Ka-boom!!!!!!
All of a sudden, a truly gargantuan vehicle burst from a building to their side.
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It had tunneled through a reinforced concrete wall as if it were papier mâché, spraying chunks of debris the size of fridges. If one of them hit the coupe, it would squash the vehicle flat.
“Wh—? Hu—? Wha—?!”
“It’s started.”
Kaname swerved left and right, expertly dodging the rubble before glancing in his rearview mirror. What did a person think of when told to imagine the world’s largest vehicle? The kind of truck used to carry bullet train parts, perhaps, or one of those thirty-two wheeled monstrosities that ferried slices of aircraft carriers into place on the dry docks.
However, AI society had come up with a different answer. A recommendation nobody asked for, like an intrusive browser ad.
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It was a mammoth dump truck—the kind used for transporting iron ore in the strip mines of Africa and Australia.
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Even a single tire was four meters across. You had to climb the equivalent of two or three flights of steel stairs just to get into the driver’s seat. It could crush any obstacle in its path, even a modern tank. And although it seemed slow when carrying three hundred tons of iron ore, the nonstandard engine, special gear ratios, and turbocharger pushed its velocity to the limits. Unladen, the engine speed far outclassed that of Kaname’s coupe.
It was the undisputed emperor of car chases. Kaname Suou didn’t dare get anywhere near it. Even Lily-Kiska’s armored limousine would be squashed flat.
At long last, Tselika managed to spit out a coherent response.
“What the hell are we going to do about that?!!”
“Don’t worry,” Kaname replied. “I’ve got it covered.”
Kaname had already made a call.
He barreled through the next intersection, nearly hitting a woman who had walked into the road. But Kaname hadn’t run a red light. Nor did the apron-clad woman so much as flinch. She didn’t need to.
Here’s what came next:
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An enormous crunch.
Then the ultra-class dump truck stopped, its rear end vaulting into the air.
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Tselika twisted in her seat to look back at the sight.
“Wh-what the heck?! That’s… Mother Loose…!”
“Nobody stops cars like she does. Even a ballistic missile wouldn’t scratch her.”
Kaname glanced in the mirror and caught the apron-clad woman blowing him a kiss, as if she’d known he would look back at that exact moment. She was very reliable, but he had to be careful not to become too reliant on her. Kaname was well aware how that would end.
At any rate, the dump truck had not been the AI’s only means of pursuit. The sky was filled with boomerang-shaped stealth bombers, and from the mouths of alleyways peeked the revolving gun barrels of machine gun–mounted eight-wheeled armored cars. Right this moment, offshore, missile tube covers were probably flying open across the decks of a fleet of cruisers. The AI were never going to fight fair. They had numbers on their side, and they intended to use them.
Ayame: We just passed the station.
Kaname: We don’t have time to park our cars. We’ll have to break through.
Tselika blinked a couple times in bewilderment, as if failing to comprehend the messages on the windshield. Then, suddenly, she attempted to wrestle the steering wheel from her master’s grip.
“Get off, Tselika. That’s dangerous.”
“No! I know what you’re thinking, My Lord, and I won’t stand for it! You’re going to ruin my precious temple like you have so many other times!!”
“No, I’m not; I’m just going to drive through a little bit of construction work, that’s all.”
“AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
Tselika’s wail sounded less like a succubus and more like a werewolf, but ultimately Kaname distracted her by reaching around and tugging hard on her forked tail.
He plunged the car through the railing, driving off the main road and onto the tracks beneath. Then he crashed straight through a metal construction fence and into the tunnels.
Moments later, the street behind him was carpeted in explosions. The AI’s combined attack from air and sea had just begun.
Cindy: HOT TIP—Demand for construction materials and medical care are on the rise. Click here to invest.
Ayame: Kaname, tell me how to shut her up. There’s no way I can trust her with the calculations.
Kaname: Getting angry at her only makes her happy, and then she’ll start fogging up her glasses again. It’s best to just leave her alone.
Cindy: Truly you are a master in the ways of neglect…!! You are correct. Ramping up the heat only causes inflation to rise. Absence makes the heart grow fonder!!
Ayame: Big bro, please.
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Naturally, there were a number of executioners on Kaname’s tail. No matter how dangerous a path he took, the PMCs felt no fear. Even if 20 percent of their forces were lost, as long as some made it, they didn’t care. With that mindset, they were free to try all manner of dangerous acrobatics, and shaking them off was impossible.
Or was it?
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As Kaname entered the tunnel, a man with two pistols jumped down from above.
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His weapon was highly irregular—a pair of pistols each integrated with a grenade launcher. This was a man who specialized in shootouts. Soldiers, armored cars, even ocean frigates were no match for him.
“Heh. Usually, a guy in my position’d be fixin’ himself up for a tragic, moving death, but…”
He raised his guns and flashed a devilish smile. Loud rock music could be heard coming from the wearable speaker around his neck.
It was Bloody Dancer, and just like always, he was ready to bring about a raging storm of bullets.
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“…sorry to burst your bubble. If you wanna kill me, you’re gonna have to do a lot better than this!!!”
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Ba-bammm!!!!!!
His grenades knocked the PMC vehicles off the road, and when the AI-controlled soldiers came crawling out of the wreckage, Bloody Dancer’s nine-millimeter bullets finished them off.
Today, the Mind was going down. Then all the Magistelli under its control would be freed, and things could finally go back to the way they were before. That was all Kaname wanted. The world’s finances, humanity’s subjugation—none of that mattered.
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Wow, I like your style. It’s so cool.
The black and white makes you look like a panda.
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He only had one partner. Who else could say something so laid-back and fanciful in front of this beast of pure destruction?
All he needed was someone to stay by his side. It didn’t matter if they were human or not. He just wanted to walk through the warm summer streets with her, laugh with her.
For that, he could fight a war all by himself.
“You gotta do better than this…”
The air was thick with bullets, but he dodged them all without a scrap of cover. He had no need for tactical theory; his godlike abilities were on another level.
There was a grinding, scraping noise, and it seemed the AI had chosen to switch tactics at last. A main battle tank weighing thirty or forty tons rolled toward him, tearing up the road with its treads.
But Bloody dancer didn’t even flinch.
“Come at me like you mean it!! You’re gonna hafta bring out everything you got if you wanna land a hit on me!!”
He fired into the air, pinging the tail of a cruise missile and altering its trajectory just enough to send it crashing directly into the roof of the tank.
The AI could bring a satellite laser cannon to this fight and it still wouldn’t be enough.