Repurposed 18.0 Horsemen

Interval 18.0 – Horsemen of the Apocalypse
June 13, 2012
1330, Seattle WA
Hoyle Enclave / Grounds



Wilson had expected there to be more security around the Enclave, as he slunk up to it. The grounds were still well-kept, manicured with apparently loving care. He moved past the empty guard house, over the ten-foot-tall still-electrified fence onto the shaded, rocky hillside and looked down toward the pool and back entrance.

It had been a good number of years since he'd been here, but Wilson recalled there being a tad more activity.

Oh yes, that lack of it would probably be because of that pesky world ending thing. The nearest City was off somewhere south of here, closer to Portland. Seattle was a gorgeous place, with lots of people. Wilson wondered why it had been decided not to build here, and then realized that if a City were nearer, a lot of Armacham's personal investment land would have been used up. Can't have that.

It hadn't been difficult finding Hoyle and Breen's location, he'd known they were here. Or at least, he'd hoped that they were still here. He hadn't heard anything out of the place for quite some time; things were smooth enough that no real attempt at contacting them had been made. If they'd been causing any trouble, of course, this visit would have come years and years earlier, and he'd have been weighed down with more weaponry.

It was more difficult actually arriving to the place, since the road system had been all but abandoned in the few years since the Events. But Wilson didn't want to use any of his fancy Vortal tricks to get across the country and into the Enclave; he preferred to stroll around using real vehicles and wasting real energy to do so. Until he got up close and personal. Then, of course, he enjoyed doing that vanishing-before-your-eyes trick far more than just opening a door.

All this moving around the countryside, Wilson knew, was mostly to keep him occupied and tie up loose ends. Hoyle and Breen, to say the least, were very loose ends. While they'd both played their parts in the past, neither man had had the balls to actually come right out and tell either Wilson or his prime that they were backing out. Normally that would have been grounds for some serious… repercussions.

But things had hardly been normal since then, though. It seemed very peaceful out here, actually, save for the lack of people in the pool or at the bar. But now that things elsewhere were beginning to roll, life would get… complicated. Soon, not too soon. Wilson was hoping to see if they were around, get them back on board, testing the waters so to speak.

He didn't bother swimming, though having that lagoon to himself might actually be pretty nice. He crossed the entire back acre of the Enclave without any difficulty, relaxing a bit. He wanted there to be people around just so he could feel challenged. Wilson noted that he tended to dwell on other thoughts while doing all of these important duties, and decided he really did have to start concentrating harder on the tasks at hand. Since they were fewer and farther between these days, Wilson was growing a bit distractible. Considering that pool and its bar to be something for later, leisure time, Wilson moved on and pondered his options here.

Their network of government officials, company administrators and important people that he and his prime worked with were starting to drift a bit. Well, some had died, of course; natural causes, accidents, murder, just plain getting lost in the shuffle between Cities. They couldn't afford to lose anyone else. Wilson didn't really know what he'd find here: both of them might already be dead. Hoyle might have lost it and kicked Breen out. And Breen, though he wasn't a violent man, Wilson didn't think he'd be able to take Hoyle out in a fight. Breen could get pretty annoying. Not nearly as annoying as Gen.

Wilson and the Mystery knew how Aristide was doing, she was making the most of her power and position. The Cities were a rousing success. Air travel between them had been made safer. Land travel was possible; even if the rails for all those fancy high-speed trains they'd originally intended to have around couldn't be fixed. The roads, same thing: nice flat highways without gaping holes in them were getting harder to find. But going overland wasn't how Wilson got here, today. He had followed roads and train tracks though, at least they were still of some use for general directions. He'd left that snazzy, stolen, personal jump-craft past the north hills. Put down in the middle of a clearing, walked the rest of the way. He didn't want to get shot down by all those defenses that Hoyle had up there in his penthouse.

The little jump-craft wasn't his preference, he had wanted a more impressive jet copter or even a mech unit. But a mech wasn't available, and besides, they had to have at least some kind of nice, flat road on which to walk. The Portal Storms had ruined many junctions and miles upon miles of rails, streets and highways; anything in their way, ripped to shreds. He was somewhat surprised that none had actually struck this place, at least not recently; it looked as though much of the north-west had been spared. Lucky. The rest of the world, not so much.

