Soon, the door of the library was opened and a guard stuck his head inside, to check whether everyone is gone. He seemed to be surprised to find me still there, so he stepped in and said,

               “Master Hort, everyone is gone and the security mechanism is about to be put up, so please you need to__”

He didn’t finish as he seemed to notice the change in my attitude,

               “You were saying? Need to do what?” I warned.

               “Master Hort.. no one is allowed here after..” He stammered.

               “I suggest you go check with your superiors and see what they tell you.” I spoke calmly.. went to sit down and turned my attention to the book I was carrying. He had no choice but to get out and go to report what happened. Soon after, the door was opened and one of the people in blue coats appeared telling me right off,

               “Commander, no one can stay here after the meeting.. you must__”

I got angry, and while still sitting, I shouted at him,

               “Go check with your commander you baboon before I split up you ugly head.”

He was taken aback for a while, then he regained his balance,

               “Commander Instine has left with commander Oldefol so__”

               “That.. is your problem and his.. not mine.. I have a special permission to be here from the Chief himself. Go check it out before I get really angry.”

He stood there debating the matter with himself. Then he withdrew locking the door behind him. I realized I have become a prisoner in this horrible place.

A short while later, the noisy routine work which was apparently stopped for the duration of the meeting, had resumed. I went to sit in the chair at the top of the long table with a book.. yet I picked up some conversation going on in the next room.. I moved closer and pricked my ears to listen.. they were raising their voiced over the noise, so I could hear a few sporadic parts..

               “… Instine.. permission…”

               “.. dangerous.. the mechanism… captives.. I want.. check..”

               “… Yes.. Cface.. OK…”

The argument ended.. and I went back to the book, but I was not reading. I thought, there must be a gateway somewhere in this castle, to make it easy for the leaders to bypass the need to go through the regular entrance.. someone must be able to check with Instine if he had forgotten to mention my permission to the staff.

Before long the door was opened and a very strange looking person walked in.. he was tall, with athletic proportions and a very handsome, nearly starched face..

               “Commander Hort, my name is fatal.. and I have confirmed to my colleagues that the chief had indeed given you permission.. however, the fact is, this permission is not absolute and does not override the regulations we have in this castle, therefore__”

I sharply interrupted,

               “Stop.. the last person to give me a conditional statement, regretted it very much so let me warn you whatever your face is.” Then I added slowly and emphatically, “No conditions were attached to my permission. So, go correct your information before I get really angry.”

               “Commander, my face is human and __”

               “It is about to be rearranged.. so go .. get..” I yelled at him.

               “Commander, you cannot rearrange my face.. it is perfectly manufactured. I am the perfect hybrid. So ___” He answered in a cool, almost sarcastic way.

I had to laugh interrupting him, which made him appear quite astonished.. and it amazed me that he, could indeed show such emotion if he were just a manufactured creature..  

               “Ok .. hybrid.. or Fatal.. or whatever you might be.. I think I shall have them remanufacture a new hybrid tonight.”

               “Commander, I am the third generation after the previous hybrids were retired.. it took them three years to perfect all my functions.. and you.. you little thing.. think you can destroy that? I taught you how to speak___”

At this moment Instine stepped into the room. I smiled and looked at him with a clear challenge in my eyes.. while the hybrid stopped talking and looked at him in a condescending way.

               “Cface.. you can go back to work.. I shall take it from here..”

But before he could move.. one of the guards rushed into the room in a miserable condition and started to blabber incoherently..

               “What happened? Take a deep breath soldier and tell us what happened.” Instine was alarmed. He grabbed the arm of his guard and let him sit down, “now talk.. slow and easy.”

               “The .. captives.. the new group.. the Dusky.. group.” He mumbled.

               “What about them? Any one die?” Instine asked with wide eyes.

               “No.. no.. they.. are.. out..”

               “Out? Out where?” Instine asked in a shaky voice.

               “Out of the R1A.. out of the R1A.” The guard started to wail.

               “What is the R1A?” I dared to speak hesitantly. But no one seemed to hear me.. they were all transfixed in their places for a short while then all of a sudden they raced out of the room completely oblivious to my existence.. I found myself running after them without thinking.

The whole place was in chaos, and many guards and prisoners were watching on the sides in open rooms, corridors and various halls.. until we reached a place which was completely vacant.

They all stopped and Instine proceeded cautiously.. the Hybrid close behind, while the guards stayed back at the entrance.. I ventured in with the others.. they kept looking at the various corridors.. two were marked red.. and the other three were blue..

               “Where did they go?” Instine spoke practically to himself.

               “Commander.. the gateway..” The hybrid whispered pointing in a certain direction.

               “They cannot use it.” Instine said shaking his head.

