Ɵ

A piercing whistle from the entry could be heard, reaching to everyone’s ears. Her consciousness slowly emerges to reality. Just as she couldn’t move a muscle of her body, her senses became numb.

Observing the surroundings with what her drifting consciousness has to offer. She darted at the men, busy fiddling in control panels, and continued to hear the rhythmical tap of the keyboards.

She had finally noticed as she altered her gaze at the newly come men in black, pushing a giant glass tube being carried by a roller push with a man sleeping inside, injected by some unknown functions of wires and tubes and yet her desire didn’t express through action. Only she could do is to yelp in a low voice as the container proceeded to the elevator.

The researcher turned his attention back to the young gal.

“Hey, Experiment 432 is awake. Take her also at the Experiment Sector,” He called out someone in the comms.

“Hm, looks like it’s our lucky day. Seven consecutive successes for today.” He grins as he starts to tap at the nearby panel on the right side.

“Is everything ready?” A voice flares out of nowhere, clad in a blue blazer with a small metallic head of tiger attached in the chest, accompanied by guards.

“Everything is ready mister president, what matters now is your orders, shall we start the experiment?”

His face is dazzling, perfect nose, and the plain hair embarks on her mind, “Do as you wish, show me results if it’s done,” He said, his gloomy eyes observing the room.

“Also report to me about the progress of the experiments, because I will be busy negotiating with the mayor and to that lowlife mob.” He sputtered with such discouragement.

“I do believe that you need not any of his help. You have connections inside the government, and you can just obviously explain the expansion.”

His eyes narrowed to him as if he’s looking down to his level, “Sometimes we have to play behind the curtains, it would be easy like you say to just explain the expansion but that would also harbor suspicion, especially to the media. Rather, we will use someone to blame for all of these.”

“Pardon me, if I am a short-sighted person.” He lowered his head.

His attention is caught by the woman in the tube.

“And this…?” He asked.

“Ah, this woman will be a candidate to our symbiotic transplant”

“Very well, I’ll be going. I’ll leave things in your hand doctor.” Leaving the staff in the room, the doctor calls out men detaching the containment, transferring it. Before she lost consciousness, the doctor said something.

“Everything shall go as I planned and not too long, this empire he built will rot.” Then he laughs, dissipating as he walks outside leaving his men to do the job.

Ɵ

“Ngh.” A heartful grunt sounded as she opened her eyes, narrowing.

“Are you alright?” A voice asked. She flustered as Ken greeted her next to her.

“Uhm, not quite. My head still feels dizzy.”

“You know, you really shouldn’t strain yourself, luckily Cid found you outside. Don’t make us worried sick, okay?” Ken concerningly said as he reached a small table – fit between Sherry’s legs. Curry, eggs, and lemonade’s odor lingers in the air.

“We know that you’ve been through a lot, and don’t know what should be done, but we’re to help, so don’t force yourself.”

A few moments had passed, Sherry silently eating the curry and Ken was sleeping in the blue cushion at her right side, snoring loudly.

With no further knocking, Linda entered the room. She looks at the sleeping Ken then to her “I heard you collapse this morning,” She walks and sat down at the chair near to her. “You really shouldn’t have strained yourself.”

“Uhm, sorry.” She muttered. Her head doesn’t feel heavy anymore, regardless, she is still curious as to what she is doing here. She raised her upper body, tilting her head to Linda. “Who’re you guys?”

“We’re the one who saved you from those douchebags.” Cid’s voice flared out of nowhere as he entered the room with his dazzling outlook. Casual half unbutton red polo revealing partly his chest and white pants. “You’re quite promising, I didn’t notice it last time we –”

“Cid cut the crap,” Linda interjected Cid.

“Hey! I was just being nice here.” He cried.

“Don’t mind him,” Linda sighed, she glanced back at Cid, implicating him to stop.

“Okay-okay, I’ll stop, geez.” Giving up, Cid sat down on the sofa.

Linda showed a quick smile, reassuring the confused woman.

“I know that you’re confused about why you’re here, but I reassure you, we will help you, just tell us what they are planning.”

“I-I am not sure what to say.” Sherry spluttering said.

“What do you mean?”

“I couldn’t remember…”

Linda reached a glass of water at the table, muttering.

“This is going to be difficult.”

“Hey, mind if we talk about this outside?” Alastor interjected.

