Many Possible Diagnosis

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Many Possible DiagnosesBy Emerson Cho



Night Cycle

“I see a long night settling in and that mushroom which has poisoned the world

withering at the roots.”

– Henry Miller



Chapter 1

Dead.

Another corpse added to Julie’s death list and it weighed heavily on her mind. She’sneither a natural-born killer nor a psychopath; she doesn’t have ice water in her

veins – she’s a regular scientist trying to save the world in her own way.

Her blue eyes were clouded by questions: where did she fail? Were there any steps

she missed? Any key ingredients?

Julie silently cursed and – not for the first time – wished that she could be like the

body in front of her: completely at peace.

“Messed up again eh?”

A familiar annoyance leaned against the door frame.

Julie kept quiet. There was nothing she could say at the moment and she hated

showing any weakness – especially to this man.

“Just admit it – you aren’t cut out for this. Even a blind person can see how messed

up you are right now. The next time boss schedules you in for Sense Cycler, tell him

to shove it. Best for the both of ya.”

“I’ll keep that in mind”

Julie realized Zach was not going to go away unless she spoke, so she cut out theshortest response she could manage. As much as the feelings of self-disgust and

anger were flooding her, she saw the logic of Zach’s proposal. Project Sense Cycler

was one of the few in Final Draft – Final Draft projects require human

experimentation; the sheer weight of the lives on hand and the pressure to succeed

are immense.

On the other hand, Julie chose Final Draft projects for a reason: unlike many of the

other Final Draft scientists, she was not there for climbing up the organizational

ladder nor for money; she actually cared for the patients and enjoyed the

interactions with them.

The only one to empathize with the patients, and they knew it. They loved her for it.

She knew she could not abandon them no matter how deeply their deaths hurt.

“Are you done? I need to clean out the lab” Julie wanted to add how a particular

person was an eyesore but she knew that would quickly make the situation worse.

“Think you can make it back when you’re this messed up? You look like - ”



That was as far as Zach got before having to dodge an Erlenmeyer flask. Zach let

out a few expletives before storming out.

Julie sighed in relief. Misery does not want company, at least not the company of

some jerk. She quickly cleared up the lab - skilled with years of experience. Right as

she was about to set the digital numeric lock, she caught a glance of shiny remainson the ground and sighed again – this time in exasperation: she completely

forgotten about the broken flask.

As she swept the shards into the disposal, she simultaneously attempted to sweep

the depressing thoughts of the night’s failures into her mental waste bin.



Chapter 2

The MediDome was a curious and expensive construct.

At the centre of the Dome was the Yggdrasil: a fifty-storied glass structure with agigantic solar panelled roof that spread out like black foliage. The roof is rumoured

to provide the entire Dome with enough electricity to be self-sufficient and thus

taken out of the energy grid.

Surrounding the Yggdrasil are the scientists’ living quarters, all of which were made

of dark glass with gold supports but their splendour was easily – and literally –

shadowed by the Yggdrasil.

Beyond the living quarters were the usual city fixtures: restaurants, shops, cinemas

and so forth. However, the quality of the fixtures was anything but usual – every

restaurant served high-class cuisine; every shop served brand name attire.

Of course, Julie was in no mood to contemplate any of this as she trudged to the

living quarters. Besides, having worked at the MediDome for the past year, she was

completely accustomed to the excesses that existed around her.

“Hello Ms.Scrivener, working late hours?”

Julie snapped out of contemplation at the sound of her name. Two familiar officers

stood in front of the living quarters.

“Yes, you know how it is – I’m sure they would rather we didn’t sleep at all.

Businessmen couldn’t care less about science and how it works; all they care aboutare results that bring them cash and they’ll work us to the bone for it.”

“I know what you’re talking about. I wish they think a bit about us front-line workers

before scheduling these graveyard shifts,” the short officer said. “Not that I’m

complaining,” he added nervously – looking over at his side.

“And you best not be complaining boy,” grumbled the taller, ragged officer,

“Enough from you”

“It’s alright Reggie. After a long day of work with nothing but vials to talk to, I don’t

mind chatting with some friendly humans,” smiled Julie.

“Don’t give him too much credit or it’ll go to his head. Lord knows he has enough

useless stuff in there already,” retorted Reggie, wiping the smile off the junior

officer’s face. “Thanks for your concern, but we have to stay sharp. Good evening to

you, missus.”

With that, any chance of further conversation was cut off.



Not that Julie was entirely displeased; she welcomed the warm interior of the

building and quickly took the elevator up to her floor.

A package lay at her doorstep, but Julie was completely exhausted. She dropped it

next to her dresser and told herself to check it in the morning and drifted off to

sleep.



Chapter 3

Day-time was completely mundane: report the night’s results to the supervisor; talk

over research with fellow scientists; present potential angles to the suits – all very

repetitive.

During the day, minor victories and defeats can alter moods. Julie felt buoyed by

supervisor’s praise of her detailed diagrams – and felt deflated when a cynical

businessman criticized her experimental proposal.

As soon as the normal work day ends, none of this matters – it’s tossed aside by

more pressing concerns.

The Final Draft project weighed heavily on her mind as Julie walked towards the in-

lab quarters where she would assess potential patients.

She would give the go-ahead.

Give a pep talk on how everything will go well.

And watch them die.

Julie tried to put that idea out of her head as she swiped her access card at the door

of the lab.

*BEEP*

The door flashed red.

“What! How dare you refuse me entry?” Julie muttered to the door.

“All those experiments must’ve gotten you senile if you’re talking to doors now,”

smiled Zach who had just shown up.

“These doors are a lot more fun to talk to than you,” retorted Julie, “even if they’re

just as thick.”

“Looks like your wits got back to ya, I was thinking that last one did you in for

good.”

“I don’t need anyone worrying about me, especially not you”

“Now now, tone down the hate a little and maybe I’ll let you know why you can’t get

in.”

“You’re the one that messed with the door?” Julie was starting to get angry despite

herself.



“Try the magic word!”

“Tell me how to open the door or your HEAD’S going to be what’s opening that

door!”

“Quiet in the lab please”

A shortened old man with grayed hair softly spoke; Zach and Julie were too engaged

to notice him approach.

“My apologies Dr.Scott, but I believe Zach messed with this door and now I can’t get

in”

“Zach here mentioned you were completely exhausted from Mind Cycler.

Considering the lack of positive results for the last quarter, I find this very

believable. As such, you have been reassigned.”

Reassigned. Lack results.

Those words echoed through Julie’s head as she struggled to grasp with reality.

“W-wait, there must be some mistake! You can’t possibly take me away from the

project I staked my carrier – no, my life! – on”

… was what she wanted to say. However, her agile mind easily leptfrog her initial

sentiments.

“I understand that the failure rate has been unacceptable, doctor, but how about

trails #231 and #253? I’m sure they will become breakthroughs if you give me

some more time to analyze and readjust the experiments.”

“Unfortunately we do not have the luxury of time. Your assignment has already

been decided. Go to the Room 37 on Floor 13 for your new project.”

Knowing it would be futile to argue further, Julie cursed to herself and ignored

Zach’s smug face.



Chapter 4

Room 37 was a spacious, frequented room. All projects – past, present and future –

that happen in the MediDome are processed in this room.

Julie felt sick.

Her supervisor made it clear that she was a decisive failure; it was highly unlikely

she would get another Final Draft project. She inserted her name into the waiting

list and sat down on one of the mahogany chairs that lay against the walls of the

room.

Julie tried to tune out those depressing thoughts by immersing herself in the

surroundings which was not too difficult considering they were very different than

her usual environment.

For one, there was neither laboratory equipment nor projectors spewing out dollar

figures. For another, the room was bustling with young, excited people – most of

who were finding out their first project. The speakers announced their names, and

they hurriedly went up to find out where their fate laid for the next few years.

“Wireless Mice? Doesn’t that sound very computerish? I hope it’s not completely dry

lab work…”

“Oh! I heard about that one from Tom – he said that they were trying to remove

instinctive reactions. It sounds really cool. Better than mine…”

“What’s yours?”

“Seed Hazer”

“Haha, what’s up with that name? Sounds like gardening to me!”

“Yah, sounds like plants. Plants are so damn boring…”

Alright, thought Julie, listening to people complain about their projects is not going

to help me.

“Julie Schrivener”

Finally.

“You have been assigned to Project Seed Hazer.”

Ugh, the same project I just heard bad things about, thought Julie.

“Alright, can I have the Project package?”



The clerk appeared annoyed.

“The package was sent off yesterday, you must have received it by now. It is not

the administration’s fault if you researchers lose packages.”

Julie suddenly remembered last night’s large unopened envelope.

“Alright, I’ll check back home,” said Julie with a forced smile.

Julie marched out and mentally blanked out the clerk’s loud and unflattering

opinions about the researchers in the building.

“Hey there, you’ve been assigned to Seed Hazer as well?”

It was the young scientist that was complaining earlier.

“Unfortunately”

Another forced smile. The young scientist silently reciprocated.

Together they walked towards the destination; both deep in various levels of

depression as the elevator descended.



Chapter 5

The elevator doors noiselessly slid open.

The two persons that it contained walked onto the hallway and through the double-door entrance.

A loud ruckus suddenly struck them.

“Wh-what the heck is this?” stammered the younger scientists.

Surrounding them were rows of transparent cubes inhabited by people. The entire

floor could have been mistaken for a prison cell if the glass walls were metals bars.

“Clearly we’re not here to harvest tomatoes,” grimaced Julie, “though now I wish we

were. Tomatoes are less noisy.”

“Working with plants is lot less funner than these guys! Hi there!”

A freckled girl sat by a chair next to the entrance. With her bright red hair and giant

smile, she appeared to radiate like a sun.

“Less fun,” corrected the dark haired scientist who leant against the wall, “forgive

her – she’s always this hyper no matter what the circumstance.”

The seated girl impudently stuck out her tongue in the direction of the criticizer.

“Whatever the project is, I’m glad I finally have some friendly people to talk to,”

smiled Julie.

“Yah, we’ll have a blast! I was kinda nervous when Mel and me went to the big room

with all the screens, but then we found out we were on the same project and I was

thinking ‘wow what a coincidence!’ Who knows though, maybe they thought that

people that knew each other from before will work better together and-“

“And that’s all she needs to know, Marika,” Melissa stated.

The short phrase about needing to know things triggered a reminder for Julie.

“Shoot! I left my folder back at home. Sorry but I need to fetch it – I’ll be back in half an hour.”

“Wait! You can just look over our folders, stuff’s all the same I bet,” interrupted

Marika.

Julie jerked to a stop. That did make a lot of sense, and she was not looking forward

to trudging back and forth.



“Alright, thanks for saving me a long walk. What exactly are we supposed to do

anyway?”

“Patient screening”

Julie jumped at the sound behind her.

Her elevator companion finally spoke up. Julie noticed that his envelope was

already unsealed. He must have already read the contents after being adjusted to

the din.

“Basically,” he said after clearing his throat, “we need to interview all these patients

to see if they are fit for Final Draft projects. The seeds refer to the patients. We are

‘hazing’ them to find high-functional ones that can give us feedback on

experiments.”

“But we’re not actually bullying them or anything like that right?” The red-haired

girl was quickly tearing apart the envelope to double-check the contents.

“No, ‘hazing’ is just figurative. They give us a list of questions to ask them so it’s

going to be pretty boring and repetitive…”

“No way! It’s like making a ton of friends all at the same time. There’s no way I’d

hate that!”

“That’s… a weird way of thinking about it. They’re not normal. They’re patients.”

“And you just got to be patient with them!”

That has got to be the worst pun I’ve heard all year, thought Julie.

“In any case, what is the timeline? The work division?” Julie tried to get back on

track, “did the project come with a Gantt chart?”

“It’s fairly straightforward,” said Melissa quickly scanning and shuffling through the

papers, “we each get a block of patients and schedule twelve half-hour interviews.

With the four of us, we will be done in about a month. We can use today to

familiarize ourselves with the surroundings.”

Julie was relieved that at least one of her new teammates had a level head. She felt

like she might become a patient herself being stuck between her super depressedand super energetic colleagues.



Chapter 6

Zach had a good day.

He had received praise for his technical abilities from the project managers. He wasused to the praise as he bailed them out time and again when their systems ran

amok, but he still felt like credit should be given where credit was due.

Not many people would be around after-hours to fix things, but they could always

count on Zach to be there.

Of all the accomplishments that day, he felt most satisfied from having Julie

reshuffled to another project. That showed her who ran things around here!

Zach was a creature of the night. Although his face looked worn and tired, his jet

black eyes were sharp – they reflected the mind that was behind them.

Zach wandered around the buildings which were mostly vacant – he enjoyed having

large spaces to himself. This enjoyment was easily attainable when most of the

business people have gone home, leaving behind scientists to their research.

“Still around, Zach?”

Here was one now.

“Of course,” smiled Zach, “I enjoy having the building to myself while watching all

of you scurry around. It feels like I’m in the eye of the tornado”

“Yes, the work never does really end. I do wish that I could be like you for a bit and

do absolutely nothing productive,” retorted the man.

“I do more in an hour than you’ll ever accomplish in that lab of yours.”

Zach enjoyed messing around and this was headed straight for his comfort zone.

Sensing this, the scientist quickly clammed up and hurried off to his work while

shaking his head.

“What exactly do you do? I’ve seen you around a lot but never once did I see you

doing anything useful,” remarked another scientist. This one was passing through

the corridor with two of his colleagues.

“I think keeping you folks on your toes count as being useful, don’t you think?”

The newcomer knew better to stick around to fight – he was busy, much like the last

one, and could not afford to jeopardize his research with silly word games. He

pretended not to hear Zach and started talking with his accompanying colleagues

as they continued along the corridor.



Zach’s good spirits were kept intact throughout the night as he harangued whoever

had the misfortune of crossing his path.

After a while, he got bored and decided it was time to pay the Glass Menagerie a

visit; he was wondering how Julie was fitting into her new position.

As he sauntered off to the central elevator, he thought about the group that passed

him through the corridor.

That man had a good point.

What exactly was he doing here?



Chapter 7

The group of four scientists finished a quick initial tour of the Glass Menagerie to get

a sense of the facilities. They decided to split up to do a check-up of their patients.

Julie strolled through her block passing by each cell one at a time. She attempted to

communicate with each one and received more than a few blank stares and

obscene vulgarities.

But she was completely at ease. She was accustomed to this experience from

treating past patients. She would work hard to earn their trust.

Finally, she reached the last cell.

“Good day there,” smiled the occupant.

“Not exactly ‘daytime’, but the weather is fairly nice,” replied Julie.

“Of course! I apologize; I lose track of time when there are no windows to see

whether it is day or night. They really should install some windows around here.

Don’t they know that sunlight is good for our health? Everyone will benefit if we get

more sunlight. Some of us will even get better.”

That all sounded very reasonable.

A bit too reasonable.

Julie felt a bit disconcerted. She knew high-functioning patients very well approachnormalcy, and she could communicate with them regularly. But this gentleman

appeared to be perfectly fine – not a patient at all. Why was he in the cell?

“Security might have an issue with that, but I’ll talk it over with the building

managers,” smiled Julie. She wanted to end the conversation and leave for home.

“Pleasure to meet you, my name is Vincent Arlington. What’s yours?”

“Julie. Just Julie is fine.”

With that, Julie took her leave.

“How’d it go? Wasn’t it great?” Marika ran up to her and beamed. The two other

scientists stood by the door looking ready to leave.

Julie felt relieved. It has been a long time since she’s seen a genuinely happy

person, and the feeling spread to her through osmosis.



“Yah, everything went better than I expected. I even managed to talk to one of

them.”

“Wow, same here! I made a bunch of notes on everyone so I could remember them

for tomorrow. Can’t wait to get started!”

Julie was slightly taken aback at her preparedness.

“This girl – even though she looks sketchy, she’s actually quite reliable,” Melissa

added, noticing Julie’s expression.

“Hey, what’s that’s supposed to mean! There’s nothin’ sketchy about me at all. I’m

the most well-defined person you’ll ever meet!”

The two friends laughed as the entire group exited the double doors.



Chapter 8

“Hey, you have friends!”

For the nth time, Julie wanted to punch Zach’s sarcastic smiling face.

“So are you going to introduce me or are you just going to stand there looking

angry?”

“Sorry I only introduce my friends to my other friends.”

“Doesn’t sound like they’re going to meet anyone through you anytime soon then”

“Julie, who’s this jerk?” grinned Marika

“No one important”

“That’s not a good way to treat a childhood friend,” Zach made a mock sad face.

Julie admitted that if Zach was anything – he was a good actor.

“Wow really? You have a childhood friend working with you?”

“We met back in high school and he’s far closer to Annoyance than friend,” said an

exasperated Julie, “his name is Zach – hope you won’t have to hear that name ever

again.”

“Now, if you can move out of the way? We’re trying to get home,” added Julie

pointedly to Zach.

“You still haven’t introduced me to your friends yet”

“Marika, Melissa and…” Julie abruptly stopped. She suddenly noticed that she

forgotten to ask her depressed colleague for his name.

“It’s Phil”

He was clearly annoyed that no one had bothered to ask his name.

“Hah, out of the three ladies you work with, you can’t catch a single one’s

attention? No wonder you look so unhappy all the time,” laughed Zach.

Phil gritted his teeth and clenched his fist.

“What’s the matter? I can’t hear you if your mouth is clamped like that,” Zach knew

he had physical superiority. There was no way he’d lose in a fight if it came down to

it.



And despite his anger, Phil knew this too and kept silent – taking away some of

Zach’s enjoyment. Zach quickly grew bored and stepped out of the way.

“You really should learn how to deal with people,” said Julie as she passed him by.

“Thanks, if I need a shrink, you’ll be the first person I talk to”

Marika and Melinda passed next, talking animatedly to each other.

Finally, Phil trudged along at the back.

As he passed Zach, he suddenly swung his fist at the back of his head.

However, Zach sensed the punch and sidestepped it easily. His long experience of

pissing people off told him that Phil would come after him.

With a single malicious glance, Zach sent Phil scurrying away into the elevator.



Chapter 9

The group of scientists left Yggdrasil together and ventured towards the residences.

As usual, guards were stationed near the residences and gave the group curt

greetings. Marika was amused by their stiffness and taunted them for it.

Each of them exchanged their addresses and waved goodbye – going their separate

ways into different buildings.

When Julie reached her room, she retrieved the package that caused her much grief

by its absence. Julie slowly sliced open the envelope with a letter opener and slid

out the contents of the package.

The package contained details of her new project, her assigned block of patients,

the schedule for interviewing…

A familiar stack of paper. It seemed completely similar to what Marika just sharedwith her.

As Julie began shoving the entire bundle back into its wrappings, a small black card

slipped out.

That’s strange, Julie thought, I don’t recall seeing this before.

She picked it up and looked at it. One side was jet black and the other side was

white with black letterings. It read:

“Check your computer.”

What?

Julie was not going to check her computer just because some suspicious note told

her to.

Being a scientist and having a propensity to be naturally curious, she did want to

know what the note was about. On the other hand, her computer collected dust

from neglect and was buried under a mountain of notes.

Julie grimly reflected that the state of her computer mirrored her social life very well

– shoved away by her constant dedication to work, work that took up practically all

her waking hours. She had not seen nor talked to her family or friends in ages.

Do they still remember her?

She quickly pushed that thought away. It was not a pleasant one to dwell on.

Being physically and emotionally drained, she decided to trade her curiosity for rest.



Julie mentally filed away ‘checking the computer’ and went to sleep.

That night, Julie dreamt.

She was in a barren wasteland. The pale, full moon cast dim lighting upon the white

sands and small pebbles. There was absolutely no wind – the air was stagnant,

almost to the point of suffocation. She could see miles and miles around her; in fact,

was there even an end to the vast field of white?

Julie stood in the middle of this field feeling the immensity of her surroundings. She

knew that she was alone, yet she could not shake off the feeling that something

was behind her.

She spun around.

There was nothing.

She tried spinning around faster as if to catch it off guard, but whatever was behindher – if anything – eluded her.

Finally, Julie got tired of spinning and decided to sit down.

As she bent her legs and leant down to take a seat, black cloth suddenly surrounded

her and the sharp edge of a blade made contact with her neck.

The blade quickly passed through, but not a single wound was made. Instead, her

throat became congested and she could no longer breathe.



Chapter 10

A bright, sunny day.

The warmth of the weather quickly washed away any bitter aftertaste of the nightbefore.

Julie stepped outside of her apartment and was surprised to see people waiting for

her: it was Marika and Melissa.

“Hi there! We all live so close anyway, we figured we’ll all go together. Team-

building!”

“It’s more likely she’ll finally get sick of seeing your face,” muttered Melissa.

“Hey, you were totally up for this just a minute ago!”

“I was only up because you dragged me.”

Julie smiled. It was hard to stay unhappy when these two were around. With her

nightmare dispersing like afternoon mist, she joined her coworkers as they walked

towards the next residence.

“So are you two from the same building?”

“Oh, we’re roommates. When we found out that we were working at the same

place, we figured we might as well share a place. Easier for cooking and cleaning,

that’s for sure!”

“Marika is surprisingly good at cooking too.”

“What’s with ‘surprising’! I’m naturally good at everything”

They continued bantering until they finally reached Phil’s building.

“What if he’s already left?”

“Nope! He’s still in, check out the board,” Marika pointed to the list of build

occupants.

The residences were equipped with card scanners that automatically detect their

inhabitants’ entrance and exit. Phil’s nameplate was lit up – a signal that he was still

within the premises.

“Alright, but what if he’s sick or decided to skip work? Yesterday looked pretty

rough for him.”

“We have a policy of waiting up to fifteen minutes for people.”



“Any later than that, we’re gone if you don’t show up! Even for you, Julie!”

“Only fifteen for me? I should be worth at least an hour.”

“An hour? We’d be totally late for work!”

“But it’d be worth the wait,” smiled Julie.

Marika laughed while Melissa looked nonplussed.

“Honestly though, I hope we won’t be waiting for too long.”

However, Julie’s worries were needless as Phil strolled out of the building. He gave a

start – he was surprised at seeing them.

Julie could empathize; after working at the Yggdrasil for so long, human interaction

slowly becomes optional. Work was the sole focus – discussing research, promoting

research, doing research. Endless cycles.

For the first time since she started, Julie felt like the future was brighter.



Chapter 11

Julie remembered distinctly the first glass cage she passed by. It was a lethargic-

looking boy that leant against the corner. He looked miserable in his lethargy that it

made an imprint on her mind.

Which was why Julie was shocked when she met him again: he sat upright and was

vibrating with energy; he looked as if he was barely able to stay still.

“Good morning, how’s everything going?”

“Wonderful! I just thought of this brilliant idea: you know how these glass panels are

so great at letting sound pass through, right? And you could see through them so

well? They should install these at the theatres! There are always people

complaining about popcorn flying everywhere or drinks spilling on them. If we have

these glass walls there, we could stop that happening-“

“So you used to see a lot of movies?”

“My family used to go all the time! Of course, I was still a kid – well, more of a kid –

so I didn’t really understand some of them. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t like them!

The screen was really big and there were these loud sounds. It might have been too

loud though. Maybe if we put some glass walls in, we could make them so they

make the sounds different for the different people ‘cause not everyone likes it when

it super loud-“

Julie had a hard time keeping up, but she did manage to get through herquestionnaire after listening to thousands of words.

“Well, thanks for sharing your experience with me Austin, hope to talk to you again”

Or not, thought Julie, I might be here till next morning if I have to do that again.

Julie went over the notes as she strolled to her next assignment.

“Good morning how’s everything going?”

Julie made a mental note to herself that she was going to need to change her

starting phrase, or this will quickly become repetitive.“Everything? What do you mean by that? Why would you need to be concerned?”

“I’m just here to ask some questions”

The woman’s eyes were bulging as if Julie said the most ridiculous thing in the

world.



It became clear that any more questions would be a waste of both their times. She

decided that she should treasure the precious few minutes she has and moved on.

Her next patient kept readjusting his bed covers even though they were perfectly

straight. He ignored Julie completely while he went about his task.

Julie finally moved on after fifteen minutes of cajoling, pleading, yelling and giving

the silent treatment.

You know, she thought to herself, that waiting rule actually comes in handy. At this

rate, I’ll be finished with my block before lunch.

Unfortunately for her, there were still many patients to talk to and not all of them

were unreasonable. Which meant that Julie had quite a few questionnaires to fill out

and review, and that kept her busy until lunch.

“Hey, how’d it go!”

“Not bad. Some goes faster than others.”

“I totally know what you mean,” smiled Marika.

Phil and Melissa chatted with each other as they approached the two that were

already at the lunch table. They were discussing methods to run through the project

faster – Phil had already finished a quarter of his workload.

