the conduit

Radigan hauled himself up the ladder with a hand and an elbow, the bowels of the immense machine churning below  him.

Far beneath was the metal walkway, above an even deeper pit.

Above was Blutarch Manor.

This vertical climb was the only way out.

His head swam, each pull towards escape was a moment where his weakened, trembling grip could come loose and send him hurtling into oblivion. To say nothing of the pains it took to raise what was left of his other arm, high enough to hook his elbow to the next rung, hoping it took, hoping the slick of blood in its wake would not bring it unstuck.

It would have been agony, if he’d had any of his senses left.

As he bled out onto the rungs below, his foot lost purchase. 

His heart plummeted.

For a moment he was dangling by one arm. For a moment, watching his leather shoes sway above the abyss. 

He’d been lucky it was his uninjured arm on the ladder. If it had been the other way around, he’d have met a sticky end.

Although, maybe “lucky” wasn’t the right word in this situation.

The rolling, rocky scenery of the sprawled out desert was not unfamiliar, but there was a certain novelty to seeing it framed by the luxurious blues of the automobile’s interior, rather than from the backs of military vehicles that the medic was used to.

Adding to this feeling was the presentation of his companion. The engineer was still donning his work uniform, but his goggles were hanging loosely around his neck and his helmet sat courteously on his lap. It made his face seem strangely naked in the light of day, his shaven head exposed, his eyes soft and tired.

Following suit, the medic had dressed down to his vest, shirt and tie, forgoing his lab coat and gloves for the trip. The doctor sat alert with his hands in his lap, where Dell relaxed against the window side.

The surreal feeling of it all wasn’t helped by the fact that he wasn’t sure where they were going. Dell had appeared that morning, knocking politely on the infirmary door, to ask him if he’d come on an off-site excursion. A rather frazzled Miss Pauling had arranged to have them transported to a project the engineer was working on for BLU.

While they’d gradually gotten to know each other through their work, there were many aspects of the engineer’s duties that remained a mystery to the medic. His regular private engagements with the company made that clear.

The doctor suspected there was more to it than simple maintenance, from Dell’s insistence.

“What is this project, exactly?” The medic piped up after a while.

“You’ll see soon enough.” The engineer leaned in towards him. “Truth be told, y’ain’t really s’posed to be coming along for this, but Miss Pauling made a lil exception for me this time.”

By that, he meant that he’d left it until the last moment to ask her, and while she’d dug in her heels at first the tight schedule she was on, compounded with Dell’s awfully polite, soft-spoken persuasion made her relent to his whims.

“She did say that I gotta take responsibility for ya, though – any repercussions fall square on my shoulders,” he added.

“Ah, I’ll have to be on my best behaviour, then.” The medic straightened his back and lifted his chest.

Dell snickered. “Ain’t no crime if we don’t get caught – that’s all that matters. Otherwise, I don’t give a hoot.” The engineer had his own reasons not to respect the confidentiality of their employer.

The medic’s professional poise faltered into a matching smirk.

As they passed by a smattering of tall, sculptural rock formations, perched high above them, the manor pulled into view. A stony blue-grey against the vivid sky and orange earth, an elaborate layout of towers and windows – the largest of which proudly displayed an ornate “B”.

Dell’s lips curled with glee at the short gasp the medic let out. “There she is – Blutarch Manor.”

They rumbled up the driveway and pulled to a stop. They were ushered out, crunching across the gravel driveway and up to the enormous wooden doors to the front of the manor.

The Medic couldn’t control the anxious thrumming in his veins as the enormous doors gave way to a lavish, high-ceiling interior stretching far in front of them. 

Much closer to Dell’s height than his own, an older woman stood by the door with a warm smile. She was adorned in dark blue – a simple but refined dress.

“Lovely to see you again, Dell.” She glanced at his companion. “And this is…?”

“Oh, I thought I could use some advice, so the doc is here as a ‘plus one’,” the engineer hastily introduced.

There was a short exchange of pleasantries, before Blutarch’s secretary strode off, leaving the two men to their own devices.

The doctor felt Dell’s eyes on him and met his gaze. The engineer’s smile spread from the pleasant, polite one he’d been wearing to the excited grin of a misbehaving schoolboy. 

The medic himself couldn’t help but giggle as they both practically scampered through the manor. He had to admit, there was a certain thrill to being let loose inside his employer’s headquarters without the express say-so of his higher-ups.

They made their way to the hall leading to Blutarch’s office, behind another tall set of wooden doors.

