An Abomination Among You (6)

Colonel Rachel Evans, of the Second Anomaly Response Special Operations Unit, United States Naval Forces Japan.

That her name had once been Rachel Hyakurenno was something those in the know already knew. Her marriage to Hyakurenno Aito had even made the news in Japan — though the divorce, settled before the year was out, meant Rachel's own particulars never spread very far.

They had not parted in some vicious quarrel. If one had to put a name to it, they still held each other in particular regard, even now.

That was precisely why Han Seoyeon had been certain she could secure the Hyakurenno Group's cooperation. Rachel Evans had been attacked and come within a breath of death; there was no world in which the Second Prince of the Hyakurenno simply sat on his hands.

He did not, however, appear to have expected that the joint operation would set him face to face with Colonel Evans herself. Aito regarded his former wife with an expression of profound awkwardness.

She sat in a wheelchair in a hospital gown, idly toying with her fingers, and when she caught that look she bared her teeth in a crooked grin.

"So that's the shape of it."

Alejandra let out a short sigh.

"Before the Battleship Leviathan was seized and got underway, you planted a familiar inside it."

"Strictly speaking, 'familiar' is a little off the mark. But that understanding will do for now."

Evans gave a light shrug.

The plan — seize the Battleship Leviathan's systems and slam the Hypnosis App on at full blast — was a sound one, but it had a single snag. The system lived on an intranet sealed off from the outside world, which meant that, at minimum, some physical intervention was required. Rachel Evans had been the one to open that way through. Han Seoyeon remembered how she had looked then: collapsed on the floor, her head cut clean off.

Sasaki Kisaki, who had attacked Evans, had not known she was a vampire, and so Evans had been able to play dead and ride the crisis out. But that raised a question. A considerable stretch of time had passed between Sasaki Kisaki leaving the scene and Han Seoyeon finding Evans. Why, through all of it, had she not moved? Why had she simply stayed where she was?

To play a trick on Han Seoyeon? Even she would not have acted on a reason like that alone — not in a situation like this. And she had survived only because her opponent happened to be Sasaki Kisaki. Ignorant of Evans's durability, Kisaki had fallen for the corpse act. Sasaki, though, had not been the only enemy in that facility. There were also old comrades, turned traitor after the Necromancer's self was poured into them. They knew Rachel Evans was a vampire. They knew she was hardy enough to live through a severed neck. If they found her, they would make absolutely certain of the kill, and Evans was not a woman who would fail to see that coming.

So why remain? Because there had been something that took priority over clamping her fallen head back into place and running.

She had said it with a laugh — that she had smeared her blood along the hem of Sasaki Kisaki's clothes. It had come up when Han Seoyeon visited the hospital room to take her statement. For a vampire born in the modern age, working the blood that spilled from one's own body was little different from basic schooling. The blood she had planted that way, she later moved in secret and hid in a corner of the ship.

In other words, Rachel Evans had been in a position to reach inside the Battleship Leviathan whenever she pleased.

…No. To be precise, she had spent a long while convalescing and could not have managed it, so "whenever she pleased" was not quite right. Evans's body had been far more ruined than she herself had believed, and once she wrung out what strength remained to shift the blood, she was utterly spent. Only in the very recent past had she recovered far enough to take hold of that control again.

"At any rate, this makes a physical link possible, and forcing the route open as well. Alejandra — how soon can we commence?"

"We could start this very second. The Hyakurenno Group?"

"We, too, are prepared to execute the plan at any time."

"Good. Then we start now. They do say you ought to hurry a good thing along."

With that, Alejandra lifted her phone, placed a call somewhere, and traded a few words in English. A moment later the screen launched a video player of its own accord — footage set against a pure white ground. The progress bar put the runtime at about six hours, and yet, strangely, that duration kept growing. Then, with a soft pop, an avatar with chartreuse hair appeared in the white space.

It was Sarah Groothuizen, the VTuber character of Abraham-Delta. She waved in greeting as she asked.

"We're commencing the operation now. I know it'll be sudden, but please just follow along."

She had not even properly explained yet. Abraham, however, seemed to have taken the measure of the situation in an instant. If they had kept the plan hidden from her all this time only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to reveal it on the verge of execution, then it was unmistakably an offensive operation against Dr. Laura Groothuizen.

And if that was so, then the deadline had been fixed from the very moment they gave Abraham the word. That was why she demanded the plan at once.

"I left a single image file in the system folder."

"Church Standard No. 6. Tell me the moment you've grasped the operation."

Abraham-Delta's reply came back in a heartbeat. Alejandra confirmed it, nodded, and turned her eyes to the others.

"System connection… successfully completed."

Sarah Groothuizen made the report while lightly processing the flood of data pouring in.

"Coming in on the 'Sarah' side really was the right answer. The security is unmistakably thin."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

An intrusion that ran backward along the very route the Doctor had been using to siphon information out of Abraham. The Doctor would, of course, have been watching for a backflow of exactly this kind. That was why the plan did not use data built as Abraham-Delta, but data constructed as the VTuber Sarah Groothuizen — because they were confident the Doctor had not bothered to watch that far.

And in fact, the various countermeasures laid against the chance of Abraham's betrayal were neutralized with ease. Even while she was forbidden from using more than eighty percent of her processing power, so as not to be recognized as Abraham, the intrusion had been remarkably smooth.

How long had it even been since they broke inside, and already an answer like that arrived from Alejandra. Even Sarah, an artificial intelligence, could not withhold her admiration for a hack carried out by a specialist weaving miracles into the work.

"Confirmed. I'll be working the internal lines."

