Dead Space 1. Meeting In The Dark

**Dead Space: Ouroboros  
**A Dead Space Fanfiction

* * *

Story is rated MATURE for disturbing content and adult situations. Please be warned that it is meant for a mature audience only.

As of** 9/25/12**, this story is still in the editing phase; material is subject to change without notice.

Questions, comments, reviews are always welcome.

* * *

**Chapter 1  
Meeting In the Dark**

**_"There is no servant in this world more dear to Me than he, nor will there ever be one more dear."  
- B.G., 18.69_**

* * *

**_[_begin transmission_]_**

* * *

_"I love you, Isaac. I've always loved you."_

The soft, iridescent glow of the holomonitor bathed the executive shuttle cabin in its eerie blue light as Isaac watched Nicole's final message for the last time. He had seen it so many times before, but now that he had personally witnessed her fate, he was finally forced to accept the fact that he would never see her again. Now, the visual memoir of his love that had comforted him and given him hope, even in the midst of his most difficult trials, served only as a cruel reminder of what it was he had lost.

_God... how he had loved her. But now, even after having come so very far to find her... he had only failed._

Unable to watch the video log any further, Isaac slowly lowered his head and pressed the 'delete' key. As the agonizing imagery of Nicole's frightened face faded away, he was once again alone, with only the stars twinkling in the distance of vast space to light his way.

Although Isaac intellectually knew that he should feel devastated, still the intense fear and desperation he had experienced aboard the nightmare that was the USG Ishimura had left its indelible mark on him; he was in shock, unable to grieve, and he felt only a sense of detachment from everything. He sank limply into the pilot's seat, staring blankly out the cockpit window for a length of time before he became distracted by a quiet scratching sound coming from somewhere behind him. Perturbed by the intrusion, he turned around to see what it was... and without warning was savagely tackled by a necromorph, lunging through the shadows from a hidden spot in the rear of the cockpit.

"Whoa, _shit!"_

Isaac instinctively jumped to his feet and grappled the vicious creature, panicking as he realized that he had already removed his helmet and was now dangerously vulnerable to the necromorph's attacks. In the chaos that ensued Isaac was unable to find his plasma cutter, and he resigned himself to having to kill the monster with his bare hands. The cockpit was nearly pitch black, and being unable to determine what sort of necromorph it was Isaac frantically attempted to figure it out by tactile sense alone.

_Was it a Lurker, whose lethal, spear-tipped tentacles he would find lodged deep into his back? Would he be decapitated by the razor sharp talons of a Slasher? Or was it something even worse?_

Astonished by the effort it took to restrain it, Isaac gripped the monster by its disfigured throat and slammed it into the controls, damaging the system and causing several warning alarms to sound throughout the cockpit in the process. He suddenly felt the necromorph wrap a part of itself around him as Isaac tightened his grip upon it, and the two toppled to the floor. He wrestled to get the creature beneath him so he could immobilize it with his own weight, but it proved to be far more powerful than he expected and his strength was waning quickly. Isaac could feel its slimy, blood drenched hands drawing him closer to its stinking, gaping maw, and though he resisted with all his might, Isaac frighteningly suspected that he was losing the battle. The muscles of his arms began to quiver under the strain, and he could hear the necromorph's hungry gagging getting closer to his ears. The harder he tried to get free, the more the beast strengthened its hold, coiling its limbs and tendrils around him like snakes, slowly squeezing the life and resolve out of him.

"You... son of a..."

Just when it seemed he was overpowered and could resist the necromorph no further, Isaac's left arm suddenly gave way beneath him. He fell back and rolled to the side, shoving the monster into a small, constrained space between the pilot's seats, and the necromorph was forced to release its grip on him. Isaac quickly scooted back across the floor, and out of the corner of his eye he saw his one chance for survival - a nearby cover panel, protecting the sensitive circuitry of the shuttle's flight system, had been knocked out of place by the tussle, and its thin, protruding metal edge gave him an idea. The necromorph gathered its strength in the brief moment, reared back and again lunged at Isaac, who deftly grabbed it by the sinewy flesh of its neck, tumbled over with it and slammed it into the panel's sharp edge. The gelatinous, decomposing flesh of the necromorph's shoulder gave way easily as Isaac impaled it into place upon the panel, and the blow caused the creature to emit an agonized, deafening shriek that sounded eerily human.

The immobilized necromorph immediately lost its grip upon Isaac and he quickly dragged himself to safety on the other side of the cockpit. Exhausted and with heart racing, Isaac frantically searched the cockpit floor until he found his plasma cutter, which had been knocked underneath the flight controls during the fight. He grabbed it, activated it, took aim at the monster, and with a shaking hand pulled the trigger. Again, the wounded necromorph cried out as its arm disintegrated under the plasma's heat... and Isaac suddenly came to a horrifying realization as he listened to its disturbingly familiar vocals.

"... No... oh, no..."

Shocked, Isaac could only stare at the dark, indiscernible creature suspended from the panel, the melted stump of its arm still smoldering from the heat of the plasma. After a few moments the necromorph began to weaken, and its piercing screams descended into a quiet, lamenting whimper that stirred the hairs all across Isaac's body as if he had been touched by a ghost. Seeing that the necromorph was defeated and posed no further immediate threat, Isaac took the intermission to satisfy his morbid curiosity and examine his aggressor a little closer. He crawled over to the damaged, sparking flight controls, activated the interior cockpit lights, and as they flickered to life he recoiled in horror at what - or who - he saw.

_... Nicole!_

Isaac was absolutely stunned to see the torturous, infectious transformation Nicole's body had been forced to undertake. As soon as he saw her he lost all resolve to continue fighting with her, and not knowing what else to do he slowly knelt down beside her. Though he no longer had the desire to destroy her, he clearly understood that he could not allow her to live; this put Isaac into a serious moral dilemma, and against his better judgment he desired to reach out to her. Heartbroken and blaming himself for what he had done Isaac focused on the remains of Nicole's face, ignoring her deadly talons and necrotic, rotting skin. He gently cupped her malformed head in his hands, and in a broken voice he pleaded to her.

"Nicole... why...? Why did you have to... to kill yourself? If you would have just... waited for me..."

Isaac looked deep into her eyes, now deep, black pits of decomposed flesh, and he slowly, gently touched his forehead to hers. He could only hope against hope that Nicole wasn't actually dead; that somehow, somewhere deep down inside the poor, twisted, ravaged creature before him was some small shred, one tiny remnant left of the woman he had loved.

Blood poured from the necromorph's severed limb, pooling out across the cabin floor in a black, oily puddle, but so stricken with grief and regret Isaac did not even notice the ghastly, contaminating spread all around him. All he could see was Nicole, needlessly suffering, and he could not bear to watch her in such pain. He leaned forward and grabbed a hold of her torso, gently lifted her and unhooked her bloody flesh from the sharp metal panel, and took her in his lap. As he held her in his arms, gently rocking her back and forth, he lovingly kissed the side of what had once been her cheek.

"If you would have just..."

In Isaac's state of total delusion, he didn't feel the necromorph's charred, blackened flesh; he knew only the soft, supple feminine satin of Nicole's skin as he remembered it, burned forever into his memory. As he held her he gently wiped the blood and matted hair from around her face, hardly detecting as the creature began to embrace him with its intact limb in what might have been construed an attempt to reciprocate his affection. Isaac's pounding heart finally slowed its pace as he calmed and serenity overcame him; caught in the grip of some beautiful memory Isaac closed his eyes and he smiled within himself, so relieved to be with Nicole during her final moments.

"I love you, baby. I'm here, now."

The warm, metallic taste on the tip of Isaac's tongue did not become apparent to him right away; but it wasn't long after that Isaac suddenly discovered his mouth was filled with blood, and he felt a sharp, excruciating pain sliding through his belly from the front to the back. Alarmed he threw his eyes open and saw that the mournful gaze had vanished from Nicole's eyes, replaced with an intense, growing fury alongside her darkening face. Isaac then looked down to see why he was feeling such terrible pain, and saw that Nicole had driven her long, javelin-like talon deep through his abdomen, until it emerged through the small of his back on the other side. Unable to speak through the blood filling his mouth and throat, he could only whisper.

"What... what are you doing?"

With a sudden, renewed strength Nicole hissed and pulled back, rapidly withdrawing her talon from Isaac's gut and leaving him wavering briefly upon his knees. A gaping hole, several inches in diameter and large enough to see clear through, now extended all the way through Isaac's waist, and seconds later as gravity took hold all of his internal organs spilled out upon the floor. With the bone and muscle completely absent Isaac was no longer able to support his own weight, and he toppled over backwards.

**make us whole isaac you are the only one who can**

Drawing closer to death Isaac's vision began to dim, but he could still make out the sharp, asperous silhouette of Nicole as she climbed up onto his chest. She looked down and stared into his dilating pupils before she opened her mouth, split her jaw in two and pushed them outward like vicious mandibles, revealing countless rows of serrated fangs. Seeing her victory she reared back and roared in preparation to feast, but upon his last conscious thought Isaac smiled, somehow finding his predicament to be a great relief.

"If it had to be anyone, Nicki... I'm so glad it was you."


	2. A Sole Survivor

**Chapter 2  
A Sole Survivor**

_"_**_Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail."  
- B.G., 8.06_**

* * *

"Sir, we have visual on USG Executive Shuttle CV4, approaching from the starboard side. Estimated time of contact, 6 minutes."

Corporal Brigham of the USM Credence spotted the distant, shadowy mass of a small executive shuttle, inactive and floating listlessly just beyond the border of Aegis7's orbit. Captain Ravi Sarius and his crew listened to the soft klaxon beep of a distress signal sounding through the communications array, growing louder as they drew closer to the incapacitated vessel. Sarius looked out the front window, and then turned to address the Corporal.

"Hail it."

The Corporal immediately punched up a few commands on the control panel, staring intently at the response on screen, and then spoke into the transmitter.

"USG-CV4, this the USM Credence, responding to your distress signal; please reply."

After a few moments of static silence, he tried again.

"USG-CV4, this is the USM Credence. We are responding to your distress signal; please reply."

Again, silence. The Corporal shrugged and turned to the Captain.

"No response, sir."

Sarius nodded, his gaze sternly fixed upon the darkened ship looming larger as they closed in. He felt nervous, but he simply couldn't explain why; this was supposed to be nothing more than a standard rescue mission.

S_omehow, they knew it would be here... that he would be here. Still... it was just, a standard, out-of-the-box rescue mission_.

His fingers fidgeted absently at a small, silver double helixed broach clasped to the side of his collar.

"Maybe their comms are down. Lieutenant, run a remote diagnostics scan on their systems. I want to know what's wrong with that ship."

"Yes, sir."

Lieutenant Iben turned to his control panel and activated a few subroutines, watching as the holoscreens spit forth lines of data.

"Main engines down... Gravity boosters inoperable... communications offline... life support critical... port boosters unresponsive. Looks like just about the only thing working on board that ship _is_ the emergency distress beacon."

Sarius silently assessed the report, rubbing the scruff of his chin as he peered over Iben's shoulder.

"Any life signs detected?"

Iben paused briefly, the orange glow of the control panels bathing his face in its warm, encompassing light.

"I'm picking up something, but it's really faint. It might be someone on board, or we could just be reading transient static from damage to the shockpoint drive. Not sure."

The Captain sighed.

"Alright. We need to try and dock with it. Lieutenant, prep the autodock. Find a way to remote-control it."

Iben called up the docking command sequences then attempted to activate the executive shuttle's systems remotely, to no avail.

"... Damnit... Tracking malfunction. I can't line it up with our ship, Sir."

Sarius scowled and glared out the window, surveying the lame ship. He muttered under his breath.

"Shit. Well, if we can't dock with it, we're gonna have to jump it."

Iben tossed a sideglance at the Captain.

"Shouldn't we get a little closer, Captain?"

The Corporal turned to Iben and shook his head.

"Can't. Too risky. If the sensors on that shuttle aren't operational, we could slam right into it."

The Captain nodded in concurrence, and reinforced his previous ruling with authority.

"We're jumping it. All of us - and that includes you, Lieutenant."

Iben flashed a tiny frown of annoyance, but unable to defy his Captain he rose to his feet and made his way across the cabin, positioning himself near the other three soldiers Sarius promoted to the scouting team. As he adjusted his helmet, he scowled.

"I hate this fuckin' deep space shit."

The Captain paid no attention to him as he prepped his own gear to join them.

"Just make a straight jump for it, and you should make it with no problem. We'll be right behind you once you establish the security line. Everyone, helmets on."

Iben, along with the other three soldiers and the Captain, all climbed into the decompression chamber that stood between the interior of their ship and the outer exit hatch. They activated their helmets and charged their gravity tether hooks – the devices that would secure them to the Credence while navigating deep space - and waited patiently for the Corporal to finish the required safety checks. He then closed the inside hatch, sealing the team of soldiers within the decompression chamber, and initiated the exit hatch opening sequence.

"Ok, team - door open in five, four, three, two, one..."

The exit hatch opened soundlessly into space, and one by one the Credence soldiers made their way out onto the side of the ship. Sarius came up behind his team, and he motioned toward the darkened, seemingly lifeless executive shuttle floating directly above their position.

_"OK Iben, you first, and we'll follow."_

Iben took a deep breath - no matter how many times he had explored the dark vacuum of space on these missions, he never could quite get used to the disorienting experience. With no sense of direction, the endless universe surrounding him always made him feel like a goldfish, sloshed mercilessly around in an airtight bag. Seeking to distract himself from his fear and aiming for the widest area on the executive shuttle far away, Iben bent his knees and pushed off the side of the Credence.

With nothing but blackness all around and no way to judge how far he had traveled, it took Iben longer than he expected to reach the executive shuttle. In fact, at one point he began to fear that he had overshot it somehow, until he turned his head and suddenly saw the side of the shuttle's hull closing in on him quickly. The Captain's voice cut in on his RIG.

_"Careful, Iben, you're moving pretty fast."_

Iben extended his arms out before him as he made contact with the side of the ship. His inbound speed was greater than he had anticipated, and before he could get his gravity boots to lock down on the metal properly, his entire body slammed into it and slid down the side a few feet.

"Ah, shit!"

While fumbling, Iben's boots finally found a solid surface to adhere solidly to, and his descent immediately stopped. Once his position was stable he quickly turned to his RIG, securing his safety tether to one of the gravity hooks exposed on the side of the executive shuttle, and then he motioned to the other soldiers.

_"We're clear. Come on over."_

One by one, the Captain and remaining soldiers followed, using Iben's tether as a visual guide until they reached the executive shuttle. Once they all were safely attached to the side of the vessel, the Captain radioed back to the Credence.

_"We're on, Corporal. Open the shuttle hatch."_

The Corporal remote accessed the shuttle's systems and after a brief delay, the outside hatch of the CV4 sprung open. Sarius, Iben and the others climbed into the shuttle's decompression chamber, awaiting the Corporal to seal them in safely. After a few moments the re-compression sequence completed, the inside hatch of the shuttle popped open, and the soldiers slowly made their way inside.

Once they entered, the first thing they all noticed was that the ship was completely dark except for the faded, blinking light of the activated distress beacon. As he saw it, Sarius again felt a unexplained fear. He shuddered as he retracted his helmet.

"Well, this looks promising."

He turned on his helmet-mounted flashlight, and prompted the other soldiers to do the same. They peered around the cockpit, the flashlights and the solemn green glow of their helmets' visors cutting through the cloud of suspended dust as they examined the darkened interior. Iben approached the command center, stopping right behind the back of the pilot's chair and looked at the damage all around.

_"Sir, no one's here…nothing but some damage to the controls..."_

Iben was suddenly startled by a hand as it lashed out from the pilot's seat. Caught off guard by the offense, he instinctively drew his divet and flipped around to face whoever was.

_"Hey, freeze!"_

Iben aimed his flashlight directly at the pilot's chair, and gasped as the light cut through the darkness to reveal a human man, listless and apparently near death, lying with his arms strewn across the control panel. Iben quickly eyed the man over - dressed in a weathered, bloody CEC engineer's uniform, the RIG unit upon his back critically empty and repeatedly blinking with a faint red warning glow. A damaged helmet was lying against the base of the chair on the floor. The man's fingers twitched and he was moaning unintelligibly, making little discernible sense as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Iben's eyes widened. _  
_

_"Captain! We've got a survivor over here!"_

Sarius turned away from his examination of the database controls and immediately made his way towards the nearly dead man slumped in the seat. He paused thoughtfully as he glanced over the man's features, then reached forward and gently grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him back to get a clear look at his face - along with a CEC company ID tag upon his chest.

**[I. CLARKE _ Sr. Eng., Mining Operations] **

Sarius could not turn away, awestruck by this stranger. Though he didn't know this man personally, Sarius knew well there were many back home who were very eager to know everything about this one known survivor of the USG Ishimura.

"They said it'd be one of the miners. One of the ones who... touched it. Altman be Praised."

A brief, suspenseful moment of silence passed between Sarius, his crew, and the nearly dead man in their custody.

"Alright team. Let's get him back to the Sprawl. Maybe they can save him."


	3. Key Interrogation

**Chapter 3  
Key Interrogation**

_"_**_Quickly, of course, men get results from fruitive work in this world."  
- B.G., 4.12_**

* * *

"CEC Investigation Committee Hearing under EarthGov Domestic Security Section C019.216. Interview number six of detainee #1544C-55613 on the matter of the Ishimura Repair Mission."

Within a morbidly depressing and dimly lit CEC Council chamber back aboard Titan Station, a wrinkled, aged hand reached out across the boardroom table and activated a transcript device, then came to rest beside a decorative marble ashtray. In its frail, twig-like fingers was a smoldering cigarette, which was momentarily thereafter raised to the lips of a grim, elderly woman as advanced in authority over the hearing as she was in age.

She was dressed in a clinical white administrative uniform, decorated only with a silver identification tag on her chest that declared her rather prestigious position as a high ranking Senior Administration Counselor for the CEC. The woman's dark brown eyes, blanketed in layers of crow's feet, were all that stood out in contrast to her otherwise strikingly silver features, and the appearance of her age-spotted, pallid skin seemed colder than even the darkness of space lying just beyond the thin slit windows that lined the elegantly callous committee room.

The Counselor took precedence over the assembled Council, which consisted of a dozen deputies between EarthGov, the CEC, and a few over-lookers from the Church of Unitology. Also under her thumb was their detainee - the unfortunate subject of today's interrogation, at whom she stared as she prepared to address him.

"Let's get started. State your name and position, please."

The detainee, dressed in a hospital patient's uniform and partially bound by a metal restraining collar, was slouched in a chair directly facing the Council members. The man was thoroughly exhausted, fighting the effects of chemical sedation as he glanced around with dark, sunken eyes at all of the unsmiling faces that surrounded him like a pack of wolves. The room's drab decorum, with flat, dark grey metal walls and golden yellow trim, evenly surrounded on all sides by tall, elegant Marker reproductions blown from onyx glass, made the room appear more like the inside of a Unitology Church than a Council meeting chamber, all of which only distracted the man with terrible, faded memories he couldn't quite place. After some hesitation, he finally replied to the old woman.

"...Isaac Clarke... Senior Systems Engineer."

His own voice echoed off the steel walls of the room, reflecting back upon him with a lifelessness that sent a shiver down his spine. The other members remained still as statues, not daring to interrupt the Counselor, and a long silence seized the air between them before the old woman spoke.

"Now, Mr. Clarke. We're going to ask you some more questions regarding your dispatch aboard the Kellion. As you've told us, you were a part of the Kellion's repair crew, assigned to the USG Ishimura blackout. We'd like to discuss a little more about the, the aberrations that occurred in the discourse of your duty."

Isaac just stared darkly at the Counselor, who then proceeded to withdraw a pair of gold framed, round rimmed glasses from the pocket of her vest and place them delicately upon the sharp bridge of her nose. Her glare finally fell to a stack of papers that were neatly piled in front of her. She briefly began to thumb through them, scanning some of the hastily handwritten notes before she looked back up.

"Tell us about what happened when you arrived at the Ishimura."

Isaac frowned at her. His patience was running thin.

_Same fucking questions. Over and over. _

"What do you want to know?"

"Let's start with a headcount."

Isaac sighed slowly as he struggled to remember the details of what had become his most disastrous assignment with the CEC.

"Zach Hammond. Kendra Daniels. Two others... security and a pilot. Don't remember their names... Chen. Chen, and Johnston."

Upon his response, the old woman shot him a blade-like glance, then quickly jotted something down on the top sheet of her paper stack.

"Hmm. What did you find aboard the Ishimura?"

Isaac shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"... Problems."

She chortled very quietly beneath her breath, amused by the contempt in Isaac's voice.

"How about expanding on that?"

The entire time Isaac was feeling as if he had been bruised from head to toe, but he tried to ignore it. He hugged his arms around himself, shivering from a robbing draft that suddenly seemed to pass through the room.

"Somebody tried to sabotage it."

The old woman glanced at him but did not express notice of his suffering.

"Did you find the crew?"

Isaac paused as a flash of teeth and the scent of rotting blood filled his head.

"We found... somebody else."

"The 'necromorphs', correct? You believe they were the crew members."

The Counselor's dispassionate lack of sensitivity as she spoke was irking to Isaac, to say the least. He smirked.

"... Something like that."

"What else did you find aboard that ship, Isaac?"

Her hard stare upon him forced out of his mouth what he did not want to face again.

"... The Marker."

Eagerly anticipating his response, the Counselor repeated his words in a way that seemed haunting.

"_The Marker..."_

After a moment of silent meditation upon it, the Counselor finally looked back at Isaac.

"You've mentioned something about Kendra Daniels - that you believe she was part of some plan to take the Marker out of the Kellion team's hands. Could you elaborate?"

When she touched upon the subject of Kendra Daniels, Isaac crossed his arms, still bitter even now at the treachery of his deceased friend and co-worker - what little he could still remember of her.

"I don't understand why I have to keep repeating myself. I'm not a goddamn criminal here -"

The old woman condescendingly raised her hand, dismissing his rebuttal. She then, with the other hand, extinguished her cigarette in the ashtray. Her eyes scraped across Isaac's face, her voice sharp.

"Please, Mr. Clarke. Just indulge us."

As much as he despised her, Isaac knew there was nothing he could do but comply with her invasive request; she had the authority to make things much worse for him if he didn't, as he had personally experienced from many of these... sessions.

"I don't fucking know... she said she was an agent. An EarthGov agent. She wanted to bring the Marker to them."

As he said this, Isaac focused darkly upon the few Council members from EarthGov as a form of indirect accusation. The Counselor noticed this, but glossed over it.

"And you're the one who stopped her, right?"

"I couldn't let her take the Marker. I couldn't."

A small, dry smirk spread across the Counselor's face.

"And why not, Mr. Clarke?"

Anger incited, Isaac briefly sat up a little higher in his seat.

"Because that Marker deserved nothing more than to be destroyed."

As his words became increasingly hostile, the Counselor looked back down at her papers with a small chuckle.

"Destroyed. Hmm. So, you're basically accusing Daniels of treason. Of trying to abscond with a holy relic."

Isaac scoffed under his breath.

"... Holy relic!? Fuck that shit."

The Counselor scribbled down another note.

"What happened to Daniels?"

Isaac's gaze fell to the floor.

"... She's dead."

The room fell quiet and every pair of eyes turned to him, especially those of the calculating Counselor.

"She was killed when the..."

Isaac choked on his words. He couldn't help but feel somewhat foolish, unable to properly express his fear and veneration for the Hive Mind to these people, who knew nothing of the horrors that he had seen first-hand. Trying to explain it was absurd. The Counselor gleaned over his deeply troubled expression, then slowly, deliberately removed her glasses, placed them back into her pocket, and folded her hands thoughtfully upon the table.

"Certainly sounds like a lot happened there, Isaac."

His eyes darted up at what he thought was an accusative allusion on her part.

"It didn't happen like that. _I didn't kill her._"

With a cold smile she raised her hand, taunting Isaac from behind a veneer of professionalism.

"There's no reason to get defensive. We're not suggesting that you did. There's no substantial evidence."

"Substantial?"

"Well, all things considered, Mr. Clarke."

Again she smiled, darkly.

"Do you think Hammond had anything to do with her... covert plan?"

"I don't think so."

"Did you discuss this with him at any point?"

Isaac weakly shook his head.

"I didn't really have the chance to ask him. He is dead, you know."

Yet another ghoulish grin came to her face as she completely changed the subject.

"You touched the Marker. Didn't you, Isaac?"

For some reason, Isaac was completely unprepared for such a question. His heart palpitated and he failed to answer, and after a long silence from him, the Counselor started to shuffle through her papers.

"Let's move on."

She thumbed through a few more pages, then stopped.

"Nicole Brennan. This name has come up several times in your depositions."

Isaac sank deeper into his seat and turned away, fixing his gaze instead upon one of the bright, distant stars he could see out the windows as the Counselor continued with her query.

"She was stationed aboard the Ishimura, and for that reason you volunteered for the repair mission. Is that right?"

In light of the voices Isaac was hearing in his head, he barely heard the old woman.

"..."

"You also say that you found her there."

The Counselor eyed him with vulturous intent, waiting for his reply. When he failed to speak, she again changed direction.

"Mr. Clarke, one of the things that coincides with all the reports and interviews of the other key subjects is that all of those who were exposed to the Marker at any great length were eventually diagnosed with severe mental and psychological disorders; one of the most prominent being very lucid hallucinations."

Isaac remained withdrawn, his eyes fixed on the stars. Without a word the Counselor immediately withdrew a small microchip from her pocket and inserted it into the transcript device on the table. The holomonitor blinked to life, projecting the contents of the chip onto its screen, and she began to scroll through a list of documents. She drummed the impeccably manicured nails of her fingers across the table in an arrogantly erudite manner that sickened Isaac to the very core.

"We've retrieved all of your RIG's journals, dated from the time of your departure aboard the Kellion to after you were rescued by the Credence. We'd like to share a few with you, to refresh your memory, as it has been a while."

Having somehow completely forgotten about all those journal entries, Isaac swallowed hard. He couldn't remember the details of anything he left in his RIG's memory, and it terrified him to think that the Council was possibly seeking to use his own words against him. Drowning amidst a sea of panic, he remained tightly lipped and refused the old Counselor eye contact - that is, until what she had just said began to really sink in.

"Wait, the Credence? But, what about the uh, the O'Bannon? I thought it was the O'Bannon that rescued me."

Her hand paused momentarily over the transcript device and she glanced up.

"... The O'Bannon?"

A few seconds of silence ensued as a few of the Council members looked at each other, then at the Counselor. She responded with a gentle shaking of her head.

"I, I believe you are confused, Mr. Clarke. The O'Bannon was never there."

Before he could respond, the Counselor cut him off by initiating the playback on one of the RIG journals, filling the room with a loud, crude, static recording of Isaac's own voice.

"_Nicole keeps on saying 'Make us whole again'. Same thing Dr. Kyne was saying, same thing Harris was saying... what does it mean? It concerns me. But, Nicole is alive and that's all that matters."_

As the Council members stared at the projected waveform on-screen Isaac looked down, trying desperately to recall having recorded those words. The Counselor, eagerly watching his expression, called up another obscured recording that Isaac couldn't place.

"_I don't know where Nicole went, but she said I need to restore power to the bridges."_

The Counselor paused the playback at that point.

"You sincerely believed that Nicole was still alive, and in fact attempting to assist you at some point, is this the case?"

Isaac sensed her strategy; she was cornering him, purposely manipulating him by her questions to make specific responses that would prove her point in front of the entire Council. Still, suffering considerable memory loss for reasons he could not explain, Isaac had no way of disproving her. He could only respond with what he believed was the truth.

"... Yes."

"And do you still think that she is alive?"

"... I don't know."

The Counselor then retrieved another cigarette and lit it. Tucking her free arm underneath her elbow and leaning on the table, she took a deep drag of it. The smoke emanating from her nostrils as she spoke made her appear disturbingly draconic.

"Mr. Clarke, we truly do feel that you have been most forthcoming and honest in all of your statements."

She slowly tapped the cigarette against the side of the ashtray, staging him for her next surprise.

"However, many of your statements have been contradictory, to say the least. I'd like to show you something else."

The Counselor activated another file on the transcript device. This time it was a surveillance camera video from within the USM Credence's medical bay, documenting a very distraught and belligerent Isaac just after his rescue. He was surrounded by a team of soldiers and CEC medical personnel like a small animal encircled by a pride of hungry lions, and he was clearly afraid of them, hostile and holding his arms out to keep them all at bay. Isaac appallingly watched the recorded video of himself, fighting with a few of them and crying out repeatedly even while they managed to subdue and prep him for cryostasis.

_"She's still alive... she's on that ship! No, you can't just leave her here! We have to go back... I have to go back and find her! No, NO!..."_

Feeling they had seen enough, the Counselor dismissed the playback and looked at Isaac through cold, unfeeling eyes.

"This video was taken the day you were found and brought aboard the Credence. You repeatedly claimed that Brennan was on the shuttle you escaped on, and that she attacked you."

Again, Isaac didn't answer her.

"But what they found aboard that shuttle does not suggest that at all. There was no evidence of Brennan nor of a necromorph of her likeness, as you've described. All that was found was some deliberate damage to the control systems - which could have only been caused by something... someone inside the cabin. And you were the only one there, Mr. Clarke."

Isaac merely scowled in disbelief.

_Why would he have done that? It didn't make sense. They must have been lying to him.  
_

"Furthermore, you also told us that Aegis7, along with the Marker, were both destroyed. But both our scanners and remote scouts have confirmed otherwise."

Isaac looked up in surprise.

"Wait... you sent more people there?"

The Counselor ignored his concern.

"The fact that the planet still exists strongly suggests that you were also... misled in your understanding about the Marker's, 'demise'. In fact, the only real consistency here is that you are very, very lucky the Credence found you. Otherwise, you would be dead."

Baffled by what he was hearing, he was unsure of whether he could trust the Counselor's words.

"Wait, wait... What about the Ishimura?"

The Counselor shook her head.

"We're unable to locate it. We've sent an exploration team out there to find it, and the Marker."

After all the devastation he had seen the Marker unleash upon the unwitting, Isaac was outraged to hear this.

"How can you do this? You're just sending people to die."

Again, she heartlessly disregarded him.

"We also lost contact with the USM Valor, which was reported to have been in the same sector as the Ishimura... right around the time you and your crew were aboard it. Maybe you know something about that."

The Counselor sucked on her cigarette and took great delight in watching Isaac's distress. Like so many memories of this traumatic period in his life, the USM Valor had also slipped Isaac's mind until now; it was the EarthGov warship that had by grave misfortune found itself on a collision course with the Ishimura, eventually ending up buried in its side nose first - doomed to become the next victim of the Marker's contaminating, alien spread.

"You have to stop this, before it gets worse..."

She interrupted him.

"Mr. Clarke, I must express my appreciation for your cooperation in this matter. With all due respect, we've already decided the appropriate measures to take."

Her face darkened beneath the harsh, overhead fluorescent lighting and the suppressing smoke of her cigarette as it encased her face in its shroud.

"You have to understand that your judgment has been irreparably impaired as a result of your contact with the Marker. This entire situation has consumed a great deal of time and resources for everyone involved, and we simply cannot stop everything just because of what you tell us happened to you."

Isaac glared angrily at her.

"What I _tell you_ happened to me?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, you and everyone else we've managed to extract. And not one of you make any sense."

Isaac's stomach twisted in knots at the total lack of moral empathy in this old witch.

"You're... Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Calm down, Mr. Clarke."

He was no longer able to contain himself at this point. Isaac started to pull at the restraining device locked around his collarbone, feeling suffocated by it.

"People are dying out there... They're fucking dying, and becoming... something else! This is totally out of control..."

The Counselor, alongside a couple of her peers, leaned forward with authoritative scowls.

"Stand down, Isaac. That's an order."

"That thing will kill all of us if its ever brought back here, you have to destroy it! Why would you... You're absolutely insane!"

Stamping out her cigarette with impatience, the Counselor sighed and looked down.

"Mr. Clarke, it is the Council's decision to declare you unfit for release. Indefinitely."

Isaac's eyes shot up in terror, knowing that this was her discreet way of informing him that he would be permanently locked away, isolated from the rest of human population to continue as the Church's key experimental subject... for the rest of his life.

"What? No... please... please, don't do that!"

She shrugged apathetically.

"What else can we do? You're just talking nonsense. It's obvious we can't trust you as a citizen anymore."

Infuriated, Isaac dug his fingertips into the arms of his chair, condemned further by each and every word she spoke. With a faltering voice and tears forming in his eyes, he began to beg.

"Goddamnit, please... Please don't do this to me, _please!_ I, I have a life..."

The Counselor shook her head.

"Not anymore. This is your life, now."

Desperate to escape, Isaac continued to retaliate against his restraints. The Counselor saw the veins tensing in his neck and arms, and she signaled to the two orderlies standing just behind his chair on either side. Isaac suddenly felt their hands upon him, pulling him from the chair, and he hysterically struggled to break free from their grip. When he briefly managed to do so, he ran up to the table and struck the stack of paperwork in front of the Counselor with his hand - which was as close as he managed to get to putting his hands around her neck before he was grabbed again by the orderlies.

"Do you know how many people out there suffered a fate worse than death, for your fucking Marker?!"

The Counselor just stared at him as papers flew everywhere, floating through the air and settling to the floor in a scattered, disorganized blanket. Isaac squirmed out of the orderlies' grasp once more, this time grabbing at the sharp, metal braces of his restraint collar so angrily and tightly that they cut into the flesh of his fingers until he bled. So enraged, Isaac was helpless to perceive the stinging of his hands, nor the blood he was incidentally spattering about with his wild movements.

"You're killing innocent people! _You can't fucking do this!" _

Isaac hoped that even just one of the Council members might listen to him, but his hopes were dashed as they all remained stone-faced and unmoved. The Counselor, a little undignified, blinked her eyes, raised her hand and slowly wiped a small dot of Isaac's blood that had splattered across her cheek. She looked at her hand, then motioned to the orderlies.

"Get him out of here."

As the orderlies hauled Isaac from the room, the Counselor and the others just sat there in silence, listening to Isaac's screaming as it faded the further he was taken down the hall outside. Once the chamber doors were closed and silence resumed, the Counselor turned to one of the medical practitioners sitting next to her - Dr. Samara Yasmin, the doctor who was currently overseeing Isaac's case in Titan Memorial. The doctor was so bewildered by the intensity of Isaac's breakdown that she had not even noticed the spotted streak of blood that now branded the front of her otherwise spotless, white lab coat.

"I... I don't understand this. He was doing just fine earlier today. There were no indications of this kind of behavior."

As she saw the old Counselor's wicked glare burning into her, Dr. Yasmin lowered her eyes.

"... We'll put him back into stasis, and run some more tests on him in the morning."

The Counselor adjourned the meeting and Dr. Yasmin got up to leave, along with the other doctors who had accompanied her. The remaining group also started to disperse, and as they all headed for the chamber doors, the Counselor remained behind. She turned her eyes upon another one of her colleagues, who also lingered behind the crowd - a senior member of the Titan Station medical staff, and one who was more personally involved with the Counselor's activities. By his countenance he appeared to be as equally disturbed as Yasmin and everyone else, but as his eyes met with the Counselor's, the reddish-bearded man simply nodded.

"Don't worry. I'll see to it that Dr. Yasmin follows the defined procedures."

The Counselor's stern expression softened upon his reassuring reply as she started collecting her paperwork from off the floor.

"Thank you, Alex. I knew I could count on you. Considering the severity of Isaac's case, I think it's time you took over directly. This... is all a little over her head."


	4. Exhanges Lead To Suspicions

**Chapter 4  
Exchanges Lead to Suspicions**

_**"People will always speak of your infamy, and for a respectable person, dishonor is worse than death."  
- B.G., 2.34**_

* * *

Some time later, during an evening shift just shy of dinner hour, one of the mess halls of the Sprawl's East Wing was already packed with a crowd of famished workers. They lined up like cattle through the large, cafeteria type establishment, collecting their trays one by one at the distribution windows, and it wasn't long before the entire hall was filled with the cacophony of countless conversations blending into each other.

A group of several engineers had gathered at a table near the end of the hall by the large galleria windows that overlooked the remains of Saturn's thoroughly excavated Titan moon. The engineers, a clique of friends from one of the maintenance bays, greeted each other with typical protocol as they converged to take their seats. Once they had all sat down and started rummaging through their meals, one of them glanced down at his plate with skepticism.

"Jesus. Are they trying to piss us off, or what?"

He picked up a pulpous wedge of what appeared to be tomato, and dropped it back onto the plate with a reviling twist of his lip.

"Organic my ass. This thing probably had testicles on it before they sliced it up."

A large, burly engineer sitting next to him, nearly a head and a half taller than anyone in the group and stocky like a bear, erupted with a boorish laugh and elbowed his friend crudely, albeit friendly. The man then returned to dragging his stubby, greasy fingers around in circles on his plate, periodically shoving them into his mouth to suck them clean. Unlike the others, he seemed to consume his meal with gusto.

"Eat up, Collins. That shit'll put hair on your chest. God knows you need it."

Somewhat annoyed by the provocation, Collins simply muttered under his breath.

"Carter, you're an asshole."

The large engineer bore a toothy, antagonistic grimace at Collins and continued to hunt around his plate, grunting between each mouthful like a starving dog eating its food quickly. Collins glanced up to a third engineer sitting across the table from him, partially out of a desire to distract himself from Carter's uncouth, appetite-killing behavior.

"So White, you guys still on double shifts in yer section?"

The third engineer, who appeared to be exhausted and trying his best to swallow down a dry piece of bread, raised his brows at the inquiry and stared down at his plate.

"Yeah. We're working 'round the clock down there. I don't know what the hell the CEC is thinking, but apparently the order's come down that they're looking to get every ship they have in stock up and running... even the ones that were scratched from the inventory."

A fourth engineer, sitting next to White and across from Carter, nodded and chimed in.

"Yeah, it's weird. You think they're gearing up for something?"

"Can't see why. Even in peak condition, half of those ships are useless, for what we're doing out here at any rate. But whatever it is, looks like they're anticipating moving a LOT of people."

Collins chuckled.

"You'd think with as many credits as the CEC pulls in, they'd be able to do more than just... refurbish some beat up pieces of shit. I mean, in one day, CEC's worth like, a hundred times my year's salary with just the peng they peddle around here alone."

Just as he finished his sentence, a young woman wearing a medical practitioner's uniform walked by. Having caught the tail end of his statement about the CEC's blind eye to the prostitution enterprises around the Sprawl, the woman curled her lip and walked on, disgusted and refusing eye contact with him or any of the other engineers. As she passed, a couple of them started making catcalls in her direction and Carter decided to take it a step further, as was usual for his immature nature. He stood up and vulgarly grabbed his privates, making the gesture obvious to the young woman.

"Speakin' of peng, you busy with those stiffs in the morgue tonight? If not, I got one for ya right here, baby."

The woman stiffened and clucked disapprovingly at Carter, continuing to walk away without a word - but not without a tiny, almost bemused grin of her own that she tried to conceal. The men laughed it off.

"Ah, she's just shy. Cooped up on this floating dog turd of a station too long... just like the rest of us."

They all fell silent at Carter's remark, feeling a bit depressed by it. The truth was, they all had been dispatched to Sprawl for much longer than any of them had expected, mainly due to the CEC's sudden agenda to renovate the entire fleet, and the overtime in space was beginning to affect them on all levels. After a long, quiet moment of commiseration, they returned to their food and continued to make comments about their meals. After a while, Collins looked back up to the others with something on his mind.

"So, hey... have you guys heard the news?"

White glanced up and shrugged his shoulders.

"News? What news?"

Collins picked a piece of cornbread out from between his teeth.

"Guess who's back on board the Sprawl these days, huh?"

The others distantly replied without looking up from their plates.

"Yeah, who?"

"Isaac Clarke."

Though it wasn't intended on any of their parts, the air surrounding their conversation immediately fell silent, suppressed beneath an unexpectedly dark cloud. They had all heard the rumors going around about Isaac's unfortunate circumstances, but this was first time that any of them had brought the subject up in front of their peers. Collins glanced around at them as they ate, noting the silent looks of veneration and secretive pity they all carried for their now infamous friend and superior on the maintenance floor.

"... He's back from the Ishimura. I heard they've got him in permanent executive lockdown. What the hell did he do?"

White slowly, thoughtfully nodded. Isaac was someone he had personally always looked up to, and the fact that he had been aboard the Ishimura only added to his reverence.

"I dunno. They say he saw the Marker... that he touched it with his bare hands..."

White's voice trailed off, silently lost amid his envy and admiration. As a staunch Unitologist he had for many years long coveted the chance to see the Marker for himself, but in the end he considered Isaac to be a very knowledgeable man who was more worthy of the privilege.

"... Lucky bastard."

Carter, on the other hand, was far from a believer in the Unitologist philosophy. He just snorted at White, inadvertently spitting a chunk of saliva-moistened bread onto his sleeve as he did so.

"Lucky? You gotta be kidding me, you bleeding heart Unitologist dick-sucker. Isaac's a fuckin' nut job now. Word has it that he flipped out, killed a bunch of the crew and ate their brains. They say they found him with one of their heads in his hands, praisin' Altman and his fuckin' magic red rock."

Carter tried to remain grave while he shimmied his hands in a mocking display of divine rapture, but the others just scoffed at him. They knew his insolence, as heartless as it seemed on the outside, was solely in jest. White however, was finding it a bit difficult to turn the other cheek at Carter's making such light of their friend's predicament, and even more bruised about his insulting reflections on Unitology. Carter saw White's pensive, dead stare down at his plate, and again he razzed him.

"I'd say you two have a lot in common with that Marker crap. You should get together once he's out of the Hole and sacrifice some babies for the 'better cause'."

White finally broke his silence by slapping his open palm down upon the table in a restrained expression of anger.

"Isaac isn't a Unitologist, fuckface."

Carter chuckled, shrugging his shoulders coldly.

"_Pfft._ Whatever. Ok, so maybe he don't wear the robes and talk the talk, or have one of those... names. It don't fucking matter, dipshit. We all know the stock he comes from, it's not a secret."

Collins put a finger to his lips and shook his head.

"You can't compare Isaac to his mother, Carter. Seriously. He and that woman are light years apart."

White, who at this point was plucking the crumbs of Carter's pre-digested food from his sleeve and flicking them back at his plate, shook his head.

"Yeah, I don't think we'll be seeing Isaac taking Initiation anytime soon."

Carter still wasn't convinced. He twisted his lip.

"You mark my words - the apple don't fall far from the tree. Any spiritual mental case who thinks there's more to life than eatin', sleepin' and chasin' pussy is a 'Unitologist' in my book."

White shrugged.

"What the hell are talking about? Ok, so he thinks a little deeper than most of us do. Why does that make him a Unitologist?"

Carter pointed a finger in his face.

"Because deep down, he follows the same principles that those Marker-heads do. Whether he admits it or not, he thinks he's _better_ than us."

"Just about everyone's better than you are, Carter. I can see why you'd be so worried."

Carter was about to return with something retaliatory, but seeing the weak, almost saddened look on White's face he held his tongue and grinned. As much as he enjoyed bullying and condescending to his peers, underneath it all Carter understood and appreciated the same respectful outlook that they all shared of Isaac.

"Look... don't get me wrong. He's just as much a brother to me, but he's always been a little too much into that 'meaning of life' bullshit, if you ask me. He gets too serious about it - like the guy actually thinks there's some kinda purpose behind everything. Like he's got some kinda reason to be alive. Pretentious asshole."

He chuckled, and tossed his thumb in White's direction.

"Kinda like you, you fuckin' Marker prick."

White just groaned indignantly.

"It's all bullshit, Carter. Isaac'll be out soon enough."

Carter raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, yeah? They got him in executive lockdown, boy. There ain't no 'out'. Only suicidals and real fuck-ups end up there after a mission, and Isaac sure ain't the suicide type. That's for sure."

Collins shook his head.

"I don't know about that. I've heard that Mattock's already looking into filing an appeal to get him out. He may just get back here, after all."

White downed the remainder of his meal and he wiped his mouth on the cuff of his sleeve.

"Yeah, well, I sure hope they let him out soon. We could really use his help down there."

The engineers continued to converse among each other for several more minutes, touching on random, meaningless topics along the way. As they talked, an elderly, astute looking man, thin as a scarecrow, crowned with a head of snow white hair and dressed in the onyx, velour robes of the Vested within the Church, was seated alone at a table off in the shadows behind them. He sat in silence, eavesdropping on the conversation taking place between the engineers, thoroughly put off by the crudeness in their interaction with one another. He focused in upon the talk of Isaac Clarke the entire time, straining to pick up everything they were saying over the noise of the crowd.

"Hmm."

He remained in his seat and eyed the engineers warily as they finished and got up to leave. Once they exited the mess hall he stood to his feet and followed out behind them, leaving the hall and making his way towards the elevators with an obvious urgency in his step.

He called the elevator and stepped in, tucking his frail, vein-laced hands neatly behind his back as the doors slid shut and the lift immediately began its slow, gentle ascent towards the upper deck of the station. Once isolated behind closed doors, the old man activated his RIG, and a small holomonitor blinked to life in front of his face. He dialed a few codes and within moments the blank screen awakened to reveal the imagery of the Counselor, just sitting down in a chair to address him.

_"Lovely to see you, Sir, what can I do for you?"_

The Overseer's face was unpleasantly tense as he replied to the woman's insincere greeting.

"Counselor, I thought you had put a cap on this."

The Counselor paused, seemingly a little surprised.

_"Sir..?"_

"I've just come from the L3 Mess Hall, and there's been a lot of talk going around about the Clarke case. Not just there, but all over the Sprawl. I thought that we agreed to keep this out of the public."

The Counselor frowned, an act that creased the loose, elastic skin of her face into a network of fine, loose lines. However, more or less fake, for she didn't seem to share in his concerns, otherwise.

_"It isn't public information. Isaac Clarke isn't exactly unknown within the CEC, something's bound to get out here and there. Don't worry about it."_

A brief moment of uncomfortable silence fell between them, which the Counselor broke by lighting one of her cigarettes.

_"They're just gossiping little pigeons. If people talk amongst themselves, who are we to be concerned?"_

Judging the Overseer's facial response, it was obvious to the Counselor that while he certainly had reason to be wary of such sensitive information being trespassed upon, there was something else on his mind. She could sense he burned with an alternate intent and she remained silent, awaiting his response. His underlying agenda finally broke the surface.

"What's this about an appeal by Director Mattock? You didn't tell me about that."

The Counselor paused and shook her head.

_"Oh, he's elected to have Isaac's case formally reviewed before the board. He's trying to get Isaac released, but I suspect it's just a political play."_

"A political play? What do you mean? He doesn't know about the experiments?"

_"He's just an enthusiast for Isaac's cause, and he's __using it as an opportunity to smear the Unitologists. His opposition to the Ishimura is a well known fact. Plus, I believe he has some familial affection for Isaac. A mentor, a friend of his father, or something."_

She grinned and chuckled through a mouthful of smoke.

_"But there's nothing to worry about. It's all a joke. I'm heading up the committee overseeing Mattock's appeal, so the ball's in our court all the way through this."_

The Overseer grimaced, not feeling entirely reassured. Though he had developed the trust necessary to put complete faith into her methods due to years of working closely with the Counselor, he still suspected that in some small way she was not being entirely forthcoming with him, or with anyone. Something in her dark, amber eyes always seemed to betray her, whispering of her ominous diversions from the Church's cause no matter how devoted she made herself. However, he had to also take into consideration that she did speak practically; interesting news of any kind was bound to get around to some degree, especially among a secluded population like that of the Sprawl. The menial talk of the masses would ultimately prove as no barrier to their work, and they both knew that. As such, he felt inclined to be lenient toward her, and he had no valid reason not to, at least for the time being, trust her.

"We can't afford to have people realizing we have a live case. We can't afford a mass panic. The Church cannot keep hiding from these complications."

His thick, silver moustache twisted as his lips drew back into a sneer beneath it.

"Keep an eye on that Mattock character, as well. He's got a bit of a mouth on him."

The Counselor exhaled a blast of smoke that momentarily obscured the digital transmission on the Overseer's end.

_"Everything's under control. The memory reduction procedures are going flawlessly. He's already been tagged. We're even ahead of schedule on the extraction of the codes. Stop worrying."_

The Overseer paused, thinking over her comforting talk. The elevator stopped its ascent, and just before the doors slid open he sighed deeply and whispered.

"So be it. Altman be praised."

The image of the Counselor vanished as he deactivated his RIG and he stepped out of the elevator, making his way down the hall to his quarters.


	5. Under the Influence

**Chapter 5  
Under the Influence**

_"_**_I am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness."  
- B.G., 15.15_**

* * *

Home.

_The ancient, eroded Red Marker stands against the bawling winds of Aegis7, towering high and mighty above the surrounding rocks, reaching to the sky with its winding, aciculate tips. The carvings chiseled across all of its surfaces emicate with a deep, red glow in response to the hostile environment, pulsating perfectly in rhythm to the constant, steady chanting that emanates from the obelisk. From the unrelenting clouds of dust that carry all around, the prominent figures of several very large, humanoid creatures emerge to surround the Marker's base. With slow, deliberate steps they begin to circumnavigate it, as if engaging in some strange, ritualistic ceremony._

_Far in the distance, Isaac stands rapt in observation. Under first impression he thinks that the creatures revolving endlessly around the Marker are necromorphs, but he soon realizes as he squints to look closer that they are not as he remembers them to be. The mephitic expulsions of blood and other vile humors, the homicidal behavior and deadly bodily appendages are all absent; instead, they are smooth and transparent, glowing from within their bodies like celestial denizens, and carrying an articulate, hominal body language can not by any farther from what he has come to know of their kind._

So like us.

_From this distance, the Marker to Isaac is little more than a small sliver of darkness that contrasts against the rose red strokes of fading twilight, but he is amazed by how obvious it still is to see the spiraled shadow of it stretching across the desert sand. He puts a hand up to his face to protect his eyes from the blinding sunset, thoroughly entranced by the sight of it and its mystic worshipers, until someone approaches him from behind and places a hand on his shoulder._

"Isn't it just perfect, Isaac?"

_Isaac quickly turns around with a look of startlement that immediately vanishes upon recognition of who it is. His lips warm with a loving smile, and the corners of his eyes stretch gently into lotus petals as his mind revels in the ecstatic, loving memory of her. How he had loved her... once upon a time._

"Yeah... it's really amazing."

_They stand side by side, watching together as the rays of the dying sun reflect off the Marker's glistening surfaces with incarnadine perfection. The Marker's chanting vibrates through the air and enters their ears, fills their hearts, and slowly make them forget all else. While Isaac silently appreciates his friend's company, he is becoming increasingly captivated by the eerily beautiful masterpiece forged by unknown forces that is the Marker, and as if in perfect response to his expanding elation she gently slides her hand into his. Without tearing eyes away from the Marker or even breathing, he returns her gesture with a gentle squeeze. She flashes the ivory pearls of her teeth in a smile, and she points out across the distance towards the Marker, as though they are part of the audience of some abstract play._

"Have you ever seen them so happy? It's so pleasing to see someone truly appreciate it, like young children in love."

_She smiles even wider._

"... Kinda like us."

_Isaac listens to her words with affection, but deep inside, he feels conflicted._

Who is she?

_The longer he stares at the Marker and its devoted children encircling it, the more he begins to wonder just what it is that inspires him so much about this desolate place._

It had all been for her. His only reason for coming here at all. He couldn't have cared, otherwise. Who else would it be?

_Still holding his hand, his friend playfully swings it back and forth a few times. Somehow, she seems to know exactly what he is thinking._

"It's okay, Isaac. I feel the same way about it. I'm not ashamed."

_She smiles with confidence in the hopes he might take more notice of her, but Isaac is simply too lost in fascination upon the Marker. Her smile drifts, and the corners of her mouth drop into a serious expression as something very grave comes into her mind. She looks back up to Isaac again, and speaks to him in a lowered voice._

"Isaac... listen to me. We're running out of time. It isn't yours. It's _ours_. You made a promise to me."

_She pauses, licking her lips in anticipation of his response, but he fails to fill her expectation._

"The Marker is in danger. We must be made whole, before it's too late. Please... don't let us down, this time."

_An inexplicable terror suddenly seizes Isaac and it makes him sick to his stomach. His vision dims and everything goes black. He feels the world around him falling away, leaving only vast, empty darkness behind, and he cannot feel anything except the reassuring hold his companion has upon his hand as she follows him down._

"I'm going to help you. I'll make sure you don't forget about me. Just promise me you will make us whole. Promise me that you will come home and finish this."

_Isaac clutches feebly at the darkness around him, but he can only nod in blind concordance to her will. The air all around him becomes thick and suffocating like the inside of a sealed concrete box and her voice begins to fade away, carried off by the same ethereal wind that claims everything else._

Evanescent wave, you will travel the ends of our universe.

* * *

"No... No! You can't be... you're dead!"

Isaac's eyes flew open and he bolted upright, startled awake from a terrible nightmare. He found himself out of breath, gasping for air as he looked all around, and discovered that there was nothing but darkness surrounding him. As the moments passed and he became more lucid to his environment, Isaac realized that he was no longer on Aegis7. His focusing pupils cut through the dark to eventually discern that he was surrounded by four walls that were virtually devoid of any features save for a lining of dingy, off-white protective padding and a tiny, metal barred window just off to his right, several feet above.

"What the hell..."

Only pale starlight pouring in between the thick metal shafts of the window illuminated the world around him, so dim that it was barely able to make a dent in the shadows and left most of the room in impenetrable darkness. The room was very small, clincally vapid and without any domesticated warmth, just large enough to house a very limited collection of furnishings that appeared functional rather than comfortable, including the hospital bed that he was lying upon. The more he looked around the more Isaac recognized the Sprawl's Medical laboratory, but this room was much different from the last one he could barely remember having been assigned to; much smaller, colder, and isolated from any other patients... the telltale signs of a specialized ward.

**isaac  
**

A sharp voice calling out his name sliced through his brain like a knife, and he looked up ahead of him. Suddenly, two small, glowing round discs bloomed to life, cutting through the darkness like floating headlight beams, and they hovered in the darkness several feet away from the foot of his bed. Isaac's breath stopped as he saw them, and he widened his eyes a bit more to take in what little ambient light there was in order to better discern the details.

**this isn't over between us**

Suddenly and without warning, like two, tiny white ghosts they began to move. Having no idea what they were and feeling stifled by fear as they encroached upon his space, Isaac scooted back upon the bed, trying to escape them; but he quickly ran out of real estate and he soon felt the bar of the bed's metal headboard frame pressing into his back. With nowhere else to go, as the lights came closer and grew brighter Isaac raised a hand to protect himself and he began to panic, closing his eyes.

"No... go away... you're, you're not real..."

The perfectly matched pair of glowing discs stopped their approach, bathing Isaac in their soft, ghostly illumination. Isaac opened one of his eyes, and saw the beams of light floating just feet from him. His fear struggled against an insatiable curiosity to understand what this phenomenon was, and he patiently waited for some sort of response from it.

**i am as real as you are**

Just at that moment, the spotlights began to move forward again. As they crossed into the path of the ambient starlight that was coming in through the window and spilling across the bed, the shadows receded and Isaac now saw that the soft, glowing spotlights were in fact only a part of something much larger that manifested from out of the blackness without a sound.

**i am waiting you must make us whole**

He could now see that the light was originating from a pair of empty eye sockets, which were concave like deep pits and vacant of ocular spheres, illuminated from within a pale, slender face that was covered in blood as black as the darkness all around. Isaac was terrified by this figure - not just by the inexplicably ghoulish imagery itself, but also by the fact that he distantly recognized who it was. His brows hung fearfully over his eyes and he stared at the approaching figure as it now climbed up onto the bed, crouching along the metal frame at Isaac's feet with the dexterity of a jaguar upon a tree limb.

**you can't escape  
**

Though Isaac was stunned by the familiarity of this figure, in his fear he found himself unable to recall who it was by name. All he could see of this ominous apparition was its blinding white eyes, which stood out against the rest of its darkened, almost invisible figure... and all he could now think about was a tall, crimson red obelisk that pushed everything else out of his mind.

**the makers must be absorbed**

The figure reached out over the bed toward Isaac with long, black arms coated in the same blood that covered its face. Dark, viscous strands clinging to the figure's hands dripped across the bedsheets over Isaac's lap, and the moment the apparition's ice cold hands touched him, he screamed out and threw his hands over his head.

"Get the fuck away from me!"

Everything suddenly fell silent around him. Isaac froze deadly stiff for several moments before he found the courage within himself to reluctantly open his eyes to peek out between his arms. He now saw, much to his astonishment, that the ghostly apparition had vanished, leaving him once again alone in the darkened hospital room. Seeing this, Isaac lowered his arms and looked all around the room, and he quickly glanced down at his lap. Seeing the sheets had no trace of blood on them, he came to the rather uncomfortable conclusion that whatever it was had been nothing more than a hallucination. His attention drifted to the window in the wall above him, desperately seeking out the light in the hopes of being reassured that that there was nothing to be afraid of.

After some silent debate, Isaac finally settled down. Taking a deep breath and feeling exhausted he tried to lie back upon the bed, but the damp, chilling sensation of sweat soaked sheets beneath him drove him back up. Gradually, as Isaac came to understand that he apparently was not in any immediate danger, his focus wa drawn to other matters of which he had overlooked in his state of panic. He was becoming increasingly aware of tremendous pain, one that was first felt in his wrists, then slowly inch by inch up the length of his arms, and progressing throughout his entire body as if ice were being pumped into his veins.

"Wha..."

Isaac now also realized at this point that he was highly sedated, feeling quite disoriented. As his awareness of his bodily pain intensified, he looked down at his wrists and saw that large intravenous needles had been inserted - both of which were filled with an unidentifiable fluid that appeared neither like water nor blood. Becoming alarmed Isaac followed the long tubes attached to them with his eyes, saw as they snaked their way down the side of the bed and across the floor for several feet, and ultimately attached to a small, computerized apparatus in a dark corner of the room that he had not previously noticed.

_What... where was... where did she go..._

Isaac attempted to remove the needles embedded into his skin, but in his highly unbalanced condition he found the task incredibly challenging. He started to pull at them but they throbbed painfully the moment he touched them, which deterred him from making any further attempts. Frustrated, confused and angry, he reached for the bedsheets covering the lower portion of his body, and pulled them off. When he did so, he saw to his horror that he was riddled with needles and a complex network of EKG pads, all of which were tethered to the unfamiliar monitoring equipment nearby. The constant aching by this point had risen to his head, and he reached up to feel his throbbing temples. A quick, tactile examination revealed that even here he was inundated by countless, invasive devices.

Seeing that he was entangled and too dizzy to effectively get himself out of it, Isaac again tried to lay back down, resigning himself to the fact that there was nothing he could do but wait. In the time that passed he repeatedly examined himself, trying desperately to figure out what was happening to him, until a long, red mark running the length of his left forearm caught his undivided attention. He shocked to see what appeared to be a deep, relatively fresh scar and he stared at it, having no recollection of ever sustaining such an injury on his own, or undergoing any invasive medical procedure.

Suddenly, a burst of light blossomed through the darkness to Isaac's left, distracting him from his anxious deliberations. He saw that a large door, which had previously been invisible in the darkness, had slid open, affording Isaac a very brief glimpse out into a gloomy, nondescript hallway before the incoming light was blocked by the figure of someone entering the room. The door closed quickly, and again concealed in the shadows of Isaac's dark room all that could be heard of them was the scuffle of synthetic leather soled shoes across the floor.

A moment later, an overhead lamp flickered on. The harsh, artificial light instantly filled the room, simultaneously revealing the details of his sterilized environment and that of the new arrival - a small, young woman, neatly dressed in a nurse's uniform. The woman's smile was bright and cheerful, almost to an extreme degree, and the familiar CEC uniform strongly reminded him of Nicole.

"Mr. Clarke - are you alright? I heard you shouting from all the way out there."

As he looked her over, Isaac realized that he did not recognize the woman. Though she seemed friendly enough, the underlying insincerity he thought he sensed in her plastered smile began to bother him, and looked away.

"Yeah... I'm... okay. I just... I had a bad dream, I think."

The nurse tilted her head with apparent concern, and stepped a little closer to the bedside.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

Isaac sharpened upon the small, delicate figure of this woman as she stood before him. As she continued to smile reassuringly, he felt a very odd sensation... an inexplicable one that provoked something deep within him that he could not explain or justify. His face tensed, and he glared at her as his mood began to darken.

"No. Thank you. I'm fine."

The nurse was relentless to assist him, and she slowly began to make her way over to the strange machine across the room that Isaac's needles were tethered to.

"Are you sure? Would you like to talk about your dream? Sometimes talking it out can help."

Isaac hesitated to reply. To him, the woman's persistence had become downright irritating all of a sudden; despite appreciating the nurse's attentiveness, all he wanted for the moment was to be alone. He continued to look the nurse over, pulling out the finer details of her appearance with his eyes, and noting that her fresh, featherweight build and seemingly overflowing energy made her appear more like a girl to him than a woman.

"... Talking it out?"

Isaac fell quiet upon the puzzled look that crossed her face, and he examined her even closer - her long, ashen brown hair and deep slate eyes, her softly freckled facial features, the gentle, sloping curves of her hips and breasts, clearly visible even through her uniform - and he couldn't help but think to himself what a pretty girl she was.

"I, uhh..."

Isaac stumbled upon his words, almost amazed at how captivated he had suddenly become by this stranger, who at first had seemed quite unremarkable to him. He quietly inhaled of the air that stood between them, seeking to identify the sweet, almost bitter fragrance that emanated from her.

_Such a sweet, healthy, young... body. _

Out of nowhere, Isaac cracked a frightening smirk, and stared coldly into her eyes.

"... Fuck you."

The nurse froze solid and blinked a few times, clearly offended by his insensitive statement. She became even more disturbed by the vulgar expression, like that of a caged animal in heat, that had spread across his face as he stared at her. She took a small, subconsciously fearful step backwards.

"I... I'm... sorry..."

Isaac saw how visibly shaken she was. Not knowing what had come over himself and seeking to make amends he softened his expression, but he found it increasingly difficult to remain so sympathetic.

"I'm... sorry, I..."

The nurse fell silent as she watched the oddly conflicting expressions of his face, and forced another smile as she began to make some adjustments to the machine.

"Its okay, Mr. Clarke. You don't have anything to worry about. We'll take care of you."

Again, Isaac became agitated. It occurred to him that he really had no idea how long he had been unconscious before waking up, considering that they kept him in such a hellish, isolated prison did nothing to help him in figuring it out. Feeling the effects of his sedation slowly but steadily increasing, he struggled to get the words out.

"How the... the fuck long... have I been here...?"

The woman had no idea what to say. Isaac fought to lock his eyes upon her, trying so desperately to search her soul, to find anything about her that he could recognize, that he could take any solace in. However, his attempts to emotionally connect with her failed, and his penetrating stare only put her even further on edge. She stuttered.

"I... I..."

Much to the young nurse's relief, the moment between them was broken as her RIG alerted her to an incoming call. She turned away with a secretive sigh of gratitude as she glanced over the message, then made one last sweep over the machine's interface.

"Oh, I've got to go, Mr. Clarke. Just... relax, and try to get some sleep. Dr. Werren will answer any questions you have in the morning."

Before Isaac could respond to her, she turned off the lamp and quickly trotted out of the room, never once looking back in his direction. Isaac watched her all the way as she left the room, up until the door slid closed and he was once again submerged in darkness. His eyes became heavier and heavier, and too exhausted to think anymore Isaac fell back onto the bed, succumbing to unconsciousness.

In the back of his mind, all Isaac could hear was the beautiful, haunting sonata of the Marker's chanting.


	6. Sound Appraisal

**Chapter 6  
Sound Appraisal**

**_"What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the self-controlled; and the time of awakening for all beings is night for the introspective sage."  
- B.G., 2.69_**

* * *

_Isaac cannot see or hear anything. He cannot move, he cannot speak. His mind is racing, and a__ll that exists to him at this moment is an unspeakably hellish pain, like a white hot iron rod, piercing his right eye. Several moments are passed in complete agony that he cannot comprehend until his dark, empty world of pain and incoherent thoughts is finally penetrated by the sound of a voice._

Careful, keep it steady.

_A second voice arises from the indiscernible mist._

My god... the data is off the chart! How can there be so many?

_The first voice chides the other._

That's the difference, Doctor. The other subjects didn't even come close. This is why he's so important.

_Again Isaac becomes distracted by the intolerable pain, like a severe migrane, that is searing his eye socket. He fights back the urge to cry out, and as if in direct response to his distress, one of the voices speaks up._

I think we better take a break, I'm getting some transient brain activity. He's starting to wake up.

_The other is unfeelingly relentless._

We must continue. We aren't finished.

It's allright, we have enough for now. There's no need to keep on him.

_Through his pain and disorientation, Isaac still cannot see those who he senses are around him. But he can feel a very heavy aura of apprehension clinging to the air._

Increase the serum, and put him back out.

What? No, it's too much. You're putting too much on him! If he moves...

I said to put him back out. Then it won't be a problem.

_The second is hesitant, and obvious about it._

You're going to kill him, stop!

There is more at stake here than you realize, Doctor. when you see the results for yourself, perhaps then you will no longer doubt me.

_The voices fall silent and a moment later Isaac feels the grip of deep sleep upon him. It drags him back even deeper into a darkness beyond anything he has ever known, even in the deepest parts of space, and though the pain inside his head intensifies, he is hardly aware of it as he vanishes into the dark._

* * *

"CEC Investigation Committee Hearing under EarthGov Domestic Security Section C019.216. Continuing Medical Evaluation of detainee #1544C/55613."

The Counselor's voice commanded the proceedings as her fellow Council members and medical personnel took their seats. They all came to attention when the doors slid open and Isaac walked in, accompanied closely by several doctors including Alex Werren - who had taken on the role of seeing to Isaac's care after Dr. Samara Yasmin had been unceremoniously and without prior warning dismissed from the case. As the group walked in Isaac looked directly up at the Council, eying them all sharply, and then flashed a warm, congenial grin.

"... Morning."

They nodded in response along with the Counselor, very pleased to see the significant change that had occurred in Isaac's behavior since he had first been in their custody. His movements were now confident, free of the anxiety and fear he had previously displayed, and his expressions were darker, deep set and almost commanding of their attention. Even now, as Isaac's retinue led him into the room, he strolled with the wide, sweeping gait of an elephant leading some royal procession, and his defensive posture was absent. The Counselor smiled.

_Things were going as planned._

Isaac approached before the Council bench and took the same opportunity to examine his old interrogator, just as he did every time he came before them, sitting behind the large, dark wooden table that always seemed to surround her and her team like a fortress. He looked over her geriatric, silver mottled features, her uniform, her pristinely polished Unitology broach, the brass rimmed glasses upon her face as she stared down her nose at him, and she seemed no less a demon than the day he had first been forced to endure this woman's presence in his life. Still, the painful sessions that had been too many to count and repetitive, clockwork interrogations had strangely enough come to grow upon him over time. He eventually came to accept his fate as their property, and he had even found himself developing what was almost an attachment for it. To Isaac, the Counselor seemed much warmer than he remembered, more inviting as she interfaced with him in a far less formal manner and referred to him openly by his first name rather than stiffly by his last.

"Good morning, Isaac. Please, why don't you take a seat, and we'll begin."

Isaac slowly walked up to the chair in front of the table before the Council and sat down. He kept his eyes upon the old crone the entire time, scanning her haggard features for any indication that she might not actually be in as jovial a mood as she was portraying herself to be. He memorized the ancient fault lines and age spots marking her face and neck like astrological projections, and as he had many time before, he couldn't help but feel inexplicably irked by this woman. Something about her always stirred something inside him, something that he was helpless to identify like the fleeting recollection of a dream upon waking. He continued to look her over in silence as she shuffled through the papers before her in a garrish, secretarial ritual of preparation, and he failed to acknowledge any of the other placid, blank stares throughout the room that were locked upon him. After a few moments the Counselor finally stopped, and raised her voice.

"So... I know it's been a little while since we last personally talked, but Dr. Werren and I have been discusing some of your latest results. It seems that you have been taking rather well to things around here."

She paused and glanced up at Isaac, who sensed that she was awaiting some sort of response from him. He remained quiet, but smiled somewhat.

"How have you been feeling lately? Better, I hope?"

Isaac crossed his arms.

"Just fine, thank you. I have been feeling better, actually."

She nodded and gave him a hollowed out grin of appreciation.

"Wonderful. I must say Isaac, I think we've come a long way. I'm glad to see that you've been so cooperative with everyone. We've made a lot of progress during your time with us and it looks like you've even lost a majority of your symptoms."

Isaac's eyes shifted slightly between the Counselor and the members surrounding her, unsure if he could trust anything she said. Her friendly outreach seemed to conflict with the stifled indifference in her eyes, and it made him suspect that for some reason, she was being duplicitous with him. He wanted a straightforward answer.

"So... can I get out of here?"

The Counselor could taste his anxiety, his longing desire to be free of this place despite his complacency and compliance to their will; it was that thick upon the air between them. Feeling a little disappointed, she retrieved a cigarette and ignited it, took a drag and placed it gently on the lip of her marble grey ashtray, and proceded to enunicate her next words with an emphasis on clarity that seemed intended to taunt Isaac.

"It's possible."

She paused and knocked the ashes from off the smoldering cherry of her cigarette.

"As you know, Isaac... it is not our policy to allow those in your position to return to the general population - position meaning those who have been deemed a permanent threat."

Isaac raised an eyebrow.

"A permanent threat? Is that what I am to you?"

She ignored him.

"However... your case seems to be very special, Isaac. You apparently have a great deal of influence around here, did you know that?"

Isaac just met her with a blank stare as she continued.

"It looks like your superior, Director Adrian Mattock, has filed to have you released."

Again the Counselor paused, taking the moment to inhale of her cigarette while trying to gauge Isaac's reaction. However, he was completely poker-faced before her.

"Yes, Mattock seems the be quite respectful of you. He speaks very highly of your work and is appealing that you be released to his custody... under certain restricted conditions, of course. First, before the Council even _begins_ to consider any part of his appeal, our work with you must be completed. However, if you continue to be as cooperative with us as you been so far, then I would have no objections to holding a review. Mattock makes a very strong point that getting you back to the work you are best suited for will be, psychologically, very beneficial for you."

Dr. Werren, sitting a few chairs down to the left of the Counselor, widened his eyes as he heard her statement. It was obvious that he was definitely not expecting to hear such concession, and he was even less inclined to agree with her. He turned his head and stared at her, but even as she felt his glare burning into her, the Counselor merely ignored Werren. Isaac didn't notice the subliminal friction that passed between Werren and the old witch, for he was too surprised himself by what the Counselor had said.

"Really? You're -"

Werren quickly intercepted him in an effort to demonstrate his concerns before the other Council members in hopes of gaining some sway over the Counselor's ruling - at least, for the time being.

"How have you been sleeping lately, Isaac?"

Isaac paused and looked at him, thrown off by the unexpected sound of another voice coming at him. Rarely did anyone speak to Isaac at these interrogation sessions other than the Counselor herself. He stuttered.

"S, sleep, sleeping? I uh, I haven't uh..."

The Counselor stiffened as Werren cross examined Isaac, but refrained from interrupting.

"What about the nightmares? The voices? Still experiencing them?"

Isaac recalled the encounter he had had with the nurse in his room a week ago. Maybe it was a couple of weeks ago. Or it could have been longer, he just wasn't sure.

"I don't think so... I, I can't remember anything significant."

Werren immediately replied without any interest in Isaac's responses. The Doctor had merely been setting him up.

"You haven't been sleeping for days. The reports taken during our most recent sessions indicate that you've been staying awake continuously for up to 96 hours, without any physical or mental symptoms of exhaustion."

Isaac's expression suddenly darkened, and he failed to reply. He did not like hearing about this side of his sessions with the grueling medical experimentalists. Werren sighed and pressed on.

"We have required the use of heavy sedatives for you, and in doses that would induce coma in average patients for several days. The same doses, I might add, that have been effective on you for no more than a few hours, if at all in some cases."

Isaac remained tight lipped as Werren stared him down. Again, his eyes drifted towards the window, feeling the desire to withdraw from everyone around him and to search out the single, distant star that had become so familiar to him during these sessions. Finding Werren's inquiries to be touching on a subject Isaac found to be too sensitive to discuss, he was finally relieved to see the Counselor bat an aggressive hand to silence the imposing Doctor. She then turned back to Isaac.

"Mr. Clarke? Do you have any response to Dr. Werren's question?"

Isaac glanced up momentarily in her direction, then back to the window.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The Counselor squeezed her lips together. Though she clearly was not agreeable to having Werren asking questions beyond her censure for some reason, she knew that his inquiries into the strange nuances of Isaac's behavior were also shared among some of the Council members present. With no choice but to allow Werren's concerns to be expressed, she had to suppress her underlying desire to sweep as much of it under the carpet as she could. She puffed on her cigarette to break the moment, then looked down to a small holopad kiosk upon the table before her. She very briefly sideglanced Werren, then back to the lines of data that filled the tiny, translucent screen as she called up a few documents. Seeking to reign in control of the proceedings again, the Counselor went on to ask the questions that she knew were burning in Werren's mind, while keeping Isaac focused upon her.

"Well, maybe you have something to say about your blood tests. They've also recently proven to contain some, well, interesting results."

Dr. Werren uncomfortably cleared his throat as if to interject again, but he was forced back into silence by the seething glare of the Counselor. He could only shake his head as she continued.

"The presence of an unknown pathogen has been recently detected in your blood. We're not exactly sure what it is, but we suspect that it may have been the cause of some of your... behavioral changes."

