The Factory

After the first conflict, The Liberty Lions raided several Kurdizov hospitals, stockpiling drugs and medical supplies. And in their raids, they stumbled upon experimental bio-printers. A revolutionary piece of technology, especially during wartime. They started small, printing fingers that’d been blown off, or grafting skin. They tried printing more complex things, like organs, but they shriveled and died before the print finished. It became clear that for a print to take, it must be printed directly onto the recipient.
But, they weren’t limited to human biology. They could print anything. Short on arms and ammunition, someone had the bright idea to print a gun right onto their hand. It was a messy clump of meat and metal, and the recipient couldn’t pull the trigger without dislocating several fingers, but in this mangled creation, the Lion’s saw opportunity. Sure, the printers needed raw biological material, but there was no shortage of meat, blood, and bone. They scavenged bodies and broken weapons from the battlefield. They made ammunition from bone fragments, and concrete. Barrels and firing pins from rebar and ligaments.

The men and women interwoven with their weapons were simply known as The Grafted.

Miranda hated the MK-89s. They weren’t as boxy, or stiff as the hazmat suits her coworkers in the swamps had to wear, but it was weighed down with a random assortment of sensors and equipment. Everything from a heart rate monitor, and barometer to emergency flares, and a Geiger counter. There were half a dozen tubes running in and out of her rubber suit, and a heavy backpack complete with more sensors, and a D tank of oxygen, which should last her about eight hours.

As much as she pitied herself, she pitied her two escorts even more. In addition to their own heavy suits, they each carried rifles and a heavy suitcase with even more sensors. But that was fine. Today’s expedition was supposed to be a short one. They were investigating an abandoned factory at the edge of the Old Docks. Supposedly it had been untouched by the conflict, and should yield the desired samples. Miranda was to take a handful of samples, test their air, and swab surfaces for trace amounts of chemical residue. Once that was done, one of her escorts would radio someone, and a car would come to drive them back out of the city, through the swamp, and to the safe confines of Kurdizov’s campus. It’d been six months since the cordon came down, and while Miranda wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of venturing into Palmyra, she was excited by the change of scenery. Her life had fallen into something of a routine. Waking up, breakfast in the messhall with the same five people, workout in the communal gyms, research and reports, lunch in the messhall, a short walk around the campus, more reports, dinner in the messhall, and then two hours of leisure time where she mostly stared at the ceiling, waiting for an appropriate time to fall asleep. Though, sleep never came quickly. Miranda would often lie in her bunk, listening to the hum of the HVAC, or the buzz of fluorescent lights outside her dormitory door. When sleep did come, it was fraught with dreams of desolate landscapes, and a creeping lichen. The sleep was always short. And the routine always waited.

But ever since she’d been handed this assignment, it felt like the world was full of novelty again. Food tasted better, colors were brighter, and she felt lighter - until she’d gotten in the armored truck and driven across the city like a bag full of cash on its way to a bank. She couldn’t see much of the city through the grated windows on the back of the truck, but what she could see matched the rumors she heard. Ongoing fighting has shredded most of the city. The pockets that were largely undamaged, were desolate. Her hometown had been turned into something of a liminal space. Even the birds had flown away.

Miranda’s escorts climbed out of the truck. She waited for one of them to offer a hand and help her down, but neither moved to do so. Instead, they swept gaze across the docks, looking for movement. But all was still. The air was quiet, save for the water lapping against the docks. Miranda climbed down, and took a small leap to the ground. She felt her harness raise momentarily, before pressing down on her shoulders as her feet hit the ground. She became cognizant of a dull ache starting to rise in her back. No matter, the faster they got in and did the job, the faster they could leave. The escort on Miranda’s left closed the trucks door, and knocked on it twice. Without hesitation, the driver pulled away, and disappeared around a corner. And just like that, Miranda was in the middle of a war zone, and suddenly very far from the comfort she’d known almost her whole life.

She thought this might be when one of the soldiers she was with would make some quip, or welcome her to the “other side,” but they were steadfast in their silence. She could barely make out their faces behind the tinted visors, and the snug gas masks they wore. Miranda stepped towards the factory, and wordlessly the escorts fell into position ahead of, and behind her. Something about their formation, her orange hazmat suit, and their blue uniforms made her feel less like a distinguished scientist at the top of her field, and more like a prisoner on their way to death row. Miranda tried to suppress a shudder as the escort in front of her pulled open a heavy rusted door. The metal grated against the concrete, screeching and alerting everyone and everything to their whereabouts. Miranda jumped back at the noise, suddenly aware of her heavy breathing and elevated heart rate. She waited for some response to the noise, but the only response was a distant echo off the water. The escort in front of her nodded his head towards the door. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat, and walked past him, into the factory.

When Miranda was younger, she‘d been obsessed with the idea of urban exploring- Urban X the kids had called it. She’d watched countless hours of Ghost Adventures, and ogled the strange and esoteric buildings they’d explore. Her favorite episodes were always the abandoned asylums. She could almost imagine the daily commotion of doctors rushing about, treating patients with antiquated medicines. And to see, now, the aftermath of all that activity - It sent a thrilling chill down her spine. As if the impressions of people, the daily rituals they went about, would have carved their presence into the halls of the asylums like water through a canyon. She wondered if some day, in the far future of 50 years, if someone would walk across the Kurdizov campus with night vision, looking for the echos of her presence.

