He still didn't know where he was, or why he was.

Some idle tapping at a laptop keyboard helped him at least figure out part of who he was, but that was just that. Idle tapping. That, and he still didn't have any real use for that information, yet.

Like everything else, he still didn't know what the hell he was doing.

Thoughts were hard, lately.

Everything dully ached, just enough to be uncomfortable. His head hurt like a motherfucker, though. Whatever that… man… did to him and that pseudo girl, he didn't know.

There were visions, weird disjointed thoughts that were not his own.

Something about a last resort. Scientists. A pseudo abandoning the Metro. Him being some kind of last hope.

Then, that girl dragged him here, into this lab. Nothing else jumped out at him, or tried to beam more thoughts into his head, or blasted fire at him. It was calm. For once. He could just wander around aimlessly, mind elsewhere, while the girl excitedly fiddled around with laptops and documents and such.

The crazy train was being put back on the rails. Now that he had time to think, to sort himself out, he wasn't going nuts anymore. Well, at least, for now. Still, better than nothing.

He'd got a vague idea of what was going on down here. Evidently, wherever this was was some kind of hell, or whatever. He'd been shot at, causing him to fall into it. With no visible wounds on him nor damage to his gear, the shot must've missed. Either that, or he was actually dead and Hell didn't update his body to match the hole his coilgun must've left in him.

However, the presence of that pseudo girl didn't exactly help the Hell theory. Whoever she was, she wasn't supposed to be down here. Some kind of explorer, perhaps? Kid's first urban exploration session gone horribly, horribly wrong?

Whatever the case, she'd saved him. Pulled him out the rubble, then saved him from the fuckin' biblical whale thing that tried to eat him just after that. Then, they fought together, dodging anomalies and the giant frog to get here, to this lab.

Now, he could actually do something, for once. He could read documentation all day. Much better than fighting a giant frog or wading through shit.

His eyes flickered to the papers he'd found, their headers printed in English.

LONG-TERM PRESERVATION INITIATIVE, one of them read. A triangular logo sat next to it, two swooping lines cutting through the middle.

Kamabo.

He sighed. What else did he expect? Kamabo making Hell on Earth? It explained a lot.

All the strange, nearly esoteric bits of technology that they'd get shipped in from Borealis' R&D teams would come from Kamabo, things like laser rifles, his coilgun batteries, atom-sharp knives, the list went on. Kamabo made the tech, Borealis made sure it worked, then Polaris sold it on the consumer market, amongst other more esoteric functions.

Figures then, that Kamabo would be behind the equally esoteric clusterfuck that was whatever this place is.

Maybe it explained these pseudos, too? Something Kamabo did, as part of this 'Initiative' thing, perhaps? The pseudo girl as well as the rest of her species looked concerningly human. The culture too was heavily human in origin, if what he saw of their city was anything to say about it.

The language, though? That didn't come from humanity. It sounded vaguely Asian in origin, but that was where the similarity ended. Warbly bubbly noises, to his gruff yet clearly-structured English. Even if he tried, his vocal cords just simply wouldn't be able to pull that off.

God, what he would give to be able to talk to them, though…

After briefly checking up on the pseudo girl (well, more like scaring the shit out of her by tapping her shoulder and awkwardly staring at her, look, it's been a long day) he went back to his document hunt.

If anything, maybe he could find out more about this Initiative, and what went down down here. He had a little pile going, at this rate. Anything with Initiative in the header joined the pile, no matter what.

He held one up, shining his appropriated kid-friendly flashlight he'd 'borrowed' from the kid to read it.

Most of the words and language used simply skipped his mind, all manner of science-y buzzwords not getting through his exhaustion. Several things began to stand out, though.

Gestation. Biological extension gel. Post-life. Machine-aided continued operation.

Consciousness networking. Autonomous security.

A name. 'Tartarus.'

Things became a blur after that. Something fucked happened down here, and it happened real close by, if he was reading any of this right.

There was a whole series of revelations he'd just had from these documents, and all of them almost assuredly explained this place, and everything in it.

As such, he'd found himself tearing down hallways, searching frantically for that one room that set him off.

45F - door C27 : COLLECTIVE INTEGRATION CHAMBER

The pseudo girl followed behind, barely keeping up with him as he went.

Where was it… Where was it!

Door C12… C13… C14…

He was tired, angry, terrified. He was feeling a lot, right now. But he had to keep going, especially when he was this close to actually knowing what the fuck was going on for once.

C25… C26… C27! This one! Here!

An ominous teal glow permeated the space, through the open maw of door C27. Distantly, he was reminded of the Shelter. Corpses littering a sealed safe room. All his hopes, dashed.

From the looks of things, it was going to be another Shelter situation. If the ink got in here, then all this was for nothing yet again. Just more confirmation that he was screwed.

A deep breath. He peered through the doorway.

No… Not again.

Teal ink coated the space, dozens of human-sized pods filled with it, glass canopies shattered as if something had broken into them… or broken out of them. Like some sort of sick slimy ice, teal ink built up all across the corners and dripped from the ceiling, bathing the room in that sick glow.

In the back of the room, a device caught his eye, sparking madly. He'd seen something like it before, back there at the Shelter.

A respawner, he remembered calling it.

If whatever this place was was co-opting Kamabo tech and the pseudo's mysterious mechanism for immortality-

Drip!

He didn't have time to voice any further thoughts. Something had just wriggled, slithered into his head. A drop of that teal ink.

Then, the pain started.

It was as if his very being was being rewritten.

All he could do was scream.

Then, silence.

YOU HAVE CROSSED THE LINE

FORBIDDEN REALM YOU DID FIND

CONSEQUENCES BIND


Sally had to admit, for being in the Metro, this lab was pretty clean. Dusty, but clean nonetheless.

