[REND] B2. 5.4 - The Three Bs

(Author’s Notes: Thank you for the feedback on the previous chapter. 5.3 wasn’t up to standard. I’ve heavily edited 5.3 and moved its latter half to this chapter. For those who have read the older version of 5.3, it might be best to reread it before reading 5.4. And I have edited twice, so some might have read the partially fixed version. I’m very sorry for this!)

Oho! I mentally grinned when I realized that Deen was conflicted about possibly killing people.

What a fence-sitting hypocrite. I knew that she had killed normal humans during the docks mission—she was whining about it this weekend. What was a few more dead bodies after already killing some? Like, Deen had no problems deleting Tower Cop if the situation called for it. She had a weirdly selective moral compass.

“I-I don’t think we can weaken our super strength when throwing,” I said, pretending to hesitate. My actual intention was for Deen to ‘sanction’ murder in front of me. Better if she did it herself. This would be excellent material to bring up later and traumatize her. “If we hurt them but don’t knock them out, they’ll raise the alarm. There must be workers inside the bunker, not to mention the other guards we passed.”

“I know,” Deen tersely replied.

“Even just one shout, and they’ll all come,” I continued.

“I know,” Deen repeated. Her cheeks tensed.

“Can’t avoid killing more people when that happens,” Myra said in an annoyed tone. Deen must’ve pulled off this morality crap during the docks mission, and Myra was having none of it. I’d support Myra as we tag-team Deen into committing murder.

“Maybe we can get closer and—” Deen started to say.

“What if there’s no better option?” Myra asked. “Taking out those two chess-fucks from a distance seems to be the best choice. If we come any closer, they’ll raise the alarm. Your Guardian Angel is going to tell you to escape. I, on the other fucking hand, am not leaving until I see what’s inside.”

“But they’re going to attack you,” Deen said.

“And I’m going to kill them,” said Myra, glaring at Deen. “The point is, don’t make things worse by diverging from what your prescient pet is saying. A couple of guys dead, or a dozen more? Unless you’re saying that you’re going to stop me?”

“Don’t fight.” I nudged the two apart. It was a super tense moment, and I loved it. As much as I wanted Deen and Myra to butt heads, I had to play my role here. “This isn’t the time for that. Decide what to do. Now.”

“What’ll it be, Deen?” Myra tilted her head. “We follow your pet, or I do my own thing.”

Deen exhaled while bowing. “This is what we’ll do…”

Myra and Deen were each going to target one guard. I volunteered to throw instead of Deen, arguing that I had better aim. I slyly added that she’d avoid guilt that way. No way she’d let me throw after I said that. Myra took an entire brick from the pile beside us while Deen broke off only a chunk.

Myra aimed for the left guy playing the black chess pieces while Deen targeted his opponent on the right. After the count of three, they let loose their projectiles, hitting their marks. The two guys dropped to the floor without making any noise other than dull thuds.

We rushed over, picked up the bodies, and carried them into the bunker. Myra lugged one over her shoulder. Deen and I carried the other guy. I held his legs while Deen got the opposite end.

Past the heavy metal door, we found ourselves inside a sloping tunnel with white walls displaying the occasional PCM fist. The way was well-lit with light bulbs stringed along the ceiling; they appeared to be newly-installed and weren’t originally part of the bunker. The PCM really wanted to make their stay more permanent.

“Where are we going to hide these, um, bo-bodies?” I asked, following it with coughing. I pretended to be keeping down a vomit.  

“Somewhere out of sight,” Myra said. “There’s no worry of them waking soon. Or ever.”

I was right to call them ‘bodies’ because they were pretty dead. Myra’s guy dripped blood across the floor, which Deen erased by raking dust over it. I followed her lead for the spots she missed. One foot sweep and the blood became a tiny patch of brown muck. That should be covered by more dust when the workers bring in the next batch of construction materials.

Fortunately, the guy we carried didn’t trail a mess behind us. I glanced at his head, squinting as if I was a scaredy-cat watching a horror movie and expecting a jump scare.

His left temple got caved in by Deen’s strike, with his eyeball popped out of its socket. Blood from the eyes poured downward to the guy’s chest. I thought Deen would’ve held back, but it was apparent that she didn’t. 

Deen had a determined expression not to look down at the possibly innocent guy she just killed. I had half-expected her to make a big issue about morality and walk out on us. But just like the docks mission, she stayed and even participated. She was really the poster child for peer pressure.

