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dweamofsweep · 19 days ago

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Cyborg 009 Tribute Anthology Story 4: "Eight Rooms" by Torishima Denpou

An account of Jet Link's experiences with Black Ghost in the time leading up to the 00-Numbers' escape -- mostly focusing on him and two of his friends from the Jets who were also recruited by Black Ghost and being modified to fly.

Scans and Google Translation on Drive

Or read below the cut! As per usual I tried to clean it up a bit, but left anything I couldn't really make sense of. This one's a little long but enjoy - a tad morbid at times though...

Eight Rooms Torishima Denpou

How did Jet Link become 002? This is the unknown story behind the development of the Zero Zero Number Cyborg.

Jet Link (002) has the ability to fly freely in the air with the flight units equipped on his legs. He was the leader of a gang of delinquents on the West Side of New York, but after stabbing an opponent in a fight with a rival group, he was called out to by the Black Ghost Gang while on the run, and converted into a cyborg.

When the Black Ghost Gang went on a "human hunt" for cyborg experiments, they had the following conditions: "They must be of a different race… and of a different age… and they must not cause much trouble when abducted" (Original Story). Though they are both from America, Geronimo Jr. (005) is a Native American compared to the white Jet. He is a cyborg with reinforced skin and a million horsepower of superhuman strength. He is silent, calm, and has a proud spirit. In the original illustrations from the beginning of the series, 005's protective suit was painted green.

Torishima Denpou was born in Osaka Prefecture in 1970. He made his debut in 2011 with "Kikai-tachi no Do" (The Perfect Attendance Student), which won the 2nd Sogen SF Short Story Award. He won the 234th Japan Science Fiction Grand Prize for his collection of stories "Kikai-tachi no Do" (2013), and the 640th Japan Science Fiction Grand Prize for his first original full-length novel "Yadokari no Hoshi" (2019). His works include "Run (lol)", "Kensei no Mushi" (a renamed paperback edition of "Octologue Torishima Denbou Works Collection" published in 2020), "Nufuretsun the Musician", and "Travel Letters Collection: Yukiatashi Shi Asatte" (co-authored with Takayama Haneko and Kurata Takashi), among others.

A strange figure floated in the grey expanse of sky. It was about sixty feet above the ground, swaying up and down and side to side but maintaining its position. We held our breath and looked up at it. Its upper body was wearing a flight suit, but from the waist down it was a mass of scrap metal with pipes, pumps, and combustion chambers all protruding, making it look like a bronze statue on a pedestal. From a pair of nozzles at the bottom, high-temperature, high-pressure gas was blasting out with a roar, forming a thick trunk that spread like a cumulonimbus cloud all over the launch pad and the surrounding sandy beach. "Tony's thing is pretty stable this time," I commented, and Kevin nodded, "Yeah, he beat me to it," and then said, "But it's still really noisy. You could do a better job of muffling it," as he looked around the paved area known as the control area on the war-torn beach. Large equipment covered in cords was lined up in a haphazard fashion, and researchers were measuring various things. Dr. O and Dr. G were standing next to the control desk closer to us, staring at Tony with binoculars.

"Good job, Tony Kaczynski. Much better than your last flight. Keep it up," Dr. O said into the radio microphone in German-accented English, then directed instructions to one of the researchers. "Pauman, try increasing the amount of fodder a little. No, let's avoid the lottery. Keep an eye on the TQ value too."

Let's talk! Our artificial hearing is highly sensitive, so it can pick up voices even from some distance away. However, when researchers talk to each other, they often use code words to prevent secret information from leaking, and sometimes they even use languages other than English that I can't understand, so it's often hard to understand what they're saying. They are of various races, but judging from the chatter I can overhear, it seems that quite a few of them are scientists from countries that had lost the war. It seems that the doctor and several other researchers had worked on research and development of V2 rockets at the German Army Weapons Office during the war, and memories of the hardships of that time would sometimes pop up in their conversations.

Kevin yawned loudly, and I yawned too. "By the time I got here, I was exhausted from all the work I had done on the maintenance shed."

Suddenly, Dr. O turned around, looked up at us, and said, "You should be more aware that you have been chosen by Project Nurnurzwei. Air superiority will be the key to future wars. You will be the vanguard of that war."

"This?" I said with a wry smile, looking down at my whole body as I stood on the transport cart. From the waist down, my legs were equipped with a different type of twin thruster unit from Tony's, and were more than one size larger than normal legs. Kevin's thruster unit, standing next to me, was slightly smaller, but more deformed than mine, and both of us were completely misshapen.

He was a long-legged circus clown.

I couldn't help but think that it would be far more realistic to ride a rocket as my bare flesh than to float in the air in this ridiculous, patchwork body that could barely walk on its own.

Suddenly, a dangerous sound of gunfire that sounded like a machine gun rang out, and I looked over my shoulder. I couldn't see because of the high protective wall, but they must have been test-firing a new weapon. The protective wall joined a cliff of almost the same height, and beyond that I could see a low mountain with a ridge lined with what looked like radar antennas.

Tony slowly descended, weakening the thrusters, and everyone was on edge. One of the test subjects had lost his life in an explosion of the thruster unit during the previous landing. He was a Turkish man who had been brought in via a different route from us, and we hadn't yet become acquainted with him.

The landing covered the area around Negira in smoke, and everyone gasped in admiration. "That was a splendid landing," Dr. O said, and the surrounding researchers applauded.

Tony said with an excited look on his face, "This time, I'll walk with these big legs," but we tried to stop him, saying, "Hey, it's dangerous, so stop," and "It'll be a repeat of what happened last time." The last time he tried, he fell like a chess piece and suffered a mild concussion. But surprisingly, Dr. X said, “He can try it.”

"The moving parts have been improved since then. Let me try it. That's great, Dr. G."

Dr. G, who designed the walking mechanism for the Beard Launch Unit, is silent as he plays with his white beard. He snorts and nods to the researcher in charge of operating the launch pad's arm.

Tony lifted one of the two totem pole-like launch units, which were still spewing smoke from all over, with an unsettling creak, and sent it one step forward, lowering the guard pipe-like tip of the nozzle to the floor. Just as he was about to take the same step with the other one, its whole body tilted heavily and began to fall - "Damn it!" Tony spat out, throwing both hands in the air - and was immediately grabbed by the arms of the launch pad on both sides and placed on a transport cart on the paved road.

"I thought they had improved it," Dr. O muttered dissatisfiedly.

"It's an unreasonable request from the start to use such bulky thruster units as legs," Doctor G retorted in Russian-accented English. This doctor, who is in charge of integrating and coordinating the construction of our bodies, was once a brilliant scientist at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Perhaps he gave up his position to come here because of the excellent research environment and treatment. "Besides, no matter how smoothly we can move, with this size you won't be able to fit through the passageway," he said, spreading his arms wide with his short body. "You have to do something about the thruster units first. You boasted that you would definitely make them small enough to fit into normal legs."

Tony was carried over to us, upright on a transport cart, and said, "While I was floating in the air…I wasn't feeling bad," he said, smiling at us, then looked confused when he saw the two doctors' grim expressions.

"Of course. We've been working day and night to miniaturize it to the size of a normal leg." There was no lie in Professor O's words. Looking closely, his face was paler than our artificial skin, and you could see how exhausted he was. "But to make it happen without compromising, we need to develop a new fuel. If your lover, Professor M, could figure out the optimal reaction method for Odin's blood--"

Tony whistles. “She must be the one who came to the flight test the other day," Kevin says, frowning for some reason. I'm sure he's a regular. I didn't remember him.

"Stop it. How many times do I have to tell you we're not lovers?" Dr. G became restless and rubbed his big nose.

"It doesn't seem like an intimacy to me."

"I'm just asking for a little advice - no, no. Anything that doesn't relate to flight tests.

Please send it to me.”

"Anyway, you're closer to her than anyone else. Please urge her to speed up his research…" Dr. O raised one hand and put his face close to the radio microphone. "Now, let's move on to the next test. Jet Link, I'm counting on you."

My transport cart moved forward on the sand, and the tips of the two arms connected with my waist and lifted me up.

Then -- I can feel the weight of my legs putting a great deal of strain on the joints -- slowly lowered onto a launch pad that is also used for missile test launches.

I slide the protective covers over my eye sockets forward, covering my eyeballs. My vision blurs for a moment, but I soon get used to it. After adjusting the width of my legs and straightening my posture, I try to ignite the propulsion unit, repeatedly moving the vague illusion of a control console that my auxiliary brain has in my mind, but perhaps I'm not concentrating enough, as it didn't respond as well as it did last time.

"It seems the projection within your consciousness still needs some adjustment. For now, please use the control console on your waist.” I can hear Doctor X's voice through my ears, and I grasp the receiver-like control console and press a switch.

The thruster unit on my lower body began to tremble violently――― A golden light spread from the soles of my feet, and smoke began to swell up like rainclouds. Just as I thought my body was beginning to float, it suddenly began to tilt to one side, and I quickly operated the stick on the control console, but now it was shaking back and forth――――

"The arm is supporting you. Just calm down and get used to it."

I was swaying back and forth like a bad surfer -- I could see Tony and Kevin laughing -- and while I was struggling to keep my balance, I felt the sensation of the nozzle rising up in the soles of my feet, and they were twisting and squeezing me as newly formed organs.

"Good, your attitude is stable. Keep going up."

I squeeze out the fluid from both my legs, and the force pushing up from below makes my back tense.

