Joshua
The metal handrail is icy against my palm as we descend the spiraling steps. The space smells of cold, damp stone, and the sound of our shoes clunking over the metal steps echos and clamors all around us, filling my head with noise.
A few feet below me, Marlowe leads the way with nothing but a penlight to pierce through the darkness. Sundo follows hesitantly behind them, me behind him, and Lynch takes the rear, prodding us onwards every time we pause just a bit too long.
"Sorry for the dark," Marlowe says up to us, pausing to lean into the middle of the spiral and shine the pen in our direction. "We've been having trouble with the fuse boxes down here lately. The smallest bump and they throw a whole-ass fit."
They chortle and flicker their penlight on and off a couple times, and Sundo gives an obligatory smile.
The darkness flashes in and out of my vision, and I hold onto the frigid handrail a little tighter. The stairs alone are enough to make me uneasy—what, with the way they plummet straight down for who knows how far, carrying us deeper into the unknown. We could be approaching the center of the Earth, for all I know. But with the darkness, the space suddenly becomes more constricting, stifling even.
"Well, I'm glad you have the pen, then," Sundo replies with a nervous laugh, taking another few careful steps downwards.
A rumbling sound comes from above us, and he slips on the edge of the step with a gasp. I suck in a sharp inhale, grabbing at his shoulders and holding fast, catching him before he can fall. Above us, the rumbling continues, bringing with it a sprinkling hail of dust and small rocks.
Shielding my face with my forearm, I search upwards through the slats of the spiraling steps for the disturbance. I'm just in time to watch the last sliver of blue light be closed off by the door as it grinds shut on its own, taking with it the night sky and the stars and the only way back out.
This is it. This is really happening.
I can no longer tell which is louder: our shoes on the steps or the blood rushing through my head.
Marlowe is saying something, and so is Lynch. I've stopped on one of the steps, one hand gripping Sundo's shoulder in a vice grip, and the other, the handrail, so tightly the metal bites into my palm.
This is really happening. The door is closed now, and we're down here in the dark, following strangers to nowhere good.
Something brushes my hand, and I start, jerking my head down from the now starless space above us. Sundo peers at me from one step below, his eyes holding that same faint luminescence they always do. Like deep sea algae or the stuff inside glow-sticks... The familiarity is comforting, at least, enough that I can let out the exhale I didn't know I'd been delaying.
His fingers brush over the back of my hand on the railing, before gently prying my fingers off. He twines his fingers through mine, gazing up at me all the while.
"Your heart is racing..." He murmurs. "I can hear it."
I swallow thickly, trying to find an even rhythm for my breathing again. Now that he mentions it, I'm aware of it, like a jackhammer between my lungs.
He gives my hand a squeeze, his touch warm against my frozen digits.
"Don't panic. Think of this like..." He searches for the words. "... Like an adventure," he settles on finally, trying for a smile. "We're going somewhere new, and it's going to be okay, as long as we're together. We have each other."
I try to hold onto his words as tightly as I do his hand. Shakily, I let out another exhale.
"You're right. You're right..." I mutter, gathering my wits again.
Below us, Marlowe has taken pause, gazing up at us with a quiet sort of intrigue. The penlight illuminates their face from below, and I can see thoughts flickering across those washed-out features.
When they notice me looking at them, they smile and seem to have a joke on the tip of their tongue. They must see something in my expression that makes them stop, however, because in the end they drop their gaze and don't say it.
"Come on," I say, giving Sundo's hand a squeeze and his shoulder a nudge. "Let's go."
He lets go of my hand, but only to switch to the other, so it's easier to go down the stairs. He holds onto my hand the rest of the way down, and I, his. I feel almost childish, like kindergarteners kept in a line so they don't get lost. But I'll be damned if I let go, because right now Sundo's the only thing keeping me together. And somehow, with the way he clings to my hand just as much, I suspect I might be the same for him.
Lynch follows us in that careful, stern way of hers, and she doesn't seem affected by our display in the slightest. If anything, when I spare her glances around the bend of the spiral, and when her face catches the light of Marlowe's pen, she seems lost in thought.
