Here's the next chapter! Enjoy!
Sorry it took so long, I've been very busy with other things. Another month since I updated…I need to stop doing that.
The door slid up with a whir and clanked. The first thing that greeted Isaac was a big sign that Isaac could read most of without having to take too many steps towards it. Mostly green except for a red bar at the bottom left side, it had the upper-half of a man in a black leather suit flexing his bare right arm, a red dotted line along the muscle. It read: "Welcome to the USG Ishimura Biological Prosthetics Center. We keep you going!"
Isaac knew where to go if he ever needed an arm or a leg replaced if one got cut off by one of those Necromorphs. So basically he was heading to a prosthetics lab even though calling it the Bio Lab left a lot to the imagination. Isaac knew how the prosthetics worked; in this day and age, the field of surgical transplant advanced so drastically. A DNA sample would be taken from the subject and sent through several chemical processes, and grown into a clone kept in a tank of amniotic fluid. The clone would be kept grown faster than what it would take for a normal human to grow, so if a crew member needed a limb or an organ transplant, the clone would be ready and harvested for its body parts. This eliminated the long and very painful process of complications with finding a replacement or worrying about compatibility. It was a an interesting process, and revolutionary at that.
Isaac turned left past the sign, and got a chilling sensation as the hall suddenly shifted colors in front of him, from the typical grey color to a sickly green hue. The hall was at least twenty feet long and at the end was a wide window blocking off the actual Bio Lab. Inside Isaac could see the tanks of green liquid. The identity of this liquid Isaac could not identify just by looking at it, especially from his distance, but the most he could assume was it was amniotic fluid, and each tank held a fetus suspended in the liquid like a baby would in the mother's womb. The Ishimura's scientists were at the first stage of development on the clones when the ship was attacked it seemed, and the babies were left this way in a permanent state until they grew naturally as the months went by. Isaac knew he wouldn't be here for months; if he wanted to make it out of here alive.
The gravity panels lining the walls were a common sight and he was starting get too used to seeing them. The panels were basically a grey-rimmed glass pane over a few long grey rectangular bars. No more, no less. The Ishimura was designed to have set artificial gravity to keep everything from floating around in a zero gravity mess. This gravity could easily be shut on and off from somewhere like the Computer Core, wherever that was. What if one or more of these plating malfunctioned? Isaac heard rumors from other CEC engineers that someone stepped on a malfunctioning gravity plate…and needless to say his coworkers had to pry his body parts from the ceiling.
There was something about this room however, that made Isaac feel uneasy. He couldn't explain why, other than the fact a Necromorph could jump out at him at any time and cut his head off. This feeling…it felt worse than the cold, dark sensation that overwhelmed him in the Main Lab. That feeling was bad and he ended up being attacked by seven Slashers. If this feeling left him full of complete fright, as it quickly became, how ghastly would this next event be? Isaac didn't want to think about, nor did he want to answer his own question because he knew if he took his mind off his surroundings it would be his end, the thing that ended up losing him his life. That couldn't, and wouldn't happen.
For Nicole…
Isaac forced himself to swallow that feeling of unease and took a step forward. His heavy metal boot clanked on the equally metal floor. He took another step, then another, until he finally masked the fear across his face with a look of confidence. His hearing, amplified by the RIG, allowed him to hear the mixtures sloshing around in the tanks, the infants kicking their newly developed legs for quite possibly the first time. The splashing of the fluid reminded him of what remained of the oceans back on Earth when he and Nicole went to the beach in California. Nicole loved the ocean, loved everything about what it was, or what it once was; the pollution caused by the intense industrialization and advancements in technology ultimately ruined the earth and the oceans were no exception. It was upsetting how mankind devastated their home, and not only that other worlds eventually suffered a similar fate with the introduction of the planet cracking industry that dismantled entire planets, including the moon Titan. EarthGov tried to make things better by building a space station, Titan Station or The Sprawl as some called it, but everyone could see the government did not want to deal with the vast majority of people who protested heavily to the planet cracking business. The USG Ishimura was just a symbol of that, the ship that dismantled Titan itself.
