They were thirty floors down. Thirty floors beneath the surface of a doomed planet and they were all going to die.
Far below the surface of a doomed Site-19, two people sort through a billion worlds in a desperate bid to escape.
"Hit it again."
There was a moment of silence, a brief pause. And then chaos.
Through the graphene-reinforced glass, the view turned outward, then inward, folding in on itself with a muffled hiss. The entire room went dark, save for a few flashing indicators and the dim emergency lighting of Site-19's Extradimensional Testing Lab. Not a moment later, a blinding fluorescence emerged, followed by a fusillade of free radicals bouncing off the shielded observation deck and back as the space within warped and distorted. While the machine stabilized, an impatient, dark-haired woman flipped manically through a small booklet, head darting from the pages, to the screen in front of her, then back again. After a moment, the woman ceased chewing on the inside of her mouth and spoke, her eyes still trained downward at the machine and the book resting on its surface.
"Alright, we're looking at, uh, shit. D-USUSAS2-G. Dee-dash-you-ess—"
"What, you don't remember the codes you designed? Isn't this what you do for a living?" The other voice spoke with a flippant attitude that did little to mask how weakly it was delivered.
"You remember your fucking codes," the woman snapped, still not looking up. "Oh, that's right, you don't have any! Maybe you brought some papers to push, huh? Dee-dash-you-ess-you-ess—"
The voice didn't respond. Outside the room, the sounds of gunfire emanated, cut short abruptly by some unknown force from the halls beyond the sealed chamber doors. Somewhere, past the airlock and the secondary shielding was the extinction of all life as they knew it—the End of Everything. Annihilation at the hands of an intangible malevolence, whose true configuration escaped them. It wasn't even worthy of SCP designation, having filled a small container in one of the numerous Anomalous Objects warehouses on the Site-19 campus. Places for low level anomalies—color-changing tennis balls, mugs that filled themselves with grapefruit juice, that sort of thing. It constantly leaked a black sludge that would fill its containment area, and this required daily cleanup. No one wanted to deal with it, so management made D-Class scrub the chamber in perpetuity and rarely looked back on the thing since. Now, it bled freely down the stairwells, through the corridors and ventilation ducts of the subterranean facility, an ever-growing river of putrid slime. As it did, it changed those around it, subtracting their consciousness and adding their bodies to the Whole.
"Dimensional, Unstable, Stationary, Unaided—" Dr. Amber Lombardi, Head of Extradimensional Affairs for Site-19, paused, losing her train of thought for a moment as the entire room shook. They were thirty floors down. Thirty floors beneath the surface of a doomed planet and they were all going to die. That is, if she couldn't commit a little treason first.
"Unstable, no go, hit it again." Lombardi was determined to throw away her entire career for a double feature, which is just a cute phrase some operatives used for a Foundation-funded second chance at living. It's a big no-no, unless you know someone who has enough clout to sign off on it and just so happens to want you around enough to do so. Thus, treason it is. Twenty-five years of service, spiraling the drain. The entire culmination of her life's work, possibly the greatest technological achievement in all of Foundation history, was sitting right in front of her. And now, she was using it to leave Site-19—And all of Earth—forever, in what should be called the greatest ironic twist of fate ever to grace a sentient being.
Of course, Overwatch would never forgive such a transgression, regardless of whatever letter is in front of the K in this scenario. She was expected to go down with her ship, her ship being a small segment of a giant, already-buried coffin made of concrete and steel. Instead, she chose to sidestep the chain of command and potentially compromise the Foundation's integrity using unauthorized, unpatrolled roads through the multiverse that were paved by her own hands—well, not just her own hands anymore. Another miscalculation. Dr. Lombardi raised her head from the monitor for the first time in a long while and peered across the chamber at the only other human who had a chance of escaping this madness.
That human, a researcher named Aberdeen Campbell, was just as screwed if this didn't work, whether it be death at the hands of unspeakable horror or salaried firing squad. She was a desk clerk who, through strange and terrible happenstance, had Level Four Clearance that she hadn't needed nor used in years—until today, and never again. She and Lombardi were in this together now, equal partners in crime—only this was the first time Aberdeen had ever been in this department, the first time she'd laid eyes on a machine this complex, and, in the ways that counted, the first time she'd experienced anything anomalous. That last part was showing the most, as the woman's face was a concerning shade of pale, eyes wide with a look of absolute terror seared into them. While Lombardi sat in front of a screen on the expansive console labelled OUTPUT CONFIGURATION:, she had delegated her cohort to lever duty, because anyone can pull a lever. And pull it she did.
