Baccano! - Volume 21 - Chapter 15

Chapter 15 Things Don’t Go as Planned

Senator Manfred Beriam was notoriously talented, even among young politicians, but he almost never smiled in public. Sociability was a foreign concept to him. He’d maintained that aloof exterior with voters during his election campaign, too; a mannequin would have been friendlier.

How had he managed to win his way up through the election, securing money and power, when he was saddled with this negative reputation? The answer is simple—because he always got results.

Beriam had begun his career as an industrialist. He’d launched many businesses in and near his hometown, creating a huge number of jobs and bringing abundance to the regional economy.

When he’d declared his intent to run for office, the people he’d made wealthy thought he might be too young to reinvent himself, but they’d supported his campaign anyway in the hopes that he’d bring them new prosperity.

Although senators had formerly been selected by state legislatures, following a constitutional amendment in 1913, they began to be democratically elected. Less than a decade later, the people elected Beriam to the Senate. Once there, he engaged in various political endeavors, yielding greater results than anticipated in all of them.

He was broad-minded, and it was occasionally rumored that he had ties to the mafia. As a rule, though, he advertised himself as being tough on crime and staunchly anti-corruption.

If necessary, he’d meet with Bartolo Runorata, don of the Runorata Family, but it was not a show of obeisance. He went to issue his own demands.

In recent years, he’d poured most of his efforts into dealing with the criminal organization created by the terrorist Huey Laforet. Public interest was low; the whole affair had been kept mostly under wraps, and Huey himself had been arrested in 1931.

However, the roots he’d put out ran deep.

Senator Beriam placed all the blame for this situation on his own shoulders.

February 1935The Beriam residence

“Szilard Quates.”

The name had issued from Beriam’s unfriendly lips.

The furniture and equipment in his office all prioritized function over form, and there were very few tokens of extravagance. Standing in front of a sturdy desk by the window, the senator went on calmly. “That is the name of the first cancer to prey on this nation.”

“Huh. It don’t ring any bells.”

The decidedly flippant response to Beriam’s grave pronouncement came from a man who was leaning against the bookshelves by the wall. His name was Spike, and the cloth covering his eyes was patterned with crosshairs.

“I see. I thought you might have heard something from Huey Laforet.”

“Eh, y’know how it is. I might just not remember. Haven’t been around that crew in three years.” Spike shrugged.

If Beriam felt anything in particular about this, he didn’t show it. Instead, he spoke to yet another man who stood in the corner. “What about you? Do you recognize the name ‘Szilard Quates’?”

“…I heard it just once, when I was working in New York.” The blond man was dressed all in black, and he seemed to melt into the shadows. His black coat, black shoes, and jet-black suit looked like mourning attire. His hunting cap was pulled down low, and his face was hard to make out above the nose. He stayed in the shadows, as if hiding from the sunlight that streamed in through the window. “It sounded as if he was expanding on various underground connections. I hear some of his lackeys have even infiltrated Congress and the upper levels of the police.”

“Shamefully, that’s true.” A hint of annoyance entered Beriam’s tone. “I first learned the immortals existed when I became involved in a feud between Szilard and another immortal in the Division of Investigation. And while I was focused on them, Huey Laforet’s roots were deepening in our country.”

“Hee-hee! Yeah, even the Lemures didn’t know where his other organizations were or how many he had.” Spike’s laugh was sticky and unpleasant. “I dunno how much even that bastard Goose knew. As far as Huey was concerned, we were basically worthless.”

“…Would he have made his own daughter part of a disposable organization?”

“I bet Huey didn’t see her any different from your average drunk. Same with the rest of us. We were nothing but guinea pigs to that gink.” Spike gave a self-deprecating smile.

“He has convinced himself the world is his laboratory. He must think of all living creatures—even the dead and the unborn—as his test subjects. Himself included.” Erasing all emotion from his face, the senator spoke quietly. “It’s an unforgivable crime. He must be condemned for it.”

“……”

“……”

Neither Spike nor the man in black responded. They’d picked up on a weighty intent behind Beriam’s words.

