A/N: Welcome back, everybody! I hope your first month of 2013 is going well. Please, enjoy!

Chapter Twenty-one: Connections

"Thanks for the welcome," Isaac replied, genuinely. He chinned the control to his visor and smiled with a gratitude shared by old friends. The members of the Marker team were. "You're a sight for sore eyes."

Leo's accent came from behind him. "And sore everything else, I should think. We had to watch you get tossed about out there. We tried contacting you to warn you, but we couldn't get a link going."

Grinning, Isaac turned and embraced Leo, who had put down her visor as well. Her ebony skin crinkled with a shining smile. "I have to admit, I was quite afraid for you," she said to him.

"I was afraid for myself," he said in honesty.

Then a large mass slammed into the thick metal doors of the control station, startling the three of them into skittering backwards. The entire wall caved in with the impact, bulbous and cratered, the thick steel whining under the pressure as it buckled at the seams. Sparks flew from interrupted electronic connections. It wouldn't hold under the barrage of intense battering. Isaac flinched away as the tripod hurled itself against the barrier once more; a muffled whump occurred under the ringing of metal, then a meaty explosion. Silence.

"Got the bastard," came a gravelly voice from over Treyton's open audio. Kaassen. "Trey, did you secure Clarke?"

Trey nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Bring him up. We need his expertise."

"Roger that."

Trey didn't delay with formalities or explanations. Isaac already knew that each of their RIGs featured the parasite, which shielded their signals from outside tracking. Their RIGs were also on a coded network of communication that EarthGov hadn't yet cracked, it seemed. Since leaving Sweet Retribution, Isaac and his team had been unable to contact the Marker team due to the Marker's signal interference. Now that he was in close proximity, he opened the comm to the Marker team's channel. Immediately, he heard Kaassen in the middle of giving fresh orders to the others. It was a relief to be connected to other people.

"Follow me," Trey said, waving Isaac down a broad corridor. "We're regrouping a few levels up."

"Are you all accounted for?"

"Surprisingly, yes," Leo answered him. For the time being, they kept their visors down. "Although, it's a miracle we've survived. Something crashed us into the station, which forced the emergency systems to lock down the quadrant. Necromorphs had already infested the area, so we fought our way out to a transportation hub, thinking we could work our way to the government sector. All the tram systems were down, destroyed or…offline because of EarthGov. There was a lot of scrambling around, shooting, panicking. I've never seen anything like it," she said. "We got trapped in here when a tremor rattled the arboretum's solar array panels out of alignment, so we were wondering who it was that had fixed everything."

Isaac wondered how much fear and terror she'd edited out. "Sounds like quite an adventure."

"When we're regrouped, your side of things," Trey said. "We've been monitoring the seismic activity and it's not looking good."

"I'm no geophysicist, but even I can tell those quakes are getting worse," Isaac agreed. "If it goes on for much longer, the moon'll shake to pieces."

They came to the end of the corridor. The interior did not seem destroyed; there were indications of a mad dash out of the control station. Litter here and there, trashcans and chairs knocked over, dropped cases and the like. Trey pressed the call button for the elevator, and immediately, they loaded up.

"Is it the Grey Marker causing the quakes?" Leo asked, quietly.

Isaac frowned. "That or something the Marker created."

The elevator stopped, drew open its doors, and Isaac walked a step behind Treyton and Leo into the nerve center of the Arboretum. The abandoned area was wide-open with labeled work areas against the walls. Desks and stations also clustered the middle of the room. Toward the front of the center was a bigger wall inset with vidscreens. Some vidscreens were offline, but the majority blinked with lights and requests and emergency notifications. A base took center stage, upraised to be seen, with a flickering image of a man standing at ease; Isaac surmised it was the artificial intelligence program designed to advise on and implement Arboretum commands.

At that base, blue-purple hair vivid, was Wren, her hands and fingers flying over the holographic keyboard. She was turned away and did not acknowledge them even as they approached.

"Getting anything from that AI?" Trey asked. Isaac stood off to the side gazing at the solemn-faced AI. Last time he'd dealt with artificial intelligence was the ANTI program installed in Titan Station's Solar Array, which had accepted commands from Tiedemann several times before Isaac had been able to shut it down.