She focused her mind on the campus, on the surprisingly more-than-mediocre food that awaited her after this expedition - because if she let her concentration slip for even a second, she worried her mind would turn to the factory around her. Worried it would conjure stories from the long dead about the history of this place. She tried to take in her surroundings as objectively as she could. It was a large empty room, a box really. She could see the whole of the factory floor from her vantage point in the doorway. Heavy machinery, as rusted as the door she entered, lay scattered about. A fragile catwalk loomed over her. And all around, big iron girders held everything up. Graffiti coated the brick and plaster walls, tributes to those who’d passed through here more recently. But none of the amateur art looked fresher than a couple years. Which was good, it meant that this place likely had been untouched by the events of the last six months.

Miranda made her way into the middle of the factory floor. There, her escorts set down the two heavy silver suitcases they carried, and she opened them up. She uncovered a small centrifuge, over four dozen vials, and a couple bottles of chemical agents that would react in the presence of the right contaminants. Miranda instantly felt calmer, having a task at hand. After sorting everything into its proper place, she grabbed a handful of vials and individually wrapped cotton swabs. She wandered around the factory, looking for a variety of different surfaces that she could test. In her first lap, she picked half a dozen. Most were the same surface, plaster, brick, or steel beams, but each was closer or further from the windows. Some were behind walls, in unfinished offices that clung to one side of the factory floor. Even as she set about collecting her first handful of samples, she eyed the dark hallway at the back of the factory. She knew eventually she’d need to venture into there too to collect more samples, but she wanted to avoid it for now. The air felt heavy back there, and too cool. She’d stepped into its shade briefly, and shrieked when one of her escort’s boots crunched on some rubble. She turned to him, relieved and slightly embarrassed, and was met only with a nonchalant shrug.

Miranda got into a comfortable habit with her samples. Open cotton swabs, discard wrapper (really who’d care about a little extra trash in this place?), swab surface, and then deposit sample into vial. She labeled each tube as she went, and mumbled the sample number and location to herself, just loud enough that the suit’s built in voice recorder would capture it for later. Maybe the MK-89 wasn’t all bad. Her escorts watched on, unhelping, as she cataloged one dozen, and then two dozen samples.

Finally, it was time to venture into the dark hallway at the back of the room. This small feat, and then she could return home and boast of her adventure to the five colleagues she talked to everyday. None of them had stepped outside of the campus yet. Surely they’d all herald her as a brave adventurer, putting her very own life on the line for science!

Okay, maybe not. But it was a pleasant enough fantasy, and it gave Miranda just enough courage to step into the shadowy hallway once more. This time she didn’t shriek when she heard the footfalls of her escort’s boots crunched behind her. She pressed further into the hall, as it was a lot longer than she thought it was when she canvassed it earlier. She walked. And walked. And then stopped.

This was too long. She’d seen the factory building from outside, had measured it’s relative length before she stepped in. And then compared that mental image to the floor she saw before her when she first entered. And this hallway was too long. One of the escorts, the one who’d followed her while the other kept watch near the front door, spoke for the first time. He asked her what the hold up was. There was an edge to his voice, like he was compensating for something. Maybe he was scared too. Miranda held up a hand, and stared down the hallway. It continued for another couple yards, before terminating in a T junction. She turned around, and looked back the way she’d came. The entrance was right there, just a couple feet away. But she’d been walking for maybe a minute.

She walked back towards the entrance, past her escort. She told him to stay put while she checked on something. She took a couple steps. Then a couple more. And when she finally reached the edge of the hallway, she turned around.

The hallway was impossibly long now. She could barely make out the shape of her escort in the dim corridor. She yelled at him to come back, probably louder than she needed to as their suits were all connected via walkie-talkie. He started to say something, but distortion broke up his words into errant syllables. She commanded him, pleaded for him to come back to her now. She saw movement in the distance, a silhouette bobbing in the shadows. But it was like an optical illusion, with every step the escort took, he seemed to grow further away, like he was walking backwards into the darkness.

She called for the other escort - Embarrassingly she’d gotten both the escort’s names but didn’t know which one was Kurt and which one was John. It didn’t matter, she summoned the other one to come help her. Immediately.

She didn’t want to take her eyes off the shrinking silhouette in the distance, but John/Kurt was taking too long, and Kurt/John needed help now. She tore off her eyes for one second, only to see that she was now deeper in the hall. No longer at the entrance like she thought, as if the hall itself had stretched itself thin just to pull her in. Panic rose in her chest, and she bounded towards the light, but with each step, the floor beneath her feet seemed to bounce like rubber, only pushing her backwards, further into the hall. She watched as John/Kurt reached out into the hall, and became further with each of her strides, until he too was reduced to nothing but a pinprick of light.

Now, in the darkness of an impossibly long hallway, Miranda stopped her ascent. She’d known she was trapped long before the light ran out. She turned back to the T junction, wondering where Kurt/John might have gone. Was this hallway some sort of black hole? Had it spaghettified him? Was she nothing but a pinprick of orange for an observer on the outside?

Seeing no other way out, than in, Miranda started walking towards the end of the hall. It seemed far, but she was surprised to find herself there in just seven short steps. Unfortunately, the entrance behind her was still impossibly far away. The light from the factory floor barely a pinprick in the dark. This left only Miranda with only two choices: Left, or Right.

Peering down either hall was fruitless, in the dim light from her suit’s flashlight- another built in feature- she could only make out a few feet in either direction. Miranda chose the left hall. And after taking a couple short steps, quickly verified that it was a one way trip. As soon as she’d turned around, the junction started growing more distant. And rather than fighting against the grain of reality in this place, she decided to go with it.

