"…seriously? Why so dramatic?"
Glen buried his face in his palm. The little girl shrugged, showing some att.i.tude despite her haggard condition.
"We needed to have a cliffhanger to end the previous chapter, so my dialogue was intended to leave the readers hanging with some cryptic tone."
"The f.u.c.k are you talking about?"
"Does it matter?" Shun Yin cut in wearily. He turned back to the girl. "I"m Shun Yin. This is my friend, Glen. We are here to save you."
"I told you, it"s too late." The girl glanced downward. "I can"t be saved. I don"t have much longer to live."
"Why?" Glen frowned as he studied her. "You look perfectly fine to me. If it"s about food, don"t worry. We"ll bring you somewhere to eat once we get out of here. I know a good restaurant in the neighborhood. It"ll be my treat."
"That"s not it. The scary people…they did something to me." The girl hugged herself, almost burying her face into her knees. "I don"t know what they did, but they said I was…a failed product. A defective. They also said I won"t be able to survive for longer than a month or two."
Glen and Shun Yin exchanged a glance, and then the blond mage snorted. "That remains to be seen. I know a few doctors and healers. They"ll check you out. There"s almost nothing that modern healing magic can"t cure today."
Even though he said that, Shun Yin knew that healing magic was pretty expensive. Healing physical injuries was often covered by the academies, but curing other sort of deficiencies, such as birth defects, diseases (such as cancer), genetic defects and other problems cost a lot of money. Doctors and healers weren"t running a charity, after all. Even a thousand years into the future, capitalism continued to maintain its grip on all aspects of society. The pharmaceutical corporations and even companies that manufactured prosthetics needed a way to make money, and they drove the costs of their products down so as to compete with the astronomical prices that specialist healers charged. Often, medical insurance would cover healing of life-threatening wounds and physical injuries, but for other types of wounds, there were cheaper alternatives.
The world still ran on money.
Fortunately, Glen was from the Porter clan, and he had…connections. He and his father should be able to figure something out for the financial aspect.
"So it"s still too early to give up."
"That"s right," Shun Yin agreed as he offered the girl a hand. "What"s your name?"
The blue-haired girl hesitated for a moment, and then steeled her resolve. "Mei. My name is Mei."
"All right, Mei. Come with us if you want to live." Shun Yin suddenly frowned, and then shook his head. He had watched way too many sci-fi movies. "Even if you don"t want to live, we"ll make sure you live, so just come with us anyway."
After helping her out of the cage, Shun Yin went around to check the other cages for captives, but found horrifying hybrids of what seemed like different animals fused together. There was a monkey with eight spider-like legs and mandibles, its five red eyes s.h.i.+ning brightly against its dark fur. There was a half-fish, half humanoid creature that flopped weakly on the ground. There was a serpent with porcupine-like spikes jutting out of its back, writhing around.Shun Yin did not recognize them. Either they were new monsters whose existence had yet to be recorded by the Global Federation, or they were something created out of a lab. Many of them were lifeless, having expired quite some time ago and left to rot in their cages. Others were near death, and Shun Yin considered ending their misery.
He glanced at Mei and gave her an once-over to ensure that she was fine. Even though she didn"t show any outward defects or injuries, her words continued to haunt him. Unfortunately, he didn"t know any healing magic, so he had best leave her to an actual healer.
"My G.o.d…"
Glen"s voice drew his attention. The lightning mage had been hacking the computer terminals in the room and stealing the data all this time, while Shun Yin was checking out the cages, and he seemed to have caught something in the rapidly scrolling holographic screens that were projected into the air before him.
"What is it?"
"These guys are nuts!" Glen"s eyes were wide in horror and rage. "They were conducting live experiments not just on monsters, but also humans!"
"That can"t be good." Taking a deep breath, Shun Yin glanced back at the cages filled with grotesque monstrosities. That explained why he had never seen those types of monsters before, and why they were dying. Quite clearly they were failed experiments, discarded by the a.s.sa.s.sins" researchers once they regarded them as failures.
Then he suddenly had an idea.
"Any information regarding Mei?" he squeezed her hand to comfort her. "If we know what they did to her, perhaps we"ll be able to save her."
"You mean perhaps we"ll be able to give some useful data to specialized healers so that they can save her," Glen corrected, but he was beaming. "Sounds like a good idea! I"ll run a search program while downloading the data and I"ll let you know if I come up with anything. I"ll run the program in my phone so that we can continue the search even after we leave the place."
In case they got attacked and were forced to flee. Though unspoken, Shun Yin understood Glen"s sentiment and he agreed.
"How long more do you need?"
"A few more seconds…there. Done!" Glen yanked out his micro flash drive from the computer terminal and turned to Shun Yin. "Should we go check out the other rooms?"
"Sounds like a plan." Shun Yin nodded. "Let"s see if they have anything else here in this dungeon of theirs." He turned to Mei. "Do you know if there have been others who were kidnapped?"
Mei responded with an emotionless expression. "As far as I know, I"m the only one who survived. The other people have been disposed of."
Shun Yin clenched his fists as he struggled to suppress the rage welling up inside him. Swallowing a curse, he nodded and returned his gaze to Glen.
