Beast Soul - Chapter 93

The two detectives continued to search, Special Agent Alan kneeled in front of what appeared to be a melted down rifle with a frown on his face. “This belonged to Richard..” He murmured softly under his breath as he touched the destroyed weapon with his fingers.

“There’s more!” Detective Lewis called out to the other two, and both Detective Harry and Special Agent Alan headed in his direction.

The two walked up to Detective Lewis, who was staring at the destroyed portion of the cliff with widened eyes. “It looks like it happened just a few minutes ago,” Special Agent Alan said as he kneeled right at the tip of the cliff and stared down, where he found a giant mass of earth was blocking a small river. He frowned and whispered under his breath, “Interesting…”

“Should we go down the cliff and check out what happened down there?” Detective Harry glanced down at the river that was being blocked by the giant mass of land and then shifted his gaze towards the special agent, who scratched his chin and thought for a few more seconds before replying to his words. “Oh, we definitely will be heading down there. But first, we should focus more on whatever clue we can find here about the disappearance of Agent Edgerton. After that, we can head down and inspect the river.”

The two detectives looked at each other for a second before nodding their heads, and the trio continued to search through the pathway that seemed to have been created as a result of the fight between Special Agent Richard Edgerton and the monster he was hunting.

“Agent Alan,” Detective Lewis called out to Special Agent Alan Fischer softly as he searched for clues, and the agent turned his head. “You said earlier that the location of an agent is shown when he loses his pulse. Why is that?” Detective Lewis continued with his question. “Why did the notification only appear after the agent died. Couldn’t you have used the location tracker earlier in order to find where Agent Edgerton had gone off to?”

“Well, the simple answer is that I can’t,” Agent Alan let out a sigh as he crouched down in front of the remnants of a tree and it’s broken branches, inspecting them closely. He glanced at Detective Lewis for a split second to find that he was still confused by the agent’s words, and he decided to clarify what he meant.

“The notification alerting me of the location of Agent Edgerton didn’t come from a gadget that he was wearing,” Agent Alan said as he let out another sigh, and got up from the ground. He turned around to face Detective Lewis and continued, “It came from a chip that is implanted inside the body of every special agent working for the FID.”

“A chip that is implanted inside your body?” Detective Lewis’ eyes widened with surprise, as he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Inserting chips into the human body was a concept that seemed like it came straight from a post apocalyptic horror novel, but here Lewis was, being told by a Special Agent about how he had been chipped by the government.

“Hard to believe, I know..” Special Agent Alan shrugging his shoulders. “But then again, so are mythical monsters, and yet they seem pretty believable now, don’t they?”

“Y-yeah, no, I understand. But still, is this even legal?” Detective Lewis didn’t know what to say. Surely, he could understand why Special Agent Alan would make such a comparison. Obviously, the appearance of a mythical creature warrants a much more surprised reaction than someone being chipped by the government.

However, Lewis wasn’t surprised about the existence of the chips, but rather how they actually managed to successfully chip the special agents without it crossing the line of legality.

“Almost anything the FID does happens to be in a gray area, Detective..” Special Agent Alan said with a soft chuckle, and he walked forward, heading for a spot near the cliffside where the ground seemed to have been covered by ash and dust. “Consider this one part of the gray area as well..”

“That’s… I don’t even know what to say to that..” Detective Lewis scratched his head with a disbelieving look. He knew that every government was sketchy in some regard, but he didn’t expect it to be this sketchy.

“We just tend not to look into it… like every normal citizen..” Agent Alan said as he kneeled down right in the middle of the ash covered area, and then stretched out his watch.

Click!

He clicked the crown of the watch, and all of a sudden, a red light shot out from the side of the watch and began to scan the ground. After a few seconds of scanning, the light shut off, and a message popped up on the screen of the watch.

“Two blood samples detected. One belongs to Agent Edgerton. The other one unknown.” The mechanical voice from the watch read the words out loud, and Detective Lewis scratched his chin as he marveled at the amazing gadget that was worn by the special agent.

“There should be more clues around here somewhere…” Special Agent Alan looked around until his gaze landed on the remnants of Agent Edgerton’s watch which was hanging from the branch of a small tree. It seemed to have been flung into the air after an explosion and landed on the tree.

Alan walked up to the tree and pulled the damaged watch off from the branch and began inspecting it. “Damn, it really is damaged too much.” He said with a bitter smile on his face. The watch was an incredible gadget for the Special Agents, and it could’ve given him a lot more information about the events that happened if just the internal memory chip had survived. But unfortunately for them, it didn’t seem to be the case.

“Detective Harry, did you find anything?” Agent Alan asked as he tilted his head around, and Detective Harry responded. “I think I did! Come check this out!”

The detective and the agent walked towards Harry, who was kneeling on the ground a few meters away from them.

“What did you find?” Special Agent Alan asked as he crouched down next to Harry, and detective Lewis did the same. “I found this lying on the mud,” Harry said as he carefully picked up a small chip that was covered in dirt and handed it over to Alan, who raised it up to his face to have a good look at it.

“What is it?” Harry asked with a curious gaze.

“Something that the FID will want to take a look at,” Special Agent Alan replied as he let out a short chuckle.

—————–

“Ah!” Noah suddenly woke up and yelled out loudly, only to realize that he was lying on his bed. He was inside his room, and the confused Noah scratched his head. He only remembered falling down the cliff, and his vision had gone black afterwards.

“What in the world? How the hell am I here right now?” Noah mumbled in a hushed tone under his breath, as he got up from his bed and slowly began walking towards the bathroom.

He opened the door, stepped into the bathroom and grabbed the washbasin from both ends as he let out a long yawn. He then stared at his own reflection and whispered, “Are you really me?”

“Of course you are, you idiot!” All of a sudden, the reflection talked back to him, responding to his question with a snarky tone, and Noah, who was caught off guard by the response, took a few steps back as he let out a gasp.

“Oh, f*ck.. it’s just you.” It was only after a few short seconds that Noah realized that the reflection was actually the doppelganger Noah. The doppelganger Noah was manipulating his vision in order to make him think that the reflection was talking back to him. In reality, it was only him who could see his reflection responding to him.

“What happened to me after we fell? Why am I not remembering anything after that point?” Noah asked the doppelganger while scratching his head. After all, the doppelganger must’ve taken control of his body when he blacked out, which means that he should know what happened and could explain the events back to him.

“What do you mean?” However, the doppelganger Noah only looked back at him with a confused expression on his face as he spoke. “Aren’t you the one who should know this? After all, it was me who had blacked out when we hit the ground.”

“Wait, what?!” Noah’s eyes widened as his grip on the washbasin increased, causing cracks to form on the sides of it. “What did you say?!”

Noah didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know whether the doppelganger was telling the truth or not, but if he wasn’t, and if both him and the doppelganger Noah were unconscious and not in control of his body…

“Then who on earth was controlling my body?”