[REND] B2. 6.1 - Monster in the Labyrinth

“There’s really an Adumbrae here!” I exclaimed, partly with genuine surprise. Would you look at that, the rumor that Enrico shared was actually true. At this point, I shouldn’t be surprised if an Adumbrae was hiding under my bed.

They—we—were freaking everywhere in the city. La Esperanza was prime real estate for non-humans. BID super agents were also here. The next thing I’d know, there’d be Corebrings around.

“Wait a second,” Myra said. “We’re not sure that this is the work of an Adumbrae.”

I couldn’t be certain because it was dark, but Deen probably gave Myra an incredulous look, the same as I did. What the hell was this blue-haired weirdo talking about? That this was the work of a mutated sewer gator?

Myra continued, “Uh, uh, I know! The PCM might’ve massacred a bunch of people here. That’s right. A mega violent killing, with blood splashing everywhere.”

“Why would the PCM—?” Deen began to ask.

“I don’t know!” Myra snapped. “But don’t immediately conclude things. First, let’s see what we got here.”

She scanned our surroundings with the flashlight, its beam eventually landing on something long and off-white sticking out of a mound of grimy stuff. No one spoke as we approached it. We all suspected what it was. Myra kicked the pile. The long object rolled free.

I sucked at biology, but I could tell this was a piece of a human bone. And was that a human hand? It was covered with muck and insects, but the form was noticeable enough. Myra shone the flashlight up ahead and exposed more scraps of a person who appeared to have been eaten.

“This doesn’t look like the work of a human,” Deen said, taking a step back.

“Uh, I-I’m going to hurl!” I made gagging noises and spat at the ground. Too dark for them to see that I didn’t actually vomit anything.

“Let it all out.” Deen rubbed my back. “Myra, we should leave. A monster killed and ate people here.”

“Kelsey doesn’t freaking eat people!” Myra’s shout was followed by a loud thud and the tunnel slightly shaking. She must’ve punched the wall.

Oh, so that’s why Myra suddenly didn’t want to find an Adumbrae here. If Kelsey was just slightly malformed, there was a teensy-weensy bit of hope she could be saved with the Professor’s help. But if Kelsey was already in monster mode, losing her mind and eating people, then we might be forced to put her down—this was Myra’s concern. I had seen this play out in a couple of Adumbrae movies. Spicy drama!

It was also possible that Myra felt guilty that she hadn’t done more before her sister disappeared. Now, Myra couldn’t do anything if Kelsey had gone feral. Throw in some frustration there, too—Myra joined Dario’s group for nothing. There might be some opening for me to exploit here.

“We’re not saying this is Kelsey’s work,” Deen said. “This merely confirms the presence of an Adumbrae.”

“And I’m going to look for it,” said Myra, “to make sure that it isn’t Kelsey. If it’s not, if this Adumbrae is Red Hood or someone else, it might know where Kelsey is.”

I wanted to correct Myra referring to Adumbrae as ‘it’. Did she realize what she had said? Part of her had started to accept that Kelsey might be more monster than human. Too bad that the face I wore wouldn’t bring that up, and I was too busy pretending to be queasy about the blood and other stuff.

“Can… can we go?” I stammered. “This isn’t safe. And… and I don’t want to see more—” I roughly coughed.

“You were always free to leave,” Myra said. “I’m going to see this through, no matter what or who I find. I’m this close to finding a concrete clue about Kelsey’s whereabouts.” She continued walking as she softly added, “I might even find her here.”  

“Myra, wait!” Deen said.

“What? Your pet told you something?”

“No. But I think we should go back rather than endanger ourselves looking for an Adumbrae. We can ask PCM members about this. They clearly know about this Adumbrae—they had guards and locked doors.”

“The PCM also had that machine with the red lights,” I chimed in. “I bet it’s supposed to keep away the Adumbrae because a steel door isn’t really much of an obstacle. I also vote for going back.” That wasn’t my real vote, of course.

Interrogating PCM members could be fun—we’d have to torture them at some point, and I wanted to force Deen to do it—but I was more interested in finding this mysterious Adumbrae. Also, how the fuck did the PCM have that Adumbrae-shoo-away technology? I hadn’t heard of anything like it before. A world-changing invention. Would’ve been insanely helpful if it were installed at the train station.

