The Sleepwalker

Part Three: 9

The Warden

The central control room shook violently and tossed it's occupants around as if they were ragdolls. Warden held on to a chair for dear life, and was spared the humiliation and pain of slamming his head against the tempered glass, as the Agents around him did.

Before the shake, he observed the Sleepwalker boy shudder and hunch as far as he could go in his chair. It was an odd motion, as if the divergence was so cold that he wanted to curl into fetal position, but unable to.

Then a purple tentacle sprouted from his back and punched into the wall of the Expanse, pinning itself there like a spider's string. More tendons shot out, each making the space station tremble, until each tentacle ripped free, taking parts of the walls with it and making the whole station give a single, terrible quake. Before anyone could recover the thick purple cords once again reattached to the walls and created more tremors by way of each one vibrating vigorously. This is when the Warden grabbed hold of said chair and gripped it tightly.

Eventually, as all things eventually do, the quake suddenly stopped, and any person still conscious got to their feet, each rushing over to the cameras. Once the Warden had recovered, he learned that upon repressing the button, he could not close the middle wall in the Expanse, because a tentacle was in the way and clogged the mechanism. Warden began to sweat profusely.
What had he done?

He turned to the spectacle on the camera screens. The Sleepwalker had begun to vibrate extremely fast, but somehow the tendrils around him stayed still. The Sleepwalker's blurry form started to change color to... purple, just like the tentacles. This new creature drew in a breath as it's body slowed. It easily broke out of the chains and stood, tentacles still attached.

"What is that ugly thing?" Vindicator said from beside the Warden. No one answered because no one knew. Warden took a look around him and found that he was surrounded by pale Agents. Only Invoke and Pilgrim looked calm.

"It seems to be made out of a different material entirely," Pilgrim observed, "not just a different color of skin. And the body structure is much, much different! Absolutely fascinating."

Invoke turned her head sharply at him. "Any discernible weakness?"

"My, you aren't thinking of hurting it, are you?" This was Sickle, predictably.

On the screen, the creature turned its head to the hidden camera. Warden saw the thing sneer with it's sharp, needlelike teeth, and felt as if he was being watched by the eyeless face. Seconds later and the creature turned away and began to move toward the Polybius machine. This sent Sickle into a frenzy.

Warden watched in half-horror, and half-fascination as the purple creature grabbed the front of the arcade machine and tore it off. Glowing pixels trailed behind the screen, each eventually fizzling off into nothingness until the thing shoved the broken arcade piece right into its chest.

From the multiple cameras, Warden saw purple tendrils wrap around the piece and pin it in place, absorbing it. The effect was slow but steady, as a pulse of what seemed to be purple glowing pixels traveled down the right arm of the beast. The light show was over after the pixels reached the sharp points of the Sleepwalker's fingertips. It tilted its head back and held it's arms out wide, evidently enjoying it's freedom.

It suddenly tore all of its far-reaching tentacles away from the circular wall, pulling large chunks of strengthened metal along with it.

"Sir!" Warden turned his head to an Agent standing at a monitor that flashed red. "Multiple divergences have exited their cells from the holes made by the creature!"

Sickle howled. "They'll escape to their deaths like Polybius!"

Warden had to think fast. "Get a transmission out to Earth, right this in -"

The power cut out, all the screens went black for a few moments before lighting back up, all red.

"Emergency power is running full capacity sir," An Agent said from off. Everyone turned from their screens to the Warden, expecting leadership.

His mouth went dry but he spoke anyway, his voice coming out raspy. "Focus on getting an SOS transmission out. You and you, get our security up and running. Everyone else find out what the heck is going on."

A few moments passed before Invoke stuck her head up from a screen. "The turrets... they were manually turned off."

"By whom?"

"I don't know... someone with clearance. By Jove... It was an Overseer. No one else has the control codes."

"Unless," Sickle held up a finger, "an Agent stole the codes."

Invoke bit her lip. "It isn't impossible."

"But still unlikely," Pilgrim added. "Whoever disabled the turrets must value divergent life more than human life."

Expectedly, all available eyes rolled toward Sickle, who put his palms up in the air and looked bewildered.

Warden was completely lost. He knew, deep down, this was all his fault. Why had he ever trusted Hazard, even after she had been in contact with a manipulative Polybius?

"It doesn't matter who did it, not now anyway." Invoke stepped up on a chair so that she was almost the same height of Warden on his hovering pedestal. "We need to focus on the problem at hand."

