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Contravene Birth 06.04
Posted By: russ687<russ687@hotmail.com>
Date: 29 December 2005, 5:19 pm
Read/Post Comments
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Contravene Birth
06.04
"And why would the UN Council be in on this?" Dillon said softly, entirely unbelieving of the man's confession.
McColluck looked back and forth between them. "Because they know."
"Know what?" Marcus said, confounded by this entire discussion.
"They know something about this alien," the technician continued, some barely discernable darkness settling around them in this chamber. "They know something that can't get out, something that we would find if this project continued."
Marcus cringed at the thought of that. Maybe they weren't the first to observe this alien in detail. Maybe this had been done before, and the results were not good—not positive for humanity.
"I don't know what it is about this thing," McColluck concluded, leaning his head towards the divan. "But they don't want us to find out. And if they were willing to give us a life away from this hell, it was worth trying to get this damn alien out of here. Trust me when I say this, director, it was made very clear that it was the only option, because if we allowed this to continue, things would have only gotten worse."
"How do you know this?" Marcus retorted, trying to figure this out. "What did they tell you?"
McColluck took a deep breath. "They—"
A siren. A single siren at first, but it was followed by another. They where not the loud ones in the hallway, as if the lockdown had been reinstated, but rather the persistent beeping from the computers around them in the chamber. It wasn't initially fear-invoking, and the six men in the chamber only looked around, almost in confusion, as the equipment that had sat silent for so long now sparked to life.
It took a minute before it clicked in Marcus's head, and he walked slowly towards the main display on the wall, staring at it with a frown as the details and figures flowed into his mind. He was not pleased with the interruption of his interrogation of this man—who was yielding information far greater than he ever imagined—but such an event was seemingly more pertinent than this inquest.
Then, the chamber doors closed.
Each man looked over as the two hydraulic titanium plates came to a firm and impenetrable lock together, this action promptly sparking fear into their minds. Now, everything about being in this room suggested death, and the quiet tension broken only by the constant beeping of the computers began to build with every second; each man's instincts yelling for them to exit, to get out of this place.
Marcus could feel that same reaction run down his spine, but quickly subdued it and reminded himself that he knew exactly what was going on. This had all been predicted long before any of this division occurred, and he knew that the computers beeping were merely a notification and that the chamber doors closing was simply a safety precaution to keep unwanted people out, not to lock this thing in. The developing being wasn't—to their knowledge—even ready to birth. But for activity to exist, that meant that it had to be…
Alive? The director stared at the readings on the large screen, almost straining to recognize what was flowing across the display before him. Had Swanson's last act worked? Had the Ascendus procedure actually worked on this alien? He found it hard to believe—too hard to believe. Some being from the other side of their known galaxy had just reacted to an overtly human practice. What were the odds? He couldn't even begin to calculate the feasibility of this situation.
So was Swanson's last act not in vain? Had he really accomplished what everyone had worked so hard at? The beeping around informing him of the reviving beast didn't help ease his conscience, though, and it didn't justify to any degree his colleague's death. But even still, he couldn't deny the fact that had settled dreadfully upon each mind in this chamber. This thing was alive.
"This can't be what I think it is," Dillon said quietly, staring at the divan.
"It is," Marcus replied. "But it's not ready to birth."
The three technicians in the room followed the Security Commander's gaze to where that alien lay, now living. The looks in their eyes were unmistakable, and it was easy to feel their longing to exit this place, in spite of Marcus's knowledge that the being wasn't even ready to birth. That alien had an unforgettable reputation, and every man across humanity's expanse knew it for what it truly was. An indiscriminating killer. Men, women and children alike were slaughtered before this menacing beast, and the fear associated with this alien was not lost in the anticipation of seeing it come to life.
A new wave of fear washed upon the group as the beeping escalated in pitch and speed, and suddenly Marcus found himself sharing their premonitions. Like a splash of cold water, a realization hit him, one that he should have thought of long before. This alien was not living like normal again, as if none of this ever happened. It had been dead, lifeless, never to breathe again—but now it was living. It was living through a revival that was not only controversial by the UN's standards, but by everyone's standards.
Mirroring his thoughts of just over an hour ago, where Swanson presented the eccentric idea to him, the presentiments of this whole thing drastically altering this being's consciousness flooded over him yet again. What if that sleeping giant wasn't the alien they had come to fear anymore? What if the Ascendus Practice altered it somehow. Marcus recalled the facts found earlier that these aliens shared genetic memory with their precursors, and that was how they came into the world full grown and fully capable, but what if that genetic memory was erased—or even worse, tainted?
