Nadi finished eating her meal in the room designated as their mess hall and made her way back to her room. With her shift finished and nothing else to do, she sat on her bed and pyed on her data ste. Her game was interrupted by an incoming call that was automatically answered.
Kaius’ face appeared onscreen, taking Nadi by surprise. “Elder Kaius, how may I help you?” Her eyes flicked towards the door. She hoped nobody would enter the room using a badge while she was speaking to the Elder.
“I’ve had you new equipment delivered to you,” he said. “It should be under your pillow.”
Nadi had expected that her equipment would come in on the next supply run. It hadn’t been three weeks yet since they’d st spoke. She wondered who else was working for him to get her what she needed so quickly. Setting her data ste down, she turned around and lifted her pillow. A small chip gleaned in the light. Picking it up, she inspected it. She grabbed her data ste. “What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked.
“You need to insert the chip into Irric’s data ste. The chip will begin blinking red. Leave it in there until the light turns green. Don’t worry, the chip will take care of everything.”
“What do I do with the chip once I’m done?”
“Leave it under your pillow. It will be picked up by one of my agents.”
Nadi nodded. “How long is it supposed to take to transfer the information?”
“I was told not long.”
“Is there a deadline?”
“No. You need to do this without getting caught. I want you to pick the absolute best opportunity you find to get the information. Secrecy is of the utmost importance.”
“Understood. I’ll increase my patrols in the restricted section.”
Kaius nodded, pleased. He bid her goodbye and ended the call. Nadi held the chip in front of her and stared at it, contempting her next course of action. She eventually stored the chip securely in her pocket and continued to pn her next shift.
***
Irric flipped the badge he used to access the facility over in his hands as he spoke to Tassie. “Is that the badge you use to get around?” she asked, spotting the glinting metal. She recalled the teams needing to use them to get around when she was on her mission. It felt like so long ago.
“Yes. We’ve noticed that some of the badges are different, and that those ones grant access to the restricted section.” He continued to expin about the suspected rooms behind the carvings, but that none of the badges worked.
“What if there’s a different one for those?” Tassie asked.
“Impossible. We’ve already tested all of the keys we have,” Irric sighed.
“Alright, but what if,” Tassie said slowly, “there exists another kind of key that you just haven’t found yet? You found the keys off of bodies, is it possible there’s one you missed?”
“We’ve already searched all the rooms for bodies. Unless,” he muttered, trailing off. “Shit, how could I forget! The only other body that there could possibly is the one we captured.”
Tassie snapped her fingers. “That’s right,” she said. “Now that you mention it, Jyn took one captive when we returned to the facility and found Adrian.”
“Did it have a badge?” Irric asked eagerly.
Tassie shook her head. “I don’t remember. I wasn’t physically there when it was taken captive. Maybe. Do you know anybody that might know?”
“Nadi might know,” Irric hummed thoughtfully. “I’ll give her a call and ask.” Hanging up, he tried contacting Nadi. She told him that she was nearby and that she would come see him in person. Not fifteen seconds ter, the wall opened and Nadi stepped in.
She saw Irric and asked “What did you need me for?” Irric inquired after the prisoner and its badge. Nadi blinked. “As far as I know, it had one. It should have been transported back onto the main base.” Irric eagerly hung up his call with Tassie, expining to her that he would be checking on their theory. Immediately.
“Nadi, I need you to get us on a ship and back to base. Can you do that?”
“I can fly one of the ships myself, so there’s no problem on that end. I’ll let the others know that my ship will be leaving its position.” Nadi pinged an assortment of people using her comms, informing them of the change of events, omitting most details. Irric waited impatiently for her to get in touch with the base so that they could prepare for their arrival. Once all of the preparations were complete, Nadi turned towards Irric. “We’re good to go,” she informed him.
Irric shot out of the room to go to the ships, leaving Nadi behind. Looking around, she spotted his data ste. She ghosted towards it and fished out the chip from her pocket. She connected it to the data ste’s port. The small chip began blinking red. Nadi waited nervously for it to turn green. Looking over her shoulder to see if Irric had returned, she let out a sigh of relief when an empty room greeted her.
