Reapers - Master of Souls (Reapers Chronicles Book III)

1 - Search (2 of 2)

Song: Room of Angels by Akira Yamaoka

The right wall was covered with computer screens, all running some program at the same time. Millie immediately went in front of the consoles and tapped buttons like there's no tomorrow.

"Master," her tiny voice came from the speakers installed behind us. "The Soul Analyzer is ready."

To my left were rows upon rows of tanks. Inside each was a naked girl floating like a fetus in an artificial womb. Like Millie had said before, all of them had the same face.

When Hector saw me looking, he stepped ahead to one of the tanks. "Astounding, aren't they? They are my life's work. Much, much better than the infusing artificial souls into dead bodies." He wrinkled his nose. "I wasn't able to perfect the cloning process until last year. Although, I would still have to work on some points, especially emotional stability, instinct, self-preservation."

Closing his eyes, he pressed a hand on the surface of the cylindrical glass. I remembered seeing him smiling for the first time. I mean, really smiled. Not the usual creepy grin.

"Perhaps, you are wondering. Why go through all this trouble? Why not just find a dying person, make eternal pact; the whole red tape." He gestured for me to follow.

Without ado, Alessandra tagged along. My eyes kept searching right and left, scouring every face inside the vat.

What are you looking for? I demanded. You'll be in one of those before you know it.

"Instead, Master Hector, I am curious as to why they all look similar." That sounded so... not-me. Good thing Hector didn't know me very well.

Sadness filled Hector's eyes for a fleeting moment.

"It's a very beautiful face," he answered, turning his back on me so it was impossible to read his expression. "Do you know how many familiars I've lost in the last seven hundred years, Aramis?"

"No."

He kept walking and said, "Forty and two, not including Apple and the seventeen thousand, seven hundred and eleven defective artificial souls I created. And can you possibly know what that does to a person; watching your comrades die forty two times?"

Alessandra could only shake her head.

Hector stared at the upper monitors. "You would think with this especially long life, you would forget someone's death over the years and move on. But you won't. You will remember every single death for the rest of eternity. So that led me to this research: creating the perfect familiars with artificial souls, who are difficult to kill and who would not suffer in Oblivion if they die. I am trying to make a miracle here, Aramis."

He finally faced me.

Behind him was a tank larger than all the others. A tangle of pipes scattered about the floor, connected to its base. It had its own monitors and sensors detecting the levels of whatever was in the fluids.

The girl inside didn't look like the other clones. She looked like me except for the straw-colored hair that billowed under the water. Her eyes were murky brown and her skin, unlike mine was olive.

My eyes widened. Alessandra made me walk past Hector. A gasp escaped me upon recognizing the girl in the tank.

It was no girl to begin with. It was the Swarth that drowned me. The Swarth that possessed Carter. The same one that attacked me during one of our patrols in Centralia.

I did remember that Vincent sent its head to Hector for examination. But then, it had somehow managed to grow an arm and torso. If she had grown feet too beneath that long tattered dress, I couldn't tell.