That meant everything from this point forward was unpredictable, unforeseeable. All the facts he knew about it, and all the envisaged facts about this being were now nothing. This thing was now beyond his knowledge.
"Where are the rest of your accomplices?" Marcus asked suddenly.
McColluck broke his gaze away from the divan and stared at Marcus. "You didn't stop them?"
A curse emitted from under his breath as Marcus brought a hand to his forehead. What was wrong with all of this? Things had quickly escalated, and now more questions were starting to drown out his ability to think. Two dozen dissenters were now unaccounted for, this alien was now living, and the United Nations Council had somehow instigated all of this. What was wrong?
"What would cause them to abort?" Dillon queried.
"Nothing," the man replied, now almost fearful of these new circumstances over the living alien mere feet away. "Once we began, there was no turning back."
The Security Commander looked over at Marcus, his face full of question. "Is there anything down here that could stop them?"
This facility was quite large, and harbored several projects along with this main one. All of those other endeavors, however, were not of this kind; this was the only alien living here. "No, there couldn't be anything else," Marcus said solemnly. "The only other thing is—"
Mid sentence, it hit him mid sentence. The director looked warily at the divan, all confidence gone from his eyes, and all the resistance to the binding darkness that shrouded this place evaporated in one swift breath of air. Fear sparked down his arms, and his hands twitched in reaction. He found himself blinking as his mind fought to fully grasp the gravity of the situation that had now forever engulfed the six men in this chamber.
While he couldn't figure out how this implicated the leadership of humanity, nor how they had managed to convince these dissenters into action, he could understand this one aspect of the entire scheme. And this small and seemingly isolated understanding quickly asserted itself as the only thing to be concerned with, as all other factors to this entire problem were now somewhat insignificant—if not but for the moment. Right now, he was troubled with the daunting truth that was slowly becoming excruciatingly clear.
"Director?"
Dillon's perplexed look and question were quickly pushed aside as Marcus took slow yet deliberate steps towards the divan, his eyes transfixed on it as he approached. The side walls rising two feet up kept the cosset concealed, and the fact that he couldn't see the entire being frightened him all the more. If he was right, things would have quickly escalated far beyond his grasp, and he would only be staring right at death itself.
With a clenched jaw and balled fists hanging stiffly by his side, the director came to a stop next to the divan and stared down into it, looking intently at the alien encapsulated within the deep red cosset. His eyes scrutinized the scene closely, something he hadn't done before, and he stared in silence through the semi-transparent natural encasing to the silhouette of the alien.
"No," he let out softly, barely audible to the rest standing nearby. "No, this can't be."
How could he have missed this? How could Swanson have missed this? The pressure, the anticipation, and the enemy that abided around had caused them all one grave oversight—one lethal and unforgiving oversight—which now beckoned sickeningly at them from behind a red tainted, contrived wall. With the beeps of the computers around them filling in the silence, Marcus took a step back wordlessly, trying to control his breathing and loosen up enough to think. That was the only resource he had left.
"Sir?"
He turned slowly to face the Security Commander, who was no longer confounded by the situation, but now visibly apprehensive. It took everything within to force himself to speak, and Marcus almost felt as if he was being choked as he fought to compose words.
"This is impossible," he began softly, wincing. "There's just no way…"
"Director," Dillon said, more forcefully, trying to get the information out. "What is it?"
The premonitions washed over him in a suffocating tide, drowning him slowly as the truth pounded against his once confident mind. Marcus could not only readily see this situation and the corollary of Swanson's last action, but also the consequential future that would claim each of them. All this time he had been concerned with stopping these dissenters, when the truth of the matter was whether or not they could be stopped. What if they had already accomplished their task? What if they had already gotten the developing being?
Marcus snapped his head, breaking out of his contemplation enough to focus on the men before him, all of the faces contorted in curiosity and their eyes wide with question. "This isn't our project, this isn't the developing being."
At first it was met with disbelief, and they all looked over at the divan, some taking probing steps closer towards it. It was so unbelievable, so unforeseeable that even Marcus had a hard time accepting his own words. But his inability to fully believe what he had concluded didn't change the damning certainty that was now living only ten feet away. Think! React to the threat!
