Sanity Line

by Zachary Adam

  Yet he knew his blows were still effective, for every time he shied under outstretched claws like a matador, striking at the Reality Deviant’s ribs in passing, he could hear the creature cry out.

  When even the early electrical burns had quickly faded, he knew defeating the creature was not going to be a game of attrition or cunning. It had no vulnerable spot to strike, and if there was a weapon that could permanently wound it, he had no access to it. The game instead was to exhaust it, to eliminate by attrition whatever wellspring of energy was allowing his cells to divide and replicate at such an extraordinary rate.

  No more did Crowe resemble any manner of man. Vidcund had made a pulp from his bones, which seemed less prone to reformation than the rest of him. For a moment, Vidcund allowed himself to think he was winning. The great hulk of a once-man panted, verging on collapsing, and Vidcund did much the same. Then, Crowe raised the appendage which ended in what was left of his face, and roared. Vidcund set his jaw, rolled his neck, and prepared to weather another assault.

  --Night was falling by the time Scion and Prince reached their objective on the far side of the small town, and Prince had gone so far as to extract a police-issue flashlight from his pocket, and shine it around. He was surprised to find the tower in question to be an abandoned office tower. It didn’t seem to fit in with the town, at all. Without really counting he guessed the structure at over twenty stories.

  It had seen better days, too. Most of the windows were blown out, and those chunks of the façade that hadn’t fallen away completely showed signs of fire damage around the upper floors.

  He fanned his light over a signboard on the lawn as they picked their way toward the main entrance. The lettering had been removed (he supposed, given the lack of any evidence of fracturing in the fasteners – they were simply absent), but the slightly darker paint beneath where the letters had been were readable enough to a keen eye.

  “Slipher Corporation. Slipher had an office in Anfangsburg?” Scion paused at the door, which had turned out to be both intact and locked – the sole clue Niles needed to know there was something particularly strange going on there. “It was their corporate headquarters. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

  Prince shone his flashlight through the glass doors, revealing that the lobby – or at least what could be seen of it – was just as ruined as one would expect. There was concrete, and drop-ceiling panels, and broken glass everywhere. Scion continued. “They bought out the town after Alakgur Minerals collapsed, along with all the rest of their holdings. The town, the old mining office, the mine itself. They put a ton of money into this place.”

  Wordlessly, Prince handed the flashlight over to Scion, who immediately shone it onto the lock itself. Strictly speaking the profession of detective and locksmith had no proper legal overlap, but Niles had learned sometimes it was expedient to bend the law a bit. Like when you were looking for shelter from mutants and the men who hunted them.

  And, seeing as he now lived quite literally outside the law, with no legal identity to be incarcerated under, he didn’t mind a little bit of breaking and entering. While he worked the lock, he pressed Scion for more information. “I vaguely remember this now. Chief Exec was never found, building bombed to shit with every sign of foul play?”

  “That was the official version. In the ten years since, I’ve done a little digging myself. I never did make a visit to the grounds themselves – I always assumed they were under some kind of surveillance from Agency. I think I might have been right.”

  The door swung open, and Niles was very relieved to realize he had been correct, and no alarm equipment had been installed on it, nor was there any sign of life in the motion detector with the cracked cover that hung in the corner of the vestibule. As an afterthought, he locked the door again behind them.

  “You say official version like you don’t believe it.” Scion chuckled behind his mask. “I don’t, Prince. For one, I have a personal interest in Slipher Corporation. I’ve always paid their movements rather close attention. They used to employ some heavy-hitting security. In the 90s, they were even awarded PMC contracts and licensing. Called themselves the Sirens.”

  “Siren PMC was a Slipher subsidiary?” Prince cast his light around the lobby. It was already quite dark, but Scion seemed not to mind it a bit. Perhaps he’d hidden light amp hardware in his mask – though personally, Niles doubted it. That sort of equipment was bulky. “I guess that makes sense. I mean, they stopped operating around the same time Slipher broke up.”

  “It never did. They still file their T2s when they’re supposed to. The stock isn’t publicly traded any more, and none of the parent company’s services are in effect. They pay an atrociously low amount of salary, and about half of their subsidiaries – all the well known ones – were either liquidated or sold off to other holding companies. About the only well-known one that’s still in business is Magnusson Arms.”

  Niles considered that. Something about the lobby was nagging him. Many things. He couldn’t see a single scrap of paper – lots of glass, lots of cement, lots of virtually everything else that would compose an office building. There was no sign of water damage, either, which made him wonder where the paper could have gone. Dry paper should have lasted a lot longer than ten years.

  “So, what do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know… but now that we’re here, we’d might as well find out. The old corporate layout information showed a security office on the top floor. We should start there.”

  Niles nodded, and drew his Colt, which had been reloaded with a speedloader. “I’ll take point.” “You won’t need that. We’re alone here.”

  Frankly, he wasn’t in the mood to take Scion’s word for it. The stopped just short, when he caught sight of the corporation’s older- era logo, writ large on the wall behind the reception desk. “Interesting.”

  Scion perked at once. “What is it?”

