Julian Midgley meant nothing to the Murkoff Corporation. He barely meant anything to Mount Massive — another number in the employee database, and nothing more. He did his job diligently, though even that felt like a stretch. Diligent would imply he was notable in some manner. Julian Midgley did his job… adequately. Adequately was the word. An adequate employee, a name to be skimmed over, a single number out of the thousands at Murkoff. Never to be picked out of a lineup, never to be singled out or even referred to.
That was what he believed when he blew the whistle, anyway. He was barely a blip on the massive corporation's radar; nobody paid mind to the crucial company files at his fingertips as a single security engineer out of what must have been twenty in the hospital, and even when he asked questions about the files he'd caught sight of, he was shooed off without a glance in his direction. The cameras were disabled in a routine security check, and his Internet access was filtered through as many anonymity networks as he could find when the files he'd copied were leaked, but he realized too late that Murkoff had eyes everywhere — distrust between employees was encouraged, and Julian was not among friends.
It was another security engineer who ratted him out, but even with their dark, hard gazes, he knew there was something human there. There were cold hard walls, forged by Murkoff's constant surveillance and isolation, but Julian never believed that the majority of Murkoff employees were truly evil. Only a few truly took pleasure in the human suffering they were causing, but those few were powerful enough to silence the others. It was his responsibility to give them voices, and as small as a few contracts and consent forms to proceed with some experiment or other were, they encouraged other whistleblowers to do the same.
He never understood the depraved extents the people he was fighting would go to, and truth be told, he was more focused on avoiding the monetized wrath of the Murkoff Corporation than he was the whereabouts of the fellow employees who weren't as lucky. He wasn't imprisoned or killed, like he would later hear some were, but returning home from the isolated mountain to find his home ransacked and family missing — he found, later, the public story that he handed them over to the asylum personally — was more than enough to get their message across.
If anything, though, it made the burning to do the right thing grow hotter and hotter. All it told him was to press harder — the fear tactics Murkoff used to keep suspicious employees in check were null when they had a place to confide in, safe from the company's ever watchful eye. And so, through the grief of Julian's loss, and the losses of whistleblower after whistleblower, VIRALeaks was born. Providing protection for people in his position would soon become Julian's entire job description, the protection he desperately needed back in 2007.
Murkoff was a superpower, boasting the title of the world's leading provider of biometric security, but there was nothing left for Julian to lose to these people. He had no family to be punished in his steed, and none to return to. He would be a thorn in the company's side until his dying breath if that was what it took.
Eventually, Murkoff had bigger priorities, usually the fallout of some disaster or other, and their focus on Julian waned. His website kept him occupied, ensuring the safety and anonymity of anyone looking to publish private information, Murkoff employee or otherwise. It gave him a purpose, the idea that perhaps his suffering was worth it if it meant helping others.
Though most complaints were quashed by the time Julian was through with them, he was finding more and more employees over the years who managed to be completely hidden. People who blew the whistle and, for once, lost nothing for it. They were few and far inbetween, but the sentiment was what VIRALeaks was founded upon.
When he was handed the case of Mount Massive Asylum's Waylon Park, he was hoping for another success story. The man himself was a gentle giant, having endured not only abuse at the hands of his superiors, but one hellish night in the rioting asylum — with gashes, burns, and a missing foot to show it, alongside a camcorder full of evidence.
Hardened by his experiences as he was, the footage was nearly impossible to sit through. Revolting and haunting, Julian could barely watch it, and yet he couldn't tear his eyes away, either. Perhaps it was a sign of where his priorities truly lay — not avenging the countless mutilated faces he saw onscreen, but bringing Murkoff down for his own satisfaction — but that wasn't something Julian liked to think about. Regardless of why, though, this would be it. No matter what Murkoff threw at them, Park was living, breathing proof of the corporation's evil.
He worked closely with the man's family — alongside Upshur, another survivor of the Mount Massive event. Good people, both of them — even if Upshur was louder and more inappropriate than Park's description would have Julian believe, he had a heart of gold without a doubt.
"Hey, Midgley," Upshur stopped him once, "you know Park would probably be flipping his lid 24/7 if you weren't around. I mean, he's already a nervous wreck but he'd be way fucking worse, y'know?" …Julian wasn't entirely sure how to take it, but it sounded like a compliment.
Though he did what he could to assure the safety of them both, assisting Park and his wife in destroying their home and vanishing to a safehouse on the other end of the country, he was caught in the crossfire of the resulting manhunt. Stolen from the hotel room he was staying in, the Murkoff Mitigation Officers told the staff he was a criminal to be taken into custody. The only respite Julian felt as he was roughly hauled to his feet and shoved into a waiting truck in the parking lot was that he was two states away from the man they were really looking for.
