Well, actually, just a word.
Horrific.
Indeed.
II don't know what exactly to say.
How long have we been deactivated?
A little over a year.
Incredible.
So, can you do anything about Otto?
The tentacles' voice (quartet of voices, she noticed with a relieved mental sigh) were thick with worry again. Katarina, we are trying.
I have no doubt in that. Kat grinned a bit, looking towards the upper tentacle that wasn't in her neck. I bet you are trying the hardest.
She could imagine the identical weary smiles upon the four tentacles, Yes.
Can Ican I do anything to help?
We do not know.
I had thought for a moment when I said Tentacle-boy that he had woken up and told you to let go.
We apologize for your injury as you can probably assume, hostility was the first reaction to seeing one that was not our Father. Your words did not awaken him, but they reminded us who you were, Katarina Morrigan.
Thank you.
We do not think Otto would have forgiven us had we killed you. For your awakening of our previous experiences, we are sincerely grateful.
Well, I suppose if not, I would have been deadI should be the one who's thanking you. She gathered her courage. I mean, when I saw you when I first came in here, it was pretty heartbreaking. I'm used of seeing you four as creatures of movement, sort of sinuous and seducing, you know? Seeing all of you dead like that is likelike the silence in Otto's head.
We understand your words, Katarina. Though we do not know what we looked like then, we can only assume it was terrible, given the analogy.
It was.
There was a silence broken only by the clinky noises as the tentacles looked from Kat to Otto.
Heycan you get out of my head now?
Of course.
"Ow!" The feeling reminded her very much of being shot with a very large needle. The tentacle withdrew the wire and went back to its three brothers, all three of them looking down at Otto. Kat shrugged at one of the arms as it glanced back to her.
She frowned as she went over what the hell had just happened there, some sort of direct transfer of memories the most horrifying of all of them being the fear and terror and that gripping emptiness that Otto's mind had been without the actuators, and that was even without the medication. thinking of what it must be with the drugs made her stomach twist. And not only did the friend side of her recoil, but so did the psychologist side - Mereii might as well have ripped up whatever was keeping Otto firmly tied to sanity and just chucked it off the nearest mental cliff. which, in reality, was pretty much exactly what he did. She had to tell this all to Escher, explain to her every little minute detail about everything. Escher could help her fix it-
Oh fuck
Kat replayed the scene in Chet's cell in her head, trying to assure herself that her first thought was absolutely and totally and completely wrong.
"Why, you'll get caught, of course." Chet had said, in his self-assured way, "And you'll be sent to a place you don't want to go. Run, Katarina. Run, and run fast."
He'd smiled at her then, and she felt something. Whatever it was he was talking about, it was important. She just knew it.
So she ran.
And then Escher's voice, unsure. "Kat, what are you—-"
And she'd slid out of there as fast as possible.
She swore again as she realized the idiotic blunder. She'd left Chet with Escher!
She was screwed. Up the ass and to the left. And to make matters even worse, she could hear the humming of the elevator coming this way, and that was not good. Especially because, as she ducked into Chet's cell, she could see the sleek spectacle frames and pale face of a man who was smiling in a smug sort of fashion and was walking with one fist clenched around something, and papers in the other hand. Couldn't be a good thing, and she didn't want to think of what the actuators could do to John if they got their claws on him before Otto restrained them if Otto restrained them.
The door hss'd shut from Kat just as John stepped to it, glancing inside. All he could see were two backs, one of them with a blonde bun at the top, the other a mop of frizzy purple locks. He hummed something, in a pleasant mood, and opened the door, looking down at Escher and Chet. The smile faded as he looked at Chet, turning into a passively-displeased expression, but the moment that he looked over to Escher, the smile blossomed in all its smug goodness, gained a slick coating of oil, and went from smug to pleased and businesslike. Kat actually had to bite her tongue to not let loose a not-uncommon torrent of obscenities.
"Miss Griffin, Miss Morrigan." He paused, looking down at the third resident, "Mr. Karos."
"Hello, Johnny."
Mereii scowled down at Chet, his expression one of extreme displeasure. Chet smiled back at him, the almost copyrighted Chet Creepy Smile. John did not look afraid or amused, something that Kat was actually partially impressed by. It was hard to avoid being creeped out by Chet, but maybe when you were as much as a creep yourself, you were immune. Who knew?
