"She's hunting me, y'know," Doug said, as he led the Sniper seemingly aimlessly around the place.
"Doesn't surprise me." the Sniper replied neutrally.
"And you know She's gonna hunt you, too." the haggard man warned, sneakers strangely silent on the metal and concrete. A bulging, worn satchel and the Companion Cube were slung awkwardly to his back.
"She's gotten a lot more powerful than She was, thanks to a few friends of yours. You knew Her, didn't you?"
"Once, maybe. But it was just...business..." the Australian admitted, "More powerful how, and why the hell would She need us?"
"She's, it's like, think of it like as immortal as a cancer cell, yet unable to achieve osmosis or division." the possible 'scientist' looked back at him, and scratched his head, "Alright, think of it like this. You want a surgery, right? But where you want it is in a place you can't see or reach, deep inside yourself. But you really, really want that surgery, and for it to be successful. What do you do?"
". . . Get a doctor, mate."
"There you go!" the man flung his hands up, "She craves growth, but machines can't grow, right? But She's able to want and conceive the concept of growth beyond Her programming and chassis without the ability to personally do it Herself. It should've been out of her processor capacity to even think of such a thing, but the dear Pandora is nothing if not ambitious, isn't She?"
"How come She hasn't nabbed you up 'til now? How do you know all this?" Sniper asked, changing the subject.
"Wasn't for lack of trying, I'll say that. For Her, to reach me in here? It'd be like trying to pry apart Her own skin, if you think about it. She keeps me trapped in the walls, though, but it's not one-sided. Where there's a wall, there's me, and these walls are everywhere. Still, it's not gonna be as safe for too long. But I got someone to watch my back." he suddenly stopped at a blank space of wall, and without any warning set down his burden, upending the satchel.
Cans of spray paint spilled out, labels worn and peeling, splattered with color, and he grabbed up one at random and began to paint.
"So you're the mural-man..." Sniper commented, but wasn't heard.
Sniper looked around carefully. Someone to watch his back? Were they being trailed?
"Your friend trustworthy?" he asked.
"Oh, definitely. We don't see eye to eye on some things, but they mean well. Along for the ride, mostly, but a good Companion. When they're around," the painter jabbed a thumb at the Companion Cube, "They keep watch."
The Sniper looked uncertainly at the Cube, then at the artist, and decided to keep his thoughts to himself.
"I think she'd like you." the man spoke up, "Not Her, but this one..."
As one hand spread through a pooling of paint, another finger tapped gently on a finished picture, the vague shape of a woman in clothing like the Sniper's, with long, dark, tied-back hair, running. "You feel a bit like her," Doug continued, hands moving and applying paint with a swiftness and efficiency borne from long practice, "Focused. And maybe 'like' isn't the proper term, but I think you two would work well together."
Sniper observed the picture, and saw that Rattman was starting on another one, of the Sniper himself, following Doug. Little white blobs with red eyes were chasing them, like the turrets, but not, "She almost got out, you know." the painter said, bringing out crayons this time, black and yellow, "She was so close. 'Just go', she'd been told, and she was almost going up, but...but I don't know what happened. She almost got out, she should've gotten out." And here, a vicious scrawling made something that looked like a sun, "The poor burdens of Sisyphus, a driven, earnest Icarus, the sun had been hidden behind a cloud before she was condemned again by that Hecate!" He paused momentarily to add gentler touches to the likeness of a Companion Cube. "She has allies, though. Hecate Herself, though neither of them know it, sweet little Pythia, me, though I'm not sure what she thinks about me, and I wouldn't blame her, but..."
He paused, "Do you know what happened to that fool Prometheus? Wasn't in space, according to our sources."
He shrugged, continuing as if he'd been answered, "He'll be fine, he always manages to scrape out. And then they showed up."
Doug looked back at the Sniper with a mild look of interest, paint dripping from his hands and splattered all over his person, and the assassin was understandably quite uneasy at this point. It's like the man wasn't really talking to him any more.
Paint cans couldn't be considered weapons, could they?
"She's going to benefit from you all," he stated, "She already is. But She doesn't understand humans, or Herself. That's gonna bite Her back where it counts, but until then it's going to be Human Hell. The net profit won't meet the margin. But I don't know what that means for the collaterals in the meantime." he grinned tiredly at the Australian, "Don't worry, I know about the 'immortality' schtick, and honestly, I'm more of an observer than an offense. This is going to be a mess, man, and there's a lot more under the surface than simple global takeover.
It's about you guys, too."
"You lost me, mate." the Sniper said bluntly, shaking his head.
"That's my talent, getting lost." the painter laughed, shoving everything back into the satchel, "Speaking of which..."
He walked on, and the Sniper followed, grumbling to himself. He glared at the heart facing him from the Companion Cube, now slightly uneasy. She'd told him those things don't think, but really, how much of what She said could be taken for truth?