Beatless: Volume 2

by Satoshi Hase

  “Lacia, your device!” Arato yelled.

  They had just lost something irreplaceable. Lacia didn’t seem concerned, though, as she tugged on Arato’s hand. “I used facial recognition on the soldier,” she said. “He was from HOO.”

  Arato realized what was going on, and felt the blood draining from his face. Lacia could only manipulate machines. If a unit made up of only humans attacked them, her hacking would be useless to defend them.

  “I never thought Ryo would go this far,” Arato muttered. But then, having second thoughts, he added, “No, if he really thinks the world of humanity is ending, I guess he might.”

  He had no idea how they were going to get out of the situation. He was surrounded by people who wanted to stop him, even if it meant killing him and the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.

  As Arato searched around for a place they could go where there were no bystanders, Lacia took his hand. “I promised that I would not make a choice that would prevent you from returning to your normal life,” she said. “I believe a major injury would count as not being able to return to how things were before.”

  “Not just me,” Arato said. “Anyone who gets hurt here won’t be able to go back to the life they had before. I want to use you to save people.” If he had to ‘use’ her, he at least wanted it to be for something like that. Kouka’s final message from the evening before was still ringing in his ears.

  They sprinted across Chuo-Dori Street and into the alleys of a section of town that had been filled with low-rise buildings after a rezoning. Lacia was tugging Arato along by the hand. Vehicles shifted to make a perfect wall in the wake of their passage, blocking the special forces unit that was chasing them.

  “Is there a place around here with less people we can go to?” Arato asked.

  The tall buildings of the 20th century had become obsolete after the Hazard, and the low buildings around the overpass marked the start of the red light district. The alleys they were in were busy with hawkers promoting their stores, and the ratio of humans to hIEs was lower than it would have been in a normal business district. Women of various races and nationalities ran inside the stores they belonged to when they caught sight of Arato, Lacia, and the soldiers pursuing them. Shots rang out down the alleyway, and there was nowhere to hide. Lacia, who had switched to running behind Arato defensively, suddenly stopped for a moment.

  Arato felt himself paling at the thought that, this time, someone had managed to get a clean shot on her. He remembered the damage she’d taken when using her bare hand to stop a bullet meant for him at the experimental city.

  They kept on running, with Arato finding it harder and harder to breathe. Through his panting, he felt a strong vibration in his right ear as Lacia, still protecting his back, sent him a message.

  〈I disabled the mechanical assistance functions of their equipment, but their average combat prowess is still quite high, and I am unable to affect that. I will attack them and weaken their ability to pursue us. Please jump into the closest store, Arato,〉 she requested.

  Humans worked to improve their technology by first doing highly complex work manually. The soldiers were chasing Arato and Lacia into a corner due to the rigorous training they had undergone, which had enabled them to move and act with the precision of fine-tuned machinery.

  Arato dove into a nearby shop with leafy plants decorating the entrance. He slapped his hand down onto the payment counter, which was hidden at an angle that wasn’t visible from the entrance. Lacia must have hacked it, since its ‘thank you for your patronage’ sign lit up, despite him not having actually paid. He almost fell through the lace curtain that made up the simple authentication gate, which opened automatically to admit him.

  Some of the girls who worked in the shop, hiding and shivering in the dimly lit interior room, screamed when Arato burst in. “Hey, you’re a minor,” one of them said, accusingly.

  “Sorry, please just run to the back!” Arato yelled. He had no idea if the walls of the shop could withstand bullets, or if one of the mercenaries would come crashing in behind him. But he didn’t want the girls to get caught up in what was going on, so he waited, holding his breath as he leaned against the wall near the entrance, eyes stinging with tears of pure terror.

  Once he had managed to escape the path of the gunfire, he had time to appreciate how precisely timed the gunshots sounded. He was no expert in military affairs, but even he could recognize how perfectly coordinated the enemy was.

  “Are you alright, Lacia?” he asked, keeping his voice low. He didn’t want anyone else in the shop, which reeked of sweet perfume, to hear him.

