Chapter 11: The Beginning of a Gear

POV Frederick

Frederick was lying down. He leaned his back on the grass and looked up at the blue sky and the drifting clouds, not caring that his dark, shaggy hair and white coat were getting dirty.

Even in the United States, one of the largest countries in the world as of the year 2016, it is only at the Next Generation Medical Research Institute, built in a mountainous suburban area, that you could see such a beautiful sky. Frederick had been spending most of his time in the underground laboratory, day in and day out. There were certainly some people who were capable of secluded research in a dark underground laboratory, but for a scientist like Frederick, this kind of relaxation outdoors was sometimes necessary.

"Oh, sure enough, he's here again today! When you're not in the lab I know I can always expect to find you in this spot, huh?"

A voice suddenly called out to him, and Frederick, lying down, raised his chin to look at the owner of the voice. It belonged to Aria Hale; she was morbidly slender, even in her loose lab coat. 

With her short red hair tucked behind her ear, Aria looked into Frederick's face and said, "Are you feeling stuck again?"

"Wouldn't it be more meaningful to get some fresh air than to sit in the gloom at your desk? We're not moles; we're human beings, and humans need sunlight."

"Why don't you just tell them you're taking a break then?" With a wry smile on her face, Aria sat down next to Frederick. She noticed that he seemed to be getting a bit of cabin fever again.

"So, did you have any good ideas?"

"If I did, I'd be back in my lab by now." Frederick lifted his upper body and sat down on the grass alongside Aria. 'Is she…tired?'

Frederick thought since she looked even more pale than usual."Are you doing alright?"

"Yeah. But Asuka seems to be having a hard time with all the experiments he's been doing."

"That's not what I'm asking. I'm worried about your…"I'm worried about your health. Frederick was about to continue but then stopped.

The "Ecosystem Enhancement Plan" was one of the major projects being carried out at the Next Generation Medical Research Institute. If the Gear cell research, which was the basis of the Gear Project, could be put to practical use in the human body, even in Aria and Daubeny's future…. The subject still lingered in Frederick's mind.

However, it was a conversation that had already been decided. Respecting the will of the siblings who decided to cherish the time they had left, as Aria had once said, "To not die is not to be alive," it wasn't as simple as bringing it up again.

"Don't look so worried, okay? I know exactly what's going on. I'm fine for now." Aria smiled, somewhat sadly, as if she sensed the atmosphere.

"Alright. That's good, but…."

"Oh, but there's one thing I'm not okay with."

Throwing off the heavy atmosphere with a light tone of voice, Aria kneeled down and rested her head on Frederick's lap. Then she looked up at his face and said,

"Spending too much time with your wife." The dreamy smile made Frederick's eyes slowly rise to look at her, but he eventually lowered his shoulders in disapproval. "I see…. If you can joke around, then you must be okay."

"Oh, you're so quick to change the subject. Can't you just let me heal you?"

"Stop it, you. That's not what I'm trying to say." Frederick ran his fingers through Aria's hair a couple of times, though he wasn't in the mood for romance, and looked off into the distance.

"Not when your boss, the embodiment of the modern American dream, and your brother are coming this way." The scientists in white came toward Frederick, and Aria was a familiar man with white hair who hid his face from the sun and a red-haired man who was closer than the other.

Noticing how ghastly slim he was and his face somewhat devoid of life reminded the couple of how he was when he died two years ago. Over the last few months, his health had been declining the same as his sisters.

However, that didn't stop him from making his iconic wolfish smile. "Aria, not that I'm accusing you, but are you skipping out on your work?"

With a snort, she looked at her brother with apathetic eyes. "That's rich coming from you; any chance you have at a break, you take it. Even passing your workload over to Frederick's sometimes."

"Since you're here, you finished your work? Right?!"

Seeing Frederick's anger rising, Daubeny was worried for his life but stopped fearing for it upon noticing Frederick was releasing his anger through a heavy sigh. "It's fine, but if you ever do that again, I will strangle you."

"Now, Frederick, you shouldn't overreact to Daubeny's antics, I doubt he gives you too much work." Asuka said as he approached the group.

"Tch. If you had to deal with him, I doubt you would face it much better." Frederick dryly said as he glared at Asuka.

