Locksmouth had always been a city with a strange history. If someone looked back into the accolades, they would find that many happenings of import occurred there. It was like a hotbed for weird. The alien invasion was just the most recent, the tip of a proverbial ice burg that spanned hundreds of years. Marcello wasn’t very read-up on her history though, and so she only had to take recent events into account. Even so, Locksmouth was a hot topic on the lips of just about everybody from Snowden to Anchorsway.
Marcello had travelled there for reasons entirely apart from the recent events of Locksmouth, but just hearing about the things that had happened after the Inkling invasion made Marcello wonder… People talked of a massive subterranean city beneath the dome, some kind of Old New York they had accidentally stumbled across. Whatever lay within seemed to be big; the hustle and bustle around it seemed a bit larger than normal. With this discovery on the heels of the invasion, the entire political sphere began to change and everything was being turned upside down.
The invasion almost sounded as if it weren’t really over. People had become divided between supporting the aliens and not. Alien attacks had occurred after the fact, with some strange inky creature with some strange name and tremendous supernatural power at the helm every time. The one that saved the day initially, Echelon, met these foes every time, and the police… Marcello had heard that they, too, attempted to wrest control of the aliens and failed to do so. They weren’t even allowed to be coy about how they managed to do it, having created a containment unit specifically for the alien creatures and suits of battle armor meant to withstand their abilities. Somehow that had failed, and Marcello couldn’t even begin to wrap her mind around how or why.
Before, people were mostly focused on repopulating the Earth. There were discussions put into motion and ideas being brought to the table that would address the hurdles that needed to be vaulted so that humanity could maybe one day be even at a mere one billion in population. With the invasion over, alien stragglers remained on Earth presenting both dangers and opportunities. The population problem never really disappeared beneath all the new issues rising, and the end result seemed to be a severe case of cultural A.D.D – no one knew what to focus their attention on anymore.
Then there was what brought Marcello there, and with all the new events coming to light she couldn’t help but think that things were bigger than she first imagined.
She sat there in Locksmouth Precinct, which all but mirrored Harbington’s, in a familiar hallway with unfamiliar faces roaming around. The place was buzzing like an angry beehive, with officers and investigators hurrying every which way, dropping off reports and going on lunch breaks. Some of them walked in a hurried fashion, others outright ran to wherever they needed to go. There were a lot of angry people those officers had to deal with. A lot of those people had been gathered outside the station when Marcello arrived like an angry swarm.
There were people who had been touched by the Inklings, people who had been ‘infected,’ people who hated them on principle and people who needed to be kept under some kind of surveillance. The police wanted eyes and ears everywhere they could put them, and just didn’t have the manpower to do it. The leadership of the force had switched hands, the old Chief forced to step down after a botched display of force against the aliens, leaving the force under shaky leadership as they attempted to regain their balance. One problem just seemed to bleed into another.
If the situation in Harbington was bad, Locksmouth seemed to have it ten times worse. Marcello couldn’t help but think that the whole damn world was going to Hell in a hand basket.
Could the discovery of weapons actually be some early sign of things to come? With everything as hectic as it had become, a seemingly well-organized group suddenly arming themselves spelled out big, big trouble. But what was their goal? The whole thing could have gone a few different directions: was the armed force just some sort of fanatic group seeking to rock the boat and shift power? Were they Inkling-opposers who sought to force the aliens off of Earth? If only Marcello had more to go on…
The detective huffed as she threw her arm, the virtual ball she held in the gloved-hand interface of ARID released from her grip to bounce and collide with a virtual brick wall that had built itself before her. The ball bounced and returned to her, where she caught it and threw it again and again as she mulled over theories. The officers walking past moved through the not-really-there wall, and to them Marcello looked like some leather-jacket-wearing, sunglasses-donned weirdo pantomiming her boredom as she waited to meet with someone she hoped would give her answers.
Just as the virtual-reality ball left Marcello’s hand again, a line spread out in the corner of her glasses’ vision and opened itself into a box displaying a hard-jawed golden retriever. It was distracting enough that the ball bounced off the brick wall and came flying back to an unprepared Marcello, colliding with her vision and shaking it. It made her raise her arms, shielding herself from some impact that would never come. Upon failing to catch the ball, the luminescent bricks that made up the false wall crumbled.
“Alright detective, get in here,” The golden retriever ordered, and then the box disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
Given no time to actually answer, Marcello just let out a breath and removed her sunglasses. She stuffed them into her inside pocket as she stood and turned to head into the office she had been sitting outside.
The door was one of those old ones, the wooden sort with a frosted glass window. There was a name plaque on it that just said “Murphy,” with no title or first name to accompany it. The door had an actual knob – something ancient by the sliding-door standards of modern age – and opening it made the window rattle in its loose frame. The office looked different from the hallway by a longshot. It looked like someone had put down hardwood over the linoleum, and the walls had an old-fashioned coat of paint. A slow, lazy ceiling fan spun overhead, casting shadows that passed around the room. The walls had photographs framed and hung there. All of them looked like police award ceremonies – one was a graduation photo that Marcello saw herself in.
The old paint made the room smell a bit musty, and something gave it the rustic smell of old coffee. Bookshelves were placed around the room with some semblance of interior decorating sense, lined with classic books as well as some awards and trophies. The books must have been simply collecting dust, since they wouldn’t have been used for anything else. Marcello had her doubts that opening them would reveal anything more than blank pages of a useless decoration. There were blinds over the window that had been pulled up to let sunlight through, eliminating the need for electric lighting thanks to the early-morning sun.
The desk in the middle of the room was crafted from wood, looking like mahogany. A name plaque rested upon it, angled towards the outside edge of the desk so anyone coming in or sitting across from the owner of it knew they were talking to “Officer Murphy.” Console equipment sat ready to be used, and the chair behind the desk was one of the wheeled sorts, while the two in front of it had stationary legs and barely cushioned seats. As expected, Officer Murphy sat at the desk waiting,
Murphy looked pretty unassuming for a cop. She wasn’t very tall and her golden fur was a gentle shade that made her blue eyes look deep and comforting. Her uniform looked almost adorable on her, her blue officer’s hat sitting atop carefully tended golden hair. Her expression, however, was gruff enough to offset the image entirely. For someone as cute as her, she looked grizzled. Or maybe it was simply that she was not all too happy to see the detective from Harbington. Regardless of whether that was the case or not, the officer gave a nod and invited Marcello to sit while she folded her hands atop her desk.
“Swanky,” Marcello said as she sat, gold eyes still scanning her surroundings.
“Well, I’m just borrowing the space,” Murphy said directly, “So let’s get right down to it. Why are you here, detective?”
Marcello sat with her legs lazy spread apart and her posture all too lax. She gripped the arms of her wooden chair and leaned back, a look of blast-back upon her face. “Whew, you’re about as no-nonsense as I remember,” She grumbled, shaking her head, “Well then, Murphy, let me get right down to it.”
“I need to know about these,” Marcello fished her PET from her jacket’s inside pocket and accessed the files given to her by Marcus. She showed Murphy the article written about Locksmouth’s use of force during the alien invasion without hesitation. Murphy just glowered at the pictures, putting on a stern face.
“That’s already been dealt with,” Murphy said, folding her hands on the desk, “Locksmouth already issued a public statement about the weapons. That statement included a promise that we would dispose of the weapons. Are you here to investigate for Harbington?”
“Not exactly,” Marcello answered as she sat back, “I believe that one of your weapons… at least one of them, maybe more, anyway, ‘got out.’”
“’Got out?’” Murphy raised a brow.
Marcello nodded, “Got out. Got into the wrong hands. Maybe it was stolen. Maybe it was pawned off on some black market somewhere. It ‘got out.’”
For once, Murphy’s expression looked troubled. Her eyes stayed firmly locked on Marcello’s own, however, as she took in what ‘getting out’ meant in the long run. “And your evidence of this is based on… what, exactly?” She asked.
Marcello showed Murphy pictures taken of the rifle next. “It’s an APSR-20,” She informed Murphy while giving the officer time to study the picture. When Murphy reached for Marcello’s PET, supposedly to take the device for a better look, Marcello kept it just out of Murphy’s grasp and refused to give it up. “It fires Strong-Force Containment energy resulting in strong kinetic impact; blunt force sent hurdling at speeds fast enough to break bone with a well-placed shot from a close enough range. We found this thing a couple day’s hike outside of Harbington. These things aren’t supposed to exist anywhere, Murph… and a little digging lead me here. Locksmouth is now the only place in recent memory that has had weaponry of any kind. I have no reason to think I’d find a better lead anywhere else.”
Murphy breathed in and out through her nose, her teeth refusing to unclench for the effort. Based on the way she mutely groaned over the ordeal, Marcello thought it wasn’t the first time Murphy had to answer questions regarding the weapons – and that was just as it should have been. Marcello wasn’t the most invested in the well-being of every dome as a whole, but when it came to the safety of people? That was where Marcello set her piece. In her mind, Murphy, the Locksmouth Arbitrators, and anyone else involved in possibly hiding weapons that could be turned against the people, should have been made to answer for it. So, Marcello drove the point home, since Murphy seemed to clam up a little.
“A little digging when I got here revealed that you were organizing the militia force scrounged together to protect people against the aliens,” Marcello put her PET away and gave Murphy a very direct look, “I’d like to know how you got your hands on these weapons.”
Murphy closed her eyes and took a deep breath before answering with professional conciseness, “We were allowed to use them.”
“Who gave them to you?” Marcello asked.
“Arbitrator Malise,” Murphy explained, “When I found him during the invasion, he told us of a warehouse with ‘something that would help.’ I wasn’t sure what he meant until he opened the doors.”
“So the Arbitrators actually knew?” Marcello asked, “That’s a big deal.”
“Everyone heard the rumors about weapons being stored away, about there still being a military force just waiting to be used,” Murphy sighed, “I’d heard them too. So it wasn’t too surprising to actually find them. I mean, it was a little surprising, but at the same time somewhat expected.”
“How many do you suppose there were in there?” Marcello asked, “Weapons, I mean.”