Wren snorted. "Nada. This AI's locked tighter than EarthGov's prison sector. So far, there's no record of that tram line."

"Maybe we made a mistake," said Leo, coming to stand beside Trey. "Things are pretty messed up here."

"No. There is a tram that will take us to gov-sec," Isaac interrupted. "It's under our feet, or at least, that's what I was led to believe."

Their conversation was interrupted with the opening of some bay doors and the stomp of quick-moving feet. Two more forms in the red and black sec-suits filed into the control center, and likewise lowered their visors. It was Calhoune and Kaassen. Both were sweating, but Calhoune was flush with the exercise and Kaassen looked drained, his face pale and lined with exhaustion. Wren did not cease her work on the AI's program.

"What's the situation?" Kaassen asked, pinning Isaac with those unfathomable black eyes.

Isaac appreciated the bluntness. "Daniels and her followers are holding Noah hostage. Greggs and Ellie are also being held in gov-sec. A secret tram line is located around here somewhere that should take us to the EarthGov facility." Then he remembered the chip and reached for it in his back pocket. "Before his capture, Noah acquired some data from Daniels' personal files. He thought perhaps it could help the Clarke Faction's cause."

Only then did Wren stop what she was doing. She snatched the chip from Isaac's outreached hand and whirled to the console to stick it into a free slot. The working vidscreens blinked to life and as the group turned to face them, the screens went white and showed the EarthGov symbol underneath a password box. Wren didn't pause as her fingers raced over the keyboard. In a matter of seconds, the screen switched to a list of files and documents, all labeled 'Oracle'.

"Oracle?" asked Calhoune. "What the hell's bells is that?"

Wren clicked on the most recent file name: Oracle_Subject221. The screen changed, showing a picture of a woman in her late twenties with long, brown hair pulled back and soft grey eyes. Her name across the top was Weller, Lexine M. Height, weight, complexion, blood pressure…all the usual medical data was there. But as Wren continued to scroll through the file, Isaac noticed a running record of entries- -it went back three years almost to the day of the USG Ishimura's fall to Necromorphs. He couldn't understand the medical jargon used, but he knew that this girl was like him…a survivor used for EarthGov's sick purposes.

"Some sort of top secret government program, I think," Wren answered, clicking back to the original contents page. "The data here is massive…what in…? This goes back at least a century!"

There was a cold tension in the air as they each realized what they'd stumbled on and how important it was for them to decode and understand it. The Clarke Faction had been formed for the purpose of exposing the corruption in the government, to correct a self-serving organization filled with greedy, power-hungry religious fanatics. EarthGov's play for the Marker technology and power was expected, but experimenting on innocent lives, for much longer than any of them had anticipated…now it had become personal. It was Kaassen who broke the ice.

"We don't have time to analyze it. Can you make copies and store it on your RIG? We may need that data as a bargaining chip."

"No go, Major," replied Wren. "The sheer size of the data will overload any single RIG system. I can only make another copy of it to a second chip."

"Do it. Then get back to finding out about that tram." Then the older man turned to the rest of them. "Our objective is the Marker. Where it is, how to get there, and then destroying it."

"What about Ellie and Greggs? And Noah?" asked Leo. "Surely our people should be rescued."

"I doubt EarthGov knows about you," Isaac interrupted, his brain working to clarify an idea. "They believe I'm working alone and that Greggs and Ellie were my team to find Noah or destroy the Marker. At least, if they're confident they've cornered me, they won't interrogate Greggs and Ellie. I could pose a distraction to EarthGov. You slip in, destroy the Marker…which'll give me the opportunity to escape with the others."

"EarthGov will have eyes on everything. We'll have to disable their security system," Trey pointed out.

Calhoune, who'd so far been silent, rubbed his chin. "We have that gunship I stole docked on the other side of the arboretum. We could blast our way in."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves." Kaassen cut them off. "There are too many opportunities for fuck-ups in attacking the facility outright."

"Well," said Leo, "we may be able to sneak in through a docking station, and overtake R-Sec. That was our original plan. Wren can get the necessary codes once she's inside EarthGov's network."

