Prologue (3)

Author's note: The story begins in chapter 1. You can skip ahead if you want, but as an author I highly recommend you read the prologue chapters first as it introduces the MC and a small fraction of his background.

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A short silence befell upon us. The atmosphere on my part was heavy. My heart raced. My forehead drenched in sweat. Even the air conditioner felt nothing to my skin. Three seconds felt like forever. I eagerly waited for his reply. Finally, he spoke to me in his usual manner.

"Ah, I see. If you're done with your detective job, then you are most welcome to join us here, sir. The team is eager to see you, too. We'll be waiting for your arrival."

"…Very well, then. I will be on my way."

*click*

I put my phone down. Sigh was all I could do. Gareth was still himself. But after knowing the recent revelations, my awareness rose, and I discovered one contradiction: Gareth shouldn't've known I was a detective. I did say I had another job, but never once I told him it was a detective. I hid it for the past fifteen years.

I didn't ask him about his name popping up in some bullshit phantom paper that I never saw before. Because he knew my job as a detective, I decided to cut the call quickly in a bit of panic. I know. It was a premature action on my side.

At this point, heading to the nuclear power plant would truly happen. Meanwhile, going to the nuclear plant might be walking right into a minefield. Just thinking that made my skin drench cold sweat over my face.

I couldn't stop asking myself, "Had Gareth did something under my nose all this time?" but my brain could not provide any sufficient answer. I sure damn wanted to deny that he ever did an offense. I couldn't imagine he ever done a crime under my nose. 

After some time pondering in denial, I had to put my feelings behind. I must go to the nuclear research facility and talk with him face to face.

With that fixed in my mind, I decided to delay my arrival by texting him a lie that there was a traffic jam. He gave me thumbs up emoticon as a reply. After that, I headed back to the station and met everyone who was arming themselves up with bulletproof vests and energy pistols. From plain sight, I already knew where they were going to go to.

"It seems you guys had called him… and failed, huh?" I carefreely asked. The chief nodded, "Yes. We've tried contacting him several times, but he did not answer. It may sound like he was out of reach, but our trackers found out that he was present at the nuclear research facility."

I thought to myself frowningly, "(For the love of… seriously, Gareth. We just called to each other normally.)" I then asked the chief, "Have you tried contacting the Newtech HQ?"

The chief approached me and gave me a bulletproof vest. "That, my good friend, is where we found out he was at work. Because he was unreachable, we called the HQ instead." He said while gesturing me to wear the vest.

I nodded lightly. While wearing the vest, I asked him again, "I see. So, what's their answer?" In a grim voice, he replied to me, "Gareth was at work today in reactor C, the third reactor. Just when we asked the receptionist to get him for us, the call suddenly became static before finally lost. We tried contacting them again, but to no avail."

Huh, that sure was fishy. The HQ of Newtech corporate was known for their quick responses. When I heard that calling them wasn't possible, I thought of contacting Mr. Gareth again. But no, I thought I should not.

I put on my armored vest and holstered an energy handgun. This type of pistol never existed fifty years ago. It drew power from a miniature generator to discharge a bullet. It was gunpowder-free. 

And so, I checked my phone. An advertisement of a television show was displayed on the notification. It was a fighting show of androids (human-like machines).

Haha. That reminded me. My neighbor's kid loved a character in that show that had awesome titanium armor. It made the said character powerful. Androids in real life now were human sidekicks. The incredible advancement of Artificial Intelligence made them like a perfect partner for humans in doing their daily lives.

But man, it would be awesome if humans could have a skin as tough as titanium or probably as formidable as a tungsten. Heheh, what was I thinking? Focus, now. There are more pressing matters.

Suddenly, I noticed a flash that felt similar like yesterday. My head turned towards it instantly. I saw it through a small vent. It came from the other room - a storage room. I asked my colleagues whether they noticed it, but it turned out they did not see it. I came to that room, only to find nothing but saved archives of past cases. That light was nowhere to be found.

"Geez… Is this a sign that I'm growing ever older? Goddammit."

I resigned trying to look for it. Whatever it was, it bugged me a little. But right now, there was something else bigger to deal with.

We then departed to the Newtech nuclear reactor with five police cars supported by an armored vehicle that was sent by the military upon hearing the news. I initially wanted to drive my own vehicle, but these bastards shoved me into one of their cars in a hurried manner. I couldn't blame them, though. This case was already more than just weird, it's bizarre. Logic was completely thrown out of the window. It would take a miracle to solve it.

