Victory felt so close at hand.
There had been painful days of loneliness, thousands of miles crossed, sweat, blood, and lives sacrificed to get to this point. The team could taste success, and it was savory and salty. Everyone rushed for the main building. A choked growl came from the modified tank, the Soldier's laughter loud and strong. His teammates bounded from the ruins of the communications tower. They stumbled through brush and debris. Both sides tore through metal as they approached the final goal.
Miss Pauling found herself smiling. The Scout's mother echoed her joy. Both women began coordinating the troop's movements. While the Scout's mother dealt with her son's group, Miss Pauling tried contacting the Engineer. At first, she received static. She shook her head, then remembered that he had the Pyro's headset. Another call went out, sharp and bright. "Mister Conagher, the troops are coming to your position. Hold until they arrive. Do you copy?"
All she received was silence.
Miss Pauling tried hailing him one more time. "Mister Conagher? I need you to report."
She jumped as static crunched in her ear.
A year's tumultuous events had landed the Engineer in the same place that it had begun—in the captivity of a madman.
His teammates' chatter disappeared from his ears as a thick-set Heavy robot plucked the headset from his head. His helmet slunk to the carpet, clattering as it rolled away. There was a snap as the robot cut off the Engineer's only contact to the outside world. Gone was the glorious bellows of victory, the screams of bullets and the injured, anything that gave him any context to the world. His battle was stopped, his teammates silenced, the gravity of his mission lost.
He had been dragged to the top floor, bound at his wrists with iron chains, confined to a metal stool behind a lab table. At least he wasn't strapped down to the bed propped to the side of the laboratory. A hemisphere of green and black monitors flickered in his eyes. Another bench was loaded with toolboxes, blueprints and measuring tools kept in tidy places. Conical lights blasted from the center of the lab, hot on the top of his bald head. Their power made the room seem as dark as midnight outside of its rays.
His captor sat across from him, his brittle fingers folded beneath his chin. The Engineer wanted to burn that smirk off his face. If it wasn't for the massive robot holding the Engineer's shoulders and the chains around him, he would have taken a crack at the old man. Disabled arm and disobedient hand be damned—he would have head-butted the man until his old, wrinkled brains slopped onto the ground.
Of all the gloating, insufferable things the Engineer had expected Gray to say, "Hello again," was not it.
"Crap," the Engineer swore. "Is this gonna take all day? If you're gonna shoot me at the end of your little speech, you might as well just get it over with."
Gray feigned injury. "Is that how you're going to speak to me? Even after I had my robots mend your wounds?"
The Engineer's face contorted into a scowl. "I wouldn't call cauterizin' much in the way of tender, lovin' care."
"I would imagine your Australian friend would feel otherwise," Gray sneered. "Would have stopped his bleeding, after all." He maintained unflinching eye contact as the Engineer burned. "Not that I saw it personally, mind you. For me, his life was just a little number counting down. Three, two, one—then none."
Unrestrained anger flushed through the Engineer. He would have bitten that old man's nose clean off, if he could reach that far. The old man seemed surprised but didn't move. If nothing else, the Engineer's open wound would be fun to play with. He may have been over a hundred years the Engineer's senior, but that didn't mean that he wasn't above some childish tactics.
"Behave, Dell," Gray scolded the Engineer. "I would hate to think that causing your demise would render his death worthless. Between him and that mute—"
"Get this over with," the Engineer growled.
Gray tapped his fingertips together. "If you insist." He cleared his throat, then started again. "You know that I am a man with a lot of free time, Mister Conagher. A man who has time for experimenting with new ideas. At least, that is when my brothers' idiot armies aren't barging into my home. I've made some significant progress over the past year, and I would like to share my developments with you."
"You killed my friends, shot me in the arm, 'n had me hauled up here 'n hogtied just to brag about your work?" the Engineer grumbled.
"Well, only the last part, really. The other two were because of your insistence on being stubborn," Gray replied.
The Engineer rolled his eyes behind his goggles. Gray frowned. One boney hand reached across the table, then snatched his goggles. He tossed them over his shoulder. The Engineer winced under the room's lights. He sighed, his last defense shredded. He couldn't hide his frustration any longer.
Not that he was doing a great job of it in the first place.
"Why me?" the Engineer asked.
"You've got an excellent mind. You have a fantastic pedigree for this line of work. I'm still eager to take you as an assistant, if you would only stop being so obstinate," Gray said. He leaned back, crossing one stick leg across his bony knee. "You couldn't have possibly liked my brothers so well, could you? The bickering morons?"
The Engineer shook his head. "I never fought for them, Gray. Just for their money—and for my team."