The Counselor looked up and stared right into Isaac's eyes. Her voice followed and he distinctly heard it, but he noticed that her lips did not move; she did not phyically speak.

_This means you're infected, Isaac._

His heart began to pound. He was totally bewildered by what he had just seen, or at least thought he had.

"What did you say?"

The Counselor shook her head, her lips parted and her speaking voice resumed.

"I said it's nothing to worry about, Isaac."

He eyed her warily. She returned it with a smile.

"It's probably just an antibody development. It has been often observed that a body exposed to radically altered atmospheric conditions for long periods of time - as in your case upon Aegis7 - will naturally produce antibodies that adapt and evolve to protect it. A form of mutational immunity, so to speak. You just need time to acclimatize yourself back to the conditions around here, and your levels should return to normal, in time."

Still, Isaac had barely heard her over the beating of his heart. The Counselor raised her eyebrows as she gleaned over his confounded expression, and she returned to the holopad at her fingertips.

"As for your other symptoms - the declination of sleep, your lack of appetite, the memory loss - all of these appear to be more than likely the result of post traumatic stress, and I personally..."

She glared again at Werren.

"... am not that concerned. Your case has proven to be quite benign, in comparison to the other subjects. Pending final testing yields good results, I don't see why the appeal wouldn't have a positive outcome for you."

All Isaac could think about was what he had heard her say about being infected. He didn't even realize he was being addressed until the Counselor repeated his name multiple times.

"Isaac... Isaac?"

He finally glanced up at her, and hesitating for just a moment, she continued.

"...So... at, at this point, I think we can open up the floor for any questions."

She glanced down either side of her, presenting a very brief opportunity to all present. They remained silent, and the lack of interception from his colleagues disturbed Dr. Werren, who noticed that despite the evidence right in front of their faces, they seemed to side with the Counselor no matter what. He started looking from one to the next, searching out someone who might side with his valid cause, but the sharp grimace of the Counselor as he came upon her made him shy away. Seeing that no one except for Werren posed any objections, she formed a small, satisfied smile upon her lips and turned back to Isaac.

"And do you have any questions, Isaac?"

Isaac looked at her, having so many questions swimming around inside his head that he simply didn't know which one to ask first. He had so many concerns, mainly about why he was having such difficulty remembering anything about the tests from which they had drawn such conclusive results, but he knew it was fruitless to ask anything of this bitter old hag who would give him nothing but meaningless lip service.

"... No."

The Counselor nodded upon his reluctant reply, and again began to shuffle the papers in front of her.

"Well, then. That settles it. We'll call for you again, Isaac."

At the Counselor's silent hand gesture, Isaac was escorted out by the gathering of doctors that had initially brought him in, minus Dr. Werren, who remained in his seat. The Counselor adjourned the hearing and the other Council members dispersed from the room, all while the Counselor and Dr. Werren remained behind. Once the last person was out and the doors were sealed, leaving the two alone in the committee chamber, Werren raised his voice.

"Madam, with all due respect, you must reconsider. I thought we were clear on this. We discussed it - it's still too early. We don't have anything conclusive about these test results. He may very well pose a serious threat. A threat that could decimate the entire Sprawl."

The Counselor eyed him coldly as he pressed a hand to his head, almost amazed in his troubling realizations.

"Jesus... After everything I've seen inside that man's head... we're simply not ready for this. We just aren't. We need more time."

The Counselor extinguished her cigarette and folded her hands, appearing to listen very intently. When Werren was finished, the Counselor nodded thoughtfully.

"I appreciate your concern, Alex. I respect your opinion."

Werren shifted anxiously on his feet, as he knew the Counselor's flattery was merely a preemitive apology for what was surely going to be direct disagreement.

"But we just don't have the time. His presence here has already raised some high-profile heads on both sides of the fence."

The Counselor watched Werren's deeply troubled face, his thick, pouting lips as they twisted from behind the rusted red hair of his beard. He was still far from convinced by the Counselor's logic behind allowing the opportunity for Isaac's release, understanding very little about the plague that had stricken the Ishimura, and he was unable to justify the situation the way she saw fit. As deeply involved with her work as he had become over the years, he understood to a considerable degree the significance of their research; but he simply couldn't fathom what purpose could be so worth putting an entire population at risk, should Isaac's condition prove to be infectious.

"Those high-profile heads won't have very much to say when they are all dead, Madam."

The Counselor appeared to be struck by his words for a brief moment, but she returned a cold, hard smile.

"If we keep things as procedural as possible, we won't have to worry about that. Everything will be fine. I trust in you to keep it that way."

Werren felt little assurance from her vain attempt to praise him, but with knowing so little about the Marker and its effects, he ultimately had no choice but to concede to her superior knowledge.

"I don't doubt what you've foretold, Madam. But you had better be honest about what it is your intentions are, here."

Without a further word, Werren arose from his seat and quickly made his way out of the chamber, leaving the old woman behind in a shroud of stale cigarette smoke.


	7. Warrant For Freedom

**Chapter 7  
Warrant For Freedom**

**_"Material nature and the living entities should be understood to be beginningless. Their transformations and the modes of matter are products of material nature."  
- B.G., 13.20_**

* * *

Time passed, and Isaac eventually came to lose virtually his entire sense of it.

Since his last session with the Council, he had been transferred from the hospital to a much lower security domicile in the housing wing of the Government sector, to wait out the next week before his appeal hearing. By this good fortune he found himself finally free of the laboratory and all of its painfully invasive procedures, given his own private suite where he could live alone without confinement or direct supervision. Isaac's living accommodations were now completely opposite of what he had become accustomed to, going from a dark, suffocatingly small padded cell to a very high-end apartment that was decadent in design, lavish and well maintained, and for the first time he could remember since coming back to Sprawl, boasting windows - not mere prison holes, but large, floor-to-ceiling galleria planes of glass that overlooked one of the station's two starports, and gave him every opportunity to gaze at the distant sun and its stars. Isaac's posh surroundings were sweetened further with the privilege of permission to wander freely through a limited route under surveillance through the housing wing. Though he was not entirely a free citizen again, he still found the greatly improved amenities and far more humane treatment to be comforting consolations despite the suspicion his captors' sudden kindness and mercy upon him raised.

On the day of his hearing, Isaac sat at the foot of his bed, doing the only thing he knew how at this point to occupy his time - fearfully pondering over what was going to happen to him. As positive as the Counselor had made everything sound, he knew how duplicitous and self-serving these people were, and how serious his case was. It seemed only logical that the fact he had had such intimate connection with the Red Marker would not bode well for him, as it was only natural that the Church would want to keep their hands permanently upon anyone who knew so much about their revered, coveted artifact. Though he tried to remain hopeful that things would go his way, Isaac couldn't help but question how the Counselor would get him out of the hands of the scientists without resistance from those who most sought to own him, and he almost couldn't believe in her taunting enticements of freedom. He was half-expecting that the appeal itself was just some cruel joke that would end in a gang of white coats interrupting the proceedings, cuffing him and taking him away, never to heard from again.

As he waited to be called, Isaac gazed sadly out the window to distract himself with the activity of the starport. He watched the silent ballet of aeronautical mechanics on the maintenance floor, countless ships gliding in and out like seabirds, all either being dispatched to or returning from various missions and being tended to by hundreds of engineers, who at Isaac's distance appeared like tiny little insects. A small repair ship, branded with a weatherblasted CEC logo upon it's hull and a ship label he couldn't make out entered the port and set down in one of the hangar bays, and the sight of it triggered a multitude of memories, though dim, broken and lacking continuity, of once having been aboard such a ship for a...

_A repair mission._

The memories were hazy. Isaac could barely remember being strapped into a flight seat, glancing out the cockpit window at a distant, red planet surrounded by a field of asteroids. The blinding, lambent fingers of the sun's rays were partially blocked out by the silhouettes of two people standing just feet in front of him and engaged in what seemed to be contentious conversation. He tried to remember who these people were, and where they all were, but the harder he tried to pin down the memory, the more fleeting it became. He could just barely grasp the snapshot vision of a tall, clean shaven authoritative figure, and an arrogant, dark haired, sharp eyed...

_"How many times have you watched that thing?"_

Isaac recalled the words she had said to him, but for some reason, not the identity of the woman who spoke them. He was then met by another vague memory; an enormous ship floating through the cosmic ocean like a whale, and growing larger as they approached, but he couldn't remember why they were heading toward it. The chanting in the back of his head kept breaking his concentration, and the imagery of a giant red obelisk surrounded by flesh eating monsters flickered in and out.

_"You must really miss her, huh?"_

Isaac suddenly heard a buzz at the door to his apartment and he looked up, his fingers tensing the edge of the bed. The door opened a moment later, and Dr. Werren stepped in.

"They're ready for you now, Isaac."

Isaac took a deep breath as a bead of sweat slid down the side of his head. The keenly observant Doctor immediately detected how nervous he was.

"Don't worry. From the looks of things, you have a very, good chance."

Isaac suspected hesitation in Werren's voice, though he wasn't entirely sure. While the Doctor had been friendly with him during the extent of his stay in the Medical Deck and gave him no indication of ill will towards him, Isaac was still aware that Werren highly disagreed with the Counselor's catering to the notion of his release. He stood to his feet, and Werren motioned toward the door.

"Let's not keep them waiting."

Isaac cautiously headed for the door, and Werren followed out behind him. As he stepped out into the hallway, he was highly concerned about whether Werren might have had different plans for him waiting just beyond his sight; however, no one tackled or restrained him, or even approached him. Only Werren was there, who joined alongside and they both headed toward the elevator. When they reached the end of the walkway, they were met by a few of Werren's assistants, who all turned to Isaac with robotically programmed charm and plastered smiles to greet him with enthusiasm.

"Good morning, Isaac! We wish you luck."

Isaac didn't know what to say to them, or if he should say anything at all, so he silently continued past and entered the elevator. The entourage of medical personnel swept in behind him, following Werren one by one like a flock of sheep, and the elevator began a slow ascent up to the Executive Suites. As they traveled, Isaac noted that the majority of the elevator shaft was fabricated of glass along with the elevator, and this design provided a rather impressive, all-round view of the entire Sprawl during the ride. Along the way the elevator passed through a series of massive metal rings that comprised part of the shaft's supporting frame, and the interior side of each ring facing the elevator was decorated with giant, aged mosaic portraits of the CEC founders and other landmark personnel. Isaac stared over the faded, deteriorating faces one by one as they swished past, each of which appeared full of infallible confidence in the ingenuity of mankind, and Isaac briefly began to wonder if the torture and humiliation performed in the name of the Church's research was what they had incipiently had in mind.

The elevator finally reached its destination several minutes later, and the group disembarked to escort Isaac down the hallway that connected to the ring of Executive Suites. They wound about and passed several doors, all of which seemed identical and impossible to tell apart to Isaac, before Werren finally stopped in front of one of them. He opened the hololock, and he led the small group into the meeting room.

They entered a large, open spaced room, which though simplistically geometric in architecture, boasted intricately carved, wainscoted trim of glazed, deep red cherry wood, and soft, artificial wall sconce illumination. This gave the room a very elegant and imperious feel despite the fact that it's lack of other decor, save for the furniture being used for the hearing, gave more of a warehouse impression. As soon as they were inside, Isaac looked around and saw all the familiar gathering of Council members, along with some newcomers - the most notable one being that of Director of Engineering and Mining Operations, Adrian Mattock. The moment they met eye contact Mattock immediately smiled, and the sight of his long-standing family friend and superior put Isaac tremendously at ease. Glad to finally see someone he wasn't dreading to for a change, someone he ws certain was there to help him, he returned a pleasantly surprised smile of his own.

_Adrian! He wouldn't let him down._

The Counselor, still giving her best impersonation of a glacier as she situated herself along with the remaining stragglers who now took their seats, looked up at Isaac through her gold trimmed spectacles. As calm as she seemed at the moment, he could sense there was an underlying tension in her. She seemed impatient, as eager to be through with all of this procedure as he was, and again her motives came into question to him. As he stared at her, trying to unravel the mystery that was this old Counselor, she raised her voice to address everyone. The droning chatter carrying throughout the room immediately stopped.

"We are assembled today to hear the matter of the pending Formal Release Review of detainee #1544C/55613. Are all parties involved, apart from the detainee, present?"

Adrian Mattock and several of the doctors assigned to Isaac's case raised their hands, and after some idle banter for the next few moments, the Counselor finally looked at Isaac with a smile.

"And that brings me to you, Mr. Clarke. As you probably already know, today we will be discussing the appeal that has been filed by Director Mattock, and whether the Council is satisfied that you can be released into his custody at this time."

Mattock leaned back and crossed his arms, keeping his eyes on the Counselor. The old woman continued to address Isaac, clenching a burning cigarette between her fingers.

"I would like to take the time to applaud your remarkable success. You are without a doubt, the most successful case this Medical Administration has overseen in a very long time."

Isaac was not pleased by her compliments. Though she seemed sincere enough, he knew her intent was really to applaud her own staff's efforts in front of all those gathered by showing how 'normal' Isaac had become. Beginning to feel agitated, he sardonically wondered to himself if she was in fact old enough to have seen the last known 'successful' case as she continued to flatter him.

"You have been very responsive to your treatment. You have proven to be quite a shining example of recovery. Of course, we take into consideration many different factors of your case when deliberating such an appeal, but you have demonstrated dramatic improvement in the main areas that we are concerned with - your physical well being, and your ability to re-adapt to social life."

Isaac just sat before the old woman, looking around at everyone present as she continued on what seemed to him an almost scripted dialogue. He kept returning a glance to Mattock every few minutes or so, noticing that the man had been keeping his eye hard on the old Counselor. Though he could not explain it, Isaac also sensed an underlying trepidation in his friend, one that seemed to coincide perfectly with the hidden undertones of the Counselor's voice.

"At this point, I would like to acknowledge Director Mattock, and give him the opportunity to explain the grounds of hsi appeal."

The Counselor waved her hand pretentiously at Mattock, who now sat forward in his seat and stared up and down the long rows of Council members. He cleared his throat.

"Members of the Council, I am appealing the term imposed upon Mr. Clarke on the grounds that his treatment is succinctly complete. As the Counselor herself has mentioned, Mr. Clarke has been deemed a successful treatment case, and he is ready to resume a normal life. It isn't necessary to keep him any longer; the need for him and his services is far greater in other places on the Sprawl."

The Council members listened to Mattock as he stated his case, rubbing chins and grimacing as they mused over his words. Some of them started to ask questions.

"Well, Director Mattock - we don't disagree with the fact that Mr. Clarke's results have been positive, but is there any guarantee that returning to population will be healthful for him, and for others?"

Mattock kept darting his eyes at the Counselor, a nuance in his behavior that Isaac found to be odd. Just then, the Counselor cut in to intercept the Council.

"So far, there have been no reports of illness or infection in any of those who tended to Isaac's case, so is clearly not carrying anything harmful."

"And what is your special need to have Isaac back in Mining Operations? Can you not manage without him, or assign someone else to his post?"

Mattock chuckled.

"With all due respect, he's much more use to me there than he is to you here. If you know anything about Isaac's track record, you'd know that he designed a great deal of the systems that are integrated with this station. His presence in Mining Ops is invaluable."

"Director Mattock, it's a well known fact that you are in disagreement with the Ishimura, and its mission. Can we have faith in that you are not being swayed by any personal ties to this case?"

Mattock shook hs head.

"Even if I was, it would bear no relevance to this matter. The outside world is where Isaac belongs. I will take full responsibility of seeing entirely to his aftercare, and ensuring that he remains safe. And that others remain safe."

The Council members paused, then motioned to both Mattock and the Counselor.

"Counselor, may we have a side bar, please?"

She raised an eyebrow, but nodded.

"Yes, of course."

She, Mattock and a few of the other Council members huddled together and began to chatter back and forth with each other, speaking in tones too low for Isaac to properly discern. After several minutes that had Isaac more and more on edge, they finally dispersed, and with seemingly pleased looks upon their faces, the Council members returned to their seats. Mattock also returned to his seat, looking a bit more serious as the Counselor continued on.

"Well, Isaac, now we come back to you. We have a few questions we'd like to ask, just a brief overview."

She fell silent and began to shuffle through her papers as the gathering looked on. Isaac became a little restless in his seat, beginning to wonder what sort of ammunition he would have to dodge this time.

"First, let's discuss your time spent in Medical. Do you feel they were fair, that they were attentive to your needs?"

Isaac's brows furrowed and he blinked. He was having difficulty remembering much about his time there, which seemed more like a disconnected mass of events than tangible recollections.

"Well... sure, I guess I don't have any complaints."

Contrary to his response, Isaac did indeed have a few complaints. However, his unexplained loss of memory dulled the severity of his misgivings with the Medical team, leaving without the confidence to hold his position against those whom he knew had not interest in addressing any of his concerns seriously. Isaac was already fearing that posing any resistance might cause a delay in his release, so he he stuck to delivering positive, laconic answers that he knew would reflect well.

"Are you sure? There is nothing you would like to bring up at this point?"

Isaac shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, the food was a little... sub-par, if you get my drift."

A few cold chuckles arose from around the room, and the Counselor grinned at Isaac like a chesire cat.

"Yes, well, we'll look into that."

She inhaled a drag of her cigarette and smirked, her countenance becoming substantially colder.

"Though I find it interesting that you would say that, considering your lack of appetite lately."

Isaac smiled to the side and raised a dark eyebrow at her.

"Considering the food, it's really no wonder."

Again a small round of laughter rose around the room, until the Counselor cut them off.

"Let's move on to your recovery, Mr. Clarke. How about the visions, the nightmares? Are you experiencing them?"

Isaac rubbed the back of his head. He wasn't sure if he had or not, he just couldn't remember. He couldn't recall having slept at all.

"No... I don't think so."

"How about the voices, Isaac? What about the, the numbers? Are you still seeing these things?"

Again, Isaac tried desperately to recall anything she was mentioning.

"No. I really... Don't remember anything at all."

The Counselor nodded, giving a few quick glances to the other Council members who returned with silent approval. All the while, she was highly aware of Dr. Werren, sitting crossed armed and legged, tense with anxiety over the proceedings. She knew he had a speech on the tip of his tongue, and was simply burning alive inside for his opportunity, but she had no interest in injecting his negative outlook into the hearing. She bore a harsh, silencing glare at Werren that Isaac did not notice before she returned to him.

"So, Mr. Clarke. If you were to return to work, do you feel you would perform without incident?"

Isaac tilted his head.

"Without incident?"

"Meaning, do you feel confident enough to return to your duties? Being a senior engineer, we understand you are often assigned to dangerous work. We just want to make sure that you feel up to it. We wouldn't want you getting hurt, now would we?"

Isaac shook his head.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. I'd really like to get the hell out of here."

A few laughs arose at the eagerness and tenacity in Isaac's statement, including a warm chuckle from Mattock. Everyone was smiling for the moment except for Dr. Werren as the Counselor continued.

"Well Isaac, that all sounds good. Do you have any last concerns you would like to bring up before the Council?"

A troubled look crossed Isaac's face upon her question as a thought, like the scintillation of a bright and distant star, twinkled in the back of his mind. He was still very wary of the Counselor and her horde, seeking to ensure that his 'freedom' wouldn't just be another form of imprisonment.

"Well... actually, I do. Do I get my flight privileges back?"

The Counselor paused, but she was not entirely without the expectation that Isaac might raise such an issue. Dr. Werren stared hard at her as they all awaited her reply.

"Let's take it one step at a time, Isaac. Your release is pending a probationary period. You will have restricted clearance to work on the maintenance floor, and you will be assigned a curfew. Unfortunately, we cannot restore all of your privileges, including flight and aerospace access right now."

Isaac's face began to fall.

"We want to observe your work, and make sure that you are in fact up to your full capacity. But rest assured that once we are satisfied, all of your privileges will be restored to the fullest extent."

Isaac huffed irritably. He felt he was being jerked around, like a dog on a leash with the promise of release, only to be collared again unexpectedly. Though he had no logical conclusion to draw from, he suspected that somehow this wicked woman was behind what was happening.

"And how long is this... observation period?"

"It's usually taken on a case by case basis. Just focus on returning to work, and let's see how it goes from there."

He was in firm disagreement, but Isaac knew there was little choice to make. not wanting to talk his way back into the laboratory and deciding it best to remain compliant, Isaac nodded unenthusiastically.

"Alright. If that's what you think is best. I have nothing further to say."

The Counselor flashed a wide grin and looked around the room, seeking final input from the gathering. However, her eyes deliberately glossed over Dr. Werren.

"Allright, with that said, what does the Council say?"

They all raised their voice in concurrence, accepting the appeal. The Counselor smiled upon their rather prompt reply, and turned back to Isaac.

"It's decided, then. Mr. Clarke, at this point we hereby release you into the custody of Director Mattock. You will be transferred to the Engineering and Mining Operations jurisdiction, where you will be placed under his supervision. Good luck, Isaac."

Isaac was unsettled by the maleficent gloat upon the Counselor's face, and he was baffled to see that his appeal had passed without the slightest bit of resistance. He was sure that there was something subversive going on, but the idea that he was now free of his captors had him focused now on one thing only - getting out of this place. Upon the Counselor's command a pair of P-Sec officers overseeing the proceedings approached Isaac and removed the hospital ID tags from his wrists, and once he was free of the last of his bondage Mattock approached Isaac with a warm, friendly handshake and to walk him out.

The Counselor adjourned the hearing, and everyone rose from their seats to leave. Mattock and Isaac were the first to exit, and as they both left the room, Isaac couldn't help but notice that the Counselor's cold stare, coupled with a disturbingly subtle grin, was deadlocked upon him the entire time.


	8. Honorary Mention

**Chapter 8  
Honorary Mention**

**_"One who works in devotion, who is a pure soul, and who controls his mind and senses is dear to everyone, and everyone is dear to him. Though always working, such a man is never entangled."  
- B.G., 5.9_**

* * *

Adrian Mattock accompanied Isaac out of the Executive wing, down to the lower deck and to the tram station. Isaac was already feeling better, for every step he added between himself and his former captors felt like a great weight taken from off his shoulders. As it was a considerably long journey back to Mining Operations from the Government sector, the two found plenty of time to engage in small talk along the way.

"Isaac, it's great to have you back. I can't tell you how happy I am to see that you're okay. If any of the stories I've heard going around are even remotely true, then you, son, are a very lucky man."

Isaac smiled, relieved to be in the presence of a friend as Mattock patted him on the shoulder.

"Thank you, sir. I feel a lot better. I just, I want to get back to work. I can't stand feeling idle like this. That place... it was..."

Mattock dreaded to think of what Isaac might have had to endure during his stay in Medical, and he became briefly concerned by the troubled expression that came over Isaac's face as his voice trailed off. However, his superior remained positive with a smile on the outside, encouraged to see that despite his circumstances Isaac was still eager to return to his profession.

"No worries. You're definitely not going to be idle, if that's your concern. Maintenance has been jammed for the past several weeks straight - the big heads put the word out that we're to get every last vessel we've got back into flight-ready shape. We're already behind schedule, as it is."

Isaac suddenly looked up, and narrowed his eyes with suspicion.

"Ships? What do you mean?"

"Everything we've got in inventory. Looks like they're trying to refurbish the whole damn fleet."

"And... why would that be?"

Mattock paused, appearing to be a little surprised by Isaac's interest in the subject.

"Well, I, don't really know. They've considered that information confidential so far. And in light of the changes around here, your presence has definitely been missed by everyone."

Isaac was uneasy, wondering if the CEC's unexplained agenda had anything to do with Aegis7 or the Red Marker. However, the gratitude he felt for Mattock's assistance in getting him released from the hospital overrode all other concerns Isaac might have had, at least for the moment, and he couldn't help but smile again as they arrived at the tram deck. They stood in the loading area to wait for the next tram, and Isaac took the opportunity to glance around some of the other inhabitants of the Sprawl, waiting along with them. After a few minutes, Isaac finally looked back up to Mattock.

"... Thanks, Director. For getting me out."

Mattock returned another friendly smile.

"You have nothing to thank me for, Isaac. It is my honor to help you in any way that I can."

Just then, the steel tunnel housing the tram track echoed loudly in response to a tram's arrival. The floor began to vibrate as the arriving tram stopped at the loading area, and once the doors opened Mattock and Isaac joined the others in boarding the already crowded shuttle. Once inside Isaac looked around at the filthy, trash encumbered floors and smut peddling advertisements posted on the walls of the tram, all of which was a much needed change of pace from the clinically sterilized environments that had grown so begrudgingly accustomed to.

He and Mattock took the last two open seats just as the doors closed and the tram disembarked to make its way to the next destination. The soft, rhythmic white noise of the tram gliding over the magnetic railway was comforting to Isaac, availing to him the freedom and breathing space that made him feel like himself again. After a few minutes of traveling in silent thought, Isaac was again driven to explain himself to his superior, abashedly crossing his arms before his chest.

"I just... I'm sorry about all this. I didn't mean to cause such a problem for you. I hope you didn't catch too much shit over this."

Though his most prominent emotions were relief and satisfaction to see his old friend and partial father figure again, Isaac, who was always very conscious against becoming a burden to anyone, was also depressed by the shame of their reunion having had to occur under such unpleasant circumstances. Mattock's expression however, did not appear to reflect any such inconvenience or disappointment.

"Don't do that, Isaac. Don't apologize. This wasn't your fault. What happened to you was beyond your control, unjustified and inhumane. Those... goddamn Church-mongers are up to no good. They will throw anyone to the dogs to see their ends are met."

He looked down a bit, a darker, more solemn theme absorbing his countenance.

"I... I didn't like seeing you dispatched to the Ishimura. I have to be honest with you, Isaac - I thought you were crazy for volunteering, even with your reasons. Sometimes, it almost seems they had something planned all along. I've known that Counselor for years... I don't trust her. She's been at the helm of this entire fiasco, along with Mercer and the rest of those Marker-headed heathens. I'm worried that they've been trying to mindfuck you with those, experiments, or whatever it is they're doing down there."

A few people - some who recognized the long-absent Isaac Clarke, and others just shocked by the Director's disparaging remarks against the Unitologists - curiously watched the two of them as they carried on their discussion, but neither Isaac nor Mattock paid any heed to their dull stares. Isaac just kept his focus upon the floor at his feet, dejectedly listening to the Director, and noting his sullen posture Mattock decided it was time to head in a lighter direction.

"Well, that's all over with, now. Don't worry about those people anymore, Isaac. I'll make sure that they don't interfere with you or your work. I just want you to take the time that you need to focus on yourself from this point forward. That's the best thing you can do."

The floorboards began to tremor as the tram slowed upon approach to the Mining Operations tram station. When the tram stopped and the doors opened, Mattock and Isaac stood to their feet and exited, apparently the only two people departing at this particular destination. They proceeded through the gates and on towards the main deck, and on their way in a couple of engineers passed them by. They initially offered Mattock respectful nods, then as they recognized that Isaac was with him, they widened their eyes in shock as if having just seen a ghost. They continued past, and Isaac just barely heard one of them whisper to the other.

_"Oh my god... he's back!"_

Isaac continued to eye the passing engineers over his shoulder until they rounded the corner and disappeared. He and Mattock continued on towards the maintenance elevators and stepped into one, and as it began its journey down into Mining Operations, Mattock cleared his throat.

"Oh, I forgot to mention - I have a surprise for you."

Isaac just stared at the elevator doors. At this point, he just didn't know what to expect anymore from anyone, and he hated surprises.

"... Is that right?"

The elevator stopped at its destination, and as the doors opened, Isaac was unexpectedly met with a large, friendly gathering of workers from Mining Ops, all of whom had clearly been anticipating their arrival. They all started to cheer as he and Mattock stepped out of the elevator, crowding around them to welcome Isaac back. Amid the festive homecoming, Isaac was astonished to see so many of his friends at his side, and he embraced the sight of them all with wholehearted relief. He had not seen anyone he appreciated or even recognized in so long, that the fact they were all here now, flooding his vision and his heart like an ocean, caused him to pull back a little in embarrassment at the sudden attention that was receiving. he uncomfortably rubbed the back of his neck, trying his best to remain cordial and outgoing despite the fluttering in his stomach.

"Heh... hi, guys."

He stepped into the crowd to exchange a multitude of handshakes and hugs with a hesitation that steadily began to decline the more reacquainted he became with those Isaac knew and trusted. During this time, a few familiar co-workers including White, Collins and Carter stepped up from the back of the crowd to talk with him. Carter, in his usually oafish manner, wrapped the large, muscular boa of his arm around Isaac's neck and shook him like a rag doll.

"Man, Isaac - we all thought you'd be the next spot on the medical mattress, man!"

White and Collins grinned as Isaac fought to keep his balance in Carter's grip, and intrigued by his mysterious circumstances, they started to ask him questions about his experience. Isaac was at a loss for words, not entirely ready to dive into such sensitive discussions so soon, and he briefly glanced at Mattock for a little guidance. Catching his anxious cue, Mattock drew everyone's attention away from Isaac for the moment.

"Okay, everyone, just a few words. Isaac, we are so honored to have you back here with us. It has been hell without you. So, we'd like to give you just a small token of our appreciation."

Another engineer in the crowd stepped forward with a large, green CEC cargo crate in his hands. He approached Isaac with a big smile and handed it off, which was heavy enough to weigh him down as he took hold of it.

"Here, Isaac. This is for you."

Isaac simply stood there, staring down at the crate in his hands in astonishment. He felt he should say something, rather than look dumbfounded at his friends, but the feelings couldn't be translated into words. He stammered.

"Umm, I... I, don't know what to say. But, I... You guys... you're my last family, I guess. I just..."

Isaac found himself unable to continue, feeling a deep, overwhelming compassion that was coupled with an irrepressible fear he couldn't quite explain, and his emotional struggle became evident through the saddening expression on his face. Noticing how deeply affected he was his friends were moved to clap and cheer, while Carter shouted over them.

"So, you gonna open the fuckin' thing, or what?"

Isaac smiled in response and returned to opening the crate in his hands. He knelt down to place the crate at his feet, depressed the CEC logo on the top to release the latch, and he popped the top off. As he peered into the crate, he became amazed to realize what was inside it.

"Wha..."

The first thing he saw was a helmet, brand new and shining in the soft, fluorescent light of the overhead bay halogens. The protective plastic shipping buffers were still adhered to the metal plates, and upon exposure to the open air the thick, strong scent of factory assembly oil escaped the crate. The smell of it immediately revived memories of his days in the hangar, prior to his disastrous mission aboard the Ishimura, and he felt incredible relief to be home.

**come home isaac ****come home** **come home**

Isaac returned his attention to the crate, saw that the helmet sat atop an equally brand new engineer's suit and a pair of flawlessly fabricated gravity boots, all sealed in airtight plastic wrapping. Upon first glance the uniform appeared very similar to the standard issue that Isaac was already familiar with. However, as he examined it further, he came to understand that this suit was not of the same class; it was a radically upgraded Tank Suit, the kind of which were in very limited supply, incredibly expensive and restricted to the highest ranking - or most wealthy - specialists within the CEC.

"... Holy shit."

Isaac pulled the suit out of the crate and started to unwrap the torso and pants, glancing over the arms and chest, noting how the entire suit was lined with thick plates of carbon coated titanium almost like a suit of armor. The flexible skin between each metal rib was made of the highest grade Kevlar canvas, hand tailored to a gauge of which would allow its wearer to walk through even the highest temperature engine fires unscathed. The gravity boots were also carbon coated titanium, with soles that were inches thick and equipped with the very latest in anti-gravity response system technology. The sleeves were lined with state-of-the-art communications and kinesis controls, attached to the spine was an expansive RIG, stasis and oxygen life support system, and from the chest hung a heavily plated monitoring system that interacted wirelessly with all of the suit's system functions. A closer look at the helmet revealed it to be as equally impressive, sporting an advanced visor system and fully programmable navigation lights. The overall design of the entire suit gleamed a darkened silver that appeared jet black at certain angles, casting it in an almost sinister light.

Isaac just stared at the crate's contents, speechless. The others stood around him, smiling, until one of them finally spoke up.

"Look underneath, Isaac!"

Isaac carefully slid the suit to the side and saw another item of interest inside the crate - a fully upgraded plasma cutter, assembled with care by hands of the highest mastery and eningeering knowledge. More streamlined in design, this cutter was thicker, more durable and equipped with a wider range of fire, yet smaller and lighter in weight than the type Isaac was used to.

As he stood before the crowd, glossing the tool over with his eyes, they all once again erupted with an onslaught of random, patronizing cheers. However, Isaac failed to hear the tumultuous ensemble around him; as he held the cutter in his hands, he was suddenly entranced by a tiny, nearly inaudible voice at the base of his skull.

**check the clip**

Without question Isaac tilted his head, activated the cutter and checked the ammo counter.

_Unloaded. Of course._

After a moment, the voice of one of the female engineers brought his attention back.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Isaac. We know you really wanted your old suit back, but it was destroyed beyond repair. You'll just have to settle for this one."

The crowd laughed and Isaac smiled, slightly ashamed at the idea of being in such debt to his friends for their generosity. He knew how much something like this would have cost, and even if it had been a pooled fund amongst all of them, each one would still have had to contribute something pretty substantial to cover it.

"I cant believe it. You guys went out of your way to get this for me?"

She winked.

"Well, we all chipped in some, but it was Mattock who pulled the strings to get it on order. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get one of these suits. You sure do have friends in good places, Isaac."

She was interrupted by Carter, who butted in antagonistically.

"Well, try it on you fucker! It better fit ya, 'cause there's no RMA policy on this shit."

Isaac, looking to oblige them, reached up to pull off his jacket and outer vest down to his undershirt. He gently unwrapped the suit and helmet, removing the packing material with precision to avoid smudging any of its immaculately smooth, reflective surfaces with finger prints. He strapped the chest plate on, slid the pant legs up and slipped into the boots, and within a few minutes, he was nearly fully dressed save for the minor details. As he adjusted the fit around his shoulders, one of the girls in the crowd stepped forward to assist him with aligning his RIG along his spine.

Once he was fully dressed, Isaac looked down at the panel on his sleeve and activated the RIG. Within seconds of the systems' boot up sequences, the edges along the metal ribs, and boots, the seams running down the sleeves, chest and legs all suddenly lit up with a ghostly, aqueous blue glow. The chest monitor flashed to life in tandem, responding with checksum values upon its holographically projected screen. Isaac then reached for the helmet and strapped it to his head, and the visors lining the faceplate illuminated everything within its wide radius. Finally he gripped the plasma cutter in his hand, and upon the glove's contact with it the tool also lit up along its edges like cool, dry ice in direct response.

Isaac now stood before the gathering, glancing up and down the suit and making minor adjustments here and there. As they watched him the crowd's smiles began to fade, for they were all surprisingly disturbed by just how ominous and foreboding the new Tank Suit made Isaac appear. After a moment of suspenseful silence that had everyone holding their breath, Mattock took the opportunity to speak.

"Now, we all know that this certainly cannot compensate you for your suffering, but this gift reflects merely a fraction of our gratitude for you, and for your loyalty. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Isaac. We hope this will help, at least in some way, with putting this entire ordeal behind you."

The crowd broke out into a final round of applause as Isaac stood before them, just shy of shedding tears of relief and shame. As they hollered and jumped about enthusiastically, again Carter shouted out over the rest with a large, toothy smile.

"Great, congratulations - now get your ass back to work, Isaac! We need your goddamn help already!"


	9. Obstacles On The Path

**Chapter 9  
Obstacles On The Path**

**_"Even a man of knowledge acts according to his own nature, for everyone follows the nature he has acquired from the three modes. What can repression accomplish?"  
- B.G., 3.33_**

* * *

Having kept himself fully occupied with the operations of the Sprawl's Engineering division, Isaac had found readjusting to normal life to be less daunting than expected. He took back to his old ways from the moment he reestablished his position, and he proved to be just as intelligent, cordial and talented as he always had been, with a confidence and lighthearted demeanor that made it seem he was coping rather well with his tragedy - which to some, made it difficult to believe that Isaac had suffered anything traumatic at all. That his co-workers did not actually know all the facts of his frightening journey or of Nicole's death, or why he had been stuck beneath the thumb of EarthGov for so long, made it very easy for him to beat around those subjects when queried by his naturally curious peers, and he provided them with nothing more than evasive replies. Seeing as they weren't going to get very far, Isaac's friends and co-workers eventually abandoned the subject altogether out of a mutual respect for him - and perhaps, even a hint of trepidation.

However, his lack of desire to discuss what had happened to him wasn't the only thing about Isaac since his return that some found odd. As successfully readjusted to the normal world as he might have seemed, there were in fact some questionable changes about him that people just couldn't help but take notice of. Those who knew him had at the very least expected him to take the night of his release for himself, but they were very surprised to see that he had taken no such concession; he jumped right back into work from the time he left the initial welcome gathering, and he continued on through the hours tirelessly. His work methods and prceision were no less than what they remembered of him, but now he appeared driven by an unnaturally inexhaustible vigor, and this coupled with the doubts of not having seen Isaac either eat or sleep since his return alarmed some of his co-workers. But in the midst of their hectic agenda to meet the ever tightening deadlines for getting the CEC fleet up to par, this was also seen by many as a positive boon, and cause for question was soon overlooked.

As far as Isaac was concerned, he felt restless and unable to pass his time without working, without building and rebuilding everything around him. He heard the occasional whispered jokes that arose among the others about his newfound fanatical devotion to his work, but he didn't connect with them; he personally did not see the changes in himself that they saw, but instead that the world was changing all around him. He had become timeless, watching everything drag slower while he moved faster, winding down as he was rising up. He was beginning to contemplate actions within actions, to sense multiple purposes being fulfilled behind single causes, and even the stars that twinkled through the hangar bay windows high above seemed to whisper of a multiplex of consequences, all set in action eons ago that only now was just beginning to converge up on him with catastrophic certainty. Once the initial excitement of being back among civilization again began to wear off, the complacency Isaac felt gradually came to be replaced with this disturbing new perspective, alongside a growing need to escape.

And it wasn't very long after that Isaac started to hear the chanting again.

_Come home. Come home. Come home._

The mantric rhythms were startling and mysterious at first, and it frustrated Isaac that no one else seemed to hear them. He had questioned it of others a few times, but having received only strange looks from them in return he realized that these voices were actually coming from his own mind, although he couldn't understand how or why. He began to suspect that his inability to recall any cogent memories of his time in the Government sector or before had something to do with why he was having so much trouble placing this phenomenon, and having little desire to spend his energy in thinking over such an unpleasant chapter of his life, he tried not to put much into it. But the chanting only retaliated against his attempts to ignore it, growing louder until it became difficult for him to hear anything else, and his desire to depart from the Sprawl increased beyond measure. Still, Isaac knew the futility of attempting escape; without flight or open space privileges there was no way of gaining access outside of the Sprawl, and even if he could have somehow beaten such impossible odds, he didn't even know where it was he wanted to run to. So, like a caged bird yearning to fly free, Isaac unwillingly remained.

The ominous chanting Isaac was hearing was only the beginning. Soon after, these transformations began to manifest not just in himself, but also through those he interacted with. While it was not unusual for Isaac to be very perceptive and a sharp judge of character, his sensitivity to everyone's psychic movements was becoming heightened to the point that he was certain he was now capable of reading their thoughts. As he dealt with each person he came across, Isaac could hear them speaking aloud to him both from without and within, and he was able to anticipate them with an uncanny accuracy. He often mistook these inner premonitions he had for outwardly spoken conversation, and he provided verbal responses where none was expected, causing his co-workers to react with blank, amazed stares. Though it was on the tip of everyone's tongue not one of them dared to say a word to Isaac directly about his compelling new character and clairvoyance, and as much as they needed him, everyone simply came to accept him as he was.

While the influential effect Isaac was having upon the people might have been considered to be harmless, if not a little bewildering, what started happening among the Unitologists was a different story. As time progressed, some of the more devout people began to suffer from unexplained panic attacks and aggressive tantrums, usually while within Isaac's vicinity. They would fervently pace in small circles with widened eyes, murmuring incoherent, frantic prayers to Michael Altman or the Marker, which graduated to fits of obscene, threatening vulgarity directed at anyone within earshot. As the epidemic advanced, those affected weren't even capable of talking to Isaac or even staying in the same room with him without falling prey to the same delusory condition, and it soon began to spread beyond the Unitologists to the some of those outside their ranks. Strangely enough, the increase of shockingly bizarre incidents that always seemed to either begin or end with Isaac didn't seem to upset anyone; in some cases, they were further inclined to support and endear themselves to him, and while standing at his side, they would look upon those who fell ill with empty, detached stares.

As the enigmatic events continued to expand, the lips of the silently overseeing Church and CEC remained sealed. Director Mattock had been informed on several occasions about Isaac's odd behavior, and he had even seen it for himself as he dealt with the increasing number of those falling ill. However, for reasons that were known only between he and the Council, he deliberately kept himself aloof from the maintenance floor, and from Isaac. He would respond to the inquiries with an equivocacy that sustained his workers for the time being, but he was becoming very nervous about the situation; a situation that had been foretold to him in confidence by the Counselor. Coming to understand his own dark role in Isaac's entanglement with the CEC and its Unitologist benefactors, Mattock began to feel a deep seeded regret for having initally gotten involved with the underhanded woman, who had promised him Isaac's protection in exchange for his cooperation. Though at the time he had genuinely believed her offer was a way to uphold his vow to Paul Clarke of helping to keep his son away from the Church, Mattock now saw that he had inadvertently thrust Isaac even further into their trap.

One day, while staring dolefully out the window of his office to watch Isaac and some the other workers milling about below, Mattock sadly reminisced over the poor decision he had made that he now firmly believed would only bring about disaster and betrayal to his old friend and his kin.

"... What have I done? Forgive me, Paul. Wherever you are."

* * *

Isaac spent another hourless day upon his back beneath one of the many ships being serviced in the hangar, fully absorbed in replacing an outdated navigation control processing unit. Due to the workload, he had been finding himself in the hangar quite often lately, booked solid with a constant stream of incoming repair jobs. This pleased him not just from the aspect of keeping his time filled with productive tasks through which to exercise his boundless energy, but it also afforded him the closest opportunity that he would get to a ship and the promise of freedom it boasted.

So engrossed in his work Isaac had not noticed one of the other engineers, doing some maintenance on the shuttle parked at the next station over, kept glancing back at him, watching him with intent. After a while the engineer dropped his work and he calmly crossed the way to Isaac's station, dragging his feet diffidently as if desiring to seek Isaac's council about something. The engineer eventually stopped a few feet behind the head of the mechanic's dolly Isaac was lying upon and he stood there, watching him through the thick glass plates of his still fully sealed helmet and hoping that Isaac might notice him. However, seeing Isaac's inattentiveness to anything other than his work, the engineer cleared his throat nervously.

_"I... Isaac..."_

His voice cracked and he fell silent, ashamed of the cowardice he heard in his own projection. Obviously, something was weighing very heavily on this young man's mind, and he called out again, his voice still weak and barely audible.

_"... Isaac... I... I need to..."_

Still, Isaac had neither seen nor heard him. The man sighed deeply and he shifted uncomfortably upon his feet, feeling his resolve to be heard was being tested. Just as he was about to raise his voice again Isaac looked up at that moment, and suddenly saw the engineer standing behind him. Realizing he was there for a reason, Isaac paused his work and pulled himself out from beneath the ship. He stood to his feet turned to look at the engineer, and though the man was concealed by his helmet, Isaac right away recognized Daniel White behind it.

"Oh, hey, sorry... I didn't see you there, Daniel. What can I do for you?"

Isaac smiled courteously as he wiped his hands on a shop towel, but even from behind the faceless metal plates of White's helmet, he could tell just how frightened and agitated the engineer was. The smile quickly faded from Isaac's face.

"Hey... you okay?"

White reached up and lifted the helmet from off his head. The moment his face was revealed, Isaac saw his skin flushed red, and tears trailing from his eyes.

"I... I... I'm sorry... I'm so..."

Isaac was absolutely stunned by White's wrecked condition before him, and why he might have been feeling this way. He raised his arm and placed his hand upon White's shoulder, seeking to console him, and upon the contact Isaac suddenly found himself sharing in the engineer's mysterious presage.

_Incompatible anomaly._

Without warning White's face blanched and he screamed out, twisting about to reach for something on his belt. Isaac caught a flash of something gleaming in the man's hand, and he dodged just in time to avoid the needle tip of a finely chiseled pick as White swung out in an attempt to lodge it into Isaac's side. With barely enough time to catch his breath, Isaac, who was much larger and stronger than White, grabbed a hold of his arm and effortlessly forced him over onto the ground. The moment White stopped fighting with him and he sensed his surrender, Isaac pushed off of him and rose to his feet, infuriated and dark faced, spitting from behind clenched teeth.

"What the fuck!"

White, rendered powerless to move upon his back, simply stared up at the ceiling high above through tears that clouded his vision. He began to slowly shake his head.

"I wish I... I wish I could have... done... more..."

Isaac saw that White did not have it in him to resist again, and his anger quickly morphed into a deep sense of concern for him.

"Jesus, Dan... What are you talking about?"

White's lips were pale and tight as he stared at Isaac, his eyes glazed over in fear as if he were face to face with some horrifying creature. Isaac was stunned to see this, and he returned White's stare in some genuine attempt to understand what was troubling the man. Suddenly, White squeezed his eyes shut, appearing to be in pain, until he opened them a moment later and looked around, wild eyed and apparently confused. His eyes shot up to meet Isaac's, and he froze solid.

"No... wait... why are you... why am _I_ here?"

Totally baffled, Isaac's brow sank to a solid line.

"What do you mean?"

White started shaking and stuttering as if possessed by something that absolutely terrified him.

"Oh, god... It's started all over again... But, I, I don't remember this... where am I?"

Isaac was just about to answer him when his attention was taken away by the sound of another voice approaching from behind. Isaac looked back over his shoulder and saw another engineer from across the bay, jogging toward him in a hurry.

"Mr. Clarke... Mr. Clarke! Are you okay?"

Isaac looked back down at White, who was still staring at him like a mouse cornered by a cat and it's deadly claws.

"Crazy bastard."

The approaching engineer slowed as he closed in, seeing that Isaac had the situation under control. He came up behind and stopped, glancing White in a very calm and collected manner,

"I saw it, sir. He attacked you. Weird. He must be getting the bug, too."

Isaac remained silent, and merely looked at the engineer as he returned his attention to White, still shivering on the floor and beginning to foam very slightly at the mouth.

"Sorry about this, Mr. Clarke. We'll take him to Medical."

Still Isaac said nothing, and merely watched as the engineer signaled a couple of the crew to help carry White away. Isaac was amused by their perfectly synched ballet as they carried White's limp body out of the bay, and once again the people present took little notice of the incident. Once they had left, Isaac glanced down in a moment of contemplation, then returned to his work.

* * *

Incidents like those Isaac encountered with Daniel White became insignificant in his eyes, and in turn, the eyes of others. After a while it seemed that his influence was in some way fueling the public opinion, and as Isaac himself became complacent with things, the less concerned everyone else was with what was happening on the Sprawl. While he found no reason to fret over the strange happenings going on around him, Isaac was instead frustrated with other matters - the maintenace bay's pace which was far too slow for his liking, and with his restricted clearance. He eagerly, almost desperately wanted to be outside of the station, to extend his arms and legs out into deep space, to feel its deathly cold envelop his body just one more time.

_He had to go home._

Isaac was finishing up a round of singularity core installations when he finally decided that it was time to have a talk with Director Mattock. It was still early in his shift, and Isaac knew that he had a good chance of catching Mattock in his office, going through the daily assignment reports. Isaac withdrew from his station and quickly made his way to Mattock's office as burning desire now became absolute necessity, and he pressed the call button on the holopad just outside the door. The Director answered remotely from inside his office, and upon seeing who it was he smiled and opened the door.

"Isaac, come on in."

Isaac stepped into the office and saw the Director as expected, seated behind his desk with his reading glasses on and various holomonitors activated all around him depicting pages upon pages of reports. Mattock looked up at Isaac as he entered, and seeing his very disturbed expression, he became immediately concerned. He deactivated the holomonitors, removed his glasses and directed all of his attention to Isaac.

"Are you allright, son?"

Isaac's restless eyes danced all across Mattock's oak paneled office.

"Well, I'm not sure."

Mattock straightened in his seat.

"Is there anything you need? Tell me."

Isaac shook his head and took a seat in one of the chairs in front of Mattock's desk, hunched forward a bit and a hand pressed to his chin in pensive thought. The Director looked Isaac over, and he folded his hands calmly upon his pristinely polished desk.

"I heard about what happened with Daniel White. I'm sorry that you had to experien-"

Isaac cut him short.

"I need my flight privileges back."

Mattock was blindsided by Isaac's sudden interjection, but he failed to be completely shocked by it. He had known all along how anxious Isaac was to be a free citizen again, and considering the tight restrictions the Council had imposed upon him, Mattock had been expecting him to break sooner or later. He drummed his fingers upon the desk.

"Would you like to be reassigned?"

Isaac stared hard into the Director's eyes.

"No. I just need my flight privileges back. That's it."

Mattock sighed and absently rolled his fingers into fists. He was sensing Isaac's desperation, and he began to wonder just how much longer they had before Isaac, as clever and resourceful as he was, would figure out how to break the lock on his cage.

"Isaac, please. We've talked about this. That just can't happen right now. Believe me, I tried. I really did, even after the appeal was closed. But the Council has made it very clear to me that they don't want you in that position."

An uncomfortable silence passed between them as Isaac's cold, emerald eyed stare unsettled the Director.

"Look. You know, maybe you should take some real time off, for yourself. I think you've just been in shock, and it's starting to wear off. I don't want you to break down, Isaac. Please."

As Mattock pled his case, Isaac became agitated. He had the utmost respect for his superior, but Isaac didn't like or agree with what Mattock was saying. He knew that Mattock was speaking in what he thought to be his best interest, but he was also very much aware of the fact that Mattock was not correctly educated in what Isaac's actual interest was. He ignored Mattock's statement and reiterated his urgency.

"I _need_ to get out of here."

Mattock was confounded by Isaac's temerity, and he blinked his eyes.

"Well, why? Where do you need to go?"

As Mattock posed the question, Isaac felt intimidated by it. He had been plagued by the unquenchable desire to escape the Sprawl for so long that it had become a second nature to him; however, he now realized as he pondered over Mattock's question that where it was he wanted to escape to had not been clear to him up to this point. The chanting voices that Isaac had been hearing all along suddenly increased in volume, and as he listened to their messages, his strangely inconclusive desire to leave was now becoming further substantiated by a destination. He looked up at Mattock.

"Aegis7. I need to get back to Aegis7."

Mattock's puzzlement now took a turn into utter incredulity.

"Aegis7? What in all hell do you need to go back there for?"

Isaac broke eye contact, fully aware of the irrationality of his demands, but driven by something within him, he was unable to control himself.

"I, I need to find the Colony."

Mattock remained speechless as he witnessed Isaac's blank, stoic expression fold with apprehension. Isaac stared off into nothing, distracted within by the chanting that now was accompanied by the vision of a delicate voice calling to him from the lightless confines of an abandoned flight hangar, far away.

"I need to find the Marker... The Marker. I need to find... Oh, God..."

Just then, as if suddenly released from behind massive floodgates, all of the memories that Isaac had been unable to access now washed over him in a deep, blood red tide. He could now see with the utmost clarity in his mind all of the horror he had experienced, including the grueling, torturous experimentation he had endured under the Council's merciless control, and even more intensely, his tragic experience of the USG Ishimura. The interior of Mattock's office vanished, replaced by the cold, steel, blood stained walls of the Ishimura's hallways, and he found himself surrounded by a horde of necromorphs whose terrifyingly misshapen forms manifested from the darkness like apparitions. The bloody, stinking membranes of the virus choked the walls, and long, sharp talons reached through the gaps in the ceilings and floors, frantic for Isaac's flesh.

In that moment Isaac saw himself before them all, with a blood smeared, almost empty plasma cutter in hand, alone in the dark along with them. He could hear them growling at him threateningly, and he could taste the blood of those creatures on his lips, seeping into the pores of his skin. He could feel the poison infecting him, assimilating every fiber of his being, consuming him from the inside out until he was no longer a human, but one of them.

Isaac became almost catatonic with fear, and the distraught look upon the man's face moved Mattock to interrupt him.

"You're one of the best engineers I've ever worked with. Despite my position, you make this entire place run. Please, don't do this. I need you here."

Isaac's fear turned into anger. He looked up at Mattock, his eyes dark and burning.

"Goddamnit... You have to let me out of here. You have to reason with them, or something... She's still alive."

Mattock pulled back and raised an eyebrow. As a personal friend of Isaac's for many years, Mattock knew many details of Isaac's troubled personal life, and of his tendency to take things too far. Worried that Isaac's recent trauma might now be inadvertently inflaming other underlying psychological issues, Mattock twisted his lip with a little bit of frustration.

"You're not talking about Nicole, are you?"

Isaac failed to respond or even look at Mattock, who shook his head and tossed his hands.

"Isaac... you have to let her go. Nicole is gone. You have to accept that."

Still, Isaac provided no response. Mattock raised his voice as his concerns morphed into accusations.

"This isn't healthy. You can't be thinking like this. Jesus, didn't those Doctors help you at all?"

Again, Isaac denied Mattock any response and just sat in his chair, wide eyed and staring listlessly at the floor. Upon Mattock's mentioning Nicole's name, the frightening horde of necromorphs and the dark, macabre imagery of the Ishimura faded away as a small, graceful figure emerged from the darkness, calm and tranquil like the light of the full moon as it beckoned to him. A looming mass of darkness came quickly into view behind the indiscernible figure - the harsh, solid outline of a red monument towering high above.

_Come home, Isaac._

Mattock, who watched Isaac's shifting facial expressions with deepening worry, wasn't sure how to respond.

"Well... I uh, I don't really don't know what to, what to tell you. You are their biggest case, Isaac. I mean... in all honesty, you're the luckiest sonofabitch alive, right now. Had it been anyone else... It's a miracle that you haven't been permanently locked away, like the rest of them."

Isaac felt devastated by Mattock's words, but he stood to his feet and relentlessly pressed him.

"I don't give a shit about the Council, or what they think they can do to me."

Becoming even more agitated, Isaac huffed sharply and glared back at Mattock.

"You don't understand. If you don't let me out of here, you will be making a very big mistake."

Isaac fought to restrain himself, and Mattock remained wary. Still, as a friend he was also feeling very compassionate, understanding how someone in Isaac's unfortunate position might react this way.

"I'm so sorry, Isaac. I can't begin to imagine how difficult all this must be for you, but my hands are tied. As much as I want to help you, there's simply nothing I can do. If I interfere in this in any way, they've threatened to dismantle the entire division."

Isaac felt hot with anger, and scalding tears welled up in his eyes as he found himself pushed away even now, by those he trusted most. He was certain that some ugly, underlying truth was hidden deep inside himself, preparing to burst forth, but either no one would listen or was in a position to do anything about it. Feeling trapped, Isaac stared hopelessly into the eyes of his superior for a long moment. Mattock, at a loss for meaningful words, could only repeat himself.

"Isaac, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Isaac finally sighed in defeat, turned around, and headed for the door without a word. As the door slid open he heard the creak of Mattock's wooden framed chair, and as he stepped over the threshold, he felt Mattock's hand upon his shoulder. He pulled Isaac back into the room, closed the door, and stared at him in a way that sparked Isaac's curiosity.

"I'm a busy man. I have a lot of things on my mind. The workload, the crew, the starport... There are so many ships here, and they're constantly coming and going. Coming and going, Isaac."

Isaac furrowed his brow, as he wasn't quite grasping the point of Mattock's seemingly out-of-context banter.

"There's just no way I can personally keep my eye on every ship that passes through. But at any rate, maybe you should take your mind off things by going back down to the starport... and helping the crew out with the repairs."

Isaac tilted his head dubiously. Mattock nudged him, his tense, darting pupils trying eagerly to convey his message.

"...Do you understand your orders, Isaac?"

Isaac glanced down to the floor in thought, then looked back up at Mattock as his message became clear.

"... Yes. Thank you, Sir."

Mattock acknowledged him with a nod and opened the door, motioning Isaac to exit. Isaac stepped out into the hallway, staring at Mattock with wonder and appreciation. The door slid closed and Isaac stood there, feeling refreshed with confidence, and looking towards the freight elevator that descended to the starport, he headed right for it.

Meanwhile, back in his office, Mattock sat back down and stared solemnly at his desk. He started to seriously contemplate what it was he had just done, and the possible repercussions he might eventually have to answer to from the Council. However, he couldn't help but smile as he saw the light of hope that his meager offering had given Isaac. He knew that he was not hysterical. What Mattock had seen in Isaac's eyes was unmistakable - the aching desperation of a man who clearly understood something that no one else could, and who stood alone against incredible odds. Rubbing his hands together in anxiety as he waited to see what was going to happen, Mattock whipered softly to himself.

"Best of luck to you, Isaac. May you find exactly what it is you're looking for."


	10. Liberation Theology

**Chapter 10  
Liberation Theology**

**_"With your activities dedicated to Me and your mind and intelligence fixed on Me, you will attain Me without doubt."  
- B.G., 8.7_**

* * *

_An incoming call reaches Central Dispatch. Seeing who is on the line, the receiving operator swiftly intercepts it. _

"Director. How can I transfer you?"

_A toneless, hesitant reply follows._

"... Counselor 3A, please."

"... Yes - hold, please..."

_The operator's voice is replaced with transient static as he redirects Mattock's call. A moment later, the cackling old voice of the Counselor fills the airwaves._

"Adrian. Tell me something."

_She falls silent and waits, but Mattock does not reply. Sensing his reluctance, she seeks to reassure him._

"It's alright. You can speak. No one else has access to this line."

_The first she hears of Mattock's voice is a long, winded sigh. Then, he follows with a very short response._

"... It's been done."

_The silence now comes from the Counselor's end._ _Mattock continues._

"He's on his way down to the starport, now. If I know Isaac... it won't be long before he figures something out."

_The old hag raises her voice._

"Good. Cut all communications in or out of your division until I've spoken with the others. This must look as legit as possible, Adrian."

_Mattock again sighs, anxiety plainly evident in his voice, but the Counselor does not seem fazed by his discontent._

"Counselor... we're all going to burn for this... for what we did to him."

"... Duly noted, Director."

_Just before Mattock hangs up, he hears her taunting, heartless closing statement._

"Oh, and Adrian - thank you, for all your help. Despite all your opposition to us, you've done the Council - and the Church - a great service. Altman Be praised."

* * *

The starport's elevator doors opened on the maintenance floor and Isaac quickly strode out, determined to find a way out of the Sprawl. Isaac surveyed the area, glancing from one station to the next to see who was on duty, deliberating over who might pose him the least resistance. His eyes soon fell upon a lone engineer, working at a station a few hundred yards from his position. A small repair shuttle, similar to the Kellion Isaac remembered, was parked at the station he had his eye upon. It was carefully being tended to by Albert Collins, one of the engineers under Isaac's watch with whom he had been acquainted for several years. Isaac grinned deviously, knowing that Collins had always displayed a submissive admiration towards him that would make the engineer easily pliable.

_All Isaac needed was the right words... and the ship would be his._

Being careful to avoid drawing attention to himself, Isaac slipped on his helmet and headed towards Collins's station. He took the long way around the perimeter of the hangar, sticking to the unpopulated, poorer lit paths so few would see him. Collins was deeply involved in welding as Isaac walked up, silent and unnoticed.

_"Need a hand with this thing?"_

Collins was startled by a voice as it cut in over his RIG. He darted his head up, and upon recognizing Isaac's uniquely crafted Tank Suit standing behind him, glistening like tarnished silver in the hangar's flood lights, Collins turned off the welding torch in his hand, stood to his feet and removed his helmet.

"Evening, sir."

Isaac paused and he narrowed his eyes upon Collins. He did not remove his own helmet, but continued to address the engineer through his RIG.

_"I figured I'd come on down and check out what's going on. Need any help?"_

Collins's lips lifted into a smile of relief, glad to see that Isaac was apparently willing to take some of the workload off his shoulders.

"Well sure, can't say I wouldn't appreciate an extra pair of hands. I'm almost done actually, but this welding job is taking longer than I thought."

Isaac stepped closer as Collins pointed to the hull of the shuttle and he examined it in silence, outwardly observing Collins's work but inwardly focused on appraising the ship's condition, whether it was flight-ready. As Isaac slowly walked alongside the shuttle Collins watched him, noting how serious and deliberate Isaac was as he ran his hands down the hull's metal paneling. In the silence that followed, Collins began to think over what little he had overheard about Isaac's tribulations aboard the Ishimura, and the loss of his beloved Nicole. Feeling a little disturbed that he had not had the opportunity to speak his mind up to this point, he cleared his throat.

"Look, Isaac... I'm... I'm sorry about what happened. We all are."

Isaac paused very briefly, but he continued his examination of the ship without looking back.

_"... What happened?"_

Collins shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah. We heard about it... well, we heard some things, anyway."

Isaac's curiosity piqued. It occurred to him that he had never personally heard any of the rumors going around the Sprawl, and he was very interested to hear them now.

_"What, exactly, did you hear?"_

Collins didn't reply right away, still feeling a little dubious about going further into the details of such a sensitive subject. He felt a small pang in his stomach, as if beginning to feel not so well, and he forced a sigh to alleviate his discomfort.

"Well... we heard that you were on the Ishimura when it was attacked."

Isaac now turned his head to look directly at Collins.

_"... Attacked?"_

"Yeah, the terrorist attack."

Isaac was surprised to hear this. He was certain in his heart that he had not been the victim of a terrorist attack, and that Collins and the others had been grossly misinformed. But still suffering a considerable degree of memory loss, Isaac wasn't as certain about that as he would have liked to be. Time lines had become blurred, and his recollection of it all was so corrupted by the years of the Red Marker's delusional post effects and subsequent experimental abuse aboard the Sprawl, that he simply had no way of knowing anymore what was real and what wasn't.

_"...Oh, yeah. I think you're talking about the USM Valor. But, it didn't, I mean, they weren't terrorists."_

Collins raised an eyebrow.

"Well, they say it was overtaken by terrorists, or something. I, I didn't get all the details."

Isaac glanced down in shock as he came to realize that the CEC wasn't being honest about what had happened, and what was probably still happening. While he had suspected all along that cover attempts would be made by those in charge considering the volatile nature of the situation, he had still failed to predict how deeply those attempts would tun, and just how many people would be affected by them. Understanding that the CEC was still putting people in grave danger by denying them the truth, he wanted to be totally honest with Collins, to tell him about all of the horrors, detail for detail, about what he had personally experienced. He wanted to tell him about what he had come to learn about the giant red obelisk that so many had put their lives and their devotion into, and just how haplessly lost in the dark they all really were about the truth... at least, what little he could actually remember of it. But for some reason, he decided against it.

_"... Yeah. Sure... that's uh, that's pretty much it."_

Collins sensed that Isaac wasn't being fully forthcoming, but as the discomfort in his stomach began to spread up his spine and into his head, he left it at that. He changed the subject.

"So... did you really touch it?"

Isaac glanced over Collins's excited expression, which was filled with an almost fanatical admiration and yearning.

_"Touch what?"_

"C'mon, you know what. The Marker."

Isaac didn't respond. Collins stared at him, nodding feverishly.

"Holy shit. You did... That's why they... kept you, isn't it?"

Collins immediately felt Isaac's distress, and understanding that he had put him into a rather awkward position with his imposing questions, Collins relented and again switched subjects - a little less gracefully this time.

"Err, so... fuck... I mean, it's a shame we lost everyone like that."

Isaac slowly nodded, a distant stare upon the floor yards away as his voice echoed through his RIG.

_"Yeah. Lot of people... lost."_

"Even Hammond, and Kendra, too. Man, I worked with them everyday."

Once again, Isaac withdrew into silence. He was inundated by random visions of he and his Kellion teammates as they fought to survive, and he also remembered how the RIG broadcasts of their blanched, frightened faces had for so many hours been his only hope, his only sustenance, his only link to the living. He also found himself deeply moved by the specific memory of Kendra Daniels - the deceitful woman who had attempted to betray him back on the Aegis7 colony - as Collins mentioned her name. Despite the last few minutes they had shared in bitter, heated confrontation there before her untimely death, at this moment Isaac could only revisit the memories he had of a much brighter time in his life, when he and Kendra coexisted on far friendlier terms.

_For what it's worth, you did a great job, Isaac._

Still, to Isaac, Kendra's beauty was permanently tarnished by the warpath of strife and pain that she had burned through his life; not just during the Kellion mission, but under much different circumstances in the past. The two had shared a mutual fascination that, once having matured into a torrid, physical affair between them, had nearly destroyed everything he had built with Nicole - and drove the initial spikes between he and both the women he had loved. To think upon those far more passionate times he spent in secret with Kendra, and the bad blood that was raised after he had ejected her from his life, made him feel all the more conflicted about her death and the way things had ended between them. He had even gone so far as to suspect that despite her alleged EarthGov ties to the Marker extraction project, it was actually the scorned rejection she felt, and the resulting desire for vengeance, that had inspired Kendra to do what she had done on the colony. However, even if that were the case, still Isaac could not bring himself to truly hate her. Even after the seedling of their clandestine passion had been burned to ashes so long ago, he mourned Kendra's death almost as much as Nicole's.

"... Sir?" _  
_

Collins's voice snapped Isaac irritably out of his daze, who this time decided he would be the one to change the subject.

_"So... did you need a hand with this thing, or what?"_

Seeing Isaac was not going to continue discussing the subject with him, Collins took the hint and dropped it entirely; and the moment he did so, the strange, painful throbbing that was plaguing his stomach and head suddenly stopped. Though he had no idea what had come over him Collins just took a deep breath of relief, and feeling revitalized Collins straightened his back, replaced his helmet, and reached for his welding torch.

_"Actually, I'm almost done with this one, everything's checking out okay so far in the diagnostics. But just to be safe, the nav cards should be replaced. You can take care of that while I finish sealing her up."_

Isaac saw that the hatch of the shuttle was open, so he stepped inside to see if anyone else might have been working within it. He looked up into the cockpit and saw that all the controls were lit up green, the engines were primed for ignition and the ship was full of fuel. Isaac then quickly ducked back out of the shuttle and checked the repair lift it was parked upon, to see if it was tethered in any way. Once he confirmed the shuttle was clear, Isaac glanced back at Collins.

_"Sure, I can handle that. Where are they?"_

Collins pointed towards a nearby workbench and resumed his welding, and Isaac slowly made his way over to the bench. He grabbed the anti-static case that contained the nav cards, and as he turned back around to return to the shuttle, he noticed there was a loose plasma charge cartridge upon the bench. A voice, sharp and swift, slipped through is head.

_See? You really should trust me more, Isaac._

Isaac quickly glanced about to ensure no one was watching, and deftly swiped the cartridge up, slipped it into the holster on his belt and carried the nav card case back up into the shuttle. Once inside, he carefully popped open the navigation control panel, installed the nav cards one by one, and tested them to verify they loaded correctly. Collins's voice cut in through Isaac's RIG right after the last card initialized.

_"Alright, that's it. I think this thing is ready for a test run."_

Without a word, Isaac went back up into the cockpit of the shuttle to make one last check of the interior. That's when his eye caught another item of interest - the receiver module of the ship's automatic recall function, between two small metal plates affixed to the control panel. Isaac glanced back to ensure Collins couldn't see him, and with the assistance of his right hand's metal plated gauntlet he quickly pried the module out of its socket. The removal caused the system to emit a warning bleep, which he attempted to conceal by typing in the deactivate codes and speaking a little louder over his RIG at Collins.

_"Uhhh, hey Al - looks like the gravity boosters are running a little low, you want me to raise the threshold?"_

Collins peered around curiously through the open hatch.

_"Really? I dunno, I thought the levels looked fine to me; then again, you know this shit better than I do, so I'll just trust you on that, huh?"_

Isaac stood at the controls, looking for any other signs of irregularity he might need to know about until Collins' spoke up again.

_"Alright let's do it. You want the honors, sir?"_

Collins stepped away from the ship as Isaac activated the main thrusters and the engine roared to life. He kicked the power up a notch above its base idle, and suddenly felt as the shuttle lurched forward a few feet, straining against the lift. He grinned darkly as he heard Collins through his RIG.

_"Whoa there! Careful, she isn't tied down!"_

The lift began to creak against the weight as the engines continued to gain momentum, and concerned that Isaac might not have heard his warning Collins now leapt onto the shuttle. He turned towards the cockpit, where he found Isaac seated at the controls.

_"Hey, I said the ship ain't -"_

Sensing Collins behind him, Isaac suddenly turned about in the pilot's seat and retracted his visor to expose his face. The moment he met direct eye contact with Collins Isaac just stared at him, latching onto him with a deep, penetrating glare that immediately reprised the sickness Collins had felt earlier. The pain forced Collins to freeze in his tracks, then as his constitution crumbled, he started to slowly retreat from Isaac's position, taking small, fearful steps backwards towards the shuttle's open hatch. Collins was utterly perplexed and disturbed by the apprehension he had suddenly developed for his superior, and his physical distress was obvious even concealed behind his helmet, but Isaac neglected to hear any of the man's timid groans as he sputtered foaming saliva and fought to remain on his feet. Isaac could not hear anything except for the modulations of that intimately familiar voice, taunting him from inside his head.

_You have nothing to fear from this man, or from any of them, Isaac. They are all ours to control. _

Isaac's parted his lips to speak in a dark, tense, and commanding voice that somehow seemed to subjugate Collins beneath the gravity of it.

"I'm taking this ship."

He watched as the confidence and life drained from Collins's face like water through the cracks in desert soil. Overcome by something inside him Collins faltered in his steps, stumbling backwards as he raised his hands to Isaac in surrender.

_"... Ok... you're, you're taking the ship. Ok. Ok."_

Isaac slowly rose to his feet, and as his shadow stretched across the cabin to engulf him the young engineer cowered even more impotently. Though he could not explain it logically, Collins began to think that somehow Isaac himself was the cause of his steadily rising sickness; feeling unable to confront him in his dwindling condition, Collins stumbled back out of the hatch as Isaac started to close in on him, intimidating him through his captivating dark stare. As soon as Collins was clear of the shuttle Isaac immediately sealed the hatch and jumped back into the pilot's seat.

Isaac peered out the front window in order to quickly calculate how much room he had for liftoff, then carefully engaged the thrusters a little saw just outside the window as Collins limped towards the front of the shuttle, waving to Isaac in what appeared to be almost a panic before he collapsed upon the floor. Several engineers across the way looked up as the sounds of the shuttle's engines filled the starport, but their lack of impetus to intervene was evident, even as they glanced over their fallen comrade on the floor. Though Isaac knew he had little to fear from his rather nonchalant and unconcerned co-workers, still he considered it would be wise to make his move before someone did actually try to stop him. He strapped himself into the pilot's seat and set the controls to full throttle.

"Ok... Here we go."

His fingers danced across the holographic keypad of the controls, inputting the codes to access the starport's central control system. Isaac had no idea how he might have had the authorization codes memorized, for his restricted clearance had clearly barred him from obtaining such information; but directing all of his focus on his escape he overlooked this perplexing mystery for the time being. The vessel eagerly jumped off the maintenance lift, it's steel frame screeching and bellowing beneath the force of liftoff as Isaac carefully piloted the craft up into the open air. Once he was free of the lift, he directed his sights towards the sealant grid that lined the starport's outer perimeter, separating the interior of the vacuous depths of space outside and providing the only means to get in and out. He set his flight path and shot straight out of the station, using the authorization codes to slip past the grid. The brief disruption in the field caused by the shuttle sent a strong wind of decompression throughout the entire starport, raising curious heads all over.

"Fuckin' easy."

At that moment, the control panel in front of Isaac began to flash wildly. Someone was trying to retrieve the ship via the automatic recall function, but the module Isaac had removed prevented their attempts. He smiled at the flashing orange warning light; though he knew that he had caught everyone off-guard and that Adrian Mattock's back was turned to the events, still Isaac was a bit surprised to see just how little resistance he was faced with while trying to escape. The longer he thought about it the more disappointed it made him, as he partially hoped in some way that his adventure would have proven to be somewhat more challenging.

Taking aim for a bright star in the distance that he recognized, Isaac set the coordinates that stood out in his mind, and the shuttle engaged its course. The endless chanting he heard in the back of his mind sweetly enveloped him, and he never looked back; for even in the complete isolation of the shuttle's cockpit, Isaac knew that he was not alone.

He was definitely not alone.


	11. Exploited On All Fronts

**Chapter 11  
E****xploited On All Fronts**

**_"All purposes served by a small well can at once be served by a great reservoir of water."  
- B.G., 2.46_**

* * *

The Counselor's cold, haggard eyes scanned the cosmic void just outside her chamber's thick paned, polarized window with ardent excitement, her eyes bouncing between each and every starlit pinhole she saw embroidering the endless blanket of space. She hardly regarded the small entourage of council members, including Dr. Werren, lining the perimeter of her chamber from the shadows in silent observation.

Over an hour had passed since Director Mattock's low keyed call, and the anticipation had been standing erect on the tip of her tongue since with the intensity of a subarctic icicle. However, the Counselor was astonished to find that no crises of any real significance had been raised during that time. No one aboard, no matter how watchful of an eye they might have had, seemed to be aware of any of the events she suspected to be unfolding within the starport, and she hesitantly began to question whether or not Mattock had been accurate in his timing. In fact, all she did notice was an infectious sense of triviality and apathy, seemingly shared and spreading rapidly among the entire population, that turned their eyes and ears away from anything apart from their personal duties aboard the station. Of course, she was confident that Mattock had followed her implicit instructions to temporarily cut and intercept all communications bound both in and out of the entire sector. Still, though she could only imagine the repercussions of the actions Isaac might resort to in order to facilitate his escape, she was surprised to see that _nothing _had come to light outside of her office, even through the most discreet of channels. Not even a random, spontaneous report from P-Sec. She and her closest companions were all who knew of these ominous events. _Them, and..._

"Hmm."

