They didn’t give each other signals or synchronize the second hands on their watches.
But as their various motives crisscrossed and intertwined, the fated time came to pass: 8:38 PM.
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Server Name: Alpha Scarlet.
Starting Destination: Tokonatsu City, Peninsula District.
Log-in credentials accepted.
Welcome to Money (Game) Master, Criminal AO.
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One second. That was all the time it took after Takamasa Hekireki logged in for destruction to rain down upon him.
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“Ugh.”
Shortly before, Takamasa had awoken in a simple bunk.
He did not trust the Magistelli, since they were connected to the Mind and couldn’t be controlled like the lower-level AI mercenaries and drones could be. Thus, he couldn’t leave his Magistellus in charge of his base while away. But that left it unprotected, so he had to be extra careful to find a place well-hidden from his enemies.
Takamasa had logged in inside a large jumbo jet. Specifically, the bright-yellow sports car that rode in its cargo bay.
Tokonatsu City was surrounded on all sides by invisible walls, through which human Dealers could not pass. That made flying in a jet airplane tantamount to suicide—and it also made this the perfect hideaway. All he had to do was parachute off the plane before it reached the city limits, at which point the passenger jet would be turned into data and disappear. Inanimate objects would merely become data, so he could leave the car behind.
But he’d logged in here for another reason, too. There was something he wanted to paradrop onto.
The plan was burned into his mind, the luddite engineer’s greatest storage medium. The past twenty-four hours had seen Takamasa locked in his room, pinning up photos, documents, and notes and forming a cat’s cradle of colorful strings between them. The only way to bring all that information into the game without detection was to smuggle it in via the boy’s own brain.
It’s not beyond the ability of the AI to spirit away a Zodiac Child once they’ve found one, but first they call all candidates to Unicorn Hospital for a complete physical and to collect their subjects’ personal data. That’s where I need to go if I’m to find out which of the millions of Dealers in this game I want on my side.
That was the plan.
However…
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Ker-rash!!!!!!
A single sports car tore through the plane’s hull and entered the cargo bay.
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“What…?!”
The hood and front windshield were completely trashed, but the driver seemed unperturbed. For perhaps the first time, it was Takamasa who was caught off guard.
“We’re nine thousand meters up! How did you get here?!”
The intruder, of course, did not answer. He used Takamasa’s sports car as a cushion to slow down, then raised his weapon and pointed it at Takamasa with all the precision of a robotic arm.
Yes, Takamasa’s car had been damaged. Though the engine was off and the vehicle tied down with belts, this passenger plane, which the boy had bought using a stash of diamonds the size of ping-pong balls, was not considered a parking spot, and thus the barrier rule did not apply.
“Tch.”
All he could hear was the sound of metal fittings colliding. Takamasa pulled back the seat and ducked down into the vehicle, dodging his assassin’s silent bullets before pushing open the opposite door and rolling out.
Suddenly, he felt an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was only one person who could get the drop on him and catch him unawares.
And yet that was exactly why he felt so unnerved, because his attacker…
“…it’s not Kaname?”
Kaname didn’t own a sky-blue sports sedan like this one. And his weapon wasn’t a silenced submachine gun.
Above all, that goody two-shoes would never come in here firing live ammunition at his old friend.
The creator of the Legacies gasped, deeply offended by this unexpected turn of events.
“An AI goon?! How could they possibly have found me?”
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Server Name: Omega Purple.
Starting Location: Tokonatsu City, Peninsula District.
Log-in credentials accepted.
Welcome to Money (Game) Master, Kaname Suou.
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It was very simple.
“Our enemy is the Mind, the root of all AI consciousness,” Kaname explained, lightly tapping his fingers on the wheel of his mint-green coupe. “Of course, that includes you, Tselika. If I tell you my plans, I might as well be telling them to the Mind. Of course, I could always use my sister’s admin rights to get around it, but there’s no need for that if I want them to hear—if there’s a Dealer I want them to attack.”
