Strongest Superhuman System

"I hear you have a brother. Was his name Patrick? Yes, I think that was it. An absolutely brilliant boy in my humble opinion. I did some background research and I can't help but be impressed with his mental capacity and his achievements in the field of research. Tell me, how is he doing?

Have you perhaps thought about bringing him into the NSA? We could always use someone as brilliant as him in our ranks."

Jeanne felt her pupils dilate in anger as her folded hands tightened into fists. She took in a discreet breath and sighed to release the rage that she knew was about to burst out from her and finally relaxed.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't bring my family into business conversations. It's unprofessional."

Salazar raised his hands with a snake-like smile on full display.

"Yes, of course, it was bad manners. I apologize."

...

Ding!

The sound of the elevator opening revealed Fiona's tense face as she stepped out into a new hallway. This hallway was circular in design. It curved into the distance, circling into another part of the structure and preventing you from seeing the end of it. It had metallic walls and floors, and every single step she took reverberated off the walls in a deep echo.

The air down there was stale and extremely cold, but Fiona didn't feel it much even though she was only wearing a T-shirt.

Once Fiona stepped out, she waved to the scientists behind her and told them to lead the way. The two scientists started to walk down the hallway and Fiona followed behind them while glancing around at the fluorescent bulbs that were dimly lighting the way.

The hallway was eerily quiet, and other than the sound of their footsteps echoing through the area, there wasn't a single sound to be heard anywhere.

They walked down the hallway for a while and made two turns at strange-angled corners that were leading deeper into the circle's center until Fiona finally stopped when she heard a lot of voices coming from around the next corner.

"Have them prepared for the next batch."

"There should be at least one A rank in the next batch. These C and B ranks are useless fodder."

"I heard there's going to be an A rank for sure. Someone that can be of use in controlling the other Anima."

"Hey, what are you two still doing here?"

There were many scientists standing in front of a double door and talking about the experiments while smoking and laughing, but they stopped what they were doing once they saw the two scientists walking up to them. One of the men who was smoking and seemed like the one in charge frowned as he spoke up to the two scientists who were walking up to them.

"Didn't we tell you to report our progress to Salazar? What are you still doing down here? Do you want all our heads to roll?"

There were five scientists in all and Fiona knew that she wouldn't be able to get them all under her control at the same time if she just went alone, so she decided to use the scientists that were already under her control as bait!

Once the scientists were all distracted, Fiona dashed out from the corner and flashed towards them faster than they could react! The first scientist to see her was a woman with chestnut hair and a small face. She was about to scream in fear, but Fiona's hand grabbed her by the face and her entire body slumped as she was put under Fiona's control.

The scientist furthest away from Fiona was about to turn around and run back through the double door, but now that Fiona was right in their midst, she quickly released her mana out of her body while activating her blessing and all the other scientists slumped as their eyes glazed over.

Fiona landed on the floor quietly and spoke up to her minions.

"What were you all talking about just now?"

The leader who had been smoking spoke up.

"Salazar's secret experiments –"

Boom!

Fiona blinked in shock as a small explosion suddenly went off in the man's head, blasting his brain matter out from the side of his head and sending him crashing to the floor in a bloody mess. That... was unexpected.

What the hell?

Fiona glanced at all the other scientists and she noticed that none of them suffered from the same fate. What did that mean? Did they all have bombs in their heads or something? What triggered it? My questions?

The scientists that brought Fiona down here didn't explode, so Fiona could only guess that the trigger for the bomb going off was them saying something about the experiment.

[Mark doesn't pay me enough to see shit like this every day.]

Pat's groggy voice came through the coms again and Fiona felt a little bad for him as she knew that he just got a front-row view of a man's head exploding. That would be enough to traumatize most normal people.

"I don't think I can ask them about the experiments without them blowing up. And I don't want to enter this room without knowing what's on the other side."

Fiona turned to the large double door beside her and shook her head. She might be a superhuman but that did not mean she was immortal. If there was something on the other side of that door that could hurt her, then she wanted to know about it and prepare herself before entering.

Pat groaned for a moment as he put his hand on his forehead before speaking up in a groggy, irritated tone.

[They should have some things that they can talk about and things they can't. They were just talking to each other about Anima and superhumans, so maybe the trigger was him talking about certain people or mentioning the experiments in a certain way. Try to ask some follow-up questions first. That should give you a layout of what you can ask for.]

Fiona nodded at the suggestion and turned to the woman there.

"What can I ask you about without triggering the explosive in your head?"

Fiona would have asked if there was an explosive in all their heads, but she didn't know if that was something that they couldn't talk about. If it was, then the person she asked would definitely die once they answered.

The woman quickly started to rattle out a long list of things.

"…My birthday. The name of my children. My first kiss. The first time I touched myself. My – "

"Stop, stop. Only things related to the experiment."

Fiona blamed herself for that one. The question was too vague. But at least from this, Fiona was able to deduce that they could only talk about their personal life without triggering the explosive. The woman stopped talking and she quickly answered that they could only talk about the current state of the test subjects as well as the potential tests that are to be carried out.

Anything related to the person in charge of the experiment as well as those involved in the experiment is forbidden.

[If that's the case, then we should just stick to yes/no questions then. I'm going to give you a list of specific questions. Ask them and tell them to only answer by shaking their heads.]

Fiona relayed this instruction to the scientists and they nodded their heads before Fiona told Pat to begin.