Midway through Cheshire’s explosion was all it took to vaporize most of the castle. The palace was left in ruins with its highest towers becoming frail and crumbling. The most damaged area, however, was the castle’s foundation which revealed an underground laboratory. When Cheshire almost exploded, the ground tanked all of his damage in his desperate attempt to try and contain the radius of influence to save Rocket and it reached Alice’s hideout.

From the crevice where they fell, Rocket carried Cheshire inside his arms to the flickering light that revealed a damaged hall. There was a thick metal door that closed the entrance. It was sealed by a sensor which could only be accessed through the recognition of a fingerprint—Alice’s fingerprint.

To Rocket’s advantage, the technology presented before him was actually one that he was familiar with. No modern technology could keep him contained. Even the finest of prisons with full security couldn’t keep him. This simple thing was no hustle.

He looked around first for a clean area where he could place the bleeding cat. Cheshire was losing more and more blood and Rocket acted in haste. Taking out his bazooka, he shot the base of the sensor, destroying its metal exterior that hid its wires. From there on, he continued by pulling the wires, rearranging and reattaching them.

The sensor that glowed red all the time turned green and the thick metal door parted with a hiss, releasing smoke from the inside. The laboratory was a clean white with transparent walls that had fluorescent lamps behind them. There was a gurney by the side of the hall and Rocket didn’t hesitate to use it.

Because the transport material was too big for him, Rocket rode it like he pushed an oversized trolley, kicking his foot to gain movement.

The laboratory seemed much like a hospital—it had signs that told which hall goes where—only that it wasn’t a hospital and Rocket was getting frantic on where to go. The mattress of the gurney was turning red and he still couldn’t decide.

He came across head-turning signs like ‘Data Records’, ‘Patient Profiles’, ‘Future Plans’ and many more that induced his curiosity but there could be nothing else that could rival his concern in patching up the cat. When he came across a sign that read, ‘Cybernetics’ he took it. The section is surely to have medical supplies.

As far as Rocket was concerned, the laboratory was abandoned. He remembered the twins saying that in the previous resets when Cheshire successfully detonated, Alice wasn’t in Salazen Grum. The mad scientist probably fled before all of this happened.

Rocket occupied the dark room, punching the switch of the lights to open. There were cylindrical containers that housed cybernetics skeletons lined at the far right of the room. Some had labels and some did not. At the middle of the room was a column of operating table with straps of belts that held patients immobilized.

Rocket placed Cheshire on the operating bed and scanned the room for whatever he could use. Since it was a section built for cybernetics, there were medical supplies nearby. There was a small refrigerator nearby and Rocket was surprised when he opened it.

The supplies were exact. Meticulous for all that he’d encounter so far. Each blood bag had names on it—Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dee, Nivens Mctwisp, Iracebeth, Mirana, Thackery Earwicket, Mallymkun, Cheshire—as if the blood bags present were solely for them. Cheshire did mention something about an unfinished experiment. Perhaps this was it—the supplies that were no longer used because of their resistance.

Rocket took the labeled blood bag with Cheshire’s name on it and immediately attached it to an IV. He was no medical expert but he treated tinkering with technology as a form of operation. Cheshire wasn’t fully flesh as Rocket was. In a way, they were part machine and Rocket knew how to handle machines.

When the risk of blood loss was sealed off, Rocket scoured the room once more for needle and thread. He came across the endoskeletons displayed by the edge of the room and some radiators similar to Cheshire’s back. Another statement came into memory—a statement Cheshire said himself—that the radiators on his back are unstable. He could take advantage of Cheshire’s unconsciousness to try and replace those unstable prototypes with Alice’s final tech and he didn’t see why not.

There were doubts at first but Rocket managed to overcome them. He just needed a blueprint which he knows where to find. He went to the unconscious feline and sealed the bleeding wounds before going out of the cybernetics section and straight to the ‘Patient Profiles’ section.

***

The section was a dark office. It was more of an observation room than a dark office. Inside, there was a room separated by a glass wall and the other side contained an empty operating chair. There was a long table before the glass wall that had scattered papers on the surface.

Rocket made his way cautiously to the table and randomly grabbed a paper in hand.

“Nivens Mctwisp: Full Body Modification” the paper read and Rocket skimmed through the page to see scribbles of red ink crossing out words too medical for his understanding.

He took another paper in hand and skimmed through it again. “Subject W-Feline-I.” Rocket’s attention was fully caught when he read something that might be related to the cat confined in the cybernetics section. He carefully read the paper.

The page seemed to be just one of many data collected about Cheshire. It recorded his behavior and previous ability. At the enumeration below there were boxes beside sentences. One read, “Asset One: Smile,” and had a check on the box. Below it was, “Asset Two: Flotation,” and a cross with red ink and following it below, “Asset Three: Evaporation,” had another cross mark.

There was another asset Rocket almost overlooked. It was Asset Four: Purification. The page ended with a tally of experimentations that was twenty and Rocket cringed at the number. Though it seemed less when counted, each of it was agony.

