Work Text:
“Hello? This is Doctor Psalm, leader of the Sanitization Department. Identification please.”
It was incredibly difficult to rid themself of their dissatisfied leer considering nobody sent their calls through their assistant as requested. It would be excusable if the calls did not come as frequently as the rounds of an Octocommander; apprehensively they placed their finger over the little lever that hung the phone up when returned to its resting place.
“Hello, my name is Mika. Level 2, Potential. Nurse of the Medical Staff, employee M-11.” Strangely enough, she sounded worried, an emotion that shouldn’t typically be perceptible… Psalm serpentinely withdrew their finger, tilting their ear closer to the telephone as they patiently awaited a managing of expectations. It never came.
“It is proper to state your purpose in the same breath, dear,” Psalm cooed without judgment. Perhaps she was new here, maybe even unsanitized - either way, it was important to have her trust him to tell the complete and utter truth. “Is something troubling you?”
There was a pause, and then another pause - a whole rest if you may. The buzzing of their CRT monitor grew louder as Psalm’s ears adjusted only to the sound of her disjointed breathing.
“ I… don’t think of me a skeptic, but one of the staff - M-29, I believe - has been assigned, alongside much of the medical ward, to a quite finicky patient residing in room 2-21, ” she nearly whispered.
Psalm very quickly interjected. “Why are you talking like that? Are you in danger, dear?”
“ ...I do not wish to be heard. I am afraid but unsure of danger… ”
They turned towards their bulky Pionex 486s and logged onto the medical databases with the password they’d been lent, hovering over the second floor. They’d already figured it was that one , the only one that had caused such a ruckus since the whole staff was wiped - but they needed a refresher, who were they to remember every single one of their employees even if they held such a high position? Clicking on Room 21’s icon brought them right to their profile. Test Subject 9,523, status: failed, recently sanitized. Click here for their Octarian Dossier. Definitely not clicking that - nobody cares about that. Level 1, escape risk, where the hell is the timeline? There we go.
- Captured on 9/10/2017.
- failed on 9/10/2017 via loss of CQ Points.
- Attempted sanitization. [9/10/2017, 9:32]
- Failed due to complications with extremely strong immune system - first reported case of gel resistance. Cause unknown.
- Physical assault of employee MS-29.
- Physical assault of employee MN-21.
- Attempted physical assault of employee MN -14.
- Attempted physical assault of employee MS-29.
- Immediately transported to the medical ward to treat lasting bodily and mental trauma. [9/10/2023, 10:11 - Patient Room 2-21, chosen by Employee MS-29]
- Attempted physical assault of employee MS-29.
- Attempted physical assault of employee MN-13.
- During a faked bout of tiredness, he physically assaulted employee MS-29.
- The patient was immediately sedated through forced tranquilization and is required to be in a constant state of sedation or unconsciousness. [9/10/2017, 10:22]
His vitals seemed to be perfectly fine and the Neuronic Interpretation of Lossless Sound machine wired to his room did not show anything unusual. He turned towards the terminal - the room door had been closed for about four hours since the last routine checkup, unusually long for a patient of such distressing behavior. It was opened by Employee M-29 at 15:59, and there's been radio silence ever since - the employee had never written down their purpose within the medical logs, yet there seemed to be nothing unusual with their vitals other than a subtle change of meta-psychological output as the average of 44.6 Shz turned to 44.2 Shz.
Psalm made a sound of curiosity to revive the conversation. “I see your line of reasoning. Two assaults of employee MS-29. Were you there to witness it?”
“If I weren’t, I doubt I’d ever called. He was slashing like he had no common sense with some sort of Dualie Splatana I had never seen in my life,” she stressed with only the unhardened terror an awake would have. They were going to report her after this call.
“No one told me of this. That is a fault, dear, not of you, but of our medical system,” they noted, suppressing a snarl - everything went to Shodo like that was just a normal new endeavor that should be appreciated. They enjoyed Shodo's presence but they did not enjoy how adamant everyone was to prevent them from working together. Psalm sent each and every little medical mishap her way with the intent to improve communications between departments, but as soon as something involved Sanitization somewhere else, they were painfully unaware and ridiculed for it as if it were their fault information in this damn facility spread like molasses. It didn’t help how proficient she was at Psalm’s craft. A prodigy, a phenom… not good if they were going to be pitted against each other.