“I think it’s because I just want to get this over with. You guys are spending way too

much time chatting.”

“Hey, chatting is great! Choose a plant project next time if you don’t like to talk,”Marika chimed in.

“I wish I could choose my projects,” said Phil dejectedly.

“You could always go back to Room 37 and ask them about it”

“It’s true. Even though we have no control over specific projects, Room 37 can

forward your requests to the project managers and they will take that into

consideration. They can even arrange for you to be matched with a project.”

And unmatched, added Julie silently.

The conversation brought back her original project into her mind. Although her

impact on patients was much less now – she no longer stood at the border of life

and death – Julie admitted that she was much happier now: less stress and actual

people to talk to.

Perhaps Zach was right.



Chapter 12

The man in question was stalking the hallways of the Yggdrasil.

Bystanders would marvel that his movements could seem so purposeful whilealways wandering around aimlessly. Then they would curse him silently when he

got in their way.

However, Zach actually had a goal in hand. Literally, Zach held a note that

requested his help:

“Retrieve project files with August start dates”

Zach found the black note in his clothes and although he did not know who it was

from, he had a feeling that he should act on it anyway. After all, it was a trivial

request for him.

Zach took the elevator to the 13th floor and strolled to room 37. A guard was posted

in front of the locked door.

Let’s see, Zach thought, one guard, two cameras and one number lock. What clever

plan shall I come up with?

“Hey!” Zach shouted to the guard.

The guard was startled at being yelled at.

“I need to get in.”

“Sorry, I’m not allowed to let anyone in after 5.”

“I said ‘I need to get in’ and if you don’t open the door in ten seconds your ass will

be fired”

Completely flustered, the guard unlocked the door and Zach was in.

The best plan is the simple plan, Zach nodded to himself. For good measure, he

yelled at the guard some more making sure the unfortunate man did not look inside

the room while Zach performed his task.

Zach flipped on the switch for the computer and waited for it to load.

“USERNAME. PASSWORD.” declared the computer.

“Hmm, ‘administrator’ and ‘password’. No? ‘abc123’? ‘qwerty’? There we go.”



This was not the first time that Zach had broken into the project assignment room,

nor the first time he broke into the project assignment system. He had already

memorized the meagre list of six passwords the clerks managed to come up with.

He quickly printed off the needed documents and left the room.

The guard looked as if he was about to speak, but Zach silenced him with a look.

“Well, I’m done my good deed for the day,” Zach said cheerfully to himself as he

pocketed the documents. He never knew where his loot goes, but one thing was

certain: it will be gone the next time he checks his pockets.



Chapter 13

Middle of the night.

Under the dark skies punctuated with single points of light, Julie waved good-bye toher odd mix of coworkers.

She went home and slept a dreamless night.

Chapter 13.3

The second round of patient screening.

The more Julie became accustomed to her coworkers, the less she hurried about her

tasks. There was no point in prematurely ending a good thing early, she decided.

Marika and Melissa appeared to be of the same mind: they found that they had

made marginal progress when lunch beckoned.

In contrast, Phil easily blazed through his interviews. Julie suspected that that was

more a factor of him not being very conscientious about his job than him rushing to

finish.

“We’re all finishing these at different rates; it would be a good idea to re-divide the

blocks so that we all finish at the same time,” stated Melissa.

Phil recoiled at the idea of having to do more work than the others.

“No way. That’s not what we decided on.”

“Aw c’mon, what are you gonna do when you’re done anyway?” piped Marika.

“That’s up to me to decide. Not taking on more work.”

“That’s alright – it’s not like we’re falling behind and desperately need to catch up.

Even if we were, I wouldn’t mind staying later to finish up my own part. I don’t like

having other people to clean up my mess,” said Julie trying to calm the two sides.

“If you stay any later, you won’t see the sky for another day!”

“The sky’s not that interesting to look at anyway, I won’t miss much,” smiled Julie.Marika went on to describe exactly how interesting cloud formations and

constellations can be and the group quickly forgot about the division of labour issue.

Chapter 13.7

A week passed by.



As was predicted, Phil finished his block before the others managed to finish half of

theirs. He decided to take his well-deserved vacation while the others continued

their task.

Not that any of them minded. Julie found that conversations were more easy-going

when there wasn’t a constant dampener around and she suspected the others feltthe same. They all liked Phil and respected his professionalism, but as a person he

wasn’t very sociable.

“Phil not in today?”

There was one person disappointed that Phil was gone: Zach missed his verbal

punching bag.

“If you miss him so much, you should go visit him.”

“Maybe I will,” grinned Zach. With that, he left without anyone knowing where.

“That’s very disturbing imagery. I’d like to scrub it out of my head as soon as I can,”

winced Julie as the team walked home.

“Replace it with prettier thoughts then. Positive thinking!”

Pretty and positive, thought Julie, the first thing that comes to mind is that

unstoppable ball of energy in front of me.

“Well? You look like you’re recovering already, what’cha thinking about?”

Julie was glad that it was night-time.

“Hey, you’re turning all red!”

Then she realized the sky was clear and the moon provided enough illumination,

unfortunately.

“Ah, I rather not talk about it. Just use your imagination!”

And with that, she refused to say anything else even though Marika pestered her

until Julie literally shut the building door on her.



Chapter 14

There was one more glass cell to visit.

Julie decided to save this particular cell for a day by itself. After all, the other twowere still taking their time. More importantly, the gentleman within this particular

cell both piqued her interest and gave her chills. She needed the breathing room

and the clear mind that having a single task provides.

“Good afternoon,” smiled the occupant.

“Once again, you’re a bit off. Still early morning outside,” Julie forced a smile back,

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t get you windows. I can let you know how it’s like

outside if you’re ever curious.”

“I’m touched by your generosity! I would like to see for myself how the outsideworld is like, but for now I’ll take you up on your offer. Actually,” he said glancing at

Julie’s clipboard, “it appears you’re not just here to chat.”

“Sorry to say that I’m not. I have a few questions to ask.”

“Go right ahead, I’m here all day.”

Julie ran through her list and her quarry was eager to help out.

“Leaving so soon?” the occupant asked as Julie rose from her chair.

“Yup, I have people waiting for me.”

“In that case, go right ahead! I know I wouldn’t want people to wait on me –

impolite, wouldn’t you say?”

“Quite,” another forced smile and Julie was off.

As she walked toward the lunch table, Julie reviewed her notes. The gentleman

received nearly perfect scores and is one of the few that pass the interview. She

decided to add his name to the list of potential candidates for Final Draft projects.

His name… Tony Clement?

That can’t be right.

Although she met him almost a month ago, Julie felt the disconnect between the

name and the person. She flipped through her patient listings until she found the

profile for the inhabitant of the last cell.

Robert Black.



Again, Julie was positive that was not what the inhabitant introduced himself as the

first time around. She quickly compared his profile chart and the interview – every

piece of information he provided about himself did not match, up to and including

his name.

Julie was perplexed. Chronic lying was fairly common amongst the patients, but thatwas not grounds for hospitalization. The profile chart did not list patient’s illnesses

for privacy reasons. Julie found this ironic considering the amount of personal

information the chart did list. Another paradox caused by out-dated regulations.

After eating store-bought sandwiches, she decided to help Marika out considering

she still had the longest task list. Predictably, Marika was spending too much time

chatting with her patients that her progress would be out-paced by a snail.

“You really don’t have to stay to help us. I’m sure you want to head home

considering the constant grind you go through,” stated Melissa.

“It’s alright, I got used to the constant grinding ages ago – if I didn’t, I wouldn’t stillbe around,” replied Julie. Besides, the company is enjoyable, she added mentally.

“Yah Mel, it’s funner with more people around!”

“You really need to take this more serious – you’re the only one that’s not going to

finish on time at this rate,” Melissa was a bit miffed.

“Well, sorry for holding all of you back,” Marika immediately got up and left.

Julie was taken aback – this was the first time she’s seen Marika act and talk without

her usual cheerfulness.“Don’t mind her,” said Melissa noticing her expression, “she throws tantrums now

and then when things don’t go her way. I was serious – we can take care of our own

plates, you should go ahead and rest.”

“I’ll be much happier when all of us finish together. That way we can all relax,” Julie

also picked up and went to help out, leaving Melissa perplexed.



Chapter 15

As the team wrapped up their last findings, they talked about next projects they

wanted. The tension from the week before still lingered but was faded with time.

Marika decided any project that involved talking would be fine by her, while Melissa

had no opinions.

Julie wanted to take on another Final Draft project. She felt much stronger than she

did a month ago and wanted to prove it by overcoming her previous obstacle.

Zach intercepted them as they were about to leave.

“No more patients to pick the brains of?”

“And what would you know about that? I don’t recall telling you anything about my

project.”

“I know everything. You should know that I know everything. ”

Julie rolled her eyes.

“Since you apparently lack some common knowledge, you should interview me

sometime,” grinned Zach.

“Sorry, but you’re not really sick no matter how much you think you are. That

means you’re not one of my patients and I don’t have to talk to you. Also, I’m going

to get a Final Draft project – if you try to stop me again, I swear you will die ahorrible death.”

“Don’t you know that curses have a bad tendency to reflect back on you? I’ll do

what I want, which is what I usually do anyway. Expect it.”

“And I’ll do what I want if you get in my way.”

“Deal.”

“Wow, he really likes to bother you, doesn’t he?” Asked Marika as Zach departed.

“It’s a bad habit of his. It’s alright, he’s mostly harmless. I’ve known him for longenough to know that he won’t really hurt any of us, no matter how hard he barks.”

As they reached the residences, Julie saw two familiar officers.

“Evening Ms.Scrivener, haven’t seen you in a while. Work finally eased up?”

“Just finished my current project. I have a week off before I get my next one.”



“Sounds great,” beamed the young officer, “planning to take a vacation?”

“Vacation is something you won’t hear about anytime soon if you keep slacking off,

boy,” scowled the taller man. His subordinate looked dejected.

“Vacations are great! It’s been ages since we went on one, right Mel?”

“We went to France just last year, Marika.”

“Like I said, ages! Are you planning to go anywhere Julie?”

“I honestly don’t know what to do. Free time is a completely new concept to me,”

laughed Julie.

“We should all go somewhere together! We could even invite Phil!”

“Let’s not get carried away. I’m sure Julie has long overdue things she needs to take

care of.”

“That’s true, my room looks like a disaster area and I haven’t talked to anyone in

forever. I’ll meet up with both of you another time,” Julie did not want the situation

to turn awkward again so she quickly declined.

As she lay down on her bed, Julie mulled over everything that happened to her over

a month. She felt like she accomplished a lot, yet when she went over actual tasks –

they don’t appear to number that many. Perhaps the accomplishment was on an

emotional level.

She decided to put the idea aside. There was an entire week to process these types

of thoughts.



Chapter 16

Many ambitious goals were set for the week of complete freedom.

Catching up with friends. Call her family. Finding out about the latest happeningsaround the world. Sorting out the mess in her head. Sorting out the mess around

her.

Julie accomplished none of them.

She completely underestimated her own exhaustion and spent her break resting in

bed, getting up only to retrieve the minimum amount of food needed to quench her

hunger.

It was as if the past year adrenaline held her up; and now that work no longer

beckoned, the adrenaline dissipated and she collapsed like a puppet with its stringssnapped off.

As her return date approached, she felt a sense of dread. No one needed a vacation

more than someone returning from one. Julie temporarily contemplated not

returning to work at all, but balked at the thought of losing her incredibly plump

salary as well as a large retirement sum.

Julie gritted her teeth and decided that enough was enough – she would get

something done no matter what, or she will not make it back to work.

She took a stroll around her flat with a box. She threw in any item that appeared out

of place.

As Julie approached her desk, she noticed a black card and was suddenly reminded

of her computer. Not wanting to be interrupted from her task, she threw the card

into the quickly overflowing box and continued her crusade against her chaotic

apartment.

Finally, she dusted off her computer and flipped its switch.

“LONG TIME NO SEE”

Julie was taken aback. She knew it has been quite a while since she last used acomputer, but this was clearly not the glowy lights or moving progress bar she

remembered.

She tentatively typed in “hello” into the provided text box.

Suddenly, her screen morphed into an instant messaging conversation box.

AZURE: What took you so long to get on?



JULIE: You send me a mysterious card, completely trash my computer, and sat

waiting for a month to tell me you don’t know anything?

JULIE: Now that I think about it, how did you message me back instantly? Were you

waiting in front of your computer all this time?

AZURE: Okay okay, one thing at a time.

AZURE: First, I’m a bit of a computer wizard so rather than waiting for you to come

back, I let my computer wait for you. Then get it to tell me.

JULIE: It must be nice to have an army of robots.

AZURE: This will go faster if you let me finish.

AZURE: Second, I did not trash your computer. I upgraded it. I cleared out all the

junk. I patched up all the security holes. If you want any of your documents, I can

show you where to find them later.

AZURE: Finally, I said ‘I’m not sure’. That doesn’t mean I don’t know anything. I

have some idea but I need time to look over my materials.

AZURE: For now, try to go on your computer more often. Unlike today, I won’t be

able to talk to you directly, but I’ll leave notes.

JULIE: Can you leave notes like normal people? Instead of mysterious cards and

taking control of people’s computer, you can use email.

JULIE: Like normal people do.

AZURE: I’m not normal.

JULIE: You’re more normal than you think.

AZURE signed off.

The chat window shrunk into a corner and a regular computer desktop was

revealed. On it was a folder helpfully labelled “Old boring documents”.



Chapter 17

Julie was looking forward to seeing her coworkers – even Phil.

When she got out of her building, she was surprised to see only Marika.

“Where’s Melissa?” asked Julie as they walked towards Phil’s building.

“We sort of had an argument a few days ago, so she moved to another residence,”

said Marika glumly, “I don’t know where she is now, but hopefully I’ll find her at

work.”

Julie wanted to give her a hug. She hesitated from her lack of recent physical

interactions and gave Marika a pat on the shoulder instead.

“You guys have been friends for years, there’s no way that will disappear from one

argument.”

“Thanks,” Marika smiled, “Now I just need to find her.”

They met up with Phil and left together for the Yggdrasil.

Chapter 17.3

“You don’t have to wait for me anymore, it’s not like we’re working on the same

team.”

“You never know! You should find out what teams we’re on before you say that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with meeting up. We’re going the same way, so we might

as well chat until we get here. Unless you’re secretly enjoying work and want to get

here earlier.”

“No way, I just don’t want to cause anyone trouble.”

“That’s surprisingly nice of you,” laughed Marika.

“I don’t cause trouble for people so I expect people don’t cause trouble for me.”

A short awkward pause before Marika jumped in again.

“Let’s hope we get some interesting projects!”

Chapter 17.7

“Phil Woburn”

Phil was first up to receive his next assignment.



“What’d you get?” Marika asked peering over his shoulder.

“How about you let me open the envelope first?” Phil replied, pulling out the stack

of official-looking documents.

“Project Soul Cipher. Looks like it’s a project to slow down neural connections with

certain chemicals. In other words, a way to dull some emotions.”

“That sounds dreadful, I wouldn’t want to put any patients through a test like that,”

stated Marika.

“It’s a First Draft project so they’re just starting to look into how easy it is to do

something like that. Sounds like a lot of work,” muttered Phil, “Looking up all sorts

of chemicals and how they’ll interact.”

“Say, why did you come to work at Yggdrasil if you hate research and dealing with

patients so much?” asked Julie. She was suddenly reminded of her own thoughts of

quitting.

“Best-paying job there is. If I play my cards right, I’ll be through with working in ten

years.”

The reason was similar to Julie’s. However, for some reason Julie disliked hearing

that exact reason coming from Phil. She started wondering if working ten years in

this grinder would kill her soul, and whether she should start looking for a new job.

It wouldn’t hurt to look, thought Julie.

Meanwhile, Marika had retrieved an envelope from the desk and was in the process

of opening.

“What project are you on?”

Before Marika could answer, Julie’s name rang through the speakers. Julie

apologized for the interruption and went to retrieve her own envelope.

“Project Vanilla Cactus – sounds delicious! At least the vanilla part. Looks like plant

projects keep choosing me,” beamed Marika.

“Project Plutonium Light. A research project that combines different metals and

tests their effects on the current line of drugs. Oh,” Julie suddenly noticed one of theteam members listed, “Marika maybe we should swap projects.”

“I was thinking the same thing!”

“Really? Not liking the cactus part of your project?”

“That’s not it – take a look at this,” Marika showed her the status of Vanilla Cactus.

The words “Final Draft” showed clearly in red letterings.



“I know you really wanted front-line type work, it makes more sense for you to have

this. I really don’t mind either way.”

“Thanks Marika,” Julie gave Marika a hug without thinking, and quickly let go when

she realized what she was doing.

“I don’t mind hugs,” laughed Marika, “And it’s no problem. Besides, you said that

swapping would be good for me too?”

“Oh right,” Julie had completely forgotten, “Take a look at who you’ll be working

with.”

“Mel!”

“Yup, you can corner her every day until you guys work things out.”

“Thanks Julie!” Marika swapped envelopes and access cards with Julie, gave her a

tight hug and then ran off.

Julie needed air: her chest still felt tight despite the absence of physical pressure.



Chapter 18

Julie entered the all-too-familiar patient preparation chambers.

“Marika Nowak?”

“Y-yes”

She was lost in her thoughts and temporarily forgot the swap. Julie decided it was

easier to pretend to be Marika than to explain the entire circumstances to the

project manager.

“Alright. This is the list of patients we’ll be testing today. To your right is the tank of

Vanilla. I’m sure you already know, but just to remind you: double-check the

dosages. Pass all equipments through the autoclave before and after usage. Read

the administrating instructions carefully. Sedate the patients if you need to. If youhave any questions, I will be in my office.”

With that, the project manager left.

Julie looked around and began to tremble slightly. Too many nights have gone

wrong in this chamber. She tightened her grip onto the access card to steady

herself and started the procedures.

Alright, equipment nicely scorched, she thought to herself. She poured the liquid

into the needles with utmost precision and neatly inserted them into a specialized

needle-holding box.

The preparation was simple but time-consuming. This was the reason why the Final

Draft human experimentation tests were always after-work hours. A matter of

necessity.

Julie walked into the experiment room adjacent to the chamber.

“Good morning,” a familiar face smiled.

“Robert Black!” exclaimed Julie.

Why was this previous patient of hers doing here?

Her mind quickly churned out information to make the necessary connections.

• There was only one floor that contained patients

• There was only one screening process every month

• She was involved in said screening process

• There were very few Final Draft projects

• She was currently on such a project



• Highest scoring patients were tested first

• In front of her was the highest scoring patient

She took a deep breath. It was not as much of a coincidence as she originally

thought. Julie disliked attributing events to the supernatural. She much preferred

reasonable conclusions. Unpredictable and unexplainable events disturbed her.

This was part of why Julie was able to withstand years of the same job. The

alternative was to deal with the unknown.

“I’m so glad you remembered me! Very touched. What fortunate event brings you

here today?”

“I finally have a cure for your illness,” said Julie showing him the needle box, “you’ll

be discharged as soon as the effects take place.”

“Is that right? Wonderful! I’d be more than willing to try. However, there was one

gentleman that desperately wanted to go home today – can you let him know? He’ssuffering so much that I can’t bear to see him in pain for more than a minute if I can

help it.”

Julie hesitated.

“There’s no big difference between first and second, is there?” murmured Robert

Black, “It’s better to cure the sickest first, wouldn’t you say? I won’t budge an inch if

that is what you’re worrying about.”

“Alright, I’ll check out next door. My goal is to cure everyone, you included.”

“Of course of course, I don’t doubt you for a second”

For some reason Julie felt no sincerity in that statement. The only reason why she

agreed was because she felt uncomfortable enough around Robert Black to seek

any excuse to leave the premise.

Julie went into the next experiment room.

The man was curled up in the middle of the room and his eyes were darting back

and forth.

“Who… are you?”“I’m Julie Scrivener and I’m here to release you.”

“Release! Release! Yes, please, there must be some mistake; you need to release

me right away. The government spies. They’re getting closer to me!”

Well, thought Julie, he does seem desperate to leave. Robert Black was not lying

about this.



“Alright, calm down. All I need to do is to give you this needle shot and after about

an hour, you’ll be cured and be able to go home.”

“Needle? Needle? What needle? What is inside that needle? Don’t… don’t bring that

needle near me! You… you’re one of them! You’re one of them aren’t you?!”

Julie took a deep breath. She didn’t want to use the sedative mini-gun in her pocket

if she didn’t have to. She also knew it was pointless to attempt to argue with him.

Julie attempted to lower his guard for the few seconds she needed to inject him with

the serum.

“You want to go home, right? Just close your eyes for a second. Imagine the feeling

of being home.”

However, her cajoling failed to convince the patient, who was becoming more

hysterical.

“No! NO! GET AWAY FROM ME!”

Disappointed, Julie quickly whipped out the mini-gun and sedated the patient. The

patient eyes dropped and his shrill voice decreased into a murmur.

She carefully leant him against the wall, rolled up his sleeve and applied rubbing

alcohol from a small bottle from the needle box. Finally, she put the gauze against

the patch on the upper arm still glistening from the fresh liquid, and injected him

with one of the needles.

Julie took a few steps back and nervously watched.

The first few minutes felt like an eternity and Julie tensed up at every twitch thebody made. Finally, the patient slowly opened his eyes.

“Wh-where am I? Everything’s s-suddenly s-so c-clear.”

Julie was relieved. A large weight had left her shoulders.

“You’re at the Yggdrasil. I’ll go get your information and contact the release team.

You were sick but now you’re healed. We’ll get you home safe and sound, so don’t

worry.”

“O-oh, t-thanks,” smiled the patient. The smile slowly drooped into a frown.

Julie was transfixed in horror as the patient’s eyes rolled upwards and his face

turned pale. The patient opened his mouth to scream for help but only a gagging

noise came out. The entire body collapsed on the ground and moved spastically.

“Ah,” was all Julie managed to utter out as she slowly backed towards the door.



Within another few minutes, the body stopped moving.



Chapter 19 Lethal Truth

The door suddenly burst open.

Julie was knocked forward and was sprayed on the ground.

Zach looked at the patient. And then at Julie. Within an instant, he immediately

grasped the situation.

“You. You need to get home.”

“Experiment’s not done yet. I… have to finish up.”

“You idiot . There is no way – no way – you can finish up in your state right now. And

you shouldn’t either. This experiment wasn’t your fault: it was set up to fail from the

beginning,” Zach was talking quickly as he dragged Julie on her feet.

“The sedative – I shouldn’t have used it. It must have been a bad reaction with the

sedative.”

“Repeat after me: it’s not your fault. It. Is. Not. Your. Fault. This experiment. The

ones before – Mind Cycler and the other ones. All the dosages were lethal. All these

experiments were made to test bio weapons not cures,” spat Zach in disgust. He

was still talking quickly as he dragged Julie through the halls and closer to the

central elevator.

“But… the patient looked like he was fine. It must have been the sedative. Just…

just let me go back. I need to complete my assignment.” Julie was still in shock, butwas still able to partially grasp everything Zach was telling her.

“No. We are getting you home.”

“I can still help-“

“You can’t help anyone!” Zach shook Julie, “Do you even know what a vanilla cactus

is?”

Julie blinked.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Vanilla cactus. It’s the name of your project. It’s also a plant that only blooms

during night-time. Huge freaken flowers, but it dies right after. The Vanilla drug

contains high parts-per-million of illegal drugs for a hallucinogenic effect. The

kickback is lethal and immediate. That’s the Cactus part.”



Julie had a big headache. This was too much information and her mind was

struggling to process all of it.

“Look, just go home. I’ll deal with the results. I have much more talent than you do,

so just sit back and watch.”

The familiar arrogance brought some normalcy and with normalcy, some comfort.

“Your only talent is attracting trouble.”

“I’d say you’re a lot of trouble – are you attracted yet?” grinned Zach.

“Ugh, leave me alone. Alright, I’ll go home. And I can go by myself,” Julie shook

Zach off.

“Good, I don’t have time to babysit.”

When Zach left, Julie attempted to steady herself: staggering all the way home

would look too suspicious.

She briefly thought of passing off as being drunk, but that was even less believable

than then uncovering a large company conspiracy. For one, there were neither

liquor stores nor bars in the MediDome. For another, no one had the time to relax

with a beer. Also, anyone that knew her knew that she didn’t drink.

After sorting all the new information into mental drawers, Julie’s mind stopped

shaking and her body soon followed suit.



Chapter 20

Julie woke up with a huge headache.

After a few seconds of consciousness, her huge headache got worse.