The strangely relaxing sound of water dwindled away when a hiss interrupted the so-far secure ambiance of the Bio Lab. A hiss, a cat-like hiss, but hoarse at the same time. Isaac's hand went tight around the Plasma Cutter as he forged on, the main part of the lab just a few feet away from him. He didn't know what he was going to see or encounter, but he knew he wouldn't be surprised if that room was filled with Necromorphs. So imagine his surprise when a man in a grey civilian RIG came into view, running from the right side of the lab, stumbling frantically in front of the window Isaac was standing directly across from. Isaac did not expect this and he let out an audible gasp, running up to the window. Another survivor! Was it really possible someone else made it out alive? A strong wave of relief came to his chest and he felt much better and safer, until he saw it. Lurking across the floor sideways like a crab, the source of the hissing noise.
Isaac couldn't even describe what it was, other than it was shaped like a baby; the problem was it was a baby. It didn't look like any infant he ever saw before; greenish-tan skin covered its body, red lining three opening flaps on its back. Red tendrils hung from its small mouth, chest and stomach, but the most noting and frightening attribute of this creature were the beady yellow eyes, completely lacking a pupil. Isaac went completely cold at the sight of it and suddenly he could not move. A baby Necromorph; a dead, necrotically-transformed infant, and it was only a few feet from the survivor. The man hit the glass with his palm as if to get Isaac's attention, banging on the thick pane.
"Come on! Come on!" He yelled in pure fear. "Let me out!"
The infant turned to them both, its small yellow orbs piercing. The three flaps on its hunched, bloated back opened up to three long veiny red tentacles that almost matched the ones hanging from its abdomen, but more, much more; each tentacle had a sharp barbed ending that looked like grappling hooks. Another hiss and its left tentacle flicked forward. The crew member's left hand suddenly exploded into a splattering of blood, cracking the glass underneath. A scream of pain and he grasped his wrist in an attempt to pull his pinned and mutilated hand off the window.
"Shit! What the fuck?" Isaac yelled nearly falling back on his ass. Open the door! Get in there and save him. The possibility of this was quickly and completely eliminated when he saw through the window that the door lock was blue with a red circle around it. The door was on 'standby'. A door on that mode would not open until any malfunctions were fixed by the system itself; no outside interference would get the door open. Getting in there would be impossible and all Isaac could do was watch in horror.
The monster reared back on its legs and thrashed around, planting itself firmly on the grey floor, then whipped the middle tentacle's barb into the struggling man's back, forcing him to his knees; his hand was still stuck to the window. He fought and struggled to stand up, gurgling and groaning loudly in clear pain as small drops of blood fell down the corners of his mouth, leaving thin red streaks. Isaac's stomach churned and he suddenly felt very nauseous, his very struggling making him feel sick. The infant Necromorph jumped onto the tank-lined wall, clinging to it like a giant spider, like it was done with the person it just attacked, having lost complete interest. It looked back at them, its eyes glaring at him. There was no sympathy, no regret in those eyes. Nothing could be seen, nothing human or even inhuman; just nothing. Devoid of any life, all understanding or thought. The creature was just acting on its instinct; the instinct to kill.
The tentacles came back out with new barbs on the ends. The sharp hook-like barbs all pressed together and fired off at the speed of light. The sounds of pain the man made stopped; his head burst like a balloon; blood, brain and other matter scattered across the window, obscuring the lab with a shroud of dripping red. His hand came loose and he fell out of sight. A shriek from the little monster came out, then it crawled up the wall and out of sight.
Isaac's stomach did a full turn and he sputtered; he felt very ill and he needed to get his helmet off. He unhooked the release mechanism on the back and yanked it off, doubling over as his throat started to heat up, followed shortly by a plume of reddish-pink chunk-filled bile spilling onto the cold hard floor, throat burning, stomach muscles contracting uncomfortably. Hours before he left the CEC headquarters on Earth he had a big breakfast to give him lots of energy for the mission. Nothing more needed to be said. Isaac panted, clenching his eyes and wiping vomit from the corner of his mouth.
