Chapter 47: You Have Been Chosen (Anyway)…
Translator: ShutDoor
Every country in the world was engulfed in the inferno kindled by its own infected people.
Among them, the collapse of France, one of Europe’s leading multiracial and multicultural nations, served as a warning to world leaders of what their own futures might hold.
The Élysée Palace might be burning now, but who could say the Kremlin or the White House would not be next?
The United States, larger than France and entangled in far more complex interests, took the crisis even more seriously. Life for Americans had already been growing harder, and the rise of hard-line federalists had only made it harsher.
“The State of Texas is implementing stringent infection-control measures for every resident! Any infected person who deliberately conceals their infection or harms another person will be shot on sight without exception under the principle of self-defense!”
“The governor of Texas has finally lost his mind! Our state will never stand by while those thugs descend into the madness of executing innocent citizens, and we demand immediate military intervention by the federal government!”
Naturally, such bloody clashes and political conflicts erupted simultaneously across all fifty states.
The United States was already so dependent on a small pool of specialists and elite bureaucrats that people said the top one percent ran the country.
When roughly half of that essential workforce became infected with the NIV virus and could no longer function, the administrative capacity of both the federal and state governments hit its limits almost instantly.
The one saving grace was that the experts who survived were also, quite literally, capable enough to run a country. Even in the desperate situation of losing nearly half their essential personnel, they scraped together whatever people and resources remained in an effort to preserve infrastructure and the administrative system.
“Deploy federal troops to Texas and quarantine every last infected person before the anti-infected protests get any worse!”
“But the infected have human rights too…!”
“Those fucking bastards killed hundreds of thousands in the West alone overnight! What goddamn human rights? They should be grateful we’re quarantining them instead of killing them! If they resist, just shoot them!”
“!!!”
The federal government joined forces with the more cooperative state governments and adopted the hard-line policy of setting up massive quarantine zones and barricades in sparsely populated regions, then herding the infected into them.
Some citizens who still had not come to their senses protested, but the administration’s leaders had nowhere left to retreat.
At this rate, the United States of America really would meet its end on their watch.
“California, Illinois, Nebraska, and Arkansas have refused to mobilize the National Guard!”
“They’re scattered all over the damn place. We should’ve shot every last one of them the moment we found out they were infected!”
In the process, the chronic weakness of a federal system began manifesting in the worst possible form.
Even if the federal government established a nationwide infection-control policy, it had no ready means of enforcing it when individual states refused to comply. In particular, when the federal and state governments clashed head-on over command authority and mobilization of the National Guard, the epidemic rapidly escalated into disastrous political warfare.
The imminent threat of the United States shattering into fifty pieces was more than enough to make the federal government’s leaders feel as though their heads would burst.
“Mr. Secretary, an emergency report just came in from U.S. Space Command. They detected an unidentified satellite passing over the continental United States…”
“Does that shit matter right now?! Can’t you see the country is about to split in two?! An unidentified satellite has to belong to those damn Chinese or Russians—”
“The thing is… they failed to track it.”
“…What?”
Only one thought flashed through the secretary’s mind.
What country could possibly operate a satellite while evading the United States’ surveillance network?
Over the course of two world wars and the Cold War, the United States had poured tremendous national resources into securing military-technological superiority. It had spent astronomical sums developing its surveillance systems, as though determined never to surrender the initiative in space to anyone.
As a result, the United States possessed the world’s foremost space-surveillance capabilities, able to detect and track the countless artificial objects orbiting Earth.
But recognizing that an object was “there” and determining its “identity” were problems on entirely different levels.
“…”
The secretary hurriedly took the report with trembling hands.
It stated that unidentified satellites had repeatedly gazed down at the United States of America from high above in space, vanishing without a trace whenever the United States attempted to track them.
What his aide said next was even more absurd.
“However, the shape and characteristics of the satellite we identified for a split second… match the KH-13 currently in our service.”
The secretary’s hand abruptly froze.
Unlike its predecessor, the KH-12, the KH-13 was a top-secret strategic asset whose very existence was unknown to the public. Even the designation “KH-13” was merely an unofficial name coined by civilians who had guessed that such a satellite probably existed.
“…Were that many people at Space Command infected? So many that you can’t even properly cross-check the orbits of our satellites?”
“We are tracking the locations of every strategic asset in our service in real time, without exception.”
He could not make any sense of that bullshit.
