This Isn't About Reya

Chapter Thirty-Four

The door to the protomaterial processor was another electronic door, and as Michel approached it, he realized that it had also lost power. He reached his hand towards the control panel to shock it, but as he did so, the door creaked open. 

He stopped and stared at the door.  It had only opened a sliver. But as he watched it, the door began to open further. It was a harsh, grating noise, the gears in the walls unwilling to move and being forced to do so regardless. Michel waited for the door to open fully, to see if perhaps the entity in the compound was waiting on the other side. He was deathly afraid, and yet, he knew he could not escape now. So he had resigned himself to simply learn the truth.

But when the last inches of the metal door has slid into the wall, nothing stood on the other side.

Michel walked through the doorway and found himself on a platform overlooking the heart of the entire processor. A set of rickety metal stairs to his right led down to the first floor. A harsh white light was emanating from the center of the room, which was massive - several hundred yards across, a domed structure with a ceiling reaching higher than any other building in the compound. The white light in the center was coming from the depositor, which was used to transform softlight from energy cells into proto-matter, and then into whatever element was being synthesized. Right now, it was clearly in use - which meant that the colonists hadn't been gone long.

Michel surveyed the rest of the room, looking for some sign of life. All he saw were the various machines and generators running the depositor, some crates full of various synthesized metals, and softlight energy cells ready to power the depositor. Nothing moved, and no noise emanated from the room except for the constant hum of the depositor.

Michel made his way - very slowly and with a lot of caution - down the stairs to his right to the ground floor. He walked up to the control panel of the depositor, examining the crates and machines as he did. Everything seemed clean, cared for, and recently used. 

How long had the colony been empty?

At the control panel, Michel accessed the records for the depositor. It was currently synthesizing tungsten; before that, it had been synthesizing chromium, nickel, and iron. The pattern repeated itself for several weeks: chromium, nickel, iron, tungsten, chromium, nickel, iron, tungsten, and so on. But before it started on that pattern, it seemed to only produce palladium and plutonium. In fact, it had been producing palladium and plutonium for years before switching to the new pattern.

Michel's brow furrowed. He held up his left hand, and the hardlight sheet containing the report he had received in Vlad's office shimmered into existence. He read it over once again. It had requested plutonium shipments.

It was dated the day he had left Aquilo-Nix. Two days ago.

Why had they requested a plutonium shipment if they were synthesizing tungsten?

How had they sent a report two days ago if nobody was here today?

"What the hell is going on here?" Michel asked the depositor.

Suddenly, Michel felt the room grow cold - colder than the rest of the facility.

It was an instantaneous change. Immediately, he watched his breath condense in the air in front of him. Despite his coat, he felt goosebumps run the entire length of his body. He wanted to shiver, but he also felt a paralyzing fear grip him.

A fear like nothing he'd ever felt before.

His stomach tightened intensely, his organs contracting so suddenly that he wanted to double over in pain. He stood upright, terrified, as a bead of sweat trickled from his hairline, down his brow, across his cheek, and onto his jaw. The hand holding the hardlight sheet was trembling; his focus on maintaining the hardlight evaporated, and with it, so did the hardlight. The glowing orb of hardlight above his head vanished, too.