Whether she's considering me—and Sundo—as she had outside the car, or it's something else, I can't tell. It's not like I'm about to stop and ask her.
Sundo keeps up sporadic conversations with Marlowe. I don't know whether it's because the quiet bothers him, or whether he wishes to gather information from the small scientist, but somehow I suspect it's a little bit of both. At least Marlowe still seems friendly enough. They're never rude, and they seem as eager to continue speaking with Sundo as he is them.
Eventually, the echoing bottoms out, and Marlowe's footsteps tap over something that isn't metal. Relief floods me as I follow Sundo off the last step onto a solid concrete ground, but the emotion is quickly overrun again as I peer around him to what Marlowe shines their light on now.
In the ghastly illumination, the door is a looming figure. Heavy, wrought titanium looks as though it'd be more at home in the belly of a submarine than yards beneath cold desert sand. A thin, dingy rectangular window spans the upper part of the door, while narrow beams span the port vertically and horizontally. A dark, barely-worn ring of metal serves as the handle, situated right in the center of it all. It doesn't shine in Marlowe's light.
Sundo's knees lock in the face of it. He stands rigid as a wall, his eyes fastened to the dark shape in the even darker concrete wall. The sound he makes isn't very loud, but it drops into my chest like an anchor. A small groaning whimper, strangled in his throat as if it had fought its way out on its own accord.
"This is it?" I ask, surprised by the even tone of my own voice. It bounces around the space, which I now see isn't very large at all. It's barely the size of a broom closet; just enough room for the stairs and the landing before the door.
"This is it," Marlowe confirms soberly. They flick a look to Sundo, concern and apprehension flitting over their features. "Are you okay?"
All the color has drained from his face. His reply is nothing but another strangled croak.
Marlowe's brow furrows further; they move to touch him, but I step between them, putting myself between Sundo and the door. I give his hand a squeeze, and I hear him release a shaken exhale.
"Just get on with this," I say lowly to our lab-coat-toting guide.
Marlowe sucks in a breath, raising their eyebrows as they rock back on their heels. They reconsider the two of us for a second before nodding and turning to the iron port. Holding the pen up in one hand, they push open an iron grate from overtop a small box in the wall beside the door. Copper keys wink in the light as they tap their fingers over the shiniest of them. Then a pause, a piercing sound beeps, and a small red light above the keypad blinks to a tealy-green.
Marlowe glances over their shoulder at us, before seeming to think better of something and turning back to the door. They hold the pen between their teeth as they grasp the wheel-like handle, and their biceps stain as they pull at the hatch. It resists their attempts to turn it at first, and Marlowe huffs around the pen. Planting their feet, they lever the wheel with more force, until finally it groans, and something like rust or calcium cracks around the axle.
They grunt as they finally get it to turn, slowly and with deep resistance. Something in the door clicks with resonance within the door, then something more clicks. Making a full rotation at last, Marlowe lets go of the handle with a pant and pulls the pen from their mouth.
"As you can uh, see, we don't really use this entrance much. But—" They huff, swallowing a breath. Looking at Sundo again, they try carefully, "In this case, for the sake of... discretion, I've been asked to take you guys through here. I hope this isn't too unnerving..."
It startles its way out of me. I laugh.
"Too unnerving? If you were hoping to avoid that, it's really too late, pal."
Marlowe smiles, but it looks more like a grimace. "Yeah... I assumed as much. Let's just... Let me show you where we are. You ready?"
They grasp the door handle with both hands again, this time positioned to pull outwards.
I glance to Sundo, who still looks a little sick. Something in his face steels my resolve, and I squash my own fear.
"You ask that like anything's changed," I say to Marlowe, tilting my chin up. "Just do it."
Sighing, Marlowe turns back to the door. Pulling, they step back slowly, one step at a time. It begins to open with a low, ungodly groan. Fuzzy light spills from beyond, illuminating the grey concrete space around us. There's only just enough room for Marlowe to pry the titanium ingress open, and even then they don't try to force it all the way. Just prying it a little bit takes a world of effort.
When there's enough space for a person to slip through, Marlowe lets go with another panting huff. They click off their pen and return it to their coat pocket, before rubbing the smell of iron from their palms off onto their jeans.
