To Lex it seemed the two helicopters were only about a hundred feet up and midway between the two Islands when the left hand copter began to lean. For no reason she could see, the huge double rotor aircraft listed to one side, swerving suddenly back towards Island South, straight into the path of the other chopper. It caught the right hand Boeing a swiping blow which destroyed its tail rotor and sent it veering across the dark sea towards Island North.

She and Rathbone gaped in disbelief as the left hand copter spun out of control, spiralling towards them.

"Oh shit! Run!"

Even before the words were out of his mouth she'd already seized the boys hands and begun to sprint back the way they'd come as the vast shape came hurtling through the sea fret. It hit the deck of Island South with an earth-shuddering boom, the rotor blades splintering into deadly red-hot shrapnel against the metal surface. A giant orange fireball engulfed the office tower and blew the windows inwards in a cloud of glittering shards.

All four of them were knocked flat by the blast, Lex throwing herself across the children and flinging her arm over her head to protect herself from any stray metal fragments as they were engulfed by a blizzard of broken glass.

As she lifted herself up off Selim and Isaac, trying not to lean on any jutting splinters and shaking the glass from her hair, she felt a cloud of heat that nearly took off her eyebrows. Island South was ablaze, the flames fanned by the wind and raging out of control. It had already consumed Weyland's office and the control room and looked like it would soon spread to the rest of the complex. She saw Rathbone stagger to his feet beside her.

"Come on!" She began pulling Selim and Isaac to their feet, brushing as much of the glass off them as she could "Come on boys, we have to go – now!"

The two children didn't need any persuading; both of them now seemed in the grip of some powerful survival instinct. They ran alongside her, shadowing her movements like hunting dogs keeping pace with a deer, back down the corridor away from the punishing heat.

Towards the bridge, across the dark water…


Diana groaned and lifted up her head. The first thing she saw was Himura and she gasped in shock. He'd been impaled by a jagged spur of metal, the end of it jutted from his chest, scarlet with innards.

She tried to piece together the last few minutes but her head felt fuzzy on the details. They'd managed to take off but then something must have happened to the other helicopter, because it had struck them. After that, a blur; at some point the aircraft had turned upside down and they were shaken around like peas in a can, then a bone-jarring crunch.

She realised she was still strapped into the chair. Finally able to make her numb hands work enough to undo the seatbelt, she fell to the floor. The angle they were at she guessed the copter must be lying on its side. The belt had saved her life – she noticed that Himura had not been wearing his. Neither had Pascoe and Karlsson by the look of things. The only one who had was …

"Farrell?" She said woozily as she recognised the man hanging from the opposite wall.

He groaned, pulling ineffectually at the straps "What the… fuck happened?"

"How should I know?" She was trying to sit up.

He managed to free himself, tumbling to the floor and pushed himself to his knees, screwing his face up in pain "Argggh, Christ!"

Diana wobbled upright on the uneven surface. She might have been confused and shaken but she was a natural bully and she didn't tolerate weakness in underlings. Her expression hardened as she looked over at the minder.

"Pull yourself together man!" She snapped "I thought you were supposed to be ex-special forces!"

His stubbly scarred face twisted in anger "Can't a guy take a five minute breather after a goddamn near-death experience?!"

"Not on my payroll." She said curtly "Now get yourself a weapon. Go get Karlsson's. You can start making yourself useful!"

She watched impatiently as he began the unpleasant task of prising his pulse rifle from his former colleague's cold, dead hands.

"Now you can get me Pascoe's gun."

"What?"

"I don't know where we've crash landed," She said through gritted teeth "But I'd feel a lot better with a weapon."

He didn't argue but retrieved the other guard's gun and handed it to her.

They finally managed to pull themselves to the door of the stricken copter and haul themselves out into the wild night air, the sky so dark they could barely see.

"Island North!" Farrell looked around in dismay at their surroundings, beyond the puddled platform they could see waves big as houses looming up beneath. In whatever brief period they had been lying stunned inside the copter, the strong winds had intensified.

They picked their way round to check on the pilot. Despite managing to crash-land the craft and save their lives, he had lost his own. They both looked around wildly. Apart from the exotic's spaceship – which neither of them knew how to operate – there were no other aircraft on this Island.

Even from here they could see the fire continue to blaze on Island South, spreading across the structure. Neither of them cared to try their luck on one of the lifeboats in this roiling ocean.

"Ma'am!" Farrell bawled "How the hell are we gonna get outta here?"

"We have to find Woods." She shouted, struggling to be heard about the wailing of the wind "I'll bet she's still alive, she has a talent for it." An idea struck her "And I'll bet she's on her way over right now to join forces with that murdering animal, we just have to find her and persuade her to fly us out of here."

Both of them stood for a few minutes, hesitating to make a move towards the lower decks, knowing what was lurking there.


"Do we have to go?" Isaac eyed the sealed doors of South Terminus with trepidation.

Lex felt a wave of pity for him wash over her "I'm sorry Isaac, we have to get to the ship." She said "But I'll protect you, I promise."

