Ch.327Epilogue – Case Study in Introduction to Corporate Relations

Though Hollow Creek died as a pharmaceutical company, Hollow Creek itself did not completely die. It survived with its walls torn down and the distinction between Adam and Eve erased.

While bearing that name might have been like carrying a yoke for them, Pastor William Weaver willingly decided to preserve the name Hollow Creek. It was a name he had created.

They returned to being a religious community, but that didn’t mean they abandoned the city in the wasteland. Traces of religious dictatorship still remained, as did relics from the Hollow Creek era.

They were now preserved in a museum. That museum, which contained the history of Hollow Creek’s rise and fall, was considered a tourist attraction. Unlike what one might expect in this era, they hid nothing.

At the same time, they didn’t advocate for it either. The museum docents, seemingly influenced by Museum Director Tisha Summerbell’s cynical attitude, were known for taking neither Pastor William Weaver’s side nor Chairman John Rutherford’s.

Pastor William Weaver had been criticized for this many times. Questions like “Aren’t you using all the tragedies you caused to make money?” had been thrown at him countless times.

But he always maintained that all of this was to set a precedent. It’s true that they needed a stable source of income to rebuild Hollow Creek, and tourism fit perfectly.

A pastoral religious community city with human warmth, hiding a dark history. It was interesting enough to attract many people’s attention, and indeed, many people were interested.

More people than expected go to Hollow Creek for summer vacation. They often feel like they’ve traveled to the past, surrounded by the city’s pre-war atmosphere and friendly people.

The problem was that not everyone wanted “dictatorship to collapse overnight.” Grand Inquisitor Martin “Dead Eye” Redloff’s approval wasn’t the approval of the entire Inquisition.

Quite a few of them didn’t want to lose all their privileges overnight, and the last sons of Creek disappeared into the wasteland. They had numerous copies. Generally, numbers equal power.

They were Creek’s troublemakers for a while. Until a few years ago, that is. The rebellion of Creek’s last inquisitors, who had gathered enough forces and decided who would be the new leader, was suppressed ridiculously easily.

Because… Panacea Meditech showed mercy to those who were once their competitors. Using their authority as a Belwether affiliate, they requested troops to help Hollow Creek.

The reason was dry and straightforward: if John Rutherford’s followers regained control of Creek, they might re-enter the pharmaceutical business, so it was best to eliminate that possibility.

Fortunately, one agent from the Chairman’s security team volunteered, and Belwether considered a tourist and historical religious community that wouldn’t cause problems more efficient than a cult.

“Sigh, why did I have to answer the first lecture so well… At least it’s good that I got access to classified information related to this topic… Is this it? Work record 138… This is it.”

Ella, who had been organizing the history of Hollow Creek from a corporate relations perspective to impress her professor, sighed while pulling a file from the virtual screen floating in her vision.

The operation was called Operation Stake. It seemed to mean driving a stake through the corpse of Hollow Creek to prevent it from rising again. Whoever did it must have had affection for the new Creek.

Ella first checked the content of the record with her computational assistant. Various videos were mixed in chronological order to form a flow. The perspective changes weren’t too fast, and it didn’t seem like it would overload her brain.

It was much better to check data from mega-corporations, especially data from people using high-end computational assistants, before viewing. Sometimes the computational assistant could overheat due to excessive information.

Ella connected the video to her computational assistant. Beneath corporate relations are the lives of people living in those corporations. Corporations formed by those people, amusingly, often acted like people.

Something that wasn’t human acquired human-like emotions, preferences, prejudices, and narrow-mindedness. That’s why it was sometimes necessary to look at real records rather than just summarized data.

Plus… Ella had been hoping to live in a nice house that had just become available, but instead found herself tied up with assignments, so she needed something to change her mood.

The first screen showed footage from a surveillance camera in the wasteland outside Hollow Creek. An armored car painted in the bright white and gold colors of the old Hollow Creek led the way, followed by armored vans.

When Hollow Creek was properly operating, they used camouflage paint on their armored vehicles. The last sons of Creek, who rose up belatedly, painted them like this for uniformity. Even then, most were just armored vans.

But the new Hollow Creek was equally unprepared for conflict. Pastor William Weaver was an inevitable idealist and hadn’t thought at all that such a large-scale attack would come.

Everything was about to go wrong, with all the wrong people in the right places and the right people nowhere to be seen, but there was hope for the sheep-like security team of the new Creek.

This time, the flock was led by a lion. If they had been facing a pride of lions, it might have been dangerous, but the opponents were at best a pack of wolves.

The perspective naturally shifts to security camera footage provided by Hollow Creek.

The Chairman’s security team agent dispatched to Hollow Creek was facing Pastor William Weaver’s hologram without his helmet, then picked it up.

“What did I tell you, Bill? It’s good not to want to kill people, but if you don’t clean things up properly, this kind of thing happens. I started this, so I should finish it cleanly. Just take care of the aftermath, okay?”

His face was censored, but Ella could recognize the gun attached to his waist.

