OP Sister Chapter 424: Laboratory

Listen While Reading: AKA - re​:​LOAD
-----

The sisters remained silent as they watched the scene in front of them. From an apocalyptic, ruined city filled with Elemental beings, they ended up inside an underground, futuristic-looking laboratory. It wasn’t completely old, and it seemed mostly clean and functioning. They found several colorful circuits engraved across the white floor, ceiling, and walls, constantly glowing brightly as energy passed through them and spread throughout the rest of the laboratory. 

“We’re in some sort of laboratory?” Zero Two asked. “Sis?” 

“Yes, I remember this too,” Zero One said. “This is the laboratory! The one… The one where…” 

“Careful! Something’s approaching,” said Zero Three. 

The girls quickly hid behind a passage wall as they saw someone walking past the corridor where they had been a second ago.

She resembled a woman with long, silvery-white hair tied into a ponytail. She had a slightly slender, tall body and looked like she was around her thirties, with a tired expression while wearing glasses.

The sound of her steps reverberated slowly through the corridor until she was gone, but the girls were left flabbergasted. 

“Was that a human?!” Zero Two asked. 

“Yes, it was,” Zero Three A nodded. 

“And one who resembled Zero One a lot…” Zero Three B said, glancing at Zero One. “Don’t you think? She looked a lot like you, like an aged-up version of yourself.” 

“Me?” Zero One wondered. “I don’t know… I mean… I guess she had the same hair color as me, but that doesn’t mean she’s like me or something—Anyway, we need to keep advancing and… Let’s go, over there!” 

Zero One seemed a bit flustered by the comparison but quickly remembered their purpose here. They couldn’t waste time and had to get to the last layer as quickly as possible. 

“Okay, sure, where should we go then?” Zero Two asked. 

“Over here, follow me…” Zero One said. 

She used her own senses and the mental map she had made and began moving through the labyrinthine corridors of the laboratory. The “hole” to the next layer was only a few hundred meters from where they were.

But because this entire place was so tight and small, with several curves, corridors, and hundreds of rooms everywhere, it was indeed rather hard to navigate.

This was especially true since they preferred to hide from the humans who occasionally walked through these corridors. The girls really wanted to talk with them but knew they were only clumps of data in the end—memories of humans, not real humans. 

“So, how’s the project going? Any news?”

“Ah, boss... well…” 

As they moved through the corridors, they heard a pair of humans talking in front of their path. The girls hid until they moved away.

One of them seemed to be a young man with black hair, wearing a black tuxedo, white blouse, and a black tie.

The other was another professor of the laboratory, with short brown hair and green eyes, wearing glasses. He looked to be around the same age as this “boss.” 

“We’ve definitely advanced and made some improvements last month, but this is a slow process. Programming a supercomputer of the caliber we need will take a considerable amount of time. But we’re making progress, sir. One neuron at a time!” 

“What? I’ve been backing this entire project for over five years! Since the economic crisis fell over our lives and then that damned virus, humanity has been grasping at straws! We need that technology right now, Professor!” 

The boss angrily shouted at the professor, grabbing his white shirt aggressively, intimidating him with his furious face. 

“I’m very sorry, sir, but we can’t really hurry the process! We already have the most brilliant minds in the world gathered here, and we’re working as quickly as possible, but…” 

“But?” 

“It takes time to program something of this caliber…” 

“The bastards from Neo Nex Company managed to create a supercomputer all on their own, and you can’t?!” 

“Sir, we checked that supercomputer before, and it was a fraud. Its calculation abilities were only around the same level as an average human. What you want us to do is hundreds of times that of a human—a super genius machine that can solve all our problems. And that takes so much time. It’s not our fault; this is just how things are! Please have faith… We’ll finish it! I promise we’ll finish it!” 

“…” 

The CEO let go of the man, glaring at the professor. 

