Chapter Thirty-Four: The Vats

When Albert, Erwin, and Dogmeat arrived at the military base, a sight of utter chaos was not what they had been expecting. Dead super mutant bodies were scattered around the parking lot within the perimeter fence of the complex. Interspersed with the mutant corpses were the bullet-ridden and burnt out hulls of robots armed with various forms of weaponry. These robots – each equipped with their flattened dome-shaped heads, two flexible mechanical arms, and a pair of mini-bulldozer threads – were identical to the ones Albert and Alex had faced in the Glow.

Something had gone very wrong here, at least for the mutants. For Albert and Erwin, it was perfect. They headed straight down the main ramp and into the first lower level of the facility without anyone trying to stop them.

Their progress was so smooth, in fact, that when they first came across three super mutants who had survived the battle with the robotic security, it was almost too late to retrace their steps and find a different route in. Fortunately for them, the mutants were too exhausted from fighting for their lives and did not see the intruders backtrack the way they had come.

Finding a different path, they wandered the corridors till, after following the printed directions at every junction, they eventually reached the elevators.

'Where do we go?' Erwin asked as Albert reached for the buttons.

'When in doubt, always head to the very bottom,' said Albert, speaking from experience. The doors shut and the elevator cart silently began to descend.

'So how's the suit working for you?' Erwin asked to break the silence as they descended.

'I still don't have great precision with my movements,' Albert replied, 'but at least I've stopped crashing into objects.'

'No kidding,' Erwin said, remembering the first hour after leaving the staging area.

'In the close confines of the corridors in this place, it shouldn't matter too much,' said Albert as he checked that a round was chambered into his AK-112.

'One other thing you might like to take into consideration,' said Erwin. 'Alex found out that all the suits have a weak spot where the power pack's located.' Erwin tapped a small compartment of the TX-28 microfusion power pack that was attached to the back of Albert's armor. 'Anyone hits that and you'll be paralyzed – stuck in your suit until someone either takes you back to the workshop or somehow manages to pry open the suit. The knights have been working on improvements but they won't be ready until long after this threat is either over or we're all dead.'

'Good thing I have you and Dogmeat to watch my back, then,' said Albert.

They reached the lowest level, but as they emerged from the elevator doors, their hearts sank. While all the energy fields on the upper floors had been deactivated thanks to Jennifer's hacking, this floor ran on its own independent power grid. Everything was still operational here.

'What now?' asked Erwin. 'Can we just shoot the field emitters?'

Albert shook his head. 'That might trigger another alarm or, who knows, maybe even a failsafe detonation of some sort.' Albert looked at the control panel by the side of the field that barred the doorway. 'This has been loosened,' he commented, reaching for the panel's metal covering. The casing fell open easily. 'Natalia's team's been through here,' he said.

Reaching the control room overlooking the FEV Vats had been a slow process since the energy fields on this floor were apparently controlled independently of the rest of the complex. That meant that they had to go back to relying on Natalia's electronic lockpicks to temporarily disable all the energy fields in their way. Fortunately, the robots on this floor had suffered Jennifer's reprogramming, so the infiltration team met with less mutant resistance than they would have otherwise. The rest of the mutants were either dead, injured, or fighting off the remainder of the robots.

Even so, the mutants on this floor had been more heavily armed and armored, and by the time the team made it to the Vats control room, they had expended most of their ammunition. Schuster's rocket launcher, Dan's minigun (which Jennifer had taken over), and Tycho's two submachine guns were now running on empty, forcing both Schuster and Jennifer to switch to their laser weapons.

Jennifer was still distraught over Dan's recent passing and frantic at the thought of being too late to save Alex. Still channeling her frustration and grief into rage, the first thing she had done, when Natalia got them through the force field blocking access to the control room, was to immediately execute all eight Children of the Cathedral technicians before they could so much as attempt to flee. Natalia had balked at the brutal efficiency with which Jennifer had cleared the room without even a moment's hesitation, but that reaction faltered as soon as they all caught a glimpse of what was going on outside the viewing windows of the control room.