Murphy shook her head. “Not as many as we would have liked at the time,” She said, “We called it a ‘militia’ for a reason, it was a small armed force. There was only enough to arm twenty, at most. Plus the heavy armor.”
“What happened to Arbitrator Malise?” Marcello narrowed her eyes.
“Forced resignation, for obvious reasons,” Murphy said.
Marcello sat up, resting her elbows on the desk and leaning towards Murphy. “Did it seem like anyone else knew? I find it hard to believe that a cache of weapons could be right under your noses and only one Arbitrator knew of their existence,” She said.
Murphy shook her head again, something she’d been doing a lot since the conversation started. The motion was tried, exhausted. “If anyone else knew, they were awful good at hiding it,” She answered, “Malise was the only one to admit to knowing of their existence.”
“Where did they come from, anyway? Did they say?” Marcello tilted her head.
“No idea,” Murphy shrugged, “No one had any good story.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Marcello breathed, “What sort of investigation did you make?”
It was Murphy’s turn to narrow her eyes. “I didn’t make any,” She said, “It wasn’t up to me since I was the one to take charge during the whole thing. I’m sure you can see how that might be perceived as a potential conflict of interest. They left that up to someone else – Detective Denwick, basically our version of you.”
Marcello took to silence for a few moments, brushing one of her thumbs along her jaw. Her gaze fell intently to the desk, as if she might stare a hole into it. Her expression was almost a little grim. “So… why?” She asked, “Why did you…?”
“I saw the means of protecting people from the Inklings, and I took it,” Murphy responded sharply and without hesitation, “Without those weapons we would have lost a lot more people to the Grays.”
“There wasn’t another way?” Marcello lifted her gaze back to the officer.
Murphy stood and planted her hands firmly on the desk. “You weren’t there, Detective,” She grit her teeth, “You were back in Harbington, out of danger, not needing to wonder just what might happen to the people you know and love while encountering some proof that something other than humans lives out there somewhere. We didn’t even know what these things could do, it was like a bad zombie flick.”
“That may be true, but…” Marcello stood as well, “Those weapons are… they’re against the law to even… exist. The second you heard about them, you should’ve been issuing arrests, making your stance on firearms clear instead of using them as some sort of knee-jerk reaction. The article said Locksmouth approached the whole situation with an almost awkward comfort.”
“What else were we supposed to do? I suppose you’d know better out there in the country where the worst thing you had to worry about was what colour socks you were going to wear that day,” Murphy glared at Marcello, “Don’t you come in here and cram all this righteous junk down my throat, Detective. I know what my responsibilities are. At the forefront of those responsibilities is to protect and serve the people of Locksmouth, aliens be damned. The only way I was going to do that, the only way we were going to defend ourselves from being conquered by some alien megalomaniac, was to fight back. Those weapons were the only way we could!”
Murphy lifted her hands from the desk and stood up straight. “You don’t know anything about these things. And before Grayswift showed up, we thought there was nothing we could do. Natalie… told us that their only weakness that we could exploit was blunt force. You can’t cut them, you can’t just pull them off someone, but if you rattle their brains hard enough they’ll come off if even for just a little bit,” She said, “Short of hitting our citizens with trucks? The things like your gun there were all we had.”
“So it was just what you needed exactly when you needed it,” Marcello leered, “Great investigative work there. Isn’t that too convenient?”
Murphy blinked, “What do you mean?”
“Bring me to the warehouse,” Marcello said, “I want to take a look around, and if you could set me up with Malise? That’d be great.”
Murphy rose a hand in a halting gesture. “Until I get instructions to assist you in your investigation, I won’t be doing anything,” She said, “No one goes near that warehouse, we’ve had too many people poking around in there already.”
Marcello furrowed her brow. “Wait, did Lieutenant… did Terry not say I was coming?” She asked.
Murphy shook her head, “Haven’t heard anything. Not about your investigation, not about you.”
Marcello didn’t have the time to wait around. “Murph,” She started.
“Don’t,” Murphy stopped her in her tracks, “I’m not stepping over any tape, not for you.”
“But…!”
“You’re not my friend, Detective,” Murphy gave Marcello an icy response, “We went to school together, and that’s it. You wait for the okay from the chief, end of story.”
Marcello sighed. That was about the sort of reaction she expected from Murphy – she wasn’t on very good terms with the officer; through no fault of her own, she’d argue. Back in college, back when she and Murphy were in the same Investigative Sciences 101 class, Marcello had been asked by a jealous suitor to dig up some dirt on Murphy’s would-be baby-daddy. She did, and it was just scandalous enough to put some strain on the relationship. In the end, Murphy came out of it just fine, but the clever cop-to-be traced things back to Marcello, who had just been doing her job for the minor fee she was promised.
Murphy took it a little personally, and made that awful clear in self-defense training with one or two counts of excessive force used on Marcello. The detective could almost swear she still had bruises. Of course there was never intended to be injuries – just reminders. Never mess with Murphy.
All said and done, there was a tension that had grown in the air, making things feel awkward. Those old bruises throbbed, and that was Marcello’s cue to back off. “Alright,” She rose her hands in surrender, “But this is a big deal, Murph.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve got enough going on already right now and the whole gun thing has been looked at backwards and forwards,” Murphy responded, “I’ve told you everything I know, so if we’re finished here I have to get back to work putting up with a million other questions from someone else. Come back when Terry gets you set up, and until then just stay out of the way.”
Marcello shook her head slowly in dissatisfaction. “Yeah, right, okay,” She said. Without any further arguing, Marcello turned to leave. She hadn’t even gotten out the office door before her PET was in her hand and she was dialing for Lieutenant Blackwell. As the call went through, Marcello navigated the corridors of the department without looking up. The turns all but mirrored the route to exit Harbington’s precinct, right down to the placement of water coolers. Stepping outside, though, was a fair bit different. Rather than the quiet nestling of Harbington’s precinct, Locksmouth’s was settled in the midst of a bustling city, and the front steps were very busy.
“Fix the system!”
“Competent police!”
“We don’t feel safe!”
“Doughnut munching power-trippers!”
Disgruntled citizens crowded all around in protest, and hearing the words made Marcello feel a nagging shame from deep inside her. She rubbed the back of her neck in discomfort, eyes down and focusing on her PET as she slipped past the protestors. Terry finally answered just as Marcello was escaping the outer edge of the crowd. “Paris? Where are you right now?” She asked, though her voice failed to raise higher than the gathered crowd’s exclamation of various buzzwords.
“What?! Hold on!” Marcello rested a hand against one ear and brought her PET up close to the other, using it like a more traditional telecommunications device, “Terry, Locksmouth is nuts!”
“I could have told you that,” Blackwell sighed, “You’re at Locksmouth then? Sorry, I haven’t had time to clear you for a full investigation over there yet. Something came up.”
“What?” Marcello asked, “What came up?”
“There were more alien sightings back here,” Blackwell reported, “And they’ve thrown people into a full-blown panic. I think it’s just as noisy outside our station as it is there.”
“I’m outside Locksmouth Precinct right now,” Marcello said, “Whatever’s been going on around here since the aliens showed up has really hit the fan. And… wait, did you say there were more aliens in Harbington?!”
“Reports of more of those strange spider-like creatures came in, and we got calls about people spotting larger-looking humanoids. They wandered in from the outskirts,” Blackwell said, though she seemed a little preoccupied with her thoughts, “I’m writing up a report right now. Things got out of control, and there was someone…”
“What? There was someone who what?” Marcello had moved almost a block away from the police department where the humming propulsion of PeTrans became a preferable alternative to all hell breaking loose out front of the station.
“Well someone got all… goopy,” Marcello could almost hear Blackwell’s brow knit, “I don’t know how else to say it, but someone got all blobby and gray and we didn’t know what to do. Now Reynolds is getting in touch with Locksmouth as we speak and I’m trying to make sense of the whole thing so we’ve got something on file.”
“Well how the hell did that happen?!” Marcello rose her voice, “The dome’s on lockdown!”
“Beats the hell out of me, Paris,” Blackwell said, “Listen, just sit tight. I’ll try and have you all set up by this afternoon, but until we get this mess all sorted out you’re just going to have to wait. I’m not saying your investigation isn’t important or anything, but…”
“Yeah, yeah, protect and serve,” Marcello leaned up against the corner of a building, arm propped to hold her weight as she hung her head. Lowering her PET, she allowed the video feed to resume so she could see Lieutenant Blackwell’s face. “Just do what you gotta do,” She said.
“Do not do anything until you hear from me,” Blackwell repeated, “Nothing. Understand?”
“Promise!”
Marcello crossed her fingers.
“I can see that,” Blackwell huffed.
In hindsight, crossing her fingers by her forehead as she leaned up against that wall was a bad idea. “Whoops,” She smiled, ending the call.
A few more pushes of a few more buttons and her PET was connecting to yet another call. When the video feed showed up, Eddie was rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “Yes Paris, I have you cleared to go to the Ring tomorrow,” He said.
“I heard there were more aliens sighted,” Paris ruened and pressed her back to the wall, slumping a little, “Is everything okay?”
“Absolutely nothing is okay,” Eddie groaned, “Based on what I’ve learned, I think our citizens got ‘inked.’ Just a few of them, I believe, I think the Inklings piggybacked on the weird aliens and… oof, this is a lot to take in.”
“The police did a full sweep of the dome after the first one,” Marcello said, “How did they miss these?”
“I don’t know… I don’t know, Paris,” Eddie shook his head, looking every bit as tired as his whining made him sound, “I still intend to help you with your investigation, I’m just trying to write a speech for Abitrator Grace to present to the town meet and I’ve got…”
His eyes flicked just a little upward to the corner of his screen, “About an hour and a half to do it. Let’s get in touch later.”
Eddie was the one to end the call. Marcello sighed and pocketed her PET. “Allllrighty then,” She sighed, rubbing her jaw.
-
--
-
There was no harm in it. Marcello may not have been allowed to perform an investigation, but she knew that warehouse was public property and that she could have at least made a few observations if nothing else. It beat sitting around waiting for something to happen.