The chip turned green and Nadi rushed to disconnect it and put it back in her pocket. Ensuring that everything was as she’d found it, she dashed out the door and ran to catch up with Irric. Navigating the maze of corridors, she soon found him walking at a brisk pace with a determined expression on his face.
“Would it kill you to wait a minute?” Nadi huffed. Irric turned around, noticing her for the first time since he’d left his work station.
“Where were you?”
“You took off so fast that I lost you in the halls! I swear, this pce is a bloody maze,” Nadi replied. Irric narrowed his eyes in suspicion but let the matter drop. He had more important things to focus on. Together, the pair made their way out of the restricted section of the compound, and stepped through the hole in the wall only to be greeted by the guards outside, who demanded identification.
“Are you for real?” Nadi asked incredulously. “We’re coming out of the restricted section, not going in.”
“Order are orders,” the soldier replied. Grumbling about something unkind about bureaucracy, Nadi grabbed her identification card and shoved it in the soldier’s face with an unhappy expression. Irric fshed his and the pair was let through without further hassle.
Nadi directed Irric to where the ships were, knowing that he didn’t spend much time in this portion of the facility. Once onboard, Nadi realized something important that they’d both overlooked. “We’re going to need the Commander’s permission to interact with the prisoner.”
Irric jolted. “How could I forget. Hold on, I’ll give him a quick call.” It was only then that Irric noticed that he didn’t have his data ste on him. Eyes widening, he spoke quickly “I forgot my data ste back in the room! We need to go get it.”
“Is that really necessary?” Nadi questioned. “We can just contact him using the data ste that I keep on the ship.”
“It’s not to be left unattended,” Irric said, worried. He turned and left the bridge of the ship and rushed over to the ramp that would put him back on the ground. Nadi ran after him.
“You can’t keep running off like that!” she protested, trying to keep up. “Is it really so important that it can’t wait a little bit?”
“Yes,” Irric said firmly. He mounted the hover bike that was parked inside the bay and fired it up. Swearing, Nadi copied him and followed him back inside the compound. A frustrating amount of time ter, they were back on the ship, this time with Irric’s data ste. He called Cyrix.
“Irric,” Cyrix’s face was grave, “have you made another discovery?”
“No, well yes, but no,” Irric fumbled.
“I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean,” Cyrix said, annoyed. Irric expined his and Tassie’s theory about the badges. “I don’t remember if the prisoner had a badge or not,” he said pensively.
“Do you think I could question the prisoner about the badges?”
“I suppose you can, but only if I’m there to supervise it personally. Don’t get your hopes up about learning anything useful. It’s refused to cooperate since the moment we captured it. It knows how valuable it is, being the only one left alive.”
“How does it know that?”
“It guessed, if you can believe it. It doesn’t know for certain – it said as much – but it cims to have reasons enough to make such a deduction.” After confirming several more details about how the encounter between Irric and the prisoner would py out, Cyrix hung up the call. Irric turned towards Nadi, who had been patiently waiting for him to finish.
“We can leave now,” Irric informed her.
“Oh, so now you want to leave. Fancy that,” Nadi said, rolling her eyes. Taking control of the ship, she took flight and exited the pnet’s atmosphere. Once in space, she located the rge fgship that functioned as the army’s base for the excursion and brought them over. A short amount of time ter and Nadi was hailing the base requesting permission to dock.
Following the instructions given to her, Nadi approached the docking bay on the ship. Once the ship was parked and her and Irric were safely aboard, she brought them through the wide halls of the metal behemoth towards Cyrix’s office. Irric was impressed that Nadi didn’t get lost on the way there.
Soon enough, the pair found themselves in front of door with the word Commander stylized above it in big, bold letters. Nadi knocked and they were admitted. The room was sparse, cking in furniture and decorations to be called cozy. The floor, walls and ceiling were made of cold, uninviting metal. At the back of the room was a rge wooden desk with Cyrix seated behind it.
Irric and Nadi saluted their commander. Together, the three of them were guided by Cyrix to the part of the base that was storing their captive. Irric noticed that the deeper they went, the heavier the guard detail became.
