NOTES: This is a prequel to "Only Lonely" and "Fuzzy Dice". It's not necessary to have read those stories, but I'd recommend it.

SUMMARY: After capturing a new type of terminator General Connor faces a personal crisis, while his future father confronts a frightening new enemy in the forbidden wastes of the Arctic Circle. Prequel to the 'Only Lonely' series.

DISCLAIMER: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.


"The Killer I Created"
Chapter 4
T.R. Samuels

The screech of rusty metal sliced through Pace's bones as Reese and Falcheck mauled the garage door open, the old metal and seized mechanical workings shrieking in complaint as it slid up to its overhead compartment and the Southerner shone a torch into its darkened interior. The halo of light moved over a field of tartan blankets that contoured up and down like the curves of a miniature landscape, the smell of musk and old engine oil leaving an unpleasant taste in their mouths as their breath crystallised in the air.

The garage felt like a tomb, a place where engines and vehicles came to die, the air stale and thick with dust, somehow feeling colder than the windswept realm outside even after it had plummeted into darkness. As strange as it seemed the darkness actually felt comforting to the men, having lived most their lives under the shadow of the southerly world – a natural fog of war that lay over them like an obscuring blanket that hid them out of sight.

No child was frightened of the dark in future, that age-old phobia long dispelled. It was what was in the dark that scared them now.

Reese reached out and pulled one of the woven blankets off its perch, the criss-crossed material sliding over what lay beneath like a rigid skeleton until revealing the unmistakable form of a snowmobile, packed neatly in storage alongside a dozen or so others that crammed the garage floor like sardines.

"Try to get one of them working, Pace." The sergeant ordered as he angled his torch around the rest of the garage.

The young man cracked his frozen knuckles with enthusiasm. "You got it, sir!"

"Sergeant, do you think this is a good idea?" Falcheck asked, the pilot stamping his feet and bobbing from side to side in an effort to keep his circulation going.

"My 'good idea' was to wait until morning and all go together in the light, but Lieutenant Yee-Ha didn't want any of it," He remarked angrily as Pace cracked open the cover of the snowmobile's engine. "Now we've lost contact with half our team and the sun isn't up for another fourteen hours."

Falcheck shrugged over the sound of chattering teeth. "All the more reason to go with your original plan."

"They could be dead by then, corporal."

As they wrangled over how to proceed, Pace peered into the innards of the vehicle's engine, twisting off caps and examining the lovingly preserved components as he lay his tool kit down on the floor. Whoever left this sled behind had done a fine job of mothballing it – there was clean oil in the engine, extra grease on the battery terminals, and his stuffy nose cleared right up as he inhaled the liberal odour of WD40.

Suitably impressed he undid his bag of tools, casting the leather carrier open and slipped a solenoid voltmeter from its holster. He switched the device on, its tiny screen blinking to life with LED digits before he unravelled its red and black electrodes and brought them down onto the corresponding terminals.

The battery was dead as a doornail, as he expected, but it would not be a problem. A quick jump from his booster pack would get the vehicle going and its alternator would do the rest.

"Well then… we'll go with you!" Falcheck spoke up, sounding rather brave in an uncharacteristic display of comradeship.

Reese shook his head, holding the light for Pace as the young man began removing the cover of the engine's cylinder head. "No. You two are going to stay here and keep the camp secure and the fire burning."

"What if you get into trouble like the others and we don't hear from you either?"

"If that happens then I want you to barricade yourselves in the bar and wait for the SAR bird to arrive. They'll list us as overdue in two days so all you have to do is wait until then."

"Shit!" Pace interrupted, looking down in the cylinder heads of the four-stroke engine. "I was afraid of this."

"What's wrong?"

"Spark plugs have been removed. We'll need to find some."

Reese nodded evenly. "Check around, if you can't find any here try one of the stores down the street. I'm going back to the bar to get my gear together."

