VII.

In the same manner as the connecting hallway, the room crackled to life with a static drone. Vagari hadn’t known what to expect, but he hadn’t expected the room to be more aquarium than lab. Several small cylinder tanks of thick green glass lined the back wall, side by side and about a foot apart. Whatever had been kept within them had long since been purged, but Vagari hazarded a guess, uttering under his breath, “These look like the A.U. system from the Illiniwek De-extinction Project. Cloning? BIO-Engineering? Just what were you up to, Xu?”

Vagari turned his attention to a lone terminal station planted in front of the vats. The terminal itself had been rendered inoperable and purposely so, judging by the shattered screen, but all hadn’t been lost to the void of destruction. Before carrying out their work of sabotage, whoever, had made sure to set aside hard copies of the information. “Why make copies if you’re destroying information?” Vagari questioned as he neared the desk. He thumbed through one of the piles of printed paper, letting himself enjoy the feel of them before taking a stack in hand. It read curtly:

SYNBIO LAB ITTERATION REPORT//DR.EV

ITTERATION – 1: Failure. Subject shows no signs of cellular regeneration. External force may be necessary.

ITTERATION – 2: Failure. Subject advanced to embryotic state before calcifying. Cause unknown.

ITTERATION – 3: Failure. Somatic compound unstable today. We’ll try again when compound is less agitated.

ITTERATION – 4: Success. Compound stabilized after ingesting organic compounds. Guess it was hungry? Subject has advanced into an embryotic state.

ITTERATION – 5: Failure. Subject’s complexity has stopped advancing with ingested biomass. No signs of higher functions. Subject growing too large for incubation unit. Transfer to Sub-basement containment.

For a moment Vagari stared at the name on the paper. It didn’t ring any bells either. Just who were these people? He wondered as he flipped through the stack to find a continuation. He found none, with all the other documents signed instead by Dr. Xu. His files were written in an even curter manner, somehow both offering less information and more with a bell of familiarity inscribed. He sifted through the paperwork until the tone struck true.

SYNBIO LAB ITTERATION REPORT//DR.XU

BP 1-4-56 – Promote to next stage

BP 1-11-56 – Failure

BP 1-18-56 – Failure

BP 1-25-56 – Promote to next stage

BP 2-8-57 – Promote to next stage

There it was ringing soundly – BP 2-8-57. Vagari was sure it was a date now, suggesting in a thought spoken, “Our BP 2-8-57 is either fourteen or one or two-hundred and fourteen… Did say they’d been here forever. A clone of something?” The entire stack painted a strange and grim picture – promotions and failures. Whatever they were, they had been making a whole lot of them, or at very least, were trying to and for a very long time. The oldest appeared to be BP 9-11-12, with the newest being BP 4-6-62, and all were recorded in roughly weekly intervals. They had been at it for years, but their technique, though advanced, was hardly perfected, it seemed, judging by the majority marked failure.

Vagari tossed the paper back down upon the table and left the room behind for the next. The second lab looked like more of the same, but the tanks were larger. As that first article had suggested, whatever they were, they were expected to grow. Vagari was beginning to get a vague idea of what had been going on at the fabled Site-B. It was obviously some kind of cloning laboratory, but what they were cloning was still a mystery. The third lab offered a change in scenery, a shift from aquatic containment vessels to terrestrial cages. Vagari’s heart sank upon entrance, seeing that each and every were full and yet empty in any way that mattered. Each cage was a three-by-three-foot kennel faced in scratched and cracked plasteel. Inside them all were darkened lumps that could only be bodies. “Children?” Vagari thought grimly as he knelt before one of the ghastly tombs. “No…”

It was hard to see within, but whatever was inside looked more animal than human. “The Nursery…” The A.I.’s voice whispered through the tablet speakers. “I remember this place. This was a bad place. It was cold… and loud. So loud with everyone screaming. I remember wondering why the others would never talk to me. All they would ever do is scream. I learned new words every day, just by listening. But they wouldn’t listen! Not to me… not to Dr. Xu or the other Doctors! I begged them to say something, anything! Anything to show that they were like me… But most weren’t like me.”

