Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 41: Something Mysterious and Problematic

"..." Ashlyn approaches the cube and I wonder what she’s going to try to do, considering her power is pretty situational.

’Is she going to manifest nightmares into reality and try to attack the cube with physical force?’ I still haven’t seen what nightmares manifested into reality look like, but considering they’re much weaker than in the nightmare realm, I’m not expecting much from her demonstration.

"...Hmmm..." Ashlyn murmurs something as she touches the cube, then immediately passes out, smacking her face against it. I’m confused for a second as she slides down, her cheek dragging across the smooth surface before she hits the floor.

"EVERYONE OUT NOW!" I scream at all of them immediately, before any of them can understand what just happened.

"Nexus, take them right now and call Astrid this instant!!! Urgent!" I tell Nexus, who seems not to understand, but from my tone he begins sealing off the entire training area.

A drone starts guiding the four confused students away while I quickly move toward Ashlyn.

"..." I drag her away from the cube using my tail as I grab my phone to check something quickly on the schedule in case I need to file a report. Only two minutes pass and Astrid appears. She seems irritated about something.

"What do you need, Zenith? You know I’m busy, right? I can’t... what happened to her?" Astrid asks, seeing Ashlyn on the floor.

"Nothing, not to her at least. She’s perfectly fine. The point is, Ashlyn just passed out after touching the cube. Do you know what that means?"

"...?" Astrid looks confused when I say something that seems to make no sense, but I prefer to let her reach the answer on her own.

"Passed out? You know? She touched the cube, the cube that was a ’corpse’ years ago, and she passed out. Do you understand the implication?"

"..." Astrid remains confused, and looks like she’s about to complain until her eyes go wide and literally her entire body breaks out in goosebumps with a visible shudder.

"I-Impossible!! Are you trying to say the cube is alive? It’s been at least 70 years since that woman turned into this solid block!! There’s no way she could still be conscious in there! She died!!!"

"Normally she shouldn’t be alive, but Ashlyn passed out, and as far as I know the cube doesn’t make people pass out. And Ashlyn has mental powers. So either she suddenly developed some illness that knocked her out, or she entered the cube’s mind."

"..." Astrid looks around quickly before glancing at Ashlyn on the floor. I pull a lollipop from my lab coat and wait for her to speak.

"Did anyone else notice?"

"No, I sent the students out immediately."

"...Dammit!! That idiot couldn’t even be properly dead. Do you have any idea the ethical, legal, and humanitarian complications that arise if this cube actually has consciousness? We’ve been using it for experiments and tests for years!!"

"Not only would we have problems if the public found out we used her as a test subject, there’s something even worse! If she’s alive, then what the hell has she become? We already had enough trouble trying to figure out what this damn cube was." Astrid seems stressed.

"Just imagine the media’s questions!! Is she still a person? Is she still a citizen? Can she consent to research? Did she suffer? Did she feel pain? Was she conscious? Can she be considered a prisoner? Who authorized the use of her body?"

"And then there are the legal problems of who the cube belongs to! If the cube was just an object, it was naturally ours! But if the cube is alive, it’s not ours! That makes all experiments and even its transportation 100% illegal!! Because if she really is conscious, she’s basically the owner of the cube." Astrid paces back and forth, spouting things frantically, having a nervous breakdown.

’Sounds like an enormous legal problem...’

It’s not as simple as "She’s alive so we’ll try to free her." There are thousands of problems that arise from the fact that she might be alive. Everyone always assumed the Kaira who turned into this cube was dead, since there was no way she could survive and because there was nothing inside the cube.

It was just a solid block. But now that Ashlyn has possibly entered her mind, it means that Kaira’s mind is still alive and unconscious inside the cube.

’We really... never tested mind-related powers on the cube... so many problems...’ The students might not know, but there’s silent pressure to destroy the academy.

This pressure comes from public dissatisfaction, leaks of problematic information, and political and public pressure. It’s a mix that stems from the fact that the academy trains children until they become adults and sends them off to fight.

As well as the fact that they currently implant cores in children. Many of these things generate a bad feeling among the population, but the academy has enough justifications to exist and not be torn down.