Wilson walked with more authority over to the pool-side bar entrance. He met no resistance, did note that there was a security camera, but its little 'on' light wasn't lit. Maybe there really was no good reason to defend this place? What had changed? There were still people around, living off the land out in the wilderness, but they knew better than to come around here, he guessed. That and the electric fence was still more than able to stop anyone else from just leaping over it. He flexed his hand, and swore at himself: he'd have to get new gloves, after ripping the hole in this one's palm. He removed the gloves, an unhappy reminder that he wasn't really only human and his clothing was little more than for show. It certainly wasn't much protection from alien life, his speed alone saved him from that.

Normally, though, there would be automatic gunfire from turrets and defense lasers, keeping those things – or unwanted guests like himself – at bay. Not one bullet had been fired off, no laser grids came alive with his motion, no sonic warnings or flashing lights to indicate to any potentially intelligent invaders that they'd be stupid to hang around. (He didn't consider the implications of that applying to himself, at least not beyond mocking anyone who couldn't dodge bullets.)

Well, he hadn't even seen so much as a headcrab around the place, either. Perhaps they didn't care for the dirt. The trees certainly liked the temperate rainforest climate, and maybe the crabs couldn't dig as easily as they did in soft dirt or sand, what with the roots in the way. There had been other critters: a few of those black and red star-shaped Snarks that were being pestered by birds who then experienced the explosive side effects of pecking them; some phallic, flesh-colored thing that flopped around the woods in an ungainly manner, waving its tentacular limbs around and scaring some deer off from their watering hole.

So the ecosystem wasn't completely normal these days. He heard noises from over in that direction, wasn't too sure whether they were from the deer, or the ambulatory penis-creature. He didn't even want to think about that. He absently wondered if there were any raccoons around.

Wilson chuckled, then quieted. He didn't want to alert anyone. Even if he didn't see any people, it didn't mean they weren't there. So Wilson tried the glass door behind the bar, it was unlocked, and he passed into the main restaurant area silently to look for the stairs. He knew there had to be stairs, and not just those clever-as-hell rotating elevator shafts. Of course he knew about those things, Hoyle had shown him when he'd attended a party one time. But they were a bit much for one person to use to get around; plus, they would make noise, wouldn't they? So would the normal elevators, but even then it looked as though those weren't accessible from here. They were in the lobby.

Wilson could tell the power to the building was on, though the lower areas were somewhat dim. None of those window-screens were active, anyway, they were all just flat and dark. Sometimes they would have advertisements on them, directing people into the bar or the restaurant. The venue was nice, he'd actually eaten there once or twice back before. Excellent Chinese dishes, if he recalled correctly.

The place was all done in a pretty pearl, sapphire blue and rich indigo color scheme, making its already unlit volume seem even darker though it was still daylight just past the wide windows. The whole restaurant was arranged so the dining area viewed the pool grotto and landscaping. Nicely designed, it was almost in the shape of a clam-shell, with sections of dining floors raised by a few feet here and there, curving but all aimed at the windows.

There was no one there now, however, to see that pretty view. No one serving the round, still-draped tables, dining at those tables, or back in the kitchen cooking. It was quiet, it smelled only of the breeze from outside and some amount of floor cleaner. That was sort of sad. Like locating a tailor these days, finding good food was tough. Though he had put a seamstress on retainer over in City 64, what had been Chicago, he didn't bother with restaurants in the Cities. All that crap that Armacham brewed up in their chemical farms and meat-vats was both bland and uninspiring. The noodles here, though, they had been exceptional.

Continuing his exploration, Wilson tried to recall the last time he'd actually eaten something made by a real professional chef, or a meal that was actually edible that he himself hadn't cooked. His journey through the building continued, as he allowed his distracted mind to wander. Though the entry to the restaurant from the pool side was opened, Wilson discovered that the main lobby doors were locked, and thus those elevators or the main stairs were off limits. He was starting to wonder whether just going up to the front gates and knocking might have been more efficient.

