WARNING: This chapter contains graphic descriptions of violence, body horror, and gore.
FIVE: Escape the Nest
(START: 18 hours 17 minutes 45 seconds)
Traveling down the catwalk built down the narrow tunnel, Mark breathed a sigh of relief when things opened up around the observation deck. The wide circular platform that forked off into the greater cave system looked like something out of a grizzly horror movie, and it was humid to boot.
Mark tried not to let his awe get the better of him as he regarded Dianoia's chamber. The large, illuminated mixture of ice, stone, and lime towered above them from across the gulf, stretching beyond sight. Seemed much closer than it did when framed by an observation window of reinforced glass and steel.
The long catwalk out from the decontamination room separated the station and the cliff-face, bridged by scaffolding that the excavators used to extract samples from the melting ice-rock. Thin imperfections fractured the cliff face, bleeding red and water, running down the wall to the mass outside into the observation station. It spread across the ground toward the Monarch equipment just like a fungus. A very red, fleshy fungus.
There was no way of telling what was inside the cliff-face and infrared imagining only provided but so much of a general picture. And the general picture that looked like a mass of some sort, no real characteristics like Scylla or Methuselah. Just a living blob with a dark spot in the middle, something Mark assumed was its heart or brain. Eyes to the ceiling, Mark caught the glint of light on strings. Red biomass wrapped around the stalactites. The web-like string was hanging low beyond the rock formations.
It reminded him of the webs the L. dispar, Sponge Moth, made in trees. He wasn't sure what else could be in the cave spinning webs that weren't spiders. Moths weren't cave-dwellers–per se. The creature bellowed. Everyone stopped to brace themselves against vibrations that rocked the cave. Staring up at its resting place made him feel light-headed. The low howls of the monster behind the formation seemed ready to shake him free of his mortal coil.
Sea salt permeated the air. He could smell it through the suit.
"Hey Chen, you smell anything?" He asked, keeping his voice low.
"Yes, my mother's perfume."
"You serious?" He blurted, a little surprised.
"Yes. What do you smell?"
"The ocean," Mark answered. "My parents used to own beachfront property. Burned down a couple of years back. We had a fantastic view of the ocean." He cast a curious look over to where Dr. Bloom and Francis were wandering down toward the right catwalk. "What about you guys?"
"Caramel popcorn, homemade," Dr. Francis answered.
"Copper and honey, mostly," Dr. Bloom answered before disappearing down the other catwalk.
"That's not normal, right?" Dr. Francis asked.
"I think that goes without saying." Mark followed the smell of the sea.
"Maybe it's how it communicates?" Ilene's voice drew his attention away from the sleeping giant, but only for a second. "Maybe," he said.
Ilene kneeled at the landing of the comm station while Mark headed for the panel. Reaching down, she pressed her fingers against the mass. It gave without resistance, so she continued to push her fingers through the mass until it separated. Setting the Geiger counter aside, Ilene pushed the substance amount in her hand.
It separated like oil in water, becoming loose in her palm. It seemed harmless to her until her exploration revealed a set of dulled and yellowed teeth. She swallowed. "Ma'am," Ilene turned to regard the soldier approaching her. "We haven't been able to locate the rest of the team. No remains, no vital signs, nothing," he said. "We have to assume something's loose down here. Maybe it's taken them deeper into the cave system."
"Maybe." Ilene looked down at the mass in her hand, dread locked in her throat.
"We'll keep looking," He said, heading back up the right tunnel.
Mark busied himself with setting up the COSMOS. He filed through the audio data compiled recently, searching for the samples he'd been working on for the past seven months. The data buffered, synchronizing for a moment before the ready notification flashed on the upper screen. Activating the program, he waited. The sister's voices call echoed through the cave.
Everyone paused, listening to the harmonization, and the living titan bellowed in response. There was no aggression, maybe curiosity. The glass of the observation room rattled. Mark braced himself against the panel, taken aback by the sudden weakness in his knees. Relax, Mark, nothing will happen. "Easy big guy," He whispered more to himself than the titan.
