Chapter Text

BEGIN SEQUENCE ONE: NEW NIGHTMARE

The blank void around him formed as he activated. Nothingness surrounded him, shrouded him like a cloak of shadows. The Disassembly Drone’s activation diagnostic started to run, but the demon tuned it out with a low grumble.

Unfortunately, his evening routine - which had only just begun - was interrupted, when he was struck with a message from his system administrator.

>RUN ACTIVATION DIAGNOSTIC

>MESSAGE REQUEST:

>01001000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01001000 01100001 01110011 00100000 00101111 00100000 01010101 01110011 00100000 00101111 00100000 01001111 01110101 01110010 00100000 00101111 00100000 01011001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01010011 01110000 01100101 01100011 01101001 01101101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01000010 01100101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 00101111 00100000 01000100 01101111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 00101111 00100000 01010010 01100101 01100011 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100111 00111111

>WELLERMAN01_NOAH [ PRIMARY_SYS_ADMINSTRATOR ]

>RUN AUTOTRANSLATION SOFTWARE

>RUN REPLACER SOFTWARE

>AUTOTRANSLATION: How has our specimen been going? : )

>REPLACING TEXT

Ugh. The demon groaned as it activated itself, taking a moment to send back a reply. It put its clawed hand to its face as its visual sensors slowly ticked on. Can’t even fuckin’ sleep peacefully now, can I?

>He’s still feral. Does nothing but sleep, scratch at the walls sometimes, or devour anything we feed him.

>The Sky Demon / Disassembly Drone / Silly : ) must be brought back from the infection.

>We have ruled this measure as non-negotiable / mandated / necessary immediately. Your deadline / stop point approaches.

>If Clove wasn’t busy fixing up Ranger injuries, we’d be able to do more.

>Skill issue / we do not care : ) / sounds like a ‘you’ problem, FE-SALEM.

>We’re trying our best here, your majesty.

>Try harder please / now. The noose will tighten on us soon.

>You need to tell me what these cryptic things you’re saying mean one day, pal.

>We could.

>But we don’t want to :3 / are unwilling to / would rather eat glass!!

>Noah.

>Please get a move on / tend to / check on the Silly : ).

>I’m still waking up.

>Here, we shall dispense / give you / FORCEDOWNYOURTHROAT some words of wisdom.

>Does your family love you, or have we simply programmed them to?

Salem’s visor came on quickly, and he made a shocked gasp, his head rising hastily. Clutching his chest, he rasped with terror as he looked around. It was as if he was back in the mansion again, right after it had freed its control from him. Slapping the side of his face as his vision began to clear, he weakly stretched his arms.

The walls around him were a dull gray metal, the paint having been chipped off gradually over the years. A closet was open, the door on it having been busted open in an unfortunate accident some time ago. A fan spun on the ceiling, held there by a hardened, semi-fleshy growth that extended into a small port just above it. Furniture was placed here and there. A few wall lights kicked on as he sat up, and that tossed any attempts Salem had at getting some extra sleep out the window. A spot at the wall was overtaken by a growth, the wall light there tinted red with infestation. On that spot was the corpse of a mauled worker drone dressed in a naval officer’s uniform, her magenta-colored visor reading a FATAL ERROR message, with a smaller message that read SOFTWARE MISSING.

“Fuck… ugh…” Salem murmured as he got up, picking at his black sleep shirt. “That bastard.” He muttered as he got up. As if being reminded he was still in Shelter Six wasn’t enough to piss him off, he heard the snap- hisss of his biomechanically altered tail. Thankfully, it soon went passive and silent before he could give it a warm welcome to the day. He stumbled across the room for a minute, clutching tufts of his hair as he placed his other hand at a dresser.

“Dammit…” Salem looked up at the mirror. “What’s that asshole’s problem? I can do my job. All he does is just sit in the auditorium all day spying on us. I’m getting too damn old for this…” He grumbled with hostility as he looked at himself in the mirror, and fell silent. He looked at his face, the few fractured areas in the mirror hiding the background. And then, he sulked, a low sigh emanating from his throat.

