Chapter 111: The Angel (３)

****

“Well, I understand for now. So there is some kind of countermeasure in place against the Foundation, right?”

“Other than begging, not really…”

“Then we’ll just have to beg with all our might.”

“No, what do you mean? The Foundation must have weaknesses or points we can negotiate on. First, we demand what we can demand—”

Click, click.

The people gathered in their seats raised their heads at the sound of heels coming from somewhere. A door blacker than coal appeared above the conference table—

A pair of bright brown eyes looked down at the Commissioner of the Anomaly Response Headquarters. One person stood upon the conference table. The black door simply vanished a few seconds later.

Tap, tap.

Black heels tapped the conference table twice. The meeting room door sealed shut, and the Commissioner opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The air conditioner in the room, no—nothing was making a sound.

Except for one instance.

“Ah, don’t be tense. I heard someone talking about me, so I dropped by for a moment.”

A woman wearing a lab coat over a vest suit. In an instant, several gun barrels were aimed at her, but she didn’t seem particularly concerned.

“I was agonizing over the fact that there are multiple national agencies handling anomalous research and response, but it seems you’re all having a meeting right now. Saves me the trouble.”

No answer came back.

“Well, if I may offer some advice… Does anyone here not know where the Ministry of National Defense building is? You should have prepared a proper location. You’d need a protective barrier to avoid being hit by this kind of magical means.”

“And. Do you think those pop guns will work? Those guns can’t even pierce my lab coat.”

I looked around.

Why isn’t anyone saying anything?

“Ah, right. I didn’t turn the sound on.”

As I waved my hand, people began to murmur. The sound of the air conditioner inside the meeting room, the rustling of clothes, the scraping of chairs—all of it returned.

I moved to the opposite end of the conference table. So that no one would be seated behind me.

“Director.”

“Yes, hello.”

And then, silence returned. This person is the Director of the Foundation’s Seoul Branch. The infamous Dr. Geum.

****

The black door was something I learned from Justitia, and I borrowed a bit of Cosmos’s power. Still, it’s not true teleportation—this is an avatar.

An avatar I’m controlling directly. It was a bit of a strain to pull this off, but I wanted to show an overwhelming difference in power as a first impression.

“A few days ago, there was an attack targeting my life. Given the nature of this industry, life-threatening situations are always present, but this one was different in that it was an operation designed specifically to target me.”

“Yes.”

“It was 1948, I believe, when the United Kingdom launched its National Health Service. In order to quell the dissatisfaction of communists and socialists within the country.”

“What does that have to do with us?”

“Certain factions inside and outside the Foundation wish to create a better world using the power of anomalies. Well, the principle is that anomalous power should only be used for the management of anomalies, but…”

I—my avatar—let the sentence trail off.

“I’d like to hear your opinions.”

“But. When you say a better world—”

Sigh.

“That’s always the problem, isn’t it? Better for whom, exactly, and what’s permitted to us.”

“Hold on. Are you saying that certain factions inside and outside the Foundation want to create a better world with anomalies, and you intend to accept some of their demands to appease them?”

I nodded.

“It’s not exactly that. It’s more about keeping all options in mind. If the Foundation acts together with those allies, we can reduce the sacrifices.”

“Understood.”

The civil servants gathered in their seats were busily scribbling something on paper and showing it to each other. They still seemed too afraid to speak.

“For now, here’s what I’m thinking. I plan to create a new section-chief-level department tasked with coordinating Groups of Interest that are friendly to the Foundation.”

“…”

The Commissioner of the Anomaly Response Agency looked at me.

“Are we a Group of Interest too?”

“Ah, yes, that’s right.”

A bit rude, perhaps. But it’s the truth.

“If you’re at the section-chief level at Facility 82, that’s quite high, isn’t it? We take it seriously.”

“I’ll give it some thought.”

“Those bastards are right.”

I pressed my temple.

“The Foundation has the power to solve every problem in the world, yet it doesn’t even make an effort to solve these… what else could that mean but that all the world’s problems are our fault?”

“Why are you saying this?”

