Anastasia and I were alone.
A rich person"s surgery truck was parked in the underground parking lot of a casino that could collapse at any moment. Inside there, she gave me the answers while still lying down.
"Wall Street is the biggest name in money, but it"s so important that there are a lot of watchful eyes there. Enough so that they make movies about the people there. They"re the stereotypical villains in the States. It would be difficult to infiltrate Wall Street without anyone there noticing."
"So you made Las Vegas your base?"
"Yes. After all, 20% of all money on the planet pa.s.ses through this city. And there are tons of huge servers for verifying cards. With slots, roulette, and video poker, there are a lot of electronically controlled games. There are some casinos that don"t even use dealers to shuffle the cards. To prevent cheating. Think of it like a fully automatic mahjong table. By controlling this city and influencing the gambling wins and losses, you can alter the exchange rate of the dollar and the value of gold. That"s the purpose behind Mephistopheles. The watchful eyes with too much time on their hands will be focused on Wall Street like always while we gradually influence the world economy from Vegas. This was the kind of underhanded method needed for the few to defeat the many, Truth."
It was a ridiculous concept.
And it was on a very American scale.
"How many people are involved in this plan? They"re Archenemies too, right?"
"Hey, Truth. Vegas is an extremely unnatural city built in the middle of the desert. No one thinks about the local population here. The people are always on the move, so anyone could move in or out at any time. That too makes it more convenient than Wall Street. It"s known as a racial salad bowl, but New York tends to be tough on outsiders. It"s hard for newcomers to work their way in very deep."
"Wait a second, Anastasia. You"re getting sidetracked."
"No, I"m not." the 11-year-old girl grinned. "Half of the people in Las Vegas are made up of us."
I was dumbfounded.
I lived in the same house as my vampire older sister and zombie little sister like it was normal. My stepmom was apparently Lilith, so my family had more Archenemies than humans.
"We did it by gradually having more and more move in. People frequently move to and from Vegas for financial reasons, so it"s hard to notice this sort of thing happening."
But an entire city?
And if they had reached 50%, then it had to be pretty much everyone excluding the tourists there for easy money and the people like Herbal Science. The city had more tourists than residents, so they had to have nearly filled the entire resident group.
A large city taken over by reversing the population ratio was a shocking revelation. But how shocking it would it be for a normal person with no real connection to Archenemies?
"Then there are...nearly 2 million Archenemies living here in secret?"
Not even Romania, holy land of vampire legends, or Haiti, origin of zombies, was on that level. Archenemies were accepted by general society, but in a lot of cases, only if they remained a minority.
But to look at it in reverse, this meant the human casualties from all this had been half what I had thought.
Was that a relief?
Like h.e.l.l it was.
"We were supposed to change the entire world from here, but that ended when those gels attacked on the ground and the bombs fell from the sky."
"!? That"s right! What are those gels!? Are those some of the Archenemies who came to Las Vegas?"
"Truth. Did your precious sisters never tell you this?" Anastasia sighed. "There is no Archenemy like these gels. In fact, slime types are hard to find in any myths or legends. Those are more like UFOs or cryptids than fantasy creatures."
"They"re not...Archenemies?"
"Not a naturally-occurring variety, at least."
Wait.
Wait, wait.
Las Vegas had been secretly taken over by Archenemies. The gels had attacked there. And then the military had bombed the city as a forceful solution.
Didn"t something smell really fishy about that?
"If the humans had realized the truth behind Vegas, they never would have had a better chance," said Anastasia. "They could drop all those bombs while claiming they were taking Vegas back from the Archenemy gels and actually be bombing us Archenemies. None of the housewives in their living rooms would notice. What will people think when their cable TV channels only show them monstrous gels attacking humanoid silhouettes and silhouettes bursting into flames as they fled along with the monsters?"
It would look like humans were being eaten by the gels.
It would look like humans were burning.
...It would look like Archenemies were wronging humans when it was really the humans bombing the Archenemies.
The humans were the attackers, but no one would realize that. They would see themselves as the victims and end up criticizing the Archenemies. Like they were whipping a corpse.
"Then did the military make those gels? To give themselves a justification to bomb Las Vegas!?"
"I was taken aback at first, but now that I think about it, it makes sense. Hey, do you know what state Las Vegas is in, Truth?"
She gave a stiff smile.
And she made the world"s worst joke.
"Nevada. Given the location, the answer is obvious. That bomber formation flew here from the Area 51 airbase infamous for UFO research and alien autopsies."
They were more like UFOs or cryptids than fantasy creatures.
This was the true origin of those bizarre Archenemies that could not possibly be natural.
It sounded ridiculous and nonsensical, but we had no theory that was more convincing.
Thinking back, why had the military used incendiary bombs from the very beginning? How had they known the gels were weak to heat? This should have been their first direct confrontation with them, so they should have started off with machineguns or tanks.
The answer was obvious.
If they had created them, of course they would know how to deal with them.
I ended up holding my head in my hands.
"I can"t believe this!!"
"A world famous tourist destination was wiped off the map by Archenemy gels. Sending out bombers was the only way to resolve the situation. If they interrupt a boring baseball game with that emergency news, there will be a backlash against Archenemies around the world. It"s the perfect turn of events for the human supremacists."
This was insane.
It was nuts.