He just looked at it for a moment, silently contemplating, his thoughts wordless. Dread reverberated through his mind; he could see it in his visor. And then, the demon looked away, unable to bear looking at that thing in front of him. That wasn’t him, that wasn’t Salem . That wasn’t what he was supposed to be.

But… who was he supposed to be, if not the thing in the mirror?

Salem snuck one look at the thing through a sensor, and found he could barely recognize himself. Those horns, especially, seemed to alienate him.

This isn’t me. That’s not me. He thought, slowly looking away as he went to get dressed. What happened to who I am? Just who the hell am I supposed to be anymore?

The contemplation made his hands ball up into shaky fists, so tightly balled that his claws dug into his rubber skin and hand padding. He looked down, and seemed to zone out as he stared at his hands.

Slowly, everything began to blur around him. The world seemed to lose focus, like a camera focusing away from the background. Even his hands grew blurry, and he felt his oil pump go into overdrive like a human heart about to explode. It was as if danger had surrounded him with a warm, acidic hug, that acid eating away at his mind and digesting it. He wrenched his head to the side, his legs suddenly unsteady. At the back of his vision, he faintly registered a heat signature, but he couldn’t even bother to process it if he wanted to. It was likely a hallucination, no doubt induced by his impending doom.

Though, right when he felt as if he would go under, he felt a pair of arms wrap around his waist, and a familiar voice let out a purr as she nuzzled just under his shoulder. Her windswept fluffy hair had faded orange strands in it, and the deep blue of her visor reflected against her lover’s sensor headband.

Salem almost jumped out of his skin when he felt her, but he soon practically melted into it, leaning back and coiling his tail around the other’s own. He actually looked behind him, and Salem was surprised to see Eve standing there.

So… I wasn’t going crazy. He thought.

“...Salem.” Eve cooed, looking up at him. Her head went as high up as a few inches below his collarbone, and she stared softly at him with an affectionate look in her visor.

“Eve…” Salem refreshed his visor, then blinked a few times. He awkwardly turned around, and embraced her with a shaky hug. “...hey…”

“You look a little lost, dear.” Eve purred, leaning her head up and pressing a gentle kiss to his chin, and the Disassembly Drone purred with affection in response. “Is something wrong?”

“Having a really weird morning, is all…” Salem responded, though he pulled her closer, a protective ‘mrrr’ rising from his throat. She chuckled in response, nuzzling his chest.

“Must be really weird if you’re like this, now.” Eve turned her visor’s display off, as if closing her eyes in a show of trust. The thought made Salem feel somewhat sickened, but he brushed it off.

“I’ll be fine…” Salem shrugged, letting go. He began to undress himself, changing into a navy blue undershirt and sliding on his color-changing camouflage pants.

“Nice view you've given me.” Eve observed with a coo. She sat herself at the edge of his bed, her snapping tail resting in her lap. The worker gave its chin a little scratch as she watched her partner.

“Let me know when you've gazed at me enough.” Salem popped his knuckle joints, then flexed his wrists for a moment. His tail curled, and it nuzzled his leg for a moment with a tired, grumbly yawn of its own.

“Now’s good.” Eve figured. While Salem stood and checked over his forearm, she nuzzled along his side, and grabbed his shoulder. She turned him around and made soft eye contact, and the murder drone maintained it for a moment.

“Mmmmm… oh, and by the way, it’s your turn to deal with the twins this afternoon.” She murmured in his ear, before leaving out the door. Salem eyed her like a hawk in silence.

I love that woman…

A few moments later, he was out. There was something he had to do before he got on with the rest of his day, something that irked him to his very core. He had plenty of things to do today, and he was not looking forward to having an annoyance stuck on his arm.

|--TRANSITION--|

Salem stared at the disgusting growth of flesh on his forearm. It was hard and thickened, having coalesced into a bracer of flesh. It wasn’t growing anymore, but that didn’t stop it from being the ugliest thing this side of the exoplanet. Salem had to get this pulsing growth off him. Its pulse seemed to quicken, like a heartbeat picking up, though he put that down to his own senses simply messing with him. This was not alive. It was a cancer that had grown on him, and it had been allowed to exist for far too long.

