“Aye, she’s stirrin. Pale as tha dead, though. Ya confident she’s healthy?” A familiar Scottish voice sounds from above me. He’s loud, but my ears feel stuffy—especially my right one—so it doesn’t aggravate my headache too much.
“Sounds like she’s grown on you, old man. But yes, I’m quite sure. If there are any issues, they aren’t physical.” A distant-sounding voice responds, and I rejoice as I realize it's Catherine. Even in my dream, I didn’t get to see what happened to her, so to hear her talking so casually is a relief.
“Hah! Like moss, she has. Makes me think of you back when ya weren’t an old bag.”
I feel like I could get up at this point, but the oppressive silence keeps me from opening my eyes. “You’re aware, of course, that I have the power to make your toenails fall off and never grow again, yes?” Catherine says, and I cringe at the thought.
My toes are still curling as he guffaws, the concept either enticing or non-threatening to him. “Even if you were tha type tae go through with that sorta thing, I dinnae what parta never clippin me nails again is supposed ta be spooky.”
I suppose it’s both, then. I let out a snort of laughter at them, opening my eyes. Duff squats next to my cot, his mutton chops no longer his most defining feature. His pant leg from the thigh down is torn completely off; the revealed limb blocky and metal. He knocks his knuckles against it when he notices me staring, the red plates making a quiet clang.
I bite at my lip, hesitating. “I’m guessing there’s more to you having a metal leg than Catherine being too busy to heal you.” I say, touching the cold steel with my fingertip. Duff doesn’t respond; his smile only reaching beneath his eyes.
“If only things were as simple as having too much to do.” Catherine says, responding for him.
I look in her direction and let out a gasp before I can stop myself. Not only is she covered in minor cuts and wounds that haven’t healed, but large slices of flesh are simply missing, as if she were cut like a cake. Blood and other liquids still circulate through the cuts; the effect of them moving through the air both magical and horrific. I cover my mouth with my hand, almost ignoring the fact that my limbs are back to normal.
“This was the most intelligent Fathom we’ve fought to date, and it completely blindsided us. Vanguard Chassis is in critical condition, both Revision and Menagerie are incapacitated, I’m only able to function as a result of my specific skill set, and Shroud is currently MIA. It had a counter to all of us, mine most of all.”
She passes her fingers through a slice in her neck, the cut long and wide enough to allow for the freakish display. The blood ribbons around her fingers as she continues talking, twisting and turning before it dances back into her neck. “Any damage we took during our fight with it stays in a perpetual state of injury, as if it's part of our natural state. My healing is useless, as the bodies of those affected reject any flesh I create for them. It’s all dead within an hour unless I’m there to continuously renew it.”
It’s all so much to take in; I try to go through it piece by piece so I don’t get overwhelmed. If Vanguard Chassis dies, isn’t that beyond bad? The whole reason we can risk having as few Vanguard here as we do is because of him. What would happen if he was gone?
“Vanguard Chassis, how is he?” I ask, ignoring the guilt twisting around for caring less about him and more for what his death would mean.
Her sigh and the way she brushes her fingers through her hair don’t inspire confidence. “I’ll be frank, since you asked, we have no idea. At some point during the fight, he just let the floor swallow him up. Until he shows up again, we’re completely in the dark. He could be dead already; his buildings can keep going for months without him.”
“Schrödinger's Bastage,” Duff supplies unhelpfully, getting a glare for his troubles.
My mind makes it to the bit about Naomi, nervous and unsure about what MIA means in this context. “What about Naomi, how did she go missing? Rather, what happened during the fight that could cause that?”
Her face takes on a bitter expression now; self-loathing loathing written on her features. “That’s the kicker, there. It wasn’t even here for us; it was here for Silo’s body. Halfway through the fight, another Fathom burst through the floor, grabbed his coffin in its maw, and dug back out the same hole. By the time I turned around, it was already gone. Menagerie tried to stop it, but most of her beasts were dead by that point too, just got herself hurt.” Catherine lets her forehead fall into her hands, her hair spilling through her fingers. “After that, it just left. None of us were in any shape to chase it, but based on the footprints leading down the hole, Naomi decided to anyway.”
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What? Silo? Why would they do that? An itch forms inside my brain, irritating me. Are they planning on transforming him again? But they needed him alive the last time, and he definitely isn’t anymore. I scratch at my head, but it does nothing for the itch within. “What are the Fathom able to do with bodies? Vanguard bodies, specifically.” I ask, my tone brisk as my thoughts start to click together, needing something to spark.
