Chapter 37: Warehouse.
The pit was a large oval hole marking the bottom of a long vertical space.
One that went up and up and up, beyond the range of both my eyes and my psionic senses.
When asked to scout it out, Dolce reported that the ceiling led directly to his home.
By which he meant the abyssal lake that made up the borders of this prison of ours.
I was tempted to demand a ride right there and then, eager to try my luck against its denizens now that I’d reached such a high level.
The visions were the only leash keeping me tied down.
The promise of another Type if I just held out for another month and fulfilled my promise to the siblings.
If it was possible to escape, there was no guarantee that I could make my way back.
If it wasn’t, then a blind charge could spell doom.
Not only for myself, but for all the people in my care.
‘One month isn’t that long. Not now that I have new friends and a sort-of home base. It won’t be as bad anymore. The worst is behind me.’
‘Don’t forget me, Sully! You can always count on me!’
‘Thank you, Buddy. I know.’
‘Me too!’
‘Shut up Dolce. Speak when you’re spoken to.’
Dolce’s mind deflated. Not that I cared.
He’d have to work long and hard to make up for almost killing me earlier.
“Is something amiss Shepherd?”
“What? Oh, No. Everything is fine Slab. Thank you.”
“Are you sure?” Charlie insisted. “You look like someone who just got stabbed. Or like someone who’s about to do a lot of stabbing.”
I shook my head incredulously.
“What would that even look like?”
“Oh, the signs are easy enough to spot once you’re looking for them. The intense stare that looks vacant at first glance, but is actually locked onto a target. The way your nostrils flare up every now and again. Also, you’re holding the knife like it’s a cliff’s edge and you’re about to fall off. You couldn’t look more menacing if you tried.”
My gaze wandered downwards to find that I was, indeed, gripping Mot’s dagger.
I ran my fingers up and down its hilt, recalling the sensation of blood dripping down its edge.
‘Is it weird to think that it was too easy? No. Its not. It could be a trap. Down here, it could always be a trap. Damn it. I hate this. I hate not knowing what’s going to happen next. I hate the way [Premonition] and [Precognition] are silent. I hate that there aren’t more gnomes to kill.’
“And there it is again. That’s the look of a Whitmer goon if I’ve ever seen one.”
I gave Charlie a sideways glance.
He paled, focusing his gaze on Slab and Dusty, before bringing up his hands and retreating a few steps.
“Come now. I can’t be the only one who’s thinking about this. I’m only bringing it up because…because I’m worried about Solomon. He’s really strong and definitely a good person. So, I want to make sure he’s fine. That he has everything he needs. That I’m being a good friend to him. Monique. You see it too, don’t you?”
The woman nodded slowly. Keeping a healthy distance between the siblings and herself.
“Right. Solomon. You, you don’t look so good.”
I shook my head. Spreading my arms out to encompass our surroundings.
“Its true. I’m not feeling good. Can you blame me? Look around. This place fell in, what, a few minutes? There wasn’t a big trap at the end. Nor a new hidden boss to fight. It was too easy.”
The two of them looked at each other.
As did Slab and Dusty.
“Do you suspect a trap, Shepherd?”
“Yes.” I said in frustration. “I know there has to be one. There just has to be. Our takeover was too quick and bloodless. The Labyrinth always has more in store. Always.”
“Did you have a vision of the future?”
“No! That’s what’s driving me mad! I know there has to be something I’m not seeing, but my visions are all nonsensical! I’m seeing alternate timelines where I don’t meet you all. In those, the gnomes die just like in this one and Ryan is the one having this conversation with me. I tell other Ryan what I’m telling you and he thinks I’m crazy.”
I brought my hands to my head. Asking Buddy to open my helmet so that I can massage my temple.
“I just…I just think its wrong. There’s something inexplicably wrong here and I can’t put it into words. I feel like the gnomes were pushovers and that there’s more of them out there.”
“I mean, that’s probably true.” Charlie conceded. “But I don’t think the gnomes were pushovers, mate. They fought tooth and nail every time I met them before. I think you’re too strong. They never really stood a chance.”