Another darkness bathed the room, and another flash of light replaced it. The inner chamber turned on a gradient into a deep red, with the center of the accelerator rapidly transitioning from a dim, shimmering bokeh into dead brush and shale. The interior was now the exterior, and the screen updated once more.
"S-SSUPAH1-G. Spatial, Stable, Stationary, Unaided, Personal Area, Hazardous—no, no, we have to try again!"
A loud slam drowned out her voice as a large body was thrown against the outer doors. The two looked up, for an instant, then caught themselves. They didn't have an instant to spare.
There are infinite worlds, endless whens and wheres. Yet, there was but very little time to get there.
With her hand on the lever, Campbell pushed forward once more and felt the cool metal retract back on its own. At the same time, the dual-spin singularities within the core of the machine rearranged themselves in another of a million-billion combinations. Their topology was the key to this transaction—two rotating black holes that could point to anywhere, anytime. The electromagnetic barriers that held them in place fended off most radiation that leaked from the two meshed rips in space-time, feeding the runoff into power sinks that made the device indefinitely self-sustaining. Of course, that didn't stop the Gateway from shaving minutes off their lives every time they reconfigured the manifold at its heart, and without actual four-value coordinates, all they could do was randomize the drive and hope for the best. Traveling back was not an option, as a copy of herself had informed her just a few minutes ago, right before violently disintegrating. Apparently she had said enough to convince herself not to try it in the first place.
Shadows and lights danced again. Inside, the view turned into black, speckled with points of light. The center of the chamber became deep space, image distorted via concerning proximity to a neutron star. Sensors overloaded, indicating massive strain of force with warning lights and alarms. The machine graced their ears with the sounds of metal bending towards itself.
"Oh—fuck, no, again. Flip it. Flip it now!"
Aberdeen flipped it again. And again. And again. All the while, the Idea crept forth, claiming minds like a child picking flowers in a field. As it did, it assumed form, first imperceptible, then slowly gaining opacity, ridges and corners, solidifying within the confines of three measly dimensions. The endless halls of Site-19, the Hub, ever so cherished, were filling with pools of dark, viscous tar. There, it would remain, perfectly preserved. The remnants of the dead would be lost to oceans of oily black.
Not long after, the whole world would drown.
TWELVE HOURS EARLIER
"Researcher Campbell. Campbell. Campbell. Aberdeen!"
A woman in a white coat raised her head sharply with a slight yelp, jolted awake by another form that stood aside her desk. In front of her, mounds of paperwork littered the area. She had been drooling on a grant request from RAISA for fifteen-thousand red ballpoint pens. This is what her life had become.
She glanced up, clearing the grogginess and last residuum of sleep from her eyes, revealing Site-19 Director H. Wyatt leaning over her desk with a concerned and slightly annoyed look on his face. The Director was gruff man, a natural consequence of carrying the weight of Site-19 for decades. This coarse nature beguiled those around him into curt disinterest, despite being rather benign, all things considered. Campbell didn't dislike the man, but she also didn't care for him enough to learn what the "H" stood for.
"Sorry, sir. They have me on all sorts of meds after my transfer from Zero-One, still can't think straight. No medical leave though. Them's the breaks."
"Alright, well, if you need to sleep, do it in the lounge. It gives a bad impression to sleep at your desk."
"Yes, of course."
The Director was gone as soon as he had appeared. Turning back to look at her desk, Sr. Researcher Aberdeen Campbell let out an exasperated sigh and contemplated the downward spiral of her life once again. A few years ago, she had been assigned to the archives over at Zero-One, which was not much better, to say the least. It was probably the most boring place in Foundation ownership. Almost anomalously uninteresting, but not quite. That kind of bland.
Site-01 had been going through a major change of structure at the time, with many thousands of hard-copy documents in deep storage that hadn't yet been transferred onto the servers, Aberdeen had spent nearly all of her time working meticulously and with little payoff, just like she did now, but without the extra time to pass out for an afternoon nap.
Even though all she remembered was life in a Foundation rube cube, Campbell was positive it wasn't always like this. She knew that there was more to her story than mountains of cellulose, rivers of ink, and a bad case of carpal tunnel. She had been reassigned to the archives after having been exposed to some sort of antimeme. Something she had been studying before, when she worked over at Information and Data Analysis. That's what they tell her, anyway. They also told her she had done a good job at it, not that it really mattered at this point.
That period of her life was a confusing mess of headaches and gaps-in-timelines, which didn't get any better the farther she went back. Antimemes are some of the worst things that never technically existed.
Aberdeen furrowed her brow, then drew a slow breath. Pushing herself away from her responsibilities, the young woman decided on a much-needed caffeine boost, probably in the form of lukewarm coffee. Meandering out of her cubicle block and into the halls beyond, the humble researcher thought about the many times she had been in this exact place, tracing a path she knew by heart through the mostly-Euclidean hallways of Site-19, adrift in a sea of strangers.
