Kwai kwai nidobak! I'm happy that I managed to get this chapter done so quickly. I hope you all like it. Remember to leave a review or send me a PM!

Chapter 14: My Heart Burns

The Leo Colony on Mars was bustling with activity. Various men and women were going about their days on the red planet. Like every other day, the colonists were either performing their everyday jobs or were shopping. The sun was setting as the day ended, which resulted in the horizon slowly turning form a butterscotch color to a deep blue with the sky being an orange color closest to the sun.

There were also numerous vehicles driving down the tan colored roads throughout the colony. Some were large and had multiple wheels, while others were smaller and had three or four wheels. However, the number of large vehicles far outweighed the smaller ones. Due to the massive girth of the vehicles, nearly every road in the colony were one-way roads.

One such automobile, a Daihtai tractor, was driving down one of these many one-way roads. The tractor possessed four wheels on both sides and the cabin was lifted significantly high up from the ground. Its engine roared while the vehicle moved. The tractor past by many metal buildings until it slowly took a left into a massive parking lot. Many of the parking spaces were large to compensate for the various different vehicles in the colony. Some spaces were occupied, but most were vacant. Gradually, the Daihtai tractor pulled into one of the many open spaces before the engine was silenced.

A single door on the left side of the vehicle opened soon after the tractor was shut off. The driver stepped out of the tractor and closed the door with a slam. The driver was a man wearing a blue coat with the hood pulled over his head. There were a some white plastic bag hanging from his back.

Grayish white mist was exhaled through the man's back while he climbed down the ladder of the tractor and onto the ground. The cold air made his breath visible and he couldn't wait to get inside where it was warm. Half walking, half jogging, he made his way towards the closest building to the parking lot and entered through the automatic double doors.

This metal building was the home of the man in the coat, as well as many other tenants. For this place was an apartment building. Once inside, the man reached towards his hood and pulled it down and off of his head. His gloved hand gingerly rubbed his hairless cranium and he walked past the reception desk and into a wide hall that was lined with doors. Each door was etched with a number.

The bald man stopped at room twenty one before he reached into his coat and pulled out a pass card. He slid the plastic card over the scanner on the side of the door, which let out a light beep before the door slid open. Once the way was open, he slipped the card back into his coat's breast pocket and entered.

"Janet! I'm home!" the man called out and the door slid shut behind him.

Out from the other room, a woman wearing a heavy jacket walked in. Her hand was constantly resting against the wall, as if to support herself. The room was rather bland looking. The walls and floor were both white while most of the furniture was pitch black or dark gray. A few empty cups were resting on the coffee table as well as used plates, but it seemed that no one was caring for them.

The man in blue smiled and he walked over to the furniture. He grabbed hold of the plastic bag on his back and gently set it down on the sofa.

"Sorry I'm late. I went out shopping." he informed her.

"Oh? What'd you get?" the woman, Janet, asked emotionlessly, still standing a little ways away from him.

The man's smile seemed to widen at this and he opened the bag. He reached his gloved hand in and pulled out various colorful toys for an infant. There was a rattle, a bib, diapers, a currently deflated yellow ball, and many similar items. The more stuff he retrieved from the bag, the more Janet frowned.

"I can't tell you how excited I am to be a father, Janet. I know I work all day, but once this baby is born, I will spend more time at home to help you out." he told her and he looked up at her with his brown eyes.

"Dammit, Linwood. Just stop." Janet blurted out, catching him by surprise.

"What?" the bald man asked quietly with confusion.

"You spend all day in that damn lab of yours or outside the colony in the fucking middle of nowhere. You're never there for me anymore! Hell, you didn't even come home at all yesterday!" she explained with a heated voice.

"Never there for you? Janet, I'm working hard to support our child." the bald man tried to reason with her and he stood up at this point.

"Well, don't bother. I had an abortion yesterday." Janet spat out with tears leaking from under her eyes.

At that moment, time almost seemed to stand still. There was a deathly silence as the two stared at one another. The bald man in the blue jacket was horrified from this news. It had to have been some cruel joke, but the seriousness in her eyes said otherwise. His legs became wobbly and he pretty much fell onto the sofa to sit.

