Hey, everyone. I'm glad I was able to get this chapter out quickly. I rarely aim for deadlines, but I always try to get an update out around Halloween so you guys have something to read during the witching hour. If you're lucky (or unlucky, depending on your perspective), you might catch a glimpse of goblins on your windowsill or ghosts floating past the door. I've never really had any supernatural encounters, which may seem strange, given that I write about them so often, but maybe I will this year!

On a less mysterious note, I had fun writing this. It's a dyed-in-the-wool action chapter – too long since I've had one of those. My usual philosophical ramblings are still present, but I tried to pull back on those so the maiming could speak for itself. Escape is the best option against zombies and aliens, but barring that, weaponized plasma and flame are a close second. And I don't think we've reached the apex yet!

Thanks to Accelerator7460, CelfwrDderwydd, Kaijucifer and GeorgeP for reviewing since last time. I really appreciate you contributing to and shaping the story. Hope you guys enjoy this, as well. Happy Halloween, and I'll see you next time for another chapter as our heroes stumble closer and closer to their goal… right into a nest of danger.

6 Hours, 30 Minutes Post-Sprawl Outbreak

Curtis ran. He ran more than anyone else he knew. He could have won a marathon with how much cardio exercise he got. He was motivated. Somehow, though, he felt slower than a slug. His heart pounded in his throat because of the overwhelming danger.

The door Ellie directed them to waited seconds or hours away. During that time, his head swiveled around to see all the monsters that wanted him dead just for being alive. There were more Necromorphs here than he'd ever dealt with before. The Transport Hub, which was the size of several Z-Ball stadiums, filled almost to bursting everywhere but the area immediately surrounding him and his friends.

A couple phenotypes he didn't recognize were mixed in with the legion… or they may have been figments of his demented imagination. Or ones he was familiar with mangled into new shapes. Or…

They fell through the door. Isaac sprang up despite nearly dying in space. Ellie did, too. In a matter of seconds, they slammed shut, as did several layers of shutters over it and the windows. Everything went quiet for a few moments – until a tsunami slammed into the side.

Difficult to describe the noise being produced. Sort of like dumping a building full of people into a giant blender and setting it to purée.

"Will that keep them out?" Nicole asked as they walked – no, limped – away. The living in their group couldn't sprint forever, unlike the dead.

"You'd be surprised. Weyland-Yutani has enemies," Ellie said in her characteristically subdued way. "Nonchalant" probably wasn't the right word for it, because she clearly knew all this was horrible and wanted to stop it. She wasn't crazy (at least for the moment); she knew how to roll with the punches. "Some tech guy came in a few weeks ago and gave a presentation about how to lock the place down to everyone here that day."

That level of protection made sense if Wey-Yu was crazy enough to go at it with EarthGov – not that its employees knew the plan! The extra security inherited from the CEC, who dealt with constant vandalism after their misadventure devastated the Sprawl's economy, couldn't have hurt. He figured it'd take several minutes until the heavy artillery knocked its way through, which would provide enough of a lead.

Curtis didn't know what to say. Everybody processed everything… except for Nolan, who began to stir. The game probably hadn't changed from Wey-Yu essentially declaring war on EarthGov, but it wouldn't make things easier. It made him smolder that these titanic institutions that should have known better stirred up a tempest that would only divide them when his species needed to stand united. The stress made him want to bite his nails.

Curtis noticed a queue leading to a desk despite the debris. Everything had been devastated. The only thing left poking through splintered pieces of metal was a light fixture that sputtered silhouettes onto the wall. They were shadow puppets that the strobe effect played with, all miming some grand adventure.

"I love what Weyland-Yutani has done with the place." Isaac ran a hand across one part of the wall not covered by flesh. "Are you sure we're going the right way, though?" Ellie nodded.

"The place we came through was actually the entrance to the museum," she said, pointing forward. "The facility itself is past that, and it's a bit of a walk."

The way they entered didn't seem particularly industrial, though the Corruption in full bloom made it difficult to discern. Either way, he wasn't worried. If any monsters were in here, they'd have gone out to hunt like all the rest.

"I don't think any Necromorphs were in here to begin with." Nicole responded to his thought, specifically, yet it was on everyone's minds. "I can't smell the lingering scents of any, and there are no footprints." Curtis exhaled a small sigh of relief. Accidentally tripping over something was the biggest threat they'd face in the immediate future.

As they walked, a notification appeared on his RIG, which he accepted. Good timing, too, since he was about to make the call! Didn't want to leave Stefan hanging. The man's face manifested on the holo-screen; he looked an absolute wreck. The stress of getting into scraps with Wey-Yu and EarthGov ate at him. They knew how to hold a grudge.

"Hey. I've been poking around the Sprawl for the past few hours… ever since Lexine got out of range of the signal jammer and called me." He got into it straightaway, for they had no idea when the signal would be torn away. Schneider tried to present an aloof face to the universe, but he couldn't hide the mix of fear and satisfaction.

Curtis idly wondered something about the battle that turned his veins to ice: could Necromorphs pilot a ship? Could they infect a ship and become it? The Markers made a habit of combining organics and machinery to make stronger abominations than the sum of their parts. This included using complex devices like guns. He saw no reason that couldn't be scaled up to starships, with individual humanoids or a single massive entity pulling levers and pushing buttons with perfect synchronicity. Wondered if the Ishimura – or even the Sprawl – could become that if the infestation reached an unknown threshold.

Anyway, it was just a hypothesis. One he hoped they never got a definite answer to.

"She wanted help for her and Gabe and your other friend whose name I just forgot. But she also wanted to make a few more sweeps… you know, in case we saw anybody else trapped somewhere that couldn't get out." They all crowded around the screen now, even Ellie, who still had no clue who this guy was. "We found a few that were floating in their RIGs. They're in the cargo hold now – alive, but scared outta their wits. I thought we'd just reel in corpses… animate or not."

He tried to play it like it hadn't been a big deal. It was, though. Stefan spent hours trawling hostile territory on the slim hope that he might find someone alive to rescue. He tried to pretend he was a rogue badass, and that persona held water given his history – from disaffected rebel to angry Magpie to a Robin Hood-esque space outlaw. Now that he'd been tested, he turned out to be a good man. Curtis and Nicole always knew he had it in him.

"How are Gabe and Karrie doing now?" Nicole asked.

"Karrie, right, that's her name," he said as if that mattered. "I didn't have time to rush them to a hospital, but I put them in the emergency stasis pods." Isaac winced slightly at that; he'd spent so much time in one that even the name hurt him. They'd see if that manifested as claustrophobia in the future. "For what it's worth, the computer says they're stable. And after this, I'll get them the best medical care in the galaxy. Promise."

Someone shouted in the feed's background. For a moment, Curtis feared a Necromorph snuck aboard. That happened when Lexine and Gabe escaped the Ishimura; Nathan died and immediately reanimated a few feet away. Instead, it was Lexine herself who came around the corner, jamming her face into the camera. All things considered, she didn't look too bad. In fact, she was ecstatic to see them again.

"Curtis! I'm so glad you and Nicole are OK." She beamed from ear to ear, which almost hid a spot of blood on her cheek.

"We are." Felt himself smile in return. "And we've picked up some new people along the way." It was kind of weird. In a way, they were all a family bound by circumstance, desperation and hope as strong as any Bond. The other two introduced themselves (and Nolan would've, but he still struggled to awaken).

"Isaac, eh? Nicole's told me a lot about you," Stefan said as he flew away from the slaughter. Sounded like he bailed, for there was no reason to stick around. "Glad you didn't bite it while EarthGov had its grubby fingers on you." Lexine voiced a similar sentiment.

Though friendly, he was vexed. Nicole answered his many questions as best she could with their limited time. There was so much Isaac missed that she needed to catch him up on.

The conference unceremoniously ended. One second, the connection seemed fine. The next, it vanished. The last thing he saw was Stefan's arm obscuring the camera as he reached for something.

"I guess you're famous," Ellie said, raising an eyebrow. "Had no idea you were chums with the Stefan Schneider." Sometimes, they forgot that the man had an eight-figure (and rising) bounty on him and had topped EarthGov's most wanted list.

"We get around." They entered the museum.

The Concordance Extraction Corporation logo – "CEC" with a planet being crushed in the first letter – plastered the walls. The exhibits (the ones not covered in meat sludge, anyway) focused on its great achievements and history. Holographic sentences projected near the displays extolled the company's devotion to the betterment, if not the very survival, of humanity. That made Curtis grimace, for they may have been the people who doomed it.

There was a lot of advertisement for the competition at Weyland-Yutani. He asked Ellie about it.

"I'm surprised they never changed it, but all resources are going to the Atmos. The suits need to hit the deadline, whether that's self-imposed or from the top." Supposed it made sense to delay the PR rollout until the machine deployed. However, he wondered why a short delay would've been so bad.

Then he remembered Nicole's altercation with the richest person in the universe, except maybe some EarthGov oligarchs or the Church of Unitology's pope. Victor Weyland believed he possessed the power to save humanity from itself and the Necromorphs. Every day the Atmos stalled was a day the Markers bided their strength.

Meanwhile, Nicole studiously examined the curios on display. Was this the best way to spend their time? Hey, I haven't been to a museum since I died! Except the one at the Church. Let me have this.

All right, he replied, only a little exasperated. He thought going in her stead would have meant more.

It did, but this is just a little better. Curtis begrudgingly admitted that some of the stuff was neat – vintage tools looked cooler than more recent examples, if only from all the scuff marks. He noticed she picked up the pace, though. He wanted to indulge a little, himself. Let's do it together.

He reconnoitered the larger exhibits, just in case there was anything useful (or dangerous). The power cells must have been too old to function, but Nicole found so many on the solar array that ammo didn't matter for the moment. The most interesting item he spotted was a power loader: a P-5000, he believed, which was the same model that Ellie had certification in. Its yellow exterior gleamed with a polished sheen in the dim light; it may have been the only clean thing in the room. Speaking of light, one atop it blinked, indicating that its battery possessed some charge – they may have kept it powered in case it needed to be moved.

Power loaders and other kinds of heavy equipment had been used for hundreds of years – until kinesis came on the scene a couple of centuries ago and left them in the dust. At least in Curtis' opinion. They still had some defenders, as his earlier argument with Ellie demonstrated. The benefits of kinesis were self-evident: one could move heavy objects with their mind and pneumonic gestures. The biggest risk was that one could accidentally – or purposefully – kill other people or themselves easily. Psychos who got their hands on a unit mowed through dozens, throwing dumpsters and tearing parts out of buildings.

