If You Can't Avoid It (3)
If You Can't Avoid It (3)
Inside a dark room,
a woman with a gorgeous appearance rendered as a hologram laughed in the air.
[Hahaha! You moved in not too long ago, and now you're moving again? What are you, swimming in credits?]
"I didn't move completely! ...I just bought another place."
Exhausted from the argument, Catherine tilted her head back.
The ceiling—clean to put it nicely, stark to put it harshly—naturally filled her field of view.
'...It really is cramped.'
Given the nature of her mercenary work, she had to travel all over the place.
As a result, Catherine maintained her own hideouts across various districts.
From the waste zones to Neon City.
She'd been through countless houses, but even so, this one was seriously cramped.
'...I genuinely can't fathom what's so great about such a tiny place that he moved here.'
Thinking of a certain Mage, Catherine mused.
[It's the same thing, you crazy bitch.]
"I told you, I just made another hideout."
[Ah, yes, yes. Is that so?]
The person on the hologram call kept laughing.
Catherine didn't like the other person's reaction.
But her colleague's eccentricities weren't anything new, so she was used to ignoring them.
[You called me so suddenly during Eve's stream time, I thought something had happened.]
"...I was just letting you know. We're colleagues, aren't we?"
[This is something you should call a worry consultation, my friend.]
"......."
A voice laced with profanity, telling her to cut the bullshit, rose to the back of Catherine's throat.
The reason she couldn't spit out those words was that they weren't wrong, either.
Catherine quietly cooled her anger.
[Come to think of it, what about the person who was living in that house? ...Don't tell me.]
"No, what, do I go around killing people? ...I just paid them a bit extra in credits and sent them on their way."
That was also why securing this cramped room had cost far more credits than the average market price.
'...But where the hell did that bastard run off to.'
Yet, faced with the reality that the very person who had made her acquire the house had run away once again,
Catherine's head began to ache.
The woman's hologram, having caught that hint of emotion, shook with laughter once more.
[Ah, seriously. She's pushing this hard and the guy is totally clueless. Maybe she should try being a bit more proactive, I dunno?]
"......Forget it. I'll stick to what I've been doing. He's been trying to suddenly put distance between us lately anyway, so I'm being careful in case something's up."
And that was the truth.
For reasons unknown, Lee Si-woon had noticeably ramped up actions aimed at distancing himself from Catherine.
And from his other colleagues as well.
[Why not ask him sometime later if you get the chance? ...I'm a little curious too.]
"I will."
Why the hell was he running away?
Because of worries that didn't suit her, Catherine's musings grew long.
[Oh, shit.]
"What?"
[Turn on NCB News channel 4 right now.]
"What is it now?"
Who had time to watch the news right now?
She thought that, but Catherine followed the other's words and pulled up the news program.
A new screen interface appeared on the opposite side of where the hologram image had been floating.
《We are currently at a cafe in North Houston, the scene forcibly occupied by the radical eco-fascist group 'Eco Warriors'.》
"What, it's just ordinary news."
[Keep watching.]
She didn't see what was so special about terrorists appearing in Neon City that she had to be told to watch.
Catherine continued to watch the news without any particular interest.
《This is footage from inside the cafe, provided by the terrorists. You can see many Neon City citizens are being held captive.》
"......Huh?"
Why was he there?
[Haha! Look at that guy's face—not a hint of crisis. Out of all the hostages, he's the only one whose face is off in its own world.]
The person on the hologram call said that while laughing. But that voice didn't reach Catherine's ears.
"I'm hanging up."
[Huh?]
- Kwang!
Soon, her figure vanished from the room.
Only the traces of a shattered door remained where the entrance had once been.
2. If You Can't Avoid It (3)
And so, present time.
"Who are the bastards who grabbed my friend!!"
...How the hell did she even know to come here?
Forgetting the fact that an Orc terrorist had a tight grip on the scruff of my neck, I waved my hand.
And in that same moment, her gaze turned toward me.
- Kwajik, Kung!!
I couldn't even see what had happened.
The sound of something tearing and falling over.
All I felt was a very faint breeze brushing past my face.
Given the circumstances, the Orc that had been occupying my back had clearly fallen, but there was one strange thing.
The sensation of the Orc's grip still holding the scruff of my neck hadn't disappeared.
I subtly looked back.
I saw the Orc, collapsed with its hand completely ripped off, writhing in agony.
