This time, when Jack snapped into existence, he saw Green ahead of him and there was no shouting, no roaring, no gunfire. As far as entrances went, it was pretty underwhelming, but after all the crap he'd been through lately, underwhelming was a godsend. As he checked out the area, Jack thought that if and when he made it back home, (what was home?), he planned on living a boring as hell life. He was pretty sure that he'd had enough excitement to last a lifetime. Or eight. He glanced back as another green flash flared and saw Jennifer.

Okay, maybe not a completely boring life.

Or maybe, maybe the coin would land on the other side and he'd come out of this a hopeless adrenaline junkie. It was definitely possible. He looked around the latest environment they found themselves in and frowned deeply. It took him a moment to piece together exactly what it was he was witnessing: they had apparently teleported to the top of Mt. Erebus...which was a volcano. He and the others had appeared in an open area that was beset on the sides and to the back by a sea of bubbling crimson lava. He could see the rim of the mountaintop along the edges of the area, maybe a hundred meters away. And there were islands.

He could see one off to the right, and another, just barely in view, off to the left. There were structures on the islands, too.

He turned around and looked up at the incredibly bizarre structure looming over them. The whole front of it appeared to be lit by some strange, natural, (or unnatural), bio-luminescence. It sparkled strangely in alternating sections of deep neon blue and a dark, pulsing red. A huge set of medieval looking wooden doors were set into the front, studded with metal bolts and a few skulls. He came to stand before it with Green.

"Well, this sucks," she said, staring at the big red button inset in a square of silver metal off to the right, embedded in the thick wooden frame. She looked back over her shoulder. "As if we didn't have enough problems without being in a fucking volcano."

"We're almost there," Jack replied. "Just gotta get through this damned place and...um..." He worked his tired mind, trying to remember what ridiculous name the researchers had given the next location.

"Limbo," Stratton said.

"Yeah, of course it is," Jack muttered. "This and Limbo and then the goddamned Tower of Babel." He turned and looked around again, and realized that he could still see it. Every time he'd been able to see up, into the sky, he'd subconsciously realized that he could see the Tower of Babel. It sat like a black monolith against the crimson skies, presiding over all of this hellish wasteland. But now it was impossible to ignore.

"Is everyone ready?" Green asked. They all sounded off that they were ready. Jack shouldered his shotgun, then suddenly switched to his SMG. He'd expended his ammo on the shotgun. Damn. He was starting to lose it. He was dead on his feet, starving, sweaty as hell. What he wouldn't give for a hot meal and a hotter shower just then. He thought he might trade five years off his life just for the shower alone.

Of course, there was a good chance that his life was being measured in minutes and hours now, rather than years and decades.

Well, he'd never particularly wanted to die of old age.

Green hit the big red button. The doors ground open, revealing an ingress of Imps that were feasting on the remains of a half-dozen Space Marines. Jack didn't even have to think to start popping off bullets at the red-brown fuckers. It was standard operating procedure at that point. The four of them came in, wrathful killers in blood-smeared green armor, hosing the lobby of that awful green brick down with red hot lead and spraying blood and guts everywhere. They put down a dozen Imps and two Demons that stomped in to investigate.

As they began searching the structure, making their way slowly through hallways of green brick and purplish marble and old, rotted deadwood, it occurred to Jack that he was going to have to say something, anything, to get their minds going. Because he could read it in their quiet, tense stances and their miserable faces: they were feeling the same sluggish lethargy settling over them that he was. Even adrenaline could sustain you for only so long. If anything, it was draining them faster because they had to be so amped constantly.

But they couldn't take a break.

Something came to mind and he leaped on it. "Hey...how'd you join up?" he asked suddenly, looking over at Green.

"With the Corps?" she asked. He nodded. She laughed. "It...seemed like a good idea at the time. I was still in Florida right there at the end, when they declared martial law and a state of emergency and evacuated most of the state."

"Really? Holy shit, why? I mean...you had to know it was coming," Jennifer replied.

"I was nineteen and married, broke as hell. My parents weren't...exactly what you'd call parents. I got emancipated when I was sixteen, got married when I was eighteen to my high school sweetheart. As I mentioned, that didn't work out. But we were being evacuated and honestly..." she sighed and shook her head. "I was sick of it. Florida going underwater from the melting ice caps just seemed like...a sign. That what I was doing, the crap jobs I was working, wasn't going to work. They had us stay at an emergency aid shelter while we tried to figure something out and the Corps was there, offering a special deal."

Stratton laughed. "I've heard that deal: come work for us, you'll make a lot of money and we'll even give your family a place to live!"