Did the 2Ms give it to them? Or was it their own creation? They must have had a genius scientist to invent a machine that even the BID didn’t have. Good thing I didn’t agree to meet the PCM leaders because they had the means to neutralize me.

“I will continue on my own,” was Myra’s steely reply. “That’s final.” She touched the tunnel walls and started to absorb material to make armor. Her silhouette became bigger as she went further away.

I heard Deen sigh in the darkness. Would she abandon Myra?

Probably not, if I pressed the right buttons.

“Deen, we can’t leave Myra on her own,” I said. “I-I’m scared of meeting an Adumbrae, but… but we did promise to help find Kelsey.”

“I know.” Deen ran after Myra, and I followed after them. “Myra!” Deen called. “Wait, wait, wait a minute. Let’s think this through.”

“You’re still here?” Myra was now a head taller than Deen, with most of her body enclosed in stone armor. She still had her face uncovered.

“I have a suggestion,” Deen said. “We head up, not all the way to the street level, but enough to get a phone signal. Then we’ll call Dario for help and—”

“No!” Myra shouted.

Oho? Did that mean Myra didn’t trust the supreme asshole? I assumed I had to convince her to think this way—keep Dario out of this—but it sounded like she didn’t need any prodding.  

“Why not?” Deen asked. “The PCM is likely connected with the 2Ms. Dario has to know about this. And we need backup if there’s a fight. Which we should very much avoid, just to be clear.”

“I can do this on my own,” said Myra. Stone covered her face as if shutting the door on her eyes. “I don’t need Dario’s help. Or yours. Go away if you two are just going to bother me. Don’t you dare tell Dario anything until I’ve made sure this Adumbrae isn’t Kelsey.”

“Shouldn’t you ask for some medicine from the Professor?” I suggested. “To, uh, turn Kelsey back. I’m not saying she killed people here! Um, you know what I mean. Just in case… it is her.” This was the right thing for my face to say, even though I knew it was stupid.

“Erind’s right, Myra,” said Deen. “If we meet Kelsey, we should—”

Myra stopped. “Can’t you two use your brains for a moment? Do you really think that Dario and the Professor will help Kelsey if she’s too far gone? No! Definitely fucking not. I don’t even think they could help. Period. The world would be quite different if reversing an Adumbrae transformation were possible.” Myra pointed at Deen and then at me. “We’re supposed to fight, to kill Adumbrae. That’s our thing. Guess what? Kelsey’s an Adumbrae. And guess what Dario will do to an Adumbrae?”

“We don’t want Kelsey killed,” Deen said. “We want to… save her.”

There was some hesitation in Deen’s voice that Myra probably didn’t pick up. I noticed because we were besties for real. Deen didn’t seem certain about the correct choice here.

“Easy for you to say now,” Myra said. “You’ll change your tune if the Adumbrae lurking in this place is really Kelsey, and she attacks us. I should go ahead on my own. Wait by Johann’s car. Better yet, drive it away from this place. Once the dead guys are found, it’s going to be quite rowdy here. I’ll find my own exit.” She scratched her armor, peeling it open. “Where did I put the keys?”

“We’re going with you,” I said, thinking of a justification for this break from timidity.

Deen was taking too long to answer. Once Myra handed the keys over, Deen might decide to leave, rationalizing that we should prioritize our safety. More specifically, my safety.

“I’ll make up for missing the docks mission,” I said. “I’m going to fight now.” This was a believable reason, wasn’t it?

“Erind, you don’t have to prove anything,” Deen said.

Ignoring Deen, I looked up at Myra. “We’ll do everything we can to find Kelsey and cure her condition. Right, Deen?” Roping Deen into this might change her view on Adumbrae. A lot of setup was needed if I were to reveal my secret to her.

“Ye-yes. We’re… with you, Myra,” Deen forced herself to say. I could sense that she had a lot to say to me later, when it’d be just us two.

“We have to hurry.” Myra broke into a quaking jog. “We don’t know how long until the PCM realizes they have intruders.”

“Inhuman intruders,” I pointed out.

“Right, right,” Myra said. “That’s another reason why aborting this mission is a bad call. Think about this—the PCM will know to be prepared for us next time. Having the rest of the group doesn’t mean more success. Or the PCM would have moved out by then, with the Adumbrae and all, leaving me back to square one.”

