Book 6 Chapter 5
I had lost my smartphone, but Maxwell was still alive. Maxwell was actually in a distant container and the smartphone was only a tool used to communicate with that.
I couldn’t fall for Adjust’s tricks.
It could be an IoT oven, the internal phone on the wall, or the radio clock that accurately kept the time. I didn’t know where, but Maxwell had to still be watching and listening. She just lacked a mouth, so I could not hear her words.
“Give up. You can’t break those zip ties by shaking your hands around. Futile effort will only hurt your wrists.”
“…”
Why hadn’t he just killed me?
To provide even more pain and fear? To ask me something?
If it was not either of those…
If you could not get in with an external attack, you only needed to wait for them to come out.
…Dammit, I had done that myself countless times!
“Now, what to do?”
Adjust’s thick fingers crawled along the countertop where I could not see.
“What would be the most efficient way of making you scream? A knife or meat tenderizer would be too boring. Stabbing every last inch of your body with forks or beating the snot out of you with a frying pan isn’t interesting enough. Oh, right. The fries here are good. I wonder if the oil is at a nice temperature.”
“…Are you after my stepmom? Are you after a ticket onto Absolute Noah?”
“Just to be clear, you were the one that attacked first here, you cockroach! All I am asking for is repayment for my losses. That’s a basic right.”
…So he wanted to start the negotiations by pouring boiling oil on me in front of a camera?
“Do you really think Wild@Hunt will let you get away with this? You’ve dragged their company name through all this so you alone could survive, so they’ll never just let you go!”
“Wild@Hunt’s management!? Who gives a shit!?”
He shouted back at me and my mind went blank. …What did he just say? Was this just the ravings of a madman???
“I was a non-executive director. A brat who lives on his parents’ dime wouldn’t understand, but that means they wouldn’t give me a seat at the table. Even though it was me that gave that monster corporation so much growth in a single generation!”
“…”
“They don’t know how to make money, they don’t know how to make connections, and all they do is earn resentment. How do you think they ended up at the top of a major corporation? …Because they could get reservations at a certain Pennsylvania restaurant.”
I had no idea what he meant.
But I couldn’t bring myself to speak up. He seemed calm, but I sensed the ominous ripples of an eruption waiting to happen.
“The jazz stage is covered in dust after years sitting unused and the golf simulator is outdated and yellowed. Just eight people is enough to fill every seat and, worst of all, the food is terrible. …But only the people who can get a reservation and freely enter that packed restaurant can obtain the star of a winner.”
That was likely a different set of rules than the ark.
He was talking about a fruitless world that we could never reach.
“The world is full of those things. Skill and funding don’t matter. It could be a suit tailor, a luxury car dealership, a yacht club, WQF Airline’s royal first class, or a rifle club… If you can fit inside those purposefully cramped categories, you get your star. And it’s only once you’ve gathered 50 of those stars – one for each state – that you’re part of the true privileged class.”
He must not have reached that level.
…Was that it?
“Do you know what happened to Absolute Noah 04 at Las Vegas’s Hoover Dam?”
“…”
That had been like a water purification filter where my stepmom had used a mistaken selection test to eliminate the black-hearted VIPs.
“An invitation arrived for our top executives. And I warned them! So what do you think happened? They all resented me! They said I had stolen their ticket to salvation!”
“You…”
“And yet they didn’t take their handgun from their portable safe with unpracticed hand. Nor did they hire an assassin. …What do you think they’re doing as the world ends? I can only imagine they’re knocking at the door of that same Pennsylvania restaurant. Because that’s all they’ve got!”
If that was true, then it was like they had washed up on a desert island with only the duralumin case they had desperately stuffed with cash. They had failed to take into account the environment to an almost comical extent.
“They never stop being a disappointment.”
“…”
“So I’m done with those empty shells. I’m through with chasing after them. I’ll continue forward on my own. Even if that means using the ark as a stepping stone.”
…Had Maxwell realized what was happening?
No, Maxwell would have contacted someone else to come save me regardless.
It could be my stepmom Amatsu Yurina, Erika the Vampire, Ayumi the Zombie, Anastasia the Hacker, or even Itou Helen the Witch or Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf.
I couldn’t predict who would take the bait. And when I was the bait, I couldn’t just let it happen!
“…Give up, Adjust. No one will come for me.”
