Chapter 75: Alicia’s Lab
Scar left the room and navigated his way through the outer grounds of the mansion, following a route that felt strangely familiar despite the fact that he had never consciously walked it before. He was utilizing the geographical memories he had inherited from the first Henry to find his way to Alicia’s lab.
After walking several minutes, he arrived at the building.
From the outside, it looked incredibly unassuming—just a simple, standalone garage. Its exterior was plain, with dark walls and a large metal door that could slide vertically upward.
Scar approached the door and pressed the button on the wall beside it, hoping that was the way to open it. But the door didn’t budge at all. Instead, a girl’s voice chimed from the concealed speakers embedded above the frame.
"Who are you?" the voice demanded flatly. She sounded young. Maybe sixteen or seventeen. But there was something slightly unnatural about the way she spoke. Her tone was too clean. Too precise.
It was an Ai.
"Roy," Scar answered simply. "Roy Myers."
"State your business." The Ai said.
Scar sighed. "Um... I’m here to see Alicia," he said. "Tell her I need to talk to her."
The AI hummed, a distinctly human sound of consideration. "Give me a sec."
Scar stood there with his hands in his pockets, waiting a full, agonizing minute in silence before the voice finally returned.
"Okay. You may enter." She said.
Then, the metal sliding door hummed to life, rolling upward—but it abruptly stopped exactly halfway up, leaving only a three-foot gap from the concrete floor.
Scar raised an eyebrow, staring at the half-open door.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" the AI chimed in with undeniable sass. "Crawl on in."
Scar let out a cynical scoff. "I see you have your maker’s personality," he muttered. Dropping to his knees, he ducked his head and crawled awkwardly through the gap. The absolute second his boots cleared the threshold, the metal doors slammed shut behind him.
Scar stood up, dusting off his knees, and looked up at the interior of the lab.
What he saw made him pause in shock. His jaw dropped slightly.
The inside of the building was nothing like the outside. The tiny garage had somehow become an enormous underground facility. The whole interior was impossibly larger than what the exterior suggested. The space should not have been able to fit inside the building. But it did.
The ceiling stretched high above him, illuminated by long strips of red-white lighting. Black metallic walls curved around the chamber, giving the entrance an almost futuristic appearance.
The small area where he stood appeared to be an arrival lobby There was a compact refrigerator sitting in the corner. A few posters of race cars and mechas covered the wall on one side. And on the other side, there was a single oversized poster featuring a famous 21st-century female hip-hop artist Scar recognised.
And directly ahead, an actual escalator led downward into the main lab.
Scar stepped toward it. And as he reached the edge, the world below opened before him.
His eyes widened.
The laboratory was huge.
It stretched farther than his eyes could comfortably follow.
The main floor was easily seven times larger than the grand ballroom at the Glacier Palace. The aesthetic was a breathtaking blend of cyberpunk and pristine futuristic science, dominated by a deep red and matte black theme.
And every part of the lab was alive.
Machines hummed. Mechanical arms moved along overhead rails. Holographic screens floated in the air, displaying rotating diagrams and streams of information. Red lights pulsed beneath black metallic platforms. Transparent tubes stood in organized rows, some filled with glowing green liquid while others contained strange mechanical components suspended in artificial fluid.
There were workstations everywhere. Some were covered in tiny tools. Others held enormous mechanical parts.
One section of the lab was clearly dedicated to biology. It was a glass-enclosed corner filled with sterile workstations, advanced microscopes, scanning equipment, refrigerated storage units, and chambers containing various chemicals and rows upon rows of sealed containers containing different colored substances.
The equipments looked advanced enough to belong in a research facility from a science-fiction movie.
As for the rest of the laboratory, it belonged almost entirely to Alicia’s mechanical work. It was engineering on an almost absurd scale. Rows of robotic workstations, fabrication arms, holographic design tables, and glass display cases holding completed and half-completed inventions ranging from: advanced gauntlets, modern weaponry, full mecha suits standing like silent sentinels, and smaller cases filled with delicate, remarkable devices.
Everywhere he looked, there was something new.
Near the opposite wall stood a gigantic humanoid robot. But it was incomplete. Its torso was finished, but one arm remained exposed, with wires and mechanical components hanging from its shoulder.
Beneath it were four vehicles.
Two sleek hover bikes rested on individual platforms. Beside them sat a red hover car that looked almost exactly like a futuristic version of a twenty-first-century Ferrari. And beside that was something Scar couldn’t even classify. It was simply spherical pod with no visible wheels.
And in the exact centre of the lab floated the most striking object of all: a large red orb, glowing with soft ethereal light, suspended above a circular platform while two massive metallic rings slowly orbited it. The orb pulsed gently. And each pulse sent faint waves of light across the lab.
