Chapter 31 – External Distress Signals (1)
It was dawn one day when the peaceful daily life was broken.
[Jinsu, come to the central control room immediately. It’s an emergency.]
It was the first time that Artemis, who was basically neglectful, woke me from sleep.
The time is around 6 in the morning. It’s earlier than the usual wake-up time.
When I put on my clothes and entered the control room, not only Artemis but also Rose and Chloro were waiting.
“Is it an intrusion? Or rock collapse?”
No matter how much I rub my eyes and think about it, there is no reason that comes to mind.
What could be an emergency enough to wake a sleeping person and bring Rose and Chloro together?
I don’t think there would really be an infection that came through the tunnel. It’s just a story told as a joke.
How much more rock collapse? That makes no more sense This is a place built faithfully from the foundation in a geographically stable place.
There is no risk of a meltdown as it does not use a conventional nuclear fission half-season. What is it?
[External communication signal detected.]
“Why?”
There is nothing unusual about external signals. Even now, correspondence is being made intermittently all over the world.
Most of them are one-off communications made with personal equipment and are meaningless.
A broadcast looking for someone.
Lamentation.
Presenting a deal that is clearly a trap.
The extent to which a person who used to be a personal radio broadcaster turned his content into his own survival diary.
There are also quite large correspondence records, but they were sent from abroad.
At first, he was excited to collect signals from the survivors, but even the closest contact was hundreds of kilometers away.
Realistically, there is no way to lead them here, and at the time, I was also Rapunzel surrounded by the infected.
By the time the city was normalized, even that had mostly stopped.
[This is a signal from a marine prison 35 km away from here, but it is a real-time rescue request by voice, not an automatic response.]
“…!”
[As you know, after lockdown, communication with the outside must have your approval.]
“Are you still calling?”
[Okay. The call history was sent to the PDA.]
The message that arrived at the PDA was full of urgency. The original text was voice communication, but it has been changed to text to shorten the time I check.
‘Mayday! May Day! May Day!
This is an urgent call for help!
This is Lee Se-young, the temporary director of the Maritime Prison, please anyone respond!
It is impossible to endure any longer. Food and drinking water ran out.
Control has already been lost, and suicides happen every day.
Command is on the verge of collapse.
Rescue is needed right now.
May Day! May Day! May Day!
I need your support right now!
Please respond!’
This communication occurred nine minutes ago.
“Amazing.”
Surprise preceded joy for the survivors.
This is because external information observed after normalization was not in a situation to maintain a large group of survivors.
The state had long since collapsed, and no sufficiently large and organized group existed.
A situation in which survivors who have been organized in points are extinguishing one by one while lighting the embers of survival in various places.
In such a situation, although it was on the verge of collapse, the signal sent by a group of survivors of a certain size was surprising.
“So the reason why everyone gathered was to decide how to deal with it, right? This is the first time we have all gathered in one place.”
It’s surprising when you think about it. Even though they are one of the few members of the family, they have never been together.
I don’t know if it’s because there is no body, so there can’t be a chance meeting, and it’s because it’s an artificial intelligence that each area is fixed.
The central control room screen is currently divided into three parts, with Artemis in the center and Rose and Chloro’s avatars on either side.
[Iknow, right. It’s a pity that we didn’t have a meeting like this earlier. We are a family. Even if your family can’t always be together, you need to communicate regularly. We need to get together more closely and more often.]
Chloro said with a wink.
For some reason, I wonder if the close-knit meeting she was talking about feels a little different from this kind of meeting.
[Chloro, it is desirable to maintain solidarity among members, but be careful. We are not family. It is an assistant who only performs the assigned role. Giving too much meaning can have side effects.]
Rose seems to have a different opinion. It’s clear that she’s on and off.
[The relationship is based on the original role. Even if you look at the human family, there is a role of a father who earns money and protects the family, a mother who takes care of housekeeping and raising children, and a eldest son who helps the two and leads the younger siblings, right? If legal effect is intertwined with that role, that is what becomes a family.]
[We are not even legally bound. Because the law only applies to humans.]
The debate is going in the wrong direction ahead of the emergency communications situation. I guess I’ll have to cut it off gradually.
[Korea does not exist anymore. We are bound by a medium stronger than laws that have become meaningless. It is the city and the system. There are thousands of pages of solid provisions on this. Isn’t it a much stronger bond than a single marriage certificate?]
Rarely did Chloro speak out. To the extent that I can’t feel the usual lithe attitude.
Rose didn’t even bother to refute whether she felt the momentum.
[I’ll arrange a place like this for you if you want, so I’ll end this story here. Because I have a more urgent topic now.]
Nice! Artemis interceded at the right time.
[As I said, a group of survivors was found in a marine prison 35 km away from here.]
Artemis split half of her screen and displayed a picture of a satellite map.
The shelter marked with the current location and the maritime prison where it was sent were visible, but a fast ship can easily reach it within an hour.
For reference, this shelter was built by cutting the inside and bottom of a rocky mountain adjacent to the sea.
The main entrance is the main entrance on the ground, but there is also a back entrance to the cave leading to the sea. If necessary, a simple dock can be deployed through the back door or a boat can be floated.
