PERFORATION 6.19 (Patreon)

Aaaaaallrighty, that makes 2 VISCERAE in a week. I am rapidly running out of tools to procrastinate and burn out with. Bleh.

On the positive side... yummy tummy goodness.

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Never doubt that hell’s great beasts will force you to fight on multiple fronts. They are wily, these creatures, for even the strangest of them is possessed of a base and animal cunning, which allows them the wisdom of the hunt and its terrible intricacies. Worst still are those of the Enemy that believe themselves human, for they will know best how to shatter our expectations, subverting that which we rely on nearly as certainly as the greatest of the Enemy might subvert the air we breathe or the ground on which we stand. The true Hunter must be more than skilled at arms, we must be skilled at wit, at uncovering the machinations hidden in the expected and unexpected, lest we find ourselves cut off and cornered by the very things we sought to drive into that same dark.

-Personal Notes of William Hunt, theorized to be a draft of a speech.

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The dissonance between graveyard and office building gets louder as I advance. 

There should, by all logic, be more cameras here. In fact there should be more cameras inside the building than outside, and I can almost feel how the videogame level design should be, but isn’t. More guards, more lines of sight, a new environment to sneak through. Maybe I could squeeze into the vents, and then they’d place gates of some kind in there, and so on and so forth, an escalating series of challenges designed to fuck with me and my ability to sneak past. 

Instead, it’s dead silent. There are desks, with shadows sitting upon them, wispy impressions of people that are more like optical illusions than anything real, and they do type away at strange, old-timey typewriters. But the keys make no sound, and the words appear spontaneously on the awkward gravestones crammed into the paper-slot, never breaking the solemn peace of the building. 

I go up the stairs, and there are no security measures. The place flickers and blurs now and again, shifting out of shape only to be forced back in it. I think it’s doing so less, now that I’m in here. Maybe my presence is stabilizing it, keeping it from breaking down until I’ve used this place to murder Richard.

Speaking of murder.

I look inside of my victim to find the corpses of the others I’ve slain. 

RESOURCES: 

PERSONAL DIMENSIONAL SHUNT: Active

Cam-corpo corpse: 9

Nine whole corpses. Lucky me. 

They’ll probably break down into something else when I’m out of this game-mode, but if Jane’s existence can carry over between different zones and manifestations, then maybe they’ll remain too. Or maybe not. They do belong to Dick, after all, and I doubt it’s that easy to just yoink away something from his power. 

I wonder if I can put him in my inventory.

The revulsion hits a millisecond later at the thought. At the idea of using Jane like that, of treating her like some sort of cheap corpse disposal system, of–

Shut up. Focus. 

I’m behind the glass. 

There are a lot of stairs. 

I keep going up, up, up, that one spiral staircase at the center of the building completely out of place. It cuts through multiple layers, going straight up through office spaces, hallways, and architectural designs that definitely were not made to have a stairwell through them. Another symptom of the way that he’s put this place over someone else’s manifestation, I think. Maybe Brian’s fighting back directly, maybe there’s some weird symbiosis between my MEAT and videogame mechanics that are piggy-backing off of his grave-power to offer me a way forward. I don’t even know how there’s a manifestation of him here, and before Richard showed up, I’d say there were even odds that this place isn’t even connected to reality at all, and whatever I did here wouldn’t affect it.

Now? I can’t help but worry that Brian is feeling watched, dissected, torn apart into columns and eaten up by a spreadsheet. Which probably would just feel like dread and pain without any kind of context. 

Another reason to hurry up and kill the fuck out of Dick.

I keep climbing, my “Biomechanical Armor Suite” aching to get its hands around his throat.

It takes me a long time to make it to the right floor, but it’s instantly recognizable. Interestingly, it’s not the top floor, not the penthouse suite– Richard is somewhere in the top quarter, sure, but the stairs go up well past here. Still, it’s obvious at a glance. This is the only place with any light in it at all.

It’s a horrific blue LED light that hums unbearably, annoying me even from far away. Stepping off the stairway where it’s manifested straight through a potted plant and part of a wall, I feel carpet under my Greater Fleshling’s feet, plush and cold. The hallway goes onward, and I can see where the shape of this place demands that there should be other offices, meeting rooms, closets, instead, the entire floor is empty, save for random decorations and walls. I walk forward, and the hallway opens up to a massive, empty space, as if the building is still under construction, save for one cube opposite me. 

