Teaming Up With System 225

Dystopia (5)

Edited by: Kuro and Lille

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After the earthquake that day, there were no more aftershocks or earthquakes, but there were a lot of buildings and homes that were destroyed.

Construction crews came in and did their best to fix homes and buildings. Many people were displaced and living in government-associated buildings for the time being.

Luckily, Grey and Cyan's home was safe from the earthquake. They did their best to help out their neighbors who weren't as fortunate. This was normal and expected of them, so they did their best not to arouse suspicions.

After that, there wasn't much Grey and Cyan could do. It was all a waiting game for them. They continued on with their lives and observations of the situation.

From time to time, Grey would check in with System 225. Within a month, System 225 and the others were almost halfway through the data. It was more than just getting the data. System 225 had to filter and organize them as some of them seemed useless, like day-to-day things. What they wanted were the secrets of this city or at least evidence to conclude what was going on.

If anything stood out, System 225 would tell him, but other than that, much of the data was redundant or had few connections to one another.

The ones' System 225 paid attention to the most were the data after every natural disaster and the materials used for redevelopment. They all wondered if they were testing these building materials in their city, but for what exactly? Why not say anything to the people? There were many people who had died during the natural disasters and many who were displaced from their homes... What was the point of all of this?

Even though Grey had a lot of questions and some possible hypotheses, he didn't have enough evidence to conclude his suspicions.

Well, he could only wait and see...

*****

One random morning, Grey entered the classroom and noticed that half of his students were missing. He checked his emails and saw many parents reaching out to him about their sick children.

All the children in his room were wearing masks, leaving only him without one. He quickly excused himself and went to the nurses' office for a mask. When he came back, the students were still in their seats. No one moved or talked, they were just as spiritless as the first time he taught them.

According to his emails that he had forgotten to check, there was an outbreak of a flu-like virus that was highly contagious. The ones who were the most at risk were the elderly and children. There were no physically disabled populations. Apparently, they all died with every outbreak.

Everyone was required to go to the pharmacy to get their vaccines. Those who didn't were locked up, fined, and forced to take the vaccine.

There was a new outbreak every year or so, hence no one was surprised by this. But for Grey, it was utterly frightening. He really felt that this city was just a place to raise guinea pigs to test out different products. He almost didn't want to use the vaccines, but he knew that would only be detrimental to his mission.

'System 225, be sure to check out the data for the vaccines and viruses every year as well. I can't be sure if they are connected, but it's worth a shot.' Grey said while he turned on his laptop to begin the class.

In times like this, the class would be shortened and the kids could leave early. There was also no school for the next week, so he had to send small assignments for the students from time to time.

Urgh, just thinking about it made him want to hit his head against the wall. It was already tough to be sick, now he had to send them homework! It was annoying but there was nothing he could do. He had to follow the instructions his supervisors gave him.