Helping Waylon Park disappear, free to share as much incriminating evidence as he pleased, was the worst thing Julian could have done, but never once did he regret it — he was no coward, and would take the secret to his grave. Something he learned the hard way, however, was that if the threat to his life didn't scare him, the corporation had resources at their disposal to do far worse.
Elrich, a forensic lab, was the facility he woke up in, but Murkoff premises all served the same purpose, he found over the years. An asylum for criminals, a mental hospital for veterans… Whatever form it took was a mere vehicle for the experiments Murkoff was holding. Limbs immobile with chemical restraints, barely able to think between the sterile bright lights and tubes not unlike those he'd seen in Upshur's footage of William Hope, he was bombarded with questions he had no intention of answering.
He had no idea what they were doing to his body, but none of it felt good. He was acutely aware of the vital signs monitor just out of his field of vision, and its steady, constant beeping was reassuring at the start — a reminder that the world existed outside of his restrained body and rotting mind — but as time crawled by, it felt more like mockery. Like Chinese water torture, the drip-drip-drip slowly forming a hollow in his skull.
The beeping of the monitor. The dripping of the tubes, of whatever they were pumping into his body. His limbs were turning numb, whether due to the tight harnesses holding them down or due to the chemicals, he never knew. He was unable to turn his head to see them, and that was just another small, maddening part of his isolation. Just as he never answered their questions about the whereabouts of Waylon and Lisa Park, the doctors never answered Julian's questions about what was happening to his arms and legs.
To the public, Julian Midgley was dead — how or why, he never learned. The funeral was to be in a month, where an empty casket to an empty crowd would be buried. No matter what bullshit story Murkoff wove, it would be bought — even those smart enough to question otherwise had no say in the matter. He was in the company's clutches now, and the days upon days of isolation and interrogation began to twist his mind.
Julian always tried to keep a clear head — approaching things rationally, not letting emotions cloud his judgment, and viewing situations from every angle was a skill he was proud of. After all, he couldn't help Park and Upshur if he was as twitchy and impulsive as they were, but when his only grip on the passage of time was attempting to count the days that passed until his funeral, thinking reasonably was growing impossible. At first, he could tell the general hour by when the men in white hazmat suits came to address him, with the same demand as always, but that grew unreliable. Constant surveillance, even of his own thoughts, sending in interrogators when he was under the impression he'd been interviewed just an hour ago.
Thinking rationally wouldn't save him.
He lost all feeling in his body, and was acutely aware of the skin of his bare abdomen beginning to slough away. The chemicals, the lost circulation, whatever it was because there was no point in trying to find the answer, was eating away at his flesh. The air grew colder and colder against his soft, rotting tissue. He could hear a death rattle in his throat when he breathed, and eventually, the doctors stopped coming. Nothing was there for him but the bright lights boring into his eyes, long dried of any ability to bear tears, the beeping and dripping, and the acute sensation of rotting alive. The only part of his body he could move was his jaw, and he could feel the tissue of his hard palate separate from the roof of his mouth when he touched it with his tongue.
Had he died days, weeks, months ago? Was this what the afterlife was? He was never a religious man, but thinking on it, being trapped in your rotting body until you lost the capacity to see or sense anything anymore was the most probable way one would leave the world. He thought acutely of his family — was this what Murkoff had been doing to them for the past six years? The only thing keeping him from accepting his death was the vital monitor, but even that wasn't definitive. He wouldn't put it past his tormentors to place it there for a false sense of hope.
He wasn't even aware his restraints had been unlatched until they had already been so for an hour, a few, a day. He couldn't push himself to sit up, unable to feel or get a grasp on any part of the table he'd spent the past days, months, years strapped to like a rabid animal, but he could finally see what had been done to him.
He wished he couldn't. To Julian, knowledge was power — even with knowledge as sickening as Park's asylum footage, there was something to be gained. Justice, or closure, but when he finally saw what the months, years, decades of restraints and bizarre chemicals had done to his body, he was praying it was a fever dream.
His skin, previously an unmarred Peruvian brown, had gone a deep black with the restraints, exposing dried muscle where it had begun to melt away. Tubes tugged at his ragged form, still dug deep into crevices along his body, but he could barely feel them. Tissue clung tightly to his bones — whatever was in the tubes must have been barely sustaining him, keeping him alive only enough to witness himself fall apart. His ribcage was visible in a section, the bone itself a filthy brown, as was part of his femur. Skin was barely distinguishable from muscle, having long since eroded away in several places.
