Security Reinforcement
The day after the ‘potato party’ ended.
“So I’ll take the disciplinary action in your place.”
“Rather than taking it in your place—”
“In cases like this, just cleanly admit you’re taking it for him.”
When I laid out yesterday’s events in front of Mr. Curtis and Mr. James, Mr. Curtis let out a low chuckle.
Mr. James toyed with his beard as if he meant to speak, then seemed to sink into thought.
“It’s not really something you’d call a disciplinary action, but well—it’s only a formal punishment anyway. Besides, with results like this, what would anyone gain by blaming someone else? Especially when everyone’s still happy and looking forward to more thanks to yesterday’s potatoes.”
“Ah, right. The Rangers stopped by the vegetable garden. They were really curious about when they could eat them again.”
“…Strictly speaking, it’s not just the Rangers who are curious. Right?”
Mr. Curtis thumped him on the back, and Mr. James scratched his head with an awkward look.
“Yesterday… yes, it was delicious. There just wasn’t really a chance to say so.”
“The guy who stuffed himself, drank, and passed out first. Huh. Tsk.”
“Father said he wouldn’t eat any, then after one bite declared it was the taste of memories—”
“…Ahem!”
I was glad the potatoes seemed to have played a truly large role.
In many ways. For many people.
They must have more than paid for their lives.
“So, I’ll post this notice? While making a bulletin board?”
“Yes.”
A ‘bulletin board’ for hanging notices about punishments or rewards.
Or a sort of leisure item for sharing pictures and various bits of news with one another.
In games, if you installed one, the same pictures or the same letters with only the names changed would occasionally float up and vanish—but how would it work here?
With Hartwell and her solid drawing skills around, it was something to look forward to.
“Well, it’s your choice now.”
“Then at least you two don’t oppose this decision.”
“No complaints here.”
“The one who almost died says it’s fine, and the one who almost killed him is reflecting. Well…. What more is there to say.”
“Ah, Sarah might protest a bit about why you’re taking the punishment… but she hasn’t run into the doctor herself recently either. The sound of her throwing up everything she’d eaten once echoed through the whole hallway.”
“Father.”
“She has a right to know. You’re shouldering the cross for him instead.”
…Then I should just decide like this. Yeah.
I felt more cautious with every action I took, but… this way might be better.
Whether outside the game or inside it—there had been people who only voiced their dissatisfaction after I made a decision.
Reacting then had been really, really hard, but being able to ask one by one like this now was a good thing.
“Ah, and… this.”
Mr. James tilted his head as he lifted the various signs laid out beside the plank that would become the bulletin board.
“No Entry… Unmanned Turret Operating Ahead… No Loot…? Weren’t the unmanned turrets meant to drive away not just the mutants but hostile people as well?”
“That’s true, but people looking for a place to evacuate, or those coming to trade, at least need to know.”
“…Trade, huh.”
“Then what about those Nazi bastards from last time… or the fanatic spies trying to sneak in under false identities?”
“So I’ve thought of some things.”
There was a reason I’d been busy in the workshop since morning.
These weren’t even all the items I had.
“Would you come with me to where the passages are?”
I led the two of them to the ‘plaza’ where four passages met.
Desks and chairs already moved into place.
And on one side stood a steel door of the sort you’d put on a prison cell, set out for installation.
“Using the disciplinary period for interior decorating?”
“Making full use of the space. Look.”
Above Passage 1 I had already hung a sign.
[Temporary Lodging]
“Temporary lodging?”
“The Rangers said the space they found has three rooms that could work as living quarters. But we’ve already settled here, haven’t we?”
“That’s right.”
“So I plan to use this place, cut off from us, as a temporary holding area for visitors or anyone we have doubts about. We’ll block the passage leading from the residential zone after dumping the bodies, then use the table here to inspect people who’ve passed the turrets, confiscate belongings… that sort of thing.”
“…Why bother keeping people we suspect around at all?”
