Вероятно, в блоге весьма давно не появлялось профессиональных выкладок - вопреки очевидному, моей вотчиной является литература, не кинематограф, - однако каждому плоду рецензий свое время: сегодня же хотелось бы, продолжив таинственную тему рыбы (см. ранее), привлечь внимание к персоне, упоминаемой мною в связи с игрой
TR: Angel of Darkness, насчет которой, в свою очередь, я более чем год надеюсь сотворить рецензию. Вернемся же к мастеру Экхардту - на сей раз в форме текста: пожалуй, столь большим любителям проекций, какие обитают в интернете, многие тексты видятся сквозь призму пресловутых проекций (тм) - кого и с кем свести [в правильных жанрах], как же романтизировать, расширить данные нам образы, - с подобной точки зрения рискну сказать, что не столь притягателен, глубок и ценен для фэндома представленный нам виртуальный образ немолодого [более 500 лет] и, безусловно, негодяйского Черного
[!] алхимика, сколько его потенциал развития-и-реконструкции) Представим же, что нам известно о нем весьма немногое - лишь то, что занят он похвальным возрождением древнего зла (тм) и, разумеется, сопутственными ужасающими преступлениями, - и проведем до боли очевидные параллели с иной преступной личностью, отягощенной карьерою в науке: далее проекция - итак, герр Экхардт, пресловутые столетия проведший в заключении в немецком замке, лишь недавно (1945 г.?) вновь приступил к низкой, но милой сердцу миссии (см. немногим выше), устраивая многочисленные тайные опыты, раскопки, прочее, - в планы подобные, конечно же, не входит отвлекаться на общение с несколько пострадавшей от своих же действий, но все же не лишенной некоего своеобразия мадмуалезь Боаз, которой несчастный
[xD] Экхардт в горькую минуту непоправимых промахов доверил создание т.н. прототипа будущей сверх-расы. Женщина, - конечно же, оставшись женщиной, - в ходе развития истории, кажется, занята всем, чем угодно, нежели разумным ведением эксперимента, что в свое время приведет к провалу и плачевным результатам: впрочем, не ей нам следует сочувствовать - пятьсот лет, проведенных в метафизических глубинах, вдохновитель миссии по возрождению (тм) не знал тягот взаимодействия с прелестным полом [вероятно, не знал особенно и ранее, раз уж избрал ниву алхимии], и вот, является в неоднозначном (см. игру) псевдонаучном облачении Боаз, и, кажется, лишь для того, чтобы извечно донимать руководителя некомпетентностью, срывом, истерикой, - чем, согласитесь, все вышеизложенное не сюжет для фэндомной истории?
......предупрежу о непременных для современности жестокости-насилии в малых объемах - и порекомендую прочесть пассаж о начальственном голосе во втором отрывке из "романа" )
(I)***
The woman hurried, ten minutes late for her meeting. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, and she prayed that no one would notice. Inexpertly, she dabbed her eyes and stuffed the handkerchief into her pocket. There were red specks on the cloth that had nothing to do with tears.
The meeting room was darkened, one hundred and thirteen steps below the constant, ever-shifting background buzz of the city. Down there, deep below the humdrum normality of Parisian life, there was only silence, and shadows, and secrets.
Pale faces turned to look at her as she entered - faces she despised, feared, respected, and often all three at once. She took the empty chair, trying to ignore the nervous sweat trickling down her back. The man to her left, Grant Muller, licked his lips. His smile was like a camera flash - there one moment, gone the next. The scientist's hands twitched across the flab of his belly.
To her right, Karel sneered like a cat watching a mongrel dog scratching itself. She had worked with both men for several years, but still did not know what to make of the cool, dispassionate lawyer. Karel was dressed in his usual sober black, contrasting with his shock of white hair. A silk scarf the colour of old, old blood was draped across his shoulders, and she envied its warmth. She wore only the surgical smock, gloves and boots of her trade. It was cold down there, deep below others' knowledge.
The grey-clad gentleman across the table rose. There was a projection directly behind him, showing street maps and complex strategies in red and green OHP ink. Its soft glow threw his features into shadow. All she could see were his eyes, smoldering like raked- over coals.
"You're late." He croaked. The threat behind those two little words
was more ominous than the creak of thin ice over a bottomless lake.
*
After the meeting had broken up, she waited in the atrium for her confidant - avoiding the gazes of the others as they filed past. Their plane to Prague was already fuelled and ready, but like her it was forced to sit, shrugging off impatience as best it could.
"You okay?"
She felt sausage-fat fingers grip her shoulder, and a mug of something hot was pushed into her hand. She glanced up, into Dr. Muller's genial smile.
"Of course, I'm fine."
"You don't look it. Drink - it'll help. The Master needs you strong for the work ahead."
