[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Gideon Tench]
[Level: 2]
Tench and Lucky had been waiting. They didn’t jet off the second they figured out the Console’s changed layout, now that it was in Harbinger mode. He supposed that was what it looked like, but it was unintentional. He simply didn’t catch onto the danger until the Console started shaking in Lucky’s hands, and emanating specks of green.
“Is it meant to do that?” She asked, holding it by the tips of her fingers.
“…No?” Tench tried to remember if he had ever seen that happen before as he leaned forward to get a better look. One of the specks landed on the tip of his nose, and suddenly he was splitting apart into pixels.
[You have Entered Level Two!]
[Realm: L-32 | CephaloRaven]
He was thrown onto the smooth, and cold ground. Tench faceplanted into it, so the first thing he saw was the burning neon notice, superimposed over the steel floor.
Behind him, Lucky’s chair landed heavily, and the wheels screeched as they skittered across the floor.
“What’s going on?” She asked, already looking around as Tench pulled himself off the ground. They seemed to be in a lab of some kind. All stainless steel and chilly, clinical air. There were no windows, but plenty of tubes running along the walls, and a few shelves that looked almost like operating tables. A few boxes of the same chrome-plated material everything else was made of. There was not a single stray piece of junk anywhere in sight.
It was such a stark contrast from the earthy colors and warmth of Delica, and the damp wildness of CephaloRaven, he could barely consolidate it as being in the same Level. Where were they hiding this?
“I think I can break the door.” Lucky said, clearly already planning an escape route. Oh, right. There was a door. Heavy metal and no window. Reinforced from the edges as if it was an airplane door. He sincerely hoped not. Oh god, what if this was the corvid stronghold?
“Where are we?” He asked, looking around him, “How did we get here?”
“The Console.” She snapped, glaring at the tablet, “Paterson must have done something to it.” She was probably right. And there was nothing to do about it.
“We’re in CephaloRaven, aren’t we?” Lucky checked, “This… is a little different from that.”
“Let’s get out of here and figure it out from there.” Tench decided, going for the door. There were hinges, and an electronic lock on the opposite side. If they snapped some key wires, they could get out. Before his hands could do more than touch the electronic lock, he felt sharp pain stab through him, originating from his arm. He screamed, flinching back.
“I would suggest you not.” A sharp voice cut in. The door slid open, just enough to allow a man to walk in with his hands in the pockets of his white lab coat. Not a single weapon in sight. He rankled at the gall. It seemed that Lucky seemed equally unimpressed by the show.
He was wearing a plain black turtleneck under the lab coat, with a similarly unassuming pair of tan slacks. His greasy brown hair was combed back, and he had a strangely calming air about him. But he knew when a person didn’t seem to be quite there. This guy was being puppeted by the System.
The man tilted his head, “Am I not living up to your expectations?” He asked, his voice simpering sweet, “Oh, so sorry. Let me fix that.” He held out his hand, and suddenly Tench felt his throat clench up. He gaped for air but found no reprieve. Just his lightheadedness increasing with every second.
Faintly, he heard his own gagging, separated by the sound of blood pumping in his ears.
It seemed to last an eternity. Until finally, finally, sweet air finally flowed back into his lungs. The man… he must have done something to the air.
Tench wiped his eyes, turning to look at Lucky, who was slumped over in her chair. The man hadn’t even removed his other hand from his pocket. “Lucian Godfrey. And as you can see, I am not to be underestimated.” He explained, smirking lightly, “You’re… Gideon Tench, and Lucky Paine, aren’t you? Fascinating case studies. I’m sure the Developers have learnt all sorts of little bugs left behind by the old programmers thanks to you two and your pathetic team.”
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“You know who we are?” Lucky asked, her distrust flaring.
“We looked up your Asset Files.” Lucian confirmed, “After Ciera returned to us, looking worse for wear.”
Ciera? Tench tried to remember when he had ever heard that name. Somewhere in Hygeia? No. Yes. Sort of. She was the Harbinger reigning supreme over the Tracklands. Then this man must be also be a Harbinger. It made sense, with his comments about the Developers.
“See, I’m not like the others.” Lucian said snidely, “I was the one to orchestrate the destruction of CephaloRaven that you saw up above. Lacking in flair, but you can’t deny it got the message across.”
But he wasn’t smart enough to keep from letting slip the fact that they were below ground level. Working with the squids? That would explain the pressurized nature of this room. And the grease in Lucian’s hair, which was probably just water.
