052. About freedom, 2

(Luka)

I checked Stephen's corpse. The poor guy who wasn't really wishing to survive the changes of times.

His body was contaminated and will soon be changing most likely. One could think nothing here matters anymore. Frieleg has been scuttled and will soon sink. Artom and late Shan have their old revenge. We have it...

But the computers behind Stephen are telling me otherwise. There's too much data to read and too little time to do so.

But I'm fairly certain now it says they didn't cause or create these violent changes here. They studied and experimented upon something, very similar at a much lower scale in the past. But Frieleg didn't cause the fall of Cordov and the rest of the world. That much becomes clear.

I want... To see the root of it all...

I voiced it, my wish.

The computers heard me, and understood me. They are of modern intelligent design. Way out of place against the outside centuries old architectures.

I extract the essential data before the building collapse reaches me. I found something maybe we weren't ready for.

~

Breathing the air outside is a gorgeous relief, sadly spoiled by the mayhem.

Artom were able to betray his forced employer thanks to another scientist's help.

Simply put there was another traitor near the head of Frieleg, long before we all crashed here.

Helping me and Morgan escape, helping Yura get in, helping Artom getting his revenge.

It was all the means to an end, for that shadow master buried in this little fortified town.

Now we served his purpose, opening the valves to flood this forsaken place, to let it crash in flames and fury.

Artom met with Yura and Morgan. They're waiting for me near a car at the end of a self destructing building.

Serums and guinea pigs released outside are turning the landscape into that of an abstract hellscape, with soldiers and monsters eating each other.

I run toward them, fighting the nausea, but my hidden transformation is pounding in my chest and bad. Because I also was planning my compromise and escape in my own way.

Stephen's borrowed dreams fall into the rubbles of the hospital and laboratory.

Fireshots land nearby and I go to hide. They want to start the car but a powerful shot pierces through the entire car's engine, digging a clean hole through it. This is bad, and they duck to cover behind another old building.

We're now separated while a sniper is hunting us from quite a distance away.

The sounds do reach us with some audible delay.

I hear pounding in my head. I feel the itch in my blood wishing to change some ways my biology works.

I clench my fingers as they change colours slightly. My blood vessels are flowing and merging or rearranging themselves.

That sometimes leaves parts of me under-oxygenated, and it begins to burst slightly.

A rifle shot blows rocks near my head. I lie down even lower and try to crawl to safety.

Then other shots from a distance are focusing on something much more sinister.

Out of the laboratory rubbles, crawls out another monster. Two even I want to say.

A kind of sharp needle is growing like a tower or a weird looking pine tree. It's something new... And next to it, now unbound, is a more common monster. A heavy looking body, with longer gorilla like arms, and distinctively human features.

Another dead or transformed human I thought, maybe. But this one looked oddly familiar, and differently reactive to the warzone situation.

The hulking creature leaped to cover from the sniper fire after withstanding the first blows straight through its chest.

This one still has some intelligence I realised. A glimpse of a future with successful paradise engineering maybe...

But Stephen's hopes were doomed from the beginning by the traitor above him. He probably had figured it too.

The very wise man of the mountain himself had condemned and betrayed the little kingdom built above his discovery and name.

I was startled by Artom patting my back. They had found a way around to me and came to pick me up.

We returned inside the old building still mostly spared by the firefights outside and rampaging monsters.

~

A - You alright Luka?

L - Yeah... Well...

I open my hand to a small device and computer that displays the essential data. I've picked up.

We see a weird old man talking to a camera.

A golden prisoner, from his own fame and past successes.

He puts on a shirt above his scrawny chest. He is an old guy after all.

He has a clear few bullet wounds that have turned to scars, over his chest now covered with cloth, and around his head, that some makeup covers somewhat.

I look at Artom's shock and pain. He's even tearing up a little as he recognizes him.

All that shit that showered us, its previous and smaller scale occurrence, it happened because of him.

The Lazaretto was built after the catastrophe incurred by his experiments, his discoveries.

My mom lost her father then, and Artom nearly everything else.

The man he had shot dead, multiple times apparently, he had miraculously survived. Henry...

A - That's not fucking possible...

L - His work... Their work about immortality, it wasn't just insanity. They really found something that made it possible... And ironically for you, this Gains doctor was the first clear success.

Everything else was just waste carelessly handled and spilled without consideration.

They fucked everything about nature and biology around here, to the point that monsters came to spawn around freely. Just to achieve this impossible dream, which they did achieve apparently.

An old man cheated death beyond what was previously imaginable. I guess he still likely suffered some trauma and side effects of being shot a few times in the head even, but he was brought back.

And through unrelated correlation, the catastrophe based on similar principles to what he discovered went global recently.

A - Where is he?

L - In the old office building possibly. But...

M - We need to get out...

Artom didn't know who was helping him, and never thought it also was the one ruling from the shadows.

A suicidal wish from the top.

He needed our diversion against the ruling military power here, to launch his sabotage to destroy everything here for good. But Artom is still driven by vengeance. Now for Shan as well.

He wants the ends which he couldn't properly get all those years ago. Avenge my grandfather as well please, but...

L - They need to leave... If there's to be a chance to live... And there are more worrysome things to prevent I think now.

A - Luka...

Now Artom's anger turned against me. He saw me as an evil mastermind like this old man had been.

L - Henry is old and powerless... Rob is trying to... sell his legacy, to less savoury cities.

Artom pulled his gun on me, making me gasp and my friends react in worry.

A - How do you know! Why?

We were all trying to break the shell of time in our different ways. Me, Artom, and also Henry and Stephen.

Helping each other to break free from a structure imprisoning us, around loopholes, looking for the points of rupture.

We all wanted to break a piece of reality locking us inside...

Stephen told me everything... Away from Robert's eyes and ears.

We had our different plans. Even Robert was in negotiations in the end was working on his own escape plan.

But now... Henry's will seems to prevail despite his alignment unexpected with Artom.

Everything should burn... And everyone die.

I'm also scared and sad. I also want to know why the world changed in similar fashion to what happened here before.

But for now...

L - Artom... Robert will try to escape. Do you want him to win after everything you've been through? Neither does I. Nor does him! If you want your closure... It's not me, nor even Henry now...

The last unfair shadow master about to leave with all the spoils today, is Robert.

~