Introeunt figura-LXXII

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DATE:1st of August, the 70th year after the Coronation

LOCATION: Concord Metropolis

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The professor's underground HQ was clinical and unnervingly quiet, hidden beneath layers of reinforced steel and concrete. Driving into the steep tunnel, the sound of the car's engine echoed off the smooth, industrial walls. I parked in an immaculate garage lit by dim, fluorescent lights and exited into an airlock chamber.

Inside, the hallways stretched ahead like a maze, sterile and lifeless, their metallic walls glinting faintly under the overhead lights. As I moved forward, the professor's voice crackled over the intercom.

"Wait there," he said, his voice hoarse. "I'll need a moment to… change."

I stopped, shifting awkwardly in the empty space, until one of his drones—a humanoid machine with sleek black plating and a glowing blue visor—rounded the corner. It didn't speak, just gestured for me to follow. It led me to a hospital-like room.

I glanced around while waiting. The room smelled of alcohol and chemicals, its shelves lined with tools that looked both surgical and experimental. Monitors displayed indecipherable data, their faint beeping the only noise. After a few minutes, the intercom buzzed again.

"Workshop," the professor said simply.

Following the drone, I entered one of his workshops. The air was sharp with the stinging scent of disinfectant, stronger here than in the rest of the base. The space was cluttered with equipment: half-assembled devices, glowing screens, and a tangle of wires.

At the center of it all stood the professor. His hazmat suit was slightly crumpled, its visor foggy. I could see his eyes through the condensation—bloodshot, with dark bags hanging beneath. He looked as if he hadn't slept in days.

"Here," he said groggily, holding out a new phone. The device was a fortress of technology—heavily armored and designed for endurance. "This should hold up better than the last one. At least… I hope so."

I took the phone and turned it over in my hands. "Looks like it could survive a nuclear blast," I muttered.

The professor didn't laugh. He merely gestured for me to hand over the SIM card.

Sliding the card into the open slot, he carefully reattached the screen. The phone vibrated violently, the glow from the screen casting harsh shadows on his tired face. The SIM card fused into the phone's circuits, melting into the device with a faint crackle of energy.

"That's… interesting," I said, watching the display stabilize.

He didn't respond immediately, instead staring at the phone with hollow eyes. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat. "It's working. For now."

I frowned. "You don't seem too thrilled. What's going on?"

He sighed and slumped against the workstation. "An important experiment," he said, his tone clipped. "Something I've been working on for a week straight. It's… complicated."

"You look like hell," I said. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Does it matter?" he snapped, then immediately softened. "Sorry. I just… I need to finish this. After that, I'll rest." He was strangely personal. He must be very tired.

"Right," I said, not entirely convinced.

He waved a hand dismissively. "If the phone holds, we'll talk more. If not… well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there."

I decided not to press further. Whatever experiment he was referring to, it was clearly consuming him.

The professor leaned against the workdesk, his hazmat suit creaking faintly as he crossed his arms. "Do you need new equipment?" he asked, his voice as dry as the fluorescent-lit room.

I nodded silently, and he gestured for me to follow. We entered a deposit of sorts. An armory to be more correct.

The armory was massive, lined with endless racks of crates and boxes, each labeled with cryptic codes. The air smelled faintly of machine oil and ozone, and the lighting cast harsh shadows across the orderly rows.

As we walked, he broke the silence. "The data from the exoskeleton was... interesting," he said, his tone clinical. "Your ability to slow time doesn't just affect the immediate vicinity. It seems to ripple across the entire planet, albeit subtly."

I glanced at him, noting the dryness in his voice. He sounded as if even this revelation was just another dull footnote. "So, you've been watching me from the suit's cameras?" I asked bluntly.

He stopped and turned to face me, his fogged visor obscuring his expression. "I don't bother to spy on you," he said flatly. "But your opponents' technology was... questionable. Worth analyzing."

"Not surprising," I replied. "Those inventions were made by one of your former colleagues."

He gave a dry, almost robotic nod. "Yes, I know. And yet, no matter how many scans I run, I can't recall him."

He muttered, turning to inspect a nearby rack. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "The leader of the organization you were fighting was another of my former colleagues, based on what I saw from your suit's footage."

I sighed internally. So much for not spying on me. "Who?"

He paused, then said, "The hologram you saw was Naomi Sayahara. She disappeared years ago when her time travel experiment went catastrophically wrong."

That name jogged a memory. Alice had mentioned her once, in passing. "She shouldn't be alive," the professor continued, his voice tinged with genuine surprise.

"Then why not contact her?" I asked. "Convince her to stop chasing me."

He shook his head. "Naomi and I were never on good terms. Even before the accident, she hated me."

"Why?"

He chuckled, but it was humorless. "Jealousy, mostly. Though I doubt she'd admit it." His tone made it clear he was omitting something, but I let it slide.

Turning back to the racks, he pulled down a crate and opened it, revealing a sleek new set of flak armor and an upgraded exoskeleton. The suit gleamed under the harsh lights, its design more streamlined yet clearly reinforced for heavy action.