They both look off-put at my demand, but after seeing my focus acquiesce. “We were wondering the same thing, but as far as we know, there really isn’t a lot. Without the ego and an equivalent amount of worship, Vanguard are little more than mortal men. Of course, eldritch energy doesn’t exactly play by any hard rules, so it's possible that one of them could birth some new terror we’ve never heard of with his corpse.”
“Aye, especially considerin’ how much trouble the bloke gave em over the years. If there's anythin tha can force somethin as hard tae grasp as chthonic energy, it's tha hatred of a ridiculed Fathom.”
The words "ego" and "birth" stick out to me for some reason; I couldn’t say why, but I know they’re relevant. Maybe they can put a new ego in him? or transfer someone else's? The feeling of pulling the string of a burlap sack slides down my spine and relieves the itch somewhat. I’m on the right track, but not as much as I need to be.
“What’s gotcha all fussed up, lass?” Duff questions, and I notice they’re both studying me intently. A flash of red hits my cheeks at my behavior, but I can’t stop now. “I’m confident about something, but I don’t know what it is or why I’m so certain. It has to do with why they took Silo’s corpse and the words “ego” and "birth."”
The two of them share a look before nodding, either agreeing I’ve lost my mind or surprisingly willing to consider my ramblings. “I’ve learned to listen when people know things they shouldn’t. Proves helpful more often than not.” Catherine says, tapping her earpiece and typing on an invisible keyboard. "What are your thoughts so far?”
I stammer, feeling off balance at being taken seriously. “O-oh um, so far all I’ve considered is that they might be implanting or creating an ego for his body. Perhaps birthing a new creatio—birth... birth? Re-birth? Rebirth! Whatever they want his body for involves the rebirth of an ego!”
I blink and I’m elsewhere; Catherine and Duff are gone, and the medical room I was lying in has been replaced with the open sky. Hundreds of miles beneath me, I see what looks like Barbaeu City, its bubble shimmering in the dark landscape. Bright lights shine from under the water off the city's coast, each of them the glowing body of a Leviathan searching for its next meal.
I feel my body being pulled somewhere, and by the time I try to resist, I find myself directly above the forcefield. I didn’t teleport; I simply moved and was somewhere else in that moment. The buzzing of the bubble hurts my teeth, and I gnash them as my gaze is forced to the Vanguard headquarters.
My eyes dilate and focus themselves on the far-off section of the building with an open roof, the toppled black monument within revealing it to be where we held Silo’s funeral. Is this someone's or something's chthonic ability? My subconscious grows impatient with my pondering, wanting to lead me somewhere else.
I let it, my gut telling me that this is to my benefit and that I’ll only get one shot at it.
When I’m moved this time, I’m close enough to the ground to see the cracked street and abandoned cars littering the landscape. A bus-sized hole is cut out of the ground, and an old pickup truck is tipped to the side of it. This must be where the Fathom went after taking Silo’s body, but... where is here? I twist my neck around to look for landmarks, instead finding the many-faceted eyes of an arachnid-shaped Fathom.
I jerk away, fearful both of its appearance and the intelligence within those facets.
Three of its eyes open into disgustingly human mouths, speaking simultaneously. “I taste you, interloper. Your copper tang of Ascension begets your humanity, but the mucus-taste of one far older, far higher, complicates your position.” The mouths close, but replace themselves with five more this time. “Take heed, line-treader. Balance is impossible when contending with the forces at hand, and no paradox will be permitted.”
The creature hisses in pain as it melts, any semblance of sentience now missing as it becomes a liquid. I’m not sure what spoke to me there, but I’m certain it wasn’t the body's original host.
Confused, scared, and in a little bit of mental pain, I rise above the buildings around me. I struggle for a few minutes, looking for anything resembling a landmark or waiting for whatever power brought me here to bring me back home.
The sky dyes itself orange, the sun peeking up over the horizon to start a new day. Normally I’d appreciate this kind of thing, but right now the last thing I want is a bright light revealing me to even more mind-bending creatures. I block my eyes with my hand, looking away from the sun only for my gaze to stumble upon the distant reflection of our Bubble.
Relief is the last thing I feel before I’m jolted back into my body.