[POV Era]
The path toward the upper section of the dam was an ascent into silence. As I moved away from the bustle of the communal cafeteria and Sora’s rediscovered ughter, the air grew heavier, thick with the damp scent of the reservoir and a metallic trace my sensors quickly identified as residual biotic energy. The leader’s residence was not a mansion, but an old reinforced concrete administrative structure rising above the dam wall, dominating the settlement like an unblinking, watchful eye.
I stopped fifty meters from the entrance, concealed behind a pile of rusted pipes. My fingers, protected by white gloves beneath my sleeves, pulsed with mechanical anticipation.
“System, perform a thermal and acoustic scan of the perimeter. This doesn’t make sense,” I ordered internally, sweeping the fa?ade with my golden eyes. “This is the home of the most powerful man in the area. There should be patrols, cameras, a phanx of guards.”
[Initiating high-sensitivity area scan. Processing…] the system’s voice resonated with an almost liquid crity. [Negative results, Era. No active human heat signatures detected within a thirty-meter radius. Ambient noise levels are minimal. Only the biotic anomaly’s signature is registered at the core of the structure.]
“Not a single guard?” I murmured, feeling a human unease—a remnant of Orion—crawl along my spine. “Is the leader that arrogant, or that powerful, that he fears no one?”
[There is a third logical possibility, Era. The best hiding pce is the one everyone takes for granted. By having no guards, the leader prevents the inhabitants’ curiosity from focusing on this building. However, the absence of physical security is often compensated with technical security systems or proximity traps. Proceed with extreme caution.]
I approached the main door. It was a sb of solid steel with a rudimentary electronic lock, likely salvaged from the old pnt. For my alloy hands, it was little more than a toy. I inserted the tip of my index finger, which the system instantly configured as a bridge interface.
[Forced access in 3… 2… 1… Lock released.]
The door opened with a metallic hiss. I stepped into a room that looked like an ordinary office: a wooden desk, shelves filled with engineering books, and a couple of regional maps. The air was stale and cold. I began walking in a straight line, following the energy vector the system projected into my vision as a cyan-colored mist.
“Scanning for traps,” I warned, activating spectral vision. My steps made no sound on the worn carpet. I scanned the floor for pressure ptes, tripwires, or infrared sensors. Nothing.
At the end of the corridor, I faced a solid concrete wall. The map in my eyes indicated the anomaly was directly behind it, less than five meters away, yet there were no doors, no cracks, no sign of an entrance.
“System, we’re at a dead end. The anomaly is right here, but there’s no way through,” I said, touching the wall’s cold surface.
[Era, the design of this structure is asymmetrical. The biotic energy flow suggests a subterranean or concealed cavity. If there is no visual entrance, there must be a functional one. Search for irregurities in airflow. Manually sealed areas often require micro-filtrations for pressure regution.]
I closed my eyes and activated the barometric sensors. I moved slowly along the wall, feeling thermal currents. I passed by a rge, worn leather armchair positioned in a corner. There, the air moved differently: a constant, cold flow carrying a faint chemical scent.
“Behind the chair,” I identified.
I pushed the furniture aside with one hand, revealing a concrete panel that didn’t align perfectly with the floor. Applying pressure to a specific point highlighted by the system in red, the panel slid aside with a dull thud, revealing a spiral staircase descending into darkness.
I went down with my white gloves ready to deploy the vibratory bde. At the bottom of the stairs, my eyes adjusted to flickering fluorescent lights. I stopped short, and for a moment, my logic processor locked up at the sight before me.
It was a boratory. But not a human one.
Along the walls, hanging from metal hooks like cuts of meat in a butcher’s shop, were the corpses of Ganuts. Their bodies had been split open, revealing bckened organs and muscle fibers dissected with surgical precision. In the center of the room, several massive test tubes—each the size of a person—contained Ganuts submerged in a greenish fluid. Most were gray and lifeless, their muscle mass consumed by what appeared to be an extraction process.
[Biotic detection alert. Era, look at the central tube.]
I approached the main tank. Inside was a Ganut that had shrunk considerably. Its armor ptes had become translucent, and its limbs were atrophied. What had once been a three-meter monster of pure muscle was now a shrunken, almost fetal creature. But what froze my blood was the heartbeat. Its chest rose and fell rhythmically, emitting a scarlet glow identical to that of the egg I carried in my backpack.
“They’re extracting its energy…” I whispered in horror. “The leader isn’t protecting the people. He’s experimenting on them. He’s trying to distill the biotic essence of the monsters.”
[Era, I detect a cardiac pulse sensor linked to the crystal of the tank. By approaching so closely, you have altered the resonance frequency of the fluid.]
“What?” I excimed.
At that very instant, a deafening siren erupted—not only in the boratory, but throughout the entire settlement. The sound was an electronic howl that vibrated violently through my audio sensors.
[Alert: Intrusion protocol activated. Settlement defense systems at maximum alert. Era, we must leave immediately. The leader and his subordinates will arrive in less than sixty seconds.]
I looked at the shrunken Ganut in the tube. It opened a clouded eye and looked at me with an agony only I could understand. The sirens continued to roar, marking the end of my stealth and the beginning of a war I wasn’t sure I could win alone.
“Let’s go,” I said, clenching my fists. “But we’ll come back for this. No one experiments with life like this—not even a human leader.”
