"Who are you?" demanded Tess, as the thing-that-was-once-a-man continued his whistling laugh. His head lolled between his shoulders, and his black eyes stared up at her, wide and unblinking. He didn't reply.

"Answer me – what is your name?" said Tess, and she pointed back at Bastet. "Are you one of hers?"

"No, no, no," said the miner. "My name cannae' be said wi' dis tongue." He opened his jaw to let his necrotizing tongue hang out for a moment. It looked like he meant that literally. His words did sound incomplete to Tess. There wasn't any crispness to them. He had trouble controlling his consonants. "Call me..." the miner paused as he cast about for a name, and then his mouth cracked into a grimace...or a smile. "Ben. Dis body's name."

"And what do you plan to do here...Ben?" asked Tess. She adjusted her grip on the shard of hearthbox glass and glanced around for a lighter – a bit of flint – anything to cause a spark. 'Ben's' grin widened even further - enough to split his lip. His whistling laugh turned into a cackle, and his tongue lolled about like a dead slug. Tess felt sick.

"That is not a Host, Tess," growled Bastet. Tess glanced back towards her. The cat's ears were pressed flat against her skull, she was baring her teeth. Her tail was fluffed to twice its size. "The Dweller is merrrrely speaking thrrrrrough this body and is not herrrrre. Do not waste morrrrre time on it. We must leave."

'Ben's' head whipped sideways, and his eyes latched onto Bastet. "Cousin!" he exclaimed, "Join us! Id will be a feas'!"

"You drrrain yourrr subjects so wastefully," spat Bastet. Her voice dripped with distain. "This human's body cannot be morrre than a few days old. Even Fenrir had betterrrr sense than to act like this. You have forrrgotten your purrrpose."

"Purbose! We hab no purbose. We eat!" Ben giggled and wheezed. Tess glanced wildly between Bastet and 'Ben.' What was happening here?

