Going farther in the white maze, I stumbled upon more empty rooms, occasionally some boxes, and heavy machineries.
The boxes contained unusable stuff, like rotten meat that I'm not sure which animal it's from, white hospital dresses, and cut off collars with number tags on them.
The deeper I go, the fouler the smell gets. Eventually, it got so bad that even I chose to cover my nose to get rid of the smell. This helped but only a little.
What's worse is, I haven't found a single trace of the man the cashier said was here. At this point I'm starting to doubt if he's even real.
"Hey Kuromaku, you there?"
After a moment of silence, Kuromaku spoke through my headpiece.
"Yeah, I'm here. Now get back to work, and make it fast; we need to get back today you know."
I was about to retort, but something caught my attention. An open door at the side of the hallway.
Normally this isn't that suspicious, but all the other doors I've seen were closed, leaving this one the only exception.
I cautiously walked towards the door, peeking at the slight opening if anybody is inside.
Inside I saw not a person, but cabinets, lots and lots of cabinets. Some were open, revealing stacks of files and paper.
Jackpot, I thought. Of course the man I've been looking for could be hiding in the parts of the room I can't see, so I still need to be careful.
So how can I make sure he's not there?
Suddenly a brilliant idea came to my mind. I grabbed my earpiece and threw it inside the room.
"Is he there?!" I whispered. Well... it wasn't a whisper, more like a yell.
"No, nobody's here you can come in." Kuromaku's voice resounded from inside. What he said was a little suspicious, but I decided to trust him.
I opened the door, ready for the worst. But no one was inside. Only the cabinets full of files and the earpiece I threw in.
"What do you think is written on them." I heard Kuromaku ask while I was picking up the earpiece.
"...well, I hope I'm wrong."
First, I opened all the cabinets taking out all the files and laying them on the floor. Some were torn, so I tossed them aside for now.
There were six cabinets, each with three drawers. Yes, I know I said there were lots and lots, but after not finding anything for hours, six is a lot.
Two of the drawers are empty, while the rest each had eight files inside. That means there's 128 files in total. Minus the 36 torn ones... that's 92 files intact.
After finishing my calculations, I asked Kuromaku to record each file as I'm reading them.
I picked one up and sat on the floor, inhaling deeply as I opened it.
*Subject: number 22
Age: 13
Sex: M
Status: Failed
There was more, but I stopped reading. I just looked at the ceiling, knowing exactly what this means.
I continued to the next file, my patience suddenly exhausted as a resentful and mad expression rose from my face.
*Subject: number 68
Age: 14
Sex: F
Status: Failed
*Subject: number 25
Age: 15
Sex: ???
Status: ???
*Subject: number 45
Age: 12
Sex: F
Status: Failed
Just like that, I continued reading the files one by one. Kuromaku was still recording, but we didn't say a word; we just sat there in silence.
But now I remember. This is one of the reasons I'm doing this. This is one of the reasons I'm a mercenary.
***
After a while, I finished going through all the files. All of them were labled "Failed", except one.
One profile caught my attention. It was filled with question marks, and there was also no additional information.
Well, it's no use worrying about that now, so I resumed my search.
I walked the hallway in silence, not even my feet making any sounds. This continued for a while, until I reached another room.
This room was larger than the others. And objects of various sizes were covered in white cloth coverings.
Only one wasn't, a white 1980 Lamborghini Countach of high quality with only little to no scratches was on the other side of the room.
At this point, I had many questions in mind. Why was there a Lamborghini here? How did it even get here? And most importantly, can I get it for myself?
The answers were simple. The bad guys have taste, there's probably another exit somewhere, yes.
I immediately went for the Lamborghini, ignoring evrything else. I got there without making a sound. Slowly opening the door with my gun at hand, I saw a silhouette of a person and immediately shot it.
The stranger, as if having an insane reaction speed, dodged the bullet, leaving only a slight cut on the stranger's cheek.
He shot me this time, and I was barely fast enough to crouch to the side. I was pretty sure this is the man the cahier was talking about.
He kept shooting out of the car, while I was already circling around it to where he was. I reached the other side, but it was too late.
The mysterious man already opened the door and dashed out back to the door. I tried shooting him a few times, but all my bullets at most only slightly cut him.
"Hey Kuromaku, is this guy even human? How is he dodging bullets right now?"