He pondered the menu here, while searching for the right way through the building. The 'right way' would mean 'without having to destroy any doors or walls'. This wasn't an abandoned building, ruins or other such nonsense. This was a place that Wilson would probably want to live in, if he didn't already have his own home. And frankly, if he didn't find any resistance some time soon, he might do just that. Hell, he would even invite some friends. There were plenty of hotel-like suites in this place.

Wilson took a detour through the kitchens: dark rooms punctuated by slight glimmers from the pans and equipment that hung on the walls; well used but still all clean, all waiting for some kind of activity to brighten them up. Like the dining area, nothing here had been touched in quite some time save to keep it from being dusty. Long prep tables and countertops were sleek and shiny, empty. There was power to the massive freezer area, but he didn't bother heading into it. Meat lockers weren't his favorite places, they tended to splatter invisibly and show up on expensive suits as unattractive stains later.

There was an access hallway, beyond the kitchen, which Wilson walked through. If all the signs were still accurate, and he had no reason to think they weren't, there was a supply dock to the left, the main lobby and conference rooms to the right, and suite access down the hall. The stairwell was right there, predictably.

The restaurant and kitchen were nice and dim, compared to these still-lit stairwells. Wilson felt quite visible and vulnerable in this section of the place. While it wasn't that bright, it also wasn't filled with the shadows he'd prefer to lurk in. He'd even been working on that slinking-through-darkness effect. But no one was there to see it. Not even raccoons. He was slightly disappointed. Wilson wasn't sure whether that kid, Damon, wasn't it? The guy he'd been competing with, or was that showing off to, back at the Center not too long ago, would have been able to do it here either. And that was his specialty.

Though the doors were apt to clatter as he opened and closed them, he tried to be as quiet as he could when doing so. Still no alarms, at floor three; still no sign that any of the security cameras were needed or in use. That started to bother Wilson a bit. There were people here, he could sense Hoyle clearly now, at least. There was something else, a messy Vortessence that he had absolutely no idea what it could be. Maybe Hoyle had a couple Vorts over and they were chanting.

Vortigaunts always messed with his senses, when they were doing that thing together. Flux shifting was one thing, basic communications were hardly an issue. But when a number of them gathered and started sharing things? That was unnerving at best. One discussion he'd had with the Mystery came to mind, just then: avoid getting caught in that trap of theirs. They were quite powerful in teams. And teamwork was sort of their forte, that whole hive-mind thing and all.

But this didn't even really feel like that kind of power. He'd have recognized it: they had stood around him that one day on Xen, waving their third arms and posturing with a whole lot of Vortal energy aimed at him. That was the day they refused to name him. To say he was let down was a tremendous understatement, but what did they know.

They did know how to cook, maybe Hoyle had a Vort cooking for him. Come to think of it, Wilson pondered, when was the last time he'd actually eaten? All these thoughts of food were probably for a reason.

Wilson's passage through the stairwell was unremarkable. He noted that these last couple floors, six through eight, had their double doors opened and propped that way: someone was using them on a regular enough basis that they didn't want to bother others with the noise. Well good. That meant someone was here. Since he had yet to actually see anyone though, Wilson assumed that those people he'd meet up with would be in Hoyle's penthouse. That was okay, he liked it up there. Wilson considered David Hoyle's taste in furnishings and architecture to be quite like his own. He may have even gotten some of his personal inclinations from the former Senator.

The back way into the penthouse suite was unlocked and left open: right into the large service kitchen to boot. Wilson paused carefully as he glanced around looking for those ubiquitous camera installments. But what he found wasn't cameras or turrets. Just a typical kitchen, albeit one that had hosted presidents and officials as well as close friends and family.

Hoyle had to have a lot of stored food on hand here, he was well prepared. Other places Wilson had visited weren't so well off. With a twinge of guilt he thought of those kids who remained behind at the Enrichment Center, managing their food and staying lean: because they were staying hungry. They could have gone off with Paxton and Geoff and their hunting parties, but since when had any of their subliminal training included those things for most of them? They were lucky if any of that embedded training applied to this new destroyed world they lived in at all.

Wilson heard some movement in the main rooms beyond the service kitchen, and carefully headed toward the penthouse proper. There really was something Vortal going on past these walls, and Wilson was now more curious than cautious. The personal kitchen area as well as the smallish and less formal dining room he looked into had seen plenty of use recently. It smelled like pasta and spicy tomato sauce, and damn it was making Wilson hungry now.

