The hunt had begun.
Allen and others entered a normal-looking place in which some special mechanism revealed the basement. Others looked at Yushin, who owned the place,
"Guys, I don't think it is the time for that. Might as well be thankful there is a place like this, no?"
There was a device that some of them used to watch the latest news. Media channels got back to their feet pretty soon after the live feed had been interrupted. It was difficult to say what remained of the institution. But they could see that most of the city was intact, for now. Most of those creatures had either been subjugated due to the superior tier of technology and some had been captured, well it was up to guess what they wanted to do with them…
It seemed like that the situation was under control. This amount of panic may not have happened in the first place if not for the sudden shock waves that had shaken the area from the institute. It was probably the helping of the president, Allen thought.
He had already told the others that he found out the President was helping them escape. While he was trying to get out of the institute himself. It worried others too seeing the situation unfold, especially the members of the institute getting warrants for their arrest. The worry had not subsided, for now, if the situation was put down so easily it meant that the next target that could easily be singles was the members of the institute, they probably would have to go to trial in the best scenario and plead innocence, in the worst-case rival institutes may try to make the matter worse for them. The animals being captured were probably the doing of such places. The military had no such interest as far as they could tell.
Just as they feared, after the initial situation had calmed down. Just the next day, it was already being debated what to do with the members of the institute in particular. They could see that most of the members had been rescued, and they have currently injured themselves, some having fallen prey to those creatures, were in an emergency with such viruses in their bodies that could not b cured soon. Others could also tell that members had no obvious fault in that. Respected former principal, however, could not be found. The directors that could have taken responsibility were in hiding like them. The researchers were in the toughest situation.
There were a few options on what to do with them.
From being worst to best here were those
They needed to be held responsible for the incident, considering the damage was
unknown from the incident, and not to mention the human damage, that was effectively saying no less than a life sentence in prison.
Another opinion was they needed to be kept under surveillance and any type of identity was to be confiscated from them. That made them practically identity-less, meaning it was like the country had effectively boycotted them and made them a kind of fugitive.
One opinion was to give them some kind of labor punishment, in which they would have to serve some other research institute for several years, and they were not allowed some services of society. Basically, they could live but under restrictions placed officially on them by law.
The major problem was they could not know in advance what could of punishment they would levy against them. The third one, although unpleasant, was bearable as compared to the other two, which would basically mean they were outcasts or prisoners, they had families, what was going to happen to them if that happened t obe the case.
They could hide for now, but the place they were hiding could not protect them under severe searching, as compared to relocation, where the directors must have gone into hiding.
It quite stressed them out from the matters of the previous day and seeing the situation worsen against their favor, Allen and others again got into a discussion on their next course of action. More than discussion, it was a pretty dull conversation considering the unknown circumstances, but they still had some level of hope of good. They had to have some to not go into further sadness.
After some heated argument, most of them thought it was probably better to hand themselves to the top institutions so that they could try to protect themselves in this tense situation. An agreement or two wouldn't matter, they were already in a kind of formal agreement with the institution before, that was not the problem as compared to the matters happening currently.
As planned when the Government officially announced for anyone voluntarily coming to the government they would be dealt with leniency and be treated with the third case as stated by their terms, the government gave them an extra option that if there was an institution that offered them a package they could further have any charges against hem reduced. The society, although a little against them, still had a high opinion of all the researchers of the institute, not to mention that the situation was already under much control.
The official message they received on their fine-tuned and custom watches given by the institute before was" we can understand the role of the researchers. They are only there to progress things forward. They do not care for how the actual knowledge may end up getting used as this is not predictable at the time of their work. Understanding hence the situation, any charges against them would only consider the damage to unintentional damage and not otherwise." The Government also had a special clearance in the institute, so they probably could message like this, could not track still though.
Yushin himself knew the situation about this well. Considering that he was the one to have built this area in the first place, he definitely knew more about its potential use and limitations as well.
"It was probably better for them, considering the overall situation and to avoid all kinds of future problems, to just go out in the open, instead of getting caught later on. They don't have such resources to escape the eyes of anyone searching specifically for them in this city. They have to eat, have to go out. It is not possible to grow and eat grass indoors or is it?"
"Yes, I don't think we can even live there for more than a few weeks at the maximum, or even a few days may be a stretch. But there is definitely a factor that the searching may get less intense with time. They should not have the time to be looking for us so much…."
His voice was very low at the end. All the others also understood that was not the case, the government would just entrust the matter to the research institutes and police and they would not let even a single member escape their radar, it was a pile of gold in their eyes, ready for picking.
"We should wait a bit. A few days to see what the environment is, what is happening to those who have given themselves up. Few would come forward, just like we do not want to. I believe there would be some that would end up coming forward because of the solid guarantee of the government. They can trust the guarantee in the first place, the first principle to abide by is no deception".
The others agreed, at least they had no better alternative to offer.
After all this, they kind of wanted some brief rest. Now that he knew there was not much else to do, Allen got closer to Yushin and asked," So, what is the big deal making such a place in the city?"
"Other people make basement like structures too"
"But, their basements do not look so much like a workshop where you create bombs or something."
"Well, it is mostly recreation to create some tools that are popular in the marketplace and test them, maybe try to improve them and then sell them to some company for a specific purpose. It mostly is for a specific portion of society"
Allen got his answer, and hence he got back to resting. They had to rest and look at the situation carefully for now.
