Objective: Find and repair the generator
"Great," he muttered aloud, then plucked the cable from the screen and tucked it back into the backpack. He pulled up the map, this time on the phone, and used it to start expanding the central control hub. Since all the wings spread out from this center point, chances were the generators would either be on the roof—or in the basement.
He checked the basement first—this being a horror video game—and sure enough, there was a room that would match building code to a generator for a facility this big. It wasn't labeled, but there was a large rectangle along one wall of that room he was willing to bet was the generator itself. That room was accessible from two different doors, and each one led to a series of other rooms before intersecting a main hallway. Plenty of opportunities for something—or someone—to interrupt him.
Not to mention, it was a basement, and the lights were out.
Mac scanned the phone but didn't see a handy flashlight icon, so he pulled his SAK out of his pocket. Battery would be good for about an hour, and he didn't intend to spend near that amount of time down there. With a last glance at the map, committing it to memory as best he could, Mac resecured the backpack and took a deep breath, then picked his way back to the door to the main hall.
Despite that shout earlier, neither of the two men he knew had to be up here somewhere were in sight. It was shorter to go back the way he'd come, but if he made the whole loop and explored he was more likely to find 'clues' or other helpful gear.
And more likely to have additional encounters.
Knowing that he had two objectives now—fix the master cell control, which would be critical for getting to Riley, and fix the generator, since the master cell control module was useless without it—Mac steeled himself and forged ahead, down the half of the circular hallway he hadn't already traveled.
It was clear he wasn't the first.
Mac picked around the smeared blood carefully, seeing evidence of others who had not been as careful, and one such party had entered a door on the right-hand side of the hallway. There was no guarantee the person was still in there, and no way to secure the door even if they were, so Mac bypassed it without entering. He found another body, an orderly whose uniform had been half ripped off, and didn't bother to investigate that, either. The next door on his left, however, had no bloody smears near it, nor on the doorhandle, and Mac pressed his ear to it, trying to listen beyond the pulse pounding in his ears.
Nothing.
It was a lever-style handle, and Mac considered silently depressing it to see what might happen, but it occurred to him it was an internal room and the power was out—no one was going to see the movement and investigate. And rattling it would be just as much a tipoff to anyone else around as it would be to whoever might be in the room, so Mac went ahead and simply opened it, as smoothly as possible, and then hopped back.
Nothing happened. The interior of the room was dark.
A quick scan with the SAK found a longue. Chairs, desks and computers lined one wall. Couches the other. And hanging from the middle of the room, strung up with an extension cord attached to the overhead ceiling fan, was a dead man in a suit.
Mac hesitated, then entered the room, closing the door behind him before checking it again for anyone alive. Finding no one, he grimaced and patted the swinging body down.
He got a wallet—complete with cash, which he stuffed into his other back pocket to examine later—and a set of keys. The ring was mangled, someone had already torn one off—probably a vehicle key, since the other keys seemed too small. Mac pocketed those as well, then eyed the extension cord that had been wrapped repeatedly around the man's throat before it had tangled into the ceiling fan.
It was a movie trope he hated; there wasn't enough power in a prosumer ceiling fan motor to do anything even close to hauling up two hundred pounds of swinging, struggling human. And sure enough, the cord didn't look frayed or damaged, but it was wedged and tangled up in the workings of the fan like it meant it.
An extension cord could come in very handy. He'd just have to spend the time to get the body down and unravel it.
Mac decided against it, made a mental note of where it was in case he did need it, and listened for silence from the hallway before he eased the door open and continued.
There were two more doors, both showing evidence of entrance after violence, and Mac bypassed them both and found himself at the stairwell. He took it back down, dodging the same puddles of blood, and listened intently for any other movement. Once again, the hallway was utterly still.
He took a single step onto the main floor landing and violins exploded in a cacophony in his ear.
Mac flinched hard, leaping back several stairs, but it was just the soundtrack being piped into his ear. Once he swallowed his heart back into his chest, Mac again ventured out into the main hall, only as far as the door the map indicated led to the basement. The glass window, crisscrossed with metal webbing to ensure it couldn't be shattered, was utterly black.
There were several bloody footprints in front of it, and something heavy had been dragged through them.
Waiting was just going to get him eventually caught by the two patients in the central core with him, so Mac tried the door—which was unlocked, they all were now that the power was out—and pulled it open the bare minimum, slipping through and using his body to block as much light as possible.
The air inside the stairwell was humid and earthy, and significantly warmer than the hallway air. No A/C, his brain supplied, but then he became aware of a hissing sound. Mac covered the end of his SAK flashlight with a finger, then dared to click it on, and used the diffused beam to locate where the stairs started.
More blood. What or whoever had been dragged in here had been dragged down those stairs.
Sticking as close to the wall bannister as he could, and using as little light as possible, Mac started down the stairs. The soundtrack was now pitched low and suspenseful, and again, Mac considered pitching the tiny earbuds.
With his luck, Murdoc had infrared cameras in here. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was going to happen to Riley if he disobeyed.
She'd be treated to an electroshock therapy session. And if she screamed, if she made noise, the roaming patients would be drawn to the sound.
Mac made it to the landing and down the last half of the stairs without encountering any more bodies. However, in front of the door leading into the basement hallway was a large puddle of blood, in the middle of which lay a single white sneaker, the kind an orderly or a nurse might wear.
Use the shoe or start tracking blood. Right now the lights were out so it wouldn't matter, but once they came back on, he'd leave an obvious trail.
Mac hesitated another second, then grimaced and hopped the blood puddle, landing one-footed on the small shoe. It squished, clearly soaked with blood, but didn't slide, and Mac laid his hands palm first on the door to keep his balance. It made a noise, but not much, and then he held his breath and tried to keep himself as still as possible.