"Not how I'd hoped to introduce you," they say, rolling their shoulders. "But here we are. Shall we?"
They give an exaggerated, theatrical gesture to the entryway, stepping up onto the ledge of the port. Beyond looks like more beaten stone: a hall, maybe. At least there's light down there...
Stepping through the threshold, I feel as though I'm cementing something, though I just don't know what.
* * *
Seth
I swallow against the jitters that jump in my gut. Joshua is holding my hand, standing between me and the iron monolith Marlowe is prying open.
There's something about the door... It catches in my chest and reminds me in flashes of a cold night in the desert—but a different desert, a different night. Different scientists.
I close my eyes and shake my head. Don't be ridiculous. Don't think about that now. Now's not the time.
I try to think about the now, but that only makes me anxious all over again, but for what's going to happen, rather than what's already happened.
I try to cling to my own advice. Think of this as an adventure. It'll be alright, because you have Joshua.
It's so much easier to impart a lesson to someone than to actually put it into practice yourself, though.
"Shall we?" Marlowe asks, balancing on the step of the doorway. Their voice startles me back to the present moment with a jerk and the pounding of my heart.
Joshua moves forward without protest. The fuzzy light shines around him, and I follow him into it, knowing that if I don't, I won't be able to step in on my own.
Marlowe hops down ahead of us, still leading the way. I hope we don't lose them in here... They're amicable, and honestly, I could do with a little amicable right now.
Lynch, on the other hand... I wouldn't mind losing. She follows behind us like a phantom you just can't rid yourself of.
I press a little closer to Joshua as we pass the titanium and iron door.
Stepping through feels like the start of something new. Whether it's good or not, I can't quite tell yet. I don't feel optimistic.
* * *
—
The first thing Joshua notices as they step through the port is the utter lack of fanfare. He blinks in the light and hesitates a moment to adjust, but other than that, nothing remarkable happens. Nothing strange jumps out and grabs them, no one attempts to force them onto a medical stretcher to wheel them away. They just... step in.
It's unnerving, to be honest.
The space around him now has opened up into a slightly damp looking concrete hall—though, actually, the word "tunnel" might be a better descriptor. It stretches on and on through the earth, before branching into three different passageways at the end. The first two slant at an angle, leading further into whatever underground institution this is. The third one slants upwards at an angle, going... somewhere.
Joshua eyes this third passageway from over Marlowe's shoulder. It has to lead somewhere, somewhere closer to the surface. If he were to take a chance running anywhere, it would be there.
The noxious mixture of the smell of damp-underground mustiness and clinical disinfectant is hard to ignore, though: it has his nostrils flaring, and he fights the urge to crunch his hands over his nose. The stench gives the place the disorienting feel of an abandoned medical air-raid bunker.
Up and down the ceiling, electrical lights are strung up, enclosed in little copper cages as if to protect the bulbs. They flicker every once in a while, as though with surges or dips from electrical activity elsewhere. The possibilities that thought leaves has Joshua shuddering.
The passageway is oddly lacking in any sort of activity. It's as though this tunnel has been abandoned or left to rot. It's out of the way, out of mind.
Unnerving.
"This way, this way," Marlowe hustles them along down the passageway.
Seth's head hangs low as he follows behind Joshua; he casts his eyes around as if waiting for something to leap out at them at any moment. Joshua keeps his shoulders squared, shoving any uncertainty far, far down. He holds onto the conviction that they can and will handle anything thrown at them down here. As long as they're together.
As they approach the three passageways, footsteps that aren't their own seep from one of the offshoots. From the incline, a woman descends, a lavender mug in one hand and a Manila file of papers in the other. Behind her trails a familiar face: Perkins, in all his red-headed glory. He's trying to get her to talk to him, but she's walking in purposeful strides, paying more attention to the papers in her hands.
She's dressed in the same sort of white overcoat as Marlowe, though on her it actually looks right in place. She wears it with authority over her plain floral blouse and slacks, and it's hard to imagine her without it. Where Marlowe looks strange and somewhat out of place in theirs, this lady actually looks like a scientist. She looks as though she could very well run the place.