“Hey Doc – this’a way,” the engineer called him, standing at one of the doors along the hallway.

Branching off from the main corridor was an entrance to a small, walled off courtyard nestled between other parts of the building. It was sparse, tiled, with a potted plant in each corner.

The only other feature was what appeared to be something like a metal cellar door, chained and padlocked shut. From the way the metal rusted and stained the surrounding brick, it must have been there for a while.

The engineer shunted a key to the lock and let the heavy chain rattle to the ground. There was a short stairwell into a deeper section of the mansion – no longer ornate, but concrete and utilitarian – flickering with florescent lights. He stepped inside and hit the switch.

It was a standard electrical closet and powerboard. The air was cold and stagnant, slightly bitter with the scent of mechanical discharge.

In the back of this room was another heavy door. The engineer flipped to another key on his ring and unlocked it, opening with a groan of metal reluctantly grinding on concrete.

The unsettling depth of the basement tickled the medic’s curiosity, peering down another stretch of hall, plunging into the unknown.

Another stairwell, this time more of a squared off spiral that twisted in on itself as it descended. The medic began picking up on a sort of hollow, ambient whirr somewhere further inside.

The staircase ended in a railed off platform, opening out into a vast, dark cavern. As they approached the railing, Dell looked back over his shoulder to watch the medic’s reaction, grinning from ear to ear as his expression unravelled into a look of awe.

“I do not believe this.”

Stretching metres across, below and above, the interior was lined with an unfathomable wall of apparatus, countless dots and flickers of blue, gold and white light sparkled far across the cave wall like an underground metropolis, looking out over a rolling sea of churning gears and pumping pistons.

The occasional hiss of steam sent swirls of vapour up through the dark, dancing in the patches of light along walkways that stretched deep into the chasm.

“See, up through there, that’ll be Mister Mann’s office.” The engineer pointed up to the ceiling, a spot high above where various clusters of tubes, pipes and wires fed through.

“What… what is all of this, exactly?”

“I’ll tell you what: this here is the immortality machine, my grandpa’s life’s work.”

The engineer continued as they wove their way between enormous towers of mechanisms. “Don’t seem right, that I gotta keep those Manns’ secrets when they never respected his - and I’m thinking I already told ya more than I oughta done in passing. Can’t really un-tell ya after the fact, can I? To tell ya true, I’m just glad someone knows. Because this here? All ‘a this?” He spread out his arms, up into the huge cavern of machinery. “Radigan put together by himself.”

“How absolutely fascinating… Yes, I can see why you look up to him so, Herr Engineer.” The medic’s eyes wandered, finding no end of new pieces to look at – twitching metres and gauges, churning gears, bubbling tubes of fluid, rattling pipes that snaked up and away from view, vents that spewed forth hot fumes.

“Figured you’d appreciate it.” He drank in the admiring expression of his colleague, pleased with himself.

“Is there truly nobody else that knows about this place?”

“Aside from Blutarch himself, his secretary and one or two administrative types, I shouldn’t think so. Maintaining her is all my job – learning all her ins and outs, what makes her tick. Gotta say, I get lost here more often than I’d like to admit,” Dell confessed.

The medic’s brow pinched as he imagined his small colleague navigating around all this heavy, churning metal on his own, between the cracks of machinery or suspended somewhere high above in the dark.

“Is it not… dangerous, to be here by yourself?” the doctor inquired.

The medic saw his colleague’s expression scrunch up into a much more conflicted look than his former enthusiasm.

“Wouldn’t exactly call it safe, that’s for sure. It ain’t really… designed that way. I done my best – it used to be that the only way to get outta here was up a rickety old ladder, one long, long climb. Begged ‘em for months to replace it with somethin’ sturdy.” he explained. “But there’s a lot that just can’t be changed, not without uprooting the whole shebang.”

“Surely, there must be labour laws pertaining to matters such as this.”

“Sure. If all ‘a this weren’t off-record, if it weren’t gonna paint a target on my back and if it weren’t gonna jeopardise Radigan’s hard earned legacy, sure." The reply came out flat, but the way Dell hunched in on himself, appearing even smaller, made it evident that his patience for the subject was dwindling.

The medic decided to leave it at that, for the moment.

Radigan lived inside machines. He crammed himself to fit in the small, dark spaces between hot, undulating metal. He drank in the vibrations, the elegantly practical forms, the groans and creaks of constant motion.

