Nicole was in a nightmare.
She wandered a blasted ruin, choked with death. The sky turned to blood. Mushroom clouds from nuclear or antimatter weapons peeked over the horizon. Bodies lined the streets. This was Earth's fate if the Necromorphs prevailed. But that wasn't all.
The landscape looked mechanical. Metal wires snaked up, fusing with some of the corpses. Instead of trees, spires of metal or resin rose into the air, terminating into millions of tiny "branches". And, down the block, biological buildings fused into the shape of a giant Marker.
The place was a Hell partially of her own creation. Being a death-induced dream made it no better. Most of this was frighteningly plausible. Curtis being beside her was the only reason she had to be happy. He passed out and joined her in this horror.
You saved me. That was nothing special, for they helped each other more times than she remembered. This wasn't even the first time he reattached her limbs. Something felt different this time, though. I was close to really dying. I walked to the end of existence and glanced over.
She felt things. Heard voices. She felt happy, with her only regret being that everyone else would perish. The memories were fuzzy, and they quickly faded.
Was that Heaven? she wondered. Just as likely to be a hallucination as the Marker's animating essence drained away. Once, the latter would have been the clear-cut answer. It was grounded in empirical science instead of ancient superstition. Now, the miraculous was commonplace – and almost all the miracles were bad ones. She wanted there to be a place the Necromorphs couldn't reach. By the Markers' admission, they only controlled flesh. Souls, if such existed, were not their domain.
Of course, if a Heaven existed, it stood to reason that there must be a Hell.
That, she had no problem believing in. They stood in it. She and Curtis could change the scenery if they weren't so exhausted.
Tired as the grave, Curtis thought, not intending it to be a joke. They slumped together into the blood-soaked street and drifted into unconsciousness. She hoped that when they woke up for real, it'd be someplace better.
7 Hours, 15 Minutes Post-Sprawl Outbreak
Curtis roused from shallow sleep. His head pounded, though that was luxurious compared to what could have happened. Sitting up, he found himself on the floor of a tram car. Isaac and Ellie glanced his way from their seats.
"Is she OK?" Isaac asked. Sounded like the man had been crying. Nicole sat up a moment later.
"I could be better, but I could also be way, way worse." The engineer didn't move or get up to hug her or anything. He was too tired. They all were. Curtis checked the time to find that he'd only slept for a few minutes. Not much more to be done about exhaustion.
24 hours exactly elapsed from beginning to end of the Ishimura's Necromorph outbreak. They were less than a third of the way done if that remained true. Maybe they'd find caffeine pills.
He shakily stood up, feeling the train rock under his boots. To his surprise, everything looked perfectly clear – the "damage" to his eyes must have merely been tears that fogged his vision. There was nothing to say about the gondola, for he'd been on it hundreds of times. What drew his attention were the sights outside the windows.
Normally, the space train hurtled through myriad environments: through tunnels, over buildings, even through gaps of void, all in service of reaching its next destination. That remained true, yet the sights took on a gruesome appearance. Smoke drifted from dead husks of skyscrapers while massive tentacles snaked around whatever still stood. A malignant mass ate away at this great work, reducing it to a symbol of decay. It was practically the vision he and Nicole shared of a dead city being broken down and digested.
"Is it weird that I find this morbidly fascinating?" Ellie asked as she stared out.
"Not at all," Curtis said, taking a seat. He expected his back and legs to ache more than they did. "It's something nobody ever imagined except horror authors."
"Yeah…" They looked out again, unable to turn away from the panorama of carnage that got worse the more they looked at it. The environment seemed to subtly shift. Curtis didn't know if the meat moved or if residual hallucinations played with his perception. At least Nicole's phantom and the Shadow Man were gone.
Another piece of good news: there weren't many Necromorphs nearby. Most had been swept up in the wave that threatened to overwhelm them, and those troops were now left chasing the train. Some remained, though it was a significantly smaller number. With luck (which he didn't count on), they'd leave without a problem and not need to worry about such a huge threat chasing them. Even if GovSec was completely infected, it had less biomass than the Public Sector.
The car rumbled to a halt, and the doors opened. He recognized the desolate station through blood and bone – this was a wealthy residential area, as evinced by a doll half-buried in unliving tar. This was the last stop; afterwards, they'd be on the home stretch to the Shard.
Curtis imagined ghosts getting on and off the train, eating fried soy or reading the news on holographic screens. These echoes of people pantomimed shadows of their former lives. Maybe they could find some peace. Maybe we can, too.
If we do, it won't be today, Nicole thought, finally getting up. The floor was as comfortable as anything to her. The doors shut. As they did, Curtis noticed something he hadn't before.
"Where's Nolan?" he asked. Ellie pointed to the front of the car, which bordered the next. Curtis looked over, finding Nolan hunched behind the last chair in the row. He existed in that strange, liminal space where people could stand on the train. Couldn't imagine anyone doing that unless the seats were filled up, though.
"I wouldn't talk to him," Isaac cautioned. "He's, uh, having a moment." That was probably a good idea. Still, Curtis wanted to make sure he hadn't been hurt.
"Are you OK?" he asked, maintaining a healthy distance. Curtis was smart enough to know that Nolan might pounce if he felt cornered.
Nolan didn't snap at him, though. The man turned to empty air, as if screaming at a distant god. "Stop staring at me!" he shouted. "Stop watching me! I know you're all out there, enjoying what you see! Is our suffering some kind of joke to you?!" Bloodshot eyes stared through the visor. The scientist didn't know what he said, and his insanity would switch to a different target soon enough. For now, though, he believed that invisible spectators "watched" all this for their own amusement, as if this were a novel that they were all characters in.
A ridiculous notion, of course. Or maybe he's talking to the ghosts.
Nolan kept gnashing at the "readers" for a few minutes more, chastising them for being entertained by a world of suffering and death. He wasn't hostile to Curtis, Nicole, Ellie or Isaac (or himself), so he didn't see a reason for him to not rant at the air. He tuckered himself out after a little while and sat back down. Much as he tried to ignore it, the tension ratcheted up a notch. How much longer would it be before Nolan stopped fixating on imaginary readers and attacked the real people in front of him?
Curtis didn't think about that too long, though, since the train came to a sudden, screeching halt.
"Obstruction in the tunnel ahead," the tram's AI declared. He almost forgot it existed, because it was only programmed with a couple stock phrases, like telling people to clear the door area or to move to the nearest chair. Those became background noise when said enough times. "Remain calm; an engineer will be dispatched to resolve the blockage."
Isaac sighed. He didn't want to deal with this right now.
"Everyone should come with me," he said. "Splitting up is a bad idea, and there's no telling how long this'll take without seeing the problem."
Yeah. No way they'd leave Nolan by himself. "Before that, though, give me a minute to make sure the train doesn't leave before we get back inside." Great idea. These things ran automatically unless a human took the helm, so their ride would leave the second the tunnel cleared! "I'll go to the front and set that up."
"Or…" Curtis reached over and pulled the emergency brake, which could also be disabled from the front once they came back. "This works, too."
