Bad Omen
November 26
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Adelis POV
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This morning we went to take my sister Damaris back to the airport. She is doing much better after what happened. Even though she may not seem like it, she is a very resilient person. Unfortunately, this is not the first time she has been in a shooting, but it is the first time it has turned into something big instead of just something that lasted a couple of minutes. Before her return, we both agreed to never mention what happened to our parents. After all, we don’t want to worry them with unnecessary things. So, no matter how shaken she may be, all she can do is come back and say that everything went as planned—tell my father even that his coffee was the most enjoyable part of the whole party. After all, it is the fruit of his work, and he is full of pride for the product he created. Neither of us has the heart to shatter his dream.
I also asked my sister for a very personal and important favor: that she try to soften César’s return with the rest of the family. Since she already knows what happened to him, it’s best to take advantage of the situation and ask her to try to create a safe place for him before giving the news to the others, because it will undoubtedly create complicated situations. But I truly want him to come back with everyone else and be appreciated for who he is and for everything he has done for us, even if no one knew about it. I know it will never be enough to repay his sacrifices, but I have to make up for at least some of the damage we caused to my poor son.
Right after making sure she boarded the correct flight back home, I went with Mei Ling back to my office at the Akasaka Press Center. It seems that several documents have piled up from taking care of my sister. Most of them are just more requests for equipment or budget—things that really shouldn’t be my responsibility in the first place—but there’s always one or two that might be more urgent than the others, so I try to at least skim through them to make sure nothing important slips by.
Poor Mei is also busy reviewing several documents while at the same time checking her students’ assignments. I don’t like having to ask her to work so much, since she is responsible for so many things, but we are really a bit overwhelmed with work. Even at home, Tifa is helping with several documents from the computer with the twins’ help over a video call. I feel bad for taking advantage of them, but these days intelligence agencies have been in panic all around the planet. Things are happening, and wherever they are pointing, it’s not toward anything good.
It seems that the attack on the Fujikawa Corp. Tower was the most high-profile one, but it was not an isolated case. Another similar attack took place in Brazil. Thiago “O Rei Branco” Valen?a, a rancher, businessman, and also the leader of the criminal group “C?o de Ouro,” was also recently assassinated at his residence during a large-scale assault. All personnel and guards were eliminated. When BOPE arrived, there was nothing left but an abandoned house in what looked like a war zone and a massive hole in the building—an entire room had been stolen. Apparently, it was a vault containing the largest reserve of the criminal empire he ruled. Without the money, the group is now in its final days, with all its members being hunted down like animals by rival gangs. It really takes massive guts to assault the home of a major crime lord like that, but there’s no need to look far for who they were—the same ones who hit the Fujikawa Corp. Tower. These guys are linked to ten raids of the same level all over the planet: Brussels, France, Canada, Australia, Singapore—there’s nowhere they haven’t been. Some of the targets were organizations believed to be laundering money for the Russian government in secret.
But there’s something that doesn’t add up in this whole story. This group was undoubtedly highly professional and dangerous enough to give Cesar such a hard fight; they were a real threat, an elite, organized assault team. Yet all these robberies have taken place over the last six months, and the amount of money stolen is astronomical—absurdly high, enough to rival the GDP of a small nation. So either these guys were the most ambitious beings alive and the worst savers imaginable, or something else is going on. Their hits clearly showed extraordinary planning and deep internal knowledge of personnel and defense systems, but the time span of the robberies is extremely short. And that’s not even counting the money itself. It’s impossible to move such an amount without banks and governments noticing. Moving a something like a billion dollars would obviously turn a lot of heads and raise countless questions—and yet no one knows anything. Normally, I’d think this was the Empire pulling off something huge, but this time it clearly isn’t them; the terrorists’ nationalities don’t match, since they’re Russian. There’s something here we’re not seeing—something big.
Unfortunately, the phone on my desk rang with even worse news. It was from an unknown number, but Mei Ling assured me it was from someone we knew and gave the green light to answer it.
“Mrs. Adelis, it’s a pleasure to speak with you again,” said a slightly older voice on the other end.
“Give me a second, I’m switching you to a secure line.”
“……”
“Okay, done.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Reznov? What the hell— I thought you’d been dead ever since Vorkuta!”
“Ahg, you know how they exaggerate things.”
“How many times is this now? The third time they’ve declared you dead?”
“You’re not an angel pretending to be human, are you?”
“The only other person I know who pulled something like that turned out to be quite… particular.”
“……”
“I’m guessing this call isn’t just to tell me you’re alive. If that were the case, you’d have stayed quiet and enjoyed retirement instead.”
“I’m afraid that’s right.”
“I’m no longer the reckless man I once was; time is starting to catch up with me. I can’t be a soldier forever.”
“……”
“Maybe I’m no longer in the army, but I do know people who still are… and what they’re telling me isn’t good. That’s why I thought I’d give you a call, to put this on record.”
