WHAT REALLY KEPT ISAAC GOING WHILE ON THE ISHIMURA

By Quillon42

Intermittently throughout his errand-laced adventure upon the extraterrestrially-weathered literal minecraft known as the Ishimura, the ever-so-inspiredly-named Isaac Clarke emitted horrifically hoarse gasping sounds—especially during instances in which the arranged oxygen to breathe was confoundingly finite.

The fact of the matter was, though, that the unlikely engineer-cum-commando was not so much clamoring gutturally for air all this time, but rather for something exceedingly more fundamental for his continued existence.

And he was going to find that impetus, encounter it once more oh so gloriously, at the docking area to the shuttle off the ship.

"Isaac," called Nicole from the runway control room, called for the hero as the man aimed with his Plasma Cutter to sear through the Stingers diving at him here and there in a vicious space ballet.

"Do it, Isaac…for us," she continued to coo sirenically, as the man took down Lurkers with a Pulse Rifle, the jagged-edged infant things looking and sounding from a distance like rabid cockatiels as they squealed in their death throes. (This somewhat struck a tender chord with this author, as he owned and cherished said birds—until one recalled the way in which such a bird/baby blacked out the head of a hapless scientist in the monster's first appearance in the space adventure, and then all its Ishimuran innocence was once again lost.)

As he was in the course of dispatching the abovenamed Necros, Isaac salivated, savoring the moment of his glorious reunion. He looked up at his girlfriend and chuffed wistfully as she gleefully returned his gaze, which she knew was there even though his countenance was blocked by the front of a glowing bluish bucket.

Then, of a sudden, the man looked all around him, desperately, needing that one thing he had been denied all this time…

…And failing to find it, even though he raked up and down the runways with his eyes in a frantic bid to ferret out where that ever-important element of his life had been.

Above, in the somewhat safe yet Guardian-flanked chamber, Nicole's face faded from serenely satisfied to deeply disconcerted. Whatever was her lover so preoccupied with? Wasn't it she, in her blandly blonde pseudo-perfection, that which Isaac had been seeking all of these chore-choked chapters? Wasn't it she who kept him going all this time?

Why was he looking around the floors, as if there were something there just as worthwhile, if not moreso?

For one thing, she was aware that her man was going to recon with Terrence Kyne himself, that eccentric executive who wanted to move the maroon Marker off the ship. And in fact there was the old coot now, running out of the shuttle and waving for Isaac to meet up with him as soon as the latter was able to get on the other runway.

And indeed, Isaac soon worked his way around to get to Kyne, Nicole's Adonis of an engineer hauling his hexagonal ass to the other man with as much haste as he could muster…

But then the shot rang out.

Battered—yet bloodlessly—Terrence toppled to the surface of the runway. The curious Clarke looked whimsically at the side of the shuttle as it started an impromptu launch out into space. "Sorry, Isaac," began the boring-faced yet buxom-bodied brunette Kendra Daniels who set the hero mentally against people such as Terrence Kyne and even Zach Hammond at certain points. "I couldn't let him go through with it. I suppose I should thank him for finding the Maa…hhh...

"…

"…?"

Instead of listening to Kendra, or just gaping helplessly at the absconding ship, however, Isaac, to all else's shock, just shrugged in this reality, and continued to search the runways and other floor surfaces for that which was most precious to him above all.

The bucket that Isaac boasted atop his cranium darted this way and that. An onlooker would believe that the man was searching desperately through the cyan slits in his grill for something…on the ground…no, wait.

He wasn't looking for it now. The overly educated engineer was, at least at this point, trying to sniff it out, as if he were an animal operating only on instinct.

He even got down to all fours for a moment, his synthetically squarical skull craning towards the space between the two runways…

…then whirling sharply towards the place where Kyne lay.

Before Nicole, for one, could say a word, she found herself cut off by the sound of her beau's boots as Isaac broke into his usual canter, which with his chunky caboose looked something along the lines of a lardassed lope. Still, the man, of course, pulled off the most physically-demanding feats in the adventure…

…and it was time, now, for him to reap his ultimate reward.