"I'm leaving you, Linwood. Tomorrow morning, I'm leaving for Earth. I'm sorry, but I just can't love you anymore. I can't love someone who isn't there for me." Janet sniffed.

With that, she slowly walked past the sofa and out the door. Even as she left, Linwood stared straight ahead, his eyes still wide with shock. Once the door closed, signaling Janet's departure, he broke out into a fit of sobs.

Many sections of the Aipaloovik VII colony looked deserted. Sheets of paper, coffee cups, and clipboards littered the floors throughout the evacuated areas. With no one working during the storm, several electrical systems went into a state of disrepair. Lights were flickering, there were leaking pipes, and entire rooms became flooded with salty water.

A white, metal door opened, allowing light to shine into the darkness. A dark figure walked into the room with a metal tool in hand. As soon as the figure entered the room, a loud pop echoed and glowing sparks shot out from the ceiling. A few flickers later, the lights finally turned on.

Linwood groaned softly from the bright light. He blinked a few times to adjust to the lighting and he looked around the almost exclusively white room. The area he was in was in the shape of an octagon with various lockers lining the walls. No windows were present in this room and one of the lights on the ceiling was out. There were three doors however, one of which was where he entered from.

With his bare feet, the convict stepped inside of the room and looked around. It seemed that everywhere he went, the floors were freezing cold. All of the lockers had locks hanging from them, and he didn't want to make any noises to try to get them open. Since his last encounter with one of those eyeless creatures, it was his belief that they were attracted to loud noises. Not only that, but every time one of them was around, he got a headache. Perhaps it was whatever chemicals those doctors put in him reacting to their presence.

There wasn't much reason to contemplate that now however. It was Linwood's goal to try to get out of that colony. Or at the very least, find somewhere safe to hide. Finding some decent clothes wasn't a bad idea either. The first door he examined was the one directly ahead of him. The only label to indicate what the room was used for was "AR-97" right above the door. And on the door itself, there was a small motion sensor on the center, but when he got close enough, the sensor blinked a red light.

'ACCESS DENIED." Brother's mechanical voice boomed out from the loudspeakers, making the near-naked man jump in surprise.

"Christ…" the convict mumbled under his breath.

It wasn't clear to him why, but there was a need for the inmate to get into that room. It was almost like a primal instinct. But he was no engineer, nor did he have any sort of device to bypass the lock. All he had was a ratchet, a tool which he hadn't used since he was in high school.

After looking around for a bit, Linwood spotted a currently closed opening in the wall. It was a little ways to his right. Biting his lower lip, the bald man stepped closer to the vent. Once close enough, the metal surface slowly opened, allowing him entry in the air vents. A long exhale escaped his nostrils while he stared at the dark interior of the hole in the wall.

"Please… don't let anything be in there." he whispered quietly to himself.

With that, he crouched down and stuck one foot through the opening. His foot soon connected with the smooth, cold surface of the ventilation system, which forced a shiver to run up his spine. Still crouched, he moved his body headfirst through the opening; then his other foot. Once fully within the vent, he noticed that he could either go right or left. Both ways led to pitch blackness. Going right would lead him in the opposite direction of the room he wanted to enter however, so he turned left and commenced to crawl forward.

He was forced to crawl on all fours due to the cramped space he was in. It was uncomfortable and even embarrassing moving like this due to the medical gown he was wearing. But when he was no more than a meter away from the opening he entered from, the metal surface slid shut. All sources of light were cut off the ventilation system.

The bald man released a shaky breath and his ears strained to hear anything out of the ordinary, but all he could hear was his own breathing. No headaches warned him of any dangers. So, he continued to inch his way forward despite being unable to see more than an arm's length in front of him.

It wasn't clear how much time had passed. Time seemed to move more slowly when one was frightened. But soon enough, the darkness was coaxed away by a bright light ahead of the crouched man. A dot of light seemed to gradually expand in front of him, forming an upright manhole, an exit.

A sharp exhale escaped his dry lips and he quickly shuffled through the opening. Linwood crawled out of the dark vent and into a rectangular room with white lights shining down from the ceiling. The room appeared to be some kind of shooting range, which surprised the convict. What use did a science center have for a shooting range? There were inactive cameras on tripods pointing down the range as well as where the shooter would've been standing. There was nothing down the shooting alley, but the wall behind it was stained black, as if it had been burned.