“The ark’s rules are, at the very least, better than that terrible Pennsylvania restaurant. If Amatsu Yurina is trying to guide you to the ark, there has to be a reason why.”
“She just wants to protect her family! But if going after me would cause it all to fall apart, she would protect my dad and my sisters instead!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Just how useful would it be to have someone whose emotions can persuade the people around them? That might be the masterpiece of the whole ark.”
“I already told her I wasn’t interested!”
I pressed my hands on the floor and used my legs like a spring to hop up from the tile floor.
Yes, even though my hands were supposedly zip tied behind my back.
“Wha-…!?”
Adjust stepped back in confusion, but it wasn’t anything that amazing. Zip ties weren’t metal handcuffs. They were made of plastic, so they were weak to heat. Even without some sharp scissors or a knife, I could reduce its strength with the frictional heat of rubbing it over and over against something sticking out from the wall. And it’s such a boring solution that you never see it in movies or dramas!
Stepping back had been a mistake.
While choosing his toy, he had approached the fryer for making fries, so I didn’t even need to grab a weapon from the countertop. I threw all my weight at his thick chest with a tackle!!
…Stepping back was where you messed up. If you had kept your feet on the floor and tried to hold your ground, your bigger frame might have been able to stop my tackle.
“Gyah.”
He had no time to use his stun gun.
Adjust lost his balance and the hand holding the stun gun plunged into that bubbling sea of oil.
“G-g-g-g-gy-gy-gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”
In what I could only assume was a burst of adrenaline-fueled strength, a swing of his other arm sent me flying through the air. I cleared the central countertop and crashed back-first into the wall, knocking the breath out of me.
“Ah…agh…aghghgh…”
Adjust finally pulled his arm from the fryer full of oil, but it didn’t look like the elbow or wrist joints could move anymore. His melted clothing was tangled around the arm and I smelled an intense mixture of fried food and melted plastic.
What happened next I doubt he did on purpose. Either his fingers convulsed or the heat caused the muscles to contract. Whatever the reason, the fried stun gun’s switch was activated and the oily device scattered bluish-white sparks.
It was dramatic.
That was the only word I could find to describe how the red flames traveled up his arm. Some sparks also fell into the fryer and a pillar of fire rose from it.
An invisible wall of heat slammed into my face.
“Gh…”
If I stayed there, I would be caught in the flames too.
Heat, light, and smoke. Even while pursued by so many things, I rushed to the industrial fridge. The employee had gone missing and Adjust had given that fridge a meaningful glance. I breathed in, stopped, and then opened the door.
I found a half-frozen person there.
The young man had his hands zip tied behind him, but he was still alive. Whether Adjust ever planned to let him out was still a mystery, though. I pulled him out while making sure his skin had not frozen to the wall and then we really did run out of the kitchen.
Black smoke was already billowing into the main area of the restaurant.
“Cough, cough!”
The two of us practically rolled out and then left the restaurant altogether.
But the threat was not yet over.
Something was racing through the sky.
I thought it was a passenger plane, but then I realized it was far too close. I ducked down at the shockwave that passed by overhead.
“Was that a Wild@Hunt unmanned delivery plane?”
The part-timer worker’s comment sent a chill down my spine.
And after following that ridiculous course, the plane left something behind like a contrail. There were a lot of them. They were delivery drones with six wings and something like a crane game’s hook. And there were a lot of them!! A hundred? A thousand!? More!!?
Each individual one seemed like a harmless toy, but that changed when there were this many. The two of us fled back into the smoky restaurant as the swarm of drones approached. We escaped danger by getting inside, but that just meant they targeted an onlooker calmly using his phone to film the fire.
“Eh?”
They grabbed his shoulders.
They grabbed his chest, back, head, and thighs… More and more delivery drones used their crane arms to grab flesh and clothing before flying upwards with surprising ease.
The person vanished from sight and only his voice remained.
“Are you kidding me!? What the hell is this!?”
If I was remembering correctly, each delivery drone could only carry 5 kilograms. But with that many of them, they were strong enough to carry an entire person.
With a dull sound, a large mass fell onto the roof of a car parked on the side of the road. He had probably fallen because he struggled in midair, but that was the drones’ weapon. They had transformed height into a deadly weapon!?
“Hey, can we even escape from those things…?”
“They aren’t just after us? They’ll attack anyone walking outside!?”
While we discussed that, I used a burning piece of wood to melt the part-timer’s zip tie until he could break it.
