Unidentified intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms?
As inaliens?
Eh? Huh?
This was supposedly the answer I had been hoping for. I had supposedly escaped that state of craving for information like tropical fish moving their mouths and gills for the air pumped in by the fish tank.
Yet now I felt like I had a fist-sized rock stuck in my throat.
I couldnt swallow it.
I just couldnt.
This wasnt about whether I liked it or not. I had been hit by sothing so far beyond anything I expected that I could only stare in confusion.
What the hell? You an an Archenemy that looks that way, right???
No.
But theres no way I can accept this! Sure, Ive run into a Valkyrie and a Demon Lord, but this is entirely different, isnt it!?
So hobbyists who are intercepting the ergency radio channels have posted quotes and recordings to ssage boards and video sites. At the very least, the police and dical personnel appear to be calling them aliens or extraterrestrials.
What was going on?
Wed been through a lot already, like the extre moral hazard called the Calamity and Absolute Noah created to escape that. But this? It was so insane and unrealistic it felt like the gears filling the underside of the world were audibly crumbling away.
Fugu. Ayumi had been directly attacked, but she took a more rational stance than . Theres no point in continually asking about sothing you cant bring yourself to understand. Lets just say soone is calling these things aliens and leave it at that. Think of it as a codena and worry about what they actually are later.
She tended to take the simpler route, but it helped at tis like this. When she didnt understand sothing, she could just file it under the I dont understand this category.
Okay, I get it So next problem: its the police or the JSDF who have sealed the city off, not the aliens?
It still felt weird using that na myself, but Maxwell was quick to respond.
Sure. It is growing more accepted that the intelligent extraterrestrial lifeforms have an excellent sensory deception effect on the surface of their bodies. Simply put, they are effectively invisible. If they are allowed out, there will be no stopping them, but capturing them all individually is not feasible since there is still no known way of detecting them using caras, sensors, radars, military dogs, or whatever else.
They use weird patterns to ss with your minds recognition, right? But youre saying chanical caras dont work either?
Sure. There are reports saying caras work at first, but it seems they can alter those patterns at will. In other words, they can learn and constantly produce new patterns. We should assu they have reached the level where they can fool not just human eyes but chanical analysis as well.
We lived in an age where you could easily buy masks and sunglasses ant to hide you from facial recognition if you hated big data, but this was worse even than that.
Caras had wavelengths and speeds they worked best at. For example, if they created images out of reflected microwaves and ultrasonic waves, they could ignore the darkness but could not capture color. Similarly, keeping the shutter open for high sensitivity ant they could not capture objects moving at high speed.
Those boorangs sent crop circle patterns across their frog-like skin and took advantage of the weak points of the various devices used to detect them so they could disappear from view.
So they gave up on capturing them individually and instead sealed off the area where they knew the so-called aliens were, huh? And then they give themselves a wider area than that to feel safe.
It sounded logical, but really was not. If no one could find those things, they had no proof all of them were inside that area.
The off-limits area appears to be growing as ti passes, said Maxwell.
So no ones confident of their calculations concerning that, huh? If anything, its probably ant to put everyone at ease by setting up a barrier that defines their space as safe.
I couldnt believe it.
Those dry brown boorangs could crawl around on their own and who even knows how many were out there. At 150cm, they were at the upper limit even for larger breeds of dogs. You could only call them beasts at that point. I hated the idea of so many being out there and it was creepy how they had proven their chaotic potential by shutting down the 23 wards with their re presence. Since that one had hidden in the darkness and leaped at us without even trying to talk it out, they seed completely different from a Zombie like Ayumi or a Vampire like Erika. Of course, it was possible they were sending out desperate warnings using IR or ultrasonic waves that humans could not detect, but that honestly seed unlikely.
Creeeeak!!
The offices ceiling no, the entire tower groaned.
Maxwell, I have to know. You say the aliens are filling the city and harming people and the humans are using the police and JSDF to seal everything off. Then what about the broadcast tower? Is it in trouble due to the normal storm instead of so kind of plan!?
Details are difficult to co by with so much confusion in the information, but according to multiple live online news broadcasts, the Tokyo Skytool is tilting northeast at a maximum of about three degrees. With the ergency power and all other disaster-prevention equipnt knocked out, my guess is it could not handle the violent winds from the extraordinary bomb cyclone.