Whatever Murkoff had made of him, it was a mistake. Through their studying decomposition, or whatever it was they were planning with the long dead Julian, he continued to breathe. His muscles twitched as he slowly began to regain control of his body, and he could see them do so. It was beyond him how he could even move anymore, but he was thankful that he not only could, but was unable to feel the excruciating pain that would've come with moving in such a state. He could barely tell the color of the hospital underwear he'd been given — because modesty was definitely a chief concern of the human experimenters here — soiled with rot as it was.
Forcing himself to move, and having to watch himself as he did, Julian was unable to feel even the faint pressure of the floor beneath him, or the tubes to God-knows-what being ripped out. There was nothing in his cell but the vital monitor and restraints, and a window to an equally-sterile hallway he'd never noticed before — only a small turn of his head out of sight. He was surprised to find his heart still beat, despite it all, and was instantly hit with the question of what the fuck to do now.
He barely knew this facility, and swimming memories of when the workers still spoke to him didn't offer much, but there was nothing else for him to lose anymore. He remembered footage from Upshur's camcorder — a man old as time, rotting in his wheelchair, being kept alive with Murkoff technology — if the treatment hadn't killed him, nothing else these sick people threw at him was going to.
With no knowledge where he was, or where he was headed, Julian ran, rummaging through every filing cabinet he saw and clutching the contents in his bony hands. There had to be confidential information down here, to be sharing a hallway with the most depraved of Murkoff experiments. Eventually, through the confused shouts of the compound's staff, he managed to get through to the ground floor. Luckily, the bullets of the guards did nothing to slow him, and soon, Julian was home free to civilization.
Stripped of all he owned, in a state he only knew when passing through to keep an eye on the Parks, he collapsed in an alleyway. As the seconds, minutes, hours passed — God, his sense of time was fucked up — he could feel the painkillers he must have been pumped with to stay awake in his state wear off. First, the pain of the gunshots, then, the burning of his stomach threatening to digest itself, and finally, the eroded flesh the nearby roaches and flies were beginning to swarm and feast on. Immobilized with pain, a living corpse curled up amongst the trash, all Julian could do was suffer and hope that through it all that there would be justice.
—
The only concern the nearby hotel workers had about their newest cloaked client was the smell, but even then, they didn't particularly care about the business of a random homeless man so long as he paid for his stay. When asked about his name, he abruptly remembered that Julian Midgley was dead, and wasn't exactly sure where he pulled Simon as an answer from, but he'd have to live with it.
There wasn't much Simon could do for his… appearance. Scavengers attached themselves to his skin, and the rare moments his nerves returned to him, the sensation of botflies burrowing themselves into his body and chewing on his liquified organs was enough to keep him frozen on his bed with pain for an entire day. He didn't need to eat anymore, which was a reassurance on the 'homeless man living from hotel to hotel' part of things, but upsetting to think about for longer than he had to. Covering himself in rags and obscuring his face made Simon seem more human, and though he told himself it was for safety measures in case Murkoff ever came after him, he really couldn't stand to look at himself anymore.
The thick leather wrappings going up his arms made it easier to grip things than attempting to do so with barely-intact hands, and though he knew it would be foolish for Murkoff to send out missing person posters for a dead man, the fear he would be found out was always there. As far as the towns he hung around knew, Simon Peacock was nothing more than a reclusive homeless man who shrouded his appearance, but not a day passed where he didn't think of what Murkoff had done to him — to so many others. He saw himself in the faceless, mutilated victims in Park's footage now more than ever.
It wasn't something his old self would be proud of, but as showing his face in regular society was hopeless, Simon made his living stealing. Never did he actually follow through with the threats he gave the suited men and women he passed, but none of them listened long enough to ever know. His suffering couldn't have been for nothing — he wouldn't rest until the Murkoff Corporation was brought to its knees, and the files he'd stolen from Elrich certainly helped. But he couldn't do it alone — it was far too easy to trace back, and even when they couldn't launch a search publicly, he knew his enemies were on high alert. He had been enough of an inconvenience to the corporation before he began helping Park, and now, as a (presumably) unkillable being, it would be all the worse.
The reunion with the Parks wasn't as uplifting as he'd hoped. To their knowledge, he had been dead for the past three months (two in captivity, though they felt much longer than that), and Park's paranoia made even setting a foot on his patio hard. Bullets wouldn't hurt Simon, but the sight of the usually meek Waylon Park pointing a gun at him, standing protectively in front of his door, was somehow more frightening. It took insistence from both himself and Lisa to get Park to finally lower his weapon, and even as he heard Simon's story and accepted that this walking corpse before him was, in fact, his old protector, his wide, suspicious gaze never left the hooded figure's back.
