Chapter 14
“I really don’t know how to thank you enough, mes amis.” The creature dropped from the ceiling. The men hardly had time to notice that its spindly rear legs had snapped the thick support threads, before the whole web dropped like a net. “Disposing of zat annoying Medic on our team, who dared to ruin my fun vis your Scout...”
Ignoring all concerns about his suit, Spy tried to pull the sticky webbing off Sniper as he desperately reached forward for help, but his team-mate’s cry was silenced as the web smothered him completely. The substance hardened within seconds, losing its greasy sheen, making an ugly black statue of what was once a man. Turning on the creature, Spy pulled out his Ambassador and fired. But the weapon changed as soon as he pulled the trigger, flowing between his fingers like molasses and falling uselessly to the floor. Drawing his knife as the monster approached, the diamond-shaped blade reared up at him, the point opening up to hiss at him angrily. He threw the thing away, staring in disbelief as the silver scaled snake slithered away, dragging the balisong’s foldable handle behind it like some kind of clattering rattle.
“But why waste time frightening a poor, ‘elpless leetle bunny when I can take on a truly worthy opponent?” The BLU simply laughed at Spy’s confusion as its arachnid body melted into a formless mass of tar. Dripping claws brought a single cigarette to a mouth full of jagged teeth, and with a sound like a blocked drain, it took a long drag.
Spy took a step backwards as his enemy exhaled a thick, fog-like smoke. And immediately he froze in place, suddenly aware of the nothingness behind him. Merde. This couldn’t be real, he knew that much. Nothing could be so powerful as to bend and change reality to its own will. He was being drugged, or hypnotised, just like Medic. But whatever this creature’s mind-tricks were, he was already in too deep. He took a quick glance down to make sure, but he could feel the gaping chasm just inches away, sucking in every bit of heat, a small pebble echoing as it bounced off its walls. It couldn’t possibly exist, and yet every one of his senses was telling him it did. He frantically tried to recall the yellowed pages of the Gentlemanne’s Guide to Surviving Capture and Interrogation, specifically the part on torture. Make a safe place in your mind, retreat into a fantasy or a fond memory, just go there...
The world shattered around him. For a few moments, Spy was suspended in a void of endless white. But the pieces gradually came back together, a solid floor materialising beneath him, his gloved fingers finding dew-covered grass as he landed with cat-like agility. And plank by plank, brick by brick, the slanted roof and shuttered windows of his childhood home materialised in front of him like an explosion in reverse. He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. He didn’t know if that monster’s influence would eventually catch up with him, or if it would get bored searching for this little enclosed area of his mind. But for now, it was a perfect Summer’s day on his little island of familiarity, his safe place, unchanging and incorruptible. Mama’s flowerbeds were in full bloom, the blossoms gently nodding in the breeze. If he listened closely, he could hear her in the kitchen, humming as she cooked lunch.
He frowned, pushing the door cautiously open with a fingertip. The place was just like he remembered, from the white-painted cabinets to the ever-present vase of flowers on the table, to the smell of his mother’s apple tart. Even with her back turned to him, he could see she was as young and beautiful as when he was a child. And always, always busy. Her home-made pastries provided a much-needed boost to their meagre income. He casually picked up a butter knife, catching a brief flicker of something out of place before his reflection appeared in the metal. Ultimately, it was one’s experiences, one’s memories that defined oneself. Playing alone in the house and in the garden, he’d grown up with little need for emotional attachments, a healthy imagination, and an incredible eye for detail. Taking aim, he threw the knife at the back of his mother’s head.
The blade embedded itself in her skull with a dull ‘thunk’, sticking rigidly out from her caramel-coloured locks. The Gentlemanne’s Guide put great emphasis on being alone in your safe place. Your own memories and perceptions could easily be turned against you, unless you completely isolated yourself. Thick black blood began to ooze from the BLU Spy’s wound, its head twisting round to face him. “How dare you do that to your own MOTHER!”
His foe transformed quickly, its face stretching and morphing into a curved beak, his mother’s dress forming tattered wings. Painted nails curled into talons as the creature leaped at him. Spy threw himself to the floor, and his mother’s china shattered as his monstrous counterpart plunged straight into an ornate wooden cabinet. He picked up the same tiny chair he’d sat in years ago, but felt its weight change in his hands, becoming light, flimsy cardboard as soon as he brought it down onto the BLU Spy’s head. How can this be happening? was all he could think as he reached for the hatstand, only for his hand to collide with a hanging sheet. Moments ago it’d been real, but now it was just a painting on a stage background. All around him, furniture was suddenly cardboard and plywood. All false. All useless.
Spy angrily tore down the fabric in front of him; this was supposed to be his world, he was supposed to have the upper hand! He immediately turned on the BLU Spy, still bent over in the broken remains of the china cabinet, chuckling to itself. His hands tightened around its neck as he furiously dragged it to its feet.
“Fils de salope-!” he growled as he found himself looking into a pair of button eyes and a stitched-on mouth. The low chuckling rose to an insane cackle as he dropped the straw-filled decoy, and looked around for his real opponent. “Come out and let us settle thees like gentlemen, you cowardly disgrace of a Spy!”
“What’s ze matter, Moinseur Rouge... ? Does ze truth hurt?” The BLU Spy materialised from the shadows like the Cheshire Cat, grinning as he opened a leather-bound book. “Eet ees razzer impressive, zis web of lies you ‘ave created. Not a seengle soul would ever theenk zat ze mysterious Frenchman is Swiss. Ze land of efficient watches and offshore banking never was zat romantic.”
