A Day of Faces

Lineage

The wall quivered, buckled, and collapsed in on itself, light blazing in from beyond. Chunks of masonry rained down from above the hole and dust filled the air, splitting the light into drifting shafts. Cal disappeared through into the next room.

"Got a bad feeling about this," Marv said quietly.

"Now you've got a bad feeling? You not been paying attention or something?"

"How well you know this guy, Kay?"

Felt like I'd known him for years. My whole life. "I met him a couple months back, I guess."

"Yeah," he said. "Even less for me. He lived at my digs for the last four weeks, but I got no clue who the hell he is."

"Guess he doesn't either. That's why we're here."

"Right. But your whole life been defined by not knowing; what happens when you find out?"

I shrugged. "Let's go see."

Holding a hand to my eyes I stepped through into brightness. The room was white-walled and lit by a row of fluorescents and was considerably smaller than the main archive - more like the size of an office. It was empty except for a device in its centre, next to which stood the hulking form of Cal.

The device was unlike anything I'd ever seen. It resembled a machine but was also like an animal, of sorts. It was clearly built, and designed, but also had organic parts intermingled with the mechanical pieces. Standing half as tall as Cal and wide at its base, it seemed to be pulsating. In front and below the contraption was some kind of receptacle, above which hung a wide nozzle.

Marv followed me through. "Yeah. Told you I didn't know what the hell I was seeing."

"Cal? What is it?"

He held something up. "This was in there," he said, pointing at the receptacle. With a jerk of his hand he threw the object at me. I caught it and examined it. It was white and sculpted, with a bumpy, undulating surface and holes punched through, like three face masks linked together as a single piece. I rotated it around and saw my own face, with Cal and Marv represented either side. Our likenesses, carved into the object. I stared for several seconds, then flipped it over again. There was a message on the back, warning of our imminent arrival at the spire. "In all the confusion I guess they didn't get the message," Cal said.

Marv touched the sculpted message with a hand. "Who sends a message like this?"

The scales on my neck fluttered. "We're way out of our depth here," I said. "Which, I know, is, like, super obvious. But even with that taken into account, we are then extra out of our depth."

Cal actually laughed. "Do you not remember your religious studies?"

"I went to a state school. Didn't really have much of that."

He grimaced. "Orphanages are mostly run by the church," he said. "I've heard them talk about this kind of thing." He moved cautiously around it, as if circling a wild animal. The fur on his head and arms was pointed, like an alarmed cat. "But only in terms of proclamations from god. Stone tablets. Messages from the mountain. Ring any bells?"

Cal reached out and touched the contraption. The device heaved and swelled as Cal touched it and he cried out in pain, seemingly unable to remove his hand from its surface. At the same time there was a deafening blast from the archive room.

"Ah man, that's just bad timing," Marv said, heading back through the hole in the wall. "I got this."

I leapt forwards and pulled at Cal, tearing him away from whatever had been holding him in place. We both tumbled backwards onto the floor as he began shivering uncontrollably, eyes glazed over and mouth agape. The fit intensified and as he rocked back and forth he began to shed his fur, leaving it strewn across the floor as he rolled. I tried to pin him down but his form kept shifting, his arms and torso shrinking down and changing texture, from fur to bare skin to scales to feathers and back again. His face was a contortion of pain, eyes bulging, irises flicking from black oval to diamond slit to yellow orbs. His teeth pushed out through his lips, then retracted, then turned to points, then fell out entirely. I backed off, unable to hold him down and at risk from being knocked out by his movements. He writhed, shifting over and over again.

Shouts came from the other room, then gunfire. There was nothing I could do for Cal, but Marv needed my help. Reluctantly backing away from Cal I turned and ducked back through, into a warzone.

The archives were a blaze of light and fire, flames spreading from the far wall where they'd blown their way in. Soldiers were pouring in, firing intermittently and seemingly at more than one target. I crouched low and scampered forwards on all fours, flitting from one fallen row of shelves to another, tasting the air, closing in on Marv's scent.

I found him underneath a stack of cases, leg trapped and arm bleeding profusely. "What the hell?" I shouted over the weapons fire.

He grabbed me and pulled me close with his uninjured arm. "There's somebody else here. Gotta be. I sure ain't a threat."

Risking a glance around the cabinet I caught a flash of movement and two soldiers evaporated, leaving behind a shower of blue sparks. The others turned and re-aimed their fire, but my view was blocked.

"We need to get out of here," I said.

"Captain Obvious," Marv said. "Get my leg out."

I helped him prop up the cabinet and he rolled clear. Slinging his arm over my shoulder we moved as fast as we could back through the smoke-filled records room, where sounds of gunfire were being replaced with screams of soldiers.

We reached the gaping hole in the wall and scurried back through into the white room. It was now emptier than before: the device remained in the centre, as if nothing had happened, but Cal was nowhere to be seen.

The sounds of fighting from beyond the hole slowly diminished while I moved around the room, hunting for an exit, or a hidden door. The walls were clean and featureless, and yielded no escape.

A frightened shout from the hole turned our attention back, just in time to see a terrified soldier running towards us, covered in blood. Before his feet touched the floor he erupted into vapour and sparks and vanished before us. Through the mist-that-was-man another person was revealed, stepping closer and holding some kind of weird gun. He looked unlike anybody I'd ever seen, and bore no discernible genoform markings. No horns, or fur, or wings, or scales. No tentacles or additional limbs.

His defining feature was his face, deeply scarred from chin to forehead.

He grinned crookedly. "Hello, children," he said, "I've been looking for you."