The Scholar and the Eagle

For a long time I stared at it, struggling to identify the solution to an equation designed by math gods. It was an elaborate architectural design, and in itself it resembled a complex engine. It held a beginning and a means to no end. I pondered over it, not quite fitting the kegs in the machine together, until it finally clicked. This was the bottom line, the end note, the utopia of their research come full.

"This is the Morphogenic Engine. A few lines of mathematics, an algorithm. Reprogram us, turn us into nightmare factories. A few numbers on a dry erase board. Give me a hacksaw and a few hours alone with Dr. Wernicke's corpse. I feel I owe him a debt."

It was all I had come to suspect, in the end. And now, I had activated the Morphogenic Engine. Whoopee fuckin doo. Time to go.

But before I departed, I set the remaining fingers of my left hand on the board and ran them across the fractioned lines. Not enough to maim the formula entirely, but enough to leave my mark in the most appropriate way I could. Now, if I could locate Wernicke's corpse I might drag that along with me as well.

I hesitated from the sudden hiss of the doors as they opened into the corridor, I remained cautious and leaned out checking the cold white walls before I stepped out. Daylight continued to poor from the hangar doors and the jeep sat, waiting for no one. With a sigh I turned to the right, hopping over the blue barrels parked on the pathway. It was a pathway I realized, with small channels along the raised sides that could have transported water. Or collect water if the floor became wet. I soon saw this as I slipped past a cart with crates dumped across its top. Behind it, a body coated the wall. A BODY was dried to its guts up the wall, and blood had spilled from the walkway into the channel, the vent above it was thick with muscle and spine chunks.

No surprise the mutilation was this far, these people had been trying to get out at the time. How was this possible? How was this level of carnage achieved? I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact, no one— No ONE had escaped. I slowed down a bit, doubting my own competence to move those doors. Recollections of the Asylum and the rotting MHS cop, cut through my thoughts. Security Protocols, Automatic shutdown. This was all wrong.

An emergency light burned softly at the end of the corridor, I'm almost certain it was white and not that deep shade of red. Above directions indicated the Exit was to my left or right if I so chose. I glanced to the right, but the door left open only revealed a flattened ladder, upon bodies that had been crushed beneath. Blood coated the walls, as only blood could coat walls in these halls. I only stared, I didn't need to enter.

I took the dark tunnel on my left, the NV flashed until the image cleared and I waited for the colors to settle. The nightvision had only a few minutes of power left, but it wouldn't matter once I was out in the sun. I had not located the purge doors yet, and didn't know if I would need to revisit this corridor. That charge was in the air, a wild sensation buried in my muscle and bone. I was waiting for something, I expected something to happen that had not presented itself yet. I could almost hear it.

I stopped and listened, debating on crouching behind the barrels on either side of the hall. It was a sound, distant but I'm certain I was hearing it. Or, was that just the blood vessels in my ears, my heart thudding? I navigated around overturned barrels, pallets toppled on the path. It was unnerving how clear the visor had become, or was that just me? But I was sure I could see further now, than when I was trapped in the Asylum. Then my mind supplied the answer. The white walls reflected the infrared illumination for the camera to pick up.

I think lying to myself has become a habit.

There was no other sound, but for my shoes sticky with blood, the Velcro noise echoed throughout the tunnel. I turned the corner, physically fighting myself not to run. The friction in the air died to some degree, or I wasn't paying attention. I squeezed my eyes shut to clear my senses and focused ahead, where the chiseled rock ended at brick walls. Beneath the walls stretched caution marks on the path, I'm certain those lines were yellow and black. I couldn't judge how far I'd come from the window or if my perception could be trusted, but I was willing to believe the doors couldn't be that much further. It looked like a straight walk.

