In the Undercity, the sky is like a forgotten fairy tale.
Above, there are piles of giant pipes stretching out like veins, constantly dripping with a foul sulfur smell.
People call this place the lowest district, or The Sink. The Elite Spire has an area for disposing of everything that has been discarded, forgotten, and no longer wanted by the Elite Spire.
Louise Vane pulled her coat collar higher, trying to ward off the damp air that felt sticky on her skin. Her footsteps echoed on the cracked concrete road as she approached the coordinates flashing on her communicator screen.
In front of her stood a chemical waste processing warehouse that looked abandoned. Its outer steel walls were covered in graffiti and synthetic moss that thrived amid the pollution. However, after taking just a few steps, she noticed something odd.
An electronic scanner panel was embedded behind a layer of rust. The device looked far too sophisticated and "clean" to be in this dump. Upon closer inspection, Louise realized it was ACVA's standard elite security technology.
"Damn," Louise whispered. She took out a small hacking device, a remnant of her glory days as an investigative journalist. The tension was palpable, only broken by the distant roar of machinery, and the panel clicked softly. The steel door in front of her slid open, revealing a thick darkness that carried the distinctive smell of medicine and antiseptics.
Louise switched on the flashlight at the base of her pistol. Its beam swept across the room, cutting through the dust floating in the air. Instead of a pile of waste, she found an efficiently organized makeshift laboratory. In the middle of the room, a steel operating table was surrounded by transparent tubes that left red stains.
Meanwhile, in a corner of the room that was not reached by the light, Louise found what she was looking for... or rather, what was left of the subject.
A corpse lay on the cold concrete floor. Louise approached, holding her breath. If she hadn't seen the modern clothes still clinging to the skeleton, she might have thought it was a mummy from a bygone era.
The skin was shriveled and clung tightly to the bones, as if all the fluids and blood in the body had been sucked out in one go. The skull was frozen in a silent expression of shock. There were no pools of blood on the floor, nor was there any smell of decay; all that remained was a terrible emptiness.
Wearing special gloves, Louise knelt down and turned the corpse's left arm over.
On skin as pale as paper, a symbol was clearly engraved: a broken Ouroboros. The lines still looked fresh, as if deliberately left behind as a message. The perpetrator's intentions are irrelevant. It was a challenge, or mere arrogance.
"They treated him like livestock," Louise stated.
As she was about to stand up, the light from her flashlight caught something near the foot of the operating table. It wasn't a bloodstain; it was a broken glass bottle. Among the shards, there was a drop of thick liquid that glowed dimly with a faint purple color. Louise wiped the liquid with a cleaning swab.
Instantly, her portable sensor screen vibrated violently. A warning alarm appeared in thick red letters: The genetic composition is unknown, and the levels of extreme telomerase are extreme.
This liquid was not the student's. It was definitely strange and mysterious. It was blood, but it was something else.
Louise stared at the purple stain, her hands shaking with rage. She realized one thing. The report about the missing Elite Spire experiment subject was real. It's clear from these fresh traces that the subject must have left this place not long ago.
Outside, the ACVA cleanup team's sirens grew louder, breaking the silence of The Sink. Without hesitation, Louise seized the shard of glass and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor, just as the spotlight from above began to sweep across the warehouse area.
To be continued...