Chapter XVII: Entombed Catacombs


AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

So, that was unplanned. Victoria and Taylor coming back, I mean. Another thing that made this update take longer than I thought - I had to rework a lot of ideas to fit them being there.

I also wrote this chapter completely out of order. Started with the last scene, then the first, then the later half of the second, then the second beginning. It was very strange.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.


Between myself and the four heavily-armed maniacs travelling with me, we made pretty good time. What could've been a three hour walk to the sector where the Church sat, maybe longer if the route was particularly infested, became a ninety minute jog. They cut down everything we met in seconds, without stopping once. Maniacs.

We went right up to the outer wall of the Inner Sphere at one point, and we found ourselves walking through a plaza bathed in the sunlight from the large window set into one wall. The spin of the station had brought the twin suns into view and, almost seeming spiteful of the low-red emergency lighting, lit up the entire area.

I slowed to a walk as I watched the galaxy go by through the window. Still just as soothing to watch as when I was actually out within it. Though it was admittedly far more relaxing on this side of the glass. While I was mid-rumination, Victoria appeared at my shoulder, resting her hand gently onto it. "Max?"

I hmmed back, not really taking my gaze away from that spectacular view. Sure, I lived with it every day, and I'd seen better across the galaxy and even been out in it, but it really never did get old. I lived in space, man. Spaaaace.

"Are you... okay?" Victoria seemed utterly befuddled, her expression creasing cutely and her voice taking on that utterly unsure tone, like she'd step on a verbal mine at any minute. It made me chuckle, but the chuckle came out hollow. Bitter. A little angry. I don't think I was sure why. It's not like being concerned for me is something I should be peeved about, is it?

I opened my mouth to answer her, to tell her I was fine, and in an instant everything turned to blood. Symbols poured across the shattered tatters of the fabric of this tender reality, each one dripping with the blood of a million screaming victims. Each one devouring the next, growing with its meal. They spun and wriggled and writhed and shone so beautifully I could've cried. Like that baby's smile and Chloe's desperate badassitude and lazy pancakey mornings and bright, mocking grins.

Like the nightmares that walked.

And the symbols became words and the words became speech and the speech rocked my mind like a meteor storm. The words came faster and faster and my mind broke further with each one as I realised that terrible, foul voice was my own and those words were coming from me and they meant wholeness and togetherness and unity and paradise itself. They went round and round and round in my head, in my heart, in my voice and they were every one of them realer than real.

That familiar litany. "Turn it off. Make us whole. Turn it off. Make us whole. Turn it-"

"Max!" A hard slap. Reality leaked back in once again. Only this time, reality was two blondes, a beefcake, and a little guy eyeing me like I was crazy. Reality was everything hurting. With an effort of will, I forced my hands to unclench and winced at the blood pouring from the cuts where my nails had torn into my flesh. Even my face was scratched.

I looked away from them up to the window. For a moment, I was confused. Part of the glass had gone! But it hadn't. It was just covered in my blood. I'd drawn, apparently, though I wasn't sure what. My attention slipped every time I tried to concentrate on it. Something more important always came up. Something that felt right where that felt wrong.

Even the planets outside seemed somehow alien, like the blood on the windows had turned them into nightmares. I used it, focused on the planets and somehow caught a glance of the drawing. There weren't words. Just manic gibbering. How do you explain that which you have no frame of reference for? I managed to hold it in my head for a second, where it scurried into the dark spots away from my attention and hid.

My head hurt, like it was actually walking through the pathways of my brain.

"What the hell was that?" Victoria practically gaped at me. It was kinda funny. I'd never seen her so shocked - it took me going crazy to make it happen. And she'd been the first person to really see it. Even Joyce - perceptive, hyper-aware Joyce - hadn't seen it.

I took a deep breath and thought about how to explain. "I... I think I'm going mad."

They both frown, open their mouth to protest. I get it. It's instinctive. Mad is bad and nobody wants to be it, or tell anyone else they are. But that wasn't important. It didn't help. I continued, before they could speak. "I see things. Symbols, blood, monsters, nightmares-" A second to think. I amend. "I know we all see that stuff now, all over the fucking walls, but I see it up here too." I tapped my right temple. "And it's so real. Realer than this, sometimes."

"This?" Victoria asked, voice tentative.

"Reality." I waved to all of it. "Everything. There's something talking to me, it feels like, and it's drowning out the background noise of my life."

"Something is... talking to you?" The tentativeness vanished and Victoria just sounded confused.

I shook my head. "Not literally, it's just how it feels. Like, metaphorically. The things in my head yell and everything else just... fades away. It isn't important. It isn't real. It's like your friend calling your name in a loud restaurant. But if your friend is every person on an entire planet and they're all screaming at once, but they're all also only one person. It's pretty difficult to really notice anything else."

It's hard to explain. I don't even understand what's happening. I just... hallucinated sometimes. Maybe that is something I should deal with. Or not. Hard to get therapy in the middle of a monster-infested nightmare-station. Wait, wasn't that a movie? Oh Dog, were we going to leak into another dimension or something? If this day wasn't bad enough already...

Taylor walked up, the baby cradled in her arms, to stand at my other side. "It'll be alright. Just... try not to think about it until we get out of here."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, thanks Taylor. I hadn't thought of not thinking of the thing that makes it impossible to think of anything else whenever it freaking happens."

She flushed. "Sorry. I didn't- Sorry."

I sighed. "It's fine."

It wasn't.

I lied anyway. I'm polite that way. And it was easier.

"What do you see?" Victoria asked - her journalistic curiosity had apparently overwhelmed her very particular manners. "When you're hallucinating?"

"I see... teeth. Jefferson smiling."

"Jefferson?" They blurted, looking at each other in mild shock at their synchronicity.

I nodded. "Jefferson." Another deep breath. My eyes went slightly glassy, distant as I recalled it all. "He... he took me. Near the end of his... fucked up spree. To some deep dark spot in the maintenance levels. I couldn't even think, he put so many drugs in me. [AN1] I still see it, his sick fucking smile as he took his sick fucking pictures."