She knew that not reporting to work would be bad. Reporting to work may be

potentially worse. She briefly considered running away. Unfortunately, the BioDome

entrance – which happens to also be the exit – was tightly guarded. What used be a

safe haven to focus on research now appeared to be an elaborate prison cell.

Nowhere to go but out, thought Julie. She changed into her lab coat, grabbed her

suitcase and left for the Yggdrasil.

“Julie!”

Halfway towards her destination, she jumped at the sound of her name. Did they

already catch on? What would happen to her?

“Geez Julie, you’re left early! Why’d you leave without me?”

Marika looked upset. She was followed by Melissa who also happened to look upset

for a completely different reason.

“Sorry, yesterday was… a bit of a train wreck, so I have a lot on my mind,” Julie

quickly contemplating how much she should say.

“Really? What happened?”

“The experiments weren’t very successful. I was just thinking how I could fix them

today,” Julie forced out a smile.

Marika frowned.

“We really should swap back if the project’s causing you this much trouble.”

“No! It’s really alright. I wanted this to begin with,” Julie noticed that Marika was not

as cheerful as she used to be and knew that watching people die would not improve

her mood.

Watching helplessly and knowing the scene unfolding in front of you was your fault.

“My project’s pretty fun – you get to play with different chemicals and watch them

do stuff. It’s like school all over again!” Marika attempted to convince her.

“It’ll be better today. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow and you’ll only hear good

things,” lied Julie, twice.



“If you want, I can switch with you.”

Julie jumped. She had forgotten that Melissa was with them.

“Thanks, I really do appreciate both of you worrying about me. But I got it all under

control. Look, it’s Phil!”

Julie has never been gladder to see this particular ex-coworker.

They asked him about his project and he gave his usual negative replies.

Eventually, they decided that the negativity and the talk about work was too dreary

and decided to travel the rest of the way in silence.



Chapter 21

“Ms. Nowak.”

“Y-yes.”

Julie cursed herself. She needed to get used to her new name, and quick.

“Exemplary job on yesterday’s batch. These are the instructions for today. I trust

that you have a firm grasp of what you need to do?”

Julie blinked a few times.

“Ms. Nowak?”

“Yes, I will deliver the results as soon as I’m done, please leave it to me” Julie

quickly recovered.

“Excellent.”

Julie was glad this project manager was the hands-off type. She was not in the mood

to field questions.

She started to open the package when her ears were suddenly assaulted by a loud

electronic buzz. She spun around and saw that the laboratory computer read “Hello

<Press Enter to Continue>”.

Well, why the hell not. This cannot be worse than anything else that might happen

tonight.

AZURE: Hello Julie, you didn’t switch on your computer at all. Not even when I

reminded you.

JULIE: Why don’t you switch on your computer for me then?

AZURE: Because you don’t like it when I mess with your stuff.

JULIE: Right, because completely reorganizing my hard drive counts as not “messing

with my stuff”

JULIE: Anyway, I hope you’re here for something more substantial than a daily

reminder?

AZURE: Nope. That’s it.

JULIE: … you’re kidding.



AZURE: No, really. But before I go, I just wanted to let you know that the new Vanilla

has no flavour.

With that, the computer blacked out.

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Julie thought to herself. Stupid, pseudo-

intellectual AZURE. In any case, the information could not possibly be too important

if he decided to leave it ambiguous. Apparently, less important than his daily

reminder .

By night-time, Julie was ready to start again.

Chapter 22

Julie opened the experiment room and her morning headache came back like a

boomerang.

“Good morning,” smiled the occupant.

“You. Why are you here again?”

“Why, I promised that I would not move from this spot while you were gone,” Robert

Black said in a hurt voice, “frankly, I am the one that should be surprised. You never

came back with the cure.”

Liar, thought Julie. He was not in the same clothes as last night. He was clean-

shaven and his hair was kempt. He did not look like he lacked sleep or food. There

was no way he stayed here for an entire day, unless he had control of supernatural

forces, and Julie did not believe in the supernatural.

Still, Robert Black was very polite and easy to communicate with. Julie wondered

why she felt so repulsed.

“I still have the cure here. Sorry for the delay, but you’ll be free to go as soon as

your body processes the serum.”

Robert Black voluntarily rolled up his sleeve and offered his arm.

Despite the peaceful gesture, Julie had to restrain herself from shooting him with

sedative. Multiple times. As she took out the needle from the needle box, she

almost looked forward to seeing the drug’s effects. Julie mentally crossed out thatthought. She disliked human suffering no matter who the human is. Her feelings

quickly changed from mild anticipation to dread.

She mechanically swabbed Robert Black’s arm and injected the needle. Robert did

not flinch.



Time slowed for Julie. As minutes passed by, she grew more and more uneasy.

Minutes elongated into hours, and hours into days. Julie felt like she stood there

watching for an eternity and Robert Black nonchalantly stared back.

“Hey Ms. Scrivener.”

Julie jumped.

“I don’t mean to appear rude or accusatory, but is this really a cure? I don’t feel

much different except being slightly stiffer. Sitting on this cold bench can’t be good

for my posture.”

Julie sighed in relief.

“I’ll take a note of that. We’ll monitor your situation for until the hour is up just to

make sure.”

Robert Black acquiesced and they waited without any incidents.

“Will I be able to leave now?” smiled Robert Black.

Julie felt uneasy.

This was not the same unease as she felt before. Before, she felt like she was

looking up a snowy mountain waiting for an avalanche to smother her. Now, she felt

like she was on top of the same mountain – any step might trigger an avalanche.

Despite her feelings, there was no logical reason to keep Robert Black imprisoned in

this cell. And Julie always trusted science over superstition.

“Alright, I’ll contact the release team.”

She filled out the necessary forms and left Robert Black to his own devices.



Chapter 23

“Yo.”

“What do you want, Zach? I’m too busy to entertain you right now,” Julie said withher back facing the door. She did not need to turn around as there was no mistaking

the voice.

She was in the process of injecting another patient with Vanilla. Her complete

attention was not necessary as the girl receiving the needle had her head down and

scarcely moved.

“This is the most cheerful I’ve seen you!”

“Do I look like I’m smiling?” Julie spoke through gritted teeth, trying to focus.

“No, but at least you don’t look like shit,” laughed Zach.

“There, all done,” Julie sighed as the liquid emptied into the small, frail girl, “wait

here for a bit.”

Julie pushed Zach out of the room and closed the door behind her.

“Did you do this?” demanded Julie with her hands on her hips.

“Do what? What are you even talking about?”

“Never mind.”

“Hey, don’t just leave me hanging!”

“Since you did such a good job of cleaning up yesterday, you can go ahead and do

it again,” Julie ignored his comment and left.

Zach shook his head in disbelief. Damn, give them a metre and they’ll take a

kilometre. Or something like that.

Still, no sense leaving loose ends. Zach had his pride as someone who got things

done.

Zach re-entered the experiment room and smiled, “Hey there missy.”

The girl slowly looked up and gave him a woeful stare.

“Let’s see here,” Zach spoke as he busily foraged through the room, “Excellent.

This piece-of-junk room actually has a computer.”

“Hello <Press Enter to Continue>”.



“Tsk, I really hate when people try to tell me what to do,” Zach took out his phone

and connected it to the computer. After a few keystrokes, he took control of the

machine.

“Alright sweetie – ah, Maribel Johnson – what do have to do to get you release? Drug

trail status: failure. Reason: unknown. Release: effective today. Floor securityclearance: check. Yggdrasil security clearance: check. Done and done.” Zach

paused. “Let’s set security cameras D15 to D27 to repeat for good measure.”

“Just leave me here.”

Zach tilted his head slightly in mock confusion.

“You act like you have a choice in this matter,” he smiled.

He dragged Maribel up and slung her over his shoulder. The girl did not put up any

resistance.

“Alright, there should still be room on the 51st. It’s going to be a rough ride, so try

not to throw up on my jacket.”

The frail girl said nothing.



Chapter 24

Julie stood outside her apartment waiting.

“Hey, you remembered to wait!”

“I told you everything would go well,” Julie smiled. She ended up not lying after all.

“I’m happy for ya! When are you done? Working together with the four of us again –

that would be so fun,” said Marika wistfully.

“I just started! It’s only been two days!” laughed Julie. Although it certainly felt

longer than two days, added Julie mentally.

Actually, how long is her project supposed to last? She hadn’t given this any

thought. Her project manager simply gave her a new list every day.

She decided to ask.

Chapter 24.3

“When will this project be completed by?”

The elderly project manager appeared slightly annoyed. He was about to leave and

did not enjoy staying any longer than he needed to.

“I have no idea, Ms. Nowak. My only task is to make sure you complete your task.

You and several others, of course. All you need to know is right in front of you.”

Julie sighed.

At least she was getting used to being called “Ms.Nowak”, perhaps made easier by

the fact that she did not know Marika’s last name so she had no preconception

about the name. Much easier to fill in a void than to change what’s already inside.

Although experiments were going well and she did not see anyone die besides her

first patient, Julie still felt uneasy. Surely the lack of success was reaching the ears

of her superiors? Being kicked off the project was the best of all the potential bad

outcomes she could envision.

Julie sat down at the computer and started dumping her thoughts onto the screen.

She needed to weight her options.

The current situation was unsustainable, but what could she do?

• Continue as is. What will be will be.

• Ask to be switched off the project.



• Run away.

The last option was particularly tempting. However, she ruled out action-by-panic.

She also disliked the idea of leaving her fate to chance.

That left the middle option: asking to switch to another project. That made the most

sense to her, but would her project manager allow it? He seemed to be a stickler for

rules. He may make it difficult for her to leave. What happens if he starts asking

questions? Or worse, look into her profile? She was, after all, carrying a fake identity

card.

AZURE: False trichotomy?

Julie nearly toppled in her chair.

JULIE: You. Stop doing surprising things.

AZURE: Just wanted you to know there are other options.

AZURE: There are always other options.

JULIE: Well thanks for your unsolicited and unwanted input.

AZURE: If you want a clever solution, the first rule is always “break all the rules”.

AZURE: The system is against you so smash it to pieces.

AZURE: Well, you won’t have the strength to do that.

AZURE: But at least unscrew some bolts here and there.

Julie sat back and took a second to absorb that idea.

She hated big changes. She hated doing something that ran contrary to what her

usual routine.

But both her mind and her intuition were telling her that that was the best option.

JULIE: Alright smarty-pants. How do I go about “unscrewing some bolts”? I don’t

suppose I can go around the building with a screwdriver, taking apart one machine

at a time.

AZURE: While that would be fun to watch, just focus on what you can do. What have

you been doing all this time?

AZURE: Talking to patients, that’s what. That’s the only part of all of this you care

about.

AZURE: So figure out how to free them.



Chapter 25

For the first time, Julie didn’t fall asleep right away.

Free the patients?

Sounds good in theory. The patients really are all that Julie cared about in that

overgrown, man-made tree. But how can she free them when she couldn’t even

think of how to free herself ?

She was unintentionally doing a good job freeing the patients from the system

already, thought Julie, every night she signs off a dozen patients to the release

team.

But what happens after that? Do they even check that the patients are cured? Do

they give them enough to survive by? Do they help them find jobs? Do they givethem housing?

Does the release team even free them at all?

Another thought to lock away into a mental vault. Too many of these types of

thoughts will drive Julie crazy.

At the very least, she could continue finding Final Draft projects. The goal would be

the same but the reason will be different: rather than reassuring patients, she will

be trying to free them. It was actually a step up, she told herself, a promotion of

sorts.

Chapter 25.3

“What wrong? You’ve been awfully quiet all this time,” enquired Maria as the group

went on their daily morning walk.

“Planning,” responded Julie. Which was entirely the truth, thought Julie.

“Well, aren’t you going to tell me what you’re planning? Something fun I hope?”

nudged Marika.

“Yup, something like that,” smiled Julie, “I’ll tell you when I got it all down.”

Julie sounded more confident than she actually was. She doubted that she would be

doing anything abnormal – especially since she was in the perfect position already:

releasing a set amount of patients every day for an indefinite amount of time.

I could look into the whole release process, Julie thought.



When she was finished with her daily batch of experiments, Julie switched on the

computer and started typing questions into her word processor. AZURE should drop

by any second to answer them.

After an hour or so of typing and getting no response, she began to feel silly – it was

as if she was talking to herself.

There when you don’t need him and gone when you do, thought Julie, perfect

timing. Maybe she should try asking a particular search engine to answer the

questions.

Julie decided to take action herself.

After looking up the release team in the company directory, she found that they

were situated on the sixth floor. The question was what she would do when she

found them.

Ask them questions directly? Julie was fairly sure that would be as useful as asking avault to open up by itself. So, an indirect route was necessary.

What were ways to get people to talk? Julie knew she could not possibly force an

answer out – she was nowhere intimidating enough. She was not very good at

persuading people either. She temporarily thought of physical appeal before she

shuddered. Terrible idea, she thought to herself as she blushed, she could never do

something like that.

Julie decided she was not very good with people – she’s been isolated from people

for far too long. She would have to find evidence.

How would she sneak in to acquire information? There might be a guard posted.

Julie did notice that some rooms were always guarded – she was sure that this

would be one of them.

So perhaps a decoy. But she couldn’t possibly ask anyone she knew to take on such

a dangerous task. She didn’t think anyone would help her either – except possibly

Marika.

Julie started thinking of other potential decoys: insects, toy cars, bouncing ball, and

so forth. Each less likely to succeed than the last. Her tired brain screamed out for

mercy and when she finally gave up when she started thinking of thunderstorms,

earthquakes and tsunamis.

“I will come up with a plan tomorrow,” declared Julie out loud to herself. She

imagined herself dressed all in black, sneaking into a room and running away for a

folder labelled “Confidential”.

After all, visualization is the first step to accomplishment.



Chapter 26

Julie dragged herself out of the Yggdrasil.

Because of her ferocious brainstorming session, she was even later than usualgoing home. The moon shone down from the clear dark skies, and illuminated a

figure that stood by the entrance.

“Marika! Why are you still here? Where’s Mel?”

“What does it look like? Of course I’m waiting! Mel went home ahead of me.”

“Waiting? What are you waiting for? Oh no, did you two have a fight again?”

“Waiting for you of course! We usually go home all together. Mel just got tired of

waiting – Phil and her left early.”

“And they left you all here by yourself?” winced Julie.

“Oh no, they tried to convince me to leave too, but I didn’t mind waiting. The night’s

sky so beautiful – it’s fun to stare at the stars!” Marika exclaimed staring upwards.

Julie laughed. This girl is irrepressible. She couldn’t help but stare upwards as well.

The stars looked like glistening white gems studded on a jet black canvas. The

moon was a big glowing crescent; its light was unhindered by clouds and carpeted

the earth’s surface. Julie decided that the sky really was beautiful.

When she finally stared back down, Marika was directly in front of her.

“You’re a lot happier these days. Did something good happen?” she gave her usual

bright smile.

“I’ve been happier since I met you,” said Julie without thinking. When her sluggish

thoughts finally caught up to what her mouth had already expelled, alarms rang in

her head. Stupid! She told herself.

“I m-mean, you’re always so cheerful; it’s hard not to feel happier. I’m sure all of us

feel the same way,” Julie slowly steadied herself and hoped that Marika wouldn’t

take what she said the wrong way. Or was it the right way?

“Everyone tells me that. That I’m always so cheerful. And I always tell them – it’s

not that hard. Everything that happens, you get to choose how you react to it, right?

Good news or even if it’s bad news. Just react by looking at the good things that

come out of whatever happens,” said Marika solemnly.



“That’s the most serious thing you’ve ever said. Almost philosophical,” laughed

Julie, “And besides, not everyone can do what you can.”

“I’m not that special,” sighed Marika, “I’m not smart or good at science like Mel. If I

was, then I’d be able to help everyone. But Mel’s the one who’s been finding the

best mixes. I feel like I’m just slowing the entire lab down.”

“No way!” interjected Julie, “there’s no way anyone can think you’re a burden.”

Julie took a deep breath.

Perhaps it was the crazy new developments that threatened her regular way of life.

Or the fatigue. Or the wonderfully empty and beautiful scenery. Or maybe all of

them were factors in her desperate gamble.

“And you’re plenty special to me.”

Julie had expected time to freeze as both of them processed the meaning behindthe words.

But Marika had already put her arms around Julie’s neck and pulled herself up for a

kiss.

“Thanks Julie,” she whispered.

Not another word was said as they walked backed.



Chapter 27

Julie woke up feeling rather refreshed despite not having the recommended number

of hours of sleep.

As she reached for her glasses, she felt a mass beside her and jumped.

Then she recalled last night’s events and spent the next minutes attempted to

suppress the redness on her face.

“Is it time to go to work?” murmured Marika.

Why must this girl be so cute in all situations, thought Julie, She shook her head and

left the bed to prepare for work.

When she was finally done, Marika had fully woken up. She knelt on the bed –

stretching and yawning.

“Sorry, I don’t have any change of clothes for you. Some of my tops could be

converted to nice lab coats for you though.”

Marika threw a well-aimed pillow at Julie’s face.

“Say, isn’t Melissa going to be wondering where you went?” asked Julie.

“We’ve been in different room since a few weeks ago. We always just meet up

around your place anyway.”

A few weeks ago. Their big fight. Julie became curious – more so than before.

“What happened a few weeks ago anyway?”

“Too early to talk about serious stuff!” yawned Marika.

Marika decided to wear the same work clothes from the night before as she did not

have enough time to retrieve new ones.

They left and waited outside the building.

“So are you going to tell me what happened last week?” pressed Julie.

“Geez Julie, it’s been five minutes!” laughed Marika.

“It’s just that you two have been together for so long – I want to know what was

between the two of you.”

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time to learn about each other,” Marika smiled, “I’ll

tell you tonight! Day time’s for funner things – plus there’s Mel!”



Melissa walked towards them looking slightly annoyed.

“Marika, you weren’t waiting at your usual spot.”

“You left early last night, so I get to leave early once too!”

“That’s alright – but you should leave me a message next time. I stood around forfifteen minutes with nothing to do.”

“Sorry,” replied Marika sheepishly, “I’ll let you know if I leave early next time,

promise!”

“Speaking of which, why were you up so early anyway?”

“Let’s go meet up with Phil! Somehow I don’t think he’ll wait for us if we’re late,”

interjected Julie.

“Yes, of course,” Melissa agreed politely. Julie felt that her reply had a touch of

sarcasm to it.

To their surprise, when they reached his building they found that Phil did wait for

them. He gave a grumpy complaint and waved off their thanks. The complaints

continued as they travelled to the Yggdrasil. They were all work-related –

presumably because that was what their lives mainly consisted of. Phil had a

negative view on everything ranging from his coworkers, project partners, work

goals, supervisors and the building itself.

“Geez Phil, you should try finding something new to do if work is making you so

miserable!”

“What? I’m sure everywhere is mostly like that. Anyway, there’s no way they pay as

well.”

“I wonder why they pay so well,” Julie thought out loud. The recent events had her

questioning her aspects of her day-to-day life.

“Ygg Pharma is a financial juggernaut. Every major pharmacy in every major city

will have at least a dozen bottles with Ygg’s name on it. The entire MediDome was

built with cash reserves. Of course they can pay us our salaries.”

“That’s Mel for you! She knows everything about everything.”“I’m surprised you didn’t know about it. Didn’t they teach you the company

background during the orientation?”

“Forgot it all! The stuff they said was so long I don’t know how you managed to

remember any of it.”

“I skipped mine,” said Julie. Phil nodded to indicate he also missed it.



“Ygg Pharma always had amazing research centres, but they were never good at

competing with other brands. Luckily for them, William Bradley joined them five

years ago. Everyone says he is a young Midas – every business he touches turns

incredibly profitable.”

Melissa went on to talk more about the company background, their neural-focusedproducts, the building of the MediDome and so forth. Her mood improved as the

other three listened to her explanations attentively.

As they entered the building and left to their respective work desks, Julie and Marika

stayed behind to have a short chat.

“Let’s meet at lunch!”

Julie was uncertain as to whether she would have time – she barely had enough free

time to go home and sleep.

“I’ll go up to your floor and meet you there, don’t think too hard about it!” shoutedMarika as she raced off.

Julie decided that she’ll have to spend the day without blinking or budging from her

desk to make up for the time she’ll spend with Marika.



Chapter 28

Marika nearly slammed open the door with her momentum.

“How’d your morning go?” she asked breathlessly.

“Same,” Julie was transfixed on her work and was only able to spare one word. Then

she felt bad for being so miserly and decided to spare a few more, “give me a

minute, I just need to measure out this last bit.”

“Alright, I bought lunch for both of us!”

Being face with such consideration, Julie felt even worse. Why was she being so

conscientious about her work anyway? The drug seemed to have no effect – it

should not matter whether she accidentally mix the wrong amounts.

Or maybe this was the precise amount needed for it to not have any effects.

She shook her head and decided to finish up the measurements.

“Sorry for making you wait,” sighed Julie.

“You’re really good with equipment – when I do that stuff, I get liquid all over my

coat and my desk,” said Marika in between short bursts of eating.

“What made you get into science if you’ve never been good at it?” Julie asked while

helping herself to the sandwich that Marika bought her.

“Ouch! You sure know how rub it in!”

“But I’m just repeating what you said,” protested Julie.

“It’s easier when I say it to myself, you know,” laughed Marika, “but you’re right.

I’m not that good at it – but it’s what I really want to do.”

“Why’s that?”

“I had an older brother – you know how older brothers usually are bullies or they

just ignore you? He wasn’t anything like that. He’d always cheer me up whenever

school sucked or parents were mean or whatever else. He’d always notice if anything was wrong. One time, mom and dad were out having fun and forgot to

pick me up from a soccer game. He realized I wasn’t home and walked all the way

back to bring me home – he was only in Grade Four!”

Julie noticed that Marika stated she had an older brother but stayed silent. Marika

looked like she still had a lot to say and Julie wanted to hear it.



“A few years later, we were playing soccer in the backyard. I kicked the ball too

hard and it hit him in the head. He laughed it off and we kept playing. When we

were done, right before he went inside – he suddenly fell down and started

twitching.”

“I thought I killed him! I started shouting and crying and screaming, and ourneighbours came over to check on us. I don’t remember the next parts that well,

but we got him to the hospital and mom and dad showed up a bit after that.”

“I remember the doctor spoke about all these terms I didn’t understand. Mom and

dad just looked really stiff and nodded a lot. Then after the doctor was done, they

were arguing about what to do. Mom said something about brother being luggage

and dad was saying something about the neighbours. They started talking about

leaving brother somewhere, and I started bawling again – they were going to ditch

brother when he needed them most!”

“I was just a kid and my parents wanted to have fun. In the end, they didn’t listen to

me at all. I got older and learnt a bunch of things. I also got to visit my brother – he

didn’t recognize me; didn’t even remember my name. He can’t walk and he has to

be fed through a tube. I swore to myself that I would help him.”

Marika was nearly at tears at this point. Her eyes glistened and her hands were

clenching her lab coat.

“You don’t have to force yourself,” Julie whispered.

“It’s alright,” replied Marika, “I do want you know a bit about me. But, the saddest

thing is – I couldn’t do anything for him. I’m not sure I can even now. He has a rare

disease called Niemann-Pick Type C. It’s incurable and because it’s so rare, there’svery little research that goes into it.”

“So, I’m not sure why I’m still here,” Marika sighed, “Sorry for telling you such a

long and sad story.”

“No no,” Julie protested, “I really appreciate you telling me everything. Maybe we

have time, I can tell you a bit about myself too.”

Julie glanced at the clock – there would only be time if her story took negative

amounts of time to tell.

“It’s alright,” Marika smiled, “we have all the time in the world.”



The distance to the door was several metres – further than the distance Julie usually

uses the sedative mini-gun. She missed several times before a dart finally made its

mark. Unfortunately for Julie, the faster-thinking officer had already ducked behind

the door.

“You just made your situation worse – backup will be here any second to take youaway,” shouted the officer from around the wall.

Julie ran towards the door. She shielded herself with the chair and held up her mini-

gun. She leapt over an unconscious officer and spun around the doorframe. She

fired wildly in the direction of the officer’s voice.

The officer was caught by surprise: he was speaking into the radio and did not have

his pistol in a ready position. He was expecting Julie to barricade herself in the room

and did not bother to guard himself at all. As his reward, several darts found their

targets.

Julie dropped the chair and the sedative. She decided to pick up the pistol and racedtowards the elevator.



Chapter 30

Zach was restless.

As he wandered around the Yggdrasil, people seemed less willing to stop and chat –even less than usual. No one had approached him for help all night.

He decided to pay Julie an early visit to kill his boredom. As he wandered towards

the room, he saw an usual scene down the hall – an unconscious, uniformed man

was lying on the ground, and further down the corridor, someone was running away.