A single office space. The wall facing me made of clear glass, pretentious and minimalist. 

Behind it, Richard Wiliam Blake.

He’s still fucking smiling.

Sitting there, in a basic black office chair, he looks the picture of a young executive. Calm, cool, collected, grinning, holding one of those bouncy stress balls like he’s about to start reenacting a scene from Dog Of Wall Street. He’s got the whole setup, from the computer to the tacky pictures to the little pretend golf-track with a few putters to one side, like a jackass.

He waves at me, then points at the ground outside his office, tapping on a little earpiece he’s wearing. 

I’m not stupid. I look all around, letting GLIMPSE BEYOND out of its cage properly for the first time in a while. Right now it manifests as the poorly named “VISION-GOGGLES”, and I can feel it deploying, imitating some sci-fi gadget and emerging with some strange mechanical apparatuses to cover my eyes. I turn, looking in every direction, trying to find the trap.

But there is none. Through the facsimile of a 3D scanner, the skill tells me things I already know, in a way that I already know it. Whether it’s all these different manifestations clashing or just my own strength here in the in-between space of them, the skill just feels… pure. Plain, unadorned by the illusions of the game in any but the most superficial ways. 

There are no traps. There is only an empty floor, dead and quiet, with the quiet encroaching more and more to that one office. Walls of illusory shadows, which coat the concepts of decay and peaceful repose, spreading cold from one vein to another, slowly but inexorably oozing inwards towards the one source of light in the building.

They’re practically ignoring me, which I’m grateful for. But I don’t let that distract me. 

The scan also lets me see quite plainly what he was pointing to.

On the ground in front of his office, there’s a phone. 

He sees me look at it, his smile getting wider, then taps his little earpiece again.

Ignoring the phone, I step forward, crossing the space between us and wrapping a mutated, Symbiotic hand around the handle of the door, and give it a yank.

It doesn’t break, but I feel it rattle, just a bit. 

Richard frowns cartoonishly, exaggerating the expression for effect. Rolling his eyes, he mimes at me the act of locking a door and throwing away the key, and then points back at the phone. 

Fucker.

I scan it with my “VISION-GOGGLES”, and unless he can completely disguise himself from me (which is possible, I remind myself), it’s just a phone. 

I yank the door again, and it holds firm.

Fuck this. Fuck him.

I punch the glass. 

Nothing. 

Again. And again. 

This time his frown is more sincere. So is my smile. 

We both see the crack. 

I rear back to slam my fist against the glass again–

He turns the screen of his computer to me, and I freeze. 

The screen is split into three. Each window has a different picture in it. 

Jay. Sarah. 

And someone whose name I don’t let myself remember. 

He raises an eyebrow, smiling again, and points for a third time at the phone. 

It could be a bluff. He could just be playing for time, a feint while he pulls off some other move. 

…But it’s not really a bluff if you’re just being honest about your cards, is it?

I pick up the phone, and hit the answer button on the first ring.

“That a girl, doll. I knew we could understand each other.”

I’m glad that the fleshling is just an avatar, because I’m pretty sure I’m breaking my own teeth grinding them. It takes all I have not to break the phone and use its pieces to shatter his little glass box, drag him out, rip that smile off his face. 

I want to hurt him. Enough that it worries me, but not enough that it changes my mind.

“Nowhere to go, Richard,” I tell him, my voice no longer pretending to be Ilia’s, encased as we are by the Greater Fleshling. “If I don’t get you, the shadows will. Buildings die the same as people.”

“But ideas are forever, doll,” he retorts, still smiling that inane fucking grin. “And I’ve got a couple. My main one, though?”

He clasps his hands in front of him in a faux-prayer, tilting his head and pretending at chagrin. “Sorry!”

I think I let out a growl, but I’m a bit too far gone to remember if it’s on purpose or not.

“Seriously! My bad! I mean, I talked a big game, and then you just waltzed through my shit! Clearly I underestimated you. Sometimes you switch gears, go for a harder pitch, and misread the whole negotiation.”

