Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG-Chapter 322

Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG-Chapter 322

Like I expected, this was a control room of some sorts. Server banks lined a far wall, and the other was covered in monitors and terminals. There wasn’t even a hint of the biomass in here like there was in the rest of the infested lab. The security door into this room was a hefty piece.
And, although most of the facility was out of power, this place was still running. The lights above were bright, server banks whirled, and terminals blinked with life. It seemed the lack of power wasn’t thanks to there being no power. Rather, the meat biomass was messing with the electrical systems of this place.
“Make sure we’re clear,” I ordered Mira and pulled out some filler rods for welding and a pair of pliers. Using my bioelectricity generated during Arc Flash, I quickly welded together the joints to reinforce the door. There were all sorts of uses for the Kinetic ability if I just used my head.
We wouldn’t be rushing back through the halls of meat. Not when whatever intelligence operated these things would have time to mass its troops. We got here in one piece, but with this thing actively trying to stop us, we likely wouldn’t be able to get out as easily.
“Clear.” Mira called behind me just as the bright flashes of electricity died down. “You should see this though.”
I shoved what I didn’t use into my bag and looked over the door one more time. It’d have to do. Besides, I wasn’t too worried about the biomass getting in here. If it couldn’t before we got here, then it probably couldn’t now. “What is- oh… my condolences, Luna.”
|
Request:
Polar Moon MIA
-Find Polar Moon (2/4)
-Takeover Node Towers: (3/3)
-Ensure the safety of your team
-Spread Chaos
-Merc Hunt
-Mutie Hunt
-Figure out what went wrong
Reward:
???|
There was just one person in here. River, the Adept of Polar Moon, lay against a far wall clutching at a hole punched through his side. Shattered wands lay all around him. From the state of his body, he’d been dead for hours. Probably since before Iris even put in that call to me.
The flashing green indicator in my HUD blinked one last time and then shut off. Her voice came back full of sniffles like she was barely holding herself together. “I-I p-prepared myself for as much… when his s-signal didn’t move…”
”Don’t force yourself.” Saint spoke softly. They two abruptly cut out, leaving Mira and I just hanging. The er was definitely having a conversation with her.
”Right, what’s the plan?” Mira, having never met the man, didn’t have much of a reaction upon seeing his corpse. It was just another flatlined slag who was caught in al the happenings of the night.
“Um-“ I pulled out my Transporter and set it up on a table. After a bit of interaction, the projector started right up and began tearing a hole into the Aether.
”Your Dragonfly…” Mira helpfully reminded me.
I tipped my head back towards the corners of the room. There were security cameras all over this place. Although I probably could’ve shut them off, there was no telling how long that would take. And with the Transporter already taking ten minutes, I didn’t want to delay it any longer than I had to.
“You’re going in with him.” I motioned to River. Since I could afford to take his corpse with us, I would. Although the man was a drunk ass the one time I met him, leaving him here to be absorbed by the biomass just didn’t feel right. Besides, Luna would appreciate it and it wouldn’t interfere with us much to get him out of here.
“What about you?” Mira didn’t immediately agree.
“I left a crow at the top of the shaft. I’ll teleport out, and then find a place to lay low and get you out. Won’t be a problem.” Shouldn’t be a problem, anyway. There was a bit of a risk with the biomass already in the shaft, but it probably wouldn’t expect me to teleport to the other side of the facility.
Mira calmed down a bit and slowly nodded her head. “Be careful, alright? I don’t want to get trapped in the Aether.”
Although she voiced it as concern for herself, the worry in her eyes gave away the truth. “‘Course. Careful is my middle name.”
“Heh—whatever, Shiro.”
“What’s that thing?” Saint finally seemed to notice the Transporter.
“A portal. Can we talk about this later? Now isn’t the time.”
Sorry not sorry Future Shiro. You’re really getting screwed these days, aren’t you?
