DAY 4
Todd
Klein had stated the obvious next step.
You want them to keep some powers, just so we know they won't go completely apeshit after all this is done and over, his message read. Maybe make failure a bit more unpleasant for them? Let it hit them hard?
A sigh escaped my lips. I popped another chocolate. Let's hope this time is better.
Arbiter
The crimson red tendrils plunged themselves into my chest. There was no pain, even as the tendrils slipped right out. Knees collapsed underneath me, as a giant gaping hole began leaking out purple blood.
I suddenly felt lightheaded, and the warm, bloodsoaked floor met my face, and I'm left gazing into the woman's face, her eyes wide with pure terror, dying right in front of me.
I locked my eyes with hers. I didn't want her to die alone...
And just like that, I'm back in the same room, people all around.
But nothing happened. They all just stood there, looking at each other. Before they were afraid, and that would give way to anger. To killing and fighting each other.
But now they simply were scared and confused.
I spotted him.
He was standing among a row of people a few paces from me. His back was turned, but I recognized the black attire and white hair.
He then made a stance, and I braced myself for his tendrils to spring out and for the fighting to start again.
But nothing happened.
He looked at his hands. He stretched his head to look behind his back. Then his black and red eye focused on me.
He shrieked, turned and charged. A large figure shot out from beside me and launched a fist square into his face. It was the red armored creature that I had noticed the first moment I was in this room.
Fighting struck out all over the room again.
Fists were flying, people were being kicked at and flung around and slammed on the ground.
"Arbiter!" I turned to the direction of Joel's voice, and found him rushing towards me with Ellie, keeping low and crouching.
I spotted chief running towards me, but I pointed at Chloe, who was on the floor, burying her head in her knees in a fetal position.
He got the message and moved for her, punching a bearded man who was charging him, sending his back to the floor and his hat flying.
He reached Chloe and as he grabbed her, she started panicking and began hitting him. She continued to do so as he started carrying her over here, as Franklin, Joel, and Ellie reached me as well.
A hand grasped my shoulder. "We need to get out of here!" Joel shouted.
Everyone looked at me, save Chloe who was now sobbing on Chief's shoulder, now fully holding him tight.
"No!" I announced.
I was met with shocked and angry faces from Joel, Ellie, and Franklin.
"We ain't got a choice!" "We need to go now! "The fuck you thinkin?!"
I turned, facing a red hooded woman in armor, beating on a bald, tattooed covered woman. "They hesitated!"
I ran towards them, and grabbed the woman by her shoulder. She tried to grasp my hand but she was on the floor already, staring straight at my face.
Her eyes widened in utter terror.
"Stop!" I pointed straight at her face. "Stop fighting!"
I then carefully removed my hand, and she didn't move at all. Just laid there staring up at me, fear in her eyes.
I removed my gaze from her, and scanned the room. I spotted a man with a buzz cut, holding a white armored man in a choke hold.
I ran and pried him off, forcing him to the ground. "Stop fighting!"
He drove his fist into my leg, but he wasn't strong enough to get it off.
"I got him!" The white armored man had gotten up, and grabbed the man's head.
"No! Stop fighting!" I was bordering on begging him.
"I am!" He removed his helmet, revealing his tan face and black hair, also buzz cut. He looked me in the eyes, "Just enough to incapacitate him!"
A breath I had been holding finally escaped. He's helping.
I gave him a nod, and he wrapped his arms around the man's neck, tightening them in a choke hold, exactly like the one he had gotten moments ago.
"Go!" He shouted, "I got this!"
I released my leg off the man's chest, and moved towards a man in a white hood on the back of a tall, muscular green humanoid wearing armor that seemed to be composed out of random scraps of metal, adorning asymmetrical goggles on the forehead, and wearing half a headset.
I grabbed him and pulled him off, "Stop fighting!"
I held him down with one arm, but he wrapped his legs around it.
The green humanoid came to my aid, grabbing the man's legs and pulling them off.
"I got you!" It shouted with a baritone voice.
Chief came in front and tackled the man's shoulders.
"Where are the others?" I asked in a panic as I searched the room.
"I got them out and left them with Joel!" He explained, driving the man's shoulders down on the ground tightly.
"Good." I released the man, while the chief and the green humanoid kept him down. "We have to get them to stop fighting!"
"They're beginning to!" The chief pointed at the white armored people, who were standing right behind me.
One in orange markings stood at the front. "We await your orders sir!"
"I'm not your commander!"
"You're the only one that has made sense so far-" he and the others stood straight-"we have your back if you'll have us sir!"
I looked between the four. They were definitely soldiers, so they could handle themselves.
"Move around the room and break up fights!" I ordered.