The heels of her court shoes clack with purpose over the concrete as she approaches, and Perkins hustles to keep up with her. Joshua catches the tail-end of his sentence as they round the corner: "...and we'll be getting our stipend now, right? It really was a rough job, Doc, especially for Liza and..."
"Yes, yes. Of course. Later." The scientist says, taking a sip from her mug. Her eyes are still roving over the paper.
Perkins looks deflated for a moment, but then he spots the group at the end of the hall and his face lights up.
"Perfect! They're already here, Rosalyn." He jogs to catch up to her again, laying his hand on the shorter woman's shoulder.
The woman—Rosalyn—stops, and finally, she lifts her eyes from the page. She regards Joshua and Seth and their escorts with interest, though her gaze settles ultimately on Joshua. A shiver shakes down his spine under those dark eyes. He feels as though, just by looking at him, she's read everything about him as easily as she has the papers in her hand.
"Oh, good," Rosalyn says finally, tilting the papers down, though not closing the file. "I was beginning to think they might have lost their way. Wouldn't be the first time."
She settles a vaguely accusatory look on Perkins, whose face reddens with a flush.
"How many times do I have to explain: it's not my fault I got us lost! Come on!"
"Mmm," Rosalyn mumbles, unconvinced. She looks back to her papers. "Well, it's good you're here all the same. Your name is Joshua, yes?"
She lifts her eyes to the young man in question, who balks at the attention. It's something about her piercing gaze that makes him want to shrink into Seth behind him, but that's exactly why he doesn't do it. Seth. He keeps himself squarely between this stranger and his alien.
"Ye..s..." He answers slowly, reluctantly. He can't find any advantage in lying, at least.
Rosalyn doesn't smile, but the wrinkles around her eyes tighten just a bit, in the ghost of one. She looks to be in her mid-to-late forties, maybe. Her umber hair is shot through with streaks of salt and pepper, and her face is beginning to show signs of age, though nothing extreme. She could easily be a mother of someone his age, if it weren't for her occupation.
Somehow, Joshua suspects top-secret underground institution work doesn't lend itself well to child-rearing.
"Good," Rosalyn says, flipping over one of the pages in her file. "At least that part is correct. My name is doctor Rosalyn Fennel-Varrens. For efficiency, you may just call me Dr. Rosalyn. Or just 'Doctor', if you prefer. I don't mind either, though I didn't spend 8 years in med. school to be called 'Mrs.' Understood?"
She doesn't look at him as she says it. Joshua has the distinct feeling of distaste churn in his gut, and he can't be sure whether or not it's because of her or because of the situation he's unfortunate enough to meet her in.
"Understood?" Rosalyn asks again when Joshua doesn't reply.
He starts and stumbles back a step, and Seth steadies him with alarm. Shrugging off the help, Joshua stands firm on his own again, his pride smarting as he sets his jaw and grits, "Yeah. Understood, Doctor."
He feels Seth shift uneasily behind him, doing that thing where he fidgets with his sleeves. He's torn between consoling him and standing up for them both.
"Delightful." Rosalyn smiles at him now with her eyes, over the rim of her lavender mug. It smells faintly of green tea. "Well, this way then. It's nice to see you again, Liza, by the way."
She says both these things as she turns to stride down the corridor, making for the first of the three outshoots, which seems to head deeper into the institution.
"You too, Doc," Lynch replies, a genuine smile lighting up her usually stony face.
She stays behind Joshua and Seth, despite the quickness in her step and the way her gaze lingers on the doctor, as though she wishes to walk next to her.
Behind them, that awful screeching groan oozes. Seth shudders at the sound.
Preoccupied with this new Doctor Fennel-Varrens, Joshua hadn't noticed Marlowe slip back to the door to leverage it shut again. Now it screams at them as they leave, as Marlowe digs their heels into the ledge to pull it shut. It does so, finally, with a deep reverberating grind, and the clicking of internal locks. Marlowe seems relieved to be done with it as they rush to catch up with the group.
This new passageway descends at enough of an angle that Joshua tries to focus on not slipping. Marlowe is right behind him with a grin, unfazed by the decline, and then they're darting around him to walk between Rosalyn and Perkins.