"You must have courage Isaac!" Selim gripped his friend's shoulder "We have to find my Father, you heard what Farrell said! And what about Iverssson?"

Isaac stood chewing his fleshy lower lip for a moment as he looked at his friend, then he nodded very slightly.

Lex turned to Rathbone "Well?" She demanded "Are you going to open it?"

His mouth twisted but he must know they had no choice; even now they could feel the heat from the fire that was gradually drawing closer.

He pressed his palm to the recognition pad, put his eye to the scanner and the door slid open to reveal the long corridor between South and North Terminus. The small railcar stood dormant on this side.

The door closed behind them and they began to walk briskly across the bridge. The glass wasn't so thick here as it had been in Weyland's office. She could hear the wind moaning as it whipped the sea up against the glass, huge waves exploding against the walls and roof.

"Stay close to me boys." She hissed to the two children and as one they drew nearer, shrinking against her legs. She could see why, it looked like the gateway to a modernist Hades – long and bleak, harsh fluorescent lighting guttering like a candle in the breeze. The walkway even seemed to sway slightly, whether from the wind outside or the effects of the fire she wasn't sure.

Lex's eyes narrowed. She couldn't see any signs of the hard meat, but that didn't mean they weren't close.

"That Bonehead's got a sixth sense about those filthy things, what I wouldn't give to have him here with us…" She swallowed down a little flicker of tightness in her throat "I can't allow myself to feel. Keep moving forward, that's the best thing, keep on getting closer to the shuttle."

"Come on," She hissed at the two children "I think we can start moving a little faster now." She began to move more quickly, still cautious, keeping her plasma gun handy. The hard meat had been coming across from North to South so they must have done so via this walkway, but she couldn't see any trace of them. If they had come across openly she would have expected to see some signs of it; drool on the floor – the bugs left slime and mucus wherever they went – and there would surely have been scorch marks or even bullet holes from a struggle. There were none of these things.

At their backs there was a tinkle of glass as the little viewing pane in the solid metal door shattered and a hot draft whirled through from Island South, blowing broken shards onto the bridge. Through the hole there came the noise of something groaning, warping in the heat.


Iversson sat staring into the darkness of the elevator shaft. The exotic was gone and she was alone.

Panic rose up like a storm inside, threatening to choke her.

Her pulse raced and she gasped for breath. Hyperventilating, she fought to regain control "I must be calm, I must be calm, I must be calm! I know the way out of Island North." She told herself "All I have to do is keep my head!"

She looked around. He had thrown her into one of the corridors that ran alongside an external wall. The wall was not entirely glass as it was over on South, but there were still large windows looking out over the water. Iversson squinted through the brine flecked pane, trying to orient herself by their position in relation to the other Island. She noticed with a start that part of the complex seemed to be on fire "What in the name of all that's holy can have happened?"

There was a noise beneath her and she looked down. The dark was coming to life and reaching for her, climbing up the shaft.

Iversson scrambled backwards desperately across the floor, only stopping when her back hit solid metal. The crooked shape of one of the creatures – the 'hard meat' the exotic had called them – appeared slowly. It raised its obscene head, seeming to scent the air in the half dark. Then, heart-stoppingly, it turned in her direction.

Iversson cringed back against the wall as it slunk across the floor towards her, moving so easily, so unnaturally. She was rooted to the spot, unable to flee or even to scream. There was no way out, she'd seen these things run. In this long corridor it would easily catch her, even without her twisted ankle.

As it advanced on her, she whispered a silent prayer. Long strings of sticky drool spilling down the front of her jacket, coating her hands and puddling in her lap and she shook with fear and revulsion.

Then she froze as she felt its breath on her face, whistling and hissing like that of a dying man. She almost screamed as it sniffed and nudged her with its vile jaws, coating her in foul smelling slime. Tears oozed from the corners of her eyes and she screwed them shut, not wanting to see what would come next. A tiny whimper escaped her as it seemed to almost nuzzle its horrible snout against the side of her neck, expecting every second it would rip her apart. Her mind was just a blur now, just the same, simple prayer over and over "Ohpleasenopleasenopleasenopleasenopleasenonono –"

Then, just as she felt she would go mad with terror, it suddenly withdrew. She stayed for a few moments, frozen to the spot.

When she finally opened her eyes it was gone.

She dropped forward onto her hands and knees, fighting the urge the vomit or pass out so great was her relief. For a moment she couldn't understand what had happened but then it suddenly dawned on her, like a light going on "Danzig's hormone tag, it worked! Thank God it worked! The thing must have thought I was already carrying one of their larvae."

The realisation gave her strength. She'd thought the situation was hopeless, that she could never escape from this place without the exotic's help, but now she realised there was a chance, however slim.

"Isaac!" She thought "He could be burned to death or be slaughtered. I can't stay here shivering like a fool, I have to find him!"

Iversson pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the pain in her ankle, and set off towards the bridge.