"Heart rate is dropping and returning to normal," Rick's voice echoed over his earpiece. "Looks like your mojo's workin', Russ."
Mark's skin prickled, hair standing on end. "I just hope it works long enough." From the corner of his eye, he saw something move. He caught the shadow of a person moving toward the observation window. Stepping away from the dashboard, Mark moved toward the quarantine room. Flashing the card across the panel, he stepped through the doorway. "Erm, Dr. Russell, where are you going?" Dr. Francis asked.
"I thought I saw somethin'," he said. "I'll be quick." The outer door was still open, jammed up from the biomass that had grown up out between the spaces of the threshold. Stepping over it, he walked out onto the catwalk. There was a man standing near the scaffolding, looking up at the cliff-face, but he wasn't wearing their colors. "Hey, guy. You, okay? ... Andrews?" It didn't hurt to guess.
The man didn't move. "Jerkins?" As if to answer, Dianoia howled, reticent. Mark gnashed his teeth against the vibrations that shook the catwalk and traveled right through him. "Dad?"
"Madison?"
He opened his eyes. There was nothing except black all around him.
"Yeh, yug, uoy, yako?"
"What the–?" He stared at his reflection in the dark, suit gone. He inhaled, the whoosh of water filled his lungs, expelled seconds later in panic. Unsure of what he was experiencing, he stared at the reflection of light rippling across his bare hand, arm floating listlessly.
He saw speckles flashing in the dark, sloshing about like bubbles stuck in jelly. Yellow flashed in the bottom peripheral of his eyes, daring to look down as he stared into the dark. Shadows moved through the water, passing underneath his feet free of the catwalk. Dianoia howled again.
"Ysae gib yug."
In the murk, a hand reached for him, bubbles swirling downward. Air pulled from Mark's mouth, inching up above his head at a snail's space. The fingers twisted, palm open in invitation.
Distance melted. Mark's fingers caressed the phantom hand, fingers lacing with theirs, the smell of the ocean bright and clear. Their nails bit into his skin over the knuckles, pulling him down to their level. Faces level, there was nothing to discern before him; just the impression of face, breaking—splitting apart, starved of bone, frozen in a scream as it lowered him down toward the light.
"Ees uoy noos, feihc."
Holding fast to the hand was futile, the skin slipping through his fingers. His face ceased to be collapsing on itself. Nails dug into his thighs. Air drifted past him in bubbles, pulled from his throat in tandem with the last breath of the man as their body folded under pressure.
"Dad, are you okay?" Madison's voice sounded hollow, airy in his ear. The knock of his heart drowned in another howl. The faces below him turned inward, frozen in the same blotchy fear.
"I'll eb kciuq."
"Mark!" Ilene's voice was too sharp, piercing his ears.
Mark blinked, taken aback. He was still standing in the observation room. Ilene stood on the other side of the panel. Her were eyes trained downward. Following, the unassuming panel gave him pause. Another moment, his hand wasn't resting on the COSMOS, but on the emergency release of the enclosure. What the hell?
"Your heart rate is going nuts, Russ."
"I–," He sputtered. "Did I leave the observation room just now?"
"No, you were working on the COSMOS," Rick replied.
"What happened to Madison?"
"I kicked the little gremlin off my headset," Rick answered. "What's with the question?"
"Nothing, no reason." Looking over to the left, he spotted the panel where the kill switch was located. Mark looked over to Ilene, raising an eyebrow at her fixation on his hand. "Chen, I'm gonna need your help," he said.
Ilene moved around the panel and grabbed him by the arm. Mark jerked in her grasp. "What? What is it?" He asked, eyes dropping to her open palm. Ilene motioned to the tooth lying in the center of her palm. "The mass, I don't think it's completely a product of the titan."
"How's that?"
