Re: The Glorious Championship! [S3G5] [Round Three: The Epigen Center]
11-24-2011, 06:20 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.
There was hurt, and heat, and light, and the faint smell of quiet desperation. It was comfortingly familiar.
The ground under his feet- one broken, one whole- was an awkward mix of gray and brown that had the charm of neither and the tastelessness of both. He kicked it and it kicked back with the strange invulnerability that office carpeting tends to have, releasing a tiny cloud of manila-colored dirt. He hissed at it because it was an easy sound to make when not every part of your mouth was connected to the rest.
“Carpet, Cail,” the worm-thing said. “Carpet. Do. You. Under. Stand.”
He didn’t like that name and he tried to bite the worm. The resulting shock made his hair stand up and he pawed at it sadly, trying to make words but only succeeding in dislodging something in his throat.
“We’re in an office. Did you get that? Office. Say it with me. Of-fice.”
“Hhhhaauuugh. Ssss.”
“Yeah, that’s- that’s pretty close, Cail. That’s close.”
He tried to smile but something in his jaw went wrong and he felt it drop too far on one side. The worm’s face did something that made him wonder if he was doing entirely alright.
“You! You two! Are you lost or what?”
His head snapped to the side, the vague impulses in his brain saying motion and sound and food. He hadn’t decided yet if he wanted to listen to them. The meat-flesh -two-legs in front of him seemed sort of pasty and not-fresh. He clacked his teeth at her and was rewarded with a withering stare that completely failed to make it past his frontal lobe.
The woman standing before them was dressed in a blouse that said “I’m a modern woman” and a skirt that said “but not a slut”. A stylishly thin cigarette dangled from her painted lips as she gave them a look that indicated she’d not only scraped better off the bottom of her shoes but afforded it more worth as a human being. With a flick of her wrist she presented them both with a sleek beige folder, crammed to bursting with irritatingly small pieces of paper. Several fluttered to the floor as Gaurinn reared up and Cailean stared blankly at nothing in particular.
“What is this?” The insect asked sharply, plucking a paper from the stack. A crude sketch of a badly disproportioned gun had been scrawled on it along with a helpful arrow and the inscription ‘BULLET GO HERE’.
“Christ, are you blind,” the woman snapped. She gestured angrily to a hallway curving lazily to their right. Fluorescent lights flicked moodily along its immaculately tiled length. “Get these to Abby down in R&D ASAP or I’m holding you responsible for the next delay. I don’t know what it is you techie boys do down in the labs, but if it’s going to slow down the rest of us you’d do well to reconsider your place in this company.” She glanced down and allowed her lip to curl in tasteful disgust. “And you’d better do something about that shinbone by the next time I see you. Exposed body parts are strictly against dress code.”
Then she was gone, heels clicking ferociously down the way she’d come and a trail of wafting smoke gently dissipating in the recycled air. Gaurinn grumbled angrily, snatching the folder away from Cailean’s phalanges.
“Stuck-up bitch,” he growled, shifting through hasty blueprints of various devices that all seemed to be missing some combination of barrel, trigger, and sense. He held one up to the light and squinted at it. “Does this… shoot bees. Does it really.”
“You bet your arthropodic ass it does!”
Cailean managed half a lunge at the newcomer before a sudden electrical charge convinced his legs to give up on the fight against gravity and he landed heavily on the floor, skidding to a rest at the feet of a man best described as a space cowboy. He shrieked in surprise as a heavily padded hand grabbed his remaining hand and yanked him effortlessly to his feet, ignoring the unsettling popping sounds coming from under the few pieces of armor still bolted to his body.
“Designed it myself,” a grinning echelon of rugged manliness said happily, seizing the sketch from Gaurinn with the hand not currently occupied with digging into Cailean’s wrist bones. He waved it in front of the insect’s face gleefully. “That chamber at the back is a supercondensed HyperBee hive that produces top-quality workers at a rate of 67 bp/s! I’ve worked on it for years! Course you’re not supposed to know about this. Top secret, you know.” He gave the centipede a wink that would have stopped any reasonable woman’s heart. “Anyways, don’t worry about Cherrilee, she’s hard on everyone in the mornings. This folder for me?”
Before Gaurinn or theoretically Cailean could protest the man had snatched it away and was striding swiftly away down the hall, leaving behind a fluttering trail of stray papers and gesturing with one massive hand for them to follow. It took another dose of electricity for Cailean to remember how his legs worked before he was shambling after in the wake of the man’s rocket boots, eyeing the meat on his calves with an emotion the former solider couldn’t quite identify.
