When they were only approximately ten kilometers away from Area 51, the urgent sound of the alarm system blared across the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. X-112 announced simultaneously, “Sir Commander, detected radar scanning at 12 o'clock!”

“There's someone at Area 51?”

Chen Chen was immediately taken aback by the completely unexpected news. Who would have thought that the North American Continent still had an a.s.sembly of troops even when human civilization was facing extinction?

“We detected a strong continuous radar frequency. Sir Commander, our position has been compromised by the Area 51 military operation.”

X-112 further cautioned. “The opposition has no interest in communicating with us. That's not all, our omnidirectional infrared detector has detected an object approaching at high speed. It seems to be a surface-to-air missile!”

“Can we dodge it?”

“There are three ways we can dodge it. For the current situation, we'll use electromagnetic cloaking.”

X-112 answered.

After several seconds, X-112 informed again, “The missile had lost sight of its target. Sir Commander, should we continue infiltrating the military base.”

“Forget it, the military base is manned.”

Chen Chen gathered his thoughts for a moment before he dismissed the idea. “First, let's figure out the situation and see if there's a way we can communicate with them. If it's only a small doomsday squad consisting of several hundreds of members of scattered troops, then we can launch a direct attack. If it's a properly established army, we can sit down and discuss terms with them.”

“Understood.”

X-112 responded before turning the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p around to retreat from the airs.p.a.ce of the military place. Then, it landed on top of a hill on the edge of the area.

When the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p had landed, Chen Chen dispatched three Black Knights to survey the surrounding area. After ensuring the hill was a safe area, he asked again, “X-112, can we contact Area 51?”

“I've relayed a radio message but they're not responding to us yet.”

X-112 answered, “I'm not sure why, but they appear to be extremely hostile.”

“There are only two possibilities.”

Chen Chen said after brief consideration, “The first one is that they've identified us as some kind of enemy. Or better yet, as an eternal foe that they'll do whatever it takes to destroy us upon finding us.

“Second, this is essentially an act stemming from their shame and guilt.”

“Shame and guilt?”

“Because they aren't the original owner of the military base. Out of fear of being kicked out of the place by its rightful owner, they resort to killing.”

Chen Chen deducted. “Which means that there's a healthy chance that the army camping inside Area 51 isn't any regular army, but an independent rebel force formed after the collapse of the North American government. For the sake of holding onto their current position, they refuse any means of communication with the officials. There's a strong chance that they've mistaken us for those officials.”

“Which possibility do you think is more likely?” X-112 asked.

“Probably the latter.”

Chen Chen thought for a moment. “Or maybe it's a combination of both possibilities. Perhaps the rebel army inside this military base had already battled with the government, this might explain why they attacked us on sight.

“Of course, it doesn't matter which one it is. What interests me more is how they were able to hide from the mysterious phenomenon occurring all over the world.”

“That's true, it's no small feat upkeeping an established army in the end times, it's almost impossible.”

X-112 agreed. “Based on the ruling principle of the spread of the mysterious phenomena, it can be observed that the rate of infection increases in densely populated areas. It's basically like a contagious disease in this sense. It doesn't make sense that the military camp would become a safe harbor from the ongoing mysterious phenomena.

“This is why we have to investigate the place. If for anything else, just to figure out the logic behind this.”

Chen Chen gave an affirmative nod. “Dispatch the drones to investigate first, we have the cloaking devices after all. Besides, the radar cannot detect us if we're flying at low alt.i.tudes. We don't have to perform a thorough investigation, just get an approximate idea of how many people are in the military base and what weapons they have.”

“We can have the Black Knights bring wireless receivers with them. If I can infiltrate into the military base web server using an extension server, I can immediately figure out the situation in Area 51.”

X-112 suggested as well.

“Excellent, then we shall execute both plans simultaneously.

Chen Chen gave his approval with a nod. Four unmanned drones and a Black Knight were then dispatched together to the military base in the distance.

Meanwhile, X-112 continued trying to communicate with them via radio but to no avail.

While all this was happening, there were a dozen or so middle-aged men and women dressed in military uniforms gathered in a conference room in a special section deep under the Area 51 Military Base.

