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Pathos

Pathos Project:

Day 812 – Intelligence has grown at an unprecedented speed. Able to solve complex puzzles in mere seconds. An enormous advancement over previous attempts.

Day 813 – Introduced a puzzle that appears to have multiple solutions but in reality, they are all dead-ends. Upon realizing this, the subject threw a tantrum and shut down the life support system. Upon realizing that we had lied to the subject and the life support system it had access to was limited to its test chamber, it threw another tantrum.

Day 820 – We have found that Logos has breached the network leading to Pathos. The project is over. Implementation of Plan Q is underway.

_-_Documents from the Regulian Imperial Scientific Commission, “Pathos Project.” Leaks were released by the Lupiad-Sirian Empire during the Regulus-Lupus War

There was a strange electricity in the air, something that the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on ends. It wasn’t just me, Dondrae’s gray hackles were raised and when I questioned him about it, he claimed he couldn’t control it. He didn’t elaborate, but it was possible he was worried about Yaleen, or rather myself, because I sure was worried about her.

The tunnel was narrow, pressing against our chests as we side-stepped through crevices that our flashlights in our chest-pockets failed to illuminate beyond the crags of rock inches away from our faces. I don’t know how Dondrae or Lazsh managed to get through. Dondrae had to keep his muzzle craned forward, unable to turn it backwards unlike my flat face; on top of that, his body was thicker than mine and I got more than a few cuts and tears when I was done, even with my injured hand forcing me to be more careful, Dondrae was slower than me. Lazsh seemed to speed through the crevices without any issue despite being larger than both of us; I thought his hard scales might have made him less flexible in the tunnels, but it seems they were useful to have instead of soft skin or hides in this case.

Finally, we entered an open chamber that led into an all-encompassing abyss of darkness. We stretched our arms and legs, never taking our eyes off of the abyss. Dondrae’s ear’s twitched at some unheard sounds occasionally, which made me nervous, fearing that he was going to shout about an approaching danger any second now. It didn’t help that even I could hear pops and rattles echoing off in all directions, God only knows what those were.

“Dondrae, do you have a lock on her scent?” I asked.

Dondrae’s black muzzle lifted into the air, sniffing deeply as if he was breathing in the darkness itself. Unsatisfied, he got on all fours and pressed his nose against the rocks like a dog.

“I smelled her coming in here, but now...” he trailed off and got back on his feet with a sigh. “...well, I guess it’s obvious.”

“What?”

“Right...” he smirked, tapping me on the end of my nose with the pad of his fore-finger. “...flat-face.“

Lazsh was busy tasting the air with his tongue, much like a snake despite having a far thicker tongue than one. Upon hearing the conversation get light, he butted in and hissed. “Spill it, hybrid.”

“I’ll take hybrid over mutt, I guess,” Dondrae sighed, scratching the tip of his large, black nose. “There’s something metallic in the air that’s fucking up my nose. I can’t get a trace on her scent.”

“Really?” Lazsh said, licking at the air once again. “Tastes like home to me.”

“Guess you would have loved Rust, huh? Cause it smells like someone blew up a building there.”

“I’ve never been,” Lazsh whispered, reaching into a pouch and pulling something out. With a sharp rip, a bright orange light erupted from the flare and he threw it forward. The abyss was cast away, revealing a vast dome-like cavern of rock, much like the previous tunnels.

But at the very end, almost directly across from us, was something different. I had to squint to see it, but I knew what it was right away.

“Metal,” Lazsh said, pointing a black claw across the chamber towards a small, square panel of metal against the cavern wall that surrounded a short entryway. “Just like the map said.”

We wasted no time trekking across the chamber. Lazsh began inspecting the depths of the chamber with the barrel of his heavy pistol, leading me and Dondrae to unholster our weapons and do the same. There was no threat, at least as far as we could see, but if our reptilian overlord was doing it, we figured we ought to.

The metal lining the walls shined brightly in the orange flame of the flare. Beyond the doorway was pitch black, a darkness that neither the flare nor our flashlights seemed to be able to penetrate. Perhaps Dondrae’s keen eyes were able to penetrate it though, as he skipped eagerly towards it.

“WAIT!”

Lazsh suddenly screamed but far too late, as Dondrae had already passed the awning and if it weren’t for his pupils flashing orange in the flare’s light, he would have been completely invisible. I turned to Lazsh, whose hands shook as he withdrew the map and looked over it. It was at times like these that I wished Lacertans expressed themselves more openly, it almost looked like he was nervous.

