Chapter 508
Chapter 508
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: Gedroits's Heir, Deul (18)
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"It's a complicated story, isn't it?"
"Complicated isn't quite the word... It's just a bit baffling."
I caught my breath and slowly sorted through the jumbled mess of thoughts in my head.
This was clearly vital information. Gedroits, who seemed to still be up to something. The Artist Alliance, which knew about it and was already suspected of being involved to some degree. Every word exchanged in this very room held immense value—information that could reshape the landscape of the not-too-distant future.
"But why tell all this to me? At this point in time? In this manner?"
The crucial part was that I had no idea why they were deliberately sharing this with me.
Why? In this critical moment, using such secretive means to send a message, bringing me—someone who had entered on high alert—before their leader, the Collector, who appeared to be a completely non-combat entity. Why? What reason could there be for revealing all this to me?
"Because you're the protagonist of this entire story, Professor."
"William Turner, W, the Collector, and Natasha, and Gedroits scheming who-knows-what... This is all about me?"
"Yes. The moment you became the sole successful specimen born from the electronic world of GG, everything Andrey Gedroits had prepared began to revolve around you."
"Prepared...?"
"The war between Dome and Raptor that's about to begin. The Type 3 mutant 'War' entrenched in Sector 2, endlessly spreading radiation. The Next Space shuttle already prepped for launch long ago, and beyond the skies, the server room waiting for you. Things like that."
When I glanced at the white-suited two-faced monster and the woman hooked up to cables—who had no connection to me—the emoticons on the countless screens nodded.
"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 that happens."
Zing—
The emoticons filling the screens vanished, replaced by someone's video.
A shaky angle, poor quality—clearly shot by an amateur with terrible equipment. Yet because of that, it carried a familial warmth.
=========
"Gedroits. Do you really need to use that outdated camcorder? If you just tweak the security camera settings, you could record in 3D video without any extra hassle."
"That's your problem, Turner—your head's too rigid. At our level of engineering, we need to be swayed by some sentiment beyond mere calculations. Like how you built a vacuum stylist just to store that white suit of yours in your room."
"Th-that was—"
"Will, ignore the old man. He's just a lunatic who's reached the point of intuiting everything without even learning all the scientific capabilities of our generation."
"Father isn't that bad, Ri Xie! He does study in his own way!"
"For the sake of my position as research assistant, please just stop."
=========
"It's a video record left by Father. This was 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 level that people often couldn't easily grasp what he said even once. Tired of repeating himself, he started habitually recording his own monologues like this at some point."
The Gedroits in the video resembled the image he'd shown across various media. Vibrant and confident beyond his years, the mad scientist who'd boldly shouted "Eat shit" at a global press conference—it was all captured perfectly.
"This next one is 18 months after that video."
======
Boom!
"You conducted clinical trials on mutant viruses... in Brazil? On humans, no less?"
"More precisely, it seems the Brazilian military regime carried them out independently."
"Why on earth!"
"They cut off the hotline, so we couldn't get the full details... but it appears they deemed the failed product valuable enough for military use. In exchange for sharing the interim results, they donated a massive sum to the WHO—which had been balking at the invested funds—"
"We decided to discard 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 just creating powerful monsters with mutant viruses! It was to free our descendants from a predestined future, to evolve them into beings transcending biological singularities! It was a project on which humanity's survival hung! And for what—a bit of cash, filthy power?!"
"...To finish reporting, the drug dens in Brazil—the test sites—were designated biochemical contamination zones, including the subjects, and incinerated. This is the report shared by the Brazilian military."
Flip. Flip.
"...All of them exhibited aggression."
"Perhaps there was an issue with the gene sequencing after all."
"...No. The mutant virus is perfect. It simply draws out the essence dormant in the deepest recesses of the host's inner self."
"I believed it would transform people into higher beings, into an unadorned, genuine ideal of perfect humanity. That it would become the strength to overcome inevitable doom, the positive force for one another in a world shrouded in despair like fog. That's what I believed. That's what I created it for."
"...The flaw was in the people. The mutant virus merely revealed humanity's true nature in that ugly form. A twisted, pathetic beast."
"The Adaptee Project is a failure. With the mutant virus... we can't free people from predestined extinction."
=========
In the video, Gedroits spoke to William in a voice heavy with sorrow, as if betrayed by all of humanity.
"This is...?"
"The first plan. The Adaptee Project via mutant virus was the simplest method. Extinction would come one way or another, so evolve people into powerful beings who could endure any adversity."