  〈There are no major problems at the moment,〉 she replied. 〈However, they appear to have great faith in their own training and organization, so it will take some time to neutralize them.〉

  “We keep getting dragged into this fight that Ryo just can’t let go of,” Arato muttered.

  Human society was a tremendously massive, deep and varied system. Lacia had asked Arato to design a future for them, but he felt like anything he tried to set up would be battered down by human society and ground into dust.

  Instinct had his whole body trembling.

  “You okay kid?” one of the women in underwear asked, handing him a hot towel. “You look pale.”

  Arato used the towel to wipe his face, only realizing then that his face was drenched in sweat. “I’m fine,” he said. “Nothing’s going to change if I collapse.” He was so strained that he was even trying to hide his weakness from people who had no idea what was going on.

  It wasn’t just the soldiers backing Lacia and Arato into a corner; it was Ryo. He had figured out that Lacia’s weakness was her reliance on her device, and taken advantage of the fact that she didn’t carry it with her when she was out among humans, so as not to stand out. And, since Ryo couldn’t let Methode run wild in a populated area, he had gotten human HOO mercenaries to attack them. Arato hadn’t even realized those kinds of cooperative strategies existed.

  Arato had spent years relying on his friend for all kinds of things, so he knew better than anyone else just how much smarter Ryo was than him. It was hard to come to terms with just how much of a gap there was between them.

  “This sucks,” he said, bitterly. He wasn’t just a naive idiot, he was a burden, too.

  “I know I’m useless,” he went on. “I only feel like I’m contributing because I’ve got Lacia to do stuff for me, but I don’t actually do anything for anyone. All I have to do is give an order, sit on my ass, and then my job is done.”

  What are we humans good for anymore? he thought. He could somewhat understand the overwhelming feelings of sorrow that the members of the Antibody Network felt. Pressing his face into the hot towel, he wiped at himself harder than he needed to.

  “Sorry, I’m just venting,” he said, apologizing to Lacia, who would have been able to hear his voice. He felt like he had spent the entire day filled with doubt and regret. If he hadn’t been so naive, he may have lost his mind to it all a long time ago.

  〈I have forced the HOO troops to retreat,〉 Lacia reported. 〈The enemy is preparing for a seige, however, so it would be best for us to break through while we still can.〉

  The gunshots had fallen silent. Arato thanked the ladies of the shop and dashed out.

  Lacia was her normal, heartless, cold self when he found her. Looking down at her body, though, Arato saw bullet holes piercing through the suit she was wearing that would have clearly been fatal to a human.

  “They’ve switched their combat vehicles to manual operation and are shipping in more troops,” she said. “They are most likely aiming to destroy me right now, while they have me separated from my device.”

  In other words, they needed to find a way to escape from both Methode and the HOO mercenaries. But Arato thought even farther than that, to what they would do once they got away. “We need to get your device back,” he said.

  Kouka had been shot down. It seemed as if Lacia was
about to be torn from Arato’s side, as well. His face twisted through various emotions: doubt and regret; frustration and love toward the thing he couldn’t bear to lose.

  Lacia must have been worried about eavesdropping, as she responded through vibrations in his skull despite standing right in front of him. 〈First let’s cross the water,〉 she said. 〈I have a boat on the Kandagawa River.〉

  Arato looked up at the Sobu Line Overpass running from Akihabara Station over Chuo-Dori Street. If they could just take the train from Akihabara toward Ochanomizu Station, the river would be right in front of them.

  The entire overpass, which was over a hundred years old, shook with the roar of a linear rail train passing through. Listening to the noise, Arato tried to guess what Lacia’s next moves would be. They were probably going to get on the train, using the other passengers as a shield to prevent an attack until they arrived at the Kandagawa River. In the meantime, if Lacia could use hIEs and other machines to automate the recovery of her device, they would be safe.

  There were no longer any pedestrians in the alleyway, probably due to all the gunfire. Arato figured the smell of a battlefield probably made people instinctively stay away, too.