“There’s quite a few guards here,” Irric commented. “Do they even know what they’re on guard for?” He hadn’t been on the fgship since arriving and knew that most of what he’d discovered was kept a secret.
“No, most of them do not,” Cyrix replied. “Even the guards that are right next to the cell don’t know. I’d like it to stay that way. The more people that know, the bigger the risk of a leak. Ideally, there’d be nothing of the sort, but I wasn’t born yesterday. There are plenty of agendas being pushed on this ship. You can never be too careful.” Both Irric and Cyrix missed Nadi’s nearly imperceptible flinch at the mention.
Their group was not halted by the soldiers guarding the door that Cyrix brought them to. Instead, the group was saluted. Curiosity shone in the soldiers’ eyes at the presence of Irric and Nadi, but they didn’t say anything.
Cyrix walked up to the control panel and entered the proper authentication code. The doors slid open, revealing another hallway, completely void of people. At the other end was another door and control panel. Leading the group alongside him, he was the only one that did not flinch when the doors shut behind them.
Having crossed the hallway void of people, Cyrix entered a different authentication code and waited. Crossing the threshold once the doors opened. They entered a rge room with only one other person inside. “Arinn,” he called out, grabbing the attention of the woman dressed in a b coat who appeared to be slightly older than Irric. Arinn looked up from her notes that were scattered along the counter that ran the length of the wall. On the wall next to it was a desk that had a holoscreen dispyed. Irric and Nadi navigated around the various pieces of equipment scattered throughout the rest of the room. The wall on the left was a very rge window spanning the length of the wall.
On the other side sat the gru’ul, with its cracked chitin and short antenna. Its antennae twitched in odd patterns that changed at random. “It can’t see us,” Arinn said, joining Irric and Nadi, “if that’s what you were wondering.”
Irric tore his attention away from the monstrosity and focused on Arinn. “Do you just keep it here, in a cell?” he asked. Arinn nodded.
“It refuses to tell us anything. And somehow it finds a way to make you feel stupid when it does talk. Conversations are very frustrating, ending either in silence or in a nonsensical discussion. Bugger somehow learns more every time.”
“What do you mean?”
“It somehow figured out that it’s the st one alive. It’s valuable and knows it. It knows that it can afford to py games with us to get what it wants.”
Irric blinked. “What has it asked for?”
“Food.”
“You mean we’re starving it?”
Arinn gnced at the alien on the other side of the wall. “In a sense, yes.”
“I see it’s a common tactic,” Irric said, more harshly than he’d intended. He’d been unaware that Adrian had been starved during a portion of the time the Elders had visited until Tassie told him after the fact. It incensed him that his military would resort to such tactics for someone who had clearly suffered. Tassie usually kept him abreast of the situation, so he more or less knew what was happening at the safe house. Doing his best not to let his disgust show, he smiled sharply and asked “Can I speak to it now?”
Cyrix walked over to the far counter where a ste gray box sat. It was made of a rigid material that Irric could not identify from where he stood. Removing the lid and pcing it on the counter, he reached in and grabbed the round silver object waiting within. The ball he withdrew was a transtor and would allow for them to converse with the creature beyond the wall. After giving it to Irric, he signaled to Arinn, who walked over to the terminal to open communication channel. Motioning for her to wait, he asked “Are you certain that this is going to be worth it?”
Doubt filled Irric as he tightened his grip on the smooth device. “I’m honestly not certain. If I’m right, then yes. If I’m wrong, probably not.”
Cyrix pinched the bridge of his nose. “Did you run this by Tassie?”
“She’s the one who thought of this. I’m here to verify it.”
“If you’re both this certain, then I’m going to listen to my gut. Go for it and try not to offer anything too difficult for us to give. Arinn,” he commanded, “open the channel and remain silent.”
Arinn began typing at her workstation and fshed them a thumbs up when they were live.
Irric took in the expectant gazes and cleared his throat. “We have questions for you,” he said. After a short dey, the transtor reyed the message mechanically in the gru’ul’s native tongue. A chorus of hisses and shrieks came from the terminal.
“A’vaare,” came a ft voice from the orb. “Why should I answer your questions?”
“We’ll give you food if you do,” Irric negotiated. “A proper meal.”
