The two fugitives quickly exited Derrick's room and headed to Rehab Room 3. Derrick held his SMG at the ready as Alex covered their rear. Strangely, the mysterious woman did so as though the formation was well-practiced.

"What-?" he began to whisper as they came to the turn in the hallway that led to the Rehabilitation Rooms.

"Shh-,"Alex came close to him then and a heady mix of sweat, as well as something he couldn't identify, filled his senses. "There's still five or six of them in this section."

Derrick nodded and carefully made his way to the edge of the corridor. No sooner had he peeked out than the soldier on guard exploded into action.

"There he is!" the man exclaimed and fired a short burst from his SMG.

Derricked ducked back behind cover, narrowly avoiding the rounds that dented the thin metal covering the walls, and Alex was suddenly there beside him. She peeked out and was rewarded with two bursts of gunfire from two different automatic weapons.

"Only two," she whispered to him. "One on the left three meters down the hall; the other two meters to the right and two behind the first."

"Got it," Derrick acknowledged and his body began moving almost of its own volition.

Derrick went to one knee, leaned out, and fired two short bursts at knee height. The 9mm rounds tore through the soldiers legs and they collapsed to the floor with shrill cries of pain. Alex swiveled into the corridor, her large handgun in one hand, and calmly put two bullets through the writhing soldiers visors as they writhed on the ground. Their helmets kept most of the brain chunks contained but the mess Alex had made of their faces was gruesome.

"Are you still breathing?" Alex asked with a small smirk on her face.

"Feels like it," he replied, taking a deep breath after glancing at the men he had just helped kill.

Funny how I'm not sickened or anything. Just glad I'm still alive. Derrick thought as he secured a couple more spare magazines.

"Watch out!" Alex screamed as he pocketed a ration bar from a flak jacket.

Derrick felt a boot hit him in the back and was amazed as the blow propelled him nearly three meters into the corridor leading to Room 1. He turned and saw something impossible. Alex spun like a dancer and fired her weapon as her arm was outstretched in a classic ballerina pose. A soft choking sound filled the sudden silence left by the cessation of gunfire. A single shot eliminated the choking noise. Derrick rejoined Alex and his gaze narrowed with suspicion tinged with not a little fear.

"How'd you do that?" he asked, but she was already moving away.

"We have to move. I'll explain when we have some time, I promise." Alex turned to him with those smoky eyes and Derrick relented with a nod.

"Careful," his lone ally whispered as they came to the doors of Room 3.

The doors whisked open and three soldiers stood there gaping at Derrick.

"There's Cole!" one screamed and they all opened fire.

Derrick dived to the right, grunting as he screwed up the roll and nearly dislocated his shoulder, and came up with his back to the wall.

"Follow my lead," Alex said, and went low to fire.

Derrick went high and as he fired a burst he noticed that Alex's single shot had downed a soldier. His burst was mostly absorbed by his target's body armor but one round ripped through the quickly panicking man's forearm.

"Fuck!" the soldier's pained shout was so loud it even drowned out the sound of Alex's sending a bullet tearing through his neck.

The man collapsed jerkily and convulsed on the ground as though someone had supercharged his body.

"Fuck this!" the last enemy standing screamed, as the overwhelming awe and terror he felt overrode his conditioning to obey orders.

The soldier ran towards the door but a well-placed shot from Alex sent a 10mm round up into his neck and directly through his left eye socket. He kept running towards the doors, already decorated with blood, brain, and bone chips, until he collided with them at full speed. Such was the force of impact that the soldier was flung backwards to land on his back. Of course he had been dead long before he hit the floor.

"Come in, Charlie One…" a faint voice came from the sergeant's helmet.

"Take his radio. I've already got one." Alex said, reloading her weapon and restocking the nearly empty clip with spare rounds from her battle-kit.

Derrick removed the corpse's helmet and, with a faint grimace of disgust, removed the earpiece, throat mic, and transceiver. He placed the transceiver in its compartment near his shoulder and put on the mic. Derrick rubbed the earpiece as well as he could before placing it in his own ear. As he reloaded his SMG and placed the half-empty mag. on the second row of his flak vest, he listened to the radio.

"Charlie One, this is Romeo-One-One-Five. Did you take care of Cole, over?" There was a pause as the speaker, probably the operational commander, waited for a response. "Charlie Four, proceed to the Medical Section. They've run into some kind of trouble, over."

Derrick glanced at the human killing machine standing near the exit and smirked.

Yeah, some kind of trouble.

"Charlie Four here, roger that." a high-pitched, nasal voice answered.

