The room was ordinary in appearance but windowless, dustless, illuminated only by harsh artificial light reflecting off the walls.

  In the corner, three men in white lab coats were bound to metallic cooling pipes with thick plastic ties. Their faces were pale, sweat beading on their foreheads despite the room's chill.

  In the center, a "boy with heterochromatic eyes" sat on the only chair in the room.

  He sat with one leg crossed over the other, his long, grey-white coat draping around the chair with dignity. He was toying with a small glass vial containing a viscous purple liquid, twirling it between fingers covered in black gloves. His mismatched eyes—one blue, the other yellow with a pupil resembling a digital display—contemplated the liquid with a mocking smile.

  "You... you don't know who we are!" one of the scientists screamed, his voice trembling between rage and terror. "We work under the direct protection of Sector Four! If you don't release us right now, the security protocols will—"

  "Will do what?" the boy interrupted calmly, without lifting his gaze from the vial. "Lock the doors? Release gas? Send a silent alarm?"

  He stopped twirling the vial and raised his eyes to them. His smile widened slightly.

  "All of that already happened ten minutes ago. The doors are locked, the gas system is disabled, and the silent alarm... well, let's just say it reached exactly where I wanted it to go."

  The scientists exchanged panicked glances.

  "What do you want?" the oldest scientist asked, trying to muster some courage. "Money? Data? We can give you—"

  "Data?" He chuckled lightly and stood up slowly. He walked toward them, the sound of his military boots echoing clearly in the silent room. "I doubt you even know what I want."

  He reached them, drawing a scalpel and beginning to cut into the skin of one of them.

  The scientist screamed as the others recoiled.

  Blood spilled onto the floor, the sickening sound of cutting audible over the screams. The scientist tried to pull away, but the boy grabbed his head and held it steady while continuing his dissection.

  "Why... why are you doing this?!?" another scientist screamed, crawling toward the corner.

  "I want to acquire a good ticket, and you work there," the boy answered, kicking the weeping man with his leg while placing a piece of skin into a container he produced from his coat—a coat lined with numerous vials containing everything from animal feathers and skins to metals and fluids ranging from red to black.

  The boy looked at the second scientist, approaching him with a smile, the scalpel held close. "One piece will suffice."

  "Stay back... I'll do whatever you want... just don't!" the scientist pleaded, but the boy paid no heed, driving the scalpel into the face of the man pinned to the floor.

  "You will do it, but not you specifically."

  The scientist in the corner was trembling. "Why... why?!"

  The boy didn't answer. He simply placed the second piece of skin into the vial and began to stand, turning toward the scientist in the corner. He extended the scalpel slowly toward his face.

  "I swear I'll do anything you want!!" the scientist screamed, squeezing his tear-filled eyes shut.

  "Good. You know that lab you work in, correct?" the boy asked, twirling the scalpel between his fingers.

  The scientist opened his eyes and nodded furiously, his neck cracking from the force of the movement.

  "That's good. You'll be with me when we enter. But don't worry," the boy extended his phone, showing a photo of the scientist. "We'll get along just fine."

  The scientist's face paled as he clenched his teeth. "But how can you... enter?"

  "Are you new here?... Right, that's why I chose you."

  The boy smiled a mocking smile.

  "Keep this name well in your short-term memory: I am a 'Nova Event' of the Gamma Class... The Fourth Ranked, Hengen."

  Hengen took out the bloody piece of skin he had just extracted from the first scientist. He removed his black glove slowly, revealing his hand.

  The moment his bare fingers touched the biological sample, the horrifying show began.

  It wasn't a magical transformation with a flash of light. It was a brutal, organic metamorphosis. The bones of Hengen's face moved beneath his skin like trapped insects, reshaping his skull structure. The strange color of his eyes melted away, turning into a dull brown. His height shrank a few centimeters, and his voice changed to become an identical copy of the victim lying on the floor. It was a process of seconds.

  "Hengen"—who was now a perfect copy of the dead scientist—stood up and dusted off his coat.

  "Did you know? The fake has far more value than the real," he said in the scientist's voice, examining his new hands with admiration. "For in its desperate and deliberate attempt to be real, it becomes more real and perfect than the original itself."

  He turned toward the last trembling scientist in the corner and smiled—a smile that did not belong to this peaceful face.

  "Now... shall we continue where we left off? It's time for an official visit to the Restricted Islands... to say hello to your boss."

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  The "scientist" walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him, leaving behind the metallic scent of blood and his former colleagues.

  He walked through the long white corridors of the facility. His steps were not Hengen's military stride, but the hesitant, slightly exhausted steps of the scientist. Even his breathing pattern shifted to match the rhythm of someone suffering from mild asthma.