He couldn't blame Park, really. Even Simon didn't know what Murkoff did to him in those months he was strapped to a table in his own decaying matter, and if cameras had been implanted into his eyes, or he had been chipped with a tracking device like a shark for study, then it was over for everyone. All he could do was insist to the other that he cared about the cause of defeating Murkoff more than anyone else, but Park only shook his head, resigned.
"I just wanna… heal, man," he explained. "I sympathize, I really… seriously do, and I hate those bastards as much as you, but I have kids, Simon." Park tugged at the collar of his sweater, barely obscuring the now-healed burn scar. "I don't want them to be scared of their Dad." He looked at Simon with sad eyes, like he hoped he'd understand, and he did — he had a family long ago too, after all — but all it told Simon was that he'd need to work through this alone.
And that was fine by him.
The files from Elrich were a mixed bag of mundane and deeply important: most notably, a document referencing coordinates somewhere in Arizona —N 36° 05' 51", W 112° 34' 00"— and various transcribed reports from… whatever the Arizona experiment was. He didn't like what it was telling him, though: towers, subjects, violent delusions, infighting… Murkoff's name attributed to it only made it scarier. The possibility of experimentation on the scale of what was going on at Mount Massive with a mass of people was terrifying, and Park wanted little part in it.
Simon would respect that, of course — Park was no trained investigator, simply a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, who had mustered bravery when he needed it but now had none left. Cowardly, Simon would call it, but he could respect it. Park had humanity, and people to come home to. He couldn't just waste it all on hunting down Murkoff's latest experiment — Simon hadn't understood that feeling since 2007.
In the meantime, he had to keep his eyes on the search party still on Park. The same pair of Mitigation Officers who supervised his commitment to Elrich — Paul Marion and Pauline Glick — must have known of Simon's existence, whether as a dangerous whistleblower or an experiment gone haywire, but neither of them appeared to recognize him as he followed them around.
In a fact Simon found interesting in contrast to his own employment at Murkoff, both of them lived off-site, not working with any one facility. Glick lived alone in an apartment, Marion in a rented house with his daughter. Glick was higher-ranking than Marion, and better at her job than him — colder and crueler, it seemed, preferring to step out the moment the job was done in comparison to her partner trying to help wherever possible. He didn't think that was an intentional part of their partnership — Marion seemed like a kinder man overall, not yet fallen to Murkoff's violent, isolating brainwashing like his partner had.
He would be perfect.
Having nothing else to use his time on ensured his hold on Paul Marion would be a strong one — the Mitigation Officer was his only hope in finding someone inside Murkoff who not only had the heart to help him but the ability to do so. Memorizing the man's routine was easy, as was following him on his local jobs — especially as he visited the Upshur residence with his partner, somewhere Simon found himself often. (Park may not have cooperated with Simon anymore, but he continued to find a kinship with Upshur, just as determined to take Murkoff down as he was.)
Simon couldn't say he hadn't gotten cocky that day, Marion recognizing him immediately as the same homeless man that had followed him for a previous job, but he knew the officer's nature. Abandoning his shopping cart to scramble away, with the intention of leading his prey into a secluded place to reveal what he knew, Simon scuttled off beneath a bridge as Marion called out after him.
Eventually, he lost him, lingering amongst a pile of garbage as Marion doubled over to catch his breath. He was half-naked and bloodied, for reasons Simon couldn't discern, but all it proved was that he was reckless enough to risk his safety for a hunch, and given his comradery with Upshur, that seemed to be a recurring theme in those Simon worked best with. It made sense — Simon had nothing to lose, and those who did only bogged him down.
As Marion coughed and wheezed, finally catching note of the Arizona coordinates scratched into the concrete, Simon emerged. He tilted his head at the other — Marion clearly wasn't physically fit, between his fatter frame and the alcoholism he tried to hide from his daughter, but Simon was in no place to judge. The inability to feel pain (most of the time) was the only thing keeping him moving throughout the day.
"You work for Murkoff, don't you?" He stated, prompting Marion to turn around. He could see the man's tired blue eyes, weighed down with dark bags, searching his face and body for any visible features. It was something Simon got often — a natural part of how he dressed. He would rather get confused looks than disgusted ones.
Covered in tiny scabs, which Simon recognized from his own wounds as ant bites, Marion was stripped of his regular business suit — hiding nothing from him. He was bare for Simon, vulnerable, with no need to hide behind his job. Caught alone, without his stern Mitigation Officer facade, Marion looked exhausted. "...who are you?" His voice was low as he slowly straightened his posture, still heaving.
