Translator: Dreamscribe
"What's the situation? Have the reports co in? What the hell is going on?"
"According to the report that just ca in, the majority of our headquarters staff are safe."
"And the headquarters itself?"
"Unfortunately, our headquarters happened to be located right where the earthquake hit hardest. It collapsed completely."
At those words, Anthony Watson stroked his chin.
"So that ans..."
"Everyone who was inside is dead."
"How can you be sure of that?"
"We had explosives planted in advance where the Sentinel docunts were stored, as a precaution for ergencies. The staff who were outside saw the earthquake hit and detonated them remotely. To make absolutely sure everyone inside was eliminated and every last docunt was destroyed."
They had taken that asure in case anyone miraculously survived and ca back out with even a single docunt in hand.
"It was a brilliant call by the General Director to have the staff standing by ahead of ti. Thanks to that, all the evidence there has been wiped out."
A brilliant call, he said.
Was it really?
Even without that order, the people who went inside and the evidence would never have made it out.
It was a massive earthquake registering 7.8.
On top of that, a 7.7 quake struck imdiately after, tearing Turkey apart.
With two earthquakes of that magnitude hitting back to back, how could anyone inside the headquarters, let alone in the underground facility where the docunts were stored, possibly have survived?
They claid the planted explosives had been detonated to perfectly destroy the evidence, but that was just putting a cherry on top.
The one who actually eliminated them was Kwangwoon.
"General Director. There's one more thing to report."
"What is it?"
"You know those employees who volunteered to personally escort the agents who ca from the U.S.?"
"What about them?"
"We'd already found it suspicious that the U.S. suddenly targeted Turkey out of nowhere, and the way they acted as if they knew everything about us was strange."
Anthony had thought the sa thing, in fact.
If they were hitting the headquarters with that much confidence, it ant they had sothing solid to go on.
"There were spies inside our organization?"
"Yes. It seems the staff conducted a separate investigation on their own. And they found evidence that the five employees who volunteered to guide the U.S. agents and stayed behind at headquarters were actually communicating with the Aricans."
"!?"
Anthony Watson hadn't bothered with the work of screening for spies.
Because every employee at headquarters had been handpicked by Kwangwoon.
But even among them, there had been spies.
So had Kwangwoon simply missed them?
"Or did they know and just leave them in place?"
"I'd guess the latter. This whole incident wiped out the insiders and every Arican agent they brought in, all in one sweep."
But for that to be possible, one precondition had to be t.
"Can modern technology predict earthquakes? I an, pinpoint exactly when one will occur?"
"No... I've heard that no matter how advanced our technology gets, predicting earthquakes is virtually impossible."
"Then what about artificially triggering one?"
"Minor earthquakes are possible. But triggering a major quake registering 7.8 is impossible."
Artificially manipulating the weather was possible.
Earthquakes, too, to so extent.
Nuclear tests could trigger earthquakes, and geothermal power plants had been known to occasionally cause them by drilling into the ground and injecting fluid to extract heat.
Hadn't the 5.7 earthquake in Pohang, South Korea years ago been concluded to be an induced quake caused by a nearby geothermal plant?
But triggering a 7.8 earthquake, over 11,000 tis more powerful, was beyond modern technology. Even detonating hundreds of nuclear bombs couldn't artificially produce a quake of that magnitude.
"But the idea that Kwangwoon deliberately opened up the company and herded the insiders and U.S. agents inside to be crushed to death..."
"ans they knew. That an earthquake would strike at that exact mont."
It had been suspicious from the start.
Even knowing that the mont the materials at headquarters were compromised Kwangwoon could be finished, they hadn't tried to stop the Aricans from storming in.
This was what it had all been for.
Then how far back had Kwangwoon been planning this?
Deliberately establishing their headquarters in Turkey, hiring those employees knowing full well they would beco insiders, leaving the forces in the U.S. who were fighting back completely alone.
All of it had been for this single strike.
Even before founding the company called Sentinel, Kwangwoon had already laid out their plan perfectly.
"But the CIA already concluded that there's no existing technology capable of intentionally triggering an earthquake or predicting the exact date of one."
A weapon that could artificially trigger a massive earthquake.
There had been plenty of conspiracy theories about that.
But after nurous investigations, the only conclusion that ever ca back was that such a weapon could not exist.
"Then does that an Kwangwoon possesses this impossible weapon?"
"I don't know. We've covertly investigated every place connected to Kwangwoon."
"Yes. And the only conclusion we reached was a chillingly complete lack of any connections. There were no organizations they were secretly running, either."
"Right. Put another way, that doesn't an there truly aren't any. It ans they're operating so secretly that even people of our caliber can't find them."
After Sentinel was established, they had conducted separate investigations, wondering whether Kwangwoon might be running other organizations like this one.
But not a single such entity had been found.
That was what sent a chill down Watson's spine.
Organizations that even their most seasoned agents couldn't uncover were out there sowhere, operating under Kwangwoon's orders, and had orchestrated sothing of this magnitude.
"General Director. Honestly... I'm terrified right now. How far ahead Kwangwoon plans, how much they actually know, how dense and secretive the network of organizations they've planted really is. We can't figure out any of it."
Anthony wasn't showing it outwardly, but inside, his heart was racing and his stomach was churning so badly he wanted to throw up.
He had always believed that anything in the world could be uncovered with enough investigation, yet even while working under Kwangwoon, he hadn't managed to figure out even half of what the company truly was.
Kwangwoon, on the other hand, saw through everything.
This Sentinel, the people who worked here, and Anthony Watson himself, who had been gradually letting his guard down around Kwangwoon.
