NOVGO.NET Chapter 98 Secret facility.
Chapter 98: Chapter 98 Secret facility.
Late at night, Thomas Hart was working the night shift among the high-ranking workers at the facility inside the Safe Zone.
Most of the people in the facility had already gone to sleep, but Thomas knew that this was when the inner circle truly began their work. There were certain operations that could never be carried out during the day, especially when too many eyes were watching.
He pushed an empty trolley through the silent corridor, the wheels making a faint squeaking sound against the spotless floor. Two other men walked beside him, each pushing an identical trolley as they moved through the dead of the night.
Thomas glanced between them before finally breaking the silence.
"Which room are we going to?"
The blond man beside him held a walkie-talkie close to his mouth. He seemed to be communicating with someone on the other end, though Thomas couldn’t hear the response. After a few seconds, the man pointed toward a particular section.
"Block A."
Thomas looked ahead.
The building before them was long and narrow, with several rooms connected to one another. It was one of the sections reserved for wealthy survivors who had been granted access to the Safe Zone.
Thomas had never fully understood what happened inside the facility. As far as he knew, the government was giving certain people an opportunity to enter the facility and come out stronger, healthier, and better prepared for the new world.
That was what he had been told.
That was what he believed.
"Take those three people," the blond man instructed. "They’ve been marked as ready."
Thomas frowned slightly.
Ready for what?
He had no idea.
But he had learned not to ask too many questions.
If an order came from someone above him, his job was to follow it.
The blond man took the lead, and Thomas followed alongside the third worker. They entered Block A and approached three selected survivors.
The moment Thomas saw them, something felt wrong.
They were lying on their beds.
Completely still.
The workers lifted them one by one and placed them onto the trolley, but none of the three reacted. Their bodies moved only because someone else was moving them.
Thomas watched as one man’s head rolled sideways while he was being lifted.
Nothing.
No groan.
No twitch.
Not even the slightest sign that he knew someone was touching him.
It looked like he was in an impossibly deep sleep.
But it didn’t look natural.
Thomas swallowed.
As they secured the three unconscious survivors onto the trolley, he glanced around the room.
That was when he noticed something else.
The other survivors were in exactly the same condition.
They were lying in their beds with their bodies completely limp, their faces pale and expressionless.
Some looked asleep.
Others looked almost dead.
Thomas felt goosebumps rise across his arms.
Something wasn’t right.
He didn’t know what it was, but every instinct inside him was screaming that he should turn around and walk away.
Instead, he tightened his grip around the trolley.
He had a family.
He needed his position.
And more importantly, he needed to stay alive.
So he pushed.
The three men continued deeper into the facility, taking corridors Thomas had never seen before.
They passed through areas he didn’t even know existed.
The familiar walls gradually disappeared, replaced by sections that looked increasingly restricted. Several doors carried warning signs, and some corridors were marked as prohibited areas.
Thomas’s heartbeat quickened.
Why were they taking these people somewhere that even he wasn’t supposed to know about?
The deeper they went, the stranger the place became.
The roads seemed to change.
One corridor led into another, then another, until Thomas could no longer tell which direction they had come from.
Eventually, the walls around them became completely white.
Not ordinary white.
Pristine white.
Everything was spotless.
The floor looked polished enough to reflect their shoes, and the walls were so clean that Thomas couldn’t find a single stain.
It felt less like a hospital and more like some kind of laboratory.
Thomas slowed slightly.
"Where exactly are we?"
Neither man answered.
The blond worker simply continued walking.
Thomas looked behind him.
The corridor they had come through seemed almost endless.
Are we still inside the Safe Zone?
He wasn’t sure anymore.
The facility had always been enormous, but this was different. It felt like they had entered an entirely separate structure hidden beneath everything they knew.
Then they stopped.
Thomas’s breathing caught.
He looked down.
Bones.
There were bones scattered across the floor.
Human skeletons.
Some were complete.
Others had been broken apart.
There were also pieces of flesh and dismembered body parts lying in the corners.
Thomas’s stomach twisted.
He nearly stepped backward.
The other two men didn’t even react.
They walked over the remains as though they were nothing more than pieces of trash.
Thomas stared at them.
How could they be so calm?
His palms became sweaty.
What the hell was waiting for them at the end of this corridor?
Finally, they stopped before a massive white door.
The blond man pulled out a security card and waved it in front of a small camera positioned near the handle.
A green light flashed.
The door unlocked.
The three men pushed the trolleys inside.
The moment Thomas stepped through, the door clicked shut behind them.