It was night and the view of the moon is slightly covered by the thick clouds, likewise, Alastor seriously upfront bothers Linda.

“What is it?”

“That girl, she might become a threat to us. We might need to get rid of her.” Blandly Alastor said.

“A threat? she could barely move, and you could see that she’s not a fighter at all.” A bit annoyingly said, Linda.

“That’s not it. Her hand was not the only thing they replaced her. We found a hardware circuitry that linked to her cerebral cortex, also an energy source was detected in the middle of her ribcage.”

Linda raised her brow, annoyed at him.

“Are you supposed to report to me if you were planning to do something with her?”

“Hm, since you guys are busy, we initiated it.”

“We?”

“I requested Tin to scan her since I don’t want to do it, because you know, gender kind of thing. I heard that woman acts vigorously…”

“I had to stop you right there. I can’t believe this. Tell me what you saw.”

“What’s happening here?” Cid voice out.

“Something about her.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s best if Tin would explain all of this.”

Inside the meeting room. The five of them sat down at chair cushions. Cid aimlessly looked at the projector on the table, reassessing the situation. Tin is currently holding a tablet, standing in front of the monitor busy swiping to the information on what they obtained.

Linda is also in deep thoughts, specifically on what she would do, sitting opposite to Cid in the table, crossing her arms. Ken, on the other hand, can’t stop thinking about what Tin said, walking back and forth in front of the tireless face of Alastor sitting on the sofa.

“Will you stop doing that?” Said Alastor.

Still, Ken didn’t notice the disturbed young man,

“Hey! Sit down, it’s not like walking idly will gonna solve this.” Added Tin, starting to get annoyed.

Ken stopped, thinking.

“What if we kidnapped one of the scientists from their lab and made him fix her?”

“Are you insane? You’re just asking for trouble.”

“Ken, chill your ass down or I'm gonna have to kick the shit out of you.” Warned Tin.

“But…”

“No more buts!” Tin yelled.

Ken finally sits down at the sofa, stealing the pillow that Alastor is leaning on his back. Alastor blankly stares at him, Ken notices it.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He altered his gaze straight, aimlessly observing as though he was thinking that got interrupted.

“Ok guys come closer. I got something to show you.”

All of them stood up and looked down at the monitor table. Images of human systems showed up, looking at it, there were videos and schematics about human gene reconstruction, some were about inventing a new type of robots. Tin swipe tablet towards the monitor that is linked to it.

“This rock is called Hemil Klust, a new element that was found at the abandoned mine at the City of Kalum. The Kelby Hives are not the first one who found out about this rock, some miners were messing with it, selling it to some merchants with a proper compensation of course, until this,”

Tin swiped and saw an image of a male adult, he has a pallid skin, and so thin making you think that his soul was sucked out, and some part of its skin is starting to shred.

“How many days before he died?” Cid asked.

“Not a day, only five hours, reports said that the merchant together with his friends was drinking and going to the toilet, they started to suspect him of taking too long and when they entered, they saw him like this. This also happens at the seller. The wife finds her husband degrading and.”

“Then it spreads like an epidemic” Continued Alastor.

“Right, and that’s where the Kelby Hives enters. They close the entire city making sure that no one’s able to relay the information to the outside world.”

“This doesn’t explain why the mayor didn’t stop him.”

“No, he can’t, they have his neck, President Theo blackmails him by showing him the information about approving illegal operations within his city.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the mayor were under the influence of him.” Concluded Linda.

“So, how did they solve this?” Questioned Cid.

“They haven’t. They gathered the infected ones and continued their research at the Vesoga Plain.” Tin explained.

“That place? That place is a den of monsters, how the hell did they manage to build an HQ there?” Ken asked.

“They have their ways, Cid. Further research has been done, and the researchers demand more specimens, that’s when it started, they started to kidnap innocent people. Theo must’ve realized that it is more convenient to move his lab somewhere near the city,”

“So, they chose Kayon City and started to find collaborators, which led to Don Trifalgo.”

“They created a lot of designs, specifically on bio-human engineering. They found a way to use it, one of them is converting it into gas, the other is to use it as an energy source. ‘Project Amalgam’ is the name of the project, Theo aims to build an army surpassing the human limitations with the use of the Hemil Klust. One of the results of their experiment is Sherry. They had implanted her with a small portion of Hemil-Klust at the middle of her ribcage, the energy is being regulated by nanomachines that are living inside of her along with the metallic plate that’s monitoring the energy and facilitates neuron information dissemination. Her hand is directly connected to it and can be switched to weaponized, schematics showed a hardwired circuit connected to her cerebral cortex, the computer detected a GPS device at it, so I disabled it when she was asleep of course, thanks also to the security systems of our building, our safety is guaranteed.”

