The car drives for several more minutes before it comes to a stop, it’s before a large warehouse type building that has no advertisements on it. It looks abandoned from the lack of activity and how dirty the outside is yet fits the area well.

Sam looks at his friend, “This is the place?”

“Yep, those monsters will hatch whenever they want so the building will often get destroyed. This was an old ammunition factory so the walls are tough, on the outside and the inside. At least that’s what they always tell me, I haven’t heard of anything happening before like on the news.”

“Is it dangerous to go inside?”

“Nah bro, I’ll give my bro a call.”

Sam’s friend pulls out his phone and makes a call speaking loudly, “Heyyyo bro, I got my other bro here outside. No, the bro that needs an egg. No, his was stolen or something and the army is calling him up. Yeah, bro. Alright, see you soon.”

Sam looks at his friend, an uneasy expression on his face, “What was that about? Didn’t you tell him we’re coming?”

“Yeah of course, he just gets too many people flowing through the place, it’s hard to keep up. He’ll meet us outside in a minute.”

Sam’s friend opens the door, Sam does the same following him as he steps outside the car.

There is a foul smell in the air as they stand there, a horrible mechanical buzzing sound comes from the building they’re standing before, it sends shivers down to his very core hearing it.

“Have you been here before?’ Sam asks his friend. His friend shakes his head in response.

Sam stands by his friend waiting for the person to show up. It doesn’t take long for the door to swing open.

A large middle-aged tanned man walks out, his body is filled with scars yet he has a gentle smile on looking at the two of them. Sam’s friend walks forward, they both hug each other in a particular way saying their greetings before they finally turn to Sam after several moments, “So I heard you’re in a bit of a situation.”

Sam smiles awkwardly, “Yeah a bit of a situation… I don’t really have much of an option. Luckily I got this.”

Sam holds out a card, it has the markings over it similar to the package that the postal carrier dropped off earlier, the person new person stares at the card for a moment.

A stealthy smile comes onto his mouth as he speaks, “Oh well it seems you’ll have many options open to you with that card. Many options indeed. You’ll need to wash up first though.”

Sam’s friend starts to laugh, “I knew my bro would hook you up, let’s go check everything out!"

Sam places the card way, he feels odd about the situation but goes with it, “Sure let’s see what’s on offer. You have a bathroom?”

“My name is James, what’s your name?”

“I’m Sam.”

“Alright Sam, I’ll show you through the facility briefly before I take you to the showroom, no need for a bathroom, we’ll sort you out” the middle-aged man walks towards the door, Sam’s friend is following closely behind.

The trio enters the building that is clearly not designed for people to enter it. They enter a narrow hallway that is heavily guarded with multiple layers of guns, large guns and shielding everywhere with 3 different verification systems.

James quickly gets to work using all the machines while Sam and his friend look at the weapons so close, there are obvious deterrents such as the automated sentry guns on the roof and walls yet there are non obvious ones such as pipes for gas and even breakaway walls.

Sam looks at them closely, soon he’ll probably be handling that sort of stuff but for now he’s in a desperate situation where his future is at stake, the door swings open after a series of beeps.

“Alright guys, let’s go.”

The trio rushes through the door that immediately slams shut after they pass through, Sam can hear all the weapons buzz back to life.

James as if sensing Sam’s curiosity about the building speaks, “We have to keep out thieves, the only thieves that’d come here are above stage 2.”

“Ah will it matter if I’m not above stage 2 then?”

“Nope, you just underwent the ceremony, your malleability will be fine. It’s only Stage 1 people that cannot handle it, stage 2 can somewhat handle it.”

“Handle what?”

“The rejoining process, it’s nothing special. It’s similar to what happens at the ceremony.”

Sam lets out an involuntary groan. He remembers that feeling just recently and isn’t looking forward to it again but it’s all for his future, “so can I pick out the creature here or is there something else I need to do?”

“Pick out? Well I guess, there’s only 3 eggs here that you can attempt to link with though.”

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“What, only 3?”

“Yeah, we also just got 2 of those in today. You are lucky that you showed up now as we’ll be rid of them by tonight. They’re popular for all the rich people, I’m just doing my bro a service here.”

“Thanks bro” Sam’s friend taps his heart, James does the same action in response.

“What do you know about the eggs then? Can’t I pick out an already grown monster?”

“You could try a grown monster if you want but that means you lose all the benefits of this growth period. If a mutation happens, the country would be disappointed…” James looks away before smiling widely with the final words of his sentence.

Sam frowns as he thinks it over, “Will I have to pay?”

“Of course but don’t worry about that, the country will pay for it. They’re super generous in that the card you have will pay for it all.”

“How much is it?”

“Why don’t you wait until you decide on the egg first, we’ll decide on the price after that.”

“Fine” Sam says, bringing out his phone, he notices there’s no signal in this place so he cannot even call for help if needed. At the very least, looking up information on the eggs would have been great.

Their walk through the hallway is short, it seems like they don’t want them inside for very long as they enter through one of the very first doors they come across, it’s a small empty room that has several scars on the walls.

A table stands in the middle of the room with three large glass jars on it, inside the glass jars are eggs floating in solution.

James walks over to the eggs and turns to the duo left standing there, “So…”

“So?” Sam asks.

“These are the eggs, aren’t you impressed?”

Sam walks over to the jars, there’s 3 jars there with a clear solution on it, they’re bobbing about in the water yet there’s a problem.

“They’re tiny.”

“Of course, we can only collect eggs like this. The eggs provided by the system can come in all sorts of sizes, what size was the egg that was stolen?”

