::End Of The Line – Signature Sabotage::
Falling into line behind Wendy was something Stan accepted without argument when they left the Habitation area. In fact, there was some strange touch of nostalgia, or possibly even de'ja'vu as she took the lead and he followed after, sneaking through the double doors that led back into the laboratory. She took it slow, peering through the windows set into said doors before actually passing through them, and then rushing across the catwalk that rimmed the room to a pile of boxes that would provide cover from one side.
Coming back into this room with control over his own body, Stan couldn't help trying to scope it out. Looking to the left he could see the stairwell he had followed Marie up when she'd come and gotten him from his work site in the bowels of the facility... just in time, too- they were about to send him into the flooded section with a rope tied around his middle to set the next section of pipe; thus why he'd been soaked up to his chest. Looking the other way, he could see that he and Wendy were at the corner of the massive room that housed the main lab, and that there was another stairwell at the end of the long way to their right; the one he'd originally come down after arriving in the loading bay by bus.
Somewhat oriented, he finally got his first lingering look away from the paths and into the lab itself. At the light rigging and catwalks that crisscrossed this entire uppermost layer of the main room, and the tiered work space below it.
Staring down, the lights suddenly got brighter. The dim glow of white halogens kicked up to full brightness all at once, and an ambient hum gave him a sense of the building coming back to life after many years of lying comatose. Looking down into the pit below them, the middle level came to life as all the computer power along the rim of the room flashed indicator lights and populating their screens with lines of bright green text that, at this distance, was impossible to read but was almost certainly readouts of their boot-up process.
It was something that made him jump, nearly flopping over on his ass, as the people around him didn't even so much as squint against the suddenly bright light... though he was willing to bet that they wanted to.
Poor fuckers. The whole town, still locked up in their own heads... though, that did make a strange thought cross his mind.
"Hey... Wendy..."
"Mm?" She didn't look back at him. Her eyes were scanning the full area of the various catwalks, no doubt weighing their two possible ways down to the working floors of the lab and searching for signs of Marie being around.
"... everyone in town is gonna remember this, aren't they?"
He watched as her shoulders stiffened.
"... we'll worry about that when it's over." She muttered back. "Look, the group of people in the pit..."
"The pit?" Stan quested, but he still moved a little closer to the edge of the catwalk, a hand grasping onto the cold metal railing and peering downwards where Wendy pointed. She was directing his gaze to the bottom floor of the lab, below the middle tier with all the computers that had stairwells set into it to allow access between the two levels. He supposed, looking at it, the level upon which the machine sat was a sort of pit, set into the middle level... though thinking of it that way made the place seem just that much more sinister.
He'd seen the machine just a little while ago, when Marie brought him up. It had only been for a second before his body had turned to follow the woman, but he'd been able to register the group of people that had been standing around it. That group, at least three dozen strong, hadn't been doing anything before- just there.
With the lights on, they had scattered. Two had attended to the machine itself, armed with voltage meters, but the rest had broken away to go up those myriad stairwells and take up positions at the computers around the rim of the middle floor.
"... oh shit, that's Ike..."
Wendy's pointing shifted, to a specific member of the scattered group. One of those who hadn't gone up the stairs, but instead stayed with the machine. Stan wasn't sure how she recognized him so far away, but squinting at the figure left him with no argument against it being Ike. The hair, height, and clothes all looked right.
"How do you know?"
"That was my group, I recognize all the nerds, and Ike was the only other kid." Wendy muttered back. "We boarded the bus together... though there's more people in that group than rode with me."
"We arrived in pieces." Stan noted. "More people getting added as they came. Dougie and my dad joined the plumbing crew right before Marie showed up to take me outta there."
"... if you see Karen, try to grab her and make her laugh." Wendy noted. "Marie might know that's a weak spot for Mysterion, if she realizes he's around. Oop... speaking of..."