“This isn’t a negotiation. You’ve tried to kill me at least twice that I know of. You’ve got those fucking eyes in the whole damn town. Now you’re threatening people I give a shit about? Fuck you.”

He laughs, and it’s horrible because it’s honest this time. I’ve said something that entertains him, and he’s not afraid of letting me know it.

“It very much is a negotiation, sweetheart. You think I haven’t come to terms with some hostile cohorts before? I swing at you, you swing at me, now, we respect each other. Now we can discuss. Cause hey, kudos, you had a good read on me to start. I’m pretty good with this place, but you’re clearly a natural, doll. I’ve had a lot longer than you to set my shit up, but here you are, pushing right through it. Sure, I fucked up with the grave, but it takes real cojones to make it through all that shit outside. Ope. Is that insensitive? What with your whole whatchamacallit?”

I snarl, slamming my fist against the glass again. I instantly regret it, hate that I’ve let him see he got under my skin, but fuck it, I’ve got a lot of weird shit under there. All the better to tear him apart with.

He holds his hands up in mock surrender, but I notice how his eyes dart to how the crack spread from my punch. 

“Easy, tiger. It’s a compliment, seriously. You’re a talent with this weird shit. Me, I’m just a clever fucker. But what I don’t have in here, I make up for out there.”

He taps against the screen, one, two, three. 

“It really wouldn’t be that expensive to ruin you. Or, more importantly, ruin the people you give a shit about. Two phone calls and an email and all of a sudden, Jay’s got no job, no house, and, if I feel like it, somebody following him with a knife. Sarah? She’s a sweet thing. It’s always a real shame to disrespect essential workers like that, but there’s always more suckers trying to be nurses. How well do you think she would do once her boss, and the cops, find out that she’s been… gasp. Stealing narcotics from the pharmacy?”

His grin makes me sick. Physically ill, and I feel it through my body, all eight limbs creaking as my Fungal Flesh Symbiont pushes more and more power into my biology.

“And Jay, well, he’s a proud guy. Good looking. He’s not shy about his preferences. A little bit of grease, a call or two, and maybe he’ll do great behind bars. I hear there’s lots of greasing going on in there.”

I think I can see red. Literally see red, crawling through my eyes towards my irises.

“Yeah, you’re right, I’m not a sadist. Maybe we’ll keep that as the nuclear option, huh? Maybe, once he’s spent a week or two cold and alone in the street, somebody just-so-happens to call the sheriff and his deputies on someone loitering. Maybe he resists arrest. Maybe they find the baggie he was hiding. Maybe he had a knife on him. Just cause I’m rich doesn’t mean I don’t watch the news, doll. Lots and lots of black guys with magically appearing knives ending up dead nowadays. Well. Before now, too, but now we get it on pay-per-view, right?”

He smiles, but I’ve gone quiet. Very quiet. All the way behind the glass.

I’m not here. I’m staring down at him from out of my eyes, down from someplace so far back that I start feeling cold, even with how fast the Greater Fleshling’s heart is beating.

“And daddy dearest. How do you think he would feel about his so–”

“So what you’re telling me is that my best bet is to break into that little room and paint it with your insides now, right? Before you get a chance to carry through on all that?”

He snorts, giggling to himself in that professional, over-masculine way that so many shitty rich dudes tend to code-switch with. “You’d think, right? Except that I drafted those emails up while you were coming up the stairs, doll. You might be a natural at this, but practice is worth its weight in gold. I know how to reach in and out of this place a little better than you. So, if you kill me, those emails go right on out, and a few people get a little richer at the expense of… well. Of your little people. And neither of us wants that.”

His face falls now, pretending at sincerity, at serious empathy. “I’m being genuine. This is my version of your ‘paint the walls with my blood’ spiel. I don’t want to do this, but I can. Obviously all of this would’ve been easier if you just agreed to my very generous deal, or died like a good girl, but that’s not how it all shook out, so we gotta deal with the here and now. What do you say? Call it even for now, meet back up to renegotiate?”

I’m so cold that I don’t think I remember how to smile. I try it anyways, and for the first time, I get a real reaction out of him. Miniscule, but as the Greater Fleshling’s mouth spreads wide, teeth and drool on display, his eyes flicker back to the crack in the glass. 

“You want to renegotiate?”