If it was a top-secret satellite possessed only by the United States of America, and all their satellites were accounted for…
Then who in the world had launched those?
“…We don’t know.”
The instant he heard that, the secretary froze completely.
But he was one of the few “normal people” left in the country, so he forced down the confusion rising to his throat and somehow arrived at an answer.
“…na.”
“Sir?”
“China, or Russia. Nothing else explains it. Those bastards were waiting for this from the very beginning. They bought our reconnaissance satellites through that damned software, then waited for the world to go to shit so they could strike the continental United States!”
China was a country with a population of over one billion. If someone had secured a budget worth tens of trillions of won through “Shelter Builder”, probability suggested they were most likely located in China or India, the world’s most populous countries.
There was virtually no chance that an ordinary individual with no connection to a government had orchestrated something like this.
A federal investigation into the true nature of “Shelter Builder” had established that “purchasing” equipment and actually “operating” it were entirely different matters.
Even if someone had money to burn and bought a satellite, operating a cutting-edge reconnaissance satellite and exploiting its full capabilities was impossible without national-scale infrastructure.
Aside from the United States, only two countries in the world possessed technology on that level.
Russia and China.
Besides, if an ordinary person obtained tens of trillions of won, they would build a shelter with it. Why would they purchase a reconnaissance satellite they could not even use properly?
There was absolutely no chance of that.
*****
I studied the map showing the regional distribution of SurvivalNet’s members.
As expected, its membership was concentrated in the Seoul Capital Area and other major cities. Surprisingly, however, a considerable number of SurvivalNet members were located on Jeju Island.
Government officials, perhaps? That was certainly possible.
To take full advantage of the current chaos, I drastically expanded the external deployment teams, including Deputy Manager Lee Jun-su’s existing team, from four teams to ten. I had decided this was our opportunity while the government’s attention was focused on Jeju Island rather than the mainland.
The required personnel were reassigned from the hydroponic growing facility and other auxiliary facilities that did not need to be operational immediately. Those facilities did not require much staff for the time being, so taking a few people from them should not cause any major problems.
Of course, residents who had personally experienced how dangerous the infected were would hardly welcome our external teams, but the Lee Jun-su I knew would find a way somehow.
Hadn’t he managed to sweet-talk several of those esteemed researchers into coming with him?
Unlike with the researchers, however, from now on I intended to give first priority to people without families unless a candidate possessed truly top-tier abilities by national standards.
You might say I valued an orphaned student at a university in Seoul more highly than a graduate of a prestigious university whose parents and siblings were all alive and well.
The researchers’ parents had been indispensable to 「Research」, and rescuing them had also proved worthwhile, sending the researchers’ morale soaring and substantially accelerating their work.
But things would be different from now on.
The people we recruited in the future had to be personnel optimized for operating the shelter in the most literal sense. Someone who could come alone with nothing but the clothes on their back was inevitably far more efficient than someone whose entire family had to be brought along.
And my cold-blooded, ruthlessly “rational” android staff advisers immediately used that argument to formulate the optimal plan.
General Kang delivered the briefing.
“If the plan proceeds as scheduled, we will be able to transport up to fifty people per day instead of the current three.”
That increased our transport rate by more than tenfold.
“Anything else unusual?”
“There appears to have been an armed clash at the U.S. Forces Korea base in Pyeongtaek. We received a report that infected people in South Korea attempted to enter the base and were shot dead by U.S. troops.”
Oh, right. U.S. Forces Korea.
So many major incidents had erupted in succession that I had completely forgotten about them.
Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek had an airfield, but it was primarily an Army base. Naturally, it did not operate its own ships, which meant it could not procure its own military supplies.
In other words, it could only survive by having supplies shipped from the continental United States and unloaded at ports such as the Port of Pyeongtaek.
But did the continental United States, which was in an even bigger mess than our country, really have the capacity to keep supplying the distant Korean Peninsula?
“Considering that the continental United States is on the brink of civil war, you may regard it as effectively impossible.”
“How much does Camp Humphreys have stockpiled?”
“Based on current consumption and supply conditions, we estimate that they can hold out for approximately six to nine months. However, since U.S. Forces Korea has also assumed responsibility for protecting Americans within South Korea, their consumption will likely rise quickly.”
Anyone who opened a history book could easily learn what became of an army cut off from its supplies.
In other words, it was obvious that all hell would break loose around Pyeongtaek within a few months.