"We have to get out of here," Marcus said suddenly.
The five other men didn't respond initially as they cautiously peered into the cosset for themselves, though Marcus could tell that they didn't see what he saw; they didn't understand what he understood, which meant that he needed to take action to save their lives, since everything was now on his shoulders.
He crossed over to the control panel and entered his authorization code quickly, looking back at the men surrounding the divan as the doors slid apart. "Now! Let's go!"
Four of them broke their gazes from the being and began moving for the exit, only to pause as the one straggler still staring into the cosset spoke up, his voice piercing with fear and distress.
"Holy shi—"
All eyes settled on him and the divan right as a foul odor met their noses. Marcus winced at the smell and stared in utter shock as a limb steadily rose from within the divan, the black, scaled skin of the entity dripping repulsively with thick red matter. The single technician standing nearby took a step back instinctively as a second limb appeared from within, the black entity slowly breaking out. Marcus wanted to do something, to scream, or run, but no action befell him. Just like the near-death firefight he had survived on the surface, he could not move as he watched this monster arise.
"Director," Dillon said steadily, though clearly borderline panic, "what the fuck is that?"
"It's," Marcus began, uncharacteristically stuttering. "It's the parent being."
Had this beast not been slowly yet steadily breaking free of the man-placed cosset right before their eyes, every eye would have settled on the director in surprise—even McColluck.
"And how the hell did it get there?" Dillon said slowly as he raised his pistol at the two limbs making way for the body to appear.
Those dissenters really had won, Marcus thought distantly, and the inevitable for upon them.
Then, unexpectedly, the beast rose in full out of the divan, hunched over oddly with its head hanging low, the body inflating and deflating as it breathed irregularly. Marcus only stared in utter fear at the demon before them, frozen in fear from the fiend easily twice his size. He found his body shuddering in panic and his eyes unblinking as the men around him slowly took steps away from it and towards the doors. The once constant beeping suddenly turned to a long and steady siren, indicating that whatever it was supposed to monitor inside the divan was no longer there.
Causing Marcus to finally blink, the alien snapped its head forward, its eyes a menacing deep yellow. It cocked its head back and forth rapidly—almost unnaturally fast—as it surveyed the figures around. Its movements were quick and abrupt, unlike the anything the director had ever seen before. Everyone had witnessed video clips of these aliens in combat, and could attest to their fast yet fluid motions, but this thing was behaving quite differently.
And Marcus knew why. He knew why this thing looked around at everything with hurried and sudden turns of its ugly head. This alien, this being drenched in a thick blood-like substance, was not the intelligent and crafty combatant that had been captured months ago. Rather, it was exactly what all those religious groups thought it to be. It was truly a demon.
The alien's body shuddered and the limbs shook oddly as its yellow eyes constantly looked around. It almost looked nervous, but Marcus doubted it could feel anything right now. This thing was nothing more than some unknown consciousness overtaking this alien's body. The thought was frightening, but Marcus could not feel any more dread or fear as he stared motionlessly at this entity, his throat dry and his eyes burning.
Silently, though deeply, the beast muttered something from its throat as it twitched and snapped its head back and forth between the six men. Marcus strained to hear it clearly, trying to understand whatever foreign language it was muttering.
Sew fah leb liw thay yed.
It looked about and then settled right on Marcus, its eyes piercing through him.
"Oh God, no—"
The demon lunged into the air unexpectedly, flying up then down with unnatural speed and ability. Marcus's wide eyes followed the beast into the air, his veins coursing with horror and his hands shaking in fear. This thing truly was a devil, a wicked spirit from the depths of hell, and nothing stood between them and its outstretched limbs as it came down upon them.
Death will befall us.
Reacting swiftly to their now airborne threat, Dillon managed to fire his weapon at the incoming beast, the crack splitting the momentary silence of the moment. Though anything else beside the quick pull of a trigger was physically impossible, and although the minds recorded the impending calamity with excruciating detail and slowness, the actual events were spanning over mere seconds. Marcus found himself blinking slowly as the single and only round caught the alien in the right shoulder mid flight. Though to his surprise, the pistol round did little but puncture the scaly skin and send out a small spatter of dark purple blood, and the beast appeared readily unfazed. This thing was far more powerful than them or anything they had at their disposal.