"Yes sir!" The leader shouted. "You heard the man, boys! Pairs of two! Support those that run into trouble! Let's move!"
They quickly got to work. I looked to the chief. He nodded, and we continued to break up fights.
After most of the fighting was broken up, the rest just… stopped. They were tired. And clearly terrified.
When my group began pulling people off of each other, they realized they didn't need to fight. We helped them up, gave them a hand, and they realized there were friends in here, even though they were strangers.
They were all sitting on the ground, everyone catching their breath. Many still kept a watchful eye, and placed some space between themselves and everyone.
The white armored men gathered around me.
"Sir!" The leader stood straight. "The last of the fights have been broken up, sir!"
"Good," my voice had gotten a little hoarse. I scanned the room. The random assortment of people in it were all gazing back at me. They were waiting for me to speak…
"I've died two times since I was brought here," I began, taking in everyone before me, "All of us have. We've continued killing each other, in the hopes that something will change and we'll crawl right out of here if we're the last one standing. "
"But nothing will change. Not like this." I began walking between people, passing by the green humanoid, the woman in the red hood, and a man with bloodshot eyes wearing armor with a glowing green line moving down his spine. "I watched a woman, a friend, die, bleeding from the throat, killed in the chaos WE created." The bald woman covered in tattoos could not meet my gaze, and looked down. "Everyone for themselves- that path only leads to death and misery."
I spotted the white haired man. He was left unconscious, laying on the floor as the red armored creature stood next to him.
"Beyond that door," I pointed to the door that was again broken off its hinges, "is food, beds, an indoor garden, and a door that we cannot open- a door that leads out."
They followed my finger to the door.
"Please," I pleaded, "Go rest. Or go inspect the door. Or go carry over food for everyone else to have some- just go do something. We can't keep killing each other, or we're all going to die. And I'm not dying again."
After some time of pondering with downcasted looks, they all got up, and moved for the door.
"What do I do with this fella?" The red armored creature spoke up, gesturing to the white haired monster on the floor.
"What do I call you-" My eyes scanned him- "Friend?"
"You can call me Wrex." He pointed a thumb on its chest. "But not friend. Not yet anyway."
I looked to the Chief. "I'll lock him up," he answered.
He moved to pick the monster up. He and Wrex walked out the door together.
I turned to the armored men surrounding me. "I never got your names."
They removed their helmets...revealing they all had the exact same face. Tan skin and black hair.
"My designation is RC 1138," the leader announced, "My superiors call me Delta Leader. This-" he pointed at the one with the red markings- "is RC 1207, we call him Sev. He told me about you when all this chaos started for the third time. Boys, introduce yourselves!"
One in yellow markings stood straight and gave me a five fingered salute. "RC 1262. Scorch, sir!"
Another in Green. "RC 1140. Fixer, sir!"
Strangely, with the helmets off, they all had the same voice…
"I am Thel 'Vadam. My superiors-" The sensation of the Prophet of Truth's windpipe cartilage lingered on my left hand, almost as if the dry wrinkly skin was still within its grip- "called me the Arbiter."
"We are clone commandos in the republic's army." Delta Leader explained. "Our designation is Delta Squad."
"At ease," I spoke the words I had heard the human soldiers gave when one of their own took similar postures. They relaxed.
I've never heard of the republic, which certainly means another alternate history.
"I have many questions, as I am sure you do too, but I think we should all get some rest." I pointed to the door. "Please, follow the others. Find rooms to rest."
"Thank you sir," Delta Leader said, "I think R&R for everyone is a good idea. But what of them?" He pointed his hand to the other incapacitated people on the floor.
"Leave them." I deferred."When they come to, they will hopefully have come to their senses and fall in."
"We'll be ready if they don't."
They saluted once more, and took off for the door, walking past a dark skinned man in a purple suit, sitting in a wheelchair. His hair was a large grey bush, and a grey stubble was collecting along the lower half of his face. A broach sporting the letters MG in gold sat at the centre of his white collar.
Scorch was staring at the man as they walked past. "Hey," he failed to whisper to his brothers, "Doesn't that guy look familiar?"
The man in the wheelchair was looking at me with wide eyes. He stared in silence, right until delta squad left the room.
"Our protagonist enters the scene." He slowly turns his wheels, moving towards me. "A leader to pull the people together."
He's now looking up at me. "But-" he held a finger up- "tensions will still be lurking around the corner, getting ready to rear their ugly heads, and the peace will run the risk of being shattered."
"Excuse me?"
"It's an old story." He elaborated. "Life always seems to follow the patterns of stories."
"Or perhaps the other way around." The man reeked. He seemed to have not bathed in a while. "And you are?"