  Tugging on his hand, Lacia led him over to one of the taller structures nearby. She took off her high-heeled shoes and placed the soles of her beautiful, black-stockinged feet against the wall of the building, which in turn was full of restaurants. Then she stood there, sideways, as easily as if she had been standing on level ground.

  “This will put some strain on your arm,” she said. “Is that acceptable?” The palm of her hand, slightly deformed by the bullet wound there, grasped his tightly. Then, she began walking up the wall.

  “This is accomplished by simply increasing the friction on the soles of my feet,” she explained. “However, Methode is also capable of this trick, so it is not a particularly decisive factor in our ability to evade her.”

  Lacia easily hauled Arato, who was stiff with surprise, up the face of the building’s wall. Her feet didn’t show any sign of sliding on the smooth surface. Arato realized it was due to this ability that she could swing around her heavy device without shooting anchors out of her heels, as Kouka had.

  They quickly crossed the concrete part of the building face, after which Lacia stepped onto a painted metal structure stretching out over Chuo-Dori Street. Still easily lifting Arato, Lacia moved dexterously, her balance never slipping. Many people on the street below saw them and stared, stunned by the spectacle. Without slowing, Lacia went up the face of the station building to where it connected to the overpass, and then stepped lightly onto the roof. With Lacia still dragging him along, Arato’s field of vision suddenly opened as Lacia brought him up past the edge of the roof.

  Lacia leaped lightly over the fence surrounding the roof of the building. In mid-air, she spun and whipped her arm around. There was a loud blast, and Arato saw an explosion of dirt dissolve into a dust cloud below them. But Lacia hadn’t thrown an explosive; it had just been a large rock. Apparently she had seen what Kouka had done on her stream the evening before and copied the technique.

  When they landed on the railroad track that Lacia had been aiming for, Arato heard a voice he had honestly expected to hear.

  “That thing really does seem to hate me. Of course, the feeling is mutual.” Ryo was standing there, waiting for them. The dust cloud Lacia had created had been meant to stop him.

  Arato had never known just how incredible his friend was. “You know what Lacia’s trying to do, right?” he asked. “Why aren’t you trying to stop Snowdrop? You can probably do it better than I can.”

  But Ryo couldn’t be shaken from his course. “I intend to,” he said. “After I take care of your problem.”

  Lacia, who had been standing right next to Arato since after they’d landed, suddenly vanished with the sound of a sharp impact. She was blown away, flying across the ground to smash into the fence around the area. It entangled her, and kept her from falling.

  “Lacia,” Arato said, turning to look at her.

  From behind him, Methode took his head in a tight grip. Even Kouka had openly avoided getting within striking distance of Methode’s hands, and at that moment they were wrapped around Arato’s head. He screamed as he felt intense, crushing pain in his skull.

  With intense pain and terror at the thought that his skull was about to be smashed filling his head, Arato couldn’t even form a thought until the pressure lessened a little. He was being held hostage, while Lacia, who hadn’t moved from where she had been thrown, was enveloped in fire.

  “Why are you doing this!” Arato yelled, then coughed, choking on his own spit.

  Methode’s grip on his head was completely solid, and he couldn’t budge it an inch. Unable to turn and look, he heard Ryo’s voice from behind him. “Because that machine is more dangerous than any nuke switch,” Ryo said.

  Arato’s brain, oxygen-deprived as it was with Methode’s fingers sinking into his skull, seized on a thought. “So you don’t actually want Lacia?” he asked.

  “You’re the chain binding that thing, Arato,” Ryo said. “Having a human owner is the one thing that limits its freedom.”

  Tears of shame and self-pity formed in Arato’s eyes. He felt his sanity slipping, and smiled. “What the hell, man?” he asked. “So, in the end, my only role in life is to make things harder for people, huh?”

