Path Of War

Chapter 376: Code

Chapter 376: CodeThe tension in the laboratory finally settled as the scientists scrambled to process what had just happened.

One of them, a middle-aged woman with glasses slipping down her nose, broke the uneasy silence, saying in a trembling voice, "I think we should call Dr. Kapoor."

Another scientist snapped his head around, "And tell her what? That Subject G woke up because you two morons weren’t watching him?"

"Don’t pin this on us!" the oldest scientist shot back. "We were doing everything by the book. We have protocols—"

"Protocols don’t account for this," he sharply interrupted. "She’ll have our heads if she finds out we lost control."

"Then what do you suggest?"

"I... Ugh..."

The room fell into a tense silence.

As they knew, Dr. Kapoor was solely responsible for this experiment. Just the slightest mistake, like the time one of the workers almost spilled water by the pods, made her extremely upset.

The last thing one of them wanted was to make their boss angry. Thankfully for them, it was late at night, and they were the only ones in the building.

"Let’s just calm down," the female scientist said, her voice trying to sound reassuring but failing to hide her anxiety. "First, let’s figure out how this happened. Then we can fix it. We won’t have to tell Dr. Kapoor anything if we’re quick enough."

One of the others hesitated, "You’re implying we hide this from her?"

"Exactly," she said. "It’s either that, or we all risk losing our jobs. Maybe worse."

Fearing the potential fallout, the scientists began their frantic investigation. Each looked at the monitors, desperately trying to piece together what had gone wrong. Their faces were pale as their eyes darted between screens to

Akito B. Takahashi

."

Unable to really comprehend it, he gave up, saying, "This load of crap is a nightmare! I can’t even make heads or tails of where Subject G is!"

The room was silent again with heavy fear until the female scientist spoke up with a voice steadier than before, "I have an idea: let’s just read all the lines and manually transfer him back to the original environment."

"Is something like that even possible?" someone asked.

"It’s a long shot," she answered, "but if we can locate where his character’s hiding, we might be able to extract him without destroying everything."

The others looked at each other and began weighing the risks.

"How fast can you do that?" another wondered. "And who’s to say this won’t happen again if he uses that again?"

"There’s no need to worry," the female said with her fingers flying over the keyboard. Her eyes were locked on the screen as she typed away. "So long as we sedate him now, he shouldn’t be able to wake up again."

The group would later begin discussing things like how Arthur even managed to pull off his earlier stunt. Out of the three scientists there, only one of them hadn’t known who Arthur was.

"He’s been the talk of Elysium for a while now," someone relayed. "The CEO’s been watching him very closely."

"And I’m just now figuring out about him?!"

The female scientist handed her co-worker a folder, saying, "You’re new here, so it’s understandable you don’t know. This is a list of what Subject G has already achieved. And let’s just say it’s... to the extreme."

The man took the folder and found a log inside. He flipped through pages filled with notes, dates, and descriptions. Then his eyes widened as he read.

"This..."

The feats listed were almost unbelievable: recreating Jasper’s time travel technique, cloning himself, making breakthroughs in medicine that were considered impossible, and even establishing his own country—an entire nation-state—inside the facility’s controlled environment.

"Are you sure this guy’s a Christian?" the scientist asked, feeling baffled. "Why’s he doing all these villainous things?"

The woman typed a few keys and popped up a record script of Arthur’s speeches in the program. There were mentions of manipulating stock markets, influencing political systems, and outsmarting security protocols that had taken years to develop.

"A Christian would never do these things!" The man stared at the pages to try and process what he was seeing. "Subject G’s done all of this... on his own?!"

The woman grimly nodded. It was no wonder why Arthur had been well-favoured by the CEO. It was one thing for his mental faculties to have increased, but to think that he had outshined even the CEO’s own son, Alexander.

The scientist’s stomach clenched as he looked back at Arthur’s expressionless face inside the pod. To think that a few moments ago, that same man had awakened and caused so much chaos. If he decided to break free, there would be no stopping him.

That just made the scientist wonder: why had he willingly surrendered?

Without an answer, they worked in tense silence for hours. One scientist was manually searching lines of code, another was monitoring Arthur’s vitals, while the third was trying to sedate Arthur’s pod even further.

The woman’s eyes grew heavy, and her fingers slowed. She finally sighed, rubbing her eyes.

"I can’t do this much longer," she admitted quietly.

"Well, duh," her co-worker overheard. "That’s over fifty million lines of code. If you’re fortunate enough, you might find him before the sun rises."

Fifty million lines of code in a virtual reality world was an absolutely monumental undertaking, far exceeding the complexity of typical software. Even large ones like the Linux kernel had only forty million.

Such a colossal codebase suggested an aspiration to create a hyper-detailed, expansive, and incredibly dynamic virtual universe. It was no wonder this experiment was in the billions and was just as real as being on earth.

It supported multiplayer with physics, advanced AI for countless characters, and deep, interactive systems for everything from economics to environmental changes.

"And you’re sure you can find Subject G?!"

The woman just sneered at her co-worker, opting to choose to return to work as opposed to letting the near-impossible task stress her out.

Though the man wasn’t wrong. Fifty million lines signified a project pushing the absolute boundaries of what’s currently achievable in VR.

And to think Elysium decided to base it on a fictional world based in Japan.

After a moment, the woman was once again beginning to feel tired. "Alright, I need a break..." When she arose from her seat and made it toward the main exit, they all froze upon hearing the door handle shuffle. Next thing they knew, Dr. Kapoor was standing in front of them. "Doctor Kapoor!"

"Yes, what is it?"

"N... Nothing, ma’am! I just thought you weren’t coming in, is all."

With a stern expression and sharp eyes, she said, "What do you mean? I always come to work at six sharp." Then she stepped into the room and saw the nervous looks on their faces. "Don’t tell me the night shifts got you a bunch stressed."

One of the scientists scrambled to quickly offer her a cup of coffee. "Uh, we just thought you might want something—"

"No, thanks," Kapoor interrupted with a hand. "I already had some at home."

The female scientist opened her mouth to explain or distract her, but the doctor’s gaze shifted past her and toward the monitors.

"What’s the analysis on the subject?" Kapoor asked.

"They’re all doing wonderful, ma’am," one answered. "Everyone’s showing stable signs and—"

"I was only asking about Subject G," Kapoor corrected.

"Ah yes!" the scientist said, sweating profusely. "He’s doing superb! His vitals are healthy and there’s been a recent boost in his libido."

"Really...?" Kapoor wondered.

The three showed her former logs that seemed like new, revealing Arthur’s performance when he had enticed Samui in the Lightning Village. His hormone levels had apparently spiked during that encounter.

"Hmm..." Kapoor scoffed. "How typical of a young man."

"Yes, we’ve been monitoring him twenty-four seven, mam!"

Kapoor finally gave them a smirk, saying, "Good. Keep at it until the next shift comes in." The doctor would finally explain that she’s got a meeting with a member from the Reza Group today. She sighed, "I hate it when money’s involved in science."

They all agreed so as to butter her up and keep her distracted from Arthur’s earlier stunt. Then, she turned, heading toward her office without another word. The door closed behind her, leaving the scientists in silence.

The two looked at the female with obvious concerns on their faces.

"I know, I know!" she said, forgetting about her needed break.