My Vampire Older Sister and Zombie Little Sister - Book 10: Chapter 3

Part 1

The truth was, no one could say anything for sure.

“Paris’s catacombs were originally developed as a mine, not as a graveyard,” said Maxwell. “The full extent of the tunnels is unknown. After digging a veritable labyrinth, the mine was abandoned and bones of the deceased were gathered and methodically stored there, creating the catacombs known today.”

“The tourist route follows a single, straight path, but they’ve blocked off all the branches with chain link barriers to make sure no one wanders into the other tunnels,” added Anastasia. “What lies beyond those barriers is a mystery. And they’ve been abandoned for centuries, so a digital search won’t turn up anything. We seem to have made a historical discovery at a pretty shallow area earlier.”

This sounded like trouble.

But at least we knew it was trouble going in. It really helped to have Maxwell with us. Instead of feeling our way around in the dark, we had a map and a compass to go on.

We were about to enter unknown territory.

You could look up maps and photos of the moon and the south pole with a search engine these days, so it was surprising to find an entirely unsearchable area directly below France’s capital. But that did make it sound like a place you would find Absolute Noah lurking.

Anyway…

“Enter if you must, but I do not recommend an aimless search,” said Maxwell. “Your odds of encountering Amatsu Yurina by chance are exceedingly low.”

“I know that.”

We weren’t even sure if my stepmom and the warehouse guardian were there right now. If they had agreed to bring the attaché case to a specific point at a specific date and time, then we could search the catacombs forever and never find anything.

It was possible they couldn’t move whatever it was, like it was a cursed doll that had to power up over time in the catacombs like wine or cheese being aged in a cellar, but we had no guarantee of that.

Which meant…

“All we know is my stepmom and the warehouse person are going to meet somewhere inside the catacombs. And that we need to stop that from happening.”

“Umm. What if they gave up on meeting and left?” asked Anastasia.

“That would be great because it means Absolute Noah’s war preparations failed. I don’t like the idea of leaving JB unchecked like that, but it would at least mean no direct conflict.”

However.

I doubted that was the case.

“My stepmom’s group would never back down after that kind of preemptive strike from JB. They had already been preparing to retaliate for last time and now they got hit again. I can guarantee you that Amatsu Yurina is pissed. I don’t see how she could return to Japan with her tail between her legs.”

The meteor shower might have destroyed their treasure, but assuming that would be overly optimistic. We didn’t even know if it was an item, money, a heavy metal weapon, an electronic virus, a human, or an Archenemy.

So what could we do?

For all we knew it could be something as bizarre as Satan, Leader of the Demon Lords, or the Gate of Cocytus leading to the bottom level of hell. A physical attack might have no meaning here.

We had to assume they were still working to retrieve whatever it was.

So if my stepmom was allowed to contact the warehouse guardian, we were looking at the end of the world.

So…

“If we can’t find them right away, then I want to lay a trap.”

My line to Maxwell was finally back up, so I was going to use his search function to its fullest.

“Maybe we can’t see the entire massive dungeon that is the catacombs, but we can still cover the entrances and exits. France has security buzzers, right? Hopefully they have CCD models that contact the authorities and link with a map app. I can’t think of a more economical device that packs a camera, a transmitter, and a battery into such a small package.”

I explained my plan to Maxwell.

“We need to acquire a large number of them and set them up at the entrances and exits. That way we’ll know the instant my stepmom walks by.”

“You cannot know you have covered every entrance and exit when the full extent of the tunnels is unknown,” said Maxwell. “How many locations would that even be?”

“Anastasia, you said the catacombs have the other tunnels blocked off with chain link barriers so people don’t wander in, right? Not with solid metal doors?”

“Yes? Why?”

“So no matter how complicated the layout, the light, sound, air, and heat will pass through.”

I explained what sounded like a dream.

It was Maxwell’s job to make it all work in reality.

“We aren’t pointing the cameras toward the outside of the entrances and exits. We point them inside the catacombs. We send light into all of the entrances we know of and pick up the faint bit of light that necessarily comes out the other exits. Then we repeat the process at as many entrances and exits as possible. By monitoring the light level with all those cameras, we can put together a program to determine the location of anything moving around there and blocking that light. Think of it like an optical test program used to find cracks in pipes. Not all light is strong enough to detect with the naked eye.”

“Umm. You’re talking about something that would take hundreds of engineers and programmers years to develop. We aren’t a Silicon Valley corporation with rows upon rows of workstations!”

“Maxwell.”

“Sure. I have already compiled and debugged the program. You were saying?”

Small Anastasia sprang at me.

She had drool dripping from her mouth.

“Sell that demon to me right this instant!! I’ll pay anything! Why are we wasting our time trying to make quantum computing practical when we have a true demon right here!?”

“Sigh. Need I remind you that I am no more than 1400 defective handheld game system motherboards sold at a discount and stuffed inside a container?”

“Fine, I’ll buy Truth too, since he’s the genius behind building this nonsensical simulator!!”

Ugh, this rich elementary schooler. Although she was technically a super college girl who owned several patents already, so she was talking about money she had earned, not her parents’ money.

I had worked so hard to get this “weapon” back.

Paris had been hit by so many disasters already, but Absolute Noah and JB were trying to make matters even worse for this city and the entire world. Why wouldn’t I make the most of my weapon?

“Anyway, we need a lot of security buzzers. Maxwell, what model did you base your program on? The kind that sounds its buzzer when you pull the cord isn’t enough. It has to photograph the suspect’s face and use a map app to relay is location to the authorities.”

“The Blanc Ange 052. It is two generations out of date, but just barely still being sold. And the pink color appears to have been unpopular, so they are being sold at a discount.”

“There’s nothing wrong with pink,” insisted Anastasia. “France just hates it because they associate it with the kind of femininity forced onto them by culture when they prefer to define femininity for themselves.”

“If you would like to purchase them in bulk, visit the prepaid phone shop 500m ahead of your current location. You can purchase a dozen for 25 euros there.”

“With the power out? It’s almost 9 at night and don’t stores close really early in foreign countries?”

“It is an unmanned store meant to promote the technology being used. The response manual does not cover what to do in a long term power outage, so there is an exceedingly high probability no one knows what to do and it is sitting open. The unmanned register will not respond, but I have searched the entire text of French law and have found nothing making it illegal to make a purchase during business hours if an unmanned register does not respond. As long as you do the math yourself and leave the appropriate payment on the counter, it does not qualify as theft.”

