I am torn up between following this man or some other roads of my own choosing. I am not exactly shocked, I have seen even worse crimes live, reenacted or after the fact, but I am surprised. Here I was worried that I would spook the sheep, while the wolves roam around free to do what they want without fear of consequences. Or at least without caring.
The man with the knife searches his victim of anything valuable and then calmly leaves. A puddle of blood flows towards the light from the corner, and it is both our queues to leave. He is not as dumb as he acts, but he does not plan much, only does. The same question as before returns to me: up or down? Up there are working men, though for what they work is unknown to me. Down are the dregs. My mind tells me up is where the answers are. My hind brain tells me that there will be time for that later, that now I am in the middle of the hunt and I should not end it until either I am satisfied or I learned something new of the dregs. Reluctantly, I follow the shadowy man. I think I see something in his humpback, something he's hiding, something... protruding? Something hidden or a... defect? A mutation? It would explain why they would hide here. Maybe those malformed are not allowed up, for whatever reason. But for this to happen, and to as many as I saw below, would take generations. By the twisted God that sent me here, how long have these people lived here? And why? Sure, civilized society is less civilized when faced with something different than its current norms, I am a good example for this, but surely in this day and age, they should not fear linching or persecution from the American government at least. I may not be in Miami anymore, but that storm shouldn't have thrown me farther than Cuba, and I doubt they have such an elaborate underground (at the time, it was the only description I could think of) facility, and would especially not let it waste away like I see here. My logic tells me that I was somehow thrown from the ocean into one of these metallic caverns, where I suspect these people found their way into, and... what?... started building a society with their own language? The more I think about it, the less it makes sense. I am also starting to see people moving... on wheels instead of feet... bulky people... who ignore all and are ignored by all. Covered, cloaked, they go from machinery to machinery and gurgle to them, then continue, as if maintaining them or checking them. They show no emotion, no reaction, no fear. Nothing fits. Damn it, nothing fits!
I continue to follow this man as he goes lower than I suspected possible. The corridors look more cramped, moss and other unidentifiable growths spur from the metal (!), feeding on God-knows what. I hear howls of wild beasts (who feed also on God knows what!) and this at least seems to spook my so-far calm followee. I give no reaction and I continue to calculate, more and more variables denying to fit in this mad place. The lights grow dimmer and dimmer, and though it does not affect me, the man seems as born for this. I try to follow his sounds without making noise and it seems to work. The humming that is sometimes growing and sometimes making less sound, as we zig-zag through the cramped and often unused corridors, masks any sounds I might make. Eventually, he arrives above a round structure, where other people seem to be. Others still are in shadow, and I decide to stop and watch the "show", for it looks like it's putting up a show indeed. The middle of the room is octagon shaped, and a strange eerie red light permeates the room from its corners with no obvious light source. What kind of technology are these people using? When ruling out the possible, the only thing you have left is the impossible, and my mind flies to extraterrestrial life forms having a base on Earth where I somehow ended up. Indeed, from that perspective, some of this makes sense. The fear, the different language, the weird technologies, the deformed masses of humanity. A part of me still thinks this is a dream, but it is too vivid and I cannot risk dying here. If I was somehow... abducted... or just fell in through some cracks I need to find a way to return home.
The weird people are gathered around the octagon, less masked now and more deformed. Some, for lack of a different word and without the emotional attachment to the word, can only be described as horrors. Faces that appear to be burned off, but not with fire, but with... skin having dissolved itself. I do not suspect disease, not as I know it, for surely there must be cures for this, and I have never seen anything like it before. I pride myself of being a man of science, not only of forensics, and I have looked at malformation studies, but these are... just exaggerated. Some have bone growths in the wrong places, some have eyes in the wrong places, too many eyes. They move wildly on them, as if spurred by madness, though I am certain they can actually see with them. If I had seen the certain bone formations on only one of them, I would have said it was a statistical coincidence, but instead I see horns on many of them, on their heads. Some are like a ram's, some are like a friggin unicorn's, and let me tell you, a spiral horn in the middle of a human head filled with disheveled hair is definitely not cute. I do not wish to be the one skewered by the... people?... these creatures.