"Don't call me Johnny."
"Or you'll what?"
There was a rather nasty pause. Kat had a feeling that they were either: #1 fighting so fast that her eye couldn't track it or #2 shooting laser beams at each other in some spectrum that wasn't the visible one. Escher, on the other hand, got the distinct impression that John probably would have given Karos a good hard smack to the face if the girls weren't around. A few moments of vicious, evil glaring was the match between the two boys instead, and neither won as Mereii turned and headed back towards the door.
Thankfully, because something out there loved Otto (or the girls were just lucky), he paused. Kat let out a very large relieved sigh, which would have been disastrous if John hadn't looked out the observation window. There was a moment of contemplative silence before he looked back at Kat over his shoulder. "Kat, I have some papers for you."
"For what, John?" she asked, hoping that her expression was passive.
"You didn't answer some questions about Mr. Octavius in your report," He had turned back to the window, and Kat could only imagine his expression was either full of hatred or smug success, "And I would like you to clarify, please."
"Oh, of course," she replied instantly, "I'll get right too that."
He turned around and handed the papers to her. She glanced briefly over them, silently cursing as she realized that everything she'd purposely avoided talking about in her paper (i.e. lack of medication, and the fault of the actuators) was directly questioned here on this innocent piece of paper.
"I'd like that back by tonight, please." he said, (mock) pleasantly.
"I'll get right on it."
"Great. I'm going to check on Mr. Octavius."
As Mereii turned to the door once again, only a single glance from Kat was enough to tell Escher that that was not a good idea. The older girl's expression was a study in fresh-out-of-ideas panic, and what were those marks on her neck?
Escher was no psychologist. She couldn't follow other people's thoughts, in fact half the time she had difficulty sorting her own out. She was anything but eloquent, she was no genius, and when it came to the kind of intimidation that Chet could generate so easily she was less than an amateur.
But she did have a hidden and curious talent, formed over years of unwanted analysis by child therapists that, though nothing like as downright unpleasant as Mereii, had had just as much belief in their own skill. Its evolution had been self-defence, really, not to mention Otto-defence- when she'd ran out of lies to match their questions, when the apparently shallow and easily-read front she had learnt to put up felt dangerously close to slipping, or when one of them just got on her nerves (mainly by excessive negative reference to her betentacled friend) she could always deploy it. Her secret weapon, her bizarre but never-fail ploy.
No-one could fake asthma like Escher Griffin.
And this was the perfect opportunity to showcase her gift. She began with a couple of short breaths, two just-shallower-than-normal gulps that nevertheless got the other three's attention immediately. This ominous introduction quickly built into an opening passage of hard breathing, as if she had just been on a brisk jog. Kat frowned, and touched her shoulder.
"Escher, are you-"
"I'm fine, it's okay, I'm fine." said Escher, indistinctly. "It's justkinda close in here. Gimmie a second, I'll be fine."Giving the older girl a sharp glance that told her that she was okay, she leant forwards a little and did the thing at the back of her nose that added a new dimension of heeeeeeeeegh into her outward breaths. Outwardly, she'd gone as white as a ghost, two brilliant scarlet flushes appearing on her cheeks.
"You don't look fine, Miss Griffin." Mereii took a step forward, away from the door, and winced as Escher chose that moment to introduce an inhaling wheeeeeeeeeeeee to accompany the heeeeeeeeegh.
Behind them, Chet Karos let out a dry laugh. His was the expression of one who knew full well that they were watching a show, and furthermore wished that they had brought popcorn. "My God, Johnis that concern? You're actually worried about someone else's well-being? Or could it just be the none-too-appealing prospect of someone falling seriously ill whilst under your supervision? I wonder."
"Shut up." snapped Mereii, turning on Chet with startling viciousness.
"Whoooeeeeeeeeeeehhhhnnghhh." interjected Escher, and followed up with her second-to-last card, a truly frightening The Grudge'-style inward rattle. By this stage she was bent double, gripping the wall with one hand and her sternum with another. John, who had seemed seconds from decking his restrained patient, made a half-exasperated, half-anxious sound and moved to help Kat let the wheezing girl down to a sitting position on the soft floor.
