New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

The elevator took a minute to reach the scientific part of the compound, where the testing was being held, and Alex exited it alone.

"You know where to go, kid. I need to go report."

Alex nodded at him, waving his hand at the merc as the doors closed.

He looked around at the dull white walls and sighed heavily.

"I hate places like these… So sanitized, it feels dead…"

He walked directly toward the testing rooms and met with the doctors.

"Mr. Leduc! What a pleasure to see you again! It's been a while since your last checkup. Has Mr. Boudreau finally cleared you for your next round of testing?"

Alex looked at the man with a questioning gaze. But it made sense that Jack wouldn't tell anyone what was truly going on.

The risk of the new spreading only rose as more people knew.

"Yes. And it'll be a special one, too. I found new powers that I need to test. But I think you will need to revise the security of your testing facilities," Alex replied, deciding to go with it.

The man chuckled, thinking this was a joke.

But his phone rang.

Raising his hand, he apologized to Alex.

"I'm sorry. I need to take this. It's the boss."

Alex waved at him dismissively.

"Yes, Mr. Gu. What can I do for you today?"

"…"

"Yes, Mr. Gu… Are you su—"

"…"

"Yes, sir. Right away, sir."

He hung up the call, looking flummoxed. He glanced at Alexander before taking a step back.

Alex immediately knew what the conversation had been about.

"I'll wait in the containment bay. Get me when the security has been boosted, doctor," Alex said, turning to the next room.

The doctor silently nodded, trailing Alex as he left the room. And as soon as he was gone, he rushed the scientists.

"Get the engineers. We need to triple-layer the bulletproof glass. We also need to get some mages in here. They are to erect a barrier in between the layers to boost the solidity against mana-fueled attacks."

One scientist under him looked at his boss with a perplexed gaze.

"Sir… Why do we need all this? Is something wrong?"

The doctor turned around, looking at him with wide eyes.

"Just do what I tell you to! Hurry!"

His sudden abruptness was out of character, and the scientist stopped asking questions and got to work.

Soon enough, an entire team of twenty people was working away on the testing chamber, making it able to withstand a mini nuclear blast and the equivalent of a mana bomb.

The walls were thickened with modular architecture from the outside; the inside was coated in an extra layer of instant-dry cement; magical barriers were erected.

The team even threw in a powerful force-field generator. Something that was still being tested as a prototype for the military.

All measures were reasonable. Mr. Gu had authorized the whole shebang.

Sitting in Jack's office, at a desk in the corner, Mr. Gu looked at all the construction going on through his left screen in rapid tempo before turning his gaze back to the right screen.

An image of a glass cell in the containment zone was currently shown on this screen. One where Alexander was waiting for the testing facilities to be strengthened.

"He looks calm. Maybe he has it under control, but he wants to know how he can stress that control. But these readings…" he mumbled, grabbing the tablet from his desk.

The tablet showed zero mana readings.

Yet, he knew that was wrong.

Alexander should at least be a C-grade on the scale they had made. A-grade, if he was melded.

However, the readings from the containment cell showed no mana reading at all. This made no sense.

Then, there was also the fact that the signal had frizzed out momentarily the second he entered the cell.

Mr. Gu guessed that he was too powerful to be gauged by their established scale, but he would still get a reading.

The only other alternative, he thought impossible.

"It's a reading tool, not an assessment tool. It can't get overloaded, can it?" he mumbled, scratching his stubbled chin.

The last month had been terribly busy for him. Mr. Boudreau had upped his time within New Eden, and many of the company's responsibilities fell on his shoulders.

This had led him to neglect his upkeep a bit, and a stubble had grown on his face. But he didn't dislike the seniority look it gave him, in the end, and decided to have his barber groom it into a proper goatee.

He was still a ways away from a proper one, though. But it would come.

Returning to the matter at hand, Mr. Gu berated himself.

'How tired am I to drift on stray thoughts? I need rest. Maybe now that the kid is back, Mr. Boudreau will take a break from New Eden for a while…'

For now, though, they needed to test Mr. Leduc. They couldn't even release him until this was done, by fear that he rampaged.

Mr. Gu doubted they could hold him here, but the orders were nonetheless those.

When a person was due for testing, they couldn't leave the compound until the tests were done and they were deemed stable.

A beeping sound caught his attention, bringing his eyes back to the tablet.

The display had switched from Alex's containment cell to a camera outside the compound aimed at the sky.

On this camera, a clear fire trail was approaching the hospital by air, and he already knew who it was.

"She's getting better at using this mode of transportation. I wonder how many awakened will use these methods in the near future…"

As the flames hit the ground, they morphed into a slender woman with sunken eyes and dull-coloured hair.

Kary ran into the hospital, heading directly toward the service elevator, where an attendant who recognized her let her in.

On the way down, she bit her nails nervously.

'Did he come back complete? Is he going to be missing a limb? Or maybe his mind will be broken. I hope he's okay…'

When the elevator doors dinged open, Mr. Gu was already standing before them, ready to take her to Alex.

"Follow me, young lady."

She nodded, keeping silent.