C'est La Vie (Worm / MtG) #04.2

A/N: So this is the 2nd portion of the original snip, or the second half that is. The 3rd, and final, portion will take a bit longer due to that needing more scenes for pacing purposes. Anyway, enjoy and speculate away. Discussions feed me.

As always, many thanks go out to by beta's.

P.S. For anyone who's following Networked (A Certain Scientific Railgun SI), I opened that up the other day and am wondering how it I got stalled where I did. It is back on the docket.

—

Rotted, waterlogged, industrial carpeting squashed beneath the soft soles of my costumed feet as I slowly ventured deeper and deeper into the visitors center.

It stank in here, in these halls where the rainfall from last week's storm had drained into. The cloying smell of mildew and rot seeped through the silk bandanna I'd once more tied around the lower half of my face. Not enough ventilation in this part of the building for it to dry out so soon after the storms rolled through, nor any way for it to drain away. The roof hatch was going to be shut when we left so it wouldn't flood again, but I couldn't even guess how many hundreds of gallons had dumped through that opening just days ago—or over the years for that matter. It would likely be weeks, at the very least, before this part of the building dried out.

The smell was a minor concern though, my concentration was wholly focused on my missing hand and the thin stream of green smoke writhing around my non-existent fingers, giving the impression that there was something there. I rolled them, spread my immaterial digits wide to stretch out the Green and examine it; I tried to tell if it was any thinner than before. It was, but still nothing—I bit back a gasp as a flash of technicolor pain stabbed between my eyes.

I ignored it as best I could and continued on, panning my 'hand' back and forth while watching the Green for the slightest sign of change.

On I went, slowly continuing my search of the building and narrowing down the source of what had been thinning the Green. This was the last bit to cover after an hour of circling the building, twice meandering my way through the lobby while ignoring Artur's inquiring glances, and stopping every time the Green so much as flickered.

It felt like I'd been at it forever. I hadn't, the Visitors Center wasn't even that big, but I was moving at a snail's pace. The headache wasn't helping either. Not so bad as the first time I dumped the entire capacity of the jungle's Impression in one go, but close.

There wasn't much more building left for me to search, fortunately, and before long there was a change. I stared at the Green as the restrained, yet primal hunger given off by the luminescent smoke turned to an almost placated growl; the violent writhing slowing to a calm, steady flowing.

This is it.

Elements of... something, intermingled within the Green before being absorbed and further thinning the smoke for an instant. Separate, but similar. Substantive enough to change its nature, and distinct enough to be visible, but not enough to overwhelm it.

I cast about with the swarm, taking in everything in the immediate area. I turned in a circle, occasionally panning back and forth and using the Green in my hand like it was a metal detector while keeping watch for the slightest of changes. Then, another flicker, something darker within the Green, stronger than before. It momentarily discolored the Green before vanishing again, but not before I felt a muted sense of something almost inimical to the Green's nature.

I looked up from the Green and stared into the round, wire reinforced window. In the dark hallway and under a coating of mildew it was opaque, but I knew what was beyond it.

The Lab.

I slowly made my way further down the hall, my eyes on the Green, until I stopped at a heavy, half-recessed pocket door. The exposed half was misshapen from rust, lumpy, and had barely fit in its recess; the flakes of rust and paint on the ground were a testament to how difficult it had been to get it open the first time.

Stepping through, I stood before a second door, far more intact and still shut tight against nature's attempts to reclaim the building. Turning in place I stared through the glass wall on my right, this one only lightly fogged.

Beyond the glass lay a nearly immaculate room, a time capsule of the era when the park was operational and a glimpse of what this place had been, with its ancient, towering servers pushed up against the far wall, elaborate domed assemblies with mechanical arms, and clunky scientific equipment. A clean room environment, at least while it had been operational. But it was only kept in a near pristine state by a hair's breadth. The first door to the lab's airlock had taken most of the damage, though not all.

I hadn't had much of a reason or inclination to break into the sealed room just to retrieve a few beakers and lab supplies, but now?

Checking the Green once more, I turned away from the window and examined the door. The handle was stuck down, unlocked, but the door itself was glued shut by decay and seals not yet rotted away. I reared back and kicked just below the handle and the door jerked out with a screech. Stepping back to re-balance and touch at my ribs for a second, I kicked out again and the door slammed open; it hit the railing on the catwalk beyond and rebounded with a shower of rust.

