Rei's Story

An industrial estate, somewhere in the North of England.


Robert Parker sat at his desk, scrolling through emails and yet consequentially reading absolutely nothing. Most of a cold cup of coffee and a half-finished pack of aspirin sat on the desk next to him.

Off in the gloom of his desk unlit by the glare from the monitor, the phone squealed.

Robert massaged his temples for a moment before picking up the receiver, to hear the voice of his receptionist, Sophie, on the other end.

“A er… Mr Green to see you Doctor Parker.”

Robert’s mouth dried up the moment he heard the word. His hands closed reflexively around the cheap plastic enough that he felt it near give way in his grip.

Of course there were many Mr Greens out in the country, in the world. It was not the most unusual name. It could be any number of people. Any number of men who were perfectly sincere in their wish to visit and discuss business from a small medical supply company.

But in that moment he was certain that it was none of those people.

It was him.

“...Doctor Parker? Shall I send him in?”

Sophie sounded a little confused. Robert realized he’d been silent for far longer than he’d intended. Trying to clear the awful dryness in his throat, he spoke up hoarsely.

“No, no, I’ll come to meet him.”



It was a few minutes later that Robert Parker was able to navigate the dark and narrow corridors of Parker Laboratory Solutions and make it out into the reception area. It was a small, shabby looking place with some scratchy covered-chairs and a picture of a meadow on the wall that was faded to the point of appearing like some ghostly hellscape.

Sophie, a short, slightly chubby young lady with a colourful cardigan and a grating laugh, was currently engaged in lively chatter and occasional hyena-like bursts of mirth opposite a tall, silver-haired figure dressed in a shirt and suit-jacket.

Upon hearing the sound of the door both turned, and Robert regarded the man, trying to hold back the distinct feeling of sickness rising in his gut.

“Good morning Doctor. It’s very nice to see you again. Sophie here has just been telling me all about her dogs. West highland terriers apparently. There’s been a nightmare with groomers this month. Complete travesty apparently. ”

His contact lenses looked pretty impressive. You could almost think, looking on his face, that we were something remotely human.

Robert narrowed his eyes.
“Follow me.” he stated tersely.

“Can I get you anything?” Sophie asked, in an well-intentioned attempt to make up for her boss’s brusque response.
“Tea? Coffee? I think there’s some h-”
“No, we’ll be fine.”

Robert had cut her off.

Sophie shot the man a look but returned to the desk and continued playing minesweeper on the desktop.

The man in the suit just gavw a good-natured smile.
“Lead on Doctor Parker, I’m sure you know the way better than I do.”

Robert would have been perfectly happy for the walk downstairs to have gone by in awkward silence, but his associate was in a rather talkative mood, voice resonating through the gloom and the footsteps on the half-rusted metal. Even if the conversation was rather-one sided.

“Sophie seems to be a nice young lady. I’m very glad you were able to find a new receptionist so quickly. Lives with her grandmother apparently, rent prices in the area are quite crippling, terrible shame.”

“Leave her alone.”

“Oh Robert you know I have nothing but noble intentions. Anyway, how are the family?”

The doctor's gut wrenched as he knew the question was coming.

“How is your daughter?”

“Much better.” he muttered out through gritted teeth.
“From what I’ve heard.”

They stepped out onto the bare concrete of the basement level. The ‘Cold Storage’ sign had begun to peel away, letters loose at their top and bottom. Down here Robert’s breath misted up in the chilled air.

No such mist surrounded the man who accompanied him.

“Terribly sorry to hear about the ruling Robert. I’m sure the appeal will work more favourably for you. I’m sure you are a very capable father. “

Robert swallowed back bile and remained silent.

The two stepped into a narrow, utilitarian corridor alongside a row of old industrial freezer units. Stains were evident on the doors around the seals. If one were looking a little harder at the old, ugly appliances had been very meticulously altered from their original function. In addition someone might see the symbols carefully painted on the surface in an almost-matching shade of off-white.

