Chapter 2: Vessel

"Thank you... Thank you very much!" My father shook hands with another scientist.

I walked over got him nervously, consciously avoiding others around me. I don't want to make another acquaintance, another friend.

Never know which of them would leave me behind next.

"Dad?" I called out towards him.

"Hmm? Yes? Ah... Xavier." He said his goodbyes to the people he was chatting with and turned towards me. He gave me a pat on my shoulder, "So... how're you feelin'?"

He grinned cheerfully.

I tried to return that grin, but it probably came out wrong and looked more like a frown.

I don't feel right.

"Dad?" I repeated again, "Do you remember when the... laser fired?"

"How could I forget?" He asked sarcastically, "Photos of the aftermath are being displayed on the screen!"

He extended a hand towards a screen up above on a wall.

Displayed on the screen, were a multitude of photographs taken by an overhead drone that was sent minutes after the laser was turned off.

Every single one of them were taken from a different angle, but they all showed the same thing.

A giant, massive, gargantuan hole. Probably a few kilometers in diameter. And it was DEEP too. When a drone was sent to the bottom, it couldn't even reach an estimated halfway before it started melting by the intense heat still lingering in the air.

"Phenomenal... isn't it." My father stared at those photos with wonder, "...and we're be venturing down that pit of darkness tomorrow."

It was amazing, but...

"That isn't what I want to talk about." I scratched the side of my hip.

"Huh? Then whatever else was there to talk about?" My father asked.

"Do you remember..." My eyes narrowed grimly, "...that scream?"

"The scre—" His eyes widened in contrast to mine, "No. I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Dad..."

He started walking away. "No... I don't have the slightest cl—"

"Dad." I put a hand on his shoulder. "Do you know what that noise was?"

He paused for a moment. Then peeked begins his shoulder, right at me. "No... I don't. I explained that it was part of the procedure earlier... but honestly..."

He turned and walked away, leaving me behind.

I stood there, speechless.

I had never ever seen my father like that.

I had never seen him so... scared.

He was hiding something.

I knew it.

But the problem was: Should I continue pressuring him?

--

The next day came soon enough...

The previous one ended quite uneventfully, most likely because I went back to our temporary home not soon after our 'talk'. And even then, I simply wrote a small report on my computer, then went to bed.

Which leads up to now...

I switched on the television in the living room, eating a custard-filled muffin simultaneously.

"...has been finally fired!" A news reporter spoke confidently towards the camera. A picture of the pit that was created yesterday was displayed on the screen, "Today, the team who created this laser will be venturing down into the hole that, according to some sources, is nearly a kilometer wide!"

A few kilometers actually.

I continued watching the reporter blabber on about the feats that we may accomplish today.

I was about to switch the television off as the reporter continued to share knowledge that I already know of.

When...

"Breaking news!" The screen changed to a different reporter. The picture of the massive hole had been replaced by what looked like a devastated city, "Less than thirty minutes ago, a sudden tsunami had hit the outskirts of Angola and Namibia! Causing mass destruction and casualties."

"Huh?" My eyes widened.

"The cause of the sudden tsunami is unknown, but it is theorized that it was caused by an undetected volcanic eruption in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean." The reporter explained, "It is possible that the volcanic eruption was also the reason of the 'howling' that people have complained about all over the world."

My heart skipped a beat.

"Causes for this volcanic eruption are unknown, but research suggest that it was caused by the la—"

I turned off the television.

Even without hearing the rest, I could tell what the reporter was going to say next.

Our laser.

It caused this.

WE caused this.

--

"Xavier." I heard Jacob behind me.

I spun around, peeking behind my shoulder. I was pacing around the room, in silence, just thinking. "Yes?"

"Sir wants to see you. Now." He had a serious expression plastered on his face.

"My Dad?" My eyebrows raised, "What for?"

"He said that it was time to leave."

My eyes widened in shock, "But it's only eight! We shouldn't be leaving for another two hours!l

He shook his head, "That's what Sir said."

I narrowed my eyes nervously.

Why so soon?

...

"Dad?" I walked into the laboratory, wiping a drop of sweat off my brow.

In normal laboratories, it was usually quite crowded with many other scientists working together to create experiments, or write papers. But this was a private laboratory, only for authorized personnel. And authorization is only given by my father.

Overall, my father is a really nice guy, he cares for people, and even casts apologies and shows guilt towards animals that we use in our experiments. But when it comes to secrets, he can get... really paranoid.

This was one of the reasons I didn't dare to pressure him to tell me what he knew. When he keeps a secret, especially from me, I knew that he was gonna take it to his grave.

Even simply entering the lab was hard work. To get in, one must enter a twenty-digit code that changes every two days. Then he must go through an ID scan, a fingerprint scan, a voice recognition check, and finally go through an automatic full body search that checks for any recording devices, weapons, or explosive materials. Trying to break in was nearly impossible. To get in the hard way, one must break through a graphene surface half a meter wide from every angle, and once inside, avoid every single camera that has a built in facial recognition software and identity scanner, if an unauthorized person had somehow entered, an alarm would be triggered, and a fast-acting tranquilizer date would be shot at the intruder. It would be just as hard to get in digitally. Every single piece of software, algorithm and device had been properly protected using multiple anti-viruses, a custom-made satellite that provides its own signal from all over the world, and even an electromagnetic barrier that blocks out any unknown signals that try to force its way in.

And every private laboratory we ever owned were made the exact same way.

...Yeah, we spent at least half our entire net worth simply building labs around the world.

But I could see why.

Our laboratory was a large chamber filled to the brim with machines, devices, papers, notes and whiteboards with scribbled messes of letters, numbers and crosses. But even these scribbles and crosses were highly valuable.

Everything inside this lab, and the other private labs outside, they were all our life's work, everything we ever created.

There were the usuals, like computers and screens, but there were other machines that come out straight from science fiction, like a man-made oxygen producer that mimics the process of photosynthesis, to a memory warper that can implant fake memories into someone's head using similar experiences from the past.

My father doesn't like to name our inventions though, so we just call them by their functions. Like an oxygen producer, we call it an oxygen producer. Memory warmer? Memory warper.

Which is why we called our laser, yes you got it, a laser.

It can get confusing sometimes, but most people overlook it because of how revolutionary most of them are.

We don't sell most of them for commercial purposes though, we only accept a temporary use from some people who are willing to pay to use it for a short amount of time. And whatever they are using it for has to be monitored twenty-four seven, and granted as legal from the proper authorities.

It isn't as much as we could have earned if we decided to mass produce them, but it still managed to make us the richest scientists in the world, and our inventions made us two some of the most respected men in science.

Anyway...

"Xavier!" My father peeked behind a trio of monitors, a look of worry in his eyes.

I raised an eyebrow at him, "Why are we leaving so soon—"

"Because of this." He pointed at the monitors before him with his chin, "Come and see for yourself."

"Huh?" I walked briskly towards him. "What is it—"

I took a look at the three screens.

All of them had a burst of different numbers and words, running across the little pixels, but all of them had one thing in common, a single circle in the center.

In the left one, it showed what looked like a heat sensor, but every single spot had been taken up by the color red. Where ever it was showing, it was REALLY hot.

On the right, there was another circle, but this time, it was completely black.

But the one in the middle caught my eye. It was also black too, but it had a huge rectangle that stretched from the bottom left, to the top right. And it made out of these little white circles that were rapidly moving around.

"Dad... What is this?" I asked.

"I set up a motion detector above the pit the laser created last night, monitoring for any sort of motion inside the hole..." My father scowled deeply, "This is what it's catching."

My eyes widened, "But that would mean—"

"Yes... something is moving inside the Earth."