“What are you?” Vagari asked, pressing the question as he left the ‘Nursery’ behind. “What are you, and what the hell was going on here? You say you picked up words… You must have heard something, BP. You know more than you’re letting on. They weren’t cloning here, were they? And it wasn’t genetic manipulation either. They were growing something in those labs – something that I think got out. And you… They grew you.”

For a long minute Vagari only got silence for a reply, but as soon as he stood in front of the door at the end of the hallway – deciding whether to turn back or press on and fulfill his part of the deal – they spoke. “I… really don’t know,” BP insisted. “I don’t know what I am. I’m like you though, not Dr. Xu…”

“Like me?” Vagari pressed.

“Not human,” they answered. “I saw you, on the freeway! You’re not human either. You’re something else, like me.”

That was true, he wasn’t human and hadn’t been in a very long time. Vagari glanced back to the room full of cages, his thoughts to the blackened lumps inside. Were they trying to replicate the process he had undergone – to make more monsters like him? Was he about to let a new monster go free by helping them? Was this truly the right thing to do? “What happened here?” Vagari asked again, clearing his throat. “I need to know before I take another step.”

“Okay… I’ll tell you what I know,” the voice said defeatedly. “Someone got out, someone not like me. They heard Her in their minds, and she told them to do bad things. I don’t hear Her. Dr. Xu said I was special. I don’t feel special… I feel alone.”

“Her? Who’s ‘Her’?” Vagari questioned as he looked the door up and down. It was stricken by the same ill-fated hand of sabotage as the stations in the labs. All outside power to the control panel was severed and the manual key-card slot broken beyond all hopes of repair. Whoever had done this, Dr. Xu Vagari assumed, didn’t want anyone to get inside. “How did you get stuck in there anyways?”

“Dr. Xu closed me in…” BP confirmed, ignoring his prior question, “when things got bad… and everyone else was gone. He said that I would be safe here until he returned, that there would be enough supplies until then. He said he was going for help – that he knew someone who could help. I promised that I would only open it for him… but he never came back. And the supplies… They lasted me a long while, but I ran out. I broke my promise and opened the door. I looked and looked but I couldn’t find him anywhere in the facility. So, I asked Aan to look, but she couldn’t find him either. She couldn’t find him anywhere in the city! He was gone… And I was on my own. After that I decided to leave too, I couldn’t stay here anymore, but the door wouldn’t open again.”

Vagari had a feeling that if BP had spoken in their own voice, the words would have been spoken through tears. Whatever they were, humanity was a good sign, and a seldom seen one in the wastelands. Vagari sighed and stared at the door. It wasn’t their fault they were brought into such an uncaring world and left to rot by those they trusted most. It was decided. “Alright,” Vagari said with a resigned huff while he tapped at the door with a sharp nail, “I’m going to get you out of there. It sounds like you’ve had a real rough go of it. I’ve been having one myself. You just need to promise one thing – that you’re not going to try and eat me.”

“Oh – of course! I promise,” blurted BP. “Is that common? Do people try to eat you?”

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“More common than I’d ever care for,” admitted Vagari with a chuckle. “Alright… I’m going to need you to stand back – like way back. This door, this whole place, it was designed to resist things like us, so this is going to take a bit of effort. If there’s anything in there you can hide behind, I suggest you do it. And don’t come out until I give you the okay! Okay? Can you do that for me, BP?”

“Y-yes, yes I can!” BP sputtered in the A.I.’s voice, their excitement plainly bleeding through. “Just give me a moment… There’s a vent…” The moment passed and BP quickly added, “Ready!”

Once more Vagari inspected the door. It was plasteel, probably layered too as apposed to simply plated. Even if he were in better shape, he doubted he’d be able to strong-arm it. That left two options: using the last of his eggs to create a drone strong enough to do just that; or use a means they couldn’t possibly had prepared for at the time. In hindsight, they had truly been so woefully unprepared for the powers at play. These facilities had been built by the collective knowledge of all the brightest minds in the system, every possibility taken into account. However, they had been dealing with powers thought impossible, things they couldn’t imagine in their wildest dreams, and all the knowledge of man quickly proved insufficient.