The alien trilled. “You offer sustenance? But only the one time. I demand proper sustenance at all times.”
Cyrix grimaced. Motioning for Arinn to turn off the channel, he turned towards Irric. “Is what we stand to gain worth this?”
Irric nodded. “If I’m right, then we’ll have what we need to see if there really is anything hidden behind those engravings.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Cyrix sighed. “Fine.” He turned back on the channel. “On the condition that you answer all of our questions as truthfully as possible.”
Shrieks and hisses echoed in the chamber as the alien spoke. “How noble of you,” came the transtor. It sounded as it always had, yet Irric swore the mechanical voice was derisive towards them. “I accept.”
Irric let out a sigh of relief. “Do your badges function as keys in order to traverse the facility?” Unsure how to start the round of questioning, Irric decided to test the waters with something safe. He wanted to see how the gru’ul responded before asking his real questions.
“The badges serve many functions. Among them is the ability to access the facilities they are permitted to use.”
Irric wanted to know what the other functions were, but didn’t want to risk angering the alien into silence. He stuck to what he came for. “Do different badges grant different access?”
“Yes,” it replied.
Irric sucked in a breath. “How many different access levels are there?” The gru’ul went silent and did not answer. No matter how Irric asked, it remained silent. Finally, he was forced to admit that he would receive no answer. Changing topics, he asked “What are the different functions of each badge?”
Again, it remained silent. “Why do you seek information you already have? It is illogical. There is no question that you know or are able to determine the functions of the badges. You have not asked a proper question, therefore I will not answer.”
Irric tried to wrap his head around how it reached that conclusion but gave up. There was no point in trying to comprehend the alien logic. “You’re supposed to answer our questions, not avoid them.”
“Ask proper questions.”
Irric wondered what constituted a proper question. “Fine.” Connecting his data ste to the computer, he projected an image in front of the creature. “What can you tell us about these engravings?”
“They are rooms for the Highest only.”
Irric’s eyes narrowed. “What is this Highest?” He’d come across the term when he’d discovered notes on some of the experiments performed on Adrian. The documents made no mention of what the Highest was, save that it appeared to be somebody in charge.
“The one with the ultimate authority over the facility.”
Irric sighed. He was hoping the creature would eborate on what the role entailed, but it said no more on the matter. “Can you tell us what is inside the rooms for the Highest?”
“That is a question for the Highest.”
“Who is the Highest?”
“No one.”
Irric frowned. “This facility didn’t have a Highest?”
“It had one.”
“Who was the Highest before we captured the facility?
“I was.”
“Then why don’t you answer the question?”
“Without my badge I am not the Highest.”
Irric signaled Arinn to close the communications channel temporarily and she obliged. Turning towards Cyrix, he said “This is frustrating, but it’s confirmed what we needed to know. Do you actually have the badge with you? I’d like to inspect it. I need to see if it’s different to the one I have.”
Arinn made her way over to one of the cabinets on the wall opposite the gru’ul. Taking out a key, she unlocked it and began searching the shelves. Bending down, she retrieved a much smaller box, identical to the one the transtor was in. Walking over to the counter, she set it down, opened it, and withdrew a small metallic disc from inside.
She passed the badge to Irric, who held it up in the light, inspecting it. He certainly didn’t recognize the design. He pced it down on the counter and took out his badge to compare. “Nadi, can you give me your badge for a moment, please?” he asked without taking his eyes off of the badges before him. Nadi fished her badge from her pocket and pced it next to the others.
All three badges were the made from a burnt orange metal with a dark purple gss bead in the center. Irric’s badge was hexagonal while Nadi’s was perfectly round. The new badge had ten sides and golden inys forming geometric patterns that ran from the outer edges towards the center. It was far more ornate than the other two.
Irric took a picture of it and projected it for the gru’ul to see. He signaled for Nadi to let him talk to the prisoner again and the room was plunged in silence. “Is this the Highest’s badge?” he asked.
“It is, indeed. What do you intend to do with this knowledge? The important systems are all corrupted. There is nothing for you to learn.”