It was possible to be hurt by power loaders, yet injuries were rare; most saw its garish exterior or heard its lumbering footsteps before it got close. They were also cheaper than portable kinesis models, which cost an arm and a leg. Even now, I'm thinking about dismemberment.

He also noticed a display about the history of modern RIGs, which the CEC had a hand in. It was a line from the most ancient examples to the modern marvels of 2511. The oldest was in the form of a spinal-mounted health monitor designed for elderly people who were at a great risk of dying. Slowly, more protection and features were added: this was largely spearheaded by a company called Seegson, which had been long ago absorbed by Weyland-Yutani. They were first used for combat in the Secession War – one worn by a Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces legionnaire, which had little pinholes for eyes instead of common visors, peeped at him from its mannequin host. Finally, that brought them to the RIGs of just a few years ago, which were what he and his friends wore.

Those would have been convenient to steal if any of their number lacked armor, but they had as much of it as tanks. He tried to shake off the feeling and get his head back into the game.

As they continued, he decided to bring up a topic that lingered in the back of his mind ever since Nolan discovered it. Something waited to be found 49,079 light-years "south" of the galactic core in relation to the Andromeda Galaxy. Know anything about that?

No. Like you thought earlier, it's not a complete set of coordinates. That's what he thought, but he hoped she had more insight. Still, if there's one number, there must be more. Where were they supposed to get them, though? Hmm…

Nicole quickly asked the Black Marker if it knew the next step, or even what these directions led to.

A PLACE OF POWER AND PERIL. THAT IS ALL I RECALL.

Spooky. Then again, he didn't expect anything less from alien text hidden in a Marker. That was when he realized something else: if the text came from an alien language that the Markers picked up on… that meant sapient aliens were out there. He already knew that from the Necromorph hive mind Nicole delved into, but they had no concrete information on them except that they all died. The writing in Altman's journal was the first tangible evidence of such a thing – and its relation to the Xenomorph was clear enough. Either there was an intelligent species from the same environment as the Xenomorph (a better name than XX121, he thought), or the beasts were smarter than they seemed. That blew them away.

I've already seen more than I ever thought I would, Nicole thought, mind wandering to visions of wonder and terror about what this race was like. The civilization's history had been lost to time, so anything was possible. Maybe, just maybe, they and humanity could have been allies – even friends – in another universe.

But probably not.

As they'd thought before, anything capable of menacing the Markers must have bought that reputation with a galaxy of blood. They were just as lethal as the Necromorphs, and perhaps meaner.

Curtis noticed that Ellie kept stealing glances at everyone as they advanced. Hard to be sure with her helmet on, but it became increasingly obvious once she bumped into a scale model of the Ishimura and knocked it from the pedestal. It broke into countless tiny pieces, and the echo reverberated around the huge chamber.

"Anything you want to ask?" Ellie must have had so many questions that their cursory introductions couldn't possibly have answered. Those bubbled to the fore now that they had a moment of relative safety. She froze, sizing up how honest they all really were. He understood if she still didn't trust them.

"So, you guys beat this before?" Right to the point. She wanted to know if this could be stopped or if they chased a false hope. There would be nothing more gut-wrenching than reaching the Marker, only to realize all was lost.

"It wasn't easy, but we did," Isaac affirmed. "Not just us, of course; we had plenty of help." Ellie had just met a couple of them via holo-screen, but there were others who… didn't make it. In particular, he would never forget Elizabeth and all she sacrificed to save the universe. She never gave up her humanity.

"And it hasn't gone to your head?" She seemed genuinely perplexed that they didn't flaunt the "fame". It wasn't long ago that Curtis would have wanted a mansion on a resort world as payment for his actions, so he understood the temptation to think that way. Granted, them keeping their heads down for years chastened them further. Being able to stay alive another day was enough. The best he could do was hope his actions led to a better tomorrow.

"I know it's crazy, but we're normal people. We go to work, pay taxes – except Stefan – and haven't done any heroics for the past two years," Nicole interjected. "Even I had an online job."

"What did you do?" Ellie asked, cocking her head. "You said you were a doctor, so I'm guessing telemedicine with a filter good enough to make you look human." Nicole strongly considered that before accepting her current path.

Her mandibles spread into a toothy smile. "I was an artist. I guess I still am."

The woman connected with them deeper than before. Not like they had anything to prove, but it would help everyone if they believed and trusted each other. That wasn't always easy, especially when Kendra stabbed them in the back and left them to die. Not that he expected Ellie to do the same… yet he couldn't discount the possibility. The Markers drove people to terrible decisions.

Nolan was able to walk again by this point, though he barely warranted a second thought. Difficult to think too hard about the man when all he did was silently flit around. Watching. Watching what?

Suspicious, Curtis turned his head to the museum's darker corners. Nothing but shivering Corruption. Its simple mind conveyed only basic thoughts, but it didn't seem comfortable. Nicole picked up on his worries and gazed around, too. Her eyes, which picked up shades of infrared and ultraviolet, also noticed nothing unusual. They could still have overactive imaginations without the Marker fucking with them.

Nearly at the exit now. It brought them no comfort, since an industrial space would be far more dangerous, even without Necromorphs. Many machines must have run amok without their human handlers to turn them off. Maybe they had dead man's switches installed.

That was when he stepped in a puddle. He barely noticed, only thinking of it as a different substance from the hard floor or sticky Corruption he trod upon for the past several hours. When his eyes went down, his stomach followed. Instead of water, he had bumbled into a thick substance that reminded him more of industrial chemicals than anything else.

But it wasn't: the stuff was saliva. If Nicole could sleep, she would have fainted on the spot. Nobody else noticed, though, and there was no time to tell them.

Then he heard a hiss between them and the exit. It sounded soft, as if distant, but he knew it must have been all too close.

"Oh no," he whispered. The hiss became a growl. Yeah, it knew. It smelled them. It might have been aware the instant they stepped inside its nest. No wonder Necromorphs avoided the place. Something just as bad lived inside. Something that, by all rights, should've been dead. Curtis realized that truth as it dragged itself into a spot of illumination.

Nicole trembled as the object of her darkest fantasies emerged from the dark, ready to rend. Antipathy of it was coded into the deepest part of her being. Even if it wasn't, the way it looked proved more than enough for it to instill terror. Two sets of sharp teeth gleamed like metal in the night. It clawed the air with its good arm.

The damage Curtis briefly witnessed before losing consciousness proved astute. Its arm and the back of its head had been blasted clean off, which made it look almost as dead as her. What should have been mortal wounds to anything but a Necromorph proved merely inconvenient. What grew back in their stead was white and fleshy, having not yet taken on the carapace's superficial visage of machinery.

She knew certain species of reptiles and amphibians regenerated limbs – as could the Hunter. It was a slower process than that, but still faster than anything on Earth. It reformed part of its brain in a few hours. Humans should be as lucky.

As it was, they were anything but.

It lurched at them, scrambling across the flesh floor. The Corruption tried and failed to bind it. Not quite a shadow of its former self, but the beast was injured. A little more damage, Nicole thought, and it would have perished. Or it would have survived but have been trapped in the cold vacuum until its inevitable expiration. The worst of both worlds occurred: it didn't die outright, and the exploding gunship improbably pushed it back in the Sprawl's direction. It crashed through and licked its wounds before returning to its biological hunting imperative.

Made sense that it'd settle in the museum, too. It ate metal, and plenty of that was here – including unusual ores like lead and molybdenum locked inside the meteoroids and core samples. Plentiful nooks and crannies were available for it to hide behind or within. And, as they presently experienced, it was a great place for an ambush.

The only thing to give her comfort was that this Xenomorph was clearly the same individual from before. She might have died of fright if multiple of the monsters ran rampant. Still, its injury was the only reason they stood as much of a chance as they did.

"Remember that alien we talked about?" Isaac whispered to Ellie as the monster padded closer.

"Not as dead as you made it sound," she replied in kind.

"Yeah…"

It pounced, and they scattered. Nicole dove out of its path, somersaulting over a pedestal while it slammed its armored head into a giant floor-mounted model of the typical rocky planet. Might have got her if it was in better shape. It seemed to look at her without eyes as it recovered. While everyone here was on its list, she – the Necromorph – was enemy number one. Good thing that she was the fastest.

Curtis remained silent; even his mind was hushed, as if the alien might hear him. Isaac pulled out his Plasma Cutter, only holding his fire because of their fear of vaporized acid. Ellie responded by yelling at him to pull the damn trigger while she fiddled with her flamethrower. Nolan was the wildcard.

Some part of her expected him to be captivated by the Xenomorph; as a scientist, she had been at once enraptured and suspicious of the Marker's promise, and Nolan might react to this similarly impossible thing. Instead, he was utterly horrified, already running from the thing. Perhaps the Golden Marker passed its instinctual alarm to the people it manipulated. Obviously, though, that barely mattered with how scary it was on its own merits. In that sense, he was the sanest person around.

It stood upon its hind legs, suddenly towering over them. The tail whipped around, missing her by at least three feet. For just a moment, it didn't seem so scary. Unlike Necromorphs, it could get tired. That was one advantage her kind had over it, though she didn't know whether that was something to be proud of. Ellie screwed in a new tank of flame fuel and loosed a barrage, which Nicole didn't object to since it wouldn't pierce the skin. But it also posed no threat to something that shrugged off other extremes.

To Nicole's shock, the Xenomorph shrank from the flame, screeching in panic or pain. It stumbled away, its back arched like an angry cat. Some animals were afraid of fire, so that sort of made sense. However, she hypothesized something different: the explosion that nearly killed it instead caused trauma. Fire harmed it worse than anything ever had, and it triggered a release of cortisol and oxytocin, or the alien equivalent of those hormones. If so, it was an eerily intelligent reaction. Whatever the case, it warmed her dead heart to know that this creature of terror knew fear.

Isaac and Curtis also took the opportunity to scramble for escape. It may have been on the back foot, but it was still too dangerous to risk fighting. Nicole wasn't so sure – she thought it might be worth the risk to make sure it never came back to literally bite them. But with the three men sprinting for safety, she was outvoted. Ellie kept the flame on while muttering obscenities, but it wouldn't work forever. Even in the grim moment, Nicole found it interesting how the women wanted to hold their ground.

She had never been a "girl power" kind of person (especially because many systemic gender issues had been solved by the 26th Century), finding that kind of rhetoric primarily a way for corporations to make a quick buck. But in this case, she thought it was cool.