“Marry me, Maxwell!”

Anastasia was clasping her hands in front of her small face and making a strange proposal. How the hell did I develop a computer capable of catching a drooling 11-year-old in a honey trap?

The idea of an unmanned phone shop was wild to me. That could never happen in Japan with all the annoying processes needed to sign up for a phone contract.

Once we arrived, I found it was true.

The shop’s doors sat wide open even in the blackout. The other places had their shutters down or had collapsed, so the ordinary open door actually looked weird. I sensed some movement in the darkness and jumped, but when I shined my phone’s light that way, I saw a few young men and a woman huddled together in a corner. The rain had stopped outside, but they may have been taking shelter here.

“You wait here, Anastasia.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it.”

Those people could always have a weapon and they might attack if they had decided this store was their turf. Had they known each other to begin with? Hopefully they hadn’t developed an odd dependence and decided to surround any girl they saw in order to protect her.

We had already heard looters and the police having a shootout at the Louvre. I doubted things would get that bad so easily, but it was always a possibility.

Money had been the trigger at the Louvre, but that wasn’t necessarily the only one.

Anastasia was a cute 11-year-old in a short red dress so soaked she could wring out the skirt. The visual alone could be enough of a reason. Furthermore, she was (to the Parisians) a foreigner, a genius girl, rich, and an Archenemy. Perversion, an inferiority complex about education, desire for money, and discrimination against her nationality or species – there were a lot of risks there. And there was no rule saying someone could only be motivated by one thing on that list. Someone might hate rich foreigners specifically or might feel belittled by an Archenemy in higher education.

“Maxwell.”

“Sure. I believe you made the correct decision.”

People’s thoughts were complicated, so it probably wasn’t possible to perfectly predict their actions. Maxwell could only view the past patterns, so there could be any number of different answers. That was what was so scary about entering a dark, enclosed space without multiple exits. I would visit on my own with the small girl waiting outside.

“Where are the buzzers?”

“Shine your light to the side of the register. The bargain bucket would not be hidden away in the back. Because they want to sell them as soon as possible.”

There they were.

I saw a ton of plastic eggs a little bigger than golf balls. Hmm. I normally wouldn’t choose pink myself, but they didn’t look that bad. As for the price…

“Maxwell, how much is 1.99 euros in yen?”

“Why not just round that up to 2 euros? Based on the real-time exchange rate, that is about 300 yen. I would not recommend attempting forex trading with such unstable connection speeds, however.”

Why would I do that? That’s a job for the STEM types like Anastasia. It’s way too much for someone like me who asks the machine to do all the work.

Anyway, that was really cheap. Just like with hard drive capacity and price, computer-related products dropped in price as time passed.

We needed as many cameras as we could get, but I had to remember I was paying for this myself. Paris wasn’t so far gone you couldn’t spend euros, was it? If I was going to buy them in bulk, would 2 dozen be good? Damn, I didn’t have any small bills. Why now of all times? Just to be safe, I left 50 euros, with the extra as a tip.

“Warning: that is approximately 7500 Japanese yen.”

“Gh, it really hurts when you put it like that!”

I couldn’t pay with my phone with the power out, so I left a damp bill on the counter.

And when I grabbed the big box with both hands…

Something exploded.

That something being my eardrums.

It happened so suddenly I didn’t understand.

When I looked over hoping to calm my racing heart, I realized someone was shouting at me. It was just the woman at first, but then the men around her turned toward me.

I didn’t speak French, but I could tell this was bad. My heartrate remained elevated and wouldn’t go back down. What happened? What rule did I break? They had been so calm just a moment before, so what changed!? Did they see my money? Did they hear me speaking Japanese? I wasn’t sure what had set it off, but they definitely held some kind of bombshell!

“Warning!”

“I’m…aware!!”

My hands were full thanks to the big box, so I was in serious trouble if they had a knife or a gun. As a distraction, I kicked some phone batteries scattered on the floor by the earthquake or something and made a beeline for the exit.

I was pursued by a deluge of destructive noises I could only imagine were the shelves being knocked over behind me.

“What in the world happened, Truth!?”

“Run!!”

I heard something whizzing past my right ear.

They had thrown something at me! Was that one of those fire axes you rarely see in Japan!? The heavy object had rotated right past my head. Another 30cm closer and it would have lodged itself in the back of my head. My life was seriously at risk here!!

My heart hurt from the tension.

I felt dizzy.

A lot had happened with the meteor shower, the earthquake, and the flooding, but this was the first time any actual malice had been directed my way. Even at the Louvre, the guns hadn’t been directly aimed our way.

I didn’t understand what set them off and I didn’t understand their language.

I didn’t understand what they had done and I couldn’t predict what they would do. They were entirely unpredictable. The core of their being was a giant question mark.

This time, it was a human disaster. It was so meaningless, silly, and disgusting! I didn’t sense any kind of destiny here. I didn’t want to die for other people’s convenience or greed!!

After turning a corner, we hid behind an abandoned car and held our breath.

We waited a while.

Where were their footsteps?

My heart was beating too loud to hear them.

The axe scared me, but throwing that meant they didn’t have a gun…right? In fact, people don’t just walk around with guns in France, do they? It’s not like the US, is it? Argh, I just want a clear answer! Not knowing only makes it scarier!!

“(Truth, what happened?)”

“(Shh.)”

What did happen?

I could hear sounds of destruction and shouting voices in the distance, but they weren’t coming this way. Were they still inside the shop? So had they been upset with me encroaching on their territory? I didn’t understand any of it. They had been so calm when I first entered the store.

“An analysis of their French suggests they mistook you for a looter,” said Maxwell.

“They what?”

“Leaving money at the unmanned register is perfectly legal, but not every French citizen is familiar with all of their country’s laws. In other words, they mistakenly thought they were protecting the store. You have not memorized all of Japan’s laws, have you? They simply thought you were a thief even though you paid. You did nothing wrong, so do not worry.”

The text wouldn’t enter my head for a while.

Um, hold on.

So you’re saying…

Really?

I was nearly killed by people thinking they were doing the right thing?