Spy felt his blood boil as he watched the monster pause, to lick its thumb and turn the page. How could it possibly know-!?
“You were a student in Paris, and began to live a double life as an infamous art thief, for nozzing more zan ze excitement... ‘ow pathetic. You learned to change your identity and resist interrogation in case you were ever caught. Not surprisingly, you were. And when you stole from a certain Administrator’s private collection, you chose to join RED instead of facing your punishment like a man.” The book snapped shut, and the creature smirked horribly. “A common thief wizzout a seengle hour of formal training in ze art of espionage, and yet you call me a disgrace? Oh Moinseur Rouge... what would everyone theenk, if they knew your entire existence was simply a performance?”
The BLU Spy rolled around in hysterical laughter, clutching its sides, taking wheezing breaths between snorts. The curtain was rising on their performance, revealing an audience of shadowy figures. They twisted as Spy looked at them, becoming his parents, his old friends, even his team-mates. All of them looking at him in a mixture of disgust and pity. Spy clutched his head as all those eyes drilled into him, and scores of horrible thoughts and possibilities suddenly invaded his mind. They know. They know you’re a liar, they know you’re a thief and a scoundrel and a fake. Your life wasn’t good enough so you had to invent one, and now they know, they all know...
“So many painful memories, so many lies, all on deesplay for everyone to see... if I only I could ‘elp you, mon ami... per’aps lighten ze load a little...” The creature giggled, hiding its grin behind clawed fingers as it saw Spy’s pained expression. Casually, it tossed the book it had been reading into the fireplace, the title ‘Memories: 1964-Present’ quickly consumed by the flames. “...Ah, doesn’t zat feel so much better... ?”
A strange feeling overcame Spy, and he found himself desperately searching the first few rows of the audience, as the figures started to fade. There had been eight men there, with front-row seats to their unfolding drama. Eight men he knew. Eight men who were important somehow. But their names and faces were slowly consumed by flames as the book burned, the memories crumbling away like burned paper as his mind reached for them. That thing was making him forget... not just the web of lies he’d spun, but everything...
The monster chuckled, another book materialising in its hand, another book thrown to the flames. Oh god. He could feel the years slipping away from him. His suit looked comically large on his suddenly teen-aged body, and as his memories and experiences were undone, so was he. Another book burned. His world shook around him, cracks appearing in walls and ceilings as his mind started to come apart. And he shrank even further as he ran forward, a teenager now just a child tripping over adult-sized clothes. More than two decades of his life had simply ceased to exist. Desperately, Spy clawed his way out of his suit. He had to stop this, before there was nothing left... but he emerged just in time to see more memories go up in flames.
More violent tremors shook his inner world, sending the mirror above the fireplace crashing to the floor. Memories make you who you are, he thought, picking up a mirror shard in his stubby fingers and looking at his face. He’d been reduced to nothing but his earliest memories, his body no more than 4 years old, his shirt now looking more like a nightgown. One last book - that he suddenly found himself gripping close to his chest - was all that stood between him and complete non-existence. With so little to hold it together, his safe place was rotting away around him, and there was nothing he could do to fight it. The monster’s jaws were opening wide, the yawning chasm ready to consume him completely. Tears welled up in his eyes, his tiny body wracked with sobs.
...Mama...
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“I really don’t know how to thank you enough, mes amis.” The creature dropped from the ceiling. The men hardly had time to notice that its spindly rear legs had snapped the thick support threads, before the whole web dropped like a net. “Disposing of zat annoying Medic on our team, who dared to ruin my fun vis your Scout...”
Sniper reached out, trying to pull Spy out of the way. But the whole thing had already landed on top of the man, hardening just as he pulled out his Ambassador. He pulled out his Shiv; “Alroight, come on then! I’ve killed bigger spiders with a rolled-up newspaper than the loiks of-” he stopped mid-sentence. His Shiv was flailing around in his hand, a knot in the wood trying to be an eye, the blade morphing into serrated jaws. He tightened his grip, determined to fight against the living wood... but there was no life in it. The wood was dead, it’d been dead since it was cut from the tree. It couldn’t be moving unless he fed life into it, and yet he could feel it wriggling around in his grip. As he dropped it, it turned into an ugly, saw-toothed fish... still made of wood, with a handle instead of a tail...
“But why waste time frightening a poor, ‘elpless leetle bunny when I can take on a truly worthy opponent?” It laughed, its arachnid body melting into a formless mass of tar. Sniper closed his eyes for a moment. And like spreading branches, his extra senses reached out all around him, feeling the potential for growth. Shutting out the searing white noise from the wooden planks all around him, he focused on the pinpricks of light from the tiniest things, sweeping like galaxies under his feet, forming constellations above ground. Seeds stuck to the bottom of pointed shoes. Sawdust had settled on a set of broad shoulders. And splinters of wood, probably the shrapnel from a missed Scattergun shot, clung to shirt sleeves and jacket lapels, peppering a very distinctive balaclava. The BLU Spy, standing exactly where that monstrous spider was.
With a sound like a blocked drain, the illusion took a drag of its cigarette. Its whole body dissolved into thick smoke, and the world changed.
