The Master of Vigilance (9)
“So, I told you from the beginning?”
In an office on the eighth floor, which was completely soundproof, Matt raised his voice in front of his boss. He couldn’t calm down his anger. He had been dismissed of what he had repeatedly claimed, and an unimaginable disaster broke out as a result. After reading a report on the El Paso branch’s stats, including Quarantine No. 25, Matt couldn’t even put sarcasm in his mouth – ‘You didn’t listen to me and knew this would happen.’
The recorded damage scene was much worse, more frightening, and more disastrous than expected.
“Keep the agents with the peculiar reaction to work within the El Paso branch! What the hell was the reason…!”
Abraham, who was still listening to Matt’s words, looked at him with calm eyes. Receiving such cold eyes, Matt soon felt something strange.
“…What is it?”
“Now you’re in a position to realize this for yourself. I ignored your opinion and even didn’t give you the right reason. Why would it be?”
Matt was caught in a ridiculous mood, and he asked, leaving any thoughts behind.
“…You mean the order itself wasn’t a company level, but a higher one?”
Abraham quietly nodded his head. Matt got up from his seat and shouted furiously.
“It can’t be!”
“All documents related to him are reviewed and signed by him.”
“That’s ridiculous…!”
Abraham raised his voice in annoyance.
“Agent Mathias Eisenberg!”
Matt snapped back, keeping his head up.
“There is no reason for the White House to give such instructions!”
“You don’t have to worry about the reason. The instructions were given, and we just carried them out.”
“Look at the results!”
Matt gasped for breath and kept talking. His face, which was originally blushed with redness, turned completely red like a turnip.
“If they had been transferred to another branch in advance, even if the accident broke out, it could be finished without any casualties. If the only person brainwashed in the branch were Agent Simon Van de Camp, no matter how superhuman he was, we would have been able to subdue him alone. I mean, this could have been avoided!”
Abraham, who was listening to what he was saying, shook his head as if his head was aching and looked straight into Matt’s eyes.
“Matt, how many years have you been in the company?”
“No, that’s not what’s important right now.”
“Shut up and answer first. How many years has it been?”
Matt, who felt that the weight in his voice was unusual, looked at his boss for a while before answering, barely holding back his anger.
“…It is the 15th year.”
“It’s only been 15 years, and you’re having a private meeting with me. You also have access to level P-046 secrets, and you’re even in a position to comment on this.”
“No, what I’m trying to tell you right now…!”
“I mean, be aware of your position! Just calm down and sit down.”
Matt raised his suspicious eyes and sat down again. Abraham then put his hands on his forehead with his fingers crossed and pondered for a while. Just before Matt, who felt the limit of his patience, asked what the hell he was doing now, Abraham spoke again. And instead of saying what he was thinking about until now, he brought up another story.
“When you get to that level, you’re supposed to think about the upper part’s intentions. If your head isn’t rolling enough to find a convincing reason, just do what you’re told!”
In the meantime, Abraham muttered quietly. The words he couldn’t say to his subordinate, who was too upright.
‘When you reach that position, you have to guess on your own. After all, this is a problem between the experimental and the control group, you idiot.’
Without even guessing what he was thinking, Matt was glaring furiously, unable to control his rising anger. Looking at such a man with irritated eyes, Abraham continued his thoughts. If all of the agents exposed to the alien races and showed a peculiar reaction were sent to other regions, the experimental group, given adjacent Eraser, would also disappear.
Therefore, he permitted the agents to continue working with the El Paso branch. This was a truth that Matt wasn’t ready to accept yet.
* * *
In fact, it seemed that what the upper part initially wanted was just a peaceful negotiation. They wanted to provide what Eraser wanted in exchange for gaining complete knowledge of his world. Then, as some countries were already doing, they may sell less important information to other countries at a high price. But Eraser was too stingy to provide information. As time passed without getting anything, the upper part became nervous and wanted to get information even by pressing Eraser, but they couldn’t do it because they didn’t know the limit of his power.
Abraham muttered inside.
‘Actually, the ability to make people forget God was a little vague. So, they had no choice but to doubt. Is that really all that he is capable of? Could it be that the ability to manipulate memories could intervene in the human mind in some other way?’
Still, they couldn’t throw the agents who showed unusual reactions in front of him like guinea pigs. Suppose personnel who had already suffered damage (which they weren’t aware of) were contacted by Eraser again. In that case, internal public opinion would deteriorate, and the Ethics Bureau would also look into the matter. That’s why they gave permission to work within the El Paso branch as a contingency. And surprisingly, more than half of the agents wanted to remain. Considering that most of those who expressed such intentions were personnel-related to weapons, it was presumed that there was already an indication at that point.