"Damn." Alex swore. "Those soldiers will be here any second."

"Let's get the fuck outta here then." Derrick suggested and she nodded with a tiny smile.

The sergeant also had CardKey-1 on him and they made good use of it. These next halls looked identical to the last. They passed several rooms that were locked but most likely just led to other recovery wards.

An earthquake struck just as they turned the corner of a hall that ended at a turn with large glass windows. The walls grew impressive cracks as the building shook around them and Derrick began to panic. It was over quickly and Derrick tried to stop his heart from beating its way out of his chest. It had been much stronger than the previous one. He had really been afraid the ceiling might cave in. But this was Japan and the building had definitely been built with some protection against such things. Then Alex said something that dashed any hope of the earthquake being natural.

"Nexus is making its move!" the intense brunette said, frustration thickened her voice.

"Who the fuck is Nexus?"

"Come on, we gotta go."

"Shit." Derrick was getting really tired of being ignored.

A fire alarm went off and the computerized voice announced, "Fire detected. Please evacuate floor immediately. I repeat. Fire detected. Please evacuate this floor immediately."

The windows at the end of the hall had all cracked spectacularly but none had broken. They looked out on a huge courtyard decorated with gardens and trees. The heavy overcast, Derrick was sad to see, lessened its beauty somewhat. In the center of the hallway were pylons separated by small rows of plants. As they neared the halfway point, a trio of soldiers turned the corner.

"There he is! Get him!" The leader shouted but was thrown back into the wall when Alex gripped her sidearm in both hands and fired three quick shots.

The leader got one through the visor and the other in the throat. The third soldier was already ducking back around the corner. Derrick sprinted around the pylon closest to them, slid to his knees, and fired on full auto at the third and fourth members of the enemy squad. Both went down with nearly thirteen bullets apiece embedded in their bodies.

Derrick reloaded his weapon, ate a ration bar, and washed the taste from his mouth with a can of juice from a vending machine at the end of the windowed hall.

Don't they believe in soda around here?

Derrick and Alex moved in the direction the soldiers had come from and passed a receiving desk in front of a metal detector built into the entranceway frame. The lights in this hall were out but oddly enough the office they entered was brightly lit. The radio in the center of the table began to speak.

"This is a repeat announcement regarding today's earthquake. At fourteen hundred hours this afternoon, a powerful earthquake hit the city of Yokohama. We will broadcast information to the surrounding areas as it become available. This earthquake with Yokohama as its epicenter was unnatural in both its origin and its size. An investigation is underway."

The radio switched to soothing lounge music.

"We've got to move, Derrick." Alex said impatiently.

Derrick turned an irritated glare at her before heading out the door. They turned down the hall on their left towards another windowed hall with wood floors. These windows looked out into a shadowed square that was bridged by rounded corridors easily visible from their position.

What kind of place is this?

"Get back!" Alex shouted and pulled Derrick back just as the windows shattered under a hail of high-caliber projectiles. "It's an attack chopper."

No shit, Derrick thought. Two-man cockpit, twin heavy auto-linked machineguns, twin rocket pods. I should know the name of that type of military helicopter, damnit.

The radio buzzed to life, "This is Devil-Eight-Zero. Objective sighted."

Alex braced with her back to the wall and yelled to be heard over the rotation of the helicopter's blades.

"Come on!"

Derrick watched as his companion cartwheeled to where a section of wall separated the window panels and immediately turned her momentum into a diving roll. Alex was brought up short by the wall that rose to block her progress. Derrick dived, tucked, and rolled behind the first section of cover. Derrick ducked down low and as close to the wall as possible.

"Damnit, it won't open!" Alex screamed at the door. "We've gotta find a way to open it or go around it!"

Alex turned back to him and eyed the hallway that Derrick was facing.

"You've got to time this perfectly, hotshot." Alex said with a challenging, manic grin as she holstered her sidearm.

Derrick's jaw dropped when Alex sprinted across his position and the heavy machineguns started spitting out tracer rounds as they sought a lock. Alex was a gray-black blur as she leaped at the wall and kept running down the corridor as if she weren't nearly horizontal to the floor. Alex cartwheeled off the wall and took cover behind a vending machine where she presumably waited for him.

Crazy bitch, Derrick thought with a grin as the heavy guns stopped firing in order to cool down.

Derrick sprinted down the hall as fast as he could, SMG in one hand, and he knew he only had seconds before the guns could fire again. A desk was set against the vending machine and Derrick leaped atop it. Somehow he dived over the vending machine, flipped in mid-air, and landed on all fours like a cat.