…Did they not follow us in here because the fire and smoke made them designate it a dangerous area? Or did they not have indoor flight routines since they were designed as delivery drones that carried packages through the sky to reach specific addresses? …I seemed to recall that they delivered to the landlord’s office at apartments, so they could not pass through auto-locking gates and climb the stairs or elevator to reach the door of an individual unit?
But we received an answer from an unexpected source.
Someone stepped out of the door to the flame-filled kitchen.
“Yes, we had entered the countdown to the Calamity whether I did anything or not.”
“Adjust Rex…”
I couldn’t believe it.
The right half of his body was still enveloped in flames and he was burned badly enough that his summer coat and luxury suit had melted to his body. How in the world was he still standing!?
“But if Wild@Hunt uses its international influence to intentionally destroy the world’s balance, the limit will arrive all the sooner.”
“The world’s…balance? Intentionally destroy it!?”
“Did you think the things happening right in front of you are all there is to the world? Yes, this is happening all across the globe! The world must be covered with drones providing this new service! Thanks to the miracle of automation!!”
I didn’t know what he meant.
We stared at him like he was a madman, but he did not seem to care. He spread his arms toward heaven while burning like a human torch.
“Did you hear that, Amatsu Yurina!? Did you hear that, Absolute Noah!? Prepare your ark already! Guide its masterpiece to the entrance! You need this for your closed salvation, don’t you!? The world has mere seconds left!!”
I didn’t know if that was true. Was the world really filled with Wild@Hunt drones that swarmed around and dropped people and cars from the sky?
But I did know he was the center of it all. I tried to grab a nearby fire extinguisher so I could hit him with it.
As soon as I touched it, I felt the pain of pressing my palm against a scorching frying pan.
“Hot!?”
“Yes, Amatsu Satori. Reality is cruel.”
And I lost everything in that moment. Adjust lifted me by the throat with his unburnt left arm. The lack of blood to my head must have been why my vision rapidly narrowed.
“Kah…!?”
“I used my unharmed left hand in order to negotiate.”
The part-timer young man let out a pathetic scream and ran out into the vortex of drones. I couldn’t tell what happened to him. There might as well have been swarms of Zombies and Vampires walking through Kukyou City.
“Now I will take my time and press my right hand against you. I will use this burning right hand to slowly roast you from the extremities first. The destruction of the masterpiece is the destruction of the ark. You just have to pray Amatsu Yurina makes her move sooner rather than later.”
“Adjust…!!”
That was when it happened.
A large semi truck crashed through the restaurant.
There was nothing sane about it. It didn’t even crash through the entrance; it broke through the side wall. But thanks to that, I was safe. It targeted Adjust alone, so the very edge of extra-large bumper cleanly hit him.
“Ugh, cough!!”
I held my throat and choked while something moved inside the truck and the passenger door flew open.
And inside I found…
“Satori, get in! Hurry!!”
“Mom!?”
That was fast!? How long has it even been since the threat!? My beautiful stepmom could be so immature. She apparently intended to talk about it more later, so I dragged my confused self into the passenger seat.
Something was squirming on the other side of the windshield.
“Adjust Rex. A-are you kidding me!?”
With the container on the back, the truck had to weigh nearly 20 tons. It wasn’t that I wanted Amatsu Yurina to be a murderer, but how could he get up after a direct hit from that!?
“Even the lower-ranked Hack or Slave had a supernatural hacker.”
After the flames and impact, his summer coat and luxury suit crumbled away. And something else came off below that.
Are those an excessive number of bandages? No. No, wait. Is that…!?
“A Mummy… He was an Archenemy!?”
Humans and Archenemies were the same. The undead could perform evil deeds just as much as humans.
“You understand what this means, don’t you?” he said. “My body was injected with everything required to eternally preserve a pharaoh’s body as a container for his next life. Did you really think the heat and impacts of this life could truly harm it!?”
But my stepmom paid him no heed.
One of her jobs must have been complete as soon as she had retrieved me, her son. Her shapely butt rose up and returned to the driver’s seat while she happily wiped sweat from her brow.
“But mummies require that pain-in-the-ass process because they’re afraid of a certain something affecting the preservation of the corpse.”
She gave an extremely coldhearted smile.
“Namely, moisture. And isn’t it about time for the sprinklers to activate in here?”
Large drops of rain pounded on the windshield.