"So the mutant virus wasn't developed to create monsters... but as a kind of evolution plan? For all humanity?"
"Yes. Traces remain even in today's mutants. Bodies specialized for arid environments, surviving long-term without food or water. Immunity to radiation over 30 sieverts. Doesn't something strike you?"
"Famine and radiation... Preparations for the post-nuclear war environment."
"Famine would arise as humanity nears extinction in any scenario, and radiation is a prime threat even without nuclear war—from solar winds' gamma rays, stellar explosions, meteor impacts, or even machine apocalypse scenarios. That's why those two functions were prioritized in the experimental mutant virus."
It was a fairy-tale-like fancy.
The idea that drawing out the deep essence of human consciousness and transforming the biological body would forge a tough, resilient shell to withstand future trials.
A pipe dream to others, but possible for Gedroits.
And so he created his masterpiece, the 'mutant virus,' only to be betrayed in the most heartbreaking way.
Humans infected with the mutant virus were reborn based on their most horrific memories in life.
Zing—
Another video. The date at the top showed one year after the previous.
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"The US, Russia, China, Switzerland... Every damn vermin is swarming. At this rate, we can't maintain balance..."
Bang!
"Gedroits, what the hell!"
"Don't yell, Ri Xie. Your voice rings too shrilly—gives me a headache."
"Orpheus, Zeus, Poseidon, Hades! Doesn't that ring a bell?"
"Amusing. I thought you were Buddhist. Suddenly interested in ancient Greek gods?"
"Don't play dumb! This... this isn't ordinary weaponry! Why create mass slaughter devices and hand the blueprints to the world's superpowers?"
"To lure idiots, you need candy. The Completer Project, unlike a virus you just release, requires extensive national support. Called it 'an unprecedented weapon unseen before and for the next century'—world leaders swarmed like ants to sugar."
"So why obsess over an 'extinction' that won't happen and hasten it with your own hands?!"
"Oh, Ri Xie, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. I hope that's true. Like all my past mistakes, I hope my prediction that 'humanity will all die at this rate' is just foolish error. After peering into people's true nature via the Adaptee Project's failure, I only wished my assumptions were wrong. So I built a friend to peer into and calculate the future for me."
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Gedroits pulled back a curtain in one corner of his lab.
Countless screens, countless cables. A spherical machine core about 1m in diameter.
Excluding the central sphere, it matched the Collector before my eyes exactly.
"No way...?"
Pointing alternately at the video and her, the Collector responded only with a sad emoticon.
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"Expandable Future Computation System. Linked to info lines from nations in exchange for the mass destruction weapon blueprints I sold, it ingests global data in real-time and generates a virtual Earth. I've seen countless Earths flow under accelerated simulations with varying conditions. The results... despair. Nothing but despair. No matter the future or conditions, humanity self-destructs. Destiny exists, it seems."
"...Gedroits."
"So, since it's inevitable, I sought to minimize unpredictable variables. Among foreseeable extinction scenarios, I chose the one I could most control with my power and made it reality. Nuclear war, releasing tweaked mutant viruses, Dome, Raptor... Prepared a lot."
"Andrey Gedroits!"
Clack!
=========
As the dead-eyed Gedroits muttered his plans, Ri Xie's eyes were fixed on the machine he called the future computation system.
A massive spherical device. Countless cables.
In the video, her eyes shifted from suspicion to shock, then to hatred.
I knew what had caused it.
Where her gaze pointed: amid the cable pile was a tank all too familiar to me.
A transparent tube wriggling, supplying organics and fluids inside.
The life support device, standard in all connectors—which I'd used for long play sessions—linked to Gedroits's claimed spherical machine.
=========
"Natasha... Where's Natasha, whom we moved to this research wing a few months ago!"
"You're right. Trimmed unnecessary parts and 'connected' her inside. It's fine. Done in perfect sleep state. From her view, she'd wake feeling her painful body reborn brand new. Set the awakening backdrop to the hill with the real baobab tree she'd longed for—probably felt like a gift."
"She's your daughter! You shut yourself here promising intensive research on her illness!"
"Treating a genetically defective disease takes even me ages. I truly cherished her... but I lacked time for that. As one who knows much, has done much, I bear responsibilities for much."
"How... how did it come to this..."
