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Volume 5
Chapter 06: The Box
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The night was long. Rex’s condition was exactly the same as before. The crowd outside eventually spread out as the screams of pain and the panic in his house began to gradually quiet down.
A humming droning sound could be heard faintly coming from inside the house.
–the BOX was working at full force.
There was a [SYNC] status with a blinking red dot and a bar for its progression at its panel while there were wires and a sensor attached on Rex’s head and chest that was connected to The Box.
Inside, the McCullers brothers were frowning and a serious situation was bidding the air around the four men a dull grey thickness.
Frank glanced at his brother and their eyes met.
“Do you know what this is?”
“I have no idea. Father’s orders.”
Upon exchanging glances, they looked up at Graham and then sighed inwardly to themselves and burrow their worries.
Graham, of the four, was the one with the gravest of expressions as he was the one who was only following the orders of the one on the holo-screen, a man in a dark mask watching the events unfold.
The lips under the man’s dark mask beamed a smile as he watched the floating panel in front of The Box make green confirming messages.
“Ah, indeed, I wasn’t wrong.” He said, pleased, his voice old yet stolid, “You have done a great job this time, Graham, and I have to thank this young man in front of us as well. Rest assured, everything will be as I have promised.”
“Yes, Father.”
Nodding, the man in black mask leaned closer and nodded before he spoke again, “After installation, hide The Box carefully and lock its contents until the right time comes I order it to be opened.”
“As you ordered.” Graham replied somberly and the floating holo-screen with the black masked man popped out and Graham heaved a sigh.
Hank on the side looked up at Graham, “Do you think this is still too early? I mean, what exactly is in this box?” then back at Rex, “It’s just that… his talent is… it’s such a waste…”
Frank followed, “The boy’s Inner Energy Meditation is yet to enter the Changing Phase. As martial artists, I cannot really give my utmost agreement to Father’s instructions to waste such talent. I mean, we might not know anything about this box but to have his drop of blood used to sync with its contents… it just doesn’t bring a good feeling.”
Graham frowned and sternly replied to them, “Your only job here is to follow orders. If you don’t then I will personally receive your resignation faces.”
As he spoke, the men in the room could hear the bones on his fists crackling one after another. He didn’t have to help his fists to flex them, only by clenching them at the sides was enough to make the twin martial-doctors to laugh dryly. They were indeed masters in their own martial ways but Graham was still a professional bodyguard and his life-long experiences and prowess was still heavens away from their classical martial techniques.
Doctor Martinez on the side didn’t pay much attention on their conversation and only focused his eyes on the hovering panel in front of The Box, most especially to the panel within the box.
In particular, his attention was actually fixed on the side panel showing the records of his Brainwaves during the time that he was online for the past 48 hours.
When Graham noticed this, he asked, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing, actually.” Martinez shook his head. “In fact, I find it rather… amusing.”
Graham raised a brow, “How so?”
“Well,” Martinez picked up the Brainwaves reading panel and enlarged for the other three to see then he continued, “If you’d remember his past readings, the [Rage] and [Love] parameters are above the threshold of what we have acquired from other patients with a former and current comatose status on the same stage of experiment. This means that his progression to cure himself was coming from very deep reasons that are coming from these emotion parameters. But this one right here…”
At his prompt, he picked up a part of the panel and the graphical readings that formed rising and falling waves on the spectrum of a bar showed a display of a particular bracket on a particular time.
It showed that in a span of two hours during the bracket of time indicated, Rex’s mind that was inside the game at that time experienced a particular phenomenon that made all his brainwaves readings flat out on the verge of exceeding the threshold, and yet only at the verge of actually reaching it.
“This…”
“Wow…”
The twins on the side couldn’t help to gasp and feel surprised but at the same time, a smile of helplessness emerged on their lips as they shook his head.
Graham, on the other hand, frowned, “Meaning?”
And so of course, the twins obliged to explain, “The kid’s mind actually experienced what we like to call a breakthrough. As he was online at that time, we’d guess that…”
“…it was his avatar who made the breakthrough.”
