Honestly I am so glad that I took the time to write ahead. I have NOT been writing a whole lot recently. It's got nothing to do with schoolwork or anything, my ass just got a dragon age hyperfixation. I don't know if it's the kind of fixation that'll result in fanfiction. We'll see
Marion steadily sipped on the soda. The sugar was helping the faint headache she was steadily developing. She should eat something more substantial sooner rather than later.
Marion took a few more sips as Bin Liner retrieved another can from the machine and passed it to the Doctor. She held out hers and lifted it up to Marion as if to give a toast.
"Build high for happiness, Marion!" she called.
"Build high for happiness!" Marion nodded back.
"Let us not forget what we have to do." the Doctor nodded, "I can see why you insisted that we stay for a little bit longer. We must join back up with Mel and discover the mystery of Paradise Towers, because I've learned enough to realise that its very existence is at stake."
"Ice hot, Doctor." Bin Liner raised her can, "Ice hot."
Marion sat up from where she was leaning against the vending machine. Her vision spun momentarily. Marion stared at the door and moments later, alarms began to blare.
Bin Liner ran towards a periscope "Caretakers! I can see them through the I-spy."
The soda forgotten, Fire Escape shot up and pointed her crossbow at the two of them. The other girls joined. "Ware, Doctor! Ware Marion! They bring them here because like Caretakers he wants all Wallscrawlers unalive!"
Marion casually pushed the Doctor back behind her swinging her head back and finishing the last of her soda as she did so.
"Don't be ridiculous, he doesn't want the Kangs unalive and neither do I. If anything, it's the Caretakers that want HIM dead. The Chief Caretaker is off his rocker and none of the other caretakers have more than a brain cell and a half between them."
"You got to believe her. " the Doctor insisted. Moving from behind her outstretched arm. "Listen, we've got to work together. Marion, you mentioned that you told them that you were an Insp-"
Marion nodded, "Yeah, I think that I can distract them. Probably can get them away."
The smell in the room was changing from something dusty and concrete with the faint acrid scent of spray point into the smell of burnt metal as the Caretakers started to try to burn through the door.
"Perhaps, I could help!"
"What? No. Go with the Kangs."
"Marion!"
"Doctor! They have orders to put you to death. I'll handle it."
"What if they've already seen through your cover?"
"Oh no! What are they going to do? Kill me? Oh, sorry, unalive me?" Marion turned her head, "Kangs, you've got a secret escape route?"
Bin Liner looked up at her. "Red Kangs have an unseen outway, but-"
"But what?" the Doctor asked.
"The Caretakers will be in our Brainquarters too soon for the Kangs to use it."
"That's fine. I can distract them long enough for you to get away" Marion turned her head, "along with The Doctor."
"Marion."
"Doctor."
"Marion."
"Doctor trust me," she sighed, "I can do this safer alone."
The Doctor stared at her for a moment, and then he looked away.
"Oh alright!" the Doctor insisted, "But be careful!"
"I will!"
Marion felt dull pressure in her arm and the pain burrowed deeper as the hole in the door was almost completely burned away. Marion didn't look behind her. The pain in her arm changed to dizziness in her head, and she hoped that that meant that the Doctor had listened. Or at the very least, if he hadn't left, he had hidden somewhere out of sight. And that of course meant that she needed to keep them from going inside.
Marion stood up just to the left of the door as the Deputy kicked the door down. It flew past with a loud metallic clatter.
A morbid thought crossed Marion's mind. If she had been standing at the top of the stairs, and the door had crashed into her (because it would have) would it have just knocked her out or would it have killed her.
Perhaps it would depend on if it hit her in the head hard enough or not.
Marion only felt a little bit nauseous. And that mean that the Doctor was either gone with the Kangs or he had one hell of a hiding place somewhere. Either way, she couldn't look around. If she looked around and something caught her eye, she might be asked what she was looking at.
Rather than do that, Marion breathed in and breathed out and put on a friendly, if a little bit confused expression on her face as she ducked back to the side and up the stairs to look up at the Deputy.
"Hello Deputy!"
"Inspector Henson!"
"Yes, that is who I am. I assume that you're the one who kicked down that door? Good, good, good. Can I ask why? Surely not over the wall scrawlers?"
"Not just them. Although they will need to be punished."
"Yes, yes, of course." Marion nodded, "Personally, I would suggest putting them to work cleaning off the scrawl themselves. Really teach them the consequences of their actions. I'm sure that if they were the ones who had to fix what they broke their tunes would change in a moment."
"Surely you would need to do more than that?"
"Ah, you know. They're not terrible, they're just young. Perhaps you could find an unused stretch of wall, or some other space where they could be encouraged to great a piece of art for the Paradise Towers."
"And reward them for vandalism?"
"Oh, it's less of a reward and more of a-" Marion spun her wrist thoughtfully, "It's redirecting their energy. And consider this, if the Kangs have one space in which they do their wall scrawl, then you won't have to worry about having to clear it up from all over the place. Think of it as a quarantine measure if you like. That's my recommendation after talking to those young ladies." Marion took a step forward out of the room forcing the men by way of social convention to take a step back.