A scream emitted to his left, causing the director to snap his head that direction. While everything seemed slow and perceptible, he knew that there was nothing any of them could do in this freezing panic, and watched as the large alien landed directly in front of one of the technicians, the two outstretched limbs shoving the man back with so much force that Marcus could actually hear the snapping of the bones. The body flew back with unreal speed and collided with the computer equipment lining the white walls of this chamber, sparks flying into the air in a subtle explosion of electricity.
Marcus blinked as the pistol in Dillon's hand kicked back slowly, another loud crack echoing in the room that barely overcame the crash of the now dead man mangled among the equipment, blood spatter covering the nearby pallid computers as his head hung back unnaturally, the neck clearly broken. The beast flinched ever so slightly as the second nine-millimeter round caught it in the side, and its head snapped towards the security commander, its yellow eyes narrowing.
With slow realization, Marcus raised the black pistol in his hand and leveled it at the monster. The other security guard simultaneously mimicked the director's action, and nearly concurrently three cracks emitted from the three weapons. With their target being less than twenty feet away, missing was nearly impossible, and the first volley of rounds hit their intention. The alien absorbed all three rounds with nothing more than a step back—and a menacing growl—dark blood spattering onto the white floor.
Devoid of delay, the three armed men fired again, wincing at the deafening noise. The rounds all hit, but again it did very little but force this demon back. Even as Marcus pulled the trigger a third time, he knew that a whole clip from their pistols may never do enough to kill this monster, which had been dead until only moments ago. More rounds exited the barrels, though know the being was taking evasive action, somehow flinching fast enough to dodge some of the less-skillfully placed shots.
The director's eyes widened at the sight of this entity, its motions blurry as it somehow twisted and ducked, avoiding nearly all of their gunfire. How was this possible? How could anything move with the speed and agility that they were faced against? Nothing could dodge bullets. Marcus fired one last time before the receiver snapped back on his weapon, the alien seeing the shot immediately and tucking in to avoid the round.
It was clear that only one thing remained for them to do as this demon somehow supernaturally defied capabilities and limitations.
"Run!" Marcus screamed, letting his pistol drop to the ground and turning for the open chamber doors. Dillon and the security guard fired off the last of their rounds as the remaining two technicians—which unfortunately included McColluck—scurried out of the chamber and into the hallway, their eyes wide in shock and their breathing erratic in fright. Marcus skidded on the clean surface to a stop before the door controls, his finger hovering on the 'Emergency Close' key.
"Get out of there!" he screamed, though somehow distantly. It was as if all his actions were in control of some intrinsic consciousness, and the feeling reminded him of the incident in the late Sheene's kitchen. Though how ever the subconscious levels of survival and instinct worked, he didn't care to explore. Right now, a far more pressing issue consumed his thoughts, one that would inevitably end in death here under the surface or by the silencing by the leadership of humanity.
Dillon back pedaled out of the chamber and fired his last round, the receiver snapping back. The security guard's clip was already empty, and he fumbled to replace the clip. Though in the split second that nobody was firing at this demon, it hurtled itself forward again, pining the guard against the wall right next to the open doors. Dillon ejected the clip and reached for a new one, but knew that his subordinate was now a dead man, the unmistakable cracking noise of his neck and spinal cord fracturing under this monster's wicked arms clear evidence of that.
He couldn't wait a second longer, and Marcus slammed his finger down onto the key, staring at the alien towering over the now dead security guard as it thrashed the body over and over against the wall. The hydraulic doors began sliding shut, quickly though not quick enough by Marcus's standards. His heart raced as he watch the two doors move to meet in the middle, knowing full and well that if that thing could actually dodge bullets, it could no doubt find a way to stop those doors from closing before they shut and locked.
Three feet. Two feet. One foot!
Marcus blinked as a single black limb shot out in the mere inches that remained before the door closed, a cracking noise barely audible over the closing door meeting his ears. He opened his eyes to see the alien hand crumble into a fist of pain as the two doors jammed together on the large limb. The flesh and bone of the alien was not enough to keep the hydraulically powered doors from remaining open, and they locked together in a sickening display of power and crushing might, the limb separating from the body on the other side and falling to the floor in the hallway, blood spurting out and onto the once featureless corridor.
The director found himself breathing quickly—too quickly—and looked back and forth at the three other men with him in the hallway, almost not believing that they had done it. He shook his head and fought to accept that this thing was now locked inside the chamber, where it could surely never get out. All the fear and forethought of him dying under this demon's grasp suddenly lifted from his afflicted mind. They had survived.