Scar couldn’t explain why, but he felt something strange looking at it. It wasn’t simply technology. It looked almost alive.
Finally, at the far end of the lab sat a casual lounge. It was strangely normal compared to everything else. A large holographic television hung against the wall, and a small couch sat beneath it, with a blanket and a large red teddy bear slumped against the cushions. A gaming console rested beneath the tv, and empty soda cans, comic books, and mangas littered the area. Alicia’s multi-million credit jetpack lay carelessly tossed on the floor beside the couch like a discarded backpack.
Scar had seen the entire lab before through the inherited memories, but seeing it in person was another experience entirely. His eyes scanned through the whole technological marvel until he finally spotted her. The creator of it all.
Alicia sat at a workstation near the centre. She wore pink safety goggles over her eyes, sparks flying as she expertly guided a rotary cutter through a thick piece of metal with precision.
She had her headphones on, humming along to whatever played in her ears. And she was wearing a pink pajama outfit that looked more suited for sleeping than working in a laboratory. Her pajama shirt was completely unbuttoned, hanging loose to reveal a black sports bra underneath, and her hair was tied back into a messy ponytail.
She seemed engrossed in her work, casually using the cutter to cut through the metal like she was simply tearing paper.
Scar couldn’t help but stare longer than necessary. For a brief, unguarded moment, he actually began to admire her. Stripped of her annoying, calculating exterior, she looked entirely in her element—brilliant, focused, and undeniably beautiful.
But he quickly snapped himself out of it, and forced himself to move.
He followed the escalator path in a single blurred descent and stopped a few metres away from her. At first, she didn’t react. It was as though she didn’t notice him.
Then Alicia suddenly switched off the cutter, pulled her headphones around her neck, and picked up the metal she had been cutting. It was a thick, perfectly round silver disc. At first glance, it looked like a heavy manhole cover, but the aerodynamic beveled edges and reinforced center gave it away. It was a shield.
She held it up, turned her head slightly, and looked directly at Scar, not at all surprised to see him standing there. Then, she said something he didn’t expect.
"What do you think of my shield?" she asked
Scar was caught completely off guard. He hadn’t expected this relaxed and casual demeanor at all; it was as though she had entirely forgotten the emotional fallout they had a week ago.
Still, he decided to play along.
He looked at the metal disc and nodded. "Uh... it looks good," he muttered. "Perhaps needs a bit more color."
Alicia inspected the flat surface and hummed in contemplation. "Yeah, you’re right. Maybe I’ll paint it red and blue." She agreed. "But first..." She looked back at him, her eyes suddenly turning cold. "...duck."
Then, without hesitation, she twisted her hips and hurled the shield at his face. The shield ripped through the air like a discus, moving with terrifying velocity and heading straight for his head.
Scar’s eyes widened. His Accelerated Perception kicked in automatically. The world slowed just enough for him to see the spinning edge coming for his head. He quickly dropped to his knees, leaning his torso back ninety degrees in a matrix-style. The heavy metal disc whistled past his nose, creating a sharp, cracking sound like a bullwhip. It spun all the way to the glass escalator, hung motionless in the air for a single second, then reversed course and boomeranged right back to Alicia.
She caught it flawlessly by the edge, the kinetic force completely absorbed by her grip. She inspected the rim and clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Not fast enough."
Scar, having recovered his footing, let out a heavy exhale. "I don’t know, it seemed pretty fast to me. I mean, it almost took off my head, so..." he chuckled. He knew she threw it at him on purpose, and normally, he’d be furious about it. But circumstances prevented him from being upset.
He was here to achieve something that required calmness and a calculated diplomacy. He couldn’t let anger ruin everything. So he had no choice but to lock away his rage and bear with whatever she was going to throw at him.
Alicia raised an eyebrow behind her pink goggles. "Are you expecting an apology?" She asked sharply.
"No," Scar admitted smoothly. "I might have deserved it."
"Yeah, no kidding," Alicia scoffed loudly. Then she looked down at the shield in dissatisfaction. "What a disappointment."
Scar smiled wryly. "Come on, don’t hurt its feelings," he teased with a light joke. "I’m sure it’ll take my head off next time."
Alicia didn’t laugh. She dropped the shield onto the workstation with a loud clatter, crossed her arms, and looked at him indifferently. "What do you want, Roy?" She asked flatly.
Scar paused, his hyper-analytical mind stalling as he tried to figure out the most appropriate response that would ensure a shield wasn’t thrown at his face. What was he supposed to start with? How would he continue the conversation?
Within a millisecond, the perfect response came to him.
"I, uh..." He lifted his hand, tapped into his inventory, and pulled out a neatly folded piece of white fabric. "...came to return your shirt."