Miles entered a room with a whiteboard that had a complicated looking mathematical equation on it, and the name on the top of the board called it the Morphogenic Engine Formula. This is the Morphogenic Engine. A few lines of mathmatics, a formula. Reprogram us; turn us into nightmare factories. A few numbers on a dry erase board. Give me a hacksaw and a few hours alone with Dr. Wernicke's corpse. I feel I owe him a debt, Miles thought as he left the room to search some more.
Miles ran down a hallway, ignoring the torn apart bodies and blood splattered walls, his heart pounding in his chest as he searched for a way out of this nightmare. The stench of death hung heavy in the air, driving him forward with a sense of urgency.
Miles rounded a corner, running smack into the Walrider, and he immediately turned on his heel, fleeing in the direction he came from. When he went to open a door, Chris Walker had already beat him to it. How the hell did he get down here? Miles thought desperately as Walker grabbed him with a deep growl.
"Little pig, little pig. No more escape," Walker grunted, throwing Miles a few feet away. Miles landed in a heap with a breathless grunt.
Walker stalked over to him, but a black fog descended on Walker, and Miles flipped up his camcorder and set it to record. It was clear who would win this fight. Chris Walker was strong, but not strong enough to take on the Walrider itself.
The Walrider easily tossed Walker around like a rag doll, and all Miles could do was lay there and record. Walker screamed in pain and anger and tried to fight back, but the fight didn't last long. After a few seconds of scuffling, the Walrider picked up Walker and easily dragged him through a vent shaft, with blood, guts, and bone marrow flying everywhere.
Breathing shakily, Miles stood up, swallowing heavily. This is the way you die. Ripped to pieces from the inside, watching your marrow scatter on a concrete wall. You've escaped one hell, Chris Walker. God help me, but I somehow hope you don't find another, Miles thought before standing and continuing his search for a way out. Suddenly, a frail voice with a German accent calling out caught his attention.
"Over here, please. I must…try to explain," the man called weakly, and Miles hurried towards the voice and entered the room it was in.
Miles recognized the voice as Dr. Wernicke's as he eyed the old man in a wheelchair, many tubes coming out of his body.
"I know, I know. I am supposed to be dead. No…no such luck. I am older than sin, but somehow…the only one left. Because of Billy. He takes care of me. He may think I'm his father. He certainly loves me, the poor idiot," Dr. Wernicke explained slowly and wheeled toward Miles, who tensed in response but couldn't help the small snort of amusement at that last comment.
"Do you know what this symbol means?" Dr. Wernicke asked, nodding his head at the symbol on the wall. It was an infinite looping circle that looked a little bit like a flower with three glowing dots on it, and Miles shook his head slowly, feeling vaguely interested.
"It warns of a Nanohazard. Microscopic machines. Technology we have had for decades but never mastered. Murkoff discovered, in my research, a workaround. Turning the cells in a human body into nano-factories. It's the natural function of cells to reproduce molecules, but through psychosomatic direction, we engineered the precise molecules necessary. Mind over body. It was…foolish and wrong to think we could control it. To use madmen to make something so strong. You have to stop him, to…murder Billy. Turn off his life support, his anesthesia. You have to undo what I've done. No one can get out of this place while he lives. You must kill him," Dr. Wernicke begged helplessly.
Miles turned toward the door, pausing when he heard Dr. Wernicke sigh deeply, making him look over at him.
"We achieved something like this in 1944. Those fascists thought it was spirits, and I let them believe it. Let them kill themselves thinking there was some kind of afterlife now empirically promised to them. Fools. Poor Alan. He would weep to see what I've built from his dreams," Dr. Wernicke said, and Miles frowned, wondering what he was getting at.
"Billy doesn't mean harm. He's a child with a damaged mind, granted the powers of a God. It would make any of us into a monster. You must end this. We all must die here. Murkoff knew the dangers, and they didn't care. In the corporations' mind, we are all just dollar amounts in a ledger. And the profits Project Walrider promised overshadowed whatever pitiful balance a few doctors and patients amounted to," Dr. Wernicke explained slowly.
"He will spread if you don't stop him. The Morphogenic Engine is self-perpetuating. I pray to God you have the strength to end it here with your death. More than anything I want to rest. Billy will not let me die. He could never imagine how cruel this is. I only want to die," Dr. Wernicke murmured softly. Miles nodded and ran out of the room in search of Billy.
Miles barreled around a corner, nearly running into the Walrider, but instantly turned on his heel and ran. As he ran, he made his way up some stairs and finally found Billy hooked up to the Morphogenic Engine through multiple tubes. The assembler, the feed chambers, and the precursor molecules. Vague memories of nanotechnology articles I've read online, probably drunk, probably distracted. Not nearly enough to know how to destroy it. But Billy is at the center of it. Find him. Kill him. End this, Miles thought, and he walked closer to Billy's life support pod and looked at him curiously.
Billy was a bald, well-built man, with blue eyes in his early 20s. The Morphogenic Engine had very little effect on him, although his skin is covered with bulging veins and other scarring. Hope was shirtless, donning only a pair of blue underwear and handcuffs around his wrists. Miles saw a number of tubes entering every orifice in his body.
From Billy's reports, he ought to be twenty-three years old. He looks like at least fifty years of rough road, with pain scratched deep into what I can see. Killing you would be an act of kindness, Miles thought and left.
After searching for a while, Miles finally found the valve for the Life Support Fluid Reservoir. This is Billy Hope's lungs. His liver. His life support. A machine the size of a football stadium to keep one lunatic alive. Fuck it all. Break it all. He has to die, Miles thought as he quickly turned it, flinching when a loud, shrill scream of pain echoed through the air.
Now, Miles had to cut off the electric supply from the Sublab Generator. After a close call with the Walrider, Miles finally found the Generator, and yanked the cords out, causing sparks to fly and another shrill scream to fill the air.
"Okay. Now, I gotta disable Bily's Life Pod failsafe," Miles muttered, running back the way he came, only to be caught by the Walrider and thrown to grown. Miles groaned in pain, stumbling to his feet, and making his way back to Billy's Pod.
Once he did so, Miles watched quietly as Billy squirmed in pain as he died. Billy is dead—the Walrider, the Swarm, whatever it is—unmade with him. Whether I escape or die here, I am free, Miles thought, feeling somewhat happy at that one thought.
Suddenly, Miles was slammed into the pod by the Walrider and thrown around. The Walrider picked Miles up, stared at him for a moment, and sank into his body. Miles wailed in pure agony as he was dropped unceremoniously to the ground.
Gasping for air, Miles slowly got up and staggered to the door, desperately trying to ignore the pain. Nearly falling a few times, Miles finally got to the door, only for it to open, allowing armed soldiers and Dr. Wernicke through. Miles panted heavily and shakily as he held up his hands in surrender and backed up a few steps.
A gun fired, his shoulder flared up in pain, and Miles staggered back a step. Miles looked at his shoulder, then at the soldiers. A beat of silence followed, then guns started firing, and Miles felt his body light up in pain as he fell to the ground, his world slowly going dark.
"Gott im Himmel. You have become the host," Dr. Wernicke gasped in realization, and the soldiers started screaming in agony, followed by rapid gunfire. That was the last thing Miles heard before his eyes slid shut.