Stepping into the room I was hit with the smell of metal and stale air. For a second, harsh shadows were cast across the room by the Green before it flickered, then guttered out.

I tried calling it back, attempting to tap into the now completely depleted Impression of the jungle, but I only received another jab from my headache for the trouble. Just as what I'd hoped would happen.

It hadn't been apparent until the Impression had been nearly depleted, and I'd been paying closer attention, but evidently just drawing on the Impression had created a sort of... seed. Rather than drawing wholly on the Impression, it had also been drawing on the local energy and supplementing what was drawn from the Impression—it had been what was calming the Green, something I'd only discovered after seeing it happen when returning from the jungle. I didn't know how, or why, it did that, but without it happening I'd have never noticed there was even anything different about this place—it went to show just how little I knew about this new power.

Now that there was nothing left to draw upon though? Now I was back to where I had been on the mountaintop; a blank slate, or as close as I could get.

My eyes went to the heavy-looking door just ahead, at the end of the short catwalk. It led into a small, glass-enclosed room with the label 'Embryonics' above the doorway. I glanced left of it and through the windows to the wrecked room beyond, some kind of canister half crushed by a fallen pipe.

It wasn't what I was looking for though.

Turning to the short steps that let down into the lab proper, I felt about with my missing hand.

Nonexistent fingers ghosted along, touching with imagined feeling over steel tables littered with scientific instruments and gleaming metal tools. My eyes narrowed as I looked around, a feeling welling up that there was something… off, about this place. It was functional, but… I glanced to the wall of glass looking out on a theater seating and the feeling crystalized.

This place was too small to be where the—no doubt intensive—work had been done to re-create the dinosaurs living on the island. I looked back to the embryonics room and noted how it was positioned at the middle of the lab, the perfect spot for the audience to see. This place was a display piece. Theater… Functional to some degree though, I thought, glancing over to a glass-domed apparatus at the far end of the room. These labs had clearly been designed with display in mind, but the equipment was too high-quality for it to be all have been entirely for show.

Regardless, I knew this was the source. Ignoring the fakeness of it, the seeming illusion of greater functionality, I ventured deeper into the room and tried to feel for what had crept up on me on the mountaintop.

But there was nothing.

Turning in place, my eyes tracked over chairs in front of workstations, pieces of esoteric lab equipment, a clipboard and pencil set down on a table however many years ago… I stepped over and looked down at what was written to see a report or assessment scrawled in slanted shorthand, something about a successful hatching... A new dinosaur being born?

Looking up I slowly took in the room again, imagining scientists at their workstations and it came together. This place wasn't the mountaintop, not the jungle, so why would it feel the same? Was it standing out because it was different? Did it have the effect it did on the Green because it hadn't been retaken?

I shouldn't be expecting the same signs as what drew my attention on the mountaintop, because the sources weren't the same.

But… how then? I thought back to the mountaintop and seeing the island for the first time. It had been a breathtaking sight, and how that had felt… What would be the equivalent for here? How must have that felt, the idea of creating something so… extraordinary?

Creation. That would have been the goal of this place, the supposed goal at least, a fraction of the spectacle that people would have seen. Working to bring actual dinosaurs to life and being part of that, how it must've felt...

For an instant, I wasn't in this place, but home, standing at the workbench in the basement examining the progress my black widows had made. It was a heady feeling, intoxicating even. It was the excitement of seeing something coming together after working at it for so long—

Coolness and flickering luminescence illuminating the desk was the first sign and I stared down at my 'hand'. Blue mist wreathed the air around my missing arm and, where my hand should've been, a thicker mist coalesced; within I could almost make out the shape of the missing digits.

The energy steamed like frost under the sun, dissipating into the aether while a more concentrated stream flowed around my absent fingers and through the air.

The Green was the sun's warmth, the smell of the damp soil and trees, unrelenting patience and sudden violence—a crystallization of survival of the fittest as a concept, of the jungle itself and all the things that survived within it. The blue mist though… My eyes narrowed as I tried to put words to it and manipulated it between my absent fingers, feeling and examining it while considering what I had figured out.

Then it was there, at the edge of my awareness, an Impression, and… The blue mist, the Blue, it was possibility, what could be; it embodied the concept of change and creation, with all the wonder and terror that came with it…

-I-

After almost two weeks on this island, I still wasn't used to the climate. Case in point, it was barely morning and the 'tropic' was already being put into tropical. It probably had not helped that much of my time on the island thus far had been spent indoors, surrounded by cool concrete.

