Isaac watched as a wave of smiling devils came spilling out of the elevator shaft behind them.

Before he had time to scream Selim's father launched himself at the creatures, pulling two swords from a sheath on his back. The blades glittered as they sliced through the air; a whirlwind of death. It wasn't enough. As one hideous grin disappeared, another sprang up, and another and another. As fast as S'Kia could cut them down they kept on coming.

"Selim's mother!" The alien bellowed inbetween slashes "Lex! Where is she?"

"Back at the bridge!" Isaac gasped "But it's blocked! We can't get through – "

Selim's father growled "Take me to her!"

Isaac was about to reply that he wasn't even sure of the way when the devils halted their assault, as if waiting for something. Panting, the alien fell back until he was standing just in front of Isaac. Turning so that Selim was shielded from attack, he began to edge backwards, pushing Isaac along with him, restreating slowly from the creatures. Isaac could see his yellow eyes glowing in the dark "Child… when I tell you, run…"

He tailed off as a giant shape came slowly around the corner. At first, all Isaac could see was a giant set of grimacing jaws; the biggest, longest teeth he'd ever seen bared in a mirthless grin. The jaws were followed by a fearsome, crested head and huge grasping hands that gouged their long thin fingers into the metal of the wall. The body could not clearly be seen, but Isaac got a sense of a vast shadow cramped and folded into a space much too small.

As he stood paralysed with fear, the head turned in their direction, seeming to see them even without eyes. The jaws parted and Isaac expected to hear a shriek or a roar, but instead there was a hiss like scalding steam. It wasn't the noise made by a dumb beast, it had understanding behind it. It was a sound that said "Ah. There you are."

"Run boy," S'Kia grabbed his shoulder "GO!"


Iversson watched in dismay as Lex pulled Rathbone's mouth down on hers. Every hair on her head was standing on end, she couldn't even count how many ways this felt wrong. For one thing, if this was a desperate attempt to win the Head of Security's allegiance away from Weyland, it was ultimately doomed to fail. From what Iversson knew, Rathbone wasn't the type to choose kisses over cash. She also had a strong suspicion that however bad things were, they would get considerably worse if the exotic suddenly resurfaced at this precise moment.

Alarm bells might have been ringing a deafening peal in Iversson's head, but Rathbone clearly couldn't hear them. She could see him melting into that kiss, crushing Lex hard up against him.

There was the tiny but unmistakeable sound of metal on metal.

The Head of Security made a strange noise, a strangled grunt. His eyelids, which had floated closed, slammed open. Lex's arm was still around him but now she wasn't embracing him, almost she seemed to be holding him up or even trying to stop him breaking away. Iversson couldn't make sense of what she was seeing until suddenly she noticed them: the bloody points of the wrist knives sticking out of the side of his neck.

Then Lex tore her lips away from the kiss, spitting out a mouthful of his blood. She ripped the dah'kte free of his throat and a gout of scarlet sprayed across her and across the wall. As Rathbone tried to raise his gun, she knocked it from his hand with the flat of the blade, kicking it away from the gorey pool already spreading at his feet.

Weyland and Iversson stood rooted to the spot as he fell to his knees, strange gargling noises coming from his ruined throat. He was draining out like a cow in an abattoir right before their eyes.

Lex watched impassively as he pressed his hands to his neck, trying to stop his life from gushing between slippery fingers: "Sorry tough guy but it wouldn't work," She said, through lips shiny with blood "I'm not into necrophilia either."


When Selim's father roared at him, Isaac didn't need telling again. He turned and bolted back in the direction he and Selim had come, surprised to find he knew the way. The corridors of Island North had similarities to those over on South and Isaac had often explored those during his nighttime wanderings. He didn't dare stop to queston or even look behind to see whether the creature was following them. It had looked like it was too big to move very fast in the confines of the passageway, but if it was he didn't want to see it.

At this moment, when he should have been sobbing for fear, he felt faster, stronger, and more alert than he had ever felt in his life. Selim's surprising courage; the fight with Farrell; the moment the alien had told him he was brave too; in the space of half an hour Isaac felt like he had been changed forever. It was as if there wasn't time to be afraid and the fear had been pushed aside. Where there had been fear, now there was something else taking him over – a hot, scalding fire, spurring him on.

The weird cries of the demons as they leapt along the walls echoed in his ears. He and the alien raced down one passage after another, around corner after corner, until suddenly they ran up against the pile of fallen debris. As he thought, the way was cut off.

He and S'Kia spun as they reached it, putting their backs up against the rubble to face the coming threat. The alien did not draw his weapons but stood, fists clenching and unclenching, looking around for a way of escape.

As if in a trance, Isaac raised the gun Selim's father had given him towards the horrible shapes advancing down the corridor. Blue white light bounced around the corridor, striking enemies and wall and ceiling. There was a sharp noise beside them as one of the stray shots hit the window and a thick fissure crazed the glass. S'Kia's head jerked towards the sound.

Then, a shivering scream echoed up the tunnel, longer and louder than the ones that had gone before.

S'Kia appeared to reach a decision. He swept Isaac up in one arm and threw himself at the window. There was a crash as the glass shattered and then they were through into the night.


"How does it compare, Diana;" Lex said softly "Ordering someone's death from afar and actually watching them die?"

The CEO shook her head in silence, staring at the slowly spreading pool of Rathbone's blood.

