Chapter 485: The One Named Doberman
Navy Science Division, New Research Base.
A figure lay motionless on a cold operating table. Its shape was broadly humanoid, but nothing about its appearance was human anymore. It was a monster in every sense of the word, a creature like an upright octopus, trailing tentacles where its arms and legs had once been. Cables and monitoring wires ran from sensors attached to its scalp, connecting it to the research equipment clustered alongside the table.
"What is wrong with this?" Caesar stood in front of his screens, staring at the readouts with genuine bafflement. "There shouldn't be anything missing. Every variable has been accounted for. So why does this idiot have no brain left?"
He had run enough experiments to fill the data requirements twice over. There was no logical reason for this gap to still exist.
It was giving him a headache.
"Momousagi is already on a ship headed here." A figure draped in white robes moved quietly toward him from behind. "She'll arrive within the day."
"Wonderful!"
Caesar immediately broke into an enthusiastic dance of self-congratulation, arms and legs moving in all directions. "This time there won't be any problems at all! I am on the verge of producing technology that surpasses that hack Vegapunk entirely!"
"Let's hope so." The robed figure's voice was flat. "The Five Elders are not interested in hearing about failure."
"This genius does not produce failures!"
Caesar dissolved his lower half into gas and floated upward toward the ceiling, cackling freely. "Fuhehehehehe! There is only one possible outcome and that outcome is success!"
He looked down at the robed figure with something approaching condescension. "But you had better keep close to me. Momousagi isn't like the other useless ones. If she decides to cause trouble, I'll be in real danger."
"I understand." The robed figure showed no particular concern. The prospect of standing between a CP0 operative and a candidate for Admiral apparently gave them little pause. "The Five Elders sent me specifically for that reason."
"Fuhehehehehe! Then we have nothing to worry about!"
Caesar rocketed around the room in a loose orbit, enthusiasm filling the available space. "Vegapunk! Just you wait. I'm about to leave you so far behind you won't even see where I went!"
In the commotion, no one was watching the operating table.
And so no one saw it.
The monster lying there, whose dull empty eyes had been staring at nothing for a very long time, had a moment of something passing through them. A flicker. Brief and quiet as the last ember catching.
Then it was gone, as though it had never been. Just a trick of the light.
On the deck of a ship somewhere at sea, a woman stood watching an island emerge from the distance.
The vessel looked like an ordinary merchant ship. It was not. Every sailor aboard was an elite Marine in civilian dress. The extreme degree of secrecy was, in large part, a response to Brett's assault on the old Punk Hazard facility. The lesson had been learned: hide everything, conceal every movement, and under no circumstances allow a repeat of that incident.
Momousagi swept a loose strand of hair away from her face with a light touch.
"The new head scientist. His name was..." She turned it over in her memory. "Caesar?"
She didn't know the Science Division well. But she had heard Borsalino mention it from time to time over the years, in his casual, offhand way.
The undisputed top of the division had always been Vegapunk. After him, there was this man Caesar.
Borsalino had described him as different from Vegapunk in every meaningful way. Cold, arrogant, and completely willing to cross any line in pursuit of his research.
"I wonder what he's come up with."
A touch of something wistful moved through her.
If only Vegapunk hadn't been taken by Brett's people. If the Government still had him, things would look very different right now. They wouldn't be in this position, scrambling for alternatives, stretched this thin.
The ship reached the island and came to a stop beside a sheer cliff face. Then a section of the cliff slid open, revealing a passage, and the ship moved inside.
Beyond the entrance was a small harbor, brightly lit, functional.
"Fuhehehehehe! Welcome, Vice Admiral Momousagi! I've been looking forward to this!"
She hadn't even disembarked before something came drifting over from the dock, circling her like a cloud that had developed opinions.
Momousagi suppressed the urge to recoil and spoke plainly. "You must be Doctor Caesar. Let's skip the pleasantries. What do you need from me?"
"Fuhehehehehe! You don't have to do anything at all! Just cooperate with the experiment and leave the rest to me!" Caesar drifted in lazy spirals above her head, grinning. "I'm going to give you an evolution. A power greater than anything Vegapunk's work ever produced."
So this man had genuinely produced something that surpassed Vegapunk.
Momousagi wasn't entirely convinced, looking at him. He had the look of a man who lived in his own head.
But the orders had come from above. There was nothing to do but cooperate.
"Understood." She gave a brief nod. "When do we begin?"
"Immediately, of course!"
Momousagi came ashore and followed Caesar's drifting form into the base.
It had clearly been built in a hurry, but the interior was larger than the exterior suggested. As they made their way down a corridor, she asked, "Doctor Caesar, are Doberman and the others here as well?"
Caesar glanced back with a grin. "Of course. They completed their evolution ahead of you. They're still adjusting to their new capabilities."
Momousagi nodded. "And this evolution. What does it actually involve?"
"Awakening the true power latent within the Fish-Man bloodline!" Caesar's volume jumped immediately, fervor rising. "Think of it as becoming a Zoan-type ability user, except one who is completely unaffected by the sea or Seastone."
That did sound genuinely formidable.
Momousagi turned the thought over quietly.
"Once this first group of lucky subjects is upgraded, we move straight to mass production." Caesar's grin had the quality of a man imagining something that delighted him. "After that, the deep sea won't be Fish-Man Island's exclusive domain anymore."
Momousagi gave a small nod.
Taking the deep sea out of Fish-Man Island's control would be a significant strategic shift. Worth pursuing.
In a room not far from where they were walking, Vice Admiral Doberman was crouched in the corner.
The room was not heavily fortified. Its door was iron, but thin. Two ordinary Marines were posted outside. By any reasonable standard, the security arrangement could be called casual.
Understandably so. Who would post a heavy guard over something that had no will of its own, that moved only in response to direct commands?
But in the corner of that room, the thing's empty eyes were quietly, slowly, coming alive.
"That presence. Is that Gion?"
The creature murmured it, barely any sound at all.
Then it stood up.
"The moment has finally come."
Every tentacle lashed out simultaneously, fast as discharged lightning. The walls, which had seemed solid enough, came apart in an instant. The room exploded outward.
And the man inside became a bolt of motion, rocketing out into the corridor.
The restraint of all these long months had finally found its breaking point.
The darkness hidden inside this Navy base. I'm going to drag it out into the open.
He was already moving at full speed.
Alarms erupted through the entire facility.
Doberman ran.
Then he stopped.
A white shadow was standing directly in his path.
"Gone rogue, has it."
The robed figure said it quietly, almost to themselves.
A sound tore out of Doberman's changed throat, something between a roar and a howl, and he threw himself forward.