“There’s likely something inside it either alive or having been alive at some point.” The Japanese man pointed out. “I suggest that we exercise extreme prejudice and burn the accretion before our lights and the sound of our voices potentially awaken anything inside.”
“Right.” The Team Leader rubbed his hands together and called over his shoulder, “Schjerfbeck!”
“Ah… sir?” The Technician had finished processing one ghost and was now actively pursuing a second.“Get over here and incinerate this, will you?” Grey jerked his head towards the suspended mass. “You’ve got all the gastplasm you need."
“All they gave me was animal-grade.” The Swede complained, but abandoned his chase and started pressing buttons on his power storage device as he chanted. Contrary to what most civilians believed, the words used in casting spells didn’t sound strange or alien (at least not when the PCRA did it), they sounded familiar and even comforting which was part of what made Thaumaturgy so bloodcurdling to witness. Because the words were strange and otherworldly and the juxtaposition of that strangeness with their almost seductive quality could hardly fail to terrify those who heard them -Hirasawa himself was not immune. This was also not what he had had in mind when he suggested fire, his plasma rifle generated hot enough streams of supercharged plasma that it sterilized any target it hit- that was why the PCRA issued those sorts of rifles to Anti-Preternatural Specialists in the first place. Trusting thaumaturgy was not something one did lightly.
There was a burst of light and then the accretion exploded, flinging bits of burning debris throughout the room at random. It had most definitely not been incinerated, although fire was clearly involved. Surprise drove him a step back and as he blinked away afterimages he saw the Thing that crawled out from the remains of what until moments ago been its nest.
It was a grotesque monster with a dozen gangly limbs, five eyes of different shapes and colors, and distended jaws whose mismatched teeth dripped weird fluid. Its hands had irregular numbers of fingers that possessed strange joints, but the basic pattern was familiar and the whites and pupils of the creature’s maddened eyes were less weird. Jut enough for its origins to be clear, even if every trace of the man it once was had long since been expunged from the Thing's mind. It was screaming in a voice all to human as it burned (the Technician had been able to do that much at least) and skittered with frightening speed towards the team. Hirasawa needed scarcely a second to recover and shoot it down, but before he could pull the trigger Sergei Ivanovich had opened fire- pumping a burst of 10mm bullets into the monstrosity’s body.
It shrieked one last time then collapsed, twitching convulsively in a spreading pool of dark blood. Bullets wouldn’t have worked against something of purely preternatural origin, but this thing had veins and organs- however deformed- that could be perforated and shredded by the projectiles of conventional arms.
“Good shooting.” The other man might be a Russian and therefore an enemy, but you could respect even an enemy if he had competence and honor. “What went wrong?” Hirasawa rounded then onto the Technician.
“Like I said they gave me animal-grade gastplasm,” Schjerfbeck shrugged. “and there’s something about the atmosphere here that’s different.” He sounded positively delighted at the prospect.
“Can you adjust?” Grey interjected. “I need to know that when I ask something of you you’ll be able to do it.”
“Some Mentiflex might help…” The Technician stopped at the looks he was getting. “Alright, I can probably adjust. A little bit more power and if I tweak the guidance words…”
“Good.” The Team Leader cut him off. “Lieutenant? Take Arra and sweep the kitchen. I want to be sure that there’s nothing about to jump out and cut off our avenue of retreat.”
It took Hirasawa a moment to realize that he was the one being addressed, it had been a while since someone called him by his rank. “Sir.” He acknowledged the order and started deeper into the tomb that was the mess hall. When the commando joined him she did it so silently that were it where not for the light of her flashlight he would have been unable to make out where she was. Having to rely on a woman in combat grated on his nerves, but he said nothing.
It was not that women couldn’t fight -plenty of countries enlisted female soldiers- but that in a truly civilized nation they shouldn’t need to. That the western democracies allowed women to serve in their militaries was a sign of the failure of their manhood and the disruption of the natural responsibilities of women to their men. Admittedly that the PCRA chose to indulge in similar practices was perhaps excusable, it had greater concerns, but Hirasawa did not consider himself to be of the PCRA- an organization whose actions violated Japan’s sovereignty in Manchukuo and Kyoto and whose agreements with the west prevented the Empire from regaining territories stolen from it by American Imperialists and Chinese rebels. No, Chiak Hirasawa was of the Kokuryūkai and he never needed to question where his loyalties lay.
The kitchen was empty, blackened stoves and sinks knocked over, all long abandoned. Some sort of luminescent green fungus covered everything; coating the appliances and the walls, the legacy of seventy years of microbial growth unchecked in an environment heavy with Thaumaturgic radiation. The only occupant was a mummified corpse in a white apron that had been partially consumed by the fungus. Scratched into the wall next to it were the words “When we make port.” Neither of them wanted to spend any more time in the place than necessary and the pair soon rejoined the rest of the team who had selected a door by which to exit.