Machines shaped him as much as he shaped them. Radigan had all manner of scars to show for it, a patchwork of burns where hot metal had branded him. His hands had become uneven over the years where bits of his fingers had been crushed or sliced off. He bore the sacrifices of his devotion, and had witnessed far worse in those who he’d worked with.

It would take a kind of worship to spend as long as he did constructing the elaborate, labyrinthine depths of the immortality machine. He would spend a large part of the next decade utterly entrenched in it, spending much of the following years in the depth of Blutarch Manor when not actively pursuing knowledge and trialling smaller components of the machine.

Decades before Dell had ever stepped foot in the place, before even his father had been born, Radigan Conagher had stood on the suspended walkway, creaking precariously above a bottomless pit of machinery – no longer fitting inside Blutarch’s office, the abscess had grown steadily deeper and more cavernous over time.

The engineer’s uniform was similar to his grandson’s – light blue overalls (that somehow always had a  grease-stained rag poking out of the front pocket) on a cream shirt, goggles perched atop his head. He had a tool belt and gloves that covered the skin of his arms completely where the shirt’s sleeves met them.

He followed attentively beside a much taller woman, the Administrator’s heels clacking on the path beneath them. She wore a rich, plum dress that covered her down to her wrists and to where her heeled boots met at the ankle, dark hair parted in a distinctive swoop, streaked with white.

She stopped at a T-junction in the walkway, the diverting path leading to a sealed off chamber. The heart of Radigan’s machine was here, a section all of its own where tubes of fluid pumped in and out. The Administrator stood by the railing and observed. Radigan followed suit, resting his folded arms on the horizontal pole between safety and certain death.

“Very impressive,” she purred. “And you will be able to replicate all of this for Redmond?”

“Yup.”

“As always, I appreciate your deftness.” She chuckled, then paused, turning to fix the man with an inquiring look. “I do wonder… would it be possible to design a smaller and perhaps more… mobile model?”

Radigan stroked his chin, humming in thought. “Ma’am, to be clear, a good portion of this machine was designed with maximum efficiency in mind. Australium being what it is, it’s safer to have the processing in place to get the most out of the barest amount.” He sniffed. “Reckon if you cut that, it’d chew through it like no tomorrow.”

“But it is possible,” she pressed.

“Uh huh.”

“Very well then, I will need you to start designing that, too. Efficiency can come later, for now… not all of us have the luxury to run campaigns of leisure against the ravages of age from the comfort of our offices.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“One last thing, just to be entirely clear: you are also to take responsibility for the condition and upkeep of these machines. If any of them show signs of sabotage, there will be dire consequences,” the Administrator warned.

Radigan wondered about that. He had no doubt that the Administrator had the power to make him a dead man, but he’d kept the whereabouts and contents of the blueprints and documents secret for that very reason – as insurance, to make his death as inconvenient as possible.

Whatever these “dire consequences” were, it was not in her best interests to have him dead. Even so, he was not about to test her.

“Understood.” 

“Good.” Satisfied, the woman seemed content to let her attention wander out into the depths of the technological abyss that whirred all around them.

Radigan joined her. “She’s a real beast, but I wouldn’t dream ‘a hurtin’ her,” he remarked, soft with reverence.

The Administrator quirked an eyebrow at him as she realised that Radigan was, in fact, referring to the machine.

The further the tour went, the medic couldn’t say that his concerns for safety were quelled in the least – but his curiosity got the better of him. Being one of the few honoured with bearing witness to the inner workings of the immortality machine – and the only one to be given a personal tour by his dear friend – he couldn’t contain his wonder.

The architecture of the machine was almost Escherian in its simultaneous complexity and near madness of design. There were hollows where the structure curled around and around itself, passages that wound through this way and that, crevices that needed to be squeezed into. It was somewhere between a place you would visit in a dream, and a memory of being a small child in an elaborate playground.

Dell’s mood had brightened considerably as they went along and he described what each part of the machine supposedly did. The medic had to confess, while there was plenty he did understand on the medical side, there was much more that went over his head. Even so, he listened in awe at how intimately the engineer understood the processes.

“There’s still bits ‘n pieces I’m puttin’ together, but I know enough to keep her runnin’, sure enough.”

“You are far too modest, Dell – I am certain without you, it would take a small team of scientists and engineers to even begin to decipher how all of this works.” The sentiment was far from mere lip service, the man truly did have a formidable mind.

“Aw shucks,” he gave a bashful chuckle at the praise, “dunno about all that, but I’m flattered.”

As they squeezed through yet another tight passage, this one led them further away from the other moving parts, becoming muffled as they plunged into the depths of the machine.