"But back to matters, I must ask, are you skipping work?" Asuka asked Aria a little seriously, trying to escape his friend's question.

"I'm sorry. I've been making time to come here." Aria pouted. However, as Asuka's assistant, she was still on the same research team as him, and with a sigh, she raised herself up from her kneeling position, knowing she had more important things to work on than spending time with Frederick.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Are we interrupting something?" Asuka said apologetically after seeing Aria get up. 

"If that's what you think, why don't you two come back later?" Frederick replied bluntly, following his wife's actions.

"Well, don't say that. It's been a while since we were all together like this. You wound me." Daubeny responded with a chuckle and feigned indignation, clasping a hand over his destroyed heart.

Compared to the time when the four scientists had started their research on Gear cells as a team under the supervision and guidance of Professor Vince MacDonnell, their former mentor, the opportunities for them to get together had decreased significantly.

Aria and Asuka get to see each other every day, while Daubeny and Frederick see each other the same amount. Still, being transferred to a different team and splitting the group apart had been difficult initially. They all felt nostalgic for getting to see one another after being unable to for more than ten days.

"Asuka, Daubeny, are you two skipping class too?" Aria gasped, putting a hand over her mouth that couldn't hide the grin she was showing.

"If that were the case, it would make me feel better, but… I wanted to get Frederick's opinion, and you weren't in your lab, so I went to look for Daubeny, and he figured you two would be out here." As Asuka spoke those words, Frederick and Aria, who had just had a similar exchange a moment ago, looked at each other and smiled. 

Asuka tilted his head, curious. "Is something wrong?"

"No, don't worry about it. So, what's your business here?"

Frederick asked, regaining his composure. The results of his research were constantly being reported to the institute's server. He had no idea that Asuka, the project chief of the entire Gear project, would ask him about it in person.

"I wanted to get a more detailed opinion from the person in charge of researching the altered branch of Varga hectacine." Asuka said casually.

Frederick and Daubeny's current research focuses on transforming and branching cells during their growth process. Unfortunately, they have reached an impasse, which is why both were taking a break.

"The latest report said that the alteration was stagnant under certain conditions, but the description of those specific conditions was pretty vague," Asuka stated, folding his arms over his chest.

"I see. But unfortunately, we are still having a hard time reproducing that particular condition. Well, we've figured out about 60% of it.…"

"I'd like to hear what that 60% is."

"Human error, I suppose."

"Frederick…."

"It's not something that can be answered with confidence immediately."

Asuka and Aria were both dismayed. Frederick snorted abruptly, and Daubeny simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Just kidding. Anyway, we're still in the middle of a replication experiment. We just don't have much more to say than what I've reported. So we are waiting for the results, EACH of us has got a lot of personal research to do."

"But if the stagnation of the altered branch of varga hectacine was a factor that could be artificially reproduced, such as a suppressive effect, then…." 

'It could also lead to an accident in the Gear cell itself.' Frederick knew the importance of what Asuka was trying to say.

"Even at this point, checking the conditions for altered stagnation is becoming quite complicated. It's not easy to reproduce." Fredrick said, raising his arms, yawning, and absent-mindedly standing up slowly. Then he looked at their tired faces and spoke with care. "You don't feel like your research is going too smoothly either?"

"Not really.…" Asuka stated vaguely, then he put his hand on his forehead and reiterated.

"No… You're right. It's not a very good situation."

Frederick, who belonged to a different team, didn't understand Asuka's concerns. However, he knew that this unclear answer was not atypical of Asuka.

"Well, I'm sure there's a lot you can't tell me because it's classified. Don't take it too hard, you two. If you need it, we're always here to help."

"Thanks, Frederick, Daubeny. I can always count on you both."

Asuka, Daubeny, and Aria looked somewhat pained, and Aria had a helpless expression on her face. For some reason, the sight of the three of them staring at the ground in low spirits left a terrible impression on Frederick.

-

Frederick woke up, feeling the coldness of the rigid, inorganic floor through his white coat. 'Was that a…dream?'

Still in a foggy state of consciousness, Frederick wondered if Aria, Daubeny and Asuka's painful expressions had made such a strong impression that he had dreamed of yesterday's events so vividly.

"Ugh…. My head hurts like hell." Frederick put his hand on his forehead, then looked around and saw that he was still in his lab, where he was always holed up, but for some reason, it was strangely messy.

