Night passed quickly, and the distant sky began to pale with the first light of dawn.
Everything proceeded in an orderly fashion. No one noticed the undercurrents swirling beneath the surface.
The sky had yet to fully brighten, but the Forward Base was already bustling.
After the Evacuation Elevators had run without pause all night, the number of people who had returned to the surface was nearing ten million.
With a crowd that large, it was almost impossible to keep the noise down.
The hundred-odd supply distribution stations in the Forward Base were especially deafening, every bit as noisy as a morning market.
With so many people packed together, even the slightest disturbance could be difficult to quell.
Fortunately, the Coordination Committee had taken that into account.
In troubled times, harsh measures were necessary.
After a meeting, the Coordination Committee decided that anyone causing trouble at a return-to-the-surface work site did not need to be reported. Soldiers on duty had the authority to kill them on the spot.
To put it bluntly, if a soldier got fed up and pulled the trigger, emptying a whole magazine into someone, he wouldn't face any punishment.
That policy gave the armed forces an overwhelming hold over the populace.
Even those who felt they'd been treated unfairly only dared to grumble under their breath. They wouldn't dream of arguing with the person involved.
Even so, more than a thousand people were shot dead on the spot over the course of the night.
Their bodies were zipped into body bags and lined up beside the corridors of the civil defense shelters, to intimidate the people just coming out.
The smell of blood mixed with disinfectant, so pungent that people couldn't help covering their noses.
Even the most unruly had to rein in their tempers in