“Fine, fine…”
”Luna.” I crouched down next to River and started checking his pockets. “I know your grieving, but unless you want to add two to your count, I need you to lock in.”
It was a little insensitive, but now really wasn’t the time. I needed her to get access to this place’s mainframe and soon. I could probably do it myself—yeah, no I couldn’t. I doubt the Aggrican Foundation used any countermeasures except for the best. She was the only chance at my plan going without a hitch.
“Y-you think Iris and my brother are—“ She her wobbly voice off.
”What? No… I was talking about me and Mira.” I pulled out River’s phone and set it aside. I also found what looked like a transponder in one of his other pockets. “Can you get into it?”
”Maybe…” The girl’s voice lacked confidence, which was a bit unsettling considering getting into the mainframe was step one of most of my plans. “Y-you have more of my p-prisms?”
“Uh- Mira?” I used all the ones I had on me while clearing out the Node Towers.
”Got it.” Mira shuffled over to the terminal and set one up.
To be honest, I had no idea how they worked. I tried scanning them with Technical Expertise, of course. They seemed to function around a chamber in the middle filled with a cryogenically kept liquid. Outside of that, the pyramids didn’t look like any runner device I’d seen before.
“G-give me a sec—a couple minutes.” Luna said softly.
”Right, Saint, you think you can piece out what happened with the records of this place?” I’d love to do it myself, but after we got out of here, me and Mira were immediately bee-lining for the next member of Polar Moon. If River was already dead, there was no telling what situation the other two would be in.
”Probably. Give me access when you’re in, Luna.”
”J-just a s-sec—in. Okay, um, here, Saint. A-and what d-did you want, boss?” Luna’s voice cleared up slightly. Compartmentalizing was a key component for any merc worth their salt.
”What’s left of the facility?” I checked my drone. Just a few more minutes and Mira and I would be home free.
”N-not much. The meat—codenamed Project Cornucopia in the database—has taken everything except the control room and reactor. Looks like the heat is keeping it back.” Right. So it had a weakness to heat in general, not just fire.
”A reactor?” I thought through my plan one more time. Really, it wasn’t much of a surprise this place had its own reactor. The Scath Heights didn’t have the best infrastructure, so of course they needed their own power generation systems.
On the far side of the room, a blueprint of the facility popped up. A room directly below the control room lit up. “Y-yeah. Looks like a micro nuclear reactor. Fifty megawatts a-an hour.”
A monitor swapped to a camera looking over the reactor. Indeed, there wasn’t a speck of meat anywhere near it. The intense heat was keeping back the biomass. The reactor itself was about the size of a shipping container, and it practically radiated with power and electricity. Or, at least, it did in my eyes.
Greed welled up within me. I really wanted that. It’d solve a lot of my power generation issues. My workshop and speakeasy were still running off electricity stolen from the city. If I had that though…
I desperately tried to shift my plans. No matter how I looked at it though, getting a micro nuclear reactor out of here wasn’t feasible. The biomass would block me, and we were in a time crunch. It pained me to admit it, but I’d have to leave the reactor behind. Dismantling it safely and getting it all ready to transport would take way too long.
My heart throbbed uncomfortably. ”What state is the reactor in?”
“Peak. A-all readings normal. There’s enough material on hand to keep it running for a decade.” Each of Luna’s words cut at me like broken glass.
“Is there a self-destruct? I saw thermite on my way down.” I moved over to the terminals and hooked up River’s phone and the transponder. “And can you seal the reactor room so it won’t be affected?”
”Y-yes, I should be able to. T-there’s an emergency fire bomb procedure… w-what’s this transponder?”
”Um—it was on River? Is this not what you had pinged?” An uncomfortable feeling welled up inside of me.
“I-I used his phone.” Our link went silent for several seconds. “I-it’s not Polar Moon’s. T-they wouldn’t use tech I hadn’t checked out.”