There was a tinge of sadness in all of their eyes. Some of them constantly sighed while others seemed to be thinking about something. Now and then, a flash of anger would appear in their eyes, disrupting their stream of thoughts.

Seated on the head of the conference table was a white-bearded elderly man. A badge on his shoulder indicated that he was a major general. He wore sungla.s.ses although the room was dimly lit. There was also a cigar he hung by the corner of his lips. The major general spoke suddenly.

“I believe every one of you has received the news as well. Just ten minutes ago, an unknown flying object swept down from the skies above and appeared to be aiming straight for our military base…”

“Word is you issued an order to intercept them with the Sidewinder surface-to-air missile but they managed to slip away.”

The first man on the major general's left said with an unchanging expression. There was also a badge on his shoulder reflecting his rank of colonel in the North American military structure.

“Perhaps the missile has degraded over the years.”

The white-bearded elderly man made a waving gesture with his hands. “As you all are well aware of, the count of survivors in the world continuously trends downward. Some time ago, the North American government had tried to reclaim their territory but before it even got started, they were crushed by an instance of level-A mysterious phenomena. When I received the news, I nearly choked on laughter.”

The general suddenly switched his tone when he mentioned this, “In other words, there aren't many chances of us finding a qualified engineer to maintain our facilities these days.”

“But listen to me, aren't they trying to communicate with us?”

The first member on the right side of the table was a blonde-haired lady in her forties. Despite being a woman, her posture was the most authoritative of all the people present here. There was always a fierce spark visible in her eyes and a militaristic quality about her movements.

“Yes, that's the reason I called for this meeting.”

The white-bearded elderly looked over the people present, both rows of his teeth still firmly gripping the cigar. “The origin of that aircraft is still unknown. Based on its flight pattern it should be one of those supersonic aircraft secretly developed by the government. If it weren't for it decelerating upon approaching us, it'd be nearly identical to a guided missile.”

“But by the looks of it, the aircraft seems to be carrying pa.s.sengers…” The white-bearded elderly added.

“Impossible!”

The middle-aged colonel frowned and raised his objection. “It's impossible for an aircraft of such speed to carry pa.s.sengers. When flying, it generates more than 10 G's of net gravitational acceleration. Such velocity would turn the brain of its pa.s.sengers into a pulp!”

“Perhaps the aircraft has a built-in specialized buffer system?”

The blonde-haired lady refuted before turning to the elderly man. “But this isn't the time for us to discuss this. What I'm more curious about is what did they send to us?”

“Joan, you're impatient as ever.”

The white-bearded elderly man suddenly laughed merrily. When he gave a signal by clapping his hands together, several subordinates entered the conference room and handed a sheet of a report to everyone seated at the conference table.

“This is the complete log of the previous encounter.”

After everyone had received a copy of the report, he continued. “As you all can see from the radio logs, the other party is asking us why we opened fire at them without issuing a warning. They're also continuously asking to speak to the person in charge of the military base.”

“Are you not planning to respond?”

The colonel asked, “We still haven't figured out what faction they belong to. There's a chance they aren't part of the government, but this aircraft they used…”

The colonel further inspected the black and white image in the report and asked, “General Cary, are you sure the picture of the aircraft hasn't been mixed up with some picture of a car?”

Everyone inspected the subject referred to. Attached in the report was a not very high-quality picture. On top of that, it was in black and white so all that could be seen was a blurry image. Inside the picture was what appeared to be a vehicle hovering above the air. The only feature that set it apart from regular vehicles were what appeared to be two thrusters on its sides.

“If even a common car can glide across the sky at speed surpa.s.sing Mach 10, then surely I may have been mistaken.”

The elderly man they called General Cary chuckled. “At first, I thought it was a remnant of the government army, but I realized that wasn't the case after they avoided the ballistic missile. Currently, their ident.i.ties remain a mystery. After all, I haven't heard of any remaining states or countries since the calamity that has invented such advanced aircraft. Also, consider the following: what can we possibly gain out of negotiating with them?”

The elderly man chuckled again as he spoke, “I'm sure many of us here share the same suspicion, that they are coming for our specially designed underground shelter here. Are we going to share equal owners.h.i.+p of this underground shelter to these people? This is the shelter that keeps us away from the mysterious phenomena…”

There was a distinct change of expression among the members when they heard this. Those who originally had conflicting opinions began to settle down as well.

