[REND] B2. 7.3 - Slippery Sisterly Sightings

I sidled past Myra and entered the doorway to check the Adumbrae-shoo-away machine. I mentally sighed in relief to find it squished against the wall. The Adumbrae must’ve been huge, squeezing itself in this small tunnel.

“The Adumbrae destroyed the machine,” I said, pointing at it.

“How is that possible?” Deen asked. “Did the machine fail to keep it away? Maybe we misunderstood how it works. Did you do something to the machine earlier?”

“What? I just walked past—wah!”

Myra shoved me aside as she charged into the dark tunnel. Deen and I looked at each other before chasing after her. Deen kept the flashlight pointed forward to light Myra’s way. We reached the end of the tunnel and found another crumpled steel door knocked off its hinges. The guard that Myra had killed got trampled into paste by the Adumbrae that had passed by.

We gathered around the pancaked corpse. Deen focused on the footprint that caved in its chest. It was twice bigger than a human foot.

“Let me have that.” Myra grabbed the flashlight from Deen and shone it around the tunnel walls. “Keep an eye out for markings, clawed furrows, and such.”

“You mean signs of your sister’s power?” I asked. “How would we know if the Adumbrae just regularly grabbed something or used a projection power?”

“I don’t know!” Myra yelled. “Just be on the lookout, okay?”

And we were off, retracing our way to the surface.

“I have a theory of what’s going on,” Deen said. “The PCM partitioned the tunnels into sections using the short pillars. I’m not sure how they work, but I’m more than certain they kept the Adumbrae in separate parts of the tunnels while also preventing them from going up. Something happened to the machine back there. We must’ve hit it when we opened the door.”

“I didn’t do anything to it!” I said in a frantic voice. I was pretending to be afraid of getting blamed for an escaped monster. “I didn’t even touch that thing. The Adumbrae must’ve done something to—”

“I’m not blaming you,” Deen said. “We can’t know for sure what happened to the machine.”

“I opened that freaking door,” Myra said. “If I accidentally socked that stupid machine, then fucking good. But we wouldn’t have known there was another Adumbrae down there if it hadn’t gotten damaged. It worked out for the best, if you ask me.”

“It’s not for the best,” Deen said. I rolled my eyes, expecting this response from her. She continued, “The Adumbrae must’ve killed the people above. Normal humans.”

“Their fault that they were stupid enough to keep a monster as a pet,” Myra snapped. “I know what you’re going to say next—most PCM members don’t know about the Adumbrae, yada, yada, yada. You’re right about that. But it’s still not our fault that this other Adumbrae is killing the miserable bastards up there.”

We reached the part with sparse working light bulbs lining the ceiling. There were marks on the walls of something big passing by, but nothing that we could definitely say was Kelsey’s power. Myra mumbled swear words under her breath. She must be desperate to find Kelsey, but also didn’t want this Adumbrae to be Kelsey. It must be an utter mess in Myra’s head right now. Just full of contradictions. Her hopes to find her sister still somewhat human-looking were slowly getting crushed.

We continued to the well-lit areas, not slowing down. Deen assured us that her Guardian Angel remained silent. It must mean that there was no problem about getting spotted because everyone who could spot us was dead.

“Dead people up ahead,” Myra said. The metallic smell of blood and the earthy stench of shredded innards permeated the tunnel.

There was a huge patch of red outside the massive cavern with ongoing construction. The workers were very much dead. Given we couldn’t hear anything, and there was no warning from the Guardian Angel, it was safe to say that the Adumbrae had moved upstairs. I noted the darkening film on top of the blood pool as we came closer. The carnage had ended for some time now.

Myra didn’t hesitate to rush inside the vault, blood splashing around her as she ran. She must’ve been eager to find any evidence whether this Adumbrae was Kelsey or not.

I slowed down because I was supposed to be grossed out by yucky stuff. Deen held my arm as we circled the bloody part of the floor littered with shredded body parts. She left me several feet away from the wide red puddle.

“Stay here,” Deen said. “I’ll check Myra to make sure she doesn’t do anything reckless. Don’t look at the bodies, so you won’t vomit. Breathe through your mouth if it helps lessen the smell.”

“Leaving me like a child,” I muttered while watching Deen tiptoe around the body parts to follow Myra.

I scooted to the side to see what happened inside the massive vault. Most of the ongoing constructions had been flattened, wood panels turned into matchsticks, as if a cyclone had passed through. Blood spread everywhere. Might be around a dozen men violently killed. I returned to my spot in case Deen looked back at me.