Someone was whispering on the other side of the door.
It took him a second to decide if he actually heard it, or it was coming through the earpiece. And just because he heard it didn't mean it wasn't being broadcast by a speaker. It didn't matter anyway; the map showed only one door into the basement, and he was standing one-footed in front of it.
He put his thumb over his flashlight, plunging the stairwell into near-complete darkness, then he threw open the door as forcefully as he could.
He definitely had the element of surprise; whoever was whispering howled in fright and Mac realized that person was on his right. He pointed his relatively insignificant flashlight in that direction, aiming for eye level, and flicked back his thumb. It wasn't spot perfect but it was good enough; the person, wearing a dirty patient smock, flinched back at the unexpected light. It was a man, rather frail looking, matted hair and meth-stained teeth, and he took off, still howling, further into the hallway.
Mac glanced down, then awkwardly leapt the puddle of blood onto dingy tile, and the stairwell door swung heavily closed with a sharp clang of finality.
Since stealth was out the window, Mac chose speed, loping along the oddly barren hallway at a jog. It wasn't as pitch-dark as it had looked through the grimy glass window of the stairwell door; when he rounded a corner, a weak emergency light was trying to eke out what power it could from a battery that probably expired twenty years earlier. There was a heavy haze in the air, like a steam pipe somewhere was leaking, lending the thin light a creepy ethereal quality. It showed him a view he'd seen upstairs in the security room before the power had gone out.
Doors everywhere, some half-ajar. Two bodies, one slumped against the wall as if the patient had simply gone to sleep and never woken, the other a twisted up orderly, with a clearly broken pelvis.
The body that had been dragged down the stairs.
The patient he'd frightened was nowhere to be seen. So, hiding in one of the rooms. His howling didn't seem to have attracted anyone else.
Searching the rooms first might save him time during the repair, but without knowing what he was looking for, it wasn't the most efficient use of his time. So Mac ignored the rooms for now, putting out his light and relying on ambient, jogging as quickly as he dared down the long hallway. If his map held, there'd be a corridor on the right—
And there was.
Mac threw a quick glance over his shoulder, but people hadn't suddenly emerged from the rooms like triggered monsters; the hallway behind him looked empty. There was another emergency light in the maintenance corridor, giving off a sickening flicker, and Mac scanned the floor for any trip hazards before he hurried along.
This time the soundtrack was timed perfectly with his howling friend
Mac leapt back with a startled exclamation, and the patient shouted back, still sounding frantic, and rushed past him. The man stank of old sweat and urine, clearly he'd been down here awhile, and his bare feet slapped on the tile for a few seconds before there was a skidding sound of skin on dust, and then a door slammed.
That was fine with Mac. He started again—a little more carefully this time—down the maintenance corridor, to the metal door with an observation window. Rather than shine his flashlight in, Mac stepped behind where it would swing out and again, forcefully wrenched it open.
This time the force was needed; the hinges screeched painfully loudly, and he was sure he heard something moving around inside the room before it became completely silent. Mac gave it a five count, but nothing else happened, so he eased his head around the door and looked inside.
No light to speak of.
Mac crossed the threshold quickly, so he wasn't silhouetted long, and this time he was positive he heard fabric rustling. He clicked his flashlight back on, scanning what appeared to be storeroom shelves covered in linens. Some were still folded, as if they'd just been freshly laundered, but someone—or several someones—had torn through and swiped many of the shelves bare. There were piles of patient gowns and bedsheets on the floor, several large enough to conceal a full-grown man.
A stack of still-intact patient gowns had been swiped to the side of their shelf and collapsed like a slinky, and Mac was made very aware of his costume. He looked like a technician. Any patient that saw him knew what he was—potentially an enemy, certainly an authority figure. Like an orderly or a doctor.
But if he was just another patient—even one with a backpack—then he was just one of them, who'd stolen the pack off someone else. It didn't mean he wouldn't be attacked, but it would certainly be a better disguise than what he was currently wearing.
Mac gave the piles a wide berth, plucking up a gown, and then backed into a corner with shelving still intact. He balanced his swiss army knife on an empty shelf, leaving the flashlight shining into the room, hoping to keep who or whatever was in there with him in hiding themselves, and grabbed the hem of his shirt.
A game show buzzer shrieked out of his wrist.
Mac flinched again, then curbed a curse and glared at the phone. The crafting icon was flashing, with a red X across it. He had two options, CANCEL or PASS, but the PASS button was greyed out.
The meaning was clear. He was not allowed to change his costume.
"Come on," he muttered angrily, but the crafting icon stayed frustratingly crossed out. Mac wadded up the patient gown—but then thought better of it, and snatched up his flashlight, keeping the gown for now.
Cloth was a very useful item, and these gowns were designed not to be easily torn. It might come in handy, even if he wasn't allowed to wear it.
Mac considered closing the door, so that the sound of it would tip him off that he was about to get company, but the idea of locking whoever was down there with him in with him wasn't appealing. He used the flashlight to scan the rest of the shelves, hoping to spot the master cell control module, but there was nothing. Just another door at the end of the room.
Leaving the clothing piles alone, Mac pressed forward.
The next room was additional storage, cleaning products. He had no doubt the products were real, because someone had tried drinking them. He was quite dead, eyes wide and mouth misshapen and clearly burned with something extremely caustic. The smell alone told him this body was one hundred percent real, and Mac actually brought the back of his hand up to his mouth to stifle his gag, and held his breath as he hurriedly scanned the rest of the room with his flashlight.
All of the cleaning products had been opened, many spilled. Clearly he was not going to be permitted to use chemistry during this 'exam.' With nothing else leaping out at him as useful except perhaps a wooden push-mop handle, Mac tried to ignore his prickling, burning lungs and hurried to the next door.