"Don't misunderstand. She's in a fine state now. A god within Gedroits's Game, the electronic world, overseeing new world creation. Amazing. Simulations that felt awkward and clunky when pure machine gained astonishing dynamism and delicacy from a drop of living human mind."
"Now Natasha can walk, run, even fly freely inside. Make a planet full of the baobabs from The Little Prince she yearned for! If that's not treatment, what is?"
"Of course, Turner—who arrived a bit earlier—deemed it murder of Natasha. Nearly destroyed my life's masterpiece. Didn't know he could express such raw emotion."
"Y-you devil!!"
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Bang! Bang! Bang!
As Gedroits's finger pointed to the bloodied white-suited figure slumped in the lab corner, Ri Xie's gun finally fired.
The three bullets grazed Gedroits's coat—who dodged as if foreknowing—and flew harmlessly.
One stray bullet sparked electricity where it lodged, and in the chem-filled lab, it bloomed into massive flames.
"This is..."
"Watch to the end. It's almost over."
As flames spread in Gedroits Company HQ's underground lab, Ri Xie cursed while dropping the fire shutter—not to contain the blaze, but hoping everything inside burned with it.
[Ri Xie has entered the needed scenario. Next... your turn, William Turner.]
[Don't disappoint me like you never have. I've much to do.]
[Must hold control factors in experiments. To herd the sheep called survivors, an inevitable choice.]
...Clack!
[For now... I'll live as Raptor.]
Gedroits watched her retreating back with withered-tree eyes, taking in the fallen white-suited researcher and his 'future computation device.'
Then, with Ri Xie's dropped pistol, he shot his temple.
Bang—
The silver pistol flashed.
His head exploded, brains splattered,
And the era's genius perished pointlessly.
Seconds after he departed, the white-suited man on the floor vomited blood, struggling to rise.
His pained flailing eyes swept through smoke, flames, his gushing chest, the cabled sphere—filling with venom.
Bloodied hand caressed Natasha Gedroits's containing sphere, groped the lab control panel.
[Bio-code... Cough! Locked with Gedroits's bio-code... Won't work without life signals. No, not like this...]
Dragging the head-blasted Gedroits corpse, pressing its hand repeatedly to the panel, the man eyed ampoules amid spreading flames—the pathogen labeled 'mutant virus.'
[...Living. Need living Gedroits bio-code.]
[Mutation process. Per experiment logs, can induce it... Cough!]
[Meanwhile, for Natasha to survive my change...]
Pshh!
Liquid from the ampoule sucked into his wrist instantly.
Screaming beast-like in agony, he jammed another syringe into the 'future computation device' tube.
Dragging the shattered-head corpse to his feet, he muttered as he collapsed.
[...I was deeply involved in mutant virus development.]
[Gedroits disliked it, but T-92 was decent... More advanced post-Adaptee discard... Works on living humans too...]
[...Truth is, I wished Gedroits spread this and killed everyone... Cough! When Mother died, Father gleefully 'shed a wart.' Media enthralled by celebrity tragedy, public judging me psychotic killer, judge giving life despite clear manslaughter for politics... I realized I'd killed with my hands the only one who treated me purely in this absurd world: my mother.]
[You revived me—empty shell dragged into Gedroits's slave contract just for nodding. Isolated by illness from world's filth, media, society—a girl near pure innocence. Your way with me... like Mother's.]
[Cough! ...Natasha. The moment you saved my soul, I vowed to live remaining life for you.]
[So live... If we both survive, even grotesque, I'll be your new father. Unlike that mad devil, never leaving your side, existing solely for you...]
Crack!
William Turner's words cut off.
Pain of new flesh bursting old from within surpassed willpower.
Flesh tore, bones snapped, living body pulped—mid-chaos, it dragged the shattered corpse at his feet.
Beside, the spherical machine crumpled from inside. Screens for the voiceless machine screamed in myriad languages.
And in the camcorder's smoke-veiled view.
Beep—beep—beeeep—
A staggering silhouette unlocked Gedroits's security panel.
Fire shutter rose, circulation activated, smoke cleared.
The limping white-suited man reached for the cable pile in the corner.
Cables linked to countless screens, bundle plugged into a girl's back.
Newborn-fresh skin, metallic remnants somewhere—a girl.
[...Thoroughly confused, but this much is clear.]
The white-suited being approached, kissing her sleeping forehead with both faces in turn.
[It seems I was born for you.]
W meticulously unplugged wall and device links, then carefully placed her and components into a container—as if prepared for them—in the lab corner.
