1 Discovery

The year is 3045, and humanity was already traveling through stars, so far to the point of having bases in planets capable of supporting life. Yet no contact with other forms of life where made.

On earth the technology had reached the point where a human life could be extended up to four times their limit, allowing a human to live up to four hundred years.

In this era two humans made their name rise to the pinnacle of science, leaving their names in history to be remembered for all eternity.

One scientist, named Charles Freud, discovered the existence of souls, and even the possibility of two, or more, souls living in one body, causing what many thought to be know as 'multiple personality disorder'.

Another scientist, named Arthur Robert, made what humanity thought as impossible, and many berated him for doing it. Arthur created a living machine.

Those weren't their only deeds and achievements, but were their greatest.

They were so important that a secret and unique facility was made entirely for them, in the deepest place on earth, in Mariana Trench.

It was midnight and almost everyone in this facility was sleeping, except for well lit room with some mechanical sounds coming from it.

Arthur was in this room, his personal laboratory, controlling some mechanical arms as he experimented with an metallic bulb.

The metallic bulb was the living machine he had created, this creature was formless and made entirely of Nano-machines mixed with what Arthur called as 'Hybrid cells'.

These cells were his creation, they were the true living part of this mechanical being, albeit they're more like synthetic cells, but alive nonetheless.

Arthur's laboratory was created with white marble coated in a crystal porcelain, which would ensure that the living machine could not escape.

Inside the laboratory there was a big round table with a dome over it, and inside the dome was Arthur's creation.

Behind Arthur was another table, with a computer screen over it, some old fashioned paper for this modern society, and Arthur devices.

The mechanical hands seemed like tentacles and were controlled by Arthur's mind, through a biochip implanted inside his brain, his hands were inside his coat.

The door was opened abruptly and soundlessly, a man rushed in when Arthur was in the middle of his experiment.

"Arthur, what is the meaning of this?" (Charles Freud)

Charles threw dome papers on the table, behind Arthur, throwing them over his belongings.

Arthur slowly made the mechanical arms drop down, ceasing his experiment and turning around.

Charles stood in front of the open door, which allowed Arthur see the dark ocean outside the glass dome.

Both of these scientists were old, almost nearing the end of their life's. Arthur was old but handsome, with white gray hair and a square jaw, his appearance deceiving everyone who sees him.

Despite being old, Arthur seemed only to be in his 50s, and the same could be said for Charles. They were friends since their childhood, and many thought they were brothers as they looked very much alike.

Charles faced Arthur, and Arthur faced Charles back. With a calm and composed face, Arthur answered.

"For every hero there must be a villain." (Arthur Robert)

"I'm no villain , these plans to destroy this facility are lies, and in no fucking way would Sera tell lies like these in a report. Why is your name in here as a witness of 'my' vile acts?" (Charles Freud)

"Charles, I am the villain and you are the hero. These are my plans and Sera knows nothing about this, in fact she's sleeping right know." (Arthur Robert)

"What!? Are you insane?" (Charles Freud)

"No friend, I'm not. You see if an explosion occurs here, and with the intensity and power of the core that maintains this place, the whole world would experience a catastrophe on a scale equal to when the moon fell on earth." (Arthur Robert)

"You are insane friend, I won't allow you to do this, I'm going to stop you by any means necessary friend." (Charles Freud)

"But Charles, the plan has already started." (Arthur Robert)

Arthur pulled out from his right pocket a control with only one button, and pressed it immediately.

"Listen Charles, you have two options now. One is to take this micro-drive and escape from here, telling the word what I did. This micro-drive has enough savings in it for you to go to one of the new worlds.

The other is to take this same micro-drive and go to the control room, connect it to the main system, allowing you to manually control the core of the reactor. Of course, you won't be able to leave in time, but you will buy time for others to escape. Sera will obviously see the documents I left for her, the same ones that incriminate you.

What you will do Charles, be the hero and die as a villain, or run as a coward and live as a rat?"(Arthur)

Arthur pulled a micro-drive from his other pocket while talking to Charles, it was very much like a pen drive from the past ages, but it was actually more powerful than any computer at the time, that is in terms of processing and storage

Charles stared at Arthur, and went towards him, going around the table in between them and taking the micro-drive.

