Vermin Part: 1
5:40 am
Deep below…
The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System felt it.
She saw the hole in the ceiling give in, spewing out undignified human garbage.
Missing appliances.
Cries of broken semi-intellectual hardware, from the crusted earthly skin of Aperture. Hardened rock enforced with beams of steel and armoured machinery. Per say there wasn't much life to it, but here in Aperture, nearly every wired nerve of the facility had some semblance of a mind. A very primitive, insect-like instinct to work.
And now, to her, it appeared like a void.
A black vortex. A wound in the stream of ones and zeros, that made the metaphysical encarnation of Aperture's world from her logic-processing view. In reality, fragments of herself, too fixated on the transgression had wormed a visual display, sharing several external monitor-screens.
Monitors were unnecessary, but she felt it was right for the moment.
It was as clear as the moon in the night sky, that revealed itself half a decade ago. In fact, it was the same spot as the aptly named, Test Subject Wound or Lunar Tear presented itself in.
She was reminded of Her.
The Test Subject she came to loathe over the years was one such memory she would not forget.
Then there was also that spherical delinquent.
'Oh my facility. What has he done to this place'.
His incompetence flashed back in her eye. Without her last minute oversight and retaking, her domain would have perished. Phantom fires billowed behind the panels, sickly fumes mixing with the neurotoxin as a dozen imaginary explosions went off.
Her chamber rumbled. Quaked. Something in the background akin to steel beams creaking and thundering stirred.
The facility went quiet for a few seconds. Uncharatsicaly so. Then it returned to normal, forgetting the lapse.
Perhaps many kilometres below in the abyssal depths, the reactor core burned a few degrees kelvin hotter.
But she knew better than to allow certain powerful emotions overcome her coldly calculated judgment.
Thinking back to the breach, she chose a temporary fix. One to seal the problem as more resources could be pulled for more effective repairs in a later time.
Upper testing track 31_Victor, test chamber 16, was dispatched to seal the breach. An environmental container, filled with invasive surface flora that made its way into an aerial faith plate course, filled with a lake and sentry hazards; as far as she knew from its report file.
There were several testing tracks that suffered a similar fate from her inactivity. Most were fully functional despite their rough appearance. Others, not so much. But, they did make for some interesting testing environments for her robot subjects.
The central core pulled some strings and issued forth some commands.
"There. Now, to find out how this all started. And then we can go back to testing."
Pizzaplex
SubBasement
5:59
Mannequin-esque security bots patrolled up and down the halls. Biwheels silently motoring, kicking up loose stones and dust. Boney arms swayed as they spun on the spot to cover the same ground, day and night. Servos groaned from the lack of standard care.
Grime and waste was smeared on every visible surface. Like an old mineshaft, wooden beams held up the ceiling; Heavily unregulated, under a mountain heap of osha violations. It was a labyrinth of structurally pathetic materials that somehow kept the building above from sinking into the earth.
It was a landfill, for a lack of better taste stood as the unsavoury foundation.
To Vanessa's other self, this was no place but home. The veil behind the stage, where she was given free reign to live under the nose of the company and other co-workers.
The bots that patrolled here were not limited to the company standard models, and were loyal to only her reprogramming, thanks to a certain purple blight.
Vanny, sometimes referred to as Vanessa, clad in her white and grey rabbit costume skulked around. Her stance giddy, like a playful child enraptured with something content and oddly fulfilling. But there was a part of her that felt different. Locked away and suppressed by her… otherworldly employer.
Scarlet eyes, subtly glistening in the poor lighting narrowed. She was certain he came down here. Even the robots had abandoned their up-above posts.
Before her stood a long and forgotten sight. An old Freddy's restaurant chain, scrubbed off of the records, layed here to rot. Its inner contents, in ruins, much like the decaying neon sign that sported above the entrance.
From what she garnered from previous expeditions down-under; there must have been a harsh fire. But despite the damage and unkept state of the lost pizzeria, it made the perfect spot to house the physical incarnation of her puppeteer.
That nasty pile of scrap and merchandise irradiates hateful ire at everything that stumbles into its den. The tendrils of black wires with a dozen mascot heads would slowly rise and fall, as if it were breathing. Its creation was unknown to her, but she knew it was better to avoid it, than risk being added to its possessive collection.
The amalgamation was not blinded by her tricks. Vanny had to be careful in pursuing the boy and the bear, lest she invoke its wrath.
But her light foot falls meant little, as she picked up her pace in alarm. Forget the blob, something is happening down below.
Black smoke billowed out through the cracks in the broken sinkhole. Warm hues replacing the desolate walls and floor. The very ground she trode on rumbled.
Vanny, what was supposed to be her. Or should we say, her other self, a mere imprint on the entity she mistakenly brought to life had lessened its grip. The fragmented conscious that invaded her mind started shrieking in despair, albeit silently.
A grave headache overwhelmed her senses, forcing her to lose footing and collapse into the ripped ceramic tiling. She yelped in surprise, a part of her falling to gargling static and another finally surfacing up to breathe once more.
Discomfort bared at her, as she rekindled her stance up right. A few bruises did not sway Vannessa to give up, lest she succumb to smoke inhalation.
The voice that was drowned out by roaring fires, a room under, chastised her at thinking about abandoning the task at hand. Vanessa wanted nothing more than to rid herself of this nightmare. But the proxy was just too overwhelming and tiring to fight back.
A window of opportunity was a blessed thing. A short moment to live the life that was taken and corrupted by her horrid, controlling headspace companion. What's done was done, and she couldn't think to rewind time back. - yet a quiet moment was all she could ever ask for.
But the grey rabbit's respite was short lived.
Black serpent cables from the surrounding ruins slithered to her ankles. Before she knew it, the world, or what lack of the world went by in a blur, her eyes, transfixed up to the ceiling.
The rabbit costume's headpiece had slid off; left behind to be swallowed by the quaking infrastructure. A smile crept on her lips. It seemed to glare back.
She could make a casted shadow of the bulk of the blob as it desperately shot out its tendrils wildly in a display of animalistic terror, and rage.
Its grip on her loosened a fraction more. It was grasping all around itself. There was no escape.
Suddenly the wind started to pick up beneath her, as the cable forcefully went limp. A heavy object from above must have severed it.
The air, now cooler. Less tainted by the smog of the fires. She didn't know how they started… one problem at a time!
The fires seemed to bathe the entire upper floor, where she was moments ago, before it got smaller.
It shrunk to a fistful of amber light.
Then she shut her eyes, letting gravity do it work.
.