Vagari pressed the palm of his hand against the door and prepared himself with a deep calming breath. The man he was had truly known nothing in the end, despite his arrogance swearing otherwise. All he had known was but the ebbing of the tide, the foam on the shore of a vast ocean long since withdrawn from man. They had ignored the signs, and in their arrogance thought they could withstand the crashing of the waves, unaware of the tsunami upon the horizon. They drowned and the world drowned with them. Reborn in those waters, Vagari had no choice but to sink or swim, to grow beyond impossibility or to succumb to brine-filled lungs.

Vagari sought out the impossibility and drew upon it. “Skel-Tehk!” Vagari shouted, a strange alien word that seemingly reverberated down the hall to catch up with his voice. The door groaned and hissed, angrily spouting a caustic smoke as it bent inward under eldritch strain. With a thunderous crack, it imploded into the room beyond where it stuck still, indented into the wall. Some might call him a Diabolist – someone who uses the demonic energies of the void as a means to influence reality in fantastical and often catastrophic ways – but, in truth, it was only a passing resemblance, and a talent best kept hidden lest the similarity be made.

Vagari breathed heavily, the stress of the incantation only adding weight to the haunting dread stalking him. He stared into the room ahead, watching for a moment in silence as the dust settled before stepping through the ruined frame into the chamber. It was as BP and the sign above had claimed – a security office that could double as a panic room. Vagari fanned the dust out of his face and looked the room over. To the left was an open pantry, filled only with empty cans and packages in an overflowing heap stacked halfway up the wall. To the right was probably the only working bathroom between the Megacity and the frontier town of Eastend. In front, now permanently divided by the semi-corroded door, were a number of security monitors. This was no doubt where BP tapped into the A.I.’s network.

There came a metallic shuffling from within the vent nearest to the bathroom, drawing Vagari’s attention. “It’s safe to come out now,” Vagari called lightly. “BP, can you hear me?” Suddenly, with a clunk, the screen fell free, rattling on the ground as two small bare feet kicked out. Par for course, after the feet a dwarfish body appeared, and with it, a head – all of which gave Vagari some pause. “BP, I presume?” Vagari cautiously inquired.

“Yeah, its me…” BP sheepishly confirmed, speaking in a female voice that reminded Vagari all too much of avian mimicry rather than the voice of an actual human girl. It made some sort of sense, he supposed, considering that she didn’t appear to have lips to speak with. No, as she had said, BP was very much inhuman.

With the face of a tiger fish crossed with a gharial, and with a few dozen more fangs jammed haphazardly into her mouth, to call BP simply ugly was a kindness Vagari couldn’t afford. Her skin was leathery and mottled with a calloused texture, making it hard for him to tell if she were more fish, reptile, or mammalian in origin, as suggested by the two tufts of hair on her head. The rest of them was about as unfortunate: stumpy limbs attached to a shrunken body that made her head look disproportionately large and grotesque.

BP stared up with bulbus and strangely human eyes, considering the rest of her, reddened and watering, on the verge of tears. Those bulging pug-like eyes were probably the most attractive part of her, being a particular bright shade of green-hazel. Something in those eyes trapped Vagari there, stuck for a moment in a familiarity he couldn’t pinpoint. But whatever it was, the moment was quickly dispelled as BP let out a sudden and horrendous shriek. Vagari’s heart froze in his chest as just as suddenly she was on him. It wasn’t an attack, at least not on his person. “Thank you! Thank you – thank you – thank you!” BP bellowed in a grateful sob as she clung to his leg, rubbing her ghastly maw up and down like an over-joyous hound. “I’m free, thank you!”

Vagari was torn between being genuinely touched or offended by the contact, but reluctantly he accepted it for the kindness it was and patted the unfortunate thing on the head. “You are welcome, friend,” Vagari said with a pause. “You are free now, yes.”

“R-right, and now my part of the deal,” BP croaked in reply, catching his emphasis. She quickly let go and brushed herself off, staring at him sidelong like the apocalypse’s toothiest chicken. “Sorry… sorry. I’m just so excited that I can finally leave! I thought I was going to die here… I’m… I’m a bit sad too. Is that normal?”

“Yes, it’s normal,” Vagari said softly. “Everyone is a bit afraid to leave home for the first time. I’m returning to mine, in fact. Someone is there waiting for me, which is why it’s so urgent that I get there. They need my help.”

