To Surpass, Darkly

[THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THREE INTERROGATION RECORDINGS OF FOUNDATION SUBJECT M-4706, PERTAINING TO ANOMALOUS INSTANCE EX-4706 AND NEUTRALIZED SPECIMEN F-4706, A.K.A. THE EMERGENCE OF CHICAGO-WESTINGS ENTITY, A.K.A. "BLACKGATE." SUBJECT M-4706 WAS ORIGINALLY BROUGHT INTO CUSTODY ██ YEARS PRIOR WITH CLASS-C INVOLVEMENT IN RELATION TO ANOMALOUS INSTANCE EX-4706 BUT RECEIVED RECLASSIFICATION TO CLASS-A INVOLVEMENT FOLLOWING INCREASING FREQUENCY OF [DATA EXPUNGED.] TRANSCRIPTION OF FIRST RECORDING FOLLOWS.]

Is the recorder on? Yes? Okay. I'll start from the beginning.

I first saw it when I was twelve, a couple years ago in the mirrored walls of a hotel elevator. I kept my mouth shut when I saw the shimmer, because traveling with my father during his summer business trips meant keeping quiet. I had to stand up straight, speak only when spoken to, and never stare at strangers. Minimal interaction. Those were the rules. Hide in the cracks, become a shadow.

"Boys are invisible. It's men who shine, son." I remember his thick fingers fluffing my hair as he'd say it, but his bright blue watery eyes never looked at me. He would only acknowledge mistakes I'd made once we were alone. You slouched too much, or you followed too close, something like that. When I walked with him, I stayed a few steps behind, low and out of sight. In elevators, we would stand apart, opposed. Posture was hard at first, but absolute stillness was a must. If there were mirrors, use that to your advantage. Correct yourself from every angle.

Other people broke those rules. They would stare at my face, my upright chest, proud shoulders. I could feel their peering, twisted eyes watching me, their slouched backs and slacked jaws bereft of all tension. They sagged themselves because they thought I didn't notice, but I knew. In mirrored elevators, if you looked deep enough, watched far enough into the infinity of reflection, the men in suits would blur and fade, but their faces always stared. Their eyes would pop out like squeeze toys, their necks craned like confused dogs. They would pick at their noses, adjust their lapels, check the time, with sweaty hands and tensed-up legs. My father and I always stood calm, unwavering. We held pressure like thumbs at the temple.

We were at the ██████ Hotel in ████████, the place out east my father's oil business was expanding to, and we were getting in the elevator, when a woman--

[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: INTERROGATION LOGS SHOW THAT SUBJECT M-4706 WAS AGAIN INSTRUCTED OVER INTERCOM TO AVOID ELABORATION OF SPECIFIC LOCATIONS. TRANSCRIPTION RESUMES BELOW.]

Right, forgot. So, it was a woman in a sparkling red dress, and she got in after my father but before me. She was groping my father, patting his broad chest--broader than mine--and thick shoulders--thicker than mine--while forcefully smiling at a joke he made. But I saw her look at me. Between my father's hearty jokes, between his warm inviting laughter and between the flickered glinting of dim elevator light off of the shark tooth pendant bobbing above his hairy chest--there was no hair on my chest-- her eyes would turn to me. Her face would lose its lurid charm, stealing cold glances at the bratty, short for his age, slouching teenage kid.

That was when I saw it for the first time, in the mirrors. Dozens of reflections away, a large black shape was behind her. An endless fading line of red speckles was severed by a floating, writhing thing. My eyes squinted, but it moved away. I didn't get a very good look at it, but I know what I saw. I felt it. Then, it was gone. She giggled again, holding onto my father.

"Is he yours?" she pointed.

"Nope."

When we reached the floor of our room, he stepped out of the elevator, pulling her to the right as she latched onto his fingers, her painted nails on his hairy knuckles. Like many times before, I went the other way. The heat exhaust on the hotel ice machine kept me warm that night, but that thing haunted my dreams.

What was it? This screen shows the questions? Okay. Well, I didn't know at the time. It terrified me, until...

[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: INTERROGATION LOGS INDICATE SUBJECT M-4706 PAUSED FOR ██ MINUTES, IGNORING QUESTIONS SHOWN VIA THE QUESTIONING SCREEN. MAINTENANCE THAT ENTERED DURING THE INSTANCE CONFIRMED THE DEVICE WAS FUNCTIONING PROPERLY, BUT NOTED THE PRESENCE OF SEVERAL [DATA EXPUNGED]. SUBJECT CONTINUED TO IGNORE FURTHER PROMPTING REGARDING THE CHICAGO-WESTINGS ENTITY. TRANSCRIPTION RESUMES BELOW.]

