*
The interior of the GenTek building held its breath. But it was not the calm silence of science. A strange stillness—the kind that grips a living thing when it senses its own death—had seeped through every corridor.
Secret Conference Room.
A secret conference room accessible only to the select few at GenTek's highest level. Inside sat neither researchers nor scientists, but only people concealing their sins, lined up side by side.
With the exception of McMullen, they had only one thing in common: none of them had laid a hand on Blacklight, DX-1118 M, Minazuki Kiria, or any of the secrets surrounding them.
Today, their only role here was to keep their mouths shut so no blood would spatter onto their hands.
A massive monitor stood at the front of the conference room.
On it, General Peter Randall's face was projected like an immense wall. McMullen's fingers trembled around his data tablet as he spoke in a chill voice.
"...Congress has begun looking into us."
In the windless room, everyone felt as if the temperature had dropped. Some drew in their breath, while others remained perfectly still, their eyes fixed on the screen.
McMullen pressed a button with one finger.
The monitor flashed, and four lines appeared.
- M-01's growth rate
- Adaptability to the parasitic suppressor
- Parasite instability
- Possibility of research secrets being leaked
The murmuring in the conference room became whispers of fearful cognitive dissonance.
"General..."
McMullen carefully raised his head.
"Congress is beginning to realize... what we have been raising. What this project may recreate."
Randall's eyes narrowed on the monitor.
"...Hope, Idaho, you mean."
The moment those words fell, it was as if the conference room heard the screams of the past all over again.
Hope, Idaho—the first hell humanity had ever looked into.
"M-01..."
McMullen swallowed to continue.
"...could become a second Hope."
The data screen changed.
Kiria's growth curve. Its exponential rise. Her adaptability, diminished after the suppressor injection yet still reviving as it dissolved that very suppressor. It was a curve closer to will than biology.
Someone groaned softly. Someone else clenched both hands.
Every one of them knew.
She was not a boy, but the seed of a catastrophe.
"General..."
One researcher asked in a trembling voice.
"...What are you going to do?"
Peter Randall fell silent for a moment. That silence was like the soundless bass hum of a giant sawmill's blade beginning to turn.
Then he spoke briefly.
"What we created, we will end."
Time froze in the conference room. Some closed their eyes. Others accepted reality with composed expressions.
But everyone felt it. Here and now, human judgment was sealing away a living being.
With a cold gaze, Randall displayed a document packed with names.
- All Blacklight virus researchers
- Project Minazuki research staff
- Participants in parasitic suppressor development
The list did not look like a roster. It looked like nameplates for people soon to die.
"These people know the truth."
Randall's voice was cold.
"If even one of them opens their mouth, we are finished."
McMullen could not continue. Instead, the gesture of drawing the edge of his hand across his own throat supplied his answer. General Randall delivered his final declaration.
"Clean them up."
The words were quieter, and crueler, than an order to kill someone.
The conference room lights flickered once.
That flicker felt like the instant someone's life went out.
*
After the meeting ended, Randall slowly—heavily—picked up the documents on his desk.
The signature lines already bore the neat approvals of several high-ranking officials.
One by one, they were colleagues who had shared conference rooms with him until only recently.
Now, they were no longer personnel sharing in GenTek's success, but "waste" to be discarded in order to hide GenTek's failure.
Staring at the documents, Randall murmured under his breath.
"What cannot be controlled... must be eliminated."
To him, those words were not a death sentence. They were a procedure, a task no different from taking out the trash.
The edge of the paper quivered without any wind. At that moment, someone's life was quietly trembling as well.
*
Meanwhile, one day before they began eliminating those involved in earnest.
Kir's office was ominously quiet. The neatly arranged papers on his desk had gone cold without his touch, while the ceiling lights trembled faintly, as though even this room knew what was about to happen.
Kir sat in his chair.
A gentle smile hung on his lips, but it was like a thin, soft shell. Deep in his eyes, old exhaustion and secrets churned.
The door opened.
Brown hair, blue eyes. The lead researcher of the Blacklight virus—Alex Mercer.
He maintained his usual soft tone, but he could not conceal the wariness hidden beneath it.
"Why did you call for me, Dr. Minazuki?"
Kir watched him for a moment before speaking, as though carefully drawing out a hidden blade.
"...Mercer. Soon, a bloodbath is going to sweep through GenTek."
Mercer's expression hardened.
"...What did you just say?"
Kir quietly steadied his breathing before continuing.
"Congress is moving. What GenTek has been creating, what potential M-01 carries... it seems they're finally starting to catch on."
He turned the computer screen and pushed it toward Mercer. Scarlet graphs, skyrocketing numbers, warning messages in the reports.
Everything was converging on a single conclusion.
- "DX-1118 M growth rate — uncontrollable"
- "Parasitic suppressor adaptation response — unpredictable"
- "Potential recurrence — Hope, Idaho incident"
Mercer's neck moved slowly and stiffly.
"...Don't tell me... to cover this up..."
Kir nodded.
"That's right. You know what the higher-ups do first when that happens, don't you?"
He slowly raised his thumb. Then, very slowly, turned it downward.
"—A purge."
Mercer was speechless. Unable even to draw a proper breath, his eyes shook.
Kir leaned toward Alex and spoke low.
"Mercer, you know it too. The odds that those of us at the heart of the virus research will survive are—almost nonexistent."
Mercer struggled to force out his voice.
"...GenTek is going to kill us? Really?"
"Really."
Kir spoke calmly, but with the hardness of a dagger.
"So investigate GenTek. Gather the truth. Get the information to Congress as quickly as possible. That is the only way to survive."
He paused, then whispered lower, quieter.
"And... if you hesitate, or if it looks like you are not going to act—I will leak the information myself. Keep that in mind."
Those words were not a threat. Nor were they salvation. They were a prophecy cast forward, dragging the future closer.
Mercer nodded blankly, then left the office without another word.
Once the door shut, Kir slowly exhaled and spoke to himself.
"...Yes. Now please, move just as I expect you to, Mercer."
The smile on his lips was faint, but it was the expression of someone waiting for an inevitability.
*
After that day, the GenTek building began to collapse slowly, but unmistakably.
One researcher.
Another two days later.
Then another.
No one said it aloud, but everyone knew.
'The claim that they died in accidents is a lie.'
'Someone is erasing us.'
Blackwatch troops were stationed throughout the building, and their expressionless faces gave the researchers their answer.
—You are already obsolete.
—Now you will simply be cleaned up.
The Blacklight research team fell into panic, and the Project Minazuki personnel came to regard surviving each day—at times, each hour—as a miracle.
Some tried to run, but those attempts always returned as cold corpses bearing the name "failure."
And time passed...
*
The year Kiria turned twenty, the purge was nearing its end.
Within GenTek, the Blacklight research team and Project Minazuki no longer resembled research facilities, but graves haunted by ghosts.
People still walked their halls, but every footstep carried the silence of those who had already greeted death. Most documents had been disposed of, and hardly anyone remained to speak with another.
And soon, the final page would be turned.
*
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