"So far, our efforts to recover and examine remains and related items from the public still haven't gone smoothly—"
As the speaker gave this summary, a squad of fully armed SWAT officers appeared on the wide screen. They smashed through the front door of a home, spread out, and rushed inside.
Beyond the violently shaking camera, chaos erupted: children crying, several people roaring, "Who are you? What right do you have to arrest me?" women screaming, bodies colliding and grappling, and full-throated shrieks of pain—
Only after quite a while were several people brought out with hoods over their heads. Behind them, two SWAT officers carried out a black combination case that had just been locked, handling it as though it might explode.
The people and the case were separated and loaded into different police vehicles—
The footage switched to another camera. Inside a house left in disarray, as though thieves had torn through it, an elderly corpse lay in a pool of blood, eyes still open.
Most strikingly, his arms remained positioned as though he had been protecting something against his chest. Someone had pried his powerless arms apart and taken what he had been holding.
This was less a burglary than a violent home invasion.
According to a child found curled up in a corner, who had only recently woken, his father had died as a "user." When his grandfather heard a noise in the house that night and got up to investigate, he found a masked person searching through their things.
Once discovered, the intruder had even demanded to know where the "relic" was. The child, awakened by the commotion, had been knocked unconscious too—
And this was the wretched state in which the family had been left.
His father had not taken part in the public