The Hound's Replacement
Eileen was on the verge of spiraling into panic when, at that exact moment, the sound of footsteps echoed from the ridge. She turned toward the noise and saw two figures emerging through the swirling dust. It was Asa and JL. Asa already had her pistol drawn, aiming it squarely at Ugris.
"Who's that guy?" Asa asked, clearly directing the question at Eileen.
Eileen glanced back down at Ugris beneath her. But the moment she saw his expression, she flinched. Ugris was smiling faintly, as if he'd just pieced something together. His gaze was fixed on Asa.
"So that's how it is," he murmured.
Eileen simply glared at him with wide eyes. The gun barrel remained pressed against his head. It felt like something that should never have been discovered had just been exposed to the one person it needed to stay hidden from. She feared hearing the truth she'd been avoiding spoken aloud by someone else.
But Ugris's mouth opened without a shred of consideration for her feelings.
"A replacement?"
Eileen's heart sank.
"You son of a—!"
He'd figured it out after all.
"Eileen?" JL called out, sensing the shift in her voice. Asa also picked up on the tension and adjusted her grip on the gun.
But Ugris continued speaking, completely unbothered by either of them.
"To think you'd track down another Hound to take the place of the one who already died. Do you see your old Hound in her? Or is any Hound good enough? Either way, it's pathetic."
"What the hell would you know?!"
"I told you. I'm the one who understands best. You filled the void left by one stray Hound by taking in another. Whether she realizes it or not."
Eileen drew in a sharp breath and placed her finger on the trigger. One twitch and Ugris's life would be over.
But in the next instant, she caught sight of the small device glowing near his ear and swallowed hard. Ugris bared his teeth in a relaxed smile.
"Stray mutts have no business here."
The moment Ugris finished speaking, the anomaly struck.
The implants embedded in Eileen's legs and the back of her neck erupted with intense sparks before forcibly shutting down. She collapsed in agony.
"You bastard…"
So that was why Ugris had been so composed. That hacking device near his ear could simultaneously disable multiple implants. She'd never seen or heard of anything like it. It wasn't something available on the market. It had to be a new prototype developed by Ares. Having crawled back into the corporation's embrace, Ugris had been given access to it.
Wracked with pain from the implants that had been forced into emergency recovery mode, Eileen looked toward Asa and JL. Their situations weren't much better. But since Asa's entire body was essentially one massive implant as an enhanced human, the shock hit her far harder. JL could at least stay on his feet, but Asa had already lost consciousness and crumpled to the ground. Her body looked as if it had been fried by the electrical surge.
Grinding her teeth, Eileen looked up at Ugris as he rose to his feet. He brushed the dust off his clothes and stared down at her.
"Letting him go would be better for both you and that Hound. Or maybe living the rest of your life drowning in regret isn't so bad. Yeah, that suits a hunting dog who bared her fangs at her own master."
"You never shut up, do you? That tongue of yours is way too long. One of these days, I'll rip that snout right off."
"Just don't drown in the swamp of your own lingering attachments. If our paths cross again… well, I'd rather they didn't."
With that, Ugris turned his back on the three immobilized figures and descended the cliff. Eileen could only watch his retreating silhouette through the clouded lenses of her gas mask.
"Asa!"
Once Ugris had disappeared, Eileen suddenly remembered Asa's condition and rushed to her side. Her body was burning hot to the touch. It seemed the internals had been reduced to mush. Recovery would take quite some time. Still, at least she wasn't dead. That was something to be grateful for.
"Eileen, who was that guy just now?" JL asked as she held Asa close, visibly relieved.
Eileen recalled that faint smile of his for a moment before grinding her teeth again. She was on the verge of cracking a molar. She spat out his name like it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
"He's an idiot who brags about becoming livestock in the corporate pen."
JL saw how furious she was and wisely chose not to press further. He simply sat beside her in silence, waiting for her to calm down. While they waited for the forcibly rebooted implants to finish their recovery cycle, Eileen kept watch over the limp form of Asa, hoping she would wake soon. Looking at her face somehow helped erase the memory of Ugris's deceitful smile.
Yet as Eileen brushed Asa's hair aside, a thought suddenly crossed her mind.
