Chapter 65: {A Certain Report} (1/2)
Chapter 65: {A Certain Report}
Friday, Noveency Outpost in Haven City Center
==
Brent McAllister, current director of the AA's Haven outpost, sat in a sterile white conference roohest level it could get in a tier 3 city like Haven They sat about in sleek black chairs that screamed corporate aesthetic as they watched a Panopticon researcher present his findings
"As you all know, the Panopticon's variant detection network is thorough, but not perfect, especially when it comes to the ocean or subterranean threats
Even before the Altering, humanity had yet to discover even 5 of the earth's vast oceans, and that problem is still the same now
Ocean explorationthe powerful variants that tend to lurk there," said the researcher with a droning voice
He had on a distinctive white lab-coat e a black pyrao of the Panopticon
"Skip with this introductory bullsht," said Brent as he waved his stea impatiently "And tell me how the Panopticon fucked us over You do know that the AA has to pay for this disaster, right? We anization out there subsidized by every country, but our funds aren't unlioodwill of the people for donations and support
Sht like this does NOT send a show of confidence to our investors"
"I must inforan the researcher
"'I must inform you'" Brentto his loud and brash"You know damn well that the Panopticon doesn't need to pay sht
It's got leverage over everyone and anything, Skyfields and tech and all"
One pheno variants was that there were precious few that flew above a certain at them entirely rooted to the earth
The only exception hen variants were attacked from near orbit or orbit, at which point they would start to adapt high flight capabilities in response to the severity of the attack they received
This hly risky because it initiated an arht, and humanity was far less equipped to deal with orbit based attacks than variants and their more expendable numbers
This variant adaptiveness to attack was also why the AA and Panopticon used nuclear weaponry extrely
Anytime a nuke was thrown out, a variant would spawn, often froy of the fallout zone, that was even harder to deal with than what the nuke wiped out in the first place
This meant that Panopticon run Skyfields - e tracts of food were grown in the high atmosphere where variants did not conventionally reach - could e swathes of destroyed farmland across the world
Skyfields made the Panopticon untouchable because no country in the world would ever risk alienating the Panopticon and their food supplies, not to e-scale drone ency, on the other hand, had to deal with daily protests over so here, some failed rescue there, some villain this and some variant that
And now s were getting worse and worse
More villains, not just thugs using their powers for stupid, selfish needs, but legitith
More andever erous
The ant colony attack on South Korea that killed hundreds of thousands a couple of years ago was just one of a dozen such incidents throughout the world in just the past twenty years alone
The worst thing about all this was the pay cuts Brent had taken