The space beyond the control room was enormous, and for good reason. Three gigantic cylindrical Vats, each at least three storeys high, filled up most of the space, their tops open to reveal their contents: the luminescent green liquid responsible for creating hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of super mutants over the years. The base of each vat was lit by large, red, floor-mounted floodlights that gave the Vats a demonic glow, as if the massive containers had risen out of the infernal depths of hell. Situated right at the highest point in the room, in line with the ceiling, the control room commanded the perfect view of the tops of each of the Vats, along with the multilevel network of catwalks that spanned the room. And right in the center of the room, atop a platform in the middle of the network of catwalks, was a human-sized automated crane – the device the mutants used to dip their willing or unwilling subjects into the FEV. A single computer terminal was wired to the crane to control its rotation and the retraction and extension of its heavy duty winch cable.

A small group of half a dozen mutants had gathered near the crane. The largest mutant –with large brass-colored metal shoulder pads, a glowing red spherical eyepiece attached over his right eye, and some kind of portable energy generator secured to his back – was standing by the computer controls. Lined up in a row by his feet were five human-sized figures wrapped up in cloth from head to foot, like mummies except for the fact that they were desperate struggling against their bonds. The five other super mutants were strapping what looked like oxygen tanks and masks to the bound human figures.

'They're preparing to dip them,' Schuster said needlessly.

'We have to stop them,' Jennifer said, perhaps more to herself than anyone else, as she moved to the door that led out to the catwalks. But no sooner had she opened the door than she found her path obstructed by yet another yellow energy barrier. 'Natalia!' she called.

Natalia immediately fished out her lockpicks and began working on the door.

In the meantime, Jennifer began exploring the other computer terminals in the room. After perusing the directories and diagnostics of several terminals, she finally settled on one and got to work. 'How close are you?' she asked Natalia as she began hammering away at the keyboard.

'Two or three minutes,' came the reply. 'Why?'

'I've found the security hub for this level,' Jennifer said. 'If it's anything like the one on the first floor, I should be able to bring down the entire barrier network. Should make our flight from this place much easier once we figure out the self-destruct mechanism.'

While she worked, Tycho tested the window gently with the butt of his shotgun. 'Reinforced Plexiglas,' he said. 'No way we can take them out from here – not by surprise, at least. Can we use the explosives you brought?'

Schuster shook his head. 'They aren't shaped charges. We'd end up destroying all the computers in the room at the same time.'

'I've got an interface screen,' Jennifer declared. 'I'm going to try to deactivate all the fields on this level.'

Schuster walked back over from the window to where Jennifer was hard at work. But as he did so he paused at the computer just next to it – the one Jennifer hadn't yet gotten the opportunity to examine.

'This is… This is the Vats Control Computer,' he said in amazement.

'See if you can find a way to remotely close the lids on the Vats,' said Jennifer without looking away from her work.

Schuster fiddled with the commands for half a minute.

'Well?' Jennifer asked, again without looking up.

'Can't,' said Schuster. 'The mechanism on one of the Vats is jammed for some reason.'

'Can you find anything on an emergency purge of the facility? A self-dstruct of some sort?'

Schuster spent another half a minute searching. 'I think it requires some kind of encryption decoder key of some sort,' he said eventually.

'Hey, guys,' said Tycho, as he continued looking out the window at the mutants. 'I think I know why the mechanism on the third Vat's jammed. The crane's positioned right over it… They're dipping someone inside it right now!'

Jennifer looked up. Even though her helmet was on, everyone knew the look of panic that must have crossed her features at that moment. Her fingers worked even faster than before.

'It may not be him,' Schuster tried to reassure her.

'How big is the slot for the encryption key?' Tycho asked, seemingly out of the blue, as he continued staring out the window.

Schuster seemed confused but glanced down at the slot nonetheless. 'About five inches by half an inch. Why?'

'I think I may know where the encryption decoder key is,' Tycho continued. 'It's sticking out of the side of that computer controlling the crane.'