“We’re the ones asking questions. Answering yours were not part of our deal,” Cyrix interjected sternly. The gru’ul clicked in a rapid staccato, the noise grating on the ears. Cyrix paused, waiting for sound to come from the orb, yet the transtor remained silent. Frowning, he motioned for Arinn to cut the channel. “Why didn’t it transte?” he asked, staring at the device.
“Maybe the sound it made wasn’t a word?” Arinn answered.
“Do you mean to tell me that was an emotional cue?”
Arinn shrugged. “Could very well be. It would have been transted otherwise.”
“Irric, do you have any other questions for the prisoner while you’re here?”
“I have plenty, but something tells me that it either won’t answer them or will find ways to avoid giving us the answers we want.”
Cyrix hummed thoughtfully and told Arinn to resume communications. “We will be back with more questions,” he said.
“Do not forget to provide proper sustenance, as is our deal.”
The line dropped and Irric sighed. “That didn’t go as well as I’d been hoping, but we learned what we came here for, at least. Now it’s time to see if the gru’ul was telling the truth. Let’s go find out what’s been kept hidden from us for so long.”
“I’ll be coming with you,” Cyrix said in a tone that wasn’t meant to be questioned. Nadi held back her protest and merely nodded. “I want to see this for myself. Arinn,” he turned his head, “you’re to remain here and monitor the gru’ul. Ensure that it gets fed a proper amount of food. However much that may be.”
Without any further reason to remain in the room, Cyrix strode towards the door and motioned for Nadi and Irric to follow. Irric quickly grabbed the badges off of the counter, returning Nadi’s and pocketing the other two.
The group walked back in silence, opting to wait for the privacy the ship would grant them before discussing the matter openly. By the time they arrived at the ship, Irric was thoroughly turned around. The maze of metal corridors that comprised the massive ship were too complex for him to fully recall.
Making their way to the bridge, Nadi commenced take-off procedures. The others waited patiently for her to be done. Once they were cleared, Nadi carefully backed the ship out of the dock and sped toward the pnet. Their conversation revolved around their interactions with the prisoner.
“I didn’t realize starvation was a common tactic we employed, Commander,” Irric said tightly. After watching Adrian and Reya’s videos, he’d felt sick when he heard how Adrian was being treated during the Elders’ visit. He hadn’t expected to come across something so simir.
“At first, we didn’t have the resources on hand to be able to properly feed it. We made do with what we had, but we knew it wasn’t enough. We’ve only just recently received the shipment containing enough to properly feed it. We did the best we could with what we had on hand.”
“There was no way of you knowing sooner that you wouldn’t have enough supplies?” Irric challenged
“That was on oversight on our part,” Cyrix admitted. “Don’t worry, our xenobiologist will ensure that it’s properly cared for,” he sighed. “Whatever’s behind those engravings had better be worth it.”
“I’m sure they will be of great significance if they’re so difficult to access,” Irric said confidently. “Who knows what secrets we could uncover! We’ll have to go through them carefully, one at a time.”
Nadi nded the ship back where it had been before they’d left. The three of them mounted their hover bikes and ascended into the facility. They strode through the winding halls with purpose, saluted by the soldiers on guard duty as they passed. Not once were they stopped or asked for identification. Cyrix instructed Nadi to gather up a contingent of soldiers she knew could be trusted as they made their way to the closes engraving.
Excitement filled Irric with each footstep that brought him closer to their destination. He felt like a child waiting to open a present. Once the first engraving was in sight, Cyrix brought the group to a halt a good distance away. Irric frowned, confused. “Why are we waiting all the way over here?” he asked.
“So that the wall doesn’t open up before our guard detail arrives. I have no idea how close you’ll need to be in order for to enter the rooms,” Cyrix responded.
Irric nodded. That made sense to him. Several minutes ter, the clunking of boots echoed down the hall and a team of five soldiers, armed and ready, stopped short of Cyrix. “This is my team. I trust them with my life and to not reveal anything that is discovered,” Nadi said after greeting her team members.
Cyrix instructed the newly arrived soldiers to take up a defensive position around the engravings. Approaching the odd, runic symbol, Irric clutched the Highest’s badge tightly in his hand. When he was several feet away from it, the engraving lit up, glowing a faint blue before the wall disappeared entirely. An empty archway was left in its pce.
