Book 9 Chapter 2
Part 1
It was nearly 8 at night.
The employees might still be there at that time, so the risk would actually have been less in the middle of the night.
“It’s eerily quiet,” hesitantly said the Class Rep while holding her shovel close.
Now that she had calmed down, she may have realized just how odd it was to carry that around. Then again, it was more normal than usual with all the snow around and there weren’t any police out to question her about it anyway.
“Class Rep, check your mask.”
“?”
We would arrive at the downtown area soon. Her glasses would make it even harder to identify her, but I still wanted to reduce the risk of being seen as much as possible.
I felt a ripple-like tremor.
It was far from powerful and did not seem like an earthquake. Still, it was irregular and intermittent. I could also hear it from the rattling of the snow-covered manhole covers and drain grates.
“Wh-what?” The Class Rep tightened her grip on the shovel. “It’s like there’s a kaiju stomping around.”
“You could call it a giant monster, I suppose.”
The corner up ahead would take us out to the main road, so I held a hand out to stop the Class Rep while I poked my head out.
The tremor hit my body like a solid impact.
How could I even describe it?
The closest comparison I can think of is the cheering at a sports stadium.
But the emotions at the root of this were the polar opposite. It was undiluted anger, resentment, displeasure, and dissatisfaction. It was like every type of aggressive emotion had been mixed together, cooked with a powerful heat, and turned into a thick sludge.
What were they saying?
I didn’t want to differentiate any of their individual statements. People were packed onto the 6-lane road as tightly as on a crowded train and they were all shouting whatever hateful things they could come up with.
“What…in the world?” The Class Rep sounded dazed as she carelessly held the shovel. “Isn’t this about the water filters at the electronics store? That means this must continue for hundreds of meters past here. It’s like New Years at a major shrine.”
This was not a news story from some country you’d never heard of.
These were the people of our own hometown who normally greeted us around town or recommended us clothes at the store. These weren’t zombies from a video game and they had not been driven insane by some kind of infection. Ordinary people from our city had reached this point. Discovering this side of them was something of a shock.
“An accurate count is impossible since people are arriving and leaving all the time, but I estimate there are over 5000 people there,” said Maxwell. “Given the city’s population density, that is a relatively small number.”
“But it’s still enough to fill a dozen schools.”
“You really do not want to know how many people are shouting about this online.”
As someone with my social life focused on school, any group larger than the entire student body felt insane to me. I couldn’t get a good grasp of how many people this was.
If that group exploded, who could say what would physically happen. They really were a kaiju crushing the city underfoot as it walked aimlessly around.
If I tried to oppose them head-on, I would be trampled in no time.
I had to focus on their weak point. For whatever reason, someone was spreading fake news to cause a riot, so they would need to provide a final ignition. That person or persons would be the minority here.
The microplastic snow would burn.
Without the fire department functioning, a fire could end up burning through a huge chunk of the city.
“Maxwell, have you located the igniter yet?”
“No. I have not found anyone with pepper spray or a stimulant. The street cameras cannot actually see into people’s bags or below their clothes.”
“Not even with IR?”
“Security cameras are not the same as indecent hidden cameras capable of seeing through white swimsuits.”
The Class Rep tried to take a worried look at my phone, so I quickly hid the screen from her.
“Then look for anyone with a helmet or mask covering their face. Especially if it hides their eyeline.”
“There are too many to list.”
“Are any of them using specialized equipment for blocking facial recognition? You can also narrow it down to people wearing two different shoe sizes or shoes with unusually tall soles. Your gait can be used to identify you, so people who really want to avoid being IDed will use physical tricks to change how they carry their weight.”
“Sure. 9 people are hiding their face and standing at an unnatural angle. Of those, 5 are holding a drink bottle in one hand, two have injuries from fights, and one has removed their mask to vomit. The last one has nothing visible.”
“Show me the location of that last one.”
The displayed photo was a tanned girl with her red hair worn in a ponytail. She looked my age or a little older. She wore a tank top and shorts and her jacket was tied around her hips by the sleeves. She had the look of a basketball player. Her baggy top gave glimpses of white, untanned skin.
The scarf was one thing, but it was highly unusual to be wearing sunglasses at night. Plus, she was carrying a sports bag over one shoulder.