Im having a hard ti trusting those sources right now!
The major civilian satellite image services and various press companies are being pressured to keep everything hidden, so they are no use. But it is priti, so despite the chaos, they are airing a special on one little trick for improving your yakiniku sauce. The Tokyo studio and broadcast station should be unusable, so they appear to be airing prerecorded footage using a regional branch. Anything that requires the Skytool is off the air.
What kind of monster tells that to people whove been stuck inside an elevator without a bite to eat, Maxwell? Ahhh, Im starving.
But anyway, three degrees, huh? That might not seem like much when you think of a 45-degree set square or a 180-degree protractor, but you cant forget that the Skytool was 650m tall. Once it lost its balance, it would collapse all at once.
Whether or not they have successfully sealed the city off is questionable enough given how little information there is and how paranoid everyone is being, but the discourse has grown even more out of control thanks to a third-rate sports paper revealing a request of silence sent to them by the governnt, said Maxwell.
It made you wonder if that request for silence was ant to reduce or spread the chaos. I just hoped people did not start targeting so unrelated Archenemies because of it all.
If this really is a disaster with no mastermind or grand ambitions behind it all, then this is basically a countdown to doom, I said. Theres no stopping it. And either way, we have to get out of this tower.
Sure.
Erika, Ayumi. Thats okay with you two, right?
Fugu.
Yes, but that elevator scares , what with the snapping wires and falling elevators, said Erika. Are there stairs we could take instead?
For that matter, what had happened in that elevator anyway?
Had the top of the tower twisted enough to damage the pulleys, or had the mysterious lifeforms carelessly touched them and gotten caught?
Well, it was dangerous no matter what had caused it. Using the elevators was not a good idea.
If there were stairs we could use, it would be best to do so.
Maxwell, can you calculate how many steps there would be?
I can of course, but I do not recomnd it. I doubt that is a useful task. It would be a very efficient way of reducing your motivation, but shall I continue?
Tokyo Hour was a little over 300m, and they gave out a prize for taking the stairs all the way up and down, right? The Skytool was more than twice that, so did they do the sa?
Did they not have an escape tool like that synthetic fiber tube that let you slide down from the school hallway? Or did those have a height limit? And did the ti it took to ride it down take into account that you would be running around in a panic if there was a fire?
Do not worry, user. You are on the general viewing deck, which is not at the very top. It is only about 450m from the ground. That lets you take about a third off of the calculation. Hooray.
If thats the most comforting thing all your processing power could co up with, then Im going to assu this route is a living hell.
I was still in my teens, but I was seriously worried that I was going to wear out my knees today. But delaying the inevitable would not change anything. In fact, if it was going to take hours to walk down, then the tower could always fall over before we reached the ground. We already knew the elevators were falling, the viewing decks reinforced glass had shattered, and the entire tower was tilting, so anything could happen.
I breathed a soft sigh.
Search for information on hiking, trekking, or anything else really. Just find the best walking thods and tools for keeping the burden off your legs. And Ill let you see this office, so highlight anything in here that could be used as a weapon against that sticky alien.
Their physiology, instincts, objectives, and level of intelligence are all unknown, but carrying a weapon could communicate hostile intent to them, warned Maxwell. That will needlessly put them on their guard.
Was I starting to think the sa way as the Bright Cross that had insisted on oppressing the Archenemies? But I didnt have the guts to walk around unard and cheerfully talk to 150cm sticky creatures that I couldnt detect even when they right in front of my face. It may have been a surprise attack, but they had knocked down a Zombie who had 10 tis the muscular strength of a human. In the worst case, a hit from them would be like getting hit by a car.
So.
I borrowed a thin synthetic staff jacket from the office wall, tied the sleeves as grips, and tied off the bottom to make a large bag. The weapon was complete after I tossed in three cans of coffee that were chilling in the fridge. Those boxy bottles of tea would have been nastier, but this gave a simple morning star I could swing around by the sleeves. And if I never had to use it, we could always share the contents to quench our thirst. After all, the ergency stairway was long and we would badly want so hydration along the way.
Um, what will you two do? I asked my sisters. Do you have a favorite weapon?