'Shit,' Schuster swore quietly.

'Got it!' Jennifer declared suddenly. The yellow barrier Natalia had been working on vanished, as did every other field on the level. Instantly, Natalia activated her Stealth Boy's cloaking field and was out the doorway. Jennifer followed quickly behind, securing her metal gloves which she had had to remove to use the computer. Both went out guns blazing, Jennifer with her laser rifle and Natalia with Alex's turbo-charged plasma rifle.

'Be careful not to hit the encryption key or the prisoners!' Tycho yelled as he raced after them with Schuster close behind.

Out on the catwalk, two of the mutants got hit even before they realized intruders had gotten through the energy barrier. Jennifer's laser rifle managed to slice through part of the first mutants head, shearing off a chunk of his scalp and ear, but it wasn't enough to bring him down. The plasma rifle in the meantime, scored two hits directly into the second mutant's chest. The first melted away the metal plates covering his chest. The second liquefied his chest and every organ housed in the upper part of his thoracic cavity. The other super mutants stopped what they were doing and scrambled for their weapons. The largest one – the Lieutenant himself – calmly left the computer's controls and drew his six-barreled gatling laser weapon from its moorings at the side of the metallic energy pack connected to his back.

As soon as he joined the fight, the tides turned. With no where on the upper catwalks to find cover, Jennifer, Schuster, and Tycho were forced down the metal staircases to the lower catwalks at the mid-level of the FEV containers. Spreading out, they found shelter behind separate Vats. Now they were at a lower elevation than the mutants. It made it much more difficult to fire at the mutants without accidentally hitting the human captives, but at least they were no longer in the direct line of fire of the super mutants' weapons. Natalia, meanwhile, remained on the upper catwalks, relying on her cloaking field to circle around the space of the room so she could attack the mutants from the rear.

As the super mutants temporarily lost visual contact with their targets, there came a lull in the exchange of gunfire. The super mutants began fanning out on the upper level, hoping to relocate to different vantage points where they might get a clearer line of sight to the intruders on the lower level.

'Well, I'm quite impressed,' said the deep, crisp, rumbling voice of the Lieutenant of the mutant armies, his every word perfectly clipped and enunciated. The calm in his voice was unsettling to the members of the infiltration team. He turned slowly as he spoke, trying to locate them. The red orb over his right eye darted to and fro, moving independently of his other good eye as it sought any kind of motion on the lower catwalk levels. 'My spies told me you were resourceful,' he continued to speak, 'but they seemed to have underestimated your talents… Natalia.'

With that last word, he turned sharply back to the upper level of the catwalks, the red orb focusing exactly at the spot where Natalia, with her cloaking field engaged, stood.

'He can see her,' Tycho cursed in shock.

The Lieutenant's gatling laser spun to life. Natalia had only enough time to fire off two wild shots from the plasma rifle before the laser beams were peppering the catwalk floor beneath her. The grating under her feet lurched and suddenly, with a cry, she was falling.

'Natalia!' Tycho yelled, leaping from cover and firing semi-aimed shots as he rushed to her aid.

Natalia fell almost twenty feet and crashed onto the catwalks below with another cry of pain. With the Stealth Boy damaged in the fall, her cloaking field flickered and died. She tried to get back to her feet but the sharp and blinding pain that shot up through her right leg told her it had likely broken in the fall.

'Guards,' said the Lieutenant. 'Capture her. Kill the rest. And make a call to everyone on this level. Tell them to make their way here immediately.'

The gunfire started all over again.

Albert was just about to consider trying to destroy the field generators on either side of the doorway when the gentle humming of the emitters faded and the barrier abruptly vanished.

'They must have taken it down,' Albert concluded. 'Let's go!'

They burst out into the elevator lobby and found it covered in blood and robotic transmission fluid, as well as body parts belonging both to mutants and security robots. It seemed that whatever chaos had struck the upper floors had reached this level was well.

'There!' Alex said, picking out a wall-mounted fire-escape map of the level amidst the blood stains. The two of them walked over.