He held his gloved hand out, the beginning of a gesture among many humans.
"Be careful!" he jerked his hand slightly away, just as I brought my hand out, "My bones are like paper; too much pressure, and it becomes a crumpled mess."
"They call me Mr Glass." I followed his warning, and gently grasped his hand, shaking it. "On account of my condition."
"Thel 'Vadam." I released my grasp. "And they call me The Arbiter."
"Arbiter?" He chuckled. "That's a fitting name."
"It's a title." The man's gaze unsettled me; it was studying every inch of my body from head to toe constantly. "Many before me have worn it, and I may well be the last."
"Oh I can't wait to get to know you!" He said enthusiastically with a wide smirk.
"What's stopping you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
He leaned forward in his chair. "You mentioned a door?"
"That I did. It is sealed shut, and seemingly impenetrable."
He sat back in his chair, and he grinned in satisfaction, "It's better than nothing. Would you let me have a look at it?"
"We already did," I reiterated.
He moved closer, and a dirty toothed smile crawled onto his face. "But I didn't."
I opened the door to the living quarters, my hands grasping the handles on the primitive wheelchair as I wheeled Mr Glass through.
Everything was how we had first found it. The bed frames were gone, no longer piling around the door, and there wasn't even a small whiff of blood in the room.
People were still in the middle of settling in, and they either kept their doors closed shut, or had them wide open, laying on their bed and keeping a watchful eye out the door.
The tattooed woman was resting on the floor outside her room on the second floor, right next to her door. The red hooded woman was doing the same on the opposite side of the living area.
"Nora! Please!" A man in a blue suit was knocking on a door. "It's me, Nate! I just want to talk to you!"
Wrex was leaning on the wall beside a door on the second floor, but this one had a bedsheet tied around the knob and connected to the railing.
"The pyjak with the tentacles is in there." He called down at me, indicated the door with his thumb. "The human is having me guard him, and I was much obliged to keep him under my leash."
"Do not abuse that privilege," I warned, continuing to wheel Mr Glass past.
Delta Squad settled in four rooms, keeping together on the first floor. They sat on the floor conversing, their helmets off.
"I want everyone to sleep with their armor on." The Leader of Delta Squad stood with his hands on his hips, beholding his squad. "Keep a crack open on your doors and an ear out. I'll take the first shift."
They noticed me, and stood at attention.
"Sir! The tall armored man went through there," Boss reported, as he pointed at the door, "He said to inform you that he was heading to the supply room."
"Good." I held a soft hand up. "At ease."
"I can see Moses has his followers now. "Mr Glass quietly spoke, as I wheeled him through the door.
"I'd like the second shift, boss." Sev's voice shrank from behind me.
"They are afraid," I lectured, "They need guidance."
"You seem experienced."
"I've had people under my command before-" Suddenly I was on the bridge of a covenant ship, the large purple winding halls sending pings of melancholia even as an entire fleet outside bended to the will of then Supreme Commander 'Vadmee.
The sensation of pain followed the vision; a hot burn on my chest, the smell of sizzling skin entering my nostrils, my throat demanding to let it scream. I allowed it, only because I knew the furious crowds wished to see it. That they would not be satisfied if I didn't.
The punishment for failure.
A voice returned me to the present, "Military?" he asked, looking at me from the corner of his eye, and I wondered for a second if he saw what just happened. I stopped wheeling him, and reached out to open the door.
"You could say that." His chair went through, and the sight before captured his attention.
"Oh!" he exclaimed excitedly, that toothy smile back again, "This just keeps on getting better and better!"
He surveyed the garden, fixing his gaze on the river.
People were around. They were examining the trees and vegetation. A man in a blue white-striped suit and a black hat was moving his hand through the water in the river, and sniffing it.
There was a gathering around the exit door. A young woman wearing a blue skirt and jacket was inspecting the edges of the door closely, with another man and a woman behind her.
The man wore ornately designed gold, black, and red armor. The woman wore a short sleeved utility jumpsuit, sporting a pack on her back, and wore a headset.
"I hope there's room for a fourth opinion!" Mr Glass interrupted their inspection. Their wide eyed gazes ended up being fixed on me, and the only reason I could fathom why is because they too have not yet stepped out of the human bubble.
"You gonna keep staring at my pretty friend here," Mr Glass pointed a thumb at me, "or are you gonna let me have a look myself?"
They hesitated, darting eyes between me and him.
"The door has had a lot of work done on it to keep us from opening," The man in the ornate armor came to his senses, "I can't exactly see what you can do."
Mr Glass didn't respond, and continued looking the door up and down.
"Bring me closer, would you soldier boy?" he called to me.
