AN: Happy Friday everyone, here's chapter 26. Thanks for keeping up with the story so far, extra thank-yous to everyone who has reviewed. Without further ado, please enjoy the chapter.
***Waylon***
The coastline shimmered in the distance.
I'm not sure how long I'd been the driver for, I knew only that the sun had set and risen while I was behind the wheel, that Chealsy had had enough time to sleep and wake up. She still wasn't talking to me, though I hadn't been getting hateful glances like before. Maybe she was sorry for acting the way she did, maybe she just didn't want to admit that she was wrong. It didn't matter either way, but I could at least give her the benefit of the doubt.
The car came to a rolling stop on the side of some highway. I hadn't hit the brakes.
"It's out of gas" I told no one in particular.
"Shit" Chealsy got out of the passenger side and went around to the back of the car.
Having no idea what she was doing I got out as well, as I walked around the back she came into view. She was doing nothing in particular besides glaring at the car. Had she broken? Was less than one hour of fearing for her life and nearly dieing too much? I should be offended that she cracked so easily while I was forced to keep going.
But I wasn't. I simply stared at her without saying a word.
"Of all the damn things... " she went off muttering to herself.
I sat back in the driver seat, standing out in the sun wasn't going to do anything. While I was dimly aware that of a thump that was probably Chealsy kicking a tire I took a look across the water. The sun reflected off its moving surface, giving the look of polished steels or molten glass. If I were to jump into the water how long would it take to drown? Back at the asylum I had written notes for lisa to find should I die. Hadn't I said that suicides seemed wise? In the seat my mind seemed to buzz with ideas.
Oh wait. No, that vibration was from an engine. There were a couple of voices coming from behind the car.
"Hey there little lady, you in need of some help?" whoever was talking had an unusually thick southern drawl to be in California.
"And they say chivalry is dead" Chelsey spoke up as the rumble of a truck engine cut off "I was just having some car trouble"
"Well I bet I can help with that" a door opened and slammed shut. Leave it to Chealsy to get some schmuck to help her out on the side of the road.
"Great, I think I just ran out of gas but-" she kept on talking, I stopped listening. She was probably just going to hitch a ride to some gas station then disappear, leaving me abandoned out here. Seemed like something she'd do.
The slow waves reflected twinkling light at me again. It would be pretty easy, I could just walk in and float off. I could just drift away, forgotten. The quiet rumble of the waves was already drowning the words from Chealsys conversation. She was probably going to vanish any moment now. That might make things easier, having no one to stop me. I could hear foot falls, she was probably walking away now.
There was the thud of a door, any moment now and the engine would start. Any second and-
"Shit!" that wasn't the noise of an engine.
After forcing myself to move from the drivers seat I walked to the back of the car. There was definitely a man there, two of them actually, and neither seemed to be very helpful.
"Hank! Theres a guy there!" one of them shouted to the other.
The man who yelled had Chealsy pinned to the ground despite her struggles and a stream of swears.
"I'm on it" the shorter of the two picked himself up from the ground. As he walked towards me brandishing a pocket knife the only thought running through me head was a question about how he'd ended up of the ground.
He was less than four feet from me.
"Move god damn it! Do something!" Chealsy was yelling from the ground again.
Less than a second away, I wonder how much it would hurt if I just stood still.
"uhh Mike? he ain't moving" he stopped about foot in front of me.
why'd he stop?
"So! Just hurry up so we can have some fun with our lady friend'
"I don't know, he's kinda freaking me out." Hank- I guess that was his name- was just standing there.
"Shit Waylon! Move!" Chelsea kicked up at Mike, landing a knee in his gut.
He was knocked off center just enough for her to escape from under him. Hank was quick to react, turning around and lunging toward Chealsy before I realised what was going on. Some how I reacted to him just as quickly, reaching out a hand to grab the collar of his shirt before he moved to far. He seemed just as surprised by my movement as I was. In more of a blind flail than anything he swung out with the pocket knife, slicing an inch into my upper arm.
Why was I doing this? Why didn't I just give up!?
I didn't have long to think about what I'd done; Hank was recovering from the grab; getting ready to do some real damage. I found myself backing away, getting ready to run. Just before I decided to bolt an arm reached around Hanks neck. His hands went to the thin arm that crushed the air from his lungs.
Chealsy struggled to keep hold, bobbing back and forth trying to avoid his swinging arms.
"Fucking do something!"
I felt the adrenaline pumping, my limbs started to move without consulting my brain. I took a few steps closer and -for the second time in my life- I took a hard swing at a man. My knuckles crunched against Hanks jaw, but I'd done my job and distracted him from grabbing at Chealsy long enough for the lack of oxygen to stop him.
"It's about damn time you did something." Chealsy gave a rough sigh as she turned to look back at the truck the two men had arrived in.
Ya, right, about time.
Taking her walking as a sign I too went to the truck. As we got closer Chealsy stopped to look down at Mike, who was scraping himself off the pavement.
Chealsy was having none of that and landed a swift kick to the side of his head, muttering that he was a "slimy bastard".
He didn't move after that.
I didn't stop for him, instead I opted to climb into the passenger seat while Chealsy took the wheel. With a turn of the keys the engine roared back to life. Chealsy pulled the unwieldy truck from the side of the road and back into the lane, leaving the men to find their own ride.
It looked like we were back in business. Although I didn't know where she was driving to, I had a sinking feeling that we were going to end up at Zeichner facility, that Murkoff was going to go about and make things somewho worse, that…
...I don't even know anymore.
