Chapter Text
Another day in hell without sun, the colonel thought as he attended his 0800 brief with central intelligence in a room that was now only known as the rift room.
Its eponymous rift pulsed a subtle red, a dark heartbeat unnaturally changing the atmosphere. The rift itself was jarring to look at, a three-dimensional crack in the air that didn’t so much close as it turned in a direction not knowable to the human mind, spearing into another world.
These were the source of the new powers that were steadily populating the world. Enter one, survive its labyrinth, make a deal with its devil, and come out changed, gifted, having sold an eternity in its grasp for power in this world.
This rift was stable, having split the seams in a glacier. The steel underfoot that made the makeshift laboratory creaked with the cyclic melting and freezing due to the warmth necessary to make the space somewhat tolerable to human life.
“How are the instrument readings today?” asked the colonel.
“Same as yesterday, sir. Holding stable.”
“Incursion?”
“Sporadic. A few inches of influence here and there. The rift itself is unchanged.”
“Any deviation in expression?”
“No, sir. Still teratoma and fleshy growths. The suppression cage remains steady.”
They popped up like vile mushrooms, linked out like suckers lining the tentacles of a cephalopod. They could be scraped away as easily as human flesh, leaving vessels and capillaries and rhizomatic structures infesting the steel and the ice below. They could be removed wholesale, excision of the cancer, and would grow back or grow elsewhere.
They had wheeled in cameras and lengthened the wires, and the distance on the other side was uneven, Escherian. A tug to the left required several feet of wire, and a tug to the right seemed to shorten the distance, somehow, leaving the wire slack. The cameras hadn’t recorded much, just darkness and several visual artefacts, and then growths had spread along the wire and cut off transmission.
The red landscape behind was beautiful, in its desolation and its cruelty. It was an abyss with ice-cold black stars, and each star had its own mountains and valleys. One could get lost forever, walking into eternity. It was a shame the cameras didn’t pick up on it.
Sending someone through was out of the question. Their understanding of the devils within was limited, with only a few official records and a handful more unofficial ones. It was always the right deal for the right person, an irresistible offer.
The harsh fluorescents flickered briefly as the whole structure groaned, shifting inside the ice as it resettled.
“Send the engineers to check out the generator,” the colonel commanded. “Routine check, and double check. Backup generator too.”
A scientist scurried out the lab, and the colonel turned to leave.
“Inform me of any changes. I’ll be back when HQ has something new for us.” he said, and ignored the perfunctory “Yes, sir” as he made his way to his office. He’d trained everyone into as much silence as possible around him - speak when spoken to.
It was early in the morning, before dawn, though they wouldn’t see that down here. The sun was something he missed, but he carefully didn’t think about it, keeping busy training his squad, working through the routines he’d learned when he joined up. It wouldn't be long before he was shuffled off, compartmentalisation and infosec.
He kept to himself and didn’t form bonds or learn names - all the scientists were just ‘scientist’. The colonel never wanted to socialise, want to get to know his victims. None of the scientists would be leaving this place. Not alive, at least. The price of working on a black-site.
Another groan of the shifting ice and a flicker of the too-bright fluorescents rocked his feet, and a sense of unease grew. How could it not, when they were in the middle of ice caves that regularly shifted and cracked and groaned under ordinary temperature variation?
His pager beeped. Emergency.
He turned efficiently on his heel and strode back to the central room.
“Sir,” the scientist said. “Generator’s been damaged. The backup generator’s still running smoothly. But the damage, it looks intentional.”
The colonel scowled.
“You, you, and you,” he ordered, pointing at three of the soldiers. “With me.”
He then stalked off, his picks falling in step as quickly as they could. The corridors were simple, arrayed in long lines and junctions and boarded up with sheets of metal where the ice was unstable. The ice underfoot was trudged through and not slippery, a small benefit.
A couple of turns later and the colonel and his impromptu squad were in the generator room, where the engineer was already busy at work.
“Report,” the colonel barked.
“The gas line’s been cut by a sharp tool. Replacing that won’t be difficult, but the induction coil’s been damaged so even if the line is replaced the output will be severely impacted.”