Am I in hell? I ask myself. Though I expected hell to be... less metallic, I realize it really is starting to freeze in some parts of this place. Did I die and went to hell? A part of me asks, not panicked, just assessing. Wherever I am, I need to learn the rules of the game in order to... survive? ... flourish? I don't know what I'm doing here, but I won't be put down. More importantly though. Don't get caught. These three words have a more interesting meaning right now. Until now, it was don't let them catch you acting like a monster. Now, it's don't let the worse monsters catch you. Because I am a human being. I am not racist, sexist or puritan in general, but the sight of these... things made me appreciate my relatively pure human form if not my mind. They look like animals, they act like animals. I do not wish to join them unless I have no choice.
I feel an unearthly heat emanating from the construct below me, I see markings that seem to move, writhe, want to... get into my head? I ignore their lure while still trying to understand them. A part of me tells me that madness much worse than mine will result from my exact understanding of them, but the scientist in me still wants to know. As if listening to my thoughts, I begin to hear whispers, as slithering as the signs, begging, yelling, threatening and a thousand more emotions that I do not possess, all battling for my attention. I begin to suspect the ones around me are trying to make an "atmosphere" of this techno-barbarism, but most of them seem transfixed on the ever-changing light. They start incantations and prayers and other voodoo third world mumbo-jumbo and the lights are getting brighter. My ever dwindling voice of logic tells me someone must be pushing some buttons in the background, but I somehow know that is not the case.
Finally, someone arrives with a gagged and struggling woman, leading her to the center of the construction. This does not even surprise me anymore, a sacrifice. The voices seem to dwindle, apparently concentrating on the woman instead, as she looks now even more panicked. Maybe she just realized in what position she is, or maybe... the voices are giving her even more attention. I cannot rule anything out at this stage. Everything is both fascinating and sickening. On one hand, I need to learn more and this is proving very educational, on the other, even I can see this is madness like any creature has ever seen. The woman is tied to a pillar in the center of the octagon and the leader blows a whistle, probably a dog whistle since I cannot hear anything. The animal growls I thought I heard are coming closer, and a really big doggy comes out of the shadow. It looks around, then at the woman. My blood is boiling, but I cannot do anything without exposing myself, and the odds are against me. The creature is also gigantic, as tall as a man and twice as long, strangely enough proportional to its size. In this crazy place, what was normal is now a strangeness that is welcomed to my more and more trepidating and illogical mind. It has lizard-like scales, though it is a sickly green, red, black and gray on the rest of its body. It's not rainbowish, not in the slightest, and would not make a good figurine except for kids as unique as me, and it would have probably disgusted even me had I seen it when I was younger.
It rounds to the woman, starts nibbling on her, and she screams. Finally, in over a minute, the screams finally die out, as only bones remain of her. I feel rage like I have never felt. No weapon. No allies. No matter. It looks at me. Directly at me. It seems to... smile and... laugh. It is not growling, it is not doing what dogs do when they're out of breath, it's... laughing. Then, it fixes its stare back on me, its face a mask of sternness. To see such a beast, an animal, an overgrown dog, rush through so many emotions is... unsettling. If I was capable of feeling anything other than rage, I would probably go mad. But now, I am ready, in a flight or fight position. The beast seems to sense that I do not scare easily and it lunges to my hiding place. Fortunately, in front of me there are metal bars, like construction stairs that keep the workers high to build higher, and the beast gets stuck in front of me. It growls and its breath smells foul, but I do not stay even a second in place and I run... not away. I run to the stunned masses which are surprised their master or god or pet wolfie has got itself stuck in some bars of metal. I run through the shadows directly towards the man with the knife, for I know certain he will be armed. The red lights flicker brightly, as if they try to warn their servants, as if they try to destroy the shadows I stalk and reveal me. The mutated cultists, for I have no other name for them now, try to gauge out the intent of their lights, but are still mostly stunned and it does them no good anyway. The theory about a man pushing buttons almost dissolves, for there would be easier ways to warn his followers by simply yelling for example, and if he's too far away to give a warning, he's definitely too far to see me and aim those lights so precisely at my former hiding place.
I go for the man's knife, take it out from its hiding place and cut his throat in less than a second. I ponder whether to run back to the shadows and pick them off one by one, but they're still stunned, this is my chance, I won't waste it, and my blood and my Passenger want this, need this. Messy and fast, just the way we don't like it, but quantity has a quality of its own.