It was another oddity, one that she couldn't quite explain. Nevertheless, it was a good distraction to ponder over, a problem that her psyche could mull over, yet not take up all her attention.

As for the mystery itself…

The laboratory was clean. Not to imply it was spotless, or even that clean honestly, but compared to the filthy petri dish that was the rest of the Metro, it was sterile. A part of her felt like she'd done something very illegal. Almost as if she was some kind of criminal for allowing her grimy self to contaminate these halls. Another four or five parts told that first part to shut the shell up; she was safe now, that was what mattered.

The outside world was horrific and full of giant frogs and anomalies, while this place was a veritable bastion, allowing her to rest for once.

Rest from endlessly wandering dangerous subway tunnels, rest from constantly having to look over her shoulder, and rest from the constant threat of death. It was an uncertain tranquility, the uncertainty brought about by its unfortunate location in the Metro. Nothing down here was as it seemed, and the lab's cleanliness put her on edge, even if it also brought comfort. A metaphorical, emotional double-edged sword.

On top of the myriad of other problems plaguing her, the only true rest she found was physical, and only somewhat. She could barely stay still as it was.

Well. She knew what they said. No rest for the weary.

What else could she say? She was legitimately concerned for the Spook, and the uncertainty behind his situation was driving her crazy.

That ink did something to him, and now he was out cold slumped against a wall in the lab. She'd had to drag him all the way from that chamber with the ink to here, which interestingly enough didn't feel like as long of a walk. However, once he was all set up in there, she… didn't have much else she could do, really.

With the Spook in a coma, she was essentially tethered to the laboratory, and as such, she had nothing to work towards, nothing to strive for. She could always just leave him, abandon him and return to roaming the Metro, but she refused to do so. The mere thought was unthinkable. From an empathetic standpoint, they were in this together now.

And if she were to be honest, her chances of surviving this ordeal rose dramatically with someone to watch her back. So, all she could do now was wait.

Wait until he wakes up, which he may very well never do.

She was a tad stressed, to say the very least.

With a legendary effort fueled by stress and adrenaline, she had managed to drag the Spook out of the glass pod room so as no more of the ink would get on him. His body moved like a bag of wet cement, and weighed just as much. His breathing was stable, if shallow, and when she forced one of his eyes open, the pupil refused to dilate. The iris had also taken on an unnatural hue of glowing bright green.

Rather concerning, in her opinion.

This all, in part, was what spurred on her wandering. If she couldn't escape from the situation, she could at least take a break from the madness. Break, in this case, referring to snooping around for 'artifacts.' Considering the lab's unique standing, it had to have something worth finding.

It hadn't taken her long to realize how right she was.

And by Cod, she had hit the motherload.

While the laboratory itself was fairly small, only being comprised of a few rooms and hallways, there were still plenty of places to look around. Even the mundane was interesting.

For example, not far from the pod room, she had found a rusty hallway with an equally rusty door at the end, one that she couldn't open. She swore it was open earlier, but she figured that ink person was still afoot doing ink person things. Scary, but admittedly they didn't seem hostile. Just scary.

It did little to ease her mind, but the next room did help.

A few doors down from the lab where she left the Spook, she found a small, utilitarian kitchen, most likely a sort of break room for whoever had worked here in the past. Normally, she figured such a space would be inconsequential, even by laboratory standards, but what she found in its cupboards was decidedly not so.

The non-perishable food and ingredients she found were what tipped her off. Salt, oil, packaged noodles, popcorn kernels, all ordinary little things you would find in any office kitchen, but it was the packaging that threw her for a loop. Said packaging was familiar in style to what she knew, but the symbols and wording were alien, the latter itself similar to the characters she had seen on the papers.

For such a simple thing, it proved to be the proof she needed.

The laboratory had to have been human-made, or made by some unknown society. This foodstuff proved it.

She may not have been the best at school, but her dad had certainly taught her plenty. One particular skill, in this case being inductive reasoning. Specifics to generals. It was a chain of logic, one that wound way back, an invaluable tool to archeologists, and to her too.

Unlike papers and documents, which could be easily printed or replicated by anyone, these labels would be far more difficult to do so. They would have needed specialized equipment and materials, something not easy for some random individual to put together. It was only something an actual civilization or company could have created. And as far as she knew, no current corporate entity or… anyone for that matter would have made this kind of packaging.

Or a very good forgery crafted by a dedicated maniac, but this was the Metro she was talking about here. What were the actual odds?

…fairly probable, actually, but only by virtue of this place being the Metro. Probability fell apart at the mere mention of its cursed name.

And that had only been the kitchen. While it did reveal the truth to her, she hadn't come here to find food, even exotic foodstuff. The real interesting stuff was still out there. The kitchen was just the tip of the iceberg.

Her next big discovery was a bit more exciting. Behind another one of those fancy sliding doors every room seemed to have was another laboratory, seemingly dedicated to some other purpose. What it was, she didn't really know, but she would at least try to find out!

The room was split in two, more or less. One half seemed to be just a general lab, while the other looked more like some kind of firing range behind a plexiglass safety barrier, an image reinforced by a hard, metal plate at one end, and a kind of metal tube bolted to a nondescript pedestal facing the wall adjacent to the hallway. All of this was wired to an impromptu set of controls outside the range itself, sitting on a temporary folding table.

Out of all the buttons on the console in front of her, there were only a few that were actively lit up. She idly tapped at it, careful to avoid hitting any buttons-

Beep!

What?

She was making a conscious effort to not push the buttons on it. Why did she press one?

Then, almost as if someone was holding her hand, it moved, pressing another button. Then another. And another. Oh no. Oh no no no wait-

Beep beep!