“I am sorry, Doctor,” the girl apologized with remorse out of her jurisdiction… damn, she was clueless. Psalm wondered if they should go ahead and just ask her if she was sanitized or not and if she wanted to go through the showers again - she was clearly clueless, but kind. Kind in a manner that was genuine and rare.
Psalm laughed a little to set the mood straight. “It’s okay, dear, although we must get back on track - you suspect that this patient has harmed one of the staff members, yes?”
“ She spoke strongly of revenge. The patient… he came for him many times, and I must admit, he resides within Medical due to his ineptitude in combat. Sorry. ” She didn’t seem to enjoy admitting that. “ Are there cameras within the patient wards? ”
“Yes, there should be,” they thought, but they did briefly recall something strange within a prior reading of the logs, though. The list of prior occupants of that specific patient room was excessively brief… and the logs had a few entries obscured due to the existing ones filling the entire page.
- The camera within patient room 2-21 was rendered non-functional due to unknown technical issues. The room will not be locked due to the engineering team being within a nearby phase, ensuring a speedy repair. [9/10/2017, 0:22]
“...I think your friend is trying to pull a fast one on us,” Toluca laughed out of astonishment. It was quite ingenious to register the patient within a room where no evidence could be procured in the case of a murder out of spite, but this meant terrible things for the company… not only was he speaking to a possible awake, but that there is another possible awake with vengeance on the mind that had probably just killed that patient right about now. Good riddance, to be honest - sometimes the emotive ones had some good ideas, albeit typically immoral or unjust to the company’s current goal.
“ Whatever do you mean?” Of course, she wouldn’t catch on just yet. She was such a nice girl. That wouldn’t last for long.
“Hmm… I am going to request your presence within the medical ward-”
“ I am already there, Doctor. ”
“Wonderful,” he restrained, as a full condemnation bubbled up within his throat. “I will be there promptly to speak the situation to you and handle it.”
“ But why m- ” She is cut off without a care in the world. Psalm rises from their seat, straightening the collar of their lab coat. This was going to be fun to deal with, wouldn’t it be - other than all the paperwork. Gladly, they already had an idea in mind to absolve all of it.
…
Unlike the other employees, their heels did not act as a moniker for their approach - Psalm was stealthy in a manner that was deeply unsettling and incredibly undesirable. The clattering of metal syncopating with the regular rhythms of the facility sounded no different from the natural ambiance until Psalm walked directly in front of Mika to her fright.
He only needed to do so to examine her - clearly unsanitized, likely for reasons unbeknownst to him but known by Dr. Shodo. He silently fumed, continuing on where they left off with no show of it. “See, what we are going to do he-”
“You scared me.” This was obvious, but she had to make it known.
“Sorry. See, what we are going to do here is simply enter the room and check on them - in the case of an emergency, I know the interrogation procedures and we will go further. I have reason to believe our dearest employee may have killed the patient as revenge.”
“ Oh, dear… ” She frowned but quickly fixed her face, even straightening her posture. Someone had checked her, most likely.
“It’s alright. I’ll be there with you. The only work you need to do is that of a nurse-aid if it’s necessary.”
She nodded with hesitation as Toluca placed their ID upon the registration scanner, opening the door slowly. And all that could be said is that well, that settles it.
The patient lay strewn across the floor, an almost comical dent embedded into the back of their head like they were a rear-ended car. Sanitized ink spilled from that sole bludgeoned fissure, pooling onto the ground and mixing with the little droplets of blood that surrounded it. The Employee stood in the corner of the room, CQ-80 device in hand.
“Thank goodness you arrived,” he said with unparalleled robotics only faltering due to what remained of his clear accent. “I have-”
“You have killed a patient and refrained from reporting it to Doctor Shodo and the Medical Logs. Is this true?” Toluca’s words struck the employee like an E-Liter shot, while Mika stared at him with unsureness.
“...No. I reported the altercation almost five minutes ago.” Toluca squinted - it had taken about ten minutes to even get here, so this was… plausible. “It’s right here on this terminal.”
