Hunt

The hunt had begun.

Allen and others entered a normal-looking place in which some special mechanism revealed the basement. Others looked at Yushin, who owned the place,

"Guys, I don't think it is the time for that. Might as well be thankful there is a place like this, no?"

There was a device that some of them used to watch the latest news. Media channels got back to their feet pretty soon after the live feed had been interrupted. It was difficult to say what remained of the institution. But they could see that most of the city was intact, for now. Most of those creatures had either been subjugated due to the superior tier of technology and some had been captured, well it was up to guess what they wanted to do with them…

It seemed like that the situation was under control. This amount of panic may not have happened in the first place if not for the sudden shock waves that had shaken the area from the institute. It was probably the helping of the president, Allen thought.

He had already told the others that he found out the President was helping them escape. While he was trying to get out of the institute himself. It worried others too seeing the situation unfold, especially the members of the institute getting warrants for their arrest. The worry had not subsided, for now, if the situation was put down so easily it meant that the next target that could easily be singles was the members of the institute, they probably would have to go to trial in the best scenario and plead innocence, in the worst-case rival institutes may try to make the matter worse for them. The animals being captured were probably the doing of such places. The military had no such interest as far as they could tell.

Just as they feared, after the initial situation had calmed down. Just the next day, it was already being debated what to do with the members of the institute in particular. They could see that most of the members had been rescued, and they have currently injured themselves, some having fallen prey to those creatures, were in an emergency with such viruses in their bodies that could not b cured soon. Others could also tell that members had no obvious fault in that. Respected former principal, however, could not be found. The directors that could have taken responsibility were in hiding like them. The researchers were in the toughest situation.

There were a few options on what to do with them.

From being worst to best here were those

They needed to be held responsible for the incident, considering the damage was

unknown from the incident, and not to mention the human damage, that was effectively saying no less than a life sentence in prison.

Another opinion was they needed to be kept under surveillance and any type of identity was to be confiscated from them. That made them practically identity-less, meaning it was like the country had effectively boycotted them and made them a kind of fugitive.

One opinion was to give them some kind of labor punishment, in which they would have to serve some other research institute for several years, and they were not allowed some services of society. Basically, they could live but under restrictions placed officially on them by law.

The major problem was they could not know in advance what could of punishment they would levy against them. The third one, although unpleasant, was bearable as compared to the other two, which would basically mean they were outcasts or prisoners, they had families, what was going to happen to them if that happened t obe the case.

They could hide for now, but the place they were hiding could not protect them under severe searching, as compared to relocation, where the directors must have gone into hiding.

It quite stressed them out from the matters of the previous day and seeing the situation worsen against their favor, Allen and others again got into a discussion on their next course of action. More than discussion, it was a pretty dull conversation considering the unknown circumstances, but they still had some level of hope of good. They had to have some to not go into further sadness.

After some heated argument, most of them thought it was probably better to hand themselves to the top institutions so that they could try to protect themselves in this tense situation. An agreement or two wouldn't matter, they were already in a kind of formal agreement with the institution before, that was not the problem as compared to the matters happening currently.

As planned when the Government officially announced for anyone voluntarily coming to the government they would be dealt with leniency and be treated with the third case as stated by their terms, the government gave them an extra option that if there was an institution that offered them a package they could further have any charges against hem reduced. The society, although a little against them, still had a high opinion of all the researchers of the institute, not to mention that the situation was already under much control.

The official message they received on their fine-tuned and custom watches given by the institute before was" we can understand the role of the researchers. They are only there to progress things forward. They do not care for how the actual knowledge may end up getting used as this is not predictable at the time of their work. Understanding hence the situation, any charges against them would only consider the damage to unintentional damage and not otherwise." The Government also had a special clearance in the institute, so they probably could message like this, could not track still though.

Yushin himself knew the situation about this well. Considering that he was the one to have built this area in the first place, he definitely knew more about its potential use and limitations as well.

"It was probably better for them, considering the overall situation and to avoid all kinds of future problems, to just go out in the open, instead of getting caught later on. They don't have such resources to escape the eyes of anyone searching specifically for them in this city. They have to eat, have to go out. It is not possible to grow and eat grass indoors or is it?"

"Yes, I don't think we can even live there for more than a few weeks at the maximum, or even a few days may be a stretch. But there is definitely a factor that the searching may get less intense with time. They should not have the time to be looking for us so much…."

His voice was very low at the end. All the others also understood that was not the case, the government would just entrust the matter to the research institutes and police and they would not let even a single member escape their radar, it was a pile of gold in their eyes, ready for picking.

"We should wait a bit. A few days to see what the environment is, what is happening to those who have given themselves up. Few would come forward, just like we do not want to. I believe there would be some that would end up coming forward because of the solid guarantee of the government. They can trust the guarantee in the first place, the first principle to abide by is no deception".

The others agreed, at least they had no better alternative to offer.

After all this, they kind of wanted some brief rest. Now that he knew there was not much else to do, Allen got closer to Yushin and asked," So, what is the big deal making such a place in the city?"

"Other people make basement like structures too"

"But, their basements do not look so much like a workshop where you create bombs or something."

"Well, it is mostly recreation to create some tools that are popular in the marketplace and test them, maybe try to improve them and then sell them to some company for a specific purpose. It mostly is for a specific portion of society"

Allen got his answer, and hence he got back to resting. They had to rest and look at the situation carefully for now.

It was just two days from when they had decided to hand themselves in, that the Governments all around the world could notice some weird things in their territories, that some territories that they thought were theirs were no longer theirs. The only thing behind this anomaly could be the incident that happened with the institute or some terrorist group (basically the same thing…)

When they listened to the news, they thought the situation would surely worsen now. But, because of the trouble that these places were giving the governments, they put all kinds of sanctions on everybody on hold. And soon, completely lifted them.