Hearing the arm let go of my body, I feel a sense of freedom, but at the same time, loneliness at the loss of my lifeline. Looking down, white smoke is expanding and covering the area. Dark depressions that look like explosions remain here and there on the beach. I stare at the various displays on the virtual gauges, which float vaguely in my field of vision like the shadows of floaters. The fuel capacity is already decreasing. Doctor O says there's nothing to worry about, but I can't shake the fear that the fuel filling my legs will ignite.

The launch pad and the doctors are seen receding into the distance below.

Six meters, seven meters—the numbers on the display went up, but it didn't match the height I could see below me. I was annoyed that metric units were the standard here. On the other side of the protective wall, the ruins of the city, a training ground, came into view, and an explosion of flames rose from the road on the left. The roar of the rocket unit prevented me from hearing the explosions. Fifteen meters, twenty meters—further beyond, a mountain ridge reminiscent of a camel's hump peeked out. Simple buildings stood sparsely on the mountainside, but I couldn't tell which one was the one we were living in.

"Now, descend about ten meters."

Umm… about 30 feet. I eased up on the jet and went down. My back stiffened as I tried to keep my balance. I was told to go up again, and I did.

As I went up and down as instructed, the heat from the thruster became unsettling. My waist and neck felt like they were being burned, and the smoke from the engines was filling my field of vision.

I was shocked when I saw the display on the device. It was obvious that the temperature of the legs was unbelievably high, but the temperature of the whole body was also not something a human could bear.

"Doctor! The body temperature is--" I cried out, and Doctor G's voice said, "It's within the capacity of your body's structure. Don't worry, your homeostatic functions will catch up soon and you should feel better." Soon I noticed that some organ had begun to pulsate in my abdomen. Gradually the heat subsided, and my thirst subsided.

“That said, your sympathetic nervous system response is a bit extreme. There is room for improvement.”

My body temperature has gone down and I feel better, but it's still much higher than normal. I realize that my bare flesh cannot withstand this test.

“Here we go again.”

The doctor's voice returns, ordering them to rise and fall.

Once you get the hang of it intuitively, simply moving it up and down feels unsatisfying and a little silly.

"Feeling good. That's all for today. Land on your feet."

Bracing myself, I reduced the output of the thrust unit while adjusting the direction of the nozzle and began to descend carefully.

The guard pipes surround the nozzle, and the rocket lands safely on the launch pad. The weight of the rocket's body is suddenly transferred to the rocket's body, but is relieved by the shock-absorbing action. The smell of burning chemicals from the floating smoke fills the air. Through the blurred view, the sound of the researchers clapping can be heard.

Once the vibrations in the legs subsided, I was lifted up by an arm and transferred to a transport cart, which then moved along the paved road. As Kevin passed by, we drove to the control station and watched as he was placed on the launch pad.

Kevin, who was smaller than us, began to tremble as his legs shook and he began to rise, spreading smoke with a thunderous roar. He remained suspended in the air at about his own height, floating from side to side. His face, which had looked calm, turned into a pained expression as if petrification was spreading throughout his body.

"The temperature in Section D is rising rapidly!" the researcher called out.

The doctor instructs the researchers, but there is a dull explosion from Kevin's right leg and flames rise up. He is lowered onto the launch pad by an arm, and the researchers immediately surround him and spray foam from a fire extinguisher.

"It seems that cooling the combustion chamber is difficult with this model," Dr. O said wryly.

"For now, we should make it a GT engine and reduce the amount of oxidizer."

"Not yet! We are being asked to operate outside the atmosphere."

The doctor and Dr. G argue in English, which is not each other's native language.

"At least use AB cooling---"

"Then I'll be disposable! This is why I can only think of replacing my body with parts.

Monmonha.”

"Have you forgotten that you are only alive thanks to a replacement heart!"

Before the end of the war, a researcher had said that Dr. O had been shot to death to destroy evidence. Was that rumor true?

Afterwards, we were carried on a transport cart to a one-story maintenance shed near the cliff at the foot of the mountain, and each of us was made to lie down on a large maintenance bench that looked like a noble's bed.

Here, researchers led by Dr. G swarmed around us with strange tools in their hands and began removing the leg-like thruster units. Sensing someone's gaze, I looked towards the wall, where Dr. O was gazing thoughtfully at the thruster unit with his hand on his chin.

It often takes too long to remove them and we often get bored with it.

"It's too much work to spend so much time changing the landing gear every single time we do a flight test," Tony complained, and Kevin agreed. "You know what? I only had a quick glimpse today."

"You guys, why don't you read a book? Some subjects do that during maintenance. You can even use the library if you do that."

In response to the researcher's words, I replied, "I took a look once, but all they had were technical books related to science and the military," and then I said something that had been on my mind for a while.

"In the first place, why bother making the legs into launch units? Wouldn't it be better to just carry them on your back? That way it wouldn't take as much time and there wouldn't be as much danger. You wouldn't have to worry about the size either---"

"Don't be stupid!" Dr. O yelled, coming towards me with a pale face.

"It's the likeness that counts! Don't you realize how much money has been spent on it?"

"Your competitor is a former colleague of Dr. X. He's pushing forward with a space program across your country---"

Doctor X raised his voice even more after hearing what the researcher said to us.

"The space program that they rushed into after being overtaken by their enemy country is nothing more than a cover-up, with their fragile bodies stuffed into a giant iron box and then launched!"

"But astronauts do incredible amounts of training to prepare their bodies for space," Tony said.

"No matter how hard we try, we can't surpass the limits of humanity. If we venture into space alone, we'll be doomed. We'll have no choice but to stay quietly inside the iron box. That way we won't be able to achieve the harvest that will come someday."

"So you want us to dunk on a satellite from here into space?" Tony laughed.

"What do you mean, harvest?" Kevin asked warily.

"It's a critical moment that will determine the future of humanity. To be worthy of the harvest, humanity itself must transform into a new body suited to space. Otherwise we will―”

"Oh, shut up already!" Doctor G stood up from behind my thruster unit. "I've had enough of your mystical nonsense. Doctor X, can you please stay outside until I finish this job?"

"It's blissful to not know anything." Dr. ○ shook his head from side to side like a military doctor who has noticed the death of a wounded soldier, then turned and left.

After about two hours of having the flight unit removed, I began to feel uneasy, even though it had felt so foreign. Next, the fitting of the prosthetic leg, which had a slender curve and looked almost identical to a normal leg, began. Multiple thin cables were connected one by one, and the joints on the thigh were fitted and fixed from the outside with several long hinges. After a while, my calf began to spasm. This was the initial movement indicating that the nerves had begun to work. Unlike the walking mechanism of the thrust unit, which transmits power through hydraulic cylinders, underneath the skin were bundles of elastic artificial muscles, the same as those in the upper body.

I sat up, twisted my waist, and pushed both of my prosthetic legs out of the bed. My knees bent smoothly, and my feet touched the floor. I tried to stand up. At first, I felt a strange sensation of numbness, but as I moved up and down, I gradually got used to it. I tried to move the nozzle of the ejection unit, and I ended up puckering my toes.

"It's easier to move around than this morning, and it feels more natural." I always felt a disconnect with my prosthetic leg, and when I stayed still, I would sometimes feel an uncomfortable tingling sensation that I couldn't bear.

"Maybe it's a new leg?"

"They look the same though," said Kevin, whose transplant had just finished, standing up and shaking his legs up and down.

Dr. G looked at the movement with narrowed eyes and said, "The outside is the same, but the brain that processes the nervous system has been replaced."

"What? So there's a brain in the leg?" Tony, whose attachment had not yet been completed, said as he lay down.

"It's true, it's easier to move than before." Kevin gradually increases the speed of his feet, and finally begins to perform his special skill, tapping, with a brisk rhythm.

"Wow, that's impressive," said Dr. G with a rare exclamation of admiration.

An attendant in camouflage uniform appears, and we follow him out of the maintenance building. We go around to the back and find an area resembling a weapons graveyard, with rusted parts from aircraft and tanks scattered in piles. We go down a flight of stairs from an entrance that resembles a half-buried subway station. A long underground passage appears, and at the end are two men with bare metallic upper bodies walking awkwardly behind the attendant. They must be from Room 004, two doors down. We continue on. When we reach the elevator lobby, the third door from the right is open, and the three from before are waiting inside. One of them, a grey-haired man, is walking towards us with a pile of soot-covered metal.

He holds an arm in front of him that looks like an awkwardly connected tube, and presses the opening/closing button with one of his fingers, which also has a tube shape. A book was peeking out from his pants pocket. ”Exodus'' written by Leon Uris.

“I wonder if it was you who made that explosion sound.Are you test-firing a new weapon?'' Tony asked. The gray-haired man glanced at him with pale eyes, but remained silent with his thin lips drawn together.

"Aren't these guys robots after all?" Kevin scoffs.

“Would you all shut up? We're told not to talk to anyone in the other room,'' says our attendant. According to Instructor R, this is to avoid the risk of leaking secrets from other departments when engaging in special operations in different countries.

The man's hand moves intermittently and leaves the open/close button, and the door closes.

The elevator starts moving. There is no floor number display, and I still don't know what floor it is on. For a while, the only sound I could hear was my own breathing.

Even if it is rising, could it have exceeded its current height just now?

The brass elevator arrives and the doors open. Near the front is a door with a brass plate engraved with 〈003〉. This number represents not only the room but also the project. We started walking to the left of the passage, and the other three started walking to the right. When we arrived in front of Room 002, the room of Project Nurunurzwei, according to Dr. O, the attendant placed something that looked like a lighter under the doorknob and unlocked it. As soon as the three of them entered, the door closed and locked again.