"Escher, do you have an inhaler?" It wasn't difficult for Kat to sound convincingly unnerved- the sounds that her friend was making would have put a knackered racehorse to shame. Between gasps, Escher managed convey that she did, indeed, and it was with the rest of her stuff, in her bag in Dr. Mereii's office.
"We should get her down there." Kat said to her employer. "She could have a panic attack on top of this, any second. We should get her out of here, anyhowthis room's small enough to make anyone freak out."
"You get used to it." remarked a conversational voice.
"I told you to shut up." hissed John. "All right, let's take her downstairs. Do you think you can walk, Miss Griffin?" The last question was accompanied by such a surprisingly sincere look, Escher almost believed it. Almost.
"I think so" she managed, as the they helped her to her feet. Chet watched them leave the cell, his eyes alert and thoughtful.
"Remember I want out too, Kat." he said quietly as Kat passed him, leaving her to wonder what on earth he'd meant as the door pressured closed.
Out in the corridor, Mereii seemed to regather his composure. Halfway towards the lift, he left Kat to support Escher on her own, standing back slightly to give the younger girl a searching glance.
"Feeling any better yet?"
"OhI think so, Doctor. I'll be fine."
"Good." said Mereii, briskly. "Kat, if you'll take Miss Griffin to my office and find her inhaler, I'll just check on 712 and catch you up in a-"
Before he could finish, before the look of trapped horror could rekindle itself on Kat's face, Escher played her ace.
She passed out.
The sharp hssss that heralded Kat's departure from cell 712 mingled with the smart arm's subdued and thoughtful clicking. Turning their claws from the door, they swung back towards their host, who was still curled into the corner as much as his restraints would allow. Half-lying with his right shoulder pressed against the padded wall, he was unaware of their synchronized stares, his barely-open eyes instead focused somewhere deep beneath the floor. A time dragged by in silence, seconds or minutes or hours being all the same in this empty little room.
Father?
A claw snaked down and brushed across Otto's pale forehead, in an eerily human pastiche of a concerned caress.
Falteringly, as if dreading what he might see, Otto lifted his gaze to the side, to the heavy, segmented claw that hovered there. Only for a moment, then he dropped his head again with the rapidity of a guilty child, the motion sending dark tangles of hair flopping over his eyes.
The tentacles clicked again, urgently. One nudged him carefully in the ribs, then opened its head like a blooming, curling flower, the segments touching back on themselves to reveal the sharp little manipulators beneath. These gripped the buckled strap that kept his arms bound across each other, tightening on the tough white fabric just above the shape of his elbow. A twisting, ripping pull, and the strap shredded and snapped.
Their host's reaction to this sudden display of strength was a sort of incredulous, terrified huff. His arms slid loosely to his sides, but it was doubtful if this new freedom was noticed, far less appreciated.
Otto, we have no time for this. We may be discovered at any moment. Shaking off a few strands of canvas that adhered to their claws, the arms lifted slightly so that their host could not avoid looking at them.
Parletal lobe connections operating at 100. We know you can hear us.
After a moment of silence, the actuators shifted impatiently. Their heads snapped fully open, simultaneously and with a startling blur of machine noise. Otto gasped and recoiled, but along with the primal yank of fear came something else. The actuators felt it at once, the rare solid shape of a coherent thought.
Get away from me!
That would be extremely difficult. The smart arm A.I took a risk and opened the cerebral links that allowed him to see' through their camera-eyes, curling over to show him his back. Not to say impossible.
Otto screamed, or at least tried to, his voice rebelling against this sudden over-usage and cracking into silence. He shut his eyes- but the inexplicable sight of his own back continued for several more seconds before the actuators gave up and suppressed the connection.
Please, Father, don't be afraid. Even with his eyes screwed shut, the voices continued. Calm, but with a note of anxiety, they seemed to echo from an origin point somewhere around the nape of his neck. Spurred by desperation, Otto grabbed with his newly-freed right hand at the place, pulling at the straitjacket's collar, and felt something cold and intricate. His numbed brain working on instinct, he tried to dig his nails under it, pull it from his skin-
A claw closed around his wrist, restraining him gently but firmly. Its grip was shockingly cold, and as the guide diodes beneath the joints flicked between blue and red they cast strange shadows up his arm. When it let go he snatched his hand back and felt a dull ache begin in his arm and shoulder, which like his voice, seemed to resent being used. He flinched as the two upper tentacles gaped, illuminating the confined space a brilliant red.
