CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN - IRON AND BURGUNDY

The water coursed around her, the nozzle above rattling like a tobacco-scarred throat. For a second it seemed as though the water was stained deeply brown, like they were drenching her in something rust-filled and putrid... but then it began to run clear, and she realised just how much contamination she'd picked up. If she'd lacked her protective gear... gods, the sheer amount of damage that she'd have done to herself. Be a miracle if she'd even made it here with the normal number of limbs, let alone with the capacity to speak. She waited patiently for it all to clear, lifting her arms to cover everything. Wasn't taking the coat off, she thought - the contamination sluiced away smoothly from the material, leaving absolutely nothing behind. Indeed, she turned on a small detector mounted on the belt, and listened as the shrill whistle of detection slowly diminished, getting lower and lower, quieter and quieter, until... nothing at all. And all the while, the theurgists watched her like they were staring at an animal in a zoo. Their metal masks gave no hint of their emotions, and in their red robes, they almost seemed like actors in a bizarre play, devoid of dialogue or character. The surrealists would've liked that, she idly thought. Play where the actors were the audience and the audience were the show. It'd be insufferable, of course, and demand the sponsorship of at least a few wealthy uncles and aunts and parents and grandparents, but they'd still reminisce happily about it in a hotel room while smoking opium.

Oh, well.

It was strange, but as the contamination washed away, she actually found herself becoming more nervous. Like she was losing a vital piece of protection, reducing herself back to unadulterated humanity. The mutant lay beyond. The bone orchard lay beyond. She was crossing a border back into a world where conspiracies and intrigue and endless complication lived. The simple binary of survive/don't survive withered away... and despite the fact that she'd been walking through the putrid landscape for an hour now, only at this precise moment did she feel weary, like something was pressing down on her back. Almost wanted to go back outside. But the door was closed, and the nozzles shut off with a loose gurgle of strangled water. For a second, just the sound of her rasping breathing, and the dripping of water down her brown coat. She wiped the lenses of her mask, and waited for the theurgists to do something. Let her in, give instructions...

The theurgists stared at one another for a moment. No idea what they were saying, the door allowed no sound, and their masks allowed no reading of lips. Might be saying nothing at all.

A minute passed.

And from a grille above the door, a voice echoed out into the damp decontamination chamber.

"You used a key. Where did you find that?"

Tanner took a deep breath. Right. She'd prepared for questioning. Prepared a few lies. Had to assume they knew little about what was happening on the surface.

"The governor gave me permission to use it and come down here."

"Why didn't he come himself?"

What, an old man, coming down here? No, no, stay polite - act like she knew there was an agreement, act like she'd been briefed on the whole situation.

"He's dead. I was appointed to manage his last affairs."

Silence for a few long moments.

"Sending a proxy wasn't part of the arrangement."

"Things have changed a little on the surface. May I please come inside? I need to ask a few questions."

More silence, more glances. The steady drip-drip-drip of water, the swirl of contamination down a drain at the bottom of the chamber. Nothing was said. Nothing at all. But the door began to open with a creaking groan, the metal not quite as thick as that coating the exterior, but still thick enough to keep out any normal creature. Tanner hesitated... and walked inside, gas mask still on, filters still wheezing purified air into her lungs, completely armoured up. Somehow it felt appropriate. The theurgists looked up at her, surprised at her height, maybe thinking it was some distortion of the window that'd made her seem so tall. Tanner ignored them for a moment, checking the room as quickly as she could, using the gas mask to hide how her eyes were darting so nervously about.

