I wake up to Moya talking to me.
“Cole, I located where Sasha is hiding,”
I get up and rub my eyes.
“Where’s that?”
“The tunnel that connects the Neon island to The Warren,”
“Jefferson Tunnel?”
“Yeah, head over there and I’ll tell you what to do next,”
“Alright,”
I drink the rest of my beer, stretch and head out.
I arrive in front of the Jefferson Tunnel.
“All right Moya, I'm across from the Jefferson Tunnel. The tunnel is blocked,”
“There should be a lever in the compound across the street,”
“Alright,”
I run into the compound, find, and pull the lever.
The gate to Jefferson tunnel open.
I start to feel light-headed.
“What’s..happening..?”
Sasha starts speaking through
“I can feel the love inside you, just waiting to be coaxed out. We're going to have such fun, Cole,”
“Get out..”
Just then, the light headed feeling goes away.
I step out of the compound, and run into Jefferson Tunnel. It’s swarming with reapers, and reaper conduits.
I talk to myself.
“Getting sick of you guys,”
I clear out the reapers and advance through the tunnel.
Just around a turn, I see a chained door and the chains are rusted.
I charge my legs up with electricity and kick open the door. The chains disintegrate and the door busts open to a disturbing scene.
There are people in cages with black tar getting sprayed on them.
“Moya... I think I found where they're making the reapers. Bunch of people down here locked in cages, and black tar getting sprayed over them,”
“Get them out of there and then deal with Sasha,”
“Alright,”
I break open a cage and the freshly made reaper looks at me.
The reaper looks frightened and depressed.
This situation is making me think. Back then, I thought the reapers were delinquents, drug dealers and everything of the sort. I took comfort in the fact that I was fighting generally bad people, but all this time I could’ve been killing innocent people.
I could be a murderer.
I silently look at the reaper and put my hand on it’s shoulder as it limps past me towards the exit.
I don’t think I’ll be killing more reapers anytime soon.
I free the rest of the reapers and none attack me. They must be trained to attack after they’re made.
After I break the last cage, my head gets light again.
“You think I don't see her, the way you're parading her around like a common Jezebel? I see everything now, Kessler. All of it,”
“...Who’s Kessler..and what's your damn problem…”
“Oh, you're a tricky bastard. Playing your games, thinking you're smarter than everyone else. You're going to pay,”
The light-headed feeling goes away.
After going deeper into the tunnel, I see a large hole.
I jump down the hole. When I look up and see Sasha.
“Darling! What took you? Was there traffic? I told you not to take the bridge, it's always backed up at night. Get dressed, we have dinner plans tonight,”
She takes a step into the tar pit in front of her then glides into it.
“You gotta be kidding me,”
I run and jump onto one of many stone platforms that are scattered across the tar pit.
Sashas voice echoes through the room
“They're expecting us at seven. It's formal wear but I laid out your tuxedo. And I made soup from the neighbor's bones. You want a taste?”
“You’re a nutjob,”
Reapers materialize from the tar along with organic swollen tendons.
A reaper jumps onto my back. When I throw it off and it disappears.
I start to blast the swollen tendons. Each time one explodes I hear Sasha screech.
After I blast the last tendon she tries to attack me but falls down.
She has three tubes pumping that tar throughout her body, breaking those can make her talk.
I reach down and tear a tube from her neck.
Sasha screams and spews tar everywhere.
She slips down into the tar again, but no tendons or reapers appear after. There aren’t any signs of attack.
Suddenly, I get grabbed by tendons and dragged into the tar pit.
I try to fight back but it’s too late, I’ve already been submerged in the tar.
What surprises me is that I don’t start immediately choking on it. In fact, I can breath normally.
I’m surrounded by the pitch black darkness.
“What the hell is happening?”
I look at my hands, and my skin is becoming paler. Blood starts to stain my clothes and my electricity shifts from blue to red.
“This damn tar is changing me. I have to get out,”
But I don’t know where to go. I can barely move and there isn’t anything around.
Then, I start to hear voices.
“My sister is dead because of you,”
“Wha-, Trish I-”
Then another.
“You’re starting to become selfish, brother,”
“Selfish? The hell are you talking about Zeke?”
Then a group of voices start to appear.
“Terrorist!”
Over and over, they repeat this and it’s maddening.
Suddenly they stop.
I open my eyes see Sasha infront of me.
“They all despise you. Your ‘girlfriend’ Trish, your ‘best friend’ Zeke, even all the people you’re trying to save and protect. I am the only one who understands you. Having powers. Being hated. Come with me, and I’ll give you it all,”
It all makes sense. My changing body, these voices. She’s trying to coerce me into being with her. Manipulate me.
With that realization alone, it gave me enough power to fight back.
As she leans in whispering in my ear, I reach out and tear another tube from her neck.
She shrieks. At the same time I start getting pulled upward. Before I know it I’m flung out of the tar pit. Everything goes back to normal as the tar drips off of me.
I land on a platform and get ready to use my newest power. As my breath steadies, my perception of time slows down. When Sasha appears from the tar in one swift motion, I tear the last tube from her neck and Sasha falls to the ground next to me.
“Cough cough..You'll never control it, Cole. Look at me. Look at what it's done. It controls you now,”
Sasha was a piece of shit before the blast, but looking at her now.. is this what my powers are going to do to me? A warped body and twisted mind. Is that my future?
Either way, she knows all about the First Sons and the Ray Sphere. If I'm going to dig myself out of this hell hole it starts with her talking.
I grab Sasha’s neck.
“Tell me what you know about—”
An explosion goes off behind me. Whoever came in were fast, trained for this kind of thing. Sasha got pulled out in the midst of all the smoke.
There wasn’t any time to think, water was flooding the place and it’s falling apart. With no way back, I went forward into the slums of the Warren.
As I exit the Jefferson Tunnel, I call Zeke.
“Zeke, pick up,”
“Hey brother. The hell’ve you been?”
“It's a long story. Wanted to let you know I'm over in the Warren,”
“The Warren? Damn man, that place was nightmare-central before the blast — hate to see what it's like now,”
“Hasn't gotten any better, that's for sure. I'll give you a call when I figure out how I'm going to get back home,”
“Keep your nose to the wind, man,”
After that he hangs up.
I look around.
“Looks like the power is out here too,”
Suddenly Moya starts talking.
“Pulled some intel on the Warren. A couple days after the blast, the homeless people living there banded together and seized control of the entire borough. They call themselves the Dust Men,”
“Guess that explains why people wearing trash bags are running in the alleyways,”
“I suspect that they're led by an extremely powerful conduit like with the reapers, so it'd be a big mistake to underestimate them,”
“Yeah. Got it,” I say.
I head for the nearest manhole and hop in.