Holiday Feartree
Holiday Feartree
The Chronicles of Madness - Volume 1.
Chp. 16: Circuit 2 - How Doth the Little Crocodile
The lift descended by one level, down to the 2nd circuit of the Institute. The sound of screams grew louder – it grew closer – but then it was muffled by a mysterious cacophony of strange whirring and whooshing noises just beyond the elevator's doors. As the doors opened, a blast of air swirled through the group, violently expelling Cat, Cicero, Deacon, and the rest of the team from the lift. Everyone scattered across the floor of a spacious research facility. The facility appeared long since abandoned. All throughout the lab were massive, cylindrical air ducts that had been torn from the ceilings and walls, whipping and blasting every which way. Their chaos created a makeshift wind tunnel that whistled and howled, hazardously blowing large debris all around the facility. The powerful blasts of air propelled one unfortunate Railroad agent into a hefty cabinet which, upon impact, fell on top of her, knocking her unconscious. Everyone else grabbed a nearby structure for stability.
Cat could feel Cicero's arm around her waist, firmly securing her body to his. Positioned in front of the jester, she tried to grapple with anything that looked sturdy enough to hold the two of them. Cicero bent forward, his red hair whipping in the wind, and barked in Cat's ear, “Should Cicero, for one second, believe that the Wanderer might be whisked from his grip, then we are transporting out of here immediately!”
Cat was unable to twist her neck to look at him. The gusts of air created aggressive cyclones around her, making it nearly impossible to do much else but keep her nose pointed forward. And so, Cat screamed into the combative air, “Don't you dare!” However, the gale of wind drowned out her voice and Cicero heard none of it.
Meanwhile, Deacon held fast to a hefty computer desk that had originally been drilled into the plaster of its adjacent wall. As he pulled himself along, desperate to escape this god forsaken room, he looked back to see the last three agents of his team scattered and struggling. Cat and Cicero pulled themselves forward as well, following Deacon's lead. With each grip and step, the trio moved farther and farther away from the swells and blasts of air. Deacon stepped into a narrow hallway that led to a set of doors at the far end. Pausing a moment to catch his breath, he glanced over his shoulder to see Cat and Cicero stepping into the hallway as well. One Railroad agent followed – the rest had no ability to catch up. By this point they were either pinned beneath something bone-crushing, or had been slammed too hard against the floors and walls.
Deacon let out a few more heavy breaths and checked the safety on his sniper rifle – just to be sure. It was still engaged. Had the safety been compromised in those winds, then it'd have been a miracle that his firearm hadn't discharged, putting a bullet through any one of them. Deacon gestured to Cat and the remaining agent to check their firearms too. They did as instructed.
Cicero tucked crimson strands of his tangled, wind-blown hair behind his ears and listened closely. “Do you hear that?” he asked.
“What?” asked Cat.
Cicero answered, “Those screams have died down.” His golden eyes stared hard at the set of doors at the end of the hallway. The princeling twirled his black dagger, stopped, then pointed it toward the doors. “Whomever they are, they know we're out here.”
On the other side of the doors the group discovered what could only be described as a synth scrap yard. That was how it appeared, in any case. Limbs and body parts were strewn about, some stacked high in macabre piles, others flung to the walls, floor, and ceiling. Most of the bodies were only partially covered in flesh, as if something tore it off. Yellow, robotic eyes stared blankly from the skulls of dismembered synth corpses; jaws hung agape as if the mass-fabricated cadavers were on the verge of horrific exclamation. The room was chillingly silent.
“What did this to them?” asked Cat. Her question was met with speechlessness.
In the center of the room was a large vat, roughly the size of the average concrete swimming pool – but the vat did not contain chlorinated water. Within its basin bubbled a thick, salmon-colored substance, lazily swirling with the consistency of egg yolk. It swirled as if a crocodile swam within – as if some kind of murky creature tossed and turned at the bottom. As the liquid churned, it pumped a musky aroma throughout the room.
“This is where they make them?” Deacon asked under his breath, somewhat impressed ...and somewhat disgusted. “This is where they create synths?”
“This lab,” observed Cat with a slight choke to her voice, “is destroyed, along with everyone in it.” Peering at the vat, she made no mistake about it – this was her birthplace. This sickening pool of organic matter, surrounded by a graveyard of unknown siblings.
Suddenly, a terrible bubble gurgled up from the center of the vat. Cicero crouched with his dagger, readying himself as a gangly figure wrestled itself from the red slime. It was a synth, breathing heavily and growling like a feral animal. It had eyes like burning charcoal, darkened from lid to lid. Its nails had grown long, pointed, and black – diabolically situated at the end of spindly, white fingers. The synth scrambled from the vat, slippery like a horrific newborn, grunting and squealing like a wild, predatory boar. The creature stood and screamed an appalling sound.