The Counselor was suddenly distracted by the intruding alarm of her RIG, informing her of an arrival at the door to her chambers. She immediately glanced down to answer the call, and rolled her eyes as she right away recognized the pink, piggish skin of the Overseer's wrinkled old face heated with anger upon the holomonitor. The rather discouraging look of his expression was quickly followed by the thick, pounding echoes of his fists as he hammered furiously upon her door. She twisted her lip and took a long, deep sigh in an effort to prolong the imminent meeting she dreaded, then locking a hard, emotionless expression of pure professionalism upon her face she eventually turned towards the door and remote opened it.

"Overseer. Wasn't it just a moment ago that I called you? I didn't know you could move so quickly."

The Overseer marched into the room and everyone present save for the Counselor herself glanced up in surprise. He ignored them, stamped right up to the front of her desk and began shouting uproariously with shaking fists.

"What the _hell_ is going on, Counselor?"

He paused, waited for a response; but impatient with rage and irked by the odd, taunting little smile that graced her drab, lifeless lips, he simply couldn't wait more than a few seconds.

"What was Isaac Clarke doing back in Mining Operations? You said I could trust you... You said you had his appeal under control! And then, the nerve you have... you fail to keep him contained! How _dare_ you! What are we supposed to do? What do you honestly think our superiors are going to say when they hear about this??"

The Counselor just listened, remaining undisturbed, solid and confident. It was obvious she had been precipitating a response along these lines, and had been doing nothing more than waiting for him to finish.

"I felt it was time Isaac be allowed to return to his normal course of duty. I thought it would do him good - make him more cooperative if he thought we were acting with real concern for him in mind. I'm sorry, I... I suppose I trusted him too much."

The Overseer's eyes widened until the Counselor considered that his glassy, gelatinous spheres might fall right out of their sockets.

"Trusted him? Why would you be trusting him _at all, _Madam?? And don't give me that 'timely, humane release' bullshit. We're bound to no timetables. Even if someone did miss him, our authority overrides! You _know_ that complete, diplomatic immunity was signed over to us!"

Werren's face immediately shot up, his expression taut with shock, and his eyebrows fell into thick lines of antique white wire. _Complete diplomatic immunity? __That's not what the Counselor had been telling him. _He became stunned to learn she had obviously been lying to him; however, afraid to interrupt the Overseer's fervent beration of his star pupil and partner, Werren remained silent, listening intently as they bickered back and forth.

"Mattock will be brought in for questioning. He was entrusted with Isaac's containment on record. He'll be the one who has to answer to this. Nothing has changed, Sir!"

"No, no... this is all falling apart... This isn't how Carthusia would have handled it, Madam. He would have never left room for mistakes like this!"

"With all due respect, sir - Carthusia is dead. So are his ideals. We only have right here, right now to work with. This is it, Sir. This is real. There _are _no mistakes. Not in any of this. _Please_ see that."

The Overseer was stunted by her words, and she seized the opportunity to continue smoothing him over. With her fingers she straightened her scattered, silver hair against the side of her head, then returned with a much calmer tone.

"It's time we finally fulfill our obligation to the Church. The government may have fallen short in retrieving the Marker, but that was to be expected. They are, after all, the government. Where they failed, I believe Isaac will succeed."

At the Overseer's unbroken silence she swiveled around in her chair and again stared out the dark tinted window of her chamber.

"The Church is looking for a way to retrieve the Marker, but they just don't understand that there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. What we need is a key, a representative to act on our behalf. I believe Isaac is that key."

The Overseer paused. Though the old woman's selfish way of thinking had apparently promoted her to act on a level of independence that defied his own position above her, he still knew that her speech came from a reliable platform of intuition that he could not do without. He ultimately agreed within himself that there was genuine purpose behind her decisions; still, he sensed a sort of mad ambition behind her eyes, and his concerns now included the idea that the Church was hanging by a mere thread at the dictation of her own whims. To him, their entire operation had been blindly placed in the hands of a renegade engineer whom he considered to be an untrustworthy, delusional test subject, despite the Counselor's own strange endearment and faith in him. Certainly Isaac had had far more intimate contact with the Red Marker than any other survivor rescued up to this point, but regardless, the Overseer just couldn't understand the significance of the connection. He stuttered.

"M... Madam, I..."

His heavy, frustrated breathing stood out in sharp contrast to the otherwise silent environment. At a loss for words and not knowing how else to continue, the Overseer simply turned back around and stormed out of the Counselor's office. After the door slid shut behind him the Counselor wasted no further time in meditation upon the events that had just transpired, but instead immediately turned to a stack of hastily hand scribbled notes piled precariously upon her desk. As if inspired by some obsessive desire she quickly picked up a pen and began feverishly scribbling across the topmost page in the pile. Dr. Werren watched her carefully, then took the moment to deliberate upon what he had just witnessed and learned for himself. He sat in his chair, poised in thought, then turned to address the remaining awestruck council members present.

"Ladies, gentlemen... Would you excuse us, please?"

The others glanced at Werren, then to the Counselor as if awaiting her approval. Without even looking she waved her hand to dismiss them, and they all immediately obeyed, quietly filing out of the room. Once the Counselor and Werren were alone together, the seriously perturbed doctor rose to his feet and approached the old woman's desk.

"You knew about this. You knew... all along... didn't you? I should have known... those dreams of yours. That's why you approved the appeal in the first place. Despite my advice, the outstanding evidence... you played the numbers, because you knew what they would be. You knew what was going to happen._ And you lied to me about it._"

The Counselor ceased her fervent scribbling, and looked up at the Doctor.

"Alex, my job here is very simple. I make sure that our operations, and more importantly, _our mission_ - stays procedural and to the book. However, don't forget that my greatest obligation lies with the Church, as does yours. Whatever I must do to see to it that those ends are met, I cannot ignore. We are the balance, Alex. The CEC wants to stay clean, the Church wants to stay clean... but at the same time, they each hold the resources the other needs to accomplish our mission. _Together._ Therefore, my duty is to see to it that both institutions are utilized to the fullest extent possible. If that means a few... misdirected words here and there to keep everything flowing smoothly, so be it."

Werren blinked dubiously.

"So... you're just... going to let Mattock take the fall for this? To keep the USM from coming down on _you_, you're just going to throw Adrian under the wheels instead? And you expect me to follow along without resistance?"

"I expect you to know your place in all of this, Alex. And to trust me. There's more to it than you realize."

Werren just sighed, choosing his next words very carefully.

"Look... I won't say I'm not inclined to agree with you - I understand the future this Marker holds for all of us. You know that I am just as supportive of the Church as any of the Vested class. But this is going too far. What we're doing here isn't Unitology... Not in the light of Michael Altman, at any rate. Unitology is faith in something beyond ourselves. But what's happening here... this is not faith. It's just madness... unrestrained greed and obsession over an artifact that we have no control over... no real understanding of!"

The Counselor snorted indignantly, and enunciated her words with aggravation.

"I agree that _you_ may not understand it, Alex. But there are those who do. We must not impede them."

Werren still shook his head, not at all convinced.

"All our attempts to retrieve the Marker have ended in nothing but pure bloodshed, and now... you've appointed this, this... _infectant_... as your 'key'. Who knows what Isaac will do with the Red Marker once he returns to Aegis7? Do you really think he's going to just... hand it over to us, if it doesn't destroy him first?"

The Counselor's expression grew darker, and she glanced down in a vaporous moment of consideration.

"... You just let me worry about that."

Werren, who up to this point had had the greatest confidence in the Counselor's work despite his numerous disagreements in the past, was now finding it harder to continue supporting her. He shook his head as he began to think about the past several weeks of hard work he and his staff had devoted to Isaac's case, and what she might have actually had in mind for their results. None of it had sparked him to anticipate any of this. His confusion spiraled deeper into frustration with her oddly clandestine behavior that seemed duplicitous to everyone on all sides.

"I don't understand. If it was your intention to see him released all along, then what was the point of the memory reduction procedures? These methods have never been tested for permanency... not that that matters. Everything will come back to him once he gets back to Aegis7 and sees it again. All of our work will have been for absolutely nothing."

"Our work does not go in vain, Alex. I suspect the drugs won't have a permanent effect; the Marker itself is too powerful. I just figured that it might be best if Isaac returned to Aegis7, with, uh, with a clean slate."

"A clean slate, Madam?"

"We couldn't afford the contamination of personal attachments he may have had. At least this way, he will reach Aegis7 with nothing but the welfare of the Marker in mind, and not any selfish gain."

Werren was not comforted by the Counselor's explanation. His lack of faith in her radical suggestions was surpassed solely by the distrust he had for Isaac.

"I'm not so sure that's the case, Madam."

She became quickly disinterested in the Doctor's concerns.

"Werren, to be honest, you're lack of confidence is not surprising. Despite our decades of working together on this project, still your resistance to my cause does not disrupt me. It all boils down to a very simple choice for you - either you're on board with this, or you aren't. What's your decision? If you like, you can step down right now, and I'll even dismiss you with an honorable mention."

Werren was clearly backed against a wall. All along he had been led to believe that the Counselor had seen him as a partner, a trusted ally and equal on the ground of deciding the Church's actions. But now, he slowly realized that he was simply being used to accomplish her own subversive goals - just as Isaac was, just as the Council was... even the Overseer. He couldn't help but feel that her perspective would not be one held in high regard by the rest of her fellow Unitologists, were they to know of it. However, having no other recourse than to comply for the time being, he sighed deeply.

"No... Madam. I'll stay, I'll see this all the way through to the end, right next to you. I just hope you're right, for everyone's sake."

"You have nothing to fear, Werren. God is quickly on the way. Our salvation, our Ascension... is at hand. Altman Be Praised."

The Counselor nodded coldly, then looked down to her writing without further response. Werren took the moment of silence that fell between them to glance down at the paper she was so anxiously engaged in, and his eyes scraped analytically across the marks - numerous, illegible scribblings, which he had originally thought to be shorthand notes based on the discussion, actually appeared now to be cryptic, indecipherable runes. They were archaic and circular in design, written in the same language that he had seen so many times before in the documents retrieved from the Ishimura, from the Colony.

_The messages of the Marker, filling every inch of blank space on the page. _

His eyes widened with fear as he now seriously began to reconsider the validity of the Counselor's mental state, but afraid to even reply to her final statement, he merely dismissed himself from the room. While the Counselor remained unresponsive in any way towards him the entire time, the very moment the door slid shut her eyes immediately shot up, her scribbling momentarily ceased and a tiny, inciteful grin crept across her face. After a while her eyes eventually drifted back towards her large, exposing window, staring out into the deep void of space, searching.


	12. Auribus Tenere Lupum

**Chapter 12  
****Auribus Tenere Lupum**  


**_"O chief of the Bharatas, know that whatever you see in existence, both the moving and the nonmoving, is only a combination of the field of activities and the knower of the field."  
- B.G., 13.27_**

* * *

**then the traveler in the dark**

A frigid, pitch black space, devoid of light and cold enough to freeze ether itself into ice, was all that existed in every direction. Isaac could neither see nor feel anything, nor barely even move; indeed, hearing proved to be the only useful one of his senses in this place.

**thanks you for your little spark**

He tried to look around, but could not determine which way was up or down, left or right. Unable to navigate the endless expanse he simply clung helplessly to the nothingness, suspended like a small, floating island by the strings of invisible forces, and he stared into the darkness.

**he could not see which way to go...**

Out of the corner of his eye he suddenly noticed a tiny, distant star as it gradually faded into existence from somewhere light years away. He turned toward it, allured by its gentle, scintillating flare paired perfectly with the rhythmic tones of an intimately familiar voice.

**if you did not twinkle... so**

* * *

Isaac bolted awake to the sound of the altimeter alarm sounding loudly throughout the cabin. He wiped the sweat of deep sleep from his forehead, checked the controls and looked out the front window to find he was in the midst of stormy atmospheric cloud cover, blinded by the desert sunlight reflecting off its thick, impenetrable brume.

Upon recognition of the hostile environment he recalled the final tangible memories of his original escape from Aegis7, and how he had witnessed as the planet cork, freed of its tethers, fell back to the surface with the impact of meteorological armageddon. He blanched with astonishment, having all along partially expected to arrive at the threshold of an empty void where Aegis7 once existed, but now all he saw totally invalidated everything he had come to believe. He again checked the controls to ensure he had in fact arrived at the proper coordinates, then quickly overrode the automatic pilot. He gripped the controls, and after several seconds the clouds parted upon the ship's descent through the final layers.

The ground below faded into view, and he could see the darkened, mile-wide, man made dent of the crater, casting its cancerous, spherical shadow across the landscape. He also saw the planet cork as he passed it, still fully intact and bound to the monolithic gravity tether machines that lined the crater's edge. Finally, with absolute disbelief, he saw the abandoned Colony - the weathered, sandblasted steel walls of the main complex and the deserted loading dock. Everything, apart from a few scattered pieces of debris tossed carelessly about by the raging winds, seemed lifeless.

_But how? The entire planet was destroyed. He had seen it with his own eyes... _

Isaac scanned the planet's perimeter as far as he could, searching for some sign of the Ishimura. However, as the data reports from the ship's scanners came back negative, he glanced down in a moment of wild concern.

_Had it actually disappeared? Had he been seeing things then... or was he seeing things now?_

Isaac maneuvered the ship towards the Colony and touched down upon the dock. As the engines choked and the cabin fell into a pocket of dead silence, the constant chanting in the back of his mind pounded against his skull. He sat still as stone in the pilot's seat with eyes closed, listening to the voices as they echoed throughout his head and filled him with a intuitive sense of direction - and a deeply seeded uneasiness. His burning desire to come back had been fulfilled, but he became inexplicably vexed by the bitter reality of his choice to flee the Sprawl.

He opened his eyes in response to a distant, reverberating wail he heard on the desert wind.

_There was no turning back... Shit._

Isaac stood up and cautiously made his way toward the exit hatch. He ran a full diagnostics test of the suit's functions, partially out of hesitation to depart from the safety of the ship. He drew his plasma cutter, retrieved the cartridge he had stolen from the Sprawl and loaded it. He sighed with disappointment.

_It wasn't even fully charged._

Isaac moved slowly, making every second count before inevitably marching out into the hands of some unknown death that awaited his arrival. Before donning his helmet he quickly expelled all of the air from his lungs and drew another breath of equal capacity, relishing the moment as he feared he might not again have the chance to do so in such a state of isolated peace. After a brief moment of solemn meditation, Isaac resealed his helmet and braced himself against the metal door frame, clenching the cutter tightly in his hands. Already, he could feel the sweat building up on his palms within his gloves. He opened the exit hatch and stepped out.

The very moment his boot touched the ground the endless harassment of chanting he had been listening to receded and vanished, replaced by a vacant, painful ringing. Isaac immediately stopped in his tracks and waited for it to come back, but the voices failed to return - at least, for the time being. In their absence, the doubt he felt only intensified as he came to realize just how dependent he had become upon their tranquilizing, tonal fluctuations to guide him, to keep him focused. He looked around warily, feeling more and more like an injured gazelle trapped amongst a tribe of invisible lions.

_He was out in the open. Now, he was fair game._

Keeping his firing arm raised and ready, Isaac again looked around him in all directions. For miles the land surrounding the planet crater was barren, empty and desolate with only the few, eroding Colony structures and technological relics left to accompany it. Although it could not have been more than a few years at the most since he had last been to Aegis7, it appeared that decades had taken their toll.

The buildings and mining machines were quickly becoming extinct beneath the merciless climate. Everything was far more delicate than he had remembered, and the sight of the loading dock was an absolute breeding ground for the grotesque. Black, dried pools of blood and gore glimmered grimly in the sunlight, and hanging off the edge of the dock was a very large, decaying chunk of biomass - one of the Hive Mind's severed tentacles, still rotting with unconscionable virility even after all this time.

Everywhere he turned he saw the insanely scribed Marker graffiti lining almost every visible inch of space across the complex walls and dock, carved, scratched and written in blood, chalk, and other substances he couldn't identify. Isaac shivered as he came to realize that, somehow despite there being no one left alive here besides perhaps the unseen necromorphs still dwelling throughout the complex, there seemed to be many more messages written about than he could recall.

_It was obvious. Even now, he was not alone. _

Deterred from the idea of staying out in the open any longer, he decided it was time to head into the complex to start his search.

_His search for whoever... whatever he was looking for._

Isaac made his way down the dock, following the transport tracks that led up to the main complex doors. He slowed as the sound of his boots crushing gravel into dust echoed angrily off the walls of rock and steel, screaming out his position to anyone who might have been interested. He grumbled to himself, as again the words rolled through his mind.

_He was not alone._

He approached the maintenance access door and tried to open it, but found it was locked. Understanding now that he required an alternate solution, Isaac turned about and entered the abandoned control station just across the way.

He tried to access the security system to deactivate the locks, but almost none of the dust-layered kiosks were working due to what seemed like ages of neglect. Frustrated after multiple failed attempts, Isaac finally managed to get one up and running. Strangely enough, he was troubled by an inability to recall the proper operation syntax to interact with the mainframe, even though he had personally designed and implemented similar systems throughout planetary colonies such as this one in the past. While briefly embarrassed by his unexplained amnesia, he eventually massaged his way into the system and overrode the lockdown throughout the complex.

_He just got here. And already, everything was battling him. Why did he come back here, anyway? What was he looking for?  
_

Isaac tapped the holoscreen to close the system with a hint of irritation and stepped back outside. As he returned to the maintenance access to enter the complex, Isaac began to wonder exactly why it was that he had come back; he had been so wrapped up in the anxiety of his escape that the actual impetus for his reckless course of action had not even occurred to him. With his head still pounding, Isaac decided to start with something simple. Something essential.

_The Marker._

A fuzzy memory of his final encounter with Kendra Daniels - the one who had betrayed him to get her hands on the Marker - suddenly flashed into his mind like the glimpse of a photograph. Recalling now that she had dragged it back to the loading dock, he shot one last glance around the entire perimeter. It obviously wasn't there, and he figured that the main complex was as good a place as any to search. Still, he couldn't figure out how something as large and inert as the Marker might have been moved again, as most likely no one else with a vested interest in it had been there in his absence. Then again, the fact that the Colony... or Aegis7... still existed at all after what he had seen of its destruction was puzzling in itself. He darted a sharp side glance down the dock.

_What the hell was going on?_

Again, as he turned to enter the complex, Isaac heard the menacing calls of Aegis7's alien inhabitants echoing across the landscape, confirming that the Colony was still under the necromorphs' bloodthirsty reign. He quickly opened the access door and paused in the doorway, taking advantage of the sunlight flooding in from behind to assist in illuminating his way, and he aimed directly ahead with two defensive hands upon his plasma cutter. Once he saw the immediate route was clear he stepped in, knowing all the while in the back of his mind just how suicidal his unhealthy obsession with Aegis7 was about to prove itself.

Immediately it became strikingly clear that he was not the only living thing in there. The viral, twisted formations of the necromorph virus still clinging to the walls like ancient limestone growths were the first to capture his attention, crying fresh with blood and other vile matter. He followed the ghastly entrails with his eyes as they transmogrified into quivering tentacles of rotten flesh, branching seamlessly to stretch across everything with the tenacity of spider vines. The endless networks intertwined with and assimilated each other to form larger, unified masses that wrapped around the entire building's steel structure, weaving in and out of the broken windows and long defunct ventilation shafts like the trunk and branches of some gigantic, unearthly tree.

The sudden danger of what had grown and spread exponentially while he had been away from the Colony struck Isaac with wonder, and he understood the infection was still very much thriving here. Shaking his head to clear the heated, burning sweat from his eyes he waded across the room through ankle deep biomatter, and he tried his best to tune out the sickening sounds of sinew popping beneath the weight of his boots - a sound surprisingly loud and clear even from within the stifling metal cage of his helmet.

_Someone, something, was watching him_...

Isaac looked up with alarm and aimed his cutter towards the ceiling as he suddenly heard the clatter of falling debris. Through the dirt smeared flashlight beam of his plasma cutter he saw a small shaft of metal piping falling to the floor from high above through plumes of stagnant dust.

_... Now, he was sure of it._

He stepped back to ensure his not being in the path of the falling object to cause him any injury. In doing so he noticed how increasingly restrictive his suit felt, and beginning to contemplate how much his range of motion and vision might have been compromised by the fabrication flaws of it, he began to feel a little unsafe. He fought to resist a dangerously illogical desire to tear it off in the face of stifling, claustrophobic panic, and he couldn't understand why he suddenly felt such insecurity. He had been so anxious, so brazen, so avid to come back... _to come home... _and yet all of his premonition and confidence had done nothing to prepare him. Beginning to doubt the validity of his own judgment, he bit his lip.

_What was wrong with him?_

As he passed a small cargo storage closet to his right, he by chance glanced up at it - and suddenly saw a dark face, red-eyed and riddled with scars of extreme mutation, glaring back at him. Isaac's eyes shot wide and he quickly raised his plasma cutter, taking dead aim with it upon the spot. In the blink of an eye however, the face had vanished along with the rest of its distorted, phantasmal figure.

_What the... _

Isaac tensed as he came to recognize the abominable visage_._ He cocked his head, and pulling the cutter a little closer to his chest he took a few slow, deliberate steps towards the spot where he had seen it, intent to investigate. He peered aggressively into every corner he could see, but he found no one, nothing of interest.

**beware the illusion isaac**

He turned sharply about at a voice, deep and penetrating as it resounded through his head. Irked by the uncomfortable itching of his sweat soaked skin as it stuck to the inside of his suit, Isaac continued to search for his invisible stalker through the darkness.

**to follow the path of another though perfect one's actions may be in the attempt is far more dangerous than to follow one's own even if the effort is full of fault**_  
_

Not only was Isaac thoroughly unnerved by the presence of someone he couldn't see, but its cryptic talk cast a shadow over him both great and foreboding.

**you must make us whole**

Isaac's grip upon his plasma cutter began to slacken. He recognized the voice... albeit barely.

**time to converge you must let go**

Isaac waited, but nothing, no one ever emerged to reveal itself. Listening to the empty, dead static inside his head, Isaac continued to wait until he could stand still no longer.

_Time was of the essence. He had to move on.  
_

Isaac finally turned away from his search, hoping that it had been merely another one of the Marker's hallucinations that plagued him. With a hardened stare ahead of him, he continued his trek across the cargo bridge towards the other side of the room.

The very next moment Isaac was deafened by the sounds of shattering glass and crushing metal just feet from his position, all of which was quickly followed by a brief lapse of consciousness as he was unexpectedly bashed from behind and knocked to the floor. He came to his senses shortly after to find himself face down on the ground, lying at the edge of a large, fresh hole bored right through the flooring as if something had burrowed its way into the complex, and he could feel his nose and forehead were painfully bruised and wet with blood inside his helmet. As the blinding whiteness receded he felt the burn of his face was now accompanied by an excruciating pain in his back from the blow he had received, and through muffled ears he barely detected the heavy, phlegm-laden breaths of something very powerful closing in on him.

Isaac immediately remembered the face he had just seen, and as he turned around he saw it... a necromorph of colossal proportions glowering at him.

_A brute...  
_

Towering over Isaac, the brute trampled toward him like a titan enraged. Yet, while at a glance many traits were familiar, including its massive, powerhouse physique, multiple bodily limbs and blades, and wild, murderous behavior, it became very apparent as it neared that this necromorph had evolved into something else since Isaac had last seen one. No longer a degenerative, rotting amalgamation of dead flesh drenched in blood, the brute had become closely hominal in appearance with smooth, dark skin that covered its entire body and concealed the exposed organs and other ghastliness that was otherwise indicative of the breed. It's head had developed into a single, unified mass bearing cohesive facial expressions, long, razor sharp fangs and a pair of deep set, glimmering red eyes that burned straight through Isaac's visor as he stared back, and its bodily movements were much more swift, articulate and coordinated than any other necromorph he had ever encountered. Isaac found himself just as unprepared now as he was when he had first stepped foot aboard the Ishimura and he panicked, trying desperately to recall how to dispatch this vile monster.

_Stop._

Instinct took hold of him and Isaac rapidly raised his right arm, activated his stasis device and unloaded the entire cartridge at the loathsome monster before it had the chance to make its move. Its skin began to crystallize and turn ivory white upon contact with the vaporous cloud of electrified liquid nitrogen concentrate that froze the outer layer, checking the brute's movement. Seeing it was under the effect of stasis and temporarily at his mercy, Isaac quickly ran behind the partially frozen beast, finally recalling its weak spot. Aiming for the base of the exposed spinal column, Isaac pulled the plasma cutter's trigger and shot several rounds into it. However, he was shocked to see the plasma take virtually no effect upon the brute; the super heated energy was merely absorbed by its thick, evolved skin, proving harmless. Isaac realized now with great concern that the brute had become invincible to the weaponry made available to him, and he was trapped with no known way to stop it.

_Dammit!_

As his eyes darted frantically around in search of a way out, Isaac caught sight of an elevator shaft across the way. He belted his cutter, seeing as it obviously would be of no use to him here, and he decided it was time to abandon the offense. He took off.

Isaac felt disoriented as he ran, stumbling over broken cargo crates that littered the walkway and trying to get as far away from the brute as possible before the effect of the stasis wore off. His facial wounds were throbbing, and he felt the slick, warm layer of blood sliding down his skin as the pounding of his heart forced it out of him. As he progressed he became increasingly aware of the additional weight of his Tank Suit, realizing he was not able to run as fast as he could in the much lighter standard edition, and he quietly cursed its manufacturer for not having taken this into account.

_Oh God, please... _

By this point the creature had shaken off the stasis and with large, galloping leaps it charged forth, closing the gap between them within a matter of seconds. Isaac could feel the brute's heated breath singing his back, and his body was agonizingly shaken by its loud, penetrating roar from behind. Still Isaac kept running, even as the floor shook beneath his feet and the brute's towering shadow swallowed him whole, until he was once again slapped by its massive, fused fist from behind with such velocity that he tumbled forth violently for several dozen feet, finally rolling to a stop upon the floor.

Too stunned to physically react Isaac lay still upon his back, feigning lifelessness in the hopes of deceiving the brute. However, the keen monster was undeterred, and seeing his ploy wasn't working Isaac opened his eyes just in time to see the monster right above him. It's looming figure threatened him like an impending avalanche, and it stared hard at Isaac for a long moment, refraining from making any further advancement in spite of its infuriated desire to destroy him. This hesitation immediately struck Isaac as odd for a necromorph, but the glimmer in its eyes suggested something more profound - the brute was apparently making some attempt to communicate, as if seeking to convey something to Isaac. He bent an eyebrow at this, the words barely escaping his lips.

"... Wh... what do you want?"

As if in response, the brute slowly raised its long, stalwart arms above its head, clamped its fists together and with full force hammered them down in an attempt to crush Isaac to death. He swiftly rolled to the side just in time to avoid it, and the beast smashed through several feet of steel framework. Isaac quickly attempted to crawl his way to safety, however he was unable to outmaneuver the beast as it stepped forth, grabbed him by the back of his RIG, and lifted him up off the floor effortlessly like a rag doll. Isaac panicked and cried out.

"Hey, hey hey_ hey!_"

He suddenly felt a sharp, intense pressure building up on his spine as the brute gripped him with both of its hands, and he feared it might literally tear him in half. Completely helpless in mid air Isaac became fully immersed in the deepest pocket of unrelenting terror, wildly flailing his limbs in a futile attempt to break free. The brute, who found the small, insignificant form of Isaac to be no heavier than the twig of a bush in its grasp, continued to raise him higher and higher until the unfortunate man found himself dangling directly over the beast's head, more than forty feet off the floor.

"Agh, let me go, let me go, you _fucker!"_

Literally face to face with the nightmarish necromorph Isaac could only watch as the brute's long, protruding fangs scraped against his visor, leaving long scratches across the glass and its thick, smoky breath condensed upon the plates. Coming to understand there was no possibility of escaping, heated tears of frustration and failure slid from his eyes, mingling with the blood that covered his face and blinded him.

_What evil, wanton desire had lured him all this way, through such strife, only to have him die now, not even an hour after he arrived? Was there no purpose to all of this?_

Other than out of intensely crazed desperation to break free, Isaac had no idea why the thought crossed his mind. What he was about to do had to be the most insane and endangering decision he had ever made in his entire life; still, something invoked him to leave behind his fear. He slowly reached up, disengaged his helmet and retracted the visor, exposing his bare face before the brute, and he stared at it.

**stop**

Much to Isaac's astonishment, the brute slowly began to come under the grip of some catatonic, trance-like state and froze on the spot. This complete cessation eerily reminded Isaac of his run-ins with Daniel White, Albert Collins, and many of the others back aboard the Sprawl, as he started to sense the same aura of abdication in this brute that he had in them. Isaac was puzzled beyond compare by this; something... _something beyond him.._. was speaking out and taking control of his enemy. Isaac could only stare back with a fear that began to shift into a morbid curiosity.

"... So... where uhh, where do we go from here?"

Isaac could clearly see the beast's rage and aggression were declining. He held his breath, watching this mystic phenomena take hold of the brute, and seeing the brief opportunity to turn the tables in his favor, Isaac silently raised his cutter and at point-blank range shot the brute in the one area devoid of any protection - its face.

Five solid lines of heated plasma tunneled through the monster's head, and its skull erupted in a boiling explosion of blood and brain matter thick as tar. The close proximity reflected the intense heat of the plasma blast back across Isaac's hand, penetrating the glove with enough heat to burn his skin within it and forcing him to drop the tool. The brute reared back, devastated by the attack. It clutched at its partially destroyed, smoldering head, dropping Isaac in the process. He was slammed to the ground with the weight of an anchor, but somehow he managed to pull himself away from the enraged hellion just as it wrapped its thick arms about itself and curled into an indestructible ball on the floor in defense.

Knowing this was his one and only chance to escape, Isaac arduously rose to his feet, grabbed his fallen plasma cutter and limped for the elevator. Though his heart was striking the inside of his rib cage with such expenditure he feared it might give out on him at any moment, he never once stopped until he reached the elevator doors. He pounded on the call button angrily with his fist and turned a wary eye back to the monster, who was still coiled into a tight ball of thick, impervious hide.

**when the blazing sun is gone**

The beast began to recover within a matter of seconds. Isaac looked down through the broad wire cage of the elevator shaft, furiously kicking the metal grate and swearing viciously as he watched the car below creep up the shaft at a snail's pace. He was running out of time - the brute had by this point fully unwrapped itself and risen to its feet. Spotting Isaac's position it began to stomp its way across the room towards him, hardly hindered by its partially mutilated head. Backed against the elevator doors with no where to run, Isaac raised his plasma cutter and took aim even knowing it would prove to be useless. His scalded hand began to throb unbearably, but he just kept his eyes locked on the creature as it closed in, and he unwillingly prepared to brush sides with death a second time. With a failing outlook on the odds of his survival, he squeezed his eyes shut.

**when the nothing shines upon**

It took him a moment to realize that everything had suddenly fallen quiet around him. The tumultuous, thundering sounds of the brute's approach fell away, along with the force of its breath upon the air between them. Spurred to open his eyes Isaac saw with much astonishment that the brute had stopped dead in its tracks just yards away from him, swaying back and forth upon its knees and displaying a reluctance to approach. His miserable expectancy of a rather brutal death melted away and he stretched his neck a bit, glancing around with uncertainty as he attempted to figure out what had caused the brute to stop.

A few seconds later, he heard the ping signaling the elevator's arrival, and he growled.

"... About fucking time... piece of shit."

The doors opened and Isaac cautiously backed into the elevator, never once taking his eyes off the brute. Amazingly it did not make any further advancement upon him, even after the doors slid shut and the car began to descend, and they maintained intense eye contact through the car's metal caging until they were no longer able to see each other. The lighting dimmed all around the deeper Isaac went, and as everything else fell away, all he could see were the soft, aqueous lights of his own RIG and all he could hear was the gentle creaking of the elevator's gears.

**then you show your little light...**

He closed his eyes, just to rest in the brief moment of isolation that had been spared him in this godforsaken place.


	13. Grieving For One's Sins

**Chapter 13  
Grieving For One's Sins  
**

**_"I do not see how any good can come from killing my own kinsmen in this battle, nor can I, my dear Krsna, desire any subsequent victory, kingdom, or happiness."  
- B.G., 1.31_**

* * *

"... The Council will hear you now, Director."

A daydreaming Adrian Mattock was drawn back to the reality at hand by the Counsel secretary, waving him into the committee chamber. Adrian frowned and stood to his feet, mentally preparing himself for the inquest that lie ahead of him. Today was his day to serve as fresh meat for the lion's den of the Council, and his primary challenge was going to be answering on the matter of Isaac's escape - an event that had by now become a very large point of contention amongst everyone involved, in addition to one the most infamous rumors that had spread among the Sprawl's population.

_He would have to answer to all of them... except for the old Counselor. To __her, this was all just some sick game._

Having disliked the Counselor's inherent duplicity from the beginning, Mattock had only chosen to be involved as far as Isaac was concerned; he cared nothing for the Marker, for the Unitologists who sought after it, or even for the Counselor's own subversive plans. His interest in cooperating with her had been intended only to ensure that the son of his dear old friend would remain as untouched by the Church's tainted hands as possible. In fact, Mattock had hoped that influencing Isaac to seek freedom beyond the Sprawl might prove to be his way of keeping his vow to Paul, even if the entire scenario had been initially set into action at the Counselor's request. However, the bitter reality of this hearing shocked him into realizing just how much attention all of this was drawing from the darkest regions of the Marker project. When he came to understand how highly intent they were on hunting Isaac down, all Mattock could think about was the remorse he felt in the face of a promise that was seemingly more and more unfulfilled by the moment.

_Paul... please, forgive me._

He felt the heated energy emanating thick as smoke from behind the striped metal paneling of the committee room door as he stood before it. Taking a deep breath, Mattock prepared to face his interrogators by tossing his emotional woes aside, stiffening his posture and donning a veneer of solid ice. The door slid open and he stepped in.

"... Council."

Immediately he could feel the stares of everyone in the room burning into him as he walked in, and right away he noticed that everyone was present except for the Counselor. He took an empty seat at the table before the bench, waiting along with them in anxious silence for the Counselor to arrive. His eyes slowly grazed the collection of miserly associates, all leering at him, ready to peck viciously for answers like a flock of desperately starved lammergeiers.

The doors at the rear of the chamber opened as the Counselor finally arrived, a fossilized figure pasted against the canvas of harsh, artificial light flooding through the doorway. As she entered, all eyes met hers dutifully and bid her silent welcome to the proceedings.

"... My apologies for being late. Let's begin."

She walked up to the large, ornately crafted bench and sat down directly across from Mattock, taking a moment to ignite a cigarette. As she did so, Mattock noted with personal disgust her desire to always directly face her addressee in an attempt to intimidate, like a wolf over its prey. The Counselor glanced at him sharply, as if she were aware of every condescending thought that crossed his mind about her, and tightly pursing her lips into a wrinkled ring of old leather she exhaled a lungful of smoke at him.

"So, Director. I'm sure you understand the seriousness of this hearing today."

Mattock sat with hands folded calmly on the table, and he nodded.

"... I do."

"Then, you certainly understand how important it is that Isaac Clarke be contained. This was the foremost condition of his release."

Mattock cleared his throat.

"Perhaps the Council wasn't clear enough on their definition of the term 'contained'."

A couple of the weaker minded committee members who feared the Counselor pulled back at his response, as if unable to comprehend his audacity to challenge her in such a way. The Counselor paused as she sensed their abhorrence behind her, and feeling simultaneously insulted and amused by the Director's sarcasm, she curled her lip.

"Well, that's why we're here today. To make absolutely clear once and for all what the terms are."

Her words carried a gravity that drew the entire room into total silence.

"Isaac's condition was explicitly outlined. The psychological trauma he has experienced as a result of his... ordeal has made him dangerously unstable, as I think we all can agree upon. One of the most noted symptoms was his obsessive desire to return to Aegis7..."

She grabbed a handful of papers from a stack of reports in front of her, and slapped them down irritably onto the table in front of Mattock.

"... all documented and outlined in the reports, mind you - for reasons we still have yet to define. We all knew from the start that allowing him to act upon any of these irrational impulses prematurely would cause complete chaos for our research."

She huffed and sideglanced Overseer Gresham, adding a measure of moral decency for his appeasement.

"... Not to mention the, countless lives that could be put at risk."

Mattock, although seething with objection, simply nodded in compliance.

_She was the one who set Isaac up in the first place... but now, coyly playing the role of enforcer in front of her peers, hiding her own hand in this. As if she cared about how many lives were at risk, anyway._

"... Yes. Understood."

"The Council placed its trust in you to keep him under strict control, as a more 'humane' alternative to the Medical ward. At your request. In doing what was asked of you, you failed, Director."

Mattock bore cold slate eyes deep into hers.

_How long could she keep this up? Were her superiors really that dense, or simply in denial that one of their own was a snake in the grass?_

"I... cannot help but take responsibility for that."

"Despite fully knowing how important it was to be vigilant. And so, here we are."

Mattock watched the smiles of grim satisfaction spread upon the Council members' faces, lulled into a false sense of security by the artful old woman's seemingly genuine reprimand. The Counselor, quietly concealing a wry smile as she tapped her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, was just about to speak again when she was interrupted by the angered voice of Overseer Gresham barking over her shoulder.

"Why in the hell was Isaac permitted open access to the starport?"

Mattock hesitated, remembering with clarity how the Counselor had secretly warned him not to volunteer any information not rehearsed with her, or of their communication in the hours following Isaac's breakout. He briefly shot a glance at her, seeking her guidance.

"... Well -"

She immediately chimed in, saving Mattock from having to respond to the Overseer himself.

"It was an oversight. Isaac was permitted to return to work, on the grounds that it would be beneficial to his recovery."

While appreciative for her interjection, Mattock nonetheless shot a taunting glare back at the Counselor.

"If it is the Council's position that Isaac should have been kept under tighter security, then I don't see how his appeal could have been approved by you in the first place. Once he was released to my custody, I was simply following the outlined protocols. How was I to know he was going to hijack a crew ship?"

Blowing another puff of smoke out through the corner of her mouth, the Counselor leaned forward in her seat and once again commandeered the questioning, discreetly burying Gresham into the background.

"Director Mattock, you do understand that the Council suspects you had a conspiring hand in Isaac's escape."

Mattock's eyes widened a little in anger.

"Conspiring hand? So, this has become a conspiracy now, has it?"

The Counselor's pupils shriveled into dark pits as they darted about.

"We understand your close relationship with Isaac, and formerly with his father."

"So, my friendship with the Clarke family automatically makes me a criminal?"

The Counselor sighed.

"You really had no idea that Isaac might attempt such an act? Even after all the warning signs?"

Mattock shook his head.

"And what warning signs would those be, Madam?"

"They were all included. In the reports."

He grimaced.

"Isaac never displayed any of those symptoms while in my custody. Certainly nothing like _those_ reports indicate. Fortunately for him, the man was able to return to a normal life, even after this Council's inept involvement in it."

While the other committee members felt the tension rising in the room, the Counselor merely crossed her arms, holding back a chuckle at Mattock's wasplike remarks.

_A little intense, but overall a good show._

"So, you never received any comments or complaints from anyone in your division who interacted with Isaac?"

Mattock did in fact remember a handful of times where his employees reported the strange happenings surrounding Isaac's presence in the Engineering bay. He also remembered how he had been instructed by the Counselor to delete all evidence regarding those complaints, and to transfer those complainants out of the bay onto other assignments.

"Madam, you can interview my entire staff, if you like."

She raised her eyebrows and briefly eyed one of the reports in front of her.

"Albert Collins; the systems engineer on duty the day Isaac escaped. It's very clear, by the fact that he so readily allowed Isaac full access to that ship, that you tolerate incompetency in your crew. Or perhaps he was an accomplice -"

Mattock drew a deep breath, interrupting her.

"Albert Collins... has been placed on indefinite leave."

"We cannot afford to have dead weight aboard this station, Director."

The corner of Mattock's eye twitched. Not only did he feel partially responsible for whatever dire fate lie ahead for Isaac Clarke, but revisiting the plight of Albert Collins only made him realize even more profoundly that Isaac's life was not the only one that would be destroyed by this whole affair. Unable to tolerate his grief any longer, he snapped.

"Let's just be honest. Everyone knows what's going on here. Oh, wait a minute - no, they _don't_."

Any warmth present upon the Counselor's face instantly vacated.

"Director..."

"But somebody here knows _exactly_ how Isaac escaped. And _why._"

Mattock cast his glare darkly around the room, deftly avoiding the Counselor's.

"And the Church will be the first to tell you who that is. Just like the Ishimura. And just like Aegis7."

An angry, incredulous gasp erupted from several of the Council members, and a couple of them - including Overseer Gresham - stood up to denounce the Director.

"How dare you! How dare you speak these lies against the Church!"

Despite being disturbed by Mattock's surreptitious attempt to uncover her involvement in Isaac's escape, the Counselor remained calm and simply raised her hand in order to bring the fuming members around the room under control. Upon her silent gesture they regained their seats and quieted down, and with burning eyes she turned back to the Director.

"Adrian, if I were you, I would do my best to keep the few friends I still had left."

Ultimately knowing it was useless to resist and face the flexing of this evil old woman's political muscle, Mattock scratched his chin with irritation, his head sinking into his chest. The Counselor smiled victoriously upon his silence; it was her assurance that no matter what Mattock might have said, no matter how much he could have revealed to them about her secrets right then and there, the Council was so rooted in dependence upon her that they would never have believed his story. Nonchalantly, she turned to address the rest of the Council.

"I'd like to call a short recess."

Gresham, still flustered by the Director's statement, nodded sharply and rose to his feet again.

"Everyone, let's reconvene in one half of an hour."

He waved his hand to dismiss the gathering and everyone, save for Mattock and the Counselor, stood to take their leave. The Counselor looked down to remove a pen from her pocket and turned her attention to the stack of papers in front of her, scribbling illegible shorthand as the Council members slowly dispersed. Mattock then stood up and proceeded to follow them out, but was stopped by the snap of the Counselor's fingers.

"Director, stay. We need to continue in private."

Mattock watched with wary eyes as the remaining few personnel left, and he cautiously reclaimed his seat. The room fell silent save for the sound of the Counselor's pen, and he just watched her with contesting eyes.

"What do you think you're doing, Adrian?"

Mattock remained silent as she addressed him, not even so much as looking up from her papers.

"Do you really think they're going to take your word over mine? That any of it will make one iota of difference? For you, or for Isaac?"

Upon his lack of response, the Counselor tightened her lips and clenched her fist upon the table.

"Stop trying to drag me out in front of the Council. You won't succeed. Regardless of your personal feelings here, the Overseer has no reason to know what's really going on. He wouldn't understand. He would only hinder our work, and set us all back."

Feeling a little dejected, Mattock muttered under his breath.

"I wonder if the human race wouldn't benefit from your work being completely eradicated."

The Counselor felt his bite, but she resisted looking up at him and smiled anyway. It didn't matter; she already had the upper hand.

"Say what you will. As for Isaac... well, you had better forget about whatever it is that Paul told you. Whatever it is you feel you owe to him in protecting his son is meaningless. If you really want to help Isaac, the best thing you can do for him right now is to help me do what I can for him."

Mattock just sat there, listening with great resentment to the viciousness pouring forth from her mouth, deftly tucked beneath her cold professionalism. Sensing how he was writhing in his seat, she decided to take a more pacifying approach.

"Adrian... Just cooperate with me, accept the responsibility for this, as we've discussed..."

Mattock cut her short.

"This is ridiculous! This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. I had your word that this was the right thing to do for everyone involved."

Upon the plea she detected in his voice, the Counselor finally ceased her writing and looked up at him.

"I understand your frustration. I assure you it was my good intention to see this entire situation through myself, without Gresham. But he has taken a greater interest than I had originally anticipated. I'm sorry you had to be subjected to this, but if the project is to succeed, then I cannot oppose him - at least, not superficially. Otherwise, we run the risk of him discovering everything about our research. All we can do is make this appear as normal as possible."

Mattock was not eased in any way by her words.

"I don't give a shit about the Overseer. Whatever you have to do to stay above your lies is none of my concern, nor is any of your precious research."

His face darkened with anger.

"You _promised _me that I was doing the right thing for Isaac. The only reason I cooperated with you at all was because you assured me that he would become a free man in all this."

The Counselor chortled at him.

"Well... he did. Didn't he?"

Mattock slammed his fist down upon the arm of his chair.

"Goddamnit! The way things are going now, the Council will have fucking EarthGov all over him in no time! How _free_ is that?"

"Adrian, we had a deal. This all far exceeds your allegiance to Isaac. Or to his father."

As she had expected, Mattock became all the more infuriated, and he glared at her with hatred.

"Paul Clarke was my closest friend for over forty five years. He was practically a brother to me. That makes his son _my _son. And now, because of _you... _I've betrayed them both."

His voice trailed off and his head dropped into his hands. In his moment of weakness, the Counselor seized the opportunity to retort.

"Your regret is totally unwarranted. Everything was already set into motion long before you became involved, ordained by a destiny far beyond your control. Isaac Clarke _is _the next Maker, Adrian. You'll soon see that he is the Convergent of the new age."

Mattock was frustrated by the Counselor's bitter remarks, but knowing that there really was nothing he could do, he could only hang his head helplessly in shame.

"... This is wrong. This is all wrong. All I ever wanted to do was to help the poor bastard."

As cold and unemotional as the Counselor appeared, the glimmer in her her eyes contrasted wildly with pure, Marker-driven madness.

"Then, you truly have nothing to fret about. You have helped him, by helping me put him into a position to fully realize his potential, which would not have happened any other way. And, he will realize his potential. In turn, so shall we. For this, the Church sincerely thanks you."

Knowing she was aware of his ill feelings toward the Church, Mattock took her elegant compliments as attempts to insult and taunt him even further.

"You know, Counselor... sometimes, the words that come out of your mouth are so evil, that they make even Challus Mercer appear like a saint."

The Counselor smiled again at this statement, returning her focus to her paperwork.

"Challus Mercer is dead, Director."

Mattock flashed her a look of total distrust. He had always suspected that there were many more secrets the Church was hiding than he was readily aware of.

"... Dead? Oh, yes. Right."

The Counselor failed to respond as she became engrossed again in her writing. Catching the hint that their conversation was over for now, Mattock sighed irritably and once again stood to his feet, preparing to leave. The Counselor, however, threw more words at his back.

"By the way - I hope the new suit was received well by Isaac."

Mattock stopped and turned around to glare at her, remembering the gifted Tank Suit he and the Engineering team had presented to Isaac upon his return to the bay.

"... I'm assuming it was."

The Counselor nodded with a cold, snakelike grin.

"It was a rather expensive investment on my part... but I know it's serving him well, where he is."

Her serpentine smile spread a little wider to reveal her teeth, clenched into threads of tiny white pearls.

"You see Adrian, I too have Isaac's best interests in mind."

Mattock turned away from her in disgust, but she paid no attention to the enmity she felt coming from him.

"We've still got fifteen minutes left before we reconvene. See you then."


	14. A Rekindled Flame

**Chapter 14  
A Rekindled Flame**

**_"To those who are constantly devoted to serving Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me."  
- B.G., 10.10_**

* * *

**welcome home isaac**

Upon hearing a most intruding voice Isaac snapped his eyes open, realizing that he had somehow fallen unconscious. Alarmed, he looked around to discover that he was still in the elevator, sitting on the floor with his back against the far wall. How long he had been there he had no idea, but apparently enough time had passed to allow the elevator to reach its final destination, and was now standing lifelessly with the doors wide open. He swallowed hard as he came to understand how dangerously exposed he was, and he urgently felt the need to get back on his feet. He groaned as he pushed himself up, finding it a painful process due to his jarring encounter with the brute, and with a hand dug into his side he slowly, carefully twisted his upper body to realign a few of the disrupted vertebrae in his back.

Feeling as old as an ancient redwood Isaac exited the elevator, and almost immediately he heard a dreadfully familiar sound that put him back on guard - the phlegm-saturated gagging of a necromorph, accompanied by blunt pounding as it crawled through a ventilation shaft in the ceiling above. It passed directly overhead, its position betrayed by the fine dust that rained down from the jostled ceiling tiles in its wake, and its poisonous secretions upon the air were detected by the filtration unit on Isaac's RIG, setting off a warning alarm.

Knowing the necromorph was just within feet of him, Isaac carefully aimed his flashlight up at the vents, anticipating that it might come bursting out of any one of them in an instant. Still, he was beginning to feel less afraid, in part due to the strange encounter he had had with the brute which had left him to wonder whether its apparent display apprehension had been an isolated incident. He quietly tracked the necromorph, following its loud, scurrying sounds until they diminished, then disappeared shortly thereafter. As silence once again filled the void of the necromorph's departure, Isaac felt a little disappointed by the lack of confrontation. He tilted his head.

_"... Chicken shit."_

However, the silence was quickly replaced by the quiet, coordinated approach of footsteps emanating from down the hall to his right. Isaac immediately turned toward it the moment he heard it, and he began stalking down the hallway, listening to the footsteps getting louder as he neared a right turn in the corridor. Isaac's heart and breath both hastened a little.

_Ok, what now?_

He stopped just behind the bend as he heard the nearing footsteps slow and then stop, sharing in his sense of caution. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he knew they were merely inches from each other with nothing but the wall to separate them, and the next moment he heard the high pitched, oscillating whine of an electronic charging system. Isaac had heard this sound before, and he knew by it that whoever this was, they were intelligent enough to utilize a military grade pulse rifle.

_Crap._

With only seconds left to act and no options, Isaac raised his plasma cutter and leapt around the corner in a fearsome and intimidating manner, hoping to frighten them into surrendering without incident.

_"Fucking drop it!"_

When he saw who it was, Isaac stopped dead in his tracks.

_"... Nicole?"_

He couldn't believe his eyes. Standing before him with the terrorized gaze of a wounded, helpless doe was Nicole Brennan, staring back through bloodshot eyes that were wide as teacups, clutching a damaged pulse rifle in her shivering hands. She was covered with dust, grime and dried blood smeared all over her body, her dirty, matted hair was strewn neglectfully about her face, and her expression was an immutable display of sadness and crazed hysteria. Seeing how his rather menacing entrance had frightened her even more than she already was, Isaac quickly retracted his helmet. Upon recognizing who it was, Nicole's dumbfounded look spread even wider.

"Oh, my god... _Isaac?_"

Nicole's eyes shimmered with tears of unexpected joy, her jaw dropped and the tense, fearful lines etched into her face instantly slackened with inconceivable relief. She smiled tiredly and lowered the rifle, finally releasing a deep, shaking sigh that evolved into wearied laughter.

"I knew you'd come back! I knew you couldn't leave me here. Alone."

Isaac was speechless before the love of his life. He simply stared at her, unable to say or do anything until her gently expanding smile finally exonerated him of his paralysis. He looked her over with boundless concern, seeing how she appeared to be a fragile leaf in the autumn wind, brittle as bone and just waiting to be crushed at any moment. Still, as elated as he was to see her again, the fear that she was one of the Marker's illusions kept him from being able to fully embrace the reality of her presence right away. Nicole sensed his reluctance, and she slowly, gently took his hand to reassure him.

"It's okay, Isaac. It's me."

Isaac was amazed to feel her warm, loving touch, even through his insulated glove. He looked down at her hand in his, overwhelmed by the experience as she gazed upon him with glossy eyes full of tender affection. Convinced by her physical contact, all of Isaac's doubts were instantly dispelled and he finally reached out to hug her. They both reveled in the heat of each others bodies upon the connection, and the burst of excitement that became channeled through their very souls shocked them both like a jolt of electricity. Isaac wrapped his arms around her a little tighter and he smiled, then feeling more confident he started to tousle her hair playfully; and as he adoringly smelled the top of her head, refreshing all of his most intimate memories of her, his eyes gently rolled back in lovesick intoxication. Feeling unable to fully express the joy he derived from their reunion, Isaac began to smother her cheeks with soft kisses in an earnest effort to do what he could.

"Nicki... I can't believe it... I can't believe you made it this long, all by yourself... How? How did you do it?"

Isaac's anxiety over Nicole's harrowing position inflamed his passion beyond restraint, and he couldn't even wait for her to answer him. He immediately pulled her close, leaned in and slid his tongue into her mouth, which she accepted with rapturous delight as she realized how happy he was to have found her. She returned his embrace with equal enthusiasm, kissing him eagerly and bathing his temples with her tears as a long cherished reunion finally broke what felt to both of them like decades of aching separation. Isaac was in absolute ecstasy; he had found her, which was what he had come to do.

_Well, part of what he had come to do._

They finally parted, albeit unwillingly, and Nicole stood stood before him, drinking in the sweet nectar of his eyes when she took note of his bruised, bloodied nose and forehead. Her smile faded.

"Jesus... Isaac, what happened to you?"

She then saw his singed glove, fried to a crisp along the back, and she started to examine it. Having been intoxicated by the joy of Nicole's presence Isaac had all but forgotten the burning of his injured hand, and at the sound of her admonishing chirp he looked down distantly at it. Having only just now realized the actual extent of the damage, he smiled sheepishly and fumbled to explain himself.

"Oh... err, my uhh, my, my plasma cutter backfired. In my hand. My fault, really. I shot it off a little too close. I should have known better."

As worried as she was Nicole couldn't resist a little laugh at Isaac's attempt to remain smug under the circumstances. She reached up and gently brushed her fingers across his forehead, taking the opportunity to now carefully analyze the gashes on his face and nose.

"We really should get these cleaned up. I know somewhere we can go, somewhere safe. Why don't you follow me?"

Nicole picked up her rifle and pointed down the hallway in the direction from which she had come. She then took off without a word and Isaac followed, keeping close pace and watching her from behind with a growing sense of amazement. He had so many questions to ask her; what had happened to the Ishimura, how she had ended up back on the Colony, how she could have survived in such a hostile environment alone, or why she had apparently not made any attempts to establish communication with someone beyond Aegis7 in order to gain rescue, amongst other matters. He had also found her comment about having expected his return a little odd, and it perplexed him to think that perhaps she had been waiting solely for him all this time to come save her.

She led him down corridor after corridor, all countless passageways that Isaac did not even know existed. Their route took so many changes in direction that he soon lost all navigational sense, having to trust Nicole alone to know the way. Although they had not yet been physically confronted, they both knew they were being watched - the growls and scurrying sounds inside the walls all around them definitely proved that the colony's deadly alien inhabitants were well aware of their presence. After a while of listening to their vicious, bloodthirsty cries echoing through the vents, Nicole shook her head.

"I don't get it... They're not usually this disturbed. Something's bothering them."

Isaac did not quite understand what she meant, and he certainly did not want to contemplate how many encounters Nicole must have had in order to be able to gauge the necromorphs' behavior patterns in such a familiar way. He didn't have it in him to question her, and they continued on in silence, moving through the colony like scouting ants until they found themselves before a single locked door at the end of a barely lit hallway. Nicole produced a door key from her vest pocket, swiped it into the security slot and opened the door.

"Here."

Grabbing a hold of Isaac's arm she pulled him in. The door quickly slid shut behind them, leaving them in a pitch black room that appeared to be without any power. Nicole turned around to face Isaac, who could barely make out her silhouette and the glimmer of her eyes through the infrared filter of his visor as she nodded to him.

"Wait here."

Isaac stood with his back to the door, watching the glowing notches of Nicole's RIG floating through the expanse of darkness as she slowly made her way across the room. Although he somehow suspected that she didn't really require his assistance, he activated his flashlight and aimed it to light her way anyway, keeping vigil over her as she navigated a sea of scattered furnishings. She reached the far side, and a moment later a quiet, electrical hum was heard, followed by the soft flicker of overhead fluorescence that bloomed to life to illuminate a small storage space that had apparently at some point been converted into a makeshift emergency medical station. She turned back around and brushed her hands together.

"I found this place a little while ago. The Colonists must have turned it into a hospital room when the outbreak happened."

She sighed and looked down a little.

"It's sad. What must have happened here... the same exact thing that happened on the Ishimura."

Isaac turned to look at her, and he saw the dismay that tainted her expression. It reminded him of the few video logs he could barely recall having found throughout the Ishimura, the most memorable being those of Nicole herself as she nervously relayed her terrifying experiences during the outbreak. Isaac understood that as a nurse serving on the Ishimura's medical deck, she had witnessed first-hand the effects of the Marker's curse upon the unfortunate inhabitants. But out of respect for her, Isaac thought it best not to inquire about any of it.

"There's no decontamination vents or windows in here. The necromorphs can't get in. We'll be safe here, for a while, at least."

Isaac walked further into the room, and as he looked around he caught the resident aura of widespread panic upon the air, like a stale reminder of what had once happened here. The whole room was in a chaotic condition, everything in disarray as if placed in extreme urgency with no regard for function or approach - only the need to survive. The items along the counters were tossed carelessly about, having been frantically foraged through, and the cabinets, with contents half of which were spoiled or expired, hung lopsided from temporary posts in the walls. The bedsheets and pillows of the hospital gurneys were stained with blood, old and faded with resistance to multiple washings had they even had the time to be laundered between patients. Isaac's brow furrowed as he imagined the pain, the agony and sheer fright the walls of this room must have once been impelled to contain.

"... Safe, huh? I don't think anywhere is safe anymore."

Nicole failed to reply to him as she had begun busying herself with preparation, grabbing a few random supplies from around the room and clearing off a spot on the counter. She arranged the items and pointed to a nearby chair. Isaac sat down in it, surprised to see her able to focus and shake off the dismal energy of the surroundings far better than he.

"Hold out your hand, Isaac."

Isaac readily complied, unable to take his eyes off her. He was awed into silence as Nicole reached for his arm, gently unclasped the metal gauntlets and removed them, then carefully slid the glove from off his hand. He winced as the fabric grazed the tender skin of his burned hand, but becoming engrossed in her natural inclination for being a nurse she continued undaunted even as he clenched his teeth and growled. Her disposition became stern and authoritative, even reprimanding Isaac when he started to fidget with his RIG in an attempt to distract himself.

"Hey - cut it out. Sit still, will you? This should only take a few minutes."

With a tiny, embarrassed grin Isaac ceased, and Nicole returned to her examination. She was surprised to see that the glove had done its job of protecting him well, considering it had taken a direct, close proximity blast of superheated plasma. Her eyes traveled up Isaac's arm, realizing as she saw unfamiliar details of it that this was not his usual work suit.

"This is a nice suit. It's very well made. It definitely saved your ass."

Nicole turned back to the counter and prepared a bandage for Isaac's hand by ripping a piece of gauze off of a roll. After swabbing and medicating the affected skin, she quickly wrapped it with the gauze and secured it in place with bandage tape. Isaac was amazed by the swift, unbroken pace at which she worked, her hands gliding so quickly that he found it difficult to keep up with what she was doing.

"Geez, you're good at this, aren't ya?"

Nicole responded only with a gentle smile and a momentary glance up into his eyes. Once she finished her work, she cautiously slid his glove back on, being careful not to disturb the bandage placement, and strapped the metal gauntlets back into place along his sleeve. She then began to tend to his facial wounds, and keeping her eyes on her work she spoke up again, still enamored with the impressive caliber of his Tank Suit.

"Where'd you get this, Isaac?"

Feeling a little too expended to go back over the lengthy details, he sighed and twisted the corner of his mouth.

"Uhh, long story short, it was a gift from the guys at work."

Nicole lifted her eyebrows and nodded.

"So... you _did _make it back to the Sprawl, didn't you? I was wondering about that."

Lost in thought, Isaac had not noticed at first as she toiled to prepare a thread and needle. Glancing at the tools in her hand and then at the serious look upon her face, he immediately became alarmed and pulled back.

"What the hell is _that_ for?"

She broke a small grin at his almost childish apprehension for needles.

"You just need a few stitches, that's all."

Not particularly pleased with the diagnosis but knowing he had no choice, Isaac just shrugged his shoulders.

"... Great."

Nicole quickly swabbed the wound clean, dispensed a thin layer of anesthetic gel across the skin and waited a few seconds for it to take effect. She then slid the first stitch into his forehead, feeling the skin of his face pull tight against her wrist as he squeezed his eyes shut at the prick of the needle. Seeing he was having some difficulty coping, she tried to keep his mind off the pain by distracting him with menial conversation.

"So, what do you think, Isaac? Was it all worth it?"

Isaac bent a brow in puzzlement.

"Was what worth it?"

"Coming back here. You came all this way, and all you got out of it so far was me. I hope it was worth the trouble."

Isaac smiled timidly.

"Of course, it was. You're all I need, Nicki."

"You're sure about that?"

Isaac glanced about, not quite following her.

"... Yeah. What else would I need?"

"What about the Marker?"

Isaac didn't answer her right away, partially out of shock at having realized he had completely forgotten about the Marker since having found Nicole.

"... The... the Marker?"

Another smile touched Nicole's lips, threatening to break her solemn, professional demeanor as she threaded another stitch into Isaac's face.

"You know, I'm really happy you came back, Isaac. Even if it wasn't for me."

Upon her words Isaac shot a stunned glance up at her.

"What?"

The reassuring smile spread a little further upon her face. Another stitch slid into his scalp, this one with no pain as the anesthetic had finally taken full effect.

"C'mon. We both know you came back for the Marker."

Isaac started to shake his head to refute her, but as it disrupted her work she firmly gripped him by the chin and straightened his head.

"It's okay. I know what you have to do. I don't agree with it, but this is not my path to walk. This is yours, Isaac."

Isaac was confused by her words, and he glanced down at the ground as she threaded the final stitch on his forehead wound, trimmed the line and prepped to start on the gash on his nose. He tried to think of something to say, but he was distracted by the first stitch that slid into the skin of his bridge. Again, it seemed as if Nicole knew exactly what he was thinking.

"It doesn't matter what happened in the past. We're together, now. Your mistakes and failures are all but forgotten. Let's finish this once and for all. I know where the Marker is. When you're ready, I'll take you to it."

Isaac sighed with a hint of irritation. He had begun to feel rather comfortable in Nicole's company, very much inspirited and enlightened by her talk. However, now that he had been reminded of the haunting, blood red obelisk that stood calling to him from somewhere on Aegis7, all of the dark thoughts that Nicole's presence had been warding off up to this point began to swarm in upon and cloud his mind once again. He scowled to himself, silently cursing her having said anything about it until his thoughts became dominated by the vision of the Red Marker's twisted, glowing spires and its ominous chanting returned. In light of this, he could hardly hear Nicole speak up next to him.

"OK, sweetie. We're finished."

So absorbed in his rumination upon the Marker, Isaac had not even noticed that Nicole finished the final stitch on his nose and cut the line. She dabbed his wounds with a soft cloth and stepped back.

"Good as new."

Drawn back by the sound of her voice Isaac reached up to touch his nose, rubbing the tips of his fingers curiously across the row of stitches that now lined the skin. Looking up with approval, he nodded and smiled.

"Nice. Thank you."

Nicole smiled back, wiping her hands on the cloth and setting it down. She then placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"You're welcome. Now, how's your back?"

Isaac was surprised by her question; he had not mentioned anything to her about having hurt his back, and it baffled him how she seemed to know so much about him even without his telling her. While he was always a firm believer in the power of love when it came to things such as the unexplained intuition shared between mates, her accuracy and knowledge seemed uncannily expansive, nonetheless.

"My back? It's, uh..."

His response was suddenly cut short by a loud, discombobulated banging on the door to the room. Isaac and Nicole both darted their heads up with alarm and stared at the door, then quickly rose to their feet. Nicole stepped up next to him as they realized they had been found, and Isaac gripped his plasma cutter.

"Shit. We better get moving, baby."


	15. Improper Procedures

**Chapter 15  
Improper Procedures**

**_"Alas, how strange it is that we are preparing to commit greatly sinful acts. Driven by the desire to enjoy royal happiness, we are intent on killing our own kinsmen."  
- B.G., 1.44_**

* * *

Dr. Alex Werren sat pensively in his private quarters aboard the Sprawl, staring at the infinite void of space beyond the window of his den. He analyzed the stars one by one, searching the scattered points of luminescence as they emerged and vanished repeatedly upon the aphotic expanse to what seemed the rhythm of his restless thoughts.

_What was happening here?_

Isaac had escaped the Sprawl over two weeks ago, and it had been nearly that long since Werren's last meeting with the Counselor. While it had not been unusual in the past for days or even weeks to pass between his interactions with her due to their busy schedules, Werren now found the Counselor's lack of involvement with him troubling, to say the very least. He was beginning to take notice of an evolving trend among the Council, one that seemed to be severing him more and more from any connection with Isaac's case despite having been so intimately a part of it. He had even been restricted access to Adrian Mattock's inquest, which was a blow the doctor had been completely unexpecting.

All of this inspired Werren's suspicion about the Counselor's real motives in the face of his many years of blind trust in her. As disturbing as it was to think that her position was not what he or anyone else had perceived it to be, he could not deny that the old Counselor knew something, something deeply subversive to everyone around her.

_What was she hiding? What couldn't she trust him with?_

Werren also remembered what he had seen at the last Council hearing - countless, insane stanzas of the Marker language scrawled across all of her paperwork, penned by her own furious hand. This was just one among many known symptoms of Marker induced dementia, one that he had witnessed for himself many times before in the behavior of all the Marker project's key subjects, including Isaac Clarke.

_She was a leader of this project... but what kind of lead did this Marker... or it's puppet... have over her?_

Daring to consider that the Counselor was acting from a corrupted perspective, Werren was eerily reminded of Dr. Challus Mercer. His ominous work aboard the USG Ishimura, assisted by both the Church and the Counselor herself, had been progressing steadily throughout the course of the Ishimura's dispatch, all the way up until the initial blackout that preceded the necromorph outbreak. Owing to the tragedy, Mercer, along with others such as Dr. Terrence Kyne, had long since been presumed dead.

Werren frowned. He had never liked the fanatically devout doctor, from what he had learned through his personal experiences with him. Mercer had come to be seen as one of the most insidiously calculating individuals in the entire Marker extraction project, even by some of his darkest peers, who believed him to be driven by self-serving motives despite a superficially credible devotion to the Church. Like them, Werren saw Mercer as evil personified, if not the incorrigible pivot upon which any research intended with altruistic intent could be disgracefully unhinged.

_The Counselor had worked closely with Mercer for many years. If she had any inlination to follow his example..._

He suspired uncomfortably as the details in his mind converged to paint a very dire picture. He now had a great concern for all of his own work that had been performed under the Counselor's watch, and what it was he had actually been contributing on her behalf. He had trusted her for so many years.

_They weren't just co-scientists__. They were supposed to be equals. Equals._

Werren then turned his thoughts to the past few years he had devoted specifically to the key subjects aboard the Sprawl. He remembered the days of rigorous testing, followed by many sleepless nights as he and his team spent every moment they had in studying hem all, especially Isaac. He recalled the batteries of grueling physical and psychological tests, all in the desperate, reckless effort to decipher the Marker's codes and to bring the ominous talisman under the Church's control.

_The Church's control. Not the Counselor's alone. Certainly not their key subject. What was she up to?_

He could tolerate mere mental speculation no more. Seeking answers to his foreboding questions, Werren started to sift through his files. He pulled up random reports and test results, trying to find any indication of things he might have overlooked when he had far less reason to question any of it. He gazed over volumes of data, all extracted from Isaac in the most uncompromising ways during his time spent in Medical, and the ghastliness of their activity, which he had previous to this moment remained inertly numb to, finally overwhelmed him and he pinched the bridge of his nose in anxiety. Despite their horrifying methods, Isaac had continually shined with a greatness that surpassed them all.

_So many others had been infected, just like Isaac. Even the bio-engineered Oracles, who had been given every advantage of the Chuch's knowledge of the Marker. __Still, no one came even close to having been so purified by the Marker's bond. Why? _

Now, Werren was thoroughly intrigued. He had formerly thought less of the test results, having been misled by the Counselor's dismissive diversion, but now he felt that he was only going to get to the bottom of this by personally studying the data for himself with a far more crucial eye.

_The tests. Isaac's psychological interpretation tests. Maybe he could find something in them._

Werren closed the file cabinet, turned to the system holopad on his desk, and began to sift through the database of video and audio logs. After a lengthy search he pulled up one particular session with Isaac that had been recorded just days before his release. A timestamp of the date momentarily flashed on-screen, followed by a caption.

**[CLASSIFIED - AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY]**

Finally, an overhead camera view of Isaac and one of Werren's associates, Dr. Foster Edgars, flickered onto the screen. They were both sitting alone together in an isolated interrogation room, Edgars directly across from Isaac, the two of them staring intently at each other. Isaac appeared exhausted and withdrawn, his arms bound in a straitjacket as he sat there, listlessly enduring Edgars's taunting counsel.

_"Allright Mr. Clarke, let's take another shot at the Rorschach test."_

A chill traversed Werren's spine as he watched the pre-recorded session. Even through the low resolution of the video, he could still see with clarity the dark eyed, sardonic expression upon Isaac's face before he slurred at Edgars.

_"... Why? So you have the... the evidence to justify calling me a, an affront to God?"_

Edgars chuckled tightly and shook his head.

_"I appreciate your... sense of humor about all this." _

Edgars then silently proceeded to retrieve a small folder from his coat, open it up, and pull out some folded white cards, all while Isaac looked on through vision weighed heavily down by tranquilizers. Placing the cards onto the table in front of him, Edgars looked at him.

_"I'll give you a moment to look over each one. Take your time. There's no judgement here."_

Even in his highly sedated condition Isaac raised his voice with animosity at Edgars, fighting to keep his eyes open. It was very clear to Werren as he watched the video that even while so intoxicated, Isaac was very much cognizant of the fact that Edgars was subliminally trying to antagonize him.

_"What the... the point of the test... if you're not gonna judge the results... asshole?... Fuck you."_

Isaac then proceeded to spit on the the table right in front of Edgars, targeting one of the white cards perfectly. Edgars remained silent with a smug grin, refusing to answer as he picked up the card, shook off the saliva and unfolded it, then slid it across the table toward Isaac.

_"Tell me, Isaac. Look at this, and tell me what you -"_

Isaac's eyes never touched the image on the card, nor even departed from Edgars's face as he abruptly cut the doctor off in mid sentence.

_"Fuck you."_

His derisive grin spreading, Edgars withdrew the card and presented the next.

_"How about this one?"_

Isaac cocked his head and again bore his glare deep into Edgars, as if an attempt to intimidate the doctor in some way.

_"... Your mother's legs. Spread wide open."_

The doctor sighed visibly.

_"Not much couth for a man your age, Mr. Clarke."_

The wry smirk across Isaac's lips slackened a bit, and his eyes eyes rolled back slightly as he struggled to stay awake.

_"... Whatever."_

Edgars unfolded the next card. Isaac's confrontational attitude immediately dissipated when he finally looked at it; his eyes widened and he stared at the inkblot with undivided attention, all as his jaw began to hang slightly agape.

_"What do you see?"_

Isaac couldn't answer him. He simply didn't have the courage to. Edgars harshly prompted him once more.

_"Isaac, tell me."_

Dr. Werren couldn't tell what was going through Isaac's mind by watching the video, nor did it seem that Edgars had any idea, either. Only Isaac could see the Marker's apocalyptic message that was revealed through the inkblot nightmare.

_"... No..."_

Both halves merged perfectly together upon the center crease of the card, and spilled into each other to form what incidentally appeared to be the long, slender, twisted spires of the Marker reaching for the empty space of unstained paper above it. The dried ink stretched out like vile flower petals from the center whorl of darkly suggestive imagery on all sides, forming in Isaac's mind the terrifying profiles of several necromorphs. The lashing tentacles of a Lurker, the mutated fangs of a Leaper, and the poison barbed, bony blades of a pair of Slashers all came together in a single combined pool of horrifically mirrored silhouettes, with long trails extending to the outer edges of the card into menacing claws and blood smeared talons.

As a tremendous fear came over Isaac, a quiet, almost inaudible whisper slipped from his mouth, barely detected by the recording equipment.

_"... Sheepay toteck."_

Edgars blinked.

_"What did you say?"_

Isaac's eyes widened even further, and he turned suddenly in a rage on Edgars.

_"Is this a fucking joke?"_

He squeezed his eyes shut, murmuring frantically to himself as Edgars stood to his feet.

_"It's just an illusion. It's just an illusion. That's all it is. I'm not afraid... I'm not afraid..."_

Unable to contain himself as Edgars attempted to control him, Isaac screamed out.

_"Get the fuck off of me!"_

Werren watched in astonishment as Isaac lashed out at Edgars, knocking the table over and sending everything on it flying through the air in the process. As the two of them wrestled with each other in the recording, Werren began to feel great sympathy for Isaac, coming to truly understand that he was more troubled than he had been led to believe by the Counselor's coaching. He knew now that Isaac's great gift was simultaneously both a blessing and a curse, one that would follow the unfortunate engineer for the rest of his life.

Werren looked back up at the video just in time to see Isaac being physically restrained by security officers, injected with another dose of sedatives, and unceremoniously carried out after having collapsed in their grasp. Unable to continue watching, Werren finally switched the holopad off.

_What was Isaac so afraid of? What had the Marker shown to him?_

Werren was suddenly driven by a potent desire to return to the lab and he departed for it, thinking the entire way.