They had just located the Vats control room when a pair of super mutants on patrol, armed with laser weapons appeared from around the corner. The mutants looked as surprised as Albert and Alex felt.

'Looks like we've found the troublemakers at last,' said the larger of the two.

Before they could react, the PA system to the entire level crackled to life. Over the sound of gunfire being exchanged, they heard a mutant give a general call to all the super mutants: 'All personnel on level 6, report to the Vats immediately. The second vault dweller has been located. The Lieutenant has ordered her immediate capture.'

For a moment, no one in the elevator lobby reacted. Then the larger mutant made his move. 'Jonah. Go!' he barked to the other mutant, even as he reached for his weapon.

'Alex, Dogmeat. Stop him!' Albert yelled. 'I'll handle this one then join you there.'

Without time to think, Alex leapt into action, chasing after the fleeing mutant. Dogmeat bolted past him. There was no way Dogmeat would be able to take down the mutant on his own, but perhaps he could slow him down long enough for Alex to prevent him from calling for reinforcements.

While Alex and Dogmeat gave chase, Albert stood alone in the lobby facing-off a mutant who stood a foot taller than himself even with his power armor. The mutant glowered at Albert. 'You'll "handle this one"? You have quite the gumption, human.'

Albert tried to remain calm even as his heart thumped loudly in his chest. He eyed the mutant's laser weapon. They were standing just close enough that using rifles would be cumbersome.

Albert decided there was just no time to find cover. Without wasting another moment, Albert dropped his rifle and launched himself at his larger adversary. He knocked the barrel of the mutant's laser rifle away and swung at the mutant's head with his free arm. The power fist over his left glove crackled with energy.

Natalia was in bad shape. Tycho had already administered a stimpak into her bloodstream but a broken leg wasn't something that was easily fixed. In addition, three short laser beams from the Lieutenant's gatling laser had gone through Natalia's upper left thigh and midsection, likely cutting through part of her intestines and left kidney. Those were things the chemical concoction in the stimpak could significantly alleviate, but it would still take time. And time wasn't something they had just then.

'Everything's… everything's…' she tried to speak. Tycho wiped the sweat that was beading all over her neck and forehead as she struggled with the pain.

'Don't talk,' he said.

One of the super mutants that had made it down to the lower level emerged from around the corner of the nearest Vat. With clear orders to take Natalia alive, the mutant dared not fire her weapon. Tycho had no such obligation. He fired three slugs from his combat shotgun. They were not enough to kill the mutant, but they were enough to knock her off balance, over the edge of the catwalk, and to the ground level far below where she broke her neck from the impact.

'Everything's connected…' Natalia continued weakly. 'To the mutant's pack.' She pointed up towards where the Lieutenant stood guard over the computer controlling the crane, the human captives, and the encryption key. 'His weapon, his sensor-eye… even those wires sticking into the back of his skull… they're all connected.'

Tycho looked up in surprise at the Lieutenant, amazed that Natalia had somehow managed to observe all those details amidst her pain. And as he looked, he realized that she was right. The only problem was that the Lieutenant kept turning as he tried to get a bearing on Jennifer and Shuster who, themselves, were busy running all over the lower catwalks, exchanging fire with the other mutants as they did so.

'You need to distract him,' said Natalia. 'Hand me… hand me my rifle.'

'You need me here,' Tycho insisted.

'Don't… argue,' she insisted weakly.

Tycho reluctantly complied with her wishes, reaching over to where her plasma rifle had fallen and setting it in her hands.

'Get him to turn so his back's facing this direction,' she said.

'Are you… sure you're up to this?' Tycho asked, more concerned for her wellbeing than he had ever been.

'Trust me,' she said. 'Just give me five seconds to line up a shot.'

'Five?' Tycho was surprised.

'Okay, six,' she corrected herself. 'Now go.'

'Are you going to be—'

'Go!' she insisted with sudden force in her voice.

Tycho got moving.

