Back in the relative quiet of Thorne's archive, the weight of what we had witnessed pressed down on us. The flickering lights and dusty shelves, once symbols of a dangerous past, now felt like a sanctuary compared to the ravaged industrial complex and the ghostly echoes of Project Chimera's victims.
Thorne was secured in one of the archive's more reinforced holding cells, still unconscious. Glitch was meticulously sifting through the recovered data, trying to piece together the full scope of Thorne's research and, more desperately, any sliver of hope regarding the fate of the other subjects. Maya and Nova, though physically recovered, moved with a quiet solemnity, the vibrant energy they usually exuded dimmed by the grim reality of what we had uncovered.
As for me, I felt like I was wading through a thick fog of guilt and a profound sense of loss for people I had never truly known. The younger version of myself trapped within that machine… the others… their stolen potential, their lost lives. It was a heavy burden to carry.
『Harem Streamer System: Host emotional distress levels remain elevated. Recommendation: Engage in distracting activities. (Distracting activity suggestions: Learning to juggle rubber chickens, composing a dramatic interpretive dance, attempting to communicate with local pigeons.)』
"Pigeons, System?" I sighed, rubbing my temples. "Are you actively trying to make me lose my mind?"
"The data is… disturbing," Glitch announced, their voice low and somber as they stared at the flickering monitor. "Thorne's notes detail years of experimentation, the systematic harvesting and amplification of unique bio-signatures from children. He saw them as… raw materials."
"Did you find anything about how to… stabilize them outside the Core Unit?" Nightshade asked, her voice tight with a desperate hope.
Glitch shook their head slowly. "No. Everything points towards the Core Unit being the only viable containment and amplification system he developed. His notes on what would happen if it became unstable… they're not good."
The implication hung heavy in the air. The explosion had likely been the final, fatal end for the trapped subjects. The hope that they might have somehow survived dwindled with each passing moment.
Maya's cosmic senses, usually so vibrant, seemed clouded with a deep sorrow. "I can still sense… echoes. Faint traces of their energy signatures. But they're… dissipating."
Nova's ethereal form flickered sadly. "It's like… lights going out."
The finality of their loss settled upon us, a heavy silence replacing the earlier frantic activity. We had stopped Thorne, but it felt like a Pyrrhic victory, stained with the innocent lives he had so callously manipulated.
Nightshade, ever the pragmatist, eventually broke the silence. "We need to inform the authorities. About Thorne, about Project Chimera… about everything."
"And what will we tell them about the… subjects?" I asked, the words catching in my throat. "That we found them trapped in an energy prison and then… they exploded?"
The official superhero channels, the PR-spun narratives of justice and hope – how would they even begin to process the horrific reality of Thorne's experiments? The truth was ugly, uncomfortable, and likely to send shockwaves through the carefully constructed image of NeoVeridia's protectors.
"We tell them the truth," Nightshade said, her gaze firm. "The unvarnished, horrifying truth. The world needs to know what Thorne was doing, and what might still be out there."
"But what is still out there?" I asked, a new wave of unease washing over me. Thorne's obsession with amplification… were there other subjects he had experimented on who weren't contained within the Core Unit? Had he laid other traps, other "Final Stages"?
The recovered data offered no easy answers. Thorne's research was vast and complex, filled with cryptic notes and dead ends. The full scope of his depravity was still shrouded in mystery.
As we prepared to contact the authorities, a new notification pinged on Glitch's console. It was a heavily encrypted message, different from anything we had seen before. The sender was unknown.
Glitch frowned, their fingers flying across the keyboard. "This is… sophisticated. Military-grade encryption. Someone doesn't want this message read by just anyone."
After a tense moment, Glitch managed to decrypt a portion of the message. The few words that appeared on the screen sent a fresh wave of chills down my spine:
"Subject Omega's potential… remains untapped."
The message was unsigned, its sender a ghost in the digital ether. But its implication was clear: someone else knew about me, about Project Chimera, and they believed my power was still significant. Thorne might be contained, the Core Unit destroyed, but the echoes of his experiments, and the interest in "Subject Omega," were far from over. The uncomfortable truth was that our fight was likely just beginning.