"There's a huge Corruption mound on the other side that's blocking the way!" Isaac called back. Seemed like her "wish" was granted. She peered through Curtis' eyes for a few moments while the Xenomorph withdrew.

A titanic tumor-like structure barred the way. It quickly pulsed, looking like a giant lung. Lung. Wisps of brown gas oozed from its fetid pores with each heave. It wasn't just Corruption: this was the Sprawl's equivalent of the Wheezers from the Ishimura. It tried to poison the air by turning oxygen into gasses like methanol! Thankfully, the fumes it produced weren't thick enough to ignite from the bursts of Ellie's flamethrower. Yet. The Sprawl was hundreds of times larger than the Ishimura – but it had thousands of times the biomass. It'd be very possible to alter the entire atmosphere within a matter of hours with how quickly the Corruption spread.

One more reason to get out as soon as we can.

Isaac and her husband chopped away at the growth like it was a root vegetable. Nolan clawed it with his fingers, which only served to get in their way. She felt so sorry for the man, who had been brought low by circumstances beyond his control. Only hoped they fixed this problem fast enough to fix him.

The creature receded into darkness, yet it would quickly return. Its rage guaranteed that – it chased them through the Church, and she saw no reason for it to stop now that it found them again. Most animals would have given up on such tenacious prey, which fed her hypothesis that it was more. She still believed it to not be sapient based on her earlier observations about its lack of language (that she could detect) and tools – but it was at least as intelligent as the smartest Earth animals. That gave her more reasons to fear.

Ellie couldn't contain hers, either, no matter how hard she tried. Nicole smelled the pheromones on her. Everyone, predator and prey, shunned something in that room. Soon, they'd all dread the Necromorphs. The Xenomorph simply could not kill the 100,000 of them waiting just outside and the millions more which followed.

She also kept looking at the P-5000, which was right next to them. Nicole saw where this went… and she approved.

"Give me the flamethrower," she said, sticking out a clawed hand. Ellie hesitated for only a moment before she handed it over. After all, she was about to possess a far more potent weapon.

The device felt strange in Nicole's hands. She'd never held such a tool, and it wasn't intended for her anatomy. She tapped into Curtis' mind for his memories using it – suddenly, she was as proficient with it as a scalpel! Granted, he'd only used this model for mining, but not much finesse was involved. Just point and shoot; if the alien had a weak point, it'd be caught in the incendiary cone.

Another snarl confirmed that it still waited for a moment to strike. She backed up towards the men, keeping the torch pointed at the ceiling. Carnivores went for the weakest first. Hey, Curtis shot back, genuinely a little hurt.

Sorry. She didn't mean it like that. How did I mean it, then? Concern didn't excuse putting others down. Meanwhile, Ellie scrambled into the bipedal tank. Nicole heard faint swearing under ragged breaths.

The robot rumbled to life, slowly lifting out of its perpetual squat. That didn't mean it'd be effective at a task it was never intended to perform. Nicole had heard about the military trying to implement such automatons in combat, only to be stymied by myriad issues in artificial intelligence and logistics that were never solved.

"Try and fight us now, you cockroach-lookin' motherfucker!" Ellie shouted, slamming the vehicle's "hands" together in a sign that she was ready to rumble. Hadn't lost her gumption despite the wringer she'd gone through.

Her focused eyes caught a subtle hint of movement on the ceiling right above the trio. The string of expletives in her mind raced by so quickly that one flowed into the next. Curtis tackled Isaac, and both fell as the tail lashed the space they'd just occupied. A split second later, she roasted the area with arcs of burning hydrazine.

The Xenomorph shrieked and fell. It landed just a few feet from the others, who also got a nice taste of superheated molecules. She winced, yet they'd be OK. RIGs could handle the heat for a few seconds before the astronomical temperatures melted the suits. Shrugging off 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit – it had to be hot enough to melt tungsten, the metal with the highest melting point – was another remarkable work of engineering. When put like that, it was incredible how she and the rest of her kind could withstand such weapons for brief times; yet another example of humans and Necromorphs reaching parity through different means, whatever those might be.

The alien evolved no such defense. It ran away, some Corruption that stuck to its back smoldering like napalm as it did. Maybe it is a physical weakness. Fire might not have existed in its original habitat without oxygen or another enabling substance. Psychology could have been a factor, but she got the impression (not a very scientific method, she knew) that those were howls of pain more than fear. Some acids were flammable, too. If it had a cut (which they would have noticed if it did), its blood might ignite in its veins. That'd hurt like Hell. It might even make it explode!

The small prey was not as easy as it expected. That led it to the one target it had yet to engage: Ellie. And she was happy to meet it head-on. Much as Nicole wanted to help, she needed to start cleaving through the pseudo-Wheezer with the others.

The dead nearly burst through from what she "heard". If any Twitchers were with them, they'd be swarmed within a minute… though they'd barely seen any of the ultra-fast Necromorphs. Wondered why as she put claw to flesh. Wey-Yu stasis modules fried themselves after the deaths of their owners, and from what she knew, regular EarthGov officers on the Sprawl weren't assigned any. Though the military and the police were under the same umbrella, only the former got expensive resources like that. They'd find more in GovSec, she was sure.

It was difficult for the four of them to simultaneously attack the blob with how little standing space was before the door; they got in each other's way more than once. Even she and Curtis had difficulty coordinating in the chaos. But they did make a dent. Chunks of flesh tore away from the main structure, and she saw whole bones mixed in.

The battle of the century happened behind her, and she dared not look back to see who had the upper hand. Ellie's screaming and the Xenomorph's roars made it sound like they were evenly matched, and it also lent itself to imagining an epic duel.

Nicole was certain the Xenomorph would have won if it were in its previous peak condition. It tore steel with its bare hands and moved swiftly as lightning. No reason it couldn't systematically tear apart a metal machine. Now, though, it was vulnerable. And what it fought hit harder than any of them.

They burst through the pustule, which exploded into gaseous tar. It evoked the image of a gigantic truffle releasing its spores into the air. Nolan slipped on the putrid liquid it exuded. He was still mad with fear, so he scrambled through rancid slime on his hands and knees. More animal than man by that point; she stepped forward and hauled him up, telling him that everything was OK. Well, everything in the immediate area.

She turned back to Ellie – it turned out not to be a lie. The woman, though bearing a few dents in her armor from glancing blows, beat down the Xenomorph like it was a tiny lizard. The sight of it trapped by one of the power loader's clamps made her want to cheer. Still, she needed to shout, "Don't break the skin!" so the woman didn't go up in a puff of acid.

Instead, Ellie leaned in, pinning the Xenomorph between her and the floor. It was too weak to push the multi-ton hunk off it, and slipping out would take some time, too. The thing snarled and weakly pawed as the woman's head got within feet of the beast's. A few inches closer, and it might've been able to do that thing where it chomped her head with the second internal set of jaws.

Curtis ran back to Ellie and hauled her out of the cockpit by hand; he didn't dare use kinesis for fear that it'd dislodge the P-5000 from its precarious position. Meanwhile, Nicole kept Nolan upright while getting Isaac through the foul mud.

The room went uncannily quiet as they found themselves at an impasse: to kill or not to kill? The Xenomorph was helpless. They could leave it to boil in flame or put a gun to its neck and keep pulling the trigger until it was beheaded.

It shouldn't have been a question. Why leave this thing alive?

Why, then, did she bother asking?

Her husband fished the woman out of the wreck; impressive as it proved, it wouldn't be getting up again. The monster made noises she couldn't describe, trying to get at its prey.

She wanted to annihilate it. If they let it live now, it would hunt them across the station. It'd fight them every step of the way, kill them, tear them apart for no reason other than sadistic pleasure, perhaps masquerading as some higher ideal.

Then again, so would the Necromorphs. At least it would take more undead out with it. Besides, it'd be a while before it healed from the latest damage. She was stumped, and she had to separate what was right from the bias her very DNA implanted in her. It was a lose/lose situation to her.

"I want to incinerate it, but we don't have time!" Curtis shouted to answer the query she and everyone else had. The pounding on the entrance, though several hundred feet away, was loud enough to give them pause. They'd be swarmed by the time they figured out a way to kill it. Besides, the Necromorphs about to come through weren't concerned about casualties.

Finally, they ran. She looked back as they fled through the door, only to find the Xenomorph "looking" straight at them. Almost seemed… confused. Grateful? She couldn't read the emotions of a literal alien. For once, though, it dropped the aggression. They didn't free it, but they also didn't execute it when they had the opportunity.

The monster did not know what to make of that.

Curtis didn't know how long they ran for. The public environment quickly gave way to an industrial jungle. It reminded him of the processing areas of mines or the Ishimura. Felt like a tiny rock invaded his shoe, but that was impossible with the vacuum seal. "Impossible" didn't prevent something from jabbing his right foot. Maybe one of his toenails had been bashed against the boot's interior a time too many and fell out.

He didn't know how far away the Necromorphs were or if they knew where he went. Nicole believed they didn't (for the moment), and harried half-glances over his shoulder supported that. They were lucky enough to not run into Corruption, and any scents got lost in the mire of synthetic odors. Speaking of scent, though, it smelled like a damp gym inside his helmet with how much he sweated. His body pumped fumes as noxious as any Necromorph.

Eventually, they could go no further – not without the impending threat of death, anyway. Without warning, Ellie stumbled to a halt, and Nolan slammed into her, creating a pile-up. Curtis' legs gave out, and he collapsed. All he wanted to do was sleep. Not quite yet, though – they were on a deadline tighter than freshly coiled wire. Taking even five minutes to rest were minutes the noose closed around humanity's neck.

He pulled himself up, wheezing like he'd just punctured a lung. They found themselves in what used to be a smelting room, with tanks to hold molten elements stretched along the walls. Under Wey-Yu's tenure, they became receptacles for industrial waste products, some of which spilled over the top. What Weyland-Yutani no longer had use for, it made into something else. On one hand, that was the Markers' modus operandi. On the other, it was also practical design. Probably nothing sinister in this sole component no matter how closely he looked.

Nolan seemed to have regained some of his good sense now that the danger passed. He spoke a few words without crippling terror overwhelming him, at least. "Uh, sorry for how I acted a little earlier…" He sheepishly looked down, as if expecting to be punished. If they got mad at people for being crazy, everyone in that room would have been a target!

"Nolan, you're fine," Curtis said; he considered giving a reassuring pat before quickly deciding against it. The man dealt with enough touching him in violent ways, real and imagined. "We get it. The Marker is a monster. I can't imagine the things it's making you see and feel."