I pushed his wheelchair closer, and they shifted to give us a spot in front of the door.
"Blast door," he observed as he placed a hand on it, "Someone either seriously doesn't want us to get out, or let something get in."
He turned his head to glance at me, "you saw this door the time you managed to get out of the fighting?"
"That I did," I recalled.
He pointed at it, "anything different about it?"
I examined it. It was in the untouched condition we found it in-but we didn't leave it untouched.
"There should be exposed dirt," I pointed to the very ground we were standing on, "from when my hooves tore up the ground from my attempt to push the door open."
Glass looked down, and spun his wheels to move back away.
The girl in the blue dress got on her knees and ran her hands through the grass, "there are these...lines. Like patches of fabric on clothes."
She began ripping out the grass, some dirt being pulled with the loose green bits. The man in the armor joined her, and I noticed that he was only using one hand, his left. His right arm did not hold a real hand, but a fake, golden one.
The ground revealed patch marks, the size of my two hooves. The man stood, and the woman sat on her knees, still beholding the scene before her.
"Someone or something laid down new grass," she said, as she trailed her finger along the cracks.
"That's not all they did," the armored man chimed in, "I can remember twice that that...hall, was bathed in blood. Not a single drop sat there when we came back the third time."
"And I'm pretty sure it was the same for the second time," Mr Glass added. I heard footsteps brush the grass behind us.
"That's not all that's changed," Joel's voice called from behind. The man in the suit and hat was watching not far behind. "The explosives are gone."
"What?" Panic struck me.
"Yeah," he looked between everyone, "When we got to the supply room, all the crates were back where we first found them on the shelves."
"A supply room," Mr glass began speaking to himself, looking down as he thought out loud, "rooms to live in, a garden with a goddamn river running through it-" His eyes fixated wide on Joel- "and where in the hell did you get explosives?"
Joel looked between him and me, hesitating to answer. I nodded at him, not even knowing where he got it myself.
"There was gunpowder in one of the crates in the supply room."
"Gunpowder?!" The woman in the jumpsuit exclaimed, "Why the hell do we have gunpowder?"
"Listen lady," Joel crossed his arms, "I got-"
"Ripley," she interrupted.
"What?"
"My name is Ripley!"
"Whatever!" He shouted with a frown. He pointed at the door to the supply room, "I worked an hour or three on the explosives that were meant to blast the door open- and now they're gone!"
"That was a waste of time either way." She pointed at the door. "You could light dynamite all around this door, and it would never even dent it."
"You know your doors?" Glass inquired.
She frowned at him, "I know a blast door when I see one."
"Doesn't really answer my question."
"Listen smartass," She held a finger up to him, "I'm an engineer for weyland-yutani. So yes, I know my doors."
"Weyland-yutani," Mr Glass echoed with a large smirk, "Big space company."
"Yeah," She crossed her arms again and moved away from the door, "It is. So we need to find another way to get this thing open."
"We could blow a hole in the concrete wall surrounding it," Joel suggested.
"Wouldn't be enough, especially with gunpowder," She indicated the walls with two fingers, "If there's a blast door, that's definitely reinforced concrete."
"If there was a lock," The woman in the blue dress stood up, patting the dirt and grass off her hands and long blue skirt, "I would've been able to pick it."
"Pick it?" Ripley scrunched her nose, "The blast door is obviously electric, you would have to find a panel that can be busted open, mess with the wires until it opens it."
"It's just a thought-"
"Not really helpful," Ripley pouted.
"No." Mr Glass was rubbing his chin. "It actually is."
Ripley looked at him incredulously. "How?"
"It puts to question the technology behind the door." he puts one palm out, "wires-" he puts out the other- "or gears." He shrugs with a smile, "or maybe something else entirely."
Ripley raised an eyebrow. "I'm not following."
Glass looked around, until he settled on the man in the armor.
He pointed at him, who jerked slightly at the sudden movement. "You see this man? He look strange to you? His armor and his clothes? The empty sword sheath on his hip?"
He spun his wheels to face him. "What's your name?"
All eyes were on him, and he darted looks between everyone, confused. "Jaime-" He stammered an answer- "Lannister."
"You know what we're talking about Mr Lannister?"
"Other than finding a way to get out?" He shook his head. "Not particularly, no."
"You know what a lightbulb is? A gun? A plane? A car?" His answer was a simple shake of the head.
Ripley just stared at him. "I still don't understand."
He spun to face her, "Maybe that door-" he pointed at it- "Is using technology none of us really understand, just like how we're talking about technology he-" He pointed a thumb at Jaime- "doesn't understand."