Walls and floorboards tore themselves free, breaking apart, the pieces floating away as they vanished into thin air. Patches of red dirt blossomed beneath his feet, spreading like giant bloodstains. And above his head, the sun rose to the top of the sky, turning the air stiflingly hot. Sniper wiped the sweat gathering on his forehead; if he closed his eyes, he could feel that everything around him was still the same... so that was it. That was the Spy’s game; he got deep inside your head, changing everything your senses told you. And as he looked at himself, he realised that bastard was even changing him. No matter how much he tried to fight it, he just kept getting shorter and scrawnier, until...
Oh, Christ. He was a kid again, and on the playground no less. He could already hear the taunts of his childhood bullies. Old nightmares crawled out of the depths of his mind, twisting themselves into the shapes of his former classmates, and their taunts of ‘cripple’ and ‘half-breed’, but... no. Sniper closed his eyes, and smiled; No. His palm closed around something that wasn’t there before, something he alone had willed into existence. He wasn’t a bloody kid. Not any more. This part of his life was long since over. He’d spent years wandering the desert in his dreams, and slowly he’d grown to understand. It was his mind that made things real. Whether it was creating a sense of self-worth, or the seed he now held in the palm of his hand, only he controlled his perception of reality. In the past, he’d been content to let his imagination decay, leaving his inner world to become a desolate wasteland.
But that was changing. And he could feel the change through him like electricity, the illusion of a body the Spy had spun around him becoming little more than an empty shell. His fingers reached forward and dug into his former chest from the inside, stretching and tearing at the restrictive skin until he could finally take his first breath. The human-shaped cocoon was left behind as he emerged, stepping out onto the purple sand. The fluid covering his bare skin slowly cooling in the twilight air, Sniper could see things clearly now. His classmates has returned to formless nightmares, their strings pulled by a distant puppeteer. Slowly, they closed in around him, but he held his ground. His fingers toyed with the seed he’d created. Psychedelic flowers forced their way out of the desert soil.
And finally, he dropped it, a gigantic tree shooting into the starry sky and taking him along for the ride. The shadows gave chase, spiralling around the trunk like a plague of locusts, stripping it down to the bare wood. A thick branch twisted in front of Sniper, its growth keeping pace with his barefooted steps as he turned left and right. Where are you, ya bloody spook? he thought, a flurry of brambles tearing apart his pursuers. More of them were coming at him, fanged mouths parroting his father’s lamentations at having a cripple for a son. But an odd-looking fruit shaped itself into a steel blade as he grabbed it, and the new Kukri sliced through them with ease.
The BLU Spy had to be getting desperate. It was digging deeper, trying to find something that’d get to him, even picking up old snippets of overheard conversation. A shadow Scout floated up next to him - “I dunno man, he just doesn’t look like one... ain’t Australians supposed to be all buff an’ manly an’ shit?” - and his Kukri made quick work of it. Fragments of the illusion fell away like dust motes, and slowly re-formed themselves into the familiar shape of the enemy Spy, running away from him. It took hardly a thought to bring trees springing up from the sand, an impenetrable wall surrounding his enemy as they twisted together.
“What’s the matter, mate? I thought you said you wanted a worthy opponent.” Sniper smirked; the trees parted to let him in, and sealed the entrance behind him. A single branch extended, his hat hanging on the end of it, and he put it on without a word as he watched his opponent’s struggles. The BLU Spy frantically clawed at its prison, its shape changing fluidly as Sniper thwarted every attempt at escape. A menagerie of various limbs helped it grapple its way to the roof of the prison, only to be stopped by sword-like thorns and enclosing branches. Trying to squeeze its body though cracks proved equally fruitless; Sniper had the invader completely trapped.
Finally, the weakened Spy dropped heavily to the floor. It took wheezing breaths through sharpened teeth, its pinprick eyes glaring at Sniper as it snarled; “You theenk you’re so good, don’t you!? Trapping me ‘ere, like an animal... if ‘alf of me wasn’t busy fucking around weeth your leetle friend, you would be nothing more zan a mindless cabbage!”
“Wot?” Sniper glared down at the BLU, who just giggled insanely at its own stupid plant joke. A pair of vines twisted around his enemy’s neck, tightening their grip as he tightened his fist in anger. “I don’t know how you can have your filthy fingers in Spy’s mind as well, but you’ll bloody well get out. Now.”
“A good magician never reveals his secrets...” The creature grinned, melting out of the vines’ death-grip and re-forming itself a few feet away. It waved one scrawny arm, and Sniper was suddenly looking through a floating screen. It was slightly curved like the surface of a bubble, and the scene within looked far too real to be just another trick. It was more like a window into a world he didn’t recognise... until he saw Spy. “But zees time, I weel make an exception, mon ami.”
Sniper stared, transfixed, as his team-mate’s nightmare unfolded in front of him. The house in the countryside was very different from his own desert-like mindscape, but it seemed the BLU Spy was trying the same trick in a different mind. Without the extrasensory anchor on reality that he had, the little flickers of plant life telling him all three of their bodies were standing perfectly still, Spy had no way to fight back. He was completely isolated from anything but his own mind. And it was his own mind that was corrupting his memories, making his inner self shrink away until nothing but a pile of clothes remained...
“Quite the show, isn’t eet?” The BLU Spy smirked, suddenly appearing next to Sniper as his gut twisted uneasily. That couldn’t be it, could it? Spy always found a way to weasel his way out of things... “Eet would be so easy to bring ze full force of my wonderous gifts down upon ‘is pathetic leetle mind. Like useeng a sledge ‘ammer to crack an egg.”