They pried the doors open and hopped off. The track was above the train in most parts of the Sprawl, and this was no exception. That left them almost up to their waists in Corruption. Another couple hours, and the train wouldn't be able to move. Neither will we.
For the moment, they had enough space to wade through the flesh, much as it tried to bog them down. Little cilia on the surface fluctuated, their purpose a mystery. Maybe there wasn't one other than to freak out the humans. At least there weren't eyeballs…
They didn't need to go far to reach the front, and the complication was clear once they did. A gigantic appendage smashed through the wall and covered the track! The knotted tentacle was as big around as the tram, so cutting through it would be impossible with the munitions they had. He saw countless examples of these things as they trekked through the city, though it somehow never occurred to him that one might hinder them.
They were stuck. That normally would have filled him with despair, but he was at rock bottom to begin with, never mind that Nicole didn't die. There must have been a solution.
"Well… fuck," Isaac muttered, letting everyone know he couldn't fix it with their limited time. The Necromorph armada still chased them after being left in the dust.
"What if we follow this thing back to its source?" Curtis asked, eyeing the object as it gently pulsated. "There might be a way to destroy it."
"I was thinking the same thing," Ellie said. "I have no idea if it'll work, but it's the only idea we have… unless there's one I don't know about." Nobody said anything, so that was a good assumption.
There was a gap between the tendril and the wall it burst through just large enough to squeeze through one at a time. Curtis went first, feeling disgusted as his helmet pressed against the meat. The arm, or whatever controlled it, wanted to squish him. It gently tapped against him, not doing anything because it didn't have the space to gain momentum, and retracting would clear the way for the train to leave. The others piled through, equally disturbed by this new development.
Is this part of a bigger creature? he wondered, shuddering at the idea.
He'd encountered some truly titanic Necromorphs: the Spider/Slug, the Leviathan, and, most recently, the Boss. However, those were only able to reach such sizes because they developed in zero-gravity environments. The largest beasts he'd seen designed to withstand gravity were the Graverobber and Tripods. Those stood just small enough to not be hindered by their own masses.
Maybe, Nicole conceded. I can sense something big deeper in. Smarter. "Smarter" was always worse when it came to their enemies. Bigger Necromorphs were smarter than smaller ones because every cell functioned as a miniature brain. Of course, they could still make mistakes. That was what he counted on.
They found themselves in a ruined street. "Ruined" was too generous a word, actually. That implied nature took its course, while this was anything but natural. It was a jungle of collagen and muscle. The road itself remained free of Corruption because of a noxious mixture of water from burst pipes and chemicals from military vehicles, which had been split open and had their munitions spilled everywhere. It reminded him of the alien's spit with how much it clung to his boots. Unfortunately, that was the least upsetting thing around.
This area of the Sprawl was for more well-to-do people, particularly government employees. Instead of being a low room crushed by projecting buildings, the surroundings included a vaulted glass ceiling to simulate a more natural environment. Still no trees – the fabled plant Necromorphs evaded them for the time being. That provided more space for facsimile trees of blood and gore to grow, instead. Lampposts provided their skeleton as "branches" reached skyward. The military convoy, made up of at least 20 APCs and tanks, still smoldered despite a light rain from the sprinklers (another reason for the flooded streets).
The number of dead from those alone must have been well over 100, to say nothing of the civilians inside these husks of houses. The war in Heaven above ended in a draw. However, the debris lingered, reminiscent of ash.
Curtis didn't believe in premonition (though it would have been perfectly sensible to a telepath), yet this was eerily like the nightmare he and Nicole shared. The odor of toxic death was practically identical, too. He was afraid of what they'd find that he didn't imagine. The only good news was that the path remained clear; the appendage snaked down the street, getting gradually thicker.
"I'm pretty sure there's going to be another ambush ahead," Nicole croaked. She still quivered, not having fully recovered from her leg and head being torn off. "I feel something being planned." Curtis did, too. An intelligence beyond his understanding plotted a couple blocks away. It wasn't a matter of pure smarts, either; Nicole also had a tough time figuring out what it devised. "It might be some organic form of encryption," she posited, "or perhaps it's thinking of so many things at once that I can't parse it."
"Any specifics at all?" Isaac asked. She shook her head.
"Um, they know we're coming to get that tentacle out of the way." To even Curtis' surprise, she smiled. "The good news is that there aren't as many Necromorphs. I can't provide an estimate, but maybe a number we can conceivably defeat."
"And the bad news is that we're pretty much out of ammo," Ellie interjected, not as thrilled about their chances. Crap, Curtis forgot about that. They burned through most of their stock on the crawler to fend off the undead legions. Plasma, fire and bullets worked against them (as long as one knew where to aim), but it took monumental quantities to make much of a difference. Curtis could have used the Line Racks he'd consumed in the last seven hours to cut a comet in half. There wasn't enough fuel on the station to cleave through them all.
Thankfully, that problem had a clear enough solution. The military vehicles still held their surplus, and nobody else used it. They might've had a few minutes to collect the goods; not treading on Corruption meant the Marker lacked a precise idea of their location.
Everybody (except Nolan, who stuck with Ellie) picked a truck to loot. In short order, they assembled enough to replace what they'd used. These came from backup units of niche military weapons; EarthGov mostly used projectile stuff, regardless of the energy weapons common in the vids. Gabe said good old bullets were more economical and effective, especially at longer ranges. Those had already been seized by the gun-toting Necromorphs these soldiers became.
Curtis only hoped that few of them had been outfitted with stasis modules.
As they continued, he mused about how ineffective the military turned out to be against the unknown. He'd already dwelled on that fact, but it clashed so heavily with the propaganda depicting them as invincible. Every year, there was some new big-budget film or TV series with EarthGov funding about evil aliens finally making contact and the might of humanity's protectors beating the invaders back. When the day few believed would ever come arrived, they proved to be woefully underprepared. Should have spent less money on slick production.
One last corner, he knew. The tentacle lifted into the air, wrapped around entire structures to support its girth.
"Well, this is it." That was all he said as the five rounded the turn to find out what they faced.
A giant mass stuck out from an apartment building. The hole blown in it by Necromorphs or perhaps a misfired mortar became the throne of this meat sphere 50 feet in diameter. Curtis never saw anything quite like it. Despite being the closest thing humanity had to an expert on Necromorphs, he knew so little. He'd fought them for less than 36 hours since all this began a few years prior. He still saw new things like this, which blew his mind.
The top of it was wrinkled and textured like a brain, though that was surely a creepy coincidence. The rest looked mottled, as if mold grew across the surface. A beak of bone jutted out the underside, lightly tapping like someone smacking their lips. In the center was a single misshapen eyeball as big as Curtis. Yellow and full of rheum, it unblinkingly stared down at them. What did we just get ourselves into?
