[Hey so I know I'm a slow updater but I didn't know people were still reading this... Comments are the only way I know the chapters are even worth posting because I can't tell if anyone even sees them. To the person that commented super recently on this story… Hello! I tried to reply to you but you're on a guest acc. But hi anyways :)]
It was 4am.
Rex stared at the screen tiredly, wishing he could fall into the comfort of his soft, warm sheets. Perhaps even bury his head under the pillow to forget about the world. Unfortunately, his curiosity kept him awake as he browsed tab after tab of news footage on the laptop on his bed. His weary fingers tapped buttons mechanically as page after page flashed before his eyes, his eyelids fluttering after he watched countless news clips. After all, he had a lot of catching up to do if he wanted to see what the media had told the world while he was lost in that first dreaded coma.
At first, Rex was merely interested in the false narrative the news stations were reporting. Then, he began to pick up on the little details. First, it was the fact that multiple stations were covering the same false story. The boy had been taught that various media outlets weren't as independent as they pretended to be, but this was a bigger cover up than he had anticipated. Everything was so cohesive amongst companies you'd think would never interact. Clearly, Providence's collapse was something bigger than typical politics or events.
But as the night crept on, Rex spotted more things that seemed quite sinister.
News channels enjoyed displaying what Providence had been before it's demolition, using footage of back when the Base was intact. However, the pre-disaster footage showed the building and its surrounding assets far too close for it to have been from a civilian taking pictures on rare occasions where the public was allowed to see the place. Even Diane Farrah was not allowed to access certain areas that were now fully exposed to the public through countless TV screens. There was no possible legal way that common news stations would have access to any such visuals at all.
"Do I have to sedate you to get you to sleep?"
Rex felt his soul nearly leave his body at the sound of his captor's voice from the entrance to his room, just behind the door left ajar. How the man could have snuck up in giant boots was something he couldn't wrap his head around.
"Jump scare me like that one more time, I swear," Rex wheezed after the initial shock wore out, turning around. "I can't sleep. How did you even know I was awake?!"
"I forbade you from continuing your mission two days ago," Van Kleiss reminded him, ignoring the question. "You had only one day left to finish your punishment, but you went behind my back."
"This doesn't count! I'm not doing anything, I'm just watching and reading! Are you saying I can't even read about what happened while I was half dead?"
The teen's complaints were met with a silence.
Rex swallowed.
"Fine," Van Kleiss finally said, his eyes narrowing as he opened the door. "You aren't doing much beyond moping. Still, you picked a terrible time to do it."
Rex scoffed, then turned back to the screen. "I'm not moping. I'm connecting whatever pieces I can in my head because you won't let me do it out there."
"And what pieces might those be?"
The boy frowned. "Well… uh. Not much yet. But I did notice that they're using video shots that I'm pretty sure are illegal. No one was allowed to get as close to these places as whoever made these images did."
"And?"
"And that means that we probably had an inside job. Or trespassers. Or maybe illegal drones? I don't know."
The man's lips formed a subtle grin in the shadows.
"Well for someone with the proper resources, it shouldn't be difficult," Van Kleiss responded. "I had quite a few EVOs of my own planted in your platforms to leak me information. Usually for a raid."
Rex glared in his general direction.
"The past is the past, let it go," the older EVO continued. "I'm simply telling you that one of those explanations is quite possible."
The boy huffed. "Why are you even here? I wasn't making any noise."
"Yes, you were. Enough to alert all of these."
The younger EVO squinted in the dark and noticed several small, shiny, reptilian creatures slithering around the king's feet and slowly creeping into his room. They had luminescent silver scales and slid easily across the floor, appearing as snakes with wings.
Rex immediately pulled the laptop towards himself and backed up against the bed frame. "What are you doing?!"
"You should be asking yourself that," Van Kleiss responded, watching the EVOs bathe the room in a pale glow as they slid across the walls and meager furniture. "I walked through the hallways and noticed them all going in one direction- your bedroom. Are your nanites sending out signals? What are you plotting?"
Rex balked. "I'm not plotting anything, and my nanites are normal! Get them away from me!"
"No need," his captor said. "Unless you look like a cat, they're virtually harmless."
"A what? How many cats have you kill-"
"Although, I should note that high nanite frequencies can cause them to act much more feral, so if you're attempting to escape with some new ability, I'd think twice about demonstrating that here."
Rex pushed the laptop halfway across the mattress before throwing out a few well placed punches at the sleek, metallic creatures before him. The force of the impact, although light, caused the laptop to play one of the videos the tabs had opened up to.
"We are happy to announce that in as little as a month, the building formerly known as Providence's base will be entirely cleaned up, and are proud to have shared with you the government's progress in these recent months," a reporter stated, her fingernails tapping the base of the microphone erratically. "Most of the bodies belonging to the poor souls that died have been removed, and as many members of their families contacted for a peaceful closure."
