::End Of The Line – The Ticking Clock::
"... if this place runs on hydro power, and they abandoned it, wouldn't they have locked the control gates in the open position before they left?"
"You're putting a lot of confidence in a government agency, Wendy." Stan responded flatly as he sniffled back, wiping his face. "But how does that help us? So what, the place was built for water-power. They're draining the basement, the pipes and pumps we were building were basically creating a bypass so the teams could get at wherever the main leak was."
"... why would it leak?"
Mysterion was musing aloud, but the question caused Stan to do something of a double-take.
"Why would it leak? Dumbass, it's like putting your finger over an open faucet; the water pressure against a closed or collapsed gate would build and build until it broke-"
"If the control gates broke, wouldn't the river just flow through that?" Mysterion shot back. "Why is the rest of the facility leaking?"
"... it's the dam."
Wendy muttered this revelation softly.
"The whole facility, the whole laboratory is the dam- the river is probably one that swells up with snow melt each year, and goes down to a trickle in the winter... unless they damned it up and created an underground reservoir where it wouldn't freeze. The building isn't underground just to hide it; everything is intercon—aah-"
Wendy reeled back, barely stuffing her wad of tissues over her face as she let off an explosive sneeze.
"...Interconnected... ugh... I hate being sick..." She grumbled.
"Which means this place isn't just neglected, it's actively falling apart thanks to the water pressure." Mysterion nearly clapped his hands together. "You guys, this is great- destructive force, all lined up, we just need to encourage the walls to come down!"
"... with the entire town inside the facility?" Stan quested somewhat dryly.
"Obviously we need to get everyone out before that." Wendy sniffed. "... but it does give us an angle of attack. Now we just need to hook back up with Dee."
"You know where Dee is?" Mysterion demanded; diving in past those doors was the best decision he could have made- gut feelings for the win yet a again.
"Not exactly." Wendy winced. "... but when we were on the bus, I told him the same logical loophole I figured out that got me out of it, so he should be okay as far as Marie's influence is concerned."
"What loophole?" Stan quested. "And who is this Marie person? What does she want?"
"Oh, uh..." Wendy hesitated, looking to Mysterion. He didn't rush to answer, either; Wendy's loophole was related to Alyssa's identity, and while Stan knew about the time travel and such, he still didn't know about the other thing.
The girl thing. It felt like a bad time to spring it on the poor guy.
"Oh, what? C'mon, guys, I'm soaked to my armpits and dying of the flu in some underground bullshit bunker, you could at least tell me who the hell the bad guy is. What, is this some kid from the distant future crap who inherited Dee's abilities and didn't like how their life turned out? Is that what's going on here? … oh god, Wendy, are you the mom?!"
"WHAT?! Oh my god, no!"
"I knew it... I knew it, Dee was trying to move in on you- that sneaky son of a..."
"I AM NOT MARIE'S MOTHER! DO YOU THINK I'D NEGLECT A KID BAD ENOUGH FOR THEM TO GO EVIL?!"
Mysterion felt this was... probably the best time for a sneaky exit. Sadly, disappearing and letting them shout at each other wasn't an option; not unless he wanted Marie to come back and investigate.
Hopefully Alyssa would forgive him.
"Dude!" Kenny snapped, breaking character while stepping up between the squabbling couple, reaching out to take both of them by the shoulder. "That's not it. It's Dee- Marie is an alternate-universe future version of Dee."
"Kenny-" Wendy hissed, eyes going wide, but he shot her a look that told her to save it.
"Wait, like some Earth Eleven shit?"
"... Earth Eleven?" Wendy quested. Kenny shifted his attention back to Stan.
"Yeah, in DC comics they have an alternate universe where everyone's gender-flipped and that universe is called Earth Eleven. Is it kinda like that, and Marie is from the future and came to fuck with Dee when they're still a kid and kinda helpless?"
"I... I mean..."
Wendy trailed off, forced to turn away again as she went into another fit of sneezing.
"Something like that." Kenny agreed. "It's all about the machine- did you see it, in the middle of the big room?"
"The silver chair with the ball on the platform? Yeah, I saw it, it looked... dangerous. That thing is set up to take a lot of juice. What is that thing?"
"It's something the government built, and Marie came to this universe before Dee was born to help them put it together, specifically because she wants to strap Dee into that thing and use it to get rid of their powers- the voice thing and the time travel. I don't know what she wants after that, but that thing has a sky high mortality rate- probably fifty-fifty odds it'll just fry him. We cannot let Dee get strapped into that thing."
"Marie needs... ugh... power before she can do anything with that thing." Wendy interjected, once again blowing her nose. She was gonna tare through that pocket pack of tissues in an hour at this rate; faster if she kept sharing with Stan. Then again, sharing with Stan is how he ended up sick in the first place. "... but when did you find out what it does?"
"Kartwright helped." Kenny responded, before clearing his throat and getting back into Mysterion mode. "I can tell you all the details later; what matters is that we come at this thing from as many directions as possible. Stan, do you think you can make enough sense of that machine to fuck it up?"