"These are human teeth, Mark," Ilene said. "Look at my palm. There's blood in the mass, human blood, not titan blood." Bioluminescence was a common characteristic of Titan blood, as far as they knew. Quicker to coagulate, and radioactive. Mark couldn't determine if the Geiger counter was silent because of the titans (lack of) proximity or lack of radiation in the room. "Chen–"
"There's nothing further down!" Dr. Bloom appeared from the left tunnel, flashlight pointing down at the ground. "I've no idea where they could've gone. Dr. Francis?"
"I found Andrews' ID tag near the exit when I doubled back. Melted to hell."
"Nothing else?" Mark said.
"Yeah, nothing else." Francis appeared at the threshold of the enclosure's observatory platform, a piece of plastic in his hand. "Where'd the soldier boys get to?"
"Right tunnel," Dr. Bloom pointed.
Ilene tugged on his arm, pulling his attention back between them.
"We would need to study it, just to make sure, but there isn't a trace of them in the cave. The feed showed that Jerkins was outside the observation deck when Dianoia triggered the quarantine," Ilene said.
"Dad?" Madison's voice startled him. "Your heart is beating really fast again–" Reaching down, he turned off the walkie. "So, what are you saying? That we're standing on our teammates?" Mark said. "That the mass is human remains? Because of the teeth?" When she nodded, he said, "Ilene, that's not possible. How could this thing to do that to them in so short a time? The observation room is sealed. How could it get the rest of them?"
"Maybe it didn't have to, not completely," Ilene said. The flesh slipped from her hand, startling them both. It lay atop the surface mass, bubbling, spreading itself thin. Her gaze traveled up, and Mark followed. The webbing, the mass on the ceiling seemed lower. He looked down at the mass on the ground. The mass wrapped itself around his ankles, pulsing like it was breathing. Ilene gripped his arm as if to keep him still. Slowly, the mass slipped from around his ankle, shifting under his feet and sliding into the spaces between the grate. Ilene and Mark traded glances.
"Rick."
"What's up, boss man?"
"Where are we on personnel evacuation?"
"About half-way done. Why? I'm not getting anything from the EKG." Mark heard Madison's voice in the background as she tried to talk over Coleman and take control of Rick's headset. He ignored both. "Better double-time it. I think our friend is a little more awake than it's letting on."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning, this thing is probably pretty hungry for people-sized fish sticks," he said. "Better safe than sorry."
A beat of silence. "Alright, I'll get on it."
"Dr. Russell." Mark looked up, unconsciously expecting Emma to answer the soldier coming out of the right tunnel. The security personnel spread out on the platform, flamethrowers lit, tracking the ground. The grunt who spoke raised his arm, bringing into view the tatters of a bloodied hazmat suit. "This is all we found."
"Dad–?"
"Coleman, can you do something about Greenpeace Jr.–!"
The sharp crack of stone followed another mournful bellow. Dr. Bloom and Dr. Francis looked to the window of the observation room. The split in the rock widened. Mark zoned the arguing over his earpiece out, his full attention on Ilene. "Do you have the key?" Ilene nodded, hands fishing into the pouch fastened to her suit.
"Okay, I'm on the right side. You take the left," Mark directed, raising his key into view. Ilene followed, unlocking the case that contained the primary kill switch. With her hand hovering over the button, she locked her key in place in the slot. "On three," Mark said. "One, two, three–" They turned their keys in unison. As Ilene prepared to hit the kill switch, a red spike shot up from underneath the console through her hand. She screamed, collapsing to the ground.
"Chen!"
Every screen on the dashboard flashed red, alarms roaring in tandem with the titan. Mark watched the face of the cliff shatter in a blink, the ground beneath them quaked. Behind him, he searched for the frantic screams of the security team. Turning, he saw the same fleshy spikes descending from the stalactites straight into or around the people below them.
The spikes yanked them up by their suits, fire burned quick across the ground. He hit the kill switch without delay, barely ducking an arc of fire as it raced across the panel. The room flashed white. Blood red currents of electricity pulsed through the chrysalis. Dianoia screamed as the soldiers did, pulled apart and away from muscle and bone. Mark made a blind grab for the COSMOS, only for the same fleshy spike to pierce the console again and knock it out of his reach. "Shit!" Mark rushed around the console.
