. The robot clutching its head recovered and lunged at me, but the earlier blow must have lingered, because it staggered just enough to open a gap. I dove low, slid under its arm, plowed across the floor, and kept sprinting—but the robot's hand was already stretching toward the hammer's handle.
And through that ruined joint, I glimpsed something white—
Something hissed past my ear. The object, tearing through the air at impossible speed, struck the robot's shoulder dead-on.
No—had that been a beam of light rather than a physical thing? It was an uncanny sight. Light certainly carries momentum, but watching light strike something felt deeply wrong.
...Though I'd been on the receiving end of it plenty of times myself.
"—————!"
The robot shrieked.
It was a sound like the cries combatants used to make in their combat suits. A low, modulated voice. Red lubricant streamed down its body, and the robot raged and thrashed as if being attacked caused it unbearable agony.
Did it... feel pain? It had reacted the same way when my hammer connected earlier.
But there was no time to pick that apart. I dashed forward, snatched up the hammer, and swung it into the ankle of the rampaging robot, smashing it sideways. Another shriek rang out as the ankle bent the wrong way.
BAM!
The 'robot' toppled over.
I threw myself onto it and shoved my hand into the gap in its head. Something hot... I felt something hot. Not smooth like human skin, but rough—and yet somehow not what you'd call 'machine.'
Creeeak.
I wrenched it outward with everything I had, and I could see what was inside.
Inside was—a monkey.
No, not an actual monkey. Earth had never produced a monkey twice the height of an average woman. If one had ever existed, it would have gone extinct ages ago.
Which meant...
"An alien?"
I murmured it, then rolled backward to dodge a wild swipe from the fallen thing.
BANG! BANG!
Gunshots cracked behind me, and liquid splashed over my head. A monstrous shriek made me glance back—another one of those robot-things, whatever it was, was thrashing in fury, having taken a hit of its own.
"It's a kaijin."
Click.
Iris said it as she ejected the fuse from her gun.
"Could they be from the Gatallin side?"
"Looks that way."
"..."
A window shattered—probably from the earlier gunfire. By now, all five magical girls were inside the building.
"They weaponized kaijin? Is that even possible?"
"However wildly they rampage, if you give them some kind of 'mold,' you can keep them from moving freely. If it hardens only at the necessary moments, then even a being reduced to nothing but destructive instinct might be restrained to some degree. 'Detailed commands' would be absolutely impossible, of course."
Iris spoke with cool, level eyes, appraising the 'robots' like specimens.
One of the robots charged the magical girls. The five scattered in an instant, evading it cleanly. Hayun planted herself at the center and swung her sword at the kaijin's descending arm—
KZZT!
No—she tried to cut it off, but the blade didn't shear through cleanly the way it usually did. The way it did when I was wearing my combat suit.
"Aha."
Delphinium murmured.
"Those kaijin are using circuits too, it seems."
"'Using' might be a stretch. It's more likely just auxiliary. Without 'energy,' they couldn't move like this at all. Besides, a kaijin's mind isn't capable of detailed thought in the first place."
How very relaxed of them. Chatting away mid-battle.
That said, they weren't actually taking it easy. Just like with that seafood kaijin last time, these ones were no pushover either, judging by how rarely clean hits were landing. Maybe Hayun's energy simply hadn't recovered to full yet.
No—more than that.
I thought, swinging my hammer.
So they finally showed up.
Had they come to capture me this time, too?
Even when Iris swept the room, reading the situation, I deliberately kept my eyes elsewhere. I'd never had a single opening to meet the other magical girls' gazes anyway. And Hayun—she'd been staring at the floor earlier, and now her back was turned entirely, her expression impossible to see.
BAM!
I deflected the hand dropping toward me—
"Use this opening to get inside the broadcast room."
James said quickly.
"It's been puzzling me from the very start. If they had troops stationed inside the broadcast room, they could simply have ordered them to destroy the interior from the beginning."
"...They didn't because they couldn't?"
"They couldn't have known we were coming today, nor that the broadcast room was our target."
"Then the troops that were inside the broadcast room from the beginning—"
There was no need to finish the question. Why were they there?
BAM! BAM! BAM!
The corridor doors burst apart and 'robots' came pouring out. Every one of them was a different shape and size. None larger than the ones I'd been fighting, but none smaller than me, either. Probably aliens from all manner of different planets.