"Focus, he's getting away." Kuromaku said in a serious tone.
As I ran after him, I heard a mechanical voice echo behind my back.
"Where do you think you're going?"
My body turned around, only to find the Lamborghini going straight at me like a wild bull.
I jumped at its hood, rolled on the roof, and landed on the ground with another roll.
"Ah, you pesky little thing, just stand still while I run you over."
Obviously, I didn't answer. Talking to cars is... Well, I'm not that crazy yet.
"Hey, Kuromaku! Since when can cars speak?"
"I don't know."
'Of course you don't.' Unfortunately, there was no time to voice out these thoughts as the car came running at me again in reverse.
I rolled to the side, the car crashing into the wall behind me. My gun was already firing, as if by instinct.
The bullets easily pierced the car, smashing its windows and headlights in the process.
Seeing such a beauty get destroyed put imaginary tears in my eyes. What's worse, it didn't even do much; the car was still full of life and was running at me again.
Shooting the car won't do anything, so I stopped. The only way for me to stop it is to destroy it completely or find and rip out the thing that's making it like this.
That reminds me, the guy who ran away earlier was doing some shady things inside the car. So that means I have to get in the car too.
The doors were closed and probably locked, which means the only way in is through the broken front window.
The Lamborghini was heading straight at me like a raging bull. Now is the perfect chance, and I didn't let it slip.
I jumped towards the car, feet first, before crashing into the leather seats. Inside the car, the dashboard was taken out, revealing countless wires and a weird glowing box in the middle.
"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING INSIDE ME?!"
Making a spur of the moment decision, I decided that the cube was weird and immediately ripped it out.
"HE-YUHHCGHHXHZ---CHHA."
After a few more HEYUDHJZ and CHHAJH, the car finally stopped. My hand relaxed, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hey Kuromaku, you still there?"
"Yeah."
I scoffed; this bastard didn't do anything at all. "You useless bastard."
"Hey! Without me, you would've walked here, walked I say."
True, that is a great thing to do. "I take it back, thank you the-"
My words stuck to my throat, as the Lamborghini suddenly started again.
"Good luck." Kuromaku said in a jokingly sarcastic manner.
The Lamborghini suddenly sped out the room into the hallway. It didn't even speak anymore; it just growled and roared while trying to squeeze through the tight hallway.
It crashed around the hallway into other rooms and out again. I felt it was actually safer inside the car rather than outside.
Still, that doesn't mean it was entirely safe. My body also trashed around inside the car, and with all the wires and pointed metals that guy just left hanging around; it hurt a lot.
My whole body was cut, even pierced at some point. Bruises were accumulating, and I was bleeding badly as well. Well, at least the leather was nice.
This will continue for a while, but while this hallway had some turns, it all just leads towards the exit. This is a research facility after all, there are no dead ends.
And I was right, the car charged forward, not knowing what back is, eventually it stumbled upon the exit.
I think it went berserk when I took the cube out, so I made a mental note to myself: Never touch a science cube.
Anyway, freedom from this car prison was in sight. So I didn't hesitate. Crawling out from inside the car, I made my way to the hood.
There, my body sat down, waiting for the opportunity to leap out. The car was still berserk and drove out the large door into the broken hall.
At the same time, my feet left the hood as I leapt into the air and landed a few steps away from the car.
The car itself did a drift, only stopping once it faced me in this sort of intense showdown.
It seems like the car wasn't just trashing around randomly, since the moment it "saw" me, it sped up again trying to crash into me.
Now, I was only a few steps away from it, and I'm not superhuman, so it crashed into me, hitting my legs as I tried to dive away.
It didn't reach full speed at such a short distance, but it still managed to fling me away.
Luckily it flung me straight at the stairs, well to the wall next to it but it was close.
Unfortunately, my legs stopped working, from the abuse inside the car all the way to now getting hit by the said car, I'm actually more surprised my legs lasted that long.
...
Am I going to die now?
The car turned around, well I guess steered around until it again faced me. And is it just me or is it looking down on me right now?
Just as the car sped up, someone grabbed my arm and pulled me to the staircase.
The car crashed its sides on the walls, it was wide enough not to fit in the human-sized opening of the staircase.
Looking up, I saw my saviour in a racing outfit, Kuromaku.
"Sorry for calling you a useless bastard."
Kuromaku raised his eyebrows. "Didn't you already take it back?"