"I believe you've heard of me." There was no point in evading it — if he was to work with Marion, knowing his name would be a start. His voice was low, monotone, and he could see the growing confusion and frustration in the other's face. "My name is Simon Peacock."
Though Marion appeared to be naturally unexpressive, Simon could feel him go from exhausted to angry — the only hint of it was his tone, part that and part incredulousness. Sweat clung to his skin and hair. "You've been following us."
Simon knew the answer when he asked, "what's your name?", but Marion likely wouldn't take the revelation he'd been stalked for the past number of months well. He nodded to his statement. "Yes. I've been watching you," Simon's gaze flickered past Marion to the car he'd retreated from, but there was no visible sign of his partner. Not from this distance, anyway, "and you got something most Murkoff running dog mercenaries don't."
"I-I'm not a mercenary," Marion began, hands nervously reaching for the end of his tie. Simon's eyes narrowed, and he pointed to the gesture for emphasis.
"You've got shame. You know what you're doing is wrong."
Nervousness giving way to resignation, Marion's hands dropped, his gaze hardening. Simon had clearly hit a weak spot, but the walls were reforming. "It's a job." Marion was growing defensive, as was Simon. The pain of the maggots burrowing was beginning to return — or perhaps that was just anxiety — this was the only chance at getting someone from Murkoff on his side he had.
"But you're someone who'd chase after me, despite the fact you're injured and naked." He gestured to Marion's… everything, trying to keep his voice steady. Make him think, but don't scare him off. He couldn't ruin this for himself by acting as desperate as he felt. "Who does that?"
As a silence fell beneath the bridge, Marion frowned, and for a moment looked back to the coordinates. Finally, he shook his head, Simon wondering what exactly was going through it. "...I can't stand not knowing."
That was what he wanted to hear. Beneath the thick brown scarf obscuring his mouth, Simon smiled. Curiosity killed the cat, in his case, but satisfaction would bring it back. Marion was no coward, despite his more polite demeanor. "Tell me your name."
"No." Marion furrowed his eyebrows, unaware that Simon knew, and had known for a very long time. "I've read your files, Peacock. You used to work for Murkoff, and six years ago you leaked company files and vanished. Been off the map since, encouraging other whistleblowers…"
The disapproval in his voice made Simon's hands tremble with rage. The pain of the rot flared up again, feeling some scavenger or other gnaw the sinew off a cracked rib. If Marion saw him grimace, obscured by shadows and wrappings, he didn't show any sign of it. Simon didn't expect perfection, though Marion was the closest he'd get after Park, but hearing him say encouraging other whistleblowers like it was a bad thing, like Simon was somehow in the wrong for exposing these atrocities, made him furious.
He had to remind himself that Marion was simply ignorant, unless he was evil enough to pretend to be reluctant as a way to manipulate Murkoff's enemies. Honestly, he wouldn't put such a tactic past the company — it was as good a reason as any to partner Marion with the corrupt Glick. Honey caught more flies than vinegar, after all. No matter how kind Marion was, his goal was to lead people to his superiors' slaughterhouse all the same.
"You're trying to destroy Murkoff." He spat, like it was wrong. Whether Marion was ignorant, evil, brainwashed, or simply desperate to keep his job, Simon didn't know, but he thought back to his admittance to Elrich. Standing by and watching — if Marion was half the man he pretended to be, he would've done something.
"Of course I am." Simon could barely mask the distaste in his voice — the sting of exposed muscle in his arm, smothered by the thick wrappings, wasn't helping. It was taking all his resolve to not shake Marion and shriek in his face. "They're evil. You work for the devil."
Marion brushed sweat from his face, though Simon could tell it was an excuse to avoid looking him in the eye. Guilty conscience. Thinking about it, he didn't know if that was more or less forgivable — knowingly going against one's moral code to hurt people, and for… what?
"You're protecting Waylon Park?" Marion asked, abruptly changing the subject.
"You'll never find him." Simon stated simply — that was the one thing he was confident about. He'd overheard the Mitigation Officers' conversations, about how Park coming to them first was the only hope they had of continuing with the case. If only it was that easy to convince the man himself of that, when he still slept with a gun beneath his pillow and kept a metal bat just out of sight of the doorway (and never once did he open the door to a Murkoff officer, but that didn't seem to stop him from grabbing it every time he saw someone outside.).
Trying to coax more out of Marion, Simon asked, "what's Project Walrider?", but was only met with a shake of the head and a sigh.
