Kanae’s gauntlets were quite similar—-they’d also been fortified with force-field armor, could negate enemy force fields, and could be strengthened further with an appropriate energy pack.

  When they wielded their weapons with the added strength of their powered inner wear and their mastery of martial arts, Shiori and Kanae’s prowess reached new heights. With a single punch or slash, they could smash—or slice—through armor made from materials even tougher than steel.

  And so, while Monica had been busy talking to Carol, Shiori and Kanae had closed the distance in a flash and attacked in perfect sync, without even so much as a signal between them. They’d kicked off the ground so fast (thanks to their powered inner wear) that the movement had sent ripples through the stagnant air, and they channeled that force into their all-out attacks.

  A moment later, countless flashes from impact conversion lit up the whole warehouse and scattered, erasing Monica’s figure. When the light finally dissipated, a different Monica was standing in her place—wearing a powered suit with a design even more racy than Carol’s and looking smug.

  For in that instant when Shiori’s blade and Kanae’s gauntlets were bearing down on their target, their attacks had met an invisible wall—a force-field shield (a spherical variant of force-field armor) had instantly expanded around Monica.

  As the weapons had struck the barrier, a thin layer of impact conversion luminescence had appeared. The impact had dispersed light over the entire shield, revealing the transparent barrier’s rounded form and the geometric shapes that patterned its surface.

  Monica sneered at the two maids. “Did you really think I would just stand here and let you attack me? Get real!”

  In fact, Shiori and Kanae hadn’t thought that, not even for a second. For the moment Monica had dropped her act and revealed herself as their enemy, they’d felt a supreme sense of confidence—even arrogance—from the woman. In other words, she had been certain she’d win even against everyone in this room, which meant she’d likely been hiding her true strength all this time. So Shiori and Kanae had tried to eliminate her at once while she still thought she was invincible—and before she could show off that strength. They’d risked leaving Reina’s side temporarily to attack together, for they had each concluded that the best way to keep their mistress safe was to get rid of the threat in front of them first.

  But now both maids started in shock. Not only had they powered up their weapons to make them even stronger than when smashing the factory’s walls, their weapons had been set to negate force fields. And force-field shields were supposed to be weaker than metal fortified by a layer of force-field armor.

  Which meant the shield Monica had deployed was far stronger than normal.

  Shiori narrowed her eyes. Kanae grinned like she could barely contain her excitement. But both of them ignored Monica’s words and kept attacking with just as much effort as before.

  Yet none of their attacks reached her. Each blow, each slash, could have easily pierced or smashed some of the hardiest robots out there—yet they couldn’t penetrate this barrier of light as thin as a glass pane.

  “Sorry!” Monica said mockingly. “That won’t work on me!”

  As Shiori and Kanae continued their assault, Monica drew two laser guns—portable weapons that fired actual beams of light, not laser bullets—from the holsters at her hips and trained their muzzles on each maid.

  Gunshots rang out, and the light from impact conversion once again scattered through the air—Akira and Carol had fired at Monica. The barrier surrounding her had blocked their bullets, but if her shield hadn’t still been deployed, half her face would have been blown off.

  Monica was unharmed, of course, but the smirk on her face stiffened ever so slightly.

  Her shield wasn’t the convenient type that blocked all attacks from the outside while allowing only the user’s attacks to pass through from the inside. If she wanted to attack an enemy, she had to temporarily disengage the shield first. And she realized Akira and Carol had been waiting for that exact moment.

  Grinning arrogantly to keep the fear from showing on her face, she flew backward—not with a leap, but literally flying—to the exit, smashed through the double doors, and escaped down the corridor. “I’ll be right back to take care of you all, so sit tight, okay?” came Monica’s voice over the comms.

  And a moment later, her signal also vanished out of range of their scanners.

  A few members of the team stood open-mouthed in disbelief, struggling to process all that had just transpired. Most of them, however, were more experienced and remained composed—though they looked grim.