7 Hours, 30 Minutes Post-Sprawl Outbreak
Nicole's mind worked overtime to figure out the capabilities of the behemoth before them. Not an easy task when it looked gazed down with the same enthusiasm a drug addict observed a line of Colony Blue. It was too large to move in this gravity, so it needed to remain sessile. Must have served some other purpose, then, for the Markers didn't waste precious biomass. She was at a loss as to the specifics. Her four eyes met its single oculus.
Nicole thought it would say something, be it mockery or an explicit threat. It didn't, though; the only thing to happen was its curiosity being piqued. Of course, that interest didn't mean it intended to let them leave. The thing released a deep psychic growl to summon soldiers to its side. They leapt to attention and charged toward the fray.
"Get ready to be converged on in about five seconds!" she shouted, taking cover behind a collapsed façade. The others followed suit. Nolan was especially enthusiastic about not being exposed; he pressed himself to the ground and curled into the fetal position, for all the good that would do. It's better than him running away.
They'd fought in the streets before, but not in a more open area. This was genuine urban warfare, the kind that usually involved bursting into houses and killing whoever dwelled inside. In this case, there was only one entity they really needed to kill.
Gunfire roared over their heads, and the bullets pinged off a wall ahead of them. Bullets used on space stations were specifically designed to not pierce too much, lest they blow a hole in the hull. They'd still be enough to shred RIGs with sustained fire. She almost dared to hope a group of regular people survived and only shot at them by mistake, yet she knew in her heart they came from Shamblers. Those EarthGov soldiers must have stayed close. She was no longer able to predict their actions with this telepathic jammer stuck into the side of a wall. More could sneak up on them at any moment. It became a matter of taking out this creature first.
She saw no obvious way to do that. They had enough ammunition to sever most of its tendrils, she believed, but it'd take an hour to saw through them all. They didn't have that kind of time.
Unrelatedly, it also occurred to her that others of its kind existed; there must have been nine or 10 scattered around the Sprawl based on the number of tentacles they observed earlier.
The sounds of guns got louder, indicating that the Shamblers approached, to say nothing of whatever else guarded this meatball. Curtis popped his head out to take shots at the forces, which also included Fodder and a Pregnant. They were about 50 feet away, and they advanced by degrees, taking cover when possible and falling forward in order. This unsettled Nicole, for it showed more organizational skills than they normally possessed.
Her kith weren't stupid (for the most part), but they didn't usually display much tactical knowledge. They didn't need to when their crushing numbers enabled them to strike with unimaginable power. Now, though, they became a scalpel without the reserves to form the hammer. That was strange.
Almost as strange as the body that smashed into the ground in front of her. The wet crack signified that the jumper broke most, if not all, of the bones in her legs. That barely fazed her, of course; the Slasher sprang up on her claws and tried to thrash forward. Two dozen Swarmers leapt off their ride and flowed towards Curtis; Ellie got them all with a blast of fire. The Slasher went down with one shot from Nicole's Plasma Cutter analogue and a flash of her claws, which each took off an arm.
She looked up at the top of the wrecked building, which leaned against the one to its right. Looked to have been six stories tall to start, though that height had been reduced to five. It'd have been a bigger threat if the roof was closer to the ground. As it was, the Necromorphs would take more damage coming down that they'd inflict on their enemies. Unless they land on us.
Dive-bombing wasn't something she wanted to worry about, though. She'd rather focus on the threats right in front of them. We might not have a choice if the monsters get more creative! Curtis thought while cutting a Fodder in half at the hips. He'd forgotten that caused the top half to fall off, so the legs continued to march with barbed tentacles sticking out! It took more shots from Isaac to finish the job, which involved leaving plasma burns on the ground. All the while, the blob leered at them from above.
Curtis thought it might be a good idea to shoot the giant orb to take it down a peg. Nicole disagreed. Despite glowing and otherwise looking like a weak point, blinding it would do little good. It wasn't the one directly attacking them, and even if it was, myriad feelers and Necromorphs let it know where they were.
"What are we supposed to do, then?!" he shouted, trying his best to not sound desperate. Hated to say it, but she didn't know! The only way to stop it without blowing off multiple giant limbs was to squash the central torso binding them together…
There was a way to do that, she realized. Though it still wouldn't be easy, it only required a fraction of the time and ammunition of their initial idea.
"I think I know what to do!" Nicole barked at Curtis, Isaac and Ellie, with Nolan being a non-factor. Curtis already knew, of course. "Ellie, go back to the convoy and grab the fuel canisters!" She ran off without question. "Isaac, I know we're in a tight spot right now, but I need you to stop shooting and really look at the building to find weak points!"
He instantly caught onto the plan, such that it was, and focused on scoping out any major flaws. Nicole suspected that'd be easy with its dire state – there was a giant hole with a blob monster sticking out! His engineering skills let him decipher the best places to hit for maximum impact, however.
That left her and Curtis to fend off the Necromorph… army? More like a militia with their current numbers and the fact they used guns. That was always a challenge, and the zombies' uncanny tactics made it more difficult. Taking cover and laying down fire as their brethren advanced wasn't something she'd expect from them. Nicole wondered whether the Marker drew from the corpus of human military tactics, if it invented them independently, or if the Marker "race" had its own playbook of contingencies. The landscape also favored their foes, with cracks in buildings and the street allowing them to be ambushed from myriad directions.
The good news was that she and her husband possessed a level of skill and trust that nobody else did. Hive mind or not, these Necromorphs were newborns, only a few hours old. The two of them had years to master their abilities. Plus, the good guys were the ones stalling for once. They didn't need to destroy all their enemies – just the big one.
A Shambler's gun was cut in half with expert precision. The Pregnant's belly was split open; the Lurker that burrowed out of the green flesh was greeted with another blast before its tentacles unfurled. A mine fired into a chokepoint exploded, and gore rained down on the whole block. Still got it, she thought, almost smiling.
She heard running footsteps behind her, glancing back to find Ellie jogging with a stack of canisters in her hand and one strapped to her back on the spare weapon rack. Must have lugged several hundred pounds of explosives! Nicole cringed; she nearly shot before looking, being so focused on killing. Same detonation, just in the wrong place. Let's not tell her that, Curtis thought.
Ellie stumbled, and the top tank she carried rolled off the pile. Isaac grabbed it with kinesis before it hit the ground. Curtis let out a nervous laugh. The cylinder was tough enough to survive a little fall. Knowing EarthGov, though, she didn't want to press their luck. The woman took shelter with the rest of them. Nolan didn't move an inch, but his chest gently rose and fell. Either he was too scared to move, or he trusted them enough that he put in no effort to survive whatsoever.
She didn't know which was worse.
Nicole coughed a couple of pebbles from her lungs before beginning to speak. "I think you all figured out my idea, but here it is: we're going to shoot these tanks at structural flaws in the building." The ground shook as something fell over nearby, though not what they wanted.
"A few good booms, and the whole thing comes down on the Amazing Colossal Brain," Ellie interjected. That was the idea. Meanwhile, Isaac had picked up one of the tanks, which were emblazoned with skulls and the chemical hazard symbol. He read the fine print near the base, which had partially rubbed off on a few.
"The primary chemical is nitrogen trichloride," he muttered. "Good, that's potent enough."