“This country does not belong to monsters like these immortals. It is a nation founded on law, by humans, for humans.” Beriam tapped the desk once with his index finger. “If they conceal themselves in the darkness and live as other people do, I’ll let them exist. However, they must not be allowed to treat the rest of us as their playthings.”

“……”

The man wearing black said nothing. Meanwhile, Spike grinned blithely. “It’ll be fine, Mr. Beriam. You’ve got enough power to wipe out the bogeys. You reward folks with money; that’s easier to understand than Huey’s philosophy or immortality or any of that stuff.”

“Spare me the sycophancy. Still, if you do your job, I guarantee you’ll be appropriately compensated.”

“Gee, thanks for that.”

“Although it’s actually your assistant who’s doing the work, not you,” Beriam reminded him.

Spike hastily cut in. “Whoa, time out. Don’t go giving me the kiss-off and just using the kid from now on. I shouldn’t be saying this, but that little girl can’t do a thing without my instructions.”

At that, the man in black broke his long silence. “…She isn’t even a grown woman yet. I don’t understand how you can make her pull the trigger in your place.”

“Hey, Mr. Former Felix, don’t expect any guilt from me.” Spike grinned at the other man. “I’m not the one who made li’l Sonia what she is. It wasn’t the two dolls who were with her, either. From what I hear, her folks were real nutjobs.”

“……”

“That girl ain’t no genius or ‘son of a gun’ or what have you. She is a gun. Her ma and pa were such blind fanatics that they made their own daughter a weapon. It’s enough to unsettle me, and I’m a sniper.” He cackled casually, then gave a sticky smile. “In that case, somebody’s gotta pull her trigger, yeah? Get me?”

“……” The man in black responded with more silence.

After he’d watched this exchange play out, Beriam offered his opinion. “I don’t care.”

“When it comes to achieving objectives, it doesn’t matter who does what. The results are everything. I don’t have the authority to condemn you if you fail, but I do have the right not to pay you. Don’t forget that.”

“Haw-haw! Get a load of him. ‘The results are everything.’ At least our esteemed employer likes to keep it simple.”

“……”

Once they were out in the hall, Spike turned to the man in black. They were walking side by side, but the other man stayed silent, which made Spike appear to be talking to himself.

“I guess that’s how it goes when you’re hired hands. ’Specially if you don’t get results.”

“……”

“Well now, who do you s’pose I’ll end up shooting on the day that casino opens?”

“You won’t be the one doing the shooting.” The man in black finally broke his silence to admonish Spike.

“C’mon, enough of that. I told you, the kid basically is a gun. She’s just pulling the trigger for me, since I can’t see.”

“She’s a genius sniper, then?”

“A genius? Nah, that ain’t it. Almost, but not quite.”

“Oh?” The abilities of Spike’s “assistant” seemed to interest the man in black; he prompted him to continue.

“When you use a tool for years, people say it starts to feel like a part of you. Like those little sticks they use to eat with in the Far East, say. That’s how it was for me. When I was holding my trusty ol’ heater, it felt like a part of my arm.”

“……”

“The kid’s gone beyond that, though. It ain’t just a part of her arm. It’s like her gun is half her body… Like it ain’t real clear whether the gun or the kid is in charge. That’s how well she’s made that thing hers. It’s all experience, though. This ain’t talent or technique; it’s a whole ’nother ball game.” Maybe because he was talking about guns, Spike waxed a little more enthusiastic than usual. “So, like I’ve been saying, the kid’s a weapon. That means you don’t need to trouble yourself. If you start feelin’ sorry for your guns, you won’t last in this business.”

“This girl, Sonia. Is she satisfied with that?”

“Hmm? Oh, the kid doesn’t think at all. Take Chané—she was Huey’s tool, and she obsessed over him until she couldn’t see anything else. Sonia’s the opposite type. She ain’t got a care in the world, and she doesn’t doubt anyone or anything. Not even a hinky fella like me.” Spike was deeply amused by the thought of such an unsophisticated girl, and he kept snorting quietly with laughter. Then he stopped abruptly, turning to the bored-looking man in black. “By the way, she’s mentioned a friend she used to have when she was little, and he’s got the same name as this fella I know.”

“……?”