“What the hell?”

“It is the truth.”

It was all meaningless.

It was all so stupid and foolish.

So they weren’t even selfish tyrants.

“You kicked some phone batteries when you escaped, but that qualifies as self-defense. Now that the threat has passed, I will also let you know that, given the circumstances, fighting back and killing them would not count as murder under this country’s laws.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

Things were so different overseas. Did the concept of excessive self-defense not exist here?

I felt so exhausted I could only lean against the car. So I was chased and nearly killed by a fire axe and fire extinguisher over nothing more than that? I didn’t believe in destiny, but if that axe had hit me, my death would have been so meaningless I would’ve had to question why I had been born in the first place.

But I had been careless too.

I hadn’t even considered that possibility. Focusing on the bad people as the only threat and obeying all the rules wouldn’t necessarily keep you safe.

Bad people weren’t the only ones with violence as a card in their deck.

It was possible to be killed by “the good guys” too.

Anyway.

“We have the equipment now.”

“Sure.”

“So let’s get to work on the catacombs.”

Part 2

We had set up cameras and lights at all of the entrances we could think of.

Even the faintest light shined in would repeatedly bend and reflect and eventually reach another exit, even if it had weakened too much to be visible by the human eye.

The cameras could detect those faint waves.

If anyone stood in the path of the labyrinthine catacombs, they would obstruct the light in some form.

By combining the signals created by those “shadows” detected by the 20 or 30 cameras, we could calculate out where in the labyrinth the person was.

Think of it like the labyrinth is a giant fiber optic cable and we were searching out the location of some sand rolling irregularly through the bent fiber.

The catacombs were quite large.

Simply setting up the cameras from the surface made for quite a walk.

But we had managed to get it all more or less finished.

We peered through the metal door covering one of the entrances. The door probably meant this area had gotten in the way of construction to expand some kind of tunnel or another.

“Is that good enough?”

“Sure. However, this does not give us a full view of the catacombs, so there may be a margin of error. We can detect the general direction and distance, but it is possible the location I give you is actually two or three floors above their location or that a chain link barrier blocks the way we thought was clear.”

“Do you detect any movement?”

“I do.”

The answer came so suddenly it barely felt real.

Anastasia jumped up.

“Does that mean Absolute Noah is still trying to extract whatever they have in storage!? They’re still intent on waging war!?”

“That is unknown. I have merely detected a humanoid shadow. Determining who exactly it is would be nigh impossible from this data.”

“So it might not be my stepmom?”

“I am not sure if anyone really would want to visit the catacombs on a day such as this, but there are a number of possibilities: someone seeking shelter from the disasters, someone hiding looted items, or a homeless person who was already sleeping in the catacombs.”

Also, hadn’t Anastasia pulled out a tarp to try and protect the catacombs from the acid rain? A labyrinth full of human bones terrified me, but some people might be worried and checking the place for damage.

And that could lead to disaster.

What if someone like that ran into Absolute Noah? Absolute Noah was doing something they wanted to keep secret and they were being obstructed by JB. If they had grown paranoid, they might choose to “eliminate” anyone they ran across to ensure their own safety.

We had to act before that happened.

We had to either let the innocent people know of the danger or drive them out of the catacombs before they stepped on the tiger’s tail.

“There is still a risk if this person is not Mrs. Amatsu Yurina,” said Maxwell. “Entering the catacombs at all is unnatural, so they might find you suspect for being there.”

“I get that.”

I had just had an axe thrown at me for buying things at a store like normal. What people thought was right wasn’t necessarily actually right. Some people even made wrong decisions while fully convinced they were right. Your motives being good and honest did not guarantee your safety.

And what if we ran into someone who knew very well what they were doing was wrong while deep underground with no one else around?

In other words, what if we ran into a true criminal?

That was always a possibility.

“Anastasia.”

“Oh, no you don’t. I’m going this time.”

She didn’t even let me say it.

She even puffed out her cheeks.

“That wasn’t the first time you got yourself in trouble while I wasn’t around, Truth. Remember what happened near the Eiffel Tower? So I’m going. I’m sick of other people making my decisions for me.”

“Sure. I am unable to physically stop you if you do something stupid, so I strongly recommend bringing someone with you. And there is no guarantee Miss Anastasia would be safe waiting up on the surface.”

They didn’t think very highly of me, did they?

But it would be a problem if more “righteous people” like the ones in that store came across Anastasia while she was alone. I had heard the difference between rescue and kidnapping was paper thin at a disaster site.

“Fine. Stay close to me, Anastasia.”

“I’m going to protect you.”

With that highly reassuring comment, she took my hand and led me the first step into the catacombs.

They were a damp place.

They were chilly if not downright cold. I recalled how soaked with rain I was.

I aimed my phone’s light and saw white objects covering the walls just 5 steps inside.

They were human skulls.

“…”

“Truth?”

Anastasia was confused.

I wasn’t afraid of the bones. I was surprised how fast I was getting used to them. Instead of encountering a corpse at a murder scene, it felt more like seeing a model skeleton in a biology classroom.

Was that a good thing?

It made this all more efficient, but I feared I was scraping away parts of my invisible soul without realizing it.

If I ignored what it was made of, it felt like walking through a hand-dug tunnel or an air raid shelter from a movie. The damp tunnel was narrow enough to touch both sides if I spread out my arms and water occasionally dripped from the ceiling.

“This doesn’t look very well preserved. This is supposed to a historical location.”

Anastasia sounded exasperated.

The tunnel took a right-angle turn and branched out a bit from there. There was even a white stone stairway leading down.

“Maxwell.”

“The reading came from below.”

My phone would still have a signal down there, right? This probably wasn’t on the tourist course and I didn’t want to be trapped in a labyrinth of death deep underground without a signal.

“Should we leave a trail of breadcrumbs or Ariadne’s thread?”

“Don’t litter. I said this is a historical location, didn’t I?”

There was a problem with graffiti in Mount Fuji’s Sea of Trees too, wasn’t there?

I kept a close eye on my phone’s signal while descending the stairs. The place really was a dungeon.

“Did you know the word dungeon comes from French? Donjon meant a castle’s main tower and they supposedly had creepy prisons in there.”

I really didn’t need Anastasia’s insistence that it was a legit dungeon.