“Name’s Strom Deadwood, by the way,” the man called back, turning into a narrow passageway crammed awkwardly in between two sad-looking cubicles. “Don’t think we’ve met before, I’m the head developer of Experimental and something else in Processing that no one’s really sure of. You two must be the transfers from the labs.” He procured a keycard from no easily identifiable location and waved it in front of a pair of massive steel doors jutting out of the faux paneling, then proceeded to kick them open anyway. “You’re just in time. We got a shipment of harvester squids yesterday that no one seems to know what do with despite the labels on the box saying ‘NOT FOR INTERNAL USE’ and ‘IMPORTED FROM FRANCE’. Figured it’d be something related to the department switchovers, you know? You techies are always up to something. Been hanging around our clientele too much, if you ask me! Ha ha! Don’t tell PR I said that. Aaaand here we are!”
Strom stopped abruptly in front of a dingy-looking door that had the words ‘Almost Certainly A Broom Closet, Part Two’ painted in bright orange letters across it in no particular order. He waved the card idly in front of it. The sound of a series of deadbolts dropping out of place echoed from the other side.
“You two all settled in, then? Great. I’ll be just down the hall if you need anything. If I’m out just leave a note with my secretary.” He gave Cailean a handshake that would have separated his arm from his torso had it been slightly more decayed and Gaurinn a pat on the back that briefly knocked the insect into unconsciousness. With a respectful tug of his hat, he departed with booming steps down the riveted hallway and through a door that didn’t quite seem to be entirely there.
“Hghhhrrrrrrssssss.”
“Agreed.” Gaurinn straightened himself out, still slightly dazed from the force of Strom’s approval. He glanced down the corridor nervously to ensure that no one else was currently threatening his life, then turned towards the door. “This looks promising. Why don’t you go in first, Cail, you’re seeming more intelligent than usual lately.”
Cailean obeyed, partially because he knew that Gaurinn would force him to do it if he didn’t but mostly because thinking about anything else was hard. Harder than it was before. His head was filled with thoughts like eat and hunt and run and they were distracting. Not as bad as the other ones, though, the ones that hurt his head when he listened to them too hard.
So Cail’s dead now?
He’s better off this way.
He didn’t want to think about those at all.
There was hurt, and heat, and light, and the faint smell of quiet desperation. It was comfortingly familiar.
The ground under his feet- one broken, one whole- was an awkward mix of gray and brown that had the charm of neither and the tastelessness of both. He kicked it and it kicked back with the strange invulnerability that office carpeting tends to have, releasing a tiny cloud of manila-colored dirt. He hissed at it because it was an easy sound to make when not every part of your mouth was connected to the rest.
“Carpet, Cail,” the worm-thing said. “Carpet. Do. You. Under. Stand.”
He didn’t like that name and he tried to bite the worm. The resulting shock made his hair stand up and he pawed at it sadly, trying to make words but only succeeding in dislodging something in his throat.
“We’re in an office. Did you get that? Office. Say it with me. Of-fice.”
“Hhhhaauuugh. Ssss.”
“Yeah, that’s- that’s pretty close, Cail. That’s close.”
He tried to smile but something in his jaw went wrong and he felt it drop too far on one side. The worm’s face did something that made him wonder if he was doing entirely alright.
“You! You two! Are you lost or what?”
His head snapped to the side, the vague impulses in his brain saying motion and sound and food. He hadn’t decided yet if he wanted to listen to them. The meat-flesh -two-legs in front of him seemed sort of pasty and not-fresh. He clacked his teeth at her and was rewarded with a withering stare that completely failed to make it past his frontal lobe.
The woman standing before them was dressed in a blouse that said “I’m a modern woman” and a skirt that said “but not a slut”. A stylishly thin cigarette dangled from her painted lips as she gave them a look that indicated she’d not only scraped better off the bottom of her shoes but afforded it more worth as a human being. With a flick of her wrist she presented them both with a sleek beige folder, crammed to bursting with irritatingly small pieces of paper. Several fluttered to the floor as Gaurinn reared up and Cailean stared blankly at nothing in particular.
“What is this?” The insect asked sharply, plucking a paper from the stack. A crude sketch of a badly disproportioned gun had been scrawled on it along with a helpful arrow and the inscription ‘BULLET GO HERE’.
