The Quickening
To go back to the time before Serena's promotion.
After Swoo declared that she was going to start things in earnest, not much changed in their daily lives.
Swoo and Angela handled the requests coming into the office, while Serena maintained her usual routine, shuttling between her role as a Lui Chen director and a connector.
And not long after, Isaac's trial began.
The process went incredibly smoothly.
Yoo Seung-ah protected Isaac under the pretext of a detention investigation. Thanks to the information Salvador had handed over, no one in Seung-ah's department dared to touch her.
Outside the ECPD, the confession Serena had wrung out of Isaac and the data handed over by Koh were delivered to Eterno, turning into solid proof enough to secure a prison sentence.
Meanwhile, the investigation division Seung-ah belonged to noticed the Wolha personnel lingering around her. They forwarded the matter to the ECPD headquarters to investigate potential collusion between her and Wolha.
But it ended as nothing more than an investigation.
The moment the ECPD headquarters began their investigation and pressure, the "Noise"—now registered as a Class 1 hazardous phenomenon—disrupted the ECPD's every move.
Consequently, the ECPD became convinced that there was a connection between Yoo Seung-ah, Wolha, and the Noise. However, they couldn't progress past suspicion. There was no physical evidence to prove any collusion.
On the other hand, this was welcome news for Lui Chen.
If Wolha, which had come under their Cyber-Neurology Research Division, was connected to the Noise, did that not mean controlling Wolha would grant them control over the Noise?
They believed that if they could harness the power of the Noise—which neither the ECPD nor Eden's three mega-corporations had managed to identify—Lui Chen could project its influence beyond Westtown and straight into Eastheim.
But in the end, that remained wishful thinking.
The moment Lui Chen harbored such designs, the Noise began destroying everything in its path, showing no distinction between friend and foe.
The only places untouched by the Noise were the areas and operations managed by Wolha. Everything else was ruined and broken before anyone could even react.
Its movements were so precise it was as if it were reading Lui Chen's mind.
Because of this, other branches of Lui Chen temporarily suppressed their greed toward Wolha. They changed their perspective: perhaps Wolha wasn't the host of the Noise, but rather, the Noise was the true master of Wolha.
Not long after, Isaac's trial concluded.
Combined with his previous suspended sentence, he was sentenced to ten years in prison.
However, the court deemed wasting a talent capable of working for a mega-corporation a waste of resources. Applying the "total time system," they sentenced him to 87,600 hours of labor.
Still, there was nothing to worry about.
Isaac had stashed away plenty of money early on, so his ten-year-old daughter and blind wife wouldn't starve. Furthermore, since it was structured as a commute-in social service rather than imprisonment, he wouldn't have to be separated from his family.
Naturally, he didn't have to worry about dying either.
Mega-corporations did not easily let slaves who worked without pay die.
Thus, the task of protecting Isaac and extracting information from him was cleanly wrapped up over the course of two months.
Now, it was time to resolve the request Swoo had received earlier.
"...Didn't you say it was guaranteed to succeed?"
The client, Eric, who arrived with bloodshot eyes, signaled the beginning.
"But... the target was sentenced to labor? Does that... does that make any sense? We should have pulled the target out before that, or at least, if you had just kept me updated on the progress, I could have done something—"
Swoo slowly observed Eric as he threw a fit in the office.
When he had visited before, he had looked exceptionally neat, but now he was no different from a gambler who had lost his entire fortune at the racetrack.
From this, she could tell that Elyse had handled her part well.
The Lui Chen undercover agent who had been assisting Eric must have failed to evade Zyrec's dragnet and been disposed of.
Swoo didn't feel much about it.
The eliminated undercover agent was likely connected to the nameless faction Swoo was pursuing—or rather, they had probably been part of that faction from the very beginning.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to convey the fact that Isaac knew how to contact the nameless faction to Eric.
That was why Swoo's goal from the start had been to remove that helper. Having achieved her goal, Swoo felt the quiet satisfaction of a child who had just finished a puzzle.
On the other hand, Eric must feel like his entire world had collapsed. His helper had been disposed of, and Isaac, who was supposed to be his escape route, could no longer leave Lui Chen.
Having lost everything, Eric was likely blind with desperation.
And someone like Eric was precisely the final piece of the puzzle Swoo had been assembling.
Humans were unpredictable creatures. However, if you created the right circumstances, you could guide their actions to some extent.
Just as she had planned, Swoo had set the stage, and Eric was acting exactly according to her script.
Now, it was time to pull the strings.
"Why do you want to quit the CSIA?"
"That has nothing to do with the request."
"Did you screw up, and now you're trying to get out before you get caught?"
Eric's face contorted.
Swoo, knowing she had hit the mark, pulled her hand out of her pocket.
"Instead of talking about that right now—"
"What do you think this is?"
