Festering Evil: Shattered Past Book 4

Solar Event Imminent

David walked onward into the cave that lay ahead of him, SIVA covered the walls of the dark cavern. He was still breathing heavily from the fall that he had endured, he didn't hate heights, he hated falling from them. The cave kind of weirded him out, he wasn't used to places like this. Though the cavern did intrigue him too to some extent, he felt as if he had exploration in his blood. His father and mother weren't hunters, but they were huge fans of exploring the wilds of the universe. "Once this is over, I'm going to be out there, and I'll be the one telling the stories." He said as he approached a metal clearing.

It was a room full of SIVA and all sorts of pillars. David looked at these things in curiosity; he had no idea as to what these things were. He stroked the side of the metal support; lights appeared to follow each of the motions that his hand was making. He moved his hand away and walked away from the pillar towards what he thought was the direction to the center of the bunker. "Geneva, look all this tech down here." He remarked to his ghost as they walked past more of the pillars.

"Yeah, it's a shame we can't use any of it."

"You're damn right about that; I could make the most powerful PC on the planet if I got a hold of this stuff." He replied rubbing his hands together like a supervillain.

"Really, you'd use the most incredible and sophisticated nanomachine on the planet to make a gaming computer." She said sarcastically.

"Hey, I'm just a kid Geneva, my mind is focused on being selfish sometimes." He said heading to the end of the chamber. "Woah!" He exclaimed looking up at a large SIVA cluster that was attached to a bunch of cylindrical objects. "What is that?" He asked Geneva.

"It's a large cluster of SIVA mites, but I'm detecting something inside of it." She replied. A large monitor then descended from the ceiling. The monitor activated and showed Upgrade standing there looking down at the pair.

"Welcome, to your next test. Rather than me trying to kill you again, this is going to test your intellect. If you can solve the puzzle, then I will give you a weapon made out of SIVA. No strings attached, and if you best me in combat, I will not transfer my consciousness to it." He said honestly.

"Really? A weapon?" David questioned.

"Yes, a weapon I like to call, Outbreak Prime," Upgrade said to him.

"Alright, so what's the puzzle?" David asked him.

"Of course, each of the pillars that are in this room are under one of four numbers labeled on the wall zero through three. There are seven rows of pillars and seven rows of columns. Each holds one of them holds a particular key to open the chamber at the center. The code is a series of consecutive odd integers that are not divisible; no number is used twice." Upgrade said to him. "I will give you all the time in the world David."

David placed his hand on his chin and looked up at the ceiling; he'd had questions like this before in his math class. "Four quadrants labeled zero through three, forty-nine pillars in total for each one, the code consists of only consecutive odd integers, and they're prime numbers." He thought to himself. David then pulled out a small item that looked like a Rubik's cube and started moving it around solving it and reverting it. Upgrade looked down at the boy as David sat down on the floor.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Thinking, I use this when I need to think."

"What do you have ADHD or something?"

"No. I just have some difficulty in thinking unless I have something to touch, I'm a hands-on learner."

"Ooooooh, carry on then," Upgrade replied watching as David kept playing with the cube. David shut his eyes and created four solar clones, this being less painful than earlier because of the lower amount of them. Each of them stopped in front of a quadrant and looked at the pillars in front of them. Upgrade rotated the monitor as the clones stepped on each of the pillars. The one in quadrant zero stepped on the pillar 01. The second went into quadrant one with the label 03. The third went to quadrant two and into the pillar labeled 05. Then quadrant four stepped onto the one labeled 07. The chamber in the middle then opened allowing David to head inside.