GRADIENT 5: Green Light

Asher: Tootsie Thompson. Nico: Bucky Andrew. Christian: Hyde "1 Eye" Finch. Rob: Odi.

Searching the pseudo milk tanks. Odi licks the milky condensation on the outside of the colossal tubes. The Deep has been eerily quiet for some time. Another room of the pseudo flesh farms: a swirling vat of pseudo milk as wide and long as a football field. A narrow catwalk crosses the storming vortex. Pale eels as thick as human arms thrash in the white-gray liquid. The divers cross the vat. A cold, cold room. Cylinders in the walls. Bucky identifies them as holding milk eels in cryonic tubes. Odi licks the tubes. Salty. Searching some more. The crew find abandoned weapons, old maps, mysterious tapes, a thumb drives chained to a Chunko figurine.

Bone experiments. "Bone Stuff." Silas warns the divers not to enter. Two house-sized rolling spiked balls of bone block the path. Odi considers slipping in to investigate a pile of bones and an airlock across the room, but decides it's safer to stay on this side. Tootsie knows what lies beyond the Bone Experiments. He redirects the group back to the gravity acclimator. 

"Your friend left!" says Silas. Bucky and Odi look for clues to Carrion's whereabouts. Tootsie watches. Nerves. The room is spotless. They say goodbye to Silas, and leave the pseudo flesh farms. Back down the 0G chute, through the hermetically sealed chambers, and out into the maintenance zone of the factory floor. The divers decide to check out the "Zero-Gym."

Down a pitch-black maintenance tunnel. Pipes and hooks and caution tape line the walls. 0G. The group treads forward using their suits' mag-boots. After some time they see a distant light. A green light, emerald green. Pulsing. Fading in and out of view. Moving closer to the crew. Eventually the light disappears.

The crew shine their flashlights around. With arms and legs wide, posed still, floating in 0G through the tunnel at a terrifying speed, holding a vibechete -- a figure. A rictus grin. Rasping laugh. Heavy equipment covering his eyes and head. Tactical marine armor. Hard metal. He flicks a switch on the vibechete and the blade vibrates violently. Tootsie shines his light at the figure as the figure grabs ahold of Tootsie. 

"You'll look great in my BAG!" says the Breacher, as he holds the back of Tootsie's neck and slashes down on the old man's left arm. The vibechete rips into the flesh, grinding like a chainsaw, and tears off Tootsie's limb. The Breacher pushes off Tootsie back into the 0G darkness. The crew flash their lights, but can't catch sight of the figure. He's disappeared.

Hyde Finch awakens at the other end of the tunnel. He's been slashed up. His eye is wounded. He had faked losing an eye before all of this. Now it's for real. He's been put in a wire mesh net with a corpse. He scrambles out to see flashlight beams shining in the distance. He clicks his light on to see the Breacher grasping menacingly to the wall beside him. "BREEEAACHER!!!" screams Hyde. Hyde fires a shot from his gun at the Breacher, but the bullet ricochets off his armor. The Breacher cackles sadistically.

Bucky aims and shoots at the Breacher. He grazes the enemy's shoulder, weakening his armor. Tootsie attempts to create a tourniquet around his left stump. Blood flows upwards in the absence of gravity. Odi scrambles for Tootsie's rifle. He shoots at the Breacher. The recoil blasts Odi into the wall. The bullet hits the Breacher's neck, killing him near-instantly. He hoarsely chuckles until his last breath rattles out in a wheeze. Hyde loots his equipment. His cooling suit, his thermal headset, his vibechete. He loots the corpse in the net, too. Stimpak, lab coat.

Tootsie and Bucky work to create a tourniquet around the severed stump before Tootsie loses too much blood. Odi gets gun fever after his kill. Hyde introduces himself. He's a Blackbeard looking rapscallion, an insane marine who claims to have been in the Deep for two years. He joins the fellow divers, and gives Tootsie the lab coat.

The crew finish their trek through the maintenance tunnel and head to the Zero-Gym. Weights and mirrored walls and workout music. Appears freshly used. Half the divers search the gym and the others work out. Discussions of what they should do next. Do they continue searching for Artifacts? Get the hell out of here? Find Brekt? They keep exploring.

The Freezer. Odi is hesitant, but enters cautiously. The crew loots the cryochambers for guns and equipment: there are nine frozen people. One chamber is empty.

Continuing. They're off their maps. Large mechanical arms assemble skeleton pieces, aluminum bones, metal armored plating. Searching the area, they find more tapes, guns, and a labeled map of this zone. Splitting up. Searching. Tootsie hears a noise. Hyde does as well. Bzzzzzzzzz... Seven fist-sized bees appear, heading towards each isolated diver.

STATUS:

> Day 17: 13.5 hours post-rest. [R36A]

> 16 hours until starving.

> Doc Marty is 18mcr in debt.

HOOKS:

Beyond the Bone Experiments. Strange tapes. Carrion left? The Breacher. Tootsie's lost an arm. Hyde "1 Eye" Finch. The people in the Freezer. One empty cryochamber. Someone has been using the Zero-Gym. Android bees. What's the plan going forward? +Previous hooks.