10 Hours, 15 Minutes Post-Sprawl Outbreak
Nicole thought it fortunate that she and Curtis hadn't run into a wall of Necromorphs between the Wey-Yu facility and the barrier emblazoned with the seal of EarthGov. Then again, it wasn't far – and she felt more minds bearing down, though still minutes away. Omnipresent Corruption, which lapped at her heels, left nowhere to hide.
Nicole never thought she'd be happy to see anything belonging to the government. As she stared at this wall, though, doubtlessly made of concrete several feet thick, she felt herself beam. Then she placed a claw on its rough surface, tracing the cracks and rivulets of condensation to ensure it was real. Despite the danger, her mandibles tugged into a grin.
Hours of slogging through fields of the dead and seeing the people they cared about torn away led to this. They made it to GovSec proper. Almost. This barrier kept them out. However, there must have been a vulnerability in the armor. This shield, which surrounded a spherical portion of the Shard's heart, was meant to be the last line of defense from all threats (except the one they kept inside). It wouldn't be easy to puncture, yet there must have been a way.
You went through here to get to the reactor with Karrie, right? Nicole asked. Curtis rubbed the back of his neck. Much as she wanted to smash through, there was no way they'd get past the roadblock with guns and talons.
We had special access from Tiedemann, and I don't remember how to get there, he replied. There was also a lot of Corruption, so it must be completely overgrown by now, even with the Boss gone. Through him, she remembered the deranged thing dragging Karrie down. She cringed and shook her head; the woman was all right. Well, would be all right… assuming the doctors Stefan got her to were as good as he claimed. She and Gabe are tough, Curtis warmly thought, resting a hand on her. If anyone can pull through, it's them.
True enough. Her mind spared the pile of sludge one final consideration: given how similar it was to the Controller, she wondered if it was a different form, perhaps adapted to Zero-G. Each Necromorph looked slightly different from all the others. These things were important to ponder, just in case they ran into more. Then again, some relatives seemed to be unique. For instance, they hadn't encountered any Graverobbers on the Sprawl. Entirely possible that one – or some other unknown Necromorph "species" – ran roughshod over parts of the station they hadn't toured. Still time to meet them before they ruined the Golden Marker's day.
Speaking of which, do you think throwing it into Saturn would work? he inquired. We keep thinking about the sun, but there's a gas giant right outside. Not immediately out the hatch, he corrected himself, but much closer than anywhere else they could dump the menhir. Dropping it in would be easier than, well, anything else I can think of. Nicole saw what he meant; the pressure and temperature at the core of a gas giant was only a fraction that of a star produced, yet they should have been sufficient to wreck anything solid that went in.
The key word was "should". The Red Marker (barely) survived a planet falling atop it, so tiny bits of this one might remain intact at the center of Saturn, beneath a sea of liquid hydrogen. On the slim chance the Marker did survive, there was no way to get it out. It'd actually give the thing a perfect place to broadcast its madness without retribution, short of ripping the entire planet apart (and such a thing had never been attempted on a gaseous world). Curtis flinched at the possibility of the Marker gaining yet another advantage, immediately renouncing the concept.
It's a great idea, I just don't think we should take that chance… unless we have no choice. With EarthGov blockading the perimeter, dumping it into Saturn might have been the sole disposal option. Plus, her pessimism was shaky. Half of Aegis VII crushing the Red Marker only lasted a few seconds. Had those conditions been sustained another instant, the obelisk would have been completely incinerated. Obviously, the conditions at the heart of a gas giant remained stable.
LOATHE AS I AM TO ADMIT IT, I KNOW OF NOTHING THAT CAN EASILY ANNIHILATE MY KIND. ANY PLAN YOU IMPROVISE WOULD BE MOST WELCOME.
The Black Marker again spoke from its abode on the ocean floor, half-sunken into slime like an old candle flowed into its used wax. Despite its overwhelming power (it tried to be gentler than its relatives, who attempted to strike them down with words), the voice sounded old. Tired. Even for an ageless stony AI, it was ancient, having been around since dinosaurs walked the Earth – and maybe turning some into Necromorphs, it didn't recall.
I APOLOGIZE FOR HOW UNHELPFUL I HAVE BEEN IN MANY REGARDS. AS YOUR PATRON, I SHOULD GRANT YOU DETAILED INFORMATION, YET I HAVE LITTLE MORE THAN TEPID WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT AND ANCIENT MEMORIES, NEARLY FORGOTTEN.
You're keeping me alive, Nicole thought. She wanted to reassure the Marker, whom she empathized with. Though not human, it still cared about them, and it adopted (consciously or not) human traits. For example, it struggled with self-doubt, wondering if it atoned for the sins of its relatives, and whether its sacrifices meant anything. That's something I'm not sure I'll ever be able to repay.
Honestly, the vagueness is frustrating, Curtis said. At first, it irked her that he undercut her point. Then he added, But I get it; Hell, I can't remember the last thing I ate! Was it that artificial protein bar? Pretty sure he had more in his pockets. She also couldn't remember the last thing she ate, given that she hadn't consumed anything since being dead. We always figure something out, though, and we'll get experience that we can use next time. True, this was a learning opportunity.
The Black Marker faded into the background. For Curtis, it left entirely, yet a subtle tug at the back of Nicole's mind evoked its constant presence there. Directed power beamed across shockspace for almost three years from it to her; that was the only reason she hadn't melted into goo. Strictly speaking, she no longer needed it because the Golden Marker unwillingly filled that role (though she would again once they killed it). In other words, she didn't mind the monument looking through her eyes and experiencing the universe with her as a medium. If it happened to intrude on more "private" activities… well, those were part of the human experience, too. The pillar expressed no particular interest in those things, either, so it wasn't some creepy, cosmic voyeur.
Back to the matter at hand: how to get in. Hundreds of minds were closer now. It was a longshot, but she had hoped there'd be a way forward. The sphere must have been miles in circumference, though, and they weren't fortunate enough to stumble upon the three or four egresses.
There was no way back. And ahead… a tide of fear washed over her as a huge pack of Necromorphs, numbered in the hundreds, rounded a curve. To her and Curtis, they were a bloodthirsty army. However, they viewed themselves as the wedding procession before a grand union. Nicole heard the songs that they were forced to sing, though they knew it not. The Marker was the bridegroom, and they, the faithful, were the bride.
She supposed that made her, Curtis and all their friends the wedding cake.
Regardless, the throng surged forward as the first eyes fell upon the survivors. Slashers, Fodder, and several Pack led. What children were doing over here, she had no idea. Maybe some intrepid kids ran to the government for help, only for the door to be slammed in their faces. It made her heart bleed.
Could they defeat this massing? Unlikely. However, she and Curtis saw no other options. No door presented itself, and the burbling ground kept them from fleeing quickly. Still, she didn't give in to despair. They were warriors, however reluctant, and ammo burned holes in their pockets. Her cutter was drawn in a swift movement as she stared down the sights; three dots painted a dead child's rickety torso as the charge gained momentum.
The ground shook. It came suddenly, going from still to jittery in the blink of an eye. Another sign of impending doom? Curtis thought it more likely to be a quake, which occasionally rattled the honeycombed rock because of the structure's natural instability. He'd never felt one powerful enough to almost knock him down, though!
The wall to their right exploded 30 feet ahead, which sent Nicole into the slime. An instant later, so did the one to their left. Come to think of it, she did feel the "death" throes of many Necromorphs from that direction but ignored them because of the rest on her plate. She scrambled up, as did Curtis a moment later.
When they did, a yellow wall blocked their path, running perpendicular to the tunnel. Curtis recognized it as the mines' sole E-40 Wooly Mammoth Drilling Rig: a big, mobile drill meant to excavate tunnels for future exploration. Gore dripped from its treads, showing how many of her kind it ran over, while whole sheets of Corruption clung to the sides in a failed attempt to slow it down. While not as large as the crawler they battled atop in the Weyland-Yutani Atmos place, it was still pretty damn huge. Hence only one remaining, at least to Curtis' knowledge. The few remaining resources would be exhausted in the next few years, so it was prudent for the CEC to move such equipment to more productive sectors, especially given the financial crisis the company embroiled itself in.
Somebody stole it and plowed through all opposition. The familiar sounds of a flamethrower and Plasma Cutter in unison confirmed what she already knew. Couldn't say she was relieved, for she always believed he'd be OK. Now she'd been completely assured. The gap the mining drill created gave them a way through the rock. Of course, if they had one, then so did the monsters on the other side.
She threw her spine against the metal, squeezing through the gap while Curtis waited in the wings. There was only space for one at a time, and it took agonizing seconds to traverse 20 feet of broken concrete. Frayed wires and burst pipes shot electricity and water, respectively. Not a good combo, but they were far enough apart to not meet. Then she stumbled out over rubble, nearly slicing her leg on a piece of rebar. She somersaulted before springing to her feet like an acrobat in a demented carnival. Years of gymnastics training made such a maneuver easy.
They faced space: a tapestry of stars spread before them through a long window. Turned out they hadn't gone as deep as she expected, though it hardly surprised her to learn the primary government area partially bordered the void. Good thing the drill hadn't gone any farther, or else they'd have all been sucked out. Her husband followed, and only when he crossed the threshold and fell to the left did she realize the gravity here pulled in a different direction. Yeah, they'd dealt with that before. At least the drop was a couple feet as opposed to multiple stories.
Upon his own (less than graceful) exit, it only took Curtis a glance to confirm the Woolly Mammoth was as dead as the species for which it was named: the drills at the prow were bent, some nearly torn from the structure, and enough Corruption clogged the mechanisms to choke a house. He felt a pang of empathy for the trusty machine, which was among the last of its kind. He always hated tools intended for honest work being used for violence.
Nothing's sacred anymore, but maybe it never was, he thought as they peeked around the Mammoth's front. There, she saw the people she looked for. Two of them, anyway.
Isaac and Ellie stood side by side, mowing down the undead as cold bodies swarmed through the narrow chokepoint. Ellie sprayed sticky fuel on the area, and Isaac cut the legs off anyone who made it through the flames. They made a good team.
Until Isaac shot at her, which missed by an inch. Heat meant little after setting herself aflame, though. For an instant, she thought he'd gone mad and tried to execute her again, which made images of terrible things pulse through her and Curtis.