"Now, you said that you didn't kick down the door over the Kangs and I have no reason not to believe you, so I must instead ask what the reason was."
"Was there a man in there with you?"
"I mean yes…what about him? I told you, he was the man who came in here with me. It's he's called the Doctor and-"
"And the Chief Caretaker has confirmed that he is the Great Architect of Paradise Towers!"
"Oh! How did he do that and still have time to investigate the Cleaners. You know they attacked me and that man as well again!"
"The Chief Caretaker says that the cleaners are nothing to be concerned about." Parroted a man standing to the deputy's right, "It was just an unlucky accident."
The Deputy's expression did something.
Marion didn't have to be a body language expert to notice it. It was the look of a man who doesn't know how to not do as he's told, but knows that what he's been told is wrong. A look from someone who then turns to another authority figure in hope of hearing something that more closely aligns with that little voice telling him right from wrong.
"Several Caretakers have disappeared without any known explanation. You suspect it to be something to do with the cleaners?"
Marion pursed her lips, trying to decide how exactly Inspector Henson would word this. "At this current junction, directly accusing the Chief Caretaker of negligence involving the behavior of the Cleaners, saying that he's ignoring his duties to this tower to the detriment of his men to focus on things like rogue architects and teenage girls with spray paint would be a violation of several regulations and bylaws. And so I'm not going to say that."
Bureaucrats speak for "Yes, absolutely".
"Then what will you say?"
"Same as I said before deputy. If you start trying to cover up an accident, it stops being an accident." Marion replied sharply. "Now, what on earth do you need the Architect for? Unless there's a connection of some kind between him and the cleaners."
There was a connection between the architect in the cleaners in the sense that he the architect was being fed the people that the cleaners killed but that was neither here nor there. Inspector Henson didn't know that.
"The Chief Caretaker has ordered his death."
"The corridors are bit hard to navigate and I'm sure it's hard to clean all the various corners and crannies, but death is a bit overkill isn't it?"
"This is no laughing matter Inspector."
"You're serious?"
"Yes ma'am. The Chief Caretakers has ordered that he be administered a three two seven appendix three subsection nine death."
Marion stared at the man.
She wished that she had taken the time to read through the rulebook herself. All she knew about that was that it was apparently a worse form of death than other kinds of death.
"I-" Marion shook her head, "Wow."
"So surely you must understand why we need to find the man as quickly as possible."
"I- believe he ran off with the rest of the Kang girls." Marion replied, because if that wasn't what happened, she was going to be pissed.
"You let him run off?"
"Well, it's not like I could have known that you were plotting for his execution, Deputy." Marion replied sharply, "And I can't deny that I'm suspicious of the timing of this, request." she bit the inside of her lips and frowned. "I'm not sure that that's…" Marion trailed off unsure how to finish that sentence.
"If I don't find him, it's my neck on the chopping block."
Marion didn't know if that was figurative or not but she frowned.
"He threatened you?"
"I don't know if it qualifies as a threat."
Marion let out another disapproving hum.
"If you take issue with his decision-,"
"And I most certainly do!"
"-you can discuss it with the Chief Caretaker himself. He wanted to see you as well."
"I take it that the you did refer to all four of us. Not just you three."
"You would be correct in that assumption Miss."
Marion nodded, "I'll just make my way up back to the office."
The Deputy nodded to one of the men. "I will escort the Inspector to the head deputy's office. Wouldn't want her to get lost. The corridors are terribly confusing after all. You are to continue your search for the Great Architect. He can't have gone far."
"Yes Sir." "Yes Sir!"
Marion knew enough to know when a suggestion was not a suggestion and that it's not a suggestion-ness would become obvious the moment that the suggestion was questioned.
"Thank you!" Marion said with a nod, "The Chief and I are going to have a nice long discussion about what is motivating his, if I can be frank, quite concerning behavior!"
Marion returned to the office with the Deputy. As they went she listened carefully for the sounds of the cleaners. The Deputy, if she was remembering correctly, was capable of questioning the Chief Caretaker. And at the very least, had some concerns over the fact that his colleagues were going missing while his boss seemed unable to give less of a shit.
If the situation came up, she would do her best to make sure that the man didn't die.
The Deputy opened the door to the Chief's office and Marion walked inside.
"Ah Inspector! I was wondering where you had run off to."
"I wouldn't call what I did running off as much as I would call it doing my job."
"And has anything come up yet in your little investigation?"
"Your cleaners are going haywire."
"I assure you Inspector that everything is under control."
"Several of your men and, if I am to understand, an entire cohort of children have been killed. If that's what you consider under control I'd hate to see what it looks like when things are getting out of hand."
"Chief," the Deputy added, "As I was coming in I heard reports that Caretaker number ninety-seven stroke two subsection nine had disappeared without any known explanation, and that Caretaker three four eight-"
"I'm well aware of that!"
"But Chief, have you heard the Inspector? If this goes on and the Cleaners are out of control, how many of us are going to be left?"
The Chief looked away from the Deputy and down at her.
"Inspector. Are you getting this down for that little report of yours?" he looked back at the Deputy, "Deputy Chief Caretaker, by talking out of turn in such a way, you have just broken so many rules and regulations that it would take me several hours just to enumerate them. Wait outside, would you?"