"Yep," Green said. She shook her head. "I was already pretty tough. I mean, I thought so. I took the deal, because all of our prospects were looking like shit. No one really left on my side of the family, and his family lived in Bumfuck, Tennessee, and I was not moving there. So I took the deal. The idea was that I'd serve for two years while he lived in an apartment they'd provide for us out in Missouri and we'd just make that money and then we'd figure something out. And then I got stop-lossed three times and...you get the idea."

"Damn," Jack muttered. He wanted to keep it going. "Stratton?" he asked.

The younger Marine shrugged. "Nothing special, really. Grew up in New York and I just..." He trailed off, then sighed suddenly. "Fuck it," he said. "Given everything that's going on, might as well not lie. I was in a gang. Joined when I was fourteen. My family was dirt fucking poor and the gangs pretty much owned my area. I ran with the gang for five years, did a lot of bad shit, most of which the cops never found out about. But...got into drug-running. Long story short, we got caught and a kid wound up dead. I didn't do it...but I'm not entirely blameless. Cops offered me a deal: rat on my friends and sign a five year contract with the Marines and stay the fuck out of trouble, and I'd walk with probation. I wanted out, wanted to make something of myself, and didn't have anyone or anything from my old life I wanted to hold onto, so I took it."

They came to the end of a corridor, into a room that was composed of a strange mishmash of green brick, rotting black wood, and metal panels studded with strange tech. A group of zombies were milling about, apparently being presided over by a pair of Imps. The two things began shrieking and gesturing at the group of Marines. Jack returned the favor by putting a spray of bullets into one of the Imp's mouths. The others opened fire, hosing the awful things down with sprays of lead and spewing their gory remains all over the bizarre architecture.

When they were finished and picking through the remains, Stratton spoke up again. "Sorry," he said to Green. "That I didn't tell you."

"We haven't known each other that long, John," she replied. "And we've all done things we aren't proud of...and not even for good reasons. Don't worry about it."

Jack thought it was the first time he'd ever heard Stratton's first name.

They came to the first other door that led back outside and, upon opening it, discovered another open courtyard area that had a fantastic view of hell and the sea of lava they found themselves existing on. A few Lost Souls hovered nearby and the squad popped them quickly, watching their rain of bleached bone disappear into the lava.

"I wonder how we get to those islands," Green said. There didn't seem to be anything else worthwhile in this courtyard.

"Hopefully we won't have to," Jack replied.

Jennifer snorted. "Come on, you know we're gonna need something out there."

Jack sighed. "Yeah, probably."

"Come on, let's get back to it," Green said, and they headed back into the central structure. "What about you, Taylor?" she asked.

"How'd I join? Boringly. Both parents were in the Marines. It was kind of expected that I would go into the service, you know? A lot of people resent that kind of thing. There's so many books and movies about kids not living up to parent's expectations and parents just expecting their kid will do something when their kid actually wants to do something else. But I never really wanted to do anything else strongly. And by the time I was eighteen, Marine life, Marine mentality, it was so ingrained in my head that when I signed up and went to Boot, I just fell into it. It felt natural."

"How did your parents react when you got shipped up here?" Jack asked, then suddenly wondered if that was too personal and kicked himself.

But Jennifer didn't seem to mind too much. She just sighed. "They were furious at first, because they didn't understand what was going on. When I got a chance to actually explain the situation, they...understood. Both of them had gotten people killed before, more than once, only when they did it, something good came out of it. Well, for the most part. They told me they'd try and pull some strings, get my two year rotation chopped down. They weren't having all that much luck, last time we talked. God...I never thought in a million years I'd encounter something like this..." She shook her head, refocused. "What about you, babe?" she asked.

Jack smiled. It was strange, the immense, profound power something as simple as her calling him that could have on his mood.

"It might take a little bit," he replied.

"We've got time," Green said.

That was true. This central structure didn't seem too occupied. "Okay then. I grew up in a little piss-hole of a town in Missouri. Not one of those small as hell towns with like four hundred people, but more like a town like that, that kept growing. My parents were drunks. My life was fairly miserable when I was growing up. There was no money, because they drank it away, and they shoved me into whatever jobs they could find for me when I turned thirteen onward, and took whatever money I made to buy more booze. This went on until I was sixteen. Then my mom died. Don't be sorry, I honestly wasn't.