"I can command their attention by taking the tram line." Isaac remembered the welcoming committee Tiedemann had used to receive him. A whole unit of soldiers had had their sights trained on the lethal CEC engineer Isaac Clarke. "Daniels won't want me to slip through her fingers, so she'll have her security focus its attention on me. I'll bargain for Ellie, Greggs, and Noah."

"And then what? Send them back here?" asked Kaassen curtly. "There's no guarantee that Daniels will release those prisoners. And if she does, where will they go?"

Isaac smirked. "She will. I have valuable information to give her on her daughter. I can bargain for their removal off the station via a shuttle that Daniels is sure to have. Once they're out, kill the Marker."

"Light fuse, run away," murmured Calhoune from his position at the side. "Lucky we have Trey with us."

For the first time since his arrival, Isaac noticed the rectangular plastic case Treyton carried on his back. The case was solid black, thick, and covered Trey's aqua health meter. Trey nodded, but remained serious. At Isaac's gaze, he said, "I was a bomb specialist in the Marines when I served. I've got a very special surprise that'll blow that Marker to dust."

Just then, Wren tossed her arms over her head. "Eureka!"

Everyone put their attention on the young woman at the AI base. "Finally. I've gotten the schematics." Again the vidscreens blinked and a full layout of the control station spread out in green glory in front of them. Wren spoke as she zeroed in on the tram line, the computer keeping pace with her commands as she sectioned-off and enlarged. "It looks like the line is located under the ground floor several meters. There's one elevator that will take us…but…that can't be right!"

The others crowded up to the vidscreens, their eyes taking in the straight lines, boxes, and symbols that indicated various nooks and crannies of main control. Isaac's engineer's eye picked up what had caused Wren's surprise.

"The tram is under water," he said. "It's been flooded, probably from all the quakes. Is there anyway we can drain it?"

Wren's fingers squirreled over the keyboard for another second or two. "Yes, but we can't do it from here. It has to be done on site."

"So where is this fucking elevator?" asked Kaassen.

Isaac took in the schematics and gestured. "The floor plan is showing us that the elevator doors should be here. Wren, try booting up the AI program. It'll have the access we need to get through."

"On it."

"The rest of us should scavenge for ammo and supplies," he said, turning to the others. "Once we're in gov-sec, we won't be making any pit stops."

"Good call," answered Kaassen. "We'll go in pairs. Trey, you guard Wren. Isaac, you're with Calhoune and Leo, you're with me. We maintain radio contact at all times and report any 'morph activity. Gather as many supplies as we can and bring them back here. Wren?"

The layout of the underground, underwater tram switched to a map of the building with lines and labels to different, noteworthy sections. "There are four floors. We haven't had the time to secure all of them. We're currently on the fourth, so that leaves the ground through the third. Clarke and Calhoune, you're on the ground and first floors. Leo and I'll check the second and third floors. Stay tight."

Isaac's eye pain flared up; he winced and pressed a couple fingers to his temple. He hadn't paid attention to the headache throbbing at his forehead, but it was there and exacerbated by the sharp, shooting pain of his ocular nerve. A familiar rumbling rolled through the building. The metal inside clanked together as Isaac and the others reached out hands for balance. Lights dimmed as electrical wiring loosened. He could tell that the quakes were getting progressively worse and longer-lasting.

"Guys!" shouted Wren over the racket. "We have a problem!"

Isaac heard it over the sound of the quake: the shattering of thousands of glass panels was distinguishable a second before alarms went off. Red and orange blinked in time with the wail of the alarm systems.

"Warning. Warning," said the main control's voice. "Sudden decompression has occurred. Please remain calm as lockdown commences." A pause, then, "Warning. Warning. Lockdown failed. A malfunction has occurred. Proceed to designated emergency stations."

"Wren!" shouted Kaassen over all the noise. "Get that goddamn elevator open, now!"

She didn't stop to respond. Outside there was a prolonged roar- -air forcibly sucked out- -and combined with that sound was the groan of metal as it bent out of shape, twisted, and was yanked from bolts. A cold sweat broke out on his skin. He was powerless to assist. Surely, thought Isaac during this pandemonium, the designers would've planned for sudden decompression, but then the following announcement proved that no, they had not.