The Deputy stared at the man for a moment. "Yes, Chief." He bowed his head lightly and then left the room.
Marion stared at the man for a moment.
"Is the man you're travelling with the Great Architect?"
"No." Marion replied, "But judging from the fact that you just asked me to confirm the identity of the man you have ordered a brutal death upon and threatened your second in command with the same brutal death should he fail to find them, does his real identity matter to you?"
"Not very much no Inspector. And I wouldn't call a ninety seven stroke two subsection nine death brutal. Efficient, certainly. Painful, absolutely. But Brutal?" the man leaned towards her, "I wouldn't say that. There are much more, brutal forms of execution."
Marion wasn't stupid, she was pretty sure that this conversation had passed into the realms of "I'm going to kill you later and there are no witnesses so I can say whatever the hell I want."
"What do you want with a dead man?"
"So you believe that the Great Architect is already dead?" the Chief leaned forward.
"Well, he disappeared and no one's ever heard from him since. Not a photo, nothing. If he was alive he would have been spotted by someone by now. Wouldn't he? But let's say that he's not. Why exactly is that such a problem for you?"
"The Great Architect was a being whose head was apparently full of extravagant future plans. But I always knew in my bones he'd turn up again one day. Start altering things just when I'd got them the way I wanted. It's terrible enough they sent someone here to inspect the towers, to make sure things are up to regulation."
Marion stared at the man. "Is that what you use the cleaners for? Wipe away anyone who seems to be making a change to the towers that you don't like? Have you been sending them our yourself? I suppose that that might explain why I've been attacked twice since I came here. The thing is, I don't know if I think you're the one who's really controlling them."
"No?" The man leaned forward.
"No." Marion replied not moving, "Because there's an Inspector walking around investigating things and your men have started to notice members of their number going missing. If you were in control of them, the smart thing to do would be to have them lay low for a while, at least until I left. But they're still doing attacks. And if what I've heard is to be believed, they've actually been attacking more people more frequently. If you had nothing to do with it, you wouldn't be covering it up and citing infractions against the Deputy for trying to figure out who the hell has been killing your men and the girls. Either you're some kind of idiot, or you know who's been doing it, you've been allowing them to do it, and it's only now that they're suddenly out of control."
"That's an interesting theory of yours Miss Inspector. And I would be careful who you repeated those theories to." The Chief Caretaker got up fully from his desk. "It would be a shame if there was some kind of incident." The man started to walk towards one of the shelves against the back wall.
"Some kind of incident?" Marion repeated eyeing him warily. Did she need to run, or did she need to allow him to think that what was probably about to be a murder attempt was successful."
"Oh yes. You know, we've confiscated a handful of things from the Kangs over the years. Wallscrawl Spray. Weapons."
When the man turned around, he was holding in his hands one of the Kang crossbows.
"I know that your superiors want to think the most of their dear children, but they've gotten quite violent as of late. They've even formed gangs." Marion took a step back, because there was only so much obliviousness to murderous intent she could fake without being an idiot.
"What are you-"
"I'm sure they'll be so disappointed when they find out what those girls did to the Inspector that they sent." the man stepped closer to her. The crossbow aimed at her chest. "They thought she was interrupting their fun and they shot her dead. They attacked her."
Marion backed up again, and she backed right into the stool by the console and just barely avoided tripping.
"No one is going to believe that." How did the man think he was going to explain to her having been in his office? That wasn't even touching the fact that she had been last seen with him.
"Why wouldn't they?" the Chief Caretakers replied, "The Chief Caretaker will be the one who told them" and then he pulled the trigger.
Marion felt like someone had punched her hard in the chest and then something felt warm and wet. Her mouth tasted of iron and when she looked down, she was only just vaguely aware of the thing sticking out of her. She grabbed at it on reflex and she instantly knew that was the wrong move. She was overcome by a wave of pain that mercifully ended with the rest of her senses preceded by a pain in her knees as she fell to the ground and then the sensation of falling to her side.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick.
She could hear the Chief Caretaker talking to someone.
"-continuing her inspections elsewhere."
She had been shot in the chest. Probably either directly in the heart or in some kind of major artery. But she hadn't been shot in anything connected to her spine because she wouldn't be awake yet.
She could tell from where she had fallen that he was standing in the doorway, probably to keep whomever he was talking to from realizing that the room he was in had a dead body in it when he was the last person to be alone with her.
Marion didn't move. Sooner or later, he was going to leave and then she could get up. Maybe wait for the Kangs and the Doctor to find her. Maybe look for them herself. Possibly readjust her shirt to hide what was more certainly a prominently bloodstain.
"Report from floor one hundred and nine, Chief!" the Deputy shouted.
"Have you found the Great Architect?"
"No Chief."
"Then why aren't you still looking?"
"Two of the residents have apparently disappeared and it's believed they've gone down the XY three standard issue waste disposal unit."
"What?"
"It's unheard of, Chief. I should remind you that under emergency regulation number three four eight stroke five subsection six-"
The Chief cut him off. "All right, all right, all right. I'd better go and investigate this myself. Deputy, take your men and continue with your search for the Architect. And I don't need to tell you what will happen if you don't find him."