Zach suddenly sprang into action.

He peered into the experiment room and confirmed his suspicions: Julie was not

inside – more likely than not, Julie was the person running away.

He gave a silent curse and ran down the corridor to catch up.

The woman in the white lab coat had too much of a lead on him; she was already at

the elevator by the time he left the room.

The elevator opened up and a crowd of uniform officers burst out.

Panicked, the woman spun around and attempted to run.

Gunshots rang out and the woman fell to the ground.

Red liquid slowly oozed out onto the ground. The officers surrounded the body, and

kicked it a few times to make sure it didn’t move.

Zach watched all of this from down the long corridor, a few hundred metres away.

But he felt very far – far away from all of this. He felt like he was watching the scene

from a pair of binoculars.

He also wanted to scream.



Zach gave a conservative estimate that the officers would disperse in about half a

day. They had to cordon off the area. Shut down the elevator. Move the body. Wipe

the elevator and floor clean. This meant he will be here till morning.

Suddenly, he became nervous.

Zach always loitered around until the wee hours, but he always went home. He

never spent an entire day – a full twenty-four hour period – in the Yggdrasil. Just the

thought of it sickened him. He would need to get out somehow.

As with the case with all problems, he started finding a solution by switching on the

computer.

After plugging his phone into the computer and loading a few programs, he quickly

gained access to the security control panel. He commandeered the security camera

that pointed to the elevator.

The scene was just as he expected: the officers and the body were gone from sight. The area was cordoned off. A team of workers wearing baggy clothes, cloth masks

and gloves were scrubbing the floors.

Not bad, thought Zach. Those guys don’t like they’ll give me trouble. But I won’t be

able to access the 51st floor if the elevator is blocked off. Zach took a quick glance

back at the boy sitting despondently on the bench. Actually, I won’t be able to leave

at all if the elevator is blocked off.

Zach attempted lateral thinking. There was a noticeable dearth of windows. The air

ducts suddenly looked like promising passageways, until he realized they were far

too small for him to fit through. Zach paced about the room and racked his head formore solutions when a figure suddenly caught his eye.

A harried scientist was at the cordon attempting to convince the workers to let her

pass. From the head-shaking and waving, Zach surmised that the workers were not

letting her have an easy time. Sensing a perfect opportunity, he rushed out into the

scene.

“I need to get home NOW. I have to present my research tomorrow and I absolutely

must catch a wink,” said the exasperated woman.

“No ma’am, we have orders from above,” said one of the workers literally pointing

upwards.

“You don’t understand how important this is! Your higher-ups would APPROVE of

you letting me through!”

Zach put his arm on the woman’s shoulder.

“You guys heard her. Let us use the elevator now.”



“Sorry, orders are orders,” replied the same worker.

Ha, these one-track minds are the easiest to work with, thought Zach. It also looks

like he’s the leader which makes this even better.

“I have your orders right here. A signed form that approves all building access – that

would include that wonderful elevator you guys are so carefully guarding for us.

Now if you’ll excuse us,” said Zach still holding onto the shoulder of the woman and

pushing pass the workers.

“Hey wait! Let me see that,” snarled the worker as he snatched the form from Zach,

“I- I can’t read any of this!”

A valid concern considering the handwriting on the paper was quite illegible.

Zach sighed impatiently.

“Alright, see here?” he jabbed at first paragraph, “this ‘person’ refers to me, andthis next section here,” Zach continued to jab at the piece of paper, “talks about

‘operations’ which refers to whatever access we need. This other section contains

all the signatures of them higher ups. And see this seal? And this logo? You won’t be

able to find these on any document lower than a S-class document! What more

proof do you need!”

The worker squinted hard at the paper he held. He was uncertain whether it was

genuine. On one hand, he did not want to accidentally let people through. On the

other hand, the document looked official and he did not want to accidentally block

people from passing. He took minutes trying to decide which option will get him in

the least amount of trouble.

Finally, he gave in and let the two into the elevator – not because he was feeling

particularly sympathetic, but because he was fatigued at listening to Zach’s

constant clamour.

“T-thanks,” said Zach’s travelling companion. She was grateful that Zach helped

break through the barricade, but she did not feel particularly safe beside the fiery

young man.

“Not a problem,” smiled Zach, “how about telling me a bit about yourself?”

“Ah, there’s nothing really interesting to say,” the woman tried to cut theconversation short while silently urging the elevator to go faster.

“I’ll decide that. You could start off by telling me your name.”

“Annabelle Carpentier,” she blurted out without thinking. Annabelle cursed herself

for giving out personal information so easily, then clammed shut again.



“Wow that is quite a mouthful,” laughed Zach, “I’ll just call you Anna. So Anna, what

were you doing loitering around the Yggdrasil so late?”

Anna turned away and said nothing. She did not care for his brash attitude and did

not want to talk any more. She only wanted to get back safe and sound, so she

could rest for tomorrow’s big presentation.

“Nothing huh? Must have been up to something suspicious,” grinned Zach, “maybe

those grunts were right when they blocked you from heading out.”

“I’ll have you know that research takes hours and what I do is far more important

than whatever you get up to!”

“And what sort of research might that be?”

“Your brain would not be able to comprehend it if it tried its hardest!”

With that, the elevator grinded to a halt and the doors slid open. Annabelle rushedout of the building and into the darkness, leaving behind an amused Zach.

Work seems to be the only thing on these women’s mind, thought Zach. The hour-

old memory of Julie snapped back and he was no longer amused.

Annabelle had an incorrect assessment of Zach’s mind: it was razor sharp. And it

began plotting his next moves.



“Alright, it’s obvious that you’re not going to get any work done like that. I’ll split

some of the work with you since I’m done all my morning work anyway.”

“Thanks! I really owe you Mel,” Marika gave her a hug and ran towards the elevator.

Melissa shook her head. There was no winning with Marika.

Chapter 32.5

Julie’s usual work station was neat and tidy. Files of related research were neatly

separated by shelf dividers. A computer monitor and keyboard took up the central

portion of the desk while a stationery container, notepads and mouse flanked it.

Marika briefly admired the organized room – an architectural wonder compared to

her haphazard work station – before panic started to swell again. Julie was nowhere

to be found and from the looks of the untouched desk, it did not look like Julie was

at work for the past hours.

She scrounged around the desk and the notepads in hopes of finding evidence.

Unfortunately, there were only appointments and meetings noted down – none that

looked like promising leads. More troubling was the fact that none of the

appointments and meetings was scheduled at the current time which increased the

probability that Julie would – or should – be around.

Marika switched on the computer in hopes of finding electronic evidence.

“Hello <Press Enter to Continue>”.

Marika hurriedly hit Enter.

AZURE: Hello Julie, you don’t usually log on this early?

MARIKA: Who are you?

AZURE: What! I don’t want to introduce myself every few weeks. Do you have

amnesia?

MARIKA: Sorry, this isn’t Julie. This is a coworker that is looking for her.

AZURE: That’s rather suspicious. People don’t usually log into someone else’s

computer. Unless they are pulling a prank.

MARIKA: I’m trying to find her. I need to access her computer to see if there are any

clues.

AZURE: Well, you’re out of luck. There’s nothing here.

MARIKA: How would you know that?



AZURE: I’m a wizard.

Marika was taken aback. Wait, she thought, this person is joking around. But who is

he to Julie? And why does he have control over her computer?

MARIKA: Seriously, who are you? I’ll call the authorities and track you down if I need

to.

AZURE: Call the authorities?

AZURE: Going to send the police?

AZURE: The ones in their out-dated office two blocks away?

AZURE: The office whose communication lines I have control over?

MARIKA: I’ll go to them directly.

AZURE: And they’re going to track me through this computer?

AZURE: One of many in my electronic maze?

AZURE: They’ll spend hours to even get a good estimate of my general area, and in

that time I would have already moved on.

AZURE: So forgive me if I’m not entirely afraid of the authorities.

AZURE: However, you did mention that Julie was missing. Unlike your cyber threat,

that’s something worth talking about.

AZURE: Pick up the headset.

The chat box suddenly closed and the normal operating system loaded up.

Suddenly, Marika heard a voice coming from computer. She was paused in

uncertainty before finally deciding that finding Julie is her top priority – she would do

anything to get back in touch with her.

She put on the headset.

“Hello there Marika,” said the computerized voice.

Marika was startled.

“How did you know my name?” she demanded.

“Easy. I’m a wizard.”

“Alright, I guess that isn’t important. If you’re such a wizard, you should be able to

tell me where Julie is!”



“Even wizards have limitations. Have you considered what happens when a wizard

comes across another wizard?”

“So, you’re saying that you met another wizard? Wait, what exactly are you

saying?”

All this talk about wizards had Marika confused.

“Wizards are simply very skilled people – they are so skilled in their craft that their

performances can almost be called magic by regular folks. Unfortunately, not every

skilled person has the same goals. Well, perhaps not unfortunately – it would be

boring if they did.”

“Can you get to the point? I just want to find Julie. And I also need to get back to

work.”

“Be patient, I’m getting there. You can relax about work; Melissa is doing a fine job

taking over for you. In fact, you might say that she’s getting two people’s worth of work done faster than you can finish one person’s worth of work.”

Marika decided not to respond to that insult as this person was incredibly wordy –

having a word battle would only delay her finding out where Julie is. Marika also

decided not to ask how he knew about Melissa as she already knew what he would

answer.

“Normally, if there is a particular event I want to see in Yggdrasil – as long as I know

the time and place; I will be able to see it. Similarly, if I wanted to track a person for

an entire day, I can do that too.”

That made sense, Marika thought. If this person has control of the security system,

he should be able to see through the security cameras. Wait, then that means he

should know where Julie is!

“Don’t look too hopeful just yet. That’s because – ah, yes, you finally notice the

camera in the corner of ceiling there. Smile! Okay, you didn’t have to smile, but you

certainly didn’t have to give me that dirty look either.”

“Get back to the point! Why couldn’t you find out what happened to Julie?”

“All of yesterday’s footage has been deleted! Even the back-up files have been

wiped clean. The deletion happened in chronological order – a simple mass datawipe out – so it’s hard to pinpoint what they were trying to mask. If I had known this

would happen, I would have streamed the contents to my computer and archived all

of it.”

“Okay, I only understood some of that, but what you’re saying is you have no idea

where Julie is.”



“Where? Perhaps not. When? I have at least some idea. Recall that I said

‘yesterday’. I literally meant all of yesterday: from zero o’clock to twenty-four

o’clock.”

“Twenty-four o’clock? Oh! You mean midnight last night.”

“Exactly. And as I’m sure you are aware of – research does not usually finish that

early. Something must have happened near the start of the human experimentation

cycle. It could have been an incident with the patient. Right now I’m combing over

all the files starting from midnight. I’ll let you know if I find anything suspicious.”

“And how exactly are you planning to let me know?”

“I’ll drop off a card.”

Marika decided not to question this. At the very least, she had a clue of what

happened that night. It was a thin strand, but a strand which she could hang all her

hopes on.



Chapter 33

Marika and Melissa finished at the same time, mostly thanks to Melissa taking a

bulk of the work.

“I’ll treat you to dinner!” Marika said.

“It’s alright. If I didn’t take on those test cases, you would have been here till

morning.”

“Well, don’t you two look very relaxed?” asked the man standing by the elevator.

“You!” Marika grabbed the front of Zach’s shirt, “you look like you know

something!”

“Calm down Marika,” Melissa pulled her back – separating the two.

“In fact I do. Let’s talk outside.”

They took the elevator down and walked out of the building in silence. Melissa

considered it odd that Zach has not said a word – he usually had something bad to

say and was never afraid to say it.

“Alright, so where is Julie?”

“She’s dead, hun.”

The night’s silence was broken by a loud crack as Marika fiercely swung her palm

across Zach’s face. The impact left a red mark.

“Ouch, you sure don’t look like it, but you sting like a wasp. Buzz like one too.” Zach

put his hand to his cheek, wincing as he gauged the damage.

“Where is Julie?”

“I told you, she dead. Now if-“

Marika aimed for Zach’s face again. This time, Zach caught Marika’s arm in mid-

swing.

“Now if you’ll stop and listen, you’ll know why.”

“That’s… that’s a lie. You spout a lot of nonsense, but why would you ever say

something like that!” Marika tore her arm away from his grasp. She was on the

verge of tears.

“She’s dead and that’s the first thing you have to accept. The rest of this won’t

make any sense until you get that through your thick head.”



Melissa remained silent. Marika clearly will not budge on this issue, so she let it

drop.

“Anything you’d like to do today? For better or for worse, we have the entire day

off.”

“Can we drop by Julie’s place? I want to see if she’s in.”

Melissa sighed.

“Alright, if that’s what you really want to do.”

Melissa knew that Marika could not help herself.

She knew this because if Marika ever went missing, she would not stop until she

found her.



Chapter 35

A familiar duo was on guard duty outside of Julie’s apartment.

“Hi there! You two are Ms. Scrivener’s friends,” the younger one remarked.

“Hi there, um,” Marika attempted to come up with a name, “I don’t think we’ve

been introduced?”

“Carmichael. Pleased to meet you!”

“I’m Marika and she’s Melissa. Our names sort of rhyme,” smiled Marika, “by the

way, have you seen Julie around by any chance?”

“Ms. Scrivener? Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen her name plate light up in

the last two days. Work’s always keeping her busy!”

“Will all of you pipe it down!” grumbled the older officer, “Trying to get a bit o’ rest

here.”

“Yessir,” replied Carmichael glumly.

“Can you get us into the building? Julie has some research we need, and we haven’t

been able to contact her,” Melissa cut in.

“Sorry lass. The brass told us to make sure we don’t let strangers into buildings. Got

a reminder recently too. Brass always worried about security; you think they’d trust

us to do our damn jobs!” spat Reggie.

“But we’re not strangers! You know we’re friends of Julie,” smiled Marika.

“That’s true, isn’t it sir? I’ll escort them to make sure nothing bad happens,” chimed

in Carmichael wanting to be helpful.

“As long as all of you get out of earshot! What a man needs to do to get some quiet

around here…”

The crew did not wait to listen to the rest of Reggie’s rant before rushing into the

building.

Chapter 35.5

“Alright, here is Ms. Schrivener’s flat.”

“Can you wait out here Carmichael? You know, a lady’s room might contain things

she doesn’t want gentlemen seeing,” pleaded Marika.



Marika did not know what to say. All she knew was that AZURE was wrong – there

was no way Julie could be shot and no way she could be dead.

MARIKA: If that’s all you have to say, I’m going to head back.

AZURE: Just keep that thought in mind. At the very least, be safe.

Be safe! The simple implication that Yggdrasil would host a shoot-‘em-up was

infuriating to Marika; she slammed the power button to wipe the hateful computer

screen from her vision.



Chapter 36

“Did you find the file you wanted?” smiled Carmichael.

Marika completely forgot about their excuse.

“Oh, no, the file is probably at the Yggdrasil, thanks for your help though!”

The two rushed away in a hurry while Carmichael sighed in disappointment at

returning to his usual post.

On the way back to their residence, Melissa gave Marika worried glances. Marika

simply fumed.

“Can you believe that? He’s supposed to be some genius and he didn’t help us at

all!”

“Maybe we should carefully consider what he told us.”

“There’s no way a shootout could have happened right beneath our noses! Since

when did you start using ‘maybe’ anyway?”

“Since I started worrying about your ability to separate emotion from logic.”

Marika gave Melissa an angry look and walked quickly ahead.

Chapter 36.5

Marika dived head-first on the bed. She simply buried her head in the bed sheets.Melissa took a seat beside the mahogany table. She was perplexed. Both Zach and

AZURE’s stories pieced together a likely scenario: Julie was murdered by her

employer.

Julie’s employer is Marika’s and Melissa’s employer as well.

Perhaps some caution is due.

The only difficulty is persuading Marika that there was a clear and present danger;

for Marika to admit to the danger, she would first have to admit that Julie was dead.

In any case, they seemed to have overstayed their welcome at the MediDome.Financial penalties or not – they needed to get out.

While Marika lay motionless on the bed, Melissa plotted their next steps.

First, both of them required new jobs. Most of the research funds in the area are

poured into the MediDome, so getting a similar line of work would be tough. Not to



mention they would now have to find housing in the surrounding expensive

suburban area.

Perhaps they should consider travelling to a faraway haven like Canada.



Chapter 37

“UGH the water is freezing!”

The sky had darkened and Marika finally got up from her stupor. She intended tobath before heading to bed, but the water temperature stalled her plans.

“That’s odd,” replied Melissa from the kitchen, “there’s no warm water coming out

of the tap either. We should phone and check whether the heaters are broken.”

Suddenly, the lights went off.

“And while I’m at it, I’ll inquire about the electricity as well,” sighed Melissa.

Marika replied with a curse as she ran into the bathroom door on her way out.

Melissa picked up the phone and held the receiver to her ear. There was nothing butdead air on the line – the phone line appeared to be down as well.

At this point, Melissa became disquieted. Having the heating, electricity and phone

lines all cut at the same time cannot be a coincidence.

“Let’s go to your place, Marika. We’re not going to have a good night’s sleep here.”

Marika agreed and the two fumbled around to gather clothes, cosmetics, and

toiletries in the dark. Silently, Melissa urged her friend to hurry up – she did not

voice her concerns aloud as she did not want to cause a panic. Melissa pocketed her

sedative mini-gun for safety.

They pressed the button to go down the elevator.

The backlit floor number slowly increased as the elevator started its ascent. And it

kept increasing even after reaching their floor, eventually reaching the top.

Frustrated, Marika slammed the down button.

The backlit floor number slowly decreased – and once again it went pass their floor.

“Let’s take the stairs, Marika.”

“Eleven flight of stairs?”

“It doesn’t look like the elevator is giving us any choice.”

It looks like the MediDome is trying to get rid of us before we can get rid of it,

thought Melissa as they descended the spiral staircase behind the elevator. They

finally got out of the building and walked the familiar path towards Marika’s house.



The officer collapsed in the ground as all the darts made their mark and drained

their fluid into his blood stream.

Melissa was about to let out a sigh of relief when a clapping noise emerged from

behind the unconscious officer.

“Well done!” exclaimed Zach as he walked into sight. He picked up Reggie and

threw the slumping figure over his shoulder.

Melissa immediately trained her mini-gun on Zach.

“Did you put him up to this? And were you the one that fooled around with our

apartment?”

“Hell no! The law and I don’t get along very well, and I was ready to jump in if you

gals needed any help. Turns out you didn’t! I’m quite impressed,” laughed Zach,

“this isn’t the time to celebrate just yet. Because the lot of you were so slow to

respond, Ygg went full-out offensive with ease.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone wants your head. Your arrest came out about an hour ago.”

Melissa felt dizzy. Unlike her current associates, Melissa liked staying within the

lines.

“Why me of all people? I haven’t been involved in any of your activities! I don’t care

about your crazy plans to overthrow Ygg. I was going to wait until I find a new job

somewhere, but now it looks like I should just pack my bags and leave in the

morning.”

“You think it’ll be a matter of walking through the MediDome exits with your bags?

Well, it might have been that easy before your arrest warrant came out, but you can

bet that’s not going to be the case anymore.”

“How do you propose we get out then?”

“The only way out is destroying everything inside – I promise you won’t get out in

any other way,” smiled Zach, “the dome is so secure even a rat won’t be able to

sneak in or out.”

Melissa thought about this. What Zach said made sense. Not to mention she already

shot down an officer.

“Alright, I’m in. What’s the plan?”

“Let’s walk first.”



Melissa half-dragged a sobbing Marika while following Zach who had his own human

luggage. After ten minutes of walking, a familiar tall structure stood in the distance.

Melissa slowed her pace.

“Wait, isn’t that the Yggdrasil? Why are we heading there of all places? Can we

even get in? Won’t we all be caught?”

“Relax; I have a feeling we’re gonna get in just fine.”

Melissa pulled out her sedative mini-gun once again.

“I need more than your intuition to go into a potential death trap. I don’t trust you

completely just yet.”

“That’s a shame! You can either follow me or you can spend the rest of your days

trying to avoid getting caught. I’ll give you a few minutes to think about it.”

Melissa slowly lowered her gun. She was out of options and Zach knew it.

“Alright, but I’m going to stuff you with darts at the first sign of danger.”

“Depending on the type of danger, you might find me more useful when I’m not

drugged up,” smiled Zach disarmingly.

Melissa said nothing in reply. She kept her grip on the gun in her pocket as they

walked through the doors of the giant artificial tree.

“Where are we headed now?”

“51

st

floor.”

“What are you talking about? There are only 50 floors in the Yggdrasil.”

“Haven’t you ever been curious about the gigantic diesel underground generators?”

Zach asked as they entered the elevator.

“I didn’t know there were underground generators. Even if I did, I don’t see what so

special about that fact.”

“The Yggdrasil is advertised as having a gigantic solar energy collection roof. The

roof is supposed to provide enough energy to fuel the entire MediDome.”

“No infrastructure relies purely on alternative energy; every installation has some

fossil fuel or natural gas back-up.”

“That’s sharp of you to notice that,” replied Zach sardonically, “but none of the

giant generators are the flimsy back-up battery types: they’re industrial-capacity

super cells that can power the entire city. Adding the fact that the tree-top panel



layout looks very green while providing very poor surface area for actual solar

energy collection, I’d say the whole roof is one big solar scam.”

“It’s easy to prove,” Zach added as the elevator stopped at the 50th floor. He

jumped up and pushed the center ceiling tile up and over. He proceeded to grab the

edge of the ceiling and clambered up.

“That’s very nice. How do you propose I follow?”

“Pass me those unconscious and semi-conscious bodies, and then I’ll help you up. If

I’m feeling generous.”

Well, we’re already here, thought Melissa as she dragged the still-sedated officer to

his feet. Zach reached down and pulled him on top of the elevator. Melissa went on

to pass Marika – who was currently in a stupor – to Zach.

Finally, Zach dragged Melissa upwards on top of the elevator. Melissa saw that

there was a stairway which led to a porch and a door. Reggie and Marika werealready leaning against the stairs.

“Would we have to do this every time we want to get to the 51st floor?” Melissa

asked as Zach jumped onto the stairs, “what happens if someone needs to use the

elevator?”

“Then you’ll experience a steep drop.”

Zach barely finished his sentence when the elevator plummeted to the ground level.

“Yes, exactly like that,” Zach said to himself as he watched Melissa accelerate

downwards.

Melissa was in no condition to listen to Zach. She screamed until the g-forces made

her stomach feel queasy. Despite this, she managed to gather her wits and

replaced the ceiling tile before her elevator ride grinded to a halt.

The sudden stop caused Melissa to be splayed on top of the elevator once again.

Unable to help herself, she retched over the side of the elevator.

“I am going to murder that idiot when I see him again,” muttered Melissa toying

with the mini-gun in her pocket, when suddenly the elevator rocketed upwards once

again. Unfortunately for Melissa, the elevator stopped short of the 50th

floor as theunaware occupant exited the elevator.

Melissa was about to remove the ceiling tile and go into the elevator, but the

elevator rocketed up once again – finally taking her to the 50th floor.

She felt nauseated and retched once again.



Chapter 38

The 51st floor appeared to be an odd hybrid of a department store and a jail: there

were eateries, shops, and cinemas; but there were also lines of glass cells. The

glass cells looked very familiar to Melissa – they were exactly like the patient

housing for Project Seed Hazer.

“What is this place?” Melissa asked as the group walked deeper into the floor.

“This is where they put the rebels – scientists that refuse their orders or patients

that get out of hand.” Zach answered. His eyebrows were furrowed as he peered

into the cells.

“Considering what happened with Julie, I expected Ygg to have killed all such

people.”

“Oh, they most certainly will. Ygg just hasn’t had the time to wipe everyone out yet.

They give proper funerals to the people that died – that’s a part of your contract if

you haven’t noticed. The golden-boy CEO has an odd sense of humour.”

Melissa vaguely remembered reimbursements for death on the job. She brushed it

aside at the time because it seemed like an extremely unlikely scenario.

Not so unlikely at the moment.

“Damn it!” Zach erupted. He stopped and opened one of the cells. The small, frail

girl appeared to be sleeping inside. Zach put his hand on her neck.

“What’s the matter?”

“She’s dead.”

“What?!”

“They all are. Normally this place would be noisy – I was wondering why the hell it

was so quiet in here.” Zach swore loudly.

Melissa tensed up. If all these patients were dead without any external wounds,

then…

“You don’t have to worry. Look up.”

Melissa glanced upwards: the rooftop was open and fresh air flowed in.

“Most likely, they stuffed this place with poison gas and then vented it out. We were

too late!”