“And if the avatar made a breakthrough, it means that something in the game happened…”
“…and that something can be explained when we go and compare the time of this breakthrough to the time when it was in the game…”
“Right. Knowing him and his character, I would assume that something big had happened inside. Let me take a look at the recordings in his NLD.”
I’ll check online for comparisons.”
Frank moved his fingers and summoned a floating panel window. Graham on the side computed the time as well and compared it to the time when Rex was inside the game.
Hank saw the recordings on the NLD and gave it to his twin brother. The two bumped fists and then they worked simultaneously to hack and decrypt the game file.
Two minutes later, Hank frowned and tapped his twin brother’s shoulder showing a scene.
“Whoa, this is…!!” Frank’s reaction alerted Graham and he walked over. Frank immediately began to search the web and, after a while, Frank completed his search. At the moment when he did, he stopped breathing and his eyes went wide.
Hank peeked on the window he was working on and he too had his eyes going wide.
“B-But this…” Hank was stuttering.
Graham snatched the holo-window and looked at its contents as his eyes narrowed as he read an article in the holo-panel, with the Headline of the NEWS:
Terroa in the verge of Destruction
Culprit: SIVA
As soon as he saw this, Graham’s first thought was The Box…
“Stop the installation!” he roared and his voice boomed as he reached his hand towards The Box but just as he was about to stomp hard on the [STOP] button, the red blinking prompt for the [SYNC] turned green and The Box then rejected all other command prompts and closed its holo-panel and ultimately closed itself from the outside world leaving only a quadrilateral crate with no opening or any kind access port for human inputs.
There was a silence in the house and it all happened so fast that none of them actually managed to recover for the next few seconds.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“What happened?” Martinez was the first to recover and he felt aghast. “Why did The Box suddenly closed like that?”
“Chief…”
“Chief Graham, this…”
The twins were also shocked. They have no idea what this box was but they knew from the weight that it was not an ordinary item… especially when it came as part of a direct order from The Father.
Graham staggered back, face pale, gritting his teeth.
He closed his eyes and then summoned a panel but before he could dial the call, an enraged voice came from behind them.
[What did you do?!]
Turning around, they all saw an angry Augustus in a Real@D rendering of him on his office somewhere far away. When they saw him standing there, they all felt cold sweat form on their backs.
In fact, seeing his enraged posture, all of them, aside from Martinez, all felt that this rare sight of an angry and enraged Augustus Laniary was a foreboding omen of a very unfortunate demise.
“B-Boss…” Graham stuttered. The twins couldn’t say anything and they lowered their heads. Martinez bit his lips, not daring to look at AG in the eyes.
[That is a Nanotech Crate!]
Graham, looking back at the locked box, gulped down a mouthful of air and staggered to speak up at his employer, “Boss… it was an order from…” but before he could even explain, AG already shouted.
[I don’t care whose order it came from! You have no idea what you’ve just unleashed upon us all!]
Graham knelt down and bowed at AG. “Forgive me, boss, I couldn’t say no to The Father’s orders! He had my brother hostage!”
[None of it matters now! You’ve all just done us all a great deal of problem!]
Graham raised his head and summoned all his will to ask the question, “H-How big… exactly?”
[Bigger than all of you can imagine!]
After yelling, AG sat down on his sofa. He doesn’t have his white mask at this moment and so he used one hand to actually massage his nose bridge.
The silence in the house was weird. The sight of a kneeling Graham was something new to the twins but the sight of an enraged Augustus Laniary was even more of a bad omen for those who know him.
Martinez, although he doesn’t know him personally, had been hired for a specific purpose during this one particular assignment. And in fact, to be honest, to be able to handle a unique case such as Rex Kingsley is a once in a lifetime chance for him so he ignored all other things and wholeheartedly devoted on being able to do his job and learn things from this.
And yet, from the limited time he had spent in contact with AG, he couldn’t help but feel that the always cool and relaxed him, losing his composure in this manner, only told him one thing.
