6. The Grave

Almost a week had passed since MacCready had gone missing, and Deacon and Whisper were no closer to finding him. Forest Grove Marsh had been a bust. The only traces they’d found there were a few muddy footprints -- both human and brahmin-- and a severed piece of old rope that may have connected a boat to the riverbank. Hoping this was a lead, the two Railroad agents had continued following the river South, looking for a port of some kind.

About halfway between the marsh and the WRVR radio tower, they located a large drainage pipe that seemed to run under the old highway. It was dented into an unusual shape like the mouth of a hungry animal, partially overgrown with hanging moss. But there had clearly been traffic both in and out of the pipe recently. The vegetation had been worn thin in places, a muddy trail leading into the drain.

“What do you think, Deeks?” asked Whisper.

“I’m not sure. It’s worth checking out.” Deacon sighed, rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses. He wasn’t sure what was more exhausting, all the walking, or the constant, nagging worry that they were running out of time. “We haven’t had a solid lead in days. At least this is better than nothing.”

Whisper smiled gently at the spy, looping her hand through his. “I know you’re worried, Deacon. I am too. But we’re going to find him. I promise.”

“Pfff. You think I’m worried?” Deacon muttered, squeezing her hand. He wanted to pull away, to reject her touch, but at this point, the warmth of her hand was one of the only things keeping him calm. “I’m just hoping this place has a mini-bar. What do you think? Wanna split an overpriced can of peanuts with me?”

She chuckled, shaking her head. “Goof around all you want. I know you care about him. Otherwise we wouldn’t be out here looking.”

“It’s not like that,” Deacon retorted. “It’s business. You know how few people I actually enjoy working with? It’s a pretty short list. MacCready, you, sometimes Glory...I’m not exactly a team player, Whisp, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Aww, you actually like working with me?” Whisper said with a smirk, her emerald eyes sparkling. She looked like a crow who’d just found something shiny. “That’s so sweet, Deacon. Next, you’ll be asking me to go steady.”

“Stop,” he protested, grinning. “You’re making this weird again.”

“Yeah,” she said, giving his hand a final squeeze before releasing it, “but I made you smile.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Thanks.”

“What are partners for, hmm?” she asked. “Now, who wants to do the honors? I nominate you.”

Deacon sighed. “Awesome. I get first crack at the disgusting tunnel to Nastyburgh. It’s just what I always wanted! How did you know?”

Whisper rolled her eyes. "Just...just get in the pipe, Deacon."

As Deacon approached the outflow drain, however, he heard what sounded like a footfall against the metallic pipe. He paused, glancing suspiciously around the swampy riverbank for any sign of the kidnappers.

“What is it?” Whisper asked softly, falling in behind him.

“Didn’t you hear that?” the spy replied. “Someone’s nearby.”

She frowned. “I didn’t hear anything, besides you trying to get out of going first, Deacon. Not unless you count the water trickling from the pipe. And besides, if the kidnappers are here, isn’t that a good thing?”

The spy shook his head. “Shh. No. It’s something else, I think. They aren’t making enough noise to be our guys.” He crept towards the tunnel, slowly withdrawing a kitchen knife from his pack. Without a clear visual or any indication of how many others were present, he didn’t want to risk the noise a gun would cause.

Whisper drew her own blade in silent agreement, and the two of them quietly moved into position, flanking the tunnel entrance. Deacon smiled. Her stealth was already starting to improve from the last time they’d run a mission together. Excellent. He’d make a capable agent of her yet.

The quiet footfalls continued, drawing closer, and Deacon glanced over at Whisper. She was gripping her blade tightly, her emerald eyes laser-focused on the darkness beyond the pipe’s twisted maw. She looked like a cat, coiled to spring at the first sign of her prey. Her muscles were wound tightly under her combat armor -- the parts she’d decided to wear, at least. Deacon imagined that her current outfit was a bit of a compromise with Paladin Danse. Whisper had left the chest piece at home, but retained the heavy padding on her arms and legs. It was for the best. Heavy armor wasn’t the easiest thing to sneak around in, even if it had the advantage of increased protection.