“Get back!” warned Cat, readying her gun.
The afterbirth slid from the synth's translucent skin in slow, heavy drops, plopping to the floor like dollops of red gravy. The synth raised its shiny, viscous arms above its vein-covered head and screamed, “Erufi ohm daesohn! Vocu eshtik molkhun!” Then it darted forward, grabbing the neck of the last of the Railroad agents. The synth dug its sharp nails into the agent's face, shredding his skin from his jaw and cheekbones as the creature screamed with the vocal tenacity of a banshee's tongue. The struggling agent rounded off a few defensive shots which startled the synth, causing it to let go of him. Then the agent dropped to the floor, bleeding heavily from his face, unable to regain the wherewithal to rise to his feet.
Before anyone else could take a shot, the synth swiftly bent its knees and reared back, planning to make an attack on Cat. Before she could unload a few rounds of Old Faithful into the synth's skull, Cicero pulled Cat from harm's way and pounced on the vile creature, stab, stab, stabbing the wretched thing through its neck and chest. With a final swipe, Cicero sliced its throat, and the black-eyed synth teetered backward, falling into the vat, bleeding and mixing its own crimson spew into the communal afterbirth from whence it came.
“What the fluff!” yelled Deacon. Hurrying, he knelt down to assist the bleeding agent, pressing a stained handkerchief to the man's mangled face. “That was what we came to set free?” yelled Deacon. “That thing was nothing like the synths we've been helping! I dunno what the fluff that thing was!”
“Its genetic development was obviously compromised,” said Cat.
“No plops,” said Deacon, frowning as he focused on assisting his fallen comrade. “And that plops it yelled? I've heard it before. That's the crazy plops Tom was babbling.”
“It's Dunmer,” said Cicero, cleaning the blood from his blade.
“What the hell is that?” asked Deacon, still kneeling beside the agent.
“A language from Cicero's... eh... homeland,” the jester explained cryptically.
Deacon pressed his lips together and exhaled through his nose. He stood. “Where the hell do you come from exactly?”
“It's a long story,” interjected Cat. Her voice attempted to sound calm, but her hasty response betrayed the Wanderer's nervousness.
Deacon glared at her, then glared at Cicero. “Something's not right,” he said with suspicion in his eyes. “Patriot disappeared off the radar. Tom attacked one of our own. You two show up out of nowhere. This place looks like ground zero. And now? Now gen 3 synths are turning into fluffing Nosferatu?” Deacon shook his head. Then he pointed to where the synth had fallen to its death. “Just what in the hell did those words mean?”
Cicero smiled wickedly. “Kill your brothers,” he said. “Spill more blood.”
Deacon was suddenly unsettled by Cicero's fiendish grin. It was as if the strange little man had been holding back a nasty smile all this time. The red head wasn't what he appeared to be. Deacon couldn't explain it, but something deep down – something buried in that place where his rawest of instincts told him exactly what the fluff was going on, he had a momentary conjecture that Cicero was not human. That explained his ability to teleport without any sort of Pipboy tech or Courser implants. And Cat? Deacon ascertained that Cat was not, by any means, troubled by Cicero's creepy bullplops.
“This,” said Deacon, staring at the floor, “this is where we part ways.”
Confused, Cat twisted her face. “What?”
“Just go on without me. I'm gonna tend to what's left of my team and search the previous room for any survivors.”
Cat looked at Cicero – he seemed pleased. The princeling wasn't a fan of Deacon. Cicero stood there, arms crossed over his leather jacket, smirking at the unsettled Railroad agent who had lied and called himself Danny, among other such nuisances from the day they met. Good riddance was written all over the jester's beaming face.
“How are you going to get back to the surface?” asked Cat. She was genuinely concerned. She liked Deacon. Cat didn't want to abandon him to this hellhole.
“I have my ways,” Deacon answered with confidence. “I can hack terminals, no problem. Given enough time, I can track down the right tech to transport out.” He gestured to the rest of the room. “The Institute's a ghost town. It's not like I have to quickly sneak around.” Deacon sighed. “I need to gather what remains of my team and get the hell out of here.”
Cat protested, “But–”
“–This mission is over.” Deacon shook his head. He pointed to the next corridor across the room, indicating that Cat and Cicero best hurry up if they wish to catch up to the Courser from earlier.