He checked the stove: on it was a large stock pot, and beside it an equally large sauce pan. There was a little pasta left, some sauce with a clump of small meatballs drowning in it, but why was there so much to begin with? The hell kind of parties was Hoyle having? As Wilson stepped past the kitchen and into the dining nook, he noted there were several plates on the nicely decorated main table. Several more than expected, anyway. One of them still had a reasonable amount of spaghetti on it, and Wilson's impulses won out over his good sense. He picked up the plate, grabbed the fork near it, and carried it into the next room. The hallway's marble wall, stretching from kitchen to front door, blocked his view directly but he could tell that whatever was on the other side would pique his interest.

All of his life, Wilson had prided himself on being very observant. Keenly aware of everything around him, making note of all the little details. When he turned away from the front door of the place, and looked to his right, into the high-ceilinged central room, the details of the entire tableau as they played out in front of him were hardly lost.

They were also hardly making any sense. So instead of attempting to examine the whole place (it hadn't changed, really), Wilson chose to simply walk over to that big pale-yellow leather couch where Hoyle was seated, drop carefully onto a cushion, and continue eating this incredibly good food he'd discovered. He put his booted feet up onto the coffee table, and took pains not to get sauce on his shirt.

Hoyle grunted. He didn't even turn to look, he merely took another long pull at his beer and said, "oh, I thought I felt you nosing around. Have a seat. Enjoy the food."

"Oh, there's beer!" Wilson said, chuckling, reaching for a bottle, himself. There really wasn't much more to say. As he carefully ate the last of the pasta, he also watched the room. There was much more activity in it than he'd have imagined, by Hoyle's simple and deadpan comment.

There were far more people than merely Wilson, David Hoyle, and his white-haired semi-turned-permanent guest Wallace Breen in the wide, airy penthouse.

Well, no. There were far more Wallace Breen than one might easily take in. There were four of him. Now that Wilson saw it more clearly, that messy Vortessence was thick around the men. He tried to ignore it, it was blinding him to the normal visuals his eyes could take in. That was highly unusual, in and of itself. While Wilson was quite good at detecting such things, he didn't make a point of it unless he really needed to know something or spot someone by their aura. He'd done so earlier, checking out each of the Enclave's suite floors and detecting nothing more than a glow from this.

But this was insane. How could they have such a brightness? Breen hadn't been even a blip on the radar, years ago, as Wilson recalled. He blinked away the Vortal layer of sight, for the first time really trying to turn off a sense that he'd all but perfected in years past. All for the sake of what?

Watching four Wallace Breens play pool and chat.

Hoyle, beside him, nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said. That was all.

Like the former Senator, Wilson could hardly take his eyes off the other man… men. It wasn't that they were all that interesting in and of themselves: they were just going about their business. Two took turns with the billiards table, while the other pair drank (probably straight whisky, if Wilson's nose and memory still served him well enough) and spoke quietly to one another in highly scientific terms.

They were not even completely alike. Though they were obviously the same man, cloned, each sported a slightly different look. They all had varying degrees of facial hair, all trimmed nicely and matching their perfectly coiffed hair. One's was quite white. That was the one Wilson presumed was the original. Another's hair was sleek and dark, the other two had stages between with reasonably attractive streaks at their temples. All four of them wore nice clothing, vest and silk shirt here, turtleneck and slacks there.

They didn't look up with either Wilson's arrival or his companion's few words. Instead, they merely kept doing what they were doing. It was like watching a movie. Or a train wreck.

"It is," Hoyle said, and there was a strange, desperate fascination in his voice. "He never stops. Just… keeps going."

"Are you all right, David?" Wilson asked, daring to remove his eyes from the Breen bunch over there. Hoyle looked okay, he did have a bit of a tired expression, no – that was more boredom. His face changed, though, as he seemed to emerge from whatever stupor the Breens had put him into, either that or from the half-case of beer beside him, but Wilson suspected it wasn't the drinks. "Should I have eaten this? Is it drugged?" Wilson indicated the now-empty plate. Hoyle chuckled.

