Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with Doom.


Chapter 6: The Truth

"Dr. Carmack," Ella said as she sat the files down on his desk and he looked up at her. "We're not close enough for testing C24 on humans. We have the basic components, but we don't know what the results would be. It isn't safe. We should do at least another year of testing our combination on -," Dr. Carmack stood and shook his head.

"I know that Ella," he said and gave her a small smile. Ella returned it as he walked around the table. "Now, I just want to go over your and Hilary's findings is all." He patted her shoulder and grasped the files before he made his way out of his office. He stopped short of the door and turned to look at her. "Dr. Henderson expects you tomorrow morning for the quarterly reports." Ella nodded.

"Of course Dr. Carmack," she said and Dr. Carmack gave her a smile before he opened the door for her and she walked out and down the corridors towards archeology to finish her categorizing.


Ella sniffed and pushed her glasses up on top of her head. She rubbed her face and dried her tears as she rested her head against the door. It still didn't make sense to her. C24 didn't make Lucy a monster, so why did it turn the others into monsters? And why did Dr. Carmack test C24 on the team in the first place when he knew that it wasn't ready for human testing in the first place?

"Ella?" Sam said as she knocked but Ella just sighed and closed her eyes. "Ella, it's alright. You don't know what was going on. You know as much as I do," Samantha said through the door and Ella shook her head and opened her eyes only to look at the shelves across from her. She heard Samantha sigh and her footsteps go into the other room.

"I know more than you think Sam," she said in a whisper.


Reaper was walking through the corridors with Kid when suddenly Portman was screaming over the com. They starting running and looking through the various areas before Reaper called over his com. "Pinky, you got Portman?" he asked as they yelled.

"No," came Pinky's voice and Reaper sighed as they ran. Portman's screams continued and soon, Reaper and Kid found him hanging from the ceiling in the bathroom, being attacked by one of the creatures. They shot at it and caused it to drop Portman to the ground. Sarge came in and fired a large weapon that emitted a bright blue wave as it fired. The heat was immense and they had to shield their eyes.

"Holy shit," Sarge said as he looked down at the large gun in his hands. Kid walked over to Portman and kneeled down on the ground to feel for a pulse, but soon shook his head.

"He's gone," he said as he looked back at Sarge and Reaper. Reaper sighed and lowered his head. He may not have been close to Portman, but he had worked with him for a long time.

"Grab him and we'll head back to the infirmary to regroup. We lost Destroyer too," Sarge said and Reaper closed his eyes. Half the team was gone and now it was up to them to figure out just what the hell was going on.


Samantha set up the IV on the creature stuck in the nanowall. Ella had yet to come out of the storage closet and Samantha feared for her. The more she thought about it, she figured Ella's reaction earlier had to have stemmed from something. Maybe she knew something but what she did know wasn't making any sense. Suddenly, the door behind her, near the storage room door opened. Samantha and Duke looked to see Sarge carrying in a dead Destroyer. Duke stiffened and looked shocked.

"Destroyer?" he asked as he moved over to Sarge and took the fallen solider.

"And Portman," John said as he laid the man down on one of the tables.

"What the fuck happened, man?" Duke asked as he lowered himself and Destroyer to the ground. Tears came to the marine's eyes and he shook his head. "Destroyer, I got you man," he said quietly and shook his head. Sarge looked around the room and frowned. He stood near the nanowall and looked at Samantha.

"What the hell is this?" Sarge asked quickly. "And whose goddamn blood in on that window?"

"Goat's," Sam said with tears in her eyes. Sarge looked at the window and then back at Samantha like she had grown another head. "He killed himself."

"What do you mean, he killed himself? He was already dead," Sarge said.

"It's true. It's Goat," Duke said from the floor. "He was changing into one of these motherfuckers and he killed himself."

"We found two more scientists at the dig," John said. "Thurman and a balding guy with glasses."

"Dr. Clay," Samantha said as she walked over and looked at Portman's neck. "Did you check their necks?" she asked and John looked at her. "Were there open wounds on their necks?"

"We were conducting a firefight, not an autopsy," John said quickly.

"We came up here to find six scientists," Sarge said loudly and everyone looked at him. Samantha moved over and checked Destroyer's neck and found nothing. She looked at Duke who looked crestfallen and she sighed. "Four are known dead and Dr. Willits is probably KIA somewhere down in that sewer. The only one missing is Dr. Carmack. Has Dr. Carmack showed up yet?"

"Oh, he's shown up all right," Duke said. Samantha stood and pointed at the creature in the nanowall.

"Look at the left ear," she said. Sarge looked and found it ripped away and bleeding slightly just as Dr. Carmack's had hours before.

"Son of a bitch," Sarge said.

"I think this other one is Steve Willits," Samantha said as she walked over to the table. "I'm going to run a DNA test and check it against his med records."

"What are you people working on up here?" Sarge asked quickly and John looked around. Ella was gone and he frowned.

"We're analyzing bones, artifacts. We're not doing anything like this," Samantha said.

"Then what the fuck is that?" Sarge demanded of Samantha and she shook her head.

"It must be a genetic mutation, something environmental or viral," she said quickly. "I don't know. It may even be reversible."

"It's irreversible," Sarge said with a glare.

"Not necessarily," Samantha said.

"Dr. Carmack's condition is irreversible." Sarge pulled out his gun and walked over to the wall.

"No!" Samantha screamed as Sarge fired his gun into Dr. Carmack's mouth.

