Modern/Delta Green - The Beginning of the End (COMPLETED)

[talien]

No Pain, No Gain: Part 2 – The End of Rand

Hammer jimmied the lock to Rand's apartment. The agents spread out, carefully surveying each room. A few minutes later, they joined Archive in Rand's office.

"What have you got?" asked Hammer.

"There's a poster of a woman named Jennifer Armbruster in her bedroom," said Jim-Bean. "Not a bad looking chick, for a bodybuilder. I also found this." He showed Hammer a jar. "That residue look familiar?"

Hammer nodded. "Oh yes, how could I forget? Tertiary cnidocytes."

"Or at least Mother's Milk. I also found this notebook. Has mostly shopping lists and household notes. Rand was a bodybuilder too; there are weightlifting sets in there. But take a look at the weird chant."

Archive took the notebook from Jim-bean and scanned it. "This is an endurance chant."

A piece of paper slipped out from between the pages. Hammer picked it up. "And a map of some sort." He flashed his cistron at the map, uploading and correlating it instantly with Blacknet. A few seconds later the location came up.

"YMCA? From the looks of the satellite image we have on file the place is abandoned."

"That might explain these." Hammer held up photographs of a derelict city building. A photograph of a street sign identified the area as Hobb's End. "A number of photographs were developed, but destroyed through scratching and burning, so it is impossible to make out the subject."

Archive turned back to look at Rand's computer. "We may have more luck on her Mac." He tapped a few keys. "Lots more photographs, but no copies of the missing pictures."

Jim-Bean pointed at the screen. "The sequence of filenames is incomplete. Some pictures have been deleted."

Archive sighed. "I wish Guppy was here."

Hammer plugged his cistron into the Mac. "Who needs Guppy? SINNER? Take a look."

A few minutes later an image was uploaded to their cistrons. It showed something large and pale resting in a wrecked indoor area. The pale object had an organic shape, but was heavily blurred; no amount of image processing could clarify it. The rest of the picture, background and foreground, was quite clear.

"That's the supernatural at work," said Archive seriously. "You're not going to get a clearer photo than that."

"Well we know where to go next," said Hammer.

"Don't tell me," said Jim-Bean, rubbing his forehead.

 

[talien]

No Pain, No Gain: Part 3 – It's Fun to Stay at the Y.M.C.A.

The YMCA was still a very handsome design. Despite its condition, the building was stately and bombastic, invoking a more proud and positive time. There was a chain fence surrounding the plot, and the building itself was heavily boarded.

Towards the back, accessible through a small gate in the fence, was a small square building. Lights were visible inside. Heavy weed growth ran from the building right up to the fence.

Hammer peeked in. The cottage had a bedsit-type layout with a kitchen/living room and a separate bathroom/bedroom. It was very clean and tidy, in stark contrast to the surrounding area. "Someone's here, but not in the cottage," he whispered. "So stay alert."

They all drew their pistols as they made their way to the larger building.

Large growths of weeds and fungus were everywhere inside. There were normal varieties, but were prodigiously healthy.

"First, a little preparation for whatever didn't show up in that photograph," said Archive. He scrawled the Elder Sign on their pistols with his chalk.

"Every YMCA has to have a pool," said Hammer. He led the way into the main room.

It was a wreck. Fallen masonry made footing precarious, the walls were filthy and cracked, and broken skylights let the elements in. The whole place reeked of feces and the hot coppery scent of blood.

The main pool was a filthy brownish green, with a thick oily sheen upon the surface. In one corner of the pool sat a bloated, humanoid figure about the size of a car. Atop a pale flabby body was a flat round face with tiny black pinprick eyes and a wide mouth full of needle-like teeth. A brown tentacle-like tongue occasionally flicked from between the teeth, leaving a glistening trail. If the creature had lower limbs, they could not be seen past its vast, distended belly.

"What. The Hell. Is That," said Hammer calmly.

"Just another tentacled beast stewing in a pool of blood and feces," said Jim-Bean wryly.

Bleats and squeaks echoed around them. Crawling their way out of doorways from the perimeter of the pool room crawled awful, barely humanoid figures.

The creatures had round hairless heads, devoid of features aside from a short black beak. The body was unnaturally round, with an asymmetrical bone structure evident beneath the bluish-white skin and patchy grey fur. They had four limbs, irregularly spaced along the torso; two were goat-like legs with lumpy hooves, while one was a scaly tentacle, and the final, most horrifying of all, was an emaciated human arm. They sealed off all routes of escape, fire axes in their clutches.

The little beasts lurched at them, squealing and gibbering. Hammer took aim and blew the head off one, adding red and gray spatter to the brown and green filth that covered everything.

The monstrosity in the pool bellowed as Jim-Bean mowed down another one.

MY CHILDREN! Shrieked a voice in Hammer's mind. YOU WILL TAKE THEIR PLACE AND SERVE ME! COME!

Hammer felt a mental tug, as if a fishing line had lodged itself in his medulla.

"Stay close!" shouted Archive, chanting.

The pressure was suddenly lifted from their minds.

More of the goat-squid things exploded. Heedless of their casualties, they surged forward, attempting to drag them into the pool.