In time, she’d internalize that minor side characters didn’t count. And that lesson wasn’t just in movies; it applied to real life as well.  

“Don’t think too much about this, Erind,” Deen said, meeting my gaze. “Or else you’ll have nightmares. We had no choice.”

You did have a choice, I thought, though only replying with a small nod.

I should be careful with how I molded Deen. Molded. Rationalizing murder was a great character arc for a would-be villain. But I didn’t want Deen to be a villain someday. I wanted her to keep her caring side. I wanted her to care about me so she’d help me when I’d expose my Adumbrae truth to her in the future, if it came to that. I should temper messing with her to keep her moral core, the nonsense that it was, somewhat intact.

“Over here,” Myra said.

We stowed the two corpses behind a stack of cement bags and covered them with a tarp. That should keep them out of sight long enough for us to explore this place in peace.

“You had nothing to do with this,” Deen told me before walking ahead. I assumed she was talking about the guy she had killed.

Deen guided us deeper into the bunker, going down a zigzagging flight of stairs that descended a couple of stories into the earth. Our footsteps echoed in the stairwell. “Don’t rush,” she said. “Make it sound like we’re supposed to be here.”

Myra chuckled. “Confidence, as Reo would say.”

Reaching the bottom, we snuck past workers doing some remodeling in a cavernous cavern. I peered through the massive open metal door. They seemed to be adding rooms. Was it for their members? Did they intend to live down here? Why?

Myra and Deen were probably wondering the same, but we couldn’t discuss so near the workers. We continued down the tunnel, passing some more vaults. Some were open; most were closed.  

We eventually reached a dimly lit area. Fewer light bulbs here. Demonstrating foresight that might make Deen’s Guardian Angel envious, I had swiped the flashlight from one of the guys we had killed.

“Is it okay to use this?” I asked Deen, raising the flashlight. “No one around who’d wonder why there’s a beam of light where it shouldn’t be?”

“All clear,” Deen answered.

“Why are these weirdos here?” Myra took the flashlight from me and headed our Three Bs exploration team. “I thought they were building a meth lab or something, but it looks like they’re decking the place out to live in.”

“Maybe we’ll find the answer somewhere here,” I said. Was this connected to why they wanted to contact me? Were they going to invite me to come live with them?

Several minutes of sneaking passed, and we didn’t encounter any answer. More tunnels. Dark caverns. Pipes and wires and dust and spiders. We were in an area that was no longer lit, but there were signs that the PCM had been here, like construction work and food wrappers. At first, I was excited for some urban exploration. This was also a new setting, and the viewers would be glued to their seats in anticipation of what we might find.

Which was, so far… nothing.

Boring.

The PCMs might simply want a new hideout, and Kelsey was probably somewhere far from here. Nothing more to this. Just when I was about to suggest cordially ‘asking’ the PCM members for information, Deen tapped Myra’s shoulder. Myra understood the sign and turned off the flashlight.

Danger up ahead. Or just a minor threat?

We continued in darkness, pressing one hand on the walls as a guide while holding the person in front of us with the other. Three blind mice. We tried to walk as silently as possible, but it was impossible to mute our footsteps. We slowed some more as we saw light up ahead. It was flashing different colors. And there were several voices.

“Someone’s watching a show,” Deen whispered.

Whoever this person was must be really bored being posted at this place. Good thing the noises covered our approach.

“One guy guarding a door,” Myra muttered, checking around the corner. The three of us hid in the shadows and observed our next obstacle.

A slight crunching noise. I also felt the ground move a bit. Myra sucked a bit of the floor to make a projectile.

“Are you… going to kill him, too?” Deen tersely asked.

“Not my intention to kill this guy,” Myra said. “But if he dies after getting hit, that’s not my fault. Any complaints?”

“No,” Deen replied after a couple of seconds.

She’s not protesting? I thought Deen would veto Myra’s idea and knock out the guy herself. If he were alone, we could just come up to him and send him to dreamland with a punch. He wouldn’t immediately radio for help if he saw us. Would a radio even work here?

My best friend’s morals weren’t as stable as I thought they were. The hero wannabes might be rubbing off on her. On that note, I probably shouldn’t call them hero wannabes because they didn’t want to be heroic at all.