It was the special operations-issued pistol with “Small Evil” engraved on the slide, the same gun that was in the car of the audit team agent who had offered to show her a house.

Moreover, according to the business card he gave her, he had worked on the Chairman’s security team until two years ago. The timing made sense. What Ella was studying as history was experience for him.

Though she had said “no way” several times, Ella, who had been pacing around her dormitory floor, now continued playing the footage with a bit of personal interest added.

Ella’s own heartbeat sounded first, followed by a shift to the view of a border patrol support drone. A familiar voice began to sound in Ella’s mind.

“Hollow Creek Border Patrol, this is callsign Metzgerhunt from Belwether Chairman’s security team, who has taken command from Pastor William Weaver. Counter-intelligence, count the number of infiltrating troops and report.”

Three soldiers who heard the order through the drone began to take different actions. Ella, and the frontline soldiers, would have heard only one voice, but at least three simultaneous commands were being given.

Counter-intelligence scanned the number of Creek’s last sons rushing in, raising dust in the wasteland; the machine gunner began warning shots; and the drone operator started launching interceptor drones.

Though they briefly looked at each other in confusion, having clearly received simultaneous orders but taking different actions, they didn’t delay much. It was because they trusted the commander.

The fact that someone from Belwether’s Chairman’s security team, considered the special ops of special ops, was on their side gave them confidence. The vehicle convoy stopped at the machine gun’s warning shots.

They would return fire. At that moment, the machine gunner flinched at a sudden order and took cover. Simultaneously, Creek’s sniper, who had targeted the top of the building, was counter-sniped by Creek’s last sons’ sniper.

If orders were given to the sniper in advance, was it at least four simultaneous commands? No, since the border patrol wasn’t just one or two people and there were multiple branches, there had to be limits to simultaneous control.

At least that was the case in Ella’s common sense. But they were acting organically, like a boxer naturally continuing movements. Not panicking, keeping their eyes open and watching the fist.

Belwether’s Chairman’s security team didn’t hold back. Chemical shells with old Hollow Creek logos flew toward Creek’s last sons and began to emit toxic smoke.

The escaped inquisitors might have been wearing closed reinforcement suits, but the agent’s absorption was faster than the copies’ mechanical donning of gas masks.

Their skin dried up, blood leaked from the dry cracks, and even the copies, whose instincts were suppressed, forgot to put on gas masks as they scratched their itchy skin before collapsing. Creek would have won in a frontal battle too.

However, the machine gunner didn’t resume firing. There was no more firing of chemical shells either. Even the sniper took cover, and only counter-intelligence was monitoring and recording the situation with support drones.

Other soldiers were… wearing protective clothing and preparing neutralizers for the chemical shells they had just fired. They seemed to think the battle was already over. Ella couldn’t understand what was happening.

She couldn’t understand why the Chairman’s security team was passing up an opportunity to end things easily, but as the chemical smoke cleared, she could see the reason. Callsign Metzgerhunt was standing in the smoke.

Wearing Belwether Chairman’s security team’s distinctive futuristic, thin closed reinforcement suit, he was holding an inquisitor in front of an armored car that had been torn open on both sides as if the front had been ripped off.

Information overlaid on the video identified him as the Second Adam, leader of Creek’s last Adams. Callsign Metzgerhunt threw him to the ground after pulling him out of the car and said:

“Belwether’s orders to callsign Metzgerhunt of the Chairman’s security team were to protect Hollow Creek. Rest assured. I didn’t come here to kill you. But…”

He let his words trail off as he began to deactivate his closed reinforcement suit, even though it was in the middle of a gas cloud, albeit slightly dispersed. He inhaled the gas-mixed air and exhaled it naturally.

Inside was a man wearing a black combat uniform. He put on the Boogeyman helmet that had been attached to the reinforcement suit’s waist and finished his sentence after the deliberately drawn-out pause.

Every time he spoke, poison gas like incense smoke used in religious ceremonies leaked from the helmet’s respirator, similar to what was thickly spread around.

“I am here to kill you. Unqualified ones. Freeloaders. Those who would be better off not existing in this world than existing.”

Metzgerhunt’s reinforcement suit closed and drew Small Evil from its waist. The Boogeyman himself also drew a gun from his waist… in revolver form.

The Second Adam shouted for everyone to take cover, but it would be meaningless in front of that gun. The Boogeyman pulled the trigger, and a clean, neat hole pierced through vehicles and inquisitors.

According to what was seen from the counter-intelligence drone, a single bullet penetrated four vehicles and two inquisitors before flying on and embedding itself in the ground. He was using cookie cutter bullets.

The Boogeyman threw the revolver loaded with cookie cutter bullets to Metzgerhunt’s reinforcement suit, and the suit threw Small Evil to him. Two silhouettes began to move in the clearing poison gas.

The Second Adam squeezed the trigger of his rifle at the approaching silhouette, but what emerged from the gas was Metzgerhunt’s hand. Reinforcement suits without user feedback were usually sluggish.

