And that was what bothered her the most. The waiting. The seemingly endless waiting. Every other minute she would glance at her watch, shut her eyes, lean her head back against the wall and then open her eyes again. Time to look at her watch. The three hours were almost up. And then what? The gears inside Helen's mind chugged slowly until it almost felt as if they were scraping against each other pointlessly and almost painfully. A heavy, dark cloak seemed to be pulling itself over her forehead...and finally her eyes.

'She asleep?' whispered Barnaby from a corner of the room.

Omitsu looked at their younger companion and nodded.

'Wish I could conk out – just like that...' he snapped his fingers together. He ran a hand through his hair. They felt cold – both his head and his hands. 'I am so exhausted.'

Omitsu said nothing, and continued to stare at him.

'What'd you think? D'you think they should be here by now?' He looked at Omitsu for an answer. It wasn't forthcoming. 'Dammit, woman...I wish you'd say something! They're not back yet!' His voice rose in tension and anger. 'Don't you feel worried?!'

Omitsu's lips parted, as if to speak, and then closed again. His question reverberated inside her mind. Worried? Yes...yes, I suppose you could say that, she thought. But for who? Under high stress situations, she would usually chuck out all extraneous thought and push her goal into the forefront of her mind. But now she was confused. It was a rare feeling, and like most rare feelings, she was unsure as to what she should do about it.

Technically, it was her fault. She had brought the egg on board. It had infected Regan. And now? And now, she didn't have much of a clue to how exactly it would proceed to harm the rest of them. All she knew was that it would probably get them all in the end. Omitsu wished she could capture it, contain it. Then it could be studied, weaknesses and strengths evaluated and finally she would decide how it would prove useful to her, her work. How thoughtlessly selfish of you. Another voice counterbalanced the first. Not selfish, not really, it said. Your work will benefit many. Your decisions were based on priorities external to your own self-interest. But then why...why did it make her conscience twist in agony?

She wasn't allowed to finish her ponderings. The door to the room suddenly slid open, startling them all. Jarreck stepped in first, followed by Reuban.

'We in time for dinner?' quipped Jarreck, nodding towards the starchy white table littered with cans of food.

Jarreck carried in his arms a pile of equipment – much like he did before – while Reuban held their makeshift spear in one hand and odd looking gun in the other. Despite the humor on entry, it was obvious that the two men were high strung, on edge. As if the world on the other side of the door was fraught with danger, and this room was the last sanctuary left for those alive. But both refused to actively acknowledge the fact, because of one reason.

'You're back!' cried Helen, running across the room towards her uncle.

Reuban hugged her while his thoughts immediately rewound back to the argument they'd had before. Had she forgiven him, thought Reuban? He looked into her eyes for an answer. Despite being thirteen and on the brink of tumultuous adolescence, they still held the innocence that only a child could possess. Her eyes didn't evaluate, judge, or hold suspicion like an adult's could. Would you lose all that here, he thought?

'Yeah...and we found ourselves something more than kindlin',' said Reuban, pointing towards Jarreck.

Jarreck set all the equipment down on the floor and sat down alongside the pile. He picked up a long, insulated wire and began to gently cut open the insulation with a small pocket knife.

'You don't lose any time in getting down to work, do you?' asked Barnaby standing above Jarreck.

'We're living on borrowed time right now. Can't afford to waste any.' replied Jarreck.

'Speaking of time,' said Reuban, from across the room, 'Don't you think the others should be back by now?'

Jarreck looked up from his work. 'Control room, right? Didn't they say they were going down there to restore the system to manual?'

Reuban nodded.

'Then we can raise the control room via the intercom.' said Jarreck, getting up.

'Given that it actually took them three full hours to get there...assuming that they're still there.' muttered Barnaby.

'We can still try.' Jarreck said.

'You gotta love that God-given optimism. I suppose you've learnt that from past experiences?' said Barnaby sarcastically before sitting himself down and sighing.

Jarreck's patience was waning, but he feigned disinterest and walked over to the comm panel hoisted up on the wall. If the idiot was going to throw a temper fit – well, let him. Damned if he got dragged into a pointless fight while all this was happening.

'Control room – Mash? Yuya?' He held his breath.

Nothing.

'Yuya? It's Jarreck. Myself and Reuban – we got back fine. Everyone's fine...look, if the link's damaged or something in there, try and contact us some other way. We need to know you're alright.'

He turned it off and faced the others.

'They're dead, aren't they?' said Helen, asking the question everyone was afraid to ask.

'We don't know that.' replied Reuban, putting an arm around the girl. 'They're probably having some problems switching to manual. It can take a while to bypass the automated system – lots of codes and networks to reroute.'