“That’s got to be them.”
“There may be more than one person hidden in the crowd.”
“Once we deal with her, we can steal her phone and check her social media and address book. After locating anyone in the same area, we can narrow it down to anyone who might be hiding pepper spray or another stimulant. How I get to her is up to you.”
“Sure.”
Deal with her, huh?
What language was I speaking? What did that vague phrase actually mean here?
I had listed a number of tactics, but I had actually already abandoned the idea of multiple bad guys in the crowd. Looking for people hiding their face and standing oddly would lead us right back to those previous 9. It seemed unlikely anything would make me once more suspect the ones I had already ruled out, but it would make no sense for one of the bad guys to be hiding their identity while another was not. Members of the same group would share the same techniques and the same awareness of the risk.
That girl was most likely the only enemy here.
If she pulled some pepper spray from her bag and sprayed it around, this place would boil over.
If she didn’t care to control it, she could start a riot right this instant. There was no time.
“So she’s about 200m away. What’s your recommended route?”
“Is your map app’s recommended route good enough? Then travel 200m straight there.”
“If you can’t find one, just say so, geez. I’ll come up with something myself.”
I wasn’t about to push into that crowd while accompanied by a girl.
A mountain of people filled that 6-lane road.
However…
“This way, Class Rep.”
“Eh?”
“The independently-run businesses are closed, but the chain stores and department stores are still open. Maxwell, check the electronic locks and home security for the back entrances and unlock them if possible.”
“And if I am unable to open a door?”
“I’ll force it open.”
I didn’t hear any shattering glass or screams, so this had to be the right choice. The main road was packed full, but we could avoid the crowd by cutting through the shops from building to building.
That might sound odd, but before they boiled over, they would maintain those boundaries. They required a justification for their actions. They were here because they believed the misinformation about Huge Camera hiding filters, but that didn’t give them an excuse to attack other stores.
Of course, I could only do this because I could get all the many doors unlocked for me.
We would move from back entrance to back entrance and emergency exit to emergency exit.
The back areas were not visible from the main floor of the shops, so I was hoping we would not run into any employees on the way.
“It is open,” said Maxwell.
“Let’s get going, Class Rep.”
I grabbed the knob and turned it, but it did not catch and no alarm sounded.
We found a narrow, dark hallway.
I didn’t know what was the storeroom and what was the office, but we had to cut across the building to reach the next one over.
This one turned out to be a sporting goods store, or so the brand names on the stacks of cardboard boxes suggested. An indoorsy guy like me was far from an expert, but my little sister had made me tag along her when she was picking out her jogging clothes.
Coming in from outside was the tricky part, but going back out from the inside only required unlocking it myself. That would be no trouble at all.
“Wow,” groaned the Class Rep.
She was reacting to the deep tremor we could feel and hear. It was not loud enough to call deafening, but the ground was definitely shaking below us. I had to shudder at the thought of people causing that because it felt like when a train passes by. And if things went wrong, that could all be headed our way.
We were already in the danger zone, so it was too late to get cold feet. The only way to survive was to continue onwards. You couldn’t jump across the ravine without taking a running start. The two of us continued on through the narrow passageway.
“Huh, they don’t put security cameras in the back of the store, do they?”
“Not unless one of the employees is stealing from the safe.”
We couldn’t let our guard down since a phone’s camera could be spying on us from anywhere with a 2mm hole, but Maxwell did not send any warnings. Besides, the exact same camera technology would be viewed as a spy device if it was not made clear there was a camera there.
“There’s the door.”
Leaving the building only required opening the lock from within, but doing that with an emergency exit would set off the alarm. Just to be sure, I checked for any cords attached before turning the knob.
We were in a different alley than before.
The adjacent building’s back entrance was only a few meters away.
“So now it’s wash, rinse, and repeat?” asked the Class Rep.
“Around 200m would mean three or four buildings from here. Maxwell, is the target moving?”
“Sure. She is moving toward the electronics store because the entire crowd is pushing in that direction, but it is within the margin of error. She was located near Huge Camera to begin with anyway.”
If you wanted to hide in the crowd for nefarious purposes, you would want to be nearby but not right on the front line. Trees were much more conspicuous once they moved outside the forest.
We snuck through the back of a clothing store and a department store to approach the target individual.
