Chapter 148: Uncanny parts
Chapter 148: Uncanny parts
"What is it, Trevor?"
Blake had barely taken a few steps into the same space he previously entered, to reach the third floor, until a familiar voice reached him.
"A change of style?"
Miranda approached without hesitation.
"Why the hat?"
For the briefest moment, Blake looked away.
’Oh Lord. Of all the employees she could have recognized immediately... it just had to be this dude.’
The woman had spotted him from across the hallway and walked over without the slightest doubt.
Blake quietly cleared his throat.
If this disguise was going to hold, simply looking like Trevor wouldn’t be enough.
He had to sound like him as well.
Lowering his voice as much as he could, Blake answered in a tone several notes deeper than his own.
"About the hat... I caught the edge of a ventilation panel while checking one of the maintenance shafts."
He shrugged casually.
"Nothing serious. I’d just rather not leave the scrape uncovered."
The excuse wasn’t spectacular, but it didn’t need to be.
Miranda merely gave the cap another brief glance before dismissing the topic entirely.
Instead, she asked, "Have you seen a kid about this tall?"
She raised a hand to indicate the height.
"Ordinary in appearance, and completely clueless, as well as basically useless."
Blake felt his stomach tighten.
’Um, seriously?’
She couldn’t possibly imagine that the very person she was searching for was standing directly in front of her.
The description matched "Landon" (In other words... him) in a really insulting way.
Keeping his expression perfectly neutral, Blake slowly shook his head.
"No, I haven’t."
Miranda groaned in frustration.
"That new recruit just ran off!"
She let out an irritated sigh.
"I swear, I’m going to make tomorrow absolute hell for him."
He nodded sympathetically.
"I’ll let you know if I see him."
Internally, however, he wasn’t especially concerned.
’You’ll probably be even more furious by tomorrow morning, after I’m already gone.’
"If that’s everything," Blake said, "I should get back."
Miranda dismissed him with a simple wave.
Without wasting another second, he headed toward the staircase once more.
Taking a slow, steady breath, he stopped before the reinforced security door. This time, he finally possessed everything required.
He lifted the borrowed identification badge and pressed it against the scanner.
A soft electronic chime echoed through the hallway.
Access confirmed.
Immediately afterward, Blake pulled the key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock.
One turn, and a heavy metallic click answered him.
The lock disengaged as he slowly pushed the door open.
Blake gulped.
’Man, this isn’t exactly reassuring...’
There wasn’t anything remarkable waiting beyond the entrance.
No laboratory, no aliens, no visible experiments.
Just another corridor.
As expected, that unsettled him even more.
Considering everything that had happened back at AFE, he couldn’t convince himself that the absence of danger actually meant safety.
Back then, everything had seemed perfectly normal at first. Only afterward had the nightmare begun.
His hands trembled slightly.
Blake looked down at them before forcing a crooked smile onto his own face.
’Everything will be fine.’
Stepping farther inside, he immediately noticed a long row of lockers stretching along one wall.
His curiosity immediately shifted toward them.
Mounted on the opposite wall was a long key rack.
Dozens of hooks lined the metal board, every single hook held a key, and above each one sat a neatly printed nameplate.
There had to be roughly thirty of them.
Blake slowly approached.
His eyes carefully searched from left to right until he found it.
Trevor Reptilo.
He removed the corresponding key before searching through the lockers until he located the matching name.
As he found it, Blake slided the key into the lock, finally opening the locker.
Inside rested something that looked remarkably similar to a gas mask.
’Eh, what is this thing for?’
Carefully lifting it from the shelf, he turned it over in his hands.
It was heavier than expected, more reinforced, too.
’Why one like this?’
His thoughts immediately wandered elsewhere.
’Maybe aliens are toxic?’
Or perhaps whatever environment existed beyond this point required filtered air.
Either explanation seemed possible.
Quietly humming to himself, Blake glanced toward the neighboring lockers.
Curiosity got the better of him as he borrowed the keys hanging directly beside Trevor’s.
One locker to the left.
One to the right.
Both opened normally and well, both were empty.
’Guess I really have to wear it.’
Of course, that turned out to be much easier said than done.