It was just two days from when they had decided to hand themselves in, that the Governments all around the world could notice some weird things in their territories, that some territories that they thought were theirs were no longer theirs. The only thing behind this anomaly could be the incident that happened with the institute or some terrorist group (basically the same thing…)
When they listened to the news, they thought the situation would surely worsen now. But, because of the trouble that these places were giving the governments, they put all kinds of sanctions on everybody on hold. And soon, completely lifted them.
So?
The government had tried to keep some details hidden, reporters got some things out. The rumors were in the air that some kind of barrier was preventing any force from effectively using their weapons. The domains had sprung across the area starting from the institute and were spreading throughout the whole of the country. More and more cities reported such areas being created somewhere near them. No city damage was observed right now."That is verified news, or just to make us poor creatures go out and capture all at once?'""The reporters that reported such do things very secretively and the news by some of them, I can say that it is very based on solid facts. They verify the things with their own selves. They are a thorn to anyone who is targeted by them. This time for the government." They tried to contact some of the institutes to see what they were going to do. All the institutes had for some reason for the previous few days closed down entry to anyone from outsid
Seeing a team of analysts directing their eyes on him, he was more than a little stressed out. Most of them were his seniors, both in practice and in age, too. It was not a good thing to twist things around here…“I-I think that-that it is perhaps recognizing him as one of them”“Yep, what else do you think”“The material-I mean, the things on him disappeared. Probably means we can’t take anything from our side. Just as the government cannot use any weapon against it effectively. The same reason is behind it”The president was still looking at him. He had some more things in mind, but he did not know what this person wanted from him.‘Just give me some hints, big brother’Allen continued, “Um, I think it is better to observe what happens with the injection and all, awe got it from… the animals, right?”The
The ability to see the river flow only worked at night. At daytime, it was like the stars, covered by the sunlight.'What could cover a thing like that?' Allen thought so, a little exhausted.He was sick. He checked with the institute’s doctor, but the doctor could not find out much.Probably the reason the government asked not only the doctors to look into the matter but the research institutions too, especially considering where the thing started from. They did not specialize in diagnosis.The place where he had the injection mark was also not looking good in its appearance.He was constantly at the place where he was working alone, trying to figure out what was wrong with his body, as other doctors could not help. One thing he got confirmed was when, after selecting some student assistants and some other research assistants from 3 to 4 stars, that they went to their assigned area and were face
Allen always saw the latest news about the domains and the creatures.He made some special orders for some reporters to get some more information out of the situation. The different dates that domains were appearing, the different attempts at trying to enter with different devices ad so on, all he gathered. There was a complete map drawn out in from of him that he marked with various things, with some pictures, news headings, and notes. When he kind of sent this data in a report, the president’s assistant had asked him.“Are you planning on hijacking them… what are you going to do with it?” The assistant asked.“… I believe the patterns could make us identify more things about them. The spread is from a center spot, after all. There are some large domains and some small, I think I can probably figure out that matter with this..” Allen said.‘ And probably do other thing
Allen, having lost almost all of his memories, said to himself “….. I am a farmer. I don’t know when I started farming, neither what is the name of this area. But I know this is the domain from the real world and I, now the farmer Allen, am going to explore it.” Allen went to his farm and watered the plants already buried in it. The weather was also turning quite bad, and then the rain started. He took refuge inside a home next to the barn. “This is probably my home,” Allen said to himself. There was nothing in his mind that he could remember about this world except what he was trying to analyze from the things. The farm was basically empty except that… there was a knocking on the door right now. He got up to open the door, and there was a young woman. He assumed she was looking for a shelter. “Lady, are you looking for a shelter?” “I am indeed looking for a shelter, but… lady? Who are you saying this to?” The wo
He did not know what to say. They sat for more than a few minutes. Allen had to get something out of this meeting. He was of the feeling that time was running out.“Is your family okay?”She wasn’t quite able to respond…were they alive or…Allen didn’t put that to wording.Allen tried to be more general and ask about her situation. He said, ”Are things fine now?”“Yes, they are”“So we didn’t marry….did we?”The woman looked at him and said, “No, you didn’t.”Kind of suppressed his sigh of relief, but he was sure that she could see that he was quite happy about it, it showed on her face.With that out of the picture, now he could calm down.He reminded himself, ’Calm down, calm down'His posture relaxed a lot. Now he could get some more information about the current sit
Allen had some time on hand, so he wrote his thoughts on a piece of paper in the diary. Due to it being too small, his thoughts ended up becoming disjointed in the paper. He tried to summarize it in neat points again and what he had was:1) ‘They are a type of virus detection system and are considering me a threat to the domain.’or2)…it could be the case that actually the forces wanted to find something that was with him or her, maybe even the both of them, and they did not know where they were. So they started by methods of elimination.3)It was also possible that they were trying to make all the residents leave from here, to get the resources of this land4)Could be that these outside forces neither wanted their land nor anything they possessed…but they actually wanted to capture them. That was a strange possibility.The first point could not be possible as they would not hav
Allen was of the mind to prove him wrong now. He had some ideas done what to do. He was not much of a fighting champion and the enemy had come armed with guns, but they were probably not trying to kill him. Else they could have already done so. He knew that they were going to injure him. With a point-blank range, they would not be much careful. When they had gotten extremely close to them before they had shot at them; he had gotten barely scot out of that before. That was the first time in his life that he was shot at. That was why he was terrified and just wanted to get out of there. The last thing on his mind would have been to confront them. But that was what he was tasked by himself to do now. He would not let some depressed man justify his depression because some situation in his life hit him. That problem was always going to come on him. The man said that he tried what he could, but he had taken the responsibility for her from her family.