It's a bit like riding a bike, Dan muses, peering up at the crumbling atrium. It never leaves you.
He's humming to himself as he tiptoes through the mansion, and it's the same song he always hums. The same tuneless singing that never leaves his mind. He'd been extracted, cut, forcibly ripped from the abomination of his tape-recorder self, his human form materializing into place as he fell through the portal, and yet, he couldn't forget.
Not even for a moment. It was as if his mechanical parts had wormed into his mind and installed the tape recorder there instead. A recorder determined to play the same snatch of not-music, from a tape that can never again be ejected.
Dan sighs. He doesn't want to be stuck in the City, only, he's not exactly at home now either. He's drawn to the mysterious and the macabre, like a drunk to the bottle, like an addict to pain. He'd pleaded, resisted, wrestled with his mind. At last, he'd taken his savings, a significant amount from his highly-treacherous work, and purchased a haunted mansion in the hills.
Now, he stands on the threshold, the splintered door creaking behind him, and immediately feels not just comfortable, but happy. His stomach swoops as if—as if he'd ridden a bike for the first time in a year. As if he's been re-united with his long-lost cousin, or perhaps his long-lost twin. The wind shrieks through the cracks in the walls and windows, and in its wail, Dan hears the same lilting harmonies as the song in his head.
He unrolls his sleeping bag and falls asleep, soundly, for the first time in as long as he can remember.
- O -
The morning dawns crisp, clear, and uncommonly vivid. It's the brightest morning in some time. He pauses, stares at the beams of light streaming through his windows, the flecks of dust captured and suspended, the shadows in stark contrast. It's as sharp as a photograph. Dan blinks, surprised, marveling at the the difference a single night's rest makes.
He unpacks his cereal bar and absently eats one while he strolls around the house, mentally cataloguing the damages and repairs. He makes a trip into town and returns with tools, hardware, and wood. The first day, he boards up the biggest cracks and holes.
Exhausted and hungry, with his muscles aching terribly, he returns to his camp in the living room. He's an archivist. He hasn't done manual work like this in years, perhaps never. His arms are burning, and a black bruise is forming on his thumb where he'd hit himself with a hammer. The cereal bars are scattered around his sleeping bag, and several wrappers lay discarded around the room. Dan sighs, remembering the holes: too small for a raccoon, but certainly fit for a mouse or a rat. He eats the remaining bars and resolves to buy a fridge first thing in the morning.
In the morning, his arms feel lighter. Stronger. The bruise is beginning to fade. He chooses a gleaming stainless-steel fridge and installs it squarely in the antique kitchen. Immediately, it begins to purr, working furiously to restock its ice drawer. The ice water is sweet and refreshing as he scrubs and paints, but now, the rest of the kitchen looks dull in comparison. Grumbling, Dan returns with the matching appliances. The stove and dishwasher are bulky, jutting out awkwardly from their walls. But the moment the microwave clicks into place, a dull hum rises from all the machines together, and a warm glow settles over the kitchen.
Dan makes pancakes for dinner. It's the tiniest act of rebellion: breakfast for dinner, harmless really. And yet, it's everything: a decision he made for himself. It's not peaches. He's not thinking about the tape recorder (always on!) or the City where he was held against his will, or even the half his body carved away and made in a nightmarish image. He's thinking about the fucking peaches.
He cries.
The next morning, the remaining pancakes are gone from the fridge. He opens and closes the fridge a dozen times, inspecting the door, but it seems in working order. Perhaps he's plagued by raccoons after all.
The changes pile up after that. His body grows stronger until he's hauling a load of shingles to the roof and hammering them in place himself. He doesn't break a sweat. His mental faculties are improving as well. These days, he can map out an entire room's repair at a glance. He can hear the faintest birdsong a mile away, see a fly on a log in the distance.
He wakes up able to smell as sharply as a bloodhound, and that's what gives the game away. One sniff of the air, and he knows someone is there. Another, and he knows who has come to trouble him.