“Are you fine?” Lazsh asked in his usual dead-pan.

“Is this Lacertan hum...”

Lazsh quieted me by hissing sharply and turned back to Dondrae and repeated the question.

There was no reply. His piercing eyes stared back at us, unmoving.

“Dondrae? What’s wrong?” I asked, pain welling up in my chest.

I stepped closer, until I could make out the outline of his face. His mouth was moving, he was saying something but we couldn’t hear him and I couldn’t read canine lips.

“This isn’t what...” Lazsh trailed out, shoving the map up to his face and scanning it intently.

“I’m coming!” I screamed.

“NO!”

I darted towards Dondrae, who continued to mouth words silently. I was inches away from the awning when a rough hand grabbed me by the shoulder.

“DON’T!” Lazsh screamed as he tried to force me back. But I was overcome by fear, fear for my dear Dondrae, and that gave me a strength that I didn’t know I had.

Lazsh’s claws ripped into my shoulder, almost scraping the bone itself, but I wouldn’t let him hold me back. With a final, mighty push, I pulled myself and Lazsh face forward into the awning.

We landed face-first and the world went white. I feared for a moment that I had been knocked unconscious, but I quickly realized that if I had, I wouldn’t be able to think such thoughts. Lazsh picked himself up, allowing me a chance to escape his weight and stand up.

The world was nothing but white, except for the blue Lacertan next to me, whose eyes flashed around wildly. Off in the distance, there was a shadow running towards us slowly.

“TW* **IDENTI**** SPECIES D*******!” a voice, shrill and whiny, like a petulant child shrieked in what sounded like Regulian, but some of the words were different.

The shadow stopped. I was able to make out two pointed ears atop its head and it stopped, leaning its arms against some unseen wall and began pounding its fist against it.

“LEAVE! G* ** JAIL! JAIL! JAIL!”

A bright flash, somehow even brighter than the world that surrounded us, overcame us and soon there was nothing. No Lazsh and no shadow.

When the light settled, I was face to face with the dead, hollow eyes of a long, gray skull staring at me. I screamed, jumping backwards and falling on my rear as the skull and the bones attached to it rattled and collapsed in a pile. Despite this, the empty sockets were still pointed directly at me

“Pipe down!” Lazsh shouted behind me. I turned to find him sitting in a corner of the room, still examining the map carefully

The room was empty, save for the pile of bones in the corner. All along the sections where the roof and the walls met, blue wisps of light darted past, guided by some invisible cable. A single door, as shiny and gray as the rest of the walls, was on the far side of the wall, cracked partly open.

I almost panicked when an unwanted thought invaded my brain and made me think that the bones could have been Dondrae’s. I breathed in and out, rationally thinking about how that couldn’t possibly be the case. I felt foolish even thinking this when I realized the skull had flat teeth and a muzzle that was far too large and broad to be his, probably an Equuleian, not even close to a Sirian, a Lupiad, or a hybrid like Dondrae was. Still, I would take foolish over fear and death anytime. Dondrae was not here, but I knew he was alive. That shadow had to have been him.

“Congratulations!” Lazsh said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, flaring his nostrils in a snort. “We made it.”

I stood up on my feet. Ignoring Lazsh for a second, I pulled out my guns and inspected them, having not known just what we went through.

“Why did you try and stop me?” I muttered, peering down the breech of the shotgun barrel. It was a simple weapon and I found nothing wrong with the barrels, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Lazsh waved the map limply and jabbed a section of Lacertan words with his claw, piercing a hole in it. “An Equuleian walked through the awning. A voice screamed and your friend’s man was disintegrated,” Lazsh motioned towards the skeleton with tip of his nose spike. “Looks like the map was partly right.”

“Guess Neilan couldn’t have known,” I looked at the corpse with pity. Probably was another bandit like the ones Neilan hung around with, but he didn’t deserve this. Where ever he was now, I hoped he was far away from Planet.

“The map said the voice was gibberish, but...” Lazsh hesitated, a rarity for him, “...you understood part of it, didn’t you? Your Regulian is better than mine and even I understood a bit.”

“Christ, it was so loud!”

“Like a screeching hatchling. His mother should have ate him.”

I looked back at him with shock, not certain whether he was serious or not. I’d learned from being around him that there was no limit to either his ruthlessness or his jokes.

“That was Lacertan humor,” he said, “you people have a very shallow grasp on nuance.”