"Mother!" someone cried in anguish behind them. "I'm coming!"

A gaunt man in overalls charged forward, claw hammer in hand.

Jim-Bean reached out an open palm and caught the man in mid-charge with his telekinesis. "You must be the caretaker."

"Don't hurt Mother!" he shrieked.

Jim-Bean made an overhand throwing motion towards the pool. "Why don't you give mommy a hug?"

The caretaker flew headlong into the murky depths, disappearing into the muck above the flailing tentacles with barely a splash.

"What the…" asked Hammer. "He went right through her?"

Jim-Bean eyed Hammer curiously, squeezing off another shot at the goat-squids. "She's cloaking herself. I can fix that." He concentrated…

And Hammer saw the thing for what it really was. The pool erupted in a storm of reaching, grasping tentacles.

Hammer backpedalled, firing as he went. Jim-Bean rolled to the side. But the water had sloshed everywhere. Archive slipped and fell.

Hammer and Jim-Bean grabbed Archive by his feet just as one tentacle wrapped around his arm. A tug of war ensued.

"Pull me back!" Archive yelped in pain as the gray slime covered his forearm.

Jim-Bean let go of Archive just in time to duck the swipe of a hatchet. The caretaker had slipped back out of the pool and run around to the other side.

Jim-Bean telekinetically captured the Caretaker a second time, slamming him backwards into one wall. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

Hammer was losing the fight. Jim-Bean turned back just in time to grab hold of Archive's pant leg. They hurled backwards as Archive slipped free of the tentacled thing's grip.

"Are you okay?" asked Hammer.

Archive took a few shuddering gasps, prone. "My arm." He sat up, holding the forearm raked by the tentacle. "My arm…it's…" The skin where the tentacle had encircled him had turned the color of the water, a greenish brown. Archive lifted his fingers and sticky strands of his flesh tore off, emulsified by the slime. Blood seeped from the fresh wounds.

"Ahhh!" screamed Archive.

The tentacles withdrew into the pool, concealing the thing completely.

Hammer stalked over to the caretaker.

Jim-Bean had already tied cuffs on his wrists. Hammer slapped him awake. He pointed at Archive, who was cradling his arm in agony. "What did that thing do to him?"

"Mother calls her children," he said, eyes rolling madly. "He will be one of hers soon."

"We've got to kill that thing fast," said Hammer. "Jimmy?"

Jim-Bean took a detonator out of his satchel. "Momma gets the whole package." He threw it into the pool and pressed the detonator.

Water, blood, and feces exploded everywhere. The pool was emptied out, the thing writhing at the bottom. The tentacles connected to a primeval fish, twenty feet in length from its bulbous head to its crescent-shaped tail. Three slit-shaped eyes protected by bony ridges were set on atop the other in the front of its head, which remained just beneath the surface as it attacked. It had a pink belly, with four pulsating blue-black orifices that lined the bottom of its body and secreted gray slime.

Hammer pumped bullets it into until it stopped screaming. Then he tossed several thermite charges into the far corners of the room. They left the caretaker to his fate, who started screaming at the top of his lungs.

Then they left.

"The time is coming!" bellowed the caretaker, clawing his way towards the liquefying corpse at the bottom of the empty pool. "The Mother shall reclaim the Earth! Samson will be ground--"

Then thermite explosions tore the words from his throat.

 

[talien]

No Pain, No Gain: Part 4 – Finding Fiona

They rushed Archive to a special facility arranged by Majestic-12.

He was stored in a hyperbaric chamber filled with a chemical solution that slowed the progress of the creeping slime. Archive, wearing an oxygen mask, had placed himself into a healing trance. He sat cross-legged like some new age monk as the technology swirled about him to keep him alive. It was a testament to Archive's altered physiology that the slime conversion hadn't completely consumed him.

Jim-Bean and Hammer looked on glumly. Archive had been in the trance for twenty four hours.

Jim-Bean's cistron beeped.

"The STREETSWEEPER team is finished," he read aloud. "They found a body in the rubble that they think might be Noelle Rand." Jim-Bean left out the part where Sprague bitched them out for destroying the place before the STREETSWEEPER team arrived, but it was probably for the best.

"They think? They're not sure?" asked Hammer.

Jim-Bean shook his head. "They're having difficulty determining the gender."

Hammer frowned. He was having second thoughts about blowing the place up as well. "Because of the blast?"

"Because there's chromosomal damage. The DNA matches up but the gender is all wrong. It's almost as if she was a hermaphrodite."

Hammer blinked. "Was she?"

"I don't think so. There's no medical records indicating such. She always identified herself as female."

"But she was a bodybuilder," said Hammer.

A light went off in Jim-Bean's head. "Who needs steroids when you can use Mother's Milk?"

"Who knows what injecting that stuff would do to you?" asked Hammer.

"Speaking of genetic material, the caretaker, that thing in the water, and those little beasts were all related."

Hammer shuddered. "I didn't need to know that."

It was Hammer's turn for his cistron to beep. The caller was identified as Fiona. He picked it up.

Fiona was on the other end of the line, sobbing. "The bitch is going to call Her in the park during the concert!” she screamed.