"Rat! What are you doing here?" Dan hisses, leaping out of bed. He spins around—
The room is empty.
That night, he pretends to sleep until he hears soft footsteps and feels a faint touch, and the room fills with that overwhelming reek of chemicals and a tattered soul. His eyes flash open, and he catches Rat's wrist. With his newfound reflexes and strength, it's easy. Rat doesn't even have time to startle.
"Oh, you've found me!" Rat gushes. "I knew you would with all your new senses! I'm so proud." Rather than shock or fright, he looks delighted. Clenched in his fist is a bundle of wires.
"What do you want with me?" Dan asks, despairing.
"Oh, nothing with you this time. I'm just building the portal. It's so beautiful, and it will open so much new territory. . . ."
Dan blinks. "Visser?" he repeats.
"Yes, Visser! Oh, don't you know? This exact place, this exact house. . . it's Visser's new headquarters! On the other side, you know."
"No!" Dan shrieks, horrified. "I didn't know! You mean to say I was drawn to this place. . . I came here. . . because of Visser?"
"Probably!" Rat says cheerfully. He pauses and thinks. "On second thought, no, just the portal. It brought you closer to the City, you see. But it was lucky for us that you arrived! We needed the parts."
"You needed me," Dan says, resigned. "You need my body again."
"Oh, no, not this time. Just the appliances." Rat grins. "The materials to build the portal on this side. I was able to slip through, but I couldn't go far. Not far enough to get the pieces myself. That's when you came in! Oh, it was so lucky! I just fixed you up, made your body nice and strong and powerful!"
Dan freezes, thinking hard. The eyesight, the sharpened senses, the bruise that healed overnight. . . .
"Rat," he chokes out. "Were you operating on me?"
Rat nods, eagerly.
"But how. . . the appliances. . . Why did I. . . ?"
"Oh, you just knew. Your new brain is so tuned, so special! It knew exactly which parts we needed!" The familiar mixture of affection and pride in his voice makes Dan's blood run cold.
"Is my brain... one of your creations?" he asks warily.
Rat nods eagerly. "My finest work."
Enraged, Dan swings his fist. It connects with Rat's jaw with a loud crack! "So strong, so beautiful," Rat murmurs happily. Dan shoves him into the wall and hoists him up by the throat. Rat wheezes, his head thudding harshly against the wall. His eyes turn glassy, but he's still smiling. Beatifically.
He's not looking at Dan's face. He's looking at his thumb, looking for any trace of the bruise. There are none.
Dan drops Rat, the last traces of rage draining out of him. He sits heavily, weary and trapped, leashed to the City by his mind, the most inescapable prison of all. Resigned, he allows Rat to inspect him head to toe. Obediently raises his hand during the hearing test. Squints at the ridiculously-clear eye chart.
"Thanks, by the way," he begrudgingly grumbles. "For my. . . eyesight, I guess."
"Oh, it's no problem at all," Rat replies. He leans in, inspecting Dan's irises. Dan's surprised when he kisses him.
He shoves Rat away, sputtering. "Hey, what was that for!"
"You're my finest creation," Rat says simply. "I missed you when you left! But now we'll always be together, and I'll be just a portal away!"
He wants to be disgusted, to say leave me alone and never come back, he wants to march out of the mansion and never return. But when he opens his mouths, that song is back, filling his mind and washing the words away. His body is special and beautiful. The surrounding woods are filled with new territory. Despite everything, he feels at ease.
Rat looks at him expectantly.
"I guess you can come visit," Dan says instead, sullenly.
"Oh, good!" Rat says. "I'll be by every day to check on you. You're still healing. Your body is going to do so many new things."
"That's. . . cool, I guess." Dan tunes him out as he trails after him, chattering, already as familiar as a shadow, a Creature and his Creation.
As an afterthought, Rat adds, "Can you make more pancakes? I love pancakes."