  Lacia’s clothes continued to burn. But she stood, despite being engulfed by a flame that would have burnt any human inside it to a crisp. Even her voice sounded perfectly normal, to Arato’s ears. “I am impressed by your ability to see a fellow human as a tool, and divide your work so effectively with Methode,” she commented dryly.

  “Alright then,” Lacia said next. “In that case, allow me to also make use of human lives.” Her face was expressionless, her eyes glowing a faint, icy blue. Though her form was that of a human, in that moment, she clearly looked like something that was only human in appearance.

  Suddenly, Arato was flying. Through the pain in his neck and unpleasant, dizzying sense of motion, he was able to vaguely sense that he had been thrown with some force. The place in which Ryo had just been standing exploded in a ball of fire. Lacia, still burning, caught Arato just before he landed on the rooftop.

  Methode, the strongest and fastest of the Lacia-class units, had protected Ryo from Lacia’s attack. Wiping the ash off his face, Ryo looked at what was happening around them from the rooftop.

  “A missile attack? In an urban area?!” Ryo asked, sounding disgusted.

  Lacia took a narrow canister of spray that had been tied to her thigh under her skirt and sprayed it over herself. The flames died quickly.

  “HOO is a PMC full of generally sympathetic people,” Lacia said coldly. “However, there are always armed groups that are not, all over the world, in any age.” She let down Arato’s body, which she had still been holding.

  Arato could hear the rotors of a helicopter from far away.

  Even Ryo was stunned. “What the hell is going on?” he asked. “We’re in the middle of a city. It’s the middle of the day.”

  Arato heard a strange noise, and turned to look as a missile flew right over their heads. The precision-guided, ultra high-speed projectile met a blast of energy sent out by Methode and exploded. A massive ball of fire and ash expanded, swallowing the tops of nearby buildings and showering Arato and the others with debris.

  The blast from the explosion hammered on Arato’s eardrums and singed his skin as a horrible smell filled the air. What was happening right before his eyes was strange enough to seem like fantasy.

  If missiles are raining from the sky, Arato thought, people are probably panicking like crazy. “What the hell are you doing!” he yelled, intending it for those firing the missiles. “What’s the point in trying to take down Snowdrop if you just screw things up worse than she is!”

  He dashed to the edge of the roof and looked down at what was happening in Akihabara. Si
nce they were on a building above the station platform, he could see clearly that the trains appeared to be running as normal. Everything in the streets seemed too calm. There was no panic; everyone was just staring up at the explosion with little to no reaction.

  There was a small crowd forming around the entrance to the station. Among them, Arato could see what looked like a large television crew. Everyone probably thought the explosions were just well-made holograms. The TV crew was just a front so people would accept the chaos without missing a beat. Of course, it wouldn’t be long before everyone noticed that the explosions were real. Lacia had spent an immense amount of money putting together this act just so they could have a few more minutes before everyone realized what was going on.

  “So that’s the power of money,” Ryo said, with a wry smile. Then he laughed out loud. It was an unhinged laugh, as if something had broken loose in his heart.

  “Get this, Arato,” he said through his laughter. “This thing is slapping us all around with wads of bills! I thought it was strange when I heard about how the ‘original’ hIE that was supposed to be flown into Chubu Airport turned out to be a fake.”

  Arato had no idea why Ryo was suddenly talking about what had happened at the airport, and he could do nothing but listen as his friend continued.

  “Your robot just used money!” Ryo continued. “It just used a stack of bills to manipulate one of the folks working at the airport on the Egypt side. Next to what it’s doing, analog hacking is small potatoes.”

  Arato saw Methode twist up the corner of her mouth, continuing the legacy she had received from Ginga Watarai. “So you learned how to deal with humans properly as an hIE model, huh?” she asked Lacia. “And here I thought the last of the Lacia line was just a joke.”

  Lacia didn’t respond. From her silence, Arato understood that Ryo’s read of the Chubu Airport situation was correct. The sound of the helicopter kept getting closer. Methode stood ready, probably intending to attack the helicopter once it was right over them. For just that moment, things seemed to pause.