Chapter 10

Isaac exited the tram system to the Flight Deck and looked around. So much had happened in the last few hours, from a crew of five entering a derelict ship to now just two- actually three if Dr. Kyne was counted- survivors trying desperately to keep alive in a ship-sized house of horrors. Isaac looked down at his very armor, once simple and barely plated, now as sturdy as his iron-will to live.

Finished with his reminiscing, the engineer-turned survivalist carried on with his mission. As per usual, he was given an update as soon as he took a few feet forward, but this time it was Dr. Kyne who spoke. He stated, "Mr. Clarke, I'm approaching the shuttle hangar. You must... you must find your way to the Cargo Bay! The Marker, it's being stored in there. There's a cargo loading lift there you can use to deliver the Marker up to the hangar."

He reiterated, "Please... you must help me with this! It's the only way..."

The video ended and Isaac continued forward. As soon as he opened the door, an Exploder just broke through a vent to get into the system. Recoiling for a moment, Isaac shook his head and wished for the day he could walk down a hallway without the feeling of paranoia. In fact, in that very hallway he was walked down, Isaac swore that he heard voices calling his name. He chalked it up to just probably the anxiety getting to him.

Probably.

Once he entered the Cargo Room to the side, Isaac took the elevator downwards to the lower level, whereupon a Pregnant and some Exploders homed in on his location. Taking them out, Isaac then walked around the entire open room to take everything of value to him, checking every unlocked locker and smashable crate for their contents.

The area itself was predominately square, with an equally square walkway that went around the perimeter of the room. In the middle was nothing but a pit completely filled with knocked-over crates and large boxes. After taking everything of worth, Isaac walked around until he found the crane control and pressed the button to activate it. That caused a magnetic crane to descend into the depths until it grabbed its target, and then brought it back up.

Isaac gazed upon the root of the Ishimura's problem as it was placed onto the Kinesis-controlled conveyor belt- the almighty Marker. The whole thing was encased in a glass and polished metal box, revealing the contents inside. With a sleek red color that was matched by a grey undertone, the curved artifact had innumerable runes etched onto the surface, all of which seemingly held untold secrets within.

Simply being within its presence gave Isaac a chill up his spine unlike anything he had borne witness to thus far, but for some strange reason, he could not help but think of his girlfriend, Nicole. Although he had no idea why she came to mind all of a sudden in the presence of such a strange artifact, Isaac guessed he was anxious about getting her away from all of the chaos both of them had no doubt endured within the Ishimra.

A computerized voice snapped him out of his thoughts, stating, "Delivering cargo shipment 782. Kinesis module required for further cargo transport."

Isaac cracked his knuckles and activated his Kinesis module, dragging the cargo box to the right and forward a little bit until he came into a somewhat unexpected delay. The first thing that clued Isaac into knowing his task would not be easy were the sounds of Necromorphs coming after him. Far onto the opposite side of the room, a couple of Exploders and Pregnants appeared out of the vents and advanced towards him, along with a few Slashers that came afterwards.

And on his side, a groaning noise preceded a Tentacle from coming up from the depths of the ship and smashing down in front of the engineer. Although the most it did was break part of the railing and make Isaac jump back a bit, it was clear that none of the Necromorphs wanted to part with their creator lightly. Isaac responded to that by loading up his Plasma Cutter and taking them down, one monster at a time.

Before he fired any shots though, Isaac wondered if the Tentacle knew friend from foe. He stepped back a bit and kept his weapon ready just in case, but allowed the first monster to get close enough to test his experiment. The first creature to come up was a Slasher running at top speed; it was going to fast for the Tentacle to even have a chance at smashing anything, so Isaac used a blast of Stasis to keep it still. He smiled under his helmet as the Tentacle came back down with all of its' might and broke the Slasher apart.

Then came a few more Slashers and the Pregnants behind them. They too were felled by their careless comrade, smashing them to bits until it was just the engineer and the overly-tenacious Tentacle. Isaac found that if he simply maintained a decent distance away and fired whenever it tried to hurt him, he was able to take the creature out without danger of hurting himself.

