WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 457: Stuffed Paradise (19)

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September 3rd, four days before the end of refresher training. On Labor Day, the War College campus was quiet and peaceful, as if it had become a world apart from everything beyond its walls. Many individuals and groups had wanted to invite Gyeoul that day, but he politely declined them all. They might be necessary, when the time came. But he did not feel capable of attending a party or event and laughing and chatting like an ordinary person. The weight of the times ached in his heart.

No one would come looking for Gyeoul on campus in private, either. The officers of the Independent Battalion had completed their relatively short training and left for their new garrison.

The Independent Battalion's new garrison had been prepared within the San Diego metropolitan area. What had originally been Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, MCAS Miramar, had been expanded to make room for an armored battalion.

Yura sent Gyeoul many photos. New barracks with the interior work in its final stages, refugee laborers sweating there, new equipment the battalion had taken over, battalion members running along an unpaved road beyond the barbed wire, and the Gyeoul Alliance residence district in downtown San Diego. Even the place name on the sign read Winter Heights.

Established at the proposal of State Senator Talton Brennan, Winter Heights was a debt the Alliance would have to spend a long time repaying, a pump primer meant to drive up real estate prices in the area. Even so, the workers whose wages had been mortgaged were simply happy. Their view was that, while their status had made the procedure somewhat complicated, it was fundamentally no different from taking out a loan to buy a house.

In the follow-up report he sent Gyeoul by email, Baek San-ho took pride in having acquired a wide range of tangible assets at reasonable prices: residential areas close to downtown, shopping districts, farms and factories on the city's outskirts, and the agricultural machinery and heavy equipment to be used there.

'Rather than pride... it felt closer to him saying he had done what he was told, so please don't cast him aside.'

Caution and fear seeped through the spaces between the lines. It made Gyeoul wonder again how the CIA had handled people.

At any rate, the people who belonged to the Alliance had hope. They could dream of a better tomorrow. Even President Kramer had referred to them several times as "model minorities." He said the Refugee Leader Support Act existed for people exactly like them.

'I expected him to build them up as a success story, but...'

Kramer showed another bit of ingenuity here. By exposing corruption among ethnic Chinese refugee leaders at a higher rate than among other groups, he framed the failure of the policy he had proposed as the fault of ethnic Chinese people who had abused it, rather than as a flaw in the policy itself.

At the same time, the officials in charge of the relevant departments could not escape responsibility. They were members of opposing factions whom Kramer had deliberately left in place. They, too, must have sensed disaster early on, yet they had stayed in their posts until things reached this point. Kramer's political efforts had surely played a role in that.

Perhaps some kind of backroom deal had been made. Political positions could change with personal interests. It was hard to survive in Washington politics on conviction alone.

In any case, the current administration had secured favorable ground for the House and Senate midterm elections at the end of the year. It had laid the foundation for leading the country with steady leadership going forward.

With things as they were, there was no force capable of criticizing or opposing the ethnic Chinese isolation policy.

It was hard to find sympathetic public opinion even on anonymous message boards.

「Good_sanchez: I happened to see statistics today about wartime bonds sales, and those Chinky bastards bought bonds at a much lower rate compared to their population. While everyone else was tightening their belts and sending money to the front, most of them weren't even interested in anything except eating well and living well themselves. Very interesting. Do they have some kind of innate defect? :-(」

「zombieslayer: It's one of two things. Either those bastards were insanely selfish from the start, or they never thought of this country as their homeland to begin with. Maybe both.」

「Blueb3rry: Looks like both to me. Even if this country didn't feel like their homeland, it's not like they didn't know humanity was facing extinction. In the end, they freeloaded off our efforts in this way too. Now it's just time to pay the price.」

「audiohead: Some of them act pitiful, like they have to leave homes they're attached to, but personally, I don't feel bad for them at all. Is anyone forcibly deporting them? No, right? Only the people who want to go are leaving by choice, and even then, they're only being pushed by the wrongs they committed themselves.」

「illovecramer: America should be a country for citizens who regard America as their homeland. We have no land to spare for selfish fools, potential criminals, followers of Yang Yongbin, and the like!」

「st_lozier: Isn't it a little much to call them potential criminals?」

「illovecramer: Do you not watch the news? They really are committing all kinds of crimes these days.」

「st_lozier: Even so, those criminals don't represent all ethnic Chinese citizens. And some of them have families of war veterans too. We shouldn't ignore their existence.」

「illovecramer: Sure, sure. Got it. You're a good person. :)」

Opinions that felt all the more sincere because they were anonymous.

It was true that the crime rate among ethnic Chinese people had risen noticeably compared to the past. But this had to be understood as the result of equally intensive policing.

Sheriff Kathleen had said as much. Ordinary arrest numbers tended to be higher for groups under plausible suspicion than for groups that were not.

At the same time, there were likely illegal practices that had until now been hidden by the closed nature of ethnic Chinese communities. An attitude of not caring whether something was legal or illegal as long as it benefited one's own community. It was behavior found in any closed community.

It was regrettable that the accusation that they had not considered America their homeland could not simply be denied. But there was a need to look back on what had made that closed nature grow stronger. America's Chinatowns had originated, after all, in Chinese exclusion districts formed during the Gilded Age.

Now that the past was repeating itself in full, how much responsibility could be placed on their closed nature?

There was also no guarantee that the statistics Good_sanchez claimed to have seen did not contain some kind of trap. It would be necessary to verify whether a large enough sample had been secured, whether the sample was biased, whether the statistical criteria left room to distort the facts, and so on.

