The Last Experience Point

Chapter 133: Breakthrough

Prila kept her expression neutral as she sat with her hands folded on the table in the sequestered-off conference room beneath Shadowfall Coast and listened to the other project engineers and scientists discuss their progress on the development of “the weapon.” The mood was jovial. Smiling faces all around, there seemed to be nothing but pure joy over the “success” of its first usage, in which the death toll continued to increase each day, having broken the nine-hundred thousand mark only a bit earlier that morning. Her back straight, she forced an approving grin onto her lips, and she made sure that she nodded along with the rest of the men and women.

Over the past two weeks, a great deal of renovation had been done down here. No longer did it look like an old, dusty, and crumbling crypt in the way it had when she’d first shown up; now, it had been modernized. The rocky walls and dirt ground had been built around to create a sleek, polished white tiling that reminded Prila of a high-tech laboratory—which was exactly what this was. There was now working air conditioning down here, lights, entertainment rooms, comfortable beds: essentially, they’d converted the place into a proper, modern facility in its own right.

The downside, of course, was that while they were allowed to have incoming communications such as the news and other one-way broadcasts for the purposes of recreation and entertainment, they could not send anything out, and they were not permitted to leave. Until the full completion of the project, they would be forced to stay right where they were, and then even afterwards, they would be forbidden from leaving Shadowfall Coast or Tomb of Fire—their choice—for a period of two years, during which time all their phones and internet usage would be monitored.

And everyone here had agreed to those terms, including Prila—because she had her own method of communication.

“This is troubling,” Adamus’s voice whispered in her mind. “I did not expect the humans to proceed at quite this pace.”

“This could be over in the blink of an eye if you truly cared so much. It should be you down there dealing with this, Adamus. Not Prila!”

“Must we stoke this argument again, my beloved?”

Originally, Prila had been pursuing a different objective: dealing with the impending spawn-point crisis due to Adamus’s Project Rejuvenation. Yet when the bomb fell, she knew that her time was better spent here. Given her advanced technical expertise and expertly self-faked credentials, it was no surprise she’d glided through the interview process and had been placed on the main team. Her plan had been to learn all she could, find a way to escape, and then report back to Angelica. To her surprise, however, that had been completely unnecessary, as she’d found herself being supported by not one, but two “Gods,” both of whom had a tendency to bicker in her head as she tried to relay information to them on a near constant basis.

She had learned that each of them could feel the emotion of the mind they were in communication with. For this reason, she knew they were picking up on her dread as she listened to the engineers and scientists congratulate one another.

“And we’re positive this is the correct isotope?” asked a tall, lanky man in a lab coat with a thin brown mustache.

“We sure are,” replied the woman seated across from him. “Boys and girls, we did it: we synthesized Uranium-235.”

“Where do you think the original sample came from?” someone else asked.

She shrugged. “No idea.” She chuckled and looked at Prila. “I like your idea, though.”

Prila fought to keep her unease from showing in her eyes as she returned the laugh. “The remains of another planet is most likely,” she said. “Perhaps a meteor or an asteroid crashed into Galterra long ago, and it was recently found by another project team we’re unaware of. They must have built the weapon in secret but died from the radiation, and now we’re here, with better equipment, to safely continue it.”

“That is quite plausible,” said a man with a deep voice and large, broad shoulders who served as the head engineer.

They seemed to like her theory. To be fair, it contained at least some small element of truth. Naturally, she did not tell them the whole truth: that the weapon was made thousands of years ago on Galterra by a team of scientists working for one of the earliest guild leaders of the Guild of Gentlemen: a man named Moldark, who had smuggled the samples in from Earth, a planet none of them were even aware existed.

I didn't think they could make this breakthrough so quickly, she said to the two Great Ones. We have less than a week now that they can synthesize U-235 all on their own.

And it was here that the debate between Great Ones continued to rage, with both sides occupying the opposite role from the one she’d typically expect from the two.

“You must sabotage the project and kill as many of the scientists as possible,” Eilea said. “You have no choice.”

“You must not,” Adamus interjected forcefully. “Prila, you must remain safe at all cost.”

A disgusted, mentally projected laugh that was filled with loathing rang out in her brain. “So, because you have feelings for this human, you now behave in a way that is so uncharacteristic, Adamus? It is funny how you do not extend that appreciation of life to any of those you habitually watch die. It’s not often I call for a sacrifice. I do so only as a last resort. Of course, the one time I do, you’ve chosen to betray all of your cold, twisted, beliefs! Even I did not see this coming. It's astounding how you always find a new way of enraging me.”

“I…I will not deny it,” Adamus said, his voice coming across at a whisper even in Prila’s mind. “Yet I ask that you spare this woman.”

“Then go down yourself and smite the entire facility! You act as though there are no other options. We have all the information we need, yet you continue to put Prila in the position she’s in.”

Prila tried to drown out their bickering, which continued even as she was forced to make polite conversation with the others in the room with her. In truth, she was prepared to do whatever was necessary to protect the world from this awful weapon of death. And after all, this current argument was nothing new. It had been raging on for two weeks.