Without a doubt, it was my fault that an Adumbrae had gotten loose. ‘Fault’ might not be the correct term. I helped a fellow Adumbrae escape—that counted as a good deed, didn’t it? But yes, I was the cause.

How many other Adumbrae did the PCM keep under the city? Were they real Adumbrae, in contrast to those made by the 2Ms? Must be quite difficult to find naturally seeded people without the BID getting to them first.

Wait a minute…

An Adumbrae is loose in Marsh Row. It sank in just now. My gangster minions might be in danger. I didn’t specifically care for them, but I cared that they were alive for me to use. I didn’t want my criminal empire to be depopulated before I could take the throne.

Worse, this might draw the attention of the BID. If the BID investigated the gangs, that might lead them to me. I should kill this Adumbrae soon. And maybe, if I could find the opportunity, I could eat its brain and see how it’d affect me.

For the fake Adumbrae made by the 2Ms, the brains of mutants, products of their failed experiments, helped hold back their transformation. Well, the mutants were failures before. Now, the 2Ms seemed to be mass-producing the mutants on Red Island and shipping them to the mainland for their rich clientele to fight in arenas before the brains were harvested.

In my case, an Adumbrae-Corebring hybrid weirdo, what would the effect of eating an Adumbrae brain be?

“I need to find the Adumbrae,” I muttered to myself, “before Myra does.”

After a couple of minutes, Myra and Deen trooped out of the circular door.

“I’m telling you,” Myra said in a rising tone, “my sister did that!”

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Deen said. She pointed at me. “Remember what Eri—what Croissant had said? How can you be sure it was a projected grab and not a normal one?”

“You saw the squished guy at the corner,” Myra said. “That was a good twenty feet from the nearest blood stain on the floor. The Adumbrae had to be covered in blood, which meant that it didn’t go near the—”

“It could have a different sort of long-ranged attack,” Deen interjected. “Don’t forget that the Adumbrae we had fought stretched its limbs and—”

“This is different,” Myra cut in. “That guy was squeezed. You saw the pinched body! I’m a hundred percent certain it couldn’t be anything else.”

I trailed after them as they argued. I wondered how to find the loose, mindless Adumbrae. Should I contact Overdrive and call the gangs for help? Should save me a lot of time. But I’d need to leave Deen and find Overdrive; that’d take a lot of time. Then again, if I could alert Overdrive about the Adumbrae, it was better that all the gangs evacuated rather than help me look.

Perhaps the best choice, which wasn’t a very good one, was to suggest that the Three Bs split up to cover more ground. I’d just have to gamble that I was better at searching than Myra.

“Kelsey! Kelsey!” Myra shouted as we clanged up the stairwell with loud footsteps.

“Don’t yell her name,” Deen hissed. “Someone might hear you.”

“All the PCM assholes in this place are dead,” Myra said. “And I want my sister to hear me.”

“If this is really her,” I started to say, getting convinced by Myra’s belief, “then… this would explain why she had gone missing. She could’ve been in contact with the PCM for some time before the train attack.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too,” said Myra. “I’m sure Kelsey was searching for ways to become human again. She connected with the PCM somehow, given that they have this bullshit experiment going. She must’ve volunteered to be a test subject. Oh, fucking Mother Core! Once I found out what that crazy scientist did to my sister, I’ll squeeze her head like a watermelon!”

Watermelons aren’t squeezed, I snidely thought in my head. Kind of a weird simile that didn’t work.

“Let’s say that this Adumbrae is your sister,” Deen said. “It’s very likely that we can’t communicate with her.”

“I’ll get through to her,” Myra said. “Kelsey will remember me.”

“Isn’t it too risky?” I asked, ever the timid B. Though I had a badass side if the situation called for it. “If the Adumbrae had taken over her mind—”

“You can help me,” Myra blurted.

“Wha-what are you talking about?”

“Turn into that puppet-looking body. You can link with people’s minds, right? Use your power on—”

“No!” Deen exclaimed. “Linking with an Adumbrae’s mind? What if Croissant gets seeded as well?”

Too late for that, Deen, I thought with a giggle. But Myra did make a good point. Her idea had a chance of working.

“Nah, that’s not going to happen,” Myra said. “We have Cores inside of us.”

“Will it stop seeding?” Deen asked.

“Dario seemed to think so,” replied Myra. “That’s why he’s cool with Kelsey. They’re artificial Cores, but they should count for something. Corebrings don’t become Adumbrae.”