"And I see Symbols. Like the ones on the walls, only they're there in my head and not when it's real." A thought popped into my head. "What if thats how they all get there? We see them in our heads and we try make them real, however we can. Painting the beautiful horror on our white walls..." [AN2]

"Huh." Victoria said. She ignored my poetic closer. Her own gaze drifted to the bloody section of the window. "That's... that's a lot."

"Yeah." It really was. So, so very much.

"I never knew you were... part of that." The victims had been very well publicised - big news for our small station - but Chloe and I had never been shown. As far as I know, Victoria was now the only person other than me and Chloe that knows.

I nodded. "We were. From the beginning." My shoulders dropped. "Chloe and me, I mean. We were poking around and we just... stumbled into it. He nearly killed me and... and he did kill her."

"Chloe?" - "He what?" The two blondes demanded. Beefy and Ishi seemed unfazed, keeping their eyes on the area around us. The three of us left them to it, so mired in my shit as we were. Didn't stop me noticing the big dumbass glancing back at us all as he walked over, making some comment to Ishi that got him a slap to the head for his trouble.

"He killed Chloe. For six minutes and fifty three seconds, she was dead. I still have no idea how the medical staff brought her back. I wasn't there to see it. We were looking for Rachel - some clue took us down to the bottom of the station somewhere, and he found us. She wasn't there, but he was. He shot her and he took me." Another deep sigh. I hated that I wasn't there. She was dying on a fucking table and that fucker made sure I couldn't be there.

"Were you... did he..." They stuttered unsurely, trying to ask the unaskable.

I shook my head. "No." Not much of a mercy really, that I wasn't raped. Five years of on-and-off therapy and I still have no idea whether his creepy picture-taking was worse. Was a similar violation. Damned if I know, damned if I don't.

I sighed. My shoulders dropped for just a moment before I straightened up again, standing tall. "Let's just go. I need to see my wife." And find those parts. I need to get off this station. I need to turn it- I mean, I need to get that ship repaired. Damnit.


We took our first steps onto Cosgrove slowly and carefully. The area around it was crawling with those things. The corridor itself was a bit larger than most, but not quite promenade-level. Luckily, it was also covered in assorted, highly-convenient storage crate cover for us to hide behind and sneak between.

"I heard James took a bunch of stuff from those EarthGov pricks." A woman in an engineer's suit spoke to her friend.

The two women carrying assault rifles were not paying attention to their surroundings as they walked in our direction. I bolted right with Beefcake on my heels while the other three went left. I ducked behind a particularly large box that smelled vaguely of fish and charcoal. Maybe slightly of eggs, too.

Odd.

"Yep," The second woman, a tall and statuesque redhead absolutely covered in freckles, grinned. "The Enigma says he might be able to up the timetable on the ceremony, thanks to the new equipment."

"Altman be praised, that's good news. I hate this blighted place." She gave a scowl. "All these infidels, refusing enlightenment."

The redhead put a hand on her comrade's shoulder. Voice full of commiseration, she nodded. "It's hard work, sister. But necessary. They will thank us, when we're all whole."

MAKE US WHOLE.

I shook my head, tried to focus. The two of them had apparently continued talking, since I focused back in and they were mid-sentence. "-prisoner will finally be executed, too. It's about time she joined the Convergence. Not that she deserves it, after what she did to Jenkins and Watford."

"You know how it is, sister." The redhead shrugged. "All peoples have the right to join us and we must save the Infidels unless they give us no other choice. It's a shame Jenkins and Watford will never get to see it, but that woman will be a powerful addition to our Unity. A powerful new Angel of the Marker."

What's an Angel of the Marker? I don't remember reading that term in my research on the Church. Was it some new position, now they'd... started this? Or was it part of this ceremony? It'll be interesting to find out. I watched the two walk past, disappearing around the turn away from Cosgrove and onto Barley.

I immediately took the clear path as a chance to move and dashed across the corridor to a set of crates about forty meters ahead of where Victoria and Taylor had hidden. Beefcake was hot on my heels the whole way, but somehow managed to stay stealthy. We slid into cover behind more crates, these smelling more like engine oil.

A few moments later, another pair of Unitologists strode past. Neither of them said a word.

We waited patiently, then dashed again. This time, Ishi made it with us, and Victoria and Taylor made it to our abandoned spot. I tried to signal, something I'd seen Copse do, but Victoria's confused expression and Beefcake's subdued chortling confirmed I'd misinterpreted. "You just told your friend to go fu-"

"Well, how do I tell them to get over here then?"

He stared at me silently for a second, before leaning out and, focusing on Victoria and Taylor, pointed at them, then at the floor near us. He repeated the motion once, then looked back to me. "That what you wanted?"

Asshole. "Yes."

Damnit.

We waited for a second, watched for Unitologists and Monsters, then dashed across the empty space a final time, ending up behind a set of boxes only a short walk from the entrance to the Church. I elbowed Beefcake and motioned for Ishi to stop. They both, surprisingly, obeyed me without quipping.

Victoria and Taylor joined us a few moments later, the latter raising one of her many guns, something that looked like the mutated offspring of a hairdryer and an old time-y aerial with two stabiliser-like wings to either side. "Are we going for the door?"

I nodded. "Unless you know a back exit somewhere, yeah. It's our only option."

They all paused. Exchanged some glances. "Pretty sure I know a way in, yeah."

Victoria sighed as Beefcake stuck up his hand and offered that forward. "Blowing a hole in the wall does not count as making a back exit."

"Heh. That would be awesome, but not what I meant. There's a power tunnel runnin' underneath this whole complex. Head back that way, down a couple levels, then break through a side-door and-"

"-and we'd be in the main engineering maintenance storage area for this sector." A voice finished. We all whirled on the intruders. I was mildly shocked by the intruders and prepared to shoot, but- "Hi Max. I'm real glad you're alive."