She managed a haughty scoff, but sipped anyway. It tasted bitterly herbal - probably one of his potent concoctions brewed in the Strahov labs in the floors above her workplace.
Together, they watched as their master stalked from the meeting room and departed without giving them a second glance.
"Do you really think it will work this time?" She whispered. "You saw the way they were glaring at me. He stills blames me for the failure last time, me! As if I was the one who gathered his wretched samples! I can only work with pure specimens, as I'm sure I made perfectly clear!"
"Hush," Muller chided, as the gigantic figure of Gunderson, the master's bodyguard and military adviser, loomed in the doorway - curling his lip at the sight of the two scientists huddling in the corner. Only when he had left the room did she release the breath she had been holding; and the tears threatened once more.
"We're not ready to attempt the Awakening yet! I need fresh Nephilim DNA if I'm going to test the procedure properly! The original samples have already degraded, which explains the hybrid's side-effects. If only-"
"Boaz, you need to calm yourself," Muller looked worried. "These ideas are blasphemous and you know it! Eckhardt knows what he's doing, and we have to trust him. The New Order depends on you fulfilling his commands, even when you don't understand them, yes? Now I know it's been hard on you-" he patted her hand stuck down there with your inmates, no sunlight, all cramped-up, yes? But we need you and your knowledge of gene splicing to continue the Great Work! You have a gift, my dear, a rare gift that will help the Nephilim rise once more! How glorious will it be when that happens, to know that you helped bring about Eden on Earth!"
She wiped her eyes, smiling faintly. Muller could be pompous at times, but she trusted his professionalism and conviction in the Great Work. When her belief weakened, she did not turn to Karel, or Gunderson, or even Eckhardt, the master of them all, but to Muller's gardens and the glimpse of future Paradise - a place where she could think and have her faith reaffirmed.
"And just think," he continued, "Once we have the last two Obscura Paintings, we won't need to worry about hybrids at all! A race of pure Nephilim will walk the Earth! We won't need more sampling, or subjects, and no more abominations! No offence to your genius, my dear, but I sleep better at night knowing you destroyed the Proto in the end. It was the right thing to do... oh, my dear, are you sure you're alright? You're weeping!"
It was only with heroic effort that she stemmed the flow of her tears, brushing her severely-cut hair from her eyes. The gesture showed her physical scars, like a line of puckered slashes encircling her face. The accident had happened years ago, before she even knew about Eckhardt and his plans, before she came to work at the Strahov.
Before she knew the price of failure.
"Nothing... just... I hate to think of my p-poor little ones all alone. I hope we get the Painting soon... s-so we can go back and tend them. They m-must be terribly lonely."
Muller chuckled, and helped her to her feet. She was trembling, so he took her to the luncheon room. Something to eat would help, he assured her.
She could only smile, and nod, and pray her secret remained hidden.
(II)***
Then I heard it - a frenetic tapping and clicking, hardly more than ten metres away.
"No, it can't be... Not the whole grid...?!"
Warily, I peered through the concealing leaves. Not ten metres away, a sweeping balcony rose like an island in the middle of a green ocean, and was dotted with desks and computers. A man was sitting at one of them, and peered myopically at the screen as his fingers typed a furious rhythm.
He wore a pith hat, grubby shirt, and his jowls trembled with disbelief.
"Muller!"
The doctor and I jumped in unison. Eckhardt strode into view - flanked closely by his aircraft carrier-sized bodyguard. The Black Alchemist's face held murder. "It's chaos out there! Why has the power been cut off?"
"Is this your doing, Muller?" Gunderson loomed threateningly over the terrified scientist, but he needn't have bothered. A man of his stature could loom by sitting quietly in a corner.
"N-no, the power's down everywhere!" Muller said, licking his lips. "L-look for yourself!"
Eckhardt‘s face took on a greenish pallor as he leaned towards the screen. Behind him, another man crept into my field of vision. His manner was so unassuming that for a few seconds, I didn't even realise he was there. He wore an unremarkable black suit and a silk scarf the colour of old, dried blood. His features were sallow and unmemorable, neither lined with age or the softness of youth, and his neatly trimmed hair was so blonde as to be almost white.
I scanned my memory for Luddick's dossier, and decided he had to be Karel, Eckhardt's right-hand man.
"Very well," Eckhardt said. His voice surprised me - a soothing, vaguely-Germanic baritone that shaped the words with the grace and eloquence worthy of a Shakespearean actor. A slight burr, possibly from an old throat injury, only mellowed its already attractive timbre. Whatever I had expected an insane evil genius to sound like, this was not it. "Just control things in the Dome for now. Make sure everything is locked down - we don't want anything getting loose."