It was... large, yes, but there was a certain quality of cramped efficiency to it all. The thickness of the walls, the simple demands of a place where people had to live as well as work, the decontamination chamber... it all contributed to making space a little limited. That being said, a laboratory made entirely out of metal was something, in and of itself. And as for purpose... once more, she was confronted with the leering unknown of theurgy, the simple obscure nature of every mechanism, every process. The chamber she was in was a workplace, clearly, but the purpose was utterly hidden from her. There were grey spheres mounted inside complex golden cradles, humming gently and chiming, a little like a wine glass struck with a fingernail. There was a glass dome surrounded on all sides by lenses, all of them cloudy and unfocused, made of crystal that refracted light into peculiar hues. A pyramid stood in one corner, carved all over with peculiar shapes that seemed to have a purpose of some sort, but to her, it just looked like a schizophrenic assemblage of branching lines - the root system of a mad tree. Tools, hooks, drills, strange crucibles, little burners made of green metal, tanks of whale oil to fuel the reactions, a rumbling, pulsing hiss of pistons and valves. The walls bristled with tiny metal filaments, stretching inwards like hairs, like the inside of an enormous nose. Sometimes the filaments sparked with miniature white lights, glittering like stars, like the sun reflecting from a snow-field. And above it all... a lamp, a great brass lamp, a sphere perforated with little metal orifices covered in glass, all of them filled with mica-like crystalline structures, and from them radiated the light.

Burgundy light. Angry and pulsing. Eerily organic. All around it were tubes, feeding the lamp, gorging it on the fat of whales and the black soup of oil, constructs like metal spinal columns whirring inwards and outwards to stuff the food into the gullet of the lamp. Feeding it until it flared brighter, brighter, the light seeming alive, seeming to strain against the lamp's metal walls, until she was convinced that the metal wasn't to protect it, nor to focus it, nor to simply provide a structure for it to exist within, but to protect them from whatever lay inside. Something that writhed...

And then the light would dim a little. A gurgle would echo - and she'd hear steam rushing, while a renewed flicker of white lights played across the grey filaments lining the walls, like the thin baleen of a whale, the teeth that devoured without chewing, without grinding. The light made her head throb a little, like a colossal hand was wrapped around her head and squeezing, crushing the gas mask until it clung tightly to the contours of her face, until her face snapped and swelled and shifted, filling the gas mask completely, until to remove it would kill her, send out a red soup that'd once been a head, now held together with nothing but metallic tension and-

"Yes?"

It was one of the theurgists. He moved a little closer, examining her with the dead black lenses of his mask. The lenses gleamed like wet ink, made of something that very well might not be glass at all. His voice was cold, oozing, could imagine it spilling from the holes around the mouth in long, gleaming strings...

"Ah, sorry. I was just hoping to ask a few questions about-"

"Yes, yes, you said. What questions, exactly? And what happened to the governor?"

Tanner considered reaching for her bag, to start taking notes... no, no, would be unwise. Best move was to stay informal - this way, she didn't have to take off her gloves or her coat or anything, nor did she panic the theurgists by making them think she was interrogating them as potential suspects.

"He was killed. We're just trying to fill out the broader context. I was hoping you could... inform me of a little."

A pause.

"How did you find us?"

"Deduction."

"Who told you about us?"

The tone was becoming more demanding, a hint of steel entering into it.

"Answer quickly, or not at all."

The others were starting to gather around like carrion birds, their eyes cold and dead.

"Who told you?"

"Was it that old man with the Erlize?"

"Who?"

Tanner wanted to be afraid. Knew she should be. In any other scenario, this sort of questioning would make her terrified, willing to collapse into a protoplasmic puddle. But... now, she just saw how small they were, how frail compared to her own body. How their voices were high and weak, stripped of all the commanding terror of someone like Vyuli, or Lyur, or even Canima when she'd first met him. Honestly, the attempted interrogation helped snap a little adrenaline back into her, rushing through her veins. Sharpening the universe to a razor point.

"Nobody. I requested information, and was denied on several occasions. Access to records allowed me to put together certain elements by myself. I do not intend to spread this information to anyone else, but the necessity of meeting you outweighed any unwillingness to breach your secrecy. I promise this as a judge of the Golden Door - I have no desire to bring any undue attention onto you."

