The Man Behind the Curtain
"Fuck, the robot knows my name." Justin mumbled.
"Let us talk on the move." the Doctor said with urgency. "There are still a great number of tasks to accomplish. If I'm to be of any help to you, ensure that you're able to pay attention from here on out. There is a lot of information to take in and a good deal of ground to cover. You must follow me and go nowhere else. If you deviate in any way I will know about it. The first noncompliance action will result in you returning to the surface. Consider that your only warning. And consider your presence here a privilege, not a right. If you are ready, then come."
The Doctor—covered from head to toe in an impervious suit of some exotic alloy—stepped away and deeper into the mine shaft.
Justin paused briefly, let the Doctor attain an amicable lead ahead of him and the rest of the survivors so he could quickly assess his surroundings.
"Do you trust this guy?" Ken asked, striding forward.
Justin briefly pivoted 180°, lending genuine thought to Ken's question as he scrutinized the way they had just journeyed from… It was utterly bereft of light, and thus hope, nothing but death and chaos at the surface. There was no way Justin was leading the group back that way, not after this. They had a mission to eradicate that distant threat, to the end of acquiring the one last resort to survival…and an escape.
Gibson's Pelican.
But what was a sound plan at survival suddenly turned into a quest for truth: the Doctor's very existence here and what it would ultimately mean.
All of them would discover it soon enough. Of that, Justin was certain.
However, he wasn't entirely certain that they would fare any better once they knew.
Justin turned to look Ken in the eyes. "No."
It was hard for anyone to accurately gauge how much time went by since the initial encounter with the armored scientist. A lot of walking had been accomplished since then. Much of the group was captivated by their new surroundings, trying to assess them now that they presumably had total safety. Such strange ones they were, a stark contrast from everything they'd witnessed of the mines so far. The corridor they were being led through was wide enough for ten people to walk shoulder to shoulder. About five meters off the deck, the ceiling was certainly more accommodating than the shaft they transitioned from. Such a spacious, accommodating layout meant this place was built for transporting something large.
It was all business here with absolutely no amount of panache, the polar opposite of a factory-city administrator's dwelling. Surely, Gibson would soon tire of this place as he had all others. Justin rarely recalled the Admin leaving his palace in the courtyard. Gibson wasn't exactly in the best of shape, either.
Presently, Justin and the Doctor jointly formed the point of the human formation. Side by side, they traversed while the others formed a loose gaggle not too far off their heels. Bulky lower appendages thudded into the ground one after the other as the Doctor inexorably strode on. The overhead lights he activated earlier accentuated his suit as the visible rays bounced off, casting strange reflections about the dark, dreary walls. Justin looked hard at the material as he walked, stealing glances. Sturdy, yet malleable it was; it obviously flexed in accordance with the occupant's movements. Justin wanted to examine it closer—as if he were a scientist himself—to figure what exactly it was composed of.
High-Carbon Steel? Titanium? There was no way to be sure. There was no burgundy tint typical of Titanium, or the grey sheen of Steel. It looked more coppery than anything else: a muted, orange-brown luster. Yet surely it was not. Copper was perhaps too fragile for supporting such bulk and a man inside it. Copper was too malleable and would bend under enough stress. It was then that Justin wondered exactly what kind of stresses this strange metal was designed to withstand. Why the need for armor?
There was only one explanation in Justin's mind.
The downward slope had leveled out gradually since passing the monster's anchor in the ground. The surfaces of the walls had changed. Whether that change came abruptly or not, no one could remember. All anyone knew is that instead of the usual rock, the makeup of the surrounding bulwark was anything but organic—some sort of burnished metal. The Martensite grain structure of it ran along in gentle, sinusoidal waves as if microscopic fingers channeled the molecules to some end, resultant of a flawless heat-treating and annealing process produced exclusively by a select few foundries scattered throughout the galaxy.
Every so often, a conduit embedded within the walls glowed with light-emitting diodes arranged in logical order, perhaps status indicators of something housed beyond them.
"You're probably wondering what those panels do." the Doctor stated on cue. "They are biometric scanners. They respond only to my signature. Don't get any crafty ideas please."
"You have secrets down here you want to keep hidden." Justin said, his gaze straight-faced, pointed dead ahead.
"An understatement," the Doctor replied, "in both my personal and professional opinion."
"These doors," Justin pointed about, "where do they lead?"
"To the worst imaginable places. We will not be venturing through there and you need not concern yourself with them."
Justin sneered.
The steady thuds kept pounding into the bedrock, the Doctor showing no intention of slowing or stopping in his immense, powered bulk.
Chris huffed and looked around at the many doorways stemming off from the corridor, more like fortifications if anything. They were nearly as tall as the ceiling and very wide, and very sturdy by the look of it. Instinct boiled in his veins to walk up to one, tap a knuckle and gauge an assessment at density. If what the Doctor said was true—that the worst things imaginable lied behind those ramparts—he wanted to be sure they were safe. But that was simply impossible. Doctor Kleiner had made it quite clear—twice—that they were to do nothing other than follow him. Chris had no intentions to be the one who ruined it all. They were on someone else's turf and their terms, which Chris noticed was starting to become a routine occurrence.
"How long does it go on like this?" Gibson shouted from the rear of the group, his face puffy and reddened.
The Doctor didn't answer, didn't even look back.
"Don't worry about him." Chris said. "He's a complainer. We're all fine. We're still here."
Again, no form of acknowledgement from the Doctor whatsoever.
Chris looked overhead to the ceiling. The lighting was a ghostly-white glow, much like the courtyard illumination of City 17. It lit up the ambience nicely, but for the yawning distance ahead, it appeared surreal, an inescapable nightmare that only deepened. Light was just a courtesy now, seemingly just a sick joke that was becoming distasteful. All the waiting was what unnerved the most. Chris quickened his pace to meet up with Bill, looking back over his shoulder at Gibson with a look that said, You'd better move your ass if you know what's good for you. He looked back to the front: a dead end was in the distance, maybe only a gravball field or two to reach it. All the light from the corridor seemed to pool into a cone at about head-height, way out there. He then looked around for more doorways. Nothing.
"Are there more doors?" Chris said softly. He began to doubt if the Doctor could even hear him, his voice was so meek against the thudding of footsteps into rock.
The Doctor was still of little help in their inquiries, still offering no answers. Whatever it was he was planning to show them, certainly he could find the civility to give them some heads up. But in the moments passed, it never came. The suit of armor in front simply led the way without so much as a backward glance at any of them.
