Chapter 183
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 183
Chapter Title: Under the Black Water (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Days had changed between different worlds. Winter returned to the barren dream of the afterlife, carrying a slightly warmed heart. But San Francisco's morning arrived with bad news.
‘Ann's premonition was right.’
An abrupt withdrawal order broadcast in the early dawn. Effective immediately, the pursuit of Convoy 9 was completely halted. There were no other announcements, but this meant the worst-case final solution that the FBI agent had feared was now becoming reality. The United States wouldn't just leave an anarchic nuclear threat unchecked.
But how?
The plan Joanna had mentioned involved installing warheads with manpower. To evade Chinese military detection, she'd said. Yet now, the entire personnel were awaiting withdrawal. Had preparations already been completed? Or had they decided they couldn't afford to delay and resorted to other means?
Either way, it was clear the president had made a swift decision. If it was a necessary evil that had to be endured anyway, postponing it would only make it a greater evil. That was the feeling.
As Winter was lost in thought, someone approached him.
"You don't look so good, Lieutenant."
"Sergeant Wolf."
One of the few people here who could be called friendly. Staff Sergeant Dwayne Wolf leaned against the railing beside Winter, staring in the direction of the floating city. But all that was visible was gray mist. The morning sun was merely a pale, hazy glow beyond the overcast sky. Yet the feeble, violent echoes of hopeless lives drifting over informed them that the streets still rippled with activity.
"Even this tiresome view has to look like this for our last glimpse."
"......"
"Those people are all going to die, huh. Damn, what was all our hard work for?"
He wasn't just talking about the effort put into whale hunting. There were the sea farms and all the orders they'd established, intending to leave behind some hope even when they departed. Even if the goal had been mental stability for the operation's personnel, and the plan had been calculated, that didn't mean the execution could be half-hearted.
"Every time I'm deployed on a mission, I feel it—I'm too small."
The sergeant scratched his head irritably. Scratching hard. White dandruff rained down over his shoulders.
"I always give my best. But there are too many things that even my best can't fix. The world keeps moving in places I can't see, tossing things at me I can't do anything about. I hate that powerless feeling of having to accept it all one-sidedly."
Winter nodded slowly.
"I understand that feeling."
How could he not? The boy wanted to dream beautiful dreams. This twenty-seventh time, which might truly be the last. But the afterlife was an unrelenting mirror reflecting reality.
This city, San Francisco, felt to Winter like an unpleasant metaphor. Forced out from the story he'd been crafting himself—the Winter Alliance—and though he'd done his utmost to create a good outcome, this was the result. It was as if some malevolent force beyond reach was mocking him. That was his limit. No matter how much he expanded it, there would always be something beyond.
"At least we saved those people."
At the sergeant's self-deprecating words, Winter glanced at the huddled, frightened group on one side of the deck.
Lucky, perhaps. They were refugees deemed worth saving by the Intelligence Agency. High-level talents like physicists and chemical engineers. Among them, Second Lieutenant Zhou Wei stood out. The Department of Defense's Public Affairs Office had been eyeing her, and now she was being evacuated after all. Winter turned his head before she could spot him.
‘Kurt Lee will disappear from here anyway...’
White foam bubbled up from the sea beside the Pequod's hull. The prelude to a submarine surfacing. Even with the netting to obscure visibility, without the fog, the withdrawal wouldn't have started until dusk or later to avoid observation. He could see diminutive, anxious people climbing down rope ladders to the submarine deck.
The next group descending was different in complexion. Not refugees, not combat troops. CIA agents, perhaps? But their expressions suggested otherwise. Faces radiating intellectual innocence. A high frequency of thick-lensed glasses. They seemed more suited to pens than guns, office desks than field cots.
‘For an operation crew, there are a lot of unfamiliar faces.’
It wasn't surprising, though. The Pequod was a large vessel with a correspondingly large crew. Winter hadn't even met all the frontline strike team members yet. As a special operations ship, it probably required specialized technical personnel.