“We have several variables we use to track the frequency of anomalies. And you all have yours too, don’t you? Dispatch counts, UFO sighting counts, activity levels in occult and anomalous-science communities.”

Everyone knew what I meant.

“The situation is getting worse every day. This is no era for dealing with every anomaly, every Group of Interest. I believe we need to start with the most vicious ones and hunt them down through cooperation.”

“…”

A soldier from the Republic of Korea Armed Forces Intelligence Command raised his hand.

“Sounds good, but is the Foundation’s internal position the same? Didn’t the Foundation’s leadership kill themselves, and didn’t you have a civil war on Jeju Island a few days ago? I’m a bit uneasy about being treated as pocket change.”

I shook my head.

“There was no civil war. I stood against the rebel legion, and I broke them.”

“Ah.”

“As for the pocket change comment… well. There are over two hundred countries in the world. The Groups of Interest involved in the management and research of anomalies number in the hundreds at the very least. Isn’t that so? There are nine agency heads in this very room.”

I let out a sigh.

“I’ll take that as everyone’s agreement. The Foundation’s Seoul Branch Group of Interest control tower will be in contact with you soon.”

The black door opened again, and I turned and left the meeting room in question. The people behind me murmured and raised their voices.

****

Professor Meyer kept retching. A doctor from the medical department who had been on site rushed over.

“Are you alright?”

“Ah, I’m fine. Just an upset stomach.”

“You know why you were contained, right? Your language pattern changed after you encountered the angel. You were placed under containment on suspicion of a language-mediated infectious disease.”

“Ah. I’m fine now, right?”

“There’s no definitive method, but it looks like you’re mostly fine. We administered a small dose of amnestics to suppress the activity of the info-borne pathogen.”

Professor Meyer opened his eyes with difficulty.

“Dawkins said it. Cultural genes—memes—move from person to person like organisms reproduce, undergoing natural selection like living things. I didn’t know it was real.”

The doctor thought for a moment.

This patient. Did he hit his head or something?

“Dawkins is indeed the one who established the possible existence of info-borne pathogens. In this field, it’s an event comparable to Pasteur discovering bacteria.”

“…”

“Anyway, I’m glad you seem to be in one piece.”

****

[Regarding the Visit to the Korean Control Tower]

[Filed by: Lee Seah]

[I’ve seen the Director’s opinion. For now. Whether you bully or kill the Korean civil servants, that’s up to you. There’s no real problem with it.]

[There aren’t many people left at Seoul Branch who can voice opposition to the Director’s opinions or thoughts. Please handle it with some care.]

[Bringing in the Foundation’s allies, helping their positions, coordinating them. Sounds nice. You know there’s a reason it wasn’t done, right?]

[I know what you mean. Given the Director’s personality, holding this much power and doing nothing about the world’s problems would be a bit much.]

[But you should know that this kind of thinking was the cause of the Sixth Anomalous War. Isn’t it the root of the conflicts the Foundation participated in and managed?]

****

[Foundation Vessel Discovery Report]

[Filed by: Head of Support]

[Normally, issues like this would be reported by section-chief-level working staff, but this case seemed a bit unusual, so I’ve organized it and am reporting from the department head’s office.]

[During the course of World War II, it is estimated that approximately 50,000 vessels—warships, transport ships, and the like—were sunk due to military activity.]

[The problem is that there are too many sunken ships, and erased records are so common that this issue is not being managed at all.]

[Chinese salvage vessels are scraping the Western Pacific and raising these ships. The more serious problem is that there’s no way to know what’s loaded on these vessels.]

[There may be people after pure steel uncontaminated by nuclear fallout. Japanese military vessels that attacked the US or China might be carrying chemical or biological weapons.]

[There are probably plenty of ships carrying outright anomalies as well. Isn’t that a time-honored tradition? From the East India Company’s special cargo transport divisions and the like. World War II-era stuff is even worse.]

[The Foundation and Groups of Interest have lost over a hundred ships in the Pacific alone. At this rate, there’s no telling what kind of incident might break out.]

[This is also something the angel mentioned.]

[For now, I’d like to search just one or two locations as a pilot program to look into the sunken anomalies. We can’t yet know what we might find.]