“Um, I’m willing to try,” I said. “Since the Adumbrae with illusions couldn’t affect me, maybe that form is immune to mind stuff. I really want to help Kelsey.”   

“Thanks, really,” Myra said. “I won’t force you to do it.”

“The risk is too great,” Deen said.

“I-I’ll decide after we find Kelsey,” I said. “I’d rather not think about it now.” Actually, I was warming up to the idea.

What if I connected with the Adumbrae made by the 2Ms? I assumed they had an entity from another dimension forcefully made dormant in their head. Maybe I could wake it up and make the person into a real Adumbrae. Not sure if the Adumbrae would agree to be my minion, though.

We ran past more bodies and finally exited the bunker, meeting the sun again. Deen’s Guardian Angel was silent, which meant that the Adumbrae wasn’t nearby. We checked the street outside the bunker compound for survivors. If there were any, they were long gone now.

All we found were squeezed bodies. They were killed in such a distinct way that even Deen was also starting to believe the Adumbrae was Kelsey. We didn’t find any more clues about where the Adumbrae had gone after.

I offered my plan to split up. As expected, Deen was opposed to it.

“You won’t be aware of the danger if I’m not with you,” Deen said, grabbing my arm, which was so thin that she could almost encompass it with her grip.

“You’re Guardian Angel won’t be much help,” I said. “Don’t forget that I saved us from the illusion Adumbrae.” Deen loosened her grip. I pulled my arm away. “I’ll go that way—is that like east or something?” If I wasn’t mistaken, that was in the direction of the area of Marsh Row controlled by my gangs.

My gangs. I had tingles of excitement just thinking that I had gangs to command.

“Okay, then I’ll go—” Myra started to say.

“Drive the car away first.” I congratulated myself for figuring out how to keep Myra occupied for some time. “The PCM will surely come here to check what happened to their base. You don’t want that car found.”

Myra frowned. “But I should—"

“She’s right,” Deen said, coming with the clutch back up. “Prioritize protecting our identities. We’ve already botched it in the laboratory. The BID might also come soon.”

“I don’t think anyone called the BID,” Myra said. “But, fine. I’ll hide the car. How do we contact each other when we find Kelsey? We’re not going to turn on our phones, are we?”

Deen shook her head. “Too dangerous. We didn’t bring any burner phones. Let me think…”

“We’ll just have to find each other,” Myra said. “Let’s meet after an hour at that building.” She pointed at the only four-story building for blocks. “Don’t waste any more time! Go, go, go!”   

I hopped on top of buildings, looking for signs of the Adumbrae. I thought of turning into Blanchette to sniff it out. But I decided against it. Deen might follow me to protect me—she was capable of being creepy and crazy—and she’d see me turn into Blanchette.

Luckily, I found splashes of red on a concrete roof, bright against the dull gray. Definitely blood. Further ahead, I found a huge footprint on a metal sheet roofing. Wow, I chose the correct direction.

That was about the extent of my luck.

I didn’t find the Adumbrae, dead people, or any other tracks. It was like the Adumbrae sensed it was getting hunted and hid from us. It probably wasn’t as mindless as I thought it was; it killed all the people in the bunker because it was super pissed off for being imprisoned.

Technically, this was also a lucky outcome. No dead gangsters. No BID alerted.

Could this Adumbrae detect a fellow Adumbrae like me? I certainly couldn’t. Or it might be expecting the PCM to come look for it.

And come, they did.

The sky had turned orange with the setting sun as the Three Bs gathered at the meeting spot. We observed several new vehicles drive up to the bunker, unloading dozens of people carrying all sorts of equipment inside.

“The machines they use to control the Adumbrae,” Myra said. “Those look different from the column-shaped thingy. Man, they have a lot of stuff.”

(Author's Notes: We finally have hints of Kelsey's actual presence. In the Prior Cycle, Kelsey appeared only in the first chapter and disappeared forever. I even forgot about her towards the end. This time, Kelsey will be around. I kind of want Erind to have an Adumbrae 'friend'.

Apologies for the delayed chapter. A strong typhoon devastated the city where I live, knocking out the electricity and causing a lot of damage. I'm very lucky that the electricity in my area got restored in a couple of days, though still intermittent. Most of the city still has no electricity. Our Friday chapter will probably go up on Saturday. I need to do some repair work on the house and a lot of cleaning up. Thank you for your understanding and continued support. Your financial support is definitely a lot of help.)