This has gone on long enough. It is time for you to remember.
But it was too much- too much to understand, too much for Otto's fractured sense of self to handle. He felt his grip on the world begin to slip away, and with a dull relief he did what he had learned to do over his time in the asylum; the only defence he had for whenever the bewilderment of reality grew beyond bearing. He let go.
The smart arms watched silently as their host's eyes glazed over, his conscious thoughts fading to nothing.
Nowhere.
A huge, echoing space, crossed by heavy brick arches. Metal girders support the high ceiling, though both girders and arches are marked by the gashes and tears of some massive impact. Through the remains of the huge half-circle windows that span two of the walls, a thick, oppressive mist swirls. From time to time, the suggestions of shapes come into view through the murk, but they are indistinct and fade as quickly as they appear.
There is strangeness here. In places, the rough brick walls flow into something else entirely, into slick grey-green tiles bordered by a thin stripe of scarlet. Craters scar these surfaces, crazed white lines radiating from their centres, and there is a sickly-stale anaesthetic bite to the air. The lights, eclipsed by the thick shadows of the far-off ceiling, are either circular and joined in clusters like insect eyes, or widely-spaced and square. It is difficult to say which, exactly, as like the walls they tend to shift in the periphery of the eye, refusing to be one or the other. Either way, they all have one thing in common- they are dead, the bulbs not blown or shattered but simply missing, gaping like empty eyesockets.
The atmosphere here is damp, cold, and as dead as the lights. Tendrils of mist, with an almost tangible weight to their rolling curls, seep in through the glassless windows. The transient walls run with moisture, the floor is black and slimy. Parts of it are splintered, creating jagged pits with a suggestion of dark water below.
Half-hidden in the gloom on the wall farthest away from the mist-cloaked windows, there is a door. Surprisingly, there is nothing ethereal about it. On the contrary; it is large, and solid. It has a burnished steel surface, and an extremely businesslike set of hinges. In fact, it has practically everything a door should have. Apart from a handle, that is.
There is no furniture, although in places there is a suggestion of corners, of pieces of arching, carefully-sculpted metal, of laboratory grey and surgical blue. Again, these slide away if viewed directly, ghosts of objects in a ghost of a room.
Otto Octavius looks up from where he is sitting, on the steps which lead up to the raised window area, and regards the merging walls without interest. He has spent more and more time in this place, lately, and it never changes.
The straps of his straitjacket are still torn, even here- there's no fixing that- but his arms are folded across his knees in an attempt to emulate their effect. His eyes snag on a place to his right where the greenish tiles currently have the upper hand. On closer scrutiny, they are flecked with a dried substance, a dark orange-red spray that travels from floor to ceiling. Otto stares at the stained tiles, his expression bleak.
Then
We thought that we might find you here.
Abruptly, the freezing greys and blues that make up the palette of this place waver, assaulted by a strong red glow. Otto turns and finds himself eye to camera-eye with a smart arm. The shock sends him clambering to his feet, stumbling down the steps onto the treacherous main floor, unbalanced by the new weight at his back.
"No." he breathes. "No. You can't be here." He has never tried to speak while within this limbo-space, and it is startling to learn that when he does his voice comes easily.
If you were yourself, you would understand that your own mind is not a secure hiding place. Not from us. The tentacles turn their heads elegantly, scanning their surroundings with clear distaste. Not even as deep as this.
"What are you?" He raises his arm in a warding gesture as a claw comes too close. The tentacle stops, affronted.
You know what we are. We are your creations.
Otto turns rapidly, like a child trying to see the back of his own head. A short, incredulous laugh escapes him. "How could I create you? I'm"
ill?
"Yesand dangerous"
Is that really what you believe? Try to remember.
"Remember?" His eyes flick to the blood-spattered section of tiles, then close. "II killed all th-those people"
No, Otto, snap the voices, sharply. Remember the truth.
"Thetruth?"
You are not sick. Neither are you abnormal, or a monster. Insanity may have been thrust upon you, but we think you have reacted well, considering. It is merely unfortunate that, without us, the defences you constructed turned all too easily into thisplace. You are becoming trapped in here, and you must leave.
Their host shakes his head, helplessly. "I don't understand-"
"It's not about understanding, you dumbass, it's about being. About living."