The end of the line seemed to approach suddenly, all at once. None of them except the Doctor could believe they were already here. They had reached the farthest extent of the secret mine shaft, the dead end.
Or so they thought.
The Doctor walked up a few more steps, almost coming nose-to-nose with the wall. It wasn't until the soles of the Doctor's boots met with metal grating that everyone paid more attention.
He turned around to face the group.
"Mister Reid," he said, "please come with me."
Justin looked around with a jesting sneer. "Okay…and where's that to?"
"You will see."
Justin shrugged and stepped forth onto the small, two-meter squared platform of metal grating, strolling to a place near the Doctor's side. A meshed partition slid down from overhead, sealing them off from the rest of the group.
Kleiner addressed them instantly after. "Please remain where you are. You will be safe."
The flooring descended with the aid of a hydraulic motor faintly wheezing somewhere below. Within seconds, they passed below the ground and disappeared.
The lift descended slowly.
There was nothing to see but bare rock inching upwards on all sides. Justin looked down at the grating, straining to see past it. He was rewarded with no sight other than pitch blackness.
"So, Doctor, what kind of dog and pony show have you got lined up for me?"
"Is your group under control?"
"Excuse me?"
"The people you brought with you...are they stable? Is there anyone else you feel you must eliminate?"
"You saw that?"
"Yes. Now, can I count on your word that there will be no surprises among you?"
Justin thought about that. He killed Sergei's last man in the mines, but the Kaiser himself was still alive, still a threat in Justin's opinion, however idle the criminal-king was for the time being. But the tables had turned: not only was Kaiser Sergei alone and unarmed—and thus of little danger to anyone—he was probably equally as interested as Justin in finding out what was going on. The need to know the truth was on everyone's palette whether they chose to taste it or not.
"No surprises." Justin said. "We're ready to see what you want us to see."
"Good."
Joe kept looking back.
Despite the overwhelming air of safety this far into the mines, Hendricksson couldn't help but feel he and all the poor souls in his company were on borrowed time. He didn't even realize Chris' keen eyes were upon him during his constant rubber necking over his shoulder.
"Joe, you okay? What's back there?"
Joe gazed into the kid's eyes, faltering for a moment at a loss for words. "Joe." Chris beckoned.
The tension emanating from the two attracted Bill, who took notice of something in their eyes and stepped closer.
"Nothing, just a little paranoid." Joe said. "I hate waiting."
"Joe, we're under the Doctor's watch now. He's got God-like control over this mineshaft. I'm sure he'd know if anything was coming this way, and he said he had sentries too. He said we'd be safe. We have to trust him." Chris shrugged, "Little other choice now anyways, right?"
"Right. Doesn't matter if I'm calm or not. We're reduced to this situation no matter what."
"Good." Chris said. "Now tell me what's really bothering you."
"Pardon?"
"C'mon, Joe. You've been looking over your shoulder more than a fugitive. Ever since we met, you've been on edge about something."
"Well, yeah it's because these creatures—"
"—Don't try it, Joe. Just come clean with me. I know."
Joe looked around and distanced himself a slight amount from the rest of the group such that he could speak comfortably and remain out of earshot. Chris and Bill followed him a moment later.
"Okay, you wanted the truth. Here it is: I came from Sirius Six-B, that's not made up. I did drift for five-hundred years, too, not made up. But I never told you everything that happened out there. Christ, I thought I'd left it all behind. I had no idea I brought it here with me, you have to understand that!"
"Okay…calm down, Joe. It's not your fault." Bill said.
"Just tell us what happened." Chris coaxed. "Tell us what you brought here. No one's blaming you."
Joe breathed deeply. "Bill, do you remember what I said to you on the Admin building rooftop?"
"I'm sorry, refresh my memory."
"…That we reinvented man's first modern weapon?"
"Yes, I remember that."
"Man's first modern weapon was a sword."
"Yes, go on." Bill said.
"We made the Autonomous Mobile Sword, the Screamer." Joe's eyes widened. "It's here."
"And what is it? What does it do?"
"It's a fully automated, self-replicating killbot that propagates an area through ground. It burrows, sometimes very deeply depending on the makeup of the crust, and executes search and destroy routines. It can emerge without warning and strike its enemies with lethal precision. We designed it to do this autonomously, without supervision."
"And what are its enemies?" Chris asked.
"Anyone not wearing one of these." Joe said, holding his right hand above his waist.
Chris and Joe peered downward to where some sort of electronic device was attached to Joe's right wrist. "What is it?" Chris asked.
"It's a TAB. Transient Airwave Broadcaster. Screamers only hunt living things. They seek them out by scanning for rhythmic pulses, heartbeats. This thing broadcasts the wearer's heart rate one step out of phase, flat lining them."
"So," Chris tilted his head, "to them, you're dead."
"Yes."
"…And we're fresh meat. Is that what you're saying?"
"Yes."
Joe felt a sudden pang of remorse for the people that got sucked into the doom he brought here, especially upon seeing the realization showing in Chris' eyes. Joe tried very hard not to picture it, the deaths he witnessed on Sirius 6B, but he couldn't help it. He'd seen the Screamers kill all too many times, how efficient and merciless they were, robotic in their practice. Joe knew it was only a matter of time before Chris and the others would witness the blades of a Screamer first-hand and meet their true fate—a gruesome one at that. Sooner or later the TAB's batteries would expire as well—Joe would be hunted. What was strange was that Joe could be both afraid and relieved at that fact.
"So…they got aboard your escape craft somehow." Chris conjectured, nodding.
"Probably just one of them." Joe said. "They're not very large, little bigger than the size of my hand. At least, that's true for the Type Ones. They must've slipped one in before I got aboard, hoping they'd carry on the survival of the species on another world."
"Wait, wait!" Chris whispered. "You said they were robots, now you're calling them a species?"
Joe clenched his jaw. "They started off as robots. But somehow…" Joe's eyes began to glaze over "…they evolved."
"Evolved. Robots. I'm no scientist, Joe, but programming is programming. Without it, a machine is useless. How did something that requires precise, digital input transcend its programming?"
"They began to modify themselves somehow. A glitch in their coding, maybe, I don't know. They were designed to survive on their own. They had to adapt to their surroundings. Maybe that's nature's wrath biting us in the ass or something. It was fine until new models started showing up out of the blue. They eventually replicated human forms…and to horrifying realism. There was no way to see that coming."
"What happened then?"
"They started to infiltrate our bunkers. It started with David."
"Who is David?"
"David was Type Three, a little boy with a teddy bear, ragged clothes, sad face, on the verge of starvation." Joe smiled almost playfully. "Who can resist a snot-nosed kid with a hard luck story, eh?"