Bastet hissed. "Tess," she said, "put this corrrrpse out of its miserrry. Then, we leave." When Tess hesitated, Bastet flicked her ears in annoyance. "Smash its face in," she instructed. "This 'Ben' does not need to see any morrrre of us."

~~~

As with all places in Heart, this mine had a transport system for intra sub-city travel. However, given how vulnerable the mines were to bloodrot, each one could only connect to one sub-city. This one, luckily enough, connected directly to Heart Central. Bastet really had thought things through when she'd led Tess here.

"Come on, come on!" grumbled Tess. She pounded her fist against the unyielding control board. She and Bastet had hijacked the mine's transport, and Tess had been confident that she could work the controls from the cab up front. After all, she had all the right memories. What she hadn't accounted for, however, was that the mine was already in lockdown.

She slid her right foot back and forth across the cab's cold, hard floor. The stripped skin should have scabbed over by now, but she kept trying to scrub away the icky feeling of smashing 'Ben's' face in as Bastet had instructed. It didn't work. She was just smearing blood across the floor.

"What is wrrrong?" queried Bastet.

Tess tried fiddling with the controls again. She'd managed to get the thing powered up, and soft yellow light filled the tiny metal cab, but that was about it. The control board kept throwing errors, and no matter how many levers and buttons she pushed, nothing happened.

"The mine's in lockdown," she said. "We're going to have to walk the rest of the way. This stupid thing's useless." She kicked the control board's metal frame and yelped, hopping up and down on one bare foot. "Founder's...farts! 'N dark...'n rot!" she squeaked. Bastet, for her part, found a Bug-sized box to hop into beneath the control board, where she watched Tess's antics with catlike amusement.

Bastet flicked her tail. "Can you not overrrrride it?" she asked.

Tess had already hopped over to the exit and was attempting to yank the door open. Still standing on only one foot, she was having no such luck. It took her a moment to remember that there was a button for that. She didn't have to do this manually. Tess let out a puff of air and shook her head. "Nope, I'm pretty useless with this."

"Surrrrely you have memorrrrries for an overrrrride."

Tess threw up her hands. "Look, Bastet, I've got memories from hackers, I've got memories from transport techs, I've got memories from passengers, and I've got memories from the stupid engineers who designed and built this silly piece of junk. There's not supposed to be an override. And even if there is, I've never seen it. There's not an instruction book for this, and just because I've got some smart peoples' memories doesn't mean that I understand how to get creative with getting this thing to work. I'm not smart enough for that." She slumped against the exit door, hugging her Anai shirt close against her chest and blew out another deep breath. "How far is it to Central from here?"

"Forrrrrty-eight hourrrrs by foot," said Bastet.

That was just their luck. Tess's heart sank, and she sighed. "Fine, I'll give it a try, I guess." Tess limped back over to the control panel and leaned her body against it. How did Heart's lockdown on the transports work? How did the transports themselves work? 

She frowned, pawing through her own memories and others. Heart's transports relied on electricity, and they didn't have any kind of self-contained power source. That energy came directly from the rails themselves. The exposed electrical current was the reason why commuters should never hop directly onto the rails – well, that and the danger of being squashed by an oncoming transport. The cab's lights had come on, so the rails must still be hot. Tess drummed her fingers against the control board, thinking. The circuitry that powered the engine was kept separate from the lights, temperature control, comms, etc. There was a center line that dropped down to connect to a third rail, and in an emergency, the transport techs could hit the brakes and raise the center line to turn off the engine. It was all part of the emergency stop system, and it could be done remotely since there was also a hardline that ran with the tracks.

Tess grinned. She couldn't cut the hardline – that'd be too dangerous, and she didn't want to risk it getting tangled up with the transport. But she did have memories about how the transport's internal wiring was set up. All she'd have to do was cut communications with the hardline and then drop the center line again. Easy-peasy.

There was a toolbox in one of the wall-panels that was readily accessible for transport techs. Tess grabbed it and then laid down underneath the control board, next to where Bastet was now washing herself in her box. There was a metal casing that she'd need to remove, and then she'd have full access to the wiring that she needed to cut. She grabbed a screwdriver and went to work. Muscle memory that wasn't hers took over, and once the casing was off, she barely noticed her hand reaching for a pliers or her fingers as they sorted deftly through near-identical wiring, searching for just the right one. 

What had Bastet said back at the miner's lunchroom? That the Dweller who had infected that miner had lost its purpose?

"You cared about the Anai, didn't you? They were your people," she murmured. Bastet didn't answer, but it was true enough. Fenrir had once been jealous of how much the Anai of Hekret'lacroi aun Mraw had adored Bastet and her then Host. They had been viewed as gods among their people. She felt her fingers wrap around the correct wire, and vaguely noticed her right hand pawing around for a clipper.

"Your purpose had been to protect them – give them the means to survive and thrive down here. They were happy to trade you a bit of their life-force – not something that humans are well adapted for – to be able to freely breathe the tunnel air and share thoughts and –"

"Enough," said Bastet, quietly.

Her hand closed over the clipper, and she raised it over her head, fitting it around the wire. She was still muttering, and she barely registered what she was saying.

"When Fenrir showed the Anai how fast the Dwellers could drain them – kill them – he felt powerful because they were scared. You were scared. You locked yourself in that box. You had your own people create it for you so that they would not kill you when they too became afraid."

"Enough," repeated Bastet, louder this time.

She snipped the wire.

"Fenrir laughed at that," she breathed. "You and the other Dwellers were so stupidly proud of yourselves. You thought you were gods. He laughed when you hid yourself away. He laughed when the Anai all died. When your kin were forced to make insects and lower creatures their hosts. When they forgot how to think and became feral. He laughed – argh!"

Sharp claws dug into her scalp, snapping Tess out of the reverie. She rolled away from Bastet, whose teeth were barred, and quickly crawled away to the far corner of the cab.

"Oww! By the Founders, Bastet – that hurt!" Tess held a hand up to her head. It was wet where Bastet had scratched her. When she pulled her fingers away, they were covered in blood – dark blood that was still filled with Fenrir's dead spores.

"You did not listen, human-named-Tess," said Bastet in a matter-of-fact sort of way. Her teeth were no longer barred, and she still sat in her box, once more washing herself as if there had never been a problem. Fair enough. Tess had let herself get carried away. It had been the first time that she had really let herself explore Fenrir's memories without pulling away. Bastet's desire to help keep Heart safe was unnerving, and she'd needed to know more about this Dweller's motives. She wiped her hand across her forehead again, where blood was already dribbling over her eye.

"So...is that why you're here and not with the rest of your Dweller friends? Because you feel guilty?" she asked, "Or are you trying to relive your glory days? You know, pull a 'Fenrir' and make a deal to infect a few humans to 'protect' Heart from all the other Dwellers?"

Bastet tilted her head. A slow grin crossed her face. "Not humans," she said. "Cats."

Tess stared at the Dweller, blinking in confusion. This sounded so, so stupid.

"Really?" she said. "Your bright idea is to infect a bunch of...cats?"

Author's Note:

Hey guys, bit of a longer-than-usual chapter here. I'd gotten stuck on this one for...jeez, about a month - all the way up until a few days ago. There's a few story mechanics that still have to get smoothed out, but overall, I'm pretty happy to have finally gotten this written! I'd love some feedback on this to get your ideas of what is/isn't working here. Thanks for reading :)