He froze.
There were people everywhere.
Men dressed in similar uniforms stood around the enormous room. Some were monitoring machines. Others stood near the walls like guards, watching over whatever was happening inside.
Thomas slowly looked around.
If the previous rooms had been white, this place had taken cleanliness to an entirely different level.
Every surface was spotless.
Machines covered almost every wall.
Countless wires ran across the ceiling and floor, all connected to a gigantic metallic structure positioned in the center of the room.
It looked like a massive drum.
Except it wasn’t a drum.
It was a bed.
And there was someone lying inside it.
The person’s body was restrained beneath layers of equipment.
Wires were attached to his head, chest, stomach, arms, and legs.
His eyes were closed.
His body didn’t move.
Thomas’s mouth went dry.
Someone stood beside the machine.
The man was tall, broad-shouldered, and carried an intense aura that made everyone around him instinctively keep their distance.
He was removing a pair of bloodstained gloves while examining the readings displayed on a nearby screen.
Beside him stood a short woman.
She was so small that Thomas initially thought she was a child.
But the sharpness in her eyes made it obvious she wasn’t.
She was a dwarf.
"Linda," the tall man called. "Get one of them to carry this specimen away."
He glanced toward the person inside the machine.
"Another failed experiment."
His expression twisted with irritation.
"Fuck this shit. Why the hell aren’t they giving me what I need?"
He ripped off the other glove.
"I’m certain this energy exists. This type of blood has to be somewhere. Somebody out there must possess it."
Thomas stared.
Blood?
Energy?
Experiment?
His heart began pounding.
What were they doing here?
The pale man suddenly turned toward them.
Thomas’s eyes widened.
There was something disturbingly familiar about him.
His hair was completely white.
His skin was unnaturally pale, almost as though he had never been exposed to sunlight. He looked fragile at first glance, yet the aura surrounding him was anything but weak.
It was dangerous.
Cold.
Almost unnatural.
"You brought new specimens?"
The way he said the word made Thomas’s stomach churn.
Specimens.
Not people.
Not survivors.
Specimens.
The blond man immediately stepped forward.
"Yes. The general ordered us to bring them here. He wants you to see if you can extract anything useful from them."
He paused.
"You know how impatient he’s becoming. He wants a permanent solution to what is happening to Earth."
The pale man scoffed.
"He doesn’t understand what I’m doing."
His eyes narrowed.
"I’m already working beyond my limits. He shouldn’t act as if I’m sitting around doing nothing."
He glanced at the three unconscious survivors.
"And these people?"
His lips curled.
"Useless. They’re dying like flies."
He turned back toward his equipment.
"We need something superior if this experiment is going to work."
Thomas stood completely still.
The conversation sounded like a collection of pieces that didn’t fit together.
But somehow, every piece was pointing toward something horrifying.
Then the blond man suddenly spoke.
"What about the awakened who were sent to investigate the dungeons? I never received their report."
The entire atmosphere changed.
The pale man’s movements stopped.
Thomas noticed the tension immediately.
"What awakened?" the pale man asked.
"The new recruits," the blond man replied carefully. "They didn’t make it back."
Silence.
"It looks like they were completely wiped out. I was about to report—"
He never finished.
The pale man grabbed a glass beaker from the nearby table and hurled it straight at him.
It shattered against his face.
The blond man screamed.
Thomas watched in horror as the substance inside the beaker burned through his skin. Half of the man’s face began melting away, revealing the skeletal structure beneath.
He collapsed, clutching his face.
Thomas stumbled backward.
The pale man’s expression had become monstrous.
"How dare you not tell me immediately!"
His voice echoed throughout the laboratory.
"What’s happening out there?"
Nobody answered.
His breathing became heavier.
"Someone is interfering."
His eyes burned with fury.
"Someone out there is against me."
He slammed his hand against the machine.
"But never mind."
His expression twisted into a terrifying smile.
"This experiment will work."
He turned toward the workers surrounding him.
"It has to work."
The entire room remained silent.
Then his gaze moved toward the unconscious people on the trolleys.
"If ordinary humans aren’t enough, then we’ll find something better."
He paused.
"And since those useless awakened couldn’t even return..."
His smile widened.
"I’ll send my four highest-tier warriors."
Thomas’s blood ran cold.
"Let them investigate the dungeons themselves. Let them find out what happened to those failures."
The pale man’s voice dropped into a deadly whisper.
"And whoever dares stand against the government..."
His eyes swept across the laboratory.
"...will die."