Chapter 665:
He studied her face for a long moment before asking, “How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
Verruckt fell silent, his expression darkening. Then, with a derisive laugh, he spoke. “You’re really young, aren’t you?” She resembled the girl from his memories, but even if the resemblance was uncanny, she could not be subject 001. He had seen her die on the island. Even if she had survived, he would kill her.
“Alice,” Verruckt murmured, his tone cryptic. “You’ll be reassigned to my office area.”
“Yes.”
Once Allison exited the room, Verruckt issued a curt order. “Fetch all the documents related to her.”
“Right away, sir.”
Within minutes, a pile of papers was set before him.
“Stowaway, orphaned drifter, slum resident.” Verruckt muttered under his breath, narrowing his eyes as he scanned the details. Everything appeared to align with their standard hiring practices. The lab only recruited people with backgrounds like hers, those who had no one to raise a fuss if they suddenly disappeared. And yet, for reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint, the woman’s face nagged at his memory.
“Does Alice have any identifying tattoos or scars?” he asked abruptly.
“No, sir,” the assistant responded. “Would you like us to call her in for another examination?”
“That won’t be necessary. However, I want all the records from her life before she stowed away,” Verruckt replied with a dismissive wave.
“Understood, sir.”
As the assistant slipped out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him, Verruckt found himself lost in thought, old memories resurfacing like ghosts from the past.
He vividly recalled the day the island laboratory was obliterated. White phosphorus rained down, scorching everything it touched. Back then, subject 001 was presumed dead, her body incinerated in the explosion.
Verruckt had long convinced himself that he’d left her behind, that the resilient cleaner was nothing more than a relic of a brutal past. But seeing Alice had shaken that conviction. Her face was disturbingly reminiscent of subject 001’s, as if the two images had melded into one.
If subject 001 had lived to adulthood, she might have looked just like Alice.
Verruckt’s crimson eyes lingered on the assortment of candies scattered across his desk.
“If you were still here, you wouldn’t be as fragile as this Alice,” he muttered under his breath.
The words came out in a whisper, but instead of easing his mind, they only stirred up more restlessness.
Oddly enough, the memories he unearthed brought not pain but a strange comfort, much like the sweet taste of his beloved peach-flavored candies.
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