The detective parked a couple blocks away. Locksmouth’s industrial sector was a little crowded and most people only came in by train, so it wasn’t that she only parked far away to remain discrete, but that she had little choice. There weren’t many places made to house personal vehicles, the sector instead opting for truck depots and train stations. Marcello had parked her car on top of one of the very few commercial buildings nested amidst all the warehouses, a restaurant frequented by the Fabricatory workers in lieu of an actual cafeteria. The Fabricatory itself, standing many stories tall, loomed just a short distance away and cast a shadow over the building. Marcello would have had to park in the dark if not for the radial ring of lights around the restaurant.
Taking the emergency exit down to the main floor, Marcello passed through the restaurant without a word to any of the scientists or workers eating, and ignoring the expectant food service worker who wanted to take her order, should she have had one. Instead Marcello was right out the door and on the zig-zag path of small alleyways and loading bays to reach the warehouse where the weapons had been found.
There really couldn’t have been a much safer place for the weapons, Marcello thought. Even if the aliens had caused some slight damage amongst the warehouses, the buildings were so sturdy that no damage ever broke through into any of the stores. Marcello saw some solid chunks taken out of the concrete, but never anything she couldn’t step around or over. Some places were barricaded off and work was being done to seal holes and cracks, even though the initial invasion had been over and done with for some time. Marcello never met eyes with any of the city workers, even though some of them were cute at a passing glance.
“Warehouse 73 Alpha,” She muttered to herself time and again. She remembered hearing about it – she remembered doing a little research when she left Harbington, and 73 Alpha stuck out in her mind. She saw it buried in a slew of news stories that she had thumbed through, tucked into one of the headlines that she scrolled past. It hadn’t remained on her PET’s screen for more than a second, but it had been there, and that was all she needed. She could remember seeing it in almost perfect clarity.
She passed by various docking bays for deliveries, each one plastered with a clear number over the shiny metal surface of the bay doors. 69, 70, 71… It didn’t take Marcello too long to navigate the close-quarters of each bay until she hit the one she was looking for – 73 Alpha. She stopped as she approached, standing perhaps ten feet from the landing and the bay doors, and she listened. She swept over her surroundings with a careful and studious eye as if she expected something to appear or jump out. Nothing came, the place was quiet.
“Looks deserted,” Marcello mumbled to herself. That was odd, considering how big of a deal things seemed to be back at the precinct. Considering the Amendment party yahoos knew of the weapons’ existence, she had expected to see police grids set up around the building and a buzzing swarm of angry gun-loving nut-cases to be held fifty feet from the premises by a gaggle of officers. Instead there was nothing, nary a soul to speak of aside from the city workers she’d seen perhaps a whole city block away from the building. Marcello couldn’t even hear the work being done any more, and instead stood in the silence of all but ventilation fans from some of the other buildings around her.
The silence gave the warehouse an ominous presence. The rough edges of every corner of the building, the lack of colour or decoration, and the jutting vents and pipes from strategic places on the warehouse walls made it a metal goliath intent on blocking all sunlight from getting through. The cramped quarters offered only a ray of light to peek through the small openings to the sky or the alleyways, leaving most of the warehouse shrouded in a shade that coloured its already drab look even more bleak. When Marcello made her way to the bay doors, her boots’ steps echoed and disrupted the stiff, silent air, bouncing sound all around the narrow gaps between the storehouses.
She lifted herself onto a loading dock with a grunt, and made her way to the bay doors to study them. Initiated by her proximity, an image in bright red light jumped up and covered the door like a pop-up window. In big letters, the sign read, “Off Limits. By order of LPD.” The sign, a holographic projection from some device so small it could hardly be seen, bore the recognizable striped lines at its top and bottom, and an exclamation mark illustrated in a triangle to make it look serious. Other things were written in smaller print, mostly referring to whatever company actually owned the building, who obviously didn’t use it any longer.
The bay door wasn’t able to be opened by the outside, and so Marcello ignored the warning and walked just a short distance to the left of the bay doors to find a back entrance better suited for loading bay workers. Naturally the door was locked, fixed with an ID scanner that would have scanned an employee’s PET and opened should they be authorized. Marcello was not authorized, not by a long shot, but… she had her ways around this sort of thing. Reaching into one of the pockets of her pants, she pulled out a small device and fastened it to the butt of her PET.
Ah, the Wizard. She’d lifted it off someone who had been using it to get into personal accounts of well-off Harbington citizens and drain the credits from them a little bit at a time by using public terminals. It had bypassed the security systems flawlessly and made each small withdrawal come off as a miscellaneous expense of which most people would have never bat an eye. One particularly shrewd and frugal victim had asked Marcello to investigate, and she’d tracked the hacker to a dead-beat, hand-made shelter nestled out in the woods. Marcello never caught the worm, as they hadn’t been there when she discovered their lair. The clever hacker had seen her coming and escaped Harbington, but left many of their devices behind.
Marcello should have turned them all in, but the Wizard was just too useful for her investigations. Naturally she hadn’t the intellect to improve it since then and security systems were always changing… but there was a very small chance that older locking systems meant nothing to her. The Wizard would have them open like magic in almost no time at all. She could use it to root through PETs too, assuming the model wasn’t too incompatible.
With the Wizard attached to her PET, it almost looked like an old-fashioned electroshock weapon. A laser beam of light even bridged the prongs of the device. Holding the device out and making contact with the scanner immediately set the scanner’s interface alight, blinking lights flashing and screen displaying corrupted characters, until a buzzer sounded and the door slid open. Marcello disconnected and pocketed the Wizard for future use, stepping aside and reaching into her jacket to take ARID’s ocular interface out and the accompanying touch-sensitive glove. She put both on and stepped over the precipice.
Her footsteps echoed throughout the large warehouse, and when the door slid closed behind her, the normally quiet fastening mechanism boomed throughout the area. Marcello stared, her lips parting slowly in awe.
It was empty.
The entire warehouse was barren, the large, square storage area had absolutely nothing in it. The floor, walls, ceiling, and light fixtures were all that remained. There was no clutter, there were no marks or scuffs, just empty space contained within the concrete-reinforced boundaries of the warehouse.
“ARID? Locate samples,” Marcello spoke aloud.
Before her eyes a scanning process swept over the room. The end result displayed that nothing had been found.
“ARID, fingerprints.”
Nothing found.
“ARID, chemical residue.”
Nothing found.
“ARID… DNA?”
Nothing found.
“What the hell… how is… how is this possible?” Marcello slowly removed the glasses and stared in wonder as she started to walk around the warehouse. Clean would have been one thing, but the whole area was beyond clean. It was sterile. Marcello could have dropped food and eaten it off the floor and wouldn’t have needed to worry about getting sick. The lights were perfect, the windows were pristine and the whole place just smelled like boring old stale air. There was a certain surreal feeling to not even seeing any lifting equipment or a single crate waiting to be shipped or unloaded. The temperature outside had been fair, but being alone inside a 5,000 square foot room with absolutely no one and nothing around made Marcello feel chilled.
There was one office on a risen platform high above where the weapons would have been stored. Marcello made her way up the metal stairs and the office door slid quietly open with no lock to bar her entry. Inside was just as barren as the warehouse, just an empty room with white floors, walls, and ceilings. There wasn’t even a desk there, the only thing breaking the monotony of the room being outlets where consoles had no doubt been plugged in sometime before. Marcello took a careful look around, but ended up leaving the office disappointed.
The state of the place didn’t make any sense. Locksmouth had been attacked only a month and a bit before, and upon others learning of the weapons Locksmouth would have been forced to hold on to them for some time before they got their slap on the wrist. The level of sheer… clean in that place would have taken weeks to acquire. And even then, had they used any chemicals to scrub the walls or floor there would have been traces of it left on the walls or in the air. There wasn’t even any dust to speak of. The place had been cleaned, and thoroughly.
A reasonable mind might have concluded that cleaning the warehouse was simply preparation for when it may have been opened up once more. A suspicious mind, however, would think the place’s complete lack of anything to tie it to anybody was in an attempt to cover something up. Marcello’s train of thought fell more to the latter. No one had mentioned that the place had been cleaned out entirely, and no one ever stated specifically where the weapons had gone – only that they had “been disposed of as required by the Disarming agreement.” It could have just been in her head, but the detective skills were nagging at her. Someone was trying, and succeeding, to cover their tracks.
With Marcello unable to perform a full investigation, she couldn’t ask for missives or shipping schedules, or even to audit the door and discover who had been in and out of it. Had she done that last thing, however, she would have been caught red-handed for sneaking in. That thought reminded her of where she had been loitering, and brought her to the decision that she should leave. She did so with a sense of disappointment. Why couldn’t she ever just find a good lead?
When she stepped outside, her PET sounded off with a familiar ringtone.
“Did you get me set up yet?” Marcello asked just as Blackwell’s face appeared on her device’s screen.
Blackwell shook her head, “We’ve hit some congestion. You weren’t kidding when you said that things were screwy over there.”
“Guess I oughta just get a room and wait,” Marcello tried not to sound too disappointed, “At least I can take the gravlift up to the Ring tomorrow. Eddie’s got me cleared for that.”
“Good, wouldn’t want to think we’re paying you for nothing,” Blackwell kind of smiled, but it was halfhearted, “Be careful out there, okay? You’re in the middle of the prime E.T meet n’ greet location.”
“If someone tries to turn me into a gummi candy, you’ll be the first to hear about it,” Marcello smirked, “Just keep trying, okay?”
Marcello ended the call and made the long trek back to her PeTra so she could get back to the city and find a place to bunk. All the while she could only hope that her trip to the Ring would have some better results.
When she arrived back in the city, she pulled her vehicle off the side of the midway deep in the residential district. There were apartments someone could rent for a fairly nominal price on a nightly basis, and Marcello decided she’d spend the night in one. She hadn’t done so for quite a while, not having made any trips to Locksmouth for a while. If it had been up to her, she would have avoided it for a good long while, too; the place was just… in such a state then that she almost didn’t feel safe there. She could have run into one of those Inklings at any moment.
