Archive of Our Own

He approaches the pond at last. That same disgusting oil-filled pond... or at least, it looked like oil. 
But RHM knows it isn't. 

He's not going to touch it. He isn't even gonna try to get near it. But he's there. Some distance from the shore, circling around it.

Was this where Sven had vanished to? 

The cyborg stares down the muck. Is it mud? Or is it that revolting sludge substance from before? Was that what the fake Reginald had coughed up? Was it the same thing that the clone of himself was made out of?

"... Where'd you take 'im," he growls. But there won't be an answer.
There can't be an answer. He's sure of it.

Well, the fake Reginald's body definitely wasn't there anymore. Maybe it eventually rotted, or was torn up by the local wildlife, or maybe it simply melted into that same ooze as its source and rejoined it. All that matters was that the black stain from where the impostor's head collided with a tree proved that there WAS a body there. It's just gone now. 

As it stands, of course the Right Hand Man was correct. It won't answer him. And whatever took Sven, IF it took Sven, doesn't seem to leave very much evidence behind. Maybe it just subsumed its victims whole, no muss, no fuss. 

The occasional bubbles floating to the surface of the pool would inspire no revelations or answers.

There was a body there... but it's gone now.

Slowly, he approaches. His robotic arm reaches out to the ground, snagging a rotted stick before plunging it into the ooze. Popping the bubbles as they float up.

It's not solving any of his problems, but it isn't making them worse. RHM wipes the sweat from his brow with his free hand as he mindlessly stabs at the pond's surface.
"God dammit... please be safe, Svensson."

Is it guilt? That we couldn't even prevent a single man disappearin' into thin air? 

A voice speaks, the voice gutteral and low, with a distinct Cockney accent. RHM would recognize it instantly. Or, maybe not. It's been a while since he's heard his voice without the rumbling filter of his cybernetic vocal chords.

Нет. The dog cannot track its target. It is stench of failure. 
A woman's voice with a thick indescribable, accent. The disdain bleeds through its words like bullet wounds on an expensive jacket. 

If RHM were to look around, try to find the source of said voices, he'd come up empty. These were mere tricks of the mind, after all. Quite common during times of stress. Maybe it would be best to ignore them.

It had been some time since he was delirious enough for his brain to speak to him this way. Thoughts he tried to jam down, surfacing like corpses in the water -- his brain clicks to the owners of these voices faster than he can really process, robotic memory identifying timbre and tone and assigning names.

That's me. That's my old voice.
The doctor. That's how she sounds.

His optic scans his surroundings but there is nothing. There is no one. The bodyguard swallows hard, before tossing the stick entirely into the pond.

"... I'll find 'im. Don't matter what any of these voices say. 'm gonna find what took 'im, and I'll make 'em pay."
... But can he?
Can he?

No, we can't, the Doctor answers sharply. 

But we have to, the Old You replies, grim and resolved.

"Yeah," he mutters, answering both at once. "Yeah."

It's so... strange. Normally the voices weren't so sure of anything, or were more... 'alert' in talking up potential dangers. This is different, but he has no plans on questioning it.

"Don't matter if there ain't a way. Gonna have to find one. Heh... don't suppose either of ya got any ideas?"

There's silence. Maybe they're gone. That would be too lucky, though, wouldn't it? A man like RHM doesn't exactly rely on luck to get by. 

Dogs do not have ideas. Dogs do not question. You are practically a living tank. Let someone smarter solve this. Then they will tell you what to do. And the dog serves. The Doctor is, as ever, stalwartly cold and analytical, like an algorithm running logistics. We investigated. He could not be found. Next task. 

...Might not be bad to check for footprints. 
The Old You speaks softly. 
He dropped his phone. Maybe he put up a fight...got dragged off somewhere. You start from there. Retrace his steps. Somethin' had to be left behind. One lead. 

Useless. The odds of finding anything are as low as 15%. We should prioritize our efforts elsewhere.

...Your choice.

"Pffhah!" There's a bitter, angry scoff. He spits into the water, and he doesn't remember walking to the edge of the pond but there he is, looking down at himself on its surface.
His half-rotted, half-revived brain puts faces to voices. Old Him flanks on his left, whole and alive. The Doctor on the right, where his cybernetic arm lies. 

"A good dog don't question, maybe. But I ain't exactly been a 'good dog' lately, now have I? Not exactly somethin' you can argue with, doc." The sneer on his reflection is sharper than normal. More aggressive than he remembers.
"Ain't no one else tryin' to solve it. I'm the one with the tools and the drive, y'know. So it falls to me."

RHM turns towards Old Him. Old You. Or, his reflection does. "It is my choice and I want to find the man. We at least... oughtta get some closure, if that's what it comes to."

The mud had a voice too, didn't it? Even if it didn't talk. There would be something. Footprints. Drag marks. Ground where fingers had dug into the earth. There had to be something.