“Now, this is none too technical, but I thought ya might find it interesting.” With that, the engineer stopped at the dead end of the passage, reaching up.

A hatch opened above him, soft light trickling down around. What waited for the medic at the other side was… a room.

Radigan had set up a humble private quarters inside the machine itself. To one side, a hammock, a smattering of books – both textbooks and personal journals – and a small, low table serving as a desk. On the other, to his surprise, a stove, sitting on top of which was an antique kettle.

“That stove still works, mind you,” Dell commented.

“I see, so your grandfather was living here as well as working here...”.

It wasn’t spacious by any means, the doctor’s head could touch the ceiling without so much as taking his feet from the floor – only raising his heels incrementally. There were still odd pipes running through it that he needed to duck under. The cavity was wider than his arm span, but not by much. If he and Dell stood side by side in this room, there wouldn’t be much space to spare between them.

Curiosity piqued, the medic crouched to investigate the old journals.

“Have you read these?” The doctor flipped one of them open to a random page.

“Tried – a few odd times. I spent years pourin’ over the man’s writing and some entries don’t look like nothin’ but chicken scratch t’ me. Others just feel… real personal.”

The engineer’s point was proven almost immediately, even in knowing his own profession where handwriting could be infamously bad, the medic struggled to make sense of it. The strokes were both hard to make out and incredibly dense, the paper worn thin by the thick succession of clustered marks. It filled the entire page, swelling from the margins.

He flipped through several more pages, similarly packed with scrawl. Some stamped with thumbprints of black grease, some torn, some smeared with dark brown stains that looked – to Medic’s well-versed eyes – like dried blood, and some specked with… a kind of dull, gold substance the medic didn’t quite recognise, shimmering in the dim light.

A heavy portion of the journal continued in this manner, but Radigan’s handwriting proved to be erratic – whatever state had taken over him changed abruptly for a few pages after. It took on a rambling tone, mostly describing fairly uninspiring events from his days. Flipping a few more pages in, the medic’s eyes caught sight of something that made him stop.

This “she” that Radigan was talking about, quite passionately. Her warmth, the feel of her, the contact of his body against her.

It was borderline erotic.

It was only when he read about the “tick of her gauges” that the medic realised Radigan was not talking about a woman, but in fact, his own machine. He snapped the book shut, eyebrows raised. Dell was toying with the goggles around his neck uncomfortably when he turned back to him.

“...Yes, I rather see what you mean.”

The two of them emerged back onto another suspended walkway in the main section of the cavern, the medic feeling lightheaded with relief at the sudden space. He noticed something else, too.

The smell of exhaust nearly overpowered it, but underneath there was a trace of a sharp, organic scent – a familiar one that tickled the back of his brain. It was reminiscent of the pungent, visceral smell he’d known from working with corpses.

The medic adjusted his glasses and scanned his surroundings, peering up into the adjacent wall of apparatus and churning gears.

He froze. Stretched between the relentless teeth of the gears, torn to shreds, was an article of fabric, trapped to spin around and around in an endless cycle. The blue denim was stained so thickly he could only make out traces of the colour, but it was there. He caught sight of the familiar yellow patch, bearing that unmistakable wrench symbol.

No doubt, this was where the smell was coming from. He saw now, as he looked closer, the metal bore a long, dark stain where meat and gore had splattered against it, still faintly sticky.

“Doc?” the engineer had backtracked when he’d realised his companion hadn’t been following.

He traced the man’s gaze.

Dell sucked in a breath. “...been meanin’ to get it cleaned up. Sorry ‘bout that.”

“They cannot do this to you.” The medic murmured.

“We get done in all the time.” The engineer shrugged. “Whether it’s down here or on the field.”

“Regardless… I do not imagine it’s a pleasant way to go.”

“Oh, it ain’t. Not in the slightest.” He grit his teeth. “Least I can say is I’m grateful we got the whole respawn system goin’ for us nowadays, ‘cuz otherwise, I’d be in a whole world ‘a trouble.”

“...Pa?”

Radigan didn’t so much as blink, his swift hand churning out line after line of scrawl. Gold-glazed eyes darted to follow the rapid fire strokes of the pencil.

“Hey Pa!”

His thoughts were a blur, one after the other, as easy as running, as easy as breathing--

“DADDY, LOOK!” Fred blurted into his ear.

That forced him out of his daze. He blinked a few times, startled. Radigan noticed spots of liquid gold dotting the page and only then, tasted the sharp tang of metal pooling behind his teeth and oozing from his lips. He hurriedly turned to his son and wiped his mouth in one motion, swallowing back Australium.