Much to her chagrin, her thoughts turned back to those old episodes of Ghost Adventures. Her flashlight‘s beam was weak, and in it’s dim light everything seemed de-saturated. The red bricks just looked like shades of black, and the occasional workplace safety posters (which seemed to repeat every dozen yards) were equally drab. Miranda wondered idly if maybe this wasn’t a black hole, but instead some horrible hell she‘d wandered into. If push came to shove, she’d run out of oxygen in about 5 hours, and could just leave herself to suffocate in her suit- A realization jumped at her. Miranda stopped in her tracks and started pulling at the sensors and knobs embedded into her suit’s torso. She checked everything she could, praying for some hint to help her out. The Geiger counter was nominal, and the O2 sensors seemed in the right position (so even if she did run out of air, she could always just pull off her helmet), in fact across a dozen or so features, the only one that gave any inclination that something had changed- was the barometer. It was dropping, slowly.

A human, it turns out, can live mostly comfortably between 950 and 1050 millibars of atmospheric pressure. The most comfortable range, right around sea level is usually 1000 millibars. Palmyra being set on the great lakes usually sits at 1020. At least, that was the pressure when Miranda checked on her way in. Now, her suit was telling her it was 1010 millibars. On any other day, Miranda might assume that a storm was rolling in, but on any other day Miranda wouldn’t be walking in an endless hallway. Well, not a paranormally endless hallway. The Kurdizov campus felt endless sometimes, but Miranda knew how to get out eventually. Here, she was less certain.

Miranda walked for awhile, longer than she’d expected. Maybe an hour. She’d stopped a couple times, tried her radio, or turning around, but as each of those options gave no results, she returned to following the hallway towards its intended destination. She thought that this walk would be faster, that the liminal space wanted to deliver her to the eventual end, like it had at the junction. Now, she hypothesized that perhaps it was about duration. The first hall had been short, and she fought against it for almost 15 minutes. Perhaps the corridor she currently walked down was just longer. Miranda felt an uneasy nervousness settle in her gut as she eyes the barometer, slowly dropping just below 1000 millibars. Still well within acceptable ranges, almost perfect actually. But if it continued to drop, she'd start experiencing headaches, nausea, joint pain, dizziness, and fatigue. She was fine for now. Or at least, so she had hoped.

After more countless minutes of walking, full of uncertainty, but successful, Miranda was finally brought to the end of the hall, which terminated in a doorway.

This better not be locked… Miranda muttered to herself. The door, fortunately, opened. Inside, the darkness stretched out. Miranda scanned her flashlight across the expanse, revealing a wide basement, with concrete columns every dozen of feet, like dots on a grid.

Miranda sighed. She couldn't see the other side of the room from her vantage point in the door way. She stepped into the room, feeling her joints stiffen as the pressure around her suddenly changed as a gush of wind pushed her further from the doorway. She turned, finding only inky abyss through the door frame.

There goes my exit.

Miranda walked through the endless columns, first in a straight line, then in a diagonal cross. Like the hallways, the basement seemed to squeeze and stretch itself randomly as she walked through it. She idly wondered how much time had really passed, or whether her relative time inside this liminal zone was different than the passage of time outside. Maybe it was nearly paused, and only minutes had passed. Maybe days had gone by. For all the MK-89's doodads, apparently a clock or timer wasn't one of them. She'd fruitlessly searched through the pockets, and satchels strapped to her body, and found nothing. Save for a voice recorder built into a black box, and a pencil stub attached to a notepad. She supposed she could always scrawl her last message, maybe some cryptic warning, on the note pad if she had to.

Miranda tried to stifle the chill running down her spine, and shook away the thoughts. Panicking down here won't do you any good. And neither will staying in place. She upped her pace, walking in a zig-zag now, she turned and peered around every column, her drooping flashlight bouncing off the thin green carpet beneath her boots. Miranda turned around one column, then another, and another. Her steps started to fall faster, her thumping boots starting to send echos off distant walls just out of her flashlight's beam. She started to lean around another column, when she stopped in her tracks. There was a desk. A tiny little cubicle sitting in the middle of four columns. And a tinny wheezing noise.

Her heart was beating faster now. Surely some internal monitor was tracking that. Was it from the light sprint, or the new scenery? Miranda swallowed dryly. She tried to pull a steady breath of air, but it was broken and sharp. Her hazmat suit felt heavy on her shoulders. The arches of her feet ached dully. She wanted to badly to just sit down. Light a flare, and hope someone competent found her in this infinitely repeating basement. But she'd read the logs of lost expeditions, and the remains they'd left behind. At best, she might suffocate, or starve to death. At worst, her body might be ripped apart by the latent energy of Palmyra. Her corpse could be the growing beds of some new fungus, or maybe the molecules that made up her body would liquefy into a black ichor, and seep out of her suit.

Somehow, this awful city took away even the peaceful respite of death. Miranda resented that. Resented this job. This basement. Most of all, she resented this awful desk that shouldn't be here. And the terrible whistle of wind whipping around it. She'd read a report once, about a team that had made it out of an anomaly. Perhaps it was just dumb luck that pushed them through a non-euclidian space. Perhaps they were just stupid enough to not give up, and get spat up by the trap they were stuck in. The team lead said some trite thing about the only way out being through. The whole report was drenched in machismo.

Miranda had to approach the desk and investigate it. This was inevitable. She was sure, deep down, that if she kept walking, she'd be brought to this desk again and again until she chose to acknowledge it. She wanted to believe that some alien logic ruled this basement, and if she could just guess at the rules right, it'd spit her out too. Miranda lifted one leg, and gingerly placed it in front of the other. Easy enough. She only needed to do that a dozen more times, and she'd be at The Awful Desk of Certain Doom.