His eyes glazed over through the transparent helmet he possessed, as opposed to the slit visors everyone else (except Nicole) donned. He went back to a different time, which Curtis immediately regretted sending him to.

"My family," he rasped. "It made me…"

"I don't need to know," he interrupted, brushing off the implication. It shook him, though he didn't want to judge. It wasn't his fault… yet part of him wondered. Would he have killed Nicole, no matter how much the Marker fucked him up? Couldn't discount the possibility. Yet he had to believe that, even if they weren't Linked, the love he shared with his wife would be enough to weather the waves crashing against his mind.

According to the Romantics, it is, Nicole thought, not as disturbed by what Nolan was about to say. That was a specific school of thought regarding the value of emotion, yet it'd make just as much sense for her to speak of people as in love as them. But I don't agree with them in this case.

Whatever optimism he felt popped like a balloon. The notion that he could be forced to hurt the woman he loved hurt him. Then again, it'd hardly be a moral failing. The Markers were stronger than any single person. Only together had they survived. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Ellie seemed the most distraught out of everyone, since it took the most effort for her to get back to her feet. That didn't surprise him, though: she worked there. Curtis was going to ask how she did, but Isaac swooped in first.

"Are you all right? You know, besides the obvious." She didn't speak for several moments; Isaac rubbed the back of his neck, seeming embarrassed for asking. Then, slowly, she answered in a tone not her own.

"This has been the worst day of my life, and the worst parts of it happened here." The fact she utilized a voice filter told Curtis she fell apart under the helmet. To what extent, he didn't know. "I told you before I was looking for a friend named Kaleb. That's only half the truth, though. He worked here, same as me. Also…"

"He was your boyfriend." Everyone here lost a spouse or lover. He found that significant in a universe where genuine love was rarer than diamond. The apocalypse brought him and Nicole together while ripping everyone else apart. It wasn't fair.

"No… maybe. It is – was – complicated." She sighed and straightened up. "Doesn't matter now. Let's go. I remember the exact way after working here for so long." She pointed forward; the pose struck Nicole as more heroic than she probably expected. Almost reminded her of a statue – and now he thought the same. They helped each other see something different in every little thing.

They struck out with Ellie at the front. He trusted their guide… and the fact she had a map of the place downloaded to her RIG didn't hurt. Travel proved difficult with the destruction in the way. Corruption mats obstructed different doors and routes at branching intersections (which were all labeled clearly, at least). He got the sense this first part was dedicated to light processing and maintenance, given the lack of heavy machinery. Those would make sense to fill the larger chambers that he heard were further in.

All in all, the process went surprisingly smoothly. Nicole updated him every few minutes on the other Necromorphs. They slowly gained ground, grinding up the halls through sheer force of numbers. Twitchers could have quickly closed the gap, yet they'd be at an insurmountable disadvantage with no room to maneuver. The Golden Marker also sent nimbler "scouting parties" ahead through routes like ducts or water pipes. Nicole speculated the goal was to box them in before overpowering them with a single, crushing blow.

It's incredible you can pick out that information. When Curtis tapped into the thoughts of an entire army (which he didn't often attempt because it gave him a migraine), it sounded like ocean waves – any individual thought was smothered into a low hum. She was able to parse the thoughts of millions.

Part of being a Necromorph, and honestly, I've had a lot of practice. This sort of thing happened to them a lot. It helps that most of my kind are single-minded whenever a threat appears, so they're on the same page. It made his mind wander to a related topic. Curtis knew that the undead had something that approached a social life, complete with communes and towns. Not that they had much time to build those up, since there were more people to kill.

It's possible that some formed at the far corners of the Sprawl, where they couldn't get to us fast enough. It'd interest and horrify him to see a place where death won and the Necromorphs settled down. Maybe that was what being made whole meant? Somehow, though, he doubted it was anything so benign.

"So… are you all excited to see the most expensive freestanding structure ever built?" Ellie's words snapped him and Nicole out of their shared thoughts. He didn't notice they passed through a door and into a… well, he couldn't call it a room or a cell or an atrium. This was the closest he'd been to being outside since he left Earth. He was nearly able to imagine birds flying around in the open air.

The open space seemed to stretch to the horizon. In reality, it was probably more like a mile on either side, which made it comparable to Ore Storage on the Ishimura. A cubic mile was nothing to scoff at. That empty space existed to store the mineral wealth of an entire world, and here, it sufficed to put the finishing touches on the costliest "freestanding structure" in history.

Struck him as odd phraseology, but he guessed it was meant to distinguish a single building from a space station or megacity, which, while larger and more valuable, comprised many different parts. This was a single edifice with one purpose. At least, it would have been in a few weeks.

Parts of the Atmos floated in zero-gravity, though they appeared to be held in place by taut wire. Free roaming was fine for asteroids or ore balls, but that wouldn't do for more delicate machinery. Bumping too hard against something would waste a million credits. The nearest block was the size of Curtis' entire apartment; he reached out to touch it through his glove, knowing he felt a piece of history.

Curtis hadn't considered exactly where the behemoth machine was being constructed. It had to be somewhere, of course, but it scarcely occurred to him that it'd be so… big, even though the dimensions had been publicly released.

"This is only about a tenth of it," Ellie explained, putting her hands on her hips. She sounded proud, as well she should, about having contributed to something so massive. "The other chunks are deeper in."

"What was going to happen next?" Nicole asked, somewhat less impressed. That also made sense; why would she praise people who tried to kill them?

"I'm not completely sure," she replied with a shrug. "The company and EarthGov decided to drop it on a planet called Thedus that I guess is amenable to terraforming." In a galaxy with millions of named worlds, it surprised Curtis that he'd heard of it! That was the destination of the destroyed USG Nostromo, a ship drenched in mystery. If the legends were true, the ghost ship might soon appear to them and seal their doom.

"It's too big to be assembled here – it's the size of the Ishimura, after all – so this is where the smaller pieces are going to be combined until they're as big as possible." Imagined a young child's (those who weren't immediately captured by the Transnet, anyway) building blocks on an unfathomable scale. "As for getting it there, Wey-Yu bought a planet cracker from the CEC a few months ago." He heard about that! The USG Perseus flew a different empire's flag. It'd be hollowed out to protect the Atmos during shockspace travel. "Then it'll open up and gently lower the Atmos onto the planet with gravity tethers."

Curtis couldn't tell if that was another insult or a matter of practicality; only the largest ships in the universe could haul something so massive. Either way, it'd almost be like a reverse planet crack. Instead of taking stuff out, it'd be putting something in that breathed life into a dead rock.

"That's incredible," Isaac gasped. "I mean, it's plausible to completely alter a planet's atmospheric chemistry – Weyland-Yutani had the tech centuries ago – but I didn't know it could be so quick or precise."

"Nerd," Ellie taunted; Curtis did his best not to snort. "As much fun as this is, we should move." She pointed at the wall to their left, several thousand feet away, which surely had an exit… though he couldn't see one from this distance. It continued to amaze him that he needed to walk so much in space!

Then again, people usually only work in one place, so it's not that much. He'd euphemistically call it a workout if every second didn't decrease their odds of survival. He wasn't yet at the stage where taking a single step felt like torture, though he imagined that moment would come with a few more beatings like the ones he already received. It didn't help that he nearly reached his daily limit on Somatic Gel. Still, he'd do his best to enjoy the trip.

6 Hours, 45 Minutes Post-Sprawl Outbreak

As they walked, it was neither Nicole nor Curtis who spent the most time talking – it was Nolan. The funk overshadowing him was once again lifted, which allowed him to speak… though not about anything she wanted to hear.

"Having no visible eyes, it likely hunts in low light or is subterranean. Echolocation, scent or thermal vision may be how it senses objects, but electroreception is also possible. It must have strong carbon-fluorine bonds in its biology to resist its own acid." He rattled off plausible hypotheses. The final one raised interesting questions; maybe they could hurt it with a strong enough base to cancel its acidity. The problem was that no base could counter the power of its acid blood by volume, so it'd take a much higher volume of a conventional substance. Luring it into a vat of soap seemed harder than pushing it into space, though.

Nolan shut up almost as quickly as he started talking, as if he needed to get this information out to anyone that could hear. Perhaps he did – that might have been part of the compulsion some part of the Golden Marker imprinted onto him. After all, the Marker network had long ago been implanted with a "parasite".

It must only manifest in a small number of people, and even then, only when the Xenomorph is around, she thought. None of the Necromorphs on the Ishimura had the slightest inkling about them, nor did she see any human scrawl. Only now did that knowledge come to the forefront. Whether it'd matter was hard to say. Still, the fact that a civilization managed to turn one of the Markers' greatest weapons against them was a clue that they could be beaten… even if said species either died out or regressed into beasts.

Do you think we could do the same thing and infect the Markers with a computer virus? Curtis thought with a glimmer of optimism. Sadly, she doubted something so complex would work, but it was still a great idea!

WE ARE NOT SUSCEPTIBLE TO SUCH ATTACKS AT A LARGE SCALE. EVEN IF ONE SUCCEEDED, IT WOULD QUICKLY BE PURGED.

That was what she thought. Marker firewalls would be more advanced than any attack humans cooked up. How did you get "infected" in the first place, then?

I KNOW NOT, YET WHATEVER HAPPENED WAS TEMPORARY. ALREADY, I FEEL MY KIN BURNING THIS DISEASE OUT NOW THAT THEY HAVE REALIZED ITS PRESENCE.

If humans failed to act on the knowledge this psychic signal hijacking provided, the next species to face the Markers would lack the same advantage – whatever that turned out to be. She assumed it was an advantage, though maybe she shouldn't have. They dealt with something almost as incomprehensible as the Markers; their motives were dubious, so they couldn't assume anything thousands of light-years away was beneficial.

I think it's something we need to check out. Curtis gently took her hand in his. It's hard to believe anyone, alien or not, would take such a huge risk without good reason. Sure, not for humans, but they couldn't assume extraterrestrials had the same thought process. Still, his words sparked scientific curiosity within her. She didn't know whether investigating was a good idea, but it'd give them answers. She might not like the replies, yet part of being a researcher was accepting data one disliked.

They reached the door not long after. It was sealed shut, but a little creative hacking from Isaac opened it. It hissed as the atmosphere exchanged; while there wasn't a vacuum, the pressure had been decreased. Her four eyes scanned for danger, though she knew no Necromorphs were in the area. Not yet, anyway.