Fortunately, the signal looked fine.

The rusty chain link door blocking off the tunnel was shut with a thick chain and a padlock, but if someone had gotten in through here, either the padlock would be unlocked or the chain would be cut. I checked the hinges just to be thorough, but the red rust didn’t look disturbed. Could we ignore this door since no one had moved it?

“What if we have to get through one of those doors to keep going?”

“The locks were added by the city after the fact, so we can break them no issue,” said Anastasia. “They probably cost 5 euros at the hardware store.”

“I meant how we would do it.”

“Hit one with a softball-sized rock and it’ll probably break. They aren’t installing locks to protect diamonds and gold bars down here. It’s just to keep tourists from wandering off, getting lost, and dying.”

If we could do it, then Absolute Noah would have no trouble at all. It would be best to check every lock we came across to see if there were any signs of them passing through.

Fortunately, there weren’t any weird bugs or rats. There may not have been any food for them despite how damp this big underground space was.

The tunnel took several more turns and I completely lost track of which way we were going.

It was like walking on and on through a giant subway station with no signs to show you the way.

After some more walking, something changed.

“Warning.”

“…”

I switched off my phone’s light. The screen’s backlight too. I held Anastasia’s small hand in the pitch darkness.

I held my breath.

Something wasn’t right. Was it the pressure? Or was it the temperature or an air current? I wasn’t sure, but something seemed to be standing in our way.

I couldn’t judge the distance, but there was someone here.

Fear clutched my heart. It was unusual for someone’s presence to be this unpleasant.

“(Anastasia, don’t use your phone.)”

“(I get that light is a bad idea, but what else are we supposed to do?)”

With the artificial lights off, we were surrounded by pure darkness.

I didn’t see any light from up ahead. We would be screwed if it was a human with night vision goggles or an Archenemy who could see in the dark, but either we were too far away or they had also shut off their lights to wait and see what happened. I had shut off my phone’s lights, but they must have shut off theirs first. And this was a single tunnel. If they started firing blindly with a gun, there was nowhere to run. A flamethrower would be even worse.

I wanted more.

I wanted more information than them.

We had placed the security buzzers and lights at the entrances, but we had just taped them up, right? Modern digital cameras were more sensitive than the human eye, so would this work as long as no light leaked out?

“Hm, I’ll have to get it in focus first. Anastasia, a real hacker like you keeps a tool kit with her at all times, right? With tools to open a phone’s cover and mess with the chip inside?”

“What are you doing, Truth?”

“I want to borrow a loupe used for precise work. Hurry.”

“Hyah? Wh-where do you think you’re sticking your hand, Truth!?”

“Shh.”

She started making a fuss in the darkness, so I quieted her.

My idea was simple: tilt my phone on its side, place it over my eyes, and tape it in place such that the tape covered the gap between it and my face. I would be adding a lens in the mix to help focus it. Then I would link a simple VR app with a modern phone camera with superior sensitivity to the human eye.

“Maxwell.”

It was grainy, but I could see.

I only had one lens, so I could only really see with one eye. But I could still see the walls full of bones and the tunnel continuing on ahead of me. It was really blurry when I moved my head, but it was still far better than complete darkness.

My DIY night vision goggles were working!!

“Truth? Explain.”

“Bff!?”

I looked over without thinking and nearly yelped. Not only was she not waring much and soaking wet, but the night vision let me see right through it all for some reason. Her thin dress might as well have been transparent!?

The oblivious girl tilted her head with her long hair miraculously covering her.

“Truth???”

“It’s nothing. Anyway, I can see in the dark now, so hold my hand and I’ll lead the way.”

Having her standing in front of me would be really bad for my heart. And I couldn’t let any light escape if we were to stay safe. That meant I had to take the lead, moving her outside of my field of vision.

Now, the night vision gear did nothing to help me stop a bullet. And even if they couldn’t see us, blind firing would still be a threat. I kept toward the wall and crouched low while moving slowly to make as little noise as possible.

The next corner was about…100m away? My tension grew as we approached.

What if there was someone around that corner? We had no way of knowing if they were an ordinary person or with Absolute Noah. And even if they were an ordinary person, wouldn’t they find us unusual? Not only were we inside the catacombs, but we had no light and were sneaking around with makeshift night vision goggles.

Had I made the wrong decision here?

But Amatsu Yurina – Archenemy Lilith and the leader of Absolute Noah – had a secret hidden here. We were already in enemy territory. Trying to look as harmless as possible would just get us killed if this was an Absolute Noah elite.

Maybe there wasn’t an absolute correct answer.

At any rate, we had reached the corner.

I gulped and peeked around.

“There’s…no one there?”

“Truth, can you see?”

I had definitely sensed something here. Had it just been the placebo effect? Or had they vanished down a different tunnel while we were being so careful?

I felt silly, which relaxed the tension.

Was this what it felt like to pull the trigger and have no bullet come out in a game of Russian roulette?

I felt relief, but the ball of suspicion in my gut was still there.

I didn’t dare look directly at her, but I heard Anastasia doing something right next to me.

“Oh, I get it. You used your phone camera and screen to make some night vision goggles. You should have told me, Truth.”

“Ah!”

Oh, no. Did she have a spare loupe!? Without that, I didn’t have to worry about her focusing the image between the screen and her eye!

“Interesting. So this is what it looks li-…………………………………………………………………………”

She fell silent as soon as she realized what I had earlier. She must have looked down at herself and seen what the night vision did to her dress. So, um, uh, Anastasia? Your long hair just barely covers you up, but shouldn’t you start wearing a bra soon?

I tried to sneak away, but she stopped me by physically biting my hand.

“Grrrrr!! Truth!!”

“Ow, ow, yowch!? That wasn’t my fault! I didn’t know it would do that until I tried it!!”

“That doesn’t excuse taking such a nice, long look! You didn’t tell me so you could leer at me this whole time, I bet!”

“Please, Anastasia! I’m trying my best not to look at you, so could you not move in front of me! Your hair is only barely covering you!!”

C-could we safely assume there wasn’t anyone else here when all this shouting received no response? Where had Absolute Noah vanished to?

I heard some kind cursed voice muttering next to me.

“No fair, Truth. No fair, Truth. No fair, Truth. Why am I the only one who gets spied on?”

“Can you keep it down?”

