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The Good Life: Gaslighting (ch. 74)
🕑 Added 2024-12-20 16:00:55 +0000 UTC“I… am known as Singed,” the man introduced himself as I was walked into his lab, escorted by Jinx. It was a real and right proper secret lab too -- it was located in the fringe of the city, in the fissures that were mined out centuries ago before Piltover started digging down and laid the foundations for what would become the Undercity. There was a complete network of caves that had been co-opted for various inhuman experiments.
The man himself had a real evil scientist vibe to him too. His face was covered by a bandana, though burn scars still peeked out as they crawled over one cheekbone while he was blinded in one eye. He was completely bald, lacking even eyebrows. He was tall and lanky, but bad posture made him feel smaller than he was.
“I doubt that's the name your mother gave you,” I remarked, drinking in the secret lab, my gaze drawn to a tube that had an animal that vaguely reminded me of an axolotl suspended in Shimmer with about dozen tubes plugged into it. They seemed to be draining as many fluids as they added, harvesting something from it and keeping the creature alive through spite and mad science.
“No. But it shall suffice for this meeting,” Singe replied blandly, seated at a desk that had wide arrange of chemistry utensils on display, all of them bubbling with a familiar hue. “You, on the other hand… there is no need to introduce yourself. Though, I must confess, I am quite surprised that you wished to meet me. Shimmer seemed to be out of your field of expertise.”
“My area of expertise expands based on what I'm interested in,” I said, watching as Jinx walked by test tubes, each one bending her reflection to comical proportions. She seemed pretty happy for some reason, but I wasn't entirely sure why. “And Shimmer interests me. I wanted to meet the man behind the science, and so far… you haven't disappointed.”
My Room fed me a lot of information about Singed's secret laboratory. It encompassed the whole of it, informing me of a number of experiments as well as information about the man himself.
What I realized first was that I had entirely underestimated the scope of Shimmer. For the most part, I figured it was the mother of all steroids. You take a shot or a gulp, you feel like a god for about five minutes, then you wish you were dead after. But that wasn't really the case. There were a wide variety of forms Singed was creating, all of them in various stages of completion.
Solid Shimmer that you could smoke. Shimmer that you could huff. Shimmer that acted as medicine. Shimmer that was so potent that it'd kill anyone who ingested so much as a drop of it undiluted. Then there was Shimmer that acted as a power source, almost like a fluid battery.
All of it accompanied by years of meticulous note taking, notes that I could browse at my leisure.
“To what end?” Singed questioned, his tone flat. The man didn't have his guard up so much as he had the Great Wall of China up. It didn't seem personal. Just his nature, which was something that I could work with.
The question was a prudent one, too. Reasonable. But, I wasn't entirely sure I had an answer for him. “That depends on you, I think. What's your goal here? From what I can tell, you answer to Silco, accomplishing a checklist of variants of Shimmer to push his bottomline, but that's not the goal. So, what is?”
As I spoke, my attention drifted to two people in the lab. Though, calling them people would be a bit of an exaggeration. One was hanging up by chains near a room that Jinx was venturing close to as she entertained herself, disinterested in the conversation. I'm not entirely sure that the guy was human -- I think he was an actual werewolf, one that was built like a ten foot tall brick shit house that happened to be covered in fur. He had a bunch of tubes flowing in and out of him, all of which contained variations of Shimmer.
The other was more interesting. A little girl suspended in a glass coffin behind a false wall. That hidden room was the only place that had a hint of personality. Everywhere else was all spartan practicality, but that room almost looked like a little girl’s bedroom. Only instead of a bed, the girl was in some kind of suspension fluid that kept her alive. If only barely.
“Curiosity,” Singed lied. “I wished to discover what the physical body is truly capable of when honed to its natural extreme. Shimmer… Some think it bolsters the body, but that is not strictly true. It merely taps into what is already there.”
“Hm. Lying about your motivation, but honest about your intent,” I noted, looking into the test tube that had the axolotl in it, catching Singed's reaction in the reflection. “But, I can work with that. I think we can help one another, Singed.”
“I think that is a step beyond your purview, Mr. Trafalgar. Silco has been a longstanding patron of my work.” Singe denied easily, though he wasn't quite as uninterested as he tried to appear.
“Oh, don't worry -- I won't go trying to steal you from Silco,” I waved off that concern. Silco was proving to be an unexpected surprise, and I was curious to see if he had what it took to go the distance with a little help from me. I wouldn't want to ruin that relationship yet. “I was thinking more of an… expansion, on the work you're already doing with Shimmer while I provide you with technology that… heh, is out of this world.”