The submarine, loaded with passengers, closed its hatch. It quietly sucked in water and vanished below the surface as an oval silhouette. Several more subs would need to come before the entire personnel withdrew.
The armed forces, including Winter, were scheduled last, along with the CIA situation room control agents. Once the control agents and strike team were gone, the Pequod was set to self-destruct. It was packed with secrets, so incineration devices had been prepared from the start.
"Winter."
A familiar voice calling the thoughtful boy.
"Ann?"
The FBI agent was unexpectedly lightly equipped. Lightly, meaning without the military gear or backpack like the others. It was tactical lightness. She wore pitch-black tactical goggles, her hair tied back in a single ponytail, a bulletproof vest, and her vest stuffed tight with magazines. Her weapon carriage suggested she was ready for combat right then.
She requested softly.
"I've got something important. Can you spare a moment?"
Something important? Now? Winter felt puzzled, but the agent was deadly serious.
After Winter excused himself, Sergeant Wolf tossed a cold joke.
"It's fine. I don't have the hobby of interrupting someone else's love life."
"Ann and I aren't like that. Excuse me."
The sergeant, receiving the courtesy, turned back to gaze into the distance. A soldier with a cigarette in his mouth, adding a puff of smoke to the fog.
Leaving him behind, Joanna led Winter inside to a passageway near the bridge. Waiting for no one to pass, she entered a side cabin and immediately locked the door. Then she pressed her ear to the wall, checking for presences. Next, she drew a rod-like device from her waist and swept it over the wall.
"What are you doing?"
Even guessing, he asked just in case. This time, she scanned the ceiling as she replied.
"Worried about being bugged."
Meaning a conversation the Intelligence Agency agents shouldn't hear... The investigation agent, finishing her sweep, turned to Winter. Only after scanning the boy head to toe did she put the device away. She removed her black glasses, revealing eyes melted with worry and anger.
"Winter. It seems unauthorized human experimentation has been happening on this ship."
"......Human experimentation?"
"Yes. Remember the restricted area even I, the supervisor, couldn't enter? That was the lab. They brought refugees in through a separate cargo elevator and used them as subjects. The Intelligence Agency's armed agents, SAD, operating alone in the city was to procure Morgellons pathogens needed for the experiments."
"How did you find out?"
"......I've had a bug on Team Leader Chadwick for a while. I actually learned it past midnight yesterday."
Oh no. Winter reflexively envisioned a potential fight breaking out inside the ship. Short distances, narrow widths. In such a combat environment, he was invincible in gunfights. The number that could engage him at once was limited. No matter how many enemies, he could overwhelm with reaction speed alone.
But if non-firearm means were used, it changed. Like full-body protective suits, for example.
‘In the worst case, I'd have to fight the strike team...’
Elites among elites boasting origins like Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Rangers, Special Forces—formidable. They knew Winter's skills, making them even more dangerous.
If the human experimentation was an unauthorized operation, the chance of clashing directly with the strike team was low. Then only the Intelligence Agency's own armed forces would be potential enemies.
Winter asked.
"Could it be a separate operation authorized by the government?"
Instead of answering, Joanna pulled a recorder from her pocket. Rugged design prioritizing durability and reliability alongside performance. After some fast-forwarding and rewinding, she captured the desired call.
The call featured only Team Leader Chadwick's voice, one side of the conversation. The other party's words were hard to discern even with Winter's enhanced hearing. Only occasional short words registered.
Winter repeated the term they used for themselves.
"True patriots? Doesn't sound like mere pride."
Joanna nodded in agreement, stopping the playback.
"Estimated to be a private organization spanning CIA and CDC. Maybe more. If it was government-approved, they could've told me, the supervisor. Reporting it would just get it buried higher up."
She then mentioned the current administration's leanings.
"Though they approved the final solution, a president lenient on refugees wouldn't permit this. Even if he did, no reason to choose this precarious outpost. There were plenty of stable spots. Like Fort Roberts. Then Winter would've noticed. Through apocalypse after apocalypse, he'd grown attuned to such signs. The weak vanishing suddenly. The cleaner the refugee streets, the wilder the unsubstantiated rumors."