“No, I shouldn’t say that. If we were here any earlier, we might have been stuck

here with these suckers and died too,” Zach amended his earlier statement.

“With that type of mentality, I’m surprised you even care that they’re dead,” spat

Melissa. Her patience was near a breaking point – there was simply too much that

happened in one night and on top of that, her best friend is still comatose.

“You’re right. I couldn’t care less about their deaths, but someone put all her heart

into setting these idiots free. I couldn’t save them for her,” Zach said through

clenched teeth.

Melissa was surprised at this completely hidden of Zach. Meanwhile, she glanced

around the large area called floor 51st. Each one of those cells contains a patient,

she thought, and each patient is dead.

The enormity of it suddenly hit her: this was a massacre. This would be front-page

news on any newspaper worth their salt. The sheer loss of life – and the evil behind

it – caused Melissa to shiver.

“If this proved anything, it was that we can’t use this as our base,” said Zach grimly,

“I originally wanted to hide us here, but we’d be sitting ducks.”

“We could use the gas masks from the labs.”

Melissa and Zach turned around at the sound of the weak voice.

Marika had woken up.



“Are you trying to get yourself killed? Did you not stop to think you’ll get the rest of

us killed?”

“I know that! But I have to go.” Marika was in tears.

“Damn, you cry way too much. If you’re going to be this weak, you should get

yourself killed. Save us the trouble.”

“That’s not how she normally is,” Melissa stepped in to defend her friend, “if you

ever lose anyone important, maybe you’ll know how it’s like.”

“And who the hell said I never lost anyone important?”

“Okay! Both of you stop arguing. I won’t go.” Marika sat down.

“Get up. We’re going.”

Both women stared at him. He turned his back on them.

“I don’t want to hear you whine all day about the damn funeral. We have around

five minutes to get out before the security system locks us in.”

They loaded their sedative guns, put on thick rubber gloves and rushed out into the

floating stairwell. They slid down the elevator wires and went out through the

elevator with a minute to spare.

Chapter 39.6

The ceremony took place at a nearby funeral home inside the MediDome. Two

security guards flanked the entrance, while a small gathering of scientists andinterested on-lookers sat in the pews. The pastor rolled out the customary lines in a

dull, monotone voice.

The rebel group of three also sat in the pews. Boredom seeped into Zach within

minutes, whereas Marika was quietly deep in her own thoughts. Melissa simply took

notes of her surroundings – the best escape routes, the people they would have to

fend off.

Just as the ceremony was about to end, the pastor called out to any close friends to

give their speeches. Zach and Melissa had to hold down Marika. As Marika struggled

to get out of their grasp, a figure in Ygg uniform stood up to speak.“Who the hell is he?” whispered Zach.

Marika shrugged. Melissa thought the face looked vaguely familiar.

“When a valued employee passes away, our entire corporation grieves. We cannot

overlook these individual sacrifices: they are the grains of sand which – when



brought together – combines together to form our great castle of neuro-medical

research.”

Suddenly, the grandiose speech style and the face clicked in Melissa’s brain: this

was William Bradley – the CEO of Ygg. Why was he here with such light security and

for such a relatively unimportant event?

Sweeping a glance throughout the crowd, Melissa suddenly understood. Amongst

the interested on-lookers were a handful of reporters from major publications. The

recent rumours about Ygg must have caught the attention of the outside world and

now Mr. Bradley was tackling the issue head-on.

Melissa turned to face her companions. Zach’s intensified glare showed that he

understood what was happening. Marika’s perplexed expression showed the

opposite.

“… and of course, with every work worth undertaking there will be unavoidable

risks. And with these risks arise casualties. Ms. Julie Scrivener was one of suchunfortunate casualties…”

Veins showed up on Zach’s forehead and his hand darted for his gun. Marika looked

like she was about to scream.

Melissa drew her sedative gun faster than both.

And promptly fired a shot into both Marika and Zach.



Chapter 40

When they woke up, the funeral home was dimmed and only Melissa was around.

“Why the hell did you shoot me?” shouted Zach, “that was the perfect opportunity!We could have gotten our revenge on Ygg and in front of national media no less!

There will never be another chance like that ever again!”

“I don’t recall signing up for revenge. I recall signing up for getting out alive. You

promised that we would have to destroy all of Ygg – killing the CEO won’t make that

happen. We’d be labelled as terrorists and then imprisoned forever. That’s the best

case scenario.”

“Goddamn you coward!” Zach punched the pew in front of him so hard his knuckles

bled.

“I… know how you feel Zach, but Mel is right,” Marika cut in, “there must be a

better way to get revenge and return to our normal lives!”

“Not to mention I saved you from having to listen to the rest of William’s pompous

speech. You better not think for a second I’m willing to let Ygg get away with all

this.”

“Good. Then you shouldn’t have a problem with my next plan.”

“Depends on how suicidal your next plan is.”

“We are going to shatter the big, ugly tree of his.”

“Suddenly, I’m not so fond of this idea of yours.”

“Listen to me! The Yggdrasil is the centre of Ygg research.”

“You act like Ygg doesn’t have plenty of funds. It can rebuild in a fortnight.”

“Leave that to me. I have my own plans for that.”

“So in the meantime, you’re telling us to trust you while we merrily chop down the

tree. And how will we do that? Bring in a demolition team? “

“I haven’t thought about that part yet.”

“Well, get going! It’s the most important part.”

Zach sat thinking. He was calmer after venting his rage.

“Are there chemicals can burn through materials?”



“Yes, but nothing like what you’re thinking. There aren’t any liquids we use that can

melt the reinforced titanium shell of the Yggdrasil.”

“Damn, don’t you scientists have anything useful?”

“Medical scientists aren’t in the business of blowing things up.”

Zach thought deeply about this. While he ran through thousands of scenarios in his

mind, Marika and Melissa chatted about future plans. They both decided they

wanted to return to a normal lifestyle as soon as possible. Tired of their wistful

bantering, Zach called it a night and they headed back to the Yggdrasil.



Chapter 42

“Wow, thanks for the food! I was starving – literally starving – ‘cause I didn’t eat

anything for a week or two. My mom told me never to use ‘starving’ ‘cause there

are kids that are really, really starving, not because they’re kinda hungry. But this

time, I really was starving!”

“Isn’t that great? We picked the noisiest brat to save. Too bad he doesn’t come with

an off switch.”

“Let’s focus on what to do next,” Melissa replied even though she also had a hard

time focussing with the background chatter.

“What if we take away their energy source? They won’t be able to run the

experiments without any power,” Marika chipped in helpfully as she recalled her

dark experience in the unpowered apartment, “it would take months and millions of dollars to replace all their generators and they won’t be able to move a single step

until that happens.”

“The Yggdrasil isn’t that easy. The generators underground aren’t the only source of

power. There are natural gas pipelines running across every floor and every room as

backup. I already told you that all alternative energy has coal and natural gas

backups! And how the hell are we supposed to stop their generators? Try and steal

those ten-tonne behemoths?” laughed Zach.

“Much easier than trying to blow up the entire tree! Let’s hear your bright idea,”

Marika shot back.

“Blow up! What are you guys planning on blowing up? There was this one time

when I made this cool explosion – I had a bottle of soft drink and my friends told me

it’d taste better if I shook it, so I shook the bottle as hard as I could. Then the bottle

just exploded! The drink went all over the place and I didn’t really get to taste much

of it, but I think it really did taste better. Mom and dad weren’t too happy with me

‘cause my clothes were all…”

“Really?” Zach made a move towards the talking boy.

“Don’t. Do. Anything. Crazy.” Melissa quickly held him back.

“Nothin’ crazy. I’m just going to toss him in a cell.”

“No! You can’t! We just freed him!” exclaimed Marika.

“A damn mistake I’m planning to correct right now.”

“Just tune him out.”



“Hard to when he’s blabbering about random nonsense about soft drinks!”

“Wait, did you say that there were pipelines running across all the floors?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I thought of something we can do,” Melissa stated.

“And what might that be?”

Melissa filled in her companions on her idea. Zach whistled.

“You call me crazy? You’re pretty crazy yourself! This is my kinda plan!”

“I just want to get out of here. And I’ll think up anything to get what I want.

Considering I’m far more intelligent than you, it’s no surprise that I thought of a

better plan faster.”

“Intelligent? Hah! Maybe more knowledge, but that’s it.”

“But it is coincidental that all our work in Project Plutonium Light helped us out,”

mused Marika.

“I wouldn’t call it coincidence. We’re simply using what we have. If we didn’t have

that experience, we would have simply used something else.”

“Enough with the sappy talk! Let’s roll.”



“Have they tried pulling the plug?”

“If they do, we’d lose power to all the lights, computers and pretty much everything

else that runs on electricity. All the machines are connected to the central power

source.”

“You mean the solar roof?”

“No, underground generators supply all our power.”

Annabelle furrowed her brows. That was definitely not what she was told.

“Did they call in the mechanics?”

“That’s the first thing they did, and probably the only thing they know how to do.

Mechanics are a useless bunch when it comes to software.”

“What does heaters and boilers have anything to do with software?”

The bespectacled scientist gave an exasperated sigh.

“The Yggdrasil isn’t your last-century style housing. All the utilities are controlled

via computer programs. In terms of plates, gauges and pipes, everything is in

perfect condition. I did hear some of those hard hat guys getting a bit worried about

the stress, since everything’s running at full-power. But it’s not like anything’s going

to break. I wish they worry more about turning the damn things off.”

“If the problem is with the computer programs, why don’t they contact Information

Technology?”

“We bought all the software and outsourced the guys that maintain it. Our IT

department is a few guys that just graduated out of college – there’s no way they’re

going to know how to fix these issues.”

“So,” Annabelle furrowed her brows further, “you’re telling me that this entire

situation is hopeless. Why are you still standing here?”

“Of course it’s hopeless! Why do you think a week has passed and it still hasn’t

been solved? Anyway, standing here to complain is a lot more fun than pushing

paper!”

“You’ve been demoted to secretary?”

The expression behind the pair of glasses suddenly darkened.

“My supervisors wouldn’t know what good work is if it hit them in the head. Anyway,

it’s a hopeless situation so you might as well head back.”



Annabelle was perplexed. She could not continue her experiment until cool water

returned, but it looks like there was no way attaining the vital ingredient inside the

building. Looks like she will have to go outside and return with water – a ridiculous

but necessary solution.



Chapter 44

The central security at the Yggdrasil was in complete disarray.

Having no luck with the building maintenance office, the mob slowly turned itsattention to people holding more power – in this case, it was the security. The

phone lines were flooded with calls and frustrated workers were banging at their

doors.

The chief security officer contemplated bringing out the riot gear as his underlings

attempted to placate the mob.

“Were these scientists always this crazy or have the chemicals gotten to their

brains?” yelled one of the unfortunate officers standing by the door.

“The Yggdrasil nearly contains the population of a small city. Even if one percent of all works are out there complaining – and I think it might be more – we’d be flooded

with calls.”

“What is going on here?”

A side door opened and William Bradley walked in.

“There have been too many projects falling behind schedule this week. Researchers

have been abandoning their posts,” William repeated his question, “what is going

on here?”

“Sir, the heaters and boilers are broken and the temperature is at an unbearablehigh.”

“Broken? Explain clearly.”

“Sir, the software controlling the machines is defective. All attempts made to fix the

issues have failed.”

“Have the off-shore team been contacted?”

“Yes sir, but we have not heard back from them.”

William cursed softly under his breath. Who would have known that a few lines of code would be our Achilles’ heel?

“Trace all data packets coming from the machines. Put on the riot gear. Disperse

the crowd. Call all the officers and have them start searching room-to-room for

anyone suspicious. The Yggdrasil utility system is self-contained: whoever is

tampering with it should be within the premises.”



“Sir, all the researchers were either heading back from their protest or quietly doing

their research. All the maintenance workers appeared to be doing their jobs –

mopping floors, wiping glass, et cetera. All the cooks were in the kitchen. All-“

“Alright, stop. So how did you determine who was suspicious?”

The chief security officer grew uncomfortable and spoke slower, “we took anyone

wandering the halls into custody.”

“Hardly incriminating evidence,” William’s tone grew hard. He was an overachiever

and he expected results from both himself and others.

“Where are the assault squad right now?”

“Sir, they are stationed on the highest floor. We have disabled the elevator and we

posted guards all along the stairwell.”

“Highest floor. You mean the 50

th

floor? Or do you mean the 51

st

floor?”

“The…”

The chief security officer suddenly realized his mistake.

“But, sir, there is no one outside of security that knows about that floor!”

William pulled the front of the officer’s shirt.

“Listen to me. The widespread hijacking of our systems is already unprecedented. I

think it is safe to say that our intruders are no mere sneak thieves, and they are in

all likelihood hiding on the 51

st

floor. Enable the elevator. Get the assault squad tofull readiness and have them comb the 51st floor.”

“Yes sir!”



“Just stay here. I’ll do it. You’ll just get yourself killed before you get halfway there.”

Zach cursed under his breath at his companion’s lack of fitness. He teared off the

covers from the mattresses and proceeded to knot them together. He shouted short

orders to Marika and quickly stepped down the ladder.



“Sir, he said they were regularly spaced, circular holes. There are two lines of them

leading up to the roof. They could not see whether the holes actually reach the roof

since visibility is poor due to low lighting and a dark night outside.”

“Are there metallic handles on the ground?”

“They didn’t report anything of that sort, sir.”

Another heated exchange ensued. The chief security officer was baffled: he did not

know how William had known this fact and his amazement increased his level of

respect.”

“Yes sir, there are metallic handles amongst the debris piled around the top floor.”

“The roof is opened?”

“I would assume so if they can see outside, sir.”

“Does the squad have climbing gear?”

“No sir.”

“Get them climbing gear and night vision goggles within five minutes and tell them

to scale the roof. Make sure they cover every surface of the roof and report back

when they reach the top.”

“Yes sir!”

Chapter 47.6

“Just leave me,” whispered Melissa. Her lack of movement combined with the chilly

environment had her body frozen stiff.

“Shut up. I’ll decide what I do,” replied Zach. He knotted the bed sheet around

Melissa.

“There’s no way you guys can pull me up in time,” replied Melissa grimly. She had a

brief moment of hope when she saw the makeshift rope Zach had brought along,

but she quickly realized the reality of the situation.

“You’re right,” smiled Zach, “so just wait here and die. Later!”

He quickly scaled the ladder back up to the roof.

Melissa shivered from the cold air and the cold words. Suddenly she remembered

that she was still holding Austin in her arms.

“Zach! Get the kid to safety!”

Zach simply waved at her and continued climbing.



Melissa gritted her teeth. Summoning the last of her strength, she started to climb

once again. Screw it, she thought, if I’m going to die I might as well go all out.

A loud clank rang out near her.

Melissa peered into the darkness. Her pupils dilated in horror. A shining hook buried

itself between the solar panels. The taut, undulating rope was a clear warning that a

climber started his ascent.

Melissa willed all her muscles to move but they could not oblige.

Chapter 48

The clank rang out throughout the sound-amplifying dome.

Both Zach and Marika jumped from their mattresses. Zach quickly got up from his

sitting position and glanced at the direction of the sound, but could see nothing in

the darkness.

A dozen loud clanks quickly followed with accompanying sparks as the metallic

hooks made contact with the solar panels. The sparks provided transient lighting; it

was enough for Zach to make out what was happening.

“Marika, how much more time do we have until saturation point?”

“According to Melissa’s calculations, about three more minutes.”

“We don’t have the time!”

“Wait! Three minutes is already an optimistic estimate! Besides, Melissa is stilldown there!”

“Then you go first,” Zach said while tying bed sheets around Marika. After deftly

finishing with a knot, he started pushing Marika down the roof.

“Wait, wh-“

She did not manage to finish her sentence before the mattress accelerated down

the roof.

Chapter 48.2

Thanks to their enhanced vision, the climbing soldiers managed to quickly locate

their targets. They trained their sights on the figure clinging to the ladder near the

roof and began their ascent. Within a minute, they were within shouting distance of

Melissa.

“Move down! Move down right now!”



Melissa gritted her teeth. At the rate they were sprinting up the roof, she knew it

was an impossibility to escape. The thought of being captured and tortured filled

her with despair.

Alright, I tried my best. They’ll never catch me alive. They’ll probably let Austin live

since he’s a kid. I hope Marika gets to safety. Zach too. Even though he’s a jerk.

With that thought, Melissa finally let go of the handles. Her body slowly dropped

towards the ground.

Chapter 48.4

As Marika sped down the tree top on her mattress, she tried to calm her loudly

beating heart. She needed to steer her makeshift vehicle in a zigzag formation or

she risked simply flying off into the night. She did not like her odds of surviving a

fifty-story drop.

A quarter of the way down the roof top she felt a sudden pull on her torso thatnearly knocked her off the mattress.

She gasped as the air inside her lungs was forced out by the impact. Ignoring the

pain and trying not to think too hard about what Zach attached to her, she

continued her criss-crossing descent.

Chapter 48.6

The cloth rope around Melissa’s waist grew taut.

To Melissa’s – and the encircling troops’ – amazement, she was no longer falling.

She was suspended in the perfect center of the room.

Before she knew it, Melissa was no longer suspended either – her body started to

rise into the sky. First slowly, and then quicker and quicker.

Hope filled her once again, but it was short-lived.

Shots began to ring out around her. The soldiers recalled their orders clearly: they

were to bring the escapees back dead or alive, and alive did not appear to be an

option anymore.

Melissa prayed for the first time in her life. She had accepted death, but wassuddenly offered a lifeline out. She was desperate not to lose that lifeline and clung

tightly to it.

Unfortunately, prayers were not adequate body armour and several bullets buried

themselves in her body. She yelled out as a burning feeling seeped into her left

shoulder, right upper leg and left waist.

“Damn, you’re loud!”



Melissa painfully glanced upwards. Zach had a mattress ready on the side of the

hole. Just a few more metres…

A single bullet severed the cloth directly above Melissa.

With sheer reflex out of desperation, Melissa reached out to grab the remaining

length of rope.

Despite managing to latch onto her lifeline, pain coursed through Melissa and nearly

rendered her unconscious: she had grabbed on with her bullet-pocked and

frostbitten arm. After a long and dreadful second, the shock caused her to let go.

Chapter 48.8

“You guys are pure trouble. After all this is over, you need to get in shape.”

Zach managed to catch Melissa as she was letting go. Melissa exhaled with short,

erratic breathes. The pain was nearly unbearable. Zach sat her on top of a mattressand began to push her towards the edge.

“Are you going to be alright, or do you need me to babysit you?”

Melissa only managed to shake her head. Then, she was off.



Chapter 49

Zach glanced at his watch as he strolled to the hole in the roof.

The troops were preparing to fire another round of hooks – this time aiming for theexterior of the Yggdrasil.

“Looks like it’s time.”

Zach took a packet of cigarettes and a lighter out from inside his jacket. He lit the

cigarette and breathed in the sweet ashy taste.

After exhaling the smoke, he flipped the still-burning cigarettes into the building.

Chapter 49.2

The troops halted their ascent – they were mesmerized by the light that slowlydescended into the darkened building.

Within seconds, the single spark of light expanded into an entire radiating field. The

soldiers did not have any time to react before the burning waves engulfed them all.

The hungry flames sought out additional fuel and found it directly below: fifty

stories filled with delicious natural gas. In an instant, the fire roared down the

building swallowing up everything in its path.

The group in the security room was perplexed at the sudden loss of radio

transmission. However, they too did not have long to ponder this puzzle before theflames engulfed them as well.

Due to his sharp mind, William Bradley understood what had happened as soon as

the first tongues of flames appeared: the week of full-powered boilers were not

simply meant to cause discomfort to the Yggdrasil’s inhabitants, but also to wear

away the natural gas pipelines.

The heat and the gaseous chemicals spewing from the boiler were perfect for

eroding the steel pipes: not only did they cause gas to leak out; the resulting holes

were tiny and difficult to notice until it was too late. Natural gas itself was difficult to

detect as well, since it was colourless and odourless. The escapees had patiently waited for the entire building to fill up with natural gas

before lighting the fuse. It was like shooting a fish in a barrel. A really big barrel

filled with natural gas.

Even though William understood all of this in an instant, the biggest fish of them all

did not have time to react as the intense temperatures broiled his body.



Chapter 49.4

“Goddamn, you’d think solar panels would be less susceptible to heat!”

Zach shouted to himself as he rode down the roof on his relatively comfortable sled.

The sturdy titanium exoskeleton of the Yggdrasil managed to withstand the fierce

natural gas explosion inside. However, the panels were starting to deform under the

heat stress, and smoke was starting to come out of Zach’s ride.

After zigzagging down the slope, the roof curved inwards. Zach jammed his arm into

the panels to slow his ride further, but he eventually found himself in mid-air.

The deceleration helped his mattress fall closer to the tower. Zach aimed his

smoking ride closer towards the tower. After falling at an angle for twenty stories,

he finally made contact with the trunk of the Yggdrasil.

The semi-burnt mattress continued to slide down the tower at a rapid pace. Zach

struggled to maneuver his cushioned vehicle to point to where the trunk curved outthe most. His efforts were repaid as he hit ground floor: the long shallow curvature

slowed down the acceleration and he managed to hold onto his sled as he slid a few

hundred metres across the yard.

He gingerly picked himself off the ruined mattress.

Zach looked back at the Yggdrasil and admired his own handiwork. The tower

spewed out flames and smoke from the top and the entire rooftop was glowing red.

The entire building looked like an autumn maple tree.

Damn, it’s finally over.



Chapter 50

Marika held Melissa in her arms.

They were in Julie’s apartment and were tending to their wounds. Austin sat quietlyon a chair with bandages wrapped around his forehead and arms. Zach decided

whatever wounds he had were too minor to deal with.

Marika was crying loudly.

“Let it go,” said Zach, “she’s dead.”

With her wounded body that already went beyond its limits, Melissa did not have

the strength to slow down her ride. In fact, by the time she reached the end of the

rooftop, Melissa had already lost consciousness – which may have been a blessing

in disguise. As a result, rather than sliding to a stop, she dropped directly into theground. Even the thick mattress could not prevent her lower spine from being

dislocated.

Marika ignored Zach and continued bawling while holding her best friend tightly.

Zach was angry. He gripped Marika’s shoulders and forced her to look at him.

“Do you think she died so you can feel miserable about yourself? You’re alive, damn

it!”

“I might as well be dead! The two closest people to me are dead! How can I feel

happy about being alive?”

“Then go join your friends in hell! See if they’re happy to meet you again! See if

they’re happy to realize all their sacrifices were wasted! Figuring out what the pipes

were made of! Figuring out how easy it would be to make them break! All of it!”

Marika did not know how to respond to that. She simply gripped Melissa tighter and

stared off into the distance.

Zach shook his head. He was still angry: angry at Marika for having the freedom to

mourn; angry at himself for letting Melissa go off on her own; angry at Ygg for

instigating everything. There was still something he had to do. He left the apartment by himself.



Chapter 51

As the night slowly drew to a close, Zach walked towards Julie’s grave.

For once, he was at loss for words.

Zach left a wreath of rosemary and a card at the tombstone and walked away.



Day Cycle

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who

dream only by night."

– Edgar Allan Poe



Chapter 1

The classroom was filled with colourful chatter as the teacher had yet to walk in. As

usual, I was in the middle of it all. People were easy to understand and easy to

please. However, I couldn’t help but notice the serious girl at the back reading her

book. She was quite attractive after all.

Alister woke up.

What an annoying dream. They said that dreams come easier after a full night’s

rest, but Alister has not had a full night’s rest in years. Shows what the experts

know.

He stretched out his arms and methodically began his morning routine. He was a

creature of habit and his mornings were the most habitual process he had.

He put on his fuzzy slippers, went to the fridge to retrieve milk, opened the box of

sugary sweet cereal on the table, and mixed the crispy pieces into the creamy liquid

in the bowl. He then let the bowl of cereal adjust to room temperature as he clean

himself up in the washroom.

When he got out, Alister ate his breakfast and packed a premade sandwich into his

bag. The latter was a recent addition to his routine.

After all, this was his first day working at a big corporation.

This was his first time working as a small fish in a big pond. Alister liked being a big

fish in a small pond, but there was a very good reason why he wanted to change hiscareer aspirations: there was someone important to him that recently started

working here and Alister worried – as he is prone to do – about the safety of said

person.

After pondering for a few seconds, Alister decided to wear his best clothes. First

impressions are decidedly important.

Within one hour, Alister reached his new work place. His superior gave him a brief

greeting and immediately told him to look through the large reference manual on

his desk. Alister was not impressed by the lack of orientation, but his superior

looked quite harried so Alister gave him a pass. His superior introduced himself asAndrew Hicks and left for an important meeting.

