Red Queen Hypothesis
Under the Red Queen Hypothesis, the building skeletons melted in the fever heat and slid downward like wax. In the distance, skyscrapers twisted into rotting, decaying organisms loomed like the shadows of colossal monsters. The sky was a gunmetal gray laced with ultramarine. Beneath clouds that looked ready to unleash a downpour at any moment, gunshots and explosions clashed in ugly dissonance.
Shaking off the ringing in my ears, I looked forward with my one remaining eye and saw the muzzle of a comrade’s gun. More precisely, the gun of a man who had been my comrade only moments earlier.
“Jude….”
No answer came from the other side. Maybe the explosions had deafened him. Whatever the reason, one thing was certain: I would never hear the voice of that rage-twisted face shouting at me again. The hammer cocked. The revolver’s cylinder spun. His finger rested on the trigger. Even with only one eye, it was obvious the chambers were all empty.
Click.
The trigger clicked on an empty chamber. He hurled the revolver to the ground and ran.
“……”
Was the rifle slung across his back just decoration? The unfortunate revolver simply rolled through the muddy ash-water.
“You awake?”
The one greeting JL as he sat up from the sofa, drenched in cold sweat, was Eileen. When he turned his head, he saw Asa and Eileen already gathered at one table, deep in discussion. JL spent a moment trying to recall what they had been doing.
Right. We were looking into the identity of that drug.
He remembered Eileen telling him to rest while she dug through corporate data. JL pushed himself off the sofa and walked over to them.
“Did you figure out what it is?”
“Looks like this wasn’t a project Violet Science ran alone,” Eileen answered.
“Heavy security, then?”
Eileen nodded. “Way heavier than normal.”
Eileen wasn’t the type to be easily surprised. The fact that even she was calling it strange made JL curious enough to press.
“How heavy are we talking?”
“I managed to identify a few of the connected companies. The names that keep popping up are all heavy hitters.”
“Specifically?”
“Jericho, Ares, Homusubi, Agni. Every single one of them is a megacorp that operates its own Hounds.”
“A multi-corporate joint project. Interesting.”
Asa had already taken one of the test tubes out of her bag and was turning it over in her hands. Even after hearing Eileen’s explanation, she showed no sign of handling it with extra care. She treated it with her usual boldness. To put it nicely, it was bold. From the sidelines it just looked reckless. Since he knew she wasn’t the type to listen even if he told her to be careful, JL kept his mouth shut. Besides, if Asa judged it safe to handle that way, there had to be a reason.
After examining the test tube for a while, Asa suddenly spoke.
“How about testing it on me directly? From what I’ve heard, it seems like it was developed for use on Hounds.”
“Are you insane?”
Eileen’s immediate objection. Asa simply ignored her, popping the cap open without hesitation.
“Even if it is a biochemical weapon, as long as the damage doesn’t exceed my threshold, my body will repair itself. If it’s a drug that affects the mind, it’ll actually make things easier for you two. With this body, restraining me shouldn’t be hard. Plus, I’ve used combat stimulants so many times that I can resist it to a certain degree. So there’s no problem.”
“But…”
“Trust me. Just trust me.”
At that confident declaration, Eileen closed her mouth. JL unintentionally recalled the past at those words, but quickly pushed the memory aside. Eileen paused for a moment, then shrugged as if she had no choice.
“Fine. Do whatever you want. If something goes wrong, you’re cleaning up the mess.”
Asa nodded. Then, without the slightest hesitation, she injected the entire contents of the test tube into her vein. She tossed the now-empty tube onto the table with a clack.
“…It’s cold.”
The drug took effect almost immediately. The substance injected into her bloodstream circulated throughout her body and began acting on her brain. Violet Science had named it Leash. A perfectly malicious name for a drug meant for Hounds. After all, a hunting dog without a collar could no longer be called a hunting dog.
For the first few minutes, Asa shook her head as if fighting off drowsiness. Then, at some point, she simply stared into empty space. Her expression had gone completely slack, eyes vacant as she gazed at the ceiling light.
“Asa.”
Eileen called her name. Asa responded instantly. Those empty eyes turned toward Eileen.
“Oh-ho. So that’s what it’s for.”
Eileen muttered to herself after observing Asa’s reaction. But the moment Asa slammed her own head with all her strength, Eileen jumped in genuine surprise.
“Fuck… that feels disgusting……”
“What? It’s not perfect?”