A vent had burst open from within. Tables were hastily erected as barricades – useless, considering the previous point. Mesh shelves served the same purpose, and light sources behind them filtered through the holes; the shadows they left on the walls and floor made it feel like the inside of a vast hive. These elements told a familiar tale, one which filled her more with sadness than terror now that she'd heard it so many times.

Under the apocalyptic façade, Nicole could tell it was an administration area, probably for shift leaders or high-level peons to observe their subordinates. Truly powerful people would never come here, except perhaps for PR reasons.

"This is – was – where overseers watched us," Ellie confirmed, pointing to a set of screens mounted against one of the walls to prove her point. The feeds still ran, so the cameras must have been wired. She leaned against the wall, suddenly tired again. "I didn't like most of the people here, but they didn't deserve to die."

"We know what that's like," Isaac said. "I made friends – and people who I thought were friends – on the Ishimura. Most of them died." Though not the kind of pep talk Curtis would give, it made Ellie stand a little straighter. "What's next?"

"Um, right. We just go through a couple more rooms like this, and then we'll reach the industrial areas." She traced a finger along the bulkhead as if drawing on a map. "From there, it's a straight shot to the entrance on the other side, which has a train station." She tapped the spot twice for good measure. Curtis knew of it, though he'd only stopped there a few times. It was the station directly before or after the Transport Hub, depending on the direction one went.

So we're going away from the Government Sector? Nicole asked.

For now, but it'll get us back the way we need to go. The fact trams ran several hours into Armageddon gave her hope that whichever one they hopped aboard would function. If it did need repairs, Isaac could complete them on a deadline.

They looked at the cracked screens before departing. A few showed barren rooms and desolate corridors, yet most displayed bodies wall-to-wall inching forward. The monsters jostled each other to get to the front. Despite being a hive mind, it impressed Curtis how much they got in their own way.

Hey, they're excited to do us in, she explained. Trust me, they'd be more organized if they thought we'd escape. The Markers underestimated them again and again. Still, she saw why. They weren't what humans would imagine if someone said "heroes". And she wouldn't have it any other way.

Curtis had aliens on the brain, and he wasn't the only one. Despite Nicole just saying that extraterrestrial cultures would not map neatly over human ones, he believed that would remain constant. He couldn't imagine a civilization where a bunch of outcasts who dug through trash for scraps to survive were considered successful or strong.

Nicole told everyone the strike forces the Golden Marker sent around the other way quickly came at them from this angle. Weapons were drawn, and his poor heart beat faster. His wife was genuinely concerned for his long-term health, as was he. Stress could be as deadly as any illness over a long enough time, and he drowned in it. Thankfully, she made him calmer… and the fact she could adjust his hormones and some physiological responses via manipulating his endocrine and sympathetic nervous systems helped, too. Ah, the benefits of having his general physician jacked into his skull!

They progressed, trying to keep quiet in their bulky exoskeletons. Most RIGs weren't built for stealth. Conditions deteriorated quickly; each new room looked more dire than the last, allowing his feverish imagination to fill in the blanks. He wouldn't have been surprised if others saw movement in the shadows with the Marker pressing on their minds. Indeed, Nolan yelped a few times, pointing at empty corners. Isaac and Ellie, though more composed, must have also felt the heat.

Curtis didn't wish that Lexine were present, for that would have been selfish – she had Gabe and her unborn child to worry about. Still, they could have used her unique abilities more than ever. He briefly wondered again where those powers came from before shoving speculation away. The Black Marker exerted a modicum of influence from across the solar system to combat the illness in his friends – but only a little. It'd give them a chance to remain lucid, but only a chance. Much as he loathed to admit it, his Line Gun had one in the chamber for all of them if they snapped and couldn't be reasoned with.

On the positive side… there still wasn't much Corruption around to impede them or give away their position. That was about the only thing that came to mind. He glanced out a window to his left, jumping as he saw a dead body floating a few feet away from the station. It was frozen and bloated, as corpses exposed to the cold vacuum tended to be. No idea how it got there or why it didn't wear a RIG. Just another piece of collateral wrought by a petty self-proclaimed "god".

Posters lined the walls, extolling Weyland-Yutani's virtues. It propelled humanity into the future, it was a diverse and welcoming community, it paid great wages. It mattered, as did all the cogs in the machine. Great things on paper – and some of them may have been true. But it still ground the individual to dust under its heel.

He found it interesting that while the substance (or lack thereof) was practically identical to CEC propaganda, the presentation differed. The color palette of these ads trended brighter. They just seemed slicker. He wouldn't have been surprised if subliminal messages were implanted in these and other messages to influence people to buy more Wey-Yu products.

The next spot they entered looked like a reception area, if the chairs and desk meant anything. What's left of them. Ellie confirmed this, adding that the industrial facilities were through the next door. The only problem he saw was that the zombie contingent would be on them in approximately two minutes. Nicole shared that information, causing Nolan to duck and cover, Isaac to crack his neck, and Ellie to cringe. She wasn't as unflappable as she tried to act.

Then her stomach rumbled. The room was silent for a moment before everyone started to laugh. Not huge or exaggerated; they shared a moment where the tension was cut by something minor. Something human. The tension somehow made humorous situations even funnier. After blinking a few times to clear tears, Curtis realized he was kind of hungry, too. Not a big deal for now, though he'd be starving after a few more hours of peak exertion with nothing to fuel him.

A vending machine sat against one of the walls, but anything in there must have turned into Swarmers in the packaging. That was why he hadn't gotten any grub earlier. The pilot didn't know that, though, and she sidled over to the box for a bite to eat before anything else wanted to eat them.

"Any food here has been infected by now unless it's preserved," he explained, her fist already in the air.

"Figures. I guess anything made of cells would be."

"Yeah, anything cellular," Nicole chimed in. "A few things, like some candies and vitamins, haven't changed." No reason to consume anything so insubstantial. She paused for a second, then punched through the glass, anyway. Fair enough, she might as well wreck things. Then she pulled a bar from the bottom shelf and quickly unwrapped it. "Did you not hear what I just said?"

"Oh, this isn't made of cells, either." She pointed the exposed bit at them, proving that it wasn't Necromorph tissue. That being said, it looked gross. Almost like jerky (which did remain safe because of it being salted and smoked), but wet. Her helmet off, she devoured the gray thing in a few chomps and dropped the wrapper. The last bite went down her throat, and she grimaced. "Pure protein. Not even lab-grown meat. Wey-Yu makes them, though they're not exactly a popular product. I hate them, too."

"Just protein," Isaac muttered. Nicole – and by extension, he – knew it was possible to artificially create protein molecules and shove them into a block. While gross, it would provide a daily supply of the macronutrient at a low cost. He couldn't argue with economics, though most people must have been more discerning in terms of taste, given that neither Curtis nor Nicole ever saw advertising for it.

Curtis stepped over to the vending machine and scooped up a couple of the bars from the bottom shelf. Might as well have something in his back pocket if he needed a nutritious snack. As he did, he tried to keep his eyes off the other packages, which gently wriggled and bumped into each other. 30 seconds wasn't enough time to eat one and get his helmet back on.

They dug in, taking positions where they'd cause crossfire. Nolan got behind the broken table, which was the best piece of cover in the room. At least that meant he didn't run away. And, honestly, the guy didn't seem like the fighting type, regardless of what he did to his family. That still nibbled at Curtis' brain. If he turned on the people he loved, what was to stop him from betraying them? With his Line Gun locked and loaded, they were as fortified as they hoped to be.

Of course, there was no reason the Necromorphs couldn't entrench, too. All they needed to do was keep them pinned until the rest of the horde burst in.

As the seconds ticked by, Nicole realized that was exactly what happened. Dozens of minds made their own preparations behind a closed door with the unity she came to expect. Curtis gritted his teeth in anger; the Golden Marker was smarter than he cared to admit.

"They're staying put," she reluctantly admitted. "And we're dead if we stay here."

Curtis took a deep breath. The Marker wanted them to panic. They wouldn't.

"Ellie, are you sure there's no way forward?" Isaac inquired. She confirmed, sounding annoyed that he doubted the person who worked there for years. He got the memo. "Just checking." Then he pointed at the egress. "We need to call their bluff. We'll go in, kill anything that moves, and hope we don't die."

"Very inspiring," Nolan quipped from the "safety" of his cover, which made Curtis smirk. The guy had a sense of humor left. Or maybe he was serious. Either way, Ellie tapped her foot and started describing what the room ahead of them looked like before getting put under "new management".

The door slid open, and Nicole braced herself. An attack might come at any second. The Necromorphs certainly implied that; the vile words in her head proved how much they hated her. She didn't let Curtis hear the most brutal, which were reserved for him.

That she loved a human was monstrous, they thought. Becoming whole with something so inferior was the Necromorph equivalent of bestiality. Of course, to humans, it was necrophilia. She had a hard time deciding which was more offensive. Obviously, both of those paraphilias were terrible, but she and her husband practiced neither: she remained sapient despite being dead, and Curtis, despite what her kin thought of him, was just as intelligent as any of them. Not that they needed to justify themselves to anyone – they'd long ago accepted the oddity of their relationship. She had to admit, though, that it was nice to have friends who approved.

Anyway, back to being mauled.

She didn't immediately spot danger, only enormous pieces of the Atmos. As Ellie said, this chamber was where the units got put onto crawlers with square footage dozens of times that of their apartment before being trundled through a closed portal to their right and added to the Zero-G space they just walked through. There was no room to install a tractor beam system, so they did it the old-fashioned way; this was the same technology ancient governments used to move rockets and other space vehicles. The device, at least 20 feet high, sat to their left. She ran a claw across the bumpy treads.

No Necromorphs appeared, though they trudged through Corruption as deep as her shins. As usual, it tightly gripped whatever it could, trying to restrain them. It might have worked if it were a foot deeper (which it would be in a few hours). The same substance obscured the others' locations. Psychic interference muddied the waters of their minds. The closest technological equivalent was radar jamming, and that still felt inadequate. Curtis didn't need words to understand what she meant, though.

Ellie squirmed, having never met a landscape that fought back. It was a small miracle that Nolan kept following them. Fighting the Xenomorph turned out to be for the best; the Necromorphs now didn't seem so bad. To Nicole, it almost felt like home… except the home excoriated her.