“How come you didn’t tell me about this Tin?”

“About what?”

“About sneaking into her room.”

“Because you’re a pervert.”

Alastor looked at the screen showing the blueprints of the design.

“Say, is there any possibility that Theo aims to build an army?”

The gang looks at him with a surprised reaction, but Cid was not surprised, instead, he thinks the opposite of it “No way, a guy like him would be interested in making money, building a militia would be out of the queue for his resources.”

“Let’s assume my crazy idea. If there’s any chance he will use these, meta human-robots or his crazy war inventions, what chances that the government’s army will win?” Alastor asked.

Tim thoroughly explained, “I haven’t read all of the projects but seeing the previous anomalies with the unknown substance he carries and reinventing humans into a cyborg. I’d say that this guy might have the upper hand. But hey, there are still unknown variables that might balance the current circumstances.”

“This guy has some hidden nut-sack, eh.”

Tin lowered the tablet to the table, thinking as if having a second thought about it.

“What’s the problem Tin?” Said Linda.

“Uhm, nothing.”

“Tell them Tin.” Insistently Alastor said “No need to keep hiding.”

“We would love to know what you would have to say.” Inquired Ken.

“Uhm, It’s about Sherry’s condition. I don’t think Sherry is gonna last longer.”

“What? How?” Confusingly Ken said.

“There’s something in her blood, mixed substances entered her system and I don’t know what kind of substances it is, she was exposed to a lot of treatment, there’s no telling what it could be. We may have technology but it’s not surgical material and I’m not a doctor.”

Ken looked down, discouraged, clenching his fist.

“How many days she has left?”

“I don’t know. She looks healthy. Best to say that it would probably less than a year before it spread up to her brain.”

“That much.” Sighed Ken.

“It’s not like she’s our priority.” Murmured Alastor.

“The only thing that is inside your head is only the mission isn’t it?” Ken asked, almost annoyed.

“We were given a task that must be accomplished, and we did, but you got us nearly killed when you brought that girl.” Alastor reasons, yelling at the man without looking.

“I don't know what the hell is wrong with you man.”

“The only one who is wrong is you.”

“You would sacrifice someone just to accomplish your mission?”

“If it is for the greater good then I would. In this job, we must kill our moral compass and follow our code of arms.”

“Both of you stop it. We don’t need to argue about something that cannot be undone.” Interjected Linda, cutting off the tension between the two.

“Alright, since things are getting clearer now, I got to go, I still have a business to do,” Cid said.

“Where are you going?” Tin asked.

“I’m a spy, remember? I need to gather information for my assignment.”

“And what is your assignment again?”

“That is a secret that you will never know.”

“Fine, you already helped us. I think we can handle it from here.”

“Ciao.” Cheerfully Cid said, winking as he walks through the door slides open.

“Where would that leave us now?” Asked Ken.

“We need to think about this.”

“There will be a lot of commotion in this city after the building explodes. It may be best to lay low for now.”

“You guys can rest; I’ll keep monitoring her.” Said, Linda

“You sure?” Concerningly Ken asked.

“Yeah, Tin will have replaced me tomorrow.”

“’ Kay, just call us if anything happens.” Said Ken, yawning as he marches to his bedroom.

Tin followed; her eyes closed as she stretched her neck. Alastor waited for them to leave and once the two of them left, he began to talk.

“You’re not just gonna let this slip aren’t ya?”

“We can’t kill her Al. This may be an opportunity for us to know what way they’re planning to go. I’m gonna report this back to the headquarters, I'm sure Rod will slip this one.” Elaborated Linda.

“Hm, maybe you’re right. Carrying insurance would help us after all.”

“You should go to sleep.”

“Right.”

When Alastor finally left, she proceeded at the patient’s room where she busies herself scanning the entire body structure of the half humanoid.

“Just what the hell is that thing?” Linda muttered as she looked at the energy floating inside the core of Sherry.

It was early in the morning when Linda finished to check her up, she called out for Tin to shift and when she left, the underlying patient’s eyes opened and began to glow red.