…Even faced with such odds, I was determined to discover what was truly happening behind the scenes.

Upon arrival, the security was already tight with soldiers on guard by the gate. They let us investigators enter the area. After parking, chief's group of eleven policemen went to reactor B. He gave me command of the second squad consisting of ten people including myself to go to reactor C. If you ever wonder, why a private detective led a team of police? Well, I had lots of experience of leading a group of armed troops before.

"So, nobody gonna go to reactor A, over?" I asked on the handy-talky. The chief told me not to worry, "Rest assured, my friend. We are supported by the military in this operation. They will oversee securing all sectors while watching for any suspicious individuals. Over."

I nodded, "Roger that. May God be with you, chief. Over."

"To you as well, bud. Now, let's roll! Over and out!"

With that, we began sweeping the area. My team went to reactor C, the place where I was working under the persona of Professor Goldwin Gunawan. It felt awkward to investigate my own workplace and treated it like a crime scene because Gareth was a possible suspect. 

Because of emergency, security systems like the retinal scanners were deactivated. However, there's something out of the ordinary.

"Hmm… seems no one's here," said one of the detectives while checking the security booth.

He was right. There was no one in that guard booth. The security cameras worked but some of them were shut down. What bothered me more was that there were no employees in sight. It's as if the whole reactor building was emptied, abandoned.

To add more uneasiness, the cameras that were malfunctioning were the ones at my office, the entrance to the control rods sector, and the entrance to the lower stratum of the reactor, the turbine core.

But with that information coming to light, it was only logical that Mr. Gareth and the rest might be 'hiding' in one of those three areas. I'd say he's not hiding, rather not understanding of what's going on, but who knows? We could only find out ourselves.

I took point and led the boys to the entrance to my office. There, we found something… odd.

"What are these?" one of the detectives wondered as he picked up one of many badges lying on the floor. I immediately realized the design and snatched one on the floor myself. "These are their special badges, I assume," I said to him.

"Huh… how do you know?"

"Obviously, they're not like the generally designed badges for the corporate. It was designed uniquely for this reactor only. Look at that symbol, there's a neutron symbol with a C letter hovering above it."

Well, I was the one who designed them. I kept quiet about it for the moment.

"Oh, yeah… maybe you're right, Mr. Zal. They looked similar to the ones on that paper chief showed to us, too. What are they doing lying around anyway?"

That sure was a conundrum. We decided to leave the office for the time being and headed downstairs to the control room. As a head scientist I naturally walked upon the control panel to see today's report on the table. Surprisingly enough, there was a report that was just made an hour ago, just when the morning shift began. It was telling me that everything went accordingly, just as how Mr. Gareth told me. He also signed the report just like how he used to.

However, …

When I veered my eyes upon the control panel once again, I noticed a red blinking light. I had a grave suspicion of what the light was signifying.

"All lights on the panel were in yellow except that one. It's blinking red," said one of the team members. "What do you guys think? Could it mean anything bad?"

"Well, anything that's red can't mean anywhere near good, man."

While they were thinking, I was already a few steps ahead of them.

My suspicions were correct. The dreading blinking red light was from an alert, notifying that there was a problem in the core area. From that moment, I began thinking that Mr. Gareth and the boys might be in the lower stratum where the core was. But there was no proof that he was there. Going there now would risk being exposed to radiation should something went wrong!

Argh, I couldn't think straight. Calm down now. Do a simple math, count numbers, although I'm not a priest from a certain show.

After regaining a slight composure, I remembered the phone call from the morning:

He said, "The core temperature is… umm… pretty stable. It's all in the green, sir."

I figured out something. Why did he pause when talking about the core temperature? He should be able to read the numbers just fine.

"It can't be…!"

At last, my brain finally pieced a vital piece of information together. From the phone call, I remembered:

"…It's all in the green, sir."

That's it. In reactor C, the control panel was built uniquely. The control lights for the reactor were only defined in red, yellow, and blue. 

Red meant emergency or trouble. 

Yellow indicated that a function was halted. 

Blue signified that a machine was functioning properly.

There was NO green light in the control room. The only place that a green light can be found was at the core control panel!

Ugh, this made my head spin like a merry-go-round. This revelation inside my head solidified the fact that Gareth had something up his sleeve all this time without me knowing it. By the time he was calling me, he was already at the core chamber.

I asked myself, "Gareth, man, just what are you doing?"