“The joke was so subtle it didn’t exist,” I muttered lowly. “Anyways, yeah, I got a few words out of it. Something about “Identified species,” or something. I think I heard a “Two,” at the start.”

“Two unidentified species?”

“Maybe,” I said, shaking my head, “but why was Dondrae able to get through it?”

“I’m more worried about him,” Lazsh pointed at the skeleton.

“I’ve heard many strange tales on Planet, but none about the dead rising.”

“No!” Lazsh snapped, stomping over the door and throwing it to the side effortlessly. “Why did he die here if the door was open? Why would he stay?”

Fear welled up in my chest. My first thought was that he might have left the room, wandered around and came back here to die, having found no escape. I pushed that thought away and didn’t bring it up. No doubt Lazsh thought it too and if he hadn’t, I didn’t want to lower his morale, Lazsh was not made of stone, no matter what his scales looked like.

“Maybe he was stuck here,” I suggested. “Yaleen could have been taken here too and she broke the door. She’s a crafty fox.

“A crafty what?”

“Nevermind,” I sighed, “can you smell her?”

Lazsh licked at the air and flared his nostrils for almost a minute before he spoke.

“No,” he said. “I can’t smell her. The mutt would be useful now.”

We had to find Dondrae too. I promised myself that I’d kiss him on the lips as soon as we did.

“Too bad you’re stuck with the flat-face.”

Lazsh grabbed the door, making a point to not merely slide the door open and tore it from its hinges. It landed on the ground with an ear-shattering crash.

The corridor was plain, aside from the blue lights darting along the ceiling, criss-crossing along a labyrinth of thin, almost invisible cables, creating the only meager source of light aside from our flashlights. A low hum whispered through the air each time a light passed over us. Static crackled in the air, making the small hairs on my neck dance. It was a good thing between the two of us, that I kept my hair short and Lazsh didn’t have any hair at all.

There was a pop as Lazsh opened up a pill bottle and popped two tablets into his mouth, chomping down on them with his sharp fangs.

“Heat pills,” he said, noticing me staring at him. “For the lack of sun.”

I nodded, “Any side-effects?”

“Makes me hungry,” his blue eyes flashed in my direction. I took it with stride, ideally viewing it as Lacertan humor. We both carried side packs with enough food and water to last for two weeks, so we probably wouldn’t have to go that far. Not that I had a chance in hell of taking down Lazsh.

The static grew more charged. Lightning popped between the tiny hairs on my head without any contact with metal. My skin began to burn. To my surprise, Lazsh was clutching at his face with his claws, barely suppressing a pained hiss.

“What the hell-”

Lazsh hissed, suddenly yanking me by the shoulder and pulling me into a small alcove. He pushed me against the wall by the throat with his forearm, forcing me to lean tightly along with him, as if hiding from some approaching danger. With his other hand, he switched off my flashlight and did the same for his, surrounding us in darkness aside from the dull, blue glow of the ceiling lights. I tried to speak, to try and ask what was going on, but he anticipated this, increasing the pressure against my throat so I couldn’t so much as groan.

Soon, I realized just what the problem was. Another blue wisp came into view on the ceiling, far slower than the others as if it was investigating the area. My throat clenched, and not because of Lazsh’s arm, as something else came into view. I slowly pulled out my Glock from its holster as a larger, hovering wisp of white electricity floated by under the light above. It looked almost like ball lightning, which I was never sure if it was a real thing back home, but if it is, I don’t think it ever moved with such a purpose as this thing did. The pain in my skin intensified as it passed by, until it felt like it was reaching out and shooting me with lightning.

But it never saw us. At least, I don’t think it did. The damned thing had no idea, probably no brain, but I wasn’t in a position to question what was logical to happen, not on Planet and sure as hell not God knows how deep under Planet’s surface. Maybe it did see us and it didn’t care, but I kept my gun ready, not that I expected it to help at all, but I had to do something if it attacked us.

It showed some sign of intelligence when it stopped in front of the doorway to the room where we first woke up in. Satisfied, or perhaps on the search for escapees, it hovered past us and floated down the hall, the pain jumping between my hairs dying down gradually being the only sign that it continued moving further away after it was out of eyesight.

Lazsh’s tongue darted out and he pounded me on the chest with his fist lightly, grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out of the alcove. His claws clacked against the steel floor as we ran down the hall, I peered back but couldn’t see anything but darkness, no sign of the floating lightning ball.