“Charlie’s right.” Monique stated. “But that doesn’t mean that you’re wrong. There very well could be a hidden trap that we don’t know about.”
She pulled a pen and leatherbound journal from her pack, moving a little awkwardly now that her body was encased in a Symbiote.
“Here. Take a moment to write down what you see in the visions. Write things out one by one. Like a list. We can then focus on what you’re being shown that relates to us at this moment.”
She brought her hands together in a loud clap.
“That way we can avoid making rash decision, while still becoming more aware of what we have to watch out for.”
I took the pen and the book with shaking hands.
Writing down what I had seen of the glimpses so far.
[Precognition] flared up as I did so. Showing me a different crowd in a similar cave.
Ryan was talking to the gathered masses.
Or, well. I think that’s what he was doing.
This Ryan had been rescued in a timeline where I didn’t meet Slab or Dusty or Monique. Charlie had left us, as had Borislav. Leaving me to deal with the crowd and their suspicious, hurt gazes.
The Ryan in front of me opened his mouth, only for a stream of bile to fly out and splatter all over the rescued people.
None of them seemed to care.
Instead, their eyes grew sharper. More focused.
A sun the formed over them, burning down their shells like candles.
I shuddered and found myself giving back the book.
Monique opened it and frowned.
“Okay. It looks like you wrote some, uh, interesting things.”
Monique took a deep breath, before narrating the contents out to us.
“Let’s see now. ‘Traitor, Periwig, Movie. Sun, World, Butcher. Drake, Dreams, Mansion.’ You wrote all of that in big words. With the words, ‘I control’, written in between. Over and over again. Then you wrote ‘Antediluvian, Sarcophagus, Incomplete. Six-winged angel. Week of nightmares. Under burning skies. Breaking Point. Pirates. Governor. Warlord. Bombs. Cages. Cries in the dark. Closing throat. In their hands, the daggers.’ Again, all with those words in between, acting as line breaks.”
She shut the journal and put it away.
“Well. That was certainly… colourful.”
“Incredible.” Slab muttered. “What does it mean?”
His eyes turned to me. Obviously in awe of the scribbling.
‘How the (Gnome) should I know?’ I answered in my head.
Borislav coughed into his hand.
“I believe we should take a step back. Solomon, do any of these, predictions, concern us at this very moment?”
“No?”
“Is that a question or do you know that they don’t?”
“No.” I finished. “I don’t think so. I do sense that something’s off, but its not coming from [Precognition] or [Premonition]. It might be my own mind playing tricks on me.”
Borislav nodded.
“In that case, I suggest that we move on and find a safe place to rest. How long will the monsters stay under your control?”
“Forever.”
His mouth snapped shut.
Charlie and Monique both drew in sharp breaths.
“As expected of the Shepherd!”
“You truly are the greatest warrior among us all! You honour us with your presence!”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I shrank in the face of their praises. Drawing in the emotions of the others through my fog.
“I think we’ve spent enough time out here. Borislav is right. The Shifters need to rest so that they can keep healing people and the healed people need to rest while they digest the….uh…food that we donated.”
“Of course! As expected of the Shepherd! So much wisdom for someone so young!”
I nodded and turned to the area.
One end of the pit led to a multitude of connecting sideways and staircases which we’d used to access the space.
The other led up a wide ramp with actual lamps along its length.
Gothic in their design, with big glass panels and constantly burning flames behind them. The lighting was a breath of fresh air, as was the very welcome breeze that came out of vents near the ceiling as we ascended.
At the end was a big vault door.
The same kind you’d see in cartoons. A circle of steel or some other metal, with a handle that needed to be turned using bars welded into the structure.
I had no idea what was behind the big door.
How could I know?
There wasn’t any living being or robot that I could sense beyond it. Meaning both my map and my fog might as well not exist.
Lovely.
Slab stepped forward wordlessly, smiling at the shivering mass of humanity all around us. In his mind, that would’ve been an encouraging gesture.
However, he still hadn’t summoned his own symbiote and his clothes were splattered with dried bloodstains.
Not to mention the menagerie of spare weapons he’d attached to several belts.
