Chapter 55: V.S. “Atari”

There was no worry of a chance meeting.

So instead of slipping on my head armor, I pulled my favorite hat down a little deeper.

A narrow river ran like a stitch between sheer cliffs.

I’d chosen this spot because I was certain the enemy would pass here, but maybe it had been a mistake.

I hadn’t noticed it on the map: firing from the cliff down into the valley was horribly difficult, and if I avoided that and dropped into the valley, the slope was so gentle I couldn’t take a prone shot. Large rocks dotted the place and got in the way. When I tried to set up on one of those rounded stones smoothed by water and time, it proved worryingly unstable.

“Standing fire, knee fire, at least seated fire—no,”

A thought struck me. Why should I have to bend to the environment? Why not have the environment bend to me?

That thought.

I pictured the S1 members. Rudo, Rat Unit, Horse Unit, and the dexterous Dragon Unit.

I clenched the necklace. I checked the time. I replayed the message from Rabbit Unit that had been relayed while we were hiding. About ten minutes until contact. Starting from zero would be impossible. Starting from zero was impossible, but—

“Dragon Unit, Horse Unit, how long to level the top of this rock and make a proper sniper position?”

―Beep!

A few seconds of thought. Dragon Unit’s eyes blinked.

Reply: Plan A — grind down surface → required time: 15 minutes. Concerns: residue from grinding remains.

Reply: Plan B — fill and level → required time: 5 minutes. Concerns: due to our habits, poor work could leave traces that suggest our comrades’ involvement.

“…Go with Plan B. But when you fill it, plant some explosives in there as well.”

Both options had downsides.

Still, only one could be finished in time, and if evidence would remain, then all we had to do was blow the evidence away.

“Dragon Unit, Horse Unit. Do it.”

I gave the order.

Six minutes passed.

I lay prone in the sniper’s nest they had shaped around the rock. Rat Unit had made a cushion in his spare processing cycles, and I placed it under the rifle.

Another five minutes passed.

A1 was hidden three hundred meters ahead and reported a visual on the target.

And from S2, who had been tailing, came the report that their positions were set.

Both reports arrived. Good. Then—

“Time to work.”

I fixed the scope on the target—wearing his centipede, yet strangely relaxed—and whispered.

That was the signal.

In the instant that followed, the blue-haired woman in the driver’s seat panicked in my crosshairs. The vehicle lurched, vanished from my scope for a moment. When I tracked it again, she was scrambling out of the car, her eyes on the rear.

It was Snake Unit’s doing. He’d shot one of the Monoz serving as the rear wheel, forcing it to abandon its role.

The crystal hadn’t been hit. The woman ran up, and the Monoz lay on the ground, rolling to show it was unharmed.

“…”

Could I shoot? I could. But for now, I wanted to keep “me” concealed.

I drew in a deep breath. In, then out. Let the killing intent flow out with it.

Boar Unit’s LMG roared, like a downpour of metal.

A1 began to move, quietly, under the cover of that fire.

Wait.

Not yet. Wait.

I pulled my eyes from the blue-haired woman. My crosshairs found the red-haired man stepping from the passenger side.

That one. He was the real target.

Like me, he was a Sleeper. A scientist and a soldier.

The client had provided data.

He was a Design Child.

The concept was a Battlefield Mechanic. A warrior engineer.

He’d been created fifty years ago. Ninety-nine percent were failures, and the few successes couldn’t be replicated. Budgets dried up, and the project was frozen over ethical concerns. He was the residue of that—a one-way time traveler who had slept until a year ago.

Yes. He was the jackpot.

Smart. Strong.

If I remembered right, his name was Endo. Sounded like a surname. That was the impression it gave me.

Since waking, even without his memories, he had achieved result after result. In just three months, he bought back his own freedom. Then, for the sake of a Sleeper girl who had been unfrozen at the same time—a “miss,” a failure—he founded a company and created new technologies.

I could never do such a thing.

But he was half-formed. Scientist and soldier both, yet not wholly either.

A naive, green sunny-boy.

That was how it went.

A1 launched their attack.

Dog Unit and Monkey Unit closed in from behind the target, biting, slashing, wounding, drawing blood.

Then they didn’t linger. They broke away at once, racing to link up with S2. Dog and Rooster showed off the advanced trick of running backward while firing on the move, taunting as they went.

The sunny-boy and his people took the bait.

Perfectly green. They abandoned their precious, precious research cargo, donned their head armor, and split off to chase A1.

I didn’t even need to give the order.

For an instant, the cliff-top flashed, and a beam as if sunlight itself had been focused poured down.

The light lanced into the trailer’s cargo bed and burned it out.

Mission accomplished. Or so I thought. A message hit my terminal. It was from Ox Unit, who had taken position on the cliff. The report of mission success—

“—!”

I sucked in a breath.

Emergency: the cargo was empty.

What? My mind raced. Were we read? Must have been. Then where’s the cargo? How would I hide it? On the person. Then—

I turned the scope on the red-haired man.

He raised a hand lightly to his ear. As if… as if he were receiving a transmission.