“Oof! Hey, watch where you’re going, lady.”
Marcello stepped back after running into what felt like… some soft, warm thing bolted firmly in place on the walk. She blinked her eyes a few times and looked down from the snowy white tips of feline ears, past corkscrew curls of powder blue hair, to the judgmental gaze of a young cat girl with a hard jaw and strong features, her plain lips pursed into something of a smug look. Given the way most people’s bodies were shaped, Marcello took particular notice of how strong of shoulder the girl appeared to be. If she didn’t have a bra-busting pair of breasts, Marcello might have mistaken her for some male weightlifter.
The girl was accompanied by a gathering of teenagers that must have been her pack. They were certainly a group; wolf, ferret, bat and iguana couldn’t have been more varied if they added in a butterfly.
“Sorry about that,” Marcello brushed herself off.
“It’s okay, this time,” The girl shrugged her shoulders.
“This time, she says. Don’t be rude,” The wolf girl cut in. She held the cat’s hand in her own, and leaned her body against the cat to try and push her. With a little tensing, the feline didn’t budge even an inch, looking like a real tough guy all the while.
“Excuse our friend, she can be a little… direct,” The accompanying bat girl flicked a wrist, “And excuse us, we really must be going.”
“We’ll be late for the grub!” The young iguana male exclaimed.
“Don’t let me stand in your way,” Marcello raised her hands and stepped aside, allowing the group to shuffle on past.
“Wait a minute,” Marcello reached out and touched the young wolf girl on the shoulder.
Black fur, red eyes, long brown hair… “You’re Natalie Grayswift, aren’t you? I saw your picture in the news.”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Natalie blinked.
“Is… is that a problem?” The ferret boy asked.
The bat girl tilted her head in consideration, “If she had a problem with Inklings I suppose she might have tried to confront us in a less polite and accidental manner.”
“I recommend she doesn’t,” The cat crossed her arms across her chest.
Marcello released Natalie’s shoulder, staring at her and her friends with obvious uncertainty. “You guys are the Inklings then,” She concluded, trying not to look to tense.
Natalie shook her head in a surprisingly calm manner, her brown hair waving back and forth. Her smile was gentle. “No, that’s not quite right. We’re humans, just like you. We just share a connection with the Inklings,” She explained, “So we’re not aliens.”
“A little weird, maybe, but no weirder than you!” The iguana grinned, “Neat dangly thing!”
Marcello blinked a few times, then nodded stiffly and made a motion to visibly calm herself. “Ooookay… Well, anyway, I’m Detective Paris Marcello from the Harbington Police Department,” She introduced herself.
The cat shifted her weight from one hip to another, bumping Natalie perhaps unintentionally. “What do you want?” She asked.
Marcello spoke plainly, “I need to ask you some questions about an… ‘Inkling’ I have.”
“Ugh,” Natalie attempted subtlety when rolling her eyes; her pack, however, made totally unsubtle, pained groaning sounds.
~(_)~
“Okay, seriously? That kid freaks me out just a little bit.”
Clairance shot a look towards the prisoner. The boy was caught in a containment field that much he knew, but the poodle couldn’t shake the uneasiness brought upon by the kid’s statue-still posture.
“He’s just a kid,” Clairance’s comrade, Fredrick, said. He rolled his naturally armored shoulders and tried not to look the prisoner’s way too, “He can’t hurt anyone.”
Clairance’s ears flopped, the poofy tufts of fur that dangled at their ends batting his own face as he whipped his head back and forth to look at the corgi boy, stuck behind the shield, and his armadillo comrade. “What if he’s got one of those ink things in him?” He asked.
Fredrick shook his head, “He’s fine behind the shield, stop being a wuss.”
“Easy for you to say,” Clairance huffed, straightening his posture and reaffirming the grip on his rifle, “Probably takes more time for them to wiggle through your shell.”
Daxton sat cross-legged on the dirt, barred from the men whispering about him by a strong-force containment field that surrounded him. It was invisible, so he couldn’t see where it was… but then, he couldn’t see anything.
Being captured by the armed thugs that had been chasing him was a bitter experience for Daxton. He couldn’t remember how long he had been laid out by the vehicle-mounted turret shot he had taken to his side, but he didn’t remember passing out. He remembered rolling onto his side what felt like only seconds later to try and lift himself up – and he did try, but the pain he felt bruising most of his left side made the task impossible. His pursuers had caught up and grabbed him before he could even get up off the ground.
They dragged him back to one of their trucks, but not without roughing him up a little bit more. Laila had been nearby, getting struck just like he had until he was dazed and more than a little confused. It hadn’t hurt, in all honesty… not after a while, anyway. Enough strikes to the forehead and boots to his bruised side and Daxton was numbed to the resulting pain. Where he went after they loaded him up, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t get his bearings back until they tossed him into a makeshift prison cell. He found out the hard way that he was trapped behind a force field by running into it… because they’d taken his STOP. He was blind.
To be more accurate, he resumed being blind. Without the threadlink cameras projecting images straight into his brain, his perception was nothing but total blackness. So he sat and he listened. His mind was as blank as his vision, his ears were lifted and swiveled to pick up every sound, and his body was completely still. He sat up straight and breathed slow and deep, and he hadn’t uttered a single word for a couple of hours. His eyeless stare, if one could refer to an unobstructed view of his collapsed eyelids as such, was focused squarely on the men posted to guard him. He couldn’t help but take a little joy in hearing them mutter about how perturbed they were.
The ‘cell’ was no larger than a bachelor bathroom, and so Laila and Casey sat not too far behind Daxton, mostly staring at the back of his head or trying to get a sense of their surroundings. There were mostly trees and dirt to see, however, and some grass, and what looked to be a tent set up by the guards. The tent was mostly obscured by tree line and only jut out into the small opening by a little bit. It looked traditional, a regular tarp on poles, and lead the prisoners to believe they’d been taken to a camp set up by their attackers.
No one said anything. They’d gotten all their complaining out of the way when they had first arrived, and they knew no questions were going to be answered. Any time they had tried to demand an explanation from their captors, the only response they got were demands that they shut up, all dressed up in different words. They eventually complied, because the guards’ yelling made their heads pound even harder.
Eventually Casey spoke, “So… he really can’t see?”
The snow leopard wanted to nurse his shoulder, but all he could do was squeeze it with his hand. The applied pressure made it sting, and so he sat as still as he could and tried not to move it at all. It was a more difficult task than it sounded, and every now and then he’d wince.
“Yup, blind as a groundhog in the daytime,” Laila sighed. She leaned against the edge of the containment field, making it ripple against her back, the forces holding it together working to repel her body. “He ain’t got no eyes,” She added.
Casey furrowed his brow. “Really? It looks like he’s… well, it looks like he’s meditating, actually,” He concluded.
Laila cracked a little grin. “I reckon he might be,” She said, “But nah, he’s just listenin’.”
“What’s so funny about that?” The older man regarded Laila’s smile.
Laila looked confused. “Huh? Oh, oh nothin’,” She said, “I just remember a time when he wasn’t so calm without his eyes, that’s all. Back when I had short hair.”
Casey pushed his back against the containment field slowly, but the particles set to repel him agitate his shoulder when he tried to smooth up to the surface. He hissed softly and sat back up, then sighed. “Yeah?” He looked to Laila again, “You had short hair?”
“Only a couple inches long, flat-top,” Laila nodded and closed her eyes, “People used to bug Daxton about his disability.”
Casey narrowed his eyes, but Laila answered his question before he could ask it, “People he stood up to, mostly. Apparently it was worse once, but when I met him he was always wrestlin’ folks. Fellas and gals who deserved it, y’know? People who’d puff up their chests and strut around like peacocks while steppin’ on everyone else.”
“So, bullies,” Casey said.
Laila nodded, “It’d be funny t’see, actually. Daxton would walk up to some surly lookin’ type, a foot taller than him, and he’d set ‘em straight. If you ever came down on someone littler n’ you, Daxton would come up at’chya.”
Laila opened her eyes and looked at the back of Daxton’s head. She remembered back to the time she held his STOP in her hands while he stumbled around clumsily, running into lockers at school. “That got him on people’s bad side, o’course,” She said, “That’s kinda how I met him, y’know? Always gettin’ into trouble with the bad guys…”
Casey turned his attention to Daxton and studied the boy a little more. “It reminds me of blind monks you’d hear about in fiction stories,” He said, “The sort that have a mastery over their bodies and senses.”
Laila laughed out loud, and regarded Casey with a smile. “A blind monk?” She jeered, “Nah, Daxton’s more of a daredevil. He can probably hear us, by the way.”
“I can,” Daxton spoke up, “Blind monk sounds kind of cool.”
Daxton lifted his head when a shadow passed over him and the others. A handful of seconds later the loud hum of a vehicle engine core came down from above. The large, militaristic truck landed in the space behind the cell, its gravity skiffs deactivating when it got settled stationary upon the ground. Dust and leaves kicked up when the vehicle landed, and its metallic frame creaked and groaned as the vehicle shook left to right. An awful sound, like bad trumpet playing in frantic, squawking pitches could be heard from the truck, and Laila and Casey saw above the truck’s roof a shape bounding around in the flatbed. It slammed against what had to be a containment field like the one they were trapped behind, and its motions were accompanied by the swinging of fat limbs.
Two men and one women exited the vehicle, and when they did they made their way towards the camp. Laila recognized them right away – a large, hulking grizzly bear, a svelte feline, and one young-looking gecko made their way past Laila’s cell, only stopping for a moment to look at her.
“It’s these guys!” Kris blinked, “The ones that…!”
“The ones that didn’t get the better of us,” Yvette cut him off before taking hold of his arm and walking after Garrison, who had continued forward.
The large man stopped in front of the guards, overshadowing them by a head and more. “Get the skiffs ready for transfer, and grab some help. This one’s pissed,” He said.
Clairance and Fredrick stared up at him for a moment, blinking. “We’re supposed to be watching the prisoners!” The poodle said.