Coupled with his, shall we say, unnatural physique, he came off as ferocious and intimidating instead.
With a grunt of effort, he twisted the handle.
The gateway opened after three rotations and he pulled it back with a gentle tug, taking care not to damage it against the nearby wall.
In all honesty, I was prepared to find rows upon rows of carnivorous plants or maybe a horde of fungal zombies. It would be consistent with what we’d suffered so far and it would explain why I couldn’t sense a thing.
‘I really should take the other interface abilities. But if I did that, then I wouldn’t be able to upgrade [Hide] and [Faint Presence]. Bringing both up another level would take all seven points.’
Since I was still undecided, I’d opted to have a frontline made up of snails, both golden and blue. The plan dictated that they’d start flinging elemental attacks the second an enemy showed themselves.
That entire idea was scrapped the moment the door was opened. Signals rushed back to me in the span of a second, making the entire space come to life at once.
This confirmed two of my hypotheses.
First, there were ways to block my abilities or to limit their range. Excellent information to have ahead of time.
Second, the architect that designed the maze was a sadist of unrivaled proportions.
How else would you explain the fact that we were thrown to the proverbial wolves when there was a sanctuary nearby.
Inside was a different world.
One far more familiar to me.
Bright overhead lamps illuminated the hall, revealing rows upon rows of unresponsive turrets mounted on the floor and ceiling.
Further in, are layers of pallet racks.
They are more spread out than their conventional, real-life counterparts, with wide corridors separating each row.
Those walkways were filled with plain wooden benches on either side, facing a sectioned off garden filled with common fruits from earth.
Metal boxes lined the shelves, easily reaching twice the height of any Warehouse I’d been in before. Even further in are what appear to be, sinks. Like, actual kitchen sinks, and large picnic tables, and massively wide refrigerators.
‘There is no way this doesn’t come with a trap.’
It was simply too good to be true.
That paranoia leads me to send in the snails first with a force wall between us and the open eating area, courtesy of Monique and Jane.
They spend one hour clearing it out. Then two. Exploring every nook and cranny. Every inch of every attached chamber. The bunkbeds, the laundry machines, the workbenches, the tv room, the communal toilets, the sparring area, the communal showers.
By all that is good and holy there were showers in here. Indeed, there were even a handful of isolated bedrooms with their own, much nicer toilets and showers, hinting at a pre-built class disparity the designers had intended.
And…
Wait a freaking second…
“Is that an ice-cream machine?”
Monique perks up at my comment and immediately follows my gaze. Her mouth hangs open. I think this might be the first time I’ve seen a genuine smile out of her.
“What’s ice-cream?” Slab asks, club still in hand.
He doesn’t get an answer. Instead, Jane rushes forward before we can stop her and starts pressing buttons.
“It’s saying it takes one store token per serving.” She squealed in delight. Soon enough, a fancy ceramic bowl and spoon materialized on an empty slot and a thick stream of chocolate mixed with vanilla slithered down.
She was weeping before the machine was done with her order. No sooner had she finished than half of our rescued charges charged. Displaying a level of energy I’d never have expected from people who’d been recently trapped in hanging cages.
This place was the real deal.
All of the sinks appeared to spew water.
Like normal sinks.
The fridges were packed with nutrient bars, like the ones found inside the bulls. Even those had screens where you could pay extra to get fried cuts of meat, cakes, and even pizzas.
The toilets flushed normally, without any hint of foul play.
Part of me still expected something sinister to happen then. A masked killer descending from a hidden tunnel in the bathroom’s roof to gut us while our pants were down.
However, to my utter shock, everything seemed to be working.
Like in the real world.
An oasis of normality in this cursed place.
With no strings attached.
It was just so, surreal.
To go back to a semblance of civilization.
After all that we’d been through.
After all the fighting and the carnage and the bugs and the snails and the eels and the pumas and the chameleons and the otters and the moles and the beetles and the penguins.
After the thrice dammed gnomes.
After becoming a bloody Telepath.
This was, to put it bluntly, too good to be true.