“Not if I ‘ave anythin’ to say about it. OI, SPY!” Sniper pressed his hands to the thin barrier that separated their minds. The pile of clothes moved as a young child struggled to free themselves, and he thumped his fists against the rippling surface, doing everything he could to get his team-mate’s attention. The BLU hissed furiously, inhuman appendages trying to pull him away as a look of realisation came over Spy’s face.
Sniper waved his arm. Twisted saplings exploded from the sand, wrapping themselves around the creature’s randomly shapeshifting body and pinning it to the ground. He wasn’t sure if Spy could hear him as he squinted into the fire, but he shouted nonetheless; “Come on! Yer a bloody spy! You can see he’s just playin’ yer own mind against itself!”
Spy braced himself, and plunged both hands into the fire. The other half of the BLU Spy finally caught on, his arm stretching to swipe at the child, but he’d caught on too late. Spy had already plunged his hands into the ‘fire’, only to find it was just fluttering strips of red and yellow paper. He’d retrieved the books, his memories intact but out of reach the entire time. He was an adult again, angry and fully armed, pressing the barrel of his Ambassador to his BLU counterpart’s head.
Then everything happened far too quickly. Acting as one mind again, both BLU Spies panicked, slithering out of their former victims’ grasps and diving straight into the translucent barrier. Their hands touched first as they tried to re-unite themselves, a last-ditch attempt to escape. And everything went horribly, horribly wrong.
Like a dam bursting, their mindscapes flowed into each other, creating twisted hybrids of plants and furniture. Below were varnished planks of sand, and patches of twilight desert scarred with wood grain. Above was a broken patchwork of starry sky and painted ceiling. The two worlds spiralled around each other chaotically to the sound of screaming, but he couldn’t tell if they was his screams or Spy’s. As soon as the barrier broke down, their thoughts, their memories, their selves had met in a violent head-on collision.
The result was almost beyond comprehension; inside their merging minds, their bodies were becoming one, muscle and bone exposed and bleeding as flesh melted into flesh. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t even think about stopping it, he was thinking thoughts that were only half his. He felt Spy’s heart beating right next to his own, two stomachs heaving as they saw the world through four eyes. Conflicting memories writhed like mating snakes, people and places changing, sounds and smells flowing together. Their fears and aspirations smashed uncontrollably into each other.
Even the slightest thought shattered under the incredible stress, but one single thing emerged from their clashing minds; they couldn’t possibly survive this. Whatever would be left in the aftermath wouldn’t be Sniper or Spy, but some insane, twisted, pathetic creatures. Both of them too unstable to live, or just driven utterly mad by their own scrambled brains...
Everything stopped.
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The BLU Spy crumpled, a look of complete shock crossing his face before it collided with the concrete.
“An’ tha’s whut ya get fer toochin’ that!”
Demo glared at the man, giving him a good hard kick. His head still felt like it was full of cotton balls, thanks to that bloody Medic and his drugged orange drink. The Doc had tried to keep him quiet because he didn’t want to know the truth, but he’d been determined to find that thing that was lurking in every dark place, and bash its ugly head in. And if the BLU Spy got in the way of his pursuit, and tried to capture their bloody point... well, it was nothing a scrumpy bottle to the kneecaps couldn’t fix.
“Ugh... wha’...” Demo groaned and clutched his head; he’d been fighting off the after-effects of the sedative as he dragged himself out of their barracks and into the main part of the base. Now that feeling of tiredness and nausea was back with a vengeance, and had brought a terrible ringing in his ears along with it. He could hear his own heart pounding. His vision started to blur, the dim lights above his head suddenly blindingly bright and yet so much further away. Everything seemed much further away, too far away...
Two gunshots rang out somewhere in the distance, and he watched as the bodies of Spy and Sniper fell, slowly sinking through molasses-thick air. The BLU Spy’s body flowed as he moved, pieces breaking off and re-forming like a lava lamp. Is it you... who’s been watchin’ all of us... ? Demo thought vaguely as the Spy approached; the creature’s face was just a series of shifting ink blobs, but he was sure it was grinning at him. He could feel its shadowy fingers curiously probing the edges of his mind, gently worming their way in until they found something interesting. Something very interesting, he felt the creature think.
Demo’s breath caught in his throat. That was what it was looking for? He’d never really thought about it before, but now that he was aware of it, he could see it much more clearly in his mind. Something like a door... a door inside his head, reinforced and locked tight. And the Spy was standing right in front of it, examining every inch like some kind of priceless treasure, until it suddenly jammed a corkscrew-shaped claw into the lock. At that moment, a terrible realisation hit, seeping out from edges of the door like smoke.
Oh god. That was what it was for. It wasn’t locked to keep intruders out; it was locked to keep something in. Something his mind had tried to shut away for its own safety. Something wild and terrible that had appeared shortly after the Nucleus Incident. Even an overactive imagination and the twisted logic of a Scrumpy-poisoned mind hadn’t been able to handle it. His own mind had shut it away for its own safety. As the BLU Spy forced its way past his defences, it was starting to leak out.
There was nothing he could do to stop it. The power completely overwhelmed him. There was no time to scream, or even to think. His body and mind unable to contain it, the sudden release of energy escaped any way it possibly could. Rushing out of him like lightning, and grounding itself in the nearest possible conductor; the BLU Spy, one finger still in the lock.
Distantly, Demo felt his body hit the floor. Then, nothing.