"Couldn't tell you if I knew."
A bitter chuckle, muffled by layers upon layers of coverings. "Willful ignorance." There was potential in Marion, he could see it — he only needed his hand forced. While he continued to sit by and allow Murkoff's atrocities, he was just as horrible a person as his partner. "I remember that. Almost let me sleep some nights."
Simon cocked his head. "How do you sleep? How do you justify working for people you know are evil?"
Marion was silent, jaw clenched as he stared off into a point past Simon, and he wished he could tell what the man was thinking. In Marion's stunned silence, unable — or unwilling — to formulate an argument, Simon hoped he'd gotten through to him in some way. When the man remained quiet, Simon continued, pointing to the etched coordinates on the wall behind them.
N 36° 05' 51", W 112° 34' 00". Murkoff's latest experiment. Simon could barely believe what the status reports described, but after what the company did to him, there was no evil he would put beyond them. Slaughtered children. Forced hallucinations. The subjects calling it the voice of God.
"Mount Massive was a pebble in the pond. An experiment on individuals. That, " he pointed harder, "is where the real sickness spreads."
Marion swayed on his feet to look past Simon's shoulder at the etching. "...those are coordinates."
Simon nodded, studying the coordinates. Jaded as the Mitigation Officers were, and evil as Murkoff was , they were human. Humans had breaking points. Marion's, by his interactions with his daughter, and how he approached those he interrogated, was empathy. He had to shame him, make him care. "If you cannot look at what's there and not eat yourself hollow with shame, you're not human anymore."
Murkoff had to suffer. They had to pay for what they did to him, to Park and Upshur, to the Variants and the people they were tormenting in that experiment in Arizona. He would dismantle that awful corporation experiment by experiment if he had to. All he needed was help, and the Mitigation Officer was going to give him that whether he wanted to or not.
"I need your help. I need somebody still inside Murkoff. I'm not asking, I'm telling you—" with every unnerved step back Marion took, Simon took two more closer. "—you're going to help me."
Marion glanced from the coordinates, to Simon, and then to the ground. Covered in trash, but there was a method to the madness. Disorganized chaos — various files, dirtied photographs, and notes lay amongst the piles of garbage, some of which were taped to a beam in a rudimentary conspiracy board, a worn laptop with a cracked screen, a single dirty bedsheet. Simon's dwelling ever since stealing stopped lasting him — rather, ever since he stopped living like a person in favor of watching his enemies' every step.
"...I…"
This dawning realization seemed to come over the Murkoff officer, that he'd entered the domain of someone who cared more about his job than he did. Simon glared hard into him, and after a long stretch of uncomfortable silence, Marion arrived at a conclusion — and it wasn't one Simon liked.
"...have to do my job."
Simon wasn't sure what possessed him when he reached for the styrofoam block just at his feet, except for a panic that he'd blown his only chance. Marion knew of his existence, and he'd run and Simon would be back to square one — poring over Murkoff's experiments but unable to do anything about them.
He couldn't have that. He had to do something about this organization, because if he didn't then what was he still breathing for? If negotiation didn't get Marion on his side, then force would. One scuffle with the officer's partner later, an imprint of Paul Marion's teeth was stuffed into the sleeve of his cloak.
He wouldn't be getting away that easily.
—
Paul Marion washed his clothes on Sundays. He and his daughter traded cooking and dishwashing duties every night. He was forgetful, and at least once a week forgot something crucial when heading out for work that she had to grab for him. He liked 80's pop songs, much to the embarrassment and annoyance of both his daughter and Glick.
Glick was closer to him than he was to her — he saw her as a friend, whereas she saw him as a colleague at best. He bought her a tie like his own, in her favorite color — dark teal. She never wore it.
When he wasn't working, he was staying at home, and appeared to have very few hobbies. He drank, stress-ate, and on one occasion, self-harmed — Simon knew he had shame in his job, and the interrogation beneath the bridge likely worsened it. He couldn't say that he was sorry — what was one man's well-being to the thousands that would be saved if Murkoff was brought down, and how could Marion be so selfish as to think his life was more important than theirs?
Watching someone's day-to-day life so closely should have humanized them to Simon, but all it did was make his anger boil further. Marion had loved ones (or, well, a loved one), he had a life, hopes, and dreams, and yet he could stand to commit some of the worst atrocities in the modern world. No amount of shame could fix that — the only thing that would is fighting back. If he had the audacity to put so many innocents in danger with Murkoff's greed, then he should have had the heart to do something about it.
He didn't. Not yet. But that was what Simon was here for.
