Chapter 10 – In search of clues

Vince woke up quite early in the morning because constant thinking on the night before didn’t let him go into deep sleep. He woke up feeling slightly tired, but he was still determined to go to Redwell labs and find out as much as he could about the lab accident.
He still stayed in bed for a bit because he didn’t want to wake up Pete and Christina at such an early hour. He was wondering whether he’d be able to fix the problem after they find out its origins. He wasn’t so sure of his abilities because this seemed like an impossible thing to reverse. Lies – that is a human consciousness and it’s impossible to fix that. However the desire to lie might be fixed. It might take him years, but he was determined to spend the rest of his life on that.
After waiting for about half an hour and singing his favourite songs in his head, Vincent got up and began getting ready.
Very soon he went into the lounge room and saw Christina there watching TV on a quiet volume.
- “You’re up pretty early.” He said.
- “I couldn’t sleep last night because of all that was happening, so I just read for a few hours and then came here.” Christina explained.
- “Me too. I slept for only about 5 hours.” Vince admitted, “Been thinking too much of our little quest today.”
- “I hope this little quest will prove to be quite big and important in the long run.”
- “It will. I have a feeling it’s gonna be our breakthrough.”
- “Great! I am ready to go anytime. But I think Pete is really enjoying his sleep so we probably should wait till he wakes up.”
- “That’s fine. It’s really early still.”
The two of them watched TV for about an hour and a bit, chatting a bit about life and when Pete woke up, all were ready to set off. Redwell labs were on the outskirts of the city, so it would take a while to get there. They didn’t have a car, and bus drivers can’t be trusted anymore with all the lying going around, so the only way was to walk there.
The walk lasted about an hour. Although it was rather tiring, all three of them enjoyed it. The labs were in a sort of remote location, away from any person’s house. The lab building was 5 storeys high, with an extra mini-floor on the roof. By the outside of the building, they could already tell it was battered and derelict.
- “This place gives me the chills.” Christina said as soon as she stepped through the front door.
- “Ruins of labs are never pleasant. Been to one of those before. On top of it looking unwelcoming already, it also had tonnes of poison gases in some rooms because of the volatile chemicals being spilled after the accident that was its doom. I’ve seen one of my co-workers die in a hospital bed after he breathed in too much of that.” Vince explained.
- “Really? Aw, I am sorry to hear that. It seems you’ve seen so much suffering in your life already. So we might run into some of those here as well?”
- “It’s possible, though by the looks of this place it seems more of a lab for building devices rather than conducting research with dangerous substances.”
- “So what exactly are we looking for?” Pete barged in.
- “Some huge machine that exploded and spread the lies.” Vince answered.
Once they reached a slightly worn out panel on the wall they read it. It mentioned what kind of research was conducted on which floor. It seemed that neurological research was taking place on the fifth floor, so the three of them headed straight there.
That floor was a total mess. Most of the walls were knocked down from a powerful explosion, there were some skeletons there of those who were caught in it, and the big bad device caught their eyes pretty quickly. It was gigantic and occupied nearly a third of the whole floor.
- “This thing looks like some probe that fell out of space.” Christina commented.
- “Meh, I’ve seen better.” Pete lied.
Vince didn’t say anything. He was also awed by the sight of the broken device. He approached it slowly and began looking at it from every side.
- “Want to take it home?” Pete asked.
- “Sorry, I got carried away. This device is massive. I wonder how long it took them to build something like this.”
- “Probably ages.” Christina said.
- “All right, well we better find something that might be of value for our dilemma.” Vince suggested.
They began looking around the trashed place for something useful. It was like looking for a trace of gold among all the dirt. But the place was such a mess that it seemed hopeless.