"Go on."
"Both sides in the war started letting Davids into their bunkers, and that's when it started getting really interesting."
The lift continued descending as the steady whine of hydraulic pump stations powering it became increasingly audible somewhere further below. The mechanical sound easily permeated through the porous deck plate that Justin and Doctor Kleiner stood on. With little sight to take in around him, Justin went back to scrutinizing the Doctor's power armor as discretely as he could. Now that they were standing firm, Justin could make out the finer details, suddenly noticing a firearm at the scientist's side.
But it wasn't just the presence of the firearm that caught Justin's attention. Something about it was odd...how it was fastened to the metal chassis that Kleiner housed himself in. Justin tilted his head ever so slightly, feigning a creak in his neck to get a better view of the weapon. Sitting merely an inch off the surface of the metal itself, Justin could now clearly see that the firearm was in fact floating—hovering above his suit. In the midst of the shadow the weapon made on the thigh plate, Justin could just barely make out a checkerboard pattern of smaller metal pieces embedded into the alloy. The only logical explanation he could fathom was that the grid on the Doctor's outer thigh was a network of polar magnets simultaneously pulling the weapon close and pushing it away, keeping it at a precise distance.
Justin said nothing, maintained a straight face. He glanced at the setup again: he couldn't figure out which make of firearm it was. UNSC standard issue or some prototype? There was no way to be sure, no logos LASER or acid-etched onto the body of the weapon, at least none that Justin could make out from his awkward vantage. No imprints of serial numbers as far as he could see. Maybe Justin would never know.
Before he could begin to speculate any further, the rock on all sides inching up began to disappear, now replaced by a hollowed cylinder of steel mesh—the elevator's new shaft upon transitioning into a cave. Peering out, Justin now had a 360° view: a hollowed-out hemisphere of immense volume. Far bigger than the Gravball arenas he'd played inside at Reach's academy. Compared to that, he'd never heard of or seen anything quite like this...
The very first thing that caught Justin's eye was light.
The darkness of the ambiance was neatly pierced by an oculus high above in the center from which a narrow shaft of light connected floor to ceiling. So focused was the solid-white ray, it afforded only a faint glow merely a few meters out, a natural halo flanking outwards. Inside the radiant column was a single console atop a raised platform, perfectly dead-center in the room, just a spec from where the elevator shaft was.
All around the periphery, to where his sight just about lost color and depth perception, blinking lights flashed like the stars of a cloudless night, bustling with cryptic messages. Squinting through, Justin determined as best he could that they were LEDs of computer chasses anchored to the bulwark. Whatever they represented, whatever their function was, Justin couldn't even begin to fathom. There were so many, encompassing the entire area surrounding him. Several raised platforms dotted the central area of the hemispherical expanse. Taking up much of the floor space were equipment dollies, cylindrical tanks pressurized with unknown gases, robotic exosuits and forklikfts parked in cordoned-off spaces. At the furthest end, a giant vault door lay closed, an oddity to Justin at how they were currently situated above its framework and yet it towered above all else in the room. His awe shifted back and forth from the height they currently resided at to the sheer size of the place.
Normally, a human voice, or any sound for that matter, would usually reverberate off walls and produce an echo in a large enough space. The current space was so large that the amplitude from either of their voices couldn't propagate far enough to reach any of the concave walls.
"You said this was a classified research facility." Justin said. "What are you researching?"
Before answering, the Doctor tapped a switch on a forearm-mounted interface. Upon the Doctor's command, loud clanking could be heard all around the circumference of the room. Justin looked outward in time to see hexagonal plates of highly-transmissive mirror pivot into place as more near the central pedestal below repositioned. The light instantly refracted from the reflective plates below and neatly struck all peripheral mirrors, lighting up virtually every square inch of the immense facility.
"We're researching extraterrestrial biological entities. EBEs."
"The parasites." Justin said rhetorically. "How long have you been doing this?"
"Since before the planet was settled."
"What are they doing here? How did they get here?"
"You saw the massive hangar door at the far end. Beyond there is the vessel that crash-landed here some millennia ago. Based on all the evidence we've obtained, it's our logical assumption that they wound up here by that means. We've yet to attain an accurate Carbon-Fourteen dating."
Justin looked out over the expanse of machinery and electronics spanning below them as they descended, regarding the massive blast-grade doors far away whose shape was almost obscured by the sheer distance. "I'm guessing that's not part of the tour."
"You guess right, Mister Reid. It's highly classified. Even though you'll never leave the planet, courtesy of the company, you don't need to see it."
"So why research it? Why not destroy it?" Justin suddenly pivoted to look into the suit's faceplate. "You're developing bioweapons."
"I'm not developing anything. I'm here to conduct research."
"Bullshit."
"What my benefactors do with my data findings is up to them whether it's make bioweapons or sing Cumbaya. I get paid to research and offer professional opinions, Mister Reid. My conscience will be clear."
"Christ, that's how these things start. Don't you get it? You're helping them get what they want."
The Doctor gave no reply.
"Now why am I here?"
"You're here to help me answer some questions."
"I don't see how I could possibly be of help to you."
"Allow me to persuade you. Somehow, a copious amount of infection forms under study in one of the observation chambers escaped quarantine. And they chased you. For reasons unknown to me or my AI, you have an involvement with the EBEs in some way. It would be in your best interests to tell me exactly what it is, then I can be in a position to help you as well."
"A deal?"
"Yes."
"What do you offer?"
"Weapons. That is what you originally came into the mines for."
Justin nodded and looked the Doctor in the eyes, unable to see the lower half of his face due to the obscuring helemt. "That's right."
Tell me how it is you came in contact with the specimens."
"Well, it all started one night in my home, many miles from here. We were under the influence of some pretty strong hallucinog—"
"—Who is we?"
"Me and everyone you see with me, except Joe Hendricksson. He arrived to this planet well after that night."
"That's the individual that crash-landed outside the mine entrance."
"Yes."
"Go on."
"Well, it was actually Pete who came in contact with them first, not me."
"And where is Pete now? Is he with you, here among your group? I would like to discuss this with him present. What does he look like?"
"Let's see," Justin said, "he's got two eyes, a mouth, and a nose right in the middle of his fuckin' face…which is probably halfway decomposed by now. How's that? Does that sound familiar?"
"I'm sorry, did you say he's dead?"
"He was the very first victim of your parasite outbreak."
Justin could see the Doctor's cold, almost empty, ice-blue eyes stare back through the clear faceplate and take on a shape that passed for genuine sorrow. "I am sorry."
