Chapter 1371: For her (2)
[Will we? Look at this place, Erik. Even if there was sothing that could trigger my mories, it’s probably buried under tons of rubble or dissolved into rust.]
Erik walked along the facility’s wall, his clones spreading out to search for alternative entrances. The concrete showed its age—cracks spider-webbed across the surface, and chunks of concrete, tal, and stone had fallen away to reveal rusted rebar.
But then, one of his clones called out to him. The clones found sothing fifty ters along the mountainside—a ventilation shaft, partially hidden by overgrowth but still intact.
Erik headed there. The shaft’s tal grating had rusted through in places, but the opening was large enough to enter. More importantly, it led deeper into the ground.
[A ventilation shaft. How dramatic. If this were a movie, this would be where the ominous music starts.]
Ella sighed.
[True. Though I should ntion that crawling through abandoned vents wasn’t exactly how I pictured this reunion with my work slash birthplace.]
[I know. Mind reading and all of that, did you forget?]
Erik pulled away from the remaining grating. The tal crumbled at his touch, decades of rust having done most of the work. The shaft descended at an angle into darkness.
“I’ll go first,” he said.
[Obviously. I’m not exactly in a position to argue about marching order.]
Erik lowered himself into the shaft. The tal groaned under his weight but held.
He moved slowly, testing each section before putting his full weight on it. Behind him, two of his clones followed, while the others maintained a periter.
Then the dark shapes shapeshifted into bugs to see if they could find anything worthy below the collapsed parts.
[If we do, we must be careful. This ans it will take a lot of ti to clear the place.]
The descent took several minutes. The shaft branched multiple tis, but Erik followed the main path, heading deeper into the mountain. The air grew colder and carried a stale, tallic taste.
[You know what’s strange?] Ella said.
[I should rember this. So part of should recognize these walls, this sll, sothing. But there’s nothing.]
[Maybe. Or maybe Lauren was wrong. Maybe the brain she used was too damaged to keep mories. Maybe I’m just an echo of Ella May Hayes, not the real thing.]
Erik reached a junction where the shaft opened into a maintenance corridor. Ergency lighting fixtures lined the walls, long dead. He dropped down, landing on the dusty floor.
he said.
[A secret underground lab below a lab?]
[The masters of shadows. Quite Ironic it was your father who destroyed this place, and not the thaids.]
Erik moved down the corridor. While this place surely hadn’t been untouched by the flas and explosions his father’s exploits made, it was possible to walk through it. The dark shapes were instead left for the upper floors, the part of the building that had been most destroyed.
They were the only ones able to get small enough to crawl below the debris. They were bound to find sothing.
[We did. I wonder how the blackguards hadn’t found the entrance.]
[Or maybe sothing is down here, and they couldn’t get in.]
The facility’s underground levels had escaped Lucius’s destruction, but ti had been equally unkind. Water damage showed in the ceiling tiles, and mold grew in dark patches along the walls.
They passed several rooms—offices, storage areas, and small laboratories. Many of them, though, were inaccessible since the ceiling collapsed.
[I… Yes…? It feels familiar, but I’m not sure…]
The rooms had been left untouched. As they were when the thaids attacked.
Though most of the docunts back then were kept on paper, the pages had since been destroyed or rotted away by ti. Each empty room seed to dim Ella’s hope further.
[This is pointless,] she said after they checked the fifth empty lab. [Whatever was here is gone. Either your father destroyed it, the blackguards took it, or ti erased it.]
[And found nothing but rust and mold. Face it, Erik. This was a mistake. There’s nothing here that can help rember.]
Erik stopped in the corridor. He made more clones, who spread out, checking more rooms, but he could sense Ella’s growing despair.
[Is it? All I see is death and decay. My daughter died here, Erik. Died trying to save humanity from monsters I created. How is that supposed to help?]
[Humanity survived because Dr. Chen made the brain crystals by creating the sinister cold. Humanity survived because people like your father fought back against the thaids, and others fought what remained of the Silverline corporation, and then the branch that eventually beca the blackguards. Not because of .]
[It is.]
I’m Reworking the book. It should take 7 months to end it.
Reviews
All reviews (0)