Reese turned on his heel and headed back across the road, retracing his steps toward the beacon of warm amber light emanating from the bar at the other end of the street. His boots scrunched through the thick snow that had already accumulated over the footprints they had made earlier, the light of the torch clipped to the front of his vest illuminating the path ahead. Without it the town took on a ghostly glow, lit only by reflection of what light they had either brought or created and the occasional ambiance of the full moon, the pallid disk piercing the raging clouds as they tore past its opaque, featureless face.

Once he got his gear and clothing in order and Pace had the snowmobile working, it would only be a short trip north-west along the old coast road he had identified on a tourist map, all the places of interest clearly marked and giving him a pretty fair idea of where Bacchus and the others had gone in their pursuit of the mysterious signal.

"Sergeant!" Falcheck was suddenly by his side, calling over the wind as he jogged from the garage.

Reese glanced at him as the pilot reached his side, continuing on toward the bar. "What now, corporal?"

"Sir, what if the weather stays bad and the Charybdis doesn't send the rescue team?" He began to gripe, fully prepared to give Reese his grocery list of insecurity. "What if we run out of food? Or the wind turbine packs up? How long are we expected to…"

Falcheck was silenced by Reese's firm fist, the back of his hand connecting with the corporal's chest and stopped him right in his tracks. For an instant, Falcheck thought that the Tech-Com soldier was going to take him down in some crippling, hand-to-hand move for stepping over the line until he saw the look on the sergeant's face.

Reese had his eyes riveted to the darkness on his left, scanning the shadows and silhouettes of the abandoned buildings as the wind howled past them with a surge of earnest, as though it sense that something was about to happen. Falcheck followed his gaze as he felt his heart rate sky rocket, searching the gloom in vain for whatever Reese had seen.

"What is it? What did you see?"

Reese was silent as his eyes pierced the black, his body rigid in a ready stance that was prepared for anything as his hand slid over his rifle. "Thought I saw something… past those buildings…"

The pilots' balls turned to ice. Something cold and scaly slithered down his back as he fumbled his 9mm Beretta from his pocket, sliding back the hammer with frozen fingers and awkward gloves as Carters' warnings of polar bears came flooding back to him.

Reese lowered his arm from Falcheck's chest and pointed the light off into the darkness, illuminating the whipping snowflakes and very little else as the feeble cone of light was swallowed up by the gloom.

Both men stood firm for almost a minute, watching and listening, until Reese dropped the torch to his side.

"Probably nothing…"

Without another word he carried on up the path toward the bar and Falcheck scrambled after him, oblivious as the sergeant's mouth curled into a shameless and impish grin.

The old 'I thought I saw something lurking in the shadows' shut them up every time.

####

Major General Perry leant his forearms against the back of his stool after loosening his collar, creasing a line into the shoulders of his best uniform jacket he had draped over the narrow perch, a layer of sweat accumulating on his brow and underarms. The warmth of the Engineer's laboratory was all but unbearable, smothering him with its heady weight and sterile odour as the legion of disabled terminators in various stages of dismantlement made reproving eyes at him from the room's perimeter.

Doctor Daniel Phillips sat opposite along the cluttered workbench, eyeing the general carefully and with a hint of weary elucidation, his white lab coat still clad around his shoulders in the oppressive warmth as he slid a short cigarillo from an ornate silver case, twirling it between his fingers before lighting it on the narrow flame of a Bunsen burner. Tendrils of white smoke curled around him as he drew a generous amount, the tip of the cigar glowing through the wispy particles like the eye of a terminator.

"Y'know, those things can give you cancer."

The doctor looked at him as though Perry were kidding. "Yeah… because in the long run, that's the most likely thing to kill me."

The general did not answer, his mind going a mile a minute as his eyes slid back to the video clip still playing on the computer, watching as the spherical cell ballooned from a single point into a clustered mass of harmonious neighbours, metabolising and dividing in a time lapsed clip until they reached the extent of their container and were automatically incinerated.

"Just think of the possibilities!"