As soon as he opened the reference manual in front of him, he knew that it would

be a waste of time reading through it. The book merely talked about all the different

software that the company used to maintain its daily operations. He – along with his

supervisor – would be in charge of making sure no critical errors befall the

aforementioned software.



Alister turned on the computer. He dived in the machine – this was his comfort

zone, the place where his full set of talents shone. His ability to quickly solve

complex problems, the ability to simultaneously see multiple layers of abstraction

and the ability to understand how things worked: all of this was applicable as he ran

through all the tools at his hands.

By lunch time, he had a good grasp of the entire cyber architecture of the company.

His superior dropped by to treat him to lunch.

“I know the manual could be a pain to read through – it took me a whole month to

really understand the entire book – but all the information in there really helps. Just

persevere. There are not too many tasks for the software group, but we do need

another specialist.”

Alister thought for a second of how to respond. On one hand, he wanted to point out

that he became a specialist an hour ago. On the other hand, he realized that might

be taken as an insult. People with fewer talents frequently take facts as insults,thought Alister, it’s best to take their feelings into consideration.

“I started reading the book and it’s been very helpful,” replied Alister seriously.

“Good! Let me know if you have trouble understanding anything. I have to go to my

next meeting now.”

Alister mentally ran through everything he learnt as he watched his supervisor

retreating back.



By the time Alister went to bed, he had done what his superior had failed to do in

years – he had the entire manual in his head.

Needless to say, he slept well that night.



Chapter 3

“Are you ready for your quiz?”

Mr. Hicks had been waiting for him at his desk with a list in hand. Alister observedthat his superior likely did not know much about the chapter himself and simply

cherry-picked some salient questions.

“Yes, I’m quite ready to talk about Software Level Access System. I think Cerberos

Software was brilliant in designing that one-way, 256-bit hash algorithm. There’s no

way anyone will be able to get administrator access into our company’s site with

just dictionary or brute-force attacks.”

“W-well, it sounds like you have it all under control.”

Mr. Hicks turned and walked away, attempting to hide his reddened face. He wasboth surprised and insulted. He did not understand half of what Zach had said, and

it annoyed him because he had lost his chance to give a show of power.

Alister turned back to his computer. The machine in front of him was decidedly

more interesting than the human behind him.

He began envisioning the tasks that lay before him. His end goal was to gain control

of the entire network including all the machines that access it. The icing on top

would be the ability to control and monitor this network from outside. He knew that

there were quite a few barriers before he could accomplish this. He also knew that

many of these barriers would be easy to overcome. The first step was to tamper with all the monitoring software installed on the

computer. He did not want security to be suspicious, so he knew that he could not

simply disable the programs – they were streaming the computer’s status to the

central control room, and the sudden void in communication would quickly draw

attention.

This was fine, thought Alister. In fact, this was better than fine – he enjoyed the

challenge. Sabotaging the software would be similar to using a wrecking ball. He

preferred to be a surgeon – meticulously and methodically making precise cuts for

maximum effectiveness.

When noon arrived, Alister had not only managed to hijack the monitoring software

to send fake “okay” statuses; he managed to spread a virus that caused all other

machines to announce that they were perfectly fine as well.

With the groundwork finished, Alister finished his takeover by the end of the day.



Chapter 4

The trouble with attempting to access his “bot net” remotely was that his

company’s network was completely self-contained. This meant that none of the

computers had access to the internet.

Isolation was mainly for security purposes, but there were some beneficial side

effects for executives: employees would not be able to waste their time on social

networking or gaming sites.

Alister pondered this problem as he lay in his bed.

If only he could get one of the computers to access the internet! He would be able

to control the entire network from anywhere around the world. He did not

necessarily need this ability just yet, but he felt that the idea had too much

potential to ignore.

These days, the lack of internet access was almost a foreign concept. This was a

problem Alister had not given much thought to prior. Why would he need to?

Anyone can jump on the internet from anywhere, especially when they carry

around-

Mobile devices.

Alister jumped up from his bed. That was it! He could leave his cell phone at work,

tether all the computers to it, and then access his cell phone from his home.

There were minor technical details to be solved, but they were details to be solvedin the morning.

When morning rolled along, Alister’s mind had already worked out the details of

what he needed to do to bring his idea to life. As a bonus, his mind also solved the

technical details for him: he would have to inject a program into all the phones in

the building to split the data transfer amongst all of them.

The average worker at the company was technically-challenged and did not

understand that their cell phones could be used to connect to the internet. They

would not notice his program running in the background and generating data traffic.

On his third day, Alister completed his remote control plan. And security started to

take notice.



Chapter 5

“Data usage has increased two-fold yesterday,” reported the woman in front of him.

“That’s odd,” said Andrew Hicks, “are they running a large-scale mobileexperiment?”

“I am not familiar with our projects. I can only report about our mobile data

statistics.”

Mr. Hicks sighed. He supposed it was good that the data controller wanted to give

accurate information, but he wanted someone to simply tell him what was going on.

Having risen to his current position through lack of competition, Mr. Hicks had not

needed to work particularly hard and he was not about to start now. If the controller

was not going to tell him the root cause, it would mean he would have to go out and

do research. And then he would have to sort through the research. And then hewould have to create a report on the likely causes. And then he would have to act

on it.

Worst of all, he would have to take responsibility for all of those actions. Just

thinking of failing in front of the CEO caused sweat to roll down his face.

Suddenly, Mr. Hicks had a great idea: he could let his subordinate take care of this!

His mouth formed a mischievous grin. The arrogant newcomer will crumble under

the additional workload and responsibility!

Contrary to his expectations, Alister welcomed his new task.Mr. Hicks was confused. When he assigned the task to Alister – who had been sitting

there leafing through the huge book – he expected Alister to complain or give

excuses of why he would be unable to complete the assignment. In reality, Alister

smiled and told him he would have the report done by the end of the day!

Ridiculous! Mr. Hicks thought. This is easily a month-long project at the minimum,

even for someone as experienced as myself! In addition to having to understand the

starter manual, there should be no way for Alister to act this carefree!

He must be bluffing. I will call his bluff and he will panic.

“Alright, at the end of today I expect the report to be handed to my desk. I will be

reviewing it thoroughly to make sure you have not missed a thing and that all your

facts are accurate.”

“Okay, I’ll send you the report electronically. No sense wasting paper.”



If Mr. Hicks detested this youngster before, he really hated him now. He really

wanted to shake the young man’s self-confident attitude, but did not want to

perform any drastic actions for fear of getting fired. An all-around dilemma. The

only solution for him was to stay away from Alister.



Chapter 7

Alister frowned.

He did not like reading – he only leafed through the manual when Mr. Hicks wasaround, just to give him the false impression that that was what he was working on.

Having to go through all the data was giving him headaches. He was used to having

his machine read for him, and there were only so much auto-summarizing that

could be done. Any and all of the information could be critical, and it was up to him

to pick up on patterns.

A particular point of interest was the success rate of Julie’s projects ever since she

became a Final Draft researcher: the rate was zero percent. All the projects had

failed. Knowing Julie’s work ethics and talent, he knew there was definitely

extenuating circumstances.

What exactly were all these projects about? Perhaps there was a common thread,

but there was too much to read. He should enlist his friends’ help.

Just as he was about to get up and leave, Mr. Hicks got back with a smile on his

face. Alister was slightly perturbed – Mr. Hicks and he were on different ends of a

seesaw. If Mr. Hicks was happy, Alister certainly will not be. Could they have dove

into his report in detail in such short amount of time?

“My supervisor was so impressed with your report, he’s instructed me to give you

all these situations to analyze and deliver reports on,” Mr. Hicks held a stack of

paper while smiling triumphantly, “enjoy going through them.”

Alister attempted to stifle his own laughter. He couldn’t believe he was so worried

just a few seconds ago.

All the paperwork will indeed slow him down, but it was a minor price to pay.

One week, he thought to himself.

That would be the amount of time he’ll need to fabricate impressive looking reports

for that large stack of papers. It should take them at least that long to review the

authenticity of even a single report. By the time they realize the sheer inaccuracy of

his reports, he hoped to be long gone.



Chapter 8

As he promised himself, he finished the reports in one week.

He worked late hours to complete them, but Alister had a habit of fulfilling promisesto himself.

Mr. Hicks did not spare him a glance or a kind word as he took the reports off

Alister’s hands. Suddenly, Alister suspected that Mr. Hicks’ superior did not assign

the reports to him but to Mr. Hicks. He was simply being used as a tool to please Mr.

Hicks’ superiors whoever they might be. Last week, Alister was too relieved to have

thought through the situation properly.

Point scored, thought Alister, not bad for a useless self-serving slob. Something to

keep in mind the next time he decides to hand off work to me.

Alister put that behind him as he redoubled his efforts to go through the data. He

did not have a chance to contact his friends throughout the week, but tonight was

different – he did not have work following him home.

Alister submerged into cyberspace and became Azure.

AZURE: Help me sort through this data.

MATZ: I already returned the favour.

AZURE: I’ll pay you back in the future.

MATZ: Alright, but only because you did such a great job on my marks last time.

MATZ: You work for Ygg?

AZURE: Remember the rules. Don’t stick your neck in too deep. I didn’t ask

questions about your school.

MATZ: Ygg is bad news, man. You should ditch.

AZURE: I can’t. Leave it alone. My reasons are beside the point.

MATZ: Do you get any news inside the MediDome? There are reports that peopleare going missing. That has to be on your mind.

AZURE: Don’t make me hijack your computer.

MATZ: Hey! No friendly fire!

AZURE: And no personal questions. Follow the rules.



Chapter 9

After many weeks of observation, I had a good idea of the type of person she was. I

decided to put on a serious façade. Unfortunately, my reputation preceded me and

our first conversation was short and painful. The bad first encounter caused

subsequent ones to be tense. But failure was not in my vocabulary. This was simply

another challenge to overcome.

Alister woke up feeling very dissatisfied, but he could not remember why.

He shook himself. There were things he had to accomplish despite not having to

head to work today. In fact, Alister could accomplish more without having to

pretend to read some foolish book. No sense in wasting time sorting out vague

emotions.

The first order of business was to forcibly move Julie to a new project. Alister knewthat Julie was stubborn – there must be a reason that she was refusing to let go of

difficult projects. Knowing Julie, he guessed it was something silly. Perhaps she liked

the people she was working with. Perhaps she liked the challenge.

That was fine.

That was the reason why he was here after all – to make the difficult decisions

ensuring Julie’s safety and happiness. She’ll definitely dislike him for it, but that was

fine.

Alister doved into the project database and quickly picked out one that wasscheduled to start within the next few days. He ensured that it would be an easy,

doable project. Next, he queried for a list of young, successful researchers that just

finished their current projects – coworkers with high success rates could maintain a

positive work environment.

This was similar to putting together a fantasy sports team – Alister had a lot of fun

sorting through a list of potential project partners and constructing his vision of an

all-star researcher team. When he was done bypassing the project assignment

office and granting them security access, he felt that this team should be able to

over-achieve and finish their tasks ahead of the deadline.

He decided to send Julie a handwritten note requesting a one-on-one talk. This

meant that he would have to trick the deliverer into sending Julie’s welcome

package to go to his office desk, and then he would have to hand deliver the

package to Julie’s door. He decided the effort would be worth it. He wanted to

explain himself, but most of all he wanted to talk with her.



Chapter 10

Alister grew bored.

He understood how Yggdrasil’s systems interacted with each other and hadaccomplished his task. He simply waited for Julie to come in contact with him. Even

Mr. Hicks had decided to stop bothering him. After flipping through the manual for

the fiftieth time without actually reading it, Alister decided he had enough. He

needed to do something productive or he was going to go crazy.

Alister did not know much about the company he joined, so he decided to look into

this.

Reading was not his forte, thus considerable effort was spent going through his

company’s website and the orientation package Mr. Hicks had left him on the first

day. Alister felt his considerable effort was wasted and wanted a refund of his timespent: the company managed to write pages of material about itself, but none of it

meant anything. It was all fluff.

If I want to know about this company, I’ll have to look into external sources, thought

Alister, perhaps the guys in the channel will know a bit about digging into

companies’ pasts.

Considering the lack of coworkers in his vicinity, Alister decided he should take the

rest of the day off to do some more digging. He packed his bag and got up to leave.

“Where do you think you’re going?”Mr. Hicks blocked his exit. Behind him was a young, blonde man wearing t-shirt,

shorts and sandals.

Alister frowned. He did not know what was more unexpected: Mr. Hicks returning to

bother him after all the work he already accomplished or the man wearing summer

clothes in winter. Actually, he thought, Hicks has been a pain in the ass from day

one – it’s not too surprising to see him here.

“I was going to find you,” Alister quickly turned his frown into a smile, “I haven’t

seen you in days.”

It was Mr. Hicks turn to frown. They both knew the reason Mr. Hicks was not around

– he was afraid of being embarrassed yet again by his junior.

“Well, now that you’ve seen me you can get back to your seat,” said Mr. Hicks

angrily, “this is your new co-worker Jason Martin. If you have so much free time, you

could show him the ropes.”



“Nice to meet you Jason,” Alister reached out his hand.

“Whatever,” Jason pushed past Mr. Hicks and ignored Alister’s hand. He proceeded

to plop himself down in front of one of the computers.

“My colleague’s son couldn’t find any place to hire him, so we landed him here.

Considering the small size of our security team I decided to let him join us,”

explained Mr. Hicks, “you will be in charge of developing this young man into an

experienced programmer.”

Alister saw this as what it was – another attempt to place arbitrary obstacles in front

of him; another attempt at making him fail and forcing him out.

“My colleague looks forward to your success. There will be repercussions if he is not

satisfied, since I’m sure you’ll agree that this should be a relatively easy task for a

genius such as yourself,” grinned Mr. Hick. His smile did not even attempt to hide

the malice behind the words.

“Thanks for your kind words,” Alister smiled back, “I will deliver like always.”

Mr. Hicks gave a snort and left Alister to his task.

“Hey, internet games are working on this computer! That’s awesome, dude, how’d

you manage to do that? I thought they took down the internet or something.”

Alister turned sharply. He mentally slapped himself for being so careless once again

– he should have locked his computer. If this kid blabbed about this to anyone else,

news of this oddity would spread like wild fire and he would get caught.

He took a deep breathe. Calm down. This kid is not too bright and did not knowmuch about computers.

“These aren’t internet games – they’re games I created myself. Work gets boring so

I coded them up to pass the time.”

Jason turned back to his screen.

“But I typed in the internet address here to get to the games. If I didn’t have

internet, the page would show up as not found or give me errors. I don’t really

remember, but it just wouldn’t load up.”

As to prove his point, Jason started typing in another internet address he knew.

While Jason still had his back turned, Alister quickly whipped out his cell phone and

hit a specific sequence of five keys – this was a kill switch to disable the remote

access of his entire network.

Just as planned, Jason ran into the error page when he tried typing in the address.



“Huh? That’s weird. But that’s what I’m talking about – that page there. If I go to the

other site-“

“It’s because I really like to play on Zoom Tag at home, so I made the program load

when someone entered in that site!” Alister nudged Jason away from the computer

and started up his programming suite.

“What a coincidence – you play on Zoom Tag as well? And it was the first site you

went to on my computer too! Any other site would have shown you the same error

page. See, look at this code here – this is how I made the game run when you just

typed in the address. This other part here is the code I took from the site – back at

home where I have internet of course – so that it would look exactly the same.

Almost fooled you too, didn’t it?”

Alister spoke really fast as he dragged code from window to window and created

entire sections on the fly. Within minutes, he really did have the game running as

he promised – an imitation of the online version Jason was so used to playing with.

Jason simply looked confused.

“So, you’re saying I can’t check out my friends’ pages? And play other games?”

“Nope.”

“But if you tell me what sort of game you want, I can make it for you,” added Alister

as Jason started looking distressed.

“Seriously?”

“Yes, on one condition.”

“What?”

“You’re going to have to learn a bit about computers, so you can do this yourself

one day.”

“That sounds pretty sweet!”

Alister did not forget his real task – to bestow computer skills to Jason. For that, he

needed something to negotiate with and the situation presented him with the

perfect opportunity. It even let him frame the request as something that wouldbenefit Jason.

Still, not everyone has the aptitude to become an expert programmer. Mr. Hicks

must have known this and must be already convinced that Alister will fail. On the

other hand if Jason does become an expert programmer, he would suddenly

become a dangerous element capable of uncovering Alister considering his

proximity.



Suddenly, Alister was thrilled. This was a difficult problem to solve and adrenaline

pumped into him as he began to set his mind against it.



Chapter 11

Alister created a quick overview of all the main topics he needed to teach. There

was a ton of material to cover. He decided to enlist the help of Matz once again.

Being in school and very recently self-taught, Matz quickly dug up lesson plans for

each topic. In return, Matz wanted access to a certain password protected site.

AZURE: … Matz, how old are you?

MATZ: I thought personal information was off limits.

AZURE: seriously, you’re not allowed to look at this stuff.

MATZ: I am never helping you again!

AZURE: Alright, relax, I’ll give you access.

Alister sighed. He supposed that it was just natural curiosity and that there would

be no harm done. The request certainly could have been more dangerous – the

school grade alteration certainly was. Besides, Matz did a good job helping filling

out his teaching itinerary in an incredibly short period of time.

Perhaps he would be helpful in scrounging for company’s historical data. He was

still curious about the company that fed and housed him. Alister was certain that

there were secrets hiding within the elegant walls of the Yggdrasil.

He attempted to contact Matz to recruit his help once more, but he received noresponse. Alister briefly wondered about why Matz was not responding before

cutting off that train of thought.

It’s getting late anyway, thought Alister. He wrote down a reminder to get in touch

with Matz then went off to sleep.



Chapter 12

I decided that the fastest way to fix the awkwardness was to pretend that our first

encounter had not yet occurred and that none of the rumours were true. I was

always good at acting and being persuasive. Even though she knew what I was

trying to do, she eventually went along with it. We started talking like regular

friends. My technical accomplishments impressed her, but none of it –

accomplishments, wit – seemed to move her heart.

Alister woke up with a headache.

Not unsurprising as it’s been a full week of coaxing and nagging an unwilling

student to learn the basics of his craft. Jason quickly learnt that the lessons would

not be nearly as fun as he originally thought. That caused Alister to aggressively

redesign his lesson plans to become more fun.

In addition to the effort that went into his lessons, he had to uphold his end of the

bargain and design games for Jason. This latter part was surprisingly easier than the

former: Alister simply downloaded, decompiled and customized games he found

online.

The lessons were hard because it required creativity and writing – two skills that

were not particularly developed for Alister.

I did not sign up for this! Alister was vexed. He was wasting too much effort playing

teacher and game designer and not enough on playing undercover detective.

Another point given to the short, annoying boss for effectively sandbagging my

progress, thought Alister bitterly. Not that I’d ever give him the satisfaction of

seeing me struggle.

He needed to complete his research. He needed to force feed Jason information. He

needed to design games so that the force feeding would go faster. His priorities

were in that order; Alister considered reallocating his time accordingly.

On the other hand, if he fails to teach Jason the basics and Mr. Hicks was speaking

the truth, Alister’s position at Ygg was in danger. And Alister was sure that Mr. Hicks

did not bluff this time – there was no way Mr. Hicks could appear that confident

without the truth backing him up. He was not that type of man.

All that this means is I need help, thought Alister.

He changed back into Azure to solicit the aid he required.

AZURE: Matz?



C0MRADE: No dice. He hasn’t spoken a single word here ever since you gave him

access to that site.

AZURE: Damn. I need his help in looking into my company’s history.

C0MRADE: Why would you need that kid for a simple task like that?

AZURE: It’s quality assurance. We have an established business relationship.

C0MRADE: I can prepare a report for you by tomorrow and I guarantee quality work.

AZURE: That sounds too good to be true. How do I know you will do good work and

what do you want in return?

C0MRADE: Just plain money is fine, brother. Kids don’t know the value of it. As for

quality, you can ask around – I’ve done my share of dirty work and my clients have

all been pleased.

WOZ: It’s true. He helped me with the DoS attack on that stupid church last month.

BAMF: That was epic. Man, they were panicking and the news outlets were all over

that.

AZURE: Sorry to cut in, but I need this done quick. And now that I know you’ll get

this done right, let’s talk money.

C0mrade and Azure hammered out an amount they felt was reasonable. Azure was

handed an anonymous banking account to wire the money to and the deal was

sealed.



Chapter 13

She declared she was going to a faraway school. As usual, she had already weighed

her options before her announcement. The school would give her the best medical

experience. It would also free her from her mother’s constant negativity and rigid

rules. She did not tell me which school it was, but child’s play for me to figure out. I

wanted to follow her, but I had neither the grades nor funds to do so. As she walked

away, I knew it would be years before I would be able to hear from her again.

The dreams were becoming more frequent, thought Alister. He suddenly had the

urge to talk to someone about it and thus consulted the channel.

AZURE: I’m having this series of dreams and they’re giving me a headache.

WOZ: Stop right there.

WOZ: Don’t bother telling us about your dreams. They are the most boring stories

to listen to. They are only interesting to the dreamer.

C0MRADE: Let’s talk business instead. I’ve received your payment, so I’m sending

you my report right now.

Alister sighed. The channel dwellers were excellent for solving logical and logistical

problems, but he will never make the mistake of telling them of personal problems

ever again.

He printed out the report that C0mrade sent him. A brief glance told him that the

report was indeed expertly put together – it contained a shortage of complicatedwords and an excess of clarity and organization. Completely different than the

reports he prepared for Mr. Hicks.

Alister dove into the report as he walked towards his work place.



Chapter 14: Comrade’s scintillating report

Ygg is currently a gigantic tree that supports large swaths of neuro-medical

research, but like any other tree, it began as a sapling.

The founders were idealistic scientists that recently graduated, knowing very little

of the economic realities of the world. They are completely irrelevant now – they

have long since been removed from power by the board.

They are only mentioned for their founding principle: high quality medicine backed

by both computer and live research, critically assessed by a panel of respected

peers. For years, they believed their distinctive quality will bring in the profits. They

severely underestimated their competition, overestimated their market, and made a

slew of business blunders.

This was expected: they were scientists and not businessmen.

Just as competitors circled around like vultures ready to devour the decaying corpse

of Ygg, the golden boy executive of the day took an interest in the company.

William Bradley just finished turning a struggling sports franchise into a wildly

profitable one. What does sports have to do with business? There are most likely

comparisons that can be drawn, but the diverse industries that Mr. Bradley dives

into really show his adaptability and versatility.

Medicine was one area that Mr. Bradley has not tried yet. As someone that lost

precious hours – and one hour of his time was extremely expensive – to sicknessevery year, he was intrigued by a company that promised quality above all.



Chapter 15

Alister had wanted to read more, but the current day Ygg loomed in front of him. He

would have to suffer through a round of teaching before he could continue.

“How is the tutoring coming along?” Mr. Hicks crowed, “Do we have a new system

specialist in the works?”

A terrible way to start a day’s of work, thought Alister. He looked around and was

surprised to see Jason hard at work on his tutorial. That gave me some sense of

satisfaction – his effort in making lessons more enjoyable was bearing fruit.

“I don’t recall a request for a system specialist – after all, I thought that was what

you needed me for,” replied Alister, “but as you can see, Jason is coming along fine

as a developer.”

Jason ignored them both. Mr. Hicks looked sceptical.

“His father will be the judge of that. You have until the end of the month to bring

him up to speed.”

Mr. Hicks must have thought he was giving Alister a tight constraint, but to Alister

one month was ample time. In fact, knowing exactly how much time he had left

filled Alister with a sense of confidence and relief – the complete opposite reaction

that Mr. Hicks had hoped to provoke.

With that problem out of the way, Alister refocused his attention on his next

problem. Julie had not contacted him ever since he left his note. He wondered if shehad missed it or tossed it. He also wondered whether her computer simply broke

down – if that was the case, Julie is not the type of person that would replace it.

Alister felt like he should have made the note less cryptic.

Using his network, he waltzed into Julie’s computer to see if there were any clues.

There were no signs of access in the last few months, but at least the computer was

functional. Barely. He was a cyber-neat freak; as such, he could not stand to see all

the security holes and the mess of files on Julie’s computer.

By the time Alister went home, Julie’s computer was complete patched up and theonly folder on her desktop was labelled “Old boring documents”.



Chapter 16: Comrade’s Scintillating Report (continued)

If Ygg was a patient riddled with diseases, William Bradley was the panacea that

cured him.

Within one year, Ygg transformed from a company on the verge of bankruptcy to a

pharmaceutical powerhouse. Mr. Bradley had fired almost all of management,

keeping on the best and the brightest. Seniority meant absolutely nothing – even

the founders were tossed out.