“They’re in a containment field, just do what I tell you!” Garrison snarled, and the guards immediately picked up and scurried off. Garrison then turned towards the slapped-together jail and lowered his gaze down to Daxton… who had lifted his chin to look right back up at him. The big bear squat down, his equipment, tactical vest, pads, everything seeming to give a little groan in protest as his hulking form lowered.
“Well look who it is,” He said, “Hey, boy. You remember me, don’t you?”
“I didn’t know a human butthole could grow so big, yeah,” Daxton jabbed back.
Kris failed to stifle a laugh fast enough and Garrison shot him a look that silenced him outright. He then turned his attention back to Daxton. “I was hoping when my men told me we caught some of you that the Inkling would be with you,” He said, “Where’s the pig?”
Daxton grit his teeth and remained silent.
“Oh, yeah, please, let us just tell you where our friend is so you can snatch her up,” Laila spoke, exasperated, “Ya’ll’re about as sharp as a sack of wet mud.”
“They’re mouthy sorts,” Yvette concluded with a raise of her eyebrow.
Garrison huffed. “I can make this really hard on you, boy,” He said, “Where is she?”
“What’re you going to do? Punch me?” Daxton turned his head and spit into the dirt, “Maybe shoot me with your peashooters?”
“Oh no mister, please don’t,” The boy goaded, “It’ll just get better over time, what ever will I do?”
Garrison bared his teeth. “Watch it kid, or I’ll rip your tongue out!” He shouted.
“I’ve seen scarier things than you,” Daxton shrugged, “Or, well, unless you got uglier since I last saw you. I can’t see right now.”
The other men returned then, hustling over to the truck. The activity caught Garrison’s attention, and so he and his two followers left the prisoners to attend to other matters. Garrison left with a fierce look at Daxton, who couldn’t see it but felt delighted all the same that the big old bear lost their “witty” repartee. Laila and Casey watched, turning to follow the group’s actions and see what they were doing, and what in that truck was making all those awful sounds.
“Terrorists, the lot of ‘em,” Laila huffed, glaring at the degenerate monsters unloading the truck.
Her eyes widened, “What the…?”
Pulled off the truck in an obvious containment unit just barely bigger than its body was some… stocky… red alien. It had to be an alien because its rubbery-looking, humanoid body only had one eye sticking out from a head that looked excessively domed out front and too tall for its narrow shoulders. Its legs looked like fat tree trunks and moved much the same as it struggled in its tiny space, attempting to use its meaty, flappy, weighty-looking arms to smack against the barrier. It honked and howled all the while, the sound seeming to come from its torso rather than its head. The thing could barely move, and Laila almost felt bad for it as she watched its one eye race around, looking every which way for some means of escape. It didn’t seem to understand that a containment field was keeping it imprisoned, or perhaps it was just too scared to think.
“What in the dickens is that?” Laila asked.
“What?” Daxton asked, “What’s what?”
Laila shook her head. “That’s an alien!” She said, “They captured one!”
The skiffs made maneuvering the beast easy, sliding its invisible coffin along the ground with an easy push. The armed men – the terrorists, as Laila named them – walked with it in a protective circle, while trying to keep their distance as the beast flailed and slammed its body against its prison.
Casey watched as they disappeared behind the tree line. “Are they hunting them?” He asked.
“I dunno,” Daxton grunted, “I think if we wait long enough though, we can get something outta them.”
“This is what they’d do to Quincey, isn’t it?” Laila frowned as she turned and moved on hands and knees to be closer to Daxton, “Catch her and cart her off somewhere.”
Daxton turned his head towards the sound of Laila’s voice. “They’ll have to get through me to do it,” He said in a quiet, steady tone.
Garrison returned shortly after, business assumedly concluded in regards to the alien. He stepped up to the cell once more and squat down to be more level with Daxton. “Alright,” He said, “I think I can let those other comments slide, but you’ve got to work with me here, kid. Where is the alien?”
“She ain’t no alien,” Laila answered quickly, “Ya’ll don’t even see her as a person anymore?”
Garrison’s stare at Laila was unimpressed, but he took a breath and reiterated, “Where’s the pig?”
“Bite me,” Daxton shot back, “Why are you even doing this anyway? Why are you trying to catch aliens? What’re you planning on doing with them?”
“What are you, alien lovers now?” Garrison sighed, “Listen, that’s none of your business. Besides, these things are aliens, kid, and they’re dangerous. Why wouldn’t you want to make sure that they’re snatched up, huh? So just tell me where your fat friend is.”
Casey stayed back at his far end of the tiny containment field, his knees hugged up against his chest. “The aliens are very dangerous, yes, but so are you,” He said simply, as though inputting his piece without really wanting to.
Garrison took a deep, calming breath that rose his shoulders and lowered them slowly. “I’m not a patient person,” He said, “So I’m going to ask one more time: Where. Is. She?”
There was no answer, just silence and dirty looks in the bear’s direction. Even Daxton stared at him somehow. Garrison wasn’t fazed by the ugly eyelids the boy had, though he was more disconcerted with the defiant tone. He grit his teeth and growled under his breath, waiting for an answer that would never come. True to his word, Garrison was not a patient man, and his patience was lost after only a minute or so of waiting.
Garrison stood and slammed a fist against the containment field, making the whole cube of energy ripple and even fizzle slightly, as if the shock from the blow rendered it into a brief static. The punch sounded like a cannon ball had struck the surface, the sound reverberating through the air for several seconds. Laila and Casey jumped, but Daxton remained perfectly still, ears barely wilting.
“WHERE’S THAT FAT LITTLE BITCH?” Garrison screamed, spittle landing on the shield.
Daxton pressed a hand against the ground and pushed himself to his feet, barely shaking though the pain in his side should have rocked him. He stood closer, but still over a foot too low to be eye level with the hulking mass of muscle and gut. “I’m only going to tell you this once, so you listen to me,” He said, making the big bear blink in surprise.
“If you touch her,” The boy said, “I’ll make sure you regret it.”
Garrison pushed off the shield and stood back from Daxton, giving him a firm glare. His expression broke into a smirk, spreading across his features like a fissure. He started to laugh, lightly at first, until it escalated into a full on howling laughter. It was just then that the guards came back, drawn to the yelling. Garrison turned to them.
“Give me the passes,” He said.
The guards and the other men they had brought with them all stared at Garrison in curious indecision. Not wanting to cross the larger male however, they complied and turned over two small metal discs. Garrison took them angrily and stuck one quickly to his thick black vest, activating it so that he could step through the containment field. Daxton stood his ground when the man passed through and attached the second one to him, pulling him outside the containment field with a harsh jerk. Daxton stepped out, and despite getting shoved by Garrison, he didn’t stumble or fall.
“Whoa, hey!” Laila got up quickly to run to the edge of the shield, “Lay offa him you big wad!”
“Assaulting a child,” Casey grit his teeth, “How dare you?”
Garrison stood back from Daxton and raised his fists in front of him, poised ready to strike. “Alright, tough guy,” He said, “Let me readjust that mouth of yours and then maybe you’ll come clean.”
Daxton, unable to see, kept his attention focused on Garrison’s voice. He took a step away from the man and turned his body parallel with his. “You’re not getting anything out of me,” He said, “And you’re not going to touch Quincey.”
With a heavy grunt under his own weight, Garrison lifted a burly arm and swung it down towards Daxton’s face Daxton’s ears twitched, and the boy stepped aside quickly, just in time to hear Garrison’s fist as it blew past and displaced the air next to his head. In a quick movement, Daxton grabbed hold of the man’s arm and stepped backward. His pull was light, but Garrison’s weight lumbered forwards, teetering off balance and towards the boy, who gave one final pull before spinning around the oaf of a man. Garrison’s boots scuffed the dirt, digging in as he took steps to catch himself and keep from falling, swinging his large arms to do so.
When he righted himself and turned to face Daxton once more, the boy was posed ready just as he had been before.
“You little shit,” Garrison snarled.
Laila and Casey stared slack-jawed. “How did he…? But he can’t see him,” Casey breathed, “How is that possible?”
The gathered crowd of armed men and women muttered in hushed tones as they watched. Daxton shed a little smile of his own. “Really, what are you going to do?” He asked, “I’m not scared of you. I’m not scared of any of you.”
Garrison’s boots shoved the dirt again, and Daxton heard every pounding footfall as the enormous man rushed him. A shift in his clothing meant he was pulling back his arm to deliver one strong, angry strike straight forward, coming from the left. Daxton stepped aside as the man’s arm roared past, and then Daxton jabbed one clenched fist upward quickly to connect with the man’s throat. Garrison let out a gurgled grunt and a cough, stopped dead in his tracks by the strike that should have instead sent him reeling out of surprise. Instead, the fortress of a man stood stationary, close enough to use his other large hand to grab at Daxton. The poor boy couldn’t see it coming or react fast enough, and found two of the man’s fingers and his thumb squeezing down on either side of his neck from behind.
In an impressive display of strength, Garrison lifted Daxton off the ground by the clenched pressure points in the boys neck, making him gasp but blocking any sound from coming out. The youth’s feet dangled a foot off the ground, kicking and trying to find some way to get free while his hands reached backwards to try and pry Garrison’s hand off his nerves. He couldn’t manage, the bear was simply too strong, built unlike any human being that Daxton had ever seen. All Daxton got for his efforts was one powerful fist thrust straight into his stomach. It had to be the size of a small rock, and felt just the same, knocking all the wind from Daxton’s sails and almost immediately setting in a nausea that wanted to jump out of his throat.
Daxton was then thrown through the containment field, his friends barely moving out of the way in time as he hit ground. Garrison marched in afterward, detached the disc from Daxton’s overcoat, and then snorted before moving back through the field. Laila and Casey quickly hurried to Daxton’s aid, kneeling by his side as he wheezed and coughed.
“Punk ass kid,” Garrison muttered. He then regarded his crew, “Get to work, quit your gawking!”
The crowd immediately dispersed, heading back to the camp with Garrison in tow. Not one of them looked back to check if Daxton was alright, none of them really cared. They simply went back to whatever work it was they had to be doing… likely searching for Quincey.
“Daxton, hun, are you okay?” Laila asked.