"The possibilities are what scare me!" Perry pushed back from the stool, running his hand over his bald head. "What you're suggesting… it's… it's unnatural!"

"Twenty years ago, genetically modified crops were thought of as unnatural – now they're the staple of our diet. If that technology hadn't been developed we wouldn't be able to grow the bulk of our food in underground hydroponics and this war would have been over long ago."

"What we're talking about here is a bit different from engineering better crops, doctor! You're talking about changing human beings!"

"Precisely!" Phillips gripped his cigarillo between his lips as he pulled open his desk draw, fingers walking through the wealth of meticulous files, each one colour coded and sealed in security tape. He pulled out a green one stamped with blotchy red ink before sliding it down the workbench to the general.

"Here you go. It's all right there."

Perry reached out and scooped the file from the edge of the desk, drifting his eyes over the intimidating title.

Top Secret. World Population Growth, Social Science, and Environmental Psychology Analysis. Doctor Daniel Phillips.

Perry had heard that the Engineer had written hundreds of these things, all of them top secret, that Connor had him running studies and experiments all over the world and funded him with a significant slice of the Resistances' resources. It was important work, Perry had no argument with that, one of their greatest enemies had always been a lack of information and an understanding of what was happening on a global scale.

Humanity's survival and its future had naturally taken highest priority, leading to research and studies into population growth, demographics, social structures, and how the world's new environment affected those things.

The results had been grave to say the least.

"I'll save you the trouble of reading it," Phillips interrupted as Perry went to open the file. "It says that if the war were to end… even on Connor's most optimistic timetable… then the human race will become extinct in less than twenty years."

Something inside Perry felt as though it was falling, farther and longer than anything he had ever felt, even as the doctor felt compelled to hammer the point home.

"That's why the Keadas is so important. That's why it is absolutely necessary to our survival."

Perry was no pushover and quickly found his footing, digging deep for the foundations he had built his doubts upon for the once unthinkable project he thought was dead and buried. He should have known Phillips would not have given up that easily. Reason and human decency rarely worked on the man – if Perry had known that then, and the places this project would lead them, he would have used a stake and crucifix to take it down.

"Explain to me again why this… Allison Young terminator is so special."

Phillips rolled his eyes as he placed his cigarillo down, watching the thin roll smoulder on the edge of an ashtray as he slid the glasses from the bridge of his nose and produced a silken handkerchief, proceeding to clean the lenses in a practiced ritual of patience before sliding them back on his face. Perry ignored the theatrics, not the least bit inclined to be drawn into a petty argument.

"Whilst the chassis and central processing unit are certainly atypical and unique, they're not nearly as interesting as her biological components," He retrieved the cigarillo and took a hit as Perry retook his seat.

"You remember how the early eight-hundreds couldn't repair their damaged tissue. That if it became damaged it wouldn't repair and eventually become gangrenous?" Perry nodded. "Then we had the later models that could heal themselves, at a similar rate as humans?" Again the general nodded his clear affirmation. "Well this is the next step in that logical progression…" The doctor pointed to the screen where the broken down formula of the subject's genome spun in 3D animation.

"Its cells are polymorphic, undifferentiated, they can assume one type of human cell, and then, if properly motivated by external stimuli, they can become an entirely different type of cell." His eyes were wide as he explained. "Skin cells can become hair cells, blood cells become eye cells, any part of its biological covering that needs repairing or replacing can be done so at a vastly accelerated rate. It's incredible! It's a quantum leap in Skynet's ability to manipulate human DNA."

"Why is she like this though? What's the purpose?"

"If she becomes damaged in the field and her endoskeleton is exposed, she can repair the damage in a fraction of the time it normally takes and avoid detection. That's the best thing about Skynet and the machines – they're always about the self-improvement – this is just the latest example of that and it's perfect for our needs! This could be the final piece of the puzzle to completing Keadas!"