I dashed over and wrapped my arms around Chloe. For a second, she didn't react, but then she put her arms around me and squeezed tightly. In a comforting way, I mean. She wasn't trying to throttle me. That would be weird. We stood there for too little time before one of the others coughed and we separated. I grinned up at her, utterly thrilled we'd caught up.

"I'm glad you're alive too."

Romantic talk, y'all. We know how to do this.

David put his arm around Joyce and pulled her close, both smiling happily at us. I stuck my tongue out at them. Joyce just chuckled. Chloe poked her head around me, still clutched on, and grinned at the two blondes rolling their eyes at us. "Hey Vicky. Tay-tay."

"I told you not to call me that." They both promptly snapped, Chloe's grin only widened.

I reached up and poked her in the forehead. "Stop it. Not the time for that stuff, Chlo'. Wait 'til we're not about to die at any moment."

"Jeez. You're in a positive mood, ain'tcha? What do you mean about to die at any moment? I don't see anyone. Or anything..." She added, voice trailing off in a blatantly baitingly foreboding tone.

I poked her in the forehead again.

"We're right outside the Unitologist's front door. Of course we're about to die at any moment. They could just burst out, right over there and-" I trailed off, staring in utter shock at the space above the grand Church door. "Oh dog..."

What was pinned to the wall was just familiar enough that I could see it had once been a person. Once being the... appropriate word. They had taken... its innards and pulled them upwards, twisting them together in a macabre double helix. Stretches of bone and skin and meat entwined in that familiar spiked, two-spired shape, and every inch was covered in bloody symbols.

I wondered faintly if they'd been written in its blood.

The two faintest-remnants of what had once been legs hung down, with the ends gently grazing the top of the doorframe as they swung lightly in the pseudo-breeze of the station spin.

"What the fuck..." Chloe barely breathed out the words, but we all heard them in the quiet. Heck, we all felt them. The monsters were one thing, the pile of babies another, even the nightmares playing inside my head were easier. They'd all been... alien. Personal, but somehow separate. This was something humans had done. A Blood Angel.

Was this what those two Unitologists had been talking about? An Angel of the Marker?

We had to rescue that prisoner. We couldn't leave them. If we left them to... to this, then we might as well be responsible ourselves. "We have-"

"Yeah. We gotta get that girl outta there." Beefcake answered. He flashed me a wink. It was very, very skeezy. His attention drifted from me to his armour and his hands to went to the various pouches across it, picking things out in a seemingly random fashion. "Don't worry so much, shortstuff. We'll find her before these fucked up weirdos pull her ribs and legbones out her shoulderblades."

"Is that..." I didn't want to finish that question. Beefcake seemed to get what I was saying anyway, and just nodded. "O-oh. Okay." I really wasn't sure if the knowing made it worse, or if it'd been worse when it was mysterious meat and bone. Don't get me wrong, I had totally assumed it was people-pieces, but I didn't know-know.

I took a deep, deep breath and tried to calm my thoughts. Stay focused, Max. Eyes on the prize. "Okay. We need to get in there, we need to find our parts, and we need to try rescue this prisoner of theirs. Any ideas?"

We really should've planned first. Maybe we would've, if I hadn't ran off. Maybe they did and they just did it without me. Ah. By the silence and the mostly blank faces, apparently not. So, I improvised. "Right. We'll need some kind of distraction, and we'll need to get the rest of us through other way in." I looked back to the Blood Angel, noticing for the first time the eyes staring bloodlessly down upon us. "I... don't think we should go in the front."

Beefcake groaned. "Aww, fuck. But full frontal is always the most fun!"

Ishi snorted. His arms crossed over his rifle. A single eyebrow was the only change in his expression though. "We will take the distraction. If we set up here, we can hold before drawing them away to a more defensible location."

Copse - and hadn't he been quiet - spoke up. There was something very odd in his tone. I couldn't quite place it, but... was he irritated? Maybe he liked taking point on the planning. More people with guns was a real benefit here though, so he'd just have to get over it. "Right then. You, the blondes, Mr and Mrs Madsen, you'll take the distraction. Me, Max, and Chloe will take the maintenance entrance. We moved quietly together on our way out to the Rings, so we'll be best to take the sneaky route."

"No," Victoria cut in. "One of us," She gestured between her and Taylor. "Will go with you."

I sighed slightly, but the thought was heartwarming. "Victoria, it's okay. We've survived on our own before."

She opened her mouth to make a no doubt scathing retort, but Beefcake laid a giant hand on her shoulder. "They'll be fine, Vic. Come on, you and Ishi can do what you do best and ruin the party for the Unitologist freaks."

Her glare turned on Beefcake. The heavily muscled, heavily scarred soldier gulped. When Victoria turned away, he breathed deeply before dramatically wiping his brow and exhaling. "Wow. She nearly scared the dick off me." He paused, looked down, and actually checked. "Yep. Definitely nearly. Thank fuck. Wouldn't wanna deprive the galaxy of such a fine specimen of-"

Ishi thwacked him over the head again. "Quiet. Mind on the situation at hand, Gray."

That was his name! Gray. Wowzers. Not that I'm not going to keep calling him Beefcake. Calling an asshole like that by their actual name just encourages them.

Victoria stared at me for a few painfully long seconds before nodding. "Fine. But you are not allowed to die, understood?" She jabbed a finger at me, then Chloe and just glared. We both gulped and nodded like earnest little dogs and backed the fuck off.

Victoria promptly took command of the distraction team and the last thing we saw before we disappeared off to find this maintenance hatch was her, baby strapped to her chest, gesturing people into position.


"Here." Chloe pointed to a small, seemingly inconspicuous service door set into a metal bulkhead around the back of an eerily-quiet home. She scurried over to it, dropped down, and pulled open a metal cover. "Gimme a sec."

As we waited in the quiet, Copse spoke. He kept his voice low, but we could all still hear him. "Are you alright?"

I blinked at him. That was not what I expected. "Concerned, Copse?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, well. You two are alright, and I kinda need you both to get off this station. Think your mom and pop will let me tag along if I let you both get killed running off like that?"

