**** Elysium 1986 ****

The actions of the TRAP agents triggered profound changes on many levels in the weeks to come. Not just for individuals, but for the entire city.

Dr. Kelly Malcom turns herself in to the head of Elysium’s homicide squad, at the same time revealing all the secret documents of her former deputy and assisting the police investigation against her own company to the best of her ability. Due to the special circumstances and the explosive nature of the case, Will Morgan uses all his powers of persuasion to get Mayor Fabio to keep the case against her and POWERS Generating Plant anonymous and closed to the public. Kelly Malcom, as a person, is acquitted of all charges based on the evidence – and also after hearing from TRAP about the incidents. However, the trial proves Spencer’s involvement with other powerful employees who also profited from the illegal dumping. They are sentenced to long prison terms. Meanwhile, this leads to a serious crisis in the company’s structure. POWERS is forcibly nationalized as a 49 percent joint-stock company, and Malcom is simultaneously reinstated as managing director. The official explanation is that this is to guarantee a basic supply of energy. The real motive, however, is to secure a permanent new source of income for Elysium via the electricity market to offset the costs of cleaning up the affected underground areas, including the contaminated parts of the city of Gwyneran.

In a grotesque twist, at this point the same mercenary organization that POWERS hired for the underground expansion is hired for the cleanup, despite all the risks. The same people responsible for looting and murder. There are several reasons for this. Among other things, there is no basis for criminal prosecution, since the current laws apply only to humans, and of course do not cover an alien settlement in a cave system. Moreover, in the current tense situation, the police are not interested in an open confrontation with a paramilitary organization, which would have made Gwyneran’s secrecy from the public even more difficult anyway and would most likely have led to destructive street battles with the mercenaries. Instead, they follow the adage: if you can’t kill it, befriend it. In the new operation, it actually turns out to be a perfidious advantage that the organization’s units already have some experience fighting the crawlers.

In addition, based on TRAP’s findings, the police are working at full speed to train new canine units to secure subway stations. The measures are working, the attacks are beginning to diminish, and the crawlers, whose numbers still cannot be estimated, appear to have largely retreated into the extensive cave systems surrounding the subway network. The recovery of the transportation network is giving Mayor Stanford’s poll numbers a decent boost. The railroad company and the mayor advertise together with a poster campaign with the slogan: “Ride the subway! Your chances of being torn apart by a crawler or dying in a car accident are about the same, so why not take it easy? The campaign is so successful that a commercial is made featuring the mayor as a subway conductor. Armed with a beaming smile and a shotgun, he transports applauding people safely to work on the subway. However, he turns down subsequent offers of roles in major films.

Flavio Spencer’s death is explained as an unfortunate malfunction in the company’s security systems. As he leaves no descendants, there are no further inquiries from third parties. The homicide department does not open a file on the incident at the specific order of its leader. Despite the attempts at secrecy, rumors spread throughout the underworld that the TRAP agency had something to do with the big change at POWERS Generating Plant. The TRAP members decide to lay low for a while while the dust settles. There is another reason for this. In a personal meeting with the Mayor, they receive the deed to the former Minister of Infrastructure’s fully furnished villa in a prime location on North Beach. And so the heroes’ lives change in ways they never dreamed of when they founded the agency. In a relatively short period of time, they have accomplished what so many other soldiers of fortune have never been able to do. By moving out of their small, shabby apartment in the center of town (to the delight of their neighbor Bobo) and into the richest neighborhood in the city, their social advancement is sealed. The three-story mansion, worth about six million dollars, not only has a sprawling garden where Anton can run around to his heart’s content, but also a spacious basement with enough room for a medical supply room, a small laboratory, and even a shooting range to keep in shape. Each of the agents gets their own room. They set up a workshop, a meeting room, a supply room, an office, a guest room, and more. Abigail, who spends the first few days after moving in doing almost nothing but enthusiastically running through all the rooms and looking around, sums up the situation with one word, which she repeats out loud as she explores: Space! Space at last! Finally a decent bed of her own… Of course, the others are also more than enthusiastic about their new home. Ralph declares that from now on he will always spend at least an hour on the toilet, since there are now enough bathrooms in the house for everyone and there is no need to hurry. These are wonderful weeks and months.

Categorized as: Novel 5 (EN) | Novel Chapter (EN)

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