The child was beaming ear to ear, having emerged from the now-open door to the small office of their current home, all the way to Radigan’s desk.

Fred was a very sweet boy – of course Radigan was biased, but he thought it must be an objective fact. He had a bright, chubby-cheeked smile and dark brown eyes that always seemed to shine with wonder. He had a head full of loose, black curls that bounced along with him.

He had something cupped between his pudgy little hands, holding them over the desk’s surface to release it.

Instead it shot towards Radigan’s face.

He started for the second time, staggering back. It landed on the desk.

A fat, green grasshopper.

“Caught it m’self!” Fred announced proudly.

The insect seemed just as bewildered as Radigan, twitching its antennae where it sat on his paperwork, the shuffling of its spiny legs smearing wet streaks of gold across the paper.

As his breath steadied and his muscles relaxed, the man couldn’t help a soft chuckle. “Thank you, son, but that don’t belong indoors – you oughta put ‘im back outside.”

Fred conceded with a little hum and reached out to scoop up the grasshopper again, gasping when it leapt from the desk to the floor.

The boy crouched down, determined to hunt it between the legs of Radigan’s chair, hands poised to strike. Watching him, his father’s eyes crinkled with fond amusement. He couldn’t see exactly what was happening as Fred scurried around under his desk, but a small triumphant cry later he reemerged, hands once more cupping the insect – firmly, but carefully.

The boy plodded dutifully back out, satisfied with having shown off his catch. Radigan watched him go, lingering on the open door to the office a moment longer, before he returned to his desk.

There were stacks upon stacks of folders and papers that had almost materialised from nothing over the last few evenings. He needed the Australium to do the work, and he needed to do the work to get the Australium. Sometimes it was almost mind-numbing.

There wasn’t an end in sight to this breadcrumb trail of precious metals and promises of him living to see his son turn a few years older.

“I hear that’s what got him in the end – they called Fred at work, sayin’ there weren’t nothin’ left ‘a the man to bury, ‘cept all his old notes. Never got word just how that happened, only that it were some kinda emergency. Fred seemed pretty sure it must’a been a military operation, but I couldn’t say. For all I know, there’s bits of Radigan still in here, somewhere.”

“Your family is delightfully morbid,” the medic remarked.

“Guess that’s one way to see it.”

As they crossed the walkway, the medic couldn’t help but notice that it formed a sort of T-junction at the very centre – one much shorter branch leading to a bolted off section, guarded with a coded door. Feeding through from various other parts of the machine were all manner of tubes and pipes.

“What’s through there, then?”

“That’ll be where some ‘a the raw materials are stored and processed. The resources used to power this beaut are so rare and so expensive I’m guessin’ ol’ man Mann don’t want nobody to nick ‘em – even I ain’t allowed in.”

“Really?” The medic hummed in thought. “You would think being the primary operator of this contraption, having your access barred from certain parts could only be a detriment to your work...”

“I got the plans, so I know what’s in there. Nothin’ too sophisticated, comparatively.”

“...You’re not just a bit curious?” There was a playful twitch to the medic’s lips.

Taking the cue, the engineer relented. “Maybe a bit.”

It dawned on him how unfair it was that he should be barred from any part of his grandfather’s work. He’d spent days in here, countless hours.

This is what he suffered for, why shouldn’t he be granted access?

“Y’know what, why don’t we take a closer look?” Dell decided.

Fred kept all his focus on containing the bug without crushing it. It was only really when he’d released it back into the tall grass and closed the back door that something caught his attention.

“You must be Conagher’s boy.” A woman had seated herself at their living room table, one leg folded over the other.

He hadn’t seen her arrive nor heard her come in. The sharp, bitter smell of cigarettes emanated from her, hair done up immaculately, clad in dark purple attire.

“Yes ma’am.” The boy straightened his back and stared up at her attentively.

She smirked. “Obedient too, just like your father. Where is that man?”

“He’s through there,” the boy pointed, “he’s-- oh he’s a comin’--”

Radigan’s footsteps pounded towards them, all at once. He grabbed Fred’s wrist, yanking the boy behind him to physically stand between his son and the Administrator.

“Don’t talk to her.”

“Ow-- Pa, you’re hurting me--” Fred whined.

“It could be much worse.” The Administrator sneered.

The man bristled. “Fred, just--” as Radigan turned to him, he saw the storage closet, key still in the keyhole.