But that doesn’t apply to Belwether’s high-end products. Metzgerhunt’s reinforcement suit heavily punched down on the Second Adam’s closed reinforcement suit helmet. It cracked.

Wait. Or save me. Among many other pleas, but there was no one inside that reinforcement suit. Metzgerhunt’s reinforcement suit emotionlessly punched down once more.

Shortly after, the rifle held by the Second Adam began firing randomly in all directions. The clicking sound of pulling the trigger continued even after the magazine was empty, then stopped after one more punch.

An inquisitor who was trying to escape by running into the wasteland suddenly felt unable to breathe. A buzzing sound hit his ears. In front of his eyes, he saw a protruding blade.

The Boogeyman’s social blade had pierced through his body from the back of the reinforcement suit. The pain came only when the blade was twisted, and stopped when the twisted blade split him in half along his body’s midline.

This was more aptly described as slaughter or butchery rather than combat. An inquisitor whose helmet was twisted after being hit by Metzgerhunt’s fist turned to run away but collapsed with the Boogeyman’s blade piercing his stomach.

The Boogeyman heard the breathing of an inquisitor hiding in a van despite wearing a reinforcement suit, tossed two grenades inside simultaneously as he passed, and moved on. Metzgerhunt’s reinforcement suit struck the door as it passed, closing and breaking it.

One armored van that had been in the rear and thus suffered relatively little damage began to leave the scene, but the Boogeyman didn’t break his promise. A sound closer to artillery fire than gunfire rang out, and the middle of the armored van was torn apart.

Ella remembered seeing a railgun in the weapon mount of his vehicle. She tried to reassure herself that he would likely be on her side, but she couldn’t help trembling.

Whether out of some minimal camaraderie, an inquisitor trying to hold onto the Boogeyman’s ankle was kicked away toward Metzgerhunt’s reinforcement suit, which pierced him with high-frequency blade fingertips.

The last remaining inquisitor among all those massacred was curled up and trembling in panic as the Boogeyman and Metzgerhunt’s reinforcement suit slowly walked toward him.

The reinforcement suit grabbed his two arms, and the Boogeyman grabbed his two ankles. His voice began to be heard slowly. His tone was like soothing a child.

“I gave you something very rare. I gave you a second chance to live happily and freely in the new Hollow Creek instead of giving up privileges like our Dead Eye. Look at what you did with my gift.”

Among the border patrol were inquisitors who had given up their privileges and remained in Hollow Creek with Grand Inquisitor Martin Redloff. They were now learning how right their choice had been.

They didn’t want to lose their privileges either. It would be a lie to say they didn’t enjoy their superiority. But they chose to change and adapted to their new lives, living human-like lives.

Such people are much better off existing than not. That’s why the Boogeyman didn’t touch them at all. Even on his way to kill John Rutherford, he didn’t touch them. He gave them a choice.

Metzgerhunt and the Boogeyman began to pull the reinforcement suit apart vertically, and after screams, only the upper part of the reinforcement suit was torn off, revealing the inquisitor inside. The Boogeyman lifted him up.

He made him look around. Just as one person’s infiltration had ruined Hollow Creek, he made him see the price of dreaming they could reclaim Hollow Creek overnight.

The inquisitor, terrified and out of his mind, began to howl like a beast. The pain from the scratches caused when the reinforcement suit was torn off would be covered by adrenaline.

But because of the adrenaline pouring out enough to make him lose consciousness, he couldn’t pass out despite such terror. Ella terminated the connection to the data before seeing more.

Even if he had come to his senses and repented at the end, he wouldn’t have survived. Late repentance was as meaningless as crying while holding onto a grave.

She shouldn’t have watched it for a mood change. Ella, barely controlling her trembling breath, began to write down the conclusion she had thought of in advance. She needed something to distract her mind for a moment.

Creek’s last sons repeated the corporate relations mistakes of Hollow Creek Pharmaceuticals and eventually died in the same way as Creek. What should be noted were not them but the other entities surrounding them.

Belwether and Panacea Meditech, for the stability of the system they controlled, actively prevented a group without any procedural legitimacy from attempting to overthrow a normal corporation.

There was a big difference between writing the words “active prevention” and accepting what that “active prevention” looked like in reality.

Still, Ella could now clearly state what the purpose of external politics was.

Violence is inevitable. Even without the Boogeyman, someone would have massacred Creek’s last sons. The purpose of external politics is to prevent this inevitable violence from becoming normalized.

While it may be foolish to dream of an ideal society without violence, at least we shouldn’t lower ourselves to the level of Hobbes’ “war of all against all.”

If we were to say we’re engaged in a war of all against all in the early 22nd century… at least our descendants would be ashamed. Ella concluded.

Ella was coincidentally learning various things from the Boogeyman, from Arthur. Last time it was bright, warm, and sweet things, and this time it was bitter and heavy things.

She had no intention of denying everything, nor of accepting everything uncritically. She just planned to steal a few bricks from what he had shown her if she saw empty holes in the house she was building.

Perhaps that was enough for both the teacher and the student. People have always lived that way and will continue to do so.