“She smiles and tells me, ‘I don’t really know what’s good and what’s bad, but it’s okay. If I do something wrong, Nader’s a hero now, and he’ll come and stop me’…! I tell ya, it’s a laugh riot!”

“What’s so funny about that?” The man in black looked perplexed.

Spike’s smile widened with the most enjoyment he’d shown all day. “See, the Nader I knew was a two-bit crook. Couldn’t be less of a hero if he tried. Chané chopped off his right hand, and I dusted the schmuck! If the kid’s Nader turns out to be the same guy, she’ll bawl her li’l eyes out!”

“……”

“Not that that could ever happen! Anyway, what I’m saying is, I bet the kid’s childhood pal is the scum of the earth, too! It’s not like heroes exist anyway!”

“……”

The man in black watched Spike with utter disgust, but he didn’t say anything.

He knew.

Spike might be a lowlife, but he himself wasn’t any better. He’d gotten his hands dirty as a hitman and was currently doing similar work.

He also knew their employer was no saint.

Senator Manfred Beriam probably wasn’t lying. His efforts to “purify” America were definitely sincere. But the man would do whatever it took to make that happen.

He wouldn’t balk at sacrificing innocent people to rid society of its undesirable elements.

No doubt he’d keep them to a minimum, but he wouldn’t hesitate to write off those “minimal sacrifices.”

If Huey Laforet thought of the world as a subject for his experiments, then Manfred Beriam saw it as a lamb to be sacrificed in the name of keeping society running smoothly.

More than anything, he’d convinced himself it was all right to sacrifice his own life for the social system. That was what allowed him to get his hands dirty without a second thought. He probably wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself or his own family.

In a sense, it might be an upright way to live. The man in black who’d once called himself Felix Walken genuinely thought this, but he just couldn’t see Beriam as a saint. At the very least, he knew the senator’s actions weren’t based in any religious sense of morality.

Since he was following that man’s orders, he’d never be a saint, either. On that understanding, once again, he resolved to keep silently doing the job in front of him.

He knew thinking about any future beyond it was pointless.

A firing range near the Beriam residence

There was a roar, and a dull shock shivered the surrounding air.

A sound like a lightning strike echoed over the firing range on Beriam’s private land. Its source was a large rifle in the hands of a relatively young girl.

She’d been lying on her stomach to fire, and her bullet punched a hole through the center of the target at the very back of the range.

Two women were watching her, plugging their ears against the noise. Through the ringing in her ears, one of them called to the girl with the gun.

“Sonia. Sonia! Can you hear me?” called the one with glasses, who looked to be about twenty.

The woman next to her, who was about the same age, scolded her. “It won’t work. She’s wearing earplugs.”

“Well, you don’t know that! What if my voice is louder than a gunshot?”

“Then you’d need to shut up, and I’ll deck you if I have to.”

“Why are you so mean to me?!”

Noisy as the two were, the girl with the gun didn’t register the pair’s voices at first. Then, as if she’d sensed them there, she slowly got to her feet and removed her earplugs. “Huh? Lana, Pamela, what’s the matter? Is it time to eat already?” she asked, shifting the oversize helmet she wore back into place. Her laid-back attitude struck a sharp contrast to the weapon she was holding.

Her name was Sonia Bake.

After her parents’ deaths, the girl had hit the road, carrying their legacy in a wagon. It was extremely dangerous for a young girl to travel through the wilderness by herself, but the family legacy and her own peculiarities had worked well together, and she’d wandered the American continent without getting hurt.

That was when she’d met two fellow travelers: Lana and Pamela.

Lana tended to leap before she looked, while Pamela was careful about everything. Sonia had gotten dragged in by this odd couple and found a whole new life along the way.

She’d taken along her parents’ legacy: over a hundred guns, collected from many different years and places.

“Wow, Sonia, I’m impressed you can do that every single day and not get bored,” Lana told her.

Sonia cocked her head. “Bored with what?”

“With the guns! We’ve known you for three years and then some, and you’ve spent every day with one of them in your hands, from morning till night. And you spend every spare moment firing them off. Doesn’t it get old?”

“Mm…” Sonia considered this a little.

But Pamela cut in, covering for her. “Well, of course not. With guns, they say you lose your edge if you go a day without touching them. If she skipped a day of practice, it would take her three days to recover her skills.”