That had his interest, so I tossed him the bag that I had brought with me. He caught it, opening it cautiously and revealed what was within. A Pipboy.
“Put it on,” I instructed, patting my wrist to show him where. Singed, despite being a more twisted evil version of Jayce or Viktor, was still a scientist at heart. He placed the Pipboy on his wrist, securing the latch. He let out a small hiss as it pressurized to secure itself, but that pinch of pain was swiftly forgotten about as it booted up.
“This is… this is a computer?” He realized the implications fast, I had to give him that. Computers were a thing here, but they were stuck in the era where they were the size of a room and didn't have the processing power needed to run Doom. And, from what I knew, rather than silicon and plastic based computation, the computers of this world were crystal based, with massive external hard drives that had to be slotted in.
“That there is Voughts newest product -- the Pipboy One Thousand. A wrist sized computer that gives you a live feed diagnostic of your person, complete with a calculator, spreadsheet, notepad, and a computer game, as I'm calling them -- Tetris.” I had to scale down the power of the ‘modern’ Pipboy that Fallout had ended with. As it was, the Pipboy 1000 was a bit more robust than the computers of this world, just massively shrunken down.
I chose it for my bet with Asami. I had the feeling that it was going to be a big seller, especially when I was planning to sell them at a loss just to get them out there.
And, going by Singed's reaction, it was the right choice because the Mas was absolutely smitten as he cycled through its functions. “This is extraordinary,” Singed confessed. “It will be of great help to my work. But what is it exactly you wish for me to accomplish?”
To that, I fished in my pocket to pull out two thin canisters. One contained a lime green substance while the other possessed a cool blue.
FEV and Compound V.
“I want you to develop a strain of Shimmer that works well with these compounds. Notes about them are already on the Pipboy,” I said, placing them both on his desk. Singed picked them up, looking through them, and I sensed his suspicion as he cast a glance at me. “It's for your benefit too. You manage to combine them? Well… let's just say that the physical limits of the body are a glass ceiling.”
There was a naked yearning within him that grabbed Singed's heart in a vice grip and refused to let go. Almost unbidden, his lone eye flickered to the false wall that hid the girl slumbering in her coffin. That tipped his hand, and I knew I had him, especially now that I knew what motivated him.
I would save that card for now. There was no need to rush things. Especially as, if one day he had to choose between me and Silco, I could use that knowledge to place my thumb on the scale.
“I believe that we can come to an accord,” Singed answered, clutching the two vials as if he were afraid I'd take them from him. The man was motivated, and I was genuinely curious to see how far he could go with it. The Institute had advanced tech and a whole carton of eggheads laboring away on the project. But, after around a year of work, they were no closer to a finished product than when they started.
The only breakthrough they had was when they got their hands on Shimmer, and no one seemed to understand that substance better than its creator. So, I gave him a decent shot of creating a fused serum before the Institute did.
Before we could shake on it, however, I felt a massive spike of fear and anxiety coming from Jinx and I looked over just in time to hear a massive crash coming from the other room. Singed jumped to his feet, proving that he had some speed in him and raced to the room. I had to grab him by the back of his coat to yank him back to avoid a bullet from opening up a tunnel in his forehead when Jinx fired her gun.
I poked my head in to see that she was breathing raggedly, her eyes wide and teeth bared with the gun pointed right at me. “Shut up! Shut up!” She snarled in my direction, despite the fact that I hadn't said anything. “It's not him. It can't be him. Vander wasn't some… he was… he's-” Her gaze darted to the werewolf hanging from the ceiling.
He was sedated, rather heavily, so he didn't even stir at the sound of a gunshot. His body was bound with thick chains, securing every limb, making it impossible to escape. His body was covered with a coarse fur, everywhere except for a face that didn't seem entirely human. Jinx seemed to recognize someone in it, and the sight alone felt like it had induced a full on panic attack.
“How about-” I started, only to tilt my head out of the way at an incoming bullet. Right. So, on the scale of fight to flight, Jinx had settled on murderous.
“Shut! Up!” Jinx snarled in my direction, not at all bothered by nearly killing me. Her gaze flickered around, as if she was seeing something in the corner of her eyes. “Why? Why is-” A sob heaved out of her throat like it struck her with physical force. “What is he doing here?!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Singed consider his options for just a moment. “This isn't Vander,” Singed lied and Jinx recoiled.
“It's him. Do you really think I wouldn't recognize him because he became a furball?” Jinx hissed, shifting her aim to Singed once more.