The foul odour of death and decay washed over them, pungent and unmistakable. Irric almost gagged and immediately blocked his nose. “By the gods, what’s that smell?” he asked as tears stung his eyes. The room was unlit, making it difficult to see what y beyond the shadows cast by the light in the hall.
“Something died in there,” Nadi said. “It’s been a while, if the scent is anything to go by.” Her team had their guns at the ready, aiming at the unknown that y beyond.
Irric turned towards Cyrix triumphantly. “It worked!” he excimed. “This means that we should be able to access the other rooms once we’re done with this one.” A faint smile fshed on Cyrix’s face, only to immediately disappear after taking in another lungful of the tainted air.
Cyrix urged Irric to enter the room. Reluctantly, he crossed the threshold and entered. The lights in the room immediately turned on, revealing a rge pile of decapitated gru’ul bodies. The heads were collected in a smaller pile next to it. The floor was stained in green from the lifeblood of the aliens. “What the fuck!?” Irric yelped.
The soldiers immediately pushed to enter the room, concerned that there was a threat within. They too stopped short when they saw the pile of bodies that were decomposing. Cyrix was the st to enter. “That’s a lot of bodies,” he said distastefully. Looking around the room, he spotted a rge table with all manner of tools held in trays next to it.
“What on Verilia were the gru’ul doing with so many bodies?” Irric asked, trying not to look at the macabre sight in front of him. The room contained nothing apart from the bodies and the table, confusing everyone present greatly.
“I don’t know,” Cyrix responded. “Let’s hope the other rooms aren’t like this. There’s nothing useful here. Do we have a way of determining how they died?”
One of Nadi’s team members inspected the bodies. “It’s a bit hard to tell,” she said. “The bodies have started to decompose. Some of the chitin appears to be cracked.” She pointed towards one of the bodies, bending down to properly examine it. “It looks like it was hit by something the size of a fist, which is bizarre.”
“How so?” Cyrix asked.
“It’s strange in that their exoskeleton is supposed to be rather durable. Whatever did this to them hit them hard. Really hard. I don’t think a single person in this room would be able to crack it like this by hitting it. Despite the damage, that wouldn’t have been enough to kill them,” the soldier continued. Walking over towards the pile of heads, she lifted one up and turned it over, inspecting it. “I’m pretty sure they died by having their heads pulled off.”
Irric tried not to be sick as the soldier gave her assessment, pointing out the various indicators that led her to her conclusion. When she was finished, Cyrix looked at the pile of bodies, worried. “What could have caused this to happen?”
“Not the tools on this table,” another soldier answered, picking up a long scalpel. “The edges are all blunted. It looks like there are switches on the side,” he said as he pushed one. Immediately, the edge of the scalpel lit up in a pale blue light. Cautiously, the soldier tested the edge on the rge table. The bde cut right into the metal with no resistance. The soldier lifted the scalpel and stared at the cut with wide eyes. “I stand corrected. The edges were blunted. I’m not sure how to turn it off.”
Nothing happened when he tried pressing the button that had turned the device on. Mindful not to accidentally cut himself, he searched the handle for another button to press. Locating one, he pushed it and the blue light disappeared. He heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m not touching the rest of these,” he said.
“If it wasn’t the tools that caused their deaths, then what did?” Irric wondered aloud.
The soldiers all looked at each other. “I don’t know,” the one still holding a head said. “Whatever it was, it sure was brutal about it. Some of these limbs are bent the wrong way.” Using her foot, the soldier nudged one of the corpses, drawing Irric’s attention to the broken limbs.
Cyrix had seen enough. “Nadi,” he said, “find a way to dispose of the bodies.”
“We could always leave them here while we explore the other rooms,” Nadi suggested. “I think seeing what the next rom has to offer first is a better use of our time. We might find something valuable there.”
Cyrix hummed thoughtfully. “Very well. Irric, take us to the next room.” Gd to be moving on, Irric eagerly led the team out of the room and through the winding corridors towards the next one. His data ste dispyed a map of the compound, which he used to help navigate the group.
