Blackridge Institute (wlw)

Chapter 14

Solomon Maria ran all the way down the library tunnels. As soon as Casandra had come to her, she had left Rook in her lab—where she had been staying, because she couldn't bear to be in their room alone—without a word. She detoured to her room to scoop up a discreet bag of explosives and went back on her way.

While she was there, she had swiped a bottle of the glowing things in the underground laboratory to bring back to the Drowned, for the interests of the both of them.

"Dinoflagellates," she had said, shaking what remained of the bottle. "Not my expertise. It may surprise you, but I'm not a marine biologist."

"All I needed was for you to confirm they were oceanic. I found it down in the lab."

"You need to stop going there. You've found primordial soup, and whatever put it there does not appreciate you poking around."

Solomon had neglected to mention that they had found Pyrrha dead, because Cas told her not to. It was a literal blur for her—she didn't get a proper look, because Casandra had swept her away from the scene.

Now she was running back, because she owed it to Cas to find it there, whatever killed Pyrrhus. She had to find something.

The person-sized hole was still there, and the room looked undisturbed. They hadn't even launched a proper investigation; they chose instead to extract the corpse quietly. No one else knew Pyrrha was dead, the only sign being an island-wide lockdown to and from Blackridge Institute.

With haste, she set up the charges near where the blood trail began. Something in her was sure there was something behind this wall, something that breathed. And if the only way she could get there was to blow it up, then she will. Casandra needed her.

...

Casandra came to her in a dream. It looked exactly like their dorm room, and Cas was standing at the foot of her bed.

"You have to leave this place. Take as many people as you can," said the angel, in a rush.

"What? When did you get here? I didn't even mean to fall asleep." Solomon got up and was surprised to see she had worn an entire outfit to bed, but with shoes off.

Cas stepped closer. "You're dreaming. I'm talking to you in a dream. Listen close. The Metatron wants everyone in Blackridge purged. There's a soul ascended and he knows it's coming from here."

"Purged?"

"Snuffed out. To get rid of the one human."

Solomon felt the blood rush to her ears. "Harlan?"

"I believe he's in the cavern. He needs to be stopped, for the sake of everyone else. The Metatron will do it if I won't."

"Won't what, Cas?"

"Kill you all. So you need to go," Casandra pleaded.

"We can't. They've locked us in and they haven't said why. They haven't even revealed Pyrrhus died."

"Fuck," said Casandra, for the first time, surprising her. "Fuck!"

The angel surged forward and grabbed her hands. "Get as far as you can. To the edges. Maybe I can convince him to localize damage."

"This is a dream? Are you real in this dream?"

"I am, Solomon."

"Am I going to wake up? How do I know this was you?"

The angel eyed her with familiar thoughtfulness. "How do I prove that?"

"I don't know. Do something. So I know my brain isn't hallucinating."

Casandra took her face in her hands and kissed her. Solomon woke up.

...

She didn't hear the footsteps behind her until a voice rasped in her ear, like a chain-smoker twenty years overdue for death. "What are you doing?"

"Jesus," exclaimed Sol, reflexively elbowing Rook in the solar plexus, and she went oof. "Get out of here, I'm blowing the place up."

Rook was pale in a way only a corpse can be, but she still turned white. "Why?"

"I need to get to the other side of the door," said Solomon, but Rook stepped forward and ran a hand on the stone where she had molded the explosives to.

At her touch, the earth rumbled; the rock face trembled, threatening to give.

They both raced away, diving through the one-person hole to the outside of the cavern. They got to some distance, before Rook grabbed her shoulder. "Did you hear it explode?"

"No." Solomon stopped entirely, turned around, and began running back. Rook clutched at her arms, and ran with her when she couldn't hold her back.

When they returned, there were two entryways into the cavern—one that had been the result of Casandra and Solomon's previous excursion, and a different one. It looked clean and planned, like it was meant to be there.

"There's a door," said Rook. "That's new."

Sol kept quiet as they walked through the new entrance, and immediately the smell began to hit.

Rook said, "I don't have working lungs, but I know that's rancid."

Solomon didn't need to ask where it was coming from—a gap in the wall, leading deeper into the chamber. The wall where she had planted her explosives had pulled itself away.

More blood on the other side, down steps that ate the light. "Rook, can you see down there?"

"Too dark, even for me."

Solomon shouldered what remained of her supplies and descended. Rook said, "You're silly. You're going?"

"Cas needs me."

"Does she need me as well, or—?"

Sol didn't reply, only kept walking on. In the long dark, she heard a rattle of breath and stomping steps behind her—Rook was letting her know she was coming too, but wasn't happy about it.

The steps ended and a corridor met them. They went blind and silent, a hand touching along the tunnel wall, until Sol could see the outline of her fingers again. "Light at the end. We're near."

The smell had only gotten worse. Not quite fresh corpse, but getting there. Like someone had had a terrible injury and was left to rot.

The light at the end of the tunnel flickered, and they both stumbled over each other to get to it before it went out.

The end of the corridor cut away into another chamber, dimly lit and smelling like actual garbage. The light was from a bulb connected to a generator whirring away, with large cables leading out of it that terminated in several weird headpieces—it had little pads sticking out of it, the kind used to induce muscle contractions.

The room was an absolute shithole. There was not one square foot of clean floor; everywhere she stepped was sticky with what smelled like some kind of bodily fluid. There were chunks of flesh she'd rather not look at, so she looked at something else.

There were two beds in the dank room, both hooked up to the generator. One body had its face covered, but they could see that both wore the strange wired headpieces connected to the generators. They convulsed in time with the shocks of the machine.

Rook looked at Solomon, and Solomon looked at an inert, electrified Harlan Xate.

"Help me," said Sol, and reached for a spare headpiece.