Fuck.

The whistling wind sound got louder. It sounded more like... Someone wheezing. That possibility was incredibly upsetting. Miranda looked over her shoulder, wondering if she walked straight away in the other direction if she'd loop around to the other side of the desk. Or would the basement just turn her around and put her right back in front of the desk again? It was incredibly enticing to test this theory out, to push back at the rules. But what if the basement didn't bring her back? What if instead she only grew further and further from the wheezing entity? Would the not knowing haunt her more? Would she spend the next hour walking through this wall-less labyrinth looking over her shoulder?

She took another step. Closer now. Miranda could make out the papers on the desk, a cup of pens spilled out across the desk, and a small bowl of paper clips. The wheezing - she was certain it was that - was louder now. Almost like the haggard breath was right next to her ear. She pushed down the instinct to turn to her right and peer at the seeming source of the sound. Logically, she knew the sound was coming from the backside of the desk. Hidden by the mid-height walls of the cubicle. A bit faster now, eager to uncover the source, Miranda turned the corner, her light falling on the source of the noise.

Even though she had mentally been steeling herself for this, the ripple of pinkish red skin shocked her. She let out a yelp, and jumped back. The momentary lapse of light on the source of the sound was somehow more haunting than the flash of flesh she'd seen. Slowly, she raised her flashlight. For a moment, Miranda thought she might be looking down at herself, the remnants of what Palmyra had left behind. Crumpled behind the desk was a body in drab green fatigues, much like the one's she donned earlier this morning - an eternity ago. But as her eyes flicked across the shape, she realized it was a young man, wearing a respirator and covered in bandages. An empathetic part of her brain urged her to lunge forward, and help the crumpled heap, but a colder logical part of her brain screamed out not to touch the thing - what if it infected her?

A choking voice squeaked out of the respirator, and two blue eyes looked up at her. She didn't catch what the young man had said, her eyes were still fixed on his molten skin, crisscrossed with scars and dark scabs. It took Miranda several seconds to recognize the Liberty Lions emblem painted onto the shoulder of the man's fatigues.

Was he caught in the crossfire? Did he get burned?

The man reached up, and Miranda jerked back, shoving her flashlight between them, as if it might deter him from attacking. He stopped, and slowly put up a palm, then with the same hand, slowly tugged at the respirator. He was just a kid, still pockmarked with acne and thin stubble. Miranda winced as he took a deep breath of the basement air.

"I think it's safe to breath." Miranda didn't move, just watched the young man.

"I'm not going hurt you." Another long pause hung between them, and the man spoke again, "We were fighting- and it got bad, so me and some other guys ducked into a nearby building to get away from the action, and I took a wrong turn and got stuck... Well, here."

"Where?" Miranda choked out.

"Like, where are we?" The young man furrowed his brow, "'Cos your guess is as good as mine..."

"No, where did you come from."

"Oh. Uhm, we were fighting downtown near Civic Center Park. I don't know the address or anything, but it's the skyscraper that looks kinda gold when the sun is setting? Always blinds drivers, y'know? Wait, are you from here?"

"I know which building you're talking about. It's the Hawking Center. Kurdizov owns it. Or, owned it."

"Ah, sorry about that. It's mostly rubble now, the Feds were-" He stopped, and looked Miranda up and down. "You're not gonna kill me 'cos I was fighting the Feds right?"

"No." Miranda lowered her flashlight, and relaxed a little, "I just want to get out of here. Same as you, I reckon."

"Absolutely."

"How long have you been down here?"

"Maybe a couple of hours? I was trapped in a long hallway for awhile-"

"Me too." Miranda said. "Just kept going and going until it lead to some stairs?"

"Same, yup." The man coughed, which made Miranda wince. "It's nothing, I promise. I've had the cough for a bit, I don't think it's from the air here, my lungs just kinda suck now."

"Did you get hurt?" Miranda motioned at the man's arms.

"Oh- Um. Sorta. These are old. Well, older. Couple of months now."

"You should see a doctor, we have skin grafts-"

"No." The man said, a bit too quickly, "I... Don't really like doctors. Plus, there's no relief camps on my side of downtown."

Miranda started to choke out a sentence, but stopped herself. She wanted to offer some relief, or some solution. God knows how much medical equipment they were just sitting on back at campus, but she'd be lucky if her escorts, or whoever came to pick her up, didn't shoot the young Lion on sight. Better not to promise anything.

"I've been walking in diagonals. I don't know if it's moving me forward, but it got me here, so..."

"Yeah, okay. I was just kinda wandering around in the dark, until I hit the desk. Don't really need a flashlight in the middle of the day." The young man reached out his left hand. Miranda tilted her head, did he want her light? She wasn't going to give that up. No way was she going to stumble around without a light.

"Not a shaking type? That's alright. I'm Ben." With that, the young man- Ben- got up to his feet. He held his held his body at a diagonal from her. Was he hiding something? Miranda flicked the light across Ben, towards his other hand.

"Whatcha got there?" she asked. Ben swallowed, and closed his eyes.

"I'm going to show you- Slowly. Alright?"

Ben slowly turned his body towards Miranda, and raised both of his hands, palms out, towards the center of his chest. There was more scarring, and mangled skin, and dark knots of thick hairs- no? Wires? Protruding from Ben's right arm. He held a pistol in his hand.

"Drop it." Miranda said, harsher than she meant to, "I won't hurt you but I gotta trust you're not gonna shoot me in the back."