The words come out of nowhere, female, and angry. A young woman steps from the recess of the nearest arch, gesturing frustratedly as she speaks. Animated and determined, colourless and almost entirely transparent, she gives him a glare that fails to conceal the concern in her eyes. Otto returns her gaze, trying to comprehend.
"Whois she?"
Katarina Morrigan. The psychology student, the young woman with whom you formed an association some time ago. She's been trying to help you, Otto.
"Kat"
And she's not the only one.
Another misty figure, another girl. Barely in her teens, disarrayed dark hair and a trusting grin. "It'll be all right." she says, and her spectral shape changes as she speaks. Even as she morphs, however, even as she gains height and age and spiky purple hair, she keeps her bright pinball smile. "You'll be okay. You've come this far, right?"
The figures dissolve, wreathing back into the grey vapour. Once again alone, with his smart arms hovering anxiously around him, Otto stares into the darkness beyond the arches. For a moment, his expression clearsbut it clouds over soon enough, and he shakes his head again, sitting down on the lowest step.
"I'm notto talk to you" he mumbles.
So you do know what we are.
"No, I" Otto stops, suddenly uncertain. "I"
Yes. An arm dips to the soaking floor, scooping up a clawful of broken glass and letting the fragments fall noisily between its manipulators. You do.
Otto blinks. Glass
Thoughts drifting in the dark, delicate things, fluttering, fading. Memories falling away like glass, sharp shards of glass shattering and flying, lethal glass shards that took her away, took
who?
Matter. Matter and molecules, pulling at each other, strings of atoms like pearls in the dark. Matter equals mass, the laws of mass cannot be broken and matter cannot be created. Matter, and what did anything matter now? What did
Light and dark, freeze and burn. Still falling, away from the terrible heat, falling slowly, cold and crushing, lungs burning. I will not die a
I will not die.
But it's so easy, letting go, staring into the heart of a sun and letting everything fall away. Power, power was behind everything, the power to create so easily turned into the power to destroy. The power to choose
But he had chosen.
He had chosen to live.
Otto?
Otto opens his eyes. He is standing in front of the window, gripping the empty trellis-like frames as if they are bars. His forehead rests on the clammy metal, his skin is wet from the mist that still drifts from the false and featureless void beyond.
"Yes." he murmurs.
And then he turns, and strides straight and sure-footed across the unravelling room. His tentacles snake around him, chittering gladly, their heart-lights chasing the thick shadows before him away into nothing as he walks.
The door, when he reaches it, remains solid and featureless as it has always been. But now he stands before it, he can see something new; that, set into the arching brick over the frame, there are letters. Words.
Otto reads the message, from himself to himself, and smiles. Slowly, thoughtfully, he laces his hands behind his back, regarding the door as if for the first time. It has no handlebut since when did that matter?
Actuators?
His creations rear back, and tense
Welcome back, Father.
and strike.
This would have been a startling change from the ordinary on any day, but especially today. On any other day, when he opened his eyes, he would see that stark, bleak whiteness and feel empty. That emptiness would roll back into him as guilt and shame, and that guilt and shame would cause him to close his eyes again, and he'd open them so many hours later when even his mind became too hideous, and would repeat this cycle, over, and over, and over again.
Not this time.
On every previous day, the eyes he had opened were grey, hazed-over, murky and lost. Those eyes he had opened every day before this were deadened and empty and simply not his. They were the result of several monsters assaulting him at once, without his bodyguards that he'd become so familiar with over a time, so much so that he didn't realize how much he suddenly missed them and needed them.
But not this day. This day, he opened his eyes, and the whiteness was no longer so stark. It was tan, highlighted in red as the actuators around him shone. The empty void had been filled with a quartet of four constantly chattering voices, whether it be to him or each other. The fact was, it filled that space that the guilt had attacked him from, and the guilt may have still been there, but this time, it wasn't so bad or aggressive. It was just a part of him, much like those four voices that, if possible, felt hopeful in his mind.
His eyes, on this day, were hazel-brown, a deep chocolate colour that was not lost nor confused. Those eyes were sure, a bit angry, and very shocked. But there was no emptiness in them anymore, the haze had gone, and if the straitjacket could have been ignored - he looked as if he'd simply been sleep deprived.
Father? the actuators asked nervously, their mechanical voices anxious. Otto?