I flushed. The reproach was blatant. And oddly like my second grade teacher. "I was trying to help those people. I could get away, they couldn't."

He raised an eyebrow. "Did you? Get away, I mean."

I couldn't help the mental shudder at remembering being under that desk. "No."

"Right. 'cause they didn't either. Unitologists shot 'em all a couple minutes after you started running." He gave me a look that said the rest all on its own. What good did you do? What was the point of all that? I could feel my body start to curl in on itself, one hand going up to grab onto my elbow as I scruffed my foot along the floor.

The voice in my head was my own this time. Failure. How could you? You might've gotten them all hurt. Might've gotten Chloe... There were no hospitals around to fix her this time. The hand on my elbow moved along it, up and down over the bump there, and my brain just sort of... took a step back from the rest of me. Let the shuffle and the movement get on with things while it yelled at me.

Less subtle than Copse's approach, but about as effective. No critical voice worse than yourself.

"I... I was trying to help." I insisted, both to myself and to him. I wasn't sure which I was insisting to more. It was somehow important to me that he understood. That the voice inside my head understood. That, failure or not, I was trying to do the right thing.

It didn't-

"I got it!" Chloe suddenly yelled. She stood up and the door slid open. Then, she turned to us and grinned. We both just stood there in mute horror. It took her a few seconds of silent staring to notice.

"What?" She blinked. Looked downward like she'd gotten something on her suit. "What's wrong?"

"We're sneaking!" I hissed to her.

Her eyes bulged and she promptly slapped her hand over her mouth. A moment, then she removed it and slumped slightly. "Oh, shit, yeah. Sorry. I got it." She repeated, but far quieter.

I groaned, exchanged a look with a now-smirking Copse. This is going to go great.


Admittedly, things did go better than I expected. Though certainly not much more. As we crept from the Maintenance area through the sub-access to the Unitologist... I guess crypts? (the word certainly was appropriate. We walked forward and onward through the pitch black for about ten minutes without meeting another soul. Not that I was expecting anyone to be alive down here. This place was dank and dark and I honestly wouldn't be overly surprised if there was a freezer down here full of corpses.

And speaking of darkness...

"Ow." Chloe intoned as she clunked dully into yet another wall. "Fuck."

Copse, as with every time before, simply chuckled. He also hissed in slight pain, when Chloe elbowed him irritably. As with every time before. When she hits, she hits hard. And accurately. That hiss was definitely from somewhere down low.

Needless to say, I was enjoying myself immensely.

We'd taken more than a few turns on our way and were probably then somewhere near the middle of the Church complex. I could feel thrumming beneath my feet from some energy transfer duct-things stuck beneath the floor. Whatever they were doing in here, it needed a lot of power. Maybe I was right about my freezer theory...

Chloe clunked into another wall. "Ow."

And again, another chuckle from Copse. This time though, I spoke before either of them could. "Are we close to a way up?"

"Why would I know that? I've never been here before." Copse answered.

Wait. I frowned. Was he ahead of me? I thought he was behind me a second ago. As I took in the actual words, rather than where they came from, I had to groan. That was... not good. Part of me forgot the actuality that we were wandering through pitch black corridors without knowing where we were going, but dog was I focused on the implications. This was really, really bad. I had no idea how to even start on that issue, so I just hissed "I was following you!" to buy me time to think.

Copse paused. "Shit. I was following Chloe."

Her voice came through, utterly disbelieving. "You were following me? Are you fucking mental?"

Oh no. Again.

I sighed deeply. "Are we lost?"

"Yes, yes we are." Copse growled. Likely scowled too, but I couldn't see him at all to tell. "I thought one of you two would know where you were going. You said your friend was a Unitologist, right? Don't they like to invite people to their events, convert the unwashed masses and such?"

"Kate invited us once or twice, but after Rachel joined we-" Read: Chloe "were... not enthusiastic about this place. And they only invite people to the basic things in the main chapel upstairs somewhere. They'd never let people down here."

"Rachel? I... don't think you've mentioned her before." He tilted his head, eyebrows bunching together slightlyHuh. I don't think we had. It never really came up. I reached out with one hand and leaned on a metal bulkhead nearby. The metal was cold beneath my hand (freezer again?) and the supportive weight was quite soothing.

"She joined outta the blue, went in here, and never came back." Chloe snapped, voice heated as heck. "That what you wanted to fucking know, Copse?"

An awkward pause. I reached out to rub my hand gently over Chloe's back. She flinched, as most people would do with a sudden hand appearing on their back in a dark room, but she quickly relaxed into the motions.

"Uh, well. Yeah, kinda." Copse said sheepishly.

We paused and I instinctively looked vaguely in his direct. Again, this place is pitch black. I couldn't see anything. I didn't need to see to know Chloe was probably about to yell and I needed to interrupt before she shouted loud enough that the Unitologists would make us. "Well, now you know, let's get back to it. We need to find a way upstairs and a map to wherever they store stuff and people."

A pause. "Right." Both of them said.

"Okay." I pulled back from the wall and paused. "So, how do we do this, then? Just pick a direction and go?

"Unless you have any better ideas. Yep."

"Great."


That last room felt larger. It's hard to describe, really. The sense of being somewhere bigger than you can see. I think it's in the resonance of our breaths. The sound had that silent amphitheatre echo. "Everyone okay?" I asked, desperate to break that silence. Desperate to not feel so alone in here.

The pause before someone answered was terrifyingly long. My heart felt like it was about to seize before the end of it. Alone. Alone. Alone.

"Fine."

"Yep. I'm good."

Another pause of painful quiet. Dog, this is uncomfortable. I could feel my breathing get more panicked and chaotic. And what was that thumping sound? Like a boiling pump, pushing liquid along and letting out regular hissing bursts of steam.

"Can somebody please say something? It's too dark and quiet and I really need to know you're both still there?"

When there was no response, my heart dropped and my panic soared and the silence was sheer, bloody agony. My breathing got harsh, ragged. And I think I might've gotten close to starting to cry.

