Chương 33: The Fortschritt Project

"I don't want you to think of me as your enemy, though I imagine a private talk like this must feel strange to you?" Lucas began, settling back into his strange chair. Lance smiled faintly, shaking his head.

"You don't strike me as someone trying to deceive me, and even if you had any hostile intentions, there'd be nothing I could do about it anyway." He answered quickly, trying not to dwell on the staggering amount of Frequency the scientist was giving off.

"I take it you noticed my output. Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as threatening." Slowly, the aura around Lucas faded, lifting an invisible weight off Lance's shoulders.

"Truth is, I don't like using my ability much, not since the incident during the Dark Era." Lucas ran his fingers over the dark glass of his mask, as if probing an old war wound. His fingers slid slowly across the surface before returning to their folded position.

"Dark Epoch?" Lance asked, trying to guess at the meaning of the term, even though this was the first time he'd heard it. He had a few ideas, but he didn't want to waste the chance to talk with Lucas.

"Monica never told you? I suppose I understand why. The Dark Epoch lasted from NOIR's founding until the Unnamed first appeared. It also includes the death of NOIR's third commander, Bluette Oudin." The temperature dropped sharply the moment he started listing off the grim events of that period. Lance had already heard plenty about them, but coming from Lucas, those names took on a different weight entirely.

"You fought that Thing?" Lance asked without thinking, despite knowing how much disgust that name stirred within NOIR. Lucas nodded, clenching his fists.

"I tried. It wasn't enough. He took my left eye and mutilated Bluette right in front of me." The words slipped out through the mask's filter like shards of ice, dropping the temperature in the room even further.

"This mask is a relic I modified to keep myself from using my power. It works something like Maliard's Compulsion, except it doesn't allow for any partial release." Lucas tapped the filter on his mask, though Lance couldn't make out anything unusual through it.

"Is that why you don't engage in physical operations?" The boy asked, sliding his fingers against one another.

"More or less. My power isn't suited for low-scale combat." Lucas picked something up off the floor, a shard of glass, maybe. The moment it touched his fingers, the object began to tremble and melt, turning into a bubbling, molten mass. Before it could set fire to the room's wooden floor, the molten glass hardened into a column of ice, like dripping candle wax.

"My ability is an Änderung type. I can manipulate the Frequency of any object, or use it to alter my own genetic code." The ice structure shattered, vanishing into nothing. Lance stared, mouth open.

"I'm known as the Destroyer. That's my codename." His tone came across as almost ironic, though Lance had no way of reading his expression.

"Lucas, why do you work for NOIR? With an ability like yours, you could do anything." He decided to speak honestly, looking straight at the visor of the mask. Lucas turned toward the window, watching the sky darken and thicken with clouds.

"I owe it to a friend of mine, and to Monica too. As much as I deceive the Agency, I have no intention of betraying it, if that's what you're getting at." Without looking at him, Lucas answered, counting the clouds through the gap in the window with his finger.

"That's not what I meant, you know. You don't carry yourself like a bad person, Lucas." He smiled, leaning back and stretching out his legs.

"Don't trust that instinct too much. Sometimes we need to understand ourselves first, before we start making assumptions about others." Lucas answered in a bright tone, though through the filters it came out closer to a whistle.

"Will you ever tell me what really happened, all those years ago?" Lance knew it had to be something serious, something that wasn't really his business, but for some reason, he wanted to know. Lucas stayed silent for a moment before turning to answer.

"Lance, I need you, and I genuinely want to help you, but are you completely sure about this? Some horrors are better left buried." His words were carried off by a gust of wind that swept through the room. Lance stood still, staring down at the floor, before nodding silently. Lucas raised his head toward the ceiling and nodded back.

"Alright then. Let me explain what happened with the Demiurge." Lucas materialized a bronze ring in his hand, set with a violet gem laced with red veins. A blinding light filled the room before condensing into a hologram. The shape of a tangled, intricate mass of gears and pipes took form in the air. At the center of it all sat a black furnace, where every pipe converged.

"This was the first model of the reactor. A containment cage powered by aerosolized Taumite, fed by raw Lambdite crystals. A single activation was comparable to the entire amount of energy currently flowing through this city." Lucas turned the image between his fingers, focusing in on the core.

"What was supposed to burn with all that energy?!" He asked, stunned, leaning in to get a closer look at the furnace chamber.

"Not burn. Stimulate." The scientist corrected, summoning a second model, one with an object far more familiar to him.

"That's…" He stood frozen, staring at the cluster of black crystals slowly rotating in the air.

"Yes. The black shard Nikola Ruther carried. A construct of pure Lambdite, taken directly from the Hel. No one knows how he got hold of it, not even me." Lucas pinched the hologram, enlarging it within the room until it reached the size of a candelabra.

"The Demiurge's purpose was to stimulate the fragment and trigger a singularity, but that fragment is something that goes beyond anything any agency has ever understood." Lucas closed the hologram, turning his attention back to the reactor.