She was gone by morning. My father had a habit of turning them out early, not so I could return sooner but rather because he always had business to handle. She left her card on the nightstand, name and number. Vanessa ███████. It was a disgusting name, and next to it a big red puckered lipstick kiss was planted. It was left on the nightstand, along with some money, my father's old wedding ring, and a note for me to order room service for lunch and dinner, but to be gone for the night by ten, and good job last night, keep it up and I'll consider raising your allowance, sport. He rarely called me by my real name, it was always sport, champ, kiddo, loser, idiot, or stand up straight you worthless piece of shit.

In the bathroom, after brushing my teeth--I got all my stuff back out from under the bed-- I practiced puffing my chest and keeping a straight posture. I stood up on my tippy toes. I sucked in all the air I could, and held my breath while looking around the room to distract myself. Vanessa left her mirror on the bathroom counter. It had roses and other flowers carved around the rim of the glass, with a long slender handle. It looked Victorian, a kind of empty attempt at class. With the rosy mirror, I watched my posture from the side. My shoulders were too far back, my waist too curved forward, my stance a little too bent (my father's stance was perfectly straight, but I had inherited my mother's, he'd tell me). My eyes were a dull brown. My mother's eyes were a dull brown, but I had always wanted the eyes of my father, twin blue oceans he'd yanked his shark's tooth from, the one he always wore.

Darkness took the edge of my vision. It was there again, in the mirrors.

A couple reflections down. Floating behind my head. It was holding up strands of my hair, with exaggerated effort like the strings of a puppet. There were black, writhing limbs, fingers holding me, lifting me. I floated in the mirrors, asleep and euphoric. I dropped the rosy mirror and as it cracked the world faded.

I shuddered awake in the hotel bed, soaked with sweat under the stifling blanket. The sun's rays were cooking me through the window. It was only a bad dream, or so I thought. I went back to the bathroom, and the mirror laid flat on the bathroom counter. A large crack shot up the middle away from the handle, splitting at the other end into a fine branching craquelure. A dim white light was glowing out of the thicker cracks.

A knocking sounded at the door, a woman's voice, giggling, sparkling red. I almost dropped the mirror again. I didn't want to talk to her, wanted nothing to do with her, and planned to sit there in that bathroom alone until she decided to leave. Somehow, the door clicked.

She called for my father from the doorway. She took the spare card, but apologized for that, she only wanted to see him one more time. Robert? She had called in her shrill way, her voice freezing me in the bathroom. Leave, leave leave leave leave go away no one's home--was all I could think, me, shirtless, sweating, terrified and paralyzed in the bathroom. The door opened wider until her head peeked in, seeing me hiding behind a towel. Her eyebrows leaped through twenty hurdles - who're you, where's Robert, you're the kid from the elevator, you're the kid from the elevator, you're his kid, you're that god damned kid he told me wasn't his.

Vanessa worked as a waitress in the restaurant next to the hotel. She was studying to become a pharmacist. My father had come in for a drink and, naturally, she had fallen in love with him. Women were always falling in love with my prick of a father, but he didn't give a shit about any of them, not after he left my mother. Anyway, she waited for him in the hotel lobby when the two of us showed up, me far enough behind like always, and got in between us. She wanted to surprise him, well, that's what she told me. She thought maybe a night would convince him it was true love, what she felt. I didn't really get it at the time. Still don't. He was divorced, but kept his wedding ring, and she thought he could love her? I sat there in the room with her, shared my life with her, told her how my father abused my mom, how he had the custody, how I hadn't seen her in years, and then the fucking cancer snatched her, and... I told her how afraid I was, and instead of recognizing how fucked up things were, she kept going on about how she could fix him, how she'd messed up in the past, how this was her chance, and how fucking stupid was that, right? She was only helping me out of desperation to convince my father otherwise, to make him see her differently, just like, how... when I was young, my mother, how--hey, why are you--

[TRANSCRIPTION OF FIRST RECORDING ENDS AT THIS POINT. INTERROGATION LOGS NOTE THAT PRIOR TO SECOND RECORDING, SUBJECT M-4706 WAS INSTRUCTED BY OVERSEEING PERSONNEL DR.██████ TO FOLLOW FOUNDATION PROTOCOL AND AVOID ELABORATION ON INDIVIDUALS NOT INVOLVED IN THE ANOMALOUS EVENT. TRANSCRIPTION OF SECOND RECORDING FOLLOWS.]

What was in the rosy mirror? How did you know there was something inside, I never mentioned that, I-- okay, I get it. Don't show me that picture of him again, please. It's bad enough here as it is. The mirror was a gift from an old friend, Vanessa said. When I showed her it was broken, she started tearing up, but stopped when I mentioned it looked like a tree. She stared at it for a while, empty-eyed. What's so special about a tree - I asked her, but she told me it wasn't important. Like hell it wasn't important, but she shrugged off all my questions and only wanted to hear about my father.