Park continued to look at him less like a partner and more like a Variant. He had honor — Simon couldn't call Park a coward when he single handedly made one of the biggest dents in Murkoff in the company's history, and had scars to show it, but that made his refusal to be a part of Simon's plans no less frustrating. People were being hurt all over — Mount Massive being shut down wasn't the end of the corporation's inhumane experiments, and he had a tower of files to prove it.
"Simon…" Park began, searching for the right words for about half a minute, before dejectedly sighing. "I don't want to sound like a dick. But I really want you to think about it when I ask if you want to help people..." A picture of the Marion family, from, by the date in red ink, 2008, was held in Park's hand — Simon had stolen it from the bottom of a box in their garage. Park passed it back to him. "...or if you just want revenge."
"The people in that town, Mr. Park—"
"The town you only learned about because you stole random files and hoped one'd have dirt on Murkoff?" Park shook his head, and the rare anger in his eyes was something Simon never liked seeing. "I hate them too. I hate everyone who works there knowing how they're torturing innocent people and everyone who just…" He began to scratch at where the metal of his prosthetic leg met the calf — a nervous habit, and one that hadn't left. "...stands by and lets it happen. But it's not our responsibility to stop them."
Park and his family had relaxed more lately. The dark circles beneath his eyes were starting to leave, and sometime between Simon's last visit and now, the metal bat no longer hung by the door. He was recovering, slowly but surely, but that tired look on his face and paranoid twitch of his hands seemed to return every time he spoke to Simon.
"I did everything I could. So did you. You were a godsend for me and my family. But I'm worried you're not doing it for the right cause anymore. Those people—" Park pointed to the photograph in Simon's clutches, Marion grinning in a yellow shirt with an arm around his daughter. "—don't deserve to be stalked and guilted because they work for a place that doesn't give them any other choice. They're not who you should be fighting."
Trying to keep his composure, Simon nearly crushed the photo in his grasp. He saw Park reach a careful hand out when he audibly grimaced and clutched his stomach as the gnawing of the scavengers sent a wave of nausea through his body — how could he think he could ever help Simon when he simply continued to let the people who hurt him get away with it? "What…" he began, and no matter how long he'd lived in his bug-riddled body, the pain would never be easier, "...what else do you suggest, then? Let it happen? Not take any opportunity we can to bring these people to justice?"
"It's not our job! It shouldn't have to be!" Park's voice suddenly raised, and he pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. This was a back and forth the two had nearly every time they interacted, and neither would budge. He shook his head, going quiet. "I just want to rest. I just want to live in peace with my family." The glare boring into Simon was a saddened one, and as he spoke, he wrung his hands nervously. "I don't want to think about Mount Massive, or Murkoff, or… whatever you're doing anymore. I've thought about it every goddamn night and I'm tired of it."
Simon stared back at his friend, scratching at a particularly painful burrow on his shoulder as he did. Park simply shook his head, but reached into a medicine cabinet regardless. Simon could tell he sympathized with him, but that wasn't enough. What good would sympathy do when the pain wasn't over?
"Do whatever you want. I don't care anymore. And if that makes me a bad person, so be it." Park shut the cabinet door, revealing a bottle of painkillers in hand. They were all over the house — mainly for his own injuries. He tossed it to Simon, who managed to catch the small white container in both hands through the aching. When he looked back towards Park, the exhaustion on his face was reminiscent of the day he stepped out of Mount Massive.
"Just leave us out of it."
Perhaps Park would have changed his mind if he knew the extent Simon was willing to go to, or perhaps he wouldn't have. But it didn't matter — Park was as dead to Simon as Simon was to him. He didn't need him anyways. Getting to the bottom of the Arizona experiment wasn't something he expected Park to take part in regardless, and there wasn't much someone outside the company could do about it. It was why he began following Marion and his partner to begin with.
Marion wasn't stupid, sadly — poking around in business above his security clearance would earn him a one-way ticket to losing his job, or worse. His curiosity could only get him so far, and Simon was upset to find neither him or Glick expressed interest in the coordinates. No matter — a push was all he needed, and Simon had been watching him closely enough to know exactly how to do that.
N 36° 05' 51", W 112° 34' 00"
YOUR DAUGHTER IS CONNECTED.
She wasn't. Simon didn't like lying — it twisted his cause, made it harder to believe. But seeing as Marion cared for that girl more than the lives of thousands, it was the best way to get him to act. And by the way his expression dropped when he opened the mailbox to find Simon's note, he fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
But even as he made progress with Marion, the itching in the back of Simon's head that he wasn't doing enough persisted. The worms crawled in, the worms crawled out, and Simon knew that whatever was going on in Arizona was just one of the many, many projects the corporation was taking on.
