The Music Speaks

The decision now made, all I must do is wait for an additional worker to open the elevator and enter once the doors open. It does not take long for exactly that to open. A new worker, this one male, still wearing tattered clothes and an absent look in their eyes, presses his hand against the summit of the podium. The light flashes green and he rolls his cart into the machine. He unknowingly has company this time. The doors close, the machine rumbles and our descent begins. We descend for approximately a dozen seconds until the elevator comes to an abrupt stop, almost tipping me over. When it settles into place, the elevator doors open once more. Because of the conditions of Ivana’s ability, my thoughts must be formulated in a certain manner

‘If Ivana were here, she wouldn’t be able to see anything. She’d find herself in a room shrouded in darkness with the only source of light coming from three slightly ajar doors leading to unknown spaces. Without the night vision, she would have a hard time navigating the place.’

Ivana replies through the communicator

“Okay, I’m hearing your thoughts, keep going”

‘She would still be able to hear the rolling of carts and see multiple workers forming lines before the three rooms. The first room she would see, on the left, seems to incite a lineup of workers with a large cardboard box, similar to the one from the first floor but slightly larger. The middle rooms consists of workers with buckets. As for the second room, on the right, she would see that it attracts workers rolling carts with with similar buckets, empty plates, and plates full of food.’

“Alden, can you approach the rooms and peek inside?”

‘Ivana’s request is hard to accomplish. If she were here, she would notice that the workers are rather densely packed in front of those rooms and that they enter in a very orderly fashion. She would understand that I could try, but it would be risky.’

“Alright, well just wait for us then, Sylvia will come down shortly, there is a worker slowly approaching the elevator.”

As my thoughts suggest, I am rather perplexed by the state of the place. Save for workers, this room is strangely barren as if it had no real purpose. The only sources of light, being the ones coming from the three slightly ajar doors, create an eerie atmosphere. I look around, but there is nothing of note anywhere around me. If I want to learn more, it seems I’ll have to go through one of those doors.

‘If Ivana could hear me, she would know that I intend to enter the room on the right.’

“Alright, just wait for us.”

I remain near the elevator and wait for my two companions. In the meantime, I observe a few carts entering the rooms, and exit them with a few differences. I’ve already noticed a pattern. When a cart with a large box goes into the room on the left, it always exits with that same box and the clothes the worker wears seem charred, more than when they went in. Workers who enter the room in the center, always enter with a bucket which always also always exits the room with them. In some instances, workers exiting the room on the right will direct their cart towards the center room. When a cart with miscellaneous items enters the room on the right, some items may be missing, or it may come out with everything it had before entering.

Eventually, both Sylvia and Ivana come down, and we are reunited once more. Now, a choice needs to be made. Which room do we want to explore. We could explore each room one by one or split up and investigate each room separately. Sadly, down here, the only way to debate would be through Ivana, it is too crowded to speak, we would risk attracting their attention.

Instead of using Ivana as a point of connection, Sylvia demands for both of us to look at her. She points to herself, then to the room on the far left. She then points to me and room on the far right and finally points to Ivana then the room in the center. Without much deliberation, we have been assigned an unknown space to explore. All three of us make our way to our respective rooms.Frankly, it would have been safer to investigate each room together to reduce risk, but I understand why Sylvia made that decision. We have been here for quite some time already. We may not have been discovered yet, but not only is it impossible to know the situation outside, but we are also still unaware of this place’s mechanisms to detect intruders. For all we know, I am completely mistaken and we’ve already been found out. The enemy is simply observing us, waiting for the right time to strike. The reality is that at any moment, anything could happen, leading us to our doom. The less time we spend here, the better.

Without further ado, and as silently as possible, I approach the door on the right, Ivana and Sylvia do the same for their respective rooms. My steps are calculated, and my pace is slow. After coming this far, I do not want to ruin the mission. In due course, I arrive in front of door number 3, or the door on the far right. I position myself adjacent to a worker who is far ahead into the line. When his turn finally comes, as he enters the room, I slip through the extra amount of space created by the door opening. As I enter, I separate from the worker and go off to explore this place on my own. I remain in the vicinity of the edge of the room and commence my investigation by simply scanning my surroundings.

It seems to be a returning theme in this factory, but there is nothing of note in this room either. Rather, there is nothing at all. It is a simple room with four walls, a ceiling and a floor. Compared to the other spaces in this factory, I must say that it is slightly cleaner. There is no dirt smeared anywhere and no vegetation infesting the interior. As I stand on the edge of the room, I am left puzzled.

‘Is this what they were trying to hide? Absolutely nothing?’

I look around me once more and to my surprise, notice that the worker has disappeared. As soon as I realize that he is no longer in my field of vision, I go into high alert mode, but even after a whole minute, nothing happens.

‘What’s going on...?'

I am relatively alone, but I do not want to risk speaking into my communicator. Instead, I use the touchpad feature of the suit to talk to S.O.N.G.

I type in the function research tool.

[Analyze surroundings]

S.O.N.G. replies through my communicator.

“Launching analysis of the surrounding environment...... Here is what I have gathered!

Life-threatening chemicals detected: None

Human vital signatures detected: 38

Non-human vital signatures detected: None

Anomalies detected: Veiling technology

---

---”

Without paying further attention to the rest of the analysis, my gaze stops on the ‘anomalies detected' section of the analysis. Fortunately, I already know how to bypass this veiling technology. I type on the touchpad once more.

[camouflage-piercing vision]

“Command registered – Activating tactical enhancement: camouflage-piercing vision”

Similarly to when we first reached this facility, a veil is lifted from my eyes as the function is activated. With this, I will finally know what secrets this place holds and perhaps resolve the mystery of the ‘tuning pill’.

‘let’s see, what are th-’

Upon seeing what was hidden from me, I now wish that I had simply turned around and deemed this room as empty.