As the footsteps grew louder, Deacon braced himself. Any second now, he’d be able to...now! He sprang at the emerging figure, grabbing the newcomer by the lapel and hauling him out into the sunlight.

“Hey!” cried his quarry, falling into the thick slime of the swampy bank with a sickening splat, his hat landing a few feet away in the mud. “What’s the big idea?”

Deacon winced as he recognized the voice. Nick Valentine. He was in for it now.

Whisper gasped in alarm, rushing to help the detective up. “Nick?” Whisper asked. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing, doll,” the synth detective replied sardonically, wiping muck from his faded trench coat. “Sewer tunnels are no place for a lady. ’Course, given your present company, I’m not surprised.” He glared over at Deacon, yellow eyes unimpressed. “Always had you pegged for a sewer rat, pal. Certainly suits you better than a guard uniform.”

“Sorry, Nick,” Deacon muttered. “To be fair, I had no way of knowing it was you.”

“So you just make a habit of tossing strangers into the river, then,” Nick muttered. “Well, takes all kinds, I suppose. Still, you haven’t answered my question. What brings the two of you to this miserable pit of filth?”

“We’re looking for our friend, MacCready,” Whisper replied, retrieving Nick’s hat and handing it to him. “Some guys kidnapped him. Snatched him right out of my house. We’re trying to find him.”

Nick frowned, brushing the muck away as best as he could before returning the fedora to his head. “A missing merc, huh? Well, that’s not the standard MO, but if it brought you here, it might be connected to my case.”

Whisper smirked. “So you’re not just here for fun either.”

Nick shook his head. “This isn’t exactly my idea of a vacation, if that’s what you’re implying. See, I’ve been working on some disappearances myself. Bunch of young women. Though I suppose your shady friend over there doesn’t know anything about that, does he?”

Deacon sighed. “I should have figured the Railroad wouldn’t be the only ones investigating this.”

Nick glanced over Deacon solemnly. “So the Railroad is involved. I thought so. But why would you be involved in a missing persons’...oh.” Nick sighed. “Well, that changes things. So some of our lost lambs are synths, huh?”

Deacon nodded. “We’ve lost almost a dozen liberated synths in the last year, all young women, taken from high-traffic areas.”

“A dozen?” Nick chuckled bitterly. “Pal, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve got over twenty files on my desk right now with the same damn prints all over them. Whatever’s going on here, it’s way bigger than you realize.”

Whisper groaned. “So this probably wasn’t about synths at all. Great. We’ve been looking at it all wrong. Whoever’s doing this is after young women in general.”

“If that’s true,” Nick pondered, “then why take MacCready? It doesn’t add up.”

“That...that might be my fault,” Deacon muttered sheepishly. “I’ll admit, I was a little sloppy on this one. I found and confronted one of those kidnapping ass clowns, and he might have decided to get revenge. Mac and I spent most of the day before he vanished hanging out at Myra’s house. He must have seen us together.”

Nick sighed. “So you’re shady and an idiot. Well, that’s a winning combination.” He turned to Whisper. “Where’d you pick this guy up, anyway?”

“The Third Rail ,” she replied with a faint smile. “He just seemed so charming at the time.”

“Myra, you have got to stop picking up strange men in bars,” Nick joked. “Seems like a foolish idea, if you ask me. But what do I know? I’m just the Commonwealth’s number one detective specializing in missing persons.”

“Well, Nick, so far none of them have tried to kill me,” Whisp replied, “so I still have a better track record in the average bar than I do just walking down the street.”

Deacon grinned. “You’ve definitely been hanging out at the wrong bars. It’s not a party until someone tries to kill you, you know.”

Whisper chuckled. “As a former bartender, I’d like to see them try. That’s my natural environment.”