Perry shook his head, not quite believing that what was once a harebrained idea floated by a drunken Phillips over three years ago was now taking fruition in such a real and frightening way, especially from such humble and idealistic beginnings.

What would become known as Project Keadas originated from a NASA project the Resistance had discovered years ago, something to do with transplanting the genes of radiation-resistant micro-organisms into future astronauts. Connor had become intrigued and set the Engineer to work investigating its potential for inoculating the human race against the low-level radiation that was systemic across the Earth, seeping into the ground, the water, and the food supply and eventually finding its way into human beings, causing the litany of cancers, mutagenic, and reproductive illnesses that plagued so many of their people.

There were so very few of them now, fewer still that could reproduce successfully without passing on genetic abnormalities, narrowing the human gene pool to the point of no return.

The project had initially met with limited success, but it had opened the door to deeper studies, pushing them in directions and fields of research they had never considered before. Human/animal hybridisation, pre-natal gene therapy, the list grew stranger as it went on – the ultimate goal of course to be able to manipulate the human genome as masterfully as Skynet, hardening humanity against the poisonous and hostile realm that had become of the planet Earth and urgently increase their numbers.

Little had any of them known where the quest for survival would lead them.

"Let's make this clear…" Such bold and uncompromising steps, in Perry's mind, needed to be voiced aloud, brought out into the bright light of day and treated with the cold scepticism they deserved. "You're suggesting we use these, polymorphic, artificial genes to reengineer the human race?"

Phillips nodded, not a shred of fear or doubt in the mans' eyes as Perry gawked at him through the haze of smoke.

"Are you completely deranged? Or are you deliberately taking the piss?"

For some reason, Phillips had held out some small hope that Perry would have seen the light by now. Ever since first proposing this project the general had been one of its staunchest opponents, which made his proselytization a primary concern – if Phillips could convince him, the others would follow, especially since Keadas had been on the backburner for so long. Even the most radioactive material had a half-life.

"When Connor came to me and asked me to find a way of saving us from genetic erosion, we both knew it was a tall order. But the Engineer doesn't baulk from a challenge!" Smoke trailed as he thrust his thumb towards himself. "Artificially engineering a life form as complex as a human being is just too complicated. We don't have the resources or the time. But artificial selection, that's much more feasible. That way we let nature do most of the work."

The man could not be serious. Perry was no stranger to toxic proposals, but this topped them all. As he took a cleansing breath he began wondering if it was more than tobacco in that cigar.

"You really believe this will work?"

Phillips swung the computer monitor around and tapped the plastic screen, dispersing the liquid beneath in a momentary rainbow before the image re-solidified. "Look at the video again. I isolated a singlecell from her tissue sample, input new genetic instructions via retrovirus, and exposed it to a single human gamete," Perry watched as the sample once again sparked to life and began dividing. "It differentiated successfully before my eyes into an ovum, joined with the male gamete and successfully formed a viable zygote!"

"But why?"

"Because that's precisely what it's programmed to do… react to external stimuli and assume the necessary cell type. All I had to do was rewrite some of those instructions."

Perry felt overwhelmed, whether by the scope of the Engineer's brilliance or the blindness of his peculiar vision. For a few moments he felt sickened and dirty, the magnitude of what Phillips took so flippantly making him feel like he was at a conference in Wannsee. When he spoke again it was as though talking to a small child that needed the obvious laid out and explained in austere detail.

"A solution to one of our biggest problems! Out of the blue! Delivered straight to our doorstep! And you're not even the least bit suspicious!"

"I'm not saying we use it as is! We can test it and refine it to whatever we need, and eventually, transplant the ability to the scrubbed terminators via retrovirus."

"Then just mix the boys and girls together and let nature take its course?"

The doctor shrugged, a coy smile curling his mouth as he ignored the condescension. "We already know it goes on. Just not the reproduction part."

Perry huffed incredulously, the man sitting before him, in his opinion, nothing short of certifiable.

"Phillips!" He yelled. "You think people are going to just lie down and take this?!"