_The samples. He had to take a closer look at the samples._

He arrived at the lab some time in the early morning, and as he expected, it was virtually empty. Taking full opportunity to work uninterrupted in isolation, Werren headed directly to Diagnostics. He walked in and briefly surveyed the area to ensure he was alone, but even from behind closed doors he felt jeopardized by being there; he knew that not only might he be under secret surveillance by those above him, but that he didn't fully comprehend what he intended to accomplish, or where to even begin his search, made it all the more evident that time was not on his side.

_He had to hurry._

He walked over to one of the refrigeration units, opened it and quickly sifted through the blood sample sleeves until he found what he was looking for.

**3AP4_1544C/55613 - Clarke, I [Class: Vested / Gen: Alpha / Authorized Access Only]**

He withdrew the packet, closed the refrigeration unit and moved to a nearby workstation. Opening the packet and carefully pulling out the samples, he laid them out on the table and examined the date on each one. Werren then turned to a nearby terminal and accessed the lab's database. However, after a few minutes he realized that all the documents referring to these samples had been removed from the system.

_Someone was already trying to erase their tracks. _

Frustrated but not without having partially expected it, Werren reached into his pocket and retreived a small data chip. With a tiny smirk he slipped it into the terminal.

_Just a little extra insurance. _

He quickly accessed the chip's contents - his own personal, secret archive of the research documents. After some searching Werren managed to find the ones he needed, and quickly opened those corresponding to the dates of the samples. Each page was overrun with countless lines of data, and he scanned carefully through them until he reached a section of the report addressing chemical compound measurements. None of the entries he came across seemed out of the expected range until one in particular twelve pages down the list caught his eye.

**[Clostridium perfringens/_gram positive ... 0.0008%]**

Werren's eyes froze upon the entry, recognizing this to be a flesh eating bacterium. He immediaely turned to the databae and searched everything he could access for any association with this term, and to his surprise he found the links to three obscure documents written by Dr. Challus Mercer. Fearful of what they might have contained but determined to uncover the truth, Werren hesitantly accessed the first link. The file turned out to be an audio log, which opened up in a separate playback window.

_"This is Dr. Challus Mercer, aboard the USG Ishimura. I have been working very hard with the subjects I have been able to conceive with the few codes we've managed to extract. They are highly unstable. However, I have high hopes that these results can be improved upon."_

Mercer's tone seemed more conservative in this particular recording, a little more sensible and absent his trademark zealous fanaticism. Though there was no timestamp on this file, Werren figured it must have been an older log, before Mercer had solidified his connection with the Marker.

_"We can't return the Marker to the pedestal. We must keep it from fully bonding at this point; we cannot allow it to be made whole until we have the Hive Mind under our control. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing where it is... We'll have to develop some way to detect it."_

Growing confused and impatient, Werren dismissed the playback and sought out the next file in the list. This one also turned out to be an audio log, stamped with a date that placed it's inception at a few weeks before the first reported cases of infection within the Aegis7 Colony. Immediately upon the start of playback, Mercer's burgeoning obsession with the Marker became obvious through his manic body language and wide eyed stares into nothing as he spoke madly, almost breathlessly.

_"Challus Mercer, USG Ishimura. I managed to facilitate the virus in a controlled environment, away from the Marker. It had previously been suggested by some of my skeptical colleagues that this was impossible, due to the Marker's deadening field. I have invalidated their opinions. Utilizing sub zero stasis techniques and direct implanting of the cloned gram-positive clostridium perfringens strains via sympathetic alpha wave attenuation, we have been able to maintain it, and even promote its expansion. Not only does this mean that we can proceed with augmenting some of our volunteers, but we can also now__ guarantee long distance transport without breakdown. Physical distance from their the Marker is no longer an issue."_

Werren glanced up in surprise, recognizing Mercer's use of the term "sympathetic alpha wave attenuation". He had heard it a number of times, emanating from the mouths of the Marker project's subjects - including Isaac - during their sessions. Mercer's rambling continued on in the static recording.

_"However, we are still troubled. Without the Marker's bond completely intact, we can only retard the degeneration. The host will ultimately break down over time, especially once the bacterium injections have been stopped completely. To keep it alive, we need the Marker to be made whole. But to_ _control it, __we can't allow that. Frankly, this catch-22 has stunted my work for now. We need to find the Hive Mind. It is our only chance."_

Mercer finally paused and drew a deep breath. That he was having difficulty controlling himself was evident.

_"Still... with the Counselor's support, I hope that soon we will begin an entirely new bloodline. The current candidates are both contaminated."_

Werren bent his brow, perplexed as the message ended abruptly. He didn't understand what Mercer was talking about, and it made him realize that even with all of his investment in the Marker's research, he still knew nothing about it.

_Candidates?_

Werren turned his attention on the holoscreen to the third link of interest, which was a document authored by Mercer and entitled **_Transmigration: Hive Mind Within_**. Raising one eyebrow with curiosity, Werren attempted to access the document. He was denied access to it. Slightly annoyed but not deterred from his goal, Werren saved the two audio logs to his data chip, retrieved it and turned away from the terminal.

_Perhaps there was some physical evidence of the contamination._

He turned to examine one of the blood samples under a microscanner. He saw that the sample contained the same pathogen he and his team had originally detected in Isaac's blood when he was first brought back to the Sprawl, but now it was concentrated beyond his ability to understand it. While Werren had known along with the others that the pathogen was related to the Marker, and therefore in some ways knew what to anticipate, he realized now, as he was confronted with an unexpected level of growth that frightened him, that his lack of knowledge as comprehensive as that of the Counselor and the leading scientists had put him at a very great disadvantage.

"Oh, my god..."

Werren saw that in the year the sample had been stored, the Marker virus's pathogenic count had increased exponentially despite being frozen and lacking of any sustainment. He also picked up traces of the same augmentating bacterial strain he had found in the reports, which puzzled him. Neither he nor anyone under his management had ever been authorized to introduce this unknown strain into Isaac's body at any time, nor had he even been aware of it. Now, Werren looked up in terrified amazement to finally understand that he had been deceived right in his own laboratory, under his own watch.

_Unauthorized intravenous chemical introduction. They were injecting him with it. But, why?_

He returned the first sample to the sleeve and pulled out the next one, dated later than the first by two weeks. He slid it into the microscanner and returned to his examination, and saw that this sample was vastly different. The virus nearly dominated the entire sample until almost no blood was left. He noted how fresh the viral compounds appeared, and though drawn almost a year prior, the entire sample was alive with a virility that rivaled the samples taken from the other patients even just hours ago.

_How did they manage it?_

He immediately suspected the Counselor was behind all of this. He tried to think of any opportunity she might have had to intervene underneath what he thought was the staunch, secure watch of his team.

_The memory reduction treatments... the ones she had demanded._

Werren stormed back to the refrigeration unit, scouring the various compartments. He located a few remaining unmarked jars of the special memory scrambling serum that had been confidentially delivered to him for Isaac's treatments, which turned out to be an unapproved derivative of high-grade memory receptor suppressant CL-218.872. He pulled one of the jars from the drawer, opened it and quickly dropped a small sample of it onto a slide. He proceeded to make a brief examination under the microscanner and saw his fears realized - the medication was riddled with the augmenting clostridium bacteria.

_She was trying to preserve Isaac's infection by feeding it the augmenting bacteria. Then, she released him, knowing what he was carrying. _

Werren looked up in total shock.

_Was she insane?_

Werren returned the samples to the refrigerator, printed out some of the most poignant reports he had uncovered, and headed right for the Counselor's personal quarters. He arrived just shortly thereafter, and with a clenched, angered fist he prepared to pound on the door. Before he managed to land the first blow however, the door slid open and he saw the Counselor inside, sitting in a gilded beech bergère with her back to the door. Werren entered and she gave no response, not even looking up in his direction as he approached as if completely oblivious to him. However, judging by her nonchalant expression as she finally looked up at him, it was obvious that she had in fact been in full expectation of his arrival. Frustrated, he tossed the printouts he was carrying into her lap.

"You've been lying to me."

The Counselor didn't react in the slightest to his words or his physcial assault. Becoming angrier, Werren leaned in and glared her directly in the eye.

"No wonder. No wonder you were so intent on using that serum, yet you didn't care about the possibility of relapse. You weren't looking to erase his memory for good. You had different plans."

Still, the old woman failed to acknowledge Werren. After staring sharply at her for several moments, he finally shook his head and stepped back, exasperated.

"Alex, do you believe in what we are doing here?"

Werren paused, surprised by her response.

"Madam, I can't say at this point that I know what it is we are doing. Or who 'we' even is."

The Counselor reached up and removed the gold-rimmed glasses from her face.

"Nothing has changed between us. I'm sorry if I left you out of some things, but things are the same as they always were. Our goal remains the same."

The Counselor's diplomacy chipped away at Werren, until he faltered in his confrontation and started to stumble over his own words.

"Well, how, how can you expect me to... We were equals... we are equals. Partners. Now, what about, what about all of our research? I've been working all this time, and what have you been doing with it?"

"I have been doing exactly what I have been instructed to do with it. To make this Marker _work_. I will do anything it takes to make that happen, even if it involves doing things that not everyone can understand or appreciate. I do it for the Church."

Werren, pensive and anxious, pressed his hands to his hips and rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment as once again the Counselor reminded him of the dangerous Challus Mercer.

"As far as the Church goes, there are many sheep that have strayed from the flock."

The Counselor broke a pretentious smile at his indirect accusation.

"We are all looking for eternal life. It is our destiny. The Marker - and its Maker - will help us fulfill that destiny."

Werren widened his eyes in disbelief.

"Destiny? Whose destiny is fulfilled by this? Ours, or his?"

The muscles of her wrinkled cheeks twitched at his retort. A long, unsettling pause fell between them, and the Counselor lifted her chin.

"Isaac is our catalyst. He carries it with him, even now. All I have done is help him get back home safely."

Werren was only frustrated even further.

"Back home? What are you talking about?"

He had no idea what else to say. He had devoted so many of his own years to her service, always trusting implicitly in remarkable character; now he couldn't help but feel he had been nothing more than a puppet in her hands all this time. He immeidately began to wonder who else the Counselor had been deceiving.

_The Overseer. He had to talk to the Overseer about this._

He watched her warily, waiting for a reply, but the Counselor only returned to giving him a cold shoulder. At a loss for words, Werren turned around and stormed out of the Counselor's quarters. She sat in the silence that resumed in his absence, and knowing exactly where he was headed she reached into her vest pocket, pulled out a cigarette and ignited it. The tip burned a furious titian glow as she inhaled, and with her other hand she reached for the holopad upon her desk. A moment later the holoscreen bloomed to life with the imagery of a communications operator, her voice sounding busied over the receiver.

_"Central. What's your direct?"_

"P-Sec Officer Jensen, please. 2544-695."

_"Please hold..."_

The holoscreen flickered and filled with digital snow as the call was redirected. After a few seconds the bands of static broke upon the image of a heavy-eyed P-Sec officer, still in his bunk and apparently having been roused from sleep by the incoming call.

_"Mmph... This is Jensen."_

The Counselor, undeterred by having awakened the officer, barked at him.

"I want Dr. Alex Werren arrested. _Immediately. _He hasn't been following proper procedure_._"


	16. Night Upon The Day

**Chapter 16  
Night Upon The Day**

**_"Everyone follows My path in all respects, O son of Partha."  
- B.G., 4.11_**

* * *

Back upon the mysterious Aegis7 colony, Isaac and Nicole had narrowly managed to escape the makeshift medical hideout. Together, they embarked on a mad run for the opposite end of the complex, where Nicole claimed the Marker was located.

She ran ahead to lead the way, and Isaac followed closely behind her, brandishing his plasma cutter aggressively in defense as they now found themselves at the center of an unimaginably endless horde of necromorphs descending upon them from all around. This phenomena left Isaac stunned, for even in light of the few encounters he had had so far, the colony had to this point seemed rather vacant. To see such vast numbers of necromorphs manifesting from seemingly out of nowhere, as scarce as they had been until now, left him to wonder if the colony was so expansive and complex that so many deadly monsters could hide alongside them all this time, completely out of sight.

As the demons chased them like grains of sand through the neck of an hourglass, Isaac was breath-taken by their radical evolution. Their horrifyingly graceful physiology was becoming more humanistic, just like the brute he had encountered, and each one that confronted him was stronger and more intelligent than the last. Their organizational skills had increased dramatically, and even their once unintelligible gagging had now become clear, enunciated patterns like that of some primordial alien language. It was the first time Isaac had seen definite signs of communication among them, and he found their highly perceptive pack mentality difficult to anticipate. Ashamed to admit it even to himself, he more than once secretly regretted having to blaze through their heads and limbs with his plasma cutter. Nicole finally had to pry his attention away from them with severity.

"Isaac, what're you doing? _Fucking come on!"_

They both ran as fast as they could, with nothing but the rapid pounding of their hearts to keep them moving. They ran until their lungs burned and the muscles of their legs threatened to collapse, but no matter how fast or far they went, they couldn't seem to outrun their demonic pursuers. As they encountered necromorph after necromorph, their speed wasn't the only factor that caught Isaac's attention - he also noticed that they were targeting Nicole more than him, and he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep them off of her, even in spite of her assistance with her pulse rifle. He wasn't sure if it was merely the fact that she was smaller and less physically threatening than he was, or if there were other circumstances at play, but it seemed Nicole was serving as a strong point of attraction for their opponents. He quickly began to get frustrated at having to exert so much energy simply to keep her safely out of their reach.

_Was she just an easy target? _

Isaac dismally realized that he was also running low on plasma energy. He was forced to conserve by relying more and more on melee tactics, and this he found to be a most unpalatable compromise. He had no desire to make physical contact with the necromorphs, or to even get near them due to the conflicting empathy he was, against all better judgement, beginning to develop for these creatures.

_His... fellow co-workers._

Even in the face of all their difficulty, Isaac noticed how Nicole seemed to hold her own pretty well. It was obvious that her targeting experience with the pulse rifle was more than he had imagined it would be, and this made him even more uneasy about her marooned situation on the colony. He didn't want to even think about what she had had to face in order to acquire that kind of working knowledge of a military rifle, to have learned to aim so deftly and with such blinding precision considering she had never held a gun before in her life. Unfortunately it wasn't long before she too began to run low on ammunition and she panicked, shaking the gun with frustration as it's firing mechanism began to fail.

Seeing the virtually unstoppable horde of necromorphs were quickly closing off the way ahead of them, Isaac shook his head.

_"Nicole, we gotta get the hell out of here! We're not gonna make it!"_

Upon his urgent demand Nicole looked around, trying to think of a safer way and quickly.

"C'mon, we can try the maintenance access route!"

Isaac closed the gap between them, darting around a slasher attempting to block his path. He barely missed its lancinating arm as it savagely reached for him, and he returned the gesture by slamming the creature in the chest with the thick metal nose of his plasma cutter. He followed Nicole as she suddenly made a hard right turn down a narrow passage, which led to another dead end door - again, locked.

"Shit! Isaac, cover me."

Right away Nicole set to work on opening the door while Isaac guarded against a pride of lurkers, black as midnight and sleek as sharks as they galloped toward them along the walls and ceiling. They waved their minacious appendages threateningly at Isaac, but he just tuned out their high pitched shrieks as he blasted them off the walls. With his final few shots, he sent their bloodied, listless bodies falling to the floor, where they landed with mucilaginous thuds.

"Got it - c'mon!"

Nicole finally opened the lock, and they and pushed their way through. Once on the other side, they sealed the door and looked around the maintenance access passageway they had entered, which ran parallel to the main corridor from where they had just come. The way was lit by dated, flickering florescence spaced far and few between, yet even with the lack of a strong light source they both could see the walls were covered with the blood red, membranous tendrils of the necromorph corruption. Throbbing and glistening in the dim light, it had stretched a layer of flesh across almost every visible inch if wall space, making it seem like Isaac and Nicole were about to walk down the wide open throat of some giant necromorph rather than a maintenance route. Still, while the organic decorum was indeed frightening, the hallway was built out of solid concrete and bereft of any vents. This, coupled with the fact that the corruption itself was ill-equipped to cause them any real harm, made this route actually a lot safer than it seemed.

"Good, but we should keep moving. They'll find a way in, eventually."

Nicole nodded, then led Isaac down several more lengthy corridors. Again, he was astounded by the expansiveness of the Aegis7 Colony; apparently, he alone had seen only a very minor portion of it. From the outside the Colony had given the impression of being a very small, constricted camp stretched delicately across the sand. However, the layouts of these tunnels hinted at miles of sophisticated, underground labyrinths that the Colony's unassuming outer facade held as its most valuable secret. Realizing this, Isaac was fascinated even further by Nicole's capacity to have memorized the way through so much of it.

_She couldn't have been stuck there for more than a few months at most... or was it years? H__ow long had it been, anyway?_

The noises of their pursuers tracking them from the floors above faded into the distance the deeper they traveled, and when they could hear them no longer, Isaac and Nicole figured they had outrun them for the time being. Even in the safety of silence they tried to keep running, as they had no desire to remain too long in one place, but when the stabbing pain in their chests from the lack of oxygen became too much to bear, they were finally forced to stop. After they collapsed together against the wall, Isaac heard Nicole panting next to him.

"Gee, Isaac... I'm impressed... That was pretty good... for an old goat."

Isaac finally retracted his helmet, feeling a bit suffocated by it, and he smiled at her, breathing just as heavily between his words.

"Well... you did rather well, yourself... for a foxy bitch."

Nicole's eyes became absorbed in his dark, lotus-eyed stare, the glistening sweat upon his brow, and at the inspiring sight she just couldn't help but smile ever so sweetly in a vain attempt to conceal her underlying lust. She then leaned back against the wall, trying to catch her breath while Isaac took the moment to run some system checks on his RIG. She occasionally turned her head at the sound of a distant howl as it echoed with ghostly frigidity throughout the complex.

Isaac, while appearing busy with his RIG, was able to think only of Nicole. It surprised him how calm she was, and he wondered whether she were truly sound or just holding it all back.

_Even if she were about to crack, could he tell?_

A little concerned, he accessed the vital readings from her RIG remotely through his own.

_Her signs looked good. A little high, maybe._

He finally looked down at the plasma cutter in his hand, then noticed Nicole doing the same with her rifle. She was staring at the weapon upon her lap, repeatedly trying to open the ammunition clip. As the moments passed without success, she finally began to succumb to the fear she had, as Isaac had suspected, been suppressing all this time. Her calm, level-headed demeanor quickly deteriorated under the rising heat of frustration, and unable to contain herself any longer she started pounding furiously on the side of the rifle with a closed fist, eyes shimmering with tears.

"Goddamn it... open, open _you fucker!"_

Watching as her composure crumbled before him, Isaac's adoration for her became boundless.

_... Poor little thing._

He caught her fist in mid-swing, then as she looked up into his eyes through tears, he gently took the rifle from off her lap. He started to examine it himself, and taking the moment to relax her nerves, Nicole pulled her knees up to her chest. Again, he smiled reassuringly to her.

"It's ok, baby. We'll fix it."

Isaac had little working knowledge of this type of high-end weaponry save for what he had learned during his time in the Merchant Marines nearly decades ago, and his even shorter stint aboard the Ishimura. Still, he did his best to survey the weapon with meticulous eyes, noting that the rifle's housing was considerably damaged. There were several large dents, including one across the ammunition clip which was causing the lock to jam, and with a little difficulty he managed to pry it open. He pulled out the exhausted clip, which was still hot and smoldering between his fingers, and he counted the rounds that remained inside it.

_Eight. Eight fucking bullets. That would be about, maybe just enough to piss one of them off._

Feeling annoyed by his inadequacy to assist her in a way more meaningful, he sighed, closed the clip latch and handed the rifle back to Nicole.

"I, I think it overheated. I don't know if it still works. It's empty anyway, so it just... doesn't matter."

He immediately regretted his words as he saw the blank, despondent expression spread across her face. Realizing that his words were short-tempered and not as positive as they could have been, he gave her an apologetic smile in an attempt to retract his own dejection.

_It wasn't her fault. She was doing the best she could._

Isaac sat in silence, gazing lovingly yet regrettably upon her until something far down the hallway caught his attention.

_Huh...?_

At first all he saw was a shadow, motionless and indiscernible through the thick molecules of dust swirling upon the air between them.

"Wh, what's the matter, Isaac?"

Isaac didn't hear Nicole. He just watched as the figure slowly raised a hand and waved at him from afar. His first guess was that it was a necromorph, but this person's gestures were a little too friendly and socialized. Then suddenly, the figure darted off down the hall in the opposite direction, vanishing into the darkness like a ghost. Before it did so, Isaac caught a very brief glimpse of what it was wearing - dark beige jeans and a white, short sleeved vest, straddled by the faint blue glow of a RIG's status bar down the back.

_Someone here? Alive?_

Isaac quickly stood to his feet, and with eyes locked dead on the hallway ahead he resealed his helmet and cautiously began to head down the passage. Nicole, who was not aware of what had seized his attention, jumped up and followed closely behind.

"What is it? What's going on?"

Isaac paid her no heed, keeping silent as he concentrated on the darkness of the empty passage ahead. He realized that he was still aiming his empty plasma cutter ahead out of instinct, and shaking his head he lowered it to his side. The hall echoed discordantly with the sound of his metal boots scraping across the concrete floor as he continued on, which was interleaved with the softer, lighter sounds of Nicole behind him, and the sound reverberated down the passage in delayed waves.

Warily approaching a small opening of light in the darkness ahead, Isaac discovered a narrow annex that diverged at an angle from the main walkway. Though he wasn't exactly sure how or why, he sensed that the figure had come this way; he could almost see the illuminated imprints of its footsteps still adhered to the floor. He peered cautiously down the annex, half expecting to see some menacing monster staring back at him, but he was puzzled to find no one there.

An increasingly nervous Nicole finally caught up and tugged at his arm.

"... Isaac?"

He looked back over his shoulder at her, confused.

"I... I thought I saw..."

Isaac wasn't sure if he had actually seen someone, or if it might have been another residual hallucination still rattling around inside his brain. Counfounded, he sighed and started to back up.

"... It's nothing. Let's keep going."

Still oblivious to what Isaac had been seeing, Nicole stepped past him with a look of disbelief.

"You know, something? I think this is the right one... Wow. Nice job, Isaac!"

"The right one what?"

Nicole smiled and pointed down the annex.

"This is the way out. The hallway I was looking for. I couldn't remember where it was, but I knew it was in this area somewhere. Lucky guess, huh?"

Nicole grabbed the nose of his plasma cutter and pulled him down the annex. He became increasingly disturbed by the harsh, flickering fluorescent bulbs mounted on the walls as he passed them, blinded by the light that poured through the glass plates of his visor. Unable to see properly, he merely surrendered himself as a puppet in Nicole's hands, following the direction of her voice as she tugged him along.

"This is definitely it. We're close now."

They followed the annex passage to where it ended, abruptly at a dead end with no doors on either side. Wondering if Nicole was mistaken, Isaac was just about to question her when she pointed up to the ceiling at a small release hatch.

"This lets out on the south end of the Colony. We'll be out in the open desert, but I don't think the necromorphs go too far beyond the complex. This way will be a lot easier than the way we were going."

Isaac approached the metal rungs leading up to the hatch and climbed up. He reached for the hololock mechanism and paused, taking a moment before opening it. Once again, as he closed his eyes he could suddenly hear the chanting of the Marker, this time not just from within his own mind but from outside as well. He drew a deep breath, and Nicole watched in anxious silence as he carefully activated the hololock and pushed the hatch open.

They both immediately felt a brief draft of cold, stagnant air rush past by the change in environmental pressure, and the moment they were exposed to the open the chanting immediately became louder to Isaac. He ascended the hatch opening to find they were somewhere out on the deserted surface of Aegis7 and beyond the colony's main complex, the darkened silhouette of which was suppressed beneath an even darker, moonless sky overhead. The sun had vanished long ago, and they were now in the dead of night with nothing but the far, distant stars above to light their way, all of which suggested that they had been wandering around inside the complex for many hours more than either one of them had realized.

**beware the illusion**

Isaac immediately paused at the sound of a sharp, almost electrifying voice.

**persistence may be labeled as obsession if you indulge and persist you objectify the subject**

He then turned his head into the wind, trying to gauge from where these madly alluring whispers were coming, when he saw several hundred yards away the starting crest of a long line of peaks reaching for the sky like giant stalagmites. The towering spires - the skeletal fossils of the extinct mountainous terrain that had once flourished here aeons ago - stretched for hundreds of meters and traced the perimeter of the Colony before gradually declining back down into the sand. The range's proximity to the colony seemed to suggest that its base far beneath probably served as much of the foundation for the hidden underground complex.

_What must have once been here. Would anyone, including him, ever know?_

The winds bowled across the anhydrous skin of the earth, tossing small, frenzied gatherings of dust into the air thick enough to see against even the night sky. Eagerly scanning the dusty, windblown landscape in order to seek out the source of the voices he was hearing, Isaac suddenly detected a very feint blue glow in the same direction as the rocky outcroppings. He activated the enhancing sight zoom on his visor for closer inspection, and saw that it was actually the RIG of the same dark figure he had seen back in the maintenance passage. Isaac became enlivened by the fact that he had not lost track of them.

**also be mindful of psychological rejection**

Isaac stopped and stared into the curtain of rocks ahead until Nicole came up behind him. She flashed a troubled glance his way as she passed him by, having still not seen what - or who - had captured his attention so. Ironically enough, she started to head toward the exact spot where Isaac had seen his ecliptic target.

"C'mon. The Marker is this way."

They trekked across the sand toward the hills in silence, with the howling wind in their ears - which for Isaac, paled in comparison to the increasingly voluminous chanting of the Marker. As far away as the hills had seemed at first, they reached the alcove at the base sooner than they had anticipated, and once they arrived they quickly took shelter from the wind. Nicole stopped to catch her breath, who being helmet-less unlike Isaac, had to hold it nearly the entire way to protect herself from inhaling the airborne dust and sand. Isaac looked around the alcove with wild eyes.

**make us whole again**

The chanting was getting louder all the time, which he could now hear resounding off the rocks, beckoning him on to find their origin. Driven mad by their attractive, tonal fluctuations he began to pace in small circles, holding his arms out as if keeping some invisible force at bay, and calling out with an insanely desperate taste upon his tongue.

"Who are you? Are... are you the Marker? Why don't you tell me who you are?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Isaac caught the back of Nicole's RIG just as she disappeared into a small, dark hole between the rocks. Afraid of losing her he quickly followed, discovering a tight, pitch black tunnel that seemed rather foreboding.

_What the hell?_

Able to see nothing more of her ahead of him than the dwindling notches of her RIG, Isaac struggled to keep pace with Nicole. The passage was a little constricted for someone his size, and the protruding metal shielding of his suit scraped along the walls, slowing him down even more. Falling farther and farther behind and beginning to doubt he could actually traverse the entire tunnel this way, Isaac began to get irritated.

_Hey, slow down, you!_

Nicole suddenly disappeared and Isaac was left alone to for quite some time. He became worried after a while, sensing he was traveling deeper and deeper into the mountainside yet having failed to see any light ahead to indicate the end of the tunnel. He began to wonder disdainfully if he might eventually come to a dead end, only to be met with one of Nicole's sheepish grins and a diffident apology for leading him all the way to nothing. He smirked darkly beneath his visor.

_Where the hell was she taking him?_

He continued for a few more minutes, with nothing but the illumination of his suit to guide him until he finally stopped and threw up his hands. Debating at this point whether he had actually mistaken Nicole's having come this way, and whether it was more sensible to continue on or go back, Isaac anxiously scanned the tunnel ahead of him once more in the hopes of seeing her RIG... or anybody's RIG, for that matter.

**isaac...  
**

All he could see on both sides of him were layers of rock gradually choking the tunnel more and more with thick, limestone shards. Still, the volume and clarity of the whispering voices hinted that he was very close to them, and not quite knowing how to respond he stuck to a direct answer.

"... What do you want?"

Unexpectedly, the wall began to move. Isaac panicked when he saw this, thinking that the tunnel was perhaps collapsing in on itself, and he very briefly considered making a run for it until he realized that the transformation the rock was undertaking was very odd and distinct, certainly not the result of a cave-in. He watched the limestone as it began to shift, shedding chips and releasing tiny clouds of crushed dust while the stone slabs slipped against each other - bending, distorting and ultimately rearranging right before his very eyes into the form of a necromorph's face.

Isaac froze on the spot, terrifyingly mesmerized as the haunted rock formation parted a pair of fractured, graveled lips, baring the granite crags of its teeth to speak to him.

**incompatible anomaly **

He squeezed his eyes shut, begging for it all to be just another hallucination. When he opened his eyes again, the face was gone, and the wall had resumed its original appearance as if it had never happened. Unable to fathom what he had just seen and doubtful as to whether it was real or not, Isaac scowled.

_This wasn't good. He was beginning to lose touch with reality. Reality. Reality._

Isaac was drawn away by a glimmer of light farther down the tunnel ahead. He turned away from the rock wall and charged forth, determined not to waste any more time, and he continued on until the dim light expanded into what was actually the end of the tunnel. Much to his great relief, Isaac finally stepped out into the open desert landscape once again.

The tunnel's exit point had dumped Isaac off on the opposite side of the mountain range, far from the colony complex and near the jagged cliff edge of the planet's man-made crater. The deep pit seemed to absorb whatever ambient light was present, rivaling even the darkness of space high above. Isaac could barely see off in the distance along the crater's opposite side the inconstant twinkling of the last few remaining operational halogens that accompanied the long abandoned mining equipment.

Isaac then turned to the massive gravity tethers that surrounded the crater, stabilizing Aegis7's extracted planet cork floating in the atmosphere overhead like an island in the sky. The silhouette of the landmass was barely visible as distant sunlight gleamed off the edge of it, tracing out sharp, earthen edges against the immutable blackness. Isaac glanced down into the crater one more time, which was so enveloped in shadow it was impossible to see the bottom of it with naked eyes.

_Incompatible anomaly_.

Lost in his exploration, Isaac had completely forgotten about Nicole. Realizing now that he had not seen her since she had disappeared on him in the tunnel, he started to look around in all directions for her.

"Nicole? Nicole, Where are you?"

While a part of him panicked that he had lost track of her, he couldn't help but feel imminently drawn back to the chanting of the Marker, which by now was clearly dominating all of his thoughts and intent on pushing everything else, including Nicole, out of his head. As he continued to look around he came across another series of towering black silhouettes, probably belonging to another outstretched collective of fossilized rocks, reaching for the sky several dozen yards away to his right. Feeling inspired for some reason he couldn't explain, Isaac headed for them.

At first, the sharp, slender points emerging from the sand gave the impression that they were also spires of rock, but the closer Isaac got the more he realized that they weren't natural formations. He noticed their symmetrical peculiarity; six equally spaced beams jutting from the ground like the upturned ribs of a carcass, slightly bowed in the center and polished to a finish that appeared glossy, even in the dark. Isaac drew his cutter, activated the flashlight and aimed it directly at the beams. He was astonished as the surfaces refracted with luminosity, indicating that they were fabricated of steel and not stone.

Isaac came closer, seeing more and more details rise to the surface. The massive steel beams were extending at an angle from the side of something very large that was buried in the sand. He dragged the heels of his boots across what appeared to be smooth metal panels, visible here and there, and he concluded that they were part of the same structure as the metal beams. Wherever he looked he also began to see large sections of destroyed wiring poking out of the sand, exposed access panels, rows of rivets embedded in sheets of titanium...

_This was a crash site._

Isaac was now sure that this was the wreckage of a very large ship. But it wasn't just any ship; something about this wreckage was repelling his approach like some relentless apparition as he walked around the edges of it. He could hear bygone screams carried upon the wind like ancient radio transmissions, he could smell the blood of thousands flowing through the bowels of the wreckage like a river torrent. He also alarmingly saw signs of the necromorph virus; endless patches of flesh and bloody membranes stretching across the metal and sand in grave victory over its deserted acquisition. It was now also very clear that the chanting that had been guiding him all this time was emanating very strongly from within the wreck itself.

_Death lived here. Death. Rebirth._

"Isaac."

He was startled by Nicole as she suddenly came up behind him and placed her hand upon his shoulder. Not having expected to see her but glad that she was safe, Isaac smiled nervously.

"Oh, hey. Where'd you go? I was looking for you."

Nicole didn't answer him, but feeling more concerned over what he had discovered here, he dismissed her silence. He looked back at the wreckage, and pointed to the long, metal beams towering over the sand.

"What is this? Who crashed here?"

At that moment, Isaac again saw the elusive figure he had been seeking all along, standing several hundred feet further down the exposed portion of the wreck. He immediately started to run toward it, and Nicole started to follow him. He tried to run as quickly as he could, but tired and weighed down by his suit it was a challenge. By the time he reached the location where he had last seen the unknown figure, it had already disappeared into a hole in the ground. Isaac dashed up, only to find that the hole was actually a sealed door, facing up out of the sand from the side of the wrecked ship.

Gauging by the awkward position of the doorway, Isaac figured that the entire wreckage - which he was confident was of CEC origin from what little of the design he could see - was tilted at a considerable angle, with most of the ship actually buried far beneath the ground, nose-first. He stooped to his knees and examined the hololock upon the door, surprised to see that despite such catastrophic destruction, the mechanism was illuminated and apparently operational. It sprung to life and rotated to an unlocked position when he touched it.

_Damn. To withstand a wreck like this? T.E.A.K. sure did build some rock solid shit._

Isaac swiped his boot across the surface of the door to clear some of the sand off it, inadvertently uncovering an insignia painted upon it that he was familiar with although couldn't exactly place due to his hazy memory. He tapped the hololock again and the door slowly slid open, sending the residual sand still clinging to its edges to rain down into the ship.

Isaac squatted on the edge of the doorway, shining his flashlight inside to see if he could figure a way to descend safely. After a moment he finally threw his legs over the edge and prepared to drop, when he looked up across the sand. Several hundred feet in front of him he could see six huge, white marquee lights, shaped into the forms of letters and bolted to the surface of the ship that was still exposed above-ground.

**USG ISH**

Isaac was shocked. Though he couldn't explain it, he also couldn't question it - he had found the remains of the somehow crashed USG Ishimura.

"Holy shit."

Isaac again looked down into the hull of the Ishimura through the open doorway with amazement, trying to calculate how the mammoth planet cracker could have broken orbit and crashed, and through his RIG he tried to establish a remote connection with the ship's central operating system. Much to his astonishment his RIG reported that most of the Ishimura's main functions were still online, including air ventilation and environmental control. He turned back to Nicole, who nodded in silent concurrence.

"In here. The Marker is waiting."

Once again Isaac peered down into the Ishimura, still wrestling with his sense of belief over what he had uncovered. He then leaned over the edge and dropped down into the wreckage, disappearing into the darkness below.


	17. Idolatry

**Chapter 17  
Idolatry**

**"I cannot keep my balance seeing thus Your blazing deathlike faces and awful teeth. From all directions, I am bewildered."  
- B.G., 11.25**

* * *

Isaac descended into the darkened wreckage of the USG Ishimura, becoming more eager to make contact with the Marker the deeper he went - if not to see what was actually left of the ship.

Several feet in, he paused to shine his flashlight around and get a grasp on the surroundings. He noticed right away that while most of the ship's interior was completely demolished and swallowed in darkness, the running lights and holomonitors of several system kiosks were somehow operational, faintly illuminating the way down. Isaac was almost convinced he was dreaming or under the influence of yet another hallucination, as he found it incredible that any of the Ishimura's electrical wiring or fragile computer equipment could have remained intact after such a crash. Still, despite his superficial disbelief, Isaac knew deep within his heart that anything the Marker touched was never what it seemed at face value.

_Not to be fooled. The Ishimura was definitely still alive._

Isaac figured he had entered through one of the outer emergency access hatches, and the only way to go was deeper into the ship, which at this vantage was nearly a straight drop in front of him. He found a long knot of network cables dangling loose from the ceiling, and after tugging on them to check their tensile strength he daringly appropriated them as a rope to assist his descent through the wreckage. He grappled the cables and started climbing his way down until he finally reached what was once the floor, now steeply angled after having collapsed under its own weight. The ship's twisted innards were as disorienting to him as a hall of mirrors, and miscalculating the floor's incline he prematurely released the cables, lost his balance, and slipped down even further into the ship.

_"Oh, whoa shit!"_

Desperate to slow his fall, he lashed out at anything he could until he finally managed to grapple a broken monitor support beam that passed him by. He jerked to an abrupt stop and waited out the flurry of debris that had followed him down, then shook off the dust and retracted his helmet. Shining the flashlight around, Isaac carefully examined the area with his naked eyes.

"... Jesus."

The more he looked about, the more the ship's condition threw him into total incredulity. It was now apparent that the crash's impact had caused the entire length of the Ishimura to partially compress, like a gigantic steel accordion from stem to stern, irreparably crushing almost everything inside it. Even the rooms and halls were compacted, twisted and bending chaotically like the environment of some nightmare and making navigation a rather difficult task. He could see he would be forced to climb his way around everything rather than simply being able to traverse it by foot, and that it was also dangerously unstable. Though he was hopeful that this extent of damage would only be present in these outer layers of the ship and hence only a temporary inconvenience, he still came to realize just how monumental and insane a task he had undertaken in choosing to explore the Ishimura in this condition. He had to stop for a just a moment to rethink his logic.

_This was impossible. Was he crazy? _

Isaac frowned as he glanced around the nearly inconceivable mess that was once the glorious USG Ishimura.

_There was no way the Marker could have survived this. It was probably in pieces somewhere around here._

Suddenly, he heard Nicole's voice echo down through the hole above him.

"_Isaac? Are you alright? Where'd you go?"_

Isaac released his grip on the rod and dropped the remaining few feet to the floor - which at this point in the wreckage's angle was actually a wall. He took a deep breath of relief to see that he had finally reached a stable surface, then looked back up the hole he had just fallen through.

"Yeah... I'm OK. C'mon down."

Upon his reply Nicole proceeded to enter the ship, following his path. Isaac could hear the repercussions of her footsteps along the metal beams high above, directly followed by the sound of her sliding down the open passage until she finally landed right next to him. He helped her up and she dusted herself off, looking around at whatever she could see in the beam of Isaac's flashlight with a fearful sense of wonder in her eyes.

"... Wow. This place went to shit real fast. I wonder what... what happened?"

Apart from a brief glance at her to ensure she was okay Isaac remained silent, then without a word he resealed his helmet. Nicole felt a little chill at his cold shouldered reaction; having already been troubled over their return to such a dreadful place, she was even less assured now as she thought she sensed something changing in his behavior. She held her breath and looked down, waiting for him to make the next move.

_Damn him. Sometimes, she just couldn't tell whether he loved her... or hated her._

Distracted by her thoughts she had not readily noticed that Isaac had already pried open the door and slipped through. Not wanting to be left behind Nicole quickly followed through the partially ajar doorway, anxiously trying to catch up to him as he pushed onward through the ravaged ship.

They continued on until they eventually came across the remains of the Ishimura Flight Lounge, now merely a pocket of demolished steel, wiring and luggage cabinets scattered explosively in every direction. All of the surrounding holomonitors were long dead, and there were no working lights. Through the glowing illumination of Isaac's suit they saw the ever-expanding corruption of the Marker, which was covering almost everything visible to them. The walls and ceiling, as well as a large percentage of the floor and even the resident control systems, were so completely assimilated that the corruption almost seemed to be a natural part of the environment; it covered everything in a throbbing blanket of flesh and gave the impression that the Ishimura was in reality some gigantic, breathing organism they were both standing inside of.

They both listened to the smothering silence all around them, hearing only the quivering sounds of the corruption and the occasional creak of the ship's steel frame as it griped beneath the pressure of the sand it was buried in. The entire scene was foreboding and bizarre, the darkness was stifling and the longer they remained at a standstill, the less they wanted to continue onward. Yet, despite the hesitation he was feeling, Isaac knew he was so close to the Marker that his tongue salivated with the anticipatory anxiety of a jackal about to strike.

_They were so close. They had to keep going._

They continued on, carefully scaling each section of debris and digging their way even deeper into the ship. At one point Isaac paused as he saw a dim, blue glow beneath his boot - and he realized that the floor he was standing on was actually another door. He lifted his foot and glanced at the hololock beneath him, then swept some of the debris off of the damaged, flickering LED marquee over the doorway in order to read it.

**[USG ISHIMURA FLIGHT HANGAR - WARNING: ZERO-GRAVITY AREA - HAVE A SAFE TRIP AND WE HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN SOON]**

Isaac then stepped off to the side of the doorway, squatted upon his knees and touched the hololock with his hand. The mechanism unlatched and the doors slid open, exposing the vast expanse of the hangar beyond it. Isaac shined his light down through the opening, barely able to make out the silhouettes of the two massive bay bridges through the thick, swirling dust, both of which had been dislocated from their original positions and dragged along the hangar by the force of the ship's compression. Isaac continued to look around, noticing that the rest of the hangar was even darker than the giant steel fabrications' solid black outlines, and this made discerning the details virtually impossible to do without the assistance of his flashlight - which in itself barely made a dent in such a deep, Cimmerian grave.

Isaac also realized once the hangar doors were open that the Marker's mysterious chanting had become significantly louder, both inside his head and all around him. Suspecting the Marker was contained within the hangar, and becoming excited to the point of breaking a heated sweat, Isaac eagerly dropped down through the open doorway. Nicole, who knew exactly what it was that was driving him, watched Isaac warily from behind.

"... Careful. Please."

Isaac touched down upon the edge of one of the bridges, and he started bouncing his weight upon it a few times to see if it was safe enough to support him. The metal failed to budge, and feeling confident he began to sidle along its edge, heading towards the center where the bridge had been sheared in half.

Isaac was dismayed to see that navigating here would prove to be even more challenging than what he had faced thus far; the structural integrity of the hangar had been severely compromised, and everything appeared to be resting precariously upon the fallen bay bridges. The walls were crushed in and the floors and catwalks were all gone, having collapsed into a deep, dark pit far below, with nothing but a several hundred foot drop directly on either side of the bridge Isaac was standing on. He knew that to lose his footing would most likely prove fatal for him, for even if he might have been able to survive such a steep drop he would ultimately be trapped at the bottom.

_If only gravity wasn't an issue here._

Realizing it was nearly impossible to continue on at this point, Isaac suddenly remembered the hangar's anti-gravity boosters - and he started looking around for the system kiosk that controlled them. Even as he searched he knew he was nothing but insane for even considering that the anti-gravity system might be operable at all, for certainly the gravitational centrifuge must have been destroyed beyond all reason.

_Well, that and the fact that they were still planet-bound to begin with._

His head was spinning, disoriented still by the highly unorthodox angle of the mechanical mausoleum he was standing in, but he slowly, determinedly continued making his way down the length of the broken bay bridge. As he neared the center of the hangar and his eyes finally acclimated to the darkness, he could barely see several hundred feet in front of him the huge sections of thick, pressurized glass that lined what was once the ceiling, all of which aside from a few scratches had been strong enough to survive the impact. Having once served as the majestic vantage points to the stars, the monumental windows now lay buried within the sand, only to face deep set earth, rock, and never-ending darkness. Their eternal damnation to never again display the heavenly planets afloat in their cosmic ocean crushed Isaac's spirit, and feeling somewhat saddened by this he looked back down to his feet, trying to stay focused on locating the control room.

_Such a great ship. What a waste._

Isaac saw the control room out of the corner of his eye, which was practically upside-down in relation to his own position, about twenty yards above him just off to his right. Utilizing the debris resting against the end of the bay bridge, which had formed a crude walkway between where he was and the ledge of the control room's access ramp, Isaac carefully traversed the wreckage until he reached it. He grabbed for the upturned ledge and pulled himself up, finally laying his eyes upon the gravity control kiosk he had been looking for. At its dilapidated angle the kiosk was almost perpendicular to him, and in order to access the controls he had to wrap his arm around the base of the kiosk and swipe blindly at the holopad atop it.

_"C'mon, you fuck..."_

After a few failed attempts, Isaac was utterly shocked to see the impossible become a reality. The kiosk suddenly triggered at his touch, and the halogen flood lights lining the perimeter lit up all around with the magnitude of tiny, auxiliary suns, revealing in their blinding illumination the true extent of the damage. The lights were followed by the loud, rolling wails of hazard alarms as the system came online, the deafening whirr of the gravity boosters as they kicked on, and the deep, rumbling slam of the hangar doors as they automatically sealed. The gravity engines then seized control of the environment, and despite the fact that all of this was defying any acceptably logical reality, within the span of merely a few seconds the Ishimura Flight Hangar awoke from its state of slumber.

Isaac instantly felt the weight of his body decline as the anti-gravity system took effect, and he began to levitate above the surface he had been clinging to. Just seconds after the loss of gravity was detected by his RIG, the magnets in his boots automatically engaged, latching him to the metal floor and leaving him to waver sideways upon the air like the beckoning tentacle of an anemone. Every piece of loose debris in the hanger immediately became weightless and lifted gently into the air, and Isaac sighed with relief to see he had achieved his goal - the hangar's steep sloping angle and extensive damage no longer posed any barrier to his exploration, as he could navigate freely about the room in all directions. Unable to understand how any of this was happening but glad that it was, Isaac released his hold upon the kiosk, detached his boots, and took to the air with confidence.

_Ah, there we go._

From his now bird's-eye view Isaac took the opportunity to better examine the hangar, seeing as the floodlights disclosed a far more lurid situation than he had estimated. In addition to the destruction, the necromorph corruption was everywhere; gargantuan, bloody tentacles weaved in and out of the wreckage like monstrous serpents, its pulsating skin lined almost every inch of wall space and any debris it could hold down, and it became obvious that the corruption and its fallen acquisition were so tightly amalgamated that even if the ship could have been resurrected in some way, ridding it completely of this infestation would be absolutely impossible.

_Safe to say that the Ishimura now undoubtedly belonged to the Marker. _

Beginning to feel uncomfortably suffocated to see such presence of this vile force, Isaac now felt an urgency to find the Marker as soon as possible. He pressed his feet to the nearby wall and pushed himself off for momentum, drifting swiftly through the air until he reached the second bay bridge. As he soared along silently, he maneuvered his body to avoid the airborne debris in his path, when suddenly a decomposed forearm emerged from the shadows and drifted aimlessly past his visor. The fingers, stiff with rigor mortis, clung perilously to the handle of an old, rusting plasma cutter, eroded and smeared with blood that had dried in dark patches. His first instinct was to avoid it altogether, but the necessity of increasing his chances of survival outweighed any personal consideration; seeing as this might be an impassable opportunity to reload his own plasma cutter, he carefully grabbed the limb, pried the fingers from the handle, opened the chamber and removed the plasma cartridge that was in it. Although he felt a little nervous about disturbing the dead, Isaac no longer harbored any reservations when it came to their unclaimed property.

_And who could blame him? He needed every last boon he could get out here. _

He gently released the plasma cutter and dead arm back upon the air, loaded his own cutter with the cartridge and gave a small sigh of relief to see it was now fully charged. He glanced up at the dismembered limb floating just feet away, then over at the eroded plasma cutter, and he shivered.

_They looked so familiar._

The forearm's glove and what remained of its rusting shield gauntlet was unmistakably part of an engineer's deep space suit, identical in design to the type he had once worn himself. Even the plasma cutter was the same model he remembered, and he tried to find any identifying marks upon it that would give an indication as to who the tool – or the limb - might have belonged to. However, feeling overly sympathetic for whoever this person was and what they had to have faced to have met such a terrible fate, he lost the nerve to continue examining them.

_"Sorry, buddy... Shit happens, huh?"_

Still feeling somewhat uncomfortable, Isaac turned finally away and started scouring the hangar with his eyes. He drifted through the air, gliding like a storm cloud until he approached the eastern side of the hangar, and finally his eyes fell to the cargo transportation track that was rooted to the hangar floor in a dark corner. His breath stopped.

_The Marker._

For as long as Isaac had anticipated laying his eyes upon it again, the ubiquitous, unearthly Red Marker completely stunned him all the same. He could only stare wide eyed at it through his visor, amazed to see that the blackened artifact was still intact, standing tall and strapped to the transport cage upon the track.

_The Marker._

Standing at a right angle to Isaac's position, its twisted, helix spires jutted menacingly into the air, reaching for him. It absorbed the light all around deep into its dark, obsidian surfaces, its intricate carvings pulsating with a gentle, blood red glow, and all Isaac could hear was the chanting as it vibrated from the obelisk itself. The Marker seemed so much larger, so much more breathtaking, and so much more frightening than he ever remembered it to be.

_The Marker._

Isaac was astounded by the fact that the Marker had somehow remained virtually untouched by the destruction. He found it impossible to tear his eyes away, even as he heard the sound of boots approaching from several feet below him. He didn't even so much as glance down to see who it was, so consumed he was by the Marker's enchanting presence.

_The Marker._

It was now only a hundred feet away from him, at the most. Anxious to make contact Isaac grabbed at some nearby fractured rebar as it passed him by and he pushed off it to increase his forward momentum. He sailed his way through the vacuous space between himself and the Marker until he closed in upon it.

_The Marker._

Isaac was now floating parallel to it, looking up at the tips of its spires as they glimmered in the yellow hangar light. He was utterly intoxicated.

_The Marker. _

He could barely hear someone's voice, muffled and intelligible, shouting something from below that he simply didn't care to hear; the chanting of the Marker had increased to the point of drowning it all out, anyway. He touched down upon the slanted hangar bay floor, locked his gravity boots to the surface and took a single step towards the artifact.

_The Marker._

Isaac was close enough to discern the reflection of his own helmet's illuminated visor upon the Marker's polished black stone. It glistened back at him ominously, like some restless eidolon trapped within the rock, distorting across it's unrefined surface as he approached.

_The Marker._..

He stopped a few inches from the base of it. With a long, hard, reverent stare he slowly, hesitantly extended his arm... and he touched it.

**isaac**

The chanting that had been plaguing the inner cavity of his skull suddenly fell away, until only a single, seraphic voice remained to whisper from the grains of ancient dust still clinging delicately to the Marker.

**unity is forever**

The rock beneath his hand felt warm, rapidly climbing in temperature. His glove seemed to have no insulating effect against it.

**unity is forever**

The skin of his hand inside the glove began to tingle, which gradually grew into a deep, burning sensation as it traveled up his arm. Still, he could not pull away from the Marker.

**you must make us whole**

The burning increased, but he could only press his hand even tighter against the Marker. He jammed his fingers deeper into the gouges of its carved runes, trying insanely to grasp its intense, heated fury.

**you belong to me**

Everything about what he was experiencing told him that the flesh of his hand was crisping and turning black, that the blood within the veins of his arm was beginning to boil and evaporate. Still, he was impelled to pull himself closer and closer to the Marker until he had pressed even his head against it, hysterically yearning for the pain he was enduring to spread across his entire body.

**you must let go**

As the inebriation of a life threatening fever overtook him in that moment, Isaac madly thought just how exhilarating it would be to burst into flames.

"Isaac..."

Isaac's trance was abruptly shattered by someone tugging at him. The brief interruption caused the Marker's influence to dissipate like a cloud in the hot sun, and released from its hold Isaac shook his head, stumbled backward. He glanced up, and it surprised him to see he was standing so close to the Marker; for he couldn't remember how he got there. He then glanced at his hand still pressed firmly to the rock, and suddenly recalling the intolerable pain he had felt he pulled his hand back and looked at it.

_What the...?_

His hand was completely unharmed, his glove fully intact.

"Hey -"

Disappointed with having lost his moment of precious communion with the Marker, Isaac suddenly lost his temper. He turned about and furiously snarled through tightly clenched teeth.

_"Getthefuck**awayfromme**!"_

Isaac was shocked by the venom he heard in his own voice as it echoed threateningly from his helmet, but it was already too late. Nicole, who had been trying to pull his attention away from the Marker, fearfully leapt back at his outburst. His hostility was obvious even from behind the emotionless veneer of his helmet as he stared her down; out of fear of him, her stunned, wide eyed expression slowly melted into a pool of diffidence, she bit her lip, her brows sank and her shimmering eyes refused to meet his. It took him a moment to realize how frightened of him she had suddenly become, but he was still far too distracted by the beautiful onyx surfaces of the Marker to apologize to her. He wasn't sure that a response was even necessary, but still he would impart one for her sake.

_"... Keep your hands to yourself."_

Made to feel a little indignant by his callous remark, Nicole was just about to respond when she noticed that Isaac's attention had again drifted. He was staring up at the hangar's control room, his eyes sharply focused upon something that she couldn't see.

"... What is it?"

Isaac on the other hand, saw perfectly through the dark a slender figure suspended weightlessly in the air, clinging to the anti-gravity control kiosk. He tensed as he realized it was the unknown stranger he had been tracking, who was now staring directly at him.

**now you see me**

Finally close enough, Isaac was now able to see more elucidating details - judging by the signature curves it was female, tall, and eloquent. The white vest and beige pants she was wearing he recognized as part of a CEC employee's uniform, along with the RIG on her back, and long, dark brown hair whipped about her shoulders like silk ribbons through water. The woman's eyes, algid, unfeeling and the same shade of brown as her hair, were latched directly onto his, and he stared back at her.

_It couldn't be._

A tight, furtive smirk spread across the woman's lips as she waved darkly at him.

_Kendra Daniels?_

Isaac could not believe his eyes, and his first instinct was to immediately go after her. Before he could take the first step however, the woman slapped her hand against the control kiosk, deactivating the anti-gravity system and cutting power to the hangar's lights.

**now you don't**

The hangar immediately went black and the air was filled with the thunderous cacophony of sound as gravity was restored and tons of free floating debris began to fall all around them, furiously vibrating the hull of the ship. Isaac suddenly felt his gravity boots disengage from the surface he had been magnetically bonded to, and with no time to prepare he began a swift descent down into the pit of wreckage below. He heard Nicole screaming as she fell alongside him, but her fall was broken a few seconds later by a nest of shattered framework. Isaac had no such luck as he continued down, until he hit the bottom of the pit several hundred feet below.

_"No... !"_

He was knocked senseless, spared from death only by the integrity of his Tank Suit and the random debris that softened his fall along the way down. It took him a few moments to come to, but when he did he immediately rose to his feet and looked back up, trying to see anything above him. He was just in time to catch the glow of Kendra's RIG disappear as she climbed her way up between the control room doors. Both puzzled by her somehow continued existence and infuriated by her having put his and Nicole's lives in danger, Isaac growled angrily and retracted his helmet, desperate for unconstrained air, and he cried out.

"You fucking... bitch!"

Out of breath and alone in the dark, Isaac pressed his hands to his head, trying to figure out how Kendra could still be alive. He started looking around in a panic.

"Nicole, oh my god, where are you? Nicole!"

She didn't respond, and now, he also became alarmingly aware of something else.

_Shit - the Marker! Where the hell was it? _

Isaac realized that he could no longer see the Marker, nor hear it's chanting, and frantically looking all around for a way to climb up he suddenly heard a loud, crushing sound coming from above. In his maddened attempt to escape he paid little attention to it, assuming it was still the hangar's contents settling after the return of gravity. However, he was lured immediately by the daunting echo of Nicole's screaming.

_"Isaac! LOOK OUT!"_

Isaac's head shot upward just in time to see the black silhouette of something very large emerge from the shadows above him and begin charging down through the wreckage with great agility and speed, headed directly for him. As it got closer Isaac realized it was the brute he had met earlier back in the colony, and it surprised him to see that somehow it had managed to track him all this way despite Nicole's assurances that the necromorphs would not travel beyond the compound. His hand went straight for his plasma cutter, still knowing how useless it was against this one.

_When did that thing get in here?_

This time with no reluctance the brute galloped down the wreckage, slamming its gigantic, calloused fists into the metal debris and shaking the entire hangar with its monstrous, resounding roars. Seeing he was beneath it and at a severe disadvantage Isaac backed up, tensing every muscle in his body in preparation to dodge it however he could.

_C'mon._

Just then, Isaac heard a second roar coming from the shadows off to his right. He turned his head only to feel his confidence shatter upon the sight of a second brute, just as elephantine and wild as the first. Now, Isaac was truly perplexed.

_OK... Which one first?_

He was alarmed to hear yet a third roar upon the stale air from somewhere above him, then a few more from various points around the hangar until Isaac came to realize with heart sinking conviction that he was surrounded.

_Hmm. Pack of brutes, and all he had was a useless plasma cutter. _

The horde descended upon him from all around, and Isaac's eyes darted from one brute to the next in an attempt to calculate their positions.

_Six. Seven. No - eight. _

Introspectively terrified, a ream of frantic escape strategies coursed through Isaac's brain. He had no time to act upon any of any of his impulses other than to reseal his helmet before the brutes approached him, reducing their speed as they reached the bottom of the chasm where he was trapped. They closed in around him with hunched posture and burning crimson eyes, and their menacing, swaying arms threatened Isaac back. The first brute, whose head had by now partially regenerated into a thick lump of underdeveloped flesh bound to its neck, trampled forward toward Isaac and towered over him in total obstinacy to his meaningless threats with the plasma cutter. Isaac could taste the sweat of his own fear as it ran down his face and in between his lips, but earnestly attempting to save his own life by bluffing he still shook the cutter at the brute tauntingly.

_"C'mon! C'mon, you motherfucker! I'm ready for ya!"_

The hangar air suddenly fell silent, and Isaac slowly opened his eyes to find that all of the brutes had stopped dead in their tracks. He pulled back, eying them warily as they stared back at him, for some reason not one among them daring to come any closer.

_"... Wha, what's the matter?"_

Beginning to suspect there were factors beyond his knowledge at work here, Isaac felt that despite their threatening display he ultimately had no reason to fear the brutes. He stood a little taller and released his defenses a bit, then stepped back - and he bumped into something unexpected behind him.

He immediately stopped, and saw the tip of a large, translucent talon from out of the corner of his eye. Isaac panicked and followed it behind him to find that the organic blade was attached to a creature of the likes he had never seen. More advanced and strikingly humanistic in form than any other necromorph it towered over Isaac by several feet, rivaling even the brutes in size. This monster was of complete alien construct - a powerhouse, plated in alternating layers of smooth, luminescent flesh and hardened keratin, feet tipped by claws hard as steel and each as long as one of Isaac's own arms, with a large, elongated head crowned with razor sharp blades that extended all around its face in a terrifying, radial array, and a dozen burning red eyes. Panicked by the sight of it, Isaac quickly dashed to the opposite side of the pit, trying to get as far away from the necromorph as possible.

_Whoa, holy shit! This thing was a fucking... Ubermorph!_

Isaac blinked to squeeze the stinging sweat from his eyes, and he just stared at this most bewildering creature. Seeing its indestructible hide Isaac knew that his weaponry would be useless, and he remained hopeful that this terrifying creature would follow the brutes' lead in keeping its distance. Through uncertain eyes hidden behind his visor, Isaac side glanced the ubermorph.

_"What is it? What do you want from me, huh?"_

Isaac could hear the racked pounding of his own heart as he awaited for any sort of response. He waved his flashlight around again, and as he cut through the shadows with it he could see that there were actually _dozens_ of brutes, manifesting frighteningly from out of the dark in the beam of his light. Isaac could do nothing but stare at them until the ubermorph shifted on its feet and turned to the pack of brutes behind them. Isaac stepped back out of fear of being hit as the ubermorph began to wave its giant arms, forming gestures that Isaac himself did not understand.

**i-pal-ne-mo-a-ni**

Without warning the Marker's chanting suddenly reprized itself inside Isaac's head. Then, almost as if in perfect response to it, the ubermorph and the pack of brutes began to retreat into the darkness without further incident. Within seconds they had vanished and Isaac remained still as stone, even long after he had lost sight of any of them and the thundering sounds of their movement through the wreckage had disappeared completely. He was once again alone in the hangar.

_Wait a minute..._

Isaac quickly retracted his visor and looked back up in a grave panic.

_"Nicole!"_

A moment later her voice, weak and nearly lost among the wreckage, echoed down softly from above.

"I'm... I'm up here."

Having feared she might have been trampled by the brutes, Isaac was utterly relieved to hear her voice. He took a deep, elated breath.

"Hang on, baby. Hang on. I'll be there soon."

Isaac scanned for the trails the brutes had blazed through the debris, hoping to find a path he could follow. He came upon the opposite end of one of the severed bay bridges, which had fallen into the pit and was now leaning vertically against the side of the hangar. He had an idea, and using the rusted metal rivets welded along its edge as makeshift rungs he climbed, fighting against the oppressive weight of his suit and sorely wishing he could remotely reactivate the anti-gravity boosters. As he climbed, his thoughts fell back to Kendra Daniels.

_Nicole, he could accept. The Marker? Ok. But how the fuck could Kendra have possibly made it back into the picture? He had **watched** her die. And not through a prerecorded message. What the hell was going on?_

He didn't brood for too long upon her, as his need to see to Nicole's safety took full priority. He scaled the wall of debris at a steady pace, repeatedly calling to her as he tracked her position, but as a subtle part of his brain kept enticing him to look for the Marker instead, his focus became torn between two conflicting agendas. Getting confused, Isaac had to stop occasionally along to way to shake his head and concentrate.

_Nicole. He had to get to her. The Marker... the Marker could wait._

About halfway up he heard Nicole's voice coming from his left, and he turned on his flashlight to see two massive metal beams had collapsed against each other to form a small pocket, which had become filled with pieces of wrecked steel framework. In the light he saw Nicole's hand, a tiny, pale limb standing out against the blackness and waving intermittently like a graceful, little white flag. Worried beyond control Isaac quickly climbed over to her and started to dig her out.

"Nicki! Nicki, you okay? I'm so..."

He grabbed her gently by the arm, and his fingers suddenly slipped. He rubbed them together and felt they were covered in something warm, slick and moist to the touch. Alarmed he quickly shined his flashlight at his hand, then at Nicole's arm, and saw that both were coated in fresh blood.

"Oh, no..."

Isaac squeezed her hand, but her return squeeze felt weak. Desperate to see to her safety Isaac began to tear faster at the surrounding debris until he had managed to pull her free of it. He lifted her up in his arms and frantically sought out the source of her bleeding, and as he turned her over he found that a fractured piece of steel had stabbed her all the way through the upper portion of her right arm, just barely missing the bone.

Isaac was mortified in that moment, for the severity of Nicole's injury had made him realize that he had never actually been exposed to the reality of such a grievous, unforgiving incident. Certainly, as a deep space engineer he had sustained his share of scrapes and bruises in his time, but even his most serious injuries had been cared for expediently and with minimal invasion by the highly trained staff of medical professionals who were dedicated to serving those in Isaac's dangerous line of work. However, now that he and Nicole were trapped in total isolation with no such medical assistance at their disposal, the inherent comfort, convenience and security of the corporate sponsorship he had always taken for granted was frighteningly conspicuous now by its absence.

_No one to help. They were both fucked._

Becoming lightheaded, Isaac immediately laid her back down. He then kneeled down next to her, taking the moment to examine the rest of her to ensure she had no other surface wounds. He eyed the shard of steel protruding from her flesh and hesitantly he reached for it, but even the slightest amount of pressure he applied to it caused Nicole to groan in pain. Distressed and and at a total loss for what to do, Isaac dropped his face into his hands, on the threshold of tears he had to fight back in front of her.

"Nicole, sweetie, you need to help me, here. I, I don't know what to do."

With soft and gentle eyes she slowly turned her head to look up at him. She then looked down and saw the steel shrapnel lodged into her skin, and she pulled her head back slightly. Isaac wondrously noted how calm she remained as she examined her own wound, then drawing a slow, grave breath she pointed to her torn sleeve with her other hand.

"Take a... a piece of my shirt. You have to tie it off. Above the opening."

Right away Isaac obeyed her, grabbing the sleeve of her vest and ripping it off at the seam. Then he wrapped it around her shoulder just above the wound, as she directed him. As he furiously toiled with the first knot, Nicole handed him another small metal bar.

"Use this... Tie the knot to it."

Again he followed her instructions, finishing a second knot around the metal handle bar until it was tight to her skin. He watched squeamishly as the color slowly drained from the skin of her arm, and she directed his attention to the shard of metal still inside her arm.

"Now... pull it out, Isaac... Just grab it, and pull it out... As soon as it's totally clear, you twist that bar 'till the bleeding stops."

Isaac swallowed hard, knowing he was in for something he did not want to experience, especially first-hand. Nicole kindly noted his worry.

"You're going to see a lot of blood at first, Isaac... But don't worry... Just work fast."

She nodded reassuringly, and he hesitantly grabbed the end of the metal shard. Gently bracing his other hand against her chest, he slowly began to extract it. He squeezed his eyes shut at the moist sound of her flesh being serrated by the metal like a blade, and his stomach twisted as he heard Nicole's heart wrenching whimpers. Every inch felt like a mile to him, and he wondered with ever increasing nausea whether he would ever reach the end of it.

"Oh god..."

The shard finally came free, and the now-gaping exit wound instantly flooded with a forceful gush of blood. In a panic to see this, Isaac dropped the metal shard, quickly gripped the rod he had tied to the tourniquet and he twisted it, tightening the knot until the blood flow slowed and finally stopped altogether. Isaac breathed a strong, aggravated sigh of relief, and Nicole smiled faintly.

"... Good job, Bear... Good job. It'll be okay. You did good."

Seeing she had stabilized Isaac finally allowed his heart's pace to slow, and he rolled back on his heels, gently clutching her hand in his own as he listened to her breathing. Planting his head lovingly atop Nicole's chest and seeking to be alone with her hidden in the dark, he turned off the flashlight and cut the illumination to his suit. Within the sanctity of the hangar's silence, Isaac once again could hear with crystalline clarity the enchanting voices of the Marker inside his head. He whispered solemnly into Nicole's ear.

"This is all my fault. None of this would have happened... if it weren't for me."

Nicole gently petted the side of his face.

"Don't say that. This isn't your fault. This... is our fate, don't you see? Our destiny. We were meant to be here, Isaac. Together."

They both fell silent, and after a few minutes in the dark with only the sound of their breathing, Isaac again heard Nicole's sweetly forgiving voice.

"If it had to be anyone, Isaac... I'm so glad it was you."


	18. Subliminal Messages

**Chapter 18  
Subliminal Messages**

**"That action performed in illusion, without concern for future bondage or for violence or distress caused to others is said to be in the mode of ignorance."  
- B.G., 18.25**

* * *

_"Dr. Challus Mercer... of the USG Ishimura."_

The Counselor's quarters were illuminated by the soft, cerulean aura of a holomonitor as she sat at her desk, watching with intense interest the prerecorded rantings of the rather ebullient Challus Mercer. He was pacing hurriedly back and forth in small circles, and would pause every now and again to directly address the camera through a sunken eyed, hundred-yard stare.

_"Counselor, I hope that this message finds you with great haste. I... I have so much to share with you, and very little time."_

Mercer's feral expression only hinted at the spools of insane deliberations that were racing through his head. His outward appearance was disheveled, his clothing unkempt, his flesh gaunt and pale, and he appeared to be plagued by extended sleeplessness. Still, despite this his stride was inherently excited, his fists were clenched and he waved them around emphatically to the words that passed through his dry, cracked lips. It was obvious to the Counselor that at the time of this recording, Mercer's obsession with the Marker had grown to such great heights that everything about him, including his interest in personal maintenance and well-being, had been diverted entirely unto the ominous artifact dominating his thoughts.

_"Counselor, I think we have found it... the Marker's vessel... the 'Hive Mind'. It's in the planet - something living within the planet! And it couldn't have been more obvious... how blind we have been. How blind we still are. I am confident that my theory has been validated by this."_

The Counselor continued to stare intently at the screen, examining every detail of Mercer's body language.

_"The Marker... the Hive Mind... it took on a body - an alpha vessel, that serves as its central point of operation... the texts refer to it as a "Maker", due to carrying the codes. The seismic activity we detected beneath the crater... I had suspected all along... the Marker itself... not the source... a jumppoint... for the..."_

The signal suddenly started to break up the proceeded to blank out altogether, due to some interference which had occured at the time of the recording, rendering the rest of Mercer's message inaccessible. She frowned and tersely tapped the holopad to dismiss the playback, fearing in her heart that every piece of information lost in transmission could cost her everything she had been working toward.

"... Goddamnit."

It was a video log of his that she had already seen before; in fact, she had watched the video nearly a dozen times. She knew how precious Mercer's first-hand knowledge of the Marker was to her research, being so far from Aegis7 herself and especially after figuring he had been lost to the Ishimura's necromorph outbreak; for without his connection to the Marker and the valuable information he gained from it, she was forced to rely solely upon the ever increasingly erratic messages she had been receiving from him in the weeks and days prior to the Ishimura blackout.

_It should have been her. It should have always been her._

She sighed irritably, then scanned through the archive of messages again until she came across an entry whose date preceded Isaac's initial rescue by the USM Credence by a matter of days. Again, it was one she had seen many times before, but driven to understand what was happening with the Marker she was compelled to watch them all again and again, to scan each and every frame with eagle eyes, to listen to the vibrations of his every word and breath between. She wasn't so much interested in Mercer's arguments directly, but rather she knew that having been so infected by the Marker, surely he now served as its puppet - and would reveal much more about it in ways that perhaps weren't even apparent to him. It was her only hope to extract anything that she could, anything that might help her, guide her, call upon her. She was searching for the message.

_The message her nemesis had vowed to send her, so long ago. _

She queued the playback.

_"Dr. Challus Mercer. USG Ishimura._"

Mercer's pace was even faster, his condition even more alarmingly neglected. The skin of his face had sunken into the pockets of his skull and his skin was growing dark with semi-permanent bruises. It was clear he had been going without proper sustenance for quite a while.

_"... Counselor, no doubt you are soon anticipating the arrival of your precious subject. He has already destroyed the Hive Mind, and has fled the planet. Knowing this will probably be my last communication with you for quite a while, I have encrypted and attached all of my most recent findings to this message. Keep it, and refer to it in my absence. I wish I could do more."_

The Counselor stared dark-eyed at Mercer's almost ghostly image.

_"We are pr__esently experiencing yet another reaction of this... 'incompatible anomaly'. It is exactly as you told me it would be." _

He raised his eyes to glare directly into the camera.

_"The premonitions I have been having... they're not dreams, or hallucinations. They are in fact ... memories. The knowledge I retained from my previous experiences in the Marker's cycle... the endless timeloop... the Ouroboros, just as you had told me. __I have been studying the effects of it on many of our subjects here. I have performed many psychological tests on varying levels of infected, and discovered the same redundancies in them... multiple recollections of the same events, all in different timespaces. As far as the Marker is concerned, the virus, its telepathic control, and even its genetically augmenting behavior are all mere symptoms of its true capacity... a capacity of which I cannot begin to explain."_

He reached up to wipe the sweat of fever building up on his forehead.

_"Madam, the Marker is definitely alive. Or something is within it. Something that is capable of defying the very laws of nature." _

The bewildered awe in his stare belied the fact that he spoke not merely from an empirical perspective alone, but through the agency of enlightenment owing to the Marker's grip upon him. He looked down and fell silent for a long moment as if overwhelmed by his own realizations, then again started to pace back and forth, wide-eyed, cross-armed and nervously sinking his teeth into his fingernails.

_"Something has gone wrong. The bond has still not been properly sealed, and I fear we are in danger of yet another epoch dilation. How do we even know if it hasn't occured already? How many times has this happened? How many millions of... I have no idea. Altman be praised."_

Mercer's strained, cracking voice trailed off, and his eyes glimmered eerily in the video's monotone scan lines. The Counselor could see that a million thoughts traversed his mind in that brief pause, until he could finally grasp one to translate verbally.

_"... The, the subjects often __asserted that they saw themselves within their dreams. Sometimes, they saw themselves through the bodies of other people. The odd thing is, only a certain number of individuals seem to retain this sort of memory. It's almost as if it were a selective process. Some gain this clairvoyance, while others fail to recall anything at all. Like prerecorded messages, they continue to repeat the same patterns._

It was quickly becoming apparent that Mercer was having difficulty keeping up with whatever impetus drove him. He had started to shiver as he paced, no longer able to keep his eyes upon any one thing for more than a moment as they darted back and forth.

_"I have had my own share of these memories, just like the subjects... just like them! Some of us, including Kyne and the other personnel that have... been in close contact with the Marker, have been able to recognize it. I have seen, again and again this scenario unfold... each one a different outcome, and while I have come to understand how this is happening, I simply cannot understand why."_

He finally stopped in the middle of the room, staring at the far wall for a long moment before he finally sighed and looked back down at his feet.

_"I saw him again today. That renegade engineer they sent here. R__unning around this ship, like the fool that he is, trying to fix things - and only breaking them even more. Then... then I saw him yet again - this time, wandering, lost as a child as if he had no idea who he was."_

Mercer shook his fists angrily.

_"__How long has he been so oblivious of the great blessing he has received? How many times have I watched him fight the role that has been impressed upon him? How many more times will come to pass before he awakens, and makes the Marker whole, and set us all free?"_

The insanely disturbed imagery of Mercer was suddenly interrupted by a small prompt, alerting the Counselor of Overseer Gresham's presence just outisde the door of her office. She quickly dismissed the video log, returned the ambient lighting to default levels and opened the door. Right away the old Overseer, wrapped in a dark velour robe with gold trim and Marker symbol embroidery, stalked into the room and silently took a seat in one of the chairs before her desk. She shuffled things abotu on her desk for a moment before giving him her full attention, seeking to sublimely convey how little interest she had in speaking with him.

"Hmm... What can I do for you... Sir?"

Gresham was emotionless as a statue, with nothing more than a few tense lines crevassing his wrinkled face to betray his inner concern.

"So, I hear that you've had Alex Werren arrested."

The Counselor folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair.

"... That's right."

Sensing the condescension in her body language, the Gresham quickly grew angry with frowned sharply.

"When the hell did you start calling the shots around here? We are all partners here..."

The Counselor remained as unmoved before him as an ancient glacier.