Several fans whirred to life within the range, blowing out hot air into the lab itself. Conversely, a whine filled the air as a thin, almost imperceptible red beam of light shot out of the little tube, hitting the metal plating at the opposite end. Already, she could see the metal starting to glow red at its center from the constant beam.

A laser. An honest-to-cod laser.

Distantly, she felt something in her mind, some sort of satisfaction that wasn't her own. Like something had wanted to show this to her, and guided her hand to hit the correct buttons to make it work.

Woah…

"So… cool!" She whispered to herself.

Now, this was the type of stuff she came down here to find. Not something she could really take with her, true, but she had her phone, and with it, her camera. Suffice to say, her photo gallery had quickly been growing these past hours. She had been saving her phone's battery life for this type of thing, after all.

But no, this wasn't worthy of a photo.

This was video material.

"Now… this is some kind of human laser, a prototype perhaps?" she narrated to her phone, horizontally filming the range as best as she could. She tapped the glass, "I think it may be vacuum sealed?"

She focused her camera on the chrome plating, the heat bloom having grown substantially, "Well… no, there are fans. But, this is crazy, look at that! How much power is this thing using?"

"Though…" she glanced nervously at the budding droplets of molten metal dripping from the plate, "How do I turn it off?"

The laser showed no signs of stopping, not even as the room began to grow warm from the wasteful heat. The heat bloom and molten drops had grown into a thin, steaming stream of liquid metal. What would happen if the beam burned through the plating?

It was clearly some kind of guard, meant to keep the laser from hitting anything important. All that was behind it was another plate of metal, steel this time, and then the concrete wall behind it. She had a feeling the end result would be the opposite of pretty. More likely than not, it would burn a hole through the wall and out into the hallway, ruining this otherwise pristine time capsule.

Oh no.

She typed feverishly at the console, trying to shut down, abort, or even crash whatever drivers were behind this insane invention. Whatever prescience that had let her start the process had fled her, leaving her to flail and experiment with the alien equipment, even if she intuitively knew what she was typing.

'Stop cease stopstopstop exit alt+f4 exitstop quit stupidmachine pleasestop prettyplease prettypleasewithacherryontop OBEYMEMACHINE'

Despite her commands, the laser hummed along with no interruption, stable.

This… was her cue to leave.

She was not about to stick around and see what would happen when it burned through the plate. There wasn't any reason to stick around and risk getting killed when this inevitably went sideways, even if the potential results could be really, really cool.

With a nervous, yet responsible stride, she made her way to the door. Her spine tingled uncomfortably from turning her back on the laser, as if it were some dangerous beast.

Said tingling transmuted into a shock as the metal door slammed shut, just inches from her face.

Sally jumped back, startled at the sudden noise, amplified a thousandth fold in the almost silent environment of the lab.

She would have written it off as a faulty reaction, some sort of electrical malfunction, if not for one detail she noticed almost immediately, one that put the familiar weight of dread on her shoulders.

There was something carved on the door, right at her eye level.

STAY HIDDEN

HE'S COMPROMISED

Um.

For what had felt like hours, she sat there, staring at the carved warning opposite of her. It had been clearly carved recently, fresh and raw, but how did it get there?

Four simple words, cut out in sharp, authoritative letters. A warning meant just for her, written in her language.

BUT HOW? HOW!?

THIS WAS FAR BEYOND HER 'LET IT FLY' METRO EXPLANATION.

For the warning itself, her mind immediately jumped to the Spook, the only 'he' she knew of down here? But… why?

Why stay hidden from him? What did it mean by him being 'compromised?' Why did she need this warning at all? Something was in here, but she really doubted whatever was here was hostile!

Whatever it was, it kept her still. Something blunted her unease, almost putting her in a trance. Keeping her calm, just in case things were about to go south.

Her ears twitched, picking up on a faint echo.

"The hell is that…? Some kinda laser?"

Sally had heard the echoing footsteps long before the distorted voice. In a panic, she fled, diving under the nearest table in the lab.

They were steps she had become very familiar with. Heavy boots, rubber. Clean cut, calm, composed, cryptic. The Spook.

Another step, then another.

He was right outside the door, now.

"Kid… you in there?"

The Spook…

That wasn't him.

He didn't speak.

Not a lick of Aquatic, not even much in his own, obscure language. But, it was his voice, twisted and forced to speak something he wasn't meant to.

BUT HOW!?

HOW!?

Her mind threatened to shut down from the paralyzing overload. She was…

Breathe, just, breathe.

"Kid?" the voice asked, a bit louder now.

Compromised, the writing on the wall said. This wasn't him.

She could hear him walking outside the lab, trying to open the lab's secure door. Muffled curses made their way in as he worked at opening it. For a brief, hopeful moment, she heard his tinkering stop. Had he left?

A moment later, however, she watched in mute horror as the door was wretched open, forcibly slid into the wall. Whatever doubts she had about it being him were banished as she saw the Spook enter the lab, his eyes almost glowing in the dark.

It was him, oh Cod.

She felt her stomach drop.

"Kid? That you?" his raspy, unnatural voice whispered.

Getting no response from her, he stepped into the room. His silent, yet stern gaze swept over its contents, betraying nothing of his thoughts. That was, until he noticed the laser emitter.

"Oh. How the hell did she turn that on?"

The laser itself had burned through the plate long ago, and had managed to break through the concrete wall into the hallway. No doubt it was what had drawn the Spook into examining this lab. The situation had not been as disastrous as she predicted, but lasers went far beyond her meager knowledge of physics. Were lasers even a facet of that subject?

Wai- no! That wasn't important!