So, there I remained, going through my screen and plotting out what to do as soon as the other shoe dropped.
It should be noted that I wasn’t alone in thinking this was a set up. Ryan was sitting in a corner, fingers wrapped tightly around a metal bar he’d gotten from somewhere.
He fidgeted with it constantly, his innermost thoughts mirroring my own.
‘Come on, think. Think. Think. Where is the attack coming from? Where is the danger? Where is the one thing that turns this into another nightmare?’
It took a while for the calm to set in.
Happiness had become a suspicious stranger to me. So much so that I kept wandering the premises, taking in the bunks and the smaller private rooms.
During my exploration, I even found a door labelled: “Alcoholic Beverages.”
“I guess even kidnapping victims deserve a drink or three. How very generous of our hosts.”
I was turning around to find a bed to nap on when the accusation came.
It wasn’t spoken aloud.
Not at first at first.
It begun as a sour thought inside a pasty-white skeleton of a man.
His feet and hands had only recently been regrown by Borislav and still had that odd discoloration about them, free of the scratches and blisters that were so common among the other survivors.
Those pristine hands were trembling with rage. Clenched so tightly that he might have drawn blood if his strength hadn’t left him.
‘This was so close. All this time. They killed Eddy and Malcolm. They killed Macy and her kids. They killed them so close to safety. We could have made it. We could’ve escaped. Some of us could’ve lived. The kids could’ve lived. We were so close. So damn close.’
He, I didn’t know his name, was sobbing now. Choking on his grief.
“Why!?” He screamed. Loudly enough that all exploration ceased around the Warehouse.
“Why didn’t you come sooner!? Why did you leave us to die like animals!? You were so strong! Its not fair! You should have come! You should have come sooner!”
I froze like a deer caught in the headlights.
Mouth agape.
The man had not aimed his accusation at anyone in particular, but it was not hard to figure out whom he was referring to. It had been my eels that carried him and the others to safety and my centipedes that did most of the dying and the killing.
“I…I saved everyone the gnomes had captured.” I squeaked.
“Liar! They killed my friends! They killed Sam! They killed the Goldberg twins! They killed so many people! Where the hell were you!? What were you doing while we bled and died like pigs!?”
I started stammering. Backing off in the face of the verbal lashing.
‘I came to save you. I saved these people. I’m a good person. I’m a good person. I’m a good person.’
The man took a step in my direction even as I backed away. He pointed with his bony fingers. As if he meant to stab me with them.
“Its all your fault!”
“Yeah!” another voice joined in. “Where were you all this time!?”
“They killed my husband!”
“They killed my girlfriend!”
“They killed my mother!”
“Where were you!?”
“Why didn’t you come!?”
The man had backed me into a corner, his mind abuzz with pain and hate. He lunged, faster than I could imagine and swung a fist in my direction.
The blow didn’t connect.
Slab had grabbed his outstretched arm and was holding it firmly in place. Dusty, Charlie and Monique had interposed themselves between us and the rest of the forming mob. Borislav was nowhere to be seen.
“Calm down! This isn’t helping anyone!” Monique bellowed.
“Shut up! You were with him! You could’ve done something! Why didn’t you!? We want answers!”
“(Gnome) that!” Charlie roared. “I don’t like the monster tamer anymore than you do, but even I can see, he stuck his neck out for you lot! The very first thing he said to me was that he wanted help to rescue you!”
“Liar!”
“Tell us where you were!”
“Why didn’t you come sooner!?”
Someone threw a piece of furniture. A chair, I think. Monique raised her right arm to bring up a [Force Wall] while holding out her left arm to ward of Dusty. The giantess had her axe in hand and was eager to use it. A deluge of pure fury had clouded her mind. Fueled by indignation at the sheer levels of ingratitude on display.
If the crowd had been just a little more observant, they might have noticed that Monique was keeping her distance and inching further away with every second. Far more scared of her than she was of their insults.
“Let go of me you freak!” The man in front of me demanded. Kicking Slab’s legs over and over again.
Slab narrowed his eyes further.
“The Shepherd has requested that I treat my fellows gently.” He stated in an emotionless tone. “I ask that you stand down.”