"Oh shit!" he shouted the instant after he pulled the trigger, which slackened the tension despite enemies still pouring through the gates inches away. It wasn't craziness, he just thought she was a regular Necromorph. Sometimes she forgot that humans couldn't divine her intentions with a thought. Curtis shot a power cell at the opening, which bounced off the stone before magnetically adhering to the side of the drilling platform. Everybody braced.
The blast echoed both ways down the long corridor, eventually fading into infinity. Opening her eyes, she saw a rockslide sealed the gap. That didn't stop the line from throwing themselves against the debris, which quaked with each blow. It'd only hold for a few minutes. Hell, other Necromorphs may have already gotten through different ways. No way it was safe here.
For a moment, though, she didn't care.
It took a lot of willpower to resist hugging Isaac. Part of her wanted to rejoice (maybe she wasn't as certain he'd survive as she tried to be), but, again, time ran out. She'd settle for a brisk walk alongside him and hope they didn't run into anything that split them apart again.
"Figured you'd be all right," Ellie winced, not in the mood to talk. That made sense, given the pain she must have been in even with drugs percolating through her system. Her gouged eye hastily had gauze packed into the socket to prevent the wound from weeping everywhere. Still, streaks of dried blood smeared her cheek like mascara after crying. Not the best job, yet the dressing also wasn't terrible. Isaac tried his best applying it.
She wouldn't say that, of course, given that it sounded more like an insult than a compliment. Good idea, Curtis thought, internally cringing at some of the tasteless things he'd tried to chat people up with at the bar when he thought he was being nice. Yeah, I never believed I'd be monogamous. Then again, she knew he never expected to be with anyone at all in the long run.
"I wasn't so sure," Isaac admitted as they started walking. Where? That depended on the path the hallway took. Anywhere was better than here. He sheepishly turned; though his face was hidden behind the helmet, she knew exactly the expression it held. "I nearly lost you. Again. I know it's been years, but it feels like so much less for me."
As much as she wanted to get sappy, this wasn't the time. Still, she would have been callous if she didn't reassure him: bedside manner and all that. Curtis, always the wordsmith, encouraged her to share her feelings. After all, they once loved each other. That gave them freedom to say a lot of different things.
"I know. But I won't let them hurt you again," she whispered. Ellie put her helmet back on and fell several paces behind (as did Curtis) to give them some small semblance of privacy. "And I know you won't let anyone hurt me, either."
"I wish it were that easy," he muttered under his breath. "But it's not just the government. Everyone wants us. And if they can't get the whole thing, they'll settle for pieces." When he put it like that, things did seem hopeless. The galaxy's most powerful people designed to use them as means to their own twisted ends. Ends that all led to the same place: ceding all life to the Necromorphs for a fleeting glimpse of power. These worries would continue even after they left the Sprawl.
She glanced over her shoulder, and something clicked. Only after several glances between Isaac and Ellie did Nicole realize a certain meek, gaunt man with embers smoldering under his skin went missing. "Nolan…"
"Last time we saw him, he jumped on my back and tried to throttle me. Isaac shot him, and he ran away screaming," Ellie explained with a shrug. The emotions must have run deeper than nonchalance, though. Nicole sighed, silently cursing that the man was too far gone. "I assume the zombies got him soon after."
"He was supposed to help us with the 'eye-poke machine' or whatever he talked about," Curtis added. Ultimately, he felt Nolan was the least likely to make it, so the news didn't cut too deep (especially after the type of cutting Nolan did to Ellie). "That's too bad to hear, though."
"Assuming it's real, I can take his place," Isaac volunteered. He continued, "The Marker changed us in similar ways and we were both part of the same program, so I'm thinking it'll work – though I have no idea how to operate it." Neither did Nolan, presumably, so they needed to improvise. While not the worst idea, Nicole didn't trust whatever claptrap device EarthGov built to probe minds. It certainly didn't help whatever neuroses he and Nolan developed after years in stasis and solitary confinement. With her at the controls, though, it might not be so bad.
Then they were all knocked down, and the universe trembled.
…
That can't have been another quake, Curtis thought in alarm – and annoyance that he kept being tossed around. He sprang to his feet in one fluid movement, though his back painfully popped on the way up. Agony made him grit his teeth, which he was surprised hadn't been chipped to dust from how often he did that over the last few hours.
"Feels like the two halves of Titan finally faceplanted into each other," Isaac grunted. That was certainly one way to describe unimaginable quantities of metal and rock meeting at several hundred miles per hour. Curtis whipped his head to the left, where he saw a web of cracks across the transparent alloy. The glass would have ruptured if they were closer to the impact site. So many would have died if anyone over there lived. None did.
However, there were plenty of animate corpses. With all the sustenance over there extinguished, they'd climb aboard the Government Sector and head for the last few drops of blood. He hadn't considered that risk before, yet he wasn't sure how much it'd matter. Tens of thousands of Necromorphs were already there. Adding several million wouldn't change the odds in an appreciable way.
Eventually, the window stopped, and they were again surrounded by walls with only yellowed lights to illuminate their path. These flickered more than ever after the churning crash. Curtis cringed, hoping the reactor he and Karrie spent so much effort to save didn't end up as collateral damage from another desperate gamble. The fact they hadn't already exploded in a nuclear fireball was a good clue the safeties held.
Rooms to the right and left were locked, but a few broken doors revealed empty beds and ajar lockers. These were the barracks, where soldiers assigned to the station rested between patrols. Though most, like Gabe, lived on the Public Sector, Curtis imagined some people preferred duty to a "normal" (whatever that meant in the modern day) life. Honestly, Curtis was sympathetic. Dealing with messy morality was always a struggle. Easier to believe in simple good guys and bad guys locked in an eternal struggle.
The Necromorphs were evil through and through, of course. But humans… they were more complicated. Just because they tried their best to save the universe didn't mean he and his friends were perfect. Curtis didn't even think their human enemies deserved to be called totally depraved. I'd like to believe Tiedemann and company did all this with good intentions. They were messy while the Markers and their masters walked in complete lockstep.
A subtle rumble picked up behind them, jarring motes of dust loose from the floor. Lapping at the shores of Nicole's mind told them it was Necromorphs instead of a natural tremor. That didn't surprise him. Well, the deeper into the place they went, the fewer monsters should have been around. That was the hope, anyway.
Come on, he thought impatiently to himself as they trekked through the collagen jungle. Necromorphs or not, the substance grew thicker. Again, his mind drifted back to the reactor, which had the girthiest pillars of gunk he'd ever seen. This, on the other hand, must have only been hours old. The Marker, he supposed, had some influence over where these gardens sprouted. Didn't want to play its hand too early.
Curtis' sank to his knees with each step, while the grumbling behind them slowly got louder. The buildup was so ponderous that Nicole became convinced something more than an army's approach happened. At this point, they were used to being advanced on by a phalanx of hundreds, knowing the sounds and sensations such a grouping produced. While some signs were the same, others subtly differed from what she knew. In turn, that made him nervous. Everything about the Necromorphs was horrifying, of course, but the unknown was the worst.
They had no defense against what they hadn't yet encountered.
I think what we're feeling is the weight of millions of Necromorphs all boarding at once.
Though he couldn't see the station "behind" him, Curtis imagined the Shard had been pulled to the center of the Public Sector, where it knocked through skyscrapers (including Titan Memorial, a fact not lost on his wife) and nestled into the station's concavity like a cracked egg being held in a spoon. The impact surely vaporized thousands of Necromorphs – but countless more survived. And those survivors, having picked that station clean, took the chance to board.
Using the Ishimura to cross the gap may have been a bad idea, but he still didn't see an alternative. His mind flashed back to the vessel's hallowed, haunted halls, which had been both consecrated and desecrated by the blood of many. Curtis hoped that the ship drifted out of the way before the giant rock shattered the sloop that used to tear apart its ilk. The place where all of this insanity began – and that kept them alive through the worst moments of his life – deserved better than to be squashed like a bug. Then again, many things and people were due more than what the Markers gave them.
The lights were overgrown with Corruption here, though translucent tissue allowed some illumination through. Shadows of pulsing veins were thrown across their bodies. Curtis felt like an unwilling celebrant at the universe's most disgusting rave. The simple-minded slime mold kept trying to eat him. It devoured his patience, that much was certain. Still, it presented a direct threat to certain demographics. The elderly, the heavily injured and those who lost the will to fight were at genuine risk of being slowly digested and assimilated by it.
I saw something, Nicole thought, intensely squinting down one of the hallways. His head flew to where she looked before she finished the thought, yet he merely spotted more meat. Perhaps tentacles swaying in the light breeze? Another problem with Corruption was it dampening other Necromorphs' minds. In a thick enough patch, probing the hive mind for information on their enemies became difficult. Curtis fully believed Nicole when she claimed to spot something.
"It'd be great if we had a motion detector," Ellie said, echoing Curtis' sentiments. She yanked her leg free from a particularly vile patch; viscous ichor-gel slowly oozed back into the hole it left. "Like, radar for Necromorphs."
"A few hundred years ago, I know scientists tried to build really advanced ones that worked through barriers and around corners," Isaac said, bracing his shoulder against a rare clean area of wall. "They were supposed to detect subtle changes in airflow and trace them to the source with artificial intelligence software. Clever idea, but there are too many factors to make that feasible." Curtis figured, since otherwise they'd have been commonplace. Would've been more useful than radar and sonar, which seemingly took a lot of effort to utilize.
His head jerked around as a flash of brown whizzed past his peripheral vision. Much as he hoped it was his imagination, he couldn't be naïve. Things darted among them, waiting for the perfect chance to strike. Curtis told Isaac and Ellie to be aware – more than they already tried to be, anyway. Thankfully, everyone already had their guns drawn. No choice but to keep going and hope he was wrong.
"Assuming any are here, there can't be many," he said, as much to himself as his friends. Necromorphs always pressed a full attack when they had sufficient numbers. Playing coy meant there couldn't be more than two or three. This also explained why Nicole was unable to pick up any clear thoughts; dozens of minds would have cut through the Corruption. That remained at the fore of his thoughts as they rounded a bend. The meat subsided several dozen feet away, so they'd be able to pick up speed again.
Speaking of speed, that's when they got sideswiped.
A brown blur emerged from an open vent faster than he blinked. By the time he opened his mouth, its blade already sank into Ellie's armored stomach. She would have been able to dodge, or at least roll with the punches, if she were free to move. The Corruption held her in place, though, so the sword was buried up to its hilt – and its tip burst through her back. His friend had been gored by a wild beast.