“That was not smart,” Casey shook his head.
“I’m… Hnn… Fine…” Daxton wheezed, rolling onto his back and stretching his arms and legs out, “I’ll be… I’ll be okay. That’s…” He coughed, “That’s nothing.”
Laila frowned heavily and pulled Daxton up off the ground to wrap her arms around him in a close embrace. She held him tenderly, not squeezing in desperation or worry of his health, but rather just holding his head to her bosom and keeping some of her fingers entwined in his blonde hair. “What’re we gonna do…?” She asked as she pressed a gentle kiss atop Daxton’s head.
“Ngh… Back home… we have a saying, right? If you poke a bear, you’ll get what you get,” Daxton wheezed, his breaths slow and shaky, “I think if we poke these guys enough…” He coughed again, convulsing a little against Laila, “Something’s going to happen.”
Laila shook her head. “I ain’t a fighter, I can’t go out there with them fellas,” She stared down at Daxton with a sorrowful expression, “Don’t be stupid; don’t do that again.”
Daxton shook his head, nuzzling fondly into Laila’s chest, “We can’t just give up. Whether you guys are in or not, I won’t. We can get out if we play our cards right.”
“You make it sound like you have a plan,” Casey said, the gears in his own head turning, “Are you going to get into another fight?”
Daxton smirked.
“Yeah, eventually… and it’ll be a big one.”
~(_)~
“Quincey Abram, we cannot stay here,” Duplex stared down at the girl as she sprawled out on the upward slope of a never-ending staircase covered in red, regal carpeting. The girl panted, having been walking towards a blackness at the top of the stairs that never got any closer until she’d collapsed. Duplex stood over her, walking up steps in a careless manner that betrayed Quincey’s normal level of exertion. It wasn’t fair that the alien got to look like her but not suffer the sorts of things she had to.
“I’m trying to get up there,” The pig girl panted.
Duplex shook its head. “We do not mean this dreamscape, we mean in the real world,” It explained, “We do not have time to wait, we must reach Locksmouth before it is too late, or we are captured by our pursuers.”
Quincey lifted herself up, pushing on her hands to raise her upper body. She turned her head up and squinted an eye at Duplex, puzzled for a moment, then realizing that it made total sense that she was in a dream. How else could she speak so directly to Duplex? “Oh,” She said, turning and plopping her fat bottom on a step to sit, “No. Sorry.”
Duplex blinked, “You do not understand.”
Quincey shook her head. “No, see, it’s you who doesn’t understand,” She explained, “Me? I understand it perfectly. Clarkston is the last place we were all headed. That means Daxton and Laila are probably making their way here right this second. This is the best place to stay for now.”
Duplex sat down next to Quincey, its expression tinted with agitation. “Quincey Abram, we cannot stay here,” It insisted with more inflection than Quincey had been used to hearing.
“Kenny is in no condition to leave,” Duplex’s host shrugged.
“Then we leave without him,” Duplex insisted.
“No.” Quincey’s response was direct and stern, and she stared Duplex in its odd blue eyes unwaveringly, “Duplex, no. We’re not leaving. Listen to me, this is my body, okay? Look at you. You look like me. You’re not even taking on a minotaur shape or anything like you used to. You’re me now.”
Duplex blinked and looked down at itself, one of its hands moving along its thigh. It looked surprised, as if this revelation hadn’t occurred to it.
“If I die, what happens to you?” Quincey asked, but her tone was pointed, direct, and even accusatory.
Duplex wrinkled its forehead. “We move on,” It said, “We take a new host.”
Quincey shook her head, “No, you don’t. If I die, something would happen to you, right?”
Duplex stared down between its feet and refused to respond, wiggling its toes like it never even knew they’d been there before.
“You can’t actually kill me, can you?” Quincey asked, “Otherwise, you’d get all messed up… right?”
Duplex remained silent.
“Exactly. So this is my body and we’re stuck with it. If you’re going to live under my roof, you’re going to live under my rules,” She said, “That’s what Dad always told me.”
“Unacceptable,” Duplex whispered.
Quincey stood up, bending at the waist and placing her hands on her knees to stretch out her legs. She did so with a grunt, and the shove of her hips made her backside bounce as if to punctuate her confidence. “Tough,” She said, “You can’t push this, we need to rest. We got hurt, Duplex. There’s no point in forcing it, so let’s just wait for Daxton and Laila. If I know Daxton, he’ll be quick.”
“What makes you so sure?” Duplex asked.
The girl stood up and threw her arms out to her sides in a shrug and then let them drop. “He never gives up, that’s why,” She said.
She planted her hand atop Duplex’s head. She tried to muss the Inkling’s hair, but it was just rubbery skin in the shape of her hairstyle, so it didn’t act the same. It pressed in like some balloon full of gel, misshaping Duplex’s features as the pressure bubbled out on its cranium, and then its head was shaken around playfully. When Quincey released the Inkling, its head bounced back into the proper shape. “I want to wake up now I think,” The girl said, “So you just sit tight, okay?”
She turned and marched up the stairs then. The darkness gave way to torchlight and the stairs’ landing, where she was finally able to find a wooden door that opened and allowed her passage. Duplex stayed on the steps, sitting and staring down at itself with a sense of curious wonder. Though as it sat alone, its expression narrowed angrily. It didn’t act, however, and allowed its host to slip out of the dreamscape plane and out into what she called the ‘real’ world.
Quincey looked back for just a moment to see Duplex brooding on the steps. She sighed a little, letting out a breath that came out shaky and uncertain. With that over, she passed through the door.
She opened her eyes to the same log cabin room she’d come to recognize as belonging to some Naturalist goat woman. She was in that same warm, lumpy and uneven bed, and her head was on that same feathered pillow. Her wrist was still handcuffed to Kenny’s, and the boy was sleeping as he had been for most of the visit there. Everything was dark though; night must have fallen while she had been resting… But she felt a fair bit better; even better than she thought she should have felt. She moved her body to test where her pain might flare up, and it still did over her side and thighs, but not as intensely as before. When she lifted the blanket to check on herself, her nose was met with the scent of some kind of salve.
That woman must have been tending to her. She had some rudimentary knowledge of medicine and treatments because her mother was a doctor, but since her mom was really more of an expert of implants and prosthetics, Quincey’s knowledge on the matter was admittedly slight. Even so, she could identify most medicines… yet whatever that salves was, she couldn’t say for certain. It smelled odd, and less like the antiseptic sort of stuff she’d get for most deep cuts back home. Knowing that she was in a village of Naturalists made her assume it was some kind of natural, herbal remedy. That was surprising in itself… she didn’t know any good herbs even grew that close to the domes.
These people could really be something… And that was the funny part about the trip. For all the pain it brought, Quincey had been learning things. She learned that she could walk to Locksmouth if she really wanted to. She learned that she couldn’t walk in the rain no matter how much she wanted to. She learned that she could take down a seven foot tall bear with a neurod if she really had to. She even learned that Daxton loved her as much as she loved him, and they were going to be together when everything was over.
She learned things about Inklings and their odd history, and she learned more about Duplex. The more she learned, the less she was afraid. She didn’t even know some things, rather she felt them. The whole concept of prana was a strange one, and Duplex’s connection to her and its connection to her dreams was strange as well. It made her believe that the creature had become so deeply rooted inside her that if anything really were to happen to her… well, she wasn’t sure what would happen to it. She’d been bluffing with Duplex in her dreams, and it seemed to be paying off. It scared her, but at that point she had to do something to get the thing off her back.
Ever since she arrived at Clarkston, she’d been hearing the whispering in the back of her mind of an anxious Inkling eager to reach Locksmouth. It was hard to see clearly without her glasses, but the city was so close then that Quincey could see it when she rolled over and looked past Kenny out one of the windows. Locksmouth’s lights glimmered in the distance, making the dome city resemble some sort of beautiful snow globe. That was the city meant to be her salvation, but it didn’t really look like anything special. Harbington didn’t look much different, it just had less water nearby.
The questions running through her mind were strangely comforting. What was Echelon like? Was she the hero that Duplex made her out to be? Who were Echelon’s allies? How did the people of Locksmouth deal with the Inklings? The most important question Quincey wanted to know the answer to was… would she feel comfortable with the rest of the Inklings?
It had been something that bothered her since a few days after… receiving Duplex. She wasn’t like anyone else she knew, nobody knew what she felt or what she was going through. The idea of more people being like her was strangely exciting – especially since they sounded like the good guys. They were the sort of Inklings who fought against crazy overlords, so their hosts must have been okay too… right?
Quincey blinked a few times. She came to the sudden realization that she wanted to make friends with these Inkling freedom fighters. She hadn’t wanted to make friends with anyone since… well, since forever! It should have scared her, it should have made her worry so much she’d want to cry… but she couldn’t help thinking that being part of some Super Friends group, where everyone had their own super powers like she did, was a very exciting idea!
The whole thing was enough to keep Quincey awake. That was fine with her, though… it beat having to go talk to Duplex face-to-face again.
The only thing she wished then was that Daxton was with her. She rolled back onto her back and tried to get comfortable, but began to squirm as a pressure built up inside her. At first she thought it was the welling discomfort of being separated from her friends and not knowing if they were okay… but then, she tugged on the handcuffs a few times and shook her arm to jostle Kenny’s wrist until he woke up.
“Mngh? Whunh?” Kenny’s eyes opened, but just barely, and he rubbed them.
“I have to pee,” Quincey whispered.
“Ungh. Th’fuh? Really…?” Kenny groaned.
Quincey nodded, “Can we just, you know, go… outside or whatever we have to do?”
“We’re naked,” Kenny squinted.
“I, um… yeah, I know… but I’m going to explode,” Quincey said, “Don’t you have to go?”
Kenny groaned and threw the covers off himself, moving to ease upright. It took some time and effort with how much his ribs hurt, feeling as if his lungs were being squeezed by every bend and twist his body made, no matter how slight. Quincey helped him as best she could, and they both got out of the bed and set their feet on the floor. They wobbled as they stood upright, and Kenny even stumbled upon taking his first step, falling into Quincey’s arms. He blushed furiously as their naked bodies touched, and they quickly parted in a fluster. It was fortunate that moonlight was pouring into the house to light their way, but unfortunate that it meant they could see every detail of each other’s bodies. Normally it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but normally they were wearing understickers.