The Battleship Leviathan. From within the hull rose an eerie drive-note, like nails dragged down a chalkboard — the sound of the ship's warp system coming alive. The crew inside, of course, panicked and each of them tried to act… but fire shutters had already dropped throughout the vessel, and even moving from one section to another was no easy thing.

The operation divided, broadly, into several stages. The first was to seize the systems aboard the Battleship Leviathan and, for a start, fling the ship as far away as it could be flung. Worldwide purification by means of the Hypnosis App came after. Purify every human being on the planet, and it would still come to nothing if the Necromancer simply scattered seed again. The Hyakurenno Group could bring its strength to bear only once the Necromancer and the Earth had been completely cut off from each other. The seizure of the systems was for that.

"Good. Then I'll overload the warp function at once and move to the next step."

A battleship hurled somewhere into the void. The moment she confirmed it, Sarah wrecked the warp system. For a good while now, the ship would have no choice but to drift where it was.

This was not, of course, the end. By any ordinary reckoning it ought to have been — but their opponent was one of the Seven Sisters, and they could not afford to relax. Out in that empty dark the enemy might restore the systems and come home to Earth. No. They would certainly manage it. That possibility could not be left open. And since they could not strike a physical blow from afar and kill them, the only means left was the Hypnosis App.

Sarah joined the system Mr. F had made to the internal lines she had already taken. That peculiar pink began, all at once, to devour the data-space.

"Preparations are complete."

"Confirmed. Executing."

At Alejandra's order, Sarah put the plan into motion at once. Through the internal lines she poured the poison meant to kill the heretics. With that, the work to be done inside the ship was finished. All that remained was to tidy up what still waited on the ground……

"……Huh?"

Sarah, slack with relief, felt something suddenly wrong. The Hypnosis App was running slower than projected. The lag was too plain to dismiss as ordinary error.

"Alejandra, would you check something for a moment? Is something interfering with it?"

"Alejandra?"

Alejandra had been sending her voice to Abraham through the smartphone, and in that voice data there was an unmistakable tremor of panic.

"What? One moment. How could that be possible?"

It went without saying that, in building the Hypnosis App, the part ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Church had labored over most was security. The stronger the power, the worse the danger if it were turned to abuse, and so they had spent even longer polishing the locks than they had on the development itself. And all of those layers had been breached in so short a time? Fine. With the Doctor and the Necromancer working hand in hand, perhaps it was possible. But concede as much as she liked, the final security system could not have been broken. That one was founded on faith and holy power, and only a few within the Church could use it.

"Those two are geniuses who would blaspheme even God, aren't they."

She said it lightly, even borrowing a turn of phrase she had once seen on some internet board, all in an effort to cover her unease. And yet, in essence, it was not an entirely false thing to say. Those two — the Necromancer above all — were beings who could die and wake again and still never hold a scrap of faith, and everyone aboard the ship had the Necromancer's self grafted into them. There was a single exception, Sasaki Kisaki… but there was no way even she could manage it. Set aside, for the moment, that she was not a Christian. Even if one supposed she had truly turned to God, winning the Hypnosis App's authority would still have been impossible. Had she been able to generate, all by herself, faith on the order of two or three Apostles, Sasaki would have conquered East Asia long ago and had strength to spare.

"…Can you locate the source of the interference?"

Certainty was one thing; the fact remained that some intervention was underway. She did not know what means had been used, nor whether it would truly succeed, but the worst case always had to be prepared for.

The reply to Sarah's request came back at once. She connected straight to the address Alejandra had sent. Her field of view lurched violently, and within the data-space she slowly raised her head.

"What? Wait…"

And she was struck dumb by a sight she could not possibly believe.

It was, to put it plainly, an enormous mass of faith — not anything one person could produce, but an aggregate of prayer drawn off countless beings. The datafied consciousness of those at prayer came crashing in like a waterfall in flood.

"This is a joke, isn't it? Something like this can't be possible…"

At this scale the numbers approached a hundred million. That many of them, forgetting even to move, were offering up prayers like the mad. A human ranch, built to manufacture holy power. The principle itself was nothing special; Abraham-Delta had witnessed things of the kind many times. But nowhere had anyone been running a ranch on this scale. The Church would have found it and smashed it long before it ever grew so large.

And yet here it was. Not out on the wide earth — here. However monstrously vast a ship the Battleship Leviathan might be, Abraham could not bring herself to believe it.

"……!"

In that instant, another voice cut into the line that had been open to Alejandra.

Abraham knew whose voice it was. There was no way she wouldn't.

Dr. Laura Groothuizen. Her creator.

"Alejandra! The comms have been hijacked—"

Alejandra gave no sign of having noticed that the Doctor had slipped onto the line. Sarah hurried to warn her, to keep anything vital from leaking… but before she could even finish, the feed from the camera Alejandra had linked came through. Fortunately, that in itself was nothing dangerous for the Doctor to see. It was only surveillance footage from somewhere aboard a ship the Doctor had already stolen.

But once Abraham saw it, she could not go on.

The Doctor said it with a low, pleased little laugh. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was something Abraham herself had said, more than once.

What the feed showed was a pitch-dark room. From inside it came a grotesque creak, on and on — and stranger still was the sound that filled the space. Inorganic voices, doing nothing but chant prayers and confessions of faith.

The voices were spilling from countless speakers, and the speakers had been set in a ring around a pillar. No — not a pillar. It was a structure of dozens of racks joined together. Cables ran out from the speakers and between those racks, tied into the machinery packed in every gap. It was the very image of a supercomputer, lifted straight from the photographs that turn up now and then on the news.

"What… is this…"

The Doctor — and the Necromancer — curled their mouths and sneered at Abraham-Delta.

Abraham-Delta gave no answer.

She only stared, hollow-eyed, into the room of machines, as if she could not trust her own sight.