"No, no it's fine. The young one's a pretty good chef." Hoyle's dark eyes pried themselves away from that concentrated Vortal light and onto Wilson. It seemed to be a tremendous relief. It also seemed to have been a tremendously difficult task. "And the next one took over the landscaping. You had to have noticed that."

"I… did." Wilson was growing a little worried. "He's made himself domestic, is that a problem?" Wilson himself had that completely non-spec skill set in his own brain, and it had proven quite useful. People liked his cooking.

"I never imagined it would be, but sometimes I wonder," Hoyle said. "It's more difficult when they're like this, all together in one spot. That blinding… what did you just call it?"

"Vortessence?" Wilson said, realizing at that moment that even though he'd been around all this time, Hoyle had been almost entirely out of the loop in terms of information. That was his own fault, Wilson thought, he could have been on the forefront of things out there in the big, destroyed world. "Haven't you ever met a Vort?"

Hoyle shook his head, "no, I've seen them on television. Vortessence…" he pronounced the word with gusto, "sounds so exotic." He paused and then flickered his eyes around. He was making an effort not to become drawn back in to Breen's whirlpool. "I guess I have missed a lot lately. We don't get many visitors up here. Though there are some creatures out in the woods I wouldn't mind you getting rid of for me."

Wilson sensed there was much more on his mind. "You'd like me to get rid of him," he said, tilting his head a little and watching Hoyle's reaction. "And I might wind up doing just that. But… how did this happen?"

The former Senator sighed, deeply. "I got him to try out the one, thought he'd want to have a fresh body. But he didn't jump into it like I did this one," he indicated himself. Wilson noted that he'd lost all the wrinkles and assorted marks of age that had once been present on his skin. Aside from that tired, slightly annoyed expression he wore, Hoyle looked quite good, looked no older than Wilson himself. "I trained him up, we didn't do this with the electronic dumps," Hoyle sighed again, "I was already bored stupid, that's my fault. So I hoped he'd move into a newer body and we'd relive our youths. But no, he stayed in two bodies. Even I never really tried that, myself. He wound up enjoying it so much that this is the result."

Wilson's surprise was obvious, but it was very clear to him that Hoyle wasn't just making shit up. He wasn't even sure how it was possible, but then again Paxton's Replicas seemed to be weirdly impossible too. And just because he – or almost anyone else – couldn't do it, didn't mean it wasn't right there in front of them. But Breen's level of ability… It had never been on the charts. To his credit, then, Wilson realized Hoyle had done the impossible. Trained a normal person to use their Vortessence.

Hoyle gave a faint nod in acceptance of that praise. After all it had been Wilson who suggested to Breen himself, that he find out about the personal clones. "And then he got bored." Hoyle drank, emptied the bottle. "So he started downloading things. Makes for pretty good maid service. If I ever asked him to pay for his stay," he sighed, "that'd be enough to cover it. Since he can't play mad-science back at Black Mesa any more, and the rest of the staff left for the City a while back, I guess that works out all right."

Wilson blinked, worriedly looking between Hoyle and the Breens. "Wait, he…"

"Purposefully downloaded how to cook, yes," Hoyle said, nodding slowly. "And maintenance, landscaping, bartending. I don't even know. Fuck-all else." His private storage and medical unit down there had a full compliment of skill sets and memory slots? Wilson hadn't known that. "I locked down the combat training," Hoyle added, addressing the unspoken worry on Wilson's mind.

Time was, Wilson would have been the one second-guessing and mind-reading and finishing sentences. Apparently the lack of Human contact aside from the assortment of Breen had driven Hoyle to latch on to whoever was nearby, just to get some variety. He thought about suggesting he gather up some of those spare Outlanders holed up in their shacks and lean-to's out in the woods, but maybe they were as unwelcome as they'd ever been. Reading the minds of guys that pissed on trees and carried sharp sticks to hunt things wasn't really too high on his list of things to do either.

Wilson made an attempt at protecting what he could of his own mind. Just in case. He hadn't realized how rude it was, and that he'd been doing it all his life, himself. Well, that wasn't true. He did know. He just hadn't cared.

"What happened to that hot cougar secretary of his?" Wilson asked, thinking back to his original assignment on the man. She'd have been a good resource, it was a shame that the Mystery had let that slide too long. He hadn't sent Wilson out to collect her, either, he'd have done so eagerly. She reminded him of the woman that… Well, yeah, the one that messed up his entire life by downloading entirely inappropriate skills into him.

