Chapter 1 – The First Customer

The rain had not stopped for three days.

Far away from the lights of Sydney, hidden behind dense eucalyptus forests, an abandoned psychiatric hospital stood in silence.

Officially, the building had been condemned years ago.

Officially, nobody had entered it since.

Officially...

It no longer existed.

The truth was very different.

Several underground levels still had electricity.

The operating rooms had been rebuilt.

Modern equipment lined spotless white laboratories beneath the crumbling concrete above.

No one knew the place existed except two people.

One was a young scientist.

The other...

Was the world's most dangerous experiment.

The laboratory was silent except for the humming of machines.

Glass containers filled with preserved human brains stood neatly arranged along one wall, each marked only with a number.

No names.

No photographs.

No records.

Just numbers.

A young man wearing a black shirt wandered through the laboratory as if he were visiting a museum instead of a place built upon countless murders.

He stopped before one container.

Number 47.

He tilted his head.

"I remember him."

The scientist looked up from his computer.

"You killed him."

"Mm."

"He was the detective."

"The one who kept following us."

The young man smiled faintly.

"He was annoying."

His tone carried no pride.

No hatred.

It was no different from commenting on today's weather.

The scientist sighed before returning to his work.

"You've described almost everyone as annoying."

"They usually are."

Silence returned.

The scientist continued typing.

Data streamed across several monitors.

Neural pathways.

Memory mapping.

Brain activity.

Months of calculations.

Years of failures.

Decades of impossible theories.

The young man slowly walked behind him before casually reading the screen.

"Finished?"

"...Almost."

"You're slower than usual."

"I'm making sure you don't die."

The young man laughed softly.

"You've said that before."

"I was right before."

"And I survived."

"Barely."

He shrugged.

"Barely is still surviving."

The scientist pinched the bridge of his nose.

Sometimes he wondered whether meeting this man had ruined his own life.

Or perhaps...

Saved it.

Years ago...

They had first met inside a psychiatric hospital.

The scientist had been committed after becoming obsessed with experiments that no ethics committee would ever approve.

The young man...

No doctor had ever managed to explain him.

He wasn't violent without reason.

He wasn't delusional.

He wasn't insane in the traditional sense.

He simply lacked something everyone else possessed.

Fear.

Guilt.

Empathy.

The doctors spent years trying to understand him.

He spent those years observing the doctors.

One rainy night...

They escaped together.

Neither of them ever looked back.

The scientist pursued knowledge.

The young man pursued curiosity.

That was enough.

Years passed.

People disappeared.

Detectives.

Contract killers.

Military officers.

Master hackers.

Career criminals.

Intelligence agents.

Some deserved prison.

Some deserved medals.

To the young man...

There had never been a difference.

If someone possessed knowledge they wanted...

They became part of an experiment.

Nothing more.

The scientist removed what he needed.

The bodies disappeared.

The world searched endlessly for missing people.

No one searched beneath an abandoned psychiatric hospital.

...

"You know..."

The scientist finally spoke.

"This experiment shouldn't work."

"It might."

"It shouldn't."

"It might."

"The human brain can't safely absorb this amount of information."

"It might."

The scientist stared at him.

"You enjoy saying that."

The young man nodded.

"I do."

The scientist couldn't help laughing.

Sometimes he forgot who stood beside him.

The man looked so ordinary.

Young.

Handsome.

Polite.

He spoke calmly.

He smiled often.

Then, without hesitation, he would discuss murdering someone the same way another person discussed grocery shopping.

"You really aren't scared?"

The young man looked genuinely confused.

"Of what?"

"Dying."

He thought for several seconds.

Then answered honestly.

"I've never understood why everyone fears it."

"If I die..."

"I die."

"If I don't..."

"I'll wake up."

"Either way, something happens."

The scientist shook his head.

"You really are impossible."

The young man smiled.

"I've heard that before."

The scientist stood and walked toward a reinforced steel door.

Behind it waited the operating room.

Bright white lights illuminated a single chair surrounded by dozens of machines.

Thousands of wires stretched across the floor.

Memory transfer arrays.

Neural synchronizers.

Experimental equipment no government would legally allow to exist.

The scientist stopped at the doorway.

"I finished extracting everything."

The young man walked inside.

"How many?"

The scientist answered quietly.

"One hundred and thirty-seven."

The young man raised an eyebrow.

"More than I expected."

"A lifetime of memories."

"Detectives."

"Military strategists."

"Professional assassins."

"Psychologists."

"Negotiators."

"Financial criminals."

"Theoretical physicists."

"Doctors."

The scientist looked at him.

"If this succeeds..."

"You won't just remember facts."

"You'll inherit fragments of how they thought."

The young man smiled wider.

"Interesting."

"If it fails..."

"You'll suffer complete brain death."

He nodded.

"Also interesting."

The scientist frowned.

"Can you take anything seriously?"

"I am."

"No."

"You just don't care."

The young man considered those words.

After a long silence...

"I suppose you're right."

He sat in the chair.

Mechanical arms slowly surrounded his head.

Cold metal touched his temples.

The scientist's fingers hovered above the keyboard.

Neither of them spoke.

The room suddenly felt much quieter.

Finally...

The scientist asked,

"Why?"

The young man looked at him.

"You've never asked."

"I want an answer today."

"Why volunteer every single time?"

"You know this could kill you."

The young man looked toward the ceiling.

After nearly a minute...

He finally answered.

"I'm curious."

"That's all?"

"That's enough."

"If humanity says something is impossible..."

"I want to see it."

"If everyone says I'll die..."

"I want to know whether they're right."

The scientist laughed bitterly.

"You really are my greatest success."

The young man corrected him.

"No."

"I'm your first customer."

The scientist froze.

Years ago...

When they first escaped together...

The scientist had jokingly declared,

«"One day I'll create something that changes humanity."»

The young man had answered,

«"Then use me first."»

"I'll always be your first customer."

The scientist remembered.

He smiled despite himself.

"...You remembered."

"I remember everything worth remembering."

The scientist took a deep breath.

"Ready?"

The young man closed his eyes.

"Whenever."

The scientist's hand rested on the activation switch.

For the first time in years...

It trembled.

"...You could really die."

Without opening his eyes...

The young man replied calmly,

"Then don't waste my death."

The machines came alive.

Electricity surged through the room.

Every monitor lit up at once.

Brainwave activity climbed beyond every previous experiment.

The scientist's eyes widened.

"Impossible..."

Neural synchronization exceeded one hundred percent.

The memories began merging.

One mind.

Then another.

Then hundreds.

The young man's body suddenly convulsed violently.

Blood flowed from his nose.

Warning alarms echoed throughout the laboratory.

"Synchronization unstable!"

The scientist rushed toward the controls.

"No..."

"No!"

The heartbeat monitor accelerated.

Faster.

Faster.

Then—

A single endless tone filled the room.

The monitor became a straight line.

The scientist stood frozen.

"...No."

His voice barely escaped his lips.

The laboratory fell silent.

The experiment had ended.

His first customer...

Had died.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***