This room was also pitch dark, and he could tell by the echo of it that he'd made it to the generator room. He slammed the door behind him, again hoping the noise would spook anyone in there, and hurried blindly along the rightmost wall a few steps before he dared to take a breath. He tripped over something about table height that slid across the floor with a metallic screech of protest, and quickly identified it as a desk. Once he could trust his gut not to bring up the last thing he'd deposited into it—the apple juice Murdoc gave him—Mac took inventory of the space.
This room was quite large, with a higher ceiling than the others to account for code. The generators themselves were trashed, it looked like someone had pulled an Office Space and whaled on them with the pipe wrench he spotted on the floor. There was blood in here, too, but not much, more drips than splatters, so the destruction had also taken its toll on the perpetrators.
Without question this damage had not been done in the last few minutes, it was part of the game, so he didn't hesitate to approach the less crumpled of the devices and peer inside.
There were a few components bent, but the damage to the chassis was far greater than the internal damages. He'd need a new engine belt, or need to fashion one, maybe from the patient linens in that first room. The alternator was straight up missing, it was probably hidden in the one of the rooms down here, but whoever had taken it out had also ripped out the harness wire, so he'd need to find some wire as well, at least 12-gauge, maybe salvage it from the more damaged genny—
Frighteningly strong hands clapped down on his upper back, and Mac was violently shoved head-first into the generator.
He just managed to get his eyes shut before his forehead connected sharply with the pulley arm and had him seeing stars. He kicked up a leg behind him blindly and got a glancing blow at his attacker's groin, earning him a pained grunt and just enough wiggle room to yank himself back out of the generator. The fingers still on his upper back clawed into him, keeping tight hold of his shirt, so Mac braced both feet against the generator and kicked off hard, shoving them both back into the room. His opponent tripped and went down, and MacGyver curled himself up and jerked hard to the right, tearing his body and shirt away from his opponent.
His swiss army knife was gone, he'd dropped it into the generator, so that there was almost no light in the room. Mac used that to his advantage, scuttling as soundlessly as he could into the empty middle of the room, and trying to keep whoever was attacking him between himself and what thin outlines of light were peeking through the beat-up generator chassis. Sound helped, too; the guy was panting hard, a groan on every exhale as he fought to straighten up.
"...you pigfucker, I'm gonna hurt you real good for that!" he roared, stumbling a few steps to the right, and Mac matched him, keeping the guy between him and the generator.
There was a pipe wrench on the floor. He'd seen it when he came in, it was closer to the door he'd entered—
Mac was absolutely blinded by a sharp beam of white light, and whatever flashlight this guy had scavenged, it put his little one to shame. The second the guy had him spotlighted, he charged with a wordless roar, and Mac backpedaled frantically, then tripped and fell—back into the same damn metal desk.
His attacker shouted in triumph and Mac rolled hard left as something heavy struck the desk where his head had been less than a second before. It shattered—so much for the flashlight—and Mac caught a glancing backhand as the screaming man tried and failed to grab him. Still blinded by the afterimage of the flashlight beam, Mac scurried across the floor, keeping low and dragging his fingers on the gritty concrete for that damn wrench.
"And then I'm gonna make sure you're dead, you piece of shit!"
With a menacing growl the other guy charged him again—now Mac was the silhouette against whatever light was still visible inside the generator chassis—and took them both to the ground. Mac's chest landed painfully on the object of his search, but the weight on his back was too much, he couldn't get a hand under him until his right shoulder was grabbed and nearly pulled out of socket as his attacker forced him onto his back and moved to choke him.
Mac shouted in pain but used the momentum, grabbing the pipe wrench left handed and nailing the man across the face. He thought he heard a jaw crack, maybe break, and then the body on top of his collapsed, crushing all the air in his lungs out with a whoosh and a weak cough.
He took a second to gather himself, still blinking rapidly and trying to breathe, and then squirmed out from under the unconscious man. His right shoulder wasn't dislocated but it was certainly unhappy, and he rolled both carefully as he stumbled back to the generator and fished out his swiss army knife.
On the way back up he saw that the phone was remarkably still intact—had to be gorilla glass—and had a new command for him.
GLASSES
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he growled without thinking, but rather than risk anything happening to Riley, he quickly added "Fine, give me a second," and painfully leaned up, scanning the interior of the generator until he located them.
The glasses were toast. One arm was broken off, and one lens was deeply scratched. Mac frowned at the frames, searching them to see if the camera he suspected was built in was still intact, and his arm vibrated.
DESK DRAWER
Mac glanced over at it—and at the patient, and it was a patient, same pajamas as the others—and gave the seemingly unconscious man a wide berth. The drawers were old and bent, but the large, flat drawer across the top held a few broken pencil nubs, and a pair of black-framed glasses.
So there were spares, in case Mac didn't manage to avoid getting punched in the face. Fabulous. With a resigned sigh he put them on his face, wincing a little as he discovered the nosepiece of the last pair had bitten into the bridge of his nose.
It turned out his patient gown came in very handy; Mac used a piece of the flashlight lens glass to cut the fabric into strips and bind the hands and feet of the unconscious man. As an afterthought, he also gagged him, and dragged the body to the far wall, where he couldn't get into any trouble. There was no buzzer sound, and the crafting icon on his phone didn't have an X, so apparently that much he was allowed to do.
Once that was done, it was time to go shopping.
He went back the way he'd originally come, holding his breath preemptively as he passed through the cleaning closet and giving whoever was hiding in the rag piles a chance to hear him coming before he entered that room as well. The noisy door to the maintenance corridor was still open, so it was possible whoever was in there was gone—or had been the guy who attacked him. He'd grab some bedsheets and fashion a pulley belt with them on the way back.