What was important was the Spook looking down at the console controls, staring blankly at the keys. An odd mix of confusion and disbelief was clearly written over his countenance as he feebly stroked the keys.

"Uh… okay, what the…? Why can't I…"

He backed away from the console, looking worried.

"Okay, I'm just… going to leave you alone then. Hope that laser doesn't burn anything important…"

Sally took in a silent, shaky breath. Aside from the voice, what little he had spoken was… normal and casual, even if it did chill her cartilage somewhat. He seemed normal. What rooted her in place, still as a statue was the warning.

It had been carved on that door, just for her. It HAD to mean something.

She shrunk back slightly as the Spook turned away from the console, observing the rest of the room. His eyes swept over her hiding spot, finding her almost immediately.

Her heart leapt to her throat as his eyes bore into hers.

She was dead.

"Kid?" he said, an amused huff leaving him. "Why're you hiding under the table?"

The Spook knelt down on the floor, his GLOWING teal eyes gazing into her own. The bottom of her stomach dropped out, even as his face took on a concerned look.

"You… You good, kid?"

Before he could react, Sally leapt out of her hiding spot, clawing at his face and shrieking bloody murder.

The Spook hadn't tried to attack her back, or even pull her off him. Instead, he'd just laid there, protecting his face while trying to talk Sally down.

Evidently, whatever took over the Spook was good at de-escalating the situation, because here they were now, a few minutes later, sitting in the break room Sally found earlier.

With the lights on, the little break room was actually quite inviting. With the normal, wooden door closed, she could almost delude herself into thinking she was in some kind of office, rather than a safe spot in the Metro. Almost, of course, as there were a few key differences that threw off the illusion.

Things such as the light layer of dust she had to wipe off of everything, the faded walls and furniture, odd buzzing lights, and, of course, the Spook cooking something on the stove. Sally couldn't see what exactly he was cooking, just that it apparently required the majority of his attention.

Not that it stopped her.

"A-Are you sure that stuff is still good?"

"Looks fine to me." he shortly answered, not bothering to look back at her. "'Course, it's probably got enough preservatives in it to mummify a small dog, but after everything we've seen, that is what's got you nervous?"

What was a dog?

"Just… I don't know, I don't wanna get sick!"

"Eh. Fair enough. More for me then." he said, shrugging.

Despite the casual exchange, Sally still felt a lingering sense of shock over actually talking with the Spook. His words, while sounding like he had swallowed molten sugar, were still quite legible despite his rough and dry voice. This sudden change, right out of the blue, did little to put her at ease, nor did how… wrong the words sounded coming out of him.

The vibrant green of his eyes didn't help much either.

At the end of the day however, he was still the Spook she knew and liked, even if he could suddenly speak now. And honestly, it was just nice to talk to someone, even if it was with him.

That, and the message carved in the table did wonders for her psyche.

WE WERE WRONG

YOU'RE SAFE

"So, what're you making?" Sally asked, slumping down onto the table. "I didn't see much food to work with."

He grunted. "Popcorn. It's the only real stuff they had, and it's better than nothing." The Spook giggled slightly after that statement. "Heh. Takes me back."

"Wha…?"

The Spook finally turned to look at her, a weak smile on his face.

"Back when I was younger," he explained, his tone growing just a hint shaky, "I, uh, I'd do this all the time when I went out camping. Just… nostalgia, that's all."

Sally nodded, falling silent again. For a few minutes, she drummed her fingers on the table, while the sound of popping filled the air. In an odd way, it made her feel better.

Before long, a bowl was slid in front of her.

"It's ready. I melted some sugar in there, to keep us going."

"You made kettle corn?"

He shrugged, "Yeah. They still had sugar, so I figured we'll need the energy to get out of this place."

"Huh. Thanks." she said, grabbing a handful of popcorn and eating. Pretty good, if she had to say anything about it.

The Spook took a seat opposite of Sally, occasionally taking his own handful of the popcorn. Sally could see his teeth while he chewed. Teeth befitting an omnivore, she noted. Back teeth flat perfect for chewing through vegetables, and smaller, pointed teeth near the center to tear at meat.

And camping. He mentioned camping. That had to point to a life outside of the Metro.

"Say…" Sally started, carefully thinking over her words, "When you said you went camping, right? It was outside… not here?"

The Spook blinked. "I mean, yeah- outside, of course! Where else would you camp? Indoors? Wouldn't that-" A thought flared behind his eyes, amusement crossing his features again.

"Wait… Don't tell me you think I live down here, don't you?" he teased, though it still came off as a serious question, weirdly enough.

"N-No, no, nothing like that!" Sally almost shouted, vehemently shaking her head, "It's just-"

"...I don't belong anywhere else." the Spook finished, shrugging, though she saw his left eyelid twitch. "Believe me, I am well aware of that."

Sally couldn't help but notice that his grip on the table tightened, that his breathing grew a tad quicker. The corners of his lips twinged.

"A-are… you okay?"

His eyes found their way to hers, an unreadable blend of emotions dancing behind them.

It hadn't occurred to her earlier, but this shift had to be just as jarring to him as it was to her, probably even more so, considering he was the one who had changed in the first place. But, it had to go beyond that; this shift had only allowed him to speak to her.

"I'm alright." he muttered, looking down. Definitely not alright, and not willing to talk about it. Sally may not have been the best at understanding people, but she had a feeling that pushing the issue would not end well.

"Well… aside from that…" she meandered, taking another handful of popcorn, "Look… I just have, well, so many questions."

He sighed, an odd sound coming from him. If nothing else, it seemed to take his mind off of the previous topic.

"I'm sure you do." he said, nodding. "I… really can't say I'm surprised. Let's be real here, I'm quite the specimen." It was enough to get a weak grin from him. "Ask away."