“Christ, are you blind,” the woman snapped. She gestured angrily to a hallway curving lazily to their right. Fluorescent lights flicked moodily along its immaculately tiled length. “Get these to Abby down in R&D ASAP or I’m holding you responsible for the next delay. I don’t know what it is you techie boys do down in the labs, but if it’s going to slow down the rest of us you’d do well to reconsider your place in this company.” She glanced down and allowed her lip to curl in tasteful disgust. “And you’d better do something about that shinbone by the next time I see you. Exposed body parts are strictly against dress code.”
Then she was gone, heels clicking ferociously down the way she’d come and a trail of wafting smoke gently dissipating in the recycled air. Gaurinn grumbled angrily, snatching the folder away from Cailean’s phalanges.
“Stuck-up bitch,” he growled, shifting through hasty blueprints of various devices that all seemed to be missing some combination of barrel, trigger, and sense. He held one up to the light and squinted at it. “Does this… shoot bees. Does it really.”
“You bet your arthropodic ass it does!”
Cailean managed half a lunge at the newcomer before a sudden electrical charge convinced his legs to give up on the fight against gravity and he landed heavily on the floor, skidding to a rest at the feet of a man best described as a space cowboy. He shrieked in surprise as a heavily padded hand grabbed his remaining hand and yanked him effortlessly to his feet, ignoring the unsettling popping sounds coming from under the few pieces of armor still bolted to his body.
“Designed it myself,” a grinning echelon of rugged manliness said happily, seizing the sketch from Gaurinn with the hand not currently occupied with digging into Cailean’s wrist bones. He waved it in front of the insect’s face gleefully. “That chamber at the back is a supercondensed HyperBee hive that produces top-quality workers at a rate of 67 bp/s! I’ve worked on it for years! Course you’re not supposed to know about this. Top secret, you know.” He gave the centipede a wink that would have stopped any reasonable woman’s heart. “Anyways, don’t worry about Cherrilee, she’s hard on everyone in the mornings. This folder for me?”
Before Gaurinn or theoretically Cailean could protest the man had snatched it away and was striding swiftly away down the hall, leaving behind a fluttering trail of stray papers and gesturing with one massive hand for them to follow. It took another dose of electricity for Cailean to remember how his legs worked before he was shambling after in the wake of the man’s rocket boots, eyeing the meat on his calves with an emotion the former solider couldn’t quite identify.
“Name’s Strom Deadwood, by the way,” the man called back, turning into a narrow passageway crammed awkwardly in between two sad-looking cubicles. “Don’t think we’ve met before, I’m the head developer of Experimental and something else in Processing that no one’s really sure of. You two must be the transfers from the labs.” He procured a keycard from no easily identifiable location and waved it in front of a pair of massive steel doors jutting out of the faux paneling, then proceeded to kick them open anyway. “You’re just in time. We got a shipment of harvester squids yesterday that no one seems to know what do with despite the labels on the box saying ‘NOT FOR INTERNAL USE’ and ‘IMPORTED FROM FRANCE’. Figured it’d be something related to the department switchovers, you know? You techies are always up to something. Been hanging around our clientele too much, if you ask me! Ha ha! Don’t tell PR I said that. Aaaand here we are!”
Strom stopped abruptly in front of a dingy-looking door that had the words ‘Almost Certainly A Broom Closet, Part Two’ painted in bright orange letters across it in no particular order. He waved the card idly in front of it. The sound of a series of deadbolts dropping out of place echoed from the other side.
“You two all settled in, then? Great. I’ll be just down the hall if you need anything. If I’m out just leave a note with my secretary.” He gave Cailean a handshake that would have separated his arm from his torso had it been slightly more decayed and Gaurinn a pat on the back that briefly knocked the insect into unconsciousness. With a respectful tug of his hat, he departed with booming steps down the riveted hallway and through a door that didn’t quite seem to be entirely there.
“Hghhhrrrrrrssssss.”
“Agreed.” Gaurinn straightened himself out, still slightly dazed from the force of Strom’s approval. He glanced down the corridor nervously to ensure that no one else was currently threatening his life, then turned towards the door. “This looks promising. Why don’t you go in first, Cail, you’re seeming more intelligent than usual lately.”
Cailean obeyed, partially because he knew that Gaurinn would force him to do it if he didn’t but mostly because thinking about anything else was hard. Harder than it was before. His head was filled with thoughts like eat and hunt and run and they were distracting. Not as bad as the other ones, though, the ones that hurt his head when he listened to them too hard.
So Cail’s dead now?
He’s better off this way.
He didn’t want to think about those at all.