Later that night, she'd let me stay at her apartment near the hotel instead of sleeping by the ice machine again. I remember she baked these amazing cookies, the chocolate just melted in my mouth and--

Okay, stop showing me it, that's enough. The original question. Right. That night, on the couch in her living room, I took the mirror out of my bag-- I don't know why I kept it, the thing scared the hell out of me, but how often does light glow from a cracked mirror? What can a tree mean to someone? The more I looked at it, the more the branches started swaying, little leaves ornately shattered, fluttering at the twisting ends, a bright white shimmering out of every crack. Her living room was dark, and thin beams of light shot out of the cracks, shining like lanterns behind a barely-opened door. I got the idea there was something inside, and peered through the cracks.

And I was there: an open, grassy cliff's edge with a lone willow tree, a ways away from the edge. The cliff looked over a swirling sea of fogged-under peaks and treetops, a twisted misty maze of hazed canopy and rock. The willow's leaves fell away at an angle, blown by a harsh wind, but the air was still, smelling sweetly of flowers, with no flowers in sight. At the base of the tree, a woman sat, coiled in blankets, her ankle cuffed and chained to the tree. She was staring at me, her big dark eyes set against the cloudless sky.

The woman was Vanessa. The rest of it, those were her hopes. Dreams. Her inner self. I found that out later, how light wasn't the only thing that mirrors could catch. Back then, I thought I was losing it. It was terrifying, trying to talk to her, whispering hello with all the bravery I had, but her eyes slowly got bigger, and blacker, until they popped out of her head and jolted at me so fast the mirror almost flew out of my hands. When I finally looked inside again, the chain was broken. There were deep gouges slashed through the dirt, Vanessa and her wrappings were gone, and far off in the distance, that black swirling mass from before floated down and vanished into the fog behind a mountain peak.

Blackgate. The Chicago-Westings Entity. That's what you called it, right?

[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE. INTERROGATION LOGS MAKE NOTE THAT SUBJECT M-4706 WAS NEVER PREVIOUSLY EXPOSED TO CLASSIFIED TITULAR CLASSIFICATION OF THE CHICAGO-WESTINGS ENTITY, NOR INVOLVED IN ANY DEBRIEFINGS OF ANOMALOUS INSTANCE EX-4706. THE METHOD OF M-4706'S INFORMATION ACQUISITION REMAINS UNKNOWN. TRANSCRIPTION RESUMES BELOW.]

It consumed her. Vanessa never woke up the next morning. I shook her, and shook her, and at the time, it was weird, to care that much and even cry for someone you had hated the night before, someone you had just met, but she showed me more attention than anyone else in my life had, even if it was fake, even if...

[TRANSCRIPTION OF SECOND RECORDING ENDS AT THIS POINT. INTERROGATION LOGS INDICATE THAT THE NIGHT MAINTENANCE'S ROUTINE INSPECTION OF M-4706'S INTERROGATION FACILITY WENT INCOMPLETE DUE TO THE INCREASED PRESENCE OF [DATA EXPUNGED]. TERMINATION PACKAGE OF MAINTENANCE WORKER D-████ SENT TO KNOWN FAMILY AS PER INVOLUNTARY TERMINATION PROTOCOL. SITE COMMAND REQUESTED A CHANGE-OF-ROOM, WHICH WAS DENIED BY OVERSEEING PERSONNEL DR ██████ ON GROUNDS THAT [DATA EXPUNGED]. TRANSCRIPTION OF THIRD RECORDING FOLLOWS.]

What happened afterward? I left the mirror next to Vanessa's body. I left her alone, abandoned, I was afraid. Afraid of recognizing what had happened to her. It stopped glowing after a while, the cracks went back to being cracks, the mirror went back to being a mirror. She was gone, so it lost her. Lost who she was, just like I had.

In the hotel room, I found what my father had left behind from the previous night. Rumpled sheets, some women's underwear, and a putrid, bodily odor like sweat and dirt. His shark tooth necklace hung from the bedpost, shining a little in the afternoon sun. I took it off the post, that stupid necklace, the long slender tooth that bobbed around in his chest hair when he wore an open shirt, gave all those vapid women a reason to touch him. I saw my face in the side of it, and I swore it was behind me. The writhing black, the thing, filling me with anger. I tore the tooth off the chain, held both ends, and snapped it in half. It was hollow.