And my stepmom did not even check to see how he reacted. She violently grabbed the shift lever, but to my surprise, she sent the gigantic truck forward.
Water weakened him.
Immediately after making that announcement, she mercilessly took advantage of that weakness.
With a loud noise, the large semi truck broke through the wall opposite the one it had come in through. It knocked aside a few light cars parked on the curb and entered the road. No one bothered to check what had happened to Adjust.
I heard the roar of propellers and a ton of drones started to fill the door window right next to me.
“Wah!?”
“Don’t worry, Satori. We might be in trouble with a standard 4-door, but there’s no way they can lift a semi truck.”
The ridiculous Hollywood scale of her entrance had apparently had a real reason behind it.
But I couldn’t relax.
“…They’re everywhere overhead.”
It was like the sandstorm I had seen in Las Vegas. A collection of black dots arrived from one end of the blue sky with enough density to nearly block out the light of the sun.
That was frightening, but we couldn’t just give up. I found a car navigation system affixed to a stand. Instead of the recent variety that filled the car stereo space, it was a portable one the size of a card. It was a bit like a smartphone that was slow to react to my touch. …So I did kind of want to argue that a smartphone GPS map app would be better.
Anyway, I was fortunate to find an internet-connected device.
“Maxwell, respond if you can hear me. Stop any form of tracking and use this as your base station.”
“Sure, understood.”
“Eh?” said my stepmom. “This thing is still giving away my position? But I switched off the GPS option.”
“Oh, you careless stepmom…”
There were plenty of ways to locate someone besides GPS and, now that the car navigation industry was losing ground to smartphone map apps, they were using multiple methods to provide the precision that professional taxi drivers and truckers wanted. …But there was no need to explain all that here.
“Maxwell, hijack all the nearby wireless routers and transmit on all frequency bands.”
“No change to the drones’ behavior. The jamming is not showing any effect.”
“Damn. Do they switch to an autonomous mode if something goes wrong? Giving them everything from flight control to map software sure was generous.”
Well, the devices were meant to deliver an online store’s products. If poor signal would cut them off from GPS and allow them to get lost, the company would receive a storm of complaints about undelivered products. It was also possible people would maliciously mess with them like how people shined laser pointers at airplanes. If throwing a stone at the drone would make it drop its delivery, you could steal the products. In that case, it made sense for them to include multiple map and control methods.
“By the way, do we need to share any information?”
“No,” replied Maxwell. “By entering a few devices inside that restaurant, I am aware that the world is in trouble at an idiot’s insistence. Rather than the central servers around the world, this is likely based on the misuse of the final backup facility that is generally hidden behind the scenes.”
“So when there’s a fatal error in the crucial network of 140 servers, authority shifts to the final backup. …But is that infested with Adjust’s virus? No, would he really just leave malicious code in there like that?”
“He may not have needed to make such a risky move. After all, the final backup facility is normally cut off from the network and forgotten about.”
“A security conflict, huh?”
It was common for beginners to wonder what happened if you put multiple pieces of security software on the same computer. It was wrong to think that made it safer. The security software would fight each other and cause a fatal error.
“The 140 central servers use security type A and the final backup uses security type B. Checking each individual file won’t show anything malicious, but once they run into each other on the same network, a serious conflict occurs. If that’s how Adjust set this up…”
“Attacking people is not that complex an operation,” said Maxwell. “The delivery drones would already have the ability to recognize people and safely avoid them, so he would only need to flip that around so they recognize people, approach them, and pick them up as a ‘package’.”
A backup was no more than a backup, so you would only think about it in an emergency. If it was accessed for annual maintenance, no one would notice that “emergency exit hiding monsters”.
And once the door was unlocked and opened, the monsters would spill out into the world.
“Then did I pull the trigger? Because I sent a harmless virus into Wild@Hunt via the central server to see how they would react!?”
“No. Based on Adjust’s statements, I would predict this was one of his plans for shaking Mrs. Amatsu Yurina. You merely stumbled across a remote-controlled bomb before the scheduled press of the button, so I doubt you influenced the amount of damage.”
“But…!!”
“Okay, okay. That’s enough of that.”
My stepmom casually cut in while driving the truck through the confused city buzzing with swarming drones.
“It looks like the drones indiscriminately swarm people to grab them, lift them up, and drop them from a height of 10 meters, or about three stories. And the people will fall earlier if they struggle on the way up, so the actual death rate shouldn’t be all that high.”