That was not the question I wanted to ask the girls in my family. What, had I traveled to another world where I was trying to sell so steel swords? I wasnt ready to die and take that kind of journey quite yet.
Fuguu. Handmade weapons might be too fragile to be useful. Theyd break the second we swung them with our full strength.
And while we might have good night vision, were up against sothing that can ss with our recognition even in the dark. With a sharp blade or a ranged projectile, we could easily end up attacking each other or trip and stab ourselves in the gut.
Do you think Im so kind of clumsy girl who trips over her own feet?
Of course not. Im worried about myself here.
Having 10 or 20 tis the strength of a human was not always a good thing. I was getting the feeling they really could cause a handgun to go off unexpectedly by squeezing the grip too hard. I really wanted sothing to protect my fists, but they must have known the best way to use their Archenemy bodies. Forcing them to do things my way would only trip them up.
Creeeeeeak, groaned the entire space around us in the dark.
Maxwell, were going to leave the office now, but can you stay connected to my phone?
Sure. The online environnt remains intact; it is simply rejecting any connections not using the ergency tags for the police and firefighters. I have already acquired the key data from this computer, so I can remain connected with just your phone. The cable connection no longer serves any purpose beyond charging the battery.
The charge was at 68%. That was a fair amount for such a short ti. The battery had not deteriorated either, so I could trust the display. It would last a while.
Okay, then its ti for Round 2.
Understood.
There were aliens who could ss with our recognition to disappear from our vision and there was a bomb cyclone powerful enough to knock over a broadcast tower. Now, which one was scarier?
We started off quietly.
I touched the offices doorknob and gently turned it.
At the very least, this was a worst case scenario where the door or wall had bent too much for it to open. But it was too soon to relax. If our estimations were correct, that thing had escaped from the office using this door. We no longer had that temporary safe zone. We had no idea when a sticky thing with frog-like skin would attack. I aid my phones light around, but didnt notice anything. And if we used up too much ti being cautious, we could get caught in the collapse of the entire Skytool.
We had to be cautious but quick.
If we tilted the balance too far in either direction, it was all over.
Looks like so windows broke elsewhere too, my vampire sister whispered in my ear.
I looked around and realized the flow of the wind had changed from before and the blowing rain seed stronger.
Was that small shards of glass crunching below our feet? The floor was soaked and slipping would likely an getting very bloody.
Ayumi, stay away from the windows.
Onii-chan, do you think Im a clumsy girl too?
I only ant that the blowing wind did not just co in from outside. It sotis blew back out like a vacuum cleaner sucking things out. Plus, we did not know where those boorang-shaped aliens were. If one suddenly tackled us from behind, there would be no recovering from it.
Idiots tend to be clumsy because they smugly refuse to listen to the warnings other people give them, said the AI.
Fugu!? Maxwell!!
No, no. I am rely using my language assist functionality based on my observations of my user, but did I not express his thoughts properly here? ()?
So this was all an indirect attack from Onii-chan, was it!?
Lets not turn this into an ultra-heavy case study of future social problems like the responsibility for the actions of lifeless AIs being sent straight to their owners! By which I an, Im innocent!!
That wasnt so bad, but if Maxwell did that on purpose, didnt this count as the beginning of an AI rebellion!? If AIs started blowing up dams and industrial complexes using cyber-attacks of their own volition, and that sa sliding responsibility sche was used to determine who had started the war, it could easily start a worldwide Armageddon!
Anyway, its ti to escape. Go go
Dont you have anything to say to !? My brotherly dignity is hitting rock bottom as my little sister tugs on my hair here!
Did she not know how precious a boys hair roots were? If my kind older sister hadnt intervened, I would have had to aim for being one of those old Hollywood stars who sohow manage to look good despite being bald. Although Id have to get plastic surgery to give myself an Italian skull shape to pull it off!
Look, Ayumi-chan, I have barbecue flavor Tater Sticks, said Erika.
Grr, grr, grrr.
Oh, dear. Ive opened the seal and everything. But if you dont want them, I guess Ill just have to throw them away.
Wait! Dont waste the Tater Sticks!
