Opposite Tastes
They hadn't been facing off long, neither side willing to drop their guard, when the silence broke — not by me, and not by Serra, but by the familiar cry of a monster.
— Grrrrrk……!
"Hemocytes!"
"Damn it, scatter!"
Two variants burst from the building next door, spotted us, and came charging at full speed.
Serra drove her plasma sword into the floor and swung it at one of them.
Only moments earlier, hearing my real voice had left her completely rattled. Fortunately, her survival instincts weren't dull enough to forget what took priority right now.
— Kieeeeeek!!
I'd been uneasy — I'd struggled against these things even in a powered suit before — but the worry faded almost at once. She weaved past four thrashing tentacles as if she were dancing, severing them one by one, then drove her blade straight into the variant's eye socket.
The screaming creature's flailing arm caught her, but her ability was a durable body and regenerative recovery. She bounced off like a ball, came back to my side, and immediately drew the other sword I'd tucked against my hip, catching her breath.
"Hold it!"
"Don't close in — keep your arms fully extended!"
"Aagh! My leg!"
"Mark! Damn it, help over here! More incoming!"
The survivors, by contrast, looked like they had no room to spare — five of them piled on and still couldn't get the upper hand. The gap in combat power between ordinary people and a Crown Guard, and the difference in equipment, meant their approach to fighting variants was entirely different.
A defense team held up iron plates shaped like car hoods to block acid spray and tentacles. Through the gaps, the others jammed current rods crackling with blue sparks into the joints, one after another. Even wrapped in a hard exoskeleton, these were still lifeforms derived from human bodies — electric shock would still lock the muscles.
"Elena! Bring the fire, hurry!"
Once the creature's movement was somewhat locked down, they used a welding torch to sear the arms and legs into submission. They didn't finish it off completely because crushing the skull would take more firepower than they had, and burn through too much fuel.
— Sizzle!!
Oxidized blue flame from the welding tip whipped across the flesh and erupted into explosive fire. As the foul smell of burning variant meat spread, Elena's grip on the torch grew weaker and weaker.
Primitive as it looked, it was an effective group hunting method. But the difference in size and strength still meant casualties were inevitable.
"The wound isn't that deep."
"There won't just be two of them. We need to run before more come, drawn by the noise."
"Haa, haa……."
"Don't talk, Elena! You're really out of oxygen!"
I looked at her collapsed on the floor — she'd burned through even the air she needed to get back to their shelter. Even as her consciousness faded, she never took her wary eyes off us.
"Serra."
"……."
"Serra, hand her an oxygen tank."
"Ah……!"
I couldn't move myself, so I had no choice but to have Serra do it. She pulled one of the oxygen tanks we'd been using since the airlock from the pack on my back and rolled it across the floor.
Once the connection was unlatched and the blue hose plugged in — pshhh! — Elena's chest rose and fell deeply.
"Hah, haah…… sss, ss."
"Three days from now. Come back here."
I said it to Elena, who'd just barely recovered her breathing.
"If you need it, I'll help."
"……."
Instead of an answer, I heard a small click of her tongue. The survivors supporting her vanished quickly toward the Residence Sector.
Our originally planned third base was the headquarters of a company called CSJ. The reason we'd decided out of nowhere to secure a corporate building as a safe zone was simple: CSJ was a security firm. A massive corporation that provided security services to most of the commercial establishments in Ebon Square. If we could just access their security systems, the advantages would be endless.
Our rendezvous with the military is running late, but they're survivors too. That's why I judged that maintaining contact for now is the more important issue.
We had no way to hack the security system immediately, but physically forcing the front entrance open was child's play. The security robots were armed only with non-lethal rounds, for the ship's safety. There weren't many still operational either, so I gave the creaking ones a few solid knocks to the head and went inside.
They're hostile toward us, but their armament is weak. In terms of mobility, we hold an overwhelming advantage.
Having settled into an empty room on the first floor, I first explained the plan going forward to Serra. The room, formerly a conference room, still had electricity from an emergency generator, and as befitting a security company, it could be fully sealed against biochemical terrorism.
It's an excellent position for assessing the current situation in the Residence Sector. If we can establish good communication, we might even secure a safer living space…….
"Right now! That!! Is NOT!!! What matters———!!!!"
