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"Chairman Hades! The classical composers!"
The secretary stumbles into the head office of Aperture Content Corp., the stack of papers in his arms fluttering to the floor in a twisted kind of snowfall. His eyes, bulging like a deer in headlights, take several moments to return to normal; but his voice doesn't recover after that strained shout. The secretary clambers to his feet before Hades and whispers, just barely audible:
"They’re escaping."
"What?" Hades goes bolt upright in her lounge chair, the glass of soda in her hand smacked forcefully onto the table. "It's impossible! It's never happened before in the entire history of Aperture! And they were resurrected yesterday!" Her voice lowers to a hiss, "I swear to fucking god, if you are lying to me..."
"I swear I'm not!" The secretary squeaks.
"Don't! Interrupt! Me!"
Warning: Resurrection Subject 03-01C (Frederic Chopin) has breached containment. Area lockdown protocol initiated.
The room falls into fragile, shuddering silence, broken only by Hades' breathing.
"Leave."
The secretary grabs the papers and scrams, leaving Hades alone within the four meticulously-furnished walls of her office. She taps away at a hidden keypad, the bookshelf sliding aside to reveal a tight, cylindrical room packed with buttons.
Teleportation location set: Chamber 03-01C, Trolley Problem Room. Teleporting in 3...2...1...
Before the white dust in front of Hades has a chance to settle—hold up, is that snow?—the silhouette of a train's shambles comes into sight, its front cleanly disintegrated into a thousand metal scraps. Then she notices the lever has snapped off and lies useless, cushioned on a layer of white glimmering ice. Should one ignore the wreckage—and the gaping hole at the back, the room would resemble a winter wonderland, snow crusting the room from floor to ceiling, crunching under Hades' footsteps.
At the gaping hole leading to Subject 10-22L (Franz Liszt)'s chamber, a thin but nevertheless imposing figure leans casually on the jagged rim, brushing the snow off his bright red uniform—Subject 03-01C (henceforth called Chopin), by the looks of it.
"Took you long enough." His voice is strained, but cold and taunting. No one gets to talk to me like that, Hades grumbles angrily, pulling out her pocket laser gun. One shot and he would vapourise.
"I warn you, 03-01C, you are to reverse your damage immediately and return to your stasis, otherwise I will not hesitate to fire. No one will hear you scream."
Chopin casts an amused look, like a scientist at their guinea pig, wordless. On a keyboard materialising before him, his left fingers begin dancing away in a rapid whirlwind, while the other hand plays chords as if keeping time. With each chord that is played, Hades feels the icicles on the train's wreckage grow larger, her skin turning numb as invisible hands close in on her throat.
"You can't do that!" Hades thrashes free of the winter wind, firing a stray laser shot that misses Chopin. While she is distracted, she clambers into the connected chamber (thankfully only a quarantine room) to check for collateral damage. "I'll deal with it," she mumbles, careful to avoid Chopin's line of sight, "it's only one person."
Peering through a camera into chamber 10-22L, Liszt is tied to a set of golden tracks, a lever within his reach. Across is 5 people tied to the tracks and wailing in fear—nothing wrong with the setup, Hades sighs in relief. She savours for a moment the helplessness in Liszt's eyes, the limp hand reaching for the lever, the whoosh of the train; but the moment passes—she has other things to do, and she can always come back tomorrow. When she begins whispering into her interface for the turrets—
A chord, low like the awakening of an eldritch beast, rattles the concrete walls of the facility. Hades checks the camera just in time to watch the train screech to a halt, then topple over harmlessly in the face of Liszt's materialised keyboard. Lights and turrets come plummeting from the ceiling, crashing noisily on railings, shrapnel raining, scattered haphazard; one of them bonks Hades in her head before bouncing to the floor. "10-22—" she begins, but there it is again: A second chord cracks the concrete partitions of nearby subject chambers, holes forming everywhere; frantically, Hades ducks under a desk, forcing herself to breathe slowly. "When this is all over," she mutters, her breath thin, "I am sending all of you to the basement!"
"I admit, this is much better than freezing the walls off," Chopin exclaims as Liszt strides into the room, both unscathed but for a few scrapes from the concrete. Meanwhile, Mozart and Bach, the subjects close by, approach the duo, the former rubbing his hands in jubilation while the latter eyes his surroundings cautiously. "The chairman is over there, if you want to deal with her."
"I am not to be treated like a test subject!" A big bruise on one eye, Hades stands up in anger, almost tripping on a chunk of concrete. She whips out her laser at the four composers: "If any one of you dares to move one bit, all of you are getting incinerated!" A long silence falls; Chopin places one hand behind his back, gearing up for another bout of winter wind.
"What does this do?" Mozart's frivolous laugh turns everyone's heads, followed by a loud slap, and a buzzer sound emanating throughout the facility. Every door to every chamber is opened in unison, unleashing a cacophony from animal sounds to clicks and clanks to human cheers. All of a sudden, Hades realises she is surrounded, composers from all eras forming a tight wall around her.
"You...you're not supposed to be able to do that! The button only works if I'm the one pressing it!" Before she realises, Hades' eyes are bulging like a deer in headlights. Her back presses against the wall, her shaking arms outstretched.
"That's just a nifty little trick of my own," Mozart smirks. "Would you like to know how it feels?" He cocks his head to the side playfully.
"...No! I'm just trying to run a business here, and all of you come here and decide to ruin my day!" Hades meant to sound menacing, but instead her words emerge a teary choke; enraged at this humiliation, she spams away at the trigger of her laser gun. A loss of valuable content, yes, but what kind of content could ever justify this destruction? “Hope you had a good day on earth!”
“No, I think I’ll live.”
Bach, previously lurking in the shadows, snaps his fingers. Instantly time turns bachwards, the laser pulses retracting into Hades’ gun. The clicks are empty—Bach stills the pulses before they leave the gun—but she keeps on pressing, hoping, praying that this wayward clump of subjects wouldn’t be the end of her. “Why are you able to do this? Why do you do this?” she flusters.
“Your first mistake was founding your enterprise upon others’ distress,” Bach surmises. “Your second was neglecting the side effects of resurrection.” He turns to leave. “Would anyone please restrain this woman while help is requested?”
“Oh yes,” Mozart’s snicker morphs into a guffaw. Unlike earlier it is sharp, implacable, like a puppeteer jerking Hades’ limbs this way and that until Chopin freezes her in place. “I believe you have a delightful time ahead.” Hades struggles to move her lips, but to no avail; she has, in more than one way, become a human icicle.
Mozart, skipping towards the exit of the Resurrection Wing (and by extension towards the facility exit), makes small talk with Bach, while Chopin watches them silently in curiosity. Liszt, on the other hand, approaches the helpless Hades, a soft smile on his face.
“I must say, you are an alluring woman. Had you and I met in a different world, I would have thought twice to break your heart, especially in this way. … But I will not show mercy. I think I’ve broken hearts enough to stop hesitating on the trigger. Oh, and one more thing.”
In one fluid motion, Liszt swipes the laser gun out of Hades’ hands. Her eyes widen, but she is powerless.
“Maybe don’t keep such a tasty-looking gadget on you all the time.”