"Fiona? What's going on? Where are you?"

Fiona started singing and shouting. “I'm evil, I'm evil, like my parents said I would be. I know something horrible, something you need to know. Meet me at this warehouse address… " She hung up.

Hammer frowned at his cistron as an address came through. "Something's very wrong with Fiona."

"If I know Fiona, she went after Dexter herself." Jim-Bean sighed. "If that even was Fiona. You realize of course that this is a trap."

Hammer ignored him. "Check Archive out. I'll meet you out front." He stomped out of the room.

Jim-Bean shook his head. "He's really falling hard for her."

 

[talien]

No Pain, No Gain: Part 5 – Of Course It’s a Trap

The address led to an abandoned warehouse. Lights were on inside.

Archive, his arm bandaged, was mostly functional. "So…why are we here again?"

They all wore night vision goggles.

"We're ambushing the people who ambushed Fiona," said Hammer. With workman-like efficiency, he placed a small charge next to electrical wiring that led to the warehouse. He handed the detonator to Archive. "Ready?"

Jim-Bean shouldered a submachinegun with a grenade launcher attachment. He slapped his goggles over his eyes. "Ready!"

Archive etched the Elder Sign with chalk on Jim-Bean and Hammer's guns. Then he reluctantly lowered his goggles. "Ready."

Hammer made his way over to the side door of the warehouse. "Jimmy, you've got the count."

Jim-Bean, a pistol in one hand, used his other to count down. He counted off silently with his fingers: Three. Two. One.

Archive pressed the detonator on the charge. It blew, frying the electrical circuits to the warehouse.

At the same, Hammer kicked open the door, both Glocks at the ready.

The warehouse was filled with all sorts of boxes and containers, making it difficult to see. Then they heard a familiar squealing.

"Secondary cnidocytes," swore Jim-Bean. "Lots of them."

Stumping along on their three hoofed legs were four pale-white adolescent forms of Shub-Niggurath, the secondary cnidocytes. Unlike the much larger one that they had defeated at terrible cost, these were merely the size of cows. A mass of tentacles protruded from their trunks where a head would normally be, and a large, red puckering organ, dripping goo, took up most of its front. The whole mass of the things smelled like an open grave.

Cultists ducked in and out of the boxes, their monocular nightvision optics showing up as bright points of red light. Hammer's plan to disable the lights was part of the cultists' plan all along.

"Go for the high ground!" shouted Jim-Bean, pointing at the steps leading up to an office that overlooked the warehouse.

Hammer sprayed the boxes as crates were blasted aside in the cnidocytes' furious charge. He was awarded with shrieks of agony – Archive's magic evened the odds.

Tentacles groped towards them as they made their way up the steps. Jim-Bean took aim with his grenade launcher at the writhing white tentacled forms below. "You're outgunned! Give up! CLEAR!"

Hammer and Archive looked away as the grenade flashed, blasting ichor and splinters of broken crates in every direction. Some cultists, unprepared for the flash, were blinded by the sudden burst of light.

Hammer and Archive peppered the room with gunfire. The cultists had lost their primary advantage of darkness to an equally prepared team. With Archive's magic countering the invulnerability of the cnidocytes, the untrained cultists were no match for the agents.

The remaining cultists turned and fled. Hammer took careful aim and shot one of them in the leg. She fell to the ground just short of the door, wailing and clutching her calf.

Hammer opened the door to let some light in. The agents removed their nightvision goggles.

Jim-Bean ducked his head out of the office. "You'll never guess who I found up here."

Fiona, her hair a mess and red marks across her mouth from a gag, stalked down the steps. Her clothing was torn in several places, baring one shoulder.

"Fiona!" said Hammer with relief. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." Fiona rubbed her wrists. "They tried to feed me to those walking vaginas with tentacles," she sneered. "But they couldn't touch me."

"How did you end up here?" asked Archive.

"I was investigating a tip," said Fiona. "I thought I had a good lead, but…"

Hammer shook his head. "Leave the spy stuff to us. Like interrogations." He snapped on a pair of black gloves and turned to face the prone cultist.

He pulled up a crate and dragged the cultist onto it. "Start talking."

The cultist, an attractive blonde with piercings in her nose, sneered at him. "F$%k you."

Hammer sighed. "So we're going to do this the hard way, hmm?"

"The Goddess is coming!" shrieked the cultist. "She of the Forest with a Thousand Daughters will soon consume us all and we will suckle from her—"

The cultist's head exploded before she could finish the sentence. Behind her, Fiona held one of the cultist's pistols.

"Jesus, Fiona! Now we don't know what their plans are!"

Fiona spat. "I overheard them talking. They're going to sacrifice four people at the Festival of the Earth tonight."

Hammer glanced over at Fiona's bare shoulder. "Is that…a tattoo?"

"Yeah," said Fiona. "The Elder Sign."

"That explains why the cnidocytes couldn't harm her," said Archive.

Fiona addressed Archive. "If I hadn't seen that amulet you wear in action I would never have thought of it. I think it saved my life."

Hammer secretly suppressed a smile.