"Do you know where we need to hit?" Curtis asked. A Leaper fell at their feet; it took barely more than a second for four skilled hunters to tear it apart like he wanted to do to them.
"There's no way to be sure unless I see the interior, but there's a large crack in the lower façade. That's a load-bearing area." Nicole glanced into the warzone, and she saw the fissure of which he spoke. One in the hole might be sufficient? "We can try other locations if this isn't enough."
Curtis picked up a container with kinesis. His skin ran slick with sweat beneath the armor, which protected them all while also feeling flimsy as paper at times. There wasn't a particular reason for him to be the one to throw it. None cared for glory or recognition, even among the rest of them. He just ended up being the one to grab it first. Despite being distant, the fracture was large enough to comfortably hit with any of their skills.
An explosion tore across the building as the NCl3 combusted. The blob made a noise for the first time: a garbled groan as some of its girth was caught in the blast. Meat smoldered, adding to the toxic fumes. In fact, noxious gas hung heavy in the foul air. EarthGov might have used it for riot control or as a deadly strain of chemical weapon. Either way, it was harmless to things that didn't breathe.
Everyone else, however, waited with bated breath within their private air supplies. The structure shuddered… but it didn't fall. Fuck. She and Curtis thought the word as one.
"We're onto the next one, then," Isaac grimly said. Nicole figured it wouldn't be so straightforward.
"Let's get around to another side," she suggested. Ellie already grabbed Nolan and hauled him along. "We can't carry all these tanks, though!" Moving them in a straight line was one thing. Hauling the same objects through alleys while needing to have weapons ready was quite another.
Curtis, Isaac and Ellie could fit exactly one on their backs each. Not much, but it'd be enough to bring down the house. I hope.
Suddenly, a blade stuck through a window of the apartment complex that the Slasher jumped from before. A head emerged. Then more did from other windows, these ones close enough to the ground to fall from without too much damage. Necromorphs of all types looked at them as if they were bothering these upstanding citizens. Regardless of how different they looked, all shared the same disgust for the living and everything else that refused to bend to their patterns.
They took off, unsure of where they went. Had to scramble through the tightly packed structures and hope they found the right one; just because it used to be a nice neighborhood didn't mean it had a better layout than the rest of the Sprawl! Of course, it was anything but upscale now, no matter how impressive the bake sales or whatever used to be.
Though the streets were clear, the alleys bloated with Corruption thicker than any she'd yet seen – it was deep enough to drown in. The substance swelled up, swallowing everything in its path. The only reasons they got through were the fire escapes lining each wall. Sort of an archaic feature with modern advancement in fire suppression technology (not that any of it proved useful now), but it seemed they still had a use. She kicked chairs and tables out of the way, where they were gobbled by the greedy ground.
Like all the others, it wished these baubles were the real prize: them. Instead, it'd have to settle for illegal porch decorations and scraps of metal. It was hungry, and it would be until they fell into its maw.
She and Isaac mastered the jungle gym at the playground where they escaped the Tripod. This was an extension of that agility lesson. They vaulted across gaps and sunk their fingers into cracks between bricks. When footholds weren't available, they kicked their own. She felt like a professional athlete in some kind of obstacle course. Adrenaline pumped through her husband, and not in the way caused by fear. Meanwhile, she felt her mandibles almost pull into a grin.
They had genuine fun. It would have been even more enjoyable if the stakes weren't life and death.
Turned to the left on what she believed to be the home stretch. There was no light at the end of this tunnel, though the Corruption thinned with the presence of more water and chemicals. She fell to the back – may have been the swiftest, but that also meant she got to observe everything. If anyone got into trouble, she'd be able to catch them. That made her proud.
Until she slipped.
Something broke off in her grasp, or her talons lost their grip on a slick rung. It didn't matter as she hurtled into the hungry mouth. There was barely time to be scared.
The fall stopped as quickly as it started. She paused about five feet from the gristle pool, which was none the wiser that it nearly had an appetizer. Someone had her by the ankle, and it wasn't Curtis. Twisted her neck to see who saved her. To her surprise, it was Nolan.
He looked down with concern. Despite his emaciation, the RIG provided him just enough strength to keep a grip on her and the catwalk he hung from. Still, it wasn't easy; his bicep and brachialis trembled. That made her scramble up him and stand on relatively solid ground before helping the man up. It wasn't until then that the force or her brush with death hit her. Not particularly hard, for she'd tasted it a hundred times before.
Curtis was sorry he couldn't be there for her, but it didn't really matter. All was well that ended well; they sort of had to take that view, given how many times something bad almost happened. Hell, she came closer to death than ever only 30 minutes prior. Yet she couldn't focus on such things, given the task at hand. The two swung down and landed by the rest. Curtis gave only a slight look of concern, whereas Ellie and Isaac didn't realize anything happened.
She only knew this was the right place because of the tentacles jutting out from the back, much like they did from the front. However, Nicole's attention was drawn to the edge of the space station, which this neighborhood abutted, being the last stop on the train line.
The concave wall was studded with windows, through which she saw a familiar chunk of gray stone. No larger than her closed fist from this distance – amazing how perspective worked. Also spotted a line of metal and plastic which ran from several hundred yards upspin to the Government Sector. The Ishimura had docked at the Crossover Tube, now a husk of its former self. Not that she cared about it much after all that happened.
"There!" Isaac shouted, pointing at another deep crevice in the masonry, about halfway up. Without question, Ellie took the tank off her back and grabbed it with kinesis. Took just a second to aim, then she fired while the rest ran back a few feet.
A wave of septic dust washed over them as another part of the structure went out. The yellow fireball incinerated whatever it hit, reducing Corruption to ash. The building barely held together: clefts cut across, and the roof sagged in the middle. The giant monster's mind buzzed with activity, though Nicole had no idea what (if any) emotions it felt.
Still, the Necromorphs came at them from the left and right. Behind them was the Sprawl's end. The only way out was through cracks created by the explosion. It may have been good that the building was not reduced to a pile of rubble that blocked their path.
"OK, everyone into the death-hole!" Ellie shouted, being the first one to squeeze in. Certainly not afraid of the unknown. Nicole cringed – that wasn't the kind of phrasing she used, though nothing about it could be called wrong. Nolan was back to looking nervous, so Nicole had to shove him in and hope he kept going. Isaac followed, his eyes lingering on them before he did. She and Curtis would take the back.
This almost felt like the time to make a dramatic speech, or at least declare to the other that they'd make it. No time for either, though, and they already knew those things. What leapt between them was a sensation of love and warmth. Then Curtis crawled into the death-hole.
It could be a dead end. Necromorphs might approach them from this angle. So much as breathing on something wrong had the potential to knock down the house of cards and crush them all. One day, they'd try something stupid like this and stop getting lucky.
She was close behind… as were the undead that gushed out of the alleys and made a beeline for them. They wouldn't waste time squeezing through, of course. From least to greatest (for some were more equal than others), sheer force was the preferred solution to problems. Hard to argue with that logic when the combined strength of a thousand super-strong bodies hitting something simultaneously had cleared obstacles before.