“I—I know that! I was just, um, testing you, Pamela!”

Lana was obviously bluffing, but Sonia still seemed impressed. “Huh! I didn’t know that.”

“……”

Pamela hadn’t managed to cover for her after all, and she quietly averted her eyes.

Lana thought for a minute—then turned bright red and lit into Pamela. “So that wasn’t it! What’s the big idea, huh?! What were you testing me for?!”

“Oh, uh, I’m sorry. I was testing for a bunch of things, but you passed, Lana. Good job.”

Dealing with Lana was too much trouble, so Pamela said something random and offered her congratulations.

“Really? Well, that’s fine. As long as you know.” Just hearing good job, even when the words had no conviction behind them, had put Lana in a good mood.

Pamela sighed wearily.

During their exchange, Sonia had done even more thinking. “Oh, right, right! I shoot because I’m praying.”

“Praying?”

“Uh-huh. Dad and Mom said that guns are gods.”

“…That’s one hell of a religion.”

Pamela narrowed her eyes, but Sonia smiled and nodded emphatically. “They said as long as I shoot guns, I won’t have to worry about a thing. Dad said that if bad people shoot at me, I can shoot back, and when life gets tough, I can even kill myself. Mom said that what’s important isn’t addition or subtraction, history or science, the gospel or the law. It’s guns. As long as I believe in them, I’ll be happy my whole life long! They told me so every single day!”

As she listened to Sonia innocently relate her family’s “beliefs,” Pamela felt a chill. She’d known the girl for three years, and this was the first she’d heard about this. If she’d known about it back when they met, they might never have traveled together at all.

The revelation was unsettling enough to put that thought in her mind, but after they had spent so long with each other, it would take more than that to make her reject her young companion.

“So you see, shooting guns is a form of prayer! Maybe that’s why I don’t get tired of it.”

It seemed a bit like the way people never got tired of eating or breathing or sleeping, Pamela thought. Saying so would have risked complicating the matter, though, so she kept that to herself.

Meanwhile, hearing Sonia’s story had puzzled Lana. “Ummm, in other words, you mean guns are amazing! I get it—I really do!” She nodded away, trying to convince herself.

Pamela was sure her partner had no idea how abnormal Sonia was. She shook her head weakly. “I wish I were as dumb as you, Lana…”

“What do you mean, dumb?! O-only dumb people say other people are dumb!”

“Quit fighting,” Sonia said, gently shutting them down. Smiling, she picked up the gun—which was as long as she was tall—as if it weighed nothing. “Guns don’t cook for us or anything, but if they’re gods, that means they’re letting us use their bodies, doesn’t it?”

“? Yes, I suppose it would, but…”

“All I have to do is pull their triggers, and they fire bullets for me. I could never throw a bullet that fast in a million years.”

“?”

Pamela and Lana didn’t know what she was getting at.

Sonia puffed out her chest proudly. “That’s incredible, isn’t it?! People couldn’t do it, so it must be a miracle.”

Pamela had no idea how to respond to this proof arguing for the divinity of guns.

In her place, Lana nodded. “You’ve got a point there.”

“See?”

“But if guns are gods, and you pray to them every day, you’d think they could bless you a little more. Our situation doesn’t feel all that fortunate…”

“You think?” Sonia looked perplexed again; Lana had sounded rather dissatisfied.

“Yes, I do. After we picked up that ‘gun teacher’ of yours, we managed to get ourselves work here, but we had to give up our freedom. We’re birds in a cage. Right, Pamela?”

“If you’re asking which situation was better, I’d say it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other, but…”

Pamela reviewed their circumstances.

The three of them weren’t the kind of people who’d feel comfortable having a chat on a senator’s private shooting range.

Just a few years earlier, they’d been a gang of petty bandits called Vanishing Bunny.

That had been their occupation until a couple years ago.

The trio hadn’t originally had a name, but Lana had started introducing them by that one without bothering to check with the other two. Granted, when she tried to introduce them to anybody, Pamela would shut her up—sometimes with a whack—so the name wasn’t exactly common knowledge.

