【Nightcore】Dopesmoker by Sleep (Full Album) and the Revenge of Drone

Into the heavens the smoke rose from the barrel of a gun.

Three shots, one, soon two kills. In a chair, a woman sat, what left of her popped head draped over the back, brain and blood sloughing down. In a corner, a man sat, chest clutched but still gushing incessant.

The deed done, the cowboy brought down the brim of his hat, slipping his revolver back into its holster. Carefully, he made his way over to the woman, reared back his head, and spit on her corpse before turning about face and leaving the room.









"Cuck."

"Please stop calling me that, Madison."

"That's Dr. Craggs to you."

"I... Even after we got married? Even after we, like, y'know...?"

"Yes."

Craggs placed her hand over her mouth to suppress a grin. While the conditions allowing her a room with a view required her to share with her tech support, she had to admit it came with its upsides. Dropping her hand and regaining her composure, she looked out the window.

The view was one of those upsides.

Sand dunes skirted the night sky, curves cutting the slopes, all of these glowing soft amber under the moonlight. But perhaps the most beautiful thing, Craggs thought, was the silhouette topping the centermost peak.

The Insurgency wasn't dumb enough to send a scout that obvious, and nobody who was authorized entry or exit went on foot. This left either someone dumb enough to try breaking into a Foundation facility, or, more likely, a runaway.

Either way, the desert birds could expect a hearty feast tonight. And, if she was lucky, she might just witness their demise herself.









The man stumbled across the desert, ruffling his wings on occasion to loosen the accumulated dust from wind and storm. As he crested over the dune, he saw it: Area 15.

And she stared back.

His target stood with a grin on her face watching him from her window, just as the steel shutters went down from the containment breach, right on time. He closed the distance, trudging through the sand on his way, before setting his pack underneath the sill and loading a full cylinder of handcrafted bullets into his six-shooter.

He looked up to the skies, and he sighed.

After a moment he returned to his pack, took out a thin black sheet the shape of a circle, slapped it onto the shutter, and entered.









Dr. Madison Craggs threw her arms up into the air upon witnessing the steel shutters close on the window, scoffing before placing her hands on either side of the window sill and letting her head dangle downwards.

She was not lucky tonight.

Her husbatech support was one of those misfortunes.

"H-hey, Mads?"

She lifted her head up and flung it back behind her, staring intensely at Nathan.

He paused. "Did…"

"Did?"

"I… I've had access to your files that the Foundation has."

"I would hope you do, or I might have to fire you."

He gulped. "Did you really cut people open?"

She rolled her eyes and pushed off from the window, and collapsed into a swivel chair, spinning with the sudden force of a human.

"It's called vivisection, you dolt, and it's something every great scientist does as a part of their studies. Medical science, anomalous science, wouldn't even approach where we are today if people didn't have the resolve to get their hands dirty and see how things tick while they're still ticking. Things are lost in death. Things a corpse can't ever regain."

"I know what vivisection is. I just…"

"You just? Did you mean that you jest? The nerve. You've killed people too, you know. Nowhere to stand."

"It was different."

"Oh? Having people cut their arm open and write in blood telling people to send bitcoin to you is that different, is it? Please. We're both in it for gain. You're just in it for the long term now."

He grabbed at his forehead before running through his hair, taking a deep breath, and resuming his work fixing SQL databases 16 years out of date.









Alto Clef Jr. pulled the cast lead hollow-point bullets from their mold once they had cooled, carefully

inspecting them for defects before settling on the six best of the lot. Carefully, he brought the bullets to his vise, aligned them with his broach press, and hollowed out their tips enough for a good enough clearance for the next step.

He brought the hollower-points to a powder measure, carefully adjusting the dosing to ensure just enough, but no more, came through to top the bullet. Pressing down on the handle, one by one, he filled the tips of each bullet halfway with the ash he'd earlier procured.

Once he was finished with all six, he screwed in a plastic cap on each bullet to keep the ashes in, and set to work hand loading each bullet into a respective cartridge.









"…"

"…"

The two sat in silence, waiting for the breach to end.

"…"

"…"

"… Do… you ever feel bad about what happened to E-1261?"

"…"

"…"

"Who?"

At that moment, a goose the size of a man flew into the room, leveled a revolver at Dr. Madison Craggs, and pulled the trigger.









Upon the dunes of the Algodones stood a man, imposing upon midnight.

The fruits of his labor bore upon him in the night: muscles burning, lungs ragged, and a small ceramic urn memorializing E-1621, no more than a teapot's size, lying in an indent manually dug. He picked it up, held it close to his chest, and fell backwards into the sands, into sleep.











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