Toluca hurried over, urging the employee to log in as they checked over what the report stated - upon entrance, the patient was revealed to be improperly sedated and attempted to stab the employee with a shank he had made out of biting away at the plastic railings of the hospital bed. The employee had to improvise with a canister of liquid oxygen to preserve his health. The patient was struck three times within the same place - the back of the head, until the pockets of pressurized ink collapsed into the patient’s brain, rendering him likely deceased. It had been reported six minutes ago.
“We had just checked the logs and this entry was not in yet. What had taken you so long? If I recall correctly, you entered this room at 15…”
“15:59,” Mika replied with subtle skepticism. Toluca scanned her face for a purpose, yet all she did was stare at the medical employee. Great work , they thought to themself. You understand the importance of fear.
“I am new, Doctor. I was trying to format my log correctly, and not mince the details in a time where observations aren’t sufficient,” he admitted, motioning towards the camera. “I know I should’ve checked this room for errors, but I had not thought to scroll up on the logs.” Damn. The same mistake Psalm made.
They refused to admit that. The man was also unsanitized, which severely rattled Toluca - for what purpose were all these barely-conforming untrained around? The era of unpaid internships and caste systems was long gone. They’d have to schedule an appointment with Shodo.
“...Fine. Your alibi seems alright - our facility truly is a mess, sorry for any discrepancies between me and Shodo’s conflicting statuses. There is one crucial detail left, though. Why did you enter, or rather who instructed you to?” Psalm repositioned their glasses to stare beyond the rims, preparing for him to say what they thought.
“Doctor Shodo,” he replied. Of course it was her. It was always her. “I was instructed to debrief the Patient on how unruly behavior could not be tolerated within the corporation as is customary for us medical staff.”
“Ha-hahaha, you can’t be serious!” They nearly doubled over in uncomfortable laughter that slowly transitioned into a poorly concealed rage. “That is a job for the Sanitization Department. MY Department! MY DEPARTMENT!”
Toluca banged their fist against the wall, almost banging the emergency eye wash station into activation. The metallic clank was insidiously loud. “I’m sorry things ended up like this. This is just one ridiculous discrepancy. But let me just tell you this-”
“Doctor,” Mika quietly yet urgently asked. “I’ve noticed something…”
“Hold on dear. This here is a victim of our insufferable organization among staff,” Theychided with toxic cheeriness. “Dearest employee… what’s your number again?”
“Uh… M-twenty….M-twent-”
“MS-29! I remember,” They nodded along. “See, I had my suspicions that this may all be a fabrication - that you may have lied to me-”
“Doctor.” Mika was absolutely urging now.
“Mika, this is important,” Psalm hushed. “Like I was saying, I felt as if you could be lying - and that may be possible. In that case, you know what you did? You saw a potential health hazard and escape risk and decided to eliminate it, even if it be selfish.”
The employee nodded; Psalm continued. “You did a good thing no matter what. This patient was a damn wretch , wasn’t he? I’m surprised you came out looking rather alright, sans that spare bruise…”
“ DOCTOR! ” Mika stomped in irritation, sick of the weakness of her voice. “Doctor, there is a very plausible chance that this is beyond the fabrication you predict. That does not look like Employee MS-29.”
There was a very real and very noticeable silence as Mika caught her breath. “I saw him MANY times and I can assure you that he was no Inkling. Do you know how rare inklings are?”
“Are you really that ignorant to suggest our company doesn’t see the phenoms in both races? Mika.” He frowned with disappointment - she was doing so well so far.
“I am saying that somehow 29 entered this room and 29 did not leave. And now YOU are here,” she snarled, pointing at what was supposed to be 29 himself. He defensively retracted away. “I don’t know how, but something wrong happened here. I know it, he didn’t even remember his own name.”
“...Mika, check the terminal for a physical description. Maybe I put too much faith in you,” He pondered, staring the employee down. He didn’t believe it much as all the vents in the room were sealed, the door logs in the room were nothing unusual… It was just a murder case, nothing serious.
“Perhaps they have made an error within my documents if you see anything unusual,” The employee coldly replied. “You said it yourself that this place is a mess . I’ve seen it within my own eyes.”
“Shodo is controlling, dear. Shodo is not imprecise - you do not get to share in my criticisms because you are nowhere near where I am.”