"What took so long?" Alex gave him a quick grin before sprinting with inhuman speed down a hall on their right.

Derrick struggled to keep up and found himself gasping for air when he caught up with her inside a security station. She was standing by a control console examining the controls. Alex hit a series of buttons and the door began sliding up on its tracks.

"That's the ticket!"

Derrick once again found himself struggling to keep up back to the main hallway. Alex didn't hesitate and sprinted back down the hall before the 'copter saw them. Derrick couldn't keep up and dove the last four meters as the chopper opened fire. He rolled into the wall with bruising impact and Alex helped him up with one hand.

"You alright?"

"Good to go." Derrick answered, a little surprised he hadn't broken anything.

"Don't get shot!"

The next minute was spent sprinting between each section of cover while the guns cooled down. When the pilot caught on, nearly blowing Alex in half, they were reduced to worming their way the last ten meters. When it was clear they had made it to relative safety the sounds of the 'chopper faded.

"No joy, command. Objective lost. Returning to holding pattern Alpha, over."

"That was a close one." Alex sighed.

Derrick was still too busy trying to breathe to reply. They were in some kind of receiving area, but it was strangely empty of furnishings, that they quickly passed through. The next section of hallway was luxuriously decorated with wood paneled walls and aesthetically pleasing light fixtures. The two entered a more utilitarian hall and Derrick spotted what looked like a body in a white labcoat.

"Cole's over there!" Someone foolishly exclaimed very loudly.

Derrick and Alex dashed into the opening to the elevator lobby as one and the two soldiers were dead in seconds. Derrick checked the dead scientist for anything useful but came up empty.

"Are you hit?" Alex asked.

"When I am, you'll be the first to know." he snapped crossly and her face went blank.

There were huge '7's above the elevator doors on either side of the lobby. It was just bad luck that the elevators were unresponsive. In silent agreement they moved on but as they exited the lobby the radio came to life.

"Sir, the building's secured up to the fifth floor. The 'quake blocked off the stairs so securing the upper floors is gonna be a bitch… over."

"This is Romeo-One-One-Five. Roger that. That's what they pay us for."

There were two more bodies down the hallway on their right. One was slouched against a wall with a trail of blood and brain behind him. The other was lying in a pool of blood further down the hall.

Probably shot in the back while he was running away. Poor bastard.

Derrick and Alex entered an office space for multiple people. They were walking besides a desk when the door opened and two soldiers ran in. Derrick opened up with his SMG sparking white as death roared from its tip and the two collapsed bonelessly from the rounds that had shattered their visors.

"Took care of them." Alex murmured and after taking spare magazines to replace Derrick's half-empty ones, they left the room.

Outside they met another pair that waited down either side of the branching hallway. Derrick made a hand-signal before he realized that he knew how and Alex nodded. She moved to the other side of the hall. A burst of SMG fire was followed by a single shot from a 10mm handgun. Down the hall on their right was the body of another scientist shot in the back as he had tried to flee.

The next room was a board room of some kind with a large desk taking up its center. What surprised Derrick was that there was a damned Xbox hooked up to the large-screen television in front of the desk. He noticed a clipboard on the desk and rushed to read it.

Carter Science Center? So that's what CSC stands for.

According to the clipboard the center was a joint venture between the U.S. and Japan. It was supposed to research advanced technologies and their applications.

So what the fuck were they doing to me?

There was a room on their right that was connected by an open doorway. The wall was glass so Derrick didn't understand why anyone thought it had been necessary.

"This is Charlie Three!" Someone shouted frantically over amidst the clatter of small arms fire. "We need reinforcements on the double!"

Another voice came over the line, "What the hell? My gun ain't doin' shit, man!"

Then someone screamed and there was silence.

Romeo-115 came online, "Charlie Three, what's you status. Report!" Silence was the only response. "Shit… don't let those freaks out of the Annex."

Derrick and Alex looked at each other worriedly before continuing their search for a way out. They came to an anteroom with a map next to the shutter door opposite their entrance.

"Hey." Alex said as she examined the map." This leads to another building. You learn something new everyday. Come on, let's go check it out."

"Are you always this bossy?" Derrick asked, a bit put out by Alex's demands.

Alex turned to him with a seductive smirk, "Yup."

Now what was that about, Derrick thought, ignoring the blood rushing to his groin.

Alex hit the switch to open the shutter door and revealed a long hallway with black and white tiles. It was probably one of the bridges he had noticed earlier.