Once it was dead, Isaac resumed moving the Marker, getting no further than a few meters until even more Necromorphs and another Tentacle began ruining his day. Isaac stopped and battled them all again, eventually succeeding in the exceedingly difficult task of moving a box from one side of a room to the other side. If he ever got out of the never-ending nightmare he found himself in, Isaac vowed he would never grip about his work life ever again.

Once the Marker was in position, it was brought up to the top while that same computerized voice said, "Delivering cargo shipment 782 to the Hangar Bay."

Dr. Kyne confirmed everything was working when he contacted Isaac to update, "The cargo lift has arrived! The Marker is in the Hangar Bay. Now you can load it into the shuttle. Hurry!"

Isaac fought a few more disgruntled Necromorphs as he made his way back to the elevator. As he entered the hallway that lead into the Cargo Bay, he realized the strange whispering he heard was back, seemingly tied to the hallway itself. He really wanted to get out of there as soon as he could, so the engineer wasted no time in getting out and to the Hangar Bay.

As he left, Kendra came online to explain, "I've restored power to the elevator. Take it to the Hangar Bay and get that Marker on the shuttle. I'm heading up to the Flight Deck now. Oh God... I'm just going to run for it... wish me luck."

Taking the elevator near the tram station, Isaac went up to the Flight Lounge and stopped moving for a moment. This was the place where all of the madness began for him and the others- when Hammond was simply leading everyone on their increasingly strange mission to repair the Ishimura. As soon as the lights turned off and the first of the Slashers came out of the vents to attack, it all went downhill from there.

As soon as he got to the main doors that lead out, another quarantine activated and Isaac had to fight through several dozen Slashers, both the normal and Enhanced types. These were nothing but minor distractions from his main objective, and he banked his hope on the idea of him not having to deal with this lunacy anymore. Once he was free to move about the facility again, Isaac went through the doors and waited just inside the Hangar Bay as Dr. Kyne piloted the shuttle inside.

The good doctor said, "Excellent! I'm going to dock the shuttle. Got to be careful now... careful..."

As the doors to the Hangar Bay opened, the shuttle entered and slowly nestled itself into the hangar. Once it was in place, Dr. Kyne explained, "I'm bringing the shuttle down now. The automated loading controls aren't responding. You'll have to shut down gravity in the Hangar Bay and then manually bring the Marker directly beneath the shuttle."

Isaac went back the way he came and took a right into a junction, leading him into the Control Room, though the area that controlled gravity was instead more of a Control Balcony. He pressed the button and watched as all of the railings descended into the floor and the burden of his own suit lessened greatly. Isaac jumped through the air and onto the floor below the shuttle.

As soon as he got close to the area to bring the Marker in, several Lurkers sprang out of the vents and began to attack. Isaac found there were canisters nearby and they proved to quite helpful when he launched them at the little monsters with his Kinesis module. Each one exploded with enough force to kill a Lurker instantly, and soon they were all dead. The engineer resumed moving the Marker and pulled it towards the shuttle, guiding it along the plates it was attached to.

After using a machine to rotate the Marker's container, Isaac continued pulling it into position, briefly stopping to combat a few Leapers, and after dispatching them he finished moving the Marker into position. Eventually it reached its destination and Dr. Kyne attempted to load it into the underside of the shuttle.

"OK, it's in position", he said. Nothing happened and he grumbled, "Eh, still having trouble with these damned loading controls. Isaac, restore gravity to the room. I should be able to load the Marker then."

Isaac jumped into the air and landed just above the Control Balcony before taking another jump down to it, whereupon he felt the weight of his armor again as gravity was restored to normal. While it reverted to normal and everything floating around fell to the ground, the Ishimura's computerized voice stated, "Loading cargo shipment 782."

As the processing nearly finished, Dr. Kyne opened a holographic video display to excitedly state, "It's on board! Please, come and join me. Together we can stop this Hive Mind! We can end this nightmare! At last!"

Isaac quickly took the route back to the docking platform where Dr. Kyne waited for him. The engineer had never been more happy to leave the Ishimura and all of the terrible things that he went through aboard it; although he was not much for expressing himself, Isaac was nearly giddy with excitement. He ran as fast as he could to the shuttle and saw Dr. Kyne standing right outside of it, waiting for Isaac. Kendra was already on board and anticipated leaving as soon as possible.