"Once combustion occurs, it opens a rift between this world and a random point in the Hel, and it's that randomness that caused the disaster." The hologram folded itself into his palm as Lucas looked down at the floor.

"What is that shard, exactly?" Lance asked, the image of the massive black dart still fixed in his mind.

"It's a pure relic, born from Hel, once held by one of Nikola's colleagues, probably someone who died before any of these recordings were made. The shard is made of pure Lambdite, but inside it, there's something else entirely, something completely unknown. You've probably seen smoke trapped inside a crystal before. The shard is something like that, but completely different at the same time." Lucas began explaining, gesturing as he spoke.

"What's inside it is a haze of condensed Frequency. It's unstable and incredibly dangerous. A lot of personnel lost their lives just from touching it directly." As he spoke, the memory came back to him. The screams and roars echoed through the corridors of his lab during a containment breach.

"No one's survived after coming into contact with the shard? At all?!" Lance's eyes went wide, his fingers trembling slightly. Lucas shook his head, and the boy felt his blood run cold.

"Malcolm's alive. So am I. Everyone else was either disintegrated or mutated... Except for Christopher Ruther." The name echoed briefly through the room, sinking somewhere deep in Lance.

"You knew the founder of the Ruther Institute?!" He jumped to his feet, rubbing his temples and pacing around the room. Lucas nodded.

"Before the Institute, there was a research cult, probably founded by Nikola, or so I believe. To help my family, I decided to become one of their researchers. I couldn't have been older than twelve when it started. When the war broke out, I was forced to work for the military, and that's where I met Ruther and Malcolm, as my patient." Lucas stood up as well, and both chairs crumbled into colorful dust.

"Patient for what?!" Klint grabbed the door handle hard enough to dent it.

"The Fortschritt Project." He answered the boy flatly, leaving him stunned by the name.

"The Fortschritt Project…" A jolt of pain shot through his head, making him groan and slowly slide down to the floor. Lucas moved to come closer, but Lance waved for him to keep going.

"Your reaction might confirm my theory, unfortunately." He shook his head, almost regretfully.

"And what would that theory be?" He asked, in pain, struggling to get back up off the floor. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"You were placed into a revival of the project. Probably after NOIR was destroyed." Lance stared at him, confused, but also overwhelmed by fear and anxiety.

"What in the world did the project even involve?" He asked, fighting to keep his face from twisting into a grimace of fear.

"Originally, it was meant to produce weapons using Lambdite, but after the first Singularity, it turned into a deranged research program centered on human beings. In simple terms, it was experimentation on Metas. Judging by your file, what was done to you was very close to what was done in the original project's experiments." Lucas turned his gaze toward the remains of the desk.

"Psychological and physical torture, abuse, confinement. Those were the old project's methods, though I'd guess what you went through was far worse." Silence settled between their gazes, soon joined by the steady tapping of rain. A few drops drifted into the room, mixing with the blood that hadn't yet dried.

"Keep going…" Lance murmured, fixing him with a stare through narrowed eyes.

"Besides Malcolm and Christopher, there was one more person who worked alongside me, someone my age. Your file mentions him." Lucas traced a name in the air using the dust.

"Nyx Monoghan…" He read the glowing letters, trembling like a leaf. The name echoed in his temples, leaving him nauseous. Lucas nodded, letting the writing fade away.

"He's supposed to be dead! I read it in the Institute's brochure... Nyx died in the war." Lance started scratching at his head, mussing his hair even further.

"I'm supposed to be dead too, aren't I? Nyx was with me the last time the Demiurge was activated, but based on that document, there's a good chance it's either him or someone pretending to be him." Lance listened on, filtering the air through his teeth.

"After the Dark Epoch, NOIR went through a long period of reconstruction known as the Silent Epoch, and that's probably when the experiments started up again. You and your sister were most likely victims of a revival of the Project." Lucas moved quickly toward the boy, who had slumped back to the floor.

"My family, my memories... They're gone because of this? Because of experiments?" He murmured, not taking in any of Lucas's attempts to comfort him. The scientist seemed to curse under his breath, even through the mask.

"I know it's hard to accept, but I'll help you, I promise. We'll stop Grayson Dirac from bringing that machine back online, but I need you to be clear-headed. I know you're strong, Lance Klint. I know how hard you've fought to keep going." Lance stayed still for a moment before nodding and getting back to his feet.

"Lucas, Nikola's terminal... Has been destroyed…" He found the strength to keep talking, deciding to confess what had happened in the basement. Lucas shook his head at Lance's words, maintaining an unshakable calm.

"I figured as much. Fortunately, I still have some intact data back in my lab." He wiped the dust off his visor, then froze when he saw Lance pull a black card out of his coat.

"This is everything I have. I'm the only one who knows about it." Lucas took the card carefully, turning it over in his hands several times. After examining it from every angle, he tucked it into his pocket with a small nod.