I only made it a few steps before the earsplitting screech of an emergency siren shattered the stillness. Above, a strobe flashed and spun against the ceiling, its colors might've been yellow as easily as they could be green in the NV tint. I backed up as the camera flashed, the visor had changed and warped before it cleared. There was a hissing, a grinding shrill that ate through my soul. I raised the camera higher, though the visor flickered and failed altogether. Before then, I saw a shape materialize in open air, out of nothing. I recognized it. I knew what it was. The patients had warned me about it. Without a doubt this was the murderer who left no footprints.

The Walrider

I stumbled back as that same flash of pain sliced through my head, I saw white and images burned into my eyes. Damn! The air felt cold and malevolent, the hair on my arms and neck stood on end as I struggled to shake the stupor from my numb mind. Visor, the visor wasn't working! I pat the camera gently, the image immediately returned as I pivoted. The distortion in the hall shrieked after me, sounding like nails and death all in the same go. I felt a prying in the base of my skull as I raced to the halls end. I hadn't seen how far back it was before the camera was working, it was impossible to decide if there was enough distance. My only sane conclusion was to run and not trip.

The corridor vibrated with its grating screams, it was like stabbing hot Q-tips through your eardrums. My thoughts pulsed with images, tremors surged up my spine and bore into the back of my eyes. I saw visions of death, red filled the visor. I zipped by the remains of Murkoff's people, pieces I had glanced over when I passed. Only now could I visualize the trauma in their flesh.

I shut down the NV as I zipped away from the dark corridor, my shoes skid on the leftovers of the Researcher torn open over the light. As I wrench myself around the corner I try and glance over my shoulder where it is, but it's too dark. My skin crawled as I detected that terrible presence, as though it were reaching for my throat right then. But I was already gone, ignoring the pain as I vault over barrels, my brain high on the exhilaration that I could outrun it. I could hide from it. Whatever it was, demon, madness of science! I was going to outrun death itself.

The strobes along the wall bawled warnings and flashed red. If it wasn't behind me, the tunnel would be passive and calm as it had been during my first pass. As it was, my muscles tingled with the spastic shock I couldn't shake, the light had taken on a luminosity that stabbed my eyes. When I took the chance to gawk back, I wasn't paying attention and nearly toppled right over the stacks of sacks on pallets. I managed to twist my knees under me and skid over, and made a smooth transition to the floor as I resumed pace. My breath came in ragged gasps, as I fought back the sharp knot twisting in my side. A little further, hang in there. I shot around the unmarked tanks and all but plowed through the doors waiting for me.

Someplace to hide, somewhere deep. I needed a dark place to curl up and lock it out of my mind!

I reached for the knob but the doors ripped out of my grasp and who of all people would it be?! The big ugly fucker looming in front of me, eyes narrowed and lips splint back oozing fresh blood. I was too shocked to move, my brain fizzled out as he swept forward and snared me around the torso. I made some sort of noise and tasted copper in my throat. Where was it? Where did it go? I tried to see over his shoulder into the hall, as he adjusted his hold on me. His fingers dug through my coat as he whirled around, in response I kicked at his face. I must've hit him because he gave me a firm shake, causing my vision to ripple.

"Little pig, little pig." I blinked and saw his teeth as he jerked me up. No! No! NO more windows! He was going to shatter me against the WALL! He hoisted me over his head as I clawed at his chains, in desperation I slung my foot out and smashed my heel into his mutilated nose.

Chris gave a nasally hiss and flung me onto the hard floor. I murmured something as a rib crinkled in my chest, I couldn't take much more of this. I gaped up at him, choking as I fought to get a word out, a warning even. Instead, I crawled away with the camera clutched to my chest, and watched as a dark insubstantial vapor settled over his head. "No more escape."

It swirled around his head, dragging him back towards the wall as he let out a yowl of horror. I heard bone shatter as he struck the concrete and folded to the ground. He had barely gotten an arm under his weight, when he was slung to the opposite wall and dragged up, leaving a thick crimson trail. I continued to push myself away, stunned and terrified by what I was witnessing. Chris slapped into the other wall once, a second time, and dropped. He lay on his side reaching out, groping for a hold to drag his carcass up.

