Chapter 23: You Can Stuff Drums with Anything


    After consulting withpany personnel, Hiroki decided to begin a major overhaul of thepanys premises.


    Up until now, Hiroki had been fooling around by adding warehouses and other facilities as if he was just the owner of a small to medium-sizedpany, but when it came to conducting arge business that included liquid waste treatment, they had some inadequacy in capacity for various aspects.


    They hired a major constructionpany in Tokyo and had numerous design meetings with the person in charge.


    In the end, they decided to pave the entire current site, enclose it with a high wall, and build arge warehouse and thepany building with a green tract ofnd in ordance with the local ordinance.


    [It kinda looks like the military bases I saw in a foreign TV drama.]


    Hiroki had such an impression, but the functionality of constructing it that way does indeed resemble that of a military base.


    It seems that a simr arrangement was also in ce when ites to efficiently cing people and equipment, and providing security to the surrounding area.


    In anticipation of entering the liquid waste treatment business, arge liquid waste tank will be installed for temporary storage.


    [Somepanies will probably bring their liquid waste by tanker truck after all.]


    Ishida exined.


    Since its a hassle to refill drums from the liquid waste tank, a pipe is designed to run directly from the tank to the building where the hole is located.


    When they want to dispose of the liquid waste, they could simply open the valve, which is revolutionary in that it allows disposal even when Hiroki isnt around.


    Seeing this design, Hiroki wants to have the disposal of drums to eventually be automated as well.


    Also, the building where the hole is located will be surrounded by thick concrete walls.


    This is because a few days ago, a boar finally broke through the exterior galvanized iron wall, and covered with scratches, it plunged into the wall surrounding the hole.


    In addition, corporate spies and yakuzas have been hangin around thepanys vicinity, so its no longer eptable to simply enclose the hole in a shack made of galvanized iron.


    [It feels a little oppressive though, so I dont like it.]


    Hiroki asserted.


    [That is an absolutely confidential matter. We cant just have it covered with galvanized iron forever.]


    However, Ishida insisted.


    It was indeed just as Ishida said, but the buildingspletion n is too exaggerated.


    He wanted it covered with a cube-sized building made of thick concrete.


    It looked like a scaled-down version of the concrete building he saw at a nuclear power nt he saw back then.


    [Rather than a building, it looks more like a tomb. no, a stone monument?]


    As was the case at the site of the Chernobyl power nt, the concrete buildings of nuclear power nts feel more like stone monuments than buildings.


    Stone monuments of science and technology that makes people feel fear, as if something that cant be handled by humans has been hurriedly covered and reinforced with concrete.


    Hiroki thinks that Ishida is probably just afraid of the hole though.


    Having this in mind, the monitoring posts filled with deceptive sensors that have been erected around the site seem like wards to block anything that mighte out of the hole.


    The sensors are connected to the cables for power and data transmission, in a way which makes it look like shimenawa.


    <em>(T/N: Shimenawa are lengths ofid rice straw or hemp rope used for ritual purification in the Shinto religion. Having a shimenawa tied around or across an object or space denotes its sanctity or purity.)</em>


    Looking at it this way, it could be seen as a ritual ce where humans continue to offer the filth of the world in the form of waste to prevent something ominous froming out of the hole.


    [In that case, am I supposed to y the role of the Shinto Priest in this ce?]


    Imagining himself in a Shinto Priests ikan, Hirokiughed at how ill-suited it looked.


    Inrge-scale construction, in addition to the clean deskwork of designing, theres also the mundane groundwork.


    On the site that had been purchased for site expansion, a group of people had gathered out of nowhere and started to build a cabin under the sign Group Against Environmental Pollution.


    The people actually sitting in the shack looked like skinny olddies and naive students, but it was clear that whoever was supporting them was pulling the strings behind the scenes.


    [Feels like I always end up having to handle these jobs]


    MCTBH is officially a technology venturepany, and Ishidas contacts and preferences determine who gets hired.


    In other words, the employees hired were all schrs and for some reason, the physicalbor and rough work is done by Hiroki, the Owner/President of thepany.


    [This is private property. Please leave.]


    [With our rights as citizens, we oppose environmental pollution!]


    [Oppose!]


    [Oppose!]


    [Polluting corporations should leave!]


    As Hiroki had expected, they didnt listen to him.


    Do you call what they were doing Sprechchor or something like that? Anyhow, as they were shouting in unison, Hiroki thinks that what they were doing looks fun.


    He did try to convince them that, from a data point of view, the pollution theyre worried about doesnt exist.


    After all, they have thrown everything into the hole, so theres no way for pollution to spread.


    [We have sensors that collect data on environmental pollution indicators, and the data from the monitoring posts is always avable online. Looking at it, isnt it obvious that there was no pollution outbreak?]


    [Those data are fabricated!]


    [It cant be trusted!]


    [Fabricated!]


    [Fabricated!]


    Well, this is something Hiroki had expected.


    They are paid by whoever was supporting them, so theres no way they would listen to him.


    Also, their data being fabricated was the only thing they got right.


    He then tried the opposite way


    [There are a lot of wild animals around here, so please be careful if you are going to stay in the wild. Also, you should properly get rid of your garbage.]


    For an environmentalist group, these people were quite sloppy, with food scraps, wrapping paper and stic bento boxes littering their surroundings.


    Hiroki doesnt know if its because hispany was located in a remote location, but they were dressed in filthy clothes, as if they hardly had any shower.


    Hiroki wonders, were they part of amune or something? They looked like theyre from a refugee camp.


    <em>(T/N: Amune is a group of people who live together and share many of their possessions and responsibilities.)</em>


    [You should throw your garbage away properly.]


    He reminded them.


    [Oppose!!!]


    [Oppose!!!]


    [Capitalist pig!!!]


    As strangely trained curses rained down his back, Hiroki returned to his office.


    A few dayster, he heard the news that the environmentalist groups cabin had copsed after being chased around in the middle of the night by a pack of boars that hade to scavenge food scraps.


    A human being would have been helpless if attacked by a boar weighing more than 100kg in the dark.


    Many people were injured and the group was devastated, and by the next morning, several ambnces seemed to have arrived.


    When Hiroki went to check it out, they found the copsed cabin, arge amount of garbage left behind by the boars and baits that had been scattered about during the night. They are all stuffed into the drum and thrown into the hole.


    Can be filled with anything and easily thrown away, drums really are convenient.


    Within theplete darkness, they were born from their eggs.


    As soon as they hatched, they devoured the carrion around them,peting with their siblings to eat, and they who triumphed scavenged the carrion around them again.


    The carrion around them seemed endless, but soon there was nothing left but bones.


    The hungry them gnawed at the hard bones with their strong jaws, drilled into them, and burrowed into them to sip the marrow of these bones.


    When the bone marrow ran out, the hungry them finally began to cannibalize their siblings.


    After a fierce struggle, they who survived gnawed on the flesh of their hard, fat siblings, crushing their shells, and again sipped their marrow.


    Before long, sniffing the scent of new carrion falling from the heavens, they spread their wings wide and leaped.


    All toy their eggs, swollen with tens of thousands of lives, in thisnd near the new carrion.