The roof of the tunnel shook as she thought that. A rain of pebbles fell, and the world shuddered. Even if it killed the giant, it'd also get rid of them. No such luck, though. The creatures either need to circle around to the front or put their shoulders into it.
The passage emptied into a wrecked room. A broken window let her see the side of the building they approached from, so they'd gone all the way through. Considering she hadn't seen any other rooms at all, the interior had been well and truly devastated, with them crawling through rubble. Another massive appendage jutted through the roof. The thing sat above them. Its thoughts almost deafened her, yet it didn't acknowledge any of them.
A pit in her gut formed when she saw something outside that rapidly came their way. Guttural bellows awoke memories of her being burned that she had almost forgotten.
A particularly large Brute charged at them on all fours. She rapidly gained speed; in a few seconds, she'd amass enough momentum to do what hundreds of her smaller relatives couldn't accomplish. They'd all be crushed unless they stopped her, something not even a mine from Curtis' Line Gun – their strongest weapon – was able to do. Running the other way would lead them directly into that platoon.
Nicole was on the verge of a panic attack. The other near disasters primed her to lose it. Her lungs pumped, and any other vestigial remnants of organs shuddered within her body of cartilage and muscle. Unless they whipped something up quickly, it –
Nolan tore the NCl3 tank off Isaac's back. Nicole instinctually raised her Cutter, ready to put plasma between his ribs. She hated to compromise her oath and morals, but Curtis was right. If someone snapped and tried to kill them, they had no choice but to blow the attacker away. Had it finally come to this?
No madness was in his eyes, though. In fact, he seemed as sane as any of them, though that varied by the minute. He held the cylinder while pointing outdoors. Oh. Everyone else had been so scared that they missed an obvious fix.
"Thank you," Curtis said, taking the canister with kinesis. Nolan nodded; Nicole didn't know if he realized what he'd done for them. She couldn't always assume the worst about him… just like she couldn't assume the best.
The Brute was close enough to hear the thudding of her fists against the floor. Curtis aimed and shot. Her shoulders relaxed a little the instant the tube sailed through the air. Brutes had a difficult time when they got to a full gallop, so it'd hit. And, in a way, it did.
Nicole's cousin snatched the cylinder using one giant fist, slowing the impact enough to not make it kindle. That made her skid to a halt. Smugness oozed like an aura around her; now she was the one with the weapon.
It won't do you any good. Nicole tried to communicate with her individually, which proved difficult with all the interference. Her estranged relative smugly asked why that was – their side held all the cards. Yeah, but my ex is holding a gun that shoots a substance hot enough to ignite almost anything.
The Necromorphs here may have been smarter, but they were still very possible to dupe. Nicole bought Isaac the couple of seconds he needed to aim at the exposed part of the container that was mostly covered by a giant mitt.
Subdued alarm was the only thing Nicole felt before the Brute went up in smoke. She may not have been worthy of Convergence, but she gave everything to try and stop the Marker's enemies. The Necromorphs had no martyrs, but those who were completely destroyed in battle may have been the closest approximation. No part of them would exist in whatever new world the Marker desired to enact. That was OK, because she and her friends made sure none of them got it.
No time for celebration, even as she stared at the smoldering crater where the juggernaut previously stood. The larger giant remained unslain, and they only had one more bottle of nitrogen trichloride to make that happen.
"Nice shot," Curtis said as they broke through the apartment's flimsy door and ended up in a dilapidated hallway.
"I was only able to take it because Nolan had the idea, not to mention whatever you did to distract it," Isaac demurred. Interesting that he knew the two of them delayed the Brute, despite not saying anything. He had a knack for insight that didn't require a psychic Bond.
They reached a set of crumbling stairs; half of them caved in, and the remaining half didn't look much better. Being slow wasn't an option, though. More Brutes, Tripods or other big guns might have been on the way. The building continued to rumble from the constant slamming against one side. It became clear that the militia wouldn't topple this tower. Sure, they were strong, but their force diffused across a whole wall rather than being concentrated into a smaller area. That'd transfer more kinetic energy.
The ringing in her head reached its apex when they climbed a couple of floors, and she knew exactly why. A glance through a sagging doorway revealed the octopus-like monster. Its sole eye twisted around to almost look at them. It knew they were there, and it couldn't stop trying to watch. If they had more canisters left, chucking them all at the blob may have been more efficient. As it was, though, they'd see the plan through. We'll keep climbing. At least it was a pretty short structure, being contained within the atmospheric dome.
The air on the roof was just as nasty and choked with soot as inside. She craned her neck to see the ceiling was still a good 20 feet above them, so the detonation shouldn't have risked the biggest atmosphere venting yet. Nicole then turned her sights to the horizon. In the same chamber, fires smoldered and rapidly decreased the oxygen. It was replaced with a thin green haze of methanol and other flammable organic gasses. That probably contributed to the explosions packing more of a punch than she expected.
Outside this little bubble, the universe continued to unravel. Fires and silent explosions reigned across the Sprawl. She saw the debris of a spaceship plummet to the station, maybe a mile away. Tendrils like the roots of a tree strangled everything in their paths. It occurred to her that they may have belonged to beings like the one beneath them. Except those ones were even bigger. Curtis recoiled in horror. The largest ones would make everything else they'd seen so far look like one of the puny fish from earlier next to a shark. It was impossible to comprehend the devastation, and they only saw a fraction of it from this angle.
Millions were dead in hours. This was what the Markers would do to all life if they got the chance. White-hot rage flared in Nicole's chest; felt like she marinated in her own body while every thought became tinged with antipathy. It had been a while since she'd felt this way about how powerless they were against something that, while not a god, dwarfed them in power.
I AM SORRY.
She knew that. The Black Marker's sympathy didn't help, but maybe some strings it pulled behind the scenes did, as did the crumbs of information it provided. It's all right. You're doing more than most.
Ellie slammed the final canister onto the center of the roof while Nicole wrapped up her mental conversation. "This a good spot?" she asked Isaac.
"It should be." He shook his head. "Then again, this place has stood up to more than I thought. If this doesn't bring it down, we might be in trouble." Nicole saw a few of the containers abandoned at their first position, but they were too far away to grab with kinesis. Necromorphs swarmed the base of the building on all sides, wanting a piece of the action. Curtis remembered a scene like this from a zombie vid.
How would they get down when the apartment block (hopefully) collapsed? Jumping and slowing themselves with kinesis would be a death sentence; they'd be mobbed the second they hit the ground. The only sensible option was leaping to the roof of a shorter building. Thankfully, there was one adjacent to them. Everybody agreed that was the best idea.
"You all can jump now," Curtis said, unable to keep his eyes off what waited beneath. "We won't be able to shoot the tank from that angle, so I'll plant a mine and follow right behind you."
"I'm staying, too, then," Nicole said. Her husband would probably be OK, yet she wasn't willing to take the chance. Something could go wrong.