"Alexa!" Iversson hissed "Put your knives away!"

Lex ignored her, advancing on Weyland. The CEO stood there shivering. Her gun lay only a few feet away, but as her eyes darted towards it, Lex moved round to cut off her path to the weapon.

"It's a whole lot different I'd imagine, but I wouldn't know." She continued as if Iversson hadn't spoken "Because when I kill, I do it myself – up close and personal." She flicked the dripping blades like a samurai, sending ribbons of gore spattering across the wall.

Iversson stepped forward "Alexa, listen to me – this isn't necessary, nobody else needs to die!"

"I've already killed one man tonight Professor," Lex told her tonelessly "One down, one to go. You know it's not the first time for me."

Iversson remembered that hollow voice from the night the laboratory burned down, but she refused to accept the woman she'd come to know over the last few weeks wasn't in there somewhere. No matter what awful things might have happened, there must be a way to reach the part of Lex that was still human.

"Alexa, it's different – you know it is!" She said quickly "Rathbone had a gun in your back and when you killed those guards to escape in Nevada; you were fighting for your child's life! Do you really think I don't understand why you killed them? But she is unarmed; you don't really want to do this!"

"You're wrong. I really do!"

"What about Jonas Haagens?" Iversson said suddenly and Lex turned in surprise "You fought to keep him alive! You fought with the exotic over him, didn't you? He wanted to kill Haagens but you begged him not to!"

"How do you know that?!"

"Haagens was wearing a wire," Iversson admitted "We heard you and the exotic fighting and we couldn't understand what you were saying, but when you came out of the ship it was clear to me that he wanted to execute Haagens and you were pleading for his life. I know that there's a part of you that still values life, Alexa. I've seen it."

Lex no longer looked impassive, she looked furious"Yes I begged Scar to spare Jonas, but he died anyway!" She hissed "I guessed he had ratted me out, but he still didn't deserve what they did to him!"

The Professor frowned "What they did…?"

"Theygave him to the hard meat, as a living host. Rathbone told me by mistake!" Lex snarled, and Iversson was surprised and frightened to see tears in her eyes. She was trembling with disgust and anger "Can you imagine the kind of person who does that to another human being?"

Iversson groaned inwardly as she realised Lex was right; she remembered the blonde-haired corpse in the egg-chamber and the exotic's brutal assessment "No doubt he wished I had cut his throat! It would have been quicker…"

Lex's chest was heaving, the look in her eyes made Iversson shudder but she refused to give in "What about Selim then?" She said "What about Isaac? What do you want them to see when they look at you – a cold-blooded murderer?"

It was the wrong thing to say "Don't you dare use them to protect her!" Lex screamed, incensed beyond reason "They're both safer with her dead and I've wasted enough time – "

She turned towards the cowering Weyland, intent on ripping her apart, when she and Iversson and Weyland were suddenly thrown to the floor. The structure trembled as if shaken by an earthquake and a chasm yawned in front of them, as the floor was riven apart. They were left on one side of the gulf and Weyland on the other.

Then Iversson felt a jolt as the section of metal flooring directly beneath her feet collapsed….


As they burst through into freezing night Scar threw out his free arm, catching hold of the metal sill. He felt like he was operating on a level above anything he had ever experienced before. When he'd seen those hideous teeth and claws reach out for Isaac, instinct had taken over, bypassing his mental defences and giving him a supernatural strength and cunning. He could not let this child be harmed – this child who was an exact copy of his son.

"The kainde amedhe want to take my offspring, let them try!" He thought "I will lay waste to all of them and burn this nest of filth to ashes before I allow it!"

A flood of supercharged adrenalin washed away the feeling of the glass shards cutting into his palm and he hung there, pulled in tight against the wall. After a moment, the snout of a hard meat appeared.

"Hold on." He growled at Isaac and the boy wrapped his wiry arms around the hunter's neck. At the sound of his voice, the kainde amedhe looked down with a little hiss of surprise but now Scar's second arm was free. He reached up and grabbed the hard meat by the throat, yanking it forward so that it plummeted into the boiling foam. He saw to it that the next one followed, tail whipping around uselessly.

Now Scar's feet had found a thin ledge beneath them and he had leverage. Above them he could see a pole jutting out, some sort of crane or joist. Bunching the muscles in his legs he leapt, clasping Isaac and Selim to him with one arm. His talons caught the spray-slicked metal and he swung himself and the children around and up, coming to land crouching atop it.

Two more bugs materialised from the window under them, scuttling up the wall. Scar looked around desperately, there was another pole jutting out further along the wall. He pulled his grapnel and fired, just able to see the little anchor bury itself in the metal. He tugged it quickly to make sure its hold was secure, then he jumped, feeling the line pay out as his weight dragged it down. Isaac yelped next to his ear as they plunged towards the waves, rushing past the hard meat, knocking one of them off the wall as they swung past. It squealed and flung out its claws, madly trying to climb in the salty air. As Scar caught the joist and pulled himself and the two boys up, the remaining bug wheeled around and began to leap along the wall towards them.

Scanning above and below for ways of escape he could see nothing but churning sea below and dark stormy sky above.

Scar knew he had to move, he could not risk a vertical battle. The hard meat could cling on any surface and he was already at a disadvantage, being encumbered by two children "There is a very easy solution," He thought "I must be ruthless and throw off the replica…"