Tson crouched over Kevin, eyes scanning the unconscious figure as his Sentinel suit's diagnostics kicked into overdrive. The system reported no fatal injuries, but Kevin's vitals were erratic, and his pulse was weak. Whatever had caused the Nexus suit to activate, it had nearly drained him completely.
The faint hum of static returned, pulling Tson's attention back to the room. His head throbbed with the residual exhaustion of his merging process, but he pushed through it. He wasn't done yet.
The sound grew louder, rising and falling like a distant heartbeat. Tson turned toward where the sound was coming from—a narrow, half-open door at the room's far end. A faint, pulsating glow bled through the cracks, casting an eerie light on the disheveled floor. The hum was coming from there.
His first instinct was to grab Kevin and retreat, but he thought the nexus had bonded with him. Perhaps the others had awoken and formed bonds with someone too. Shit, he thought, hearing the noise all but confirmed it, but who could one of his projects have possibly bonded with? His mind started thinking of all the possibilities.
Could someone else have followed Kevin inside while he was coming in? His thoughts were interrupted by an oh-so-familiar sharp, crackling pop, like static electricity snapping through the air, followed by a low, resonant hum that fades quickly. It was the same noise he had just heard. He wanted to investigate, but he had to place Kevin somewhere that would be safe for both Kevin and his sake.
He started dragging Kevin behind him, hoping to find a room where he could lock him up until he woke up and had a sense of what was going on and was not in this semi-conscious state of walking around and phasing through walls and causing chaos.
Tson's breath came in short bursts as he half-dragged, half-carried Kevin down the narrow hallway, every step heavier than that of the one that came before it, accompanied by a throbbing pain in his head, a reminder of his own exhaustion. His Sentinel suit, still humming with diagnostic reports and energy fluctuations, provided little relief. The suit was designed to handle more than this—more than what Kevin had just been through. But Tson wasn't sure if even the enhanced armor could save them if whatever was causing this humming sound was truly as dangerous as it seemed.
The narrow corridor was dimly lit, the lights flickering erratically as though the entire facility was on the brink of collapse. Tson's mind raced, but his body seemed to lag behind, each movement still sluggish from the merging process. The Nexus had been taxing, binding his will to the intricate wiring of Kevin's brain, leaving him in a half-asleep, half-awake state of wondering what part of the programming caused this. He knew that the arc reactor was faulty, but could it have rewritten the programming? but he couldn't afford to focus on it now. Kevin needed him.
As they neared a small storage room, Tson tried to steady his pulse. The door was barely hanging on its hinges, and the small sign above it read Storage Unit 23. It's not ideal, but it would have to be done. He shoved the door open, his hand moving with practiced ease to the security lock, but the moment he stepped inside, the sound of the static hum grew louder. It was almost like it was… calling to him. The resonance tickled at the back of his mind, urging him forward, drawing him back toward the source.
Right now he had to make sure Kevin was safe. Tson took a breath, trying to ground himself. He glanced at the unconscious form of his comrade. Kevin's chest rose and fell with uneven breaths, his face pale, drawn tight from the strain of whatever had happened. Tson gritted his teeth. He couldn't just leave him.
Dragging Kevin into the storage unit, Nexus found it impossible to access the il within the arc reactor—it was like a prison for Exemplars, sealing off its power. Tson moved carefully and methodically as he put Kevin down on the chilly concrete floor. His suit flashed briefly, scanning the environment for any hazards that could be imminent. He shut the door behind them, satisfied, and looked around the little room. The walls were littered with dusty, long-forgotten equipment, boxes, and cartons, but that didn't matter. Not now.
Tson turned back toward the door, a feeling of foreboding crawling up his spine. The humming was getting louder now; that means he was closer to it, like a distant but insistent pulse—too rhythmic to be random, too powerful to ignore. He pressed a hand to the doorframe, his mind spinning with possibilities. What the hell was that noise? And what had caused it?
His eyes narrowed as he scanned the corridor beyond, where the eerie glow of the other room's pulse flickered like an otherworldly beacon. There were a lot of bizarre things happening. . And now that Kevin was safely stashed away, it was time to find out just what that source of those bizarre things was.
Taking a deep breath, Tson forced his legs into motion. Each step toward the humming sound felt like a fight against his own instincts, but he couldn't ignore it. Not now. The power outage must have caused something huge.
The humming seemed to grow louder as he approached the narrow door at the end of the hall. This was where it had to come from. His fingers brushed the edge of the door, pushing it open ever so slightly. The room beyond was bathed in an eerie, pulsating glow. Shadows danced across the walls, and the air itself felt thick, charged with energy.
Tson's heart skipped a beat as his eyes adjusted to the glow. What he saw made him freeze in place.
At the center of the room stood a massive crystalline structure, its multifaceted surface shimmering with an eerie, otherworldly light. This was the backup system—the repository of all stored data and critical information. Tson felt a wave of relief as he observed its pristine condition, the gentle hum radiating from it serving as reassurance. The hum carried an intricate rhythm, its swirling patterns so complex they defied even his heightened intellect to fully comprehend.
But there was something else. Oh, that's right; he reminded himself of the reason he came down here, carefully scanning the room—a faint outline in the shadows, barely visible but unmistakably human.
Someone was standing in the room.
Tson's instincts flared, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he silently stepped back, hands hovering in a fighting stance. Could this be another one of his experiments? Someone who had bonded with another one of the arc reactors?
He was about to move forward when the figure in the room turned, eyes glowing with the same eerie light as Crystal.
It was someone that should not have been up right now.