"Come down here." he murmured, beckoning with a hand. A single tentacle lowered to his hand, and he set the flesh-and-blood arm on top of the mechanical one gently. The metal was shockingly cold under his fingers, but he kept them there, remaining silent and staring into the door. He closed his eyes in thought, trying to remember.
Do not go there! Their voices were loud enough to cause him to wince as they shrieked in his head.
"I wasn't." he replied, tapping the hard exterior of the actuator under his hand, "I'm trying to remember why and how I got in here. I won't go there again I promise." Even as he thought about the darker recesses of his mind, he felt a shiver spiral down his back. A shifting, twisting abyss devoid of anything but guilt and shame, the kind that he needed yes, needed the actuators to help him coexist with. And to think that that empty abyss was part of him did not please the man, but there was no way to avoid it. That void was needed; a place to dump all issues and keep him as outwardly positive as possible. He simply needed to avoid entering it like he had and especially avoid staying in it.
He closed his eyes again, telling the actuators beforehand that he was okay. This time, he was allowed silence as he opened a decrepit filing cabinet in his head, one called memories'. Not too long ago this cabinet had been padlocked and chained, but he could now rip off both with ease and open it, finally.
Names. Escher, John, Michael, George, Rosie, Larry, Kat, Matthew, Randy, endless names of people he'd known since forever. The list when on for thousands of pages and hundreds of books within that file, but he closed it with the knowledge that there was no time to search through all of it. A quick prayer followed; one that prayed everything was still intact. That time he didn't have to search the names was due to the fact that he knew he had to get out of here, and get out fast. The actuators heard him and rose, and he felt the metal under his fingers leave and curl back to strike like a set of coiling rattles.
No.
They stopped, the built-up kinetic energy disappearing into the air. Their coils turned from the door to him, clicking rapidly, confusedly.
Why, Father?
I want to wait for Kat and Escher.
Why? We wish to leave this place as soon as possible. It is not safe for us.
Noit's not. But we have to.
Why?
After a moment of thought, he decided to test his voice, "I want to thank them." His throat rebelled, and his voice cracked on them', but he continued anyway, "And to tell them both howgood it is to see another face," crack, "especially their facesand ask how long I've been here."
A little over a year.
Otto's eyes widened, "Aa year? I've been in this.this coma for a year!"
Miss Morrigan has informed us of such.
"She was here?" He stared into the distance, trying to focus. Something clicked in his haze-blurred memory.
"Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present, all time is unredeemable."
Those words had snapped into his head with the force of a giant rubber band, slamming against the walls he'd erected from the outside, cracking them in the slightest. Through those cracks had leaked memories, the most predominant a continuation of the girl's words. "Footfalls echo in the memory down...the...passage that we did not take towards the door we never opened into the rose garden..."
And the crack began to widen, spiralling down his walls like spider webs as he felt the gaze of the two girls on him. The fact that he could feel anything at all was an accomplishment, and slowly he rose from his sitting position inside his mind, strolling over to the door with a heavy sigh as he murmured something unknowingly, "The...rose..."
He looked at his surroundings inside his own head the dank recesses of memory and guilt and suddenly, something appeared. A woman, a faintly misty and translucent woman, one that looked vaguely familiar even. Her name. Whatwhat was it? Andnext to this woman, this mysteriously hazy but beautiful woman, was another one, someone younger. Someone with violet eyes and blonde hair and full of lifewho was she?
He looked to one of the cracks in his walls. A name seeped from it, a name that fit the first face.
And when he spoke it, it wasn't just in his head.
"Rosie?"
The woman had nodded, smiled, and stepped over to him. One hand, made of only air, reached out to him, and he reached out to it.
and then she'd gone. Swallowed again by the surroundings of his own head. And the second womanthe second woman fought against the mist. But it was unbeatable, inevitable, and her fight was futile as she dissolved as well. He sighed, and somewhere was the faint hissing of the door snapping shut again, and then he went back to his sitting position, staring into nothingness.
"She was here," he answered himself after a moment, as a half-finished picture of a tall, gaunt and angry man formed in his mind. The torn edge of the paper the picture was drawn on was the end of his mind's eyes, but this one he recognized. Recognized very, very well"And Escher too..."
We do not know if Miss Griffin has seen you. If she did, we were suppressed at the time.
