Chapter 249

Ultimately, the door popped open without much of a fight.

As Taro had deduced, the door’s Locking System was a simple but robust beast. It generated a fresh Cipher Locking Function at random intervals—a straightforward defense, but an effective one.

Fortunately, simple brute-force function generation happened to be Taro’s bread and butter. Armed with the Deciphering Program he and Alan had cooked up—which was, for all intents and purposes, a glorified hacking tool—and backed by the raw processing power of Plum’s BISHOP system, Taro only had to stare at the door for a few moments. Then, with his usual cool-guy expression, he threw a thumbs-up.

"It’s open."

"In the first place, this whole facility was built on the assumption that nobody would ever find it," Taro noted, feeling a bit let down by how anticlimactically the secret door had yielded. He’d expected something more grandiose given the sheer scale of whatever "Coleman" was supposed to be.

Finding a needle-sized facility in the haystacks of Interstellar Space was practically impossible by sheer luck. Throw in some high-end stealth tech, and finding it on purpose wasn't much easier. Usually, a ship would just blink past this endless void of nothingness via Overdrive. It was simply too much space to cover using conventional navigation.

"This Coleman person certainly had a twisted sense of style," Liza remarked, her voice dripping with distaste.

The crew of the Rising Sun had dubbed the interior of the facility the "Egg," and the scenery of the first corridor did not disappoint in the "creep factor" department. The others shared her sentiment, grimacing or shaking their heads in a collective display of "nope."

"If one is accustomed to the rigors of anatomy and biology, this isn't exactly a rare sight," Dr. Arzimof interjected, smoothing down his perpetually chaotic hair. "Though, I must say, putting these right at the entrance is a questionable design choice."

The doctor drifted toward a cylindrical glass case embedded in the wall. He peered inside, fascinated by a specimen that appeared to be a human fetus suspended in a pale blue liquid.

"Doctor, you can play scientist later. We’ve got ground to cover," Taro urged. When the doctor refused to budge, Taro basically had to drag the man away from the glass case to keep the group moving.

"It’s nothing but things I’ve never seen before… it’s genuinely eerie," Marl whispered.

Beyond the first few cases were specimens of what looked like various fish.

"Really?" Taro asked, looking at a particularly strange one. "They look pretty tasty to me."

The entire crew stopped and stared at him with judging eyes.

"Hey, don't look at me like that! We ate stuff like this all the time on Earth!" Taro protested with a wry grin. The group responded with a synchronized look of pure revulsion.

"The idea of eating that is a bit too advanced for us," Marl said, her face twitching. "Even with the pigs and chickens you found, the demand is almost entirely for pets rather than meat."

She had a point. The two animals Taro had rediscovered alongside rice were currently being traded almost exclusively as high-end pets. Only a few hardcore members of the Natural Food Faction were actually buying them for dinner.

As pets, however, they were a goldmine. They were easy to raise—they could live in the same environment as humans!—which set them apart from the bizarre, high-maintenance alien critters that only the ultra-rich could afford. Gene Coordinators and Breeders were already churning out various "brands" of the animals. While Heinlein, the head of the Food Development Department, had made a very complicated face at the trend, the sales numbers were undeniably massive.

"Fish is great, though. Oh, man. Now that I’ve said it, I’m craving it. I’d kill for some eel right now..." Taro’s nostalgic food trip hit a wall when he reached the next specimen: a grotesque, frog-like thing. "Okay, never mind. I definitely don't want to eat this one. That's just gross."

Taro bypassed the frog-thing and looked down the long line of specimen cases stretching into the depths of the hall. He blinked, a realization clicking into place.

"Oh, I see. That’s how it is."

"What exactly is 'how it is,' Mr. Teiro?" Koume asked, tilting her head with her trademark lack of expression.

Taro pointed down the row. "Phantom mentioned something about Coleman being obsessed with evolution, right? These specimens are probably lined up in order. This gross thing is likely an amphibian."

Leaving the doctor to get stuck on another specimen, Taro began walking briskly past the cases.

"Reptiles start around here, I guess? Hard to tell for sure since I don't know if these are Earth-born or from some other planet. It looks like he skipped the branch for birds and went straight for the human line. This section is all mammals, and the ones by the door are definitely primates."

Taro muttered his observations to himself until he reached the end of the hall, where he found a creature that looked remarkably like a monkey.

