Utterly Mad

Her eyes were drawn instinctively towards the tunnel near the end of the row of consoles, near where George had been, and recalled the night before. More than half asleep, something had come out of that tunnel. There wasn't anything down there though, Catnip had seen the floor plan of the facility, the old tunnel had been sealed off. Collapsed at the other end and filled in with concrete. There were rooms back there though, the work crews had stored numerous building supplies in the accessible side rooms. There was no reason for George to go down there, but Catnip felt strongly that he had. The dark opening seemed to breath, or perhaps she fancied it did. There came the faint smell of rotting wood and a touch of the taste of turpentine. She tapped a few of the keys on the console just as George showed her, and then hesitated with her finger over the enter key.

"George?" She called.

If there was a response, she didn't hear it. There was an almost imperceptible shift in the dark of the tunnel though. Something like a pile of rags just beyond the arc of dim light cast from the rooms sole source. 'Of course,' she thought absently in a moment of the kind of clarity brought on by fear, 'she got to the generator when I ran from her. She wouldn't stop it from running, but that doesn't mean Tenny couldn't break the starter.' As if reading her mind, the shape moved into the light and all Catnip saw before tapping the enter key, snatching the empty cell, and bolting from the rotunda was the general shape of something that her terrified mind could only identify as a pile of shifting clothes. The screech of the creature that Had been Tenny Partridge followed after her, then was drowned out by the din of the towers lower half preparing to automatically engage.

---

She fled, and the mycus horror followed. There wasn't much time to waste, but if Catnip couldn't make some distance between herself and Tenny, she wouldn't have time to follow through with her plan. Not that any of that was on her mind. At the moment, most of her attention was just focused on trying to avoid the changling's attempts to cut her off. Now that she was outside the maelstrom of the howling towers wind chamber, the mechanics instincts took over. Her whiskers twitched at a bend in the hall and she dipped to the side just as some previously hidden horror came at her in an attack that was more flop than lunge. Not Tenny, it looked to Catnip's harried imagination like one of the missing workers. There was no time to wonder where they'd been hiding, only time to run. She hit a pair of access doors believing she'd bounce off, but instead barreled through it at full speed and almost threw herself to the ground. The early morning sunlight blinded her for a moment, and she nearly flipped over the rail opposite the door. Somewhere below, she heard someone screaming but didn't bother letting her eyes adjust. Her whiskers told her she was still being pursued. It was her one chance, she spun and for a moment saw it. The thing had resumed it's shape as the electrician, only in place of Tenny's clothes, she seemed to be covered in loose hanging rags that hung in folds and puffed small clouds of grey dust as she moved. Her eyes had shifted to the deep blue purple Catnip had seen in nightmares where she'd fled through the lab beneath Pricetown in the oppressive dark and grey fog of the Grey Queen. Catnip kicked the door shut, and slid her prybar through the handles. There was no telling exactly how strong Tenny was, but the way the door bowed and the bar creaked told her that it would only hold for a little while.

By the time Catnip reached the first of the Howling towers landings, the smell of electric smoke hit her. The generator was burning, just as L had said it was. Since there was time now, Catnip fumbled the empty wind cell open and slipped the intact vortex stone into it and twisted the slots closed. Instantly the cell took on a strange weight and tension that was obvious through the super alloy sleeve. A crash from somewhere below scared her into motion again, Tenny would catch up quickly if she stayed where she was. Up and up, taking the steps two at a time until it felt like her lungs were on fire and her side felt like someone had inserted a steel pin there.

"There is a pin there..." She thought madly, her life flashing before her crazily for a moment, "They put it in when the RV exploded, when I broke my back..." Terror had brought clarity and it seemed the only thing that clarity wanted to remind her of was all that she'd been through. There was a rod in her leg, a series of pins in her back and side, a plate in her shoulder. So many scars, so many injuries. She had made Kathrine worry so much with the things she did to herself, and was that right? "Kathrine!" Catnip cried out hoarsely.

From lower down, Catnip heard a cry in response. Below, Tenny had begun her own ascent.