"He was tampering with our research."

He bent a cold, winter-white eyebrow at her.

"I see. And why would he do that?"

She tilted her head thoughtfully.

"I'm not entirely sure. I suspect he was trying to alter the memory suppression serum. I found tainted traces in the laboratory."

"... Hmm. I... I see."

He found it hard to believe that a long-standing partner of many years like Alex Werren would go beyond their boundaries in such a way, but his far more implicit bond of trust with the Counselor kept him from questioning it too much at first. The Counselor concealed a smile of confidence behind her wrinkled facade.

"Don't about it, Sir. Now that he has been detained, he won't be causing any more trouble."

While Gresham appeared to be satisfied with her response for the time being, something still didn't sit right with him. Even with his years of trust in her, the fact that Isaac had escaped after an appeal sanctioned by her had stirred his paranoia to the point of making him scrutinize her more critically; however, his heightened efforts still did not reveal any definitive proof of any wrongdoing on her part. He was simply working on a gut feeling, but he felt it was valid enough to keep in the back of his mind. He sideglanced the Counselor suspiciously.

"What are we going to do about him?"

The Counselor blinked.

"About who?"

As Gresham's anger boiled over, he slammed his fist down furiously upon the arm of his chair.

"Isaac Clarke, goddamnit! I have heard nothing from you since we last talked. Have you... have you found him, at least?"

"He has gone back to Aegis7."

"Are you sure? How do you know that?"

"I've already told you. I have forseen it."

Gresham straightened his back. He had always been somewhat uneasy when it came to the Counselor's premonitions, however he had no choice but to admit he was blind without them.

"Well... that's it, then. If you're sure about that... I'll speak with EarthGov right away. We'll send a battalion to -"

The Counselor shook her head vehemently and cut him off with a sweep of her hand.

"No! No EarthGov in this. They'll destroy everything! If they go in there, they'll just kill him. Without Isaac, we have to start our work all over again. We cannot run that risk, Overseer! We need him alive."

He stared at her incredulously.

"We cannot wait! We cannot let him get control of that Marker. Who knows what the hell he'll do with it?"

Growing tired of Gresham's insisting presage, the Counselor rotated her chair around until she was facing the window behind her desk, and looking to the stars outside of it.

"Relax. Isaac isn't going to do anything with the Marker. I will receive the message very soon, now. Altman be praised."

The Overseer watched her from behind as she refused him any more face time, and upon her cold salute he understood that they were done. He sighed reluctantly.

"I shouldn't have to remind you that my trust always lies in you, Counselor."

He eyed the high back of her chair sharply.

"Altman be praised."

He then stood to his feet, and without a further word he made his way out of her chambers. Once he was gone and the door was sealed, the Counselor finally turned back around in her seat, and leaned into folded hands upon her desk.

"Isaac... you can't run from me forever. I'm coming for you."


	19. Aftermath

**Chapter 19  
Aftermath**

_**"One who has taken his birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth again."  
- B.G., 2.27**_

* * *

_Time. _

It was all that the world of Aegis7 seemingly endured since Nicole's accident in the Ishimura flight hangar.

Due to the extent of her injury, Isaac was unable to move her safely without risk of doing her further harm. So, afraid to leave her side he was compelled to remain with her, alone in the dark throughout the course of her recovery. He never again saw Kendra nor any of the necromorphs, which was certainly a welcome change of luck, but he couldn't understand why their aggressors might have abandoned them.

_Time._

It became harder and harder to keep track of. At one point, Isaac discovered that his RIG, originally synced to the Ishimura when he had first tapped into its mainframe, had somehow drifted. However, with no other comparable network within range to cross-examine, Isaac had no way of knowing which one was accurate to begin with; he ultimately ascertained that with the impact the Ishimura's crash must have had upon all of the hardware, the possibility of system-wide corruption rendered it impossible to depend on. Not even the natural cycle of planetary rotation was of any use to them, for buried upside-down and deep within the earth of Aegis7, the Ishimura's flight hangar had no view of the sky, nor day and night. The only source of light apart from the illumination of Isaac's suit and plasma cutter came from the threateningly vibrant, blood red aura of the Marker, which flickered constantly like perpetual twilight throughout the hangar. Thus, time became meaningless.

_The Ishimura would dwell always in darkness._

Isolated far from the Marker on the opposite end of the hangar, Isaac's separation from it was gradually becoming intolerable. There were leagues of mountainous debris standing between them, all of which left Isaac unable to see the Marker directly from his position. Getting closer to it was out of the question, as he refused to leave Nicole by herself out of fear that the necromorphs might just be watching silently from the shadows, waiting to descend upon her the moment he got far enough away to leave her defenseless. He was torn between two unconsummated obsessions, trying to take solace in the Marker's glowing red aura alone as he held Nicole in his arms.

**make us whole isaac come to us make us whole come to us make us whole **

While Nicole was not personally aware of the effect the Marker was having upon Isaac, she knew that something very bad was beginning to take its toll upon him. More and more he longed desperately for sleep, but every time he closed his eyes sleep would never come and he could accomplish nothing more than sitting up against the walls of his rotting steel prison, fully awake with eyeballs darting ceaselessly about beneath their lids. Even with her medical training, Nicole was helpless to treat any of the symptoms he developed - an intense, ravaging fever and the bouts of delirium that accompanied it, painful bodily paralysis and a total cessation of his digestion that made the idea of eating or drinking anything unpalatable to him, even though he was starving to death.

**come to us make us whole you can't keep running forever**

Isaac withdrew from Nicole as his condition worsened, forsaking her company for the shadows that lie beyond her reach. He did not want her exposed to the horrifying sights of his sickness, but more pressing to him was the desperate need to escape the vicious, antagonizing voices of the Marker that kept calling to him from across the field of destruction. They mercilessly chastised him, begged him to approach, dominated his thoughts and chipped at him more and more, never once relenting until all that he wanted was for them to...

"_Shut the fuck up!_"

Finally reaching a breaking point, Isaac's unanticipated outburst tore through the silence of the hangar. This startled the daylights out of Nicole, who turned panicked eyes upon him.

"... Wh, what?"

Wide-eyed and apprehensive as a wounded doe, she watched as he stared blankly into nothing and trails of darkened perspiration slid down the sides of his face and neck.

"Jeez. That's the first thing you've said to me since... I don't even know."

Within himself, Isaac was perplexed. It had not been his intention to yell at her, but too exhausted and sick to correct himself he merely gave her an empty, dilated stare that did nothing to console her. By this, Nicole was fearfully coming to recognize the dementia that had infected so many of her patients, and ultimately pushed them into their gruesome and often self-imposed deaths. She could already sense the pain of Isaac's progressing madness so deeply just by looking at him, and tears began to fill her eyes as she wondered when his time to join all of the other unfortunate victims of the Marker's chaos would come.

___He had to be infected. He just had to be. There was no other explanation._

As the severity of his condition became more and more obvious, Isaac's infatuation with the Marker started to deteriorate. Though he had been so mystified and endeared by it initially, he had been developing an irrational fear of it, as a deep part of him understood the iniquitous hold the Marker had over him. He was beginning to sense its true presence in the hangar along with him - a vile, unseen mechanism just out of his sight and reach that assaulted his conscience harder the weaker he became, and the longer he stayed there the more he could feel its influence corrupting him like poison.

**you can't keep running from me forever**

Throughout Nicole's recovery, the threat Isaac would eventually pose to her safety as he succumbed to the Marker was foremost on her mind. Once her arm had healed sufficiently and she was capable of doing so, she quietly started distancing herself from Isaac. Once she was fully confident in her ability to safely traverse the wreckage without his aid, she disappeared on him altogether.

**you belong to me**

While it bothered him somewhat, Isaac didn't take her vanishing act too seriously at first. He considered how tolerant and forbearing she was, and how her almost motherly concern would guarantee her return to check on him. But time passed and she failed to show, and in spite of all his positive thinking Isaac knew that he had been left to deal with the dangerously unsound influence of the Marker on his own. Out of pure fear of this fact, he was finally driven to vacate the hangar.

**where are you going**

Fighting exhaustion, fever and partial paralysis, Isaac somehow struggled his way out of the Flight Hangar. Once outside, he sealed the gates and avoided the area entirely for quite a while.

**isaac why won't you accept **

In his desperate search for Nicole, Isaac aimlessly wandered the Ishimura until he came across the Medical Deck. He started to clumsily scale the shattered, upturned furnishings and equipment in a delirious stupor, ransacking the few unopened emergency storage caches still left for whatever medicinal aids he thought might help quell his persistent agony in any way.

_Anything to make him sleep. Fucking anything._

At first he was uncomfortable with going beyond oral medications, knowing he would need Nicole's help to administer anything stronger. But as his symptoms worsened with no relief despite the variety and quantity of drugs he consumed, Isaac finally abandoned his fear of personal safety and started to experiment with intravenous injection. Much to his unpleasant surprise the Marker's corruption somehow absorbed everything he introduced into his body, completely nullifying the effects of even the most powerful pharmaceutical-grade sedatives. Frustrated in all his attempts to ameliorate his agony and not knowing what else to do, Isaac became frantic.

_Where the fuck did she go? Where was Nicole?_

Seeking some kind of distraction from his suffering, Isaac turned his focus to one of the core habits he had developed upon his first contact with the Red Marker some years ago - the compulsive, burning desire to transcribe it's codes in his mind with his hands. Utilizing whatever tools he could fashion from the debris around him, he started to memorialize the rhetoric and formulas upon every inch of empty space along the walls, floors and furnishings he could find. With all perception of time and purpose lost to him, Isaac performed this activity for hours upon hours on end, to no end - his only company during these times being the Marker's incessant chattering.

**there is no death ********there is only rebirth**  


Isaac was so consumed by this passion that he more than once ran out of convenient places upon which to write the strings of code emanating from his brain, and had to move on to a new area of the ship in order to continue his work. He also turned to other surfaces, such as the smooth metal and shielded lining of his Tank Suit, and engraved the Marker's alien symbols and mathematical equations across every part of it. He chiseled them all over the chest armor, shoulder/leg plating and boots, he seared them into the fabric of the suit's tough outer lining by using small iron rods carefully heated by his modified plasma cutter, and he even scalped them into the streamlined metal plates of his helmet using the sharp, bony remains of long-dead necromorphs. And he did it all with a meticulous, profound knowledge of mathematical precision that he had up until now been completely unaware of.

******we are one unending  
**

Strangely enough, the more Isaac focused upon the activities of documenting the Marker's mysterious messages, the less he felt of his body's torment despite the critical state of it. It was as if his constant association with the Marker's codes was sustaining him, filling him with a renewed sense of energy that liberated him from his suffering and encouraged him to expand upon the activities of translating for the Marker even further.

**isaac we are the makers  
**

Isaac had even started to lose concern over Nicole, who still had not shown herself. It was clear that she was deliberately hiding from him, and although he felt ashamed by it he knew that based on his behavior toward her she was justified in her fear of him. In any case, he ultimately had confidence in the fact that she would be alright wherever she had gone to, but still he did miss her, wishing she were there with him to see the wondrous things he discovered throughout the twisted, haunted wreckage. He was certain her highly inquisitive nature would find much to study here, and he sincerely hoped that she was just as curiously preoccupied as he, wherever she was.

Isaac also came to realize that his exploratory efforts had remained uninterrupted by any living necromorph encounters. Indeed, save for the occasional spent corpse, the ever-present corruption still clinging to the walls, and a few traveling clusters of larvae he found here and there, there were no signs of the alien horde. Hence, Isaac became more relaxed than he had been in a very long time; he started traveling without full helmet shielding, and he now carried his plasma cutter only for its originally intended purpose as a tool, rather than weapon.

**isaac**

When fully absorbed himself in the Marker's service, Isaac's perspective of the haunted planetcracker within which he was trapped changed dramatically. He started to empathize with his dilapidated, rotting environment, experiencing a great philosophical reversal of everything he had come to think about the Marker. In the corruption that assimilated everything around him, Isaac began to see only the miraculously undaunted beauty of life, and what he had once considered a gravely unfortunate curse to be impressed upon the USG Ishimura was now something that he deeply admired within the core of his heart. And all this time, isolated far away in the flight hangar, the Marker continuously whispered to him in soft, tonal fluctuations that grazed the inside of his skull.

**a desire for social interaction physical contact affection or support may lead you to make poor judgments of decisions in multiple areas**

Isaac carefully studied every detail of the Ishimura, running his hands along the machinery and admiring the precision of the planetcracker's genius construction everywhere he went. Every aspect of it astonished him more and more, making him realize that before these long hours of self-contemplation he had not fully appreciated what a grand vessel the USG Ishimura really was. He thought to himself that such a wondrous feat of mechanical design should not be allowed to rot here in the bowels of this hellish planet, unfulfilled in its purpose.

_If only he could turn back time... he would fix everything. _

As he thought this, Isaac was urgently inspired to head to Engineering. He swiftly navigated his way through the wreckage for what might have been days as far as he knew, and as he passed through each room one by one he analyzed the conditions, calculating madly in his brain.

_With all this damage, it would probably take, say... _

When he finally reached the upper level of the Engineering Deck, he glanced with concern at all of the demolished machinery, ripped from the foundations as if having been tossed around by a tornado.

_... Ten years, by himself? Since he didn't need to sleep anymore, he could just work straight through... _

Traversing rooms that were each more devastated than the last, Isaac frowned with dismay.

_... It would be nice if he had some help._

He sighed.

_Where the fuck was Nicole?_

Isaac continued on, making his way through the maintenance bays and surveying more damage, stopping for a few moments here and there in order to satisfy his compulsive habit by vandalizing the work benches with Marker codes. After he had seen enough, Isaac decided to head back up to the Bridge to get a closer look at the navigation systems.

On his way back through the ship, Isaac again passed the entrance to the Medical Deck. He briefly thought of stopping once more just to see if he could find Nicole there, but his desire to get to the Bridge prompted him to move on. He started on past, but as he came within a few feet of the steel entrance doors, Isaac suddenly heard a very peculiar yet familiar sound emanating from just beyond them. He stopped, turned his head and stared at the doors.

_Voices._

These were not the voices of the mysterious Marker, nor were they the alien cries of necromorphs. The sound Isaac was hearing was one that he had not heard in a very long time, and certainly not what he was expecting to hear anytime soon - the steady, cohesive babbling of dozens of people, casually conversing with one another. He tilted his head and took a small step toward the Medical Deck doors.

_What? How could this be?  
_

Isaac had been certain that there were no human beings left alive aboard the Ishimura other than he, Nicole and possibly Kendra Daniels, so to hear what sounded like a large gathering was unbelievable. In total incredulity he drew closer to the Medical Deck doors, feeling frightened albeit tempted to open them, listening as the voices resounded louder and clearer the closer he got. He stepped up to the doors with his hand wrapped instinctively around the handle of his plasma cutter, and he hesitantly tapped the hololock.

As the doors slid open, Isaac was shocked to see that while just hours ago this place was entirely deserted, destroyed and laced by cobwebs, now the Medical Deck's main lobby was alive, running on full power and filled with living, breathing, _human _patients and medical personnel as if it were a perfectly ordinary day of operations aboard the USG Ishimura. Isaac was bewildered.

_Holy shit._

Frozen to the spot in shock, the gape of Isaac's jaw drew wider until a nurse accidentally brushed past him on her way through the crowded room. She shot him a quick, calm glance over her shoulder as she passed, without even so much as slowing her pace.

"Pardon me, Mr. Clarke."

Isaac stared at the nurse as she strode away, wondering how this unfamiliar woman knew who he was. He tried to make logical sense of what he was seeing as best he could.

_Well... maybe he had been too sick to notice them before. Or maybe he just hadn't run into them yet. Might have been possible... it was a big ship.  
_

Isaac turned his attention from the people to the lobby itself, taking note of how everything in it had been meticulously rearranged to follow the twisted trajectory of the ship's awkward position. The gurneys and equipment had all been repositioned along the wall which was now partially serving as the floor, and no one except for him seemed to even notice the angle of the room as they navigated the cramped spaces with ease.

Realizing he had been standing there looking dumbfounded for a while, Isaac slowly began to push his way further in. He eyed with absolute wonder everyone he saw, all of whom were so busily engrossed in their chores that they hardly acknowledged his presence. He drifted almost aimlessly from station to station, watching the nurses as they jogged swiftly back and forth and tended to patients who appeared to be receiving various forms of treatment for deep lacerations to their arms and legs. He did not recognize most of the people he saw, save for a few hazy faces every so often.

_They were all strangers. But somehow, some way... he knew all of these people._

In spite of the critical nature of the work being performed, the faces of both the patients and practitioners were calm, serene and the environment was devoid of chaos and exigency. As Isaac passed further through the crowd he listened to their conversations, but he was having trouble following what they were saying and it seemed they were all speaking in some bizarre language he was not familiar with.

_What was going on? Was this the crew? _

Isaac suddenly saw within the crowd a senior ranking doctor whom he recognized, having a discussion with one of the nurses on the far end of the room. He passed off some paperwork to her then followed with a dismissive wave of his hand, just before he looked up and made eye contact with Isaac. A broad grin or recognition stretched across the man's pudgy, pink face, and with a spring of excitement in his step he started directly toward him. The familiarity of this man struck Isaac profoundly.

_Dr. Terrence Kyne?_

The doctor approached Isaac eagerly and with great vigor. He carried himself in the same peculiar manner as Isaac remembered, his expressions and movements filled with an almost childish excitement that hinted at his exacerbated Unitologist fanaticism. Isaac knew that his own face must have clearly betrayed his shock, but Kyne didn't seem to take notice of it.

"Mr. Clarke... oh yes, it is an honor to see you again, sir! I told them you would be back, and soon."

Kyne paused to await a response, but seeing as the awestruck engineer was not about to speak he reached out, grabbed Isaac's hand and with a gentle, friendly grip shook it in order to dissipate any doubt that he was in fact real. Baffled, Isaac's strength to return the gesture was repealed and his hand merely hung limp in Kyne's hand as he shook it. It was obvious to him what Isaac was thinking, and he replied with a small smile.

"Yes, I imagine this might come as somewhat of a surprise to you, but I assure you there is nothing to be concerned about. We'll get it right this time, Mr. Clarke. I am absolutely sure of it."

Confused, Isaac glanced at the other people around them. Finding no answers in their vacant faces he eventually came back to Kyne, noticing as he looked closer that the man's eyes had become dark, inverted spheres, with pupils that emicated with a sapphire red iridescence.

"You will decide to make us whole again. There is no other choice to make."

A beep suddenly sounded from the RIG upon Kyne's sleeve, which he briefly turned his attention to. He then looked back up with a furrowed brow.

"'I'm sorry. I have some business to attend to, but I'll meet with you later, Mr. Clarke. I trust you'll be around."

Isaac just nodded in compliance. The plastered smile returned to Kyne's face.

"Excellent. Well, we'll be in touch. Please, excuse me."

Kyne gently excused himself, shuffled his way through the crowd of people and exited through the doorway on the south end. Isaac simply watched the doctor until he disappeared beyond the doors, unable to fully accept the reality of what he had just seen.

_But... Kyne was dead. He had seen it with his own eyes. Kendra killed him. And... Kendra was dead. He had seen... They were both dead._

When he realized that the volume of conversation in the lobby had suddenly dropped, Isaac looked back to see that everyone in the room was staring directly at him. Returning their stares with perplexity, he began to notice that all of them, from the patients lying on their gurneys with calm, dispassionate faces to the dutiful nurses who were stitching up their wounds, had the same dark eyes as Dr. Kyne. Isaac's mind scattered in a million directions.

_Who were these people? _

Hoping Kyne would have more answers that made sense, Isaac decided to follow him. He pushed his way through the crowd and exited into the connecting corridor that led to the medical bays, which in deep contrast to the highly populated lobby was dead silent and empty. As the doors slid shut behind him, the power fluctuated and the overhead lights flickered until they out altogether, leaving Isaac in impenetrable darkness.

_Ah... shit._

He reached for his plasma cutter, turned on the flashlight and waved it up and down the hallway. He saw no one in either direction. Thinking it might just be a better idea to continue on to the Bridge, Isaac decided not to pursue Kyne and go back the way he came. He reached for the hololock on the door behind him, but in the absence of sufficient power, he was unable to open it.

_... Ok._

Stuck with the path he had so impulsively chosen, Isaac held his plasma cutter out in front of him and slowly proceeded down the pitch black hallway to his right. A tinge of apprehension seized him, and he instinctively clutched his cutter just a little tighter.

_Now, a power outage. This was getting better by the minute. _

The ship all around had fallen eerily quiet in the darkness, and he could no longer hear anything except the occasional bellows of the Ishimura's massive, settling frame. He slowly, carefully continued down the halls, scanning for Dr. Kyne or anyone else but he found no one, and their conspicuous absence after what he had just seen made him start questioning whether what he had just witnessed was actually real. Lost in nervous contemplation, Isaac had not realized that he had wandered all the way from Medical to Hydroponics.

_Hmm._

Curious to see if Hydroponics was also populated, he stepped up to the entrance doors and saw by the lifeless hololock that this part of the deck was also without power. Fortunately in this case the doors already stood halfway ajar as if having been pried open from the inside, so he slipped quietly through the gap and entered the long, narrow walkway that led into the heart of Hydroponics. He shined his flashlight along the row of defunct watering bays that lined the hallway as he walked by, examining the fossilized remains of vegetation scattered all about like dust within the broken glass cases. However, he also saw the ever-spreading necromorph corruption, covering everything in its corporeal horror, dominating the area with a life all its own.

Just as Isaac started toward the East Wing Growing Chamber, power returned to the deck. The lights flickered back on, some of the machines hummed on gently, and Isaac paused with eyes straining to readjust to the sudden brightness. Then, slowly returning his plasma cutter to his belt he stalked toward the Growing chamber entrance, opened it and stepped inside.

The very first thing Isaac noticed inside the chamber was that life - whether human, plant, or otherwise - was everywhere. A team of horticultural scientists and other Ishimura personnel were milling about the large, artificial greenhouse, tending to an explosive population of lush, scandent botanicals that bloomed in a brilliant palette of colors and spread in all directions throughout the chamber with voracious tenacity. Much like every other room throughout the crashed ship, the Growing chamber was also oriented at a deep, near right angle, and all of the incubation chambers that had once stretched vertically to the roof were now carefully rearranged in long, horizontal rows across the makeshift floor.

Astonished Isaac stepped further into the room, dodging a few of the scientists who were too absorbed in their work to notice him as they bounced from plant to plant like honey seeking drones. Isaac approached the row of incubating shrubbery closest to him, and as he started to examine some of the plants he saw that the extraordinarily vibrant chlorophylloid had been delicately assimilated by the Marker's corruption. Every leaf, stem and bud he saw was subcutaneously integrated with the pulsating veins of the virus, weaving in and out like red, inflamed threads.

_Even the plants were corrupted. What hope did he have of escaping this?_

Isaac slowly drifted down the line, his eyes dancing across the field of unusually bright and colorful foliage which he was certain was a result of the Marker's augmentation. He had drifted about halfway down the first row of plants when he saw a woman at the end, tending to the trimming of some of the bushes. With her back to him Isaac couldn't see her face, but judging by the familiar shape of her body and her mature, deliberate mannerisms he recognized right away that it was Nicole. The woman then stood up straight and he saw her shoulder-length, dirty blonde hair, fully confirming his suspicion. Isaac furrowed his brow in surprise.

_Nicole? What was she doing in Hydroponics?_

Though puzzled by her unexpected presence here, Isaac was immediately relieved to have found her. A large smile stretched across his face and he started wading through the sea of plant life toward her.

"Nicole? Hey Nicole, what're you doin' -"

Upon hearing his voice closing in behind her, the woman turned around to face him. Isaac immediately stopped in his tracks as he made eye contact with her, and the woman smiled restrictively.

"Oh... Mr. Clarke, can I help you?"

The woman seemed to be a little put off by his close proximity and silent, dumbfounded stare upon her, but she remained friendly.

"Err, perhaps we haven't formally met - I'm Elizabeth Cross, of Agricultural Operations."

Isaac just stared at the woman's face, for despite a most striking resemblance this woman was not Nicole Brennan. However he did faintly recall the name as one whom Nicole had claimed to be a friend she met during her rotation aboard the Ishimura. She was someone whom Isaac had never personally met.

_Unless she had been turned into a necromorph. Then, it was quite possible they had run into each other. _

Again, the statuesque woman smiled warmly.

"Jake has told me so much about you. You remember Jacob Temple, right?"

Isaac failed to respond. It had been a while since he had heard the name of his long-time friend and fellow co-worker Jacob Temple, who as far as he knew had died at the hands of the insanely murderous Dr. Challus Mercer. Seeing how confused he apparently was, Elizabeth pressed a hand to her hip.

"I guess he didn't mention me, did he? Nice."

She chuckled in an attempt to be humorous, but seeing Isaac still did not respond, she cleared her throat.

"Hrm.. We've been dating for a while, now. You don't know me, but I definitely feel like I know you, Isaac."

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled sheepishly.

"I mean, through Jake, that is. Talks about you all the time. He really admires your work."

Even still, Isaac said nothing to her. Her smile faded and her brow fell with growing concern.

"Hey, are you alright, Isaac? You uhh, you look at little... odd."

Isaac's sickness had crept up on him from out of the blue. Nausea swiftly overtook him, he became lightheaded and turning away he stumbled back a few feet, fighting the urge to double over. He broke a sweat as his body temperature soared, and Elizabeth watched in nervous silence as he shriveled like a fading shadow to retreat back the way he had come.

"...Mr. Clarke?"

Isaac barely made it back out of the Hydroponics deck before he physically collapsed. Disoriented and blinded by the stars of impending unconsciousness in his eyes he stumbled back out through the doors, and with all of his weight he slammed into the wall. He came to a moment later to find himself on his knees, leaning against the wall and the entire right side of his body completely paralyzed. Unable to hold himself up he toppled to the floor, coming to rest upon the dusty metal floorboards with a painful thud as the weight of his suit brought him down even harder. All he could do was to stare dismally into the darkness, and force his mind to concentrate upon the Marker in the hopes that it would suffocate him to death right then and there.

**isaac**

With dampened ears it was difficult to recognize the threatening hissing sound that was coming from his right. He was able to turn his head a little, and with the assistance of his suit's illumination he could barely make out the sleek, ravenous profile of an enraged slasher as it closed in on him, splaying its long, serrated talons in preparation to attack.

_What? No!_

Caught completely off guard Isaac realized that being without his helmet had left him dangerously exposed. Having manually deactivated it in confidence that he would no longer need it, he could not reach for his RIG to reinitialize it in his state of paralysis, and with no way to protect himself Isaac could only stare hopelessly as the monster lunged for him.

**ipalnemoani  
**

Just inches from tearing into Isaac, the slasher suddenly stopped. The vile beast started to back away, glaring angrily through bloodstained eyes that stood out as brimstone pinpoints against the light of Isaac's suit. Isaac released a few tears of relief from his eyes as he watched the monster recede then hold its ground just outside of his reach, swaying its head from side to side like a venomous serpent not quite bold enough to strike. It emitted a loud hiss as it stared menacingly at Isaac, but even through such a formidable display he could detect an apprehension about the creature, as if it was actually afraid of him. Secretly seeking to test his theory, Isaac raised his left hand and brazenly pointed his finger in the slasher's face.

"You... stay the fuck away from me."

Much to his astonishment the necromorph raised its talons, and crossed them defensively over its face. It then started to growl and spit at him, exposing its fangs again and again as it retreated further. In a blatant display of intimidation, the necromorph backed out of the light until all Isaac could see were its two burning corneas glowing through the dark like hot coals. Then they too vanished, and Isaac was once again left alone in the empty hallway. He waited patiently, refusing to move an inch until he was certain that the necromorph was gone. He then lowered his head out of exhaustion.

_What was wrong with him? Was he so sick that even these unholy creatures wouldn't dare touch him?_

Just as he had so many times before, Isaac desperately longed for sleep. But once again, sleep would not come.


	20. Acrimonious Duplicity

**Chapter 20  
Acrimonious Duplicity**

_**"I know everything that has happened in the past, all that is happening in the present, and all things yet to come."  
- B.G., 7.26**_

* * *

**wake up**

Upon the Marker's urgent demand, Isaac suddenly awoke. When he opened his eyes he found he was still slumped against the wall in the dark hallway just outside Hydroponics, staring into the metal grating of the floorboards. He looked up.

_How long had he been there?_

The paralysis that seized his body earlier had now relented, and feeling able he sat up. He looked around with wide, alert eyes, when he suddenly remembered the necromorph he had encountered earlier. In a panic Isaac reached clumsily for his plasma cutter, switched on the flashlight and shot it all around, searching to see if his degenerate opponent was still there. But it was gone, and he was all alone.

_Apparently._

Just then, Isaac heard a very quiet scuffling sound coming from down the hall to his left. He immediately turned his head and the cutter in his hands toward it, and the dirt speckled beam of the flashlight unveiled the iridescent shine of a pair of eyes at the opposite end of the hallway, looking directly at him. Upon being discovered the figure quickly vanished back around the corner, but Isaac knew exactly who it was. His face darkened, his brows dropped into a line of rage over his eyes, and ignited by a desire for vengeance he immediately found the strength to rise to his feet and give chase, screaming after his most elusive target.

"Kendra! Kendra, stop!"

Isaac roared fiercely as he charged forth, pursuing Kendra Daniels down the dark, gently sloping hall like a lion after its prey. In their chase Kendra proved to be swift, but not swift enough as Isaac's much wider strides closed the gap between them within a matter of seconds. He came up behind her and threw his hand out, grabbed her by her long, brown hair and yanked as hard as he could in an attempt to slow her down.

"I said _fucking STOP!_"

She was jerked backward from the force like a tree caught in a powerful wind, and screaming out in fear of Isaac's retaliation she reached back and tore wildly at him with her long fingernails. Unabated by her efforts even as she gashed long, bloody trenches into the skin of his face and neck, Isaac stepped in over her, grabbed her by the shoulder and twisted her around until she was facing him directly. He started to shake her violently, and in a fluster to defend herself she balled her hand into a fist and swung at him, landing a sharply placed blow across the side of his face with surprising strength. He stepped back briefly to recover, and Kendra scowled viciously at him through clenched teeth.

"Get the fuck off me, Isaac!"

Kendra then raised her foot and kicked him as hard as she could in the leg in the hopes of breaking it or at least bringing him down, but the protective metal knee brace of his Tank Suit deflected her effortlessly. Attempting to preserve her dignity she scoffed at him then tried to slip away, but as she dodged his grasping hands and ran, Isaac pursued her mercilessly down through the bowels of the twisted Ishimura until he finally managed to trap her at the bottom of a dead end passageway.

_He had her. Now, she would die._

Pressing her back against the wall Kendra sneered at Isaac with the animosity of a cornered animal, threatening to hit him again if he came any closer, but he anticipated her every move and kept perfect pace with her as she squirmed along like a rat seeking to escape. Confident as he was in his position over her, secretly within Isaac was impressed by this woman's most unusual verve and conviction.

_What a feisty one... Nicole didn't burn with even half the brilliance that Kendra always did._

Isaac swiftly stepped in just as Kendra reached for a fractured piece of broken metal piping that was lying on the floor next to her. Before she had the chance to utilize it as a weapon he grabbed her and wrenched it out of her hands, then he slammed her back against the wall to knock the wind out of her. She was dazed briefly by the blow, but only infuriated even more she screamed raucously and charged at him, ramming her palms into his gut with all of her might to push him back. She tried to grab at the plasma cutter on his belt as they tussled, but seeing her ploy Isaac released it from its holster and tossed it all the way down the hall so she could not get to it. Then, in a fit of pure, untempered rage he raised his arm and with the back of his wrist, which was plated with a thick, titanium gauntlet, he struck her as hard as he could across the face.

"You fucking traitorous _bitch!_"

Kendra squawked at the sound of bone cracking, and they both saw a dark patch of blood explode from her mouth and splatter forcibly across the floor. She pulled back in shock and reached for her broken jaw, and seeing her hesitate Isaac took the opportunity to pin her helplessly to the wall. He closed in over her like a hurricane as she struggled against him, and he yelled at her in a voice deep as thunder.

"Why? Why, Kendra? Why did you leave me there to die? Why the fuck did you do that?"

Detecting what seemed to be almost a hint of sadness in his otherwise frightening interrogation, Kendra stared into his eyes.

"... I did what I had to do."

With an incredulous, almost devastated expression, Isaac shook her once more.

"I fucking loved you, Kendra. I almost destroyed my entire life for you. And you fucked me over. Just like that."

Overwhelmed by the intensity of Isaac's lovesick stare upon her, Kendra had to turn away from him. She knew he was referring to their clandestine love affair, and his tone clearly suggested that he had not yet found it within himself to forgive her for her transgression of abandoning him on Aegis7. Caught in his steel-tight grasp and desperate to bluff him out of realizing just how frightened she was, she immediately hardened her countenance with a defiant, hostile smile and returned his glare with icy cold arrogance.

"Isaac... You're in way over your head. You don't know the first thing about what happened that day."

Irked by her callous demeanor, Isaac dug the tips of his fingers into the soft flesh of her shoulders.

"All I know is that you are a heartless, lying cunt, and you deserve to die."

As cunning and nasty as she was, like a filthy weasel in his grasp, still Isaac was reluctant to follow through on his declaration. He couldn't believe what he was seeing, perplexed by his memory of having already witnessed Kendra's death at the hands of the Hive Mind - or at least, having thought he had.

"I, I saw you. You were dead... I saw it with my own eyes. How can you be alive now?"

While in tremendous pain Kendra still held her ground, daring to speak out despite her broken jaw, and her words were sapped by the blood as it pooled in her mouth.

"Oh c'mon, you don't know? Maybe you need to look a little fucking closer at what you're actually seeing."

Still in utter disbelief, Isaac fought to hold back tears.

"I swear... I don't know how you did it, but I wish I'd never laid eyes upon you_._"

She condescendingly sucked the back of her teeth at his response and grimaced. Isaac was totally transparent to her even from behind the thick metal plating of that suit, and underneath his fearsome, dominating presence she could readily taste his fear. Without warning, she spat a mouthful of her blood reprehensibly in his face.

"Fuck you."

Isaac simply ignored as it trailed slowly down the side of his face, provoking her to respond even more angrily.

"You fucking idiot. Look at you. You're falling apart at the seams - just like the rest of this place. All because you won't let me win. How does it feel, Isaac? How does it feel to be so selfish and ungrateful? After all I've given to you?"

He had no idea what she was talking about, and confused he dismissively shook his head.

"You know, you left me for dead three times."

The pits of Kendra's eyes shriveled into tiny black holes.

"You only count three, huh?"

Isaac tilted his head.

"... What?"

"Well, old man, if you're feeling up to it, we can get it right this time."

Kendra's bitter, coldhearted tone burned him inside. He could only stare at her, wide-eyed in disbelief and unable to comprehend what could have inspired such a beautiful, vibrant young woman, who had once shown him a much warmer and lovable side of her personality, to become so acrimonious and hateful toward him.

_How? How could he have ever shared himself with such a foul snake behind Nicole's back? _

Still, even as estranged as his affection for Kendra had become and as betrayed as he felt by her now, Isaac could not bring himself to hurt her. As he began to wrestle with his conscience his grip upon her slackened, and Kendra unscrupulously seized her chance to take the upper hand as she felt it. With his defenses down Isaac could not stop her before she jabbed her sharp, firm fingernails deep into the soft flesh of his throat until she drew blood.

"I said get off of me, you fucker!"

Isaac was completely unprepared for such a strike. He immediately choked and lost his footing, and seeing this Kendra shoved him as hard as she could. He fell over backwards and slammed to the floor, accompanied by the demanding weight of his suit, which briefly immobilized him. Seeing her victory Kendra spread her arms and laughed at him, then sauntered past and continued down the corridor. However, as she watched him push himself back up and clutch at his throat, she was unable to completely deny him a little compassion. Her arrogant stride slowed, she fell to her knees, and she turned back to look upon him with dark, iniquitous eyes.

"Why are you doing this, Isaac?"

Kendra twisted her lip and wiped the blood from the corners of her mouth upon her sleeve, glaring sharply at him.

"How long do you really think you can run from what you've done before it all catches up with you?"

Although Isaac didn't understand, something about her words deeply affected him. Kendra watched contemptuously as his restless eyes darted to and fro.

"Isaac Clarke is a dead man. If you believe in anything, believe in that, my friend."

Sparked by her challenge, Isaac was intrigued.

"Is that a threat, Kendra?"

She smirked indignantly.

"A threat? Are you kidding me? Jesus, you've completely forgotten, haven't you?"

"Forgotten what?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"You know, Isaac... Why don't you go check out the Captain's Nest in the Bridge? That's where you were headed, isn't it?"

It disturbed him greatly that somehow Kendra already knew where he was going; in fact, it seemed that she knew a great deal more than he was comfortable with. He rose silently to his feet, wiped the blood running down his neck, and looked at his hand. Then, he strode slowly toward then past Kendra, who made no further move to harm him. She only returned with a vaunting smirk as he stepped by her. Isaac continued on down the hall and she watched him like a hawk the entire time, up until he finally rounded the corner at the far end.

_Go ahead, Isaac. Run._

Isaac ran through the Ishimura's wreckage as fast as he could. As he passed through each deck along the way, it was becoming a subconscious point of contention that the steadily progressing growth and evolution of the Marker's corruption was becoming more and more prominent. Everywhere he looked all he could see were endless colonies of throbbing, translucent bio-organisms swiftly mutating into sleek, fully developed muscular structures, forming everywhere what appeared like the eviscerated cross-sections of some monolithic alien beast's insides. Isaac was amazed to see that the virus had impregnated itself so deeply into the remains of the ship and it was growing so rapidly that he suspected it wouldn't be very long before there was no more actual ship left of which to speak of.

_The Ishimura was literally becoming the infection._

Isaac continued to run nonstop through the shattered and demolished sectors one by one, all of which were crushed in effortlessly like giant tin cans. He had no idea for how long he had been running; it could have been hours, days, or even weeks for all he knew, and coming across more familiar rooms he started to recall with surprising accuracy every detail, every turn he needed to make, every door he needed to pass through. Guided from within he navigated the technological labyrinth almost effortlessly, without even thinking about his destination.

**where are you going**

He felt the furious presence of the Marker within him the entire way as he ran straight through almost half a mile of wreckage, and his inexplicably intimate knowledge of the Ishimura had Isaac feeling as if he had been within it for ages more than he had thought.

_For just how long had he been doing this?_

Isaac just kept running, pushing on deeper into the mangled bowels of the Ishimura's insides even as hordes of necromorphs, all of whom had until now been virtually absent, suddenly and without warning began to emerge from the shadows like a plague to pursue him.

**don't be afraid  
**

Their discordant voices arose in a symphony of agonized wails from all around and their strange alien forms manifested from the darkness like wraiths, but Isaac never once diverted his attention from dead ahead of him. Paying the necromorphs no heed and following the aqueous incandescence of his suit as it illuminated his way, Isaac unhesitatingly charged forward into a hell that mysteriously began to feel like home.

**we are home**

After what seemed like years of endless running, Isaac finally reached the entrance to the Ishimura's Bridge. As he had seen in Hydroponics, the doorway to the Bridge was forced slightly ajar as if someone had pushed their way through it, and Isaac slipped in through the gap just as several bloodthirsty slashers closed in from behind. He pulled himself through just in time to evade their deadly talons as they tried to claw their way through, but Isaac quickly overrode the damaged hololock and manually sealed the doors shut, giving him some breathing room before the necromorphs could find another way in.

He stopped and looked around the Bridge, which was empty, dark, and running on minimal power. He slid down the sharply angled floor toward the elevator in the center of the room which provided access to the Captain's Nest below, and seeing it was not operational he jammed the metal face of his plasma cutter into the small gap between the two doors and tried to force them open. He became frustrated as they proved to he heavier than expected, and he growled.

"C'mon! Open, you son of a bitch!"

As Isaac tussled with the elevator doors, the vents lining the walls on the second level - which at this trajectory served as the sloping floor - suddenly burst open and dozens of sleek skinned leapers swarmed in all around him.

"Holy shit!"

The ravenous leapers were just within feet of his position when he finally managed to pry the doors open, and he jumped into the upturned elevator, pushed open the access hatch upon its roof and escaped into the elevator shaft. Hearing the leapers' foul hissing close behind him, Isaac quickly closed and locked the access hatch in the hopes of preventing them from getting through, buying him enough time to get to the Captain's Nest.

Isaac navigated his way to the end of the shaft and forced open the doors on the lower level. He ran past the evacuation pod loading chambers and broke his way into the Nest, sealing the doors shut and isolating him from the piercing cries of the necromorphs echoing down the elevator shaft. In the silence Isaac looked around, and utilizing his flashlight he saw that the Nest was now a tiny, pitch black dungeon that had partially collapsed in upon itself from the force of the crash. He could make out the silhouettes of the Captain's chair and the remains of the control monitor in front of it, which was shattered and useless, a part of its frame still dangling by one twisted support rod. He also saw the navigation systems, all of which were irreparably destroyed. Having been crushed in by the sheer weight of the sand and rock the ship was buried in, the panoramic windows that had once provided a view of space had cracked into large, thick shards and were now aiming inward like a row of jagged stalagmites just in front of the Captain's chair.

Inspired from within, Isaac carefully approached the chair. He aimed his flashlight onto the seat, half expecting someone to be sitting there, but apart from being torn up and covered in old blood stains there was nothing to behold. Kendra's words continued to haunt him as he looked around, and not seeing anything significant that he could connect with them, Isaac began to wonder why exactly she had wanted him to explore the Captain's Nest. He furrowed his brow, and took a step back.

Isaac suddenly felt something soft and pliable give beneath his boot. Startled, he whirled around and aimed his flashlight directly down at it.

_Hey..._

He saw that he had stepped upon a badly decomposed forearm, the mangled remains of its fingers spread lifelessly apart beneath his heel. He lifted his foot and stepped back, and with his flashlight Isaac followed down the forearm to the elbow, which was wrapped around the base of the control kiosk in front of the Captain's chair. He then saw that the arm was still attached to a headless, rotten torso that was sticking out from underneath the chair. The torso was torn almost completely apart, heaped disgracefully like a pile of carrion and glued to the metal floorboards by a puddle of dried blood, all of which might have made Isaac's stomach turn had it not ceased functioning long ago.

"What the fuck..."

Upon closer inspection, Isaac saw that the disfigured remains were still partially garbed in some of the materials that comprised an engineer's standard issue work suit. The torso's shoulders were plated with eroding ribs of shielding metal, and a long defunct holomonitor was fastened to the chest, destroyed beyond repair. Isaac looked up and saw a long, dark trail of blood smeared across the wall in front of him, leading his eyes down toward a small, shriveled mass of rotten flesh upon the floor that he presumed must have once been this person's head. While he had no idea who this grossly mutilated body was, the very presence of it was more disturbing to him than any other lifeless body he had ever seen. Still, boundless intrigue caused him to gently push the torso over onto its side with his foot to get a better look at it. As it rolled over, Isaac saw beneath it the remains of a helmet.

_A very familiar looking helmet._

Isaac leaned over and picked the helmet up, feeling the blood in his veins turn to ice the more he looked at it. It was heavily damaged and dented in, and the protective glass bands across the face plate were shattered into pieces on the floor, all of which suggested this was the result of blunt force trauma that the wearer would most likely not have survived. He then glimpsed at the remains of the head upon the floor, and for some reason Isaac was unexpectedly reminded of the dismembered hand he had found back in the Flight Hangar. Feeling suppressed beneath a baneful omen he could not explain, Isaac looked down at the torso again and saw a name tag attached to the uniform above an open gash where the heart had once been. The letters upon it were engraved in pure silver.

_**[I. CLARKE _ Sr. Eng., Mining Operations]  
[CONCORDANCE EXTRACTION CORPORATION]**_

Isaac's eyes widened, and the helmet dropped from his nerveless fingers.

_No. This was impossible. Impossible. _

The Marker suddenly seized Isaac's mind with the blinding intensity of a migraine. As its malevolent voices filled his head he stumbled backwards, jostling the plasma cutter in his hand. The flickering beam of its flashlight danced anxiously all over and revealed a second body he had not seen earlier, strewn carelessly across the floor on the opposite side of the room.

**this isn't over between us isaac**

Developing a very bitter taste in his mouth, Isaac slowly walked up to the second body. He saw this unfortunate body was as equally mutilated as the first; torn to pieces from top to bottom as if it had been fought over by a pack of savage wolves. As grossly disfigured as it was Isaac could still recognize that it was dressed in the tattered, bloody remains of a white CEC uniform, and what was left of the exposed skin was covered in charred, flaky scales, left to evaporate into dust. A partially severed limb, which had already begun mutating into a necromorph's talon before the body had been destroyed, was attached to its shoulder only by a thread of dried ligament.

Appalled but somehow unable to turn away from it, Isaac stooped to his knees and lifted the grim remains of the head. As soon as he touched it he could feel a familiar heat of radiating from it even through his thick glove, and he apprehensively wondered why this dead corpse seemed so akin to him. As he turned the filthy, decomposing skull over in his hand he saw a few strands of ashen blonde hair still clinging morosely to the rotted flesh of its scalp, and tears of dreaded recognition filled his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Isaac."

Startled by the sound of a sorrowful voice behind him, Isaac whirled around. To his amazement he saw Nicole, standing by the entrance doors with her arms wrapped around herself. Her face was heavy, and her eyes were glimmering with tears as she leaned against the wall and stared at Isaac in shame.

"I'm so sorry that this happened."

Isaac's first response was nothing short of pure elation to see her, having gone for so long without the sight or company of her, but the unmistakable identity of the decaying body upon the floor at his feet clouded him with doubt. He glanced back up at Nicole standing in the doorway, mentally embracing her with love but physically unable to do anything about it, and as if his own uncertainty confirmed an ill fate for her, Nicole slowly began to break down into tears right in front of him. Her shoulders fell, she sank to her knees, and she covered her face with her hands, unable to hold back a river torrent of hopelessness. Isaac was pained to see her like this, but before he could make any move to console her she cried out loudly between her fingers, prompting him to stop in his tracks.

"I told you we couldn't stop her this way. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen to me..."

Isaac was baffled. She was making no sense to him, yet every word convinced him more and more that something very bad had happened here; something that everyone except for him seemed to understand.

_Was this real? _

He glanced confusedly back and forth from the visage of Nicole before him to her dead body, becoming even more unsettled. He started to back away from Nicole, looking all around the Captain's Nest for anything that might help anchor him to a reality he could accept, but all of the gallant beauty and wonder he had developed for the Ishimura in his mind suddenly dissolved to reveal the true, underlying nature of its existence as a cursed instrument of the Red Marker in that moment. He could suddenly smell a stench of death upon the air that he had actually forgotten about, and it dawned upon him that the heart of the Captain's Nest was choked up with necromorph corruption that he could not remember having seen when he first entered the room. And somehow, this entire scenario seemed more and more like the worn-out playback of an old, faded memory he was having trouble placing.

_He had seen this. He had been here before._

The foul scent in the air began to strike him harshly, contaminating his personal space, and he curled his lip in disgust. He kept looking at Nicole's body on the floor, then to the other body beneath the Captain's chair, and in that defining moment he remembered the very first dream he could remember having after he had escaped Aegis7. The one where he was floating alone out in space, nearly dead aboard the disabled Executive Shuttle.

_His mortal encounter with Nicole, the stowaway necromorph._

Terrified, Isaac shook his head and looked up at Nicole.

"No! This is insane. This... isn't what happened. We had escaped. We were on the shuttle, not here! Not the Ishimura."

Beginning to think that Nicole was an illusion spawned by the Marker, Isaac turned on her. He raised his plasma cutter, and upon looking directly into its glowing faceplate Nicole screamed out in terror.

"Isaac! NO!"

Isaac threateningly shook the cutter, his finger taut on the trigger.

"What the fuck is going on here? Who are you?"

Prepared to beg for her life, Nicole started crawling toward him on the floor submissively, sobbing, pleading for him to put the cutter down and folding her hands before her with pacifying reverence. But he forced her back, continuing to aim the cutter at her with a shivering hand and a wild, ravenous look in his eyes. Again and again, she cried out to him.

"Isaac... Isaac, please! Please, don't do this! Please!"

Isaac stared at the sorrowful sight of Nicole as she approached her own dead body on the floor and leaned in over it mournfully, like a ghost. Though afraid, Isaac was still very briefly captivated by the genuine, heartbreaking sweetness emanating from her tear stricken face, and a million questions coursed through his brain.

_Was she real? Had he really touched her, held her? Had he been exploring the Ishimura hand in hand with the woman he loved more than life itself, or just running around an insane hallucination, all alone and bound by the hellish cogency of the Marker as it led him on a cruel, fruitless chase for something that did not exist?_

Again, his glance fell to his own corpse upon the floor, covered in old, dried blood.

_Was he even real?_

As if in response to his unsteadiness, the Marker released its irresistibly toxic poisons into Isaac's mind through its cacophony of voices in order to take him under control. As the voices tore at his brain, Isaac once again felt the sickness rapidly return.

**be mindful of psychological rejection ****be mindful of psychological rejection** **be mindful of psychological rejection**  


Unable to restrain his astonishment and fear, Isaac felt what was left of his stomach twist into knots. A violent wave of nausea, filled with an intense paroxysm he had never before experienced, arose from the very core of his being as he stood before Nicole and the two dead corpses. His consciousness started to recede, and as the world around him began to turn pitch black Isaac dropped his plasma cutter and fell to his knees. Unable to breathe he pitched forward, and holding himself up off the floor by shaking arms his entire body began to convulse violently. Forcing his mouth open he gagged several times with a sickening, repetitive sound, and a brief, suspenseful moment later he abruptly vomited a dark, rotting serum of blood and what remained of his insides onto the floor in front of him.

Appalled, Nicole pressed her hands to her mouth as Isaac disgorged himself. After a few minutes of rocking back and forth upon his knees he finally rolled back on his heels, gasping for air. He weakly wiped the strands of blood and saliva dangling from his lips and he pulled his hands up to cover his face, quietly whimpering and breathing heavily into his palms. Nicole, shocked and afraid to approach, could do nothing but stare at him.

"Isaac... Isaac, are you... ok?"

He failed to respond to her. Not knowing what else to do she crawled into the shadows so he could not see her, drew her legs up to her chest, and buried her face between her knees. As much as she loved him, she found herself now wishing that she was someplace far away from Aegis7 and from Isaac, whom she knew could not bring himself to leave the cursed Ishimura and the Marker under any circumstances. Terrified to move or even breathe in his presence, Nicole was eternally grateful for the stifling darkness all around her, which seemed to provide her the only means of escaping Isaac's hellish descent.

_She was losing him._

After a lengthy period of time, Isaac's nausea finally relented. His muscles slackened, the pounding of his heart slowed and his hands, still pressed to his face began to fall, revealing eyes that were smeared with blood red tears of pain. He eventually looked down and saw the pool of dark, viscous blood he had rejected spreading out before him on the floor, and he watched as it cut finger-thin channels of crimson slime through the grates in the steel floorboards. Exhausted Isaac zoned out upon it, not even blinking his eyes until he noticed something that seized his attention.

The surface of the puddle, jet black and glimmering eerily in the diffused beam of the flashlight upon the floor, had begun to haze over with a thin layer of milky, off-white foam that soon evolved into millions of tiny, frothing bubbles. Isaac watched as the bubbles split and divided among themselves again and again, until the entire puddle was dancing with countless, jostling little white specks. They grew exponentially before his eyes, doubling in density to the size of fingertips within seconds, then with increasing coordination evolved further into what appeared to be worms oscillating through the blood with infantile disorganization.

_What the hell...?_

Watching from the shadows, Nicole joined Isaac's wide eyed stare of incredulity as the little white worms began to grow even faster. Her fear of them quickly overrode that which she felt towards Isaac, and she slowly began to sidle her way across the floor toward him, seeking his protection.

"Isaac, what's happening?"

Isaac neglected to hear or even see her as she closed in next to him. His attention was solely focused upon the tiny white worms as they sprouted mutated, fin-like appendages upon their sides, and continued to increase in size until they matured into a swarm of fully distinct necromorph larvae. They quickly tumbled their way to dry ground, emerging from the bloody, black puddle with loud screeches and leaving long, dark trails of blood in their wake as they paddled their way across the floor and into the darkness.

Isaac's first thought was to lift his foot and crush them to death, but utterly stupefied by what he was seeing he simply didn't have the nerve to act. Panic stricken, Nicole scuffled quickly back against the wall behind her to avoid the swarm, which was now sizable enough to pose a serious threat to them both. Fortunately however, the swarm showed no inclination to attack them but instead headed straight for the hidden crawlspace beneath the Captain's chair and disappeared between the grates in the floor. Once they were gone and their screeches faded away into obscurity, Isaac and Nicole remained together in complete silence.

Devastated by this experience Isaac crouched on the floor with his arms draped over his knees, hardly breathing and staring into nothing. He had become completely catatonic; though he was screaming inside at what was happening to him, his outer countenance was entirely disconnected from his inner consciousness and unable to express any of his grief and horror. The sickness of his infection, the repudiation and choler all burning within him could manifest as nothing more than a single tear of dark blood that slid from his eye and languidly down the side of his face.

**isaac why won't you accept me**

Nicole just gazed mournfully upon Isaac, then she gently wrapped her arms around his neck. Despite her loving embrace he didn't move, and he simply continued to stare at the black puddle of blood and vomit before him, which was streaked in different directions across the floor by the larvae that had passed through it. With tears in her eyes Nicole leaned her head against his and softly began to stroke the side of his cheek, cradling him in the darkness of the Captain's Nest.

"It's okay, Isaac. We'll get through this. Please... please, don't give up on me."


	21. Clandestine Ties

**Chapter 21  
Clandestine Ties**

_**"As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the water, even one of the roaming senses on which the mind focuses can carry away a man's intelligence."  
-B.G., 2.67**_

* * *

_Nicole opens her eyes to darkness, and her ears to the intermittent sound of a distant, rolling tide. She pushes herself up. _

What is this place?

_Unable to see anything around her she cautiously extends her arms, and the tips of her fingers brush against what feels like hard, sandy rock. __A pinpoint of light blossoms from out of nowhere in front of her, and Nicole begins to head directly toward it. Larger and larger the light grows as she approaches it, until it becomes obvious that the light is actually the opening of a small, rocky cave she is inside of. She exits the hole and steps out onto solid ground that overlooks the arid, desert expanse of Aegis7 at dusk._

How did she get there?

_She looks around, and sees that the cave's entrance is in the center of a small outcropping of rocks that stands at the edge of a copper red beach. Nicole has to lift a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding twilight sun, which is descending quickly behind something wide, vast and deep crimson that she cannot remember having seen here before._

An ocean...?

_Bewildered to see this Nicole questions herself even more adamantly about where she is, and looks all around__ in an attempt to find the Ishimura or another landmark that is familiar to her. She scans up and down the entire beach, only to find that it is an endless and empty stretch of soft, red sand that reaches all the way down into the lapping tide. Beginning to feel a little lost she suddenly remembers Isaac, and she immediately starts to look for him, backtracking inside the cave. But he is nowhere to be found and she turns back to the beach, nervously wondering if he might have left her behind._

Where'd he go? Damnit.

_She walks toward the beach until she reaches where the rock meets the sand and pauses, slightly disturbed by its unnaturally crimson color and reluctant to step out onto it. _

Eww. What kind of sand is this?

_It is only her imperative to locate Isaac that drives her to bravely venture on, and once she steps onto it she is right away relieved to find that the sand's texture is exactly like that of the beaches she had been to back on Earth; soft, silky and comfortably warm to the touch of her bare feet. Encouraged by this she continues down the beach more confidently, almost forgetting herself as she playfully digs trenches with her toes along the way._

She has to find him. But, this is nice.

_As she nears the ocean's edge she turns and looks out across a completely straight and unobstructed horizon over calm waters, listening to the water's docile waves as they crash gently upon the shore. As she comes right up to the frothing, water saturated sand at the tide's break line she notices how the water is an even deeper shade of red than it had appeared at a distance, and it's darker than the sand beneath her feet. Still, wanting to enjoy this peaceful atmosphere as much as possible before having to move on, she simply puts this strange phenomenon off to the lambency of the setting sun, which is now blanketing the shoreline in a curtain of blood red scarlet. While she is still afraid of being all alone, Nicole can't help but sigh with relief as the warm, twilight breeze cradles her exhausted body._

This is definitely nice. She could get used to this.

_Deciding to take a brief intermission to do some thinking, Nicole stakes out a spot on the sand several feet up away from the tide. She approaches it and sits down, drawing her knees to her chest, turning her head into the wind and closing her eyes to embrace of the warmth of the evening air. She sits for a period of silent inner deliberation, letting the comforting surroundings calm her while she tries to figure out where she is, how she got there from the Ishimura without her knowledge, and where Isaac could possibly be._

She has to find him. Before the Marker gets to him. Maybe together, they can still stop this.

_Engrossed in her troubled thoughts, Nicole hardly notices at first a constant, repetitive sound carrying from over the dunes of red sand behind her. It eventually does become a disruption to her, and she finally turns her head toward it. She realizes the sound is very obvious and distinct like a low frequency vibration, and feeling both a little curious and concerned for her safety she decides to go investigate. She rises to her feet, dusts herself off and heads up over the dunes._

_Nicole hikes up one of the steep, sandy red dunes with the dexterity of an addax until she reaches the top, and she pauses at its crest to look down the opposite side. She sees at the valley basin, several hundred feet down within a deep, dark pocket of reddish oxide sand tucked between two towering dunes, what appears to be a very large, shiny object, so atramentaceously black that it seems to absorb the weakening sunlight into its surfaces like a small black hole hidden in the sand. __Nicole is afraid of it, initially thinking it is a piece of the Marker. But then she suddenly sees it is actually moving, and is alarmed to think that it might be some giant, predatory necromorph adapted for survival in the open environment. She quickly considers retreating before whatever it is discovers that she is there, but the longer she watches the mysterious black entity, the more intrigued and unable to turn away she becomes._

Wha...

_She then realizes that it is not just one, but two entities, intertwined and seemingly struggling against one another. This sends Nicole into a panic, thinking it must be Isaac fighting with a necromorph, and desperate to help him she starts running down the slope as fast as she can._

"Isaac! Isaac!"

_Nicole gets no response, even as she nears the bottom of the basin and comes within several yards of the entities. Both are apparently oblivious to her arrival, and as Nicole begins to see finer details, she gets a very strong sense that something is wrong here._

Oh... whoa.

_Nicole is stunned as she stares in terror at what is indeed a massive, black necromorph in front of her. From top to bottom, this creature is a frightening wonder to behold; easily several yards tall even while squatting upon its knees, slender as a greyhound yet powerfully built and fearsomely defended by razor sharp talons, fangs, and several pairs of muscular, clawed arms - all characteristics that share in the same humanistic evolution she has seen in all of the other necromorphs. However, this necromorph is set apart from any other by its intimidating array of thick, razor sharp plates, which appear to be partially metallurgic in composition, ____scarred with the shapes of Marker symbols that glow a deep, bioluminescent red_, and are embedded into the necromorph's flesh like giant scales across its entire body. This mysterious feature does not appear to be a natural development, but rather a grossly abnormal genetic mutation that is unstable and slowly degenerating the creature's entire body. _T__he visible skin between each plate is midnight black, slick as oil and covered in a layer of blood that never seems to dry, but is constantly dripping from its limbs in long, malleable strands. The necromorph's face is completely obscured by a row of thick, translucent plates that cover everything save for its fangs and burning red eyes, barely giving a ghostly glimpse of its resplendent skeletal structure underneath. In spite of the horribly visceral details of the creature's advancing genetic decomposition, Nicole can still tell that this necromorph is, or at least was at some point, the pure quintessence of design perfection for the entire species and certainly the Red Marker's most splendid offspring._

Maybe this is the Hive Mind Isaac had told her about.

_Nicole takes a silent step closer and turns her attention to the figure in the necromorph's grasp, who is covered in dark, oozing blood. It is nearly impossible to tell its identity, but she can at least see that it is a human female, completely naked and with her legs barely wrapped around the wide circumference of the necromorph's waist._

What's going on here?

_The monstrous necromorph's head lops back, and its red eyes roll deeply as if it is in some sort of intoxicated trance. It cradles the woman eagerly before it with talons that alone are nearly twice the length of her legs, and it leans in several times to bury its teeth into her bloody inner thighs in a rage of what Nicole is beginning to perceive as carnal lust. To her astonishment the creature is neither fighting with this woman nor causing her any harm; rather, she appears to be reciprocating the necromorph's behavior, arching her back as it grabs at her eagerly with its many hands, and she cries __out repeatedly in ecstatic delight as she calls_ the monster by a variety of sweet hypocorisms. Nicole can see the sensually engrossed smile upon the woman's face as the necromorph thrusts itself into her again and again, and in abhorrent disgust Nicole finally realizes that the two are in fact engaged in an act of shameless, unrestrained and fully impassioned sexual intercourse with one another.

Oh... oh, no.

_Horrified by this brutal debasement, Nicole is devastated. Her face grows warm and she presses a hand tightly to her mouth as she struggles to hold back tears, realizing that she has found who she has been looking for._

"... Isaac..."

_Neither the necromorph nor the blood veiled woman seem to hear her. Nicole eyes the necromorph and repeats herself, this time a little more sharply.  
_

"Isaac."

_Nicole swallows back a thick slab of humiliation as the necromorph pays her absolutely no mind and__ in a sloppy, inebriated stupor re_adjusts its position. It drools blood all over the woman in its grasp from its mouth and limbs, stabbing into her flesh with its sharp plates, all of which does not seem to disturb her in the least. The woman teases her necrotic inamorato by running her fingernails down its arms, causing the necromorph to shiver with sensual delight as she cuts into its flesh. T_he necromorph throws its head back and releases a deep, resonant moan, which Nicole recognizes as the sound that had lured her here in the first place._ The necromorph then presses its head to the woman's swelling breasts, extending its tongue to lap at her flesh, and as it growls deeply in ecstasy Nicole can no longer hold her tears back.

"You promised me you wouldn't let her get to you, Isaac."

_Having been completely oblivious to Nicole's presence the entire time, the intoxicated necromorph finally realizes she is there when it inadvertently glances in her direction. Its rolling red eyes meet hers, and the necromorph suddenly freezes on the spot with a dead stare upon her. Nicole's heart breaks, and the necromorph's alien, blood drenched face slowly falls with an expression of remorse. _

"... I'm sorry, Nicki. Please... please, don't look at me."

* * *

"No!"

A very disturbing nightmare drove Nicole to open her eyes in alarm, and she looked wildly around the dark Captain's Nest. Wiping sweat from her brow she sat up and attempted to recall the events of her dream, but the harder she tried to remember, the faster it eluded her until she had forgotten it completely. She sighed.

_Just a bad dream._

Right away she saw that Isaac was still sitting next to her, having hardly moved since she had seen him last. She was met by his dark eyed, vaguely concerned stare upon her, which proved to be his only response to her outburst. His face was an empty, abstruse mask that baffled her attempts to decipher what he was feeling as she stared at him, and he slowly turned his head away from her without a single word. Still, even as his stifling, insensate behavior uneased her, she was very much relieved to see him.

_To be with him. Alone._

With nothing else to do, Nicole laid back down and rested her head upon her folded hands, staring blankly into the darkness. Just how long they had been trapped within the Captain's Nest she did not know, and she had no desire to bother Isaac about it, whom she could see was not about to socialize with her. Once again emotional isolation set them miles apart from each other, even within the confines of this tiny, crushed-in room.

_Time was meaningless. Almost everything was.  
_

Isaac's sickness continued to plague him throughout the course of their imprisonment in the Captain's Nest, which of course kept Nicole in a constant state of anxiety over whether he would turn violent. To her good fortune he was soon released from his catatonic trance and he started speaking to her again - even flashing her a soft, encouraging smile at one point.

"I'm sorry, baby. I hope I didn't scare you. I really didn't mean to."

Nicole's first response to this was a warm, forgiving hug around his waist. Isaac could feel the delicate frequency of her voice as it vibrated from her throat through his chest.

"It's ok. It's ok."

While he was still unable to dispel his nagging, inner doubt as to whether Nicole was actually real or not, Isaac was grateful to have her with him in these darker hours of his life. He reached up, and with a slow, gentle hand touched the side of her face.

"Don't... be afraid of me. I, I don't know what's happening to me... but, you don't have to be afraid. I'm still the same person that I..."

His eyes fell to his own corpse upon the floor, and his voice fell away with uncertainty.

"... That I always was."

Nicole just nuzzled her face into the soothing darkness of his chest. Isaac could take little comfort in her embrace; his eyes still bounced restlessly around the room, unable to stop eying the two dead corpses lying in bloody, stinking heaps upon the floor.

_There was his body, and hers. And yet, here they both were, looking at them. _

His mind ran endlessly over and over every detail of how he and the partially mutated Nicole had brutally ripped each other apart in his dream, and the damage done to the corpses before him now certainly seemed to corroborate such an incident.

_Were they ghosts? Some lost, wandering souls eternally trapped aboard the Ishimura and completely unaware of their own demise? Or was this just more of the Marker's mischief?  
_

The more questions he asked himself, the more troubling it was to find answers that made sense. He remained skeptic toward drawing any such conclusions, as they still did not logically explain how their bodies had ended up back on the Ishimura when he remembered having fought with Nicole aboard the Executive shuttle right after escaping Aegis7. In reality, he had been found by the USM scouts, rescued and brought back to the Sprawl.

_In reality. Reality... Reality.  
_

He again looked at Nicole, whose warm, loving smile and glassy blue-hued eyes filled him with hope. He smiled softly, and gently traced her lips with the tip of his finger. It didn't matter to him; they were together now, whole whether alive or dead.

_The way it always should have been.  
_

His brief moment of serenity was overshadowed in that moment by the shrill, invasive cry of the Marker, forcibly invading his mind and driving the complacency he felt in Nicole's presence out.

**ISAAC**

The sound of his name grating his skull filled him with an impetus that he had not felt for a very long time - a sudden, strong desire to reunite with the Marker. As its voices beckoned him onward, all he could now think about, despite his earlier fear of approaching it, was getting back to the Ishimura's Flight Hangar and the Red Marker as quickly as he could.

**we need to talk_  
_**

He felt a sharp tug at his shoulder, turned and saw it was Nicole pulling at him, with large, frightened eyes locked on the door to the Captain's Nest.

"Isaac... Get up. They're here... _Get up!_"

Her exigent cry drove Isaac to his feet and drew his attention toward what had ignited her panic - a loud, violent pounding upon the doors. He realized that the necromorphs had finally found their way past the temporary barrier of the sealed elevator access hatch, reached the Captain's Nest, and were now furiously assaulting the door to get in.

**come back  
**

Isaac took Nicole firmly by the hand and stepped toward the door. Overpowered by fear Nicole hesitated, pulling against him and refusing to get any closer. Isaac secretly marveled at the tug of her hand against his, which only confirmed her existence even more, but outwardly he shook his head, trying desperately to think of plan to get out safely.

_Think, you bastard. Think._

With no other means of getting out of the Captain's Nest and nothing else to fall back upon, Isaac reflected upon the increasingly standoffish encounters he had had with the necromorphs. He was still not entirely confident in what it was that had been motivating his demonic opponents to act so apprehensive toward him, considering how determined they were to get to them now, but he decided anyway to put his trust in the supposition that he and Nicole were not in any real danger. His eyes glimmered darkly as he stared at the door, which was becoming more severely dented in by the moment.

"Don't worry. They're not going to hurt us."

As much as she wanted to have faith in Isaac's judgment, seeing how savage the necromorphs were acting and knowing Isaac was somewhat unbalanced from his sickness kept her from being able to do so. She shook her head vehemently, and pulled even harder against him.

"What? How do you know that? No! There are too many of them -"

Agitated by her intransigence, he yanked a little tighter on her hand to demonstrate that she had no choice in the matter. He clenched his teeth.

"Fucking listen to me, Nicole! If you just stay with me, they won't hurt you."

Nicole held her breath, knowing how futile it was to resist when Isaac was driven to do something. She ultimately knew that they would not be able to stay in the Captain's Nest forever in spite of the terror that awaited them on the outside of it, so she decided to concede.

"... Ok. Let's, let's fucking do this, then."

He was slightly amused by her attempt at bravery, her tightened grimace laced with the terror that was draining the blood from her petal-like lips. With a small grin Isaac reached up and carefully started to pry open the doors.

They were unpleasantly greeted by the harrowing thrust of a slasher's talon the very moment the gap became wide enough to allow it through, and even as Nicole jumped back and screamed, Isaac no longer felt intimidated by these creatures. Temper on the rise, he raised his plasma cutter above his head and brought the blunt face of it down as hard as he could upon the slasher's razor-sharp limb, bludgeoning the end of it clear off. As its blade fell to the floor, gushing dark, viscous blood, the slasher cried out and rapidly withdrew the rest of its arm back through the open doorway. Seeing his chance, Isaac forced the door all the way open and brazenly jumped out.

"ISAAC!"

Nicole's scream echoed through the shaft behind him as Isaac slid down the sloping hallway, past the evacuation chambers and right into the heart of the necromorph horde that awaited him. All he could see were the glowing pinpoints of his enemies' eyes radiating against the illumination of his suit's guiding lights like a blanket of crimson stars, and as he stepped closer their fearsome, translucent alien forms became unveiled in the beam of his plasma cutter's flashlight. They all kept their eyes upon him, hissing and spitting viciously at him like a coven of unholy apparitions, but Isaac kept his aiming arm solid. Even when faced with their absonant threats Isaac continued forward unabated, his emerald, unblinking eyes locked dead on them all.

"Let me through. Back away, and let me pass."

As his tongue vibrated the words, Isaac did not recognize the sounds coming from his mouth - and he stunningly realized that somehow he was speaking the Marker's language fluently, despite his lack of education in its lexicon. His eyes widened a little as he saw the effect this was having upon the necromorphs, and curious to know if it was merely a fluke he tried it again.

"I said let me pass."

The horde of beasts ceased their deep-throated snarling and tilted inquisitive heads as they received Isaac's message. Then slowly they started to retreat, loosening their predatory ring and clearing a path. Isaac watched as they swayed back and forth upon their knees, reluctant to attack him even as they shivered with rage. Beginning to feel confident enough, he called for Nicole.

"Nicki... Come on. It's alright."

A few seconds passed before her timid voice echoed back down the shaft.

"Are you ok?"

"Everything's fine. Would you come down here, please?"

He waited for her, growing a little impatient as she fumbled her way out of the Captain's Nest, slid down the shaft and landed next to him. As soon as her feet touched the ground she saw the horde of necromorphs staring directly at them from just yards away, and terrified she grabbed the back of Isaac's RIG. She pulled herself against him as closely as she could, ready to scream until he silenced her with a wave of his hand. Clinging desperately to his back and struggling to hold her voice, she followed his lead through the elevator and back out into the Bridge.

As they climbed out onto the main floor, Isaac and Nicole now saw that the entire Bridge was populated by hundreds of necromorphs in every direction, every one of them staring directly at them. Isaac suddenly felt Nicole's grip weaken, and he looked back at her.

"You okay, baby?"

She looked hopelessly all around the room, her face blanching.

"I, uhh... Oh, God..."

"Don't worry. They're not gonna touch us."

Isaac held up his plasma cutter and swept it across the room, making every necromorph in his sights aware of his intent to pass through. Though their menacing, vocal threats echoed all over the room, as Isaac stepped forward they did not fail to clear out of his way with the autonomous repulsion of oil to water. He reached back and hugged Nicole a little tighter.

"See? I told you. I just had a feeling."

Isaac headed for the Bridge's exit doors and Nicole followed closely behind, taking small, panicked steps while clinging to his RIG. A swarm of leapers closed in behind them, and unable to control herself she hysterically leapt up onto Isaac's back, lifting her feet to avoid them and looking over his shoulders with sheer terror in her eyes. Focused on getting back to the Flight Hangar Isaac hardly noticed the additional weight, and he continued unhampered up toward the exit, meeting with absolutely no resistance from any of their alien antagonists the entire way.

Isaac and his poor, petrified passenger finally reached the exit and stepped out into the corridor that led to the Tram Deck. Once they were safely outside the Bridge and away from the horde, Nicole finally felt secure enough in her position to release her grip from Isaac's RIG. Coming to stand on her own two feet again she flashed him a sheepish smile, a little embarrassed by her own cowardice.

"Wow... how'd you do that? With the necromorphs, I mean?"

Isaac checked his RIG then looked over the bloodstained plasma cutter in his hand, examining it with meticulous eyes and marveling at its mechanically constructed beauty. Though he didn't seem to have any more need for it these days it had still become a part of him, an inseparable extension of his own free will, and he realized that he felt perilously naked without it. He barely even looked at Nicole.

"... Don't know. Don't give a shit."

Still distracted by his plasma cutter he continued to fuss with it in a way that disturbed Nicole, opening the clip latch and checking the chamber, watching with the awe of a crow baffled by shiny copper as the blue light emanating from its illuminated traces was absorbed into the black skin of his gloves. He finally latched the cutter to his belt and motioned callously down the hallway.

"We're going back to the Flight Hangar."

Nicole's face dropped. She fearfully shook her head, knowing exactly why he was driven to go there.

"Isaac... I... I'm beginning to think that, you know, maybe seeing the Marker wasn't such a, a good idea. It's... it's not good. I don't think we should go back there."

Isaac turned and glared sharply at her.

"Fine. Stay here, if you want."

Nicole smiled nervously back at him, hoping he was joking with her. But when she saw that he didn't return the smile, hers withered away.

