Chapter 503
Chapter 503
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 503
Chapter Title: Gedroits's Heir, Deul (18)
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“Quite the complicated story, huh?”
“Complicated isn’t the word for it... It’s just baffling.”
I caught my breath and slowly sorted through the tangled mess of thoughts.
This was undoubtedly crucial information. Andrey Gedroits, still scheming away at something. The Artist Alliance, who seemed already entangled and aware of it. Every word exchanged here held immense value—details that could reshape the landscape of the not-too-distant future.
“So why tell me all this? Why now? Why like this?”
The key issue was that I couldn’t fathom why they’d share this with me at all.
Why? In this critical moment, using such covert methods to deliver a message, luring me—on high alert—straight to their leader, who appeared utterly non-combatant, the Collector. Why? What possible reason could they have for revealing all this to me?
“Because you, Professor Park, are the protagonist of this entire tale.”
“William Turner, W, the Collector, and Natasha, along with Gedroits pulling strings on some inexplicable scheme... You’re saying this all revolves around me?”
“Yes. The instant you became GG’s sole successful specimen, born from the digital realm, everything Andrey Gedroits had prepared began orbiting around you.”
“Prepared...?”
“The war between Dome and Raptor about to ignite. The Type-3 mutant ‘War’ entrenched in Sector 2, endlessly spewing radiation. The Next Space shuttle already primed for launch long ago, and beyond the skies, the server room awaiting you. That’s what I mean.”
I glanced at the white-suited two-faced monster and the cable-bound woman, who had no connection to me whatsoever. Emoticons across the screens nodded in unison.
“You’re already at the center of it all. Whether you want it or not, you’ll be swept up in Father’s final plan.”
“I just wanted you to know before it was too late.”
Zing—
The emoticons filling the screens vanished, replaced by someone’s video feed.
A shaky angle, poor quality—clearly shot by an amateur with crappy gear. Yet it carried a warm, familial glow.
=========
“Gedroits, do you really need to use that ancient camcorder? Just tweak the security camera settings, and you can record in 3D without any extra hassle.”
“Turner, your problem is that thick skull of yours. Engineers at our level need to be swayed by something beyond mere calculations—some emotion. Like how you built a custom vacuum styler just to store that white suit of yours.”
“Th-that’s—”
“Will, ignore the old man. He’s a lunatic who’s reached the point of intuiting our generation’s full scientific prowess without even studying it.”
“Father’s not that bad, Miss Rishie! He’s done his share of studying!”
“As a research assistant, I’d really prefer if you’d stop—for my sake.”
=========
“This is a video Father left behind. It’s from 11 years ago, shortly after W’s original joined Father’s research team.”
“Three years before World War III.”
“Yes. Father had a hobby of recording himself. His knowledge was on such a different plane that people often couldn’t grasp what he said on the first try. Tired of repeating himself, he started habitually documenting his own monologues.”
The Gedroits in the video matched the image from various media: vibrant beyond his years, bold, the eccentric scientist who’d boldly shouted “Eat shit” at a global press conference.
“This next one is 18 months after that.”
======
Boom!
“Brazil... ran clinical trials on the mutant virus? On humans?”
“More precisely, it seems the Brazilian military regime conducted them independently.”
“Why the hell would they!”
“They cut off the hotline, so details are scarce, but... it looks like they deemed the failures valuable for military use. They donated a massive sum to the WHO—which had been balking at the costs—in exchange for sharing interim results.”
“We decided to scrap T-4, T-31, and T-78 samples because the subjects showed excessive aggression! Why the hell do those bastards still have them? The Adaptee Project wasn’t about creating mere powerful monsters with the mutant virus! It was to free our descendants from their fated future—to birth beings transcending biological singularities! A project humanity’s survival hinged on! And they... for a bit of cash, for their trash power!!!”
“...To finish the report: the drug den in Brazil, the test site, was designated a biochemical hazard zone—including all subjects—and incinerated. This is the report from the Brazilian military.”
Flip. Flip.
“...All of them exhibited aggression.”
“Maybe an issue with the gene sequencing.”
“No. The mutant virus is perfect. It simply drags out the deepest essence slumbering within the host.”
“I believed it would transform people into something greater—into an ideal, unadorned human form. A force strong enough to overcome inevitable doom, a positive presence for one another in a world shrouded in despair. That’s what I believed. That’s what I created it for.”