“You take this one.” Grey nodded to the Anti-Preternatural Specialist, making it clear who he was talking to, and Hirasawa took his place at the door. A single swift motion before it was open and his rifle was pointing into the blackness beyond.
The Machine Shop
Chapter 7
The light revealed enormous, menacing shapes that reached out from the darkness. It took Arra a moment to recognize what she was seeing, lathes and drill presses, precision cutters and bins of tools. She made sure to check both in the bins and under anything large enough to provide even a marginal hiding space. Sergei and the Jap had already swept this area but there was no harm in making absolutely sure. There were a few dark stains on the floor near the entrance, but other than that there were no signs of the carnage and death that had been universal in the Mess Hall and even on the bridge.
“Something is wrong about this place.” The Commando left her inspection and found Grey who was over by the door. He broke off talking to Heinrich when she spoke.
“The ship?”
Was the man dense? No not the ship. The Colorado had been in another dimension for seventy years, of course it would feel dangerous. She wouldn’t be bothering him because something as obvious as the damn ship was worrying her. It was probably worrying everyone except for the fucking Technician.
“No, this room.” Arra bit back a sarcastic retort. “See these stains? They look like blood but there are no bodies, bones, or any sign of other remains. If this is the machine shop then you’d expect there to have been people here- what happened to them?”
“Plus there’s the machines.” That was the Technician speaking offhandedly, apparently oblivious to fact that they hadn't all noticed the machines and that everyone was looking at him waiting for an explanation.
“What about the machines, Adolf?” The Medic asked after a couple of seconds.
Isn’t it obvious?” The Swede said with surprise. “They’ve been stripped. Parts are missing from everything and most of the other tools and materials are gone.”
“Enough tools and materials to keep an entire battleship operating.” Grey’s face went white. “Get back here!” He called to the Russian and Hirasawa who immediately pulled back from what they were doing.
“There’s a corner up ahead.” The Anti-Preternatural Specialist reported. “We hadn’t gone around it yet, something could be on the other
side.”
“I’m thinking we shouldn’t take chances.” The Team Leader crossed his arms. “If something has been waiting back here then there’s no point in tempting fate. What do you say, Lieutenant?”
Arra slipped silently back, not needing to hear any more. "Shouldn’t take chances?" Please. This entire mission was an exercise in unnecessary risk. They weren’t even carrying any scientific equipment- and this when research was officially what the purpose of the whole thing was. She wasn’t going to take any obscene risks, just a quick look around the corner and then back to the rest of the team. There was something alive in here, she believed that beyond any doubt, but the Commando was confident in her ability to get away from danger quickly. She flicked off her flashlight and switched to night vision.
The Greenlander hadn’t joined the PCRA because she wanted to represent her country like most of the rest of them had, she hadn’t even joined because she wanted to defend the world from the Occult and the Preternatural- although that had been the official reason she had put down on her application. Why Arra was really here was to explore, to find and discover things that no one else had ever found before. Lost cities and that sort thing. And she wasn't going to move on from here without at least a glimpse of whatever it was that was still so active after seventy years that kept dust from building up on any of the machines.
She rounded the corner switched her flashlight back on.
A pair of eyes blinked open when the beam hit them then a voice, faint and barely audible, whispered through cracked, dry lips one word.
“People.”
Chapter 8
Chapter 8
“I’ve got something here!”
The Commando’s shout ended all discussion and brought both the Slav and the Asiatic running, guns at the ready. Grey followed of course and Adolphus decided that he didn’t want to be left behind for once. So far he had yet to be disappointed by this mission, most who studied Thaumaturgy ended up doing engineering but he’d found that he really did like to do fieldwork. There were constant surprises and he got to be the first to survey new discoveries, to catalogue new finds- not something you got a chance to do in a laboratory. There was also the fact that Technicians tended to retain their sanity to a much greater degree than did full-fledged Thaumaturgic Engineers, but that didn't worry him as much as it had when he first started taking Mentiflex.
Adolphus followed quickly (Heinrich could keep the door open by himself) taking note of the different machines that he passed and the missing parts from each. Perhaps it was a creature that ate metal? No, then it would likely have just eaten the walls and deck. Only certain types of metal then? No, there were bolts and screws of the same material as the ship’s structure missing. Patterns emerged and shattered in his mind as he tried to make sense of the inputs he was seeing. They were definitely choice pieces that had been taken, not very discriminately but still for some sort of purpose. Constructing something? You could build an awful lot with a machine shop this big and this well stocked. The Technician’s mind generated possibilities, each more deliciously fascinating than the last.
