HA\LF: Dead nor Alive

Two days had passed, both Archie and Eve were enjoying their alone time wandering around the FalCon-1. When morning came, Ruby and Vincent came back for them and brought them back to Western Nation.

Ruby told them about the story that Faye reported to all the Marshals of the four continents about what happened in FalCon-1 and what they discovered. As Eve said, they had no idea what those symbols were and how to understand it, but one thing that made it interesting was Victor knew something about it.

After Eve told Ruby and Vincent that those symbols were impossible to decipher by human beings and not even herself, it strengthened their suspicions about Victor. If Victor knew something about it, then a Drautnir told him about those symbols, that Drautnir should have asked about those symbols to his guide.

“If only we can use that information, it would be easier to expose Victor and the Adam that supported him,” Ruby said as she sighed. “Unfortunately, it seems that everyone is fine with what they currently have, so if we want to do this, then that means the humanity will collapse with them if we decided to destroy them,” Ruby continued and stared at Eve and Archie.

“Not only that, we will be the evil guys here. The world will turn against us and they will hunt us down,” Vincent said.

“So what am I listening to right now? Are you both decided to bail because you don’t want to get involved in this?” Eve asked with her arms crossed.

“No, those bastards abandoned us and why would we stay quiet just because we will be seen as an enemy? I don’t care about them because the people that I cared about are already dead,” Ruby answered as she stared Eve in the eye with a serious expression.

“Then we have no problem at all, just stay with us and you will be fine,” Eve said with a smile on her face. “Anyway, I’m going to sleep now and wake me up when we arrive,” Eve continued as she lay down on the chairs.

They all ended up sleeping and were awakened by the loco pilot since they arrived at the station already.

“What about the Victor’s order? Are we really going to go out there to hunt the witches?” Eve asked as they were inside the lift.

“We don’t know yet since Faye hasn’t told us anything about it. It’s either she’s ignoring that order or they haven’t discuss about it further,” Ruby answered as she checked her prosthetic arm. “We are free at the moment since what happened to us in FalCon-1. So, how about we go and check it out? The thing that you get back there?” Ruby stared at Archie.

“Yeah, I’m thinking about it now. Should we bring Nova with us as well?” Archie asked them.

“I don’t know, Archie. She has no idea about all this,” Ruby said as she looked up at the long tunnel. “But it’s all up to you whether you involve her or not. She could be trusted, but who knows, we haven’t known her long enough yet,”

“I think we should bring her, we already decided to bring her in. If she asked how did we get that thing, I will think of an excuse later,” Archie answered.

They all went to the Sky Station to meet Nova since she stayed up there.

After they brought Nova with them, they used the train station to go back to Central Nation because they weren’t on a mission and didn’t have to use a car to go back. Faye knew that they all went back to Central Nation and she didn’t even ask a single question and let them go.

When they arrived at the Northern Nation, they all went to Ivan’s place in the middle of the night.

“Ivan, are you home?” Archie asked as he rang the bell repeatedly.

“I’m coming! Stop pressing the bell!” Ivan’s voice could be heard from behind the door. “Holy shit I need to remove that bell from now on,” Ivan said as he opened the door and then it surprised him when he saw more people than Archie.

“Wait, Nova? Who are those two?” Ivan asked Archie.

“Ruby and Vincent. They both are my friends from the Eastern Nation,” Archie answered.

“Oh, well, come in,” Ivan said as he opened the door wide.

All of them entered Ivan’s house and then he locked the door after he checked around the street just in case if they were being followed.

“What did you find?” Archie asked.

“I haven’t opened it because I don’t want to know what’s inside the hard-disk. I’m too scared to check it out myself, so I’m waiting for you to come back,” Ivan said as he grabbed his laptop from his bedroom.

Nova looked a bit confused as she looked at Archie and Ivan back and forth. “What are you guys talking about again? I have no idea why we are here, and why Ivan?” Nova asked.

“You’ll see,” Archie said.

Ivan came back with a laptop and a hard disk on top of the keyboard. He sat down at the dining table and plugged in the hard disk. Everyone was standing behind him because they were curious what kind of secret Victor was hiding from the public.

Ivan looked at hundreds of folders inside the hard disk, and he opened them one by one. Most of them was data about parasites, and photos of the parasites. It wasn’t as interesting as they thought until Ivan opened a folder and it contained information about the experiment that they made with the humans.

“Wait, is this an old information?” Nova asked as she leaned forward.

“No, I don’t think so. The information was updated a month ago,” Ivan answered.

“These people aren’t just any ordinary human, they’re Axis Humans,” Archie said as he pointed at the tattoos on the body of one of the experimented subjects. “These people used to be your men, right?” Archie asked Nova.

Nova looked at the names and she recognized some of them.

“Yeah, some of these people, I know them,” Nova answered as she nodded her head in agreement. “What kind of experiment they’re trying to do?” Nova asked.

“It’s said here that they used a modified Gen-0 parasite gene and tested it on Hendrick Fischer’s blood. THere are a few successful samples, and they injected those samples into these subjects. The samples were too powerful for their body to handle and replaced their genes with the sample in a single night. These people are either die or become a super Axis Human,” Ivan answered as he read the report.

“Those called super Axis Humans are all lost half of their consciousness. They can’t think a complicated problems and can only do simple tasks. Under the guidance, they’re trained to become the best soldier to carry a dangerous mission such as the extraction mission,” Ivan read the report out loud.

“They discovered that those called super Axis Humans, they are no longer require sleep, eat, or drink. They only responded to the smell of a parasite, and when they were offered to a parasite’s flesh, they immediately ate it without hesitation. The more parasite’s flesh they ate, the stronger they became,” Ivan said.

“It’s said that those super Axis Humans are officially stronger than any Ex-Axis Humans that existed because they have tested it,” Ivan said as he leaned on the chair with his arms crossed.

Ruby and Vincent looked at Archie and Eve. The four of them were quite surprised when they heard it. It sounded like those super Axis Humans had turned into Ex-Humans, and it made both Archie and Eve curious about them.

“Who’s crazy enough to do something like that?” Nova asked.

“Uh… hold on,” Ivan said as he scrolled all the way down. “It’s said here the one who supervised the experiments was Professor Larse,” Ivan answered. “Isn’t that the guy who made the normal human become Axis Human?” Ivan asked as he looked at Archie.

“He did, but he did some inhumane experiment and got caught. He was sent to jail, but after he got released, he disappeared. It looks like he got recruited by Victor and now working under him,” Archie answered as he stared blankly at the room. “I guess he’s living the dream now,”

“A super Axis Human, that doesn’t sound good,” Ruby said with her arms crossed and looked at the screen. “So, what are these super Axis Human do? You said something about extraction, what kind of mission is that?” Ruby asked Ivan.

“The only report about their missions are these,” Ivan said as he opened a folder, then read the report. “They were sent to gather Ex-Axis Human for a new experiment. There’s this called Atlantis mission with a top secret stamp on the paper, so I think they’re doing something in the water?” Ivan looked puzzled as he said that.

“Atlantis mission?” Archie asked.

“Yeah, there’s no more further information about that in the hard disk,” Ivan nodded his head. “I guess you need to find another hard disk if you want to find the details of this mission. Maybe in the main building?” Ivan looked at Archie and Eve.

“I guess so,” Archie replied as he looked at Eve.