"Well… that is the general mechanics of it, yes."

"They'll be uproar at best! Uprising at worst! You're out of your fucking mind!"

"Just put them in a room, play some Barry White, and don't tell them!"

"No one in their right mind would have children with a machine, doctor!"

Phillips pulled his glasses off and tossed them onto the table, becoming more animated in his conviction as fire burnt I his eyes. "What is this?! A panda sanctuary?! Should we add human beings to the list of dumb-ass creatures that won't fuck to save their own species?!" He pushed the bound file of genetic damnation toward Perry again. "Read it! If we don't start making some hard choices and taking drastic solutions, the human race ends with the current generation!"

Silence reigned throughout the lab, emotion reaching its fiery crescendo as the line was drawn in the sand, the argument consuming the tinder of values and ethics until only the hard granite of fact remained. It was a bitter pill, this binary choice, but one they seemed destined to take – to continue existence as it had been, or choose another fate.

"This solution offers everything we need, right here and right now. No test-tube babies or growing people in a tank. Another solution might come too late. Saving humanity from Skynet was just the first step; this can be our permanent solution."

"Say that you're right, and this is humanity's only hope to survive, what then?" The general asked candidly. "What will we be afterwards? Will we even be human anymore?"

"We'll be more than human… we'll be a better and more perfect." The doctor leaned forward, looking more enthusiastic than ever as his eyes lit up with some distant gleam. "We can design a whole new way of human life. Correct all the mistakes that nearly destroyed us. We can create human beings that won't grow old or grow sick. Ones that will be stronger than us, better than us. Even more intelligent than us. More civilised and evolved."

Perry stared at him, feeling Phillips' ideas slip into the deranged and distasteful that history reserved for only the most morally bereft of scientists. Men that had flourished for a time under similar climates to the war of the now, sponsored by dictators and absolutists that were hailed as heroes and saviours by those who were desperate and afraid.

Men not dissimilar to the one leading them now.

"Who are we to decide what's better or perfect?"

Phillip's scrunched his brow, as though the answer were plain and obvious. "Who aren't we to decide our own fate?"

"But, you can't improve upon perfection."

The doctor rolled his eyes, stubbing out his cigar in an overflowing ashtray. "Don't give me any of that God-crap, general! Where was God when the bombs fell from the sky and made us an endangered species? I don't believe in any of that!"

"It doesn't matter what you believe, whether God made us in his image or that we're the product of three and a half billion years of Nature's trial and error," He spoke from the heart, the truth locked in his soul tumbling from his mouth. "What makes Daniel Phillips so sure that he can improve upon that type of perfection?"

Phillips sat quietly for several moments, as likely awed or amused as Perry shone in his moment of righteousness.

"I guess that's why they call me The Engineer."

Before Perry could respond the laboratory's phone sprang to life, trilling on its handle next to the door as the doctor went to answer it, snatching the handset from its cradle as its lengthy cord bounced on the coil.

"Doctor Phillips' house of…" He was cut short. "General Connor, sir." He cast a glance back at Perry as the commander sprang into motion like he had been stuck with a cattle prod, pulling his jacket off the stool and sweeping it around his shoulders as he hurriedly gathering his things.

"But I thought you'd decided to…" Phillips frowned as the general elaborated further, his voice sounding unusually calm and cold and to-the-point. "Understood, sir. I'll start right away."

The line went dead and Phillips placed the handset back down like he was setting an explosive, cringing as he replayed the conversation in his mind and scolded his uncharacteristic displays of subordinance. His face marred with a subdued expression as though he had been caught with his hand in the till.

"What was that about?"

The scientist turned to him and walked slowly back toward the workbench. "Connor wants me to take over the interrogation of the prisoner."

Perry frowned. "I thought he was saving her for himself?"

"Guess he changed his mind."

The general neatened his collar before dusting invisible lint from his sleeve, grasping the handle of his briefcase. "Listen, we should keep this between us until we know where Connor stands," The general suggested as his arm swung down with the weight of the case. "Until we can agree on how to proceed I won't risk bringing it to Connor just so he can veto it."