"You're sorry…" Justin trailed off. "You're not sorry. If you were sorry, you wouldn't still be doing this job. Hell, you wouldn't have taken this job in the first place. We say we're sorry only because we hate watching others suffer, but sorry means nothing here, Doctor. I'm afraid it's too little, too late. What's sorry gonna do for Pete now?"
"Yes…well—"
"—Just get on with the inquisition, Doctor. Get to the part where you help me."
"Listen here, I don't even know how they escaped. I had no idea they were out there until I started seeing them on City Seventeen's CCTV! But perhaps you know something more!"
"Right. Well, the night it happened. Let's see…I woke up and found Pete alone in the dark, resting up against the heater vent pipe in my home. I turned the lights on and the next thing I knew, he was getting eaten alive by those bastards. They came from underground. I had nothing to do with their escape…until later."
"So," the Doctor's voice emitter boomed, "the truth comes out! You did have something to do with the quarantine breach."
"God damnit, Doctor, it wasn't my fault! Something woke them, I know it! It's your fault you built your observation chamber right under my house!"
"Exactly when did you build your house?" the Doctor leveled his eyes at Justin.
"Ten fucking years ago. I was among the first here."
"This facility was constructed thirteen years ago. You built your house directly over one of my observation chambers and shoved a veritable escape hatch into it. Whatever it was your Pete did to arouse them, he bears the responsibility of their escape, not me."
"Fine, the argument is settled then. But he's dead now, so your PhD doesn't get to pin the tail on this donkey, no sir. And how could I have known your pet science project was gonna be buried under my house? Asswipe."
The Doctor huffed in frustration, his regulated air supply compensating for the sudden change of internal pressure by venting a short burst of CO2 from an O-ringed spigot near his voice emitter. "How could this happen?" he said absentmindedly.
Justin said sternly, "You can't control everything. No one can."
"We should've never let those Screamers loose the way they were built. It was the perfect short-term solution, but we found out soon enough that we couldn't control them. Jesus, we created an entire new race of sentient life…born of transistors and scrap metal and fucking razor blades!"
"Joe, c'mon." Chris coaxed, patting Hendricksson on the back. "You need to calm down. You said only one got in with you. That's not so bad. How tough are they? Can they be killed?"
Joe picked his gaze up off the floor. "Yes." he said with new resolve. "The Type One model can easily be killed. But it's smart enough to avoid outside contact for now. Its plan is to find safety…and start breeding. It'll find a way to copy itself. More and more Type Ones will show up before long. And then it's only a matter of time before more advanced models start appearing. Only a matter of time."
"We'll make sure we have the weapons to deal with them, Joe. Plus, we're safe inside these mines under the Doctor's protection."
"I hope."
The elevator reached the bottom, though neither the Doctor or Justin stepped off.
"This was fool-proof." the Doctor said, grimacing at the ground beneath his armored boots. "The contagion wasn't supposed to be released unto the planet years from now."
"What the fuck?" Justin grabbed the Doctor by the armored shoulder. "You were planning to unleash this shit on Traxus Nine to begin with?"
"It wasn't my idea. I had no knowledge of that going into this assignment." Justin let go of the Doctor, almost pushing him back as he did. "I'm just acting under orders. I'm sure you understand."
"Yes, I understand quite well, Doctor. But why do your superiors want to do this?"
Kleiner relaxed his stance and shifted his weight.
"When the planet was first surveyed, estimates put the sum total mass of geological resources right at about fifteen years' usage before depletion. After that, the planet's useless. You passed peak production two point five years ago. Much earlier than expected."
"Of course no one tells us these things too, right?"
"No one on this planet would know. Not even your town administrators have this knowledge."
"So just let it all free-roam? Is that what's next?"
"Traxus Nine is restricted and hasn't been listed in the Colonial Register for nearly ten years. The operational parameters were then modified." Kleiner raised his head and spoke loud monotone as though he were reading from text or reciting what someone higher up had directed. "...Set the experiement loose for the ultimate venue in real-world, uncontrolled study...
"...Those are now my orders. Will be my orders once they feel I can't discover anything new."
"Takes care of society's worst in the process."
"An unopposed byproduct of the project for them. They'll wipe their hands clean when it's all done. There'll be no survivors. No witnesses. Just nothing. Only death."
Justin smiled in amazement. "Unbelieveable. Sadistic and at the same time so efficient. So, Doctor, what now?"
"We discuss your survival."
"They've been down there quite a long time." Chris stated.
"The Doc is showing Justin the ropes, that's all." Kaiser Sergei smiled.
"How are you smiling at a time like this?" Chris shouted. "In fact, you're always smiling no matter what. Does nothing have any consequence to you?"
"Kid, when are you gonna realize...living here, on this planet, the only thing that matters is survival. It's a wonder I'm even sharing this with you, as smart as you already are."
Ken stepped forward and placed his body between the two of them. "You," he glanced at Sergei, "shut up. Chris, let it go. Everyone, fucking be patient." Ken's voice was level and cold, calculative. "We wait here per the Doctor's orders. He wouldn't have taken Justin down there alone unless he wanted to help him, as he said he would. Answers are coming. Until then, everyone stay here and keep the banter to a minimum."
"Look at this," Sergei chuckled, "a spokesperson for the clandestine agency already. Securing a position in the new regime?"
"Your friend, Pete, bares the blame of letting loose the infection forms. That much is certain. But it doesn't matter anymore, what's done is done. What we have to concentrate on now is how you and your people will survive this premature outbreak."
"First, Doctor, two things: what are 'infection forms'; and why are you helping us survive this if we're to be condemned to death in a few years anyway?"
"I respect you. I wish this never happened, and I wish for peoples' survival. But I can't guarantee anything in my capacity here. And while I must follow orders, it doesn't mean I always agree with them. I can certainly use what powers I have to save the few that I can. So long as I have that power, I will use it for whatever good is left. That good is you."
"I'm honored that we're your vessels of redemption and all, Doctor, but from what I've seen these little EBEs of yours can take a helluva beating. There's only so much guns and ammo to go around and these critters seem to keep multiplying every time they get near people. What makes you think we'll be able to beat them?"
"I did not say you could beat them. I only said you could survive them. You must find a way to seal off a city from within and take indefinite refuge there. I would offer to take you with me, but my ship has only room for me—one life support system. I am sorry."
"Sorry? Well, why not just send a bigger ship back here when you return home? You could rig us up a ride outta here. We can survive long enough 'till then."