A door crashed closed on the bottom floor of the lab, and Stan's attention was dragged over before Wendy could even point out the right place to look. Along the wall to their left, smack-dab in the center and directly across from the shaft for the cargo elevator that descended from the loading bay above, there was a set of heavy double doors that had just slammed shut behind a familiar someone in a long tan coat, a black hat, and heeled boots.
Just looking at her made Stan feel a little sick. She'd been there when he arrived on the bus, giving orders of where people needed to go, and the memory of not being able to resist in any way was an ugly one that made him wish he still carried a flask of Jack everywhere.
Marie.
She strode across the bottom level with purpose, heading directly for the machine in the smack center of the room and passing by a multitude of work tables arranged around it in a sort of amphitheater style... although lacking the effect of continuous downward steps. Those work tables had machines on them, machines that had come to life same as the computer banks. Most of them looked like old-school printers, or fax machines; heavy, boxy things with paper trays. Some of them had spit out sheets of paper with... something printed on them when the power came on, and Marie stopped at a few of these to check what they said. Whether she was pleased or not, Stan couldn't guess- she continued on to the machine itself.
For some reason, he instinctively tensed when she got anywhere near Ike. He had to hope Kyle wasn't anywhere close enough to see this... assuming the guy was here at all. He hadn't seen Kyle, Cartman, or Butters, and there wasn't space in his brain to worry about them outside of hoping they were alright and not stuck doing any risky work.
Well... maybe Cartman. That guy could probably take a few volts and come out mildly improved.
She stood for a moment, turning slowly and surveying the group of people who had dispersed to the computers. As she turned to face their way, Wendy grasped him, and they both moved back and away from the edge of the catwalk- they lost sight of her and the bottom floor, but also protected themselves from being seen.
About thirty seconds later, Wendy crept up again, and he followed to peer down once more. Looking to where Marie had been standing, she was no longer there, her heels clack-clack-clacking on the metal flooring as she crossed to a stairwell, ascended to the middle tier of the room, and then disappeared past the door to the stairwell that was connected to the loading bay without a second glance back.
"... think she's going up? Or down?"
"Donno." Wendy responded, grabbing him by the hand again. "She's in that stairwell, which means we can use the other one. C'mon."
She didn't have to hold his hand for long; he was even with her a moment after they got moving, and the pair of them arrived together at the door to the stairwell he'd just come up... which, like other parts of the lab, had changed. The lights were on- a place that had previously been pitch black was now lit by yellow bulbs that were flush with the walls; circular and set just above the door frames on each landing, with a light in each wall, creating parallel, vertical lines that illuminated the tube of stairs from top to bottom. Looking up, he could see this stairwell was at its top level; it didn't go any further up. Looking down, he could count five more levels besides the one they were one, making for a total of six.
He knew the level he'd been pulled from, with the identical hallways, and the passage down into the flooded floor of the facility, was at the bottom of this stairwell. Including the loading bay as the first floor, and the flooded level as the final floor, that made for this place being eight levels deep.
Yeah, that was enough to dam up an underground river. Probably more than enough.
Just inside the stairwell, Stan went into a fresh sneezing fit. It echoed down the metal shaft, sounding all the louder as it was conducted through the space, and panic made him fumble his current wad of tissues before he could actually cover his face, hanging over to sneezing into his elbow until it was over.
"... ugh... we're not very stealthy right now..."
"We don't have to be." Wendy assessed while handing him a fresh tissue from her pocket pack. "Not for long, anyway. Fixing things takes time. Breaking them?" She glanced back at him with just the hint of a mischievous smile despite the pale pallor of her face. "You've got the rougher job... you sure you remember where to find what you need?"
"Yeah." He confirmed before blowing his nose again. Was there no end to this shit? Seriously? How much snot could one nose produce? "When Marie directed us down, we went to a gathering area, first... had a map with supply closets marked where we could find tools, wherever we ended up while chasing down leaks after the main objective. The one I went into had stuff for welding and metalworking, along with the usual wrenches and crap."
Marie had made him leave behind the tools he'd originally collected before bringing him up, but that didn't matter. He knew where the supplies were, now, and he could use that.