“I will admit, there are… similarities in appearance. Perhaps he was a relative of Vander, but this man hailed from Noxus. Payment for… services rendered,” Singed lied through his teeth. I glanced up at the werewolf man, certain that he was in fact this Vander guy. And given how strongly Jinx felt, I was also pretty sure that he was one of the family members she had gotten killed, according to her.
This was messy. And complicated. Confirming the truth would 100% see Jinx try to kill Singed, and end with her pissed off at me because I wouldn't let her. On the other hand…
“No one blames you for seeing what you want to see, Jinx,” I said, reaching out with my Room and stopping the spike of anger and guilt before she shot at us again. I took a step closer, seeing the gun swing my way. “It's normal. Even if it's in a state like this, it's perfectly normal to want to have someone you love still be alive.” I continued, slowly pushing down her extreme emotions to get her to calm down. It had to be slow, else it would stand out. She had to be convinced that my words had a soothing effect, else she'd shoot at me again.
“That's Vander! I know it is!” Jinx swore, her breathing hitching.
“I'm afraid that it can't be. After the fire, the amount of Shimmer that he was exposed to…” Singed trailed off and there was another massive spike of guilt, self loathing, and murderous destructive rage. “And even if his body was in condition for my experiments, Silco would not approve. They had their differences, but Silco admired Vander. You know this.”
That formed a crack in her emotional state, her gaze going back up to Vander and a ragged breath escaped her. Then she breathed in just as harshly, on the verge of hyperventilating. Jinx shook her head, taking a step back. Then she wheeled around on a beaker, “I SAID SHUT UP!” She howled, firing off a bullet that sent Shimmer flying, pooling over the desk and spilling over to the floor.
I took a step forward, crossing the distance, and just before I took a bullet to the dome, I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. I got a bit careless, shoving her emotions down before she shot something important, but I tried to disguise it as the squeeze on her shoulder having its intended effect. “It's okay. Just take a breathe-”
I half expected her to shoot me, but instead she engulfed me in a hug and buried her face into my chest. “I thought it was him. I hoped it was him,” Jinx confessed raggedly, telling me that the gaslighting worked.
Wrapping an arm around her, I rubbed soothing circles into her back, “I know. I know,” I told her reassuringly, glad that she wasn't flying off the handle anymore.
One thing was clear, however. Jinx was Bonkers, with a capital B.
But that was okay.
Crazy was sexy.
…
“That is an objectively terrible idea,” Cinder noted, seated across from her as she brought a ‘silly straw’ to her lips and drank from a cup in one of the restaurants that Law had opened up. A jukebox played a song while a waitress rolled by on a pair of skates.
Caitlyn glanced down at her own meal, hardly touched. “Does that mean you won't help?”
“I didn't say that. Just that it's objectively stupid… but I can hardly call myself your partner if I let you do something this dumb all on your own. It's not like I can talk you out of it,” Cinder noted, making Caitlyn glance up to find the woman wore a smirk. Warmth pooled in her gut, but Caitlyn did her best to shove it away and focus on the relief.
“I have to,” Caitlyn insisted, a knot of tension vanishing as a weight was lifted off her shoulders. “The academy is treating me like a child. They're doing everything short of putting foam on every corner and childproofing the doors. I need to prove myself, or I might as well come each day to the office wrapped in bubble wrap!”
After two months of attending the Academy, in which they were tested and graded on a wide variety of skills such as physical fitness, logic reasoning, and deduction skills, the top ten candidates were allowed to shadow real Enforcers as part of their four month training. Caitlyn had scored top marks in every subject -- she had been preparing for years to take the tests, so she secured top of her class. By a hair's breadth as it turned out, because Cinder was placed just below her. It was only Caitlyn's marksmanship that secured her position.
It felt like fate when she and Cinder were placed together as partners for the shadowing. Then it felt like a curse because something immediately became clear that wouldn't just affect Caitlyn's career, but likely would affect Cinder's.
Since day one, they were kept in the HQ and did deskwork. Which Caitlyn wouldn't mind so much as that was part of the job. The issue was that they were kept off of patrols. They were kept away from suspects. They weren't allowed near investigations. All the others were allowed their normal duties, what they should be doing as they shadowed. Instead, they were treated as glorified secretaries and that wouldn't change unless they made it change.
“You don't have to convince me, Cait. Though, I doubt you'll have much luck convincing your parents,” Cinder noted kindly and Caitlyn wilted ever so slightly.
The culprit for their treatment was rather obvious.
