Transcendent Gene
Chapter 119: Deployment [5]

Chapter 119: Deployment [5]

The two facilities related to beast control looked similar from the outside, but they had completely different purposes.

Jason and Ulver’s mission went according to plan. As expected, the facility was related to gathering energy for the machine. They infiltrated it and managed to get some information during their weeklong stay, but there wasn’t much they could find.

At most, they were able to extract data about how much energy this facility provided to the machine month by month. It could be used to ascertain when the machine was created and hypothesize how much energy the machine required, but that was the end of it.

Unless the teams who would eventually see the schematics of the facility found a use for its design or a way to exploit it, none of it meant anything.

The two of them chose to stay for a week only to confirm that there wasn’t anything else they could achieve. Once it was confirmed, they did what they were best at.

Ulver released his power, freezing everyone in their vicinity as they moved. With his back covered, Jason went around and destroyed everything he could destroy.

He used only his strength talent which was extremely common in the world. As for Ulver’s power...

As long as they didn’t leave survivors, nobody would find out about him either.

Their mission was completed without any surprises. Albeit they didn’t gain much, it was good enough that they gained something.

The same couldn’t be said about Alice and Amaya.

"Gio, don’t come in right now," Raymond said as he saw the boy at the operation center’s door.

"It’s too late. I already saw it earlier."

Gio walked into the room despite the warning. He already knew what Raymond wanted to hide from him.

Displayed around the central platform where the main operator stood were gruesome images of mutilated human corpses. Some of them were rotting and some of them were fresh, while some others...

"They’re alive, aren’t they?"

All of the adults in the mass were dead. The children, however, were still living among those corpses. Their eyes were so hollow they could be mistaken for the dead, but the rosiness of their complexions couldn’t be hidden.

Gio sighed. He left earlier because he was told Raymond hadn’t seen the images yet. He came back because the Captain was now aware of the situation. Decisions could only be made now.

’Those images are stills from Alice and Amaya’s cameras.’

The facility they believed to also be related to smaller parts of the scheme turned out to be something much worse.

The worst part was that it didn’t seem to be related to the beast control machine at all.

"Gio, you already heard about this?" Raymond asked.

"Yeah. According to what Amaya said, they found those kids under the facility. The guards they’re posing as were put in charge of feeding them for the day. It’s already cruel from what we can see, but it’s apparently not even related to the beast control machine."

The facility itself operated similarly to the one Jason and Ulver found, but it was also being used for something far more nefarious.

"The Apocalypse Church is twisted. They show themselves off to the public as an organization with good intent and forceful means, but that’s not the case at all. They’re just a bunch of criminals and lunatics who come together to worship humanity’s greatest enemies."

Gio looked at the screen with a great frown.

"I guess these guys have this kind of kink."

It could only be described that way. They took so much pleasure in killing and torturing humans that it could only be considered a fetish.

"You think it’s mindless?" Raymond questioned.

"I don’t think anything. That’s what Amaya said. In her words..."

Gio looked at the operator who recited them for him before, and he did his duty again.

"Reporting, Sir. The exact words spoken were, ’These bastards come down here whenever they need to let off steam and kill or torture people. I don’t know where they come from, but this place is always filled with dead bodies yet there are always more people for them to torture. The kids don’t even get touched. They keep them there as an audience, these sick bastards...’"

After that, she proceeded to curse them for several seconds, but there wasn’t any new information.

What could she say? It was a crime without motive. The people doing these cruel things enjoyed them the same way an ordinary person enjoyed a movie.

It was only natural how Alice and Amaya would react. Alice wasn’t a vocal person, but her emotions were strong enough.

And, she was like many other Sequencers in that harming children, to her, was crossing a line that should never be crossed.

The actual information found in the facility was equally minimal. The Apocalypse Church was specific about keeping the important details of their plans secure and away from prying eyes.

In the first place, they only attacked the facilities with a hope of finding information. They never expected anything.

What they discovered instead was another example of the Apocalypse Church’s ability to kidnap and displace ordinary people without anyone finding out.

If anything, it gave them a clue about which forces could be backing the cult.

In the end, the two of them followed a similar path to Jason and Ulver, only taking a few more days to do so. The facility was left destroyed without any traces of damage. Alice brought the building itself down, making it look like a structural collapse.

The issue was the children they saved in the process.

What were they meant to do with them? There were twelve of them in total who couldn’t live on the zephyr. They couldn’t be left alone, but they couldn’t rejoin society either.

They had to receive proper help before they even had the hope of living normal lives again.

"Hmm..."

Raymond considered the decision carefully after receiving the news.

"Take them to the Service Crew. We can support them in the hauler at least until we find a real place for them to stay."

It was the best they could do.

This world was filled with such cases. Humanity today was broken. There were violent and egregious crimes being committed at all levels of society that people accepted as normal because they were so common.

The most unfortunate thing about the incident was the fact that it was not unique. Children orphaned by war, children who had to watch the people around them die, children who were turned into soulless beings by their trauma...

’I was one of them.’

Gio knew how it felt to be in that position. He felt sympathy for those children.

However, he was no different from Raymond in that there really wasn’t much he could do.

’The most I can do as an individual right now is grow.’

He could grow until he was strong enough to eradicate everything threatening humanity whether externally or internally.

The event ended quickly. The kids were taken to the hauler and left in Garrison’s care while they looked for a good shelter. The two teams that went to the beast control facilities returned to the zephyr by the time the month ended.

But from the day he saw those children living miserably among a floor of corpses, he took his training even more seriously. He became even more determined to do what was necessary to succeed.

As the weeks went by, the day approached when Jax and Natalia would return as well.

Gio would have to start reaching for his spot on the team soon enough.