"We did it…" McColluck said, pausing as he breathed in. "We're alive!"
Dillon eyed the bloody limb on the ground warily, easily as big as his entire arm yet that thing had only gotten half of its extremity through the door. "Now I want to know," he said, also short of breath, "what the fuck is happening."
The director paused, letting the cool air flow into his lungs as he took the moment to calm down—and even recognize that he was still living. "They already got the developing being," Marcus replied after a minute, letting his head lean back and his eyes close to relieve the adrenaline still coursing through his body. "I don't know when or how, but they managed to replace it with the parent being."
"And nobody noticed under these circumstances," Dillon said, sighing.
Marcus couldn't figure out when or how these dissenters had managed to extract the developing and replace it with the parent being, but he didn't give much thought to it. Rather, what interested him most, was how a dead alien—one that had been dead for months—had reacted to the Ascendus Practice at all. Had he not witnessed the quite alive being, he would have thought such a feat was impossible. The Practice didn't always work on humans who had been dead for mere days, and here it was working on an alien with a foreign and unknown genetic structure, which had also been dead for weeks. It was hard to grasp, and even harder to accept, and he found himself only staring at the black and bloody limb on the floor in silent contemplation.
"What the hell is that?"
Marcus looked up as McColluck stepped over to the other technician, staring at the man's neck. The director squinted and too saw what was on his neck. A rash? He stepped closer to the man, eyeing it carefully.
"What are you talking about?" The technician asked, almost fearful as whatever was on his neck suddenly interested those around him.
"That…bruise." McColluck said, leaning closer to the deep blue discoloration. "That alien did get you."
"I have no clue," the man said earnestly, visibly concerned that some bruising was on his neck. "But my back is killing me."
Dillon exhaled noisily, clearly not amused or interested. "Listen, you can see a chiropractor once we get the hell out of here." He turned to Marcus. "Is there anything we can do about those dissenters or the developing being?"
"I wish I knew of something," the director replied, bringing a hand up to his chin and rubbing the two day-old unshaven cheeks. "For all we know, they are probably already gone."
"But we saw them in the elevator, and we were only a couple minutes behind them." Dillon contested. "They can't be far."
"They must have stowed the body on the first level somehow, and only came down that far to retrieve it," Marcus said, now rubbing his irritated eyes. "We could have easily missed them when we went to the control room. And if they did any real planning, they probably arranged transportation out of here so they could immediately leave once they got back to the surface."
The Security Commander turned to McColluck. "And you weren't in on any of this?"
He cursed silently. "Apparently not. They told me to stop—"
Marcus looked intently at the man. "They told you to stop Swanson."
McColluck looked back. "Yes, but they never told me that they switched out the aliens, and said that they would be coming down to get me."
So you shot him for nothing, Marcus thought irately. "So this was all just a distraction. They only used you to create scene here so any security would go straight for the chamber, and not clear out the levels properly."
Dillon let a string of profanities leave his mouth under his breath, rubbing his head with both hands, as if subduing a sharp pain. "They set this all up. Looks like Tobias was a little brighter than we thought." The Security Commander stood against the wall and let his head lean back against it, closing his eyes. "God, my head is killing me."
Marcus stared at him for a moment, waiting for Dillon to open his eyes again. "You don't look so good." A second later the Commander did so, then stared back at the director in question. Marcus inhaled deeply, a new fear overcoming him; they were bloodshot.
Both men looked over as McColluck let out a wheezing cough, placing his hand on the wall and leaning over, coughing some more. Marcus stared at him for a moment, anticipating a certain action from the man as he coughed a bit more. It came only a moment later, causing the Commander and the technician to look away in disgust. But Marcus watched him attentively as he regurgitated, the vomit splashing on the floor, and only winced as the foul odor met his nose.
This can't be happening, it was just ridiculous. Then again, that alien even coming back to life was supposedly impossible. Everything about these beings defied reason, defied what he thought he knew. Now, the relief of them escaping that monster's clutch quickly gave way to a new fear, one that led to only one end. Death. He won't be walking out of here to face the men who had caused all this, and he won't be able to find the true reasons for all of this death and bloodshed. The ability to do that would now have to be in someone else's hands.
"What the hell is wrong with him?" Dillon asked, more agitated than normal.