He looked at The Box secretly, and gulped.
“What have we done?” he asked himself in both fear and honest confusion. Personally, he wanted to know what they have indeed done.
But then, taking note of the words [Nanotech Crate], his eyes went wide as he realized something grave about those words.
“Don’t tell me…” voicing this, AG sighed.
[At least the doctor was able to patch the clues together but what good will it make? It’s too late now though, now that you’ve just successfully given the kid a weapon to FUCKING destroy everything!]
“The Box?” Frank and Hank looked at the box and whispered at the same time.
Martinez replied, “Nanotech Crate… it’s the World Government’s –the UNICORN’s prototype military weapon technology… fundamentally designed to be resistive against all kinds of hacking and was also made for specific use to the Jupiter Atmospheric Exploration project of the UNICORN. A friend of mine was part of its initial development and I heard that it was developed seven years ago.”
[Not entirely correct, but close. It was developed by Doctor Pegasus alongside the NLD and RPG:Terroa with the final touches using the Kingsley duo’s data in the development of RPG: Terroa. Graham, as you’ve followed me the longest, you know what this implied.]
Graham lowered his head further. Stuck between a wall and a rock, he had no excuse to what he had done today. He could only grit his teeth and accept his punishment in the future.
“Doctor Pegasus… isn’t he dead?” Martinez voiced.
[No, he’s alive. And more than alive, he’s actually in the most secured and most advanced facility you all could even think of.]
“Most advanced facility?” The twins exchanged glances again, frowning in honest confusion.
“Boss, do you mean the headquarters of UNICORN in Geneva?
AG shook his head helplessly. He pointed up and the Doctor amongst the four in Rex’s house frowned as well as Graham and the McCullers twins. They, too, had no idea what that pointing above meant.
So, sighing again, AG spoke:
[The lunar base of the UNICORN, the headquarters of the Energy Preservation and Operations Council.]
GASP!
The four inhaled deep as they processed what the UNICORN-EPOC meant. It was the «Council» that was responsible for the research and development of alternative energy sources for the human race.
As the world nears the middle phase of the 22nd Century, the unstoppable booming population was already becoming quite a threat to the environment.
In fact, even during the 21st Century, before the first ever country–Germany–that proposed the banning of using Fossil Fuels to power vehicles and cities, and even before the time that the UNICORN had implemented the idea worldwide, energy crisis had always been the biggest challenge to counter.
Thus, they poured on vast amounts of manpower and research technologies to build the Lunar Base «Epoc» in the surface of the moon.
It was a facility that had all the latest technologies of mankind and also, despite its distance, is connected to Earth’s Neural Server Network via hundreds of linked Mega-Satellites.
The people in this facility are also up-to-date to the happenings back on Earth.
Using the He3 (Helium-3) abundant to moonrocks, Fission Generators, aside from the abundant Solar Energy from the sun, powers the entire facility. In truth, the FGs supported almost all of the facility’s vast energy consumption requirements thus the Energy Research for mankind actually continued on without any worries.
The facility is UNICORN Military’s [TOP-SECRET] project and very few individuals are in-the-know of its existence. So of course, with them knowing of it right now left everyone astonished.
[Graham, you know Pegasus’ aim, right?]
“Y-Yes boss.”
[And yet you still followed.]
“I…” Graham bowed his head back, not daring to lift it up anymore.
AG crossed his legs and leaned his head back to the headrest of his sofa. A long sigh can be heard from the speakers and when he looked at them again, his brows frowned as he looked at The Box.
[The Box is still sealed right now. Take it away to a place you don’t even know and no matter what Father orders you to do, do not ever try to recover that box. Do you all understand?]
Graham, Frank, Hank, and Martinez all nodded their heads in confirmation of the command.
Even though deep inside, aside from Graham and Doctor Martinez, the twins still doesn’t understand what actually it implied when AG said that they’ve just given [the kid] a weapon to destroy everything.