"Probably." Stan shrugged. "High voltage means there's a lot of ways for things to go wrong... and I know where all the tools are, thanks to the work section I got assigned to. Nothing a big hammer and a blowtorch can't break."
"Good." Mysterion nodded. "Wendy, think you can gum up the works for the computer banks? Those things looked like they were from the 80's, I know it's a little older than you're used to..."
"Psh, hardware isn't hard to fuck with." She waved his concerns off. "So long as Marie is somewhere else, I can monkey with things... what are you gonna do?"
Was that even a question?
"Get. My. Partner."
"... jeez, you've really ditched the whole working alone thing, huh man?" Stan observed. "Guess Batman kinda needs a Robin... think you could get Dee to wear the tights?"
"Hard no." Wendy snickered. "We already asked."
Dee wasn't quite sure where she was when she came to. Waking up wasn't a process that happened all at once. No, it happened slowly, with brief windows opening and closing on her senses. Her nose caught the scent of fuel and exhaust, and then her skin made her aware that she was on some kind of padded surface. Eyes blearily opened, blinked against dim white lights, and then fell closed again while she heard steps moving through a space near her. Each came and went in turn, giving her information that failed to create a picture, and refused to order itself in a way that made any sense.
When things did start making sense, the first consistent sensation she understood was pain. Pain in her shoulder, where she remembered a sharp impact. Pain in her face, hands, elbows, and knees; every bony part of her body that had been involved in a fall on concrete. Pain in her...
Oh no.
A sense of violation flared up around a dull ache between her ass cheeks that invaded upwards; one she instantly flexed around to try and reject, but was only rewarded with a much sharper and more pronounced pain for the trouble- as if she were being stabbed from within her anal cavity.
It felt like someone had inflated a razor-wire wrapped balloon in there.
What kind of twisted MLP Brony porn went down while I was out?!
Hands pressed her body upwards against the force of gravity, despite the soreness of her palms. She rose up high enough to drag her knees beneath her, and gingerly begin setting her body back to a kneeling position from where she'd been before; unconscious and lying on her stomach. She felt... slow, groggy, and had to shake her head to prevent herself from falling back over beneath the weight in her bones that told her she could just go back to sleep. Even better to fight against the encroaching blackness was sharp stabs of unpleasant pressure from within her own body, once again making sphincters flex and tighten without her actively choosing to do so, and making her jaw grit tightly together as she hissed out between her teeth.
"I'd take it slow, if I were you."
A voice. Near her, but muffled. Like they were on the other side of a thin wall...? Her eyes wouldn't stay open- she shuddered her head again, followed by rolling her shoulders up to her cheeks before letting them relax back down, attempting to re-engage with her body through the too-warm fuzz of an unnatural sleep. She finally got blurry images back, obstructed by curly trusses of her hair that were clawed out of her face by a clumsy hand. With the hair pulled back, her eyes registered... a bed. She was kneeling on a narrow bed... no, not a bed. Just a mattress, on a... carpeted? No, padded. A padded floor. In a room with padded walls- all cream colored.
A padded cell.
The light was dim, and came from a bulb somewhere above her that was set into the ceiling and flush with it.
"That's it... one step at a time."
The voice, again, centering her consciousness, dragging her attention over to her right side. To a wall that was different than the others; one that had a door set into it, and a window with wire mesh reinforcing it. It also had a metal plate set into it, with little holes; big enough to let a voice through, but too narrow to even squirm a pinky finger out.
Through the window, she could see a face.
Marie.
"There she is... hello again, Little Lyssie. Looks like you're determined to cause trouble, aren't you? … slipped free of my commands, despite my best efforts to design one even you couldn't wiggle out of."
"... you..."
The word felt slurred as it fell out of her mouth. Had she been drugged? She felt like it. She felt slow, and unstable- like when the drinks at Bebe's Halloween party had gotten spiked with three different kinds of booze, but not at all fun. She forced one of her legs off of the mattress where she'd been laid out, trying to get a foot beneath herself despite the pain that moving caused- pain that felt like it was going to split her entire body in two from the asshole up if she made any too-sudden movements.
"What... the fuck..."
She lurched upwards, staggering and hissing between her teeth again. Her other foot met the floor, and she managed to arrive at a somewhat hunched standing position.
"Did you stick... up my ass?"
"I couldn't have you warping away." Marie responded simply, not at all answering the question. "... I wouldn't suggest attempting to remove it, though. You're going to want a professional for that kind of operation."
"... fuck you, I controlled an alien probe with my ass for a weekend, I can fart around whatever spiky ball you shoved up there."
"An alien anal probe with a smooth design, I wager?" Marie responded without skipping a beat. "Straight sides, hard material, maybe some texture? What I placed in your rectum is a little more... pear shaped- with a flanged base, of course. It's a device that's inserted and then expanded once inside- based off a sex toy, but with a little modification..."
"You mean you put fucking razor blades on the outside?!"