"Thank you, Lance. This could take me a long way. I take it this means you trust me?" Lucas asked, resting a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't have much of a choice, but I'm sure of my decision. Before I go, I want to know what you know about Nikola." Lance grabbed his wrist, looking at him through the visor, and for a moment, he thought he caught a flicker of light behind the glass. Lucas leaned toward the window, lifting his mask for a moment to reveal a pair of cracked, chapped lips. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it with a snap of his fingers.

"I learned about Nikola from Noir. He's the one who took me to his tomb." He took a drag from the white filter before letting out a stream of white smoke.

"It was a cramped, filthy cave, and it felt soaked in hatred and fear. I'm a scientist, but that place... It really did feel like it didn't belong to this world." He let the ash slide off the cigarette before sinking into the memory.

"What is this?! I refuse to believe this, Noir! This can't be…" A younger Lucas struck the terminal with both hands, shaken by what he was seeing.

"Kid, what you're looking at is completely real. Those are genuine records of history lost years ago, and he's the progenitor of the Ruther family. Likely the founder of the cult of the machine." The man held a long cigar between his lips, the same shade of brown as his hair. His long black robes hung motionless in the air, his eyes tired and ringed with dark circles. Lucas stared at him in silence, waiting for him to say more.

"This is his tomb, and the only library with enough data in it to destroy the entire world. If the information stored here ever got out, it could overturn the order of the world itself. Everything I ever wanted to prove is in here." Noir took a step toward the machine, running his hand along its strange metal alloy.

"The alloy used in the Demiurge is similar to the one powering this structure, and yet its energy is fading, little by little. Probably because it's been left here for years and years, repeating the same message, hoping someone would hear it." Lucas stared at the screen, unable to shake the image of the man known as Nikola Ruther from his mind.

"The Hel, possible gods, the origin of the three powers, and so much more... It's all contained in here. Finally, we might be able to do something for everyone on these islands." Noir let out a laugh, scattering ash and brown shreds of tobacco from his cigar"Noir… why did you only bring me to see this tomb?" Lucas asked, watching him relight the smoking cylinder in his mouth.

"If the whole Agency knew about this, morale would probably collapse and some people might… Have serious issues with their past." Noir took another drag of smoke before lowering his voice.

"Are you talking about August?" Lucas murmured, remembering all too well how they'd found him. The memory of August, covered in sludge and blood, mutilated, reduced to little more than skin and bone, nearly made him retch. He'd been found on a battlefield near the end of the war, perhaps left there as bait. Noir nodded, walking toward the exit.

"He isn't from this world, and I imagine you know just how dangerous Termìe can be." He turned toward him, adjusting the folds of his sleeve. Lucas lowered his head, giving a small nod. His long black hair fell across his face.

"But I suppose that doesn't really answer your question?" He smiled, waiting for him to fall into step beside him.

"Lucas, you and I knew each other even before your accident. The Fortschritt Project might remind you of something." Those words flipped a switch somewhere in Lucas's mind, and his body recoiled instinctively.

"Christopher Noir… Who are you, really?" He nearly snarled the question. A black sludge crept over Christopher Noir's body, gathering around his face.

"It's still too soon for me to tell you. Once you're more stable, I'll tell you the truth. For now, just know that what you're seeing right now is only a mask, made possible by a relic." The substance began to retreat, pooling onto a dark symbol beneath his collar: an octagon, with a towering spire at its center, radiating a furious smear of ink, like the beam from a lighthouse.

"Until then, I'm asking you not to abandon either me or your love of research." Lucas nodded at those words, falling back into step beside him. Back in the present, he realized he'd gotten lost in details that no longer mattered. Lance, on the other hand, had stayed quiet through all of it, trying to commit as much as he could to memory.

"Was the founder a kind person?" He asked, looking away. Lucas let out a laugh, caught off guard by the question.

"After everything I just told you, that's what you're worried about? That's so like you, you know that?" A sudden jet of frost snuffed out the cigarette, now burned down to the filter. Lance felt a flash of embarrassment.

"I don't want to sound childish..."

"Noir… Wasn't a Meta, but he was chosen by Lachesi and her twin. He kept guiding us even though he was just a human being, maybe that's exactly why he was always able to stay ahead of us, as our guide." He finished speaking, pointing at Lance's right arm. He immediately understood what he was getting at.

"That relic's twin, Cloto, is very different from the one you're wielding now. Lachesi shapes its bearer's desires, taking away a piece of their humanity each time. That's what killed Noir, though I'd like to think everything he did made him happy." Lucas placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"I'm glad you have it." He let go, turning toward the rest of the room, still left in disarray. Lance quickly realized what subject Lucas was about to bring up.

"Lance Klint... Are you ready to go hunt Grayson Dirac?" He asked, conjuring a series of numbers onto the floor.