What he needed right now was wire and an alternator. Plus the missing master cell control module and a cable. He had absolutely no idea where to find any of them—well, he had a backup plan for the wire, but untangling that body from the ceiling fan upstairs didn't appeal to him in the slightest. And until he got the generator fixed, he couldn't even see Riley. Make sure she was still okay.
Trying to shrug off his impatience—he knew it would cause him to make mistakes—Mac rolled his shoulders again, adjusted the straps of his backpack, and set off back into the maintenance corridor.
The lighting was actually worse now than it had been the first time he'd walked through the hallway; the amount of steam in the air had almost doubled, making it difficult to see more than a few yards ahead. Couple that with the sickly light from the few working emergency lights, and his own little flashlight might as well be a beacon screaming 'come get me.' Mac pulled up the electronic map on the phone, scanning the rooms around him for a clue.
None of the rooms down here were labeled, but zooming into them showed him details, including in some cases rectangles that he assumed were shelving—so, storage rooms—and the men's and women's bathrooms were easy enough to puzzle out. It would be a typical video game trope for something to be hidden in there, since most people were averse to sewer pits, so Mac headed uneasily further up the main corridor.
He checked every room he came across. The first one was locked, and the dead suit guy's keys didn't seem to be a match. The ones that were ajar, Mac kept up with his forceful opening of doors—the light gave him away, after all, so the best he could do was pretend to be dangerous. He found mostly storage, already ransacked.
And a patient, asleep on a bed of cardboard boxes, covered with plastic bags.
Mac turned the light to the floor instantly and shielded it with his hand, so that only diffuse light hit the sleeping man, but he seemed to be out like he meant it. He had a small sack, made of the same fabric as the reusable grocery bags that had become so popular, and it struck Mac as an odd detail. In this room, too, the stench of unwashed human was quite strong, and it occurred to him that he hadn't smelled body odor on the patient who attacked him in the generator room.
So some of them had been down here a while, but some not...?
Tucking the question to the back of his brain, Mac left sleeping crazy man to lie and after a cursory examination of the room didn't yield anything useful, he pulled the door mostly closed behind him, and continued on.
On the opposite side of the hallway, Mac came across a different door than the others. This one had a kickplate and a combination lock on the doorknob. He tried it anyway, hoping the power outage had made it fail open, but no such luck. It was a five digit code he was looking for, and Mac scowled at this new obstacle for a second, then started scanning the doorframe and nearby walls. Typically if you had a combination door, it was used by too many people to enforce a key, so naturally, someone would write it down in case they forgot it, and it should be somewhere...
Along the edge of the doorframe, he finally found some numbers. One, five, four, two, three. Starting at the opposite ends of the five buttons and working their way in. A pattern that would be easier to remember than the numbers themselves.
Mac situated himself in front of the door and tried it, and the doorknob turned easily in his hands.
Relieved that it hadn't been more complicated, forcing him to go back up to the security office or search other rooms for random codes on walls, Mac gave the room a cursory sweep, and got his second positive surprise of the day; he'd found the telephony closet. The place all telephone wires came into the building. There was a handset on the wall that he immediately picked up, giving a wry little sigh when he found it dead. That was too easy, after all.
But the closet very likely had useful things in it. Like the cable he was going to need to reconnect the cell control module when he found the damn thing.
There was no light in the room, the emergency light was dead, but there was no other sound nor smell of other humans, and Mac made sure the door had closed behind him before he started a thorough search of the room. Racks of telephony equipment, dating back to the eighties, and a few nods to twenty-first century networking there in the back.
And sure enough, a wall full of network cables. Exactly what he'd need to re-connect the cell control module.
Mac made a beeline for the wall, popping his SAK into his mouth and grabbing an old server. It slid fairly easily out of the rack, telling him he was on the right track. Groping along the back netted him two network cables, and he unplugged one and let it drop, then shoved the server back into the rack and knelt down to find the unsecured end of the cable.
It was a nest of cords and wires back there—sadly nothing robust enough to use with the generator—and Mac pressed his forehead to the server rack, mindful of the glasses, and inserted his left arm as deeply into the rack as he could get, fumbling with the cables and trying to find the one with give. Steam puffed against his right cheek, that was going to be a problem because humidity and technology didn't mix, he might have to dry out that cell control module if it was down here—
There were no steam or water pipes in a telephony closet, for exactly that reason.
The puff came again, hot and moist, this time with a little odor, and Mac froze absolutely still.
"What makes you think you can take that?" The voice was a low growl, and Mac flicked his eyes to look. To his surprise, he recognized the face that was parked mere inches from the side of his face. It was one of the patients he'd found a file on in the main office. He scrabbled for a name as he cleared his throat and slowly brought his right hand up to grab the SAK from his mouth, aiming the light at the man's chest.
"...well, if you weren't here, nothing would stop me," Mac pointed out. "And I didn't know you were here."
To his surprise, the patient—Benny!—actually smiled and chuckled, leaning back a bit and letting Mac let out the breath he'd been holding.
"Fair enough," the man allowed. He was massive, standing at at least 6'3", with bulging arms and short-cropped hair. There was some blood on his clothes and his hands, but it looked like he'd at least tried to clean up. "Didn't think you'd be waking up again. Helluva hit."
Mac blinked in confusion, then decided to play along, keeping his arm deep in the server rack and trying to recall more of the file he'd read on this guy.
"Yeah...yeah, it really was."
"...so what do you have to give me for that cable?"
"What?" Mac blinked in confusion
"Nothing in this life is free," Benny smirked.
"Right..." Mac frowned to himself, thinking for a minute. Then his eyes lit up and he put the SAK back in his mouth and fumbled for the wallet in his back pocket. He pulled it free, opened it, and plucked out the driver's license without even looking at it, pocketing that and handing the rest over to the large man standing in front of him. Benny raised an eyebrow, then smirked and took it from him, opening it and inspecting the contents.