Wendy began moving down the stairs after nodding in response to his confirmation. Going down only one flight of stairs, it was already time for them to separate; this was the level with all of the computers. Wendy's stop.
"Be careful, okay?" She pleaded with him, grabbing his hand again. Not to lead him anywhere, just to hold it... and squeeze.
"You, too." He returned.
He felt like there was something bigger he needed to say, but he hesitated when it felt wrong on his tongue. It was the sort of thing that, if he tried to say it, he might throw up... and wouldn't that be a blast from the past that neither of them needed right now?
"I'm gonna write a bitching song after all this shit." He said instead.
She blinked, then smiled.
It felt like she understood what wasn't said.
"... I wanna hear it, soon as you'll let me listen."
"It's a date."
With that, they both let go, and parted ways- she to head out the door and into the main room... and he, to head deeper down.
Something was wrong.
Marie had felt an uneasiness in herself for some time, that something was just ever-so-slightly off for the last hour or so. Maybe longer. She'd tried to discount it, tried to put it off as one of her moods- tension was high, it wouldn't be odd at all for her to get agitated and upset. She'd gone into a swing, talking with Lyssie, and usually she felt cleaner after she resolved whatever was bothering in the back of her skull that caused her internal balloon to burst... but she didn't.
No, something was still off, even though the power was back.
With full lights, crossing the laboratory floor was almost nostalgic. The repair crew she'd assigned to the top floor had finished pulling dead bulbs and replacing them with new ones from storage, bringing clear and almost shadowless light to the lower floors as many bright lights from many directions made the only true darkness the shadows beneath one's feet; even the work desks no longer protected complete darkness beneath them, and that eased her to a degree. Whatever the feeling in the back of her mind was, it was related to the paranoia that she'd missed something, that someone was scurrying about in the dark, out of her view, waiting to bring everything down at the most crucial moment.
She felt like she was forgetting someone. Someone was missing. Maybe more than one.
She checked early pages produced by the monitoring equipment that surrounded the machine like the audience at an open-air performance. Each one took readings from different connections, extending out in a radial pattern to ensure that there was no variance in power flow- spikes or dips could mean fatal accidents... either for the test subject, or people in the bull pen. Usually there was a team of dozens in the pen, with at least ten dedicated to the machine itself to make adjustments according to readings called out by the desk workers, and another ten on the rim, anytime they ran the machine in a full experiment. Even a test run needed at least three teams of five.
She could remember the way people used to scuttle back and forth during an active phase. Numbers being shouted out, connections getting checked while bright, blue-white electricity crackled in the air, and tiny adjustments were made in real time.
She remembered the chaos when it had been Haley strapped into the chair.
She'd not be letting that mistake happen again.
Arriving at the machine, she'd taken her time getting a good look around, standing over one of her designated techs who was beginning to check the various connections throughout the machine with a volt meter. Now that main power was humming up from the bowls of the facility, the machine itself resonated with that hum to produce a faint harmony somewhere in the low baritone range; something that vibrated through the bones ever-so-faintly that is seemed a phantom, and made the hair on her body stand up for the strangeness of the sensation in her joints.
Everything seemed to be proceeding as planned... so what was bothering her?
… where is everyone?
The question passing her mind finally alerted her. She had a number of people already hard at work, but it wasn't everyone she remembered. The whole town wasn't here yet- from her own childhood memories, she was yet to see Eric, Kyle, Kenny, or Butters... despite other kids having arrived.
She wouldn't mind so much if Butters escaped all this, if she'd somehow missed him, but the others missing? That was never good. It wasn't when she was a child, and it certainly would not be now... more so when there were plenty others besides them missing.
Swearing softly to herself, she proceeded away from the machine and directly to the main stairwell back up to the loading dock, trotting up the intervening stairwell between herself and the mid level to cut down the number of doors she'd have to push past. Heading up, the stairwell was now lit... and empty.
Wrong. People should still be arriving. Something's gone wrong with the speaker I left to give directives.