Ripley tilted her head, her eyes sifting through the thoughts. "You're saying our captors could be more technologically advanced than either of us?"
"They brought us back to life," He emphasized, and held up two fingers, "Twice."
They all casted their gazes down to the floor. Dying and coming back wasn't pleasant for any of us.
"Arbiter," Mr Glass spun to face the door again, "rip that exit sign off."
Everyone looked at him, confused as much as I was. But his gaze could bore a hole through the sign.
I moved forward, reached out with one hand, and ripped the sign off. Little bits of the back of the sign was stuck to wall.
Mr Glass stuck his palm out. "Lemme have a look at it."
I did so. He examined the sign, which had the red lights of the words exit still going. "This sign is a piece of technology," He examined the holes where the pieces had been ripped off, "The nature of this technology clues us in the identity of our captors." Red light peered out of the holes.
He held it back up to me. "Rip this in half."
I grasped it with both hands, and pulled it apart.
"No wires," Mr Glass observed, as I gave it back it to him, "No batteries, and not even a single goddamn screw!"
"And yet," He pulled out a piece- the piece that was glowing red, "it works!"
"Let me see that!" Ripley demanded, as she snatched the piece out of his hand. "It's not even hot!"
"These people, whoever or whatever they are, do not use the same fundamental technology we use," He proclaimed with raised eyebrows, "That, is something."
"And what if someone here does use the same technology?" The man in the suit and the hat chimed in from behind us, grabbing our attention.
Mr Glass spun to him, "And you are?"
He moved towards us, pulling something out of his inner front pocket, "Cole Phelps, LAPD-" He pulled out a badge- "homicide."
"You working a case, Detective?" Joel chided.
"You could say that." He tucked his badge away with a wry smile. "Let's call it a kidnapping case."
He reached us, pulling out a pencil and a notebook. He looked at me with a smile."Good speech by the way."
I nodded at him. "Thank you."
He looked around tapping his notebook. "I'm thinking I go around, put this notebook to use and get names, interview some people."
Joel scoffed with a frown. "You want to interrogate people?"
"Not interrogate." He tapped the eraser on his chin. "More like taking census."
"Sounds like a good idea," Mr Glass announced. "We need to pool together every little bit of information we have, get bearings on our situation."
Cole flipped through his notebook. "So far I have an Amanda Ripley, a James Lannist-"
"Uh, Jay-mee," Jaime corrected, "Lannister."
"Jay-mee," Cole wrote it down, "Lannister, and-" He pointed the pencil at joel- "Your name?"
Joel sized the man up and down, "...Joel."
"Elizabeth." The woman in the blue dress announced, staring at Joel."My name is Elizabeth."
"Elizabeth…" He continued writing. "Either of you have any last names?"
Joel stared at him with lowered brows, and shook his head. "No."
"Well," Elizabeth scowled, "I guess mine is Comstock."
"Comstock..." His pencil kept scratching paper. He looked between me and Mr Glass. "And you two?"
"Arbiter," I told him. My real name had no meaning at this point.
"Okay," Mr Glass began, "So for my last name, put down Glass. First name, Mister."
"Mister...Glass…" He tapped his pencil on the last word and gave a wide smile, staring at the man. "Thank you. I'll start interviewing everyone after they've all calmed down a little."
"Thank you my friend." I held a hand out.
He didn't even hesitate to shake it. "Now," He pointed a thumb behind him, "I overheard that one door leads to the supply room. What does the other lead to?"
Mr Glass left for the supply room with Elizabeth. They both wanted to examine the exit sign, figure out how it worked, and explore the items in our possession. I told them to let Chief know where we were going.
Ripley wanted to come with us, but Joel refused. "We don't need all our eggs in one basket, and an engineer is golden."
Jaime went along with her, so confused he said he was "nurturing a headache."
Cole came along with me and Joel.
"Why didn't you explore this section?" Cole inquired, as our footsteps echoed through the cold hallway.
"We simply did not think of it." I answered. "The exit was found, and locked. We had discovered the supply room, when a fight ensued."
"Fight?"
"A japanese woman," Joel filled in, "must have been scared out of her mind. Couldn't understand a thing she was saying."
"I'd like have a word with her," The door was coming up, "when we get the chance."
"You speak japanese?" Joel was about to open the door, but I stopped him.
I grabbed him on the shoulder and moved him back, and grasped the handle myself. I peeked through the opening.
I opened it all the way, revealing another living area. It was identical to the other one, two floored.
"Another one?" Joel blurted. "Why do we need all this?"
I pointed at the door across the room. "Maybe it has something to do with that."
We strolled through the door, and found ourselves in a room identical to the one we woke up in. But this one was empty. No evidence of use.
