Chapter 045 - Skyscraper 05
There wasn’t much to go on. Our entire debate kept looping back to three words—*the cat*, *the spaceship*, *the research lab*.
In the end, we decided to split up. Some stayed behind to secure the base while the rest of us formed search teams.
No. 9’s condition ruled out long-distance travel, and No. 137 wasn’t exactly combat-ready. So it was just me, Elliot, and No. 25 who set off toward the Quantum Information Research Lab.
To streamline communication, we named the dimension where the skyscraper stood *Dimension 1*, and the mirror reality on the other side, *Dimension 2*.
The research lab was located in Dimension 2.
It lay about twenty kilometers away—roughly a thirty-minute subway ride, under normal circumstances. But the roads between here and there were no longer normal.
The landscape had begun to distort—bending, folding, curving in impossible angles. It was like we’d stepped into a broken kaleidoscope of space-time. This wasn’t three-dimensional reality anymore; it was something else.
Even the subway didn’t behave like it should. The train curved naturally with the folds in space, gliding through sharp angles as if riding a M?bius strip, only to stretch out straight again a second later.
By the time we arrived at the research center, we could see a nearby street lifting off the ground—tilted toward the sky at a thirty-degree angle, as if gravity had gotten confused.
“At this rate of folding, we’ve got about an hour,” Elliot muttered.
No. 25 and I nodded in grim silence. The air felt heavy, as though a blade hovered just above our heads.
The institute loomed before us—tall, stark white, and clinical in the daylight. A modernist monolith. Access required a key card or a password.
I didn’t bother with either. I just shot out the reinforced glass and stepped through.
Inside, the machines still whirred softly, obediently, as if the world outside hadn’t shattered. Everything gleamed—new, efficient, untouched.
We combed the building. Endless hallways. Pristine cleanrooms. A handful of storage vaults.
Eventually, we reached the director’s office.
It was locked too. Elliot stepped forward and blew off the lock without hesitation.
The air inside was thick with dust. No one had entered for a long, long time. As we stepped in, clouds of ash swirled up around us. It took a moment for the shadows to clear, for our eyes to adjust.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
And that’s when we saw it.
We all stopped in our tracks.
A skeleton sat slumped in the office chair behind the desk.
Bleached. Hollow-eyed. Mouth agape in permanent silence.
In front of it lay piles of documents, open books, and scattered notes. Clutched in its bony hand was a pistol—its barrel still aimed at the skull, the entry wound unmistakable.
---
We gently moved the corpse. There was a clean hole in the cranium, unmistakably self-inflicted.
By going through the personal effects, we were able to piece together who he was.
**Dr. James**, the institute’s current director.
On the desk sat a small transparent nameplate. A cartoonish plastic cat was attached to it—its face locked in a grotesque grin, rows of razor-sharp teeth like a toy shark designed to bite.
I picked it up, turned it over, then put it back in place.
Then I turned my attention to the documents.
Most were routine—administrative approvals, research authorizations, signed agreements.
But one file stood out. It was in English.
Right in the center, the title blazed:
**“Quantum Experimentation Proposal Based on the Schr?dinger Metropolis Model”**
As soon as I saw the diagram attached, both Elliot and I fell silent. An unnatural kind of silence.
No. 25 was still rifling through drawers. When he noticed we’d gone quiet, he wandered over. “Yo, what’s up? You two look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I held up the document. “Is this the same proposal you saw in the city government building?”
Elliot hesitated. His nod came slow, reluctant. “Kind of. But the version I saw… didn’t name the city. It wasn’t signed. And it definitely didn’t have…”
He trailed off.
What it *definitely* didn’t have was the erratic scrawl on the final page—lines written again and again in blood-red ink, deep enough to gouge the paper:
> **I WILL SEED!!!**
> **I WILL SEED!!!**
> **GOVERNMENT IS TOTALLY A SHIT!!!**
It looked like the ravings of a genius teetering on the edge—part manifesto, part tantrum, part battle cry. A mind unraveling under the weight of its own ambition. Someone who believed they could plant the seeds of something bigger, and who saw the government as nothing but a wall to be smashed.
No. 25 stared at the writing, then made a face. “What the hell is this? Looks like someone tried to summon Satan with a crayon.”
The room had grown darker somehow, the light thinner, like our very presence had disturbed something. Shadows stretched long across the floor.
I looked at him.
“Wind,” I said softly, “have you ever heard of Schr?dinger’s cat?”
