Juzo looked at the random photographs.
In one there was a teenager doing the military salute with some older men; that had been him at fourteen or fifteen; another, the last photo in that file, showed a young man lighting a cigarette as he left a bakery. That had been him at the age of twenty-five; he remembered it because, during that time, he had rented a room next to that store.
> Log BAP.1209.
>
> At eleven months and two days old, the surviving Binary-C is transferred to the western continent: Rodinia.
>
> Geographic destination: Proxima District—BLACK BAR.
>
> Delivery of Binary-C—BLACK BAR—to local hospital authorities: Satisfactory.
>
> Name given by the agency: White, Adam.
And between indecipherable numerical records and more reports, he saw the photos. One of them showed a little boy identical to him as a child, celebrating his birthday, and another one, a college soccer team where one of the players was a teenager who might as well have been him, but wasn’t him. This guy was Adam White, for sure.
“About my... brother,” Juzo said; it was hard for him to say that last word. “What do you know about him?”
“According to the Satellite Agency, he’s still in the Proxima District,” Rigel replied.
“Do you think he could…?”
“—Know anything about this?” Rigel finished the sentence and shook his head.
“Does anyone else know that I—? I mean, that I was part of this?” Juzo asked.
“Just you and me,” Rigel said. “The original files that are in my report… Well, let’s say those are missing a couple of pages where certain names appear.”
Relieved, Juzo thanked him.
“The good thing is, you don’t have anything to worry about anymore,” Rigel said and pointed to the image where Juzo was lighting a cigarette as he left the bakery; “this photo, this was the last record they made of you. Look at the date it was taken.”
“Leon 24, year 585,” Juzo read; in fact, he could attest that it had been that year.
“Now look at this.” Rigel took one of the folders from Juzo’s hands, turned to the last page, and pointed to the paragraph that read,
> Log BAP.7985.
>
> Within twenty-four hours prior to the completion of the Binary Atavistic Project, the Binary twins will be brought together at the agreed site. The illustrious members of—BLACK BAR—will be informed so that they can attend the culmination, which has been programmed by the project director for the date: Maiden 2, year 585 of the Imperialist era.
“But that was five years ago,” Juzo was puzzled.
“Exactly,” Rigel said. “It’s just that the project should have finished a week after they took that photo of you, but something stopped it.” The detective pointed to the last entry in the files.
> Log BAP.8005.
>
> —BLACK BAR—originating this event, which has led to the total loss of the Primary Plasma doses in our possession—BLACK BAR—An irreparable loss that has led me to make the decision to interrupt the BINARY ATAVISTIC PROJECT (BAP) indefinitely.
>
> Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
>
> —BLACK BAR—Having been forced to sign the cancellation of the first ‘Binary’ class project, the BINARY PROTEIN PROJECT (BPP) —BLACK BAR—for reasons that you already know, and now, seeing myself in the painful decision to stop this second attempt, I, Mr.—BLACK BAR—director of the above-mentioned projects, am writing to inform you of my resignation.
“Nice way of saying everything went to shit, right?” Rigel said. “Apparently, the loss of those doses, of that Plasma, was the reason you and your brother were never reunited.”
“You know what that is? The Primary Plasma, I mean.”
“I searched the Empire’s records and—Nothing. I assume some extremely rare or very difficult to prepare chemical compound.”
Juzo closed the folder and placed it, along with the others, on the rocks of the cliff. He put a hand to his forehead and heaved a long sigh; he would have dropped himself to the ground if he had been alone.
“Do you have any idea what the people operating in that bunker were doing with those files?” he asked later. “Did they steal them to sell them? Were they an industrial espionage ring or something?”
Rigel cocked his head. “By the evidence we found,” he said, “more than a ring, I think it was a few individuals who used the notes from those documents to organize their own project.”
The detective took out his phone and displayed a series of holographic photos above the screen; the faint glow of the projection joined the cold light of the lamp embedded in the rocks.
He enlarged the first of the photographs and Juzo’s eyes hardened. There, an officer from the Criminal Division was standing next to five glass containers almost as tall as him and somewhat oval, each one filled with a whitish liquid that gave a glimpse of what was floating inside: A child in a fetal position dressed in what might have been a disposable gown, although it was difficult to say for sure, the color of the substance that dunked them, and the stains that dust and moisture had painted on the crystalline surface camouflaged what was seen on the outside. One thing was certain: those children were not sleeping.
“I found this in one of the bunker’s chambers,” Rigel said. “It reminds me of…”
“To the images here,” Juzo said, tapping the files.
Rigel nodded, but before speaking he had to clear his throat; Of all the things he had found in that place, without a doubt, that was what had disturbed him the most.
“When the doctors on my crew removed the bodies from that fluid to study them,” he said, “the breakdown of their tissues speed up some three hundred and seventy times faster than it would have been under normal circumstances. Within a few days, what you see was nothing more than bones and jelly.”
Juzo detected a particular look on Rigel, one that said there was more to tell. “What?”
“I think there’s a way we can both get more information about what we’re looking for,” Rigel said.
Juzo showed such obvious interest that he didn’t need to ask the detective to elaborate.
Rigel pushed aside the holographic image of the containers with the children floating inside and zoomed in on others.
“In the room where I found this, there was a kind of operating room,” he pointed out. “This is ground zero for the electromagnetic burst that blew out the circuitry in that bunker.”
These photographs portrayed different parts of a large room where some kind of explosion had occurred, yes, but the explosion of a huge can of paint fill with junk. Contrasting with the glossy and somewhat yellowish plates that formed it, on the walls, there were dark spots that looked like huge brush strokes made by a delirious artist. And not just on the walls, there were black spatters on the floor, above the examination table, the IV poles, and the rest of what came to be recognized as medical ward equipment, even high up, lapping at the network of pipes that ran through the ceiling.
Juzo looked up. “Is that…?”
“Body remains with scraps of clothing,” Rigel bowed. “It could have been astrophysicists witnessing an experiment or doctors operating on someone, who knows, but we recovered at least seven people’s teeth from these walls, plus fingerprints, and none of them show up in our records.”
“Foreigners?” Juzo ventured.
“Maybe. Or simply people who knew how to keep their anonymity.”
“You have any idea what could have triggered something like that?” Juzo asked.
“Yeah, we might have something there,” Rigel said, and projected the photo of the severed head of a Cyclops. From the small shape of its rounded visor, or what was left of it, it had been a C14, a model prior to the current ones. One of the chrome plates that formed his face was detached and broken, although there were cartoonish mustaches painted on it. “This was Alfred,” the Detective announced; “we found him like this. I suppose he must have functioned as a custodian of the bunker until someone recently destroyed him. Do you have time to watch a short film?” And, minimizing the holographic images, he started a video.