His finger squeezed the Line Gun's trigger a heartbeat later, for all the good it'd do. Curtis didn't care, even as he aimed for the head to avoid hitting the woman between him and the abomination's torso. Blowing this fucker's top off was exactly what he needed, even if it wasn't the most "tactical" choice. Unbridled rage surged through him, spreading to every inch of skin and hair like a fire. Two shots, and the top part of its head was blasted into chunks. Dura mater rained down, which was quickly devoured by the hungry ground; only a lower jaw hung agape.
Nicole and Isaac, each armed with a smaller weapon, were able to shoot around. Like him, though, efficiency wasn't their aim. Several plasma bolts to its abdomen were sufficient to knock the freak on its mottled ass. Ellie slid off its rapier and landed in the slop, where tiny tendrils tried to infect the ragged wound in her gut.
Curtis wanted to scream, but sorrow welded his throat shut. The only place he could vent his grief was into his mind, where it assaulted Nicole like a gunshot an inch away from her head. Isaac, however, was able to voice what he wanted to shriek.
"Ellie!" He waded over as quickly as he could, muscles straining against the cells that wanted to hold him down. Nicole bounded over with one great leap. Like him, her muscles thrummed with barely contained fury. Yet she was a surgeon. She could help.
To Curtis' shock, the shape wasn't a Twitcher or Stalker; the Necromorphs he associated most with speed. The culprit turned out to be a simple Slasher. This basic foot soldier of the undead, the first and most common kind of monster they encountered, might have just slaughtered her. Any Necromorph, not just the ones he perceived as unique, could fuck them up in the right (or wrong) circumstances. Even the weakest was more than a match. He didn't know if more were around, circling like vultures, so his eyes didn't linger on it long. The only extra insult he mustered was putting his foot on its mangled chest and pushing it down and out of sight.
"Lift with me," Nicole said to Isaac. She got Ellie's feet while Isaac took the shoulders, battling the weight of a RIG and the goo that wanted the woman to stay where she was. The fact Ellie didn't make so much as a peep meant she was either unconscious or in shock. She couldn't be dead. Literally couldn't – even a mortal wound took a couple minutes to bleed out.
Which was good, because the wound looked horrendous. His eyes may not have been on it, but Nicole's were, and he couldn't stop looking through them even as he stepped –
Another claw burst through the Corruption, coming up inches in front of him. If his last step had been slightly longer, it would have plowed between his legs. He didn't know whether that was accidental or if the Golden Marker wanted to add insult to injury. That earned a shout from Isaac, but the man couldn't let go of Ellie. Curtis needed to deal with it himself.
Which he did by tripping and landing ass-first in the slime, which tried to gobble him up like a starving person being given a juicy steak. The Leaper tore the rest of the way through, and the Corruption solidified under its feet to give it the advantage. It stepped forward with a hideous paw, raising its tail for a quick strike. The goo held his Line Gun, and he wouldn't be able to rip it away in time! Even Nicole wasn't quick enough to drop Ellie and whip out her gun.
He was scared. Terrified, even. The creature leered at him with dead eyes and an unhinged mouth, which looked ready to swallow his skull (as happened once before). Only kept a clear head because he'd dealt with all of this and worse. That experience was one of the few weapons he possessed when all others failed him – and, like most things, he hated thinking of it as an armament at all. In a flash, Nicole knew his plan, if it could even be called such.
The knife whipped forward. Though not seeming as threatening as before, since the Xenomorph's was twice the size and twice as sharp, it'd penetrate his cranium in two blows.
The first one struck, which cracked his visor (nothing the nanobots couldn't solve) and made his ears ring. It inched closer, now confident that it would be the one to slay him and curry ultimate favor with the Marker. Curtis didn't know what the prize would be – being specifically exalted in Convergence, maybe? Or maybe service was its own reward, as employers who shorted him on payment used to say. It didn't matter, because the monster wouldn't be around to collect.
A ghost of a grin passed across the Leaper's impossibly wide maw as its tail flew forward the land the coup de grâce.
Curtis used Nicole's reflexes and his own exhausted muscles to yank himself out of the way. Tendons popped painfully, yet that barely registered because of the constant agony his frame was racked with. This added nothing. He released the Line Gun and grabbed the Leaper's tail as it whizzed past. Using its own momentum, he slammed it into the wall, then back to the Corruption it stood on a moment before, which was still solid as granite. The environment designed to protect these fell abominations broke its fangs.
His gaze flew to the weapon, which quickly sank. Grabbing it would give the monster a chance to regain the upper hand. Therefore, he needed to get "personal".
Drove his elbow into the crook between the Leaper's spine-tail and its back, followed by putting all his weight into the move. The suplex shattered its back as both fell through the mud, which now softened to lessen the impact. Felt more like a professional wrestler than whatever he normally was. They hit the bottom a few feet beneath; the beast tried to bite him, but with its impressive teeth gone, there was little it could do but lick. With one last pull, its tail snapped away from its body, the force sending it to the surface. The Leaper thrashed a moment more before going limp. Curtis reluctantly released his grip before groping around for the Line Gun, which the Corruption futilely tried to disassemble.
He didn't need to wonder what Nicole thought as he emerged from the mud, for her thoughts were his unless either willed otherwise. With the sheer amount of flesh draped over him, he looked like a Necromorph, too. Not what he wanted to hear, but it was hard to argue when he peered through her eyes at the swamp creature shambling toward her and Isaac. Now through the worst, they gently set Ellie on the ground while Curtis tore away the shit clinging to him.
Clever, he thought with a final look back. The Necromorphs pulled this trick in the Atmos center, and it was a great one. They could hide for hours and strike undetected. Still, Nicole would know if a ton were around, so Curtis hoped it was just this one. The monsters penetrating this far genuinely seemed to be new, as evidenced by so few being around. Maybe they were spontaneously reanimated by the Marker signal instead of being probed by Infectors. Then he turned his attention to what mattered more.
Not only did Ellie lose an eye, but several feet of intestines, as well. At least. A few spilled from the gaping hole, and he faintly saw metal through the other end. Somatic Gel might be able to stabilize the wound and provide synthetic blood, but it wouldn't cure everything. Either through luck or forethought, the Slasher found a weak point in the armor that allowed a disembowelment in one angry stroke.
Nicole squatted over the body, sanitizing her claws by pulling out a flask of pure alcohol from the small pouch of medical equipment she carried. Drenched her digits in the stuff, which was potent enough to get someone drunk from across the room. Even now, she didn't let anxiety overwhelm her. Which was good, because Curtis could do nothing but stand guard.
"The good news is that all the damaged organs aren't ones immediately life-threatening: large intestine, a kidney, I think it also nicked her liver. Missed her spine by a hair, thankfully. She has just enough blood left in her to not need a transfusion, I think." Nicole didn't lift her eyes, for she still poked around with a retractor. Then she applied some Somatic Gel, which slowly put the tissue back together. A small feeling of relief pulsed through Curtis; she'd only been maimed! "The bad news is that she's done. There's no way Ellie can keep fighting. I'm not even sure when she'll wake up."
The rumbling of a million feet grew more intense. Nothing came into view yet. Still, enough biomass surged down the halls to potentially tip GovSec over. They'd come from all sides, so whatever bunker EarthGov had needed to be a good one. Unless the wall we just smashed through was it. Probably not. A few feet of concrete and rebar never would have stopped the Necromorphs for long. The government knew that. …right?
Nicole patched Ellie up as quickly as possible. Again, she looked at Isaac, and the two hoisted her. It wasn't until then that Curtis found the courage to ask, "What are we doing with her?"
Much as it pained him to surrender to pragmatism, something needed to be done. They couldn't lug Ellie around while braving a gauntlet of threats.
Therefore, they walked and talked, an activity punctuated by Isaac grunting. He needed to breathe, and Ellie weighed a few hundred pounds in the RIG. Stripping her would have left her even more vulnerable, so it stayed on. Curtis would switch with him if he needed a break.
Anyway, one option was to find a Corruption-free room and stash her in it, returning once they killed the Marker. Another choice was to have either Curtis or Nicole guard her body while the others pressed ahead. Both were terrible ideas, he admitted, but at least they were options!
He even forced himself to broach the worst possible choice; shooting her in the head to put her out of her misery. If Ellie was going to die, it should be quick and clean – as opposed to whatever the zombies wanted to do once they claimed someone who gave them so much grief. Felt like a monster for bringing it up, yet the possibility needed to be raised. And both Isaac and Nicole, bless them, didn't immediately reject it. Even doctors made terrible choices sometimes.
"I can't," Isaac whispered, so quiet that Curtis almost didn't hear. "Thought I could cut and run if something like this happened, but…" He coughed. "I know what it's like to be abandoned. Even with the stakes so high, I can't walk out. If I did, I'd be no better than my mother." Added a bitter laugh, and unpleasant memories flashed through Nicole's mind. Curtis knew the "unpleasant mother-in-law" remained a common stereotype, but the discord went deeper than that. While it was none of Curtis' business, he gleaned that the woman never quite recovered from her husband disappearing all those years ago.
"Isaac," Nicole began. For a second, Curtis thought she would try to talk him into abandoning her. Maybe that was what she thought, too. Until she realized that she never wanted to be thought of like Octavia Clarke. "…I'll go along with this. If things get too intense, I'm sorry, but we'll need to drop her." The engineer nodded, and Curtis imagined the grim expression beneath the helmet. Didn't dare to say he was proud of the two; that would have sounded condescending as Hell. Instead, he was relieved.
Relieved that I'm not the only one grappling with morals.
Isaac nodded, and the march went on.
10 Hours, 30 Minutes Post-Sprawl Outbreak
Nicole could not stop staring at two holes.
The first was in Ellie's RIG. The second was in Ellie's body. Both had largely been plugged, thankfully. Modern medical technology stoppered the wound, and nanomechanical self-repair protocols mended metal. Too bad those systems couldn't be scaled up to larger machines. Like space stations. The spinal health readout hovered in the red zone – bad, yet she'd remain stable for a while.
She buried these thoughts deep within, not wanting Curtis to overhear. Much as she desired to help this woman – Hell, to help anyone – it'd be pointless to die for no reason. The rest of humanity would be snuffed out if they mounted a defense of a maimed body. Even within her own mind, the guilt was not at all dampened. Her four eyes tried to look anywhere else, yet they remained fixated on the wounds. As Nicole had expected for hours, luck ran out. Seeing it coming didn't lessen its sting.