"Aren't you going to ask the alien his name, Ma'am?" They ask with barely contained enthusiasm.
"The alien?" Rosalyn looks up from her papers once more. She spares Seth a glance, considering, before looking back to Marlowe. "Why would I need to ask its name? No, Marlowe, I'm not going ask."
Just like that, Marlowe's face falls and Joshua's dread drops into his stomach like lead. She's that kind of scientist.
Rosalyn is hardly aware—or hardly fazed by—the discontent her answer has strewn through the group. She merely continues to pursue her files and distractedly leads them into a new, wider passage.
Compared to the last, this one is bustling with activity. It's lined with doors and thin corridors to form a maze of a place, and through these corridors and doors comes an ebb and flow of people in work jumpsuits and bio-suits. They carry large, ordinary-seeming rocks and tote strange plastic cases that vary in size, from that of a briefcase to that of a cello or an entire goddamn dog.
Joshua stares at these strangers with incredulity, but nothing makes him more uneasy than the pair of guards strolling down the corridor in their direction. They're dressed in military-grade uniforms, with combat boots, bullet-proof vests, and guns holstered at their hips.
Why do they need MPs like this? What do they have holed up in here that they would need to carry guns around for safety in their own institution? Joshua grits his teeth as he follows behind Rosalyn, eyeing the guards all the while. The guards themselves are eyeing him in turn, and it's a tense affair, overall.
Thankfully, their paths never cross. Rosalyn looks up from her papers again, finally, and scans the doors to their left.
"Ah, here we are," she says pleasantly, and leads them through a nondescript door into a room whose purpose quickly becomes apparent.
A metal, rectangular table takes up the center of the room, with chairs on either side of it. On the far wall, a dark one-way glass peers back at them, obscure from this side.
It's an interrogation room.
An ugly trepidation slithers through Joshua, and he instinctively reaches for Seth's sleeve. Seth is scanning the room with his bright eyes, and his brow is still tight.
Clearly, an effort seems to have been made to make the space seem... accommodating, at least. The metal chairs have been pushed aside and replaced with dingy but padded seats. There are no handcuffs in sight, though the table still sports a metal bar for them to be fastened to. Overall, it's... nicer. But it's still hardly welcoming.
Marlowe looks about the setup anxiously, and Joshua wonders if they might have had anything to do with it.
Perkins and Lynch arrange themselves by the door, communicating in some wordless manner with their facial expressions. Rosalyn sips her tea, coming to rest by the table and scanning her papers once more. Eventually, she looks up, as if recalling all at once that Joshua and Seth are still here. She spots them standing uncertainty near Marlowe, and she gestures towards the table.
"Please, don't be so shy. Take a seat." She directs them to the chairs across from her while setting her file down and taking a seat of her own.
Joshua eyes the seats distrustfully. No sooner has Rosalyn said this does the door bang open again, swinging between Perkins and Lynch and jamming into the foot of the former. Perkins makes a foul, half-caught exclamation as he hops backwards, and Lynch blinks with surprise, taking a step backwards as someone knew barges in, lab coat aflutter.
Just how many scientists are there in this facility? Joshua wonders with disdain, frowning at the man as he looks around the room, grinning.
"Is he here?" The new scientist asks, his eyes alight and his demeanor rather ruffled and frenetic.
He's tall, but shorter than Perkins. He's... decently handsome, in a messy, devil-may-care sort of way, with mussed black curls and a scruffy beard that looks recently trimmed. He's probably older than Marlowe, but definitely younger than Rosalyn.
He stops as he spots Seth and Joshua. His eyes widen, and if possible, his excitement increases twofold.
"Is this him?" He asks, moving right up to Seth. He leans uncomfortably close, observing him with amazement and startling blue eyes—sharp, clear, perceptive. "He looks so... human!"
Seth's expression contorts, and he leans back, away from the man and his piercing observing.
"You'd be surprised," Lynch mutters to herself, in response to this stranger's remark.
Marlowe steps in with frustration creasing their brow, and they shove the man away, out of Seth's face. "Leave him alone, Bennett." They growl, "Now's not the time."
