Hamazura Shiage was pissed.
The original plan had been to approach the facility in a vehicle stolen under the cover of darkness, fire 8 of their handmade incendiary rockets, and run off. They had a rough sketch of the facility so they had known where to shoot their rockets in order to block off all the exits and have a good chance to fill the area with smoke.
The first failure had been that 3 of the 8 rockets had misfired.
And then the other 5 had been easily extinguished by the database center's automatic firefighting system shortly after igniting. The explosion had screwed up the structure of the building, but not enough to utterly destroy the building as if the outer walls had been made of soap bubbles. Since they hadn't been able to use their primary weapons of fire and smoke, the target was probably still alive.
Because of this, Hamazura and the others couldn't leave. They had to kill the target themselves.
Also…
"Have you still not found that woman?"
Their client had only given them a photo of her face and the only real fact about her they knew was her name. If she managed to get out of the facility, hid the characteristic aspects of her face with sunglasses and a wool hat, and mixed in with the crowd, they would have no way of searching for her. They had to take her out here. But…
"I asked you if you'd found her yet! God damn!!" He yelled in a throaty voice, but his equals in Skill-Out only glanced over at him and started searching again without opening their mouths.
That was right, his equals in Skill-Out.
A few hours before, their leader had been a man named Komaba Ritoku. As Komaba had disappeared, Hamazura had ended up in that top seat, but the new balance of power hadn't really sunk in yet. And he mostly had an atmosphere of dissatisfaction about the whole thing. After all, whenever the entire organization screwed up, the blame was shoved onto him.
The difference between Komaba Ritoku and Hamazura Shiage was clear. Komaba was the kind of person who naturally stood at the center, where all that Hamazura did was push jobs he didn't want to do on others. So no matter how easy a job it was, he couldn't shake an out-of-place feeling inside of him and he made the others feel uncomfortable.
Hamazura was pissed because he knew that.
It made him feel like not being able to find the target, not being able control this search properly, and everything else was due to the others betraying him and tripping him up.
He touched the piercing on his nose with a fingertip while looking pissed off. He had gotten it pierced just the month before, but it wasn't doing well. The slightest touch screwed with his concentration and sweat collected there.
"…We're fucked. We're totally fucked. Damn it, Komaba. You come up with this grand plan and then go off and die. What are we supposed to do now…?"
A number of boys gathered in front of a door.
It seemed they had found a room they hadn't searched yet. For the most part, there were no doors in the facility that locked. When the boys entered, a woman's scream came from within.
It looked like they'd found her.
None of them were using radios, so Hamazura had to give his instructions to the others who were searching himself. He felt more like he was doing odd jobs than being the leader. He headed for the room a bit later than the initial group.
"This is the central dome. The target has been found in the Substitute Processor Storage Room. We'll take care of her here, so you prepare to withdraw. Bring the vehicle around."
He expected some half-hearted reply as opposed to something like "Yes, sir!", but…
"Gah!? Hey, you! Wai-…Ksshhshshhshshhh!!"
He didn't know what to make of the words and the horrible static hurt his ears.
And then he heard 2 gunshots from somewhere in the facility.
(Anti-Skill? Tch. We took too long!)
Hamazura watched the target being dragged from the room by the back of her neck and thought about what orders to give over the radio.
"Heeeellllloooo, you fuckers."
Hamazura's shoulders suddenly twitched.
Even with the horrible sound quality of the radio, he could tell. This clearly wasn't one of his comrades. He could tell because a voice that sounded like metal being rubbed together wasn't something you heard every day. And whoever it was wasn't trying to disguise their voice in the slightest.
"Listen up all of you. I'm going to be giving you a nice day trip to heaven. Oh, and it's quite a nice one, too. You'll probably like it so much you'll never want to come back. I suppose I'll start by giving you a nice near-death experience."
After speaking, the radio cut off.
And then…
A succession of gunshots pierced Hamazura's ears.