“Shut your (Gnome)ing pig mouth! You (Gnome)ing sheep (Gnome)er!”
Slab did not speak again. Instead, he moved his body so that his massive frame covered me completely. Then, he squeezed.
A snapping sound washed over the hall, followed closely by a scream. Another snap followed soon thereafter and another and another.
Slab followed that up by grabbing both shattered arms with his right hand. That hand went up. Then down.
He’d used enough force that the impact shocked the crowd into silence but not enough to kill his victim outright.
Broken teeth fell onto the floor. The man mumbled something or tried to. His lower jaw was hanging loose. Held together only by the exposed muscles on his right cheek.
Monique and Charlie looked back in astonishment. Dusty never took her eyes off the mob.
The next time Slab spoke, he was addressing me instead of his victim. His tone was even and steady as if he were directing a presentation in an office. That nonchalance made his words all the more chilling.
“Shepherd, I know your upbringing was more, gentle, than mine. I realize that you are not accustomed to each person’s role in the collective. With that in mind, please allow me to recommend a course of action. By attacking you, this wretch attacked the group’s best chance at survival. My own family’s best chance at survival. The punishment for endangering the clan is death or exile where I come from. He should be tried and executed, so that all can see our justice at play. Everyone gathered here must know that putting the group at risk is tantamount to throwing their lives away.”
After he was done, you could have heard a pin drop on the other side of the Warehouse.
Charlie and Monique looked at him, then at the moaning mass of broken flesh. Then they looked at me.
Waiting.
It took an eternity for me to gulp and another one for me to find the right words.
“I don’t want anyone killed.”
“This criminal tried to hit you. He might be weak and stupid, but he is still a warrior. His punch could have killed you.”
‘Yes.’ I thought. ‘He’s an Enhancer and I’m a Telepath. He could have turned my insides into my outsides without breaking a sweat. Buddy might have saved my life with his new abilities, or he might have proved as useful as nipples on a breastplate; but this man didn’t know that. He meant to kill me.’
Thankfully, I still had enough sense to keep those words a secret.
“I’m sure it was a misunderstanding.” I lied. “This man is grieving. We literally pulled him from an open-air prison and he’s wearing a wet, bloody pelt instead of clothes. I think we can be sure that he did not mean to hurt me.”
Slab said nothing. Neither did his sister. Monique was busy heaving, relief evident on her face.
It was Charlie who stepped in. Moving so fast that his passing sent whooshes of air blasting off in all directions.
“He’s right. The man’s not in his right mind. Just look at him. He looks worse than all the beggars back home put together. It’d be wrong to kill someone over a little spat. He meant no harm.”
‘He knows.’ I realized with a start. ‘He knows the fools could’ve killed me and he’s trying to save him.’
A quick scan through my fog revealed that everyone knew. Every single one.
They also realized how much stronger my group was. They’d all known, of course. We steamrolled their captors without losing anyone or even suffering so much as a bruise. But knowing something implicitly was different from seeing it with your own eyes.
The show had put the fear of death into them again. Shattering the illusion of safety provided by the safe zone. In essence, it had turned them into mice again. Helplessly watching the strong going about their business.
‘This isn’t my fault. I did everything right. I saved these people. I’m a good person. I’m a good person. I’m a good person.’
“We’re all tired and dirty. We should let this go. I’m sure it won’t happen again.” I insisted.
Slab finally nodded and called for Borislav to come over and heal the broken man.
The Shifter emerged from the far side of the Warehouse, shuffling awkwardly to the wounded person whimpering on the floor.
He made sure to wait until Slab was long gone before getting down to business.
For my part, I could not bear to watch. Moving away at a brisk pace. The crowd parted before me.
None of them managed to look me in the eye.
Yet I could still hear them. Their innermost feelings and contemplations.
The insidious whispers drowned me. Bearing down until I could hardly breathe.
They took me away to another place. Another time.
To the false safety of the emergency shelter that had once been a community center. To the monsters at the door and the cowering masses behind me. To the looks and stares of my friends and neighbours.
It took everything I had not to retch.