Nick grimaced. “If you two are done plotting your next bad decision, I’d like to get back to work. I’ve only been down the pipe a little ways. Would have gotten further, but I heard you two jackasses and figured I’d make sure I wasn’t getting ambushed. You can come with, if you must, but I’d appreciate it if you laid off the banter. Who knows what’s waiting down there?”

Deacon rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. Typical. “Hopefully, a particularly angry little mercenary. Let’s go.”

The trio made their way down the dark, dank pipe, the smell of old moss and rotten leaves filling their noses. Whisper slipped on the slimy metal, muffling her shriek with one hand as she frantically grabbed on to Deacon with the other. Deacon braced himself as best as he could, pulling her tightly against the pipe wall to slow her momentum. Whisper coiled her arm around him, struggling to regain her footing.

“Thanks,” she gasped, breathless. They were almost face to face, her back pressed against the wall, pinned there by his body weight. They stared at each other in the half-light, Whisper’s eyes wide from adrenaline, her chest heaving as she tried to calm her breathing down. Her back was damp from the ooze that coated the wall, greenish streaks of algae dying her short white hair. But she was lovely, all the same, her lips parted slightly as she recovered herself.

Deacon wasn’t sure how long they stood like that. It felt like minutes, but it was probably less. He was brought back to the task at hand by Nick, who cleared his throat behind them. “I’d give you two some privacy,” the detective muttered sardonically, “but you’re blocking the exit. Can we go, now?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” Deacon looked away from Whisper with an exasperated sigh, pushing himself off the wall. “Be careful Myra,” he admonished. “If you crack your skull open, I’m sure as hell not going to clean it up.”

“Noted,” Whisper replied, tucking her slime-slicked hair behind one reddened ear.

They continued on without much incident, each watching their footing on the slick metal. Before long, they came to a hatch, which Nick eased open, revealing a small room. There were three entrances to the room: the one they now darkened, a filthy metal door with “The Grave ” painted on it in what Deacon hoped wasn’t blood, and a warped wooden door with an uneven trail of what definitely was blood leading to it.

There wasn’t much in the room itself. A single chair sat next to a makeshift table, upon which was perched a half-consumed bottle of Gwinnett Ale. Whisper picked up the bottle by the neck with two fingers and her thumb, sloshing the contents around carefully. “It’s flat,” she muttered. “Poor beer’s been sitting out for at least a day or two. What a waste.”

“We’ll hold a Viking funeral for it later,” Deacon joked. “We’ll have a little fire by the river, I’ll bring a charcuterie board, it’ll be a whole thing. Find anything else?”

Whisper snorted. “You mean like the obvious trail of blood leading behind that door over there? No. I hadn’t noticed that.”

Nick sighed, shaking his head. “You know, if all it took to solve cases was a smart mouth, you two would have found MacCready by now.” He followed the trail of blood, pulling the stained wooden door open carefully. He grimaced at the sight. “Looks like your beer’s not the only one in need of a funeral.”

Deacon peered over the detective’s shoulder, whistling in awe. “Damn. Guess I wasn’t the only one with finely sliced meats on the brain.” Beyond the door lay the body of a large raider, soaking in a puddle of his own congealed blood. He wasn’t certain what had actually done the man in. There were several deep knife cuts across his body, as well as a few well-positioned bullet holes. Whoever had done this had been pretty desperate.

“I think we can rule out suicide,” Nick said. “He was clearly guarding something. Question is, what was he guarding?”

“And hopefully a related question,” Whisper added, “who killed him?”

“Only one way to find out,” Deacon replied, pulling open the metal door on the other side of the small room. “Hopefully this isn’t a grave mistake.”

Whisper swatted playfully at him. “The only mistake was bringing you along,” she snarked. Then she walked past him, turning her Pip-Boy’s flashlight on as she entered a dark, musty tunnel.

“Watch out!” cried Nick, yanking her back with his good arm. “Look around you before you charge in, doll! Geez. It’s a miracle you’re still kicking. This whole place is full of tripwires. We’ll have to disable them one by one.”