Fiona took him aside. "About that dinner…"

"Yes?"

"Looks like you'll be busy tonight, huh?"

Hammer was crestfallen. "Yeah."

Fiona pushed back a few strands of her hair out of her face. "Too bad," she said softly.

 

[talien]

No Pain, No Gain: Part 6 – The Festival

The festival was a three-day event that began Friday night and ended on Sunday. It featured live music from a variety of bands, food, crafts, speeches, and all sorts of other stuff. The festival was largely confined to the open areas of the park.

On Saturday night a popular pro-environment band held a concert which thousands attended. While everyone else was heading to the show, Cynthia Dexter and her cultists headed for the woods to prepare the sacrifice.

“Ishniggarah!” Dexter slashed precisely at one of the sacrifice's wrists.

The agents crept up to a clearing in the woods. It was a dark and dank part of the forest that felt quite eerie. The area was devoid of animals. In the center of the clearing was a stone that seemed to have been worked at a bit, giving it a roughly cubic shape.

“The Black Mouth!” Dexter used her knife to slice a second sacrifice. She was only inflicting flesh wounds. The real murders would come at the end of the ritual.

All around the altar, nine cultists dressed in dark robes and hoods chanted in unison. Four of the cnidocytes were there, lurking in the darkness, squealing and wailing along with the chanting. Splayed out on the altar were four naked men, all unconscious.

At the center was Dexter, wielding a knife. She looked different. She had dyed her hair blonde and wore blue contact lenses.

“The Black Tongue!” Dexter struck the third sacrifice with a ritual flourish. Blood from all three sacrifices splashed out over the altar.

Archive, Hammer, and Jim-Bean took positions on platforms in nearby trees. The speed of the ritual caught them by surprise – Dexter had moved up her timetable knowing that the ambush would only delay the agents for so long.

Dexter plunged the knife down at the throat of the last sacrifice.

“The Black—"

"Now!" hissed Hammer into the comm.

Several things happened at once. Hammer, taking aim with his sniper rifle, shot the knife right out of Dexter's hand. Her scream of rage and surprise was immediately muted by a whispered chant from Archive.

An eerie silence fell over the cultists and their squealing cnidocytes.

Whirling around furiously to spot her attacker, Dexter pointed and the cnidocytes spread out like dogs on the hunt.

"They're looking for us," commanded Hammer. "Keep firing while we have the advantage!"

There was a familiar FOONT sound as Jim-Bean launched a grenade. Enchanted by Archive's Elder Sign sigil, the grenade tore through one of the cnidocytes and two of the nearby cultists.

But he gave himself away. As gunfire from Archive and Hammer pounded the cultists, Jim-Bean was violently yanked downwards out of his perch by a deathly white tentacle. The cnidocyte squealed excitedly as it dragged him out of the tree.

Jim-Bean yelled and blindly fired his submachinegun into the thing at point blank range, but that didn't stop it from jerking him spastically closer.

His foot entered the moist red orifice. Jim-bean wished he still had the metallic Elder Sign given to them by the Mothmen, but the thing had disintegrated into a poisonous gas soon afterwards, killing the two Redlight scientists examining it.

Hammer's gunfire tore through the thing. Jim-Bean was thrown like a toddler tossing a doll.

He landed hard. Rolling to his feet, Jim-Bean reached out at the nearby tree with his telekinesis and yanked. It fell over, pinning the squealing cnidocyte.

Their cover blown, the cultists fanned out to flank the agents.

Archive chanted and a fiery beam through another cnidocyte, bisecting it in half.

Although utterly silent, Dexter strode towards Hammer's tree with purpose. Hammer hopped down and tumbled to his feet, guns at the ready.

A fleshy tentacle filled with wet mouths extended to sword-like dimensions in Dexter's hand. She took a swipe with the bizarre blade at Hammer, who danced backwards.

A second cnidocyte roared towards Jim-Bean, pinning him against a tree. The sucker-like mouth slurped at him.

Jim-Bean shoved his grenade launcher into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

The cnidocyte convulsed, tentacles slapping at its mouth. Jim-Bean whirled around to the other side of the tree and covered his ears.

The explosion rocked the forest, sending burning bits of cnidocyte everywhere.

Hammer fired, Elder Sign-infused bullets puncturing Dexter's magical defenses. Her mouth moving in silent rage, Dexter slumped to her knees.

"The High Priestess…" she gasped, able to speak once more, "Will birth…a new generation…" She fell forward, dead.

Hammer flicked on his cistron. "This is Hammer. We stopped the sacrifice. We're moving on the Wilderness Retreat Center now."

Jim-Bean limped over to the massacre. Any surviving cultists had fled. "You mean this isn't over?"

"Oh no, not yet." A jet black helicopter landed behind him with a STREETSWEEPER team armed with flamethrowers. . "Not until we take down their headquarters."

 

[talien]

No Pain, No Gain: Part 7 – The Wilderness Retreat Center

The Sheriff's Department of Squamish County received a phone call from a Charles Cartwright, a man living alone in the mountains. Exploring a canyon between the Altar Stone and his cabin, Cartwright came across Noelle Rand's crushed vehicle in a ravine a hundred feet below a dusty Forest Service road. Cartwright supplied the unburnt vehicle's make, model, license number--readily identifying it as belonging to Noelle Rand. He found no body, no blood, and no sign of the missing woman other than her wallet, an overnight bag, and printout of a strange book in Latin, all articles which he packed out from the wreck and took to his cabin.