"This... Is awkward..." Ben said, still holding his hands in the air. Miranda felt icy tendrils of dread rush through her. Was he going to rob her? Take her flashlight? Make her take off her suit? She wouldn't risk being compromised- Not after what she'd-

"I can't drop it." Ben said.

Confusion flashed across Miranda's features. She longed for a weapon of her own, something she could use to protect herself. If only her lousy escorts were any good at their job, they wouldn't have let her get sucked into this terrible-

"It's grafted onto me."

Her mind stopped reeling, and digested new information. She looked over the gun again, and the thick hairs, and the mangled scars. The gun wasn't a gun. It was a gun- but... There was no separation between Ben's hand, and it's grip. Hard jagged metal blended into vein-y pale flesh. Dark black pustules poked out of Ben's wrist, and jagged bits of bone, almost like teeth protruded from the base of the gun.

"I don't like doctors." Ben said, almost sheepishly. "I'm sure there's some way to pry this off of me, but I'm sure it's gonna hurt like a mother fucker. So, if you don't mind, I think I'll hold onto it for now."

"Fine. But you walk ahead of me."

"Sure, yeah, that's fair."

They walked for awhile. Much like Miranda suspected, they crossed the desk several more times before it was removed from the loop. Eventually, they could see a distant wall start to grow a little closer. Miranda tried to count the iterations between changes, but it was irregular. Sometimes in intervals as short as 3 consecutive loops, sometimes as many as thirty, or more. Ben would point out little things he'd notice, like a notch on one of the pillars, or a bit of torn carpet. Miranda chided herself for not looking for patterns like that when she first entered the basement. But logic didn't flow continuously here. Sometimes, a dozen iterations in, they'd see the desk again, or a distant doorway, presumably the one Miranda come through. It was like wandering through an infinitely complex kaleidoscope of drab concrete columns and green carpet, waiting for some unseen viewer to shift the shapes around.

"Why'd they graft a gun to your arm?" Miranda finally asked. Ben was silent for a moment, walking through the pillars. Miranda worried she'd overstepped.

"It's not going well up there. Like, the Feds aren't doing much better, but downtown is littered with soldiers from both sides. And with all the weird shit seeping into the city every night... I think there's a lot of people who are really scared, and willing to do anything in their power to make sure they come out on top. I dunno. That's all above me, I'm just trying to make it day to day. And it turns out I need to go back to base every couple of weeks or else my body might start rejecting the modifications. And that's a pretty damn good way of compelling young guys to stay and fight for you."

"What happens if you don't go back?"

"Pain." Ben walked silently for a moment before continuing, "like a fire inside your nervous system. Starts as an uncomfortable itch, and just gets worse and worse. Heard stories of one guy who tried running away, and came back weeks later, covered in wounds because he'd been clawing away at himself."

"And did they fix him?"

"No... I think they just shot him for deserting."

They walked in silence for awhile after that.

Foot over foot. Step after step. A dull echo bouncing off unseen walls in the darkness. Slowly, Miranda slipped into a memory. It was an unpleasantly hot day. Her parents were working, so she'd been thrust off onto her cousins, Simone and Tim (really her Aunt and Uncle, but they seemed to have only a bare minimum interest in Miranda, as long as she ate some food and didn't sustain injuries). This was a regular occurrence during her summer's growing up. Her cousins lived in a tidy house, in a small community - it wasn't quite gated, but it sure pretended it was. Sometimes Miranda and her cousins would play with other kids in the community, or hang out at the pool. But today, they were just laying in the backyard, beneath the blotched shade of the tree, staring up at the blue sky. Worse than no breeze, there was a very occasional and infrequent breeze, which would momentarily cool the kids before vanishing, and reminding them just how hot it was. No cool wind to offer them respite. The air was heavy and humid, both inside and outside the house. No matter where the kids went, they couldn't escape the heat. Incapable of being dry, or cool, they laid in the grass and argued about what to do, while they waited for the sun to set. One of them suggested video games on the NES, but the idea of going back inside where the air seemed muggier somehow was quickly shot down. They'd already considered, and decided against the nearby pool, which was absolutely swarming with people. Even if they found a spot to swim, they'd be fighting off elbows and collisions of other kids. Earlier they'd had pop sickles to cool down, but now the sticky sugary taste clung to Miranda's mouth, becoming bitter, so she regretted that too. This day was truly miserable.

And then Miranda felt a hot sting as something bit her shin. She bolted upright, and scrambled over herself to identify the injury. There, clinging to a small fold of skin was a brown and red ant. Growing up, she had assumed these were the dangerous and lethal fire ants she'd seen in movies and TV shows. Older now, reflecting on the memory, she was sure it was nothing but a carpenter ant. They were everywhere in her hometown. But in the panic of the stinging bite, Miranda plucked the ant off her shin, tearing it's mandibles off of her, and flung it away. She could already see the red welt forming. Miranda cursed under her breath, for which she was sure one of her cousins would use as ammunition for some tattle later. After admonishing Miranda, her cousins crowded in to look at the bite bump. Timothy, the youngest of the three of them, and most easily frightened, started to panic, throwing his arms around and wiggling in a panicked dance, asking if there were any ants on him. After half heartedly checking, Miranda and Simone both confirmed that there were no ants on Timothy. But that didn't seem to sate him. He marched inside, wiggling as he walked. Miranda feared that he would somehow blame her for the ant bite (that he didn't receive). But she didn't feel like chasing after him. She laid back down in the grass, and tried to ignore the itch on her shin.