Dr Parker approached one at the end. He could just about feel his heart in his mouth as he reached up to the controls and turned the dial down to the ‘Off’ position. There was a hiss of escaping gas into the ventilation.

Then silence.

This was broken when ‘Mr Green’ gave voice once more.
“I’m very sorry to pull you away from your work at such short notice Robert. I’m sure you have an awful lot to contend with at the moment. Unfortunately I didn’t have the luxury of prior knowledge about the situation. My daughter, you see, is apparently about to begin her education at a rather prestigious place.” he explained, as if the Doctor were paying any attention to his rather than to the aging freezer.

“Now, I think I’m rather old-fashioned. I’m quite protective of her. Perhaps a little too much, I’m sure she can take care of herself, but I always like to have a back-up in place. YOu of all people would understand the importance of doing whatever you can to protect your children..”

Doctor Parker sucked in a sharp intake of breath and turned back toward the smiling figure, rage quietly burning in his eyes.

“You know nothing abou-”

BANG.

A sharp metallic impact against the door.

The man took a couple of steps back, forgetting everything he was about to say.

BANG.

The whole unit shook from the second impact. The thick metal of the door bent outwards than the airtight seal broke with a momentary sound of sucking air.

Robert reached round in a panic, searching for anything that he might be able to use to arm himself.

BANG!

The whole door tore off its hinges. Gas pipes ripped loose from their moorings, and the man’s vision filled with swirling mists of freon and water vapour. He struggled back for the far wall and as he did some hideous shape burst from the fog, barrelling into him at top speed. Robert Parker felt the air forced from his lungs as he was smashed against the wall, held several feet above the ground by his throat. Some grotesque, misshapen set of claws held him aloft, and in his swimming, misty vision he could make out some horrific parody of a face. Elongated, chitinous, too many eyes and far too many teeth. It snarled and hissed, the nightmarish visage closing until it took up all of his vision. It stretched its jaws wide, too wide, so that all Robert could see were the moss green depths of the maw about to crunch down on his face.

“Rei. Please put Doctor Parker down.”

A voice from somewhere in the fog.

The thing stopped, too many eyes wide.

Robert felt the grip on his neck suddenly release, and he dropped to the floor, gasping.

The mist was beginning to clear away. Over the sound of his own laboured coughing, the doctor caught a few noises from somewhere out in the obscurity. Snapping, organic sounds, like someone tearing up meat.

When the room was fully clear, he could make out his visitor, and another person now stood somewhere in front of the industrial freezer.

A young individual, probably female, though it was a little hard to tell. She (he?) was skinny and rather sickly-looking, skin pale and sallow-looking. Long hair hung down to her waist, and she was wearing a very old, very badly damaged medical gown.

The silver-haired man gave a short nod.
“Thank you Rei.”
He turned his gaze back to Doctor Parker.

“Sincerely sorry about that Robert, misplaced enthusiasm, I’m certain it won’t happen again...will it?”

The new figure vigorously shook her head in response to the question.
“No. Nope. It won’t. Not again.”
With that she edged over to the man and helped him to his feet. Or rather, grabbed his arm and pulled him upright in a display of strength that far exceeded her build or size.


“Good. Now Rei, it’s good to see you again. I’m aware that there has been a bit of unpleasantness. Regarding you, and your quite hurtful and immature behaviour. However, I’m optimistic that you have used this interim time to...reflect on your actions. I do hope that now we can start afresh and work together for something positive.”

More vigourous nodding from the sickly creature.
Dr Parker stayed silent, propping himself against the wall, still overcome with shock from his near-death experience.

The visitor reached into his jacket, withdrawing a gun that had sat effortlessly disguised in an inside pocket.
“Excellent. In which case I have a small job for you. First of all I’d like you to be ever so kind as to shoot yourself in the side of the head.”