"Isaac…"

But the beauteous Brennan's prompting was lost on the hero as, in a trice, Isaac tackled the already supine Terrence Kyne, the solitary spaceman grabbing at the executive's uniform and rifling roughly through it. As he went, the conscientious Clarke scraped at fabric like a vicious Slasher…then he pawed ever faster and faster, like the touchiest of Twitchers.

Then, as he could feel the rise and fall of Kyne's chest—thus indicating that the apparent victim was actually still alive—it occurred to the man to look in the one place he was subconsciously avoiding all this time. Isaac shot a hand through the ripped-open seams where Kendra's barrage broke through.

Pulling out the prize for which he had searched all this time, and finding finally the real thing for which he had been striving throughout the entire ship, Isaac unlatched his helmet and threw it behind him. Those present could now see a Spitter-eating grin on the engineer's face, one which he wore for the first time in so many goddamned light years.

At the hero's feet, Terrence Kyne, indeed still ticking, reached up sluggishly, sadly for the trophy the other man held haughtily aloft. He should have been counting his lucky shield-shattering asteroids, though, that Isaac wasn't in a trepanating mood for Terrence's trying to take the coveted prize for his own.

Across the ways, in the control room and the shuttle controls, respectively, Nicole and Kendra could see that a third lady had entered the fray in the vying for Isaac's attention. And she had apparently won him.

It was enough to make Miss Daniels, the brunette bandersnatch that she was, halt her craft's progress and haul right back around. No way was any friggin'…literal trophy trollop upstaging her!

This all occurred as Isaac lowered the statue in his hand to rest right over his left pectoral—the area just covering his heart—as the Peng Treasure settled snugly to assimilate into his Level Five Suit.

His face then commenced to twitch unlike that of any ill-fated Stasis-embedded soldier from the Valor as he turned to stare at his longtime girlfriend head-on.

In response to this, Nicole's features blanched, as she suddenly became the recipient of a newly-acquired mental communication conduit created from Isaac's absorption of the Treasure. Now it was the case that, in addition to (Tele)Kinesis and Stasis, the Peng prize had imbued Isaac with a (Tele)"Pathy" module, which enabled him to literally "speak his mind" to those whom he chose to converse with. And for the moment, Nicole would be the primary object of this, with Kendra as the sultry secondary.

Meanwhile, Terrence Kyne remained outside of it, wondering what the heck to make of the others' seeming three-way staring contest.

Come on, Isaac, pleaded Nicole mentally, waving her arms at her man without moving her lips. You have to come back to me. We have to do this, and we have to do it…together.

Her cranial conversant only sniffed, then sneered. I've finally found it, Nicole…I've found the

thing that really makes me whole. All these different sections of the ship…from the hydroponics to the heretical pundits…I've endured all that…for this prize.

Terrence continued just looking up in bafflement at the man who nabbed said prize. The eccentric elder had heard very little about the engineer before encountering him, but one thing he did know about the hero was that he was a man of few, if any, words. Some of the other workers, Kyne heard, had given Clarke the name "Silent 'Saac" on account of his penchant for reticence. It was always so funny, everyone joked, when the newbies came around and asked whimsically where in the moons of Saturn they could find someone whom they thought was named "Silent Sock," before learning the storied engineer's real, full handle in fact.

You see, Nicole, continued said Saac/Sock as he gripped the Peng piece over his heart ever tighter, I've…met someone…in the meantime, between what was me and you, together. We were apart, before I came to the old Ish' here…but now we're united. This is what I've waited for. This is what…

…makes me whole. For real.

No, baby…you can't…you CAN'T! cried the man's fair-haired frau in her mind, as she beat the controls in front of her. She then pointed out beyond the window, to the shuttle which was suspended in the hangar's airspace. We still have to do all this together! Don't you want to go after little Miss Daniels?