Linwood groaned softly while he stood up on his two feet. The vent closed shut when he stepped away from it and he took a moment to look around the room. He could see the locked door he wasn't able to get through earlier to his left. But there was a waist-high table against the wall to his right. When he approached the table, he could see a gun of some sort resting on its metal surface.

The weapon appeared to be some kind of rifle. Much of the rifle's sides and stock were made of white plastic with rubber wrapped around the pistol grip. A little ways in front of the grip, there was a thick, rectangular shape sticking out from the bottom of the rifle. It looked almost like a gun magazine, but there were red wires sticking out of it that were attached to the side of the gun.

The barrel was much thinner and circular than the rest of the weapon. It also distinctly metal and was a silvery gray color. What Linwood found strange was that the part where a gun's nozzle would be was instead replaced with a strange cone shape. The cone almost looked like it was made of glass and it was colored bright blue.

"How does the bullet come out?" the bald man murmured to himself.

Linwood reached forward and gingerly picked up the weapon. The gun was much heavier than he expected. He hefted it up and looked down the iron sights. He aimed down the firing range and tried to squeeze the trigger, but it wouldn't budge. Raising an eyebrow, he looked down the side of the weapon to see that the safety switch was on.

"Right…" he mumbled quietly under his breath.

A shiver suddenly ran up his body, and it wasn't because of the cold air. His frontal lobe started pounding, which made him wince every time. Quiet thumping of something hard against metal could just barely be heard, and the man quickly turned to look towards the vent. There was something in there; he just knew it. He slowly pointed the abnormal weapon at the closed vent with shaky hands. Could this weapon even hurt whatever was in there?

Even now that he was armed, Linwood didn't want to take the chance. His legs shifted a little and the clearly terrified man began to gradually make his way towards the door, still aiming at the vent. But as soon as he started moving, the banging suddenly stopped. The only sounds he could pick up was his own quick, yet quiet breaths. He wanted to just run, but his wobbly legs wouldn't let him. If he even tried, he'd more than likely fall over. He practically stumbled as he approached the door. It was a bit difficult holding the heavy weapon with one hand, but he used his off hand to press the emergency button on the wall to deactivate the door lock.

"ACCESS GRANTED." Brother's loud voice spoke out, which actually made the man cry out in surprise.

The door immediately opened after that, but a rapid scurrying sound from the vent was heard. The ventilation shaft's metal opening slowly spread outwards. It was hard to see due to the dimly lit room, but something large and dark skinned crawled out of the bent. It had a long, ridged head and it appeared to lack any eyes. The creature pointed its long head in his direction as it quickly rose to its two feet. Its heavy breaths bore into his very being as he stared at those barred, silver teeth in its mouth. Without thinking, he squeezed the trigger of his weapon as hard as he could.

The gun didn't fire. Instead, the weapon began to violently shake in the man's hands. It was hard to keep steady with the vibrations traveling up his arms. The glass-like cone at the end of the weapon also began to light up. Blue, electric sparks zapped out here and there, but no more than a few centimeters away.

The eyeless creature stopped in its tracks and it slowly tilted its head, as if it was curious as to what that light was. Linwood glanced down at the weapon himself and released the trigger. The weapon harshly recoiled and pushed against his shoulder as a beam of electricity shot out and struck the creature in front of him.

The monster let out a howl of pain as bolts of electricity shot throughout its body and it fell onto the floor with a crash. The creature hissed and screeched while it wailed its clawed limbs in the air in a vicious tantrum.

The bald man stared at the flailing creature with wide eyes and dumbly looked down at the weapon he was holding. This had to be some kind of enhanced stun gun. But then it clicked; when the electricity stopped coursing through the monster's body, it was more than likely going to be angry at him for hurting it.

No sooner did this cross his mind that the energy ceased to course through the creature's body. Linwood gasped in fear and turned on his heels to run without looking back. He didn't check to see if the thing stood up or if it was giving chase. All he knew was that he had to get away as soon as possible. His panting breath echoed through the halls as he ran out of the octagonal room and down a hallway with a single door at the end. Beads of sweat slid down the sides of his face as he held the electric gun close to his chest.