"Yes sir."
Marion listened carefully to the sound of a closing door and the sound of footsteps walking away from the exit. Marion remained quiet and still as a corpse listening for the sound of breathing. She didn't know why the Chief would pretend that he had left when he hadn't. She heard nothing. Marion took a deep breath and sat up. The bolt had all but pushed itself out of her chest, and all that remained of it owed its location more to the angle she had fallen in more than anything. She plucked away from the small divot it had made in her chest and as she rubbed at it, as the wound slowly sealed itself the rest of the way leaving behind what Marion knew would be faintly discolored skin. The bolt itself was mostly blood free somehow, but Marion could feel a crustiness around the hole in her undershirt. She lightly pressed at it, and then stared at the monitors for a moment.
The Chief Caretaker hadn't put on the little video he had put on for the Doctor. But that made sense since there was no reason to play that kind of thing for a corpse. Still, that video had helped the Doctor do something and connect dots, so she needed fo find the tape.
Marion set down the bolt on the chair and start to check different things on the console. She had to be careful not to press a button that might make a noise or do something that might let the caretaker know there was something in the room other than a cooling corpse.
Still, just looking at the control panel on the console, Marion was fairly certain that she could see the slot where the disc would come out and a button with a triangle with a rectangle under its base that was most likely an ejection button.
Marion pressed it, and a silver disk popped out. Marion absentmindedly spun it around on her pinkie. It was clearly something for internal use only and not mass production. Likely it had been produced in house and then burned. One sided of the disk was shiny and reflective, and then other had a white matte finish with "Paradise Towers Promotional" in neat but clearly handwritten black marker.
Marion heard the sound of many rapid footsteps. She looked down at the ground where she had landed when the Chief had shot at her. She didn't think that she could get herself lying down in the same spot again if that was the chief. It probably wasn't the chief. But it might be a Caretaker. Maybe someone the Chief had sent back to "discover" her body. That sounded vaguely plausible.
Whomever the Chief had sent wouldn't be looking for her specifically. Doing so might be suspicious.
Maybe.
Marion quickly moved toward the door and pressed her back against the side of the wall. She leaned against the back of the wall and watched carefully. The door slid open. Marion braced herself in the event that she needed to run off and then the Doctor stepped into the room.
Marion sighed and relief and pushed her away from the wall.
"Oh," she sighed, "It's just you."
"Just me?" the Doctor turned to look at her. "Oh were you expecting-" And then suddenly he was standing right in front of her, his expression tense. "Marion, what on earth happened?"
Bin Liner and Fires Escape walked into the room after him.
"What do you-?"
Marion followed the Doctor's gaze and realized that the blood-crusted hole in her tank top lined with the blood that hadn't flowed back into her body was very very visible due to the fact that the stain was very red and the shirt was very white.
"Ah."
Marion very quickly buttoned up the flower shirt before either of the girls could get a good look at the stain.
"You said going alone would be safer." the Doctor all but hissed at her.
"Safe is relative. You weren't hurt, and I'm alive and unhurt. Safer. Trouble with claiming to be an Inspector is that sometimes people have things that could look bad for them if Inspected too closely. And when you confront them about they end up terribly offended and try to murder you about it." The Doctor's expression darkened. "But it's okay."
"No it's not." the Doctor seemed angrier now. Shit.
Marion held up her hands and patted her chest. "I'm fine. Probably could have avoided it if I had just-"
"Who?" the Doctor demanded. He sounded angry, and Marion couldn't help but think about how Seven was known for being very silly in some situations and very Much Not in others. And the look in his eyes was heading into very much not territory.
She wondered if she ever looked like that. When the Doctor was hurt or when he was being threatened and she had try to reason herself out of the instinct to hurt something and hurt it bad.
"Doctor it's-"
The Doctor put his hands on her shoulders. "Who was it? The Caretakers?" the Doctor noticed the discarded crossbow bolt on the ground, "The Kangs?"
"The Chief Caretaker. Who else? He shot me with a Kang crossbow and then said something about trying to pin my death on a Kang game going too far or some such nonsense." The Doctor still looked angry. Marion pat him on the arm trying to calm him. "Nevermind. Don't worry about it. It's fine! I'm fine!" and then in the same breath she raised her voice and addressed the Bin Liner and Fire Escape directly. "I'm so glad that three found me. I was just about to start heading out to look for you!"
Deflections didn't have to be subtle. They just had to change the subject and keep the subject from being changed back.
"You are an Inspector? Is that like a Caretaker?"
"No," Marion replied, "Also," and she leaned forward, "I'm not actually any kind of Inspector. I'm just good at pretending and pretending to be an Inspector helps me get information I couldn't ordinarily get."
The suspicion in the two girl's postures lessened.
"So, you're like a sneak spy," Fire Escape said with a nod.
"Sure." Marion replied.
That was as good an explanation as anything.
"How long did it take you to find me?"
"We tracked you down the Carrydoors. We waited for the Chief Caretaker to leave for the Caretakers to go. Why did they not leave soldiers to guard you?"
"Because the only person who was there thought that he had killed me and he didn't want his men to know."