They made their way to the door without looking at one another, and when they opened it the caught the light of a fireplace. The old hearth was a stone sort that dimly lit the den of the old house. The light from the flames had been so slight that Quincey and Kenny hadn’t seen it from beneath the door, and so they hadn’t expected to walk into a room full of people. Sitting in two chairs in front of the hearth were the goat woman they had met before, and a male lion with a graying mane and rugged, aged features. He was dressed in a pair of denim pants and an old, army-green shirt and a visible undershirt beneath the collar. His clothes were dirt-stained and torn in a few places.
They looked up when Quincey and Kenny stepped out of their room, and their eyes widened.
“Ah!” Kenny and Quincey gasped, frantically trying to cover up their nudity. Quincey wrapped an arm around her chest and pulled her other hand to cover her crotch, yanking Kenny’s hand in too. She squealed, and Kenny squeaked, the boy yanking his hand back to use both of his to cover his own indecency. The act pulled Quincey’s hand down between his legs too, and they both cried out again and whipped their linked hands up in front of them to touch nothing of themselves or each other with them. Clumsily, they fumbled with their other hands to cover what they could, and both of them were so utterly red in the face that the colour had bled down to their necks and shoulders, and up to their ears.
The goat woman covered her eyes, but the man stared at them in surprise. “Well,” He finally said, “I guess you two are up and about.”
“Sorry!” Quincey squealed.
“God, I’m sorry!” Kenny squeaked, staring intensely at the floor and trying his absolute hardest to cover his genitals with only one hand, “Oh hell, oh damnit. Shit.”
The man upturned his brows and shed an apologetic smile as he stood up from the chair. “Hell it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” He chuckled, “Hold tight I’ll get your fancy underoos.”
The man turned and stepped away quickly, moving in a slightly embarrassed fluster to get the kids’ understickers. He did, and he returned with them and handed them to the mortified pair with as much calm as he could muster. The kids snatched them up – three white stickers and one black one – and applied them as quickly as they could. They didn’t want to fuss and adjust them so they covered them perfectly, not wanting to be seen as actively fondling themselves in front of these unfamiliar faces, but they tugged and tweaked until the stickers provided enough coverage.
“There,” The man laughed, “All better?”
“No!” Kenny squeaked.
“Well, sorry about that,” The man said, “Had I known you were up, I’d’ve brought them in myself. How are you two feeling?”
“I’m sorry sir, but I really have to go to the bathroom,” Quincey whined, squeezing her thighs together and turning her toes inward, “Could I just…?”
“Oh, hell,” The man blinked. He turned to the woman still seated in her chair, “Grace, could you show them to the outhouse?”
“Y-Yes, I could do that,” The woman quickly stood and smoothed out her old-timey dress, “If you’ll just follow me.”
Quincey practically dragged Kenny to follow the woman, the call of nature being just strong enough to circumvent her embarrassment… for the moment.
Many, many awkward minutes of attempting to use the restroom in some sense of privacy while handcuffed to one another, Kenny and Quincey were led back to the cabin they started in. They took in what sights they could on the way, but it had to be during a frantic tip-toe run back as the cold air nipped at their bare skin and fur. What they did see was that the village couldn’t have been very big, no more than 40 people at the very most, and likely even fewer than that by a bit. The houses were wooden log cabins, and very few of them actually had glass windows. The roof shingles looked a little haphazardly placed and some of the doors didn’t appear to sit in their frames very well, implying that whatever hand crafted them was far from an expert and lacked the automated tools that convenience construction in the dome cities.
Every single house had a stone chimney though. Most of them billowed smoke and provided warmth for the people inside that they likely needed for the colder autumn nights. The Harbington kids could only imagine what a hassle things must have been when winter came around.
The other thing that really stood out were the pastures. Far from the shore there were fenced-off areas that had actual animals in them – not the sort of post-splice animal people, but actual, honest-to-goodness, four-legged animals. Where Clarkston found them was anyone’s guess, and they must have worked hard to breed them into significant number, but they were there. They had cows that stood upright all night and chewed grass, they had a stable for a few horses, a pen for sheep, and what looked like a chicken coop. Of course it was hard to tell for sure what each enclosure was used for… Quincey and Kenny didn’t have domesticated livestock back at home. Laila didn’t even own a hamster, let alone farm animals, and her family was the most prevalent farming family in the whole city. That being the case, there was something enchanting about a real bunch of farm animals. If nothing else, they really drove home the rustic charm of Clarkston.
When the teens arrived back at the cabin, they found clothes waiting for them on the dining table, and the lion man from before sitting and waiting in one of the chairs. The clothes weren’t the ones they came in with, which had apparently been torn and ruined by the trip down the river, and upon closer inspection they discovered a problem with their new apparel in that they couldn’t put on the shirts provided to them while their hands were cuffed together. For a short while they tugged and pulled on the cuffs, attempting to twist their hands and wriggle free of them, but failed to do so. They settled, though, on wearing the provided bottoms. They got pants, socks, and boots, with Quincey’s pants being a loose-fitting pair of khaki slacks with a multitude of pockets, while Kenny’s were tight, blue denim faded over the thighs and knees, and he was allowed a belt to fasten around his waist.
“I guess that’ll have to do,” The man said, pushing one of his feet up against the table and pressing his weight back. He lifted his chair on two legs, and the wood creaked under him, “Now sit. I’ve got some questions for you.”
He snapped his fingers and pointed to the far side of the rough-surfaced, wooden table. Kenny and Quincey exchanged a look briefly before complying. They pushed two chairs close together so they could sit down, their linked hands resting between them.
“First off,” The man said, “Who are you kids? And where are you from? You sure aren’t from around here.”
The teens couldn’t help but exchange slightly nervous glances even at having to answer the simplest questions. “Quincey,” The girl said, “I’m Quincey, and this is Kenny. We’re from Harbington.”
The lion blinked in surprise. “You’re a ways from home,” He said, “I’m Joel. You could say I’m the mayor of this little bundle of sticks.”
The teens nodded.
“As such,” Joel continued, rocking his chair by pushing against the table, “I’m responsible for the well-being of all the people here. So when two whoknowsits come around cuffed together, I’ve got to take a few measures.”
The cuffs clinked when Quincey and Kenny moved their hands nervously. “We’re not here to cause any trouble,” Quincey said, “We just fell in the river and…”
“What’s the story with the handcuffs?” Joel cut in.
“They’re mine,” Kenny said, “I put one on her when we were being washed downstream so we didn’t get separated.”
Joel eyed Kenny. “If they’re yours, why don’t you just take them off now?” He asked.
“Do you have my PET?” Kenny asked back.
Joel furrowed his brows. “What, those little computers you dome-folk have? Didn’t see any on you when you got washed up,” He answered.
Kenny shrugged. “Then I can’t,” He said, “They’re controlled remotely.”
Joel released a sigh and dropped his chair back onto four legs with a loud thud that startled the kids. He leaned forwards and rubbed his face with his hands, propping up on his elbows on the tabletop. “That’s the problem with you dome-livers,” He said, “Always relying on your electronics. In any case, I don’t believe you for a second.”
“What?” Quincey gasped, “Why not?”
“Because that excuse is bull, you couldn’t get cuffs like that, even if you are dome-livers,” Joel said, lowering his hands to look at the pair with a steady eye, “So you want to tell me what kind of trouble you two got into? Or did you just think you could run off and hide here thinking we wouldn’t turn you over once the police came looking for you?”
“We’re not in trouble with the police!” Kenny half-lied, but tried to mask the effort by standing up and slamming his hands down on the table. He failed to look intimidating as he winced and his one arm nearly buckled as pain shot up his side. He whimpered a little, but grit his teeth. “There are men out there with guns,” He said, “They tried to snatch us up, I dunno why!”
“Oh that’s a bunch of bull,” Joel scoffed, crossing his arms, “There’s no guns around, even we know that.”
“I understand why you’d think that; we thought the same thing until we encountered them a few miles out of Harbington,” Quincey said, shaking a little, “But we’re not lying, they really are out there and they’re following us.”
Joel shook his head and stood up, turning away from the kids. “If you two aren’t going to tell me the truth, then I can’t let you stay here,” He said with a strong authority in his voice, “This is my town, and I can’t risk it. Even if you are telling the truth or even if you’re lying, someone’s going to come here looking for you.”
“So if it’s the police, turn us over!” Kenny almost growled.
Joel turned his head, “And if you’re not lying, then a bunch of criminals are going to come here and endanger us. To say nothing about whether or not you two are dangerous. The cops don’t go cuffing people for no reason.”
Quincey looked up at Kenny, worry stricken across her face. “So, what?” Kenny asked, “Are you just going to send us out there half-naked by ourselves? We’re hurt!”
“We can’t rightly do that,” Grace said, who had been watching from the front door, “It wouldn’t be right sending them out like this.”
“They could go to Locksmouth, it’s not that far away,” Joel retorted.
“But our friends…!” Quincey stood from her seat as well, “They’re out there and probably headings this way! We can’t just leave until we meet up with them.”
“Then go back up the river,” Joel grunted.
Grace moved and took Joel by the arm to usher him away into the other room so they could talk, and the door had barely closed before they started to argue over their course of action. Kenny and Quincey turned to one another when the door clicked shut and grasped each other’s forearms in a desperate hold.
“What do we do?” Quincey whispered as she leaned close, “I can’t tell them I’ve got an alien inside me!”
“I dunno,” Kenny said, “They’re either going to kick us out by ourselves or keep us here. I think we’d be better off out there!”
“But we don’t have any food or… or even any shirts!” Quincey frowned, “We can’t go out there!”
“Well we can’t stay here!” Kenny squeaked.
Quincey tugged on the cuffs a little when she moved her arm, trying to wrest it from Kenny’s grasp. She blinked as the chain linking them pulled taut. “Ugh,” She groaned, twisting her wrist and once more trying to wriggle herself free. She struggled for only a little while before the silver ink of Duplex’s form appeared, pooling in the palm of her hand and spreading out over her arm slowly.
