Book 8 Chapter 6
Was I thousands of meters up, or tens of thousands?
I didn’t have time to even try to count once I had passed the clouds. Thanks to that, there was no rain falling. However, it was not chilly and I could breathe just fine. It was not normal to have a comfortable environment while so high up that the city looked like it was made up of specks. I considered the possibility that I had ended up in a dream or virtual reality.
At this height, my phone’s signal apparently could not reach the base stations on the ground. I had zero bars despite being in the middle of Tokyo.
I should not have been this high up without anything to protect me.
Also…
“?”
A JSDF member was waving frantically.
Except no, that wasn’t it.
They suddenly fell straight down, like an invisible thread had been cut.
“What!?”
I reached out in surprise, but there was no way I could reach. I simply heard a helpless scream distorted by the Doppler effect as it fell.
And then…I couldn’t see them anymore.
What had just happened?
Tokyo was flooded below us, but that didn’t mean much at this height!!
But hold on.
What?
What was this?
If that didn’t mean much, what was going to happen to them!? Damn, I didn’t know who that was, but I was also being suspended up here by means I couldn’t explain!!
“O-Onii-chan!”
A pale-faced Ayumi was flailing her limbs nearby. Jewel like water droplets were floating up from her white tank top, track jacket, and black hair.
A dark form dropped straight down next to her. Had it been a bicycle? Then some balls of muddy water and some JSDF equipment like helmets and rifles fell.
“This might not be a simple accident.”
“You mean…we’re being weeded out? After just grabbing everything that was there!?”
I didn’t know what standard was being used for that process.
I simply heard more and more screams. The JSDF must not have lived up to the monster’s exacting standards. The mysterious floating power was cut off as casually as throwing out the dead clams after going clamming. Those combat experts were helpless as they went spinning down through the air.
It happened so readily and they disappeared to join the other specks forming the city below, so it was hard to remember I was watching people dying.
A vague tremor came over me.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I didn’t have it in me to worry about those strangers. I was too worried about Ayumi and Erika. The same could happen to them on a whim from this mystery appraiser!!
But then I heard a heavy sound from overhead like a metal lid being opened.
We had moved above the clouds, but I could not see the moon.
A spaceship hovered above us. It was so large it covered up the dark night sky and its bottom surface was opened like a big mouth.
Were we the invited guests?
Erika was a Vampire, so she couldn’t enter a home without the owner’s invitation.
Could I see this as a single ray of hope? I was dubious of pretty much every story of an alien encounter I had ever heard, but not many of those stories could be described as “a good time was had by all”. In fact, I could set aside whether or not we were really dealing with an alien here. Whoever this was had thrown a few dozen people out into the open air just because they had not met some kind of standards. I couldn’t even imagine what kind of welcome we would receive.
“Erika.”
Even I knew I was asking a stupid question.
“Are aliens a kind of Archenemy?”
“Not that I’ve ever heard of. There was one known as a Shoggoth, but that felt more like an arbitrary name given to something they couldn’t explain.”
About what I expected.
I had spoken with a bunny girl goddess and I had a part-timer demon lord as a stepmother, but this was even crazier than that. If this was allowed, then we’d find ourselves categorizing combining robots and giant kaiju as Archenemies too.
We were entirely helpless as we, the last three people remaining, were taken inside the giant spaceship. It was huge, like an excessively large warehouse. Despite being a spaceship, it apparently did not need an airlock. As soon as the opening below us closed, the pull of gravity returned. I had never imagined being able to stand on my own two feet would feel so sweet.
The walls in all directions began to move in a complex pattern.
Wait, was the place not divided out into different rooms, like a storeroom, cockpit, etc.?
“Rooms” about the size of a school buildings slid around to quickly change the entranceway into a grand hall. Was the entire thing made of boxy sections that could be rearranged as they saw fit?
Anyway, this was a grand hall.
There was no end to it.
Even though we were most definitely indoors.
Needless to say, you could normally see the horizon at a certain distance because the earth was round. But this spaceship was not. So was this like peering to the bottom of some deep water? I had heard there was a limit to how far you could see because the air did not allow 100% of light through. But what was the exact limit there? 20km? 30? The sun and the moon were exceptions, but you could apparently see Mt. Fuji from Tokyo. And which of the 36 Views of Mount Fuji depicted it from furthest away? Whatever the case, how ridiculously huge was this floating UFO!?