"We should hurry. We don"t know how much longer before they realize we"re here…if they haven"t already known there are intruders."
"Yeah."
The three of them left the lab and proceeded to the next one. There were quite a few rooms to choose from, so they decided to start with the nearest one, just after the door they left. Cautiously proceeding toward the door, Shun Yin waited for Glen to unlock the door, and then he pushed it open slowly and carefully.
The chamber beyond was dark, but the lights automatically came on when they stepped inside. It was surprisingly empty despite its size. The room was vast, almost like a cavern that was almost as wide as a football field.
There were several shelves with data stacks, but there weren"t anything else inside the room. Rather, it resembled more of an arena…one of the training arenas that Vermillion High had for students" use.
"What kind of place is this?" Shun Yin wondered out loud, looking around in disbelief.
"Looks like a training arena to me," Glen remarked, confirming his opinion. However, Shun Yin still had his doubts.
"Why would they need a training arena in a place like this?"
"How would I know? You should ask the a.s.sa.s.sins, not me."
"Nothing from your data?"
At Shun Yin"s question, Glen retrieved his smartphone. The search program was still running, judging from the scrolling holographic screen that was projected to hover a few centimeters above the phone. Glen scratched his head as he skimmed through the data, but didn"t find anything.
Then the holographic screen stopped scrolling. Glen"s eyes widened as he read through the data, and Shun Yin quickly hurried over with Mei by his side.
"What"s the matter?"
"Well, I don"t know what exactly they use this room for, but my program has found out what they were trying to do with Mei here." Even as Glen spoke, he used his fingers to expand and enlarge a specific window in the holographic screen, which featured a photograph of a black-haired Mei and several lines of text. Shun Yin leaned close to read and his eyes narrowed when he scanned through the main points of the text.
"f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"
"Yeah…" Glen sounded just as outraged as he stared at the hologram. "These b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were experimenting on her with the spirit summoning technology that our pals in the research division cooked up. Do you remember you told us how Angie was boasting about manifesting spirits in our dimension by sealing them into weapons? Well, these f.u.c.king a.s.sa.s.sins had the bright idea to manifest spirits inside humans…using humans to host the spirits."
"They"re trying to create human weapons with the power of spirits. Of monsters." Shun Yin was utterly horrified by the atrocity. "And to achieve that, they have conducted human experiments. Abducted people and…"
"Surgically enhanced them, and tried to put a spirit in their bodies." Glen glanced at Mei worriedly. "They tried to turn her into a mermaid…a siren, by placing a water spirit inside her body. It didn"t work out, and the spirit sealed inside her is slowly killing her. If we don"t get it out, she will really succ.u.mb in a month or two."
"We have to get her out of here and let your father know about this. The authorities…your clan elders."
"Yeah. Let"s see if we can get more information first. I don"t know what"s in the other rooms, but it"s possible they are conducting other experiments…"
Before Glen could finish his sentence, the door to the vast chamber flew open. Both Glen and Shun Yin instinctively jumped back as something smashed into the floor they were standing on, penetrating the reinforced material and protruding upright. Shun Yin had managed to grab hold of Mei and carry her along with him to safety, and now he placed her on her feet and herded her behind him, standing in front of her protectively.
"Stay back," he instructed her.
"…you"re right. Looks like a couple of rats snuck in."
A hooded figure stepped forward, her voice dripping with amus.e.m.e.nt as she stared at the two high school students from underneath the shadows her cloak cast upon her face. A second, burly cloaked figure remained behind her, bristling with hostility.
"a.s.sa.s.sins," Shun Yin hissed, stating the obvious. The female a.s.sa.s.sin shrugged, even as she continued to hold the daggers in her hand.
"Intruders." She paused for a moment as she tilted her head to study them, and then a hint of recognition entered her voice. "I know you both. Aren"t you that boy that Lady Angelica is in love with? The one that Ying Bu Si and the Grand Master wants to recruit? And the other…you"re the son of Henry Porter, aren"t you?"
"Wow…I"m so honored that you know me," Glen responded dryly. Shun Yin, on the other hand, merely drew his sword in silence.
"Looks like we"ll have to fight our way out." He took a deep breath. "I"ll take the big guy. Can you handle the girl? Be careful…if she"s an a.s.sa.s.sin, then it"s possible that her daggers are poisoned."
"Will do." Glen c.o.c.ked his head with a smile. "I don"t know whether I should be glad that you"re giving me the girl, though."
"Heh." The female a.s.sa.s.sin giggled. "It seems like you"re misunderstanding something. Your opponent isn"t us."
"…eh?" both Shun Yin and Glen exchanged puzzled glances, but the female a.s.sa.s.sin ignored them. Instead, she nodded to the huge figure behind her, who produced what looked like a remote control. He then pressed a red b.u.t.ton.
There was a mechanical clang at the back of the ma.s.sive room, and the walls on the far end began to slide open as gears clicked and whirred. Deep behind the wall, something enormous stirred. Shun Yin caught a glimpse of red eyes glowing in the darkness…
…and then something roared thunderously as it leaped out of its prison, its deafening voice sending reverberations throughout the vast room.