A snort and a cackle escaped the withered old man. "How noble."
"What in the hell could you want me for, anyway?" the Engineer muttered. "You seem like the kind of fella that needs to work alone."
Gray nodded. For once, he found something that both he and the Engineer could agree on. "Normally, I prefer my own company. As stupid as these machines can be, they make for better partners than ninety-eight percent of the human population. However, you have a couple of features that my machines do not. That is to say, you can help me troubleshoot where I failed in my designs, and you can help me create new inventions. You seem to have both your father's and grandfather's knack for building, at any rate."
The Engineer sighed. It always came back to his forefathers. Not to say that they weren't men to be proud of, but living in their lineage was tiring. His grandfather had found a way to bring people back from the dead and developed the use of Australium, going mad in the process. His father had disappeared in the same war that embroiled Dell, serving the same lunatics with his machines. Hell, he had probably blown himself up with his own grenades. And now, here was the latest in a line of engineers, one middle-aged man talking with a shriveled prune that had lived longer than both his father and grandfather.
If it wasn't for this engrained system of nepotism and familial duty, he would have been happily slaving away in an oil field instead of being pestered by an old man.
"I told you last year, and I'll tell you this again," the Engineer replied. "Go to hell."
A slim grin settled on Gray's hollow face. He brought his fingers under his chin. "Ah, yes. And I wished that you would, too." He shook his head, his smile persisting. "This is where your defiance becomes amusing."
The Engineer straightened his posture. "What in Sam Hill do you mean?"
Gray smiled, then clapped his hands together. "I have something to show you."
The old man stood up. He hobbled to a row of consoles, cracking his back as he went. As he began rifling through one of his computers for information, he babbled to the Engineer. "It was just around when Helen sent that damned last team after me that I realized I had a design flaw with my memory blockers. You see, it's very easy to train the brain to avoid subjects using slight shocks. Unfortunately, these devices had a limited battery life. Worse yet, your bodies started repelling them from the incisions I made. I thought that they would have lasted five, ten years—long enough for you all to make new lives and decide not to return. I forget how humidity can ruin a good machine."
"And you live on a tropical island," the Engineer smirked. "I think your brain's the one fryin' out, 'round these parts."
"You can't blame an old man for trying to keep active," Gray sighed.
A series of images flashed above the Engineer's head. He lifted his gaze. Several schematics and notes were plastered along projected surfaces. He studied the diagrams while Gray continued running his mouth. "I had thought of equipping your former associates with the same devices I had used on you. Given their failures, I was unwilling to try it again until I got the kinks worked out. To get a little inspiration on what to do in the meantime, I took to your grandfather's old notes. That was where I found my solution."
The Engineer lowered his eyebrows. "I don't see what an electronic version of pinochle has to do with taking over the world."
Gray shook his head. "Blast. Not that!" He opened another series of schematics, then gave them to the Engineer. "This. An invention you are more familiar with than I am."
Slow nodding escaped the Engineer. Yes, he remembered these notes. They had been tattooed into his brain. These were the foundations of what would come to be the respawn system. His grandfather had no idea what modern computers would be like, no way to tell the advent of floppy disks or tapes. Hell, he had hardly been around for the implementation of AC and DC power. Still, he had a mind of a mad Da Vinci, someone who was always looking to the future. His designs were his immortality.
"So, the respawn system," Dell said. "Knew you'd been messin' with it. Might as well tell me what you broke so I can go fix it later."
"Broke? You wound me." Gray feigned a pain to his chest, but Dell didn't pay him any mind. Giving up on the stubborn Engineer, he charged ahead. "Your grandfather left some interesting notes, Dell. So did you. Between the two of you, you had developed a system of which no man could dream. Not just a way to escape the fetters of life and death, mind you. Something to escape the bonds of reality."
The Engineer lifted an eyebrow. "Come again?"
Gray smirked, then turned away from the Engineer. With a few taps, he brought up a series of respawn logs. They were recorded years apart. What was unusual were the dates associated with the logs. No matter what year they were, they all took place on the same month and day—the thirty-first of October. The Engineer crinkled his forehead. Eeriness ebbed in his aching shoulder.
"Halloween?" the Engineer asked.
Gray nodded. "The one time of year that your logs revealed some…how do I put this without sounding crazy?"
The Engineer frowned. "Too late."
"Ah! I've got it," Gray continued. "Dimensional tears."