“...The flaw was in humanity. The virus just revealed our true nature: grotesque, twisted, a pathetic beastly visage.”
“The Adaptee Project failed. The mutant virus... can’t free people from their destined extinction.”
=========
In the video, Gedroits spoke to William in a voice heavy with betrayal, as if forsaken by all humanity.
“This is...?”
“The first plan. The Adaptee Project via mutant virus was the simplest approach. Doom was coming one way or another, so evolve people into beings who could endure any adversity.”
“So the mutant virus wasn’t developed to make monsters... but as a form of evolution? For all humanity?”
“Yes. Traces remain in today’s mutants. Bodies specialized for arid environments, surviving long-term without food or water. Radiation resistance up to 30 sieverts with no issues. Doesn’t it ring a bell?”
“Starvation and radiation... preparations for a post-nuclear war world.”
“Starvation hits whenever humanity nears collapse. Radiation’s a prime threat even without nukes—from solar gamma rays, stellar flares, meteor impacts, or machine-driven apocalypses. That’s why those two functions were prioritized in the experimental virus.”
It was a fairy-tale vision.
Pull forth humanity’s core self from its depths, transmute the biological flesh into a tough, resilient shell to weather coming trials.
A pipe dream to others, but feasible for Gedroits.
Thus, he birthed his masterpiece, the mutant virus—and was betrayed in the cruelest way.
Humans infected with the mutant virus were reborn from their most horrific memories.
Zing—
Another video. The timestamp showed a year after the previous.
=========
“The U.S., Russia, China, Switzerland... Every damn leech is swarming. Can’t maintain balance like this...”
Bang!
“Gedroits, what the hell!”
“Don’t yell, Rishie. Your shrill voice gives me a headache.”
“Orpheus, Zeus, Poseidon, Hades! Don’t those names ring any bells?”
“Amusing. I thought you were Buddhist. Suddenly into ancient Greek gods?”
“Don’t play dumb! This... this isn’t ordinary weaponry! Why build mass slaughter devices and hand blueprints to world superpowers?”
“To lure idiots, you need candy. The Completer Project, unlike a virus you just release, needs heavy state backing. Called it ‘an unprecedented weapon unseen before and for the next century’—and leaders swarmed like ants to sugar.”
“So why obsess over an ‘extinction’ that won’t happen and hasten it yourself?!”
“Oh, Rishie. That’s exactly what I hoped to hear. I’d love if my blunders held true here too—if my prediction of ‘humanity’s doomed at this rate’ proved as foolish a mistake. After peering into people’s souls via the Adaptee failure, I prayed my assumptions were wrong. So I built a friend to peer into and calculate the future for me.”
=========
Gedroits drew back a curtain in his lab corner.
Myriad screens, cables. A spherical machine core about a meter in diameter.
Minus the central sphere, it matched the Collector before me exactly.
“No way...?”
I pointed from the video to her. The Collector replied with a sad emoticon.
=========
“Expanded Future Computation System. Linked to intel lines from nations as payment for mass destruction weapon blueprints. It ingests global data real-time, simulates virtual Earths. I’ve seen countless Earths flow under accelerated sims with varied conditions. The result? Despair. Nothing but despair. No future, no conditions spared humanity self-destruction. Destiny exists, it seems.”
“...Gedroits.”
“So, since it’s inevitable, I sought to minimize unpredictable variables. Chose controllable extinction scenarios from predictions, realized them with my power. Nuclear war, tweaked mutant virus dispersal, Dome, Raptor... Prepared a lot.”
“Andrey Gedroits!”
Click!
=========
As dead-eyed Gedroits muttered his plans, Rishie’s gaze was fixed on his “future computation system.”
The massive sphere. Endless cables.
Her eyes shifted from suspicion to horror to hatred.
I knew what she’d seen.
Where her eyes pointed: amid the cable pile, a familiar pod to me.
Transparent tubes writhing, pumping organics and fluids inside.
Life support pod, standard for connectors. I’d used one for long sessions. Now hooked to Gedroits’s spherical machine.
=========
“Natasha... Where’s Natasha, moved to this research wing months ago!”
“You’re right. Trimmed unnecessary bits and ‘connected’ her inside. It’s fine. Done in perfect sleep. To her, it’d feel like waking from agonizing sickness to a brand-new body. Set her awakening backdrop to that hill with the real baobab tree she longed for—probably felt like a gift.”