I felt a little chilly.
Was the air-conditioning too strong?
Of course, this was warmer than it should have ben since I had not frozen while being soaked to the bone at this altitude.
“Fugu. Onii-chan.”
Ayumi grabbed at my jacket with a worried look.
Aliens.
Those slimy dry brown things.
But there was no sign of their big boss or whatever. We only saw dozens or even hundreds of them were gathered in a small mountain at the center of the hall to respectfully lift up a cylindrical glass pod like it was a royal sarcophagus. It was filled with a thick liquid. A half-naked girl in paper underwear held together by strings lay face up inside.
No, wait.
“On a recommendation from the servant species, I attempted to choose someone who I could hold a conversation with. Is that kid the one? Fine. Help me kill some time, local species. Say no and I will immediately eject you.”
The ceiling was just as vast as the floor and the giant monitor there had to be more than 300 inches. And it was not alone. Four different screens formed a large box. It reminded me of the screens at a martial arts competition or an international poker tournament.
Also.
All four screens showed a close up of the short girl’s face. No, that was not the real one. Unlike the one lying in that pod, her eyes were open and she looked down at us with a triumphant look on her face.
I was surprised to find we could communicate.
Did that mean they had not just arrived recently?
“Are you the boss of those slimy things? You look nothing like them!!”
“Now, now. Don’t assume I have any relation to those disgusting things. They are no more than the servant species I am raising. I picked them up at the planet I destroyed two, three…? Well, I don’t remember how many ago it was.”
I couldn’t do it.
She was talking on such a huge scale I couldn’t tell at all if she was bluffing. She was talking about the kind of stuff you’d expect to see in the Cthulhu Mythos. It was like being asked to pinpoint the secret ingredient in a curry so full of different spices it had turned bright red. Also, the actual girl in white underwear was sleeping in the pod, while the face on the monitor was a well-made replica. I could not ask questions and try to detect panic from her expression or breathing. This was the same difference between playing mahjong face-to-face or online. Drawing anything out through conversation would be hard here!
“What do you plan to do with us?”
“Rushing to the conclusion already? Such peaceful assumptions. Did it never occur to you that my answer to that question could spell your ?”
Kh.
“Yes, you are being tested. I hold your life in my hand. Along with the lives of the two behind you. Words are weapons, so play your cards carefully. One mistake and I will toss you out into the sky. Oh, I suppose it would be into space now.”
Space.
There were no windows and I felt my weight on my feet. Still, it didn’t matter how high up we were. I already knew we were at least too high up to survive being thrown out.
The chill of the air filled me with unease, like I was in a morgue.
Also, her tone of voice made it clear she was enjoying the ache in my chest. Whether she was earthling or alien, she was still an abductor. I had never heard of criminals like that treating their hostages very well.
I thought harder than I wanted while artificial gravity or something kept my feet planted on the floor.
I could not afford to make waves here.
But I had to think carefully at the same time.
I couldn’t abandon all thought and act like a weak-willed puppet.
“This was some unfortunate timing for you as well. You didn’t have to attack on a stormy day like this.”
“Ha ha. Small talk about the weather!? You do not have much experience with the opposite sex, do you? That is just about the worst way to hit on someone.” The face on the monitor formed a meaningful-looking smile. “Also, the timing was not unfortunate at all. In fact, that bomb cyclone was a meteorological weapon I created.”
“Wha-?”
“Is it really so shocking? Even your inferior technology should be capable of artificially producing lightning and hurricanes.”
Fair enough.
Even I had used my disaster environment simulator’s help to create an artificial hurricane during the mess in Las Vegas.
And when Wild@Hunt’s drones were going berserk, I had sent a satellite into the atmosphere so it would break apart like a meteor and cause a major explosion.
But.
Even if that was true…
“You mean the winds knocking over the Skytool and the flooding of Tokyo were part of your plan? But why!?”
“Because of that broadcast tower.”
The four monitors hanging from the ceiling readily answered.
She must not have felt any guilt.