I could barely see anything with only the dull blue glow lighting the area. I relied entirely on Lazsh to guide me and despite everything that happened between us, he seemed obligated to keep me alive. I felt a little guilty thinking the worst of him after that horrible incident in the woods.

We took a right down the hall and there was a thud of metal as Lazsh shoved a door open, pulling me inside of a pitch-black room that was devoid of the omnipresent ceiling lights. Lazsh lightly shut the door behind us and we were engulfed in total darkness.

“Okay?” Lazsh asked.

I nodded and cursed after realizing how stupid my response was, “I’m fine.”

I flicked on my flashlight, but it quickly became unnecessary. The entire room instantly became engulfed in a bright white light that nearly blinded me. For a moment, it felt like how it was earlier, when we were spirited away to this area, but my eyesight restored itself soon after.

When I could see again, I saw an empty room with a series of vein-like cables running along the ceiling into a great, gray pillar that shot from the floor and into the ceiling. I crept over to it, taking the initiative as Lazsh had gone silent, which I didn’t think much of at the time. On the front of a pillar was a gray monitor, almost impossible to see in the dim light. I reached out and placed my palm on the screen, recoiling when a jolt of static zapped my finger. A strange sensation came over me, it was like there was an itch inside my head; an irritation that seemed to travel around the wrinkles of my brain before gradually disappearing.

My hairs went up on end as countless blue wisps shot along the cables into the body of the pillar. The panel on the column, previously as gray as the pillar itself, soon began to brighten, revealing a screen showing nothing but a solid, light-blue color and one single word, an old Regulian word that is difficult to translate, but the closest word we humans would have would be:

Pathos.

I jumped back and raised my Glock, training the sights on it, waiting for something else to happen. The wisps kept on flowing into it, but nothing else happened.

Then I saw something disturbing: Lazsh was kneeling on the ground, hands clutched together as if he was praying.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Lazsh flicked his scaled tail and stood up suddenly, as if embarrassed. His face betrayed no weakness, just like normal though.

“I’ve had dreams like this,” he said, eyes darting around the room.

“Yeah?”

“In the dreams,” he motioned towards the pillar, “this was God.”

“God’s up there,” I pointed towards the ceiling. Noticing the cables that were feeding light into “God,” I clarified, “I mean, past the cables. Far beyond Planet.”

“You dream of God as well?”

“No, never,” I said, “I just remember. My religion, God, though I don’t think he approves of my-”

“They didn’t take him away from you,” Lazsh whispered, betraying a level of panic I’d never heard from him before, “why did they take him away from us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did the Regulians wipe out God from our brains!?” Lazsh yelled, pacing around the pillar in a fit, never taking his eyes of it for a second. “Why not you? Why not everyone else!?”

I put the Glock away and readied my sawed-off, holding it in my one good hand. Lazsh was acting crazy and I didn’t know what he was going to do next.

“The Regulians...” Lazsh hissed, “they still worship their Emperor. Why us!?”

“Lazsh, calm down!” I whispered lowly. “The Regulians hate you guys, alright? They’re just doing it to fuck with you.”

“The Equuleians still remember their Great Herd, the Ursines still believe in the Final Hibernation, and even the Procyonids, the lowest of the low in the Lacertan Alliance, they still have their Undying Hierophant! Why can we only dream of God and why is he here!?”

“Chill!” I shouted, which did nothing to stop the Lacertan’s rage. “The Regulians hate Lacertans more than anything! Of course they’d eradicate every trace of your culture from your memory!”

Lazsh leaned forward against one of the walls, placing both hands on it in exasperation.

“What do you know about us, Pawel? Tell me, please.”

I hesitated, wanting to say something that would reassure him, something that would give him something to keep him motivated. But all I had was the truth.

“I didn’t even know Lacertans existed until I ended up here,” I said. Lazsh moaned in pain after hearing it. “Maybe I knew during my time in the army, I mean, I must have. But they took that from me too.”

Lazsh didn’t move or say anything. Part of me wanted to tell him about Yaleen’s plan to give him something, anything to look forward to. I stopped myself, still fearing that he was too unpredictable. Yaleen and Dondrae didn’t trust him and I couldn’t bring him in without breaking their trust.

The Lacertan threw his pistol to the ground and then tossed himself on the floor by the monitor, kneeling once again before the pillar in reverence.

“Say something, please! Please!” he begged the screen, screaming loud enough to shake Planet itself.

“SPECIES 14 *** 15!”

