trans_9 | He is my defense, I shall not be greatly moved.

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He is my defense, I shall not be greatly moved.

Nothing had ever, ever prepared the MacManus brothers for being abducted by aliens. This wasn't covered in school, or in any of the extra lessons Ma made them take. Nobody at the slaughterhouse ever talked about this, though one or two people may have mentioned it in a pub or bar or insert place serving alcohol here. Those people, though, they hadn't taken very seriously. Here, even the unshakable certainty of their Mission was trembling in the midst of so much foreign and bizarre.

So after the 'OHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK' factor had died down a little - definitely not completely, but a little - and the big group had been disbanded, the twins went where they felt sure to get some guidance.

During the very brief tour of the city, Connor noticed something in the distance. He'd nudged Murphy about it, but they left checking it out until later. When 'later' came, and they checked, it was, well, "Jesus fuckin' Christ! That's the fuckin'- that's- that's the-! Fuck!" the Vatican.

Ten minutes later, they'd calmed down sufficiently to stop cussing and were walking through the eerily quiet St. Peter's Square. Slipping wordlessly through the doors of the Basilica itself, they made their way to pray. At the moment it didn't matter why these buildings were here. The aliens might be overstepping themselves, in which case they would die soon. On the other hand, it might just be a sign. Before they could decide, Murphy and Connor needed advice.

Nearly an hour later they reemerged, troubled but much calmer. There had been no direct answers - there rarely were - but the two of them were ready to wait it out. Whatever happened here, their Mission remained unchanged.

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Connor follows him cautiously, looking around.

"Why the fuck d'ye need this many fucking clocks? I mean, what the fuck?" Connor preffered the toolshed idea, too.

Murphy trailed closely after Sam and his brother, turning to look all the way around.

"Fuck, who keeps around so many fuckin' broken clocks?"

Sam glanced around at the all the clocks and, sure enough, they were all broken. Despite the low echo of ticking that filled the room, not a single time piece--the ones Sam recognized anyway--was moving. All the clocks that appeared to be normal twelve-hour Earth clocks seemed to be stuck. The minute hand bounced back and forth from somewhere in between the eleven and twelve while the hour hand appeared to be locked at three o'clock.

At first he'd just thought it was the one clock, but when a second clock and a third and even a fourth was exactly the same way, Sam realized that there was no way these clocks were just 'broken.'

"Who keeps around so many broken clocks that are all stuck just before three?" Sam asked, returning Murphy's and Connor's questions with a question of his own.

"Someone who fuckin' hates three o'clock, apparently." Connor wanders up to the twitching platform curiously.

"This one's exac'ly the same." In a fit of curiosity, he climbs onto the platform, barely fitting. "What th' fuck do they do if they hit three?"

Murphy followed Connor closely, ready to pull him off. "What the fuck d'ye think you're doin'? Get the fuck down, before it explodes or ya throw up all over the place."

As an after thought, he added, "Move the hand first, so we can find out." Murphy is perfectly willing to sacrifice his twin in the name of science.

Sam rotated in place, his mouth hanging open as he took in all the clocks seemingly trapped between 2:55 and 3:00. Did everything in this place have to be on the Sinclair Lewis side of weird?

"Maybe it's a doomsday clock?" he thought aloud, glancing over his shoulder to see Connor climbing over the face of the large clock in the middle of the floor. "You know, like the one on the cover the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists from the University of..." Sam fell silent, realizing he'd just revealed his 'inner dork.'

"Nevermind..." he said, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

"The hell use would a fuckin' doomsday clock be in here?" Connor can't resist. He pushes the hands around to 3 o'clock, quickly scrambling away from the clock and watching it warily. It wouldn't, well... explode, would it?

Murphy grabbed Connor's arm and pulled him back further. "Fuck! What'd ya fuckin' do that for?"

Ignore the fact that he told him to. That is immaterial and never actually happened.

One by one every single one of the clocks in the shack ticked to three o'clock.

When they did, a single bell chimed three times, and there was an almost insect-like noise, like gears clicking all throughout the shack. The clock behind the platform was a large grandfather clock with the pendulum clicking away, but the pendulum swung to one side and stopped. The panel behind the pendulum slid back like a door--and indeed it was large enough for them to fit through, even if they had to crouch.

A figure flickered before them. ??.

"You've found it. The flash of enlightenment in all the blood and thunder. One speck of truth in the endless black. It isn't God who kills the children, only the ones that think they are Gods. If you dare, take a look. Find out how far down the rabbit hole goes and gain one piece of the puzzle so you can find out who's lopping off heads. But keep in mind, you will not come back unchanged. You impose meaning on your existence--in most cases there is no universal truth. But here, for once, there is, and the truth changes everything."

Sam was just about to cry out 'wait!' when Connor moved the hour hand to three o'clock. Too late. Then came the chimes, and the clicking, then the door, and--finally--the faceless figure. Dressed in a trench coat and a fedora, the man's appearance alone seemed mysterious and confusing. What he (or she, or maybe 'it' was more appropriate) had said was even more so.

