In South Control Diana Weyland gazed at the screens; several showed nothing but drifting static snow. All the feeds from Island North had been lost and now a growing number over on the South Island were also malfunctioning. She'd lost Rathbone as he entered the prisoner's room. One of the few screens where people were visible was the feed from North Terminus where she had been watching the guards capture the two children.

"That idiot, Farrell!" She muttered in growing irritation "I give him one job to do, one simple task. All he had to do was keep those two contained."

She turned to Marino, Rathbone's first lieutenant on the security staff "Go down and check out the boy's cells. Find that incompetent. I want an explanation as to how those two little brats managed get past a grown man! Have you managed to get hold of Rathbone?" She spat this at Himura on the desk.

"Lost contact Ma'am." He told her "We've been trying to raise him and Vincent but no dice."

She sighed "Well at least his staff are doing their job down at North Terminus – "

"Ms Weyland?"

"What?!" She spun round.

"There's something going on down there, some kind of disturbance..."

She pushed him aside to look at the monitor "No!" Her blood-coloured lips fell open "He said they couldn't get over here!"


Isaac didn't want to look but he couldn't tear his gaze away as the grinning thing seized the guard who'd been holding him down. The man screamed as he was dragged backwards across the floor. At the same moment another vent cover burst open and black shapes dropped from the ceiling like all his bad dreams come to life.

Isaac shrieked himself as he felt a hand close around his ankle, thin but with a grip like a steel clamp. He struggled to break free but he was no match for the strength in those bony fingers. It yanked him off his feet and the world spun out of control. He was maddened with fear. Tears spilled down his face and a terrified sob fought its way up his throat as he felt the things hot breath on the back of his neck.

Then something cannoned into the creature, knocking it across the corridor and he was thrown to the floor. Isaac looked up dazedly and saw a masked figure that looked like a monster himself struggling with the black shape. As he watched, it put a foot on the creature's neck and plunged the flashing blades on its fists into the bulbous forehead.

"Isaac!" Selim grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him out of the way as droplets of a clear liquid spilled onto the polished floor, smoking and spitting.

The two boys clung to each other as the wild, black-haired devil kicked the corpse of the first monster aside and turned as two more creatures leapt forward, hissing and snarling.

Almost too fast to follow, the mask whipped a gun from his hip holster and opened fire, the brightness like fireworks indoors. As both shapes fell down lifeless he pointed the gun at the hole in the ceiling, waiting for more monsters to come. When nothing appeared, he lowered the gun and walked towards them.

Isaac, rigid with fear, suddenly felt Selim leap up and break free of his clinging hands.

"Mommy!" He yelled at the top of his lungs "I knew you'd come!"

For a moment Isaac was dumbfounded, he watched in astonishment as the figure pulled off its mask and suddenly became human again.

Selim's mother threw her arms around her son and lifted him off his feet "Selim! Thank God you're alright!"

Then she put him down and turned towards him, kneeling down and holding out her hands towards him "Isaac?" She said "Honey? Are you ok?"
He stared at her in shock, unable to think what to do next. A moment ago he'd thought she was something awful and now all he could see was … Selim's mother… smiling at him, wanting to hold him and tell him everything was alright.

Isaac was not used to trusting people. As long as he could remember he'd always been unsure of who was really on his side. Iversson and Farrell were the most constant presences in his life. Isaac hated the minder and Iversson was so rarely around that he'd gotten used to being without her, although at first he'd cried himself to sleep every night.

Now he had his new friend and this woman, who had been so kind to him these last few weeks, was looking at him just like she actually cared. A mother who killed monsters…. who wore a mask like a demon… he didn't dare to trust her, didn't dare trust his own luck.

"No." He said tensely, his hands balled into fists by his sides.

"You're not hurt are you?" Her face was immediately twisted with worry "Did some of their blood get on you?"

He flinched back away from her "Isaac?" Selim was giving him a puzzled frown "It is all fine now." He said holding out his own hand to Isaac "My Mother just wants to check you for acid burns."

"Acid burns!?"

"Just let me look at you," Selim's mother was suddenly beside him and before he knew what was happening she was checking him over, gently turning him one way and then the other so she could make sure he wasn't hurt.

"You seem ok, thank God!" She said, suddenly pulling him against her, hugging him tightly "I've been so worried about you both!"

Isaac stiffened at the physical contact … then gradually, he relaxed and let her hold him. It was good if someone worried about you, that they were willing and able to protect you – even from monsters.

A shadow fell across them and Isaac looked up and saw another man he knew only as one of his many jailers. As Selim's mother released him he turned and glared up at Rathbone, bitterly resenting the interruption.

"Look, I hate to bust up the world's weirdest family reunion," Said the security chief "But we can't stay here."

"Me'Varsi?" Selim scowled at Rathbone and grabbed his mother's shoulder "I have to tell you – Farrell, that human who was so cruel to Isaac? He says Father is here."

Selim's mother covered her son's hand with her own and smiled at him. Isaac felt a little needle of jealousy.

"I know Selim," She said "I just found out myself where he is."

"Well we have to find him!" Selim said urgently "Farrell said he is in a lot of danger!"

"You can't help him!" Rathbone retorted "He's over on Island North, it's crawling with those things!"

Selim shot another angry glare at him and grasped his mother's arm even tighter "Mei'Varsi, he could be in trouble!"