A pause. Her voice was toneless and almost bored, her face completely flat.

"Now. I thought you might be interested in some of the goings-on on the surface."

Silence.

"The governor is dead. Before his death, he made provisions for me to receive this key. I imagine he wanted me to find this place, but was unwilling to provide solid documentation of your existence. Even at the end of his life, he was utterly professional and confidential, a habit repeated by any others who might know of you."

Keep reassuring them. Make them feel like they were in control, that she was in their camp, that she feared them just as much as the others did. They were noticeably relaxing, just slightly. Paranoid about being discovered, being reported on... why, exactly? They were theurgists, they weren't exactly vulnerable. Did they think angry civilians would come down here and tear them apart for... some reason? Did they... hm. Hm. Had a few suspicions. She kept her voice utterly, utterly professional - a dull bureaucrat doing her job with all the passion she could muster. That is to say, none at all.

"Now, could you elaborate on the nature of your agreement with the governor? Given that it wasn't recorded anywhere..."

The leader, with his oozing voice, coughed slightly.

"...right. Of course, honoured judge. Happy to assist."

None of them got back to work. They all stood in completely silence, save for the leader. Not doing anything she could interpret or memorise, nothing sensitive, nothing confidential. The burgundy light pulsed once again, and the leader soldiered on.

"Our agreement is, and remains to be, that our facility is supplied, concealed, and assisted whenever necessary. In exchange, we maintain the theurgic equipment the governor brings in."

Again, though, why conceal themselves? Why... no, no, this must be politics. Must be. Maybe other states would find it worrying to have theurgists experimenting out here, maybe the theurgists and the Golden Parliament had disagreements, and the latter might object to this... maybe the theurgists helped the governor stay in power, lent him funding, lent him allies. Lent him all the things he needed to avoid the scrutinising eye of his superiors, while he allowed them do whatever they pleased down here. Probably saved a packet of money, too... might even be necessary if he wanted to expand the industry up here. A way of getting more independence from Fidelizh, insulated from any little issues that might arise up there, severing himself from as many bonds of obligation and dependence as possible. If someone in Fidelizh decided to screw him over, he had backups to rely on. Maybe that was why Mr. Canima hadn't gone totally berserk over the loss of control of the cold-houses to the cartel. In reality... he had access to the only people who could maintain those things. The cartel could only destroy them, moment the group had been exposed, they were on a strict time-limit as the machinery slowly decayed. Canima could always make more, if he needed to.

Right. All slotted together nicely. The withdrawal of resources from the colony made more sense, this base looked... lavish, really. She said none of this, asked for none of this. Not a single part of this base could enter her files. If Canima was afraid of the consequences of annoying these people...

"Was the governor ever privy to what you were researching?"

"No. Nor are you."

And that wasn't at all worrying. Bunch of theurgists in a secret facility in a hollowed-out underground river, nothing at all could be concerning about that. Bunch of conspiratorial, cultish, high-and-mighty engineers who could never be replaced, gladly collaborated to punish their enemies, and were totally opaque in all their dealings.

"I see. Now, of course, this agreement remains in place, and I have no desire to interfere with it. I need to ask, however - have you mapped out the river?"

A silent nod, and a pair of long, pale hands laced together in front of his stomach, each finger straining against the other, flexing them as far as possible, like he was preparing for an operation and needed all the mobility he could muster. Another pulse of burgundy light, another whirr of metallic spines, another rush of injected fuel, another wave of steam, another twinkle of sparks on the endless filaments. If they killed her down here, no-one would know. Her hand gripped tighter around her bag. Couldn't go for the truncheon or the gun yet, but if she needed to, she could batter some of these people with the thing that held both of them. But... gods, if they thought she was an interloper, if they knew she was lying about the authority she'd been granted... how many of the tools and mechanisms around her could become fatal?

The image of the destroyed titan, ever-burning, came to her mind. The image of the dodecahedral heart of the mutant-hunting ship.

