Chapter 6: Tangled Biology

  “Fix me and all of my broken pieces... though, you’ll have to find those, they’ve been lost for a very long time.”

  A simple waiting room greeted them, the clerk in their black uniform with a simple watchful eye under their rank signified him as a librarian. The chronically present Tataro and his skinny frame greeting them with concern and kindness.

  “What the hell did ya’ll do this time?”

  “Hey Tatero, I... tripped a week or two back, got out of medical recently.” His concerned face trailed to Bishop and his red tinged leg.

  “I ran into a dog, it was pretty big.” The group snickered as Tatero’s incredulity instantly hit its peak.

  “A dog did that to ya’ll?”

  “It was pretty mean.” The snickering continued.

  “Sorry ya’ll, lemme know if you need something.” He gestured for the group to pass through the scanners, just before she passed through, he passed something to Melissa’s hand as she passed something else back.

  Amanda hid a smirk as Melissa slipped it into her pocket with a quiet thank you to Tatero.

  As they went through the airlock, systems around them buzzed briefly, a series of neatly rowed red dots appeared on the ceiling from all sides, scanning the group as they trailed down the walls. A little display showed their names as the scans completed.

  Each had PTL 3 clearance, given to them through their hard work and dedication to Ravensmantle, each earning it, along with their ranks over years. Since meeting Vahlen in 2086, she had since pushed her to become more.

  Joining military service in exchange for access clearance and the neural lace, joining the Ravenguard to pay Vahlen back for saving her.

  All were sergeants, Bishop and Ripley were commanders and next in line to lead Ravensmantle.

  Despite their lower ranks, each acted as an advisor to both he, she, and Vahlen, if they didn’t agree on something. If common ground wasn’t found for the sake of their country.

  The world would pay for disagreements with innocent blood.

  After a green light winked on above, the heavy door lazily coasted up. The space opened akin to an ocean’s yawning abyss, covering a few city blocks in space.

  “Good morning, my soon to be subjects!” Bishop’s voice echoed throughout the massive atrium. The people bustling around echoed his call followed by some laughter through multiple levels of wall mounted catwalks surrounding a central spire.

  It trailed below into the darkness, only illuminated by the bank lights surrounding the spire like a dark vertical car tunnel.

  Bishop witnessed the same thing in Ripley’s stare, she looked small compared to the large girder and steel supported catwalk.

  “You are doing this every time?” Ripley crossed her arms with her brows raised.

  “Why yes, I do believe it to be important to introduce levity, mon reine.” He purred.

  The group smirked as they said in unison.

  “Cherries.” She turned her flushed face defiantly.

  “I will allow this, mon roi.”

  He smiled in kind, meeting her eyes and flushed face. He winced at his mauled limb, completely bandaged under his black uniform pantleg.

  Amanda stood in awe as she did every time she entered, glancing around at the other containing units set around the massive panopticon. Melissa always noticed how her eyes seemed to calculate and scan each individual one much like a powerful computer would

  “Movie, movie, movie... all of it.”

  "Be wary of what you see here, Ms. Smith. For some objects, the mere act of observation can lead to dire consequences." She theatrically waggled her fingers to a few snickers.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m well aware...” she wistfully gazed at a few of the containment cells as they passed by a few researchers ogling at, and studying a small figurine, a porcelain doll with six fingers.

  The sign read Permeative Density: Level 3. DO NOT TOUCH. If you feel the urge to step inside the containment cell, please inform security. Any and all attempts to enter will be met by force if unauthorized.

  Vahlen stood a few containment cells away. She was giving a presentation on a particular object, the photo on the info pamphlet next to its locked door displayed an old television, the antenna bent at odd angles.

  The TV screen was shattered with a neat hole in the center. The viewing window to the large containment locker blacked out.

  A few dozen men and women in black uniforms armed with rifles on their backs and loads of gear strapped to them were taking notes on something they couldn’t hear.

  She looked at the rest of the approaching group, waving them over before looking back to the small team she was briefing.

  “Look away and start shooting.”

  “What happens if you don’t?” one of the soldiers asked, his curly blond hair tousled in a mop on his head, he was busy taking notes. His lapel said ‘Acquisitions.’

  She pointed at the containment chamber, her voice went suddenly cold and clinical, her eyes darkened hollows in the bright lights overhead.

