Vermin part: 2
Aperture Facility
6:23
Vanessa hacked and coughed. Her lungs burned, forcing out the inhaled unclean water. Her eyes were clenched, as she flailed her limbs in hopes of traversing the submerged darkness.
A glimmer of amber haze crackled like a star in the night, so close, yet so far away. The light.
Her head raised as she kicked up and grasped. A violent and crude swimming motion. Yet she barely moved. Her limbs were tiring.
"Now, now. It isn't time yet." A hollow voice in the back of her headspace encouraged. "You need to get up. Drowning isn't going to make him very happy."
The voice sounded like hers. It would have freaked her out if it weren't for the fact that they regularly shared the same space for months.
"I don't know about you, but dying isn't going to solve anything."
What's up with the motivation?
"Vanessa. I want to help you."
Help me? I was fine, way before you came into my life. If anything you've done everything but help me.
"You keep telling yourself that. But the truth is apparent. You are-"
Weak. Pathetic. Broken. Nothing without him. Just shut up and get out of my head.
"Were it so easy, dear." The voice silently lamented. "Perhaps you mean our head. I'm afraid I can't do that."
Screw you and whatever plans you had with that creepy Frankenstein project. Whatever happens now, I am in charge, and no one is going to get hurt because of me!
The torn patchy bunny costume, now soaked and burned, weighed her down. She made another gallant push to the murky surface. This time greeted with a rusted pipe, caked in rivets and ickish substances.
She tugged hard, rising from the darkened abyss. The surface algae and water exploding. Her head piecing the rippling lake, as another arm slid to cover her eyes in discomfort to the new world that laid lushly dormant.
Her muddied blond hair sagged, as her body ungracefully found itself beached on a mossy bed. The enriching sounds of the outdoors greeted her.
Seconds and minutes went by as she quickly recovered. Still not a hundred percent, but manageable.
Vanessa blinked. The smell of burning still lingered. Mostly residue as it were. She blinked again, and her eyes scanned the room, as she coughed and sputtered.
"W-where am I?" She said to no one in particular. The answer, being prevalent to sight.
As her eyes adjusted to the local light, she found herself in an expansive overgrowth. The room bore damaged walls, a worse conditioned floor in comparison and a missing ceiling. All of which were marked with rot, rust and flora to some degree.
Some bizarre objects littered the chamber. Dysfunctional due to heavy neglect. Some were of the Pizzaplex's basement debris and others, she couldn't begin to guess, appeared like they were grounded for decades or more.
A few cracked oval devices, a head higher than Gregory, laid under the rubble. Moss, liverworts and other flora grew unimpeded. One was facing towards her. Its unlit socket remained devoid of expression.
The size of the room, perhaps encompassing the cavernous atrium in the building above. Maybe more if it weren't for a lack of a roof. That much was puzzling, since squinting revealed a cover-proper was higher up. A cave would best describe it, with webs of support beams and devices holding up the earth.
She tried to picture what this place could have been in the past. It couldn't have been related to Fazbear Entertainment right?, and if not, were they aware of a post-apocalyptic underground building beneath their construction site? Did they even care?
"Probably not." Vanny murmured quietly. The shallow imprint of a mind virus was uncharastically silent.
Caw! Caw!
A black avian fluttered overhead. Her guard immediately raised, as her thinking spiked to taking a defensive step back.
This didn't add up. Where did the plants come from? Plants need sunlight, and the bird must have come from somewhere else. It's not like they live down here right?
Before she could question her new environment any further, a startling static garble interrupted her train of thought. It was barely decipherable in speech, but it belonged to something she knew well enough to get in his way.
Scraping of iron on what she presumed to be concrete shrieked. Another bird squawked in surprise and flew after its partner over the chamber's walls.
The animatronic with the most damage rose from its patch. Dented moss from the floor scraped up with mud, loose parts and reeds, as his torso dragged over with two remaining outstretched arms. The green amphibian, at first unnoticed by Vanessa, surged over with dangling wires and ripped endoskeleton to a steady crawl.
He was stunned from the fall, forcing an automated calibrated response to recheck himself. It took minutes of his time to readjust to the new climate, where he now proceeded to lock onto the only human presence in the immediate vicinity.
The malware was warped and unconcentrated, allowing Montgomery to assess the situations outside of the interference. He saw his friends amongst the garbage. The Chicken, now but a head, twitching with venom. And the Wolf, who was improperly shutdown, and impaled through the chest on a grey pillar with a red circle.
A snarl emanated from the most volatile robot in all of the Pizza Plex. His crawl strained, as every movement stung its servos.
But Vanessa was quick on her heels. Albeit with sore lungs and maybe a fractured ankle, she thought it best to put as much distance as possible.
Why is he attacking?
"It was a pretty high fall, so he may have a few screws loose."
You're one to talk to about a few loose screws.
"A matter of opinion, guard. Now let's get out of here!"
That was something she could agree with.
Her eyes darted to the surrounding walls. On opposing sides, there were two heavy doors. They appeared rounded.
One was over the lake. Too far away.
And the other was sealed. No power here.
Then her attention was brought to the ruinous enclosure. A weakness.
In a desperate gait, there was a loose panel to the back wall. With enough pressure she could pull the barrier loose to get through the gap. But it would only be a matter of time before the Gator brute forced his way in.
...
The new area was much less spacious and outdoorsy. A lengthy room. Flooring of metal grating and walls of plastered yellow panels. The ceiling was of similar material to the walls, with some broken fluorescent tube lights. Various industrial components littered the place.
Pipes. Valves. Cables. Electronics and heavy machinery that probably wasn't for show.
There was an entrance way which took her through a crawl space, heading away from the back room.
Crawl.
Above, the panel she lifted was being pounded. A mechanical roar reverberated.
She didn't dare to look back now.
The maintenance pit, she felt too awkward for human engineers to operate in, soon came to a stop. The material above her now concrete and the air less damp.
A lever-controlled sliding panel opened to a suspended catwalk railing. Her body adjusted once more to the change in scenery and posture, as she stood up, using the hand railing for support.
"W-what the." She murmured. Eye darting from area to area in her peripheral vision.
The container she exited, now feeling so small.
...
She caught sight of words on a distant structure.
Aperture Science Laboratories
Elysium 08
...
Author Note:
While writing chapter 3, it became too long, so it was split in two. (The goal is to fit 1k words per chapter.)
I was thinking about including Doug Rattan, but I decided against that. I will leave it up to your interpretation to disconcert his existence.
I'm not sure when Security Breach or Portal 2 takes place, but that can also be up to you.
Vanessa will be covering the B Plot, while Gregory and Freddy are elsewhere.
There are a few things that might need a rework. But I think I handled the dialogue fairly.