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lollipencil · 11 days ago

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ID-7 in CCRP

Title sucks, but it'll do.

A general warning for Mayhem's level of violence and swearing. And for spoilers for Nightmare Time S1 Ep2 "Forever and Always".

Enjoy and be gentle ---

Up until the lockdown, the day seemed perfectly normal. Everyone filtered in at their usual times, took their seats, and got to work.

It worked its way through them all slowly. Level by level. In the coming weeks, attempts to find how the virus entered the building (or Hatchetfield for that matter) would fail. The only thing that could be known was that by mid-morning, most of the building's occupants were showing the early signs of infection.

---

Paul stumbled out of Mr Davidson's office, rubbing his left eye. Those words kept circling around in his head like vultures. Disgust and shock filled his every thought as he kept mentally asking the same question.

Why?

Then, quite suddenly, an intense anger unfurled itself within Paul. It rippled swiftly through his brain, coating each thought with a rage far deeper than anything Paul had ever felt before.

His jaw clenched tight.

He ignored everything around him as he strode through the office with purpose. All the fights, the thrown words and objects. None of it mattered. He needed to get to the elevator.

When a hand closed around his wrist, Paul almost punched whoever it was. The hit never landed, but Bill still flinched: "For fuck's sake, Paul! What's the matter with you!?" "It's too far," Paul panted harshly, his eye now blood-red, "They've gone too fucking far!" "What the fuck are you-?" "You know what Sam!" Charlotte's voice bellowed suddenly, "I want a motherfucking divorce!"

As Bill turned his head to look as she burst out in cathartic laughter, Paul tore his wrist free and bolted straight inside the elevator. "Paul, wait-!" Bill's voice was cut off by the doors. Leaving Paul to glare into his own reflection.

---

The basement was in anarchy. Bodies writhed in fury and ecstasy, papers littered the floor, and raised voices formed a constant hum. The soft ding of the elevator went unnoticed.

The person who left it did not.

Paul didn't have a plan. Well, he had the summary of one. Find out who was responsible, and "file a very informal complaint" to all relevant parties. What he needed but did not have, was a starting point. So he was improvising.

Aimless but driven, he ran through the hallways. Surprisingly, he found little resistance. Before a hand snatched his arm and yanked him into a side room. Hard.

Paul landed inside an office with a thump as the door slammed shut. Instantly, a large frame had him pinned on his back to the rough carpet. "And just where the fuck do you think you're going?" the office's owner, standing above Paul in front of her desk, asked almost calmly. "Just looking for the bastard in charge down here," Paul borderline snarled. "Well, guess I'll have to do then. Pierce, which one of the little shits is this?"

Pierce barely moved, just shifted his weight so Paul's right sleeve was pulled down by the carpet. He glanced at Paul's wrist and frowned. "No number," he grunted. "Oh?" the woman's eyebrow twitched up slightly before she turned to Paul, "Oh, I see how it is. Regardless of your plans and the current situation, company policy must be followed." Suddenly, a box cutter was in her hand, and her knee landed directly on Paul's right palm: "No exceptions."

And, for the next minute, all Paul could focus on was the pain. He screamed out and bucked violently, but nothing changed. Then it did.

None of them had even noticed their sudden audience until they chose to intervene. Two figures shoulder-checked Pierce while Paul could just about spot a fist collide with the woman's face. Hands suddenly but gently grabbed parts of his suit and helped him up.

For a split second, Paul just watched. Watched as the two figures kept pummeling Pierce as he lay on the ground, inches from where he'd pinned Paul. And then he spotted the box cutter. Discarded, the blood on the blade still bright red. The haze of virally-enhanced rage washed over him again. Instantly, he picked up the box cutter, knelt by the third figure's side, and joined in with the stabbing.

Paul's wrist burned as the movement aggravated the wound, but he barely noticed. He just kept going. Over and over, in and out. Until the squirming stopped.

He panted harshly as he took in the bloody mess he'd helped make. "You assholes done?" a voice asked as casually as if discussing the weather. "Oh, shut the fuck up Five," The third figure answered with the same voice. His voice. Blinking dumbly, Paul finally turned from the corpse to face the room.

Literally everyone breathing in that room had his face. Paul started to laugh. "What the fuck?" the clone he'd helped stab Mrs Box Cutter muttered, but Paul didn't care. He just laughed, because of course. What were the odds?

The sudden feeling of water on his wrist startled Paul back to the room. "Trust me, you'll thank me later when you don't have a goddamn infection," another clone, who'd at some point walked up to him with a first aid kit, stated plainly as he discarded the water bottle he'd just upended over Paul's wrist. Then, he paused. And tilted his head, staring. "Huh. Well, well." "What?" the stabby clone promptly looked at Paul's wrist and noticed himself, "Heh, well then... Welcome to the fucking party, Template."

---

Several miles away, General John MacNamera waited as his phone dialed.