  Even from a distance, watching it happen felt unreal to Melissa, her eyes shined within those knowledgeable hollows. Like an all-knowing presence or primordial deity telling an ancient fable.

  “A TV turned on in a dark room once. Before I realized what was happening after tasting bubblegum and copper, hearing the static and the little girls sing song voice, my team were reduced to red mist. Their eyes went first and that's how I knew not to look.”

  She made eye contact with the blonde haired man. “Instant death. To those of you that are new to the Acquisitions team, there are objects with no designation, no rules, and no handling or containment guidelines that exist in the world in untold amounts and variants.” She slapped her hands together, everything seeming to brighten.

  “Remember, don’t touch it if you have an uncanny valley feeling and when you do feel it, check your detectors, back away, and assess.”

  The faces of the acquisitions team solely focused on her lethally charming smile.

  “Understood?”

  “Yes, Director!” Their chorus boomed through the library.

  “Carry on to Level 14 – Containment Wing and meet with Johnson, RG-094 of Fire Team Nomad, he will discuss anomalies and others that exist due to Cadre influence and will orient you for your first expedition to the Outlands.” They filed off.

  Vahlen approached the rest in long strides, solely focusing on Bishop and cocking her head slightly.

  “Soon to be subjects? Are you planning a coup?”

  “Well, I believe it’s important to ensure I’m likeable up until you give up the mantle.”

  “You do understand I’m immortal, yes?”

  “Such as all Ravenguard, I’ve no limits in how long I shall wait.” She chuckled mirthlessly, cocking her head and crossing her arms.

  “Get comfy, then.” Her charmingly lethal smile was met by Bishop’s before turning her attention to the wincing ecologist.

  “Doctor Hawthorne, how are you?”

  “I’m still in bad shape. But I’m here, I’m headed to my lab to grab something for Abberro, you?”

  “I am very well, thank you.” Despite the charming smile and gentleness, Melissa sensed a strange disquiet. It felt as if the air around Vahlen turned viscous, a cloying thickness of internal struggle and how she tried keeping her eyes focused.

  Regardless, they drifted to someone pushing a cart of sealed boxes into the Bio/Eco area.

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  As the cart bumped up and over the gap in the floor, a shimmering multicolor mist hissed from the overhead pipes, the person pushing the cart backed away, letting it go.

  As soon as Vahlen saw the multicolored smoke travelling to the man of its own accord, she sprinted towards him as her voice boomed through the chamber.

  “Farlow! Cover your face and run for your life!” The piercing shriek of the alarm drowned most of her words.

  He took a few steps before suddenly seizing as the gas enveloped him, following his face as it whipped away.

  The crunching of his bones was audible for all in the silent space, somehow sounding over the blaring klaxons, all eyes were fixed on him as his neck twisted almost completely around with a crunch.

  The light left his eyes, yet he stood, neck twisting back slowly to its original position.

  No longer shrieking, simply staring at Vahlen, the cart rolled further in as his back and body reoriented themselves to something familiar.

  Yet... unfamiliar.

  Farlow's expression dropped any pretense of emotion as the remaining gas on his face coated it like an oil slick.

  “Farlow, is that you?” Her voice was quiet, a plea on its border.

  The edges of his silhouette shimmered at the question, his voice had a confused lilt, as if he had no idea where he was, “Yes, why?” He chorused briefly.

  “What is your station?”

  "Yes, why?”

  She tried again, “Specialist Farlow, what is your first name?”

  “I can’t seem to remember...” His eyes were blank.

  They looked at her.

  Yet right through her.

  Confused muttering broke out behind her as a containment team swept in wearing white Sabre suits and bearing odd looking tools with conical nozzles swaying back and forth, they had hose lines running to tanks on their backs.

  “Please, Farlow, just give me something, tell me you’re in there.”

  He grinned wide, a somewhat confused thing.

  “Can you hear them?” Vahlen stared into his eyes, hoping they’d have a spark of light, life, anything.

  She saw a smiling shell.

  Melissa glanced up from the ground at a shaking Vahlen, something about what he said gave her a brief pause, her normal shield of clinical duty cracking.

  One of the team members ripped Vahlen away from him ordering her back, she spun from their grip and addressed them as the team pushed ahead, “Maxxi, he hears them.” She was cut off.