"Uh-huh." Phillips heard the words but he was miles away, mind still working over Connor's tone and what he had said, suspicion creeping into the pores of his mind as he suddenly glanced about.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing…" He said, not entirely convinced. "You can never be too careful with Connor. The guy has spies everywhere."

At the far side of the Engineer's lab the head of T888 perched awkwardly on its dismantled body, its gaze resting on the central workbench where General Perry and Doctor Phillips had just had their impromptu summit. The machine's power core had been long since removed, but its left eye glowed with activity, faintly and hard to detect unless one was standing right in front of it, powered via the tiny black cable that had been quietly slipped into its CPU port many months ago.

In his quarters, Connor rolled a cube of ice from his glass of whiskey over his tongue as he sat in his computer bay, glaring at the live feed from his inside man as Perry took his leave and the Engineer began assembling his tools for Allison's interrogation, humming a happy show tune to himself in blissful ignorance.

Connor slid the cube between his molars and crushed it.

####

Wind and snow raged across the hideous narrow landscape between the sea inlet and the sinister presence of mountain, the tortured and windswept rock an immobile fortress that loomed like a featureless monster in the dark, holding back the swell of the frozen ocean. The coastal road was a barren trail of sodden rock, the transportation lifeline stretching between the town and its airfield little more than a narrow track of crushed, corrugated gravel that formed a berm between the foot of the mountain and the water.

Amidst the distressing vista the yellow headlights of a bright red snowmobile jostled up and down as the vehicle rode over the ice and stone, riding parallel with the ruined track of the cableway further up the slope, its single passenger glued to its frugal bulk in the vice-like grip of a bull rider.

Kyle Reese was clad from head to toe in white camouflage gear, thick black gloves and tall combat boots, the hood of his parka brimming with thermal insulation that framed his obscured face, wrapped tightly in a black balaclava and eyes shielded from the battering wind with a pair of ski goggles. Underneath he had his armour and combat vest with its ridiculous litany of pockets, each stuffed to capacity with essential supplies under a bandolier of 40mm grenades.

Reese felt like an astronaut, ready to take his first awkward steps into some stark and hostile realm. One inhabited by an alien race by the looks of things as he tore past a triangular sign.

Gjelder Hele Svalbard!

The words where gibberish to him, but the drawing of a loping polar bear stencilled above them said all he need to know.

He had left Falcheck and Pace in the warm comfort of the bar; overseeing the barricade of its main entrance to seal them inside and left them with a challenge-response code he had made up quickly to confirm his arrival when he returned. Mostly though, he had to admit, so they wouldn't blow his head off in confusion – their nerves pretty frayed in the face of isolation and unknown as the darkness and weather drew in on them.

After making a slow turn to the right with the gradual terrain, Reese yanked hard on the handles and the bike speed off leftward, up a sharp incline until it decreased to a gradual slope, following a small road off the main track that led upward through the teeth of jagged ice boulders and formations of rock until his remote destination suddenly loomed in front of him.

The imposing structure looked like the fin of a shark, jutting upward from the snow and ice in an indomitable blade of reinforced concrete as Reese pulled up to the structure, aiming the snowmobiles' headlights at the metal doors at its base.

Dismounting his vehicle he immediately felt the weight of his gear encumber him, reaching around in an awkward motion for his trusty HK416, slinging the formidable weapon from around his backpack, cocking it, and hoisting it to a ready stance before advancing upon a short, corrugated causeway that connected the ground to the main doors. His hand ripped open a Velcro flap on his parka, exposing the angled flashlight clipped to his vest and clicked it on, casting a conical beam of light that glistened off the stainless metal of the entrance.

He slid his hand into his vest and pushed the button on his radio. "Reese to Lieutenant Bacchus. Do you read me?"

