Chapter XXIII

Red Squad managed to find the correct burned down teleporter nexus and decided to investigate Containment first. Night had fallen; Red Squad had set up camp and prepared to move out the next day . . .

"Hey Chief, wake up!"

Master Chief opened his eyes. It was still dark out.

"What time is it?"

"Seven in the morning, Chief. We should get moving."

"Right, let me just-" the Chief turned to grab his armor, but found it wasn't there. "Tex, where's my armor?"

"Hmm? Oh, I already put it on you."

The Chief looked down at his hands. Sure enough, his gauntlets were secure on his hands. The rest of his armor felt snug and comfortable.

"Thanks. And, Tex? About last night . . ."

"Don't worry about it. I didn't do anything to you."

The Chief nodded, feeling embarrassed. He went to exit the tent.

"Oh, and Chief?"

"Yeah?"

" . . . nice ass."

Master Chief chose not to respond, but rather made his way out of the tent and looked around. Nothing had changed since the day before; the snow and ice was still there, and cold winds only served as a harsh reminder. Even with the MJOLNIR armor's temperature adjusting function, he could still feel it. The large Fortress was only a few dozen yards away, so the Chief decided it wouldn't be too hard to get there.

He pondered what might lie beyond the metal gates. Something to stop O'Malley with? Or something that would destroy them all? It didn't matter; the Chief was going to find out. He turned to see the rest of the squad exiting their tents. Everyone seemed to have gotten a good night's sleep. Suddenly, Lock-jaw appeared in front of him. He was holding Andy.

"Master Chief, Lock-jaw just scouted the Fortress. He says there's a door that looks like it can be melted by his key, but he doesn't want to do anything until everyone's there."

"The squad's almost ready. We'll leave as soon as everyone gets their stuff together."

It took only several minutes to assemble their gear and they were off again. Lock-jaw opened the old, rusty gate with his sword-key and they made their way across a small expanse of snow and ice and through the gate. As soon as everyone was within the walls of the Fortress, the gate slammed shut. Lock-jaw led them into a room and turned left. After a few more feet, he stopped outside a wall with odd, intricate patters engraved on it.

"So, this is the door?" the Chief asked nodding towards the odd formation in the otherwise smooth wall.

Lock-jaw blarged.

"Ok, we're all here, go ahead and melt this thing."

Lock-jaw activated his energy sword-key and easily cut through the metal. The door fell into a large hallway that sloped down into the ice and rock. The metal was the same as the outside, but looked like it was kept in good shape as it wasn't rusty or old like the machinery outside. Master Chief took point and led his Squad into the lair below . . .

O'Malley had been observing the Lekgolo for most of the night as it was pitted against scores of soldiers and defeated all of them with ease. The only weapon that seemed to be able to inflict damage was the rocket launcher, but if the specimen was ever wounded, it was given O'Mallior and its wounds were healed. The evil AI had been wondering where to release his new monster, but had been unable to come up with a suitable foe. The location of the Master Chief and his band of ragtag soldiers was currently unknown. Even if he knew where they were, he wouldn't send his monster after them. There would be no challenge; the Lekgolo would die from boredom. Suddenly, an idea came to mind.

"Burdick! Find the location of those fools from the Red Army Special Forces that have that Rhinoceros fellow with them."

"Already done, sir,"

"Send our pet there post haste. I want to see how the Lekgolo does against the Rhinoceros."

"Of course, sir."

O'Malley called up Wyoming on Sarge's radio.

"Wyoming, I have a task for you . . ."

Red Squad had been descending into the Fortress for almost five minutes. The Chief was wondering if the hallway ever stopped, and his question was answered as a landing became visible. It was a small landing, only about ten meters across and five meters out. Once everyone exited the hallway, however, the Chief was able to see how enormous the rest of the room was. The ceiling wasn't even visible, and clouds formed over head. The room was longer than twenty football fields put together. The metal ended several feet away from the landing and gave way to grass. Most of the room resembled a large plain, complete with rolling hills and even a lake. There was a light source that allowed for all of this, but it wasn't discernable through the cloud cover. Suddenly, the clouds began to pour forth rain.

"What the hell is this place?" Grif spoke for everyone.

"If I knew, I'd tell you," the Chief replied in a daze. He snapped out of his stupor and looked around. There was a small repulsor lift that led up to a walkway. The Chief walked up to it and stepped in. He was lifted into the air as the strange magnetic properties pushed against his body. He landed on the walkway and looked down. He was twenty meters off the ground and had a nice view of the place. The walkway went along the bowed, curved wall, which disappeared in the fog that had formed. His squad had followed him up and they proceeded slowly until they reached a door. The Chief stepped in front of it and it slid open, revealing a laboratory. There were no cages holding animals, or beakers filled with vile liquids. There were, however, several unfinished machines. The front looked almost crablike while the back ended in a wide array of different mechanical parts, but the Chief could see no legs. There were no wheels either, so he concluded that the robots would fly if they were completed. After walking around, he saw that some of the robots had been destroyed rather than uncompleted, and several laid on the floor, blown to pieces. Beyond several other tables and destroyed robots, the Chief saw what must have been fighting them. Fifteen dead scientists were lying on the ground. Clean cuts crisscrossed their bodies as a result of some strange laser weapon. He wasn't sure why they were dead, or if the robots had even killed them. Then he saw an optical recording device attached to the head of one of the felled scientists. He reached behind the man's head and removed the small chip from the slot in the recording device. He inserted it into his own helmet and watched as the last several weeks of the scientist's life played out before his eyes . . .