…
Everything fell apart. The "skies" were filled with smoke and fire. The dead rose to scream at the living, crying out for new bodies. Fragile minds crumbled; Nolan crawled away to bash his head against the concrete, mumbling something incomprehensible. None of this surprised him. It barely even scared him anymore, barring curveballs that were sometimes tossed his way. Mostly, it made him sad and angry.
It almost seemed inevitable that this happened… but it wasn't predestined. The Marker could stop its… its genocide whenever it wanted. That made it worse, somehow.
Ellie scooped up Nolan, who kept thrashing and gnashing his teeth. "Fuck this." She didn't bother to whisper; the man was in no state to be offended by harsh words. It almost sounded like she was all right with letting him die. The Marker must have wanted her to. But he also couldn't dismiss that everyone had the right to be upset – he was, after all – and that Nolan didn't help, even though the way he acted was not his fault.
Curtis nearly sighed in relief once they were over the edge, along with Isaac. The end of the world was hard enough – people being angry at each other, however justified, made it worse.
It's hard, Nicole thought, wrapping an arm around him for physical and moral support. Her mind opened as she showed Curtis memories from her time as a doctor. She'd done that before to demonstrate the work she wished she were still able to do. This time, though, the recollections were less positive.
A patient screamed at him… her after a terminal leukemia diagnosis. A person wailed as their baby, grown in a vat for nine months, suddenly expired because of an undetected chromosomal deletion. Children threatened her with malpractice lawsuits because their father, gray matter ravaged by Alzheimer's, no longer remembered them. A man became so traumatized that he couldn't speak when she told him his husband would be intubated for the rest of his life after six hours on the operating table. These incidents didn't happen every day, yet they were common enough that Nicole dreaded the next one. Curtis always knew her job was difficult, yet he never thought about this aspect.
How did you deal with that? he asked, jittery from the secondhand memories.
I always reminded myself of two things: that I was doing important work, and that people are often at their lowest during stressful situations. She shook her head. That's fine most of the time, but not here. To save the universe, they needed to care about each other.
That seemed like a tall order, but it really wasn't. Curtis and Nicole fell in love. Lexine and Gabe became his best friends. Schneider had pulled them out of the fire many more times than he needed to. All these things happened after knowing them for less than a day. War brought them together in a way nothing else could. He felt confident that'd remain true… it'd even let Nicole and Isaac reconnect after years apart.
Speaking of Isaac, he shouted, "Are you coming?!" from below. The words were almost lost in the din of noises he could barely describe.
"We are!" Nicole shouted back. Curtis tensed up, shot a mine next to the NCl3 tube (he burned through less ammo than he expected here) and sprinted to the edge. Nicole waited at the bottom.
A shockwave propelled him forward, and the noise that came with it made his head ring like a bell. He saw himself jumping off a building with a fireball at his back through Nicole's eyes. It looked like something out of an action vid. For just a moment, he felt like a hero.
Then he hit the ground chest-first, making his landing a big belly flop. "Ow," he wheezed as the wind was knocked out of him. Nicole's mind flared in alarm, but he didn't believe he broke anything. Rolled onto his back to see if they succeeded. Indeed, the building groaned, sagging in on itself as blast damage and melting heat worked together to bring it down. His wife helped him up, but they needed to stay in case more demolition work needed to be done.
Thankfully not.
Curtis expected it to be gradual, with each floor collapsing a few seconds apart, but it was practically instantaneous. Everything fell into its own footprint, leaving enough dust to fill the dome with a sandstorm.
The giant monster was pulled down, too. It didn't put up a struggle, though there was nothing to be done when it could barely move. Until the end, it seemed to have no idea what unfolded around it. Then its signal ceased, which Nicole found refreshing. A weighted blanket rose from her shoulders. Of course, the other Necromorphs were just fine. They'd only die once the Golden Marker had been knocked on its ass.
Good news: all its tentacles had been retracted somewhat by its main girth being dislodged. Bad news: they needed to get back to the train through an enraged army (though that was nothing new). At least we were smart enough to park the train before we left. Every movement hurt as he turned away from the demolition zone.
Getting back to the train wasn't as eventful as Curtis expected. Oh, it was tense. They needed to sneak by patrols of Necromorphs, but the cover they got from the dust storm helped. Strange that the battleground suddenly became a blasted desert. The Necromorphs got turned around in the unfamiliar terrain, and the big one dying threw them off their game. To his amazement, they managed to sneak out of the room without firing a shot thanks to parkour skills, quick thinking and good luck. Nolan had to be muffled a time or two, but they pulled it off. In the corridor back to the station, it seemed like nobody had gone to sabotage the tram, which confused him.
The Marker thinks we're still hiding somewhere in there, Nicole thought as they softly padded along. The Necromorphs want to box us in and resort to attrition again. Curtis felt himself smirk. Felt nice to pull one over on the Marker after how hard it screwed them before.
It learned the truth the second their feet touched the Corruption in the subway tube. He heard echoes of the relic realizing its mistake and ordering its forces elsewhere. By that point, though, it was too late. They stomped to the locomotive, pulled themselves aboard and deactivated the emergency brake. They pulled away before their enemies got even halfway.
Then, and only then, could everyone fall to the floor at once and breathe a collective sigh of relief so deep that it used practically all the oxygen in the cabin. Curtis felt a tingle like the first hit of a stimulant. They had finally escaped the Public Sector. They moved from one cage to another, but at least the next one had what they wanted. Speaking of cages, none of them saw a point in leaving the cozy front car, even if it was smaller than the passenger ones.
"For what it's worth, I'm feeling a little more… put together," Nolan said, sitting up. The helmet came off, revealing a face marred with bruises and cuts that hadn't healed. It somehow reminded Curtis of his own, even though the two looked nothing alike. For the moment, the mad fire in his eyes had dimmed, though flickers burned at the edges. The Marker's attacks came in waves, though they always peaked higher and longer than the preceding one.
"At least I didn't hit you in the head, right?" He didn't look at Ellie, which made the woman cringe slightly. Just because he was more cogent didn't mean he wanted to talk. "Seriously, though, I'm sorry for choking you," she sheepishly continued.
"No, I get it." Nolan didn't hold a grudge, though he was understandably not thrilled by being beaten up, no matter how necessary it may have been. Curtis was tempted to ask about the man's work or past. After all, he'd been involved with Marker research – might have known something they didn't. He doubted it, though: Nolan turned into a lab monkey to be studied, and the Black Marker combined with Altman's journal gave them about as much info as EarthGov possessed.
Still, he wanted to say something. Just a matter of finding a subject. The topic of family, of course, was entirely off the table; Curtis may not have been the sharpest diamond-tipped blade, yet he had enough tact to recognize an idea so awful. Plus, nothing matched the importance of the battles ahead… except maybe the battles behind.
"At least we got away from the Xenomorph," he said, which perked everyone up, especially Nicole and Nolan. They shook off the monster that followed them halfway across the station, and he figured that increased their odds of survival by a fraction of a percent. Sounded small, but every tiny advantage helped. Not much to say other than that.