The paper he held wasn’t an updated version. It was when Cheshire was still a helpless test subject. What he needed was its updated version and hope that Alice kept her cybernetic plan inside the folder.

Rocket looked around the messy office and spotted a three-decked cabinet. He opened the bottom compartment that was labeled, “Subject W” and ran his fingers on the names of the folders. When he spotted Cheshire’s, he pulled it out and sat on the floor cross-legged.

The first page had the patient’s profile—a two by two picture at the top right corner with the patient’s name and origin.

Subject (Former): 81Z18

Alias (Former): Blue

Subject: W-Feline-I

Alias: Cheshire

Origin: Halfworld

Associates: James von Hare, Buck Rabbit and Flash

Criminal Record: 20 counts of theft, 10 counts of escape from incarceration, 2 counts of escape from death sentence, 40 counts of arson, 5 counts of mercenary activity, 1 count of genocide, 20 identified counts of abduction.

Rocket couldn’t care less about Cheshire’s criminal record albeit he couldn’t simply ignore the cat’s genocide. He was more concerned in discovering the cat’s former life in space. What he knew so far according to what Cheshire told him was that they were abducted from Halfworld. The cat didn’t tell him everything.

He took the chance in tediously analyzing the details so that any secret Cheshire kept, he’d surely be able to find out. Flipping to the next page, Rocket’s brows scrunched at the gruesome data collected.

There were mugshots of Cheshire with a label “Before”. Cheshire’s eyes hollowly gazed into the camera, pupils dilated. Dark shadows collected under his eyes making him look almost lifeless. He looked different and it took Rocket a while to realize that the reason was because Cheshire wasn’t smiling. Beside that mugshot was the same image only that this one had the label “After” and Cheshire was now smiling, still bloodied. There were more photos of Cheshire—bloodied and weak while sitting on the same operating chair present inside the room.

One had the description, “Prototype One: Shock Induction” and below it was a photo of the cat attached to a giant machine with metallic rods sticking out of it. Cheshire’s fur exploded outwards, with his face smiling despite the agony.

Another had the feline suspended midair with nothing but wires sticking out from his flesh. It labeled, “Prototype Two: Fluid Transport”.

The third prototype had Cheshire inside a cylindrical glass cage—something similar to where Mctwisp contained Rocket—and was labeled, “Prototype Three: Osmotic Adaptation”.

There were twenty prototypes all in all with each much more gruesome and horrifying than what had preceded. Rocket’s tough nature crumbled especially that he was scanning through the photos of a dear one. The twentieth prototype was what Cheshire possessed now: Cybernetic Radiators.

After scanning through the profile, Rocket didn’t find Alice’s plan. It was though as if he was just tortured having seen what Cheshire had gone through. It wasn’t just Cheshire, Rocket thought. It was everybody else too.

He left the folder lying on the floor and thought about where he would most likely find the blueprints on how to detach and reattach Cheshire’s stable radiators. He remembered. There was a section about Alice’s future plans. If he’s going to find the blueprints, he’d most likely find it there.

***

There was a dark hall that split into two separate paths while on the way to the ‘Future Plans’ section. The lights ceased to function on both paths which left darkness ominously looming towards where the light reached. Rocket didn’t bother to discover and just went straight ahead to another office.

He punched the lights on and it revealed a vast room with a computer system. The setting always seemed to be like that in the mid of a panic. Papers were on the floor, on top of tables almost everywhere. There were spilled mugs—lots of mugs as if Alice wasn’t the only one working inside the laboratory.

Rocket sat before the computer system and typed in ‘Subject W-Feline-I’. The computer loaded and then revealed the blueprints for what Cheshire was supposed to be. Displayed in the large screen was a list of complete assets including asset four. The materials needed all lay inside the cybernetics section inside a crate with Cheshire’s name pasted on it.

Rocket printed a digital copy of the procedure but didn’t quite know where the printer was. He heard printing nearby. He just couldn’t point out where. He printed another copy and listened keenly to where the sound emanated from.

The top left corner of the room.

There was an open door just beside where the printer was. There were no lights so whatever was inside remained invisible. Rocket simply retrieved the printed copy when he noticed that one of the papers lying on the floor was smeared with blood.

He folded the copy and tucked it inside one of his pockets. Taking out his bazooka, he went for the dark door. He widened the gap of the door with the mouth of his weapon, staying low. There was a faint sound of munching, bones snapping and flesh getting torn.

Just from the door, Rocket witnessed a gigantic silhouette—down on all fours tearing something with its sharp jaws. Its teeth glinted with the faintest reflection of light, emphasizing its serration. It had a long tail like that of a rat’s and it swayed impulsively, knocking down nearby tables. It grunted as it fed and it didn’t seem to notice Rocket’s presence.

The raccoon backtracked carefully and stepped to the printer. When he was out of sight, he traveled through the halls and back to the cybernetics section.