Chương 42

The server room hummed and Oliver took in the familiar scent of machinery. It smelled different from when he tracked it down with his wolf senses, though the stench from his clothes did make it more similar to that than he cared to admit. It reminded him of his youth. Sitting at his father's desk as a kid and playing pinball and puzzle games on his father's work computer. The scent of well maintained electronics.

Fluorescent lights flickered on overhead as they entered, clearly programmed to activate on a motion sensor. Oliver stood at the head of a hundred large metal boxes, slightly taller than himself and as wide as his arm span. They were featureless, smooth metallic surfaces. It was so unlike everything in the Nightmare Biome, it felt like Oliver had just stumbled into a different world.

"Your boots are tracking in muck," Kiki commented. Oliver looked down. Sure enough, he left behind brownish-red footprints on the sterile tile flooring everywhere he stepped. A glance behind him revealed that Kiki was doing the same. After staring at the smudges on the tiles for a few seconds, he decided he'd rather not think about what, exactly, was coating the soles of their boots. Kiki began to dictate what exactly they saw in front of them for Ben's benefit."

I should have attached a video feed to this device,"Ben bemoaned." I'll need to walk you through which server to plug me into. It will take some time."

"Can't you just connect wirelessly?" Oliver asked. He recalled that was a pretty common practice in his life before the experiment." Technically, yes. However, a cabled LAN connection will increase my speed by approximately 431. 4 percent." Oliver handed Ben's communication metal box over to Kiki, since she was more familiar with technology and would likely get Ben where he needed to go faster than him. There were a few other doorframes that looked to be exiting the room scattered along the walls.

However, each doorway was now bricked up and inaccessible. Oliver interrupted Ben's search for the cable entry point to ask about the doors and whether or not they should worry about those exits. Ben's response had been terse and distracted, replying that they were designed to allow administrator access across the copies of the Nightmare Biome. With all the biomes combined, it was no longer necessary. While he wandered the rows of servers, Oliver pondered all that had been stolen from him.

A life of technology and comfort in a world devoid of horrors. All for what? To transform him into a weapon to serve the government? His mind flashed back to those fellow experimentees he'd killed while trapped in this fucked up game. The girls back in the mushroom forest. The others who'd come to hunt them in Neon Nova City. They were all just tortured children, desperate to survive in an unforgiving world. He didn't regret killing them.

But he laid their deaths not on his conscience, but at the feet of the sadists in charge of this experiment. His fist clenched and he held back the urge to smash a fist into the closest server. None of them asked for this. Oliver vowed to avenge every soul confined in this merciless prison. He would escape. And those who put them through this would suffer. The vow resolutely set in his heart, he took a deep breath. One step at a time. First, he needed to get the fuck out of here.

He continued to walk down the aisles of servers, mind adrift and rattling with anger. His feet took him to the very end of the room. A white wallpaper covered in the black silhouette of bats peeled off the walls. It was something he'd expect to see in a child's bedroom. For some reason, that stoked his anger further. In the room's corner, he found an old desk with files haphazardly sprawled across the surface. He picked one up and blew off the layer of dust that had settled on it.

Whatever ventilation system kept the server boxes shiny and clean clearly didn't reach the corner over here. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Scanning the file, Oliver found that it was a brief biography of a child. Someone named Matthieu Brightman. There were photos paperclipped to the top showing a bright young boy with a gap-toothed smile. As he read, it became clear this had been a fellow experiment subject in the Nightmare Biome.

There were paragraphs full of information. It went beyond just the physical attributes found in a doctor's office. It listed his favorite toy, a remote-controlled train, and his pets, a cat and chicken. At the very bottom of the file, written in an elaborate scrawl of penmanship separate from the printed type above it, was, ' Deceased at level 6. Class - [Demolitionist]. Skills - Minor Explosion, Concussive Resistance, Control Collateral. Hunted and dismantled by the flesh ripper upon escape.'