She didn't know where they went. As long as it was somewhere, she didn't particularly care, either. The trackless expanse of Corruption told her that the people who tried to guard it fell back long ago. Curtis sighed for her, and she looked at a small aperture to the left, largely overgrown by flesh like weeds. A sign peered from above, barely legible.
Docking Bay
Nicole stopped dead in her tracks as her gaze finally found something hopeful instead of morbid. Curtis actually gasped, and that (along with her stopping) made Isaac pause to look, too. "Well… maybe it's not all bad."
Curtis gripped Ellie's flaccid ankles while Nicole bounded to the tiny opening and slashed until the aperture widened enough to squeeze through. A door at the end of a long hall beckoned. It went without saying that this needed to be investigated. The ships were probably all gone, but they needed to make sure. Leaving, however, was only an option for one of them…
She just hoped this amounted to something. Would have been devastating to be granted a flicker of hope that was snuffed out if they found only floating scrap. That was what she braced for. Curtis wanted to do something, but his hands were full.
A twinge ran through the accursed grotto. Not a literal one, but something mental. It was like the Corruption feared them getting out, which she took as a great sign that something remained. Though the Marker should have known that they refused to bow to fear.
Ellie gasped awake, and Nicole flinched from the solid breath and string of curses emanating from her like bullets from a gun. So much for staying cool.
"It's all right. You're all right," Curtis reassured her, which she supposed was OK to say to the woman he carried by the feet.
"Then why does it feel like I got hit by a bus?" Nicole felt a small smile tug at her mandibles. Her being lucid and flippant meant she wasn't in utter agony… though she'd been pumped full of so many painkillers that even a dull ache meant significant damage. She knew what people in the throes of unbearable pain sounded like, and thankfully, this wasn't it.
"You got impaled," Isaac brusquely stated. This made Ellie crane her neck, allowing her to see the gash in her abdomen.
"Right, now I remember. One jumped at me; then it all went black." She heaved a ragged sigh. "And then I woke up here, being cared for by idiots who just don't know when to quit on someone." Part of Nicole's job was being stupid, in that case. More than any profession or oath, though, they needed to care about each other. Otherwise, what the Hell did they have?
"Don't mention it," Curtis demurred. His guilt ebbed slightly, but Ellie still couldn't move well. That meant the two-person carry continued. If the Necromorphs caught up, they'd still need to abandon her – and now the woman was cogent enough to scream. Ellie must have understood that, yet she said nothing. Probably trying to be brave, just like the rest of them.
She was pretty sure the Black Marker wanted to say something, yet all she got was choppy static. Their proximity to the Golden Marker, plus the radiation shielding lining the wall the drill penetrated was enough to drown it out. That was fine, she told herself. Her patron admitted to having no helpful intel, anyway. Still, too bad it wouldn't see them win.
Speaking of mental communication, she got one from a different source: another psychic pulse unsettled the Corruption, which gave her pause. Something happened nearby, she knew. But the Marker wanted to hide it. From me? That'd make perfect sense if the thing happening was what the obelisk wanted. The fact it turned out to be frightening was a bad omen.
Nicole picked up her pace, hoping she'd subtly entice Isaac to follow her example. Neither she nor Curtis brought up their unsettlement, for Isaac had other things to worry about and Ellie couldn't do anything. The door paradoxically seemed to shrink the closer they got.
Three quarters of the way down the passage, the sound of movement reached her ears. She heard no thoughts, though. That meant one of two things – neither of which she wanted.
Nicole whirled around, laser cutter snapping into a firing position the instant she faced the noise. When she did, her muscles loosened; this was the less bad of the possibilities.
A man in a cracked RIG ran at them, his arms flailing at his sides. By this point, Isaac and Ellie raised their heads to see the familiar man. Through his visor, they saw the face of a panicked, sweaty, wide-eyed Nolan Stross. Though unarmed, she knew what the man could do with a simple screwdriver. The really strange thing, though, was that the Corruption supported him instead of sucking him down.
"Stop!" To Nicole's surprise, Nolan obeyed. Then again, that may have been because he pushed his body to the breaking point. Hands on his knees, he was a mere 20 feet away. Had a knack for stealth, she'd give him that much.
"Finally… found you…" he wheezed. Nicole was the only one with a weapon on him, since the men didn't dare drop Ellie. "It – it's coming! I saw it! It's almost here!" As he babbled that, the Corruption beneath his feet lost its tone, which made him sink into shin-deep slop like the rest. She didn't think too deeply about what he said, because he lost his fucking mind. Still, a seed of hope grew in her. He wasn't violent, at least presently. Nicole could work with that.
"What are you talking about?" Nolan jabbed his finger back the way he came in response, the expression of terror solidified on his face like drying paint. Her eyes drilled down the hall. Even with her night vision, the darkness was difficult to pierce. But then she saw it, and the world crashed around her. That was always her response when this monster, blacker than black, clawed its way back into the light.
The Xenomorph stood at the end of the corridor. Turned out that it survived the crash, just like them. It hunched over, spindly legs and spiked tail twitching as it sized up the prey. Curtis and everyone else had been frozen, as if trapped in stasis. Not Nicole, though she felt tempted to. That was a natural human response to being seen by a superior hunter. The instinct had been burned out of Necromorphs, because the Markers never thought anything would beat them at their own game. Maybe, objectively, they were correct.
Nicole, though, knew the eyeless thing looked at her as one thing only: a target. One it chased here with an obsession greater than sanity or animal instinct allowed. Even from this distance, though, she noticed a subtle tremble that hadn't been present before. She didn't think it to be fear, but exhaustion; if its muscles were anything like terrestrial ones, a long workout made the cells fire when not called on.
Then, without regard for self-preservation, it charged.
She couldn't follow its example. Not yet, anyway. Instead, she slammed the "gun" into her hip holster and grabbed Ellie's midsection as the engineer and miner scrambled for the exit! Dropping their friend barely crossed her mind. When push came to shove, Nicole couldn't abandon her. All her friends were dead, and it sounded like Ellie had nothing in the way of family. Her place in the universe and sense of direction had been shattered by a zombie apocalypse and the fucking alien.
After all those losses, Nicole couldn't ask her to lay down her own life. Of course, thousands of others checked all those boxes. But they were dead. Despite all the odds, Ellie remained alive. That meant Nicole would fight like Hell to keep her that way.
Well, maybe not Nolan. But his heart was in the right place as he ran and fell and then decided to crawl on his hands and knees. Without him, she doubted anyone would have noticed the Xenomorph until it was too late. Curtis' heart beat in her chest, loud enough for both.
The good news was that she and her friends had a head start. Plus, the wobble in the Xenomorph's limbs showed fatigue. It wasn't as indefatigable as she previously thought. It needed time to rest that it hadn't received, especially after having taken so many beatings. She glanced back to see the bad news skittering at them on the wall like a heat-seeking missile.
The Xenomorph rapidly gained ground. Like Nolan previously, the Corruption supported its weight while hindering her and the others. The Golden Marker must have made the difficult decision that it wanted them dead more than the alien. To that end, it actually aided its ancient foe while hindering them. That spoke to the depths of its hatred (and thinly veiled desperation) more than anything else. It'd rather take its chances with a despised enemy millions of years old instead of a traitor and her human friends.
They reached the threshold first, though. Desperation and their significant lead gave them maybe 15 seconds. With no human DNA handy, the alien would have to spend a few minutes smashing through… unless the omnipresent sludge was similar enough to trick the system. Isaac, with both hands still full, slammed his back into the central, pulsing hologram to open it.
CLEARANCE REQUIRED
The words were simultaneously flashed in red across the interface and spoken through a meat-choked PA system. Mixed with Nolan's shrieks and the pitter-patter of a galloping extraterrestrial, the place morphed into a cosmic Hell. And Charon or the Grim Reaper or Azrael – names she primarily knew from Curtis – came at them on four legs.
The Cutter again flew out in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile, the men who so dutifully carried Ellie all this way unceremoniously dropped her, which elicited a yelp. Instead of pulling out their guns, though, they scrambled to the door in a heap of panic. Isaac had his engineering tools, and Curtis leafed through the files in his RIG; maybe one of the packets Gabe transferred included access codes!
That left Nicole the sole defender against something designed to kill her. No pressure, right? She fired, and her aim was true. Unfortunately, plasma had a lower muzzle velocity than bullets. At this distance, it took a moment to find its mark. The Xenomorph jumped out of the way by the time it did, leaving a stain of charred meat. Still, it kept coming.
"Catch."
Nicole turned in time to see Ellie toss her flamethrower. No extra fuel: only what the attached hydrazine canister had left inside. She caught it with her left hand and awkwardly looped a talon into the grip. Not designed for someone like her to hold it… but then again, nothing was. She never let that stop her.
A small puff was enough to make the monster recoil, shielding its bare face with a massive hand! That gave her a brief window to pop off. One missed, but two connected with its right arm – aiming for the limbs was a habit she couldn't quite shake. Those were all she got before the Corruption quivered around her ankles, which threw off her aim and allowed the Xenomorph to catch a ride on the opposite wall.
Just as well. The cloud of vaporized acid blood would be as deadly as the teeth and tail. What bothered her was that it closed the gap. She saw the chrome of its inner teeth, smelled the foulness of its breath, and even faintly heard its almost mechanical heartbeat. And this time, there was nowhere to run. Not until the door opened.
She had no idea how soon that'd happen, yet she was not optimistic based on Curtis' frantic thoughts and desperate fumbling. Though she stood against so much, this foe was her equal in every way that counted. Except intelligence, but the ability to speak didn't matter so much when a swipe of its tail could chop her in half.
Nolan gripped her shoulder as she was about to let loose another burst. It took a superhuman amount of willpower to not shove him over (if not far worse) on the spot.
"I – I have to be brave!" he yelled in her ear, which was when she realized he was still… perhaps not sane, but in control of his own actions. "Ellie, I'm sorry I dug out your eye! I'm sure you can get another one!" The woman looked up, unsure what to say about that. "Isaac, I'm sorry I tried to stab you to death!" The engineer, elbow deep in circuitry and cruor, also said nothing. His face turned even more downcast through the cracked helmet. His quivering lip almost made him look like a child despite being a middle-aged man. Crazy to think everyone present was at least in their mid-30s. People who saved the universe tended to be a bit younger in the vids.
"Curtis and Nicole… I'm sorry about what I wanted to do to you." The words sent a shiver down Curtis' back. Nothing else needed to be spoken. Nothing except…
"We forgive you," Nicole said. "All of us." Felt she could speak for everyone.