“She’s your daughter! You locked yourself here to focus on her illness!”
“Treating her genetic defect takes even me ages. I cherished her, but... I lacked time for that research. As one who knows much, has done much, bears much responsibility.”
“How... how did it come to this...”
“No misunderstanding. She’s thriving now. A god in Gedroits’s Game, this electronic world, overseeing new creation. Amazing. Simulations felt clunky mechanically, but one drop of living human mind made it dynamic, nuanced perfection.”
“Natasha can walk, run, fly inside now. Grow baobabs planet-wide like in The Little Prince! If that’s not treatment, what is?”
“Of course, Turner—who arrived a tad earlier—called it murder. Nearly smashed my life’s masterpiece. Didn’t know he had such dynamic emotions.”
“Y-you deeeemon!!!”
=========
Bang! Bang! Bang!
As Gedroits’s finger pointed to the bloodied white-suited figure slumped in the lab corner, Rishie’s gun finally blazed.
Three shots grazed Gedroits’s coat—who dodged as if forewarned—and flew harmlessly.
One ricochet sparked electricity, igniting the chem-filled lab into roaring flames.
“This is...”
“Watch to the end. Almost over.”
As flames spread in Gedroits Company’s basement lab, Rishie cursed and slammed down fire shutters—not to contain, but to trap and burn everything inside.
[Rishie’s entered the needed scenario. Next... your turn, William Turner.]
[Don’t disappoint me now, like never before. I’ve much to do.]
[Must control experiment variables. To herd the survivor flock, unavoidable choice.]
...Click!
[For now... you’ll live as Raptor.]
Gedroits eyed Rishie’s retreating form, then the fallen white-suited researcher and his “future device,” with withered-tree eyes.
He picked up her dropped pistol and shot his temple.
Bang—
Silver gun flashed.
Head exploded, brains splattered.
The era’s genius perished so pointlessly.
Seconds later, the white-suited man on the floor vomited blood, struggling upright.
His pained flailing eyes swept smoke, flames, his gushing chest, the cabled sphere—filling with venom.
Bloodied hand caressed Natasha Gedroits’s sphere, groped the control panel.
[Biocode... Cough! Locked to Gedroits’s biocode... Won’t work without life signs. No, not like this...]
Dragging the headless corpse, pressing its hand to the panel repeatedly, his eyes caught ampoules amid spreading flames—the pathogen labeled “Mutant Virus.”
[...Living. Need living Gedroits biocode.]
[Mutation process. Per records, can induce it... Cough!]
[Meanwhile, to keep Natasha alive as I change...]
Pshh!
Ampoule liquid sucked into his wrist.
Screaming beast-like in agony, he jammed another injector into the “future device” tube.
Dragging the corpse to his feet, he muttered.
[...I contributed plenty to mutant virus dev.]
[Gedroits hated it, but T-92 was solid... Advanced post-Adaptee dump. Works on living humans...]
[...Truth is, I wished he’d unleash it, kill everyone... Cough! Mother died; he shrugged like losing a wart, oddly pleased. Media hooked on celeb tragedy, public dubbed me psycho killer per their stories, judge gave life for manslaughter due to politics... I realized I’d killed the only one who treated me purely in this absurd world—my mother, by my hand.]
[You revived me, hollow shell dragged into Gedroits’s slave contract just for nodding. Isolated by illness from world’s filth, media, society—pure as could be. Your way with me... like Mother’s.]
[Cough! ...Natasha. You saved my soul; I vowed my life to you.]
[So live... If we both survive, even grotesque, I’ll be your new father. Unlike that mad demon, never leaving, existing solely for you...]
Crack!
William Turner’s words cut off.
Flesh birthing from within, shredding the old, wasn’t willpower territory.
Meat burst, bones snapped; living dough absorbed the headless corpse at his feet.
The adjacent sphere crumpled from inside. Screens screamed in myriad tongues for the voiceless machine.
In smoke-shrouded camcorder footage.
Beep—beep—breeep—
A staggering silhouette unlocked Gedroits’s panel.
Shutters rose, vents hummed, smoke cleared.
The shambling white-suited man reached for the cable pile in the corner.
Cables to myriad screens, bundled to a girl’s back.