“Call it a usable band if you like. Radio, television, cellular phones, radio clocks, radar, GPS, drones…this planet has a mere 7 billion beings, yet you are using up far too much of the electromagnetic spectrum. You have even sent probes powered by atomic batteries beyond your planet to endlessly scatter more signals. You have found every way you can think of to fill up every last band available to you. Stellar flares, quasars, gravitational lensing, and supernovae are enough of a hindrance to my radio beacons during interstellar travel, but now I have to account for intentional errors as well. If you insist on interfering, then I will physically remove the source of the hindrance to my safe travel. All beings have a right to self defense. I bluntly refuse to allow you invaders to harm us in our travels with your electromagnetic assault.”
The invaders…
The space invaders…
…were us???
The humans of earth had meant no harm. We didn’t even know there were aliens so close by!
“Ignorance is no excuse.”
Had my thoughts shown on my face? Anything I might have said was cut off by the girl showing on the four monitors.
“You are at fault for reaching beyond your ken without making an effort to learn what you were doing.”
“B-but I thought the signals sent from the earth were trivial in comparison to the naturally occurring ones!”
“According to your juvenile understanding of science, perhaps. But that only further proves your civilization is too primitive to manage an entire planet. You fail to recover your crashed spacecraft loaded with nuclear reactors, you allow the debris to scatter, you carry mold and sexually transmitted infectious bacteria off of your planet, and then, of course, the electromagnetic waves. You might as well be throwing feces around in public while cackling wildly. How could I not be fed up with your abysmal manners?”
“…”
“To put it in terms you might be capable of understanding, your species is like an unlicensed driver hitting and killing someone. Your intentions are irrelevant. The fact remains that we are at greater risk of being stranded or killed. What is wrong with seeking retribution and rectification?”
So.
Did she see us like those brats who hindered air traffic by shining laser pens at airplanes? That was why she had done this? But the Tokyo Skytool was the country’s largest…no, one the world’s largest broadcast towers!!
“However, that metal twig proved more stubborn than expected. The bomb cyclone did not seem like enough to bring it down, so I was forced to send in around ten thousand of the servant species. Attaching them to the tower’s surface made a big difference. Heh heh. To the center of gravity and to how it caught the wind.”
“What happened to them? We’re the only ones here and you threw out the JSDF. And it doesn’t look like you retrieved those members of the ‘servant species’.”
“Why would I bother? I increased their numbers so they could be of use to me. They are meant to be used and thrown out.”
There was no hatred or contempt in her voice.
In fact, she sounded confused.
That lack of understanding chilled my insides. It was like your friend was explaining some family rule with a smile, but it turned out to be a stereotypical example of abuse.
It was no use.
We couldn’t reach an understanding. She had not been derailed from the track because she hated something. Nor was she drowning in abnormal pleasure. Her ordinary was messed up. You never knew what she would say without realizing it was shocking.
There had been no pressing reason why the JSDF had to die there. This spaceship was large enough to hold all of them along with us.
But she had no reason for them.
She did not need them.
And that was all the reason that empress in the pod needed to crush their lives underfoot. Those slimy boomerangs she called the servant species had to be a picture of our fate if we were forced to make the ultimate decision.
If we did not want fear to crush us beyond recognition, we had to stay strong.
I tried a new tack inside that vast but inorganic spaceship which was kept too cold.
“It’s true the Tokyo Skytool was the country’s largest broadcast tower, but based on what you said, knocking it over won’t change much!”
“True. To be honest, I am unsure how to progress. I began this endeavor as it is necessary, but there are too many of them. The aerospace agency in Florida, the rainforest preservation meteorological observatory in the Amazon, the EU wide-area broadcast base in Frankfurt…the list goes on. Humans, I am impressed you managed to build so needlessly many of them. Do the electromagnetic waves not crush your chest cavities?”
“Hold on.”
“The wide-area wireless network base tower in the Gibson Desert, the multipurpose space station, and…yes, there was also an infuriating broadcast station causing a nuisance by constantly broadcasting Beatulls songs into space. You are welcome to your own aesthetic opinions, but give a thought to the uninterested parties who are constantly pummeled by that nonsense.”
“What was happening around the world while we were trapped in that elevator!?”
The face displayed on the four monitors hanging from the ceiling tilted slightly.
Then she responded.