If Nolan wanted absolution, he had it. What he really wanted, though, was the flamethrower. Nicole relinquished it and watched sadly as the man went to his death. He took one last look at the people who tolerated him at the worst time of his life.
Then he rushed forward, screaming while gouts of flame arced from the torch. Now, though, his yell was tinged with defiance instead of terror. He was going to see his wife and children again. Perhaps this sacrifice would be sufficient recompense. For a glorious moment, the Xenomorph was afraid of him. It darted back, away from the fire, and Nolan must have felt vindicated that he became a mighty hunter. His fear and madness were conquered… but only until the blowtorch ran out of gas. Even so, the man refused to back down.
Nicole wished she could call what happened next a fight. Instead, it was an execution. A swipe of its claws spilled his guts, and an extension of the tertiary jaws through his skull finished him off. A flick of the tail beheaded him for good measure; the organ was immediately eaten by the floor, and the man became part of something he despised.
We'll set you free, she thought as she backed through the door. This time, she held Ellie's shoulders while Isaac worked at a fevered pace on the other side. Nolan's sacrifice bought the seconds needed to open the damn door.
She wanted to be more upset, but so much death left her desensitized. Feeling jaded was also part of being a doctor. The grief rarely lessened for Curtis, though, even if he controlled it better than before. His spirit was as raw and bloody as the outside world. Thankfully, he didn't carry such burdens alone.
Then the Xenomorph looked up, and she somehow knew it to be surprised. The monster liked to play with its food, so it toyed with Nolan for a second instead of dispatching him immediately. Tried to run for the barrier, but no such luck. Isaac brought together two wires, and the metal slammed down.
Unlike what usually happened, this wasn't a particularly close call; it was yards away, not inches. That also meant it didn't slam into the door like Necromorphs tended to, which was too bad. No matter, it didn't give them much time. Mere minutes until it either broke through or found another way around. That was if it still didn't want to cut itself and bleed all over the place.
She saw outside again, though the windows were largely blocked by writhing muscle and marrow. Still, it was a thin sheet compared with the slabs they dealt with for most of the facility. They were in the hangar, a place where dozens of gunships used to rest, like birds snug in their roosts. Now, nearly all had been flung down because of a certain war in Heaven.
One solitary ship remained docked. Perhaps kept as an emergency escape craft in case everything went to shit. Nicole found it suspicious that only one remained.
It might explode the instant the ignition was sparked. Still, the options were that or let Ellie bleed to death. Getting blown up was the merciful option. She knowingly looked at Curtis, who hit upon a similar thought the same instant she did. The two became rightfully paranoid, yet it was probablysafe…
Isaac scurried over to the door and tried to open it, but the thing wouldn't budge. Not surprising, since the one to get in also required authorization. Fortunately, Curtis still had Gabe's codes keyed up and ready to use. He spun them to the console, which flickered briefly before swinging open. EarthGov may have shut out Gabe's comms, but some of his permissions couldn't be excised in time – or nobody thought to lock him out of that system.
The airlock cycled open. The scent of artificial pine hit her like a charging Brute: clean, unpolluted air flowed out, tinged with air freshener. It made her feel almost alive again, and that went double for her husband, who was practically more dead than her! Oh, this is nice, he thought, trying not to become attached to the smallest of comforts. This ride wasn't meant for them, no matter how much they wanted it to be. A pang of longing bit her in the exposed gut.
This could be the last time she ever fought her cousins. All they needed to do was flee, contact Schneider and take him up on his offer to live in a secret bunker on the other side of the galaxy while the Necromorphs rolled over civilization. She and Curtis would get to live – not happily ever after, but the closest anyone got in this messed up universe.
That's not the life I want, Curtis whispered, trying to make that true.
Neither do I… but at least it'd be a life. She tried not to play devil's advocate… well, Marker's advocate, for the Marker had enough of those. The problem with loving each other as much as they did was the unimaginable prospect of having something – someone – to lose.
Those thoughts regressed when they entered the gunship. The tang of balsa hung heavier here, and not a speck of Corruption was to be seen. The galley must have been cleaned recently. Good thing, too, because otherwise little tendrils would have torn apart the electronics. Well, the ship hasn't blown up…
Isaac and Curtis gently lowered Ellie into the pilot's chair, and the shift made her groan. Nicole cringed, knowing that the painkillers wouldn't last forever. Nicole squatted down and applied what treatments she could to alleviate some of that agony. Curtis squeezed past her, and Isaac hustled to the stern.
"What are you doing?" Ellie asked, less lucid after Nicole administered a potent kick of morphine via a needle. That made her cringe, but it was the last one Ellie would get. A few grams of the stuff killed, as Nicole knew well. Even this miniscule hit would be enough to knock her out for an hour.
"Just giving you something to make you feel better," she gently replied, dropping the empty syringe into a trash can.
"I know," she slurred, weakly raising an arm. "I was talking to Curtis."
He glanced over as his fingers expertly worked a haptic interface. One semester of community college gave him a more useful skill than he ever expected. "Um, I'm programming the flight computer to make a random shockspace jump once you're far enough away. After that, it'll send a distress signal to Stefan Schneider. I'm pretty sure he'll come pick you up." If he didn't, hopefully Ellie would be lucid enough by then to figure something out.
Isaac stepped out from the corner in the rear of the ship, lifting a small box attached to a compartment on the wall with wires. For a second, Curtis worried it was a bomb.
"And I'm pulling out the flight recorder so you can't be monitored." Oh. Well, that also would have been bad. Titan Station had the capability to track her down. Though they had nothing to send, Earth could spare a ship or two.
Ellie took a deep breath before unleashing a barrage of coughs. Nicole knew the spittle to be flecked with blood. "Fuck. I'm leaving before I change my mind." Glad she wasn't obstinate enough to want to stay behind. Then the woman sighed, and her spine turned to mush. Seemed to melt into the chair like a deflating balloon. "I wish Nolan hadn't done that. Not sure what other options he had, but… feels like we could have done something, you know?"
The weight hit them more heavily now that immediate danger passed. It gave them time to reflect. Even, in their own strange ways, to grieve.
Nicole realized that must have sounded bizarre to outsiders. Nolan gouged one of Ellie's eyes out with a rusty screwdriver and fantasized about doing far worse! To those who didn't know, he would have been as much of a monster as the Necromorphs. None of that was his fault, though; something inhuman crushed his human mind. Tried to, anyway. Because, in the end, he proved to be unbreakable.
"I know," she whispered. "But he made a choice, and I want to respect it. Isaac, Curtis and I will try to make it right." Tempting as it was to rush in and avenge the dead, that played into what the Marker wanted. Hatred made people stupid. She wistfully looked out the canopy window, back to where they stood minutes before. Just looking because there was nothing else to look at. Not until she saw a shadow dart past, almost hidden by the veil of flesh. In an instant, Curtis sealed the entrance, which they really ought to have done as soon as they got on.
"On second thought, we should find another airlock."
…
Curtis believed something waited after death. It may have been reincarnation, with the soul being born into a new body, be that human or an alien on the far side of the cosmos. It might have been lingering as a shade, like Mercer may or may not have done on the Ishimura, before melding with the background radiation. Curtis' favorite idea, and the most common religious notion before Unitology, was that of an afterlife: Heaven and Hell. One exalted the good, and the other punished the wicked.
There were many ideas about who went where and whether Hell was eternal, yet he almost found that to be beside the point. He liked the notion because it said people reaped what they sowed. The mortal world lacked accountability, so it was nice to think individuals would be recompensed according to their deeds. Besides, he had a difficult time believing the afterlife had anything worse than the Necromorphs. He found it completely plausible that the Markers originated in Hell before one tore open a hole to this universe. That made as much sense as any idea about how they came to be.
Curtis hoped that Nolan went to Heaven, if such existed. He hoped he was with his family. After that, Curtis resolved to put such thoughts out of his mind and worry about the living. And the one corpse I make an exception for, he added, looking at his wife.
"Remember when we were on the Executive Shuttle with Kendra?" Isaac asked as he paced back and forth down the single narrow hall. Curtis leaned over the chair Ellie napped in, knowing he'd lack the willpower to stand back up if he sat.
"Don't remind me," Curtis muttered as his hands worked the controls. "The betrayal still hurts… and I guess it's worse for you, considering how recent it seems." Still, he counted himself lucky that Kendra didn't kill him in his sleep. Sleep. Thinking the word made him let out a loud, ugly yawn. He smacked his parched lips and glanced down at Ellie, who marinated in drug-induced slumber. Maybe soon…
Unlike that voyage, which took almost an hour as Kendra installed the shockpoint drive, this was short and sweet. He meandered across the rocky surface of GovSec, trying to find a way in. Fewer buildings poked through the surface on the far side of the Shard (that being the end which normally faced away from the Sprawl), but he thought that to be a good thing. Meant not as many places he needed to explore. Not like the government put the schematics of its secret bunker on the Transnet for everyone to see. That would make things a lot easier, though.
Couldn't complain when this proved to be so much faster and safer than walking. If only they got a ship earlier!
Nicole, who stared out the starboard window, feared what she saw. Curtis witnessed it through her eyes, and he would have shuddered if he possessed the energy. The scenario crossed from a nightmare to something even worse.
He'd idly thought about tentacles grabbing GovSec before. While they couldn't stretch across the gap, massive tendrils now reached for the stony surface, burrowing in like worms to hold the rock steady. These acted not only as anchors, but bridges for Necromorphs to crawl across.
And crawl they did. Having picked the station clean, millions of zombies flooded to the last refuge of humanity hurtling around Saturn. He compared them to ants when there were "only" tens of thousands. Now, the closest he thought of was sand. They were like grains he heedlessly stepped on while stomping down a deserted beach. The horde painted the middle of the curved station (which crumpled from the impact, nearly folding in half around the Government Sector) mottled brown. Curtis thought of a ruptured septic tank spewing shit everywhere.
All the waste was being drawn to the Marker for reasons beyond his comprehension. Nicole, thankfully, was immune to the hive mind's siren song. The rest gladly raced for whatever horrible future it concocted. That surprised neither, yet she winced at her people – brothers and sisters – being brainwashed and led into something that would be as bad for them as humanity. They loved the Marker so much that they couldn't see it.
Curtis spied a row of docking bays jutting up from a rocky crag. No idea where this was in relation to everything else, but it must have been the closest of these to what they caught. Drawn to the Marker or not, both felt it pounding in their skulls. Close enough now to strangle their souls and drag them into the inky void. Pulses of energy sizzled in his veins, and the protective cage around his brain began to crack.