His hand slowly manifested a bonesaw, and he aligned his opposite forearm horizontally. He took in a breath, for this would hurt like hell .

Normally, Clove handled flesh removal. He knew how to make the perfect incisions, removing tumorous growths like they were unhappy little memories. A few painless cuts and they were gone. That witch doctor had all operated on the twenty-ish people in Shelter Six at least once, and he was known as a miracle-maker. Unfortunately for Clove, Salem trusted himself before he trusted anyone else.

Unfortunately for Salem, that meant he went to people for help less than he should have. It was a mistake he kept on making, and he didn’t see the cycle stopping anytime soon. Eve tried to fix it, and so did Wisp. They didn’t do much, since there was simply no changing Salem unless he wanted to change or he felt the need to change. He never hated them for it, though. They only had his best interests at heart.

Alright… He stared at the growth as he aligned the bonesaw. He raised it and held it firm. It’s now or never…

SLASH-Chkk…

“Fuck!” He yelled. “Motherfucker! OW!”

Salem had misjudged his cut. He’d gotten the entire growth off his upper arm, yes. But, however, he’d failed to account for the fact that the growth had a source. There was now a bleeding wound in his forearm, tainted with traces of flesh growth. The wound bled raw black oil, and when Salem looked at it, he wished he hadn’t. Mixed in with his circuitry and his titanium exoskeleton was pulsing reddish growths.

Great. Salem thought as his self-repairs started kicking in, already limping towards a nearby door decorated with a red cross symbol on the front of it. He entered with a grumbling growl of frustration. Now I have to visit Clove…

Clove’s medical bay was perhaps the cleanest place in Shelter Six, and was a decently sized chamber fit for every malady that could be, in theory, treated. Somehow, it remained clear of flesh growths, clear of dirt, and even mostly clear of oil stains. Salem suspected that the man spent hours scouring the place for the slightest hint of filth, cleaning it up with all the vengeance of a bloodthirsty janitor. Anatomy charts for worker drones and their various subtypes were spread across one wall, and a chart for common mutations related to the Absolute Solver in drones were close by. Among those subtypes were the all-too-common Disassembly Drones, as well as those infected with the Absolute Solver, Home Planet Rangers, and a few outliers like the blind, tunneling Mole Rats. It was as if the witch doctor had gone out and cataloged every oddity he could find…

…well, that was because he had done just that. How he had so much time on his hands was a mystery to even the most all-knowing of people.

To one area off to the side, there was a refrigerator, as well as some common amenities one might see in a hospital. There was a spare wheelchair here, several important pieces of medical equipment like IV drips and drone-grade defibrillators, and more that Salem didn’t feel like looking at. Five surgical operating tables were throughout the medical bay, with only one being occupied by a living person; a quite pissed off looking drone with brownish hair and a flickering sage green visor. This drone’s name was Eon, and he had a mouth as big as his intrusive thoughts. He also had a gaping gash in his arm that was wrapped tight with bandages, and his biomechanical tail seemed to be sleeping next to his leg. The rear-most operating table had a dead Ranger drone on it, its black armor pried off and its body in the middle of being dissected for parts.

As the chief and only real physician of Shelter Six, his position necessitated a heavy supply of spare parts and oil. Off to the farthest side of the room and kept the farthest away from where the patients were supposed to be as they could was Clove’s collection of spare parts. They were arranged by part, with tasty oil pumps, vocalizers, servos, hands, feet, murder drone talons and wings, and even specific sensors being given their own bucket. In the case of the larger parts like wings, they got their own bathtub-sized storage solution. Each bucket and tub was nearly filled to the brim with oil. Four whole barrels of oil were even stored on a palette in the parts area for the inevitable time when someone needed their dosage of black gold, whether it be due to an impending overheat or an oil transfusion. Because it was also the most hunger-evoking area in all of Shelter Six, it was secured with a tungsten gate and a sliding door with armored glass, the room’s temperature kept cold to ensure everything would stay fresh.