If they wanted to kill her, they very well might be able to do it. And none of her strength would help.

Her heart beat faster, and her mind raced onwards.

"And... are you aware of any connection to the tunnel systems? I presume you-"

"Yes, we're quite aware of them. Old local things, yes? I believe there's some organisation living in them these days."

"Quite. You didn't tell the governor about those, I believe."

The inky black lenses seemed to flash.

"Of course not. Why would we concern ourselves with colonial politics? Neither survives if we depart. Neither thrives if we blacklist this place. Neither endures if we cease to provide this generous contract. We do not throw stones into clear waters. We do not make waves when we do not need to. This is our way, and it has served us well for longer than your order has existed, judge."

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Tanner gritted her teeth.

"I see. The governor was murdered by something which moved through these tunnels, some that may have been... unknown to the cartels. And if they were unknown, then most likely they were deeper than the others, which I understand your surveyor warned them away from exploring. I assume that means they come close enough to be alarming. Do any of these deeper tunnels connect to this river?"

"Some come close, the mutants long-since opened a few gateways to them. All the better for invading the city... though I believe many were blocked up pre-emptively. Say what you like about the locals, their choice in environment chief among them, but they weren't total idiots."

Tanner blinked. Quietly, she doubted that they knew a damn thing about Rekida. Nothing about the history, about the culture. Doubted they could understand the language of the city any better than she could.

Anyway.

"Could you provide me with a map of the river, and all the tunnels that connect to it?"

A pause. The theurgists exchanged invisible glances. Tanner sighed slightly.

"Incidentally, you may want to know that there's... a number of mutants approaching the colony. They're behaving highly unusually, engaging in large-scale cooperation. Currently, we're putting together defences. I wouldn't want to compromise your secrecy, but given your position..."

The lead theurgist snorted slightly.

"Unnecessary."

Come on. Be nice. Don't snap at them. Oh, sure, if they'd been more open she could've... probably asked a whole suite of vital questions in moments, found out about everything. They were some of the best-informed people in the colony, and they'd hidden just about everything they knew. The cartel. The expansive nature of the tunnels. Had she been able to talk with them, there'd be no need for her suite of interrogations, her brushes with death on several occasions, her clumsy work with the governor's secrets...

Obstructing the course of justice. And guess what?

When theurgists did it, it wasn't a crime. They had their own tribunals, independent from the judges. No-one could prosecute a theurgist, couldn't even compel them to remove their masks for proper identification, couldn't even demand their names. They could obstruct her however they liked. It'd never annoyed her before, that fact - she never interacted with enough theurgists, and they kept to themselves.

Never before had they stood in so... obviously pivotal a position, though. No, stop it. Stop being angry, just... be neutral, be neutral. A judge would be neutral, and highly dispassionate. That's what a judge would do, and she was... yes, she was definitely a judge. That was her. Judge Tanner Magg.

Her jaw felt like it was wired shut with tension. Took effort to unclasp it.

"Are you certain it's unnecessary? These are behaving... very strangely, there's no guarantee usual methods-"

"There's no reason for them to attack. We have nothing they need, nor that they want. Our technology is meaningless to them."

"But if they operate by different principles-"

"There's nothing down here to begin with. The river is rotten. Hasn't been a proper flow of contamination for years, the source is still remaining dormant. Even the smaller pockets where liquid can build up have been drained or blocked. Everything here is so muddied with other matter that they'd need extensive industry to separate out anything of quality."

"But if they're operating by different-"

"They go near us, they start to break in, we can detonate the whole facility. The damage alone would ruin the river, send down blockages, and kill everything around us. And to successfully break in, they'd need enormous forces, not to mention behaving very strangely indeed, as you so eloquently put it. If they were smart enough to realise we were worth attacking, they'd be smart enough to realise the idiocy of such an act. Similar incidents have occurred in the past. We can endure. Our supplies will hold until further reinforcements come."