At her words, my uncomfortable feeling turned to full blown paranoia. I assumed River died while breaching this facility, but was that not the case? Why would someone leave a transponder here? To mark his corpse for the bounty? No—surely they’d just take it with them, right? Something told me there was more going on here then what met the eye.
Okay, okay, what did we know so far? Someone hired the group to attack this facility. Luna lost contact shortly after they arrived. And then nothing for hours until I got the call from Iris. After that, we extracted just before that squad could come and kill her. So what happened during those hours?
Unfortunately, that mystery looked like it’d have to wait. My portal finally finished forming. I helped Mira carry River through the portal. “Any luck Saint?”
I didn’t ask out of curiosity—well, not purely out of curiosity. Part of the optional requests was figuring out what went wrong with this whole thing. Figuring out what happened to this lab seemed like as good of a place to start as any.
Saint spoke up while we were in the Aether. Interestingly, the Packheart Rings seemed to work regardless of dimension. “This facility was trying to make an infinite source of meat. Cornucopia, the horn that could feel everyone.”
Mira froze. ”That’s… how, mutation? Did they kidnap people and—“
”No, this group was a bit more ethical. Everything came from willing subjects that were paid a high price.” Saint cut off Mira. “Not every lab is a Savant lab. It was even registered in the city’s database.”
”R-right…” Her head lowered and she bit her lip fiercely.
I patted her on the shoulder gently. “What is it though? The biomass. They definitely succeeded.”
They succeeded so well, in fact, that their cornucopia wanted to
feed
on all. A shiver went down my spine as I remembered the desiccated people and corpses melted into the walls of this place.
“Well… they used extracted cancer cells. The self-replication and regenerative capabilities of cancer made it ideal. They were testing it on humans since they’d have a near limitless pool of resources in this day and age.”
Infinite food using human flesh… what would they call it? Soylent? “Were they going to make the entire human species into cannibals?”
“No, no. After figuring out the process, they were going to repeat it with cows. Infinite beef as long as the progenitor cells stayed alive.” Saint let out a shaky breath. “Vat meat at its finest.”
“W-wouldn’t that be super dangerous? Consuming cancer, I mean. That seems a little…” Then again, it couldn’t be worse than some things that people ate.
“At first, yeah… they perfected the formula with rats, though. It would’ve been just as good as eating normal meat. Better, probably. They were just nearing completion of Cornucopia.” Saint sighed. “Then Polar Moon attacked. In the process, a mutant from the nearby Savant lab got in.”
”Oh…” I could see where this was going. Meat made from human cancer sells mixed with a mutant. Especially since the mutants from the nearby Savant lab were suspected to be a highly infectious strain.
“HMV got into the vats of meat… The facility fell within hours.”
The human mutation virus… So it was the Savant’s fault after all, eh? No—that wasn’t quite right. If anything, it was Polar Moon—the ones that hired them. It was that person’s fault. Playing the blame game wouldn’t change what happened though.
“Regardless of what Cornucopia could’ve been, we
need
to destroy it.” Saint’s voice held a heavy finality. “There’s no salvaging this.”
“Chek.” I waved to Mira and stepped back through the portal by myself. “I was already planning on that. Luna, how’s the self-destruct coming?”
“R-ready when you are. I-I sealed the reactor room.”
Nova. Not now, but in the future I was planning on coming back. It’d take a lot of work to get down to it, but I really wanted that micro nuclear reactor. Assuming I lived through tonight, anyway.
“Saint, you have everything?” I asked.
”Almost… Can you do me a favor? On the server bank.” I looked over just in time to see most of the lights burn out. Only one hard drive still glowed. “I transferred most of the data onto that. Bring it back to me?”
“No problem.” I moved over and ejected the hard drive. It was small enough it could fit into my bag without any issue. “Last call?”
Nobody said anything. I gathered up my equipment and shut off the Transporter. Then, with a simple tug of my Spectral Flock, the whole world twisted into a kaleidoscope of color.

.
!
Chapter 322