The floor was littered with reports, documents, microscopes, measuring instruments, and various other laboratory equipment as if someone had swept them off his desk with their arm. Most likely, he fell asleep at his desk while engrossed in his research but slipped and fell to the floor while sleeping. Convinced of this, Frederick tried to get up, but…

"Oh…. Huh?" He focused all of his strength on his body and tried to get up, but he just shook violently, not being sure he would be able to.

"What….is this…."

His head hurt even more and his body felt sluggish and heavy. It wasn't as if he simply had a limp, there was something very wrong with his body. Frederick felt a violent tremor and a strange feeling of pain in his chest.

'My body…feels hot?'

At the very least, he had a fever. Was it a cold or some other virus? Or did he eat something strange? Yesterday, he didn't think that he was pushing himself hard enough to reach the point of collapsing.

"Ugh. It's pathetic that I can't even manage my physical condition."

Frederick tried to calmly retrace his memories to find the cause of his current state of poor health. To his recollection, yesterday, after the four of them had met outside, he had come back to the lab and by a strange coincidence discovered the conditions under which varga hectacine stagnated in the alteration branch.

'And then... What happened?'

He thought about it, but couldn't quite remember. At that moment, Frederick suddenly looked at the paper materials scattered on the floor around him and raised an eyebrow.

"This is… an altered branch of acceleration?"

He picked up a copy and skimmed through it. It was not about stagnating alteration branching in varga hectacine, but about encouraging the acceleration of alteration branching. But that's not right. Why do these data exist?

Frederick had envisioned pursuing the acceleration of the alteration branching in his own research, for personal reasons, and yet was not far from the experimental stage. And yet, this was clearly a report on the results of an experiment.

'You're kidding, right? You didn't go back in time, did you?' Fredrick kneaded his shoulders in self-doubt and looked at his watch.

'I'm still somewhat dazed, but if I remember correctly, today's date is….'

"Huh? What the hell?" The date on the watch was almost a month different from what Frederick remembered.

'So that dream wasn't yesterday, but a month ago? Do I have amnesia? That's ridiculous.'

Then, at that moment, an image flashed back into Frederick's mind as if an electric current had struck him. His own eyes peered into a microscope, observing the alteration of Gear cells that had been tampered with, in varga hectacine. With a snap, a crack appeared in the glass specimen slide.

"The altered acceleration was also successful." Looking away from the microscope towards his assistant and friend Daubeny, who smiled with satisfaction as if from cracking a challenging puzzle.

"Good! I was beginning to worry we wouldn't be able to solve it." Daubeny sighed in relief as the two of them performed a small fist pump. This memory vanished into the recess of his mind as he regained his senses.

'Was that me and Daubeny? Was that my… memory?'

It may have been the moment when Frederick succeeded in accelerating the transformation of varga hectacine, but as if a broken thread was connected, something that looked like a memory surfaced in his mind. It felt distant, like someone else's problem, but when he tried to recall the memory further, he became more confident that the memory was real.

'Did I really?' He put his hand on his forehead again and tried to recover his memory. But once he managed to get up and sit down in his chair to calm down, Frederick's eyes widened at the unexpected sight before him.

"Is that a…bloodstain?"

Red stains were on some of the materials lying around the lab. Frederick looked around and found red splashes on the floor, walls, and other parts of the room. It only seemed to be concentrated around the place where he had fallen a while ago….

'No way....' Immediately after he became aware of the blood throughout the lab, he noticed it. Frederick felt something sticky on his neck. He momentarily held his palm to his neck, then saw that the red fluid was almost completely dried up on his hand. Moreover, even his other hand, which was on the opposite side and would not have touched the bloody area on his neck, was also covered in blood.

'Why is there blood here?' Fearfully, Frederick stroked his neck, but he could find no wound there. Strangely enough, there was no pain in his neck either. But he was sure that the lab coat he was wearing and the shirt underneath were damp with what looked like blood around the collar.

"What's happening…?" My memory for the past month has vanished, and there's blood around my neck. This situation is clearly insane. There's no way I had simply fallen asleep or collapsed.

'Why had I collapsed in the first place? What happened in this lab?'