In fact, they couldn’t enter the Isolation Camp No. 25, and the El Paso branch was blindfolded so that it was possible. However, even if there was no direct contact with Easer, the upper part speculated that there might be a reaction when observing it in a space less than a few hundred meters in the distance. Could it be that his abilities were of the kind that manifested over time? He might be desperate enough to lean on such a rare possibility.
The agents who showed peculiar reactions were secretly marked by much other armed personnel and subject to the CCTV’s intensive monitoring. Therefore, they thought they would be able to suppress these people enough even if they showed unexpected behavior. In such an emergency, it was planned to shut down the quarantine branch No. 25 to prevent Eraser’s escape. However, all these plans failed as a result.
In any case, it was an unofficial operation in which several agents were prepared to lose. However, the actual damage was far more than expected, which was terrible. With that thought, Abraham gritted his teeth.
“…Mr. Abraham?”
Matt suddenly threw a suspicious look at his boss, who was at a loss for words. But instead of paying attention to him, Abraham tried to calm his rising anger. He raised his consciousness back from his deep thoughts, speaking to his subordinate seated before his eyes.
“That’s all I can say about your protest. Let’s move on to the mission. Simply put, it’s looking for the helper who assisted in Eraser’s escape.”
Abraham threw a thick file of papers on the desk. Matt’s eyes widened as he took it and read the contents. It had more details there than he knew previously. The moment Simon Van de Camp opened the door on the observation room wall and knelt in front of Eraser, the alarm triggered in all branches because the door opened with the master key without prior approval. The headquarters was also immediately aware of this and forcibly initiated a shutdown procedure by remotely controlling Isolation Camp No. 25.
However, the remote control was cut off in the meantime, and all CCTV footage in the El Paso branch that was being observed at the headquarters was turned off. It wasn’t a matter of communication. At that moment, all CCTVs in the branch were destroyed. The headquarters immediately requested and dispatched troops from nearby branches. Still, they arrived late, and only a small number of survivors were found within the El Paso branch. The entire building was blacked out, and the facilities were destroyed.
As Matt read the papers, Abraham chewed on his lips and recounted the thoughts he had repeated several times in the past few days. This experiment’s first failure was that the peculiar reaction’s target was prematurely determined as a devoutly religious person. The second was that it wasn’t expected that brainwashed humans would sweep through the branch with supernatural strength and speed.’
According to the testimony of a few survivors and traces of the scene – they tore people apart and destroyed facilities in a way beyond the limits of the human body. The third was that they didn’t notice external intervention, which was the agency’s most disastrous failure.
“If he could disable electronic devices, he would have used that power first to disable CCTV and remote control and then move. But he didn’t. Moreover, the evidence of external involvement at the scene of the incident remained too clear.”
There was certainly a helper. What made the headquarters crazy was how the helper made contact with Eraser. The one who had been isolated from the outside ever since being captured in the jungle.
“…Who on earth? Were there other people brainwashed that day besides those who disappeared from El Paso?”
“People who have been in contact with him at least once, regardless of whether they have a religion or not, have confessed their conduct, but there is no evidence associated with it. However, there is one thing for sure.”
Abraham’s eyes shined fiercely, “He cannot do such a thing without an internal spy. He will have to clean it up from the inside.”
“Then, how many did Eraser collect…?”
“It already started with another organization. They told me that the field agents were not aliens but gave false information and tracked them as “wizards” who went crazy during training. Since the condition of brainwashing cannot be determined, information gathering is a top priority rather than capture.”
“But, he was in charge of us!”
Abraham responded by pressing hard on his temple.
“Because there is a separate specialist for search in the mainland… he couldn’t have left America. No matter how brainwashed he is, controlling a huge space is another matter.”
But really, just in case, if this guy was found abroad…that was to prove the existence of the helper once again. It couldn’t be possible to flee overseas without outside help. And the task of tracking would probably come back to them.
“For the time being, all of your team’s resources will be focused here.”
Without knowing, they were bitten too deep. It hurt, but the shame was bigger than the pain.
And on the other hand, this heavy thing called shame touched the upper’s deepest disgust. It wasn’t unusual to see the highest-ranking people’s anger because of the failure which occurred over the last few hours.
Abraham quietly ground his teeth.