---

ORIN resisted her immediate impulse, to scream down the comm line that Angel was a cretin, and instead took a deep breath and attempted to relay the information again.

"I'm not referring to the detainee placed in the cell Knight-Commander D'Brightaine. I am referring to the entity recorded breaking into the level, entering the cell and appearing to inhabit the detainee. If you are sufficiently concerned that I, as the base's security system whose construction involved many years and considerable funding, are not doing my job sufficiently that you can trust my conclusion then I would suggest that you do your job and go see for yourself."

She had, of course, already captured the footage of the whole thing in order to send it out, she didn't truly trust anyone to listen without hard proof. However she was less worried about vindicating herself at that very moment, and more concerned about not leaving that thing to its own devices whilst she argued with that pompous idiot D'Brightaine.

And if it set his head on fire when he went to check, that was just a bonus.

----

[/left]

Helena restd her folded arms on the table and her chin on top of them, gazing round the table as the young an who appeared to be leading this whole show spoke to her, implored somewhat by a rather soft-spoken girl across the table.

"I'm concerned about the whole thing..." she mumbled.
"I'm still not really sure why these uh...people are so interested in me...why I got...kidnapped..that kind of thing."

Her gaze flickered round to the other young man present, who had taken it on himself to strike up a bit of conversation with her...something she felt rather pathetically grateful for. Least it appeared she wasn't the only one who'd gotten flung in the back of a van recently.

"Uh...yeah that did..sort of happen. I was just sitting in a park and they grabbed my dad and kinda...well it wasn't exactly great." she explained. Helena hazarded a bit of a smile despite the fact that she was not exactly feeling her best. Maybe this did happen out in the real world more frequently than she'd imagined. Who could tell. Whatever was going on and whyever they'd all been brought here under this 'sibling' assumption, if they'd wanted her to die or be harmed or something she probably have seen it by then.

"Th-thanks...appreciate it. And yes, I'm Helena. Kingsley. Friends call me Hel."

Or rather she would if she had friends that knew her by anything but an internet username.

She returned her chin to resting on her arms. Her stomach was hurting, though she could most likely attribute that to it being completely empty, her having violently expelled its contents not all that long ago.

She didn't exactly feel in the mood to relax and eat lunch but at the same time she wasn't sure she wanted to be tasting bile and stomach acid for the rest of the day.

Having been watching what was going on round the table an spotted the rather rude individual seeking to horde the plate pf bruschetta, she suspected that dealing with that was going to be more of a problem than it was worth. Evenso, she was pretty sure someone was going to have to say something, and it might as well have been her.

She straightened up a little before addressing Ash.
"Um...I think those are supposed to be for everybody."

If you wanted a thankless job, specimen technician for the WDL was probably a pretty good one. Art Hunter found himself in the role of carting bits of demon all over Europe in order to return things for study in Vatican City.

Surprisingly enough, a job that centred around demon corpses was surprisingly uninteresting work. Mostly because demons ceased to be especially dynamic when they had no head or only half a body.

Most of the time at least.

At the outside of the WDL compound, a van pulled up into place at the barrier level with the exorcist on duty. Some squeaky electronic music pulsed out of the window as a dark-haired man in his twenties sat in the driving seat, numerous fast food coffee cups scattered round the other seat and a look of profound disinterest on his features.

“Hey Hunter. Want me to report you in?”

The technician looked round with a shrug of his narrow shoulders.

“It’s fine. Got to cart all this crap in anyway.” he replied.

What he was bringing wasn’t really something you wanted to leave lying around somewhere. You didn’t really get along too far by trusting WDL cadets to exercise common sense.

A couple of minutes later Hunte ended up pulled up outside the block used for research. He hopped out of the seat, disturbing his collection of coffee cups and cereal bar wrappers, unhooked a white coat from the side to throw over the jeans and T-shirt he’d been wearing, and opened the back. Inside there was a gurney, and strapped down on top of that a translucent rectangle of plastic. Any close inspection would be able to work out the misty shape inside was looking suspiciously humanoid in shape..but the puddle of green around the shape’s head, like some sickly chartreuse halo, was not something you’d ever really associate with a human body.