“People who came to trade won’t spend much time here anyway, so it can be a place to rest briefly. People who came looking for shelter… if they have skills or knowledge we need, we’ll have reason to take them in, so we can keep them for a while and run additional checks.”
“How are you planning to check them? Make them shout ‘Hitler, you son of a bitch’ like last time? Hm?”
“Koff—cough?!”
I choked.
…Who would have guessed that one would turn out to be an ambitious leader plotting rebellion.
“Ahem, ahem. I’m planning a longer detention period.”
But now I knew better.
“Anyone who needs our help will actually welcome staying longer. If they’re in a hurry to return and deliver information, both the side that sent them and the side they left will start getting anxious.”
It was a method used often even in Concrete Under.
Spies usually tried to move alone and aimed to slip away at the first opportunity.
Last time we’d been so short-handed we’d taken anyone we could get, but there was no need for that now.
“That’s a good method too, but how about installing listening devices in these living quarters?”
“Listening devices—”
“In a situation like this, who’d even know whether there are bugs or not? Provided you can make them, of course. Even in our day we had listening devices. In the end they’re not that different from a telephone—just a microphone that’s always on.”
That… might work as well.
But what worried me was that a listening device, once made, was the sort of object that left a bad taste by its very nature.
“Um, it doesn’t bother you?”
“What does?”
“The fact that I’m making listening devices… itself?”
“You want to listen to an old man relieving his worries in the toilet or something?”
“…Father.”
I’d asked a serious question.
Mr. Curtis was always like this.
“If you’ve made a bulletin board, use it. Or gather everyone and explain. It’s not a complicated matter.”
“It doesn’t leave a bad feeling?”
“You think I might stick a knife in your back? If I were going to do that, I’d already have blasted you square in the face with one of those slugs you made.”
“It’s not that simple a problem, Father.”
“And yet we can still suspect Hyunwoo? After coming this far?”
Mr. James looked at me for a moment.
“…No.”
And he answered without hesitation.
Wearing a smile that said there was no helping it.
“Then it’s settled. Or you could… no, Sarah’s been handling the assistant work. Have Sarah count them herself or something.”
“I have no intention of using them on any of you. Of course not.”
Normally, listening devices were things you secretly planted on people you suspected of being enemies.
Or things you built to confirm signs of internal rebellion.
But because their very purpose was to ‘suspect’ others, they could shake internal cohesion, so I’d been careful—yet this was the reaction I got.
“Do you trust us?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then it’s settled. It eases your mind as well. Doesn’t it? Honesty makes everything easier. Among ourselves, of course.”
Mr. Curtis snorted once and turned his head toward the steel door as if the conversation were over.
Then he began examining it here and there.
The places where nails had been driven.
The small rectangular viewing slit that could open and close, just like in the movies.
Still.
“Then who manages the listening devices?”
Mr. James seemed more than a little concerned; he raised his hand slightly.
“I’m going to make a security room. And the people in charge of internal security—Mr. James, Mr. Curtis—”
“You want to put an old man with bad ears in charge of something? Have Sarah do it. Or the Rangers. Or how about Matthew Newman, who was handling the office work?”
“…True, Mr. Matthew has only been stuck with odd jobs.”
That might actually be better.
Of course, I had no intention of leaving the same person on listening duty for long.
“Then the discussion’s finished.”
“Yes.”
“Then get that heavy backside of yours moving. From the sound of it, you’ve got a filthy amount of work today.”
“One, two, three!”
— Clank, clunk.
The .50-caliber heavy machine gun, now even heavier, was installed in the straight section of Passage 2.
It felt like only yesterday that Mr. Curtis had been the one blazing away with it, laughing like a madman.
“All right—everyone step back.”
Once I saw the onlookers take a step back, I connected the power cable to the turret.
— Beep-beep.
With the startup sound it lifted its head.
If this followed the game, it shouldn’t be able to turn toward the rear.
— Beep. Beep.
Watching it swivel only about forty-five degrees left and right, it seemed successful.
A red light had come on in the lens on the laser side as well, so the camera was working normally.