"Guys?"

I blinked away tears.

"Chloe?"

Suddenly, the room filled with an ear-rending whirr and that ever-present thrumming in the floor bloomed into a thunderous rumble. I looked around, frantically trying to work out some place to find cover, but everything was still nothing but black.

Needless to say, I didn't spot shit.

Then, the whirring and the rumbling just... stopped.

I froze, just waiting for whatever would happen next.

It was a long, long wait.

As I finally got confident enough to move, sure that if something was gonna happen then it'd've happened already - well, it was obviously then that stuff went down. Horrifying, shocking stuff that nearly blinded me. Just really, really bad.

The lights switched on.

I shrieked, blinking away the ghosts and after-images as I ducked towards the nearest vague shape I could sort-of-see.

"Ow, frick!" I slammed my knee into metal and my forehead into table.

"Max!" Chloe's voice yelled from somewhere and a shape appeared at either side of me. "Are you okay?"

"Of course she isn't. She just hit a table with her face really damn impressively." I didn't need to see to know the bastard was smirking. "If she isn't hurting, then that tells me a thing or two I don't wanna know about your bedroom activities."

"Ow." He also said, when Chloe punched him.

"How did you-?"

"-get the lights on?" She finished. Her lips pursed in concern as she looked me over. Man, her eyes are so pretty. And no, I'm not concussed. Just an observation. "There's a big lever thing behind the little wall back there." A gesture back to the left, and there really was a little wall there. An odd, bronze coloured statue of Altman sat on a little table-altar-shrine thing inset into the front of it. "It looks kinda like it's stuck up the ugly dude's ass."

"Altman." Copse corrected.

We turned and looked at him. He shrugged. "What? I'm pretty sure they'd be pissed off if you insulted the founder of their religion. No need to be rude."

"More pissed off than they are already?" Chloe asked, amused.

He paused. "Good point. Mock away."

"His momma so-"

I elbowed her to be quiet. She just grinned at me, but at least she didn't finish the joke. I still regretted her giving her that antique book, even all these years later. The jokes were awful.

"Right, okay. That means we have a possible way up. Or at least a way to look for signage."

"Yeah!" Chloe chirped. (Fucking chirped!) "People like to decorate the shit outta their important places, right?" She wafted a hand vaguely at the statue guy. "And he's an important dude to the Unitologists or something, so there's probably something important back there."

"He literally started the whole religion, Chloe. He's basically 'the' important dude to the Unitologists. Something to do with him seeing the light of the Marker while EarthGov wanted to crush it and hide it from the people, I think." Man, that article on the Church seemed so long ago. I barely remembered the research I did on these people. Which was a shame, both for the work I put in and the fact that I might've found something useful to fight them now.

Heck, I'll probably remember it at the convenient time.

The Altman statue alcove stood between two large archways that showed a pillared corridor beyond - the little section behind the statue seemed like... a box office? It was oddly set in, and had a small glass window on both sides that let you see into the back area. "Let's head through, I guess?"

Neither of them had good arguments against my tentative suggestion, so after a mild shrug-fest, we headed on through. The pillared corridor quickly widened into a grand hallway that framed various exhibits and artpieces that we mostly ignored until about halfway along the hallway. The piece that grabbed our attention was a tiny model of the Marker, and a piece of it was wrong.

I mean, technically the whole thing was wrong, like a perversion of nature, but this specifically was wrong because the two prongs faced outwards instead of inwards.

Chloe, with all the self-preservation instinct of a lemming, saw this inaccuracy, then reached out and turned the prongs back.

For a moment, I just rolled my eyes at my wife's instinctual need to touch everything. "If there was a big red button saying 'do not touch', you'd've touched it before the ink was even dry, wouldn't you?" Copse asked wryly.

Chloe just grinned without a hint of shame. That was when the wall behind the model began to whirr and click and whine and slowly separated out from itself to reveal a secret door. We blinked at it. "Woah. That's cool."

Copse swore under his breath. "That was stupid, they could have it alarmed if someone not on the list opens it up."

"On the list, what?" Chloe frowned at him. "Wouldn't they have to have someone to check the list?"

Copse shook his head. "There are such things as fingerprint scanners, y'know. It's not hard to hide one under a smooth surface like that."

Chloe blinked at him. "Huh."

And that was that. Thankfully, the argument was over before it began and we agreed quickly to go through the hidden door. the space behind it was a simple, unadorned metal service corridor that extended out of view to our left, right, and forwards.

I turned back to them. "Which way?"

Before Copse could answer, Chloe took a step forward, holding out a hand to keep him back. "I got this." She stood in the middle of the t-junction, facing forwards, and put her hands to her temples before starting to mutter under her breath. I heard arcane positioning equations and wisdom passed down from gaffer to apprentice for as long as the station had been here. She connected dots I'd never seen, and came to conclusions I was amazed by. After a few minutes, she whirled around and pointed to our left. "That way!"

I paused, then frowned as I thought, then grinned as I realised. "You just picked at random, didn't you?"

Her lips pursed for a second as she stared at me, then "Yes. Yes I did."

I laughed, and she flashed me a proud grin.

She shrugged. "It's not like they put up any signs in here. No wonder they're always talking about finding the lost sheep. They're all just wandering aimlessly around their Churches trying to find the door." There was an odd note of hope in her jocular tone. She wasn't covering it well and I had no idea why she was trying to hide it, or why she was even feeling it in the first place. Probably a really big clue to the first if I could work out the second.

Chloe looked over at me and noticed my expression. "What?"

I shrugged. "Nothin'. You're just real pretty."

She laughed, gave a little shimmy right out of Rachel's playbook. "Right? Aren't you glad you married me?" A snort, a flush, eyes dropped away from me as she gave a little cough and- "Not so bad yourself, Maximus."

I grinned.

We headed on in.

The air in here felt different. Clumpier, I think, is the best word. It felt like it stuck to me as I walked along, to my skin, to my clothes. In fact it... it was getting slightly more difficult to walk. Shoot. "We're-"

"Shush."