"Shit…that was…unpleasant…" Isaac murmured, hands on his knees. Another survivor dead; he had a chance to save them, but he was too late. "God…forgive me…"
Three survivors were dead. They were dead because he couldn't save them or get them the help they needed. He wasn't fast enough to shoot the Slasher off the man on the Flight Deck, he couldn't help the blinded woman at the Tram Station, and this survivor died because he was so stricken with fear he couldn't move. His careless mistakes which he told himself not to do, not to fuck up on this mission. And he did a damn good job so far wouldn't you agree? You might be thinking Isaac was just being hard on himself, but you try witnessing the deaths of three people. It can be a lot for someone who isn't prepared to see such a thing.
His glove was cold against his hot, damp forehead. His stomach ached after throwing up. No longer was there any food in his stomach, the main cause of the pain, but he managed to muster up the strength to put his helmet back on. The left side of the hallway was the shape of an L, which led to the door that was no longer on 'standby'. Isaac hated this ship. He turned down this small bend of hallway. Above the door next to the rectangular sign that read 'Bio Lab: Authorized Personal Only' a red circular sign with a cartoon-like microscope was attached to the wall. The funniest and most ironic thing was next to the door, out in the open, a red box with a small comlink on the top and a red sticker with a black phone on it that read 'Security Phone'. Very ironic, he could call for help from the Ishimura's security team and no one would answer. He could scream and no one would hear him.
The door slid up with the same default mechanical whir all these doors possessed. The lab wasn't as big as he thought it was, about thirty by forty feet but the ceiling was high; at least sixty feet with the same grey colors. Everything was so defaulted and boring around this deck he didn't expect to see anything new that would be appealing to the eye. What else would you expect from a hospital? The door closed behind him and the sloshing of the amniotic stimulant was louder, like the bubbling of pots in a busy kitchen. Isaac cringed at the sight of the fresh body slowly oozing blood from the gaping hole in between the shoulder blades. Brain and skull particles scattered every which way on the floor, walls, and tanks, the Bio Laboratory was a mess after that attack. Isaac looked around him at the containers of infants curled up in the fetal position, one of them sucking its thumb. It reminded him of Nicole, and how she wanted a child at one point.
Isaac and Nicole talked about having a kid or two at one point in their relationship. Their friends and mainly their family told them they were moving too fast and they needed to take some time discussing it over and decide if they were really serious about their relationship. Isaac loved Nicole so much; more than anything else in the entire universe, why couldn't they see that? They'd been together for five years, isn't that enough time to decide if someone was right for you or not? Nicole contacted him a few weeks before the Ishimura was issued to be sent out to Aegis VII and told him how much she missed him, how dark and lonely her nights were on the Crew Deck, how she wanted to see him so bad. Isaac didn't need to tell anyone how he longed to be with her again, hold her in his arms and keep her safe, you could tell just by looking at his face; you could always tell when he missed her. He regretted not telling her those four words he wanted to tell her for years, or even show her the ring he spent so many hours fixing cruisers and EDF ships to make enough space credits to buy it. He sighed, then pushed those thoughts to the back of his head.
"Concentrate on the mission Isaac," he told himself. "Concentrate…"
Isaac could see the corner of a lift at the other end of the room wedged in between the tanks and the wall, leading most likely to the second floor above, obviously. The Thermite was so close, just up and out of the lab in the Main Lab storage room. It should be in there. Isaac stepped towards the lift, the control panel coming into view. From the small nook that held the lift a mutated infant came out from around the corner.