After a few minutes of exploring the tunnels, the mild hum of a headache hit me. The intensity increased as we neared another bloody site of a massacre. I didn’t have to pretend to be nauseated this time.

“There’s a door,” Deen said. “Streaks of blood on it—people were trying to claw their way out.”

“I see how it is.” Myra focused the flashlight on the door. “The PCM released people into this tunnel and locks them in with the Adumbrae. That should mean the bunker this door leads to is also controlled by the PCM. Other bunkers as well, I bet.”

“How awful of them to sacrifice people,” said Deen. “Truly despicable. I’m of the mind they’re truly connected with the 2Ms’ operations.”

“Won’t you agree that we should stop them?” Myra asked. “We’ll be doing the right thing.”

“Ye-yes…” Deen conceded.

“See? Don’t stop me the next time I kill a PCM fucker. We’re doing the world a service by reducing the number of bad guys.”

“But we can’t ascertain everyone’s guilt,” Deen said. “You can’t sentence to death someone who was ordered to stand in front of a door and didn’t really know what was going on.”

“What? You want a fucking trial each time we encounter a guard?” Myra pointed at Deen with a huge stone finger. “Try that out in the next—”

“Can we ple-please get going?” I vomited for real this time. The stupid Adumbrae-shoo-away machine was on the other side of the door. Before the others could reply, I walked into the darkness.

Would that machine have this much effect on Blanchette? Hopefully, not. How about on my metal mannequin form? I assumed that the body didn’t have a brain. No headaches.

Deen caught up to me and held my arm as if I were a granny crossing the street. “Don’t think about it,” she gently said. “I know it’s hard to do, but try to focus on something else.”

“This place is like the Labyrinth,” I said.

“Labyrinth?” Myra overtook us to lead the way.

“The Labyrinth with a capital ‘L’,” I said. “Greek mythology. It’s like a maze where a minotaur—a half-man, half-bull monster, was imprisoned. Supposed to be impossible to leave the Labyrinth because it’s super complex or something. The evil king sends human sacrifices into the Labyrinth until a hero named Theseus slew the minotaur.”

I didn’t actually read Greek mythology. I just saw a movie with a maze and decided to search about the difference between a labyrinth and a maze, eventually reading about the story of the minotaur. But back to definitions, it turned out that a labyrinth, unlike a maze, had only one path going in and out, and no branches. If so, how the heck would one even get lost in a labyrinth? Oh well, the meaning probably evolved over time.

“Sacrifices to the Adumbrae, huh?” Myra forcefully exhaled. “Sounds like a cult to me. I should know; I’ve been in one.”

“This does appear to be ritualistic,” Deen said. “Quite different from how the 2Ms view Adumbrae—a money-making scheme.”  

We eventually reached another blood-covered door. Unlike the previous one, this door was open and had no Adumbrae-shoo-away machine.

“Did the Adumbrae manage to open this?” Myra wondered. “Or maybe the Adumbrae’s no longer here, that’s why they left the door open?”

“The Adumbrae should still be here,” I said. “Otherwise, the PCM wouldn’t have locked the other doors and had that pillar thingy with lights turned on. Do we go through here or continue down the tunnel?”

“Let’s check this door first,” Myra said, shedding some of her bulk to comfortably fit through the door. “Deen’s here to tell us of danger. If there’s nothing this way, we can just go back.”

We passed by a long and narrow tunnel and reached the door at its end. We pushed it open—it wasn’t secured by a padlock—and entered a roomier tunnel. Up ahead should be the smaller caverns secured by heavy circular doors for people to hide.

“Turn off the light,” Deen said. “Keep silent.”

The vaults ahead weren’t dark and empty. Green and blue light flashed out of them while several people talked. Deen stalked forward, with us right behind her ass. Did that count as a rhyme? We camped right beside the door to eavesdrop.

If this were the movie, we should be in time to overhear important stuff.

“It looks like we’ve failed again,” said a deep male voice.

“A failure is but another step to success,” replied another person. A woman. “We will eventually achieve our goal of turning Adumbrae back to human.”

(Author's Notes: The Three Bs' first ever mission, and they seemed to have stumbled upon something big. Whatever the PCM is doing, it might be quite different from the 2Ms' thing. I apologize for the delay in the chapter. Don't worry. Just minor hiccups in our schedule. Our next chapters for this week will be on Thursday and Saturday. Thank you for the support!)