“I have only done what is necessary to the extent necessary. Why does that surprise you?”
This had to be a joke.
It was true earth had its hands full. We had no idea when the extreme moral hazard of the Calamity would spring forth and Absolute Noah, the secret organization created to oppose that apocalypse, had fallen apart after going berserk.
But.
Even so.
Had anyone predicted this? Even a single person on earth!? Calling us unprepared or peace-addled for that seemed entirely unfair!
“But I have concluded I will never finish this job by fiddling with the planetary atmosphere, so it is time to take more drastic measures.”
“What more could there be?”
“The primary base stations are infuriatingly numerous enough, but you all carry around untold numbers of smaller device as well, don’t you? IoT? How absurd. Just because you can fit a stamp-sized SD card on something, does not mean you have to give it wireless capabilities, you fools. Anyway, targeting each of those individually would be an endless task.”
Smaller devices?
She had not just used the winds to knock over the tower. She had also flooded a wide area of Tokyo, so did she see it like Noah’s flood? She may have had those slimly things investigate for her, but how much of our technology and culture had she absorbed?
“So I believe I shall start with a geomagnetic distortion. I like the idea of using your primitive planet’s own power to wipe clean your primitive civilization.”
“…”
“Do you think I am incapable of it? Consider the method used to fly a mothership of this size. If I activate the ion engine to…yes, let’s say Shift 3, the stream of charged particles will obliterate the planet’s magnetic field. The massive magnetic abnormality should be enough to swiftly destroy every last semiconductor and electric circuit on the planet’s surface. That method is inescapable as long as you are reliant on a single planet.”
“Are you kidding me!? That’s going way beyond destroying EM-emitting devices! Don’t you know you’ll be destroying labs, industrial complexes, airplanes, power plants, pacemakers, and life-support devices!?”
“Which is why I left it as a last resort. If the meteorological weapon had sufficed, I would not have needed to make this choice.”
Also, this was bad.
If all the electronics on earth were destroyed, what would happen to Maxwell? Being out at sea or in a shelter deep underground would not help. There was no escaping it if the entire planet’s geomagnetism was messed up!!
The heat inside my body and the chill outside of it fought for supremacy with the skin of my face between.
Think.
I had to think.
Words were weapons and the cards I had to play. That empress herself had said so. Putting off or delaying the inevitable was fine for now. What could I do to move her finger away from the button of she was toying with? The empress wearing only paper underwear in that liquid could have killed us without speaking a word if she had wanted to. And she had not called the JSDF here. She had some reason of choosing us over them. There was a reason why she had chosen Erika, Ayumi, and me and taken us aboard her mothership. Of course, this was all over if it turned out to be on a whim or just for fun. And that was a distinct possibility. But if she did need something from us, I might be able to use that as a bargaining chip!!
“Human, you are scheming, aren’t you?”
“Kh.”
“Very well. I am sick of those who abandon all thought and become a fawning converts once hit with the difference in scale. That spirit is exactly the kind of trait I want to see from the one who will make use of my womb.”
…?
What?
Had she just changed the subject? Converts, traits, womb? None of this sounded like talk of travel hindrances or the destruction of electronic devices.
“Now, now. This is, in fact, the main topic at hand. I have traveled to many star systems, but did you think I was doing so without a purpose in mind? I only insist on eliminating the travel hindrances and the electromagnetic interference because they interfere with that journey. That is a reaction, not my objective.”
“What else could there be?”
“Supply me with your genes.”
For a moment, I did not know what she meant.
“I am telling you to make a child with me.”
“Huhhhhhhh!?”
“Huhhhhhhh!?”
Erika and Ayumi behind me reacted much more quickly than me.
“Is there a problem? While a female body must wait until the new life has become sufficiently developed, a male must only supply the seed. That will be no real burden.”
“Are you…are you kidding me, fugu!? Wh-wh-wh-wh-what do you think you’re saying to my big brother!? Are you a pervert, or just really lonely or something!? Fugu, fuguu!”
“I can separate you into three different levels if need be.”
The face on the four giant monitors remained unconcerned. It was just like when she had sent 10,000 members of the slimy servant species to earth with no intention of retrieving them. Did she not place us or her servants any higher or lower? Did she simply make use of whatever she deemed necessary?