A shout so fierce it nearly blew out my auditory sensors rang through the room, loud enough to strain her throat. Serra glared at me, huffing, her face flushed bright red, grinding her perfect teeth hard. She was so furious that tears had even started to well up.
"What the hell are you, Jin? What exactly are you?!"
I do not fully understand the user's request.
"If you don't start talking in your real voice right now, I'm going back to Bridge 13 and throwing you in a large waste disposal bin."
"……."
The first joke I'd ever heard from her had truly terrible taste. Maybe she was serious.
"Speak. Now."
"……Ahem."
The real question was how much of the truth I should spill. At the very least, I wanted to hide the fact that I was using Serra for power, and that I was actually human — even without any proof. The former would definitely piss her off, and the latter would make me look like a lunatic.
So there was only one conclusion.
Play dumb.
"I couldn't do it from the start. I learned because Serra's instruction was excellent."
"Is that supposed to be an answer?"
"It's not a lie. I'm not an ordinary combat suit, after all."
Combat suit.
At those words, Serra hesitated strangely. Like cognitive dissonance hitting her — as if she'd woken from a fantasy and returned to reality. Even if I looked human, what stood before her eyes was a cold hunk of metal with no body heat, no heartbeat.
"You remember too, Serra. The variant detection sensors, the liquid nutrition — I couldn't use those from the beginning either."
"That's completely different from……."
"I'm saying it's the same."
I extended a mechanical arm and tore open a tea bag packet in the corner of the conference room. The coffee pot still held water that had been sitting for years without evaporating. I poured the boiled water and held out the purple-steeped tea to Serra.
As she took it in a daze, I spoke again using the mechanical voice. All to conserve power.
Even if I produce a human voice, nothing about our situation changes.
"……."
I will continue to do everything I can to survive on this ship together with Serra.
Did she not hear me?
"I will continue to……."
"I heard you! Nothing changes from before!"
Serra snatched the cup and gulped down the tea, then let out a sigh like fire boiling up from her chest. The fact that she could just drink something that hot and only stick her tongue out a little confirmed she really was different from those survivors earlier.
"But I have a mountain of things I want to ask Jin."
I'll answer them carefully. Before that, we need to figure out who those people are and plan our next steps.
"They're probably not the Yeolbang Army. Actually, I have a hunch about……."
Serra had been unbuttoning her uniform to check the spot the variant had hit her earlier, when her hands suddenly stopped. Then she strode over, took control of the suit, and backed me up against the door.
Serra?
"Don't look."
She spun around and continued undressing to check her wounds. Suddenly stuck staring through the door's glass window at a security robot with a smashed head nodding at me, I asked with a somewhat aggrieved feeling.
Didn't you say nothing would change?
"Yes. Nothing changes."
After a beat, the voice that came back was subtly trembling.
"……But from now on, don't look."
Every member of the expedition to Ebon Square had returned alive. There were injuries, but nothing life-threatening. It was clearly encouraging news, yet the atmosphere in the shelter wasn't particularly bright. They'd realized just how dangerous it was to move through a ship with no Life-Conditioning System and a main system that was completely down.
— How was the haul?
— Nothing much around here. Every building still standing has security systems running.
— Well, yeah — they looted everything right before sealing the gates. So do we go farther out?
— With no air? The oxygen tanks have limits.
But the search hadn't been completely fruitless. They'd discovered people freely roaming that extremely dangerous zone.
"They said to come back in three days? Is that for real?"
"How many times do I have to explain? That's exactly what they said."
"I thought I was hallucinating from hypoxia."
Gary, the oldest person in the shelter, asked with relief that Elena and her team had returned safely.
"What were they like? You said they were military — seem trustworthy?"
"Not at all. Even while their subordinate was fighting, they just stared at us without lifting a finger."
She had a prickly personality that could be cold toward people, but she didn't take lives lightly. She was good at fixing things, and the shelter kids oddly followed her around, so it wasn't like her nature was twisted.
"Still, I think we should go back."
Trusting the judgment of the only person who'd actually met and spoken with them was only natural. Still, Gary couldn't help feeling uneasy that the basis for that judgment was extremely personal.
"The guy inside was the absolute worst — but the suit was completely badass."