Turning away, he leaned on the balcony railings, glaring straight in my direction. I drew back into the shadow of the leaves, my mouth suddenly dry. His fingers tapped a staccato on the metal, in counterpoint to Gunderson's typing. After only a matter of seconds, the bodyguard grunted. In contrast to his master, Gunderson sounded like he had learned to speak only after arduous study.
"It's under control, Master Eckhardt. The Dome is locked down. Emergency systems are online."
"We have a problem down in the Sanatorium!"
A shrill cry made us all turn to the sound of footsteps. A woman skidded to a halt behind Eckhardt, all but falling to her knees before the Cabal. Her raven-black hair was cut in a simple bob, but could not hide the puckered scars that ran in a circle from forehead to chin - stretching her skin tightly across the underlying bones. Even from my hiding place, I could see her eyes were badly bloodshot. Tears streaked her mascara and mingled with her running nose. Her blood-stained surgical smock sought to cover a body as rail-thin as her voice, and her chest rose and fell with the effort to hold back sobs. Her hands, clad in elbow-length PVC gloves, shook uncontrollably.
"What problem, Boaz?" Eckhardt sighed, not bothering to turn around. "Just have the guards deal with your inmates and pets."
Boaz - Dr. Kristina Boaz, I remembered - bent her head. Every word had to fight its way through her clenched teeth.
"Please... I have a confession... Master Eckhardt... I-І... didn't destroy the P-Proto-Nephilim."
Had she said armed nuclear bomb, the effect could not have been any more dramatic. Gunderson's head snapped up, and his gaze darkened with something between rage and abhorrence. Muller fell back in his chair with a whimper - his face draining to fish-belly grey.
Karel only narrowed his eyes, and glanced from the weeping female straight to his master.
Yep - he's the right-hand of the Cabal, all right, Maggie whispered.
"The Proto?" Gunderson demanded. "You are kidding, right Boaz? It's broken loose? I have to supervise this personally!"
Without asking for leave, he strode away. Boaz hiccoughed - hiding behind the curtain of her hair. All eyes, including mine, turned to Eckhardt.
The Black Alchemist had grown rigid as a statue. An insectile whine pierced the silence as the iron railing bent in his grasp like a stick of barley sugar.
"That experiment was to be eradicated," he whispered. "I expressly ordered it. It's far too dangerous to keep alive."
Boaz looked stricken. "I-І couldn't... It's half Nephilim! It's impossible to k-kill without your Periapt S-Shard!"
Karel returned her pleading gaze with indifference. She turned to Muller, arms raised beseechingly, but he backed off as though she were carrying some terrible disease.
"You lied to us!" He said, "Boaz, how could you? The Proto?!"
"I-І only thought there m-might be another way," she wept. "But it's useless... Only the S-Shard will do it!"
"You've ignored my orders for the last time, Boaz," Eckhardt straightened. His eyes blazed behind the dark panes of his glasses. "Muller, I need to borrow one of your creations."
Ignoring Boaz's protests, he seized her by the hair and began dragging her across the balcony and down a flight of steps.
"Ah, no, please no!" she screamed, clasping fruitlessly at her scalp, but Eckhardts grip was unyielding. "It wasn't my fault!"
I quickly shifted position, keeping low behind the camouflaging plants and crawled along the walkway to keep them in my view. The others were all gathered at the top of the stairs - Muller whimpering, clasping and wringing his hands, while Karel stood with arms folded, his expression as transparent as granite.
Right on the edge of the catwalk, Eckhardt stopped and swung Boaz up to eye-level as though she weighed no more than a doll. Her cries had become hysterical. "I'm loyal! Please! Have mercy!"
"Your own incompetence has sentenced you, Boaz," Eckhardt said. "You know better than to expect mercy from me."
"Give me a chance!" she sobbed, and screamed as he held her over the yawning edge. "Not this, please no!"
I strained to look, but a shape was already rising into view. A foul stench rose from the depths. A form was reaching and groping upwards with peristaltic thrusts of its grub-like body. It had no recognisable head, only a mouth - a mouth as wide and circular as a jet engine - that was fringed with flabby gills and the source of that atrocious smell. Its bloated trunk remained submerged in the fetid waters I'd passed earlier, almost twenty metres below. Slime cascaded off its corpse-grey flanks while rows of useless, spidery legs groped towards the two humans. A serpentine tongue lolled mere feet from where the Black Alchemist stood poised on the brink. Boaz writhed futilely, screaming herself hoarse.
Eckhardt let go.
For one awful moment, I could see Boaz's expression - the full knowledge of her fate making her eyes widen and stretching her mouth into an aspect of pure terror. But then she was falling, clutching at thin air.
She was still screaming as the monster claimed her, and sank back into its lair.
"I will be obeyed," Eckhardt rasped. "Now sort this mess out!"
(с)