Kenny’s eyes shot wide and his pupils dilated to tiny pin-points. “What are you doing?!” He almost shouted, “No! Bad! Bad evil alien thing! Stop it!”
Quincey’s twisting became a thrashing as the rubbery, inky skin spread out over her body, encompassing more and more of her form. “Duplex, stop!” She hissed, “Please don’t, this is not the time for this!”
The silver goo stopped short of overtaking Quincey’s jaw or her right side, and instead looked like some otherworldly rash her whole left arm, shoulder, and side had been covered in. Half of her chest had even been swallowed up, and it blotched over her portly stomach. Quincey’s thrashing, however, took on a new sort of movement in those areas, where her limbs twisted and flailed in ways defying a regular bone structure. The realization hit her quick in her panic, and she squeezed her fingers together as tightly as she could, forcing the joint of her thumb to collapse on her wrist pressing inward like an appendage on an inflated balloon. With her hand so narrow, it slipped all too easily through the round handcuff around her wrist, and her hand popped back into shape immediately as the loose cuff swung down and hit Kenny’s thigh.
The pair stared at the scene in wonder, their mouths agape. Quincey’s silver sheathing, catching the light with a blue-ish shine, then slowly disappeared the same way it had come. It retreated back to her shoulder and slowly down her arm. With their hands no longer cuffed together, Kenny and Quincey scrambled for the shirts they had been provided and threw them on. Quincey pulled on a legitimately woolen sweater that made her skin itch, and Kenny buttoned up a red flannel shirt with too-long sleeves that he frantically rolled up to around his bicep.
They were already standing, so the idea to bolt for the door was prevalent in both their minds. Without so much as a word to each other, they moved for it, their bodies shoving the table and making it scrape across the wooden floor boards. They barely made it a few steps before the back room door opened again, and Joel came rushing out with Grace in tow. He stopped rather suddenly with just one foot out the door, gripping the doorknob tightly as he stared at Quincey.
Her visible hand was sheathed in silver that slowly disappeared as if being absorbed back into her skin. It took only a few seconds for it to happen, but the sight was unmistakable.
“What the hell? Don’t you move!” He shouted.
They tried to sprint, but Joel sprang into action. His rushed forwards, stepping up onto the table and vaulting it in a practiced, swift motion. His boots banged on the tabletop as he ran for only a second before he came off the other end and grabbed the teens by the backs of the shirts they now wore. He yanked back, hard enough to take them off balance and slightly choke poor Quincey, making her gasp for a breath as she fell back against his body. Joel shook them in his grip, tightening the fabric of their shirts around their necks hard enough to keep them from drawing in any air. The frantic movements rocked the adolescents’ bodies with pain and made their legs wobble. Kenny actually collapsed against Joel, but the gruff old lion kept him standing by sheer, desperate force.
“What the hell was that?!” He growled as he pulled Quincey close, “What kind of freakshow are you?!”
“Please, stop…!” Quincey coughed.
“You’re one of those aliens, from Locksmouth! You lying little brat!” Joel said, “You tried to pull one over on us! What’s your game?!”
“Screw… off…!” Kenny squeaked, trying to fight free, kicking his leg back and jamming his boot into Joel’s shin. Joel slouched, nearly buckling, but stepped back and pulled the kids back until they were taken off balance and their heels slid across the floor. The kids were kicking their feet just to stay upright. Kenny squeaked pitifully as his frantic actions had him panting, causing his ribs to creak and crack in protest of each deep breath.
“Trying to invade us too, huh?!” Joel said, “Well we’ve got ways of taking care of you.”
“Ngh!” Quincey gasped as she was pushed by Joel towards the door. The ruckus had apparently woken some of the other villagers who had begun to crowd their front doorways in their pajamas to see what the matter was. They yawned and rubbed their eyes, then stared as Kenny and Quincey were walked through town by the scruff of their collars. The dome-living teens tried to fight every step of the way, but their bodies were so sore and weak from their trip downstream that they couldn’t muster the effort needed to break free. They were lead through the little collection of wooden houses until they reached a building made of stone with large wooden doors that slid open. Some of the other villagers ran to assist Joel in opening the doors, and once they were opened just barely enough, the lion shoved the two kids through.
Kenny stumbled in with Quincey getting stuck in the door’s narrow opening before a well-placed shove sent her tumbling through the precipice and into the dark. The moonlight that shined through the open door was snuffed out when the doors slid shut again with a heavy boom. Kenny ran to the doors to pound on them with his fists, but was ignored as Joel yelled instructions to the villagers that Kenny couldn’t quite make out.
The lemming boy went quiet just long enough to hear the clinking of metal chains and various thuds against the door.
“Ah, they’re locking us in!” He grit his teeth, “Let us out! You fuckers, let us go! We didn’t even do anything!”
He kicked the door, pain shooting up through his body enough to make him crumple to the stone floor. The impact of landing made him whine in agony as his bruised and cracked bones racked with aches.
Quincey slumped back against a flat surface, her clothes catching on the texture of a wooden crate. She sighed, and before she could say or do anything, a part of her split off and grew into the form of a second her. She stared at the duplicated as it stared back at her. “We told you,” The clone-pig said, attempting to emulate Quincey’s agitation when she got huffy. The attempt would have been cute in other circumstances. “We told you!” She repeated.
“Oh be quiet,” Quincey snorted, “It’s your fault we got stuck here, I didn’t ask you to help me get out of those handcuffs!”
“We wished to assist so that you might get closer to leaving,” Duplex said, “We did not intend…”
Kenny gave the Quincey clone a punch in the back of its shoulder, making the duplicate girl stumble, but not properly respond to the impact. She turned to face Kenny with a wild glare. “I don’t give shit what you intended or not, this is all your fault!” He said, “You did this. You made all of this happen. You made us run away from home, you made us get hunted, you made us get hurt! You! You did everything! If you just stayed back in whatever-land, none of this would have happened!”
“We had no choice!” Duplex glared back, “Our home is in danger of being erased!”
“And why should I give a shit?” Kenny shoved Duplex, making it slam into a crate. The Inkling-copy suffered ripples through its skin, distorting the visage of its host due to its rubbery construct. The sight made Kenny even angrier. He approached Duplex and reached out, but the pig-clone slapped his hand away and pushed back, making Kenny stumble and fall to the ground with a groan.
“The only way to Canvas presently is through your home,” Duplex said, “That is why!”
Kenny pushed himself up, or tried to, but gasped a breath and slumped to the floor once more. Quincey hurried to his side and knelt down to try and tend to him, but the room was so dark she couldn’t do a thing. Her copy watched this with a dissatisfied look.
“Why didn’t you tell us that?” Quincey shot Duplex a glare.
Duplex huffed and seemed to shrink in on itself as it backed away. “You would not have helped,” It said, “You have no reason to.”
Quincey exhaled sharply through her nose, causing her nostrils to flare. “So you’re not evil, then,” She said, “You’re just an idiot!”
“If you knew anything about me at all, you’d know that you’re wrong,” Quincey said, angry, “But you don’t care. You don’t care about anything but what you want. You don’t care that you came in and interfered with our lives, you just want to use us to serve your needs.”
Duplex’s eyes widened, its expression contrasting Quincey’s angry glare with an almost mortified look. It reeled, stepping back to one of the crates, where it slid down to the floor and sat. “No,” It said, “You are incorrect. We are not like that. We are not like her.”
“Like who?” Kenny grunted.
“Osoth,” Quincey huffed, “That’s who. Why not? You said that Osoth was controlling, manipulative, fearful… You’re just like her.”
Duplex exhaled, the breath shaky. “You do not know us,” It said.
Quincey breathed in deep and turned her attention to Kenny, helping him move to at least sit up and get off the cold stone floor. “And you don’t know us,” She said.
Duplex bared its teeth and pushed off the crate to stand and take a run at Quincey, who wasn’t prepared for such a thing. The pig duplicate tackled its host to the floor, the two pigs rolling along the ground for a moment as they started to grab and claw at one another’s bodies. The anger between them flared until they were shouting and squealing, trying to pull one another’s hair and tear at their clothing. Kenny shuffled along the ground and got as far away from the scene as possible. Barely any light came through the slotted windows into the storehouse, but he could barely see the pair of pigs as they tangled… but he couldn’t pick out which one was which for the life of him.
One rolled over on top of the other and slammed the pinned girl’s back to the floor. “We should have taken charge, bonding with you was a mistake!” The pinning pig shouted.
“Shut up!” Squealed the other, shoving into a roll until their positions were reversed, “I never asked for ANY of this!”
“You are weak and useless!” One said.
“You’re just an intergalactic barbarian!” The other squealed before they rolled and tumbled again, actually managing to summersault over one another in a rolling mass of fatty tissue and woolen clothing.
They rolled to standing and grabbed one another by their sweaters.
“And I’m… not… weak!!”
One shoved the other, so hard that the force of their back slamming against one of the wooden crates in the dark room caused the box to splinter and crack. The loud sound reverberating throughout the storehouse was enough to make the situation obvious. The pusher panted, and the pushed fell to the floor in a heap, panting as well. They swallowed and fought for breaths, the Quincey nearest the doors slumping against the wall to stay upright.
“We… shall see,” Duplex panted, its skin fading from Quincey’s healthy pink to its natural silvery colour. It melted away quickly, liquid ink swirling in the air before it raced across the room and struck Quincey with a force that sent her to the floor. Duplex disappeared inside of her, and Quincey lay there trying to get her breath back and her senses settled from the experience.
Kenny crawled over to Quincey and looked down at her from above.
“Nice job...!” He said, impressed.
Quincey shook. “I’m so… over this! We really need to get out of here,” She said, “Duplex is going to go absolutely insane if we don’t get out of here.”
Kenny lowered his head. “You don’t need to tell me twice,” He said, “But what’re we gonna do?”
Quincey’s eyes welled with tears and her expression sank. “I don’t know…” She cried.
