Bitterskin Down The Rabbit Hole

Joset Phraag drank the second glass of Ruxxia. Looking around his apartment, miserable as it was, he decided he might as well try to get some sleep. He only needed an hour or so, of course, but he'd been putting it off, checking for updates across the extranet constantly, usually only finding new reasons to be upset.

He wasn’t even sure how long he would have the apartment to himself. Maybe he’d been forgotten, or had fallen through a bureaucratic crack somewhere, because they had left him unmolested for a year and a half, and only recently had they noticed that here he was, with this place to himself and so many people still without housing, and they couldn’t justify a single person having this much room. Not that it was really that much, of course, but these things were relative. He would probably end up with a roommate, and the idea loomed over him as a spectre of moderate terror. This last week, though, the ongoing threat of that roommate had been the least of his problems. He wasn’t one for drinking, not usually, but that was before the endless disaster and the damnable silence - destruction on the homeworld, the probable unravelling of the Union - with nobody telling him anything - and so much confusion and loneliness he didn't know what to do. And the krogan cheering it on, like that was all they lived for.

He took another bleary-eyed look at the apartment. Empty. He hated it for that, though it was a relief as well. No roommate yet.

He sat silently for a minute or three. He should really get that hour's sleep.

He downed the Ruxxia, then poured another glass.


**********


It took him several seconds to realize that he wasn’t in his apartment any more. A sudden wave of panic -- had he been kicked out? -- gave way to comprehension. The curling mists, thick and bluish-purple in colour, told him what he needed to know: that this must be the way to the city. He tasted the air around him, and the first thing he noticed about it was the moisture content. Elsewhere, it had never been humid enough for his liking, not since he'd left Sur'Kesh. His home was in a warm region, even by the standards of that tropical planet. The city, though, was warm and humid enough, and it was built on water. Rising from the mists, it stood there ahead of him and yet also underfoot. He was approaching it and he was within it, and this seemed perfectly normal to him. The city was a strange one, though. It was a complex of tall spires and glistening peaks; he noticed that much of it was glowing, too, glowing with a blue light that felt strangely soothing.

Before him loomed a group of odd-looking quasi-salarians. All of them were blue, and all were female.

Suddenly, he knew where he was. He was on Ruxxia.

On their shoulder each of the females wore a nametag. He read the names, one after the other, though it seemed to him he already knew them, whether he'd met them or not. Mirala. Daia. Taleeze. Arina. Niala.

“I’m almost a matriarch” said Mirala, and he winced, thinking of his mother and the current members of the clan. He hadn't called them for years, hadn't answered them either, but what could you do at a time like this? You had to get in touch. He had to try and get through to home.

Arina sat at a desk, giving him a strange look. “Is your visa in order?”

“No, I don't want to go back there. I just want to get in touch!"

Taleeze and Daia sat together and beckoned him over. They sat in a wooden boat, barely more than a glorified canoe. On its hull, haphazardly applied in bright maroon paint, was the name: Apricity.

Start again. Go back.

He knew now where they were going, what they were going to do. The Apricity was going to travel through a mass relay and it would be a new age for Ruxxia. He had the sense that they should think this over, that this was important, that the consequences for everyone would be immense, but he couldn’t remember why. How could anyone know why? It wasn't his responsibility. You just tried to get through the day, you went to work and you kept your head down, it wasn't worth trying to see the big picture. It only brought you stress.

You were never there..

He couldn't change anything. But now he knew he could, and it worried him, because he didn't know what to change or how.

He tried to get someone’s attention, but nobody was listening to him. Before them, a shape was rising from the mists, hovering above the city, suspended in that strange cerulean light. A badge, perhaps, or a logo, with four components; two lengthy and two compact, each curved like boomerangs, all pointing inwards. As he watched, the shape flickered and changed. Now it was a spacecraft or a machine, like a mechanical cephalopod reaching down to the blue city, grasping. He didn’t know why, but he felt a sense of dread upon seeing it. As he watched, the machine seemed to explode, showering the metropolis with green liquid. Drenched in green and bathed in the soothing light, the city now looked horrifying. Awash with blood.

Another female, this one more purple than blue, poked her head around a door. “Medium-velocity spatter, a force of anywhere from 5 to 100 feet per second”.

Oh?

She continued: “Have you seen my children?”

“...No?"

He was somewhere else. He blinked, and most of the others were sitting next to him. They were all in the boat now, sitting uncomfortably aboard Apricity, as it rested in a narrow waterway high above the city, a cross between an aqueduct and a flume on a theme park ride. Before them, a long drop. The waterway stretched down and then further down, disappearing into the mists below, before rising out of them once more in the distance, thrusting into the sky. He wanted to get off. “We should be careful” he said, but he didn’t know if any of them were listening. Why was he so bad at talking to people?