Am I really seeing Asa as a replacement for my old Hound?
She unconsciously pulled Asa into a tight embrace. On the outside, she looked like a young girl, but in truth, she was a Hound steeped in the stench of blood and iron from the battlefield. Eileen buried her nose in Asa's hair with almost obsessive intensity and closed her eyes.
She wanted to deny it. But she couldn't.
Even she wasn't sure she would have reached out if Asa hadn't been a Hound. Maybe any other Hound would have sufficed. For all the composure she tried to maintain in front of Asa, she was just another flawed human. A broken person trying to fill an empty space in her heart with a substitute.
JL watched silently as Eileen clung to Asa. She was clearly no longer in her right mind. It looked like some kind of panic attack. He left her alone.
Still holding Asa close, Eileen murmured to the Hound who was no longer there. She whispered to a past that could never return.
"I won't… let you go again…"
The car was heading toward a rendezvous point on the outskirts of the city. As usual, the inside of the vehicle was deathly quiet. The only problem was that even Eileen had joined the ranks of the silent.
I tapped JL, who sat in the front seat, but he only shrugged. Had something happened while I was unconscious?
Thinking back, there had been plenty of reason for them to be downcast. After all, we'd been completely helpless against that man. I'd been pinned under Eileen without even getting a chance to lift a finger.
I later learned his name was Ugris. He was a mechanic like Eileen, which was how he'd managed to neutralize all of us so easily. Still, instantly disabling the implants of three people at once seemed impossible. But the moment they mentioned it was a new Ares device, I accepted it without question. These were the same people who built superweapons that could reach beyond fifty meters. Something like that coming out now wasn't surprising at all.
Still, I bet the data on that hacking device would sell for more than a superweapon.
Of course, once the device's information got out, countermeasures would pop up like mushrooms after rain. For now, the information our client had requested was about the optical weapon. In other words, only the data on the Translucent Horizon.
I decided I'd make use of the new hacking device's information later.
Anyway, we kept driving until we reached our destination. The night sky was thick with clouds, and the farther we moved from the city, the more sinister the atmosphere became.
After driving for some time, our destination finally came into view. A sign beside the road flashed past the car.
Huyou Industrial Complex Zone 27.
Our client was waiting inside one of the old factories clustered there.
The car slowed as it entered the complex, then turned off all its lights and came to a stop a short distance from the target building. When we stepped out, the night air felt eerily silent. The only sound was the wind howling between the factories. Our footsteps sounded unnaturally loud.
Still, we moved as quietly as we could and entered the factory where our client was supposed to be waiting. For a while we walked relying only on the faint light ahead, since there were no other lights visible. As we reached the center of the factory, the scene before us was finally revealed.
"Ugh…"
But what greeted us wasn't our client. It was his groaning.
In the center of the factory, dimly lit by an orange glow, our client lay collapsed in a pool of his own blood. Eileen rushed over to check on him.
"It's over. He's going to die soon."
Looking around, the bodyguards appeared to have all been killed. It seemed someone had gotten to them and cleaned house. We'd expected that meddling with Ares wouldn't end well.
Eileen asked the client, who was still barely clinging to life.
"We brought the information you wanted. Can we still get paid?"
The client let out a hollow laugh at the question.
"The client's dying and you're asking about money, you idiot… Still, if you deliver it to Violet Science, you should at least get a reward."
"Well, at least it wasn't all for nothing."
The client's breathing grew weaker. He moved his lips as if he wanted to leave some last words.
"If I didn't… do it this way… I couldn't stay…"
"What?"
He coughed up blood. His black suit grew even darker. In a fading voice, he said,
"I just… we… we were only trying to survive."
"Are you trying to justify your own karma? You must have known that playing dangerous games comes with just as much risk."
The client muttered toward Eileen. Or perhaps it was a monologue.
"Not falling behind… even staying in place… you have to run forward like a madman…"
His eyes grew cloudy. There was nothing left in them.
"What an ugly bastard, right to the end."
"Let him die the way he wants."
After all, the way you face death is the last freedom you have.
We left the corpse in the factory and departed. And so, the raid on the Dawn Research Facility quietly came to a close.