Much like when they’d found the first room, the soldiers took up position in front of the rge rune engraved in the walls. Unlike the st one, this one was comprised of harsh, thick, angry lines, giving the impression that the rune scarred the wall rather than adorn it. Cyrix ordered the soldiers to distance themselves away from the engraving, not wanting them to see what was inside. He couldn’t risk any of them learning cssified information. Irric’s reaction to the first room had taken everybody by surprise. He’d been lucky it only contained bodies and nothing he couldn’t risk non-authorized personnel learning about.
Heart racing in his chest and hoping there weren’t more corpses beyond, Irric approached the wall and waited in anticipation as it melted away. Taking his first steps into the room, the lights switched on automatically. Irric’s eyes widened at what he saw.
He was in a b. A terminal stood in the center of the room, inactive. Behind it in the corner was a rge, upright, cylindrical station with a woman standing inside it. She was tan, like Adrian. When the figure didn’t react in the slightest, a sliver of doubt entered his mind.
Frowning, Irric approached. As he did, he noticed there was a wire extending from the back of the body’s neck, connecting to the station in which it stood. Irric cautiously touched the figure. It felt strangely hard underneath its skin if he pushed hard enough.
The vacant, unseeing eyes disturbed Irric as he continued his inspection. Tracing the thick cord, Irric took a chance and unplugged it from the figure. Metal of some kind glinted in the light briefly before it was covered by skin materializing over it. Irric blinked, wondering if he’d imagined it.
Bringing the end of the wire back to the figure’s neck, Irric watched as the skin receded and metal shone through once more before the cord attached itself back to the figure. He hadn’t imagined it then. Repeating the process several times, Irric came to the conclusion that whatever the body was, it wasn’t alive.
Assuming it was a failed experiment, Irric ceased his assessment and turned towards the Cyrix, who’d come in behind him, expining what he’d found. Leaving the body alone, Irric made his way to the terminal. It appeared to be in working condition, with no damage. He started it up, only to be greeted with a mess of gru’ul symbols and words hovering in front of him.
“I’m going to need my equipment if I want to see what’s on this terminal,” Irric said. “It doesn’t appear to be corrupted, which is a good sign. We might be able to get information from this one far more easily than the others. Who knows what might be hidden on this one.”
Cyrix nodded. “See what you can do. I’ll continue to inspect the room while you’re gone,” he said, pleased at having found something of note. “Leave me the badge so you don’t accidentally seal me in here when you leave. Contact me using your comms when you’re ready to enter.” Irric obliged.
Returning with his equipment a short while ter, he connected his data ste to the terminal and began his work. Cyrix watched with great interest as Irric expined what he was doing. His hunch was confirmed; the terminal contained no corrupted data. It was, however, heavily encrypted. Irric sighed. Without the proper cipher, he was going to have a very hard time gleaning any information from the terminal.
“Work on this with Tassie,” Cyrix ordered. “I’d rather learn what’s on this terminal than the others.” Irric sighed, accepting his new orders. “Before that, I’d like to see what’s in the remaining room.” Cyrix ordered the soldiers to file out of the room. Irric was the st to exit, being the one with the key. The wall reformed behind him once he stepped far enough out into the hall.
The first room had been a bust. The second was very promising but would require quite a bit of work. As the group approached the third engraving, they fanned out a short distance away and waited for Irric to access the room, ready to intervene should anything happen.
The wall revealed another hallway that hooked the right. Turning the corner, Irric and Cyrix entered a rge, dimly lit room and stopped dead in his tracks.
The floor was scarred in blue lines, creating geometric patterns. Part of the light came from the floor while the majority of it came from the rows gss pods containing a blue substance. Attached to the pods were rge, alien machines identical to the one found in the room right where the entry to the restricted section was.
Deformed bodies floated, suspended in their pods. Irric took a step towards the nearest pod. It was another a’vaare, whose body was full of strange growths. The one next to it had bone shards growing out the side of its face. Irric shuddered.
The bodies steadily grew worse as he delved further into the room. Some had mutated limbs while others were cking them entirely. One pod had a body missing its lower half, its intestines spilling out from underneath.