“I really don’t know how to thank you enough, mes amis.” The creature dropped from the ceiling. The men hardly had time to notice that its spindly rear legs had snapped the thick support threads, before the whole web dropped like a net. “Disposing of zat annoying Medic on our team, who dared to ruin my fun vis your Scout...”
Ignoring all concerns about his suit, Spy tried to pull the sticky webbing off Sniper as he desperately reached forward for help, but his team-mate’s cry was silenced as the web smothered him completely. The substance hardened within seconds, losing its greasy sheen, making an ugly black statue of what was once a man. Turning on the creature, Spy pulled out his Ambassador and fired. But the weapon changed as soon as he pulled the trigger, flowing between his fingers like molasses and falling uselessly to the floor. Drawing his knife as the monster approached, the diamond-shaped blade reared up at him, the point opening up to hiss at him angrily. He threw the thing away, staring in disbelief as the silver scaled snake slithered away, dragging the balisong’s foldable handle behind it like some kind of clattering rattle.
“But why waste time frightening a poor, ‘elpless leetle bunny when I can take on a truly worthy opponent?” The BLU simply laughed at Spy’s confusion as its arachnid body melted into a formless mass of tar. Dripping claws brought a single cigarette to a mouth full of jagged teeth, and with a sound like a blocked drain, it took a long drag.
Spy took a step backwards as his enemy exhaled a thick, fog-like smoke. And immediately he froze in place, suddenly aware of the nothingness behind him. Merde. This couldn’t be real, he knew that much. Nothing could be so powerful as to bend and change reality to its own will. He was being drugged, or hypnotised, just like Medic. But whatever this creature’s mind-tricks were, he was already in too deep. He took a quick glance down to make sure, but he could feel the gaping chasm just inches away, sucking in every bit of heat, a small pebble echoing as it bounced off its walls. It couldn’t possibly exist, and yet every one of his senses was telling him it did. He frantically tried to recall the yellowed pages of the Gentlemanne’s Guide to Surviving Capture and Interrogation, specifically the part on torture. Make a safe place in your mind, retreat into a fantasy or a fond memory, just go there...
The world shattered around him. For a few moments, Spy was suspended in a void of endless white. But the pieces gradually came back together, a solid floor materialising beneath him, his gloved fingers finding dew-covered grass as he landed with cat-like agility. And plank by plank, brick by brick, the slanted roof and shuttered windows of his childhood home materialised in front of him like an explosion in reverse. He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. He didn’t know if that monster’s influence would eventually catch up with him, or if it would get bored searching for this little enclosed area of his mind. But for now, it was a perfect Summer’s day on his little island of familiarity, his safe place, unchanging and incorruptible. Mama’s flowerbeds were in full bloom, the blossoms gently nodding in the breeze. If he listened closely, he could hear her in the kitchen, humming as she cooked lunch.
He frowned, pushing the door cautiously open with a fingertip. The place was just like he remembered, from the white-painted cabinets to the ever-present vase of flowers on the table, to the smell of his mother’s apple tart. Even with her back turned to him, he could see she was as young and beautiful as when he was a child. And always, always busy. Her home-made pastries provided a much-needed boost to their meagre income. He casually picked up a butter knife, catching a brief flicker of something out of place before his reflection appeared in the metal. Ultimately, it was one’s experiences, one’s memories that defined oneself. Playing alone in the house and in the garden, he’d grown up with little need for emotional attachments, a healthy imagination, and an incredible eye for detail. Taking aim, he threw the knife at the back of his mother’s head.
The blade embedded itself in her skull with a dull ‘thunk’, sticking rigidly out from her caramel-coloured locks. The Gentlemanne’s Guide put great emphasis on being alone in your safe place. Your own memories and perceptions could easily be turned against you, unless you completely isolated yourself. Thick black blood began to ooze from the BLU Spy’s wound, its head twisting round to face him. “How dare you do that to your own MOTHER!”
His foe transformed quickly, its face stretching and morphing into a curved beak, his mother’s dress forming tattered wings. Painted nails curled into talons as the creature leaped at him. Spy threw himself to the floor, and his mother’s china shattered as his monstrous counterpart plunged straight into an ornate wooden cabinet. He picked up the same tiny chair he’d sat in years ago, but felt its weight change in his hands, becoming light, flimsy cardboard as soon as he brought it down onto the BLU Spy’s head. How can this be happening? was all he could think as he reached for the hatstand, only for his hand to collide with a hanging sheet. Moments ago it’d been real, but now it was just a painting on a stage background. All around him, furniture was suddenly cardboard and plywood. All false. All useless.
Spy angrily tore down the fabric in front of him; this was supposed to be his world, he was supposed to have the upper hand! He immediately turned on the BLU Spy, still bent over in the broken remains of the china cabinet, chuckling to itself. His hands tightened around its neck as he furiously dragged it to its feet.
“Fils de salope-!” he growled as he found himself looking into a pair of button eyes and a stitched-on mouth. The low chuckling rose to an insane cackle as he dropped the straw-filled decoy, and looked around for his real opponent. “Come out and let us settle thees like gentlemen, you cowardly disgrace of a Spy!”
“What’s ze matter, Moinseur Rouge... ? Does ze truth hurt?” The BLU Spy materialised from the shadows like the Cheshire Cat, grinning as he opened a leather-bound book. “Eet ees razzer impressive, zis web of lies you ‘ave created. Not a seengle soul would ever theenk zat ze mysterious Frenchman is Swiss. Ze land of efficient watches and offshore banking never was zat romantic.”