I raised my camera as the swarm dissipated, and through the flickering visor watched as the giant of a man moaned in pain, struggling to put himself back on his feet. I saw nothing, but when I clicked on the nigthvision I saw…. the form that resembled something human. Something skeletal. It slung Chris over its 'shoulder' like he was a filthy towel and launched him against the wall, more crackling as bones rubbed and muscles snapped. The Walrider flung him to the other wall, but I couldn't see what it was doing as I clicked off the NV to confirm my theory. Chris hit the high ceiling and flopped to the polished floor that was now slick with his own blood.

I turned the NV on in time to witness the apparition lift up into the air with its victim tangled in its vapor and… entered his body, or was absorbed by his skin? I gawked, jaw hanging, as Chris gave a strangled wail before his body erupted into a shower of bone and skin, his organs trailing into the nearby vent and spilling down in a torrent of blood. Bits of his body spewed off in every direction, until the pristine wall, ceiling, and floor was painted red.

I sat for some time too shaken to budge, terrified the Walrider would return to shred my body to pieces next. But it didn't. A dull ache pulsed behind my right eye and my ribs throbbed, but I was in one piece. Somehow. I didn't know if I should be thankful or not, it was hard to place my emotions.

"This is the way you die. Ripped to pieces from the inside, watching your marrow scatter on a concrete wall. You've escaped one Hell, Chris Walker. God help me but I somehow hope you didn't find another."

I suppose he failed his self-proclaimed mission. He never even stood a chance. I didn't want to think about what fate lay in wait for me. I couldn't get out unless I could get around that… the Walrider.

Red mist stained the front of my shirt, and fresh streaks clung to my lowers legs. I fingered the cut in my pants, the one caused when the big fucker tried to drag me out of somewhere. I exhaled a breath that tasted thick of copper. He was gone now. But he was replaced easily.

I pushed up to my feet and swayed. I wanted to say that was a close call, but it wasn't. I don't know what you call that. Deus Ex Machina? The story of my life.

The battery was done. I clicked off the NV and looked over the camera, taking catalog of its battered state. I'd be lucky to find more batteries, but it didn't seem to matter at this point. I lowered the camera and stared up at the tatters of muscle left on the vent, still wet and dripping. There had to be a way around it, or a way to distract it. I might be able to outrun it, but there was no chance I could get around it here. The purge chambers closed whenever they detected its presence, they probably remain closed. Maybe they were shut for good now! Damn precautions. I just want to get out of here!

I turned and began walking down the hall that wouldn't lead to the swarms nest. If I disturbed it again, there would be no second chance. I'd run out of enemies to feed it. There was no reason to believe it had just left for good, either. It might've wandered off and lost track of me. Good lord, my head. I'll return to the lobby, I could elude it there for a short time.

A voice drifted up from the hall as I approached, but not the sort of voice I would expect, even in this pace. I strained to see beyond the double doors Chris had flung open in his hunt. The panel that was previously locked was now open. I inched closer and stared inside, to another butchery of MHS tactical. But beyond the stack of bodies was a Plexiglas chamber with one door, no visible knob. Inside was a man in a wheelchair, situated behind a desk and calling… to me?

"Over here, please. I must… try to explain." He looked barely alive, his skin wrinkled and wrapped loosely over his bones. He was bald, and a gnarled hand adjusted the chair he was confined to. It held him together by a respirator attached to his throat. Clearly, he couldn't speak without the mechanism tied to him.

I scanned the room over before I decided to enter. The possibilities were endless, but I had doubts that I was the forefront of his concerns. Besides, I already knew who this was.

"Dr. Wernicke?" I stepped over the bodies splattered across the floor and stood before the door. I didn't expect he would open it.