The colonel stalked closer, and the engineer moved aside. The colonel squatted, placing his hand on the engineer’s shoulder for support, and looked inside the generator. The induction coil had been gouged and bent.
The lights flickered again, and the backup generator gave a sputter. The colonel tensed. One of the soldiers had moved to inspect the generator. Then the fluorescents gave up the ghost, plunging the lab into darkness.
“Shit,” he heard, and he fumbled for his flashlight. He clicked it on, just as several gunshots went off.
He hated the dark and would trade anything to be out in the sun. Soon. Sooner, maybe, if he managed this shitshow.
“Stand down!” he barked, already drawing his pistol. He shoved the engineer down, ignoring his grasping hands and muffled shouts.
“Target’s been neutralised, sir.”
He swung the flashlight around, landing on another of his squad, hands in the air. “Explain.”
“He clearly sabotaged the generator, sir. A spy.”
The colonel aimed his gun. “Existence of this site is highly classified. A spy or saboteur here is ridiculous. You, secure him, take him to the brig. I’ll head back to central and figure out something with backup from the others.”
“But sir-”
“No. You’ve done enough. Keep hold of your tongue or I’ll execute you on the spot for treason and for endangerment.” The colonel ignored his pager beeping to stare down the soldier.
Under his trained light, the last of his squad quickly stripped and restrained as the engineer cracked open some flares. Their off-putting red light mimicked the unholy rift, was just off enough from the beautiful crystalline void that it appeared blasphemy.
The two soldiers left and the colonel checked his pager. Emergency. Again. With both generators down, the suppression field was rapidly failing and the influence from the rift would only escalate.
He walked over to the broken generator and gestured for the engineer. He ignored the cooling body under him, kicking a leg aside with his foot.
“Any ideas?”
The engineer peered into the generator. “This one’s worse than the other.”
“So it can’t be repaired?”
“Not with what we’ve got, no. We’ll have to go up and radio for HQ, if we can.”
“Good,” the colonel said, and shared a grin with his second body as it melted. How wonderful, to have himself as a friend.
Being stuck here was torture; no sun, no sound, no love. Only the ice and pressure and darkness. Besides, the rift would be closing soon, now that the devil inside would be getting what it wanted.
The echoed rapport of gunshots meant his devil was fulfilling its end of the deal, the extra bonus he’d wrangled for promising it access to hundreds of bodies it could play with, study, imitate.
He strode out and down the hallways, a casual and even stride despite the sounds of carnage and screaming.
From the rift were tentacles, long and slithering things that were grabbing, throwing, squeezing - one of the first victims seemed to have flesh peeled off him in long strips from the suckers on the writhing limbs. They were pale and spotted, changing colours, hypnotic rings glowing and winking.
Now that was beauty.
A click behind him made him stop, and he turned around. It was the soldier he’d sent to secure his third body, a useful diversion that had probably dissolved at the same time he’d dissolved his false engineer.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” the soldier asked, trembling.
The colonel chuckled. “No. Just a useful face.” He schooled his expression as he watched an eye-lined pale snake slither across the floor.
“I should kill you,” the soldier spat, and thrust out his gun in a threat display. “You’re a disgrace to Russia.”
“Russia disgraces itself when it murders us all,” the colonel said, and let his skin melt back into the unassuming face he’d worn for all his life as a scientist until he’d become Faust. “They would never set us free - dangerous information. All I want is to leave this place.”
He gestured, and the lazy tentacle above struck down like a spear, shearing through the soldier’s arm and then wriggling its way inside the wound. The soldier hadn’t had a chance to scream. Once the tentacle extracted, the soldier’s arm grew back, a spiraling regeneration that left flesh and blood splattered everywhere.
“Come along, then,” the Siberian said to himself, in his second body.
They walked to the shaft, hand in hand, rode the rickety elevator, strode across metal.
The white was painful compared to the cool blue below, and the bitter ice here was worse, but the light dazzled off each ridge and crest of frost and snow, and his bodies basked in the warmth.
“Here comes the sun,” he sang.