Whisper nodded. “Thanks, Nick. Let’s go.”

It was slow progress as the three of them worked down the tunnel. They were forced to stop every few feet to disarm a trap or two. By the fourth delay, Deacon sighed in frustration. Usually, he preferred the slow and safe method. But if anything happened to Mac because they weren’t fast enough to save him, the spy would never forgive himself.

Finally, they reached a rusty metal door which hung slightly ajar, revealing a large cavern beyond. Whisper stepped through carefully, using her light to illuminate the chamber. She cried in horror as the green glow revealed another body near the door. The man’s neck was all but destroyed, his eyes bulging in torment from his blue-tinged face. A battered old cafeteria tray lay next to him, stained with rotten food and bile. Whisper backed away, her skin pale.

“He’s dead too, right?” she asked softly as Deacon knelt by the body. The man wasn’t clothed in anything particularly special, a set of patched old leather armor worn loosely over threadbare long johns. There was an empty holster by his side, a few unused bullets strewn about the body as though he was looted hastily.

The spy nodded, pocketing the ammunition. “Yeah. Looks like he has been for a couple days. Body’s been looted too. Whoever was here, they’re long gone now.”

“Do you think it was Mac?” Whisper mused, continuing to search the room.

“Could be,” Deacon replied. “I’ve never seen him fight with a cafeteria tray before, though. I’ll have to ask him where he learned that trick.”

“Your merc was definitely here,” Nick said, holding out his bare metal arm. Caught between his sharp fingers was MacCready’s military cap, wet and filthy, but still recognizable. Whisper snatched the cap from the detective’s hand with a low cry.

“That’s his, all right. Mac must have taken off in a hurry if he left this behind,” she mused.

Deacon nodded as she tucked the cap in her back. “The way he wears that hat, you’d think someone wonderglued it to his head. Actually, that’s not a half-bad idea…”

Whisper groaned. “Well, at least we know we’re on the right track. The question is, why was he here?”

Deacon glanced around the cavern. “This place seem kind of...I don’t know, a bit of a let-down? All those traps for one little prison cell? Come on, it’s not like Mac’s the president or something. There’s gotta be more down here.”

Nick nodded. “We still have no idea what this place is. And with the number of missing people, it’s unlikely that a place this small could keep up with that kind of traffic.”

Whisper frowned. “I agree, but look. This is a dead end. There weren’t any other doors. Unless you guys see something I don’t…”

Deacon smirked, tapping gently on the cavern walls. “I’ll bet there’s a hidden door somewhere. From my experience, your pre-war government loved them some fake walls and secret entrances. You guys were absolutely paranoid, weren’t you?”

Whisper chuckled. “Hey, now. You’re one to talk.”

“Besides,” Nick added, “those damn commies had stealth technology. It wasn’t exactly an understatement to say that they could be hiding anywhere. We had to be careful.”

“I think you’re just upset because I hit the nail on the head,” Deacon replied. He grinned as his tapping revealed a hollow part of the wall. “Bingo. Hey, Whisper, a little light over here would be great.”

Whisp held her arm out towards him, the eerie green glow illuminating the cavern wall. Deacon ran his hands over the slick surface, looking for a latch, a chain, anything. Finally, he found a small, smooth groove behind one of the outcroppings. When he slid his hand into place and pulled, a section of the cavern wall lifted with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a well-lit room beyond.

“Whoa,” Whisper gasped. “How the hell did you know that was there?”

“Call it a hunch,” Deacon replied. “This place felt a little Switchboard-y to me. Now, what sort of government agency do you think built this place, huh?”

“Honestly,” Whisper said, “It could have been anyone. FBI, CIA, FDA...well, ok, probably not the FDA. But I always had a feeling those sons of bitches were hiding something.”

Nick sighed. “Just when you thought the Commonwealth had finally run out of secrets,” he muttered, stepping through the opening into the room beyond. “Well, this is quaint. Come take a look.”

