BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM C.970: A prison of silence

Erik gently brushed a strand of hair from Emily's face as they lay in bed together.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, smiling up at him. "More than alright."

Erik returned her smile, overjoyed to see the worry and sorrow had been temporarily lifted from her face. But as Emily nestled closer against his chest, Erik saw her expression shift again.

"Are you all right?"

Emily hesitated, but then whatever was keeping her from talking vanished. "Can you really save my father?"

Erik cupped Emily's cheek.

"I can," Erik said, injecting as much sincerity and resolve into his voice as possible.

Emily lifted her head to meet his eyes. She held his gaze for a long moment before nodding. "I believe you."

Erik wiped the woman's tears from her face, "I must go soon, but I will bring you good news next time we meet."

"All right..." Emily said. "Save my father. And then come back to me."

Erik kissed her once more. "That, I promise," he said. Then he rose from the bed and got dressed. He still needed to talk to many people.

...

...

...

Erik looked up at the Grand Ducal Prison's walls, the place his nemesis Volkov had imprisoned Emily's father, Richard.

A week had passed since his encounter with Emily, and now Erik was waiting for the rebels' diversion.

His thoughts wandered to the attack on the northern gate, wondering if the clones would succeed. The attack, while thought to distract the blackguards, wasn't going to be "fake". People were going to die that day. The best they could do would be to at least bring as many opponents to the grave as possible.

The rebels would lead the initial charge while faking being led by Erik and drawing the blackguards' attention long enough for the Chimaeric Demons to act.

Making sure no one was watching, he activated the Phantom Veil brain crystal power, turning his body invisible.

<I just have to wait, now...>

A few minutes later, his communicator buzzed. It was Van Dyke calling.

"The attack has begun," the man said. "Now is your chance."

"Kill them all," Erik said to the older man.

"Don't worry, we will."

Without a word, Erik ended the call. He could already hear the sounds of fighting in the distance.

"Let's hope things will go as planned."

He turned his attention to the prison's towering walls once again. The usual guards had left their posts to respond to the threat at the northern gate, leaving only a skeleton crew defending the prison itself. It was now or never.

Erik jumped up to the wall, unseen. They were not tall enough to stop him. He didn't even have to turn into a fly to reach the summit. He was simply strong enough to make the jump.

The guards noticed nothing. <System. Unlock the doors.>

<All right.>

The biological supercomputer connected to the prison's system and then unlocked each door Erik approached.

The man headed to the door, unseen.

"Invisibility is fucking great!"

He went through the door and took a moment to assess his surroundings. No guards were in sight.

The prison seemed eerily quiet, save for the occasional pounding on the few guards' boots. <It's weird.>

It was true many left the prison to go help the northern gate defenders, but the number of guards was too weird.

<I don't like this already.>

There was a hallway leading further into the prison. Somewhere down that hallway, Richard Stone was being held captive.

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<Let's see who is nearby...>

Erik channeled mana over his instability brain crystal power's neural links.

<It looks like there are few people within the building.>

But of course, the Instability brain crystal power had a range. Erik couldn't be sure that there

were other people outside of it. Not that he was using his full range right now.

He needed to know how many people were in the immediate surroundings, not all those

within the building.

So far, he has encountered no resistance, or more accurately, he has avoided the guards within

the prison.

As Erik hurried through the winding corridors, his thoughts turned to Emily.

He had promised to rescue her father, and he intended to keep that promise. But what if Richard was already dead?

That could be a possibility; Emily's visions were more often than not very precise, meaning that there could be a chance the man was ok.

<Let's hope the old man is still alive.>

Erik continued making his way through the building, using his powers to avoid detection.

At a certain point, he reached Sector G. The number of guards still weirded him. Besides, the hallways were darker than one would have expected from a prison. That made him feel even more uncomfortable.

What was even weirder was that Erik went through many prisoners' areas, and yet there were just a few people inside.

Normally, there would have been hundreds, if not thousands, of them, and the area should have been filled with the sounds of prisoners calling out and guards on patrol. Today, there

was nothing.

<I don't like this at all.>

A strange chill crept down Erik's spine as he stayed around Sector G's entrance.

While pulling out his sword, Erik entered the cellblock.

He made his way down the row of cells, peering into each one. Most were empty. But not all of them. In a couple of cells, Erik saw the bodies of the previous occupants. The blackguards, or Volkov, didn't even bother to take them out.

<Maybe they died recently?> That was a possibility. What instead was a certainty was that these people had been tortured, as testified by the torture signs on their bodies.

<That's weird even for Volkov...>

The man was known to have a twisted liking to torture, but it shouldn't have been possible for

him to torture so many people. The number of prisoners must have been bigger, and those inside should have been alive.

Erik had an idea why there were no people, and he didn't like it at all. Though, it wasn't like he

could turn back now.