  “… Slipher had something to do with the monument. Or at least, they repaired it once.”

  --Tired would have been a good word for it. It was somewhere between being tired and being bored. Crowe could not focus his attention on the world around him, on the tiny man who moved so boldly and assuredly, swinging his stinging twigs around as though he brandished the most threatening weapons in the world. He was in pain, wracked with it. The strings inside him, which his God pulled, writhed and shivered with each tiny blow. It was wearing him out.

  Eventually, he took a knee, and felt his heavy eyelids lowering themselves.

  He’d rest for a minute. Just a minute, that was all. As Crowe finally slumped and fell still, the agent took in a truly deep breath, breathing from the deepest edge of his diaphragm, what some would refer to as tanden breathing. It helped tremendously, and he noted with some satisfaction that the engagement had only been a half an hour – an eternity in combat, mind you.

  He was perspiring again. Heavily. He’d probably already begun to slip into dehydration. To his surprise and annoyance, he nearly forgot procedure, turning to leave and return to the highway when he realized he’d not verified the death of the Deviant in the first place. The sky overhead thundered and darkened ominously, leaving him in the parched hope of rain.

  He turned, noting with satisfaction that even under his glasses’ Kirilian filter, the thing showed no further signs of life. Reality Deviants and their disposal were his bread and butter, regardless of the nature of their transgression. In his mind, those who practice arcane perversions were no more or less guilty than the monsters they spawned, or indeed those that they became. Like a man who had lost his appetite, this familiar, homely taste had snapped him out of it.

  Regardless of what he had been created for, or what those who had created him were persisting in engineering him to do, it was beyond question that he was meant to be here, now, doing this. He believed, as most zealots do, that he was somehow specially selected for the role. That nobody could outperform him.

  He pulled his phone
from his pocket and dialed. “Stamatia. I need a D&R team at the Rains monument in Azuldorf.”

  “What the hell did you do?”

  Vidcund looked over his shoulder. “I found one of the Deviants who attacked us at Abject. HUD identified it as Suspect A.”

  “It?”

  “There was a… change. Listen… there are loose ends left.” Vidcund glanced in the direction of the road down which the Grey Angels had escaped. “There were two members of the Grey Angels PMC-slash-criminal syndicate that Suspect A had engaged. They vacated the scene once I engaged.”

  Stamatia’s tone had something of a lost quality to it – a rare situation for her. “Negative, Agent Därk. Your Task Force has the Rains Monument as a priority protected site. Hold position.”

  Vidcund sighed, his frustration paramount. The car, at least, had a reasonable chance of helping him track down these particular loose ends later. He snapped a quick photo of what was left of it with a gesture.“Understood.”

  --Upon Agency confiscation of the project

  materials, leadership in Project Moses II was assumed by Team KETHER, under the leadership of [Classified – “White” Clearance Needed], hereafter Kether Lead. Kether Lead, in

  consultation with the balance of their team and with the full project materials and debriefing reports from former project participants, decided that the neurological safeguards were

  unnecessary, arguing, in their official report, “It was the suppression of that which was the cause of the Anfangsburg Incident. Specifically, when the teleproprioceptive criticality event of [DATE REDACTED] occurred, the subsequent removal of the neurological safeguards – vis a vis a paraprescient calculation – resulted in the mental instability and (frankly justified) blowback that formed the motivation for the incident. Before the criticality, the Subject could only be relied upon to make procedural choices. Now, it seems to be the case that it is capable of moral judgment, as well.”

  In their report, Team KETHER recommended limited reactivation of the project. Subject 001 and 48 newlyproduced clones were administered amnesiac drugs and underwent Prosthiothymesiac Treatments to install false memories, specifically

  pertaining to pasts and their reasons for joining the Agency. All were issued Agency identities. Subject 001 was sequestered at Site 17A, Subject 002 was assigned to the Abject Facility and had his personality overwritten with most of Subject 001’s traits before being put on amnesiac and counterteleneural medication. This was done to test the dominant personality’s suitability as an Agency operative. The remaining clones were issued similar medication and given entirely new identities.

  Team KETHER requested permission after 12 months of testing to cancel the medication regimen for several of the units. This request is still pending approval.

  --

  “What is it about abandoned buildings that’s so damn creepy?” Prince considered Scion’s question for a long moment. The corridor they needed to traverse was in poor shape, punched through in places entirely, whether by weathering or by some function of the incident itself. This upper floor was heavily fire damaged, at least toward the centre of the building, but around the periphery it seemed all but untouched.

  This was yet another detail that didn’t jive with Niles’ expectations of what a burned-out hulk of an office tower would look like. Especially given the fire damage visible on the façade of the building, and the great extent to which most, if not all, of the windows had been blown out. This superlative suspicion, combined with incongruous holes punched into what survived of the building’s drywall, left Prince with an altogether different

  assessment of events. “I dunno. They’re like caves, I guess, just made by human hands. Only its worse, because nothing in an abandoned building looks like it’s supposed to.”

  Scion nodded, and began to pick his way across what was left of the floor. “Well, then, what does this look like?”