They followed him into the room, and Deacon glanced around in awe. The facility was some sort of science outpost, that was obvious from the microscopes and other equipment scattered about the chamber, not to mention the sterile fluorescent lights that still shown in the lab. But what really caught him off-guard was the two-way mirror that looked out over the cavern. Whoever had been here had been watching the cave. But for what purpose?

Nick looked through a stack of old papers. “Lab reports...huh. I can’t make sense of any of this. What were they doing down here?”

Deacon found an old monitor, fiddling with it for a while as he tried to break through its password. “Buffalo...no, that’s not it,” he mumbled. “Jukebox?...nope. What about...gizzard?”

Whisper sniffed at the air, wrinkling her nose. “Does something smell...less-than-fresh to you guys?” She wandered towards a sliding door on the left side of the small lab. “I think it’s coming from over here.” The two men ignored her, continuing to sift through the pre-war data, so she slid the door open, wandering inside the next room. “There’s a whole bedroom in here,” Whisper said, peering back at the two men from the doorway. “Pretty decent-looking, too, given how old this place has to be. It stinks, though.”

Deacon gave up his hacking and joined her in the next room. Sure enough, the place was set up like a luxury suite, with a nice double bed and sheets that were almost clean, certainly cleaner than any he’d seen in the wasteland. But Whisper was right. The whole place smelled like old meat and iron, sweet corruption reeking from somewhere in the room. He poked around until he traced the smell to a small air vent next to a frosted glass door. “Whatever smells so bad, it’s in there,” he deducted.

Whisp nodded. “Yeah. I was afraid of that. Should we open it?”

“I guess we don’t really have a choice, right Nick?” Deacon asked as the detective entered the room.

Nick nodded. “We need to do a thorough investigation. Anything, no matter how small, might help us find our missing girls.”

“Fine…” Whisper groaned, easing the door open. She and Deacon reeled back as the stench flooded the bedroom, a putrid rot. “What the hell?” she cried, gagging. “Is that what I think it is?”

“If you thought it was a bathtub full of blood,” Deacon said, “you’d be absolutely right. Gross! That can’t be good for the tub.”

“I’m more and more convinced that this place is bad news,” Nick said, pushing past them into the bathroom. “Look, there’s tanks of the stuff, just waiting to be changed out. Whoever did this definitely made a habit out of bathing in blood. All I can’t figure out is why? Seems like a lot of effort for such an unpleasant sensation.”

Deacon frowned, kicking at one of the blood tanks. “Well, either they were completely crazy or way into black magic. Either way, this place is creepy as hell. Shall we move on?”

“Sure,” Whisper said sarcastically. “Can’t get much more disturbing than this, right? What’s next, flesh piles? Oh, gee, I hope it’s not zombies!”

Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Myra, you live in a world where ghouls exist. You really should be used to zombies by now.”

“Onward, to zombies!” Deacon cried, his arm raised dramatically as he strode back out into the lab. “But if we get haunted after this, MacCready totally owes us.”

“Agreed,” said Whisper.

“Why, of all the people for me to run into out here, did it have to be you two chuckleheads?” Nick groaned, following them.

::::

The facility turned out to be far larger than any of them could have imagined, a hive of interconnecting rooms that spread from the central lab like roots from a tree trunk. Most of the chambers were quite mundane: barracks, a kitchen and cafeteria, a gym...it all seemed almost vault-like, except for the distinct lack of signage and cheery posters. Many of the rooms were inaccessible. A cave-in had buried a large portion of the west wing, whereas others simply could not be opened. It was unclear how long those areas had been blocked off, but it was unlikely that MacCready had been in the facility when the collapse had occurred.

After what seemed like hours, the trio found themselves in what appeared to be a clinic. By Deacon’s estimation, they were at least three stories down from where they had started. He tried not to think about the possibility of another cave-in.