Tony turns on the ceiling light. It was a bleak room with no windows, exposed concrete walls and floors, minimal furniture and fixtures, and a projector and film cans.

Kevin and Tony sat down on the couch. They said, "We can finally take a breather," but I actually felt like I was suffocating.

I was extremely thirsty. I took three beer bottles from the small refrigerator in the corner of the room, closed the door with my foot, handed them to them, and sat down on the sofa across the low table. Each person picks up a bottle and pops the lid off with just their thumb.

"Don't you remember Jeff?" Tony said.

“Well, he was able to open the lid with just his fingers.'' I could see the proud look on Jeff's face. “Ah. You can’t do that. You’re laughing at us, saying we’re stupid.”

Jeff was stabbed to death six months before he came here. We all assumed it was the Sharks’ work. I take a sip of beer. The bitterness spreads, and a fine, bubbling sensation passes down your throat. I was lucky that that feeling didn't change, but I couldn't get drunk as much as I used to, probably because of the artificial organs.

"If I had the body I have now back then, the Sharks wouldn't have been my enemy. I could have driven them all back to Puerto Rico."

Tony says so, but we’re on this island in the middle of nowhere, far from the Westside.

Now, I couldn't remember clearly why we started fighting with the Sharks. We were both immigrants. Why did Jeff have to die? What were we angry about?

"You were no match for them in your previous body. That's why you had to run away, and you ended up like this,” Kevin said, laughing irritably. He probably still had feelings for her.

The sensation of stabbing Pedro of the Sharks comes back to my hand. Even though my bones and muscles have been completely replaced with artificial ones, it hasn't disappeared. That day, we Jets just happened to run into the Sharks. The skirmishes had been going on for a while, and with Jeff, it wasn't a surprise that it could have happened at any time. Before I knew it, Pedro and I were facing each other with knives in our hands - as soon as Pedro fell, the sound of sirens rang out, and we all ran away at once, but I was chased by the police and had nowhere to run. That's when the scouts from the organization appeared. They said, "We'll get you out of here. And not only that, we can give you power - looking back, it was a very sudden and suspicious offer.

I was put in the back seat of a car, and with a partition and black windows blocking out the view, I was taken to a place I didn't know for about half a day, and locked alone in a room like a storeroom in the basement of an old building. Three days later, I was suddenly taken to a place that seemed to be a munitions factory in the middle of the night, and was taken to a place called a runway.

When I got on the Lopera plane, I was surprised to see Tony and Kevin sitting in my seat. Turns out the day after the incident, another conflict broke out, resulting in several deaths on both sides, and they were scouted during the escape.

"Hey Jet, don't apologize. I love the way my body is right now…Except for my legs,” he said, laughing.

I accepted the offer not only because I was upset, but also because I was fed up with the town and myself and wanted to get away from it all.

Suddenly there was the sound of a baby crying.

"Didn't you hear that just now?"

"Oh no… I'm hallucinating again the sound of a baby crying. I'm starting to miss the time when my mother was comforting me.

Isn't that right?"

"You idiot," I said, throwing the bottle cap at Kevin and leaning back on the sofa.

There was a sound of the door unlocking, and it opened. The cart entered on its own, unfolded a long, thin arm that had been stored next to the tabletop, and placed dinner plates filled with food on the table from inside. The attendant told me that it was a type of robot originally made to lay mines. I felt uneasy every time this thing handed out food.

The dinner plate is divided into two compartments: bread, chili peppers with sausage, and a sausage.

The meal consisted of pieces of bread, a salad of steamed vegetables, cut fruit, etc. Attached to the side like a paper napkin was a mark sheet.

"Today's off."

The reason Kevin said that was because the ration was a hydrocodile combat ration. It was made by another company in the organization for export to the military forces of various countries, and was sometimes served as a sample like this.

"Well, there's still a lot of it."

When the wagon leaves, we start eating with plastic forks in hand. For a while, the only sound we can hear is the sound of chewing. Our artificial organs are powered by the power reactor, but the parts of our bodies that remain physical still need calories. Not only that, but even if all of our organs were replaced with artificial ones, a person's mind would not be able to function properly without the input of information such as taste and texture from food, Dr. G said.

"I wonder if responding to the scouting call was really the right decision," Kevin suddenly muttered.

"Here we go again. We got powers," Tony replies, annoyed.

"The strength to levitate in the air and open a beer bottle with your bare hands?" Kevin snorted.

“So, you’d rather be thrown in jail and have to eat stinky food for years. I guess it’s better in moderation.”

"How is this different from a prison? The door is locked and you can't go out freely. The attendants are always following us around like prison guards. And as for this food…"

"We're classified, so it can't be helped. It's for our own protection."

No, this place might be worse than prison, I thought to myself.

"Hey Jet, you've been awfully quiet lately."

"You're still worried, aren't you? This guy is surprisingly quick to jump to conclusions. I thought it was just a coincidence. You looked so hard, but there was no wiretapping device anywhere, right?"

"It's not that. I'm just a bit tired."

For a while now, there have been many incidents where it seemed like something was leaking information about the room. If we complained about a shortage of room supplies, they would be delivered right away, and if one of us let slip that he was feeling unwell, an unexpected inspection would suddenly be carried out. There was also one time when the three of us had a good time badmouthing an attendant, and the day after that, that attendant's attitude became obviously harsh. I had thoroughly searched the room, thinking that there might have been a listening device installed, but couldn't find one. However, that wasn't the only reason why I had become less talkative.

"At least you can't drink beer in prison," Tony retorted, putting the bottle to his mouth.

"No Heineken. I want Pabst Blue Ribbon," Kevin yelled.

"I don't care about beer, but I'd rather have kielbasa than this sausage," I said.

"I'd like to have pierogi and bigos. Koptuka and golabki. I'm starting to want to go home," said Kevin.

All of these were familiar foods in our neighborhood.

"Oh man, you're homesick," Tony said, stirring his chili beans with his fork. "I'm not. I was so bored of all those places."

As we were eating and talking about pointless things, Tony suddenly laughed, "I never thought there'd be any love affairs between those boring doctors. Especially Dr. G and Dr. M."

Kevin leaned back in the sofa and sighed in annoyance.

"I actually liked her a lot. But she was just a boring old man's woman."

"What, that plain woman? The women in the next room are much better. You see, there's a girl who looks like the actress in 'Parisienne' that we all went to see the other day---"

"She's obviously a whore! I saw her walking around upstairs in a fancy dress.”

"Hey, stop talking like that!"

The memory of my mother being mocked like that came back to me and I became angry.

"What's the matter, Jet? You've become really sensitive. Everyone on this floor is a test subject like us, which means you've got a scar on your shin. And her face is way too perfect. I bet it's an artificial creation for espionage or something. But at least the doctor is flesh and blood."

"Well, she’s an ice queen,” Tony said.

I was getting tired of their conversation. I marked all my marks on the exam sheet with low marks, and today…

"I'm tired, so I'll go to sleep first," I said, retreating to the back of the room. I lay down on the bottom of the bunk bed on the right. The mattress was like a hotel mattress and was comfortable to sleep on. A Turkish man had previously slept on the top bunk.

As I leaned against the wall, unable to sleep, I heard a clattering noise, the room went dark, and I began to hear gunfire and explosions along with the sound of a sewing machine-like projector. They were probably the war records lent by the instructor. They all seemed to have been edited by the organization. That was about all the entertainment we could get.

Depending on the intensity of the projector's light, countless letters of text appear on the concrete wall, as if faintly scratched. They appear to have been written with a sharp object by the test subjects who had lived in Room 002 before us. After noticing this, I gradually read the letters as I fell asleep. The handwriting was all over the place, with some indecipherable characters that looked like Chinese or Arabic, and some messy writing that looked like it had been written by a young child who couldn't move their hands well.

/My whole body hurts so much I feel like it's going to fall apart. I can't stop feeling nauseous. /Today I'm suffering from severe dizziness and lightheadedness. /I've complained to the doctor about my digestive problems and he's adjusted them. At the moment I can't excrete without medication. /I've had diarrhea for about two weeks. /Are you okay? I wonder if it's gotten better. /I haven't been able to sleep for days because I can't get rid of this tingling feeling in every corner of my body. Tomorrow I'll be injected with a drug that calms excessive nerve activity. They say they'll replace the artificial nerves in my limbs soon. /I feel sick. My vision keeps getting distorted. The skin all over my body is starting to fester and the pain is so bad I had to have pain blockade done. /As I thought, my lymphatic system is blocked and the lymph nodes are distorted. I'm tired of going to the infirmary every three days. /I haven't had any feeling in my skin since my last surgery. I don't even notice when I hit something and make a hole in my skin. /My hands and feet are in violent convulsions, and I can't even think about it. Make a movement that doesn't seem right.

Some of the notes appear to be conversations, but they may just have been added by later residents.

I wonder just how long they've been researching this. I realize that the reason this body can move so smoothly is thanks to the many test subjects that have been there up until now. After the first major operation, there have been numerous repeat operations and adjustments. About a month ago, another department had reportedly achieved new results, and the skin on his entire body was replaced. The new skin material is strong and elastic, and it even has the ability to sweat and regenerate to a certain extent. Immediately after the operation, his senses became too sensitive, though, and they had to make the adjustments more restrained.

The sound and light of the projector disappear, and the letters become invisible. Where are the former test subjects now?