In the beginning, Lana had been a petty luggage thief. She’d been caught by some ugly customers and almost killed once, but Pamela had saved her. After that, they’d teamed up.

Pamela had been a swindler who’d cheated and stolen from underground casinos; the Russo Family had even put a bounty on her head.

The pair had worked their way around the region, pulling minor heists from underground casinos and betting parlors. Out on the road, they’d met Sonia, a peculiar girl who was carrying around a whole lot of guns, which she claimed were mementos of her parents.

One thing led to another and another, until the three had ended up working as a bandit trio.

That said, none of their robberies had ever succeeded, and they’d relied almost entirely on Pamela’s casino jobs for their living expenses. Sonia’s guns had been their emergency muscle when they needed to make a getaway.

Sonia didn’t genuinely seem to understand what Lana and Pamela were doing. Still, the fact that she could shoot without feeling a scrap of guilt made her a threat all by herself.

The women kept traveling, embracing the lifestyle of small-time crooks, but then—

It had happened after they’d been dragged into a certain incident.

In the process of fleeing the scene, they’d rescued a man they’d found lying beside the railroad tracks, and their own fates had changed course.

The man had been badly injured in general, but his head was in particularly awful shape.

He wore an expensive-looking black suit, and Lana had suggested that if they saved his life, he might pay them a bundle out of gratitude. Pamela had agreed, and they’d taken the man to a nearby doctor.

The doctor had told them the man’s eyes were heavily damaged. It was likely he’d lost his sight completely.

The situation was far more serious than they’d imagined, but they were in too deep to turn back, so they stayed until the man regained consciousness.

The loss of his eyesight seemed to come as a shock, but after he’d calmed down, he’d made them a proposal.

“Hey, since you’ve rescued me, there’s a place I’d like you to take me. That okay?

“If everything goes well, you should end up with a hefty sum in your pockets…”

Taken in by his glib words, Lana had agreed without talking it over with the other two.

Pamela had tried to stop her, but the man was injured, so they’d ultimately decided to take him where he wanted to go.

On the way, though, something unexpected had happened.

Sonia had just returned from her daily firing practice when the man, who said his name was Spike, asked her a question.

“Was that a Villar Perosa I just heard? That’s quite a piece you’ve got there, young lady.”

The weapon Sonia had been using was indeed the submachine gun known as the Villar Perosa M1915.

The man had guessed what sort of gun Sonia had fired that day just from hearing it.

Lana and Pamela didn’t know much about firearms, much less the names of any of Sonia’s, so she was delighted to meet someone who could let her talk about her precious collection. Aside from her mother and father, she’d never met anyone she could have that sort of in-depth conversation with, so this was perfectly natural.

That wasn’t all.

Sonia was more used to firing guns than anybody, but she hadn’t been raised to be a sniper. Her parents had worshipped guns, but they hadn’t had a talent for sniping, and there had been a limit to the skills they could teach her.

Spike was able to fill in that missing piece.

Blind as he was, he used the sounds and the results of Sonia’s shots to analyze her quirks, then provide her with accurate coaching.

At first, it had probably been no more than a game to him, something to soften the shock of his lost sight. However, as he passed his sniping techniques on to her, he gradually took his role more seriously.

When they reached his destination, the town where Senator Manfred Beriam lived, they’d been dragged into several incidents—

—and the next thing they knew, it had been decided that the women would stay there as well.

“I was a complete fool to let you railroad me into this, Lana. ‘He’s a senator, so I smell money,’ you said. We’ve been cleaning this mansion for three years, and the dough isn’t exactly rolling in.”

“Heh-heh. Not so fast, Pamela. Do you think all I’ve been doing here is cleaning?”

“I doubt you’ve even done much of that…” Pamela shot her a cold look.

Lana ignored it. “Oh, shut up. I was busy making friends with Mr. Beriam’s wife and daughter and worming all sorts of information out of them. Anyway, my efforts paid off: I’ve got a humdinger of a wire.”

“Do you? Let’s hear this humdinger.”

“They’re building a new hotel in New York.”

“In this economy?” Pamela met Lana’s information with open suspicion.

Was any corporation daring enough to construct a new building during times like these? Plus, any information coming from Lana was inherently suspect.

