Chapter 274: Personnel Integration - I

A Falcon approached from the distance only a few minutes later.

Hans raised his head and narrowed his eyes as the aircraft descended toward the landing area.

"He’s arrived."

"You are teasing the doctor, Commander," Dianne commented from beside him.

"How does the integration work anyway?" Hans asked.

"The mechanism is very complex." Dianne glanced toward the Tech Center. "Once the candidate is accepted and secured inside one of the Integration Pods, the System handles the rest."

"That convenient, huh?"

Hans looked toward the massive structure again.

"Will there be any side effects?"

"Nothing destructive. They’ll remain unconscious for several days while the process settles."

Hans wasn’t sure whether that was supposed to be reassuring.

Tyrus was still a valuable chess piece in his hand. A very annoying one sometimes, but still valuable.

He did not want the man waking up unable to speak properly, or worse, becoming a vegetable because Hans wanted to turn him into System personnel.

Then again, the entire purpose of the facility was integration.

If the System had gone as far as building eight pods specifically for it, Hans doubted it would casually destroy every person placed inside.

Still...

There was something else he wanted clarified.

"System, will they become as loyal to me as the rest of my people after integration?"

A panel appeared.

------

[ Personnel Integration — Allegiance Effect ]

Successful integration establishes System-level allegiance to the Commander comparable to fabricated System personnel.

Integrated personnel retain:

Existing Memories

Personality

Professional Knowledge

Learned Skills

Personal Judgment

Individual Preferences

Integrated personnel may disagree with the Commander, criticize decisions, or retain independent professional opinions.

They will not knowingly betray, sabotage, or act against the Commander’s recognized authority.

------

Hans read the panel carefully.

It didn’t sound like brainwashing, at least not in the way he had normally thought of.

Tyrus would still be Tyrus, which also meant Hans would probably still have to listen to him complain.

"That’s better than I expected."

He shifted his attention back toward the Falcon, which had finally landed.

"Then let’s welcome our first employee."

Hans and Dianne walked toward the aircraft.

The side door slid open.

A man wearing a laboratory coat stepped down onto the ground while dust continued swirling beneath the rotors. Tyrus immediately pulled part of his coat away from his legs before brushing the rest of the dust aside.

His expression remained serious as he searched the area.

Then his eyes landed on Hans and the smugness quickly returned.

"Commander. I heard you were looking for me."

"Time for a little lab upgrade."

Hans turned slightly and pointed toward the Tech Center behind him.

"Do you want to own your own research institution, Doctor?"

Tyrus followed the direction of his hand. He remained silent for a moment.

From this distance, the Tech Center could almost be mistaken for one of the larger research institutions that still existed before the Event.

The central structure stretched low and wide across the cleared ground, surrounded by several connected wings and hardened service sections. Separate entrances divided the ordinary personnel approaches from the heavier receiving areas farther along the building.

Cameras and recessed sensors watched every major entrance.

Large service doors occupied another section entirely, clearly intended for equipment not suitable through the front lobby.

Beyond the main building, much of the surrounding land was still empty.

Four prepared utility and data connections disappeared beneath the cleared ground, waiting for Research Complexes that did not exist yet.

Even without those additions, the place already looked less like one laboratory and more like the center of an entire research campus.

Tyrus studied it quietly.

The size itself probably wasn’t what impressed him. He had seen laboratories before. He had worked inside classified ones.

Tyrus finally looked back at Hans.

"I suppose it’s not going to be a free upgrade, Commander. Nobody just approaches me with an entire research center as a gift and calls it a day."

"Indeed."

Hans sighed.

There was no reason to hide it from Tyrus anyway.

The man valued his freedom considerably more than most people Hans dealt with, and whatever happened next had to be something Tyrus agreed to.

"Before you make a choice, you might as well see the package first."

Tyrus looked at him for a few seconds, then toward the Tech Center again.

"Shall we?" Hans asked.

"Very well."

They started walking with Dianne behind them.

The closer they came, the less the facility resembled an ordinary research building.

The walls around several sections were noticeably thicker than the others. Some windows existed around the administrative portions, but deeper laboratory areas had almost none.

Different access routes split before reaching the structure.

One led toward the main entrance.

Another curved toward the service and receiving section.

A third ended beside several reinforced loading bays where recovered equipment, samples or entire pieces of machinery could presumably be brought in without passing through the ordinary corridors.

Tyrus noticed them too.

His attention moved constantly from one part of the building to another.

"Separate intake?"

Hans shrugged. Much of the equipment was alien to him, and it was better to leave the specifics for Tyrus to ponder about.