***Miles***
The other half has been resting a lot lately. Even now, on our way into some facility he laid quiet. The lack of his banter bored me. While he wasn't essential, it had been too long of a time sense skin had felt so natural.
William had been a poor fit. Too young, too insecure. Broken minds are boring to shape, they just fall apart after every little thing. I need a mind who had witnessed true terror, and who understood what they'd seen, mad men who don't know fear could never hope to help me spread it. Besides his mind his body couldn't contain me, he needed some damned machines to support himself and me. Weak.
Those times in the late nineteen hundreds were a bore, the years Warnicke kept me sealed away, only letting me out to rebuild my power with the machine. Practice on useless, pampered people with no real knowledge of fear. They were pathetic.
Before that there were the unfortunates at the camps. That was too structured. Warnicke didn't have the technology then to contain me, and the people there were the walking dead. The true knowledge of terror was there, but they didn't have enough to support themselves, how could anyone have expected them to house me as well?
Warnicke himself nearly worked, but his mind was too analytical to crack, to set in it's arrogant ways to be of any use. Looking back, erasing his conscience would have been a service.
The people long before then- they all blend together- hardly ever suited me. A few came and went, but always managed to get themselves killed. Before I merged with the machines healing was quite difficult, but now it was a fast process. All the injuries from three days ago were already healed.
No, Miles was worth keeping around. He was just right. A curious mind, able to accept the strange, but resolute enough to chase after the truth. Exposed to a natural horror, not some man made and controlled experiment, but true danger, with no overseer or puppet master. His body fit as well, not deteriorating like so many seem to.
He was just right.
Did you say something?
... and nothing gets past him either.
***Waylon***
"Great, meet you there. In the mean time I have some work to" Chealsy hung up the phone and handed it back to the young man she borrowed it from.
"Thanks for the borrow." she said as a simple dismissal to the guy.
"Sure thing" he mumbled before walking off. I couldn't help but notice him taking a peek over his shoulders as he walked away.
We stood in the public library of some California city, we'd taken our seats at a row of computers. Turns out that free internet was kind of a huge deal when you wanted to covertly look up an evil megacorporation. The place was near dead, with the one guy chealsy borrowed the phone from being the only living soul in sight.
"Not that you're going to be a massive help or anything but…"
It seemed that after the incident on the side of the road that Chealsy had given up on trying to get me to respond or react to anything. Ever since we'd gotten here the only thing that we'd done was research on Murkoff, most of which either me or her already knew. There were a few things that sounded new, but it wasn't enough to matter.
"...ok nevermind then." apparently I hadn't done whatever she was telling me to. Oh well.
In response to my apathy Chealsy threw herself back in her seat with a heavy sigh.
"I just dont get it!" she said into the air.
I took the bait. "Get what?"
"Why! Why the hell would Murkoff burn millions of dollars on Mount Massive? What were they going to get out of it?"
"A profit" obviously.
"No shit sherlock, but how? I mean sure, they made the Walrider- I think. But how the hell were they expecting to make a buck off of it?"
That was actually a great question, I didn't have the answer. It would have been something worth considering, but now it didn't seem that important. They were stupidly evil and out to make a buck, it didn't matter how poorly thought out their methods were, everyone I loved was dead because of them.
After I failed to make a comment Chealsy continued "you're a great help. At least humor me, I think better when somebody talks back."
"ok" she'd been doing this every fifteen minutes or so.
"It just seems like we have a ton of little pieces, but no string to hold them together, you know?"
"Ya I think you're right" this would be an autopilot conversation on my end.
"Like, why go through all the trouble of unearthing ancient scientists to recreate a murder ghost? How could they possible make money off of that? Then there's the fact that they tortured all those inmates. Why? How did that help with their ultimate goal? How do you make money off of that?
"It would make sense for them to weaponize the walrider, but Murkoff would have no outlet for that. I mean they even contract out their own security, they would have no need for a super weapon. It doesn't look like there would be any medical outlet for the Walrider. That's what they deal in. Medicine."
"You're right".
Murkoff, medicine for the body, medicine for the mind. that was their corporate slogan and it was the biggest piece of shit lie I'd ever heard.
"It's not like the Walrider is some sort of crazy medical robot. It looked like they were trying to spin it that way, but it took a stadium sized machine just to keep one host alive, there's no way to fix that. And it caused freakin lethal ghost fetus's. The medical theorie's bull shit."
"That's a good point." but what about…
"And that brings me to Miles. How the hell does he fit into this? What, he just strolls in, gets himself infected with Walrider mojo and is magically perfectly suited to it? Even assuming that the medical theory was true it makes no sense for it to work on Miles and absolutely nobody else. The head brass at Murkoff isn't stupid, if they really thought even for a second that the risk outweighed the benefit they'd pull the plug. Why was project Walrider still standing after it clearly wasn't working?"
"That's a great question" They thought they could make a buck, its that simple.
"Where do the three blind dreamers fit into this? They were talked about in one of the files and they sound like they were part of some creepy-ass experiment just like the Walrider, how they could have turned a profit off of that one?"
"I don't know"
"Shit, can't you say anything useful?"
And here she went dissolving into a rant against me, again. I was starting to think that this was some sort of defence mechanism. I hadn't talked back sense the desert, it wasn't worth getting her worked up.
"This is just such bullshit. We have half the pieces, but none of them fit together. We can't just out Murkoff like this. Without motive they can just chalk up anything we say or show about them as being a terrible accident. Are you even listening to me!? This fucking matters, if you don't buck the hell up everyone would have died in vain."
"They already have."
She gave me a look that I wished had killed me.
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that"
Of course she would. It wasn't like anybody else had.