"I'm afraid that is out of the question, Mister Reid. Not only would my employers get wind of it and reprimand me, but they would see to it that you never leave this place…as is already the case for all denizens of Traxus Nine. The work accomplished here is of the most highly classified nature. Your very existence off-world would mean a threat to them."
"But they wouldn't know I was in here unless you told them."
"Wrong. Everything here is monitored, Mr. Reid. Not just by me. The recordings of everything taking place here are transmitted via slipspace probes to the central office."
"So…doesn't that mean you're in trouble right now just by letting me in here?"
"No. I requested you be let in for research purposes."
Justin backed away from the Doctor, assuming a defensive fighting stance. "What's that mean?" Justin began to reach beneath his coat for a weapon.
"Not what you're thinking. You witnessed the parasites before all others in City Seventeen. You had first contact with them."
Justin eased his stance and shifted his weight. "Pete did."
"Yes, that's right. Pete." the Doctor corrected himself. "What this reduces to is that I needed some answers. And I believe I got them from you just now. That is all."
Justin exhaled the breath he'd been holding for the last few seconds. "It's quite the tease, Doctor. Watching you leave while we ride it out."
"My hands are tied."
"Devil's advocate? Just a little here?"
"Foregoing the fact that escape is a near-impossibility, you'd be hunted down if you did...and for the rest of your life. It wouldn't stop there, oh no. They'd interrogate any friends and family of yours that they have files of, and they know exactly where to obtain such information if they didn't already possess it. And interrogation is definitely an open meaning here. I am sorry, I'm not trying to frighten you or threaten you, but that's just the way it is with these people. There is no solution here other than what I am offering."
"Who's employing you down here?"
"You know I can't tell you that."
"What's the difference? We'll never have the chance to leave this place!"
"A conglomerate of corporations and private investors."
"If the government knew what was going on here…"
"Someone in the government knows perfectly well what's going on here, Mister Reid. Traxus is sanctioned by the government in many sectors of industry for many of its projects, people just don't know it. But it's of little concern to us now. The real concern is empowering you to combat these creatures. That is my last good deed here as a scientist…as a human being."
"Let's get on with it then."
"Very well, follow me."
"So…can you tell us what they look like?" Chris asked. "Not trying to bring back any memories, just want to know one when I see one."
"The Type One, the one that we made, looked pretty simple. Just a rotary blade for a head and tunneling appendages flanking it, a middle section that housed the electronics and a tail rudder that was used when it burrowed. This is most likely the one they slipped aboard my ship prior to me escaping. The first modified Screamer was Type One Revised. It looked more like an animal, like some overgrown rat. Had legs that enabled it to actually walk around on hard surfaces, whereas the original ones were just burrowers. Had the same buzz saw on its head, but it also had retracting connectors to hack into computer terminals. This was when I started to notice something strange.
"And then, David, Type Three. That small boy, Jesus. He was so real. You'd mistake him for a neighbor you hadn't yet met, he was so real. He, it, was responsible for taking the most lives out of all the Screamers. An infiltrator design, pure and simple, because you'd never suspect anything was off until you were dying of disembowelment."
"Wait," Chris said, "you mentioned Type One, the Type One Revised, and the Type Three, the boy, but you skipped one. What about Type Two?"
"Yes, Type Two. Where to begin…"
Justin walked on the Doctor's lead as they cleared the elevator platform. It was seamlessly embedded into the bedrock, allowing for an equally seamless transition as he walked again. Justin glanced all about as he followed, keen to take in as much detail as possible. They were on a course that bisected the floor space, their vector straight on towards the central pedestal. The light pouring in from the oculus above now struck the network of steerable mirrors in such a way that the cave was divided: upper half saturated with luminosity, the lower half merely benefiting from its resultant glow. The byproduct was a well-lit ambiance with zero glare unless he gazed straight up.
There was a bit of walking to do in getting there, Justin now knew. He craned his neck over a cluster of human-sized containers to his right, noting the display screens against the concave wall far off. He squinted and focused and willed his eye muscles to strain, finally rewarded with a portrait of a humanoid figure taking up a single screen. Fighting even harder for visual acuity, he could make out the dreaded whip-like extensions sprouted out of the digital figure's motionless arms.
"So, Doctor, you never told me about the creatures themselves."
"What would you like to know?"
"Anything you can tell me. The more intel I have, the better chance I stand in surviving. And that's what you want to ease your conscience."
Together, Doctor Kleiner and Justin Reid finally reached the center console. Bathed in light from above, Justin lost focus of the room around him. He could only make out the Doctor's movements as he immediately began accessing the central holoterminal. A slew of height-staggered controls resided just before the Doctor, projected from the aperture at about waist height. He tapped his right index finger at thin air, actuating a series of the controls. The blue-tinged representations shifted red. "The process of infection starts with the infection form."
Instantly, the light from above attenuated roughly 50%, allowing Justin to see a giant, curved screen mounted to a section of the concave periphery far away. On display was an illustration of a parasitic creature, the infection form, the creature that had plagued Justin's recent days.
"The small bastards that invite themselves into peoples' mid section." Justin confirmed.
"Precisely. The parasite can quickly garner a host as you well know by now. Evidence shows that it attacks the central nervous system of sentient beings."
"Sentient?"
"Yes, quite interesting that the EBEs prefer to assimilate self-aware animals into their collective. For what purpose, I do not yet know. More research is required, but deductive logic from all the observations tells me that they require an intelligent host in order to utilize them more effectively. It also seems apparent that a certain amount of biomass is needed to sustain any of the forms' commands and movements. We've tested various animals for assimilation—none of them were viable candidates for the parasites. But make no mistake, once the creature grabs a hold of what it wants, there is no escape from it. Within a very short period, the victim will morph into the combat form. You have encountered these as well."
Justin looked on again to the giant display looming in the distance. Taking the parasite's side was the combat form, a taxonomical chart-like display of a menacing and grotesque and all the more life-like monster as it towered over him and the Doctor.
"So, the infection form takes control of a human, the human becomes the combat form...where did all the humans come from? How did the infection forms get such a huge supply down here? Or do I even want to know, Doctor?"
"It was purely chance that it happened, many years before any settlements here. All combat forms you see here were once members of the CMA's ADVON team. Team Baker-Four, if I recall correctly."
"CMA." Justin said. "The Colonial Military Administration? Dang, that was an age ago. They got absorbed into the UNSC, right?"
"Yes. Precisely."
"So what is the ADVON team?"