His office was luxurious, maybe too much for a man that had the mobility of a quadriplegic. A large library of books lined one side of the room, while behind his desk hung a stunning portrayal of Prometheus and the eagle. I'm one hundred percent certain it was a painting and not a reproduction. I made note that there were boxes of files set on his book shelf, the crème of Murkoff research.

"I know, I know," he began. "I am supposed to be dead." I turned around as the door gave a decompressing hiss and I was trapped in here with him. "No… no such luck. I am older than sin, but somehow…the only one left. Because of Billy."

I tried to be subtle about holding the camera beside my leg and listen patiently to the doctor, but I suspected he was aware of my actions.

"He takes care of me. He may think I'm his father. He certainly loves me, the poor idiot." I frowned. I had already read the files, I was aware of their 'talks.'

Dr. Wernicke directed his chair toward the same trinity molecule symbol thingy from the labs lobby. "Do you know what this symbol represents?"

I shrugged. "Molecular contamination?"

"It warns of a Nanohazard." He turned to face me once more, and rolled toward the clear Plexiglas that separated us. "Microscopic machines. Technology we have had for decades but never mastered."

Files flashed through my memory. H Theory experimentation, long before Murkoff took over Mount Massive. "…waiting for them in the mountain." My hand trembled as I set it over my eye. Lights were too damn bright.

"Does your head hurt?" he asked, no tone of concern. Though a machine was speaking for him.

"No. No," I whispered. Don't lose it now, Miles. My pride was still intact, notwithstanding the circumstances. I caught sight of myself in the reflective surface and was reminded of how hellish I must look. "It's just stress."

He made a sound I couldn't identify, and said, "You've been through a lot."

I looked at him. "No. I have not." I cleared some of the copper in my throat before I spoke. "You knew how to access that technology?" Come to think of it, I shouldn't be asking him these questions. He wasn't my buddy, we weren't discussing theories over coffee. I was in a tiny air tight cell, surrounded by corpses.

Wernicke dipped his head as he adjusted the chair, and wheeled around the side of the room. "Murkoff discovered, in my research, a workaround." I pressed my hand to the Plexiglas to steady myself, and watched the doctor move. "Turning the cells in a human body into nano-factories. It's the natural function of cells to produce molecules, but through psychosomatic direction, we engineered the precise molecules necessary. Mind over body."

He stopped parallel to the desk and adjusted his chair, as if to reconsider the nanohazard inscribed on the wall. "It was… foolish and wrong to think we could control it. To use mad men to make something so strong." I nodded slightly.

"You have to stop him, to… murder Billy." He spun the wheelchair to face me and enforced this duty. "Turn off his life support, his anesthesia. You have to undo what I've done."

I leaned back from the barrier uncomfortably and looked upon the dead soldiers pureed across the floor. He must have anticipated my reservation. "No one can get out of this place while he lives. You must kill him."

I ran my thumb along the hairline crack in my camera and took a breath. I think my patience irritated him. "And how do I go about this?"

"Down the hall here, I will open the entrance to the Morphogenic wing." He tilts his head to my right. The door behind me whispered as air seeped back into the room. I hadn't realized how rancid the air became, while I was trapped with these bodies. "Do whatever you must to… stop it all." With that he turned his back to me, and seemed to fix his gaze on the painting of Prometheus.

I said nothing. I backed away to the entrance and paused.

"We achieved something like this back in 1944. Those fascists thought it was spirits, and we let them believe it. Let them kill themselves thinking there was some kind of afterlife empirically promised to them. Fools."

While he was turned away, I raised the camera to make sure and film his confession. "Poor Alan. He would weep to see what I've built from his dreams.'

"Billy doesn't mean harm." I glanced down to the soldiers and wondered; had they been trying to protect Wernicke, when 'Billy' escaped. Had they been mistake as a threat, while trying to defend the doctor? "He's a child with a damaged mind, granted the powers of a God. It would make any of us into a monster." Seemed so.