They hadn't been in the broadcast room alone. Nearly every room on this floor probably had a small detachment of these troops waiting inside. They couldn't have known when we'd come—but with the current chairman on this floor, perhaps they'd reasoned that someone would come eventually.
"..."
There had been aliens among the combatants I'd fought alongside, too. Earth wasn't the only world suffering an employment crisis. Plenty of people on other planets, in other nations, were struggling for their own reasons. And people like that tended to come to places like this and choose work that used their strength.
"...Did you know?"
"Not at all. If I had, would I have come here to die?"
"No—not that."
"...I didn't know. Truly. The Company is already at open odds with the Federation—there's no way I couldn't grasp how much trouble a stunt like this would invite."
Which meant...
The 'current chairman.'
The speakers had gone silent some time ago. Where was the chairman? The broadcast room? The chairman's office? No—had the chairman even been in this building at all? While everyone else evacuated, would the chairman really have stayed alone on the very top floor?
BAM!
I ducked under an attack and uppercut with the hammer, sending the one in front of me flying. There was no reason in them. But I couldn't kill them, either. I had no intention of becoming a murderer.
More air-splitting cracks, and bullets whipped past my side. The relatively small creatures in front of me took the rounds and crumpled.
"They're most likely 'synchronizing.'"
Iris said it. I turned, but her gaze wasn't on me. Still, that the words themselves were aimed at me—that much seemed certain.
"Non-Earthlings can't run circuits, and the beings inside those combat suits don't appear to be aliens. I don't know what emotion fuels them, but it must be the very same emotion that drives your circuit."
So that was it.
Circuit-equipped combat suits only meant something when worn by Earthlings. There were alien versions, but they carried no circuits—just standard batteries, simple power assist, and modest bullet and blade resistance.
...Magical girls didn't run on their own circuits alone; they drew on Hayun's energy as well. Synchronization. The reason no one had ever developed a Despair Circuit version was simple: there had never been a human who could run a Despair Circuit with that much energy to spare.
Now there was.
Me.
Which meant the kaijin here—
"Who can say."
But before I could think any deeper, James spoke. Even while weaving between enemy attacks, the man never stopped talking.
"I was aware such research was underway. But it seems you don't know who built the Generator."
"..."
What a pretty way of putting it.
"It's no coincidence. But the technology was not developed because of you. It was prepared for the day an Earthling like you appeared. Given the designs, producing them is trivial. The current chairman has held his seat for over a month now, after all."
They couldn't stamp out millions and flood the market, but turning out a few dozen was hardly a technical impossibility.
"Incidentally, we have a problem. The magical girls would fight considerably better without us underfoot."
"..."
The voice, dripping with sarcasm aimed at the magical girls, left me briefly without words. Instead of answering, I swung the hammer.
BAM!
The fist lunging at me struck it and rebounded.
"So—let's make a straight dash for the broadcast room. We attend to our business and clear out promptly. Best for everyone concerned, wouldn't you say?"
I looked back.
There stood Hayun, her back to me.
"Go."
As if she'd felt my gaze, Hayun spoke.
"You came here for a reason, didn't you?"
"..."
My mouth worked soundlessly. It had been so long since I'd exchanged a word with Hayun. The last time we'd met had been the worst. I couldn't even imagine what her face looked like right now.
BANG! BANG!
A gun fired beside me.
"Go!"
Iris shouted.
I clenched my teeth and turned away. I couldn't understand why the magical girls had suddenly taken that stance. The other three were still unreadable, but at least Hayun and Iris were taking my side.
Why?
...I didn't know.
For now—for now, let me finish what I came to do. Then we could talk, or whatever else. With that thought, I ran. Gunfire chased me from behind. Were they clearing the other kaijin to cover me? I couldn't tell. Would it really be all right if I left? I didn't know that either.
I didn't know anything. The moment I looked at Hayun, my mind had tangled itself into a hopeless knot. So I ran. As long as I was doing something, at least I didn't have to think about anything else. It had always been that way—when I was smashing something with all my strength, when I was fighting.
Sending a few kaijin flying with the hammer, I dashed into the broadcast room through the shattered door.
"There are still kaijin out there. Will they be all right?"
"Those ladies will kindly sacrifice themselves for us. We'll be fine."
I looked at the drone.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"..."