“Only after I get payback!”

“Eh? Why would you want to see my chest? Well, if you insist, you selfish girl. Now, you aren’t going to get any milk out of daddy’s teat, but you can still suck on it if you’re feeling lonely. …There, satisfied?”

“What is happening here? You don’t even have your hair to cover you, so why am I the one taking damage? Since when were you such a pervert?”

“Since forever,” supplied Maxwell.

Yikes, that text is big! I guess that’s unavoidable when the phone is taped right in front of my eyes.

Eventually, the speech bubble shrank.

But the text it displayed could hardly have been worse.

“We are talking about the person who built a VR disaster environment simulator because he wanted to see his Class Rep dancing in a swimsuit. His name deserves to go down in the annals of perversion.”

“Maxwell, use your speech bubbles to cover Anastasia’s body. Hurry.”

Meanwhile, Anastasia was tearfully working with the tape. And her hands were inside her dress.

“Oh, geez. I’ll just have to tape up the parts I don’t want you seeing.”

She might as well have been using bandaids for underwear, but I kept that observation to myself so she wouldn’t bite me again.

Once she was ready, we set off down the tunnel again.

All we found were near identical tunnels of bones, three and four-way intersections, and stairs. That and rusty chain link. I wasn’t entirely sure if we were making progress or wandering in circles.

We didn’t find anyone deeper in either.

But that wasn’t what caught my attention.

“Maxwell, what is that?”

“You mean on the floor?”

“Yes.”

“Truth, tell me what Maxwell is saying. I can’t see your screen.”

Anastasia grabbed at my clothes and tugged to beg me, which brought a very dangerous image into view. (How in the world did she think that counted as covering up?) From there, I relayed Maxwell’s statements to her.

“I see a wet trail where something was likely dragged along the floor,” said Maxwell.

“Small wheels, right? So a cart of some kind?”

“They were double wheels, so probably a suitcase. I can search the manufacturer based on the wheel width. Shall I?”

“No need. We’re interested in what’s inside.”

“Then I will focus on that. It likely had four double wheels, but the gap between them suggests the suitcase could hold 80 liters.”

“That could fit anything from stacks of cash to a small nuke.”

“Sure. A human would also fit if they curled up. Or a human-sized Archenemy.”

This wasn’t telling us much.

There was definitely someone here, but if they were Absolute Noah, we still had no idea what they were here for. I just hoped it wasn’t poison gas, bacteria, or something else that would be dangerous if it leaked out.

It seemed unlikely this was an ordinary person.

80 liters? Could a normal person carry such a large suitcase through the darkness without a light? There weren’t any scrapes on the walls, so they had to have night vision gear as good as or better than ours.

They were here.

We were approaching my stepmom’s Absolute Noah.

Part 3

JB had decided it was worth dropping meteors or asteroids or whatever on the city to stop my stepmom from getting her hands on whatever this was, but what exactly was it?

I knew we were approaching it, but could we really stop her from retrieving and using it?

How?

If Villager A mistook us for a threat, screamed, and fought back, we would be entirely helpless and forced to flee.

“…”

“Do you need something, Truth?”

Anastasia was an Archenemy, but I couldn’t rely on her. Silkies were helper fairies that lived in old homes. If a resident or guest they didn’t like entered their territory, they would apparently harass or even strangle them, but that was all they could do. They didn’t have the straightforward kind of strength needed to crush a city or army like Vampires and Zombies did. Her physical strength was the same as an 11-year-old girl and she was only a little sturdier than a human. I couldn’t expect anything more from her.

If it came to a fight, I would have to do it. Avoiding a fight was our best bet, but I doubted persuading Absolute Noah with words would work.

Yes, I was Amatsu Yurina’s kid.

But was that really enough to grant me special privileges with the entire organization? It might work with my stepmom herself, but the other members might go in for the kill without a second thought. I wasn’t given a spot on their ark because I was a brilliant scientist or artist worthy of surviving into the post-Calamity world. I couldn’t create or offer them anything. I was simply given an extra seat because I knew someone important. The other members might see me as excess weight they could do without.

Also, I didn’t want to do it that way.

It would be hypocritical of me to use that position to resolve the current crisis.

Which meant…

“Maxwell, search for a means of attack now. But eliminate anything I can’t do with my current physical specs, so no mysterious assassination techniques or running around with a giant Gatling gun.”

“I strongly recommend against any and all forms of combat.”

I couldn’t agree more with that.

It could always be a trap, but we cautiously followed the wheel tracks on the floor. There weren’t any physical traps using wires, springs, lasers, x-rays, ultrasound, or EM waves. It was our handmade goggles that let us know all that.

And just as we descended some stairs…

“…”

“The door.”

The chain link door set up to prevent people from wandering into dangerous passageways had its thick chain dangling loose. It hadn’t been cut. The unlocked padlock lay on the floor.

That we hadn’t seen before.

We were close.

But this suggested Absolute Noah was in a hurry. Since this was a first, they must have needed to change how they did things. But why? Was their arranged time approaching? Had they nearly gotten lost? Or had they noticed us in pursuit?

The wet wheel tracks continued through that door. It seemed unlikely they had unlocked the door and then fled down a different tunnel.

They were through here.

Anastasia and I exchanged a nod in the dark and slowly walked through the door.

The darkness remained deep and stretched out seemingly forever ahead of us.

We walked down that long tunnel while trying to make as little noise as possible.

We arrived at a right angle turn in the tunnel. The wheel tracks turned there. Further evidence we were on the right track. But it also meant we were approaching the greatest threat. What were we to do? What if they were waiting around the corner with a weapon? What if they hadn’t moved at all and were peeking around the corner, watching us?

What if I peered around the corner and found them so close my nose nearly bumped into them?

“…”

That was all in my head.

It had to be. Right? With their breathing and slight movements, surely they couldn’t hide their presence this well. And they were wheeling around a suitcase on the rough ground, so I would hear something if they were close by.

I slowly peeked around the corner. And…

“Huh? What is this place?”

I found a strange location.

This wasn’t like the straight tunnels, right angle turns, and intersections from before. It was a wide open space. Bright too. But not old-fashioned lights like candles or torches. This was clearly electric light.

In fact…

“This isn’t even part of the catacombs, is it?”

