"I'm just someone who has vowed to preserve this place as it is. Frequently there would be a group of men barging in trying to gets their hands on the remnants of the dreadful past. As someone who had seen misery, I couldn't stand the thought of those days occuring again."

"So, you're like the guardian of this place?"

"If that's how you want to call me, lass."

"You're wearing a lab coat, did you work here?"

"That's right. I used to be one of the doctors tasked with surveilling the children. Most of them died in this very facility."

"May I know what happened?"

"An accident happened during an experiment with subject C-35. We tried to add more dust particles into his body to see any noticeable change but accidentally injected too much. His powers grew out of control and poisoned many doctors but it didn't stop there. The poison eventually spread out and took the lives of many children, few of them might have escaped amidst the chaos."

"How did you survive?"

"I was able to make it out from the emergency exit, unlike the other doctors. Though the poisonous gas only dissipated after a long while."

"Then why would you settle here?"

"I wanted nothing of the dreadful days happening again so I couldn't let anyone revive the project I was once a part of. The zombies you fought earlier were the result of my abilities used on the corpses of soldiers. But they turned out to be too weak to be the defense. Now it's your turn to tell me what your intention of coming here is."

"We wanted to recover specifically the list of subjects because someone tasked us to."

"You don't look like bad people but of all things, you wanted to secure that file?"

The old man looks a bit confused but he shrugs it off. He then gestures them to come to his guess room. What the group see in the room are an iron table along with a bunch of chair and a medium-sized sleeping pods. He askes them if they want some tea, only Gilbert wants a cup. Nova and the other 2 girls simply drink water. Then the 2 old men have of conversation together.

"Do you happen to be Jeffrey Peterson?"

"And you must be Gilbert Hawkins. I've heard a bit about you back in the days. Look, you even have a granddaughter now. I wish I had one as well but my wife had long passed away so I don't have any descendants."

"I feel bad for you. My granddaughter is the only relative I have left, her parents died in an accident."

"That's too bad. Though if there was someone I could see as my granddaughter it would be Panda. There was also Polar, those 2 were really close."

"Well, we've met someone with the name Panda. She seemed living fine."

"Is that so? I knew she escaped because I couldn't find her body among those died by poison. As precious as she was to me, I wouldn't want her to come back here ever and I knew she wouldn't."

"But wasn't she someone important to you?"

"That's the point Gilbert. Us old people shouldn't tangle our little ones with the past, we were supposed to be the guidance. I always trusted that Panda would do fine out there, no matter how harsh the world could be. After all, she held a record for being impenetrable to syringes."

"Haha."

The 2 old men laugh together while the girls cannot comprehend the world of elders. Yet, Chella could sense the genuine happiness in both Jeffrey and Gilbert. Nova decides to chime in the conversation of the old scientists, to which Jeffrey doesn't mind. Maybe it is due to the loneliness he experienced for years as he assumed his duty as a gravekeeper.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Could you tell me more about Panda? How was she like?"

"We're not intending to talk about your new friend for the whole conversation, Noelle."

"It's fine, story telling doesn't hurt anyone. Back when Panda got transferred into the facility along with her friend, she was quite timid. I tried to talk to her days by days but she didn't reply. She only spoke few words when talking to her friend so it was tough. It was even tougher for the doctors to make some tests on her because objects approaching her would break with a touch."

"That bad?"

"However, she stopped being shy on the day we had her friend inside a heated room in order to trigger the genetic alterations inside her. Seeing her friend grunting with sweats all over, she broke through the protection glass and dragged her out. The days afterward, both of them were tested with various stimulations beyond human comprehension. I was tasked to surveil them and ensure their stability."

"..."

"In the spare time, Panda would sit along with her friend. I tried to act the role of a caretaker and introduced them to various stuffs. Eventually I subconsciously saw them as my little children. All the moments we made together had given colors into their world but one day, our sponsor was displeased with the idea of a child soldier behaving like a human. He slapped Polar and causing Panda to break his right arm. She was immediately isolated without any treatment for days."

"How could a man be so cruel to a child?"

"It was money that made people like him believe they deserved everything they desired. We met such person once in our search for materials. He wanted to buy a town and people resisted so he forced them but my granddaughter sent him to oblivion with her crazy invention."

"But grandpa, that was the biggest blackhole I'd ever created in my life."

"That sounded really wild."

"I agree with Evaline. Your inventions always were something."

"Hey, am I the story teller or you here? Let's get back to it."

"Keep going."

"After days of isolation, she completely shut herself away from me and her friend wouldn't tell me anything no matter what. She became very uncooperative so the doctors had to put their tests on hiatus. My superior intended to pick someone to surveil her in my stead no matter how much I pleaded. Panda ended up being isolated again not long after due to the death of the new supervisor. This time she was permanently quarantined until needed. She barely received enough nutrient per day for a child, I suspected that the staffs planned to discard her."

"Was the new supervisor offed by her."

"Yes, he treated her like an object, always ruined her time with her Polar. He got it coming for him for going overboard with them both."

"..."

"I was sad over not being able to help them, my voices of concerns were ignored by my workmates. The sponsor even threatened to lay me off. I was worried that both Panda and Polar would be left for dead. But one day, someone accidentally injected too much dust particles inside a boy leading to his ability go out of control. A poison gas appeared inside a test chamber and many were infected. In the chaos, the rooms containing children were unlocked somehow and many died due to the gas spreading. I did not know if anyone survived aside from me. But it took a week for the poison to dissipate, I went back inside the facility only to find corpses but none belonged to Panda nor Polar. That was when I decided to atone for my mistakes by making sure the project I worked on with others would never be revived."

"So that was how it ended."

"If I could meet Panda again, I would talk to her and let her know you're still safe and sound."

"Thank you."

"I think I know what we should do next now. We'll find the survivors."

"But how can we find them if we don't know who and where they are?"

"Wait a minute, Doctor Peterson. Could you explain about the QR code on the cover of the list?"

"If you access the facility's database with that code, you could see a list of DNA samples extracted from the children's blood. You could find them if you had a device that could track someone with their DNA, but unfortunately I don't have one."

"I think we have one. Chella, Bit can scan your genetics right?"

"Yes, that's one of the function installed into my program. What do you need?"

"We could have you downloading the data into your computer and you could do the searching."

Chella holds the QR code in front of Bit, the A.I starts downloading a new list to its database. After a bit, it successfully registers the new information. Having acquired what they came for, Chella's gang say goodbye to Jeffrey and leave him be. He bids them farewell and opens the door hidden in his room and walks inside, closes it again.

"Now then, should we give Reynaldo the list as requested?"

"What if he plans to search for the survived ones as well?"

"Nah, how would he know the incident? Wait, he told us to get the list. He knew about the lab."

"Maybe he just heard about it."

"Guess we'll give it to him then."

Outside, Reynaldo is ready to pick them up with his spacecraft. They give the book to him and he checks the content, confirming it's the right one. Later on, he drops them off in the middle of nowhere. The next time they meet, he will act like the enemy he's supposed to be. Chella and her friend don't think much about it, they continue on the way to go back to Metaltown.

Now that they have specific individuals to look for, they arrive at the town planning on an upgrade to the Omega-Driller. After the ugrade, Chella and CO stay at the town for the night. Next morning, they prepare to leave the town and wave goodbye to the townsfolks. With everything ready, the gang goes onward.