Chapter 77

SUB.25 “…What’s going on?” Schall Berylan, an Anti–Academy City Science Guardians security guard—aka a grunt—scanned his surroundings, white breath puffing from his mouth. He was squatting near a frozen vending machine outside a building. By disguising himself as snow that had fallen off the roof, he’d created a windbreak around himself to endure the cold. You didn’t have to bring up igloos for people to know that air-filled snow had a heat-resistant effect. In this negative-twenty-degree hellscape, one needed to put in the work like this, even if they were wearing a military uniform designed for cold weather. Neglect that hard work, and all that awaited them was an icy death. The major roads were designed with heating features to melt snow, but if he tried to warm himself with them, the enemy would find him instantly. He was close to so many buildings that it just made him feel worse—the moment Schall lost all contact with the command center, he’d stopped trusting Baggage City’s security. If one of the thousands of security cameras around the city ever caught him, he would have to assume the enemy had located him and move somewhere else. …Naturally, if that was what he was prioritizing, then he’d already forgotten about the primary objective—to protect Baggage City. Now he was clearly just trying to survive the situation. Schall then abruptly picked up his head, mostly to get his mind off himself. …It’s gone awfully quiet, he thought. The sounds of battle had long since ceased—evidence that the conflict had been pretty one-sided. But that wasn’t all. The crucial sounds this city had, the ones that showed it was a city at all, had vanished. This wasn’t a place people could live. It was more like a Martian ruin left by an ancient civilization. There was nobody here. And that was why he couldn’t hear anything. He frowned, then asked himself the question. Baggage City had millions of residents. Where had they all gone? …Did they all flee the city? he wondered. No, they couldn’t have. The nearest settlement is over a hundred kilometers away. And if that many people set out at once, everyone would have noticed. Those immoral bastards from Academy City would never have missed a chance to shoot a group like that. He counted that possibility out. Then did Academy City kill everyone? No, that can’t be it, either. We’re talking millions of people. Sure, they’re defenseless. But killing them one by one—how long would that take? The sounds all disappeared so quickly. That proves no mass killing occurred. He counted that possibility out, too, but that meant he still didn’t have the answer. He was no different from a critic pretending to be an intellectual. Schall thought for a moment, then crawled out of his homemade shelter. He wanted to know where the city’s residents had gone, but in all honesty, it wasn’t because he was worried about their safety. If the battlefield situation was still incomprehensible, then whatever the reason was, it would only eat at his nerves. He didn’t want someone flipping this board—not when his life hung in the balance. “…Screw the higher-ups. Those old bastards better not have evacuated the residents so they could blow the entire city away with a weapon of mass destruction.” Muttering this conjecture, Schall crawled through the soundless white city. No enemies, no allies, no spectators anywhere. Of course, the blizzard would have buried any corpses within minutes. After crawling about fifty meters from his shelter, he got some new information. Spotting figures straight ahead, Schall hid himself behind a truck parked on a narrow road tucked between two buildings with relatively little snow. Only after he got into position did he realize the truck was carrying extremely dangerous natural gas, but he couldn’t change hiding spots at this point. Right in the middle of a large intersection devoid of traffic stood four or five soldiers. Schall saw that their clothing and weaponry was unfamiliar, so he concluded they were from Academy City. In other words, enemies. They were setting what looked like large beach balls up into the white skies above. The balls had can-shaped objects—like cans of hair spray—attached to their bottoms. …Support balloons? thought Schall. He’d borrowed (or perhaps stolen was more accurate) Academy City–made weapons, so he recognized these things. They were informational devices of relatively simple construction, less pieces of tech and more a product based on a single idea. Essentially, they were helium balloons with cameras attached that one could launch into the sky to get a bird’s-eye view. That’s all they did. They were used to fill in the gaps in situations and places where Academy City couldn’t get information from satellites or recon planes. Their effective duration was about thirty minutes. Once a balloon went up, it kept on going, so eventually the pressure difference would cause it to pop. The balloons couldn’t do anything else. If enemy soldiers saw balloons like that floating, they’d be able to pinpoint the ground troops who had launched it. So normally, one would put a timer on an air tank and have the balloon inflate on a delay…but if these people were being this bold about using them, then they must have been certain that Academy City’s forces had already taken control of Baggage City. But one thing made him curious. They’ve already declared their control over the city. What could they be looking for now? On top of that, these support balloons were made to fill in the gaps when one couldn’t get intel from satellites or recon planes. But Academy City’s forces had wrested air control rights from Baggage City. They shouldn’t need to use support balloons. And yet these people were. They were trying to find something that a normal satellite or recon craft couldn’t, using as many cameras and sensors as they could. What could they have needed so much effort to track down? “Millions of city residents maybe? Nah, that can’t be. They can’t find them, either?” he murmured. Not much more happened, though. The soldiers were adding more cameras and sensors. At this rate, they would pinpoint Schall’s location soon. Moving slowly, he left the natural gas truck’s side, abandoned his former shelter, and searched for his next hiding spot. Academy City seemed so perfect. And yet something was making fools of them. And that something wasn’t a professional soldier or a trained expert—it was millions of people. Schall was mildly impressed. “…Wish they’d share some of whatever they’ve got with me.” His boots crunching through the snow, Schall vanished into a corner of the city. Snow had begun to accumulate on the main roads, implying that the heat was down, but he didn’t have time to meditate on it. The city streets were eerily silent, devoid of all sound.