Midnight Metropolis: Chapter Thirteen (3.5/4)
We Are the N.E.X., and We Appreciate You
A serialised novel of sunless planets, hallucinogenic mushrooms, daemons, and... pizza rats. 🍕🐀
New chapters posted every Friday! Scroll to the bottom for content warnings.
The inner corridors of the Noctarum were a cold, glossy blue. Beneath the intermittent overhead spots, they shimmered with iridescent colour like the runoff from an oil refinery. Ginx had an overwhelming urge to touch the glittering sheen of those alien walls. She traced a finger along them as they passed an empty reception cubicle and headed into the central corridor. When the wall sputtered to life and began to talk, she almost vomited a tentacle.
Your work is valued. We are the N.E.X., and we appreciate you.
Ginx‘s mouth-splits widened reflexively and the tender points of her tentacles tasted air. She staggered back against the opposite wall as Tattie reached for a weapon and Brax spun on his heel, eyes wide.
“What the actual fuck?” Tattie said.
The head and shoulders of a benign, smiling woman shimmered into life on the wall, stretching from floor to ceiling to give the impression of a smirking giant. Tattie passed a hand over it, interrupting the display and throwing undulating ripples across the image. The woman was too smooth and perfect. Her teeth were abnormally straight and her blonde hair held a curl and lustre that made her appear cartoonish.
Current readings indicate Noctara’s air quality index falls within the "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" category. The outside temperature is 28.34 degrees Celsius. It’s a beautiful day in Noctara!
The woman nodded and tossed her hair as she spoke. Ginx wanted to stab the lurid projection in one of its faintly pixellated eyes.
“Do you think that thing can see us?” she said, leaning closer and flicking a tentacle towards it.
Pick up your biological waste! A properly sanitised workspace is a productive workspace.
“Yeah, it’s not that clever,” Tattie said. “It’s just another stupid N.E.X. toy.”
She slipped her weapon back into a covert bag hidden beneath her shirt. Ginx caught a glimpse of it before it disappeared—a short, metallic cylinder that glinted dully in the refracted light spilling from the wall projection.
The Arcanostaff. It’s more impressive than it looks. When you see it again, stay far away from it.
They followed the corridor down to its end, then pushed through a door and paused. They could hear voices. Animated voices that definitely didn’t belong to husks, even loopy ones.
Brax began to say something but Tattie turned with a finger pressed to her lips, silencing him. She indicated with her head, urging them both to follow her. An open doorway was leaking warm orange light into the hard blue of the corridor. They stopped beside it, damp with sweat and prickling with apprehension.
“That’s your genius, though,” a male voice said from inside. “The way you describe light and shadow, it’s like I’m right there beside you. I’m living it; I’m breathing it all in.”
Tattie glanced at Brax and Ginx, face creased with confusion.
It’s just a couple of researchers. No weapons. No backup. No cameras.
Ginx moved into the doorway before Tattie could stop her, mouth-splits peeling apart to reveal a tangled nest of dancing tentacles.
“A monster,” the man shouted. “Autumn, stay back.”
“Autumn?” Tattie said. She pushed past Ginx and into the room.
The stale smell of old coffee permeating the air marked the space as an employee’s break room. A half-completed holo-puzzle was blinking on a port, slung onto a long chrome table next to several dirty mugs and a quantity of spent cap tubes. Pressed against a counter running along the back wall was a slight, wiry man with a thin moustache. He was trembling, his bald head shining with perspiration and his teeth gritted in a half-growl, half-rictus grimace. Ginx looked for his companion and spotted Autumn Riviera standing in a corner, both hands wrapped around the hilt of a depressingly blunt sandwich knife.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the man screeched. “The husks will be here soon to escort you away.”
“We are husks,” Tattie said, motioning towards her uniform. The man shook his head. “Fine, we’re not bloody husks. Just keep your knickers on, we’re not here to hurt you.”
Tattie followed his gaze to Ginx, still standing in the doorway with two jostling tentacles pulling the bottom of her face apart.
“Okay, it might look like we’re here to hurt you, but we’re really not. Ginx, do you want to muzzle that?”
Muzzle that? Does she mean me? This bitch is really testing my patience.
Ginx complied, calming the tentacles and sealing the edges of her mouth-splits back together. The researcher still couldn’t take his eyes off her. She stuck her tongue out at him and he fell backwards, almost crashing into a water heater.
“I thought all the researchers were supposed to be tucked up in bed,” Brax said. “What do we do now?”
“You’re right, they should be in bed,” Tattie said. “Let’s put them to sleep.”
She reached for her knife and drew it across her palm, impatience making her cut deeper than she should have. When blood began to spatter on the floor tiles, the male researcher swayed against the counter, his face turning grey.
“Why does everything have to be so bloody hard?” Tattie said, moving towards Autumn and spraying red droplets across the room as she gesticulated. “We went to all that trouble to get Autumn’s codes, and here she is. At night. When she’s not supposed to be.”
She stopped before Autumn who slashed the sandwich knife in her direction. Tattie knocked it to the floor.
“If I’d known you’d be here, Autumn, I could have saved myself from all that brain rot poetry and shitty coffee. Grabbing you here would have been so much easier.”
She’s losing it. No resilience under pressure. What a disappointment.
“Please don’t kill me,” Autumn whispered. Ginx could see the poet was trying very hard not to cry. She respected that, especially since her coworker was already whimpering.
“Leave her alone,” he said. He stepped away from the counter, then thought better of it and resumed his position against the water heater. “Just hang on, Autumn,” he cried. “A husk patrol will be here soon.”
“They won’t,” Ginx said.
“Enough of this,” Tattie said. “We’ve got work to do.”
She lifted a thumb dripping with hemo to Autumn’s forehead. The woman backed away, hands held before her.
“Get the fuck away from me.”
“I wouldn’t have to do this if you were at home, where you’re supposed to bloody be,” Tattie roared.
She lunged at Autumn, grabbing a fistful of wig and shoving her face into her bleeding hand. The Scarlet Kiss worked quick and deep. Autumn’s eyelashes fluttered once, then she was slumping forward into Tattie’s arms, unconscious and drooling. The male researcher’s whimpers heightened to a wheezing sob.
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Content Warnings
Description of cutting/blood, mild violence, swearing