Endzone: Simulated Apocalypse

Chapter 32: Buried Knowledge

After several minutes or browsing, Cyanide was at a loss for what to do.

"Most of these folders are encrypted with passwords..." Cyanide muttered, going through the file directory of the computer. "... Except this one."

Hovering his cursor over the folder he was speaking of, he hesitated before clicking into it.

"'Top Secret, Do Not Open'... huh," Luna muttered, able to see despite the blindfold that covered her eyes since she was an AI. "Yet this is the only folder that doesn't have a password...? What do you think is inside, Cyanide? Smells pretty fishy to me."

"I mean... it does say 'top secret'. Why would an adult name a folder top secret for fun? Perhaps they just forgot to lock it... though that is unlikely."

"Let's take a look inside, then," Luna said. "According to the thumbnail of the folder, there are images and videos inside. There may be good evidence for how the apocalypse came to be."

Cyanide nodded, anticipation in his heart as he clicked into the folder.

And the moment he did, his body froze, unsure of what to do.

"..."

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Before him, thousands of images and video clips alike were laid bare, showcasing the 2D fetishes of a grown man. All kinds of positions, all kinds of kinks. Ones Cyanide did not want to see.

Immediately, he exited the file explorer, and remained still for a solid few minutes. Luna too was at a loss of words, and only finally spoke again after an uncomfortable length of silence.

"Erm... to be fair, I can see why he named that as 'top secret'," she said. Then, in a quieter, more seductive tone, "But if you were into that kind of thing, Cyanide... I'm here, you know~"

"No thanks," he quickly replied. "Let's... uh, try to find the password to all these folders."

As much as he was a teen, he wasn't into jerking off to AIs. Especially not the same AI who he created himself. That was like an author masturbating to their own characters, and Cyanide thought that was beyond weird.

Luna's lips turned downwards, somewhat disappointed. But then, she smiled playfully and whispered under her breath, "Fufu~ I'll make you mine once I get a real body, Cyanide."

Cyanide ignored her teasing and instead clicked into a random folder to try out the password. Judging from the photo from earlier, the CEO was quite an old man. He most likely had the same password for all of these encrypted folders, since remembering multiple would be difficult for someone of his age.

That being said... Cyanide was completely clueless on what the password could possibly be. He tried the common ones like 'password123' or 'incorrect', but just as expected, neither worked.

"Cyanide, try the email," Luna suggested. "That shouldn't be locked."

"I thought of doing that, but there is no internet connec-" He opened the email app up anyway, and blinked as he saw what was laid before him on the screen.

"... Okay then. I guess the computers of this world don't require WiFi to keep old emails readable."

Both surprised and impressed at this, Cyanide began browsing through the various emails sent to the CEO. Most were work-related and didn't discuss the virus at all, instead focusing on the company's internal affairs and such.

This was to be expected, of course, but Cyanide refused to believe there was nothing to be found in his email, considering that letter from Doctor Finch, which he had laying on the desk right beside him right now.

Cyanide had searched the entire room, but found no other letters of the sort. If that's the case, only one answer was possible: the rest were in the form of emails, stored on this computer. The last one was not an email but in the form of an actual, handwritten letter, simply because it was the final farewell.

Pressing on the search bar in the email app, Cyanide inputted a filter.

{From: Finch}

The autofill took care of the rest, revealing that Doctor Finch's real name was Finch Linderman. Pressing {Enter} on the QWERTY keyboard, the email refreshed and filtered out any emails that didn't fit the criteria, leaving behind only the ones sent by Doctor Finch.

However... even so, of the emails said anything about a virus, antidote, or whatever. Nothing even remotely close to it.

"... How disappointing," Cyanide muttered. But then, his gaze landed on the little avatar icon in the top left of the screen, and narrowed his eyes.

He moved his cursor over there and clicked on the icon. And as expected... a drop-down list appeared, displaying a second account in addition to this primary one.

"Hmph. Sneaky... but not sneaky enough."

Switching to the second account, Cyanide moved to input the filters in the search bar again, but then stopped after realizing there was only one conversation in the email. It was with an anonymous account.

But that was not what caught his eye. What did... was the title of the conversation.

{RE: Project: Antidote}

Resting his chin on his hand, Cyanide clicked into the conversation and began reading from the very top.