It was true Anastasia"s group may have gone too far. They may have tried to manipulate others in excessive pursuit of their own interests. But who would go this far to fight back? Humans and Archenemies together, that was 4 million people who laughed and cried just like us. Why did this have to happen to that many people!?
Because they weren"t human?
Because they were different?
Everyone was eaten and no one remained.
Was that really worth going to this extent!? And half of the victims were the humans these people claimed to love so much!!
"We have to do something."
"What can we possibly do now, Truth?"
"We somehow prove where the gels came from! 4 million people were swallowed up and burned alive to create an age where they could throw even more stones at Archenemies around the world? To h.e.l.l with that! I will put a stop to this! Otherwise, history might as well have ended here!!"
Anastasia laughed quietly on the operating table.
But it was not meant to mock me.
"You"re talking about taking on the military."
"I know."
"And based on the email sent to Herbal Science, the name Amatsu Yurina is mixed up in this. I can"t imagine how she"s infected Congress or the Air Force, though."
There was that too.
She was also known as Archenemy Lilith. It might seem odd for an Archenemy to attack other Archenemies, but the top of the Bright Cross had been Valkyrie Karen. Just as humans killed other humans, Archenemies would kill each other. What category the two sides belonged to did not guarantee anyone"s safety.
But I said it anyway.
"How can I let this happen?"
"That settles it then."
Either due to the transfusion or the toughness of a Silky, Anastasia could finally move again, so she lightly clapped her hands together.
"If we"re to investigate the gels, Area 51 seems most likely. But that"s the world"s most strictly guarded Air Force base. Officially, they claim it"s because they do Air Force-related research and develop for things like stealth aircraft. It won"t be easy to get in. Even with Maxwell"s help, I doubt you can force your way into their servers."
I wasn"t a legendary ninja or spy, so I never even considered donning black and sneaking into the desert base.
"If the gels were spread from Area 51, they can"t just leave them out here. If they don"t put an end to this, those things will move on to other cities."
"I"m not sure they"ll crawl out into the desert when they hate the heat so much, but it is possible they would cross the desert at night or crawl through the water pipes. Still, they"ve trapped them with the bombing, haven"t they?"
"How are they going to confirm the success or failure of that? From satellites? From the bombers" cameras? That wouldn"t be enough. Cameras and sensors from above aren"t good for viewing a city filled with dark smoke and heated wind. They have to have observers here in Las Vegas."
"Ah."
"And those observers must have a large communicator that gives them a hotline back their boss. Anastasia, didn"t you say before that America is on the cutting edge of intercepting communications? The different factions there must be working to trip each other up, so if they want to avoid having someone as unscrupulous as themselves catch on, they"ll never be using a normal internet connection. I don"t know if it"s a military satellite or an AWACS, but they must have a dedicated hotline."
"Then if we get those observers" communicator..."
"We have a direct line to their boss"s throat. With that and our combined skills, we have everything we need to pry open Area 51"s servers. If we pretend to be the observers, we should be able to send an email to their boss that infects them with a virus. From there, it"s the same as a corporate server. We get all the detailed data on the gels and then make them pay."
"Truth, you"re the best! You really should wear a shining sword on your hip!!"
"I"d rather have a flying time machine built by an eccentric professor."
But the other side would of course be aware of the risk presented by sending observers to the scene. They would have chosen a team made up of their greatest elites. They would not be easy to find in the first place and I had no idea how we could beat them in a direct confrontation.
After all, this small team had entered a den packed with 2 million Archenemies, half the city"s population.
And they would have had to protect themselves during the gel attack.
They had to be skilled indeed if they had volunteered for a mission like that. We had a vampire and a zombie and we were up against humans, but that might not be enough here.
We could not view this optimistically.
If we were going to do this we had to risk our lives for it. And that included my life.
"I"ll speak with Erika and Ayumi. We"re about to be busy."
"Um, Truth, I can-..."
"Even if you"re an Archenemy, you had a chunk of metal through your gut. I can"t exactly take you into danger like that. You can provide logistical support."
"Why do you only treat me like a girl at times like this?"
"Don"t be silly. You"re always a girl. And a pretty one at that."
"Kh... A-anyway, I"m going with you! No running off without me!"
It was time for the finale.
I hadn"t arrived in time for the beginning and 4 million people had been sacrificed all around me.
But I could at least clean up afterwards.
Most people tend to think Air Force personnel mainly pilots aircraft such as fighters and transport planes, but the actual pilots are less than 10% of the whole. With maintenance and inspection, base guards, fuel transportation, radar operators, and flight control officers, a large number of personnel are needed to support the aerial infrastructure.
Among those are some men known as flightless birds. Most ground duty in the Air Force is done around the base, but they are the exception that heads further afield while armed with guns.
Surface support such as IR guidance and GPS markers is generally handled by the elites of the army or marines.
Thus, the flightless birds only swiftly infiltrate the scene for delicate issues when the effort of inter-branch cooperation cannot be afforded. Needless to say, they are under a lot of pressure from the higher ups.
When this Chicken Squad heads out, a bombing mission has already left the bounds of any proper military plan. They carry a lifeline of political influence that is reliant on the White House. And that is why they cannot worry about appearances. They will prioritize the timetable above all else and guide their given bombing mission to success. They are a giant gear used to preserve a world beyond simple good and evil. That is the best way of describing their way of life.
The above is a rumor being spread at bars near the base, but it has been intentionally allowed to spread. It is decent camouflage for the truth.