* * *
"......"
I hadn't been able to drink so much as a glass of water since morning, stunned by the shocking news.
A massive earthquake in Turkey, of all places!
And on the very day the Aricans had co to search our headquarters, this horrific...!
"The damage in Turkey is severe. The death toll alone is said to have reached 100,000, and entire cities have sunk."
"What about our headquarters?"
"The sa. The surrounding facilities all collapsed as well, and explosions occurred during the process, making the damage even worse."
"Then the people who were deployed there..."
"Yes. Unfortunately, all of them are believed to be dead."
"Ah..."
It weighed heavily on .
I had asked them to handle things as quickly as possible, and from what I understood, the Arican side had welcod the idea and quickly set a schedule.
But who could have imagined an earthquake would strike at that exact mont?
It was a truly horrific incident, with even the employees who had stayed behind at the company to provide support getting buried along with everyone else.
"Please send condolence paynts on behalf of the company to the families of the employees who died in this earthquake. And make sure the funerals are properly taken care of."
"Yes..."
"And please send compensation to the Arican personnel who were dispatched and caught in it as well."
"I'm not sure we need to go that far..."
"It may have been a natural disaster, but it happened at our company. Think about how devastated their families must be. Do everything we can for them."
"Understood, sir."
Money couldn't wash away all that grief, but I hoped it would help in so way.
"Oh, and even though things turned out this way, please let the U.S. governnt know that we'll continue to cooperate fully with the investigation, and to reach out if there's any additional scheduling."
"Yes, sir. I'll make sure to relay that clearly."
Despite how far our era had advanced, despite entering the age of AI, we humans remained powerless before nature.
What a tragic thing it was.
"Contact the foundation and have them arrange a donation to Turkey and dispatch staff as well. Oh, and could you pull together a list of any organizations conducting earthquake-related research? I'm thinking of investing for public benefit rather than profit."
"Yes, sir. I'll look into it right away."
I was desperately hoping that science would advance quickly enough to bring about an era when we could overco natural disasters.
Until then, all I could do was scatter this overflowing wealth of mine and contribute whatever little I could to the advancent of science.
* * *
"How's Eileen doing?"
"...From what I've heard, she fainted when she heard about the earthquake in Turkey."
"Good grief. So she's in the hospital?"
"Yes. The problem is, after this whole thing blew up, everyone who had been collaborating with Bureau Director Eileen has fled. So have gone completely off the grid and vanished."
"What? Don't tell Kwangwoon kidnapped them?"
"That doesn't seem to be the case. We've confird that so of them imdiately boarded planes and left the country, while others appear to have gone into deep hiding."
Aiden didn't want to bla them.
They had simply done what they believed was right.
Their fatal mistake was underestimating the company called Kwangwoon.
A place that even the President of the United States couldn't touch, yet they had believed they could do sothing about it. That belief itself had been the error.
"Should I have stopped her that day?"
But at the ti, Aiden had held out a little hope himself.
That was how good Eileen's plan had been.
And with insiders there willing to cooperate, he had thought it might truly be the perfect opportunity to cut off Kwangwoon's lifeline.
But as always, Kwangwoon was a step above them.
This incident had sent everyone who had been conspiring with Eileen scattering, and the Republican Party was in an uproar internally.
"But Mr. President, do you really think Kwangwoon did this?"
The Chief of Staff continued quietly.
"I've heard that current technology still can't intentionally trigger an earthquake..."
"Then are you saying this was all a coincidence? That insiders appeared inside Sentinel, and at the precise mont Kwangwoon opened the door wide to let Arican agents walk right in, a massive earthquake just happened to strike?"
"......"
Even Aiden found it hard to believe.
It was already widely known that weather could be artificially manipulated, but artificially inducing an earthquake was considered impossible even with future technology.
Yet this incident had led to the conclusion that Kwangwoon might possess technology bordering on science fiction.
No. Perhaps it was deliberate.
To send a ssage, to put everyone on notice.
This was an extraordinarily terrifying thing.
Threatening with nuclear weapons would be one thing.
This was an attack using a natural disaster that could neither be predicted nor prevented.
"What about observations from surrounding facilities? Any evidence of an artificially induced earthquake?"
"Nothing yet. If sothing artificial had been done, there should have been traces, but it's completely clean."
When North Korea conducted nuclear tests, the resulting shockwaves could be detected.
The world had developed to the point where vibrations of that scale could be picked up from the other side of the globe.
Yet before the earthquake in Turkey struck, there had been no artificial vibrations whatsoever.
It could only be viewed as a naturally occurring earthquake.
"So all the agents involved in this operation are confird dead?"
"Yes. Every last one of them. And all the insiders who had been cooperating are dead as well."
But what ca next was even more outrageous.
"Kwangwoon wasted no ti, as if they'd been waiting for this, and quickly sent compensation to each of the deceased's families."
"...Ruthless bastards."
As always, they hadn't forgotten to plant a flag of victory and rub it in.
Receiving compensation from the very enemy who killed your family.
And those families would never know that their loved ones had been murdered.
Pressing a massive payout into their hands while delivering hollow condolences and watching from the sidelines. What a sick indulgence that was.
"......"
But this was no ti to be worrying about others.
The operation had been Eileen's brainchild, but in the end, the one who gave the final approval was Aiden.
Would Kwangwoon really let this go?
"Go bring John."
"Forr Chief of Staff, sir?"
"Yes. Tell him I need to see him."
Today, one particular quote from a footballer kept echoing in his mind.
'If you can't beat them, join them.'
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