It was Renuncion where the agents were headed. Leaving Loam, the road entered low, hummocky foothills covered with dry grass. Small scrub oak trees sheltered in draws and ravines, but the hills were mostly bare of brush and trees. After a while, the canyons deepened, the hills sharpened, and boulders and rocky bluffs emerged along the highway.

Renuncion was located seven miles away from Loam and fifteen miles away from Samson to the southeast. The roads between the smaller towns in the area were re rutted and packed dirt affairs, the only exception being the better-kept “highway” to Samson.

"Why don't we just JERICHO jet the hell out of the place?" asked Jim-Bean.

"Too risky," said Hammer. "This is a populated area near Samson's airspace. We're not sure that this is their headquarters yet."

By the time the agents reached the little town of Renuncion, they ascended into open pine forest. The air was s hazy with Samson's smog, blown far east. The day was hot and dry.

Renuncion barely qualified as even a village. There were about four dozen homes, most of which were strung along the town’s main street. The houses were exactly what one would expect to see in a tiny American town: small, unspectacular structures that under some circumstances might seem “cozy.” Here the townspeople carried out their daily affairs almost furtively. Suspicious eyes peeked out at strangers from behind curtained windows. Children played quietly, seldom laughing, shying away from those they didn't know. Dogs, cats, and other animals also avoided contact with outsiders and residents alike.

Hammer brought up a satellite image of the town. "We think this is their headquarters. The book has mention of an address, and that's it."

Set upon a ridge miles from the next house, the property backed up on a national forest. Localized volcanic activity about four thousand years ago left a jumble of black and red surface outcrops in the area. The Wilderness Retreat Center was the last of a handful along the dusty gravel road: the road ended abruptly at a locked Forest Service gate and cattle guard.

"So can't we just send a STREETSWEEPER team in…" began Jim-Bean.

Hammer shook his head. "We scanned the area. No heat signatures. Nobody's in the house."

"That doesn't make any sense," said Archive. "What kind of Retreat is this place?'

"One where everybody's dead." Hammer pulled the car up. "Or they've already abandoned it."

The house was a small, modem, two-story structure. The curtains were drawn closed, but a light was visible burning upstairs. A two-car garage stood across the road. There was no lawn or garden, though the brush and grass were cut back from around the house and garage to reduce the risk of fire.

The agents got out of the car.

"Check this out," said Archive.

The aluminum mailbox, labeled J.A. ARMBRUCE, had deep, regular scratches in it. The base of the mailbox was about forty inches above the ground.

"Something big made those scratches," said Archive, inspecting the scratches. "Judging by the separation of the teeth and the jaw wide required to bite down on both sides…this was made by one really big dog."

Jim-Bean drew his submachinegun. "Great."

All windows and door of the house were securely locked and curtained. At the door of the house, there was an intercom with a lighted doorbell.

Hammer led the other agents around to the back door. He jimmied it open.

The place shows signs of vacancy and destruction. An apparently new couch had no cushions, with crushed springs and a cracked frame. The kitchen contained a stove, but no refrigerator.

Pieces of a broken television were scattered about the living area. A DVD player was thrown against a wall with some force, judging by the hole in the wallboard.

Hammer froze. "Camera!" he hissed.

A camcorder was in plain sight, sitting on its tripod in a corner of the living room. The light from the ceiling fixture of the loft gave plenty of light to see by, day or night.

"I've got it," said Archive. He chanted and the camera sparked.

An open staircase led up to a bedroom overlooking the living room. They made their way upstairs.

There was a bent and cracked frame for a king-size bed. Tossed into the center of the frame were a half-dozen pairs of women's shoes, ranging from a women's 11D to a 15EEE. The light in the ceiling fixture was lit.

"Big girl," said Jim-Bean.

The bathroom has a sickly, musty odor, sweeter than sweat. Hammer poked the shower curtain aside with one of his pistols.

A grayish-translucent, viscous colony of thick mold flaked off, just missing Hammer. He jumped backwards out of the way.

"What is that?"

Archive frowned down at the slime colony. "That looks like what was on the thing in the pool."

"Let's go downstairs." Hammer closed the bathroom door, leaving the pulsing ooze behind.

The basement contained a washer, dryer, and an army of bodybuilding equipment. All were covered with thick dust.

Jim-Bean concentrated, putting one palm to the ground. "There's three all-weather circuits leading from a second circuit box down into the ground outside the house." He traced a trail only he could see. "The camcorder and electrical cables run about two feet underground." Jim-Bean stopped at the wall. "It leads towards the steep lava-slag. Maybe a lava tube."

He cocked his head, listening. "I hear…music?" Jim-Bean blinked.

Hammer exchanged a glance with Archive. "The source of that music is where we'll find our cult. Let's go."

