#22

You and Klaus step out of the elevator and look around. Both ends of the hallway curve off somewhere, and they both look about equal in terms of possibilities. Your footsteps echo, and aside from the low sound of fuel flowing somewhere, it's silent. As much as You doesn't want to split up again, You gestures for Klaus to head right while You heads left. He nods and does so, leaving You alone—once again. This is starting to get monotonous.

As You walks, You absorbs Your surroundings, like usual. This place looks pretty ancient, which might tie in with its ridiculous depth. It could date back to the 20^th Century Cold War, though You doesn't know much about that. It looks...military, but that's just a guess. You never learned formally about such things. Surprisingly, the knowledge You does have about the Cold War comes from the only fulfilling conversation You had with Susie's stepdad. He was happy to talk about it with You, actually, which was the only time You's seen him genuinely happy. You doesn't remember too much about the War itself, though. But that's not the issue.

You's begun to consider with greater depth the circumstances of Your family's disappearance in regards to Susie's stepdad. However, after everything that You just...thought about, upstairs, You figure this still isn't the time. This hallway isn't leading anywhere, and curves off to the right up ahead. At the curve, You's starting to hear something, but You can't tell what it is. You figures there's certainly no time like the present to find out.

You walks down around the corner almost as if You doesn't care. If it's a Fennec, You'll just take him down and keep moving. But, this isn't a Fennec. It's something else. It seems to be a man dressed in a doctor's garb—probably a physician for the gang. All doctors have sworn an oath of non-offense, though, so he won't harm You. Instead, he just stares at You from beyond his metallic mask. You considers asking him a question, but despite the oath, he may still have Fennec loyalties. There's no point in pressing Your luck.

However, this small area has no outlets. It seems to be some sort of medbay for the town. Several (empty) medical beds are around, and some boxes with red crosses on them are attached to the walls. Aside from that, there's actually some pretty nice-looking equipment here. You doesn't know the official names for most of it, aside from, say, a “heart monitor”, and that's only because You was hooked up to one of those in the hospital from that concussion. However, there's something else in the room—it seems to be a large tank of sorts, full of fluid. There's someone inside it—a nude man. The man is identical in every way to the set of identical men that attacked You outside.

Okay. This is getting to be even odder.

You approaches the tank and is about to put Your hand on it. Suddenly, however, You sees a flash as the doctor runs towards and grabs Your arm. You begins to struggle with him, and he seems prepared to actually fight You to defend this tank. His fingers bite into Your wrist. You tries to remove his hand from Your arm when You pulls his glove off. With a grunt of pain, You succeeds, briefly noting five new bruises on Your wrist.

Underneath the glove is some sort of mechanical appendage. Five long steel fingers, much thinner than those of a normal human, were what had formed the grip on Your arm.

A cyborg?

You begins to look him over, then. During this entire time, he has said nothing, and has barely moved. You starts to think he could be one of those robots You's heard about—a robot doctor would be nothing new (or so You's heard), but this one is garbed in the same sort of mask and coat as the ordinary doctors who worked on You in the hospital. They never took off those masks, which so resemble those eerie pictures of gas masks Susie showed You. You pulls down the back of his shirt.

Metal plates have been fused with actual human skin. The tissue is red and inflamed even though the surgery must have taken place years ago. There's some sign of infection, as there are little green patches mixed in with the angry-looking flesh.

However, everything above the shoulder line is mechanical. The back of his head doesn't have any indication of having any human tissue on it. The “mask” reaches around the face to form a sort of helmet that encases the man's head, but with the neck covered by plating and the head totally encompassed, it's almost like his entire head is a machine. This begins to creep You out, but then Your hand brushes against a tiny catch on his face...

The entire metallic casing of his head suddenly bursts open like a jack-in-the-box along the seams in the steel, revealing several wires and plates fused onto a raw human skull.

You screams. Several nodes are branching off of a metal frame built about the skull, drilling into the cranium...into his brain. This is a cyborg, alright, but it's barely human. Fuel seems to be being pumped directly into the brain, with some other fluid—one that You doesn't recognize—being extracted. Whoever this man—or woman, You considers with a chill—is or was, he or she's been heavily lobotomized. The empty eye sockets have been refilled with clicking, buzzing sensors, that twitch as they regard You. You slowly reaches for the catch to replace the casing, when Klaus walks in. He doesn't seem to react to the horrible sight, but he may be internalizing his response.

As the case closes, You turns to him. Your voice, and thoughts, are suddenly shaken by an idea that's entered Your mind. You remembers now, back in time, to thirteen years ago, as the doctors' voices have a mechanical filter to them. You remembers that they all looked the same, a detail that's bypassed You until this moment.

“Are all of the doctors...the ones employed by the government...these things?”

Klaus pauses, before he nods.

You looks at the unmoving thing, and sees a tiny chip on the front of its coat. The chip bears the three colors worn by the Imperial soldiers from New Cenabum.

There's no guarantee that what Klaus has affirmed is true, at least from Your perspective, but if it's even partly the case, You feels ill. You tries to choke back another sob, and looks away from the doctor. You realizes that unless this thing was stolen by the Fennecs, it's entirely possible that these...drones...are for sale. You can't jump to conclusions, not know—this isn't the time for pondering at all. But Klaus approaches You, handing You something. It's a notebook.

You opens it up, keeping part of Your brain aware that You may not have much time left. (Worsened by the fact that Klaus didn't seem to find anything down his hallway, indicating that this isn't where they might keep prisoners.) You can't read the entire book, but fortunately, much of it seems to be in the form of sketches. You peruse it slowly, intending to steal it anyway.

One page depicts a giant mansion of some sort. You wonders if this is “The House”.

Another features a figure wearing some sort of armor. The armor is almost obsessively colored, and this seems to be the only colored image in the entire book. The armor is drawn to be a mystifying iridescent green.

Text page amounts seem to increase as the book goes on. On one, You sees a sketch of a pod identical to the one in the room that You's in now. You quickly scans the text, and has difficult reading the handwriting, but makes out one obvious word, “clone”.

The notebook ends abruptly with a last entry. However, there's something attached to it. It's a photograph—and it's of Susie.

You struggles to keep Yourself together as You reads.

“The boys made contact with E today. He was traveling with special delivery. One male (adult), two females (one adult, one child). Allowed Him to take plane, of course. He's heading to Imperial Central. Will keep in contact—photographed the child female on order. Apparently she is of great interest to Him.” That's all that's written.

“E”? Who could he (or He, apparently) be? And he was escorting Susie and Your parents...?

He must be Susie's stepdad. He has to be. And he's working with the Fennecs, who are...clones, for some reason. But if he works for the government, as well as the Fennecs...are the Fennecs employed by the Empire? And if so, for what purpose? Attacking people? Stealing things? Perhaps they're eliminating undesirable people or looking for items...

Items. There's something about that eight-sided stone. Is he looking for that, for some reason? Susie thought it was important—maybe he revealed to her that he wanted it before they started moving, and she knew where it was this whole time, and just never told him, thinking it worthless. All just a theory, of course, with lots of holes in it.

There are a lot of holes in a lot of things here. Maybe the notebook explains more. You still needs to know why the city is made of body parts, what the whole deal is with the Brotherhood of Kletus (if they even fit into this at all), the thing about the ghosts in the prison, the foosball voodoo dolls...so many mysteries, and probably very few solutions. And Your family and Susie, alive—but being held hostage by the same people who produce lobotomized cyborgs who serve as doctors. The Empire. You needs to get to “Imperial Central”, whatever that is, and...

Just then, there is an explosion overhead. The medbay is rocked and You is knocked to Your feet.