Five minutes after the masked men had left, Summer Woods walked through the door into the underground chamber where Anders was still standing. His legs were shaking so badly that he struggled to remain upright, and his cameraman was faring no better, looking pale as he stood nearby. The sight of the cells, the corpses, and the enormous pit filled with human bones had clearly pushed both men beyond their limits. Summer took one look at them and immediately understood that neither journalist would be recovering from the experience anytime soon.
"Are the masked men gone?" Summer asked, directing her question toward Anders, who was shivering in a corner with a complexion that made him look as though he might faint at any moment. He managed a weak nod, apparently unable to find the strength to answer her aloud. Summer glanced around the chamber before letting out a quiet sigh, accepting that the mysterious men had already accomplished what they had come to do. Well, too bad. Better luck next time, she thought, before reaching for her phone and calling the chief of police in Washington, D.C.
"This is Director Summer Woods of the CIA," she announced as soon as the call connected, her voice carrying the authority expected from someone in her position. "I hereby order every forensic doctor currently living in Washington, D.C., to report to the Capitol building and assist with the proper recovery and identification of the corpses hidden beneath it." She spoke with a serious expression, making it clear that this was not a request that could be postponed until the following morning. After delivering her instructions, she ended the call, confident that the chief understood the gravity of the situation and would act accordingly.
There was little reason to explain what had happened in greater detail over the phone, because the entire country was already watching the horrifying evidence emerge from beneath its own Capitol building. Every American would eventually see the footage, whether through the live broadcast or through recordings that would circulate for years afterward. The images of the victims would become part of the nation's history, and no amount of political maneuvering could make the public forget what had been discovered. Summer knew that the only acceptable response was to ensure that the dead received the dignity that had been denied to them in life.
With that in mind, she turned toward the camera and addressed the nation directly. She apologized for the authorities' failure to discover the facility earlier, acknowledging that the victims had been abandoned by the very institutions that should have protected them. She then promised that the government would find a proper resting place for every single skeleton that had been dumped beneath the Capitol. Her expression remained composed throughout the announcement, but the determination in her eyes made it clear that she intended to see the promise fulfilled.
Once she had finished addressing the public, Summer began making more phone calls without bothering to leave the camera's view. Her first call went to the CIA, where she ordered the relevant departments to stop wasting time and prepare to process every piece of intelligence gathered from the chambers under the Capitol building. She wanted investigators ready to examine documents, identify the people involved, and follow every lead that might expose further members of the organization responsible for these crimes. There would be no excuse for allowing valuable information to disappear into bureaucratic delays while the public waited for answers.
Afterward, she sent messages to the people she had assigned to investigate officials connected to the two politicians who had died and been exposed as corrupted humans. Summer had already begun considering the political consequences of their deaths.For the next fifteen minutes, the world was given an unexpected opportunity to observe the capable director of the CIA at work. Instead of offering carefully prepared statements or hiding behind official spokespeople, Summer issued orders, demanded results, and coordinated several operations in full view of the cameras. She did not appear concerned about how her behavior might be interpreted by politicians or the media, because the situation demanded action rather than carefully managed public relations. Anyone watching could see that she intended to use every resource available to her until the investigation had produced meaningful results.
That continued until the first group of people finally arrived at the chamber. They walked through the door looking pale, and several of them visibly struggled to process the scene before them. Summer barely gave them time to recover before directing them toward their assignments, because the work ahead was far too extensive for anyone to waste precious hours standing around. She had already decided how the first stage of the recovery operation would proceed, and she expected everyone present to begin immediately.
"Good, you're here," Summer said, turning toward the newcomers. "I want ten of you to begin removing bones from the pit, identifying what kind of bone each one is whenever possible." She then ordered someone to gather several hundred guards who could help transport the remains safely to Union Square outside the Capitol building. Once the bones reached the square, the workers were to lay them out carefully and begin assembling complete skeletons wherever they had enough matching remains. Finally, she instructed the group to arrange for several camera crews to film the entire process so the public could witness the recovery firsthand.