Spy felt his blood boil as he watched the monster pause, to lick its thumb and turn the page. How could it possibly know-!?
“You were a student in Paris, and began to live a double life as an infamous art thief, for nozzing more zan ze excitement... ‘ow pathetic. You learned to change your identity and resist interrogation in case you were ever caught. Not surprisingly, you were. And when you stole from a certain Administrator’s private collection, you chose to join RED instead of facing your punishment like a man.” The book snapped shut, and the creature smirked horribly. “A common thief wizzout a seengle hour of formal training in ze art of espionage, and yet you call me a disgrace? Oh Moinseur Rouge... what would everyone theenk, if they knew your entire existence was simply a performance?”
The BLU Spy rolled around in hysterical laughter, clutching its sides, taking wheezing breaths between snorts. The curtain was rising on their performance, revealing an audience of shadowy figures. They twisted as Spy looked at them, becoming his parents, his old friends, even his team-mates. All of them looking at him in a mixture of disgust and pity. Spy clutched his head as all those eyes drilled into him, and scores of horrible thoughts and possibilities suddenly invaded his mind. They know. They know you’re a liar, they know you’re a thief and a scoundrel and a fake. Your life wasn’t good enough so you had to invent one, and now they know, they all know...
“So many painful memories, so many lies, all on deesplay for everyone to see... if I only I could ‘elp you, mon ami... per’aps lighten ze load a little...” The creature giggled, hiding its grin behind clawed fingers as it saw Spy’s pained expression. Casually, it tossed the book it had been reading into the fireplace, the title ‘Memories: 1964-Present’ quickly consumed by the flames. “...Ah, doesn’t zat feel so much better... ?”
A strange feeling overcame Spy, and he found himself desperately searching the first few rows of the audience, as the figures started to fade. There had been eight men there, with front-row seats to their unfolding drama. Eight men he knew. Eight men who were important somehow. But their names and faces were slowly consumed by flames as the book burned, the memories crumbling away like burned paper as his mind reached for them. That thing was making him forget... not just the web of lies he’d spun, but everything...
The monster chuckled, another book materialising in its hand, another book thrown to the flames. Oh god. He could feel the years slipping away from him. His suit looked comically large on his suddenly teen-aged body, and as his memories and experiences were undone, so was he. Another book burned. His world shook around him, cracks appearing in walls and ceilings as his mind started to come apart. And he shrank even further as he ran forward, a teenager now just a child tripping over adult-sized clothes. More than two decades of his life had simply ceased to exist. Desperately, Spy clawed his way out of his suit. He had to stop this, before there was nothing left... but he emerged just in time to see more memories go up in flames.
More violent tremors shook his inner world, sending the mirror above the fireplace crashing to the floor. Memories make you who you are, he thought, picking up a mirror shard in his stubby fingers and looking at his face. He’d been reduced to nothing but his earliest memories, his body no more than 4 years old, his shirt now looking more like a nightgown. One last book - that he suddenly found himself gripping close to his chest - was all that stood between him and complete non-existence. With so little to hold it together, his safe place was rotting away around him, and there was nothing he could do to fight it. The monster’s jaws were opening wide, the yawning chasm ready to consume him completely. Tears welled up in his eyes, his tiny body wracked with sobs.
...Mama...
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“I really don’t know how to thank you enough, mes amis.” The creature dropped from the ceiling. The men hardly had time to notice that its spindly rear legs had snapped the thick support threads, before the whole web dropped like a net. “Disposing of zat annoying Medic on our team, who dared to ruin my fun vis your Scout...”
Sniper reached out, trying to pull Spy out of the way. But the whole thing had already landed on top of the man, hardening just as he pulled out his Ambassador. He pulled out his Shiv; “Alroight, come on then! I’ve killed bigger spiders with a rolled-up newspaper than the loiks of-” he stopped mid-sentence. His Shiv was flailing around in his hand, a knot in the wood trying to be an eye, the blade morphing into serrated jaws. He tightened his grip, determined to fight against the living wood... but there was no life in it. The wood was dead, it’d been dead since it was cut from the tree. It couldn’t be moving unless he fed life into it, and yet he could feel it wriggling around in his grip. As he dropped it, it turned into an ugly, saw-toothed fish... still made of wood, with a handle instead of a tail...
“But why waste time frightening a poor, ‘elpless leetle bunny when I can take on a truly worthy opponent?” It laughed, its arachnid body melting into a formless mass of tar. Sniper closed his eyes for a moment. And like spreading branches, his extra senses reached out all around him, feeling the potential for growth. Shutting out the searing white noise from the wooden planks all around him, he focused on the pinpricks of light from the tiniest things, sweeping like galaxies under his feet, forming constellations above ground. Seeds stuck to the bottom of pointed shoes. Sawdust had settled on a set of broad shoulders. And splinters of wood, probably the shrapnel from a missed Scattergun shot, clung to shirt sleeves and jacket lapels, peppering a very distinctive balaclava. The BLU Spy, standing exactly where that monstrous spider was.
With a sound like a blocked drain, the illusion took a drag of its cigarette. Its whole body dissolved into thick smoke, and the world changed.
