Eight :::
Crawl Into The Dark Machine
Alone, sitting in a confined room, one wrist still bounded, this time to a table leg, Aiden eyeballs the clock. Time drags on for however long he's been kept in this room. Now he's beginning to see how those prisoners feel, except they've been detained for several months, and nearly a dozen committed suicide during the first few weeks after arrival. It all makes sense to him now—being cornered like an animal is no way anyone should be treated. He wouldn't grant this on his worst enemy.
But he knows why his fellow guards stripped him of his weapon, coms and stun staff. For some unexplainable reason, Aiden really lost his shit and snapped at thin air. The sensation hijacked his body, like someone else with a fucked up mind had switched brains with his. What was that thing he saw—he felt? It couldn't had been some hallucination, like he's heard floating about in regards of the prisoners' shredded minds. Though it wasn't just them nor Aiden himself. Outside the CEC facility, in the Public Sectors of the Sprawl, he's heard stories about residence seeing 'ghosts'. Some of which even hearing or smelling things that weren't there. On some occasions, Sprawl residence heard voices in their heads, tempting them into committing violent crimes. It doesn't make sense at all… how could any of that be effecting…?
…The door opens, Aiden's attention falls on a man he's seen around on the surveillance monitors but never caught his name. When the man sits in the chair directly across the table, Aiden's eye lands on his CEC badge nested in his breast pocket: F. Edgars.
Edgars doesn't say a word to Aiden, doesn't even look his way as he powers on his tablet, mostly referred to as a slate now. Anyway, Edgars calmly places his slate on the table top, enabling the kickstand so the handled device can sit up at an angle. Clearing his throat, he then reaches into his breast pocket pulling out a stylus pen and begins swiping the pen across the tablet's surface.
This entire time, Aiden has been watching the man, starring right at his shifting eyeballs reading whatever is on the screen.
Having enough of this guy's silent coyness, Aiden attempts to break the stiff quiet. "Look, I know I freaked-out out there," he begins to say, receiving no reply from Edgars. So he goes on with, "but I'm good now—I'm…I'm good to go. So, if you can get these cuffs off me…"
Cutting his sentence short, an annoyance fills Aiden's gut when he realizes this stuck up bastard isn't even listening to a word he says. Edgars continues to tap away on that slate, his eyes blinking absently as if Aiden up and vanished out of existence. It becomes evidently clear that Edgars is in no mood of hearing him say a word. So Aiden leans back into the uncomfortable metal chair exhaling a tired sigh, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand.
After what felt like forever of waiting, Aiden's daydreaming is severed by the sound of Edgars' voice breaking the quiet air between them. "Mr. Richardson…?"
"Oh, so now you see me?" Aiden says with dry sarcasm. "I guess the invisibility cloak had found a new owner."
Edgars' deep set eyes grow narrow, his rough face folding with slight malice. "Mr. Richardson, I've become aware of the matter that you suffered a spontaneous and sudden panic attack while positioned at your station." Edgars' eyes shift down to the slate, "between the hour mark of 21:09 to 21:13, your RIG registered a heighten surge in blood pressure as well as problematic brainwave activity."
"Yeah, so?" Aiden says, trying to see the point Edgars is dancing around.
Edgars brings his eyes back on Aiden, "mind explaining to me, in as much detail you can provide as to what you experience during those four minutes?"
Aiden dances his vision off Edgars for a moment, processing his jumbling thoughts of the odd occurrence that had robbed him of all sanity and reality. "I… it was all so strange… the whole thing, really."
"Take your time," Edgars coaxes, even managing a thin smile as he folds his hands on top the table. "You have nothing to be ashamed of, Mr. Richardson. Whatever you experienced… either it had been an unusual sighting, seeing a decease relative that spoke to you… similar accounts have been reordered in and around the Sprawl for months."
Aiden appreciates the man's reassurances, and judging off that stiffen smile of his, Aiden assumes that Edgars has heard these stories all too much.
"It's just…" Aiden begins to say, "what I saw…" he shakes his head. "It didn't… it wasn't anything I've ever seen before."
Edgar slightly raises a brow, though maintains a solid façade.
