Chapter 252

After dragging Eden Station across the stars on the back of an ultra-large transport ship, Taro and his crew of misfits finally limped into the Roma Star System, home to the Rising Sun Headquarters. They spent a few days offloading the mountain of random junk they’d scavenged along the way before parking Eden in a quiet corner of space, a safe distance from Roma Station 1.

Ideally, they would have docked the station directly for convenience, but the "convenience" of having a giant mystery station potentially explode in their faces was a bit too much for them. They’d finished most of the structural analysis, but the place was still packed with enough "Unknown Equipment" to keep a team of paranoid scientists busy for a decade.

"So, I heard things got... messy. But we’re officially in the 'not-going-to-die' zone now, right?"

Taro was currently fidgeting in a cozy little room deep within Coleman's Private Area—likely the man’s former private sanctum. He kept darting his eyes around like a cornered animal checking for traps.

[“100% safety is a statistical myth that exists nowhere in the known universe, Mr. Teiro. However, you should be able to walk around without spontaneously combusting. All overt threats have been violently neutralized by Security Department Director Phantom,”] Koume chirped.

The spherical AI swayed rhythmically atop a table that was far too Spartan to be called an office desk. Taro gave her a half-hearted "Roger," but the greasy feeling of impending doom refused to wash off.

"If you're going to be this much of a twitchy wreck, we really should have just waited a few more days," Marl said, sighing from the chair next to him. She looked at him with the kind of pity usually reserved for wet bread.

"Yeah, well, easy for you to say," Taro grumbled, pouting as he took another look at the room’s decor.

The decor, in this case, consisted of a terrifying number of bullet holes riddling the walls and ceiling. Fresh cracks and massive dents marred the steel plating, looking like someone had tried to use the room as a heavy-machinery testing ground. If the walls hadn't been made of reinforced armor plating, Taro probably would have already bolted for the exit.

"Seriously, Phantom-san is bedridden from exhaustion and injuries. That shouldn't even be possible! What kind of nightmare fuel was in here? I’ve seen that man rip an Alpha Star System WIND apart with his bare hands. He could take on a Tank and come out without a scratch!"

Taro began waving his arms wildly, reenacting the scene where Phantom had used brute force to dismantle an Insect-type WIND like a kid breaking a toy.

"It's cramped in here, so stop flailing like an idiot," Marl snapped, leaning away from his theatrical performance.

[“An expected obstacle combined with an unexpected obstacle to create a brand-new flavor of catastrophe, Mr. Teiro,”] Koume explained, her lamp flashing as she pivoted toward a particularly nasty crack in the wall.

Taro stopped mid-flail and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "By 'expected,' you mean the Ghost-type WIND from the report, right? I thought you guys bagged it. So what was the 'unexpected' part? And why wasn't it in the damn report?"

Koume swiveled her lens back to him.

[“Allow me to clarify in order, Mr. Teiro. Regarding your first point: negative. As the report stated, we neutralized the threat, but we did not 'bag' it. It is currently alive and kicking inside the terminal sitting directly beneath Koume’s chassis.”]

Taro didn't even process the words before his body tried to teleport away. He slammed right into Ryza, who was standing behind him.

"Watch where you’re going! That was quite rude!" Ryza huffed.

"S-Sorry! But thank god it was you. If I’d hit Marl, she would’ve launched me across the room... Wait, that terminal? Right there? Under the desk? Is it actually, like, totally locked down?"

Taro peered cautiously under the table at the boxy computer tucked away in the shadows. While he tried to pacify a fuming Ryza, he nudged Koume to get on with the explanation.

[“If you had hit Koume, I might have been the one to suffer damage, so Miss Ryza was indeed the optimal cushion... My apologies. Moving on. The second obstacle was not a WIND. It was not human, and I hesitate to even call it a biological organism. However, calling it a machine would also be a lie.”]

"What is this, a riddle? What was it? A sentient hurricane? A bad vibe?"

[“Negative, Mr. Teiro. It was an artificial construct. Since it lacks an official designation, let us call it a 'Variable Liquid Metal Defense Mechanism.'”]

"Liquid metal..." Taro’s eyes went wide. "Wait, you mean like... a budget version of Phantom-san?"

[“50% correct, Mr. Teiro. Mr. Phantom speculated it might be the 'leftovers' from his own manufacturing process. However, unlike his refined humanoid form, these were amorphous, amoeba-like blobs.”]

"Ugh... just hearing that makes my skin crawl. How do you even kill something like that? Did you drop them into a vat of molten steel?"

