CHAPTER 47: DEVIL'S GATE DAM
It was evening by the time Wallace made his way to the door of a villa. This was the villa he had bought for the three from Vicarious Vision. The last time they talked, they had discussed learning about his codes and finishing his game so that they could prepare for the launch. Since then, he hadn't bothered to call them or ask about their progress. It made him feel like a bad boss, but it wasn't his fault. He had been caught up in a lot of things in Italy over the past month, and it hadn't crossed his mind to call them.
The gate opened, and he saw Elizabeth.
"Boss, welcome," she said with a smile, but he could see the dark circles underneath her eyes.
"How has everything been going?" he asked.
"Well, everything has been going well, and we will soon finish modifying the game," she answered.
"How have you been these past few days that I've been away?" he asked as they made their way into the building.
"Well," Elizabeth sighed in despair as she opened the door to the house.
"What happened?" he asked as he made his way into the house.
He saw the living room was a bit disoriented, and he saw Sheldon and Williams, but there was something wrong. Sheldon's face was deathly pale, too pale for someone healthy. The two were focusing on their laptops and stood up immediately when they saw him enter.
"Welcome, boss," they both smiled at him.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked Sheldon.
"He was diagnosed with final-stage lung cancer," Elizabeth answered.
"Since when?" he asked.
"Three days after you left, and he only has a month to live, so we are all working to release the game next month before he dies," she answered, her eyes turning teary. Williams' face also turned teary.
"I don't know why this has to happen just when we were making a headway in our lives," she said, tears streaming down her face.
"Do you want to die now?" he asked Sheldon. They were surprised by the question.
"Well, I don't want to die yet; I still feel like the future is bright, and I can achieve many things," he answered.
"But fate is a beast," his voice dipped.
"Well, if I don't want you to die, you won't die," he answered.
The three turned to him; even the best medical teams in the country had told Sheldon to go home and wait for death. He was supposed to be on oxygen, and they told him he could still live for a year if he were just sleeping and on oxygen, but he said he preferred a month because he wanted to use it to achieve something.
They knew it wasn't possible, but deep down in their hearts, they still hoped something could be done about it.
"We will work for you for the rest of our lives if you can do something about it. We don't mind the condition," Williams said.
"Well, I don't have any condition; all I just hope is that you will pursue your dreams, but the three of you must be together in this, and in the future, you might be going through a lot of dangerous situations," he answered.
"We don't care, as long as you can save him," Williams answered.
"And everything that will happen here must be confidential," he said.
"We accept," they said.
"The three of you should close your eyes, then," he told them.
The three closed their eyes without asking any questions.
"Open your mouth," he said, and the three felt something cold drip into their bodies, one after another, before a wave of intense pain hit them.
With these three, it would be the sixteenth people he would be initiating, and he could only initiate up to one hundred. It seemed that this evolution was even more violent than before, and he reckoned it must be because he was getting stronger.
Their skin was popping like balloons, and their bones and organs were being directly shattered. It continued for multiple times; he reckoned that in the future, he couldn't perform the initiation on humans again because there would be an element of death in it if they couldn't endure the pain.
"Arghh!" the three gave violent shouts.
If not for his clairvoyant ability monitoring them, Elizabeth might have killed herself by biting her tongue; the pain was just so violent.
The evolution took ten minutes before it finally ended, and the three fainted immediately. Though they had changed, their complexions were still not looking good, as their skin was dried up due to dehydration.
This evolution was far more violent and longer than before.
The mental demons came back that night, tormenting him throughout the night and disappearing when morning came.
The first one to wake up was Sheldon.
"What happened?" he couldn't help but ask himself absentmindedly. Memories of the previous evening came back to him.
"What happened?" he thought as he looked at his body. He felt lighter and stronger, unlike never before. The pain that had been tormenting him for close to a month had disappeared. He was thought astonished; there was no sign of the lung cancer—at least, it looked like it had been cured.
"You have to train to be able to adapt to your new strength," Wallace said. Sheldon turned and looked at him with tears on his face. He thought he was going to die.
"Don't thank me yet," Wallace answered.
"From now on, you are not human, as you have become my own soldiers, and as for what I am...I don't know," he answered.
"I will advise you to not go to the hospital for a check-up. Hide it for as far as you can, and I don't expect much from you three for now. All I just expect from you is to focus on your jobs for now," he said as he stood up.
"I'll be leaving then," he said, and left the house.
The weekend passed by just like that; he helped the three get acclimatized to their strength. There was nothing for him to do during the week; he had planned to start schooling, but his schedule told him otherwise. There was no time for schooling now; he was just waiting for Antonio and the others before they made their way to Antarctica.
Besides, he wanted to make his way to the Devil's Gate Dam in Pasadena, not too far from his place. Echo had told him that the place also had some supernatural phenomena, as humans dared not go there at night, and those people living close to the area had to leave due to the mysterious occultic songs they heard there at night. So, the area around the place had been desolated.
Since it was in the outskirts of the town, the dam was left unexplored by the government, but there was something suspicious. The government did not bother about that place, even though it was closer to Los Angeles.
It was Monday night; Wallace's car was parked at the gate to San Gabriel Mountains. He saw a sign on the gate saying, "Off-limits to civilians." The net was woven together with spikes on it, and Wallace could feel the electric current gushing through it to prevent civilians from entering.
"What are they hiding here?" he said as he parked his car in a desolate area and made his way to the gate. He applied force to his leg, and "Boom!" Dust rushed up as he jumped over the gate.
He walked through the mountainous area, feeling the desolate atmosphere. Meanwhile, in a white structure somewhere far away from the gate, deep into the mountains, the structure was made of glass, making the owner able to enjoy the beautiful view of the water gushing through the crevices of the mountain.
There was a man who looked like he was in his fifties in the living room, along with close to fifteen people, all sitting around a table, looking like they were discussing something. A lady made her way into the place.
"What's the matter?" the man asked.
"An uninvited guest made his way into our base," the woman answered.
"Those foolish humans, just kill him," the man answered.
"He doesn't look like a human, as he jumped over the large gates without much effort," the woman answered.
"Is it something you can't deal with, then?" the man asked.
"Dispatch the dark soldiers, then, and capture him alive. We must know who sent him, because it's unlikely that he wandered into the area himself," he said.
"Okay, sir," the woman left.
Wallace made his way through the mountains leisurely, putting his hands into his pocket, but his clairvoyant ability had enclosed a large patch of land. He didn't sense anything at first, but he felt something off with the atmosphere as he continued to make his way in.
"Looks like we have our first batch of guests," he said with a smile on his mouth, and some seconds later, he was surrounded by ten men wearing dark red armor, each pointing different weapons at him.
"Intruder, who are you?" a lady walked forward and asked.