We had been stuck in the elevator without much of anything to eat or drink, but Ayumi still lost the instant she accepted those. On the other hand, Erikas taste in snacks was more on the macaron and eclair end of things, so was she carrying those around as an ergency anti-Ayumi weapon?
Anyway, once Ayumi had cald down, we could carefully make our way to the ergency stairs.
Man, Tater Sticks are so good.
Is that so?
Here, Onii-chan. You can have this as a sign of us making up.
There was nothing to make up for when it all ca down to Maxwells conspiracy and the idiots misunderstanding, but whatever. Accepting rather than restarting the argunt was the clever choice here. And when had they co out with a barbecue flavor? Tater Sticks ca out with so many new flavors it was hard to keep up. Drool.
Doesnt this taste more like yakiniku sauce than barbecue sauce? I asked. Yknow, the Nibara brand.
Isnt that how it always works? This is a minor difference compared to the vegetable rice cracker one that doesnt taste at all like veggies.
Yet again, you have shown how dumb you are, Ayumi. That doesnt an its vegetable flavored; it ans its fried with vegetable oil. Its supposed to taste mostly like salt.
The wind blew through and the floor was covered in glass shards and water, so we did our best to walk along by the light of my phone and arrived at a different tal door than the one to the elevator hall.
I aid the light above the door and saw an ergency exit light that was not currently functioning.
Yeahlooks like this is the ergency stairs.
My hands were full holding my phone and the heavy staff jacket, so I let Ayumi turn the knob while she (for so reason) pressed against the wall next to the door like she was in a spy movie. She was going all in on this, but it made think of a child wanting to hit the button at the bus stop.
Once she opened it and I shined the light in past her shoulder, all I saw were the stainless steel stairs given a coat of rustproof paint. These only led down, so just like with the elevator, there must have been separate stairs leading up to the special viewing deck.
Staring may not have helped, but I still froze in place with the light aid at the next landing down.
I heard the disconcerting creaking of the tower, but I could not see any of those sticky things with crop circle patterns on their dry brown surface.
Lets get going then.
Fugu.
It was hard to tell whether it was safe or not, but we slowly walked toward the stairs regardless. I could not help but shine the light more toward our feet than the way ahead. Those 150cm sticky boorangs scared , but tripping and spraining or breaking an ankle would be the worst. No one would co to save us.
One, two, threeten, eleven.
Eleven steps, huh? Then you turn around at the landing and take another eleven steps down to reach the next floor. Um, altogether that would be
Warning, said Maxwell. You will not like the answer, so I do not recomnd continuing this calculation.
All this did was connect the surface to the general viewing deck, yet there were tal doors in places. They must have been locked because they would not budge.
Are those maintenance doors for personnel?
There had been nothing like that in the ordinary elevator shaft, but I doubted they were climbing and descending these stairs on a daily basis. Was there a staff elevator that could stop partway up?
And.
Creeeeeeak, groaned the tower. It terrified every ti I heard it. And just as I was thinking that
Thats odd, said Erika. The creaking isnt stopping this ti.
Wah, wah, wah! shouted Ayumi. Are we in trouble!? Fuguu! We need to get out of this tower right away!
Ayumi tried to charge forward even more than before, so I quickly grabbed at her arm.
Just then, I thought I heard a cracking sound.
Then a thick breaking sound burst out from below. Followed by a vibration. This was not the sa as the entire tower being pumled in the wind like before. This shaking was much closer, much more vivid, and much more a chain reaction of destruction.
I aid my phones light at the floor below.
All I saw was darkness.
That wasthe stairs.
I finally realized what had happened.
The stainless steel stairs are falling!? If were caught in this, itll be a freefall to the bottom!
I didnt know whether they were held in place by bolts or tal stakes or what, but the twisting of the entire tower was causing them to pop out. So piece partway up had co out and the ones above it had started coming out in a chain reaction. Right up to the one just below us.
There was nothing but empty space below.
We had no choice but to head back up.
As my sisters and I turned around and ran up the stairs, I felt a sinking feeling. The thick bursting sounds surrounded us. By the ti we reached the landing, the entire floor was tilted diagonally. I looked back in shock to see the stairs we had just climbed were no longer there. Were the landing and 11 stairs above them a single set? That whole piece must have been scraping along the wall as it fell because I could hear the screaming of tal and see orange sparks.