"Like it—it was something you can't even make up in your mind… like you totally have to be jacked up on every drug in the universe to visualize."
"Surely you can describe one part of it," Edgars proposes, speaking with curiosity in his tone. Or surprise, Aiden can't tell. Edgars quickly touches at the slate before turning it around for Aiden to use. The screen blank white, Edgars offers the stylus. "Draw it, perhaps?"
Aiden gives the man an unbelievable stare, "seriously? Unless you have some pills for me to pop, dude…"
"Something stimulated the apparition you saw, Mr. Richardson." Edgars inserts the stylus in Aiden's hand. "Maybe if you free sketch—anything… it may lead to what made you see what you saw."
Aiden sees where he's coming from, but starring at this blank white screen just hinders his ability even further to generate that part of his mind. That's just the thing, he didn't see it— he felt it… if that makes any sense. There is something about these visions or whatever that evoke more than just emotions. Aiden can't come up with the right words to describe it… almost, supernatural.
"Sorry man," Aiden says shaking his head, handing back the stylus. "Got nothing. My mind's still numb… I don't think I can…"
"Don't apologize, Mr Richardson." Edgards says, a hint of disappointment licking his tone. "I'm sure, in time, the moment will reveal itself." Taking his slate to hand, Edgards stares at his wristwatch, rather an old Earth custom, then stands from his seat. He makes a move for the door, sending a worried pit to settle in Aiden's stomach.
"Wh-where are you going?" Aiden asks.
Tucking the slate under his arm, Edgards turns his back to Aiden, keying the sliding door open that leads out to the corridor. Just before he leaves, Edgards' pocketed walkie-talkie crackles off, a startled voice hails through.
"All units—all units… Phase One breach in effect—I repeat Phase One breach in effect…"
Aiden's stomach turns and he feels the blood in his face flush away, "no fuckin' way."
Confusion written across his face, Edgards pivots around facing Aiden and asks, "Phase One breach?"
Aiden swallows a dry lump in his throat before saying, "Director Tiedemann's dead."
Something is very wrong, that much Isaac can tell while trapped in his cell. Behind the two inch reinforced metal door to his hold, he's heard gunfire along with numerous running footsteps slamming across the grated walkways. Open coms chatter blazing, guards spewing curse words like it's a contest… yep, something's gone to shit and fast.
Pressing himself against the metal framing of the door, Isaac strains to make out the source to all this calamity. Through it all, he is able to make out the words Phrase or Phase One and a Containment… followed by a word he can't quite make out. He does however, make out the brief and frantic conversation of two guards passing by his cell.
"….Fuckin' cares man—I'm bailin' my ass outta here!"
"B-but w-what were those fucking things—for real though, Jennings!?" The second guard says.
"Look, let's just get the fuck outta here, alright?" Jennings says. "We'll figure out what the fuck that shit was later, okay? Now move your…"
Their conversation becomes lost as they continue to fast walk by Isaac's cell. They have no intentions of opening the cell doors, they are hauling ass out of this place, from whatever spooked them.
"Wait—Wait!" Isaac pounds his fists against the metal.
His noise goes unheard, or ignored, as the guards break into a jog down the walkway until their footsteps become a distant thump.
"FUCK!" Isaac shouts bashing both hands to the door. He steps back, away from the door plumping down on the edge of the cot. "This can't be happening…" Isaac mutters, balancing his head in his hands. There is no way out of this cell, this is it, Isaac deeply contemplates. This is where he's going to die…caged like an animal by his own race.
"Isaac…" a scant, whispery voice calls out to him. He doesn't bother raising his head, to look up and see nothing like before. It's all in his head, the voices… her voice. It isn't real, just the tenacious madness pressuring against his temples, drilling into his brain.
"Isaac…? I know you can hear me."
Digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, Isaac gives his head a rough shake, refusing to acknowledge the ghost he knows isn't there.
"You're not real," he says. "All of it… it isn't real."
This time, he feels a hand gently resting on his kneecap. The sensation causes him to shudder, every muscle in his body tenses as if he got hit with a stun staff. Straining to stare into the blackness of his sealed eyes, Isaac finds it almost impossible to ignore the tickling gust of wind of someone's breath at his ear.
