CHAPTER 42: The Trunk Man
WHITE HOUSE – DEEP CORRIDORS – NIGHT
The team advanced in silence.
The corridors were white. Sterile. The neon lights hummed. The air smelled of disinfectant and something else — metallic, bland, like dried blood.
Midas walked at the front. His golden hands glowed faintly. Behind him, Sharky, blade drawn. The casino pillars, silent, faces closed.
A door. Massive. White as well.
It opened.
A corridor. Immense. Endless. Reinforced white doors, lined up on both sides.
In the first one, a girl. She was talking to clones of herself. The clones spoke at the same time. The same voice, the same tone, the same words. The girl smiled. But her eyes were empty.
In the second one, a bald man. He was scratching his skin. Scales appeared wherever his nails passed. He scratched again. Until he bled. He didn't stop.
In the third one, a red girl. Entirely red. Skin, hair, eyes. She spun in circles, endlessly.
In the fourth one, a boy with elephant legs. He tried to walk. His legs wouldn't follow. He fell. Got up. Fell.
Midas clenched his fists.
These people have been locked up here for years. What the hell did they do to them?
He continued. At the end of the room, an immense door. Reinforced glass. Behind the glass, a man.
Sitting in a wheelchair.
His hair was extremely long. It stretched endlessly, trailing on the floor, coiling around the wheels, forming webs in the corners.
But the worst was the rest.
The man had no limbs left.
No arms. No legs. Just a trunk. A head. Hair.
He was there. Like a zoo animal. Behind glass. For years.
The man raised his head.
His gaze met Midas's.
And it lit up.
Midas felt his heart stop. His throat tighten. A deep, visceral hatred rose within him. His golden hands trembled.
He saw the face.
That face.
He knew it.
"No…"
He moved forward. The glass was there. Between them. He struck it.
CRACK.
It exploded. Shards of reinforced glass flew. Midas approached the man. Tears in his eyes.
"Wouldn't you be… Gap?"
The man raised his head. Slowly. His eyes were clouded. But a glimmer shone in them.
"Who are you? I feel like I know you, young man. How do you know my name?"
Midas fell to his knees.
"Wait… is that you, Midas?"
"Yes, it's me."
A smile. Not a smile of joy. A smile filled with rage. Hatred. Pain.
"So this is where they kept you. All this time."
He turned to his companions.
"Evacuate everyone."
His voice was icy.
"But destroy absolutely everything. I don't want to see anything left of this place."
---
HOURS LATER – THE DESTROYED LABORATORY
Two figures entered the laboratory.
The silence was total. The walls were gutted. The machines broken. The tubes shattered. The doors torn off. The creatures freed — or dead.
Crow. Erasered.
They advanced slowly. The sound of their footsteps echoed in the emptiness.
"All these years of work… of research… reduced to nothing."
Crow looked at the debris.
"And yet this is only the tip of the iceberg that was destroyed. There's still the basement, where the masterpieces are."
Erasered nodded.
"Indeed. But with the losses we've suffered… it goes without saying that if individuals were able to get their hands on the information about the location, they have info on all our operations. And therefore also on the basement."
Crow gritted his teeth.
"And to think it all started with an amateur burglary."
He looked at the debris.
"We've lost countless demons. I think we should suspend activities. For now."
Erasered approached.
"No. We can find a solution. Do you really want to abandon everything we've built?"
Crow turned to her.
"Unfortunately, I can't continue like this. If the Hero Association were to be linked to all this… it would cause major problems. We would risk losing the people's trust to those idiots at the Agency."
Erasered stepped back.
"So you're abandoning me?"
Crow headed for the exit.
"You're the one who abandoned the laboratory. You should have been here to protect it. You have no one to blame but yourself."
He walked out.
Erasered was left alone.
In the destroyed laboratory.
Silence.
Then she clenched her fists.
"…No."
Her voice was a whisper.
"I'm not going to fall. Not like this."
She looked at the debris. The shattered tubes. The dead creatures.
"They destroyed the White House?"
She smiled.
"Fine. I'll show them what the White House's worst was."
She turned on her heel.
"The masterpieces of the basement."
---
LATER – SOMEWHERE
Midas was sitting. Alone. In an empty room. Gap was there. On a stretcher. Doctors were tending to him.
Sharky entered.
"Midas."
Midas didn't answer.
"We evacuated everyone. The test subjects. The creatures. Everything."
Midas nodded.
"Gap will survive. They kept him alive. For experiments. But he's alive."
Midas closed his eyes.
"…For how long?"
Sharky didn't answer.
Midas stood up.
"Prepare everyone. We're going home."
"And Erasered?"
Midas looked at him.
"She'll come to us. I'm sure of it."
He walked out.
---
TO BE CONTINUED…