Chapter 9

9 Neo entered the building, glancing around to find his way. It didn't take him long to find the light source, likely triggered by Scholar. The whole place was pitch black because there were no windows. Even the oxygen seemed thin. The security was... admirable. And best of all, it made tracing the light source much easier.

Neo suddenly entered the room, making Scholar tremble. A dry smile appeared on his face as Neo walked up to the control deck to check out what Scholar was doing. What he saw made his eyes widen. There were two buttons beeping red. They seemed to be working on some kind of separate energy reserve, so the energy shutdown on the DCC didn't affect them.

Beside both buttons were written:

... INITIATING NUCLEAR DECONTAMINATION

... INITIATING PERMANENT SHUTDOWN

Neo's fist tightened as he stared at Scholar with murderous intent. His face demanded an explanation.

Scholar's lip suddenly trembled, and he replied,

"Fine… fine, now that you have found out, I guess there's nothing to hide anymore. All I'm doing is for the greater good anyway, but you just don't seem to understand, do you?"

"When this virus was first discovered among three of you, you were quarantined by our seek-out squad. They wanted to eliminate you immediately, but I told them that the virus might be out there and we needed a vaccine, but that was the greatest mistake of my life," Scholar said, dropping his head. A tear fell down his eyes. He lingered for a moment and then continued. "I gathered the best specialists. I received orders from the management, and we headed for the core chamber.

I was experienced, the best of the best. I was conceited in my abilities to the extent that I mutated the virus and created a variant that would always seek and destroy the virus in case things went south. I fed it to a coyote, birthing that monster out there. It felt so good. I wanted to do more. Then I proceeded to create the first vaccine. I fed the vaccine to you all, and it worked! It suppressed the presence of that virus in your body. So that's why we were invisible to the monster and wraiths at first, but now that its effects are waning, we will inevitably end up like them.

Neo rummaged through it and found a silvery liquid encased in a glass casing. There were a few words scribbled on it:

DCC SS PRODUCT

ARV prototype vaccine

"So this is what you've been hiding," Neo thought aloud as he proceeded to read the cautions.

CAUTION:

Taking vaccine twice or more poses risk of death.

"Well, that explains a lot," Neo thought, putting it away.

Neo approached the control deck. The vast and complex streams of keys, buttons, and screens befuddled him for a moment. He simply didn't know how to operate them. He stared at the words beside the buttons again, as a sense of foreboding crept into his mind.

If he had allowed Scholar's hand to touch the buttons, the DCC would have been shut down permanently without remedy, and there would have also been a nuclear decontamination? Although Neo didn't know what the latter really meant, he could more or less make a rough guess as to its purpose. If there was anything that could destroy any virus, organism even, it's heat… intense heat. So, judging by the name, Neo was quite sure it was some kind of nuclear explosion.

Neo suddenly shuddered, not because of his harrowing discovery, but because someone entered the room. Neo quickly turned, only to meet Beauty staring at Scholar's corpse with dark excitement.

Her lips curved up slightly as she said,

"Ahah!! I see you have killed him, now we are even."

I thought I was the only one who contacted the virus during the research session, but it turned out I was wrong. Everyone perished, and my vaccine only saved a few people.

Shame!!"

Scholar paused a bit. A maniacal laugh escaped from his lips, and he then continued once again. "I might have failed, but I proved them all wrong. They locked up the monster with us to devour us if I failed, but now the monster is feeding on them.

How ironic.

But still, I'm a man of my words... I'm sorry, I'll have to clean up this mess myself. If this virus gets out, the whole world will be doomed." Scholar said, his gaze darkening. He raised his weary arms in an attempt to slam a button.

Neo clenched his jaw. An expression of cold, icy calculation made its way to his eyes.

"I'm sorry too."

Neo thrust the bone in his arm into Scholar's chest. Scholar gasped in surprise as his heart pounded for the very last time. Streams of hot blood flowed down Neo's arm, and Scholar's body fell steadily.

*

A cold, lifeless, bloodied body was lying on the floor. A piece of bone protruded from its chest, with its eyes wide open. A young man was sitting right beside it, weeping. He looked at his bloodied hands, and a pang of regret filled his heart. Right beside him was the first human he ever murdered... in cold blood. It might have been an illusory world, but it felt too real. And worst of all, Reaper didn't declare his victory, which meant that Scholar also wasn't the threat. He felt really miserable, but there was no time to sulk just yet. Death was still looming in the corner.

Neo stood up and wiped his tears. He glanced at Scholar's corpse for the last time, then he used his hands to close its hollow eyes.

As he cleaned the blood on his hand with Scholar's lab coat, he suddenly felt something in its pockets.