Dr. Kyne called out, "Over here! Hurry, there's no time to waste, we must do it n-"

He never got to finish his sentence, for at that exact moment, a shot rang out and left Dr. Kyne with a gigantic crater in his chest. The man fell to his knees as the door to the shuttle began to close up. Gurgling with pain, the good-as-dead doctor managed to get out a few words before his demise.

"Wait...", he asked. "Amelia... where are you going... wait."

Dr. Kyne slumped to the ground, leaving an incredulous Isaac to wonder what just happened. He received no answer for the longest time, seeing the shuttle turn around and exit the doors that lead to freedom. Eventually a holographic screen opened up on Isaac's RIG, revealing the culprit- Kendra.

After not speaking for a moment, busy working the controls, Kendra turned and faced the engineer. She explained to the man, "Sorry Isaac. I couldn't let him go through with it. I suppose I should thank him for finding the Marker. We even managed without help from the USM Valor..."

She continued, "Thank you for helping me find it, by the way. My department's been looking for this place for a long time. See, what Kyne didn't know and what Alex guessed at was, this was the government's mess to begin with. This whole planet is one big experiment."

"The Marker? This 'divine relic'?", Kendra asked with a laugh. "Made by man. They reverse-engineered it a couple of hundred years ago from the REAL Marker, a true alien artifact discovered on Earth. They dug it up, studied it, kept it next to ol' Alex for safe-keeping, and made their own. Then they brought it to Aegis VII, and activated it."

"And you've seen the results", she continued. "The stuff of nightmares. They sealed the system, Alex included- killing two birds with one stone- and no one would have been the wiser."

Sighing, Kendra added, "But then the CEC blunders in and starts tearing the planet apart. The experiment- and Alex- were still alive. Kyne was right about the Hive Mind. The Marker would contain it... but that doesn't matter now, does it? I have the Marker, and this entire system can go to Hell. For what it's worth, you did do a great job, Isaac."

She ended with, "See you around... or maybe not."

When the video ended, Isaac was dumbfound and unable to even move for what felt like the longest time. Eventually his knees gave out, not due to strain, but because he finally lost it. Not his mind... but hope. As Isaac stared into the metal floor he rested on, the faint sound of metal against metal began to pierce the stale, empty air. The engineer did not even bother looking at Alex dragging his reclaimed Blade right behind him. As the living virus paused and stood beside the kneeling man, he regarded him only for a brief moment, then set his eyes on the late Dr. Kyne.

Alex wordlessly walked over to the cadaver and knelt beside him, before plunging his other arm into the man and forcing the Blacklight virus into his system. The doctor's body began convulsing violently until Alex removed his hand from Dr. Kyne's torso. He suddenly gasped, "Amelia!", before a coughing fit set in. The man continued hacking his lungs out until it finally stopped, and Alex extended a hand to brine Dr. Kyne to his feet.

Taking a few more breaths, the good doctor asked, "Wha- what happened? Where is the shuttle? The Marker? What's going on?"

Alex explained the situation while Isaac barely listened in. Despite the miraculous recovery of his only ally, the engineer still felt like their situation was hopeless. That was until a familiar figure put his hand on Isaac's shoulder. He looked up to see the leader of Isaac's mission standing there- Hammond.

"Isaac", he said. "We're not finished here. We're getting that shuttle back and getting the Hell out of here."

The engineer shakily got to his feet, wondering if what he saw was real. He then looked behind Hammond to see two people he did not recognize, but he matched their voices with audio logs he found before. There was a man and a woman, close to each other like how Isaac was to Nicole based on just how physically close they were to each other. The first one- the man- asked, "Alright, so Dr. Kyne's alive. Not that I'm honestly that happy about it. Now what do we do now?"

Dr. Kyne sarcastically responded to that with, "A pleasure to see you as well, Mr. Temple", before earnestly commenting, "I see that you and Ms. Cross have survived this catastrophe."

Ms. Cross stated, "We've barely survived this nightmare. I had just found Jacob when... Dr. Mercer found us as well. We would've been fed to... our new friend over there, but he saved our lives instead."

Hammond commented, "I still don't understand what you've done to us, Alex. What... what are we now?"

Alex stated without turning around, "You are what I call 'Evolved.' Still mostly human- you can eat, crap, and fuck like normal- but you're also something more. The Blacklight virus exists in you all."

At that point he turned to add, "You now have access to the kind of power I wield. Durability. Strength. Speed. Everything's been enhanced tenfold... and beyond."

Summoning his Blade again, the living virus finished, "Now you have the ability to summon weapons, survive against formally impossible odds, and best of all... we can now reclaim that shuttle and get out of here. But first... we have a very, very important appointment with Dr. Mercer..."

Inside another room...

The not-so-good doctor expectantly waited for Alex to arrive, and the man did so a few minutes later with everyone behind him. Dr. Mercer smirked as the quintet entered the room, saying, "Ah, and here is the beginning- the dawning, of a new age. The day of mankind is over... now, it is the day of the Evolved."

He continued smiling and closed his eyes, claiming, "I am ready to ascend."

Everyone looked at each other until all eyes were on Alex. He wordlessly smiled himself and quietly grabbed a few Pulse Rifles from inside a locker. Handing a rifle off to everyone, they all understood what was going to happen and pointed their weapons at the madman. Jacob Temple himself commented, "I'm gonna enjoy this..."

Sensing something was not right, Dr. Mercer cracked one eye open to see all of the guns pointed at him, and before his mind could even process what was happening, his body was shredded like paper. Falling to the ground, the doctor could barely form the words to say, "But... but I did as you asked..."

"Yeah", Alex replied. "But just one problem- I don't like you as a person."

He then grabbed the bleeding man and continued, "Now, I don't know if you're really descended from Dana or just as delusional as the rest of you Unitology fanatics, but I want you to know this: I really don't care."

Alex tightened his grip on the man's throat and finished, "And even if you are, I want you to know that Dana would be horrified her descendant was nothing more than some religious nutjob. She was a tough investigator, a computer genius, and most of all, a decent human being. You... are none of those things. And you deserve to be nothing."

Raising his other hand, Alex left go of Challus briefly before summoning his Blade and tearing the man to shreds. Staring at the puddle of gore before him, Alex heard Jacob ask, "Alright, so we killed the crazed doctor- I'm pretty happy about that- but how do we got off this damned ship already?"

Alex replied, "I haven't actually thought that far ahead. If we put our heads together, we might come up with something. Any way for us to get that shuttle back?"

Everyone remained silent in contemplation, some moving into other rooms to think in even more silence. Isaac was one of those people and wondered what he could do; his main priority was to find Nicole. She was not among the group, but if she was able to survive on her own for so long, she was probably still alive somewhere else in the Ishimura. Thinking a little more about her, a holographic video suddenly popped up in Isaac's face with the aforementioned woman appearing on it.

"Isaac!", Nicole stated. "It's Nicole! I need you to help me, help us. Now! I'm... I'm in the Flight Control room! Please, Isaac, hurry! Please... I love you..."

Reinvigorated by the words of the love of his life, Isaac immediately rushed out of the room he was in, passed everyone else, and made his way to the Flight Control room despite the cries of confusion behind him. Undaunted, the engineer hurried through the path that lead into the Flight Control room, immediately killing the Guardian that stood beside the door. He raced right in and took a right, finding Nicole near the console.

Isaac thought it was strange how all of the monitors flickered with several strange symbols, but it really did not bother the man all that much. He was too focused on what his girlfriend said to him to do otherwise. She turned to the man and hesitantly asked him, "Isaac? Is that really you?"

She smiled and continued, "I never thought we'd be together again! God, I'm- I'm so sorry for what I did... I never wanted to hurt you."

Taking a breath, Nicole explained, "You need to get back to it, Isaac. You can pilot the shuttle remotely from here! Make us whole again! Make us whole again..."

She turned and began activating the controls, unlocking a holographic display for Isaac to use. He went over and in turn activated the emergency shuttle recall, forcing the shuttle Kendra absconded with to return to the Hangar Bay. Once the homing signal was within range and forced the shuttle to come back, Kendra jettisoned from an escape pod and contacted Isaac to shout, "Isaac, what the Hell are you doing? You're making a big mistake! This is not over!"

"No Kendra, it's not", Hammond said, standing right behind Isaac. Kendra blurted, "H-Hammond!? You're alive? But I thought Alex-"

"Killed me?", Hammond finished. "No, he didn't. He saved my life; fixed my leg and made me like him. Not completely like him, mind you, but I'm not going to lose to a Brute any time soon."

Kendra sputtered, "B-but what about Dr. Mercer?"

Alex replied, "Dead. He was a useful pawn, but not worth keeping around. And speaking of pawns... you're not leaving this system alive- EarthGov lackey. We're taking the shuttle and the Marker back."

Kendra huffed. "I'm not going to be beaten that easily. The Marker is coming with me."

Dr. Kyne shouted, "You idiot! Do you have any idea what you are doing, how many lives you're putting at risk all for some damnable artifact? Everything that has happened on Aegis VII and the Ishimura will happen everywhere else if you don't put that thing back where it was!"

Kendra appeared to not have heard what the doctor was saying, or just not cared, because all she could reply with was, "What the Hell? I killed you! How are you alive?"

Dr. Kyne said, "I received the same miraculous treatment Mr. Hammond benefited from. As long as I live, I will bring the Marker back where it belongs, and this time... a mere bullet won't stop me."

Kendra cried out, "Aaargh! Just how many of you bastards will I have to deal with!?"

Jacob Temple and Elizabeth Cross were about to say something but Alex stopped them, smirking at having another advantage over Kendra. The woman in question just growled and cut off the connection. Everyone turned to Isaac, with Hammond saying, "Good going Isaac! I'm glad you thought of turning on the shuttle recall."

Isaac felt like explaining it was actually Nicole who did that, but he noticed she was already making her way to the returned shuttle so he followed her. Everyone in turn followed Isaac to the shuttle and found themselves face to face against several Enhanced Leapers.

"Consider this a test run!", Alex called out to the others, pulling out his Blade once more. "Use your new powers and let's see what you're made of!"

Hammond and Jacob were the ones who showed more initiative than their wary peers, leaping into the air and wielding Pulse Rifles in one hand while recreating their remaining arms into Musclemass ones. The former smashed his fist into the back of one creature and killed it while the latter somehow found his fist had gone down the throat of the beast. Jacob shouted, "Fuck fuck FUCK!", as he swung his arm wildly. The Leaper tried to bite into the man's arm but found the Biomass to be too dense, and was instead Consumed by tendrils exploding out of Jacob's arm.

He shuddered to himself as the monster's remains were absorbed into his body. Jacob turned to Alex to ask, "Is- Is that normal? Because I feel really fucked up for doing this."

Alex responded, "You get used to it", but noticed Jacob was still shaking oddly. He walked over to the man and asked, "Are you sure you Consumed it completely?"

Jacob dropped his gun and curled his fingers, thinking his whole arms were about to do... something. He did not know what was going to happen, but he knew it was not something pleasant. Biomass began to twist his arms and warp into something else. He looked to see both of his hands and fingers become long, lanky, and above all... really sharp.

Alex growled, "Bullshit! I've Consumed a dozen of those Leaper and I don't have my Claws back! Agh, damn it all."

Jacob looked back at him to ask, somewhat afraid, "Is this normal?"

Alex replied, "Developing new powers? Yes. Developing new powers that I want or, in this case, miss? Also yes."

With the rest of the Leapers down, everyone filed into the shuttle and took their places; Elizabeth, and Dr. Kyne were in the back, Jacob was in the co-pilot's seat with Isaac in the main seat, and Alex was behind him, leaning on the back panel. He asked the engineer, "You know how to pilot this thing, right?"

Isaac nodded as he pressed a few buttons and looked back to see Nicole behind Alex, giving a smile and making his horrific day a little less so. She said, "You're doing the right thing, Isaac. We're together now, the way it always should have been. I knew you would come back for me. Nothing can stop us now..."

Isaac smiled underneath his helmet and went back to starting up the controls. As the shuttle slowly rose into the air and head out of the Ishimura, he felt his spirit lifting- he was nearly free of the nightmare, and he was more than ready to finish it for good.