"There'll be lectures again tomorrow. How tedious," "I actually quite like it. Don't you think what Instructor R has to say makes sense?" Tony and Kevin said these things as they climbed into the bunk beds opposite each other.

As I finished breakfast, an attendant appeared. When I went out to the aisle, another attendant appeared a little ahead.

A man stood there, and four women in protective suits were emerging from Room 003. Tony gave a faint whistle.

"Am I being glared at?" Kevin asked in a low voice. The women's gazes were certainly harsher than usual, and it felt as though they were all focused on Kevin. For some reason, the eyes of one of them looked familiar. Where had they met?

"What are you doing? Let's go."

Urged by the attendant, the women started to walk, and we followed behind. We passed Room 004, then Room 005, and when they started to climb the stairs between Room 006 and Room 007, I realized from her profile that she was the assistant who had been beside Dr. G during the surgery. While the other assistants were handing over surgical instruments and operating the equipment, she simply turned her eyes above the mask towards us, and only occasionally whispered in Dr. G's ear, which caught my attention.

There were training rooms and lecture halls lined up on the upper floors, and today I was in the fourth lecture hall on the left from the staircase. There were only chairs lined up in the windowless space, and about twenty subjects were sitting there. Native Americans, blacks, Asians, Arabs, Hispanics - there were probably people of various races there to intervene in the conflicts between countries. Private conversations were strictly forbidden, and even with so many people there, it was incredibly quiet.

We passed the attendants who were standing guard at the wall and took a seat near the front.

I took a deep breath. Maybe it was because of the air conditioning, but I felt a little drowsy as soon as I entered this room.

Footsteps were heard from behind, and Instructor R, wearing military uniform and wearing black-rimmed glasses, appeared in front of the front wall where the whiteboard was hung.

"So today, let's start by talking about the difference between conflict, civil war, and war."

Instructor R began his lecture in a calm tone, and I began to lose my attention.

From the first lecture I attended, I was wary that this might be the kind of ideological reform that a dictatorship would carry out, so I tried to avoid listening to what he had to say as much as possible.

Tony commented, "That sounds very interesting to me," and Kevin said something I'm tired of hearing: "You weren't so quick to jump to conclusions before." That may be true. But the instructor's seemingly cheerful eyes didn't reveal any emotion like our artificial eyes.

But even if I made it through the lecture like that, at night, as I was falling asleep in bed, I would suddenly find my lips moving and silently repeating the words of the instructor that I had pushed aside from my consciousness.

I wondered if this was due to my auxiliary brain. Just as I was wondering if this would continue forever, I heard the sound of a baby crying from somewhere, and the noise brought me back to reality.

A nurse occasionally comes and goes from room 001 next door, so perhaps it's a childcare room.

When I once suggested that to Tony and Kevin, they laughed and asked me why there was a nursery here. They said they had never heard any crying in the first place.

The instructor is now talking while writing letters and lines on the whiteboard.

"Humans have an eternal war instinct. Do you believe that? If it weren't for that, you wouldn't have come here."

No, my lips are moving. The words I heard from my instructor before are coming back to me.

Certainly, that may be true. The conflict between the Sharks and Jets was like a territorial dispute between countries. Until that decisive day, boredom, anxiety, and anger were always swirling among us, and we couldn't calm down. We were always waiting for something to happen. Unable to wait, we wandered around the other person's territory as if it were our own. If war is an instinct, then peace is something different and explosive--At that moment, I heard the baby's cry again, and stood up. With everyone's eyes on me, cold sweat rolled down my forehead. This was far from Room 001. I wondered if something was wrong with me after all. "What's wrong?"

“No, sorry.” I said as I sat down.

"You seem a bit restless these days, but I hope you'll listen to me without worrying," the instructor said with a smile, without scolding him.

After the lecture, we waited for the crowd to leave before getting up from our seats. The two of them were grinning and teasing me, saying, "What are you doing? Just listen." As we went down the stairs, a Latin man with long black hair was facing an attendant in front of Room 007. I wonder if he had been in the lecture room before. It was a face I'd never seen before. The toe of his right leather shoe was a little chipped.

"Are you going to leave me with an unfulfilled heart?" the man said to the attendant, gesturing dramatically.

"Really, he's always such a pain. Enough with that little drama, just hurry up. Go into your room.”

The man raised his arms to his shoulders as if to say that the man was worthless and walked through the door.

I was beginning to get a rough idea of which face was in which room, but I wasn't sure how many people were in Room 007. Perhaps because of a high turnover rate, I kept seeing new faces of different races— but for some reason, most of them seemed to speak British English.

We returned to Room 002 and a cart soon arrived, carrying a row of round tins along with dinner plates: new film footage.

As we were eating, Tony and Kevin started talking about their past heroic deeds. I wonder how many times we've told these stories.

"Jet was amazing back then. You led the others and stormed into Joey's store right away."

"Yeah, that was funny. They broke the display window and knocked over the shelves full of merchandise one after another. Lollipops were scattered everywhere, and the customers who stepped on them started dancing…"

Through the green beer bottle, I can see all the trouble I caused in the past and my spine stiffens.

"Johnny loved cameras and he used to take a lot of pictures. When Jet saw the developed photos, he suddenly stood up and said, 'Joey had another store, didn't he? Let's go and raid it now.'"

I took a deep breath and said, "I guess I was just really drunk," and let the story go. Thinking back on the blurry image of myself pushing over a shelf or kicking someone, I felt like I was possessed by something, and it was so hideous that it made my chest ache.

"We have a new film, let's watch it together today," they invited me, but I made the excuse that my artificial organs were not working well and went to bed. It was no lie, I had a terrible heartburn.

As I gazed upon the letters engraved on the wall, sleepiness began to overcome me - and before I knew it, my lips were once again tracing the words that Instructor R had said today.

The leader of this organization has been pondering how humanity, unable to escape from this war instinct, can avoid destruction. To achieve this, he needs the enormous framework of the Cold War.

This is made up of countless proxy wars and civil wars, and it is this organization that maintains the balance between them.

Those words even bring back Tony's excited voice.

--- This is good. From now on, we will be able to take control of the war instinct that has been twisting us around so much.

Perhaps there really was no other way to maintain peace. Just as I was about to become convinced of this, the sound of a baby crying came again, bringing me back to my senses.

---No. Don't be swallowed up.

Yes, it's strange. Peace that is premised on the masses of people who just want to live their daily lives being killed, injured, and suffering…

No, it's not peace or balance….it's nothing….civil war is a…testing ground…demonstration ground for new weapons….and a liquidation ground for old weapons.

I was almost sucked into the organization's philosophy. I had to be careful. Even as I kept this in mind, I felt uneasy. Were all the words that were running through my head just now my own?

After about ten days of nothing but lectures, the next flight test was scheduled. In the maintenance shed, Dr. G and his team removed the artificial leg and carefully installed the jet unit, which had different piping from the previous one.

This time, all three were the same model.

Kevin was the first to stand on the launch pad. The rocket unit started to fire, and his whole body started to rise. There was less smoke than last time, and the noise was somewhat reduced. Kevin rose to a height of 100 meters. Following the instructions of Dr. O, he moved forward horizontally while maintaining his posture, and then started to move in a circle.

"Good. Excellent," said Dr. X, holding the radio microphone, with a satisfied look on his face. "However, this is still only as high as the Saturn rocket itself. It's stable, so please rise another 100 meters."

Kevin increased the power and continued to climb. From the ground he became the size of a bean and reached 200 meters.

When I expanded my vision, he saw us and gave me a playful look. Kevin returned as if he was riding an invisible elevator down, and then it was me.

This time I was able to ignite the rocket unit inside the chamber.

I feel strong pressure and heat under my feet as I ascend. Today, I can see the explosions on the training ground on the other side of the wall. Is it the expressionless man from Room 004 again? Ten meters, twenty meters -- I'm starting to get used to the metric system of distances -- forty-sixty. Everything outside gets smaller -- I finally reach a hundred meters. It's not as scary as I thought it would be.

The doctor asked me to try moving horizontally. I felt my body rising and falling as I changed direction. The sense is interesting.

This time, I was told to climb until I was told to stop, and I increased the output. The vibration of the legs increased, and the altimeter changed faster at the edge of my shaking vision. My whole body was exposed to the strong wind. "That's fine, just maintain the altitude," I heard a voice say, and I was surprised to see the display. I had reached 300 meters, surpassing Kevin.

Beyond the training ground was a forest dotted with numerous facilities and ponds, all surrounded by an ultramarine sea. I was disappointed to see that it was an isolated island, just as we had been told. I felt once again that this nested prison was cramped, and when I averted his gaze to the distant sea, I saw a long, thin white shadow. It looked like a container ship. It would be impossible to cross the sea with the fuel of this thruster unit, but maybe I could make it to the ship - just as I was dreaming of this, I was told to come back. I reduced the thruster output and slowly descended - even if I managed to escape, how would I survive day to day with legs that could not even walk? And besides, how was I going to maintain this body covered in artificial organs without the facilities and doctors here? It would soon become dysfunctional. Just as I was laughing at my delusions, my flight suit started flapping violently.

I noticed that the wind was getting stronger.

"What's wrong, you've strayed quite a bit."

"The wind speed is increasing rapidly.”

Looking down, I could see that it was indeed further away from the launch pad than I had expected.

"Link, can you control it?"

I try to resist by adjusting my body and the direction of the nozzle, but in a vertical position My entire body is exposed to the wind and inevitably swept away.

"There's no other way. Just land on the sand."