“So… does this thing just shoot everything in front of it?”
“Want to see?”
At Mr. Carlos’s question I picked up a board lying nearby and tossed it straight in front of the turret.
— Waaang.
The warning tone blasted from a speaker with terrible sound quality, and every body present flinched.
But.
— Click.
We’d never loaded an ammunition belt, so no bullets were going to fire.
— Click, click.
After pulling the trigger a few more times, the mechanism lifted its muzzle from the board and began scanning the surroundings again.
Success.
“…Huh.”
The materials that went into the unmanned turret were a camera lens, sensors, a laser sight, a mounted machine gun, a speaker, electronic components, a power supply unit—and electronic knowledge.
The electronics magazines they’d brought me were all written in English I couldn’t make sense of, yet my eyes naturally read the various diagrams and blueprints.
“Making something like this underground out of scrap metal—what the hell even is this.”
“You get used to it after a while. Yeah. You do get used to it… do you?”
Even the mere thought of wanting it linked to a computer made my hands simply twist, braid, and connect a few extra wires.
The way people reacted was so realistic… yet my own body sometimes felt, as I noticed now and then, like it belonged to someone else.
“Anyway, that means there’s no ammo.”
“Right.”
“…Then, let’s see.”
When Mr. Carlos stepped in front of the turret, it immediately swung its head and locked onto him.
The empty gun’s trigger kept making a dry tick, tick sound.
“Well, if it’s just something to block a passage, this level’s fine. But I don’t know. The ability not to shoot friendlies or anything like that is…”
“That needs a more complicated device. RFID… I think it was called.”
Among the things usually just labeled ‘electronic components,’ that was the one item you had to acquire separately.
It was the material for friend-or-foe identification systems, and also for the keycards needed to enter certain ‘secure zones.’
Getting it was never easy.
Unless you searched high-security military warehouses or factory complexes on the surface, maybe.
Asking ‘The Teacher’ was another option, but…
“Hmm. Then if we just had that RF-whatever, mounting this on a vehicle or something…”
“It’s not impossible. No.”
“Hmmm.”
Mr. Carlos nodded with interest and walked around behind the turret.
The muzzle followed his body to its limit, then swung back to face forward.
“Then let’s just hook up the ammo box and the sign and head back, Mr. ‘Disciplinary Action.’”
“…Yes, yes.”
His hand playfully tapped my shoulder, gently herding me toward the front of the turret.
Mr. Carlos briefly unplugged the cable and cut the power.
In the meantime, with everyone watching, I hung a sign on the passage that led to the right.
“Done.”
The moment I returned, Mr. James pulled an ammo can from the pack on his back.
— Rattle-rattle-rattle.
The belt of rounds came sliding out of the can.
— Creeeak.
The top cover opened.
— Click. Clack.
The belt was seated and the cover closed.
— Clack.
The bolt was yanked back roughly by a muscular hand, then released.
When the power came back on, the startup sound returned.
From now on, unless it jammed, it would shred everything in front of it.
“So if someone walks forward from now on…”
“A setup with four .50-caliber machine guns is called a ‘Quad .50.’ What’s its nickname, Blue-Collar?”
“Uh, well…”
When Mr. Carlos hummed the question, Mr. Matthew swallowed hard and glanced around for cues.
“Meat Chopper.”
“M-Meat Chopper?”
But it was Mr. James who actually answered.
At the same time, Mr. Matthew’s face went a little pale.
“Hey, I asked the civilian!”
“It’s something Father used to talk about a lot. Ah, the Germans mounted four 20 mm ones, didn’t they?”
“Keh—are the veteran old man’s history quizzes on the exam now, Mr. Straight-A?”
On the way back, smiling quietly, I checked the red laser cutting through the dark one more time.
…If there was anything to worry about, it was the fact that this was a .50-caliber.
Would whatever ran into that still have enough of a body left to understand a call to surrender?
— Beep-beep.
— Beep-beep.
— Beep-beep.
— Beep. Bee-bee-beep.
— Waaang.