Fine. We will allocate resources into finding him. If are lucky, we find a corpse. If we are not... The Doctor doesn't finish the sentence, letting the unspoken warning linger and fester for a moment.

Meanwhile, the pond ripples, tiny waves lapping near his feet. It cloys at him. It reaches. It wants to make more of itself. It wants. It wants. It wants.

Still, his eyes don't fail him. Optics scan and zoom in, looking for fine details amidst the jungle soil. 

There. 

An impact. Recent. Someone fell after being carried by some mangled thing. Indents in the mud of an elbow, a behind, and two feet. One shoe is missing. 

There's sliding marks, as if the body was being pulled suddenly, but the drag marks don't reach all the way to the edge of the pond. Someone was taken here, but whatever tried to drag them in didn't finish it the first try.

Odd... Old You observes. Real odd. Squirt could be tougher than we thought...don't drop your guard just cuz it's quiet right now. If something were here, it might still be lurkin'.

"Bah. What's this about 'we', even." RHM brushes aside the Doctor's warning, refusing to even acknowledge it. The pond's feeble reach is answered with a singular kick that scatters soil and rocks over its surface. Grab that shit if you want something to hold so bad, he thinks.

Impact point. His brain traces along the markings in the dirt, recreating a potential struggle in his imagination. Clothing that could have been muddied. At least this solves the 'why was Svensson out here' situation, but.
But, but, but.

"I'd say I hope he got away, but..."
He hasn't seen any tracks leading away from the pond.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Could be in the sludge pond." There's still some blackness on his fingers from where it touched him, weeks ago. The stain never faded.

No. Out there. Haven't you noticed? Jungle's gone quiet.

The ambient noise of insects and bird calls has stopped. One can't be certain of how long. But the silence stretches. It tears and rends. It is the silence of being stalked, hunted. There are no cybernetic enhancements, no sensors, no calculations that can sense what it means when wilderness turns silent. 

Might as well check the bushes.

We have already found what we could, more than what we had to, we should just LEAVE, the Doctor pleads. We do not know anything about this. If we are overpowered, if we are lost, who will protect him? Who will protect the clan? Who will do YOUR job like you? You are too valuable a tool to be taking these risks without telling anyone. This. is. Foolish.

No footprints leading back to the base. But there...a glimmer of hope.
Handprints. Leading into the undergrowth.

"... yeah. It is quiet." The bodyguard's voice has dropped, sunk to a low rumble as his robotic arm quietly - well, as quietly as a robotic arm can, at least - assumes its Big Fuckoff Blade form. The metal digs into the soft mud before RHM holds it close to his body.

"Doc. I want closure. This is just a line of interest. And if he is out here... I want to find 'im. And if it ain't Sven, I'll run. Run like hell. I ain't even gonna fight it. 'n like I just told you, 'm not a 'good dog'. But I am a loyal one."

His legs are tensed up, a singular thought pressing faintly down on the mental trigger needed to release his propulsion system.
And quietly, moving off to one side so he's not stepping on the handprints, RHM follows the tracks.

... What-Was-Hopefully-Sven had attempted to crawl away. On his belly. Hands pressed against the damp earth, legs out like a pinned frog's. He can see it in his mind's eye, but he can't determine the face. Is it normal? Is it still Sven? Was it something else, something with a black, sucking hole punched in the face, or wet, red eyes and needle-teeth?

While his mind is preoccupied, his body is listening intently.

...Affirmative. Preparing Run-Like-Hell procedures... the Doctor sighs in defeat.

The tracks don't go far. One of the trees is hollow under its roots. An old animal burrow. Easy enough for a man Sven's size to slip inside and try to wait out his attackers.

Dried blood (a few days old) is mixed with the thick black sludge, sticking and writhing its way around the tree. 

There's a 9mm handgun near the edge of the empty burrow. Plain, undecorated. It must have been Sven's. 

That wasn't even mentioning the terrible smell around the place. Like tar and ozone.

... It's disgusting. It's concerning. It's everything that could be bad about this entire situation. Whose blood was that? Those things didn't bleed. Not like people. He remembers the blade sinking into
it wasn't Reginald it wasn't Reginald it was just pretending

He remembers the blade coming back out coated in black. He remembers flicking it off.

"... I think it got 'im," he mutters, reaching out only to take the gun. "No sense in pushin' the tree over to confirm. Better head back."

The bushes rustle behind Right. Watch your six, the Old You warns. 

But it's too late.

 

"Somebody hELP me!! Somebbbbody help me!!!" somebody screams, a voice, a familiar voice, frim outside Right's head. It's intermittently punctuated by static and stutters, as if being recorded off a tape, before the thing comes into view.