Taking a second to stop packing, I pulled my hat down to shade my eyes from the rising sun then got back to it.

I really wasn't made for this weather.

The sun was barely above the trees and I was already starting to bake. It was a good thing that I had another of the long sleeve shirts I'd salvaged from a storage closet. The mercenaries' combat pants were a touch too long in the leg, however, and needed to be taken in at the waist. In the meantime, I was left with nothing but my biking shorts to protect my legs. So long as I avoided getting burnt, though, I should be fine.

Putting the gradually rising temperature and humidity out of mind, I scooted forward to roll the now-rolled bedroll onto the carrying straps of my new backpack—a 'patrol-pack', Artur had called it.

Pinning it in place with my knees (really didn't want it unrolling again), I quickly looped the straps around the roll and lashed it to the bottom of the pack.

"Done."

Glancing around the rooftop, I checked that I had everything packed and slung the pack onto my shoulder. Everything I'd taken from the mercenaries' things, as well as what had previously been in my satchel and costume compartments. There was still a fair bit of room to spare, most things having gone into a pair of pouches strapped to the sides, but that would be corrected soon.

In the meantime, my—now empty—satchel was free to be stuffed with plants I could make some dyes out of. It was going to be a long walk back and I was sure I'd find what I needed.

Hopping to my feet and ignoring the leaves crunching between my toes and poking at my arch, I made my way over to the roof access hatch.

The whiptail stirred as I passed by where its folded-up form had been resting in the shadow of the lobby's conical roof. It rose as I neared the hatch, its long legs unfolded and separating from the shadows it raced toward the edge of the building; the arachnids figure cast long shadows in the morning sun, its long legs stretching even further. Then it was gone, vaulting over the railing and leaping off the roof and I activated my flight pack—its cargo—for several seconds; long enough for it to reach the branches of the surrounding trees and make for the edge of my range, high up among the branches.

It made things a touch dicey to be walking barefoot through the old building where rusty nails littered the floor in places, but I really couldn't wear my costume any longer. I had become inured to its gradually worsening smell since last I'd been able to wash it in the rain, and cleaning it with my swarm could only do so much. At this point, after washing up before going to sleep and wearing some of the mercenaries' clean clothes… no, just no. It needed a thorough cleaning before I could use it again.

A little vain perhaps, and maybe a little reckless to not just hold my nose and wear the stinking bodysuit until I got back to the bunker, but it was a calculated risk. If I wore my costume, it could also cause me more problems than if I kept it on—or, cause the very problems it would've guarded against. Who knew what might smell it and come looking, or even follow us back to the mountain.

Fortunately, while my 'shoes' up until now had been integrated into the suit—and as such had necessitated wearing it lest I go barefoot as I was now—I now had an alternative, and one more appropriate for this place at that. The stealth that my costume's soft soles provided had its place, but this was a situation where solid protection won out.

Unfortunately, however, while the old hunter's boots were in my size, they were still a touch too large. I had a plan for that though, and if it didn't work out… well, it was only a six-hour walk and the whiptail would be making a stop at the river when it came into range. Dunking my costume a few dozen times in the fast-moving water would do wonders and I could swap if it became necessary.

Stepping onto the steep stairs, I reached up and pulled the hatch shut behind me as I descended, the creaking steps accompanied by the sound of squealing hinges as I was enclosed in darkness.

I moved quickly through short, gloomy hallways to the indoor balcony overlooking the lobby. Things to do, places to be… and so, so many things to experiment on now that I would have some more leisure time.

I'd almost certainly be able to make great strides without having to worry about bursting my test subjects so often. Maybe I'd even be able to make headway on something other than bugs. That a concentration of the Green had been able to affect plants… if it could be directed, that have some interesting applications.

Errant thoughts of what I might be able to do with jungle plants brought a smile to my lips as I moved to the end of the interior balcony, my fingers ghosting along a clear spot on the rail until they touched on a pair of near-invisible threads. Each led out to the two lanterns suspended from a pair of eye-bolts set into the ceiling.

Skewed shadows were cast across the room as I pulled the lantern in and Artur glanced up at me from where he knelt beside the hand truck, carefully winding a rope around it and the three opaque tub-totes.