Satori-kun, please dont stop moving! Hurry!!
Kh, I know!
I did, but still!
I really should have kept track of how many floors down we had gotten. I couldnt think about keeping a reasonable pace now. We could only sprint full-speed up these seemingly endless stairs. My thighs were feeling worn out in no ti. How much further was it? Was it the next turnaround? Surely we didnt have more than 10 more stories to go!?
Fugu.
No, Ayumi. Ignore those tal doors!
But if we could open one
We have no idea where they lead! If its only a small supply closet and you turn back around to find the landing and stairs have fallen into the abyss, then its all over!
I was scrambling as fast as I could while I shouted. I couldnt think about looking good at a ti like this. My short-sleeved jacket felt so heavy while wet. Should I have removed it beforehand? We ran past landing after landing to rush up the stairs that never seed to end, but then the endpoint finally ca into view.
The tal door was still sitting partway open.
That was the entrance to the general viewing deck.
Bwah!
My little sister in the white shorts had passed by partway up, so I half-collapsed out onto the wet floor in last place. Erika reached out her right arm in the torn sleeve and pulled on in.
The landing directly behind had seed so sturdy, but it vanished into the abyss. I aid my phones light back there, but there was nothing at all. The ergency stairs were no longer an option.
We only had the disconcerting creaking of the tower for company.
We had survived, but that was all. The Skytools tilt was getting worse. Next ti, the floor might fall out from under us, a gas leak in a restaurant could cause a fire, or the ceiling panels could collapse on top of us. In the worst case, the entire tower could break apart and fall over. We could no longer assu our safety just because so many calculations had gone into the architecture. There was no predicting what would co next. Not even a few seconds into the future.
Whatdo we do? I asked while still collapsed on the wet floor.
Waiting out the storm on the general viewing deck had stopped being viable a while ago. At this rate, the Skytool would probably collapse before then. But what else could we do? The elevator and elevator shaft were too dangerous and the ergency stairs had just vanished into the abyss, but what other way was there to descend the 450m from the general viewing deck?
The creaking sound squeezed at our hearts.
This may be the ti for desperate asures.
Erika, do you have so kind of idea?
Fuguu. You arent thinking of spreading out that huge skirt and gliding down like a flying squirrel, are you?
With an idiot, it could be hard to tell how serious she was being with that question, so we decided to ignore her.
There may still be a thod left. But in this storm, it will require the powerful muscles of an Archenemy.
What is it? I asked.
For so reason, Erika moved the slender arm extending from her torn sleeve to point out the broken window.
She wasnt actually suggesting the flying squirrel plan, was she!?
I trembled in fear at the thought, but in a way, her plan may have been even more reckless.
For example, what about the window washing gondola handing on the outside?
You know how on stormy days the wire will bang against the tal flagpole in the schoolyard? I could hear that sound but 20 or 30 tis worse from directly below.
There it is, there it is, Satori-kun. Thats what I was talking about.
Erika grabbed the tal edge of the viewing deck and leaned out through the shattered window while sounding as delighted as a child, but
That is!? So youre saying you plan to climb down while clinging to that!? Thats blowing around way more than a playground swing!
Vampires have 20 tis the strength of a human and Zombies have 10 tis, so we just have to hold you tight in our arms to support you. Kyah
A-also, dont window washing gondolas use electricity to move?
There are multiple varieties, but based on the zood-in footage from your phone, the wire reel is on the gondola rather than the roof, said Maxwell. With that design, it should have a safety device allowing you to release the wire with a manual lever and descend to the ground yourself. Searching manufacturer website
Wait, Maxwell! Youre supposed to reject Erikas idea here. Why would you support her!?
Given the winds direction, it will be blowing the gondola against the tower wall, continued the AI. It is making a lot of noise, but it should not be shaking all that much.
Hey, try to read my mind better next ti, you stupid AI! Arrrgh!
I take issue with being called stupid for finding the correct answer. () Hmph.
Staying anywhere in the tower would be dangerous, so isnt it best to head outside and find a safe route even if it requires so brute force? asked Erika. Thats why I support the gondola plan.
Im fine with that too, said Ayumi.
That idiot is all talk, so I recomnd ignoring him and continuing with the plan, said Maxwell.
