Collide Gamer

Chapter 98 – Thana

John glanced once at Igor, who gestured for John to step forwards. The Gamer, Rave, and Aclysia all entered the room. They stepped onto slanted ground. The floor in the cylindrical room gradually rose towards the centre. There was no direct illumination. The humming of machinery and the constant little sounds of flowing liquids filled the air. They echoed from a network of steel pipes that ran from the walls, across the ceiling, towards a red container in the centre of the room.

The container was the primary source of light in the room. It pulsed constantly, like a faint heartbeat. Intense lines of green glow travelled endlessly around the glass surface of the container. It made the heartbeat feel all the more real, jumping and falling like the monitors one found in hospitals. The rise and fall was sharp but mild.

Walking closer, John realized that the pipes didn’t actually connect to the glass. It appeared that the object was open at the top and bottom, hovering between wall and ceiling. Periodically, drops of red seeped out of the bottom, being caught in a basin and then transported off, probably for further processing. ‘That’s the blood… so within this will be…’ John raised his eyes and peered into the red behind the glass.

Barely visible through the constant pulsing of red and the lines of green, was the body of a small woman. He couldn’t make out a lot of her. Her hair couldn’t have been that long, about chin-length. It was difficult to say. He could barely make out the outline of medium-sized breasts. All over her body were black spots. Barely, he spotted the thick red constantly drifting from the exposed nailbeds. Further down, the thickness of the blood that gathered in the water made it impossible to make out clear details

‘The answer is under the nails.’ John thought, remembering one of Travolta’s screams of agonized connection to this being. His eyes were glued to the exposed nailbeds. It was grotesque. All of this was, from who was doing it, to the effects of her ichor, to whatever she was.

The truth wasn’t going to present itself this easily. He put his hand on the container, hoping that would accomplish anything. It didn’t. The naked girl inside was still floating with an empty expression. The glass was cold. Freezing cold.

“Thana.” He mumbled, “Mind telling me what this is about, Igor?”

“When our glorious founder left the Blood he didn’t just rob them of his own superior intellect but also of one of their greatest weapons,” Igor reiterated what he had said earlier. “We don’t know how she was created but this girl continually bleeds a tincture that heightens everyone’s capabilities. Although the reality of it is that everyone who drinks too much of her blood loses themself to her cursed influence, the Blood used it in very small doses to strengthen some of the Soviet Union's soldiers.”

“Gaia was fine with that?” he asked the Guild Leader with a baffled tone.

Igor shrugged, “In small doses, an Abyssal Drug is indistinguishable from a real one.” 

“So, you stole her from the Soviets,” John summarized, “and now you are using her blood yourself?”

 “All we do is follow our leader's last command.” Igor said, “With his dying breath, close to the edge of her madness, he told us to kill her. Unwilling to take the risk of letting her out of this container, after seeing the insanity her blood alone can spread, it was decided to wait out her natural death. For sixty years now we have monitored her.”

“Sixty?” John almost shouted in disbelief and stumbled away from the container. The girl inside looked about his own age.

Sixty years of what was, for all he knew and Observe told him, perpetual torment. Sixty years. More than three times his own lifetime. There was no way he was going to join up with these people. However, he had to make the impression if he wanted to get out of here.

“You are dedicated,” he complimented the only thing worthwhile, “Is it even working?”

“Yes,” Igor pointed at the ever-turning green line as it jumped once again. “Her heart has been slowing, pumping her accursed blood with less vigour. At the current pace, we should see her end in about two years. With that our order’s holy task will be fulfilled.” John didn’t even need to ask about any further details. Igor started rambling in his honey-coated voice all on his own. “Yes, indeed. All we do is for our dear leader's vision. All we do is keep the prison active, John Newman, with the money our vassal organizations pay us. In return, we give them power. She is the source of her own death.” His tone twisted into a happy ridicule, “Entirely fitting for communist scum.”

“And what happens when you are done?” John asked out of genuine interest, “When you have fulfilled that ‘holy task’ of yours? Won’t all the guilds you hold by getting them addicted to her blood turn against you the moment you stop providing?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Igor waved it off. “The moment she is dead the Bloodfallen will gather and attack the Blood. We will consume the remaining amount of her ichor and take as many communists with us into an early grave as we can. We will purge them off this world like they purged our ancestors’ families in the Gulag.”

And in doing so they would become exactly like them. John’s suspicion was completely proven. The Bloodfallen had turned to another form of extreme, they didn’t think about consequences, they only wanted to damage the Blood of the Proletariat. It was a religious zeal that glinted in Igor’s eyes and Victoria beheld him admiringly. These people had deluded themselves so far that they thought fighting the bigger evil made all of their actions justified.

John looked back at the tank for a moment. ‘Even if one of these actions is keeping a girl locked in endless torment, huh?’ He thought and turned to Igor. He needed to get away from here and find some sort of solution for this whole mess. Not just because he wanted to survive, but because he wanted to honour the last wish of Travolta. Revenge and justice, as far as John was concerned. He would have both if he screwed over the Bloodfallen. “I need time to think about all of this,” John argued. “I will come back to you soo-“

“No.” Igor flat out rejected, “You know too much to leave here like this. I need an answer.” That was expected but John had another idea. He disliked it but the risks were small.

“What if I leave you insurance?” Everyone in the room had a questioning expression.

“Tell me what you mean by that, John Newman,” Igor demanded and John walked back up to the group. He put his hand on Aclysia’s shoulder.

“I will leave her with you. Victoria can vouch how much she means to me.” John said and did his best at making a worried expression. He didn’t have to act much, he really hated doing this. How Aclysia was able to stay calm and collected despite being offered to the enemy was admirable, it was like she actually knew John’s plan already. Well, maybe she did. He wasn’t hiding his thoughts from her.

Igor looked over to the newest member of the inner circle and the sniper nodded. “Yet you are very quick to give her up,” Igor nonetheless wondered.

“Well, I think I will join you,” John lied, “but I want to be sure. One doesn’t join such an important task on a whim.”

That seemed to be good enough for the guild leader. He gestured for Aclysia to walk over to him. “Fine, you have one week. Victoria will retrieve you again afterwards. Go now.”

‘If the connection breaks, find out as much as you can before you activate the ability,’ John communicated mentally with Aclysia. ‘Numbers, estimations of powers, a building layout, everything you can find.’

‘Affirmative,’ Aclysia’s thoughts were still relaxed. John wished he could trust himself as much as she did.