"Why the hell do we need a second one?" Joel asked aloud.
"A second what?" Cole prodded.
Joel pushed his palms out, pointing them at the floor. "A second this!"
Cole crouched, trailing a finger on the floor and looking at it. "A resurrection room?"
"Oh let's not do this." Joel turned his back to Cole, his hands on his hips.
Cole stood up. "Do what, Joel?"
Joel faced Cole, frustrated. "Name the goddamn rooms!"
Cole just stared at Joel curiously. "Don't want to feel like we're settling in?"
"What is this?" Joel eyed Cole up and down.
Cole smiled at the floor before looking back up at Joel. "We're going to need to name all these rooms if we're going to keep moving between them."
"Resurrection Chamber?" I suggested, trying to speed through the heated conversation.
"RC for short?" Cole was rubbing his chin.
Joel let out a big sigh. "Quarters for the living area?"
"Garden for the garden?"
"We've already got a name for the supply room," I said.
"What about this whole-" Cole waved his arms in a circle- "Place?"
Joel didn't hesitate. "Purgatory."
Cole furrowed his brows. "You believe that?"
Joel scoffed with a wry smile. "I don't know what to believe."
Cole took out his notebook and pencil, and began writing something down. The strokes of his pencil were the only sound in the room.
"What you writing there?" Joel tilted his head up, as if trying to get a peak over the notebook.
"I'm drawing-" His pencil striked lines on his paper- "a map." He finished with a tap.
He walked towards me and Joel, and we moved for the notebook he turned to face us.
It showed a series of boxes. One in the middle, with a tag that read garden. A box on the left, tagged supply room. Above that, were two boxes connected together, connected to the garden, tagged RC 2 and Quarters 2. An identical set of boxes was on the right, labelled RC 1 and Quarters 1.
"Not really all that useful." Joel chided with a grin. "It's not really a maze in here."
"It will be for those that confine themselves to their rooms." Cole closed his notebook, and placed it and his pencil back in his front inner jacket pocket.
Elizabeth
"You can ask you know."
The automaton arm placed the crate on the ground. It was a bright red one clawed mechanism that moved with the grace of a hawk.
I furrowed my brows, trying to feign confusion. "Ask what?"
Mr Glass reached for a latch, barely noticeable underneath the lid. "I suffer from a disease that make my brones incredibly weak." He popped off the lid. "Like glass."
The lid dropped to the floor, and he dug his hands through the tools in the crate, picking out a flathead screwdriver and a hammer.
"Osteogenesis Imperfecta." I recalled the name from a book in my tower, Afflictions Of The Human Skeletal System. My heels clacked on the ground as I followed him while he wheeled to the crates that were serving as an improvised work table.
"You're a very knowledgeable young lady." He pulled the glowing red pieces from the exit sign, and began scraping at it with the screwdriver.
"Well I've had a lot of time to read."
"So did I." He lifted the piece, and small shavings fell off like glowing red sawdust. "Even the shavings glow…"
He took the hammer, and began gently tapping the red piece. "I've had ninety seven breaks in my life." He began to gradually speed up the tapping. "I've learned all the ways things can break." The piece shattered.
"It's not exactly plastic or glass." He picked it up, examining it.
He looked around, fixing his eyes on the door. He placed the piece down, picked up the hammer, resting it gently on his knees, and spun his wheels for the door, myself in tow.
He passed the hammer to me. "Could you break the handle off?"
I sized the hammer. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"
He turned the door handle and pulled the door slightly. "I'll leave it open."
I grasped the hammer reluctantly, and began whacking the metal handle. Clang "Trying to find out the mechanism of the door?"
"Got it in one."
"It's probably just a straightforward-" Clang- "gear mechanism."
"Then the handle would've broken off already-" Clang- "which it hasn't."
Clang. "Then it's just wound tightly together."
"Need any help?" The tall, green armored helmeted man known simply as the Chief appeared behind Mr Glass, carrying a hundred pound crate of food. He placed the crate on the ground.
"You're a lot quieter than you look." Mr Glass didn't even face him. "You think you can get the door handle off for us to look at?"
I moved out of the way as he grabbed the handle, and began tugging on it.
After ripping the door off, Chief ended up having to tear off the part of the door with the handle attached to it.
"Here," He handed the piece to Mr Glass, "Learn what you can." He picked up the crate and hauled it off for the people that were resting in the living quarters.
We took the piece to our work area, where Mr Glass broke the covering off with his screwdriver and hammer. "Now that's interesting."
Where the gears for the handle would be, instead laid a strange grid pattern. Mr Glass turned the handle, and lines of the grid collapsed and contorted, pulling the latch back.
