31 Exploration

"System, my head hurts! Can you stop the resonance between me and the adamantine?" Daniel exclaimed within his mind as he tried his best to maintain the same look on his face.

[I'm sorry, Master, since the resonance come straight from your soul, there is no way to stop it.]

"Then why am I having such a huge headache right now!" Daniel continued to complain.

[Your neurons are currently in an excited state due to the interference of the waves emitted by the soul energy within the adamantine fragments before you. Although the force field surrounding the makeshift mountain blocks out electromagnetic waves, it doesn't block waves generated from the soul. Therefore, please endure it for now, Master.]

Sneering with his heart as his thought that the system was useless had been reaffirmed, Daniel turned his head and somehow managed to show a smile as he asked Uncle Eric, "Uncle, would it be possible for me to get my hands on one of those fragments? I want to see what it looks like up close!"

"I'm afraid that's impossible." Eric immediately denied. "Only approved scientists can get their hands on them, which is only a portion of all the civilian personnel here, much less military personnel like myself. Also, from what I've overheard earlier in the month, it seemed that a person must not be allowed to have physical contact with a meteor fragment."

"Why not?" Daniel asked again.

"Because once you get in contact with the fragment, it would get directly absorbed into your body." Eric explained.

Daniel feigned a look of shock, urging for Eric to explain more.

"Although I say that the fragment is 'absorbed', it's more like it disappeared after touching any organic object. When a fragment touches something like human skin, plants, animals, all above a certain mass, it would directly disappear. When our scientist team put one of the people who 'absorbed' the fragment through x-rays, CT scans, PET scans, MRIs and whatnot, they could not find the fragment inside the person's body, leaving everyone confused as to where it went."

Daniel nodded, before turning back towards the topic of permission. "So is that the reason why there are four claw machines placed next to the fragment mountain?"

"Yes." Eric nodded. "Since inorganic matter won't cause a fragment to 'disappear', they are used as a medium for experiments. If one wants to take a fragment for research, they will use one of the claws to grab said fragment, placing it inside a vacuum-sealed box before allowed to be sent outside the force field for the scientist's retrieval.

***

Daniel's headache got much better as they walked out of the nuclear bunker and back onto the long corridor. Meanwhile, Eric wanted to stop the awkward silence between the two of them and spoke, "Man, I wish they would let the military personnel to also live within the nuclear bunker. There are more than enough free space inside anyways! Not only do the apartments inside the bunker have beds and an actual washroom, there's also air-conditioning as well!"

"How come the military aren't allowed inside?" Daniel was actually a little curious about this.

"Because we're the first line of defense if there were ever an enemy attack on this place." Eric sneered in reply. "Since the scientists are important assets for the Federation, they need to have the military outside armed and prepped for emergencies while the people in lab coats seal themselves inside the bunker until everything's over. Also, since most of the stuff the scientists do are classified, a lot of the military personnel here doesn't have enough authorization and couldn't be placed in the nuclear bunker to prevent any information leaks."

"Well, at least they were kind enough to place more than enough porta potties near the houses, or else the entire quarantine zone would smell like sh*t in no time!" Daniel joked.

"I really could kill for a shower though." Eric commented. "Since there are no showers in the makeshift house I call a home now, I could only go and shower whenever I have my day off on Sundays. I tried to beg the scientists here to take me to one of their apartments just for a shower, but I've been denied every single time."

"It's alright, Uncle." Daniel reassured, patting on Uncle Eric's back. "You don't smell that nasty to me."

"That's because my military uniform have an anti-odor function which prevents smell from getting outside. Dogs can sniff out an enemy combatant through their body odor after all, so the Federation had to do something to prevent that from happening." Eric countered. "But didn't you realize how bad I smelled when I changed back into casual clothes just now?"

Since Uncle Eric is currently still in casual clothes, Daniel would be lying if he were to say that the other person doesn't smell. However, as Daniel used to be in the basketball team of his high school, he was already used to the odor after smelling them every day as he changed in the team's locker room. Therefore, Daniel remained unfazed and replied in a confident manner, "I can't really smell anything from you, Uncle!"

He gave Eric a thumbs up cheerfully, leaving Eric speechless for a little while, the side of his lips twitching a little bit.

***

Daniel and Eric got on the buggy again and drove all the way back to the latter's dilapidated residence. Afterwards, Eric sent the buggy on auto-drive mode and directly let the driverless vehicle return to its parking lot back near the canteen.

After brushing their teeth, Daniel picked his brain thinking hard on how to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night when Eric gave him a good piece of news the second they returned home.

"Oh, I forgot to mention this, but I need to start my night shift in about 2 hours. Are you going to be okay here on your own?" Eric asked out of concern.

"I'm going to be fine by myself." Daniel nodded in confirmation.

Afterwards, Daniel directly opened his sleeping bag and went inside, zipping himself comfortably and acted as though he was asleep while secretly waiting for Eric to start his shift.

Meanwhile, Eric simply sat silently by the table, working on something military-related until it was finally time to leave. Without warning, he walked towards Daniel and crouch down, leading the latter to feel nervous.

"Did I reveal myself?!" Daniel thought frantically within his mind. Fortunately, Eric only came over to give Daniel a soft kiss on the forehead before leaving. However, it was only after he heard the closing of the door that Daniel relaxed again.

After waiting for another half an hour or so, Daniel unzipped his sleeping bag and stood back up. Then, he took the backpack he had placed earlier in the corner of the house and reached inside, taking out the B*tman uniform he had worn earlier in the day along with his utility belt.

Since it was quite annoying to wear a full body spandex suit that also served as a body armor and bulletproof vest, it took Daniel quite some time before he was done. "I really wonder how Chr*stian B*le managed to walk in such a bulky suit back at the beginning of the 21st century! If not for the advances in materials engineering, I wouldn't even be able to stand up, much less walk with in such a suit."

"That being said, I wonder why my family would pass this on generation by generation like an heirloom. Is there something unique about this suit?" He thought offhandedly as he walked out of the house. It was at this time that a robotic voice suddenly sounded from within his B*tman mask.

<Mecha-B*tman Suit V.9.0 activated. Identifying host. Completed. Host determined to have the authorization for the full use of this suit. Initiating activation sequence.>

Without warning, a swarm of information was directly sent into his brain through the bio-chip inside. Although Minerva would usually prevent foreign signals from hijacking the bio-chip's feed, this time, it didn't do anything. Once the data stream ended, Daniel found himself completely familiar with the suit that he was wearing. He subconsciously gave a few punches with his fists, while double-checking all of the suit's system on the menu displayed in front of him.

Only after scrutinizing every detail did he exclaim within his heart, "Sick! This is awesome! I basically have my own mech now! How come the suit didn't activate when I wore it this morning?"

Little did Daniel know, the suit would only activate after every single component of the suit was worn perfectly. However, since Daniel was short for time this morning, he simply worn the spandex suit and mask to school, leaving the other proponents inside his backpack back then. If he had known about this, he would not have been kept in the dark until now.

"I was initially quite pessimistic about actually completing my plan, but now that I have this B*tsuit on my side, I think the odds of me getting that adamantine have risen at least two-fold!" Daniel exclaimed within his heart.