Cindy
*sigh* ud know this if u read the silmarillion...
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- Feb 28, 2018
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1130 HOURS, CITY 45 LOCAL TIME
CITY 45 QUARANTINE ZONE
FOUR YEARS AGO
A razor train flew across the elevated railways above St. Petersburg's derelict streets with the swiftness of purpose, its supports impaling the city's oldest buildings and roads with resin and cable alike that held the sustaining of architecture with little regard. As it passed each district, a gust summoned the debris and dust that layered atop the otherwise secluded portion of the city only traversed by occasional Combine personnel and the odd smuggler taking a shortcut through the restricted zone.
In the coach of the second train, a woman, clad in formal grey dress attire speckled with a single claw emblem on her suit's lapel, sat beneath windows that blinked sunlight between each passing structure, studying the contents of a manilla folder that was sprawled wide open across her lap, her hands trading between individual files, marked with the various emblems of intelligence organs that had each formed and subsequently subsumed into its successor—CIND, INSEC, GIS—and her cigarette that spun ribbons of dancing smoke through the train car. Two transhuman delegates accompanied her adjacently, pulse-rifles crossed over their laps in the liminal period preceding their arrival. Their idle conversation crackled just out of reach from the woman's attention, fixated on the words that stretched between one censored segment to the next. No matter how privileged, there was always information to be withheld; secrets within secrets. In the last nine years, she had become acclimated to traversing past those unknown quantities than be stuck fruitlessly upon the mystery of their exclusion.
After nearly thirty minutes had elapsed since their departure, the train slowed, nearing the outpost that the railway intersected. When it came to a near stop, the woman collected the files back into the folder and rose, prompting her posthuman entourage to do the same and move to meet her across from the exit. Upon the doors to the car parting open, two elite units of the local Civil Authority greeted her: The Administrator's own personal guard, MIDNIGHT.
The foremost of the guard gestured a hand to the agent to guide her down from the train car, and she indulged the formality in kind, stepping into the desolate halls of an old world scientific institute that had been partially consumed by the Combine's presence, resin platings covering many surfaces along where minireactors had been installed.
"Ms. Alexander," the lead guard addressed through the mechanical wrinkling of his voice, pointing towards a nearby stairwell. "This way, if you would."
The two MIDNIGHT guards, Ms. Alexander and her accompanying transhumans each walked through the institution, with not an additional word to yet be shared, until they each arrived upon the rooftop access where another mode of transportation had bitten into the building with its invasive architecture. A lone rail cart awaited, with one MIDNIGHT guard moving for the operator's seat as the other offered their hand again to Ms. Alexander. When all present parties accounted for, the cart moved off on a separate rail, moving deeper into the quarantine.
As the cart began, the guard not at the wheel spoke up again. "Have you had the time to review the files?"
Ms. Alexander paused to find her words. "What wasn't covered in black ink, yes. This is a... curious device you have acquired."
"It's not a device—at least, not beneath its synth shell. It's quite alive, and difficult to contain." The MIDNIGHT guard corrected. "We've had to rely on unusual methods to sedate it into subservience."
"But it works?"
"That... remains to be seen. We're exploring our options. Currently, we've only managed to keep it asleep within its shell. We fear that if it awoke in its current state, it could wreak untold havoc."
The agent furrowed her brow. "And what measures are you using to keep it from doing that?"
As if on queue with her question, a cable that the cart was passing jolted alight with a pulse of green energy that traveled up the cable and around an upcoming building, startling her and uneasing the transhumans in her envoy. The adjacent MIDNIGHT unit only lifted a finger to the sky behind her as the cart rounded the next building into a clearing above the quarantine.
Ms. Alexander's mouth hung agape.
"...It's in there?"
The MIDNIGHT guard nodded. "A piece of hardware from City 17, repurposed and rebuilt. It was made to contain something of a similar nature, once. You can still make out some of the damage from when its previous inhabitant was broken free by the resistance."
Suspended in air, the Vault fed from even more cables from across the quarantine like the one they had just passed, siphoning energy into its underside frequently and rhythmically. With each pulse, the hairs on Ms. Alexander's arm stood on end, as if being pulled toward the structure's zenith. Moreover, as the cart neared the station directly beneath the Vault, a quiet droning began to crawl into her ear that first sounded like the ambience of a whirring machine.
Only when she listened closely did she denote that it was song that she was hearing.
Whatever being that lay dormant inside... was singing to her.
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