"Even if you choose to believe that… it doesn't defeat your purpose… what It wants you to do."
"No…" Isaac utters out, keeping his eyes clamped shut.
The voice presses on, with its eerie composure, "Isaac…"
"NO! Just… just fuck off, would ya? Leave me the fuck alone!" Tears begin to swell up behind his eyes. It's hard trying to persuade himself otherwise to not listen to sound of his girlfriend's disembodied voice. He knows that she's dead, been dead for a long time, yet still, a part of him breaks every time her voice chimes in from the corner of his mind.
Finally, the voice stops, granting Isaac his wish of total loneliness. Slowly sliding his hands off his face, Isaac chances a peek of his enclosed surroundings. Nothing, just as expected.
Releasing the tension out of his muscles, Isaac rests back on the cot, prompt up on his elbows. Leaning all the way back, Isaac stares up at the clammy ceiling, engraved with the strange symbols that projected before his eyes. He brings his hands up over his face, inspecting his blistered and chipped finger nails. He doesn't recall sketching those markings, but the detail is engraved into his battered hands. How many days has he been detained here? None of that matters now, or any more. This cell will be his grave… there is no getting out of—
—"HOLY SHIT!"
The words just barely escaped his throat when a demonic, twisted figure hops on top of him, pinning his wrists back over his head and trapping his torso from moving. He is unable to detach his eyes off the terrible face hovering right over his own. It's Nicole, a grotesque, decaying image of her Isaac hardly recognizes behind the bloodied strands of her blonde hair and bloodshot pilus of her once blue eyes.
Isaac is strangled by a terror in his heart that he hasn't ever felt before. Total helplessness takes hold of him.
"YOU WANT TO GIVE UP—TO END THE PAIN?!" The Nicole apparition shouts into Isaac's face with so much malic, Isaac doesn't think he's ever heard such anger escape someone's throat, or if it was physically possible. "YOU DON'T HAVE THE FAINTEST CLUE OF PAIN—OF SUFFERING—OF DYING. YOU HAVEN'T EVEN SCRATCHED THE SURFACE, ISAAC. YOU DON'T HAVE OUR PERMISSION TO DIE, ISAAC CLARKE—NOT YET—ONLY WHEN WE ALLOW IT!"
As quickly as the demonic apparition had come, it vanishes the moment Isaac blinks his eyes.
Launching up off the cot, in a cold sweat, Isaac does a three-sixty of his surroundings, making sure whatever the hell that was… was gone far away from him.
"Fuck… fuck…" holding a palm to his forehead, pivoting in place, Isaac struggles to regain his composure. His heart thumps like a hammer slamming into his chest, his breathing rapid and unsettled. Slightly at ease, Isaac sits back down on the cot starring down between his legs, looking at his bare feet.
"Man…" he exhales gripping the back of his head with clasped hands. Taking a few breaths, Isaac closes his eyes, slowing the rapid thoughts firing in his mind…
Step One…
"Huh?" Raising his head, Isaac glances around. It wasn't the voice, not this time, though a thought—a random thought jumping through his mind. "Step One…" he mutters aloud.
Bringing his gaze in front of him, to the cell door, he sees Nicole—not that ugly, menacing thing from earlier, but her, clear as day. She's smiling, standing… outside the cell? In the corridor.
"Isaac… it's time to go," Nicole tells him, gesturing an arm. She doesn't wait for him to get up, calming stepping out his field of vision down the corridor.
Glued to the cot, Isaac blinks several times that he isn't seeing another illusion. Nope, his eyes nor his mind isn't playing games this time… the cell door is open.
"Step One…" he mumbles again, rising up to his feet. He takes a breath then begins taking slow steps towards the open doorway.
He pauses at the threshold starring down the length of the darken corridor that looks to go on forever. Nicole apparently vanished into thin air. However, Isaac follows the way the apparition had went and starts that way.