 

[talien]

No Pain, No Gain: Part 8 – The Thing in the Cave

Jim-Bean followed the trail of the cable like a human divining rod. He pointed at a large lava boulder near the river. "It leads here."

Hammer looked askance at the boulder. "There's no way we can lift that ourselves."

"Don’t be so sure," said Jim-Bean. "I may not be able to telekinetically move it around, but I'm pretty sure I can lift it straight up."

Jim-Bean put his palms to the boulder and concentrated.

Slowly but surely, the boulder levitated upwards, inch by inch. "When the opening is wide enough," grunted Jim-Bean, "Go!"

After the boulder lifted up a few more feet, Hammer ducked inside, scoping out the cavern with his pistols. Archive followed soon after.

When it was about four feet high in the air, Jim-Bean, still keeping his hands pressed against the boulder, carefully ducked inside. Then he let the boulder softly return to its resting place.

They were in utter darkness. Hammer slapped his nightvision goggles over his eyes and the others did likewise.

"You realize," whispered Archive, "we're now trapped in here, right?"

"Can you see anything ahead?" Hammer asked Jim-Bean.

Jim-Bean knew what he meant. He shook his head. "Music stopped, lights went out. They know we're here."

"Okay, weapons hot, eyes peeled," said Hammer. They slowly advanced into a cavernous hallway…

When the ceiling exploded.

A series of planted charges fired in sequence above them. The concussion alone was deafening, blasting them in different directions. Hammer and Jim-Bean were thrown forward. Archive, who was behind them, was not so lucky. The ceiling collapsed immediately afterwards in a cloud of dust and rock, pinning Archive under a pile of rubble.

Dazed, ears ringing, the agents struggled to get their bearings. Before they could even see, a huge form came bounding out of the dust cloud and pinned Hammer to the ground.

It was a fiendish-looking wolf grown to monstrous proportions, easily the size of a car. Bony protrusions jutted from its forehead, shoulders, and along the length of its spine, as if the mutation of Mother's Milk had caused its bones to burst from its hide. Its paws were enormously, easily as large as Hammer's head. One pressed on his chest, the other on his head. He was barely able to breathe, much less fire his pistols.

Jim-Bean was the only one left standing.

"Give up," came a booming, feminine voice, "or Willie will tear off your friend's head."

"Jenny right? Easy, easy," said Jim-Bean, trying to make out the source of the voice. A feminine silhouette was visible in the dust and dirt. "We're here to help."

"Disarm yourself and lie spread-eagled on the floor," she commanded.

Jim-Bean looked down at Hammer. Willie growled, his hot breath washing over Hammer's neck. He slowly let go of the pistols in his grip.

Realizing that Hammer was capitulating, Jim-Bean did as he was told. He dropped his weapon and lay spread-eagled.

And then he saw her.

Jennifer Armbruster was clearly a bodybuilder, her perfectly muscled, naked form towering over them at fourteen feet. Her torso was abnormally long, with an abdomen that had too many individual muscles in it, but that didn't detract from the sheer presence of a perfectly sculpted giant striding towards him.

Firm hands bound Jim-Bean's arms easily. Archive was effortlessly dragged out of rubble by one foot. All of them were searched over, weapons and communications removed.

Willie picked up Hammer in its mouth and carried him down the hall.

They were all unceremoniously shoved into a pen. The chamber was of solid rock, with a lockable gate of steel bars opening into the Lab.

Willie sat down on his haunches, panting, an ominous reminder that even if they escaped they could be recaptured easily. It was clear they weren't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[talien]

No Pain, No Gain: Part 9 – Domestic Bliss

The lab outside of the pen consisted of a large table, handmade from lumber remnants. It was covered with basic lab equipment, books, and papers. Mounds of household objects and appliances rose in odd corners. Boxes and former living room furniture were stacked in disarray. Table lamps, track lighting, and desk lamps illuminated the cavern.

Archive had managed to bind most of his wounds and, through his healing trance, mend his broken bones. Hammer was badly bruised but otherwise okay.

The first day after she captured the agents, Armbruster busily tidied up the caverns. She arranged old bed sheets into relatively modest clothing for herself. She swept up and organized her deep dwelling into one more appropriate for family life. She appears content and determined as she transformed her haphazard environment into one of newly ordered boxes, carefully placed lamps, and scrubbed tables: everything was cleaned and put in proper place.

Finally, Armbruster stopped to address them through the bars. "Well, here we are. Look, I'm sorry to pen you up like this, but you kind of barged in on me, you know? I think you can understand my need for privacy." She laughed grotesquely, every tooth gleaming in the cavern of her mouth. "I know you're going to take this hard, but you're going to have to stay here. Hey--don't worry, Really, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not. I'm not one of those dangerous types who chop people up." She blushed, flustered. "Oh, that's the wrong thing to say. Sorry." Armbruster cleared her throat. ''It's pretty clear you guys know a lot about me, and how—y'know, how I got like this. We'll talk. But not now."

"Jenny, we're agents of the federal government," said Jim-Bean. "People will come looking for us."

Armbruster changed the subject. "So, what do you guys want for dinner? My friends always tell me I'm a pretty good cook."

"Uh…we don't really plan to stay here long," said Hammer.