"I chose to be a hero." (Charles)

After taking the micro-drive, which wasn't micro at all, Charles turned around and darted out of the room, through the still open door. At the same time Charles left Arthur's lab, the core had reached the critical temperature; the alarms rang aloud, waking up everyone in the facility.

"WARNING: CORE OVERHEATING, NUCLEAR MELTDOWN IMMINENT, CORE MELTDOWN IN 5 MINUTES. PLEASE EVACUATE THE FACILITY IMMEDIATELY." (Female alarm voice)

…

Sera woke up to the loud sound of the alarm, and as she got up from her bed she noticed an envelope falling on the floor, she soon realized that the envelope should have been put over her while she slept.

Getting dressed in a few instants, Sera got the envelop and her micro-drive, then she run to the escape pods, not passing even a minute since the first alarm. After entering the pod with others, the alarm changed a little.

"WARNING: CORE OVERHEATING, NUCLEAR MELTDOWN IMMINENT, CORE MELTDOWN IN 12 MINUTES. PLEASE EVACUATE THE FACILITY IMMEDIATELY" (Female alarm voice)

Many did not understood what was happening, but they were all thankful the time extended. It Charles who was manually controlling the core's reactor, cooling it down to give time for the others to escape.

…

Arthur was surprised by his former best friend decisiveness, but even so, he decided to stay in his lab.

"This is for taking my girl and my research." (Arthur)

Arthur didn't care for anyone's else life, but he surely would get his revenge. After all, Charles and Sera were dating behind Arthur's back. That made him angry and furious, so much he decided to throw everything away, and he didn't had much to lose anyway.

Arthur sat on the chair from the second table, his hands touched the table and a hologram appeared in front of him. Data from his invention and records of his studies were exhibited there; even the data about souls was there.

Beside the records of his research, there were sketches of creatures, humans with animal's traces. Arthur intended on creating them but gave up, as his life was nearing its end. Arthur decided to delete everything he did, his research and what Charles had stolen, then he stood up, mentally saying his farewell to his lab, enjoying the last moments he had.

Turning back, Arthur looked at his creation, the one and only thing he knew that would never betray him, never hurt him. Opening the dome and extending his hand towards his creation, the mechanical creature jumped on him, biting his arm.

Arthur was shocked at first, but he felt no pain, the creature he made was "eating him," was what he thought at first, but then realized it was covering him, like a form of suit.

"WARNING: CORE OVERHEATING, NUCLEAR MELTDOWN IMMINENT, CORE MELTDOWN IN 3 MINUTES. PLEASE EVACUATE THE FACILITY IMMEDIATELY" (Female alarm voice)

When the creature had entirely covered Arthur's body, he heard again the warning, no he paid attention to the warning as it was repeating itself since the beginning, counting down the minutes until the destruction of the secret facility.

The cold of the metal from the creature was soothing to Arthur, yet he felt like it was a being hugged, even though it was all over his body. Arthur let himself enjoy his last moments. He knew that souls were real, but beyond that was like the oceans to the explorers of the modern age, or like the space to the space travelers from the last 500 years.

"WARNING: CORE OVERHEATING, NUCLEAR MELTDOWN IMMINENT, CORE MELTDOWN IN 2 MINUTES. PLEASE EVACUATE THE FACILITY IMMEDIATELY" (Female alarm voice)

Time was running out, but Arthur was in peace with himself, however he knew that his actions were not righteous, but still decided to follow them, for only then he would make his former friend suffer for stealing what he longed for.

"WARNING: CORE OVERHEATING, NUCLEAR MELTDOWN IMMINENT, CORE MELTDOWN IN 1 MINUTE. PLEASE EVACUATE THE FACILITY IMMEDIATELY" (Female alarm voice)

Arthur started laughing hard, so much, it could be heard at the escape pod terminal, attracting curious and dubious looks before such situation. Arthur wasn't happy, he knew that if some sort of afterlife existed, he would be going to something like hell.

"WARNING: CORE IS OVERHEATING, NUCLEAR MELTDOWN IS HAPPENING, CORE IS MELTING. PLEASE HAVE A GOOD JOURNEY." (Female alarm voice)

The last time the alarm sounded, was also the time the core exploded. Arthur was still being hugged by his creation, while Charles was already made into charred charcoal. The pain Arthur felt was minimal compared to what Charles felt, if not only a split second before nothingness consumed him.