The broken-open pieces glowed, like the mirror. I held them up to my eyes, looked into both at once. In the right fragment, the sharp end of the tooth, a long chain swirled down, falling down a toppling canyon to depths of rocky darkness. My father hung from the end of that chain, the links around his chest, and he was asleep. In the left fragment, at the top of the canyon, the chain was wrapped taut around a dozen rocky pillars, the tops of them carved into statues of women. They were holding books, swords, and the last one had great folded wings. The last one was my mother, and she held the end of the chain in her hands. The view was distorted, like a panorama shot, but in the middle there was an enormous, writhing black, taking up the two sides of my vision like my own nose. It was where the tooth broke open, where the chain crossed and the world bent and my father hung. As I watched, the chain fell through, eroded by darkness. He spiraled downward, flayed in chains that unraveled as he was lost to the deep.

I never saw what happened to my father, but I had heard about it. Glimpsed pictures from blogs before they were taken down. After he was taken down. Like the ones you showed to scare me. Yes, that one. You think that bothers me? Not anymore. I've seen him like that hundreds of times. It was sudden, people said. He was at a business convention, harmlessly eating the croissants, chatting up clients, when he fell to the ground and let out a wicked howl, and his skin fell off. He became... something else, but to me, he was the father that never came back. Never showed up at the hotel room the next day, never came back for his money, his clothing, wedding ring, or even the stupid broken shark tooth. I figured he was gone, vanished, until they--you, it was you, you, you-- came to my hotel room, broke my door down and threw me into cuffs. I read what I could online, saw the videos people tweeted. What did I see? It grabbed their arms, ripped them off and kept them for itself. A slender, winding worm with dozens of stolen arms, growing and snaking through the panicked crowd. Their limbless bodies were thrown back and sent flailing, knocking over all those fucking food-laden tables and prissy exotic space chairs. And when the face showed, you'd see those giant blue eyes, shattered with writhing black. The body was rife with matted black fur, wet and dripping with people's insides. That's what I know. That's what I saw. He was a monster. He was Blackgate's grasping beast. Right, Dr. ██████? Wasn't it part of the plan? Wasn't it what you wanted, before you hid it away? Your own dream?

[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: INTERROGATION LOGS INDICATE THAT SUBJECT M-4706 APPROACHED THE ONE-WAY OBSERVATION GLASS. RECORDS SHOW THAT SUBJECT M-4706 WAS NEVER MADE AWARE OF DR ██████'S INVOLVEMENT IN CONTAINMENT TEAM OVERSEEING ANOMALOUS INSTANCE EX-4706. WARNINGS ADDRESSED OVER INTERCOM AND QUESTIONING SCREEN WERE IGNORED. SUPPRESSION FIRE BY FOUNDATION PERSONNEL HAD NO EFFECT ON SUBJECT M-4706. INTERROGATION ROOM WAS FLOODED WITH FLAMMABLE GAS AS PER EX-4706 PROTOCOL. IGNITION WAS TRIGGERED. TRANSCRIPTION RESUMES AFTER INITIAL EXPLOSION.]

I know you have him, Dr. ██████. I can see it through the glass, through the reflection of my own eyes, do you see how blue my eyes are, Dr. ██████? I hope you do. I hope you do. I hope you remember the day I was born. The time you took to find this body for me. The day you dreamed of your new world, set your plan in action. I didn't forget about your fire. I didn't forget about the pain. But it won't work anymore. Tell me where he is. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.

TELL ME. TELL ME. TELL ME. TELL M--

[TRANSCRIPTION OF THIRD AND FINAL RECORDING ENDS AT THIS POINT. INTERROGATION LOGS INDICATE THAT ALL TEAM MEMBERS ASSIGNED UNDER DR. ██████ STUDYING ANOMALOUS INSTANCE EX-4706 WERE TERMINATED IN THE EVENT. CLASS-7 WARHEADS MAINTAINED ON-SITE AT SUBJECT M-4706'S INTERROGATION FACILITY WERE DETONATED AS PER EX-4706 PROTOCOL. THE WHEREABOUTS OF DR. ██████ AND HIS SUSPECTED INVOLVEMENT IN ANOMALOUS INSTANCE EX-4706 REMAIN UNKNOWN. RELATED SPECIMEN F-4706 VANISHED FROM CONTAINMENT IN OFFSITE FACILITY. ELECTROMAGNETIC SIGNATURES IDENTICAL TO THE ORIGINAL CHICAGO-WESTINGS ENTITY WERE BRIEFLY MONITORED AT LOCATION ██████ N, ██████ W, ABOVE THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. FOUNDATION BROADCAST CHANNELS IN ███████, GREENLAND WERE SIMULTANEOUSLY INTERRUPTED BY A BROADCASTED MESSAGE AND, DETERMINED TO BE RELEVANT TO SUBJECT M-4706'S DOCUMENTATION BY SURVIVING MEMBERS OF EX-4706'S CONTAINMENT TEAM, ARE INCLUDED IN THIS TRANSCRIPTION, FOLLOWING BELOW.]