BAM!
Something flew toward the door—judging by the red streak, probably Rose. Were they after something? If I went through with the broadcast... was there something?
"There's really no need to worry so much—"
James began, and then stopped. The drone's head had turned toward something.
"Wait—Miss Jeong Jieun...!"
As I started to turn, James shouted. But I was already looking back.
There was a screen there. A tablet? It looked as though someone had set it out deliberately. Or maybe someone had simply been using it in here. Every room in a facility this important probably had one. And it would have been wired into the intranet or whatever else.
I didn't know why. But on that screen, regardless—was Jihye.
[Did you really not think of something like this?]
[Whatever you do, you should always keep some insurance on hand.]
[No family—but you have something close to it, and still you rampage so thoughtlessly. It's laughable. Should have sent her somewhere far, far away.]
[Keep doing whatever you like. The longer this drags on... well, you understand.]
Sound flowed from the tablet.
The place around Jihye was one I knew by heart. The room Jihye and I had shared.
Stop.
Stop it.
Someone was walking toward Jihye, who lay collapsed on the floor—out cold, perhaps. Then the screen went dark.
"Miss Jeong Jieun! You mustn't!"
I heard James shouting.
I mustn't. I knew perfectly well that neither choice was possible. That I shouldn't go there. Maybe the enemy had realized something the moment they saw me enter the broadcast room—and so now they would play their next card. Destroy the broadcast room? Sever the internet connection by any means necessary? If there was a window of opportunity, it was now. Having come this far, there might not be a second chance—who knew how long the magical girls could hold out, or whether they'd even choose to hold out at all. For all I knew, the magical girls had come here aiming at the same thing. That was probably why James was screaming don't.
Right. I mustn't.
But no. I couldn't abandon Jihye either. Because she was family. Because in this life of mine, which had started with nothing, she was the only person I could call family.
"Jieun."
I turned my head at that voice. Hayun was looking at me. Her clothes were torn in places, and she was bleeding. With this many kaijin, even magical girls had their limits, I suppose. Her face was pale.
"Go."
Hayun said it again.
"I'll... be right here."
"..."
I stood there, mouth agape.
"Don't!"
James shouted, but my vision had already flipped around. I kicked open the door to my room. The door flew open—no, it shot inward like a shell. Nobody was killed by it.
Was that a mercy?
"..."
Earthlings. Men and women both, but Earthlings all the same. Shabby clothes, gas masks over their faces. They all looked destitute. Unemployment had skyrocketed once the true space age began—aliens outnumbered humans by orders of magnitude, and some of them did filthy, grueling work far better than we ever could.
"..."
I see. So that's what this was.
People who seemed capable of just about anything, so long as the money was right. That was the kind of people they were.
People like me.
"...I'm not too late, then."
They weren't wearing combat suits. Of course not. They'd probably clear out the gas and everything else once the job was done. Even if they were caught, they'd be cut loose as loose ends. They'd take the money, though—a fat envelope of it.
Jihye was still all right. She lay on the floor as if asleep, but her clothes—the ones she always wore—were untouched, and there wasn't a single wound on her. There was a smell in the air. Maybe some gas that worked well on Earthlings—breathe it and you'd drop where you stood. Apparently it didn't work on me.
I looked at those people. They read the situation, and the Earthling nearest me bolted—trying to run past me, or maybe knock me down on the way out.
CRACK!
But his gas mask shattered, and he went down. A beat too late, he realized the mask had broken and clapped his hands over his face, but it was no use—the man crumpled where he stood.
"Figures."
The hammer was out of the question. They hadn't laid a hand on her yet, though—so I didn't intend to kill.
The black hole swallowed Jieup in an instant. Jieun vanished before their eyes, and the papers stacked on the desk whirled wildly through the air.
"Damn it, damn it...!"
The drone left behind cried out.
"...You should prepare yourself."
The drone turned toward Hayun. It gave off a strangely dazed air, machine though it was—as if it had never expected to say those words at all.
"Weren't you planning something for when Jieun comes back?"
Hayun said only that, and turned away.
"It's the broadcast room, isn't it."
THWACK!
Rose drove a punch into a kaijin and spoke. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Even with Jieun gone, the kaijin were still moving. Circuits kept running for a while even after their supply was cut. Unless the fight was ended outright, the kaijin might rampage forever.
