I Have Returned, but I Cannot Lay down My Gun

"…I guess it's a bit late to say this now, but after looking around, I think I understand why there’s so much wine in the warehouse. I didn’t know there were so many hotels around Central Park."

"Even in this harsh world, everyone still uses decent bedding. It’s because everything was taken from nearby hotels. Similarly, the reason a large general hospital was established in the HQ center is for a similar reason."

"Did they really take all the large medical equipment from the hospitals around Central Park? In normal times, you wouldn’t even imagine that. If you think about it, it’s basically requisitioning supplies worth billions of dollars."

"Well, considering the situation, it makes sense."

Where there are people, there are supplies and infrastructure, and where both exist, there are people.

New York, Manhattan, one of the world’s great cities that meets this criterion, and still, despite the virus's devastation, its fame remains untarnished. At the beginning of the Omega Virus crisis, when public authority quickly lost power and people in one of the world’s wealthiest neighborhoods turned into refugees, it was because of New York's overwhelming wealth that Central Park HQ arose from the ashes.

They requisitioned everything around Central Park, simultaneously receiving enormous amounts of supplies.

"At that time, the only place where security worked was Central Park. The public health task force was the first to be deployed, followed by the remaining police and national guard… So it was more like they received supplies rather than they were requisitioned."

"Also, they gave cooperation orders to private medical hospitals around here… No. Most of the doctors working at HQ now are probably the ones who stayed here after the hospitalizations, right?"

"Exactly. That’s why, whenever people get brought in one or two at a time, they survive without much trouble."

"Now that I think about it, Olivia joined HQ the same way."

Olivia nodded slowly in agreement.

She had joined HQ because of an injury sustained during an operation on Long Island, and Laurentina had snatched up Owly and the Eagle team from the ICU and inserted them into the Dagger team.

The others, excluding Eugene, Laurentina, and Olivia, began listening intently to the story. The team members who had joined late, including Lafland, who had been semi-detained at the facility until the Valerie elimination operation, were hearing it for the first time, or had only heard bits and pieces of it before.