"Where the Hell are they?" Nicole rasped, trying to find her kith. They saw her, she knew. So why couldn't she see them? "Something isn't right," she said loud enough for everyone to hear. None clung to the ceiling or walls. The room lacked enough vents for everyone to hide in. She even peered into hollow parts of the Atmos they passed: nothing more than one little Swarmer that skittered into a crack when Curtis shone his light on it. The tension coiled the deeper they went. After a few minutes, they were at the halfway mark. It'd be the perfect time to spring a trap. She felt dozens of her kin prepare to do just that, though they gave no indication of where they hid.

It doesn't make sense, she thought. They should be right –

She paused as her foot went through the Corruption. Instead of hitting the metal floor, it landed on something else. It was dense enough to put her weight on, like the floor itself, but it still felt somewhat soft. So familiar that she could almost name it. Only when she stuck a toe into an eye socket that she realized it to be a skull. No, there was flesh attached: a head. Body parts didn't surprise her. But she had to wonder why the Corruption hadn't assimilated this errant cranium.

Nicole was blasted back into the muck while the head emerged. When it did, she realized it was attached to a body.

As were all the others that clawed out of their own graves.

She almost laughed as this scene from a schlock scary movie played out. It would have been ridiculous if their lives didn't hang by a fraying thread. The Corruption was just shallow enough to bury them if they pressed themselves to the floor. It was the ultimate ambush. Nicole wondered if she should have known better. It didn't matter now, when the goal became to tear free from this bear trap around their legs.

Speaking of legs, her right one came clean off. She landed face-first in the goo, which became more dangerous as it touched more of her body. It was like the cinematic version of quicksand (as opposed to the real phenomenon, which was more of a curiosity than a danger) in that it could suck someone down with a thick enough layer. She raised her head as she thrashed to see the Necromorph she'd been unlucky enough to step on was a Twitcher. Fuck!

The Twitcher was surprised he tagged her. Slight shock coursed through his incomprehensibly fast mind, though his broken face remained unchanged. Hard as the Marker tried to downplay the fact, she was one of the people who prevented Convergence the last time around. She, Curtis and Isaac were legendary monsters who killed a "god". And now this humble servant had her on the ropes. How the mighty had fallen – quite literally, in her case.

That shock and satisfaction gave Curtis enough of an edge to pop off a perfect shot. One burst of plasma lopped off his arms. He fell forward, head bashing into slime; there was no longer a reason for the Corruption to support his weight. Sank quickly, though one good eye watched from behind a cracked visor.

All that happened in the span of two seconds. In another six or seven, the rest would be all over them. She twisted her head for hints of what happened; she saw Isaac grab his Cutter and heard Ellie shout something. Her mind became dull and sluggish without a huge chunk of her body attached; this was her version of shell shock. One more limb, and the burning candle of her spirit would be extinguished.

Curtis hauled her out and draped her limp form over his shoulders. He had few thoughts, instead acting on a patchwork of fear and love. As he did, she weakly snatched the tip of her femur, which was the only part of her leg that remained visible as the Corruption devoured it.

"That's mine." Her cartilage skeleton lost definition, making her feel… floppy.

"Onto the crawler!" Isaac shouted. Nolan already climbing the vehicle gave him the idea. "Crawler" was lowercase, thankfully. They would have been screwed if the advance scouts brought explosives with… they actually might have. Crawlers or Exploders could have lurked in the mire like ambush predators. That gave Curtis motivation to shove his foot into a crack and scale the structure. The good news was that the Corruption hadn't covered the vehicle, and the enormous treads provided ample handholds.

The bad news was that she saw just how many monsters were in the room with them. More than a hundred. She'd underestimated the number earlier. The sense pervading the local hive mind was one of triumph, though tempered by an undercurrent of disappointment that their cover was blown early. If the group got deeper into unfavorable terrain, they'd already be dead or dying. Climbing this thing would help by giving them favorable terrain, yet they still lacked the firepower to wipe out this platoon.

Curtis dumped her overboard, and she rolled a few times before ending up on her back. She didn't take it personally; he couldn't wield a weapon with her as (un)dead weight. She pulled out her own Plasma Cutter and cocked it. She wasn't as helpless as she appeared.

The first Necromorphs came over the edge from all directions, barreling toward the group. Without cover, the zombies' best bet was to charge in horde attacks. They'd quickly run out of ammo, despite their pockets being weighed down by a healthy amount. The marching column 100,000 strong would see to that!

She nailed a Leaper in the tail mid-jump despite the fog clouding her vision. They skidded to a halt in front of Curtis, who kicked them in the jaw hard enough to rip their head off. Isaac caught a Twitcher (had to focus on those first) with stasis as she raised herself over; two more shots left her without arms. Ellie roasted a Puker, whose acid vomit suddenly looked a lot less impressive. Even Nolan mustered up the courage to shoot at an Infector who already lost a wing, making it limp along the deck. All of them fought back the night in ways professional soldiers could only dream of. Heroes or not, Nicole knew they were damn good at chopping off limbs.

And it meant nothing. This move bought them a few minutes. The path out was choked with Corruption the whole way through – going on foot would slow them enough to be dogpiled.

On foot… She glanced at a control panel near the front. Maybe they didn't need to hoof it. The realization struck Curtis a fraction of a second later.

"You're a pilot!" he shouted to Ellie as her target fell; enough flesh immolated for him to keel over despite all the limbs being intact.

"So?!" she screamed back, threading in a new fuel canister.

"So drive the crawler!" The conversation was punctuated by gunfire, wails and even small explosions. The din made Nicole wonder about the battle between EarthGov and Wey-Yu as she scooted back with her good leg. It didn't matter now, though.

"I thought about that, but I don't have the damn key on me!" That'd normally be a good point. However, the man who stomped a dead baby into primordial soup while yelling like a maniac could fix a little problem like that with his eyes shut.

"Isaac, go pull wires or whatever until you get this platform to turn on!" He punted the fleshy mass away.

"Probably a good call!" He and Ellie dashed to the controls.

Nicole wished she could do more to tip the scale in their favor. As it was, the only things that mattered were their aims and each other. She kept firing away. Seconds felt like hours, and the creatures kept pushing. She and Curtis worked as one, even with her diminished. That was the only reason they kept themselves (and the other three) somewhat safe. In the body, anyway. Sometimes, words cut deeper than blades, even if they couldn't do real damage. Her cousins slinging venom at her until the moment they died hurt her – and she felt their lives end every time.

After an age, the vehicle rumbled to life. The acceleration knocked her head back, making her stare at the ceiling. Had it always been so far away? Curtis grabbed her again, and she grabbed her leg. She hated being so useless. Not because it humiliated her, but because it hurt all their chances.

We would've been cut to ribbons without your crack aim, he thought, pain arcing between his ribs. Nothing broke, fortunately, but a painful bruise remained. He couldn't afford to be so reckless.

I'm going to be the one in CQC once my leg gets reattached. She leapt up and leaned against Curtis as they limped to the front. One arm – the one that held her leg – was draped over her husband's shoulder, and the one that wielded the Cutter remained free to murder as she pleased.

The treads squelched as they churned through Corruption to gain a grip, and the room groaned as it was torn up. The rig lurched slightly upward. "Woah," Curtis exclaimed, nearly tripping. Plenty of her kin weren't so dexterous, either falling over or sliding off the deck entirely. Not a huge incline, but they must have hit one Hell of a bump.

"This is insane!" somebody shouted. She didn't know who. Maybe it was the part of her who recognized how strange their lives became. Despite the shallow incline, it felt like she marched up a mountain with her sole appendage.

Curtis slowed the advance by firing a line of mines across the hull – the detonations created a trench. Even that turned out to be insufficient, as the beasts leapt across; Ellie left Isaac at the rudder and sprayed a line of fuel across the edge. Upon ignition, it created a wall of fire. It ate through most of their ammunition, but it was all they could do for fear of being overwhelmed.

Even still, they came. They ran through shrapnel and plasma and fire to get the prize. Their limbs and flesh fell away, sloughing off pieces of their withered souls with them. It didn't matter. They didn't care, at least not with the rage pulsing in the air. They'd sacrifice everything at their depraved deity's altar. Some had second thoughts, she knew – she blew a hole the size of a Z-Ball through such a doubter. However, the Marker had a way of smoothing over such thoughts. Though it boasted of unity, there was no real consensus; the Necromorphs were slaves of its power, possessing only an illusion of free will.

They got to the front after an indeterminate amount of time. She was out of ammo, which indicated that it had been long enough to burn through a swathe of undead – even as more and more streamed in from the stern as they chased the car. A cabin waited directly beneath them, she knew, but they couldn't find the hatch in the chaos. Thankfully, a backup control panel waited on the top, which Ellie took advantage of. Bodies piled up, though the once-far wall now looked mercifully close.

Through it all, the crawler rolled along at the breakneck pace of… she checked the speedometer… 15 miles per hour. Not like it needed to be fast when its existence was confined to this cavern. Unless we break through the wall! They probably didn't have enough momentum, yet it would have been an incredible entrance. Either way, it'd only be a few more seconds until impact. "Got an escape plan?" she asked Ellie.

"See that door down there?!" The woman pointed to a large one directly beneath the vehicle. "That's the way out! From there, it's another chokepoint. Maybe it'll let us regain some ground! I think we'll end up blocking the exit with the crawler, too!"

That was a great idea. Success meant the Necromorphs would need to break through the tank or pilot it in reverse to continue. Either would take enough time for them to claw back a lead. She saw two awful ways to die if they failed, though. First, they could mistime their departure, whatever that turned out to be, and run themselves over. Second, they might block themselves, trapping them in a room with a paucity of escape options and an army close behind.

I'd rather take the first option, Curtis thought. She concurred.

"OK. How do we get down?!" Isaac asked what they all wondered. There weren't any ladders in the immediate area. A 20-foot fall might be enough to break bones. Given that the bow (to keep using spaceship terms) listed into the air with each strain, it might have been a more distant drop. There was only one choice she knew of, though they'd need to time it perfectly.

"Stasis?" she asked. Isaac looked at his unit to see it finished recharging. Ellie hadn't used hers yet. Her RIG didn't have any. That was OK; she and Nolan just needed to pair up. She got on Curtis again, of course. Isaac and Ellie had to wrangle Nolan between the two, since he was too busy freaking out to have a coherent idea of what happened.

The wall seemed to come at them far faster than she knew they went. They'd jump in three seconds.

I'm ready, her husband thought, sitting on the edge of the bow. Isaac and Ellie seemed were ready to step off. Either was fine, since they'd hit at the same reduced speed.

"On three," Curtis said, intently staring at the sudden stop. That didn't daunt the Necromorphs. Nicole couldn't help but look over her shoulder.