"Alright, man," he agreed. "You can take whatever cable you want."
Mac grabbed the light again and smiled. "Thanks."
Benny nodded and retreated into the dark room while the Phoenix agent finally freed up the cable and plucked it out. It was a bit shorter than he'd anticipated, but he hoped it would do the trick. He put it away in the outside pocket of his backpack, but as he was securing the pack to himself again, the beam of his light fell across the desk that Benny had moved to. He had a shiny silver box on the desk he'd commandeered. The alternator.
"How much for that?" he asked casually. Benny glanced over at him, then followed his eyes to the alternator, chuckling.
"You're gonna have to make me one hell of an offer to get me to hand this over," he told the agent. "It's helping keep the demons out. They don't like their own reflections, so even if one got through that door, I'm protected."
"What about a mirror?" Mac suggested. This being a mental hospital, he was unlikely to be able to get the mirrors to shatter, but he could maybe find something in a guards' locker room or—
"Can't put 'em in a mirror," Benny shook his head, looking at the blond man almost pityingly. "They can hop between mirrors that way. You can only trap them if they see their reflection in something that's not a mirror."
Okay. Something that wasn't a mirror.
"I'll see what I can do," the agent promised, and then he made his way back towards the door, stepping into the steamy hallway.
He continued on his way quickly and quietly, unwilling to befriend another patient—he had a feeling it wouldn't go so well the second time around. He checked both of the bathrooms on his way back to the steps, knowing at least one probably contained something useful. The women's room smelled like several somethings had died in it and was absolutely covered in blood, so he decided that whatever was in there wasn't worth it just yet. Swallowing the bile that tried to escape his stomach, he checked the men's room.
Still bloody, but oddly cleaner, and the body that he saw near the sinks couldn't have been there too long, if the smell was any indication.
MacGyver carefully ventured inside and picked his way through the blood spatter to the body. As he approached, he realized two things. One, he and the body were wearing matching outfits. Two, the body had had its head bashed in on the sink.
The agent frowned at the gruesome display, finding a patch of clean—or, more accurately, unbloodied—tile to stop at. Despite the man's face being turned towards him, Mac couldn't really make out much of the man's features. The violent manner of his death had made certain of that. Pretty much the only physical descriptor besides approximate height and weight was that this man, under all the blood, had blond hair. But it was rather obvious to him that there was something under the body. With a silent apology to the dearly departed, Mac reached out and rolled the body over once.
Bingo.
There was the cell control module.
Without hesitation, Mac freed up his backpack and grabbed the box, putting it into the largest compartment and zipping it closed. As he was securing the pack to himself again, he heard a loud bang and a shout from somewhere more towards the generator room, and rushed back towards the stairs, quickly realizing that getting into the stairwell again was going to be much harder than getting out.
There was still a puddle of blood to contend with, but this time, no helpful shoe, and he had to pull the door open this time instead of pushing it. For a few moments, the blond man entertained the idea that, considering there were bloody footprints all over this damn place, avoiding the blood was just a time-waster and wouldn't really give him much of an advantage.
It was still pretty easy to determine a freshly made bloody footprint from an older one. Best not risk it.
If he managed to jump from the shoe to the clean floor, then he could manage to jump from the clean floor back to the shoe. He just needed to figure out how to open the door.
It turned out that this was just a matter of forcing his muscles, still sore and aching from the explosion, to stretch out and reach the door handle. With one hand braced against the wall, he turned it and then pushed himself back upright, pulling the door open with him. It was a slightly awkward angle, bent slightly at the hips with one hand keeping the door open. Hard to generate enough power to reach the—
An unintelligible, rage-filled shout cut through the steam-sodden air from somewhere back the way he came, in the direction of the generator room, followed by running footsteps getting closer, and despite the heat, Mac felt a chill shoot down his spine. Intense music flared in his ears, doing nothing to calm him. He didn't wait to see who was yelling; adrenaline lent him all the power he needed as he leapt to the shoe and to the other side of the puddle in two bounds, letting the door slam behind him. He raced quickly up the stairs, mindful of the blood, and had just reached the main floor when he heard the door get yanked open below him.
Realizing he was truly getting chased, Mac started sprinting through the hallway that nearly looped the whole central hub. The first door he came to led to the east wing, and was propped open by half the leg of either an orderly or a security guard, if Mac had to guess based on the shoe.
He barely paid it any mind, yanking the door open and dashing into the east wing. Scanning his surroundings, he found that he was in a small hallway with two doors on his left and one straight ahead. What was probably the rest of the body belonging to the leg in the door was scattered about, blood pooling around the pieces, but Mac hardly paid attention. The footsteps behind him were getting louder, so he launched himself down the hall for the door straight ahead, leaping over the torso propping it open and immediately taking a hard right. The floor down this hallway, at least, wasn't even close to as bloody, so he didn't hold back as he ran, trying to envision the map in his head. At the end of the hall there was another door with a window in it, and he yanked it open, managing to get through it just as the torso door was ripped open behind him.
He was getting too close.
The door had deposited him into the east wing kitchen, but it looked like it had been picked clean—no knives, no utensils, not even a decent place to hide. He had just come around the island that was on wheels when the guy who had attacked him in the generator room burst in. On instinct, with his back against the service window, Mac shoved the wheeled island at his pursuer. This stunned him, but not for long; he responded in kind, pushing the island right back at him—but with far more force. Mac barely reacted in time to lift himself up with his hands on the service station, and he kicked the man in the jaw in an effort to propel himself backwards through the long, narrow opening. He fell uncoordinated to the floor, but he was on his feet in an instant, only barely pausing to note the other people in the room—three of them, dressed like patients and shuffling around seemingly catatonic.
