Shadow Slave

Chapter 876: LO49

Sunny woke up with a start. The familiar sounds and vibrations of the Rhino told him that everything was okay, and that the vehicle was moving at high speed toward its destination. No one seemed to be attacking them...

And yet, for some reason, he felt a sense of deep unease. Sunny frowned and rose from his bed, then went over to the pilot's cabin. On his way, he passed Kim, who was running diagnostics on the secondary control panel, and Samara, who was tinkering with her rifle on the workstation in the cargo bay.

Reaching the front of the Rhino, Sunny silently looked through the armored windshield at the white wall of the blizzard that enveloped the world. Of course, he could have just accessed the feeds of external cameras from the command suite, but he trusted his own eyes much more.

...Nothing seemed out of place.

He hesitated for a few moments, then spoke to Luster:

"Did something happen just now?"

The young man glanced at him in confusion.

"Uh... no? Oh, there was a tiny spike of seismic activity a few minutes ago, but that's nothing unusual. Happens all the time. Don't worry, sir... we'll reach the installation in about half an hour."

Sunny scowled.

"...Good."

He returned to the lounge area, poured himself a cup of coffee, and then walked over to the command suite.

"Kimmy, contact the research facility. Tell them we'll be arriving soon."

sent a communication request to the installation they were approaching. For a few minutes, there was only static on the channel. Kim frowned, then repeated the call, this time extending the antennae of the Rhino to their full

Still, nothing.

took a sip of

"What, no one's responding?"

the monitors, then said

that... it's just... uh, our signal doesn't

the back

for an

told, but there was still no result. Her face

I can't contact Army Command, either, sir. All communications seem

remained silent for a

everyone? Is it because

connection had grown a bit hard lately, but they were yet to experience a complete communication blackout. After all, Sunny had spent a ton of contribution points to upgrade the Rhino's

Kim hesitated.

is not supposed

Sunny rubbed his face.

"That doesn't sound good...'

searching for any sign of danger that could have been hiding

some movement in the lounge area - Belle, Quentin, and Dorn returned from the Dream Realm and climbed out of the sleeping nooks, looking rested and refreshed. Even though the big man still showed

the research installation long before the powerful projectors of the Rhino flooded its gates with

It was perched dangerously close to the ocean shore, and had a thick wall surrounding it, with powerful turrets aiming at the dark waves. There was a large dome-like structure towering above the formidable fortress, painted white on

no official name, and was known simply as LO49. Sunny had no idea what kind of research was being done on its premises, but considering that there was a sizable garrison of Awakened guarding

living here were doing very valuable work, though, was

down.