Isaac nearly jumped out of his skin when its tentacles shot out in his direction, hissing loudly and leaping in the air at him. Isaac swore and involuntarily froze the creature in midair with Stasis. God this thing was hideous, it's shrieking low and slowed down. Upon closer observation tiny pointed claws were visible on its little infantile fingers, sharp fangs poking out from above the tentacles in its deformed mouth. It was now hard to believe something as innocent as a baby could become something like this. Isaac shot off two of its tentacles and with a loud but slowed scream it made a gradual decent to the floor until the Stasis wore off and landed with a soft wet smack in a bloody heap. Isaac kicked the limp creature the to the side and collected a clip of plasma energy from the table next to the wide window before he rode the elevator to the top floor, not surprised to see more amniotic tanks.
Hissing. Soft hissing…
Isaac side stepped cautiously onto the upper floor, careful his boots wouldn't make too much noise. Holding his weapon with both hands, he saw the creature lurking around behind the tanks, lurking…lurking back there. Lurking…lurk…
Lurkers. Would that be a fitting name for these little monsters? Try thinking of something and telling Isaac if you don't think so, because that's what they would be called.
Isaac followed the Necromorph infant which didn't seem to be phased by the symmetrical blue aiming lights shining on it, or it didn't even notice. But he kept the cutter aimed on it, ready to shoot if and when it tried to make a move to attack. Isaac moved out into the open. This part of the lab had a few infant tanks installed in the wall on his right, two taller ones on the left that had two or three infants in them. The door was directly across from him, but with the little buggers infesting this lab he couldn't just run over to the door without being attacked. That would be an incredibly stupid move on his part.
On this ship it was obvious running was not a viable solution to fighting off these creatures; running wasn't even fighting. Shooting was fighting, but running was not. If you killed them they could not follow or chase you and you could be safe, if only for a few minutes before more showed up.
Isaac waited patiently until the creature came out from its hiding place. It jumped on the wall with a soft of swiftness that was otherworldly, something incapable of a normal baby; this wasn't a normal baby, walking like a quadrupedal animal. It stopped just in front of a glass pane in the wall covering what looked like a big storage cabinet of sorts, then flopped out its tentacles. Isaac flipped the Plasma Cutter vertically with the push of a button and severed its middle tentacle. The Necromorph flinched, blood spraying the tank directly across from it. The left tentacle was next to go, which did the monster in. It shrieked, letting go of the wall and landing in a lifeless mess. The fetus inside the tank coated with blood started to cry, screaming. Other than the sloshing of the sickly green fluids this was all that could be heard in the pea green-tinted laboratory.
Isaac wasn't sure if this ship was right, even before this incident. A wave of sorrow came over him from the infant's crying; he felt horrible knowing they would never see the light of day, just hanging suspended in the liquids as premature prosthetics material, waiting for the scientist overseeing the lab too get back from his coffee break to speed up their aging, but not knowing he would never come back. Floating there, as nothing, nothing that would make a difference in this universe.
With a deep sigh Isaac swallowed. His throat was dry, and he was very thirsty. Maybe he would have to stop by the bathroom after all for a drink. Hopefully the Ishimura's water system wasn't contaminated. If there was no clean and drinkable water on this ship he was screwed.
After a while the fetus calmed itself down and the lab was quiet again. Isaac started towards the door that would return him to the Main Lab, but something stopped him in place in front of the glass cabinet. Something did not feel right, but what was that a surprise? Try guess the answer. But this felt…felt so weird, and ominous. He looked at what was directly in front of him; he would never get used to the helmet's tunnel vision and it would only get worse as he went further up in the upgrades.
"This lab has to be empty…I don't hear anything…" Isaac spoke softly to himself; any word could set off any hidden entity. "Shit…" He could feel something watching him, its dead eyes piercing and invading his mind without him knowing it or even where it was. He sweat under his Miner RIG.