"Advanced Echelon, made up of miners, geologists, biologists, terraforming consultants, anyone you'd need to get a planet up and running. They go in small, tactical teams actively surveying and cataloguing worlds. Most of their work is done, but there may be some remnants of the ADVON units still out there. Though, I would hazard a guess that their business has slowed or stopped altogeher since the War came about."
"They came here, dug a little too deep, home base loses all contact, military comes in with a search and rescue, and bam...the whole incident goes dark and red tape prevents anyone from getting close."
"Astute observation, Mister Reid."
"I suspected you were the bad guy ever since I got down here. Guess I'm wrong...so far."
"No, I'm not the bad guy. I'm just the egghead trying to find the answers. In fact, I'm not sure there really is a bad guy in this situation."
"...THI." Justin said darkly. "They're the bad guy. For turning this place into what it is. And for turning these fuckers loose on people!"
"I cannot comment, but I understand your anger. I'm going to do everything I can to help you here. Shall we go over more in regards to the combat form?"
"Yes, please."
"The enlarged myceliums you see protruding from the host's arms and torso are usually its primary means of attack. We've seen biters as well when they're stripped of their tentacles, but that does not last very long; they're able to regenerate them very quickly. The smaller hyphae extending from the torso act as sensory organs that the parasite uses in place of the host's nerve endings. Being a Fungi-based species, the hyphae can be formed to transduce any external stimuli it wishes—infrared, optical, anything. Compared to us, its resolution of the world around it is far more accute. Now, sometimes the human host's features are totally unrecognizable after assimilation, depending on how quickly the parasite takes over and what it does with its new body. Many times, victim's faces are covered in the parasite's excess skin. Together, in enough numbers, these creatures are quite effective in eradicating whatever they see fit. They can adapt to their surroundings, alter the host's body to fabricate organic weapons, they've even displayed intelligence on par with humans. I've seen them activate switch plates, I've seen them spell out words in sand, tap Morse Code into rock, I've seen many astounding things. This truly is a remarkable species we're dealing with."
"We encountered something else, Doctor. Something you may not have seen."
"You did? What?"
"It was a creature that could change itself."
"Yes, the combat form. I've already told you that."
"—No. This one was different. You didn't see this one because there were no monitoring devices where we encountered it. The first form it took was more like a cocoon. It hung from the ceiling and shot these hard, sharp spears that were harvested from its own body. We ran away when we first saw it. The next time we ran into it, we had better weapons, but this time it turned into a giant spider. As if that weren't the shit in our oatmeal, it turned into a giant fucking zombie the next time we blinked. I mean, it was gargantuan and it happened in an instant. It was damn near invincible to every shot we placed on it. Shotguns at point blank, assault rifles, you name it. Indestructible."
"Oh my, you encountered a pure form." The Doctor brought his gloved hands together and his fingers started dancing over one another. "I was hoping it wouldn't happen so soon."
"Pure form? I don't like the sound of that, Doctor."
"Forgive the nomenclature. For ease of identification, I've created a dumbed-down, rudimentary set of terminologies representing the many different sub-species. I've coined an appropriate set of taxonomical bi-nomenclatures to go along as well, but they're in Latin so I'll just give you the simple versions, okay?"
Justin started to sense dread from Doctor Kleiner. "…Okay. So what exactly is a pure form?"
"It possesses an enforcer type of role within this EBE community. It seems as though the collective will cultivate a leadership organism once it reaches a certain mass much in the way a bee colony would select a queen. But the way in which they create this particular organism is quite unlike the common process. Its creation is quite different than, say, an infection form or combat form. The combat forms, or drone units, will create this leadership by pooling massive amounts of dead biomass and introducing the virus at a later stage. Whereas an infection form would seize a host body through infusion of the contagion, the pure form is instead composed entirely of recycled bones and flesh. In your case, it was the victims in the factories."
"So, the pure form is harder to destroy than the regular ones because it's condensed mass. That explains our defeat."
"Yes, its physiological makeup of saturated biomass renders it quite resilient against traditional kinetic weaponry. Thus, I would avoid using it against this EBE form. Gas-propelled projectile firearms will do you little good, even moderate ordinance. Even if equipped with the proper armament, it's extremely risky to confront one; I would always avoid it if possible."
"That, I intend to do."
"Now, the pure form is of the same base strain of the organism, but as you witnessed, it can mutate its genetic code on the fly. We've recorded three distinct permutations of the pure form, all of which you must've experienced. We know that this form represents one of the more advanced stages in the EBE's evolutionary path as a community grows. It's designed to withstand extremely harsh environments and enemies, and in my opinion, it is one of the most dangerous forms of the species."
"Wait…one of the most dangerous? You mean there's worse?"
"Only one."
Everyone topside of Justin and the Doctor were all sitting down at this point, exhaustion from standing and boredom from nothing to do creeping in. For the time being, Ken sat next to Layla with a steady eye on Kaiser Sergei, who merely smiled every time his eyes met Ken's. A smile akin to the Devil's own. Chris and Bill were off a ways from the rest. They sat Indian style and listened closely as Joe continued to whisper his story of the Screamers.
"What did it look like?" Chris asked. "…the Type Two."
"Anything you wanted it to." Joe answered. "If you were in your golden years and had a photo of your grandmother out in the open, you might just see her resurrected from the dead if you were living on Sirius Six-B when the Type Twos rolled out."
"Oh my God." Chris' eyes went wide.
Bill forgave Chris' vein use of the Lord's name and pressed further into Joe's world.
"The most horrifying aspect of it all, and also the most amazing, is that Screamers advanced so much that they showed emotion. They modified themselves, mimicked us to such precision that they could love one another, love humans, kill one another over jealousy. They were arguably human at that point. The survivors I was with…I couldn't tell who was real or machine by the time I contemplated leaving. It was by the skin of my teeth that I did."
"Amazing." Bill said.
"So," Joe said, "the Screamers, born by their human creators to kill, empowered by them to choose its own course, did. They became what they never should have: Human."
"What do you call that one?" Justin asked incredulously. "God-of-the-dead-form or something?"
"I've only coined the bi-nomenclature for it. Whether that sees publication..."
"…And?"
"Inferi Sententia." the Doctor said.
"Translate."
"Thinking Dead."
"Show me."
"Very well. I should warn you, it's a very disturbing sight to see. But then again, you will never encounter it again as there seems to be only one within the collective at any given time."
"So it's clearly the leader then."
"Yes. You're sure you want to see it?"
"We'll be safe?"
"Of course." the Doctor said, stepping off the raised platform.