There was no other choice. I carefully made my way down, but just as I thought I was approaching the beach, a cloud of dust rose up in a great wave, and I was as if I was being engulfed in a tornado. My body tilted forward and my shoulders dug into the sand as I landed. When I stopped moving, I spat out the sand that had gotten into my mouth. A strong wind soon blew away the smoke and dust, and I could see the launch pad about 300 meters away, and a transport cart on caterpillar tracks heading towards me. I noticed that the sand was wet, and looked behind me, where large waves were crashing on the shore. The wind was blowing sharply.

is increasing in strength.

"Today's flight test will be stopped here," Dr. O's voice rang out.

Tony had been in a bad mood since they'd gotten back to their room, which was understandable, since all it had taken was a long time to replace the leg, and then another long time to put it back together without doing anything.

As for me, I was trying to push out the grains of sand that had gotten into the gaps between my eyeballs and were making a rattling noise, so I made water come out from inside and wiped them with a towel, but I looked a bit funny.

Tony's usual grin seemed to return slightly.

For days afterwards, the wind was so strong that the sound and vibrations could be heard through the walls, and instead of flight tests, a lecture on the world situation was held. Normally I would have diverted my attention, but the organization had an accurate grasp of the world situation even behind the scenes in order to cause proxy wars and civil wars and continue them for the long term, and while I was wary, there was a lot to learn. The twisted feuds between various countries that have continued for a long time are mind-boggling.

As I walked down the stairs after finishing my lecture, I noticed an attendant in front of Room 007, standing there in a daze facing a man who appeared to be of Polynesian descent. Was he another newcomer? No, I felt like I'd seen him somewhere before… Just as I was trying to remember, the attendant suddenly came back to his senses, his face twisted in anger, and he shouted, "Stop with those nasty pranks. Are you trying to be a ghost? Get over it."

"What are you talking about now? You've been calling us subjects ghosts behind our backs for a while now, haven't you? Hey, you guys know that, right?" he said in British English, suddenly turning towards me. Indeed, I had occasionally heard the word ghost.

"That's why I'm showing myself as I wish. I think it suits the name of this organization and the name of this island. Or do you feel guilty about something?"

If we were ghosts, this would be limbo.

"Stop it right now! Stop it!"

"Would you be satisfied if I confessed that my brother poisoned me? Yes, my brother was having an illicit relationship with your mother. Will you take revenge? Revenge…" The man's tone suddenly became dramatic.

"I told you to stop!"

"Hey, what are you doing? Hurry up and walk away," the attendant said, nudging me on the shoulder. "You were distracted too," I replied, and was nudging again, so I had no choice but to start walking.

“What is that?” says Kevin.

"I feel like I've seen that guy before," I muttered,

"You know, a long time ago, during our flight test, a man was driving right in front of us and drowned in the ocean.

The man who was discovered---"

"Ah, that was him.” I nodded. "Thank goodness. I guess he was resuscitated."

"But that's strange. Wasn't that man in Room 008?"

Tony's voice reminded me that the toes of the man's shoes were also peeling off.

In the next flight test, a thruster unit with a slightly slimmer outline was attached. "Another new model that can't even walk," Kevin complained, glancing to the left. Just when I thought he was looking at Dr. G standing there, a woman's voice came from behind the equipment next to him. "Your children are growing up nicely."

Because of the previous experience, Tony took on the first flight test. When the engine started to burn, the smoke was so low and the noise was so low that it seemed like a malfunction. However, he was surprised to see that the engine began to rise at a much faster speed than before. It quickly reached a height of 100 meters, but the doctor kept asking for another 100 meters, and another 100 meters.

"Dr. O, aren't you being too impatient?" "They're urging us from above to put it into action as soon as possible," I heard a researcher operating the equipment near me say in a hushed voice.

When Tony reached a height of 500 meters, Dr. X ordered him to climb further. However, for some reason, Tony suddenly began to descend.

As he walked beside the transport cart returning with Tony on it, Dr. X asked in rapid succession, "What's wrong, Tony Kaczynski? The flight seemed stable, but was there something wrong that we didn't know about?"

"Sorry. My body suddenly started shaking and I couldn't stop. I'll do it better next time."

I'm sure it would be difficult to endure such a high altitude. I was next, so I stood on the launch pad feeling nervous. As soon as the rocket started to eject, I was pushed up with a tremendous force. I flew, cutting through the air with my body, and in no time I was 500 meters high. Without any structural support, I was floating higher than the Empire State Building.

I could see almost the entire island surrounded by the sea. On the other side of the mountain was a long runway, a plaza lined with fighter planes, and a hangar. I felt anxious when I was brought here on a windowless propeller plane.

It comes back to life. There are shipyard-like facilities, as well as submarines and battleships moored there. The buildings scattered across the island are hard to see from directly above, blending in with the natural scenery. This is probably intentional.

I was told to continue climbing from there. On the way, I saw several pigeon-sized birds with black spots on a silver background fly away from the edge of my vision. They were disturbing the birds' habitat.

From there, I rise 500 meters, to 1,000 meters in altitude. In feet, that's about 3,280, which is about the same height as the Catskill Mountains that my mother took me to when I was a child. Because my body and senses are in homeostatic mode, I don't feel cold. The scenery of the island is densely packed, and the buildings scattered on the mountain look like nothing more than breadcrumbs. I guess I'm more tolerant of heights than I thought. Or rather, the higher I go, the less afraid I feel.

With a satisfied voice, Dr. O told me to return and slowly descended. Next, Kevin also successfully flew to 1,000 meters.

On the way back, I got in the elevator with the man from Room 004. The other man was gone, and his metallic arm had taken on a much more human outline.

Three days later, in the flight test, we aimed for even higher heights. Things were the same for me until halfway, but when I reached a height equivalent to the Grand Canyon, Dr. X warned me, "Careful, it's a stratocumulus cloud. It's 700 meters thick." As soon as I looked up, I saw a thick layer of white.

I entered the tectonic cloud. Visibility was zero and I lost our sense of spatial orientation. In the midst of a panic, I continued to adjust the direction of the nozzle, relying only on the attitude indicator of the virtual instrument. When I finally escaped from the cloud and bathed in sunlight under the vast blue canopy, the dazzling brightness gave me a refreshing feeling that I hadn't felt in a long time.

Directly below me, clouds with undulating patterns spread out, and it seemed unreal. I was already well over 2,000 meters above sea level. Since we were high enough, we decided to start training in horizontal flight. The doctor told me to be careful because it was easy to rotate horizontally because there were no wings, so I carefully leaned my body forward, but I backed away and moved both my legs as if I was struggling, and my whole body started to rotate. I moved my limbs to return to the original position, but I rotated even more incoherently, and I couldn't even understand what the situation was. I couldn't even capture it with the attitude gage, and I didn't have time to listen to the communication. It seemed to be falling diagonally while rotating violently. Driven by impatience, I stopped the thruster unit for a moment, and reignited it when my body became vertical. I finally regained stability and descended, dragging my fear with me.

The doctor rushed over to the launch pad and slapped me on the back enthusiastically.

Kevin flew to the same height, then circled the island three times in steady level flight, while Tony finally got up to a thousand meters, then gave up again and came down, muttering repeatedly that he wasn't scared of heights, he wasn't scared of heights.

In our next test flight, Kevin and I got 5,000 meters, and Tony got 1,500 meters.

It was a little chilly in normal mode, but the temperature was about 10 degrees below zero, and I felt the artificial skin on my face getting tight.

After finishing the tests for the day, as Doctor X was checking the thruster unit, I asked him a simple question.

"Even an uneducated man like me can see that there's no way it could fly that high or stay afloat for long with the amount of fuel that fits in its legs. It's only going to take up more space than it needs, since it's not drawing in any air from the outside. What on earth is this thing called the Blood of Odin that you all call it?"

"It seems you’re not completely ignorant," Dr. X said, pushing down his sunglasses. "That's just a temporary name - well, you could say it's a gift from God. It's based on a completely different principle than existing energy," he said, laughing suggestively. "Even this is just the cream of the crop. Dr. M will be the one to make it even more efficient."

That night, Tony and Kevin had a fight over a trivial disagreement about their past heroic deeds.

On our next test flight, Tony remained at 1,000 meters, but Kevin and I improved on our records by leaps and bounds. We flew through low, mid, and high clouds until we reached 8,000 meters, and then I climbed a precise 849 meters.

I couldn't help but laugh: I had reached the height of Everest without having climbed the mountain.

The temperature was nearly minus 40 degrees, but the heat from the thruster unit was circulating throughout my body, keeping my body functioning. Before I knew it, I realized that my breathing had switched to a closed system. At first, I felt short of breath and was worried, but I gradually got used to it. At this altitude, the air pressure was only about one-third that of the surface, making it difficult to breathe normally.

I once again attempted level flight. After trying various directions for my limbs, I was able to find a position that would increase my lift. Flying through the sky with a view of the sea of clouds stretching as far as the eye could see, the vast ocean peeking through the gaps, and islands floating there like sea turtles was an indescribably exhilarating experience.

Kevin, who must have had the same experience, returned to the surface and as soon as Dr. G approached him, he turned furious and tried to punch him, but was stopped by the researchers. Dr. G didn't seem surprised, and said, "I know, I know. I was monitoring you. It was painful, wasn't it?" "Just as it was," the doctor repeated to calm Kevin down as he spoke for Kevin's thoughts. "And it's still painful now. That's right. There was a delay in your lung function switching over to a closed system. We need to check your respiratory system immediately." Kevin's eyes rolled back. "Take him to the maintenance shed. Hurry!" Amazing.