Oh, no. At this rate, I really was going to be stuck out there in the raging storm on a window washing gondola blowing wildly while we descended the rain-slick wall. Majority rule during ergencies could be scary, but doing sothing just because the clever machine said so seed just as scary to . I an, how would this ever work? It was about 30 ters down. Use your heads, everyone! Think!!
Complain if you want, Onii-chan, but do you have a better idea?
Oh, you dont have to force yourself to co up with sothing. Just leave this in the capable hands of your big sister. Okay, Maxwell, it would help a lot if you could tell us when to jump out based on the wind direction.
That would be now. Like, right this instant.
Ayumi and Erika each grabbed one of my shoulders.
No, wait! This is a bad idea! A really bad ideaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
They had 10 and 20 tis the strength of a human, so there was no way I could hold my ground. Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!
To be honest, none if it felt real.
That was thanks to the storm.
It was almost like having a thick translucent plastic sheet pressed over my face. I couldnt even open my eyes or breathe properly. I couldnt tell right from left or even up from down.
But Maxwells simulation must have paid off because the wind happened to be blowing inwards such that it pushed us back toward the tower as we jumped out. It also helped that Erika had taken the staff jacket I had picked up, wrapped it around her hand, and then grabbed the gondola wire running vertically by.
I heard the sound of scraping cloth and slled the stench of lting plastic.
And the next thing I knew
H-hey, youre kidding, right?
And weve arrived. Wow, it really is pouring out here, isnt it?
We really landed right in the gondola. Ah, ahhh!? Now we cant get back up!!
I looked regretfully back up from the wobbling window washing gondola just as a gust of wind slamd into a glass wall and shattered it. I crouched down and covered my head on reflexbut the shower of glass never arrived. The wind must have blown it to the side.
Ugh, I feel like Im going to drown just standing here. Onee-chan, is this the manual lever?
Even I will be mad if you pull too hard and break it, okay?
Ayumi gave a casual yank on the lever andwhoa! The lock really ca undone and the gondola started to slowly descend!!
Co here, Satori-kun. A sudden gust of wind could shake us side to side, so co to your big sister here. You dont want to be thrown out of the gondola, do you?
W-wah!?
Hee hee hee. There, there If only you always let spoil you like this.
Oh, no. At this rate, it would look like I had a serious sister complex and was entirely useless in an ergency, but what was I supposed to do while the wind tossed around the gondola at 400m above the ground? Thats just too much!!
And then
Look, its the moon.
Ayumi suddenly spoke up. Without the large natag of her usual tank top, her chest was in a fairly risqu situation at the mont. And Mr. Chicken here looked over while clinging to my soaked older sisters chest. Ayumi was right. Was this what you called a sunshoweror a moonshower in this case? The round moon was perfectly visible despite the blowing rain.
And.
Was it because of the moonlight?
No, was it because my phone and the moon provided multiple light sources at once?
I once more saw a texture like dry brown frog skin with crop circle patterns dancing atop it. I saw a 150cm mass with a boorang-like shape. If Maxwells report was correct, then this was an intelligent extraterrestrial lifeform. It was surprisingly close by. The luster was clinging to the Skytools outer wall right next to the window washing gondola that was slowly lowering while wobbling side to side.
However, that was not the most shocking part.
They were everywhere.
A great number of those sticky things fully covered the wall.
Before I could swallow a gasp, Erika covered my mouth by holding to her chest.
(Quiet.)
The Vampire whispered sweetly in my ear while I was on the verge of panic.
(They dont seem to have noticed we can see them. Since they arent moving to attack, we should be able to get by if we pretend not to notice. But if we freak out, dont you think they might all attack at once?)
She was right.
Now that she ntioned it, the sticky boorang thing on the whiteboard in the restaurant office had only attacked Ayumi when she moved in close to see what it was. If we hadnt noticed it, it may have just stayed there on the whiteboard.
I swung my phones light from the tower and into the sky before slowly shutting it off. Erika and I actually turned our backs toward the wall covered in those sticky things. The gondola had a weight limit, so if they all jumped on, the wires might snap.
(Huh, where they there the whole ti?) I asked. (Were they covering the other side of the glass while we were looking out from the viewing deck?)