“After all, the life of my daughter… It depends on it as well…” 

“Your daughter? Right… That girl. Hmph, you’d better hurry up, or maybe you and your sickly daughter will end up in the dumps.” 

"Ah..."

The boss walked away angrily as the sisters wanted to kill him for being such an asshole, but they remained silent as they watched him leave. 

“Haaahh…” 

The young professor sighed in relief, wiping the sweat from his forehead, glancing at the corridor, and walking away. 

“What’s going on?” Zero Two asked. “Was that professor who I think it was?” 

“Who?” Zero One asked. 

“Stop pretending you don’t know, sister,” Zero Three A said. “We know that man is most likely Raven’s father. It all fits together.” 

“Indeed,” Zero Three B said. “Zero One, you already knew who that woman was too, right?” 

“Yes…” Zero One sighed. “I did…” 

She nodded, closing her eyes and sighing. These memories she had, which continued becoming clearer after she fought against her Mother, were all coming together. Her memories were fragments of the memories of both her Mother and… Raven. 

“I don’t really know what I am…” she muttered. “Am I an Android? Or am I a cyborg made out of Raven? My body… It’s completely mechanical, except… I don’t know how to say this, but it feels like there’s something living within me. A piece of her.” 

“So you’re like Raven’s reincarnation!” Zero Two tried to lift her spirits by offering a solution to her problems. 

That didn’t really work, though… 

“That sounds weird, and it’s not that, sister…” Zero One sighed. “I don’t even know what I am anymore…” 

"No, calm down."

“You’re yourself, like you said before, right?” 

“Yes…” 

The Zero Three twins patted her shoulders, smiling at her and then hugging her together.

Zero One, who was having a panic attack, slowly calmed down, sighing. 

“You’re yourself. You’re Zero One, our big sister.” 

“That’s right. Whatever you were made out of, or whatever the people here are, that doesn’t change the fact you’re yourself.” 

“Sisters…” 

Zero One felt moved, and Zero Two panicked a bit as she had said nothing inspirational, unlike her brighter younger twin sisters. 

“Ahem! Yes, as they said, you’re yourself, and you’re my big sister, so stop sulking about that… Whatever we find out in here will never change that fact, right?” 

“Zero Two…” Zero One felt moved, nodding as she hugged her sister as well. “Thanks! It really means a lot coming from you all! I’m so happy you think that of me too!” 

Her sisters realized how fragile Zero One could be sometimes. Although she showed a great deal of willpower similar to Anna, she was still very soft inside, and she usually held onto a lot of emotions and feelings, showing just how truly human she was. 

“Okay, okay, let’s calm down and continue now…” Zero Two sighed. “That professor and that silvery-haired woman—were they Raven’s parents, then?” 

“Most likely…” Zero One nodded. “I have faint memories of them. Of her… of Raven, being sad they were never there, and being so happy when they were… until they never came back when they left.” 

“That’s… Damn…” Zero Two sighed. “Well, they’re not real, just data, so let’s take it easy, alright? Where’s the hole at?” 

“Not too far from here…” Zero One said. “I don’t detect any foes either. It seems to be empty… only some basic infection left behind.” 

“Then let’s go,” Zero Three A said. 

“Let’s hurry,” Zero Three B nodded. 

The girls ran through the corridors, reaching the area where the “hole” was located.

What they found was a huge area where a gigantic computer was being built, with thousands of cables connected to it.

What’s more, it had hundreds of processors stacked together, and new components were constantly being added or taken out.

There were at least forty different engineers and scientists in the facility, all doing different tasks. The place was noisy.

And right behind the computer at work, there was a black hole about the size of a door, surrounded by red and black corrosion. 

“There it is!” Zero One said. “Let’s go!” 

The girls nodded as they began running into the facility. Some people looked at them with weird expressions; others were too focused on their tasks to notice. 

“Hey! Who are you? Where did you come from?” 

However, one of the guards quickly noticed their presence, and then three more came after them. 

-----