'Just tell her the goddamn truth, Reuban. The control room is one floor above. It should take them less than fifteen minutes to get there...they should've been back ages ago.' growled Barnaby.

'Would you shut the hell up!?' yelled Reuban suddenly, starting towards Barnaby with his hand raised. His sudden flare in temper startled its cause as well – because Barnaby shrank back against the wall, expecting a blow from the other man's hand. Reuban stopped short, but his face continued to turn a reddish hue. 'We are trying to do what we can, David.' said Reuban, addressing Barnaby with forced restraint. 'If you think that what we're doing here is pointless, then for God's sake – leave. You're bloody well welcome to leave. Don't let our unperturbed optimism keep you from wallowing in your self-pity.'

Barnaby, recovering some of his dignity, rose up from his seat. 'Maybe I will. While you and Huck Finn here,' he pointed to Jarreck, 'find new ways to bait some fish, I'll just do this the old-fashioned way.' He walked towards the door with every intention of leaving the others behind when Jarreck quickly stood in his way and spoke.

'You're going outside this room – unarmed, alone, and you have no idea of what's out there. None. Now I'd like to find them as much as you do, but not without a plan.'

'And that's your plan? Your guns? Your damn weapons?! For all we know this thing is probably the size of a Chihuahua-' began Barnaby.

'Let him go.' said a voice from behind them all. It was calm...almost soothing. But there could be no ignoring the fact that that calmness was somehow attributed to detachment. Omitsu spoke, 'Let him go. If the fool thinks this is the Haunted Mansion in Euro Disney, let him think that. Sooner or later, he's going to find out for himself.'

Barnaby shook his head. 'Crazy. You're all just stark raving paranoid. There's nothing to be afraid of out there!' he shouted.

'Barnaby, a man is dead.' spoke Reuban, his tone softening, yet serious. 'Your colleague is dead. He died a violent death...and for all intents and purposes we have to suspect that the thing that killed him is just as violent. I don't want any more people to die. And that includes you.'

Barnaby closed his eyes, his expression altered, and for a moment it appeared as if he was going to break down and cry. 'Oh God!' he said.

Jarreck made as if to comfort the man, but before he could do anything, Barnaby brushed off the would-be gesture. 'No. I'm not crazy. You lot are. There's nothing out there...this is insane. I'm going to do down to the control room and set this ship on manual ride. And then I am going to talk with all of you-' he pointed to the comm link '-from there and you're going to feel like the biggest fucking fools on the planet.'

He was shaking now. Unsteady. Unpredictable.

'This is not a good idea, David.' said Reuban again.

And then, before more words could be said, Barnaby was out the door.

For a while, nobody said anything in particular. Jarreck sat back down to work, Omitsu continued her silent mulling while Reuban walked over to the table to prepare some food for them all.

Perhaps, thought Reuban, they were all having the same unspoken thought. What if their grounds for this heightened paranoia were unfounded? What if that creature – unable to adapt to their atmospheric conditions – had crawled up and died somewhere in the air shafts? Possible. Anything was possible at this point. That was the whole problem. One man was dead. Two were missing – now, possibly three, if they didn't hear back from Barnaby.

What the hell is standard procedure for a situation like this? Sometimes, on hectic, high-stress missions, NASA would chuck in a shrink (or the more formal term: a psych evaluator) in with the rest of the crew. Although it was never written down in print, a psych evaluator would be present to record personal analyses of each crew member. If something was wrong, if someone was obviously being affected by a situation, serious action would be taken. The official explanation for him/her being there was that weekly log-ins, data collections external to scientific research and the primary situation needed to be processed. And by an unbiased individual. Maybe they needed one here now.

I don't need a goddamn shrink to tell me that we're all going crazy in here, thought Reuban.

What had happened? Before, it seemed as if they had a plan, minus the usual squabbles, synchronizing thoughts together to aid their survival. And now everything, everyone...was scattered. Nobody seemed to follow anyone else's lead, and their plans had all gone to pot. Including Barnaby. Reuban was certain the man was close to some sort of breakdown. In his right mind, Barnaby probably wouldn't have gone out alone. God, he was practically shaking with tension, fear...and maybe I'm next, thought Reuban.

He opened a tin of beef stew and set in on the side of the table, breathing in. Can't...anymore. He just couldn't. He was too tired.

'Fox.' spoke Reuban quietly. But it was loud enough to be heard.

Jarreck looked up.

'We shouldn't have let him go. Maybe he's right...maybe he isn't. But the fact remains, he was in no condition to make that kind of decision. You saw the man.' said Reuban, massaging his temples. 'I gotta go after him.'

'No!' protested Helen, rising from her seat. 'You just got back. You can't go back out again.'