  They walked for minutes until they reached the train station on the Central Island. But unlike the other stations, there was only one train, and it didn't descend like the rest. Instead, it ascended, higher than the Central Island, toward a massive metallic island difficult to see with the naked eye. The sky around it turned into canvases of deep red and purple, making the island look like the last place touched by light before the day disappeared into sunset.

  The disguised Hengen and the scientist walked to the station, standing in line.

  At the front was a security officer wearing a red glove and sunglasses. He carried no weapon.

  The disguised Hengen smiled in the form of the scientist, glancing at four men sitting on waiting chairs, then up at the station's high vents, and finally at the station's main hall.

  A construct stood in the heart of the hall, like a being descended from another world. Its dark chrome metallic structure reflected the station's dim lights, scattering spots of light on the walls like collapsing stars. The joints between its plates pulsed with a faint purple light, beating like a mechanical heart. The four lower limbs, resembling the legs of a giant insect, were planted in the floor with unwavering stability, while two upper limbs with sharp claws reached toward the ceiling, as if frozen in the moment before a pounce.

  Under the direct light of a spotlight, the details of the structure were revealed: intersecting lines forming a hexagonal armor pattern, spacing slightly at the joints to allow the purple light to emit. The small head was tilted slightly forward, its center housing a multi-layered sensor lens, paused on a pale blue color, gleaming like a frozen glass eye. On its back, a semi-transparent hexagonal crystal shimmered with a steady internal glow, like an ember extinguished under ash.

  Among the passing crowds of scientists, the construct looked like a statue from a forgotten future. There was no evidence of movement or life within its metallic frame, only that regular purple pulse beating in silence. The reflections of passing faces moved across its polished surface, appearing and disappearing like ghosts. Even the sharp claws that looked lethal remained still as petrified dead tree branches.

  Hengen looked into the corners; there were other 'constructs' scattered about, some matching this one, while others differed.

  The line moved slowly, step by step, toward the man with the red glove and sunglasses.

  There were no visible complex scanners, no laser gates. Just this man, a small tablet in his hand, and a gaze that couldn't be read behind black lenses.

  "Next," the man said in a monotone voice, without lifting his head from the device.

  "Hengen" (in the exhausted scientist's body) stepped forward. He dragged his feet with studied heaviness and pulled out the scientist's ID card from the white coat pocket with a slightly trembling hand—not out of fear, but a precise simulation of the caffeine withdrawal and fatigue tremors the original body suffered from.

  "Dr. Arno..." the man read the name from the card, then finally raised his eyes.

  Behind the sunglasses, his eyes scanned "Hengen." It wasn't a normal inspection. For a moment, Hengen felt something... a slight "weight" in the air.

  (Sensor Esper?) Hengen thought coolly, maintaining his exhausted expression. (Doesn't matter. I'm not wearing a disguise. I am biologically him. Even my DNA screams Arno.)

  "You are seven minutes behind schedule," the man with the red glove said coldly.

  "Alarm system malfunction in the sub-lab," Hengen replied in a hoarse voice, then coughed a dry, sickening cough. "We had to reset the lockdown protocol manually. Bureaucracy will kill us before the experiments do."

  The man paused. He seemed to be listening to something via an invisible earpiece, or perhaps verifying the excuse through the network.

  "Hmm." The man nodded, then returned the card. "Access granted."

  Hengen took the card with feigned eagerness and passed through the barrier, but he stopped and turned back, looking at the "real scientist" standing behind him, his face pale as death, sweat pouring off him.

  "You..." The man with the red glove pointed at the trembling scientist. "You look like you're about to collapse. Are you sick?"

  The scientist froze. He opened his mouth to answer, but his voice didn't come out. The terror of "Hengen" standing before him, of the metallic "statues" around him, and of the guard tied his tongue.

  Hengen intervened immediately, with the voice of an annoyed "boss":

  "He's a new intern. First time visiting the Restricted Islands. I told him to act like a man, but it looks like he's going to vomit on your shoes." Hengen gave the scientist a meaningful look—a look that said: (Speak, and I will cut you right here). "Isn't that right?"

  "Y-yes," the scientist swallowed hard, his voice coming out choked. "I'm... just nervous... sir."

  The man with the red glove stared at the trembling scientist for a few long seconds, as if weighing him. Then he exhaled in boredom.

  "Yeah, 30% of you do that on the first day. Then the next day, the mask disappears," the man said, waving his hand to let him pass. "Move along. Don't hold up the line."

  The scientist passed quickly, almost tripping over his own feet, to catch up with "Hengen."

  The two walked away from the checkpoint, heading toward the staff train car.

  "Well done," Hengen whispered without looking at him, a cold smile touching "Dr. Arno's" lips. "You were very convincing. Is it because you weren't acting?"

  The scientist shuddered, but Hengen ignored him.

  They boarded the train, and as the doors closed, Hengen cast one last look at the hall. The metallic "statues" were still standing silently, their purple lights pulsing slowly.

