“Director!” Conrad called out.
Nell and I had followed Conrad through the compound to the large conference room and ended up intercepting the Director who was heading inside alongside a few of their subordinates.
They stopped and turned with a tinge of good humour at their brow and lips.
“Conrad,” they said. “I intended to address Nell and Nick along with everyone else.”
Conrad stared at the people accompanying the Director until they got uncomfortable and went inside on their own.
Then he spoke, “I want to make my concerns about the current turn of events abundantly clear.”
“You’ve said as much before,” the Director responded.
Conrad gritted his teeth. “Doubly so, now. Please do not pretend that it isn’t alarming how fast we are suddenly moving. Two months ago, every mention of Organ was met with indifference from the higher ups.”
Conrad’s eyes flicked over to me. “Even ignoring the convenient timing of discovering the location of one of their main bases of operation, it doesn’t explain why we’re suddenly terribly concerned with attacking this threat immediately.”
“Oh, I am concerned, Conrad. Yet my level of alarm is not here nor there. The joint assault of Organ has been decided. I cannot gain more control over the situation by coup or abdication.” The Director met Nell’s eyes. “I must have faith in those around me.”
Conrad seemed to get taller as he spoke, “Director, you hired me to be an independent investigator. I know that you requested it to be me, despite my history of getting my superiors dismissed from their positions. It seems to me that you are quite confident that you are in the right. I hope that you don’t think that because of that my loyalty lies with you. I don’t care if you think you’re doing it for the right reasons, the truth is what’s important.”
The Director smiled at him warmly. “Then you will have done everything I wanted from you. Thank you, Conrad.”
Conrad stiffened. “Thank you for your time,” he muttered and walked into the conference room.
The Director turned to us.
“You got what you wanted from me too,” I told them. “Looks like I won’t have to be a loose cannon anymore, you can point me directly at Organ. Conrad is right though, it is concerning that the leaders changed their tune so quickly.”
The Director nodded. “I would hold onto that intuition tightly if I were you.”
They rested a hand on mine and Nell’s shoulders. Their grip tightened, a rare display of concern from the Director.
“I often imagine the levels of administration as cogs in a larger machine. What can one gear in the chain of authority do to influence things? Their options are quite limited. They can move faster or slower, influencing the machine in small ways. They can break, causing a momentary disruption, but it must be well-timed and ultimately, they will be replaced and cast aside, relinquishing their ability to affect the machine at all.”
They stared at me like they wanted to say more but instead were trying to convey it as a Witch would to a Wolf.
Then they leaned in close and murmured, “After this preliminary meeting, come to Storage C. It’s in the southernmost corner of the compound. I have something I must show you two. It’s time you see the Aberrant we keep locked in our basement.”
With that, the Director gave us each a light pat and entered the conference room.
Nell and I exchanged a worried look.
“I get the feeling that soon it might be time for us to cut ties with H.E.S.P.,” Nell said quietly.
“Yeah. Let’s be cautious about anyone wanting to become fast friends. If Conrad is right, Organ might know exactly what we’re up to.”
Entering the conference room, we found our tight knit circle of friends had found seating next to one another. We joined them and waited for the proceedings to begin.
The groups that weren’t a part of H.E.S.P. were fairly easy to spot, as they were each keeping to themselves, huddled in groups like we were, talking in low voices while shooting furtive glances at those around them.
Kay slouched in her seat, keeping her butterflies close by on the back of the chair and on the ground around her. “They’re looking at me,” she complained.
Zola nodded in sympathy, keeping his mouth shut and his hands clenched into fists in his lap.
I didn’t blame people for staring.
It was easy to single out individuals who were obviously Casts or Wolves with visible Shaping on their bodies. Each did their best to hide it, although sometimes that only drew attention due the oddity of something like wearing tinted sunglasses indoors as one individual across the room was.
Another person was bundled up in heavy clothing, with a hood pulled low. When they turned my way I caught a glimpse of their face. It looked as though they were wearing a mask made of shiny white pearl.
A woman near the back seemed to be immune to the stares. She was talking loudly to her companion and each time she opened her mouth, I saw an orange glow emanating from her throat, like a dragon preparing to breathe fire.
It was refreshing to see people of all ethnicities and cultures around the room. That seemed to signal that Shaping was a global event and we were all in this together. While each person might have their own self-interests and affiliations, at least on some level, they were committed to combating egregious abuses of Shaping. Even if there were a few bad apples influenced by ties to Organ, surely by virtue of how many different groups were here we could overcome that.
The meeting itself ended up being quite boring. Leaders introduced their contingents with little additional information. The location of Organ’s base was shared to everyone; it was in the Quebec countryside, but there was no further discussion of actionable strategy or attack plans. That would all come later, apparently, in smaller groups. Not everyone here needed to see the full picture and it was better to focus on the tasks assigned to you. It was confirmed that there would be a mixing of teams in order to best utilize specific strengths of Shaped individuals. A lot of the meeting time was for answering simple questions about accommodations at the compound.
After the meeting concluded, Nell and I slipped away and headed for Storage C. Our footsteps crunched over packed snow and Nell shivered against the cold air.
It wasn’t a long walk to get to the unassuming building. The only thing that seemed different about it was the guards stationed outside. They confirmed our H.E.S.P.-issued I.D.s and patted us down. The young soldier performing the check on me was quite jumpy and I did my best to hold still so as to not scare him.
We were waved inside. Nell made a surprised sound as she viewed the interior.
It was like we had stepped into another world. The walls, ceiling, and floor were made of black concrete. The lighting was harshly bright, like a desert sun. Large spikes lined the walls, as if we were inside of an iron maiden. As I looked closer, I saw that there was writing on the spikes, etched into the material in all manner of languages. The ones in English were warnings. Vague and threatening, they tried to convey a simple message: turn back.