Taking his first few steps, the first thing Isaac notes is the slight discomfort emerging from the soles of his shoeless feet. Also, the cool air cutting though the thin fabric of his unbutton gown. Isaac clutches the fabric closer over his chest, trying to cut out as much of the cold as possible. Isaac begins walking the length of the near quiet corridor. His walking pace is sluggish at best, given the fact that he hasn't walked no more than five feet on his own in the countless amount of days he's been here.
He passes one cell, the door also open, but no one inside. He remembers that other prisoner he heard the guards harassing the other day or so.
"Wonder whatever happened to that guy," Isaac muses to himself.
There isn't much in the cell, besides a tray of half-eaten food sitting on the floor in a corner. Most of the slimy gunk is out the tray, smeared across the floor, walls and even the ceiling. Isaac keeps moving.
His weak twigs for legs step down the low ceiling corridor, entirely encased in gunmetal black steel. Isaac identifies some of the dull metallic alloys of belonging to natural ore, like asteroid rock. In fact, the few jagged edges jutting from the walls and ceilings remind him of just that.
"What the hell is this place?" He wonders. It wows him that for weeks—months maybe, that he never truly got a full picture as to where he's been. Given the tight quarters of the corridor, lack of any windows of any kind, he can safely bet that he's underground on some backwater planet or even Earth at that. Though he doubts the latter.
Allowing his mind to continue speculating his whereabouts, Isaac passes by another cell, the door also open. A repulsive and fierce stench radiates out, striking Isaac's nostrils, causing his eyes to sting with tears.
Winching his nose to the powerful stench, Isaac dares a peek inside the gloomy lit cell. Like the last one, it's also empty of anyone, and for a good reason too. The cell floor is covered in shit… literal shit. Isaac is even able to hear the faint buzz of flies dancing over the feces. Oddly enough, the metallic, stainless steel toilet is left spotless.
"Someone had a serious case of diarrhea," Isaac jokes, shielding the cloth of his flimsy smock over his nose. He's glad his sense of humor had stuck around during his captivity. But he has to put all that aside and get that logical side of his mind working again. From his brief journey down the detention hall, he noted that not every cell was open, just a few from what he's seen thus far. Which means someone deliberately opened his door—these doors, which also means there are other prisoners wandering out here like Isaac. But where the hell are they?
Making it at the end of the hall, dragging each step behind him, Isaac nears a powered off sliding door, slightly cracked open with enough space to squeeze his hand through. With the little strength he has, Isaac pushes the door open and slips through. The door slides back to its previous state once he got pass; the area ahead of him is plunged in near darkness with just the faintest of light emitting from a reflective surfaces of the walls. In time, Isaac eyes begin adjusting to the darkness and he forces himself to continue moving.
The flooring has smoothed out, no longer grated under Isaac's feet allowing him some comfort. Walking with outstretched arms gripping nothing but air, eyes squinting to see, Isaac has no idea what's ahead of him. Each footstep is a question. He doesn't hear anything but air and his own dry breaths and turbulent heart beating hard in his eardrums. If only he can find a flashlight or…
…A pair of frantic pounding footsteps come at Isaac from out of the darkness. His body connects with a solid, compact mass that knocks him off his feet and falling hard on his shoulder. A blinding, swaying white light stabs his eyeballs, following a coarse, thicken voice, shouting down at Isaac.
"Who the fuck is you?!" The deep, rabid voice demands.
Shielding the light out his eye with one hand, Isaac squints up trying to see beyond the light but can't. "What?"
The man behind the voice yanks Isaac up off the floor then roughly shoves him back against a wall. Isaac felt his organs jump from the force and his neck whiplashing back. The man grips the loose collar of Isaac's smock, his stinking breath engulfing Isaac's nose. He still can't make out his assailant for the flashlight has dangled downward towards the floor.
"Who. The fuck. Is you—motherfucka?!" The man repeats. "You one'a them uniformed men? The people keeping me locked up behind steel? Cuz if you are… I'ma yank yo intestine clean out from yo asshole, boy!"
"No—No, just relax, okay man?" Isaac says to the man, surprisingly calm. "I was locked up too, just like you. Had some Asari poke my brain ever so often too."