Bennett regards Marlowe with surprise. "Is it not? I thought I got the green light to be in charge of this one. Right, Rosalyn?"
He looks to the doctor, who's currently downing the rest of her tea, as though that will give her the strength to carry on.
"Yes," she answers finally, wearily, as she sets the empty mug down onto the table with a clink. "I did say you could, and I do have faith in you, 'It. You can take it now, if you like, I suppose."
"What?" Marlowe reacts at the same time that Bennett beams and says, "Wonderful."
"What?" Marlowe says again, looking incredulously between the doctor and Bennett. "Doctor Rosalyn, that's not fair—for anyone! You can't."
"It is what it is..." Rosalyn says, rubbing at her temples. "Just take it and go, Bennett. I have work to do."
"Of course, of course, can do," Bennett assures her. "Here, come with me."
This is directed to Seth, whose arm he grasps and tugs.
"What? Wait... No." Seth says, looking back to Joshua. "Where are we going? Will I get to come back?"
"Probably not, though I'm sure you'll get to see him again, if that's what you're wondering." The frenetic scientist answers, already having pulled Seth halfway to the door.
"No. No! I don't want to!" Seth exclaims, struggling all at once, yanking back with a strength that almost pulls Bennett off his feet.
Joshua is rooted to the spot, with surprise, disbelief. But this jars him awake, snaps him out of it. He surges forward to take Seth's other arm, but all at once a pair of solid arms swoop around his midriff and lift him clear off the ground.
"Hey!" He squawks, a startled and frightened exclamation. He kicks his legs and scrabbles to pry off the arms around him.
It's Perkins. When did he even move? God, it probably only took one stride of his freaking giraffe legs to do it.
"You're so much stronger than I was expecting!" Bennett delights, even as he's losing his hold on Seth. "I didn't know what to expect, but I must say, I'm excited to meet you!"
"I'm not! Let go!" Seth bites, pulling back again, looking urgently to Joshua with alarm and fear.
"Let me go!" Joshua exclaims at the same time, struggling with renewed vigor.
"Don't make this— ngh, harder than it needs to be, kid," Perkins grunts behind him, holding fast.
"Joshua!" Seth cries, reaching desperately for him.
"Sundo!" Joshua stretches his arm out, grappling for his hand.
Their hands come close, fingers a breadth apart.
Lynch kicks Seth's knees out from under him and he stumbles with a gasp, giving Bennett and Lynch just the time they need to pull-shove him out the door. Joshua's hand grasps empty air, and the last glimpse he catches of Sundo before the door slams shut is those frightened green eyes of his.
The lock on the door clicks, and the room is abruptly swathed in stillness.
For a long moment, no one moves, as though caught in the silent breath of a moment. Then Perkins lets Joshua down, and the boy starts away from him quickly, holding his arms around his abdomen indignantly.
He eyes the three remaining in the room warily: Perkins, Rosalyn, and Marlowe. He challenges them with his stare, challenges them to defy him. He has to go to Sundo. He can't leave him with Bennett—they promised things would be alright as long as they're together!
Fury and anxiety rage through him, and he makes for the door brusquely.
He has the handle in his hand when Rosalyn's commanding voice freezes him in his tracks.
"Stop, Mr. Gonzalo. Take a seat. I have some questions I'd like to ask you, and I'll not wait any longer for answers. So sit."
Joshua stops. He releases the handle, slowly, furiously. He turns from the door. From the resignation on all their faces, he knows there's no getting out of this.
Damn it all.
.
.
.
:)
With this chapter, I've officially used up all my backlogs! Youch! It's a bit of a problem, esp. since I've been terribly busy lately, but I'm hoping to find a solution that will let me keep my schedule going!
Excuses aside, I've considered how to write this chapter for a while. I've always had the third person switch in mind, but I wanted to make sure to do it effectively! Also, I promise you these three—Rosalyn, Bennett, and Marlowe—are the last new characters of the book! What do you think of them? Your story comments sustain me, mwaha!
(The song is She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby)
I wish you all a fantastic, restful weekend!
❤