Albert reached the door to the Vats control room, mutant blood dripping from his power fist and from the face and chest plate of his armor where it had splattered from the repeated pummeling Albert had given the mutant. This armor was something else. Never in his entire life would he have thought he would be able to go one-on-one with a super mutant. Yet not only had he survived the close combat encounter, but he had also escaped with nothing more than a couple of dents in his armor and a few bruises. Some were bad and would take days, maybe even weeks to heal on their own, but considering how his opponent had fared, that was nothing worth complaining about.

Bursting into the control room, Albert found Erwin sitting at the side of the doorway, his back resting against the wall. The visor on his helmet had shattered and, even against the dark green of his combat armor, Albert could see the blood stains. Some of it had to be Erwin's; Albert could already see some of the bullet holes in various parts of the armor.

Dogmeat sat faithfully beside Erwin, standing guard even though he himself looked like he had taken a beating. Erwin's hand rested weakly on Dogmeat's back; his head was slouched on his chest. Lying not far from the both of them was not one but two super mutant corpses. Erwin's assault rifle lay beside the corpses, its chamber and magazine empty, the barrel bent and the handgrip cracked. Erwin's laser pistol sat in his lap.

Dogmeat recognized his adopted master even in the armor and walked over to him with a slight limp.

'Good boy,' Albert said, cursing himself silently for having sent both of them after what had turned out to be more resistance than they had counted on. He had thought all the other mutants on the level had already been killed or were preoccupied with fending off the robots. Now he knew how wrong he had been.

Erwin gasped suddenly. His left hand snatched for the laser pistol.

'It's me,' Albert said quickly, his voice filled with relief that Erwin wasn't dead.

'Two more!' Erwin yelled suddenly. With a sudden jerk, he tried to rise to his feet, but groaned in pain and slumped back down against the wall.

'Rest,' Albert insisted, gently resisting Erwin's further, albeit weakened, attempts to stand.

'Two more mutants made it into the testing room,' Erwin gasped.

'I'll go,' said Albert. 'You stay here and… guard the doorway.' Albert removed one of the three stimpaks he had left and injected it into Erwin's shoulder after removing the cracked shoulder pad. Albert turned to Dogmeat. 'Guard him till I get back,' he said.

Secretly, he hoped there were no mutants left on the rest of the level. He didn't think Erwin or Dogmeat were in any condition to defend themselves. But he had no choice. He could clearly hear the generous exchange of weapons-fire through the open doorway that led to the catwalks beyond. Bringing either Dogmeat or Erwin out there would be suicide for them. At least they had a chance in here.

Albert picked up his assault rifle and exited the control room through the doorway to the catwalks.

While Jennifer and Shuster had been busy with the other super mutants, including the two more who had responded to the Lieutenant's summons, Tycho had tried to reach the Lieutenant without getting spotted. To do that, he had had to leave Natalia's side, go all the way to the ground level, cross the entire floor, then ascend back up to the second level where a single access ladder ascended directly to where the crane was located. Slowly and quietly, he began climbing.

He was nearing the top and thought he had made it without being noticed when he heard the distinct ringing of metal as bullets ricocheted off the metal bars below him. He turned to see a super mutant on the other end of the catwalk opposite from him aiming his assault rifle in an attempt to shoot him off the ladder. Tycho suspected that the only reason he hadn't been hit was because the weapon hadn't been designed for mutant hands. The mutant's fingers were too large and the weapon was, on the whole, too small for the giant. Still, the mutant was clearly trained and it would only be a matter of time until…

A beam of laser cut across from another end of the catwalks on the lower level. It cut through the mutant's neck, then went up into the middle of his head. The mutant staggered and fell back off the catwalk to the ground far below. Tycho spared a glance at the source of his aid and realized it was Schuster who had kept the trigger on his laser rifle depressed until the weapon had overheated.

Unfortunately, his attempt to save Tycho not only meant that his weapon was temporarily unusable but also that he had just given away his position. The Lieutenant spotted him and open up with his gatling laser.