Frederick's memories were blurry and distant as if he couldn't remember anything. But in the midst of the anxiety and fear of not knowing, he sensed something. It was a new anomaly. The sound of an explosion, as if a large amount of gunpowder had exploded at once, followed by the shaking of the whole laboratory.

"Aaaaaaaaaah!" At the same time, Frederick heard a number of different screams coming from far away.

"Explosions in the distance…? Wait, why would there be explosions?"

Frederick's mind wondered at the cause of the explosions, while in reality he continued to hear numerous screams, as if a panic had broken out in a crowded plaza. 

Immediately after that – beeping. An emergency alarm sounded over the research station's broadcast system.

"In the event of another accident in the Alpha Section, the Institute will be temporarily closed to prevent secondary damage. All employees are requested to evacuate in an orderly fashion according to the prescribed manual." The voice from the speakers on the ceiling cut out with a crackle. At the same time, the alarm also stopped, as if the power had suddenly gone out. 

Soon after, the lights in Frederick's lab went out, and only the red emergency lights on the wall stood out eerily in the darkness.

"Now what? What's going on?!"

The walls in this underground laboratory were not thin, but Frederick could still hear the distant screaming. And mixed in with the screams was a short panting of air, like some kind of animal.

"I don't know what's going on with me…"

He could hear sounds that he shouldn't be able to hear. And on top of that, this unusual situation was unfolding around him. This underground laboratory was a place where various bleeding-edge medical projects were being planned. Even if there was an accident, would there be an explosion from it?

"Is it really an accident? If so…."

If so, it wasn't safe to assume some kind of biohazard crisis, but in the worst case, it could be a terrorist attack targeting one of the sensitive research projects. With that much thought, Frederick stood up this time.

"Anyway, there is no doubt that something is going on...."

He wondered if Aria, Daubeny and Asuka were safe. They were the three central figures of the Gear Project. The thought of the worst possible outcome crossed his mind. Frederick shook his head to try to clear the negative thoughts from his mind. 

He stood in front of the information management terminal, but no matter how many times he touched the console or pressed the power switch on the terminal, it didn't make any difference. The power to the lab itself was off. The employees of this underground laboratory were not allowed to have their own personal communication devices due to the confidentiality of the research management aspect. So there was only one way left to contact them.

'I guess I'll just have to go look for them directly.'

Frederick walked toward the door but was suddenly confronted with a problem.

"There is no way I can open this…."

The door to the lab, which usually opened automatically, was sealed when the auto-lock was enabled after the emergency power switched on. In other words, he was trapped. In the movies, if you were locked in a room like this, you would break the lock with a gun, but there was no way that Frederick, a researcher, would have such a thing. So, could he pry it open by force? Or would he have to dismantle the locking unit to release it?

"Wait a minute. In situations like this, there has to be a way…."

There was no way out of the laboratory. Frederick thought of ways to escape, but then he looked up. He could hear a distant sound approaching him: the sound of running footsteps and uneven breathing.

"Is someone coming?"

This might be the only chance to get help from outside, but he had to act now or they would pass by the lab.

Then, Frederick shouted, "Hey, you there! Stop!"

He quickly slammed the door and tried to make contact. 

Even if he had to force his way through, the strength of two people could possibly do it, or so he thought, anyway.

"Is there a release mechanism? Please! Open this door!" A man's voice echoed from the other side of the door. He seemed to be in an extremely urgent state.

"As much as I'd like to, I'm trapped in here…."

"Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on, open up!"

"What are you in such a hurry for? Hang on, just give me a minute!"

"Oh my God, it's coming! No, no, no! We'll never make it in time!"

"Hey! What are you talking about?! What's coming?" In spite of Frederick's words, the footsteps of the lab personnel were moving away. 

The conversation delayed his noticing it, but after they had passed, there was another sound.

"Is that… an animal, or what?"

The sound of claws scraping against the floor, like a beast running on all four limbs was rapidly approaching and followed the footsteps of the man outside Frederick's lab.

"Uwaaaaahhhh!"

At the same time as the staff member's distressed cry, there was a vigorous growling. It sounded much like the struggle of hounds descending upon their prey.

"….Is he being attacked?"

When Frederick heard the beastly sounds, he thought that some laboratory animal had escaped from the earlier explosion, but the sound that came into his ears next blew away his common sense. A loud, bloodcurdling, shriek pierced through the momentary silence of the laboratory. Crunching, snapping, chomping, chomping, chomping. 

