Chapter 418: Video Outrage
In a conference room with glaring lights and a tense atmosphere, dozens of officials gathered around the conference table.
“What’s the situation?”
A white-haired middle-aged man turned to another man in military uniform on his right. “Have we coordinated everything with the Swedish officials?”
“Yes, I liaised with the Swedish Police commissioner. On 10 December, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, during that person from Blackwatch’s attendance at the Nobel Prize Ceremony, he’d immediately be surrounded and captured for violation of the International Law — illegal amassing of armed forces, arms smuggling, and war crimes. After the arrest, he’ll be extradited to Northern America as soon as possible before the Mainland embassy could take any action and obstruct us.”
The military man nodded sternly and confidently. “Don’t worry, the FBI operatives will be involved in the arrest as well. There’s no chance of him getting away even if he managed to grow wings.”
“How about Namibia?”
The white-haired middle-aged man turned to another man with glasses that looked like a clerk. “Have you discussed things with the Namibian officials? Are they willing to cooperate with us and impose the proper financial and industrial sanctions on Blackwatch?”
“I’ve notified them.”
The man with glasses shrugged. “I’m sure that after this arrest, the company will instantly be left in disarray and vaporize. Even if this company is in control of Namibia’s economy, how would they risk angering or defying us after this company collapses?”
“That’s true.”
The white-haired man nodded. “We have to be prepared on the foreign affairs end. After arresting that person, you must immediately step up to clarify and manipulate international public consensus immediately. Make sure you provide all the evidence we’ve fabricated. Make sure to follow up with CNN and all other major outlets. We must look as credible as possible in this matter.”
“Everything is ready.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs responded immediately.
“So, the most important affair now is to figure out how we can subjugate the variety of technology of this company as quickly as possible.”
The white-haired man produced a few lists. “Age-reversal treatment. Although we’ve made certain degrees of a breakthrough concerning this technology, there are still some minute details that can be further optimized. We can do this once we obtain their technology. Apart from this one, here are some of the other technologies that we need to collect from their company. Take a look.”
Copies of the list were handed out across the room to everyone in attendance.
“Primarily, there’s the cancer targeted-drug manufacturing technology, Alzheimer’s Disease Reversal Treatment, nanoelectrode implantation technology, and a variety of biological research technology... These are among the things that we need to acquire...”
“There are also their instantaneous laser holographic projection and brainwave control technology. We also need to obtain their research documentations at the electronics end.”
Another member in the conference room stated greedily.
“Of course.”
The white-haired man chuckled before putting away the documents. “We cannot allow these technologies to fall into the hands of anyone that’s not us since it will affect the standing of our Northern America as the dominant force in the Earth Federation. This will also be a great blow to the Mainland. It’d be most optimal if this savant is willing to work for us. If he’s unwilling, then it’s better to make him disappear. It’s only to everyone’s benefit...”
“You’re right...”
Everyone agreed on the same notion and started to laugh merrily at this reasoning. The atmosphere became lively immediately.
The joyous and wide laughter on their faces were captured in a still.
...
“What the h*ll am I looking at?”
Looking at the post pinned at the top of the forum, the man seated in front of his computer exclaimed in utter disbelief.
This man was Walter. He was just going to register a throwaway account and mess around on the forums for the entire day. However, his plans were cut short when he saw a post pinned to the top spot of the forum of one of the world’s most famous websites, P forum. The title was bolded and colored in red —
[You won’t believe this, everyone is sharing this video everywhere! Download it after you watch it or else it might be deleted soon!]
It was the first time Walter found himself enchanted by this sort of typical clickbait title. It was enough to make him abandon his usual hatred against clickbait titles and tap into the video as if something was beckoning him to do so...
This was the video that he watched...
There was no mistaking it. The leading man with white hair was the Vice President of Northern America, was it not? The middle-aged man in military outfit must have been the Minister of National Defense. There was also the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Commerce, the list went on!
Could this imply that the contents of the video were the details of a meeting among the most powerful circles in Northern America?
Walter felt like the world was spinning on its head. It was not so much the sight of the meeting but the subject discussed. They were discussing Blackwatch that had been trending everywhere recently!
“This video footage shows the highest groups of officials in Northern America openly conspiring the persecution of Blackwatch like a group of villains!”
Walter slapped his cheeks as hard as he could, worrying that he only hallucinated what he just saw. After countless slaps, he had to settle with the fact that everything he had just seen was real and not an illusion.
“Blasted, now that this video is put out here, the bunch of politician pigs is dead meat!”
Walter struggled to catch his breath as he paced around the room. An idea suddenly came to him as he returned to his seat and downloaded a copy of the video before heading to his favorite site, YouTube, to upload the video!
The moment Walter opened YouTube, he would be surprised by what greeted him.
The video on the top trending spot of YouTube was the same as the one he just saw, except the title was slightly modified...
[You won’t believe this video everyone is sharing everywhere that left people utterly speechless! You can’t call yourself an earthling if you don’t share this!]
Still in disbelief, Walter quickly played the video. Unsurprisingly, it was the familiar sight of the major players of Northern America gathered around at a conference table that he watched just now.
The comment section was a war zone by this point.
[This is the foundation, this is the yoke. This is the Northern American Continent, Eureka!]
[Haha, look at the faces of these stupid officials, they don’t deserve to be the leaders of this continent!]
[This has to be fake, right? With all the deep fake technology going on these days, this has to be fake!]
[Keep lying to yourself mate, plenty of experts had gone through this video and have confirmed that there are no after-effects added, this is the raw footage!]
[What are these pigs doing? Why would they allow some footage like this to be leaked outside if they know they are going to be discussing something as sensitive as this? Isn’t this going to damage our Northern America’s reputation?]
