Like the sounding of a death knell.
✦ ✦ ✦
The cruise liner approached the bridge.
Kaname, now a member of Ag Wolves, glanced toward the hood of the mint-green coupe. Several windows were spread across its surface. There at the eleventh hour, Lily-Kiska was fiddling with the parts of a bolt-action sniper rifle. When she suddenly looked over at the windows on Kaname’s car, what she saw was not weapon specs or cruise liner blueprints but…
Bro.
Dad’s supposed to be making dinner tonight, but he’s running late. Should we sort out dinner ourselves? I can’t decide whether to order soba or go out for beef bowls, though. Pizza’s a bit expensive, I guess. I’m also a little worried about trusting those delivery boys on their bikes using their phones to navigate. Do you have any other suggestions?
“…What are you doing over there?”
“My sister sent me a text, so I’m just replying to her. I need to write back something, doesn’t matter what, within three minutes or else she gets mad.”
“I’m shocked… You’re an overprotective one.”
“It’s for my own good. Or else she’ll do some ‘renovating’ and drill a bunch of holes in the wall again. Last time, it was the bathroom wall. Can you believe that?”
Perhaps that’s what she did to collect her thoughts, Lily-Kiska mused to herself, tapping a small piercing in one of her ears to check the aim-steadying skill she would need for long-distance sniping.
It was finally time.
✦ ✦ ✦
Of course, it wasn’t as though Pavilion hadn’t assessed the risks. Hard Engage Bridge was the choke point, after all.
Boom! There was an explosion a little way away, and orange sparks scattered across the deck of the ship. As soon as one of the AI attendants realized this was merely to calibrate the range and not a missed shot, a well-placed sniper bullet flew cleanly through its head.
Inside the ship, the auction floor buzzed with commotion, but atop the stage, Pavilion kept her cool. Her heels clicked as she addressed the crowd, microphone in hand in a manner that seemed to say all is well.
“I see twenty from number fifteen. Sitting at twenty, any advance on—Yes! Twenty-three from number fifty-nine! Twenty-five from number forty! Twenty-eight from seventy-two! Any advance on twenty-eight?”
The minimum bid was 100 million snow, which meant that bidding was currently sitting at 2.8 billion, but it was still early days. The shotgun #tempest.err was a nightmarish master key with which you could destroy any individual, business, or nation you chose. It was more useful than a nuclear bomb, and it didn’t produce fallout. It was a devastating economic cyberweapon, capable of ejecting a person from society entirely, while allowing you to seize their assets, rights, and properties intact. And not just once but any number of times… Even 10 billion would be a small price to pay for that kind of power.
But money was not the end goal for Pavilion, who had infiltrated the management ranks of an AI conglomerate as their pet Dealer, even knowing that she would be cut loose if she made one wrong step. She was after connections with people who could pull veritable mountains of cash out of their backsides. That would surely please a certain someone.
“There we are! One hundred! Number seven takes it right to one hundred!! And I see two hundred from number thirteen! Going once, this is your last chance! The perfect opportunity to get your hands on the master key of the world! There, I see three hundred from number ninety-nine! Sitting pretty at three hundred!”
The world’s most powerful people were looking upon the machinery of the global economy and fighting over the power to control it. It was a war in all but name. There was no time to worry about taking a bullet. Besides, anyone who turned tail and fled didn’t deserve to be on Pavilion’s list.
Of course, owing to a comprehensive risk assessment, the VIPs had gathered in a place inaccessible to sniper fire from atop the bridge. The Tropical Lady would soon be passing directly under it.
The bridge stood approximately thirty meters above sea level, but given that there were three floors of cabins above the deck, piled up like a staircase, it was a tight squeeze. Across the entire circular bridge that connected the peninsula to the surrounding islands, this was the only place high enough for the ship to pass through.
“Any more? Remember, there’s only one hundred and twenty seconds on the clock! And it looks like it’s going to number ninety—Yes, number twenty, three hundred and one! Three-oh-one from number twenty! What are we going to do, ladies and gentlemen? Are we going to keep creeping up or is someone going to leap ahead?!”
As her auctioneering performance loosened the buyers’ purse strings, Pavilion chuckled to herself. Now, are they going to leap off the bridge, vehicles and all? There are a thousand PMCs on this boat; we’ll blow them to pieces as soon as they land!
Just as she thought that, something happened on Hard Engage Bridge.
A truck atop the bridge lurched violently toward the barrier and toppled over the edge backward like a seesaw. But instead of falling, it simply hung down vertically, clinging to the side of the bridge by some unseen force, and stopped.
Is there a wire or winch or something?
Then the doors of the truck’s trailer burst open, and what had been hiding inside began to fall.
Is that an anti-ship missile?!