Chapter 3

"Eliminate the threat,"

Reaper's voice echoed through the darkness. Suddenly, there was utter silence. But Neo was still shrouded in endless darkness. Soon enough, Neo noticed that something was different. The cloud of darkness he used to be in was the actual manifestation of darkness itself, but the one he was currently in was just the… absence of light.

Also, Neo noticed another disturbing fact: he couldn't move! His limbs seemed to be glued to something.

"What is going on?"

Neo yelled, venting his frustration.

"If you don't shut your fucking mouth over there, I swear I will come there and fucking shut it for you."

A husky voice echoed throughout the darkness, making Neo flinch.

Unexpectedly, another voice, which was unmistakably feminine, sounded again.

"Oh, our guest is awake. Cut him some slack, bastard. Those miscreants must have hit him too hard on the head. Stay still, let me help you with the veil and ropes," the feminine voice said, coming closer to Neo.

Neo felt a soft hand on his face, and something fell off. Several beams of light entered Neo's eyes, making his vision blur for a second, but then his ciliary muscles came into action, adjusting his view.

The first face Neo saw was the face of a beautiful lady. She could have been the most beautiful person Neo had ever seen, if she wasn't unkempt, tattered with patches of some black substance around her face.

Neo ignored her presence and took a quick glance around the room. There was an orange glow, giving the room a gloomy atmosphere. Its source was from a fireplace that was coalesced with some debris strewn along the room. A burly figure was sitting on a makeshift bed, his shoes right beside him giving out an especially nauseating stench. Neo suspected that he was the "shit face" that cursed him earlier.

There was also another gaunt figure standing beside the door. He seemed to be busy with something. The grace at which he worked betrayed the fact that he was a seasoned scholar… well, at least Neo thought so.

Beauty snapped Neo out of his daze with a light tap. She lingered for a moment and then said,

"Look at that bad boy over there," she said, pointing to "shit face," and then she continued, "He had planned to use your body as bait, of which I was in full support of, but now that you are awake… that changes nothing. The only way you can redeem yourself is by being useful, so get busy," Beauty said, smacking her lips as she walked away.

Neo entered an introspective state for a second. Everything that was going on seemed quite alien to him, so he needed to analyze a few things before determining his next course of action.

He had been given just one objective by that asshole reaper:

"eliminate the threat," before he was plunged into that God-forsaken place. So, acting on that command, going around stabbing everyone in an attempt to find out if they were the threat was a fool's errand because killing anyone that wasn't the threat might actually lead to his doom. Not to mention the fact that he wouldn't even be able to take someone like "shit face" one-on-one without losing his head. So, swinging a weapon around was definitely out of it. The only way to conquer the allegiance test was to use his wits, while also trying hard to keep himself alive, that is.

"Easy peasy,"

Neo thought sarcastically, even though he knew it was anything but.

Neo sighed and stood up from his chair. He needed to play along until he had enough information to act on. Until then, he had to "get busy," just like Beauty had said.

Taking a few steps, Neo immediately noticed that he was very weak, like abnormally so. A sense of dread dawned on him, but he just continued walking with a frown on his face. Things weren't looking really good.

Neo walked up to the scholar working at the door. The scholar greeted him, and Neo replied curtly. The scholar seemed quite approachable… well, compared to the others he was, so Neo was tempted to ask him a few questions.

The first question Neo managed to ask was if the scholar had any idea how Neo got there.

Surprisingly, he did. He explained that Neo, together with the others in the quarantine room, were the first sets of people to come in contact with a neuroparasite named ARV (Autolytic retrovirus). It kills its host and takes charge of its brainstem, creating a similitude of sentient movement, using the corpse as a mobile machine to seek out other preys. But unfortunately, or fortunately for the disease control center, nothing happened to them. They even had to put Neo—or whoever he was supposed to be—into a temporary state of hibernation when he was unwilling to follow them to the quarantine room. That was how Neo had slept through the whole calamity. The scholar also explained that he was one of the scientists working at the disease control center. Unfortunately, he made contact with the virus during a research exercise, so he was plunged into quarantine with the others.

He then brought out a communicator and explained that it was meant to exchange information with the other scientists, but it had stopped working few days prior . Neither was there any food supply; everything just halted, even the lights switched off, so they had to switch to mundane fire. After running out of food supplies that morning, they had decided on an escape plan and just in time for Neo to wake up.

A husky voice echoed from across the quarantine room, interrupting Neo and the scholar's conversation.

"Hey nerdy, how's it going," Shit Face asked, his voice muffled, prompting Neo to check out what he was up to. It turned out Beauty was right on top of him, smooching and engaging in a nasty activity that Neo would rather not let his mind wander about.

"Almost" the scholar said, abandoning Neo to his thoughts as he continued his work.

"Degenerative bastards!"

Neo cursed as he retreated into his thoughts. He didn't know much about biology and genomics in the academy, but at least he knew that an abomination like that ARV was not supposed to exist. Well, technically it wasn't, since the test for allegiance was actually an illusion, maybe. But unfortunately, Neo was right inside that damned illusion, so to him, that abomination was as real as the inevitability of death.

"Now that I think of it, that ARV might just be the threat," Neo thought. He could already feel a headache coming on.

"No wonder no one has ever passed this thing," Neo thought, a huge frown visible on his face.

Once again, "Damn you reaper!"