Newborn-fresh skin, metallic remnants.
[...Confusing, but this much is clear.]
The white-suited being approached, kissed the sleeping girl’s forehead with both faces.
[Seems I was born for you.]
W meticulously detached wall and device links, placed her and components into a lab-side container—as if prepared for them.
W and Collector boarded the freight elevator and vanished. Video ended.
“This is our story.”
Collector’s soft mechanical tone pierced my stunned silence at Gedroits’s shocking past.
“No pain, but vivisected by trusted father into machine parts—that horrific truth. From that memory, Type-3 mutant Natasha Gedroits became today’s Collector.”
“The moment he realized he’d killed his mother, and the girl—his reclaimed life’s hope—treated as guinea pig mere meters away on that lab table. Those dual traumas birthed past William Turner as Type-3—and the ideal Gedroits he ‘imagined,’ fused into today’s W.”
“We two mutants, seeds of the Artist Alliance, were born thus.”
Natasha Gedroits—no, the former her, Collector—displayed boiling emotion-images.
“You’d have noticed. Gedroits already knew Rishie’s reaction via future sims. Not just her—fallen William regaining senses in flames, using his own corpse, what choice he’d make, outcomes. All foreseen.”
“The current Artist Alliance was crafted precisely as he intended. Not just them—this world. The whole situation.”
Their words barely registered. My mind looped Gedroits’s final video line.
=========
‘Must control experiment variables. To herd the survivor flock, unavoidable.’
‘For now... live as Raptor.’
=========
Gedroits suicided.
Control factor to herd survivor sheep.
Raptor.
Unwilling truth, I clutched my head.
“...Since when?”
“Preparations long ago. He had ties via projects to governments, especially war-weapon-loving military. Scouting, handling candidates? Trivial for him.”
Andrey Gedroits was dead. Fact.
...But amid humanity-survival projects, crushed by responsibility, burden.
Disillusioned by ‘humanity’ wrecking all, his twisted psyche—Andrey Gedroits’s mind—vanished with his body?
“Likely triggered awakening. Highest odds... you, Professor Park.”
“Goddamn it...”
The two-faced monster’s voice confirmed my dreaded truth.
“Gustav al-Harb Raptor... since when?”
人格移植 tech in some flesh. Undeniable—GG’s, which I’d lived.
Andrey Gedroits. Peered futures, sacrificed world, puppeteered leaders into WWIII.
Created GG, imprisoned data souls, spawned countless worlds; forged me through trials.
Gustav al-Harb Raptor. Dome’s rival strongest force leader, marching south with armies for total war.
“If server room stores GG data, I’m the virtual system’s ‘main drive’—control any Gedroits Company-linked electronic via satellite net as my body.”
“Raptor Society bans my-penetrable Gedroits Company digital gear, but via their loot-machines, I spy internals. Gedroits plots horrors. As independent ‘Collector,’ it conflicts my goals—I’ll stop it.”
Zing—
New video with her resolute tone.
Me. Scrounging in 47 Sector shelter. Gunfighting Ian, Vex in 45 Sector basement. Entering 3World as ‘Professor.’ Through Saint, Warlord, escaping with all GG data souls.
“Still, everything unfolds on Gedroits’s stage. Only three can alter it.”
“Raptor—Gedroits himself, fully inheriting to steer as planned.”
“GG main drive gained sentience, wielding huge sway over his Gedroits Company systems: Collector.”
“And you, inheriting his discarded project’s legacy—fairest way—from his purer days. Only we three can shift his near-complete plan.”
My myriad videos faded to now: me facing Collector, W in deep nuclear bunker between Russia, Middle East.
“Please. One last time—save the world?”
Her desperate mechanical plea. I couldn’t reply easily.
My reflection in her hazy screen: near-humanoid monster in uniform.
Dana awaited in 47.
Chat folks, Vex, Ian, my people.
Mutation progressed too fast. Plane landing? No.
Felt like ‘popping a stiff jar lid’ effort. No strain.
Unknowingly, my body grew monstrously strong.
‘Changing on its own, without force.’
As if sensing the needed moment neared.
How long? Year? Month? Week?
Uncertainty reigned, save one certainty.
A thin line within; crossing via mutation stage—no return.
I couldn’t answer Collector’s plea.
Just... race home to 47. World, heirs—screw ’em. Just go back.
****