A pitch-black ring gleamed on Swoo's thumb. Eric's face went blank.
"...Th-that. What, how, no way."
Gwoooooong—
A bizarre, bell-like chime resonated from the ring. Feeling the chime and a vibration that felt like it would shatter her finger, Swoo waved her arm.
There was no sound. Only the result remained: the teacup in front of Eric split cleanly in half.
Eric's eyes widened to their limits.
He had doubted and denied it, but now he was certain. That was undoubtedly the MG-02 that Zyrec had recently completed.
"Why... is that in your hands..."
"Curious?"
Eric could only gape, unable to tear his eyes away from Swoo's finger.
He thought he should report this to Zyrec immediately, but he couldn't bring himself to move.
Eric had already signed a contract at this mercenary office. He had laid bare his story to them. The moment Zyrec found out about any of this, he would be disposed of.
He wondered if they might spare his life if he presented the recovery of the weapon as an achievement... but Zyrec was not a merciful corporation.
Belonging to Zyrec, and specifically the CSIA, Eric knew better than anyone just how ruthless they were.
"If you're curious, dig into Director Thomson Arcardo of the Kinetics division."
"...Behind Director Thomson is—"
"I know Executive Hugo Arcardo is backing him. And that his power is immense since he reports directly to headquarters."
Another eerie chime rang out from the ring.
Swoo pointed her finger at the already split teacup. The water that had spilled out and soaked the table trembled slightly.
The broken cup and the spilled water.
Which should she clean up first? Swoo didn't think long. She flicked her finger. The broken cup shattered further, turning to dust and dissolving into the air.
Yet, the spilled water remained.
Smiling with satisfaction, Swoo stared intently at Eric and whispered.
"But once the IEP is activated, even Hugo will have to keep his head down. It's a protocol that even an executive can't stop. Well? Want to try?"
Once approval is granted by a CSIA branch director-level executive, the IEP can be triggered immediately.
What was the current state of the branch director who held such authority? For some reason, he was under immense pressure regarding matters related to Thomson.
He had been throwing all sorts of fits, complaining that not only his livelihood but his very head was on the chopping block.
If someone brought this kind of information to a branch director in that state, what decision would he make?
Although he was just as desperate as Eric, he wouldn't approve the IEP lightly. It was a double-edged sword that could destroy him as well.
But with concrete evidence, the branch director wouldn't hesitate any longer.
Thomson Arcardo.
He was the tyrant of Eastheim. A fool living in luxury only because he had a tiger backing him. The branch director would tolerate him no longer.
"Tomorrow, I'm going to 'lose' the MG-02 somewhere on a street in Westtown. You, Eric, will happen to be walking down that street and pick it up. But since it looks incredibly suspicious, you'll use your CSIA authority to investigate the surrounding area—only to discover that the place is a warehouse where Thomson stores his bribes. It's a perfectly natural suspicion and action for the CSIA, isn't it?"
Eric stared at Swoo with terror-stricken eyes.
Until now, he had thought of her as a fellow human being, but he could no longer view her that way.
Yes, it felt exactly like...
...standing in front of the chairman of Zyrec.
"Of course, I won't leave any evidence behind. There won't be any proof connecting it to Thomson. But they will find a massive amount of bribes that Thomson has been 'personally' receiving. And the MG-02 just happens to be one of them."
Zyrec was ruthless.
They dealt with humans devoid of human emotion.
Therefore, even without absolute proof, they would not hesitate to eliminate anyone who posed a threat to Zyrec.
A Zyrec weapon found in Thomson's warehouse.
A weapon that could potentially shift the hierarchy of the mega-corporations had been found in his warehouse. On top of that, countless bribes were discovered.
That fact alone would spur Zyrec into action.
Even if Thomson had a headquarters executive backing him, he wouldn't be able to stop it.
"Here. Go to this address by 19:00 tomorrow."
Swoo handed him a roughly folded slip of paper.
January 19, 19:00.
Block 19, Raul Street, Sector 9, Westtown.
From the moment Eric had entered the office until now, she hadn't written a single thing. This meant the contents of that note had been written long before.
And that date. It was tomorrow. Which meant Swoo had known Eric would come looking for her today.
The verdict of Isaac's trial had come out a week ago.
Yet Swoo had known Eric would show up exactly a week later.
How on earth? Why? Why did she make such a judgment, and why, why, why...
Eric could no longer meet Swoo's eyes. He was afraid to. He felt as if she could read his every thought with just a single glance.
Staring at the spilled water, Eric eventually closed his eyes tightly.
"Who... who on earth are you..."
"Go see with your own eyes whether my words are true or false, and judge for yourself. If it turns out to be true, the first and even the second approvals for the IEP will go through—"
A few sheets of tissue settled over the spilled water.
"—and you will get what you want, completing the request."
Ten days later.
The IEP was activated in the Kinetics branch.