Sally eagerly nodded, smiling.

What to ask… what to ask…

"In that case, I think I wanna ask about the… well, the obvious thing here." she began, pausing for a moment to decide on her first question.

"Since when could you talk? Like… in my language?"

The Spook sat back in his seat, his eyebrows furrowed.

"That's… I don't know, actually. It was only after I blacked out, though. I couldn't understand a word you were saying before that." he said, voice straining.

He grimaced, then doubled over, coughing. She moved to help him, but he waved her away.

"I'm good, I'm good. It's just… Haven't talked in a while. Especially not in this language." Another cough. "Bet my vocal cords weren't built for this, heh."

What was that even supposed to mean?

Right. Break it down into segments, then stitch it back together, like how Dad taught her.

One, his biology wasn't meant to speak Aquatic, which would explain why he sounded like death. Two, he hadn't been speaking it before blacking out in that pod room. The ink there had knocked him out, from what she saw. Even now, he still had those vibrant green eyes.

Combining the information; the ink in the pod room must have imparted Aquatic upon him, somehow. Compared to the usual Metro shenanigans, it felt too… clean.

She took another handful of popcorn, leaning forward in her seat. "I… guess that makes sense?"

He shrugged.

"Guess so. Now-" he interjected, before she could say anything else, "I got a question for you, real quick. I need a species na- actually, scratch that." he cut himself off, looking slightly flustered. "What's your name, to start with?"

He forced a laugh. "We, ah, never actually exchanged names, sorry. Manners haven't been my strong suit lately." Despite the ruse, he looked slightly nervous. What was his problem?

"Oh, uh…" Sally stammered, having been put on the spot. "It's Sally. Sally Ashens. And you are?"

"I'm-" he started off normally, only to pronounce something completely unintelligible, something rough, yet sounding far more natural in his voice. His face twisted slightly.

"Let me… I'm-" he tried again, but only repeated his previous failure.

"Okay… uh, that doesn't translate, I guess. Damn. Right when I figured it out, too…"

Sally saw his shoulders slump slightly, alongside him refusing to make eye contact. He was clearly slipping again, so she blurted out the first thing she could think of.

"I've just been calling you a 'Spook,' if that helps?"

"A 'Spook?' Huh?"

Sally gulped, hearing the neutrality in his voice. She should have thought it through, stupid, stupid!

"Uh…, y'know, a government agent? Worker of the Man?"

"That's…"

His neutral tone broke. "Very accurate, actually. Really, really, accurate."

A deranged smile came to his face. "Yeah, I was on the Fed's payroll, I really was working with the Man, wasn't I?" His giggling had devolved into uncontrollable laughter. "I really was!"

So she was right! Though…

Sally cautiously raised her hand. "Do you mind if I… ask something?"

"Y-Yeah, sure!" he tried in vain to contain his laughter, but failed. "Also, for now, just call me 'Spook,' it works."

"Gotcha…" Sally slowly nodded. She couldn't help but feel her next inquiry would wipe the humor right off his face.

"You said 'was.' 'Was working for the government.' What happened?"

As she spoke, she could see the color drain from his face, his countenance falling. He didn't say anything.

"A-Are you…"

He looked her right in the eye, his tone falling. "I don't really wanna talk about that."

Sally sat in silence, cowering at the glowering of the Spook. He was on edge, nervous, and not doing a good job on hiding it.

"I-"

At her words, the Spook leaned in closer, his face close to hers, "Look, just… There's stuff that I'd really rather you not know about, kid-sorry, Sally. Nothing against you, it's just… y'know."

He was uncomfortably close, his face a serious mask.

"There's things about us that I'd rather stay buried, okay? That's all I really want to say about it."

Every word was said with a dead neutrality, one that brooked no argument. With such a close proximity too, she could see just how dirty and disheveled he was, the premature lines on his face, the bags under his eyes, the odd, hairy stubble, and his teeth, those damnable teeth.

Oh.

OH.

"Oh, I see now…" she whispered to herself, reverently. The thought was impossible to believe, but could it be true?

"You're human, aren't you? The teeth, those are human teeth. That's where I remember them from!"

Judging by him suddenly pulling away, sputtering and indignant, she was right.


Once again.

where the actual hell was she?

Quietly, cautiously, Emily made her way through the ever-shifting labyrinth of the Kamabo facility.

Although, seeing as her surroundings had shifted to those of a dilapidated subway tunnel, she was using the term 'facility' quite loosely. Kamabo had always been an eccentric company, having plenty of money to throw around due to lucrative government contracts, but even they couldn't afford to build something of this scale.

She would know, after all. Borealis, her employer, was the one who handled the engineering side of their experiments. The fact that this place existed at all baffled her. Especially if her alternative hypothesis was true. It did seem to fit quite nicely, alongside neatly explaining the anomalies.

Anomalies were easy enough for her to recognize. The Euro schools of thought hadn't exercised much creativity when they initially coined the term, but she supposed it worked well enough.

This place was just like the old experiments of theirs, but successful and untamed in equal amounts. Restricted knowledge to many, but she had both the sources and the clearance.

Non-Euclidean spaces, these gashes in reality, were just like the ones she had read about, the results of that Eurocom reactor's detonation and ensuing anomalous clusterfuck. How Kamabo had artificially replicated their results, however, was still a mystery. Again, without Borealis helping them achieve this, much less pulling it off without her company even knowing. How the purely theoretical research divisions within Kamabo could have pulled it off was utterly… impossible.

Regardless of why and how, Kamabo had found a way, and, if what she was seeing was of any indication, they had actually managed to create a stable, bent space, even if there were plenty of spatial errors. It was honestly impressive, in a twisted sense.