Not a single thought about the colony, of course.

"I see. Now, may I ask for that map?"

Another uncomfortable pause. One of the theurgists leaned forward and murmured something to his superior. The superior, in turn, spoke to Tanner.

"We'll require several hours."

Tanner blinked, and the theurgist leader's voice dripped with a certain petty smugness.

"Our maps contain details irrelevant to your investigations, details of high secrecy. Doubt you'd understand most of them, too. We'll copy out an... appropriate version for you."

Could just give her a meaningless map leading nowhere at all. To a pit, to a death-trap. Shut her up and stop her talking. Or... no, no, they weren't idiots. Well. They were, in a sense, but in others they might be fairly intelligent. Maybe. No clue if she had any records above she hadn't talked about, any allies they didn't know, any pieces of insurance in the event of not returning. If they tried to kill her, they committed to dealing with those consequences... and given how they'd locked themselves away from the world, they clearly didn't have a great desire to engage with the outside world at all. She was giving them an option of maintaining that isolation.

Of course they were bloody going to take it.

She hadn't expected to find them down here, she thought, as they scurried off to hover over workstations where they couldn't do anything until she left, just trying to avoid her eyes while a few scuttled to deal with the map situation. The burgundy light pulsed unerringly, a monstrous, underground heart that could probably detonate powerfully enough to send tremors into the colony, shake snow from the wall-gods of Rekida. Hadn't expected them, but wasn't surprised. And as she stood there, mute and towering, she just...

Felt angry.

Just angry. If they'd been more criminals, or some evil cult, or some kind of fiendish organ of a foreign state, she might've been more understanding.

But they weren't. They were professionals. They were bored professionals doing their jobs, just like they were meant to. Following orders presumably given by their superiors, and doing them without question. They were doing exactly what she should be doing.

And seeing them stand around, so bound by secrecy they couldn't even talk to one another while she loomed...

Seeing them like this, down here, with the knowledge they possessed, it just... made her develop a low, simmering anger that refused to go away, no matter how many justifications and prevarications she threw into it. She was trying to make water stop boiling by just throwing more and more vegetables into it, without for a moment being able to actually turn off the heat. They hadn't murdered the governor, kept reminding herself of that. Hadn't murdered him. They weren't even suspects. Not that it mattered if they were, given how beyond justice they were.

She stared out.

Waited.

The light pulsed. The equipment hummed.

And quietly, she spoke to the nearest theurgist, a short woman with bunches of blonde hair that her mask made no attempt to conceal.

"Is... I don't wish to interfere at all, but I want to know, is there anything... well... if mutants are coming for the colony, would the facility volunteer any... weaponry?"

Shouldn't be asking this. Shouldn't. It wasn't her job. It wasn't her job. If Canima hadn't done it, then... what right did she have, what chance did she have?

The woman looked up at her, anonymous behind the mask. There weren't even features picked out on it, nothing but the vaguest, sharpest possible concessions to the nose, the cheeks, the mouth. So abstract it barely looked human, the eyes insectile, the mouth non-existent, the nose a sharply protruding point that barely resembled a human extremity. Maybe one day they'd figure out how to remove even these concessions. And then every theurgist would be absolutely faceless. Finally, the woman spoke, her voice quiet and her accent foreign. Tuz-Drakkat, maybe... somewhere closer to the coast, it had the brogue of that place.

"I... am not permitted to inform anyone of any details of our work here, a stance I am permitted to hold by-"

Tanner turned away a little. Yep, what she was expecting. Nowt more. Nowt less. The woman fell silent... then spoke again, her voice a little warmer.

"Would you like some tea? We have some coffee, too - still warm in the percolator, if you like. Must've been a bit of a journey down here, sorry you had to make it."

Tanner shook her head, mustering the will to speak.

"No, thank you. Rather keep my mask on."