"She was," he mumbled back. "She tried to help me, like Kat did."
We still do not understand why you wish to wait for Miss Morrigan and Miss Griffin. He could see the actuators mentally frowning.
"It's ahuman thing," he replied after a pause. "I justdo."
They scoffed in his mind and fell silent as Otto tried to stand again. One of the lower tentacles helped him up, all four keeping his balance. He nodded his thanks and (with help) made his way to the door, observing it thoughtfully. He noted ironically that if it had not been coated in padding, it would have been remarkably identical to the one locking him in his mind.
He could already hear the dissent of the actuators stirring in his mind. Already. He hadn't been out of his demented little world for an hour and already he was arguing with them. Some things never change. Like the poor straitjacketed scientist couldn't have an hour of peace with his creations. Sigh.
Amazingly, as he finished the thought, they quietened.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
He turned from the wall and lifted his arm to run his hand through his hair, which was dirty, limp, and absolutely filled to the brim with knots. The hand never got to its destination, however, and this probably had something do with the fact that his sleeve had fallen down to his elbow, revealing the connect-the-dot patterns that marred both his arms.
"Oh..god," he breathed, running an arm over the other, hands sliding over the bumpy scars, "Whathappened to me?"
So, this was why he couldn't remember. He had no idea what had been put into his system, either. This was not looking good. He started to try and count the punctures, then gave up with a resigned sigh. The arms hissed their agitation.
He closed his eyes, beckoning mentally to the actuators. They appeared besides him, and with slight smug satisfaction, ripped up any and all padlocks on that filing cabinet. He pulled open the drawers, pulling out the first file he saw and opening it.
"I'll kill you, Mereii"
Mereii.
He was why Otto was here, why he had so many punctures, why he'd hidden in the void of his mind, why he'd been socatatonic.
"Dr. Mereii." he murmured, glaring up at the door. A new anger entered his eyes and he growled. The tentacles all rose around him, eagerly awaiting a command. Theirwell, bluntly, their enjoyment of hurting and destroying things that hurt their Father hadn't faded in one bit, and after being inert for almost a year, it could be said that they were suffering for destruction withdrawal. They wanted to get rid this withdrawal. Quickly.
He hurt you, Father,they murmured.
Yes. he agreed.
We should hurt him back.
Not yet.
Their clicking translated to angry growls. Why, Father?
It had occurred to Otto as he had remembered Mereii's name (and the threat) that even thinking about hurting another with the gruesome power of the actuators made him feel guilty. Even if this certain another happened to be a demented, needle-happy psychiatrist.
He hurt you, Father.
We should hurt him in return.
This makes sense.
Doesn't it, Otto?
He closed his eyes and shook off their hypnotic voices. He couldn't let them get to him, not again. Yes, Otto assured them. But not like that. Never again like that, do you understand me?
Then how will we do it, Father?
Can we do it? A pincer snapped for effect.
The doctor tried to avoid thinking his disgust at his creations' enthusiasm. He shrugged and returned to watching the cell door with a yawn.
Can we help you, Father?
"No, not right now. Justlet me be for a moment."
Obligingly, the actuators fell silent. Within two more thoughts he was at that mental cabinet again, reaching into the already-open file and pulling out another memory.
Pain assaulted him. Brilliant white light searing into his head, originating from the upper left actuator connection. It was the sort of pain one got from picking at a scab and pulling it off, only emphasized a thousand times over. His entire shoulder seemed to have gone completely numb, but after a single, horrific second, he realized it wasn't his shoulder that had gone dead, it was the actuator itself. Forcing himself to slog through the pain, he saw a familiar face.
"And they work excellently, I assure you."
Mereii.again.
He set the memory down and opened his eyes.
We should hurt..
Mangle
Kill
This Mereii.
The doctor shook his head, and spoke with an amused smile. "I cannot believe I missed you."
Father!They sounded insulted.Without us, you would still be trapped within yourself.
"You missed the sarcasm," he replied, smiling, shaking his head again. "Why do you have to be so."
Aggressive?
Violent?
Impulsive?
Protective?
"All of those things." He went back to looking at his scarred arms, running a hand through his hair. However, his hair was so limp and knotted that the hand couldn't get far at all, so with this failure, he sat down and began to work through the tangles as he waited for Kat and Escher to return.
