"Operator Eugene and the entire Task Force Dagger have submitted a request for rejection regarding the proposal to produce humanoids with the current design intact."

"Of course."

New York, Central Park HQ.

Now more familiar than the White House in Washington, the office in the heart of Manhattan. Though the outer walls had been tastefully decorated for a long time, those who still couldn’t forget the pale gray concrete from when the building was hastily erected called it the "Gray House" — the president’s residence.

It was an office where the occupants joked that there were fifty shadows lurking within, and now, having received the electronic documents forwarded by the assistant, Henry sighed as he opened his mouth, knowing that this was inevitable.

"No matter how bad the budget is, I can’t believe there are still idiots in my cabinet suggesting that we should just mass-produce the design as is because we have no money."

"Should we think of it as investing the salaries of the people you’ve fired into changing the design?"

"Not bad, that joke of yours."

In truth, that was probably what was going to happen… but Henry decided it was best to remain silent.

Henry, who lived off coffee, sighed again. If Eugene, from Task Force Dagger, went over to Jin and Rain’s working-server cloud to ask them to turn off the cloud-sharing, the poor researchers would likely scream with 100% certainty. With no money to even build the interpretation systems and labs, Henry had to rely on sharing the design and interpretation data with Jin and Rain, yet somehow he was expected to produce humanoids right now — humanoids that looked identical to the donor, no less?

It was clear the situation had gone completely out of control.

The fact that members of Task Force Dagger had put up with this nonsense was baffling.

But the reason these stupid ideas kept coming up was... in the end, it was money.

As the internal situation in the U.S. began to stabilize, the reports from the Treasury, which had been pushed to the back burner for so long, were now piling up, and each piece of paper seemed to scream about the dire state of the economy.

At least, thanks to the slowly starting reparation payments from China and Russia, they had managed to catch their breath a little.

"How long do you think the design changes will take?"

"Faster than expected. We should have multiple drafts to review in about a week, and we can expect a prototype in a month."

"Not bad. Considering the mess Artemis left behind, they left quite a bit of a legacy."

A humanoid that could dramatically reduce labor costs... maybe they should build a monument and award it a medal.

Putting such rebellious thoughts aside, Henry exhaled. His priority was clear — humanoid production and cutting labor costs through industrial input. Right now, the U.S. was severely lacking in manpower, so this was necessary.

Had the U.S. been operating normally, the response would have been something like, "Where will you get the rare metals and electricity for this, Mr. President?"... but...

'Russia and China... but in a way, it’s good that it’s Russia and China.'

One of the two problems was power. There was a simple solution to this.

Icarus Gear was, literally, a micro-sized fusion reactor. Moreover, the fusion technology developed to create it was the United States' very own magic lamp... and the Icarus Gear on the operators' wrists was capable of producing 4 gigawatts of power per second.

Therefore, power was no issue.

And the second problem, Russia and China — which could also be called the countries of natural gas and rare earth metals. These two had given the U.S. the first blow, but after being crushed mercilessly, they now had plenty of resources to offer as compensation.

The massive amounts of rare metals and natural gas they had given the U.S. as reparations would become the crutches on which the country would lean.

Thinking about this, Henry began re-prioritizing.

He wandered through various departments, including the State and Energy Departments, and recalled the reports that had arrived on his desk, compressed and updated. Then, he asked his National Security Advisor, whom he already knew had the answer, but needed to prompt the conversation.

"What’s the situation in Europe?"

"It’s terrible. According to reports from two years ago, about 400 million people died from the virus. Recent data shows that around 300 million people are scattered across that vast land."

"Sounds like they’re suffering in every possible way. I hope the ship carrying PPS — the mobile power plants — crosses the Atlantic safely. Once we’ve given the starving people some electricity, we can start taking more resources from them."

"More loans... understood."

The advisor, who understood with just a glance, was a comfort.

While giving Europe small pieces of the carrot that was fusion technology, they would bring in loans, slowly watering the withering plant that was the U.S. economy. Sure, the people across the Atlantic were all dying, but what could be done? Diplomacy was always like that.

As Henry considered all the tasks at hand, he realized there was still much to do. He would have to extract reparations from Mexico, using the cartels in Houston, San Antonio, San Diego, and Tijuana as leverage.

In the end, to carry out all of this, he would need to produce at least 500,000 humanoids.

"The late Theodore Roosevelt once said, 'Speak softly, and carry a big stick.' Don’t you think that’s a perfect quote for these troubled times?"

"You’re right. If we swing that stick around Asia, Europe, and Latin America, the Republicans, who are already burying themselves in Washington condemning the morality of the administration, will be the only ones to protest."

"Haha, I never imagined I would rise to the presidency like this. I guess I should start growing a mustache."

It was becoming clear that there were serious issues to be resolved in the U.S. In fact, there was a bill moving through Congress, passed in a temporary House and Senate set up in the renovated New York Museum in Northern Central Park. It was said that the 22nd Amendment — which limits presidents to two terms — might be amended, allowing exceptions for cases like the country’s survival crisis. But considering how politicians worked, this amendment wouldn’t be for Henry’s benefit.

And the raccoons in the Senate were predictable.

‘The 49th President, though only having 2 years left in office after his successful reelection, had a ridiculous premium. He had managed to patch up an America that was on the brink of collapse, a thousand times worse than what FDR faced during WWII.'

‘The U.S. is desperately struggling to get back on track. Even if elections are held now, it will only be a case of “putting a spoon on a dish the president built." If a diplomatic crisis happens now, the whole country could fall apart.’

‘No need to swallow a poisoned chalice. Besides, Henry survived a grueling six years in office thanks to the medical technologies derived from Icarus Gear. No need to put someone else in his seat at the Gray House now.’