Without Nicole, he'd start clawing his face open within seconds. Some people, the Black Marker included, spoke of his "astonishing" will to live. Even if that were true, credit belonged to the woman who prevented him from blowing his head off. Speaking of which, his favorite eldritch obelisk addressed him upon their final descent.
I DO NOT BELIEVE WE WILL SPEAK AGAIN UNTIL AFTER YOUR TASK IS FINISHED. THEREFORE, I WISH YOU BOTH WELL. THOUGH IT MAY SOUND STRANGE… I AM PROUD OF YOU BOTH. YOU HAVE SURPASSED MY MOST OPTIMISTIC EXPECTATIONS. GOOD LUCK.
We'll need it, he thought back as the voice already began to fade. Thanks. Curtis didn't know what to say, other than for it to not set its lofty expectations so high. They beat one Marker, to be sure, but could they do it again?
Only one way to find out, Nicole thought, threading her claws through the fingers of his left hand while his right directed them to port. The ship landed, and magnetic clamps snapped the airlock into place while vacuum sealing it. Almost expected Ellie to react to the jolt, yet she remained asleep. Curtis felt relieved.
Meant he didn't need to say goodbye.
Isaac, however, must have felt otherwise. He departed last, and only after putting a hand on her shoulder. "You'll be all right," he said. His voice was laced with the hope that things would turn out OK for them, too.
The temptation to stay in an oasis of relative safety burned strong, though each punctured the mirage. Soon enough, nowhere would be secure. That didn't stop lead dumbbells being taped to his feet as he stepped out. Curtis exhaled a small sigh of relief after he walked down the ramp and drank in the new surroundings.
It's pretty clean. That was the first reason for his initial consolation: patches of Corruption were here and there, but not anywhere close to the excess coating the previous area. Didn't bother to speculate about why; he was just thankful that things weren't the worst. The other reason he felt somewhat comforted was the dearth of footprints, be they Necromorph, human or something else. No sounds he associated with them, either. There were, however, boxes. Nicole was about to crack one open just to find out what before noticing a nuclear trefoil on one and a chemical hazard sign on another. Yeah, she wasn't going to play with fire now.
While his better half did that, Curtis walked over to a terminal and punched in a command. A few button presses were all it took to detach the ship from the dock and set it on a randomized course into the unknown. The docking procedure played in reverse: the clamp unsealed, the engine silently rumbled to life, and it swooped away. Just like that, it was gone.
Then there were three. They were the three who saw all this start on the Ishimura, and he hoped they would be the trio to end this particular iteration of the threat. What came next was a worry for another day. He tried not to look out the window as they strode down the catwalk, which curved away from the glass. Instead, the light of sun and stars was supplanted by familiar LED and fluorescent white. The sources here didn't flicker, at least.
The walls were adorned with luminous signs proclaiming everything good that the regime brought, from medicine to entertainment to safety. This must have been deep into the government's grip. Even so, the people in charge still felt they needed to remind those who should have been more loyal than anybody about EarthGov's might. That was a trait he noticed about them, Wey-Yu and the CEC. Was it just advertising boiled down to its most basic element? He didn't understand the nuances of propaganda, yet he expected it to be more complex than unabashedly talking about how great one was.
Well, I guess it worked on me, since I never thought about rebelling before the Necromorphs. He complained, but he couldn't imagine fighting those who made his life, crappy though it was, possible. Then again, he didn't know how bad things really were. Maybe the people in places like this needed reassurance more than most, because they saw how the sausage got made.
Speaking of which, a symbol of everything wrong with humanity greeted them. Screens filled with promises of EarthGov's prosperity were replaced by a leering, sweating, angry threat.
"I don't know what sort of providence protects you all, but it ends here," Tiedemann growled. "My remaining 200 security personnel are covering every entrance! Even if you do get in, you won't get far."
"Tiedemann. Hans." Curtis leapt into a verbal fray, though he expected his words to do no good against someone so far gone. Still, he needed to try. There was a chance, however small, that the man could be persuaded out of his terrible habits. "You know this is a bad idea. Don't throw everything away because your bosses want you to." Tiedemann's face(s) darkened.
"The evacuation earlier… my superiors explicitly forbade it. It's a grave breach of containment protocol; the public shouldn't have been informed. That's what they said." Curtis didn't know. He assumed that was always supposed to happen. Assuming he believed the man, anyway, but he saw no reason Tiedemann would try to save face with people he hated. "But I've ruled these people my entire adult life, and I couldn't let them die."
He shifted uncomfortably, his dark skin stark against the plain white backdrop he filmed in front of. As Nicole noted earlier, being rendered in detail did him no favors. Each wrinkle and drop of sweat made him look older and frailer. "I'm trying to say that I'm not the stooge you take me for. As terrible as the Markers are, despite everything they want to inflict on us, we can control them. We can harness their power for good without taking the bad. I hope you realize I truly believe that. There's no reason for me to keep doing this unless I did. Even if I don't die here, my career in EarthGov is over."
At best. At worst, the government would throw him in a horrible pit somewhere along with other political dissidents, if not simply execute him. Still, he hoped the people who got out were safe. The government might kill them. Or maybe they'd get lucky and merely be brainwashed to forget the last few hours. That'd be for the best, because otherwise they'd need to live in a prison camp somewhere.
"Regardless, everyone here knows the stakes. We can't and won't let the Necromorphs approach the Marker. Such a possibility… it's catastrophic."
"Why?" The Red Marker had been thronged by Necromorphs on the Ishimura and Aegis VII. They couldn't approach within a few dozen feet because of the signal being so strong that it fried their cells, yet it was still near enough to see their contorted faces and hear the guttural roars of things that used to be humans with lives and dreams. Perversely, right beside the Marker may have been the safest place one could be during a Necromorph attack. It'd drive the person there insane in a matter of hours (at most), but they'd be physically protected.
"We're not entirely sure of the mechanisms, but it won't be good. Let's just say that the Marker wants it, so we don't." The answer was as vague as he came to expect. "This conversation has gone on long enough," he sighed, pushing himself away from whatever desk he sat at. "There's still time to turn around and take a gunship out of here." Were there more that they missed? Because that ship had quite literally sailed. "Go be someone else's problem."
His soft, tired glare lingered a moment more before the video disconnected. Curtis sighed as he and the others walked down a flight of stairs. Damn it all – the Necromorphs closed in. Even here, so close to the center of GovSec, this infestation burrowed like maggots. Still, he now knew that they didn't come for him, nor for the humans living at the rotten heart.
They came for their infant deity, caught away in a mad embrace. And he had no idea why.
Even on Aegis VII, there were "only" thousands of people, Nicole thought. Here, there are millions. That's the biggest change I can see. The difference being based on quantity made sense, he supposed. Sheer biomass was critical to Necromorphs. Bigger ones were stronger and smarter because they were made of more cells. Moreover, each Necromorph was like a piece of a larger organism. Unity was their pride… and, unfortunately, that ego had been earned.
Another few steps, and the gang stood before a massive door. A map of Earth carved from metal was embossed upon the façade. Atop this, the word "EARTHGOV" sputtered in holographic blue letters. As if anyone would forget who owned them.
The zombies were loud. Not just in the mindscape, but in the real world. A horde smashed against the far wall, which buckled from stress. He didn't ask how many were on the other side, because he knew the answer: more than they could fight. Isaac rushed to the bunker's threshold. Obviously, it wasn't something they could hope to bore through. That was all right, for their side possessed something stronger than bullets or plasma.
The engineer tore open a panel on the wall and plunged in. Curtis imagined a swell of dramatic music at this race against time; he and his wife stood with weapons free as the metal crumbled. It was a question of whether science or brute force removed an obstacle faster. His clammy fingers flexed over the trigger, but he didn't dare to pull it. Shooting would bring the barrier down faster. That created an uncomfortable stand-off where the only thing to do was wait.
While he hated twiddling his thumbs, it became clear from rabid thoughts and Isaac continuing to root around in wires that the Necromorphs would get through first.
Indeed, the threshold capsized with a mighty blow, and Curtis tried to force his taut muscles to be looser. He wouldn't be capable of blasting shit if he were unable to move his limbs. His thumb pressing a button on the back of his index finger meant his enemies were saddled with such a burden at first.
A burst of stasis slowed the ones in front, but it only caught a few in the small radius. The ones behind trampled them, no longer caring about their safety (if they ever did in the first place). The monsters had precious few chances to stop them.
Hundreds came through the other side of the mezzanine, and thousands more brought up the rear. The line would be backed up from there to the Public Sector. Curtis thought little of strategy as he fired into the crowd. It was almost a shame, since he put so much effort into honing those skills. Now, he shot around like a maniac, barely better than Nolan.
Fuck fuck fuck! Each bolt partially illuminated a new, awful figure. The room seemed to get darker despite the lights being unchanged. The blackness in their spirits tainted everything; the hate was made palpable. Everything good in the universe, they wanted to swallow with their toothy, vicious mouths.
An Exploder burst in a shower of gore, sending up a chain reaction with a few Crawlers. The geysers rivaled those of Enceladus – and none of them cared at all. They could not have been less intimidated by the carnage. And Curtis shouldn't have made it sound like he and Nicole mowed them down by the dozens. Instead, everything they threw (literally, in the case of Curtis tossing things with kinesis) barely held the Necromorphs back.
Curtis' resolve melted like glass in a furnace. This was his worst nightmare. He also noted the overpowering stench. Individually, the dead didn't smell too bad because the Marker stunted the development of microorganisms that made flesh rot. Millions still reeked like the inside of a sewer. And it only got worse as they closed in, with decaying, wet bodies all slapping against each other in some kind of death-orgy.
There was nothing he nor Nicole could do to stop the wave about to crash on them. Not until Isaac screamed over the noise.
"Get over here!" he shouted. Curtis whirled around to see the door miraculously cracked open. The entrance was only a few feet wide, yet it would be enough. "I was only able to open it for a few seconds!"
With the zombies mere inches away – he could have sworn a blade whiffed the back of his neck – he and Nicole ran. The concrete slab already lumbered shut as they sprinted. Isaac bellowed like a personal trainer to work through the pain. His legs, exhausted from the hours of running, buckled. Only through luck that it happened once he cleared the exit.
And that Nicole was around to catch him.
The rumbling suddenly stopped. He looked through her bleary eyes at the solid wall that had just been a mountain gorge.