He already wore the Blank Mask, now he needed the gas mask on top of it and, somehow, the cap still had to stay where it was.
The problem became obvious almost immediately.
Unlike the cap, the gas mask didn’t conceal the Blank Mask.
Its lenses sat at entirely different heights, refusing to align properly with the eye openings beneath.
Every adjustment created another problem.
The cap shifted, the straps slipped, the lenses sat crooked...
Blake let out an increasingly frustrated sigh.
Nearly ten whole minutes disappeared before he finally managed to arrange everything into something functional.
Fortunately, nobody entered during that entire struggle.
The instant he finished, Blake locked the locker once more and continued deeper into the third floor.
Several rooms branched off from the corridor ahead.
Another detail immediately caught his attention.
The lighting.
Compared to the almost painfully bright illumination of the first two floors, this level remained noticeably dimmer.
Everything was still visible.
Just... muted.
The shadows lingered longer along the walls, and the atmosphere felt strangely heavy.
Blake slowly pushed open the nearest door and stepped inside.
His eyes lifted.
"...!"
A loud gasp escaped him.
He stumbled backward so violently that his back slammed against the door, the impact echoing through the room.
His hands immediately flew over his eyes.
’Those are body parts!’
Blake pressed a trembling hand against his chest.
His breathing became uneven.
Slowly, he slid down the door until he was sitting on the cold floor.
His teeth dug painfully into his lower lip.
His vision blurred.
Shaking, he tilted his head upward.
Those were definitely body parts.
But, were they human?
His entire body trembled.
After several long seconds, Blake forced himself back onto his feet.
His eyes remained tightly shut.
A hiccup escaped him as he tried to steady his breathing.
He didn’t want to look, he didn’t even want to think about what might be inside that room.
Yet, he couldn’t turn away now.
With visibly trembling lips, Blake slowly stepped closer.
Then he opened his eyes.
’These definetly aren’t human arms.’.
Each transparent containment case held only a pair of severed limbs.
Around two arms rested inside each container, carefully preserved rather than piled together.
Even then, there were enough containers to make Blake’s stomach churn.
He cautiously approached the nearest one.
The first type of arm looked lean and streamlined.
The skin possessed a muted grayish tone beneath the preservation fluid, almost smooth enough to resemble polished stone.
Instead of five fingers, the hand ended in four long digits, each narrowing into naturally sharp, dark claws rather than fingernails.
The joints appeared unusually flexible, with an extra articulation near the wrist that suggested a much wider range of movement than a human arm.
The muscles beneath the skin were compact rather than bulky, built for speed instead of raw strength.
Blake slowly moved toward another container.
The second type couldn’t have been more different.
These arms were thicker from shoulder to wrist, with dense layers of muscle clearly visible beneath darker, textured skin.
Rather than smooth, the surface resembled overlapping natural plates that followed the forearm toward the hand.
The hand itself still possessed five digits, though each finger was broader and shorter, ending in blunt, incredibly dense nails that looked more like naturally grown armor than claws.
Even the joints appeared sturdier.
Less flexible.
Much stronger.
There were only these two kinds.
At least, from what Blake could currently see.
He quietly remembered everything Miranda had explained downstairs.
The machine specialized in interception...
The machine specialized in barriers...
If these really belonged to the same species she had mentioned earlier, then he could make a rough guess as to which arms belonged to which.
It was nothing more than speculation, still, it was better than nothing.
Blake hesitated.
Then he reached toward one preserved arm from each type.
"Spoon," he whispered. "Put these into storage."
[ Yes, Dear Host. ]
The arms disappeared.
Silence returned to the room.
Blake stood there for another moment before quietly leaving.
The moment the door closed behind him, he let out a deep breath.
His stomach churned violently, feeling incredibly nauseated.
Even if they weren’t human... seeing neatly preserved body parts displayed like laboratory specimens had been enough.
Still, he forced himself onward, until he reached the other door.
Opening it, it wasn’t really any different. The only difference was that there feet this time.
And, as before, he storages both types.
As for the other rooms, he could hear people speaking inside, so he chose a random one and peeked from the door lock.
’What are they... is that a cutting machine?’