Justin followed, and as soon as he took his last step off the center section the staccato rattle of a mirror-symphony filled the room as well as full brightness a fraction of second later. Appearing before the Doctor's footsteps, the ground glowed a bright red, guiding him on a path straight to the massive bay doors in the distance.
"Thought you said you wouldn't be taking me in there, Doctor."
"I've made certain you will only see what I want you to see. You'll understand in a minute."
Justin continued oh his lead, looking around the chamber once more. The giant view screens towering above him all around the circumference were totally dark, displaying nothing. In under a minute, they reached the massive vault.
The Doctor once again keyed his forearm-mounted interface, shouting, "Elias Kleiner, entry access code, gold miner seven, option beta."
A disembodied voice called through hidden speakers, "How are you feeling today, Doctor?"
The Doctor paused momentarily before answering the simple question. "Under the weather. Thank you for asking."
"Access granted. Please proceed."
The Doctor glanced over to Justin as a single klaxon roared in the rear quartile of the cavern, the sound appropriately attenuated and not harsh on the ears. "Almost forgot the second password." he chuckled. "The facility's artificial intelligence, Avanesh. Lord of the underworld in Hindu culture. My eyes and ears here."
"Fancy, Doctor." Justin said dryly.
Kleiner did not reply, looked straight on as the massive blast doors split and slowly opened outward towards them. Justin thought it odd how such massive workings emitted almost no sound when they moved. No creaking, dragging, groaning, just a smooth angular rotation acting upon the hinge pins—as massive as himself. Justin watched as the doors showed their cross section upon reaching 45° angularity, about two meters thick by his guess. Nothing could penetrate that other than some celestial event of epic proportions.
The doors stopped in place, sitting perfectly perpendicular from their rest point.
The Doctor stood in place and regarded Justin for a moment.
"After you, Doctor. You're in the lead."
Kleiner proceeded forward, his bulky armor once again pounding into bedrock as they left the smooth deck of the Doctor's giant command chamber.
Directly ahead of them, another massive portal loomed, this one shielded by a protective blast screen made of a fine-woven metal, reminding Justin much of City 17's gate at the tunnel. "So that's the real classified stuff beyond there?"
"Yes." the Doctor replied. "Follow me to the left."
It was a T-junction they now occupied just inside the cavern's blast doors. A corridor to the left, to the right, and the shielded room to the front. Justin hurriedly followed after the Doctor to the left, once again striding up beside him.
The corridor was long and perfectly straight, very little light emanating from the sconce-like, electroluminescent light panels at regular intervals. They barely shone the way forward. Justin could just about make out the door at the end. It was solid metal, unfathomably thick. The size of a standard door frame, it could easily pass Justin through but he knew the Doctor would have a hard time clearing it in his suit. The security was fairly simple, just a rotary lever-lock. Maybe Justin possessed enough strength to deactivate it, but he wasn't about to try.
Justin felt the air drop a few degrees colder. The taste of it also grew a little stale, like a house that had not been maintained in years, no occupants. The image of layers of dust over antique possessions sprang in Justin's mind at the scent, like a trip he used to take during winters to his grandparents' house in rural Reach. He focused back on the door, merely a few footsteps away now. He was ready to see.
The Doctor used his power suit to wrap both hands around the lever and shoved it counter-clockwise. But he hadn't yet opened it. He glanced sidelong at Justin through a half-shown faceplate. "Don't say I didn't warn you. This may be too much. Let me know if it is, I'll take you out of here."
Justin nodded.
The Doctor pushed open the door and the stale scent saturated Justin's nostrils threefold, the air around him having zero humidity. "Climate controlled." Justin said more to himself, glancing in all directions as he stepped past the threshold. The Doctor was inside momentarily as he had to bend down to get inside it.
The room was dark, Justin could barely see, save for the dim glow beyond a large transparent glass screen. The room he occupied was incredibly small for a sight he surmised was the most important yet. It was an observation room, one way in and one way out. There was nothing to behold but the faint light beyond the window.
The ex-Marine glanced behind him to see the Doctor closing the door shut. He then waited for Kleiner to take his place in the room, wherever that was. Once the typical thudding of his footsteps stopped, Justin realized that place was right next to him, which was a comfort of some sort.
Justin swung his eyes back to the screen in front, nothing much visible beyond it except fine dust lingering in the air and the usual makeup of rocks and boulders and pebbles, the dim glow hardly helping his human vision.
"What are we waiting for, Doc?" Justin shifted his weight precariously.
"Just wait." the Doctor said.
Justin glanced into the side of the Doctor's faceplate. He thought he perceived a smile starting to form at the corner of the scientist's lips. He placed his sight back to the front…
Situated ahead just beyond the window now, throbbing and pulsating, Justin took in the sight of the largest and most frightening creature he'd ever laid eyes on.
He suppressed the urge to jump back if only for the Doctor's presence alone—who exuded no reaction to this creature whatsoever. This was obviously routine for him.
"The leader." Justin said, exhaling a stack of air slowly.
"Quite the sight to see, isn't it?"
"You're absolutely sure we're safe."
"Absolutely." the Doctor said in an instant.
Detecting no hesitation in the Doctor's voice, Justin inched forward. As the glass pane grew larger in size, doubly did the creature looming over him as it advanced to meet Justin there, towering from floor to ceiling, appearing squeezed at the top. Justin, now with his nose practically to the glass, brought his right hand to bear and tapped a knuckle onto the clear plate. He was rewarded with absolutely no sound in report, telling him that this glass pane was incredibly thick. He once again let go of pent-up breath. He examined its many extremities, which had the girth of palm tree stalks, the same brownish-green motif and slick with the moist slime typical of its kin.
But something in the way the monster moved, the rhythmic gyrations of its various tentacles, it told Justin that immense strength was on tap. Why then, had the monster not yet displayed it was a mystery to him. Maybe it already tried that, learned of its futile attempts to escape such imprisonment before. Looking dead ahead now, Justin gazed past all the writhing limbs and saw what could pass for a face, something to connect with. Looking more like a giant clamshell, the partitions of upper and lower mandibles were seen, partially obscured by agitated dust from all the movement in the airtight chamber beyond the glass. The rest of the 'face' was totally invisible if there was one, the eyes merely appearing as twin shadows further back. But the mouth was there. It began to move…
Gibson stirred where he sat. "This isn't right. We're not sticking to the plan. This is wrong."
"What?" Ken said, glancing over with a scorn.
"We should've had weapons in our hands by now! Lot's of 'em!"
"Quit your bitching." Layla shouted. "Justin's still down there in case you haven't been paying attention."