In her own little world, mind wandering, free from the confines of the less-than-savory aspects of her life, Aberdeen found herself off guard at one of Nineteen's many connecting pathways. She traveled directly into the oncoming trajectory of a stranger in a brisk stride, an older woman, whose thoughts were also elsewhere. Since there were no traffic lights in any of the four-way intersections of the complex, who was truly at fault could not be known.
The two collided in a show of scattered documents and apologies. Aberdeen didn't recognize the dark-haired woman, but she seemed to be in a little too much of a hurry. Then again, like traffic lights, no speed limits existed in the halls of Site-19.
"So sorry, I was distracted—" Aberdeen began, bending down to pick up the papers. Before she could, the figure grabbed her wrist.
"It's fine, but, please. Let me." Her voice had an air of authority that screamed administration, though she scrambled to grab the fallen stationary in mild panic. Aberdeen was briefly able to make out some of the contents, and her eyes widened.
"Woah. Is that—?"
She was cut off with a sharp look and a hush, her new acquaintance looking around briefly before turning back and speaking again.
"Please, have a little tact. What is your clearance level?"
Taken aback, slightly offended, Aberdeen responded with one of the few things she had left from her previous work experience, adjusting the lanyard around her neck to reveal an orange-red ID card which was previously obscured by her coat. "Four. Don't tell me, you're an oh-five. Or did they make level four-point-five just for you?"
The dark-haired stranger rolled her eyes, then glanced around once more. This time, she didn't wait to make eye contact again to start speaking.
"Yes, Site-19 just got its first Class-A wormhole generator—it's beautiful. And I'm not just saying that because I built it. Amber Lombardi, head of Extradimensional Affairs. No, not that Lombardi."
"Abby—er—Aberdeen Campbell, clerical jockey, pleased to meet you." She wasn't sure of another Lombardi, but the comment came off like something this one had to explain relatively often.
"Clerical?" She raised an eyebrow. "How does a desk worker like you, no offense, get L4 clearance?"
Campbell was offended, at least more so than she was before. "I used to do a lot more than push papers. I'd share the details but they're a bit hazy." She motioned to her head.
"Don't tell me, antimemetics? Don't they have drugs for that now?"
Aberdeen thought of the little orange pills. "Mnestics. Yes. Some people claim they help restore lost memories. They're more effective at preserving them, though." She paused, not entirely sure of her desire to get into the topic, but it was rare to find an audience that was willing to listen and wouldn't get an amnestic for doing so, "I've been on Class-X for years now. This wasn't your typical antimeme, according to my debrief. They insist I keep trying. I think they're worried I'll have it worse off if I stop now, and sometimes I do get flashes of things, like scenes from a film where you can't make out what the characters look like or why they matter to the story—" She stopped; Lombardi was staring at her like she had two heads more than the Foundation was used to.
"Ah, sorry, sorry. You probably don't want to hear about my problems. We just met."
The departmental head's eyes softened. "It's not that. I'm just—I'm sorry. That must be so hard."
"I'm getting through it. Listen, I was on my way for a cup of coffee, you want one?"
Amber shook her head. "Thank you, but I really should get over to Extradimensional. They're expecting a presentation on the new gateway, and this print job has lasted much longer than originally anticipated. Worth it though, the black is super glossy on that new machine. Also, the coffee on this floor is uninspired. Try minus-five's sometime."
"Uh, will do. I'll leave you to it, then." Campbell waved a good-bye and departed from the junction to complete her journey to the break room, abandoning Lombardi to her business while simultaneously pondering how much better the coffee can actually be three floors above.
As she did so, Amber continued down the corridor in the opposite direction, towards a row of frequently-congested staff elevators. The woman opted not to take one of the quiet stairwells as some might; her stop was all the way down, and thirty floors on foot was a drain just to think about.
She waited in queue for one to arrive that was more empty than not, checking her watch in regular intervals while envisioning a Site-19 with no foot traffic, where employees walked through portals to any floor and were never late to meetings. The elevator was never completely empty, which was the dream scenario; typically she'd get a few prying eyes or strange looks whenever she'd insert her keycard and press the button for floor -38.
It came with the territory. Everyone wants to know about Extradimensional, no one wants to actually work there. No one except Lombardi, who had spent the better part of her life learning the math and physics of spacetime as she knew it, and the rest learning things they didn't teach you outside the walls of the Foundation—extradimensional thaumaturgy, which was not even magic, just a little-understood piece of consensus reality the Administration deemed too powerful for the masses. And they were right, of course.