Scrambling forward, he tried to check the COSMOS's status. The frame split, wires hanging out of its shell. "Shit!" Mark pulled himself closer to the machine. The screen flickered, but he couldn't make out the pixelated text. The grating on the floor beneath him jumped loose. Mark tried to ignore the sensation creeping up his leg and started troubleshooting. Ilene scrambled to her feet with her hand close against her chest. Bloom and Francis bolted for the exit. Their armed guard fell apart, suits melting away, remains encased by the red mass bleeding out from the ceiling.
"Mark!"
"Over here!"
Ilene ran around the console, dodging another spike that sprang up from the grate. The chaos of the titan's roar and the observation deck rattled apart around them. She could hear the progressive melody of the COSMOS transmitting a signal opposite of the one before. The SOS.
Mark backpedaled away from the machine, running into Ilene. The low growl of the monster became sharp and long. "Mark, c'mon!" Pressure increased in his ears as Ilene tried to pull him away from the control station. A sharp prick cut through his sole. Mark yanked his foot up and away from the grated floor, pushing the pain into the background. The tentacle broke away, falling from his ankle with ease.
He followed Chen down the short stairway and back through down the narrow corridor. The floor bubbled and slithered around their feet. Ilene and Mark struggled to pull their feet up out of the mass, congealing around their feet like molasses. Mark risked a glance behind him. The biomass was sliding across the observation window–cracking the glass, and growing over the walls of the corridor they were in.
"Chen! Mark!" At the end of the hall, Ilene spotted Bloom and Francis waving their arms wildly in panic. The lift was moving, leaving without them.
"Hey! Hey, wait!"
Madison watched the unstable camera feed on the emergency lift with dread. "W-why are they leaving without Dr. Chen and my dad?" She panicked. Dr. Coleman and Stanton exchanged between them knowing looks, but said nothing (not that they had to). Madison had been in plenty of situations with her mother where she saw people act against their fellow man, either to save themselves or the collective.
The circumstances here weren't too different, but now yet another one of her parents was on the verge of becoming ash under a titan's foot again. Madison's eyes switched from the between the lift feed and the feed transmitting her father and Dr. Chen's POV. Rushing over to the comms, she pushed Stanton out of the way, yanking his headphones off his head. "Dad, Dr. Chen, get to the lift. They're leaving you!" She cried. "Dad!"
"Would you stop yelling?!" Coleman shouted.
"That's not gonna make him go any faster, kid," Dr. Stanton pulled himself back over to the panel, snatching his headphones from her. Madison couldn't watch. Running out of the observation station, she made for the ground floor. Madison pushed her away through the personnel, her eyes focused on the opening blast doors of the emergency lift.
Leaping off the stairs, Madison rushed toward the opening blast doors. Dropping to her knees, she peered past the doors down into the figurative-literal abyss. "Dad!" Her voice carried down the lift, but she couldn't hear herself over the alarms and the thunderous roar of the titan rolling up and out of the pit. What the hell was she going to do here, besides scream?
"Madison, get away from the lift!" It was faint, but close.
Madison looked down at her walkie-talkie. It was blinking. Snatching it off her belt hook, she screamed, "Look out!"
Ilene and Mark pulled themselves off the biomass and bolted across the catwalk toward the lift. Ilene leaped onto the lift as it exceeded ground level. Mark followed suit. Judi and Francis pulled her up onto the platform. Ilene turned, grabbing hold of Mark's arms. Mark hauled himself up onto the platform with little time to spare, the lift passing the secondary blast door as it closed.
Judi scrambled to her feet, hurrying toward the lift panel. Francis was a little too preoccupied with walking in circles, praying to God for safe passage. "Dad!" Mark looked up the tunnel. He could see Madison against the harsh overhead light. The pitch of Dianoia's roar increased, fracturing the hazmat helmet.