"Warning. Warning. Main control's structural integrity is compromised. Please remain calm as lockdown occurs." More metal whined and groaned under the alarms, quake, and roar of air. "Warning. Warning. Lockdown failed. A malfunction has occurred. Proceed to emergency stations. Manual lockdown recommended. Full decompression in thirty seconds."

As the computer's voice began to count, Isaac couldn't help counting with it. He'd put up his visor, so that when decompression did occur, he'd have five minutes of air before asphyxiation. With fifteen seconds to go, the A.I., quite simply, awoke. It gazed at Wren and said in a voice barely discernable over the cacophony, "Welcome to Rhea Station Arboretum Main Control. Oh, dear. It seems as though there is an emergency. Do you have clearance for access to that elevator you are trying to open? You do realize I'll have to report your illegal activity."

"Fucking open the doors!" Wren screamed. Her fingers were a blur over the keyboard. "I will personally wipe your data core, you stupid piece of binary code!"

Unperturbed, the A.I. continued. "There is no need for insults. Oh. You have hacked around my security protocols and have implemented a virus. Excuse me for the delay. Please step onto the lift."

At the base of the A.I. the floor sank in a few centimeters, and sliding doors parted to reveal a platform. Holographic lights indicated where to stand. Everyone loaded up. The platform sank at a rate that was aggravatingly slow, and as the countdown reached 'one', the doors overhead clunked together, slipping the team into darkness and quiet. The holographic lights and visor displays illuminated the tight space- -the elevator was not made for six people and they were crowded shoulder to shoulder. But the relief was palpable.

"Good work, Wren," Trey said. "You saved all our asses."

Calhoune clapped her thin shoulder. "Brilliant hacking skills, darlin."

"Yeah, no problem," she answered to the general laudations. Isaac heard the waver in her voice and understood she must be sick with relief. "EarthGov needs to upgrade their firewalls."

The ride down underground was long and nerve-wracking, as tremors continued to shiver through the core of the moon. The tremors were not as violent as the quakes had been, but the constant movement of the ground nerved up Isaac. He knew their chance for rescuing Ellie was narrowing by the second. And he admitted to himself that she was his most important priority.

"We have arrived," the A.I. announced as the elevator settled to a stop and the walls around them peeled away. The A.I.'s base was set immediately outside the elevator. "I am responsible for controlling the tram. As you can see, the line is underwater. I am unable, at this time, to drain the facility."

They had stepped onto a deck that overlooked a rectangular pool, small enough for it to look like a flooded elevator shaft. Dark waters sloshed uneasily against the deck, small waves slopping onto the floor at their feet. There was no indication of a tram line, no lights to show where it would be located. Dim recess lights were set in the walls, and in the corner was a functioning store and bench. The lights to their visors flashed side to side as they looked around, and their aqua meters stood out against the darkness.

The A.I. flickered a couple times, a flame buffeted by winds. "I am sorry, but Director Daniels has shut me down from the government sector. Goodb-b-b-bye." And the A.I. blipped out of existence.

"Shit," Calhoune said, turning to Wren. "Can you reboot it?"

Wren lifted her palms helplessly. "They have remote override commands and a higher security clearance than my virus was able to compensate for. So, no. I can't reboot it."

Isaac squinted at the water lapping at the deck, thinking it would make sense to put manual control where it wasn't easily accessible. Trey stepped up beside him.

"What do you think?" he asked.

Isaac crouched and dipped his hand into the tepid water. "The manual controls are down there. Our suits can function in water, right?"

"Yeah," Trey said, catching onto Isaac's idea. "But I don't like it."

Leo came to stand behind them. "What're you two discussing here?"

"Clarke thinks it's a good idea is to dive down there," replied Trey.

"I didn't say it was a good idea," Isaac retorted. "And do we have any other choice? The tram won't function in water. We have to drain the excess."

"He has a point," Leo said to Trey. "How far down there are the controls?" She paired her question with a mild gesture to the quiet water.

"I think I'll have five minutes to find out," Isaac replied, standing, and facing the others. "I'll go down and have a peek."

Wren stepped forward. "I'll go with you. You may need to hack the controls."