A hiss, followed by a gurgling sound. Coming from his right. Isaac swung his view all the way to the right and he saw it. A Lurker stood on one of the shelves in the storage case. It acted faster than he did, already having its plan made out before Isaac did. It slammed itself against the window, broken glass flying in every direction. A roar cut through his helmet as it launched itself in air at Isaac, knocking the Plasma Cutter out of his hand and latching onto his shoulders with its clawed hands. Isaac yelled out in surprise, his vision blocked by its bloody throbbing underbelly as it hiss out and shrieked, and he would only scream louder when he felt two sharp blades plunge into the back of his shoulders, ripping parts of the RIG suit and tearing at his skin underneath.
Isaac grabbed the infant's sides and tried to pry in off his face, its claws digging into his neck to keep itself in place. The Lurker shrieked with ferocious rage, the amplifiers of his helmet vibrating madly and hurting his ears. Another stab to the back, then another, and another closer to his vertebrae. Isaac grunted in massive pain and furry as he beat the Lurker on its side, digging his fingers into the decayed skin and pulling, tearing a big chunk of flesh away. The Lurker shrieked and loosened up enough for him to lift it up. The baby corpse flailed around in his hands. Isaac ignored the fact he was holding what used to be an infant before he threw it down hard on the floor, then gave it a hard kick on the underside of the head. It screamed loud and shrill, hurting his ears again. It did a full flip over and blood sprayed the floor.
His entire back burned with intense, agonizing pain, his vision starting to blur again. Isaac breathed in hoarsely, struggling for a Med Pack. He swore, his legs shaking and threatening to give out on him. He knew at this rate he might not be able to survive this mission. Each minute he spent on this ship his life fleeted away, fainter and fainter. A Medium Med Pack digitized in his hand. His finger on the button, he fell to his knees and dropped the healing agent.
"F-Fuck…" the CEC engineer groaned, fumbling for the pack until he was able to move his hand over and behind his back, then activated the misting healing agents. The soothing mist flowed over his back side, going to the places he needed the most healing. Just like that the skin was patched up and the RIG suit was working on fixing itself. Isaac looked around for the Plasma Cutter, picking it up when he finally found it in front of the broken glass wall. Like his neck back at the Maintenance Bay his back was healed but it still ached like hell. Struggling up on shaking legs, Isaac pressed his hand on his forehead as he headed out for the door out of the Bio Lab.
On the wall next to the door an X-ray display graph flickered with a dying light. An x-ray result hooked by one corner, it displayed a fetus inside a mother's womb with an enlarged spine and two extra limbs growing from its back, where they clearly did not belong. Isaac caught only a glimpse of this but was too distracted to pay more attention to it. He just headed out into another very small hallway that only had another sign like the one he saw earlier, the smiling man flexing his arm, before he entered the medical storage room.
For a storage room it wasn't very big, only holding a few white shelving units on the right and left wall with only a few supplies on each, a desk and a chair in the center, and a Power Node storage box next to the door going back to the Main Lab. On that desk stood a white and red cylindrical canister with a deep red cap. The Thermite.
"Bingo, there it is." Isaac smiled, sighing heavily. He looked at the canister, then grabbed it by the sides. It was heavier than he thought and he couldn't get a good grip without dropping it. Maybe a different approach would work, so he picked it up by the top and bottom, holding it up long enough for his RIG computer to scan it, digitize it, and store it in the databank.
Objective Complete.
Hammond shocked in on the RIG link; he hadn't made contact in a while so Isaac almost forgot about him. "Alright, that Thermite you picked up should melt through the barricade. Use the Shock Pad it ignite it." He sounded apprehensive, and very unsure of himself. "Hope I can hold this position. I can hear something big moving out there…"
Something big. Isaac wouldn't really be that surprised there were bigger ones, but how big could a Necromorph get? Humans were only so big.