Dr. Psalm was not towering or bulky or anything that screamed danger based on appearance alone, it was simply their energies. They slowly stalked towards the employee with delayed steps, so proper and prissy, so laid back with their sweet, awfully sing-songy voice, charged with power and influence. Only now did it become clear that a Syringe Charger was strapped to their back - not even the normal one, one more similar to an E-Liter with a large needle protruding from the tapered-off edge of the gas pump, filled with sanitizer ink sloshing around within a clear vial where the liquid oxygen was supposed to be…
“I truly hope you are not lying to me. There are a lot of places a lie could slip through within this facility in a time like this, and I hope you know I am no fissure to be exploited.” Psalm bore a hole within the Employee’s skull with their piercing eyes. “I hope you know that we are not a moral company. If the stars align, your death may be ensured by pure luck or lack thereof. If no clear explanation is given for this situation, you may as well be marked a safety risk and will be wiped.”
“Okay.” Damn, he’s good. Psalm suppressed a rolling of the eyes in exchange for a shrug and turned to Mika - nearly hovering over her as they operated the computer with a slowness he had never seen in his life.
“Goodness, have you ever used a computer before? What do you see? Hurry up.”
“I am much better at helping people, not helping computers ,” she whined, accidentally entering the staff directory with her clumsy haste. She incidentally refreshes before she clicks the back arrow.
“Thank god we’re getting automated tools integrated into our systems,” he joked lightly before taking control himself to check his documentation. Test Subject 9,523, status: failed, recently sanitized. Click here for their Octarian Dossier. Definitely not clicking - wait, no, Octarian. It doesn’t state his race but it does explicitly state he is an Octarian. Upon photo examination, he is meant to be an Octoling with greenish, slate grey skin due to melanin conflicting with Blended Ink bleaching properties and black, Sanitized Octarian-style eyes with his mostly blue, barely green locs tied back in a messy ponytail. The both of them look back
And he is not there. All that is there is the corpse, the front of its slashed-up face now clear - greenish, slate-grey skin, blue (barely green) locs tied back into a messy ponytail, adorning the typical hospital gown... The door is swinging wide open. That little shit swapped their clothes.
“FUCK!” Dr. Psalm dashes out of the room, lab coat fluttering with unparalleled speed - the run speed up would come into use eventually. A flash of blue and white darted left, which Psalm followed, arming their Syringe E-Liter and clicking it many times over and over in anticipation.
“WE ARE GOING TO KILL YOU. YOU BETTER HOPE ITS ME.” As taught, they charged - the long patient room connector hallway was the perfect choke for tracking down a runaway. As their finger left the trigger, the long stream of ink made no semblance of the piercing snap of a successful shot even despite their perfect aim. The reason was that the little shit dodge rolled. He wasn’t using Dualie Splatanas. It was knives. Psalm agitatedly swam through the trail they made, firing another shot down the left hallway the boy took to catch up. He had no ink other than that stupid curling bomb he kept firing, which was exponentially more ink-hungry, so it was only a matter of time.
They were coming up on the elevator quarters, the signage hanging overhead - another shot was fired to catch up as Ysmael threw up his hand in a signal of no longer having ink. They couldn’t see from this angle if any elevators were closed or open: either way, they yelled.
“ EVERYONE, CLOSE THE FUCKING ELEVATORS! ”
Someone very clearly did not. Ysmael darted into the only open one, already occupied by one of the new Sanitization Department staff, and closed it behind him. They were going up… fuck. Fuck . FUCK. The stairs it was. He’s going to the belly phase. The fucking belly phase - that's where Shodo is. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Considering the two-stop nature of the elevators, upon the press of a button, another one opened. They rushed inside, slamming the belly phase button, and leaned against the wall, clicking their charger over and over and over and over again. It was like practice - practicing how they’d shoot that motherfucker in the back of the head so hard he’d lose his genuine fucking mind. Click-click-click-click-click, the same sound of the ratchets clicking as the cab went on up and up. They were sick of messes in this damn place. They were sick of accidents and reports and paperwork and this insatiable desire to fuck up everything that had been planned. Tartar would kill himself in due time, and yet everyone overstepped the Facility’s boundaries with ridiculous mistakes and comical oversights, everyone acted like he wouldn’t catch wind of his inevitable failure. The test subjects kept and kept failing. The blended ink was running out with no method of reproduction. All these people were too ready for him to die, and sure, it may seem that Dr. Psalm is rooting for the side of evil as their actions all lean towards being a fan of Tartar’s, maybe it meant he was. He wasn’t going to lose his job, though. He wasn’t going to keep letting everything fly under his radar until shit hit the fan. He wasn’t going to let Shodo take his fucking place as he knew she would - he could just feel it in her every essence, her insistence, her perfectness, her utter lack of understanding that fit just within the Kamabo Way - this would not be the final nail in the coffin. The elevator doors opened.