‘Human experimentation is most effective for vaccine development.’
For diseases infecting only humans, subjects had to be human.
Worlds pushing human experiments had suppression agents emerge faster.
But ultimately just temporary suppressants. Winter had never seen a perfect vaccine. Only system-corrected knowledge. 「Plague Immunity」 as the key.
"Have you reported it?"
At Winter's question, Joanna shook her head.
"My testimony alone, without evidence? Useless. An investigation might start, but in this climate? Doubt it'd proceed normally. They won't sit idle."
She confessed the FBI's manpower shortage. With ongoing social unrest overloading all agencies. Naturally, domestic FBI bore more burden than foreign-focused Intelligence Agency.
"See? Just one supervisor like me for this op says it all."
Her wry smile carried fatigue and melancholy.
"Plus, if my report gets intercepted, they'll destroy evidence immediately. Regrettably, FBI lacks encryption for this. Even if we had it, Intelligence Agency would know."
Formal reporting and searching with strike team was out. If cornered Chadwick triggered the Pequod's incineration early, everyone died.
"So what do you want to do now, Ann? How can I help?"
"Before withdrawal, secure evidence somehow."
The supervisor then spat out each word deliberately.
"I agonized all night. What's the point?"
Joanna's melancholy was moral guilt over the final solution.
"Even without experiments, they'd die anyway. I'm not spotless myself... At this point, upholding law and principles changes nothing... In an era where everyone endures necessary evils for humanity's survival, clinging to conscience alone feels like self-satisfaction..."
Rather, maybe Team Leader Chadwick and his group were righter in the end. A doubt she swallowed.
"I don't see it that way."
Winter denied firmly.
"Even if doomed, everyone has the right to live humanely until the end."
"Are those people outside living humanely?"
"At least they can struggle to survive. Cling to hope. Stay by loved ones. No matter how dirty or miserable it looks, ending it is their right. If they thought death better, they'd have done it."
Winter's past life looked miserable to anyone. But if someone negated it based on appearances, he'd reject it. Short life, rare smiles, frequent tears—but the warmth of two precious people gave it infinite value.
"The right to one more second with someone I want, who wants me. Chadwick stole that. Too grave a sin to dismiss as 'they'd die anyway.'"
That's what I believe. Winter, who cherished every second, comforted Joanna.
============================ Author's Note ============================
#Q&A
Q. kaley: @Author-nim seems not a normal 'person' but a normal 'old one' overflowing with innocence, was I wrong... sob sob
A. The author's criterion for distinguishing people is intelligent beings with personality. So calling you a normal person isn't wrong.
Q. Kaioga: @Oh, then I'm scared author-nim might become butter-old one roast-Tunguska flavor
A. If grilled with butter, I become president.
Q. Carpice: @Author-nim, if you publish this novel, I'd love to buy it. I'll pass it down as a heirloom, so please sign it. If you do, I'll lick it morning and night. p.s. If Sealove publishes a book, I'll definitely buy it! (bow)
A. This is tricky... Lots of readers with unique tastes wanting signed copies... Planning about fifteen signed ones... Not for stores, though. Personal gifts with signatures to a few...
Q. svjk: @Suddenly curious about the chairman's Korea. Did he build that wealth from nothing? Or grew up learning only trades in that environment?? Doesn't quite fit a trade-only corp chasing unfair deals, with his fair-trade pursuit...
A. Can't explain every character detail... Haha. Imagine: what environment creates such a person.
Q. NeoGGM: @Went to Vnovel blog, saw Great Old One's book coming next month. Lost my Nambibat pot while moving, so wanna buy. How to get signed copy?
A. Not for sale! Acquisition method... secret for now.
Q. Kaif: @Control personality too cowardly? Just fact-slapping...
A. If everyone were like Control personality, the world would be so peaceful, no?