"I don't know," Marion replied with a shrug, "I figure they thought they didn't need to? I'm claiming that I work for the same people the Chief Caretaker answers to. Might've gotten a bit of free reign because of that."
"Because you're like a Sneak Spy," Bin Liner nodded.
"Yes."
Marion avoided looking at the Doctor. She was certain that even if the two Kangs didn't pick up on her meaning the Doctor would. As a distraction, Marion held the disk that she took out of the console.
"I think this disk has a bunch of important information about the Towers. Might be useful to check."
The Doctor stared at Marion for a moment, he looked like he was about to say something, and then he decided against it.
Deflection successful.
"We must return to the Brainquarters." Fire Escape said with a nod, "Before the Caretakers return and find us."
"Yes!" Marion said quickly, "Yes! Exactly that! Let's leave!"
Fire Escape offered them sodas as soon as they walked into the room. Marion took one and downed about a third of it in one go. There wasn't any more blood in her mouth, but she could still taste it. The ghost of iron was gradually replaced with the ghost of citrus.
Marion and the Doctor were guided over to a place where the could sit.
"Be seated"
"And drink."
Marion took another long sip.
"But before we do anything else, we must view the disc Marion got for us," he began to pat at his sides quickly, "Now which pocket did I put it in? Marion?"
"How should I know!"
"How indeed. I supposed I can't truly- AH there we are!" The Doctor retrieved the disk and lifted it up in the air.
"Do you have something we can look at it on?" he asked the Kangs.
Fire Escape and Bin Liner looked at each other and then walked off to the side.
While they were looking for whatever they were looking for, some of the other Kangs began to talk to them.
"Is it true that there are other places not like the towers?" asked a girl who couldn't be more than fourteen. Her hair in a messy braid with strands of red woven in and out.
Marion wondered how long the girl had been there. How long had any of them been there? When had the war started?
"Oh plenty of them." Marion replied, "With trees everywhere and plants growing from the ground and tons of natural light."
"There are more places than you could count if you started counting now and went on until you were unalive. All with different languages and different clothes and different customs." the Doctor added.
"Do they all have Rezzies who eat Kangs?" the girl asked.
Marion stared at her.
"No." she said. And she was glad that this wasn't information that was new to her. She was unsure she'd be able to resist a "What the fuck?".
The Kangs had likely said and heard worse. She certainly hadn't had the cleanest mouth when she was their age. Still.
Marion wondered how long it took for the elderly to result to cannibalism. It couldn't have been very long. Nowhere near long enough.
Marion's choice not to duck in or ask Mel to duck in to warn them about the cleaners wasn't a matter of something slipping her mind. It was a conscious choice.
"But Kangs," asked another girl. One who looked younger than the girl with the braids with her wild hair tied up and out of her face. "They all have Kangs don't they?"
"Well, they have girls. And the girls get together in groups. And sometimes they have complicated relationships with other groups. But they don't really have Kangs of any color."
The room was full of chatter for a moment before the first girl spoke up again. "We want you to tell us about such places."
Before either Marion or the Doctor could, Fire Escape and Bin Liner wheeled in a small boxy TV on a cart. It reminded Marion a bit of being in middle school. In fact very much of being in middle school. Marion squinted at the TV. It was an older TV. It honestly looked old enough that it could have been a TV that got dragged in front of a bunch of pre-teens whose teacher was slightly hungover nearly a century prior.
Then again, she didn't think CRTVs lasted that long.
Who knows.
"All shape ship and ready, Doctor." Bin Liner said tapping on the top of the TV. She handed the Doctor the remote. The Doctor slid the DVD inside of the machine and pressed the power button and the screen flickered to life.
The movie began immediately.
Marion wondered if maybe the video was designed to be playing on loop as part of some kind of presentation.
"Welcome one and all to Paradise Towers, which will be your new home for a good few years to come. Some of you will understandably feel nervous at leaving everything you know for a strange new environment, but we believe once you've tasted the Paradise Towers experience you won't want to change it for any other. Our motto is Build High for Happiness."
"Build High for Happiness" the Kangs parroted back. It seemed almost like a reflex.
"Paradise Towers has been specially designed for you by Kroagnon, universally known as the Great Architect. The genius responsible for Golden Dream Park, The Bridge of Perpetual Motion, Miracle City."
"Miracle City!" The Doctor snapped his fingers and pointed at the screen. "Oh! Miracle city! That's where I recognized that name from." Not long after that, the screen turned black and the video began to loop. The Doctor quickly removed the disc and began to fidget with it.
"Marion, you don't recognize the name Miracle City do you?"
"Not just from-" the Doctor waved his hand "but from before."
"Before-" Marion caught the Doctor's meaning, "No, I don't. And if I'm remembering what you're going to say directly, I absolutely would have."
Not just because she would have learned about such a famous architect in school, if not in class directly but from her classmates who were far more interested in studying particular precedents and individual architects than she was.
If not that, Marion would have heard about him because the story was fucking wild.
"Ah well. Then I'll explain. Kroagnon" the Doctor stood up in front of the TV, "was a brilliant architect, and Miracle City, his masterpiece. Only-" he handed the disk to Bin Liner.
"Only what?"