Pamela was half convinced that the wire was bogus, but she decided to hear her out.

Lana did not notice this. Her expression was bursting with confidence as she nodded. “They’re building a big restaurant under that hotel…or that’s the cover story anyway. It’s actually a casino! And it’s run by a major mafia family!”

“…Huh? So who told you about this, Mrs. Beriam or Mary?”

“Mr. Beriam’s men were talking about it on their way through. I eavesdropped.”

“That’s got nothing to do with how you set up your story!” Pamela yelled, temples twitching.

Lana just hummed, letting the criticism go in one ear and out the other. “Who cares about the setup? Never mind that. When the casino opens, they’re going to hold an event that draws mobsters and rich folks from all over the East! You’d make a bundle with your tricks! I’ll snitch their takings and run! It’s a perfect plan—two birds with one stone.”

“……”

Pamela had no idea what about the plan was perfect or how, but she opted not to say so. She was well aware that Lana didn’t actually know what the word perfect meant. Calling her out on that would accomplish nothing, though, so she eighty-sixed the idea from a different angle. “…Lana, listen. If Mr. Beriam’s men were talking about it, they’re obviously getting ready to crack down on the casino. If we saunter in there, we’ll get ourselves handed over to the cops with the rest of them, and that’ll be that.”

“Huh?! Really?!”

“Look, you know how fastidious Mr. Beriam is. He hates the mafia. If he came across an invitation like that, don’t you think he’d personally order the police to round up all the mobsters who showed?”

Frankly, even if Lana’s wire was the real thing, Pamela had no intention of resuming the sort of casino breaking she’d done three years ago. There might be something fishy about the Beriam residence, but she’d found stable employment as a servant here.

As a matter of fact, she was annoyed with Lana for holding on to her dreams of getting rich quick.

“Plus, the idea of a casino so ridiculously huge it fills a hotel basement is pretty sketchy. So is any large gathering of mafiosi.”

“Mgh… But it’s true, I tell you! There’s gonna be an unbelievable amount of lettuce at this new hotel, Ra’s Lance! If we don’t take it off their hands, who will?!”

“It’s not as if anybody has to…”

Lana was desperately standing her ground, and Pamela sighed, holding her temples—

—but when Sonia broke in, the situation took a sudden turn. “Ra’s Lance? I know that place.”

“Huh?”

“He said we might have a job there soon… Teacher did, I mean.”

“……”

When Sonia said Teacher, she meant Spike. Since he was instructing her in sniping techniques, Sonia innocently idolized him.

Pamela couldn’t bring herself to like the man, though. She could tell he hadn’t been using those skills in any officially sanctioned capacity. He’d probably been some syndicate’s sharpshooter, maybe even assassin.

She’d wanted to avoid getting involved with anyone in that world long-term, but by the time she was sure about her suspicions, they were already in too deep.

On top of that, she knew he and Beriam took Sonia off somewhere every so often to do a “job.”

At first, she’d been afraid they might be making her do something indecent, but apparently it wasn’t that sort of thing.

However, she’d soon realized that the work was dangerous in another sense when a beaming Sonia told her, “They let me fire a gun from up on top of a building today.”

Pamela had questioned Beriam about it once, but he’d told her, “Don’t worry. The work will benefit the nation. Besides, she isn’t being made to kill anyone.” He had been so intimidating that she hadn’t been able to ask him anything else.

Still, when Pamela looked into Beriam’s cold eyes, she was sure of it—he probably just wasn’t making Sonia kill anyone yet.

Was he trying to gradually turn Sonia into a murder machine? A young girl like her would be able to get into all sorts of places without raising suspicions. Unless they actually saw her do it, the police would never suspect her of being a sniper.

The idea that the man was training her to be a convenient assassin made Pamela uneasy, and she’d paid extra attention to Sonia. Even so, she’d never imagined that Lana’s idle gossip would be connected to Sonia’s “work.”

“What kind of job?”

“Um, he said he doesn’t know yet. He said something about an ‘add hawk approach.’” Even as she spoke, the girl who lived to fire guns was loading bullets into her next one. “Teacher says he’ll tell me when and what to shoot on the day.”

