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I was wondering why they kept going in the basement. Durc just loves to kill directly. And Helix has much better plans than him. Good chapter.
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Thankee.
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Good chapter. I'm really enjoying this.
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And thankee too.
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The vykker crossed his arms smugly and stood back, grinning. Dan stared. Sitting in front of the basement door, by the key card lock, was a large, black box-like contraption on a metal cart. Wires jutted out of its sides at almost random angles, and its top was covered completely by little silver buttons with symbols and numbers. The whole thing was rather unattractive, and looked sort of like a toaster that had been forced through a paper shredder. “There.” The vykker said. “With a little find tuning the basement’ll be locked up in no time. Hand me a B2.1 cable, would you?”
Dan opened a toolbox and rummaged around inside, turning over cords with his hands. There were dozens of them all crammed in one unidentifiable, tangled mess.
Which one’s the B2.1 cable? Dan asked. Red scratched his head.
How should I know?
“Give me that,” The vykker snapped, snatching the toolbox and whipping out a cable. He forced the end of the cord into the side of the box and connected the other end (which was shaped like a key-card) into the key slot. Dan watched uninterestedly as he proceeded to jab, tap, and even punch buttons and cables into place, looking intrigued by the entire procedure.
Bluntly the vykker asked “So, you think that Nedd guy’ll be killed off just by starving him? Seems kinda stupid, if you ask me.”
Dan was about to say some terribly uncreative comeback (‘Well I think you’re kinda stupid if you ask me, so there!’) but Red cut him off. He scrawled on a piece of paper and handed it to the vykker.
After a few months, yeah.
“Huh,” The vykker said, flicking a switch on the ugly metal box. It shuddered and beeped a few times, and the key card lock fizzed slightly. “Well, I guess that’s what he deserves anyway.”
I don’t know if he’d deserve it, Dan said quietly, still perplexed on why he was sticking with Nedd’s side,
I mean, he’s been infected with cylonite. It makes everyone crazy, right?
Red looked unconvinced.
I don’t think so. He said, looking over at the basement doors. They were eerie and imposing, and stood out like a sore thumb.
I never trusted that guy. Nedd always seemed sort of twisted... He paused.
I mean, do you even know where he came from? What he did before working in this hellhole?
I don’t know, Dan admitted.
He just kinda showed up one day.
Exactly. Red said, turning away.
How can you trust someone you barely know?
Dan was silent.
<~{.epidemic.}~>
Nedd woke up later feeling refreshed and fulfilled. The action and the bloodshed of the night before was still fresh in his mind, buzzing in his head like a nest of angry stingbees. He stood up and stretched, and Lady trotted over to his feet, her hips swaying and tongue rolling. Nedd leaned over and patted her on the head, which he rarely ever did; he thought of most of the slogs as tools, nothing more. But he was in high spirits for the moment, and didn’t mind how un-demonic his actions were.
He wandered down the halls with Lady trotting behind, heading for the exit; he figured that it would be around nighttime by now, the perfect time to sneak more food from the kitchen. He was sure that if he got caught, nobody would mess with him; his evil reputation had spread through the ship like a wildfire. Nobody would be foolish enough to get in his way.
Nedd walked up the steps and tried the door, but the handle wouldn’t budge. Angrily he slammed down on it like a kick-boxer: the handle swung freely, but the door didn’t open. He snapped off the handle like a toothpick and stuck his hand inside the open hole, feeling around the electrical circuits. He tore some out and tried to open the door again, but to no avail.
‘Odd.’ He thought, running his hand down the door. Suddenly he threw himself at it, kicking it and slamming it with the palms of his hands both at once, and sprang back with a half-backflip, landing expertly on his feet. There was a dent, but no hole.
He backed up, looking around in horror. His chest rose and fell with each startled gasp that filled his lungs. The door was weak. It was made of metal. He could open it easily, at least, he could before...