"We'll cover you up here," Kaassen said, shifting his contact beam in his arms. "But we won't be much help if things go fubar."

"Then let's hope things don't go fubar," replied Isaac. Then he nodded to the store. "We better gear up before we continue."

Isaac had several of the semiconductors to sell, which gave him enough credits to purchase more ammo for all of them, plus a few medicinal supplies and stasis. He also bought two small tanks of air, enough for another five minutes of breathing time. There was enough left over for the purchase of a few power nodes, which he used to amp up his plasma cutter. It now had enough juice for more shots, and less delay between those shots. He checked everyone's weaponry, made repairs as necessary, and ensured the alternate firing mechanisms were functional. During this time, the tremors continued to rock the underground facility at alarming frequency.

"Okay. We're set." He and Wren took up a position at the water's edge. Powerful flashlights were clipped to their suits, but still, the water looked glassy, endless, and terrifying. "We'll keep radio contact as we go down. Everyone stay calm."

Trey held out a hand, which Isaac accepted. "Good luck, Clarke. Wren."

Isaac glanced around at the group, whose faces were hidden behind the display of their visors, their bodies in stances that denoted nothing but neutrality, but he knew they wanted him to succeed.

"See you in ten," he said.

Before he could second-guess himself, he folded his arms and fell backwards. His shoulders took the brunt of the impact of the water; an explosion of bubbles beside him indicated Wren had entered as well. He rolled easily and angled downward. Everything was muffled except his breathing and the pulse of his heart. Wren's health meter and her visor glowed in the darkness with his, and with the flashlights, it was bright enough for him to track the sides of the shaft. As they dove, their suits worked to keep their bodies protected from temperature and the weight of water as they dropped several meters.

"It's so quiet," Wren whispered. "I can hear…"

After a couple seconds waiting for her to finish her sentence, Isaac prompted her. "Hear what?"

"It's crazy."

"I'm crazy," he told her and elicited a laugh from her. "Voices?"

She sighed. "Yeah. I've been hearing them since we got here. I didn't tell the others."

"Have you hallucinated yet? Usually it's a family member," he told her. "For me, it was-"

"How's it looking?" Kaassen asked over the audiolink, interrupting them.

"We're down four meters so far and following the shaft. Nothing so far." Isaac checked his oxygen meter. "We've got another four minutes on our suits before we have to use the tank."

When Kaassen signed off, Wren grabbed his arm, clenching her fingers enough that he could feel it through the suit. "Do you think we'll get out of this alive?"

He wanted to reassure her and he wanted the reassurance to be the truth. Instead, he settled for the truth he'd felt in his heart since coming to Rhea. "I don't know. It's different than on Titan or the Ishimura. The forces the Marker uses are much more powerful. Like with each new Marker made, it becomes…" He groped for an adequate word.

"Godlike," Wren breathed.

The wall suddenly stopped, and so their conversation ended. The area widened considerably, and the water was clear enough for their lights to ghost over a large, open deck another ten or so meters further down. The elevator shaft had been cut from the far side of the deck. Several bodies floated in the water. A station sat to the side and in the middle of the opposite wall was a dark, large hole, which was the tram line to gov-sec. He made out the hull of the tram as well as the large, red-coated hatches on the far wall of the deck. There were five altogether. Isaac angled towards them.

"We've found a way to drain off the water," he said. "Let's see if it works."

At his shoulder, Wren kept pace as he swam to the hatches. He opened one of them and underneath was a very large wheel. It obviously for two men to turn, and thankfully was labeled as "Water Output Pump"- -engineer-speak for 'water drainage'. It further stated, on an instruction sign over the wheel, that in case of emergency flooding, to crank it counterclockwise. Then it showed how to do it. Isaac waved Wren over.

"We'll have to crank together. On three," he said as her hands closed around the wheel. "One, two…"

But he never made it to three.

A/N: Thanks again for taking the time to read the story. I'm so glad that you all are finding enjoyment out of reading it. BTW, I finally read Dead Space: Martyr, which is the origins book for the Black Marker. It gave me some...fresh ideas, shall we say. Hopefully, I'll see you all again next week, 1/19/13.