Edith marched through the dimly lit hallway, her heavy footsteps echoed into the empty room that laid a few yards ahead of her. The little light that managed to reach her in the darkness revealed a muted shine, as she walked directly beneath the green illuminants the impressive metallic armor she wore could be seen with clarity. Grey plates almost seamlessly covered most of her chest and arms while a dark material seemed to hold the whole thing together beneath it all. The armor was clearly nicked and scratched from intense use, the weathering of the metal was placed into contrast with the helmet on her head. A pristine dark glass covered her face while the rest of her head was protected by lustrous black metal.
Taking the last few steps towards the room, she stopped just before she entered into the dark. Even though Thorn were not known for setting up traps, after the battle she and her comrades went through she could not risk them not going home due to a careless mistake.
Grabbing a decoy ball from her belt, a small device that could generate a heat source as well as send un-encrypted radio signals, it was good enough to fool Thorn and lure them into ambushes. Chucking it into the room the effect was instantaneous. A blinding white light overwhelmed her helmet’s sensors for a fraction of a second before it quickly adjusted the amount of light it let into her eyes. Letting the railgun she had reached out for fall back to her side she stepped forward into the now visible room.
Well, this is surprising, she thought as she surveyed the interior, the weapon on her left already forgotten since it was clear that there would be no more fighting to be done in there.
“This is not what the doctor wanted to find, Edith, isn’t this kinda bad?” A coarse voice spoke through her comms, she turned to face her squad behind her as they approached.
“It’s not what they were hoping for but it’s still something we have not seen yet, it might still be useful in some other way.” In what exact way was beyond her, but they had never seen a Thorn lab so whatever was here was definitely going to be of use in some form or another, “Pack everything you can,” her squad immediately scattered to collect what they could, “Not you Lenard, try to download what you can from these computers.”
Edith slowly walked further into the lab, Thorn were not known to be very smart, especially the Skars that were all over the place, so to see an actual facility like this was beyond strange. She knew other types of Thorn could be smart, but if they had built this then she underestimated them by a bit. Looking at the computers that seemed to be embedded into the wet rock that was the walls and floor, it almost looked like someone made this place as a joke. If she hadn’t fought that Svern that was guarding this place she might believe that.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Following the natural structure of the room, she was led to the center of it all which seemed to be the core of the lab. A tall dark tank greeted her eyes, metallic tubes connected to the top and bottom from all over the place.
What is this? Her armored hand reached out and its fingers slid across the dark surface, This dark sheen is covering the inside. Intending to remove the cover, Edith reached out for a control panel next to her, the symbols next to each button indecipherable but intuition made her press the biggest button on the top of the panel.
Without any noise, the dark sheet receded from the tube and dim light escaped into the outside. A small gasp was released from her lips at the sight. A young man floated in the middle of the tank which was filled with a clear liquid, dark tendrils connected to his body from all above and spread all over his chest and even covered his face. Only the lack of pain in his sleeping face stopped Edith from breaking the man out by breaking the glass.
“What in the world?” Her discovery had already brought her squad to her side, each one was shocked and mildly disgusted with the figure before them.
“Is that a human?” asked Miles, one of her newer squad members, although the thing in front of them was clearly human it was hard to believe that Thorn would have kept him. Skars always ate the people that they killed, it might not be inconceivable to think that they might capture a human to torture, but capturing a human for study was unheard-of.
Edith quickly reined her squad in before they let their wonder take hold, “Lenard, see if you can release him, I would rather not break the glass if we can avoid it.”
Answering with a nod, the man moved his shaky hands to try to circumvent the tank’s controls with his own personal computer. Edith was a bit peeved that the rest of her squad did not go back to collecting what she had asked of them, but she knew that they too were simply too worried about the man in the tank. Dr. Yasuo would not be happy with the change of priorities, but to her saving this man was more important than gathering the data in the lab.
A few minutes were spent in silence before Lenard finally spoke up, “This is far too complex, it will take hours at this rate Edith, they really did not want us messing with this thing.”
Edith huffed a little frustration out of her chest and warned her squad, “Alright, then stand back.” Taking a deep breath, she focused on the strength within her and let it exude outwards, reacting to the surge of power her armor lit up in blue light and came to life with small motor sounds. Feeling her suit take in enough power to function for a few seconds she did not waste any time in letting her fist fly out in a fury of motion.
The impressive strike was not able to meet resistance and the thick glass shattered into a million pieces. The clear liquid immediately began to pour out and the occupant nearly fell forward into the sharp remaining glass of the tank before he was gently stopped by Edith’s arm.
Carefully looking at the man in her arms, Edith had only one thought in her mind. What happened to you? Then he opened his eyes.