Changed: Outbreak

Chapter 3: Blooming curiosity of the mind

[Lui's Pov]

The dream. The dream feels so real. I slowly opened my eyes from my deep sleep, still bothered for how real the dream was. I got myself up and sat upright on the bed I'm lying on. I was in my shack in my dream. The view outside the windows are dark. The shack is dimly lit, and I was sitting on my wooden chair. Then, Scott entered the shack in my dream. He explained something about the Protogen race existing out of this planet. I have to find Scott.

I stood up from the bed before I realized that my left arm hurts. It feels like, I've been administered with something. I walked over to the door and I held the door knob with my right paw. I turned the knob and gently pulled the door open. Behind the door is a hallway of the laboratory, and the flooring of the hallway is covered with Black Latex. The hallway is lit by the light fixtures of the ceiling, and I noticed a leakage of Black Latex goo from the light. It seems that the Black Latex upstairs have leaked.

I took a step into the hallway of Black Latex goo, and I felt the goo stick to my foot paws. This is another reason as to why I hate living in the laboratory. Once in every other week, scenarios like this happen and I just want to live a normal life. I sometimes wonder to myself as to how this laboratory is still holding up. I wonder where the others are. I should find and check the lobby first. There's a chance that someone is in there. I slowly made my way through the hallway of sticky Black Latex goo. I eventually reached the end of the hallway.

At the end of the hallway is a door, and the knob of the door is covered with Black Latex goo. Feeling the Latex stick to my foot paws are disgusting enough, and now I have to turn the knob covered with goo. I doubt the knob would even turn. I slowly reached out my right paw towards the knob, grasping the feeling of the knob through the clump of Black Latex goo covering the knob. I gently turned the knob, trying my best to contain my disgust towards the viscous mass of goo. I pushed the door open and entered through before immediately shutting the door behind me.

I was occupied of the Black Latex that I didn't take note of where I am now. At least that is now dealt with. Finally with a peace of mind, I analyzed my surroundings to take note of my location. This is... The testing chambers of Doctor K. Puro told me something about these being used to hold sticky experiments. Assimilation of human subjects in hopes of finding the clue. It sounds evil, yet fascinating in some way. If I remember correctly, the other end of the testing facilities is the lobby.

I made my way to a double door of the testing facilities and slowly pushed them open, and the other side reveals to be the grassy lobby. Scott can be found sitting on an office chair and facing the lobby computer. It seems Scott is busy typing down something on the keyboard. I stepped inside the lobby and Scott turned his head to look at me before giving me a smile. "Lui! How are you, brother? I hope... I didn't bother you too much."

"Bother? Bother me with what? I also have to tell you that I somehow dreamt of myself and you, and it is a weird and interesting dream." I asked and the Protogen with a green LED visor smirked at me. "How interesting is this dream?" Scott asked while keeping the smirk on his face. I was about to speak out something when his expression and the question finally clicked into my head. I felt my tail wag excitedly, despite finding the attempt of a weird joke uncomfortable. "N-Not that kind of dream, Scott. I was talking about you suddenly describing me about our origin and our race that it felt so real." I explained as calm as possible, and Scott's smirk turned into a sigh.

"Us, Protogens, and even our predecessor Primagen, has the ability to connect to other Protogen and Primagen through the use of this dream state connection thing. I still have no official name for it, as I only know of how to use it. It was previously used by Primagens to reprogram Protogens into their command, and sometimes even used to upgrade our software. A group of Protogen from another planet who came down crashing into Earth carried a disc that contains blueprints for a Protogen and other necessary things for a Protogen to function, including the OS update that will nullify any attempts of Primagen to access the Protogen through the dream state.--"

"--I could've explained it better to you while we're in the dream state, but I fear that by making you self aware will severe the connection of the dream state and wake us up both. I only told you about the Protogen existing outside of this world, but I never got the opportunity to tell you more about myself since I am always busy fixing the laboratory with Doctor K. A plague has previously eradicated the humankind of this planet, and I arrived here being infected back in my human form.--"

"--I have the disc with me when I got here. I built myself a Protogen with the help of Doctor K. Not really the whole Protogen. I was only able to build the Protogen visor, or helmet, until I was attacked by a Latex goo that hid itself under the helmet. I injected myself just in time before I was fully assimilated, which has lead to me keeping my sane mind despite being changed into a Protogen. Same scenario would've happened if you were a human like me. But eh... The important part is that both of us are alive with the OS update in our software that shields us from any Primagens who attempt to modify us, but we get to modify them instead."

His explanation and storytelling has lead me flabbergasted. This is going to be a headache. "That's a lot of information to take in. I appreciate you for providing me information about us. Lets me know more of about myself. Is there more that I should know of?" I asked and Scott gave me a chuckle. "Oh there's more, I think. I only know a fraction of who we are. I'm even browsing everything I can find using our technology here with this computer." Scott replied and I gave him a nod in acknowledgement.

"Oh yeah, where's the others?"