Chapter 19: The Passage of the Basin

While Gerald and the other mercenaries made their way to Rottenburg, Freddie and Steve were becoming increasingly dubious of their guide Mumble, or 'Samuel' as Freddie kept calling him by. For three straight days, they had been following the remains of a Cart rail that led them out of the canyon they had been in, but was now trailing along the cliffs of another. It also didn't help that Mumble had the habit of disappearing every now and then, which made the Steve worry that he was secretly planning to abandon them at some point.

"I wouldn't be surprised if that little twerp was taking us in circles," Steve muttered while he and Freddie were resting. "Just to confuse us so he can steal the Bomb."

"I know, Steve," Freddie replied, watching as Mumble ran into a tunnel some miles away.

"Then why are we still following him?"

Freddie took a bite out a Sandvich he pulled from the cooler and then said, "If it weren't for Samuel, we would've been wandering through those canyons for days."

Before Steve could reply, Mumble came running out of the tunnel and signaled the two Scouts to follow. Reluctantly, they did, but it wasn't until several hours later that they finally met up with Mumble. He then pointed down the tunnel while making a series of sounds through his mask, while Freddie nodded along. Steve, meanwhile, was watching the sun as it sank below the cliffs on the western side.

"Samuel says we should camp here for the night, and wait until morning to go through the tunnel," Freddie said, after Mumble had finished talking.

"Ah, jeez, why should we stop now?" Steve asked. "There's still daylight left."

Freddie looked to Mumble, who shook his head vigorously. Then Freddie turned to Steve and said, "I don't think he's joking, Steve, so we should probably do as he says."

Steve was about to argue, but when he looked down the darkening tunnel, and then back at the setting sun, he nodded with hesitation.

The next morning, the Scouts and Mumble woke up to an overcast sky and an unnatural mist lingered in the air. After getting their things packed, Freddie and Steve followed Mumble into the tunnel, though he was being deliberately slow, so the two proceeded with caution. Once they reached the exit, the Scouts found themselves standing before a cluster of gray-colored buildings with the Cart rail winding through them and the cliffs closed in around them like a rocky prison. But what caught Freddie and Steve's attention the most was the scattered mounds of Robot parts and decomposed human skeletons.

"What the hell is this? Some kind of graveyard?" Steve asked sarcastically.

After Mumble made a string of gestures, Freddie said, "Samuel calls it the Deadwater Basin, though it used to be called Badwater Basin, and it was one of the southernmost areas the Cloned Mercenaries occupied until the Machine Wars were over. Apparently, there were so many bodies that there weren't enough graves to fill them all, so they left them out on the surface to decompose naturally, and then the area was abandoned shortly after."

"I can see why," Steve replied, putting a hand over his nose. "This place stinks worse than a compost pile!"

Mumble made a few more mutterings, which made Freddie's eyes widen, causing him to turn to Steve with a worried look. "Samuel also claims that the area is haunted by the ghosts of the Cloned Mercenaries, so we shouldn't stray from the Cart rails."

While Mumble led the way, Steve and Freddie followed behind, watching the piled bodies with suspicion. Then after they turned around a bend in the Cart rail, Steve asked, "How did you know this place used to be called Badwater Basin? Mumble couldn't have known that."

"Oh, I read about it in a book during our stay at Mountain Lab," Freddie explained.

"Sure wish I was there instead of here."

For a while, neither of the Scouts said anything as they followed Mumble, though the strange mist seemed to be getting thicker the further they went. Sometimes, Mumble's hunched form would disappear altogether, and so they had to move faster to catch up with him. During one such moment, Freddie ran ahead of Steve, and ended up running off the Cart rails. He wound up in a side room and then saw a skeleton next to his feet. It looked like it belonged to a Demoman, because it wore a patch over one of its eye-sockets, and its bony hand was positioned over its other eye. While Steve called for him in the distance, Freddie continued to stare at the Demoman skeleton, and before he knew it, the bony hand fell off, revealing a moving eyeball that was still inside its socket. Freddie tried to get away, but when he turned, skeletons of other mercenaries came out of the mist and surrounded him.

He was just about to reach for his Bat when someone pulled him away from the side room and out of the building the Cart rails ran through. To Freddie's surprise, it was Mumble. Before Freddie could say anything, Mumble made a sharp muttering sound and bounded away down the rails. Meanwhile, Steve came up and helped Freddie to his feet.

"What the hell was that crap? You nearly scared me to death when you didn't respond!" Steve said, agitated.

Freddie had nothing to say on why he went astray, but one thing did bother him. "Why did Samuel save me?"

Steve sighed. "He wants the Bomb, dummy."

"But if he wanted it so badly, he could've left me to be killed by those…things I saw."

"He didn't know where you were until you started screaming, so I don't think he would've let you die, anyway."

As Steve helped Freddie catch up to Mumble, the mist gradually lightened up. Once they reached the end of the Cart rail within a cluster of buildings, they were about to make their way over a fence when a roaring sound caught their attention. It sounded like it was coming through the air, and then as they looked to the southern cliffs beyond the fence, a growing shadow was flying towards them. Quickly, the Scouts and Mumble hid underneath the metal balcony of a nearby building as the shadow flew over them, followed by the loud roaring.

When the three of them looked up, they saw a single darkly-clad figure using a Rocket Launcher to leap into the air. It didn't take long for Freddie and Steve to recognize the figure as the Soldier Android who attacked them at Watchtower. While Mumble shivered from fear and constantly watched the rocket-jumping Android, Freddie gripped the Bomb, and occasionally let his thumb fiddle with the button on its topside. Steve noticed this and made Freddie let go of the Bomb. Naturally, Freddie was hesitant, but then he relaxed once he saw the Android Soldier jump out of sight. Once they were sure he was gone, the two Scouts and Mumble made their way over the fence and ran for the southern cliffs.

End of Chapter 19