Some minutes later, Timothy stomped out of the house. Jean overalls replacing his shorts, and a magnifying glass in his hand. He trotted past Simone and Miranda, and towards one end of the yard where a small ant hill had emerged. It, unlike most of the yard, was not under the protective shade of a tree. Timothy used this to his advantage, angling the magnifying glass into a piercing white hot spot, and burning several ants. Having nothing better to do, Simone and Miranda got up to watch him. Miranda thought about telling him to stop, or chiding him for his needless violence, but she knew it'd be fruitless. So she just watched as small plumed of smoke would rise up from the ant colony, leaving behind tiny curled drone bodies.

Miranda's foot hit a snag in the unending carpet, and she stumbled forward, shaking her out of the memory, which felt all too vivid and real. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead, and she could feel pinpricks of sweat across her arms and back. She wondered how much oxygen she had left, but didn't want to check and jinx it. Her flashlight was growing dimmer too.

"Ben?" She asked, turning around to find him in the dark. He was a couple steps behind, he looked dazed. Miranda grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. When that did nothing, she gave him another firmer shake.

"Ben. Ben! Come back to me, buddy." As if he was waking up from a deep dream, his eyes fluttered open, and he looked back and forth. "It's okay. I think we were sleepwalking, sort of." Miranda said. Ben nodded at this, but didn't look convinced. It looked like he wanted to fall asleep on the spot. Miranda tried jostling him again, but it was to no avail.

And then her flashlight went out.

In the darkness, Miranda felt smothered. She couldn't see past the small LEDs in her suit's helmet, or the dim glow of the scientific instruments strapped to her chest and arm. She reached out into the inky blackness and made contact with something. She recoiled, then remembered where Ben had been standing, half asleep. She gingerly reached back out, and drew closer to the shape. She aimed the dim light on her arm upwards, highlighting the curves of peaks of Ben's face. In the faint green glow of her devices, he looked so young, and so haggard. His sharp chin, the edge of his cheekbones, and the gaunt circles around his eyes. It dawned on Miranda just how young Ben really was. Her eyes trailed downwards, to his torn shirt, and the mangled flesh of his arm. The dim light left behind deep shadows that pooled in the gauged pits of flesh, tangled tubes, scars – and just the faintest glint of metal.

Miranda vowed to herself, that if they got out of this, she'd do everything in her power to help Ben. She didn't know what that was, but she would do something. She thought of turning him over to Kurdizov, but under the current regime it's just as likely that he'd be given the best medical treatment, as it was that he'd become a new specimen of the Zone. That was a coin toss Miranda thought she'd lose. Maybe she could find one of the survivor groups in the city, and turn him over to them. Would they be able to take care of his disfigurement? Would they know how to treat his wounds? Miranda doubted this. From what she'd heard, most people in the city barely had access to clean water, let alone sterile medical facilities.

Then the world started to shake around them. Wind whipped past, and the floor beneath Miranda's feet seemed to contract and ripple, and a loud rumble deafened her. Miranda tried to plug her ears, but her hands met with the sides of her suit, so instead, she crumpled into a ball and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that would help. It didn't.

Moments later, when the rumbling and shaking stopped, Miranda looked around. Ben was still standing in place, swaying, in a stupor. Miranda thought she saw a trickle of blood on his neck, leading up to his ear. Probably ruptured his ear drums. Shit. But in the darkness, it was just as likely to be dirt, or a trick of the light. Either way, Miranda didn't like Ben's state. Something terrible wrong had occurred. She clambered up to her feet, stretching and bending in her bulky suit until she found a way to balance herself. She grabbed Ben by the arm, and tugged him along. She was worried that she might have to drag him, he was young, tall, thin, and lanky, but even then probably still outweighed her by a couple dozen pounds. Fortunately, his feet seemed to move, a bit haphazardly, but that was fine. They only needed to walk in a straight line for now. One step over the other. Miranda watched as Ben's feet picked themselves up, and fell on the carpeted ground with light thuds, sometimes pointing his feet inwards or outwards. This is fine for now, as long as he keeps moving.

Miranda was so focused on Ben's walking, she didn't see the slowly approaching wall until her visor bounced off of it. She stumbled backwards, leaving Ben leaning at an unnatural angle, drool pooling in a cheek, and his eyes fluttering beneath partially opened eyelids. Miranda rejoiced, if they'd finally found an end, maybe they could make some actual progress forward. She grabbed Ben again, and pressing one hand to the wall, walked along it for several moments.

There was something... unpleasant about this wall. Miranda wasn't quite sure what it was, she kept rolling the idea around in her mind, until she could fully pin it down. Then, she saw another wall approaching– she was coming to a corner! She thought one shouldn't be so excited by a simple corner, but after hours of walking in the dark, it was some relief to have something other than infinitely repeating carpeted floors, and pillars. But–

Miranda realized what had upset her about the walls. She yanked her arm back, but her hand stuck to it. She turned, and saw the wall with doubled vision, like it was covered in a sheer fabric stretched too tight, revealing what's behind it. There was the concrete wall, and beneath it, there was fleshy nodules, veins, and strange orifices. Fleshy prehensile appendages wrapped around Miranda's hand, curling between her fingers and probing up her wrist. She pulled again, and felt that convulsing rumbling. The flesh walls around her flexed and folded.

Oh god, I'm being digested.

Miranda pulled again, scared to reach past the mirage wall with her other hand and pry the tendrils loose, leaving both hands trapped within. She turned to Ben, called his name, and pleaded for his help, but he was gone. His body had crumpled into the floor, and the stiff green carpet had given way to a thin layer of mucus, which seemed to cement him in place. It wouldn't have mattered if he could move, he was still stuck in his stupor.

