HBWnovel Chapter 241: Glasshouse
Chapter 241: Glasshouse
Chapter 241: GlasshouseThe helicopter touched down without fanfare.
No
But every attempt to activate a skill fell flat.
No failure.
Just silence.
They’d found a way to hollow me out while leaving the shell. And somehow, that was worse than any warning screen.
I sat. Waited. Counted seconds. Lost track. Started again.
Eventually, the door clicked.
They didn’t come for me with guards or weapons this time. Just a hiss of air and a soft light guiding me down another hallway. I followed.
The room was not an interrogation chamber.
It was a lounge.
Soft panel lighting arched from the ceiling like sunrays behind clouds. The floor was pale wood—or some imitation of it. A single, wide chair sat in the center of the space. Opposite me: a seamless wall of mirrored glass, too clean to reflect anything.
No table. No restraints. No cameras in sight.
I knew better.
I sat.
The voice came thirty seconds later, smooth as silk and slow as oil.
"Reynard Vale. The man behind the Masked Syndicate. The ghost with too many names. You’ve been a long time coming."
It wasn’t robotic. Nor hostile. It carried the rhythm of someone educated. Practiced. Polished.
"I must admit," it continued, "we never expected to see you in person. Not after the damage you did. Not after vanishing back overseas. But here you are. Whole and captured."
A pause.
"You even brought friends."
I clenched my fists but said nothing.
"There’s something very special about you, Reynard. And no, I don’t mean your mind, or your disguise work, or your improvisation under pressure—though all are impressive. I mean your title."
Silence.
Then:
"SSS-Rank. Jobmaster."
I flinched.
"That title was... not supposed to exist. Not after the NovaCore program ended. Not after Subject 3840 failed to stabilize. And yet..."
Another pause, longer this time. I could hear faint keys being tapped.
"...you received it. Years after the program collapsed. Without injection. Without conditioning. Without intent."
The voice dropped lower.
"You didn’t earn that title, Reynard. It was assigned. By the system itself. That... needs to be studied."
I rose to my feet. "You want to dissect me."
"No. We want to understand you. There’s a difference. Dissection is final. You, Reynard Vale, are not allowed the luxury of being finished."
I then heard a sound.
Not from the room. From behind the walls.
Muffled shouting. Muffled—but familiar.
It was 3830.
Her voice was ragged, rising and breaking with the force of something held down too long. She screamed a name.
"TWENTY-NINE—!"
Cut off. Sharp. A thud. Then silence.
I took a step back, toward the mirrored wall.
She’d been restrained. Drugged, probably. Her job title being neutralized.
Then the wall faded.
Like ice melting under breath, the glass turned transparent. And behind it—
Subject 3829.
Sitting in a high-backed chair, his torso locked into a metal frame with dozens of cerebral cables snaking from his spine, jaw, and skull into a console that pulsed faint blue. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just watched me.
A machine using a man’s body as its screen.
Then someone else entered the room.
No fanfare. No alarms. Just a quiet figure in a slate-gray suit, hair trimmed neatly, face unreadable—neither male nor female, neither young nor old. Skin too smooth. Eyes too calm. I couldn’t tell if they had been experimented on or they simply naturally looked like that. They walked to 3829’s side and placed a hand on the console.
Their voice was the same as the one I heard before.
But now it had a body.
They smiled.
"Let’s begin by taking away that title, shall we?"