“In that case, are you not in your hundreds? You are looking very good at your age.” Lucky snarked.
His eyes tightened as he smiled, “You still aren’t taking this seriously, are you?” He held the door open, letting a crumpled ball of metal roll inside. It was about as tall as him in diameter, but it seemed warped. Wrapped in a thin rubbery skin that looked almost like torn… octopus skin? Gross.
Lucky rolled her chair away, watching the ball nervously. She seemed to have caught onto something Tench had missed, “What’s in there?”
A cruel smile spread over Lucian’s face, “Would you like to see?” He asked, his Console suddenly in his hands. One press of the button, and then the top he had failed to notice popped open.
Seawater gushed out of it, along with rocks and seaweed clumps and other assorted debris. Including one very large bundle of rags.
No, not just rags, he realized as the object flopped at Tench’s feet.
Michael Kapok’s ashen face looked at him with glassy eyes, lips a bloodless blue. His chest was deadly still. Tench knelt down, feeling both Lucian and Lucky’s gazes on him as he checked Michael’s pulse.
There was nothing. Michael was dead in his hands.
Tench shook his head. The handlebars of Lucky’s chair creaked from how hard she was gripping them. Lucian, for his part, looked smug as he brushed his shoulder, “From statistics alone, he was the strongest. Of course I had to take him out first. Now you know what I am capable of. And you can now go and warn the others.”
“Of what?” Tench said, sliding Michael’s eyelids shut, “What do you want from us?”
“The surrender of your entire team.” Lucian said, “My masters want as many of alive as they can get. But I have no qualms about killing as many of you as it takes to get their way.”
He reached forward and plucked out Lucky’s Console from her loose grip and looked it over, “Ah, this is Burks’ Console?”
“It is mine, actually.” She murmured, voice nowhere as sharp as it normally would be.
“Aw, that’s cute. How were you working it if it was deactivated?” He asked.
Lucky hesitated. Then her eyes drifted down to look at Michael’s still stillstillstill body, “There was an extra processor at the back of the Console. I booted that up instead of the Harbinger one.”
“Ooh, really?” Lucian turned it over to claw at the screws on the back, “I never know how these things work. So the Great Saboteur left some dirty hardware behind as well? Thank you for this information.”
Then he pressed a few buttons, until the green specks began to float around them again.
“Make sure the others get my warning.” Lucian told them flippantly, as Tench backed into Lucky’s chair, Michael’s cold and stiff cadaver still cradled desperately in his arms, “I will be coming to collect you as my prisoners of war, in a few days.”
“We’re eight people. Most of us are children.” Tench told him desperately, “What war?”
“The one that the ravens and the octopi have been playing out for years now.” Lucian replied, maybe slowing the green specks down to allow them to have this conversation, “And isn’t it seven, now?”
He flinched, but any retort he could come up with went unsaid, as finally the specks connected, and the Harbinger Console spirited them away.
Tench didn’t know what he was expecting on the other side of those coordinates, but he certainly had not planned to appear in the middle of a standoff between a storm of birds and-
His own team.
“What’s this?” A cluster of ravens asked, all speaking in squawking tandem, “Who are these three?”
“The still one. It seems like carrion.” One voice shouted out from the multitude.
“Carrion! Carrion!” They all cawed, like a death chant. Tench hugged Michael’s body close and tried to ignore how disgustingly soft his flesh felt under his skin.
Gunfire broke out across from them. Several birds dropped from the skies, struck with pinpoint aim as a vitriolic blur fought through the flock. Verity Monroe slid to a stop on her knees, staring at Michael with shattered eyes.
Blood was speckled across her face, and though whether that was from the gash across her forehead or from the birds was unclear. It dripped onto Michael’s cheek just the same.
She wiped it off, but all that did was smear it in further.
“Who did this?” She asked, her voice low and dangerous. There was no chance of her surrender, “Why didn’t we see it on the Console?”
“I don’t know.” Tench said, because these were all the questions he had no answer for, “It was a Harbinger, though.”
Red flashed in her eyes. The bloodlust she had fallen into in Hygeia. She looked around, analyzing things he couldn’t hope to spot, until they alighted on a specific spot in the sand and the mess of feathers, her teeth bared as if she was going to try and rip the person’s throat right out.
“Like that one?” She asked.
Tench had no idea what she was referring to, but Verity didn’t wait for a response anyway. She charged headlong into the kill.
[Player Log End!]