Systems of Fate Chapter Three
Behind Fate's Doors
by Mercutio
Nimue slowly walked through the mirrored corridor of Fate. She had no idea how long she had been hibernating in her column, as there were neither calendars nor clocks to keep track of time's passing. Fate tried to keep the test subjects from missing the outside world too much. It was probably better that way. It wasn't like the world had given Nimue anything to miss.
Except Janus.
But he was gone now. Perhaps the Kushrenada-Djuuji War had ended, and he was the proud monarch of both kingdoms. Or he could be lying in a grave, killed in a Mobile Suit attack. But Nimue preferred not to think about that.
She was also not receiving the telepathic powers that she had expected. Whatever machine they had been connecting her too apparently hadn't been doing much for her. She had to keep her doubt deep inside herself, though, as the scientists didn't like it when she accidentally projected it for every telepath in the world to pick up.
But now she felt something calling to her. She didn't know what on earth it could be since she couldn't receive messages. However, it wasn't quite a message... more like a pulling.
A pulling to the Black Level area of Fate.
Armed with only her Yellow Level card, Nimue quietly crept down the mirrored corridor to the door at the very end, the door that only Professor I and Doctor J could enter.
[Please scan in your security card,] the metallic voice chimed.
Nimue ran her card through the scanner.
[Yellow Level card denied. You may pass only if you have a Black Level card.]
Damn. It didn't work. But what was Nimue to do now? She couldn't just turn around while whatever it was behind the door kept calling out to her, even when she slept inside her column. However, it seemed like she had no choice. Without a Black Level card, she couldn't get through.
Where was that old coot Doctor J when she needed him? Incidentally, she found him in the lobby flirting with the secretary. They were both distracted, Doctor J by the secretary and she by her failing task to drive him away. Nimue only hoped that J kept the card in the same pocket as he had when they first met. She quietly slipped in, and gently replaced her Yellow Level card with his Black one.
"What on earth?" Doctor J exclaimed upon looking down to see her reaching into his pockets.
"Oh... why, hello, Doctor J," she said nonchalantly.
"May I ask what you are doing in there?" he said.
"I saw your card lying in the hallway. You must have dropped it. Since you seemed awfully busy trying to cup a feel on the secretary, I decided not to interrupt you and just dropped it in."
Doctor J seemed too embarrassed to continue the interrogation. Nimue left without a word. Now she could go see what had been calling out to her, and hopefully silence it.
Nimue scanned in the card without a problem, and entered through the door.
There was a giant staircase carved of stone winding down. The stone railings were cold to her touch, and there was very little light. It almost seemed like a troll's cave out of a fairy tale. But at the bottom, there was a drastic change. The floor was paneled with metal, and there were controls and computers and machines that Nimue couldn't even begin to identify everywhere in the huge room.
At the very end of the room, she saw a person.
Oh God,> she thought. Is it one of the scientists?>
However, as she walked closer, she saw that it indeed was not. This person was a woman, completely undressed. She gave off no sign that she noticed Nimue at all, although she was looking right at her.
And when Nimue got even closer, she realized why. The woman had no face. Where her eyes, nostrils, ears, and mouth should have been, there was just a covering of skin with slight indentations. She also had no forehead, because her entire brain was exposed, just sitting there in a large cut in her skull like a content cat on a cushion. Her heart was also exposed, and was visibly pumping. It made Nimue sick. She felt as if she could almost hear it beating, and the sound was pounding into her own skull. The woman didn't appear to have any other organs; in fact, there was a large gaping cavity where many of them should have been. She also lacked breasts and genitalia; the skin had apparently grown- or been planted- over where they should have been. Her legs were horribly marred and twisted like wood left to warp in sea water and her arms were missing altogether, replaced with useless stumps.
But the most horrifying part was the wires. They were everywhere, jabbing into the woman's brain and heart and skin and, oh God, Nimue thought she was going to vomit. There were tens upon hundreds upon thousands of them. It looked as if every hair on her body had been replaced with a wire, there were that many. And they all branched out and hooked her to all the computers surrounding her, radiating out from her like some sort of horrible ball gown.
Professor I suddenly appeared behind Nimue. "Behold," he said, "The Zero System."
~
Author's Notes
Yeah, I know that this chapter was really, REALLY short, but I tried writing it into the other chapters and it seemed to have more of an effect on its own. Oh well. Chapter Four will be pretty short as well, but they'll build up in length after that. Yay, right?
~Mercutio