[“Hardly. We applied a continuous stream of kinetic trauma via gunfire and physical strikes until they became structurally unstable, then we vented them into the vacuum of space. The holes in the D6 Residential District are currently plugged with Puncture Sealant, but the damage is extensive. Whether they promised to return is unknown; sound does not travel in a vacuum.”]

"Wait, holes? Plural? As in... there were more than one?" Taro paused, a memory clicking into place. "Wait, was that 'Precision Firing Training' the other day actually...?"

During their trip back to the Roma Star System, the Escort Fleet had been ordered into a sudden "training drill." It had been authorized by Phantom and Fleet Commander Bella—who handled the fleet with a level of aggression that made the Security Department look like a knitting club. Taro had only seen the paperwork after the fact.

"Metal or not, a hit from a ship’s main cannon tends to turn things into vapor," Marl noted, sounding bored but clearly fishing for details. "So, how many of these blobs were there?"

[“Eighty-seven units,”] Koume replied.

Marl actually choked on her own breath.

"Well, that certainly explains why it wasn't in the report," Ryza said, her face turning pale. "If word of that leaked, every power-hungry maniac in the galaxy would be clawing at our doors to get their hands on it."

Taro nodded fervently. No kidding. You could turn that stuff into a thousand different nightmare weapons. The thought of someone reverse-engineering more Cyborgs like Phantom was enough to make his stomach turn. That was a recipe for galactic-scale anarchy.

"Right, okay. I get it. I totally get it... wait, hold on. You said the obstacles 'combined.' Don't tell me..."

Koume’s spherical body bobbed in a nod. [“Indeed. Because a Ghost-type WIND was present, the use of BISHOP was severely restricted, Mr. Teiro. I had to hide in the rubble and hijack the Area Network in micro-bursts, only for a few seconds at a time before the enemy could breach my firewalls. I found myself quite nostalgic for Mr. Alan’s presence.”]

"Alan would have died, Koume. Like, immediately. He doesn't exactly fit into 'rubble gaps.'"

[“Regardless, the facility is now technically safe. Mr. Phantom was unable to utilize his Ballistic Prediction to its full potential and was forced to engage in eight hours of sustained melee combat. To say he is 'resting' is an understatement; he is currently undergoing a total overhaul.”]

"Yikes... I'll go pay him a visit later. Maybe I can find some of those ultra-rare coffee beans for him. I doubt he’d care about a cash bonus."

[“Hehe. I believe he would find that most acceptable, Mr. Teiro. Now, shall we move on to the main course?”]

With those words, Koume dumped a gargantuan amount of data onto their handheld terminals. Taro felt a brief spike of anxiety about using BISHOP Communication with a Ghost-type WIND sitting three feet away under a desk, but he hit the 'Receive' button anyway.

[“The investigation is ongoing, but I have filtered out the most pertinent data points. Based on this, I have formed a hypothesis regarding Coleman’s true objective. I would like your input.”]

Koume spun around, observing the three humans. Beyond the cracks in the wall, the Enigma Development Team was already scurrying around, poking at the remnants of Coleman's work.

"This is a lot. It’s going to take a while to digest," Marl said, already looking exhausted by the scrolling text. "I assume I can just pull the reference files from the data bank while we're here?"

[“Affirmative, Miss Marl.”]

The three of them synchronized, pressing their handheld terminals to their foreheads like they were using a Pulse Chip. Their expressions went slack and hollow as they began jacking the information directly into their brains.

"Huh. Okay. I think I see it," Taro muttered about an hour later.

Beside him, Marl looked like she’d reached the same conclusion, though her expression was pinched with worry. "Me too. I don't like it."

"It’s not what I expected, but it makes a twisted sort of sense," Ryza added, rubbing her temples. "Especially when you think about Phantom-san. For all his power, Coleman never seemed to actually... care about him. He was just a tool."

Taro looked at Koume. They were all on the same page.

"Evolution can mean a lot of things," Taro said, his voice heavy. "But what that bastard was actually aiming for—"

The data was a gruesome record of generations of Colemans performing endless, varied experiments. On the surface, they were chaotic and disconnected, but a single thread tied them all together.

"The brain. He wasn't trying to build better ships or better metal. He was trying to evolve the human brain."

Taro spoke with total conviction. Koume remained silent for a beat before her lamp flickered.

[“Koume reaches the same conclusion.”]

"When you look at the 'useless' studies or the weird side projects... they all point to the same thing," Marl whispered, her voice trembling. She looked up at Taro, her eyes searching his.

"Hey... Koume. Level with me."

Taro looked away from Marl, staring at his own feet. He opened and closed his mouth, struggling with the thought, before finally forcing the words out.

Was I just another one of his science projects?

"Was I... was I made by Coleman too?"