His attacker lunged for him through the window, but Mac stayed back, quickly undoing his belt and sprinting to the kitchen door. He reached up and tightened the belt around the lever that controlled the speed at which the door closed, getting it as tight as he could and then threading the end into the loop he'd just made as many times as he could. He finished just in time; his pursuer started trying to force the door open as soon as he'd finished. The man howled in frustration, but Mac didn't stick around to hear what he had to say. Instead, he ran to the closest door and threw himself through it. A narrow hallway with doors on the left and right deposited him into the library. It was dark, eerily quiet, and rather expansive.
Mac decided to hide. He didn't want to keep getting pushed farther from his objective, and it stood to reason that there would be more threats in the wings, since Riley was around here somewhere. Looking for her at that moment, while tempting, would be pointless; Murdoc wouldn't even let it be possible for him to find her without first going through the whole game.
The room was exceptionally dark, save for what light was coming in through a large hole in the ceiling. At first, Mac thought it was a view of the outside, and it was around sunset or so. But as he inched closer, his feet silent on the industrial carpet, he realized that he wasn't seeing sunlight, but rather candlelight. When he got a tiny bit closer—though he was still a good twenty yards away—he could peer through the opening into the room above, and realized it was the chapel.
Maybe Mac could climb a bookshelf, slip up there, and lose his attacker for good...
The Phoenix agent began to venture between the shelves, remaining absolutely silent, his SAK and its light tucked safely away, inching closer to the opening and keeping one eye on the hallway from which he'd emerged, knowing that his trick with the belt wouldn't keep his pursuer at bay for long.
He got past three shelves before he got a good look at the space under the hole in the ceiling. When he did, he froze in his tracks.
There were bodies. So many bodies. Most were dressed like patients, but there were some doctors, nurses, and orderlies thrown in. It looked like their throats had been slit.
God, there had to be at least fifteen of them, just in a pile, like it really was scenery from some kind of horror game. Inching a little closer, the smell finally hit him, and he gagged as he clamped a hand over his nose and mouth. At least one of the bodies had to be real, if not more. If not all.
A sudden sound made him jump, but it wasn't from behind him; it was from above, from the chapel. Knowing that it was probably a bad idea to get spotted either from above or behind, Mac quickly relocated to a small sitting area, sheltering behind a threadbare couch. He still had a view of both the hole and the hall he'd come from, so he hunkered down and listened.
There were two distinct sets of heavy footsteps, and another set that was lighter and seemed to be sliding a bit on the floor. He could hear someone whispering urgently, but couldn't quite hear what was being said.
"Ah," a man's voice spoke up from somewhere above the hole. "Have you found the shepherd or another lamb?"
"Okay, seriously, guys, I hate to ruin the scene, but I did not get this part of the script—I think you have the wrong guy," another man's voice—younger, slightly shaken—spoke up with a bit of an uncertain laugh.
"We shall see," the first man said in reply. After a beat, Mac heard someone struggling. Hard.
"Hey—stop! What the fuck are you doing? Let me go! I'm serious! I never got a script for this scene! Let go! Ow!"
Mac felt his stomach lurch hard. He couldn't see what was happening, but he knew it couldn't be good, and whoever had been brought in there needed help. He was about to stand up, maybe throw a book up there to distract them, but at that moment, the door he'd come through burst open, and the man who'd attacked him at the generator came stalking in, looking around furiously.
He was trapped. He had no choice but to stay where he was, curled in a ball, holding his breath and praying he wouldn't be spotted. If he was noticed, he wasn't sure he'd survive another fight with the large man hurriedly searching between the shelves. And if he were killed, there would be no one left to save Riley.
There was nothing he could do to save the man above him.
By that time, that man was screaming, as if in pain, and Mac shook his head quickly. That was Murdoc talking. Of course he could do something. He could always do something. He just had to come up with a plan—fast.
Carefully, the blond man peered out from his hiding spot, finding his pursuer angrily stalking up and down the aisles formed by the shelves, seemingly undisturbed by the commotion above him. He was about five rows from the front of the room, where there were various tables and chairs set up—though many had been knocked over at some point.
"Hmm," the first man's voice above him sounded disappointed, maybe even annoyed, and Mac knew he was out of time to think. Keeping low in his crouch, Mac launched himself soundlessly from his hiding spot towards the front of the room, coming to a stop in front of the first shelf. "It looks like you've brought me another lamb."
His original attacker was working his way towards him, and was now four rows from the front. Mac waited until he was solidly in the aisle, then pushed the shelf in front of him with all his strength, keeping up the pressure as he felt the shelf begin to tip.
"At least it won't be a total waste," the first man above sighed. His victim's voice became frantic and punctuated with sobs.
"No! No, no, please, please just let me go! Let me go! Please!"
Finally, the shelf gave in and tipped completely, knocking over the next shelf and the next all down the row in a perfect domino effect. It was terribly loud, the metal clanging against each other and books falling to the floor. His pursuer was trapped between the shelves, and was knocked over with a loud shout.
"What the hell is going on down there?" The first voice from above demanded angrily, and to Mac's relief, he could still hear the near-victim's voice as well—he was still alive. The man above ordered someone to go check it out.
Mac spotted a stuffed otter on the floor by his original hiding place and almost absently picked it up as he consulted his map quickly, trying to figure out a way up to the chapel. There had to be a way; he could still save that guy, now that he'd bought a little time.
"Hey!" A deep voice shouted at him, making the agent jump and lift his head in time to see a man's face poking down through the hole to look at him. The man was backlit, so he couldn't make out any features, and Mac was about to ignore him when he started moving to drop down to join him. The Phoenix agent cursed under his breath, quickly swiping the screen on his arm to the right spot, and—
He'd just located a stairwell and was moving to run towards it when the panicked man's voice returned.
