Chapter 3: Buried Beneath the Surface

"Don't scream," Samantha whispered to herself. She raised her gun and aimed at the slasher running toward her, its bladed limbs rising in preparation of a strike, and its awkward, ambling gait gaining speed as it charged. The woman who stood so bravely with a gun might have been a poor shot, but even she couldn't miss the creature at such close range, and as she pulled the trigger to send a blast of energy into the monster, she thanked whatever powers might be that Mercer had upgraded this weapon before it needed used. Now she aimed again as the slasher hissed in rage, its head rearing upward as it clawed its way across the floor, leaving a bloody trail in its wake.

"Bastard," she coldly commented as she fired into its body, unsuccessfully aiming at its arms. She'd been told to fire at the limbs rather than the torso, which went against her better judgement, but she thought it best not to question the advice. So she fired blast after blast until she managed to remove the arms, and finally the creature ceased its jerking movements. It looked so broken and sad lying on the floor like that, and Samantha briefly contemplated the very human looking blood that was spreading across the floor beneath it.

I've been on my own for too long, she decided, for it couldn't be healthy to feel so numb and indifferent after shooting something part. At first, she'd felt frightened and angry toward the necromorphs, but that had been in the beginning, and while the fear remained, the anger was almost gone. Now she didn't care whether they lived or died so long as she was still running, and sometimes she didn't even care about that. It reminded her of the woman that she'd encountered a day or so ago—a pretty woman with a faded security patch on her shoulder, a severed head in her hands, and a depth of sorrow so intense that she'd simply stood in a corridor crying as one of those disgusting, mutated babies attacked her. The woman had merely sat down as if tired when her chest was torn open, tears falling, but resistance nonexistent.

What in the name of hell had finally pushed someone that far? Samantha wanted to know if she was heading in that direction, for it was hard to gauge her own sanity in this environment. The only time that she felt particularly sane was when Mercer was around, and that was because she had someone for comparison. At least she knew that this whole mess was a horrendous catastrophe—not some kind of marvelous leap forward—and the necromorphs were monsters, not saviors or agents of evolution. They simply claimed what wasn't theirs, and fed from the dead. Without the dead, they were nothing, and so they were no better than leeches sucking mankind's energy dry.

Samantha was about to wander off when she heard something heavy moving nearby, and damn but the thing sounded large. Stepping over the dead slasher at her feet, she leaned her head toward a small air vent and listened, the sound growing louder as she tried to peer through fine, metal grating into the next room. Whatever it was, it was in there, and she caught a glimpse of glowing, crimson eyes and black skin before she stepped away, quickly deciding that keeping her distance would be for the best.

We should have never taken the Marker.

She kept moving down the hallway, the lumbering sound of the nearby creature keeping pace with her. Did it know that she was here? The thought made her shudder as she reached a small flight of stairs that she knew would lead her to an observation desk, which was not her idea of a wise move, but she couldn't go back. She'd been wandering in circles for days since she avoided unfamiliar areas—that, and any unusual sounds sent her down another corridor whether or not she had already gone in that direction. She needed to reach another deck and either look for help or an escape pod, but that would mean leaving behind the only person that she knew for certain still lived. To lose him didn't even bear thinking, for as long as he was alive, there would be someone here with her, and she didn't think that she could overcome despair if that was taken from her.

He hates when I cry.

With a sigh, Samantha stepped through a door and into an observation room that overlooked a large lab now littered with corpses and former patients, but it wasn't the rampant death that drew her eyes. No, there was something coming toward her at an incredible speed, moving much faster than a slasher could, which sent a convulsion of terrified shivers down her spine.

"Shit!" she yelped, gasping in shock as a heavy hand slammed into protective glass, the observation window's entire frame shuddering with the force. Then she found herself face-to-face with the creature that she knew to be her former coworker turned experiment, and it was as hideous as she remembered. With an odd snapping of its fanged jaw, it stared at her for a few seconds of peace wherein she was sure her heart would break free from her ribcage with the force of its pounding.

The thing's breath fogged the glass as it retreated backward only to relaunch itself into the window, which although taking a beating, did not break. It merely shook and left Samantha standing with mouth agape, her feet frozen as she contemplated the power of the thing before her. It was unlike anything that she had ever seen before, for although the monster shared the viciousness of its relatives, it would pause as if thinking about its situation before attacking, trying different modes of hitting the glass to test effectiveness. The red eyes—there was almost something intelligent behind the hungry, glazed stare, but pain did not deter the creature, for even as blackened skin cracked and bled to leave crimson patterns across the glass, the beatings did not cease.

"Remarkable, isn't it?"

Samantha again jumped, nearly shooting Mercer as he stepped out of a shadowed corner with a satisfied expression.

"Now do you see?" he asked. "How could we hope to stand against something of this magnitude?" Samantha lowered her weapon and turned her eyes back to the rampaging beast, which had been joined by several slashers, the lesser necromorphs moving aside as if deferring to it. "I designed him to lead," Mercer continued. "I did all that I could to maintain some semblance of cognitive abilities, such as problem solving, but my child's still connected to the hive mind."

"The what?" Samantha asked.

"They're like ants," Mercer explained. "There's a ruler that controls the entire kingdom and gives orders. These are merely the workers who serve the greater will, but our friend Rodney has become a bit more willful than the others. He performs his duty with an intelligence that they lack. So do you understand now? Or would you like to fight my child?" As if it recognized its status as a conversation topic, the creature suddenly charged the windows again and slammed its head against the glass, blood flecks spraying across the breadth of its forehead from self-injury as it did so.