Nicole, however, voiced an unrelated thought that had been on her mind for the last several minutes.
"After thinking about it, I'm still not sure of that massive Necromorph's purpose." She crossed one spindly leg over the other. Her arms stretched so far above her head that it'd make a professional gymnast blush. To Curtis' relief, they attached her limbs correctly. Otherwise, they'd need to go in with a hacksaw and try again! Not funny.
"I might know something." All eyes immediately turned to Isaac. "I didn't say anything about it earlier, since I didn't see a point." Sounded a little unsure of himself. "When you were still on the Ishimura and I was fucked up, do you remember that I contacted you, saying that I escaped when the Red Marker was distracted by you guys dropping the tectonic load?"
Curtis and Nicole did, of course. For Ellie and Nolan, however, it was just another insane anecdote that they'd have to ask about later.
"Well, I ran as fast as I could back to the Executive Shuttle. As I took off, I saw something gigantic in the crater beneath me, clinging to the rock above the magma." Isaac couldn't provide many specifics, but he spoke of a formless creature with a mass of tentacles spilling across the colony. It was so enormous that it must have been formed from either the bulk of the Aegis VII colony or created 200 years prior from the Sovereign Colonies team that built the Marker and put it on the planet. "I thought it was one last hallucination until what just happened."
Everyone remained silent for a moment.
"It might help to control the Necromorphs." Everyone's attention shot from Isaac to Nolan, Nicole's fastest of all. "The Marker is what's ultimately in charge. Its signal changes people, but I hypothesized additional systems would help coordinate the millions of commands it sends out every second." That… made sense. The Necromorphs around it were more effective and tactical than most. When it died, they reverted to normal. Not stupid, but less strategic and more focused on obvious ideas. The thing being "field commander" with oversight of its theater (quite literally, with the giant, unblinking eye) explained its sessile role – it couldn't fight, but others following its advice could fight better.
"So, if the Marker network is like the Transnet, then each Marker is a Wi-Fi node… and these 'Controllers' are like boosters that increase the broadcast?" Curtis tried to find a metaphor that put it in terms he understood better. Nolan agreed with that.
Nicole also signed off on the hypothesis, barring one minor quibble: the Markers weren't the ones calling the shots. Something else worked behind them, something else the two only glimpsed in fragments of visions. She was sure they'd learn more about this force one day, though it remained shrouded in mystery for the time being. "That's interesting," was Curtis' reply. Another piece of Necromorph biology had been revealed.
The importance of such facts evaporated when he looked out the cockpit window. GovSec loomed, taking up more and more of the sky with each passing moment. From this distance, he saw not just barren rock, but artificial structures that had been built out of it. The most notable was a spire that rose from the surface: Weyland-Yutani's local HQ. He and the other miners rarely talked to its employees. Speaking of aliens, he wondered if any more would be there…
I doubt it, Nicole reassured him. The Marker would be in an uproar if there were more, and Victor Weyland made it sound like they just had one. He should have been scared, but he welcomed the voyage. The sooner they arrived, the sooner they'd win or lose. Either way, they wouldn't be tired anymore.
Much as the Government Sector impressed him, something else loomed on the left side of the train. He passed it often, though not yet in these conditions.
"The Ishimura," Isaac gasped. The ship almost snuck up on him. They already told him about Aegis VII being covered up as an anti-government terrorist attack and that they brought it here in the aftermath so people could fight over its corpse. He'd seen it from a distance. That paled in comparison to being this close. Shook Curtis, though they'd only stop for a minute.
The hull was marred by holes from asteroid impacts that had been shoddily patched up. If he were closer, he probably could have seen claw marks that hadn't been buffed out by the cleanup crew. Half of the exterior lights didn't work. If the damage inside was the same, it wouldn't be spaceworthy for years (assuming the CEC wanted to refurbish it at all). Its most likely future was to be bought by Weyland-Yutani and stripped for parts while the husk ferried Atmos systems to the kinds of worlds it once ripped apart.
They slid into the impromptu station, which was attached to the pedestrian part of the Crossover Tube that ran parallel to the train line. It was comically small, in terms of width; the far wall was about three feet away from the train. In the center was a door. He couldn't see it from his current angle, but it was the only way in or out, from what he could tell.
They pulled out again without being attacked, which was all Curtis could ask for. Come to think of it, the Ishimura might have been the safest place on or near Titan Station. Ironic, but it was isolated from everywhere else and had a minimal population. Sure, repair crews were present when all this started, but that couldn't have been more than a few hundred people.
As he thought that, static flared on their holo-projectors, and a familiar face came into view. Nicole ground her teeth.
"In another situation, I would admire the relentless determination you've all demonstrated," Tiedemann said, slightly slouched. "But what's happening here is bigger than the lives of everyone on this station." His own included, it seemed. He reached for an expensive-looking bottle of booze and poured himself a shot.
Curtis witnessed Tiedemann's degeneration in real time. He began several hours ago as a professional. Now, after getting into petty fights with another rich weirdo and digging into an emergency fifth of alcohol, the image crumbled. He didn't seem downright insane, nor did any others who wandered into frame – wherever he holed up in must have been equipped with astronomical quantities of psychic dampeners. But he became as scared and desperate as anyone else. Even if he survived, EarthGov would quite literally have his head on a platter for all the failures he oversaw. Never mind that the same events would have unfolded no matter what.
He held his tongue. No point yelling; words wouldn't make somebody like Tiedemann have a dramatic change of heart. The man continued to savor his drink. Then a soldier clad in bone-white armor walked into frame and said, "Sir, final preparations for evac are being made."
Tiedemann grimly nodded before turning back to the camera. "I wish it could have ended differently, but that was never going to happen."
That was the straw that broke Curtis' patience.
"Of course it could have ended differently. It can still end differently!" he snapped. They must have had a shuttle available to load the Marker into that could fly it straight into the sun. The horror would end even as the consequences remained.
"It's not that simple," he countered, slamming the glass down with enough force that it shattered. "I wish it were, but the Markers, dangerous as they are, hold secrets that we'll need in the years and centuries to come." Defense Secretary Chang likened the Markers to the atomic and antimatter bombs, which drove humanity into the future they had the potential to destroy. According to him, they needed to be made, or their species would stagnate.
Kendra (if that was even her real name) said that EarthGov planned to build hypothetical megastructures like Dyson spheres, Alderson disks and other things dreamed up by ancient sci-fi authors. They wanted to do this within the next few decades, and the Marker would be the key to making the giant leap. Maybe it was true that they couldn't do it otherwise. What was the point of advancement at any cost, though? It only seemed to give the powerful more power.
Tiedemann promptly hung up. A gloomy pall hung over them; instead of destroying the Marker, he'd do everything possible to protect it. Might not even choose to evacuate – there was nowhere to go if the rest of the government wanted to hunt him down. They'd learn more soon… if Necromorphs weren't waiting at the station to cut them down. They probably are, Nicole bitterly replied, putting her head in her claws.