Niala was speaking: “Any woman in a cadre can be taught a military trade and master it for centuries of service”.

CENTURIES of service.

No! He didn’t want to be here for centuries! He had to get back; he had to know what was happening. There could be updates at any time. “No! I haven’t got that long! I need to do something now!”

“Launch in three generations!” said Daia, and for some reason that was both so long it was painful and not enough time at all, not nearly enough time, and his desperation at needing updates NOW mixed with the horrors of so much wasted opportunity. They merged into one sickening feeling of guilt and loss, and he nearly wept.

When he came back to himself, they were still inside the boat. Taleeze had grown very large, though, standing over them now like a blue colossus, her smile filling the sky.

“I don’t think this is a good idea” he said. I know about the beacon.

It was something he had to say to them, if he could just build up the courage. Too many secrets - they shouldn’t keep things buried away like that. But that was the way of things, that was how it was done, the way it was always done, and so he said nothing. Taleeze’s hands glowed with the same blue light as the city, a glare that somehow formed itself into the shape of a stick.

“GO, WILDKATS!” she yelled joyfully, and the stick swung around at them and exploded, piercing blue light slamming into him and blinding him and he was screaming as he shot down and then up again, he was in the boat and the boat was... flying?

He felt a great sense of relief. It was working! They'd launched, and this time it would be different. Because he knew now, and he would stand up and say something. He wouldn’t hide away. None of them would, now that they knew what was at stake.

They shot through the stars.

He tried to see where they were going, but he couldn't, and that was when the worry began to seep back in. Where are we going?

The way ahead was darkening. The feeling of relief evaporated. Daia was talking cheerfully and Niala was checking the instruments and Mirala was almost a matriarch, but then why was it getting so dark so quickly? There were voices now, as well. Where were you during the war?, the voices seemed to say. Where was the support we needed? He tried to protest, to tell them that he wasn’t one of these blue people, he was a salarian, but for some reason that seemed just as bad, even worse, and he couldn’t find the courage to say anything. He never had the courage to say anything. He just turned away and went off on his own, and was it any wonder he was confused? I know about the beacon.

“I don’t know what’s going on or why!" he cried, and it was true. "I wanted to get away from it, I just wanted to leave!” And so he'd gotten into his boat and he'd gone away, and was that the problem? Now he didn't know what was happening. This was the start of it, this was the beginning and who knew where it would end? It wasn't his responsibility, whatever happened!

Arina cried out, “The embassy can offer no comment!”

Why couldn't it? Didn’t anyone have any updates? Some of the governments had to be saying something!

They were struck, the boat lurching horrifically. He hadn't seen what they'd hit, but the darkness swelled, and within it were accusations and sneers and a thousand disparate flavours of disapproval. He cowered as each struck the Apricity with the force of a gale.

Inadequate!

Obsolete!

Shameful!!

“I tried to turn them back!” he cried. He had - he had told them they shouldn’t go, he had tried to get away - but they'd dragged him along all the same, and now it was all going to happen again, the secrets were going to bubble over and erupt out, and he had missed his chance to stop it. Why didn’t you say anything?

The voices of an entire clan, cold and frustrated: WHERE WERE YOU?!

The clouds of mockery and anger thickened around them, whirling themselves into a tempest of granules, each an accusation, and the creature arose before them, eyes ablaze, a giant made of sand.

Niala snarled. “Pirates in the Nimbus!”

He didn’t understand. The man of sand roared in mockery, filling the air (why was there air in space?) with frightful noises, and then he lashed with sneering glee at the boat. The Apricity shook so hard that it nearly fell apart, began spiralling 'round and over and he shouldn’t even be there, he wasn’t one of them. He sobbed as they spun off course. Obsolete! Thousands of years and it was over, it was all falling apart, but this was meant to be the beginning -- and had it all happened again already? Why didn’t he do anything?!

“I’m so confused!”

And Daia reassuring him, “I can’t believe the Union could fracture”. But she had the beacon, didn’t she -- secrets of her own -- and he hadn’t had the courage to tell her he knew. It’s all going to happen again, and you did nothing.

The mists parted. Five great arms thrust through the swirling vapours. So vast and ominous that everything else shrank back from them, the structure slowly filling the cosmos. In large, foreboding letters, a sign flared into being above the metallic star, radiant and imposing, a word for each of the arms.