"Don't worry sweetheart, your Father doesn't get into trouble, he is trouble." She said firmly "And of course we're going to find him. We'll just have to go over there and then we can all get as far away from here as possible. We're near the bridge now…"

Isaac baulked at this. He did not want to go over to North Island – especially if there were more of those grinning things. To his surprise he found himself siding with his former jailer.

"You can't go over there!" Rathbone gestured at the long hallway beyond the sealed door of North Terminus. In some sections the lighting still flickered but mostly the connecting walkway was in shadow, the only illumination was the orange glow of the outdoor sodium lights of Island South filtering through the windows.

Beyond that Island North; a dark continent, barely visible across wine-dark seas.

Selim's mother caught the man's arm and dragged him a little way off, speaking urgently under her breath. She obviously didn't mean for them to overhear but Isaac could still catch the angry hiss of her voice.

"Listen Rathbone, we have to go and get him!" She whispered fiercely "You know as well as I do his father is paralysed, so if those things are running around – "

"Whatever happened before he sure as shit ain't paralysed now!"

"What do you mean?" Her voice jumping several octaves in surprise and she grabbed the collar of his suit.

He nodded "Son of a bitch killed three of those things! I saw it myself from the Control Room. The boss lady was royally pissed."

"Oh thank Heaven!" She put her hands together over her mouth and closed her eyes for a moment, then making an effort to speak quietly "How did he manage to escape?"

"Iversson turned him loose." He pulled himself free of her grasp and smoothed the front of his jacket.

"Iversson?!" Her eyes went wide with astonishment

"Those things attacked her, so she set him free."

"God bless her!" She breathed "I never would have thought she'd - "

"I guess she didn't have a choice, it was that or die."

"How do you know all this?"

"I saw it on the screen before he ripped out the camera, then I got sent after you!"

Selim's mother appeared to consider this for a moment then she sniffed "All this makes no difference. We still have to go over the bridge. We have to get him and my spaceship. I can't leave without them."

"But it's fucking suicide!"

"Have you got a better plan?"

"Yes!" He took hold of her arm "Weyland has a helipad on the top deck of this Island. Give me a gun and let's go make a run for that! If you're really crazy enough to want to save the exotic we can fly over, same goes for getting your spaceship. Surely that's got to be better than dragging your boys into that nightmare factory!"

She paused for a moment, looking back at him and Selim. Isaac watched her pretty dark eyes apprehensively; afraid she was going to take them to Island North after all. He didn't really understand what Rathbone had said about Iversson, aside from the fact that it sounded like she was still alive and he was hugely relieved about that. After a moment, Selim's mother pulled a pistol from the waistband of her trousers and tossed it to the man.

"Alright tough guy," She said "Lead on, but if you're thinking of fucking me over just ask yourself; if I'm dead who's going to save your ass?"


Iversson watched, eyes riveted by fear as the black shapes began to swarm up the stairs faster then she'd ever have imagined bipedal creatures could move.

"They're coming!"

"I see that human!"

"They're gaining on us!"

"I know this!"

He reached the next floor and turned as the first of the glistening shapes came leaping up on them, snaggle-teeth trailing spittle. Not even bothering to use his blades the exotic swung his arm and punched it hard in the jaw as it bounded up the steps, knocking it over the balcony and into the stairwell. It shrieked and lashed its limbs around, trying to grab hold of something as it fell backwards into the darkness.

The second one went the way of the first, twisting this way and that as it tried desperately to break its fall. His plasma gun swivelled and fired several times, driving back the ones still further down the stairs.

In the seconds pause they felt the floor shudder; Iversson strained her eyes to stare down into the shadows. At the bottom of the stairwell she could just make out the doors being pushed aside by a giant, grinning muzzle. She caught her breath in terror as the Queen turned her blind head in their direction and shrieked like a banshee. Iversson could hear her death foretold in that cry.

The exotic didn't miss a beat. As the bugs fell back momentarily under his plasma fire he seized her again and burst through the doorway leading out of the stairwell and onto the next floor of Island North, coming out directly in front of the elevator. The lift doors were slightly ajar, she assumed having ground to a halt in this position when the electricity died.

He put his claws between them and wrenched them wider, wide enough for him to get through.

"The elevator's not working!" She said, thinking he hadn't realised "There's no power!"

"I realise that female!" He yanked her through the opening into the darkened elevator and she cringed as she heard shrieking cries echo up the stairs.

"They'll be here any second!" She yelled, beside herself with terror.

"Control yourself!" He snarled and thrust his fist upwards, punching the trap door in the roof open with a boom of metal on metal. Wordlessly he hauled himself and her through onto the roof of the lift. Above them, the shaft was so dark she could barely see anything. Below them a very faint glow of the emergency lighting bled through from the corridor.

She heard the hissing breath of the creatures as they began to sniff around underneath, searching.

"Scientissst?" She looked at him, or at the blackness where his voice was coming from "We need to go … all the way up?"

"Yes!" Iversson's voice was a cracked whisper.

He pulled out another clutch of little spherical objects, only visible to her because of the small blinking red light on each one, and tossed them through the trap door into the lift below. The movement alerted the questing creatures underneath to their presence and one immediately put its head through the trapdoor. She could see the double rows of teeth glinting wetly in the dark…