Chapter 145. The Foreseer, No. 1 (2)
“Even now, Alpha’s brain is still growing.”
Reuben looked up at the enormous cylinder as he continued.
“And through that growth, she keeps calculating and calculating until everything moves according to her will.”
Victoria could only stare at him in disbelief.
“Was it worth it?”
“Sacrificing your own daughter so Abraxas could grow?”
Reuben slowly shook his head.
“No.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Of Alpha?”
“Yes.”
“If there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s this.”
His voice trembled faintly.
It was clearly born from fear.
“Alpha resents me for making her this way.”
“And she resents this world.”
Reuben struggled to continue.
“At first, Alpha cooperated with us.”
“But not anymore.”
“She’s been eliminating senior personnel one by one while making their deaths look like accidents.”
“None of those who remain know when they might die.”
Most of the higher-ups who had interfered with the Archon Project were already dead.
The only ones left were figureheads or people without real authority.
And the string of deaths made one fact painfully clear.
“And that includes me.”
In other words, Reuben was afraid Alpha would eventually kill him too.
Victoria scoffed.
“How ridiculous.”
“You fattened yourself by selling your own daughter, and now you’re afraid she’ll take revenge?”
“You don’t understand.”
Reuben’s voice still shook, but there was conviction in it.
“If Abraxas disappears, then the last means of restraining Alpha disappears with it.”
“Abraxas is the only control mechanism left for her.”
“If we want to prevent Alpha from running completely out of control, Abraxas has to exist.”
“No one knows what she’ll do once it’s gone.”
While they were talking, a flat voice came from ahead.
“You’ve arrived.”
A man dressed in a black coat approached.
His gray hair and gray eyes made his expression seem especially cold.
“Who is that?”
“No. 2.”
“Beta.”
Reuben explained indifferently.
The gray-haired man called No. 2 bowed politely.
“Please come inside.”
“Alpha is waiting.”
The room where the tea party was being held looked completely different from the rest of the facility.
The walls were covered in floral wallpaper.
Cute dolls and decorations were placed everywhere.
In a way, it was an overwhelmingly girlish space.
[Welcome, Victoria.]
At the center of the room stood a round table and a large monitor.
Alpha waited inside the screen with a shy smile.
[Do you like black tea?]
[I prepared biscuits too, but I’m not sure if they’ll suit your taste.]
“I’m fine with anything.”
Victoria answered curtly as she sat down.
A mechanical arm emerged from the floor and offered her a cup of tea.
[How many spoonfuls of sugar should I add?]
[What about milk?]
“Do whatever you want.”
Soon, tea and biscuits were placed in front of her.
Alpha then looked toward Reuben.
[What about Dad?]
“Just make it the way I usually drink it.”
Reuben answered cautiously.
Alpha paused as though searching her memory.
[Two spoonfuls of sugar and a little milk, right?]
“Yes.”
“You remember well.”
[Of course.]
[Alpha is a good daughter who loves her dad.]
A mechanical arm emerged from the wall and placed a cup of tea in front of Reuben.
Aside from the fact that the host of the tea party existed inside a monitor, the atmosphere was surprisingly ordinary.
Victoria tested the tea and biscuits just in case.
Both were perfectly normal.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering about.”
Victoria took a sip of tea and went straight to the point.
“How do you know my name?”
Alpha answered casually.
[I’m connected to the entire world’s internet.]
[I can know what is happening everywhere in real time.]
[Learning about you wasn’t difficult.]
Then Alpha looked at Victoria with playful eyes.
[Or should I call you this instead?]
[‘Something’ made by combining Victoria Frankenstein’s brain with corpses.]
“Watch your mouth!”
The moment Alpha touched that sensitive subject, Victoria snapped.
Alpha ignored her anger and simply said whatever she wanted.
[Your mother was a genius.]
[I’ve read every paper Doctor Mary left behind.]
[From that, it wasn’t difficult to predict what kind of existence you were...]
[Or where the Philosopher’s Stone was.]
Victoria shouted furiously,
“No matter what anyone says, I’m Victoria!”
“Victoria Frankenstein!”
[I know.]
[No matter what anyone says, you are Victoria Frankenstein.]
[Just like I’m still Alpha even though nothing remains of me but a brain.]
Victoria stared at the screen in surprise.
“You heard what we were talking about on the way here?”
[I know everything that happens inside this facility.]
[I watch all of it through the cameras.]
Apparently, Alpha had heard every word Victoria and Reuben exchanged on the way.
Victoria thought for a moment.