A whooshing sound. Myra’s spear hit the guard, nailing him to the steel door he was guarding. He convulsed as we sprinted towards him. Myra ended his suffering by harshly twisting his head, breaking his neck.

Deen sharply breathed but didn’t say anything. I clung to Deen, visibly shocked at the murder. She patted my head while shaking hers. We wordlessly watched Myra dislodge the guard from the door. How I wished Spooky Erind would give me mind-reading powers because I was super curious about what was going on in Deen’s mind. Could my puppet power make a connection with Deen? It had wires and stuff. I also tried feeling with my Core, but it didn’t give me any sensation.

“A guard and a lock,” Myra said, holding the massive padlock. “There has to be something important behind this door. Otherwise, they’d just lock the door and forget about this area.” The padlock dissolved into Myra’s palm as she absorbed it.

The door was sturdy and heavy, but we didn’t have any problems pulling it open.

“Before anyone asks,” Deen said, “Gabe is silent.”

“Shall we?” Myra gestured at the open door. She shone the flashlight inside to reveal an even more boring tunnel.

This was narrower than the previous ones and didn’t have vaults along the sides.

“How long have we been down here?” I asked in a trembling voice. I was faking it, but I also kind of want to go back up. A headache plagued me. Was this nausea? I wasn’t claustrophobic, as far as I knew.

“Ten minutes since we knocked out the chess guys, maybe?” Myra answered. “Don’t be scared, Erind. We can beat up anyone we meet.”

“Thankfully, there’s no one here,” Deen said. “A thought occurred to me. This passage might lead to the underground network of bunkers. If it does, we should place markers along the way so we’ll know how to return.”

“I guess we can scratch arrows on the wall,” Myra said. “Eh, we could’ve been more prepared for this, but it’s such an impromptu thing. We’ll bring a map next—what’s that?”

There were blinking red lights at the far end of the tunnel. Some kind of machine that was—

Eh? I suddenly missed my step. My legs got entangled. Deen grabbed my arm and helped me stand straight.

“Are you okay?” Deen asked.

“I-I just tripped on a crack,” I replied as my vision started to swim. My headache worsened, as if there was a tightening noose around my forehead. I swallowed my saliva, fighting the bitter bile touching the back of my throat. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to follow Deen and Myra.

What the fuck was going on? It felt similar to Dario’s headache field. But Deen and Myra appeared to be fine. Was it only affecting me? I didn’t want to tell them about it because it might be an Adumbrae thing. The headaches worsened the closer we got to the end of the tunnel.

That machine! It must be causing this. An anti-Adumbrae device? The rumor Enrico told us must be true after all. The PCM was… Dammit! I could barely think!

“Sho-should we destroy that thing?” I managed to say. My forehead was covered with sweat. “It might be… an alarm for the door.” I wanted to smash this piece of shit! It was a short, black column around four feet tall, including its antennae, with knobs and lights all over.

“Or it’d trigger an alarm if we destroyed it,” Deen said. 

“Deen, I’m opening the door,” Myra said. “It’s good, right?”

“We’re safe,” Deen replied.

Myra absorbed another lock and opened the door. I let Myra and Deen pass through before me. Then I stabbed my fingers into the machine, not caring about the consequences, covering the sound by kicking the door.

“Um, sorry,” I said, extracting my fingers from the machine as its lights went off. “I’m a bit too clumsy. Nerves must be getting to me.”

Instant relief. It felt like an unclogged nose, with the snot being a crippling headache. Deen’s Guardian Angel didn’t try to stop me, so it wasn’t a wrong move. I exited the door feeling so much better. Then a familiar stench hit me. A faint, earthy, and metallic smell. Dab in a hint of rot.

“This doesn’t look good,” Myra said. Shining the flashlight down the new tunnel revealed that it was painted dark red.

“Blood!” Deen gasped.

(Author's Notes: I apologize again for the mess of chapter 5.3. I rushed to write it with a headache. Hopefully, I've fixed it. I've fleshed out 5.3 into 5.3 and 5.4. We shouldn't waste this opportunity to develop Deen and Myra, as well as the dynamics of the Three Bs, because this would be very important when Kelsey comes and in future plotlines too.

This month is quite hectic and stressful for me, but I commit that we'll have our REND chapters. I really appreciate the feedback. Together, we'll make REND a good story. I'm going to write some ExD chapters too once I get more free time.)