"Back to the Frying Pan"
"Tau's just over here! Come on!" Simon called back to the others. Astocles lagged behind the rest with his visor light flickering. They've been walking for hours on end in the darkness, slowly descending down into the Abyss. Simon couldn't stop thinking about how close he was. So close! He felt like he was missing something. The rush of the escape jolted his brain into "act now, think later" until now. He'd figure it out when he got to Tau.
"Messiah, we are surrounded by the emptiness. I trust in your direction but I fear that something is swarming around us," Astocles hollered over the dust storm. He eyed the long body of a creature swimming outside their light.
Simon looked back to see what it was. A red dot glowing in the darkness, mandibles twitching as the faces morphed into its body howled in pain. The Leviathan.
"Yeah, I see it," he told Astocles. "It's a good sign."
"How? It is a beast like the Whale that sent us aground? Unless it is a messenger of the Holy Creator?" Astocles questioned. He kept his faith in check as they traversed the shadowy path. He followed his creator's will to the very end.
"Uh...sure," Simon answered him.
"You don't sound certain, Messiah?" Abel remarked.
"Look," Simon began to change the subject, "we're getting close. I know it. There should be something just up here!" He pointed to a post in the ground up ahead. The top emitted a blue light. The path to Tau.
"What is it that you must find at this Tau? Will it help end the Fleshers of old?" Astocles spoke out as they gathered around the light.
"I told you, I"m not interested in your conflict," Simon told him. "I'm just trying to get someone back. You want help? Ask the Holy Creator, WAU, or whatever name you call him."
There came a silence.
"You are his Messiah! You are the reborn Areolar of the Commune! You will enact his will!" Astocles argued. "It is why you came to us! Why he sent you!"
"There is no why! I fell off a platform and floated down here. The WAU had nothing to do with it."
"You have forgotten yourself!"
Ahab interrupted the argument with two flashes of the headlight. He pointed off in the distance to a light coming towards them. Brighter than their own. Pure white and fluorescent. It got closer and closer.
"What is it, Messiah?" Abel asked.
"A WAU creature. Don't remember what though," Simon explained. "It certainly isn't friendly." He started heading towards the other post with Abel and Ahab at his side. The roar of the Leviathan sent them running. Up ahead was a small cave he hid in when Ross led him. He could see the glowstick far away. They slid inside before the mandibles snatched them up. They watched the long body swim away, the faces gazing dread into them.
"Where's Astocles?"
Simon scanned around the cave. It was just the three of them.
Shit.
"ASTOCLES! ASTOCLES!" Simon charged back out. Ahab and Abel waited anxiously. He heard the Leviathan take notice and make a U-Turn. Closer, closer, closer, closer. He could hear the roar as it snapped at him. He slid to the post on his back. It passed right over him and back into the sightless dark.
If robots could shit themselves then I just did.
He saw Astocles walking towards the bright light.
"Holy Creator, what do you bless your faithful child among the faithless with?"
Simon could see the long jaws of the creature getting ready to pounce. He scrambled to his feet and booked it. Thankfully Abel was carrying the bag for the stunt he was about to pull. Catherine would hound him for how stupid this is.
He tackled the creature. Somehow.
Its jaws bit down into his left arm, piercing the metal and digging deep into the body. He screamed in pain as it dragged him away. He punched at its eye with his free arm until he struck the human face and it let go. Blood poured into the sea. Simon couldn't feel his arm.
"Oh fuck! Fuck!" he groaned while he laid on the ground. He struggled to get back on his feet. Astocles grabbed him and shook him violently.
"YOU DARE STRIKE THE MESSENGER?!"
"It was going to kill you!"
"I was to be delivered to the Holy Creator!"
Simon broke free of his grasp. What kind of madman would let himself die out of superstitious belief? The WAU didn't care! It couldn't even think beyond one thing: SAVE HUMANITY and look what it did? He had an understanding with it but its goal had terrible deeds. More done by the people who had faith or believed the WAU was a higher being. That's how tragedies happen. Someone believes in something so much they do anything that they believe would appease it.
They didn't talk on the way to the cave. Abel and Ahab were gone. They found a trail of rocks leading them to the other side where the two stared in awe at Tau's entrance.
"We're here."
They entered Tau. Although this was nothing new to Simon, the others were lost in amazement.
"Ross, we're here," Simon radioed. "Ross? Ross, come in." Nothing. Not even a noise from Jin. It was quiet. Not a sound besides them.