Sam stood wide-eyed, staring into the opening of the newly discovered passaged with a mixture of shock and bemusement. "Ok..." he finally said, looking to the twins. "...nice job. Now who the fuck was that?"

Connor just stared, bewildered, at the passage. "Er. I've no fuckin' idea, man, but he was a fuckin' weirdo." He wasn't sure he liked the gist of what the man had said, but...he was also very curious. And he'd always been a man for the truth, of sorts.

"Should we go in?" Nothing ventured, nothing gained; but then, nothing lost, either. T creepy man had said that going down there could change everything; Connor wasn't sure he wanted to risk it. Though, as was said, he was very curious.

"If we're goin' in, you're going first, ye daft fuckin' bastard." Murphy sure wasn't, anyway. Not that he didn't want to go in, because he was curious too. He just wasn't getting eaten for something his twin did, even on his orders.

"You're the one that fuckin' opened it."

"Oi, ye fuckin' told me t'see what happened if I changed the time, y'daft fucker! 'S all your fault!"

Connor refuses to be shoved in first. If he goes first, it'll be of his own free will. And not because of his brother. Damn it.

"Ya never fuckin' listen to me anyway, do ye? How the fuck was I supposed t'know ye would this time?" Murphy shoves at his idiot brother. "Do ya fuckin' listen to yourself? Take responsibility for yer actions like a fuckin' man for once!"

"Hey! Do you mind?" Sam hollered out to get the attention of the bickering brothers before their little tiff turned into an all-out brawl. He then glanced at the opening. Part of him told him to turn around and go the other way, but there was something else--curiosity most likely--that tempted him forward. Reaching into the small pocket by his waist, Sam took out his cell phone and snapped a few quick pictures of the interior of the shack, including the clock on the floor, as well as the opening, before returning it.

"I'll go first," he then volunteered and stepped toward the opening.

"Watch your step," was the last thing ?? warned them, and he had good reason too. The tunnel was pitch black, and the footing was treacherously steep and uneven.

The walls appeared to be made of carved out stone or perhaps even concrete, as if there was an underground bunker set in Stacy's flesh. The air got muggier as they went down, and moisture collected on the walls--and floor, making their footing even more slippery.

There was an acrid, almost-moldy smell in the air, completely alien and unfamiliar.

Murphy followed Sam, trying to look around. "Oh, leave off. We were only playin' 'round, fer fuck's sake."

Unfortunately, between not paying as much attention as he should and being more used to city life, it wasn't long before Murphy slipped. Yelping a curse, he fell rather spectacularly.

"Murphy!" Connor shouts after him, resolving to stay feet firmly planted; he'd rather not fall after his brother. "Murph, are y'fuckin' alright?" He squints into the darkness. "Murph!"

Leading the twins through the door, Sam had been stepping carefully--testing out the ground with one foot before shifting his weight from the other. It was definitely slick, like damp rocks that lined streams and river beads. The same kind of rocks that people slipped on and ended up submerged in the water, drowning.

It all turned out to be in vain, however, when Murphy lost his footing and stumbled, falling right into Sam and sending the pair of them downward. "OH SHIT!!" Sam yelled out.

By the time Conner skidded down to the bottom, he was greated with a strange sight.

A massive pool, one large enough to fit under a mini-mall, perhaps, of a sickly, yellow-green liquid. There was some strange sort of machine over head, casting sickly rays of light down on the room, and strange black shapes slipping and darting in the sticky-looking liquid that looked like fish, perhaps.

The walkway down had corroded and gotten broken, perhaps by the living nature of Stacy's "body" causing part of her to grow and break the concrete.

There was a dock. that went out a bit, very close to the water, and a station with some sort of controls on the other side of it.

But the most alarming thing was the cages--quite a few of them, all over the cave, around the massive pool.

Actually, that was the second most alarming thing.

The most alarming thing was that Murphy and Sam had slipped down off the walkway, and fallen in.

Connor stepped out onto the dock carefully.

"Murph! Murphy!" He looked around frantically. The liquid was thick, but he could see Sam and Murphy submerged in it.

"Sam! Murph!" He went to his knees and reached out, but they were too far out for him to touch.

"Murphy!"

Murphy surfaced, coughing and splashing. "Fuck! Connor! Fuck!" Swimming a little closer, he reached for his twin's hand.

Emerging a half-second later, Sam's face crumpled up into a scowl. "Ugh...this shit is gross," he said, cupping a little of the sticky liquid in his hand then letting it drizzle through his fingers and back into the pool.

"Where'd you learn how to walk?" he snapped at Murphy while pushing him out of the way of Connor's hand so he could get out first.

Connor grabbed Murphy's hand, ignoring Sam. "I'll haul y'up, y'clumsy fucker." Connor tries to tug Murphy up onto the dock. "Gave me a fuckin' fright, y'did."

"Who ya fuckin' callin' clumsy now?" Instead of hauling himself up out of the water, Murphy pulls Connor in with them.

He is my defense, I shall not be greatly moved.

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