"Heh... Are you serious?"

When he didn't answer her, she submissively lowered her gaze. Not daring to say anything else, she waited for him to pass her then she reluctantly followed, trailing a few feet behind him as he led on to the Flight Hangar.

The return trip through the Ishimura felt arduously long and uneventful to Isaac. The ship was unreasonably quiet and calm, with nothing but the necromorphs' distant cries vibrating throughout the ship on occasion like foreboding echoes. Along the way Isaac listened to them, becoming more and more enamored as he began to understand what they were screaming at each other, and at him.

**xipe totec architect in this holy vessel you must make us whole through pure love for creation travel to the ends of our universe**

Mounting masses of infectious integument were consuming everything around them, and thinking upon the Marker Isaac became once again filled with a blissful sense of harmony in the supernatural surroundings as he deftly navigated the Ishimura wreckage. He had to slow his pace not by his desire, but rather to accommodate Nicole, who was proving to be much less apt at dealing with the encumbering corruption. He could feel the vibrations of her shivering at his back, and irked by her resistance to share in his enthusiasm he wondered why she was still so afraid of the world they had come to share. Nicole frowned as he reached out to touch the muscular forms dangling from the walls as they passed, and he tried a few times to pacify her with positive words. But as her unwillingness to cooperate only increased, he began to ignore her.

_Typical fucking Nicole. _

Making getting to the Flight Hangar his top priority, Isaac dismissed Nicole from his concern and he charged forth. She struggled to keep up, falling farther and farther behind.

"Hey! Wait up!... Wait up...!"

Isaac finally reached the Flight Hangar's access route after what seemed like hours upon hours of endless traveling. He quickly dropped down through the dilapidated, twisted hallway and approached the hangar doors, and right away his senses picked up the intense, radiating heat of the Marker through the thick metal gates that separated him from it. He crouched upon the door frame beneath his feet and spread the palm of his hand over the hololock, closing his eyes and sighing in ecstasy at the Marker's intense burning.

_How sorry he was for having avoided it for so long. For being such a coward. For allowing her to distract him._

Isaac basked in the Marker's unnaturally radiant warmth coming through the gate, which relieved his aching exhaustion. Having been so carried away by his zealous drive to get there, he had forgotten about Nicole and he quickly glanced back up the way he came in an effort to find her. He couldn't see her anywhere.

"Nicole?"

In the back of his mind he became increasingly concerned, scolding himself for having lost track of her, but the voices coming from behind the gates beneath were too irresistible to ignore. Anxious beyond all reason he activated the hololock, opened the gates and dropped into hangar below, hoping Nicole would find her way safely on her own.

"Isaac! Wait!"

So absorbed he was in his desire to get in that Isaac failed to hear Nicole, who had caught up just in time to see him disappear beyond the gate. Desperate to catch up she moved as quickly as she could, trying to descend her way fast enough in order to beat the slowly closing gate, but just as she reached them they slammed shut in her face.

"Oh, damnit! Isaac?"

Frustrated she tried to open the hololock, but much to her dismay she saw that Isaac had deactivated it from the inside. She angrily pounded with her fist upon the door, trying to get his attention, but her tiny hand had virtually no impact upon the thick, solid metal surface and barely made a sound. Swallowing back tears and a desire to cry out in vexation, she stepped back and collapsed upon the side of the gate frame, unable to drive the imagery of Isaac recklessly clamoring through the wreckage to the Marker out of her head.

"... Guess I'll just wait for you, then. Please, be careful."

* * *

Indeed, once he was inside the Flight Hangar, Isaac wasted no time in making his way toward the Marker.

The enigmatic obelisk was calling to him constantly, almost frantically by this point, and he was unbelievably eager to reach it. Deliriously lured by the Marker's chanting with promise of reward, he climbed through the mountainous debris with childish enterprise toward the zero-gravity control panel. When he reached it he activated the boosters, once again subjecting the environment to weightlessness and making it easier to navigate. Isaac's body lifted gently into the air along with everything else within the hangar, and hovering several feet above the bay bridge he could now clearly see the Marker strapped to the cargo transport rack on the other side just a few hundred feet away. Reaching out with hands desperate for contact with it, he pushed off the control room ledge and sailed swiftly through the chamber towards the Marker.

_The Marker._

The malevolent monument grew larger and more frightening as he came closer to it, filling his vision with its crimson glow and glistening, chipped onyx surfaces.

**isaac**

Isaac soared through the air like a furiously windblown cloud, heading directly for the tips of the Marker's black spires. As he closed in he grappled it to stop his forward travel, and the moment his hands touched it he felt the burn of its ancient energy course through him like electricity, completely unobstructed by his suit or RIG's protective measures. Rapidly rising heat overcame him like a fever and he feared he might burn to death, but so madly lost in desire for the Marker he was unable to stop himself.

**isaac**

Sweat streamed into his eyes and blinded him, but determined to succeed Isaac wrapped his legs around one of the Marker's tips, effectively anchoring himself to it. Hovering just inches above it, he began to run his hands along the alien runes that were carved into the rock, tracing them with his fingers. He madly attempted to decipher and arrange each symbol within his mind, utilizing what knowledge of its language he had been endowed with to do so, but in the Marker's physical presence Isaac found it virtually impossible to concentrate on anything other than how much he was attracted to it. He peered with narcissistic obsession at his own ghostly reflection cast back upon him from its shiny surfaces, longing to be on the inside of the Marker's central onyx chamber.

_... To be deep inside her. _

Blissfully lost in trance upon the Marker, Isaac once again felt at home aboard the beautiful, awe inspiring USG Ishimura.

"Is that so? I'm flattered."

His divine communion was abruptly shattered by the sound of a most unwelcome voice. Disturbed by it he snapped his eyes open, looked up and saw Kendra sitting right in front of him.

"What the... where the fuck did _you_ come from?"

Having apparently been hiding out in the Flight Hangar, Kendra had somehow managed to get on top of the Marker within arm's reach of Isaac without his noticing it. She flashed a taunting smile and leaned forward, revealing in the Marker's light her pale, drained skin and a field of dark bruises cast all across her face and body, along with the crack of her jaw, which was now visible as a thin, swollen line dipping down toward her chin.

"Wherever you go, I am there, Isaac."

Her large, plastered smile contrasted disturbingly with her homely, beaten, and almost malnourished appearance. Isaac curled his lip in disgust at the sight of her, and as he eyed the hairline crack along her jaw he seriously debated whether he should add another one along the other side for interrupting his precious time with the Marker.

"Get away from me, Kendra."

He pushed himself up on his elbows, clenching his fists and wishing he could deactivate the zero-gravity controls from his position so that he could push her off the Marker, and send this vile woman plummeting to her death. Kendra easily read the hostility behind his glare upon her, and she raised her hands.

"Gee, make up your mind, already. First you want me, then you don't. I just don't get you sometimes."

Isaac was agitated by her presence, but feeling too tired to retaliate at any great length he just shook his head and tossed his hand with impatience.

"So... what the fuck do you want?"

Kendra leaned back on the tip of the Marker and raised her eyebrows.

"Well, you know, Isaac... I thought that, maybe, if you're willing to be a little cooperative here, we could have a chat."

"About what?_"_

She pointed to her jaw, which was still spattered with dried blood that she had not bothered to wipe off.

"I came to accept your apology."

Isaac's eyes widened, and he scoffed at her.

"... Are you fucking serious? You're lucky I haven't killed you yet."_  
_

She started to laugh at him, and its hollow, insensitive chiding caused the hair on the back of Isaac's neck to stand up.

"Look at yourself. Staring into that Marker, like it's yours or something."

He kept his eyes on the Marker as she started to weave playfully back and forth.

"Anyway... did you see them?"

He looked back up, and saw how the slightly swollen lips of her face spread wide in a devilish grin. Isaac knew she was talking about the ghastly scene that he and Nicole had found in the Captain's Nest, and though he had no desire to fuel Kendra's malice, he still replied to her truthfully.

"Yes. I saw them."

"What do you suppose happened there, Isaac?"

Isaac was burning with rancor the more Kendra instigated him. He couldn't understand what this woman's obsession was save for the wounded feelings born from they way things had turned out between them, and he simply wanted her to leave him alone. Kendra saw his nervousness and smiled wickedly.

"Aww. So, you and your girlfriend had a little spat, huh? Well, I -"

She was cut off as Isaac, unable to bear the reviling sound of her voice any longer, reached up, wrapped his hand around her face and roughly shoved her backwards. She almost lost her grip upon the Marker, but she played it off flawlessly.

"Hey hey, hands off, dickhead! You've got some anger management issues, you know that?"

Isaac clenched his teeth, his chest expanding with a deep, ill-tempered breath, and he refused to dignify her with a response. Still, Kendra was not the least bit derailed by his attempts to ignore her.

"I mean... aren't you even the least bit curious to know what happened there?"

Considering how devious she had proven herself to be, Isaac figured it all must have been some cruel joke that Kendra had somehow devised.

"Nothing happened there. Nothing. It's just more of your lies."

She smirked.

"... But you both fought together on the Executive Shuttle, remember?"

Isaac shot a hard glance up at her.

"How the fuck do you know about that?"

Smiling viciously, Kendra began to drum the surface of the Marker provocatively with her fingertips.

"Well, its pretty clear to me that you're about as dense as this fucking rock is."

"How do you know about that fight, Kendra? What do you know about it?"

"Isaac, what would you say if I told you that the Ishimura was sabotaged?"

He stared at her, and she shrugged her shoulders.

"No? Well, what would you say to the suggestion that you did it? Deliberately?"

Isaac pushed himself all the way up upon the Marker and confronted her face to face.

"I'd say you're full of shit, Kendra."

Though he knew she was lying to him, her teasing propositions started to invoke doubt. He started to slide back upon the Marker as she slowly pulled herself closer to him.

"I say that you tried to crash the Ishimura in order to destroy the Marker, and your little infected girlfriend. You killed her, she killed you, and you both died together just the way you wanted."

Isaac's face flushed red with hatred and his eyes glimmered darkly as he resisted the urge to strike her.

"Kendra..."

"But that couldn't be, right? No, because you escaped. You ran like the coward that you are. So, that couldn't have been_ you_ on the Ishimura. It had to be someone else. For that to have been you would defy logic, wouldn't it?"

A chill drove its way up Isaac's spine and his hands tightly clamped down upon the Marker, chipping off tiny chunks of rock beneath his fingers. Kendra, smelling his underlying apprehension upon the air between them, leaned in until he could feel her breath across the skin of his face and he could see the fury burning like flames within her pupils.

"After all of this, you still refuse to acknowledge who you are."

"Tell me, Kendra. Who am I?"

"I've already told you. You are a _dead man_, Isaac Clarke."

Even in the rivaling moments of pure hatred shared between them, Isaac couldn't help but feel aroused by her brazenly seductive display of defiance. He derided her with an antagonizing grin and tilt of his head.

"Well, now is your chance, sweetheart. Let's see if you can, you know... get it right this time."

Before Kendra had the chance to respond, Isaac lashed out and connected his fist with the side of her head, knocking her off the Marker. She was sent backward by his blow, sailing for several dozen yards until she smashed into the side of one of the bay bridges. Isaac immediately sealed his helmet, forced himself to his feet and pushed off the Marker, cutting power to all of the illuminating functions of his suit and disappearing into the shadows of the dark empty space above. Kendra recovered and she started glancing all around the room, spitting intimidating words as she searched for him.

"You think you can hide from me? I can see right through you, you spineless insect."

Concealed by the thick shadows high above and out of her range, Isaac quietly charged his plasma cutter, watching as she searched along the bridge and scanned the darkness with her eyes.

"You can't escape your fate, Isaac. No matter what road you choose, I will always be there at the end, ready to eat you alive. Always."

He silently made his way across the ceiling, positioning himself right above her. When her head was turned he kicked off the ceiling and descended from the darkness right for her, and before she realized what was happening he tackled her from above. Kendra, while surprised by this, was not without the inherent anticipation that he might try such tactics. She quickly outmaneuvered him and got behind him, and seeing the plasma cutter in his grip she started to ram the side of his helmet repeatedly with a tight, balled fist. With teeth sharp as fangs and a completely insane, wide-eyed look upon her face, she mercilessly continued to pound on him with all of her might.

_"You fucker! You_ _motherfucker! Shoot me! Go ahead, fucking shoot me, Isaac!"_

As she furiously beat on him Isaac could only defend himself against her blows, which in reality didn't affect him as much as she would have liked. He could feel how her hatred emanated from her body like regnant heat as she tussled wildly with him, but even so he couldn't grant her grim demand. He gripped her by the arm, persuading her to pause briefly along with him as he retracted his helmet.

"I can't. We have to... we just have to settle our differences another way."

The blood from a head wound caused by one of her blows disengaged from his forehead and floated weightlessly upon the air, forming into tiny, perfectly round clusters that floated around them like the molecules of crimson clouds. He didn't seem to take notice but Kendra eyed it for a moment, then looked back at him with a seething desire to reproach him.

"Isaac, you've got some serious problems. It doesn't have to be this way. I'm just waiting."

More and more, Isaac lost the nerve to fight with her. Everything she said was so cabalistic, even if he knew her to be little more than a liar, and he simply couldn't understand her angle in all of this.

_What was she talking about? Waiting for what?  
_

Absorbed briefly in deliberation, Isaac didn't notice as she discreetly produced a small, sharp blade from the side of her belt. With a quick jab of her wrist Kendra reached out toward his hand propped against the bridge, and in a single swipe ran the blade across it, cutting effortlessly through his suit and cleaving all of his fingers save for his thumb off at the knuckles.

"I'm waiting for you to wake the fuck up!"

Isaac had not even realized what had happened until he heard an alarm upon his RIG, warning him that his suit's airtight seal had been compromised. Then he saw the severed digits drift aimlessly past his visor, and when he looked at his hand the pain immediately registered. He cried out, clutching at his wounded hand with the other, and seeing her opportunity Kendra lifted her legs and kicked him viciously in the chest. He reeled back through the darkness from her strike, leaving a trail of dark blood in his wake, and Kendra snarled at him.

"You see what happens when you fuck with me? I've had enough of your shit, already. It's been too long!"

Even while trying to cope with his injury Isaac struggled to keep a watchful eye upon Kendra, whom he realized was now trying to reach the zero-gravity control kiosk. There was too much distance between them to reach her in time, so understanding that his only chance was to brace himself, Isaac desperately lashed out and grabbed one of the fallen support beams stretched across the hangar. A moment later Kendra restored the room's gravity, and the hangar was suddenly filled with a thunderous cacophony as all the debris, along with the loose beam Isaac was clinging to for dear life, started to rain down.

The beam fell for several dozen yards before coming to rest upon one of the steeply angled bay bridges below. Briefly stunned and unable to grab for anything Isaac began a swift slide down the bridge until it tossed him off onto the floor near the Marker, which was several feet above his head. With the wind knocked out of him Isaac's vision began to fade, and he barely saw Kendra as she vanished through the upturned control room doors. Realizing he was now trapped alone with a critical injury and rapid blood loss, his eyes shot all around in a panic until they fell upon the Marker, now the only source of light all around him.

**come to me**

Isaac screamed furiously at having allowed himself to fall for Kendra's deceitful ways yet again. Seeing that there was no other alternative than to get to the Marker, he started to make his way through the dangerously unstable wreckage toward it. He exhaustively dragged himself along, trying to stay awake while reaching for the Marker with his functional hand, and holding his wounded hand above his chest in a futile attempt to slow the blood which was cascading from it at an appalling rate.

_How long did he have to live?  
_

The blood spurted from his severed fingers with each beat of his heart, falling to the floor as he began an arduous climb up to reach the Marker. He could hear his own cries of agony, yet the Marker's reciprocal desire to receive him drove him on against all odds until he somehow managed to lift his way up onto it. Once he had come to rest upon it Isaac frantically jammed his wounded hand into one of the gouges along the Marker's edge, submerging it within its furious heat and smiling madly as his flesh began to burn.

**i can make you whole**

Having lost so much blood, Isaac finally began to descend into unconsciousness. As his boiling blood slowly started to pool out across the Marker's dark surface like trails of steaming magma, he closed his eyes and sank deep into pure, dead space.


	22. Conviction of Purpose

**Chapter 22**  
**Conviction of Purpose**

**"I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all beings."  
- B.G., 10.20**

* * *

_From out of the endless, impenetrable darkness a man clad in solid black metal charges forth, with only his visor's glowing face plate and a mottled flashlight attached to the weapon in his hands to guide him. He is on a path that he knows is there, though he cannot physically see it before him, and occasionally he stops to gain a better reception of the voices that are constantly broadcasting their enigmatic signal from deep within him._

**death is a physical journey that must be taken**

_Aiming the flashlight all around, he can see nothing. Wherever it goes, the beam of light goes on infinitely unobstructed as there are apparently no walls, floors or ceilings in this place. With no sense of direction, after some time the man begins to wonder if he has perhaps been wandering around in circles to no end._

**a necessary step to new life  
**

_He suddenly feels a deep trembling beneath his feet, one that steadily increases in magnitude like the infant stages of an earthquake. The flashlight in his hand darts wildly about as he searches anxiously for anything in the darkness that might reveal the source of it, and he tenses the muscles of his body in an attempt to prepare himself for whatever it could possibly be. However, after a long, enduring several moments, nothing emerges from the endless void to greet him; the trembling instead begins to fade. The ground's quivering finally comes to a halt, and the man concludes - more by a hope and prayer than by any concrete certainty - __that whatever it was has passed. He cautiously presses on._

**isaac  
**

_He aims his plasma cutter up at the sound of a voice calling to him. He is just in time to see as the light reveals a gigantic, alien tentacle, stretching for what seems to be miles high above and descending quickly upon him like an island falling from the sky. Isaac quickly jumps and rolls away just as the massive organism slams tons of flesh and blood into the ground like a ghastly battering ram, and the seismic force of it jostles the ground and brings Isaac to his knees. Before he can get back to his feet, he sees that the enormous, serpentine appendage has cut off his escape by wrapping itself around the perimeter of the area, caging him entirely within walls of blood drenched flesh. Hopelessly trapped, Isaac's heart begins to sink.  
_

**you cannot run from me you shall not fight me  
**

_Isaac takes a step back and charges his plasma cutter, knowing that to engage his enemy in battle is now inevitable. He examines the tentacle's mass in all directions in an attempt to seek out a vulnerable point, but the giant monster emits an an earsplitting shriek that nearly deafens Isaac and knocks him off balance._

**no matter what road you choose i will always be there**

_Disoriented, Isaac looks up at the Hive Mind as it finally reveals itself, drawing closer and filling his vision with it's ever-expanding horror. So evil and repulsive the creature is, that everything Isaac can remember about it still cannot prepare him for their reunion. The mephitic monstrosity towers over him, covered in rotting corruption and swinging a number of tentacles that are all at least as large as the one that has barricaded him in. The decomposing flesh and exposed inner organs are offensively vibrant in both sight and smell, which somehow penetrates his sealed helmet and is enough to repel any approach. Isaac remembers the Hive Mind, but not like this - he can sense that something is wrong as he begins to feel ill._

**do not fear me**

_Fighting his sickness, Isaac tries desperately to concentrate upon the thunderous catastrophe of tentacles raining down from above. The Hive Mind strikes down several times upon his position, and each time he barely misses being crushed to death. He manages to hold out, slowly exhausting the monster as it strikes again and again, and when he finally sees a break in its movement he deftly responds with his plasma cutter, burning deep into one of the creature's many mouths. The Hive Mind recoils screaming after swallowing a mouthful of white-hot plasma, and it's body begins to hemorrhage as the skin and muscles disintegrate from the heat. Isaac holds his fire and pulls back, looking warily at the Hive Mind and becoming even more certain that something is wrong. The sickness within him rises._

**why  
**

_Consumed with anger t__he Hive Mind begins to violently throw itself about in convulsions, and its sharp, jerking movements further ruptures the weak, rotting flesh_. A flow of blood rushes out of its wounds in waves that are large enough quickly cover the ground as far as Isaac can see, and when he looks down he sees that an inch of his boots are already lost beneath a tide of blood that is very rapidly rising.

**do not make this mistake**

_The Hive Mind slams its body down into the expanding lake of blood, and the sudden displacement induces a large wave that floods the room all the way up to Isaac's waist. The blood is so thick and dark that it is impenetrable even by his bright flashlight as he aims it down into the mire, and it adheres to him like glue, critically restricting his movement. The level continues to ascend quickly, reaching his chest within a matter of moments, and Isaac sees that he has, at most, a minute before he is completely submerged within the rancid flood with no hope of escape._

**i do not want to live without you**

_Isaac attempts to activate his suit's life support as the level laps at his neck, but the blood has seeped into his RIG, shorting out the circuitry and rendering it inoperable. In his panic it had not readily occurred to him that his suit was not designed for sub-aqueous use, and it is now not only useless to him in this predicament but it's heavy weight anchors him to the ground. Trapped inside it, his suit invites him only to drown in his enemy's blood. He has to get it off.  
_

**this is not over between us  
**

_The blood finally rises above eye level, and the __view Isaac has through his visor becomes tainted deep red_. With only seconds left before he suffocates, Isaac frantically reaches down through the murky depths and tries to unlatch his boots. But before he can do this, his right leg is suddenly encumbered by one of the Hive Mind's tentacles as it wraps around him, tightening like a constrictor until it crushes his bones. It squeezes the air out of him, then without warning jerks him from his position and drags him down deeper into the dark, endless mire.

_Blind, unable to move or breathe, Isaac cannot tell which way he is being dragged. The blood begins to seep into his helmet until the inside of it floods entirely, and as it fills his lungs Isaac no longer has the room to scream anymore._

_**safekeeper of this holy vessel**_

* * *

Isaac came back to life some hours later in the Ishimura's Flight Hangar, under the impression that he was suffocating on something warm in his throat. He sat up, and upon realizing that his helmet was still sealed he reached up to open it. As it retracted he spewed a mouthful of blood, leaned forward and started to gag until he had cleared his lungs enough to breathe again. He then reached up to wipe his face, which he felt was wet, sticky and coated in a layer of dark blood.

_Shit. What the fuck.  
_

Trying to spit out the horribly bitter taste inside his mouth, Isaac suddenly felt a cold tingling across his left hand. This sparked him to remember what had happened with Kendra earlier, and he quickly looked at it. His dread was immediately dispelled, however, as he saw that while his fingers were missing, the severed ends had already healed over with a layer of newly grown skin.

_How could this be? Did the Marker do this?  
_

Recalling now where he was Isaac looked down and saw that he was still stranded in the Hangar, straddling one of the Marker's shiny, obsidian spires. The Marker's surface beneath him was tinted red by his own blood, which had spilled out all over and sunk into its carvings, having dried to give the appearance of smooth, hot wax. The Marker, apparently having gone into some sort of dormant state, was devoid of its glowing red effulgence and looked like just another solid black mass of debris in the darkness.

_What happened here?  
_

Frustrated that he could no longer feel the Marker's energy, Isaac wearily began to look around for the access gate somewhere above. Just then his RIG unexpectedly lit up with an incoming message, and the loud, abrupt intrusion of digital static startled him. He looked down and saw that it was a broadcast from Dr. Terrence Kyne, who was staring eagerly into the transmitting device on his end with dark eyes.

_"Mr. Clarke... we've been trying to reach you, but received no response in some time. Are you alright?"_

Kyne took a small yet visible breath.

_"Where are you?... Please, come to my office as soon as it is feasible. Please bear in mind that time is short, Mr. Clarke."_

The holomonitor screen blinked and vanished, leaving Isaac again in the dark. The sense of desperation he heard in Kyne's voice was concerning, and this prompted Isaac to get out of the hangar as quickly as possible. Using his flashlight he scouted out the the large, fallen bay bridge that served as his makeshift ladder toward the access gate above, and pushing himself to his feet he headed toward it.

* * *

Nicole was stirred from a light doze by the sound of the Flight Hangar's gate hololock as it sprung to life beneath her. She quickly scooted back, and when the gates slid open she watched as a bloody hand emerged through the opening. It took her a moment to confirm that it was Isaac who was struggling to climb up through the doors, and immediately she came to his aid by grabbing a hold of his arm. When she did, she saw his mutilated hand.

"What the... Isaac! What the hell happened?!"

So severely sick and spent by the effort it took to get out of the hangar, Isaac was unable to answer her. Nicole had to use all of her strength to help pull him up, and she dragged him across the floor to safety on the opposite end. She helped him to sit up against the wall and then came to rest beside him, wiping the bloody perspiration gently from his face and gasping in shock at his condition.

"... Isaac... You, you're..."

Knowing that he needed her help and wanting to avoid shedding any tears before him, Nicole stopped her heavy, wounded breathing. Closing her eyes, she began the process of clearing her mind and emotionally disconnecting herself from the situation. She breathed quietly in and out for a few moments, and once she felt calm enough to proceed, she started to examine the hacked stumps of Isaac's hand with the thorough, impartial scrutiny she had as a nurse. Still, all her training could not prepare her for the shock of understanding that somehow, despite Isaac's having been in the hangar for no more than a few hours, the wounds had grown a layer of skin that would have required weeks to develop.

"Wh, what's happening to you?"

Nicole nervously started to wipe away the sticky, darkened blood that covered his face. However, she very soon realized that not only was it difficult to remove, but it actually appeared to be growing back in some places. Unable to understand any of these odd phenomena she instead turned her attention to Isaac, asking him repeatedly about what had happened in the Flight Hangar. Given his being completely unresponsive to her, Nicole finally gave up and sat back down next to him in defeated silence. Isaac paid her no mind as he stared blankly across the room at the far wall, and Nicole just looked at him again and again, sadly remembering when she had first run into him back at the Colony.

_How charmingly perfect the scenario had played itself out. Like a bittersweet drama he had written just to be her hero.  
_

When Isaac had returned to her that day, he had convinced her that they were the perfect pair and and could overcome anything in this place together. But the more time passed and Isaac succumbed to the Marker, the more invalid, totally alone, and terrified out of her mind she was beginning to feel. Having reached a breaking point, all the tears Nicole had been trying to hold back finally overwhelmed her.

"Oh, god..."

On her knees upon the floor, Nicole began to cry. Tears streaked down her cheeks and her breath trembled, causing her chest to shiver, and after a few moments she started looking wildly around the room, desperate for anything to distract her. She searched through the tears in her eyes into the darkness high above, and somehow she saw one of the ship's escape hatches about a hundred feet directly above her. Seeing she had a way to scale the debris in order to reach it, Nicole was urged by the idea that some freedom from the situation, even if only temporary, was too tempting to turn away from. She looked back at Isaac, wondering if he would notice her breaking away for just a little while.

_She would only be gone a few minutes, that's all. And she would come right back._

* * *

Some time later, Isaac opened his eyes and looked around. He saw that Nicole was gone, and he strained to push himself up on shaking arms. Feeling tired and nauseated, he pressed his back to the wall and started to scratch at his scalp with the fingers of both his hands, trying to relish what little sensation he still had left in his dying tactile senses.

It took him a moment to realize it.

_... Both hands?_

Isaac quickly pulled his left hand back, and was horrified to see that it had almost completely regenerated to its original state. As he twisted it from side to side he saw that the new fingers were still a little underdeveloped and lacking nails, but apart from this there was virtually no trace of the damage Kendra had caused. The soft, newborn skin was pale in color and gently tingled like fresh scar tissue, yet posed as no obstacle to his resuming the normal operation of his hand. He flexed it wide open, balled it into a tight fist, then opened it again.

_It felt stronger. Much stronger._

Isaac continued to stare at his hand, feeling sick to his stomach.

_"Mr. Clarke..."_

A voice sounded from the receiver of his RIG's communication device. It was Dr. Kyne again, seemingly much more anxious now than he was in his previous message.

_"Mr. Clarke... Are...ou still there?.. M... Clarke...re?...Please...et..."_

Something was disrupting the signal, and when Kyne's words broke up into unintelligible static Isaac deactivated the playback. Wasting no further time, he set out immediately for the Medical Deck to find Dr. Kyne.

When he arrived, Isaac realized right away that the Medical Deck appeared to be in better condition than the last time he had been there. He was also certain as he looked around that there were more people present now, and they were all working at a naturally unhurried pace as if it were another ordinary day of operations.

_Everything was alive. Alive, and moving forward.  
_

Something was different about the people this time as Isaac looked at each of them. Their faces were ceaselessly morphing between human and alien characteristics as if in a state of existential flux, and their transient, flickering complexions made it impossible to tell if they really were the crew, or evolved necromorphs simply disguised as them. Isaac rubbed his eyes several times, unable to understand what he was seeing and wondering if his delusional condition might be responsible.

_Were they real?_

While Isaac was still unsure of whether these people were friend or foe, he could sense a deep, underlying connection with them. As he loitered in the heart of the crowd, more and more he could hear the vibrations they all emanated, the murmuring voices that sounded very much like the Marker's incessant chattering. Everyone he looked at stared directly back at him, all sharing the same message through the expressions that were cast upon their twisted, shifting faces.

**it is an honor to have you with us isaac clarke**

Every person projected the same enigmatic greeting, like a prerecorded message they were all looping at the same time. Isaac didn't know what to make of this, so he just continued toward Dr. Kyne's office without saying anything to any of them.

Traversing deeper into the Medical Deck, Isaac did not notice at first how the chaotic wreckage was getting to be far less extensive. It wasn't long, however, before the changes started to become quite obvious - the pathways were no longer crushed in, and he wasn't having to walk on the walls and ceilings or scale his way through twisted corridors. The debris had for the most part disappeared, and the equipment appeared to be in the proper places, undamaged and in working order. At some point the ship's interior illumination had also been restored, removing the need for his flashlight. Whether all of this restoration was somehow the work of the crew's efforts or that of some hallucination of the Marker, Isaac just wasn't certain.

_A miraculous thing, physical matter._

He stopped to backtrack at one point. Upon returning to one of the rooms he had just passed through, he saw that the devastation that had reigned there just moments before had completely disappeared.

_... What the hell was going on?_

Isaac just continued on, astonished into silence until he reached Dr. Kyne's office within the heart of the Medical labs. The door slid open automatically as he approached and he cautiously leaned in over the threshold, glancing around until he saw Dr. Kyne standing in the back room of his usually hidden secret office, which now stood wide open from behind the sliding bookcase. The gentle, flickering monotone glow of a holomonitor cast across Kyne's face and occasional movement of his lips suggested that he was engaged in conversation with someone over a communication device.

Out of the corner of his eye Kyne saw Isaac in the doorway of his office. His lips stretched into a beaming smile that over-decorated his already excited expression, he deactivated his communication device and came out of the back room to greet Isaac.

"Ah, Mr. Clarke! Glad you could come, are you feeling alright?"

Isaac didn't answer him, but instead started to look around Kyne's office. It was a small, cozy hovel, typical of its kind aboard a ship like the Ishimura. Save for the necromorph corruption that crept through the vents and grates to cover the walls in patches of translucent, glowing threads, the office was just as Isaac had remembered it. The sterile white walls were offset by a sparse arrangement of Marker-augmented houseplants hanging from ceiling hooks, all blooming brilliantly like the infected botanicals he had seen back in Hydroponics. The room was spotless save for the corner near the sliding bookcase, which housed a gruesome, blood spattered mess of papers, hastily piled into unbalanced stacks and scribbled frantically all over with Marker ideograms. The office's entire perimeter was lined with hundreds of candles, all of which had been burning long enough to heat the room considerably.

"Being honest with you, Mr. Clarke, there is an ulterior motive for our meeting. There is someone else who wishes to speak with you. With your consent, let's call him in."

Wary as Isaac was of an unexpected third party becoming involved, he just didn't know what to say. Kyne returned to the back room, and Isaac turned his attention out the large, panoramic windows of his office as he waited. Outside he could see many of the medical personnel engaged in their work, all of whom turned around just as he looked at them, as if having felt his eyes upon them.

**you are the safekeeper of this holy vessel**

Kyne emerged from the back room.

"Sorry if this is all a bit rushed, but there isn't much time. We trust you'll be able to roll with it."

Kyne stopped directly in front of Isaac with another large, plastered smile, and taking the opportunity to look him over he saw Isaac's regenerated hand. As Isaac thought he might, Kyne was eager to examine it. He grabbed a hold of it and started turning it over, taking in every detail he saw with the wide open eyes of a curious child.

"It's true... Altman be praised."

Isaac eyed Kyne until he heard the sound of footsteps approaching from behind. He then looked over his shoulder, and his heart skipped a beat in panic when he saw who it was.

_Challus Mercer._

Entering Kyne's office was Isaac's once menacing adversary, dressed immaculately in a uniform of striking pure white with grey trim. His wiry beard was stretched with an ominous smile, his thick, black eyebrows gathered like storm clouds on his forehead, and his eyes were scintillating like hot coals in all the candlelight. He stepped further into the room and very calmly raised his hand, seeking a handshake from Isaac.

"Welcome back to the Ishimura, Isaac Clarke."

Isaac was so shocked to see Mercer alive that he was unable to reciprocate the handshake at first. He had an inherent knowledge that Mercer was certainly an evil man and very dangerous to him, but due to all of the memory reduction procedures he had undergone while in the care of the Sprawls' scientists, at this point Isaac could recall little about him other than his death, and subsequent induction into the necromorph horde.

_Had it all been a dream?... Had the Counselor been speaking the truth?  
_

Mercer slowly nodded.

"It is satisfying to finally speak with you face to face, under accommodating circumstances. Being aware of the fact that you are a busy man, we were hoping we could borrow a few moments of your time."

Still, with some reluctance Isaac returned Mercer's handshake in a very suspecting manner, never breaking eye contact while he did so.

"... Yeeaah... Sure."

Mercer's physical appearance and behavior adhered to every nuance of Isaac's minuscule memory, but his glowing eyes stood out with the same molten radiance all of the other inhabitants of the Ishimura displayed. Eerily reminded of the Marker, Isaac stared Mercer down.

"What do you want?"

Mercer glanced Isaac over, and upon seeing his regenerated hand he took a great interest.

"So... you really are a Convergent. Despite your impediment."

Mercer's choice of words seemed odd to Isaac.

"What did you say?"

Kyne right away stepped in, seeking to pacify with a lizard-like smile stretching across his stout, human mask.

"What Dr. Mercer means... is that we understand you've needed some time to adjust to your situation."

Irritated with the Doctor's equivocal reactions, Isaac's patience was running short.

"Why the hell did you call me here? What do you want with me?"

By now, everything had become a point of serious contention - the strange, alien-faced crew members, the Ishimura's unexplained resurrection, and most notably that no one but he seemed to notice any of it. Dwarfing all these perplexities was the fact that he was talking with two people whom he had been certain were dead.

"I don't fucking get what's going on around here... This ship was a goddamn graveyard an hour ago, and now it's... it's..."

Unable to find the words sufficient enough to conclude his statement, Isaac trailed off into silence. Kyne analyzed this response with wide, absorbent eyes.

"An hour ago? Hmm..."

Mercer nodded with a dark, sidelong glance at Isaac.

"Yes. He's still rejecting it. Isn't that right, Mr. Clarke?"

Now, without moving his lips, Mercer continued to speak.

_What are you holding onto? Where is the one thing that exists in this world, of which you cannot let go?  
_

Hearing Mercer's voice coming from inside his head and recognizing the same psychic phenomenon he had been met with from the other crew members, Isaac wanted to test his ability to transmit it. He looked into Mercer's eyes, and visualizing the words in his mind attempted to reply telepathically.

_... ... I don't know what you're talking about._

Mercer grinned starkly at his attempt.

_Yes you do, Mr. Clarke. You are the Hive Mind._

Uncertain and wondering if he had heard him correctly, Isaac just glanced between Mercer and Kyne. Then, thinking his statement to be a joke, he forced a nervous grin and chuckled weakly.

_Heh. What, what the fuck, are you out of your mind?_

Their solid, unsmiling faces staring at him suggested they were being nothing less than serious. Isaac's grin slowly began to disappear.

_No... No. Maybe I'm infected. Maybe. But I'm no fucking Hive Mind. I, I don't even know what... Look, whatever_ it_ is, I ain't_ it._  
_

Kyne looked at Mercer with concern, then back to Isaac. While just as capable of telepathy as the others, he chose to remain verbal.

"Why, of course you are, Mr. Clarke."

Awaiting a response, Kyne finally tilted his head.

"Well... surely you must know that you're responsible for this?"

Still, Isaac remained silent, his eyes shifting around as he tried desperately to make any sense of what they were talking about. Kyne shot another glance at Mercer.

"This isn't good. He's forgotten even more than we anticipated this time."

Kyne's cryptic sense of urgency was beginning to make Isaac feel very uncomfortable. Distressed he began to look anxiously around the room, until his glance fell out of one of the large office windows. There, standing on the outside and leaning into the glass was one of the Medical crew, staring back at him with an expression of pure reverence upon its softly glowing, transmutating face.

**less than zero we are your vessels**

Kyne started pacing back and forth.

"He must still be bearing some emotional infraction that is making him repress his awareness."

He continued to pace for a few moments, then stopped and turned back to Isaac.

"Well, I suppose the best recourse would be to explain it all again, hoping it will jog your memory. So, for argument's sake, we'll try to recap this as succinctly as possible, and Mr. Clarke, you'll just have to trust us. Shall we, Doctor?"

He looked at Mercer with a silent nod, then back to Isaac.

"You have been blessed with the honor of becoming a Convergent of the Red Marker."

Isaac vaguely remembered having heard the Unitologist term before, and with as many bad memories as the Church stirred up, his instinctive response was to spurn Kyne's suggestion with hatred. Yet, while he wanted to do this, he simply couldn't; something was holding him back.

_A... a Convergent?_

Kyne nodded.

"The Hive Mind has chosen to converge with you."

Still Isaac could only stare at Kyne as he went on to elaborate.

"The essence of the Marker, as you already know, is the Hive Mind. The Hive Mind is a living force. It has a consciousness, just like any one of us. The difference, however, is that in addition to our intangible consciousness, we also have tangible bodies through which we interact with the world around us. The Hive Mind, on the other hand, is a transient entity that lacks a physical vessel. It lives in an ethereal state... like a ghost, for lack of a better term. This is one of the reasons that it created the Marker, to serve as a life supporting chamber - an artificial body, so to speak."

_Body?... It's a giant rock._

Kyne shrugged lightly.

"Well... crude, yes. The Marker is not meant to be a permanent solution. The Hive Mind's purpose is not to live inside an inanimate slab of rock; rather, the Marker is meant to serve as a last resort for when it has no other option."

_What do you mean 'no other option'?_

By now, being a naturally energetic sort of person, Kyne had returned to pacing back and forth.

"One of the Hive Mind's most essential characteristics is its ability to utilize a process called 'metempsychosis', in order to expand its connection throughout the physical world. Through this process, the Hive Mind transmigrates from the Marker into various bodies of other beings, bonding symbiotically with them. The process itself and the end result both vary, depending upon whether the body it bonds with is alive or dead."

With full interest and a little bit of apprehension piqued Isaac leaned forward.

_Bond... symbiotically... what're you talking about, like a, a parasite or something?_

"'Parasite' is not exactly the most accurate term. A parasite's bond is usually detrimental to the host."

Isaac sarcastically raised an eyebrow.

_And the Hive Mind isn't?_

Kyne slowly shook his head.

"... Of the two processes of metempsychosis, the more common is called _post-mortem_ surrogation, more commonly known as the Marker infection. Bodies of the deceased that are infected develop an external connection with the Marker, and are then reanimated by the Hive Mind, like extensions of itself. These extensions are what came to be known commonly as necromorphs; they have no mind or will of their own, and they display only what they inherit from their bond with the Hive Mind as reflections of its personality. That act simply like the Hive Mind's limbs, executing its will wherever they go."

Isaac glanced very briefly out the window of Kyne's office again at the crew member who was loitering just outside, still staring directly at him.

_Huh... no mind of their own._

Kyne nodded.

"The second process, called Convergence, is a much more advanced type of bond in which the Hive Mind extracts itself from the Marker and transplants directly into the body of another living being. They remain alongside the living entity within the same body, assimilating all of the aspects of that living entity's nature in the process."

As fast as Kyne was talking, it took Isaac a moment to catch up in his understanding. Slowly, however, the reality of his position began to dawn upon him.

_Wait... wait a minute... you mean, that thing is alive... inside me?_

Suddenly from off to his left, Isaac heard Mercer's voice coming at him sharply.

_It is a great honor to serve as the alpha entity, the safekeeper of the Marker, Mr. Clarke. You must understand this._

Isaac looked at him with uncertainty, then frowning shook his head.

_But I still don't understand how... or why... it happened to me._

Kyne rubbed his hands together.

"It was a matter of logic."

_Logic?_

"Yes. The creature here on Aegis7, the one you knew to be the Hive Mind. The outer shell you were fighting with wasn't the Hive Mind at all. It was just the body of an indigenous, desert-adapted polychaete that had come into contact with the Hive Mind, and became the Convergent as a result of their connection."

Isaac's eyes darkened.

_What does that have to do with me?_

"Convergence only works with a living body. Once that living being is forced out of the body by some means, the Hive Mind can no longer inhabit that body. It must either find another living being within it's field that it finds suitable, or return to the Marker. Killing that giant sand worm, as you did... within which the Hive Mind was dwelling... destroyed the Convergent bond between them. Subsequently the Hive Mind was forced out of its body, and so had to seek out a new body to converge with."

Kyne folded his hands before him.

"Your proximity at that moment deemed you the most logical replacement option for it."

_Me? I was the most... logical replacement option?_

"Yes."

Isaac shook his head.

_You people are fucking nuts._

Again, Kyne and Mercer looked at one another, conversing silently through their eyes in a way that Isaac could not perceive. He was still having trouble accepting their plea, but looking down at his scaling, regenerated hand, he couldn't argue with them. He couldn't think of anything but the Marker.

_I Just... this doesn't make any sense to me. Why, what's the purpose of all this?_

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw as Mercer stepped forward from the the shadows.

_The Hive Mind has one purpose... to spread its signal. From one central point it sends forth its influence throughout all life, implanting the seeds of evolutionary change and assimilating the knowledge of all those it comes into contact with into its own collection of data, amalgamating the essence of every lifeform into itself in order to evolve into the perfect being. The Convergent's great fortune is that they become the base upon which the Hive Mind develops this perfect form,making them a key ingredient of the end product._

As he spoke, Mercer's eyes darkened and his brows dropped like a storm front.

_As for you, Mr. Clarke... in spite of your fortunate position as a Convergent, you have refused to embrace your role because of having allowed something from your former human life to intercede. This has prevented the Hive Mind from completing its bond with you, and as a result you are hovering on a very precarious plane of constitutional instability. This is causing the partial bond that you have with the Hive Mind to deteriorate, and this is causing you to break down. You are acting erratically, suffering amnesia and slowly becoming sicker because you are rejecting who you really are._

Becoming frustrated by words that were beginning to hit close to home, Isaac shook his head defiantly.

_Just who the hell am I? Safekeeper? Convergent? These words mean nothing to me. You come in here and start telling me that I've got some invisible monster squatting inside my own body, ok... and n__ow you're saying that I'm dying... So, what... I'm a necromorph? Is that what you're telling me? _

Kyne just stared at Isaac, examining his agitated movements with a blank, neutral eye.

"No. You are not a necromorph. The necromorphs are you."

_What?_

"Yes. The Hive Mind is you. You are the Hive Mind. Your personality, your intelligence, your characteristics; they all become part of the Hive Mind, and it becomes a part of you. You affect every aspect of the Hive Mind's existence; just as light passing through stained glass will appear to be a certain color, so the consciousness of the Convergent becomes reflected through all of the Hive Mind's by-products, including the horde."

_Wait, so the necromorphs aren't...?_

"The necromorphs as you remember them in those monstrous forms were merely reflections of the Hive Mind's previous Convergent. The necromorphs produced of its bond with the Hive Mind were quite primitive, because the Hive Mind was drawing from the characteristics of that lesser evolved sand worm. Furthermore, the anomalous, grotesque mutations of their bodies were the result of the sand worm's inability to process the Marker's signal correctly, which became expressed as those monstrous necromorphic extensions. But you are not a sand worm, Mr. Clarke."

Mercer crossed his arms before his chest, glaring over Isaac.

_Our future as the horde now advances with you, Mr. Clarke._

Isaac returned his stare, feeling unnerved by Mercer's burning, crimson eyes.

_Our future?... The horde? You're necromorphs?_

Startled by this sudden revelation, Isaac glanced anxiously back and forth between Mercer and Kyne. He then turned back to the windows of Kyne's office, where he now saw several figures standing with their hands pressed against the glass and staring back with deep, halcyon idolization in their blood red eyes.

_They were all necromorphs... and now, they were human. Just like their... Convergent._

Isaac could take no more at this point. His eyes turned dark and his his skin started to pale. Kyne noticed his condition was starting to wither, and coming to understand that so many realizations were taxing Isaac too much, he sighed deeply.

"He doesn't look well. Let's allow him to digest what we've told him so far. He'll come back when he's ready."

Overwhelmed by everything they were telling him and succumbing to the Marker's sickness in his fear, Isaac finally dropped his head and closed his eyes.

**do not fear me**

The sweet, melodious vibrations of the Marker's sweet voices filled his head, and just as the world around him began to fall away, Isaac drew a long, deep breath.

**you must let go**

With eyes closed he stared inward, barely able to see her shadowed face staring alluringly at him through the dark.

**you are everything to us**

Unable to hear the Marker's voices as Isaac heard them, Kyne finally cleared his throat to break what was to him dead silence.

"Mr. Clarke."

Prompted to return to his outer senses upon hearing Kyne's voice, Isaac slowly opened his eyes and turned his head to look at him.

_... Yes?_

Again, Kyne cleared his throat.

"Please take the time you need to deliberate fully upon everything we've told you. We need you to be ready when you come back to us. There is more to share with you, but we'll save that for another time."

Despite Isaac's continued confusion, Mercer and Kyne abruptly concluded their meeting and began to disperse. As they both started to head out of the office, Isaac heard them both verbally whisper a solemn prayer.

"Altman be praised."

Finding it odd that they would both just abandon him after burdening him with so much information, Isaac kept a wary eye upon them both as they vanished out the door. He then waited several more moments, and only once he was certain they were gone did he finally move to leave. He stepped out of the office doors and into the heart of the now large gathering of crew members surrounding Kyne's office, and he started to examine those around him more deeply.

_Our future advances with you._

Mercer's chilling words rang through Isaac's head as he glanced from person to person, taking closer notice of their transmutating features. Some were much more human than others and indistinguishable from normal people, while others appeared much more alien with flat, inchoate features that blended awkwardly into their human facades, and all of their faces continued to gently shift and morph like sand tossed about beneath a tide. Isaac could see a deep reverence and admiration in their mystic glances as he passed them by, and he returned their gestures with a small, weak smile.

_... Our future. _


	23. Life Cycles

**Chapter 23  
Life Cycles**

_**"As a friend tolerates the impertinence of a friend, please tolerate the wrongs I may have done You."  
- B.G., 11.44**_

* * *

By now Nicole had managed to climb her way outside of the Ishimura, and was spending her time in isolation along the planetcrack crater's edge. Sitting with her knees tucked up to her chest, she stared upon the barren wasteland and watched despondently as the swirls of countless dust storms aggressively swept across the basin, all while sadly pondering over the unfortunate events that had plagued her and Isaac up to this point. She tilted her head up towards the sky, and feeling the faint heat of the very distant setting sun upon her skin and seeking its warmth to enliven her she tried to bathe herself in it as best she could, though only able to do so to a mediocre satisfaction.

She occasionally glanced down into the crater hole stretched out before her for miles around, like the wide open burrow of some subterranean terror the size of Aegis7 itself. Ancient rock that seemed lifeless and neverending filled all of her vision, standing as a monumental reminder of her failure, and her already weakening resolve to survive this unforgiving place was crushed even further by the sight of it. She simply could not stop thinking about Isaac, nor of her own position in a situation that was clearly destined for self destruction, and the cold, desolate environment seemed only to taunt her with the threats of having been abandoned by whatever benevolent forces might have been in place above them. She was in a most dire quandary; she so desperately wanted to go home, but bound by some unholy influence tied to the planet that had come to exact its domination over the both of them, Nicole knew she would never again leave Aegis7... or Isaac.

_He was her final connection to humanity. Without him, she could not exist. _

No longer able to hold back the tears that had been stinging at her throat both in her dysphoria and in response to the arid climate, she slowly dropped her head in between her knees and began to cry. Nicole became lost to everything around her for quite some time; when she had finally managed to bring herself under control again, she looked back up at the sky and saw that the sun had disappeared, along with all the light, and the landscape was chalked out in blackness. The crater pit hundreds of meters beneath her was nothing more than a solid, impenetrable blanket of shadow stretching across the land, and the air had become numbingly cold in the absence of the sunshine. She rubbed her eyes, momentarily forgetting her woes as they became very rapidly replaced with panic at being out on the open desert at night.

"Oh, _shit_."

Fearing that she might lose her sense of direction in the dark and get lost, she immediately decided that it was time to return to the Ishimura while she still could. She stood up and started to brush herself off, surprised to find that she had apparently been sitting out in the wind long enough to accumulate a thin layer of red oxide dust across her entire body. The fine, crimson particles took to the air like crematory remains as she ran her fingers across her clothes, and she attempted to dodge it as it came right back at her upon the opposing wind. She finally turned around and examined the way from which she had come, and spotted against the backdrop of the midnight sky the solid black outlines of the Ishimura's flank ribs, scraping at the clouds like the outstretched fingers of a giant, mechanical skeleton buried beneath the sand. Nicole wrapped her arms around herself to preserve her own body heat in the desert chill, and began to make her way towards the ship.

As time passed and Nicole continued on, she began to suspect that the Ishimura was apparently much farther than it had seemed from her point of first estimation. Trudging endlessly through the sand she started to tire, wondering irritably to herself what would have possessed her to wander so far from it in the first place, and to pass the time she focused on the scuffling sounds of her boots as she walked. The soft scraping was all that accompanied her journey apart from the lonely nighttime breeze, and she had traveled for a good several minutes before realizing that the pattterned echo had somehow multiplied. She immediately stopped, tensing her body with fear as she now heard that the sounds continued on despite the fact that she was no longer adding to them. Her eyes darted around in panic as she knew now that she was not alone, and in crazed, wild-eyed hope she attempted to guess at who it might be.

"... Isaac...?"

Reluctant to attract attention to herself beyond necessity she barely whispered his name, and she anxiously awaited a response. However only the wind replied to her, with nothing more than blank, empty ridicule as it skimmed across the sand at her feet. She shut her eyes, the movement of her chest became visible as her adrenaline began to rise, and she called out again.

"... Is anybody there?"

Again, she fell silent. Though she was met with no reply from anyone, she now noticed that the footsteps had stopped. Nicole tightened her balled fists and felt as hot, nervous sweat rose to the surface of her skin, and she turned her head from side to side to survery her immediate area. However, the sounds never returned, and in the silence that followed she slowly began to loosen her stance and lower her defenses. Not wanting to remain out on the desert any longer, she started on again for the Ishimura.

She traveled on for several more minutes, eventually detecting the ship buried beneath as the sounds of crushing gravel morphed into metallic scraping. Relieved and feeling a bit more confident now that she had at least reached her destination she looked across the sand, trying to find the escape hatch she had used to come out. As her eyes feverishly scanned the ground she became very agitated, seeing as the dark, moonless sky above made it much more difficult to locate things along the ground - especially the discreetly hidden hatch buried within the sand. Her constant anxiety skyrocketed into anger as her fear of being followed, coupled with the desire to get out of this bleak, hostile environment and back into the comforting stagnation of the rotting Ishimura, became intolerable. Again, tears threatened to burst forth and she began to breathe heavily, like a snake having been struck with a stick.

"Goddamnit... _where is it?_"

Just as her frustration was about to get the better of her, Nicole finally found the hatch and, a few gripes aside, she pulled it open. The warm, stale air within the ship blew past her through the opening by the change in pressure, a sensation that strangely enough put her at ease and she sighed, preparing to step in. A moment shy of her intention to do so, Nicole was unexpectedly stopped by the grip of someone's hand upon her shoulder.

"HEY!"

Startled out of her mind Nicole instantly screamed and bolted like a frightened housecat. She jumped back and fell to the ground, terrified to think that it must have been one of those horrid necromorphs having come to prey upon her while she was unprotected and alone. She quickly looked up to assess what sort of dreaded creature it was, but was confronted instead by the blaring glow of an engineer's metal helmet, very reminiscient of the CEC issued design she was familiar with, staring her down in a blinding display of aqueous green light. The helmet crowned the silhouette of a tall figure, traced out against the dark, faintly starlit sky in a stance of complete shock that clearly matched Nicole's. Relieved beyond comprehension for the moment to understand that it wasn't a necromorph or something as equally dangerous, and even moreso by the immediate recognition of who it was, Nicole's face split with a very wide, elated smile wrought with agitation.

"Isaac... you _asshole!_ You scared the shit outta me, what the hell?"

The engineer didn't respond, but instead stared at Nicole with a curious, uncertain posture that sparked her to suspect that it wasn't Isaac. She glanced a bit harder at the details in the green light, and she could see that this engineer was wearing a standard issue uniform that was lacking any upgraded equipment or construct. She could also see that it was devoid of the insane carvings of Marker language that she had recognized on Isaac's Tank Suit. Afraid and a little embarrassed, she glanced down just before hearing a voice resound from the engineer's helmet.

_"El... Elizabeth?"_

Nicole, though distressed in the back of her mind that it wasn't Isaac, still right away recognized the voice and she tilted her head.

"... Jake? Jacob Temple?"

The engineer pulled his head back with equal astonishment as he recognized Nicole's voice.

_"...Nicki Brennan? ... That you?"_

Nicole was unable to respond, momentarily overjoyed to have come across someone else here that she knew and who wasn't already dead. In fact, she had mused to herself, it was the first time on Aegis7 that someone other than Isaac or the necromorphs had even noticed her at all, and it had been quite a while since she had last heard a normal, human voice that wasn't crying out in pain and despair. She stuttered, excited and nervous.

"Jake! Wh.. what are you, what are you doing here?"

The engineer retracted his helmet to reveal his face, and Nicole's warm, gentle smile immediately vanished. Her brows sank into a straight line across her eyes and she squinted, trying to get a better glimpse of the details of his face as he smiled lovingly back at her. She became utterly baffled.

It _was_ Isaac.

"Well, I saw you out there wandering around earlier. For some reason, I thought you were Elizabeth. I tried callin' ya, but you... I guess you didn't hear me, so, I followed you. I just couldn't understand what Liz'd be doin' out here."

He laughed and pressed a hand to his forehead.

"You know something, Nicole... I never really noticed it before, and maybe it's the fact that it's darker than all hell out here, but, damn... You look_ exactly_ like Liz. Spittin' image."

Nicole turned away in uncomfortable surprise. When his voice fell away and she realized he was waiting for her to respond, she hesitantly looked back up at him. She again saw his face, but this time was highly perplexed as she came to realize that it actually _wasn't_ Isaac - it was in fact her old friend and co-worker, Jacob Temple. Confused and tired, Nicole concluded that her having mistaken him for Isaac at first was merely the result of the nighttime sky above playing tricks on her eyes with it's bewildering darkness. Jacob held a hand out to her and she eagerly accepted it, taking advantage of his grip to help her to her feet.

"Wow... It's, good to see you, Jake."

They both paused as a moment of subliminal friction passed between them. The two had been long-time friends since childhood, and they both had also initially shared a mutual companionship with Isaac in the same capacity. But the close, endearing rapport Jacob and Nicole had developed over the years became strained once Isaac established a far more intimate connection with her, and their communication became even less direct once Jacob met Elizabeth Cross during his station aboard the Ishimura. Having been faced with so many barriers between them Jacob and Nicole's friendship had dwindled in time, and it now dawned upon her just how long it had been since she had last seen him up close. As her heart pounded in her chest with excitement she also came to realize that she had forgotten just how much she had once enjoyed his presence, and as he proved to be a sorely refreshing change of pace from the deep, dark gravity of the scenarios that accompanied Isaac's journey she found the reunion with her old friend to be far more inspiring than she had anticipated - or could consider proper. Still, despite the secretive elation she felt, her spririts were just a bit dampened as she couldn't quite figure out exactly how Jacob might have survived the devastating Ishimura crash to even be standing before her, and she uncomfortably cleared her throat, hoping in some small way that she might herd him into answering her questions.

"I mean, I'm glad that someone else actually survived. I can't believe either of us made it this long."

Again Jacob laughed, the nervousness of being so close to her after such a period of distance becoming increasingly prevalent the more he tried to hide it from her.

"Yeah, it's uh, it's... It's good to see you too, Nicole. It really is. I was wondering about you. I was hoping they didn't get to ya."

Secretly out of a bashful desire to avoid the soft, sweet casting of her glance upon his own naked eyes, Jacob replaced his helmet. He then waved his hand with an elegant yet comical sense of chivalry toward the hatch, offering to her the opportunity to enter the ship first.

_"... Madam."_

She smiled and stepped toward the hatch, feeling as her mood instantly lightened at the concealed charm in his gesture.

"Thanks."

_"What are you doing out here anyway? Are you looking for trouble, or what? 'Cause that's all you're gonna find out here, Missy."_

She glanced down at his playful admonishment.

"Oh, yeah... I'm sorry, I just... I just needed some fresh air, you know?"

As Nicole descended the hatch into the ship, making her way down through the debris, the dark sky visible through the hatch opening above her became obscured by Jacob's solid black figure as he entered the ship and followed her down.

_"Be careful, Nicole. Please. It's much safer inside the ship."_

Nicole paused and blinked.

_Safer? Was he crazy?_

Jacob closed in on top of her, and having not realized that she had stopped he almost stepped on her fingers. Seeing his nearly treading on her she picked up her pace and continued on, and the two navigated their way down until they reached the bottom of the upturned corridor near the Flight Hangar doors. She touched down on floor and immediately looked around, realizing that Isaac was not where she had left him. Her eyes jumped to the hangar doors, wondering if he was inside, and she right away became afraid. Looking for options other than having to navigate that terrifying chamber in search of him, she turned to Jacob.

"Hey... Have you seen Isaac at all, Jake?"

Jacob pulled his head back. He seemed surprised.

_"Isaac's here? Really? No, I uh, I haven't seen him."_

She frowned a little.

"You, haven't seen him, or heard from him at all?"

Again Jacob shook his head, and as he did so the illumination of his helmet bathed the entire surrounding area with its penetrating green glow.

_"Nope, I didn't even know he was here. Well, I'll be on the lookout for him, now."_

Nicole slowly nodded, distracted as she ran a concerned glance up and down the surrounding corridors several times.

"Well... I think I'm gonna go look for him. Where are you headed?"

Jacob turned to the communication device upon his sleeve, scanning through his RIG for messages, and after a few moments he silently pointed down one of the twisted corridors. Nicole distantly noticed how Jacob paid no heed to the disastrous condition of the ship, but she remained quiet, thinking that perhaps he had just gotten as used to this place as she had.

_"I have to get back to Maintenance. Why don't you come along, and we can look for Isaac together?"_

Nicole, despite still being nervous, was delighted at the chance to travel with someone who was familiar _in a positive way_ at this point. She excitedly accepted his proposition and jumped to her feet as her eyes once again fell upon the doors to the Flight Hangar. Remembering the terrifying imagery of the Red Marker and knowing its foreboding figure stood just beyond, Nicole shook her head and joined Jacob at his side.

"That sounds like a great idea. I definitely don't want to stay here."

* * *

Desiring some isolation to reflect upon what he had just barely managed to ingest from Mercer and Kyne, Isaac had once again set out on one of his aimless wanderings through the bowels of the USG Ishimura. He drifted through the population that seemed to only be growing in number, barely noticing as they all turned one by one to greet him either with silent nods or soft spoken words identical to what he had been hearing in the Medical Deck, and he was lost upon a sea of troubled thought as the reality of what the Doctors had told him was now starting to sink in. Again, the enigmatic, provocative whispers of the Marker hounded at his conscience.

**sacrifice is inevitable**

He began to understand how little he actually knew about the Marker, about the Hive Mind, and he couldn't believe that he might have risked everything he had to come millions of parsecs in the desperate search for something that he had been carrying with him all along. This realization led to even deeper contemplation - why he had not been aware of the Hive Mind or at least seen it, whether it was ultimately to serve a benevolent or baneful purpose, and whether his recently declining health and increasing sickness were in any way a result of its presence. Though the Doctors had both reassured him that his position was one of a blessing, in the terrifying affirmation of his surrogacy to the Marker's Hive Mind neither of their professional opinions offered him any comfort.

**less than zero, reborn as one i am here**

The Marker's words continued to haunt him. Though he felt threatened by the idea that his own identity might in some way be jeopardized by something beyond his ability to control, he still could not suppress an indistinct part of himself that derived great pleasure from the concept. Partaking of a mentality that his situation might avail itself in ways both negative _and_ positive, a part of him saw it as something to be feared... while the other saw it as quite possibly providing an opportunity that might have been, under any other circumstances, impossible.

_Was he just another necromorph? A slave, like all the others? Or was he... **could** he be... something more?_

As he walked along, absorbed in the darkening thoughts of his premature enlightenment, it hardly dawned upon him that the ship had somehow started to realign itself. His wandering mind ignored it for a while as he never did see it in action with his own eyes, but it inevitably hit home through the accumulation of several occassional glances about - there was less debris and and virulent spread clogging the halls, the extensive damage seemed to have reduced in severity, and, just as he had noticed in Kyne's office, the orientation of every room had returned to normal.

**such a wondrous feat**

Again he simply dismissed this as a result of the ship's crash, that somehow the inner sectors had been ripped free from the outer hull and managed to remain upright after the wreck despite the twisted angle of the ship, but his own arguments became less and less sound as he began to revisit perfectly conditioned areas that he had previously found to be destroyed just minutes before. The more he looked around the more he discovered that the Ishimura was healing itself, though he couldn't explain how or why, or if it was even real.

******should not be allowed to rot**

He wondered that if it weren't some elaborate hallucination on his part it might have been the work of the ship's inhabitants, all coordinating together in a massive effort to resurrect it. However, the restoration was progressing at a rate that was absurdly swift, even for thousands of people working in tandem, and while he had seen many of the Ishimura's crew during his travels he could not recall having seen any one of them engaged in construction. Isaac marveled at what he was witnessing, not sure if he believed it or not, and he couldn't help but think to himself.

_A miraculous thing... physical matter._

The ship itself wasn't the only thing that amazed Isaac. He kept turning his attention to the bustling activity of the ship's inhabitants both human and necromorph alike, becoming more curious with each passing moment. He began to contemplate their true association with him now - not just as fellow victims of the Marker's dominion over this planet and it's once spacebound acquisitions, but as intimately connected extensions of himself and whatever it was about the Marker he carried. He had even begun to notice obvious similarities about their character that previous to his discussion with the Doctors had not occurred to him, and he attempted to resist a developing familial affection for these people, despite that they all were either complete strangers or merely distant co-workers he had once known. He suspected that the plethora of emotions he was experiencing were not entirely his own, and he became madly driven to know more about the ominous presence that had come to share itself with him.

**less than zero**

Isaac had also started to notice an outright change in the behavior of the evolved necromorphs - those who had failed to develop human bodies as a result of Isaac's lack of knowledge about who they once were. These creatures were still every bit as mesmerizing and frightening in appearance as they always had been to him - tall, slender, dangerously capable creatures with featureless faces and bodies, semi-translucent skin giving glimpse to their internal skeletal structures and organs beneath, and burning, deep set crimson eyes that suggested highly sentient intelligence. Their behavior had dramatically changed from the last encounters he had had with them, shifting from hateful, bloodthirsty killers to what now seemed to be merely curious bystanders with an intrigue to know as much about him as Isaac of them. They peered out from their hiding places, watching his every move as he continued his way through the ship.

**we are your vessels**

He made eye contact with each and every one he saw, and noticed how they seemed to communicate with him speechlessly. As Isaac became more comfortable with himself and with them, the necromorphs began to emerge from their hiding places, eventually coming to stand out blatantly in the open around him along with the human inhabitants. Though he could still very easily detect the various species by their bodily shapes and sizes, they had all started to evolve towards a similar humanistic end that departed greatly from their formerly heinous, predatory iterations. No longer covered in the rotten filth and stench of death, these necromorphs lacked the constant hemhorraging of blood and other bodily excrement, and their vocals were now distinct sounds that reflected the drolling tongue of the Marker rather than disgusting, unintelligible gags. Isaac still was not entirely familiar with the language, but as he continued to listen he began to recognize more and more of it, and he attempted to put together their words into meaningful translations in his head.

**make us whole**

Isaac continued on towards the Ishimura's engine rooms, desiring to see if the same structural rehabilitation was also occurring there. As he rounded a corner and headed down a darkened hallway lit solely by wall mounted, backlit directory placards, he eventually took notice of soft, padding sounds approaching him from behind. He turned around to see what it was, and was met by three small lurkers, no bigger than toddlers, creeping along the walls and ceiling upon their little alien hands and feet directly toward him. He stopped and stared at them as they slowly, cautiously drew closer.

_What's this?_

The three lurker children paused in their tracks at his gaze upon them, wavering back and forth as they returned the stare with playful expectation and bright, beaming eyes. A few moments passed, and undeterred by his silence the lurkers began to make their way towards Isaac. Seeing as they weren't posing an immediate threat, he turned back around and continued his way down the hall. Isaac eventually disregarded the lurkers altogether, and he walked for several more minutes in mental isolation before he heard the same noises behind him. He turned around and again saw the lurkers, trailing farther behind by a few more feet and sticking to the obscurity of the shadows like rats. Isaac bent an eyebrow.

_What?_

Isaac took the moment to look them over a bit closer. He saw that they still bore tentacles upon their back, though these were not bloody, spear tipped tendrils of malice as he had remembered of their kind. These freshly evolved necromorph youngsters were instead shouldered by short, sleek skinned extensions of their bodies like additional arms, tipped with small, tensile fingers that eagerly clutched at the air as they waved them about. They perched just off in the shadows along the walls, staring Isaac down and watching carefully with wide, pleading eyes and cocked heads. Sensing their desire for mischief, Isaac smiled but denied them with a shake of his head.

_Not now. I'm busy._

Once again his attention was captivated by other matters, and a growing desire to reach Engineering. He continued on, leaving his juvenile retinue behind, but it wasn't very long before he was for a third time distracted by the sounds of their creeping as they closed in behind him. This time he quickly turned around to face them, but he was surprised to see that the hall behind him was empty; the lurkers had vanished.

_... Huh?_

Isaac paused, blushing as he discovered he actually felt a tinge depressed by their departure, and despite knowing he had more important things to deal with he waited to see if they might come back. As his eyes scanned the ceiling he suddenly heard a soft scratching sound, and he immediately glanced down to the floor. There he saw three very young, small, naked children, making their way towards him out of the shadows with cautious, infantile steps. Isaac smiled to the side and rested his hands upon his hips.

_Ahh, there you are._

Isaac finally turned all the way around and stood there, watching as all three approached him with budding smiles sewn across their milky, supple faces and cherubic hands clasped with delight before them. As they made their way towards Isaac on tiny, padded feet, he could see their highly expressive faces, adorned with fragile, nascent features that spoke of an innocent, childish nature despite their inherent predatory structure as necromorphs.

_At least, the innocent nature they had, once upon a time in their days as infantile humans, partaken of._

Isaac watched as they approached close enough to catch the glimmer of the hallway's lights and bounce it back off of their black, iridescently shining pupils. As he saw the smiles gently gracing their faces with childish adoration he became concerned for them.

"You kids shouldn't be down here, you know. It's too dangerous for you. Go back."

The children failed to respond save for the high pitched squeal of their laughter, as if clearly seeing through Isaac's ruse to admonish them. The child at the head of the trio cautiously stepped towards Isaac as the other two fell back, watching their playmate daringly attempt to approach. Isaac remained perfectly calm as the multi-limbed toddler sidled up next to him and reached out with a brazen hand to tug at the metal knee brace of Isaac's gravity boot in jest. Immediately afterwards it ran back to join the others, and Isaac was touched by their impish joviality; it was a sweet, lighthearted sense of freedom he saw in them that seemed so devoid of the hopelessness he had grown accustomed to in this place, and he briefly wondered why it was that he could not bring himself to share in their happiness. He glanced down in a moment of sentiment that threatened him with tears, then back up at the three children who had by now gathered together in anticipatory delight of his response, biting their lips and holding back giggles. He drew a deep breath, smiled and shifted his weight upon his legs as he swallowed it all back.

"Well... I guess this place doesn't scare you any, huh?"

Still, the children just laughed and gazed upon him, waiting excitedly to see what he would do next. Inspired by their reaction Isaac thought about it and something indeed came to mind; seeking to satisfy their urge for a thrill he activated his helmet, sealing himself behind its metal shield and engaging the lights until the traces all along the entire face plate lit up. He then reached out with his arms and arched his fingers into claws, and with all the feigned ferocity of some menacing, luminescent necromorph he jokingly growled at them.

_"Rawr."_

The children, utterly delighted by his interaction with them, all leapt to their feet and screamed with mock fright in response. They widened their eyes and their smiles, then dashed back down the hall, chasing after each other. Isaac watched silently as they disappeared into the darkness, noting that they eventually ran diagonally towards the walls, clamored up onto them with the dexterity of lizards and finally disappeared into the dark, until all Isaac could hear was their inhuman laughter fading into the distance. Once he was alone again, Isaac's smile finally vanished.

_Perhaps this Hive Mind wasn't such a bad thing. The kids seemed to get a kick out of it, anyway_.

* * *

Jacob and Nicole traveled together through the Ishimura towards the Engineering Deck. With the journey ahead of them to keep them occupied Jacob had once again lowered his defenses and his helmet before Nicole, who followed closely behind. She was quite relieved to discover that their trek through the ship was quiet, isolated and uneventful, which was in direct contrast to the necromorph-saturated experiences she had had with Isaac through the very same passageways. However, though she and Jacob remained unchallenged the entire time, they both felt the need to engage each other in light conversation to break the solemn, foreboding energy that oppressed them from all around.

"So. Jake. I thought everyone was... dead. How'd you make it this far, anyway? Without any help?"

Jacob let out a deep groan. It was evident that he had indulged in his share of suffering aboard the Ishimura.

"I dunno. How'd _you _make it, huh?"

She neglected a reply, and he shook his head.

"This place has been nothing but a nightmare since I started this damn job. It don't matter what they say - this ship is a real piece of shit. Nothing works. Everything keeps breaking down. I swear, from the time I stepped foot on this thing I've been running around nonstop, fixin' shit everywhere. And these sick, twisted fuckers..."

Nicole listened intently, picking up on his hostility, and she was reminded of her own experiences during her own dispatch to the Ishimura... the uprise of insomnia, dementia and sickness in the population that spread like wildfire, the dangerously overcrowded clinics, the assaults and murders, the necromorphs, the Marker... and now, Isaac.

"Yeah... things really did fall apart fast... didn't they?"

Jacob turned to her, feeling her despondency. Realizing that what he said had dejected her, he quickly sought to reassure her.

"Ehh, nah... don't worry about it, Nicole. It's okay. It's really not that bad... I'm just, you know me. We'll make it through this, definitely."

He concluded with an encouraging smile, putting her at ease, then turned back around and continued on without a further word.

As they traveled on, they eventually came across an area of the living quarters that appeared as if it had been completely ransacked. The perimeters of the rooms had been lined with burning candlepots, and the walls all around were covered in Marker language scrawl. Nicole slowed her pace in order to catch a closer glimpse of some of the writing as she passed, which she noticed was suspiciously dark and streaked as if it had been written in blood. Her heart stopped as she recognized the meticulously plotted handwriting to be Isaac's.

_What the..._

Her panicked eyes widened and scraped down the wall, appalled to see that almost every inch of it's spacious metal surface was covered in the same vile blood smear from edge to edge, all recognizable as Isaac's hand. She fought to hold back tears of compassion and regret both.

_How long had that poor, tormented man been wandering this ship, mutilating himself for the sake of that parasitic rock? Why hadn't she been there with him... to prevent this? _

Her doleful meditation was suddenly shattered by Jacob's voice from ahead of her.

"You okay back there, Nicki?"

She quickly lifted her head at the sound of her name and blinked, trying to shake the horrific vision of Isaac madly extracting his own life force to scribe these wicked messages from her mind. Right away he noticed the expression of frightened disgust upon her face and he became concerned, but not wanting to shake her any further than she already appeared to be, he glossed over it.

"Out of curiosity, Nicki... how did Isaac get here, anyway? The new rotation wasn't scheduled to arrive yet, so he must have come separately, I assume."

Nicole's mind was still reeling over what she had just discovered in the living quarters. Finding it difficult to focus she finally managed to speak up just before he was about to prompt her again.

"I'm... not exactly sure. I met up with him in the Colony. I did see a repair shuttle parked at the loading dock not too long ago. Maybe he used that."

"How long have you been with him, here? Man, I lost track of time so long ago..."

"Yeah... I don't really know that, either. I think I've lost track, too. Come to think of it, I think it's been a pretty long time."

They both briefly returned to silence and continued on for a little while, then Nicole looked up at the back of Jacob's head. Something was on her mind that she was eager to ask him, but equally afraid as to what his answer might be, she hesitated at first.

"Jake..."

"Yeah?"

"... Nevermind."

"What is it, Nicki? Talk to me."

"Well... it's about the uhh, the Ishimura. How did it... crash? Do you remember?"

Jacob paused and turned around to look at her, an unsettling confusion spreading across his face.

"Crash... Crash? You know... I have no idea."

She stared at him, and as if sensing the difficulty she was having in believing him, he elaborated.