"NO WAIT PLEASE—!"
The cry was cut short, replaced with a stomach-churning gurgling sound. Mac felt his heart sink as the man above him paused in his attempted descent, standing up and moving out of sight. A second or two later, a fresh body dropped from above onto the pile, presumably the latest victim. The man tumbled down the pile until it was about halfway to the floor, where it came to a rest with his dead, unseeing eyes staring right at Mac. Even in the faint light, it was obvious that his throat had been deeply slit.
It was also obvious that he was dressed like a patient.
Mac knew he didn't have time to dwell, and convinced himself that he wasn't fleeing in terror as he turned and ran back the way he came, retracing his steps from the generator room. He slowed to a walk when he reached the main loop, and then stopped altogether for a moment to catch his breath and stop his hands from trembling.
There were actors.
Either that or the 'patient' was imagining he was an actor, but somehow that seemed less likely.
It meant that not everyone he came across was really out to get him, and there was no way to distinguish the real enemies from the actors.
It certainly complicated things.
When his heart wasn't pounding quite so hard against his ribcage, Mac continued on, still absently clutching the stuffed otter.
Along the way, since he heard no one pursuing him, he decided to open a couple other doors in the hallway, using his flashlight to get a better look. There were only two to speak of. The first one was another storage closet, containing packages of toilet paper, vacuums, mops, brooms—cleaning supplies, although there were no chemical cleaners to speak of. Wouldn't want to make things too easy for him, of course.
The second door opened into what looked like a staff break room. Lots of tables and chairs, some microwaves, two fridges, and what looked like a nurse eviscerated on the left side of the room. What really caught his eye, though, was the toaster on the floor. It gleamed brightly when the flashlight beam passed over it, and after swinging the light around to make sure no one else was there, he ventured inside and picked up the dented appliance, wrapping the cord around it before packing both it and the otter into his backpack.
More convinced that his pursuer was once again contained—at least temporarily—Mac scanned the hallway before heading back towards the stairwell and the dark basement. After all, the cell control module was worthless if he didn't get the generator going. Mac considered ditching the backpack in the supply closet; if it was taken away he'd lose everything he'd collected so far, including the cell control module and the cable necessary to connect it.
But for all he knew Murdoc would instruct someone—an actor or otherwise—to grab it and make this fucked up situation even harder. He'd already wasted enough time. Riley was out there somewhere, and it was pretty clear Murdoc had made certain this facility had its share of real, violent patients to go with the hired help.
Besides, if the lunatic in the generator room had somehow escaped, that was one less enemy still down in the basement.
Mac picked his way down the stairs again, this time barely having to look to dodge the blood puddles. Just because he'd 'cleared the level' there was no guarantee that Murdoc hadn't let more opponents loose down there, and he braced himself, then pulled his SAK out of his pocket, flicked on the light, and hopped onto the sneaker before pushing open the door.
Same amount of steam. Same flickering emergency lights. He needed the alternator to get the genny going, so his first stop had to be Benny.
The code was still the same; no reason for it to have changed, after all, and once the doorknob turned, Mac knocked softly three times. "Benny? It's just me. The cable guy."
He received no reply.
Wedging his foot against the door as he opened it—to prevent the very large man from being able to slam it on his face—Mac eased into the room, right arm first, shining his SAK at the floor. He found the telephony racks, just as he'd left them, and once he was sure the area around the door was clear, he slipped into the room and shut the door firmly behind him. "...Benny?"
Nothing.
Belatedly Mac realized that Benny—if that was actually his real name—had never actually shared said name with him.
"I brought you something," he said quickly, not moving from his spot, and keeping his flashlight shining at the floor. "To—trap demons."
Finally, finally, he heard the whisper of fabric. The big guy was on the move, and it sounded like he was behind the rack of telephony equipment, dead ahead. Mac slid his backpack off as quickly as he could, knowing he only had seconds, and rather than try to pull the toaster out, he simply ripped the big pocket open and shined his flashlight down on the contents.
The light reflecting off the toaster was sufficient to show him a mountain of light blue fabric, hesitating only a few steps away. Mac carefully didn't move, offering the light-colored shadow a friendly smile he hoped was visible in the diffused light. Hoped looked reasonably sincere. "You said it had to be reflective but not a mirror, right?"
The large patient didn't make a sound, didn't move, and Mac plainly felt five heartbeats go by before he heard what sounded like a friendly scoff.
"...yeah," he agreed, and shuffled closer. "Yeah, that's right." A giant hand reached for the bag, and Mac held his breath and pulled it away.
"Hey, man. Like you said, nothing in this life is free."
There was very little room to maneuver; if this guy got his hands on Mac, he knew his odds of escape weren't great. However, this guy had been one of the 'patients' with a file, and Mac wasn't entirely certain he wasn't an actor. He didn't reek of body odor like some of the other patients Mac had stumbled across; even his breath wasn't bad. He was clearly well hydrated and fed and didn't appear injured. And except for the demon thing, he seemed to be acting pretty normally. Sitting apparently in the dark, just waiting in a room Mac needed to enter in order to further his 'objective.'
Like he'd been staged there.
Then again, Mac had no proof that the patient file he'd read upstairs wasn't one hundred percent real, and Benny was indeed the violent maniac who had murdered his mother, and simply been convinced—or drugged—to stay in the room.
He was definitely playing the odds.
And his luck—this time—held out. The mountain of patient pajamas in front of him chuckled. "Okay, fair enough," he admitted. "Whaddaya want? Another cable?"
Mac hmmed aloud, as if he was thinking about it, and let the SAK's light flicker around the room until it fell on the desk again. The desk was in the corner behind the door, about twelve feet away, but the diffuse light still caught the alternator, right where he'd left it. "...what about that?"