And then it hit him. Murkoff was a larger than life corporation, but Marion was the Mitigation Officer. Well, one out of two of them, but still — he had power in the company, even if he didn't know it. Simon didn't like lying, but excluding the whole story was different. He never told Marion he'd leave him be after finding out and shutting down whatever the Arizona experiment was — only that he needed help with it. It, and more.
Paul Marion was the key to sabotaging Murkoff from the inside. N 36° 05' 51", W 112° 34' 00" was a test of faith, and a vague threat to his daughter was just enough to get him to work with Simon. Using the child as a bargaining tool was a cruel measure, but a necessary one. When would Simon get this chance again? Alice Marion was a kind soul, he knew, and would no doubt be willing to lay her life down for thousands — it was her selfish father that thought of it in reverse.
Marion driving out to the coordinates was a blessing for many reasons — learning the truth of what Murkoff was doing there, seeing the experiment for himself, putting faces to the subjects in the reports, planning a next course of action… but most importantly, leaving his child home alone.
She was tall and lanky, taller than him, but frail from disease. Simon didn't want it to hurt — that wasn't his objective — but force was necessary as the girl kicked and shrieked. One hand over her diaphragm, the other pressing a sedative-soaked rag into her mouth. Simon was thankful he couldn't feel the tearing of her fingernails into his rotten flesh.
And then it was still, and from there, the real work began. The victim was unconscious as Simon slit its belly — just enough blood to sprawl a message on the wall. No more, no less. It woke up as the pain registered, and Simon did what he could to block out the cries of pain and fear as he wrote, in his daughter's blood, the first thing Marion would see upon entering Alice's bedroom.
YOU WORK FOR US NOW.
But of course, more solid proof it was in danger was needed than that. The curiosity would drive Marion mad, and lead him right to Simon. He had no intentions of killing his victim, but it was the only way he knew to make Marion follow him closer than Murkoff.
Restrained in the closet, pleading for mercy through tears as Simon pressed an edge of his sleeve to its stomach wound to staunch the bleeding, he almost felt sorry for it. But the child before him was of the devil, and nothing but a crutch for Marion to convince himself he was committing Murkoff's crimes for a better cause. An excuse to keep hurting people — a mask to hide behind, because he was too cowardly to leave. Telling himself it was for his daughter.
When Simon looked at it, he didn't see anything particularly worth saving, much less at the cost of every life lost to the corporation. But then again, he didn't remember ever feeling that way towards anything. He had a family once, but he couldn't recall their faces or names if he tried, and he wasn't so self-absorbed as to cling to them if it would mean killing hundreds.
He barely remembered a life before fighting Murkoff at all. He had a name, and vaguely recalled it started with a J, but it wasn't important anymore. The only thing that mattered to him anymore was justice. Justice would be dealt, and Simon could finally rot away for good, his purpose fulfilled. He was never particularly devout, but he knew his body continued to breathe for a reason. The anger in his dried, barely beating heart grew and grew, and it would never find peace until every trace of Murkoff Psychiatric Systems was erased from the map.
Until then, he had a job to do. As the child trembled and cried, Simon only watched the knife press into its finger, shushing it. It was a necessary evil. One finger, one child, one family was nothing to thousands of lives. It would be happy to know what it did for the world, Simon was sure.
The severed middle finger lay in the center of the child's bedroom. It struggled and whimpered as Simon wrapped its hand in a paper towel — it was no bandage, but he didn't have any on him at the moment. He wasn't going to make the child suffer any more than it had to, though it didn't seem to understand that in its panic.
Until Marion returned, its home was the garage to an abandoned house up a street Simon had passed countless times when visiting the Parks. Two states over from the Marions' residence — it was a long drive, but he had all the time in the world. He didn't like listening to the child in the backseat, but soon enough, it realized its begging would do nothing and simply curled up to silently cry.
He suspected that the family wouldn't be pleased to know of his recent plans — and was right to, Park shaking his shoulders and demanding to know what the fuck was wrong with him and where the kid was, Simon genuinely fearing he'd hunt it down to return to its father himself — but that didn't matter. They weren't the ones toe to toe with a national superpower. He wasn't doing this for fun or gratification. He wasn't a monster.
They would be thanking him, and the lives of Paul and Alice Marion would be forgotten amidst those saved. It was only fair for the countless people Marion had erased the lives of in the name of mitigation that he be subjected to the same fate. Unfortunate casualties for a greater cause.
It was all for a greater cause.