novelnext Chapter 201: We’ll Come for You!
Chapter 201: We’ll Come for You!
For the first time in over a year, humanity finally had one.
The briefing room remained silent as everyone stared at the location highlighted on the screen.
Ryan looked at the map.
Then looked at Doctor Lin.
Then looked back at the map again.
"...That’s it?"
Doctor Lin nodded slowly.
"That’s it."
Ryan frowned.
"No offense, but I expected some evil volcano fortress or something."
One of the naval officers rubbed his forehead.
"This isn’t a movie."
Ryan pointed toward the map.
"Exactly. That’s why I expected something less suspicious than a facility literally called Project Eden."
Nobody argued with that.
Honestly, it sounded like the kind of place where apocalypses were born.
Doctor Lin stepped closer to the display.
The image zoomed further inward.
Mountain ranges appeared.
Dense forests.
Remote valleys.
No major cities.
No highways.
No civilian settlements.
Nothing.
Captain Liu studied the map from the monitor aboard the Changzheng-418.
"It was intentionally isolated."
"Yes."
Doctor Lin nodded.
"Originally, Eden was designed as a contingency research facility."
Adrian crossed his arms.
"What kind of contingency?"
The scientist hesitated briefly.
Then answered.
"The kind governments build when they believe civilization might collapse."
The room became quiet again.
Ryan slowly looked around.
"...That doesn’t sound concerning at all."
Doctor Lin ignored him.
"Eden was self-sufficient."
Her finger moved across the display.
"Independent power generation."
"Underground agriculture."
"Water purification systems."
"Residential sectors."
"Research laboratories."
The tactical display continued updating.
The deeper the intelligence officers dug into the archive files, the worse it looked.
One officer finally spoke.
"This place is huge."
Doctor Lin nodded.
"Several thousand personnel could survive there indefinitely."
Another officer frowned.
"How indefinitely?"
Doctor Lin answered immediately.
"Decades."
That got everyone’s attention.
Even Adrian’s expression hardened slightly.
Because that changed everything.
This was not simply a laboratory.
It was a fortress.
A hidden fortress.
Built before the outbreak.
Prepared for the outbreak.
Perhaps even designed around it.
The intelligence officer continued scrolling through recovered files.
Then suddenly stopped.
"Sir."
Adrian looked toward him.
"What?"
The officer zoomed into another recovered document.
The room immediately focused on the screen.
A personnel roster appeared.
Names.
Ranks.
Departments.
Research divisions.
Most were listed as deceased.
Missing.
Or unconfirmed.
But one name remained highlighted.
AKIRA TOMOYASU
STATUS: DIRECTOR
Ryan stared.
"...Well that’s convenient."
Doctor Lin’s expression darkened.
"Not convenient."
"What do you mean?"
The scientist looked toward the screen.
"If Akira remained Director after the outbreak began..."
She slowly exhaled.
"...then Eden probably became his headquarters."
The room remained silent.
Nobody liked that possibility.
Not one bit.
Because it meant Akira wasn’t wandering the world randomly.
He had a base.
A command center.
Somewhere hidden from everyone.
One intelligence analyst spoke next.
"If this place is active, why haven’t we detected it?"
That was a good question.
Doctor Lin immediately answered.
"Because it was designed not to be detected."
She pointed toward several engineering documents.
"Eden was constructed beneath an entire mountain range."
The display updated.
Underground schematics appeared.
Several officers immediately leaned forward.
The facility looked enormous.
Miles of tunnels.
Research sectors.
Power stations.
Residential blocks.
Storage facilities.
And deeper still.
Much deeper.
Entire sections remained classified even within the recovered archives.
Ryan stared at the blueprint.
"...How rich was this project?"
Captain Liu answered from the monitor.
"Government rich."
Nobody laughed.
Because unfortunately—
That was true.
Doctor Lin looked toward Adrian.
"If Akira is there, attacking Eden won’t be simple."
Adrian nodded.
"I figured."
One intelligence officer highlighted another section.
"There’s another problem."
The room looked toward him.
The officer enlarged a satellite image recovered from naval reconnaissance archives.
The image appeared recent.
Very recent.
And immediately—
The room became quiet.