The clinic was tidy and well-kept, except for some suspiciously dark stains on the old linoleum floor. A single gurney occupied the center of the room, a large lamp positioned over it. Scalpels, needles of Med-X, and other surgical implements lay neatly on a dented old metal tray nearby. The rest of the room was bare, save for a large wooden desk and worn desk chair that took up a good portion of the right wall. The desk was covered in papers, a few pieces of charcoal scattered between the leaves. The left wall housed a large fusion generator, which whirred and hummed with power, vibrating the floor slightly.

The back wall was bare, a single metal door marring it’s off-white surface. Nick frowned, fiddling with the lock. “This is interesting. Nothing else in this place has been locked...aha!” he added as the lock clicked into place. “Let’s see what they’re hiding down here.”

As he opened the door, the reek of rotten flesh assailed them, and Deacon and Whisper both collapsed to the ground, hacking and coughing at the stench.

“That’s it! I’m never eating meat again after this trip!” Whisper exclaimed, wiping traces of vomit from her lips with the back of her sleeve.

“And I was...ugh...really looking forward to that charcuterie board, too,” Deacon managed, choking back his own bile.

“I think we’ve found out what happened to all those girls,” Nick muttered, his eyes sweeping the room. The small space was filled with bodies in various states of decay. Some were mostly intact. Others had their skin ripped away, revealing bone, sinew, and rotting flesh. All of them had been drained of their blood.

“Well, I guess that explains where the tanks of blood came from,” Whisper gagged. “Are we dealing with vampires here? Please tell me vampires haven’t become a thing. Zombies, that was bad enough. Mutants? Okay, not my favorite, but reasonable. I am absolutely not prepared to deal with vampires, though.”

Nick shook his head. “Vampires? Not as far as I’m aware, though who knows what the Institute’s been cooking up these days. I’m afraid the reality’s a little less storybook than that, Myra. Look at this equipment.”

Deacon nodded. “You’re right, Nick. These surgical tools, those old monitors...someone was trying to do facial reconstruction here.”

“But why kill all these people? Most surgeons don’t leave piles of bodies in their storage room, right?”

“Not unless they were really terrible at their job, or trying to recreate something very specific,” Deacon muttered, sorting through the loose papers on the desk. “It’s easy enough to tweak a nose here, remove some scars there...that can usually be done with the patient’s own skin. But something complicated, like making a specific face, that requires a donation. Willing, usually. In this case, though, I’d guess it was very unwilling.”

“So what you’re saying is that you’ve had this sort of work done before,” Nick said coldly.

“Yeah, but I promise I never murdered anyone for a new face,” the spy rebutted. “Certainly not this many people. My guy gets all his parts from people who were already dead, asks their families first and everything. It’s gross, but legitimate. Someone needs to find this surgeon and talk to him about ethically sourcing his materials.”

“Um, Deacon...exactly how much of you is dead person?” Whisp asked cautiously. “I mean, there’s no percentage small enough, if you ask me, but --”

“Aha!” Deacon interrupted, definitely not trying to avoid that conversation. He held up a carefully-drawn sketch of a young woman, her face soft and warm. There was an innocent quality to her smile that intrigued him. Whoever this woman was, she wasn’t the typical wastelander, hardened by life into a ruthless fighter. There was genuine softness in her eyes. Red dashes segmented her face into sections, marring the sketch like stitches on old skin.

“Who’s that?” Nick asked.

“I’m not sure,” Deacon replied. “One of our missing girls?”

“Turn it over, Deeks,” Whisper said. “There’s something written on the back, but your fingers are covering it.”

Deacon did as she instructed, and his eyes widened as he read the words out loud. “ If I can’t kill Lucy, I will become her. Well, that’s...” He loosened his grip on the paper and it fluttered to the floor like a dying bird.

“What’s that mean, Deacon?” Whisper asked. “Who’s Lucy?”

The spy stared off towards the storage room, towards the bodies of lost and stolen women that waited there. “I don’t think this was ever about me, after all,” he managed. “Whatever’s happening here...It’s about MacCready. And if I’m right, then he’s in even more danger than we thought.”