"Only he refused to move out and let anybody move in. He thought that people would destroy the beauty of his work. But they got him out. Only those who moved in lived to regret it."
"He made them unalive!" Fire Escape stood up.
Marion would have absolutely heard about this if it had happened in her time. Kroagnon was like Frank Lloyd Wright if Frank Lloyd Wright had been about 60% more unhinged. She could imagine variations of "Died 1950, Born, whenever Kroagnon was born. Welcome back" memes making her class groupme basically unusable for its allegedly academic purposes for at least a while.
"Nothing could be proven so he got away with it. And as I said, he was a brilliant architect. And space is a big place, so he got other work, if course, including Paradise Towers."
"Blank walls and cleaners." Bin Liner nodded.
"Quite. And then he disappeared. Mayhaps, my dear Red Kangs, mayhaps your parents thought they were being very clever by trapping him in his own building so he wouldn't finish it. But if they did such a thing, it was very foolish. Because no matter how deep they buried him in Paradise Towers, he's bound to get out in the end."
Marion would like to say that she found that hard to believe. But, if things had continued in their deeply strange trajectory that started off from her time, then yeah. She could see a guy who murdered people for daring to move into the apartment building getting off scot free due to lack of evidence and then going on to build another apartment complex.
Marion didn't feel the need to ask why an architect would bother to build apartment complexes if he didn't want people moving inside of them.
Architects were weird like that sometimes. Especially famous ones. It seemed like a natural progression from Frank Lloyd Wright's habit of showing up to the homes of the people he designed for every now and then to make sure they hadn't done anything to ruin his vision.
The main thing she wanted to know was why had the original residents of Paradise Towers chosen to Cask of Amontillado the Architect instead of doing literally anything else.
Maybe that was just the level of strangeness society had gotten to in this version of the mid 22nd century. Where fucked up and evil architects were treated as ancient evils to be ignored until they became their children's problem. Like demons. Or generational trauma.
"So what must Red Kangs do?" Bin Liner asked.
"We'll fight for you!"
The group cried in agreement.
Marion nodded, "Good. Good. Love your energy. Focus on keeping yourselves safe so there aren't any more wipe outs. I'll look after the Doctor."
"Yes yes, and I'll look after you. Now, Kangs you must tell me all you know. I mean, that door with smoke coming out of it. Where is it? Please, it's important."
The Kangs went silent. They all looked at Bin Liner and Fire Escape and the two girls looked at each other.
"In the Basement." Bin Liner said finally, "The Cleaners have a secret alleviator. Red Kangs have used it and seen-"
"And seen what?"
"Things they could not speak of." Bin Liner stared at her, "Redacted things."
The Doctor stood up. "Marion and I are going down to the basement to find out what's going on."
"I'll look and go with you Marion!" said Bin Liner standing up quickly.
"And me!" cried Fire Escape.
"And me!" cried the rest of the Kangs.
Marion clapped her hands loudly so that she could be heard The girls were quiet long enough for Marion to speak.
"Fire Escape, Bin Liner, you two come with us. Everyone else, stay put."
The Doctor stepped up a flight of stairs towards the exit, and the large, probably a mattress that was blocking the exit was shoved out of the way by a girl who looked about the same age as Bin Liner and Fire Escape but with a head of curly deep blue hair.
The girl was dressed in blue and black clothing with blue eyeshadow smeared on her lids and behind her was a couple dozen other girls dressed similarly.
The Blue Kangs.
The girl jumped down and leaned forward and shouted down at the Red Kangs.
"No. Red Kangs leave no outlooks. Blue Kangs have got into their Brainquarters and won the game. Blue Kangs are best!"
And then all of the young girls started to shout at once. Marion winced and pressed her palms into her ears.
They were way too loud and there were way too many of them talking at once saying similar but very different things and it was bad enough when they were just shouting about Red Kangs being the best Kangs but at least then when they were talking at once they were all saying the same things at the same time.
Marion was tired, not so much physically, she was surprising well rested. But the sort of physical tiredness that came from doing things back to back to back.
The point was that she wasn't at 100% and she would have had trouble dealing with a bunch of teenagers shouting over each other in an enclosed space with her in the middle of it at 100% and if those girls didn't stop screaming she was pretty sure that she was going to start.
Before she could start screaming, the Doctor waved his hat and rapped his cane twice against a metallic part of the wall and it resonated. The girls stopped shouting at each other and the Doctor waved his hat to get their attention and began to shout; his deeper and singular voice far less grating and Marion slowly lowered her arms.
"This is no time for games." he exclaimed, "The future of Paradise Towers is at stake. We must all work together. You've got to help us. Do you understand?"
"But Blue Kangs have won." the Blue Kang leader said stubbornly.
"Oh for- Yes, yes, of course, you've won this round, congratulations. You however, will all lose if you stand here shouting at each other and then end up getting murdered by a bunch of militarized zambonis and" fed to an architect lich.
Marion didn't get to get that last part out.
"There won't be any games worth playing if we don't discover who's ordering the killings." the Doctor glared at the Blue Kang leader, "Will you let us go to the basement?"
The girl looked at the Doctor for a moment, and then Marion, and then she looked around at the rest of the Kangs of both hues.