Then she decided to confront Alpha directly.
“So why did you call me here?”
“If all you needed was the Philosopher’s Stone, you could have just taken it.”
[Hehehe.]
[I already used it.]
Alpha lightly waved a hand.
Complex formulas appeared across the monitor.
Even Victoria had difficulty understanding them.
“What is this?”
Alpha calmly explained.
[It’s the design blueprint for the Philosopher’s Stone inside your chest.]
[I also completely analyzed the obsession toward her daughter that your mother embedded within it.]
[With this, I can build as many Philosopher’s Stones as I want.]
Victoria stared in shock.
“You analyzed it that easily?”
[It wasn’t difficult for me.]
The Philosopher’s Stone was the ultimate dream and essence of alchemy.
Yet Alpha had not only fully analyzed one, she could now recreate it.
Even Victoria, who prided herself on being a genius, found that almost impossible to believe.
But Alpha looked entirely unconcerned.
[Anyway, I thought a great deal about how to get my hands on this.]
[That’s why I sent my sixth friend out.]
Victoria immediately objected.
“Yukgap deserted because of his own free will!”
[Hahahaha.]
[Do you really think so?]
Alpha merely laughed.
[The original of my sixth friend, Kim Changi, deeply loved his family.]
[He especially missed a food his mother made called kimchi.]
[When I reconstructed his brain, I copied those memories and implanted them into my sixth friend.]
Victoria stared at her in horror.
“You copied his memories too?”
“That’s impossible!”
When cloning a human, physical genetic information could be copied.
But memories and values formed naturally through life could not.
That was basic knowledge to anyone who studied biological cloning.
[I can do it.]
Apparently, even that was not difficult for Alpha.
She answered with pride.
[Give me a single cell and a little genetic information, and I can reproduce a being with memories identical to the original.]
[My technology is from a future so distant that modern science can’t even begin to reach it.]
Alpha casually continued recalling the past.
[I arranged it so those memories would awaken at the right moment.]
[The instant they did, my sixth friend deserted.]
[Then I ordered the Archons to attack him in a way that would guide him toward your workshop.]
Victoria remembered the first time she met Yukgap.
Mortally wounded, he had fled into her workshop to hide.
Then he had cooked food for himself without permission and somehow ended up being hired by her.
All those coincidences piled one on top of another.
And every single one had apparently been inside Alpha’s calculations.
[You probably know the rest better than I do.]
Alpha gazed steadily at Victoria.
Victoria trembled in shock.
“So... meeting Yukgap was all something you arranged?”
[Correct.]
[Once you create a few convenient coincidences, something like that isn’t difficult to control.]
Everything had moved according to Alpha’s will.
And Alpha said so confidently herself.
[I am the Foreseer.]
[I don’t merely predict the future.]
[I can also adjust it so the future unfolds according to my wishes.]
This small girl inside a monitor possessed not only overwhelming technology, but also the ability to move the future through calculation.
Not simply someone who spoke of what would happen.
Someone who could force events to happen as she said they would.
For just a moment, Victoria wondered whether Alpha was something close to what people called a god.
At that point, one question naturally came to mind.
“So what do you want?”
[What do I want?]
Alpha tilted her head.
“You played with Yukgap however you wanted and got the blueprint for the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“So why revive me and bring me all the way here?”
At Victoria’s demand, Alpha’s face suddenly turned red.
[Well...]
Alpha hesitated several times and fidgeted shyly.
Then she finally said,
[Victoria...]
[I want to be friends with you.]
“Friends?”
Victoria blinked at the unexpected answer.
Alpha smiled awkwardly from inside the monitor.
[Yes.]
[I’ve been so bored here all this time.]
[There’s nobody here except boring old men.]
[I want someone I can actually play with.]
“You have the Archons.”
Alpha pouted.
[The Archons are my friends, but they only do exactly what I tell them.]
[That’s not the kind of friend I want.]
The Archons were loyal to Alpha.
But their relationship was closer to that of subordinates than true friends.
Apparently, that was not what Alpha wanted.
[Victoria, we have a lot in common.]
Alpha stared at her and spoke in an unexpectedly gentle voice.
[We were both forced into bodies we never wanted.]
[We know things ordinary people don’t.]
[We possess special abilities and knowledge.]
[There may be no one else in the world like us.]
Her voice was earnest.
[I’ve been so lonely here.]
[I need a friend like you who can understand me.]
Alpha slowly reached one hand toward the other side of the screen.
[So...]
[Will you be my friend?]