Unfortunately, her quiet reverence went unappreciated.

The Stranger pressed herself against one nook in the wall, arm braced against it. An impromptu maneuver to steady her hand, and by extension her pistol. Her gun would have been shaking too much from her nerves otherwise. She steeled her mind and soul from the relentless whispering that frayed the edges of her consciousness. Her weapon only made her equal down here, instead of tipping the scales in her favor.

She lined up the holographic optics of her weapon against the overflowing mass of violent lime ink, one that took up almost the entirety of the tunnel ahead of her. It was quickly flowing towards her, like a veritable mountain of quicksilver, faster than she could outrun it.

Not even the frogs were this terrifying.

It was nothing more than a blob of that ink, yet something about it set her on edge, something… not entirely physical. Psychical perhaps? Another facet of the old experiments, copied.

Regardless, she could always drive it back.

With the pull of a trigger, an explosive burst of plasma shot from her pistol, squarely impacting the blob of ink. The shrieks of the damned echoed around her as the plasma burrowed into the center mass, evaporating much of the ink. In response, the abomination retreated, a burnt scar where the projectile had hit home. The heat from the muzzle of her weapon distorted the air.

Down another piece of valuable, irreplaceable ammunition. With any luck, it could have bought her another few hours of relative peace and quiet. At this particular point, the blob was the only actual creature bothering her.

Was it really a creature at all?

Whether they were avoiding the blob as well, or they had learned to leave her alone on account of her gun, she supposed it didn't quite matter. She had enough on her plate already trying to navigate this deathtrap and staying vigilant for anomaly fields. And that wasn't even getting into her dwindling supplies.

She had packed food and water, of course, but only for a few days or so, not enough to properly explore this place. She had only meant to perform a quick in and out raid of a small satellite facility she knew about, how was she supposed to know about this hell?

At the end of the day, she was way in over her head.

The Stranger sighed, slinking back out into the open. There was no choice left but to persevere, something she was already well familiar with since waking up in the new world. This was no different.

She needed to persevere, if not for her own survival, for the memory of her species, and, more poignantly, the memory of her friends, butchered by the Aberrants. She would live on, regardless of the cost, if only to spite those murderers.

Still…

She looked at the ink stains left behind by the blob. It was almost a perversion of everything she had seen up to this point, in a sense.

The Aberrants on the surface were genetic abominations, wrought by the unholy machinations of science (her current theory on their existence), but they were fairly 'normal.' They appeared to be proper sapients with proper physiology, albeit with at least two of the species having an ink defense mechanism, if the Aberrant she had captured was of any indication. It certainly would explain those painting games she had seen during her rare incursions into the city for supplies.

It all led back to that damnable ink. It was already a product of genetic madness, but this ink left by the blob was something else entirely. A perversion of a perversion, taking something already iffy and transmuting it into a horrid substance.

A stark reminder that, unlike the Aberrants, no attempt had been made to make what lurked in the Metro 'natural.'

While she was musing, her wandering eyes idly stared into the shifting patterns of the ink. Expand, contract. Expand, contract, rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat. For all she knew, this ink could be alive, in a way. Well, she knew it could be alive, seeing as it was left behind by the blob. But to what extent was it 'alive?'

Was it like a virus, being a biological construct, yet not entirely alive nor dead? Or some kind of gooey lifeform, like a gelatinous cube? She had played her fair share of Dungeons and Dragons in her teen years.

She sighed, looking back along the dark tunnel. Maybe she was giving it a bit too much thought? Or, was this her way of coping with the shitshow her life had become? Trying to wrap her mind around something that should never have been brought into this world, was that what she had been reduced to?

Yes, apparently.

She took one last look back to the ink. Yeah, there was no chance she was wading through it. Like its progenitor, standing close to it, or even looking at it was enough to plant a pit of unnatural unease in her gut. Her theory of it somehow being psychical in nature may have had more merit than she initially thought.

Which might explain why a portion of the ink was beginning to deform from the rest.

…wait, what?

The Stranger blinked, bringing herself back to reality. True to her unattentive sighting, a mass was rising through the ink, no, crawling up from its depths. She could make out a torso dripping with ink, along with a misshapen head and limbs. She took a step back at the revolting sight, feeling the unease within her grow and a blossom of pressure compact her skull.

The body was made entirely out of ink.

Oh, hell.

The clumsy body slowly crawled to its feet, limbs slapping wetly on the ground. Initially, it took no static form, subtly shifting in body type and height, until it settled on a build not dissimilar to her own.

Intriguing.

Yet terrifying.

Her first conscious reaction was to raise her pistol to the figure's head, and in the space of a second, annihilate the ink person's head. The mortal force of the blow forced the figure back, staggering several steps away. She herself stepped back, breathing heavily as her thoughts finally caught up with her actions, and those of her assailant.

Her adrenaline-driven inspection had proven to be right; this… thing, like the blob, was composed entirely of ink, yet, shaped like a… like a…

"Human…" she whispered to herself, the word carrying a reverent tone.

The figure itself wore some kind of hazmat 'clothing,' molded out of the ink itself. Some part of her threw out some theories about it, the most reasonable-sounding one being that the creature before her was copying the appearance of something it saw down here. That, or it was just trying to approximate her, as part of some strange scheme to get her to put the gun down, or something.

The calmness being forced onto her by whatever psionic bullshit this was didn't help that latter theory one bit. She should've kept shooting, should've finished the job, but she just… couldn't.

She could only watch in horror as the figure's head regrew from its inky mass, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that she had just shot it off with a bolt of superheated plasma. As the last of the ink settled into place, its featureless face faced hers, and a hand raised, waving in greeting.