Walls and floorboards tore themselves free, breaking apart, the pieces floating away as they vanished into thin air. Patches of red dirt blossomed beneath his feet, spreading like giant bloodstains. And above his head, the sun rose to the top of the sky, turning the air stiflingly hot. Sniper wiped the sweat gathering on his forehead; if he closed his eyes, he could feel that everything around him was still the same... so that was it. That was the Spy’s game; he got deep inside your head, changing everything your senses told you. And as he looked at himself, he realised that bastard was even changing him. No matter how much he tried to fight it, he just kept getting shorter and scrawnier, until...
Oh, Christ. He was a kid again, and on the playground no less. He could already hear the taunts of his childhood bullies. Old nightmares crawled out of the depths of his mind, twisting themselves into the shapes of his former classmates, and their taunts of ‘cripple’ and ‘half-breed’, but... no. Sniper closed his eyes, and smiled; No. His palm closed around something that wasn’t there before, something he alone had willed into existence. He wasn’t a bloody kid. Not any more. This part of his life was long since over. He’d spent years wandering the desert in his dreams, and slowly he’d grown to understand. It was his mind that made things real. Whether it was creating a sense of self-worth, or the seed he now held in the palm of his hand, only he controlled his perception of reality. In the past, he’d been content to let his imagination decay, leaving his inner world to become a desolate wasteland.
But that was changing. And he could feel the change through him like electricity, the illusion of a body the Spy had spun around him becoming little more than an empty shell. His fingers reached forward and dug into his former chest from the inside, stretching and tearing at the restrictive skin until he could finally take his first breath. The human-shaped cocoon was left behind as he emerged, stepping out onto the purple sand. The fluid covering his bare skin slowly cooling in the twilight air, Sniper could see things clearly now. His classmates has returned to formless nightmares, their strings pulled by a distant puppeteer. Slowly, they closed in around him, but he held his ground. His fingers toyed with the seed he’d created. Psychedelic flowers forced their way out of the desert soil.
And finally, he dropped it, a gigantic tree shooting into the starry sky and taking him along for the ride. The shadows gave chase, spiralling around the trunk like a plague of locusts, stripping it down to the bare wood. A thick branch twisted in front of Sniper, its growth keeping pace with his barefooted steps as he turned left and right. Where are you, ya bloody spook? he thought, a flurry of brambles tearing apart his pursuers. More of them were coming at him, fanged mouths parroting his father’s lamentations at having a cripple for a son. But an odd-looking fruit shaped itself into a steel blade as he grabbed it, and the new Kukri sliced through them with ease.
The BLU Spy had to be getting desperate. It was digging deeper, trying to find something that’d get to him, even picking up old snippets of overheard conversation. A shadow Scout floated up next to him - “I dunno man, he just doesn’t look like one... ain’t Australians supposed to be all buff an’ manly an’ shit?” - and his Kukri made quick work of it. Fragments of the illusion fell away like dust motes, and slowly re-formed themselves into the familiar shape of the enemy Spy, running away from him. It took hardly a thought to bring trees springing up from the sand, an impenetrable wall surrounding his enemy as they twisted together.
“What’s the matter, mate? I thought you said you wanted a worthy opponent.” Sniper smirked; the trees parted to let him in, and sealed the entrance behind him. A single branch extended, his hat hanging on the end of it, and he put it on without a word as he watched his opponent’s struggles. The BLU Spy frantically clawed at its prison, its shape changing fluidly as Sniper thwarted every attempt at escape. A menagerie of various limbs helped it grapple its way to the roof of the prison, only to be stopped by sword-like thorns and enclosing branches. Trying to squeeze its body though cracks proved equally fruitless; Sniper had the invader completely trapped.
Finally, the weakened Spy dropped heavily to the floor. It took wheezing breaths through sharpened teeth, its pinprick eyes glaring at Sniper as it snarled; “You theenk you’re so good, don’t you!? Trapping me ‘ere, like an animal... if ‘alf of me wasn’t busy fucking around weeth your leetle friend, you would be nothing more zan a mindless cabbage!”
“Wot?” Sniper glared down at the BLU, who just giggled insanely at its own stupid plant joke. A pair of vines twisted around his enemy’s neck, tightening their grip as he tightened his fist in anger. “I don’t know how you can have your filthy fingers in Spy’s mind as well, but you’ll bloody well get out. Now.”
“A good magician never reveals his secrets...” The creature grinned, melting out of the vines’ death-grip and re-forming itself a few feet away. It waved one scrawny arm, and Sniper was suddenly looking through a floating screen. It was slightly curved like the surface of a bubble, and the scene within looked far too real to be just another trick. It was more like a window into a world he didn’t recognise... until he saw Spy. “But zees time, I weel make an exception, mon ami.”
Sniper stared, transfixed, as his team-mate’s nightmare unfolded in front of him. The house in the countryside was very different from his own desert-like mindscape, but it seemed the BLU Spy was trying the same trick in a different mind. Without the extrasensory anchor on reality that he had, the little flickers of plant life telling him all three of their bodies were standing perfectly still, Spy had no way to fight back. He was completely isolated from anything but his own mind. And it was his own mind that was corrupting his memories, making his inner self shrink away until nothing but a pile of clothes remained...
“Quite the show, isn’t eet?” The BLU Spy smirked, suddenly appearing next to Sniper as his gut twisted uneasily. That couldn’t be it, could it? Spy always found a way to weasel his way out of things... “Eet would be so easy to bring ze full force of my wonderous gifts down upon ‘is pathetic leetle mind. Like useeng a sledge ‘ammer to crack an egg.”