He fumbled to throw the door open and drop the boy inside. “You stay put, okay?”

“Pa--?”

He slammed it shut, locking the door and stuffing the key into his coat pocket. He shoved his back up against it.

“Pa! Pa, let me out!” The muffled cries of his voice and thumps of his fists were painfully ineffective.

He barely uttered the words “I’m sorry” above a whisper, doubtlessly inaudible to the wailing child trapped inside the dark closet.

He met the Administrator’s entertained gaze with a suffering stare.

“I have an errand that needs tending from you, Mister Conagher. Leave the child as he is.”

Radigan obeyed, stepping away from the door. Hearing this, Fred’s begging dissolved into incoherent screaming, a high pitched, painful shrieking. 

The Administrator lingered a moment longer, lips curling with wicked satisfaction at the combined misery of the two. “Children are much like dogs, Mister Conagher. Even if you kick them, countless times, they will always come running back.”

“Don’t got much choice, do they?” he muttered.

“Not all dogs choose to behave, however,” she mused. “But a good dog learns.” She said with a sidelong glance, a dark gleam in her eye.

Their footsteps faded as the Administrator led the engineer out through the door, too beaten down to even look back. The house was left empty, Fred’s wails subsided into sobs and the occasional hoarse call, to eventual silence.

The vault was guarded by a keypad, like many others he’d seen around the BLU bases he’d worked and the headquarters. Like all the rest, it required a 4 digit code.

“Most people would use a date for a code such as this, wouldn’t they?” The medic puzzled. “It should not be too hard to guess… say for instance… What year did the Gravel Wars start again?”

“1850?”

The doctor jabbed the numbers with several monotone beeps.

…

Nothing.

“No way that was gonna work,” the engineer scoffed. “Using dates as a code? Might as well just use a string ‘a ones.”

The medic stared at him, then turned back to the number pad, this time only hitting a single button four times.

There was an audible ‘thunk’ as the mechanism turned and loosened, the vault swinging open.

“No.” Engie gawked.

“Oh ja.” Medic grinned. “You underestimate the stupidity of our employers.”

The narrow corridor into the vault was dark and fairly long, only visible due to a throbbing, golden glow coming from the room at the end. It was only wide enough for one person to pass through at once.

“Would you like to go first?” the Medic offered.

“Y’know what, I’m just gonna stay out here and keep watch. Don’t wanna crowd ya in down there.” Truth be told, something about the ominous, pulsing light was making him uneasy – the claustrophobic entrance didn’t help.

“Ach, fair enough – I’ll report my findings then.” With that, the medic strode down into the darkness, his silhouette outlined with gold, the clear tap of leather boots echoing along with him.

As he disappeared, a pit of dread formed in the engineer’s stomach, the whirr of the great machine covering the distant steps as the doctor rounded the corner, out of sight.

No matter how many times he came here, he never got used to the cavern. It was too big, too unknowable.

The warm yellows of the early afternoon became the deep blues of evening. The crickets hopping in the grass outside were joined by the buzzing songs of cicadas. Sunset passed, and as the sky grew darker, nightfall sapped the heat from everything it touched.

Finally, many hours later, the front door’s lock clicked open.

Even in the confines of his home, Radigan could see the chill on his breath. The storage closet’s handle was cold, too, as he once more hurried to open it.

“Fred?”

A small twinge of panic struck him as no answer came and his eyes struggled to adjust, not seeing the boy. It took a moment to discover him.

Fred had curled up in one corner into cold, painful sleep, trying to conserve as much body heat as possible. Radigan bundled him up into his arms, feeling just how cold Fred himself was, how he shivered terribly in his sleep and instinctively pulled himself into Radigan’s warmth.

At least, for now, he was safe. That had to count for something. He had to believe it was better than letting the Administrator anywhere near the boy.

There would be no good outcome from denying her whims, he knew that now. If he were denied Australium and his body failed, there would be no one to protect Fred. If she decided to take her ire out on the boy instead, he wasn’t sure he could protect him.

When the substance had brought him to his peak, when Fred was conceived, he felt like the world was his oyster, he’d felt invincible – he’d seen no challenge then. Now that it was the only thing keeping him alive, he was struggling to keep his head above water.

Radigan was trapped.

“There is… a man in there.”

“That ain’t funny doc, seriously.”

“No no, really – I’m not kidding. You must see this.”

His mind racing, the engineer steeled himself. “...Alright, lead the way.”