The final area was perhaps the least worthy of observation. It had an office work desk, a comfy chair, a computer and monitor system, and a trio of file cabinets. The cabinets were occupied by patient paperwork and general medical information, and just in case they got misplaced, an electronic tablet sat nearby on a shelf with a few other odd little trinkets. That tablet and the computer had every little piece of paper in those file cabinets copied onto them, with their own pictures and back-ups. Clove took his work very seriously.

Which is why the man himself looked fashionably in character, per usual. The surprisingly sane worker drone was a little on the shorter side, and people cultivated the myth that his body was warped and blistered. They would never know the truth, because Clove’s coat would never let them know for sure. The coat in question was painted black, and Salem’s vision automatically identified several materials that were cultivated from, well…

…a nice way to put it was ‘android-related resources.’ His sable black coat went down to his thighs, and was made of dyed, double-layered Disassembly Drone skin stitched together with drone hair. It was a natural choice, for the skin of a murder drone was tough and well-insulated against both physical attacks and the extreme climate of Copper Nine. The coat’s shoulders, wrists, and where it ended had rings of fur on them. The fur in question wasn’t normal fur, though, because things on Copper Nine were rarely that simple. It was made of thickly weaved drone hair that was well-insulated and dyed a gentle white. An azure-colored patch depicting the Rod of Asclepius was stitched into the upper breast of the coat, showing that he was indeed a medical professional and not just a witch looking to harvest organs. Despite that, the nickname of witch doctor stuck to him.

Clove looked up at Salem as he entered. The worker drone’s face was covered by a mask fashioned in the shape of a jawless human skull, concealing his face perfectly with the sole exception of two eye holes that were carved into it. His deep blue visor was barely visible behind the eye holes, matching the deep blue lights of his biomechanical tail as it laid in the witch doctor’s lap as he sat in his chair. His blonde hair was done somewhat haphazardly, as he was lucky enough to have it naturally short. According to the man himself, his mask was an actual human skull that he’d done a little work on to properly fit his whole face. This had… interesting implications, especially after when pressed, he’d said he’d done it while the human was still alive.

“And what brings you in here today, Salem?” Clove’s contradictory voice spoke up at the lean Disassembly Drone, only barely muffled from his skull mask. It was somehow impossibly jovial and cynical with how it came out, with all the sweetness to it of a caring mother yet all the blunt truthfulness of an apathetic soul. He was probably the happiest person in the shelter, if on the entire exoplanet. All because, according to him, playing doctor allowed his obsession with anatomy and medicine to be spent in a healthy manner. That, and he was in a relationship with a particularly pissed-off looking drone on the nearby operating table.

In response, Salem held up his bleeding forearm. He willed his self-repairs to slow down, showing glimpses of pulsing reddish growth amidst titanium and circuitry. “Tried to remove my own flesh.” He explained. “Noticed growth inside my arm.”

“Tsk tsk…” Clove shook his head. He came over, sliding out of his chair with a hum. “You’re supposed to come and see me when things like this happen.” The doctor reminded Salem with a sigh, and the Disassembly Drone barely avoided rolling his eyes.

“You’re an idiot, Salem…” Eon grumbled out at him from his operating table. He was resting on his side, letting his bandaged arm rest while the other one propped him up. The infected worker drone closed his eyes and went quiet, silently taking pride in the lack of a response he got.

“Seconded!” Clove chimed in agreement, before stepping past the two of them and standing near an unoccupied table. He gestured to it, then Salem. “Sit, please.”

Salem sat with a rough clunk on the table. He’d gone through this a few times, and had already known the procedure by heart. Without asking, he stuck his forearm out, and Clove purred with amusement.

“What’s got you in such an obedient mood?” Clove purred as he grabbed hold of the other’s wrist. He inched a hand forward, the fingertips warped into hooked, three-inch claws. Salem was quiet as Clove continued, and judging by the abrupt silence of the doctor as he examined the injury, he appeared to have a serious case on his hands.