"Microwave dinners and soup it is!" exclaimed Armbruster. She left the room and bustled back in with microwave dinners, canned soups, and two-liter bottles of soft drinks. Along with the hot meal, she passed in a latrine bucket.

"All the comforts of home," muttered Archive.

Jim-Bean gaped as Armbruster downed six entrees of Chicken Kiev.

"You said there are people who know you are here," she asked around mouthfuls. "Who do you work for?"

"We're part of the Central Intelligence Field Agency," said Jim-Bean. "We investigate terrorist activity—"

"I'm not a terrorist!" exclaimed Armbruster. "I haven't bothered anyone…"

"I'm not saying that you are," said Jim-Bean carefully. "But we were investigating some experiments performed by Dawn Biozyme. In fact, we brought them down recently."

Armbruster looked thoughtful. "How did that lead you to me?"

"Long story."

She smiled. "We've got time."

Jim-Bean sighed. "Walter Morrow, CEO of Centurion Computer Systems, was a majority stock owner of Tiger Transit. It turns out he accidentally caught the attention of a Hound of Tindalos while experimenting with a pure form of drug known as Blink, and he was using all his company's resources to try to stop it – only a research scientist he assigned to the task, James Morton, made a deal with the Tindalosians instead. Morrow ended up committing suicide so that his stock wouldn't go to the Tcho-Tchos, who were distributing Blink."

Armbruster leaned forward, intrigued. "Go on."

"We stopped Morrow," said Jim-Bean. "And then discovered that Blink was created from Fumo Loco, which was made in Dawn Biozyme labs. That led us to investigate Dawn Biozyme, which we shut down a few weeks ago. Then we discovered that they were summoning something…"

"The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young," said Armbruster.

"Uh yeah. That. And they were milking it, using Mother's Milk to mutate…" Jim-Bean trailed off, careful not to insult Armbruster.

"And that led you to the Sisterhood of New Potential?"

Jim-Bean nodded. "Apparently the Sisterhood has been stealing members from Full Wilderness." He shot Hammer a glance. "A mutual friend of ours gave us a tip, and those leads led us to Cynthia Dexter. We interrupted her ceremony. So there was nothing left to do but to arrest the leader of the organization."

"Me," said Armbruster with a frown. "I'm not really the leader. In fact, I don't agree with their methods. I'm more their figurehead. They see me as an incarnation of the All Mother. But I don't run the place." She spread her massive hands, gesturing at herself. "I mean, look at me."

"Are you going to let us go?" asked Hammer. "It will go better for you if you do."

Armbruster smiled. "That depends on your behavior. But it's late. Get some rest. We've got a busy day tomorrow."

She thudded off to retire to bed. Willie merely turned a few circles and lay down, huge snout facing the pen.

"Majestic will send someone, eventually, right?" asked Archive.

Hammer and Jim-Bean didn't answer.

 

[talien]

No Pain, No Gain: Part 10 – Life With Jenny

Armbruster greeted the agents the next morning with pop-tarts and frozen waffles. She probed for information; Hammer and Archive were less forthcoming, but after enough prodding provided their names and some basic information. She was unnervingly perceptive and guessed at details they never mentioned.

"What are you studying here?" asked Jim-Bean.

"Me," said Armbruster with a smile. "I was a researcher for Dawn Biozyme before the change. I'm pretty lucky, I guess – the first human to enter a wonderful new phase of existence. You say you battled the Tindalosians, hmm?"

"Among other entities, yeah," said Jim-Bean.

"All these Elder Races…they are going to let us grow and develop to our full potential. We are going to be…" Armbruster drew a deep breath, "Something Elses!"

"And what is that, exactly?" asked Hammer.

"I'm not sure. That's what I'm trying to find out."

Other than bland human news in five minute chunks, idiotic talk shows blaring in the background, and unnervingly reactionary soap operas, the march of time became difficult to track. Hours passed.

"Did you hear that?" asked Archive.

They all craned their necks to listen.

There was a scrabbling noise, like brittle silk and powdered glass.

"It sounds like…millions of tiny feet," said Hammer. "Jimmy?"

"I'm not sure I want to look," said Jim-Bean with a frown. He concentrated…

Armbruster was sprawled against the far wall of a cave. A horde of crickets scrabbled down from a hole in the ceiling towards her. At first Jim-Bean thought she was about to be consumed by them, but then he realized it was actually the reverse.

The bugs swarmed over her, fighting to enter her gaping mouth. Her eyes seemed to acknowledge his presence even though she couldn't possibly see his scrying. Without attempting to speak, her gesture seemed to be an offer to share…

Jim-Bean sprang back, once again in the cell, sweating.

"Well?" asked Archive.

"It's better off if you don't know," said Jim-Bean.

The scrabbling sound lasted for a full half hour.

"We have got to get out of here," whispered Hammer.

"Relax," said Jim-Bean. "You heard her. She's a researcher. She was probably pretty antisocial, left to her own devices, all alone down here. I know how to handle her."

Hammer snorted. "You mean like how you handled Lisa Howell?"