(Im not so sure,) said Erika. (Their patterns ss with our ability to recognize them, so I doubt light can pass right through them.)
(aning?)
(They might be focused on this one side of the tower. Although if theyre doing it to intentionally overbalance the tower, thats a problem in its own right.)
(?)
She seed to be making more progress than despite no help from a phone or program.
But anyway.
(Not letting them know weve noticed them is of the utmost importance. It would be best not to tell Ayumi-chan. It will look more natural that way.)
This was just like the urban legend of the Man Under the Bed.
If they realized you had noticed, it was all over.
I used the black glass panel of my phone screen as a mirror to check over my shoulder. With the moonlight as the only light source now, the dry brown with crop circle patterns was vanishing from the wall.
I took a deep breath.
The disaster prevention equipnt did not work while the power was out and we were in the middle of this extraordinary bomb cyclone. That was enough of a threat, but there was apparently more. How many of those supposed aliens were covering the tower from top to bottom? Like the straw that breaks the cals back, their weight was no laughing matter.
Even from close up, I couldnt detect any breathing, sll, or heat from them. It was like facing an incorporeal ghost.
Even now, the window washing gondola (which had to weigh more than 100kg) was banging against the broadcast tower wall, but those things did not so much as stir. What the hell? Its true one had knocked Ayumi down, but until now, they had not seed as dangerous as a tiger or a lion. And now they had these ridiculous numbers. They had no hunger or survival instincts. They were not even afraid of getting hurt. I had no way to predict what they would do, so I felt a damp chill soaking into my spine. It felt like having my arms and legs strapped to a bizarre cults altar and hearing so mysterious chanting. I had no way of knowing if they were preparing as a sacrifice or getting ready to release .
Besides.
Why were they ignoring us while we attempted this reckless escape? We had nowhere to run on this narrow gondola, so they could defeat us without having to worry about the Zombie or Vampire using their full strength.
Or were we not their target?
Could they be after the Tokyo Skytool itself?
I glanced behind using my phones blank screen and Erika gently stepped on my foot.
(Satori-kun.)
I knew what she ant. As natural as I tried to make the action, it wasnt natural. I wasnt struggling to get my soaked and broken phone to work, so it was weird to continue ssing with the phone while the screen was off. I knew perfectly well what she ant, but if you could not worry about sothing just because you were told not to, then you should go to Hollywood and beco a movie star. The more you knew you shouldnt, the more your attention was tugged in that direction.
It wanted to control myself.
I wanted to suppress the fear.
This was probably how the Bright Cross soldiers and researchers had felt when they set caras up around the city, dug a vast network of underground tunnels, and otherwise prepared for the trouble that they knew the Archenemies would cause. Knowing I was acting on the sa level as them made want to vomit, but I couldnt completely stop the fear and impatience that grew all on its own.
Even though this was my own mind I was talking about.
So I kept doing it. Just like soone repeatedly checking the lock after parking their bicycle in front of a shop.
The one silver lining was how their wriggling presence distracted from my fear of being on that window washing gondola blowing in the stormy night. If I hadnt been aware of those things, I probably would have been clinging to Erika or Ayumi and screaming my head off.
But thats aliens for youI guess? They may not have known too much about how the humans of earth worked.
Or was it the opposite?
Were they trying their best to not let us notice they had noticed us? Not that we had any way of checking. It was hard to tell who was trying to fool who here.
I still cant see anything down below, said Ayumi while dangerously leaning half her body over the railing despite the blowing rain.
Was she playing dumb, or did she have a talent for forgetting things? Either way, she could not have survived in the Bright Crosss underground base with nothing but physical strength. She could be dumb, but she always worked hard to survive.
Butwait.
Hold on a second.
You cant see anything down there?
Yeah. I have good night vision, but it isnt perfect. How about you, Onee-chan?
Unfortunately, while there is plenty of light, the storm is creating a curtain of water.
Yes, thats right.
The police or the JSDF had shut people out of the Tokyo city center and covered it in darkness to seal off the sticky boorangs that could slip past our recognition using their weird patterns.
Then was this really over once we escaped the Tokyo Skytool?
In fact.
What were things like on the surface?
If there were that many aliens on the single broadcast tower, then how many were there in that dark world below?