"Now get to it!" Summer ordered, her voice finally rising with anger at the slow response she had witnessed from the people entering the chamber. She had remained composed throughout the earlier announcements, but the thought of wasting even more time while thousands of victims remained unidentified had finally worn through her patience. The arriving personnel immediately acknowledged her instructions and hurried away to take up their assigned positions. None of them needed to be reminded that the entire country was watching, or that the work they were about to undertake would become one of the most disturbing public investigations in American history.
For the rest of the day, the public received a continuous live feed showing the recovery operation. Guards and forensic personnel carried bones out of the underground chamber, transported them to Union Square, and carefully arranged them across the available space. The work proceeded slowly because the number of remains was staggering, and identifying individual bones was only the first step toward reconstructing the skeletons. Nevertheless, the workers continued, knowing that every recovered bone represented part of a person whose existence had once been deliberately concealed.
By nightfall, they had still not finished clearing the pit. People were now standing upright inside it, working from a position that would once have seemed impossible to imagine, yet they remained approximately a meter below the rim. Despite the hours of continuous labor, the only thing visible throughout most of the pit was still bone after bone, stretching across the space in quantities that defied easy comprehension. The live broadcast continued to show the world just how extensive the atrocity had been, leaving viewers with little room to doubt the scale of the suffering hidden beneath their government.
Meanwhile, the three hideouts belonging to the corrupted humans had been completely cleared. Investigators were collecting evidence, documenting the facilities, and securing anything that might help reveal the wider organization behind them. Among the captured individuals was the man known as Lord 8, who had been tightly bound and fitted with a gag to prevent him from speaking. He looked furious about his circumstances, but his anger was of little consequence because Gaia had already stripped him of access to his power.
His situation was particularly unfortunate because he could not even commit suicide to escape interrogation. Gaia had isolated the Void energy inside his body from both his mind and his own energy, preventing him from directing it toward the trap concealed within his soul. The mechanism had been designed to protect sensitive information from being extracted by anyone who attempted to investigate him, and it was not something Gaia could simply dismantle through force. As a result, Lord 8 remained alive, powerless, and unable to decide his own fate while Gaia considered the most effective way to obtain what he knew.
Sigh. It is better to bleed a little if I am going to find all the rats, Gaia thought, accepting that the situation required a different approach. She prepared an offering of one thousand units of cultural energy and presented it to the Universe, asking it to read the information contained within the souls of the corrupted humans. She was not strong enough to undo the traps protecting the sensitive information hidden inside them, and she did not know how those mechanisms could be safely dismantled. Rather than risk damaging the information or allowing the traps to destroy it, she decided to pay for the Universe's assistance and receive the results properly.
As for why the Universe could interact with corrupted humans without worrying about being marked by the Void, the explanation was relatively simple. The difference came down to strength and the fact that the creatures inhabiting the Void could not meaningfully threaten the Universe itself. The beings powerful enough to swallow the Universe in a single gulp would not bother doing so, because the amount of energy it contained was simply too insignificant to justify their attention. Its existence was beneath their notice, much as a tiny organism might be beneath the notice of a vastly greater creature.
The real danger came from creatures that were closer to the Universe's own level. Such beings could be attracted to it, after which they would send wave upon wave of lesser creatures against its protective boundaries. These weaker invaders would gradually infiltrate the Universe, undermine its foundations, and make it increasingly sick until it had been weakened enough for the stronger creatures to consume it. The strategy was not to overpower the Universe in a single attack, but to wear it down slowly until it could no longer defend itself. In that weakened state, it might finally become a meal for a creature that would have died trying to eat it directly.
The Universe's protective boundary also played an important role in determining what could enter. It decided which kinds of creatures were permitted to pass through its walls and reach the living beings sheltered inside. Gaia understood the principle through a simple comparison: a human would readily notice a fly landing on their hand, but might never notice the countless germs carried by the wind or inhaled with every breath. Both could potentially be dangerous, yet one was far more noticeable and therefore more likely to be swatted away immediately. The smaller threat could pass unnoticed, gradually causing harm without attracting the same immediate response.
While Gaia was lost in thought, Lord 8 began screaming beside her. His muffled cries interrupted her contemplation, but before she could give him much attention, his body disappeared into smoke. In the same moment, a packet of information arrived, containing the knowledge she had requested from the Universe. Gaia examined the result, and a happy smile gradually spread across her face.
"So that is what it was," Gaia thought.