000 Disclaimer, I don't own anything 000 Apologies for the slow update, but my computer time has been lessened dramatically. Anyway, huge thanks for reviews go to: The Libran Iniquity (You know who Isobel is now? Plus the cheese story is now in the making! lol), Roaring Mice, Phaser Lady, Tata (lol, I'll take your word for it :P), Goddess Anjanee (I guess the plot is a little disturbing...:P), and firebirdgirl (happy hunting grounds? lol).000

"Is this a bad time to mention I have an allergy to death?" Walters asked quietly, trying to inject humour into the situation.

Lily swatted the back of his head. Malcolm merely tuned him out and glanced across at Trip.

"If we stay near them they won't die," Trip said quietly. "They want us alive…"

Trip found himself quickly reassessing his last statement.

"Commence. Recycling."

They all heard the whir of a machine starting up, Malcolm span round checking for exit points once more. There was nothing, only four walls, even the chute they'd dropped out of had now been silently and smoothly sealed off.

Malcolm turned to Trip, they were seconds away from certain death, he couldn't say goodbye to Emma, he would never even say hello to his child, but he could say goodbye to his best friend. "Trip…"

"If you tell me it's been an honour," Trip interrupted him. "I'm going to kill you."

There was a long drawn out sound of the computer spluttering followed by a crash of epic proportions from inside the left hand side wall. The tinny voice of the computer sounded round the room once more. "Recycling failure. Please report to. I-Officer. For manual. Recycling."

The wall on the right slid out of the way and a body tumbled onto the floor.

Isobel burst into hysterical laughter. "Lies! It's all based in lies! Lies to the public! Lies to the employees! Lies to the army! And lies to the world!"

"Then end the lie!" Malcolm screamed. "Kill me! Don't send me back into the scenario!"

"Malcolm!" Trip exclaimed in shock.

Isobel's hysterical laughter stopped and she turned to Malcolm, patting his cheek awkwardly. "You don't have a choice. I don't have a choice. I exist to watch. You exist to teach. There is no other option."

"You're studying us," Trip guessed. "You put us into the…the scenario to study human existence."

Isobel clapped her hands slowly. "It's nothing personal you understand, they don't care who they take. They just pull you right off the streets. That's what happened to me you know. I was shopping for a present for my daughter when they took me."

"Then you understand," said Malcolm, his face cold, impassive. "You understand that we're being held against our will."

"I never saw you complaining!" Isobel screeched. "You didn't know any different! You quite happily lived your life, played soldier and blew up stuff! You only knew your life wasn't real when you woke up here! You know nothing of what it's like to live with the knowledge that your life is nothing but a medical experiment to efficiently equip a building with a cheap labour force!"

She released a howl of rage and ripped one of her monitors up from her work station. She threw it against the wall where it shattered, spraying everyone with shards of a glass type substance. Trip hissed in pain as the shards nicked him and embedded in his skin. Malcolm didn't even twitch.

Isobel's head jerked round to stare at the object on the wall. She stood there panting from exertion, fists clenched and her entire body tense as if she expected something to happen.

Her face split into a wide grin. "They're dead! I'm not recycled! I'm not recycled!"

She danced round the room, Trip blinked; the sudden, swift changes in mood were beginning to confuse him. Head spinning he tried to collect his whirling thoughts. In the end all he managed was realising he had lost all hope of knowing what was happening.

"Time to tell everything!" Isobel exclaimed triumphantly. "Everything! No more lies! Just the truth. The beautiful, painful, excruciating truth!"

She whirled round to lean against Trip. "Did you know I'm the fifth version?" she asked conversationally. "The first three learnt to hack the system; the fourth successfully hacked the system and saved the data she discovered where she knew I would find it. And I the fifth, I know all! I know everything!" She paused and her eyes took on a haunted look. "I would never have known of the others if it wasn't for the fourth. I would never have known anything. I would never have known of the medical experiments. I would never have known." A twisted smile decorated her face. "But I do know. And this time I won't be recycled. This time I won't be stopped."

Trip opened his mouth to ask some much needed questions when Isobel twitched and her gaze flickered over to the door. Her smile faded.

"But they're watching. They're always watching. If I tell the world my family will pay. I can't have something happen to them. The original needs them. I'm just the fifth, I don't matter. The original must survive with our family. Perhaps the watcher is malfunctioning, Iyen will return for me."

Her hands nervously smoothed down her uniform. "There was a war. There was death. But they will return. They watch from afar and they know everything. Iyen and I are all that remains, but they will return here for the experiments."

Malcolm moved first. He leaned into the next room, phase pistol still in hand checking for any danger. The room was littered with corpses, blast marks adorned the walls and a sparking computer console was just to his left. The smell was terrible and he took care not to breathe too deeply.

He motioned for the others to join him and Trip immediately went to the computer console. Walters moved to help his captain and Lily gazed with interest at a small plaque on the wall.

Trip examined the circuitry and winced when he saw the perfect round hole shot into the side

"This is a lost cause,"Trip sighed. "Shot to pieces."

"Captain," Lily called excitedly. "Come look at this!"

Trip moved over to Lily's side. "What is it?"

"When I first saw this the characters were unrecognisable," she explained. "But the second I put the UT near it the characters shifted into English! This system is adapting to us!"

She pointed to the plaque and beamed. It read: 'We fight for them. We learn for them. We exist for them. We do this for the people.'

Walters took out his scanner and gasped. "Sir, we have a lifesign…"

The wall ahead slid back, a single shot was fired and Walters hit the ground.

000 Please review! And I promise, some questions will be answered next chapter...000