Just the sound. It was indeed only sound. He wasn't sure why, but it was too much for Frederick to hear in his condition. What he imagined was a scene that made him want to turn away. The darkness of the lab, lit only by emergency lights, added to the creepiness of the scene. Chomping, crushing, grinding. That was probably the sound of the animal ripping, chewing, and shredding the man's flesh.

"He's being…eaten?"

Frederick couldn't help but feel the chill in his blood. He couldn't see it, but he could imagine the horror, and goosebumps broke out all over his body. An unidentified beast that eats people. As soon as he realized that there was such a thing, Frederick took a few steps back from the door. As Frederick continued to listen to the unorthodox sounds of life being taken, he felt as if he could collapse at any moment if he wasn't careful. 

But now, with just a door in front of him, he was in a safe zone. So, it was okay. Just when Frederick was beginning to feel such relief, his bloody but unscathed neck or, more precisely, his throat suddenly hurt. His body was hot from the nervous energy of the situation.

Damn it. What the hell!

Frederick shook his head once and ran to the fire extinguisher station in the lab, driven inexplicably by the heat rising from within his body. Lit by the red emergency light, the station consisted of a fire extinguisher and an emergency axe. Such a uniquely American preparation, the emergency axe, jokingly called a "master key," could also be used as a weapon. 

The only difference was whether it was too late or too early. In any case, he had to pry open the door and get out of the lab. Frederick mustered up the courage to persuade himself to go back to the door, axe in hand. But just as he was about to swing the axe down with both hands...

"Hey, wait…. What am I doing? What the hell am I going to do?!"

Frederick gulped, lost in thought.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

If he opened this door now, he was sure to be involved in the tragedy. No, this was a senseless act of jumping into danger. Frederick was neither a superhuman nor a hero. He was less than an ordinary man, a scientist who was too confined underground to exercise. If he went out alone, wouldn't that only lead to more casualties?

"If that's the case, I might as well just let this go… I can't risk my life to save a man I don't know."

Frederick thought, and felt cruel for it. He clenched his teeth. 

In the meantime, outside the laboratory only just a door away, unpleasant sounds continued to echo.

"Oh...ahh...he-...help…."

The voice of the office personnel grew weaker and disappeared. Then he heard the sounds of something heavy being dragged across the floor, gradually moving away from the lab he was sealed in. That meant that Frederick would be safe in the lab.

"Am I abandoning him?" Even as he thought this, Frederick felt relief in his heart. The sound outside the door faded into the distance. Slowly, slowly, it got more and more distant, until he couldn't hear it anymore.

"I didn't have a choice. I couldn't because...." He didn't want to die. It was the natural human will to survive. Frederick was tormented by wishful thinking that he might have been able to help. But no matter how much he despaired, it was already too late. Not long after, the noise outside the door was completely inaudible. In other words, whatever was out there was already gone.

"Ha, hahaha... ha....."

Frederick's voice echoed in the silence of the lab. He stood there and thought about his own cruelty. But he knew that he had to get out of this lab anyway. Frederick's voice sounded as if he was trying to beat himself up.

"You stupid bastard!" He swung the axe as hard as he could. It made a dull metallic "thunk" as the axe blade bit into the door, but it was slightly out of alignment with the locking unit he was aiming for, and didn't manage to budge it open.

"Why… Why did I abandon you?!"

He shouted the question that he knew the answer to, and swung the axe with all his strength again.

"I am .... I'm so damn selfish!"

They say that many scientists are selfish, but Fredrick was disgusted with himself for being such a heartless man when faced with an emergency.

"But it's better than dying! I had no choice!" One strike, two strikes. Then three. The axe, wielded in anger, eventually struck the knitting of the auto-lock. And this time… Crack!

"What?!" 

It was a good hit. But at the same time, the handle of the axe was now broken. In the heat of the moment, Frederick slammed his body against the door and leaned against it. It was completely unexpected that the handle of the steel axe would break.

"Hah, hahah. You piece of shit!"

He swore at the broken handle in his hand.

"I deserve this punishment, don't I." Frederick thought as he collapsed, looking up at the ceiling and enduring the pain of his body hitting the door. Maybe it was because he had screamed so many times, but he felt a little better. 