"That's…" I almost found myself bereft of breath. "That's ingenious!"
"A one piece door handle mechanism." He picked it up and inspected it with a sort of wonder about his wide eyed expression. "No assembly required."
"I've never seen anything like this before." I leaned forward, trying to get a closer look at the contraption myself.
"I have." He handed it to me. "It requires a special machine- a 3d printer. Plus a computer to model the patterns."
I turned the item over. It wasn't an entirely square grid, composed of V and Z shapes. Perusing my fingers through it, it felt more like rubber than metal.
I scrunched my eyebrows. "A 3d printer? What's a computer?"
He just stared up at me. "What year are you from?"
"Excuse me?"
"Before you came here-" Mr Glass gesture to the environment around us-"What year was it?"
"He's asking if you're from another reality." A girl's voice chimed in from the shelf holding the containers. I glimpsed a look- It was the girl with that man with a voice that sounded exactly Booker, Joel.
She had her head peeking around the containers. "Everyone here is from some alternate timeline. Arbiter and the Chief are from the 2550s."
My eyes widened with recollection. "Alternate realities?"
"Yeah or something like that." She left to continue grabbing an armful of plastic sealed food.
If that's the case, then getting home might be a little bit harder than I thought…
My thoughts must've been playing across my face, because Mr Glass was looking right at me. "Something you want to tell me?"
I bit my lower lip and crossed my arms."1912."
His expression went from a suspicious glare, to wide eyes and an agape jaw. "That's amazing!" He let out a breath of excitement, grinning like a fool. "You're like a time traveller!"
I gave a wry smile. "I'm guessing you're from the future?"
"2019." He rubbed his chin, still caught underneath his wide smile. "Still doesn't hold a candle to the 2550s."
"The task at hand," I held up the door handle, half of my lips curled upwards, "Mr Glass?"
Cole Phelps
The burly creature that introduced himself as Wrex ripped up the bed sheets that kept the door from opening. After finding nothing of value in the second RC, we returned to the quarters everyone was based at. Arbiter had mentioned that another man that spoke japanese had to be locked up, after being determined to be too dangerous. I volunteered to have a go with him, figure out what I could.
He was unconscious and bound to a chair, his legs stuck together with a rope improvised from bed sheets.
He had pearly white hair, very pale skin, and was somewhat scrawny.
He wore a strange leather mask, with an eyepatch covering his right eye, large bolts sticking out both sides of his neck, and a zipper going across what I thought was real teeth, only to be revealed to be fake upon a closer look.
I reached out to pull his mask off. A three fingered hand struck out and grasped my wrist firmly. "I think it's best if I handled that."
I wondered if Arbiter and Wrex were a related species. Their physiques were oddly similar. Wrex stood behind the white hair, trying to find an avenue of pulling off the mask. I heard the clip of some buttons, and Wrex was wrapping the mask around and off his head, but his face was covered by his large bangs.
Wrex took notice, grabbed his forehead and lifted his head to face me.
He was a very young man, probably in his early twenties.
His eyes sprung open, one eye having a blood red iris and pitch black sclera with red veins running across it.
"Stop!" He screamed in Japanese, "Where am I?! What are you going to do to me?!"
"You little pyjak!" Wrex slapped him on the back of the head. "Quit your whining!"
Wrex shouted in Japanese. He explained to me the basics of his translator, although I couldn't help but study the way his arm emitted a yellow glow that brightened with each word he spoke.
"It's okay," I began in Japanese, "We don't wish to hurt you."
"Is this a ghoul detention center?"
Me and Wrex glanced at each other.
"What is he saying?" Arbiter was standing behind me to my right.
"He's confused-" I pulled out my notebook and began writing down what I heard- "Something about a detention center."
"Detention center?"
"He mentions a word that I can best describe as 'monster' or 'demon'." I wrote down Monster Prison with a big underlined question mark next to it.
He was panting, eyes darting all over the room and sticking especially on Arbiter.
"My name is Cole Phelps." I told him. "I'm an American officer."
"American?"
"That's right." I scooched my seat closer to him and leaned a little. "We are all a little confused as to what is happening. Sometime ago, I was-" My eyes sifted for the word- "Looking at a murder, and then I was here. Can you tell me your name?"
He eyed me, up and down. "Kaneki."
"Kaneki." I echoed. I turned to Arbiter and spoke in english. "Kaneki is his name."
He nodded, and I wrote the name down in my notebook.
"This-" I pointed my pencil at Joel, who was standing quietly to my right with crossed arms- "Is Joel. He tells me you were the last one alive. Is this true?"
He nodded his head.
"How did you-" Before I could finish pronouncing my question, the door slammed open.