  Niles followed, walking less timidly than perhaps he should have. “Like a goddamn firefight, not a fire. I mean, that much is obvious. I’m just trying to figure out how many people were involved.”

  Scion paused, and reached a hand out to help Prince stay stable as he transitioned back onto solid ground, if the new, less-damaged section of floor could be considered any more structurally sound than that which they had just left. “That’s not what’s bothering you though.”

  “It’s what we’re not seeing,” Prince said. “Not one scrap of paper, not so much as calendars on the wall... hold this.” Scion took the offered flashlight, and Prince holstered his weapon so that he could again attack the lock that was barring their progress, continuing his rant. “I can’t shake this weird feeling that there’s a reason for it. No computers, either. That could be a question of looting, mind you, or Slipher salvaging whatever they could out of here, but... I don’t know. Taken together it seems suspicious.”

  --Azuldorf Copper Mine had been lucrative enough in its day – an open pit, gouging the top off of the mountain that was part of the land claim. In the years since the mine had closed, the forest was already reclaiming the scar of the open pit, but some wounds ran deeper.

  Before Alakgur had come to mine copper and other minerals from the fertile, volcanic earth of the northern Terrwald, before, indeed, the formation of the Union, the Terrerans themselves mined the same hill. Near its base, all but indistinguishable from a natural cave, the opening of this ancient mine still persisted.

  Getting into it and plumbing its depths was a chore that was not for the weak of heart, but that was a phrase Gilbert Troy would not have used to describe himself. He was a young man, possessed of that remarkable combination of a need to prove himself and a lack of adequate respect for hazards. Besides, what would he, one of Glory’s chosen, have to fear from what was, essentially, an old hole in the ground.

  Master Baha had always told Troy that he had promise as a sorcerer, from within the first hours that they had met. Gloria, too, had said the same thing, when Master Baha had introduced them. There, he thought, was a match made in the heavens! Gloria had taken a shine to him immediately, filling his ear with whispers of sedition against Master Baha if only he followed her instead. He could be her right hand, if only he’d give her her undying devotion.

  Devotion that would be rewarded, he hoped, with the carnal rituals of elevation in Glory’s own order. He needed only come here and perform for himself their ancient rite of initiation, of the joining of the halves.

  He could think of some other halves he’d like to join. It had taken him the better part of the day to reach the heart of the mine, that hollow chamber with the rootbound slab of granite he was told to expect. The roots were striking, to him, coming up from the floor, even here so many hundreds of feet underground.

  He reached into the bags, he carried, extracting from each a polished, silvery hemisphere.

  Repeating the mantra he had been taught, he brought the domes together.

  --

  “Hey, you guys use charge batons, right?” The Decontamination and Containment technicians who were busy trying to figure out how to get all ten feet of Crowe onto a stretcher paused in their labour and looked up. “Uh, yes sir.”

  “Trade me charge packs.”

  The two looked at each other, and then back to Vidcund, who could already tell they were going to be less than perfectly helpful. “Yours are dead, right? What if we need them?”

  Vidcund looked toward the perimeter. He was impressed with Enforcement’s thoroughness – the tarps they’d erected over the side of the bridge to prevent anyone from looking down at what was happening, as well as the SWAT uniforms they’d stolen from the Tererra Police Department. He wondered what the excuse would be this time, and who would get framed for the hostage taking in which a bunch of people literally nobody had ever heard of died.

  Still, it was as good an excuse as any. “Okay, do you see the big, angry-looking Enforcement agents with submachine guns and grenades?” “Yeah?”

  “If somet
hing gets past them, what’re a couple of mortuary technicians with electric batons going to d-“

  Before the quip could be fully enunciated, the ground shuddered and quaked beneath Vidcund’s feet, causing him to lose his focus for a moment. The plateau of the monument buckled and cracked – bits of marble facia shattered and fell from the columns, and for a singularly confused moment, everyone present expected something much more significant than an earthquake to occur.

  When it was clear that nothing more significant than a few spilled cups of coffee and some damaged trophies was about to happen, Vidcund looked to the technicians. “... So, how about it?”

  “Yeah,” said one, staring at his feet. “Sure.”

  --

  “Goddamn it, James, get this fucking thing off of me!” Scion grunted, fighting to get either arm free from under the server rack that had fallen on top of him. He only needed one. “Easier said than done. I thought the Azulkrater was supposed to be dormant.”

  “It is.” Niles groaned. As near as he could tell, he wasn’t injured – but time could change that. The section of ventilation wasn’t exactly heavy, but an edge, which had already been broken, had bit into the ground with significant force – the former detective supposed he must have been extremely lucky. “The Geological Service is supposed to have the whole damn region wired up with seismometers. If there was going to be an eruption or an earthquake you’d have thought we’d have some advance warning.”

  James chuckled. “That’s not really what seismometers are for.” With a final effort, he managed to free his left arm, and brought it again to his neck, feeling along the device snuggled against and wrapped around it, hidden by the collar and lapels of the Grey Angel’s rather iconic jacket. Finding the catch he was looking for, he depressed it, and was rewarded with a ping in the Bluetooth headset he had tucked behind his ear.