"Listen here, you little bitch—"
Gibson suddenly silenced himself as he became cognizant of a large shadow looming over him. He looked up and saw Joe Hendricksson standing there, towering above, nothing on the man's face, the empty eyes boring into him.
"Hey. I don't know you all that well, but I would advise you to listen to your friends here. You're part of this group now, just like me. Justin is obviously the leader. You should respect that even in his absence."
"Who the Hell are you anyway?" Gibson croaked.
"Who I am is not important. I shouldn't even be alive, which means I'm very thankful to be that way right now. Which also means that I'm not gonna let you fuck up our chances of survival by high-tailing it outta here and pissing off that Doctor! So, SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
Joe walked away.
Gibson glanced at the many faces glancing at him. They were anything but friendly. He mumbled something inaudible into his lap before lying down for more rest.
Once Joe took his seat next to Chris and Bill again, he regarded Gibson briefly before he whispered, "You know, he is kind of right. Justin has been down there pretty long. Wouldn't we have at least heard something by now? Something over the speaker system in this place? This is getting pretty unnerving."
Chris shrugged. So did Bill.
"You guys are no help." Joe chuckled.
"Call me ambitious," Chris said a moment later, "but I think we're about to get a better set of weapons than rockets and guns. The Doctor said he wanted to help us. If he wanted us dead, surely we'd have been that way by now. But…"
"What?" Bill said.
"…I just wonder what the Hell it is they're talking about down there."
To have immortality
It's the question of ages
A choice will be made by all:
Live as fools, live as sages
Defy your Gods here and now
Do not even raise your brow
Consequence is but for fools
Bleed your day and break the rules
The observation room was deathly silent as the mouth stopped moving.
Justin tried to ponder the meaning of the words just spoken by the creature, lending more thought to the voice this time around. It was indeed the same voice that had somehow reached him time and time again. It was never a pleasant experience, but now it was different upon making this introduction. Even though the glass in front was surely soundproof, the words emanating through the room's audio setup conveyed a certain quality to the sound, as if the voice ran through Justin like a wave rather than simply filling his ears. The nausea that usually accompanied the voice was not present as well, making this experience more palatable and thus memorable. Almost every time it invaded his thoughts, the result was total blackout. This was practically a welcomed occurrence with the voice's very source compared to times before.
"What is it trying to say?"
"We've heard such words before. There is no explanation at this time. Its command of our language is astounding nevertheless. One detail that is quite striking is that it will always speak words in iambic septameter. It never fails."
"I could tell you a whole shit load of crazy stuff it's said to me."
The Doctor instantly pivoted to face Justin. "Excuse me?"
"This bastard has quite the vocab. And it's particularly wild to hear it while you're tripping off whatever the Hell's growing at the mine entrance."
"Mr. Reid, are you joking with me right now?"
Justin said straightforwardly, "No. Why would I?"
"You mean to say that this EBE has spoken to you before?"
"Absolutely. No mistaking a voice like that. Same kind of word choice too. But then again, Doctor, I was high. Don't lend too much thought to it, kay?"
"No, this is truly remarkable if what you say is true."
"Of course it's true."
"I must know for certain if this is possible."
"Doctor, I really don't want to stay here too long. I'm gonna take your advice and fortify the shit out of City Seventeen before you open the flood gates years from now."
"Fine, very well. I cannot keep you here, but know that if you offered just a little more of your time, you'd be contributing to perhaps the greatest scientific discovery in over a century!"
"I'm confident you can find a reason for it, Doc. Let's get me and my friends outta here."
"Very well," the Doctor said striding towards the door, "please follow me."
Before Justin complied, he turned to face it one last time, the Doctor standing by the closed hatch.
"Doctor, can it see us?"
Kleiner smiled. "No. The window is one-way."
"You mean, it can't see us, but it can sense us?"
"Amazing, yes?"
"I'm not sure I would call it that."
"It cannot harm you behind there. But, you see, its sensory perception is highly evolved. As large as this creature is in its advanced state, the fungal extremities have attained a highly specialized set of distinct functions. It's probably able to sense you coming from the elevator shaft—it's that sensitive to its environment."
"It shouldn't be allowed to be that evolved."
"And yet, nature took its own course when this EBE came into being."
"How does one kill a superbug like this?"
"That's not on our agenda, Mr. Reid. Our charge is to study it, nothing more."
"Tell me you'll never release this thing onto Traxus Nine like the others. Please."
"Of that, you can be certain of. As smart as it is, it's better off locked up for its entire lifespan, which we also cannot accurately predict at this time."
"Thirteen years of research, Doctor, and you still know very little of your enemy."
"Granted, but don't think of them as our enemy. Yes, they will attempt to assimilate any human and even reanimate the dead, but they could prove to be extremely useful. The Jellyfish, the venomous snakes, and the countless other deadly species in the galaxy all possess some sort of worth to us, a counter-trait that balances out their tendency to inflict harm on us. Imagine what we could learn from just this one EBE."
"Well, here's hoping I never have to see it, or hear from it again. Now, what's this you were saying about surviving?"
"Yes, if you're through here, we'll stock you up with the finest anti-EBE weaponry we currently have. Just don't tell anyone where you got it from, eh?"
"Not a problem."
Doctor Kleiner opened the hatch and Justin spun on his heel, heading out of the room—something happened. A gut feeling inside Justin. The nausea was back. He felt the voice coming again…this time not through loudspeakers.
"Oh my God." Justin involuntarily mumbled. "It's back."
"What is back?" the Doctor furrowed his brow.
Justin slowly knelt to the ground, preparing for another out of body experience that would leave him motionless and incapable of standing like times before.
And then it happened.
More like a chant from a monkish choir of a thousand voices, it hummed…
Do not trust, you must join us. Do not trust, you must join us.
It repeated over and over, a steady rhythm that pounded away at Justin's own inner voice and consciousness. He began to fade away all over again, blackness at the edges of his vision before the Doctor came rushing to.
"What is wrong?" Kleiner asked.
At first, Justin couldn't respond. He had no will power for the moment, but his eyes held some amount of lucidity. He had a vague grasp of the present situation, though all he could really hear was the chanting. Do not trust, you must join us.
"I don't know how to treat you if you don't tell me what's wrong!" the Doctor screamed as he knelt next to Justin.
"Do not trust." Justin whispered, the breath barely escaping his lungs. "You must...j-join us. Do not trust, you must join us!"
An instant later, the voice of the being resounded into the chamber through the loudspeakers, "DO NOT TRUST, YOU MUST JOIN US!"
The Doctor hoisted Justin off the ground with the aid of his power armor and whisked him out of the observation room.