Miranda felt her boots sliding in the mucus, the tendrils on her hand pulling her deeper into the wall flesh. Her mind raced, she looked over the random tubes and sensors poking out of her suit, looking for something sharp or offensive she could retaliate with. She could throw a Geiger counter at the wall, or maybe a flare– Her mind lunged towards that idea. She thought of little Timothy burning ants with his magnifying glass, the tiny plumes of smoke. Miranda grabbed at the emergency flare strapped to her bulky belt. She had three. She slid forward a few more inches.

Miranda leaned back, pulling as hard as she could, but the tendrils were well up her forearm now, pressing into her with surprising strength. This would be fascinating, if I wasn't about to be a feast.

Miranda fumbled for the flare, pulling it out of her belt loop. She had to shift and angle her body to keep the flare from being trapped by her chest sensors, but through the thick glove, she couldn't get a good grip on it. She tugged, and tried to inch the flare upwards out of it's slot, but the process was slow. She slid a little closer to the wall. Now that the tendrils had gotten a good grip on her, they were reeling her in faster. She wanted to glance back at Ben, to see if he'd fully sunken into the mucus, or if he was still standing, but she couldn't turn her suit far enough around to get a glance without losing her grip and falling into the wall. Her glove gripped the flare, and she gave it another yank. It came free, but she fumbled it and the flare fell to the ground, slowly sinking into the mucus. She squatted, trying to reach the flare, but it was just out of reach. At the rate she was being pulled in, she wouldn't have enough time to grab it and ignite it. So she started working on the second flare, this time pushing it up from the bottom. When it was most of the way through its hoop, she pawed at it, until she got a firm-ish grip between her thumb and the mid section on her fingers. It was an awkward grip, and she felt her hand starting to cramp up, but it was enough to pull the flare out of it's holster without dropping it. Now came the hard part.

Miranda had always been an average student, she paid attention well enough, got good grades on tests, but had always slacked on the homework. There was just more interesting things to do with her time than solve equations or write out definitions. Flare safety training had been part of her assigned homework ahead of fieldwork. In Miranda's defense, she'd asked around and all the other scientists who'd gone up had told her that the safety training was all common sense stuff. Plus, she'd have escorts that'd worry about that kinda thing. She didn't need to concern herself with "all that mumbo-jumbo." She was cursing her laziness now.

Miranda held the flare up to her faceplate, trying to read out the instructions. Something something handheld flare, unscrew cap, yada yada, point away, pull cord. Great, easy enough. Miranda thought to herself. Then she remembered the problem at hand. God, she wished, I want to be out of this suit.

Under other circumstances, she might risk biting off the safety cap, but arm and head unavailable, Miranda tried the next best thing. She plunged the top of the flare into the mucus, and positioned it between her boots, using her free hand to twist it, until the cap came free. This bought the wall tendrils enough time to creep up to her elbow, and begin tugging on her, pulling the rest of her body into the wall, where dozens of other tendrils waited to receive her. Fuck no.

A small white string with a metal washer tied to one end dangled out of the flare's base. Miranda eyed it, and then pushed the end near to the wall. Immediately little fingers flexed, and grabbed at the white cord, coiling themselves around it. Gotcha. Miranda yanked the flare back, hard, and immediately it ignited, showering bright white-red sparks, and globs of melted material. The fingers beneath the chemical shower writhed, curled, and blackened as they burned. Miranda could hear the hiss of flesh wilting around her. She pointed the flare at her trapped arm, and watched the flesh singe and shake. She pulled her arm, and a few inches came free. She pointed the flare at another patch of skin, and pressed the fire into the wall. She could feel the heat of the flare under her arm, and sensed that she'd have to answer for this action later. The wall loosened a little more, and freed her arm down to the wrist.

One more time. Miranda idly wondered how long flares actually lasted. In the movies, it seemed like forever, but she could already see the shower of sparks starting to fizzle out. She pressed the charred end of the flare back into the pink flesh of the wall, and pulled out her hand. She flexed her fingers, all intact. She was sure all the gripping and pulling had left a crisscross of bruises along forearm, but she was freed. She spun on her heels, and looked towards Ben, who had sunken to his knees, and was leaning backwards, one arm pinned behind his back, stuck to the floor. Miranda grabbed the unused flare from the mucus, and rushed over to him. With both hands she still fumbled to get traction on the goo-covered cap, but once it was undone, she repeated the process of burning little patches of skin, freeing first Ben's arm, then, carefully, his legs. It seemed as if the floor hadn't been as eager to pull him in, instead letting him just slowly sink into the mucus.

As soon as Miranda stood Ben up, throwing an arm over her suit's shoulder, and leaning his weight on her, she understood why. Ben's pant legs had been burned away, revealing reddened skin, and lesions across his shins and knees. Despite the damage, he still seemed to be deep within a dream. Miranda hoped he'd awake once they got out of here. The room around them rumbled again, surely unhappy at the damage Miranda had caused, and the lost meals. It was dark again, but now the mirage had mostly faded, revealing the truth of the room. It was much smaller than Miranda had thought, still large, but she could make out dim ambient light in distant corners, where there seemed to be a faint glow from the floor.

