Chapter Text
It had rained the night before Rhinestone arrived at the facility. And due to that, the trees and dirt placed at the entrance were now damp with water, moisture making the ground muddy and the tree leaves dripping with droplets from the sky. An average workplace would have advised their workers that heavy rain was upon them, and that they should be cautious when outside until it blows over. But, that morning, when Rhinestone walked under the roof near the courtyard, he could see guards of the east sector hauling a truck full of supplies. It didn’t matter how hard the rain hit you, or how uncomfortable the ground may be- you’re putting on your vest, and you’re taking those supplies to the other side of the building.
He had already been registered into the system at the front desk, been given his authorized Reader and other trinkets, but he was also given a new set of paperwork. Usually, he would be the one to do the documenting on it so that it could be turned in by tomorrow. But, when his eyes grazed over the font on the thin sheet, he realized something: he would be the one who would have to give in the paperwork to be documented. On the second paragraph of the short essay, he read in bolded font that he would be the one to interview 003 by four in the afternoon. No message that was sent in advance, no Email to tell him that he may need to say some prayers before clocking in the next day. Just the pure, blunt truth. Written in facts.
Rhinestone had worked in the syndicate for only a few years now. Afton doesn't even work at the facility, and he’s been there longer than Rhinestone has.
Most of the information about the rabbit is confidential to the brim, to no one’s surprise. G.E.M.S only gives out the known facts: they own him. And that he’s a subject, but the Major goes on weekly walks with the guy around the courtyard talking about the horrors of the afterlife. It’s hard to pinpoint what his exact position is, when it comes to his class, but they still test on him from time to time. And from time to time, there’s a dead interviewer in his room who may have run his mouth too much. And G.E.M.S covers it up, as they always do. Maybe give him some more grueling tests to go through. He gets away with it, but it affects in the long-term. Strange thing.
Also, Rhinestone didn’t want there to be 2 corpses in the room by the time the interview was done.
He walked out of his scuffled office and out into the courtyard below him. As expected, it was still raining, soft pats and pitters echoing from the tin roof above the hall. But this time, it had seemed to slow down by the slightest notch, leaving only but a heavy drizzle in the air. It was tolerable now, yes, but that didn’t mean it was any better.
Like what was mentioned earlier, the soldiers here never stopped working until their shift was over. There they were again, trudging large carriers back and up, left and right until there was somewhere they could put them. And if they weren’t acting as mindless ants here, then there were actual units working inside, nose buried in whatever project they might have then. They all weren’t that different, he thought. Just in certain positions.
—--
Rhinestone never considered what there was after death. Despite his involvement in the syndicate, he was only there for a job and pay, not some answer to a question he didn’t even want.
But here he was. He was standing within a dark, small chamber he could barely see out of. His regular uniform had been replaced with something much heavier than a standard button-up, merely for safety reasons that even he understood. On the other side of the metal door in front of him was either barely enough writings to count as a record, or another body to be buried in that landfill they call a cemetery.
He gripped the handheld Remnant Reader at his side. Then, while letting out a final sigh, allowed his feet to carry himself into the room. The lights inside then flickered on to a dim, hazy yellow, casting shadows onto objects onto the room he was glad were there.
-
There isn’t much to go off of, when describing that room. Interrogation was designed to be anything but comfortable, and G.E.M.S was sure to make that statement reflect on the small room they owned. And so, with that and mind, there were only a few things in there: a hotline booth on the wall, a security camera in the corner of the room, a simple wooden desk that had dust closing in on it due to age, and an olive-green rabbit sitting across from where Rhinestone was going to sit. Dear god, it smelled horrible.
Afton was anything but a sight for sore eyes, and that was known. The suit he resided in had rotted in whatever basement he crawled out of, and got even worse throughout his time in the facility. That thick metal collar he always wore always covered up the worst of it, it seemed. Even then, nothing could cover up what death had already clamped his jaws upon.
The only thing left remotely human was the G.E.M.S glove that somehow fit on his right hand.
Rhinestone was silent for a long moment. He then tilted his head up, noticing the soulless eye on him that seemed to be studying his slightest movement. “Did you know I was coming? Or is this a surprise to you?’ He asked out in his slightly filtered voice, not sitting down just yet.
The corpse let out a gravelly laugh, his shoulders shaking with each breath, rasping out his first words that evening, “I knew someone was coming. I recognize people by their footsteps alone. Now,” He spoke while getting into a more relaxed posture on the chair, “people wear certain gear. Gear comes with certain footwear. Certain footwear leads to certain noises coming from it.” He made a gesture of walking with his two fingers across the table. “Once you memorize those, you know anyone coming in. Guards, Officers, Soldiers.” He looked up to show Rhinestone his noticeable toothy grin. “Even your own boss. But I already knew those the first weeks.”
Rhinestone shuddered at the last few words, finally setting his gear down on the table along with his body. “You’re disgusting.” The man said simply, as if it was able to cover up a fraction of what that thing had done. Afton did nothing but let out a chuckle, watching as the agent scrambled to gather his things.