Being inside the dark, unfamiliar throat of the passage was no comfort. Gradually, the ambient machinery became a muffled rumble of indistinct noise. The sounds of their feet gained a sharp clarity that reminded the engineer that they were not supposed to be here.

Even with the marked lack of light outside, in here it took some adjusting to make out anything, with only the occasional gold throbbing to outline the adjacent machinery. Most of it was very much like the plan in Radigan’s notes, except for one thing.

There was a figure slumped back against the far wall.  It did not look alive.

It seemed to be attached to the machine in a ghastly manner, like the body itself was being used as a conduit for the materials passing through it. Its skin was translucent, a golden substance visibly being pushed through its veins. Its eyes, similarly, were stained entirely gold, dark blood vessels barely visible in them. It had shaggy, white hair, and appeared mummified with how the skin seemed to cling and wrinkle.

“He’s alive, too.”

“How… how d’ya figure that?”

“There is still a pulse. No sign of response or brain activity of any kind – I would say that he is either comatose or vegetative. More inclined towards the latter.”

Something about the old coat adorning the body rang an eerie bell in the back of Dell’s mind. Some little features that were starting to form the pieces of a puzzle. The shape of his chin was very distinctive.

Dell had to be wrong. There was one way to find out. He walked right up to examine the man’s left hand.

Indeed, it had been amputated. There was nothing there.

The engineer stepped back, slowly, trying to comprehend it.

“What is it? What did you see?”

“This… this is… Radigan.”

“Dell?”

One moment he had been by the medic’s side, the next he’d staggered back out through the passage. The doctor almost missed the engineer, sitting with his back pressed to the vault and knees pulled to his chest. He squeezed his head between both hands, forehead down against his knees.

He tried to focus on the pressure.

This could not be real. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t real.

Dell didn’t react as the medic carefully sat beside him, head spinning. He rubbed his hands over his temples one last time, before opting instead to wrap them around his knees.

“You… you think there’s anything left of him in there?" His voice was soft, but ragged.

“I would rather hope not, if I’m honest. In his condition… I can’t imagine.”

“Did he… did he do that to himself? D’ya think? Did Blutarch give the order to lock ‘im up in there?” The engineer stayed huddled in on himself.

The medic shook his head. “I couldn’t say. Whatever the case may be, he’s been in there for…” he paused, swallowing, “...far too long. He at least deserves the dignity of being put to rest.”

Dell considered this for a while, trying to gather his thoughts. “I don’t think we can do that. There’s gotta be a reason why they locked him outta sight for so long. Who knows what’ll happen.”

Was this punishment? Was Blutarch keeping him as a trophy? Dell recalled the vitriol in his employer’s voice when he’d talked about his grandfather.

Would Radigan let that happen? Surely, he could outsmart the Mann. 

No… maybe Radigan had faked his death on purpose. But to what end? Had his obsession with his creation driven him to become part of it?

The thought was nauseating, all of a sudden. His fingers felt for the joint of his prosthetic, still neatly hidden beneath his glove. He itched to get it off him. He had half a mind to throw it into the abyss.

Instead, the engineer grunted and pushed himself to his feet. “What’s say we wrap up this excursion? I’m real tired all of a sudden.”

He helped the medic up in kind with his other hand, the doctor peering up with concern. “Will you really be alright after this?”

“...I just might be. When I get to the bottom of it, that is.” A steely determination settling over him, Dell Conagher snapped his goggles back over his eyes.

Radigan carefully descended the ladder, hand over residual arm. 

This would be the last time he would make the journey down, in his condition it was getting to be too perilous. He wasn’t as strong as he used to be, not even as strong as before the Australium entered his system.

He’d had to forgo the Gunslinger – it had been designed with his former physique in mind, now the weight of the metal seemed more of a detriment to his abilities than a strength.

He grunted as he hopped off the last rung and onto the landing, clinging to the railing for support. He gazed out into the machine.

“They treatin’ you well, old girl?” his voice echoed out into the depths, answered only by the shudder and whine of steam and metal.

As he eased into the familiar sounds of machinery, the tuneless rhythm of her song, the faint clack of heels approaching alerted him to another familiar presence. The Administrator must have been waiting for him in the darkness, somewhere.

Radigan opted to continue soaking in the immortality machine instead, not sparing the woman a glance on her way toward him.

“How predictable.” Her voice bore no age, as with her gait from the sound of her striding footsteps. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

Radigan didn’t humour her.

“You’re quite in love with this ridiculous pile of metal.” She sneered, amused.

“Can I help you with somethin’?”