"More, I will come with you."
The issue was handled with far more maturity than she had known some adults to be capable of.
"Well, let's go then. The sooner we can get to the bottom of what's going down the sooner we can come out on top."
The rest of the Blue Kangs piled into the Red Kang brain quarters. Their leader took a step outside and looked left and right down the hall.
"Blue Kang I-spy saw Chief Caretaker footing it there too."
"What's the quickest way to get there?" the Doctor asked. He looked from Bin Liner to Fire Escape to Marion.
"We must use the Cleaner's secret alleviator!" The crowd of Red Kangs parted as Bin Liner and Fire Escape rushed past them as they ran in the direction of the "alleviator."
Marion gestured for the Doctor and the Blue Kang leader to follow them with a quick tilt of her head.
"Ah!" the Doctor snapped his fingers, "Right. To the basement! Build high for happiness."
"Build high for happiness!" the Kangs of both hues called out.
Mel and Pex had had elevator trouble. Marion had only vaguely remembered at the time, but she was remembering that now. It's not like Marion would have been able to give them another place to go instead. The pool was on top of the roof and the building was over three hundred floors. It's not like stairs were an option. Marion was pretty sure that she could climb three hundred flights of stairs without passing out when she got to the top. But even then she wouldn't want to do that because it was 300 flights of stairs.
Pex wasn't unfit, and neither was Mel. But still, 300 flights of stairs in a building full of evil robots was 300 flights of stairs in a building full of evil robots. Even if they made it to the top, when they got there they'd be so exhausted that if a Cleaner did come they'd stare up at it blankly and not move a muscle.
The service elevator they took down didn't have those issues. The five of them got inside and Fire Escape pressed a button labeled "B" then they went down, down, down, down, down.
As they got closer and closer to the basement, Marion began felt dread and nausea grow stronger.
"Marion, are you alright?"
"What?- Oh."
Marion hadn't realized that she was leaning her head against the cold metal of the elevator. She took a deep breath.
"No I'm fine-"
"Marion, are you sure? Did you eat something that didn't agree with you?"
Marion very pointedly had not checked the band on her arm reminding her to eat. She would eat something later. She still had a few of those food bars, and honestly, she didn't feel that hungry right then and not just because she was nauseous.
"No," Marion shook her head, "I'm fine. Maybe it's a migrane from all the shouting earlier."
"Well, if you're sure."
The elevator opened out into the basement with a muted hum.
"Doctor, I'm sure." she stepped out the elevator first and held out an arm when Fire Escape started to move ahead of her crossbow drawn. "No." Marion said.
"But you said we could come with."
"I did, but you need to stay behind me. And if I tell you to start running or to leave I need you to listen to me. Is that clear?"
"Clear Crystal" Fire Escape replied. Marion slowly lowered her arm. "Good."
The crossbows wouldn't be the ideal weapons against the cleaners. They weren't good against robots in general unless of course you could manage to hit a joint. Robots were best if you had something that you could use to smack them and dent important things. Still, she wasn't going to tell them to get rid of them. Again, they were good against joints. Crossbow bolts could still be fairly effective against them.
And so their group moved further into the basement.
The basement had probably been designed to look the same way as the rest of the towers at one point but it was gloomier and dingier.
There wasn't much trash or dust, but Marion imagined that there was only so much that cleaning robots could do and it's not like any humans were ever down here other than the Chief.
The walls were visibly damp. Marion kept her hands to her sides so that she didn't touch them, but she just knew that they'd feel vaguely slimy in a way she'd feel even after a wash. It was the kind of damp sliminess that's in humid basements with walls covered in something meant to make them water resistant that was underventilated. And there was no question on if the basement was underventilated. The air felt thick and hard to breathe in.
The chief caretaker was down here, talking to what he had no way of knowing was the real architect. Marion put a finger to her lip and nodded in that direction.
Marion wondered if the Chief had gone back to his office and knew that she was alive. Could she sneak forward and scare him into thinking she was some kind of ghost?
"-tender little morsels to keep you big and strong, so why are giving my Cleaners orders that aren't my orders and killing people I didn't tell you to kill?"
"Because the bodies the Cleaners brought were not right."
The voice that replied was deep and sounded like it was coming from the other side of a fan. In the distance, where the steam and smoke seemed thicker pink and purple and blue lights flickered in time with the voice's words.
"Not right? What for?"
"For me to live in."
"To live in? I don't understand, my pet."
"Neither could they. That was the problem."
"You see, all these bodies disappearing. People are beginning to notice. There was even an Inspector-" he cut himself off "Would her body work? She hasn't been dead for very long. You might find her more suitable."
Marion heard movement to her left and she turned her head to see the Doctor. His expression dark and his pace quick as if he meant to run past her. Marion held out her arm to stop him and shook her head. The Doctor stared at her for a moment, and then some of the tension left.
They were close enough now that she could see the Chief's back and the cleaner behind him and the robot thing that the architect was inside.
Whatever he was using to see, wasn't located where you would expect it to have eyes. He wasn't reacting to their presence the way someone who knew that they were there would. Or maybe he just didn't care.