The wall made a tone as another elevator car reached Dr. Lombardi's floor, and, to her surprise, she found it completely empty. A moment of harmonious bliss filled her mind as she boarded and authorized the destination, holding "-38" while also pressing the "door close" button at the same time. It was a trick she'd never got to use before, and wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to try.
A voice intruded from outside the doors, where a stranger in the halls beyond sprinted towards the woman and her newfound chamber of solitude.
"Hey! Hold the elevator please!"
She looked at the closing doors, and then to the button to open them, then at her watch. She opted against it. When the opening had reduced to a gap several centimeters across, Lombardi looked up and accidentally made brief eye contact with the man. The doors sealed themselves a moment later as the elevator started to move, her concern about the awkwardness fading with similar velocity.
She sighed and enjoyed the silence for the first and only time, the elevator ignoring the called floors below as it descended directly to Hell. Amber looked down at crisp twelve-point font on the documents in her hands and smiled to herself, thinking, maybe things will be alright after all.
"Your turn, mate."
D-8102 grabbed the mop from his cellmate with a dejected glare.
"That wasn't fifteen minutes," He grumbled. "We had an agreement. If you don't honor the agreement, the whole system breaks down."
The other prisoner, D-0914, pulled his gaze away from the writing on the chamber wall with an amused look on his face, "I gave you fifteen minutes. My sense of time is perfect, this clock is just fast." He indicated to the timepiece on the wall to his left.
"That's not what having a fast clock means. You sound like a dumbass."
"Sorry, I'm not familiar with having a fast clock. I think it's pretty common for men your age, though."
"What?—oh, fuck off. You know I hate you, right?"
D-0914 smirked and leaned back against the featureless wall behind him, "Yeah, yeah. You hate all of us, and I don't really like you either. Still." His eyes motioned to the floor.
"Alright, alright."
D-8102 dunked the mophead into a wheeled bucket of gray-brown water and stabbed at the floor like it owed him money, trying with futility to clear the clogged drain at the center of the cramped chamber. In life, sometimes you may wish to live another's. Other times, you might just wish you were dead. D-8102 was feeling a mix of both. He could barely make out his reflection in the puddle of black ooze, and he didn't recognize the bits he did see, a dour face with slouching posture, wrapped in orange, toiling endlessly and dreaming of that unknown day where he gets gassed like the rest of them. Or so they say. He hadn't been around long enough to know if the sweet release of death via neurotoxin is actually something one could look forward to. The other convict was next to break the not-quite-silence between the two.
"Squidface leaving you be?"
D-8102 paused and wiped his brow, contemplating.
"Not really. Why do you care?"
"I don't. Small talk."
The monstrous asshole affectionately termed "Squidface" existed solely as a lingering presence. The two could feel it in the air and hear it in the soft, indeterminate whispers that danced around their eardrums. It was nothing new to D-0914, who had been assigned to the task of lamp cleanup two weeks prior. Practically an eternity. D-8102, on the other hand, was fresh out the pen. For your first interaction with the Unusual, ol' Squiddy was a bum rap.
Sure, there were plenty of worse things, things that would turn you into spaghetti but keep you ticking, things that make you watch your own death, slowly, over a period of a thousand years. Yet, something about that lamp was just rotten, and it wasn't just the rancid sludge it wept through its nonexistent tear ducts. It was the persistence that really got to its company, and it got to everyone eventually. Not being able to shut it up or ask the lab goons for help made it all the worse.
There were a few fellow D's who would tell you that you were doing something honorable, making up for the shit you've done or some other altruistic karmic retribution bullshit. Even if it were true, there was something particularly awful about quietly losing your mind and not being able to tell anyone.
D-8102 absentmindedly prodded the mop against the floor, listless. He looked over at the lamp, then away when it got to be too loud. He felt the otherworldly presence it was linked to, a being of terror and madness and black oil. He felt the hairs on his neck stand and pushed the presence away as best as anyone could.
"Hey, fucking watch where you're mopping—" The observing D-Class scowled, his white shoes now covered in the viscous substance. He struggled to free himself from the thick sludge and tugged, causing his foot to simply leave the shoe behind, still adhered to the floor, and was thrown off balance as a result. The prisoner fell, grabbing at the nearby nightstand for support. It caught him, so he began to right himself, just as D-8102 shouted at him to stop. He looked up in realization as the object atop the surface tumbled from its place.
Transfixed, the two watched helplessly as the gaudy lamp hit the ground, shattering, plunging the room into complete darkness, then silence. The whispers had stopped. The light had ceased. The men were no longer present.
A few seconds later, it started laughing.
𖦹
PART II:
