All right, here we go! Next chapter! Sorry it's shorter than the others, but I couldn't think of much else to put in this one. The next few chapters should be longer, though. Thanks again to everyone who's been following this story so far! :D
DISCLAIMER: Everything belongs to Visceral Games and EA.
The next day at the CEC…
Isaac Clarke hated Wednesdays.
He had not been looking forward to work today for the first time in the history of being a systems engineer. He had almost called in sick that morning, but he knew that Benjamin Matthius would personally hand him over to the Unitologists if he failed to show up to work.
Isaac shuddered. He couldn't think of a worse fate than that.
He became even more nervous when he looked at the clock on his desk and noticed that it was time for him to take his break. Putting down the blueprints he had been finishing, he slowly tiptoed through the hallways of the CEC, earning some perplexed looks from the others. At one point, he passed by Kendra as she held out the key to her office and tried to balance some papers she was carrying. "Hey, Kendra!" Isaac greeted.
"Hey!" the computer specialist exclaimed, "What's with the creeping around?"
With that, Isaac slipped his helmet on. "I'm trying not to get killed," he replied in a deadpan voice, "I have to talk to Nicole. About last night."
Kendra remembered the talk she and Nicole had had about this same dilemma. "Look," she sighed, "Whatever's going on between you and Nicole, you need to work it out. And stop flirting with Ellie."
"But I'm not flirting with her!" Isaac protested, causing Kendra to smirk as she swiped her key, entered her office, and put down her papers. She then moved to stand in front of the engineer again.
"Sure you aren't," she teased, "We can all see there's something you like about Ellie. She's a really nice person, but remember that you're not dating her."
Isaac just face-palmed himself. Why couldn't he just be friends with a woman without everyone thinking he was an "unfaithful asshole", as Tiedemann had referred to game-Stross the previous night? "What am I doing that's making all of you think this?" he asked. He had a girlfriend; he obviously knew how to charm women, but this time, he was stumped.
Kendra just shook her head as she readjusted her ponytail. "Well, for one," she started, "Nicole said she noticed you were checking Ellie out when she first arrived, and then-"
"Wait, she noticed that?" Isaac interrupted, "Oh, crap…"
"Yeah," Kendra agreed, nodding slowly.
"Why didn't she tell me sooner?"
Kendra shrugged. "I don't know," she said, "But I know you love Nicole. Now you just have to make sure she knows that. Good luck." With that, she disappeared into her office once again. Isaac continued to creep down the hallway until he arrived at the cafeteria. He slowed his pace down even more, hoping to surreptitiously check and see if Nicole and/or Ellie were around. He prayed that at least Nicole was taking her break around the same time.
"Look, Nicole," Ellie's voice echoed throughout the room just as Isaac paused at the door and spotted her and Nicole sitting across from each other at a small table, "I know we haven't known each other for too long, but I'm not interested in Isaac Clarke."
Damn it, Isaac thought, Ellie beat me to the punch.
"Really?" Nicole replied, sipping some of her coffee and narrowing her eyes, "It didn't look like that to me. I saw the way you two were looking at each other."
"But he's not with me! He's with you! You're the one that sits next to him all the time during the game! Why can't you just trust him if he says that nothing's going on? In fact, why are you so possessive of him, anyway?"
Nicole looked down at her lap. "I'm not possessive of him," she answered quietly, "I'm his girlfriend. I have a right to feel the way I do."
That's it, Isaac thought, I've got to get in there. "But you don't have to feel like that," he piped up, stepping into the cafeteria and heading over to Ellie and Nicole. Both of them glanced up at him and widened their eyes.
"How long have you been standing in the doorway?" Ellie asked sharply.
"Just a few minutes," Isaac replied, "Ellie's right, though, Nicole. There's nothing going on between us. We're just friends." Nicole just stared neutrally at him and didn't say a word.
"See?" Ellie jumped in, "He's saying it himself!"
"Stay out of this!" Nicole snapped at her, "Anyway, I've got to go. I've got a few more patients to check on at the hospital." And before either Isaac or Ellie could say anything, she was already gone, taking her cup of coffee with her. As soon as she left, Isaac and Ellie just glanced at each other. What could they do to convince the Senior Medical Officer otherwise?
"Okay, guys," Isaac began as all of them except for Nicole gathered at his apartment, "Ellie and I were talking before, and we've both decided there's something that needs to be said. When Nicole gets here, don't make any comments about Ellie's game-character. It's making Nicole feel bad."
"And I feel bad that she feels bad," Ellie added, "I told you guys not to make comments."
The others just glanced at each other with wide eyes, almost as if they finally understood. "We're sorry, Isaac," Hammond apologized, "We didn't realize we were making her feel that way."
"You didn't exactly stop us, though, either," Daina piped up from next to Mercer.
"I know," Isaac reluctantly admitted, "And I feel horrible about it. I want to make it up to Nicole, so if we could just focus on the game and not talk about…that, everyone will be happy."
Kyne just sighed. "You're right, Mr. Clarke," he said, "We're Miss Brennan's friends and we shouldn't have been so crass. We'll try to hold our tongues."
"Right," Tiedemann agreed, "We'll help you convince her that she's still your girl."
"Thanks, guys," Isaac thanked them, smiling, "I really appreciate it."
"I'm sorry if I got in the way," Ellie apologized.
"No, you didn't," Isaac assured her, "The only thing is that Nicole needs to realize that." He took a deep breath and proceeded to set up the Xbox360 and the game once again while they all waited for Nicole…if she even wanted to watch the game tonight.
It seemed to take a while, but Nicole finally arrived fifteen minutes later, and the others immediately thought about what Isaac and Ellie had said. "Hey, Nicole!" Hammond greeted a little too cheerfully, "Ready to watch more Dead Space 2?"
"Only because I want to see what happens next in the game," Nicole replied, giving Hammond a cool smile as she sat further away from Isaac and Ellie this time, closer to Kendra, Hammond, and Tiedemann.
"You're not sitting up here?" Isaac asked in surprise.
"Nah," Nicole said, "I want to see what the game looks like from a different angle." She gave Isaac another cool smile, and the engineer realized she wasn't letting him off the hook that easily.
"Are you sure you don't want to sit up here?" Isaac asked, hoping that his girlfriend would change her mind.
"Positive," Nicole answered, and an awkward silence hung in the air. It was almost as awkward as the time Temple and Mercer had gotten into a fight over the first Dead Space.
"So…what are we waiting for, guys?" Stross asked in order to eliminate the awkwardness in the room, "We have a game to play!"
"Stross is right," Ellie said, "We better get going!" With that, Isaac loaded the game to where he last saved and quickly made his way through the empty hallways after battling the Brute in the Transport Hub. They were quiet for the most part, save for the distant sound of a Mature Guardian.
"Uh oh," Isaac mumbled, "I hope that isn't what I think it is."
"What?" Ellie asked.
"A Mature Guardian," Isaac replied.
"What the hell is a Mature Guardian?" Tiedemann asked, raising his eyebrows.
"AHHHH!" a shrill voice screeched in the game, making everyone jump. Game-Isaac rounded the corner, and sure enough, there was a Mature Guardian by the elevator he needed to get on in order to proceed to the next area.
"That, my friends, would be the Guardian," mercer explained, nodding at the Necromorph attached to the wall up ahead.
"Eww!" Daina shrieked, covering her mouth, "What are those things flying out of its stomach?"
"The really annoying pods that always eat up my health," Isaac explained, switching to the Line Gun and planting a mine in order to kill all the pods in the area.
"Why are you standing so far back?" Stross asked.
Isaac smiled wryly to himself. "Here, I'll demonstrate," he said.
"Uhh, Isaac?" Kendra asked, "You sure you want to do that?"
"You're starting to sound like me, Miss Daniels," Kyne joked, "Usually, I'm the cautious one here."
"This time is different, though," Kendra reasoned.
But Isaac continued to plow right towards the Guardian…which ended up beheading his game-character with one blow. "AHHHH!" the Necromorph screamed.
"AHHH!" Daina also screamed at the same time, "Thanks for that lovely display, Isaac!"
Isaac just shrugged, not even flinching as he got a game-over. He was far too used to the gory deaths in the game to react. "That's pretty much all there is to the Guardian," he said, "I'm glad there weren't two of them, though."
"Can you imagine having to fight two of them?" Tiedemann asked, "One is bad enough."
"We've done it," Hammond assured him, "It's not pretty. It eats up a lot of ammo."
With that, the game reloaded to a point before game-Isaac had been killed, and this time, Isaac took care of the Guardian before moving on. At that moment, Chapter Six ended and Chapter Seven began…with a Necromorph ambush!
"Look out!" Kyne shouted, pointing at the Leapers that tried to attack Isaac's digital counterpart. Fortunately, they were getting much easier to fight, and at first, Isaac thought he hadn't collected the item from the Necromorph's corpse, so he continued to press the button on his controller to force him to stomp.
After the first few stomps, game-Isaac began to growl, and then, to everyone's surprise, he let out a very colorful string of words. "Shit!" he cursed. Isaac immediately stopped curb-stomping the ground as he gasped.
"Holy crap!" Ellie cried, "You curse when you curb stomp?"
"He's got a colorful mouth in the game period," Kyne piped up.
Curious now, Isaac resumed stomping, and everyone saw that Ellie and Kyne were right. "Shit! Mother…fucker! Die!" game-Isaac snapped in between stomps.
"What the hell?" Kendra and Hammond whispered to themselves.
There was silence for a few seconds before everyone began to crack up. "Now I curse when I curb stomp?" Isaac chuckled, "That's something new!"
"You curse all the other times, too," Nicole reminded him, speaking up for the first time since she had arrived.
"But here it's much more often!" Isaac retorted, stopping at the Store before upgrading his Air Meter and Detonator at the Bench. Right after that, he saved the game and decided to continue.
As soon as he made it to the elevator in the corner, he stopped as he began to speak into his RIG. "Ellie," game-Isaac said into the communicator, "I ran into a snag. It looks like the Docking Pod that runs to the Solar Array is floating at the bottom of the shaft."
"That figures," game-Ellie replied in a frustrated tone of voice. Nicole frowned in the back, but promised to keep herself under control. She wasn't here to start anything. It's just a game, she tried to convince herself, It's just game…
"Don't worry, I can fix this," game-Isaac assured her, "I'm heading outside to have a look." And sure enough, he entered the zero-gravity environment outside to find that he needed to shoot the thrusters on the Docking Bay in order to get it to attach to the rest of the elevator. Like some of the other missions in the game, this didn't take too long to complete, and once he was finished, game-Isaac got back in touch with game-Ellie again.
"Ellie, I've got the elevator repaired," he reported, "I'm heading up to the array. How's Stross doing?"
Everyone in the room could just make out the sound of Nolan talking to himself in the distance. "How do you think he's doing?" game-Ellie replied, "Can you hear this shit?"
"He's hallucinating, Ellie. It's part of the sickness."
"This is going to be trouble."
"It already is. Just keep moving."
"Am I even talking about anything substantial?" Stross wondered, "Or am I just mumbling?"
"Probably just mumbling," Ellie answered, "Since the game seems to think you're crazy."
Stross just sighed and glanced down at his lap. "I'm not crazy," he repeatedly mumbled to himself, as if he were genuinely trying to convince himself of that fact.
After contending with a few more Necromorphs, game-Isaac boarded the newly fixed elevator and began to head up to Solar Array Sigma Zero Five…only to get the surprise of his life along the way.
"Uh oh," Tiedemann whispered, "What's happening?"
On the screen, the elevator began to shake, and the glass broke all around Isaac's game character as a voice announced, "Entering vacuum."
"Oh, no!" everyone groaned just as a few Necromorphs extended their arms into the elevator and tried to grab game-Isaac.
"What the hell are those Necromorph?" Kendra asked.
"Tripods, maybe?" Daina suggested.
"Or Brutes?" Isaac quipped as he rotated the analog stick on his Xbox360 controller in order to make his character run in all directions. He could feel the controller vibrate as the Necromorphs hit him, but he eventually managed to aim at all the yellow pods and shoot them in order to get the arms to disappear.
"Good thing you upgraded your air," Stross commented, "This is the longest elevator ride in the whole game so far!"
"Yeah," Isaac agreed, "Good thing." He reloaded his Pulse Rifle as he continued to use the alternate fire in order to take out the Necromorphs, despite the fact that the grenades were eating up all his ammo. Nevertheless, they got the job done, and once all the arms were gone, the elevator continued to ascend until it arrived at its destination.
"Arriving at Solar Array Sigma Zero Five."