  Akira recalled what Monica had been wearing. Hey Alpha, was she wearing a powered suit modeled off the designs of the Old World?

  No. That was a genuine Old World model, as was the type of force field she deployed.

  Oh. Wow. No wonder Shiori and Kanae couldn’t kill her, then, he said, frowning.

  Elena, after taking some time to assess the situation and consider their next move, finally addressed the team. “All right everyone, for now let’s head in the opposite direction. We’re getting out of here. Shikarabe, can I leave the survivor to you?”

  “Sure,” Shikarabe replied, and turned to Ezio with a serious expression. “How long can you hold out without your body?”

  “Well...” The cyborg calculated. “The temporary death function lasts only about forty-eight hours, and once I’m in that mode I lose the ability to wake up on my own... But I get it. Leave my body here, and take only my head along. Just don’t forget to wake me up afterward!”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll wake up again—if we can make it out of here alive ourselves, that is.”

  “Then I’ll hold you to that,” Ezio said with a small smile, closed his eyes, and became completely unresponsive.

  Shikarabe was considering how to remove Ezio’s head from his body when Shiori appeared by his side.

  “I’ll do the honors,” she said, and with a single, immaculate slice, severed Ezio’s neck.

  He was still alive, of course, but barely—only using the minimum amount of power needed to survive. Shikarabe picked the head up and handed it to Togami.

  Meanwhile, Carol was talking to Elena. “If we’re going to escape,” she suggested, “I know a good route. It’s the same one Akira and I used to escape the first time. How about it?”

  “Sounds good. Lead the way. All right, everyone, let’s go!”

  Most of them turned to obey, but Togami remained rooted to the spot, holding the severed head in his hands and looking completely dumbfounded. Finally he cried out, “W-Wait! Hold up! What are you talking about? What about everyone else we haven’t rescued yet?! Why are we retreating?! Shouldn’t we go after her instead?! And... And...” Struggling to follow the veterans’ logic, Togami was distraught, babbling on in his desperate need for some kind of explanation that made sense to him.

  But Shikarabe cut him off abruptly. “We’ll deal with all that later! Right now, time is of the essence! We can’t waste precious time explaining every little thing just so you can be satisfied!” he barked, almost threateningly.

  Togami meekly fell silent, unable to even show his dissatisfaction in his face.

  “Actually, I’d kind of like to know what’s going on,” Akira said to Elena. “Would you be able to explain while we travel? I’m probably the most clueless of anyone here.”

  “All right,” Elena said after some hesitation. “If it’s while we travel, I suppose we can manage that much. Now let’s get out of here.” She hurried the rest of the team out of the warehouse. With Carol now in the lead, they once again made their way through the factory district.

  ◆

  Monica flew down the factory’s winding corridors. The built-in propulsion device on her powered suit kept her aloft and left a blinding trail of energy in her wake. Her face contorted with frustration. “I’m going to kill every last one of those fools! First, though, I have to make sure they can’t contact the base.”

  There was no longer any trace of the arrogance she’d displayed earlier. This isn’t a retreat. I’m not running away. This is merely a strategic maneuver, she told herself, and finally managed a half smile. The pack on her back burst from the inside, and the exposed contents—mechanical parts—assembled themselves into a laser cannon and its transparent support arm, which held the weapon secure on her back.

  “I’ll show you what I’m truly capable of! A single second is all it’s gonna take to wipe you New World trash-wads out of existence!” With her Old World equipment now revealed, she flew at full speed toward the factory’s exit to make good on her claim.

  Outside Factory A, Hex and Hound were still waiting for the team to return when they picked up a signal approaching them at high speed.

  “There’s something coming, and awfully fast. Flying, maybe? Doubt it’s one of ours.”

  “Yeah, we haven’t gotten any word yet that our team’s on their way back. Probably a monster. Let’s take it out.”

  “Roger!”