The man finally gripped the form he was given this morning, settling down in his stiff chair and reading off of the font on the sheet, “Alright, let’s just get this over with, shall we?” He waited for no reply. “This would be your..86th interview, it says here. So by all means, do please try to be cooperative this time around.”
A long silence filled the air before he spoke again. He noted to himself that if he survived this, he would go bring it up to Topaz for him to never proceed with one of these again. He was terrible with people already- no wonder he was such a mess in front of something that wasn’t even alive anymore.
Rhinestone flicked on his Reader, setting it to the side of the wood as it slightly beeped in admission.
“Now, to start off with the basics. How are you feeling today? I heard that your leg joints are being refurbished in a few days.”
Afton’s gaze dropped to the Reader, then back to Rhinestone.
“Stable. Nothing too exciting. And I’m getting them redone by Saturday.”
The man nodded, jotting a few sentences on the form in front of him while checking back up on the rabbit a few seconds or less.
They always seemed to make a move right as they were recording it, Rhinestone noticed back when he was scanning over casualty reports. One poor fellow was about to go home that day when he bent his head a little too low while interviewing (more like observing) the nightmares. He had his head bitten clean off right before he could jot down the final word, and it wasn’t until 30 minutes later when the guards outside finally smelled something (the cameras had been rebooting during that hour. But as was mentioned in the beginning of this story, it doesn’t matter what kind of conditions you’re working in, you have to do your job. Even if that means being buried by the end of it).
“Have you had any changes in your behavior or mindset? Anything that we should know about?” Rhinestone adjusted his grip on his pen, tapping it against the flaky wood of the table.
“No.” The rabbit said bluntly, causing the man to become slightly disappointed by the build-up.
“Anything you’ve noticed throughout our grounds that we may need to check?”
The mortician pondered the question for a moment before speaking out in a gruff voice, “A fence by the lake is broken.”
Of course. Rhinestone flipped the first page over to its back, making no comment about the last question. He then pulled out another form from his supply bag, looking back up.
“How long do you think you’ve been here? I don’t assume you keep much track of time here when it doesn’t matter.” Rhinestone added the last sentence as a statement for himself. He knew the subject had his own clock in the cell he resided in, but that would have to be his only real sense of time when it came to being by himself.
The rabbit cocked his head to the side, his eyes rolling to the left before he maintained eye contact again. “About..more than ten years. Maybe longer than fifteen.” He diverted his attention to his “good” hand, checking the fabric pieces and joints there as if they weren’t any less important than the cameras on him.
Rhinestone nodded, writing down a few notes before turning his attention back to the subject before him. “Which joints have been most hard to navigate with? Are some more tolerable than others?”
“My hands work just fine,” Afton huffed as he looked down to his withering limbs, “it’s just mainly my legs, I suppose.” He slightly moved his left thigh while saying this, the metal stiffly scraping across the wood with a not-so-loud noise that echoed out. “You would have thought that they would have done something to nurse it by now, knowing them to me.”
Well, maybe G.E.M.S has much more important things to do than fixing something that’s always going to be broken, The man wished to say to retort back to the thing. He then remembered that he was quite fond of having an attached head, so he settled for just a silent narrow of eyes behind the mask.
The Reader had not gone off once during their session. Either there was something wrong with it that caused it to malfunction, or Afton had a revelation that morning that maybe, just maybe, being mutually respective during encounters could benefit him. Either way, Rhinestone was glad this was quick to be dealt with.
“Now, for a final. Have you been made aware of the new situation happening with the other subjects for the time being?”
A few days ago, Officer Garnet had announced that regular interviews may be interrupted by two things: outages that would happen once and a while, or subjects being brought in earlier than usual schedule. So far, there had only been a few instances of minor power cuts throughout certain parts of the facility, but Rhinestone had heard from coworkers gossip that they’ve had to stop mid-way throughout many tests because there had been a slight mishap in the room before them. Overtime work for them, and paperwork Rhinestone shouldn’t have to deal with at such an amount.
“Well, you wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t, would you?”
The man furrowed his brows at the man, then looked back to his paper. And just like that, it was over. It seemed too simple to be true, but it was right in front of him. The Reader had been untouched throughout the entire session. The hotline had not sent some sort of call to the people above. And above all, Afton seemed more mellow than he usually was for that time and place. There had to be something off. There always is.
But even as he looked in Afton’s dull and white eyes, he saw nothing. No trace of enjoyment in the process, which he expected before, but also no sense of any interest with the man at all. He was thankful for that, don’t get him wrong. It’s just like seeing a clean room in a daycare, or a bodiless battlefield in the aftermath of a war. There was nothing he could do about such a good yet unnatural thing.
And so with that, he securely stuffed his recordings inside a folder he brought with him, turned off the beepings of the handheld reader, and packed up any other things he was going to fit inside his barely-fitting bag. As he forced his legs to move back up into a standing position, he gave one final look at the rabbit.
Again, there was something he couldn’t just place about it. Something so uncanny, it bled into reality so perfectly it was normal. Then again, this was a rotting corpse inside a rabbit suit. Everything about the situation seemed uncanny. So why was he so afraid?
One click of an automatic door swinging open and a familiar light shining in his face was all it took to snap back into reality as the door shut behind him.