With no hesitation, Cicero marched across the room, heading toward the hallway which led to the next lift. Cat followed after him, but lagged behind, staring apologetically over her shoulder. She looked back at Deacon who briefly waved goodbye as the Wanderer disappeared into the darkness of the next corridor.
music: Happy Child - Tweaker
Chp. 16: Circuit 2 - How Doth the Little Crocodile
The lift descended by one level, down to the 2nd circuit of the Institute. The sound of screams grew louder – it grew closer – but then it was muffled by a mysterious cacophony of strange whirring and whooshing noises just beyond the elevator's doors. As the doors opened, a blast of air swirled through the group, violently expelling Cat, Cicero, Deacon, and the rest of the team from the lift. Everyone scattered across the floor of a spacious research facility. The facility appeared long since abandoned. All throughout the lab were massive, cylindrical air ducts that had been torn from the ceilings and walls, whipping and blasting every which way. Their chaos created a makeshift wind tunnel that whistled and howled, hazardously blowing large debris all around the facility. The powerful blasts of air propelled one unfortunate Railroad agent into a hefty cabinet which, upon impact, fell on top of her, knocking her unconscious. Everyone else grabbed a nearby structure for stability.
Cat could feel Cicero's arm around her waist, firmly securing her body to his. Positioned in front of the jester, she tried to grapple with anything that looked sturdy enough to hold the two of them. Cicero bent forward, his red hair whipping in the wind, and barked in Cat's ear, “Should Cicero, for one second, believe that the Wanderer might be whisked from his grip, then we are transporting out of here immediately!”
Cat was unable to twist her neck to look at him. The gusts of air created aggressive cyclones around her, making it nearly impossible to do much else but keep her nose pointed forward. And so, Cat screamed into the combative air, “Don't you dare!” However, the gale of wind drowned out her voice and Cicero heard none of it.
Meanwhile, Deacon held fast to a hefty computer desk that had originally been drilled into the plaster of its adjacent wall. As he pulled himself along, desperate to escape this god forsaken room, he looked back to see the last three agents of his team scattered and struggling. Cat and Cicero pulled themselves forward as well, following Deacon's lead. With each grip and step, the trio moved farther and farther away from the swells and blasts of air. Deacon stepped into a narrow hallway that led to a set of doors at the far end. Pausing a moment to catch his breath, he glanced over his shoulder to see Cat and Cicero stepping into the hallway as well. One Railroad agent followed – the rest had no ability to catch up. By this point they were either pinned beneath something bone-crushing, or had been slammed too hard against the floors and walls.
Deacon let out a few more heavy breaths and checked the safety on his sniper rifle – just to be sure. It was still engaged. Had the safety been compromised in those winds, then it'd have been a miracle that his firearm hadn't discharged, putting a bullet through any one of them. Deacon gestured to Cat and the remaining agent to check their firearms too. They did as instructed.
Cicero tucked crimson strands of his tangled, wind-blown hair behind his ears and listened closely. “Do you hear that?” he asked.
“What?” asked Cat.
Cicero answered, “Those screams have died down.” His golden eyes stared hard at the set of doors at the end of the hallway. The princeling twirled his black dagger, stopped, then pointed it toward the doors. “Whomever they are, they know we're out here.”
On the other side of the doors the group discovered what could only be described as a synth scrap yard. That was how it appeared, in any case. Limbs and body parts were strewn about, some stacked high in macabre piles, others flung to the walls, floor, and ceiling. Most of the bodies were only partially covered in flesh, as if something tore it off. Yellow, robotic eyes stared blankly from the skulls of dismembered synth corpses; jaws hung agape as if the mass-fabricated cadavers were on the verge of horrific exclamation. The room was chillingly silent.
“What did this to them?” asked Cat. Her question was met with speechlessness.
In the center of the room was a large vat, roughly the size of the average concrete swimming pool – but the vat did not contain chlorinated water. Within its basin bubbled a thick, salmon-colored substance, lazily swirling with the consistency of egg yolk. It swirled as if a crocodile swam within – as if some kind of murky creature tossed and turned at the bottom. As the liquid churned, it pumped a musky aroma throughout the room.
“This is where they make them?” Deacon asked under his breath, somewhat impressed ...and somewhat disgusted. “This is where they create synths?”
“This lab,” observed Cat with a slight choke to her voice, “is destroyed, along with everyone in it.” Peering at the vat, she made no mistake about it – this was her birthplace. This sickening pool of organic matter, surrounded by a graveyard of unknown siblings.
Suddenly, a terrible bubble gurgled up from the center of the vat. Cicero crouched with his dagger, readying himself as a gangly figure wrestled itself from the red slime. It was a synth, breathing heavily and growling like a feral animal. It had eyes like burning charcoal, darkened from lid to lid. Its nails had grown long, pointed, and black – diabolically situated at the end of spindly, white fingers. The synth scrambled from the vat, slippery like a horrific newborn, grunting and squealing like a wild, predatory boar. The creature stood and screamed an appalling sound.