I blinked. Huh. You know, being told to suddenly shut up makes it really hard to find out what's going on. I have a whole new sympathy for fiction characters. No wonder they're all wandering into danger unaware all the time.

I waited for the two ahead of me to silently confer, watching them as they gesture back and forth. I wondered what all of that waving about even means. It seemed very emphatic.

Chloe was making a gesture that look vaguely like she was... trying to... I blushed, hard. Oh my.

Another flurry of weird signals passed between them, and I resorted in my boredom to trying to translate. I think I might've even gotten it right.

Copse - holding an invisible monkey up with his left hand, and spanking it open palmed with his right - "I think there's something we'll forever regret seeing up ahead."

Chloe - picking bananas with her right thumb and pointer finger and untwisting an antique lightbulb - "Twelve seconds and I can switch the lights back off."

Copse - admonishing finger of authority and resigned eyebrow waggle - "Don't bother. We have to go anyway. Might as well make another nightmare for later."

Copse turned back to me. Three fingers extended and his thumb and pinky connected, while his eyebrow twitched upward. I blinked at him, hoping desperately for some sort of explanation or exposition. His hand twitched, and he seemed pleased when my eyes twitched back to it. I shook my head and shrugged.

He rolled his eyes and turned back to Chloe. Another rapid fire burst of signalling and interpretive dance movements before Chloe turned to make her own attempt at explaining all that to me.

For some reason, I could now feel the cold of the floor through my boots.

She pointed at each of us in turn, and I nodded, feeling like I was understanding so far, then pointed down the corridor and shook her head. I pointed backwards, shrugging quizzically. She shook her head and pointed down the corridor again.

I resisted the urge to throw up my hands and just walk past them.

No sense getting myself killed because of a miscommunication. But this is getting frustrating. I caught my tongue between my teeth and pondered for a second. How do I ask what the hell she's talking about in hand signals? Man, I wished I had actually taken that interpretive dance class at Blackwell. It'd make this crap so much easier. I could totes boogie my way to comprehension.

But no. I had to pick photography. Man, I'm a dumbass.

Another flurry of hand motions between the other two, and then-

Something dropped, off ahead of us. It might've been metal, but it was definitely something hard, from the clang it made upon landing. We raised our guns and the gesturing stopped. Obviously. Trying to signal while you're holding a gun is a recipe for bad times - mostly shooting your friends instead of your enemies.

We waited in the quiet for a few moments. I wasn't sure why. I mean, it was probably just one of those obnoxious statues falling down, right? That's not something we need to shoot.

It was just a statue, right? I remembered the cat, and gripped the gun tighter.

Another few moments of pure, terrifying silence passed. My heart began the familiar ramping-up-speed and my palms practically started to ooze I was sweating so much. It made it slightly more difficult to hold the gun than my hand shaking did. I wasn't as used to all this as I thought. The tension was still too much for me. My heart was somehow racing, yet felt icy and still like a cold, dead hand was clenched around it. The cold was almost spreading through my chest, like someone had taped an ice cube to my throat and just let it melt.

Weird analogy I know, but that was the closest thing I'd ever experienced before. Victoria's bachelorette party had been a weird experience. Another story I'll tell later on.

We waited and waited and waited until things had stayed silent for long enough that Copse was satisfied, then pushed slowly forward. Copse had taken one hand off his gun to signal that one and I really hadn't thought of that at all. Maybe you could sign with a gun without bad times.

The corridor kept straight on until we reached a set of four doors - two on either side of the corridor, which continued on before splitting into two that went directly to the right and left.

Copse held up a fist. I knew that one. Stop. So I did, just to be clear.

Another patient wait, and the cold spread through my chest even further. Merciful mercies, the Voice stayed quiet. The only whispers in my head were my own. What was going to happen? What was waiting ahead? Were there Unitologists in those rooms? Were we going to have to fight?

I watched as the two of them gestured back and forth again. Chloe's brow crinkled as she frowned at him, gesturing more emphatically back. He shook his head, and his movements slowed, became more deliberate. Eventually, Chloe threw up her hands and came back to me. I peered quizzically at her - she just shook her head. Right. Later.

Copse reached forward and carefully knocked on the door.

A few moments passed. I held my breath.

He knocked again.

Another few moments, and then-

"Alright, alright, keep your damn hair on!" A loud voice groaned from inside and the door slid open. It was a man with... a voice far larger than his body. He stood a little less than four and a half feet, had a voluminous amount of hair (both facial and not), and had continued complaining the entire time I looked him over without pausing to draw breath. "-and if I find out who your mothers are, I'll make sure you never make it to the damn Convergence! By the Marker, I hate these new, young idiots they let down here." He turned and started to walk back into the room, so Copse simply darted out from wherever it was he'd been hiding and pistol-whipped him over the back of the head. The guy dropped like a sack of camera film and Copse quickly checked inside before dragging him back into his room.

A few seconds later, he poked his head back out. "Come on. You're going to want to see this."

We went in, and I dreaded what he wanted us to see.

The room was some kind of lab-office thing. The door opened up in a corner - the wall to our right had several lab workstations along it with a variety of scientific equipment I obviously didn't recognise, the wall to our left had another statue. The other two had nothing except for a small office area built around the far corner.

The little man was sprawled bonelessly in the single office chair, his limbs all over the place and his mouth open and drooling.

Copse was fiddling with a console in the office area.

"What are you looking for?"

His head flicked up, and for a moment the look in his eye scared the shit out of me, but it vanished so quickly I was sure I'd just been hopped up from the tenseness and just seeing more stuff that wasn't really there. I'd been seeing dead people do things they couldn't do - him being dead and all - so maybe this was the next step in whatever was happening to me.

Man, I really needed to find that therapist.

Copse blinked, shook his head, grinned sheepishly - though he'd usually shown so little shame and so much self confidence before. It was quite odd to see it now. "Uh, a site map. This guy," Copse kicked out at the unconscious man's chair. The thread of drool leaking from his mouth crept down further. "seemed important, and I figured he might have one."