"I assure you, it won't hurt you unless you try to pull it out or exercise your... abilities around it." Marie promised. "If you do, well... I hope you're okay with wearing diapers the rest of your life. You won't be able to collapse it by yourself, either- I'm afraid you'll need a special key."
One you just so happen to have, I'll bet... what the fuck do you want, Marie? … why are you doing this? Any of this?
Dee didn't wanna talk anymore. She'd stumbled her way closer to the door, but she'd lapsed back into her usual silence, glaring at the woman on the other side.
"I knew you'd rip yourself up if I wasn't here to warn you off of it... I really don't mean you any harm, Alyssa. I'm doing this for you. All of it. It's all for you. I know you don't believe that right now- you're probably planning at least six different ways to shatter my face... but you'll see. Before this is over, you'll understand why I did it."
Oh for fuck's sake, really? The I'm doing it for the right reasons speech?!
"... bullshit. You took over the town, you captured my friends, and you shoved a leather cactus pear up my ass- cause why? Cause you couldn't let the future be the future."
Dee realized it now. After everything she'd heard; from both Morgan and Kartwright, she knew exactly why Marie was doing this.
"You never had to learn that lesson, did you? Someone was always giving orders, you never fucked up on your own and had to clean up your own mess- you never learned that sometimes you can't un-fuck something, that you just gotta live with the mistakes sometimes! All you had to do was take Eric back to his new future, and you would have made a thru-line! Instead you stayed, and looped back, and made it all a tangled mess- cause you couldn't just let it go!"
Dee wasn't sure when she started shouting. She'd made it all the way to the padded door of the padded room, hands landing against the wall to brace her floppy body. She could see Marie on the other side, watch as the woman stared at her with progressively wider and wider green eyes.
The expression on her face changed suddenly; to a glower as the door suddenly rattled with the force of the woman on the other side plowing her fist into it, causing a sharp BANG! to sound.
"YOUR LIFE AS YOU KNOW IT WOULDN'T EXIST WITHOUT ME YOU UNGRATEFUL CART OF JIZZ STAINED PLAYBOYS!"
Dee didn't flinch. Maybe it was because there was nowhere to run. Maybe it was because she'd already tried running once, and her stupid brain no longer considered it a viable option. Whatever the reason... she didn't have any fear left in her at the moment. If she was scared of anything, she wasn't feeling it. She stared at Marie's enraged face without terror.
Cause you were trying to get me here- to do to me what they did to you.
"No- no, no, no-"
Marie stepped back, shaking her head. Her outburst suddenly changed gears, and rage became remorse. It sounded as if she might cry.
"It doesn't matter. You won't understand. You can't... I did it all for you. Every step, it was necessary, exactly how it had to be..."
… okay, that tone is sounding a little familiar, and in the worst possible way. Muttering like that, you sound like Amelia- y'know, the cat lady who lost her fucking mind after she got put through that machine. Is that where you're at, Marie? Did you drop your marbles and lose the bag a couple decades ago?
… do you even know what you're doing?
"Marie..." She paused, shook her head. "Alyssa... tell me what you're doing. Maybe... maybe I'll understand if you explain it to me."
On the other side of the glass, Marie blinked. She'd recoiled from the door when her mood swung, hands half-way to holding her head but hovering in the air, just short of contact. She looked up, and the pair of them shared a moment of eye contact where Dee felt as if she were looking at a child. Not an old woman, but a scared kid who never got the chance to grow up.
"... splits on splits." She muttered faintly. "I'm going to cut the tether. There's too many anchors on the line, and if it snaps, everything will unravel. It'll all fall apart. But you- you're not there yet. You're not an anchor, not yet, you haven't been doing it as long as us. If I can stop you, then all I have to do is..."
She trailed off, shuddered, and shook her head.
"The right thing. The only thing."
… please tell me you're not saying you're gonna kill yourself. Y'know, the thing Morgan said would collapse the entire set of universes in which we, Alyssa Ostenmayer, exist.
Desperately, Dee was trying to think of something she could say to the woman, something that would talk her out of her plan... but there wasn't a chance. Something happened at that moment, something unexpected, that Dee didn't fully comprehend at that second... but once she did, it made her painfully clench around the spiked ball Marie had stuck up her ass.
The lights brightened. The bulb inside her cell, something that had been dim and flickering, suddenly brightened to full strength. Lights out in the hall, above Marie, lights that were either dim or dark suddenly kicked on to full brightness. A hum suddenly picked up as a faint background noise from elsewhere.
Bathed in bright light, Marie's head jerked upwards, staring for a few seconds before looking back down. Her mood had changed again. She was no longer uncertain, upset, or falling apart.
No, she was back in control, and she wore a faint smile.
The power was back.
"Sit tight, Little Lyssie... it'll be over soon."
::The Author's Corner::
HOW'S THAT FOR SOME THINGS AND STUFF?
I am so very grateful to everyone who takes the time to leave reviews, even just little stuff. It matters more to me than you know- every little e-mail is a shot of excitement from knowing you guys are reading and enjoying my work. Y'all are cool cats :D
ONWARDS!
-Buttlord