Static came through loud and clear over his earpiece microphone. He had hoped that maybe closing the distance between them would have brought the lieutenant back on the airwaves, but Reese's optimism was fading fast as his eyes slid over the trail of Resistance-issue boot prints that led inside the bunker.

Another soldier might have been elated at the clear signs of activity, but Reese maintained his guard, guts sinking with a very bad feeling about all this.

He reached out and banged his clenched fist on the doorway, hearing it reverberate inside with a cavernous echo. He waited for a response but nothing happened, coaxing him to grip the tip of his right glove between his teeth, sliding it off where it dangled from a clip on his sleeve and he slid his naked hand over the rifle's trigger.

Taking hold of his nerve with firm resolve, Reese grasped the door handle with his other hand, yanking it open in a yawning whine to reveal a well of darkness within. Quickly he clicked on the rifle's night vision scope, the tiny lens flickering to life with a green tinted display of a long empty corridor that delved deep into the depths of the mountain.

He advanced inside. His senses heightened to their highest gain as his nerves flat-lined, his training crushing all fear and doubt.

Moving swiftly and silently down the concrete corridor he came upon an open doorway in the wall to his right, his body sliding against the cold concrete and taking a breath before he swung inside, rifle pointing everywhere as he cleared the small office space.

The room was an overturned mess. Paper lying scattered on the floor, fallen furniture, the air sodden with disuse and abandonment. More so than anything though – the place stank. Like something had died and had been rotting in there, but Reese could not see any bodies.

What the hell was going on?

He moved over to the radio equipment and brushed off a layer of dust, the lights of electronic activity revealed beneath as it transmitted the repeating signal, drawing power from a horde of car batteries stacked next to it on the table. The equipment looked as though it had been set months ago, wired to a button that would have to be pressed by someone at regular intervals to prevent it from broadcasting out.

But if everyone had left, why didn't the Resistance know about it? If they had died, where were the bodies? If Bacchus and the others had been heading here, why hadn't they turned it off when they left? Reese did not understand it.

Hefting his rifle, he returned to the corridor, turning deeper into the underground facility and the purpose of this entire mission.

There was only one thing left to do here now.

Twenty minutes later, Reese emerged from the shark fin structure, the snowmobile covered in a layer of snow but still illuminating the doorway as he trudged outward into the weather, stuffing a small metal case into his backpack before slinging it back around his shoulders.

This place had been the end of the river – the destination of this whole endeavour and should have been manned by a team of four Resistance scientists – or so Connor had told him. From a look at its office and greater depths it looked like it had been abandoned for months now, maybe even a year at the outside, his fingers trailing clean lines through dust that had covered everything.

All of that aside though – where the hell where Bacchus and the others? The trail leading inside was unmistakable, and he examined it now with his torch, but not a trace of them remained inside. No blood, no bodies. It was as though they had all vanished into thin air.

A bolt of concern shot through him and he fumbled into his parka for the radio.

"Reese to Falcheck, are you receiving?" He listened to a burst of static, each second an agonising wait. "Reese to Pace, answer me damn-it!"

He felt the air push out his lungs as his shoulder fell, feeling more alone than ever as a cold dread swept through him until his earpiece squawked to life.

"Falcheck receiving, sir! It's good to hear your voice!"

Not as good as it was to hear him, Reese thought.

"Falcheck! Are you guy's okay? Where's Pace?"

"Here, sarge!" Came the welcome holler of the kid's voice. "Everything's a-okay, boss. Quiet as the grave. Did you find the others?"

"No. But I'm not finished yet," His gaze cast out across the moonlit bay, the silhouettes of a control tower and hanger bay clear on the horizon. "There's an airfield nearby here, I'm going to go check it out. They may have gone there for shelter. If not, there might be a radio I can use to call the boat."

"Understood, sir. We'll keep the fires burning until you get back."

"I appreciate that, corporal. See you guys soon."

He withdrew his hand from the radio and zipped up his jacket against the bitter chill, dusting the snow off the sled and climbing onboard before he roared the engine and set off down the mountain slope.