“You have covered the distance,” said Maxwell. “You have no choice but to leave through the front of the store and enter the crowd.”
“You really think I’m doing that? It’s too dangerous. Maxwell, run a fluid mechanics simul-”
I was cut off by the high-pitched screech of a feedback loop.
A megaphone!?
I grimaced and covered my ears. We were done with the safe back areas anyway, so we moved out to the front of the store. We were on the first floor of a department store. The employees at an accessory shop and a glasses store were crouched down and hesitantly looking out the window and they shrieked when they saw us, but now was not the time to worry about that.
We stayed inside and pressed our backs against the decorative pillar near the glass door.
I could hear something other than the angry yelling and shouting one would expect from the crowd filling the street immediately outside the door.
“Listen to what we, the consumer, have to say!! It is our right to buy your merchandise, so stop hoarding the filters we need for our health and peace of mind!!”
Others shouted in agreement, creating a great tremor. It all gathered together like crashing and receding waves.
The Class Rep shrank down with the shovel still in her hands.
“What? What’s going on? Is that person one of the bad guys too?”
“No,” replied Maxwell. “They have made no eye contact with the target. Generally, accomplices will pay an unnecessary amount of attention to each other.”
It occurred to me that the participants could have been recruited online so none of them knew what any of the others looked like, but now was not the time to think about that.
“Where’s the basketball girl!?”
“30m into the crowd from you. She has stuck one hand inside her sports bag.”
Was she the type to make use of every opportunity, even if it wasn’t part of the plan!?
“Maxwell, run a simulation!”
“I could, but that crowd is like a train at 300% occupancy. No movements I could calculate would allow you to run to her right this instant.”
That wasn’t what I meant.
The point here was to stop that sporty tanned redhead from doing whatever she was doing to trigger a full-fledged riot.
“Run a fluid mechanics simulation. But instead of water or air, use the people out there in place of the free-moving molecules.”
“What exactly is the objective of this task?”
“Look into the change in density. How can I push on that crowd to most efficiently apply pressure to the ignition girl in the middle! But keep it low enough that it won’t kill her, of course.”
I glanced at my phone and ran out from behind the pillar, leaving the Class Rep behind. I threw open the glass door and a few members of the crowd turned toward me.
But it was too late.
“Continue straight from there,” said Maxwell.
“Hragh!!”
I used my whole weight to tackle them with my shoulder. In a one-on-one confrontation, they would probably have dodged it, but that wasn’t possible while packed together so tightly.
I felt a softness reminiscent of the thick mats used for the high jump. Yes, my shoulder sank in rather than being knocked back. The force was transferred inward.
Still, this wouldn’t be enough to knock everyone over like dominoes. I was up against a giant kaiju. An unexpected tackle from an indoorsy guy like me wasn’t going to make it topple over.
But what about the people inside that rubber costume?
Everywhere I looked, I saw heads, heads, and more heads. The place had already been like a packed train, so changing the density just a little could be used to apply pressure to a desired point.
“Gyah!?”
I heard a weird cry from beyond the crowd.
Chicks could wind up mysteriously dead on chicken farms during the winter. As the chicks gathered together for warmth, they could apparently crush one at the center to death.
A bunch of people glared at me, but I made it look like an accident by holding up my phone like I was taking a selfie. These people had all gathered here like Tokyo on Halloween or a Shinto shrine on New Years. They were the type to accept a lot of weird behavior if it was done to stand out.
“Maxwell!”
“The target was enveloped by the crowd. I cannot see her head with the overhead cameras.”
“Then we don’t know what happened. Did we prevent her from acting or not!?”
“Just before she disappeared, I saw her sports bag’s shoulder strap slip from her arm. The crowd has begun pushing against each other starting from your position and it is gradually moving, so it should not be possible for her to reclaim her dropped bag.”
So were we safe for now?
The loudspeaker voice was shouting again from a short distance away.
“Hand over the filters! Or do we have to attack!? We’ll do it, I swear!!”
He did not seem to be getting much traction with the other people.
And he must not have wanted to take the lead and accept the accompanying risk. No one stepped forward and they all watched to see what everyone else would do, effectively holding each other in check. The tense situation continued unabated, but they were gradually losing steam without anything to ignite them. We could probably wait for it to all taper off and fall apart.