[God, I’m so disappointed. This world is truly a dark place for someone with such good intentions to be targeted like this, how terrifying!]
[What are the people in charge at Google and YouTube doing? Why would they allow something like this to trend on their website? Are they trying to turn on the White House? Today isn’t April’s Fool!]
...
Some were dumbfounded, some were disgusted and ridiculed it while others made fun of the situation. Within moments, everyone had something to say.
The total views of the video on YouTube had reached a hundred million within an hour and was still rapidly growing. As the largest video-sharing platform in the Earth Federation, YouTube’s reach spanned across more than a hundred countries and more than two billion people. The video was akin to a diver leaping into a pool of still water, sending enormous splashes that expanded in each direction.
The entire Internet was in an uproar!
This was only what was on the surface. Meanwhile, on the deeper corners of the Internet — the dark web, there was another ongoing underground war.
On this battlefield, the cybersecurity department of Northern America was being beaten senseless by hackers of unknown origin. This cybersecurity department was a new-generation department established under the Ministry of Defense a long time ago. Their purpose was to defend against whatever cyberattacks the country may encounter.
Unlike ordinary wars, cyber warfare did not leave behind visible traces such as gun smoke or bullet shells, but it still caused significant financial damage all the same. As the structure of modern society became more oriented around the distribution of information, many countries had come to understand that a breach of their information network may result in the country suffering great economical damage.
This exact unwanted circumstance was what was occurring in Northern America at this moment.
The White House was in a state of chaos. The middle-aged man in military uniform was howling like a rabid dog, cursing at two fellow officers dressed the same as him. “What is the cybersecurity department doing, why haven’t you pulled all these videos down!”
“I’m very sorry, Chief Commander, our people are working on it...”
After straining an excuse together, another member suddenly blurted out, “What’s weird is that the other party seems to equip extremely potent and coordinated cyber warfare experience. They are operating in separated divisions but manage to concentrate their efforts together at the last moment. Before we could even trace their IP, they barraged our systems near instantly...”
“Garbage, you’re all a waste of space! All of you!”
The military man belted furiously, “How about the YouTube officials, tell them to suspend their service immediately, turn off the servers, understand?”
“Yes!”
The man responded abruptly, but after he thought further about it, he felt like he had to inform, “But it’s not just YouTube but it’s beyond Northern America at this point. Europe, Asia, and all the websites of countries around the world have this video trending all over...”
“D*mn! Give me a solution. Don’t we have the contacts of many hackers? Get in touch with them and see if they are involved in this. Recruit them to our site if they are not, now!”
The military man was getting increasingly agitated. He knew that regardless of whether the Northern American Continent managed to alleviate this full-scale attack or not, his political career had effectively ended.
No, it should be more apt to say that with a scandal of this proportion, the entire White House had to throw in their resignation letter!
Standing beside him was the white-haired middle-aged man, looking paler than ever. Still, he managed to mutter, “The most important thing now isn’t to take down this footage, but to control the civilian narrative and tell them this video is fake...”
“Fake?”
The military man looked at the white-haired man brazenly.
“I’ve gone through the video carefully and I can verify that this video has to be fake.”
The white-haired man stated confidently, “Look at the details. We were indeed discussing our plans for sabotaging Blackwatch, but what’s shown in the video weren’t the exact discussions that we had. I’m very confident in what I remember from that discussion.”
“Are you saying that...”
The military man snapped. “You’re saying that someone is trying to slander us with this forged video?”
“Exactly!”
The white-haired man doubled down. “I’ve had experts look at the conference room shown in this video and they noticed that the general structure of the conference room isn’t completely identical. There were some slightly varying details. This means that this video wasn’t filmed in our conference room. Besides, I’ve specifically had someone dismantle our conference room to look for signs of any concealed microphones or taping devices. I’m certain that there’s no chance that our meeting venue was compromised.”
The military man suddenly collected himself and considered this point. “Now that you mentioned it, I remember that this wasn’t the tone I had during the meeting. I thought I had just remembered things differently but now that I think about it, this video has to be forged!”
“The problem is that our technician is unable to find any evidence of the video being forged.”
The two department members who had received a horrendous scolding just now suddenly interjected.
“Shut up!”
The military man rebuked.
“I suspect the reason we couldn’t find any proof is due to their intricate post-production that concealed the fact but that doesn’t matter.”
The white-haired man noted solemnly. “Even if we cannot find any proof of the video being forged, we can manufacture false evidence ourselves...”
The others were quickly caught by surprise when they heard this suggestion.
That was true. Even if there were no traces of the video being forged, they could still claim to have found proper evidence of that being the case. Even if most people would not buy this argument, at least some portion of the population who had faith in the government would choose to believe it.
As for how the rest of the fallout should be handled, it was all up to the will of God at this point...
After finalizing their plan, they started assigning the respective tasks to each person. This was their final hurdle to minimize the damage caused.
“Now that this information is publicized, that person from Blackwatch probably won’t be attending the award ceremony in Switzerland anymore...”
The white-haired man turned to the military man and stated calmly as he saw the members in the White House urgently rushing off to attend to their respective tasks. “The situation is rather evident now. Blackwatch has the most intricate and powerful hacker force in the world. This explains how they have been able to acquire confidential information ahead of time all this time...”
“I knew it, it’s them...”
There was a trace of anger in the military man’s voice. “Have they ever considered the consequences of angering us? A mere company dares to oppose the world’s most powerful governmental body?”
“Based on current observation, they must’ve known about our plans to move against them a long time ago, so they must’ve a good reason for doing this now.”
The white-haired man agreed. “This company is a force to be reckoned with. By the looks of it, we’ll have to go for a full-frontal approach to destroy them. We need to impose enforced economical and military sanctions on them. This is the only effective option we have left.”
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