A Spark in the Ashes

The market street had yet to recover from the scars left behind by F.

Once bustling at night with people washing away the day's fatigue with alcohol, pickpockets hunting for prey, and merchants slashing prices to earn a single copper, the place was now relatively desolate.

I sat at an outdoor table of a food stall and scanned the surroundings.

Voices were hushed, and crucially, there were very few people walking around.

"Everyone spent all their cash because of F. Once payday rolls around, the crowds will be back."

The woman sitting across from me said.

She was a woman who reeked of gunpowder from head to toe.

Her blonde hair was loosely tied back, and her dark roots had grown out noticeably, showing it had been a while since her last dye job.

Her gaze was sharp, but the lenses of her glasses—haphazardly held together with glue and tape—softened her fierce eyes.

Every time she scratched her head or moved, a shower of gunpowder drifted down. I half-expected sparks to fly if she clapped her hands.

United Human Forces East Asia Operations Command, 5th Corps, 13th Mechanized Infantry Division, 6th Engineer Brigade, 2nd Bridging Company, Lieutenant Lee Ha-neul.

Once she realized I was a fellow soldier—and a prosthetic arm user at that—she revealed her unit.

It was a unit I had shared the battlefield with a few times.

A bridging company was responsible for laying down bridges where the army needed to strike. When battle commenced, they were deployed alongside the vanguard, their primary mission to forge the "path" for our forces to advance.

If our Shoeshine Unit was the one guarding the absolute rear during a retreat, her bridging company was the very first to be thrown in during an assault.

In other words, she was a veteran.

"You were Shoeshine? Whoa. Elite."

Lee Ha-neul clicked her tongue in admiration upon hearing my affiliation.

"The 6th Engineer Brigade is the one that stood at the vanguard of every battle, isn't it?"

"Oh, come on, don't be so formal. It's embarrassing. We look about the same age anyway. Just speak casually."

Lee Ha-neul said, tipping her glass.

"Still, once we clear the path, we retreat. Sure, we risk our lives going in, but we're a unit that's actually allowed to run away."

Because bridging companies operated heavy engineering equipment, they were relatively lightly armed. Thus, once they paved the "path" for the assault, they would quickly withdraw to hand over the line to the combat branches.

"On the other hand, the Shoeshine Unit was the shield at the very back. Virtually no retreat. From the outside, it looked like a unit designed just to die, but somehow you guys always managed to survive."

In the beginning, we lost a lot of people too.

There was even a battle where more than two-thirds of our forces were wiped out in a single engagement.

But everything changed when the Captain took command.

"Looks like you've crossed the line between life and death quite a few times yourself."

Lee Ha-neul said, staring at the prosthetic arm on my left side.

Already riddled with scratches, the prosthetic arm was now a complete mess, dented and cracked in multiple places from the fight with F. The pinky finger wouldn't even fold properly.

I had tried to repair it in my own way under CC's constant nagging, but there was a limit to what I could do.

In the first place, a prosthetic arm was a consumable.

Throughout my life, if it broke, I simply swapped it out; I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠never really thought about fixing one up to reuse it.

"Anyway, nice to meet you. Let's get along."

Lee Ha-neul slung her arm over my shoulder, pulling me close.

She smelled acrid, sour, and faintly of metallic blood.

"Ah, I'd love to introduce you to Kang-ho, too."

Kang-ho. It was a name I had heard plenty of times.

"Are you acquainted with Choi Kang-ho?"

"You know Kang-ho?"

Of course I did.

The soldier who had been infected by F and fought a battle of souls with me at the recycling factory.

He had been dragged away by Maetan's guards to have his neck-hub extracted.

A few days had passed since then, but I hadn't seen him yet. His picture wasn't in the funeral procession, so was he still alive?

"I've run into him a few times while working."

"Really? He's a bit of a sly one, but he's a good guy. He's a big spender, too, so it's not a bad idea to know him. Just a while ago, he bought a massive load of fertilizer from me..."

"Fertilizer?"

"Yeah, I distribute fertilizer on the side. Do you need some too? Interested in gardening?"

I recalled the white powder that had blown up my house.

The musty smell and the metallic tang of damp iron.

The tiny, white, transparent crystals scattered across the floor, gleaming under the moonlight.

Those were ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

"...What did Choi Kang-ho say he was buying it for?"

"I didn't ask. What else would you use fertilizer for? He probably spread it on his garden. He bought quite a lot, though. Guess he's starting a farm."

"...He spread it in my house."

Lee Ha-neul froze mid-sip.

She stared at me intently with her sharp eyes, then said nonchalantly:

"Do you and Kang-ho not get along?"

I didn't hold a particular grudge against Kang-ho.

Frankly, until my house was blown to smithereens, I didn't even hold much of a grudge against F.

"I thought he was putting it on a field... He put it in your house? That must have been rough."

"Thanks to that, my house was vaporized. The only reason I moved here is because I lost my place to live."

"Wow, but you're lucky you didn't get caught in the blast. If you'd been inside, even with our augmentations, we would've been torn to shreds."

"I did get caught in it. I opened the door and walked right into a booby trap."

"And you survived that?"

Lee Ha-neul's eyes widened in shock as she looked at me.

"That was enough to level an entire house... Well, you're alive, so that's what matters, right? Have a drink."

She poured fresh alcohol into my glass.

"So, did you kill Kang-ho?"

"I didn't kill him. But I have no idea where he is or what he's doing right now."

"Hmm. I hope he's alive."

"What exactly are you doing?"

I looked up at her room, where dark smoke was still billowing out.