“(Satori-kun.)”
The Class Rep approached me while keeping her voice low.
The crowd actually seemed to welcome the masked girl with a shovel. They mistook her for someone committed to their cause.
“(So what ended up happening?)”
“(Real battles aren’t fought by lining up in front of each other and starting on a ref’s whistle. This is over already, so we need to find somewhere safe – yes, somewhere elevated and away out of the crowd’s reach – and keep an eye on things just to be-)”
I trailed off and stopped.
I reacted to my own words by looking up into the night sky.
There was something there.
Something was coating the windows of the many buildings in this downtown area. Was that the snow?
But…it had solidified there?
If it had formed solid sheets instead of powder, didn’t that make it a lot like panes of glass or a guillotine blade!?
“Warning, a gust of wind is coming.”
The instant I saw Maxwell’s message, I pushed the Class Rep to the ground.
Immediately, giant blades came loose from the building walls and dropped toward the ground.
Part 2
It was well-known that even a screw or pachinko ball could be deadly when dropped from a tall building.
Guillotines came in a variety of sizes, but you never saw one more than 3m tall.
So.
Ten, twenty, and maybe more thick blades dropped from the sky above.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!?”
I could only scream.
Even if you noticed it coming, there was no dodging it in a crowd equivalent to a train at 300% occupancy. Not all the plastic boards dropped straight down; some began to spin as they peeled from the wall. But that meant a lot of them did fall like a guillotine.
I had pushed the Class Rep toward the department store window where the second floor wall stuck out like eaves. That was probably meant to keep sunlight from reflecting off the glass and preventing anyone from seeing through the show window, but it had saved us here.
“User, it is not over yet!”
“Yeah. Everyone’s gonna want a safe zone. They’ll be rushing inside the stores, below the eaves, and anywhere else with a roof. And if they come charging in like a good sale just started…”
“No. My initial warning was referring to a different risk.”
“…?”
What else could there be?
I looked up in curiosity and saw the scenery swelling out in the distance. No, wait. Hadn’t Maxwell’s speech bubble said a gust of wind was coming?
“The snow on the ground – the microplastic snow – is blowing into the air?”
Then I heard several crackling sounds of static electricity.
That might sound normal enough, but wasn’t lightning formed from the friction of water and dust rubbing together inside the fluffy cumulonimbus clouds?
Was that cloud of snow essentially an electrified thundercloud!?
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no!!”
I grabbed the Class Rep’s wrist and stood up while turning back the way we had come. We practically collapsed through the open glass door to tumble into the department store.
“Inside! Get inside!!”
From the floor, I shouted out to the crowd outside, but no one followed us. They must have been too confused so soon after the guillotine.
I recalled that glass was an insulator.
A moment later, white powder coated the glass like a giant balloon being pressed against it and then…what? What was that? Instead of the zap from a stun gun or a power cable, there was a deep boom like a thick tree being split down the center.
What had happened?
What was going on out there!? Weren’t there more than 5000 people crammed together like a packed train!?
“They’re okay…aren’t they?” hesitantly asked the Class Rep while getting up.
The tremor of their marching feet and the shouting from the loudspeaker were both gone.
There wasn’t even any screaming or crying.
“It isn’t just us, right? There are a bunch more people out there, right!?”
“…”
I had no answer.
I wanted to believe they hadn’t all been killed, but the curtain of white powder covering the windows actually seemed like a blessing at the moment. I couldn’t imagine our mental states if everything out there had been visible.
Was it just not possible for people to overcome a true natural disaster, no matter how hard we tried? Now we had no idea what had become of the tanned redhead who had been riling everyone up online and attempting to trigger a riot here. We couldn’t even ask her why.
But.
My phone vibrated again.
“Warning.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
There was more?
This true disaster still had more in store for us!?
“The wind was an irregularity caused by the buildings in the area. It is a short-term phenomenon and the static electricity cloud will clear up soon. That is not the problem.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“Sure.”
I didn’t want to know the answer.
I was sick of watching things get progressively worse here. But turning a blind eye would only allow it to get even worse than that. We had to monitor things if we wanted to survive this. So like it or not, I had to leap at any chance for info.
And Maxwell explained just how bad the situation was.
“That static electricity has started a fire nearby.”