This earns some hesitation from Isaac's attacker. Soon, the man easies his grip on Isaac's smock but doesn't let him go.
"Why should I trust you, huh?" The man interrogates. "You know what—maybe I should just kill you to make sure, right?"
"No—no—no… I wouldn't do that, trust me," Isaac quickly replies. "Because if you do, you'll never get out of this place—not on your own at least."
Out of nowhere, the man tightens his grip on Isaac, this time clamping a hand to Isaac's throat. "What you just say?" The man utters in a drastically different tone—one of sudden disbelief—or anger. "Y-you know where to find my daughter? You saw her?!"
Confused as hell, Isaac squirms to find comfort in the man's grip at his throat. "What… are you talking about?"
After a painful suspense of silence, the man releases his hold on Isaac's throat. "Show me where you last saw my daughter," he says, more or less demands. "If she trusts you… then I guess I can too." The man turns his back to Isaac, entering the room he may had been in when he blindsided Isaac.
"Yeah, good to know," Isaac says, particularly to no one, clearing his throat and rubbing the sore spot on his shoulder. Having no clue what strange occurrence swayed the man's mind in not trusting him, Isaac hesitates before following behind him, into the room. He doesn't want to, but he can't see a damn thing without that guy's light. For now, he's stuck with him.
Everything is tainted in blackness, except for where the man shines the beam of his flashlight. From what Isaac can see, it's a locker room or something. The man who assaulted him is knelt down, rummaging through the lower portion of an open locker. With the light casted upward, Isaac is able to make out the man's features. He's Human, for one, dressed in a similar fashion as Isaac, although he isn't shoeless, wearing a pair of guard boots. His voice, however, doesn't match his body type at all nor his strength. The guy's actually scrawny, possibly malnourished. Hell, Isaac probably looks the same way given the fact that he had a meal whenever the guards felt like it. Just thinking about food makes Isaac's stomach tie into knot.
"Couldn't find a gun—got a knife though," the scrawny man says, still stooped low, dangling a knife blade for Isaac to see. "Catch." The guy tosses something Isaac's way, in which Isaac misses terrible, allowing whatever it is to clatter on the floor. It's a pen-size flashlight, similar to the one the guy has.
Isaac clicks the light on and begins his own search around the compacted locker room. His beam shines upon a pair of boots where he tries putting them on. They are about his size, a little big but better than stumbling around the dark with nothing at all.
"Hurry up," the man says, startling Isaac as he came over. "The faster we find Vivian… the faster we can get the hell off this rock."
Trying hard not to become a part of whatever fantasy was playing out in this guy's head, Isaac tempts a chance to get some clarity, if any is there to be found. "Vivian… she's your daughter?" He looks up at the man's face while lacing up his boots. The man doesn't say anything, just scrounges his face as if disgusted.
The man eventually nods then utters a narrow, "yeah."
Treading carefully to remain on this guy's good-side, Isaac goes on. "What… what happened to her? Why are you looking for her?"
"The men in uniforms took her away," the man begins to explain, folding his arms, "when they brought us here on the Sprawl."
The Sprawl… Isaac mentally notes. We're in the Sol System after all.
"Haven't seen her in days… weeks…" the man shakes his head, "I don't even fucking know how long anymore." He releases a sigh, sliding his back against a locker until he's sitting on the floor across from Isaac. "Stopped givin' a damn after I reached day… eight-two? Eight-two, I think."
Finished tying the laces, Isaac asks, "you remember what happened before you ended up here on the Sprawl?"
Giving the question some thought, the man shakes his head, "I just remember my baby girl being taken from me by some assholes and then them throwing me in a cell. But you… you said you saw her. When, where?"
Isaac's mind goes blank with any explanation. He hasn't seen anyone but that Asari and even those memoires are splotchy at best. He doesn't remember seeing a little girl or anything at that matter. Though Isaac knows he has to lie his way out of this, there's no telling what this man is cable of doing if he derails from his fantasy train to la-la land.
"It was somewhere in the Public Sectors of the Sprawl," Isaac begins to improvise, hiding his lie with a matter-of-factly tone. "I don't remember where or how long ago, but if we figure a way out of here… we'll find her."