  The two powered armor units turned their weapons in the direction of the approaching signal—and saw on their built-in scanners that their target was none other than Monica, decked out in Old World gear and weaponry.

  “That’s... No way!”

  “Don’t hesitate! Fire!”

  They had no doubt—she was their enemy now. They could see her approaching them without having contacted them first, and her laser cannon was pointed in their direction. The two units immediately unloaded everything they had at Monica. Even caught off guard, Hex and Hound opted to shoot first and ask questions later, and the curtain of artillery fire they unleashed would have annihilated an entire flood of regular monsters in an instant.

  But the barrage didn’t even so much as scratch Monica. She’d raised the output of her force-field shield to maximum, and it blocked everything. “That won’t work on me!” she sneered as the impacts on the shield scattered light through the corridor she was flying through. At the same time, she locked her laser cannon, now fully charged, onto the two powered armor units, and the muzzle glowed as it prepared to fire. “Die!” she shouted.

  For a moment, she disengaged her shield, and a stream of light burst out, swallowing up all the bullets and shells and, finally, the two units.

  When the light dissipated, the charred remains of Hex and Hound lay on the ground. Both pilots had died instantly.

  Emerging from the factory, Monica flew to one of the smoldering machines and landed on top of it. Having dispatched two units of the city’s defense force with ease, she once more felt justified in indulging in a victorious grin. “Yes! This is how it should be! That’s right—it’s only natural that I should win!” She reveled in her victory for some time, then gave a satisfied sigh. Her confidence restored, she flew up into the air again and looked down at her handiwork from overhead.

  “All right! Now those idiots can’t call for help anymore. Time to finish the job!” Fired up, she flew back into Factory A at a high speed, intending to catch up with Akira and the others.

  She would kill anyone who made her doubt the superiority of her gear.

  ◆

  As Akira headed through the district with the rest of his team, Elena gave him a detailed account of her decisions via wireless. They were moving quickly so as to not waste time, and almost everyone else already understood their situation, but Elena still felt that making the effort to explain things to Akira would be worthwhile. She hoped that once he had the full picture, they might be able to rely on his intuition—or whatever it was that had allowed him to see through Monica’s lies—to help them escape. As she spoke, she allowed the others to chime in and supplement her words when necessary.

  First off, given that Shiori and Kanae had failed to kill Monica, her gear was obviously quite powerful. In all likelihood, the system had provided it to her—and they could reasonably expect all of her gear to be from the Old World.

  Next, judging from the direction she escaped from, Monica had likely gone to eliminate Hex and Hound. If she destroyed their communications relay, the city would be far less likely to discover her betrayal. And judging from her parting words, she’d return to get rid of the rest of the team before they could make it out of the district or find a place from which to reestablish contact with the base. Then she’d probably head back to report with a sorrowful expression that, alas, she was the only one who’d made it out alive. Of course, since she’d already “abandoned” one team before, the city would probably just think she’d pulled the same stunt again—and never suspect that she’d been the killer all along.

  As for the missing corpses, the factory’s sentries had most likely cleared them from the scene under Monica’s orders. By hiding the bodies, she could lure hunters deeper into the building while preventing anyone else from recovering the dead hunters’ scanners and reviewing the data. Even if some footage was partial or missing, someone might piece the various recordings together into a more accurate whole—which could cast suspicion on Monica. Merely breaking all the scanners would look far too suspicious, while concealing the corpses would leave the impression that either the ruin’s maintenance bots had automatically done the job, or that the hunters had escaped to another refuge area. And as the only surviving record of what had happened, the data on Monica’s scanner would be considered that much more trustworthy.

  It wasn’t lost on them that all of this seemed designed to lure them somewhere deeper in Factory A. Even when she’d been traveling with them, Monica had deliberately chosen her actions and words to that same end. Was there something there that would give her an advantage?