PetrucciJ./1138.08.02.1989-71-64/August4.3599/parasite-inf.testfacility. PLAY

"Here we are with day one already coming to a close. I'm here with my friends and colleagues. This is Harman Kardon,"

The view showed a tall, muscular man with black hair, dark brown eyes, a large nose and a small moustache. He nodded towards the camera.

"Gina Pavilion,"

The view focused on a petite girl no older than twenty five years old. Her auburn hair was tied into a bun that sat neatly atop her head. She wore half moon glasses and was reading through a hefty stack of papers. She didn't even look up at the mention of her name.

"and Amy Nozirev."

Now the view showed a striking woman, at least in her mid thirties. Her hair was platinum blonde and cut to shoulder length. She was a voluptuous, well toned woman who wasn't as stuck-up as her female co-worker since she waved with a happy smile on her face when the cameraman said her name.

"Of course, there's me, Jacob Petrucci. We're here to see what this parasite that O'Malley's scientists created can do. Today we were supposed to get acquainted with the other staff. We'll be here a while, and tomorrow, we get to study some of them! This is going to be awesome."

PetrucciJ./1138.08.02.1989-71-64/August4.3599/parasite-inf.testfacility. FF

PetrucciJ./1138.08.02.1989-71-64/August10.3599/parasite-inf.testfacility. PLAY

"Hello there, me again. We've been going over the data about how the little ball critters infect their hosts and we found that the parasite doesn't completely render the host useless; we picked up brainwaves from the host of one of those forms with the tentacles. The little bugger in his chest was trying to communicate with him! Fascinating!"

"You say that about every stupid thing they do." The voice belonged to Miss Nozirev.

She walked up to Petrucci and her face got very close to the camera. Her eye was level with it, and the Chief decided that they had kissed. Relationships were forbidden in all branches of the military, including research. Maybe O'Malley loosened the reins a bit.

"I only say it because it's true."

PetrucciJ./1138.08.02.1989-71-64/August10.3599/parasite-inf.testfacility. FF

PetrucciJ./1138.08.02.1989-71-64/August19.3599/parasite-inf.testfacility. PLAY

"We just set several of those little ball things into the experimentation field. O'Malley wanted to see the effects they had on the environment. We set a few animals loose, none of which had ample calcium stores to sustain the parasite. However, the little bastards found a way to assimilate them. The infection forms took over their bodies like any other host, but this time, the bodies swelled up and became bloated sacks. Then, the sacks began giving off this weird gas. In hours, the air became a sickly greenish brown color and these odd trees started sprouting up all over the place. We were ordered to vent oxygen into the field, and seconds after we did, the air returned to normal, the trees died and the bloated sacks shriveled up. We'll continue with this research for the next few days."

PetrucciJ./1138.08.02.1989-71-64/August19.3599/parasite-inf.testfacility. FF

PetrucciJ./1138.08.02.1989-71-64/August30.3599/parasite-inf.testfacility. PLAY

"O'Malley just told us that we are to stop testing the parasite. He has all the information he wants and now he wants to find a way to kill them. It's a shame; those critters were really fascinating to watch."

PetrucciJ./1138.08.02.1989-71-64/August30.3599/parasite-inf.testfacility. FF

PetrucciJ./1138.08.02.1989-71-64/September5.3599/parasite-inf.testfacility-end. PLAY

"After getting all the parts and help we needed from O'Malley, we were able to build a robot with enough fire power to cut down even those monsters with the tentacles. I call it the Sentinel. It uses a high powered beam of pure energy that can burn through virtually any substance. We got enough parts that we were able to make a ton of these things! I'm going to activate this one."

Jacob walked up to the robot.

"Activate," he said.

The robot shuddered and floated off the table. Lights blinked on and off indicating it was working properly.

"Sentinel, there are parasite forms out in the experimentation field; destroy them."

The Sentinel gave no reply, but flew out of the room accompained by a few others. Several minutes later, the robots reentered the room. There were a few nicks on their armor plating, but they looked fine otherwise.

"Sentinels, deactivate."

"Negative,"one replied.

"What?"

"In order to eliminate unnamed parasite, all potential host forms must be eliminated as well."

"What? NO! NO!"

Sounds of energy beams cutting through the air and connecting with human flesh could be heard. Screams of agony echoed through the laboratory as all the scientists there were burned to death by the Sentinel robots. Gunfire could be heard, but after a loud wail of pain, they stopped as well. Jacob was still alive and grabbed a handgun from the holster of one of his fallen comrades. He flipped over on his back where an energy beam had struck, aimed and fired at the last Sentinel. It fell to the floor and exploded in a shower of sparks. Jacob's head fell back and static filled the screen.

PetrucciJ./1138.08.02.1989-71-64/September5.3599/parasite-inf.testfacility-end.unexpectedtermin.atsource-KIA.

Master Chief took the chip out of his helmet, stowed it and turned to face his squad.

"These scientists were under the employ of O'Malley. They were experimenting on a parasitic life form he created. They were all killed by these robot Sentinels. If you see one and it's moving, take it down."

Nobody said anything, but they all nodded. The Chief moved through the laboratory searching for something else about this parasite. There was something painfully familiar about all of this, but he didn't know what. There were no memories or anything else to give him a clue either. After finding nothing else of use in the laboratory, the Chief and his squad decided to head topside. Once free from the strange facility below, Lock-jaw used his sword-key to fuse the door shut again to keep any future visitors out . . . and whatever might have still been alive in. The squad made their way to a nearby teleporter. The Chief took one last look around, trying to get even a scrap of a memory. When nothing came to mind, the Chief hung his head stepped through the green vortex. It took them back to the warehouse.

To Be Continued