But ordinary citizens had neither the heart, the time, nor the ability for that. They simply trusted the credibility of government announcements and media reports.

So it was only natural for anger like this to burst out.

「elvis_press: Some people say the government is after ethnic Chinese citizens' assets to repay wartime bonds with this New Frontier executive order, but even if that pathetic argument is true, I don't see what's wrong with it. Like someone said earlier, most of them were thinking only about how to eat well and live well while everyone else was saving meal money to buy wartime bonds.」

「elvis_press: The people I know seriously threw money into wartime bonds without thinking about tomorrow. Why? Because this country was fighting the end. Because tomorrow might not come at all. My father and mother did the same. They switched the bacon on the table to fake bacon, and sometimes even fell behind on the electric bill while saving money to buy bonds.」

「elvis_press: If the government fails to repay the bonds properly, or if prices rise beyond control even if it does repay them, my family will only get poorer from here on. Meanwhile, the bastards who never touched bonds will eat well and live well by comparison. Why should people who devoted themselves and fulfilled their civic duty be the ones to lose? Can someone answer me?」

「letsVote: People like you deserve to be rewarded. Don't listen to the nonsense of fools who think they're the only smart ones. If that were truly an important problem, wouldn't the media have covered it already?」

「rusty_grey: Exactly. Don't worry about it. This is what a country done right looks like.」

"...."

Gyeoul put down the phone he had been reading. A refresher training textbook lay open on the desk, but he did not feel like reading. He had already taken all the exams he had to take.

On the news channel he kept on out of habit, a report was discussing the development status of Morgellons vaccines.

「As of September 3rd, there are a total of seven Morgellons vaccines under FDA review. Among them, products from three companies, J&J, Lilly Co., and Reed Science, are undergoing Phase 3 clinical trials on service members at the quarantine front. J&J Chief Operating Officer Nathaniel Herbert claimed at a press conference this afternoon that his company's vaccine prevented Morgellons infection in 47 inoculations without any side effects. He also stated that J&J, as a company, recognizes the expectations of all humanity and will work to receive final FDA approval in the near future.」

「Experts have analyzed that this announcement was made for political purposes. We have one of them here with us now. Hello, Doctor.」

「Yes, hello.」

「You said J&J's announcement likely has a political background. What specifically made you say that?」

「Because of the nature of a Morgellons vaccine, the company that develops one first will monopolize the market. Clinical trials are already running into problems, and once a vaccine is developed and service members begin receiving priority inoculations, additional clinical trials will become impossible. Latecomers will no longer be able to secure samples.」

「I see. But how does that relate to this announcement?」

「Look at it this way. J&J made an announcement like this, so why aren't its competitors making similar announcements? The answer is simple. Because they're behind J&J in clinical trial results. In other words, J&J wants to gain public support through its results, monopolize later clinical trial opportunities, and receive final approval even a little sooner.」

「Indeed. That's a reasonable explanation.」

「On the other hand, from the health authorities' perspective, allowing a single pharmaceutical company to monopolize the key to resolving humanity's greatest fear is by no means a desirable outcome. I can't say for sure, but an enormous amount of lobbying must be happening right now, and despite public pressure, the authorities are likely holding firm. Personally, I think the Kramer administration is keeping a very good grip on the reins. It would have been difficult without an overwhelming approval rating.」

Recent media had been covering vaccine development in depth like this. Phase 3 clinical trials meant the stage just before commercialization. It was only natural for the entire nation's attention to be focused on them.

As a result, the sight of ethnic Chinese citizens setting out on long, difficult journeys with their families in tow drew less attention with each passing day. Even when they occasionally appeared on screen, most of the footage was shot from a distance. In that footage, people's expressions were no more than a few dozen indistinct pixels.

In the midst of this, Russia also carried out a policy similar to America's. It began treating ethnic Chinese people differently from other citizens and refugees.

Cherta Postoyannoy Kitayskoy Osedlosti. The ethnic Chinese isolation and internment zones, shortened to Kitaysky Cherta (Китайский Черта́), consisted of the harshest labor facilities and the roughest frontier lands. They were fundamentally different in character from the existing ethnic Chinese residential districts (Китайский квартал). By comparison, the Kramer administration's New Frontier policy almost seemed better.

Of course, people did not pay much attention to this either. Whether Russia truly had the same motives as America was not very important to American citizens.

Even so, the American government did protect ethnic Chinese citizens who refused to leave. Meaning, if a report came in, someone would respond.

'Their existence itself is a moral shield....'

They were absolutely not being forced to leave. Turning their backs on their hometowns had to be a voluntary choice through and through.

That was why Anne often complained of exhaustion.

「Anne: Mainstream society criticizes us like we're protecting potential criminals, ethnic Chinese citizens have a deep distrust of public authority itself, my subordinates have no motivation, and the higher-ups tell us to focus everything on preventing terrorism instead of maintaining public order.... When I get hit from every side like this, the energy Gyeoul charged me with drains right away. I need your kiss right now. Sob sob. :'-(」

That text message had arrived only ten minutes ago.

「Ah, wait a moment. Viewers, we have just received some new information....」

The news anchor's words, and the unnatural silence that followed, drew Gyeoul's attention.

「Excuse me, what did you say?」

The anchor asked someone off-screen. Confusion gradually spread across his face.

「Uh, breaking news! This is breaking news! A suicide bombing has occurred in Washington D.C.!」

Footnotes:

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