However, there’s a fine line. A huge scandal could give greedy politicians the strength to shut the academy down, and that wouldn’t be good. Aurora Island inevitably needs this academy to train soldiers, or we won’t have anyone to protect the island and hunt for resources down below.

Of course, if the academy falls, new ones would probably emerge. But they would emerge fractured and in more than one piece, causing chaos in a negative way.

So if the public finds out this cube is alive, the problem won’t be that she’s alive. It will be the fact that she’s been trapped for years.

Normal people will only think about how much the person inside might have suffered, spending years imprisoned and being destroyed.

It’s foolish sentimentalism, but unfortunately it’s something people will always have. The cube has been used for decades for: military tests, experiments, training, physical impacts, research, among other things. All of that was acceptable because everyone believed it was just an object.

Many who hear about this won’t think of an object. They’ll think of the person who possibly suffered, even without knowing if she actually suffered. I stare at Astrid, who seems nervous, thinking about all the implications this has.

"For now, we need to take the cube to the lab. Ashlyn needs to come too. She can’t let any information leak. No one besides our specialized team should know about this," Astrid says quickly.

"Nexus, take Ashlyn and the cube to the underground research center, and lock down all data from the current training session immediately. No one should know about this. Just knowing Ashlyn’s power and seeing that she passed out touching the cube could already lead someone to deduce something far too dangerous to let slip."

"And you, Zenith... for now, continue with your classes. This is my problem to solve, and I don’t need you causing more trouble." She speaks as if it were my fault we discovered the cube is possibly alive.

"Of course." I simply agree, knowing that for a leader and for her as the director of this academy, discovering this must be extremely stressful.

’...’ I look at Ashlyn. She’s probably safe. Astrid wouldn’t kill her to cover this up, and most importantly, she wouldn’t hurt her because Ashlyn can help us understand the cube better.

However, Ashlyn will probably be confined for a few days so Astrid can decide the most appropriate approach. Soon Ashlyn should return to classes, hiding everything about what she’s doing with the cube.

"I’m leaving now, Astrid. I have to get back to the classroom. The students are probably speculating about what happened by now."

"Wait... what are the chances they figured it out?"

"...Low, but not nonexistent. None of them know exactly what Ashlyn’s power does, so they have no way of knowing what just happened. However, considering my alarmed reaction at the moment, they’re undoubtedly suspicious of something."

"...You did well getting them out of here immediately... some of them have problematic families who must not know under any circumstances that the cube might be alive."

"I sincerely hope this cube is dead and Ashlyn just used some variant of her power... but I highly doubt we’ll have that kind of luck... I just wonder how the hell that Kaira survived so long after turning into this, if she really did survive." She praises my attitude with sincerity.

"...It was nothing..."

’So some of them have problematic families, huh... political ones, I assume?’ The only families I see Astrid calling problematic would be families with strong political connections. That being the case, and considering Eirwen isn’t here.

Ashlyn, Edith, Charlotte, Tanya, and Rouge. One of them, or maybe more than one, has an important family with high power.

’Edith can’t be it, considering she was a lab rat in the past, which resulted in her misandry... Charlotte and Tanya are the ones with the highest chances, considering their personalities... but I can’t rule anyone out...’ I start to leave, deciding not to think about it.

I’ve already done my duty. I prevented information from leaking to the students, called a "superior," and reported the incident. It’s not good for me to get too involved in the cube matter for now.

I’ll just forget all of this and go back to what I was doing before, which is teaching these rebellious students.

’Although... it’s not the academy that worries me.’ What becomes the biggest concern right now is who would come after. There are politicians and companies waiting for a reason to dismantle all of this and split the academy among various smaller institutions.

They say it would be more efficient, but all I can imagine is four academies competing for funding, hiding research from each other, and training soldiers in different ways.

The Academy currently receives a lot of funding and government support. The cube can undoubtedly become a scandal that slowly erodes the academy’s image to the point where it could be shut down and split apart through political and public pressure.

’This affects me too...’ If the academy closes, I don’t know what would happen to me. If I’d have to go to one of the possible new academies, or something similar.

’I hate Astrid, but she’s competent, and a single centralized academy is better than several fractured ones... I hope she resolves this quickly...’