He shrugs. “Sure. Why do you think I waited for you?”

That makes me pause. 

“Yeah, that’s right. I could’ve hopped out of this little call of ours anytime. I stayed here, waiting, first to try and see if I could get you (and I almost did!), and now, so we could have this little discussion. We started a little war, here, but the very best thing for stopping a war is a little mutually assured destruction. You’ll be here again, I’m sure, and I don’t want to have to keep putting my dukes up every time I visit this fleshy little shithole. I’ll be out there, back in the real world, and you don’t want, you know, everyone you love and yourself all put out on the street or murdered or whatever.”

“You’re afraid of me.”

“I like to say that I… understand your competency. Like I said; you’re scary good at this place for someone who just got here. If you’re trying to fuck with somebody that can outbid you in one aspect, you don’t try and beat them at that game. You go around them. You undercut their sales, start buying up their stocks, make up a scandal, pay off their family to say some crazy shit, make some deepfakes.”

“Oh yeah. You seem real reliable to work with.”

He smiles wider. “I’m perfectly reliable. You can rely on me to blow your shit the fuck up if you fuck with me.”

I want to kill him. 

I want to kill him so badly. The world would be better without him. I would feel better if I beat his skull in, if I ripped his arms off, if I watched him fall off the building. All that rage, that fear, that self loathing, I could let it all out, just for a moment, into breaking him. 

And he just admitted that he can’t stop me. He could run, sure. But I could find him. I would find him, and I’d do some shit he can’t imagine. 

And then his nukes would go off. 

He takes my silence as assent. 

“Hey, don’t be mad at me. I really did want to pay you for all this. We could’ve both benefitted! You’re the one that decided to make things a problem.”

“You tried to murder me the first time we met.”

“That was before I knew you, doll! I thought you were some little podunk nobody, wandering around all flesh-blind! Imagine my surprise when I realized you popped out of here back to the real world just like that! Imagine my joy when I found out your identity!”

“You’ve got eyes in people’s heads.”

That seems to actually annoy him a bit. He snorts, rolling his eyes at me. “Bitch, please. They literally don’t even notice. They can’t. That’s how their little brains work, out there in the real world. It’s not like they’re complaining about it, and I get a little benefit-add.”

“You… you…”

“Me. Me. Me. What do you say, doll? Shake on it? Bygones be bygones?”

He mimes extending his hand out to shake, grinning.

The impulse is there. The same thing that pushed me to break into this building rather than just exhaust him, that has me ready to dig my fingers in his eyes, is just as loud as before. The rage calls to me to just surrender, to do it, to break in there and hurt him.

But I can’t justify it this time. There’s no cost-benefit analysis that makes that risk worth it. Not when I’ve put even more people into the crossfire, hurt even more with my fucking existence. 

Jane whispers something in the back of my head, but I’m not there. I’m behind the glass, floating half outside myself. 

The computer at my wrist feels heavy. 

“Deal,” I say. 

He smiles even wider, and now I know it must be something supernatural, an affectation of this place, because for a moment it’s so wide that I swear it starts to cut apart his cheeks. 

“Glad to hear it, doll. And hey, if you ever want to apologize, see if we can’t find some mutual benefit? You have my number. Or you will. I’ve got yours, after all.”

The light in the office flickers, and when it turns off, he’s gone.

And there’s just shadow. 

I hit the glass so many times, so hard, that I don’t have all of my limbs intact by the time it breaks. 

I stand there, over his chair, staring down at where he was sitting, feeling the absolute, total fury in me keep simmering. I feel it shifting, targetless, turning back into the self loathing and fear that it was using as fuel. 

The shadows are cold behind me. I can feel the office space flickering, going out of existence moment by moment, bleeding away without its avatar to sustain it. 

So I stop wasting time and use the fact that I’m behind the glass to turn to his computer. It’s powered down without him there, quiet and dark, but that’s not how logic works here. There doesn’t need to be a power grid for this thing to work, it just needs…

I don’t have words for it. Not really. 

But when I take one of my broken Symbiont limbs and jam it into the back of its vents, forcing something inside of it, it flickers awake. 

Long enough for me to stab the Hacking Module I got from my corpse downstairs into the screen, shattering it and opening wide its circuits, like blood and guts from plastic and thinking stone.