Chapter 288: Hope of Escape

“Shocking! All Dream Technology employees and their families will relocate to a space city, marking humanity’s entry into the space age!” – Headlines

“Dream Technology ushers in the space age!” – TASS News Agency

“Starting with the Heavenly Garden Space City, humanity finally begins its conquest of space!” – Global Communications

“Perhaps we should also build a space city to save our sinking nation!” – Asahi Shimbun

“A transnational monopoly business group on par with a superpower. Will future humans live under the shadow of this behemoth?” – Le Figaro

“Dream Technology should disclose its space exploration technology, allowing humanity to break free from the solar system. This would truly benefit mankind.” – The Daily Telegraph

…

Dream Technology’s press conference created a massive stir. Not only did media outlets from various countries scramble to report on the company’s relocation to the space city from different angles, but countless netizens also flooded Dream Technology’s official website with comments.

“Dream Technology is truly awesome!”

“Living in a space city, with all company employees and their families included? Dream Technology employees are so lucky!”

“Be careful not to fall and crush the flowers and plants in my yard!”

“With this technology, can we relocate the people of Central America and Japan? This would be a true act of human kindness!”

“To the person above, they’re a commercial company. Why should they relocate those people for free?”

“How big is the space city anyway? It can’t possibly accommodate hundreds of millions of people. The person above is being a bit unrealistic.”

“Why is Dream Technology building a space city? With this technology, wouldn’t it be better to build directly on the Moon or Mars? Having your feet on solid ground is more reassuring, right?”

“That’s right, think about it carefully. This should be the beginning of humanity’s era of colonizing other planets!”

…

In the Tanga Federation’s underground base, all personnel were making preparations. The vast majority would be relocating to the Heavenly Garden Space City.

Only a small number of personnel would remain, mostly from the Security Department. In the future, any new recruits joining Dream Technology would first live in the base for a period before moving to Heavenly Garden.

Currently, following Du Qiu’s execution of the researcher recruitment plan, Dream Technology’s personnel had significantly increased.

Especially after implementing the exchange program with Natural Force, a large number of young, highly educated individuals had joined Dream Technology.

These people were initially arranged to work in the Tanga Federation Industrial Park. After the underground base personnel relocated, they would also transfer to the underground base.

In short, Du Qiu planned to continue this long-term. Of course, Dream Technology’s own education system had already been preliminarily established. Once the first generation of Dream people was cultivated, Du Qiu would no longer need to absorb talent from other countries on Earth on such a large scale.

In addition to the increase in scientific research personnel, Du Qiu, driven by the need for gene collection and taking advantage of the crisis of Japan’s national destruction, used several labor companies to recruit a large number of young women from Japan.

There was no other way. The gender ratio in Dream Technology was completely unbalanced, especially among young people.

Among the large number of young researchers, there were simply too few women. For the sake of these talents’ happiness, Du Qiu had to bring in a large number of women.

It was said that Japanese women were very good at taking care of men. Under the threat of national destruction and the severe supervirus outbreak, no country in the world was willing to accept them.

At this time, several labor companies came to recruit young women. Those who were hired could bring their immediate family members with them to leave Japan.

For ordinary people, this kind of good news naturally attracted countless Japanese people. The government had basically abandoned the people, and the officials had long since fled.

The Japanese Prime Minister had not made a televised speech for many days. People said that he had left the Japanese archipelago with the Self-Defense Forces.

This was news from people living near the Wu Port base. On the morning of September 10th, all the Maritime Self-Defense Force warships originally docked in Wu Port had disappeared.

At this time, there were 29 days left until the sinking of the Japanese archipelago.

The entire Japanese archipelago was already in chaos. Only those few labor export companies were still recruiting personnel in some areas without the virus outbreak.

Mito was 90 kilometers away from Tokyo in a straight line. This was the closest non-epidemic area to Tokyo.

The news that the labor export company was recruiting young women and that the families of those hired could leave the archipelago together spread from those who owned smart glasses produced by Dream Technology of China.

Japan’s internet infrastructure had long been destroyed in the continuous earthquakes, and even electricity was almost completely cut off.

“Taro, we finally made it to Mito. But will they accept us to leave?”

Michiko asked with a worried face.

When the news of the archipelago sinking and the virus outbreak came out, Kawauchi Taro didn’t care about cleaning up his home anymore. He directly took his wife Michiko and ran to Chiba, where his cousin worked at a shipping company and would definitely have a way to leave the archipelago by boat.

Unfortunately, by the time they arrived in Chiba, his cousin had already left by boat, leaving them with nowhere to go.

Soon, there were supervirus infections in Chiba, and Kawauchi Taro immediately fled north.

On the way, Kawauchi Taro overheard someone mention that there was no outbreak in Mito and that people were recruiting young women there. As long as they were hired, their families could leave the archipelago together.

This news became the couple’s hope. As ordinary people, even though Kawauchi Taro was a policeman, he was just an ordinary patrol officer. They had no way to escape on a flight at the first opportunity, and the subsequent virus incident caused many countries to stop accepting Japanese people.

For ordinary people, escaping the archipelago was simply an impossible task.

Of course, the most terrifying thing was the virus. Kawauchi Taro had always been careful to avoid crowded places.

“Didn’t they say they were recruiting young women? You’re only 32 years old. You should be considered young.”

“But I don’t know how to do anything except housework. What if I don’t get hired? How will we leave the archipelago?”

“I’ve asked around. Those labor companies are looking for people who can do housework. It seems they’re recruiting maids. As long as we leave the archipelago, I’ll definitely find a way to get a job, and then you won’t have to be a maid anymore.”

Kawauchi Taro had initially been skeptical about this, fearing it might be a human trafficking ring. But since they dared to let family members leave together, it shouldn’t be a human trafficking ring.

No one would want to waste transportation capacity on family members when they could transport more women.

As long as this labor company was willing to let him leave with his wife, he wasn’t afraid of putting his wife in danger. After all, he was a black belt in karate.

As a policeman, he was also a good shot and carried a pistol. He wasn’t empty-handed, which was why he was able to bring his wife all the way from Chiba to Mito.

In chaotic times, human nature had long been distorted. In order to survive, Kawauchi Taro had killed more than one person.

The streets of Mito were empty, and the usually clean and tidy streets were now littered with garbage.

Fortunately, this wasn’t an epidemic area, and there were no corpses everywhere.

Kawauchi Taro was hesitant. Although many people had fled ahead of time after the news of the sinking was released, he had traveled all the way from Tokyo, and there were still many people in the towns along the way.

The situation in Mito, as it appeared before him, seemed somewhat strange.

Could it be that all the people in Mito had successfully escaped the archipelago?

After thinking for a while, Kawauchi Taro said to his wife, “Let’s go and take a look at the port. If that company is going to ship people out, the most likely way is still by boat.”

Michiko had no strong opinions and always obeyed whatever Kawauchi Taro said.

Kawauchi drove all the way towards the port. As soon as the car reached the top of a slope, the scene before him stunned him.

Kawauchi subconsciously stopped the car.

From the bottom of the slope to the port, there was still about 1.5 kilometers. This area was densely packed with people!

However, these people were divided into several areas, appearing well-organized.

Kawauchi could see armed personnel with live ammunition at the intervals between each area, but they weren’t Self-Defense Forces.

Not far from the bottom of the slope, a facility similar to a checkpoint completely blocked the road, and about a few hundred people were lining up.