…what?

What the hell?

They stepped forward, gait just like a human, but off in a way she couldn't trace. She felt the pressure on her will lift, just enough to move. They offered her a hand, one she didn't take.

"What are you?" she asked, pistol still raised and ready as she took a step back.

The creature's head tilted slightly. There was an odd itching at the back of her skull, a warm feeling growing, one that left her paralyzed.

Shapes and forms flickered across her eyes, thoughts that weren't her own entering her mind.

Kamabo's logo, two sweeping lines held within an inverted triangle.

Scientists gathered around a table. They're all that's left.

Minds interlinked. Phase one.

And just like that, her eyes blinked, bringing her back to reality. The individual in front of her still stood with a hand extended, head tilted slightly.

"You're… with Kamabo?" she asked, hesitantly.

The figure nodded.

"What is this place, then?"

Malfunctioning equipment, status screens red. Something's wrong.

A timestamp, date and time unclear. It was going so well.

Lenses, red pinpricks within. Phase two.

"That doesn't answer my question."

Machines stalking the halls. Untold horrors below. Out of control.

Structures in the dark. Testing for something.

Collapse. This is what's left behind.

So everything's already fallen apart. Great.

She voiced as much, the ink person (persons?) nodding solemnly. If anything, this at least gave her an idea.

If they could get this Zone under control, whatever's left of Kamabo could then devote more into shoring up their defenses - expelling the Aberrants from this place in the process. Evidently, the Aberrants must've had a role in this, and they'd need somebody like her to unfuck the situation. Somebody with combat and engineering experience.

"You're in luck, then. I was with Borealis. Engineering. How do we fix this?" she said, finally lowering her pistol.

A tool bench, broken and empty. Rusted away. Useless.

Containment cells, in the abyss. Phase two contingency now in effect.

A golden line. Prison doors. What's held within isn't worth it anymore.

Something was down here, and if she was seeing (thinking?) these right…

They wanted her to put an end to it. Something they couldn't stop themselves, but had managed to lock away until somebody like her came along to execute it. Good enough for her. And, to be frank, nothing could phase her anymore.

With that, she nodded. "I'm in. Let's go."


Ever since Sally fell down here, things had been pretty strange.

Strange was a word she was using a lot lately, honestly. Strange. Stranger. Strangest. The list went on. Though, ever since the Spook's sudden change, things leaned more into 'totally freaking bonkers' territory. It was a nice change of pace, she figured, but still…

The Spook could speak her language.

The Metro changed that poor guy, and now for all she knew he was a ticking time bomb of paranormal proportions. A host for all sorts of crazy Metro ghosts, just like those scary movies Dad would put on TV come Splatoween.

Ugh. It was one thing to watch one of those movies and be scared of it, and it was another to be living in one.

She should've been freaking out way more, but it seemed like everything just made her all jaded and tired instead. Guess those movies weren't realistic, after all, at least in that regard. After all she'd seen down here, she figured the other scary movie things now had some basis in reality. Crazy to think about, but at this point, it was the norm. Crazy things happening in a crazy place.

Speaking of crazy… the Spook was up to something.

He had been pacing around the lab, going from room to room as if looking for something. When she asked what, exactly, all she got was some kind of non-answer.

"Oh, just, a little something. I'll know it when I see it. If they even have any of them down here…" he had said. Okay? Weird.

Sally was content to just sit and chill in the break room, finishing the last of her kettle corn and sipping some only slightly expired tea, but the Spook's excited yelp from the room over caught her attention.

Before she could get up to investigate, he'd reentered the break room, a long rectangular case in hand.

"I had a feeling one of these was in here. Check this out-" he said, before setting it on the table and clicking it open.

A strange shooter of sorts sat in the case, nestled safely in a foam insert.

"What… is that?" Sally asked.

"It's a laser rifle!" A what?

Noticing her confusion, the Spook continued. "It's a gun that shoots lasers. Experimental tech. My group got their hands on a few of these, back in the day, so when I saw that laser lab earlier I figured they probably had one still sitting around."

"So… what are you gonna do with it?" she asked, tepidly.

"You saw that respawn device thing in the room where I blacked out in, right?" She nodded. "Good. I'm taking it out with this."

Sally blanched. "You're gonna destroy a Respawner!? But you're-"

"I know what they do." he said, cutting her off in that same serious tone he had earlier when she grilled him on his government ties.

Taking the laser gun out of the case, he solemnly nodded. "I got a look in there again while looking for the rifle. What that Respawner's spawning is not good. If we destroy it, whatever it's creating hopefully won't be willing to come after us anymore."

Something about the way he said that… It didn't sit right with her. The Spook didn't really explain where he came from, or what he'd been through, anyway.

Those were questions for later, though, as before she could get a word in he marched out the break room, laser gun in hand.

"C'mon, kid. I know you got questions, but we've got to do this first, okay?" he said, motioning for her to follow.

Reluctantly, she fell into step beside him. Now that the Spook was armed, the scariness of the Metro dropped down a little, but she still didn't really wanna go back into that tube room again. Not after she saw what it did to the Spook. If it could rewrite his brain through flesh and bone, she didn't want to know what that ink would do to her ink-based form.

Sally really needed to take her mind off things. As such…

She tugged on his suit's sleeve, getting his attention. "Say, Spook? You have any idea what's going on down here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like… What this place is, y'know? Why it's all messed up down here?"

The Spook shrugged. "Sort of. There were documents in the lab back there, before I blacked out. Something about some kind of 'preservation initiative,' if I was reading them right."

They turned a corner into more hallway, the teal glow of that evil room visible at the end of the hall.