Part 3
Forest fires would burn hectares of land in America or Australia, yet the actual source of the fire often remained unknown. It could come from a cigarette butt, negligence with a campfire, a car or drone accident, or even intentional arson, but something else could also lead to a true hellscape.
Namely, static electricity.
In areas with dry air, dry grass or leaves brushing together in the wind could become a deadly trigger. Kukyou City was coated with microplastics that built up air within them, so it might as well have been piled up with dried grass. And if the source of the fire had a voltage stronger than a stun gun…
“This is bad.”
The glass door should have cut us off from everything out there, but my nose detected a change. It detected scorched air!
“This is really bad!! Once it starts to spread, we can’t stop it!!”
“You could make an emergency call, but it is unlikely the firefighters will arrive safely and put out the fire,” said Maxwell. “If the police and fire department were functioning properly, this unregistered demonstration would never have been able to happen in the first place.”
“What, because they benefited from the lack of emergency services, they’re not allowed to complain when it comes back to bite them? I’m not accepting that. I don’t know how many survivors are out there, but I’d have nightmares if I just let them die!!”
These were the people of my hometown.
I hadn’t seen any, but some of my classmates could be among them!
“Maxwell, how are things outside?”
“No. That spark took out the roadside cameras. No one in the crowd has made an emergency call, so all their mobile devices were likely destroyed.”
“I guess it’d be faster to check myself.”
Luckily, it was only a little past 8. The department store was still open for business, so the Class Rep and I ran up the escalator.
We didn’t have a specific floor in mind.
The second floor’s bookstore and boutique had thick decorative sheets covering the windows to keep sunlight out, so we continued on up to the third floor. We approached the break area with a line of vending machines and looked down from the window.
The microplastic snow was blowing elsewhere in the wind and the scene beyond that thin white curtain came into view.
“Ugh,” groaned the Class Rep.
It was worse than I had expected. Not a single person had gotten up from the ground. The entire major road was covered by collapsed people. I wanted to believe no one had died, but after that guillotine and high-voltage current, it didn’t look like any of them were going to be moving anytime soon.
I swept my eyes across the road and soon found the Huge Camera building with a large LCD screen on its wall. That was the electronics store being targeted by these people’s misguided complaints.
And I saw something else as well.
“Is that it?”
Past even that building, I could see a single line of black smoke. When I looked down toward the ground, I could see a flickering orange light that was definitely not electric in origin.
“Isn’t that fire taller than we are?” asked the Class Rep.
“It is unusually tall. One of the roadside trees must have ignited like a torch.”
This had all begun with that lightning-like blast of static electricity. It must have primarily “struck” anything sticking out like a lightning rod, so this made sense.
And the fire was unexpectedly close to Huge Camera. If the fire spread to the rioters immobilized by the high-voltage current, that was the end right there. They would all be roasted whether they were still alive or not.
We had to do something.
But what could we do? We weren’t professional firefighters. But we could still move around. We didn’t have to be Hollywood heroes. There was no need to expect so much. What could we realistically do as amateurs!?
“Hold on.”
“Eh? What is it?”
The forehead glasses Class Rep shrank down while still holding the shovel in both hands.
Yes…that was it.
“This can work. …Maxwell, I have a new simulation for you to run!”
“Sure. Give me the parameters.”
“W-wait, Satori-kun! A fire extinguisher isn’t enough to put out anything larger than a campfire. There’s nothing we can do against a fire taller than us!”
“Not necessarily.”
Our goal wasn’t to put out the tree fire; it was to prevent it from spreading elsewhere. If it never spread anywhere else, I didn’t care if that tree burned to a crisp.
“Let’s get moving. Time is of the essence. This gets a lot harder if the tree fire spreads to the microplastics on the ground!”
“Wait, um, Satori-kun!?”
Confused, she glanced over at the fire extinguisher box in a corner of the hallway, but I wasn’t interested in that.
I ran back down the escalators and shouted to the nervous department store workers.
“Hook a hose up to a fire hydrant or at least a faucet! You need to have water ready!!”
“Eh? What???”
“There’s a fire outside and it’s too late to prepare once it’s reached you!”
It looked like no one was going to listen to some kid in a mask. And I was really only telling them so I wouldn’t feel bad if they came to harm. Whether or not they acted on my warning was their choice.