"Does he?"

Copse shrugged. "No idea. Just found his porn collection and got distracted."

Chloe chuckled, raised up her hand for a high-five that Copse returned with a matchingly wide grin. He reached out and twisted the workstation screen towards us, and I couldn't close my eyes quickly enough to avoid catching a glance of skin and flesh and... Chloe swore. "Copse, you gross fucker!"

I cracked one eye open and sighed, relaxing my shoulders and letting the other eye open too. The screen wasn't showing porn, but anatomical models of the monsters. Spread-eagle, like the Vitruvian Man. "Get that crap out of here, Copse. It's just gross."

He chuckled. One eyebrow raised, ever so slightly, and his lip curled into a smirk. "You didn't see it, did you?"

Chloe and I both groaned. He's gonna make a shitty joke, isn't he? Something crude and off-colour and totally gross. "No Copse, we didn't see it."

"Damn. I mean, I thought it was really obvious, but if you didn't see it..." He trailed off, voice going rhetorically enticing by the end of it. The prick wanted us to ask, didn't he? Ugh.

"What did you see, Copse?"

"Well, Maxine-"

"Max, never Maxine" I muttered

He only smirked harder. "-Maxine, if you look down at the little red numbers in the bottom right of the image, you'll see those last eight there, right?"

"Right." Chloe rolled her eyes and we waited for him to get to the bloody point.

"You don't see anything interesting there?"

"No." I snapped, snappishly. "Stop playing around and get to the frickin' point, Copse. Make your joke so we can keep going."

He sighed. "You're no fun. Well, it's written in the older style, but if you swap the first two and the second two numbers around, you get a date - the third of September, 2215. About six months after Michael Altman died, and around a year after the old Sovvies government discovered the first Marker."

I noted the slur against the old pre-Earth Gov government, but frowned at the rest of it. "Are you saying they've known about these things for nearly three hundred years?"

He grinned, gave me a little finger-gun salute. I think that means he was happy I made the connection before Chloe. Weirdo. "Sort of." He flicked the screen, and this time one of the tentacled-child things. "This one isn't until 2508. So, they've known about some, but not others." He flicked through others, noting out the dates on each one. "Another one in 2215, another in 2508, and another in 2508 - shit, what happened in 2508? - another one in 2215, and another-"

I'll save you the trouble of listening to Copse for too much longer, he found that the Unitologists had known about seventeen distinct types of monster, along with a few 'improved' versions that they called 'enhanced'. Each had names, too. The arm-blades ones were called Slashers, the baby-monsters were Lurkers, the winged-proboscis ones Copse had saved us from were called Infectors, and so on. They were certainly a lot easier to say than my descriptive titles I'd been giving them. Might have to actually start using a couple of them.

"Well, if the shitheads've known about these fuckers for so long, maybe that's why they can control the monsters. Three hundred years, they've had the fucking time." Chloe griped. She'd kind of... loosened up over the course of Copse's exposition dump. Not emotionally, just physically. Her movements were considerably more lackadaisical, less controlled. She'd made a swiping arm-sweep gesture at one point and nearly taken out a set of test tubes.

"But how? I mean, I didn't see a collar on that thing we were chasing, did you?"

"No," Chloe shook her head. "But maybe-"

I left them to it. That was well on the path to technobabble and nobody was keeping an eye on the door. I may not be military, but I know you need someone to keep watch. I didn't go back out into the corridor. Just stayed by the door and listened. The corridor outside was mercifully quiet.

Though, not much of a mercy, as it turned out. Since it was so quiet, my brain felt the need to fill the silence. And no, it wasn't with catchy pop music. Fingers danced down my spine and warm breath blew over my ear. "Dark down here, huh Max?"

The hairs on my back stood on end, and my entire body felt like it just... stiffened. Jefferson. I started to turn, but- A hand gently pressed against my cheek, holding me back. "Ah, ah, Max. You have to keep watch. Keep awares. You remember what happens when you stop paying attention, don't you?"

A flash of blood, Chloe's eyes rapidly darkening. Me sobbing, wailing as I'm dragged away from her cooling corpse.

I blinked, and blood became steel. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. One hand came up to clutch at my throat and my eyes widened.

The voice chuckled darkly. "No talking, I'm afraid, Max. Have you forgotten that, too? A single injection, and your vocal cords are paralysed. Can't have you talking in the shoot, you know. Wouldn't want to ruin the shot."

I made some guttural, desperate sound. Like you'd probably imagine howling with a closed mouth to sound. Just... terrified and as close to cornered animal as I ever got.

Jefferson laughed.

"Now, now. None of that either. Come on, Max. What happened to you? To your art? You used to be something. Something great. And now what? You're a... journalist?" Another gentle strain of warm breath across my ear. "How the mighty have fallen. We made such incredible art together..."

"Mmm nt yr mdel anymer'" I finally managed to make a sound, to wrench my voice from his control and back to mine. Still couldn't open my mouth, but I could speak. Sort of.

"Not my model anymore, hmm? Oh, you weren't going to be in front of the camera forever, Max. You're too much like me. Too dedicated to the art. You'd've seen the light, and the dark, and come behind the camera with me."

He paused. Another warm breeze of breath. Then he was in front of me, eyes gleaming and teeth gleaming and the pure unhurried malice of the... of the wanker was worse than anything I'd seen in this hella, hella bad day.

He leaned in, closer and closer until those eyes and those teeth and that face was scant centimetres from my own. And then he smiled. "Take the shot, Max. Make us whole. Find that purity."

I blinked and reality returned.

I was... why was I in the corridor? The utterly quiet, utterly empty corridor. I could hear my heartbeat, it was so purely- no. So entirely quiet.

I hurried back to the room.


As I walked in, Chloe and Copse both glanced up from the console. "We've found something." He pulled up another picture, only this time it was of a wall covered in some sort of... stuff. Fleshy, veiny material that looked like someone had sprinkled slaughterhouse offal and hung intestines like fucking fairy lights. "Apparently, this stuff is going to start growing over the station. It augments 'The Saved'."

