Ch 15 Pure light (Part 1)

Sets of swinging head lights shined each side of a red hallway while a person walked throught it at a pace that lunged his legs into wide arches. What would usually be a 5 minute walk, the hurried man covered in 2 minutes; and even though he tried to keep it as silent as possible, he still got a few "shushs" for loud stomps.

Once he found the searched door, he pushed it open without knocking or checking to see if someone was on the other side.

-" Maria?! Is it true? Did those underiq-ued, underwashed, underdwellers kill the boy? Did those morons REALLY-" but before he could continue, a person covered in a white robe with silver trimmings and a Veneziana mask lifted a finger to shut him up.

-" Kindred, remember the teachings. A sunny day always starts with a positive greeting", murmured the voice, which in turn angered the receiver even more.

-" Cut the mumbo-jumbo bullshit, Maria, it's only us.", he spited out in anger, not noticing that a tall figure was standing in a corner, trembling the set of freshly cleaned robes in her hands. She gulped, and turned with fright to her mistress, who was hiding half of her face in her palms.

Maria- " What sibling Arturo meant that when we're in private, he wants to skip the prelude and start the rituals directly."

The maid almost staggered at the sound of that, having never heard of such practices beforehand. But they come mouth of the truth teller herself, so who was she to judge it. " Of course my ladyship. I but an only Sunim, am unable to comprehend yet how those of higher ranks operate."

Stumbling a bit in his words, as the anger that fueled his wide steps still didn't left him, the messenger tried to play along- " Yes, yes, of course, I sometimes forget that Sunims and lowers are still in process of internalizing the daily teachings. In fact, you should move on to the next task, wouldn't wanna be late on your commute."

-" But I-"

Maria then mimicked pressing a button midair, and gave her maid an approving glare from under her mask. " Five stars, Sunim, you have pleased your lady."

A sudden rush of endorphines enwraped the maid, whose entire face turned to sunburn red and almost jumped on her feet. She then grabbed her cleaning tools, gave a deep bow and left the room with a glee that stuck on her for the whole week.

Both waited for the maid's frolicking steps to stop being heard and then Maria turned to angered messenger. "IDIOTA! Barging in like that, what is wrong-"

-" What is wrong? I'll tell you what's wrong! The complete obstruction of our work with the project. The boy, my specimen is fucking. DEAD! AND ALL BECAUSE OF YOUR FUCKING BOUNTY!"

The masked leader scoffed at his tantrum with a limp wrist wave and rolled her eyes so deep to the left that they almost went around the whole head. " And that's why I called you an idiot. Tell me, do you actually think that the specimen was killed - orrrr- that someone is trying to pull a veil over our heads?"

The question suddenly snaped the researcher from his angry rant and he bashed his forehead with his palms, one after another. " Noble, of course! OF COURSE! OF COURSE! OF COURSE! More than likely it was all staged." Just as quickly as he was admonishing himself over his failture, did he jump to the problem-solving stage by proposing ways to verify the death. " Records, files, anything created, modified recently. We need to skim over bilions of daily data."

As the ladyship was used to her colleague's mood swings, she adapted by matching his state. " You can filter further by concentrating on new created identity files. Age range 7 to 10…and in case the girl's death was also staged, check for 15 to 17 as well."

With a snap of the finger, the reaseacher agreed and almost left out the door without saying anything more. Until the masked woman demanded a progress updated on their side.

Arturo- " Progress update? NOTHING. The samples we had were destroyed while trying to get that backwards adapter device to not fry the biological component." He then spat on the floor out of anger, but then cleaned with his bare fingers, realizing what precious material he just dropped. " Precious DNA! What have I done!?"

Maria- " Good. I was about to force you to lick back in. As for the indignation on working on the project….we will indure this if we want to get access to the cloning procedure."

Arturo- " And perfect it. If I have to keep seeing those albino abominations on the walkways…ugh, disgusting."

Maria- "Ugh. Afronts to the temple."

Arturo- " Afronts to the temple!", he repeated in haste.

The masked lady rose from her trone and started to type out a message. " Just keep stalling for time by using other - stop glaring and trust me- samples from the rest of the kids. And while you check the records, I'll try another way."

Arturo- " Hunters again?", he scoffed.

Maria-" Yes…and no. I want them to focus on this-", she then showed him a footage from a first person point of view. It was video of Eury, Sammy and a third, unidentified person. " This hunter cornered them in the elevator. But then, following the intervesion of this-" the woman clenched her teeth and tried to supress the most censored slur thought of for an Underleveler- " YOUNG MAN…he did something to the panels. Which might indicate engineering skills."

Arturo- " Or dumb monkey-pressing-buttons luck; but I'll take that filter in consideration. So we cut it down thousands of workers, maybe with the age we can lower it by….20% procent." The man could already feel a migrane brewing, and preemtively dosed down four tablets that he kept in back pockets.

Arturo- " It's going to be a long week, which means that I'll miss the sacrifice of an unholy false kidney. Please operate the press by yourself."

Maria- " Si, si, posso gestirlo." The masked woman waved her hand, and the researcher left without a word. She kept continued to go over footage, turning her head left to right like a metronome- something about the movement helped her concentrate. " Una coppia di una ragazza e un ragazzo…", she mustered, thinking that it was a posibility. " An extra element to trickle them out."

—

Once he reached his laboratory, a container that just woozed frostbite called him over. A cold, nitrogenic air was being pumped constantly to keep all organic pieces they collected over the years as freshly as when they were firstly cut off. Most of them were kept in glass vases, except for a few more special ones that had another layer of protection to them.

Arturo scanned his pupils and uttered some magic words to open up a coffin with goodies. Or what remained of it. " A blood drop and two pieces of hair…minunato". An assistant carried them for him to the a set of machines and devices, all colored in red and deeper shades of that color.

Arturo- " All right people, we're just going over some simulations today, no more live experminets", he said, which lowered the mood by quite a bit. "I know, I know, but we work with what we've got."

Scanners and lights transformed the laboratory from a place of research to something more akin to a dance ring, but no one felt the need to twirl. Everyone was too focused on the 3D schematic that was forming in front of them.

Arturo- " Going with base human male. Insert the retched adapter the other companies developed." Just as he comanded, the image removed parts of the stomach area and instead of it a cubic metalic box, with wires and tubes springing out of it was inserted.

Assistant- " All the stats are fine my lord. Favored are our chances indeed. Should we continue with the nightmarish artificial limbs from the other companies?"

Arturo- " Ugh…yeah. Go with sample data from 1, 3 anddddd….6."

A moment later, the arms and a leg came off from the model and were replaced with prosthetics, a bit larger than their biological counterparts, but that didn't seem to be problematic for the test. For the next phase, every single person in the room held their breath, crossed the fingers and added their contribution.

Assistant- " Providing biological data for assimilation…", and each followed wide-eyed as a line kept going up and up and up, until it almost reached a critical error message started to blur. Instead of panic, though, everyone gave their most exasperated sighs and an asisstant started listing the issues.

Assistant- " Infections: issue from the core itself. Rapid deterioration of nerves in left arm; adapter and leg 6 rejected eachother because of foreign element detected, i.e a holy bone…my lord-"

Arturo- " I know, I know", he growled but otherwise kept a focused mind. " Add it to the pile, it's not like we didn't expect this. Goddam techno-fetishists, trying to become entirely made out of metal."

To their surprise, though, one positive mark came up. A mutation at the local cords. "…Che diavolo e questa?" asked out loud Arturo as he scrolled with bewilderment at the result. Nothing of the kind has happened until then.