  Their colorful hair whipped as they jerked their head back, the sides and back shaven to their scalp with the rest in a fluffy ponytail. The utter brilliance took Melissa’s gaze away from the twisted Farlow only briefly.

  “Don’t worry, we got it boss.” They adjusted their black coveralls and turned their head to the frozen in place eco-expert.

  “Hey Melissa, nice to see you again, sorry about all this, but hey, you’ve seen worse right?”

  She shot them a questioning look before one of the containment team called for help.

  The team gently pushed Farlow back with long rods, pinning him to the floor while the rest put up a spring-loaded quick deployment dome. They surrounded it, their massive forms blotting the little white biohazard tent with red tape.

  The main panel of the tent read: Ghost Buster.

  Four stuck the nozzles into the tent, Farlow was still asking questions, where was he, who was he, why was he here?

  “Farlow, it’s okay buddy, close your eyes and breathe out really hard for me, okay?” Maxxi gently said.

  “Okay.” The C-Gas specialist gestured to their team with a nod.

  He was completely fogged as more rolled in large vacuums on dollies, the technicians along with them rushing to plug them into the outlets lining the walls while Maxxi shouted orders as they palmed the door’s panel.

  Vahlen turned to the others.

  “Bloody C-Gas, one touch and the principle rips you apart and puts you back together wrong.”

  She put her hand to her neck, swallowing the lump in her throat.

  Melissa stared at the ground while doing everything she could to not nervously laugh. She had seen death before, far to many times to count, most of her experiences involved passing by corpses on the roads of the Outlands

  “It’s not really, him, is it?” Vahlen shook her head.

  “Not anymore I’m afraid.” She looked at the closed door, almost trying to peer through it for a moment.

  “Just bits and pieces.”

  Ripley met Melissa’s thousand-yard stare, tilting her head to gently get her attention, peering almost right through her with a soft smile.

  “It is okay, death is an unfortunate cost for knowledge and... even Farlow understood the risks to his very life.”

  “He did, I’ve never seen it happen so closely,” Vahlen was busy noting down what she saw to the finest detail with a look of duty and resignation on her face. She continued writing on her display with one hand, holding their gazes.

  “Remember, what we experience must be recorded, however horrible.”

  As she ascended the panopticon’s main elevator after the Eco/Bio junction was cleared and Vahlen sent them off to their duties, she looked over the contact information she sent to each person that witnessed Farlow’s sudden rearrangement.

  Therapists and mental health professionals.

  As she stood next to Amanda her thoughts idly raced. Her mind replayed the crunching of Farlow’s bones intrusively. How his face went from very much alive and terrified within his own home.

  To nothing but a blank stare.

  He was well, however, his education, life goals, and aspirations all melted into a hollowed shell.

  It was tangible in her mind. The breaking. The wet squelches.

  “Any fucken pipe these days...” Amanda drew out.

  “Yeah... heard about more and more pipes going out lately, can you check on the ones in my lab with me?”

  “And what other reason would I be following you?”

  “Maybe because we’re friends?”

  “Well, got me there, couldn’t get rid of you if I tried.”

  “Stuck to you like glue.”

  They chuckled as the doors open to the lower laboratories. The hydroponic systems manned by scientists in lab coats, most were caretaking for or studying the plants in their own large planter boxes, each gleamed in the overhead lights as a few misters switched on.

  She always admired its odd beauty, originally captured from Zone 17.

  The very thing that grew from the strangely warm flowers growing off the loper’s tracks.

  They lined the walls of the terrarium, each was a slightly differing variety with colorful flowers sprouting from the main stem, in the center, each one had a red floral bloom, the petals tucked flatly akin to a lizard's skin.

  “That’s a bright plant.” Amanda pointed at a particular plant with a heavy finger, “what is that one... it looks...”

  “New? It is, just got this one couple days before I went into Zone 17... it grew from that thing’s tracks. But I need whatever chased us captured, and alive.”

  “You’re nuts, when you hunting again?” Melissa merely looked at herself with a shake of the head, the ankle swelling went away, the nerve pain remained the same.

  “No time soon...” she turned her head to a tall woman humming to herself, her hands busy digging through the center of a large flower the size of her head, she gently pulled at it with a whisper of success.