Running on empty instinct, he pulled it from over his head and let it fall to the wayside. "Madison, get away from the lift!" He called. Madison didn't budge. For the tiniest moment, he felt like giving her grief for being disobedient. The presumption of safety was so close in his mind that it didn't register how agitated she became until Ilene pulled him hard to the right against her.
"Look out!"
The mass seemed to pour itself up from the minuscule space between the wall and lift, shooting forward. From behind Mark, Ilene heard Bloom scream. The ugly thud of the body moving in different directions and blood spattering across the lift told her someone was dead.
Mark's eyes burned, blurred by pinkish hues of blood that dripped down his face. He thought of Vivienne, the short and startled scream before Ghidorah's tail crushed her because he fell behind. Another appendage shot out from the gap. It wrapped itself around his ankle, yanking him out of Ilene's grasp and pulling his feet out from under him. Landing head first, Mark lost consciousness in the chaos going on around him and the ringing in his ears.
Madison pushed away from the lift and down the hall. Madison made her way through the running crowd and reached the end of the hall. There, she saw the fire axe and extinguisher hanging unused on the wall. Grabbing the handle, she hauled the thick wooden weapon off the hooks. The weight was cumbersome, gravity pulling downward at the thick metal. Gunfire rattled ahead of her. "No, no, no." She paled. Hurrying back down the hall, Madison returned from the adjoining lobby. Security personnel had arrived at the edge of the emergency lift, guns aimed downward or reloading.
"No, stop!" Madison drew their attention away from the lift. Two men moved forward to stop her. Madison tried ducking under them. She saw over the edge of the open platform, barely registered Ilene slashing furiously at the gunky appendage with her good hand. They grabbed her by her hood, pulling her away. Madison tossed the axe as far as she could. It slid across the floor, tipping over the edge. "Dr. Chen!"
Ilene looked up in time to see the axe drop into the lift, summoned from the ether of a little girl's scream. Bloom pulled herself away from the lift's control, diving for the axe. Driving her father's knife into the mangled flesh of the biomass still attached to Mark's leg, Ilene began pulling at the thorny base. Bloom slashed at the appendage that speared Francis through the chest, inelegant slashes cutting deep the alien tissue.
It broke apart, flopping onto the lift. With a running start, Bloom swung down on the appendage. Ilene was trying to pry off Mark's leg with her uninjured hand. The blade came down at the midway point of the base and head, splitting it apart. Dianoia screamed, and the world flashed white.
"Look out!" Madison found herself shielded by the two men as everything around them exploded in a flurry of glass, metal and electricity. Madison covered her ears against the piercing sound emitting from below. All thoughts toward her father's wellbeing vanished when the weight of the two men came crashing down on her. Unable to move, Madison shut her eyes and prayed for the end.
She listened to every sound, one cascading over the other, metal crashing against metal, bending against its nature. When she opened her eyes again, the two officers were still on top of her. The chaos receded, the hall hummed low with emergency lights, and the flicker of broken fixtures. She tried to move, the dead weight of the security officers' stalled her to a crawl. Her mind refocused on the task, Madison struggled to pull herself out from under the two bodies.
Once she was free, she beelined toward the lift. Mark lay prone, his nose and ears bleeding. A glance at Ilene, a dead Dr. Francis, and unconscious Dr. Bloom showed they exhibited the same injuries. The thing that grabbed her father's leg lay on the edge of the lift, bleeding and losing form.
She went through the motions of searching for her father's pulse, found not moments after placing her fingers on the vein of his neck. Laying her hands on his shoulders, Madison shook him as hard as possible. "Wake up! Dad, wake up!"
Dianoia bellowed, and everyone seemed to stir from oblivion. Ilene's right eye was bloodshot, Mark's nose bled again. Dr. Bloom crawled away from the corpse of Dr. Francis, weeping. Madison moved back, one hand on her father's arm as he tried to sit up.
Mark regarded his daughter through the blur of his vision, apologetic. "You were right."
Madison stared, the words making little sense against the cotton in her ears. "What? I don't-"
"It was a bad idea."
(END 5: 17 hours 1 minute 49 seconds)