The Federal Bureau of Investigation's West Coast Academy had not been established in recent years. Back in the 1960s, when the Cold War was reaching its peak and both sides' counterinfiltration efforts grew increasingly extreme, the FBI established more than twenty trainee academies across fourteen states.
But over the following decade or so, this approach was deemed largely ineffective. In fact, the more scattered the academies were, the more vulnerable they became to infiltration. Most of them were converted into specialized technical training schools and local police academies, but West Coast Academy was retained because of its unique location and was only recently put back into operation.
Over the past few years, the FBI had been expanding its recruitment and had no shortage of trainees. As soon as West Coast Academy resumed operations, more than three hundred active agents and over six hundred trainees entered to study there.
Because the academy had been built relatively early, its location was not remote. To its east lay Seaside City's largest park, Visitor Pier Park, while to the south was a cluster of schools centered around Seaside City University.
The academy's buildings did not cover much ground, but layers upon layers of trees concealed the surrounding area, making it difficult to see the whole campus. Its internal facilities were almost identical to those of Seaside City University, making it hard to tell that it was an agent training school.
The spacious lecture hall had a fan-shaped layout. In the roughly 120-degree area ahead, dozens of rows of seats rose upward, while a circular space occupied the center, where a long curved lectern stood.
There was no blackboard behind it, but there was a projector, and its image was even larger than a movie screen. What made it unsettling was that corpses and blood