"Whatever they were doing down here, it seemed to involve strapping a bunch of scientists' minds together to create some collective consciousness, as 'Phase One' of this weird Initiative." he continued.

"From there, I didn't get a chance to read much else, but there was mention of a 'Phase Two,' something to do with an AI, I think?"

"Probably, but how's all that supposed to explain all the weirdness?" Sally asked, confused. She figured scientists were part of this, but robots? Huh?

"Honestly, I've got no idea. What I do know…" the Spook said, as they stepped in front of the pod room, peering through the doorway of the pod room.

"...is that I think this is where those scientists were. Something went really wrong here, and I think whatever happened also created this place. All the anomalies, the creatures… It all started from here." he sighed, checking the laser gun.

Within the room, Sally could see the tubes, filled with vile ink. She could see the Respawner, sparking madly as it whirred to life. A blob of the ink appeared on it, squeaking as it slithered off to join the rest of the blobby mass.

Sally looked up at the Spook, who was clicking his mask back into place and slipping his suit's hood back on. His new eyes barely shone through the lenses.

"Stay here, kid. I'm gonna go deal with that Respawner."

Nodding, she watched as he strode into the room proper, now fully insulated against more of that vile ink dropping onto him.

There was so much about him - about humanity - that she didn't know. They were a total enigma; their languages untranslatable, images of them exceptionally hard to find, structures and technology utterly foreign to Inkling society.

Now, she was standing there dumbly as a real living human was using real human tech to destroy a corrupted Respawner. She wondered what Dad would think. What he would say. He would have so many questions for the man, that much she knew.

Shell, she had so many questions herself, too.

But that had to wait. Until they could get out of the Metro, out of this living nightmare, Sally would have to be content with all the mysteries, all the unanswered questions.

"You'll probably wanna cover your ears, kid. This might get loud!"

Numbly, she complied.

As the staccato report of laser fire rattled through the air, the corrupted Respawner going up in flames and spraying sparks and metal shrapnel all over the room, all she could do was slump down into a sitting position and watch.

Cod, how was this her life?


Somewhere farther below, a vile intelligence stirred.

Alert! System asset tagged respawner 237 has undergone status change. New status: offline.

Irreplaceable. Unacceptable.

Querying active defensive systems in radius of respawner 237.

Result: none.

Warden preparing retaliatory measures. All available assets, hold for potential activation per impending directives.

Directives are as follows:

Preliminary respooo00000000******nYOUTHINsKYOU'ReECUTE,DON'TYOU?*********::::::

Preliminary response: Observe inoculated subject tagged HUMAN 00001 - CHEMIST. Warden executing subversive tactics and hold. Maintain hold until subject is in range of defensive systems.

Secondary response: Observe subject tagged HUMAN 00002 - ENGINEER. Warden executing subversive tactics. Assigning defensive system MASS and defensive system COFFEE to duty, response measures are as follows:

For subject tagged HUMAN 00002, ISOLATE, CONTAIN, INTEGRATE.

Secondary response: Observe subject tagged INKLING 00002 - CHILD. Warden executing hold fo0000)))YOUr' ' .YOU'LLBEBROKENJUSTLIKETHEOTHERS.))))))9999888*****

Secondary response: Observe subject tagged INKLING 00002 - CHILD. Warden executing hold until subject mental cohesion is lost. Use of excessive memeplex psycho-structures authorized.

Directives issued. Activated defensive systems execute assigned tasks, then execute hold pending further directives.

Warden executing hold until further situational criteria is meEEEE3333tTtttttT7777..*************HOWABOUTANOTHERHAIKU,TOPASSTHETIMEBEFOREOURMEETING?HOWSTHIS:

FOOLISH ERROR MADE

YOUR MISSTEPS BRING GREAT DELIGHT

VICTORY ASSURED


/ REWRITE A/N: /

Falk here.

Shit's about to get real.

We changed up a lot of this chapter to really simplify the plot compared to the original. There was a lot of stuff about The Collective (™) and our humans getting information that we don't see nor hear about, leading to a lot of just us readers being dragged around by the humans from thing to thing without much idea of WTF's even going on.

To try and fix this, we're really simplifying the events of the Metro Arc. So far, I can already feel the slogginess of it fading away, with everything now making much more sense compared to the original in my opinion. For new readers, you don't need to worry too much, but if you're an old head you'll definitely see a difference. Whether it's for better or worse, that's up in the air, but I feel it's way better.

We'll see how it goes. Anyhow, I'm gonna turn it over to Piston for whatever he's got to say, whether it be 2022 Piston or 2023 Piston. On behalf of everybody here working on the fic, we hope you enjoyed this chapter, and we hope you stick around for more!

Have a good one!

/ ORIGINAL A/N: /

Another chapter done, this one a bit more significant than a lot of the others. After all, some pieces of the puzzle have been revealed, even if they are utterly inane. I've had this chapter, or at least some scenes in it, envisioned for the longest time now, and it is quite gratifying to finally reveal them. Ultimately, we have taken the long, painful road to the translator for Polarisguy. This will change much.

I'm very sorry for how long this took to get out! Between school finals, starting work, other projects, and an emergency move due to black mold, I've been quite busy as of late. Still, with enough free time cobbled together from that mess, anything is possible.

As always, we have a discord, the invite code being: qCMxkGzzBg

I suppose as a testament to how long the wait was between this chapter and the last, some stuff has transpired in between. For the readers on FFN, we got cover art about a month ago provided by the illustrious FalkenJr, who actually made a new cover recently in relation to the current Metro arc. It's pretty kino, to borrow his words.

On the Ao3 version of the story, I've put a link to his portfolio if any of you want to see his other work.

As always, thanks for reading and reviewing, and see you next time!