"Wasn't she going to broadcast something? Can't we do it in her place? That was the plan from the start, wasn't it?"
Hayun swung her sword. Its light was brighter now than it had been moments before.
"No."
Hayun said.
"But in this situation, it's not something we should do."
Right. Because Jieun had come to do it herself.
She must want to spit out everything festering inside her. The reason she fought so desperately was that she was that desperate.
How much would actually change if Jieun spoke the truth here? The Company would deny everything, no question. The Federation wouldn't help. The government would stand by and watch. Public outrage might change something—maybe the government would grudgingly open an investigation—
But Jieun would not come out of it safe. They would hunt her down and eliminate her before any investigation ever concluded.
"..."
I was a fool.
She had thought she could testify at the trial. Even if the Federation tried to drag Jieun away, Hayun would step in and stop them. That was why she'd flown off with Cherry.
But would things really have gone the way Hayun imagined?
Jieun must have been dying of the injustice. None of this should have happened to her in the first place. Being made to suffer for a crime she never committed—that was simply wrong. No matter how many people denied it, no matter how deeply the truth was buried and twisted, Jieun simply refused to give up.
That was why she had come here. Even if it all ended, even if everything went wrong, even if it cost her her life—she wanted to say that she had been wronged. Just that one thought. Because there was no other way left.
Hayun gritted her teeth.
I was a fool.
She had thought about everything with herself at the center. She had thought all she had to do was help. Simply help.
But Jieun hadn't wanted help. She was simply doing what she could—on her own strength, without giving up. Giving it her all even in the worst of situations. Flailing against despair with everything she had.
Hayun hadn't known—
No. Saying she'd never even thought to wonder would be closer to the truth.
"We have to let Jieun do what she came here to do."
Hayun closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Her circuit spun.
"...Why?"
Delphinium asked. Before her, a colossal mass of mana blazed; beside it, Dahlia fired off small clusters again and again, her face drenched in sweat. Behind them, Iris was all but machine-gunning the monkey-like aliens rising from the rear.
Why?
Hayun found it hard to answer. Because the reason was an emotional one. Because it simply felt like the thing she had to do. Because those words, of all things, were something Hayun could not take from her. That girl had suffered so much to make it this far—Hayun couldn't steal even that effort from her. Because so much had already been taken from her.
When the Complex was destroyed, Jieun had saved people too. Hayun had seen it, plain as day. But only the magical girls were praised. They were condemned for failing to stop the terror, yet in the end they were lauded for having stepped forward—for doing their duty in a place that dangerous, braving that risk.
After Jieun stole the Generator, the magical girls were condemned. But at the same time, they were defended. Success or failure didn't matter—merely going there was enough. Rushing into the enemy's lair to fight had always been the magical girls' job.
The kaijin encounter had been the worst of all. Before anyone noticed, the magical girls had become the heroes who defeated the kaijin. The ones who rescued the hostages and drove off the rampaging 'black magical girl.' There must have been photos. Video. And yet the voices pointing fingers at the magical girls were always a minority.
Their friend turned villain, after all. They were betrayed. Of course it would weigh on their hearts. Yes. But it's all right. In the end, they'll rise again and fight for justice.
Because they're magical girls.
Righteously. Always righteously—
Even if it hurts people.
It was because of that justice. Everything that had driven Jieun this far—all of it.
And yet, the effort Jieun had poured into coming this far. Her struggle within despair. To take that from her, just because their way seemed more righteous, more reasonable—that was something Hayun could not do.
"..."
Rose looked down at her gauntlets. They were glowing.
Hope.
Ironically, Hayun felt hope in this very moment. When everything was over—if they could somehow hold this place, endure until Jieun arrived—then at the very least, they might manage to exchange a few words. Yes. At least—
Jieun had left after hearing Hayun's words. Leaving that person behind, too. So then, surely there was at least a possibility. Didn't that mean Jieun trusted Hayun's words, even a little?
"...All right."
Hayun couldn't tell whether Rose had read what she was feeling. But looking at Hayun, Rose nodded.
"We've been borrowing like crazy this whole time, after all."
Then she smiled faintly and squared up against the kaijin.
"..."
The other girls were the same. Well—they were already fighting.
Hayun pressed her lips tight and simply nodded. Then, raising her glowing sword, she charged at the kaijin.