Rex watched as the indignant creatures hissing at his feet suddenly turned to the recording, staring at the screen almost as if they could understand her words. One by one, they left his side entirely, choosing to create a small halo of winged pythons surrounding the laptop. Even more strangely, they began to emanate clicking and hissing sounds. By the time the video was done, she had delivered the worst performance from any of the stations he'd seen so far, yet it had absolutely entranced the small EVOs.
"Why are they doing that?" Rex asked the man still standing at the the entrance. "What are they?"
Van Kleiss tilted his head in thought. "There may be a reason, but I can't recall it off the top of my head. It's been a long while since I've utilized the abilities of this particular breed."
"Breed?" the teen repeated. "Do the EVOs in Abysus transform naturally or did you make them?"
"It depends on the EVO. As for these in particular, I am almost entirely certain they're a hybrid I created a long time ago, long before I even met you, in fact. I'll have to check my databases for a record of their abilities. Perhaps-"
The luminescent EVOs interrupted the conversation by creating the same sounds as before, taking a full minute to finish. Rex cautiously leaned forward to see if he could swipe them off his bed, but they sensed his movements and lashed out at him with their wings before yet again creating the same sounds.
"I guess I'm going to sleep somewhere else tonight then," the boy grumbled. "So much for researching in peace."
"Wait," the king commanded, extending his gauntlet to push the younger ego back onto the bed. "Agitate them again."
"Are you serious?"
"Are you disobeying me?"
With a tired sigh, Rex flicked out his hand just as before, eliciting the exact same response. And upon his captor's command, two more times as well. Van Kleiss walked away from the doorway and closer to the bed, causing the small EVOs to flock towards him.
"Unless I'm mistaken," the king began, picking one up in his human hand, "They're emitting the exact same sounds each time. It's a pattern."
"Que?"
"Listen. Notice how they aren't overlapping each other? Each noise they make is in perfect unison with one another, and there's at least seven of them. This can't be a coincidence."
Rex shook his head. "So they're what, coordinated? Lots of species do that."
"Yes, but the exact same pattern repeated each time? And each time lasting for at least a full minute? I believe I just now remembered what their purpose was."
"And that is?"
"Communication. They're trying to relay a message to us."
The teen shrugged. "Well, I don't speak.. uh.. whatever language they speak, so I can't help you there. I'm a nanite whisperer, not an EVO whisperer."
Van Kleiss rolled his eyes, noticeable even in the near darkness. "Learn to be more useful and expand your horizons, Rex. If recall correctly, they are using a human method of communication. Judging by the fact that they can only create two sounds that happen to remain fairly consistent in each pattern, I believe it's Morse code."
"I don't know Morse code."
"Really? If I'm not mistaken, there was a particular subsection of the Providence manual that mandated memorization of the Morse alphabet."
"How come everyone knows about the manual except me?!"
Before Rex could utter any more complaints, the king swiftly left the room, eliminating his only audience. The silver EVOs turned to his direction and hopped off the bed to follow him. The boy threw up his hands in exasperation and followed them, careful to keep his distance from the peculiar chattering snakes.
"Where are you going?" he called out after the man who travelled across the dark hallways like an shadow. "Slow down!"
"You have sleep to catch up on, I suggest you go do that," Van Kleiss murmured within earshot.
"I'm not that tired, tell me what's going on!"
"I'm going to decode the message. Try not to get in my way."
The two entered a room down the corridor, along with the hissing and clicking EVOs trailing behind. The king walked up to a large cage attached to a monitor in the center of the room and carefully picked up and placed each snake into it through a small open latch. The teen watched in awe as they showed no hint of threatening behavior as retaliation against being touched by a giant metal hand.
"Why aren't they hurting you?" he asked, puzzled.
Van Kleiss tapped the lid to the cage nonchalantly. "Because they know what happens if they try to."
"What the- do you torture every EVO you see into submission?"
"Only the especially rebellious ones…"
The man gave him a pointed look as he walked towards the monitor and turned up a few dials.
"…particularly if they talk too much."
Rex slumped down against the wall behind him. "Hilarious. What's the machine for?"
"It's a translator," the king explained. "Any code trained EVO that gives off seemingly nonsensical chatter can be placed inside to extract something coherent. Perhaps I should put you in there as well sometime."
"Is four in the morning your funny hour? Stop cracking jokes, it makes you look human."
"I am most certainly not human."
"That's what Holiday said."
Van Kleiss pressed a button on the monitor, then paused. "What?"