“They must have connected to some building’s basement. We got in through a shortcut tunnel ourselves, remember!?”

That meant our DIY night vision goggles would only get in the way. The automatic brightness adjustments would keep us from blinding ourselves, but the naked eye had greater kinetic vision. The camera footage blurred when we turned our head too quickly.

I tore off the tape and removed the phone from my face.

“Ow, ow, ow. Ugh, I put the tape on too tight,” said Anastasia.

“What, having trouble getting the goggles off?”

“No, I meant the tape under my dress. Oww.”

Ahem.

Anyway, we stepped into the unusually modern basement.

It looked a lot like…

“A trendy department store basement?”

Did this mean the creepy catacombs full of more than 6 million people’s bones had only been the route to their destination?

Where was this, anyway? It apparently had its own backup power.

“…”

“Anastasia?”

The blonde girl must have had the same question because she looked down at her phone that doubled as her pet robot’s face, but then she froze.

Before I could ask why, she explained.

“On the map, we are between Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue Saint-Dominique.”

“That doesn’t tell me much.”

This wasn’t my hometown, so the street names meant nothing to me.

But Anastasia raised her head and clarified. She gave me an oddly shaky smile as she dropped the bombshell.

“We’re right below the French Ministry of Defense.”

Creepy catacombs?

That image was just blown out of the water.

Part 4

It was still unclear what my stepmom, Amatsu Yurina, hoped to acquire to ensure she could win her all-out war against JB, but I had a better idea now.

It wasn’t looking like it would be any kind of musty old tradition, like the occult or Archenemies.

No, this was the exact opposite.

More like bacteria, poison gas, a computer virus, or a microwave weapon.

For that matter…

“I really don’t want to know the answer, but isn’t France a nuclear power?”

“We may be the closest any hacker has ever gotten to the nuclear launch codes. Assuming Absolute Noah isn’t after the nuclear control system themselves, of course.”

It was still a guess, but if this was the right answer, was it really worth it? JB had already dopped a ton of meteors or asteroids on the city.

Was this how Absolute Noah and Amatsu Yurina intended to prepare for war? Was this the weapon they needed to win? Were they going to use those against JB?

What are you doing, mom!? Maybe you only think of it as withdrawing what’s yours and maybe you don’t care about heavily contaminating the planet if the world is already going to be destroyed in the Calamity, but still!!

I didn’t sense anyone nearby.

No workers and no guards.

Since Absolute Noah hadn’t entered the Ministry of Defense from the surface, this basement floor must not have been connected to the ordinary pathways. The elite government workers working above might not even have known this floor existed.

That hinted at the threat posed by whatever was kept here.

I took a closer look around in that mindset and noted a complete absence of security cameras. Unless they were hidden in the walls, the people in charge clearly wanted to ensure even their own people didn’t know when someone went in and out of here.

Had the place already been deserted, or had Absolute Noah eliminated whoever was here?

“Huh? But wait. What was that suitcase then?” asked Anastasia, balling up the tape she had peeled away from an unspeakable place. “We followed the wet wheel tracks through the catacombs, but why would they arrive with luggage if their plan was to steal the launch codes or data?”

“Maybe the suitcase held some special tools or a hacking computer. Or maybe it was empty. It could be to carry back their stolen prize, like some thick paper documents or some hardware.”

“B-but the ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons aren’t actually stored at the Ministry of Defense. And despite what movies would have you believe, the launch codes alone aren’t enough to launch the missiles! There’s a lengthy and intricate process and the command isn’t carried out if any of it goes wrong!!”

“But they could be doing a full reset of the nuclear control system.”

“…”

Anastasia was a white hat hacker.

She would always be on the lookout for rumors of system vulnerabilities. I was probably preaching to the choir here, but there was a possibility. Especially when the French loved to use their own tech so they could avoid using American and British standards.

“There will be a way to wipe clean the warhead system’s security for when it needs to be replaced with an updated version due to a bug or just for modernizing. Not to mention when new fingerprint and eye biometrics are registered after a new president takes office. If they trigger that now, all the strict security goes away. Unless every little thing is set up again on the warheads, it all goes back to the factory presets where anyone can launch them with ease.”

“B-but the nuclear launch process will have a manual step for safety purposes.”

“Wasn’t there suspicion that they had switched it all over to online processes? You’re the one that made that anonymous accusation in the engineering community, Anastasia.”

We were looking at just about the worst possibility imaginable.

We were only guessing at my stepmom’s actions and knew nothing for sure. She might be going for something easier to use, like a biological or chemical weapon, conventional warheads, or unmanned attack fighters. But even if we were wrong about this, we still needed to act on the assumption this was the worst case scenario.

So were should we attack first?

Absolute Noah would be simplest. If we didn’t use a trump card capable stopping them in one fell swoop, this was only going to get worse.

Our goal wasn’t to reveal the truth after the fact – it was to get ahead of them and stop them.

“Maxwell, pull all data out of this phone when I give you the signal. But don’t ruin your main system in the container by reading in corrupted files.”

“Are you sure that is the only option?”

“An EMP, high-power microwaves, or a direct link to the ground line would work. We just have to fry every single computer on this basement floor. And I mean now!! Otherwise dozens of nuclear missiles could be launched over the internet at any moment!”

“This action will be highly illegal. You will not be charged with treason since you are not a French citizen, but you may be handled as a foreign combatant with no right to engage them in combat. That means you will be shot on sight. Because even if this vulnerability in the nuclear system is true, the French government will not want to admit to their failure. The justification for your actions will never be made public.”

“That’s better than sitting here and letting it happen.”

I had repeatedly referred to this as a “war”, but only figuratively.

But it wasn’t sounding very figurative anymore. A nuke, the worst of all weapons of war, was being hijacked from a nuclear power.

I wanted Amatsu Yurina to be a housewife who works parttime as a cashier. I wanted to be proud of her for that. I didn’t want her face in every history textbook as Lilith, the Demon Lord who doomed humanity to extinction.

Yes, extinction.

France’s nukes were enough to kill everyone around the world. And if the early warning radars for ballistic missiles reacted, other countries would launch their own missiles in retaliation. And all of those would send the ashes of death raining down on the entire planet. A single decision would lead to a global tragedy.