"Because Carmack's condition is that he's dead," Sarge said and John sighed. "Kid, you and Duke get back to the dig and you make sure those other dead scientists are really dead." Sarge looked at Samantha. "I've lost four soldiers," he said dangerously. "What are you people experimenting with up here? I'm not going to ask you again."

"I told you, it's an archeological research center," Samantha said. "Do you think I'm lying to you? Is that what you're saying?" she asked quickly when Sarge gave her an accusatory glance. "You think I'm hiding something? I'm telling the truth."

"What were you downloading?" John asked as he stepped away from Ella. "What were you sent to protect?"

"The research data," Samantha said desperately.

"Research into what?" he asked and they heard a door open behind them. Sarge and Reaper drew their guns and turned to see Ella standing there looking worse for wear. Her shoulder blade length hair was down and her eyes were red and swollen behind her glasses. Sarge and John lowered their weapons.

"Samantha doesn't know anything," Ella said with a sniff. "They sent her to collect the data because they believed that I was also in the lab when the lockdown occurred. I don't know what led up to the lock down," she said and took a deep breath, "but I do know that Dr. Carmack had wanted to do testing . . . he wanted to do human testing of C24." Samantha frowned and John looked at her with a raised eyebrow, and Sarge hadn't the slightest idea what she was talking about. Ella took one of the discs from her pocket and walked over to the computer. "This is the most recent data, data from earlier today while I was out of the lab. I don't know what they did when Dr. Carmack sent me away, so anything you see is new to me too." She said as she began to open the files.

"Ella," John said quietly and she looked up at him. "What are you talking about?" She frowned and hoped that he wouldn't think her responsible for what had happened.

"After we found Lucy, we broke down the artificial compound of C24," she said and John raised an eyebrow, but she continued. "We succeeded in making an exact replica of the compound, we were going to test the compound on a few of the animals, but Dr. Carmack . . . Dr. Carmack wanted to pursue human testing. I knew we were far away from being able to do that. There was no safe way to do it. After long hours of meetings and proving to Dr. Carmack that it wasn't ready he agreed, but now I'm not so sure he actually listened to me." Ella felt her eyes fill with tears and one escaped and rolled down her cheek. She looked away from John then and at the computer as it finished uploading. Soon with Sarge and Samantha near them the images began playing.

Dr. Carmack and the others appeared on the screen and Dr. Carmack injected a clear liquid into a man that was strapped to a table. A man neither Ella nor Samantha ever saw. "Subject was injected with study agent at 00:03," Dr. Carmack said. Sarge looked to Ella whose frown only deepened and she shook her head. "Vitals normal, elevated heart rate attributable to subject anxiety. C24 successfully grafted to subject's marker cells at 00:09."

"He reconstructed chromosome mutation on a human subject," John said. Samantha shook her head and looked to Sarge.

"We were never gonna do human studies," Samantha said and Ella sighed.

"This wasn't supposed to happen, he knew it wasn't ready!" Ella said as she glared at the screen.

"What the hell are we looking at?" Sarge asked. John sighed heavily and shook his head.

"Genesis, Chapter 1," John said and Ella looked to Samantha who took her hand and squeezed it.

"I didn't know," Ella whispered and Samantha nodded.

"I know," Samantha whispered back and Ella sighed as she ran her free hand through her hair and looked back at the screen.

"Subject moved to protected observation area at 00:17," Dr. Carmack said over the screen. "Subject: Curtis Stahl. Crime: Multiple murder. Status: Condemned to execution." Stahl suddenly lifted from the gurney and cried out. Ella let go of Samantha's hand and put her face in her hands. Samantha walked around John and Ella and picked up one of the vials. Ella lowered her hands and sighed.

"Chromosome 24," Samantha said and John looked to the screen.

"Oh, my God," he said quietly and looked to Ella who shook her head once more.

"Forty-nine minutes after injection genetic mutations began to visually manifest on subject's extremities," Dr. Carmack said as Stahl continued to scream. Ella closed her eyes and looked away from John as he shook his head and removed the disc ending the showing of the data.

"This is what you're here to protect," John said to Samantha before he looked to Ella. "And you, you helped develop this?" he asked and Ella bit her lip before she took a deep breath and looked at John with pleading eyes.

"They were never supposed to test the compound on humans, it wasn't supposed to happen so quickly," Ella said. "It doesn't make any sense. They shouldn't have done this."

"You trusted them," John said to Ella as he looked at her. "They lied to you, to you both," he said as he looked to Samantha and then back at Ella. "They used you."

"If he perfected xenogenesis-," Samantha started and Ella frowned.

"Christ, don't you get it?" John interrupted. "It's this place. It's hell. It always was." Samantha sighed and looked away and John walked back over to the computer station. "This shit ends here." He started to gather the discs.

"What are you doing?" Sarge asked.

"We need to destroy these discs," John said.

"That's UAC property." John looked at Sarge and frowned.

"Fuck UAC, we take this back, they'll just-"

"We take the data back," Sarge said as he grabbed John's wrist and took the data from him.

"Sarge, do you not see what's going on here?"

"I didn't see shit," Sarge said firmly and John frowned. Ella walked over to Samantha and Samantha sighed before she looked back to the men. "And I ain't paid to see shit. I have my orders, and so do you. Is this everything?" Sarge asked Samantha who just looked at him. "I said, is this everything?" Sarge asked louder.

"I, uh, have two more to download," she stumbled and Ella nodded.

"Then do it," Sarge said.

"Sarge," Kid's voice came over the com. "We got a problem."