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SCORCHING BLACK VULTURE
1 - 15: Factory Of Fear

1 - 15: Factory Of Fear

1530 hours, 25 June 0145...

We swept our flashlight beams down the narrow, blackened corridor, lighting the route ahead. Strolling around, I felt a shiver go up my spine and the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, as the creepy, windy atmosphere reminded me if something wicked this way comes.

But as my boredom was getting the best of me, I questioned Joshua.

"If I may ask, how many times have you witnessed your previous companions' deaths?"

He then gave a quick nod of the head and replied.

"Yes. But still, what's happened has happened."

I nodded slowly in response, my voice barely above a whisper. I looked downward to show my empathy for the tragic things that had happened to him in the past. Still, I had more questions for him.

"Again, how did you make that watch? Where did you come up with the idea for such a cutting-edge device as that?"

He responded by waving his holographic wristwatch around.

"I wanted to simplify all of my tasks. I don't want to spend my time focusing on either, or else some havoc gets wreaked upon me all of a sudden. So, I summed it all up with this tiny gadget. And this device will help me whenever I need it."

"And just because I built this cutting-edge device doesn't guarantee that it will operate correctly sooner. Because I have to do weekly maintenance on the internal components to keep my device running well."

And without another word after my nod, we resumed our trek into the slender, blackened tunnel.

***

After two minutes of winding down the tunnel, we emerged into the open, brushing off our clothing to rid ourselves of the clinging dust and cobwebs.

We realized that we had stumbled onto another kind of abandoned underground laboratory, as we felt immense shivering while taking in the sight. Blood stains and shattered android pieces littered the rusty iron floor.

Not only could we smell the strong odor of charred flesh and rotting garbage across the laboratory, but we also saw numerous enormous incubators lined up along the edges of each sloping wall.

Despite the Joshua hologram watch's estimated infection rate of barely 0.8%, we still had to be on the lookout for telltale signs that the infected may be hiding nearby.

My voice quivered with a mix of fear and disbelief as I took in the chilling sight of the abandoned underground laboratory.

"Holy shit, is this the reason this sugar company moved their production to somewhere else?"

Joshua stayed silent but gave a slight nod in response.

"Might be."

While we were strolling around the abandoned underground laboratory in search of something interesting, Joshua accidentally stepped over something that almost made him slip from the floor.

He then crouched and checked what caused it. He suddenly saw a small, blackened box with a black, steely body. As he observed the black box, he queried himself.

"An android's consciousness system? Who's this belonged to?"

As Joshua hastily crouched down where he turned on his hologram watch, equipped the consciousness system with his USB as he connected it to his watch, and paid close attention to them, I then queried.

"Perhaps it belonged to a dead android that Taken-Ki killed?"

With a brief nod in his head, he responded while working on his watch.

"Let me check any working files to find further clues behind them."

While waiting for Joshua to complete his analysis of the unknown consciousness system's data, I took a stroll around the grueling abandoned underground laboratory and took in the surroundings.

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I looked around within the incubator for any indication of life. But the abrupt, loud beep of Joshua's holographic watch startled me as I leaned in close to the incubator glass to see what was inside.

"It's done."

I walked confidently up to him because I wanted to see him put the pieces together. Pressing the play button on his holographic watch brings the consciousness system's data containing the android's memories into the room.

The videos taken from Taken-Ki's perspective showed him walking determinedly towards an unknown figure.

It also exposed the nefarious activities taking place in the hidden laboratory we've stood in, including the recycling of deceased androids' components and their subsequent assembly into armed androids. The criminal researchers even contaminated their android experiments with the scorching virus.

They have also subjected POW Authonoids to gruesome experiments, including mutilating their bodies and fusing them with random deceased android parts without altering their original consciousness.

As I witnessed this recording, my hopes for mankind sank even lower, and I doubted if they committed these atrocities to achieve their goals. My blood was boiling with rage, and I wanted to behead the culprit, burn their bodies, and urinate their ashes.

The video pans to the suited guy who abruptly confronts Taken-Ki as he speaks in an elderly and gruff voice.

"You performed well, Taken-Ki. You delivered the 10 Authonoid corpses faster than I anticipated."