I opened the glass door and rushed outside.
I heard groans from all around.
I detected a scorched smell, but also something else. It was a lot like rust, but different.
“Satori-kun.”
“We can’t, Class Rep. The fire comes first!”
I wanted to help the injured too, but all of those suffering people would die if we didn’t stop the fire. We had to harden our hearts and shake free of the temptation.
“But spraying water on that fire isn’t enough to put it out!”
“Which is why that’s not the plan. If we can blow away the air filled with microplastics, the fire shouldn’t be able to spread!”
The Class Rep clearly had some guts since she had not frozen up in this extreme situation.
We were far from safe here. More hardened microplastics could fall away from the building walls like a guillotine at any time and a gust of wind could blow another thundercloud across the entire road.
“Plastic is plastic. It won’t burn in a fire unless the conditions are just right. It’s not ideal for it to melt and spread toxic gas around, but that’s better than letting the fire spread!”
“So you’re going to spray it with water?”
“Crushing it flat with a steamroller would work just as well. Think of it like squashing a down blanket to get all the air out.”
We also didn’t have to do that for the entire road. We only had to isolate the burning tree.
“It’s the same firefighting method they used in Edo.”
“?”
She didn’t seem to get my hint and she still held the snow shovel.
Fire extinguishers weren’t the only way to put out a fire. You could also move away, destroy, or cut off all nearby flammable objects.
Once the conditions needed to burn were no longer met, plastic would only melt like cheese when exposed to heat. That would help cut off the spread of the fire.
We could end this negative chain reaction and begin a positive one.
Fires would burn until they had a reason to go out, but they had no escape if you provided a reason to go out in all 360 degrees around them.
“The closest fire hydrant to the fire is within the rectangular manhole 50m ahead of you,” said Maxwell.
“I can’t see that with all the snow! And I can’t open that without a special opener anyway!!”
“Then turn left just beforehand. Huge Camera is still open for business, so it would be fastest to acquire the necessary items there.”
There?
But would they help us so soon after a mob of rioter nearly attacked them?
“Class Rep, leave your shovel at the entrance. We don’t want to scare them.”
“Fine, but are you sure this is a good idea?”
The burning tree was right next to Huge Camera’s entrance. Walking toward the store was enough to feel the prickling heat on my face. It wasn’t everyday I got to look up at an entirely unmanaged fire taller than me. My knees felt an instinctual fear, much like when looking down from the edge of a cliff.
“Locate any other options just in case.”
“Sure.”
I gave Maxwell that instruction while stepping through the glass door.
Fortunately, they did not immediately attack me.
“Y-you!?”
“?”
I was pretty sure I didn’t know this person.
But I must have visited this store often enough for the young male employee to recognize me. I must have asked a about a bunch of weird components for Maxwell.
The store itself was familiar to me, so I knew the layout. The first floor had their phone shop, internet provider, and a café and bookstore for people waiting on their contracts to be finalized. Most people went up to where they had the major appliances, TVs, audio systems, video games, computers, routers, and other more niche electronics, but they also had a trendy restaurant on the top floor.
I was glad to see the employee was willing to talk.
I just had to ask.
“Do you have any water?”
“!”
“Not a water filter! We need to stop that fire out front or it’ll spread to this building!!”
Locating the hydrant out on the road would be difficult enough, but then we would have to shovel off the snow, pry off the heavy lid with the opener, lift up the metal pipe, and attach the hose. We would never finish all that in time. And the water line might be clogged with microplastics, making it unusable. But an indoor hydrant was different. Its tank would be isolated, so the snow wouldn’t have affected it.
That said, no one would want to reach for the fire alarm if they didn’t have to. Even elementary school kids knew that was asking for trouble.
“I’m not sure company policy allows for that…”
“Show me the manual and we can analyze it for you. Maxwell.”
“Sure. This is only based on the version provided on the official website, but Article 3 Section 2 and Article 8 Section 9 say employees are obligated to protect store facilities, merchandise, money, and personal information. The building is under obvious risk of burning down, so it would be appropriate to use the store’s provided equipment to put out the fire even if it is technically outside the building. In fact, failing to take basic precautions when the fire’s spread to the store is so easy to predict could even lead to disciplinary action based on company policy.”
