The Gathering
After the battle against the monsters pouring out from the devastated cityscape, only 4,000 soldiers remained alive. With roughly 6,000 troops before the fight, more than 2,000 had perished in a single engagement. Most met their end in the defensive positions, followed by the combat walker pilots who had drawn concentrated fire from the larger creatures. Mortar crews suffered the next heaviest losses, while gunship pilots, fortunately, escaped unscathed.
The fighting had been so ferocious that even those who survived were often too gravely wounded to move. Of the 4,000 living, barely 1,300 could still function. Yet the dead had not fallen in vain. The city had been turned into a lifeless no-man’s-land, stripped of every last monster. I granted the survivors three days of rest. Once those days ended, every able-bodied fighter was pressed back into service to reopen the ruined northern and eastern shelters, searching for anyone still clinging to life.
Remarkably, even two months after the fall of civilization, tens of thousands had survived inside those shelters. Their numbers reached a staggering 30,000. Some shelters had collapsed under monster assaults and napalm rockets, but with manpower already critically short, the living mattered far more than the lost infrastructure.
Once the survivors were brought inside the Ark, I began to weigh a difficult question: whether to hold a victory parade. The casualties had been too severe for any celebration to feel appropriate. In the end, I canceled the parade and ordered a joint funeral instead.
I asked the artificial intelligence to recommend citizens with strong stomachs. Volunteers were issued protective suits and sent to the surface to collect the remains—or what was left of them. Later, inside the Ark’s crematorium, the gathered citizens held a solemn memorial. More than 20,000 people stood in silence as I ascended the platform in a black suit, every eye fixed on me.
I took a moment to steady my voice, then began to read the prepared address.
“Beloved citizens of Ark No. 17. Today we honor the brave souls who gave their lives for us. Though they cannot return, by remembering their sacrifice and carrying their will forward, we may still call ourselves humanity with pride. Because of them, the immediate threat has been eliminated. Thirty thousand people who once trembled in fear and hunger now sleep safely and eat warm meals. To the 2,134 soldiers who fell: this Ark is secure. To the 60,000 citizens who survived: this Ark is secure. Countless hardships still lie ahead. The ravenous monsters will come again. Yet as long as such courageous soldiers stand with us, we will never yield to terror. As long as faithful citizens fulfill their duties, we will never surrender. Like a breakwater against the tide, like a lighthouse in the dark, Ark No. 17 and its people will endure this darkness together.”
Thunderous applause filled the hall as I stepped down. I had worried about my lack of eloquence, but the speech seemed to have landed well enough. Robots cleared the podium while holographic images appeared above it—ten glowing frames showing the fallen being placed into coffins, their names, photographs, and dates of birth and death scrolling slowly so the crowd could read each one in quiet respect.
Cremation Procedure. Initiated.
A low roar rose as the coffins were fed into the cremators. Flames consumed the remains, and the ashes were collected. When it was over, the tens of thousands of citizens dispersed, returning to their duties. Soldiers on leave, shops gradually reopening, and civilians shopping among them—all of it made the Ark feel like a place where people still lived.
“Yes. Their sacrifice was not in vain.”
Thousands had died to preserve this ordinary scene. It was worth protecting, and I wished I could tell them so. But the dead could no longer hear the living; only the living could mourn them. For the next several days, the mood inside the Ark remained heavy and subdued.
*
“Whew… That should about do it.”
- Well done, sir.
- At least we managed to offset some of the losses. More people would have been better, though…
- Rescuing thirty thousand was already this difficult. Rebuilding human civilization… It’s going to be grueling.
- Sigh… If only we could contact the other Arks!
I ended the video conference with my department heads. It had not been a grand affair—just a simple exchange of reports and opinions with the newly appointed Director of Administration, the existing Directors of Defense, Production, and Public Safety. The first order of business was resolving the clash between the Defense Directorate, which insisted on conscripting roughly ten thousand combatants out of the sixty thousand total population, and the Public Safety Directorate, which called the idea excessive. Reluctantly, I sided with Defense. We would soon be building walls along the city perimeter to keep monsters out, and that required far more security personnel than before. Given the monsters’ combat strength, Public Safety simply could not handle the task. I understood how damaging it would be to pull ten thousand workers from a population still trying to grow, yet after watching so many soldiers die, I believed maximum preparedness was the wiser course. Public Safety’s objection was overruled.
Truly, if this Ark held even a million people, such meetings would not be necessary. I had already ordered the research labs to begin extending communication range, though I held little hope. If such technology existed, I—the Controller—would have known about it long ago.
“Then let’s end the call here. Everyone, carry out your duties.”
- Yes, sir.
- Good work, sir.
Communication Terminated.
“Whew…”
Once the line went dead, I sank into my chair and let out a weary groan. The Administration Directorate was newly established, yet with ten thousand conscriptions about to begin, my workload would only increase. Already the mounting responsibilities pressed on my mind. I rubbed my temples and leaned back. The chair creaked beneath me—how long had I been using it for it to sound this worn already? A broken chair could be replaced. People, however, could not be manufactured on demand; even if new citizens were born, they would need at least fifteen years before they could contribute. And so far, not a single woman inside the Ark had become pregnant. It had only been two months since the Arks were sealed, and with humanity’s extinction fresh in everyone’s minds, the absence of new life was hardly surprising.
“…”
Come to think of it, cloning technology had been actively researched by the late twenty-first century. Even now, in the mid-twenty-second, the work continued. Yet it seemed a woman’s womb remained essential for bringing a “normal” human into the world. That limitation made rapid manpower replenishment impossible, and the thought was bitter.
…It was a disgusting speculation, but I wondered whether the transformed creatures still possessed wombs. Perhaps even fragments of emotion or consciousness lingered. Their brains, at least, had survived; that much was evident from the shattered bodies we had recovered. Not all of them retained that much, of course, but I hoped none did. The idea of those things—creatures that tore people apart and draped their entrails across their own bodies—still being capable of breeding or giving birth was too revolting to contemplate. I had no idea how vicious the young monsters born from them might become. How could something evolve from a human into a hundred-meter colossus that carried hundreds of its kind inside it? Whatever they had once been, they were now nothing more than loathsome, dangerous predators threatening humanity’s survival. I could only hope their consciousness had been freed from those twisted forms. If not, I prayed they would not refuse the peace that was coming for them.