Psalm looked one way and saw absolutely nothing - they snapped their head the other and saw the escapee darting towards the decks surrounding the Sanitization pool. The elevators that reached for the spinal phase were just nearby, thank goodness, it made his catch much, much, easier. They fired a barrage of partial charges to outline a fast path toward him; the distance he’d made during the little elevator stall was minimized by a small margin as he swam with hate replacing the energy that should be running thin by now.
“I CAN SEE YOU EVERYWHERE YOU GO.” This was something of a lie and more of a scare tactic - the hivemind did not come useful to him and he was not skilled enough to perceive a signal as faint as this barely sanitized escapee. As Ysmael rolled into the left elevator and sent it up, Psalm bashed the call button once more to open the one to the right. Ten seconds - somebody was already on the way down.
They shoved the hunter out without remorse and punched the button directed toward the spine. It was only a matter of time before the both of them realized that the Escapee had no clue where he was going. The spinal phase was a funnel of all things: thank the Zapfish for blessing him with such an easy catch. The door opened, and the Escapee had already started for the ink rail. This was just like the rail stations, easy shot. Psalm climbed aboard without hesitation and charged one up.
“ I CAN SEE IT IN YOUR EYES. YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS HEADING. ” No dice: Psalm missed, but that didn’t change the fact that both of them were heading right for what was essentially a boxing cage. They saved their ink for the inevitable.
“ I’ll kill you like the others. ” The plurality within his words would’ve spoken volumes if Psalm listened to non-conforming idiots like him. The Escapee leaped off of the rail, dashing straight towards the furthest side of the elevator railing as Toluca followed with now calm, methodical steps. Every ounce of unsureness had been eradicated from their mind. His fate was surefire.
As the gate closed behind them and the elevator starts, Toluca only laughed. “You’re being rather silly, you realize. You’ve trapped yourself.”
He scoffed with superciliousness. “No. You are-”
“And don’t go on any spiel about how I am actually trapped with you, because I assure you that is not the case,” Toluca giggled without an ounce of seriousness. They checked the amount of Blended Ink left in their gun - for a few shots they forgot to switch between their ink and the Sanitizer’s ink, which was alright - they have plenty of enough left. “I don’t intend to say much. You’ve made it clear that you are going to take this the hard way and I can give that to you just fine.” The escapee did not say anything.
“I commend you for the smarts you have. This is the furthest anyone’s ever gotten to the surface so far! You’ve realized the truth of this place and what we intend to do. We will rob you of your status as a person and then use you - but we no longer have a use for you. I was going to kill you… but. I think you deserve to keep going.”
This day is full of silences as this one is downright incredulous. “Do not look at me like that, escapee,” Psalm cautions, clicking their charger. “I chased you all about these halls. You know how serious I am. It’s just not fun if I kill you right here.”
“Is this all a game to you?” Their voice shook with… was it horror? They didn’t care enough to analyze it much.
“No, it’s not. It’s my job, and as the head of Sanitization, I’d rather you get the hell out of this damn facility than wreak the havoc you’ve already caused once more. Believe it or not, Sanitization is not a full wipe. That is simply not scientifically or medically possible. You will always recover slivers of your old self and connect the dots between them… the connections are always wrong, alas, you understand me. You were simply the wrong pick for this place.” They seemed nearly remorseful, like they never had a hand in who comes in and who comes out. “Let’s go.”
The ladder reached into the great beyond. The spinal phase was illuminated only by fluorescent light - the great skylight in the ceiling showed only darkness. It was night.
