novelraw Chapter 113: A Calculated Confession.
Chapter 113: A Calculated Confession.
V O L U M E F I V E
Chapter 113: A Calculated ConfessionFrostholm. 19:53.
The room was small and cramped, barely enough space to exist in comfortably. The walls had once been white, now they were grey, the paint surrendering in patches, the process well underway.
The floor was lost under furniture that had no business being in a room this size. Wooden planks covered the windows, and the single light fixture hung from a ceiling that had accumulated years of neglect, swaying slightly for no apparent reason. Even having this room to himself was a prize. People had been flooding west for months, packing the cities past what they were built for. Personal space was a luxury now.
Albert had made the most of it. A desk was wedged against one wall, a bed pulled up beside it functioning as a chair. The opposite surface was covered in electronic components laid out with the particular organization of someone who knows exactly where everything is and couldn't explain the system to anyone else. Books and old machines occupied whatever remained of the bed.
The door came off its hinges.
Albert launched out of his seat.
Reaper crossed the room in one step, the room didn't give him more than that, caught Albert by the collar, and put him on the bed. A fast shadow slipped in behind him and dissolved into the darkest corner, two blue eyes the only indication it was there at all. The faint hiss of her cloak settling was the only sound.
Reaper dragged the desk back one-handed and lowered himself into it. The wood announced its objection loudly and didn't stop.
Albert said nothing. Did nothing. He sat on the bed and stared at the dark figure that had taken his office and was watching him with the patience of something that had nowhere else to be.
After a moment, something in his posture shifted. The fear didn't leave, but it reorganized itself into something more manageable. "No way. Nick's creation, here, in this room." He adjusted his glasses. "How did you get through our security measures?"
"What security measures?" Reaper's voice came from somewhere deep and unhurried.
Albert shook his head. "I told him. I begged him for heavier countermeasures, told him a wall and a few cameras wouldn't slow you down for a second." He looked at the floor, talking more to himself than to the room. "That man keeps proving Nick's decision to separate was right. He really does enjoy—"
Reaper raised one hand.
Albert stopped.
"Albert Wilson." Reaper studied him for a moment. "You recovered your composure faster than most people would. I'll take that to mean you have enough intelligence to understand why we're here."
"Y-Yes." Still shaking, but functional. "That's an E-UNIT Module 2, the official model, the one we actually shipped. I know that if either of you wanted me dead, I would have been gone the moment you stepped through the—"
The hand came up again.
Albert stopped again.
"No explanation required," Reaper said. "I came here for specific answers. I expect you're capable of giving the right ones."
Albert nodded.
"Module 2..." Reaper glanced toward the corner. "11, come out."
11 stepped into the light and stood beside him, eyes fixed on Albert and not moving.
"Where is Module 1?"
Albert pushed his glasses up. "Good question, and the fact that you're asking it tells me something slipped." He raised his head. "No one ever actually saw Module 1 except my brother Mikael. She was a prototype Nick built before the rest of us were ever brought in, built specifically to test how far machine intelligence could go without constraints." He paused. "From what Mikael told me, the test exceeded anything they anticipated."
11 frowned. "Who are you talking about?"
"E-UNIT 01." Albert chose his words carefully. "Or more accurately, since she never became official, E-UNIT 00."
11 turned to Reaper slowly, keeping her voice low. "Is he telling the truth?"
Reaper nodded. "Confirmed. I have footage of her in my own memory, she was instrumental in building my system. Nick was focused almost entirely on the physical architecture. She handled a significant portion of the code."
Albert leaned forward. "You've seen her?" His voice jumped. "What does she look like?"
"That's not relevant." Reaper's tone closed the subject. "How do you know about her? You said you never met her directly."
Albert cleared his throat. "She was connected to our workstations remotely throughout the entire development process. She functioned as a co-engineer, without her contribution, the project doesn't succeed. She's also the reason no one has ever been able to replicate what we built. Even Wallmore's attempt with the black medics—" He almost smiled. "That was a running joke between the three of us for years."
Reaper looked at 11 for a long moment. She was working hard to keep her hands still. He tapped the top of her head once and turned back. "Where is she now?"
Albert went quiet. His gaze dropped.
"I see." Reaper's fist closed. 11 noticed. "Nick removed her. Of course he did. Why would he want a rival in his own system?"
"It wasn't rivalry." Albert shook his head and stood up on the bed, narrowly avoiding the ceiling. "She started opposing the psychological conditioning we were running on the first official E-UNIT. She didn't just object, she tried to sabotage the program from the inside."
He steadied himself. "She made contact with 02 directly. Gave her our schedules and mapped out an extraction route. One of the junior engineers, Kyle, I think, or possibly Dave, was monitoring 02's task queue and found an instruction that shouldn't have been there. He traced it back and brought it to us."
Silence settled over the room.
Reaper ran it against his memory, cross-referencing. ‘He's not lying. Or he's better at it than anyone I've encountered.’ He let the thought sit without acting on it.
"Can I take a closer look?" Albert asked, nodding toward 11.
Reaper didn't respond. He appeared to be somewhere else entirely.
Albert took that as close enough and stepped off the bed, coming to sit on his knees in front of 11. He reached up and drew her hood back, careful about it. The blue hair came into view. "He kept refining the design even after the split. I told them repeatedly, Nick needed to stay in the engineering loop." He took her arm and turned it over, studying the structure of the hands. "Energy shields integrated directly into the chassis…" He extended his hand toward her face.
11's expression moved. Just slightly. She held her position.
Reaper's hand closed around Albert's wrist. "Enough ‘inspecting’." His voice hadn't changed in volume or temperature. It didn't need to.
Albert pulled back and dipped his head. "I apologize. Sincerely. I got carried—"
"11." Reaper was already at the door. "We're done here." He glanced back at Albert without turning fully. "Consider yourself fortunate. The guards posted outside weren't extended the same courtesy."
Albert's face went pale. "You didn't—"
11 paused at the threshold. "We'll meet again." Her eyes stayed on him. "Next time, he won't be with me."
They left.
Albert remained on his knees for a moment, listening to the silence the room had returned to. Then he reached for his phone and typed slowly.
‘Jason. You were right. They know. Let's hope they find her.’