Another instant, and all would have been crushed into paste by a door as deep as one of the train cars they rode in hours earlier. The thickness of this barrier made the outer wall Isaac breached with the mining drill look like tissue paper. One blade-arm stuck out from the rock, mere inches away. There must have been 20 other Necromorphs reduced to goo. The thing was so thick that he didn't hear the other thousands beating against it.
Nicole put him back on his feet, and his eyes slowly adjusted to this new space. The first thing that struck him was the light, which made him squint even with the visor automatically darkening to protect his eyes. So far from the sun, this may have been the brightest illumination he'd been exposed to since a cloudless day on Earth. The ceiling was packed with bulbs, not one of which was burned out. The place must have run off its own source of backup power, which made sense. Though darkness didn't cause Necromorphs, it was something they liked, so no chances were taken. Not a single spot of Corruption marred the alabaster and chrome floors or walls. They must have done something to prevent it from growing… though Nicole felt some clandestinely growing in tiny cracks where nobody saw.
This, Curtis thought, must have been the inner sanctum. No way the Necromorphs were getting through, no matter what they tossed at it. Even if an engineer as skilled as Isaac had been assimilated, most of that knowledge was lost to the ravenous maw that devoured all semblance of individuality.
"We made it," he wheezed. A crooked smile crossed his face, even as his head spun and he could barely walk in a straight line.
"Holy Hell," Nicole said back, no longer bothering with psychic powers. She felt the same burgeoning giddiness. "We might be done fighting Necromorphs!" Not to say that 200 soldiers would be easy to deal with. Everyone present would take them in a heartbeat over the dead, though. Only question was where the guards were. Not here, because they'd otherwise be very visible. Not dead, since no undead came through here, and he found it unlikely that every one of them had gone crazy in the few minutes it had been since Tiedemann called.
Before he could worry about that too much, though, a massive logo on the wall opposite the "door" they entered caught his attention.
PROJECT TELOMERE
The words were stenciled in bold, black text. Below this was painted what appeared to be the program's logo: a twisting strand of DNA, a microscope and half of a gear. Didn't take a genius to figure out "Project Telomere" was the name of the government's secret Marker program. These were just some of the fields they'd use to understand the Markers – and, in turn, fields they hoped the Markers could improve.
"Ugh, let's keep going," Isaac declared. A few steps later, he turned back and said, "This might sound odd, but it seems too sterile here. Too clean." The unwavering cleanliness was something Curtis also noticed on the vids Tiedemann sent.
"Probably part of the Corruption-clearing process," Nicole answered. "Dust is mostly made of dead skin cells, so even a little is enough to grow a patch." That made sense. He wasn't complaining; he'd take this over what they trekked through any day. The swing from one extreme to the other just jarred him.
Now, it really was time to go. But where? Several doors flanked the left and right of the room. Two curved hallways were on either side of the "Project Telomere" motif, probably connecting in the back. This room had nothing but a complex system of x-ray machines and metal detectors, which marked it as a guard post for anyone coming in. Easy to get around, and the mechanisms were all turned off, anyway. It wasn't the sort of thing that would vaporize them with lasers.
"I'm not sure where we should start, but let's get to the other side of this first," Curtis suggested. The only way they could go was a trap – Tiedemann said as much – yet he had no doubt the other doors concealed other dangers.
Nicole traversed the abandoned queue (quite nice to skip the line) while Curtis shoved a metal table aside and strode through the newly minted aisle. Isaac followed. No reason to trip a metal detector on the small chance that one was still on, right? The engineer also twitched significantly. Probably just muscle spasms and cramps, but it reminded Curtis that the Marker was still a threat.
Even with enough psychic shielding to keep Tiedemann and his minions (mostly) sane these last several weeks, Isaac got more initial exposure than anyone else. He might finally snap as they closed in on the Golden Marker. Still, he just needed to hold it together for another hour. Or two. Or –
Curtis' thoughts were interrupted by Nicole hearing distant footfalls. Obviously human instead of Necromorph. Additionally, shadows danced on the walls of the two corridors they approached. Shadows with bulky, rectangular shapes at the front. Riot shields. Surely in addition to guns.
"You're surrounded! Drop your weapons!" a deep voice shouted from ahead. "Teams are converging on you from the other halls! If you surrender, we'll make this quick and painless!" Indeed, Nicole heard more footfalls muffled by the closed doors… that'd very soon be opened.
Oh fuck. Assuming Tiedemann's boast of 200 soldiers was accurate, another kind of army came at them – and this one had discipline. Couldn't have been all of them, but even 30 or 40 would be too many for three exhausted, drained, battered people. Curtis breathed through bruised ribs and torn tendons. He'd pushed the human body as far as it could go. Still, he reached down and summoned the strength to throw himself into the meat grinder yet again. Maybe the Marker was right about me having astonishing willpower, after all.
The only question was how this great escape would work.
"The vents!" Nicole quietly exclaimed. That was her go-to answer for everything, but it made sense. He couldn't think of another way to get out unless they spontaneously phased through the floor! Rushing over to a grate, it seemed bigger than the system. Why the Government Sector sported a bigger gauge of pipe than the rest of the station, he had no idea. Unfortunately, Tiedemann anticipated that scheme.
Curtis tore the cover off, ready for an easy escape, only to find that the entrance had been sealed with concrete. He almost yelled in frustration. Knocked on it a few times, getting no feedback. It must have been several feet thick: impossible to penetrate in the seconds they had. OK, OK, new plan. His eyes flew wildly from door to door.
Then one caught his eye. Unlike the rest, it wasn't labeled as leading to one of the port or starboard halls. In fact, it wasn't designated as anything. Also significantly smaller than the others, and set a little askew into the wall, without a counterpart on the opposite side. "Let's try that one," he said as decisively as he could. Better to try it than stand around and get shot.
It was locked like the others, but Isaac quickly got it open with his trusty hacking tools. It silently slid ajar as the phalanx's front row rounded the bend. Curtis ducked inside before he even looked.
That was how they ended up in a storage closet no larger than his apartment. Kind of upsetting that a GovSec crawlspace was the size of a dwelling for two. The hiding space bought them a minute at most before the marines caught on. There were no other exits – a fact that brought him to his knees. He didn't cry, but he felt utterly crushed as the weight of the imminent future hit him. He'd survived all this, only to be shot to death in a closet. Did it even have a point?
It did, Nicole thought, walking over to him and putting a comforting claw on his shoulder. Her touch felt like home. It was one of the only things that kept him going all these years. Though he knew she understood, he didn't think there was anything he could ever say to thank her for choosing him. It matters to me.
Yeah… that was nice. You matter to me, too. He sniffled, feeling like a powerless kid, as he squeezed a talon. Then, with nothing else to do, he looked to the sky. Her beautiful four-eyed face stared softly at him, and he beheld his gaze in her own. She was his warrior angel, and he was blessed to feel that power in him. Her head was framed by a halo of light. Behind it was something that enthused him even more.
"Up there!" he nearly shouted before shutting himself up. His heart leapt into his throat, though the exclamation was mostly for Isaac's benefit. Nicole already knew what he saw. The thing was something any normal person would find mundane: a piece of metal covering a hole.
The room's sole vent, which was on the ceiling, had been overlooked. This room must have been so useless that even whoever had been tasked with sealing duty forgot it. Now, it became their last chance to get out.
Curtis and Isaac picked up a cabinet and gingerly placed it under the opening. Nicole easily scaled it, taking the top off. It reminded him of Nicole escaping their apartment through the bathroom. Well, he was about to get a taste of the same exercise. Thinking about that also made him wonder if any Oracles stuck around with the everyday warriors. Might have been able to make a difference with their peerless discipline and fancy laser guns… but probably not. From our encounters, I think they're smart enough to know when a battle is lost, his wife thought as she crammed into the space.
Probably true, and Curtis felt grateful for that. Had to take what small victories he could.
Isaac scaled the impromptu ladder first, which was fortunately sturdy enough to support him and the RIG. The vents here may have been marginally larger, but they'd still be a feat for someone wearing a bulky exoskeleton to cram into.
He heard confused mutterings from outside. The marines couldn't find the intruders who just came in. It'd only be a matter of seconds before one had the bright idea to crack open the sole closed door – or whoever monitored the security cameras reported what just happened.
He felt like he burned and drowned at the same time; the details became more profound with each shelf he stepped on. His skin prickled, his muscles ached, and his bones creaked. At the same time, not enough air got into his lungs, and the suit must have been waterlogged with how much sweat he swam in. That meant he got enough fluids, at least. The contradictory sensations quieted once he entered the vent, though they were still more intense than he cared for.
There was no time to pause, though, as they shimmied into the darkness in a single line. From the side, Curtis idly mused, they would have appeared as a single, dragon-like monster. That wasn't the sort of beast he wanted to bump into. With luck, he never would again.
…
Spy vids didn't capture the reality of crawling through ventilation ducts. Those were magically well-lit and clean: perfect for infiltration. If only. In actuality, they were clogged with filth. Nobody ever cleaned them. And because nobody was ever supposed to be inside, there was no smoothing of sharp edges and loose screws. Curtis and Isaac had their armor, and Nicole didn't feel pain or get diseases, so she barely noticed. They were uniquely suited for this environment.
That didn't mean all was well in the dark, dingy realm.
Curtis writhed in agony behind her. Isaac couldn't have done much better, but she experienced the miner's pain in a way she no longer could alone. As a doctor, she understood the phenomenon on many levels. That didn't make it easier to handle.
Even if he made a full recovery, she wouldn't have been surprised if this misadventure and the one on the Ishimura abused his body so much that it shaved years off his life. That's what happened to professional athletes, and he endured a career's worth of beatings. Nicole could reattach her limbs and generally was more pliable than humans, but she wondered if the same fate would befall her. Fortunately, the vents farther from the entrances had not been caulked up, so they weren't boxed into a tiny section of pipes.
"Where did they go?" a voice stammered from far away.
"No sign of fugitives at the bulkheads," another furtively declared. This speaker was nearer.
"Alert Tiedemann. Curtis, Nicole and Isaac are still loose. We believe they entered the ventilation system through an unsecured opening." This one emanated from directly below, and she saw a burst of movement through the screen. Well, they finally caught on. The only question was what would be done about it.