She scanned the alien landscape, until her eyes settled on a pinprick of white light. This must be her exit. She felt her utility belt, hand settling on the last flare. She weighed her options, and resolving that there were only bad choices, she lit her final flare, and started hobbling towards the exit, with Ben's haphazard weight pressed against her. In the red light, Miranda could make out folds and lines in the walls, not unlike that of a large intestine. She didn't much relish the thought of being shit out by the living room, but anything was preferable to being inside for longer. Several times, she had to stop and readjust Ben's slumping body. It was faint, but she could feel his shallow breathing. She pushed on. The flare ran out when she was a dozen yards from the white light she'd seen. It was too bright and stark to make out what was on the other side, but she pushed through. She saw a transition ahead where the fleshy walls seemed to recede back into normal architecture. A little further, and she'd be free–

Miranda awoke, gasping for air. A thrumming alarm sounded in her ear, and she fumbled for her suits zipper. She tried, and failed several times to undo the velcro, and grab the zipper, but when she finally had purchase, she ripped it as hard as she could. She felt cool air rush in, and filled her lungs. After several deep breaths, she continued unzipping the suit, and tugging it off of her piece by piece. Traditionally, these suits were dressed by several staff members, and taking it off was an arduous and long chore. When she finished, Miranda looked around. She was in a dark room, with tiled floors, and a high ceiling. Just a few beams of sunlight illuminating her surroundings, but she could see a pile of emaciated bodies nearby. Surely digested by the thing she'd been in– Ben. She spun around, looking for him. He wasn't in the pile of bodies, but he also wasn't anywhere else to be seen. Miranda saw a frosted glass door across the room, and pushed it open. Ben was on the other side, opening and closing drawers.

"Whatcha looking for?" Miranda asked.

"Oh! You're awake." Ben said, without turning away from his task. "Trying to find food. But it's just staplers and post it notes. I don't know exactly how long we were down there, but it feels like I haven't eaten in days."

"When'd you wake up?" Miranda stepped into the room, she joined Ben in his search.

"Maybe twenty minutes ago? I don't think we were out for too long. I remember you dragging me out of the... stomach. And then I came to pretty soon after that. Maybe an hour or two later?"

"That'd explain why my oxygen depleted..." Miranda turned, and spotted an intact vending machine across the room. She motioned at Ben to follow her.

"Hey, I appreciate you dragging me out of there. You didn't have to do that– but I'm really grateful you did." Ben grabbed a nearby chair, and smashed it into the vending machine's glass. He cleared away the broken shards with the chair leg, and then handed Miranda several bags of chips, peanuts, and candy. They sat against the wall, eating, for awhile. After they were somewhat sated, the looked around their surroundings some more. They were in an office building, Miranda guessed some five blocks away from the factory. She gave her radio a couple squeezes, requesting pickup, but only heard static.

Eventually, the sun started to dip in the horizon. Ben and Miranda's conversations drifted to next steps. Ben didn't want to go back to the Lions, he feared whatever reprimand he might receive worse than the notion of going back into the city alone. Miranda's mind turned to the creature comforts of Kurdizov Campus, the warm meals, her friends. But the thought brought her no comfort, only bitterness. Bitter that her colleagues were so clueless about the city, her plight, or about people like Ben. She cursed herself for longing for the comfort, and ignorance she had before this trip.

Night came. Ben and Miranda made a makeshift shelter out of office desks and salvaged couch cushions. They decided they'd leave in the morning, and they slept.

When dawn came, they searched more of the building, gathering up snacks and drinks from several other vending machines, and piling them into a discarded backpack they found hanging up. Miranda told Ben to keep packing supplies, while she went back to her suit and stripped it for tools. Ben agreed, and Miranda left him near the entrance to the office building. The room with the bodies was down a floor, in a fancy looking basement. It was so unassuming, seemed so normal, that Miranda nearly forgot how she'd arrived here. But through a couple of doors, the smell of decayed partially digested bodies hit her. Against her intuition, she followed the smell to it's source, where she found her hazmat suit, discarded like a fluorescent orange snakeskin. She turned the rubber around, prying the sensors and equipment out from it's holstered positions. She was about halfway through, when she heard the radio squak, and a muffled voice come through.

"Dr. Locke, do you copy? We are converging on your last know position. Please respond."

A cold dread shot through Miranda. She grabbed the radio, and turned to bolt out of the room.

"Yes, yes, I copy. Do you hear me?" Miranda barked. She skidded out of the room, shoes sliding a bit on the linoleum. Crackling static came in through the radio, no response. "There is a young man with me– Do not engage–" She ran up the stairs, skipping every other step. She was on the opposite side of the building, and had to make her way through labyrinthine desks and chairs. "Did you hear me? Do not engage!" She threw herself forward, bounding through the office, and past the misaligned furniture.

She turned the corner into the lobby too late. She heard the heavy footsteps of "Escorts." Two men clad in full tactical gear over teal uniforms stormed through the front doors. Across the room, Ben was still stuffing the backpack. He turned and saw the escorts. He threw his hands up. A stray sunbeam caught the glint of the gun grafted to his hand, and several shots rang out.

Ben fell to the floor. Miranda screamed, or howled, or sobbed, all at once. She rushed towards Ben, but was intercepted by one of the men. He hooked an arm around her waist, and pulled her through the front doors of the office building. He stormed towards an armored metal truck, just like the one Miranda had rode into the city. The escort ushered her inside, and then slammed the doors behind her. A moment later, the front doors of the truck opened, and the escorts got in on either side. One of them barked something into the radio, and the truck jolted forward, throwing a dazed Miranda around in the back. She braced herself, and slumped into the corner. The ride was bumpy, the truck zig-zagged around obstacles, before finally leaving the city. The road from Palmyra to the Kurdizov Campus was untouched by the conflict in the city. From here, it was smooth sailing back to the campus. Miranda had never felt sicker in her life. She swallowed, choking down the acid that threatened to pour out of her throat.