"You must end this. We all must die here."

There was a terse pause here. The doctor was waiting for my response, but I said nothing. I had misgivings for this statement, but I didn't humor him with voicing them. This was a true man of science.

"Murkoff knew the danger, and they didn't care," he resumed. "In the corporations' mind, we are all just dollar amounts in a ledger. And the profits Project Walrider promised overshadowed whatever pitiful balance a few doctors and patients amounted to."

I lifted my brows and shrugged though he couldn't see it. I doubted he was so white knight about his research during the time. I kept in mind he was one of the scientists of Project Paperclip and therefore, an asshole in my book.

"He will spread if you don't stop him. The Morphogenic Engine is self-perpetuating. I pray to God you have the strength to end it here with your death."

I debated with myself for a beat while I stood in the doorway. "I don't know if I'm that strong." I glanced over my shoulder as Wernicke's chair moved and I could see him watching me as I turned away.

"More than anything I want rest," his mechanical voice sounded worn, tired. "Billy will not let me die. He could never imagine how cruel this is. I only want to die."

When I was out of Wernicke's chamber, the door gave a soft hiss as it shut. Directly in front of me was the plate indicating the Morphgenic Engine chamber, and an arrow indicating my left. It seemed like hours ago I had come through, exhausted and apathetic to what it could mean. The concept at the time vague, especially after reading the complex formula left on the dry erase board. All those chemicals left in the room of freezers. They were added accordingly to a stewing pot of poison, and somehow, someone managed to misread the formula. Good job.

As the doctor had promised the doorway was open into that section of the lab. On the glistening floor I could make out the same trail marks here, as those I had noted curving into Wernicke's room. I looked up, and tucked in the upper edge of the corridors wall, was a camera. It faced forward, sentry of the tunnel.

I had no idea what to expect, aside from the limited hindsight I had if/when Billy decided to attack. My breath hitched, I don't know why. Maybe I sensed the malice and death, a heavy fog lingering throughout the facility. It coiled about the living, struggling to drag my body into the rot and forgotten shadows of the halls.

Billy was a child with a damaged mind. Did he realize what he had done? Dream therapy. Maybe not. But he was still a dangerous and wild creature, a force of nature set loose on the hapless denizens, whom had no capacity to defend themselves once he was loose. It was impossible for him to stop.

I took a breath and stepped through the door, expecting at any moment to be eviscerated and thrown against the walls. To have my skin splint open, and my brain matter smeared along the ceiling. But nothing happened. The silence loomed dark and ominous in the corridor as expected, my heart pumped as my mind pulsed. I could only sense the lurking threat twisting in my skull. At the far end of the hall a vivid aide-mémoire of what I would inherit upon failure, the red Rorschach spread across the wall. If I squinted just right and tilt my head, it looked like a man waving.

The camera jarred my thoughts when it buzzed, its image feed still recorded but the battery for the NV was done. I could only gamble that the infrared had enough power, to pick up an image of the Walrider if it approached. It was all I had.

I first approached the doors on my left, and opened them up into a shower block. The soft patter of water continued to run, at a glance I couldn't decide where the sound came from. There could have been no running water at all, and the sound was all in my ears.

In the far corner across from me, the body of a Murkoff researcher was slumped against lockers. Shower stalls lined the back wall, and the wall to my right was equipped with some sinks. I crept in and checked through each stall, finding very little but the remains of people. They must have crammed in here when it all went to hell, but either became trapped in panic or couldn't find a way out that wasn't full of murder. This idea was supported by a scientist crammed at the back of one stall, a broken camera clutched in his stiff hands. The night features of the camera were now understood by me, but it apparently did him no favor. The batteries had been used up.

I stopped to stare into one stall, at the running water and the bloody remains of a body. I couldn't recall where, but I had seen this image before. Blood down the drain. Except the red was gone, replaced with the gooey puss of the swollen guts. The water collected in a puddle beside them, and nudged the inflated mass periodically.