  "He didn't lie then," Hengen muttered, reaching under his coat to touch another vial containing a piece of the second scientist's flesh.

  The train departed in total silence, as if gliding through a void rather than on a rail. The car was empty except for them, the interior lighting deliberately dim to minimize reflections on the glass.

  The "Third Scientist" (the assistant) sat on the opposite seat, rubbing his hands together hysterically, his eyes fixed on the floor.

  "Being new, have you seen the Restricted Islands before?" Hengen asked (in Dr. Arno's voice), looking relaxedly at the dark window.

  The scientist froze his hands immediately, but couldn't stop his leg from shaking.

  "Isn't it the Energy and Factory Island?"

  "You're not wrong. The first island of the Restricted Islands is that one. From there, you can transfer to the rest of the islands."

  "W... why me?" the scientist whispered in a trembling voice. "You took a sample from Dr. Arno and disguised yourself as him (the first)... and took a sample from Dr. Kras (the second)... Why did you keep me? I'm just an assistant."

  Hengen turned slowly, his eyes (mimicking Dr. Arno's brown ones) shining with Hengen's mocking glint.

  "Exactly," Hengen smiled. "You are 'just an assistant.' No one looks at the assistant. Dr. Arno has clearance, has an ego, and has enemies watching him. But the assistant? You are just a shadow. You are the 'tool' the doctor carries."

  Hengen took out the vial containing the piece of flesh from the second scientist (Kras) and waved it slowly.

  "Your colleague in the vial is 'Part Two of Plan A,' or in case we needed a different genetic signature or a shape change. And your colleague whom I am wearing now is 'Plan A' for entry. As for you? You are 'Living Camouflage.' A lone scientist late at night looks suspicious. A scientist scolding his stupid assistant? That's a boring daily scene that arouses no suspicion. Also, you have been placed with the scientist I want to reach."

  The scientist swallowed his saliva. "A scientist you want to reach? Who is...?"

  Hengen nodded toward the window.

  The train pierced through a dense layer of artificial clouds surrounding the back side of the Central Island. And suddenly, it appeared.

  It wasn't a normal island. It was the "Island of Factories and Energy."

  A massive mass of metal and dark concrete, covered by huge insulating domes glowing from within with intermittent orange and blue light. Giant chimneys released white fumes that were immediately treated before reaching the sky. There were no windows, no gardens, no streets. It was a giant machine the size of a city, pumping life (and terror) to the rest of Neomera.

  And behind it, in the pitch darkness, loomed the shadows of the "Four Support Islands," like silent fortresses forbidden to all, interconnected by tightly secured metallic tunnels; four tunnels from this island and one long tunnel linking the rest of the islands in a circular ring.

  "We are going to visit the 'Main Laboratory of The Chaos Curriculum on Island Three," Hengen said, adjusting his collar. "I have a score to settle..."

  " Chaos Curriculum ? What is that? I haven't h—"

  "There is no emblem, and there are no textbooks. There is only a person who says, 'Life is a boring game... unless you add some chaos to it,'" Hengen interrupted him. "A method is nothing but a way to describe a scientist's path in progress... there are many methods, meaning there are many scientists..."

  Hengen looked out the window, and the scientist followed his gaze, his pupils dilating.

  Monster... That was all he could think when he saw massive black wings containing yellow eyes. But when the wings extended, a boy wearing a black hoodie and dark trousers appeared, hovering in the sky then shooting off at speed toward the Fourth Restricted Island on the right.

  "I'm not the only one with plans today," Hengen smiled, leaning back in his chair.

  "Who?" the scientist asked, no longer seeing the winged boy.

  Before Hengen could answer.

  The train began to slow down.

  "Get ready and wipe your sweat. You are about to be part of the moment of disposal of one of the main assistants in building this city." Hengen adjusted his coat.

  Then the door opened onto a cold metallic platform, completely different from the luxury of the public stations. Here, the air was heavy with the smell of oil and ozone, and the sound of heavy machinery vibrated in the floor beneath their feet.

  Hengen stepped down confidently, followed by the trembling scientist.

  On the platform, there were guard robots of a different kind—smaller, faster, moving on silent wheels. They passed by them, their scanners sweeping over Hengen's fake ID.

  [Dr. Arno. Access: Zone B. Granted.]

  A cold robotic voice confirmed the success of the biological disguise.

  "Sir..." the scientist whispered, walking behind him. "The scientist you intend... he is supposed to be my boss, is he...?"

  "Arcadia," Hengen said, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the wide path filled with transporters and workers. "Arcadia Elias Vandrome." He looked at the scientist. "And the scientist who will be killed today." He whispered to him as he walked.

  The two walked down the long corridor lit by red neon, moving away from the station... heading toward the final station of this journey.