"And those?" Tyrus pointed toward several structures farther along one wing. "No need. Those must be the test bays."

They continued toward the main entrance.

Several personnel were already visible inside through the reinforced glass doors. Others moved between workstations farther beyond, carrying tablets or checking newly activated systems.

"Your staff are unbelievably... precise. The way they handle everything. The way they work."

Tyrus stared through the entrance again. The smug expression on his face had disappeared.

Hans couldn’t tell what the man was thinking.

At some point, they stopped beside the main entrance.

Tyrus looked through the reinforced glass again.

"So, what do you think?"

"I’d like to know the price first, if I may." Tyrus glanced at Hans. "You would make a terrible salesman, Commander."

"Your loyalty."

Tyrus shrugged.

"And part of your freedom."

That finally made him frown.

"You want me to become a slave?"

"That’s a rather dramatic description."

"Fine. I want to hear the flowery version."

Hans paused.

Perhaps Tyrus had a point.

For someone trying to convince another person to willingly surrender part of his freedom, Hans was doing a terrible job selling it.

"You’ll be integrated into the same framework that supports my soldiers. You’ll keep your memories, personality, knowledge, whatever strange thoughts are already inside your head, and you’ll gain access to things you couldn’t normally use."

Hans pointed toward the Tech Center.

"That includes this."

Tyrus remained silent.

"But there is a catch," Hans continued. "Once you’re integrated, you won’t be able to knowingly betray me, sabotage my command or deliberately work against it."

"So you were serious about the freedom part."

"Yes."

"And if I refuse?"

Hans looked at him.

"Then you get back on that Falcon and return to your laboratory."

Tyrus raised a brow.

"That’s it?"

"I am not the type of person to integrate someone who doesn’t agree to it. I’m not going to tie you down and shove you into a machine."

Tyrus looked toward the Tech Center again.

"And that is the gift you’ve prepared for me?"

"Just the beginning of it, Doctor."

Hans stepped away from the entrance and looked across the enormous facility.

"You and I both know our ambitions don’t exactly stop at whatever is in front of us."

"Yours certainly don’t."

"Maybe one day I’ll raise the flag of the Golden Eagle Army across every corner of this world."

Tyrus looked at him.

"You know a world doesn’t have corners, right?"

Hans stared back. "HELIX. DAEDALUS. VULCAN. Everything we’ve recovered so far."

He gestured toward the Tech Center.

"This thing can reconstruct their archives. It can recover the knowledge they left behind. It can tell us what they already knew. What they built. What they discovered."

He tapped a finger against his arm. "But somebody still has to decide what comes next. That’s where I need someone who can actually think beyond the archive."

"And the first man you thought of was me."

"No."

Tyrus narrowed his eyes.

"It was actually Kordula."

His expression changed immediately.

"Oh, please. Not her again."

Hans couldn’t stop the smile.

"But then I remembered that she would probably spend the first week arguing with you instead of doing research. So I chose the slightly less irritating one."

"Was that a compliment?"

Hans ignored the question and turned toward Tyrus. "Give me an answer, Doctor. Are you willing or not?"

Tyrus looked through the entrance again.

Researchers and facility personnel continued moving beyond the reinforced doors. Displays remained active throughout the lobby, while deeper inside sat laboratories, simulation systems and equipment that neither of them had properly inspected yet.

He had spent most of his life chasing questions that never seemed to end.

HELIX had given him some answers.

The apocalypse had produced even more questions.

Now, Hans was standing beside him offering an institution that could recover knowledge from projects that had once been buried behind some of the most restricted walls in Ashington.

And beyond that—was the ability to continue where they had stopped and pursue what they could not.

Tyrus took a deep breath and straightened his back.

"All my life, I’ve been pursuing the mysteries of life and evolution. If this place can give me even half of what you’re claiming, then refusing because I might lose the ability to betray you someday would be a rather stupid decision."

Tyrus suddenly stepped back. "I was never your enemy, Commander."

His expression became strangely solemn. "Whatever the price it takes, I intend to be the one who unravels it all."

Then he dropped onto one knee.

Hans blinked.

"I, Tyrus Shearman, hereby—"

Hans immediately grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back up before the man could finish.

"Doctor, stop being stupid. We don’t do that here."

Tyrus looked almost offended.

"Then what exactly do you want me to do? Kiss your ass?"

Hans rolled his eyes. He turned toward Dianne, trying very hard not to laugh.

"Adjutant Dianne."

"Commander?"

"Lead us to where the Doctor gets to experience evolution himself."