The Engineer closed his eyes, trying to figure out what in the hell Gray meant by that. His first instinct was to always doubt when someone told him the impossible. What had he been doing all those years? There was the one time at Redmond Mann's mansion where he and his teammates were plagued by ghosts. Before that, a ghost that had leaked out in the Harvest base. Once the Soldier had pissed off his roommate—some crazy wizard in a dress—who then attacked the group with the demon-possessed eyeball that used to belong to the Demoman.
There had been something weird that time, now that he thought about it. Something stranger than the demon eye. In Viaduct, then Lakeside, then Hightower. At first, it had just been a rumor. People began falling into rifts, coming back confused and coated with an unusual glow. Some would fall down endless holes, only to pop out of the sky and fall to the ground devoid of breath. Hell, last Halloween, he might have actually gone to hell. He wasn't sure, but there had been enough lakes of fire, skulls, and skeletal monsters to make him head back to church for a couple of weekends. Between them and that night that the undead attacked Coaltown…
"Damn it all to hell," the Engineer cursed. He shook his head, a foul taste in his mouth.
"Don't be so negative! Thanks to your efforts in networking and your grandfather's machine, you two have advanced string theory studies by generations. Well, you would, if I ever let you release this information," Gray beamed.
The Engineer's head throbbed. He wished he could massage his building headache. "So, that's where the other team is? In multiple dimensions of hell?"
Gray shrugged. "If that's what you wish to call them, yes. But, I did find a lovely dimension adjacent to Granary. It appears to be mostly fields, but some of the samples I retrieved—"
"Wait. Samples?" the Engineer interrupted.
"Obviously, I couldn't put myself at risk. However, I did send a few drones through the tears to investigate what it was like through some experimental points." Gray grinned, gaining a second wind as he spoke. "Want to see slides? They are quite some frightening territories, let me tell you. Makes you wish to stay at home."
Of all the things the Engineer wanted to see, a slideshow was the least of his interests. Fresh worries sprung up like so many irritating poppies. What in the hell were they supposed to do? Could they pull the other team out of such maddening space? They had gotten out of such strange places before, through tears and allegiances with demons. Could the same doors still exist?
And what of everyone's minds? Would their psyches be shattered? What of the teammates he had lost? His heart tightened at the thought. The Pyro had a detached mind that let him adapt to all sorts of strange environments, but he was vulnerable prey to psychopaths. Perhaps the Sniper could thrive even in hell, but not without shedding what little sociable traits he had. Both men would be rendered monsters, in such inhospitable places.
Assuming they could even live.
The Engineer's teeth ground against each other. "Look. You've found—I dunno. Oz? Narnia? Middle-Earth? What in the hell are you still fighting us for, then? You've got the potential to take over a whole new place!"
"For the same reason you're still fighting me, Dell." Gray's eyebrows lowered, his voice settling into a threatening hiss. "Because this is my land. This place is my birthright. I'll explore any place I find, but this land—and Mann's lands—are mine. You think the same, don't you? You have the same greed."
"You spineless, yellow-bellied coward! How dare you!" the Engineer shouted.
Gray leaned against the computer consoles. "Then tell me, Dell. If you're not here for the land or its resources, why are you here at all?" He pounded his fist against the cabinet, metal echoing after the hit. "Was it for Helen, that harpy? For Miss Pauling? Or was it for him?"
The Engineer's spine froze solid. His left eye twitched. He tried not to give the old man any satisfaction. The old bastard could mock him for anything else, but not for his friends. He wouldn't give any fuel for him to burn. Gray held his smile but didn't move. He let the stubborn Engineer stew in his anger and despair. His quiet response was damning. Watching him trying to swallow his acidic bile was amusing enough.
"I've asked one too many times, Mister Conagher, but your brain is worth saving." Gray retrieved his pistol from his side. He checked the chambers, then reloaded his gun. With a slow amble, he approached the lab bench once more. The Heavy robot behind the Engineer clamped down on his shoulders. The Engineer didn't fight. His struggles would be wasted.
Lowering his gun to the Engineer's head, Gray asked for the stubborn Texan's allegiance one last time. "Will you help me?"
Even in the face of damnation and death, Dell Conagher did not change his mind. "Go to hell, you old bastard."
A wrinkled smile distorted the ancient technician's face. "You first."
Author's Note
When I first wrote the plot synopsis for this story, I planned for the other team's appearance to be…well, more like the television show The Prisoner. You know, the BBC one. I guess AMC did one of it, too. Then, this idea came along. I think it was due to Izzybutt's contribution to the Ghost Stories from Teufort project called Systems Report, as well as the nature of Silent Hill games and some general studying of the game's Halloween events.
It feels like I didn't foreshadow this enough…but, hopefully, it still works.