Next steps

"That sounds good to me." Hino looks over towards the other room where the corrupted man has been strapped down in case of trying to flee, the worms having been separated from the man just to be and his body. Lying down, there was much rein in the art of research that could be done at this point.

Lucy closes down the window blinds, making sure they can't see the scenes which will unfold. Understanding the situation, Hino doesn't press it any further as both wait.

The sounds of fire and water, with even loud, daunting noises entering their ears, can be heard from across; the various cascades of sounds were rather intriguing but also frightening from what could be going on inside.

Hino, due to his adventures today and the apparent kick-in of exhaustion due to the closure of an immediate danger, means his adrenaline started to fade away and fatigue started to set in once and for all.

'Time to get some sort of sleep.' He looks around the room, finding an array of seats lined up; their greeny pastel colour was quite the spectacle in this society, but he didn't care at this point. He lies down on the seat, getting slight gazes from Lucy, who doesn't want to interrupt.

His eyes shut down slowly, allowing the darkness to settle in despite the brightness of the lights emitting from the ceiling; he couldn't care anymore.

The sounds of the experimentation start to drown out just like the darkness overwhelming him; both combine their efforts, lulling Hino into a deep sleep, allowing him to rest after this eventful day.

Lucy lets him wander off as she unfolds the blinds, wanting to see the action herself. Her gaze focuses on the various tests performed on the worms and then the body itself; testing both aspects was important for her.

Fire, water, surges in power and various other tests were performed to their best ability within the confined space and limited resources.

A scientist exits the room with a sombre face prepared to convey the news, her blonde hair matching Lucy's look almost identically, her slender figure fast approaching almost in a rush while her hollow eyes reveal an emptiness within her.

"Minister, the tests are going as expected, but it seems Mr Hino made quite the achievement with his theory."

"Explain to me, so what do you mean by that?"

The scientist leans, giving an awkward glance before continuing to ramble on, "Fire was ineffective; water was ineffective too. Obviously, smashing it to pieces worked since it's not the strongest of metals, but more importantly, the power surge worked super effectively."

Lucy gives a slight smirk.

"I suppose that kids experience of the real world gives us sheltered people a run for their money." Lucy points back towards the room.

"Minister?" The confused scientist exclaims slightly.

"Prepare a communications test. I assume they still can interact with each other even after separation."

The scientist cuts in, "They do. They also seem to possess some sort of signal-emitting system, not the usual we've seen in the past or present, but it can't differ that much."

"How are you so certain?"

"We would be dead since our location would have been leaked." She points out a rather hidden unconsidered flaw that definitely shouldn't have been allowed to happen, especially with the expertise of everyone.

"Start cracking down on the communication technology; I will assemble the rest of whatever is left." The scientist gives a nod before walking back into the room. On the other hand, Lucy goes into the main control room of the hidden HQ, trying to connect to the camera systems to find any sort of help.

Her eyes wander through hundreds of cameras, finding only corrupted corpses and the destruction of buildings. To worsen the situation, most of the cameras within the network were destroyed anyway.

Click click.

The mouse continues its battle with the hand; Lucy stumbles upon the old sewage tunnels, which seem to have some sort of coverage for them. She starts quickly clicking to get past the sight of rubbish and sewage until a slight pixel lightens more than the others; she immediately clicks back, remembering why this camera exists.

'This is to monitor the underground city which started to develop. We got rid of it in the new HQ due to rather unnecessary electricity wasted for monitoring it; it seems to have manifested into quite the buzzing city.'

She clicks through the cameras, trying to find better angles; for a minute the clicks continue until the conclusion that there is no better camera. The only few she gets are from across the lake, above the wooden platform from before; the little figures moving could be both corrupted and normal; she didn't know.

'Him and K4 both entered these tunnels when they first infiltrated Shilo; I'm guessing that's how they survived for two weeks. How could we have missed this? How naive we are as a defence agency.'

Immediately standing back up, she prepares to assign the task, quickly remembering the loss of the entire agent squad with only a teenage boy to spare, who already depleted his energy; there wasn't much she could do but wait.

'I will send him there with me tomorrow; despite his skills, I doubt that he alone could convince families to help us out, especially if their reason for being stuck down there didn't arrive as well.'

She reminisces about the times of imprisonment and segregation that she committed: 'I had to do it; they were too focused on development anyway to be sustainable, and now look at them with their flashy city compared to our ruined metropolis.'

Her smirk widens.

'The ignorance that we bred over here is comical. The ignorance that we deluded our lives into hoping this would never happen – we would have been wiped out if they didn't arrive after all and even nearly killed herself for it.' Leaning back onto the chair, she starts to close her eyes as well, entering a sleep worthy of her status.

'Tommorow barriers will end, and we will prosper as a whole. Let me rest before the big day.' The sounds muffle down, the clicking stops, and the screen remains static, just like she did now for the rest of the day and night.

The black space traps her, chokes her, and becomes just a mere figment of what is possibly going outside of this tiny enclosed bubble.

"Was that also part of your plan?" the pouted, white-haired girl exclaims.

The fiery red-haired child laughs, "Well, it wasn't... But it was quite the show you put on." Her figure rocks forth and back in the floaty space.

"These readings don't even make sense anymore," the white-haired girl said, analysing the figures displayed on a control panel; the readings were off the charts in all aspects, like a machine of errors.

The red-haired child starts to swim towards the control panel, clinging to the white-haired girl. "Do you even remember who you are?"

"I'm Pandoiuem, the ruler of all robots and such or whatever," it exclaimed, almost super egotistical about it.

The white-haired girl looks down, thinking about something. "Feels familiar, but I can't wrap my head around it myself if I tried."

"If you want your old self back, then do not fret! I will save you." The almost excited pandemonium seemed to start flicking at the control panel.

The white-haired girl sighs, knowing that it isn't that simple. "What's the condition of saving myself from eternal forgotten memories?"

"You catch on fast for a person with amnesia. The condition is simple: I want you to allow me to become a part of you."

The white-haired girl thinks, "Aren't you already a part of me? What makes this any different?

"The difference is that I can only show up for ten minutes at max before getting blocked out; this will allow us more time," the red-haired child laughs internally.

Thinking over the benefits and also the risks, they outweigh tenfold. "Fine, that's fair to me, but only if you help reawaken from this dream."

"Conditions met": with the snap of a finger, the control panel starts displaying multiple screens that are corrupted in hundreds of ways. Pandeoiem starts to digest each part of it until the memories start to unravel themselves within the mindspace; they create symphonies of sounds and images around the mindspace, allowing the white-haired girl to come back.

Within a matter of moments, the red child was gone out of sight while the white-haired girl passed out onto the black minscape's floor.

The darkness embraces her for what seems a matter of seconds, but in reality, it was the whole night in the world. The flow of time doesn't affect this mind space ever since stepping into it; the scientists also seem overjoyed that there is some sort of signal back.

K4 returned, but at what cost did Pandemonium bargain for?