“……”

He couldn’t possibly mean to make this little girl shoot one of the millionaires or mafia dons, could he? With a fortune like Beriam’s, if all he wanted was someone dead, he could just hire a professional sniper… Or so Pamela thought, but she couldn’t completely reject the idea.

From personal experience, she knew “impossible” situations could happen. She’d already lived through several of them.

Just three years ago, they’d accidentally kidnapped the grandson of a major mafioso and then run into terrorists and an enormous bear.

In this world, maybe nothing was impossible. Nothing bad anyway.

Pamela had an overpowering sense of foreboding about this, and it was making her pessimistic.

Sonia had finished loading her gun and was heading back to her firing position. Pamela hastily called after her. “Can you turn that job down?”

“Huh? Why?”

“What if, and I do mean ‘if’…they tell you to shoot somebody? Could you do it?”

“Sure I could. Shooting’s what guns do,” the girl answered, far too easily.

Pamela shook her head. “No, that’s not it. I didn’t mean the gun. What about you, Sonia? If someone told you to kill a person, you’d be fine with it?”

From behind her, Lana put in two cents nobody needed. “What are you talking about, Pamela? When we were running from the mafia, Sonia’s guns saved us all a million times.”

“……! Yes, but—! You can claim self-defense for that, or, um…”

In the first place, she’d only had Sonia fire warning shots while they made their getaway. None of her bullets had ever killed anybody outright. Pamela had been sure that was the case. But wasn’t it possible Sonia had killed a person or two without Pamela’s knowledge?

She didn’t know Sonia all that well, so she couldn’t swear she would never take a life.

Sonia hesitated. “Mm… I’d hate it a little if somebody died, I guess. When Dad and Mom died, I hated it a whole lot.”

…So just a little, Pamela thought, but for the moment, the answer came as a relief.

Not that it solved the problem.

“They might force you, though.”

“You think?”

“Yes. In the worst case, they might even make you take the fall for them.”

In the actual worst case, they’d silence her for good. I don’t really get what Beriam’s thinking, but…I wouldn’t put it past Spike.

Should she take Lana and Sonia and just bail? Pamela began to give the idea serious consideration.

Ignoring Pamela’s worries, the girl in the helmet put her earplugs back in and leveled her gun.

The deafening sound came an instant later.

“……!”

“~~~~~!”

Pamela and Lana hadn’t plugged their ears in time, and all they could hear was a ringing whine.

The pair fell silent, holding their ears. When their hearing was almost back to normal, they heard Sonia speak softly. “It’s okay.”

With her eyes still on the target, she seemed to be talking to herself. She was smiling a genuine smile.

“If that happens, Nader will come save me.”

Her childhood friend would come save her.

It sounded like a ridiculous, escapist fantasy.

Anyone who’d heard her say it for the first time would have thought she was refusing to face her choices, using hope as an excuse.

But Pamela and Lana had heard those words many, many times before. Whenever they were being chased by the mafia, and whenever they had the cops on their tail, Sonia had always said them and smiled.

Naturally, Nader hadn’t come to save her once. Most of the time, Sonia had handled the situation herself, with the help of her guns.

Even so, she put more and more trust in her old friend.

Whoever this Nader was, he was a real jackass.

Pamela had never met Sonia’s childhood friend, but her feelings about him were complicated. On that note, she made a resolution of her own. “…Whether we run or decide to get involved, we’ll need to find out more about this.”

“What do you mean?” Lana asked.

Pamela smiled in semi-resignation. “We’ve been spinning our wheels for three whole years. I’m saying it’s about time Vanishing Bunny made a comeback.”

Lana frowned. “…What vanishing bunny?” she asked.

“That’s what you named our group!” With murder in her eyes, Pamela clamped an arm around Lana’s neck.

“I-is it?! I—I was just testing yo-o-o-o-o-gweh-buh-buh.” Even as she teared up, Lana tried to bluff her way through.

Sonia watched them awkwardly, then said the same thing she always did:

“Hey, quit fighting.”

And so the women threw themselves into fate’s great vortex.

They took a risk and joined the scramble into the casino—a place where there were no saints or heroes to be found, a place that churned with desires and malice.

They used their own lives as chips—although they couldn’t say how much those chips were worth.