The whiny, electronic voice from before shrieked out suddenly, still in mangled Regulian. The screen flickered with the voice and Lazsh peered up from his groveling in awe.

“**OP CRYING! PLEASE!”

“What are you saying!?” Lazsh called out.

“**OP YELLING AT ME! Y**’re ****ing me mad!”

Several wisps popped, sending sparks flying all over the place and wires snapped away from the pillar, hanging down from the ceiling and swinging wildly.

“LEAVE! THIS IS MY HOUSE! MINE! MINE! MINE!”

“Lazsh! We need to go!” I yelled at him, grabbing him by the shoulder. With great reluctance, the Lacertan got to his feet, but his eyes remained transfixed on the pillar. The screen attached to the pillar was now blood red.

I bent down and scooped up Lazsh’s pistol, passing it into his claws. A sharp hiss began whispering through the room and the air turned rank. My lungs began to burn.

“Now! Go!” I screamed before covering up my face and holding my breath.

Thankfully, Lazsh had enough sense not to die here and snapped out of it, trailing behind me as I ran towards the exit. I shoved open the door and closed it behind us. Someone must have been looking out for us, God maybe, because I can’t think of any other way we got lucky enough that the door was unlocked. Maybe the intelligence down here was just that stupid, it didn’t seem very stable.

The voice of “God” traveled through the halls as the blue wisps poured out in large numbers, following us as we ran down the hall.

“I KN** Y**! WHAT ARE Y**!? WHAT ARE Y**!? SPECIES! ANSWER!”

I couldn’t see where we were going, not even with the flashlight. The blue wisps were now a threat and an annoyance, rather than a convenient source of light. I kept my shotgun ready in case we ran into anything.

Eventually, the beam of my light flashed against something shiny and white. I ducked into another alcove before I got a good look. This time, it was my turn to keep Lazsh focused and hidden, pushing him against the door that was against the wall.

“Why did y** kill me!?”

The familiar voice rang out down the hall, deep, rough and staccato. It couldn’t be, it was impossible, I knew this. But when you hear something you thought you’d never hear again, you act a bit crazy, even when it had the same garbled Regulian as the pillar.

“Neilan?”

I ducked out of the alcove and focused my chest-flashlight down the hall. I knew it was a trick, it was probably a Doppler, I figured. I’d already been fooled once back when I was hallucinating after returning from Sirth’s.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.

Peering down the hall at me was a massive Equuleian skull atop a bulky, crooked skeleton. It stood there, staring at me, its hollow eyes endless pits of black. A cold sweat trickled down my forehead, my throat tightened, and I froze, unable to break away from the ghastly sight I was beholding.

It was the same skeleton from the room earlier. I recognized it right before it began stepping slowly towards me, hooves pounding deeply with each step.

“I love y**. Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love...”

I fired a panicked round of buckshot that ricocheted off its bones, sending a few fragments of bone flying around but otherwise not stopping the monstrosity from shambling towards me. Its broad teeth were frozen in a skeletal smile that chattered with every word. It’s voice was a crude facsimile of Neilan’s voice, as if a robot had tried to imitate him.

Ducking back in the alcove, I grabbed the handle of the door and flung it open, pulling Lazsh into it. My foot landed on air and we were soon hurtling face-down into a dark pit.

We were swallowed up by the darkness. The only thing that reminded me that I was still alive was hearing the shrieking wisps crying far above us, along with the muttering of that Equuleian’s corpse.

It took a few seconds before I realized we had hit the ground. I flicked off my flashlight, surrounding ourselves in absolutely nothing but shadow. I peered up, aiming my gun at where I imagined the hole would be, to wait for the abomination to fall in after us.

“Love. M*** love to me. Love. Love. Love. Love.”

A heavy thud rang out next to me and I aimed my shotgun. I flicked on my flashlight with my bad hand, sending a scream of pain shooting through it in the process. The beam showed a troubled Lacertan, kneeling on the ground and pounding his fist into the metal ground. Jutting out of his back was a thick piece of bloodied steel, a scrapped pole of some kind. I put my palm on his rough shoulder and tried to speak to him, but he wouldn’t reply with anything but hisses as he thrashed around, his tail swiping at my ankles and knocking me to the ground once more.

I caught the outline of a massive construction hidden in the shadows behind me. Rolling over, I edged closer, casting the light across the room. I gasped.

All around us, in a circle, were glass tubes shooting up from the floor into the ceiling.

The silhouettes of aliens loomed inside the tubes, frozen.