“Damn it, that’s exactly what I didn’t want…”
“Not at a time like this.”
“Is this about the group at the Fujikawa Corp. Tower? Those were your men, right?”
“……”
“I’m afraid that’s correct, I’m afraid.”
“But as I said, I retired from the army. I trained them, yes, but that was ten years ago.”
“Whatever they’ve done is no longer my concern.”
“But I’m afraid I do have information about it.”
“……”
“Let me see where to begin…”
“Do you remember the war in Ukraine? The one that happened just before the rise of the Empire and the Continental War?”
“Russia suffered heavy losses of military equipment for years because of that catastrophe, and the Continental War didn’t improve the situation afterward.”
“Even if they try to keep up appearances, the Russian army—the pride of our nation—is in ruins.”
“It can’t even handle natural disasters; the western borders are still filled with trenches, weapons aimed at each other.”
“The police can’t keep up with the robberies; farmers couldn’t fill their granaries either. There are already rumors of an approaching famine for the winter that’s already here. The government is planning to shut down the internet soon, citing some kind of energy crisis or something similar.”
“The people in the White House—the Russian one, for you—know it. They’re living with a ticking time bomb on their desks.”
“That’s why, since the end of the Continental War, they’ve bet everything on restructuring and rearming their army.”
“It won’t be as large as before, but they plan to modernize everything to the maximum—real movie-grade shit.”
“You’ve seen those giant I.S.C. robots Americans loves to mock? Well yeah, they’re already here—not in testing, but in full production and conducting real military exercises.”
“Tank factories converted into walker factories; weapons and heavy ammunition; the technological equipment to keep them operational.”
“Right now, the army is conducting secret military exercises in Siberia—entire squadrons of Walkers testing new tactics.”
“The infantry soldiers aren’t being left behind either. From what I’ve heard, they’re also about to complete their own locally produced Arksuit armor.”
“If the government is running out of money, it’s because everything is invested in steel.”
“A whole new industrial revolution.”
“Interesting…”
“All of this is connected to the rumors, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“The best sources of illegal income abroad were blatantly stolen.”
“Arms shipments across the entire country are being heavily monitored, yet every day something still disappears.”
“Rifles here and there, ammunition of all kinds, tanks.”
“They’ve even stolen some Walker units from several trains.”
“No one is that stupid—these aren’t robberies to make money later. These are systematic thefts, the strikes of an organized guerrilla force.”
“They’re stockpiling weapons for larger confrontations!”
“They’ve already executed some generals for treason; it seems they were marking where and what the shipments were. But they keep disappearing like clockwork.”
“They want to blame Ukraine again, but the shipments are being stolen from regions like Chukotka or Evenkia—that’s on the other side of the country.”
“And on top of that, no one says a word; the stolen shipments are never found.”
“So the rebels do exist.”
“This is really bad.”
“There’s still nothing public; no announcements, no name.”
“It’s like trying to find a ghost in a stadium during a football final.”
“Which means it’s even worse…”
“They won’t negotiate anything.”
“Just a total uprising—a blaze of glory, victory or death.”
“…… God my…”
“Damn it…”
“……”
“……”
“They’ll go straight after those in charge and deal with politics afterward.”
“I’m distancing myself from this as much as I can, but the problem is when that uprising will happen and how powerful it will be.”
“If it lasts a day, that would be good—no major problem. But what if the conflict drags on? A month, a year?”
“And what if someone steals the wrong arsenal? What if someone steals an atomic bomb? Or worse—what if someone desperate simply uses them?”
“I understand your concern, Reznov, but the Alliance cannot interfere in a civil conflict. It’s in its own rules.”
“We’re an international group for threats that cross borders; we can’t show favoritism like that.”
“I know. That’s why I’m asking Mrs. Adelis.”
“I mean it—keep an eye on this. Don’t let it catch you off guard.”
“Thank you, Reznov. I appreciate it.”
“I’ll see if I can at least prepare something for the worst-case scenario.”
“I hope you call again another time—preferably for something more normal.”
When the call ended, my hand felt heavy just setting the phone back on the desk. News like that is never easy to digest, especially with everything that’s been happening lately.
Even if the Alliance can’t intervene, it still has things to lose in this encounter. Russian factories were quite good at producing ammunition, and access to their vast natural reserves was important. But the worst part is that the ISC base is located in Russia. With Damien Raven at the helm, living in Saint Petersburg, it could become a major target for both rebels and loyalists alike. Rose’s own residence was there; it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think her laboratory was there as well—the very laboratory that invented the Walkers, the red mercury bomb, the Shock Wave Ballistic Missile, the ARK generators, the Arksuit, and even the portal that summoned the dragons and ended up unleashing the entire timeline that César destroyed—those walls hold all of that.
All I can hope is that Damien Raven is able to see the situation for what it is and leave the country in time with everything he owns.
……
Oh my God.
