Unreality

20. A Plunge into the Abyss

Using the night and heat vision functions of her cybernetic eyes, Mephisto was able to navigate safely through the darkness underground, as, even if Victor were to try and ambush her, she would be able to detect him from a safe distance, as well as through the walls of the almost maze-like laboratory.

But while the Combat Cyberization Research Center couldn't hope to physically detain her from locating and reaching her target, it did make it difficult for her to keep a clear, focused mind.

After all, this was the place where her body had been disfigured and turned into its present state. It was the reason for the mask she now wore.

As she traversed the dark corridors and glanced inside the claustrophobic rooms, images of the time she had spent there automatically swarmed her mind.

The cold, hard touch of the steel bindings restraining her.

The indifferent, pitiless eyes of the ones tinkering with her helpless body like a narcissistic child plucking the wings of an insect.

Protruding objects with sharp needles closing in, threatening to consume her eyeballs.

A constant, crushing helplessness, numbed only by the sheer hopelessness of it all.

Tormented by these painful recollections, it almost seemed as if the laboratory was still up and running in Mephisto's crimson eyes.

But, in reality, it was now reduced to a barren, desolate wreckage, where only the touch of rust, the sight of decay, and the smell of death remained. The latter of which grew closer and closer as Mephisto approached a room she could still recognize in spite of its decayed state and how much time had passed — it was the dumping ground for failed experiments, where she had first met Victor over three years ago.

The door was open, so she glanced inside. It was a large room with a gaping hole on the floor, where the corpses of former test subjects were tossed and piled up before being incinerated.

None of this came as a surprise to Mephisto, but she had not expected to see what appeared to be fresh corpses on the bottom of the hole. Four teenagers, or so it seemed.

She turned to Joshua, who was accompanying her in this scouting infiltration.

'We're not within range of his unreality yet, are we?'

'Negative,' the floating droid answered in his mechanical voice. 'It appears the target's unreality is focused on the main entrance area. This section of the Combat Cyberization Research Center is as it presently exists in reality.'

Mephisto hadn't expected Victor to be this careless, but then again he was thought to have lost his sanity, even if that judgment had come from those who ran the laboratory — who could hardly be called sane themselves — back when it was still active.

It was then she finally noticed a heat source with the corner of her right eye — there was a living person horizontally laid out on the neighboring room.

Leaving behind the corpses in the dumping ground, she made her way there, towards the place she remembered to be what might be called the execution room, where failed test subjects were brought to their death by means of electrocution.

The one being held there now, however, was still alive, and Mephisto harbored a good guess as to his identity.

Making her way towards him, she asked Joshua to provide her with some light, more for the sake of the one being held than for her own, and the observational droid was quick to comply.