"The what?"

He blinked at me, then "Oh, right. That's what they call them. The monsters. They seem to think they're sort of like demi-angels; if you become a Saved, your soul can join Convergence automatically, whether you were a believer or not."

"Well, we can't call them that then."

He just shrugged. "What else do you want to call them?"

"Monsters."

Copse just raised an eyebrow. "The creatures, or the Unitologists?"

My lips pursed. Damn him. "...Touche."

"Well, that's all we found. I'm pretty sure there's going to be some stairs nearby though, this-" On that word, he kicked into the still unconscious man's side. "-fucker doesn't seem the type to be willing to walk too far."

"Fair point. Shall we get looking then, or do you want to go searching for his actual porn collection?" I asked.

Both of them turned to look at me, grinning in shocked amazement. "Maximus Aurelius Caulfield, my oh my, I never knew you had it in you."

Copse looked at Chloe, then at me. "Is that really your name?"

"No."


Turned out, Copse was right. The stairs were right around the corner. One went up, and one went down. "So, up or down?"

"Shit. Did not think that far ahead." Chloe groaned, one hand going to rub over her face. "Upstairs is closer to the front door, right? So, what'd be downstairs?"

"The more secret stuff, maybe?" I shrugged. "Who knows?"

Copse finally spoke up, pointing to the ascending stairs. "That way. We're here for the supplies, and-"

Something above us exploded, shaking the entire complex. "Fuck! What was that?"

I grinned, thinking of Victoria and Joyce and David and Taylor and the muscleheads upstairs. "I think that was our distraction. Let's go."

We went.


The next floor was mostly clear, that same semi-opulent, semi-foreboding interior designer had apparently been let loose here. Columns loomed over us, big statues of Altman gazing down at just the right angle to make us feel smaller and overpowered. Picking on that prey-animal instinct.

Copse lead us through yet more empty corridors, then up to a room I was fairly certain he'd picked at random. "Through here."

Without waiting, he tapped open the door and walked through. We followed him as quickly as we could.

The room we walked into looked like a slaughterhouse. Or possibly a Manchurian-Brainwashing sex dungeon. Don't ask how I know what that might look like. I told you, the Betelgeusean pineapple story is not one you want me to tell. I caught a glance of the dried pools of blood on the floor and went distant. Photography mode.

First, the background. The walls were the kind of silvery plastic that chefs used to prepare meals on - easy cleaning surfaces, in short. The floor was the same dull metal as the rest of the station. There were two doors - one behind us and one in the far right corner - and to either side of both was another of those gross statues of Altman.

Then, the mid-ground. The perimeter of the room was lined with computer terminals and operations consoles. They were facing inwards, creating a sort of passageway around the outer edge of the room.

And then... I swallowed back a rising tide of bile. Then the foreground. There were six... I think the best word is 'apparatuses' that looked like a blend of athletic equipment and dinosaur skeletons. Long, white metal struts and wires and weights and pulleys, all of which was stained with dark, rusty blood. "Max?"

"Yeah, Chloe?"

"I think this is a torture chamber."

"No shit, Sherlock." Copse drawled. "What's your next revelation, that they might have a torturer?"

"To be fair, that'd be a good revelation." I pointed out. "Having someone who actually knows what they're doing would be better for them that doing it as amateurs."

"I don't know, Max." Chloe looked around dreadfully at all the machines and their wicked edges and sharp [nouns]. "Seems like they're doing okay with enthusiasm."

"Respect the results, not the efforts." Copse said simply. "A lot of blood doesn't mean they got anything out of the people bleeding. If anything, it makes it less likely."

I blinked. "That's an odd thing to know."

He shrugged. "I work for EarthGov."

That was a less odd thing to know.

We took the circular route around the outside, glancing over each screen to be sure they were all blank - and they were - until we reached the statue-flanked far door. I made it first, turning back to the others to let the people who knew how to actually use guns well go first.

"Hey! You gonna come out, or have I finally scared you assholes back into the shadows for good?"

I blinked and froze for a second, before quickly pulling my gun. The other two matched my movements, and we all stood in silence - hearts racing like tazmanian devils, I might add - with them pointed towards that door.

There was quiet before the voice turned wheedling. "Come on... I'm locked in here! It's not like I can hurt you or anything. It's been hours since I saw anyone down here. Just come in, take a load off, and tell me what's got everyone upstairs buzzing like a hive. It's gotta be cool, right? I know how much you all love talking about Convergence."

Mine and Chloe's guns both sagged as we listened to the increasingly familiar tones. Before I could stop her, Chloe rushed forward through the door and vanished around a corner.

Before Copse could stop me, I ran after her.

There wasn't anybody to stop Copse. Apart from common sense and self-preservation, but they seemed to be taking a sabbatical for all of us. Lazy, underworking bitches.

I turned the corner barely two seconds after Chloe and followed her through an apparently locked-open door into a room lined with... lined with... cells. Six by two by six. The walls were all that same unbreakable glass I'd seen in the base. All but one cell was empty, and that cell held...

"Rachel?"

The only reaction the tall blonde showed was a quick blink and slightly widened eyes before her face lit up in a confident smile. She crossed her arms and leant coolly against one wall. "Well, well, well. What's two girls like you doing in a place like this? Come to visit little old me?"

Fuck, she still looks immaculate even locked in a cell.

That's just not fair.


AN1 - I really hate this line. I cannot express the ancient, antediluvian depths of my utter disgust for this line I so despise. It's truly horrid and clunky and just plain shit.

AN2 - This is a reference to a Youtube Video called White Walls by Dead Sound. It's... deliciously creepy and nails that personal-level cosmic horror vibe that made me utterly adore the Lovecraft Mythos (not the guy, just his writing - Lovecraft was one problematic motherfucker). Warnings for mild self-harm (animated and very minor) and some creepy abstract existentialist horror.