World Domination through Planet Development - Chapter 98



Only Krnovel

Episode 98. Double Agent

A quiet afternoon.

A man was sitting on a park bench, reading a newspaper spread open with both hands.

-UN Security Council intervenes in Chinese civil war

It was the front page headline of the newspaper he read.

Even now, somewhere, the flames of war are still burning, with people killing each other.

“…Android.”

The man muttered as he read the newspaper.

It seemed like he had read that androids were the main characters in the Chinese civil war.

The man thought.

Android… always digs into exquisite places at exquisite times. Is this just a coincidence?

Those like you who hide in the shadows and peer into the other side of the world never believe in coincidences.

Gugu. Gugugugu.

The man, lost in thought, folds his newspaper when he hears a sound from beneath his feet.

A pigeon was pecking at crumbs of bread in front of my feet.

The man who was watching the scene immediately picked up the camera that was lying next to him.

Click!

Anyone could tell that the photo was going to turn out really well, since it was taken from such a close distance.

Beep. Beep.

The man who had been manipulating the camera several times muttered in a small voice.

“0.012… mismatch”

The man is Robert Patterson, a CIA agent for the United States.

He handled the camera very skillfully.

These days, Robert feels like he’s become a photographer.

I think I’ve probably taken a picture of every citizen of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, at least once.

He was currently doing some sort of undercover investigation to see if there were any androids disguised as humans, using the android identification camera.

The results, to be honest, weren’t that great.

It has been revealed that most of the current Saudi Arabian royal guard mercenaries are androids.

Of course, it is also true that they were the main target of the mission.

At the time, since there were so few things revealed about the Royal Guard, it was thought that they were intentionally hiding something, but that was as far as it went.

Except for the fact that the mainstays of the Royal Guard are all androids, no other androids can be found in the Saudi Arabian royal family.

For example, the conspiracy theory that King Khadim was actually an android.

Although the Saudi royal family is a closed family, they do occasionally make appearances in public.

I tried taking a picture of that moment, but the result was a person. Of course, it wasn’t an android.

To be honest, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed, since I knew a lot about the actual conspiracy of the US government, but that’s normal.

Secretly sending out androids to disguise themselves as royalty…

Now that I think about it, I wonder if the reason the Royal Guard mercenaries hid their identities was just because they were like that.

Recently, the headquarters also judged that these results were a waste of human resources and are said to be developing other efficient android discrimination technologies… .

I heard that there is a technology that recognizes gait that can be identified by satellites. I heard that it seems impossible because androids also have different gaits just like people.

Robert, who was lost in thought, suddenly realizes that it is late and looks at his wristwatch.

It’s time to head back to the safe house.

Robert took a few quick snapshots of the faces of people passing by and then walked away.

Crunch.

Robert, who had returned to the safe house building, opened the common entrance and came in.

The safe house building was entirely owned by the CIA under its own name, but was actually used by other civilians as well.

There was a case where a very small portion of the building was being used as a safe house.

And the room used as a safe house had to be accessed through the basement.

Thump, thump.

Robert walks down the stairs to the basement.

Because the basement was also used as a warehouse, there were many miscellaneous items stored inside.

Robert walked past them as he always did.

Ouch.

For a moment, something he had never felt before flashed across his vision.

Robert quickly turned his head and looked there.

…elevator?

On one wall he looked at, there was a structure that he guessed might be an elevator.

“…Is this a microcosm?”

An elevator-like structure that fits so naturally into the wall.

It certainly feels like it wasn’t there until yesterday, but it’s not like it could suddenly appear without you knowing, right?

It would take some pretty noisy construction to get a structure of this size into place.

Robert looked inside naturally, as if he was drawn to it.

“The elevator.”

There is a single button that appears to go down. It looks like an elevator.

…Why is there an elevator here? And a down elevator? We haven’t built any more underground facilities.

If there was such a thing, there was no way I wouldn’t have known about it.

Should I check with headquarters?

The CIA manages the building facilities themselves, so if you ask, they’ll tell you right away.

But somehow I felt like that wasn’t right.

chuck.

Step carefully into the elevator.

Wouldn’t it be okay to go down and come back for a bit?

Click.

I pressed the button absentmindedly and the elevator doors closed.

Swish.

The inside of the elevator became dark when the basement lights failed, but soon the ceiling lights turned on with a pop, illuminating the inside.

Wheeing.

The elevator began to accelerate, with a feeling of floating in my body.

Where is the floor number displayed? I can’t see it even when I look around.

How fast was it going down? I could guess the speed intuitively by the continued acceleration, but it was very strange.

Going down at such a fast rate meant that it was going down that deeply.

“shit.”

What the heck is this? Is it even right to go down?

I felt like I was going crazy.

How long had they been trapped in there? Dozens of minutes? Hours?

Suddenly, you start to feel a sense of weight. This is evidence that the elevator is slowly slowing down.

Have we finally reached our destination?

“Ugh!”

Robert frowns briefly at the sudden bright light.

And then carefully open your eyes.

“… … !!”

Beyond the transparent glass of the elevator was a vast world.

“This… this is?”

The enormous, underground cavern seemed to be home to a vast civilization.

Numerous pillars and walls running through the entire place.