Reuban turned towards her. 'I have to. He might...hurt himself or something.' He didn't want to mention the creature. Reuban wondered whether it was for Helen's or his benefit. 'It's not right to let him go out there alone.'

'You're right...but maybe you should sit this one out. I'll go.' said Jarreck.

Reuban shook his head. 'He doesn't trust you. He thinks you're an axe murderer, remember?'

'Barnaby wouldn't trust his own mother if she came out after him. It doesn't make any difference. Let me go – you have things to take care of here.' By that, he meant Helen.

Understanding, Reuban conceded reluctantly. 'You're going out there without weapons? You can't do that.'

'Not without. I have something I can use.'

Reuban looked back at him, amazed. 'You built something in this short time?'

'No. Something I made earlier. From before. An old friend helped me build it.' Jarreck looked at Helen and winked.

Slinging the makeshift laser rifle across his shoulder, Jarreck stepped out of the room, glancing back as the doors closed behind him. He checked the power gauge on the rifle and looked back up ahead of him, satisfied. Well, if he didn't manage to find Lexington, Yuya or Barnaby, at least he could burn a huge fucking hole in one of the ship's walls – modern graffiti style. He walked a couple feet ahead of him and saw a comm panel to the right of the corridor. The plan was that he'd check in with the others every so now and then to let them know he was alright.

'Reuban, Reuban?' he spoke, into the panel.

'Yes.' The voice was tired, worn.

'Just calling in. I'm going to take stairway S up to the control room.'

'Okay. Be careful.'

Jarreck smiled. Jakob Reuban. What a character. His harsh and hot-tempered attitude towards his colleagues belied a more benign persona underneath. Even now, when chaos was threatening the lot of them with its ugly head, even now he couldn't help but be concerned. And not just about Jarreck. Barnaby too. Jarreck felt guilty, remembering his apathetic feelings towards Barnaby's sudden departure. Trying to drive his thoughts away from a nagging conscience, Jarreck thought about his aunt. Reuban reminded him of her. Aunt K, they used to call her – short for Aunt Kathryn.

When he was a child, his cousins and himself would be thrown in at Aunt K's for part of their summer vacation. When their parents apparently wanted some down time, alone. She'd had strict house rules. Bedtime was 10 p.m. Breakfast was compulsory. Dinner had to be eaten as a family and TV was only reserved for those who were sick in bed with pneumonia. But she loved them – there was no doubt there. Every day, she'd personally cook up each person's favorite dish. His was sautéed fish. And she was a sucker to indulge everyone's alleged pursuit of knowledge. If you told her that punk music helped you study calculus, she's buy you the latest in that arena. If you said that a personal holographic databank helped organize your study schedule, one would arrive – neatly wrapped up – for Christmas that year. With Jarreck, it was tools. And the best bit was – he didn't need to sucker her into buying those gadgets – he honestly loved them. And they were, for all intents and purposes, meant to further his budding development as a scientist. And it did. Jarreck sighed. He hadn't seen her in fifteen years.

He missed her. If I live through this, Aunt K, I'll stop by every weekend, he told himself. Just let me live through this.

Jarreck walked down the corridor; it was poorly lit. It hadn't seemed this way before. Perhaps they'd used another route, he thought. He could see the stairway – which was, in reality a white-rung ladder about ten feet ahead of him. Checking behind him, seeing nothing and then immediately feeling a little silly, he began to climb.

He stuck his head out, hands still gripping the sides of the ladder, and then he saw it.

At first he stared, not comprehending. It was there, on the second level...skulking back in the shadows of the hallway. If not for its slight motion, Jarreck wouldn't have seen it at all. Darkness seemed to take it, be a part of it. And it was big. Was it standing? Maybe it was bigger.

His breaths increased in their frequency. Did it see him? What the hell is it? His eyes squinted and his mind began to issue panicked warnings to the rest of his body. Run. Run. But he continued to watch in dreaded fascination.

That was when it spotted him.

Jarreck couldn't tell for sure whether it had eyes. He couldn't see anything save for a huge black mass that stood for its head. It crawled, skulked, slid, towards him slowly. It was patient.

Dammit! Run!

Still, he didn't move.

In the next instant, things happened fast. He felt something grab his leg from below. He yelled in surprise and pain as he fell down the ladder onto the floor underneath him. His side stung. But that didn't matter. More! There were more of them! Mind working in conjunction with his body finally, he reached quickly with his arm for the rifle. Scared to death, he pointed it up into the face of his attacker.

It was Lexington.

'What the bloody hell are you waiting for, boy? Run!'

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Another chappie up. I never did intend to kill Lexington off...he's too tough of a character to go down without a fight. So, he reappears...alive and well.

Thanks for the reviews, folks!