The meritocracy Mr. Bradley installed caused company morale to spike up. The

morale was further helped by the pay raises and generous packages that rewarded

company loyalty. Researchers flocked towards the new gold standard. The

competition to get into Ygg became so intense that even top scientists doubted

their ability to get in.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without soaring sales.

Mr. Bradley established an easily recognizable brand and launched a fierce public

relations campaign against his competitors. Advertisements, news articles, research

papers and government reports were drawn up highlighting the dangers – real or

imagined – of using competing products: all to underscore the high quality and

reliability of Ygg.

In parallel to this campaign, there was another equally fierce push to promote

awareness of neurological problems. This was a push to sell both fear and security:

fear of suffering and eventually succumbing to dormant illnesses; security of asturdy shield against diseases as promised by Ygg products. Ygg was not afraid that

people would over-diagnose themselves – in fact, Ygg promoted over-diagnosis.

The reputation of Mr. Bradley combined with two incredibly effective campaigns

caused demand for Ygg products to soar. In the midst of their wild success, Ygg had

their initial public offering and started issuing stocks. Investor funds poured in and

their riches were compounded.

At this point, Ygg became another success story in Mr. Bradley’s long line of success

stories. Mr. Bradley could have walked away at this point and pursued a new

venture, but the chapter on Ygg was not yet closed – he was curious about his ownailments, thus he pumped vast amounts of funds into research and development.

This was four years ago.



Chapter 17

“Dude, what are you doing?”

Alister looked to his left. Jason had finished his daily lesson and cut into Alister’swork out of boredom. Lately, the disruption was happening too frequently for

Alister’s liking. Having to come up with ways to entertain Jason left him no time to

finish reading C0mrade’s report.

“The same as usual, I have to finish reports for the boss.”

Jason was also getting fairly good with computers.

Obviously, that was part of Alister’s difficult task and credit will be given to him for

completing it. But now he no longer felt safe coming up with exploits, diving in dark

places for information, and other not-so-legal tasks. This limited his activities tobusywork – being the productive type, this caused him constant grief.

Still, Alister admitted that he had done a good job. Jason’s attention span had

improved considerably and he no longer talked about games. Even though Alister

had installed all the latest, most addicting games on his computer, he had passed

them over for learning more.

If Jason was under his tutelage for another two months, he may even discover the

subtle alterations that Alister made to the company’s computers. That would be an

amusing scenario: his student finding the security holes in his computer, then

attempting to hunt down the perpetrator – only to find that it was his teacher allalong.

The hunt would probably keep Jason busy, thought Alister bemusedly.

Then an idea struck him: he could create a fake attacker to infiltrate Jason’s

computer, then have the digital doll and Jason battle it out. If Jason ever got too

close to the puppet, he could cause it to vanish into thin air leaving not a single

trace.



Chapter 18

A woman was running through the darkened streets. Her muscles were sore from

the constant strain, but she could not afford to stop. She kept throwing panicked

glances behind her, all the while looking around to find a building she could enter.

But it was past midnight. Few – if any – buildings were open at this hour. She had no

choice but to continue running.

How amusing, I thought, she thinks she can escape by outrunning a car. Thrill ran

through me as I tasted her despair. I can’t get enough of it! I slowed my car down to

prolong my satisfaction.

The woman was only human. After an hour of non-stop running, she finally became

too exhausted to move. She collapsed on the street – sweating from both the

strenuous exercise and intense fear.

The car behind her rolled to a stop. The headlights kept my quarry illuminated.

I stepped out of the car.

Robert Black felt euphoric that morning. He felt that he must have had a wonderful

dream. For the past few months, satisfaction was hard to come by – there was not

much to do in his sterile cell.

But suddenly, a researcher dropped by to talk with him. People are infinitely

amusing to tease apart, and his interviewer was no different. Unfortunately,

analyzing was all he could do at this point. He lacked the freedom to seek out totalsatisfaction.

There was hope. He was certain that his interviewer was surveying his cell mates to

find perfect test specimen. The screening process was not dissimilar to what he

himself enjoyed doing. He knew what she was looking for, and he also knew that he

would pass without even trying.

After all, he was as normal as they come. His imprisonment was an injustice that

needs to be righted as soon as possible. He just needed to be patient.

Having nothing else to do, Robert Black went back to sleep.



Chapter 19

Alister spent the next week constructing a fictional enemy and designing all his

beginner-level hacking tools. This should be a good match-up for Jason, thought

Alister.

When he arrived at work, he realized he had wasted his time. A familiar and

unwelcome face stood by Jason. Standing with them was an older, wrinkled man

who had a prideful air around him.

“My son tells me you were a very good teacher to him,” boomed the older man.

“I tried my best to pass on my skills,” replied Alister, “I hope I succeeded.”

“Ted, we really should take a look at what Jason can do before we declare his work

a success,” opined Mr. Hicks.

“Very good, very good! We can use these lesson plans you’ve created to educate

those dimwits in security,” replied Ted Martin enthusiastically while ignoring Mr.

Hicks, “they are well-designed! Even I am tempted to take a dip in the software

side!”

Mr. Hicks turned red.

“The security group is just fine! We have not had one single case of break-and-

enter, theft or vandalism!”

“Now now, Andrew, I wasn’t criticizing your good work. You can’t deny that there istoo much brawn and not enough brain in the group!”

“Thank you again for taking care of my son. Because of the skills you taught him, he

managed to find a better placement outside of the Yggdrasil for him.”

“There is no better place to work at than the Yggdrasil,” retorted Mr. Hicks.

“You’ve been here for too long if you think that, my man! The air around here is too

stagnant. I am transferring out at the end of the week myself. My wife has been

worried to bits with all the news-“

“-a bunch of unfound rumours-“

“-be as that may, she has been worried to bits and I have always trusted her

intuition. I hope we meet again,” Ted spoke directly to Alister, “it is rare to find

young and competent people these days.”



Chapter 20

“G-get away from me!”

“Whatever is the matter? Why did you run so far away from me?”

“T-that k-knife! It’s covered in blood!”

“I apologize deeply for the misunderstanding. I enjoy using this knife in the kitchen

and it tends to get dirtied quite quickly. I should have washed it beforehand.”

“I don’t believe you! Just get away! GET AWAY!!”

“Calm down, my dear sister! You are covered in dirt and sweat. Here, I will help

clean you up.”

I pulled out a cloth from my pocket. Another item dropped out as the cloth wasfreed from the pocket.

“Clumsy me! Now what did I drop? My favourite switchblade! What a coincidence,

we were just talking about you. I should probably clean you up first.”

I used the cloth to wipe the blade clean.

“Now to help you out, dear sister.”

The woman’s scream pierced the night.

“My apologies! I am so clumsy; I used the wrong item. But the cloth and the knifeare both so similar, so you will forgive me, will you not?”

Only groans of pain came out from the weary and wounded woman.

“What was that, sister? I cannot hear you. Ah, my knife is all dirty again. I know how

you detest uncleanliness. Will you let me borrow your shirt to clean this knife?”

“Freeze!”

I spun around.

My car’s headlights had camouflaged the police’s searchlights.

“Whatever is the matter, officers?”

“Put down the knife! Put your hands behind your head! Put down the knife!”

I tilted my head.



“So which is it? Would you rather I put my hands behind my head or would you

rather I drop the knife?”

A gunshot rang out.

Robert Black learns from his mistakes.

Society does not approve of outward signs of aggression, he thought, so if he was to

enjoy his hobby – he will have to be more subtle about it.

As he pondered this idea, a group of uniformed men walked into the lab and started

opening cells. They were escorting a select group of patients out.

They arrived in front of his cell.

“How can I help you gentlemen?” smiled Robert Black. Given his past, a regular

crook would recoil at the sight of authority and uniforms. However, he was different

type of person – he truly wanted to help these officers with their task.

“You are moving into the Final Draft group. Be pleased: you will have a chance to be

cured,” the officer at the front announced.

“Is that so? That is excellent news,” Robert Black exclaimed.

The officers unlocked his cage and proceeded to free the beast inside.



Chapter 22 Reunion from the other side of the glass

His computer rang out.

Alister jumped out of bed – he had set a distinctive song as an auditory alert that Julie has finally switched on her computer.

AZURE: What took you so long to get on?

JULIE: I’m not really appreciating the remodelling you did to my computer. Care to

change it back?

AZURE: There are more important things to talk about.

JULIE: Yes, like, who the hell are you?

AZURE: Alister.

JULIE: Remind me again of how I might know you.

Alister gritted his teeth. It has been years since they’ve talked, so he cannot really

blame her for forgetting him. However, that fact did not reduce the emotional pain

of being forgotten.

AZURE: Forgot me already? I helped you so much back in school!

JULIE: Oh right, Alister Zur. “Azure”. Really clever.

She remembered!

AZURE: It’s a great contraction for my full name, thanks.

AZURE: Anyway, I took the liberty of looking up your project history. I would have

contacted you sooner but the security at the Yggdrasil is pretty tight.

He did not want to admit his desire of taking an indirect route of contacting her for

fear of rejection.

JULIE: So when are you going to explain the part where you found it necessary to

look through my stuff?

AZURE: News reports are indicating that your company is bad news. Shady

research. Scientists disappearing. Patients disappearing.

JULIE: Well, that’s the first I heard about it.

AZURE: Not surprising considering you haven’t switched on your computer in ages.

Not to mention there aren’t newspaper circulations anywhere in the MediDome.



It reminded him of old days.



Chapter 23 Comrade’s Scintillating Report (end)

As Ygg’s reputation and coffers grew, a wide array of interest groups submitted

their pharmaceutical requests to it – they paid premium fees knowing that they will

receive premium results. Hospitals, military, schools and rich people who could

afford personalized health care seek out Ygg’s diagnosis and drugs.

William Bradley himself fit into the last category.

After two years and using hundreds of trial patients to perfect the holistic diagnostic

process, Mr. Bradley finally attempted self-diagnosis. The results he received

shocked him. He spent another month running through the tests again, but to no

avail – he had an incurable, terminal illness. He had only a few years before death

would sweep him into the dustbin of history.

Mr. Bradley did not lose heart. He funnelled all but the most critical research anddevelopment into finding a cure for his disease. Many billions of dollars were spent;

many millions of chemical combinations were tested. But in the end, all the

research did was confirming his inevitable demise.

Research returned to normal and Mr. Bradley disappeared for a month. No one

knew where he went. His hand-picked executive vice presidents were extremely

capable, so Ygg did not miss a beat while he was gone. The veteran public relations

team easily deflected any questions about his disappearance. If they could

completely reverse public opinion on Ygg, they could smooth over a one-month

absence of their leading officer.

When Mr. Bradley returned, he was back to his usual efficient self. The ones that

knew him best mentioned that there was a new hard edge to him.

The very first action on his return was to redirect research from curing his disease

to investigating combination of chemicals that could reproduce his illness. His

advisors and vice presidents loudly questioned this decision since the research was

not in line with Ygg’s core business. They were promptly dismissed.

Taking the salaries he no longer had to pay, he poured money into harvesting

patients – he would need many for experimentation. Mr. Bradley especially targeted

the hospitals, the streets, the retirement homes and the jails where few wouldnotice or complain about disappearances.

To shield his research from the public eye, he built the Yggdrasil and the MediDome

to house it. Using old, pre-existing machinery and cash reserves, the entire

construction project was finished in half a year – a ridiculous timeframe for a

gargantuan creation.



Mr. Bradley began micromanaging his production plants. With a small trusted team

of engineers, he installed an additional mixing machine to all the assembly line.

Here, he would put in the fruits of his research: undetectable, slow-acting and lethal

chemicals.

What about government health inspectors?

Mr. Bradley had the power to easily grant fame and fortune to anyone. He also

commanded people’s respect and opinions with his intellect and charisma. The

inspectors did not stand a chance.

As Mr. Bradley rotated through the Yggdrasil and his production plants, he was

satisfied. At the pace he was going, he will start seeing results within a few years.

The entire world will feel his pain.



Chapter 24

Alister dropped the sheets he had in his hand onto his table and leant back. He

closed his eyes to process all the information he learnt and connect the dots.

William Bradley – the head of his company – was putting something bad into his

drugs. He did not know exactly what it was, but it was enough to know that the

company’s products will cause people to die within the next few years. Considering

hundreds of millions of people use Ygg’s products, the result would be a massacre

on a scale that has never been seen before.

That would explain the disappearances of researchers, thought Alister. Anyone that

finds out or complains about the grand master plan is quickly silenced. It also

explains why none of Julie’s experiments – or the prototyping projects in general –

has been successful. Or rather, it explains why the researchers would consider it

unsuccessful.

In reality, Julie has been perfectly completing her task every time.

The company did not really want to test for a cure – it wanted to test the drugs

adverse effects.

Alister decided to find solid evidence for his hypotheses. He went into his channel to

enlist the help of his friends. Fortunately for him, help was not in short supply this

time around.

Matz decided to help out as an apology for his constant absence. Woz decided tohelp out of sheer curiosity – one does not uncover a global crisis every day.

C0mrade required working fees, but this was hardly a concern as Alister was flushed

with funds. Even though Ygg was evil to the core, it paid well.

They distributed the investigative work amongst themselves. Matz and Woz went to

check the profiles and activities of all the missing people, while C0mrade and he

checked through the list of chemicals used in experimentations.

Solid evidence will be needed not only to confirm his suspicions, but they will

provide the basis of his counter attack.



MATZ: Guys, I have a better idea. Don’t bother going out there yourself trying to

mix that stuff in. Like C0mrade said, we’re lazy software guys – we let machines do

our work. Why don’t you get the machines to spit out the wrong type of chemicals?

AZURE: It doesn’t work like that. Tailored orders go to scientists asking for particular

effects. Scientists test on various chemicals, various proportions, varioustemperatures and other properties until they get the right mix. Then they send in

their results. The experiment supply manager reads the necessary supplies and

order the amount needed for each chemical. The Yggdrasil plant operators read

experimental procedure and set the machines to handle production.

AZURE: Of course, there are other production pipelines and other research projects;

but from what I’ve read, this is the main one. We can’t just change what’s being spit

out if there’s no supply of it.

C0MRADE: Then we send the wrong wish list to the suppliers.

WOZ: Bingo!

MATZ: I can agree with that plan. We still need to send the wrong experimental

procedure to the plant operators.

AZURE: We can split up and handle that separately. C0mrade has both the

procedure and ingredients we need – we will work off that. We should be able to

switch up the ingredients in a day, since the suppliers order their stuff tomorrow.

WOZ: Guys, this is epic! I am totally documenting this. We will be heroes!

Alister exited the channel. Enthusiasm was appreciated, but the entire situation wastoo serious for him to be enjoying.



Chapter 27

Robert Black was becoming weary of isolation.

Like any other normal human, he needed to interact with others. He recognized hischance when a familiar researcher visited him in his new cell.

He smiled.

However, the person that stood at the doorway was less than pleased to see him.

Nevertheless, she presented her medicine to him and a chance to be free.

Robert Black was not an idiot. He knew why all the patients were rounded up from

obscure places. He knew the research could not be totally legitimate. As such, he

directed her attention at his neighbouring cell mate, who Robert Black felt

sympathy for due to his constant cries for help.

As Julie went to attend to his neighbour, Robert Black quietly snuck out of the room.

Typical researcher. She was so engrossed in her experiment that she forgot simple

things like locking the door.

Being naturally curious, Robert Black went into the research lab. He poured over the

experimental materials and procedure in order to determine what exactly the

scientists were trying to do to him.

Interesting, thought Robert, the serum was filled with lethal chemicals. From the

looks of tomorrow’s order, it looks like they fixed the lethality of the mixture. He

narrowly escaped death.

It would not be the first time that happened, Robert reminisced as he rubbed his

shoulder. During his arrest, the police aimed at his heart but struck his shoulders

instead. He made a mental reminder to teach officers how to aim.

In fact, he smiled to himself; he should proceed with his lesson now. He was

temporarily free. He could indulge in his hobby, return tomorrow when the

concoction was fixed, and become permanently freed. No one would be the wiser.



Chapter 28

Alister was peeved.

When he finally got in contact with Julie, he found out that she had already carriedout an experiment with the old ingredients.

Of course, she had succeeded in killing a patient.

He decided to tell her that everything would be alright. His group had succeeded in

carrying out their plan and the new procedures and ingredients were in place. There

will be no more bloodshed – at least not by Julie.

Alister wondered if he could transfer Julie to another project again, but remembered

that the system had locked him out. He decided that he should take a proactive

approach. He needed to stay at the Yggdrasil continuously to work on the systemsdirectly, or risk getting blocked again.

He started digging through building schematics that were part of C0mrade’s

research. Surely there was a place where he can stay without being interrupted by

passers-by.

The schematics were a source of surprises.

Alister started looking at the architectural diagram and found that the basement

was an enormous room – the size of three football fields. He had expected that this

would work as secret hideout, but when he cross-checked with the wiring schema,

he found that the basement was actually filled with diesel generators. Why wouldthe Yggdrasil need generators if he had solar panels?

Speaking of solar panels, there was a large empty space where solar energy

processors should be. The top floor was an empty floor that had no elevator access.

Putting these two oddities together, Alister concluded that the manufactured tree

did not run on solar energy at all, but rather drew diesel energy from its roots.

Then what was the top floor for? Going back to the wiring schema, the top floor

appeared to be five separate floors connected by stairs. Each floor was designed

similar to the Glass Menagerie and other patient-holding facilities.

He would have to go there directly to see what was at the summit of the Yggdrasil.



Chapter 29

Robert Black was back in his cell.

His favourite researcher had come to visit him just as he expected. She wassurprised to see him, despite his promise that he would be here. He reminded her of

the promise, but somehow she remained suspicious of him.

This woman is constantly on her guard, thought Robert Black. I will need to

remember that she is not worth saving. On the other hand, I cannot dispose of her

just yet.

Thus with a bit of coaxing, he managed to persuade Julie to give him his shot. He

knew beforehand that the serum would have no effect in and of itself, but it was

necessary for Julie to sign his release forms.

And with the forms signed, he was finally free.

Immediately, his basic urges rushed into him. He briefly contemplated introducing a

blade to the thin neck in front of him, but he was deeply grateful for his escape. He

would savour this moment and seek indulgence another time. Besides, he currently

had no knife at his disposal.

When Julie left the room, Robert Black went through the room to scavenge useful

materials. He spotted a toolbox by the computer and a medical kit on a shelf. He

picked them up and placed them on the desk. The usual suspects were inside the

toolbox: nails, screwdriver, scissors, a short blade, and other miscellaneous tools. The medical kit contained a syringe and the standard sedative mini-gun.

Robert Black did not know that the mini-gun contained sedatives, but he had a good

idea after noticing the lack of bullets and syringes in their replacement.

These were satisfying finds but something more deadly would helpful, thought

Robert Black. His thoughts turned to the officers that had captured him and treated

him poorly.

A lesson in manners was long overdue.



Chapter 30

Revenge is easily attained against an unprepared enemy.

A teaching opportunity showed itself almost immediately as Robert Black walkedout of the room. An officer had finished his long, tedious shift and was looking

forward to relaxing at home. The officer sauntered towards the elevator, passing by

Robert Black’s room.

Robert Black unceremoniously shot a sedative in the back of the officer’s neck and

dragged him back into the room.

He briefly considered slicing the jugular vein to ensure the officer slept well, but

that would be a complete waste of a human life. There were better ways of enjoying

his spoils.

The officer woke up feeling sharp pains when the sedative finally wore off. He

looked down at his legs and screamed: they were a bloody mess with half a dozen

of stab marks.

“You are far too loud, Trudy,” said Robert Black matter-of-factly, “I already held

myself back.”

“Who are you and why did you do this?” gasped Trudy between short breathes.

“Who I am is not too important right now. I simply ensured that you will not run

away from me – for some reason, everyone always runs away from me even though

I am always thinking of them. It is quite the tragedy.”

“But let us not get into my personal life story,” smiled Robert Black, “we have a lot

to accomplish right now. You see, I need someone captured and brought to me and

I will need your help.”

“And why do you think I’d be willing to help you?” spat out Trudy through gritted

teeth.

“Because I believe that you are a kind hearted gentleman. If you decline, I will have

to take a closer look at your heart to reassess that belief. I really dislike getting my

hands dirty, so I do hope you will accept my proposal.”

“What are you talking about?” Trudy’s head was spinning from the pain and could

not understand his capturer’s long-winded speech.

“What I am saying,” Robert Black brought his face closer to his prey, “is that I will

rip your heart out if you decline. Do not make such a surprised face! I have the

tools. I do not lie.”



Chapter 31

For the first time since he arrived at Ygg, Alister was afraid.

The day before, he had given Julie a pep talk about her status in the company andstarted planting the seeds of doubt in her mind. This morning, he had woken up

with a terrible sense of foreboding.

Then suddenly, he was talking to her co-worker who claimed that Julie had

disappeared and demanded to know where she was.

Alister did not know. And he was angry at his lack of knowledge. He immediately

dove into the video footage of everything that happened the night before, only to

find that all the incriminating evidence has been deleted.

That can’t be, thought Alister. He went through Ygg’s video archives once again, butthe archive did not have the hours he wanted.

Someone had excised Julie’s last moments to hide the truth.

This was starting to become infuriating to Alister. For once, he felt like he was on

the victim side of a cyber-attack. He did not know the identity of the perpetrator. Or

perhaps there were more than one perpetrator – there was no way to tell.

He decided to ask the channel for help in hunting down his enemy. Again, they all

agreed to help for the same reasons as before: friendship, fame and money.

They are becoming reliable, thought Alister. He was glad to have people that hadhis back when he needed it. Still, this was a personal battle for him – Julie was his

most important person and the reason why he was here to begin with. He cannot

expect the others to put in the same resources and effort. He needed to be the one

to spearhead this effort.

But for now, he had to deal with one angry co-worker.



Chapter 32

Julie woke up.

She had a terrible nightmare. She was performing her usual experiments when abunch of guards rushed in to apprehend her. She managed to fight them off and

tried to exit through the elevator, but more guards arrived and she got shot in the

ribs.

What a crazy dream, she thought as she rubbed her eyes.

“How was your nap?”

She spun around on that voice. It was a familiar and detestable voice that gave her

chills.

It was Robert Black.

Julie suddenly realized that it was not a dream. Her ribs were bandaged but still

ached. She was inside one of the glass patient cells on the 13th floor.

“You must be wondering why you are in the Glass Menagerie! As a researcher, I

thought you would appreciate learning how it feels to be on the other side of the

glass,” Robert Black paused for a second. “So, how does it feel?”

Julie was on the verge of panic, but her sharp analytical mind decided that panic

was not the best solution at hand.

“Where are the officers? I am supposed to be under arrest.”

“If only all the criminals in the world were that forth-coming! On the other hand, our

jails would probably overflow. But I should get back to your question. I simply told

the officer I did not need help for this interrogation. I am certain you will agree that

that is simply the truth.”

“And they listened to you?”

“Officers are the hierarchical type, they will listen to rank,” replied Robert Black as

he played with his badge. Julie immediately noticed that he was in Ygg’s security

uniform.

She felt sick.

She knew there was no possible method for Robert Black to legitimately get that

uniform, but at the same time there was no one she could complain or point this out

to.



“Rest assured. I just want to know a bit about the people that you worked with. I

already know a bit about Melissa Gray and Marika Nowak. However, I have also

heard rumours about this Zach fellow, yet I cannot find him in the employee

database.”

“So you want me to tell you about my friends?”

“Yes. Their likes and dislikes, their hobbies and their habits would be a good start.

We can take our time. The floor has been emptied out.”

Emptied out?

“You look puzzled,” smiled Robert Black. “Let me explain: as a member of the proud

and noble security brigade, I am entitled to block off access to certain floors. As

such, I instructed everyone to steer clear of the Glass Menagerie. Since I was the

only free person on the floor, I have complete control over what happens here.”

Julie suddenly realized one of the things that were bugging her. It was eerily quieton this floor.

“Yes, and since I have complete control over this floor, I decided to amuse myself

with the patients here until you woke up. Luckily, you woke up when you did.

Because of all the experiments going on, I was starting to run out of people to play

with.”

Julie smashed the glass with her fists. The glass trembled but was not in the danger

of cracking. The man in front of her became more repulsive the more time she

spent conversing with him. Her anger replaced her fear, and she wanted to beat

him to a pulp no matter how improbable that would be.

“Why are you suddenly so tense? There is no rush. We still have a lot of time to

spend together. Let us talk a bit about your coworkers.”

“Screw you.”

As much as she disliked Zach, she simply hated Robert Black. She regretted freeing

him. There was no method on earth that would force her to help him even more.