......Having grasped the situation, I slowly moved my hands. I peeled the Orc's hand (an independent entity) that was still on my nape and placed it gently on the floor.
Only then did the severed Orc hand squirm on its own, splattering electrolytic fluid and blood everywhere.
Catherine spoke to me in an urgent voice.
"Are you okay?"
"...Uh, yeah?"
"......Phew."
This time, I asked Catherine, who was sighing in relief.
"But how did you know to come here?"
Catherine pointed at the camera with her chin.
Ah, the camera.
Well, it was being broadcast, so she could've confirmed my appearance.
What was I thinking?
I thought maybe she'd planted another tracker on me.
It was while we were talking peacefully as if we'd come on a picnic.
"What is this bitch!!"
Belatedly snapping to their senses at the absurd situation, the Orc terrorists shouted.
It was only natural that they simultaneously began to shoot.
I lowered my stance and took a defensive posture.
I pulled up my mana, intent only on blocking the bullets flying toward me.
Anyway, now that she had appeared,
there was nothing I had to do.
She—Catherine—moved in tandem with the gunfire.
She deflected bullets pouring down like rain with only a single palm.
Her movement speed was several times faster than other people's.
Movements using cyberware neural acceleration.
The specs of the implants installed in her body were different from the start.
To the Orc terrorists, she was a disaster no different from a suddenly appearing natural catastrophe.
After one cycle of blocking the pouring bullets, Catherine kept moving.
One kick shattered an abdomen, one punch snapped a neck, making them froth blood from their mouths.
She even snatched a gun from an opponent who was firing and let off a round herself.
Every time she pulled the trigger, blood spurted from areas not covered by bulletproof vests.
Only seconds had passed, but the entire situation was over.
To Catherine, this level of thing wasn't even worth calling a fight.
"Who even uses these old-fashioned guns these days?"
Catherine displayed her nonchalance, carelessly tossing the assault rifle she had used to the floor.
All the terrorists were dead or collapsed, unable to even let out a groan.
As expected of the protagonist.
"Let's just go home."
"...Yeah, sure."
Hm.
If I thought about running away again here, I'd be a crazy bastard, right?
I suppressed the thought, imagining the severe beating I'd get if I actually put that into action.
At that moment, one of the collapsed Orcs struggled to lift its body.
Whoa, that guy there.
Wasn't he the one who got punched and had his neck broken?
How was he alive?
"......If he didn't have an artificial skeleton, he'd have died instantly."
I see.
Catherine, frowning slightly, looked back toward the Orc.
Her weight shifted forward. She looked ready to fly at the Orc and kick him any second.
But the words the Orc spat out while enduring the pain stopped everyone (including the hostages huddled in the corner) in their tracks.
"Cough, everyone stop!! I've just activated a time bomb!"
The Orc removed the tarp covering the equipment.
It was one of the pieces of equipment I hadn't been able to identify earlier.
Its exterior had been covered with a tarp.
Once the covering tarp was removed, the design really did look like a bomb.
What the hell was this about a time bomb?
White numbers on the equipment's black screen were slowly decreasing. A timer.
Remaining time was... 3 minutes?
No, if it only gave us this much time, what the hell were we supposed to do?
"We didn't originally plan to use this bomb! This is all because of you! This entire building is going to blow up!"
"If you were gonna blow it up anyway, it doesn't matter if you die, right?"
"......Huh?"
And those were the Orc's last words.
Catherine wiped her bloody hands with a cloth she'd gotten from somewhere.
"Hey, what do we do now? Should we just run away?"
Indeed, given the state of the Orc terrorists, they weren't the type you could reason with.
Rather than waste time trying to persuade them, it was better to deal with them immediately before they caused another problem.
"Can't you do something with hacking?"
"I'm not a hacking or machine specialist like 'Drex,' how would I? I don't even have the equipment right now. Plus, just looking at it, the security lock is so thick I couldn't even mess with anything."
Fearless, Catherine tapped the ticking bomb with her foot—thump, thump.
Truthfully, I didn't mind just running away.
Because despite what the Orc terrorist said, it wasn't like the bomb would go off because of us specifically.
Instead, all the people in the building who couldn't evacuate within 3 minutes would end up collecting their death insurance.
I didn't know the extent of the bomb's power, but
given the Orc terrorist's claim that the whole building would be blown away, the surrounding damage was also estimated to be severe.
Even so, we had no means at our disposal to do anything about it.
As the time gradually decreased,
I ultimately decided to tell Catherine to just run away.