"I mean, I was asleep when it happened, I guess. When I woke up... here we were. It was kinda weird. You'd think a ship like this falling from the sky would pretty much wake up everyone from here to Earth."

His voice slowed, grew a bit more serious as he rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the ground.

"But... I didn't even feel it. After it happened, nobody seemed to care. After a while, I didn't really care, either. The ship's still a piece of shit, and at least now it's on solid ground in a place with some resources so we have a better chance of fixing this goddamn thing."

Nicole smirked at his response. It seemed odd and senseless to her, and she wasn't sure if he was trying to confuse her or was perhaps suffering some form of dementia like everyone else that she hadn't readily noticed. However, she had little privelige to hold judgement over his deposition as she couldn't quite remember the events leading up to the Ishimura's downfall, either. The only clue she had as to what might have transpired was the horrifying scene she had witnessed in the Pilot's Nest with Isaac, but it all seemed so equivocal.

"You're sure that you didn't see Isaac at all before the crash?"

Jacob cocked his head.

"Isaac? Why would I have seen him? He wasn't even here... right?"

Nicole began to wonder if perhaps Jacob never knew Isaac was ever aboard the Ishimura at all. She thought at first to tell him about Isaac's initial repair mission, and his arrival aboard the Kellion, but she finally decided against it. She changed the subject as she looked around at the dilapidated environment.

"Well, before it was completely demolished, that is... what was wrong with the ship? Sounds like you were having trouble all along, huh?"

Jacob took on a boorish aire as he started to vent.

"Jesus. Don't get me fuckin' started. First, the tram systems went down. Hadta get that fixed. Then, there was a limp fuckin' shuttle stuck on the tram tracks. Hadta get that piece of shit off before it jammed up the whole system."

He paused, as if flustered by the recollections, and he ran his hand across his head. Nicole secretly smiled as she watched his movements, captivated by the sense of duty, determination and tendency to complain about what came along with the territory of his chosen profession... just like Isaac.

"And that wasn't even the end of it. Problems all over - hydroponics filtration system went down, the comm lines were fucked... even the engine was leaking fuel like a sieve, the tanks shut down... It was a real fuckin' nightmare. And it doesn't seem to end."

He sighed, and raised his tired, weary eyes to meet Nicole's.

"I swear, sometimes I feel like I've done this shit over and over again."

She stared at him, realizing that the issues Jacob was complaining about bore a very striking resemblance to some of the adventures Isaac had delineated to her in the previous days they had spent together aboard the wreckage of the Ishimura. Back when he was healthier and engaged with her on more friendly terms, he had shared with her in minute detail every moment of his traumatizing time aboard the Ishimura, and his encounters with the necromorphs. Hearing Jacob's ranting about tasks he had to undertake that seemed to mimic those same tales with a haunting similarity, she began to feel really uncomfortable. With no further desire to contemplate the oddity, she shifted gears towards another area of concern.

"Well... what about Liz, Jake? Is she okay? I haven't seen her in a while."

Jacob immediately lifted his head, and spoke with an increasing positivity as he thoughft of her.

"Oh, Liz? Hell yeah, she's doing just fine, actually. I haven't really had the time to spend with her for obvious fucking reasons... we're both working all the goddamn time... but we still find some time to get together and have some fun every now and then."

Nicole smiled and nodded, glad to hear some sort of happiness, no matter how bleak, arise from the dark, depressing wreckage around them.

"Oh, that's good, Jake. I'm glad to hear that. She always seemed like a nice girl."

"Yeah. She's a lot like you. I guess that's why I... like her so much."

Nicole immediately straightened her neck and looked at him, only to find a tiny smile upon his lips. He slowly raised his hands.

"... I'm sorry. That wasn't appropriate."

Her stern expression slowly softened, gradually giving way to a returned smile. Again, she just couldn't help but think of Isaac.

"... It's okay. You don't have anything to apologize for, Jake. We're friends."

* * *

Isaac eventually found his way to Engineering, and as he examined the environment he saw right away how even here the rejuvenation of the Ishimura was in full swing, the irreparable damage that had once ravaged this place now virtually nonexistent. He retracted his helmet and activated the hololock to the entrance of the Maintenance Access, and he immediately looked around as soon as he stepped in.

He first entered the storage and preparation room, which was lined with a row of large workbench lockers and capped by tool dispensary and upgrade kiosks on either end. Though there was no one present Isaac knew where they all were, as his ears quickly detected the loud, distant sounds of the Engineering Deck's massive generators far below in the belly of the ship. He started toward the cargo elevator on the south end in order to head down and investigate, but he stopped as he felt a sharp attraction of energy from something in the otherwise empty, deserted room. His eyes were immediately lured in the direction from which he sensed it was coming from, and standing just behind the row of lockers to his right he saw a figure, trying to conceal herself. He knew right away who she was, so to gallantly display just how useless her efforts were Isaac stalked back around the lockers, closing in on her position as he glared right at her through the shadows.

"Hi, Kendra."

She instantly smirked at the sound of his voice, and merely fidgeted with the door to one of the lockers, refusing to even look up at him.

"I just knew you'd show your face here, you prick."

She finally glanced his way and looked him over, briefly pausing as she focused upon the regrown, mutated fingers of his left hand. As she saw the freshly regenerated flesh, her smile faded and her eyes glimmered with anger, her inherent frown sank a little further, and she darted a cold, hard stare back at his face.

"So, did Mercer have that shit eating grin of his on when he told you? Oh, I'm so very happy for you, Isaac."

Isaac cocked his head, disturbed by the bitter, sardonic aura of her words, and even more so by the inflamed sense of insult he saw in her eyes. He had known Kendra long enough to have had more than his fill of her selfishly ambitious streak, and to him it was blatantly obvious when she was retaliating out of wounded pride at having been shown up by him. While he couldn't understand what he might have done to invoke such a negative mood in her, she ignored his confused look and began to make her way towards him, crossing her arms before her in an effort to restrain her deep urge to swing at him.

"You know something, Isaac? I don't give a shit. You might have that Hive Mind wrapped around your finger, but that doesn't change a goddamn thing between you and me. I'm still going to be the one who stops you in the end."

By this point, Isaac had had enough of her animosity. He was too tired, too heavy-hearted to tolerate her vicious behavior any longer, and he wanted only for it to end. He shut his eyes and shook his head, and raised his hand to silence her with a gravity in his gesture that tore the words from Kendra's mouth. She immediately halted and fell silent, watching as Isaac pressed the tips of his fingers to his head out of delirious exhaustion and stared solemnly at the floor.

"... No. I don't want to do this anymore. This doesn't make any sense."

He looked up at her, pleading through eyes that were hazed over with infection and tucked within dark, sunken pockets of flesh.

"You fucked up. _I _fucked up. It doesn't matter anymore, Kendra. Whatever it is that you have against me... it needs to _stop_."

Kendra simply stared at Isaac, and a recreant, emotional tide very uncommon to her character began to predominate her entire expression. The tiny hairline cracks of her skin, the dark pits of her eyes, and the loosening corners of her mouth dropping in disbelief all combined to finally shatter her defiant, coldhearted front until all that was left was the discordance of complete uncertainty in her own position. Isaac saw the vibration of her throat as she swallowed hard, heard as her esophagus clucked under the pressure, and for the very first time since he had known her Kendra showcased a real, genuine fear of him - or something about him. Though there was a small, devious part of Isaac's psyche that took great delight in her dilemma, unable to deny the compassion he once held for her - and still did to some degree - he lowered his gaze and released her from the trance of his infectious stare.

"So... are we done?"

Once she was freed from Isaac's frightening mental grip the tension in her spine slackened and she began to breathe a little heavier, her lips tightened and she clenched her hands repeatedly; but she wouldn't dare move, nor speak. Hoping that this was the end of their bitter charade, Isaac deeply suspired upon the stagnant, entombed air and turned around to depart.

"... Isaac."

Kendra's voice broke the silence, shaken but tinged with a malice that was encouraged by his silent retreat. He continued to walk away, and she called to him again.

"Isaac..."

Right away he detected the abrupt change in the inflection of her voice. Her confidence and seething guile had melted away in the wake of a completely unanticipated desperation. Her chest shook as she fought back age-old tears she would rather die over than to set free, but he still paid her no heed as he rounded the corner.

"Don't walk away from me..."

This time he stopped, and turned back to look at her. Her eyes, wide and glassy, stood out in complete contrast to the solid drawn line of anger defined by her brows as she stared him down.

"Isaac... don't you leave me here... _Please_."

Isaac, stunned to see this rare crack in her composure, came back around the lockers and slowly approached her. As he closed the gap between them she began to shiver uncontrollably, and the inexplicable terror she was feeling saturated her panic stricken eyes and deepening breaths until her voice became audible upon her exhalations. Sensing her inner psychological struggle Isaac stopped just in front of her, gently placed his hands upon her shoulders, and stared softly into her eyes. A moment later, he pulled her to his chest and pressed his face into the delicate curve of her neck.

"I won't. I don't want to do that."

Kendra, totally unable to have anticipated such an act on his part in the wake of the friction they shared, was helpless as he slipped transparently through her defenses. Despite their former, much more intimate alliance in times past, for so long she had harbored an intense sense of rivalry that had made her desire to fully open herself up to him a great sacrifice she found difficult to undertake. To her, he had been the only one she would have once gladly done so for, the one she had wanted to give everything of herself to; but his apparent lack of equal commitment as he repeatedly rejected her for Nicole, who fluctuated in and out of his life, became the darkened seed in Kendra's heart that over time had sprouted into her maladjusted desire to see him suffer. She simply stood limp in his grasp, refusing to respond and staring blankly over his shoulder into nothing, fighting to the best of her ability to keep him from picking up on the ever-existent, girlish adoration she couldn't help but exude in his grasp. He tightened his hold upon her.

"... It's ok."

Caught in the awkward moment she was embarrassed to realize that she had no choice but to concede to the inescapable fact that while she may have hated him, she had also crossed oceans of time to find herself in this moment, in his arms, experiencing what it was she had wanted from him all along.

_What it was like to be someone Isaac actually cared about._

Falling prey to the love starved desire she sought to nourish, Kendra closed her eyes and finally relinquished herself to him. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around his waist, pressing herself closer into him as she very briefly felt something that she could not remember having ever felt... _whole._

"... Oh, god..."

Her face sank into his chest, and though even now she still tried to superficially conceal the intensity of her emotions, her broken, resisting gasps quickly crumbled into steady, sorrowful mourning drowned in tears.

"...Oh god, Isaac... what have I done...?"

Isaac was astonished by the sadness he felt from her, such a longing that had never been satiated, forced to feed upon itself until all that remained was the wretched burning of rejection, and he felt a twinge of anguish. Though he seemed to already know every word before she spoke them, still he gave her his undivided attention, listening as she broke through a very rare window to express an inner pain that under lesser circumstances would never have seen the light of day.

"This is all my fault... All of it..."

He felt as her grip around him tightened, her fingers dug into his sides as she fought to maintain herself.

"None of this would have happened if it weren't for me. All because of what I did. All because of _you."_

Still Isaac said nothing, merely staring down at the back of her head as she sank further into his arms.

"But... I never wanted... to hurt you. I was just... doing my job. I didn't know it was going to cause... all of this. I'm so sorry, Isaac. You're a... a good soul. I know you are."

Her voice finally collapsed under the weight, the remainder of her words inaudible as they became buried in his chest, and Isaac now sighed along with her as they shared an intermission of silence. The peace was rather short-lived, however, as her selfish inner greed reared its head, and Isaac suddenly detected her conscience flip upside down. Her mood inverted and her soft, submissive posture once again hardened into loveless wrath, and she immediately began to push against him in an attempt to break his hold. As he released her and they parted she looked directly at him with tear-stricken eyes, pressing the tips of her fingers harshly into his chest like tiny knives to keep him at bay. Her abhorrent, serpentine rancor returned as she began to fill the voids of her inner sadness with the hatred she had found so much easier to cope with, and her soft, broken words of subdued admiration and unspoken love had now regressed into vile venom.

"... But... you just... couldn't make it easy on me, could you? To to do the right thing. After everything you've... you've done to me... still, I forgave you. And still, you just fucking stepped all over me."

Isaac, confused by her erratic behavior, was unable to remain silent any longer. He shook his head and glared darkly at her.

"I don't understand what you're talking about. I didn't do anything, what did I do?"

"Oh, come on! You know exactly what you did."

She backed away from him, becoming obviously aggressive as she wiped her tears on her sleeve. Isaac was about to reply before she cut him off and he just stared at her, disturbed by the gravity in her tone.

"You know Isaac... I gotta be honest with you. You don't deserve what you've got. You didn't even know the first thing about that Marker before you fell face down onto this fucking planet like you were dropped out of the sky. And you _still_ don't know the first thing about it."

Isaac smirked at her, his pliable, compassionate demeanor dispelled by her bitterness, and his anger tempered solely by disbelief of what he was hearing.

"And... what, may I ask, do you think _you_ fucking know about it?"

For some reason he couldn't explain, Isaac felt his chest seize up with anxiety and apprehension that froze the blood in his veins. He lowered his eyes, and she pressed a hand to her hip.

"I've tried my best to please you. I've given myself to you over and over again... and the only thing that ever came from your heart was when you told me to fuck off every time."

Isaac turned a cold shoulder to her and walked away a few feet, glancing down nervously at his hands as he thought about Kendra's deception - and how, as much as he refused to admit, it reflected his own lie. Feeling shamed, he fell back to the one and only resort that seemed to pacify his regret, and give him anything worth living for.

"... Nicole doesn't do those kinds of things. She's sweet and she's loving, and she wears her heart on her sleeve. Which is a hell of a lot more than what I can say for you. That's why her and I will always be together, no matter what."

Kendra's face blanched, and she stared wide-eyed at him with an expression that was so unsettling to Isaac that it forced him to pause and look her over.

"Holy shit, Isaac... you're absolutely fucking insane, aren't you?"

Isaac's confidence sank even further, and Kendra only became angrier.

"You better forget about her, Isaac. She isn't real. She isn't _fucking real_. She's a goddamn figment of your imagination. She's stopping you from doing what needs to be done. Even I can't seem to draw your eyes away from your pathetic need for some kind of sick love. Your dementia is going to fucking kill you, Isaac. It's going to kill all of us, over and over again."

Her eyes narrowed into crimson sparks.

"All because you can't let go of someone who is already dead."

Isaac was speechless. He saw her spiteful words as direct assaults, and he was amazed by just how easy to get carried away upon the frighteningly enthralling waves of sheer vengeance it was. He tightened his fists and stepped towards her, sensing his initial desire to see her dead rapidly returning.

"She's... not fucking dead, Kendra."

"Isaac..."

"She's not."

"Isaac, listen to me..."

"As painful as it is for you, I'm sure... you're just... going to have to learn to accept that."

Annoyed by his resistance Kendra laughed darkly at him, but smothered it with the back of her hand.

"Oh, come on, Isaac! Don't you know what the fuck is going on here? Are you being serious with me?"

She eventually looked back up at Isaac, biting her bottom lip and suppressing a wicked urge to smile.

"You up for a little walk? I promise... I will make it worth your while, sir."


	24. Anomaly In The System

**Chapter 24  
Anomaly In The System**

_**"Those who are wise lament neither for the living, nor for the dead."  
- B.G., 2.11**_

* * *

Isaac simply couldn't comprehend why he trusted Kendra in any way, even in the slightest.

She had become someone whom Isaac now thoroughly despised, and he knew that behind her seemingly genuine attempt to connect with him earlier, she was one never to be trusted. Tough he wanted nothing more than to get away from her, to have nothing else to do with her, he was helplessly enamored by the cryptic aura of her words, drawn in by the immutable confidence about her like prey towards the luminescent lure of an angler fish, and he felt compelled to follow her wherever she roamed. It frightened him to realize how very little he actually knew about this enigmatic viper the more time he spent with her, and as he recalled the vivid, absolutely convincing facades of the Marker's delusional powers, the more he began to wonder just what, exactly, her position was as she strung him along.

_What was it about her? She was definitely infected, there was no denying that. But, still... she was different, somehow._

Isaac knew that Kendra had to be a necromorph. Not that he needed the obvious evidence that suggested she had been exposed to the virus to persuade him; his heightened senses, influenced by the evolutionary expansion of his own infection, very clearly picked up on the subtle consanguinity, the permeation of the virus throughout her entire being, and he realized her very powerful tie to the Marker just like all of the others. And yet, while her subjugation to the Marker was assured, she refused to submit to him as the others did. Somehow she had learned to resist the suppressive power of his psychic manipulation, which was something that none of the Ishimura's inhabitants, not even Nicole, had proven so far to be capable of overcoming. On the contrary, it seemed more and more to be quite the other way around in Kendra's case, upon which it almost seemed as if she boasted a hold over him, and her disturbingly intimate knowledge about the strange events transpiring aboard the Ishimura only added to Isaac's curiosity as to whether she might know things beyond Dr. Kyne, or even Dr. Mercer.

All of these realizations added to her value as a living asset, rather than the dead, beaten mound of flesh he sadistically longed to see her as, and he felt slightly disappointed by it. He marched angrily behind her with his finger perched upon the trigger of his plasma cutter, fighting back an insanely lustful urge to just shoot her in the back right then and there. His eyes, cataracted by black, virulent flesh, scraped accusingly across her figure.

_Either she was a potential ally to his mission... or a serious threat to his existence. Which one was she... if not both? _

The only thing that could distract Isaac from his cunning adversary was his physical pain, which was growing more intense as time passed. His disease was a most perplexing one; though he felt more alive and inspired now than he could ever remember in his entire life, for some reason his outer body was not so apt to agree; and it was instead declining rapidly in contrast. The tissue of his aching, overtaxed muscles tore and liquefied beneath the force of a constant exhaustion that never seemed to relent, and it made him feel cripplingly ancient. He was harassed by the need to repeatedly stop along the way to catch his breath, upon which he would be forced to lean into the walls and endure prolonged bouts of uncontrollable coughing to the point of doubling over. Each time he did so, Kendra would simply stop and turn around to glare at him with an evil eye.

_What was happening to him? Was this the Marker's 'gift'? Repayment for the sacrifice of his own body?_

Isaac's breath became heavy and he began to stumble upon his feet, feeling like an invalid, frustrated and suffocating; a perfectly sane man trapped within the malfunctioning machine of a body that could no longer support him. A perfectly sane man.

_I am a perfectly sane man. _

_Sacrifice is inevitable. _

_A perfectly sane man._

_A perfectly sane man._

_Completely, entirely, perfectly..._

His feverish, wide eyed trance was disrupted by a small snicker from Kendra ahead of him, wickedly amused as she listened in on his obsessive, cyclic thoughts. He looked up at her, just shook his head and wiped the bloody perspiration from his temples as he realized he had fallen several feet behind. He kept a fatigued, blurry eye upon her as she beckoned with an antagonistic finger.

"Keep up, old man."

She led him down dimly lit access tunnels that Isaac wasn't sure he had previously known existed. As they finally emerged through the end of a long series of these tunnels they came out into a more open area, apparently one of the secondary head-end stations utilized by the maintenance crew to gain access to many of the critical, backbone systems of the ship. Isaac recognized that a majority of the systems in this area belonged to those of an industrial sterilization and airborne environmental containment system, and seeing this he knew they were now somewhere between Hydroponics and the Medical Deck. Isaac's eyes widened a bit and he glanced around nervously.

_Where was she taking him? _

Kendra smirked as she watched the expression of growing intrigue mixed with trepidation spread across Isaac's face, and she then continued on past the station to trail him through several dozen more twists and turns that only further disoriented him. After a while Kendra started looking around at the Ishimura's revitalized condition, which in this part of the ship was nearly immaculate and impossible to tell was part of a wrecked planetcracker.

"Wow. I like what you've done with the place, Isaac. You have such an insight for interior design."

He scoffed as he approached her from behind, not fully understanding what she meant and no longer amused by any of her abrading probes at his conscience. He sternly urged her onward by pressing the face of his cutter into her back and telepathically ordering her to remain quiet. Fortunately for him Kendra conceded without incident, and they continued on wordlessly until she finally stopped before a small grate in the floor and pointed down to it.

"This is it. Sorry for taking the long way around, but I didn't really want to run into any of your new uhh, _friends_. This, Isaac... is just for you and me."

She stooped to her knees, reached down and lifted the grate, which as he saw how effortlessly she moved it aside that it had been previously accessed, and she then peered down into the darkened shaft. After a brief moment of silence she slipped her legs over the edge and dropped down through the opening. Caught off guard by her sudden drop, Isaac quickly approached the open vent to look for her. Growing mildly concerned, he was just about to call down to her when he suddenly heard her voice echo back up through the shaft.

_"Hey, you coming or what?"_

Isaac sighed, still reluctant and desiring a more feasible way of reaching his destination, but he followed her down the shaft. He slid down the dark passageway for what seemed to be several dozen feet until he emerged through the ceiling of the room below and fell down next to her with a heavy thud. He didn't quite expect such a drop, and he sank a bit upon his knees in an effort to absorb the shock of his fall. Once he felt stable enough to stand again he rose to his feet and looked around the poorly lit room, and he barely recognized it.

It was a cold, sterilized box, surrounded by four solid walls of metal that hosted several evenly spaced rows of large, individual refrigeration units built into them. Towards the back was another, smaller room, recessed and at one time enclosed by what once were large glass security windows, now shattered into countless shards and spread all over the floor. A single examination table smothered in blood streaks was tossed over upon its side inside the room, it's copper stained sheets eerily illuminated by the inconstant, flickering light of a malfunctioning lamp posted in the ceiling above. The cracked, blood streaked tile walls were smudged with Marker scrawl, and the floor in both areas was covered in dark blood trails, as if many bodies had been dragged through this place on more than one occasion.

The overturned hospital beds lying about on their sides, the refrigerated storage units in the walls, the floor littered with various medical paraphernalia, and the haunting, disarrayed chamber that seemed oddly reminiscent of a medical operation room all came together upon Isaac with disturbing convergence, and he remembered having once come through this dismal place.

_The Morgue._

He instantly stopped in his tracks and looked around, concerned as to why Kendra would have taken him here. Her surprises never seemed to yield anything benevolent.

"What are we doing here?"

She turned around to meet him with a cold, unfeeling stare.

"I have something to show you."

She crossed her arms and parted her lips to reveal a wall of teeth behind them. Her deep bruises stood out in contrast to her pasty white skin, and even moreso against the lively, manic excitement spread across her face, and it all began to make Isaac feel very uncomfortable. She walked past him, pointing out that unlike the rest of the Ishimura, the Morgue was still suffering the results of the ship's crash.

"Well, I see you haven't touched this place yet. I understand. You probably haven't wanted to revisit this place, have you?"

Suddenly and without any warning, the chanting of the Marker seized Isaac's concentration with tenacity. His breath weakened, his eyes rolled and he put a hand to his head.

**sacrifice is inevitable**

"Kendra, let's just get this over with. What do you want?"

Again Kendra just smiled, she put her hands to her hips and slowly began to make her way towards one of the refrigeration units.

"Isaac... I have gifts for you. Some very special gifts. These are the glimpses of your truth, the truth you must come to accept. These are the gifts that will set us all free. You wanna see?"

She cracked another brimming cheshire grin as she reached for one of the hatch panels and pulled it open. With an anxious, almost sickening delight she reached inside the freezing storage cache, her slender figure momentarily lost amongst the plumes of refrigerated air, and she grabbed onto something inside of it. She then threw all of her weight back to pull it out - a gurney, heavy with a load as it rolled out on its expanding metal tracks. As the gurney extended from the drawer and stopped on its rear bearings with a loud, abrupt click, Isaac could see that it was covered with a bloody sheet that obviously concealed a body beneath. Kendra turned to him with an excited grin.

"This is just the first one."

As she beckoned to him he clearly had no desire to approach her, but he found himself to be utterly powerless in the face of his seething desire to know who, or _what, _was under the sheet. Kendra saw his expression, pained and focused sharply upon the bloody sheet, and through it tried to decipher what he was thinking. However, while she was generally artful enough to get past his barriers, this moment proved to be one of those few rare occasions where his own budding mental prowess managed to baffle hers, even if he did not fully understand the effect of what he was doing. Met with only a blank, ambient static response from him that carried nothing of any use to her, Kendra became infuriated by his ability to rebuff her. With no other recourse but to offend him further, she yanked back the sheet and revealed the dead body of a female whom Isaac recognized instantly. The impact of his morbid astonishment as his eyes fell upon the exposed body was so powerful that Kendra could very intimately feel his heart stop, but still, she was driven to twist the knife.

"... Poor thing. I hope she didn't suffer _too_ much."

Isaac stared sadly at the body of his beloved Nicole, whose stiff, lifeless face gazed blankly up at nothing through decomposing eyes. As he looked over the mutilated corpse he found himself unable to outwardly respond, and the bitter taste of denial on his tongue caused him to spurn any explanation other than that this was simply another hallucination. The sight of Nicole certainly seemed real enough, but he also felt the same unsubstantiated sense of doubt that he had upon witnessing the haunting scenario in the Pilot's Nest. Searching for anything that might validate what he was experiencing, he began to analyze Nicole's body with his eyes and calculated right away by the rate of decay that she had been dead for quite a while. This seemed impossible, as the last encounter he could recall having with her just outside the Ishimura's Flight Hangar doors had taken place far too recently to have allowed for this extent of decomposition. The numbers simply didn't add up, and discomfited by the perplexity Isaac recalled Kendra's words.

_She wasn't real. She wasn't fucking real._

Even while half expecting this was all some sort of delusional opus of the Marker, Isaac was still so overcome by the love and compassion he had for Nicole that it took a while before Kendra's cold retort finally registered with him. After a long, delayed moment of silence, he looked up at her with a genuine sense of hurt.

"... _Fuck _you... bitch."

Apart from a tiny, inaudible snicker she couldn't restrain, Kendra remained quiet and Isaac continued to look over Nicole's body. He noted with broken hearted dejection how the torso and hips were malformed due to partial necrotic transformation, how the abnormally elongated bones of her forearms jutted back past the elbow joints, twisted in the initial stages of mutation into long, organic scythes; how her face, though entirely eaten away by time's passing, still carried a few wisps of blonde hair that clung to the chaffed bones of her cheeks. When he could finally take no more of the obscene sight, he closed his eyes and turned away.

"... That's enough."

Kendra quickly threw the sheet back over Nicole's body. As Isaac lowered his face into the palm of his hand he heard Kendra slink off behind him, and he turned around to see as she approached the next drawer in the row. The dark grin of malice etched across her face irritated him, already distressed over having to witness Nicole's foul post mortem condition, and he began to wonder who she was planning on showing him next. He stopped, suddenly coming to realize that the answer, at this point, might run deeper than he was prepared to go.

_Just who __**was**__ she going to show him next?_

As Kendra broke into another tight lipped smile, Isaac heard the voices reprise quietly in the back of his skull.

**persistence may be labeled as obsession**

Isaac's inner reflection upon the Marker's influence was distracted by the sound of the drawer hatch as Kendra pulled it open and rolled out the gurney stored within the unit. She uncovered the next body - again, much to Isaac's amazement, it was Nicole. His eyes widened, panic rising as the chanting voices of the Marker now began to ascend in volume.

**if you indulge and persist**

This second body, though differently afflicted, was virtually identical to the first. This one was not so traumatized, moderately damaged in a few places but overall in better condition; her chest was amply soaked by long, bloody streaks, but as Isaac looked closer at it he saw that the thick, red lines came together to form a distinct pattern that he also recognized - a Marker symbol.

**you objectify the subject**

Kendra stepped around behind him and leaned in close to Nicole's head, petting the side of her rotting face with the back of her hand in an offensive attempt to provoke Isaac.

"Isn't she just... precious?"

Isaac was too stunned to respond to her demonic display. He was still lost in terrified awe upon the phenomenon of Nicole's bodies, and he darted his eyes back and forth between them in a frantic attempt to tell them apart. Kendra stepped back to reach for the third drawer in the row, licking her lips and locking her cold, algid eyes directly upon Isaac in her fox like retreat. Everything she had done up to now only served as the fuel for Isaac's irrepressible loathing for this woman, so filled with hatred, and his desire to violently harm her grew beyond restraint as she opened the hatch and retrieved a third body. She playfully uncovered the sheet it was concealed beneath just enough to see for herself, then squeezed her tongue between her teeth with a scornful grin.

"Oh, such a busy little girl."

She uncovered it before him, and for a third time he was inexplicably met with a cold, dead corpse of Nicole. Isaac was unable to even move as he stared at the array of bodies spread before him in a sickening display that Kendra seemed to harbor a conniving delight in revealing for. He turned his attention to the latest body, saw it was in worse condition than the previous two - incomplete, drenched in black, tarlike blood, missing everything from the waist down and clearly well on its way to total necromorph transformation before it was destroyed. What little remained of the corpse had also been vandalized with hastily scrawled Marker language.

Kendra stood poised behind the gurney opposite of Isaac's position, gripping the steel guard bars and gently swaying on her heels with a wickedly impish tenor slathering her every move. The blood red fury burning in her eyes reflected sinisterly upon Isaac, who by now was unable to accept anything he was seeing and was convinced it was all some sort of trick, and unable to control himself he turned on Kendra with fists clenched. She calmly stepped back at his approach and raised her hand to him.

"Wait Isaac, this isn't over yet. I saved the best for last."

She jumped back to the last hatch in the row, and with slow, deliberate movements intended to suspend the moment, she pulled it open. She reached in, retrieved the gurney within it, and failing to hesitate any further, pulled off the sheet. Eyes widened upon both faces as the body became exposed, but only Kendra's was accompanied by a rancorous, serpentine smile of sick anticipation.

"Ohh... will you just _look _at that."

All of Isaac's impetus and rage suddenly fell out from beneath him as his eyes fell upon the body, sprawled upon the gurney and covered in blood.

_It was himself._

At first, Isaac thought that he might have mistaken it, or that Kendra had managed to somehow find an uncanny lookalike somewhere amongst the dead ranks of the Ishimura's crew. However, as he looked over it, he realized with very grave concern that this body was no decoy - and the face, still intact, was undeniably that of Isaac Clarke. He understood that it could not have been the body from the Pilot's Nest, as this body was far differently afflicted - apart from still having a head, the engineer's suits this body wore was of a different model. Also, while the body had been damaged to a moderate degree, it still had all of its limbs.

_How was this possible? How was she doing any of this? Was it in his head?_

Isaac recognized his own battered features, saw the empty, hollow stare of his own dead eyes, and he was unable to comprehend the experience. He surmised that the body in the Pilot's Nest might have been categorized as a questionable reality, considering that his only method of identifying the body had been the tag upon the suit. However, now he was faced with the undeniable vision of his own likeness, irrefutable and far too identical in detail to be a reproduction or ruse, the accuracy and familiarity of which he found to be nothing short of staring into a mirror. Once he had partaken of his share of amazement he eventually lowered his eyes, and upon the chest he caught sight of a hand traced Marker symbol, smeared in blood. He then noticed as Kendra stepped around to the other side of the gurney, slowly bent forward to lower her head, and with a crazed, lovesick expression fastened to her face she leaned in close to the dead corpse. A soft shimmer sparked upon her dark retinas as she hovered over it, speaking words dipped in the poison of pure madness.

"My god... the most captivating creature I think I have ever seen. Haven't I ever told you that? So powerful. So peaceful."

Wide eyed and horrified in disgust, Isaac watched as she leaned in and kissed the corpse long and gently on its decaying lips. She remained affectionately attached to it, sliding the tip of her tongue across the dead flesh with a malevolent passion, then quickly shot a sharp, biting glare back up at Isaac. Her lips and teeth were stained with the corpse's blackened, rotting blood, but she didn't seem to even take notice as her ever darkening eyes began to burn with an intensity that rooted Isaac to the spot. Out of nowhere he heard her voice across the back of his mind, even as he saw that, just as he had with Dr. Mercer, she had ceased physical communication.

_Do you see me now, Isaac? Do you see now how I adore you, my safekeeper? Do you see now how I give myself to you unconditionally, even as you kick me away, over and over, like an unwanted dog at your feet?_

The strength of her frequency wavered as she succumbed to a momentary weakness of heart, moved to tears she was trying so hard to conceal through her anger and indignation.

_Well... I have come... to bring you the gift of liberation. I want to help you solve your problem, I really do. I've been trying for so long... You owe me, Isaac. After all of this... I want to be made whole. Even if you don't love me... at least, give me that._

Isaac stepped back, very much disturbed by this girl who clearly was far more unhinged than she had initially led him to believe. His eyes jumped around the room, counting the refrigeration units in the walls and wondering just how many more of her dirty, foreboding secrets were concealed within them. She stared at him, seeing the panic becoming evident in his expression, and she again looked back to the dead body upon the gurney. She gently began to stroke the forehead, staring lovingly into its lifeless eyes.

_We've been collecting these for a while. We can't tell you how many times we've come back here. We've lost count, so we started keeping score._

She reached for her cuffs, undid the clasps and and rolled up her sleeves, revealing the pasty, marked lengths of her arms. They both were covered in bruised, battered flesh and riddled with countless, self induced lacerations that ran deep, eerily coming together to form Marker symbols interspersed with tally marks. Some of the wounds were fresher than others, still moist and red with blood while others were thin and dark, covered in thick scab tissue and showing age, indicating that she had been repeatedly marking herself in this fashion for quite a while. She looked back up, her eyes filled with an inhuman sickness he suspected to have been acquired from serving as witness to a horrifying truth she had seen far too many times before.

_We've done our best to pair you up. However, so far we've found a few more of yours than hers, so unfortunately we haven't been able to even out the count, yet._

Now beyond the realm of pure, sterile bewilderment and descending quickly, Isaac's anger reprised itself.

"These are all... _goddamn lies!_... Where did these come from?"

"You should already know that, Isaac."

Seeing his blank response, she tsked and shook her head.

"I told you - this is our gift to you. Our way of demonstrating that we care enough to see to it that you see the truth with your own eyes. You've been wandering around for far too long in darkness."

She paused and looked down while Isaac scoffed hatefully under his breath.

"'We'? Bullshit. This is all fucking_ bullshit."_

"Every time we started over, the first thing we did was track down the bodies we could find. We tracked them down and brought them here. All for you, Isaac. Because we knew you deserve to know."

Isaac found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything other than the pounding of his ravaged heart and the voices of the Marker inside his head.

**sacrifice is inevitable**

"Why did you bring me here? Why... did you do all of this?"

Kendra smiled coldly. She knew that behind his ignorant display, and perhaps even beyond his subliminal awareness, Isaac was as perfectly enlightened about their circumstances as she was. However, his unyielding contumacy always proved to be a challenge, one that made her goal to get through to him that much harder to reach.

"I didn't do this, Isaac. _We_ did. I think you really wanted to see this... somewhere, deep down inside you, you've always known that you needed to see the truth. Who knows, huh? Maybe that Marker... _does_ have a mind of its own. Maybe it knows, just as much as we both do, that you, sir, were a _mistake_."

"A... a mistake?"

"You were given a gift. A very special gift that is meant to be properly used, by someone who is properly trained... by a true Oracle. But you? You tripped at the starting line."

He shook his head and glared vehemently at her, the heat of his anger boiling into physicality as he broke a sweat, but Kendra was not fazed.

"Don't you remember the first time you met the Hive Mind?"

Isaac now paused; it had not occurred to him, though having come to understand the territorial deadlock over his body with the Marker, that he had no recollection of ever having initially been infected or taken control of. In fact, he could hardly remember anything that happened after his escape from Aegis7, up until awakening back on the Sprawl. He realized that his augmentation into a bodily temple for the Hive Mind had happened so transparently that it had not even revealed itself to him.

"What was the first thing you did when you found it, Isaac? Do you remember? Can your tiny, mammalian brain even reach back that long ago?"

Isaac blinked at her.

_That long ago? How long ago was she talking about?_

"You know what you did. And if you don't, I'm sure _she_ can tell you."

"Wh... Who?"

She failed to respond, merely glared at him in sullen silence, and again approached one of Nicole's bodies. As she looked down at the rotten corpse, Isaac could sense that Kendra was becoming highly agitated for some reason. Though he had always known that Kendra and Nicole were two people who could not have been in more awkward positions from each other as a result of his own actions between them, it still really disturbed Isaac to see the age-old jealous streak Kendra had always harbored rear its ugly head now with such condemnation. Her seething hatred only seemed to burn all the brighter as she stared unfeelingly at the bodies of Nicole, and while Isaac knew that Kendra had every right to feel rejected as she did, her expression of it just seemed so excessive. He couldn't escape the idea that there was something else going on, though he couldn't quite figure out what it was.

"... Look... Kendra, I..."

"She always meant more to you than I did. No matter how hard I tried... She always got the best of you. And me... I just, got what was left over... which wasn't a whole lot, I'll tell you that. And that doesn't cut it for me."

Isaac pulled back in disbelief.

"... Is that it? Is that what this is all about? All because I loved her? Jesus, Kendra... I knew her before I ever even met you. How could I have helped that? You're being unreasonable."

Kendra's face suddenly folded into a frightening display of rage he could not have expected; her eyes darkened ever further, her lips shriveled and receded to expose the fangs of her teeth, and she glowered at him like an outraged apparition.

"I **said** that doesn't work for me, Isaac. I... need _everything_ about you."

He shrank away from her, avoiding her eyes and doing his best to refute everything she was saying, but in the end his efforts seemed destined for failure. Kendra sighed heavily.

"Isaac... don't you see what you're doing? Can't you see the curse you've unleashed upon this place? Can't you see how you are violating the very Marker itself time and time again, all because you're trying to chase someone you can never find?"

All along the hairs upon Isaac's neck began to stand on end, unwittingly moved by Kendra's pleas. Most of him didn't understand her - and the very small remainder of him that did, refused to acknowledge it. Even as everything she said defeated his every last rational deduction, Isaac turned angrily upon her.

"Who... who the fuck _are_ you? What makes you think you can come to me and -"

"Why are still refusing to understand? Even after all this time... don't you want to move on, Isaac? Haven't you figured out that she isn't real? That none of this is?"

"Stop it."

"Look around you, Isaac... the Ishimura, the crew... what do you think is happening here?"

"Please... stop."

Kendra ignored him, now absolutely determined and she stepped closer, staring him down desperately.

"You're trying to save her, Isaac. You're breaking your responsibility to the Marker. Your duty is to use your body and your energy for the Marker... not you. She doesn't matter to you anymore, Isaac. No one does. Only the Marker matters. You have to understand that. Until you do, you will continue to commit the same mistake over and over again. Just like now."

Isaac now began to pace in furious circles, and he snarled at her.

"_I said stop!"_

Kendra again sighed. Though she wanted to press him, she sensed his fragile emotional state and realized that she wasn't going to get much farther.

_He was still refusing to see the truth. She would have to remain incomplete for now. _

She pressed her hand to her hip, withdrawing passively. Through tired eyes she just stared quietly at Isaac, who returned the connection without a word. After a few moments of tense silence passed between them, she spoke up softly once more.

"You have got to stop it. You can't bring her back. You can't keep doing this... You're tearing this place apart. All of us are in great danger because of the chain reaction your _ouroboros_ is enacting upon us. All of us, including you. Haven't you even realized what's happening to you?"

Isaac remained stubborn, yet found himself unable to counter her and very reluctantly began to consider that Kendra was speaking truth, at least to some degree. Knowing now that he would have to trust blindly in her, he nervously chewed the inside of his cheek until he tasted his own blood.

_Ouroboros? Violating the Marker? Over and... over?_

He tsked.

_She was absolutely out of her fucking mind. It was impossible.  
_

Isaac stopped. Kendra's words began to finally penetrate beyond the outer layers of his conscience to the point from which he could no longer hide himself. All of the memories, ancient and suppressed within the darkest recesses of his mind, spread out over unknown expanses of time and space and layered upon each other exponentially, all began to flood in upon him. He instantaneously experienced a multitude of memories, countless and varied of himself, all through the different inhabitants of the Ishimura and the Aegis7 colony. Along with each vision he also saw all of their actions, their timelines, their outcomes, all carried out at his own dictation and spread across time like an infinite network of chain reactions. These realizations, alongside the repetitive dreams and premonitions, the unexplained clairvoyance, the undeniable feeling that he had been on this planet and in this lost planetcracker for so much longer than he was aware of, his extremely intimate knowledge of the Ishimura and the Colony, all of which could have only been acquired through centuries of self discovery...

_Everything now seemed to whisper of a multiplex of consequences, set in action eons ago and only now just beginning to converge on his position with a catastrophic intensity._

In that moment, Isaac suddenly understood with terrifying clarity what Kendra had been trying so desperately to impart upon him. He saw now how his misguided sense of action had cast an endless loop of time displacement over Aegis7 and the Red Marker, an endlessly repeating cycle that he could not stop, and he realized that his tendency to utilize the Marker for his own purposes had been the single act that condemned him and everyone within the Marker's grasp to endless revolutions of phantasmal death and rebirth, forced to relive the same, tragic events over and over again in countless reenactments.

_An infinite time traveler._

The fact that at that moment they were all still there only hinted at the unbroken continuity of his grievous error - that every single cycle that passed had ended with his failure to make the Marker whole. He began to see the absurdity of his failure to perform as the Maker the Marker had come to entrust with it's divine power, repeated over and over, again and again, and he was absolutely mortified to realize the severity of his own sin.

_How long had he been doing this? How many times had he been aboard the Ishimura, engaged in the holy pilgrimage over and over to lay his hands, eyes and soul upon the Marker, only to fail at his final moment?_

He glanced with wild eyes at the body of his own self stretched out in the gurney next to him, saw the bloodied Marker graffiti painted across its chest, and was terrifyingly reminded of his countless hours spent scribbling his 'apology letters' to the Marker across the halls of the ship.

_How long had been been mercilessly coercing this phenomenal energy to satisfy his own selfish desires? How many times had he died, only to wake up and find himself again in this godforsaken place? All because he couldn't stop chasing after..._

His heart stopped as his mind now came to rest upon the defining head of his inevitable failure, the pivotal point upon which his endless, cyclic nightmare had begun its pendulous journey. His mental, emotional infraction.

_Isaac's anomaly._

"... Nicole."

Her name barely escaped beneath his breath. Kendra stood silently, watching his collapse as he came to his insuperable realization. Seeing his pain she was inspired to drop the harsh grimace upon her lips, replacing it with a blank, concealed sense of concern. Pinching her lip with her teeth, she lowered her eyes.

"You need to protect the Marker, Isaac. Not _her_. **The Marker.**"

The tone of her voice alone stiffly reverberated through his body, and he could only stare at her as she took a deep breath and sank to her knees, overcome by exhaustion.

"You know... if you had any brains in your head at all, you would have never even stepped foot on the Kellion that day. You just weren't what they promised you would be. You couldn't fucking handle it."

Her dark eyes became framed beneath thick, stern eyebrows as she looked up to him with a quickly rejuvenating spite.

"This... should have always been mine. You hear me, Isaac? It should have always been _mine_. I earned it. _I_ earned it. Not you."

Isaac's concern and dubiety suddenly vanished as he came to suspect her own position in their quandary.

"So... then this_ is_ about the Marker, then...? Because you didn't get to it first? Well... that certainly speaks very highly of your character, Kendra. I'm impressed by your reserve."

"Isaac, try to see something beyond yourself. While it's true I may be... _slightly put off _by the fact that you somehow managed to usurp what's rightfully mine, that doesn't make me wrong! I was always the better choice. I understand the concept of unity, while you only understand the concept of _you_."

"I see. Of course. I was so blind to your impeccable position. Because we both know you don't have any mistakes to answer to... right?"

He glared at her, reducing the pits of his eyes to dark, ominous petals, but Kendra merely raised her nose to him arrogantly.

"Yes... I do. But unlike you, I've actually been trying to fix my problems, rather than impress them upon everything around me until that becomes the standard."

Her scornful, tight lipped frown clearly matched Isaac's ferocity to a degree that surprised him.

"You're nothing but a spoiled child who just refuses to be gracious. You're running around in circles trying to hold onto what you think is yours. And this has been a problem ever since that little _bitch _fucked everything up between you and me, Isaac."

Isaac glanced mournfully at Nicole's bodies one last time and closed his eyes. Thoroughly demoralized by Kendra's vicious beration, he suddenly developed an urgent, highly impatient desire to leave. Not only had he had enough of this vile serpent's abuse and lies, but he now had a mad desire to seek out Nicole - to confirm or deny what Kendra had been telling him. Though she made no move to stop him, her voice came at him from behind as he turned to leave.

_Unity is forever, Isaac. One day, I will show you exactly what that means._

Isaac simply ignored her to avoid further confrontation. He opened the hololock to the Morgue's entrance, and stepped out without looking back.


	25. Rectification

**Chapter 25  
Rectification**

**_"The senses are so strong and impetuous that they forcibly carry away the mind of a man of discrimination who is endeavoring to control them."_  
- B.G., 2.60**

* * *

I don't know what happened to us.

_He hears the voice. Instantly, he recognizes it._

We used to be a family. Nowadays... I just don't know about you anymore.

_It is ages old to him, the most familiar voice he knows... and detests. It is the same voice that has oppressed him throughout his entire life; it is unfeeling, unmistakable, and intolerable. He curls his lip with disdain, and though he turns his body to face her, refuses her eye contact._

A family... so, is that what you're calling it these days, Mother?

_He can sense the disturbance in her. Clearly she is already angry, and in no mood for any of his games._

I have done everything in my power to see to your Convergence, Isaac.

My Convergence?

_He chuckles sardonically, moreso out of anger than of any sort of genuine amusement._

Don't you mean yours? After all, that's what matters. That's what all of this is for, isn't it? The Convergence of your ass right into the Church''s upper echelon.

_She shakes her head, disappointedly._

You don't understand what you're talking about. I had such high hopes for you. All I ever wanted was to make you into something great.

_He is not the least impressed by her display._

I see. Because being your son just isn't enough.

_T__he despondency in her voice immediately melts upon the rising temperature of a sudden, catastrophic force burning in her eyes that he feels. It unsettles and almost frightens the otherwise intrepid youth._

You were not born to be merely my son, Isaac!

_He is silenced by the boom of her maledictus outburst that echoes in the open, palatial space of her chambers. She takes note of his mortified look and softens her tone._

Indeed... you _are _my son, and... I love you because of that.

_He glances up, daring to catch a glimpse of her heated, demonic face, then immediately returns his sights to the ground at her feet._

... But?

_But... _your purpose was never intended for filling such a... a useless void of sensual, dependent encumbrance. You, my son, were destined for so much more.

_He has had enough of this serpent. He presses his hands to his ears._

... I don't want to hear this anymore.

And still... after everything you were given, you just continually snub your nose at me. And for what? Some common, lowborn whore.

_Shut up, Mother._

She's not like you, Isaac. Why you would contaminate yourself... But I can't really fault you, I suppose.

I love her. Don't you understand that?

_She sneers viciously, and begins to close in on him._

Love has nothing to do with your destiny, Isaac. Love was never a part of the equation. I learned this, and so will you. You will transcend this temporary... _flaw_ in your character. You have to trust me. I'll take care of things, because I know what's best for you.

_She is now just inches from his face. A small, derisive grin crosses her thin, glossy lips, and staring intensely into her son's eyes she very rapidly, gently runs the tips her nails across the skin of his cheek._

I am the only one who really understands you, my son.

* * *

Isaac had departed the Morgue and was slowly stalking back through Medical, distantly examining the activity around him as he apparently drifted in and out of another waking dream, this time manifested from his broken, fragmented memories of his mother, Octavia Clarke. The plaguing visions had been so vividly engrossing that he had fallen away from all outer sense, and when he finally came back, he glanced at his RIG and realized with much dismay that several hours had passed.

_Losing track. Of time, not. Good._

He rubbed his face and vigorously shook his head, trying to rid himself of the vile imagery of his past, and though he still felt disoriented forced himself on through the ship. However, while he had had such a burning impetus to leave the Morgue earlier, he now was suffering a momentary lapse of memory and found himself aimlessly wandering the halls, inwardly focused on his disparaging contemplations and unsure of where he was, or his destination. Having little else to brood upon and eager to avoid hovering on the rather loathsome thoughts of his insensate, Unitologist-proselytized mother, Isaac again returned to the puzzle that was Kendra - whom he, for the moment, construed to be the lesser of two evils.

He was in fact relieved to have finally gotten away from Kendra, at least for the time being, but the relief was short lived as he couldn't stop thinking about what she had said. It concerned him how everything he learned about himself, Nicole and this Red Marker only seemed to be trumped moments later by some new truth more terrifying than the last, and none of the pieces ever seemed to fit together without being forced into place. Passinh through the Ishimura's crowd, Isaac glanced from one person to the next, sensing his culpability for their fates as the unwitting chess pieces of his playing field. He was repeatedly reminded of Kendra's premonitions, how she seemed to know so much about his position that he himself failed to fully comprehend.

_How did she know all of this? Was the Marker somehow empowering her?  
_

He darkly strode through the halls like the front of a strombus gathering, trapped within the deeply entwined nest of his thoughts. He hardly noticed as those who were in or near his path silently receded at his approach, repelled by the powerful emanations of his seething, burning rancor. Still, while he paid them nothing more than cold shoulders, their responses to him were quick and without fear of subjugation; rather, as he peered into them, he saw a very sublime sense of respect and consideration in each and every bodily vessel that made his agitated, unfriendly demeanor stand out in grave contradiction, like a wolf sweeping through a herd of sheep that somehow failed to recognize him as a threat. He heard the necromorphs' arcane dialogue as it carried through the air within the ship like pollen, taking root within the back of his mind and bursting into harmoniously sweet and tragic words of praise.

_**Ipalnemohuani Necoc Yaotl Titlacauan**_

Isaac continued on, still trying to remember where he was headed, but distracted by the mesmerizing behaviors and words of his fellow inhabitants, he found that once again he had lost track of time's passing. He hastened his pace, ultimately inspired to just keep moving, regardless of his destination.

_Eventually, he would get there... Wherever 'there' was._

As he passed through an area encumbered by a large span of biomass, he reached out his arm and touched it, brushing the tips of his regenerated fingers lightly against the translucent skin that clung to the walls, and weaved in and out of the panelwork. He took a grim sort of delight in how the entire entity seemed to respond to his touch, it's repetitive, almost breathlike motions accelerating at his contact and causing the entire wall to come alive with movement as if it were a mere glimpse into a gigantic creature's chest cage, and he barely smiled to himself. As brokenhearted and lost as he was, trapped within an endless nightmare from which he couldn't seem to awaken, it was nice to have such a pleasant intermission.

_To see some sort of beautiful life come out of all this... death._

* * *

Jacob and Nicole eventually arrived at the Engineering Deck. As the access hallway opened up into an oversized maintenance outlet Nicole peered around with great curiosity, taking in the large gathering of crewmen tending to the grand machinery that kept the Ishimura alive like a vast army of ants engaged in the upkeep of their subterranean fortress. Everything around that she saw was, much to her absolute astonishment, fully functional and working perfectly in harmony with the rest of the network, and the sight before her now was the first fully recognizable sign of the Ishimura's unexplained return to life that she had personally experienced. The industrial pounding coming from all around was distracting and almost deafening, and quite a bit curious as to how she had not heard all of this racket before, she scratched her head.

_Surely this much noise would have been heard all throughout a landlocked wreckage like the Ishimura._

She began to closer examine the engineers around her, saw that all of them were engrossed in their work with fanatical enthusiasm and taking no notice of her whatsoever as they bustled about on the maintenance floor. She looked up and caught sight of the vast spans of necromorph biomass that clung to the ceiling high above, looming over the deck like a solid cloud of flesh, and she became struck with amazement at the exotic transformation of the ship alongside its surprisingly congenial coexistence with the virus. Lost in wonder, she barely heard Jacob as he called to her.

"Hey... Hey, Nicole. This way."

She finally heard his voice and turned to follow him, all the while with one ear wide open to the clangorous bellows all around her.

"Wow... how is this possible? How can the ship even work in this condition? This is amazing."

Jacob slowed his pace. He thought about it for a moment, then cocked his head with a small, queer grin.

"Condition? What are you talking about?"

Nicole blinked.

"Uhh... the ship. I mean, the computers, all these systems. I knew the electricity was working in some places. And the artificial gravity system in the Hangar, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. But... how could you get all of _this_ working? I just..."

As she spoke, she noticed an odd look coming over Jacob's face as one eyebrow slowly ascended beside the other.

"... I don't understand."

"The ship, Jake. How is the ship running like this?"

After a long, serious stare upon her, Jacob finally chuckled and shook his head.

"Don't worry about what I said earlier. It's really not a big deal, I tend to be a little on the negative side these days. The ship's fine. Sure, she's got some issues, but nothing that's gonna cause us to drop out of the sky."

Nicole tensed anxiously as his answers just didn't seem to satisfy the point of her questions. His playful buoyancy irked her all the more.

"Drop out of the _sky_? What're you... but we're.. the ship's..."

Exasperated she found herself at a loss for proper words, and she resorted to tossing her hand and pointing around the Deck. Still, despite being on the same page with her earlier about the Ishimura's crash, Jacob now conversely failed to see what it was that shocked her so much. He only smiled at her, then turned away to lead her on through the ship. As they passed between a pair of the gigantic gravity tether engines tucked within the heart of the ship, Nicole became briefly distracted by the loud whirring and crowd of engineers surrounding them, all bantering with each other. She slowed down as she began to think back on her trip to the Engineering Deck with Jacob, trying to pinpoint when she might have first noticed the decrease, then eventual disappearance, of the Ishimura's cataclysmic condition... though a specific moment never did come to mind.

"So... did you guys, fix all of this? ... When?"

Jacob seemed a little concerned about Nicole's astonishment.

"Well... it's always been working, Nicki. I don't think we've had any real problems with this part of the ship."

He turned around and noticed the uncomfortable look upon her face.

"You okay? You look a little... uh, confused."

She paused, and returned with a small, uncertain smile as she realized that she had let her bewilderment get the better of her. Beginning to suspect that the Marker was somehow throwing her into some sort of illusion, she was about to step towards him when her path was unexpectedly cut off by a very large, cylindrical engine piston being carried across the Deck by two engineers. They were both so engrossed in their duties that they didn't even notice her, and they practically threatened to run her over as she almost stepped right into their path.

"Oh - hey!"

Startled she leaped back out of their way, and watched wide eyed as the two engineers and the massive load they were toting slipped past like an oncoming train, seemingly from out of nowhere, just inches from her face. She eyed her own reflection on the piston's smooth metal surface as it floated past her line of sight, and noticed that the piston was several yards in length, easily close to a half ton in weight. Yet, the two engineers carrying it seemed to find the task an effortless one as they balanced it perfectly between themselves and moved with swift, untaxed dexterity. Impressed by their capacity, she turned closer attention to them.

The engineer in front was dressed in a standard issue suit and helmet very much like Jacob's, geared for heavy mining labor, and the kinesis module upon the engineer's wrist was activated to assist with the weight load. However, the engineer pulling up the rear of the piston, much to Nicole's simultaneous amazement and horror, was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was a very tall, _inhuman_ being, bearing features very similar to the evolved necromorphs, and easily several heads higher than the tallest man in the surrounding environment. Apart from a few small, somewhat obscured additional appendages and defensive plates cast about its body the skin was smooth and lucid, and its arms were long, thick shouldered and well suited to the purpose of carrying such large and heavy cargo as this engine piston. Nicole saw that while it wore no clothing of which to speak of, it was donned in a RIG of its own, manually adjusted to fit its large, irregular body shape, and the fact that these creatures were beginning to adapt to the point of integrating with the human population only seemed to make its presence all the more formidable and alien to her. She was awed by it, and she had no idea what it was or why no one else seemed to be frightened of or even fazed by it.

Just as the creature passed by, having taken no notice of Nicole the entire time, it suddenly turned its head and hissed at her ravenously and without warning. It's paper thin lips split and spread to bear long, sharp fangs, the monster's eyes glimmered with a fierce aggression directed right at her, and for a brief moment she thought it might attack. However, the creature's attention was drawn away by the voice of the engineer at the head of the piston load, shouting something tersely at it. Nicole couldn't understand what it was the engineer had said to appease the creature, but it sounded to be in some bizarre language that she didn't recognize. Upon the conclusion of the engineer's admonishment, the creature turned its attention back to the load in its hands, and the two of them continued on without further incident.

Nicole stood still for several moments, caught in the grip of a slowly waning fear as the rather menacing looking creature and its companion drifted from her vision. Once they were gone Nicole suddenly remembered Jacob and began to look around for him, but he had disappeared.

"... Jake?"

She looked down the congested hallway in all directions, but could see only an endless sea of the Ishimura's engineers scuttling about. Wondering where Jacob might have gone to, she proceeded further into the Engineering Deck.

* * *

After a long while of wandering in his madness Isaac eventually became inundated by a sudden reprisal of his sickness. It swept upon him like a fever, a sharp, all over bodily pain that robbed him of oxygen seized his chest, and he immediately became lightheaded. He leaned his weight against the nearby wall, fighting through darkening vision to maintain his balance, and unable to support himself he dropped to one knee. He pitched forward, listening to the rasping of his own breaths as they resounded without cadence through his chest, and he gripped the side of his head with his head, digging his nails into the flesh of his scalp with crazed desire to ameliorate his pain. His concern of passing time again plagued him with great urgency, and he closed his heavy, troubled eyes.

_Be mindful of psychological rejection._

Isaac slouched over upon the floor, panting heavily and battling to hold his composure when he sensed a presence approaching him from behind. The debilitating pain of his sickness delayed his response time, and before he could react to the vibrations he detected upon the air at his back, his shoulders were suddenly weighed down by something large. Though temporarily blinded, weak and unable to properly defend himself, Isaac still drew his plasma cutter in startled, instinctive defense.

"Whoa, back off...!"

Despite his earnest attempts, his target was apparently undeterred by Isaac's resistance, and the plasma cutter fell from his nerveless fingers as they failed to support the weight of it. While he couldn't see, Isaac was sure that this presence was a very large entity as he could feel it towering over him, casting its shadow across the room, vacuously absorbing the ambient heat from all around. At first he was concerned, but as the weight he felt upon his shoulders neglected to crush him to death even after several moments, he realized that whoever it was was not acting out of aggression.

_Rise to your feet, safekeeper._

Still blinded in his sickness Isaac could not visually identify who it was, but he recognized the deep, baritone psychic transmission of the Hunter. He still at this point wasn't exactly sure what to make of this particular necromorph who seemed to continually reprise itself to him for reasons unknown, but he knew by now that as the Marker's Maker, he had little, if anything, to fear from it. He glanced towards his shoulders and saw that the weight he was feeling suppressed beneath was actually the tips of the Hunter's fingerless, spear-tipped appendages, resting upon his shoulders in friendly gesture. The Hunter then withdrew and slipped them beneath Issac's arms, and understanding it's desire to assist him to his feet Isaac released his weight into the Hunter's grip. The Hunter effortlessly lifted Isaac's weight by the carriage of his underarms until his was high enough to brace his feet beneath him, and it all happened in a quick, fluent motion that seemed surprisingly flawless to Isaac as he stretched his legs and pressed the metal soles of his boots to the floor. The Hunter's voice saturated Isaac's brain.

_What are doing to yourself? You shouldn't be here. Not like this.  
_

Isaac noticed that upon the Hunter's touch his malady began to diminish, affording him enough to properly see and feel again. He turned around to meet his benefactor, intrigued by the flourishing condition of its evolution he saw - the raw, unrefined power flowing through this entity, though efficiently disguised as it was beneath its thin, translucent body, seemed reminiscient of something almost celestial. The Hunter's frame was streamlined, shouldered with long, highly flexible arms that draped beyond the point of its knees, and capped by its indestructible, bone tipped spears. It's face was very slim, almost emaciated with skin pulled sleek and tight against its interior skeletal structure to outline highly detailed, infinite patterns of bones and teeth. It's eyes were deep, dark pits of crimson storm staring down at Isaac, and the incendiary blaze of the Hunter's pupils burned within the soft, elongated crevices of their sockets, giving the creature a ghostly yet elegant, if not terrifyingly empyrean complexion, and there was a placid intelligence and compassion about it that Isaac found distantly within his ken.

_You have wandered wayward, friend._

While Isaac stood puzzling over the creature, wondering who it might have been that he knew, the Hunter prompted him soundlessly to turn around. Isaac complied, then felt a tugging at the RIG upon his back as the creature exposed a previously camouflauged set of additional arms from under its talons and placed a pair of sleek, elongated hands upon the RIG. It lowered its head in concentration and Isaac merely stood in its grasp, feeling as the metal of the RIG gradually began to heat up against his skin. He became concerned as a warning alarm sounded upon his sleeve, but resisted the desire to disrupt the Hunter's work and he merely glanced down to see what it was his RIG was so intent on reporting.

Isaac saw right away that the life support system was actually being recharged despite his not being connected to a syncing station or having any medical aids to administer, and he understood as he felt the radiating warmth of his RIG beneath the Hunter's grip that it was actually refreshing Isaac's entire system with its own, bare hands. The flashing red warning strobe upon the spine of his RIG, which Isaac had been completely unaware of up to this point, now cycled through the color spectrum and slowly illuminated the entire length of the meter with a soothing indigo glow as the system recharged to full capacity. Isaac remained perfectly still, beginning to feel relief and waiting patiently until the Hunter completed it's task. Once finished, the Hunter replied with a telepathic prompt that the process was complete, and Isaac slowly turned back around to face it.

_Incompatible anomaly. More time. Not much._

Isaac was still baffled by the vague sense of cameraderie about the creature; but his deliberation upon the curiosity was interrupted only as he saw the Hunter step away from him, stumbling noticeably upon it's feet and appearing to be disoriented. Isaac eyed the creature warily as he saw it had suddenly developed a limp, and it began to breathe more heavily than before, all as if having been severely affected by the effort expended to assist Isaac.

_Not much... Send your message, safekeeper. Time is short.  
_

Isaac watched with what might have arguably been construed a fraternal concern as the Hunter stumbled away, now wandering as aimlessly as Isaac had been. As the debilitated necromorph disappeared from sight, Isaac suddenly became aware of all the eyes upon him; the hard locked stares of the ship's inhabitants, having momentarily paused in their activities to watch the scenario that had just occurred, and as he met eye contact with each of them all they silently, immediately turned away. Isaac took a deep breath, feeling a substantial return of energy that seemed to have negated his bout of affliction, and glancing around him with a slight bit of uncertainty he slowly continued down the hall. As he walked, he contemplated the intrigue he felt not just at the odd recognition that he could not place, but also the Hunter's strange words... a mirrored reflection of the ominous message he had heard time and time again.

_Incompatible anomaly.  
_

The enigmatic phrase relentlessly hounded him, reminded him without relief of the fatal error that still existed aboard the Ishimura, threatening the very fabric of the Marker's existence. He began to feel the anxiety creeping up on him again, the unavoidable certainty that he was running out of time, and immediately remembering now where it was he had been trying to get to Isaac quickened his pace and headed straight for the Tram Station outside of Medical.

_He had to... to stop her. At all costs. He had to... protect the Marker. The Marker._

Deeply immersed in the conviction of his purpose and at once driven from within, it had not even occurred to Isaac as he entered the Boarding area that a fully functional shuttle stood parked on the tracks with doors wide open in expectancy of his arrival. He absently boarded it, took the first seat directly accessible across from the doors, and peered out darkly between the diminishing gap as the doors shut, staring dead ahead at the dock until he could no longer see it.

The tram slowly departed, making its way back down the Ishimura, carrying a darkly brooding Isaac on his way directly towards the target that now burned fervently in his mind like a homing beacon.

* * *

Nicole had by this point nearly wandered the entire Engineering Deck from end to end, still having found no sign of either Isaac or Jacob. She was instead floating within a sea of people, some of whom she had known and upon the recognition attempted to make contact with. However, when she tried to approach not one of them gave her any indication that they were aware of her presence, as they all were far too engaged in their work to reply or even take notice of her before she felt herself being hastily pushed on to the next area by the endless crowd of people as they oscillated back and forth, sweeping her up in their momentum. The only ones who did seem to acknowledge her, much to her dismay, were the frightening humanoid necromorph hybrids that wandered the halls like posted guards. Recalling her earlier encounter she shied away from their cold, glassy glares upon her, the flashes of their terrifying fangs as they verbally threatened her with animalistic growls to stay back.

Frustrated and feeling highly unwelcome by the reactions she was receiving and sensing the inefficiency of her search efforts, Nicole eventually decided it was time to find somewhere else to explore. She walked back through the way she came, being careful to avoid the attentions of the rather unfriendly inhabitants, and arrived at the cargo elevator that led to the main access route. She activated the lift, watching up through the metal grating of the shaft's protective cage as the lift descended the various levels from the darkness far above. As it finally came to rest on her floor and the doors slid open, Nicole quickly jumped in, activated the lift and headed back to the upper level.

She exited near the near entrance to Engineering, and as she passed through the doors she realized that out of habit in her need to travel she had blindly made her way directly to the Tram Station. Upon arriving at the completely deserted deck and suspecting that the system was not in the same operational condition that blessed other sectors of the ship, Nicole came to understand in her disappointment that she had become quite spoiled during her earlier days aboard the Ishimura when it was spacebound, having used the trams to get virtually everywhere she needed in the blink of an eye. But now, during these much darker times within the landlocked ship, being forced to reach everywhere by foot really made her appreciate just how big the USG Ishimura actually was, and how much effort it took to manually navigate it. She took a deep breath and huffed, tossing the hair in her face wildly with the force, and she smirked as she understood that she would have to backtrack yet again through Engineering to get to the more obscured maintenance access pathways Isaac had previously shown her.

Nicole was about to reenter the elevator when she suddenly felt the ground beneath her feet begin to shudder. She instantly straightened her back with tempered panic, wondering if perhaps one of those incredibly large and terrifying Brutes might have been tearing through the tram tunnel and she backed against the door, fumbling for the hololock as she darted wide, anxious eyes about. However, after a moment of intensive listening she recognized that the loud, intrusive sound she was hearing wasn't the force of destruction barreling down upon her, but was in fact the very familiar - if not completely unexpected - mechanical hum and scraping caused by a tram shuttle as it glided across the magnetic rails from further down the way.

_The tram?... Impossible!_

She stood with her back pressed against the door to Engineering, terrified but undeniably curious to see if her suspicions might be realized. She waited, listening as the sound grew louder and more defined the closer it approached, and after a few moments her eyes were suddenly drawn to the edge of the boarding dock to her left as, much to her amazement, a perfectly functioning tram shuttle slid into the station. As it slowed then finally stopped and fell silent, Nicole looked around with wonder as to whether anyone was aboard it. She kept her eyes on the shuttle's doors, waiting apprehensively for them to open and she prepared to run in case she were met with anyone or thing other than either of her two intended targets. After a long moment that seemed like a lifetime in itself to her, the doors slid open and a single figure stepped out of the otherwise completely empty tram, staring directly at her as if having known exactly where she would be standing upon arrival. Nicole's blood froze in her veins, inspired by an incompatible mix of pure fear and lovesick fascination.

_Isaac._

Her heart and expression both danced through a gamut of emotion as her eyes fell upon him, watching as he emerged from the swirling clouds of stagnant ship dust that filled the air between them. At first she was incredibly relieved to see him, but fear began to dominate as she right away noticed something very dark and ominous about him, an evil, subjugating force that took precedence upon her as his eyes met hers. She slowly began to wither, declining into complete apprehension before him, and afraid to move at his approach she remained rooted to the spot. The bewildering terror she was feeling was only further compounded as she saw his now fully regenerated hand, and caught between the horrifying alienation she felt at what proved to be the first physical symptom of his departure from humanity and the deep, overwhelming compassion she had always carried for him as his lover, Nicole could only breath heavily in response, forcing back tears. She longed for nothing more than to reach out to him, to embrace him, to engage in any sort of physical contact that she could with him... but something about his presence was intensely repelling her attempts to emotionally bond with him. Despite the blanched expression she bore upon her face, she decided that it was best not to orchestrate her weakness.

"... Hi, Isaac."

Isaac stood silently before her, staring her down through an impenetrable mask that perfectly concealed everything he might be feeling. He picked up on the timid frailty of her voice, and as he immediately came to know just how frightened she really was of him, his blank, stoic facade became all that stood between the remorse he felt and Nicole's knowledge of it. The only indication of the deep seeded pain he was experiencing that he strove to suppress was the single, nearly unnoticed twitch of his eyebrow, and sensing her desire for his response he parted his lips slightly and stared into her eyes, scanning her thoughts.

"Hi... Nicole."

Nicole perked and gave him a small smile, encouraged by his positivity, though meager it was. She loosened a little and began swaying her arms very gently at her sides, and she raised large, cloudy blue eyes to him.

"Where've you been, huh? I've been looking for you, Bear."

Isaac suddenly looked down at her term of endearment, a grave aura all about him as his eyes widened as he stared down at the floor. He blinked a few times.

"...I've... been busy."

Nicole lifted her brows, a bit concerned by his ambiguity; she always knew when he was hiding something from her, as his downcast, repetitive glances always served as dead giveaways.

_He was not a good liar. It wasn't in his character._

Still, she just smiled at him, pleasantly enlightened to see as Isaac returned it with a smile of his own. She began to calm herself, considering the possibility that she might have misjudged his mood, and now finally starting to feel somewhat liberated from her fear she lowered her eyes and began to look him over. Her smile slowly faded, forced back by the nurturing concern that spilled over into pools of sorrow at his deplorable, degraded condition, and tears welled up in her eyes as she saw now the extent of his suffering - how he was constantly sweating pure blood, how all of his visible bruises and wounds had darkened into deathly blackness, and how the skin of his extremities and head had drained to a nearly lifeless color that only magnified the darkness of the blood all over him. However, it wasn't merely his shocking bodily declination that seized her; she also saw how his eyes burned wildly in contrast with an unworldly power that stood paramount to the slaughterous glare of any necromorph she had ever seen, and the iridescent pinpoints of his pupils glistened in the light of the Tram Deck with an ageless, transcendental vibrancy that vehemently defied her awestruck stare upon him.

Nicole's eyes, anxious and starving for a distraction from the intensity of his face, began to trace out the Marker symbols etched into all of metal and Kevlar surfaces of his weathered, well worn suit, and as she looked over each symbol a tremendous hatred began to sprout within her for this cursed language. She came to unwillingly comprehend the fact that each and every demonic rune was wrought with misfortune and terrible tragedy that it imposed upon everything they touched, and each one was more profoundly miserable than the last.

_And now... Isaac was covered with them._

Nicole, becoming afraid, took a step backwards and looked up - and her heart stopped as she saw that Isaac's expression had suddenly changed. His eyes sliced right into her, his face was hard as stone, and the smile had completely vanished from his lips, replaced by a tensely drawn line of suppressed internal combustion. His demeanor had frozen substantially, and his entire aura was filled with the dangerous unpredictability of a savage predator. He continued to stare at her, to penetrate her, to break her down mercilessly into complete submission, and as he measured the psychic movements behind her restless eyes he heard and felt every word and emotion that crossed her mind. He detected her growing fear and distrust for the Marker, and coming to view her thoughts as direct insults towards it his mind was very quickly inundated with a number of heinous ideas. Indeed, it seemed that as the malevolence of the Marker deep within him began to poison his perspective, so also did the credulity of Kendra's wicked logic.

_She isn't real. She isn't fucking real._

He took a small step towards Nicole - and he widened his eyes tauntingly as she immediately took an equal step backwards. The sound of her pounding heart, the scent of her blood as it rose along with her heat to the surface of her skin, and the sight of the hairs all over her body slowly standing erect as she now clearly began to fear for her life all came together to awaken something inside of him - stretching a thin, dark smile of sadistic pleasure across his face.

"Soooo, Nicki... where have, _you _been... huh?"

Nicole's brows fell at the provocation in his tone, and she tried to stay just beyond his reach.

"I... I was looking for you."

He nodded at her, licking the inside of his blistered cheek as he took another step towards her. Again she stepped back from his approach, and again he smiled wickedly.

"What were you doing outside of the ship?"

She failed to oblige him with a response, afraid as to how he might have known she had previously been outside of the ship and out on the desert. He twisted his head at her silence, and the vicious grin instantly dropped from his face.

"Nicole... what - the - fuck - were you doing outside of the ship?"

Nicole's fear now raced through every inch of her body, she began to tremble and her eyes glazed over with tears. She lowered her head to avoid his eyes, but he pursued her without relent, clenching his teeth at her.

"... _Answer me."_

Nicole broke down into whispering between restrained sobs, and he felt the heat of pure panic emanating from every soft, undulating curve of her body.

"I... I just... I needed to get out of here... for a little while. I ran into Jacob... we both came here... to look for you."

Isaac pulled back, briefly breaking his rancorous fury at the mention of his old friend's name.

"Wait... Jake's here?"

Nicole weakly nodded and Isaac looked up in thought. Then he turned on her, encroaching on her space and forcing her the rest of the way back against the doors of the Engineering Deck entrance. With her eyes locked upon him like a beaten child she began to pant heavily, frantically gasping for air as the space between them became increasingly devoid of it, and she felt defenseless as she understood that there was no escaping him; Isaac had her blocked from all angles, and even if she had had the resolve to run, he no doubt would have stopped her dead in her tracks. Unable to bear the hopelessness of her fate coupled with his harsh, burning glare as it sliced into her like a red hot razor, her lips trembled and she began to cry. As he took another step towards her, she growled through her teeth in a final, desperate attempt to ward him off.

"Isaac... stop it... _you're **scaring me!**"_

She was surprised to see as Isaac suddenly backed down, slumping his shoulders, and his terrorizing stance before her dissipated. His eyes fell to the floor and he spoke again, this time with softened words full of shame.

