Project: Death for Classroom Zero

Chapter 63: I Will Show You

Zero 63

“How was your day, my beloved?”

The darkness was creeping on his room. Hating the darkness looming on his own, personal room, he went to the switch of the light in order to open it. What welcomed him after opening the light, is a a piece of a whole, human brain. It was placed on a tubular transparent glass filled with green, frothing enzymes that preserves the brain.

“Hi, Cassandra,” he greeted the brain.

“Hi, my ever dashing Copper,” the brain replied. Her voice was coming from a built-in stereo speaker inside the machine. “How was your day,” she asked again.

“The day has just started, Cassandra,” Principal Copper said, laughing. “It’s morning today.”

“Oh, is it?” she asked, surprised. “I’m sorry, my babe. I wasn’t paying attention to the time.”

Principal Copper smiled. Nearing to Cassandra, he patted the top of the tubular glass where the brain of the AI Cassandra could be found. He patted it, as if he was patting a head of a human.

“I wish I could feel that touch of yours,” Cassandra said. On her voice was a hint of sadness and disappointment. Principal Copper could feel and hear it from her voice.

“Do not worry, we’ll be there,” he said while he continued patting her head. “We’ve already discovered a feasible method to get you out of that situation. What we just need is enough time to find your matches.”

“But … finding my matches was just like … a single percent over a hundred. It’s like … it’s like …”

“Impossible?”

The brain on the machine did not answer.

“Do you know who I am?” Principal Copper asked. For a minute, he waited for Cassandra to answer. Yet, it seemed that Cassandra finds the question hard to answer. Or not—he just finds the question frightening. Or maybe the one who is asking the question.

After a minute, that Principal Copper had received no answer from her, he removed his hand away from her robotic body, and then walked towards his elegant office table. On the table, a shining bottle of liquor was standing and is waiting for him. A bottle of wine. Beside the ancient wine is a piece of clear champagne glass. He grabbed it, then, calmly, he poured a blood-colored wine from the bottle. Silence was glaring as he make the wine twirling inside the champagne glass.

“I am Copper Sindric,” he suddenly said, as if answering the question that he himself had thrown earlier for AI Cassandra. “And you know what I can do? I can make the impossible into unimaginably real.”

AI Cassandra still has not answered. She kept herself stuck from the place where Principal Copper has left her.

“I can make a creature that can haunt anyone more than the most terrifying nightmare, I can make an artificial intelligence that looked like a real person. I can restore memories and data from the brain, and transfer it digitally in a computer-based storage. I can make a deadly organization fall onto their knees and beg for my help. I can make a place—that project zero building—which no one can compete when it comes to its technological ability. All of it, I can make it.” He walked towards the window, and looked at the dome-like crystals that traps the whole building away from the outside world. A sound of a crashing glass splashed on his hand. Blood gushed away from his palm, yet he did not bulge nor winced, nor showed a feeling of pain. He was still staring at the outside.

“That means I can bring you back into life again, Cassandra. I can. I will.”

“Copper—"

Principal Copper did not let Cassandra continue his sentence. He cut it off by saying, “Cassandra, initiate personality detachment mode.”

Suddenly, instead of talking about the issue she had made to him, Cassandra muttered, “initiating,” then a second after, she again muttered, “completed. Hello, Master. What can Cassandra do for you?”

“Scan the completion percentage of activity of Project B.”

“Scanning …”

Principal Copper waited. Still, blood was pouring on his hand, but the anger—and misery (which he did not want to admit)—he was feeling, has made him numb and unable to feel pain.

“Completed. The maturation stage for project B is one hundred percent completed. Initiate replacement?” Cassandra, with the voice of a static robot, has asked.

“Initiate,” answered Principal Copper.

“Initiated,” Cassandra said. “Destroying the currently active Josefina Buenavista …” after another set of seconds, she again said, “Destruction completed. Activating the matured Josefina Buenavista from Project B, chamber A ….” Another second passed, and she once again said. “Successful.”

Now, Principal Copper moved his gaze away from the outside window. He grabbed his coat, and wore it. While wearing, he started instructing Cassandra once again. “Cassandra, scan instruction C-872 and directly upload it to the main system of Josefina Buenavista.”

“Scanning. Completed. Uploading. Uploaded,” she monotonously commanded.

After hearing, Principal Copper stormed outside of his room. He closed the door, but he had left the lights of his room still turned on—he never failed to close it everytime he would go out. Yet, what is worse, is letting Cassandra still being under Personality Detachment mode. However, he does not care anymore. He can create another version of her anyway, if it would start malfunctioning. He knew he could.

Now, as he walk, he grabbed his phone. There were students of Josen High School who was also walking on the hallway, and the first thing that they noticed to the well-respected principal was his enraged presence and the blood dripping from his hand. Yet, no one can come near closer to him and ask what was the problem.

He dialed someone on the phone, and from there, he said; “The final phase is about to be announced. Cancel the rest day period of zero students and gather them where Josefina Buenavista could be found.”

One might be wondering who and what the Professor Josefina Buenavista really is. She was just as mysterious as Principal Copper or the ‘See you’ or the real identity of Blaze or Cassandra. Principal Copper could not really identify, nor decide, if she was a real person, or a perfect humanoid machine. Yet, one thing is for sure: Josefina Buenavista was his creation.

He dialed another contact on his phone. While walking, he waited for the man on the other line to answer.

“Yow, Copper Sindric. What’s the matter?”

“Do you have anything to do, Sir Jin?”

“Nah. Long as the sun was still up the sky, I won’t do anything. Remember, you have gifted me a f*****g XP disease?” the man on the other line answered.

“I am telling tonight.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Arvin. I will release the Toddler tonight. I want you to be there as it hunts its food.”

“You’re making me again a baby sitter of a terrifying three-headed child with the body of a spider. Why do I always have to do the dirty work?”

“I am giving you permission to kill him,” Principal Copper autonomously told.

“Wow, that’s so sudden, Principal. Last time we met, you told me to give him a week span of life. Now you’re cutting it so suddenly?”

“The last phase of Project Zero was about to happen today. I need you to catch and kill him as soon as possible. I don’t want any possible conflict that might occur along the way of the last phase. And that man is the only conflict that we have.”

Lies. Though half of the reason was indeed about the last phase, but the very reason why he wanted to kill Arvin immediately, was because … of the wound that keeps on opening … whenever he would have conflict to Cassandra.

A wound that takes time to heal. A wound he never knew if it would completely heal. A wound that tarnished him and his relationship to his brother. A wound that is always breaking his heart. A wound of love.

“Alright. I’ll come and fetch the Toddler tonight,” Jin said.

Principal Copper hanged up the call. With a concrete, full decision, he stormed towards the secret room to enter the passage for the Project Zero building. Still succumbed from his unexplained anger, he keeps on chanting to himself;

“I’ll show you Cassandra, I’ll show you.”