章 2: Death
"Haa... Senior, work is too boring, and this armour is too clunky," complained a soldier clad in futuristic black armour armed with a laser gun, standing guard outside the Tri'ark room.
"You fool... This armour can withstand blows from super soldiers easily. That's why it's necessary to use them in here," replied the senior soldier with a smug look on his face.
"Sure, sure!! Senior. But what do we do with the bodies of failed test subjects?" asked the junior soldier with brimming curiosity.
"Ah... About the bodies, they harvest the organs if they haven't failed yet and burn the body in the incinerator."
"Oh! And I heard you have leave scheduled for a week? Senior."
"Yeah!! My wife gave birth to a daughter back home!! I will be visiting her tomorrow!" exclaimed the senior with a joyful look on his face as he had just become a father of a child.
The other soldier, upon hearing the news, quickly congratulated the senior soldier on the birth of his child and gave his blessings to the newborn.
An emergency siren echoed into the earpieces of the nearby soldiers, indicating something was happening in the Tri'ark Room. The two soldiers, upon hearing this eerie robotic siren, made their way into the stark white room to check.
They entered the room carefully with their guns prepared to shoot. The lights were still violently flickering due to the damage in the room. The two soldiers could vividly see the sea of blood left on the floor along with mashed grey matter of the brain and a bent rod attached to the spine during Viper cyborg enhancement.
The two soldiers winced visibly at the horrifying and gruesome scene but stayed vigilant to spot the enemy. The lights flickered and went pitch black again.
"Switch on your night vision goggles," ordered the senior soldier.
The self-healing wires in the room started working to bring the light back to life. The lights soon flickered back to life. The test subject who was supposed to be in the pod was nowhere to be seen, and the scientists were killed in a gruesome way.
"Where is the test subject? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!" the senior soldier yelled, looking around the room cautiously as he was now dealing with a monster who could achieve such feats.
"Senior! I found a tr-"
*CRACK*
*BOOM*
The senior's gaze shifted to the place where the sound came from, witnessing the horrifying scene unfolding before him as his junior's upper body was missing, blood gushing out of his lower body like a fountain.
The white-haired youth, who looked like he had severed his junior's upper body with a sidekick, retracted his leg back, which was splattered with remains of organs and blood.
*THUD*
The lifeless lower body of the soldier fell to the ground. As the soldier tried to compose himself in the current situation, the white-haired youth was seen racing towards him with his hand stretched out. Fear gripped his body, and he shot his laser gun at the young man, only for him to evade.
The white-haired youth grabbed the head of the soldier and slammed it to the ground so hard that the brain matter turned to sludge, and mucus flew out like jelly.
"Well! I can't control the strength properly yet, huh?" complained the white-haired youth, wiping off the blood splattered on his face.
-Noida Cluster 7 Control Centre
"Commander Code Z was issued to all Sectors in Cluster 7 after a test subject escaped from the Tri'ark Room," reported a soldier, saluting the Commander of the Noida Cluster 7 guard force.
"Seal off Sector C and issue a kill-on-sight order. Everyone should take extra caution. It's not an ordinary test subject that has escaped this time; it is XA-002," ordered the Commander with a serious expression.
"Understood, Commander, and all units in the cluster have been issued the order already," reported the soldier in a loud voice.
"Unit 2 of Delta Division reporting! Tri'ark room is clear. Target not found. 4 casualties, including the chief scientist of Noida Cluster 7."
"All the cameras in Sector C-8 have been destroyed!"
"Damn it! Have 4 units move to that sector," ordered the commander anxiously.
"Unit 3 encountered the te-" The connection abruptly cut off after a loud scream through the speaker.
"Unit 3! Unit 3! Please respond!" The soldier desperately tried to establish communication, but there was no response from the lost units.
"Unit 2 reporting! Encountered the target and successfully put a tracker on it. Casualty i-" The soldier's report was cut short as another unit fell victim to the target's rampage. So far, three units have been lost.
"Sir, the tracker is working. The target is moving towards the Southern dead end of Sector C-8," reported the soldier monitoring the mini-map on his monitor.
"Order all units to box the target in."
"Yes, Commander."
A soldier entered the control room to report to the commander. "Commander, Unit 2 Team Leader reporting."
"Unit 1 reporting. Target not found at the site, only a dead body present."
"Unit 5 reporting. Made contact with Units 1 and 6. Target not found at the location."
The commander looked perplexed. 'What the hell? Didn't Unit 2 say it put a tracker on the target before the unit got wiped out?'
'Wait... Unit 2!?'
The commander's gaze shifted to the soldier standing nearby with a Unit 2 badge, clad in full armour. His eyes trembled as if he could see the evil creature behind that armour, smiling, as if ready to harvest his soul.
"Well, unfortunately, you found out so soon, old man!" said XA-002, removing the headgear of the soldier he had killed in Sector C-8.
"How?" muttered the commander in a low voice, shivering and staring at the horrifying monster that would be his grim reaper in this life.
-A few minutes earlier
After killing the guards, he stood in the room, surrounded by a sea of blood. He deeply pondered his next course of action to escape the facility. 'Hmm. The emergency sirens will be blaring as soon as I exit the room. Thankfully, the control chip was destroyed during the procedure.'
'Where was the commander's control centre again? He is the one with the exit key anyway.'
The white-haired youth memorized small bits and patterns of the cluster's layout during his training period in the different rooms in the facility, along with the bits of conversations he had heard between the scientists, and was piecing together the location of the control centre in his mind.
'So it's Sector A, huh? Getting there won't be easy. I need a plan...'
He made his way to Sector C swiftly, utilizing his superhuman speed to traverse the maze-like layout of the facility, destroying cameras along the way to the target location.
He took care of the three units sent by the guard force to Sector C, visibly showing himself in the area, prompting the commander to deploy the entire force to catch him there, leaving other areas relatively unguarded - the solution he had been waiting for.
After killing Unit 2, he spread misinformation that a tracker had been placed in his body, but in reality, the tracker was placed on the head of the dead soldiers and kept in the dead end of Sector C on top of a cleaning robot to give the illusion of movement in the area.
He quickly changed into the soldier gear of the Unit 2 he had killed and swiftly made his way to Sector A's control centre to assassinate the commander of the research facility.
After reaching the control centre, a massacre ensued, with blood and intestines splattering on the walls, creating a serene yet horrific scene that rivalled most artworks. Heads rolled in the shallow ocean of blood, their facial expressions frozen in fear and horror.
XA-002 picked up a shiny black card resembling a credit card from the body of the dead commander.
'So, this is the key, huh?' he thought as he checked the mini-map on the functioning monitor in the control centre.
After a quick check, he raced to the exit in Sector A-15. To his surprise, there were no guards there. He used the card key to open the exit door and left the facility.
As he ascended to the surface, he felt his heart beating louder and faster, his pulse fluctuating rapidly, and cold sweat breaking out on his skin.
'What's happening? Was the procedure too much for my body?'
*DING!!*
The elevator stopped at the surface, opening to a serene horizon of crumbling skyscrapers and overgrown vegetation, a testament to years of abandonment. The sky felt like God's shadow had fallen onto the sky, covering the atmosphere in a shade of darkness.
He tried to walk out of the elevator, but his vision kept blurring by the second, implying that his time was limited. Struggling to breathe, he collapsed to the ground, attempting to stand using the last burning embers of his will.
"Well, seems like this is the limit. What a shame," muttered the young man as he took his final breath, never experiencing true freedom.
He died.
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