“I will assist you with the preparations for the electronic destruction,” said Maxwell. “But before you physically destroy all the equipment there, I highly recommend you ensure that Absolute Noah is indeed planning a full reset of the nuclear system. You do not want to be wrong and find you are no more a simple terrorist.”

“I’m aware of that. Anastasia, you head back first! You don’t have to join me in this!!”

“You must be joking. Who are you to steal my principles from me?”

“Anastasia.”

“I’ll bite you. Just like you don’t want to be a simple terrorist, I don’t want to be a simple hacker. I wouldn’t truly be me anymore if I was willing to run away with the world in crisis.”

Now wasn’t the time to argue, dammit. I was honestly so thankful I thought I would cry, but that meant I had to make sure she got out of this safe and sound.

Detonating a nuclear missile outside of the atmosphere wasn’t the only kind of anti-electronic attack. There were simpler ways of pulling off the magic trick where you destroyed electronics over a wide area while leaving the human body entirely unaffected.

“Maxwell, tell me everything you can about French microchips. How common are they in their government computers?”

“They mostly use monolithic integrated circuits made with the clean water of the Alps, but they also use some Josephson devices.”

Hm, so it was still all silicon.

I thought maybe they used some crazy standards overseas, like sapphire or spinel, but this meant that one trick would work.

“This is only the information from the French manufacturers’ servers,” continued Maxwell. “If they imported computers from foreign companies, the chips would be based on that country’s standards.”

“What do you think, Anastasia?”

“I’m not sure what you’re planning, Truth, but this is the Ministry of Defense. Would the French government really use foreign machines that could be loaded with who knows how much spyware? And no matter how much of an ally that country is, France only allows domestic products for everything from calculators to fighter craft. There will be more to it. Even if the machine is 99% foreign, the crucial motherboard will have been replaced with a French one.”

That settled it.

“Truth, what are you planning?”

“We don’t have time to search out some other tool, so I’ll do what I can with what we have on hand.”

I mentally listed out the ingredients and work cost.

“That means high frequency breakdown.”

You didn’t actually need electromagnetism to destroy electronic chips. You could take out a supercomputer by dumping salt water on it, covering it in carbon dust, or just repeatedly kicking the machine.

We would be using one of those more barbaric methods.

The reasoning was as follows.

Glass was easily broken. You didn’t even need to throw a stone or whack it with a stick. The extraordinary voice of an opera singer could do the trick.

A wineglass and a silicon semiconductor were both made from silicon.

They were essentially the same material.

It wasn’t well known, but precision equipment could be destroyed with vibrations. Devices over a wide range could all be destroyed at once from a distance.

The silicon would have a very slight impurity mixed in.

If you knew the standard ratio there, applying the vibration from the outside was easy. The necessary item wasn’t hard to find. Almost any indoor facility would have one somewhere.

You just had to look up near the ceiling.

“There we go. That announcement speaker should do nicely.”

“You will need to amplify the output by three times,” said Maxwell. “Either find a capacitor or create your own.”

A loud noise that humans only found a nuisance was actually a vibration traveling through the air. By sending out a wave at the right wavelength, the semiconductor made from slightly impure silicon could not survive. The layers would develop microscopic cracks and the countless wires thinner than hairs would be broken. That meant we could destroy all of the French electronics from the inside.

It was such a simple method that the specific process is a secret. Anastasia was leaning eagerly forward with her eyes shining bright, but I got the feeling she would abuse this. Especially given the way she was drooling.

Anyway.

“Anastasia, your phone is a unique custom model, right?”

“Heh heh. It’s also a cyber weapon capable of taking down urban infrastructure with a security level of 3 or lower. Connect it to the university supercomputer and I can manage Level 4 too. That means I can take down an industrial complex or a power plant, so it’s basically a strategic weapon.”

“In that case, wrap it and your pet robot in soundproofing material. It should be fine since US standards are different, but the high frequency might still break the semiconductors.”

She got to work immediately. Soundproofing methods were actually pretty forceful. Stuffing a wall full of rubber and glass fiber would be enough. A recording studio or live concert house would probably make theirs 20 to 30cm thick. So wrap your phone in a mass the size of a globe and you were probably good. Plus, rubber adhesives could be found anywhere in the world.

You could make the soundproofing thinner if you used a vacuum, but that wasn’t an option here. A vacuum cleaner wasn’t enough to set that up.

“Okay, wait just a bit, my baby.”

“Um, Anastasia? Uhhh.”

“Yes, Truth?”

“I get wanting to protect your phone, but don’t stick the basketball-sized thing in the stomach of your dress. Or at least stop rubbing it so lovingly with your little hand!! It looks wrong!!”

“?”

I was stuck continuing the preparations with a very pregnant Anastasia. I wanted to protect my phone too, but I couldn’t make this idea a reality without specific instructions from Maxwell. That meant shielding my phone had to wait until later.

The task was simple enough. I had to use a tool to remove the speaker from near the top of the wall and dismantle it. I would connect it to a separate battery and a capacitor with its voltage forcibly boosted. The capacitor would have to be a handmade thing made from parts scavenged from other devices. By using my phone to send the speaker audio data finetuned by Maxwell, I could create a loud noise capable of destroying all of the computers on this floor.

If Absolute Noah had gotten here ahead of us, this would let us catch up at the speed of sound. I wouldn’t let them launch a nuclear strike on JB’s base or wherever else. That didn’t qualify as defeating JB. You’re just stooping to their level, mom! Reaching for nukes only hands JB the justification they need for messing up Paris with that meteor shower!

Once the unit was complete, it and its battery were small enough to fit in a backpack. This would work.

“Maxwell, I’m going to shield my phone now. It can still send its signal to the speaker with rubber covering it, right? If not, I’ll need to connect it with a cable.”

“No. I told you to wait until you had confirmed Absolute Noah intends to perform a full reset of France’s nuclear control system.”

“It’s too late once the missiles have been launched!”

“Again: no. Your safety and the preservation of your rights are my top priority. The risk of performing this action based on a misunderstanding is too great.”

Argh!

I could argue, but I couldn’t perform the high frequency breakdown without Maxwell’s support. Damn, I should’ve gotten that stupid AI to calculate out the soundwave signal first and stored it on my device. Then I could have done the rest myself!

“Truth, Maxwell is right about this.”

“I am always right about everything.”