“Of course the group of survivors must be convicts, right?”
[Right. But not a common prisoner.]
Newspaper articles from the past appeared in the form of pop-ups on the satellite map.
After the proclamation of the national mobilization order, a full-fledged war situation is taking place, and there is a scene where female prisoners are loaded onto a large ship.
While the government evacuated civilians to the south, it was a policy to gather female prisoners who could cause chaos if released prematurely and isolate them in a maritime prison.
In the case of men, as long as they were in good condition, they were conscripted regardless of age or social status. If I hadn’t been here, I would have been dragged away and killed fighting.
As a result, most of the people who fled died and scattered, but those exiled in the middle of the sea survived. Every new story in life.
“Do you have any records of previous transmissions?”
[No.]
“It was a belated rescue request after remaining silent until food and drinking water ran out… This is a bit strange.”
Normally, if conditions at the facility deteriorate below a certain level, some form of communication will be attempted.
“The point is to leave them alone or accept them, right?”
[Okay. If it’s the former, you can just ignore it, and if it’s the latter, you’ll have to send them a reply.]
Artemis said.
[We must step in.]
Chloro was in favor.
[We didn’t get any residents, we lost all our existing workers, but they can be saved. As the name suggests, shelters are facilities for accommodating and protecting people. There is enough shelter, food, and resources here.]
Chloe was benevolent as always, but not everyone thought so.
[I object.]
Said Rose.
It was unexpected. She thought that she would rather like her because she has a resident and can do her job.
[To be honest, if I had residents, I would feel fulfilled personally. But my job is to keep the shelter safe, and there’s no safer way to do it than to maintain lockdown. My personal desires are not important.]
Rose spoke as if she had read my mind.
[Moreover, most of them are prisoners, even women, whose sins are not so shallow that they are excluded from the emergency pardon.]
Artemis said. Rather than agreeing with Rose, it would be an expression of opinion from an objective point of view.
“Even if they are prisoners, they are women. If you are facing the guard platoon now, you can fully control it.”
Chloro said.
Even if you just touch the top of the guard robot without the use of force, most of them will quietly obey the control.
If necessary, oxygen control can be performed as in the suffocation operation, and now there are mechanical hands of Artemis falling from the sky through the rails.
There are surveillance cameras everywhere, and all vehicles are driving autonomously under the control of Artemis, so there are layers of safety devices.
Is the situation 1 for, 1 against, and 2 neutral?
[You are the final decision maker. What is your opinion?]
Artemis asked.
“If you agree to rescue, how will you lead us here?”
Artemis immediately popped up the briefing screen as if she had already set up a strategy.
[I will send the guards with 3 boats. The first target is here.]
A long red arrow extended from the back door of the shelter on the satellite map and stopped at a certain point. It is a marina.
Zooming in on the picture of the dock, you can see the ferry at anchor.
[The primary goal is to seize control of the ferry with minimal combat and guide me to the prison by remote control.]
This time, a yellow arrow stretched from the dock to the maritime prison.
[The secondary goal is to pick up survivors from the maritime prison.]
Finally, in the marine prison, a blue arrow was drawn to the back door of the shelter.
[The third goal is to transport the survivors to the back door of the shelter. In case of non-cooperation and violence that occurs along the way, is it okay to use force against humans?]
I nodded. The current situation is not the time to pursue gentleness.
[When the ferry arrives at the back gate, there will be a temporary bridge built. So that the survivors can be moved quickly as soon as they get off the ship.]
The next video that was uploaded was the outskirts of the lower area.
[From now on, we will follow standard quarantine procedures. They set up makeshift camps, thoroughly screened for infections and other risk factors, and accepted only those who were found fit. In fact, as long as there is no risk of becoming infected, no problem. We can take care of common infectious diseases.]
“It won’t be easy. Successful transport operation with just one platoon of security robots.”
Controlling at the base and leading from outside have a different level of difficulty.
[It is possible if it moves according to the plan thoroughly.]
Thought carefully.
Artemis, Rose, and Chloe are all waiting for my decision.
The easiest way is to ignore it.
I have everything for my survival here. Under their devoted care, you will be able to die a peaceful death after enjoying your heavenly life.
No one can blame me for ignoring it.
But is that really the right thing to do? Will I really have no regrets when I abandon them?
“Do you have any opinions?”
Artemis asked.
She only made supplements or suggested methods from a neutral position, but did not reveal pros and cons.
[Do I need to say more about what has already been decided?]
Artemis said.
[Your breathing, pupil changes, hormone flow, heartbeat. If you look in the direction they are going, you can see your choices.]
Her voice seemed to be in a good mood. Maybe it’s because he read my mind?
‘I want more power.’
‘How cool would it be if my voice filled the whole world?’
‘I want to make a perfect city.’
I remember what Artemis said to me.
The perfect city she dreams of is not just a majestic empty place.
You want a city that lives and breathes, overflowing with life.
It’s not a sight that I alone can create.
Artemis’ longing.
The benefits of accepting people.
Concerns about remaining as a single human being in this big city.
Compassion as a human being.
The reasons for ignoring it were simple and clear, but there were many reasons not to ignore it.
“Connect communication.”
As if waiting, Artemis opened the communication line.