"Perhaps if she had been brought to me alive." Gross, "But, no matter," said the voice.
"What did you say?" the Chief sounded more confused than angry.
"I am ready now. I have my plan."
The Doctor tapped Marion's shoulder and nodded his head to the side to an alcove partially behind a pillar. Marion nodded so that he knew that she understood him. The five of them pressed themselves against the wall.
"Look, it's nice to have you chattier than usual, my pet, but I do think you might be a bit more grateful for all I've done for you." The Chief was tripping over his words as the cleaner standing behind her started to push him closer to the machine.
"You have done all I need you to do. I need only one more thing from you."
"Oh, do you?" the man took a deep breath, "And suppose I won't give it to you?" The man tried to sound confident, but his voice cracked.
Without turning around, Mairon reached her hand back until her fingers brushed against the Doctor's sweater vest.
Marion turned her head to the side and sharply tilted her head back towards the elevator.
The architect's voice echoed around the room. "You have no choice." The cleaner started to push the Chief towards a wall. A panel started to lower revealing a small indent with a slowly lowering honeycombed tube, "I am Kroagnon, the Great Architect, and I will put an end to you and everyone in Paradise Towers!"
The Chief Caretaker's scream seemed to bypass her ears and land straight into her skull. She meant for the group to be leaving already, but everyone else was just as frozen as she was.
The Chief Caretaker had fed this monster his men. And it wasn't just his men. There had been the Kangs too. Marion didn't really care much about the "Rezzies" on account of them killing and eating people, but again, that was something the Chief surely had to know about? And what did he do? Nothing.
Marion thought about these things in order to get her mind off the fact that she was listening to a man die.
Hopefully.
The alternative was that he was fully conscious as the Great Architect piloted his body around. If you asked Marion, that seemed worse. She wasn't sure that he deserved that.
After a few moments, the screaming stopped. Something was happening inside of the tube. Marion couldn't quite make out what, but she could see motion through the other side. The lights that had flickered in time with the Architect's speech dimmed and then went out.
The path to him was blocked by the two cleaner robots moving towards them.
"WARE CLEANERS!" Fire Escape shouted, the spell of stillness broken. She raised her crossbows. The bolts plinked off the robots pointlessly.
Marion's arm burned. One of the robot's claws lunged for the Doctor's neck.
That wouldn't do.
Marion yanked the Doctor backwards barely not sending him to the ground and herself along with him and raised up her other arm to catch the claw instead.
It clamped down on her wrist with a crunch. Marion hissed out a curse. The Blue Kang fired her crossbow at one of the upper joints and it let her arm go. Her wrist was bent forward in a painful way, and it shifted back into place with an uncrunch.
"Nice Shot-" Marion, Marion trailed off. The girl seemed to understand why she had trailed off the way that she did.
"Drinking Fountain,"
"Ah. Yes. Drinking Fountain. Of course," Marion lightly rubbed the side of her arm and hissed as the last of her bruises started to fade away.
"Come on!" We've got to run!
The cleaners weren't very fast, but they were in pursuit. Luckily, the elevator wasn't very far and it was functional and the door closed and the cleaners didn't have access to any kind of elevator override. And they were soon heading up back into the floors where the rest of the Kangs were.
The Doctor leaned against the side of the wall, breathing heavily.
"Marion is Ice Hot!" Drinking Fountain remarked.
"Could be a Kang" added Fire Escape. "Marion is brave like a Kang should be. Ice Hot."
"Is your arm well?" Bin Liner asked, "The cleaners made a noise." Ah yes. The crunching.
"Hmm? Oh yeah." Marion held her wrist out. "Not even a bruise. Takes a lot more than that to take me out. And I couldn't let to cleaner grab the Doctor now could I,"
"Thank you Marion."
"No problem."
"Now, you understand the dangerous position we're in." the Doctor addressed the three girls, "We must gather all the Kangs together."
"And is the Chief Caretaker really unalive?" Fire Escape asked.
"I'm pretty sure the Great Architect overwrote the Chief's consciousness. Unalive might be a good way to describe it actually. It's like he never existed in the first place."
"Up to now Kroagnon's simply been a mind without a body, as your parents must have left him. However, I fear he may have spent his time down there devising a way of performing corpoelectroscopy. A way of transplanting his brilliant brain to some host body."
It was almost like a software version of what Harmony Shoal had done. Deleting what's there and downloading something to replace it on the hard drive vs physically removing the hard drive and replacing it with a new one.
Marion vaguely knew that all of that was in theory possible especially in this universe's more sci fi based science. Probably something involving the use of electronic signals in the brain.
She wondered if it was known technology here in the 22nd century or if Kroogan was unique. And she wondered if he had always been merely a consciousness or if the first residents of Paradise Towers had rendered him into such a state.
"And what's the come out?"
"Well, the Architect caused enough problems through a proxy he was unwilling to reveal all of his cards to. And now he's got a body of his own. And not only that, it's the body of the Chief Caretaker. The man in charge. There's no way he's going to remain down in the basement for long."
Next Chapter: Nobody Explodes
Deputy Caretaker: Is it just me or-
Inspector Henson: Your boss has fucking lost it?
Deputy Caretaker: Oh thank God.