  Elena suspected that Monica had been leading them to a place where the system could continuously supply her with energy. A force-field shield strong enough to counter Shiori’s and Kanae’s weapons probably required a great deal of energy to use, the more so as combat dragged on. But judging from how unconcerned she’d seemed, she probably had a practically unlimited supply of power. Which most likely meant that her employer, the factory’s system, was feeding her energy constantly. If the administrative system had loaned her Old World equipment, it wasn’t too unthinkable that it would also power that equipment for her.

  But with such capable Old World equipment, why hadn’t Monica been taking jobs in other ruins? Perhaps her equipment could only be used within the confines of this district. Maybe her constant supply of energy would be cut off, or at least severely throttled, if she ventured too far away from the vicinity of the factory that hired her.

  So Elena had decided not to go after Monica—they’d most certainly be at a disadvantage if they tried. Even if Monica had gone to eliminate Hex and Hound like they suspected, the team couldn’t hope to catch up with her in time to form a pincer attack—with her strength, the two units would likely be destroyed in mere seconds, and there was no guarantee that the team’s aid could stop Monica even if they did catch up. (Of course, if Hex and Hound managed to defeat Monica on their own instead, problem solved. But Elena wasn’t counting on it.) So in the end, she’d judged it better to distance themselves from Monica and escape the ruin as quickly as possible.

  She left Ezio to Shikarabe. Since the cyborg couldn’t fight, he was already hindering them, and there was no way they could afford to bring back anyone else, dead or alive. However, Shikarabe had judged that if they just carried Ezio’s head along, it wouldn’t put them at too much of a disadvantage, and understanding the team’s predicament, Ezio had agreed.

  Elena did not bother to point out that whoever carried Ezio would be unable to participate fully in combat. Shikarabe had handed the head over to Togami, judging that losing his support would be a negligible cost (the same reason he’d made Togami watch over Reina). Of course, by the same reasoning, it would’ve been best if he could have Reina carry Ezio instead. But Reina wasn’t on Team Shikarabe, she was on Team Reina (or really, more like Team Shiori). So Togami had been the next best option. Shikarabe kept his reasoning to himself (although Togami was pretty sure he knew his superior’s thoughts anyway).

  Finally, Elena explained why she’d chosen this escape route, the same that Carol and Akira had made use of before. Monica had been hired by the factory’s system, and she might be reluctant to damage her employer’s goods—her equipment might even have a safety lock that prevented her from firing at factory property in the first place. And the container terminal through which Elena planned to escape was the factory district’s shipping bay, chock-full of containers of goods that had been manufactured there. But if she were hindered from fighting there, Akira’s team had no such limitations, so they would be free to attack her as they pleased and could even use the containers for cover. So whether they escaped or had to fight, their prospects were much better in the terminal than anywhere else in the district.

  When she was finished, Elena asked Akira, “A good bit of that was mere guesswork, of course, but how do you feel about it? Does that seem right, or am I way off?”

  In fact, Akira had no clue. It was hard enough for him to process everything she’d said, and he certainly couldn’t have ever figured all that out on his own. So he asked Alpha to bail him out instead. What do you think?

  It’s a reasonable hypothesis.

  Since Akira wasn’t up to the task of analyzing Elena’s guesses for himself, he accepted what Alpha told him at face value. “It seems correct to me,” he answered. “I-I mean, that’s just a hunch, though.”

  “Great, then let’s stick to the plan as is and get out of here ASAP,” she said with a grin. Secretly, she was relieved—all she’d really done was pile on her best guesses and hope that it all somehow held water. There could have easily been a fatal flaw in her reasoning. But Akira—or rather, his “hunch”—had approved, so she assumed that she’d been mostly correct and discarded her own doubts.

  “Hey, Carol,” Akira said, turning to her. “I know it might be a little late to ask this, but can we really use that route? I don’t mind escaping through it again or anything, but won’t it give a lot of valuable info away to everyone for free?”

 

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