Humans were also held captive within the pods, though they were much further away from the entrance. Much like their a’vaarian counterparts, most of the bodies had something wrong with them. Some were withered, others heavily muscled in all the wrong pces. Irric concluded that Adrian was not the first person to be experimented on at the facility.
He was simply the only one that survived.
Along the back wall of the incredibly rge room were smaller pods, containing organs of all kinds, some of which Irric did not recognize. To the far left was one lone pod. Irric walked over to inspect it. His eyes widened when he came across the first fully intact body that didn’t appear to have anything wrong with it. The man moderately long hair and a beard. His eyes were screwed shut and his frozen expression was one of a desperate struggle, with his hands grasping his neck.
Cyrix walked up beside Irric. “What do you make of all of this?” he asked. “Do you think we can learn anything?”
“It’s clear that Adrian wasn’t their first victim. Some of the bodies here are horribly deformed. I can’t imagine what must have caused that. What I don’t understand is why the gru’ul kept the failures. Did they want to have a record of each experiment as they progressed their research? Or is it because they weren’t finished with the bodies yet?”
Cyrix looked at the man suspended in the blue substance in front of him and grimaced. “Being put in one of these doesn’t look pleasant. Is there anything wrong with this one, then?” He jerked his head towards the figure.
“I’m not sure. Outwardly, he appears to be fine. I can’t see what’s under his clothes, but they look remarkably simir to what Adrian was wearing when we first found him, only not ripped, bloodstained and yellowed.”
“Do you think this man came here alongside Adrian?”
“I’m not certain. Adrian cims he’s never seen another person during his time at the facility, but that doesn’t mean he was the only one actively being experimented on. The gru’ul could have simply kept everybody separate.”
“Do we have any way of getting the man out of the pod?”
Irric shook his head. “I haven’t the faintest idea. I don’t know how to operate whatever this is,” he gestured towards the machine the pod was connected to. The two men stared at the bubbling liquid contained in the red bulbs jutting out from the machine behind the pod in silence.
Irric spotted a single terminal and broke away from Cyrix, going over to inspect it. “Are you able to get any information out of it?” Cyrix questioned, joining him. He watched with interest as Irric connected to the terminal with his equipment. His disappointment was palpable when Irric shook his head.
“No,” Irric confirmed. “This terminal is also encrypted.”
“How are you certain that the terminal isn’t corrupted instead, like the others?”
“The symbols aren’t changing erratically,” Irric pointed. “Notice how the symbols are changing in steady patterns? Each series of symbols in the same spot represents a word in their nguage.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“When I try to transte the code, all I get returned to me is complete nonsense. Unless I can crack the encryption, I can’t properly view what’s on the terminal. The Highest must have had some way to do so.”
“That expins why our prisoner didn’t seem too concerned at us finding any useful information, even if we entered the rooms.”
“I don’t think it would be willing to help us in this endeavour either,” Irric said.
“Does that mean we did all of this for nothing?” Cyrix asked, a dangerous edge to his voice. The prospect of losing an important bargaining chip with their captive for no return annoyed him. It would be much harder to get the gru’ul to cooperate in the future.
“I’d say we have much to gain. Cracking the encryption is going to be easier than trying to work with corrupted code. Once we do, we’ll have access to the Highest’s personal terminals. I’m sure that’s going to be very enlightening about what was actually happening in this compound. Additionally, we can study the tools we found in the other room. Maybe we can find a way to replicate the technology. Imagine if our soldiers were outfitted with knives that were able to cut through metal with no resistance? That would be a useful tool and a dangerous weapon.”
Cyrix hummed thoughtfully. “That’s a good point. I’ll have the tools sent over to our researchers to see what we can learn. We’ve found simir tools in other rooms, but now that we have spares, we can afford to take them apart and see what’s inside. I want you to begin working on properly accessing the terminals we found in these rooms.”
“I’d rather start with the terminal that isn’t surrounded by hideously deformed bodies floating in pods, if that’s all the same to you.”
Cyrix chuckled. “That’s fine by me. If we’re lucky, the same encryption was used on both terminals.” He looked around one more time, eyeing the shrunken head in the pod next to him with disgust. “I’ll leave you to your work. I expect results.”