His bare feet skidded to a halt when he reached the door and he slammed the palm of his hand against the open button on the side of the wall. The light on the door flashed green, but the door had a delayed locking mechanism. Now in a full panic, the convict whipped around and aimed his newfound weapon down the hall.

But the hall was empty. Nothing was behind him and there was only silence. His head still pounded however. The hum of the door made Linwood jump and he turned to look into the next room to see some kind of storage room or something. He couldn't quite tell while he was terrified like this. But as he inspected the next room, the dark form of the creature crawled its way into the hallway. It didn't enter by normal means however; it was crawling like a spider on the ceiling, almost blending in with the metal piping.

When Linwood turned his attention back to the hall, his eyes were staring dead ahead, seeing nothing. But right above him. The creature slowly opened its mouth, revealing its second set of jaws.

"Get down."

Linwood felt his heart jump in his throat from the sudden words, but he complied and dived down onto the cold, grated floor. A black blur flew above him, followed by a sickening crack. When he looked up, he could see the ridge-headed creature dead on the floor. A long, thick spike was shoved through the back of its head, which caused its greenish yellow blood to ooze out of the exoskeleton.

Steam began to emit from the floor and the scent of burning metal found its way to the man's nostrils, making his face wrinkle in disgust. When he followed the black spike, he noticed that it was attached to a black, bony tail that connected to another one of those monsters. This one had a smooth, almost transparent dome of a skull instead of a ridged one however. Upon realizing this, the convict forced himself up onto his knees and took aim.

"Please don't shoot me, Mr. Stevenson. I'm not one of them." the same voice from earlier spoke, coming from the creature's general direction.

The spiked tail roughly pulled away from the monster's head at that moment and the still living creature very slowly stood up. It then raised its dark arms above its head in an act of surrender before slowly turning to face the man.

"You… you're that synthetic, right?" Linwood asked, his voice cracking towards the end of his sentence.

"Indeed, I am. My name is Charles, in case you have forgotten." the inhuman machine spoke with its lips peeled back in a sort of grin.

The convict's breath was still shaky with fear, but he lowered the electric gun so it was aimed at the floor. He by no means trusted this thing, but one of the three laws of robotics was that a robot could never harm a human. Of course, that law didn't apply to… whatever those monsters were.

"Why did you save me?" the human demanded and he used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat off of his brows.

Feeling confident that he wouldn't be shot, Charles slowly lowered his arms. He was pleased that the human was rational enough not to attack him. His only hope was that the dead specimen didn't see him before he killed it. If that were the case, then his job would be much more difficult.

"You're an important asset, Mr. Stevenson. The company needs you to live at all costs. I was sent to ensure your survival." the synthetic answered.

"Yeah? Well, I'm not going back to those fuckers." Linwood stated with a harsh voice and a hateful glare.

"I figured as much, but that doesn't change my mission. You need to live, but if you stay in this tower, then you will certainly die. Especially so now that the hive deems you a threat. You shot one of them with that weapon. They all know that now." Charles informed and he took a few steps forward, to which the human stepped back.

"What do you mean?" the convict questioned and he backed up into the storage room.

"The organisms I was built to resemble are called Xenomorphs. Their pheromones allow them to see through each other's eyes. If one sees you, they all see you. They didn't attack you before because of your shared pheromones, but now that you've attacked them, they will deem you a threat. It is also possible that they now deem me as a threat too. And not only that, but nearly the entire hive is in this very tower. We won't last long here." the synthetic calmly explained.

Linwood's glare was replaced with a look of concern. If he knew that, then he would've never shot that monster. He would've ran away instead. His whole body felt cold with fear and he looked down at the electric gun before he turned his gaze back to the machine.

"Then… what should we do?" he asked with a hushed voice.

"We escape to the closest tower. Tower C." the synthetic answered and he pointed a clawed finger up over the man's head.

Linwood looked over his shoulder to see a door on the opposite end of the room. Not only that, but in a glass case to the side, there was a thick, deep sea diving suit as well as a rack of harpoon guns hanging from the wall. There were even a few water bags lying around. And above the door, there was a sign that read "AIRLOCK." If this was the closest route out of here, then he was going to take it. All that mattered was escape.