Takamasa had created himself temporary lodgings by loading his car onto a jumbo jet, but the sky was not a safe zone. The AI didn’t care about profit and loss, and even now boomerang-shaped stealth bombers filled the sky, swarming around the aircraft. It looked like a scene out of a nightmare. Their cargo bays opened up, and instead of bombs, a line of cars streamed out. What’s more, their accuracy was low, so many of the cars missed their target and plummeted into the endless night sky.
From the look of things, it seemed Takamasa had not considered the possibility that he might be attacked. For someone who went as far as splitting up with his own Magistellus to avoid leaking info, it was an obvious oversight.
…Perhaps that’s the difference between engineers and soldiers. He knows the theory, but he can’t guess how it might be used in practice.
The demon pit babe in the passenger seat shot him a disapproving frown. Kaname had told her exactly what he wanted the Mind to know and withheld everything he didn’t. It made her feel a little left out, but right now her thoughts were on something else.
“How on earth did you locate him so fast?” she asked. “Didn’t we have a lot of trouble tracking him down and finding his base in the past?”
“Despite how he might seem, Takamasa is a big fan of luck and intuition,” Kaname replied. “If he doesn’t like his hand, he’ll discard it and start over, especially if it keeps failing him. After we tracked him down in a building and again in a car, I figured his next choice might be the sky, and I was right.”
Incidentally, in the business world, constantly changing tack was one of the worst possible strategies. You had to be consistent to turn a profit.
Kaname wasn’t fooling himself. He knew the AI could never take down Takamasa for him. This was a man who chose to go it alone against a virtual economy of over seven billion strong. He knew everything the AI was capable of.
Celsa: Was my prediction correct?
Celsa’s message was accompanied by a bizarre selfie that seemed to have been taken with the camera in her lap pointed upward. The top of her head was out of the frame, though with the mask, her eyes wouldn’t have been visible anyway.
The demon pit babe sighed and typed back:
Tselika: Pretty much. However, I’m surprised you were willing to sell out your own Dealer.
Celsa: I have heard much of Midori from my master. I know he cared for her enough to learn how to build a bunk bed when she insisted on having one, or to run to her elementary school with a broken umbrella in the middle of a storm. Therefore, I am willing to oppose him if it is for her sake.
Tselika: …
Celsa: I can betray a human if it is for the sake of my master. Can’t you, Tselika?
Kaname’s partner only gave a short sigh.
In order to settle things, they needed a human who could move freely outside the realm of prediction. Kaname gripped the wheel tightly.
“Let’s get started.”
“Hey, if you’re going to snipe him, shouldn’t you get out of the car?”
Perhaps he should have explained his plan after all.
Kaname, Tselika, and the mint-green coupe were currently stowed away aboard one of the stealth bombers, cruising at a cool nine thousand meters. Perfect conditions for a man once known as the Reaper of Called Game to make a single shot.
However, Kaname had always been one to defy expectations, and the gun in his hands was not the short-range sniper rifle, Short Spear, but a larger cylinder-loaded shotgun. One of the Legacies, #tempest.err.
“What are you planning to do with that, My Lord…?”
“Time to get those cargo bay doors out of the way.”
“I knew it! My temple! What are you doing to my teeeeeeeeeemmmmmppppplllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllle?!?!”
One blast and two thousand buckshot pellets shot through the metal doors of the cargo bay like they were two sponges. Then he engaged the clutch, and the mint-green coupe accelerated forward.
Without a care for the nine thousand meters of pure air below, the coupe launched itself into the starry night and landed on the hull of the neighboring aircraft. The bombers were about fifty-two meters across, and Kaname maneuvered over the sleek boomerang-shaped fuselage, building up speed. Once the plane began to roll, he used the wing as a ramp and leaped to the next one.
Though the air at this altitude was thinner, the high winds meant it was tougher than ever to keep the car under control. Kaname hopped across three stealth bombers before finally arriving at Takamasa’s jet.
But Kaname didn’t go crashing through the side of the plane like the reckless AI soldiers. Just as he was about to make the jump, something happened.
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Ker-rakk!!!!!!