A tangled mess of black limbs skitters behind Right like an insect, black ooze dripping off of its wretched form. Half of its white face resembles that of a melted wax, the skin falling from its eye and mouth revealing black gums beneath. Its face is pockmarked with bullet holes, tar like substance dripping down below. It cracks its neck as it approaches, long and winding like a snake. Whatever this thing was, it was NOT going to "copy" anybody.

The thing wore two hats. One humble wide brim hat, and on top of it, a blue hat. Sven's hat. 

It tilts its head as it analyzes RHM, black eyes coldly intelligent. It leers at the cyborg and once again screeches in Sven's voice, "SOMEBODY, PLEASE HELP ME!!"

Processes freeze. RHM doesn't have to breathe but he gasps anyway, shock spreading through his system -- his brain momentarily reeling before attempting to regain its footing.
His mechanical heart is in his throat as he forces himself to turn and face this threat. This thing.

It's oozing. It's coming apart in front of him. It's looking at him. At him. Looking at him and processing him and it is too smart. Too smart to live.
It could never replace Sven. It could never hope to imitate him well enough to get away with it. And RHM is absolutely sure it's aware of this, after looking in the thing's eyes and seeing the malice inside.

And the hat. The hat. The voice. The words.

His arm's still in its bladed form. He leaves the gun where it fell and, while backing up, brandishes the slab of metal defensively. His chest feels like it's been squeezed from the outside in, ribs cracking from the guilt. Somebody, please help me.

"I'm so sorry, Sven. 'm sorry I couldn't get to ya in time." The terror he must have experienced. He must have felt so alone. And now.
And now...
He couldn't be gone for good, right?
He couldn't be, right?

"GIVE 'IM BACK."

Somehow, the miracle of miracles -- his voice does not tremble, his authoritative tone does not weaken; it is a demand made by a man who is not afraid. 
This is not Sven.
This is Not-Sven.
He reminds himself of this as he darts forward for just an instant, aiming to shove the edge of the blade into the beast's mouth.

The dodge the creature had prepared was of no match for RHM's assault. It was hoping that its vile appearance would have been enough to give it the benefit of surprise, before using the voice it had stolen to paralyze its victim with guilt. 

So when RHM immediately came swinging at it with his blade, it wails, loud enough that it would make RHM's teeth rattle in his skull. 

Stabbing the thing was like stabbing wet clay, no bone or muscle to resist. It pulls back, as if in pain, before lunging towards RHM with outstretched, claw-like hands, trying to slash at the man with feral desperation. 

It has stopped imitating Sven's voice, now only emitting sickening, earsplitting wails. No doubt the rest of the Toppats will have heard and be on alert. 

Run. RUN. RUN NOW, the Doctor demands, every calculation and combat analysis running through his system only leading to the same outcome. Death. Death. Death. Flee and fight another day. 

His hat...not right that it keeps his hat, the Old You tries to pipe up in between the din, but its nearly drowned out in-between the chaos.

"SHUT UP!!" the cyborg roars at the shrieking beast, reeling back his arm. Away from the thing. Away from the monster. It's screaming. Screaming. Like a terrified baby.

Blade returns to hand and the Doctor's words are, for once, immediately heeded...
... but the mud underfoot is far too slippery. Too soaked in sludge and churned up by Sven's desperate clawing before he was stolen. RHM hits the dirt with a surprised growl and he, too, finds himself clawing at the soft earth in an attempt to regain his footing before it can fully fall upon him.

His robotic parts take the brunt of the slashes. This is not good.

The thing clamps one of its hands around RHM's ankle, attempting to pull him towards it.

Back towards the pool that was waiting for him. It wouldn't hurt. He wouldn't even die. 

Rockets. ACTIVATE YOUR ROCKETS, IDIOT, the Doctor yells inside his mangled brain. BURN IT THEN GET UP. GO. NOW. 

The sundered creature of sludge and corrupted data starts tugging  harder, frighteningly strong even against RHM's cybernetics.

Robotics audibly whine as he strains and strains against its hold, and it takes a second for the Doctor's words to register. RHM spits out the mud in his mouth, grits his teeth, braces his body, and cracks his ankle against his snared foot.

The legs snap together. Propellants ignite with a dull roar. Dimly he thinks about how this will ruin Sven's hat, but those things were, in the end, replaceable.
And he, himself... he wasn't.
He wasn't. 

Ignition. Takeoff. He doesn't even stop to let it burn, already choosing to whip up into the air. It'll have to let go. It has to let go before he breaks through the treetops, or it'll face quite a rough landing.

Thankfully for RHM, it does NOT enjoy a blast of heat and flame to the face, and immediately lets go. The hats catch alight and fly off, landing somewhere among the muck as they slowly burn. 

As RHM ascends to the safety above the treetops, the thing skitters back into the undergrowth, back into the pool. 

Maybe someday, it won't just copy Sven Svensson's voice.