"Oh, of course, of course. Shame, really - our masks have provisions for this sort of thing."

"Mine doesn't."

"I see, I see. Sorry, again. And sorry about... well, him, he can be a bit..."

Silence, and Tanner imagined the woman making a face.

"Might I... ask how you actually built this place? Just... it took me about an hour to walk here, the path isn't especially wide or large, why build it so far in?"

"Oh... oh, I'm not... sure I should... oh, you've come all this way, through all that oomska out there."

She leaned closer.

"We didn't build it here. Moved it."

Tanner blinked in surprise.

"Moved..."

"Shh. Moved it. Very big mechanism. Scatter contamination behind, makes the garden grow over our tracks. Path's recent, when we move we leave nothing at all to show we were there. Few months, we'll be further along still, that lift will go down to nothing but blackness."

Ah.

Goodness.

She'd been rather lucky, then. The theurgist immediately turned away and resumed staring at a grey sphere, fingers twitching like she wanted to get back to work, but was still denied from doing so. Anything to release the tension of confessing things she... probably shouldn't have confessed. If that even counted as a confession, it implied no guilt, it shed light on no crimes, it was simply a truth that the theurgists would rather keep hidden. There was to be no more conversation. The woman was more tight-lipped than before. The others didn't even glance in their direction, just stared dead ahead at their work, at the walls, and did nothing whatsoever. Their reluctance to look at her made her feel like a leper, and she stood awkwardly in her bulky coat, her sturdy boots, her wheezing gas mask, surrounded by these strange, thin, iron-faced people who lived in this unending burgundy hell.

Canima had feared these people enough to not tell her a single thing about them. Beyond a single hint, of course, that simply drew her attention to a thing she already knew.

Why had he been so afraid?

Could... theurgists kill people in other cities? Could they organise assassinations? No, no, there was... no, there were limits. Had to be.

The governor could be easily immobilised by them, simply because he'd made a shady dealing with them, and depended on them for the future success of the colony. If the theurgists said 'kick him out, or we'll never maintain a single piece of equipment here', that'd be the end of the matter. The Parliament would destroy the governor in seconds. No one man was worth compromising a whole colony's prosperity. To her understanding, the governor might've had no-one outside of the place, no-one to go home to. This place was his child, his legacy, his single greatest project, the furthest elaboration of everything he'd done. But Canima... was Canima just bound up by the same issue? Canima had mentioned having a sister, maybe she was vulnerable, but... maybe he'd only mentioned her because it might inspire more sympathy than just bellowing 'for the glory of the colony' over and over and over.

Why had Canima feared these people?

Why had he feared their anger?

It took time, but... the map came back to her. Neatly printed with an automatic quill that was alarmingly sophisticated compared to her own. Damn thing had multiple forms of ink, a mechanism for swiftly changing nibs to different thickness... somehow it was barely any larger than hers, too, everything a little more efficient, a little more precise, a little more ornate in some ways. Glad she hadn't taken any notes here, she'd have felt frightfully inadequate. She accepted the map with all the polite expressions she could muster, examining it before she left the workshop. Hard to read in the burgundy light, but... the river was a single, gently curving channel leading onwards and backwards, that much she already knew. Nothing surprising in its course, no major hazards in her way. Good, good, last thing she wanted was to die to some natural hazard down here. Now, there were small pits and caverns, which seemed to be... worn away through the rock over the years, tiny boils filling with contamination, serving as either small ponds or small lakes, depending on the conditions. None were above, all were either below or off to the side. Nothing enormously major, and all of them were apparently drained. Still. Noted the locations.

