Valkyrie Smash

[LOG OFF COMPLETE]

Rollo watched the green words blink a few times, unsure how he should react.

'Am I… Am I really out?'

He was lying on his back inside a rather confined place. The words in front of him said he was out, but after everything he went through in that place, it was a little difficult to believe that.

'Guess I will never know.'

It was then that he noticed the white hospital robe he was dressed in, and just as he began to wonder when he had changed into them, a distinct sensation caused his eyes to widen.

Life in the slums meant daily baths were a luxury he and the other orphans couldn't afford. Because of that, the boy knew the refreshing sensation of a recent hot bath all too well.

'Maybe I really am back…'

Not only did they look into his mind, but they also stripped him of his clothes and bathed him while he was completely unconscious.

A shiver ran down his spine just from thinking of what might have happened, but when he remembered all the gorgeous Valkyries that kept watch over him before, his apprehension turned into regret for not being awake when it happened.

The smiling face of a certain Nephilim appeared in his mind and he almost jumped in his place.

'I… I need to learn how to control this thing better…'

Taking a deep breath, he slowly exhaled and focused his mind. Barely seconds passed before he caught the first connection. Using it, he learned what kind of device he was in and took control over some of its functions, mainly the one that moved the lid.

'Only three hours have passed since I was taken to that hotel?' He raised an eyebrow as he checked the time. 'But… that can't be…'

He would've thought that everything he just went through was a dream if it wasn't for the fact that he was inside a strange device he knew nothing about.

Instead of opening it up and coming out, the boy extended his reach and searched for another connection. There were several to choose from so he just picked one at random.

Just like the first, learning the purpose behind this one and how to manipulate it didn't take much time. He only used it as a conduit to access other parts of the local network.

Several screens appeared in his mind one after the other. They all depicted the same brightly lit white room from different angles. Coffin-like devices lined up its interior.

'Maybe I should've accepted that deal after all…'

Rollo pushed the regret aside and tinkered with a few things through the connection. He was trying to pull off one of the oldest tricks in the book, and surprisingly, doing so wasn't that hard.

Once it was done, all he had to do was grab the first connection he caught and command the coffin lid to open up. He then pushed himself up with his elbows and looked out of the pod.

The screens in his mind depicted a live feed from the security cameras in his surroundings. Nothing seemed to have changed at first glance, but that was because the footage had been frozen, only displaying a scene from the room before he opened the lid to the pod-like device he was in.

Messing with the cameras was one thing, but the sensors scattered all over the place was another story. He had to deactivate them, pass, then reactivate them again. If the steps were too far apart, a malfunction would automatically register in the system. Too many in quick succession would form a pattern that's impossible to hide, alerting his captors.

Doing it manually was too much for him so he quickly wrote a program that automated the process for him. Only then did Rollo feel confident enough to leave his pod.

'But seriously…' Arriving at the only exit, another question popped up in the boy's mind. 'How am I supposed to get out of this?'

He had already arrived at the borders of the local network he had just invaded, which alerted him to it being his worst enemy; it was a closed network completely cut off from the internet.

Without the internet, hacking into it from the outside would be impossible, and so would be hacking out of it from the inside. With that his already limited options decreased even further.

All he could do was scour the network available to him for anything that could help him escape.

'But… go where?'

Hesitation froze his joints whenever the thought crossed his mind. The faces of his friends-his family came to mind. The fear of what might happen to them if he were to escape added to his indecisiveness.

'No,' he shook the thought out of his head. 'All of them are still under fifteen. There is no way they'll harm them just to get me…'

Opening the door didn't take much effort. He had already confirmed that the corridor behind it was entirely empty so he quickly made his way through it.

'In the first place, do they even need to catch me?' He thought. 'They already read my memories. I have nothing they want…'

Of course, Rollo understood that alone wouldn't be enough for them to overlook his escape. Even if no one would believe him if he tried to expose what happened to him, a massive organization such as the Human Resistance still wouldn't risk him being out of their reach.

'There is this Mind Link thing as well…'

Like many others, when the news about the new Head General began to spread, Rollo made sure to look for every information on the man. He learned about him being a nanotech researcher so he didn't too difficult to accept that he was able to create something as magnificent as the so-called Mind Link.

At first, the boy thought the scientist had been exaggerating when he said it was capable of a lot more than similar tech, but after everything he went through in that virtual space, he no longer had any doubts.

Sam Sanderson had created something that could change humanity as a species, and now that he got the chance to try it, Rollo doubted that he could go back to the way he was before.