As W rode the freight elevator away with the Collector, the video ended.
"This is our story."
The Collector's soft mechanical tone flowed into my stunned silence at Gedroits's shocking past.
"No pain, but the horror of being vivisected by trusted Father's hand into machine parts. From that memory, Natasha Gedroits became the Type 3 mutant now known as the Collector."
"The moment he realized he'd killed his mother, and the girl—his reclaimed hope for life—was mere meters away on an experiment table treated as horrific material. Those dual traumas birthed the current W: past William Turner fused with his 'imagined' ideal Gedroits as a Type 3 mutant."
"We two mutants—the seeds of the Artist Alliance—were born that way."
Natasha Gedroits—or what was once her, the Collector—displayed an image like boiling emotions made form on her screen.
"You must have noticed. Gedroits already knew Ri Xie's reaction via the future computation sim. Not just her, but fallen William regaining senses in flames, using his own corpse—what choice he'd make, what results it'd yield. He knew everything."
"Essentially, the current Artist Alliance was formed exactly as he intended. Not just them, but this world. The current situation—all of it."
The Collector and W's words barely registered. My mind replayed only Gedroits's final video words.
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'At least hold control factors in experiments. To herd the sheep called survivors, inevitable choice.'
'For now... I'll live as Raptor.'
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Gedroits, who suicided by shooting his own head.
Control factor to herd survivor sheep.
Raptor.
Faced with the unwanted truth, I could only bury my head in my hands.
"...Since when?"
"Preparations likely long ago. He had ties to governments via projects, especially military obsessed with war weapons. Selecting and handling suitable targets would've been easy for him."
Andrey Gedroits was dead. Undeniably so.
...But amid crushing responsibility for humanity's survival projects, buckling under burden.
Had his utterly warped psyche—disillusioned by 'humanity' that ruined all—his 'Andrey Gedroits' mind—vanished with his body?
"Perhaps triggered to awaken somehow. Circumstantially, highest probability... is you, Professor."
"Damn it all..."
The two-faced monster's voice confirmed the answer I'd wanted to deny.
"Gustav al-Harb Raptor... since when?"
Tech to implant another psyche in a body. Undeniable—I'd experienced it myself in GG.
Andrey Gedroits. Peered futures, rigged world, puppeteered national leaders into WWIII.
Created GG, imprisoned countless data souls to spawn infinite worlds, forged me through such trials.
And Gustav al-Harb Raptor. Leader of strongest force barring Dome, descending with armies for all-out war.
"If the server room stores GG data, I'm the virtual computation system's 'main hard'—I can control any electronic device reached by Gedroits Company's satellites and networks like my own body."
"Raptor Society forbids Gedroits Company digital devices I can infiltrate, but occasionally via their loot, I spy internals. Gedroits plans horrors. As independent psyche 'Collector,' it conflicts my goals, so I aim to stop it."
Zing—
With the Collector's resolute mechanical tone, a new video rose on her screen.
Me. Me scraping by in 47 Sector shelter. Me in 45 Sector basement gunfighting Ian, Vex. Me entering 3World as 'Professor' character. Through Saint, Warlord, ultimately escaping with all GG data souls composing it.
"Still, everything unfolds on Gedroits's prepared stage. Only three can change it."
"His psyche fully inherited, controlling plan as intended: Raptor—Gedroits himself."
"GG main hard gained psyche, wielding strong influence over Gedroits Company systems he built to control world: Collector."
"And you, inheriting legacy he prepared in purest era via most legitimate path from his discarded project. Only these three can alter his near-complete plan."
My myriad videos faded, revealing current me. In deep nuclear bunker somewhere between Russia and Middle East, facing Collector and W.
"Please. One last time, save the world?"
I couldn't easily reply to her earnest mechanical plea, because of my reflection on her hazy screen.
It looked less human monster in uniform.
Dana waiting in 47 Sector came to mind.
Chat folks, my people like Vex, Ian.
Mutation progressed faster than thought. When disembarking plane? No.
Felt like just 'force to open sturdy jar lid.' No strain.
Unbeknownst, my body had grown terrifyingly strong.
'Even without using power, it's changing on its own.'
As if awaiting the needed moment.
How much left? Year? Month? Week?
All uncertain, but one certainty:
A thin line inside me—once mutation crosses, no return.
I couldn't answer the Collector's plea.
Now, I just wanted to race home to 47 Sector. World, heirs—discard all. Just go back.
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