"Heh," Marl said, sounding genuinely impressed as she caught up. "You’re surprisingly well-versed in biology."

"Well, they were my neighbors back home," Taro replied. "I can’t be 100% sure if these are Earth specimens or just similar-looking aliens from some random planet, but the message is pretty clear. This is the road to humanity."

Marl nodded, absorbing the explanation. Just then, Alan caught up, letting out a bewildered "Are you for real?" as he gaped at the specimens.

"You’re telling me our ancestors looked like that? Pull the other one. I’ve seen some hairy species in this galaxy, but those things are all walking on four legs. You expect me to believe we just stood up on two feet and suddenly became human?"

Taro shrugged, but Dr. Arzimof’s voice drifted over from behind them. "It is not as far-fetched as you might think. Species that successfully enlarge their brains almost always see a massive spike in intelligence. Look at the Lanka Tribe of Planet Mao-Ma or the Ngua of WE9434. Earth’s biology likely followed the same pattern. Bipedalism isn't the only trigger, but sometimes the tiniest change can spark an evolutionary explosion."

The doctor sounded like he was giving a university lecture. Alan didn't look entirely convinced, but he gave the specimens another skeptical once-over. "If you say so."

"Anyway, maybe the rest of the puzzle is behind this door. Let’s find out," Taro said.

He approached the terminal by the door, tapped into it via BISHOP, and shredded the mediocre Cipher Locking Function in seconds. The door hissed open.

"…Oof. What the hell? Is this déjà vu?"

Stepping through the threshold, Taro felt a massive wave of recognition. The room was a circular floor filled with a chaotic mess of tangled iron, cables, and industrial scrap. It was so packed with junk that there was barely any room to walk.

"His taste is even worse in here," Liza groaned, her voice thick with disgust.

Taro looked back and saw why: the door was flanked by a pair of human specimens—one male, one female.

"Wait, wait a second," Marl stammered, looking bewildered. "This looks exactly like the stuff we found in that Coleman lab a while back. It’s bigger and messier, but that pile of scrap in the middle..."

"It’s likely a WIND," Alan finished for her. He flashed a sharp, ironic grin at Taro. "Lucky you, Boss. Looks like you’ve got the parts for a New-type Enigma right there."

"I mean, maybe, but… how am I even supposed to process this?" Taro asked.

He looked from the junk pile to the specimens in the hall, eventually landing on the one person who might actually have an answer. The doctor tilted his head apologetically.

"I’d hate to think those things are the final evolutionary stage of humanity," the doctor began. "And honestly, it’s a stretch. While one could argue the WIND is a distinct species, suggesting they evolved from humans is nonsense. They aren't even carbon-based."

The doctor pointed across the floor. "More importantly, there are other facilities further in. Concluding anything now would be premature. Besides, we don't know if this is just Coleman’s idea of a bad joke or a meaningful display. Either way, we need a proper investigation."

Rubbing his hands together in excitement, the doctor started marching toward the next door. Taro figured he was right and started to follow, but a hand stopped them.

"No. We’re done here," Phantom said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"Is it dangerous?" Taro asked.

"I don't know," Phantom replied. "And that is exactly why we’re leaving."

Without another word, Phantom scooped up the doctor—who was clearly too blinded by curiosity to care about safety—and started hauling him back toward the exit like a sack of potatoes.

"Aww, man, come on! We made it this far!" Taro complained. "Can’t we just peek?"

"Negative," Phantom said. "If this were a standard facility, perhaps. But with that thing sitting there? Absolutely not. You’re the only person who can actually interface with its guts; if something goes wrong, we have no way to bail you out. We do this carefully or not at all."

"Ah… right. Good point. Don't want a rogue crane to suddenly wake up and turn me into a pancake."

"Exactly. Once we reach the Rome headquarters, we can gather the right equipment. We can use what we learned from the last Coleman lab. I’m curious too, but for now, we wait."

Phantom directed the last part mostly at the doctor he was currently carrying. The doctor spent a few moments struggling to break free, then eventually went limp in Phantom’s grip, accepting his fate.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Let's head back."

Taro waved the crew toward the exit. As he stepped out of the room, he glanced back one last time. As the door slid shut, the lights cut out automatically. In the sudden dark, the faint, ghostly glow of the lamps within the WIND scrap pile flickered like dying stars.

They were still in transit. The moment the doctor had received the report, he had practically teleported onto the Plum to get here.