“A similar species is one that can procreate with me, a servant species is one that cannot but can function as a work force, and an extinct species is what I leave in my wake if a species can do neither. …Did you think I had no reason to bring you here? You are being tested. To see which of those three categories you belong in.”
It was all too absurd.
But did she see this as something like a marriage interview? This!? With the fate of the entire planet hanging in the balance!?
“Um, if that is what this is about…”
“Yes?”
“Then could you free Erika and Ayumi… my sisters, I mean?”
“If they are unnecessary, shall I eject them?”
I felt a squeezing at my heart and the face on the screen seemed to enjoy this.
“I will not go that far. I am willing to show some accommodation to the genetic supplier. I was observing from above and you seem more interesting than the others of your local species. I want to see your AGCT sequence. Give me your DNA.”
“Wait, do you mean…?”
Erika frowned and looked not at the giant monitors by the ceiling but at the cylindrical pod lifted up by the slimy frog-skinned things. At the person floating in the liquid wearing only pure white paper underwear.
Yes.
Time looked stopped there, like things were being forcibly preserved.
“Our reproductive ability is low. Extremely low.”
She did not hesitate.
“In fact, the required opposite sex no longer exists. They have gone extinct. It turns out you can be too exceptional as individuals. We put off the effort needed to coexist in groups and the time has come to pay the price.”
“…”
This was someone who had been left all alone in the world.
I still had trouble believing she was an alien, but even if that was a joke, I couldn’t make fun. I felt like I was about to step on a serious bombshell, so I could not give a careless response.
“So the only option is to search out a species with a similar enough genetic sequence. This might sound absurd to you, but it is an urgent, top-priority matter to me.”
My country was always going on and on about declining birthrates, but this was different from that.
What she said here brought a shockingly icy feeling up from the pit of my stomach.
“Choose.”
This was someone who was living out a cruel and hopeless struggle for survival.
This was pure.
It was like how water truly devoid of all impurities would behave in unique ways.
“Will you attempt procreation with me, will you give up and supply labor, or will you refuse and be eradicated? All life in this star system will be divided into those three categories. No matter in history has been more urgent, so no one can claim they are not a part of it. Will you attempt to reach a category of your choosing, or will you simply let me choose?”
If our situations were reversed, what would I have done?
What if I was the last person on earth? And I mean truly the last one, so no former humans like Zombies or Vampires. What would I do then? Would I do whatever it took to leave behind descendants, would I try to leave something behind in the form of a journal or data, would I distract myself from my loneliness with AIs and virtual reality, or would I erase all traces of life to truly eliminate everything?
I couldn’t find an answer.
Survival or extinction.
That was the debate that had been held over the Calamity and Absolute Noah. But they had never imagined being the very last person left. In fact, that ark had grown so bloated specifically to avoid that.
It was worse than death.
There was even less room for escape than with a sudden and total extinction.
I subconsciously recoiled at the thought of the entire planet becoming a giant prison while that inescapable ruin bore down upon me.
And another thing.
I looked up at the four large monitors hanging down from the ceiling.
“I refuse.”
I rejected the offer.
I withdrew the possibility of breaking the bars of her cage.
It was true the burden on a man’s body was different from that on a woman’s. Cooperating would not put my life at risk. My, uh, “genes” were a sticky goop that would come out all on its own given a couple of weeks.
But that didn’t mean I could just hand it over.
“You claim this is the right thing to do because it will save your species?”
Just like she had her own logic, we had a line we refused to cross. If I did that like it was an experiment using litmus paper, I would end up regretting it for the rest of my life.
“Are you kidding me, you extinct loner? People don’t come together based on logic like that! It might be silly and it might be embarrassing, but everyone wants to be joined with someone they have feelings for!! I’m not letting you take that option from me based on some logical argument or justification!!”
We were talking about a life here.
A high school kid like me wasn’t ready to face something as important as that.
Once it took root, you had a responsibility there. No matter how much trouble it was, you couldn’t turn your back on that.
In fact.
Even adults probably felt that way.
Everyone was afraid of having to support another life.