Murmurs of agreement followed. Warden was grateful that not all eyes were on him now, because he had about three brain cells devoted to leading right now; the rest were burning with fear.

Invoke pointed at a few Agents around the edge of the room. "All of you, tell me what divergences escaped. Who's on SOS duty? You are? Good, cancel the transmission and get talking to everyone else in the station, like the security rooms of other Cell blocks. We need to band together, as opposed to searching for help that's at least a week away."

The Agents were hesitant to ignore a direct order from Warden, but he gave them the go-ahead and they got to work.

"Sir?" An Agent shifted in his seat, "err... I mean... and ma'am, we have the ability to disengage the locks and disconnect the Cell blocks from one another."

Warden felt relieved. "Do it,"

Another red button floated toward him, when it reached waist height it began to glow.
"At your command sir." The Agent turned to his screen. But of course, before Warden could press the button, lights on the ceiling began to flash red.

"Divergences have gotten into Cell block D through holes made by the Sleepwalker!" Someone shouted frantically.

Cursing, the Warden slammed his fist down on the button. Outside, the floating prison's four corners should have disconnected, turning the perfect cube into five pieces connected by strong cord in the vast black void of space; The central cylinder, and four identical corners. That is not what happened at all, much to the Warden's horror.. Three corners detached, sure, Cell blocks A, B, and C did exactly what should have happened, but the final corner. Cellblock D, did not separate from the control center. Warden would not know it at that moment, but the reason was that some certain purple gunk from certain purple tendrils had clogged the mechanisms.

On a screen in front of Warden, he watched in despair as the purple creature turned its eyeless head toward the camera before backing into a hole in the wall. The last thing Warden saw was the glowing 'PRESS START' of the Polybius machine in the creature's chest as it vanished into the darkness and toward Cell block D.

All of a sudden more creatures flooded the destroyed Expanse, each coming out of the holes that the Sleepwalker made. Warden saw wolves, large birds, long-limbed humans, and more horrific beasts, too many to count. Everyone in the control room was silent as they watched some divergences fight each other and others just prance right out the hole that the Sleepwalker went into seconds prior. Sickle swallowed hard.

"Are we just going to watch the murder?" He asked quietly. Invoke leapt from her chair and laid an arm on his shoulder.

"We're trying to do something." She turned to the Agent tasked with the SOS signal, but he shook his head no.

"Getting out a transmission is harder than it should be. I think our transmitters are broken, most likely by the quakes." He explained, "Our receivers seem to be working though, so in a week..." -Everyone shivered- "Earth'll send a check-up transmission to us, like they usually do."

"Or sooner because we disconnected the Cell blocks. That should be a red flag." Pilgrim reminded them.

"Unless," Invoke added, bringing joy to the conversation, "they think we're just doing a check-up to make sure the mechanism works. Which it doesn't seem to because Cell block D is still here. I can't see any other explanation as to why it didn't disconnect."

I'll probably take the blame for that, Warden thought glumly. If only he could do something to save the rest of the Agents and to neutralize the divergences, just to impress the Council by handling the situation properly.

'We had a mishap," He'd explain to the men and women in gray robes who sat in their elevated seats, 'but under my leadership we dealt with it accordingly.'

He suddenly had an idea. "What if we got to the escape pods..."

Vindicator, who had been silent up until this point, scoffed loudly, cutting Warden off. "Are you suggesting we take the cowards way out?"

"Let me finish!" Warden was tempted to add an insult, but decided against it because he actually feared Vindicator a bit. "Just hear me out..."

Vindicator shook his head. "The longer we wait for your leadership, the more Agents are slaughtered by that purple slime thing Sleepwalker hybrid. I say we leave now and get to the armory. We arm ourselves and we vanquish a few monsters before the smartish ones find a way to escape."

Almost half of the Agents in the room mumbled agreement, unsure of following orders that were not the Warden's. He attempted to restore order by clearing his throat.

"I say we get to the escape pods to fly to Earth, from there we get a message to the Society on the surface. It's foolproof. And yes we will stop at the armory first to defend," Warden directed this word at Vindicator and continued, "ourselves against the divergences. Survival is key, because we don't know how many are out there, killing, and..."

Warden trailed off as he looked at a screen showing a bunch of different halls. A few Agents were running down one, being run down by seemingly nothing but a shadow. It flew over them and they promptly collapsed. Sickle was petrified as he muttered four words.

"The Amnesiac is free."
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