Pyro's Grand Demise - Epilogue

Today on Channel 3 News, a shocking discovery at a highly confidential GravityTech lab. Due to tremors in the earth at around six-o’-clock this morning, the facility experienced massive damage.

The location of this facility is still being kept under wraps due to authorities fearing interference with the investigation. All we currently know is that the compound is somewhere in Alaska.

The facility itself was located up in the mountains, which was a leading factor in how much damage was caused. News 3 has already sent numerous drones inside the wreckage, and it’s safe to say the footage is disturbing. Please watch with caution.

GravityTech is a pioneer in this day and age, most well-known for their advances in cyborg technology. From the footage, we are able to make out prison cells, testing equipment, and a surplus of medical equipment.

Youth are saying it looks like imagery from the recent horror game, Hospital. A PC game where you have to escape a medical facility run by a cult.

GravityTech ambassadors have yet to comment on the findings. As for the CEO, Anastasia Freeman has not been seen since before the incident. While it’s too soon to come to conclusions, many are saying she is in hiding.

As for her son, Joseph Freeman, he was seen during and after the incident. It’s reported by multiple witnesses that he assisted people in escaping the building. He has not been seen since, despite authorities combing the area for signs of life. Both him and his mother are under warrant for arrest due to suspected involvement.

Ironically, thanks to Gravitytech rovers, sixty-seven cyborgs have been rescued from the wreckage. It is thought that the purpose of this facility was to undergo illegal and unethical cyborg experimentation, which is backed up by the fact that most of these cyborgs were rescued from cells.

Due to the incredibly strong, cyborg resistant nature of these cells, most of them are intact after the mountain’s collapse. What first responders are currently worrying over is a lack of oxygen to those still buried in the rubble. We are currently on hour five after the incident, so stress is rising.

So far there have been thirty-one discovered casualties, and many are still missing. We won’t have exact numbers until authorities find some sort of documentation or someone with intel on the number of people in the compound.

All staff members rescued from the wreckage have been placed under arrest. Both staff members and cyborgs are being medically treated as they’re removed from the scene.

Today marks a historical moment in time. We have to ask ourselves, How much is enough? Activist Manny Turner, advocating for cyborg rights, has already posted his thoughts on most forms of social media. We contacted him for a follow-up to give you an inside look on living as a cyborg, and the consequences of getting a second chance at life…

Joseph Freeman stalked up and down the hallway like a tiger at the zoo.

Yesterday had been the most horrible day of his life, that’s safe to say. It was good in the beginning, of course, but then it turned so far downhill.

And now his girlfriend of thirty-one hours was unconscious in the other room, having an examination done by the first doctor Joe could get her to.

Despite having all the money in the world, it was difficult getting her here. First, he’d needed a heat sensor to locate her body beneath all that rubble. She hadn’t been crushed, thank God, but that was only due to the gorilla-steal which made up practically the entire compound.

He was sick of the news constantly rerunning the same footage and claiming the “renowned new material” could be used in bunkers and safe rooms world-wide. And of course they blamed GravityTech for hiding such a material, and, worse, for using it to entrap human life.

It was actually nice at first, to hear the news dredging his mother’s name through the mud. But one man can only take so much mental turmoil, so he’d finally turned off the television.

They weren’t going to find his mother anyway, so there was no use watching it for that. She would be on the other side of the world by now, stuffed away in one of the mansions she bought through a trust.

McMansion, as Pyro would say, he thought to himself and his chest clenched. She had better wake up soon, or he'd die from stress before she ever opened her eyes.

Joe had been able to slip away from his mother during all the chaos. He hoped she was full of regret, wherever she was.

He’d been so enraged when he found out what Pyro had done. Because of course she had to go all out and bring the compound off the damn mountain. Of course she had to go out the hero, cape waving in the wind as she not-so-accidentally crushed a bunch of people beneath her ruin. She's not exactly subtle.

He could completely see why she did it, which was the worst part. He was mad at her, but another part was proud. She’d brought down his mother’s company in a span of two years. She’d set out on her mission and came out successful, although she would be more parts metal than flesh now.

Being her only “relative,” Joe had to make the decision of whether she got the new leg. Her remaining, organic one had been crushed to smithereens by falling debris. Joe nearly fainted when the blue-type helping him search had lifted the rubble. Still, he was so thankful she was breathing when he checked, if barely. There hadn’t been a lot of oxygen down there.

The doctor exits the room and pops the cap back onto his pen, clipboard neatly tucked underneath his arm. “She’s awake. Woke up when I flashed the light in her eye. If she wasn’t restrained, I’m pretty sure she would have ripped my head off.”

The sound of screeching metal as it’s yanked apart enters the hallway. The doctor gives him a look. “Best go check on her.”

Joe is in the room before he’s finished talking. She’s sitting up in bed, having already ripped apart the ordinary steel restraints on her arms. It’s when she easily peels off the last restraint on her leg and they make eye contact that Joe feels himself fall in love again.

Blue or purple eyes, it’s never mattered. She’s always the one he’ll come back to.