As I examined the armor, he muttered to himself, almost as if forgetting I was there. "It's ironic, really. All of my former colleagues have become my rivals. Naomi, Biz, the mysterious inventor, Lucas—Alice's father. Even my own disciple..."

I glanced up. "Rivals? Most of them are criminals, not competitors."

He gave a dismissive wave. "Call them what you will. At one point, we all had the same goal: to evolve the human race. But they lost sight of that goal, along with their morals."

I bit back a comment about how self-righteous he sounded. Instead, I asked, "Do you have any weapons I can take with this?"

The professor's visor suddenly cleared itself, the fog wiped away by some internal mechanism. For the first time, I got a clear look at his face: the sagging skin, the sunken eyes, and the dark circles that made him look like a ghost of himself. What age was he? Eighty? Older?

His lips thinned as he remembered something. Reaching into a smaller box from the rack, he pulled out a compact case. "Inside is a smart gun," he said.

"A smart gun?" I echoed.

"Yes," he said, handing it to me. "It adjusts to your grip, calculates ballistics mid-shot, and locks onto targets with pinpoint precision. Just don't point it at anything you're not ready to kill."

His tone was cold, almost detached, but there was an edge to it—an implicit understanding of the situations this weapon was meant for. As I took the box, I couldn't help but wonder if all the professors in his life had turned on him, or if he was the one who had driven them all away.

I opened the box and found a sleek yet oddly unfinished pistol, its design unmistakably that of a prototype. Its metallic surface was dull, with a few exposed screws and a lack of polish that hinted at functionality over form.

I frowned, lifting it out of the case. "I'm not going to be your product tester," I said flatly.

The professor didn't seem fazed. "It's fully operational," he replied, his tone almost dismissive. "I just didn't bother to make it look prettier. I gave up on supplying it to the military."

I glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. "Why?"

He adjusted his foggy visor before responding. "It was too effective in killing. Too... efficient. I feared what would happen if criminals got their hands on these."

He placed another box beside the first and opened it, revealing neatly organized magazines and ammunition. "There are two types of ammo," he explained, holding up one of the smaller magazines. "This holds twenty pistol-caliber rounds." Then he picked up a larger magazine. "And this one holds ten slugs. Armor-piercing."

I examined the smaller magazine, sliding it into the gun to test the fit. The professor continued, his voice steady but detached, as if he were giving a lecture. "The pistol has an automatic fire mode, but don't use it with the slugs. The gun will jam. It's a design flaw I never got around to fixing before I abandoned the project."

"Convenient," I muttered, setting the gun back into the case.

The professor sighed deeply, the sound muffled by his suit. He gestured toward the door. He also gave me another box with the drug. "That's everything. I'm going back to my project. You know your way out."

He didn't wait for a reply, turning and trudging toward the lab's exit. I watched him go, his hunched posture and sluggish movements making him seem more like a shadow of the man he used to be.

I sighed myself, packing up the equipment before heading back to the car.

The drive to the farm was quiet, the only sound the soft hum of the engine and the occasional rustling of the boxes in the backseat. My thoughts drifted as the road stretched on, illuminated by the faint glow of the setting sun. The professor's lab was surprisingly close to Kevin's parents' farm—only about 50 kilometers.

I couldn't help but reflect on his involvement. He knew all this time that I was undead. He'd never mentioned it, never even hinted at it. And then there was the watch. He had to know I had it, but he hadn't said a word about it.

Not to mention how he supplied me with equipment for apparently nothing in return. Why was he doing this? Still that theory of mine about getting back at the Syndicate?

No, it can't be. An eighty year old man still caring about revenge? I want to dismis it, but I just don't know. I have no idea what his goals are.

So strange.

When I reached UltraMan's parents' farm, I parked the car and stepped out. His mother greeted me warmly, insisting I stay the night. I declined as politely as I could, slinging the boxes of equipment over my shoulder and heading toward the nearest train station.

By the time I arrived, the sun had disappeared completely, leaving only the faint embers of twilight on the horizon. The station was silent, empty save for me and the gear I carried.

The peace of the moment felt surreal, as if the world was holding its breath. I sat on the cold bench, watching the sky darken further, lost in thought as I waited for the train.

I stepped onto the nearly empty train, finding a seat by the window. The quiet was comforting, a stark contrast to the chaos of the past few days. I placed the equipment boxes on the seat next to me and leaned back, taking out the phone the professor had given me.

The screen flickered to life as I powered it on. I began the setup process, methodically going through each step while waiting for Emily to wake up.

After a few minutes, a familiar notification appeared: "Hello."

Then, another message followed: "Thank you for saving me from those people."

I smirked, typing back: "How did we even get captured in the first place?"

Her response came almost immediately: "I barely remember. It seems like Deus forced me to go offline for two minutes, probably from what remained of the back door... and that was enough for their agents to teleport in and take us."

