Chapter 553: Chapter 553 The True Horrors of Paradise
"Dalton, that bastard! I’ll have his head for this once the marauders are repelled and communications are restored!"
Bartholemew was stomping through the production facility with what remained of his loyal entourage.
He had ordered that the station’s best stay nearby to protect him from the invaders, but Dalton, the head of the base’s security, had called them all to join him instead.
It was incredibly selfish and shortsighted of the man so far as Bartholemew was concerned.
He was the heart and soul of this facility and protecting him should have been of the upmost importance.
If something were to happen to him, then the entire station would cease to function.
That was just how vital he was to the operation. Everyone who had not turned traitor on him told him so, and he understood his own worth here.
"Four! Only four guards! After all I’ve done for them, I can’t believe the rest abandoned me so easily!" Dalton shouted, and not for the first time since leaving the command center.
The sycophants around him, people who owed their positions to him, tried to assuage him by continuously heaping flatter on him.
However, no matter how much a*s kissing any of them did, Dalton’s mood hardly improved.
"I even stuck around that blasted commander center, as is my duty, despite wanting to return to my far more secure room. But without enough guards, there’s no point in staying in such an obvious target."
Normally, he would have been able to restore order using the station’s internal defense systems, but most of them were inoperable right now.
The blasted pirates attacking them had used some sort of powerful electromagnetic pulse weapon to knock our power to around seventy percent of the production facility.
Only certain areas built to withstand such things were still in decent shape.
One of which was Dalton’s current destination.
It was an advanced testing facility for a new form of Paradise that was being developed.
There were very few people in the production facility that even knew about the place, and other than the small team working on the project, Bartholomew was the only one that knew the details of the work going on.
That’s why he had chosen to drop everything else and head to the hidden lab. What was there would hopefully allow him to repel the invaders and regain control of the station.
His frustration started to mount as he was forced to enter his access codes multiple times to disengage the security doors blocking the way to the faciality.
When he was finally through the last one and walked into the lab proper, he yelled out for the man in charge to come and greet him.
"Layton, get over here now! The station is under attack and your assistance is required!"
There was no immediate response from anybody, and every second he was ignored, Bartholmew tapped his foot angrily.
By the time the person in charge of the lab showed himself, it had already been nearly three minutes, and Bartholomew was roiling.
"Ah, station manager, I’m surprised to see you here. Shouldn’t you be leading the defense of the station from the command center? Also, I believe I’ve asked you to call me Dr. Sarelett on many occasions. We’re not close enough for you to be addressing me without my tittle."
Hearing the dismissive and almost mocking tone of the other man, Bartholomew almost gave into his anger and ordered his few loyal guards to kill him.
However, he knew that he could not do something so rash, no matter how much he wanted to.
Layton Sarelett was his only shot at retaking the base now that Dalton had gone rogue with most of the security personnel.
Plus, out of everyone on the station, this man was the only one outside of his authority.
The higherups of the Odium Syndicate had made that very clear.
Bartholomew could not command Layton to do anything, and if he ever harmed the man or purposely impeded his work, then there would be hell to pay.
’I don’t know why they value this eccentric old man so much, but I can’t risk my own neck just because of how rude he is.’ Bartholomew thought, pushing down his anger.
"You must not be up to date with what is going on. Dalton has turned traitor and took away all of my security around the command center. It was impossible to stay there any longer. Which is why I came here. The project that you’ve been working on should be able to turn the tables and allow me to restore order to the base."
"It seems that I’ll need to reevaluate my opinion of the security chief. He’s a smarter man than I gave him credit for if he’s able to make the correct judgment in not following your orders. Now, I’d ask that you leave. Unlike some people, I have not abandoned my position and have much work to do. Good day now." Dr. Sarelett said, before turning around and heading back into his lab.
This blatant lack of respect and disregard for his position was almost enough for Bartholomew to give into his rage and forget about any consequences for having the infuriating researcher killed.
Yet, as much as he hated it, he still needed the man’s assistance to turn things around.
"Layt- Dr. Sarelett, wait! The base is in a state of emergency. Outlaws have already breached our defenses and are running amok through the station. It won’t be long until they reach this place, and then you’ll be killed or captured like the rest of us. All of your research will be confiscated by them, and you won’t be able to continue. Surely, you must realize that we must join together to drive them away."
Bartholomew’s impassioned speech barely received a reaction from Dr. Sarelett. With him just turning his head to glance at something that was obviously annoying him.
Nevertheless, after a couple of seconds, he merely sighed and addressed the station manager.
"I do not imagine you are going to give me any peace, even if it is what’s in your best interest. My aim was to dispose of the evidence of my experiments before the people that have infiltrated this place have a chance to discover it. But I suppose that this could serve as an impromptu field test instead." Dr. Sarelett said before promoting Bartholomew and his hangers-on to follow him.
It did not take long for them to reach a section that had several tanks filled with a translucent, brownish orange liquid.
Floating inside each of the tanks, was a person.
With everyone here being a part of the Odium Syndicate, this hardly turned any heads, at least at first.
Except, the deeper into the lab they walked, the more grotesquely mutated the people inside each of the tanks became.
Most of the people that had followed Bartholomew looked sick by the time they reached the end, and even the four guards accustomed to the horrors of the battlefield seemed unnerved and on edge.
For his part, Bartholomew remained perfectly calm. He already knew about everything going on here and was not the type to be disturbed easily.
"So, this is what the new version of paradise will do. All that work getting people in the Dramid Alliance hooked on the stuff will finally pay off."
"Yes, though my work is far from complete. There is still much to do to perfect the process. It takes a long period of exposure for the changes to occur, and so far, I’ve only had twenty-seven specimens that I would consider semi-successful."
Layton started going off on an explanation for how everything worked but it all went over Bartholomew’s head.
"That’s great. But we need to release the usable ones and send them after the infiltrators. Time is or the essence, doctor." Bartholomew said, trying to cut the man’s nonsensical blabbering short.
"I suppose that it is. There are risks to letting them free though. They’ve all become mindless beasts. It’s impossible for any of them to differentiate between friend or foe."
"You’ve installed the inhibitor chips in them though, right?" Bartholomew asked.
"Of course, but that only means that they’ll feel immense pain if they try to attack anyone with the pair chip on their person."
Dr. Sarelett was trying to warn the station manager that most of the people in the production facility would become targets for the mutated creatures that were about to be released.
However, Bartholomew could not be bothered to care about anyone else.
Other than himself, everyone else was replaceable, and he was not going to worry about those that had not remained loyal to him.
"I’ve made sure that everyone here will already be protected. The rest of the people will just have to be noble sacrifices to protect the Odium Syndicate’s interests."
Layton just shrugged his shoulders at this and began the process of releasing his creations.
Twenty-seven of the tanks began draining the liquid inside, and each one held a mutated monster that could hardly be identified as once having been a person.
Once they were drained, the tubes opened up and the creatures inside fell out of them.
It did not take long for them to stir, and when the first one became aware, it immediately attacked the nearest living thing. Which just so happened to be Bartholomew.
He did not even flinch. Standing there smugly, believing that he would be protected.
At least, that’s what he thought until the monstrosity’s claws dug into his stomach.
Bartholomew screamed as he was disemboweled, and as he flopped onto the ground, he glared at the man responsible.
"Layton! What is the meaning of this?!" He shouted before the creature attacked him again.
"Ah, it seems that you did not receive the most recent version of the paired chip. My apologies."
Though he professed how sorry he was, it was obvious that Dr. Sarelett was not the least bit remorseful about how the situation had developed.
He merely grinned widely as the abominations he had created passed him by and began attacking Bartholomew and his sycophants.