The man narrows his gaze at Isaac, the shadow of his brow highlighted by the active flashlight set between them. "But I thought you said you helped her get away," he says. "From the uniformed men that took her in the first place…?"
"I… did," Isaac lies, suppressing the quiver of his voice. "I told her to run… I held the uniformed men off so she could escape and then they grabbed me and took me here, to where ever this place is. I'm sorry if it isn't enough information, but your daughter's out there and we're gonna find her. But we have to find a way out of this place first."
Breaking the man's rough face, a weak smile comes through. The man then stands to his feet, offering a hand for Isaac to take. Isaac grips the man's hand who pulls him standing.
"I'm Isaac," Isaac introduces himself.
"I'm…my name is Nick," the man tells him, loosening his grip. "And so to make things clear between us… if you fuckin' with me… and this whole thing's a set up," Nick brandishes the knife. "You're gonna wish we never met, is that understood, Isaac?"
Swallowing a dry lump, Isaac simply nods his head.
Nick passes him by, heading back into the corridor.
What the hell am I getting myself into? Isaac contemplates with a shallow sigh. This Nick guy is unstable, but he may be Isaac's only shot to freedom. That's if he doesn't try to kill him first.
Isaac and Nick head down the corridor, shining their lights across every space before them. The lights are good, but the darkness of this corridor just swallows them up. It becomes apparent to Isaac that the power has blown out in this sector, for what reason, he doesn't know.
The pair remain relatively quiet, passing through another door and heading up a set of stairs arriving on a new level altogether. In truth, they are stumbling around in a darken maze with no idea what lies beyond each corner.
"That's strange," Isaac mutters.
"What?" Nick asks.
"Haven't ran across any guards or anyone else… they must have evacuated this section, cut the power too."
"Why would they cut the power?" Nick questions.
Isaac shakes his head, "no idea. I heard the guards running from something, scared shitless. Something about a Phase One. Any of that makes sense to you?"
Nick grumbles something inaudible, Isaac takes it as a no.
"Maybe the power outage is what opened our cells," Isaac contemplates, trying to get his mind thinking about all this. "But it was just certain cells that were open… not all of them…" Which points to this entire thing being premeditated. Someone wanted them out their cells, for all Isaac knows, he and Nick can be walking into a trap. Then if that's the case, Isaac'll have to be quick on his feet. If they waltz in on an ambush, he'll have to toss Nick into the line of fire and escape. It's a morbid idea… but he hardly knows the guy—and he's already threaten to kill him… twice.
Sorry Nick… better you than me, pal.
Suddenly, Nick sticks his arm out across Isaac's chest, halting their movement.
"You hear that?" Nick asks.
Isaac doesn't reply, instead he holds his breath, trying to pick up on what Nick had heard. When he hears nothing, he asks, "what was—"
"Shhhh! Shh!" Nick quiets him down. When his noise stops echoing, Isaac does in fact hear something… a distant shriek emitting from down the corridor, followed by a series of thumps, like equipment falling to the floor.
"It's this way," Nick says dashing through the darkness, Isaac trailing behind him.
He tries keeping up with Nick's gait, but the taller man's stride out preforms his weak, limp of a walk. "Nick!" He calls out to him, trying to slow him down when he veers around a corner at the end of the corridor. "Nick—slow down!"
Nick just keeps going, leaving Isaac in the dust. By the time Isaac rounds the corner, Nick had already passed through a door leading to another set of stairs going upward. Isaac climbs the steps, finding himself winded after just a few. His lungs beginning to sting forcing him to rely on all fours, literally climbing the steps like a four-legged animal.
Reaching the top of the steps, his lungs feeling like they'll bursts open, Isaac thrusts through the door where he is bombarded by an assortment of voices, all shouting and screaming over one another ending in a messy echo. He easily makes out a woman, Nick… and another guy's voice he finds awfully too familiar.
Sucking in a tired breath after breath, Isaac drags his feet down the short corridor leading him into a near darken foyer resembling an office wing or maybe a hospital. A few emergency lights along with the crimson, neon glow of exit signs emit just enough ambient light for Isaac to make out the two other people.