Two minutes. That was all it took. I leaned forward, tapping my fingers on the edge of the phone. "Do you know what happened to Mike?"

There was a pause before her next message: "No, I don't. I lost all connection when I was taken."

I sighed, switching topics. "Did you at least pull anything from their systems while fighting Deus?"

Emily's reply was longer this time. "I managed to retrieve some data about their bases, but not much about their capabilities. I couldn't access whether they have more operators like the ones we faced. Deus started loosening his guard after he thought he'd defeated me, but his systems were still well-fortified."

That wasn't ideal, but it was something. "What about Deus himself? Any insight on his reaction to our fight?"

Her next message came with a surprising detail. "He was impressed with you. Taking down Morgan and Sortre especially hurt them. Sortre's implants, which allowed him to create time loops, were made by Naomi herself. Deus said your kills severely damaged their organization, particularly because the technology is irreplaceable."

"Irreplaceable?" I typed, curious.

"Yes. Their implants rely on extremely specific genetic markers. Most human bodies suffer devastating autoimmune responses. Out of every 100 inductees, 97 die during or shortly after surgery. Albion citizens are more resistant, which is why their operators come exclusively from that region."

I frowned. "And how are you feeling?" I asked, changing the subject.

Emily's reply felt almost personal, as if she were sitting beside me. "Recovering. Deus sent a lot of malware my way while you were removing my chip, but it was ineffective. I'm not a computer program; his viruses don't affect me. What almost got me was the physical destruction of the motherboard when you snapped it out of their system. That almost made me lose myself. But I'm stabilizing now."

I exhaled, relieved. "Good to hear."

For a moment, I just sat there, looking at the fading light outside the train window. The countryside blurred past, peaceful and untouched, so distant from the battles I'd been through.

Emily's final message appeared on the screen. "Thank you, again."

I didn't reply immediately. I just stared at the message, letting the words sink in. "You're welcome," I eventually typed back. And I meant it.

The train hissed to a halt, and I stepped onto the platform, the air cold and biting. I hadn't made it three steps when a conductor approached me. His uniform was crisp, and his expression polite but firm.

"Excuse me, sir, could I see your ticket?"

I ignored him, brushing past without a word, my eyes set on the bus idling nearby. He didn't follow, likely deciding I wasn't worth the trouble.

Once on the bus, I settled into a seat by the window, my thoughts racing. I needed to find Mike. The plan was simple: get one of his burner phones to stay under the radar. But first, I needed cash.

The bus dropped me off in the heart of the city, its streets alive with people and glowing storefronts. I spotted an expensive-looking clothing store with a sleek, minimalistic design, and my eyes lingered on the cashier inside. The cash register didn't seem locked.

Stepping away from the store, I opened one of the boxes I'd taken from the professor. Inside were syringes filled with a familiar substance. Taking one out, I inserted it into the module embedded in my abdomen, the injection process almost automatic at this point.

"Emily," I muttered under my breath, the phone in my pocket lighting up. "Deactivate all cameras in the store and on street level."

Her reply came almost instantly. "Done. But I don't like this." It was as if she read my thoughts on what I was going to do.

"You don't have to."

I took a deep breath and manually triggered the release of the drug into my bloodstream. The world around me slowed to a crawl, time bending to my will.

At maximum speed, I pushed open the store door, my movements deliberate and precise. The cashier seemed frozen, her head tilted slightly, mid-conversation with a customer. In this slowed state, I made my way to the cash register, carefully removing the money and placing it in one of their branded bags. To avoid leaving fingerprints, I used my bloody coat as a barrier.

With the cash secured, I returned to my exact position outside the store, exhaling deeply. Time snapped back to normal, the world resuming its natural pace.

I moved on, blending into the crowd like nothing had happened.

Using some of the money, I checked into a hotel and locked myself in the room. The bag of cash sat on the bed as I counted. Ten thousand Zols. Enough to cover what I needed and then some.

Emily's voice chimed in again. "You're really resorting to theft now?" As if that was the greatest of my crimes.

"I didn't have much of a choice," I replied, leaning back against the headboard.

"There are always choices," she shot back, her tone sharp but subdued. Oh my! Such a great mind. I am so impressed It gives me shivers!!!

Come on now. What was I supposed to do? Work a 9:00 to 5:00? With no legal identity?

Was I going to take a loan from some black market vendors? And that was more moral?

Or what? Go to the hero association to retrieve what remained of my salary And possibly be killed? Because I don't think I was officially fired, But it would certainly be a bad idea to show up there.

"Not ones that let me survive," I muttered, turning my attention to the ceiling. Emily didn't respond, but I could feel her disapproval through the silence. What a joke. Now even the AI is belittleing me about morality. Perhaps I should have just let her in their hands.

I stuffed the cash back into the bag and set it aside. Tomorrow, I'd contact Mike and get the burner phone. Tonight, I'd rest.

Sleep came quickly, the adrenaline fading and exhaustion taking over.-*-*-*-*-*