“Eileen, get me a beer.”
Having shaken off the drug’s effects, Asa immediately asked for alcohol. Eileen spent a long time observing her suspiciously. But when Asa showed no further signs of the earlier lethargy, she reluctantly headed to the fridge to grab a beer. JL followed behind Asa as she staggered toward the sofa.
When Asa leaned back against the sofa, pressing a hand to her forehead, JL asked, “No major side effects? The reaction just now didn’t look completely harmless.”
Asa glanced at him lazily and answered, “Yeah, no problems. Well, my head feels like it’s splitting and my stomach’s churning, but nothing urgent.”
“You really don’t need a separate check…”
“I said trust me. Yeah. Just… believe me……”
It didn’t sound like something she had thought through. More like a phrase that had become habitual. There was no hesitation or resolve in the way Asa told them to trust her. She said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And yet, precisely because of that…
“Asa, here.”
“Whoa……”
Eileen returned with a massive beer mug filled to the brim. Beneath the white foam, the golden liquid shimmered like divine nectar. Asa gripped the oversized mug with both hands and skillfully poured it down her throat. It clearly took some effort, but she somehow managed to get all that liquid inside her.
Watching her, JL thought, At least she’s more reliable than that Jude guy.
While Asa calmed herself with alcohol, Eileen continued analyzing the drug based on her reactions. A little later, when Asa and JL had tangled together on the sofa and fallen asleep, Eileen woke them both up.
“Analysis is done. Like we thought, it only reacts with Hounds. Unless your entire body has been replaced with implants, it doesn’t show any effect under normal conditions.”
“That means it’s extremely potent,” Asa said. Eileen nodded.
“If you gave it to a normal person, they’d die. It’s like pouring a bunch of foreign substances straight into their veins. It’s less a drug and more like fuel. Gasoline, maybe.”
“Fuel?”
“Yeah. Fuel to make the machine called a Hound move according to their will.”
“Hmm.”
Asa made her usual little nasal sound. Eileen looked at her and added, “But judging from your case, it doesn’t seem perfect. There must be additional conditions, or it’s not fully finished yet…”
As she spoke, Eileen sent them the data she had pulled from Violet Science while netrunning. Below the development data for the drug codenamed Leash was a clear stamp that read “COMPLETED.”
CODE NAME: LEASH
PRIMARY TARGET: HOUND UNITS
STATUS:COMPLETED
“It is finished. In its current state, it’s complete.”
“…Finished while still incomplete?”
Eileen shook her head. “I’m not sure if you’re a special case or what. Still, the drug that lets them control Hounds at will is complete.”
“That’s scary.”
“The scarier part is that this wasn’t created by all the companies running Hounds working together.”
Asa tilted her head, momentarily failing to understand. But after checking the additional data Eileen sent, she let out a disbelieving chuckle.
“Even the corporations have factional wars?”
“I don’t know about that, but at least judging from the secret deal with the Rose Group we found last time… the companies not on that list are desperately searching for information on Leash.”
Asa looked at her bag. It contained only fifteen—no, now fourteen—finger-sized test tubes, yet their value was astronomical.
“The sky’s basically the limit on the price. Right now the corporations are in a mad scramble competing over this single drug.”
“Quite the big fish.”
“We accidentally caught a whale. Congratulations.”
Yet Asa seemed completely unmoved. Was it cold-bloodedness? Or simply nonchalance? Put positively, she was simply being herself. The other two had grown used to it by now and couldn’t tell if anything was wrong. Asa lay down again and tried to sleep.
In the mid-levels of the city, in a quiet residential district, two Ares investigators loitered in front of a corner door. They pressed the doorbell, but no answer came from inside. After waiting outside for a while, they chose not to keep waiting for the owner and instead picked the lock and entered.
What greeted them inside was an empty living room and a desolate atmosphere. Thanks to the materials of the floor and walls, not much dust had accumulated, but there were no traces of recent human activity. It looked like the owner had already left the place long ago.
The two exchanged glances, held a brief conversation, and removed one name from Ares’ database.
“A lot of Hounds are being filtered out by the sieve.”
“Foolish bastards.”
They were the kind who couldn’t even wear a proper collar in the first place. Muttering that, the investigators left the house.
Thud.
The door of the empty house closed once more. The only light came from the neon signs shining through the windows. And so the world grew quiet again.