“Not if I ‘ave anythin’ to say about it. OI, SPY!” Sniper pressed his hands to the thin barrier that separated their minds. The pile of clothes moved as a young child struggled to free themselves, and he thumped his fists against the rippling surface, doing everything he could to get his team-mate’s attention. The BLU hissed furiously, inhuman appendages trying to pull him away as a look of realisation came over Spy’s face.
Sniper waved his arm. Twisted saplings exploded from the sand, wrapping themselves around the creature’s randomly shapeshifting body and pinning it to the ground. He wasn’t sure if Spy could hear him as he squinted into the fire, but he shouted nonetheless; “Come on! Yer a bloody spy! You can see he’s just playin’ yer own mind against itself!”
Spy braced himself, and plunged both hands into the fire. The other half of the BLU Spy finally caught on, his arm stretching to swipe at the child, but he’d caught on too late. Spy had already plunged his hands into the ‘fire’, only to find it was just fluttering strips of red and yellow paper. He’d retrieved the books, his memories intact but out of reach the entire time. He was an adult again, angry and fully armed, pressing the barrel of his Ambassador to his BLU counterpart’s head.
Then everything happened far too quickly. Acting as one mind again, both BLU Spies panicked, slithering out of their former victims’ grasps and diving straight into the translucent barrier. Their hands touched first as they tried to re-unite themselves, a last-ditch attempt to escape. And everything went horribly, horribly wrong.
Like a dam bursting, their mindscapes flowed into each other, creating twisted hybrids of plants and furniture. Below were varnished planks of sand, and patches of twilight desert scarred with wood grain. Above was a broken patchwork of starry sky and painted ceiling. The two worlds spiralled around each other chaotically to the sound of screaming, but he couldn’t tell if they was his screams or Spy’s. As soon as the barrier broke down, their thoughts, their memories, their selves had met in a violent head-on collision.
The result was almost beyond comprehension; inside their merging minds, their bodies were becoming one, muscle and bone exposed and bleeding as flesh melted into flesh. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t even think about stopping it, he was thinking thoughts that were only half his. He felt Spy’s heart beating right next to his own, two stomachs heaving as they saw the world through four eyes. Conflicting memories writhed like mating snakes, people and places changing, sounds and smells flowing together. Their fears and aspirations smashed uncontrollably into each other.
Even the slightest thought shattered under the incredible stress, but one single thing emerged from their clashing minds; they couldn’t possibly survive this. Whatever would be left in the aftermath wouldn’t be Sniper or Spy, but some insane, twisted, pathetic creatures. Both of them too unstable to live, or just driven utterly mad by their own scrambled brains...
Everything stopped.
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The BLU Spy crumpled, a look of complete shock crossing his face before it collided with the concrete.
“An’ tha’s whut ya get fer toochin’ that!”
Demo glared at the man, giving him a good hard kick. His head still felt like it was full of cotton balls, thanks to that bloody Medic and his drugged orange drink. The Doc had tried to keep him quiet because he didn’t want to know the truth, but he’d been determined to find that thing that was lurking in every dark place, and bash its ugly head in. And if the BLU Spy got in the way of his pursuit, and tried to capture their bloody point... well, it was nothing a scrumpy bottle to the kneecaps couldn’t fix.
“Ugh... wha’...” Demo groaned and clutched his head; he’d been fighting off the after-effects of the sedative as he dragged himself out of their barracks and into the main part of the base. Now that feeling of tiredness and nausea was back with a vengeance, and had brought a terrible ringing in his ears along with it. He could hear his own heart pounding. His vision started to blur, the dim lights above his head suddenly blindingly bright and yet so much further away. Everything seemed much further away, too far away...
Two gunshots rang out somewhere in the distance, and he watched as the bodies of Spy and Sniper fell, slowly sinking through molasses-thick air. The BLU Spy’s body flowed as he moved, pieces breaking off and re-forming like a lava lamp. Is it you... who’s been watchin’ all of us... ? Demo thought vaguely as the Spy approached; the creature’s face was just a series of shifting ink blobs, but he was sure it was grinning at him. He could feel its shadowy fingers curiously probing the edges of his mind, gently worming their way in until they found something interesting. Something very interesting, he felt the creature think.
Demo’s breath caught in his throat. That was what it was looking for? He’d never really thought about it before, but now that he was aware of it, he could see it much more clearly in his mind. Something like a door... a door inside his head, reinforced and locked tight. And the Spy was standing right in front of it, examining every inch like some kind of priceless treasure, until it suddenly jammed a corkscrew-shaped claw into the lock. At that moment, a terrible realisation hit, seeping out from edges of the door like smoke.
Oh god. That was what it was for. It wasn’t locked to keep intruders out; it was locked to keep something in. Something his mind had tried to shut away for its own safety. Something wild and terrible that had appeared shortly after the Nucleus Incident. Even an overactive imagination and the twisted logic of a Scrumpy-poisoned mind hadn’t been able to handle it. His own mind had shut it away for its own safety. As the BLU Spy forced its way past his defences, it was starting to leak out.
There was nothing he could do to stop it. The power completely overwhelmed him. There was no time to scream, or even to think. His body and mind unable to contain it, the sudden release of energy escaped any way it possibly could. Rushing out of him like lightning, and grounding itself in the nearest possible conductor; the BLU Spy, one finger still in the lock.
Distantly, Demo felt his body hit the floor. Then, nothing.