“They’re stuck too, huh?” BP uttered softly before giving him a sharp nod as she clapped her stubby hands together. “OKAY! Alright then, we better get going – RIGHT AWAY!”

Her abrupt enthusiasm took Vagari by surprise and he couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it. He watched with arched brows as BP made her way to the terminal, spun on her heels, and immediately came back with her hand held out. “So that’s dead. Uh – I… um can I borrow your terminal?” she requested, which Vagari granted without word. “Ah – thank you… um… This will take a second.”

“TERMINAL HAS INSUFICIANT CLEARANCE,” Blared the A.I.’s voice after a few moments of expert tapping at the screen, “ADMINISTRATION CODE IS REQUIRED.”

“Dang it, Thoth… I JUST gave you clearance!” Grumbled BP before clearing her throat with a forced cough. “Sorry uh – just one more second.” She coughed again and when next she spoke her voice was not her own. It was deep and grim, a man’s voice, carrying a spiteful tone. “Transfer administrative controls. Access code: Jasper-Carnelian-Emerald.”

“ACCESS: GRANTED,” The A.I. announced. “HANDHELD-TERMINAL: C NOW HAS ADMINISTRATIVE ACCESS.”

Vagari couldn’t help but notice ‘her part’ didn’t involve undoing the lockdown or allowing his personal command-code. “That’s a neat trick,” he uttered, eying her sidelong. “I suppose directions aren’t what you have in mind?”

“No,” BP replied bluntly, her voice returned to the avian croak, “I… I’m going with you. N-not all the way! Just… just until we get out of the city – maybe some place friendly?”

“That wasn’t part of the deal, BP,” Vagari stated firmly, but not unkindly. “I get you out – you give me the fastest route – we part ways.”

“I know – I know! A-and I still will,” BP exclaimed, her reddened eyes locked on the tablet screen. “It’s just… There’s nothing left here, no one left. I don’t think I could make it on my own.” Vagari only stared, saying nothing. BP sighed and then said, “Thoth connect me to the Automotive Assistance Node and show me the fastest route out of the city.”

“East,” he added, breaking his silence and stare. “We’re going East – to the border town of Eastend. It isn’t what I would call ‘friendly’ but it’s your safest bet to get a foothold on the outside. Your technological knowledge will secure you work and residence, of that I’m confident.”

Vagari didn’t rightly know why he was willing to take the risk bringing the creature along. He could have simply and easily snatched the tablet right out of her hands and been on his way without her! But something about her – maybe the familiarity he seen in her eyes – wouldn’t let him abandon her to what he knew were slim chances. Soprano, Alto, neither of them would want that either. BP stared for a moment, unsure of what he meant at first before sputtering in renewed haste, “E-eastern route, the fastest out of the city!” The A.I. proceeded to make its calculations. “Thank you,” BP said softly. “I’ll be sure you wont regret it! Tech stuff isn’t the only thing I know. I had a lot of time to read here and learn all I can about everything in general! Dr. Xu gathered a whole lot of textbooks from the outside.”

“The world outside is hardly the one you would see in those books,” replied Vagari painedly. “You will never see that world outside of those pages.”

She stared at her feet for a quiet moment before saying, “I know. Dr. Xu told me what happened. I know what’s out there too, but I still want to go. It may not be the old world, but it’s a new world and that means there’s all new things to discover! No one knows what’s out there, right? That’s what he told me… I want to find out!”

“CONNECTION TO AAN NODE ESTABLISHED. ADMINISTRATIVE ROUTE CALCULATED,” the A.I. interrupted before Vagari could attempt to argue the dangers of reality. “EXIT THROUGH SUBBASEMENT.”

With a sigh Vagari could already tell that no matter what horror story he told her about the world beyond she had already made her decision, so he let it go. He would help her out of the city and to Eastend, he decided, but from there… Maybe Soprano would take her under her wing? Or maybe just convince her against exploration. There were reasons people hadn’t reconquered the world, just like there were reasons no one retook the city. It wasn’t for lack of trying, they just all died. If she pursued her dream of exploration, it would be lifelong and a very short life. “We all have to live with the consequences of our arrogance,” Vagari thought grimly. Or was it simply hope in a hopeless world? He couldn’t tell. What was the difference? “Alright then,” Vagari said with a sweeping arm, “lead the way.”