Eilea wanted Adamus to appear here in person, obliterate the lab, and kill the engineers and scientists working to create more of the nuclear weapon. Adamus refused each time, claiming that the moment a “God” chose to personally “smite” someone or something, it irrevocably would change the behavior of all living, sentient beings to the extent that societies might collapse, entirely new religions would pop up overnight, and there would be far-reaching consequences that could lead to even greater acts of death and murder over the long term. Prila had to reluctantly agree with him on that point, though Eilea remained unconvinced. Nevertheless, she’d fallen back on a separate plan: she wanted Prila to sabotage the project knowing full well that Prila would be captured, tortured, and likely executed as a result of this.

And Prila was willing to do it despite this. Not merely for altruistic reasons, but because she so despised life here on Galterra’s surface that she no longer cared much if she lived or died. In just her short time here, she had witnessed the worst of humanity. People were not like this at the OMP. They simply weren’t. This was a hard, cruel world filled with crueler, harder people.

Yet Adamus, in what came as a shock to both herself and Eilea, refused that plan of action. Even more surprising, when Eilea’s mind would retreat, likely turning to other matters, Adamus’s would linger, and though he often said little, Prila could feel in her heart that he was beginning to miss having her at the OMP as much as she missed being there. And that had created such an intense conflict within herself, because though she had betrayed the man, she missed seeing him each day. Before departing the OMP, there had been days where he and Prila would speak for ten or more hours on many different subjects. Her heart yearned to see him again—even though she disagreed with so many of his core beliefs.

For now, however, she was forced to continue this charade, doing as little as she could to further Sir Morrison's plans while still being useful enough not to question, dismiss, or worse. Part of her wanted to go ahead and commit an act of sabotage just to spare Zach the pain of what might happen if he was forced to come over here and do this himself. He’d been through enough—a point that Eilea did not fail to remind Adamus, and which Adamus now used as ammunition against Eilea.

“You are not different from me in this,” he said. “You care so deeply about the boy that you would ask Prila to face indescribable pain to spare him any further discomfort. You are so swayed by your emotions that there are days where you’ve even begun to reconsider your plan to have the boy conquer North Bastia. A plan that I disagree with, mind you, but nevertheless can appreciate from a tactical standpoint. Yet I can feel within you the uncertainty; as always, your emotions constrain your ability to pursue even your most sincerely held values.”

“The difference is I am consistent in my love for people and the world, you rotten bastard! I don’t make ironclad rules only to break them!”

Prila could feel Eilea’s mind abruptly vanish. This happened from time to time as well. She took it as the mental equivalent of storming off in a huff. Truthfully, Prila did not care much for Eilea. She did not understand why someone so wise, level-headed, and intellectual such as Adamus had ever fallen in love with such an overly emotional, hotheaded woman. This wasn’t to suggest that Prila herself was perfectly dispassionate. She too could find herself acting out irrationally due to her own feelings—as could anyone capable of emotion. But in Prila's case, it was a rarity, whereas Eilea seemed to habitually find herself in conflict due to her impulses.

Given that Adamus was capable of listening in on their conversations, Eilea chose to speak very little about the boy, and so too did Prila. Prila also had the sense that Eilea was keeping secrets from Adamus, but she also had a suspicion that Adamus knew exactly what those secrets happened to be—and simply could not prove them and was thus unable to act on them. Chief among them, Adamus probably knew for certain that Angelica was violating the rules of the System and both aiding and dispensing information to people she should not have. Yet because of that privacy room, Adamus could not absolutely prove this. Interestingly, Adamus knew that Prila had gone to Angelica’s and had been in one of their “meetings,” but he never raised this topic with her almost as though he knew that trying to question her about her time there would only create friction between them.

Now, with Eilea having left to do whatever it was she did in secret, Prila found herself more at ease. She actually preferred it when Eilea was not around. And it wasn't that she hated Eilea; she simply disliked the woman's eccentric personality.

Having now become acquainted with the woman who was organizing the resistance against Adamus, Prila was honestly unimpressed. Adamus was too good for her, and Prila could not control the disgust she felt over the way Eilea would routinely disrespect, talk down to, or mistreat Adamus.

Grateful for the mental privacy, Prila decided to express something that was growing within her. It was not something that would come as a surprise to Adamus, but it was something she had nevertheless deliberately avoided communicating. Yet she felt compelled. It was an intrinsic sense deep in her being, and so she exhaled slowly and, while keeping her face clear of the emotional turmoil she felt within, she decided to give voice to the one desire she held above all.

I want to come home, Prila admitted, suppressing a sigh even as she continued to smile and make small talk. One of the engineers had baked a cake, and there was laughter and cheer all around as a scientist brewed a pot of coffee.

“I know you do, child.”

I only ever did what I thought was right.

“I know that.”

Please let me come home after this. Please, Adamus. I will not betray you again. I swear it.

She felt the ache in his heart, and he felt the ache in Prila’s. She could tell, because with Eilea gone, he connected with her more deeply, and she could not hide from him the way she truly felt. “I shall consider it.”

I…I miss you.

“I miss you as well.”

I want to go home. I’ve done what I felt I had to do. I don’t want to be here anymore. Let me come home. I won’t survive down here. Please, Adamus.

He did not reply, but Prila, who could feel Adamus as though he stood there behind her chair with his arms around her shoulders, no longer needed to fake her smile. Because in that moment, she knew he would not leave her there to rot.