Things were already complicated enough with the massive chaos caused by the infected and the Republic of Korea Armed Forces no longer hesitating to respond forcefully after going through hell once. Adding the U.S. military to that would obviously make the situation even more of a disaster.
So before that happened, we needed to move quickly and bring in both the candidates we had already identified and the new ones found through SurvivalNet.
The requirements for admission into our shelter were probably more lenient now than they would ever be again.
That did not mean we had chosen just anyone without proper consideration, of course.
Based on the phone numbers and other attached materials, we conducted a painstakingly meticulous and cautious verification process, checking each person’s identity, social media, family relationships, and everything else to ensure they had not lied.
Anyway, enough thinking about the settlers for now.
“Once they arrive, I want everyone quarantined for a full month regardless of whether they’re infected. I’d also like them to receive some education during that time.”
“…What kind of education do you mean?”
The scientists were bound to us by mutual interests of a sort. We protected their children and even treated their parents, so why would they rebel against us?
But the ordinary settlers arriving from now on would be different.
Their interests were not bound to ours as tightly as the scientists’ were. You might say there was a lack of “trust”.
So, much like the way military boot camp conditioned recruits in advance, I believed we needed to drill the shelter’s rules and discipline into the new settlers.
I calmly laid out those concerns and the direction I wanted to take.
Ann, who had been listening quietly, spoke.
“May we begin that instruction immediately?”
…How?
We hadn’t brought in a single person yet.
*****
The K-311. A medium tactical truck used by the Republic of Korea Armed Forces to transport personnel and commonly known as a “five-quarter-ton” or a “Dodge”.
It was the sort of vehicle practically anyone who had completed military service in South Korea would have seen at least once.
Education specialist Kim Gyu-hyeok sat in the cargo bed of the rumbling Dodge truck, repeatedly swallowing hard. Quite a few other “civilians” sat huddled together in the back with him, all wearing gas masks and visibly tense.
“Major Lee, they’ve reported that an obstacle is blocking the road ahead.”
“Is that so?”
Whatever else might be uncertain, the people speaking over there definitely appeared to be South Korean soldiers. Highly trained special forces, at that.
If they had been infected, they would have removed the civilians’ masks, not carefully looked after them and even provided them with gas masks.
Moreover, the weapons in their hands were real rifles loaded with live ammunition. South Korea might be collapsing, but he doubted an entire military base had already been looted.
And then there was “that thing” he had seen when they first rescued him…
‘Ugh…!’
Kim Gyu-hyeok shuddered and quickly shook his head.
Although he had never served in the military, he had at least enough common sense to read the room. No matter how curious someone was, there were certain things in this world they simply should not ask about.
If he so much as asked what that thing was or where it had gone… he would be pounded into meat paste.
The mere thought sent a chill down his spine.
“Everyone hear that? Find a detour. The lead vehicle will hold its current position, and the vehicles behind it will maintain their spacing.”
The convoy had temporarily stopped because of the obstacle.
After swallowing hard, Kim Gyu-hyeok cautiously addressed the soldier who looked most likely to answer him.
“Excuse me, may I ask you something?”
“…”
The silence was permission enough.
“Um, where are you taking us?”
The other civilians sitting in the back of the Dodge also listened closely to Kim Gyu-hyeok’s question.
They probably did not intend to go to all this trouble just to use them as test subjects. If that were the plan, there would have been no reason for special forces soldiers to escort them personally.
They would not have brought them along so humanely in the first place. They would have struck them unconscious with rifle stocks or handcuffed them and dragged them away.
But there were also far too many suspicious details for this to be an operation to rescue important personnel. Honestly, how important could Kim Gyu-hyeok possibly be?
He had simply grown up in an orphanage and started teaching children younger than himself earlier than most people did, then studied so he could teach them better, received scholarship support, and earned a master’s and a doctorate…
At that moment, the man called Major Lee Jun-su answered his phone.
“Ah, yes. Chief Secretary.”
…Chief Secretary?
Was there more than one person in this country whom people simply addressed as Chief Secretary?
Of course, strictly speaking, the prime minister, the speaker of the National Assembly, the chief justice, and each government minister also had a chief of staff.
But no matter how he considered it, there could not be two chiefs important enough to receive operational reports directly from special forces…
Kim Gyu-hyeok looked at the soldier sitting across from him, wondering if it could really be true. As though he had read Kim’s thoughts, the soldier gave a brief nod.
Seriously?
I’m going to a government shelter? Me?
Nod.
Why in the world?
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