[It can't be helped—I confess.]
"Huh?"
[Beginning hack. ......Complete. The bomb has been stopped.]
"Huuuh?"
"Have you lost your mind, talking to yourself?"
No.
I checked the bomb just in case.
The bomb's timer had really stopped.
Catherine, who couldn't hear Eve's voice, didn't know what had happened, but followed my gaze to look at the bomb and spoke.
"What's this, how did it stop?"
"...Uh. Well, um. ......I studied."
For now, I lied to get past the situation.
No—if I'd just said it stopped on its own, would she have bought that?
But a lie already spoken couldn't be taken back.
"That's funny. One time, you said you were a Mage, but what was it—Heroes don't do studying? And so you wouldn't learn hacking either, you said."
"......A detailed explanation will be omitted."
I barely managed to avert my eyes from Catherine's gaze, which was full of questions.
Right now, the important thing wasn't making excuses to Catherine.
Eve.
A somewhat special AI.
The network connection was clearly supposed to be impossible.
How did she attempt 'hacking', and even succeed?
For a moment, Catherine moved elsewhere, saying she was going to check what the Orcs had on them.
I guess it's because she's the protagonist. She liked looting.
I took that chance to speak in a low voice.
"......Let's talk about this later."
[...I acknowledge.]
My head suddenly started to hurt.
Personally, this gave me a bigger headache than the terrorists appearing.
While I was holding my head and agonizing,
the NCPD team, who arrived late, entered the cafe.
...They sure came in fast.
They glanced around once and then walked toward us.
"NCPD. Could you possibly explain the situation?"
If they saw the cameras, wouldn't they know everything?
The camera the terrorists brought must have still been filming.
And Catherine's movements to resolve the situation would have all been on air too.
[...I hacked that as well, I confess.]
......Well.
Then it was possible they didn't know.
"It is as you see."
"So the two of you are saying you neutralized all the terrorists...?"
"No. I did nothing—it was that friend over there."
Just then, Catherine, who appeared to have finished looting all the Orcs' pockets, walked this way.
"What is it now?"
"NCPD. Excuse me, but could I check your ID?"
At my words that a single person had neutralized all the terrorists alone, the NCPD's demeanor changed.
Catherine pulled out a card from her chest pocket.
It wasn't the biometric ID provided by the city.
It was issued by a corporation. Corporate-issued IDs are made in card format to prevent forgery and hacking.
The complexion of the NCPD officer who received the ID visibly shifted.
"...Confirmed. Catherine Lee. You are free to leave the scene."
From behind that NCPD officer, another officer who looked like a subordinate raised his voice.
"Sunbae! We still need to investigate...."
"...Just shut up for a bit."
"Pardon?"
"Have you never even seen a Monolith Corps Level 1 ID? ......Not just anyone carries those around."
"...Ah."
Though they lowered their voices to speak quietly, I heard everything.
For reference, I had one of those too.
Aren't they going to check mine?
"Shall I show you my ID as well?"
"No. Your companion may leave as well."
I felt oddly disappointed.
Why aren't they checking mine....
With practiced ease, Catherine accepted the ID the NCPD officer handed back.
I spoke to her.
"Let's just go home now."
"...No. Since we're both out anyway, let's go hang out together. You'll come, right?"
"......It's a pain though."
Hmm.
I studied Catherine as I mulled it over.
Her golden eyes sparkled.
...They were needlessly pretty, making it hard to just refuse.
Still, she did save me from the terrorists, and she wouldn't drag me around all day.
They say if you can't avoid it, enjoy it.
"Then, shall we?"
"Great! Then follow me."
An outing with just the two of us was quite rare.
...It even felt a little like a date.
'Am I running low on energy lately? We're not even in that kind of relationship.'
I settled my unnecessarily fluttering heart.
....
.......
It really wasn't.
......A date, my ass.
The course we went on together was as follows.
Checking new products at a firearms specialty store, searching for combat implants at an implant specialty store, just shooting at a shooting range, browsing illegal weapons at the Lower Layer's black market, etc.
On top of that, I was dragged around all day.
...Well, date my ass.
The fault was mine for expecting one.
She must have found it genuinely enjoyable.
Catherine's own expression was extremely bright.
And so, another day came to an end.
* * *
And the next day.
"I'm fucked."
I spoke while looking at a blue graph plunging through the floor and down into the basement.
My stock (what used to be) had crashed.
It was summer.