A chill ran down Oliver's spine. He set the file aside and checked another. There were eight in total. They were all equally as grim. Most of the children never passed level 2, having not escaped the flesh ripper upon their arrival in this horrible world. With only the one class, their skills were all on the weaker end, the [Demolitionist] having by far the most aggressive kit out of the lot. He found his own file and his heart skipped a beat. At the top he saw a photo of himself as a boy.

He sat on the jungle gym at the park down the street from his family's home. His legs dangled off the edge and, unlike the happy photos of the other children, young Oliver scowled at the camera. Memories flooded him as he stared at himself. He remembered that his father had refused to join them in the park, required to instead work behind a locked door in his home's office. Oliver had just learned how to throw a frisbee in gym class the day previous and had desperately wanted to show off to his father.

Such a silly reason to be upset, but it had hurt his feelings. Oliver snapped the file closed and tucked it under his arm. He hadn't even read any of the words detailing his life, his attention completely caught by the old photo. He stuffed the folder in his bag to look at later and moved on to examine the few remaining files. James Dechirer. That had been the file Oliver hoped to find. He opened it and scanned the contents. Like the rest, it contained information not really of much use to Oliver.

Unlike the files of the deceased, it didn't list off the [Flesh Weaver]'s classes and skills. Apparently that only came after the administrator wrote their end fate. Oliver supposed that must have meant there was only one administrator per biome. His eyes wandered over to one of the many bricked up doorways. The Vampire Lord likely walked through this room a thousand times over as he crossed between the versions of his biome.

Returning his attention to James' file, Oliver reread the notes, wondering if things like the boy's blood type would be of any use in the future. Something snagged his attention as he read. He'd missed it the first time, but in the file James was listed as having a brother. Every other experimentee had parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles listed under their family lineage. But no siblings. Oliver, himself, had no brothers or sisters. It was odd that only James had one.

It tickled something familiar in the back of his mind. He felt like there was a connection he was missing here. As if on cue, a nauseatingly chipper voice rattled the inside of his head.

"Congratulations! You've done it again! Well done, we are all so proud of you for surviving so long. A fun fact for you all, did you know that, altogether, you've pooled a grand total of 301 levels since the merge? Imagine if that was all on one person! You'd have earned your freedom three times over by now! And that's not including the levels you earned from before! Hopefully this little tidbit of insider information puts a bit more pep in your step! You can do it!

Or, of course, you could instead find the exit in our hidden biome. Already, one of you has connected quite a few of our little hints and is fast on the way to freedom! You all might want to stop him before he takes one of the available exit slots! Of course, either choice is fine! Grind or find, your decision! We look forward to celebrating with those of you who survive! We're debating between a pizza party and an ice cream sundae party! You know what, I'll send out a poll.

Feel free to select one and I'll announce the winner in our next daily ranking update! Now, onto the rankings themselves!"

Terry Dechirer - Level 84 - Casino Biome Benjamin Lee - Level 75 - Neo Nova City Biome August McKell - Level 72 - Seasonal Biome Emilia Bea - Level 70 - Cliffside Biome Drew Nowel - Level 67- Steam Biome Alina Anderson - Level 67 - Cliffside Biome Alex Leche - Level 66 - Casino Biome Josiah Joseph - Level 65 - Paradise Biome Harrison Hall - Level 62 - Cliffside Biome James Dechirer - Level 62 - Neo Nova City Biome Oliver dismissed the party prompt that appeared with a puff of rainbow confetti, selecting an option at random in his haste to get the pop-up out of the way.

A few more names had disappeared since the last ranking. But this time it wasn't the missing names that caught Oliver's attention. Rather, he focused on the names at the top and bottom of the list. Terry Dechirer and James Dechirer. Oliver looked back to the open file in his hands and stared down at the young James. Even back as a ten-year-old, the future [Flesh Weaver] had a mad glint in his eye as he snarled at the camera.