“I just need to prove it to them. Something that they can't deny,” Caitlyn hoped. It was her mother that she needed to convince and… well… Caitlyn knew which side of the family she inherited her own stubbornness from.
“I'm with you,” Cinder reassured and butterflies fluttered in her stomach even before Cinder reached out and gave her hand a small reassuring squeeze. “So, do you have an actual plan or are we making it up as we go along?”
“I have a plan,” Caitlyn said, loathe to break skin contact, but she had to reach into her bag and after making sure that no one was looking, she slid a slip of paper to Cinder. Cinder raised an eyebrow at the caution, at least until she unfolded the paper.
“Impressive. This is even worse than I imagined,” Cinder gave her verdict, passing the paper back.
Caitlyn couldn't resist stealing another glance at it. It was a standing invitation to a gathering from the ‘Cult of Curses.’ It had been taken by the budding cult down in the Undercity, and… well… it had practically fallen into her lap. And by falling into her lap, Caitlyn meant that it hadn't been filed into evidence. Yet. She'd do it as soon as they got some actual use out of the invitation rather than let the opportunity slip by them.
“Are you…?” Caitlyn questioned, and tried not to show just how relieved that she was when Cinder just smiled.
“I already said that I wouldn't let you do something this stupid alone. Just pull some strings for me when this goes horribly wrong,” Cinder teased as she stood up. Caitlyn couldn't quite help her roaming eyes -- Cinder looked good in the Enforcer cadet uniform. The navy blue and white dress suit clung to her tightly, the hem of it ending just above mid thigh, leaving a gap exposed between her thigh high leather boots. Her sleeves ended mid forearm, rolled up, while her hands were clad in a long leather gloves.
It made Caitlyn feel like a gangly freak standing next to her. Especially when she styled her hair by pushing it to one side and, no matter the training, she always looked like she was ready to walk down a runway to a fashion show.
Caitlyn followed her, paying for the meal on the way out, and grabbing her bag that she nearly forgot. That would have been bad, since it had a broken down service rifle concealed inside it. They quickly made their way down to the trolley that led into the Undercity with both herself and Cinder putting on a face mask to deal with the fumes. It was only when they arrived that Cinder spoke up.
“So, what exactly is this plan?” Cinder asked as they walked down the streets of the Undercity. It had changed a little bit from her last visit -- she noticed a lot more Vought logos on things. The streets were a bit cleaner, and there weren't any random puddles of toxic chemicals that the Fissurefolk had previously just left unchecked.
Caitlyn adjusted her mask before showing the invitation again. “It's a code -- the cipher was pretty simple, so I think most people were meant to figure it out. It leads to an address in the lower part of the Undercity. The Sump,” Caitlyn informed, adding a note to the flyer that showed how she broke the cipher.
Her partner let out a hum, “If we're going to the Sump, then we need to ditch the uniforms. They'll draw too much attention.” Cinder remarked and that… was something she should have thought of. But, it was an oversight swiftly corrected when Cinder grabbed her hand and brought her into a clothing store that sold clothes that were distinctly… Undercity.
The next few minutes were a blur to Caitlyn as she found herself dressing and undressing for Cinder, and, even better, judging Cinder's outfits. And what Cinder settled on was a shirt that left her back exposed, tied off at her neck while a gap on her chest left her cleavage exposed paired with a miniskirt that ended at her upper thigh, just barely covering her behind, and Caitlyn could swear that if she so much as bent over…
Well, they definitely looked more the part of Undercity dwellers, if nothing else, Caitlyn could admit as she inspected her own reflection. She wore a tank top that left her midriff exposed, leather pants, and on top of it all a half opened jacket that ended at her ribs. She looked distinctly unlike herself, which seemed to be the point. Yet, when she stepped out of the dressing room, Caitlyn had to fight off a full body flush when Cinder raked her eyes over her.
“Much better,” Cinder gave her verdict and Caitlyn fought off a small smile.
Now that they blended into the crowd, the only attention they attracted was a much different sort. It was hard to focus on as they continued down into the depths of the Undercity through various elevators. Before long, Caitlyn spied their destination and swallowed a lump in her throat. It was a theater. Once. Now however…
The very air around it felt tainted and heavy, despite the mask that she wore. The area was devoid of a single soul, but Caitlyn saw signs of the Cult of Curses. Graffiti depicting four eyes and a sinister smile, people boarding up their windows and barring their doors… it felt like the area was holding its breath, bracing for an impact that it knew was coming.
Caitlyn steeled herself as Cinder pointed up, to a skylight on the top of the building. She followed, preparing herself for… Caitlyn wasn't even sure what.