He was so intent that he bumped into the Slav’s back before he could stop himself. All four of the other team members present had guns out and pointed at something right in front of them. The Swede edged in to get a good look and as soon as he saw what they were looking at a wide smile spread across his face. It was genius, pure genius.
Here was the destination of the parts from the stripped machines. A man, a naked ancient man with wrinkled skin and white hair, was fused partway inside of a large lathe and the wall behind it. Most of his body was gone, replaced by an ingenious system of gears, wires, and tubes that combined into an intricate spread of beautiful machinery. Adolphus tried to guess at the purpose of different parts, that was definitely a radio transmitter there connected to his nervous system, those would be devices for the disposal of waste, and those clear replacements that had to serve to fulfill the functions of the heart and kidneys. What was most interesting was the brain, the entire back of his skull had been opened up and from what the Technician could see the entire frontal lobe and most of the cerebrum was gone. In their place thousands of wires ran from nerves connected to the eyes, ears, and the former brain stem into the web of machinery.
“Who are you?” The man whispered, even more fascinating! How could someone with almost no brain speak? Electronic replacements? But with late nineteen-forties technology no less…
“PCRA.” Grey said firmly. “Who are you?”
“I…” The man had to think over his answer. “Machinist’s Mate (SRI) Eugene Roe, U.S.S. Colorado.”
“How are you alive?” The Team Leader didn’t ask the obvious question which was ‘how are you sane?’ “What happened to you?” Meanwhile Adolphus continued his study of the machinery, there were definitely usable appendages in there, several with nasty looking knives and cutting equipment.
“I was… fused into the ship… when we jumped.” Roe’s voice was like the sound of dry pages rubbing against each other. “I shouldn’t have survived… but then things… began to change… they started to go mad… order broke down… I found I could send… thoughts through the metal…”
“You did this to yourself?” Grey sounded horrified. Why was he so shocked about it? Maybe it wasn’t aestheticly pleasing but the man had survived hadn’t he?
“I built… machines… robots… to bring me materials… to protect me from the others…” It must have been decades since the man had last spoken to anyone and he seemed to be discovering how to do it all over again. “I couldn’t… become a monster… or lose my mind… so I used the robots… to disassemble myself… little pieces… use radio and wires to keep communication…”
“That’s impossible, controlling the machines with his mind?!” The Greenlander mirrored Grey’s expression. What was wrong with these people that they couldn’t appreciate an elegant solution to an unsolvable problem? It was their racial attributes that blinded them, clearly, the American was a mongrel and Greenlanders were descended from red savages for the most part.
“Not impossible,” Adolphus interjected. “the laws of physics wouldn’t necessarily apply after that much exposure to Thaumaturgic Radiation. We’ve seen ourselves that the physical laws here still aren’t quite the same even with the return of the Colorado to normal space and time. This is brilliant by the way.” He told Roe. “I take it that whenever parts of your brain begin succumbing to madness and parts of your body to monsterism you destroy them?” He could see it now, tiny patchworks of very thin scars covering the entire remaining organic portion of the man’s body. Likely all of it had been destroyed and replaced thousands (if not tens of thousands) of times over the seventy years he’d been trapped.
“I use… the robots… isolated parts of myself… don’t succumb all at once… I can grow replacements… I survive…” Eugene Roe had survived all this time in an environment utterly destructive to human beings, yet retained his life and his sanity. It was awe inspiring.
“The rest of the crew,” the Team Leader interjected “do you think any others managed to survive the way you did?”
“No… they all died… or went away… I was alone with Him...”
The team collectively took a step back at the objective form of the word he, said with a clearly capital first letter. Even the Technician was bothered. There was insanity and then there was insanity, and sometimes it could be difficult to tell between the first kind and normality.
“Who was “Him”?” Grey’s voice took on a note of urgency. If there was a preternatural entity on board powerful enough to have a mind and a personality, possibly even a full- fledged god, then they were all in the gravest of danger.
““He would talk to me… marvel at my survival… at my world and its substance…” The Machinist’s Mate spoke with greater strength now, and for the first time real emo
tion entered his voice. The emotion of Fear. “It was Him who pushed… the ship back into reality… He wanted to follow it… the hole narrowed too quickly… shut Him out... you have to get… get to the Rainbow system… shut it off… I’ve tried but I can’t… can’t do it from here…. that’ll close the connection… stop Him from getting through… Please.”
“Can you tell us…” The Team Leader started again but surprisingly Roe prevented him from finishing his sentence.
Abyssus Abyssum Invocat Page 3