  As it came free, the strangely crimson mass was still connected by nerve-like roots, each one popped free. The tall woman moved her head away, crimson droplets landing near some marks on her neck Melissa recognized.

  Barely covered with concealer.

  She knew she’d make them return later as she tried controlling her smile. Her eyes always had a gleam of brightness she couldn’t look away from, especially the way they studied the plant she held. They got even brighter as she looked at Melissa.

  “Hey Dakra, it finally bloomed?”

  “Hey lady, yep, it finally stopped... uh... pulsing...” the mass wriggled in her hands, crimson staining her gloves and sleeves. “I’m pretty sure this is meat?” Melissa cocked her head with a quizzical frown.

  “So... we have an animal that spreads,” she pointed at a few barely preserved samples, the endotherm flowers connected to a beating chicken heart inside a glass container, “that...”

  “Looks like a solution to me.” Dakra’s eyes softened as they met Melissa’s, just as quickly flashing to Amanda, “thanks for keeping our little bunny here safe.”

  She waved her arms out, “nah, don’t worry about it, she saved us too... if it weren’t for that flare gun...”

  “We’ll call it even.” She bumped shoulders with Amanda. “So... is there anything connecting this plant to the...” the frustrated ecologist shook her head, “what should we even call it?”

  “Eh... it was kinda nasally when it screeched at us... how about... Whistler? Death Clicker?”

  “Yeah... Whistler works for social media, I don’t want to scare anyone to badly, but unofficially.” She let it hang briefly as she looked around the space.

  “Death Clicker.”

  “Agreed, I saw all of you... sorry girly.”

  “I’m still kicking...” she glanced down with a wince. She walked up to the bleeding mass in her hands, observing it closely, as she leaned her head down to sniff it, she reeled back with her hand on her nose.

  “Smells like ground beef.”

  “Should we try cooking it?” Melissa shook her head.

  “No, send a sample to Eta, we need it checked thoroughly before eating any of it,” Dakra nodded, a perfect smile she couldn’t help but stare at.

  She did the same in kind as Amanda withheld a smirk.

  She stayed with both ecologists for an hour taking her time to check each pipe and conduit for any sign of breaking or cracking, finding none. She spent more time going over the various dispersal methods the thing may use aside from the Whistler’s tracks.

  All the circle of gathered specialists knew was that with each step a whistler took, life followed.

  With each sprinting lope it bounded after its prey, a life was taken. Through some biological process, it formed the seeds of the endotherm flower, which, under the right conditions formed differing plant structures.

  The most common was the wriggling center of the porcelenium bloom.

  Dakra left with a sample for Eta to look over, the little cryo-box wafted steam as it closed. As she watched her walk away with a hidden smile, she paused briefly, suddenly strolling to Melissa as Amanda made her way to the door.

  Amanda paused, waiting for her to come along as the two biologists drew close.

  “Hey, before I forget, just uh. Lemme know if you need anything, at all, kay?”

  “Will do.”

  “See ya’ around.” Dakra purred.

  They parted ways, Amanda noticing both looking each other up and down before leaving the ecology department.

  As she rode the central elevator up with a few scientists, making conversation she could barely pay attention to, she could only think of Tom, and then the augments her friend was to go through.

  “Hey, you ready for next month?”

  “As ready as I can be... still nervous about it, but the faster I get through that, the faster I don’t deal with the anxiety.”

  “Alright, well hey,” the elevator doors opened to the bustling medical spire, “if you need any tips, tricks, advice. Just lemme’ know.”

  “You're the best, Amanda, and yeah... more than likely.” Her gaze wandered to the augmentation ward. Battling the fear of being sliced open, the fear of what amounted to piano wire being installed to augment her muscles and remineralization of every bone in her body.

  “Alright, well... I’ve got a date with Tom, get some rest, you’ll need it, as much as you can.”

  After trying to follow her advice the following month, she often found herself paralyzed with doubt, the more her body healed the more she could only think of it being broken all over again. It was an ebb and flow of breaking and fixing.

  She disliked her most recent conversation with Vahlen, the words, ‘break you to make you better’ had come up more than once. She’d be broken as she was most of her life. The sting of leaving Karla all those years ago felt similar to the clouded visage of her soon-to-be-changed body.

  She wondered, a small silver lining, how tall she would be. What would she look like?