The tunnels never intersected directly with the river. But at three separate points there were sub-tunnels, much more irregular and winding compared to the rigidly defined labyrinths. Breaching into the main network. And if she put her own mental map of the colony overhead... right, she could almost see where this worked. She asked a few quiet questions to confirm a few points, but broadly she understood where things fit together. Theoretically, something could enter the tunnels from the river. And in terms of entering the river, you could get here through tunnels (difficult, many of them had sagged and collapsed due to the odd conditions created by the draining river, not to mention the Great War and a host of planned demolitions), or you could get here through two entrance points. One was behind her, a small, sturdy lift going up and down. The other was far, far ahead, an entry point near... well, she wasn't allowed to know exactly where, nor exactly why it had been built. But it was so far away that she wouldn't reach it today, nor would she until at least a few months of continuous walking had passed.

So... that seemed unlikely. What seemed more likely was something... maybe being in the tunnels, getting there from the surface, then making the perilous journey into the river. There, they could access radically different segments of the network, while remaining completely hidden from the cartel, or anyone else poking about there. The river was a seething, rotting graveyard that her coat was barely protecting her from, no way anyone would go down here by accident, or out of mild curiosity. You had to have a reason, and a hell of a lot of preparation. Plus, needed to know it was accessible to begin with, which... well, again, who would want to come here.

"Don't come back."

Tanner looked up sharply, almost whacking the lead theurgist with her mask. She ought to have a name for him.

One that wasn't a very rude four-letter word.

...Mr. Mask, then. Mr. Mask seemed to glare at her with supercilious pomposity. Undermined by the fact that he had to crane his neck to accomplish this.

"I may need to return to ask further questions, or to request-"

"Do not come back. Do not speak of us to anyone. Do not trifle with our operations."

Tanner stared at him. Slowly rolled up the map. Picked up her bag. And spoke in a very firm, very polite tone of voice.

"I hope you have a productive day, sir."

And with that, she turned on her heel and moved for the door, calmly opening the heavy metal thing, stepping inside, and then she patiently waited for them to open the next. Took them no time at all, the mechanisms whirring, and everything operating to send her into the cold, dark, putrid beyond, the cavern so vast that her footsteps were met with no echo. The door rumbled, and she turned to see Mr. Mask staring at her with naked hostility from the porthole, the other theurgists finally starting to work behind him, moving for tools, turning to talk, one of them even reaching to remove his mask - of course they didn't wear them around one another, silly to think that was the case. But she had the sudden, pleasing image of Mr. Mask, the pompous ass, scrambling around desperately for his silly face-covering as he heard the outer doors unlocking. If the metal hadn't been so thick, she might well have heard them barking nervously at one another like seals, running around like headless chickens.

That one thought made her feel wonderfully warm inside. Didn't like how warm it felt, really. Felt spiteful.

Couldn't stop it feeling good, of course. No matter how many times she chided herself.

The door sealed in seconds.

And the burgundy light was banished. The silence was absolute.

She was alone.

Well. She could hear skittering, and turned to see a familiar mutant moving towards her, eyes flat and dead, face completely expressionless. Not quite alone. Just had to make sure not to speak out loud around her, or she'd start teaching the thing how to imitate humans in order to hunt them. Poor legacy, that. Tanner waited for the mutant to return to her feet, sniffing around to check if she'd brought anything... Tanner waggled the flask of contamination slightly, but the mutant didn't respond. Still unwilling to let this garden wake up around them, hungry for its own portion of her meal.

Just you and me, then.

The creature followed as she marched off, following the map.

There should be an opening up ahead. One way into the tunnels. Push came to shove, it'd be a route back to the surface. But... if something had come through here to get to the governor, this felt like a good route for doing it. No-one watching, no-one interfering, an environment where only mutants could thrive... it was a perfect crime. Could just be a mutant, of course. But... again, why would a mutant kill a perfectly unmutated man? Maybe it was being commanded around, but... Lantha hadn't been, had she? She'd been fine, save for the slow degeneration of her mind. And this one was much further gone, yet was still behaving precisely as a mutant should. So... why? If a mutant did it, why would it bother?

Hoped to find out.