She had claimed that since a combustion reaction had already started, there was nothing she could do. She said we just had to wait for it to burn itself out, and her inviting me for a drink to pass the time was how we ended up at this food stall.

Something flickered brightly inside her window.

"Are you absolutely sure it won't catch fire?"

"Positive. It's just a lot of smoke; it doesn't react well at low temperatures."

I desperately hoped so.

I didn't want to lose my home to a fire on my very first day here.

"What are you even making?"

It didn't seem like she was simply making a bomb.

I wasn't an expert, but I had handled a few types of explosives commonly used on the battlefield.

However, the scent clinging to her and the smoke currently billowing out were different from any explosives I was familiar with.

"That? I'm mixing rocket fuel."

"A rocket? You mean a missile?"

It was the most powerful weapon humanity had ever created, but it hadn't played much of a role in the war against the AI.

This was because the anti-air capabilities of the multi-legged tanks were far too formidable. Most missiles were shot down in midair before they could even get close to their targets.

"Strictly speaking, it's the same technology... but what I'm researching is that. Something that breaks through the atmosphere and goes up into the sky."

Lee Ha-neul said, pointing toward the sky.

When I was a child, the sky had still been blue.

Back then, Earth was still called the blue planet.

But the sky now was different.

A pale purple.

The nanomachines scattered across the entire globe had robbed humanity of starlight and blue skies.

Well, they did give us auroras that appeared at all hours of the day in return.

"I'm going to build a rocket that can pierce through the Wardenclyffe nanomachines and reach space."

The sky had turned purple because of the nanomachines humanity itself had released.

The Wardenclyffe ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠System.

It was a global wireless power transmission network blanketed across Earth's atmosphere, which also functioned as a magnetic prison blocking wireless communications.

Early in the war, humanity, bitter about losing their drones to F's hacking, had dragged an old, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠abandoned project out of storage.

That was the Wardenclyffe System.

Its original purpose was global wireless power transmission.

A project designed to supply electricity anywhere on Earth.

However, it had been frozen once they realized the magnetic field generated by the system severely interfered with wireless communications.

Yet, humanity chose to focus on that exact interference.

In an attempt to stop the AI from controlling drones, they blanketed the entire planet with Wardenclyffe nanomachines.

The result was a success.

With wireless communication blocked, F could no longer remotely hack drones.

Instead, it began manufacturing autonomous weapons embedded with its own replication chips—the Machine Species.

To make matters worse, those machines utilized Wardenclyffe's power transmission system to gain virtually infinite operational uptime.

That was the exact moment humanity's defeat was sealed.

"I heard breaking through the atmosphere is impossible because of the Wardenclyffe System. It's supposed to be incredibly hot up there."

"The satellite battleships seem to pierce through it just fine."

The satellite battleships were humanity's motherships orbiting Earth.

They rarely showed themselves, but in strategically vital battles, they would occasionally appear, rain down devastating bombardments, and vanish.

"What are you going to do once you get to space?"

Lee Ha-neul furrowed her brow.

Her gaze made me feel like a pathetic creature she pitied.

"Man, you have absolutely no romance in you."

Lee Ha-neul raised her glass and spoke solemnly.

"Why do you need a purpose to go to space? Going to space is the purpose itself!"

Though she spoke as if making a grand declaration, her expression quickly brightened, and her voice returned to its usual playful tone.

"It's a hobby. Life is short, and the war is over. Shouldn't we do what we want? Oh, are you one of those guys who thinks the war is still going on?"

The war with F was officially over, practically in a state of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠truce, and unofficially ongoing.

While full-scale clashes between armies and machine legions no longer occurred, F still threatened humanity's territories with overwhelming firepower.

Lee Ha-neul said.

"There are no higher-ups telling us to fight anymore. The moment we lay down our guns, the war is over."

It was a statement worth pondering.

But for me, the war had not ended. No, I couldn't let it end. Not after that day, when my comrades fell to friendly fire...

"Huh?"

I looked up from my thoughts of my fallen comrades.

Red flames were dancing inside Lee Ha-neul's room, which had only been emitting black smoke moments ago.

"Isn't that a fire?"

"Pfft!"

Lee Ha-neul spat out her drink.

"Why the hell is it combusting now?! Hey! Go grab a hose! A hose!"

"Aaargh! My hoooouse!"

We bolted upright and ran toward the two-story building that housed her room, my new home, and a shopping bag containing forty million Maetan points.

"I've checked it multiple times, and there's no mistake. It's a quantum processor from our AC Series."

The peaceful streets of Chungmuro.

At an outdoor table in front of the subway station, CC, taking the form of a short-haired blonde girl, stared intently at a quantum processor slightly smaller than her fist.

"But why isn't there any reaction? You were inside the quantum processor I took from the safe."

"If a physical quantum processor is like a human body, then a quantum processor on the network is like an avatar. Normally, we should reside within this processor."

CC set the quantum processor down on the table.

"But if we obtain an alternative avatar like I have now, we can migrate from the quantum processor to the avatar and move around. Of course, since the quantum processor is our core, we still need it..."

Even now, the data of CC's quantum processor occupied a corner of my neck-hub. It took up quite a bit of space. I had once tried to delete it, but CC had flown into a rage and treated me like absolute garbage, so I gave up.

"Then does that mean the AC Series AI that was stored in this processor has also obtained an avatar and is wandering around?"

"It seems so."

"Where are they?"

CC marked an arrow pointing toward a distant location.

Transportation routes leading to the arrow's direction appeared before my eyes.

I walked to the nearest bus stop and boarded a bus.

The moment I tapped my T-money card: