Chapter 20:

I Don't Want To Set The City On Fire

Machine Heart


"Project M.M?"

"Wait Kei... It's not going to be...?"

"Stop, let's go to the factory first, then we'll elaborate on everything calmly once we get there."

"Right, right."

"We'll just go back the same way as before and we'll be there in no time, let's hurry."

The two made to exit the building, but Sophie noticed something.

"Stop, something wrong."

"Something wrong?"

"The whole suburb is full of groups of people walking in single file, in an absurdly coordinated manner.

They are hopping around holding their arms steady and alternately looking left and right.

It's terrifying Kei, they seem to be under someone's control."

"Under someone's control?"

"Wait a minute... One of those groups entered the factory in front of us by passing across the street.

Now it's clear, they are searching all the factories in the area."

"They're already looking for me, we have to hurry up and get out of here."

"Oh no, they are coming this way!

What do we do now?"

"Hurry up, get on my back."

"Does this look like the time for these things?"

"OH CHRIST, JUST GET ON."

Kei lowered himself onto his knees, letting her get on his back, and just a second before the group of people burst through the main gate, the boy took a leap of at least 20 meters, employing enough strength to even break a few ligaments, but in doing so he landed directly on the roof from the building.

Once he landed, the two looked down on the situation from above, taking care not to be noticed and speaking in low voices.

"Did you hurt yourself? You jumped incredibly high, didn't you break something?"

"It's okay for now, my legs are burning a bit but it's absolutely no big deal.

Rather look there, those guys have completely white eyes."

"Ew... But who could do such a thing?"

"It's definitely the work of C.C.

That man can control Machine Heart with a snap of his fingers.

I never understood how he did it, probably to control such a large amount of hearts, he was helped by the government.

In any case, we can't stay here, we have to leave as soon as possible."

"And what do we do about Dexter? We can't leave him here, if the government found out he would surely be killed."

"There's nothing we can do for him, even with the strength we have now facing hundreds and hundreds of people would be an impossible task.

Remember also that they are innocent, we can't hurt them as if nothing happened."

"You are right..."

"Come on, we will move across the rooftops."

Kei took Sophie on her back again and began to leap between rooftops.

The distance was not that great, but since he also had to carry the girl on his back, the force he had to employ with each jump was enough to make him feel crazy pain.

But despite this, he didn't stop for a moment, trying to get to the hiding place as quickly as possible.

Having gained his freedom, he was now intent on finding out the whole truth about the Machine Men.

He wanted to understand why, people like him were treated that way.

He wanted to know more about "Project M.M."

However, this was not the reason that drove him to run like crazy, until his legs turned red and he felt his heart burning in his chest.

All the while, the terror of meeting this man haunted him; he felt as if he had him at his heels.

He wasn't afraid for himself, but for Sophie.

If C.C. found her, he might do the same things to her that he had done to him, and the thought of losing her or that he might suffer because of him, pushed him not to give up and keep up.

It took them much less time than expected to arrive at the site.

Before entering, the girl checked with her x-ray vision if there was anyone in the building, and once the all-clear was declared, they climbed down from the roof and entered.

"So this is the place where you spent your childhood?"

"That's right, sad isn't it?

I hadn't missed this fucking shithole at all, and now that I look at it as a free man, I just feel like throwing up.

Don't look around too much, it's just a huge fucking empty room, there's nothing interesting about it."

"Kei… What's that?"

"That what-."

On one of the metal walls stood a huge red writing.

It had been made in blood, and was still fresh.

"WILL FIND YOU."

"That piece of shit..."

"He knew you would come here, now where can we go?"

"Nowhere, we'll stay here.

Remember what the stinker said?

The most obvious place to find us is also the safest place to hide.

If C.C. wanted to leave me this message he probably did it to try to scare me away from here, where the road is taken under siege by his troops.

Besides, as I already explained , there is a secret room here that even he doesn't know about."

"Are you sure about what you say Kei?"

"As much as that guy may be a hopeless jerk, the fact that he's a genius is also true, and I doubt he would give me such advice and risk putting me in trouble."

"That's okay I get it, I don't have many other alternatives anyway-

Hey! Where are you going? I'm talking to you you know!"