"Are you about done down there?" He was, or almost was. I knew because I'd been watching him. It was good to include him though, we'd be working together for the next week after all.

Glancing up again he nodded sharply. "Da. Is amoost ready, Ma'am."

I paused for a split second as his response registered. Ma'am? I didn't comment on it, but the title nagged at me. A coping mechanism? Fitting me into the pre-existing category of someone in a position of power?

Something about that left a bitter taste in my mouth. But, if it meant he wasn't so jumpy around me, then it was an improvement. I'd just have to tolerate it.

I kept reeling in the lantern and had an orb weaver crawl down my arm to sever the thread before pulling in the second one.

Carrying the two lanterns in hand and under arm, I made my way down to the ground floor. Artur glanced in my direction, then did a surreptitious double take and looked me up and down before getting back to securing the hand truck's cargo.

What? Had he been expecting something more?

I dropped onto the bottom steps and, setting aside the lanterns, reached to the edge of the step for a pair of thin, rectangular towels draped over the hunter's brown leather boots. No way was I going to use my failed attempt at making socks when I had some readily available foot wraps.

Mind, why Artur's people had been using them instead of socks was something I couldn't begin to fathom. It couldn't even be explained by them having some modicum of extra utility when all the gear they had must've cost upwards of ten thousand dollars or more. And that was the conservative estimate, not even taking into account a helicopter to drop them off or paying for the mercenaries themselves.

Whatever the reason, it saved me from an uncomfortable trek back to the mountain and silk production better used elsewhere. For the time being at least.

Placing my foot at one end of the rectangle, I considered how to go about it. After a few moments of thinking about it, however, I simply began folding, wrapping, and winding as seemed logical. I contorted my arm, pulling the fabric tight around my calf and trying to get it taut enough to tuck. It. In… The fabric pulled out from between my pinched-white fingers and unraveled. "Dammit."

Starting over I tried again, and again, and again, and again. It was on my sixth attempt that Artur finished with the hand-truck and stepped over. He was muttering something in Russian about 'portyanki', whatever that was.

I looked up to see him take a knee in front of me, an unexpected look of sympathy crossing his features as he nodded to the wraps.

"Can demon'strait if vish, Ma'am."

Glancing down at the fabric I considered refusing the offer. I almost had it, I could get it on my own if I tried a few more times, but…

"You never learned to ask for help when you needed it," Tattletale had said, that moment in the cave clear as if it had only just happened when looking back on it. I'd still been relatively human at that point, so early on. She hadn't been wrong. My attention was briefly drawn to the presence of the knife he'd affixed to his belt, but I decided to let it be.

"I'd appreciate it, thanks."

I sat back while he scooched forward and deftly adjusted the position of my foot with a muttered "Pordon" before getting to work. He went about the steps with exaggerated slowness, repeating each fold in the process until he was done. "Must 'ave correkt or chafe," he cautioned, then left the other for me to do myself while heading back to the kitchen.

Keeping his advice in mind, I laid out the second cloth and set to work repeating the steps as he'd demonstrated with my other foot. It took a few tries, but I eventually got it… for the most part.

I extended my leg, rotated my ankle, then extended my other leg to compare the wrap I'd done to the one Artur did and grimaced. It looked like crap; the fabric was loose in places, or not evenly wound. Functional, but that was the only thing that could be said about it.

Not exactly handicap friendly. At that moment I decided to use a bit of my silk production once we got back to the mountain to make a roll, see if wrapping my feet as if I were bandaging them worked better. Visualizing it, the simple roll of fabric quickly turned into something more purpose made but still multifunctional: A length of fabric with button and hole at the end, and a loop to put my foot or toe through at the other.

Idly refining the concept in my head, I grabbed my new boots and set about pulling them on.

While I loosened the laces, my attention was drawn to Artur. He'd already had everything he wanted packed into a large rucksack and had strapped climbing spikes to his boots. He began making his way back to the lobby, but then he turned around and retraced his steps.

I watched him unwrap the tarp he'd wrapped the guns in and work at one of the Kalashnikovs. By the time I pulled on the second boot he had managed to pull several parts off the gun. Nothing special, just a number of the fore end components that he pocketed before re-wrapping the tarp.

Curious, but probably nothing I needed to be concerned about given the parts he took.

We left not long after that, only staying to move the excess equipment and supplies to the kitchen where they would be safe.

Waste not, want not.

—