Because the area around Project Eden wasn’t empty.
Not remotely.
Thousands.
Tens of thousands.
Possibly hundreds of thousands.
Heat signatures surrounded the mountain region.
Ryan slowly stared.
"...Are those infected?"
"Yes."
The officer nodded grimly.
The image continued updating.
The numbers became worse.
Much worse.
Entire valleys appeared packed with infected concentrations.
Huge clusters.
Dense clusters.
The kind normally only found around major cities.
Except there were no cities there.
Adrian immediately noticed it.
"So they’re protecting it."
Doctor Lin slowly nodded.
"Or gathering there."
Neither possibility sounded good.
Captain Liu crossed his arms.
"That many infected in a remote location cannot be accidental."
"No."
Adrian agreed immediately.
"It isn’t."
The room fell silent again.
Because everybody was reaching the same conclusion.
Akira was there.
Maybe not physically.
Maybe not permanently.
But he was connected to it somehow.
The infected concentrations alone practically confirmed it.
Then another intelligence officer spoke.
"We also recovered something else from the archive."
The room immediately looked toward him.
"What?" Adrian asked.
The officer hesitated briefly.
Then opened another recovered file.
A video file.
Timestamped.
Six days before the outbreak.
Doctor Lin’s face immediately changed.
"I remember that."
The screen flickered.
Then stabilized.
A conference room appeared.
Several researchers sat around a table.
Military personnel.
Scientists.
Government representatives.
And standing at the front, a Japanese man.
Neatly dressed.
Completely ordinary.
Ryan frowned immediately.
"That’s him?"
Doctor Lin nodded.
"Akira."
Nobody spoke.
Because he didn’t look like the architect of humanity’s destruction.
He looked normal.
Too normal.
The video played.
Akira stood before the room calmly.
No shouting.
No insanity.
No grand gestures.
Just quiet confidence.
Then his voice echoed through the briefing room.
"We stand at the edge of extinction."
The room remained silent.
The recorded Akira continued.
"Humanity survives only because evolution allows it."
Several researchers exchanged uncomfortable looks inside the recording.
Akira didn’t seem to notice.
Or care.
"Every civilization eventually collapses."
"Every empire dies."
"Every government fails."
His voice remained calm.
Almost gentle.
Which somehow made it worse.
Then he smiled slightly.
"And yet evolution continues."
Nobody inside the briefing room interrupted.
The recording continued.
"The colony is not a weapon."
"It is not a disease."
"It is a successor."
Ryan slowly muttered.
"...That dude was insane."
Doctor Lin never took her eyes off the screen.
The recording continued.
"Humanity fears change."
"Humanity fears adaptation."
"Humanity fears unity."
Then Akira looked directly toward the camera.
And for a brief moment—
It almost felt like he was staring directly at them.
Even though the recording was over a year old.
Then his final words echoed through the room.
"The future belongs to what comes next."
The video ended.
Silence followed.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody moved.
The room remained completely still.
Finally Ryan broke the silence.
"...Yep."
He pointed toward the black screen.
"Definitely insane."
This time nobody corrected him.
Not even Doctor Lin.
Because after everything they had learned—
There was no other conclusion left.
Akira Tomoyasu had planned this.
He had prepared for it.
And somewhere inside Project Eden—
He was still waiting.
Adrian slowly looked toward the tactical map.
Toward the mountain range.
Toward the enormous infected concentrations surrounding it.
Then toward the officers gathered around the table.
"We finally have a target."
The room focused on him immediately.
Adrian’s expression hardened.
"Gather everything we have on Project Eden."
He looked toward the intelligence teams.
"I want satellite imagery."
"Structural layouts."
"Supply routes."
"Power generation systems."
"Everything."
The officers immediately nodded.
Then Adrian looked toward Captain Liu.
"We’re going after him."
The Chinese captain stared silently through the monitor.
Then slowly nodded.
"Agreed."
The room became quiet again afterward.
Because everybody understood what had just happened.
The mission had changed.
For over a year they had fought to survive.
To reclaim territory.
To rescue survivors.
To hold back the infected.
For the first time, they finally knew who they were fighting.
And soon enough, they would be coming for him.