And then he turned his head.

“!”

Our eyes met. Or at least, it felt like they did.

A chill tore down my back.

I rolled sideways from my prone firing stance. And into the ground smashed—the Tiger Claw.

A steel tiger pulverized the spot where I had been only moments before.

“Damn!”

Bad. This was bad. Very bad.

This range wasn’t mine.

He had closed the distance without any setup. Calm down. I told myself. I had to calm down. I knew that.

But my heart, hammered by the sudden ambush, would not be still.

Naive sunny-boy? What a joke.

Why did I get carried away, thinking a little experience made me something?

The man was a genius.

The kind who laughs at the efforts of the ordinary. And I—fool that I am—what business did I have getting cocky?

Idiot.

No. It’s fine. Forget it.

Next time, be careful. Carve this into your heart.

For that—

“—”

Move now, to make sure there is a “next.”

I dropped my hips hard. The necklace bounced. I caught it in my teeth. Traced the bone with my tongue. Split the tongue. Pain. And the taste of iron. Heat bled away.

I fixed my eyes on the steel tiger before me.

Its tail swayed, moving with an organic suppleness that belied its metallic shell.

In its joints gleamed Tree Crystals—or rather, micro-Monoz, the same kind of hidden trick Shinzo had once used.

I recalled the research dossier.

Behavioral control through unified cognition of multiple Monoz.

So this was the result. Countless Monoz acting in perfect concert, taking the form of a single tiger that now stood before me.

Grit.

The earth bit into the soles of my feet.

In this situation, the Type-5 that had always been so reliable was suddenly a burden. Too long. Too heavy. By the time I raised it, I could already see my carotid torn out in my mind’s eye.

The tiger and I glared at one another. And then—

“Huh? No—idiot!?”

Rudo—pulling out a Dog Claw, of all things.

Whether it was youth or recklessness, I didn’t know, but this was insane! He’d be torn apart, just like the dolls he dragged into his bed and sometimes flailed around with.

But I was wrong.

Rudo was smarter than me.

The steel tiger judged the blow of the much smaller Rudo to be a “lethal strike” and leapt back. It dodged, and what streaked across the ground where Rudo had struck was violet lightning.

Of course. Yes.

As a Thunderbolt breed, Rudo was a born killer of machines and cybernetics.

—Grrrhh!

—……

The mechanical tiger traced a silent arc, keeping its distance from little Rudo, who now bristled with lightning and bared fangs.

The tiger tried to go for me, standing there shielded by him. But my brave little knight stamped his feet, saying, Not a chance.

Bless him. He’d bought me time. Two seconds. I pulled up the map and grasped the situation. Three seconds. My thoughts sharpened like a blade. Somewhere in my head, I heard the ticking of a clock’s second hand.

“(A1, A2, S2, fall back. S1, prep construction materials. Rudo. Good. Let it through.)”

I covered my mouth with my hand and whispered the order.

My little knight seemed surprised by the command and glanced back at me.

Still so unpolished, still so endearing.

That uncalculated movement—without any act in it—was all the opening the mechanical tiger needed. Seeing the gap, it sprang without hesitation.

It was going for my neck.

I felt it. Even knowing, I couldn’t dodge. So I shoved the Type-5 I held between us. A metallic crash. If it were a living thing, its breath would have brushed my face. At point-blank range, its inorganic green eyes locked on mine. I was blown away.

Unable to stop the charge, unable to stop its weight, I was carried to the brink of being crushed to death.

My back hit the cliff and stopped.

Like a doll in Rudo’s hands, the tiger swung me around and slammed me into the ground.

“Kh—ah!”

Pinned. Air escaped me. A dull pain. A sharp pain.

Even so, I didn’t let go of the Type-5.

And because of that—

“I win.”

I laughed. Laughed and bent my mechanical left leg, pressing it into the tiger’s belly.

“Get blown away…”

I released the Type-5.

I unlocked the function I’d sworn never to use again.

Jet propulsion. My left leg spewed fire, blasting the tiger away.

The backwash flung me as well; under me there was ground—or a cliff.

Behind the tiger, nothing. It flew back, smashed into the sniper platform we’d built, and for a moment stopped.

“Now!”

Before I could even say it, Rat Unit was moving. Dragon and Horse Units followed. 

Spray after spray of construction material. Low moisture, high viscosity, heavy volume. The tiger’s movement stopped.

“S1, retreat! Horse Unit!”

Horse Unit, who had shifted into Monoku form, came tearing toward me at full speed, rolling to a stop. I swung onto its back, opened the slot. Acceleration. The scenery blurred. Running alongside, Rudo, Dragon, and a little behind, Rat Unit.

Sprint. We carved out distance at once. For a second, I glanced back.

All clear. We wouldn’t drag anyone into this.

“Rat Unit, do it!”

—Beep!

An electronic tone. A heartbeat later, the sound of an explosion.

The sniper platform burst upward in a pillar of fire.

I saw the tiger’s body, pinned there, blown to pieces.

That was close. Too close. Even so—

“I win.”

I murmured it, one more time.

I spoke the words aloud.