When the climb was over, Psalm unhinged the trapdoor-like cover. The ground here was metallic and extremely cold to the touch, typical for the night in this season. Psalm lifted the Escapee up and out onto the dark steel paneling, then lifted themself out onto their feet. The apparent first thing was the skyline of Inkopolis - dark silhouettes breaking against the barely darkened sky, polluted with light - the twinkling lights of the Square and its adjacent skyscrapers stretching into what was no longer infinity from here. The buildings stood tall and proud when you walked like ants among them but now they seemed so minuscule… yet so massive, because both of them knew that they were no longer a part of something so intricate, so much bigger than you could ever conceive. Toluca looked back at the Escapee and the city shone brightly within his eyes like looking into a mirror - perhaps if the eyes were the window to the soul, the Escapee’s soul yearned for home.
“Well? You’re here now. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Dr. Psalm’s eyes showed no reflection. Their eyes had stopped glazing many, many years ago and were as dark as the back of one’s eyelids.
“Yes, I think so. Although I am confused. Why? Why are you doing this?”
“I am doing this because this is a lesson on meddling with things you don’t know the operations of, silly. This is also a lesson of trust and a lesson of making common sense out of what you have. Do you remember how you got here?”
The Escapee furrowed his brows at Psalm. “Huh? The… the Inkopolis Square train station. I was led to the Deepsea Metro from there.”
“So, the Metro is your path from the Surface to my Corporation. That means you went the wrong way,” Toluca chirred cheerily. They pointed out towards the sea with their E-Liter. “What are you going to do now? Call a boat? You went the wrong way, Ysmael .”
Slowly, he turned to look at him with budding rage. “No… you led me here.”
“And you let me, dea-”
In that moment it became clear that his offensiveness was not a scare tactic. Somewhere within the fray, he had procured those Ink Knives everyone spoke of like some crime against humanity and had immediately gone for the right side of his face. The sanitized distortions of Psalm’s voice increased tenfold as that idiot drove the knife within their eye - they couldn’t feel it, only feeling the terror. How far would he go? What if it hit his fucking brain?
Psalm stumbled backward, charging a shot with his left hand only. With only the pure power of adrenaline and supplementary hatred, he lifted the entire weight of that gun and shot Ysmael point-blank in the chest as the other clutched the bleeding remnants of his eye - only red filling its vision. Before he could even get the chance to flee, Toluca dashed forward, digging their heel into Ysmael’s shoe to prevent him from moving as he grabbed his shoulder to spin him around, kicking in the back of his knee to force him down.
“ YOU BASTARD. ” Psalm stomped on his back, forcing all of his weight into his heel then swinging the Syringe E-Liter around to strike him with the full forced swing of its tank. A sole, dead tentacle - what Ysmael had incidentally sliced off in his attack - remained on the ground next to him. “ I WAS GOING TO LET YOU LIVE. ”
While he was pinned, Psalm aimed the needle of his charger directly into the back of his head and stabbed straight through the soft and hard tissue. “ I MIGHT’VE EVEN KILLED YOU IN A MANNER NICER THAN THIS. ” It was one shot and it was over. Right into the hippocampus - he’d lose everything within minutes, and he wouldn’t gain anything for years to come. Grabbing his collar, he raised him up to stare him down within his last, final moments of consciousness from now until the unknown ever after.
“You have officially lost every semblance of yourself. The only thing you have even a sliver of recollection is fragments of memory and your dreams . We no longer sanitize like this because people started forgetting their damn fine motor skills and yet I did it to you because I HATE YOU .” He tried to retort, but his words slurred into slush. This brought a smile to Psalm’s face.
“Do you hear yourself? That is you for the next… I dunno, that’s for you to figure out. Be happy you won’t even remember it if you survive this. ”
Psalm dragged Ysmael towards the edge of the platform of the NILS Statue. With serpentine fingers, they clasped their hands around his neck, dangling his feet over the edge. It wasn’t a far drop, just a damning one… maybe it would feel like that for him. Psalm couldn’t remember back when they got ‘it’, all they remember is the scar and a subtle hinting feeling of being pierced in the back of the mind, not a damn memory, that’s for sure. They used to think they’d never wish that form of loss on another being, but they truly, truly couldn’t care less. It was as if Ysmael was already dead, the way he limply rag-dolled about like one of those ancient shooter games Tartar hangs around the stations. He’d find it hilarious, wouldn’t he? Psalm found it so too, watching him just for a moment before he set his mind on finishing him…
“Goodbye, Ysmael. Maybe the salmonids will rescue you.”
And then, he