A short haired Japanese woman in a black suit and short skirt that reached slightly above her knees stood at the door with a steely gaze.
"Do not talk to that psychotic," Her tone commanded the room, even for those that didn't understand her.
I got up from my seat to face her. "Do you have something to say?"
"That man-" She pointed at Kaneki- "Is insane. He has confessed to eating people."
"He eats his own kind?" Wrex blurted out from behind me. His translator was off- or set to english- so Joel and Arbiter understood what he said.
"Goddamn cannibal!" Joel walked over and delivered a fist into Kaneki's face, sending some blood flinging out.
I grabbed Joel underneath his shoulders and locked my hands behind his head before he could lay a beatdown. "That's enough!"
I began pulling him away from Kaneki. "He was the last one alive! We need to know how he died!"
"Last one-" I could see Joel's eyes widen- "You bastard! Did you fucking eat me!? Did you eat Ellie!?"
"He doesn't understand you!" Arbiter grabs hold of Joel from the front. "He doesn't understand you!"
We pin him to the ground, and he swings arms and shoulders, trying to get out. "Let go of me!"
"That's enough!" Arbiter pushed his onto the floor. "You need to leave!"
Arbiter picked up Joel, as if he was simply a giant squirming pillow, and brought him out the door with him. "Find out what you can Cole!"
He slammed the door.
Elizabeth
The door handle and the hinges were designed as metamaterials, what Mr Glass called them. He explained that a device called a three dimensional printer incrementally added layers of materials to create the single piece mechanism, and the pattern can only be designed by a computer-which I realize is a device similar to a fink automata brain. But he says there's a problem with this theory.
"It takes a bitch ass amount of time for a 3d printer to work." He was rooting around a crate. "Add the hinges, times that by every door in this place, they would be better off using standard metal and gears."
He roots out a magnifying glass. How Mr Glass knew that would be there- or why that was there for us in first place- still astonishes me.
"So far I can count three reasons why they build stuff like this." He wheels over to work table. "They either have good ass printers, a lot of printers-" He holds the door handle up and takes a look at it with the glass- "Or a completely different way of manufacturing these."
"Four reasons Mr Glass."
"Beg pardon?"
"The anonymity." I placed a hand underneath my elbow as I began rubbing my chin. "If a 3d printer could do what you said it could, then they could make anything on site. That way, they won't have to order or ship anything that might set off red flags."
"Which could mean this place was made in secret." He regarded me with a pleased smile. "I only now just told you what a 3d printer was. You learn pretty damn quick!"
"I'm not a rube, Mr Glass." I crossed my arms. "I can catch on quicker than you think."
"Oh I didn't think otherwise Miss Comstock."
"Please," I held my hand out, "Call me Elizabeth."
He grasped it, and I shook his hand, now properly introduced.
In the short of amount of time I've known him, Mr Glass has already proven himself to be an adroit old man, sharp with his mind. He has been trapped in his own little cage all of his life, admirably keeping fresh in the face of a world that could snap his neck at any time.
He held the piece and the glass up to me. "Have a look at this."
I held it up to my eye. It's surface was perfectly smooth, no scratches, no loose bits, and all a shade of light grey, no edges where paint could have missed.
"It's perfect." I flipped the piece over. "Too perfect to be crafted by human hand, too complex to be pressed by a simple machine."
"Too perfect for a printer as well."
If a machine like he described worked by adding layer upon layer of material…
"There should be lines," I trailed a finger on the smooth surface, "along the piece, from the layers being formed atop each other."
"Usually molds made from a printer are sanded to smoothness-" he pointed at the piece- "that is too smooth."
"So," I put down the piece on the table, "Any theories?"
"Cole Phelps," He spun his chair and headed the opening missing it's door. "We join his interviews, listen to everyone's story until we find something."
I frowned at the sudden change of topic, "Cole seems an inquisitive man."
"Detectives usually are," We continued talking as we strolled through the halls.
"Here, allow me," I grabbed the handles of his chair and began pushing for him.
"Thank you kindly."
"But so was the Spanish Inquisition," I tapped my thimble on the handle, "People might be made uneased by his questioning."
"Not if we're careful," We approached the door. I turned the handle, now with the knowledge of the complex mechanism behind it.
The lights were now out in the garden. A rough simulation of night time. The gentle flow of the river still reached my ears.
"I think we ought to get some rest Mr Glass." he didn't respond. "Mr Glass?"
I bit my upper lip and tilted my head to catch a glimpse of his face. He was staring wide eyed at something.
I followed his gaze- and there, across the room, atop the only door that leads out, bright red letters that read EXIT sat in silence, the only light in the dark.