Yeah, Isaac! shouted Kendra mentally from behind him, as she continued to hover, and stew in intense frustration, in her shuttle. Don't you want to learn the secrets of the Marker? After all, what the…threesome…of us could learn together would be infinitely pleasurable…

Isaac lowered his head to the Trophy/Pathy Module's metal and took a lengthy whiff more pregnant than any Swarmer-saturated obese alien. I've learned all I've had to, from my new mistress. And I don't want any part in what either of you have to offer.

I don't want to have to shuttle off to some forsaken planet just so I can continue to push and pull around some big red…Magic Marker.

The man beat his Peng-laden chest, proudly for the first time in seeming eons. This is MY own obelisk of worship, yo.

I don't want to be abandoned by the both of you, one way or another, just so's I can wake up from a coma, years from now, and get up to so much crap! Like, running around in a straitjacket? Being haunted by you repeatedly, Cole, with your expired-yet-illuminated face all up in mine like a Clive Barker-crafted Lite Brite? I thought my FACEPLATE gave off creepy lights.

And I know you're not real anyway, my little Bren-Bren…all the more reason for me to hate that huge red religious paperweight.

And in any case, even if I went through with what y'all want…after my coma, you, Nicole, won't look as sharp as you did here on the Ishi, but instead you'll look ten years, fifteen years older in the second one! They'll make you look not like you, but your mom…your MILF at best!

And worst of all…I have to be made to TALK?! No…Penging…way! Did TALKING ever work for Torque in the Suffering sequel? Did TALKING ever work for BLUE, when we all got past her Clues and into her Room?

All this shit makes the franchise only BEGIN to jump the fucking shark. I'm sticking the fuck around here. In fact, hell, I'm'a go back and put Hammond together again. He all went and fell apart and you twits did *nothing.*

You'll see…or rather, you won't see, as I know you're going. Fine. I don't want y'all around anyway. Isaac then looked down at Kyne and grabbed him pronouncedly by the scruff of his lapel. I'm gon' start with Terry here, in terms of the whole healing process. You, Kenny my lady, gave him an awful start with your shot. Fortunately, it just…Penged off him, as it were, with no one worse for wear.

The hero blinked and sniffed a bit more, then slapped a palm against the Peng. People here thought the craziest thing associated with religion here was Challus…well, they were right, at least phonically. This CHALICE…this holy grail that is the Treasure…is MY sacred, synthetic space relic.

And…going home? I'm already effing home.

The engineer said nothing further, but just tromped off with the Treasure and Kyne in tow. The girls were a bit mystified for a second, though, to hear some strange whimsical humming of a tacky-lyricked-yet-catchy-melodied popular song from centuries past as he went—which he did to passively-aggressively taunt them, as well as to warm himself in his new, magnificent, permanent space abode.

Hmm—HMmmm…HMMMMM…Hmm-Hmm…Hmm—HMmmm…HMMMMM…Hmm-Hmm…

What the hell is that? wondered the brunette Benedict Arnold, mentally aloud as she began to shift her shuttle back from "Park" into "Drive."

Run Like Hell is what it is, answered the beatific blonde, shaking her head slowly. He's trolling us with the chorus to the Breaking Benjamin "No Place Like Home" song. Makes sense, given that our entire reality is RLH's improved-upon ripoff and we're just living…or nonliving, in my case…in it.

Which then begged an irritatingly irresistible philosophical question, one would think, reasoned Nicole to herself. If our universe has largely been glommed off of that Henriksen/"Janeway"-voiced opus…is the Marker, which has so influenced our perceptions, and is already phallic enough as it is, made entirely from Bawls?!

So was the uninteresting Una that was Nicole Brennan left to pontificate upon this, as was the douchey Duessa that was Kendra Daniels, each of the whimsical women sighing frustratedly to herself as she remained ever forlornly in the wake of the Cyan-Countenanced Knight that was Isaac Clarke, his gracious Gloriana the titillating Treasure that was now physically nearest, and always emotionally and psychically dearest, to his intrepid, industrious, eternally-Level-Five-suit-encased heart.