"Shhhhh," Mercer soothed. "We can't join you yet, and you should be more polite. This is your mother." Samantha grimaced and fidgeted with her gun's trigger.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"Your research into using accelerated cell growth to make patches of infected flesh for convenient study provided the sample that I implanted in Rodney's brain. I may have nurtured this being, but you made its existence possible."

"That wasn't my intention," Samantha clarified, repulsed by the thought of having helped produce a killing machine.

"I know," Mercer stated. "But aren't you even the least bit proud of what you see before you? You had a hand in all of this..." He stepped closer and drew her into his arms, keeping her back against his chest so that she could look on the mutated humans prowling the other room. "Now that you know how futile fighting is, stay and help complete the work. Watch as our child destroys the human who would prevent unity!" It was official, she decided, the world was falling apart if she was thinking about staying with this man. But if she left, what was out there waiting for her? At least Mercer was still human, and if she could die being held like this, maybe losing her sanity was worth the reward.

Make us whole, Samantha. Don't deny your love.

She leaned into Mercer's arms and allowed the voice to envelope her entire being. Was this why Mercer had caved? She felt so calm right now, as if she was surrounded by friendly people, all of whom were relaxing and telling her to do the same. These corpses weren't tragic emblems of pain. They were waiting for rebirth, as Mercer had said, and they wanted her to join them.

But I don't want to join them, she reasoned. Only him.

"And you can have him," a voice whispered.

"That's it, Samantha" Mercer encouraged. "We could be like we once were. I'm so glad that you came back to finish what we started." He was smiling. By the stars, the sick, twisted man was actually smiling, and Samantha almost smiled with him, but a warning pulled her back from the edge. These arms, his arms, promised death and destruction. He would murder the other survivors if he could.

"Do you remember when you asked me into your office for the first time?" she asked. "You were determined to go over two whole reports even though it was almost midnight."

"I remember," Mercer spoke into her hair.

"We didn't even finish one, because you couldn't keep your eyes off of my legs." Images of intertwined bodies entered her mind as she recalled what they'd done on his desk, and the warmth of the memory chased away the voice in her head. Yes, she had to remember what had been real and worth living for, or else she would go mad. Memories of what made humanity special to her could beat back the need to unify, and maybe, if he remembered too...

"You're not ready yet then," he told her, sounding disappointed rather than angry, which surprised her. "But you'll come back again and again, because there's nowhere else to go."

"No," Samantha objected. "I want to stay with you." She could reach him if she was lucky, and the hope made her turn and look up into his face, where she could almost see the conflict behind his glazed expression. "Maybe you could hold me for a while," she suggested. "Like you used to do after a long day at lab. Don't you remember?" He paused before nodding, her arms wrapping around him in the process.

"I..." He fumbled for words, clearly confused by some unknown emotion as she leaned into him.

"They can't hold one another, Challus," she said, trying to win him back. "They don't have soft hands like this, and they can't fit together with their elongated bodies. Please, Challus, I need this." He raised hands and wound them around her, his face pressing into her hair.

"Samantha," he suddenly sighed. "I'm so sorry, for everything."

"It's okay," she assured him, crying into his shirt. "What happened isn't your fault."

"I should have come straight to security," he lamented, and she smiled through her tears as he slowly molded into the man she knew.

"You've always been stubborn," she said with a forced laugh. "But you're here now, and so am I." They stood like that for some time, just holding one another and listening to the sound of death, but it wasn't long before he bent his mouth toward her ear and gently kissed her there. Seconds later, he released her and leaned against the wall, staring at his own hands in shock. "What's wrong?" she asked, scared by his sudden change.

"I don't...Samantha?" His head tilted to the side, and he closed his eyes, an oddly detached expression settling over his face.

"No!" Samantha screamed, throwing her gun into the wall. "Why?"

"Why anything, dear?" Mercer questioned, straightening and rearranging his clothing as if he were sharing coffee with her before work. "We are together again, and we never have to part."

"Come with me," she urged. "You're in there somewhere."

"No, listen to me," he sternly countered. "If we go, we will lose one another. That's what they want to prevent, but humanity, with all its emphasis on life and death, teaches us that if one person dies, they are lost to the rest of us. Unification, Samantha—that's what this is about. It's an entire paradigm shift, and the new order knows that life and death are not separate, but joined. If we stay, we will join the others and be together forever. I will not lose you. In fact, now I understand that I couldn't if I tried." The motive behind his reasoning almost broke her heart as she retrieved her gun.

"Thank you," she told him, but she didn't even know if he was listening as he cast his attention on the nearby necromorphs. "Even a few minutes was enough."

"Are you staying?" he pressed, eyes almost yearning as she walked toward the door.

"Not until I fight a little longer."

"Then you've learned nothing," Mercer scoffed.

"Maybe, but I've been reminded of why living is worthwhile, and it's because of you. I'll be back when I find a way to get us out of here. Stay alive." He wanted her to die, and he was the only thing that kept her alive. With a nod toward the dark humor of life, Samantha hurried toward the tram, hoping that Mercer would preserve his own life for a while longer. If she found an escape, she would retrieve and force him to join her, perhaps pulling him along with memories, and if they were truly trapped, she would return and stay with him until the end. It wasn't much, but it was all she had.