Hoyle pondered aloud, "Silver? Oh, she stayed on a while. But you know: Breen and his amazing ego claims another angry ex. At least looking at him this way," he waved the empty bottle at the group across the room, "you can see it in action. He is the single most self-absorbed man I've ever met. He hardly even talks to me any more. Turned her off after the first one got activated." He broke his stare once more and looked at Wilson with a shallow smile, "I'm pretty sure it was when he stopped fucking her, in favor of… other people." He most certainly didn't mean himself, so…

Wilson's eyebrow shot up, but he said nothing, tucking that away for later use.

"I think she made the right decision to haul ass out of here. I should have followed her." Hoyle groaned, "every time I even try thinking about it, it makes my damn head hurt. I miss the old days, Wilson. Hell, I even missed you." Wilson snorted out a laugh.

"Well that's gratifying," Wilson said. He saw the quiet sadness and longing on Hoyle's features easily.

"I miss my old office. I haven't been out of here in years." Hoyle said, dejected.

"I'm pretty sure that office is in ruins," Wilson muttered. "Like everything else."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "I guess… The world is pretty fucked. Even last time I spoke with Gen she seemed to be a little… busy. Too busy to chat me up, anyway, and that's a first."

"Yes, she is," Wilson said, carefully. Mentally he focused on the fact that because Breen and Hoyle had played this out and vanished, that left her as the only viable contact for the role they'd intended one of these men to occupy. "She's very important. I had to be the one to get her… situated. And you know how much I like dealing with her."

"I guess a simple sorry about that is out of the question," Hoyle groaned. He closed his eyes, and Wilson knew he was still seeing that mess of vibrant, banded energy that tied the Breens together. Their individual auras were not even really distinguishable, because apparently they didn't have one. The effect he and Hoyle were perceiving, as Wilson thought on it, was of Breen's motion between them. It was kind of no wonder that Breen didn't pause to look up or interact with others: he was too busy with himself.

How incredibly vain. Wilson caught the hint of a laugh from Hoyle, and mentally he admitted that even his own peacock-pompous ass was soundly put in its place by Breen. I know from vain, right? Wilson thought, and Hoyle broke a smile at that.

Wilson reached for another couple beers, gently flipped them open with his thumb, and handed one to the man next to him. "You know, I… was coming here to see if you needed any more punishment for dropping off the face of the planet and backing out of our deals," he said. "But this is obviously punishment enough."

Hoyle was silent for a few moments after accepting that beer. "Yeah, tell that to him."

"I would, but I can't see straight," Wilson replied, and noted Hoyle's brief chuckle. "Both your asses should have been on my hit list, you know that, right?" Hoyle nodded slowly again, not looking at Carver and not bothering to hide his annoyance that Breen was so distracting that he couldn't even hold up his own side of a conversation. Wilson continued, "we got a little preoccupied with other things in the meantime and you got lucky. But I think… I'm going to have to relay this to my superior, and talk it over with him." Wilson again took a half-blinded glance over to the foursome of man. "There may be new possibilities for this."

Wilson knew that his companion could still easily read his surface thoughts, which was faintly disturbing but also inherently helpful at this moment. He didn't need to share it consciously: four of the same incredibly intelligent, well-read, and goal-oriented man… That had potential. A lot of potential. It would have to be timed right, they'd really need to work this out. How far apart could he function? Was it possible to separate them at all? Maybe they needed to actually copy Wallace's mind properly into one and see what happened… Even Hoyle had to admit that it could have applications in this new world order out there.

There would certainly be a small amount of Hell to pay: Wilson's backlog of stuff he'd meant to get around to doing was still quite long and continued to warrant those over the top sinister discussions with the Mystery. If he could swing this the right way, Wilson's hit list could be shortened, and their range of contacts made more broad again.

Hoyle was off that hit list, even if the Mystery thought otherwise. He hadn't seen this. He'd have to come by. It was worth watching. As long as he was careful not to get sucked into watching it for too long.

Hoyle weakly turned his head, "can you at least get him the fuck out of my home, so I can have a moment's peace?"