Payback- Chapter 2
Continued from Chapter 1…
Meeraj was still pale, but the weird old man cared less. “Your hardware was successfully installed, you are healthy and almost stable. I hope you don’t short circuit, fixing you is not easy” said the man.
“What is this place and who are you?” asked Meeraj.
“My name is Del De Niwal, your creator and this place is where the revolution begins.” Del saw the confused face of Meeraj, “You were dead, I brought you back… to serve a greater purpose.”
Mention of death brought tremble back to Meeraj, his chest started burning inside his chest, “I was dead?” He breathed heavy, it was something inside him that felt alien. He looked down and saw trails of pale red glow and these trails converged at the center of his sternum into a greater red glow. This network was spread throughout his being. He looked wide-eyed at Del, struggling to speak, a spasm of energy consumed him and he lost consciousness again.
Meeraj woke up after a short while, he was still giddy. Del sat beside him, a device was plugged into a port in Meeraj’s hand.
” What have you made of me?” said Meeraj.
“Oh, this! Nothing of consequence… to you. Wait till WARHED 5.0 is loaded in your drive. Just a few moments more and you will be the greatest amongst living.”
“What is happening to me?” His head was spinning wildly and the peculiarity of the events made no sense.
Whatever was being loaded into Meeraj surged a blast of raw obstinate energy in him, as if he lay on a bed of blazing coal. He became more conscious of his surroundings, attentive, rather too attentive, everything was clear in the dark. A talk was heard, it was not Del, someone away from them. Two people conversing with each other, greeting each other for the celebrations, laughter he heard and a crazy mix of the noises from a street, and so much more.
Meeraj was Hyper-aware, to an extent that was hard to control. The heightened sensitivity died down almost as suddenly as it came, only to be followed by a sudden unnerving spike once more. He was gathering so much data from around that he shut his ears and eyes, to make it stop, but that wasn’t enough. It felt like his head would explode, but then everything was leveled out, the heightened senses were still there, but now he was more in control of them, he was human but superior.
“It’s done,” said Del, bearing his ugly decaying teeth. “Programs in, and you are stable, ready to go. Get up and move around.”
Meeraj did as he was asked, besides he could think of nothing else to do. Indeed he did feel better.
“Follow me,” said Del, Meeraj followed him out of the room. They went through a hall filled with broken furniture covered with a thick blanket of dust. They passed the hall went through a door into a dark corridor. Lights hung from wires, the series of old rusting pipes had followed them throughout, like mycelium. They passed many rooms which were closed or unused, a large hall with broken tiles, more corridors until they reached their destination. Light trickling down from a stairwell.
They climbed up, out onto the roof of the building complex.
Continue to Chapter 3…