Kevin was hospitalized for a few days and returned safely. He was in a good mood, so I wondered what happened, but he said that when he was coming back here, he saw Dr. G and Dr. M arguing in the hallway. Dr. M's name is Julia, I heard, he said with a grin.

For a while afterwards, the lectures were painful. Now, less than half of the students are taking the course.

The people remaining had decreased to just 100. Perhaps they had died in an accident, or been sent to the battlefield. The thought that it would not be surprising if I, too, disappeared like that at any time made me uneasy.

Room 002 was quiet. Kevin had heard the attendants whispering that one person from each project would be used as a prototype for a cyborg soldier. Tony didn't take it seriously, thinking he'd probably misheard something, but he remained quiet.

As I was falling asleep, the words of the instructor came back to me, but I brushed them off by asking myself questions like I was having an auditory hallucination. But one night, I was seized by the sensation that I was talking to someone else.

At that moment, the voice in question said, "Yes, it's me speaking. I'm Ivan. I'm the only test subject in Room 001." And it frightened me to death.

"You mean they're using in-ear communication? But it shouldn't work between subjects yet."

With that thought in my mind, Ivan replied.

"This is the voice that my thoughts cause to affect your brain, resulting in your consciousness as your inner voice." According to Ivan, shortly after he was born, his father, a Soviet neuroscientist, underwent surgery to enhance his brain function, which not only gave him an extraordinary level of intelligence, but also enabled him to communicate thoughts through telepathy. Ivan did not like this organization, and while keeping his ability to communicate thoughts a secret, he apparently continued to send thoughts into the minds of the subjects in an attempt to nullify the ideological correction carried out in Instructor R's lectures using language, environment, and an auxiliary brain.

When I asked Tony and Kevin if they had avoided the ideological correction, Tony said that he was too sympathetic to the content of the lecture.

Kevin only had partial responses and it didn't work. It seems that with other projects, only a few subjects were able to communicate like me.

"Hehe…hahahaha," I couldn't contain my laughter.

"What's the matter, Jet? Have you gone crazy?" and "Stop laughing like that. It’s not like you,” the two of them said, looking put out of their minds.

As they said, maybe I was going crazy and creating a personality in my head that didn't exist.

The next flight test would involve overhauling multiple organs and replacing the thruster unit at the same time, so I headed to the maintenance yard two hours early. There were more doctors and researchers there than usual.

The reason they put the anesthesia mask on our faces without shutting down our nervous system was to protect our secrets from ourselves.

When I woke up, I had a large scar from my epigastric cavity to my lower abdomen, and some parts were starting to close up. Beyond that, I could see my prosthetic legs, and was disappointed to see that they hadn't been replaced yet.

"Eh? So we're just going to install the rocket unit now?" "We can't do this," Kevin and Tony groaned.

The doctors looked at each other and told us to get into our flight suits and head to the launch pad.

As I walked along the paved road, I asked Dr. G, who was standing next to me, "How is it? Is it easy to walk?"

"Yes, I can move very naturally. I feel more connected than usual," I replied. Perhaps it was thanks to the overhaul. The doctors nodded in satisfaction. I thought today would be mainly spent testing the walking of the prosthetic leg, but Dr. O urged me, "Let's start with Jet." "What are you doing? Get up to the launch pad quickly."

Feeling confused, I climbed up the steps to the launch pad.

Not knowing what to do, I just stood there like a singer whose mind had gone blank on her first stage performance, when I was told that those legs were the new propulsion unit, and I cried out, "No matter what, there's no way I can fly with those ordinary legs… the fuel!”

Tony and Kevin also looked at the doctor with quizzical looks.

"I told you I would make it so that it would fit on a normal leg. Thanks to the research of Dr. M and the accumulated data from your flight tests, this has finally come true. Now, take off your shoes and use the internal controls to expose the nozzle."

Half-believing, I did as he said and raised one foot. It looked like a normal sole, with a hollow arch. While I was looking at the control panel inside my mind, trying to grasp the sensations of an organ, my heel suddenly started to hollow out, and at the same time the nozzle came out, causing me to gasp. It was much smaller than the nozzle of the previous thrust unit, but it could be moved more delicately.

One of the researchers came over carrying a pair of high-top boots. They were designed to aid in flight, and the iris shutters on the soles of the boots would open when the nozzle was exposed. After putting on the boots, Dr.

“Now, we will begin the flight test of the new thruster unit.”

I tapped my feet on the floor of the launch pad several times, exhaled slowly, and operated it from within my mind. As I held my position, feeling uneasy, I felt a burning sensation in my calves, like the feeling in your throat when you drink straight bourbon, and jets began to shoot out from the soles of my feet - and just as I thought that, my body began to rise up as if blown away, and a laugh escaped from the back of my throat. I stumbled wildly like a tightrope walker, but gradually I began to get the hang of how to balance. I rose at an unprecedented speed. I had doubts about whether I would really be able to fly the same distance on these legs as before, but as if I had turned into a ballistic missile, I was zipping through one cloud of mist after another, and before I knew it, I was high in the air.

We were a thousand meters up. And yet, "The fuel gauge on the virtual instrument isn't dropping as much as it used to…"

"That's probably true. Now that we only need reactants, our range has increased significantly."

Perhaps due to the shape of the legs, it was easier to transition to level flight and keep the body stable. Realizing a dramatic improvement in my abilities, I returned when I reached an altitude of 2,000 meters.

After the flight test, we were thankful to be released without any need for a landing gear replacement, just a few checks in the maintenance shed. Even after returning to the room, I still couldn't believe that we had flown in the sky on just these legs, which were still hot. We were more cheerful than we had been in a long time.

"With this, we might actually be able to dunk on a satellite in space."

Kevin said this and began performing a light-hearted tap dance, while Tony and I watched him intently, sipping our beers.

Now that we were able to move while remaining as rocket units, combat training also began, including flying. We put on olive drab protective suits and engaged in repeated mock battles against multiple small fighter planes at a training ground resembling a ghost town inland from the island. I don't know if the small fighter planes were self-propelled or remote-controlled. They were about the size of a child, and with their six thin legs they could easily move through any type of rubble, spasmodically aiming the muzzle of their assault rifles at their targets and firing accurately. Even though they were dummy bullets, if they hit their target they would make a hole in the artificial skin, and since pain blocking is prohibited during training, it meant that we had to endure a fair amount of pain.

We moved quickly while hiding in buildings, and attacked the small fighter planes when we found an opening. Whether we were escaping or sniping, the key was to use the rockets effectively. Tony was the one who achieved the most success in the mock battle. As if to relieve his frustration from the flight test, he quickly disabled the enemy plane, and was disappointed that he wasn't up against a human. While we were in the maintenance shed undergoing treatment to quickly close the holes in our artificial skin, he was practicing his shooting and honing his skills.

They also began to hold mock battles with subjects in other rooms.

I guess the fact that we can now reveal some details about our individual projects means that our ideological correction is complete.

Because the man in Room 008 was so stubborn, he kept low and moved swiftly, dodging our attacks with ease, so the fights often ended without a conclusion. The two giants in Room 005 approached slowly, holding huge anti-tank rifles that normal humans would have difficulty lifting on their sturdy bodies. Once Kevin was hit squarely in the belly, losing so much of his artificial skin that it could not be restored by regeneration, and he needed a skin graft. His large size made him an easy target, but his skin seemed to have a different composition from ours, so it did not cause any damage. Once when I fled into a narrow, complicated alley, he let go of his anti-tank rifle and approached me, which frightened me. He collapsed the wall of the building I was hiding in with his body, picked up a chunk of the wall the size of a car with both arms, and threw it at me. If I hadn't quickly escaped into the air, I would have been in danger. The output of his artificial muscles is on a different level than ours.

The man in Room 004 was the most skilled in fighting. His shooting was flawless, and every time a mock battle started, we were hit right away. Even Tony didn't last long. Once, I was lucky enough to fire multiple shots at his arm, knocking the assault rifle flying with the impact. When I approached him with the gun pointed at me, he raised his metallic right hand as if asking for a handshake, and suddenly fired bullets from all five fingertips. I was caught off guard, hit by a dummy bullet all over my chest, and writhed in pain. We began to call him the Grim Reaper.

"Your attack the other day was splendid. It left a nice scratch on the armor," Ivan passed this message from “Heinrich” as I lay in bed resting with my eyes closed.

As combat training increased in the schedule, lecture time decreased, and I was no longer bothered by Instructor R's voice when I was falling asleep, but the fictitious personality Ivan, which I had apparently created while resisting ideological reform, told me various things about the organization and the other subjects. There were multiple factions in the organization, such as those who believe in a higher being and those who are profit-oriented and merchants of death themselves, and it was not a monolithic organization. I could only smile wryly at my other personality, who had made up every detail, including the circumstances of how the subjects were brought here and their names. Perhaps an auxiliary brain was also involved, nurturing various memories, unconscious desires, and assumptions as seeds - the reason for the sudden increase in subjects in Room 007 was that one subject, who was actually a stage actor, was changing the cell arrangement of his artificial skin to become various characters, and as a result of his research, our skin was also able to regenerate. Apparently the women in Room 003 were information-gathering test subjects with farsightedness, clairvoyance and radar capabilities, and it was likely this association was brought to mind by suspicions of wiretapping in the room and the gaze of the assistant during the surgery. It was clear that the name of one of them, Françoise, came from my memory. After all, it was the same name as an actress in a French film I had previously seen with Tony and the others. To top it off, the person who was connecting everyone through Ivan and trying to put a certain plan into action was Dr. G, the one who had transformed us into the way we were, and I couldn't help but feel a sense of self-confidence.