I turned away and crossed the room to a second set of doors, just beyond the sinks. Plaques on the wall warned employees to Wash Hands Thoroughly. Maybe at the time it would have made a difference. Maybe something contaminated 'Billy' and that's why everyone was dead.

And maybe that was full of shit.

Two doors. Two doors in and out of the shower room. I tried the second, and made sure the knob wouldn't lock or stick if I had to come back through.

The next set of doors directly across from the showers, led into the cafeteria of the resident scientists. I entered a door on my right, but found it only directed through the food preparation area. Industrial shelves lined the walls, loaded with large canisters of food among other provisions. A few steps in and there was another slew of corpses shredded over the walls and floor, guts had dried in odd twists over the tray rail. I climbed over it and out into the main diner. Rows of tables had been shoved around, the usual slaughter adorned all furniture. I noted there were fewer bodies down here than on the upper floors, but that would make sense.

When Billy began attacking the scientists, no one was hanging around asking questions. They knew what the swarm was capable of, once the first person was killed. The place shut down to prevent his escape, but it only trapped everyone down here. Those that did reach the upper floors weren't keeping track of the patients, and it only got worse when they got loose.

Security lock down. Once monsters like Chris Walker, the twins, and every other murderous lunatic got out on the loose, it was only a matter of time before the staff succumbed to their fate.

I could see it unfold right here, as though it was only yesterday. I walked around the room imagining the scientists seated, talking, comparing notes. Stressed. Project Walrider was at a dead end, many of the staff had already disappeared. Then suddenly death, sirens flashing, containment breach. The panic they felt when people began exploding, the realization that all their hard work had inevitably created something that they couldn't control. The primary exits blocked, blood was everywhere and they were unable to see the enemy, couldn't know where it would come from next. Not everyone fit on the elevator. Those that didn't make it hid themselves away, listening as their colleagues shrieked the moment before they painted every surface in vivid color. Those that survived the first wave, spent the last hours of their life in fear, wondering when it would be their turn to die.

I stopped in the hall as the screeching ceased. What hope did I have to survive? The pain buried itself in the back of my head and my vision distorted. If I hid in the dark corners of the labs, I would die. If I fought back, I would die.

No. No, I would not die here. I promised myself I'd get the story and walk out of those doors, and I damn well planned to do just that. If Billy couldn't catch me first, then I would use whatever means was at my disposal to put him down. What mattered most was that I would not stop until I was dead, and I could not stop until I was dead.

I had no other choice but to go through with it. I would do this. Whatever it took, I would kill Billy.

The last door on my left was open, just a bathroom, a dead end. Walls coated in gore, red and black stained the mirrors. I simply closed the room and moved on. The sirens were getting louder, alerting me to the presence of the swarm. At the halls end was a plaque informing the left corridor to the Morphogenic chamber.

I took the right, my shoes sticking to the liquified bodies of more employees, most must have been in this area when Billy attacked. Every few feet there was more blood, more sections and chunks and human pieces. If there was any truth behind ores in the soil enhancing kinetic energies, then Mount Massive would become one of the most haunted Asylums in the world.

The hall ended and I stepped through the available door, the room was filled with additional cabinets and more freezers. One of the reinforced freezer doors was left open and its cold air filled the small space of the room. Numerous vials had fallen out, their contents spreading through the sack of innards marking another death. Frozen icicles of red filled the freezer and gave half the room an ominous maroon glow.

I recalled notes concerning patients that had to be killed. When test subjects began to resist their sedatives, lethal injection would have been made the mandatory procedure. Murkoff wouldn't risk creating something with volatile tendencies. That couldn't be killed.

Billy was a failed experiment. Murkoff would have tried to dispose of him discreetly, then move on. But if he was somehow aware of this, then his retaliation was only natural. It sounded solid for turning him into the mass murdering, child monster that he was.