Benny had clearly been following the light—exactly like Mac wanted—and he grunted out a laugh. "Nah, between that and your...izzat a toaster? I could set up a crossbeam, catch anything that came through that door." Benny instead shuffled much closer, looming over Mac and apparently oblivious of personal space as he thrust his face next to Mac's, peering down into the backpack. "What else you got in there?"
Hoping beyond hope that he had correctly remembered 'otter' in relation to 'Benny,' Mac let the big guy reach into the pack, pawing things around. For a second he figured Benny would also want the cell control module, but the man froze, hand still in the backpack, and then let loose with a high-pitched squeal.
Mac couldn't help himself; he flinched. Benny didn't notice. He made a grab for the entire backpack, and only the fact that one of the shoulder straps was physically tangled around Mac's wrist kept the larger man from simply taking the whole thing away.
He did get his prize, though—the plush otter was immediately crushed against the man's chest, and he made another high-pitched happy noise, clutching and cuddling the stuffed animal against him like an infant. "Omigod," he half cooed, half screamed. "You have an otter!"
Well I did, Mac thought. Aloud he said, "...yeah. You, uh, you like otters too?"
"I love them!" the enormous man revealed, staring adoringly down at the stuffed animal in his arms like it truly was alive. "They're so perfect, they keep away merpeople and ghouls and they can glide right onto the astral plane like it was just another brook or stream."
And Mac found himself completely unable to tell if this man was an actor or a legitimate mental patient. He decided it wasn't pertinent. "Did you know they're one of the few non-primates that uses tools?" His friend Penny had gone through an otter phase, and Mac still remembered a few of the factoids he'd looked up to impress her. "They have favorite rocks that they tuck into their armpits for safekeeping. They'll keep the same rock through their entire lives."
Benny finally looked back up at Mac, his eyes seeming to be huge in the relative darkness of the room, and his grip on the toy never faltered. "Casper, you gimme this, you can have whatever you want."
Mac kept his impatience on a tight leash, heading unhurriedly to the desk, where he smoothly exchanged the alternator for the toaster. As he'd expected, the alternator looked to be in usable shape, he'd just need some 12-gauge wire, which he could salvage from the other generator, and those sheets for a new belt. Mac slipped it into his backpack, trying not to look eager to get out of the room. Whether Benny noticed or not was up in the air; he was cooing at the otter. "Your name is Seymour," he told it kindly, his voice wavering like he was close to tears. "You're going to be my very best friend."
Just as Mac was inching by the man and reaching out to put his hand on the doorknob, Benny sniffled loudly. "Hey. Casper."
It was the second time Benny used that name, and Mac steeled himself, then slowly turned and gave the man what he hoped was a politely confused look. The patient smiled down at him.
"Look...I'm sorry about the...you know." He gestured at his own face, and Mac tried very hard not to wonder if this was the man who had so violently killed the guy in the men's bathroom. "See you around?"
"...uh, yeah," Mac agreed, fumbling for the doorknob. "You should probably stay in here for a while, stay safe, right?"
"Yeah," Benny agreed, transferring his attention back to the toy in his arms, and it took everything Mac had not to bolt from the room.
The hallway was the same, no motion save billowing clouds of steam, and Mac took a deep breath of it, then hurried back toward the generator room. He stopped and snagged a sheet along the way, giving the blanket pile a wide berth just in case someone was still under it, and pre-emptively held his breath as he rushed through the room with the cleaners. He slipped into the generator room quickly, taking a few steps away from the door before he pointed his SAK at the far wall, where he'd left his unconscious attacker.
The bindings were in two separate piles, and Mac headed over and shifted one of the piles with the toe of his shoes. The edges were ragged, but had very clearly been sawed through with a tool.
Either he'd had something sharp in a pocket and Mac had missed it, or someone had deliberately cut the guy free.
It didn't matter. With any luck, he was still stuck in the bookshelves, and Mac popped his SAK back into his mouth and dove into the more damaged of the two generators. As he'd expected, the alternator in there was trash, but there was enough left of the cable harness to salvage, and some quick work with the serrated blade on his swiss army knife did the trick. He carried it over to the other generator and got started.
In a video game, it would have taken seconds. In reality, in that hot, dark room, with Mac jumping at every pop and creak, it took almost eight minutes. His right shoulder was aching fiercely by the time he pulled himself back out of the thing, and he shone his flashlight along the front of the beat-up chassis before he located and slapped the cracked primer button.
Whether or not the generator was actually providing power the building, the equipment in front of him was the real deal; the unit primed with a high-pitched groan before there was a low whir, and the makeshift sheet belt started to turn the motor. For a moment he thought it was going to crap out on him, but then the motor caught like it meant it, and the genny shook and rattled to life. The fluorescent ceiling lights flickered on, and Mac didn't stop for even a second to enjoy the win. He just threw the backpack over his shoulder and jogged to the door, easing his aching right arm into the other strap.
Just as his fingers brushed the doorknob, he heard a series of deep thunks. Magnetic locks kicking back in.
And sure enough, the doorknob didn't budge. And there was no panel on the wall for him to input a code or wave a badge.
"Come on," he snapped. "No one would design a security system that locked someone in the generator room."
The phone on his wrist didn't respond, and Mac gave the door a frustrated kick before he had to accept the shitty video game logic, and look for another way out. There was the obvious door on the other side of the room, that he'd seen earlier, and his wrist vibrated.
Objective: Return to the security office
Round two is over, but the exam isn't! We have plenty more already prepared for you, so keep an eye out; more coming very soon!
On another note, WE MADE IT TO 2021 EVERYBODY! Yeah, this year is probably gonna suck for at least 9 months, but we survived 2020 and that's all that matters right now. Here's to this year being better than the last.
We love you guys, and we hope you enjoyed part 2! Keep those reviews coming!