That query was answered by a cloud filling the tunnel. Illumination from underneath showed it to be a sickly yellow-green in color. Probably some sort of potent neurotoxin or deadly vapor, though it may have also been a weak acid that her biology (not to mention the cocoons her friends wore) shrugged off. She felt a little tingly, especially in her superfluous lungs. Anything as corrosive as Puker bile, not to mention Xenomorph blood, would eat through the ducts in seconds. More sophisticated countermeasures would have taken weeks to install.
Their advantage, as it often turned out to be, was underestimation. Tiedemann never expected they'd get this far.
"What's the plan?" Isaac whispered, clipping his words so they didn't echo in the cramped tunnel. "Hate to say it, but I have no ideas."
Nicole was equally stumped. Her first thought was crawling to the Marker… but she only had a vague idea where that might be, and ventilation shafts didn't have signs. No guarantee this part of the system connected to the part of the place it was. In fact, she suspected it didn't. Hmm.
Tiedemann mentioned only a couple hundred fighters remained in a facility that could probably hold thousands. There would be other functionaries: scientists, maintenance workers and other major politicians and their families.
"It seems you've breached the compound, but you'll go no further!" Tiedemann's voice rang out from every speaker beneath them, blending into a cacophony of sound. Distorted as it was, though, she heard the malice which tinged it. After every plan the three upset, she didn't blame him. "The interior doors are locked even tighter than the exterior ones; any meddling will alert everyone in the area, and marines from other parts are en route to your location. The vents are localized to your specific area, so you won't make progress. You may as well give up." The words painted a dire picture. Unfortunately, she believed them. It was completely within the realm of possibility that they'd be able to monitor tampering.
"We need to get out of the vents," she whispered. Though tempted to remain in a place she instinctively found safe, the thin walls wouldn't protect them forever. She imagined bombs being lobbed in soon. Besides, Curtis and Isaac would run out of air if the gas kept pumping.
She peered through a few grates, finding the surroundings unpalatable, before spotting a room which was probably acceptable. She lifted it, gripped the lip, and pirouetted into the bathroom. Hopefully none of the soldiers needed to wash their hands. The men wriggled out moments later, neither too gracefully. Still, they weren't hurt more than they had previously been.
"Seriously, I have no ideas," Curtis said before standing up. Couldn't afford to be complacent, even if it felt like it made his brain bleed.
"I have one." The engineer spoke, sounding more self-assured than he had in a while. Boldly stepped forward, into a puddle that Nicole hoped was water. "Our biggest problems are door alarms and cameras. We won't need to worry about either if we cut the power." For emphasis, two of his twitching fingers pressed together, mimicking scissors.
"Like unplugging the reactor?" Curtis queried. Though he didn't say it, Nicole knew he didn't want to go there (and that was likely no longer possible).
Isaac shook his head. "Not quite. In a place this big, there should be a circuit breaker: something that directs electricity to everything electronic in the region." He didn't need to explain more, for she and Curtis followed his logic to its conclusion. Find the circuit breaker, deactivate those specific systems, and they'd be clear! For a little while, at least.
Nicole didn't want to call it foolproof, yet she saw few ways it could go wrong. Why not give it a try? Therefore, it was back into the vents, where they crawled around looking for any signs of a power junction. Well, she did; leading the pack and possessing the keenest eyesight meant taking point on this sort of thing. Mess hall? No. Barracks? Nada. Armory? Tempting, but we don't have time for a gun raid right now.
Isaac advised her to look for a place with a lot of wires and other electronic components. They'd probably be better hidden than on a place like the Ishimura, which flaunted its exposed guts to the universe. There was no silver bullet, though, and they needed to stop a few times so an already ragged Isaac checked the electronics for… something. Nicole didn't ask. After these excursions, it was back into the vent with Isaac giving general directions.
Whatever it was, though, it worked when combined with her sleuthing. They dropped through one more opening, and Curtis hoped he never needed to crawl on his belly again. None too soon, either. A series of explosions rocked the tubes moments before the three dropped out, and Nicole felt vibrations ringing in her bones. Sounded like they started lobbing explosives into the vents, after all. Broken ducts would be a fine price to pay if the collapsing system crushed them all.
Anyway, the room fit Isaac's bill in that there were several exposed wires (and many more coated in PVC) leading to a box on the back wall. The front was lined with a row of chairs in front of computer monitors. Instead of metal, a large window overlooked the room they entered through! She knew it had a high ceiling, yet she hadn't perceived that the second floor overlooked the first.
She cautiously peered over one of the black screens to see out. A couple of guards stood watch, probably to catch them if they wandered back through. Other than that, though, there was no sign of anything amiss. After a glance around, she didn't see any security cameras. Still, Isaac and Curtis needed to hurry.
Hey, this is all Isaac, Curtis thought as he watched the engineer, well, engineer. A padlock held the cover in place, which was dismantled with as gentle a smack as he could manage.
I didn't mean to imply you're being lazy, she countered, terser than she wanted. Fear and exhaustion ate away at her. Still, she needed to bottle up those negative emotions a little longer. He knew she meant nothing by it, but she'd rather they go through the process of communicating with full words (even if only spoken internally) instead of vague feelings. Especially when both seethed with so much negativity.
Within the box were dozens of orange cables, finally confirming that they were in the right place. Unfortunately, none were labeled with what system they linked to. Maybe there was a guidebook for workers, but she'd have thought it simpler to stick pieces of tape inside and write on them with a pen! That was for Isaac to divine, though.
How much money will this cost? she wondered. Though she was normally only interested in finance to make sure Curtis could afford healthy food and to pay rent on the apartment, she wondered how much money they cost EarthGov over the last few hours. After all, Curtis and Isaac slammed one half of a space station into another! She pondered if the two caused the most property damage in human history – it must have been billions of credits. She didn't count herself or the other undead because of the "human" part.
Then again, it was a moot point. She doubted the Sprawl would ever be rebuilt. How could a city – or a planet, or an entire civilization – recover from a day like this?
Isaac turned to face them. The fingers of his left hand drummed impatiently on his thigh.
"I have no idea what each wire powers," he admitted, sounding as frustrated as she felt confused. "Unplugging just some would be unhelpful, since we have no idea if I turned off the cameras or sensors or something I can't even think of." Well, except for the lights. It'd be pretty obvious if those got flipped off. "Still, I can flip the master switch and deactivate everything." He phrased this as more of a suggestion than an outright command.
"You're sure it'll be OK?" Curtis inquired.
"I can't see why it wouldn't be," he replied with a shrug. "Any better ideas?" A hint of disdain tinged his voice, much as he tried to keep it down. Speaking of trying, Nicole tried not to take it personally. Tried. The day grinded her under its heel. She was ready to lash out at anything.
With that, Isaac flipped the lever at the bottom, and everything went black except a dull green glow from the walls. Parts must have been coated in phosphorescent paint for this exact scenario. The soft, omnipresent hum of life-giving machines ceased, and she found herself barely bound to the floor. Turning off everything included the gravity panels. The Shard exerted some gravity, but the pull of a hollow asteroid was negligible, more a suggestion than a command. Like on the Ishimura, heat and oxygen would last for a long enough time.
"It worked," Curtis whispered, mood lifting like his body. He feared that something would go wrong, as it so often did for them. This time, though, things went off without a hitch. For them, anyway. The soldiers below weren't having as great a time.
"Shit! We've lost power!" one screamed. Through the window, a light spiraled away as the hapless man tried to grab his flying Pulse Rifle. "Auxiliary isn't tripping, either!" Nicole felt smug, which was bolstered by Curtis' own tepid pride.
Then she heard a mechanical grinding. While the sound didn't get louder, the screaming in her mind did. At first, she thought the Necromorphs on the other side of the door got more heated. While that may have been true, she hit upon a sickening realization: the psychic barrier between them fell away. And since psychic barriers were also physical…
"That's the bulkhead door!" one of the marines yelled. Indeed, the massive barrier of the far wall slid open. Isaac was back at the circuit breaker, trying to undo the mistake. Nicole couldn't take her eyes off the widening gyre. His incessant swearing and the lack of light left little to the imagination, though. "It's supposed to have kinetic restraints if it loses power, but the monsters must have knocked out the on-site batteries by throwing themselves against it so hard!"
Nicole couldn't imagine why "closed" wouldn't be the default state. Were weights attached at an angle so that the (very slight) gravity pulled them open?! There was no point wondering about structural design flaws, though. Not when one spelled the end of everything.
"Do you hear that?!" the nameless guard said to his partner. Well, surely they had names. They just wouldn't for much longer. And Nicole did more than hear. She felt the teeth tear into her spirit and rip apart her innards. The dam burst before it opened all the way.
"They're coming! They're coming in!" Sprays of gunfire erupted like geysers. Nicole admired the bravery, even as they stood no chance. Nor did the other 198 soldiers. Tracer rounds lit up the darkness, illuminating flashes of teeth, claws and all the rest. There might have been appendages she hadn't felt before. They quickly stopped; there wasn't enough time to scream as the room below turned into an abattoir. Flesh stretched from wall to wall. And, if she believed her eyes, she caught the briefest glimpse of a familiar tail on the ceiling.
Tiedemann erupted on Curtis' chest, and she expected him to scream at them about committing genocide. He had different motives, however. In fact, he may not have intended to contact them.
"Fall back! All personnel, fall back to the Marker chamber! We have to seal it off!" he gnashed, wildness burning in his eyes like a terrible fire. It threatened to burn down the universe if the Necromorphs didn't first. "If we don't, it will mean Convergence!"
…
Convergence. I've alluded to it many times. It's the Unitologist version of the Rapture, though nobody is certain about the specifics of what it entails, other than humanity finally being united unlike ever before. Seems like our heroes are about to see it in action, though.
The biggest event to happen in this chapter was Nolan's death, which I struggled with portraying. I wasn't sure whether to keep it the same as the canonical version or change it. Ultimately, though, I decided that I wanted him to be a more sympathetic iteration than the one in the games. He's a victim who summoned the courage to be a hero in his last moments. In any case, I'm glad Nolan is off the table. That may sound mean, but he was a difficult character to write! There are already enough of them for me to juggle.
On the subject of moving, I've gotten most of the paperwork done – transferred my driver's license, registered to vote and all that – so the tedious stuff is out of the way. Moreover, I have started applying for different jobs. I'll keep you guys posted on that when I get one, but it's been difficult so far.
Thanks to CelfwrDderwydd and Kaijucifer for reviewing since last time. It always makes me happy when people leave feedback for me, be it positive or negative. Though it could change, I believe there will only be four more chapters after this. I'll perform an AMA during the penultimate chapter, as I have several times before, so start thinking of questions now!