Marcus didn't want to answer, especially as he saw the dark blue bruising on the Security Commander's neck. He looked over carefully at the technician, who was sitting against the wall and breathing irregularly. Slowly, he forced himself to look down at his own hands, closing his eyes in the process, not wanting to see. His fists clenched as he opened his eyes, but then closed them immediately, everything within wishing to deny the truth now contaminating his own body.
The veins in his hands and arms were a deep blue, tainting his entire arm an unnatural blackish blue. Marcus blinked rapidly at the sight, finding his eyes itching fiercely. It was happening, and it was engulfing each of them faster than their immune systems could react. It was slowly killing them.
"It's the infection," he said softly.
"What?" Dillon said, wincing in pain.
Marcus fought to recall the specifics. "The day we caught Sheene, the day of the incident, we went to his office, remember?"
"Yeah."
"And we read that information packet that he had withheld. In there was a short document vaguely detailing how the parent being was captured and why it was delivered to us. Remember the mention of the infection? It was contagious, and infected the initial review team." Marcus took a deep breath, feeling his stomach churn. "Apparently, the infection never ceased to exist."
Dillon rubbed his bloodshot eyes. "And there wasn't a cure."
McColluck let out a growl of pain, causing both the director and Commander to look suddenly at him. Another stream of vomit exited from his mouth, but this time it wasn't the thick yellow substance—it was blood. Somehow, the man regained enough equilibrium and pushed off from against the wall, turning and staring back at them shakily. Marcus's eyes widened at the sight, utter surprise washing over him. McColluck's skin was deep blue, with dark red blood over his wide lab coat. His eyes were a deep red—almost black—and streams of blood ran down his cheeks from them as if they were tears. He was shaking uncontrollably.
Dillon struggled to his feet, taking a step back from this transformed man. "Sir, what is this?"
Marcus couldn't speak. The sight was truly frightening, and he felt as if he was no longer staring a man, but another demon.
McColluck muttered something as he gazed back, but it was entirely foreign to both men. He began taking steps forward them, his arms and hands shaking and his mouth hanging open, revealing blood drenched teeth. The demon locked inside the chamber had found a way to live on—it lived on in them.
The technician on the floor staggered to his feet, clearly just as bad. It was as if they stared at two zombies who slowly stepped towards them, blood running from their mouths and eyes. Dillon and Marcus stood shakily as they continued to speak something, but the meaning was lost in the fear and overcoming infection that was steadily turning them into what those men had already become.
"This can't be happening," Dillon said, letting out a deep cough.
"None of this should've happened."
Marcus leaned closer to try and understand what these men were trying to speak, finding it hard to concentrate as his head throbbed with a pain he had never felt before. His back was stiff all the way up through his neck, and he found himself barely able to fully move as this virus took over his body. While he knew this was fatal, something else prodded at him, and he found that inner incitement in the words of these dying men.
Run.
He squinted as the word finally registered in his indistinct mind, though he couldn't place a reason for the action. What would cause him to run? Why would he need to, anyways? This infection was slowly claiming him just as it had these two, and there was no escaping it, no matter how much he wished or fought for. The inevitable was undeniable, and as he body began to expire, he felt his will terminate with surprising ease.
It was over for him, and his colleagues. They had failed to stop the dissension and failed to save this project, now finding their end in the one being that had actually started all of this. They had found the clincher in the one entity that had initiated this whole thing, and there was no way out of this dead end alleyway. It was almost hard to imagine it all ending like this, but Marcus couldn't reject the reality that now hardened his body and tainted his mind. It was over.
Run.
The second time only brought and perplexed look on the director's face, trying to figure out why he should force his dying body into some action that would get him no closer to life—or no farther away from death. Distantly he watched as the two technicians drew closer, deep black and blue bruising covering their necks and faces. He stared into those red eyes, looking not into the eyes of the men he once knew—even if it was just briefly—but into the minds of this disease. He was looking into the eyes of that demon yet again.
In a fast and unavoidable move, the first technician half lunged, half toppled awkwardly onto Dillon, who didn't have the strength or awareness to avoid the action. Marcus turned in surprise at the incident, staring down at the man who had accompanied him through this all now under the body of the nameless man. He was about to reach down to pull the body off when a sharp scream of pain emitted into the hallway, causing him to step back instinctively.
"Run…"
He looked over at McColluck who was only feet away, then back down at Dillon and the technician, seeing a new pool of blood form around them. He craned his neck to see what had caused it, but it was clear in spite of this obscurity. This virus did more than just kill them. It possessed them.
