Chapter Text
Snow shaking off her boots turns to dust as Tessa crosses the doorway’s threshold into the abandoned warehouse; Greenwyre. JCJensons number one rival. How ironic. The thick door slams closed, making her flinch. The heavy wind leaves the helmet’s audio receptors leading to stiff silence, only being able to hear the light thrumming of it against the walls. Darker-so than the rushing night outside, the headlamp’s beam becomes a fully cylindrical object. She has to say, it’s pretty creepy doing this without a drone assistant.
Tessa adjusts her hat. One breath in, and another out.
Thumbing the gadget in her palm, a pager. She just can’t tear her eyes away from it. Its yellow light blinks in sync with its beeping. In the top right of the screen is the command, [CALLBACK_PING]. It gets slightly faster in tempo when she enters the warehouse, seems like what she’s looking for is in here.
This mission was a simple equipment recall. At least one commissioned by Tessa herself. Of course, she was sent to Copper-9 to recover and investigate anything regarding the life-ending incident from the labs but that’s not to say she didn’t have any other, ulterior motives when signing up for this job. When Serial Designation J had been wiped from the ping system, it gave Tessa questions. But days later, J was labelled [UNABLE TO RECOVER] and no CPU was ever transferred to the cloning line. The situation was at the very least strange and at the very most suspicious. Either way, Tessa was going to retrieve or at least get closure to J’s disappearance.
Against the dusty floor, her steps were the only noise to echo through the building. Speaking of dust; judging by the clouds illuminated in her headlamp, if she hadn’t had an air filter, she’d be hacking and sneezing right now. Well, she’d be hacking and sneezing regardless because of the toxic air quality but still, the point stands.
Her helmet swashes from left to right, giving the rows of crates and shelves a quick look over with the spotlight. She supposes she’ll comb down each one. There’s about six to go through.
Starting at the leftmost row, she’ll be going left to right. Being at the entrance of the building was one thing but going down these aisles was another. Trapped was the word; one path, one entrance, one exit and oh so little place to hide amongst the densely packed shelves. Whatever could be just beyond the range of her light, just out of sight. The darkness enveloped her back, placing an uncomfortable shiver on her spine. The silence was deafening. So quiet you could hear your clothes folding everytime you moved. It made her feel truly alone… or maybe not…
“Siri, play my ‘Yass Queen Get Em’ playlist,”
One of the best parts of working on a mission alone, she got to pick the playlist!
The calming sounds of Beyonce soon fill her ears. It distracted her from the aura of this place. At least for now. Right, where were we. Her light bobs as she walks down the rows, popping her step slightly to the beat. The beat echoes slightly off the headset.
At the end of the first row and other side of the warehouse, it’s even worse back there. Things strewn about and even an entire section of shelves were knocked over. Fully collapsed into an unrecognizable pile of merchandise. A weighted dent over the flooring that wasn’t utterly covered in garbage. Worst part was it made Tessa have to go back to get access to the second row. Going back felt far worse. Knowing there’s no escape behind you, much less having to repeat that again in the second row. Tessa wasn’t going to give up on J but she considered just going back to her ship. Just for a little break. This place just… gave her a horrible feeling.
Speaking of… She’d call out for J if she wasn’t so engrossed in ‘Crazy in Love’. And also if she didn’t have that subconscious thought that some imaginary monster would come out and eat her or something.
At the end of the second row, long, two-inch deep lacerations were carved parallel and equal of each other into the floor. Pieces of endo-mechanical components surround them. Tessa picks one up, pinching the tip of it as she lifted it to her eyes; her thumb swashes over the JCJenson copyright. Dropping the part, she checks the pager, not getting any closer.
Next row, still nothing on the pager. And the row after that, still no change.
Looking from side to side and back down at the gadget, tapping it, “Hmm,”
The callback doesn’t seem to be getting any stronger, remaining at the same ping. Maybe it went up or down a number but other than that, no change. There’s no way J’s body is the entire warehouse. She tries selecting the Home button and entering back into the Callback function. The pixels load down aaannnd… nothing. Turn off and back on again?
…
Still nothing.
A finger presses the side of the helmet, turning the music off. Console command… code code code, blah blah blah… it's normal.
Two hands press the sides and pop open the plastic case. Examining the rudimentary circuitry and board inside, nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. Not even dirty. The case closes.
A curled finger goes to the underside of her helmet as she’s lost in thought. She even paces a bit, considering what the issue could be. Maybe the thing’s broken? She’s a technician for God’s sake, how is she having such a difficult time with a pager of all things.
Aha, a gloved hand hits her helmet, “Duuh!”
Maybe she’s not getting any closer because J is underneath or above her. Maybe it doesn’t explain the stagnant number totally but it’s the most reasonable answer. From the looks of the outside and inside, the warehouse seems to be one-story. The music comes back on. Now, where is that basement? White boots thump in a stroll around the edge of the building. That’s when she stumbles upon a reassuring sight.
She smiles, popping a hand on hip. Worker drone bodies, ripped to shreds and disemboweled, lazily stacked in a pile, as if thrown away when they were done with. A disassembly drone must’ve been here, maybe one Tessa was looking for.
BANG!
Tessa jumps, turning towards the noise with a hand panickedly reaching for the holster. From the darkness rolls a now dented steel canister, scratchily stopping just at her feet. She places a hand to her chest, slouching and letting the other fall off the gun’s grip.
“Jeez…”
…
… a little breather.
Her breath was still a little heavy, “ ‘Right, the basement.”
Walking around and around and around and she’s sure she’s purveyed this place at least three times. Maybe the entrance to the basement was in those last two rows she didn’t check, as weird as it would be. It was worth a shot.
The adrenaline from the scare really put a pip in her step, a pip of
‘I really don’t want to be here anymore.’
Quickly walking, turning occasional glances as she speeds through each: One row, two row, third row…
Arms fall at her sides, “Bloody hell,” in frustration, “Where are you J?!”
It was a little louder than she meant it to be. She groans, bringing the pager back up to the visor,
“What’s wrong with you?-”
Plink.
She nearly jumped out of her spacesuit… again…
Her stance recovered faster this time as she loosely crouched down to look at the object. A screw. A 1 1/4" #10 hex, zinc, plated, steel, self-tapping tek screw with a washer head. Her fingers almost graze it.
From above, several intentional fleeting taps rang through the warehouse.
- . … ... .-
Through every sensitive little vertebrae, a single vibrating shiver fully runs its course up her spine, exiting through her mouth. The other palm shakily finds the hilt of the revolver, steadying once fully gripped. The beam of illumination shook, plastic jiggling against plastic as she forced herself to stand and slowly look. Slowly, look up.
The circle of light found itself over a segmented metal tube. Ah, a ventilation tube, rough wind and damage them and send unintended objects through, what a relief-
Wait…
Is it…
Moving..?
Undulating forward, with segments following it. The iconic yellow-black warning pattern highlighted the bottom of the segments as well as the short, spindled legs and long spindled limbs. Slick, black, ropy appendages flicked and squirmed off of and through the breaks in plating of it. Slipping in and out.
Tessa’s eyes widened, her form standing in horrible, paralyzed awe. That tube wasn’t the only thing moving, other presupposed parts of the infrastructure were moving with it. Against it. In tandem with it. That assumed silence suddenly faded as Tessa’s ears were now perfectly enlightened to the sounds of metal appendages gripping and moving against the walls and ceiling.
Taps, in rapid succession.
- . … ... .-
And before she knew it, in her peripheral vision, the light of the pager wasn’t the only thing blinking yellow.