“NO!” Nedd roared, ramming the door with his shoulders. Lady jumped back, barking in wild confusion. “YOU CAN’T DO THIS! I’LL @#%$ KILL ALL OF YOU! BASTARDS!” He broke a rusted metal pipe from a wall and threw it against the door. It snapped in half and fell, leaving a ruddy, slightly dented mark.
Nedd collapsed to his knees, panting. Lady trotted over slowly and nudged his hand with her snout. He swung around suddenly and kicked her, hard. She collided against a rack of wooden boxes, jumped to her feet, and took off into the basement, yelping in fear.
“Stupid animal.”
He stomped off into the basement, and grunted when he felt his stomach groan. Food... he needed food. He hadn’t eaten since he’d stolen food from the kitchen days ago, and hadn’t even been hungry until recently. He sniffed the air worriedly and looked around; surely there had to be something to eat? How else did the slogs survive down there?
<~{.epidemic.}~>
Nearly a week passed. The basement was just as gloomy and hazardous as it had always had been, and was indeed, as Red had so abruptly put it, ‘a hell hole.’
Nedd forced his eye open. His eye was gluey and watering profoundly, as was the inside of his mouth; all the symptoms of a malnourished rabies victim. He sat up and groaned, his bones aching as though he had been hit by a truck. He climbed weakly down from the rafters where he slept and staggered down a random hallway; lack of food had made him as lethargic as a slug. He slumped against a wall and licked his dry lips. He had scoured the basement for food, but his efforts had been fruitless. He had even tried to eat one of his cylonite slogs, but its skin was so rough and it was so disease-ridden from life in the grimy basement that Nedd had just thrown it up later.
He kicked open a door and lurched inside with barely enough energy to lift his head. In the room near the back was a small group of slogs, huddled around something. Nedd moved closer, and he nearly had a heart attack.
They had food!
He sprang forward with what energy he had left, his mouth foaming rapidly, and gave a feral snarl. The slogs ran away yelping; they knew who he was. Their master, and their worst fear. Nedd tore off a hunk of whatever they were eating and sank his teeth into it; it was soft, and appeared to be some sort of meat. He chewed, feeling a hundred times better, when suddenly he blanched and examined the food source more closely. It appeared to be some sort of decaying, dead body. It had been so mangled that he couldn’t tell what it was, but there was one thing he could see; that by a thick tendon of bone, it was connected to metal pants.
He threw the meat aside and climbed up into the rafters, turning away moodily. A slig! He couldn’t eat a
slig! They were disgusting, they were...
He glanced down sideways at the body. The slogs were advancing slowly, unsure of whether it was safe to eat the meat. The more Nedd looked at the body, the more his mouth watered, and the faster his heart beat. Suddenly everything became a blur. His pupil grew to immense proportions and he howled like a demon, jumping down from the rafters like a dive bomber. He tore into the corpse with his teeth in a frenzy, swallowing without even chewing. The slig was a dark meat, oily and salty, somewhat like sardines. Once Nedd had finished the outside flesh he began cracking the bones with his teeth and chewing on the rubbery marrow, making a delighted sound in his throat that was much like a lion’s purring. The slogs crouched nearby, wary. Nedd threw the bones aside and wiped his arm over his mouth, feeling more alive than he’d felt in weeks. He grinned to himself.
The meat was good; very good. Not only did eating it bring his evil meter up a few notches (‘Nedd, the Flesh Eater’... he liked the sound of that), but it also filled his stomach, and left him feeling strangely satisfied, if not empty. He wanted more.
He stood and stalked out of the room, his eyes shining brightly. Lady met up with him in one of the halls, wagging her hips; she had forgotten about his abusive actions just days before. Nedd climbed up a stack of boxes and pounced into the rafters, leaving Lady behind. With the stealth of a leopard he stalked up to the hole in the vents he had caused roughly a week or two ago. Nedd tested the metal with his arms. It would hold. He hauled himself inside the vent with a mighty heave. He had no idea where the tunnels lead; only that they would lead him to more people, which meant more food, which meant more destruction, which meant striking fear into the hearts of more of his enemies, which made killing and eating them much more fun.
He grinned wolfishly. Life was good.