“Get back!” warned Cat, readying her gun.
The afterbirth slid from the synth's translucent skin in slow, heavy drops, plopping to the floor like dollops of red gravy. The synth raised its shiny, viscous arms above its vein-covered head and screamed, “Erufi ohm daesohn! Vocu eshtik molkhun!” Then it darted forward, grabbing the neck of the last of the Railroad agents. The synth dug its sharp nails into the agent's face, shredding his skin from his jaw and cheekbones as the creature screamed with the vocal tenacity of a banshee's tongue. The struggling agent rounded off a few defensive shots which startled the synth, causing it to let go of him. Then the agent dropped to the floor, bleeding heavily from his face, unable to regain the wherewithal to rise to his feet.
Before anyone else could take a shot, the synth swiftly bent its knees and reared back, planning to make an attack on Cat. Before she could unload a few rounds of Old Faithful into the synth's skull, Cicero pulled Cat from harm's way and pounced on the vile creature, stab, stab, stabbing the wretched thing through its neck and chest. With a final swipe, Cicero sliced its throat, and the black-eyed synth teetered backward, falling into the vat, bleeding and mixing its own crimson spew into the communal afterbirth from whence it came.
“What the fluff!” yelled Deacon. Hurrying, he knelt down to assist the bleeding agent, pressing a stained handkerchief to the man's mangled face. “That was what we came to set free?” yelled Deacon. “That thing was nothing like the synths we've been helping! I dunno what the fluff that thing was!”
“Its genetic development was obviously compromised,” said Cat.
“No plops,” said Deacon, frowning as he focused on assisting his fallen comrade. “And that plops it yelled? I've heard it before. That's the crazy plops Tom was babbling.”
“It's Dunmer,” said Cicero, cleaning the blood from his blade.
“What the hell is that?” asked Deacon, still kneeling beside the agent.
“A language from Cicero's... eh... homeland,” the jester explained cryptically.
Deacon pressed his lips together and exhaled through his nose. He stood. “Where the hell do you come from exactly?”
“It's a long story,” interjected Cat. Her voice attempted to sound calm, but her hasty response betrayed the Wanderer's nervousness.
Deacon glared at her, then glared at Cicero. “Something's not right,” he said with suspicion in his eyes. “Patriot disappeared off the radar. Tom attacked one of our own. You two show up out of nowhere. This place looks like ground zero. And now? Now gen 3 synths are turning into fluffing Nosferatu?” Deacon shook his head. Then he pointed to where the synth had fallen to its death. “Just what in the hell did those words mean?”
Cicero smiled wickedly. “Kill your brothers,” he said. “Spill more blood.”
Deacon was suddenly unsettled by Cicero's fiendish grin. It was as if the strange little man had been holding back a nasty smile all this time. The red head wasn't what he appeared to be. Deacon couldn't explain it, but something deep down – something buried in that place where his rawest of instincts told him exactly what the fluff was going on, he had a momentary conjecture that Cicero was not human. That explained his ability to teleport without any sort of Pipboy tech or Courser implants. And Cat? Deacon ascertained that Cat was not, by any means, troubled by Cicero's creepy bullplops.
“This,” said Deacon, staring at the floor, “this is where we part ways.”
Confused, Cat twisted her face. “What?”
“Just go on without me. I'm gonna tend to what's left of my team and search the previous room for any survivors.”
Cat looked at Cicero – he seemed pleased. The princeling wasn't a fan of Deacon. Cicero stood there, arms crossed over his leather jacket, smirking at the unsettled Railroad agent who had lied and called himself Danny, among other such nuisances from the day they met. Good riddance was written all over the jester's beaming face.
“How are you going to get back to the surface?” asked Cat. She was genuinely concerned. She liked Deacon. Cat didn't want to abandon him to this hellhole.
“I have my ways,” Deacon answered with confidence. “I can hack terminals, no problem. Given enough time, I can track down the right tech to transport out.” He gestured to the rest of the room. “The Institute's a ghost town. It's not like I have to quickly sneak around.” Deacon sighed. “I need to gather what remains of my team and get the hell out of here.”
Cat protested, “But–”
“–This mission is over.” Deacon shook his head. He pointed to the next corridor across the room, indicating that Cat and Cicero best hurry up if they wish to catch up to the Courser from earlier.
With no hesitation, Cicero marched across the room, heading toward the hallway which led to the next lift. Cat followed after him, but lagged behind, staring apologetically over her shoulder. She looked back at Deacon who briefly waved goodbye as the Wanderer disappeared into the darkness of the next corridor.