He sees Nick, restraining a Human man who looks half-starved and out-of-his mind. The woman, also Human, cowers behind a receptionist desk shouting to keep the half-starved man away from her. From what Isaac can see, her hands are covered in blood, whose blood is the question. None of them see Isaac walk in on the commotion.
"Hang back—hang back…!" Nick shouts over and over into the skinny man's ear while shoving his shoulder into the other man's chest.
On top of that, the dark haired woman continues to shout, "Keep him away—don't let him near me!"
The half-starved man utters the same thing repeatedly, while desperately trying to lunge pass Nick to reach the hysterical woman. "I can fix her—I can show her the enlightenment!" His hands, like the woman's are bloodied too, his face too, blacken blood stains his upper lip.
All their voices jumble into a contorted mangled mess of confusion, cascading up to the high ceiling of this foyer. All this noise… Isaac fears someone is going to hear them—possibly ruin their chances of escape. He has to find a way to shut them the hell up.
"You guys…" Isaac tries to say, waddling into the mess. His voice is easily drowned out by their maddening shouting. "Hey guys, you gotta quiet down…"
"…Keep him back…!"
"…Stop man…! Hang back…!"
"…ENLIGHTENMENT…!"
Isaac shakes his head, fuck it.
Taking a long stride, Isaac wedges himself between the half-starved man and Nick, managing to separate the two. "STOP!"
The half-starved man fixes a lingering stare on Isaac, an inert smile twisting his lips. "You…?" He whispers, backing out of Isaac's hand holding him back. "you…you…you," now singing his words in a morose melody. "Isaac Clarke… the voices…. They spoke about you."
Relaxing his ridged stance, Isaac eyeballs the crazed man. He's heard his voice before… back in the cell—the guy the guards were harassing. This is him.
"You're the one who made it scream. Made it hurt," the crazed man goes on, in an almost hissing tone, "made it bleed."
"How do you know me?" Isaac questions.
"The voices… t-they—they speak to me—told me everything…" The half-starved man utters out, jittering maddening laugher. "Don't t-they speak to you—t-tell you things?"
"Don't buy anything he say to you," Nick says. "Man's always been on the nutty side."
Yeah, and you're just the poster-child of sanity yourself… Isaac wanted to say real badly but refrains from doing so.
"Kuttner's right," the woman speaks this time, standing up off the floor. Just like the man who was troubling her, she is also frail, even in the low lighting, she looks like a standing skeleton. "But I think we're all losing our minds here."
"Kuttner?" Isaac recalls, lowering his arms back to his side. For now, the tension has diminished.
"Me," Nick says to him. "It's my full name: Nicholas Kuttner. You've already met Stross' craze-ass," he points to the half-starved man, holding a distraught grin.
"And I'm Isabel—Isabel Cho," the woman says, still hesitative on approaching the group.
"I'm Isaac Clarke," Isaac tells the group. "But I guess some of you knew that…" he says, eyeing Stross. "So you guys know each other?"
Neither of them reply right away, looking at one another as if some big secret was set between them. Nick is the one who breaks the silence, "yeah, met onboard a Concordance transport craft… the USM Abraxis. We were locked up then too, in a brig onboard the ship."
Surprised on how much Nick remembers prior to the Sprawl, Isaac begins to feel a bit resented when he asked Nick earlier about anything preceding their current situation. He guess it was due to the fact that Nick didn't know him from Adam.
"There were these people that interrogated us," Nick goes on, "the men in uniforms…asked us questions about some incident that occurred on another ship."
"They then brought us here," Isabel chimes in, finally stepping from behind the desk, joining the group. She does maintain her distance from Stross who has calmed down dramatically, although the man isn't participating in the conversation at all. He's too busy waddling around the foyer, flaring his arms wildly and mumbling a constant flow of words under his breath.
"Detained us in prison holds only to be subjugated by some Asari bitch poking around in our heads," Isabel finishes explaining.
"Wait—wait, just… back up here for a second," Isaac says slowing this fast developing conversation down. "Now you guys said there was an incident that happened onboard another ship you came off of just before the Abraxis took you in?"