“My,” Robert Black expressed shock, “your parents did not properly teach you

manners. I shall do you a favour and teach you in their place.”

He opened his toolbox. All the equipment was caked with dried crimson patches,

while some were still glistening with fresh red fluid.

“Are you certain you do not want to discuss this? I would rather not get my hands

dirty. As you can see, I always make a big mess when I play around.”



“Liar. You enjoy this and even if I told you everything you wanted to know, you

would kill me slowly and enjoy every minute of it.”

“Killing? I would never perform such an atrocity! I am not like you researchers who

use people for guinea pigs. I simply have urges that need to be satisfied. Now that I

am finally freed, no one will be able to stop me again.”

Julie took a deep breath. She knew she was out of options. She had no tools at hand

and she was stuck in a secure glass cell with a ruthless murderer waiting for her

outside. She wished she had met her co-workers earlier and enjoyed their company

for a bit longer. She hoped that Marika would be safe at the end of all of this.

There was only one last thing she could do.

“You said you wanted to know about Zach?” she spoke slowly as she tear off pieces

of clothes behind her back, “This is the only fact you need to know: he will be the

one to put an end to your miserable life.”

“Fascinating! Would you like to describe how he would accomplish this feat?”

Julie quickly stuffed the pieces of cloth into her mouth. She fought the gagging

reaction as she continued to clog her airway.

Robert Black was rarely surprised, but Julie’s actions caught him off-guard. Over his

long career, he had faced many types of reactions: victims attempting to fight him;

victims attempting to reason with him; victims attempting to run away; victims

attempting to block off reality by curling up.

This was the first time someone actively tried to kill themselves in front of him. Thiswas made more surprising because Robert Black had deprived Julie of all tools.

When he finally absorbed the situation, a precious minute had passed. He realized

that he needed to get inside or Julie would die.

He ran towards the ring of keys that were kept at the far side of the room.

Unfortunately for him, the keyhole was jammed with cloth. Angered, he attempted

to forcibly twist the door handle, but that was jammed as well – a chair was placed

beneath the handle, preventing its movement.

Robert Black cursed under his breath. He looked through his toolbox but none of the

tools worked on a hinge-less door. He slammed the door with the body to no avail. This was a sturdily made door to hold the strongest of villains inside. Or outside.

For twenty minutes, Robert Black hammered at the door. Julie had long since

passed out.

Despite being caged in with nothing at her disposal, Julie had managed to escape

him.



Chapter 33

Alister appeared to be a dead end.

Everyone had returned without attaining much information about their virtualenemy or enemies at all. They had found that a generic administrator account was

used to deploy security patches earlier in the month. The same generic account had

deleted the video logs.

No, thought Alister, we are thinking too linearly. There must be other ways of

finding information besides looking through the system. Just because the computer

systems do not have any data doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

AZURE: We know when they released the patches and wiped the videos. We could

search through all the footage to see if we can find anything suspicious at any of

the computer terminals.

MATZ: Are you crazy? There are computers in nearly every room. That’s hundreds of

hours of footage we’ll have to go through!

C0MRADE: We could ignore the second batch. Since there is no footage from the

“night of deletion”, we can safely focus on the “day of security patches”.

MATZ: You guys are still insane. We’d have to take an entire week to go through all

of it.

WOZ: Man, I feel like one of those private eyes!

C0MRADE: This would be easier if we had some computational way of determining

what’s suspicious.

AZURE: If we think about it logically, only security should have permission to roll out

these patches.

MATZ: We could roll out patches if we wanted to.

C0MRADE: Azure has a point. The stranger’s actions did not involve complex

techniques so he is probably not one of us. Besides, I doubt our suspect is someone

that hacked into the system just to patch it up.AZURE: Let’s roll through the footage in all the security rooms then.

Alister consulted the floor plan to find out which rooms these were, and divided

them up amongst the group.

After watching a dozen of videos that displayed an empty chair for fifteen minutes,

his eyes almost started glazing over. Then something caught his eye. A figure



moved towards the computer with a book in his hand. A crowd of officers moved in

around him and watched him carefully.

Alister jumped up in his seat. He paused and rewound the footage, and then played

it in slow-motion. He took careful note of the man with brown, withered hair and

sharp eyes. He also took note of the book he held in his hand: it was the lessonplans he had created for Jason.

Chapter 34

Robert Black had never been so infuriated in his life.

When physical force proved to be useless against the glass door, he grabbed the

knife and attempted to cut the metallic strips that held the door in place. When the

knife broke under the pressure, he grabbed the screwdriver. When that also broke,

he went for the scissors.

After several hours of toiling away, he finally managed to pry open the door with thevarious tools. He grabbed the chair in front of the door and threw it across the

room. His fiery eyes bored into the corpse that was lying on the ground and leaning

against the bed.

Picking up his knife, he began to vent his frustration against the body. After several

furious minutes, he threw away the knife and sat down panting.

Slowly, he began to calm himself.

There was no need to get worked up about one single person. There were other toys

to play with. He did not need to limit himself to this building. In fact, it was betterthat he did not stay in this building as that would remind him of the woman that laid

in front of him.

He picked himself up and descended through the elevator.

If he could not hurt Julie, he will hurt her through her friends. Blood must be shed to

pay for his embarrassment.

Robert Black turned his back on the Yggdrasil and never looked back.



Chapter 35

The group had just finished tracing back through a line of security cameras to find

out who exactly the middle-aged man was.

AZURE: What I cannot figure out is why they allowed him to touch the security

system. I wish the security cameras also captured sound.

C0MRADE: We should be satisfied with our results. We know he was a patient in the

Glass Menagerie – all that is left is to dig up his information in the patient database.

AZURE: Good thing we decided to use the security cameras. We would have hit a

dead end if we had assumed that he was an employee and looked through the

wrong database.

MATZ: Sorry what were we talking about? I’m still laughing about how you gotskewered by your own lesson plans.

WOZ: Aw, shut up Matz. Azure was doing a good thing.

C0MRADE: Our problem right now is the patient database is enormous compared to

the employee one. Not to mention it’s growing at a rapid rate. The longer we wait,

the harder it will be to track down who this scoundrel is.

AZURE: Good call. Divide and conquer, let’s go.

The group manipulated the image from the security footage to construct various

headshots. They used these headshots to do an image-match on the database tospeed up their progress.

The results were manually sorted and half a dozen of potential matches remained.

Finally, thought Alister, now we’re getting somewhere!

They went out to gather information for their potential suspects.



Chapter 36

Melissa had always disliked things that disrupted her daily routine.

Unlike many people her age, she had already developed many good habits. Whilethe other students planned nothing and thus spent hours doing nothing in

particular, Melissa already knew what she wanted to do and worked hard towards it.

She was the one that paid full attention in class, asked pertinent questions, and

finished her homework right after school was done. When she had nothing else to

do, she dove into scientific journals and news – hoping to be one of the people on

the forefront of knowledge one day.

The teachers loved her for her scholastic prowess. Her peers loved her for her notes

and completed work, which they liberally copied from.

That was not to say she completely disregarded socializing. Unlike some of her

peers who spent their full energy on school, she managed to balance social life,

academics and her own interests.

Unfortunately, this fine balance would be thrown off when something unexpected

happens, and her best friend always managed to come up with the unexpected.

Marika was the polar opposite in terms of personality.

She liked being spontaneous and experiencing new things. She dragged Melissa to

visit new places, try out new foods, play new games – life did not appear to have

enough time set aside for her explorations.

Her energetic personality naturally attracted many people. Those that would

become her friend also found out how surprisingly reliable she was in times of need.

In terms of academics, she was no slouch herself. She tried her best not to rely on

Melissa, even when the latter voluntarily gave her help. She wanted to become a

great researcher through her own power, because she had her own personal

reasons for doing so.

Melissa knew about Marika’s brother and her subsequent drive to enter the research

field. She was impressed by how far Marika managed to get just on sheer willpower,and could empathize with her pain despite not having experienced any great

tragedies herself.

Their common interest connected them and they attempted to take all their classes

together. Their mutual friends claimed they were inseparable.



Chapter 38

The computerized beep snapped Alister from his intense concentration. He had

been gathering facts about the second target on his list when an incoming message

lit up his screen.

C0MRADE: Is your friend’s full name is Julie Scrivener?

A chill went down Alister’s spine. This was not a very promising opening question –

it was filled with foreboding.

AZURE: Yes, why do you ask?

C0MRADE: I have bad news for you.

AZURE: Alright, just say it.

C0MRADE: I’ve been monitoring all the news channels. Any report with your friend’s

name will alert me immediately. There were a few reports in the last hour or so that

stated she died. Of course, I would not just simply trust what reports write –

reporters are always misinterpreting facts and sensationalizing events just to attract

readership.

AZURE: Yes, of course.

C0MRADE: But I checked the primary sources myself. The local morgue registered

an entry for your friend. The autopsy is also available. Oddly enough, there is also a

funeral scheduled later this week.

AZURE: So it’s confirmed then, is it?

C0MRADE: As confirmed as it will be without us actually seeing the body. I did not

contact you just to tell you about her death – I wanted you to check out the autopsy

report. You heard that she died through gunshots?

AZURE: Yes, that is what one of her coworkers mentioned.

C0MRADE: She was indeed shot. But that was not the cause of death. There are

some other details which I feel you should take a look at yourself.

Alister furrowed his brows as the C0mrade forwarded the autopsy report to him.

He braced himself for the worse.



Chapter 39

Phil had finished work early.

He ignored his coworkers’ rueful glances as he strolled out of the building. It wasnot his fault that he was a speedy worker. He did not owe them any favours – there

was no reason he had to stay behind to help out.

When he entered his building, Phil was surprised to see his name plate was lit up.

Was the electronic wiring malfunctioning?

Without worrying too much about this minor curiosity, he strolled into the elevator

and ascended to his floor. He thought of treating himself to a drink and a movie – a

perfect way to wind down after a long day at work.

Something bothered him as he opened his door but he could not place his finger on

what exactly.

He dropped his tie and suitcase by the door and went to the fridge for microwavable

dinner to fill his stomach. As his box of assorted meats, veggies and rice were

heating up in the miniature oven, he switched on the television.

However, the television did not switch on.

He clicked the remote several more times in frustration. Perhaps the batteries were

dead, he thought. He went to the television to click the power button.

On the way to the television, he noticed the machine was unplugged. He frowned.

That was odd: there should be enough plugs. One for his lamp and another for…

He froze in his tracks. The other socket was taken up by a foreign plug. The plug’s

wire traversed around the door frame into the adjacent room – he could not see

where it ended.

Suddenly, he realized what had bothered him. Phil always made sure to lock his

door. Yet as he returned, the door was unlocked.

His heart started beating loudly.

He wanted to run away as quickly as possible, but his curiosity caused him to step

towards the adjacent room. He wanted to know what the wire was connected to.

He slowly stepped towards the doorframe, attempting to make as little noise as

possible. When he finally turned the corner, his view was immediately drawn

towards the young bloodied guard tied to the chair. His pupils widened.



Phil recognized that officer: he was constantly patrolling the residences with his

grumpy old senior. Shivers went down his spine. Death felt closer when it touched

someone he knew.

However, that was not nearly the end of his surprises.

The plug’s wire went behind the corpse on the chair. A laptop appeared behind the

body. Phil slowly edged around the body to get a glimpse.

When he saw what was on the laptop, Phil screamed.

It was a picture of him hanging from the ceiling.

His scream covered the sound of his door lock clicking in place.

Robert Black smiled. He admired his own digital artwork. He lived for these

moments.

Pulling out his knife and a length of wire, he got down to work.



Chapter 40

Alister felt sick.

He was reading the autopsy report.

As C0mrade had warned him, Julie did indeed get shot near the back of her waist.

That was only the beginning of a lengthy, descriptive page of wounds. Over a

hundred knife wounds. Each one was described in too much detail – the depth, the

length, and the width of the cut; the critical parts that were damaged;

reconstruction of the knife swing that caused the wound.

Alister trudged on. The report got worse.

It described in detail the dozen of pieces of cloth that was jammed in her throat. It

described how it absorbed moisture and blocked airflow. It described how she waslikely writhing in agony for at least five minutes before her brain mercifully shut

down her consciousness.

By the time Alister had finished reading the report, his stomach had settled down.

His queasiness was slowly replaced with white hot anger.

If Ygg had shot her down that night, it would have at least been an instant death.

But this was unforgiveable. Alister winced just from thinking about the amount of

torture she had to suffer under her assailants’ hands.

Alister swore he would make that person pay – even if her killer was the king of theworld. He redoubled his efforts into investigating their shortlist of suspects.

The faster they narrowed down their suspect, the faster Alister can focus his anger

at a target.



Chapter 41

Jason was a carefree soul.

He did not have a care in the world. His parents were well-off, so he was in nopressure to find a job any time soon. He had a nice place to live and party, plenty of

good food, and two cars he got as birthday presents.

His friends were also well-off.

Every day was a matter of alcohol, recreational drugs, clubs and competing to have

the latest and greatest material possessions.

When his father sent him off to the Yggdrasil, he was furious. His friends had

decided to go to one of their cottages and he would be slaving away at an office. At

an office! That was not his natural environment. He complained to his friends andthey only laughed at him.

However, they had did not laugh when Jason came back a month later. In fact, they

grew annoyed and frustrated with him. He seemed distant and always went back

home before the fun started.

They slowly began to leave him out of their invitation lists and before another

month had passed, Jason was all but forgotten in their minds.

Jason had found a new and addicting drug.

Between his new job and sleep, he spent many hours every day searching newtechniques and discovering new exploits. After a while, he became proficient

enough to hack into his former friends’ computers. This was not out of malice –

there were no confrontations or bitter words exchanged – he did this out of sheer

curiosity.

He ended up uncovering many of his friends’ secrets through his nightly dives, but

he found them to be too petty to pay much attention to. Ironically, the Jason of the

past would have loved to know what secret conversations his friends had behind his

back.

Jason kept his mentor’s guidebook from his Yggdrasil days. He noticed the name of a channel in one of the screenshots in the book and decided to find it to track down

Alister. After several days of working out the password, he finally managed to get

in. (The following has been translated to regular English)

JSON: Is there anyone named Alister in the channel?

MATZ: I am Alister.



big hero sounds like fun. His father will definitely be supportive of this when he finds

out.

And his father was not someone to make an enemy of.



Chapter 42

Robert Black amused himself.

He had made a mistake! These two corpse that shared the room with him – theywere not really Julie’s friends. They were merely acquaintances. Of course for

someone who had neither friends nor acquaintances like himself, the line between

the two was blurry. It was an easy mistake to make.

Robert Black focused hard on everything he knew about his favourite researcher.

Yes, he still had to pay Melissa, Marika and the enigmatic Zach a visit.

Just in time, his computer gave a ring. It appeared as if Julie’s coworkers were at

home. Robert Black smiled in anticipation. His fun was about to start again!

He used Carmichael’s identity to dispatch an arrest warrant for Melissa. He alsoinstructed them to cut the utilities in the area to smoke them out. However, he

knew he couldn’t trust the police to do their job – they have proven to be quite

incompetent thus far.

Using his newfound computer abilities, he accessed the power grid system – an

easy task considering he had full access to Yggdrasil’s network and the Yggdrasil

was the power supply for the MediDome.

He envisioned their panic as he methodically shut down the power in their area.

Somehow it was less satisfying than actually being there himself. In fact, this simple

dominance was somewhat boring.

But boring is ignored. Boring is avoided. Nobody knows or suspects boring.

Boring is perfect.



Chapter 43

Alister was in a rush.

He had two separate urgent tasks that dropped in front of him simultaneously.

The first was a report that C0mrade had sent – it was a brief profile on what he

believed was the correct suspect. More information would arrive but Alister would

have to pay up first. The second was a report that the power grid was being

hijacked. The latter was a major concern because of the complexity of the attack.

Before now, Alister had believed their enemy to be a novice. It would appear that he

had underestimated the skill of his adversary.

Alister decided to take care of both issues at the same time. He needed to regain

control of the network. For that, he would have to go to the Yggdrasil directly.

On his long walk, he started to read C0mrade’s report. He grimaced. Unlike

C0mrade’s previous reports, this one was far too brief. The man really loved his

money; he was not helping out due to any type of friendship or sense of duty.

Still, Alister now had an idea of who his enemy was: an intelligent and murderous

villain who he should have no qualms killing.



Chapter 44

The social media sphere was abuzz about the latest news.

Jason compiled all the information into a short and concise post, and dipped it intothe internet.

The result was like throwing a slab of meat to a den of hungry lions. For years, no

one was able to get much information out of the opaque organization that was Ygg.

Suddenly, a post filled with salivating information complete with picture and

statistical proofs? Every single person with an online pulpit either referenced it or

gave their opinion on it.

The traditional media was slower but they too realized the gravity of the situation.

All the national newspapers immediately dispatched their top journalists to the

Yggdrasil.

Slower still was the government. The legal and defense branches were mildly

interested in the news, but took the post with a grain of salt. Luckily, Jason’s father

was someone with influence. He knew exactly who to contact and what to say.

Within a week – lightning speed relative to their normal modus operandi – the

government had sent out official inspectors who could not be bribed.

In a rare occasion, William Bradley was surprised by the sudden spotlight. However,

his plans were almost at completion – he rebuffed the official inspectors, but

allowed the journalists inside. He could not afford the government poking its nose

into his business, but he needed to regain public’s trust for his plan to succeed.

When the media hurricane finished passing through the Yggdrasil, Julie’s funeral

coverage did not persuade the public at all. In fact, the entire ceremony reinforced

the idea that Mr. Bradley was out of touch with the average person and that even if

he did not purposely poison his products, it would not be surprising if he

accidentally let the quality slip.

Most of the public at this point did believe the pills were poisoned.



Chaper 45

Mr. Bradley retreated back into the Yggdrasil and had temporarily shut off all

communications with the outside world, believing his outside reputation was fixed.

The public relations team that had toiled so hard for him over the years was in a

panic. For their worries, they – like the executive staff that had dared question Mr.

Bradley earlier on – were dismissed. Mr. Bradley’s health was deteriorating quickly;

the only task that he gave his attention to was the production of his drugs.

Ignorance is indeed bliss.

If the news of the outside world had seeped into Mr. Bradley’s office, even he might

not be able to keep his calm: the world was in an uproar over Mr. Bradley’s

dismissive actions. They lent credence to Jason’s report, and if Jason’s report was to

be believed – many millions of people were in the danger of dying.

Every Ygg store around the world faced riots. Passers-by threw rocks at their

windows and shouted obscenities. Their stock plummeted to nearly zero – no one

had confidence in their product or their future. Competing research centres sprang

up almost overnight to deconstruct Ygg’s poisons and attempt to find a cure. The

government – insulted by Mr. Bradley’s treatment of its inspectors – decided to play

hardball. It deployed its troops complete with air and marine support.

“Ygg” was now on everyone’s lips.

The name was very frequently prepended with an expletive.



Chapter 46

Robert Black was also unaware of the turmoil happening outside of the MediDome.

He was busy scanning for empty residences to set up his new base, and he had

luckily found one that was equipped with the latest technology.

Now, he was concerned about what had happened to the Yggdrasil network.

One week ago, Alister had struck first. He was inside of the Yggdrasil, and thus had

direct access to its network. By shutting down his own remote control network, he

had severed Robert Black’s access to the Yggdrasil. Then he proceeded to password

protect the network for good measure.

However, Robert Black was not deterred. What he lacked in computational

resources, he made up for in human resources. He held the power a respected Ygg

captain in his hands. By sending orders to Ygg’s security force, he started breakingthrough and regaining control.

Yggdrasil’s computers and machines switched ownership over one thousand times

in the next few days. Robert Black and Alister both attempted to seize control of the

resources, lock it down with an encrypted password, then crack the password of

opposing resources.

At stake were the massive amounts of patient, employee and drug data; the

computerized entrances and exits; the security cameras that lined the walls on

every floor.

Just as Robert Black was about to seize victory by majority, he suddenly lost contact

with everything within the Yggdrasil: machines, cameras, and people.

Did Alister managed to permanently gain the upper hand? That was impossible. The

security guards were not machines that could be controlled, Robert Black thought.

Alister could not possibly have convinced them to not pick up their phones.

He took a glance out of the window in the direction of the Yggdrasil, and suddenly

he understood: the entire tree was incinerated. The dark plumes being expelled

from the tree top and the red lines that formed along the trunk confirmed this.

His cell phone rang. Robert Black picked up the call – a very brief and concise call:

“I’m coming for you.”

Click.

He laughed. Brilliant! He had not imagined it was possible to destroy the entire

Yggdrasil, but someone had done it! And that same person will be coming to him.



He smiled. This person was a fool. Only he was allowed to be the hunter. He will

gladly teach this lesson to this upstart.

Robert Black temporarily assumed a new identity – that of a young local officer. He

radioed in for a scour of the streets: terrorists had struck and our noble police

department was to shoot any suspicious persons on sight.



Chapter 47

Annabelle was flabbergasted.

Because of the incompetent building management, she had briefly left the Yggdrasilto retrieve water from the nearest fountain – water needed for her critical

experiment. She returned to see the entire building crackling – the air around it was

shimmering from the intense heat.

She stood there holding her flask of water and staring at the large, burning tower

not knowing what to do next.

“You! Drop what you are holding!”

Annabelle slowly turned around.

“Drop it or we will shoot!”

Annabelle was indignant.

“I am a respectable citizen of this city, how dare you aim your firearms at me!”

Unfortunately for Annabelle, that was the last phrase she would utter.

Troops of officers rushed to the body to make sure they did not miss their mark.

When they confirmed the elimination of their target, they rushed off to find the next

unlucky soul that stood in their path.



Chapter 48

Robert Black was tracking the anonymous cell phone call.

Normally, call display revealed phone numbers – however, masking the number waschild’s play: it only required prepending the phone number with a special

combination of numbers.

He needed to dive into the local telecommunications database to retrieve the call

record: with that, he will be able to nail down the location of his nemesis.

It did not take long for Robert Black to locate and break into his target.

To his surprise, the entire database was empty. That was impossible, he thought,

there is absolutely nothing here. Yet the phone lines still work perfectly.

Suddenly, he realized where he was: he was inside a honeypot. An isolated and

monitored resource that was set up for the purpose of capturing intruders.

Robert Black did not panic. He used an extensive network to coordinate the attack –

the honeypot would only capture the tip of the iceberg.

He redoubled his efforts to search out the computer network for potential

databases. There were cryptographic locks everywhere, but Robert Black quickly

forced his way through. He recognized the style of these security mechanisms, and

he had a good idea who placed these obstacles in his path.

Nevertheless, he knew it was only a matter of time till he found his prey.

A prey that would regret sending out such an audacious challenge.



Chapter 49

On the other side of cyber space, Alister was impressed and slightly disquieted at

the same time.

This was the first time someone had outclassed him in terms of pure programming

skill. And to think that his opponent was a novice only a month ago. Faced with a

true genius, he realized that Julie was right – he really was more normal than he

thought he was.

Nevertheless, he had a back-up plan – if Robert Black managed to reach the phone

database, Alister would immediately wipe out all the data, starting from his personal

record.

He waited as Robert Black got closer and closer to the database.

Suddenly, his phone died.

Robert Black laughed.

Victory was his! While he was forcing his way towards the database, he had set

other computer to trace the security system’s history. The history showed the

person who had created the locks – and thus, with a roundabout method he

managed to secure the location of his enemy.

His first order to the police department was to cut phone access in that area. His

next was to cut the electricity. Then he would swarm the area with police officers

and personally interrogate everyone they found. His hand inched towards his knifein his pocket reflexively. He was impatient for blood.

Then his entire building turned pitch black.

“What?”

“Stay seated.”

A cold, metallic object was at the back of his head.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t be trying to trace you as you were tracing me? I was

on your tail when you called Yggdrasil security and by the time you fell into thehoneypot, I was already here.”

“What an interesting story! Would you care to explain how you knew the exact

location so quickly?” Robert Black clenched his hand on the knife. The darkness

concealed his movements.



“A better question is why you would choose my house for your base. Any last

words?”

A rapidly spinning casing lodged itself into the fleshy grey matter of Robert Black as

he was about to swing around.

“Actually, you’ve already said one too many words. Good night.”



Chapter 50

As a new day dawned, Alister walked towards Julie’s grave.

He crowned the tombstone with a wreath of rosemary, and inscribed a poem onto acard.

Here, an angel lies

Below. Pray her soul released

Into azure skies.

He sighed at the depressing waste of a wonderful life. In the distance, gunshots

rang out between the government forces and the MediDome troops.

After he carefully placed the card on the grave, Alister turned away.

Many Possible Diagnosis

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