Pushing dead stuff around was not exactly difficult, but it did kind of limit your options. It wasn’t especially heavy, but he wasn’t going to fling something like that over one shoulder and carry it up some steps. All that green goop could be poisonous..or..acidic...or how it reproduced. All kinds of horrible options. And the young man didn’t feel sufficient levels of zealous commitment to the WDL to risk his own life to get them a research specimen.

He pushed the gurney up to the usual door, approached the intercom sat beside it, and pressed the button.

“ORIN, technician A Hunter, signing in. One deceased specimen. Unknown species. Something gross. Here to report to Lovette for where to assign this thing.”

No answer.

“ORIN?”

Still no answer.
“This is about last week? Very mature. I’m not going to pretend the chimunk voice was not funny ORIN. You can’t ask this of me. I’m only one man.”

At continued lack of response, the young man sighed deeply, and snapped the channel on the intercom.
“Lovette let me in. ORIN is sulking and I’m not abandoning a cadaver in the car park.”

---

ORIN, for what it was worth, was not ignoring Technician Hunter’s requests out of spite, (even if she might’ve been tempted she wasn’t quite that petty) but was more down to her having far more important things to contend with before she let anyone in.

She wanted to scream at Angel for being a negligent prick and not dealing with the potential massive security risk that had presented itself, but she was also pretty certain that between his contempt for her and how far his head was lodged up his own ass, any amount of lecturing from her was not going to sway him to do any more than he already was.

Instead she set about instructing all the staff in the detainment level of evacuate the area and reconvene on all exits, while she pulled down all the blast doors and sealed off the area, including ventilation and water. Nothing was going to get out of that place. If no-one else in the organization was going to be on this, she most certainly was.

ORIN threaded her gloved fingers together, elbows leant on the table as she scrutinized the cameras. Lovette could handle whatever that idiot technician wanted, she wasn’t there too-

ORIN stopped.

ANOTHER manifestation?

“Lovette what in the hell are you doing and why is there some fracture in reality in your office?” she called down the intercom, before snapping over to the higher staff channel once again.

“Seeing as it appears we’re simply no longer bothering with actually stopping demons anymore, I’m going to assume none of you esteemed people are interested in the fact that yet another entity has managed to infiltrate the complex. But considering that, despite the apparent apathy towards the safety of the base, it is still my purpose to detect security risks, I felt it necessary to send you a courtesy call.”

---

Helena bristled a bit at the response from the individual she’d spoken to about the food.
It hadn’t really been a big request in her eyes, but it had been met with pretty undisguised hostility.

With renewed despondency and interest in eating anything once again gone, the young woman rested her chin on her arm again and took instead to idly rolling the vial back and forth between her hands and trying to work out how she was going to escape as soon as she got the chance. Maybe if she stuck around until everyone else had wandered off she could sneak out..


As such it took her a moment to realize she was being addressed, ending up regarding Vistra a little bit like a rabbit in headlights whne met by the apparent concern.
“Oh. Yeah. Not so bad I guess. I just hadn’t done...whatever that was before. Disappearing some place and reappearing. That was pretty new. It’s probably just because of that. And whatever people knocked me out with and stuff. I’m doing my best to be calm and collected and all but...not super okay with all this.” she explained, twisting her fingers in the sleeves of her dinosaur sweater.

This was really not a good day.

Upon Dawn's offer Helena came to grasping the ginger ale in her hands, not really too inclined to start drinking it but also not wanting to imply that she didn't appreciate the gesture. After some of her previous interactions Helena concluded it was easier and better to just play along.
"Oh yeah, thanks." she responded.
"I'll try that."

Wait until these people leave her alone, and then make a break for it. Couldn't be too hard...right?