It was true, the underground shelter only had enough to accommodate a certain amount of people. Upon exceeding that number, the supply and demand of food and water would become greatly imbalanced. Once the delicate recycling process of resources was disrupted, they would have no choice but to raise the frequency of opening the underground shelter to resupply resources in the outside world.

G.o.d knew that the world was now infested with those d*mnable things. There were no guarantees that one of these times of them opening the shelter, those things would not sneak inside.

Once the mysterious phenomena found their way inside, the now safest shelter in the entire world would instantly turn into a horrific embodiment of h.e.l.l on Earth…

Upon considering this, the members who were longing for some sort of contact with the outside world decided they were better off silencing these ideas.

“It seems to me that we all have a different opinion on this matter, so I say we do this the democratic way.”

After the white-bearded general looked over the members, he quickly got an idea of the general ongoing sentiment. Again, he announced, “Here's what I think, nothing good can come out of taking unnecessary risk. To prevent having our shelter taken away from us, we shouldn't establish any form of contact with the outside world. If they still dare to storm us by force, we shall shoot them down with our missiles! Who agrees and which ones of you disagree?”

“… Agreed!”

The middle-aged man's expression quickly turned dark. After producing a long sigh, he was the first one to respond.

“Seconded.”

The blonde-haired lady seated opposite nodded her approval as well.

“Seconded.”

“Seconded.”

Unbeknownst to them, while they were gathering their thoughts on the matter, four completely transparent drones had snuck into the military. They came unnoticed, gliding at low alt.i.tudes and approaching from a distance, going 80 kilometers per second.

Once the drones successfully infiltrated the base, they immediately dispersed their formation and scattered across the base to conduct a brief scan of the entire base.

“1 did not discover any signs of life…”

“2 did not discover any signs of life…”

“3 and 4 did not discover any signs of life either…”

Half an hour later, Chen Chen received all the messages from the unmanned drones, “Sir Commander, we've swept through all of the warehouses and facilities of the military base and couldn't discover any signs of life. By the looks of it, the military base had been deserted for a very long time.”

“Then surely there's no way for an abandoned military base to attack us?”

Chen Chen turned it around. “It's clear that the structures are just a facade. The real military base must be deep underground.”

“I think so too.”

X-112 answered.

“Has the Black Knight arrived?” Chen Chen enquired.

“Just arrived. But if even the unmanned drones cannot find any clues, I doubt the Black Knight would be able to find the underground entrance.”

“It doesn't matter even if we can't find the entrance. We can locate them using the electric cables and the local network lines, there's no way they would go as far as to hide the circuitry as well.”

Chen Chen pondered for a moment. “Besides, you can directly infiltrate them if we can find a cable, isn't it?”

“That's true.”

Yoru Kamidera started to get a grasp on the current situation as he listened to the exchange between Chen Chen and the artificial intelligence. He became delightfully impressed by the level of artificial intelligence displayed by X-112 which surpa.s.sed the average person. He expressed his thoughts suddenly, “Your Excellency, I've also thought of another idea following the trajectory of your original idea. I wonder if you'd be interested in hearing me out.”

Chen Chen flicked his eyebrow curiously and turned to him. “Let me hear it.”

“From the information you collected, there's a Basilisk image called 'Filth'. We can take advantage of your artificial intelligence to inject the image into their main control systems. This way, we can eliminate them without sparing any effort, then the entire military base will be ours to claim!”

Chen Chen cracked a quick smile upon hearing this. “It's a good idea, but not so much if the underground base has a built-in self-destruct system.”

Yoru Kamidera was slightly caught off guard by this. It was true that if the underground base was fitted with self-destruction capabilities, the people residing inside may choose to activate it as a final act of resistance once they had lost all hope. Should that happen, they would have succeeded in defeating their opponents but failed at getting what they were after.

“Sorry, that slipped through my mind.”

Your Kamidera answered dejectedly.

“It's alright, it's not an entirely bad idea.”

Chen Chen waved his hands. “Except I'm not only gunning for the underground base, but something else as well…”