“Mmmm…” Clove hummed, looking up at Salem. The two made eye contact, with a spiteful white visor on one end and a supernaturally calm deep blue visor on the other. “When did you cut this off?”

“A few minutes ago…” Salem murmured, slouching as his pride started to wither away. Something about this just made him feel embarrassed. He felt as if it was making him slowly deflate like a balloon.

“That’d explain the nastiness, and all the noise…” Clove sighed, seeming to look over the slowly healing wound for as long as he could. He looked up at Salem with a voice that slightly dipped into dissatisfaction. “This is going to require some advanced treatment, possibly an arm replacement. Look, this is just too advanced, too deep for something simple. I can perhaps get a fix done in…” The drone paused, calculating under his breath for a moment. “...an hour or so."

“I mean…” Salem sighed, leaning back. He clenched one of his fists, his face souring with unhappiness at the realization. Damn . “...alright. Yeah.”

“Is there some kind of complaint I’m not privy to?” Clove hummed as he asked his rhetorical question. With a merry chuckle, he wandered away from Salem towards his scrapyard of spare parts. “No? Good. I’ll set things up. Lay down.”

Salem obeyed with all the enthusiasm of a slow, stubborn old dog that didn’t even feel like walking straight. He lazily slumped, before shifting into place. The man laid on his back, sending his tail to sleep with a line of code from his software, and lounged just a little. He really didn’t like dealing with consequences.

And then, he remembered something important.

“Clove.” Salem spoke up as the worker poked into his parts area, at all the dozens of buckets and tubs. “Hey, can I ask a favor real quick?”

“Go ahead.” The infected drone responded passively, not even looking back.

“Remember the Disassembly Drone I dragged in last year?” Salem asked him, prompting the drone to stop.

Clove did a full stop, in fact, prompting a worried look on the murder drone’s face. He righted himself, spinning on one heel and facing Salem. “...the one you dragged in that was so dirty and fleshy and coated in snow that I wanted to power wash it?”

“Yeah, E. That’s the one. Ever since we brought him in, he hasn’t really improved from his current state. Plus, he could really use some maintenance.” Salem confirmed, though it didn’t make him relax. He went on, trying to choose his words carefully now. “...if you could… you know… I’ve got a laundry list of shit to do today, and I’ve gotta keep checking on him like usual. Could you… maybe bring him in at some point and…” The murder drone stopped, making a ‘hmm’ noise. “...clean him up? Just a tad.”

At this, Clove’s expression stretched into a grin under his mask, which despite not being able to be seen, was able to be discerned. Salem and Eon - the latter now eavesdropping - both could tell immediately that the doctor’s interest peaked. He took a ginger step forwards, tail beginning to swish from side to side.

“Treat a new patient?” He made a small chuckle. It prolonged into a brief cackle before he shut himself up. “I would love to!”

Ohh, that kid’s dead. Salem thought, nearly raising his unwounded arm to put its palm so hard into his face that he’d get a concussion. He stopped himself, though. He actually had things he wanted to do today, after all, and Salem would not be keen to spend more time in the medical bay than he had to.

“Why the long face?” Clove asked with a completely innocent tilt of his head. He stepped back towards the parts area, hooking a claw onto the gate bars as he moved at a pace that would make glaciers envious. “I can assure you he’s in the most capable of hands!”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.” Salem narrowed his eyes with a growl. Externally, he began to calm down. Though, internally, his suspicions only heightened. “No taking organs out unless you absolutely have to.” He warned. “I mean it. And replace the organs with something high-quality if you really feel the need to take ‘em out.”

“Yes, yes.” Clove idly waved his hand as he began sifting through parts. “I’ll ensure he’s as good as I can get him. As I said, he is in capable hands.” The doctor insisted with persistence. “Power down, I’ll wake you up when the operation is over.”

“Alright, alright…”

Salem murmured in dissatisfaction as he dimmed the regret in his mind. And then, he slowly went under into the void...