"One…" A fire brighter than the one burning behind these charred monsters was in their eyes. "Two…" They wouldn't stop at Titan, they told her. Earth itself would be on the menu once the Marker was through. "Three!"

Curtis slid off a moment before the deck, which overhung the vehicle's treads and body, met the barrier. She heard sounds of calamity as the Necromorphs were flung away, compounded by the screech of crumpling metal. Stasis provided a parachute; even with his personal timeline slowed, Curtis felt pleased with himself as they descended. She imagined Isaac and Ellie felt the same. It wore off right as they hit the ground.

Turning around, she found they were boxed in. The crawler dug a hollow into the bulkhead. The area under the vehicle provided enough room for them to stand, just as regular cars weren't flush with the ground. Still, between it bucking up and all the debris around, there was no obvious way for Necromorphs to enter the artificial cavern.

She laughed. It was an airy giggle from someone who'd survived many long falls lately. She reveled in being able to find joy: they no longer knew how. The Markers may have taken crying from her, but laughter was something she still possessed. Her friends, old and new, joined her in it – even Nolan. They'd dodged a bullet the size of Mercury.

To say her cousins were enraged would be an understatement. To say the Golden Marker was displeased would be a joke. Who cared what they thought, though? Besides, she and the others had plenty more chances to die. It might not have even been as big a setback as they believed – she sensed fragmented memories piece together how to drive the transport while others tried to dig through metal with their own claws or tentacles.

Nicole sighed, looking down at her stump. She hoped there would be time to sew her leg back on, but that wasn't the case. I'll do it the first chance I get. Curtis again picked her up to continue the three-legged race. In hindsight, it may have been a good idea to have a sling or pouch for her to put the pieces of her that fell off until they could be reattached.

The door was already open, so they continued. How deep were they, she wondered? They must have gotten close to the end.

"Um… the good news, if we want to call it that, is that there aren't any open areas." The encounter rattled Ellie in a way nothing else had. She saw someone close to her die and eventually shook it off. Being targeted by an entire species turned out to be worse. It was a sea change in how she saw them. Everybody who survived this long must have experienced one.

The Necromorphs weren't all she feared, though. Nicole observed that Ellie's head swiveled to dark corners a little too often, and she checked the gauge on her flamethrower once every few seconds.

"You're still thinking about it." Why wouldn't she? It'd be a toss-up for most humans whether the undead or extraterrestrials were more interesting. Clearly, though, she was captivated with the latter. Nothing wrong with that. People had always been fascinated by that which killed them. Nicole was haunted on a spiritual level and as a scientist by something both bred to kill her kind and as a consummate survivor. Though she doubted Ellie's fascination cut that deep, the Xenomorph was frightening.

"Yeah. It's gonna haunt my nightmares for a long time, assuming we live through this." Her shiver was visible through the thick suit. "I can't help but wonder… if it might still be growing."

An upsetting thought, to be sure. It primarily ate metal, and plenty of that was around. Maybe it was a baby for its species, and the adults were the size of whales or dinosaurs. Why stop there? They may have been as big as movie kaiju, dwarfing skyscrapers! Necromorphs might also get that big if they weren't in a contained environment. Either way, she hoped to never find out.

"I think it'd be good if it got that huge," Isaac opined. "It would be stuck in one spot." Hmm, that was a good point. She'd rather it get big enough to not be able to fit through doors.

"Xenomorphs grow quickly. This individual has reached its final size… though that girth depends on the environment in which they are raised." Nolan popped the bubble of optimism yet again. Their resident expert remained characteristically vague. She asked what he meant about the environment determining their size, but his lips were once again sealed. His mind wasn't with them.

Maybe the Xenomorph is like fish growing to the size of their container, at least to an extent. It was possible. No organism reached its full potential in a cramped space – though what "cramped" meant to an alien, she couldn't say. It seemed comfortable in tight spots, and it would have been much easier to deal with in an open field. Conversely, this environment may have lacked things it needed that she couldn't imagine. At least it wasn't their problem for a while.

Or ever, if the Necromorphs dealt with it. She was almost certain they didn't, though; the celebration or relief across the psychic web would have been tremendous. It must have slipped out of its shackles.

It took a minute more, but they reached the next layover without issue. A circular door led into an assembly area, which led to the exit. Ellie used her clearance to open it.

No luck. She tried again, yet they already knew it was fruitless.

"The door is jammed," Isaac commented after close inspection of the hologram. "This must have been the last stand for whoever was left down here." Then he yanked open a panel and rooted around inside. Nicole shivered as she felt satisfaction among the dead; they nearly finished getting through the blockade. "It's too thick to break down, and all the circuits are fried. They tried everything to keep the Necromorphs out."

The engineer halted before slamming on the metal in the rhythm of EarthGov's national anthem: something only a human would do. Personally, Nicole would have gone with a F33L song. He waited a few seconds, getting no response except dull echoes. Either the Necromorphs found another way in or madness splintered their brains. "Not that it helped."

"Is there any other way?" she and Curtis asked simultaneously. That sometimes happened with the way their brains intertwined. Ellie cocked her head, not knowing how to respond. Nicole repeated the question independently, feeling embarrassed.

"Um, we could go through the old processing plant. It's been shut down since Wey-Yu bought the place." She pointed over her shoulder at a more dilapidated door down to the left.

"Those things aren't meant for human traffic, but it should be safe if it's been mothballed for so long," Curtis said. Though he'd never seen the one here, this happened to be his area of expertise. "Just don't touch anything sharp." He conjured images of crushers and plasma torches that all worked in sync to reduce rock to rubble and find the treasures within. "They might not have been used much for the past few decades, given how little of the Shard there is left to mine."

It was a brisk trip. Nobody said a word during it. Except Nolan. He whispered cryptic nothings.

"The machine. I must return to the machine." His mutterings were so quiet that she didn't know if anyone else (except Curtis, through her) heard.

"Are you talking about the 'needle machine'?" she leaned in and whispered. Again, he was unfazed by her because of the way scarier things they ran into earlier.

"Yes." He nodded enthusiastically.

"Why do you need to use it?"

These may have merely been the ramblings of someone who needed serious help from a professional. On the other hand, they might hold valuable insight. His unique biology collided with the Marker's influence while an alien got loose. Those events occurring were as rare as an alignment of the planets.

His eyes fell. "So that I can remember more. I don't want to forget my family. I'm so worried I'll forget them." Her heart, such that it was, broke. He'd already said that this machine could retrieve memories. EarthGov wanted to use that capability to extract whatever the Marker stuffed into his head. Nolan wanted to remember the people he loved… even if that meant reliving the worst thing he'd ever done. It was complex, and Nicole wasn't sure she'd have done the same in his situation.

"I can't promise anything, but I'll try to get you there." She could have sworn Nolan smiled for a flickering moment before his expression returned to a distant stare. You just have to hold it together.

7 Hours Post-Sprawl Outbreak

Curtis hoped Nolan wouldn't lose his shit before they got to GovSec. He deserved help. Maybe this machine couldn't give it to him, yet it'd at least provide closure. Still, he didn't worry about that too much, since the terrain here occupied most of his attention: he veered past another rotary thresher, which was nearly black with corrosion. As he suspected, there was no way it had been used for many years, even before the acquisition.

It turned out to not be as dangerous as he expected. The grinders were dulled, and any residual radiation died down long ago. They were the most threatening things in there, even if not all of them were at full capacity. We'll find a place to reattach your leg soon enough. His wife hoped so – as it was, she felt slow, even scared. Necromorphs dreaded not being whole.

"We should be about halfway through… though that's mostly a guess," Curtis sheepishly said from the front, taking the lead for a change. He knew about processing plants, but he'd never been in the guts of one. His knowledge made them as close to an expert as they had, so he volunteered to scout.

Then the machines around them rumbled to life. There wasn't even a warm-up period. One second, it was cold and dead as space. The next, plasma jets erupted. The temperature would rise 100 degrees in a single minute. Old engineering truly was built to last.

Curtis didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The one spot where monsters didn't try to kill them, the landscape did. It was lucky nobody began in the immediate vicinity of a deadly machine. The perpetrator's identity was obvious. He showed up to brag, regardless.

"There you are." Tiedemann's voice boomed louder than grinders over the radio. "It's been difficult to monitor you all, but well worth it in the end. Thank you for stumbling into the one place you won't find a way out of." Curtis heard the words, but he didn't really listen. Someone else was on his way.

Where there was smoke, there was fire. In this case, he didn't know which was which.

The equipment flipped off as quickly as it activated.

"We'll have to disagree on that, Hans. I want them alive," Victor retorted. The acoustics warped his voice, yet Curtis thought he sounded angrier than before. His gambit failed, and capturing them became much harder. No matter how good his mercs were, they couldn't compete with thousands of Necromorphs. Sending them into the maelstrom would just be feeding the hungry maw.

"How the Hell did you do that?!" The machines turned back on.

"I have remote access to Weyland-Yutani facilities. One of the many perks of my position." And off. In hindsight, it may have been a bad idea for the government to give such unprecedented privileges to a company famous for its hostile takeovers.

"You have no idea about what's at stake here!" Both sides slammed closed their comm links, for the tête-à-tête would progress no further. This was bizarre. Before, Weyland and Tiedemann made the pretense of talking to them. Now, they bickered with each other. Uh, at least that meant they'd pay less attention to Curtis and his friends?

"OK, let's hope they stop thinking about us so they can keep up their pissing contest." Nobody replied. They must have been as shocked as he was. Their movements through the line of death became rigid as they realized that one wrong move would cost them an arm – and they couldn't all deal with it as gracefully as Nicole. A human would simply bleed to death. In this place, they might not even last long enough to do that.

Implements of death flew left and right. Spikes and fire and kinesis fields designed to rend stone into gravel stood between them and the exit hatch. There was no time to wait, for that'd only delay the inevitable. His guts were in his feet, and he felt like he was about to shit himself.

Please protect me and my friends, he prayed to whatever force would listen. He hoped at least one deity, if any there were, sympathized with their plight.

Then they were in the thick of it. Shears missed him by inches. Blasts of supercooled particles could have frozen Isaac solid if he'd been a second slower. The ways to die were myriad and terrible. He didn't even rely on his Bond with Nicole. The only thing that'd see them through was luck.

And it sure was lucky that Weyland and Tiedemann forgot about the little people – that meant the deadly obstacles functioned only half the time. Two of the richest men in the universe dueled for control. Not physical control, but mastery of the wires and circuits – the ones that hadn't been shredded by the Necromorphs. The fact that some of the apparatuses broke was another point in their favor.