Anyway, there was no point in continuing to feel regret. He looked up at the door and saw that the other part of the axe, the broken blade, was still stuck in the lock unit. There was a small gap between the door and the wall. Frederick stood up, inserted the broken handle into the crack of the door, and forcefully pried it open. 

At that moment, the smell of blood hit him hard. It would have been preferable if Frederick had just been having a bad dream, but it was obvious from the situation at his feet that a tragedy had actually taken place there earlier.

He gazed down the dimly lit hallway with only emergency lights, just like the lab. At the end of the corridor, there was a large pool of blood that was incomparable to the small bloodstain on Frederick's neck and clothes. Only a part of the pool of blood extended to the end of the corridor, and it was slowly drying up and disappearing into the darkness. 

It was the only trace of the unidentified beast that had dragged the previous employee away.

"I'm so sorry."

Staring at the emergency lights glowing eerily at the corner of the corridor, Frederick apologized in his heart. He took a deep breath and took in the scene in front of him. This bloodstain and smell were an unmistakable reality. Then he regained his composure and thought about this unnatural situation that had been going on since he woke up in the lab earlier.

"There's so much I don't understand...." His memories had been blurry for almost an entire month. What was the explanation for the dried blood crusted around his neck without any visible wound, and the reason for his collapse? 

Additionally, he had no explanation for the mysterious beast that killed and ate that laboratory staff member, or the sounds that he shouldn't have been able to hear. There were so many unknowns that even if he tried to think about it, he couldn't come up with any answers. 

But whatever it was, he was certain that something terrible was happening in this laboratory, which sprawled underground like a tree spreading its roots. So, if that was the case…

"...I hope Aria, Daubeny and Asuka are okay."

Now free from his lab, Frederick's first thoughts were about the safety of his partner and of his best friends. This place where Frederick's lab was located was in a division called the Beta Section. He wondered if the Gamma Section, where various classified research was gathered and where the two of them, Asuka and Aria, were supposed to be working on the Gear Project, was in the same situation as here. 

Even more so where was Daubeny, he should have been in or nearby the Beta Section?

Have they already evacuated as instructed by the emergency alarm? Or are they still in the lab?

Frederick looked at his watch as he thought about it.

"Only 10 minutes until 10:00 A.M…."

In other words, it was 9:50. At that time, Asuka and Aria would normally both be in the Gamma Section. Now he didn't have clue where Daubeny was supposed to be. But that's if nothing had changed in the period of Frederick's unreliable memory.

"Don't think about… Just don't think about it." Frederick shook his head as Aria's loving smile seemed to fade from his mind. She's still alive. She was definitely still alive. Frederick decided to believe that and started planning what he needed to do next. 

Gamma Section, which had a high level of security, could not be accessed with Frederick's ID card. The entrance was not something that could be opened with an axe, and it would be difficult to go looking for an ID card to open it now. If Aria's condition was not good, she could be in the infirmary.

The reality was that there was something going on in the lab right now, and there was even a mysterious beast that was killing people, so they needed to get out of there as soon as possible. 

Then, the first thing to do was to follow the emergency evacuation instructions and head for the evacuation route. Along the way, Frederick could stop by the infirmary and check if Aria and Daubeny were there. It would be fortuitous if he ran into Aria, Daubeny and Asuka along the way, or even with the rest of the laboratory staff, who he might be able to give him some information about them or the situation in the Gamma Section. An even more pressing concern was the mysterious beast from earlier.

"I wish I had a weapon, at least.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this, but I'm going to have to."

Making his way to where he thought Daubeny's lab was, he opened it and discovered nothing. Everything was the way it was, except there were no apparent signs of anything. Leaving his friend's lab in a hurry, Frederick made his way back outside to the laboratory halls.

He didn't know when that thing would show up again. For self-defense, he would have to get a new axe. Fortunately, there were plenty of emergency supplies, so it would be relatively easy to find one without having to look too hard for it, but if Frederick encountered the beast before then….

"No, I can't stay here just because I'm afraid. For now, I must act."

Shaking his head to dispel his doubts, Frederick began to walk alone down the dark corridor. 

The hallway was long and dimly lit, and the occasional emergency light drifted by. The red color stirred up an inexplicable anxiety.