Mika put on the Vision Pro.
“Teleporting View.”
Mika looked around, as if she had been summoned directly into the very center of the Terra Motors site. Tear gas filled the air, and screams from the protesters pierced through the haze. On top of an armored bus facing the crowd stood Dongjin Seo, CEO of Terra Motors, waving a court order and shouting.
“At last, a dispersal order against you has been issued! This proves that the court stands with me! I will not withdraw the decision to put humanoid labor robots—into which thirty trillion won has been invested—on the production line! Look here! The dispersal order has been issued! And as CEO of Terra Motors, effective immediately, I am terminating every one of you and requesting the forcible dispersal of this protest!”
The moment Dongjin Seo finished speaking, suppression troops poured out of the armored bus at terrifying speed. There were twenty of them, all wearing riot helmets and reinforced suits. They immediately began beating the protesters indiscriminately with electric batons.
A union worker with a cigarette in his mouth swung a steel pipe at a charging trooper—only to find the trooper suddenly standing right beside him. The union worker turned his head in shock, and the electric baton smashed into his skull. Blood burst from his head. He collapsed to the ground and lost consciousness.
— Life risk level 9. Loss of consciousness after experiencing pain at the threshold of death. Further strikes are prohibited.
The guidance of the suppression operation AI, FutureForce, was transmitted through the trooper’s helmet communicator. It was effectively an AI order, but officially, it was referred to as “guidance.”
Eighty members of the First Union resisted with steel pipes, but they could not endure the speed that felt almost like teleportation or the electric batons calibrated to deliver pain just short of death. Their skulls burst under the batons. Others’ skulls gave way under repeated blows. They went down with raw screams tearing out of them.
A union worker clutching an old iPad was struck in the leg while trying to flee and slammed face-first into the pavement.
“What hope is left in this land!” he cried.
His bloodshot eyes followed Zion Kang, leader of the Second Union, as he climbed onto the barricade platform. As if guarding him, forty Second Union members surrounded the platform with furious determination. Zion Kang raised his voice.
“Resist! Comrades! If even we disappear, there will be no workers left in this land! Rise up! Comrades! Struggle is the only path left to us!”
The suppression troops charged toward him. But unlike the scattered First Union, the forty Second Union members responded like a trained elite unit. Led by a fierce-looking union member, they hurled Molotov cocktails in all directions.
Whoooosh—
Flames erupted across the ground. Fire raced along oil that had been spread in advance, forming a wall of flame. The charging suppression troops halted for a moment.
“We will resist to the end!” Zion Kang shouted.
The Second Union members raised their steel pipes and roared. At that instant—
Fwoooosh—
Fire-suppression explosive rounds were launched from behind the suppression troops.
Bang. Bang.
The flames were extinguished almost instantly as the explosives detonated, and the fire barrier collapsed. Amid the acrid smoke, a gaunt union worker coughing violently saw a riot helmet appear before him—then, crack. His head split open under the blow, and he collapsed, screaming. From within the fog-like smoke came cries of pain and terror from all directions.
Standing on the platform, Zion Kang stared in disbelief as 120 comrades fell around him. A suppression trooper’s reinforced walker kicked the head of a fallen worker. Red LED warnings—DANGER, DANGER—flashed on the troopers’ helmets as alarms blared. Everywhere, the voice of the FutureForce AI repeated:
“Additional strikes are prohibited.”
But the enraged troopers did not stop. Using the smoke created by the suppression explosives as a shield of “insufficient evidence,” they continued to beat the protesters mercilessly.
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