The Director stood beside the sole feature of the room, an iron cage of an elevator.
“Apologies for the startling architecture. It’s a deterrent that was designed in the case that some foreign power invaded the base. This was our best attempt at warning them what lay below.”
Along with the Director and a few soldiers, we stepped inside the elevator and it began to descend.
And it kept descending far past the point I expected it to stop.
I tried my best not to let it get to me, instead mulling over what we had learned in the meeting. The attack on Organ would begin in a week. It was a joint operation, involving Shaper organizations from across the globe.
And my friends were going to be there too. Kay, AJ, Tom, Graham, Zola, Daria, Neve… I felt a small shudder of fear. They’ll be okay. I told myself.
The elevator finally came to a stop and the Director led the group down the sole hallway. The walls were covered in more written deterrents and even a few faces of anguish and fear, painted in dark blues and reds. We stopped at a heavy iron door.
The Director broke the silence, “The most important thing that I must stress: Don’t feel sympathy for the Aberrant. Do not feel pity. It will use it against you.”
My heart beat quickly as the door was hauled open and we passed through. Inside was a row of computer monitors against one wall with chairs facing them. The screens depicted different camera angles of a dark room. A sign on the wall stated that no one was to remain in the observation room for longer than 15 minutes.
“We will all remain here except for Nick,” the Director said. “For those who haven’t been here before, this is as close as we will get. Only Wolves are allowed closer.”
A soldier indicated the door I was to go through, opening it for me. Another dark hallway.
“Continue until you see the glass window,” he said.
I gave Nell a worried look before walking through. Lights turned on as I walked, guiding my way. The air felt strange, as if it was more difficult to move through, reminding me of the Fisherman’s fog.
Nell pulsed me strongly.
Yeah. I’ll be careful.
I came to the glass window. All was dark on the other side.
The Director’s voice came through an intercom, “Activating lights.”
The harsh lights flared to life. I had to squint and shade my eyes with a hand.
In one corner of the adjoining room, something pulsated.
A small being with big eyes, like a puppy. Its shape and size were ill-defined, all bundled up tight in the corner. It reacted to the light, reaching out a limb.
I shuddered.
The skin was stretched tight around the deformed limb. A spine of bone had broken through at the elbow. It pulled itself along the ground, inching across the floor like a slug, it began to unravel, revealing a more human shape. The quivering eyes were placed on the main mass, with pupils that looked like broken yolks. It was hard to tell if it was looking at me. Slowly its head raised above the main mass, supported by too thin of a neck. The head was hollow, like the husk of a seed with a hole punched straight through the middle.
“Quite the disturbing sight, I know,” the Director said. “Please be assured that the human that it used to be is no more. What remains is a pile of flesh and nerves that moves and attempts to assert control over its surroundings without conscience or thought, through a quite dangerous mechanism.”
I stared in horror at the smallest Aberrant I’d ever seen. It was so frail-looking and there was no hate in its eyes.
“This Aberrant used to be a Witch.”
The moment the Director uttered those words, I saw Nell, back on Cathrow Farm, eyes wide with fear. The hollow head turned towards me, as if it could see.
We were so deep under the earth, yet I felt the sky pressing down on me, a weight so heavy it made the ground above our heads tremble. My stomach twisted painfully and I began to feel light-headed.
It didn’t feel like anything separated me from that thing. Not glass, not air. It was right there. If I wanted to, I could touch it. That idea was unshakable as I stared through its hollow head. I could touch it.
The Director’s voice sounded far away, “This is why we only allow Wolves to enter. Nell, if you please.”
A powerful wave of Nell’s emotion hit me. It purged my mind like cold water, shocking me with fear and a kind of indignant anger from Nell. How could you be Shaped by someone else?
I fell and hit the floor from a strangely high height.
Laying in stunned silence, I realized I had been floating. Nell worked to untwist my innards, moving things that had been misplaced in what had felt like only a few seconds of contact with the entity. I kept my head down, afraid to look up at the Aberrant again.
Background noise filtered through the intercom, someone was shouting.
The Director’s voice sounded strained as they continued quickly, “This ex-Witch Aberrant was found before H.E.S.P. was officially formed. We suspect that she took some prototype of the current substance known as Dice. ‘Contact One’ is what we call her. Anyone who feels pity is connected to her. They start to rise into the air and gravitate towards Contact One and their body begins to Shape. We’ve analyzed victims of this Shaping. Their cells are being homogenized, adjusted to better bond together, bones getting softer, tissues melding into a kind of primordial mush. Not so unlike what happens to cells during assimilation in that regard. The process is quite long, so Nick wasn’t in any immediate danger. I promise. You can let go of me, Nell.”
After a short pause, the Director took a noisy breath and cleared their throat. “This could be dismissed as a particularly sinister combination of Witch and Dice, however, it isn’t the only time H.E.S.P. encountered this phenomenon. Contact 32 and Contact 104 both involved Witches that were pushed to the brink of sanity. They both began to Shape their surroundings like this, drawing together any being that they could link emotions with.”
A deep unsettling fear wriggled in the pit of my being.
“I’m sure you can see the comparison being made. Beacons appear to be quite effective at propagating the emotion of one person through a large number of people. While they lack the gravitation-like effect demonstrated here, I fear we may know what the end result is. With a strong enough emotion and enough connections, all this matter would coalesce to form… something.”
I was having trouble focusing on the Director’s words. I could feel the Aberrant on the other side of the glass. The pressure of its presence was enough to make me want to scream.
Promise, I thought to myself. Promise you won’t ever allow this to be Nell’s fate.