Total darkness reigned in the basement of the OmniTech mansion, broken only by the gloomy red flicker emanating from the emergency screens. The noise generated by the magnetic engines was deafening, and Conan felt his metal watch begin to pull his wrist powerfully toward the steel walls.
"Dr. Agasa! Hera! Grab onto the center wooden pillars, they are non-magnetic!" Conan shouted as he tried to drag them away from the servers that had begun to vibrate violently.
From the upper floor, the screams of Geko and Mary echoed behind the sealed doors. "Conan! Doctor! The floor beneath us is shaking, the room is filling with a strange mist!"
"It's liquid helium!" Hera whispered, trying to maintain her balance. "They are cooling the giant magnets to raise their power to the maximum. If we don't get out within minutes, this basement will turn into a black hole that swallows everything metallic, including our bones!"
A Race Against Gravity
Miso was trembling, but he did not let go of his tablet. "Conan... the magnetic frequency is increasing! The device says the basement will reach a force of 10 Tesla within sixty seconds! That's enough to shred any electronic chip in our devices!"
"Not if we disable the source!" Conan replied firmly. He looked at the basement ceiling, where the central control unit sat protected by bulletproof glass. That was the "electronic lung" feeding the system with power.
Conan realized the only solution was to use the Nano-Force Shoes invented by Agasa. He pressed the side switch on his shoe, feeling the pulse of air pressure flow into his feet.
"Doctor, can the Voice Changer send ultrasound waves?" Conan asked quickly.
Agasa replied while clinging to the pillar: "Yes, if I set it to a frequency of 40 kHz, but it might explode from the pressure!"
"I'll risk it!" Conan shouted. He leaped high, and thanks to the power shoes, he flew through the air, bypassing servers that were flying toward the walls like shrapnel. At the peak of his jump, he delivered a massive kick toward the central unit, and at the same time, released an amplified sound wave from the voice chip behind his ear.
Boom! The protective glass shattered, and the control unit fell. The magnetic hum stopped suddenly, and metals crashed to the floor with a thundering sound.
The Secret of the Crystal Discs
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but the doors remained closed. Hera immediately headed toward the main computer, which was still running on an emergency battery. "Kudo... look at this file that opened automatically after the unit fell."
The file was titled: [Digital Mirror Project - Version 1.0].
Data began to stream across the screen: "Uploading human consciousness... 98% success... the digital self does not age... it does not die."
"My God," Agasa whispered, "OmniTech wasn't looking for a new internet; they were trying to create digital immortality. These crystal discs we found... they aren't just data; they are digital copies of human minds that used to work at this company!"
Miso, who was monitoring his screen, shouted: "That's why there was interference! The discs are communicating with each other; they are programmatically alive!"
Suddenly, the entire mansion shook again. But this time it wasn't a magnet; it was a sound from outside... the sound of approaching helicopters.
Escape into the Unknown
"Geko! Mary! Are you okay?" Conan shouted through the ventilation opening.
Mary answered with a trembling voice: "Yes, the doors opened suddenly, but we see lights approaching from the forest... black SUVs with no license plates!"
"They are here!" Hera said, turning extremely pale. "The owners of this place have returned to reclaim their treasure. If they find us here with the discs, we won't make it out alive."
With incredible speed, Conan gathered the crystal discs and placed them in Agasa's lead-lined bag to protect them from tracking. "Doctor, Miso, get out through the secret passage we entered from! Hera, stay with me, we will lead them away."
Conan used the Magnetic Scanning Glasses to see through the walls. He saw men wearing sophisticated tactical suits, carrying advanced signal detection devices. They weren't just guards; they were "tech mercenaries."
Conan and Hera slipped through the old kitchen and out into the mansion's backyard under the cover of darkness. Heavy rain had begun to fall, helping to hide their thermal signature.
As the team gathered at the edge of the forest to flee toward the van, Conan suddenly stopped. He felt a strange chill behind his back.
"Conan, what is it?" Mary asked him in a whisper.
Conan looked behind him through the thick fog. He saw someone standing on the roof of the abandoned mansion. He wasn't carrying a weapon; instead, he was holding a glowing tablet. Suddenly, the device's screen lit up with a familiar face... the face of the person who appeared on the basement screens!
The person on the roof began to laugh with a mechanical voice that echoed throughout the forest. Suddenly, the children's phones and Agasa's devices all emitted a single sound at once... a mass text message reached everyone:
[You have taken the Mirror... and now, the Mirror will take your minds. The game has begun.]
Suddenly, all electronic devices in their hands shut off, including Conan's glasses and shoes. They found themselves in total darkness in the middle of the forest, while black cars surrounded them from every side, and the sound of heavy footsteps approached from behind the trees.
"Doctor..." Conan whispered as he gripped the bag containing the discs, "the inventions are dead... we now rely only on our minds."
At that moment, a flare shot into the sky, revealing dozens of men surrounding them, led by a man wearing an electronic mask glowing with the OmniTech logo.
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