There were grotesquely shaped robots moving in a line in every place where something could stick. There were countless of them.

When he was absorbed in watching.

Ding.

A monotonous notification woke him up.

The elevator had already reached the bottom floor, and the doors that had been tightly closed were now open.

Greeting him in front of him were a beautiful woman and a levitating car.

But Robert intuitively realized.

The fact that there are people in this huge space that cannot be considered to have been created by humans… .

“…Android.”

A woman, presumably an android, approached him, having heard him muttering while looking at her.

“Mr. Patterson, come in. There is someone waiting for you.”

The android guided Robert to the hovercraft.

There was nothing Robert could do once he got down here. He had no choice but to follow the android.

Wheeing.

As the two got into the vehicle, it began to fly at high speed.

It was a different feeling from what I had seen while coming down the elevator. Unlike what I had seen from above, the robots were incredibly huge, and the space itself felt even bigger.

How much did you move?

The vehicle began to slow down.

There was nothing special about where they arrived.

All he could see was a disc-shaped floor floating above his eye level.

The android looked over there as if there was something there.

Pot!

And suddenly above it, a light flashed and something circular appeared in the air. It looked like a doorway leading to another space.

Soon, a man walked out from within.

As he walked out completely, the door that had been showing another space closed and disappeared, emitting light again.

Robert looked closely at the face of the man who appeared.

The man was a representative of the PDC.

When I came out of the elevator and faced the android, I had a gut feeling that the android was not really a human creation.

So, is the representative of PDC also an alien and not a human?

At that moment, Robert guessed his identity.

“Are you Robert Patterson?”

The PDC representative standing above asked Robert first. Despite the considerable distance, his voice was audible.

“You are the representative of the PDC.”

Robert answered.

“That’s right. You figured it out right away?”

“… … .”

Robert looked at him with a look of caution.

“I’m also very busy, so I’ll just get to the point. The reason I called Mr. Patterson here is because I want you to be a double agent between the US and the PDC.”

Is that your purpose? A spy.

Of course, since I was a spy, I could hear such suggestions, but I never thought that such things were necessary for an unidentified group with this level of technological prowess.

“What if I say I have no intention of doing that?”

“Hmm… Well? Then should I force them to do it?”

The PDC representative’s words seemed a bit playful. However, Robert answered with utmost seriousness.

“I’m sorry, but I have undergone training that is difficult for ordinary people to even imagine. Even someone like you won’t find it easy to convince me.”

“Oh… really? Do you think that what you learned will be of some use here?”

“… … .”

Robert didn’t answer this time.

“Haha, I’m just kidding. It’s okay. Even if you don’t want to do it, I’ll still make sure to send Mr. Patterson back up.”

Incredible words from the PDC representative.

“What would you do if I went back and told you about this place?”

“Will you do that?”

Robert asked again, emphasizing the PDC representative’s question.

“… I said if.”

“Hmm… I wonder what you’ll say when you get out there. Are you going to say that there’s a huge civilization underground, and that the PDC’s representative is from that civilization?”

At first glance, it was absurd. Even if it was an intelligence agency that dealt with the dark side of the world, it was clear that it was difficult to believe the information without solid evidence.

“If I wasn’t that necessary in the first place, why did you call me here?”

If it wasn’t so desperate, why would he have called him and made this place public?

The PDC representative began to answer that question.

“Well… that’s because I don’t really like fighting. Mr. Patterson, what do you think would be the outcome if there was a military conflict between the United States and me?”

A fight between the United States and an underground secret civilization… .

“… … .”

“I think Mr. Patterson might not think it’s a very good result. That’s what I’m trying to prevent. As Mr. Patterson can see, it’s not because I don’t have confidence in winning. Rather, the problem is that I might win too overwhelmingly. I don’t want that situation to come to that.”

Of course, Robert himself doesn’t want that to happen. But at the same time, he is a government agent.

“I am a highly trained secret agent of the United States of America. And we, the United States, do not shy away from a fight.”

The PDC representative looked extremely embarrassed at Robert’s calm tone.

“Ah… Mr. Patterson, I understand that. This is just a case of if, if I wanted to, I could kill every American citizen living in the United States at the same time without a single second of error. Of course, it would never go that far, but I want to tell you how overwhelming it would be. It would be a pointless fight. I’m trying to convince you, Mr. Patterson.”

“… … .”

As Robert stood there unable to answer, the PDC representative took out his smartphone for a moment and continued speaking.

Is there something you’re busy with?

“Well, Mr. Patterson, how about you go back and collect your thoughts? I’ll give you some confidence that I won’t cause you any harm. It’ll take quite a while to get back, so you’d better leave now.”

Nod.

Robert nodded cautiously at the PDC representative’s suggestion.

“Okay. Then I’ll go now. Um… If I go up there and get my thoughts together, I’ll just say to the air whenever and wherever I want to accept or decline the offer. You can tell me whenever.”

“…yes?”

For a moment I wondered what that meant, but then there was a flash of light again, the space door opened, and the PDC representative escaped.

All that was left was the female android and himself.

As the android smiled and guided him, Robert followed the android again with an awkward expression.

Wheeing.

The vehicle floats up and departs as two people get on board.

A thought suddenly occurred to me as I was driving.

… But am I not allowed to go out using that warp device?