Over the past two hours, someone in Hatchetfield had been leaking documents onto the internet. Now, this normally wouldn't matter too much, but those documents were uncensored. And certain keywords had appeared on one in particular.

The dialtone went once, twice, three times. It picked up. "Who the fuck is this?" instantly answered Paul Matthews. "General John MacNamara." "Okay?" "Approximately half an hour ago, several confidential documents belonging to CCRP were leaked into the internet, via your work account. One of those documents has peaked my department's interest." "Right. Could you excuse me for just a moment?" Paul asked fairly politely for a Redder. "Sure, go ahead."

While not meant for John's ears, the phone was left uncovered enough for him to hear the resulting conversation: "Okay, I've got a fucking general on the phone about me supposingly leaking shit online. I know I didn't do it, so it had to be one of you assholes." A chrous of "not me" followed. "It was me," someone finally spoke up. "What the fuck Ten?" "Wha- Have you read this shit?!" Ten defended himself, the faint rustling of papers making John smile.

They still had it.

"Right," Paul put the phone back on his ear, "It looks like I did, technically." "Do you have the originals in question?" "Yes I do," before Paul then hissed to someone else, "Give me that!" "Good. I need you to find one specific file, it should have the phrase 'Black and White' somewhere on it."

The flicking of pages followed, then a weighty pause: "What in the actual fuck am I reading?" "You and your... new relatives' ticket out of there." "What kind of occult shit are they doing down here?" the flicking of paper grew as Paul kept reading, "How the hell-?"

Then Paul went dead quiet. "Mr Matthews?" John carefully called out. Only to have to pull the phone away from his ear sharply. Yep, he had read that part.

Emotional hijacking was no joke.

The phone had either been handed to or taken by someone, not that that rendered the sound of Paul's enraged screaming any less audible. "Do I want to know what he just read?" Another clone promptly greeted John. "Considering his current state, no." "Fuck this place! Fuck it straight to hell!" Paul bellowed loud enough to be heard while clearly far from the receiver, "I'm not a mindless drone! And I will not be their fucking guinea pig!" "Put the lighter down-!" someone yelled before a lot of shuffling in the background.

"So, what do you need?" the clone asked. "That one file in as perfect condition as you can manage," John stated firmly before adding. "Okay then," before moving from the reciever, "Hey, you. Put this in that plastic wallet. Good, now hold on to it, and you had better guard that shit like its your damn firstborn child-"

As the clone hung up, John nodded to himself and got up. Time to visit Hatchetfield.

---

Less than an hour before lockdown was to end, Paul finally returned to his department. He looked like hell itself had chewed him up and spat him out. His shirt was soaked in blood, his tie was being used to hold a wad of bandages to his wrist, and bruises dotted his exposed skin (and likely the covered skin as well). There was a wildness to his eyes.

He marched on, uncaring of any possible reactions to his appearance or the seemingly endless chain of equally feral clones that tailed him. As it was, no one looked up. At his destination, Paul knocked firmly on the door. "Oh, Mr Davidson?" he called before swinging the door open. To Mr Davidson's already dead body.

He and all his clones stared blankly at him, at the tie that had been way too tight around his neck, at the hand tucked between his legs, before someone finally closed the door. "Well, shit," 23 summed up quite nicely. "Now what?" 16 sighed. "I don't know," Paul shrugged, feeling somewhat lost, "Have some coffee?"

It was during the third round of coffees that Bill stumbled into them all. "What the fuck?" he muttered as he stared out into the sea of Pauls huddled in the break room. "Bill!" One cried out happily, and the rest soon joined in.

Suddenly, Bill was surrounded on all sides. The crowd was utterly delighted to see him. "It's so nice to finally see you in person!" one of them said to a series of nods from his neighbors. "What?!" Bill asked helplessly as he looked from Paul to Paul for any sign of why this was happening.

It took ten minutes of being passed around to each for a quick hug, before Bill reached what he was reasonably sure was his Paul. Under all the bruises and blood. "Hey, sorry about earlier," he said before Bill could say anything, "Had something I needed to do." "Who are they?" Bill gasped, eyes still flicking from one to another. "My clones," Paul stated quite plainly. "What." "Yeah," Paul patted his shoulder gently, "I've got one hell of a story for you, buddy."

---

The lockdown ending felt unreal.

As the virus's effects left Paul's mind, he briefly wondered if he'd done the right thing. But, seeing his clones take their first breath of fresh air in their lives, he found he didn't care that much.

General MacNamara was true to his word, quickly rounding them up into a massive tent for more private medical treatment after accepting the file. "Nicely done," he said as Paul's wrist was stitched up. And, as Paul went back to the hastily made seating area, it was with a job offer echoing around his skull.

As he sat, staring at the zero on his wrist he'd been warned would likely scar, Paul suddenly remembered: "Fuck, what am I going to tell Emma?"

#my fics #crossover fic #hatchetfield #mayhem (2017)#paul matthews #bill woodward #charlotte sweetly #paul clones #paul 23 #general john macnamara

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