####

The eighteen year-old Allison Young lost her breath as he slowly ran his palm up her naked thigh, his expert fingers plying her delicate flesh with supreme confidence and years of experience. It was not her first time, but she already knew that it would be the only one she remembered, John making it perfect and virtuous in the soft candlelight.

He had resisted so strongly at first, had been flattering and gentlemanly of course, saving her from a broken heart and humiliation after laying her emotions bare, but fate kept bringing them back into each others' orbits. Soon neither could resist, culminating in this night of passion they had sworn would be the first, the last, and the only time they faltered.

That had been a long time ago, and there had been many nights since.

The sharp grind of rusty metal screeched in complaint as the door swung open to Allison's cell, rousing her painfully from the vivid daydream as she strained against the manacles of her chair. It had been hours since John left and her legs felt as though they where on fire, pains aching all down her back and her mouth felt like a strip of sandpaper. She raised herself what little she could in anticipation of his return before her hopes were dashed and an illness settled in her stomach, feeling all joy abandon her as Daniel Phillips sauntered through the door.

"That's not happiness to see your big brother, now is it?" He smiled as he placed a metal briefcase down on the desk, its size and dimensions identical to the one John had brought earlier.

"No one's ever happy to see you," She rasped with gravely defiance. "Not even mom. That's why she left you with your father when she met my dad."

Phillips slapped his hand against his chest, feigning a mortal blow as his face curled unpleasantly with ersatz amusement and he snapped open the locks on the briefcase.

####

Specialist Charlie Pace sat dozing in a brown leather armchair as he stared out across the darkened street, his eyes sliding over darkness and snow in the pale moonlight as he fiddled with the safety on his rifle. He shuffled in his seat, the opulent berth wondrously comfortable as he tried to stay awake. The next four hours were his shift to keep watch, but Falcheck seemed unlikely to get any sleep.

The pilot cursed as he singed his fingers on the log burner, using a pair of thick gardening gloves to heap coal on the sweltering furnace before slamming the door shut.

Pace smiled to himself as he tried to read a banner on a nearby building, its form maybe a small sign yards away or a billboard on the other side of town. The snowy vista played tricks on him, the perception of depth and distance very difficult to gauge in the darkness and perpetual white.

"He was bullshitting me, wasn't he!" Falcheck suddenly announced, like he had discovered gravity or some other fundamental phenomenon. "The bastard was having me on so I'd stop complaining!"

The Southerner turned to him and shrugged. "That's why Tech-Com is so badass. They only use the best bullshit."

Pace chuckled as he turned his gaze back out of the window, shuffling on his seat to ease the needles in his backside as he noticed two black, circular objects lying next to each other in the snow on the other side of the street. He was sure he had not noticed them before. Squinting, he leaned forward to try and determine what they where. Two black stones maybe? Though it seemed strange that they were not covered by the snowfall.

The soldier stifled a yawn as he watched them, his eyes threatening to roll off and lose them in the moon's dim glow, the stones all but invisible unless he was staring right at them, feeling all the while as though their shape and the snow gathered around them where somehow staring back at him with an expression like sad rebuke.

Then the black stones blinked.

Pace froze as his skin came alive with static, every hair standing on end as his blood turned to ice. He lifted his torch and shone it through the window, casting light on a monstrous face before it snorted condensation on the window. It was only a few feet beyond the glass, not the other side of the street, perched on the railing and staring right at him with giant, jet-black eyes.

"Falcheck…" Pace wheezed, voice nothing but a faint murmur.

The thing beyond the window changed its expression, as though noticing Pace for the first time and the Southerner held his breath. All was silent for several seconds, then in frightening blur of motion – something huge, white, and impossibly powerful exploded toward him through the window.


Hope you like it, this one was a lot of fun to write. One of the scenes is paraphrased from a favourite book of mine and there is a bit of Frankenstein in there as well.

Please read and review.