The Cult of Curses had terrorized the Undercity for months now. There was no end to their list of crimes, yet the Cult only seemed to grow and attract new members over time. They murdered, stole, and destroyed throughout the Undercity -- they attacked Enforcer patrols, burned buildings to the ground… and instead of the Undercity helping Piltover cut out a cancer growing inside of it, the Cult went from a handful of disenfranchised people to numbering potentially in the hundreds. Caitlyn couldn't understand it, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to.
Silently, they climbed up a fire escape on the back of the building before shuffling across a ledge and pulling themselves up to the roof. Cinder worked the skylight open, which thankfully didn't make a sound as it did. She dropped down first, checking the room before she gestured for Caitlyn to follow. She landed with a light thump, landing in what looked like a backstage area.
Opening her bag, Caitlyn began to assemble her rifle with practiced ease. It took only a minute before the butt was secured against her shoulder -- she had no real plans of using it, but it was better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Trading a look with Cinder, they moved down the railway they landed on towards the main theater area. And, it was there that Caitlyn saw it.
Her stomach lurched as she beheld the theater, grateful for the mask as it had to be protecting her from the smell. There were dozens of people in the desecrated theater, all of them naked and arranged in a circle around an effigie in the shape of a man with four arms, his hands steepled in matching handsigns, while there was an opening at his stomach.
The people took knives to their own bodies, carving symbols into them that must have been arcane in nature. All the while they chanted in a low whisper that Caitlyn could only hear because of the number of people whispering. The words themselves were lost, and Caitlyn doubted she'd be able to understand them in the first place as what little she heard sounded foreign.
“What…” Caitlyn muttered under her breath, disturbed by the sight. Several of the cultists were clearly longstanding members as they were covered in markings that were becoming scars if they hadn't already.
The cultists suddenly went silent, and Caitlyn worried that they might have heard her until a short yet lanky man abruptly stood up, holding his hands aloft. “My brothers and sisters, the preparations are complete. You have done well to suffer in silence, offering your pain to the King of Curses. Yet, this is but the first step in a long journey ahead. For the binding vow to be completed, you must make a sacrifice.” The man was an odd mixture of manic and solemn as he spoke.
It was as he turned around, to face the others arranged around him, Caitlyn flinched when she saw his eyes were missing. And it became painfully clear what he meant by a sacrifice. “All things come at a cost, my brothers and sisters. Our lord's favor is no different but, I assure you, it is well worth the price. Shed yourselves of what brings you pain, what you hold dear, and you will find yourselves unburdened.”
“Cinder, what… What do we do?” Caitlyn stressed, glancing at her partner, who was openly disturbed by the sight. Her plan was to do some investigation, a little recon, and find a few people of interest to investigate further. She hadn't counted on how twisted the cult was. This was insane.
“We wait. And watch,” Cinder answered, sounding grim as one of the initiates stood up.
He was an older man, balding with a long scar down his face. “I’m a murderer. A killer for hire,” he told the group as he approached the effigie, stopping at a table filled with tools. “I've never been good at anything else. Tried to find an honest living, but it never worked out. Tried to have a family, but these hands… these hands only know how to kill. Brother… if you would…”
“Of course, brother,” the head cultists said, grabbing a curved sword as the professed hit man presented his hands. She knew it was coming but she still flinched when he swung the blade down, severing the man’s hands at the wrists. The man fell to his knees, clutching his arms to his chest as blood seeped down his forearms. And, rather than give him any kind of medical attention, the head cultist picked up the severed hands and placed them inside of the effigy.
Fearing the arcane now made a great deal more sense to Caitlyn as she watched as the effigy seemed to hum with life, markings on its surface that mirrored those on the cultists glowed while fire erupted from the stomach. The hands were incinerated, yet the smoke that was produced was pink in color and flowed to the man who knelt before the effigy. The smoke flowed into his bloodied wounds and he let out a ragged gasp.
“Your offering was great, brother. In time, if our lord sees fit, you may regain what was lost,” He assured him in a quiet voice filled with warmth.
Right.
“Cinder… I think it's best if we leave now,” Caitlyn decided, getting ready to pull back because this was well beyond anything she could have imagined. However, as she pulled back, Caitlyn felt a hand on her shoulder.
“But, you'll miss the best part,” a woman's voice that Caitlyn didn't recognize announced, turning her blood to ice. She started to look up, to see who it was, but all she saw was a flash of movement before something struck her in the side of the head.
And everything went black.