Dr. Wernicke kept the details of what happened to himself, but I did have the camera.

My hands were shaking. I had trouble keeping the camera steady, always checking the visor and only satisfied that the atmosphere was calm. But it was borrowed time, I wanted to avoid it, but I couldn't. I checked the open hall waiting before me. Markers set on the corners, contrasting white walls with yellow black warning tape. Vents overhead, cables and pipes lining the wall. No distortions, no hallucinations, no eerie shrieks. It was all borrowed time.

Time was my enemy.

I proceeded, the harsh alarm drilling through my thoughts growing louder with each step I took. Was it the swarm, or was it broken? I didn't know. I wouldn't know until I reached it.

The plate on the wall read Morphogenic Chamber, and indicated ahead with a red and white arrow. I paused to rub the stiffness in my eyes and checked the visor once more. Nothing but noise and static. How was it exactly I could tell when it was present? I wasn't certain, only that I could feel it. It felt malign and hostile. That creeping chill fortified my resolve. I would do this, I could. I would kill Billy and leave this place. Just leave. No distance, no nothing. No rest or healing, just step through the exit. Seeing the exit at long last might just kill me, I don't know anymore.

I took a slow breath and continued, tying not to view the red, the pieces. Not anymore. No more death. Focus on what needs to be done. Those marks on the floor, the ones I knew so well. They trail through the red like they were meant to be.

Wernicke wanted me dead. I knew this without a doubt. I was not supposed to be here, and he didn't want me mucking in Murkoff's shortcomings. Whether he foresaw their failure or accepted it. I was a journalist sated by the knowledge of this place, and his involvement in it. The man was legally dead in the government's eyes, but I had video footage to prove otherwise. Along with his confessions of what Murkoff had hoped to achieve, and what it had done.

It was, as we say in my line of work, the scoop of the century.

A short corridor to my right led to a purge chamber, it was already locked due to protocol. Above a light flashed its irritating color, while the alarm whirred. Someone's torso had been shoved between a series of tanks parked there, or they were ripped out of the space when they found the doors locked.

I covered my ear as I turned away, trying to focus. As of yet I had not picked up on the swarm, if it even was in this area. A plaque on the wall identified this as B Block, the Morphogenic wing. I stood beside a tank of liquid nitrogen, doubting if I would be able to detect when it did appear. What if it could hide? What if it was at the end of the corridor right now waiting for me, and I didn't realize it? I wasn't expecting myself to just walk into a lab and smash everything up, it'd be nice, don't get me wrong. But it wouldn't be that simple, and I wouldn't fuckin kid myself about that.

Or he didn't know I was here. That was a possibility. The swarm could be camped at the end of the first tunnel I had stumbled into, waiting for me. If he believed I was dead set on just strolling out. The key word here was 'if.' No evidence to prove otherwise, no reason to let my guard down.

My heart thudded in my chest as I neared the tunnels end. Three sets of doors greeted me, two double and a single on my left. I took a wild guess and decided the one straight ahead, would lead to the Morphogenic Chamber. I tried to mentally prepare myself for what would come. What was it I would need to do to shut it down? How did the life support systems function? Was there a switch in the room? What did the Morphogenic Engine entail exactly? It was self-perpetuating, that's as far as I knew.

I focused on the body ahead, a thick pool of red stretched across the floor and wall. Death awaited me. If I failed, if I stopped, I would die. I took a breath and braced my nerves as I moved towards the doors—

I didn't make it.

A soft hissing, or wail enveloped my senses and I turned to the doorway on my left as a misty figure slid into my view. I stared into the visor as I backed away and checked the NV feed. I already knew what it was before the name entered my brain.

Billy either perceived my intentions or saw my presence as a threat. Whatever his conclusion meant, one thing was for certain. He would not let me get near the Morphogenic Engine.

I read Prometheus and the eagle when I was a tot. My professional impression - "That's gotta suck for that dude"