For the first ti 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 so evil volcano fortress or sothing."
One of the naval officers rubbed his forehead.
"This isn’t a movie."
Ryan pointed toward the map.
"Exactly. That’s why I expected sothing 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 zood further inward.
Mountain ranges appeared.
Dense forests.
Remote valleys.
No major cities.
No highways.
No civilian settlents.
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 governnts build when they believe civilization might collapse."
The room beca 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 imdiately.
"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 zood into another recovered docunt.
The room imdiately focused on the screen.
A personnel roster appeared.
Nas.
Ranks.
Departnts.
Research divisions.
Most were listed as deceased.
Missing.
Or unconfird.
But one na remained highlighted.
AKIRA TOMOYASU
STATUS: DIRECTOR
Ryan stared.
"...Well that’s convenient."
Doctor Lin’s expression darkened.
"Not convenient."
"What do you an?"
The scientist looked toward the screen.
"If Akira remained Director after the outbreak began..."
She slowly exhaled.
"...then Eden probably beca his headquarters."
The room remained silent.
Nobody liked that possibility.
Not one bit.
Because it ant Akira wasn’t wandering the world randomly.
He had a base.
A command center.
Sowhere 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 imdiately answered.
"Because it was designed not to be detected."
She pointed toward several engineering docunts.
"Eden was constructed beneath an entire mountain range."
The display updated.
Underground schematics appeared.
Several officers imdiately 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.
"Governnt 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 imdiately—
The room beca 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 beca 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 imdiately 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 imdiately.
"It isn’t."
The room fell silent again.
Because everybody was reaching the sa conclusion.
Akira was there.
Maybe not physically.
Maybe not permanently.
But he was connected to it sohow.
The infected concentrations alone practically confird it.
Then another intelligence officer spoke.
"We also recovered sothing else from the archive."
The room imdiately looked toward him.
"What?" Adrian asked.
The officer hesitated briefly.
Then opened another recovered file.
A video file.
Tistamped.
Six days before the outbreak.
Doctor Lin’s face imdiately changed.
"I rember that."
The screen flickered.
Then stabilized.
A conference room appeared.
Several researchers sat around a table.
Military personnel.
Scientists.
Governnt representatives.
And standing at the front, a Japanese man.
Neatly dressed.
Completely ordinary.
Ryan frowned imdiately.
"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 governnt fails."
His voice remained calm.
Almost gentle.
Which sohow 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 cara.
And for a brief mont—
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 cos 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 ti 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 sowhere 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 imdiately.
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 imdiately 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 beca 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 ti, they finally knew who they were fighting.
And soon enough, they would be coming for him.
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