Ba-zammm!!!!!
✦ ✦ ✦
That wasn’t the sound of something being cut; it was the sound of it being vaporized. The laser had severed the wall at a diagonal, and the metal units making up the squared-off spiral of the stairwell fell all at once like a waterfall. If Kaname had stayed there a moment longer, he would have been caught up in the avalanche, falling over twenty stories to his death.
“Takamasa’s really gunning for us now…”
Kaname had come all this way to fight him. In that sense, it didn’t really matter what floor the fight took place on. He stopped the bike where he was and drew his .45-caliber short-range sniper rifle.
These levels had once housed an animal research lab, but what would Kaname find here now?
In the center of the floor was a detailed diorama of Tokonatsu City, covered in sticky notes with strings of letters and numbers on them. Arranged in a circle around the diorama were racks of servers, each larger than a fridge.
Written on them in red spray paint were the following words:
✦ ✦ ✦
Money (Game) Master Ver. 6.25 Emulation Model.
✦ ✦ ✦
“This can’t be real…,” said Midori. She was staring, her mouth agape. “My br—Criminal AO was making another Money (Game) Master in here? He was building an exact copy of the game inside the game itself?!”
“Midori.”
Kaname was crouched close to the wall, taking pictures of something with his phone. He gestured for the girl to join him.
Just then, there was another shot. Moments after the two of them crouched down together, a beam of light swept over their heads. The thick glass windows didn’t shatter, they melted, not even producing the sound of smashing glass that usually accompanied a surprise attack. There was only an explosion of crackling sparks as the racks of servers were sliced in half.
To reproduce the game within itself was a miraculous feat of engineering, and yet it seemed Takamasa would much rather seize the opportunity to cut Kaname down than preserve his work.
“Takamasa’s serious about taking out the Magistelli and AI society. That’s why he created a copy of the game—to expose its secrets. Know your enemy and all that.”
“I mean, sure, I know phones and computers work just fine within the game, but who would think of taking it this far?!” cried Midori.
“Only Takamasa, that’s for sure,” Kaname replied. “And yet he was quick to wash his hands of it, too. Clearly recreating the game wasn’t enough to grasp their true nature.”
“Their?”
“The Magistelli and the Mind. They must be more than mere AI, if Takamasa wasn’t able to reproduce them by hacking at ones and zeros.”
Kaname took out his smartphone and used its dark surface as a mirror to peer around the corner. There, outside the building, was the tilt-rotor, short and squat, with two distinctive sets of propellers at the ends of its wings. The propellers occupied a larger proportion of the vehicle than on traditional aircraft, allowing it to travel up and down like a helicopter. Below it, suspended by wires, was the shipping container.
#flash.err.
The tilt-rotor circled the tower, keeping the laser weapon trained on its interior, where Kaname and Midori were hiding.
…It’s close.
Its beam traveled at the speed of light, with enough precision to shoot a sea-to-earth missile out of the sky. However, distance shouldn’t really matter with such a weapon. Over long stretches, the beam’s power could decay, but that would require ranges in the hundreds of kilometers. It wasn’t a restriction that would come into play within the area of a single city.
Is he scared of the glass reflecting the beam back at him? That would explain why he’s only firing into the aircraft’s shadow…
“I think my brother’s figured out which floor we’re on…,” whispered Midori, still holding on to the two Legacies, #tempest.err and #lockpick.err. “But he still managed to miss us with a laser beam that cut through the whole wall. How come?”
“Maybe that’s the reason.”
“Hmm?”
“A laser is just light. And for various reasons, light is pretty easy to bend. It’s like when you see a heat mirage or look at the edges of a fish tank filled with water. Perhaps the path of the laser changed when it cut through the concrete and rebar in the wall.”
A laser was an unconventional weapon, and because of that, it had some downsides. A spray of mist, internal sprinklers, even the air conditioning could all throw off the path of the beam.
Perhaps he’s trying to figure out a line of attack that will let him eliminate me without harming Midori…
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
It was only a theory—no point in saying it out loud. Right now, Kaname had to stick to the facts. And it was a fact that the temperature and humidity differential between the air inside and outside the tower was affecting the beam’s trajectory. That wouldn’t last long, however, as the building continued to be cut to ribbons. If the tower’s structural integrity was compromised, Kaname and Midori would be goners.
That said, the Legacies were only tools, and just as Takamasa had #flash.err, the two of them had Legacies of their own. Takamasa might have been an engineering whiz, but his one weakness was that he hadn’t made tools that chose their bearers.
“Midori, give me #lockpick.err.”
“Don’t you want #tempest.err?”
Midori questioned Kaname’s choice, but still did as she was told.
The sound of the propellers, like a huge sheet flapping in the wind, disappeared behind the crumbled wall and around the back of the building. Perhaps Takamasa was trying to avoid being thrown off by a crosswind, or perhaps he simply didn’t need to fire through the exposed wall and could attack from any angle through the concrete.
“Midori, when I give the signal, fire #tempest.err. Just keep attacking the tilt-rotor as much as you can.”
“Okay, but…”
The monster shotgun had the power to launch two thousand pellets into whatever its guiding beam touched. Her worry, then, wasn’t whether she could make the shot.
It looked like she wanted to ask, “What about you?”
“I’ll finish this,” proclaimed Kaname. “I’m not going to pretend that stopping Takamasa is some convoluted way of repaying him. I’m stabbing him in the back, plain and simple. But I decided to walk this path myself, and there’s no going back on it now. I’m the Reaper, after all.”