Chapter 189: Old Archive

The old research building remained silent.

Nobody stood on the rooftop,holding the broken surveillance component between two fingers.

The small metallic piece looked ordinary. There was no company logo. No serial number. No recognizable manufacturer. Only the strange symbol engraved into its surface.

Nobody turned it over. Nothing was on it.

He looked toward the dark windows of the building. "Someone was watching this place."

Blossom Bunny floated beside him. "Atta ta."

"I know." Nobody slipped the component into his inventory. "But I’m not going to chase a random stranger just because they left a mysterious piece of metal behind."

The System appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Analysis]

Statement detected.

Probability of user following suspicious clue anyway: 96.8%

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody stared at the System. "...You really don’t trust me."

The System disappeared.

Nobody sighed. "Fine." He turned toward the building. "Let’s investigate."

He jumped from the rooftop. His body dropped toward the side of the building before he activated Zig Zag Teleportation.

The world shifted. Nobody appeared inside the abandoned research facility.

The hallway was exactly as he remembered it. Dust covered the floor. Old papers had been left scattered across several desks.

The walls carried faded stains from years of neglect. Nothing appeared valuable. But Nobody had learned one important lesson. Places that looked empty were often the places people wanted forgotten.

He walked deeper into the building. The corridor eventually split into three directions.

Nobody stopped. "CC Eyes." The surrounding security cameras appeared inside his vision. Most were dead. One remained active. Then another.

Nobody followed their feeds. The cameras were connected to an old internal network. He traced the signal. It led downward.

"Basement." Nobody smiled. "Of course." He found a staircase hidden behind a maintenance door. The lock had been replaced recently. That caught his attention.

Nobody crouched beside it.

Fresh scratches surrounded the keyhole. Someone had been opening this door recently.

He touched the lock. "Someone is still using this place."

He stood. Then he heard footsteps. Nobody immediately disappeared. Zig Zag Teleportation carried him onto a narrow ledge above the staircase.

A man entered. He was wearing a gray jacket, black trousers, small security badge. He looked like an employee who had simply come to check the building.

But nobody came to abandoned buildings at midnight to perform routine maintenance.

The man looked around. Then pulled out a small access card. The locked door opened.

Nobody’s eyes narrowed. "Interesting."

The man entered the basement.

Nobody followed. The staircase led farther underground than expected.

One floor. Then another. The air became colder. The walls changed from concrete to reinforced metal.

Nobody slowed down.

This wasn’t an abandoned research building. At least, not completely.

The man eventually reached another security door. He entered a code. The door opened. Inside was a long archive room. Rows of old cabinets filled the space.

Nobody quietly entered after him.

The man walked toward the back. He stopped in front of a cabinet labeled:

PROJECT ARCHIVE: 05-17

Nobody stared at the label. "Five years ago..."

The man unlocked the cabinet. He removed a thin folder.

Nobody activated Night Vision and focused on the cover. There was almost nothing written on it. No project name. No department. Only a number.

05-17.

The man opened it.

Nobody watched from the shadows.

Several pages had been removed. Most of the remaining documents were heavily redacted. The man pulled out one particular sheet.

His expression changed into fear.

Nobody noticed immediately. "What did you find?"

The man suddenly looked around. Nobody remained still. The man checked the hallway but saw nothing. He returned to the document. His hands were shaking slightly. Then he took out his phone. "I found it."

Nobody’s eyes narrowed.

The man whispered. "No.I don’t know why it’s still here." A pause. Then the man’s face became pale. "I understand." He ended the call.

Nobody waited. The man closed the folder and returned it to the cabinet. Then he left.

Nobody waited until the door closed. He approached the cabinet. "Let’s see what scared you." He opened it. The folder was still there. Nobody picked it up. He turned the first page.

The words were barely readable.

Project 05-17

Status: Terminated

Below that was a single sentence.

All personnel records transferred to central archive.

Nobody frowned. "That’s it?"

He turned the page. Another blank. Then another. Almost the entire project had been erased.

But one photograph remained.

Nobody pulled it out. It showed a group of employees standing outside the research facility. He recognized several faces. Nathan Industries employees. Most of them were older. Some had already retired. One had died. Another had disappeared from company records.

Nobody looked at the final person in the photograph. A young man stood near the edge of the group. His face was partially hidden by another person’s shoulder.

Nobody stared.

Something about him felt familiar. Just enough to make Nobody uncomfortable. He turned the photograph around. But there was nothing. "Who were you?"

The System appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Object Analysis]

Photograph detected.

Date: Five years ago

Location: Nathan Industries Research Facility

Subjects: 17

Identification: Incomplete

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody looked at the photograph again. "Can you identify the people?"

