16 The Meeting

[Are you sure it was alright to tell that man the truth, Master?]

"It wasn't as though I had a choice." The boy replied in a dark tone. "If I didn't tell that man the truth, he would have had the perfect excuse to directly eliminate me. Now that I've given him the adamantine, he wouldn't be able to do anything to me since I've made a contribution to the Empire. Until the Empire announces that the substance is useless, making my entire trip a waste of resources, time and money, the man would not be able to act against me."

"It's lucky that I decided to leave a small amount of the adamantine unabsorbed back then, or else my corpse would have completely disintegrated into space dust by now." The boy thought to himself as he narrowed his eyes.

Jumping through the tree branches, Agent 012 headed towards a certain direction at a breakneck speed in the middle of the night. Since it was the period of the new moon, the light reflected from the lunar surface is close to nil. However, the shining neon lights from the colonies on that seemingly barren natural satellite still illuminated the surface of the Earth, albeit at a lower intensity than the reflected sunlight. Thus, a Martian agent like 012 could only hide under the thick forest that completely blocked out the light from above.

At this moment, the agent had jumped over a seemingly inconspicuous narrow stream of river. Although this flowing river seemed insignificant, it actually marked the borders for two different countries within the Federation. However, from the lack of landmarks, fences and patrol guards, a normal person would not be able to tell that they have just crossed the border unless they had a map with them.

However, even if they were to know the existence of the border, it would not matter much to a normal person since, except for the difference in who's in charge, everything remains the same, making the distinction almost irrelevant to the masses.

It is at this time, in the middle of the night, that Agent 012 crossed into the neighboring country, leaving the previous behind even as the latter continued to scramble to look for him in the aftermath of the explosion.

***

<Fatalities: 24, Injuries: 57, Total Casualties: 81>

Commander Eric stared directly at the numbers before his holographic computer. Although it looked as though they were just a few numbers before him, behind the numbers were the pitiful cries and grievances of the loved ones as they grieve over the deaths of the people listed and represented within this report.

Taking another look at the report, Eric could not help but give out a helpless sigh, thinking to himself, "If only I've done things differently…"

However, Eric knew that this was only wishful thinking on his part.

The commander is currently seated before a rather large round table. Although many chairs surrounded the table, none of them were occupied physically except for the commander's. Instead, a holographic image of different people appeared on each chair, directly projected by a projector on the ceiling.

In the middle of the table was another giant 3D hologram that currently has several images displayed, while a prominent 3D rendition of a certain person laid frozen right at the very middle of the table.

"Now that everyone has arrived, let's begin." A familiar voice sounded directly opposite from where Commander Eric sat. As Eric looked across, he found that the person in question was looking back at him as well. He flashed Eric a smile before focusing himself on the hologram placed in the middle of the table.

"Since everyone has already been briefed about the situation, let's get right into it."

The man paused and gave took a second to observe his peers. After seeing a few nods from the others, he continued, "There are currently three unsolved mysteries regarding this case – First, what type of weapon did the perpetrator use to cause Truck #1 to explode. Second, where did the perpetrator manage to get a heavily regulated WMD and manage to detonate it without anyone getting informed beforehand. Finally, how did the perpetrator manage to escape the heavily guarded confines of the capital while also evading Minerva."

After a few murmurs amongst the crowd, a person seated a few places over from Commander Eric raised his voice and spoke emotionlessly. "Regarding the first mystery, our scientists are looking on it and arrived at a few preliminary results."

Eric tilted his head towards the person who just spoke, giving a glance at the name plague placed on the table in front of him. "Kevin 82093. Representative from the Ministry of the Natural Sciences." It read.

Suddenly, the hologram placed in the middle changed its form. After reconfiguring for awhile, the hologram turned into a freeze frame of a video captured by a video camera showing Commander Eric's convoy moments before the explosion.

Dr. Kevin continued zooming in onto Truck #1, directly bypassing the other trucks within the convoy before zooming directly into the fuel tank of the truck. Then, he directly played the video footage at 0.1 speed, allowing for everyone to see what exactly went on inside the tank the moment it ignited.

Initially, the black and murky liquid within the tank looked seemingly normal, gently swaying about from the movements of the truck. However, after a few seconds, the people within the conference room saw something weird happening – the surface of the liquid seemed to be entering an energized state as bubbles started to form rapidly, popping and reforming within mere milliseconds. It didn't take long before a sudden 'pop' sound resounded throughout the room, instantly igniting the fuel within the truck, sparking a large explosion.

"As you can see, the perpetrator has somehow injected a targeted stream of energy around the surface of the petroleum, heating the liquid and directly increasing its temperature by 100K, thus sparking the explosion. Since no video footage was recorded of what exactly the perpetrator was doing at the exact moment of the explosion, the best hypothesis we can conjecture is that the perpetrator used an experimental weapon of some sort to cause the explosion."

The doctor lightly tilted his pair of glasses upwards. Although everyone within the Federation has perfect eyesight due to its free healthcare system providing for an unlimited amount of laser eye treatments to its populace, people still like to wear glasses not out of necessity but as a fashion statement.

Kevin seems to be one of those people who thinks wearing a pair of glasses makes him look more intelligent, to the point where he would even try and 'unconsciously' move his glasses to make people take notice of it.

"Are the engineers from your department able to reverse engineer such a weapon?" The man opposite from Eric asked.

"Negative. Since we have no idea what the weapon even looks like, we don't even know how it operates. Let's hope that the perpetrator has the weapon with him when he's apprehended by the military in the future." Kevin replied with a slightly enthusiastic tone. However, he seemed keener about the potential of getting his hands on a piece of new technology than the prospects of apprehending a dangerous spy still hiding within the midst.

"Fine. Let's move on. Uther, how is it that your department wasn't able to detect any sort of antimatter outside of the designated research facilities on Earth? You do realize the fallout it will cause if people realize that they could be bombed at any moment, right? If it wasn't for the Secretary-General immediately issuing a gag order through the Minerva System, who knows how many of those pesky politicians will be freaking out by now?" The general sitting opposite from Eric sneered at a man beside him, making the person look a little awkward.

"Hey, lay off on me a little, will you, Arnold?" Uther gave out an exasperated tone as he replied, "Although the physicists within my department says they can detect even the tiniest speck of antimatter the second it appears on Earth, they still wouldn't be able to detect them when if the antimatter is directly shielded within a fusion core. I think you should instead ask how the heck did those Martian scum obtain the resources to build a mini-fusion core and sneak it to Earth without any of us knowing."

It was then that both Uther and Arnold tilted their heads and gave a rather meaningful stare at another man seated across from them. The man's plague read, "Zach, representative from the Customs and Border Security Department of the Planetary Security Commission."

"There's no way those Martians would be able to sneak in something as reactive as a fusion core into our borders without us knowing. Those Geiger counters would have directly sounded the alarm multiple times before they could be smuggled through our orbital elevators. I say there's a much higher chance of someone from our side turned traitor and made it for them."

Commander Eric could only shake his head as he saw the multiple bureaucrats in front of him bickering about while trying to shrink from their responsibilities, accusing people left and right instead of accepting their own responsibilities. After seeing that the meeting's going nowhere, General Arnold directly adjourned the conference, forcing everyone to leave before leaving himself and the commander behind.