"Run!"
Marcus jerked his head over at McColluck as the distorted scream met his ears. Though also coming from the man was an outstretched arm, the hand opened in a grasping gesture. Marcus tried to avoid the offensive move, but his reactions were inhibited by the infection attacking his mind and nerves system. The same thing that was causing this man to reach out and clutch Marcus's neck was also keeping the director from defending himself.
Hours had been spent mulling over that information packet, yet to all his research efforts no specifics on this infection were ever uncovered, which led him to believe that the whole extent of this quite deadly disease was nothing more than what was presented in that passage about how the parent being was actually captured. Now, feeling his constricted throat and wincing as his vision began to narrow, it was quite obvious that the infection—the reason Sheene had started this mess—what quite potent. Something had empowered it, had made it different, but in the end it would simply take his life, one way or another. Either by the damning virus overtaking his body or by the infatuated man trying to kill him.
The director grabbed the outstretched arm with both hands and pulled them off recklessly, feeling something pinch in his neck. At that moment the back pain that had been plaguing him magnified, and he felt as if his body was slowly crumbling to pieces before him. The full extent of this virus was slowly becoming known to him, and every inkling within fought to defeat it. First, the symptoms, which were clearly evident over all their bodies. Second was the abnormally threatening and homicidal behavior, which compelled this man to kill him. Third, this virus was slowly degenerated every living cell in the body, turning any healthy and functional being into nothing more than a possessed corpse.
While his mind mused over the facts surrounding this unfortunate situation, his awareness failed to warn him of the strike coming from McColluck's second arm, slashing out across his chest. Marcus blinked as his own blood spattered across his face and the floor, though surprisingly didn't grimace from the newly formed wounds—rather, the thick pain in his back prevailed to numb his chest. The director let go of the single hand and pushed the man back—though the very sight before him led Marcus to believe that this was no longer a man. The deep bruising, red eyes, and blood drenched figure before him was far from any living human being, and the evil dictating his actions could be found in no sane person.
Before it was even possible to perceive what was going on—credit for this inability going towards the intoxicated sensation that plagued his mind—the figure stepped forward and simultaneously swung its arms. Marcus could only blink before the first arm went low and hit him in the leg, hitting the deeply bruised quadriceps and causing him to fall to a knee, offering the second arm to hit him square in the neck.
His vision went red as he fell back onto the pallid floor, choking on some substance within his throat. In a painful move, one that aggravated his back, he rolled over onto his stomach and spat up the suffocating matter onto the floor only inches from his nose. He blinked and then settled on the thick red liquid before him.
Out of sight, the gurgled scream of his attacker filled the silent hallway, and the next feeling was his right arm snapping from some imperceptible strike, then his collar bone crushing under the unbearable force of this spawned demon. It forced his face flat against the floor, smearing the blood he just coughed up across his face. The anticipated second attack hit home, and some extremity sharply impacted against his back, a sharp pain running all the way up through his neck and down to his feet. All he could do was let out a silent wheeze of pain, which sent more blood from his mouth onto the floor. Was this his end? Was his death really going to be on this pale floor, with all the knowledge of this scheme? After everything he fought through and for, his death here and now would invalidate all those deaths that were the consequences of this plot.
Though as his legs went numb and his neck stiffened to the side, there was no alternative. This knowledge would die with him and these men, and some greater conspiracy that caused all this would go on in the dark. Death, it would appear, was not only going to take their lives here underground, but thousands more as this clinching secret—one he would never uncover—continued to live on.
Crack!
The deafening noise flooded and echoed down this hallway, and Marcus would have turned around to see the source of this gunshot if he physically could. Any suggestion of movement caused unbearable pain to fill his fading body.
"Get…"
Marcus closed his eyes, wincing at the voice meeting his ears. The pain-filled, cracking voice of the Security Commander filtered through the obscurity taking over his mind.
"Sir, get out."
Another loud shot echoed down the corridor, and Marcus reached out with his one good arm, grasping at the flat surface and trying to pull himself away—away from this hell. He kicked his legs in a painful but necessary move to get away, and inch by inch he found himself moving away from this nightmare. While the director knew living through this wasn't an option, one thing did compel him to claw along the floor; one thing did oblige the fading mind to struggle away.
Leaving the truth for another man to see.
For another man to uncover.
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