Cyberwarfare, black propaganda, espionage, propaganda, agitation, civil operations.

The picture is already starting to form. Asia likely had tens of millions of casualties due to the virus, but... even if there was some national power left to muster a full-scale invasion of the U.S., the military offensives would have ended in catastrophic failure. How would public opinion in Russia and China look in that case?

They would have likely decapitated their generals and politicians with guillotines, if there were any.

Of course, even without such tools, people’s heads could be easily severed.

Anyway, there was no need to overthink it. If you recall what Germany was like after WW1, it was simple. The economy was on the verge of collapse, and the social atmosphere was not just unstable, but downright bleak.

Moreover, since the navy destroyed the Three Gorges Dam, the military units along the Yangtze River — from Yichang, Wuhan, Nanjing to all the others downstream — were likely wiped out.

This was the perfect time to take advantage of a country teetering on the brink of collapse.

"There was once a period in China called the Warring States period. If we send a few experts in black propaganda, we could recreate that chaos, and then reassemble Asia the way we want, wouldn’t that be an interesting result?"

"That's a terrifying thought."

"Just a joke. To be more precise, it would be more urgent to tear apart the Slavic countries than China."

Unlike China, which was already on life support, Russia would require a bit more... work.

At that moment, a "ding dong" sound echoed. It meant a one-on-one video conference was about to begin.

With the National Security Advisor present, Henry exchanged light greetings with CIA Director Oren Kitney in the corner of the office and quickly got to the point.

"Director Kitney."

"Yes, Mr. President."

"Come up with a plan to topple China and Russia by any means necessary."

"Leave it to us. No organization does this better than the CIA. I’d bet my dog’s chew toy on it."

"Haha, then give it a try."

The die was cast.

"Ugh, I’m going to die."

Meanwhile, back at the Gray House, Eugene was suffering from a late hangover.

"Did I drink too much yesterday...?"

His head was spinning.

Leaning back on the couch, it wasn’t the best way to get work done, but Task Force Dagger members had just thrown back alcohol like there was no tomorrow. After all, they could always detox using Icarus Gear later. Eugene was doing the same.

But this wasn’t some magic elixir that would instantly cure a hangover. And after days of fun, there was a mountain of work piled up — including the urgent need to update data related to the upcoming Incurgen launch.

As the days passed, the data gradually became more specific. A few points worth noting:

'There’s a high probability that there will be side missions before the main raid.'

The range of Artemis drones was wider than expected.

While it had been left for months, the discovery of this was a bit unusual. The cities in Georgia, such as Savannah, Charleston, and Augusta, as well as lesser-known satellite towns like Meta, Vidalia, Heinzville, and Darien, seemed... empty.

Physically empty.

What this meant was that drones had scavenged everything from cars to factory equipment in those areas. Naturally, there weren’t any roads without cars, so Artemis had effectively collected a large amount of scrap metal.

No one would be in the dark about where that metal ended up.

"Really put it to good use, huh?"

It wasn’t even like they had their own kingdom, and now they had established outposts in the surrounding areas. Incredible.

As the data from the UAVs accumulated, Eugene’s interest grew. What had initially seemed like a rogue unmanned drone factory or automatic production operation was gradually revealing itself to be something more. Scavenging everything from the streets and repurposing it into drones... this was some cost-effective innovation.

If this technology could be properly recycled, along with the Artemis factories, and if those responsible for these actions could be... dealt with appropriately, it would be a goldmine. After all, there were still hundreds of thousands of scrap cars scattered near New York.

Despite this, creating unmanned drones and sending humans to attack those outposts would likely tank Henry’s approval ratings, so Eugene’s team was probably going to be involved in this side mission.

"That’s something Shadow will handle... and this one too... this one’s... there’s something I need to check myself..."

Things seemed disorganized at first, but as more data came in, Eugene realized there were things he had missed. The Artemis data backup facility might even exist. The odds were high, and Task Force Dagger would likely avoid entering it, unless it was necessary. In that case, remote-controlled drones would probably be the solution.

Jin and Rain were synced with the cloud network and had real-time intelligence backups, so they could die as much as they wanted. But it was likely that Eugene had something else awaiting him, something unexpected.

For now, though, there was something else he needed to respond to quickly.

"This name is a blast from the past."

Task Force Laser’s EM-level awakener, modeled after the owl.

Olivia Nyx Lorelei.

Unlike Logan and Lorentina, who had been by his side in the same unit, Eugene had only occasionally spoken to Olivia after their unit split up. He had only seen brief reports on Task Force Laser’s operations, and now he was curious about what she was doing.

After some quick searching, Eugene found out she had left a U.S. government agency — the National Intelligence Agency — and had become a fashion influencer with over 1.2 million subscribers.

It looked like she was contacting him for an advertisement request, so Eugene scrolled through her message and saw...

[To Eugene…

"Hey, it’s been so long! I couldn’t catch you at KSM, but I guess we’ll finally meet in the main match."

(Skipped content)

"Anyway, it’s no big deal, but why does Dagger Team always look so cool? We were out there with the U.S. and Canada, doing all sorts of things too. When we were picking our teams, I should’ve grabbed you and made you my subordinate right then."

"Anyway, this bizarre game, Dark Zone, seems like it’s all tangled up with you, Lorentina, and Logan. I tried asking around, but I couldn’t get their contact info. It seems they’re with Delta and Dev now."

"Anyway, our Laser team has been working hard too! Hit me back when you’ve got time!"

"What’s this?"

Olivia, the one he hadn’t heard from in so long... hadn't changed one bit.

In Eugene’s world, there was always something unexpected lurking around the corner.