With the Thermite in storage all that was left was the Shock Pad. By looking over his holomap once more Isaac could see just how far away the defibrillator was, past a big cylindrical chamber that served as the Zero-G Therapy area. Getting to it wouldn't be as hazardous as this, he hoped, but considering the distance he would have to walk the chances of that were low, but he couldn't lose hope; not when he was so close to the Morgue, to getting Matthius's RIG codes and finding Nicole. Isaac couldn't understand, however, if she indeed worked on the Medical Deck, where would she be? He didn't want to think that she died at the hands of the Necromorphs. If she died… No, no don't lose hope Isaac. Don't lose hope. The best thing that could happen: they evacuated the deck before the attack spread to the Deck, or Nicole was on an entirely different part of the Ishimura all together. But the way things were was any part of the ship safe at all? The Medical Deck and the Flight Deck, and possibly the Bridge, proved not to have any parts of what one would consider a safe haven.
Isaac took the shortcut out the storage room then exited the Main Lab, back at the malfunctioning door. Stasis froze it and Isaac went on through easily to the dark hallway and refilled his Stasis at the recharge station against the wall. He heard what sounded like a limb snapping in half, blood spraying and sick growling noises. He stood alert, Plasma Cutter in front of his face. The ammo counter read with a orange number two. Isaac pulled the flip over the cartridge holder, ejecting the nearly empty clip and replaced it with a fresh one. Then he waited, heart beating rapidly against his ribcage. He knew to expect a Slasher based on the sounds that went through the necrotic air.
Sure enough a Slasher came into view. Armored grey pants, disfigured pink and fleshy body, just like the one before; and just like that horrifying thing the minute it came into view it charged, flailing its arms and roaring bloody murder. Isaac guessed this variant of the Slasher were the most violent and aggressive of the Necromorph subspecies. He glared, grit his teeth, and when the Slasher leapt in the air, arms up high and ready to slash, he punched it dead in the stomach twice with the Plasma Cutter, then quickly cut off its arm while it was down.
A long spindly shadow fell over the poster on the wall, blotching out the woman on the 'Where would you be without Science?' poster, followed by growls that were more feminine than the others. Female Slasher. Isaac looked around at the bodies scattered around the floor and got a strange idea. He used the Kinesis Module to grab the blade on the dead Slasher's arm, which snapped off fairly easily. Isaac pointed it away from him and prepared to take aim.
The female Necromorph staggered into his part of the hallway, arms arched above its head. Isaac used the Module's secondary function and let the blade fly out at incredible speed. Like a knife through butter the blade pierced the dead skin right at the base of its neck, below the throat. She stopped dead, sputtering sickly with blood running down the front of her chest. Isaac watched the once-human creature come his way. Being too cautious in its presence he blasted off its arm at the elbow joint. It roared sickly, starting to lose its footing until it collapsed in a heap on right next to the male one. A deep breath, then Isaac went up the ramp to the Security Station.
The Store looked fairly tempting. He had plenty of credits to get some more supplies, so he headed over there and activated the terminal. Two Medium Med Packs were added to his inventory, then he decided to finally buy the Line Gun. Of course it needed ammo too and he was starting to run out of inventory space, so he had to watch how much he was picking up and prioritize each. The Med Packs were of course the most important of the items, followed by ammo, then anything else he came across. Isaac scrolled down the list and pressed the Line Gun's holographic display, selecting 'yes' when asked if he wished to purchase, for nine thousand credits. The weapon was downloaded into his RIG and the terminal switched off.
Isaac stepped back. The RIG scanned his Plasma Cutter and broke it down into his memory bank and the Line Gun took its place in his hands. The mining tool was bigger and much heavier than the Plasma Cutter, in the shape of a box he had to hold by two handles on the back and side. Inspecting it Isaac located the flat ammo slot fixed along the top back where the line racks could be slid in. He hoped this would really help him. The first best thing to do was to test it out but he didn't even have any extra racks; better to not waste any ammo. With that done, now the Shock Pad was next.
"Okay Hammond, I'm off to get the Shock Pad." He shocked in to his commanding officer. "I'll contact you when I have it."
The pipes dripped and clanked as Isaac opened the large door below the scrolling sign that read: 'Imaging Diagnostics Wing: Please have Lab referral forms ready.'
Thump…Thump…
The echoing din of something wet hitting the wall…
I hope you enjoyed!
R&R!