She took stairs two at a time, rushing upwards and arriving at the top level mildly short of breath.
The loading bay was in chaos. There had to be at least two hundred people milling about; mostly rednecks from the further reaches of town who would have taken longer to arrive at the mall, as well as business-district people who might not have checked their phones until they noticed other people missing. The bulk of people, moving aimlessly, had blocked an incoming bus and forced it to stop in the tunnel, just short of actually reaching the designated zone where the driver was allowed to let people off... and there was another set of headlights beaming down behind that bus.
Her speaker wasn't making any sound. Someone had shut down her directives for new arrivals. Someone awake- the speaker hadn't been accidentally knocked over and broken. No, as she hurried over to look at it, she found it exactly where she left it... just off. Tapping the power button, she found it still had battery, and she highly doubted this to be a random malfunction.
She had a rat in the walls. A smart rat.
Thinking quickly, she barked out orders to the assembled mob.
"Everyone, gather against the wall closest to where you were dropped off! Do not smother each other! Spread along the wall to stay out of the way of the buses!"
Each command was projected from her diaphragm, and echoed easily against the metal walls of the room. In short order, randomly wandering individuals who had been slowly bumped around to cover the room's entire floor space began to advance to the far wall that was nearest to the drop zone- the wall with the cargo elevator. There was relief to seeing that mess getting resolved, more so when she saw the bus in the tunnel begin to slowly advance as the way in front of it cleared, but she didn't fully trust it. Had her voice reached up into the tunnel? What if someone had wandered further up it than expected?
She couldn't let it be. She needed to go look herself.
Crossing the space at a jog, she entered the tunnel on the right side, out of the way of the incoming buses. She saw the stack was three buses deep; and a trio of buses idling in the tunnel with the power down until recently meant fumes from their exhaust pipes had gathered up to a near choking level of thickness... but it was dissipating, now, thank goodness.
Some yards up the tunnel, she confirmed that no one was still in it, accidentally secreted between buses or otherwise. No, the tunnel was empty of individual persons, and the air was clearing quickly. Someone had introduced a hiccup to her system, but she'd cleared it.
Standing alone in the tunnel, watching the buses proceed down into the loading bay, she considered whom might have been smart enough for such an understated act of sabotage. Eric, maybe, but only if keeping quiet had something in it for him. Kyle? Maybe, but he hated going unnoticed. Would he know enough, fear her enough not to leave evidence of his ego behind? Stan would have been, but she'd already seen him- she'd pulled him off the work crew on the utility level because he was sick, same as Wendy, who also had the smarts not to leave evidence but was firmly off the list of suspects.
She blinked, and chuckled faintly at herself.
"... kids... they're just kids... Expand your thinking, there's more people in town who might have figured their way around it... Haley might have found her way here, for all we know..."
She hung her head for a moment, holding her brow as she had a rueful chuckle at her own expense. Just because they were Lyssie's friends didn't make them the biggest threat. She really was losing her mind if she suspected kids before honest-to-goodness adults.
Looking down, she saw something. She wouldn't have seen it if she hadn't come up here, it was such a small thing... but it made her eyes go wide when she did. Bending, she reached down, her hand leaving her head to instead pick up the object with the sort of caution one reserved for things that might bite or explode.
On the ground, in the tunnel, she found a little plastic figurine. A green question mark, with purple detailing, held together with a little metal spring.
Mysterion.
She blinked. Her brow came down. It all made sense.
Kenny.
::The Author's Corner::
OooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooBOY
Turns out things can fall out of your pocket when you bail out of the back of a moving bus
Also, a general reminder to my readership that I have stated in my public profile that I do not want ideas from my readers. I already know where this story is going. If you send me unsolicited plot ideas or profiles of characters you want me to add, particularly after a request for you to stop has been issued, I will block you. I am thankful for your enthusiasm, but I am here to write my story, not yours.
Fic writers are not content robots, please and thanks.
ONWARDS!
-Buttlord