Both Nick and Isabel hesitatively nod this confirmation.
"Do you remember what happened specifically?"
"Why do you want to know?" Isabel challenges, narrowing her gaze on Isaac. "Why are you even here—I don't recall you being on the Abraxis?"
"Because I think the same thing happened to me," Isaac says. "Only I was on a planet cracker ship: USG Ishimura. I don't remember why or how it happened… but everyone onboard died. My… my girlfriend, Nicole, too."
A heavy silence transpires with the exceptions of Stross' inaudible mumbling filling it. Isaac gazes at the floor, not trying to replay that painful memory—his only detailed memory of watching Nicole commit suicide.
"I just remember hearing it was a terrorists attack," Nick says with a half shrug, breaking the extensive pause. "And that we were the terrorist. But that can't be true," his eyes shift over to Isabel, "right? I mean… I have a daughter to live for, man. I wouldn't do some dumbass terrorist shit!"
"Well, I wouldn't know, Kuttner, I hardly know you or Stross at all," Isabel says, her voice slightly harsher than before. "I just know the Concordance wouldn't lock us up like animals just to be some Asari's lab rats. Then again…" she nervously grabs her left elbow with her right hand, "I could be wrong."
"Well we aren't gonna figure anything out standing here," Isaac says. "We need to get moving, find out where exactly we are in the Sprawl and get some answers."
"And find Vivian," Nick adds.
Isaac nods to that, "yeah, and that." He gravels out, feeling a bit ashamed for lying to the man about seeing his daughter. How pissed will he get if—when he finds out it was bullshit…?
…Startling all three of them, Stross begins shouting to the high ceiling, "You can't run nor hide from the changing!" The crazed man exclaiming with outstretched arms, his voice booming. "It's already begun! Written in stone with Human blood…! We've unleashed its power…! But now—NOW it'll show us the path to enlightenment!"
"Man's gotten crazier since the last time I saw him," Nick says, shaking his head in disbelief.
"We should leave him," Isabel proposes. "He'll only make things harder for us."
"We can't," Isaac says, earning an affronting gleam from the woman. "Like you said, there's gotta be a reason the Concordance holding us prisoner. And in that fucked up head of his may be that reason. You and Nick already remember more than I ever could, there's no telling what Stross'll tell us."
"Yeah, that's if he doesn't try to bite your face off first!" Isabel counters. She allows herself to calm a little then continues with, "he's your responsibility. He slows us down or tries to hurt any of us… we're cutting him loose."
Isaac nods to that.
Isabel is the first to depart from the group, leading the way towards a set of stairs going up to the second level of the foyer. Nick shares a brief glance of concern with Isaac before following after Isabel.
Isaac sighs then turns to see Stross still wandering around in the dark. "Hey Stross, we're leaving."
When the man doesn't acknowledge that he heard him, Isaac walks over to him, cautions in keeping a relative safe distance. Stross is like a wild animal let out of its cage, but Isaac hopes there's still some Humanity left in that slushed out brain of his.
"Come on Stross, don't get left behind," Isaac tries to coax the man out of his madness.
His efforts seem to pay off when Stross suddenly stops in his aimless pacing then brings his gaze on Isaac. "Isaac…" he hollows out, eyes widen like a deer in headlights "the enlight—"
"Yeah—yeah the 'enlightenment'," Isaac cuts him off. "It's this way," he thumbs over his own shoulder. "Come on."
Stross clamps both hands over his own mouth, almost like suppressing himself from saying something he isn't supposed to, then passes Isaac by.
Sighing deeply, Isaac shakes his head then turns to follow after Stross. As he is, he catches a glimpse of Nicole, standing dead-center in the darken foyer. Isaac forces himself from looking at her, though he feels her ghostly gaze upon him.
Step One… The thought passes through his mind again, causing a sudden migraine to assault his brain. Step One…What does it mean? Why is she here again? What does It want?
A/N: So let's see... Aiden shits his pants... Isaac lies to a crazy person... 3 delusional people and a psychopath join forces...humm... what can possible go wrong?