A light like a second sun blinded him momentarily. Ellie yelped, and everyone jumped up to see what it could be. Curtis blinked away the colors clouding his vision, allowing him to see the beam of concentrated solar energy from the array. Normally, that wouldn't have been a cause for alarm, considering it gave the train the juice it needed to operate.
Now, though, it swung across the tracks a fraction of a mile ahead of them like a wrecking ball. Just like that, it cut the Crossover Tube with unfathomable heat as easily as scissors snipped string. The system jolted, and an alarm began to blare.
They'd have been doomed if they went back to one of the comfier cars.
Nicole pulled the emergency brake faster than he could blink. Ellie never drove a train before, but she was a pilot, so she vaulted over the seat and stopped the system. Curtis stood still as a stone, reluctant to move. That fear grew as they skidded. The tracks glowed red with heat, which made everything slippery. The color transitioned to white.
And then there was nothing. The track ended, the edges curled and dripping molten metal into oblivion. Curtis thought he felt a little warmer; could the heat have seeped in? Just as easily could have been his terrified imagination, for they dangled in space. The locomotive jutted halfway past the rails, tilted somewhat down. His heart thudded loudly enough to hear.
Intellectually, he knew they couldn't fall off a cliff in space. That didn't stop the idea of them drifting away in a fancy coffin from flashing through his head. Ellie pushed a button, and the tram slowly backed up. The klaxon kept buzzing, and the grinding of gears compounded to make it all the worse. Ultimately, though, the train hauled itself back from the brink.
I'll bet a ship would have been dispatched to take us out with missiles, except those were all shredded in the fight with Weyland-Yutani. Seeing slag from torn apart vessels drift above them confirmed that theory. The first real space battle the Sprawl ever saw resulted in the fearsome military being torn apart (though they also inflicted maximum casualties on the opposition). The rest of EarthGov appeared happy to let Titan Station deal with its own problem. Oracles and special forces would probably come in later to pick up the pieces.
They slowly backpedaled, aghast at what almost happened. Mouths hung open in utter shock. The rope of secondhand sun appeared several miles downspin, presumably to snap the third crossover tube, then upspin to sever the first. With that, the division was complete. Tiedemann cut Titan Station apart like a Necromorph.
Isaac was the first to speak again. "Back us up to the Ishimura."
"T-that's probably the best place to rest," Nolan stammered. Curtis cringed, but the options were that or go back to the Sprawl, where monsters surely waited. Maybe they'd be able to think up a plan between bouts of dread.
"No," he declared decisively. "We're going to start the gravity tethers."
He can't be serious, Nicole thought, almost laughing at the ridiculous notion. She'd done some light reading on planet crackers before, and nothing like this had ever been attempted. He seemed completely earnest, though.
"What, you can grab GovSec and bring it back? Isaac, that's ridiculous!" Ellie shouted, putting a voice to all their thoughts.
"Actually, I'm not sure it is," Nolan said. "If we pull the mass closer, it should be within range of the Ishimura's escape pods."
"If they reinstalled any," Curtis argued. All had been used during their time aboard, and he didn't know if any would've been put back. He supposed they could have flown over if it was that close, terrifying as that may have been. The unknowns were endless.
The most obvious danger was that the Public and Government Sectors would collide. He was savvy enough to know the two broken halves would remain in the same spot relative to each other without an outside force acting on one. If one was tugged, though, it'd keep going until the other hemisphere physically stopped it. One wouldn't have enough momentum to annihilate the other, Nicole offered. There may have been other threats that went over his head.
"Why the Hell not?" he asked, quickly coming around to the idea. Why not try something crazy? No moral problems remained. The impact of a small moon slamming into a space station would kill millions… but the Marker got them all first. He doubted anyone in the Public Sector was alive anymore, and those in GovSec would be deep enough into the honeycombed rock to avoid the brunt of the impact. The train trundled backward, maintaining a tight grip despite the factors conspiring against it.
"Could Tiedemann do that again?" Ellie asked as they rolled. Another spike of fear drove into Curtis' temple. What prevented him from unleashing it on them? Though necessary, they handed EarthGov a huge weapon now that their ships had all been scuttled.
Nicole answered, "I don't think so. It looks like the solar array has a limited range of movement." Snapped back to his baseline level of calm, which involved blood pressure high enough to give him a stroke (or it would have if he had a normal amount left in his body). "He wanted to catch us directly in the beam to get rid of us." True, he could have cut off the Government Sector any time after they turned on the solar array.
Couldn't help thinking about the lack of other options. Unless they found a working spaceship somewhere – and he had no inkling of where to look for one – hauling the asteroid over was the only way he thought of to get across. If we're going with that logic, though, we could fly the Ishimura over instead of dragging GovSec. He didn't know which one would be stranger.
Either way, he returned to a place he never thought he'd set foot in again. The train pulled into the station again, and the doors opened without a sound. The derelict invited them inside.
They were already in Hell. They went into Hell again. Maybe a deeper circle. Maybe a more severe level of punishment was inflicted on them for the sins of the cosmos. With one step onto the platform, the gates snapped shut.
…
The gang has returned to the Ishimura. That won't be a surprise to those of you who have played Dead Space 2, but I hope it's a shock for those who haven't. The nightmare begins again… though it never really left.
I had a fantastic time writing this chapter; it was fun to focus on exploration and creating my own encounter scenario. Believe it or not, I believe the Controller is the first wholly original Necromorph I've written! The closest I've come is with the Graverobber, which isn't technically canon because it was based on cut concept art, but I still wouldn't call it my own creation. I never showed or alluded to the Hive Mind – the final boss of Dead Space – because Curtis and Nicole never visited Aegis VII. This is my continuity's replacement for it!
I also sprinkled a few references in. The first is Nolan being angry at you, the reader, for enjoying the story! That's a reference to a moment in this section, where he looks at the camera and tells the player to stop staring, which I always thought was a creepy moment. That was a one-time thing; I'm not going to have the characters become aware that they're not real.
The other big reference I put in was the Controller itself. Its appearance and position inside a building was based on the Alien Squid from the comic book Watchmen. I'd just finished reading it again, and I wanted to do something with that design, because it's just too good to waste. Check out Watchmen if you haven't, by the way. It's cliché to say, but the series is probably the most groundbreaking superhero story of all time, even if it is a dreary read.
Thanks to Accelerator7460, CelfwrDderwydd, Kaijucifer and GeorgeP for reviewing since the last update. I hope you're all doing well as we move into the last part of the year! I'll try to catch you guys one more time before the end. One more thing: if you guys haven't noticed, this website is a huge mess right now. At the time of this writing, the e-mail notifications don't work, so my subscribers aren't getting told when I post a new chapter. If you got lucky and saw that I updated by checking manually, I want to again remind you that I have a Discord server where I keep people updated on my progress (among other fun things). Here's a link in case you want to join so that this story doesn't get lost in the shuffle – I wouldn't be surprised if FanFiction never fixes the issue, since the IT desk must be all of two people:
www*.discord*.gg / HPcMTpxVsH