“Shut up. I know the situation is pressing, but we still haven’t actually seen anyone from Absolute Noah.”

“We won’t be able to escape once we do,” I pointed out.

Access to the network was reassuring. It let me do so much I couldn’t on my own. But it wasn’t perfect. I was still just a powerless human.

What if we ran into some strange superweapon up ahead?

What if we were attacked by an Archenemy spoken of in myths?

I had to obey Maxwell here, but I wanted to let Anastasia escape even if it meant shoving her away. We could not afford to encounter Absolute Noah. Our best bet was to ruin their plans for a remote-controlled nuclear strike and then drag my stepmom back to Japan. If that wasn’t possible, we had to assume there was no getting through this unharmed. And if someone had to get harmed, it had to be me rather than Anastasia. I would be the natural target since I was carrying a mystery device on my back, but better safe than sorry.

Because Anastasia had no place in this fight.

There wasn’t even a family connection for her. She had only accompanied me this far out of the kindness of her heart. Which was all the more reason I had to keep her safe.

“Now, then.”

Like I had said before, the place looked a lot like the basement of a trendy department store. The floors were polished bright, the lightning was gentle, and it all felt nice and roomy. There were fancy double doors here and there, but there weren’t any signs. I had found the battery and wires in similar rooms. Some of them had looked like normal conference rooms, but others had been dimly lit rooms full of glass panels with radar-like dots on them, like a scene on a warship in a movie. A lot of the rooms I couldn’t even tell you what they were for after seeing them myself.

But I had only opened the closer in doors. I hadn’t gone to the farther rooms where the large hallways branched off to narrower ones.

My goal wasn’t to find my stepmom or another Absolute Noah member. Bumping into them and trying to fight them without a plan would be suicide.

I only had to confirm that their plan was a full reset of the nuclear control system. That meant peeking inside as many rooms as possible to get a feel for the place was better than thoroughly searching the rooms. I could do a more detailed search once I found a room that very clearly held some kind of secret no one was supposed to touch.

Which meant…

“Let’s check further back. We can’t waste time searching all these near identical rooms.”

“Got it.”

I first wanted to know how large this underground area was. With a secret facility like this, it might not match the area of the surface building.

That was my plan as I took my first step further back.

And…

The world spun around me?

Time passed around me and I had no idea what had happened. By the time my brain told me to brace for impact, my back slammed into the floor and all the oxygen left my lungs and escaped through my mouth. My back? What happened!? My spine was creaking.

I’d been attacked.

They had struck first.

Was this Absolute Noah?

“Gahh!! Cough, gweh!?”

My sense of time and pain returned when I hit the floor.

The device on my back caused my spine to bend back like a shrimp. My own body refused to obey me and it wasn’t getting better as time passed. My oxygen deprived brain didn’t recover and the outlines of my consciousness blurred.

Uh, oh.

I was going to faint.

My vision was going dark. I wouldn’t stay conscious for long.

“…ruth…Truth!!”

That frail, high-pitched shout helped just a bit to apply the brakes on my fading mind.

I didn’t know who had attacked me, but had Anastasia not escaped? At this rate, that kindhearted girl would be killed too!

“Ahhh!!” I yelled.

Still collapsed, I shoved the modified speaker toward the figure looming over me.

No matter what might happen, I had to let Anastasia escape.

“Maxwell…max volume at 20 thousand hertz!! Right now!!”

I didn’t know who this was, but I hit the switch. But instead of the frequency for destroying computer chips, I used the frequency for rattling someone’s skull with bone vibrations.

I imagined I heard a high-pitch ringing.

I felt terribly nauseated. I was clearly being affected too, but this would protect Anastasia from the unidentified attacker.

She had to be safe.

She might look human, but she was a Silky. The structure of her skull or the conditions needed to set up a resonance with her bones had to be different.

Something about that analysis sounded wrong to me.

A chill ran along my spine. A chill of terror.

Wait.

Hold on.

Oh, no! Those same conditions would apply to the attacker if they were an Archenemy. The material and density of their bones would differ – if they even had bones at all. That meant the human high frequency vibration wouldn’t work! And this was perfectly possible with Absolute Noah!!

Then another blow hit me.

Had they stomped me with their heel or dropped their knee on me? Either way, a blow with real weight behind it struck me in the solar plexus.

I couldn’t even scream.

My mouth moved, but I couldn’t even inhale or exhale.

“You really do adlib some nasty stuff. You’re my son and I can barely believe it sometimes. You must have the soul of an inventor.”

My vision had gone dark and my mind was shaken, but I was never going to misidentify that voice.

“I was really hoping to keep you out of this, but I was at a loss of what to do next and I’m not above getting your help.”

It was such a carefree voice.

Almost like she was wondering what to do after noticing the weeds were out of control in the garden.

“Mom?”

Lilith was a Demon Lord, but her body was identical to a human’s. Then how in the world had she avoided my acoustic attack?

“Hello, Satori. Is this the opposite of being homesick? Did you miss your mother so much you chased me all the way to France?”

“If you’re planning a full reset of the nuclear control system, I won’t help you. We came here to stop that.”

“Unfortunately, we’re looking at something much more dangerous here.”

Amatsu Yurina tore down all of my assumptions like it was nothing.

“And those of us in Absolute Noah are working to stop that dangerous thing. Of course we are. The ark exists to help the world survive a crisis.”

[Unknown_Storage] Emergency Report: Top Priority [file04]

Accuracy: High

Threat Level: Max

Amatsu Yurina has been detected on site.

We have confirmed it is really her and not a body double or false information.

We must respond with the utmost caution. She is history’s greatest Archenemy and remains in the upper classes of the world with Absolute Noah. Absolute Noah has allies in every organization, both government and civilian. Be on the lookout for interference. Assume anyone you encounter on site is involved.

Amatsu Satori was also detected at the same location.

Freischutz’s predictions cannot keep up with his actions. There is no flowchart there, so be especially cautious.

Amatsu Satori is human.

Even without a definite answer, he may be killable. Think of this as a test of your skill.

Also, the two of them will influence each other.

Trying to harm or trip up one in order to eliminate the other would be foolish. That would only boost the enemy’s strength and make them truly unpredictable, so it must be avoided at all costs.

Over.

Back to Chapter 2