Kei approached a manhole cover present in the center of the room.

"Nono wait a minute, you don't mean to tell me that we have to descend into that shit quagmire!"

"That's right, in this factory there's a kind of sewer antechamber connected directly with this manhole.

There's no other way to get to it except through here."

"Ew... But wait a second, how did you find that out?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know."

Subsequently, Kei opened the passageway and the two of them, after lowering themselves into the sewer shaft and walking through a very dirty, crusty pipe, arrived at the sewer antechamber, a kind of room divided in half by the sewage stream that connected directly to the sewer in the periphery.

"The smell may not be the best, but I assure you that no one will find us down here."

"It's disgusting Kei... I don't like boys with such habits."

The boy hearing that sentence made a slight annoyed expression, which then turned into a rather sad one.

"I-I was joking... I'm glad you think of me as your girlfriend..."

"My girlfriend?

Let's cut the crap now, we need to go over the documents Dexter gave us."

"You're right...."

Kei took the envelope and started again from where he had been standing.

"PROJECT M.M.

My name is Dexter - - - - -

These are the results of my research regarding Project M.M developed by my ancestor and his colleagues."

"Look at the bastard, not only do we have to read his very boring report, but he also dares to erase his last name, how am I supposed to write this down?"

"Write it down?"

"Nothing nothing, pay no attention to it, let's continue."

"In 2035 mankind made a big mistake, which was to disregard environmental regulations, ruining the planet irreparably.

It then decided to @#€@#+@- and that is how the metropolis was born, to protect the last remaining humans."

"I'm more and more convinced that he was bullshitting us by giving us these documents, why delete information that seems so important?"

"But how much are you complaining? Keep reading, hurry up."

"The metropolis is developed like a big eye, with in the center its beautiful golden blue iris, and in the periphery, its dark sclera that houses at its borders, the great wall that separates the metropolis from external dangers.

The central tower called LaTes has the main task of /@-€&@)€_&#&# and transmitting information through the entire city, without it, we would all be doomed in simple terms.

The plan to create the metropolis, was named Project M.M.

Although at first I could not understand why, as I studied the matter more deeply I came to the solution.

From the very beginning, the founders of Big Government wanted to create a hierarchical society that would give total benefit to citizens in the center, while those in the periphery would be completely enslaved.

Historically, slavery had long since passed, and it was not remotely conceivable to reintroduce it so explicitly publicly.

So a more intricate but functional solution was opted for.

Artificial wombs were created, a crazy thing!

They were certainly out of their minds in government to think that a slave churning machine would be accepted by society.

But they were as crazy as they were brilliant, and so with the knowledge of the time they thought of a rather simple thing.

"If they're not human, they're not slaves, right?"

And so they created the Machine Heart, initially intended to replace the heart only as an expedient to be able to say that the subjects were not human, later also used for the control and subjugation of the subjects in question.

Isn't it amazing that all the subjects whose seed was being stolen to use it to create labor slaves were none other than the seed of the @-##-@-#€-# ?".

Kei and Sophie continued reading, the pages were filled with information explaining how unfair the project was, how the government played with words to make it all seem like a legitimate thing, that all the luxury in the center, was derived entirely from the hard work of the Machine Men.

They talked about how old the technology was, how it would be so easy today to free everyone and replace manual labor with autonomous robots.

How this was not being done to show that the government was in control, to not face the consequences of more than a century of legalized slavery, of all the means the government used over the years to suppress every single form of revolt against this system.

But most of all how the whole Big Government was founded on the existence of this social class, and how if it disappeared, power would immediately slip out of its hands.

The two had definitely had enough of reading all these things.

Having gained freedom only to realize how miserable their enslaved condition was made them boil with rage.

"Now I'm fucking sick of it Sophie."

"There is nothing we can do about it, you read what Dexter wrote about it, we are powerless in the face of this."

Kei looked with a gaze filled with anger at the papers.

But then a strange idea came to him, one of those exciting ideas that make one smile as soon as they leave the antechamber of his brain.

"Do you remember what Dexter told us at the lab?

We are so strong that we could take over the whole metropolis if we wanted to.

So you know what ? Let's do it.

Let's organize a revolt, Sophie."