Sam holds out his hands and replicates the shape of his egg, James goes wide-eyed upon seeing the motions.

“That sounds like a platinum-tier monster… perhaps even king-class… well never mind, these ones here will be just as good. I’m sure of it, plus you have little other options by the sounds of it.”

“True” Sam says while stepping forward, he cannot deny what was said even if it sounded bad.

Sam slowly inspects each jar closely, unable to pick them up off the counter.

The first jar contains a black egg, a bean can be seen moving about the egg as if its ready to burst out. The second jar contains a small orange egg, it has a purple band going around it as two dots move about inside.

Sam compares these two eggs and cannot decide which is better, he moves onto the final egg that is bright pink with blue stripes. A large swarm of dots move about the egg.

“What sort of egg is this?”

“We’re not sure but the last one like this had a creature called a… Shelumono Tololo.”

“What?” Sam and his friend ask in unison.

“We have never heard of it either, you can look it up on the outside. Hurry up and decide, which one will it be?”

Sam looks at the eggs, he wracks his brain thinking about any sort of monster egg information he has read before but comes up almost blank, the only thing that he thinks is relevant is a brief mention that monsters with multiple embryos are harder to control and have longer incubation periods.

Sam looks at the first two eggs ignoring the bright pink one, the black egg looks calm yet black-colour eggs have never been well known for producing good monster. He looks at the second egg for a moment when James speaks.

“Come on, which one? I’ve already got a buyer for one.”

“I’ll take the middle one.”

“Great, give me the card.”

Sam hands it over, “How much will it be?”

James instantly swipes the card over a device, a beeping sound comes over it as the card disappears, “You just had enough.”

The other two eggs disappear from the counter leaving the one in the middle, a vial replaces one of the jars. An injection gun replaces the other jar, James walks towards the injection gun holding it out before wiping it with a dirty cloth.

“Ready?”

“Wait, where’s my card?”

“It’s destroyed when it’s empty, you can thank your country for that.”

James walks forward holding Sam’s arm, Sam struggles slightly but it just results in a tighter grip forcing him to put up with it. The vial is loaded into the injection gun, Sam watches this and prepares.

*SHT*

A wave of strange feelings hits Sam’s body, his body feels tingling as he stands there yet that only lasts a moment before,

“AHHHH”

Sam yells out in pain, his mind feels like thousands of needles are pricking his mind at the same time but each one of them is linked to the other with electricity so it's shocking him at the same time, the pain comes in waves.

Over and over the pain hits him, he yells out each time as his body sweats.

It settles down after 20 cycles, James brings the jar with the egg over, “You should be able to feel the egg nearby, just focus on it.”

James holds the egg as Sam focuses his eyes on it.

It takes several hundred tries but he’s able to feel a faint spark in his mind as he focuses on the egg, a slight connection is sparked as the egg lights up.

Sam forces the connection inside, the egg gets brighter and brighter before holding steady.

“You got it?” James asks.

“Yeah I think so” Sam says, his voice weary from everything he has done.

“Alright here catch” James almost throws the jar to Sam who isn’t prepared yet grabs hold of it at the last moment, it slips out of his hand as it’s unable to grasp it properly. The door they entered through opens again.

Sam struggles to hold the jar, his friend comes over to help him.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, let’s go. I need to take a nap.”

Sam’s footsteps are uneasy as he turns around, James is playing with a device on his wrist as he follows after them as they walk out the door they came into. Sam’s friend is leading the group down the hallway that has a few more people in it now, all rough-looking fighters.

Sam is able to walk by himself as they near the door, James has walked ahead of them.

“What do you think?” Sam’s friend asks.

“I can’t think right now, my brain is almost fried…”

“Aight.”

The two of them stand in silence before the door, James messes around with the locks that seem extra complicated on the way out.

*WOOSH*

The door opens, the two of them walk out the front as the guns are trained on their position closely.

They don’t pause and walk straight out the door, James doesn’t leave the doorway.

“Alright thanks for stopping by, Bro next time you gotta give me more warning.”

Sam’s friend replies, “Sure thanks bro, I’ll see you at sunday lunch.”

James closes the door, Sam’s friend catches up allowing them inside the car.

*BZZT*

Sam pulls out his phone, he frowns letting out a long sigh before leaning back in the chair.

“Fuck.”

“What bro?”

“This message, I’ll read it out… Your domicile is subject to a Tier 3 breach investigation. Report to state level police branch otherwise offence will be upgraded to Class B, minimum punishment 5 years…”

“Upgraded? They make it sound like you’re already in trouble. What you going to do?”

“I don’t know… My parents still haven’t got back to me. I could go and try to talk to them.”

“Nah bro, you just head off to the army. Say you were chatting up some pretty girl, all we gotta do is go there now.”

“Will that work? Aren’t they able to track my position?”

“If they could do that then why are they telling you to report to them? They’d just come get you. Let’s go, the police won’t mess with the army so you won’t get in to any shit.”

“I shouldn’t need to worry about that stuff…”

“You think they’ll believe you? They’re just gonna punish you and you lost your old egg, once they learn you lost it they’ll rescind your special status meaning in the future you will just be a foot soldier.”

“My father–

“You aren’t him, so what do you want to do?”

Sam lets out a long breath, “Let’s head off to the army depot.”

“Ok, you made the right choice.”

The car starts up and drives away, Sam sends out a message to his parents and then turns off his phone. He doesn’t know what has happened to them but he only hopes that they’re safe, they’ll sort out things.