               “If the doctor is with them.. may..”

Instine looked at him in horror..

               “There were nine of them.. How could__ ?” I ventured to butt in.

They both looked at me as if they saw me for the first time.. first reaction of Fatal was to object to my presence .. but Instine waved his hand and answered,

               “No there were only four..”

We went into a room in the red area, and sat down to discuss what should be done, yet instead we seemed to be carried away into another discussion,

               “This is a disaster.. if the chief__” Fatal started

               “NO.” Instine interrupted sharply, “We can tell him later.. not now.. we have to find out what happened first.”

               “This never happened before.. actually .. it is not supposed to be possible to happen at all.. how did they get out of R1A?” Fatal wondered.

Still unable to fathom the ability of Fatal to think rationally and speak just like a human being, I smiled and then commented,

               “A lot of things here are not supposed to be possible to happen, yet they do.”

They both looked at me inquisitively, so I chuckled and simply pointed to Fatal.

               “Oh, your first time to see him___” Instine started.

               “Yes and No.. He seemed to have seen me before.. he said, he taught me to speak.” I replied.

               “He said that?” Instine laughed it away, though not convincingly, “He said that about me too.. he thinks he has a superior intelligence to everyone else.. but I assure you he just has a human brain.. albeit a little.. enhanced.. right Cface?”

Fatal didn’t answer.. just leveled a strange look at the commander..

               “So, what is the real name.. is it Fatal, Cface or.. the Hybrid?” I wondered.

Both tried to speak at the same time,

               “Fatal.” Fatal repeated.

               “Then what are these other names?”

               “Cface.. is what we call him here.. because of his facial appearance.. see how it looks completely perfect.. previous models had different faces and were not so .. proportionately accurate.”

               “And the hybrid.”

They both looked at each other again and then Fatal answered,

               “because I am a combination of human and machine.. I am the perfect combination of what a human brain and machine can become..”

A guard came knocking fast on the door, didn’t wait to be summoned in,

               “Commander.. we need you fast at the surface..”

               “The surface?” Instine was alarmed.. he ran and we followed. He went to a gateway spot and left, then both of us said the same word.. “surface”

We arrived at the surface outside one of the entertainment cottages spread around the greens of BKC.. there was a shrubbery near the entrance and a throng of people gathered around a certain spot nearby.. they made way for us.. and there.. we found the doctor they called Miniee .. lying down with a knife still stuck into his heart.. I realized the situation has become extremely complicated and unbearably difficult for Instine.. however, I couldn’t find the words to advise or help him.. the crowd was basically made up of guards from the CCP together with another doctor besides Fatal.. a few minutes later I felt the tip of a knife in my back and somebody whispering in my ear,

               “Please, walk back very slowly and quietly and we shall go to the back of this building.”

When I tried to look back, he warned me to keep looking normally to the front.. my mind jumped immediately to Dusky.. I would not want to expose him anyway.. and I was anxious to see him and learn, how he got in and then how he got out, so I complied and followed the instructions discreetly..

Once we were out of sight, he pulled me down and away from the site.. so we could talk.. as I turned around, I saw it was not Dusky,

               “I thought you were Dusky?”

               “He is still down there.” He pointed to the underground castle, “And he shall need your help”

I was astonished at the audacity of the request, yet it made me smile. I slowly countered,

               “that is heavy.. what makes you assume that I shall help?”

               “We are at war.. and at war, you cannot be neutral.. because neutral means you shall be used and abused by both sides.. so, If Alore assumptions about you are right, then you will be on the right side.. our side.” He said with a worried smile.

               “Alore?” I was shocked, “Alore is here too? Is he down there as well?”

               “No, He is not here. But he told us that we could count on you if we needed help.”

I hesitated for a while, then I asked,

               “You killed the doctor, he helped you to get out, then you killed him.”

               “No sir, he killed himself.. he said his chief would kill him when he knows that he helped us to escape, so we suggested that he would come with us, but he refused.”

I had to think fast.. Dusky had some plan with Alore and he is relying on my help to get him out.. what kind of conundrum I find myself in now.. how shall this square up with Deemeon.. and Instine .. why in the world should I help them when I was supposed to kill them.. this was the most confusing situation I ever encountered.. but for some inexplicable reason, I could not reject the request outright..     

               “Where is Dusky exactly? Why didn’t he come out with you?”

               “the doctor could not hold more than two people.. and we were running out of time, Dusky and Mark had to finish the task for which we came.” He replied, “Sir, we are running out of time.. please hurry.”

               “What task__”

               “Please hurry, he shall explain..”

I reluctantly went back to where the crowd was dissipating to find Instine sneering,

               “Where did you go? I was looking for you?”

               “You taking the body down below?” I asked ignoring his question.

