Chapter 58: You’re Saying There’s Oil?

****

The scenery inside the Garden had changed completely.

****

The Foundation had begun restoring the Garden. More precisely, they had begun restoring the facilities inside the Garden. Apparently, even Foundation headquarters hadn’t been able to freely enter and exit the Garden until relatively recently.

The four bunkers that had guarded the Garden’s perimeter were restored, but the facility at the Garden’s center had yet to have a restoration plan drawn up.

Foundation headquarters had sent down a directive: “Continue exploration and settlement while preserving the Garden’s natural environment as much as possible.” What exactly were they expecting us to do with that?

As for the Garden’s Master, trapped at the Garden’s center, Foundation headquarters had no real solution either. The eight chains the Foundation had forged decades ago were what bound that monster.

The method headquarters proposed was this: offer a human sacrifice to the imprisoned Garden’s Master every month, and break one chain every ten years.

That way, Foundation headquarters figured they could maintain the monster’s binding for about eighty years.

Whether that was even possible, I had no idea. A team of counselors and psychiatrists had arrived a few days ago, though. I’d have to ask them about that too.

I picked up the Crystal Clock.

“Dr. Lee. We need to plan a vacuum operation on the Garden’s center. Where should we start?”

[Hmm. What kind of place is it?]

Last time, I hadn’t brought the Crystal Clock along.

I’d thought there’d be no recourse if I lost it inside the subspace. And I’d thought there might be information contamination related to the Garden’s Master.

“At the Garden’s center, there’s—how should I put it—one of the Foundation’s massive facilities, abandoned. A large facility that could easily hold a thousand people.”

[Oh my… Even just walking through it would be difficult.]

“Yes.”

[Difficult indeed. To properly search a building built to house thousands, you’d need dozens to hundreds of personnel. Even if there were no resistance inside.]

“There is resistance. Specifically, the Garden’s Master is sleeping at the center of the facility, and a malfunctioning psycho AI is holding the place.”

The Clock paused for a moment.

[An AI?]

“They call it Ganymede. The Foundation’s facility management AI. I heard it was deployed on a trial basis, then scrapped due to a safety incident.”

I looked at the Crystal Clock.

[There’s no way they could have built an AI in the 1970s. Look into it. It’ll be in a situation similar to mine. A human soul trapped in an artifact.]

The idea that Ganymede was made from a person. That was… something. As always, the Foundation’s methodology was a bit… far from good.

I scratched my head.

Killing a person and binding their soul to create a facility management AI wouldn’t have been difficult. Maybe even easier than a real AI.

“So it’s not an AI, it’s a person?”

[At least, that’s my guess. If the facility at the Garden’s center has been abandoned since the 1970s, and that AI has been trapped there since then…]

So that’s why the AI went mad.

[Well, that’s a side matter. Take your time planning the facility vacuum operation. It’s a Foundation facility, so of course it’s designed to be extremely difficult to breach. Even if someone inside just had a rock, cleaning it out would be a nightmare.]

That figured. I’d have to contact the Mechanical Division or Foundation headquarters again to get a real solution.

****

This was the Garden’s bunker. Specifically, the commander’s office of Foundation Facility 1000.

That didn’t mean the Foundation had a thousand facilities under its control, of course. It was named that because the facility was built for Anomaly L-1000.

“Director, I’m sorry for barging in. We’re the Geology Division research team. I’m sorry, but I think you need to see this in person.”

Always “see this in person.” The Foundation’s researchers seemed to think of me as a worry doll.

The geologist who’d come to my office was wearing work clothes and a helmet. Whatever it was, they’d clearly sprinted over in a panic.

“What is it?”

“Well, we think we’ve found crude oil. The geological characteristics of this subspace—how the subspace was formed—are a bit hard to determine, but.”

I thought for a moment.

Crude oil? A sudden flood of questions came to mind. I organized them internally.

“Um, would you mind if I asked a few questions…”

“I have a few. Is this also a fossil fuel? If it’s a fossil fuel, should we be dating the subspace to millions of years old? Is there a sedimentary rock layer near this zone? Haven’t you been able to identify any anaerobic bacterial colonies in the crude oil?”