"She was, and this is truly the ironic part, hit by a drunk driver. She had a life insurance policy through her work. It wasn't a great deal, I mean, if you took the long view, but if you took the short view, like my dad, then it was a shitload of cash. He kind of just...forgot about me, and drank himself into oblivion. Up until then, they'd both really been riding me to drop out of high school, so I could work more. I probably would have if she hadn't died. They were already screwing with me, turning off my alarm, refusing to drive me there, and we didn't live near any bus routes. I took to walking the six damned miles.

"Eventually, I managed to piece together enough cash for a shitty car..."

He considered his past as they worked their way through the structure. He paused whenever they found a new clutch of enemies, dispatching a group of Imps here or a squad of zombies there, gathering up whatever ammo they could.

"Anyway, why did I join? There was this park that I'd pass to and from school, both walking and driving. It was probably the only nice thing in my town. It was built around a little lake. Ducks would congregate there. I found myself stopping there more and more often during the last two years in high school. It was so peaceful at that park, watching those ducks on the water, and the fish along the shore, just under the surface. At some point, I realized that I'd come to rely on it tremendously to help me kind of...keep my sanity. Because I was beginning to realize something. Whenever I looked at my father, I was looking at my future.

"As much as I didn't want to admit it, I knew that there was a very good chance I was going to end up like him. I didn't drink...but looking back on it, I definitely would have turned to booze at some point, or maybe something worse. I could sure find it. Well, I'd decided I wanted to go on a little vacation right after I graduated and my girlfriend and I went to Kansas City. Best we could do for a vacation. Stayed in a hotel for five days, hit some parties...fifth day, we went to this party, and my girlfriend ended up cheating on me. Found her in one of the bedrooms fucking some guy...I got in my car and just drove back home, 'cause I was going to do something really stupid if I didn't. And when I got home…

"You know that saying about raining and pouring, right? I found that out that day. Got home, found my dad gone, the house tossed. Anything of value, including my laptop, a nice sound system I'd bought for myself, and a stash of money I thought I'd hidden well enough, it was all gone. I thought we were robbed at first, but I found a hastily scrawled note that basically amounted to: You're of legal age now, good luck with life. Bye. So he had walked out of my life. As shitty as he was, he was at least paying the damned bills. So I just...got back in my car and rolled down to the park. And that was the last nail in the coffin. The ducks were dead."

"God," Jennifer whispered.

"Man, this is like a fucking Greek tragedy," Green said.

Jack laughed, an unexpected burst of it coming up out of him. "Yeah, you know, it was."

"How did they die?" Green asked.

"I don't even know. I can't remember. I just saw that they were dead and kinda lost it. Left my car, just started walking. I'm not sure how long I walked, but eventually I kind of came back to myself. And when I did, I was outside of the recruitment office. It just seemed like a sign, you know? So I signed up, never looked back."

"That...really sucks," Stratton said.

Jack laughed again. "Yep."

There didn't seem to be anything else to say, which was just as well, because they'd finally found what they were looking for. While he'd been spinning his sad tale, they'd found another two courtyards. The first had a single structure that the UAC had apparently been using as an armory. Although it was mostly cleared out, there had been more than enough. Jack managed to replenish his depleted stocks of shells and bullets, and he even found ammo for his strange plasma rifle, inasmuch as it could be called ammo.

And they found a chaingun.

Green pulled rank and took it.

Jack was happy enough with his plasma rifle. He was less than thrilled with what they found in the final courtyard.

"Well, crap," Green said.

Jack agreed heartily with that sentiment. There was a solidly built stone structure, small, just one room, taking up most of the open space. There were three bars of titanium across the front opening, with just enough space in between them to show what the structure was holding: the way out. The teleporter pad.

The only other thing in the area was a stand-alone teleport pad with a blood-smeared PDA next to it. Jack quickly retrieved it, staring at the cracked screen, wondering if maybe Watts had left them another message, but there was just a text file on this one. He quickly read through it. "What's it say?" Green asked as they approached.

"Two good pieces of intel. The first is that those silver bars only unlock for the red and blue skull-keys. The other is that this teleporter pad leads out to that island over there," he replied, pointing to an island of black rock with a structure that apparently was built mainly of skulls. "And that's about it. So...at least we know that."

Green sighed. "Of course. Who wants to go first?"

"I'll do it," Jack replied. He wanted to be done with this crap. Nothing new there. Switching to his shotgun, he stepped up to the pad, hoping that...well, hoping he survived. There were a lot of things that could go wrong. It could lead somewhere else, or lead into a room packed with monsters, or malfunction. He could still see Thompson's body, sticking out of the wall. But that was the life of a Marine, although this was a little ridiculous.

Jack stopped stalling and stepped onto the pad.