               “Yes, I have to talk to you___”

               “OK.. let’s go down and talk out of sight .. and curious ears.” I grabbed his arm and we went back together to the CCP. I was careful to identify the gateway spot and we sat in the same room where we were talking previously..

               “Cface will take care of the body.. but we have to find a plausible lie to tell the chief..” He was anxious to have me agree with him.

               “Sure .. for now at least, until we can make out heads and tails of all these events.”

               “It is obvious that the prisoners overpowered the guards somehow.. forced Miniee to take them out and then killed him, so how did they get out and how did they force the doctor to help them.. this is the basic investigation we have to conduct now.”

               “More or less.” I agreed with him, realizing that he had no idea there were two more prisoners still inside the place conducting their own preplanned task.. so I continued, “But we have to come up with a cohesive story before the next meeting.. that is one week from now.”

He stood up and started pacing the room..

               “Where is Fatal.. I mean Cface now?” I asked, laughing lightly trying to ease the tension

               “He likes to be called Fatal.. Cface is a name, people here like to call him.. like taunting him and he hates it.”

               “Oh, it is amazing how you could achieve such unimaginable feat.. create such a creature who is actually mechanical, yet he can experience emotions like humans.”

               “This is not our best achievement here..”

               “Seriously?” I was genuinely astonished.

               “Yeah.. we have a whole department here for such inventions we___” He realized a little too late that he is talking about things he should not divulge to the likes of me. “Let us focus now on the problem at hand.”

               “Yeah.. well.. let us start by showing me that R1A if you want me to help you.”

He hesitated for a while, then he lead the way out..

We went into one of the blue corridors.. Then I stopped,

               “Instine .. before we do anything.. you have to let me know where the gateways in this castle are. I am sure a sprawling place like this must have more than one.. and if I get separated from you I shall be in a very bad situation .. your people actually imprisoned me__”

               “OK.. look at the ceiling.. any place you see the red circle inside a blue circle, that is a gateway spot.. there are five of them.”

               “A blue circle inside a red circle” I repeated.

               “No idiot.. the red inside the blue.. the other one would take you straight to Deemeon office in the palace.”

               “Ouch.. I don’t think he likes uninvited guests.”

               “Big trouble.. now focus on the current trouble.. I think Cface has gone to the disposal section.. we should find him first and then go to the R1A .. follow me closely, you can easily get lost in these corridors.”

I did follow him, but not closely.. my intention was actually to get lost.. I had to find the two intruders and find out for myself what was really going on.. he made a right turn into another passage and I delayed and stepped into an open door.. there were a lot of people.. seemed to be a rest area for the guards.. a number of them stopped to look at me wondering how I got there so I stopped, smiled and said,

               “Oh, I apologize guys.. commander Instine asked me to follow him to find Cface.”

               “Commander.. how___”

               “We are investigating what happened here at R1A”

They relaxed a little.. then one of them volunteered to point out the way to Cface quarters,

               “His Office is right next to R1A” The guard said, then hesitantly added, “By the way what actually happened at R1A?”

               “That is the big question we are investigating.. we shall let everyone know the results as soon as we find out.”

That conversation indicated to me that the sections of this huge underground castle are so dissociated that people in one area might not be aware of the chaos happening in another area.. by now I was sure Instine realized I was not following him and must be going around looking for me.. I had to rush..

I went through several areas.. some very crowded and others scarcely had two or three blue coats.. but there were a lot of extremely complicated equipment that boggles the mind.. until suddenly I found myself captured by a powerful arm while a hand covered my mouth tightly.. I was pulled away into a dark room,

               “I am going to let go.. please do not make any noise or else, both of us will be in trouble.”

I shook my head approving.. and then I was face to face with Dusky wearing one of those blue coats like the doctors roaming the place..

               “Care to explain?” I asked.

               “I shall explain everything in time. Please, we have to get out now because in a short while this whole place will go up in flames.”

               “What?” I almost shouted.. he muzzled me back..

               “I shall explain.. please .. let us go.”

               “where is your companion?”

               “He left already.” He was now trying to push me to move.

               “How did he leave? And why didn’t you leave with him__”

               “Harts, please.. I had to wait to get you out.. do you want to die down here?”

I looked at him.. and my mind was completely paralyzed.. This was not how I expected my encounter with this soldier to be like. But then again.. what did I expect? A hand shake and then a serious duel? Did I expect a confrontation or an intellectual debate?

               “This is not the time to freeze.” He said poking me in the chest.

I moved out and he followed me closely.. we had some close encounters, but I finally found one of the gateways and decided we better go straight to OC Front instead of going just to the surface in BKC.. then I thought it would be better to go to the spot in the mountain side instead of HQ.