“Oh, I just wish you would help yourself… It breaks my heart to see you like this, Mister Conagher.” The Administrator gasped with mock pity. “I don’t know why you do it. From what I understand, you have enough Australium left to last you a few more decades.

It was true, the man was starting to show his age more prominently. Radigan was looking a little smaller in his coat, the skin of his neck visibly looser, the bones of his cheeks and collar more defined. His eyes were a little more sunken now, too.

He shook his head. “Don’t need all that. Maybe Fred’ll find a better use for it.”

“I did not give it to your son to waste , I gave it to you ,” she hissed. “I fully expect you to live, Mister Conagher, otherwise how can I ensure the continued operation of this machine?”

He shrugged. “Ain’t my problem. I agreed to build her for ya, didn’t agree to stop gettin’ old.”

The Administrator’s usual stony disposition returned. “On the contrary. You agreed not to sabotage ‘ her’ , too, if I recall. Allowing yourself to die is as good as doing just that.”

His brow furrowed at this. “Hold on now… You wanna force me to keep using Australium?”

“If necessary,” she breezed.

The Administrator inched forward and Radigan shrank away.

“Even if you can, y’ain’t gonna force me to cooperate,” he pushed back.

“Perhaps not, but, we’ll give it time shall we? You’ll have plenty of it, after all – I will make sure of that.”

As he clung to the railing, something occurred to the engineer. His eyes darted from the Administrator to the abyss at his side.

“Don’t count on it.”

Radigan grunted and heaved himself up to mount the lower rung of the railing. The sheer drop below was a fall to certain death.

“You’re bluffing – no!” she barked, her strides quickened.

Radigan toppled towards oblivion.

She caught the back of his coat.

His upper body hung suspended over the dark maw below, boots hooked on the middle rung of the railing.

Dammit . He twisted in her grip, trying to slip loose.

He just needed one arm free from the already ill-fitting coat.

The Administrator braced one foot on the railing and with a roar, yanked him back onto the walkway. The CLANG of Radigan’s body hitting the hard metal and the crack of his skull was deafening, echoing far throughout the cavern.

He choked and gurgled. His vision went black and his eyes hazy. Blood pooled around his stark white hair.

When the spots started to clear, he caught sight of the Administrator, towering over him. The scuffle had loosened some odd strands of her usually immaculate hair. The tendons of her neck were strained, golden veins protruding around her clenched fists and jaw, glowing in her scleras.

“You have made a terrible mistake, Radigan Conagher,” she growled.

She walked behind him, out of his line of sight, to grab the collar of his coat and drag him further into the heart of the machine, striding back the way she had come with just as much ease.

In his weakened state, he could not will his body to move.

Radigan’s boots rattled atop the metal as he watched his body leave a long streak of red across the walkway, the ladder to safety getting further away.

Dell stalked down the battered concrete of the base to his workshop. He still hadn’t made sense of it all, but he would. He had to, somehow.

Although, there wasn’t much he could do right then and there. He needed to pack away his tools for the evening and at least try to sleep. He really was tired, but a revelation like the one he’d had today would be hard to shake.

He twisted the silver handle of the workshop’s door, surprised when warm, orange light spilled out. He was even more surprised to find someone waiting for him inside.

“Good evening, Dell Conagher.” The Administrator smiled a corporate smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Evening, ma’am. What can I do for ya?” Dell had never met this woman in person, although something about her was strongly reminiscent of a face he’d seen once on a small, blurry screen, and she exuded an air of authority that told him she was supposed to be there.

If staff such as Miss Pauling came and went as they pleased, this should be no different.

“What indeed? Perhaps you would be more interested to know what I have done for you, considering where you’ve been today.” 

Dell went stiff, his mouth pulled into a hard line. 

At this, the Administrator’s smile became more genuine. “Poor boy… so very bright, yet you didn’t think there may be cameras around a locked vault?” 

Even if he’d wanted to speak, the muscles in the engineer’s throat constricted and his jaw locked in place.

“You are very lucky that I am your ally, the footage is already gone. Your secret is safe with me.”

Dell swallowed tightly. “Thank you, ma’am…”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she interjected. “I want you to work with me, Dell. If information is what you’re after… I may be able to provide some. As long as you remain my ally, you should fear no retribution from Blutarch Mann, I will ensure it. All I ask in return, is that you spare some of your attentions to a machine of my own.”

Weighing up his options, the answer seemed obvious. “Let’s make it a deal.”

The Administrator’s eyes glinted with deep satisfaction. “I was hoping you would see it my way, Mister Conagher.”