"You know how to handle a fourteen-foot high giant with a monster dog for a pet?" asked Archive. "Did you notice the bulges under her armpits? I think she's growing another pair of arms!"

Jim-Bean waved him off. "I just need to gain her trust. Give me time and I'll have her eating out of our hands."

He tried not to think about what Armbruster was eating out of her hands.

 

[talien]

No Pain, No Gain: Part 11 – The Con

After some further conversation from Armbruster wherein Jim-Bean assured her that they wouldn't try to escape, she let them out of the pen. She showed them around the caves, starting with the lab, pointing out the refrigerator and freezer as examples of her good will.

"You're all going to have to pull your own weight around the house, of course," she said.

Willie growled at Hammer whenever he came near. Hammer gave the wolf-beast a wide berth.

Each agent was assigned chores. Hammer had the bulk of the work, including fetching water from an underground pool, cleaning the dishes, and most disturbingly, emptying the latrine.

Archive became Armbruster's research assistant. He had was assigned the dull, dirty, and dangerous work: drawing quivering microscopic horrors, sniffing bubbling alembics pouring off poisonous gases, and reading paragraphs that tempted the mind to disintegration.

She took Jim-Bean aside into another chamber. "You're different, aren't you?"

Jim-Bean swallowed hard. Armbruster poured three bottles of wine into a large glass vat the size of Jim-Bean's head. She poured the remainder of it into a beaker and offered it to him.

"You could say that," he said, taking the glass. Her hand brushed his arm, the contact a little too long to be an accident.

"You're more like me." Armbruster sat down, legs crossed on the floor. She was wearing makeup and had even put on a makeshift bra, a large lab coat over it, and a rough skirt of sorts. "I could tell. You're on the same path to evolution." She handed him a book. "You should read this."

Jim-Bean flipped through a few pages. "What is it?"

"Unaussprechlichen Kulten, or Nameless Cults," said Armbruster. "Friedrich von Junzt wrote the original in German. The English edition was issued by Bridewell in London in 1845, but it contained numerous misprints and was badly translated. A heavily expurgated edition was later issued in New York by Golden Goblin Press in 1909."

Jim-Bean perused the contents. The text contained information on cults that worshipped pre-human deities such as Ghatanothoa and included hieroglyphs relating to the latter. There was also information on more recent cults including that of Shub-Niggurath.

"Interesting," was all Jim-Bean said. He knew he was treading a fine line.

Armbruster sipped the vat of wine. "I received a message from Qn about you, you know."

Jim-Bean feigned drinking the wine, barely sipping it. "Who?"

"It's a Mi-Go. It's very interested in you, wants a blood sample. But it wouldn't say why. I'm not inclined to hand you over to them…not just yet."

Jim-Bean sat down, cross-legged, in front of Armbruster. "Keeping me all to yourself?"

Armbruster just smiled. "Did they abduct you?"

For some reason Jim-Bean found himself talking freely about things he knew he should keep secret This was madness, he knew abstractly. But then, was he so much different from her? He had long since left his humanity behind…

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so, but some days I'm not so sure. I used to have a British accent and then one day…I lost it."

Armbruster frowned. "Lost it? Like you forgot who you were?"

"Like that was never me in the first place. I'm not sure I've ever been fully human…" He took a long gulp of the wine. "I'm not even sure why I'm telling you this, this is crazy."

She smiled and shook her head. "It's not crazy. This is exactly right," she said with sympathy and whispered understanding. "And now it's all this otherworldly stuff dominating your life. I know, man. It's hard. But it's something you have to see your way through. It's a good thing you have friends."

"Yeah, friends." Jim-Bean sipped more wine. "Sometimes I have memories…I think I'm to be destroyed if I ever disobey orders. So I'm not sure who to trust anymore."

Armbruster put one hand, the size of a catcher's mitt, on his back. She rubbed his back in slow circles, pulling him a little closer to her. Despite her size, her hand felt warm and soft. "I understand. I'm the same way. Some days I think Dr. Finley is only using me. He doesn't understand that we're a new race. He just treats me like I treat Willie – a dog on a leash. If we ever bite back, they think they can have us dragged out and shot. Well I won't let that happen to you, don't you worry."

"Thanks," said Jim-Bean. He was up against her leg now. It didn't horrify him, even though it should have. He was very sensitive to the skin on skin contact.

"Once this other world, this wonderful universe we're only beginning to understand, enters your life, there's really no choice but to embrace the truth. So many researchers at Dawn Biozyme were consumed with greed by my research. All they thought about was how it could make them money – but secretly they were afraid. Their whole goal in life was to get rich…and then what? Capability maintains no necessary connection with temptation. Anyone can adopt Outer God worship as a path to personal betterment; after all, we're living proof."

All of this seemed to make sense to Jim-Bean when he knew it shouldn't. But he still had a mission.

"I need you to open up fully to me, Jenny. I can feel we're kindred spirits, but I feel like you're holding back. If you can open your mind to mine, I think we can…"

He faded off as she leaned over him; all smothering, all encompassing woman. His flesh rippled unnaturally at her touch.

"I think we can," she said with a whisper.

It was only later that Jim-Bean realized he had been seduced by a monster.