Having already suffered cumulative damage to his armor from dozens of bullets and laser beams that hadn't been reflected off the armor's surface, the plating on his armor finally gave way. Four of the rapidly fired laser beams pierced through his battered armor and struck the unprotected flesh beneath. Schuster cried out in pain, lost his balance, and fell over the edge to his death.

'DAMMIT!' Tycho yelled in frustration as he leapt to his feet on the catwalk and advanced towards the Lieutenant, firing round after round from his shotgun directly into the Lieutenant's right side. But although Tycho could see the damage being done, the Lieutenant didn't offer so much as a flinch of pain. He staggered just the slightest bit from the damage inflicted by the 12-gauge rounds, but when Tycho's weapon ran dry, the Lieutenant easily regained his balance and turned to face his latest attacker.

Come on! Tycho thought silently to Natalia as he watched the Lieutenat turn the weapon towards him.

The sound of the plasma bolt was unmistakable as it suddenly burst from the chamber of Natalia's weapon. It hit the power pack attached to the Lieutenat's back from across the room, causing a small explosion in the pack. The Lieutenant grunted in frustration and what might have been some small degree of pain. But it wasn't enough.

Realizing that his attacker had figured out a weakness in his armor, the Lieutenant began to turn back towards Natalia's position. And judging by how his weapon was turning as well, Tycho guessed the Lieutenant might have reassessed his earlier intention to capture Natalia alive.

With no time to reload his own weapon, Tycho did the only thing he could think of. Sprinting towards the Lieutenant, he leapt onto the mutant's back, using his own combat knife to stab at the wires connecting the metal pack to Lieutenant's spine and the back of his head.

Tycho had only managed to sever two of the wires when he felt the Lieutenant's giant fingers clamp themselves around his neck and shoulders. In the next moment, he felt a forceful tug that threw him from his perch. Before he knew it, he was soaring through the air.

'Tycho!' Natalia yelled in horror as she watched him get tossed like a ragdoll. As he hit the edge of the catwalk and slid over the side, Natalia's heart caught in her throat. But at the very last moment, his hand found its grip on the edge and he jerked to a halt, dangling by one hand over a sixty-foot drop.

It was still not over. Natalia tried to line up another shot as the Lieutenant approached the edge where Tycho was hanging on for dear life. There was no way she could score another hit to the mutant's back but at least it might distract him long enough for Tycho to get out of the way.

There was only a slim chance of success and Natalia knew it. The Lieutenant had cut Tycho off from any escape. Even if he managed to climb back up to the catwalk, there would be nowhere to run except maybe to jump into the nearest Vat, which would be tantamount to suicide.

Natalia was about to pull the trigger anyway when she heard another burst of gunfire, this one coming from directly behind the Lieutenant. It was the sound of a conventional semi-automatic weapon being fired. But who among them had assault weapons? Tycho had lost his shotgun when he attacked the Lieutenant at close range and Jennifer, still fending off two mutants, had her laser rifle. No one had a 5mm assault rifle except…

Albert never released his finger from the trigger as he unloaded the entire magazine into the mutant leader's back even as he advanced towards him. It was clear the assault rifle wasn't doing any significant damage to this particularly large mutant, but at least it would distract him.

And distract him it did. The Lieutenant turned to face him, his face a mask of anger. He pulled the trigger on his gatling laser even before fully aligning his shots. The laser began cutting up part of the catwalk as he shifted his aim towards where Albert was standing. Albert turned to take evasive actions, not knowing if he would be able to dodge a gatling weapon on full auto.

But that one moment of distraction was the perfect opportunity Natalia had been waiting for. She inhaled, held her breath, then fired two quick bolts into the Lieutenant's back. Both hit their mark. The first destroyed the outer hull of the energy pack, the second obliterated the circuits within.