The System paused.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Processing...]

Identification unavailable.

Database access restricted.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody frowned. "Restricted?"

That was unusual. The System rarely refused to identify something so simple. He placed the photograph into his inventory.

Then he noticed something else. A small handwritten note had been tucked behind the photograph.

Nobody unfolded it. Only three words were written. "Do not reopen."

Nobody stared at the sentence. Then he smiled. "Well..." He folded the note. "Now I definitely have to reopen it."

Blossom Bunny floated beside him. "Atta ta!"

Nobody looked at her. "Exactly."

He placed the note into his inventory. Then he heard something. A faint metallic sound. Someone was coming.

Nobody closed the cabinet. He stepped backward into the darkness.

The basement door opened. Two men entered. Neither was the man from before. Both wore dark jackets. One carried a flashlight. The other carried a tablet.

"Did you find the file?"

"Not yet."

"Keep searching."

"What about the security system?"

"It hasn’t detected anything."

Nobody remained hidden.

The second man stopped. "Wait."

The first looked at him. "What?"

He stared toward the archive room. "I thought I heard something."

Nobody didn’t move. The man slowly raised his flashlight.

The beam swept across the shelves. Closer and closer. Then stopped.

Nobody’s hand moved toward his crowbars. He could take them down quickly. But that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to know why they were here.

The flashlight moved away. The two men continued talking.

"The old project shouldn’t even exist anymore."

"Exactly."

"Then why is someone searching for it?"

"Because someone doesn’t want the truth buried."

The second man lowered his voice. "And Daniel found part of it."

Nobody’s expression changed. The conversation had just connected the old project to Daniel Cross.

The first man spoke again. "That’s why his records were removed."

"Who ordered it?"

A pause.

"I don’t know."

"You’re lying."

"I’m not."

"Then tell me who accessed the archive after Daniel left."

Nobody leaned slightly closer.

The second man finally answered. "The access logs were erased."

"By whom?"

"I told you. I don’t know."

The first man grabbed his collar. "You’d better remember."

Nobody’s eyes narrowed.

So Daniel hadn’t simply stumbled across something. Someone had deliberately erased his records. And someone was still protecting the project.

The man released his collar. "Forget it. We’ll search the upper archive."

The two men left. Nobody waited several seconds. Then stepped out. He looked at the cabinet. "Daniel..."

He now had another piece of the puzzle. But it raised even more questions. Why had Daniel investigated Project 05-17? Why had someone erased his access records? And why had the project been terminated without leaving any proper documentation?

Nobody looked at the photograph inside his inventory. Then his thoughts returned briefly to the masked stranger. The stranger had nothing to do with this.

At least, Nobody had no evidence connecting him to Daniel.

That distinction mattered. He couldn’t let one mystery contaminate another. "Two mysteries."

Nobody turned toward the stairs. "Two separate paths." He started walking.

"And I’m going to solve both."

.....

The next morning, Toma sat across from Aiden.

She placed a file on his desk. "We found something."

Aiden looked up. "What?"

"The old research facility."

Aiden’s expression changed. "What about it?"

Toma hesitated. "Nobody and I found evidence that someone has been using it recently."

Aiden immediately stood. "Recently?"

"Yes."

Aiden walked around his desk. "Did you see who?"

"No. But we found records."

Aiden took the file. His eyes moved quickly across the pages.

Then stopped.

"Project 05-17." Toma nodded. "Do you know it?"

Aiden remained silent.

For several seconds. Then he slowly closed the file. "No."

Toma looked at him. "You don’t?"

Aiden’s expression was strange. "I’ve seen that number before."

"Where?"

Aiden looked toward the window. "Daniel’s desk."

Toma’s eyes widened. "Daniel had it?"

"Not directly." Aiden walked back toward the desk. "There was a locked drawer in his old office."

"Was it ever opened?"

Aiden shook his head. "No."

Toma frowned. "Then why do you remember the number?"

Aiden looked at her. "Because Daniel once told me something."

"What?"

Aiden’s voice became quieter. "He said there was one project Nathan Industries had erased so completely that even the employees who worked on it weren’t supposed to remember it."

Toma felt a chill. "Why?"

Aiden didn’t answer. Because he didn’t know.

And somewhere across the city, Nobody was looking at the same question from another direction. Neither of them knew that Daniel Cross had left behind more than a notebook. He had left behind a trail.

A trail leading toward something Nathan Industries had tried very hard to bury.

And somewhere beneath the abandoned research facility...a locked room remained untouched for five years. Nobody didn’t know it yet. But the door to that room had just been opened.

And whatever was inside...had been waiting.