Sure, Weyland wanted them to make it out (if only so that their genetic material wasn't destroyed), but Curtis got the impression this little spat was more about embarrassing someone he apparently loathed.

If there was one praise he could give Necromorphs, it was that they'd never do something so self-destructive. The hive mind made sure of that.

They were close. The emergency hatch was just ahead! Curtis and his friends were fortunate, and they needed to keep that luck for just a few more seconds! His entire body tensed, as if it became one big muscle trying to squeeze. He felt like he was about to pop.

Isaac was the first sardine out of the can; he yanked open the hatch and bolted out. Then Ellie. Then Nolan – he fought them some of the way, but he was lucid enough to realize they traveled the quickest route to safety.

Nicole went next, leaving him for last. The death-machines rumbled after a brief "sleep". "Go!" he yelled, and she was happy to oblige. They moved so fast. The blades moved faster. In a microsecond, he felt his head detached from his shoulders. It wasn't painful. And he almost wasn't afraid.

He had been decapitated… wait, no. It took a moment to realize his brain was still attached to the rest of him. However, he no longer saw through as many eyes or heard through as many ears. The tension in his body exploded outward. Through their dying Link, he felt the Black Marker react with dismay.

Curtis screamed so loudly that he nearly tore out his throat. The Necromorphs couldn't hear it, though the Golden Marker certainly did. It hurt him like nothing ever had before. Nothing. He was used to being scared – he woke up every day with a pall of doom hanging over him like an ill omen.

His wife was dead.

I'm… not all right. But I'm… "alive". Never mind. She was just hurt and mutilated beyond anything that happened to her before. That didn't help much, especially when he turned and saw… Curtis vomited in his helmet. The sight was enough to make the stomach turn inside out as the contents emptied into his face. He removed the mask to get his own acid out of his eyes, only to find that the chamber became as hot as an oven.

He pulled Nicole's pieces toward him with kinesis, which was a terrible sign. It meant whatever life remained in them faded. His tears evaporated as he cried, making it almost look like he breathed steam. Gathering the remains of the woman he loved took an eternity, but he eventually was able to climb out the hatch without being eviscerated, retching all the way.

Only once he emerged did he realized he'd been kind of fucked up, too. His face burned, as if he just pressed it against a toaster, and his eyes might have melted because of how much his vision blurred. He'd have worried about permanent damage, but some small part of Nicole told him that he'd heal soon enough. She was a ghost in his head.

He'd often wondered if phantoms existed over the last few years. If zombies were real, he saw no reason spirits of the dead couldn't also return. Why the Hell not, right?

If they are real, I'll… haunt you forever, she thought, grasping his hand. Her headless, legless body spasmed in a gesture that would haunt his nightmares. I'll never leave you.

Same here. He squeezed back, weeping. The two never stopped to think about what would happen if one of them died: they couldn't. Not when the greatest threat in history bore down on humanity. After that, though, they'd die like anyone else. Even Nicole would rot or fall apart in a few centuries. Would the survivor live out the rest of their days or quickly decide to join the other, wherever they went? They were one flesh and one mind now.

You can… fix me, she thought. Her dead eyes gazed at him as her mandibles hung agape. In humans, the brain was where everything happened, perhaps even where a spirit or soul might be. For Necromorphs, it was the torso – the center of mass.

A few cells made the difference between undeath and oblivion… or whatever came next. His wife would have been lost forever if another cubic inch of flesh was severed. There was still time to –

Only then did he notice that someone else wept with him, for his grief drowned out the rest. Isaac slumped beside him, equally distraught. He cared about her as a good friend. How could he not? The two were supposed to be married. "I'm so sorry," Curtis heard him gently whisper.

"I don't know if we have time for this," Ellie ventured. He turned his head to her, only seeing a shadow through the misty veil over his vision.

"Yes, we do." It took everything he had not to growl or scream this. Still, he boiled inside – how dare she suggest they abandon someone who meant everything to him?! It was up to her if she wanted to get killed without him and Nicole. "I'm staying until she's better." Already, his hands reached for the emergency sewing kit he kept for just such an occasion. At that moment, it was worth far more than a hard drive of Lexine's data and Altman's journal and a clipping of Larry the snake plant put together.

She inhaled deeply. "I'm sympathetic, but there might not be much time," she said, quieter than before. "I hear them moving." He had no time to pause, yet Nicole confirmed that Necromorphs were in the region. They must have broken through the doors by throwing enough weight against steel.

Curtis didn't care. Nicole needed to be made whole now to have any hope of surviving. Isaac took a needle and thread for himself; perhaps the engineer had a secret proficiency for hemming. His fingers trembled as he put the tiny piece of metal to flesh.

Nicole always took control during this process, making his hands her own. She was in no shape to do that now, leaving him to fumble in the dark.

You've done it before, he told himself. How hard could sewing be? The answer, as he soon discovered, was very. It might have been easier without the gloves or if his hands didn't quake with fear. Perhaps it would have gone better if he didn't need to worry about inflicting more damage. He had some luck, but it didn't go quickly enough.

"Oh, fine, I'll give it a go," Ellie murmured. Her shade squatted down to assist. Then Nolan did, too.

"Nicole's nice. I'm trying to help," he said, as if justifying himself. Perhaps that was needed, for part of Curtis feared he'd put the final nail in the coffin by removing another piece of her, be that accidentally or on purpose. Still, he was a doctor of some sort – maybe not the kind to provide sutures, yet he probably had good hand-eye coordination.

If he betrayed that trust, Curtis would shoot him in the head. It'd be the least of what he deserved.

Do I really mean that? The rage he thought he dealt with came back to bite. It took everything he had not to lash out. That was natural when one's wife knocked on death's door, of course.

Right?

Perhaps not. Without Nicole, the Golden Marker wove its spell again. Its tentacles again poked at his brain, making him feel what it wanted him to feel. Inside, he wanted to tear everybody apart.

These feelings may have been his own, yet if they were, the Marker amplified them a thousandfold. The rest of his friends must have been incredibly strong-willed to shrug off the influence… or, more likely, he was already primed for manipulation while the others weren't. Even Isaac's time being probed and mind wiped by EarthGov purged the domination (if only on accident). In that case, he needed to give mild credit to EarthGov for finding a halfway decent – but all too poor – way to shield part of the Marker signal.

Emotions and pain alone weren't enough to make him budge anymore; Nicole or not, he'd gotten a better handle on himself over the last few years. He felt an aura of displeasure despite its schadenfreude.

That was when a figure manifested, clearly visible when everything else remained foggy. Oh no.

I'm back, the phantom Nicole said. Its form shifted, going from Nicole's human form to a mutilated body to the Stalker visage like flowing water. Whatever guise it took, the illusion wounded him to his heart – there was no love, only mocking hatred. The thing's umbra morphed into the Shadow Man, who nodded along. I know you missed me.

Curtis said nothing, internally or externally. Its taunts wouldn't distract him from the pin that held a life in the balance. Huh. A needle filled with morphine took Nicole's first life away from her. Now, a different kind of needle might save her second.

Like I said… always a poet, the real Nicole thought. Her claws gripped him tighter, though she wasn't strong enough to cut him.

That prompted the fake version of his wife to die in front of him. She perished dozens of times from her leg and head being chopped off. Each time was more gruesome than the last, with the amount of gore eventually becoming cartoonish in how much of it coated every inch of the room. His wife's impending death was reduced to a sick joke.

Curtis didn't know how he resisted the urge to jump up and bite the air like an animal. Love and self-control turned out to be powerful weapons. He wondered if the others dealt with their own illusions, though less intense.

Its hatred was beyond all reason. Like, the Golden Marker had only been completed a few months ago! EarthGov couldn't have done anything to stoke such antipathy. Either the rest of the Marker network imbued it with such rage, or it was just part of what the Markers were. Proved how much of an anomaly the Black Marker turned out to be.

Both fought against the worst impulses of their respective species… and, all things considered, the vices turned out to be similar.

The four softly toiled, doing their best to put a body back together. Nicole's psychic presence was normally a beacon to her siblings. The lack of a mind meant one fewer way for Necromorphs to find them. Speaking of which, he did begin to sense what Ellie mentioned earlier. Growls, shuffling, and bone scraping against the walls, combined with a stench of decaying meat.

He scrambled to put the final few stitches into her leg before applying a generous helping of Somatic Gel. The same happened with her skull. Hoped they attached both correctly – he couldn't imagine Nicole being happy if her head faced the wrong way!

Curtis waited for a portent that it worked. Tried to reach out with the Bond, only to find nothing except the imposter. Her mind completely faded, and much of his remaining hope with it. They'd know in a few minutes whether she'd ever wake up.

In the meantime, they needed to leave.

"Is it much farther?" he asked Ellie, whose shape slowly came together again.

"No, we're almost there." Isaac hoisted up Nicole, which Curtis appreciated; he didn't know if he was strong enough. "The station is straight down the hallway, so it'll be a sprint between us and them." He shrugged, almost not caring. They faced worse odds. If they ran fast enough, he figured they had a chance to beat the traffic rush. Whether it meant anything depended on if the train was in the station.

A silhouette opened the door, and everyone ran.

Curtis felt no echo of surprise in the hive mind this time, but the audible yelps were enough to let him know how they felt. He halfheartedly fired a few shots down the hall, and Ellie put down pillars of flame.

Phantom Nicole and the Shadow Man kept yelling and tearing his flesh with their fingers. Curtis didn't care. It was hard to feel anything now. The fire within him died, and he only ran as hard as he did because of habit and muscle memory.

You've lost. I hope you know that, the demon chortled in his ear. He couldn't muster the energy for a reply – he just kept going, shooting blindly into the back when possible. It was a testament to his skill (or luck), he thought, that he could. Then again, it sounded like there was no shortage of targets.

"Holy shit, there's actually a tram!" Isaac puffed. He'd take his word for it, since everything looked like wet paint blending. After that, his thoughts became so muddled that he didn't know what happened. He got into the train, he knew that much. Sounded like everyone else did, too. The doors trundled closed, and a tidal wave hit them a second later as an army threw itself at the vehicle. That only lasted a second, as the self-piloting train took off, leaving their enemies in the cosmic dust. It was over. And quiet.

Curtis crumpled to the floor as ennui claimed him. So dead was he that he found himself unable to cry.

Now he really knew how Nicole felt.