He fully expected to appear in a room with some bad guys, but instead he was in the center of a room of gray marble and skulls. It was empty, though the walls had several openings in them that led to little alcoves. He immediately felt suspicious and began moving slowly about the room, checking carefully down each alcove. In another flash of light, Jennifer appeared. He looked back at her as she stepped off the pad.

"Nothing?" she asked.

"So far," he replied.

She helped him with the search and by the time the other two had appeared, they'd determined that there was nothing down any of the alcoves, the teleport pad was one-way, and there didn't seem to be a way actually out of the room. The only abnormality, the only thing that stood out, was a button at the end of one of the alcoves.

"I'm going to push it, everyone ready?" he asked.

"As ready as we can be," Green replied.

Jack pushed the button. The second his gloved hand made contact with the big, flat, red button, the wall ahead of him snapped up, revealing a recessed niche occupied by an Imp. "Oh shit!" he screamed, trying to get his shotgun up.

The Imp jumped him.

As he heard gunfire behind him, followed by several roars and shrieks, he realized that he wasn't going to be getting any help. The thing snapped its teeth together inches from his faceplate and was spitting drool all over the glass as it roared. He'd managed to grab its wrists, but the monster was strong. How odd it was that he'd started putting them down with ease and now this one was about three inches from killing him.

Jack jerked his head up, knowing he had to get the thing off of him and damned soon. His faceplate cracked as it smashed into the Imp's mouth. Several of the thing's big canine teeth broke off and blood began to leak out of its mouth. It took two more bashes before the Imp was disoriented enough for him to throw it off. Which was a happy trick, given how tight the alcove was, but he managed to shove it back the way it had come, into the little niche. While it thrashed and shrieked, he snatched up his shotgun and blew the top half of its head off. He heard a grunt and footfalls from behind him and flipped over.

A zombie was coming towards him.

He was trying to get into position to shoot it when a bullet exploded out of its forehead and the monster pitched forward.

"Shit, Jack, are you okay?" Jennifer asked, hurrying down the alcove.

"Just fine," he replied as she helped him up. "I love getting jumped by Imps."

"Found the blue key!" Green called.

"One step closer," Jack muttered as he and Jennifer left the alcove. They took a moment to check the area again, now that more areas were revealed, and found a handful of ammo and another teleportation pad. Jack again went first, and snapped into existence in a large, open room, the walls covering in twitching vines so thick he had no idea what might be beneath them. At first, as he stepped off the pad, he thought he was alone, but then a ball of blue-yellow flame seared close enough to screw with his vision, and he was stumbling away, aiming up with his SMG and spraying fire wildly into the air. Three Cacodemons hovered overhead.

He'd managed to pop one of them by the time the others came through, and they helped him mop up the others. They performed a search of the area and all they managed to find was another teleportation pad hidden behind a panel that was, thankfully, otherwise empty. Once again, Jack took the plunge, he thought that he was becoming a pro at it, and when he appeared in front of an Imp, he had already raised his shotgun before stepping onto the pad, so the barrel was aimed right at the thing's hideous face.

He blew its fucking head clean off.

Strafing, he cocked the weapon and shot a shell into another Imp's chest, spraying the others with dark red blood. As before, the others stepped off the pad in flashes of green light and helped him put down the screaming, roaring beasts. This time, after mopping up the last of the resistance, they found a small stash of ammo in a single supply crate and, next to the crate, the red skull-key. They grabbed it, found another teleport pad and stepped on through to the other side. This one led back to the original pad, thankfully.

"Fucking finally," Jack muttered as the others teleported in. They gathered at the stone structure holding the only way out of there and unlocked it with both skull-keys. Jack expected something to happen, but they remained alone. As he headed into the structure, he saw something that he'd initially missed.

A PDA.

Crouching, he grabbed it and fired it up. This one was from Watts. Everyone gathered around to watch the single video file.

Watts appeared on the screen, looking worse than ever. There were deep, dark bags under his bloodshot eyes and his helmet was missing. Part of his hair was singed away and there were several cuts on his face.

"We're in the shit now," he said, and he sounded as bad as he looked, his voice rough and uncertain. "Got hit hard here, ambushed us in the fucking lobby. So many of them. Everyone else but Fletcher is dead. Just the two of us now. Gotta make it to the Tower of Babel. Might need to take a break, though. Dead on my feet."

That was it.

The time stamp put it as being recorded five hours ago. They were close. He wondered fiercely if Watts had made it to the Tower of Babel, to Mars.

Well, he'd find out sooner or later.

Jack stepped up to the exit pad.