Her eyes flew open.

Blinding lights, curtains all around… The smell of disinfectant.

… And a throbbing headache.

She squinted as she fought the dizziness, gripping the bandages around her head. Her feet treaded the ground gingerly while she held on a nearby cabinet for support-

Footsteps.

Her ears pricked as she scanned the area for a possible weapon to defend herself, but found none. She could fist-fight her way out of this one, but with a dizzy spell like that, she might just end up punching herself instead. Nevertheless… If she was going down, she’s not gonna go down without a fight-

“Oh you’re awake! Please stay in your bed, dearie. You haven’t quite recovered yet.”

The Red Clover turned around wide-eyed.

… An old lady?

The old lady ushered her back to the bed firmly as she placed her hand on her forehead. “No fever, that’s great. What’s your name, dearie?” The old lady’s voice carried an air of coaxing gentleness bolstered by authoritativeness that could only come with age.

“Yuxia,” The Red Clover blurted out before she could stop herself.

“Oh ho ho! You’re Chinese, just like me! Zi ji ren!” The old lady chuckled heartily as she pulled up a chair. Yuxia stared at her blankly, still trying to process what was going on.

“You were hit in the head quite badly, dear. I’m just going to make sure you didn’t suffer any lasting brain damage,” the old doctor said. “Can you remember anything?”

Yuxia furrowed her eyebrows in concentration as she tried to recall what happened- Oh no.

A single tear rolled down her face as the memories began flooding back to her. “D-dad…” she whispered. Yuxia tensed up as the old lady moved forward, but let her arms fall to her sides as she sobbed silently in the embrace of the doctor. It felt warm and comforting, despite the cold metallic armour she was wearing.

“Oh, poor girl. Lost someone, did you?” the doctor’s gentle lulling voice whispered in her ear. Emotions overwhelmed her sense of rationality like water gushing through a broken dam as she hugged the stranger tightly.

“I don’t mean to intrude on the moment…”

Yuxia flinched, quickly letting go of the doctor. She stared apprehensively at the three people standing in front of her.

“Do go easy on her, will you? She just lost someone dear,” the old lady told Victor as she got up and left the room.

The door closed.

“I know you,” Yuxia said coldly, looking straight at Masako.

“And we know this isn’t your first time here.” Victor folded his arms. “Nice to finally meet you face to face, Red Clover.”

Yuxia looked away silently.

“Hey…” Masako said. “I understand that you’re still grieving, and I’m sorry about your father. But-”

“You don’t get to talk about my father!”

Masako flinched as the Red Clover stood up suddenly. “You could’ve done something! You were my only hope at turning him back! And if it wasn’t for the damn transmitter, he… he wouldn’t have…” Yuxia slumped back onto her bed gripping her head as tears streamed down her face.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help. Please don’t overexert yourself; you’re not completely recovered yet.” Masako walked towards Yuxia despite her hostile stares.

“We know who killed your father,” William said. “And I understand the pain and hate ravaging in you right now. But if you want justice, you’ll have to work with us.”

“Why should I trust you? I don’t even know you.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Because I knew Dr Ma Hai, he brings your name up from time to time.” William took a step forward. “I’d say you look prettier than you do in photos, but I’ve never actually seen you in one. Nice to finally meet you. Miss Ma Yuxia.”

“Dr William Toh…” Yuxia muttered. “I thought you looked familiar…”

“I saw his body when we came to rescue you. May he finally rest in peace. He was a great man who saved many people with his biology research,” William said. “But your suit, did your father make that for you?”

“Hmph, wouldn’t you like to know.” Yuxia turned away. “What’s it to you?”

“Your suit is made of thermanite. More specifically, ionised thermanite. Other than reducing thermal conductivity, it has also shown some pretty interesting results when interacting with electric fields. But the technique to ionise thermanite is something I had only shared exclusively with Dr Ma. And now his daughter turns up wearing a suit made of that exact material? I’d be a fool to think this is mere coincidence.”

“Bravo. I see why Dad admired you so,” Yuxia said, glancing back at him. “Yes, you’re right. He made it to prove how our bio electric field is the key to the next step of human evolution. The suit safely alters the bio electric field, camouflaging the wearer’s presence to mutates and making him as strong as them.”

“Then why did your father still turn?”

She took a deep breath and shut her eyes painfully. “Because he only had one suit. On the day of the mutation wave, he came home all flustered and told me to put it on. And then he mutated. I have been keeping my father in his lab, trying to figure out how to change him back ever since.”

A moment of silence hung in the air as William frowned in response. Yet another government official who was prepared before the mutation wave happened…

“Why do you want the transmitter?” Victor pressed.

“Funny you should ask. This transmitter is the power source for my armour; it generates the electric field required to alter mine.”

“I’m assuming it ran out of power then? So you thought to steal one of ours.”

“No. I happened to overhear some of the Sector 163 soldiers talking about those devices while they were preparing to attack this place. Those fools were openly waving around a tablet of instructions about some kind of mutation experiment while talking about stealing your transmitter. I figured it might give me some insight to cure my father, so I simply robbed them and went for you first.”

“A tablet?” William asked, his voice rising with excitement. “Can we-”

“No.” Yuxia cut him off. “I destroyed it after memorising the instructions, in case a tracker came with it. Obviously.”

“I knew it.” Victor punched his palm. “It was Firdaus who sent those bandits.”

“So what now?” Yuxia’s expression hardened again. “Are you going to imprison me? Torture me for intruding into your place?”

“Heavens no. The door is right open for you to leave if you want,” Victor said. “But something tells me that you don’t.”

“Oh please. Don’t act like you know me,” Yuxia hissed.

“You should stay!” Masako piped. “Why wouldn’t you stay in such a safe place?”

Yuxia turned her head away again.

“Forget it, we won’t get to her like this. Let’s go somewhere else since she’s not joining us.” William walked out of the room.

----------------------------------------

“I found out something interesting. Check this out,” William said, taking out the two transmitters and passing them to Masako. “Pass a current through these transmitters and direct it through these lines on the surface. Start low and crank it up as gradually as you can.”

Masako stared at him in confusion before focusing her eyes on the devices. They glowed slightly for a few seconds before suddenly projecting a hologram onto the nearby wall.

“Is that a map?” Victor breathed.

“More like a GPS location,” William corrected her. “Such fascinating technology. Not only is it a power source, it’s also connected to our public satellites. It’s somehow able to boost the strength of all sorts of signals by more than a hundred times. As to how it works, it seems to run on some sort of electricity.”

Masako sniggered. “Really, some sort of electricity? Don’t you have a PhD in engineering?”

“No. I have a doctorate,” William sighed exasperatedly. “But anyway, what I meant to say is that it does not have an internal power source, meaning it’s pulling energy from another electrical source. To put it in simple terms, Masako’s current produced an electromagnetic field that interfered with it just in the right manner for this to happen.”

“What kind of electrical source?”

“This is going to sound weird, but I think it’s the Earth’s electromagnetic field. That’s the only source large enough to fit the bill,” William said, his voice rising by the second. “But if so, think of the potential applications! Imagine how seamless wireless communication can be when we can tap into a natural communication channel! We can-”

“Alright, alright. Enough conjecture. Let’s get back to the matters at hand,” Victor cut off the excited engineer rudely, unfolding his arms. “This is obviously by design; the GPS location seems to be stationary and only a few hours drive away. Now the question is, should we-”

“We should go and check it out,” Masako said quietly.

William turned to her in surprise. “Hey you only just woke up; shouldn’t you be resting?”

She looked at him with a serious look in her eyes. “I want to know why this device got Yuxia’s father killed.”