When Derrick neared a small cart with boxes stacked on it everything went gray and static, just like on an old television set, obscured his vision. A black-and-white cat seemed to appear from nowhere… or did it come from behind the cart? Its coat glowed in an otherworldly fashion but it was probably just the overheads. Then the cat looked Derrick right in the eye, meowed, and burst apart in a spray of brilliant motes of light.

Fuck me. Derrick shook his head in disbelief.

Derrick continued down the hall but was brought up short by an intense burning sensation all over his body. The static washed over him again but this time it left the world terribly brighter than before. Everything was various shades of an otherworldly white light. Derrick held his hands out before him and whimpered as first his skin and then his flesh evaporated like water before his eyes. The burning sensation quickly passed but by then Derrick's hand was nothing but shining, white bone.

How can I still be alive?

Alex came around and looked into his eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"I-" Derrick couldn't find the will to say anything and merely shook his head as he continued down the hall.

Whatever they've done to me must have fucked my brain up. This shit feels too real to just be a hallucination. Why me? Damned egghead shits.

When Derrick reached to open the shutter at the opposite end of the bridge, a cool feeling enveloped him, and the static took the ghostly white pallor from his surroundings. He looked at his hands and, much to his relief, the flesh had returned.

"Let's keep moving."

"Yeah," he said, wanting to be far away from the creepy corridor.

The two entered a cafeteria where the first thing to greet them was a man's body lying on top of a woman. He had obviously been trying to protect her but the killers had been all too thorough in their work. There were half a dozen people in the dimly lit café. Most were slumped at their tables or chairs at the bar. These were just civilians and rage blossomed in Derrick's heart.

They entered a dark hallway where a keycard panel awaited them. Derrick swiped the card and the first thing they saw was a soldier's headless corpse. When they got closer they saw that the soldier wasn't headless. Something had pulverized his head with such power that there was little left but chunks of helmet and skull on the wall.

"Uh-oh." Alex said, her voice nervous. "Looks like we aren't the only ones fighting the soldiers here."

"Good, maybe that'll take some pressure off us."

"You're right about that." Alex agreed as they made their way through half a dozen bodies.

Shit. They all looked like they were killed by hand. What could do that and not be wounded unless they were walking tanks. Fuck, I hope they're gone.

The next hall was littered with even more bodies with twisted limbs and pulped heads. Suddenly a body flew from an adjoining hall to smash with bone-crushing force into their hallways wall.

"What the fuck?" Alex said, her voice was definitely nervous now.

Together they cautiously rounded the corner and saw a soldier backing away from around the corner at the far end of the hall.

"Die, muthafucka!" He screeched and opened up on full auto as his target slowly rounded the corner in pursuit.

The man had to have been two meters tall and thickly muscled. What was odd about him was that his skin below the shoulder looked black and hard like obsidian with traceries of brilliant white light that brightened and dimmed almost like a heartbeat. There were no discernible clothes on his body at all. Something sparkled centimeters from the man's torso and it seemed to protect him from the barrage of metal flying at him faster than the speed of sound.

"T'lan Warriors!" Alex shouted, sounding on the verge of hysteria, "How can this be?"

Derrick aimed his SMG but Alex pulled him back just as another T'lan Warrior charged through the space he had just vacated. Alex spinning sidekicked the T'lan in the back with insane grace and speed. The force of his own momentum, plus Alex's kick, sent the brute slamming into the opposite wall headfirst. His shield must have protected him because the bastard immediately began trying to free his head.

"You can't fight them yet, Derrick. Run!"

Derrick needed no further encouragement, fear was starting to catch up with him, and something told him she was right. The voice that had been in his head just before they left the Rehab Section came to him as they sprinted into the room the T'lan had come from.

"If you don't have the right tool then find out what it is and get one, Derrick. Whatever it takes!"

It was another office that had not fared so well in the earthquake. The exit was blocked by large pieces of concrete that had fallen from the ceiling. A bookcase had wedged itself near the frame and there was enough room for them to slide through.

"You first." Derrick offered Alex.

"You go! I can hold them!" Alex said, and drew the knife she kept in a sheathe on her lower back.

Derrick wanted to protest but both T'lan Warriors were charging towards them. In three seconds flat he was through.

"C'mon, Alex!"Derrick shouted and out of nowhere a T'lan flew into the rubble.

The impact broke the bookcase and the escape was blocked.

"We'll have to split up!" Derrick could just make out Alex's head over the rubble. "Stay off the radio! We'll find each other again! Go, Derrick!"

Then Alex raced off being pursued by bullet-proof freaks with super-strength.

And Derrick was alone.