And yet, from how grave AG sounded, they just couldn’t help but nod and agree. AG, despite his schemes and his attitude, is also someone concerned to the well-being of the people… as things turned out… or not.
Before the call disconnected, the four heard AG speak in a helpless tone.
[I’ve already spent an entire fortune on my Project so I will not let anything hinder my plans… including even The Family.]
BLINK!
The Real@D rendering blinked into nothingness and AG and his sofa in his office vanished. Left staring at the wall, the four sighed heavily.
Looking back at the box and the now soundly sleeping Rex Kingsley on the sofa, the four nervously glanced at the now soundless and dull-looking metallic square shaped box –the Nanotech Crate.
Graham exhaled, “I’m sorry.” And the other three all looked at him on confusion before Graham moved and picked up The Box with one hand. “I’ll be taking this with me. I will also report it to Father so don’t dare make the mistake of making or answering a call from anyone in the Family. Do you get me?”
The three, especially Martinez, nodded. Vigorously.
With an angry and cornered bear-like man such as Graham, when he gives the warning, even if you’re a martial artist and was considered a master of an art, it is still better to nod… vigorously.
Graham turned and never said anything else as he brought with him The Box and their car, driving away from the neighborhood.
After a few minutes of silence, Rex gently opened his eyes and looked around him.
When the twins saw him, they forced the usual playful treatment they have with him as in the past.
“Hey, kid, got any good dreams to tell us?”
“You ought to share you know, after what we just had to endure to save your skin again.”
The smiles of the twin contained something on them as they patted Rex’s shoulders one for each. The Doctor Martinez on the side couldn’t help but look at Rex in a different light.
With traces of fear, incredulous reservation, and a sense of excitement as well as a specialist in the field of neural science that he practiced, he just can’t help but harbor the thought that…
“This kid… I can’t tell if it’s good or bad but the things that he’s entangled with… I can’t even imagine what kind of future is awaiting him with these people calling the shots from behind the scenes.”
Sighing, he leaned his head on the couch and closed his eyes to rest.
It was a few hours, actually, and this fight to save the kid for the sake of The Father’s and AG’s game is pulling off lives to be entangled with it.
The players inside the game…
Martinez’s life…
These twins…
Graham’s little brother…
Even this neighborhood itself…
…everyone was being entangled in this war for self-interests, profits, and goals.
Martinez couldn’t help but sigh again and put a hand on his eyes to shield it from the light coming from the lamps in the ceiling.
“This game that «The Family» is playing…” He thought bitterly. “It’s just so frightening that thinking about how it will develop in the future is just a waste of time. Because, as far as I can see it,” Martinez then looked down to glance at Rex and stared at him from behind his hand that covered his face. “This world has just become this boy’s chessboard and he is the King of both its players.”
With the addition of a UNICORN Military Weapon, how it’s going to turn out from this point on will only be messier than this mess.
Martinez became afraid and yet, there was something else that was holding his wits together and won’t let him submerge in despair just yet.
It was Rex’s mental readings. As a scientist, he can’t pass the opportunity to see something new created with the help of science. He was actually looking forward to the grand completion of this experiment!
Martinez recalled everything he’d seen so far and he couldn’t help himself thinking just what The Family is trying to turn Rex into.
AG was trying to control his mental state using his own freedom while The Father was trying to awaken something in him… like an instinct or a hidden grand nature that is present to all humans but held back by the rules that binds society.
Looking at the panel Hank and Frank was looking at earlier, he carefully thought of what they were all doing here…
He was a bit skeptical.
As a scientist, he knew that trying to provoke the limits of a human mind will only bring upon either a violent man or a tamed monster…
These two, AG and The Father, were clearly trying to do either of the two to Rex Kingsley.
But no matter what it was, Rex Kingsley is indeed a pitiful kid. He was trapped in the chessboard of a game played by two Gods-amongst-men.
As a chess peace, he has no say to the matter even as he became aware of it all.
“Poor lad…” he murmured. “What a poor lad.”