"Oh, yeah, you weren't there," Rex recalled. "Back when I was seeing the rabies hallucinations, she came to me and told me you were actually a nanite focused computer program like ZAG-RS, but the opposite. And that you possessed the body of a dead scientist from the explosion."
As the translator whirred and decrypted the message coming from the snake EVOs, Van Kleiss turned to face the boy, leaning back against the monitor.
"What was her reasoning?" he asked, curiously. "Such a strange notion."
"Something about being too much of a cold heartless psychopath to ever have been human and care about other people," the teen yawned, suddenly feeling weary again. "Can you blame her?"
The older EVO glared at him. "You haven't got a grateful bone in your body, have you? After everything I've done for you?"
Rex lifted his head and felt a tinge of regret, his sleepy gaze meeting a very annoyed one. "Okay, fine. I'm still alive, so maybe you're not EVO Hitler. I take it back."
"You really should sleep, your historical analogies aren't even making sense."
The monitor beeped. The two directed their attention towards the screen that now displayed a complete message. The chattering of the snake EVOs had died down, indicating that they had been trained to cease their work at that specific tone. However, unlike the small creatures that lay relaxed, Rex was now anything but.
"HELLO, REX," the screen read in a default computer voice not so different from ZAG-RS's. "IT IS LIKELY THAT YOU WILL RECEIVE THIS MESSAGE."
The teen paled. "Wait, what?!"
"WE NEVER FOUND YOUR BODY, AND HAVE BELIEVED YOU ARE STILL ALIVE. OUR SUSPICIONS WERE CONFIRMED BY YOUR ASSAULT IN NEW YORK CITY."
Van Kleiss, too, was set on edge. As far as he knew, he had kept the child well hidden. Or at least, he had assumed.
"WE DO NOT KNOW WHERE YOU CURRENTLY RESIDE, BUT WHEN WE FIND YOU, WE WILL KILL YOU. YOU HAVE NO PLACE IN THE NEW WORLD."
The teen's eyes widened. "This is just another empty threat, right? I got those all the time."
"IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE US, TURN TO THE ART MUSEUM CHANNEL AT SEVEN PM. YOU WILL LEARN TRUE FEAR."
Rex felt knots twist into his stomach. Even his companion seemed rattled. The final sentence encoded in the message, however, was the most jarring of all.
"NO ONE CAN SAVE YOU IF WE HAVE ALREADY ERASED YOUR EXISTENCE."
After the monitor beeped again to indicate the completion of the message relay, boy managed to pull his eyes away from the screen and scramble to his feet.
"What the fuck!" he hissed in fear. "Who was that?! Why are they trying to kill me?! What did I even do to them?!"
For once, the man beside him was at a loss for words. He re-read the words on the screen repeatedly, as of hoping to find hints inside the vague but very cutting threats in the message. For now, he could find nothing. Perhaps there was no further meaning to extract?
"Calm down, Rex," he finally managed to reply, saving the words into a document and pasting it into a file. "Whoever these people are, they admit they don't know where you are. They likely aren't even near us. Abysus is a vast, human deprived terrain."
"What was on the museum channel?!" the younger EVO sputtered. "I missed that by hours! How am I going to know what they meant?!"
"I'm sure it's recorded online somewhere."
"I… oh. Yeah."
Rex pulled out his phone and googled the channel and date, clicking a link that seemed most relevant. There was a grand opening of an exhibit where the art and history museum shared conjoined ownership of selected as the most popular option for the night.
"I guess this is it?" he spoke up, watching the footage. At first it was boring, just a few minutes of people giving a brief summary and discussion of the history of animal related art, from cave paintings to cat gifs.
The king leaned forward to get a better view of the smartphone. "This hardly seems relevant."
"Shhh."
Van Kleiss was taken aback by the disrespect.
The elites gathering at the exhibit now began to display various cases containing art, this time under the category of real animal items. Furs hung on display across the walls next to the artificially stuffed animals, but Rex noticed that these didn't appear to be typical animals at all.
"Welcome to the very first international display of EVO taxidermy!" the director of the museum announced.
The king grimaced. "Barbaric. Was this really their threat? Hardly anyone would want a human head as decoration."
But in the corner of the screen, the boy saw something that made his stomach lurch.
It couldn't be.
It shouldn't be.
The camera panned towards the vast selection of preserved EVO corpses, starting off with the plainer ones in the front, categorized by the type of animal they had mutated from. Rex felt his heart sink lower and lower into his stomach as they walked closer to the primate section, devoted to various breeds that had turned rogue at the zoo. He instantly recognized the tiny little hat in one of the glass cases that brought back a flood of bittersweet memories, his fears confirmed by the oh-so-familiar body the hat was placed on. The cheeky smile that used to dance across that particularly mischievous chimp's countenance had now been replaced by a plastic, permanent look of horror.
Rex fainted.