The fear rose up within .
It was like my stomach alone was pushing up to fight back as my body sank into the darkness. A scream threatened to escape from my throat and it took all my strength to push it back down into my warm stomach.
Shaking my head in protest was not going to change anything at this point. No electronic commands could reach the window washing gondola. That was why we had pulled the manual lever to slowly release the wire from the reel and let gravity take us down.
Now that it had started, going back up was no longer an option.
A change ca over the powerful wind whirling around the area. Our gondola had finally lowered into the forest of buildings. The area around the Skytool was a surprisingly low-lying area, so the buildings were not very tall. That ant we had descended a good ways. I had so longed to reach the surface, but now it felt like sinking into the dark sea with concrete solidified around my hands and feet.
I can see it, said Ayumi. Fuguu, I can see the wet ground.
But was she seeing everything that was there? I didnt know how it worked, but we really couldnt see those things with just our eyes. Even if the ground looked peaceful, it could be covered in those 150cm sticky things like a marsh of bottomless sludge.
We had pressed the gun to our temple and pulled the trigger, but we were only now being faced with the result of that Russian roulette ga. Opening or closing our eyes was not going to change what happened.
We sank.
We sank and sank and sank.
And then we heard an especially loud tallic clang.
Wevearrived, havent we?
Erikas anticlimactic tone seed to say it all.
This was not an asphalt road. It was the giant facility with a shopping mall and aquarium that covered the first five floors of the Skytool. We seed to be on a large rooftop garden built atop that five-story structure. Grass and tiles covered that artificial land to create sothing like a park. We were on that hard tile.
The gondola had arrived and co to a stop almost too easily. I thought we might have crushed those sticky frog-skinned things and splattered their sli around or have them rush in at us from every direction, butno?
The ground really was wide open? Or were they leaving us alone to test whether or not we had noticed them? I couldnt exactly celebrate when I didnt know that.
But there was no ti for that regardless.
That was because of another sound altogether.
Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak.
The Skytool scread just like before except far louder and heavier. I looked up without thinking and that was when it happened.
I felt a sharp pain in my cheek.
I rubbed it with the back of my hand and saw a red liquid mixed in with the rain.
Satori-kun!?
Sothings, fugu, sothings falling!
?
My sisters were panicking, but I wasnt sure what had happened to .
Both my ankles were tugged to the side.
No, was it the entire gondola that was tugged to the side? While I rolled across the wet tile, I saw the side of the gondola swinging like a playground swing or a Buddhist temple bell ringer.
Onii-!?
There was no ti to hear Ayumis cry to the end. She tugged on my arm so forcefully I thought she would dislocate my shoulder and I just barely avoided the mass of stainless steel.
That was not due to the wind.
Had the tower itself bent and swung the gondola around? The disconcerting creaking was still continuing. Burst screws and bolts must have been falling down because I saw orange sparks scattering on the tile. I couldnt just focus on what was above us. The rain was blowing in from the side, so the towers wreckage could be blown right back at us like a boorang.
Yes.
The fragnts made as the Tokyo Skytool broke apart.
Itsfalling.
In other words.
In other words.
The Skytool is falling!! Dammit, Maxwell, create a new stimulation task ASAP! Which way is it going to fall!?
[Mobile Temp] Preparation Standards for Work in Elevated Areas [File 05]
Supervisors must ensure that all their personnel are familiar with and strictly obey the following rules. If any problems occur due to a failure to communicate, the legal departnt will place responsibility on the supervisors shoulders, so keep that in mind.
1. Safety equipnt such as helts and lifelines must be used and checked over by at least three people including the wearer.
2. Personnel may not bring personal items with them, including in pockets. All equipnt necessary for work must be attached via safety belts and must only be used after confirming the safety net covers that area.
3. For screws, bolts, and other small equipnt that cannot be attached via safety belts, confirm that the safety net covers that area, contact the ground team via radio to ensure no one has entered the estimated danger zone below, and only then remove them from the designated container with the utmost care.
Whether intentional or accidental, any personnel who violate the above rules will be imdiately removed from the work site. Potential energy changes based on altitude. Do not forget how dangerous even the small screw or bolt in your hand can beco if it falls from a height of 400-600 ters.
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