I move like lightning, not savoring, trying to do it as clean and as fast, carotid all the way. Slash, step, slash, step, slash... They're lined up for the slaughter, but not for me, maybe not for the beast. The voices in the light are now almost overwhelming, and the dog-beast yells with them, trying to get itself free. Unfortunately for them, it distracts their attention further from me, and I continue my almost automatic actions. Before one falls, another has his throat cut out, and so on. I am careful, though. I know they have bone protrusions outside their bodies, therefore very likely inside as well, so I slash in ways to not get the big knife stuck in case there is bone there, and indeed, I run into such a case. If I had been stabbing its neck instead of slashing, the knife would be been stuck in its neck, and I would be disarmed and probably distracted enough to give the rest a fighting chance. As it is, all around the bar with the former woman lie dead or dying, their blood running for some reason out of the circle, to the obvious dislike of the red lights, which continue dimming until it almost disappears. A roar of the now freed beast seem to spark it back into life, which now completely destroys the idea that they were manipulated from afar with technology or smoke and mirrors. There is no evil laugh of a mastermind, except sometimes, coming from the light itself. I am starting to believe there is something on the other side of the red light, something I would do best to stay away from.
The dog beast lands before me and studies me before it lunges in a lightning strike of its own. Time seems to move slower for me, and the red light tries to cling onto me, and I slowly and calmly slash its throat while the beast is still is mid-lunge. It does not kill it, and its tail tries to throw me against a wall, but I calmly sidestep it. This time, I am in attack mode, slashing once again at its throat and running from the reach of its teeth, circling it and slashing again and again and again, only at the throat. I cannot risk losing my knife, as far as I know the only weapon around here, and I cannot stab the thing. I don't know what bones or other contraptions it may have in its throat, but it seems to have a carotid, and I have to get to it. I slash again and again, and it looks weakened by the blood loss. The red light dissipates more and more, but I notice I can see things are red as before, and not through a red fog. Some of the light has continued to cling to me and to eerily light me. I ignore this stroke of good luck and continue to weaken the beast until it finally falls down, impossibly screeching through its torn throat one more scream of anguish, and then I see the life flowing out of its eyes.
I stay there, panting, knife in my hand, knife that only an hour before has killed an innocent, red light rising from my torso to engulf me. I look around, some of the onlookers from above have run away when the ritual went wrong, others are stuck watching me in awe and fear. I give a smile, one that would chill even me to the bones, as I look upon them, trying to gauge their numbers, seeing that half already left. I will hunt them all down, not throughout my lifetime or my stay here, but throughout the night or whatever time is here. In 12 hours or less, they will all feel this cursed knife at their throats and will gurgle their last breath looking into my eyes. No code, no remorse, no tidy plastic and disposing. These creatures don't deserve the luxuries I am used to give a human being. Tonight, I will reap a tole as I have reaped in half my life. Tonight, I see the reason of my Passenger, the use of it. Tonight, this gray and black metal will be stained with the blood of the monsters.
Author's Notes:
Desodus: Nothing so grand, but the taint of Chaos does latch on him through his Dark Passenger, though as we see in the books, his one Passenger doesn't really play well with others, so it's going to be a struggle for all concerned.
the kishins darkness: In the books, yes, the Dark Passenger is akin to a proto-demon, but different from the ones in the 40k universe. It's born of a thing that existed from before life as we know it emerged on Earth, was bored, took over monkeys to kill other monkeys for fun, then procreated again for fun, then killed its kin again for fun. So Dexter's Dark Passenger doesn't play well with the other demons of the 40k universe. It is careful and weary and wants to be the only one in Dexter, to keep Dexter alive and safe, so it'll shield Dexter from demonic attack on his mind. Dexter is a latent psycher if you want, he's been exposed to the whispers of the Passenger since he was young, and even if he has no emotions, the Passenger's emotions will attract warp power into Dexter, while defending Dexter at the same time from possession.
I'm not planning for Dexter to make much difference in the 40k universe, this is more of an initiation journey to the dark side for him. He'll stick to the shadows like in Miami and will try not to make too many waves with the authorities, like he tried in Miami. Lab (Mechanicus) Geek by day, vigilante by night, that's what Dexter always was and will always be. There's still a way to there, until he learns the language and to interact, and after he gets there, I'll see where else I can take the story.
Dexter arrived through the storm at the end of the series. In the main series, he's presumed dead. I've made it slight AU, since in the series he goes into the storm to kill himself because of all he lost, but here, he doesn't know why he went there, maybe Chaos lured him, unhappy with his happy ending I made for him in this AU. He might come back to his world eventually. Now, he'll continue his life he always knew it, as a lab geek, but this time at the Adeptus Mechanicus.