WELCOME TO CERBERUS DAILY NEWS

He stood in a room that stretched beyond the furthest boundaries of the cosmos. The setting fairly crackled with energy and information, with power that stretched from one end of the galaxy to the other. This, undoubtedly, was the hub, the centre. The place where it all began. The room seemed to burst out of its own dimensions, a cathedral of infinite complexity and unrivalled potential. Before him, a million shining lights. Where each wall or stairway ended and the next began he couldn't tell. In every hall and corridor stood a line of skeletons, strangely proportioned, more bone than cartilage, arrayed like an honour guard for new arrivals. Each carried a shield and sword, the latter aglow with undefined and unnatural power. Screens flickered on and off around him, a constant sensory bombardment. From several shone a pair of eyes, red and immense, and a booming, low-brow laugh reverberated through the entire structure: HAW, HAW, HAW. A motion to the side, and he whirled to see a small animal, an Earth feline, watching him from amid a strange collection of wires and cogs. With cool gaze it seemed to appraise him, before turning dismissively and slinking off into the chaos.

Around him, the crew of Apricity stared in wonder.

Soon they were moving, their surroundings undefined and shifting but somehow more real than anything that that come before. There was a strange yet undeniable sense of permanence to it, the sense of too much history and too much significance. The setting reinforced itself, reiterating its history even as it changed before their eyes. Details faded, but the essence remained. The silence, though - save for the last reverberating echoes of that awful laugh - was like the force of the gravity of Halegeuse.

They came to a circular room centred on a stairway, lined with fountains and the green fronds of exotic plants. Where the stairway led was of no concern; instead it was the various passages radiating out from the room that were important; he didn't know why. He peered at a directory which had sprung up before him. The routes were labelled; Kolhammer Boulevard, Proctor Way, Protretho Street, The Abattoir. He was overwhelmed with information, no mean feat considering his species, below-average though his capabilities were.

Movement again, and they were in a corridor off to the side. Something was coming toward them. He felt a flash of horror as it drew close and he tried to back away, huddling among his erstwhile crewmates. It looked like a salarian enclosed in some sort of suit, a protective uniform complete with faceplate. Despite its basically salarianoid shape, it had multiple legs, like some sort of twisted insect, and it crawled along with a limping motion, radiating an attitude of intense annoyance, of contempt. Angry voices sounded, he didn't know from where. "Why are you loitering on the Presidium?"

"I'm a Keeper" she said, and it was a she, and the accent was unfamiliar.

He knew suddenly that, yes, she was a Keeper. The complex was full of these creatures, of strange refugees and outcasts and who knew what else, spending their days maintaining the very life of this place. Crawling amid its innards and stewing in their own disfunction. So many rooms here, so many secrets and regrets, intersections of misery; he knew instinctively that behind and within all of them were the Keepers. Sad and miserable beings, their lives reduced to eternity among these halls. He looked down and to his horror he was sporting additional legs himself, the multi-jointed limbs sprouting from his hips with incredible, terrifying speed. "No! No, I don't want to be a Keeper!"

And filling his mind were accusations in familiar voices - you went away, you were never there - and behind them, that awful laugh: HAW, HAW, HAW.

I'm not alone! I'm not! I'm not a Keeper!

Daia and Arina were chatting with someone, and suddenly he realized there were far more people here than he'd thought.

He felt a surge of pure relief, followed immediately by surprise and joy. Salarians! Other salarians, real ones! They mingled and spun around him, so many salarians, a sea of green and grey and every shade under the sun, dancing around each other. The room filled with the fast-paced chatter of a thousand of his fellows, conversations on homeworld matters and familiar customs and names he hadn't heard in far too long. His former crew moved among them, elegant and confident, tying the room into one huge circle of friends, everyone's past and present and future mingled and intertwined with their own. Embrace eternity. Even as the unity was born, he found himself on edge again. There were too many salarians now, too many talking at him and pulling at him, trying to get his attention. Far too many. The voices overpowered him, the heat of a million bodies bringing him to the edge of panic. Have to get away. Have to get away from here...

He ran, trying to escape the press of amphibious bodies. Behind him, never seeming to recede, the crew of Apricity continued to build their army of friends, laughing for the joy of it.

He ran into another salarian, awkwardly getting himself tangled in its arms. He tried to apologise -- have to get away -- but then it turned to face him and it was made of clockwork, its movements so entrenched in the depths of the uncanny valley that he screamed. Its rictus pulled back into a horrifying imitation of a grin. From behind it, a yellowish salarian waved enthusiastically, somehow making the whole abomination even more horrifying. Atop his shoulder sat a tiny alien, wearing a shirt with the legend 'THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE'.

"What do you think, Little Job?" asked the yellow salarian, "My creation lives!"

What have you done?, he wanted to cry. All of you, what have you done?

Bitterskin despaired.