But when it was the result of being with the person you loved more than anyone else, then you could hesitantly and tentatively prepare yourself to head down that path. It would not all be smooth sailing. I mean, I had two moms. But none of that was the result of half-baked feelings. Everyone had done everything they could to make it work, but they had been unable to stop the failure and so my previous mom left the house even though it must have felt like tearing her heart in two.
And yet…
“Are you kidding me?”
Yes.
Yes, yes! Even picturing her in my mind’s eye embarrassed me right now!!
I had a childhood friend who had always supported me. That Class Rep had long black hair, a bared forehead, and frameless glasses. I wasn’t going to turn my back on that because of some logic based on “efficiency” or “distribution”. If someone tried to do the same to her, I’d hunt them down and kill them even if it meant destroying every last civilization in the world. They could run to the dark side of the moon and I’d still find them. We weren’t lab rats, so I wouldn’t let that happen to anyone!
“Are you kidding me!? The world doesn’t revolve around you! Go solve your problems yourself. If you haven’t managed to fall in love or find someone special, it’s your own damn fault for not making the effort and for feeling satisfied with your loneliness! You don’t get to make us pay off your debt!!”
“You mean…”
The voice from the monitor seemed too flat.
I knew I was looking at an artificial face, but a disconcerting pressure, similar to an invisible bowstring being drawn, burned between my eyes.
“You mean you are giving up on procreation and instead wish to supply labor as a servant species?”
“No.”
“Then you are actively choosing the path of extinction? Do you think I am incapable of making good on that threat?”
“I’m not taking any of the paths you’re trying to force onto me. That’s my choice, empress.”
“I believe I told you that you are being tested, foolish local species. You should have used your primitive mind to consider what your score would be if you abandoned the test meant to determine the path of your life.”
There was a crawling, but not of killer intent.
“There’s so many of them!”
“Stand back, Onii-chan!”
The three siblings stood back to back while viewing our surroundings.
It was the dry brown things with slimy frog skin. That servant species had sworn to obey when their planet was destroyed. There was more than just the mountain of them supporting the cylindrical pod. It was like a mountain range surrounding us in every direction. Erika had said our mind had difficulty recognizing them and light did not actually pass through them, but was that really true? When they squirmed, the scene behind them rippled like we were seeing it through sugar syrup. It felt like the many crop circles were linking together to display the constellations in a planetarium. There had to be a thousand, ten thousand, or maybe even more of them! They covered the ceiling too!!
Was it beginning?
We still didn’t know what the empress’s Achilles heel was.
If anything, it was my body, but…
“Did you know that even corpses can ejaculate? Such stories are normally spoken in relation to hangings and the electric chair. It might sound akin to the legends of guillotined heads blinking, but these are a bit more credible. As long as I act within five minutes of your death, I can still retrieve a viable sample. In other words, the procreation experiment can continue even if you die.”
“…!!”
“Will you offer it in the pleasures of life, or in the convulsions of death? I do not care, as I can achieve my goal either way.”
I had to think.
Guesses were fine at this point.
There was no time to line up pieces of evidence to support everything. If I was going to make an attack here, what did I need to target? I had to think back on the conversation held here. No, what was the point of the conversation in the first place? I couldn’t give up now. I had to do something for my Vampire older sister, my Zombie little sister, and for the entire planet below us. What mattered most: the face on the four monitors, the girl in the pod, the slimy boomerangs, or the giant mothership? It was all on such a ridiculous scale, but I focused on the conversation. I had to remember what it was that seemed off to me.
…
Wait.
It couldn’t be.
Or could it???
“The screen,” I said. “Ayumi, Erika! I know it’s high up there, but can you destroy that giant monitor!?”
“Fugu?”
“Just do it, please!!”
Ayumi tilted her head, but Erika took immediate action. The right arm extending from her torn sleeve grabbed the phone charger cable I tossed her, she swung it around using the plug as a weight to build up speed, and she threw it right through the large monitor hanging from the ceiling.
It caused a high-pitched shattering sound.
Yes.
That was right.
This spaceship was made so the interior could be rearranged for different purposes, so what was with that oversized monitor? What purpose did it serve? Could she not speak with that servant species without using a 300+-inch screen? No, the girl in the pod had said she had been observing us from above and she knew an awful lot about earth culture, like the guillotine and hanging stuff. That meant she had some way of communic