Taken-Ki then responded as he dropped a huge bag containing many decomposing Authonoids on the rustic steel floor with a dull thud.

"I… always… obey… master's… wish..."

I saw blood and oils smeared his bag from how many poor Authonoids he brutally slayed. The mysterious elderly man suddenly spoke with an ominous smirk on his face.

Oil and blood smeared the bag from the numerous poor Authonoids he had slaughtered. A sudden, dark grin formed on the face of the elderly man as he spoke unexpectedly.

"There's no need to overstress about it. You should take a rest. And let your clone do it."

But then Taken-Ki queried with confusion in his head.

"Why… resting?"

"Resting is useful in stabilizing your consciousness system, as your consciousness keeps draining if you rarely take any rest."

But this just served to throw Taken-Ki off even more when he questioned the suited man's answer.

"What's… so important… about that?"

The suited man smiled, touching Taken-Ki's left arm, and replied.

"Just take it easy and don't burn yourself out."

The suited guy looked back over his shoulder as he was walking out of the place and spoke.

"I apologize that I have to leave."

His loafers tapped on the rustic floor as he got ready to leave the laboratory. But then...

"What about?"

Taken-Ki's voice resounded as he pointed to the mound of dead Authonoids in the huge bag. But the suited old man smiled back at him, his tie billowing softly in the breeze, and he casually answered.

"It's alright; I've got everything covered for you. Unfortunately, I have to go. And I hope you'll understand."

He suddenly looked the other way and stepped into the darkness, where it met with a heavy silence. The video faded out, leaving a feeling of emptiness in the room.

He abruptly turned away and descended back into the darkness, as the sudden silence after the video cut off got harder with each millisecond.

Our disappointment stems from the fact that we learned nothing new about the history of the sugar factory or the underground laboratory. But what unfolded before us was a mere heartwarming relationship between Taken-Ki and the mysterious figure. I then kicked my foot violently in the air and mumbled to myself about that.

"Is this the only answer? Then what is the purpose of this factory? Just make this place a fucking tormenter laboratory instead of running this stupid sugar factory instead!"

But just as I was about to give up, Joshua suddenly spoke up while he was busy working on his hologram watch.

"I tried to read a number of files, but their advanced firewall prevents my software from accessing most of the restricted data."

I then let out a long sigh of exasperation when I realized that finding the solution was hopeless. But all of a sudden, Joshua had a lightbulb moment and expressed his concept.

"We could look up images from the internet of the mysteriously suited elderly guy and try to figure out who he is. With that, we may as well figure out who's responsible for this abandoned sugar factory."

"What for? Don't you realize that the internet could deceive us with its incorrect images? And how can you receive any signal in this place?"

"Don't worry, my custom-built software could filter out any incorrect images to prevent any misinformation. And there are plenty of under-the-sea level modem signals I could detect."

I stood motionless and felt the stress as I saw him working on his hologram watch.

With a sharp beep, his hologram watch had collected and processed enough images from the internet to identify the mysterious old man. After that, Joshua looked at the result and paid attention to it.

"It's done. But first, let me clear out the blur from this picture."

"I've collected tons of pictures around the internet that match the face of this unknown man. And these are the results."

His hologram watch then revealed three photographs that purportedly matched the mysterious old man's face. Among them were Axxon's CEO Neil Harvey, Tarumnas's CEO Mick Hughes, and even Agto's CEO Fyodor Zalensky.

As I scrutinized the elite faces, I felt perplexed by the absence of any recognition from his hologram watch, leading me to voice my thoughts to Joshua.

I felt completely clueless as I studied these elites' faces. As I stood up to Joshua, I could feel the strain in my chest, full of elites, that his hologram watch had not indicated.

"Even without trying, I could guess he is either William Harris or a fucking Dmitri Montagne."

"How can you tell from that?"

We kept ourselves quiet as we focused on the face of the mysterious-suited man on Joshua's holographic watch in this blackened factory of fear. But a booming robotic growl suddenly jolted us into a hurried peek over our shoulders.

"KILL… AUTHONOIDS!!!"

A towering android loomed over us, its massive greatsword slicing through the air towards us, poised to strike from above with a menacing swoop.

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