What Natalia hadn't realized, however, was that the pack was not only the power hub for the Lieutenant's cybernetic eye and gatling laser; it was also the life support system that kept his organs functioning – an unfortunate necessity to maintain the additional upgrades that the Master himself had helped effect in the Lieutenant's body. Thanks to further mutations that had been added over time, the Lieutenant had grown stronger, tougher, and larger than even the strongest of the mutants, save perhaps the Master himself. But a body that was stronger, tougher, and larger required a constant powerful source of centripetal energy that only cybernetics could provide. Now, with that machine destroyed, there was nothing to stop the Lieutenant's body from turning on itself.

With a flash of sparks and a plume of smoke, the energy pack on the Lieutenant's back exploded. It triggered a quick chain reaction resulting in a smaller explosion in the back of the Lieutenant's head. The blow caused him to stagger and fall forward on one knee from the sheer force of it. Dropping his weapon, the Lieutenant clutched his stomach as he felt the pressure building rapidly from within. His blood raced faster and faster, boiling in his very veins. Albert, Natalia and the rest could only stare in fascinated horror at what came next.

In a sudden involuntary jerk and a roar of intense pain, pieces of the Lieutenant's body began bursting out of their normal physical confines from his limbs and his body, spraying blood and fragments of bio-organic pulp all over the catwalk. Chunks of flesh went flying in all directions. More mini-detonations erupted in his brain. He clutched his head as if it would help contain the agony but it only grew worse. In another series of violent spasms, blood spurted from every orifice on his face. His body jerked again and this time one of his arms burst apart from its socket, flying off the edge of the catwalk and into one of the Vats. The seizures grew worse. Then, far too audibly, the Lieutenants innards exploded outwards in a continuous shower of half-liquefied biomass, his body spasming with each gush.

But it didn't stop there.

As torrents of blood continued spraying out from his midsection, the Lieutenant's body actually seemed to shrivel before the eyes of Albert, Natalia and the rest. Since that part of the catwalk had been constructed of solid metal, the liquefied biomass began to pool in a horrendous crimson puddle. The Lieutenant fell to his knees, the spasms growing weaker. As the last muscular contraction wracked his body, he collapsed forward, face first into his own blood and melted organs.

And then finally, it was all over.

Staring at the remains of the Lieutenant, Albert was reminded of all he had witnessed in the Corridor back in the Master's lair. But whatever terrible things he had seen FEV do, both to the human mind and to human physiology, this was far worse. It seemed that the horrors of FEV were not restricted only to humans, as he had been assuming all the while. Rather, it appeared that FEV had its own horrors in store for the very creatures it had produced.

While everyone was still stunned by what they had just witnessed, however, Jennifer, having dealt with the remainder of the super mutant guards, was racing for the computer controlling the crane. She reached the controls and hit the commands to retract the thick cable that extended vertically down into the nearest Vat. As the winch slowly started retracting the cable, she moved quickly over to the captives and began ripping off the oxygen masks and cloth coverings that masked their faces, looking for the one that belonged to Alex. While Tycho ran back over to Natalia's aid, Albert shook himself from his stupor and helped Jennifer free the captives.

Each mask and cloth covering that was removed revealed a frightened and exhausted but relieved human face. Jennifer finally got to the last captive but no familiar face presented itself.

'No… please no,' she said with growing panic and a deep sinking feeling in her gut.

Standing where they were on the catwalk, both Albert and Jennifer suddenly heard movement behind them. The cable had retracted just enough for them to see the top of a head. But it was a large head – too large for an ordinary human. Torn pieces of sopping wet strips of cloth dangled from the thing's head. As the face came into view, they could see, even through the gas mask that was still plastered over its nose and mouth, that it was the face of a super mutant. The transformation was complete. What now hung from the cable was no longer human. Alex… was no longer human.

END OF CHAPTER NOTE: So... I've started to realize a trend in how I've written up Natalia's part of the story. She tends to go in strong, make a big impact, and then inevitably end up getting injured. While I don't believe in incorporating gender egalitarianism in my writing purely for the sake of political correctness, this does strike me as a little silly. I guess I am influenced by masculinity norms after all. Fortunately, my next two anticipated novelizations have strong female leads to counter-balance this potentially one-sided approach. That's my self-conscious rant for today.