“I still can’t just ignore this. Nothing says they’ll stop after doing it to someone once. If they’re grabbed over and over after they’ve been weakened, they’ll be smashed beyond recognition.”
“True. And the real problem isn’t the drone swarms. The powerful stress will amplify malice and pave the way to a largescale moral hazard.”
Being hit by a bomb was not the only threat from a bombing. Even in a safe shelter, exposure to the intense noise and shaking for long periods of time could allow the powerful fear of death to eat at someone’s psyche and lead to severe PTSD.
You did not need a pure war machine that slaughtered everything.
Even with some openings left, a weapon could still damage the human mind.
“This could be a serious problem if it spreads to the global level,” said my stepmom. “All political systems are made so the minority manages the majority, but that means the rampaging majority can leave the minority of the military or police unable to function. In fact, the military and the police are sometimes the first to break.”
“Like the military coups you sometimes hear about?”
“Or police going on shooting sprees.”
We were discussing an age in which people destroyed other people, rejected their own civilization, and let go of happiness.
That was the Calamity, a largescale moral hazard that could wipe out the human race, and it was drawing ever closer.
“Besides, the problem isn’t over even if we do end the swarms of drones.”
“?”
Nevertheless.
Those drones were running on batteries, so optimistically, this would end on its own in a few hours. Pessimistically, they would be able to recharge themselves, but if the recharging stations were all destroyed, they would “starve” to death.
Destroying all of the stations would mean a fight around the world. But that at least gave us a goal. If we were prepared for a major power outage, it was the machines that would succumb first. There was still hope. Or so I thought.
“If a global corporation that props up the world is destroyed as the culprits here, it will lead to a global depression caused by economic damage the likes of which the world has never seen,” explained my stepmom. “The social stress will not go away either way. Solve this or not, it is extremely likely this will lead into the Calamity.”
“…Then there’s nothing we can do!”
That said, if Wild@Hunt escaped unscathed in order to preserve global stability and all the blame was forced onto a blatant scapegoat, it would only anger the world. No matter what was done, the extreme levels of stress would not go away. There really was no exit I could see.
“That’s right, Satori.”
Demon Lord Lilith had made such a mess of the world in ways seen and unseen, but she actually sounded timid here.
No.
“So, Satori, once I’ve collected everyone, I think we’ll finally head to Absolute Noah at the bottom of the dam.”
“Wha-?”
“That’s the entire point of the ark and the boarding tickets. If we can’t stop the Calamity, then we need to get onboard now regardless of what the schedule says.”
The truck was still driving through the chaotic city. And it was occasionally crashing through light cars people had abandoned in the road due to traffic. That meant she had a destination in mind.
But I had thought it was a destination we could use to fight back. I had thought we were working to stop these rampaging drones and solve this global problem.
“…Are you saying we’re going to run away? Just us?”
“We are going to survive. We will follow the original concept.”
“There might still be something we can do! We know so many people in this city!! Protecting ourselves from a disaster that’s already happened is one thing, but are you saying we’re going to run away before the end has arrived and just let it happen, mom!?”
“Famine brought on by overpopulation, extreme natural disasters caused by global warming, underground resources drying up, the world fracturing from the rise of isolationists… We had come up with several scenarios that could push global social stress past the limit and cause the Calamity. Monster corporations growing like a cancer on society was one of those scenarios. We knew this blood vessel in the brain was going to rupture eventually, but today is the day it reached the limit. You said it hasn’t happened yet, but the world’s prognosis of death was given as far back as the Cold War. Although it was given to us Archenemies millennia ago in the form of prophecies.”
“…How can I accept this?”
“Erika, who can’t even walk out in the sunlight, said the same thing. So did your father. They put up a fight, but now they’re inside the back of the truck. I have you now, so that just leaves collecting Ayumi from her secure private school. Then I’ll have won.”
My stepmom, Amatsu Yurina, may have seen in that way. For someone who had spent a long time preparing, this may have looked like the greatest climax. She would look across the peace-dulled masses and say, “See? I was right.”
“How can I accept this!? Anastasia is visiting right now. And then there’s Itou Helen, Kuroyama Hinoki, and of course the Class Rep!!”
“Then what do you propose?”