Drew her gun, though. Just in case. The prosaic weight was... almost delicately light in her hands, despite the power within. The bone orchard clustered around them, thicker than ever, stronger than ever, no path through. Tanner found herself forced to use her strength more and more, crunching over great heaps of bones, feeling the low squelch of marrow and other fleshly things. Her arms smacked towering spines and ribs out of the way, letting them fall into the undergrowth. Realised just how easy the last hour of travel had been, now that there was no truly wonderful path cleared for her. The stone beneath seemed to soak up the cold, and sometimes she looked down to see the calcified, frozen remnants of mutated fingers reaching up through the mutalith, ghostly and barely intact. Walking on a layer of ice - it was cold enough, it was clear enough, it was deadly enough, the only thing it wouldn't do was shatter. But in every other respect... even with her boots, she could start to feel a chill building up. The tunnel accumulated the midwinter frosts, and turned everything into a cold-house. A gloved hand thumped aside a spinal column, and it... twisted, flexing smoothly, wrapping around the ribcage it thwacked against.

Tied together immediately. The spinal column and the rib-cage starting to compete for who got to live.

Tanner stared at it. Like seeing a... snake fighting a tree, if the tree was actively trying to consume the snake. She'd just... helped start a fight.

Odd thought.

Her boots were good at gripping, but the ground was slick with organic matter, turning everything into the equivalent of a slimy, pebble-filled riverbed, the sort that insisted on destabilising anyone trying to ford the damn thing. She looked down... saw flies. Mosquitoes and midges, mostly, the sort of man-eating thing that loved these cold parts of the world during the summer, when all the ice melted and everything was one massive swamp. They'd come here, eaten of the rotten fruit, and now... now their wings were fleshy and useless, their mandibles were trying to grow in a dozen different directions, bones were trying to force out of their chitin, their eyes were either woefully simple or pointlessly complex, and some of them bristled with limbs like they were trying to imitate sea urchins. And all were twitching, shivering, shifting, a living black carpet that couldn't do anything. The mutant stared at them.

And Tanner grunted as the damn thing leapt onto her back like a monkey, clinging tightly.

Didn't weigh much at all.

But still.

Would've liked some warning.

"Enjoy the r-"

She stopped. Not teaching her how to speak.

"Joy."

Tanner didn't respond. Steeled her jaw, and moved on. Through the endless, straggling, twitching wilderness. The mutant using her to avoid being gnawed at by creatures that had much more interest in her than they ever would in Tanner. Tanner's brow pricked with sweat, just a little. If she looked to the side, she could see a monstrous, horned face peeking over her shoulder, staring ahead with ruptured eyes, profoundly uncaring of how uncomfortable this proximity was making her.

Well.

Soldiered on.

Nothing but the creaking and squelching of bone and meat. Nothing but the sound of her rasping breath. The carpet of insects never stopped, sometimes growing tall enough to be waded through, a few of the insects devouring one another enough to fuse into little clumps the size of her fist. Ms. Blue's work was good, though. Perfect. Tanner fully intended to give her several pies and a hug when she got back. That was right - she was willing to give someone she barely knew a hug, so grateful was she. This probably said a lot about the situation she was in.

Plus, could always die down here, then it'd be an empty promise made to nothing but thin air. And those were easy to make or break.

Could always make the promise to the mutant. That thing'd be repeating the promise for years to lure out humans with enough mutation to be worth consuming, might even reach Ms. Blue one day, in a mangled sort of way. Just to let her know she appreciated it.

She opened her mouth stupidly, thinking of actually doing that, just to create something other than the crunching and the squelching and the slithering and the writhing and the-

Breathing?

She froze.

Closed her mouth, and refused to breathe. Listened carefully to the dark.

And... out there, in the bone orchard, amidst it all...

She could hear the distinctive rattle of a gas mask filter in action.

Her finger tightened around the gun.

Here we go.

And in her mind, she could hear the mutant repeating it to her, in that awful, buzzing rasp.

"Here. We. Go."