I was astonished at this unconscious opportunism. The title of the book the Grim Reaper was carrying came to mind. It was exactly what I wanted.

After the day's combat training, we were exhausted and eating dinner in our room. Just as Kevin said, "I'm going to have to drink a Pabst Blue Ribbon already," the fire alarm started ringing loudly.

"Fire has broken out. 00 Project subjects are to evacuate through the emergency exit," an announcement was made, and the sound of the door unlocking was heard.

Stepping out into the corridor, the place was filled with smoke and extremely hot. The smoke exhaust system must have been working as the smoke started to flow in one direction and dissipate, and behind the three women in Room 003 and the two large men in Room 005, I saw a red pillar of fire erupting, scorching the ceiling. Within the flames were figures. One was lying on his back, the pillar of fire emerging from his abdomen. The other was kneeling beside him, engulfed in flames with his hand outstretched. Was it the Asian man I had seen before? Perhaps he had been caught in the crossfire while trying to help. Each time the pillar of fire shook, I could see figures on the other side of the corridor, distorted by the heat. They were probably from Room 007 and Room 008.

The Native American in Room 005 tries to approach, but is thrown back by the flames. The Arab in the same room pulls him by the arm, saying, "Let's go."

"Evacuate immediately through the emergency exits." The announcement was made again, and the subjects looked back at the flames.

I walk quickly. The emergency exit is on the other side of Room 001.

The Arab suddenly turned his attention to Room 004 and knocked on the door, shouting, "Hey, you too, run." Now that I think about it, I haven't seen the gray-haired man. The black-haired woman in Room 003 put her hand on the Arab's back and said, "He's out training right now. Come on, let's go."

There was no way either of them would survive the flames. Just as I was thinking this, a voice rang in my head.

"I'm sorry, but Lorenzo is no longer breathing. The high-pressure furnace went out of control. However, the other, Chang, is fine. His body is extremely fire-resistant."

A woman who seemed to be a nurse walked next to me holding a baby with a pacifier in its mouth and said, "It's okay, Ivan. Those people will put out the fire." It sent a shiver down my spine.

Looking back, I saw attendants rushing to the other side of the pillar of flame with fire extinguishers in hand and starting to spray the fire extinguisher. I turned my face back and stared at the baby.

"Surely the voice in my head is really…

"I told you, I'm in the next room.” Perhaps it's just my imagination, but the voice now sounds like a child's. My eyes meet with the woman from Room 003 who was nearby. Those eyes that seem to see through everything---

"What do you mean evacuate? The emergency door is still locked." Kevin, who was the first to reach the emergency exit, grabbed the metal lever and applied force. The lever twisted and turned, but the door did not open an inch. "Damn it."

"I'll do it," a huge Arab man said from behind him, and he swung his arms down, making a bronze-like bang as the iron door was dented.

"Fire extinguished. Evacuation order lifted. Return to your rooms!" one of the attendants ordered in a loud voice. The other attendant was communicating over the walkie-talkie, "Yes. These are Project 006's ghosts, Beta and Gamma. We're taking them to the medical room."

"What a fuss," Tony said, noticing the baby. "You're kidding, there's really a baby? Maybe it's Dr. M and Dr. G's child."

The nurse glared at Tony, but when Ivan started crying she started to walk away, comforting him. The others were starting to go back to their rooms.

There was still food left on the plate on the table, but it looked burnt and I didn't feel like eating it. I lay in bed, smelling the burnt food in my nostrils, and thought about what Ivan had said.

"You won't have to bother with me for a while," Ivan suddenly said. "Due to the side effects of the brain surgery, I can only wake up every fifteen days. Don't worry, our plan will continue in the meantime. First, we need to apply for use under the pretext of flight tests to secure the test aircraft. We're sure we'll be contacted by our allies in some way."

It was strange to think that I was floating at the height that passenger planes fly.

It's easy to fly. I'm circling at an altitude of 10,000 meters, pressurized, with my breathing system switched to a closed system. Directly below me is a sea of clouds with a dense cauliflower-like texture, and here and there, enormous cumulonimbus clouds protrude like strange structures. It's like looking at the palace of the gods.

In the next flight test, there are plans to attempt to soar into the stratosphere.

After receiving the order to return, the rocket stops thrusting and begins its free fall. A hazy ocean comes into view through the clouds. Looking down from this height, there is no land to be seen. A glimpse of curling hair flickers at the edge of his vision. As the isolated island, which was nothing more than a dot, begins to grow in size, the rocket returns to a vertical position and begins thrusting again. Although it sways from side to side, it regains stability and adjusts its direction, slowly landing as if it is being sucked into the rectangular launch pad that is rapidly approaching.

I was even more moved when I saw Kevin take off in his place. Like a magic beanstalk, the smoke rose vertically and increased in speed, before disappearing from sight. Even if I thought I had caught it for a moment by expanding my vision, a slight deviation would cause it to slip out of my field of vision.

Hearing a commotion behind him, he turned to look at the control room. Dr. O and Dr. G were losing their composure, and just as I wondered what was wrong, they began to raise their voices.

"Hey, Mr. Warner! Don't answer me! Kevin Warner!"

“He continues to deviate to the north-northwest."

" This is a remote island in the middle of the ocean.You should know that too. If you stay like this, you won't be able to come back. Eventually, you'll reach the sea--"

People were exchanging opinions such as, "The nearest island is probably Island X -- there's not enough reactant left to get there…"

"Hey, could it be Kevin…" Tony said in a high-pitched voice, and I looked back at his clouded face in shock. Kevin was always feeling nostalgic for his hometown. Was it an impulsive act? Or had he waited until his thruster unit was indistinguishable from his legs before taking action? Perhaps he was heading for a ship like the one he'd seen before. Just as I was thinking of keeping quiet about that,

"Investigate the ships sailing along the coast,"

"A Liberian-flagged container ship is sailing 30 kilometers ahead."

"There's no other way. Forcefully transfer control of your body to the auxiliary brain, activate Z-consciousness, and automatically return to your original position in the shortest possible distance. There should still be enough reactive material."

“Did you hear?" Tony whispered. "Oh, I didn't know there was such a mechanism in the auxiliary brain," I replied. This would mean that Ivan and the others' plan would not work.

All we could do was wait with bated breath. It felt like a long time had passed.

"That's strange. It's going off course. It's not slowing down. It's not processing the orders properly.”

"The Z-sense may be causing a conflict. Please continue to correct the course."

I cast my eyes into the distance, searching for Kevin's shadow.

"We've seen it," a voice says, and a little later we see Kevin's small shadow flying horizontally. He's heading toward the mountain. Dr. G and some of the researchers run toward the underground passage.

"Do something, we can't lose this valuable test machine."

"No. I can't correct the direction."

Kevin shot smoke and charged towards the mountain with the force of a cannonball, and then an explosion erupted from the side of a building on the ridge, and a crash rang out.

Kevin died that same day. His brain shell was intact, but his brain was severely damaged. His body would become a valuable specimen for the project.

"Unlike you, he seemed to fit in well with this organization. I imagined that one day we would travel around the battlefields of various countries and enjoy reunions from time to time," Tony said, drinking his Heineken. "Don't wake him up."

So without replying, I put the empty bottle down and took another one out of the fridge.

Even though I realized that Ivan wasn't my other self, once I stopped hearing that voice, it felt like half of my brain had gone to sleep and I couldn't think clearly.

Kevin's death did not change the scheduled date for the next test flight.

Taking off from the launch pad, I flew at an unprecedented speed, trying to shake off the vortex of grief that was threatening to engulf me. At an altitude of about 4,000 meters, a cone of steam like a dance skirt spread around my body.

As I passed through layers of clouds, I suddenly realized that I was over 10,000 meters above sea level. 10,500 meters - 11,000 meters - I wonder if it's okay to call it the stratosphere from this point onwards. The temperature was minus 50 degrees. I felt my skin twitching from the sudden change in temperature. Even though my senses were much duller in normal mode, the harshness of the extreme cold was transmitted to me as pain.

You can see the unobstructed expanse of the deep blue universe and the mysterious curved surface of the earth, bathed in light. There are no people, trees, cities, or any living things, and the smooth sea of clouds and surface of the earth are like primordial foam.

As we continue to climb, I'm a little surprised at the temperature displayed on the virtual gauge. I thought the temperature would get lower as we gained altitude, but it seems to be returning to normal.

Suddenly, the doctors' voices of joy burst into my ears along with a static sound. It was hard to hear, but it seemed they were saying that we had passed the stratopause. We had finally passed an altitude of 50,000 meters and entered the mesosphere. The only sound coming from the earphones was intermittent static. The light detection display showed that before I knew it, the amount of harmful solar radiation had increased. My whole body was exposed to piercing light. It was an environment where no flesh could survive, and a space suit would have been necessary.

How much time had passed?

As I was enveloped in a meditative solitude, as if I was witnessing the moment of creation, I heard the deeply moved voice of Dr. X. It seemed that communication was being restored.

"You bring back memories of the rocket projects we were involved in. And you are a human being with a will. You yourself, a human being, have achieved this. It won't be long before you reach the Kármán line."

Frustrated at having my alone time interrupted, I mutter sarcastically, unable to keep my mouth shut, "Cyborgs can't really be called human."

"Such thinking will soon become outdated. In the future, artificial limbs, organs, and muscles will become as indispensable as glasses," Sato tried to advise him. "You probably don't understand that yet. You may be the ones to take over the human race.