“This global drone rampage was caused by abusing a security conflict when Wild@Hunt decided their central servers were infected and switched over to the final backup facility. So if we go the other way…”
“No,” said Maxwell. “Searching through all group data within the 140 central servers turned up no data on the final backup facility. We do not know where in the world it is. In fact, it might be on a satellite or space station, so locating it now is not realistic.”
“Adjust Rex!”
“What?”
“Would that Wild@Hunt non-executive director really visit this regional Far Eastern city just to attack me? He also seemed pretty disillusioned with Wild@Hunt. We need to assume he had some other reason for being here. And if their normal network acts like the final backup facility doesn’t exist, we can guess that he physically visited the facility to set up his security conflict.”
Meaning…
“Wild@Hunt’s final backup is hidden in Kukyou City.”
“…”
“There is supposed to be a central server in each of Wild@Hunt’s support areas, but for some reason Japan alone was borrowing another country’s excess space. That wasn’t just a rumor; Maxwell tracked it down to New Delhi!”
Then why wasn’t Japan’s central server working?
“The Japanese server was cut off from the network to act as the final backup.”
“Even if so, what proof do you have that it is conveniently in Kukyou City?” asked Maxwell. “This is a relatively uninteresting regional city.”
“This city specializes in disaster research, so it’s the perfect place to put your insurance. It’s far safer and more trustworthy than a satellite which can lose control due to debris or solar winds. The final backup…no, the Japanese central server would be placed in this city. Right!?”
“Even if we do stop Wild@Hunt’s drones, we would not prevent the economic damage and the following global depression,” reminded my stepmom. “The Calamity will occur either way.”
It was true I did not have an answer for that yet.
If I made a poorly-thought-out move, I could become the direct cause of harm instead of just passively watching others die.
But.
Even so.
“…I won’t abandon them.”
“Satori.”
“It’s the same as with the Bright Cross’s Colosseum. Stopping that entertainment show hosted by the blue bunny girl wasn’t guaranteed to save the Archenemies. They might have changed the format and reopened as a different sort of murder show. But I did it anyway! And it was those results that got them through to today, right!? If I had given up then, Itou Helen, Muramatsu Yukie, Erika, Ayumi, and everyone else would have been killed after forced to fight to the death inside that giant bug cage! It would have been 100% guaranteed!! So I had to do it!! I had to reach for a miracle built up by our individual efforts!!”
“…That is definitely a moving story,” said Amatsu Yurina.
But…
“If we were talking about a stranger, I might have irresponsibly applauded. But, Satori, I decided to become your mother. No matter what deadly sins I must bear as a result.”
“…!?”
I was through with hesitating.
I unlocked the door and threw open the passenger-side door even though the truck was still moving. I opened it too hard and it immediately hit a road sign and was torn away, but I had bigger things to worry about.
But not because I had jumped out onto the road in a surge of manly resolve.
No, it was because a bloody man crawled up toward the opened passenger seat.
Crawled up? So from below? I was too confused to make any sense of it, so the first to react was my stepmom. She reached for her hip and pulled out a monstrous single-shot magnum with a barrel as thick as a flare gun and provided the accurate answer.
“Adjust Rex!!”
He was a Mummy Archenemy.
Had that dried-out bastard clung to the bottom of the truck after being hit by its 20-ton weight!? He had done some bragging about a pharaoh or something, but setting aside how infectious he was, he seemed even tougher than a Zombie or Vampire!!
“This isn’t over yet… I need your ark. And that brat is the master key, isn’t he!?”
“…!!”
My stepmom seemed hesitant to fire that with me in between them.
Reality was cruel, so no matter how carefully you prepared, the slightest moment of inattention could mean losing everything.
So…
“Ah.”
I heard a strange voice.
It wasn’t mine.
A delivery drone’s crane arm was digging into Adjust Rex’s shoulder as he clung to the outside of the truck.
“Ahh, ahhh, ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”
It was like watching swarming seagulls.
Had he not set himself as a targeting exception, or had his injuries and burns created too much of a change from his registered facial recognition data?
Regardless, the idiot was enveloped by the end of the world he himself had released and he was carried high into the sky.
…Well, both hackers and snipers could only act like a god until their location and identities were revealed.
And I did not have time to just watch.
The drones’ attention was on Adjust, so this was my chance. If my stepmom threatened me with that monstrous single-shot magnum, I wouldn’t be able to move.
This was my only chance to jump out.
If I hesitated, the fear would hold me in place. I pulled the card-sized car navigation device from its stand and threw myself ou