"Halls of the Creator," Abel gasped. They settled in the Dive Room where the terminal picked up on the new suit signals. They got their bearings together as Simon tried to get Ross. Still nothing. What the hell was going on? Jin shouldn't be a problem. He can't reach the living quarters.
There came a clicking in the ceiling.
TICK, TICK, DINK, DINK, TICK, DINK, TICK, DINK!
"Move," Simon whispered to the others. "Upstairs. Find it." He shut off his visor light. The clicking got louder. There was more above them. They were watching. Waiting. Watching. Waiting. He saw tiny glowing blue eyes through the vents. They made a gurgling click noise as they stared down at them.
Simon slowly inched his way to the door. Each step carefully placed to avoid the monsters above. Then he made his way through Tau to the ladder leading up to the living quarters. He saw more of those things above and below him. What were those things? From the small looks he caught, they were not WAU creations. Were they something else? A bi-product?
They ate away at the Structure Gel or were they consuming it? Tau looked almost cleaner than before. Did Ross do this or was it these things? But would they attack Simon and Ross? They were made of Structure Gel. All the more reasons to avoid them.
"Astocles? Ahab? Abel?" Simon whispered up the ladder.
He saw quick flashes of visor light followed by a crash!
Simon scurried up the ladder to find Ross hanging from a vent holding onto Abel. "Who are you? What are you?! Where's Simon?!" the Tau scientist barked at the Cabal. He held out a blowtorch to Abel's head.
"Ross! Ross calm down! They're with me!" Simon intervened. "Relax. Okay? Relax? Breathe. Put down the blowtorch."
Ross let go of Abel, dropping the tool and let out a sigh of relief. "Thank all your back. What happened at Omega? Where's the Power Suit?"
It dawned on Simon.
He didn't have it. He left it behind.
He forgot the stupid Power Suit. The frustration boiled and boiled fast. He threw a tray at the wall and kicked over a chair. "God dammit! I had one job! One fucking job! Get the Power Suit and here I am without it! God dammit! FUCK! STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, STUPID SIMON RUINS SOMETHING AGAIN!"
"Simon! Simon calm down!" Ross climbed out of the vent.
"It's not okay! I won't get her back! Because I forgot the stupid-" Lights out.
He dreamt of his fall from Omega. The launch from Phi. Finding his way out of Omicron. Escaping Theta. The Curie. Lambda. Upsilon. The crash. Akers. The Coral. The dreams.
"Sleep," the cold voice of Akers whispered in his dreams. "Sleep…"
Simon woke up screaming.
"Shhh! Shhh!" Astocles whispered.
Simon found himself in Ross' old room. He noticed the power was out or that they had a night-mode he didn't know about. Whatever it was it gave him a chill down his robotic spine. Ross himself was sitting in a chair with a pair of Power Suit legs he merged Structure Gel with.
"W-What happened?"
"You passed out," Ross told him.
"The Holy Creator gave you a vision," Astocles put in. "What did you see?"
Simon explained what he could.
"Askers...the WAU drove him mad. I think I killed him during my escape from Theta. At least I hope that's the case. With this dream, I'm afraid I'm wrong." Simon remembered the last thing before he passed out. "The Power Suit!"
"It's possible that there may be one in storage at Omicron," Ross comforted him.
"May?"
"Have hope, Simon. You have to have hope." Ross stood up. "Those creatures, Solapsists as I named them, cleared the way for us. As long as we avoid them and leave them be we should be fine. I locked Jin up in a storage closet they cleared. Tau's mostly ours again. Maybe they got to Omicron, you know? Hahahah!"
Simon laughed at his attempt at a joke.
"You're a good man, Ross."
"I learned from a better one."
The two men laughed.
"Let's bring everything to Omicron, I know that place may hold some bad memories with the WAU but-"
"Simon, there's another you, isn't there?" Ross asked. "I read some reports your friend made. A little journal so to say. When you transferred over there was another you in the old body. He's still there. What are you going to do?"
Simon thought for a moment. "I'll tell him the truth. I hope he'll understand."
"If he freaks out?"
"We'll figure it out."
As they left for Omicron, Astocles told Simon he found the WAU but didn't say anything on it. The prophet was awfully quiet the entire trip and ascent to Omicron. Up above, Akers watched the elevator rise up towards him. Everything was to plan. Soon they'd sleep.