I shut off the launch unit and begin free-falling in a prone position. I feel as if I am simply floating in the air, caught in a strong wind, without any speed. However, my altitude continues to drop at an incredible rate. Every now and then, a mass of air crashes into me, almost chipping away at my body. Soon the world begins to revert.

It regains countless details and loses its mysterious quality.

As we approached 10,000 meters, my ears suddenly started to ring. Several voices were heard.

There is some noise, but I can't hear it clearly.

I screamed as I fell at two hundred kilometers per hour.

"What on earth is going on?!"

"At normal power output, there is a possibility of an explosion. If we reduce power and slow down, we will be able to withstand it, but for safety, we will use the parachute built into your back. We have an airbag vehicle ready just in case. Once we reach an altitude of 1,000 meters--

"Please calm down and listen. We've found an abnormality in the piping system of your left leg," Dr. O began.

"Understood"

I continue falling as if embracing the wind. Even at an altitude of 10,000 meters, if I keep falling I'll reach the ground in just three minutes. It's an unbelievable short time.

The string first pulls the paper on the abdomen of the flight suit, peeling off part of the suit from the back. You can see that the back is exposed. Then, when I try to deploy the parachute inside my body, a loud explosion is heard and a shock runs through my whole body, and my vision turns red. I’m engulfed in swirling flames - just as I realize this, I lose consciousness.

Thinking I heard a voice, I opened my eyes, smiled at the hazy world, and passed out again.

"Link, wake up, Jet Link!"

A voice called out to me. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. I smelled something burnt. I quickly looked around my body. The flames had disappeared, and my left leg, which was missing up to the knee, revealed its soot-covered internal structure. Smoke was pouring up towards my waist.

"Open the parachute! The parachute!"

Looking at the altimeter, I saw that we were below 800 meters.

"What do you mean it can last for that long?" I shouted, internally activating the parachute release mechanism and preparing for the recoil - but nothing happened. "The parachute won't release!" I tried to release it again and again. "It's no good!"

"The shock of the explosion may have caused a malfunction. The only way to kill the momentum is to use one foot to inject air. Aim for the airbag car on the beach."

"But the wind is picking up. What if we can't control it? Wouldn't it be safer to head out to sea?"

"In the sea, it's the same as crashing into the ground. Suddenly, the voice changes from Dr. O. It's Instructor R.

When you get off the bag car, go to the sand or forest as much as possible. Hold your legs and---"

With determination, I began to thrust with just my remaining right foot. My body shook a little but stabilized. It felt good. It felt like I was riding a wave and going down. Carefully maintaining my balance, I slowed down. It was as if I was grappling with the gigantic Earth - the moment I felt that, I was thrown over my shoulders and launched into a spiral spin. It was an incredible spin. I could hear some kind of voice in the back of my ears, but it was all scattered into meaningless sounds. My feet shook as well.

No matter how hard I moved, I couldn't turn it around and I lost consciousness again.

--- I open my eyes. Countless transparent balls scatter upwards. I'm underwater. In the distance, the bright surface of the ocean is swaying. They move away from me in an instant.

Breathing had switched back to a closed system.

Even after crashing into the ocean, this structure allowed me to survive with just a missing left leg. No, that doesn't seem to be the case exactly. I can’t move at all.

A depth gauge appears at the edge of my vision. Thirty meters deep -- I sink helplessly -- I increase the brightness of my vision -- fifty meters, sixty meters -- a colorful fish I've never seen before passes before my eyes. I don't know if it's real or an illusion -- seventy meters, eighty meters -- it's already too deep for even divers to dive.

The fading oxygen supply won't last long. I feel dizzy, and the blood drains from my head… Just as I feel a strange emotion at how even a body so artificial can drain my blood, I lose consciousness.

Where am I? Is this death? No, I can still see the sign.

Depth: 620 metres.

Something flickered at the edge of my vision. A shadow that looked like a living thing. It was wriggling and approaching me.

Could it be a dolphin or something? Can it really dive that deep? No, it looks like a human figure.

But it couldn't be a person. I was running out of oxygen and was having an illusion.

He approaches, swinging both legs in a graceful arc. I realize he is the agile man from Room 008, whom I have fought in mock battles a few times. Come to think of it, Ivan had told me he was a test subject specialized in underwater activities. I wonder how he knew I was here.

The man approached me, swinging his legs widely, picked up my body, which was as stiff as a plaster statue, and began swimming upwards.

When I woke up in the intensive care unit, my eyes were covered and I couldn't see anything. I tried to move my body, but I had no feeling below my neck. I groaned in fear, and then I heard Doctor G's voice say, “You’re awake?” He said that the impact of the crash into the ocean and water seeping in from damaged parts had caused malfunctions in various parts of my body, so he had deprived me of my senses and was in the process of overhauling my entire body. Realizing that I still barely knew how my own body worked, I asked him to remove the covers from my eyes. After a moment of hesitation, the doctor did so. I hesitated, but…

I gasped. All I had was my head and chest, connected to multiple life support systems.

The rest of my lower body was lying on the bed. The woman from Room 003 was standing next to the doctor, using her special vision to look inside my body and point out the damaged areas one by one.

I was strangely awake as I watched various prosthetic devices being fitted and cables being connected, and then I was put to sleep with anesthesia because they were going to start a procedure on my nervous system. When I woke up, apart from the visible seams of the skin, my body was back to normal. I was basking in relief when Dr. G said,

"You've heard from Ivan. We've been planning our escape from this island for months."

I couldn't help but look around the room.

"Don't worry. All communications in this room have been cut off to prevent them affecting the equipment."

"Even if we tried to escape, the auxiliary brain had something called Z consciousness, and it was forcibly controlling our bodies.”

"I took this surgery as an opportunity to remove the Z-consciousness from your auxiliary brain. I have done this on others whenever I have had the chance," the doctor stroked his white beard. "A new subject recently underwent surgery to become an integrated cyborg that combines the advantages of all 00 Projects. This will be the benchmark for future combat cyborgs."

"You're taking the best of both worlds," I muttered, remembering the words of the test subjects carved into the wall.

"That's why we can't just leave you here. And that includes you guys, of course. Also, this plan wouldn't work without the test subjects' abilities. Ivan will wake up in a few days and start speaking to all of you. Be prepared."

The days of flight testing I had spent with the doctors had become invaluable.

I still didn't fully trust Dr. G and the other subjects.

Even after I was restored to normal, I remained hospitalized in the intensive care unit to adjust the neural transmissions throughout my body. As I lay in bed staring at the impersonal ceiling, I imagined the many things this organization could potentially do to people all over the world.

I was surprised when Tony suddenly came into the room. He stood next to me, looked around my body with amusement at the number of cords connected to it, and said, "At that time, I thought you were completely dead."

"Yeah, me too---I'm glad I was able to come to this room."

A few days ago, the cyborgs were given permission to freely roam the second level of the facility, and the restrictions on ear communication were lifted.

"Now, each project has only one person, and they are all called by their 00 number."

"Just one? You're still here."

"I've come here because today is my last day on this island."

"Finally? To some country… will you be sent?"

"Yeah. As a special agent, it's not a bad idea to continue the proxy war in a flashy way. Well, on a battlefield somewhere."

Tony said and left.

The figure moved as if it could see every bullet's movement. It dodged attacks with incredible speed and instantly returned fire. Sometimes it was impossible to follow the figure, and the next time I saw it, it was in an unexpected place.

We lay side by side on the cliff in our olive drab protective suits and watched in amazement as a mock battle between the Project 009 test subject and miniature fighter planes.

All the small battle machines stopped moving. The doctors walked among the smoke rising from the small battle machines, clapping their hands.

"The test is over. You're perfect." "Congratulations 009." "You're amazing." "Absolutely brilliant."

The subject, called 009, seems wary of the doctors.

"---And over there are your companions. Let me introduce them---"

When one of the doctors raised his hand towards the 00 numbers,

"Would you keep your hands up?” 007 rang out in the same voice he once uttered on stage. With that as a signal, we all aimed our assault rifles at them. 004 pointed his guns at them, while 003, who was next to him, was holding 001 to his chest and relaying various information he had detected, such as the location of personnel and weapons in the surrounding area.

"Hey, stop joking," said one of the doctors I didn't know,

"Hehehe… I wouldn't do something like that as a joke," says 007 as he fires a bullet precisely at the man's feet.

"Link, we have accomplished miracles together that are beyond human understanding!" I hear the voice of Professor O.

"Are you out of your mind?" and "There's no way I can escape from this organization," the doctors screamed, so we fired warning shots at them.

"Wait. We should take a hostage," 003 suggested, and I clarified my position by saying, "I think 003 is right. Anyone will do," and then mentioned Dr. G's name.

When Dr. G started to walk away with a stiff face, 003 called out to 009, "Come over here." The other doctors hurriedly tried to stop 009, encouraging him to fight with us. We told the confused 009, "Trust us," and "You're one of us," without any lies. It was as if the conflict swirling inside his motionless body was visible.

Suddenly, 009 looked up in surprise, and 001 waved his hands in response and began to babble. 009's face became more determined, and he stepped forward.

The “joint exercise” scheduled to take place after this will likely be a real battle.

END

#cyborg 009 #official #60th anniversary tribute anthology #english translation (sort of)#eight rooms #torishima denpou #always interesting to see takes on the black ghost experiments #cool to see how everyone else got cameos in the story too #this is mostly a jet one tho

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