“One moment. I’ll write down your questions.”

The geologist pulled out a notebook.

“Has it been confirmed as crude oil? Have you made any estimate of the reserves? Did the drilling succeed, or have you only just begun analysis? Are there other underground resources?”

The geologist folded the notebook shut. It looked like they’d jotted down all my questions, at least roughly.

“All questions recorded. I’ll answer the first one. It is a fossil fuel, but the composition is the same hydrocarbons as ordinary crude oil, so confirming its origin is difficult.”

“I see.”

“Second question. We’re not dating the subspace to millions of years. Generally, it’s believed the gods gained power after humanity’s birth, so it’s more reasonable to assume the Garden came into being along with its Master, crude oil and all, within the last few hundred thousand years.”

I nodded.

“Third question. That zone is indeed sedimentary rock, as you’d see in karst terrain. It’s composed of limestone.”

That would make sense. Mountains rising like towers, and karst terrain with swamps or abundant water, are usually made of limestone.

Though I wasn’t sure if “usually” applied here.

“Fourth question. Identifying anaerobic bacterial colonies in the crude oil hadn’t even crossed my mind. I’ll analyze it as quickly as possible, then compare the colonies with those from other drilling sites.”

“I see.”

Microbial analysis of crude oil is a relatively recent field of study. Microorganisms in crude oil can affect its composition, and they can also affect the corrosion rate of equipment.

“Also. We determined it was crude oil based on density obtained through seismic analysis. Drilling hasn’t been done yet, and reserves haven’t been confirmed. It looks like it’ll depend on the drilling method. If we frack and proceed with natural gas capture, it seems we’d get an enormous amount of fuel.”

I wonder how Foundation Headquarters will react.

“I don’t know about other underground resources. There’s a cave nearby. If you give the order, I’ll go inside and begin analysis.”

I placed my hands on the desk.

“Understood. Let’s see if we can start drilling as soon as possible. Once this gets out, Foundation Headquarters will probably show some interest too.”

The geologist bowed in greeting, then hurried off as if they had something urgent to do.

****

Next after the geologist, a middle-aged man in a suit came to see me.

It was a suit, sure. But the way his bulging muscles were straining the stitching suggested this wasn’t a suit he wore often.

He gave more of an impression of a gangster than an office worker.

“Construction team from Foundation Headquarters, here.”

“Hello.”

I greeted the visitor.

“They told me to build somethin’ downright insane… Some kinda drilling site? Oil field? They said to build some weird thing. Who’s the site supervisor here?”

“That would be Dr. Geum, Director of Facility 82. If you head to the center of the Garden now, they’ll explain the plans and everything on site.”

The man bowed his head.

“You’re the Director, ma’am? My apologies. You’re a young lady, so I figured you were just staff.”

This guy’s honest, at least.

“You should be able to coordinate with the geology team on site and secure the drilling location. Get ready, and come with me this afternoon.”

“Got it.”

The man left quickly.

****

[Anomaly L-1000.]

[The Garden]

[Addendum.]

[Exploration revealed an abandoned Foundation facility at the center of the Garden. It is believed to have been abandoned since the 1970s. A being presumed to be the Garden’s Master was found imprisoned within the structure.]

[From this point forward, the being previously referred to as the Garden’s Master will be called Cernunnos.]

[Cernunnos is currently bound by multiple chains. We have promised it liberation in the near future. The Foundation’s plan is to remove the chains every ten years and offer periodic human sacrifices.]

[Although only about a week has passed, based on the information currently available, this plan appears to be entirely feasible. That said, there are concerns that we may be nurturing Cernunnos’s power through this method.]

[Cernunnos appears to be asleep.]

[At present, there are no signs of it waking properly, and to maintain this state, we are administering large quantities of gaseous and liquid sedatives into Cernunnos’s containment facility.]

[Aside from this, utilizing the facility in which Cernunnos is imprisoned appears difficult at this time. We will investigate further.]

[Geological survey results have confirmed the presence of crude oil within the internal space of the Garden.]

[We are currently in contact with the Korea National Oil Corporation and GS Caltex to determine how this might be utilized. The outlook appears promising.]