"... I'm... sorry, Nicki. I don't... I don't mean to."

Nicole was rendered speechless by his deranged behavior. She saw how he was thoroughly exhausted, and his sad, despondent stare was framed by serious anxiety that stood divided between irrepressible confusion, remorse, and uncontrollable anger. As his wide, wild eyes darted to avoid hers, Nicole immediately sensed that he was struggling violently against something within himself, and unable to take it any longer she shook her head, choking back tears that filled her throat.

"Isaac... we need to leave this place, you know? It's changing._ You're_ changing. That Marker... that _fucking _Marker, Isaac! It's destroying you... look at yourself! You're dying. You're... oh god, you're dying..."

Her voice trailed off and she buried her face in her hands. He stood before her, staring at her and listening as some deeply obscured part of himself strained to hear her words, to feel her love.

_He loved her. God, he loved her. Even now, she was there. She was always there, always there with him. Always._

"...I... I can't watch you die... Please... let's just get out of here... Fuck the Marker. I love you, Isaac."

He remained silent, just stared at her as she crumbled even further. Though he could feel the age-old adoration he held for her, as strongly as he desired to comfort her, he simply couldn't react upon the notion.

"We can't. There's something that I need to do. We can't leave until I've finished it."

She lifted her face from her hands, looked at him with eyes streaked by tears. Desperate to do anything for him, to give him anything she could of herself to help him, she pleaded.

"What is it, Isaac? What needs to be done? Can... can I help you? Is there anything I can do? Please, let me help you. _Please."_

She watched him nervously as he unconsciously flexed the fingers of his mutated hand and stared off into nothing, carried away upon another indiscernible wave of thought. After a long moment of silence, he turned back to her.

"Yes. There is something you can do. Come with me. Now."

Nicole inhaled and held her breath as he stepped up next to her, activated the hololock of the Engineering entrance doors and stepped in. Still reluctant to oblige but afraid to refuse she followed, listening with a grim depression as the doors sealed them in, and she wondered with heart stopping trepidation if she might ever step out through those doors again. They approached the elevator, the doors slid open - seemingly in direct response to Isaac's approach - and they both stepped inside without a word. The elevator started its slow descent towards the lower innards of the ship, and Nicole just stood quietly next to Isaac, watching the walls nervously and reading the deteriorated level indicators painted across the concrete frame of each floor as they passed. She occasionally gave a side glance Isaac's way, wondering what he was thinking, but unable to penetrate his cold defenses she returned her hysterical, wandering eyes to the movement of the elevator.

They eventually arrived on the lowest level, and Isaac stepped out immediately as the doors opened. Nicole trailed out of the elevator behind him, and while she glanced around the Engineering Deck for a second time, now it was not with so much wonder as it was sheer terror. As they approached near the engine rooms the ambient temperature suddenly soared, and Nicole very found it to be unbearably hot as it seared her skin. She looked around and also again saw the various crew all around, toiling away at their duties, and wiping beads of sweat from her brow she wondered with amazement how they were capable of withstanding such an environment for more than a few minutes. In fact, they didn't seem to display any sort of discomfort in their physical conditions at all; their focus was far more attached to Isaac as he swept through the bay like a silent, black cloud, and Nicole watched as they all receded from his approach in a manner very much like the necromorphs they had encountered in the Main Control room. The uncanny similarity in the incidents triggered a very striking alarm within her, and the confirmation that there were things going on aboard the Ishimura that she was highly unaware of began to truly upset her. Now she felt even more afraid, understanding that not only did this dangerously deranged man from whom she could not escape pose a very significant threat to her, but that everything around her seemed to manifest as her nemesis.

"... Where are we going?"

Isaac paid no mind to her nearly inaudible query, nor to the hellish surroundings as he continued on, making no attempts to respond to her or communicate with any of the ship's inhabitants. He led her through the maintenance bays and around the deafening engine chambers, past hundreds of feet of fuel lines and exhaust shafts, and all the while Nicole followed breathlessly. Her ever increasing fear of Isaac battled with the constant apprehension that she carried of the resurrected crewmembers of the Ishimura, and while she tried to remain a steady distance behind Isaac to avoid him, she occassionally closed the gap between them as she felt the aggressive, opposing stares of the humanoid monsters singing her back.

They passed over the many chambers of engine fire and eventually ended up in a much cooler, darkened corridor further down the way, dimly illuminated with wall lights and the blue, candescent glow of battery mounts that lined the walls. Isaac rounded a corner and Nicole still followed, and her heart instantly skipped a beat in panic as it dawned upon her that he was leading her towards a dead end with a single door. She swallowed hard and looked up at the LED marquee just above the doorway.

**[Maintenance Storage - No Thru Access]**

She immediately darted her head from side to side, fighting back the urge to run as she got the sinking suspicion that Isaac was leading her into some sort of trap, but she lost all nerve as he opened the door and turned to look at her. Though he still failed to say anything to her, the suggestion was very clearly written on his face.

_Get in._

Horrified but compelled to obey, Nicole slowly walked towards the room and stepped in through the doorway. She stared desperately at Isaac as she passed him, but he only returned it with one of his own that caused her spine to tingle uncomfortably. As she entered the closet he followed in directly behind her and sealed the door, watching Nicole silently as she stopped in the center of the room with her back to him. She was reluctant to turn around, but she did so as she felt his piercing stare upon her, coercing her psychically into the act. As she turned to fully face him she was met with his tall, menacing figure towering before her like a mountain, and she again took the moment to examine him.

Though he visibly appeared to be weak on his knees his entire stature was still very oppressive and formidable. The ebony glimmer of the metal of his suit only seemed to enhance the evil about him, absorbing the available light rather than reflecting it, and the incised gouges of Marker symbols hacked across the titanium plated surfaces stood out as thick, impenetrable black marks that challenged even the darkness of the Ishimura itself. The only part of his suit that wasn't nearly invisible to the eye in the shadows was his chest, which was cast in the serene blue light of his holoplate monitor. The soft, flashing glow revealed his entire torso and head to be streaked by countless lines of sweated blood that had dried into crisp, flaking trails, and the light bounced off his glossy, inverted retinas just enough to hint at the otherworldly energy burning inside them that completely shunned his morbid appearance.

As Isaac stared blankly at Nicole she stared back in pure disbelief, having never seen such an incomprehensible look from him before, and as she watched the light dance frighteningly off of the surfaces of his suit she very briefly wondered whether she was actually seeing any part of _Isaac _at all. Her thought was cut short as he took a step towards her, entering further into the dim light of the overhead illumination panel, and her brows folded dolefully as she saw right away that his infection-induced deterioration had become magnified, making his appearance as ominous and alien as any of those strange monsters wandering about the ship.

"There is something you can do for me, Nicole."

Impatient, eager to move forward and get out of the stifling, ecnlosed space, she answered him immediately.

"What is it? What can I do?"

"Well... there's a problem here. I think you know that."

Nicole blinked and looked at him queerly.

"What's happening here, Isaac? What's going on here? The ship... what's -"

"The ship is fine. There's nothing wrong with it. That's not what I'm talking about."

Nicole looked down at the sudden change in his inflection, feeling as he sucked the confidence right out of her with the sound of his voice alone.

"...Is... it the Marker?"

"No. The problem is not the Marker, Nicole. It's in trouble right now, but that's what we're going to take care of."

The claustrophobia began to suffocate Nicole as her confusion mounted into panic then further into agitation. She sensed that he was toying with her in her most vulnerable state, baiting her into a line of questioning and remaining elusive. She huffed with frustration.

"Well... I dunno, you gonna tell me what's going on, or do you want to play Twenty Questions about this, huh? I mean, what the fuck do you want from me, Isaac?"

He smiled, taking delight in her rising animosity. While she did have her more tense moments from time to time, this level of anxiety, fright and raw energy was something he rarely saw in her primarily calm and collected nature. While it had not in the past been a desire of his to see it, at this moment he found himself very much endeared to this suspenseful, drastic side to her personality, and he wished very much to see more of it. He began to taunt her in an effort to incite her.

"What I want..."

He flashed her a cold, hard smile, and noticed that the shield of panic and anger upon her face had shattered to expose the helpless terror beneath.

"... is to rectify our situation."

She bent a brow at him, but had no time to respond otherwise before Isaac lashed out with his hand, gripped her tightly about the neck and stepped forward, forcing her up against the back wall. She jolted and winced as the wind was knocked out of her, and on the verge of unconsciousness she grabbed weakly at his arm, trying helplessly to pry his fingers from her neck, but his grip upon her was immovable. Isaac felt the pressure of her throat beneath his hand as she tried to scream, and he looked her over like a hungered lion as she hung limply in his grasp, fighting against him with no result. He watched as her eyes rolled and her skin darkened from the lack of oxygen, and his mind began to race with all sort of imaginative thoughts that he kept contained behind the blank, unreadable mask of his rock solid face.

"Now, this is what _you _are going to do for _me_."

Isaac slowly lowered himself at the knees and dragged her down the length of the wall with him until they were both squatting on the floor, and with his hand still tight around her neck he just stared into her perfectly round, terrified eyes. Though she had not the capacity to speak she begged as best she could, trying desperately through all of her other means to subdue his anger. However, consumed in blissful thought of the Marker and miles away from any logical thinking Isaac did not hear her, and he remained cold and heartless, staring right through her as if she weren't even there. All that existed to him was the captivating frequences of the voice within his mind he was finding harder and harder to live without.

**Make us whole, Isaac. Sacrifice is inevitable.**

Nicole's eyes shot down to his waist as she noticed he reached for his plasma cutter, and locked dead upon it they followed as he unclasped it from his belt and raised it up alongside his head. He gripped the trigger with his finger and it's illuminated edges sparked to life immediately at his touch, casting its blue light out across both of their faces and outlining it's silhouette like some bizarre crossbow. After a long moment of deliberation in total silence Isaac slowly exhaled, and then pressed the cutter to Nicole's skull. As she felt the icy cold touch of the tool's blunt metal edge dig into her forehead Nicole exploded with fear and began flailing her arms in an attempt to break his grip to no avail. Her skin instantly glistened all over with a solid layer of sweat, heated tears poured from her eyes, and still trying to knock the cutter's aim away from her she finally managed to force an emphatic scream past his asphyxiating grip, through crushed vocal chords and a mouth forced wide open out of sheer, unrefined terror.

"NO! _ISAAC!_"

Isaac only stared directly at the point of contact his cutter made with her head. Her heart wrenching pleas did nothing to stir him as he tightened his hand around her neck until she could no longer speak, and he stiffened his finger upon the trigger.

_Sacrifice is inevitable. Sacrifice is inevitable. Incompatible anomaly. Psychological rejection. Time. Not... much._

Now totally having blocked out the sound of Nicole's frantic gurgling, Isaac faded from everything around him until he no longer even recognized her. With absolutely no hesitation, he pulled the trigger.

_Let go._

At the abrupt click of the firing mechanism Nicole unleashed a deafening, panic-stricken outcry that reverberated offensively in the tiny, enclosed space, and Isaac blinked his eyes at the sound of it. He was forced back to his outer senses and realized that the plasma cutter had not fired, and lifting the cutter to look at it noticed that the safety latch was on.

_Nice try._

Nicole's tear flooded eyes followed the cutter warily in his hand, and her struggle for survival had by now been reduced to a very weak wriggling in his grasp, like that of a dying fish held out of water. Isaac furrowed his brows in frustration and he sighed, lowering the cutter as he came to realize that he didn't have it in him to unset the safety and try again. He slowly lowered his head against his chest, exhausted and ashamed, lost in thought as he just perched upon the floor, continuing to restrain Nicole by her neck. His grip, however, had now loosened enough to allow her some breathing room, and she breathed a small, discreet sigh of relief. She finally stopped squirming in his grasp, and decided to bide her time as she saw that Isaac had become emotionally distracted within.

Though his eyes were aimed down at the floor, Isaac could still see Nicole's terrified face in his mind. He felt her feeble, residual trembling beneath the fingers of his hand, and becoming aware that he was still holding her, he released his grip. The moment she was free Nicole pressed back as far against the wall as she could and gasped to catch her breath, but she dared not make any other move to escape for fear of inciting him to grab for her again. She just watched him, darting her frantic eyes between his face and the plasma cutter in his hand, and though she still feared he might be inclined to use it, Isaac had by this point lost all nerve. His fingers slackened, the cutter fell from his hand, and Isaac once again became catatonically engrossed upon his disparaging thoughts within. He stared down with an empty heart, attempting to explore the depths of what he was feeling, and a layer of dark, blood stained tears formed across the surfaces of his eyes with the spidery spread of ink upon the surface of water.

_He couldn't do it. He just couldn't do it. He couldn't kill her. He couldn't sacrifice her. Not even for the Marker. _

He deeply inhaled and release it in a long, arduous sigh, and he leaned back upon his heels, stared up at the ceiling. Nicole continued to watch him, her fear slowly declining in the wake of a deeply profound sorrow as she saw the bloody moisture of utter sadness and despair collecting upon his eyelids and threatening to rain down across his skin in full fledged tears. She felt so inapt to help him, and unable to bear the insatiably crazed pain and anguish she sensed in him her lips hung heavily in unquestionable sympathy, and she made her first attempt to break the ice of confrontation and approach him.

"I... Isaac..."

Driven insane by her approach Isaac suddenly lashed out again, ramming an enraged fist into the wall behind her just centimeters from the side of her head. She shrieked and bolted at the impact as she heard and felt it pummel straight through the wall, and frozen in fear by the unexpected act of violence she could only watch in horrified trance in the face of his destruction. Isaac's breath grew heavy and agitated, his eyes glimmered and with a sharp flashing of his teeth he began to smash his fist into the wall again and again with increasing velocity until he had managed to tear through one of the solid metal beams welded into the wall's supporting frame. Nicole stared at the hole in the wall Isaac had created, dumbfounded by the experience and having recognized now with much horror that this strength of Isaac's was definitely something beyond human. Her eyes jumped to his hand, now a bloodied stump lacerated across the knuckles; yet, despite the extensive injury which she was sure must have been wrought with bone fracture, Isaac did not express any indication that he felt it. His anger began to subside just as quickly as it had overtaken him, and his frightening, wide eyed stare regressed into an ambiguous blankness. Clueless as to what to do Nicole just watched him, hoping that he might give her some sort of response.

Eventually, Isaac rose to his feet, turned around and without a word headed for the door. As Nicole realized he was leaving she immediately jetted to her feet, afraid of being left behind, but she was stopped as Isaac raised his hand in her face. He glared at her darkly, then slowly extended a finger and pointed directly at her, the blunted tip of it just barely grazing the skin of her nose.

"You... will stay here."

Nicole stared at him with panic stricken eyes as he opened the door and stepped out of the room. He closed the door behind him, and in the darkness of the maintenance closet she suddenly heard the gentle, mechanical hum of the hololock cease as he deactivated it from the other side. A moment of silence passed before she was startled by a loud, explosive sound as Isaac fired his plasma cutter directly at the lock mechanism, destroying the circuitry and fusing the doors shut. The explosion was followed by a few seconds of electrical shorting and then the air fell deathly silent, leaving Nicole to wonder if Isaac had walked away. She took a tiny step towards the door... and suddenly heard his voice again on the other side of it.

_"If you come out...I will kill you."_

Nicole froze at the sound and refused to answer him. She listened breathlessly as the heavy, metallic clunking of his boots diminished and eventually vanished down the hall. Her fear began to retreat in the wake of his departure, and feeling a bit bolder in his absence, a sense of insulted, feminine spite began to rise to the surface. Starting to feel undignified by what she considered to be unsatisfactory treatment she tightened her fists into little balls and glared at the door. Though she was still reluctant to raise her voice for fear Isaac might still be able to hear her, she spared no expense to boast her bravery with soundless, childishly obscene hand gestures directed at him. Cursing quietly between her teeth she threw her back against the wall and sank to the floor in aggravated defeat, just barely managing to stave off her tears with angry growls. Wiping her eyes and nose on her sleeve, she smirked and glared darkly at the door.

"Fucking psycho... _fucking dick! _If he thinks I'm moving back in with him after all this shit... he's got another thing coming."


	26. Knowing the Enemy

**Chapter 26  
Knowing The Enemy**

_**"If you become conscious of Me, you will pass over all the obstacles of conditioned life by My grace. If, however, you do not work in such consciousness but act through false ego, not hearing Me, you will be lost."**_  
**- B.G., 18.58**

* * *

_He couldn't do it. _

Isaac stalked down a dark, lonely hall, wide eyed and blank faced. So shocked and appalled he was by what he had just witnessed of himself, he was now driven to complete disassociation from everyone and thing around him as he dwelled upon his debased violence towards Nicole. Though it had all come out so effortlessly in the maintenance closet - the desire to see the girl's head cleaved right off her shoulders like second nature to him - he now was utterly astounded, ashamed to tears of his own behavior, and he couldn't possibly understand what it was that could have come over him.

_He couldn't kill her. What was wrong with him? _

The more he thought about it the stronger his steadily rising remorse overcame him, and the more the ever emerging details forced him into outright panic. He knew that the Marker would accept nothing less than total compliance with its agenda, and the fact that he couldn't bring himself to deliver true on his promise to the Marker only suggested that his position was even worse than he had understood it to be. He was concerned about the possibility of the Marker's retaliation, and as the recollections of both his advancing sickness and Nicole's sorrowful sobs came back to haunt him, he looked down at his hands.

He saw the horrific, unearthly composition of his mutated hand, something he had not previously taken full notice of, and it captivated him entirely. He turned it over, mesmerized by the soft, glistening flesh that had now spread beyond the regrown fingers like bioluminescent vines and entwined deep into the skin of his own body. As he looked closer he saw that not only had the living alien flesh assimilated his entire palm and wrist, but it had also seamlessly integrated itself into the cloth and metal of his suit, bonding with it on a molecular level and, inadvertently, making it a permanent addition to Isaac's body. In horrified amazement he tugged at it with the fingers of his right hand, examining the translucent scar tissue that had effortlessly consumed so much of his humanity like the uncompromising virus that it was. Though a bit disturbed by this discovery, he was at the very least pleased to see that as a result of the efficacy and completeness of the scar tissue's bond, the airtight seal of his suit was no longer rendered useless by the damage Kendra had caused back in the Flight Hangar.

His eyes traveled further up his arm, departing from the gruesomely enchanting evolution of his hand. He marveled at how the skin at the inner angle of his elbow folded upon itself into translucent layers as he flexed it, like waves of ocean water frozen in time, providing distorted glimpses of the mutated, bioluminant skeletal structure and network of blood vessels beneath. The added strength he felt was both enthralling and terrifying to him, for he realized that along with his evolutionary boon would inevitably come the consequences of accepting such a gift from the Marker. He knew that its only purpose was to completely corrupt and destroy everything about him... unless he learned to control it first.

_He had to learn to control it. He could control the Hive Mind. After all, it was his body, he could control it. Control it. He could control it. _

Even as he nodded affirmatively to himself he could hear bitter, hollow laughter in the back of his head, rubbing the futility of it all in his face. Still, to him there was hope. Nicole was alive, albeit not in the most supportive of spirits at this point, and he began to think about her, trapped all alone in the closet he had left her behind in. He just couldn't understand why he would have acted out in such a way towards her, even with all of the stress he had been under, and he again couldn't help but wonder how this gracious creature could remain so tolerant and forgiving after so much time. His hatred for Kendra flared even higher now as his conviction in Nicole's existence engraved itself deeper upon him, and he rejected the vicious woman's seemingly sound arguments all the more.

_Nicole was real. She **was** real. He had felt her... the soft flesh in the grip of his hand as he had crushed her throat. It was all just too real not to be. _

Glancing again at his hand the words of his beloved Nicole continued to haunt him, and he realized that she had been right - he was changing, and not for the better. Isaac immediately resolved then and there that he would have to find a way to bring Nicole through this alive, through hell or highwater, regardless of the Marker's desire.

_There had to be another way. There just had to be. He could make it work. That was his talent. He made things work... one way or another._

He stumbled down the hallway and through his deranged thoughts, briefly considering going back in order to apologize to Nicole and to let her out of her hold. Along the way he caught a reflection of himself in the buffed, shiny surface of the steel wall running parallel to him. He slowed his pace as he was overtaken by his deathly appearance, and he realized with much concern that he had not even bothered to take notice of himself since the last time he had seen his own reflection in the Marker's shiny, obsidian surfaces. It was a very rude awakening to see what was actually happening to him, to see how far his own human disintegration had progressed, and why Nicole had been so worried for him.

_... Was he really dying?_

While Isaac felt more alive now than he ever had, it was obvious that his physical body did not agree with the burning fire of his inner constitution. He thought back upon the last time he had looked at himself, staring into the exquisitely carved runes of the Marker and seeing his own menacing ghost trapped beyond the layer of rock, glaring back at him, seemingly so long ago. He sadly remembered how providential everything had seemed, how sure he was that it was all meant to be, that he had clearly seen into the face of a god and not only lived to tell of it, but to directly engage with it in some capacity; but now, as he witnessed for himself the initial stages of his own imminent extinction, he came to understand that in reality, he was little more than a slave to the Marker's evil. The compelling sonata of the Marker's chanting voices suddenly overcame him, redirecting all of his consciousness towards it.

**a desire for social interaction... physical contact... affection or support... may lead you to make poor judgments... or decisions**

Time seemed to stop all around as he listened to the voices whispering to him in concordant feathers of vibration, and he paused, closing his eyes in contemplation upon his true purpose.

**make us whole, Isaac**

Forcing himself on Isaac hesitantly pushed the imagery of Nicole out of his mind. He straightened his back, inhaling several long breaths, and proceeded on down a darker, less populated corridor. The few crewmembers that were present quietly retreated at his approach and left the area, sublimely understanding his desire for solitude, and within moments Isaac was almost completely alone - with the exception of a single, overbearing presence he felt following him from the shadows the entire way. At first its signature upon the stagnant ship air suggested it to be a very powerful necromorph, but as he picked up on the unmistakably abrasive static discharge in its stride that was unique to one person alone, he rolled his eyes crossly. He knew exactly who it was, refusing to look at his pursuer as she closed in behind him and spoke up.

"Nope... it's not one of your necromorphs. They're your friends. But I'm not your friend. You've made that very clear. Haven't you, Isaac?"

Still refusing to acknowledge the beautiful yet villanous adherent he couldn't seem to get away from, Isaac simply flashed a crocodile's smirk and kept a steady, silent pace forward. Sensing his lack of desire to cooperate she twisted her lip.

"Yeah. I expect nothing more from you, you fucking mute. I gotta hand it to ya, Isaac - that was really great. Really. I was almost impressed. The safety bit was a clever touch."

The woman, still obscured in shadow, clicked her tongue at Isaac and stared at the back of his head with the burning, black jewels of her eyes.

_"Touché."_

Still, Isaac said nothing, and she pressed him.

"I bet that really scared the living shit out of her. A pair of balls you've got, huh? We can only hope she's happy with the real treasure she's scored, am I right?"

Isaac sensed her sarcastic smile floating through the air behind him, pursuing him like the vile white grin of a Cheshire cat. Provoked enough to respond but too exhausted to verbally speak, Isaac broadcast the psychic frequencies of his bitterness instead.

_Shut up, Kendra._

"I knew you wouldn't do it. I just knew it. I knew you wouldn't touch a single little hair on her head."

She narrowed her eyes upon him.

"Even with my help... still, you couldn't do it."

Isaac turned his head sharply over his shoulder in her direction, stirred by the efficacy of her speech. Her suggestion that she was assisting him somehow deeply troubled him, but while Kendra tried with determination to convey her point, Isaac was just as steadily refusing.

_Shut the fuck __**up**__, Kendra._

She took morbid rapture in his angst and snickered. Isaac felt her probing him from within, trying to shake him in any way that she could, and the more she pressed him the more violated he felt. She smiled wryly at his inner conflict and continued to follow him, tucking her hands behind her back.

"It was supposed to be simple, real easy. All you had to do was just... pull the trigger. That's all. You didn't even have to think about it. And still... somehow, you managed to fuck it up. You are a real wonder, Mr. Clarke."

Isaac activated his helmet in an attempt to insulate himself against Kendra's nagging, and continued on. Kendra was undeterred, however; she crossed her arms and looked him up and down with indignation.

_Oh, I see - you think you're gonna ignore me, now... but you have to try a little harder than that. I can play the same games you can, Isaac. And I can see right through you like glass._

Isaac's expanding chagrin manifested in small, angered gasps echoing from his helmet, but still he said nothing. Kendra by now was beyond the point of amusement and had descended into frustration with him. Her voice deepened, and her intensity increased.

_That isn't Nicole. Everything she says... everything she does... it isn't her, Isaac. It's you._

Isaac hesitated again, his forward step slowed, and sensing she had hit upon a weak spot Kendra drove in deeper.

_Think about how she acts with you. How she idolizes you, adores you, fears you. Everything that comes out of her mouth __is exactly what you want to hear, everything she does is all that you think you can't do for yourself, and her fear of you asserts your domination over her - all exactly the way you want it to be. It's all in your head.  
_

She was eager for some sort of response from Isaac, but seeing as he was not about to satisfy her, she continued to chew at his back.

_You're a fool. It's no mystery why she left you for this godforsaken place. Perhaps she always knew that she would be better off dead than with you.  
_

Isaac could take no more. He stopped in his tracks and whirled around, turning hateful eyes on her that she could see even through the thick, glowing faceplate of his visor, and he physically screamed at her.

_**"Shut up, Kendra!"**_

Though momentarily startled by his vicious outburst Kendra just flashed a grim smirk, and as he slowly turned back around she pecked at him from behind.

"You're only feeding upon yourself, upon your own memories, Isaac! And your fucking brain is starving for something real. You can't move on because of this sick love attachment for her... but what you don't realize is that this love you want, that you're so desperately after? It doesn't _want __you_ anymore. And quite frankly... I don't know how much longer I can hold this together. You're falling apart."

Isaac just grunted at her. Though irked as he was, his exhaustion was preventing him from continuing the argument on a physical level.

_What the fuck would you know about love, Kendra? I honestly don't believe that you can understand that concept on any level.  
_

Kendra lifted her eyebrows at him, pleased to see she had finally managed to coax him into conversation.

_I loved you, once._

Isaac chuckled coldly.

_Physically, maybe. But anything beyond that, I highly doubt. _

_Hmm. How ironic that you say that, Isaac. The way I've seen it, it was you who had all the trouble moving beyond the physical part._

Isaac sighed irritably._  
_

_That's not true. I had a place for you... at one time. Maybe, in spite of my better judgment, I still do. Even after you betrayed me._

_Isaac... you're not listening to me... You're not hearing me._

_Let's face it, Kendra. You have never been the prime example of a warm heart. I tried to love you. I really did. But, you just weren't the same. You just couldn't compare._

She watched as his posture slowly took on a sad weight, and he looked back up at her.

_And to this day, I blame you for what happened. Nicole took everything in stride... everything, except you._

Kendra stopped on the spot, staring at him with large, incredulous eyes as he walked away, then followed.

_She didn't leave you because of me. She was already gone. The two of you were just going through the motions. Neither one of you could accept that it was over, and the Ishimura just gave her a way out._

Though she couldn't physically see it due to the shielding of his helmet, Kendra had the image of Isaac's snide, arrogant scowl as it crossed his face burned into her mind, and she smiled wickedly at the thought of it. As predicted, he artfully dodged her suggestions that, somehow, it was all his fault.

_Like I said... you don't know a goddamn thing about true love._

Her anger gave way to a budding sense of discontent as she realized that he still continued to underestimate her.

_Actually... I know more about love than you think I do. I can definitely tell you this - I know at least as much about it as you do._

Again, he failed to see the significance in her point. _  
_

_Kendra, you don't know shit. You don't love anyone but yourself. Maybe that's why you can't see where I'm coming from. Honestly, I feel very sorry for you._

Kendra was baffled by replies that seemed bizarre and equivocal. A bit undignified she pressed her hands to her hips, and bore her eyes through the back of his helmet.

_I don't believe it. You... really are insane, aren't you? Did I make a mistake in choosing you, Isaac?  
_

Isaac stiffened.

_What are you talking about?_

_There's something very much wrong with you. You're not all there. I'm beginning to have some serious doubts about our entire arrangement. I might just have to take this up with your superiors.  
_

Isaac stopped in his tracks as his anger dissipated in the wake of uncertainty.

_... Arrangement?  
_

He finally turned around to face Kendra. Though he had expected to catch one of her trademark grins of malice, he was surprised to instead be met with a diametrically opposed expression that betrayed her inner disappointment. She just stared silently at him, her dark, impenetrable eyes suppressed beneath a solid line of eyebrows, and she held a very troubled posture that seemed out of her usually unbreakable character. They both stood facing each other in complete silence, and Isaac watched as her face slowly, gradually sank with an emotional burden he couldn't quite comprehend, until his exhaustion had overwhelmed him. Feeling lightheaded and unable to remain standing upon his feet he began to back away, and retreating to the shadows he approached one of the steel fabricated benches that lined the walkway. As he released his weight and fell back upon the bench he reached up and disengaged his helmet, angrily realizing as he struggled to breathe that the whole design of his suit seemed to be suffocating him more and more. Starting to doubt its actual usefulness to him at this point, Isaac closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, tugging at his collar and trying desperately to push the imagery of Kendra from his mind.

_Isaac._

Startled by the touch of her hand upon his shoulder he flung his eyes open and looked up to find she was now standing right next to him, eying him intently. He couldn't help but notice that her appearance was gentler, filling with a lonesome, forlorn delicacy he could not recall ever having seen from her before now, but this newly found, softened demeanor of hers did nothing to put him at ease. Still repulsed by her very presence he remained tense beneath her touch, and she felt it.

_Why do you continue to fight your destiny? It just doesn't make sense. You really must be sick._

At face value her words were offensive to him, but as he listened to the tone of her voice he detected a hint of something far different.

_It doesn't have to be this way. Everything could be perfect. As perfect as you want it to be._

He said nothing to her and looked away, pinching flaked, dehydrated lips with his teeth, and he again dropped his head against the wall behind him. He closed his eyes a second time, listening to the muted sounds of the Ishimura's hull creaking all around them until he again felt her hand, this time against the side of his face. Her timid, fragile touch was followed by a sudden weight upon his thighs, and he quickly looked up to see Kendra was now side-saddling his lap, framing his face with her fingertips, and staring into his lightless eyes.

_The choice is up to you. I can't do anything for you until you let me in. You have to let me in._

Isaac was revolted by her closeness and he desired nothing more than to get away from her, but despite his attempts to ignore her he was otherwise compelled. She gently wiped away the blood that dotted his forehead, and leaned in until she was hovering just centimeters from his face. They briefly shared in a moment of rivaled friction, gauging each other through their eyes, then Kendra came closer, connected her lips to his and kissed him.

_I do love you, Isaac. I've loved you since the very first time we met._

At first he strongly resisted her contact and he immediately raised his hands to push her away, but Kendra was unabated in her resolve. She adhered herself to him with a strength he found surprisingly tough to refute and he eventually relented, falling limp as his fatigue denied him any more strength to fight her, and he became practically powerless as he felt a deep rush of excitement within himself that he had not experienced for what felt to him like eons. Kendra continued to brush her soft, moist lips against his, and the vibrancy of her actions increased the further Isaac's defenses fell in the wake of passion. Becoming lost in her he dropped his hands and finally gave in, reclining slowly back upon the bench as she closed her eyes and loosely wrapped her arms around his neck. She continued to fill his mouth with her ever increasing enthusiasm, reveling with tremendous delight as he now did the same with equal return, and drowning upon the ocean of his own sprouting titillation Isaac was not even aware that his hand had already traced up the length of her abdomen beneath her vest. His palm was now softly wrapped about the skin of her right breast, her nipple pinched between his thumb and forefinger. As the realization of what was happening finally dawned on him, Isaac snapped his eyes open.

_What the __**fuck**__ was he doing?_

His spellbound intoxication was instantly dispelled, and with a rapidly returning rancor tearing at his gut he shoved Kendra off and stood up, knocking her carelessly to the floor. She pulled herself away and shook her head, bearing the dumbfounded gaze of a cornered animal as Isaac flashed her a venomous look that might have instantly killed anyone of lesser constitution. With lips drawn tightly in total disgust, he lashed out at her mind with vicious, enraged words of insult.

_Don't you touch me... you fucking succubus. _

He stared at her wildly, wishing with all his heart she would simply burst into flames and burn alive before him, then reengaged his helmet despite the severe discomfort it caused him. He now thoroughly distrusted the idea of Kendra having any access to his eyes, fearing that she somehow held some inexplicable influence over him through them, and concluded that the cold, metal plates of his visor were good enough for the likes of her. He took a deep, agitated breath and continued to walk down the hallway, leaving her behind, when he again heard her voice inside his head. He turned back briefly to see her eyes glimmering dimly with moisture, filled with anger, sadness and rejection.

_Why, Isaac? Why won't you accept me? I love you. I need you. Don't you see that? Just as much as you need me._

Puzzled as he contemplated her words Isaac opened his mouth to question her. However, before the chance availed itself he was unexpectedly interrupted by a very familiar, artificially synthesized voice, accented with an elegant, feminine erudition, resounding through the Ishimura's intercom system.

**"Boarding shuttle USG-CV4 now launched from Colony A7."**

He paused, recognizing the voice of the Ishimura's onboard computerized personality, and he darted his eyes around in panic. He didn't understand what was happening - he was familiar with that particular shuttle, though for the moment he couldn't place where he had initially come across it. He just stood and listened, molling over the voice and its warning, trying to figure out what to do.

_USG-CV4? Launched from the Colony? But...  
_

Mind and heart racing, knowing there was very little time to respond, Isaac acted upon the first impulse that came to mind. He immediately turned to his RIG, activated the communications device upon his sleeve, and patched into the planetcracker's mainframe.

"Ishimura..."

Isaac briefly paused, questioning his own sanity as he formulated the desired command in mind. Though he knew... _knew... _that the Ishimura was landlocked, firmly rooted to the ground of Aegis7 with hardly a hope of being flight-ready, his course of logic continued undeterred - despite the irrationality of what everything was suggesting to him. He now remembered, back upon his initial journey, the small boarding shuttle Dr. Kyne had discovered; the shuttle that had subsequently been used to pursue Kendra to the Aegis7 Colony. Though he had no idea how the shuttle had been returned to the Colony to be launched _now_ - especially when he distinctly recalled having fled the planet for the Sprawl aboard it - Isaac was concerned that, somehow, he would again require its usage in the very near future.

"... CEC Override Authorization ID 55613... Recall the USG-CV4."

He fell silent and waited, listening to the silence in the air all around him until the Ishimura's reply followed a few seconds later.

**"Unable to comply, 55613. USG-CV4 automatic recall function systems offline."**

Isaac's jaw fell at the computer's response and his eyes fell upon Kendra, who was squatting upon the floor and smiling demonically at him.

"Go ahead, Isaac. Say it."

Kendra's provocation tore at him mercilessly; he knew he simply did not want to face it.

_It couldn't be. It just could not be. Not again. Could it?_

Isaac glanced back up at Kendra, and her cold, calculating term again came to mind.

_Ouroboros._

Kendra sensed his anxiety and rose to her feet, straightening her vest and shooting a side glance wrought with wounded affront.

"You better get going. She'll be expecting you to come to her rescue soon enough, I suspect."

Again puzzled by her mysterious remarks and now desperate for more information on what was happening beyond the Ishimura, Isaac turned and darted down the hall with a mad desire to reach the Bridge. Kendra frowned and stared after his figure as it receded into the darkness.

_Go. Run. Your meaningless betrayal awaits. Don't let us down now, you fucking idiot._

As Isaac ran through the many corridors he eventually passed through a section of the ship that was encased all around in thick, galleria windows that overlooked the Ishimura's western flank. He slowed his pace in amazement until he came to a dead stop, his ever widening eyes locked dead upon the unimaginable - phenomenal - _impossible _sight he now saw beyond the windows. What he saw of the world outside wasn't the world at all - it wasn't smothering darkness of buried sand and rock, but indeed was vast, extensive blackness.

_The endless, black void of deep, neverending... dead space._

Isaac stared in complete astonishment upon the aphotic cosmic ocean interlaced with the faint twinkling of countless, distant stars, seriously debating once again whether he were seeing something real, or merely hallucinating it. He stepped closer to the window in disbelief and looked down as peripheral vision detected the massive, round globe of Aegis7 hovering miles below. He now realized that the Ishimura was no longer an abandoned, landlocked wreckage, but had somehow, by some miraculous happening, become fully operational and spacebound, locked in orbit around the planet of Aegis7.

_Holy fucking shit. This was insane. _

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a small, inconstant beam of light blinking through the void off to his left, and Isaac immediately recognized the blooming, candescent bursts of engine fire coming from the departed boarding shuttle, which at this distance was nothing more than a pinprick of amber red glow in space, headed directly away from Aegis7 and the Ishimura's position. Isaac shook his head with panicked hopelessness, understanding that it must have been the CV4, and that it was by this point beyond the range of reasonable retrieval. He was frantic to know who or _what _was aboard that shuttle, where it was headed... and what the hell was going on.

_He had to stop it. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. He had to stop it. _

Now resigned to somehow finding a way to stop the shuttle's escape Isaac quickly headed for the Tram Deck. He felt that he had to get to the Bridge, but starved for answers he detoured around one of the observation decks for a brief examination. He headed down a hall and took a right turn, coming up to another door that led to the higher observation levels along the outer routes along the the ship. He quickly activated the hololock, and as the doors opened he was caught off guard by an intense draft of air as it sucked out through the opening. He threw out his arms to grab at anything he could in the time it would take for his gravity boots to engage until they clamped him down to the floor. His oxygen support system activated upon the detection of pressure change, and the Ishimura's onboard computer again resounded throughout the dwindling airspace.

**"Hazardous environmental conditions. Sealing breach. Isolating zero-gravity field."**

He quickly stepped through the doors as the Ishimura automatically shut them in order to restore environmental balance within the rest of the sector. As he looked around he found he was suddenly standing on the outside of the Ishimura, nestled within a tangled nest of destroyed rebar and splintered metal. It was obvious that the observation deck had been torn apart from a serious collision with something very large, and the area he was standing in - once the deck's interior - was now facing space's vacuum. Shocked, Isaac slowly inched towards the edge of the devastated deck and peered over the edge and out into the endless, black expanse. He instantly became disoriented, unable to discern which way was up and he glanced down through the twisted metal rods off to his right to see the spherical mass of Aegis7 looming beneath him with a menacing red glow, crowned by the floating planetcork mass. He was blinded by the rays of the sun flaring from behind the fiery orange silhouette of the planet; it was that powerful, even through the protective UV shielding of his helmet.

Turning his eyes to the Ishimura and running them along the miles of outer hull, Isaac finally continued his way down the deck through the soundless vacuum. He was unable to hear anything besides the sound of his own labored breathing trapped within his helmet, and he focused his attention to the sides of the ship he could see from his position. Apart from the destroyed deck he had exited through he saw that the entire ship was immaculate, devoid of any damage or distress, and he was baffled beyond belief.

_It was almost as if nothing had ever happened to it at all. Perhaps... was the wreckage... the illusion...?_

Isaac immediately headed back through the doors from which which he had come, and he returned to the inside of the of the ship. He stopped just beyond the doorway as the Ishimura resealed itself, and feeling the heavy chink of his gravity boots as they released their magnetic hold upon the stabilization of gravity, he stared hard at the ground through his visor plates. He was utterly baffled, completely lost and becoming very much frustrated as everything kept slipping away, faster and faster, and he couldn't stop running in circles. He simply could not stop feeding upon his own self.

_They were in space. But the ship was in the ground. So, the ground was an illusion. However, the illusion was in space. But the ship was in the ground. The ground was an illusion. But the illusion was in space. In space. The Marker was in space. But the Marker was in the ground. The ship was an illusion. The illusion was in the Marker. Time was an illusion. Time was in the Marker. The space was in the Marker. He was in the Marker. The Marker._

Isaac finally gave up, shook his head and tossed his hands.

_You know what? Fuck it. Fuck it._

* * *

Nicole had no idea how much time had elapsed since the start of her rather dismal imprisonment within the confines of the locked maintenance closet. She figured, at the very least, that it had to have been several hours; but as her RIG's clock had also been malfunctioning in a fashion similar to Isaac's and there was nothing stored in the closet of which might serve the purpose, she had virtually no frame of reference upon which to calculate an accurate measurement. With nothing but the stifling ship air and occassional sounds emanating from all around Engineering beyond the walls of the closet, Nicole could only sit patiently and wait, dejectedly wondering when, or _if_, Isaac would come back for her.

_She was losing him to this place. _

Having grown very tired and desiring rest despite the fact that she couldn't bring herself to close her eyes, she had eventually shuffled her way across the room to seek shelter behind one of the plain, metal shelved cabinets that lined the walls. The steady, cold draft of air that was flowing in through the cracks of the rather sizable dent Isaac had made with his fist earlier had filled the room with an unshakable chill, and wanting both to preserve what little warmth she could generate of her own body as well as secure a decent hiding spot in case someone _did _show up, Nicole had managed to compact herself behind the cabinet by drawing her knees tightly to her chest, wrapping her arms about them, and tucking her face between her knees. Time passed on, and she revolved between fearful thoughts and light dozing, occasionally being startled awake by the sensation of tumbling over from her propped position against the wall as her muscles gave way. Buried in sadness, so exhausted and disappointed, again Nicole so desperately wanted to go home; but she had, by this point, resigned herself to the fact that this dank, lonesome cell was now to be her final resting place. She lowered her head, and on the verge of tears she whispered into her chest.

"I... love you, Isaac. I've always loved you."

After a while, Nicole finally fell asleep. She was out for an indeterminate period of time before being startled awake by an increasingly nearing sound on the outside of the door. A single eye shot open as she came to, and as the other followed she bolted upright. Immediately recalling now where she was she quickly retreated further back behind the shelf in a panic, gripping the shelf's frame tightly in her hands, and her fear was realized as she learned that the sound she was hearing was actually someone approaching - someone apparently hooved in thick, heavy metal. Right way she both suspected and feared that it might be Isaac, and she stared unblinking at the door in total silence. She sound became louder and louder then suddenlly stopped, and she figured that whoever it was was standing just on the other side. She held her breath, and suddenly released it in surprise when her ears were met with a familiar voice... but not Isaac's.

_"Hey... what the hell... what happened to the damn door?"_

Nicole immediately brightened at the sound of his voice, and straightened her back sharp as an arrow.

"Jake? Is that you?"

She paused, and the air fell silent for a few seconds.

_"Nicole? Wha... what're ya doin' in there, huh? You alright?"_

Overjoyed with relief Nicole's eyes instantly flooded with tears and she clasped her hands together with unbelievable gratitude, rubbing her palms nervously against one another and darting her eyes around in the dark.

"Yes! Yes, it's me, Jake! In here!"

_"How'd you get in there? The door's been sealed shut... I don't... what happened?"_

Nicole wanted so desperately to get out, but the terrorizing scenario of Isaac's threatening to kill her haunted her from the back of her mind. She felt humiliated by her rather awkward circumstances, not wanting to confide the truth in Jacob knowing he was Isaac's closest friend, and not knowing what to say she refrained from saying anything at all. Jacob apparently sensed her apprehension to respond, and taking on a more reassuring tone he called out to her.

_"It's ok... just sit tight, Nicki. I'm gonna pop this open. I'll get you outta there, 'k?"_

She nodded silently to herself but did not physically respond, and waited to see what Jacob was going to do. She listened to the sound of his movement outside the doorway for a few minutes, which was abruptly followed by the loud, sharp scream of a disc ripper's electronic starter. Startled by it she cried out and covered her ears, wincing at the piercing grinding of its spinning metal blade as Jacob began to saw his way through the fused locking mechanism. After several minutes of constant grinding against the lock he finally cut all the way through the tough steel, and with labored effort managed to pry the door open to look inside. As Jacob pushed his head into the gap, the aqueous green glow of his helmet flooded the room's dimly lit interior, catching Nicole's attention, who sheepishly lifted her hand and waved at him, her eyes glossy and barring back tears. She forced it out.

"... Hi."

Jacob's eyes stopped dead upon her, noting her terribly pitiable condition, and his heart instantly melted for her. He had no idea how or why she had ended up in such an odd and foreboding place, but he was not about to allow it to continue. He reached up and withdrew his visor, holding his dark set eyes upon her with concern.

"Nicki... are you allright? What the hell is going on? I've been looking for you!"

As her sad, doelike eyes fell to floor upon his words, he pushed his way into the room and stepped up to her, looking her over. His eyes widened as he came close enough to see her face streaked in tears, the bruised marks across her neck, and a small, bloody indent upon her forehead. He shook his head in complete disbelief, wondering how something like this could have happened to her since he had last seen her, and his anxiety for her began to boil over into a sense of protective animosity. He clenched his fist as she failed to respond to him.

"What happened, Nicole? Who did this to you? Tell me."

Despondent and fragile as a withered flower about to be crushed underfoot, Nicole looked at Jacob with wild, frightened eyes, terrified to confide anything in him. However, she was no longer able to contain her humiliating secret.

"It... it was Isaac."

Jacob tilted his head and he stopped. For a very brief moment all of his concern for her became suspended in light of his inability to believe it.

_... Isaac? Nah, couldn't be. He'd... never do something like this._

Not realizing he was momentarily distracted Nicole continued on, sobbing into her wrists.

"He's crazy... He's fucking crazy! He's completely lost it... He... he locked me in here... He's fucking crazy, Jacob... I don't know what to do."

Jacob was still caught on her unspeakable suggestion.

_Ok, Sure... he'd done some crazy ass shit to her in his time, but nothing... like this. _

"... You're sure, Isaac did this? You sure it wasn't... somebody else?"

Nicole was too distraught to reply. Devoid of energy her face fell exhaustively into her hands, and she just sat upon the floor, crying. Again, Jacob's compassion sparked him to reach out to her, and he held out his hand with a warm smile.

"It's okay... It's okay, Nicki. You don't have to stay here. Why don't you come with me?"

Her eyes widened even further and she shook her head fearfully.

"No! I can't leave here... He said he'd... he'd kill me if I did!"

Jacob chortled beneath his breath, stunned by what he was hearing. Seeking to pacify her he took her hand gently in his and patted it with the other, staring intently into her eyes.

"Don't worry, Nicki. He's not gonna hurt you. Trust me. You know I've known Isaac for a long time, even longer than you have. And after all these years, I know one thing about him, for sure. I know that he loves you. He loves you with all his heart. He would give anything for you. And he would never hurt you. Ever."

Though she was still frightened out of her wits, Nicole was beginning to feel relieved by Jacob's confidence. She finally found it in her to break and smile, and Jacob smiled back at her, prompting her to rise to her feet with a tug on her hand. She stood and tried to force another smile, but this second one failed as the corners of her mouth only sagged lower as she again thought of Isaac while looking into Jacob's eyes.

_How he always had reminded her of Isaac. How much alike they were. Sometimes, it was almost as if they were the same person. _

She glanced up to Jacob just as he replaced his visor and headed for the door. Just before he stepped out of it, he turned to her again, nearly blinding her with the glow of his helmet.

_"Just follow me. I promise that you'll be okay. Nothing will happen to you. I'll be with you the whole way, this time."_

Nicole slowly approached the open doorway as Jacob stepped out into the hallway, and like a wary rabbit upon the field she poked her head slowly out of the opening, looking up and down the hallway in both directions. She almost half expected to see Isaac storming his way towards them from around some darkly shadowed corner, but as Jacob put a hand upon her shoulder with a reassuring nudge, she became a little less fearful. He raised his hand and pointed back down the hall towards the engine rooms.

_"Let's get outta here."_

Nicole smiled and nodded in avid agreement and followed closely behind as he led the way. She felt better the farther they got from the maintenance closet, and humbly fortunate to have been rescued from her predicament she was eager to join Jacob at his side, hardly noticing as she absently slipped her hand into his. Once they reached the main cargo elevator that led back out of Engineering, he called the lift and turned to her.

_"I gotta head to the Pilot's Nest. They're having some problems with the navigation systems, and I've been asked to check it out. So, we'll go together, sound good?"_

Again Nicole nodded fervently. The doors of the elevator opened upon its arrival, they both stepped in, and began their slow ascent to the upper level of the ship. In the short silence they spent together in the elevator, Nicole began to contemplate Jacob's statement, as it struck her odly for some reason. She tilted her head curiously.

_The Pilot's Nest?_

Nicole didn't reply, but simply stared at him as she knew of the Nest's complete devsatation. She tried to make sense of how it could be operating under those conditions, but as the elevator arrived on the topmost level and the doors opened, she dropped it in favor of the delight she now felt in the confirmation that she would walk through those Engineering Deck doors again after all.

"Wow... thanks, Jake."

He turned to her as they headed for the Tram Deck.

_"Thanks for what?"_

"For being my friend. I really... needed to see a friendly face for a change."


	27. Execution

**Chapter 27  
Execution  
****  
_"Destruction in the course of performing one's own duty is better than engaging in another's duties, for to follow another's path is dangerous."_  
- B.G., 3.35**

* * *

Jacob and Nicole arrived at the Bridge after a comfortable journey aboard the tram shuttle that was far too short for Nicole's satisfaction. As the shuttle slowed to a stop she balked at the idea of having to be on her feet again, turning to Jacob with a small, forced smile, and the two departed through its doors into a lively, crowded station. Nicole was surprised to see so many Ishimura inhabitants, even here at the boarding section of the Bridge's Tram Deck, and she tried to count the number that she saw. To her, the ship appeared to be as alive now as it was the day she first arrived herself, to serve her six months in the employee rotation.

Upon the memories of her virgin hours aboard the ship and of the bustling activity that had once sent her into so much excitement, Nicole's somber mood deepened. She followed along behind Jacob, silent as a ghost for quite a while as they pushed through the crowd to get further into the Bridge. She took some interest in the surroundings here and there, occasionally being distracted by the activity they passed. But for a majority of the time, she remained immersed within her own thoughts and wondering with trepidation exactly how her reunion with Isaac, when she eventually met back up with him, would turn out - even with Jacob to keep things civil.

Jacob felt her insecurity emanating like heat from behind him. He was concerned, but well knowing she was in the process of coming to terms with her traumatic experience he did not want to press her for more information, fearing that her already crushed spirit might disintegrate further with the exhaustion of an ancient fossil if forced to revisit the issue. He merely contained his sympathy and the resultant regret he now carried for having lost her in the Engineering Deck, allowing her to fall into the hands of someone who would subject her to such terrible acts of coercion... someone whom he was having a difficult time actually believing was Isaac. Still, despite the undying loyalty Jacob had for his long-time friend, as he recalled the few times indelibly etched into his memory where he had had to step in between them during a dispute, he could not ignore the fact that, as _her _long-time friend, Nicole still in some ways very much looked up to Jacob for protection from the man she couldn't otherwise live without.

_He should have been there. As a voice of reason, he could have easily prevented her pain._

As they both closed in on Control Central Nicole became anxious, remembering her last perilous trek through this very same sector with Isaac - the darkness, the devastation, and the hoard of monsters clipping at their backs were all she could see in her mind's eye. However, as they turned down the hallway leading to the Control Central room doors, she saw not only the entire area in perfectly operational condition but the walkway packed with workers.

_Everything was changing. Or **un**changing... Whatever.  
_

Nicole was so shocked that it took a moment before the view her eyes were picking up outside the massive, panoramic windows actually registered in her brain, and the revelation that she was once again glimpsing upon the expansive stretch of deep, dark space finally struck her. Jacob, who was far from the same level of amazement as his enchanted traveling companion, saw her hanging jaw and he smirked with an amused puff of his breath.

_"Uhh, you allright there, princess? __You're acting like you've never been aboard this thing."_

Nicole's attention was drawn back to him by the sound of his voice.

"... Wow. Ok. I'm not going to ask."

Spurred by her reply, Jacob now retracted his visor.

"Ask what?"

Nicole glanced down for a moment in thought. When she looked back up, all of the childlike wonder had vanished from her features, only to be replaced now with a stark line of solemnity.

"Jacob. This ship. It was in the ground. Wasn't it? I don't wanna ask, because I think it's going to make me sound crazy."

Jacob finally forced a tight, hesitant chuckle.

"Uhh, if that's the uhh, the way you feel, then maybe it's better if you don't ask."

Again, he chucked nervously in an attempt to be comical and uplifting, and Nicole smiled, becoming endeared by his awkward charm. Jacob looked at her for a long moment, his nervous, toothy grin relaxing into a tender smile, then further into a serious fault as he parted his lips to speak.

"Don't be afraid, Liz. I know it looks pretty bad right now... I know I've made a mess of things here... but I'm gonna fix all of it. And we're gonna get out this together. That's what I came to do. And that's exactly what we're _going_ to do."

Nicole beamed brightly; the soft tone of his voice was so familiar and reassuring, and she felt such a deep admiration for this man who seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. Yet, despite the ever expanding fondness she couldn't help but exude for her old friend, something about what he had just said struck her as oddly out of place.

_Wait... Did he just call her 'Liz'? _

Jacob's apparently having confused her with his own fiancée Elizabeth Cross perplexed her, but as overwhelmed by everything she had been forced to take in up to this point as she was, she was finding it increasingly difficult to cast judgment over any of Jacob's meager blunders. Figuring it was merely a slip of his tongue after having spent so much time with Elizabeth aboard the Ishimura, Nicole let it go.

_It didn't really matter. Who cared what he called her? Nicole, Elizabeth.. what was the difference, anyway? It was just a name. Just a name. _

After sharing a silent moment Jacob finally broke eye contact, replaced his visor, and led the way towards the lift that ascended to the Pilot's Nest. They entered the lift and Nicole chillingly remembered having to fight her way through this very same shaft, which at the time had collapsed upon its side into a tunnel of pure blackness, and her eyes entirely avoided the ceiling's access panel through which she had had to clamor through to avoid the poisoned, sweeping claws of her necrotic pursuers. The elevator stopped, the doors slid open and Nicole, still caught in the grip of fear, squeezed her eyes shut as they opened upon the interior of the Pilot's Nest. Unable to shake the horrifying memory of having been trapped in this very same room with Isaac's violent insanity, Nicole immediately pressed her hands to her face and jumped back right into Jacob.

"No!"

Half expecting to see the foul, decaying bodies of her and Isaac still dashed about the floor, Nicole refused to open her eyes or even step out of the elevator. However, she heard Jacob chuckle again behind her, and felt his hand upon her shoulder as he prompted her to step forward. She reluctantly opened her eyes, stepped into the room and saw that there was no such carnage visible anywhere within the Pilot's Nest. Seeing this her fear began to dwindle, and as intrigue began to fill the void left behind, Nicole looked around the room.

Though barely lit by any wall or ceiling lights, there was no shortage of illumination from the dazzling brilliance of the pilots' controls. She saw a plethora of three dimensional holoscreens, at various levels and spanning through the molecules of recirculated dust, blinking through fathoms of unreadable data, all before two flight seats holding a pair of pilots who toiled away at the controls. Nicole also saw that the front windows of the Nest were no longer crushed in as before, and the extra space established the entire structure as much larger and more complex than she had originally estimated.

Jacob walked past her and approached the two pilots, both of whom were barking commands at each other and totally oblivious to the man's arrival until he was practically upon them. Nicole stepped towards the back of the room and tried to stay out of the way, listening as they bantered back and forth with Jacob and talked in some strange, technical lingo she didn't really care to understand. After a little while her focus wandered, and her inevitably drifting eyes fell upon the floor by the first pilot's seat. Reminded of Isaac's own dead arm and torso wrapped around the base of the chair, she began to wonder if the experience had actually been real, and uncertainty filled her mind as her wary eyes shot back to the Pilot's Nest door.

_Did it happen? Or did the bodies just... get up and walk away?_

While the question Nicole posed to herself was really more rhetorical and not meant to be taken seriously, her recollection of the necromorphs' reanimating capabilities was all that kept her from dismissing the otherwise unreasonable idea entirely. Beginning to feel a little nervous, she turned her eyes back to the men and made a conscious effort from that point on to avoid even glancing at the floor beneath the pilot's seat.

* * *

The doors of the tram shuttle opened up at the Bridge and Isaac stepped out. As he did so, he saw a large crowd of crew members waiting on the Boarding Deck for the shuttles. He eyed the ship's inhabitants with a darkened glare as his ears were met with the sounds of background conversation from all around, but the very moment they became aware of him every last voice fell abruptly silent and all eyes turned to him. He slowed his descent from the shuttle as he realized their stares upon him, and proceeding further into the Bridge those who stood in his path receded from his approach like shadows from light. He remained silent, though not without a raised brow, and just passed through the gathering without a single word by neither mind nor mouth and crossed the threshold of the Bridge entrance. Even with his back to them, Isaac could still feel every last pair of eyes directly upon him, all the way up until he the thick reverberation of the solid steel doors slamming shut pounded through his body. Though he still found what was happening around him difficult to understand, it was getting much easier to simply accept it.

He walked in through the doors of Central Control and looked around at everything that was going on, intently examining the faces of everyone he passed. Though his purpose for coming to the Bridge was to find a way to stop the USG-CV4 from escaping back to the Sprawl or wherever it might have been headed, he felt a very familiar presence within the Central Control complex, somewhere very close by, and the need to seek it out distracted him from his goal, least for the moment. His wandering throughout the room introduced him to many new faces, but none of them familiar or that of the odd presence he detected, and as his glance fell out the massive bay windows Isaac again he saw the red, arid globe of Aegis7 barely rising into view towards the eastern side. He paused and stared darkly at it, as if trying to pinpoint just what it was about that place that seemed so inescapably evil.

"Isaac."

Isaac turned around at the sound of a voice from behind, and was met with an unexpected face that he recognized - Captain Zach Hammond, standing at a nearby terminal and engaged in examining various star maps. Isaac stopped and stared at him, remembering how Hammond had been torn apart by one of the wild, gargantuan Brutes wreaking havoc aboard the ill-fated USM Valor. But remembering Kyne and Mercer Isaac was not so shocked to see this man before him now, miraculously unharmed and operating aboard the USG Ishimura as if it he were one of its own. He watched in amazement as the man's hands ran flawlessly over the holographic controls in front of him until he finally raised his eyes to Isaac, never once breaking the steady rhythmic pattern of his hands' movement as he did so. As their eyes met, Hammond nodded and smiled tersely, then returned his eyes to the screen.

"Welcome back, Sir. We've been waiting for you."

Isaac scrutinized him without a word, seeing the man was exactly as he remembered him. Hammond was tall, even taller than Isaac, and broad shouldered with a strong, demanding frame that lent itself well to his rank as a commanding officer. His demeanor was reserved and cautious, and everything about him seemed very much human with the single exception of his incandescent, crimson red eyes, burning in their sockets like all the other necromorphs, and glimmering with a sense of intelligence and confidence that spanned beyond the obvious as they scanned the holoscreens back and forth. After Isaac took the moment to look him over he nodded in silent greeting to Hammond, who raised his hand and held it out respectfully to receive a handshake. Isaac warily obliged.

"You were waiting for me?"

Hammond, returning an undeviating stare, didn't seem to mind the resident paranoia present upon Isaac's face.

"Yes. We knew you would be here, around this time. Of course, we couldn't exactly narrow it down to a millisecond."

He briefly, restrictively chuckled, but just as quickly dropped it.

"We're ready when you are. Took the liberty of going through the charts, plotting a preliminary course. Take a look. It shouldn't be too difficult - pretty much a straight jump."

Isaac tilted his head.

"...What?"

"The original estimates of the fuel were off a bit. We're nearly full, but we lost a little more than we thought. Sorry for the oversight, Isaac."

Isaac had no idea what Hammond was talking about, but he was afraid to ask, and instead resorted to a deciphering effort of Hammond's agenda by exploring the various maps displayed across the screen of his holomonitor. He watched the imagery of various planets as they flashed by - most of which he recognized as planets he had been to at one time or another. As he studied the charts and the trajectory of Hammond's 'preliminary course', he realized that the Captain was plotting a straight line of travel through several recognizable star systems, ending within the most familiar of them all - the Solar System of Earth.

_Earth. Why was he plotting a course home?_

Isaac turned to Hammond, confused by his assuming that Isaac was aware of what he was talking about. His distraught, wandering eyes fell upon the display of the Ishimura's internal clock upon the holomonitors at the terminal, counting away the passing time down to the nanoseconds, and seeing they appeared to be operating normally he became curious to know if syncing with the ship at this point might finally prove to be successful. He turned to the communication device upon his sleeve and he activated the holodisplay, quickly pulling up the clock, and then he looked back to the internal clock of the Ishimura. Right away he realized that his own RIG was ahead of the Ishimura's clock by a little over 3 USO standard years.

"Everything okay?"

Isaac started slightly at Hammond's sudden, abrupt query and looked down irritably.

"...Yeah... No... just... my RIG is malfunctioning. The clock's drifted."

His eyes darted several times between his sleeve and Hammond's terminal, baffled by the conflicting data and unsure of which to trust, if either. He then looked back to Hammond with perplexity and pointed to the Ishimura's clock.

"That thing is right... isn't it?"

"Of course, Isaac. Don't worry about it, you just need to re-sync with the ship. It happens."

Hammond returned to his work upon the holomonitors and Isaac just stared blankly at him, plagued by a creeping sense of deja vu.

"N... Nevermind. We have to stop that boarding vessel... the CV4... that took off from the Colony. Can we stop it from here?"

Hammond acknowledged Isaac's question with a brief glance at the holomonitor before him, then followed with a slow shake of his head.

"Unfortunately, the CV4 is out of our range. We're getting a report that the onboard systems are damaged. Don't know who it was that launched it, but whoever they are, they apparently anticipated our attempt to recall their shuttle."

Isaac looked down in fear that something very bad was aboard that shuttle, and he knew that every second it was out in the open the chances of it being intercepted - and spreading whatever horror it contained - increased exponentially. However, it wasn't merely the possible threat that it posed to the outside world that worried him; the more he thought about the circumstances surrounding the CV4's departure, the more Kendra's explanations about what was happening over Aegis7 as a result of his exploitation of the Marker's power began to make sense to him. Indeed, he realized they were not in the here and now, but were in fact reliving a very familiar memory - standing at the cusp of Isaac's original escape from Aegis7, after his triumph over the Hive Mind and just moments before the planet itself seemed bound for total cataclysm. Isaac was stunned to realize that he was witnessing the replay of that very same escape scenario for himself, watching as he now headed back to the Sprawl, aboard the...

_... The USG-CV4._

He stopped.

_... It was him. Isaac Clarke... was on that shuttle. On his way back to the Sprawl. Somehow... there was no other explanation. Ouroboros._

Isaac squeezed his eyes shut at the painful sting of his own bloody perspiration as it trailed down into them. He could hear the faint, haunting cries of the Marker calling to him from the Ishimura's Flight Hangar, it's malevolent energy flowing through the ship and encroaching upon him like a plume of poisonous air only he could detect, and he immediately turned to Hammond.

"Wait. The Marker... it was on the Colony. When I... when... after leaving Aegis7... The Marker was still there. How did it get back aboard the Ishimura?"

Hammond raised an eyebrow.

"... Sir?"

Isaac failed to hear him, lost in his wild, deranged thoughts as he glanced out the window.

"... _Kendra! _It had to be her. Did she bring it back, Hammond? Did she? Is she fucking with me? How the fuck is she doing any of this?"

Again, Hammond looked surprised.

"Kendra...? No, that would... be impossible. Kendra's gone. She disappeared. We never found her."

Isaac fell silent, and Hammond looked upon him with growing concern, casting a few nervous side glances to some of the nearby crew members as they watched with starved, eager eyes. Isaac very briefly contemplated telling Hammond about his encounters with Kendra on the Colony and aboard the Ishimura wreckage, but for some strange reason he felt strongly dissuaded from revealing that information. He hardly heard as Hammond continued on.

"You brought the Marker back on board, Isaac. Something about, plans for it."

Isaac was worlds away.

_... Gone? Never found her? But he had just seen her... not even an hour ago!_

Hammond stopped and waited for a response that never came from Isaac. Upon the irrepressible silence, Hammond figured it best to fill the void.

"Well, at any rate, we've still got a few bugs to work out of the systems. There's a small problem the pilots have reported with the navigation system. We've already dispatched someone to check on it."

* * *

Nicole watched as the pilots got up from their chairs and parted from the controls, leaving Jacob to his work. Again she was puzzled by their lack of acknowledgment as they walked past her, never once having so much as even looked in her direction, and as they exited the room she twisted her lip, wondering if there was indeed something wrong with her or if perhaps they just weren't the most congenial sort of people. She quickly dropped the thought from her mind as the door slid closed, and she turned back to see as Jacob set to work. The peaceful silence that followed, interrupted only by the soft, muted sounds of his tools upon his belt as he moved about, finally afforded Nicole the opportunity to fully realize just how exhausted she was. Unsure of how long Jacob's work would take she decided that getting a little more comfortable might be in order and slowly sank to the floor, watching him quietly.

Jacob approached the second pilot's seat and slowly, cautiously sat down. Reaching his hands up to the control kiosk before him, he typed a few commands into the interface and paused to read the returning lines of code. After a few minutes of back-and-forth with the console he visibly expelled a sigh, and Nicole watched with interest how seriously he appeared to be taking his work. Every movement he made seemed slow, deliberate and accounted for, alert to the expense of wasted energy from an unplanned action, and his eyes remained intently locked upon the holomonitor for a few minutes before he finally rose to his feet again. He then stepped out of the chair and dropped to his knees, removed one of the metal panels lining the base of the control kiosk, and leaned in to look inside.

Despite the resident apprehension she carried of Isaac at this point, Nicole still couldn't help but be warmly reminded of him through Jacob's precise and experienced actions. To her, Jacob and Isaac had always been two very like minds sharing traits and mannerisms, and it was no wonder that they had naturally become and remained friends for so many years. Even more so it wasn't surprising that, having known them both for just as long, Nicole herself had developed an almost equal affection between them - though what she reserved for Jacob had, as a result of fractional preference for Isaac, never been fully realized. Now, seeing Jacob engrossed in his instinctive skill as an engineer in even an almost identical capacity as Isaac, Nicole felt as the experience only further defined the conflicting attachment she was feeling for the both of them. She smiled a little, almost invulnerable in that brief moment in Jacob's presence.

_So much alike._

Nicole noted as his stiff, sobering posture only seemed to intensify as he looked inside the control kiosk, how solemnly he paused upon the rack of computer innards. Jacob glanced back at her for a moment, the aqueous green glowing bands of his visor burning eerily through the dust, then he turned back to the kiosk as he seemed to be thinking upon something and he reached inside. Nicole straightened her back at his glance upon her; though his body language seemed a little odd, the comfort she took in her budding fondness for Jacob as she watched him distracted her from dwelling on what seemed to be an underlying tone of unexplained nervousness on his part.

Jacob leaned further into the machine, an act that didn't seem to be out of place to Nicole until he started jerking on the cables within it, apparently attempting to disconnect some of them. It wasn't the act itself so much as the subliminal tension she sensed in his actions, and it began to unsettle her. Though she wasn't an engineer by any means, she still suspected that something just wasn't right about what he was doing, the way he was going about it. Her face twisted in perplexity.

"... Jake?"

Her voice was quiet, a little lean on confidence as she felt a chill run through her. He failed to acknowledge her, apparently having not heard her so engrossed in his work, and as she narrowed her eyes upon him, she could see that he was clearly anxious. Unable to account for his behavior she began to look nervously around the room, her attention briefly pulled away by the quaint, distant bellowing of the ship's hull. When she looked back at Jacob, she saw that he had completely disconnected several wires within the console and was now returning the metal panel to the side of the kiosk. Once he pressed the grate against the frame he rose to his feet, slowly approached and took the pilot's seat once again to interact with the terminal. Though she wanted to get his attention, Nicole was a bit apprehensive to approach and instead resorted to calling to him.

"Hey, Jake."

Again, Jacob either failed to hear her, or was simply ignoring her. He spread his hands across the holographic keyboard and tapped nervous, jittery fingers upon the keys. Nicole eyed his every movement like a hawk, and she could tell that he was shivering. Alarmed by this, her senses immediately peaked until she could hear his heavy breaths even from his helmet, and she could almost smell the heated salt of his sweat from beneath his suit. Clearly something was wrong, and becoming frighteningly concerned Nicole stepped toward him.

"Hey! What's..."

She was suddenly interrupted by a loud, rapid alarm as it resounded throughout the Pilot's Nest, and she jumped back with a startled shriek. She then turned to Jacob, and saw that even as he clearly was capable of hearing the alarm and the console at his fingertips was flashing angrily with critical warnings, he didn't respond to it. He simply stared at the screen, and seeing his lack of desire to intercept the emergency, Nicole suddenly realized what there was only one explanation for what was going on.

_He was purposely damaging the system!_

* * *

Isaac was beyond hopelessness in his attempts to fully comprehend what was happening within Aegis7's grasp. He forced mad calculations through his head, jamming the few scattered pieces of information he had into an ever expanding, still undecipherable puzzle, trying to build a foundation of sane reasoning based on the one fact that he knew - that the Marker had brought them all back in time to some point. He quickly began to ponder over all of the aspects of his initial journey in a chronological order, approaching many significant events that had, in light of more pressing matters, slipped his mind. He now recalled the Ishimura's shattered observation deck alongside it's otherwise immaculate condition, which in hindsight now seemed should have been much, much worse due to certain circumstances that only just now came to mind with full clarity. Isaac turned to Hammond, demanding answers of which he suspected in the back of his mind weren't so much lacking as they were simply needing confirmation.

"Where's the Valor, Captain? The USM Valor? What happened to it? And the Ishimura... the Valor had smashed right into it! What happened?"

Hammond raised his eyebrows to acknowledge Isaac's question.

"You've been on this ship too long, Isaac. You're losing it."

He chuckled, then quickly straightened his face as he saw that Isaac did not share in his amusement.

"But... yes, we did run into the Valor. After they were invaded by whatever was on that escape pod, I guess they lost flight control. It did hit us, but it just caught one of the outer observation decks. We managed to turn and clear the path in time... well, the major part of it, anyway."

"And how the hell did that happen?"

Again, Hammond blinked.

"... You told us."

"I _told_ you?"

"Yes. You're the one who knew it was coming. You warned us, and we had enough time to alter our course. Have to say, Isaac - your calculations were right on track. Impeccable. we're glad you're here, we really are. No one on this ship knows what you know."

Isaac sighed, again coming to see his own culpability in what was spanning beyond his ability to recall it.

_If it was Hammond's opinion that Isaac was the most knowledgeable of anyone aboard the Ishimura, then clearly the man's __judgment was skewed - and they were **all** fucked._

A loud, resonant alarm unexpectedly sounded from Hammond's terminal. They both turned their eyes to it, and Hammond tapped a few keys. After a brief examination of the incoming messages, he looked up at Isaac.

"There's something wrong in the Pilot's Nest. The systems are shutting down. Isaac, you'd better go check it out, since you're here."

Hammond immediately paused, as if sensing the inappropriateness of his informality despite Isaac's clearly having no objections to it.

"That is, if you so desire... Sir. Or we'll send someone else."

Isaac noted the irony in Hammond's submissive response, considering that in former times before the Marker, he had once been Isaac's superior. Still, he returned nothing but a blank, unreadable stare at Hammond, and without a further word he made his way through Control Central towards the Pilot's Nest elevator. As he neared it, the overwhelmingly familiar presence Isaac had been feeling all along throughout the Bridge again struck him, and as he stepped in to descend to the Nest, the more he could feel it. The strength in the sentient signal alone sent Isaac into an obsessive frenzy, and he became driven mad to find its source.

_Somehow, it had something to do with the omen he had witnessed that day in the Pilot's Nest. Of that, he was absolutely certain. _

* * *

Nicole was mortified by what was going on. Her first instinctive reaction was to stop Jacob from causing any further damage somehow, though she wasn't certain about how she was going to do it, and she quickly ran up behind him, grabbing him by the shoulder to pull him back.

"Jacob... stop it! What are you doing? !"

The moment her hand fell upon him he twisted around, grabbed her arm and wrenched it from his shoulder. Holding her in his grip he forced her back, and she was repelled by the pure terror emanating from his entire being. From behind his thick metal helmet he cried out in a voice both dark and pleading.

_"No - No! Listen to me, we have to do this! We can't let this go on! It's just gonna get worse!"_

Nicole's heart palpitated in response to his crazed, almost savage behavior. Not only did she not understand what he was talking about, but she simply couldn't understand why he would be doing such a thing as this, knowing how many poor, unsuspecting souls were aboard the Ishimura who would be affected by the outcome of his system-wide sabotage. She was still terrified, but knowing that she had to do something to prevent a future calamity from occurring she shielded herself with her arms and again attempted to pull him away from what he was doing. Again he brutally resisted her, and she had to fight back the urge to scream and run as the heavy, almost barbaric design of his suit and visor made him appear like some maniacal, rampaging robot towering over her.

"Jacob! What the, what the fuck are you doing, huh? You're gonna kill all of us!"

As he came to his senses Jacob realized that his aggression towards her had been an autonomous response that he had no control over. He immediately stopped fighting with her, raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and shook his head, and every single one of his movements appeared to be cowering in the face of a deep, inner fear. He took a step closer to her, and as he had to shout over the alarms of the failing computer system she could feel the dire urgency of his tone resonate right through her.

_"Don't be afraid, Liz! We have to fix this. If we don't... something very bad is going to happen. I'm so sorry... I don't know why I feel this way, but I'm sure of it. That's why I brought you here, because I can't do this... alone. I need you here with me. You have to trust me!"_

As terrified as Nicole was of the chaos unfolding around her she just stared at him, absorbing his words and becoming lost in them. Her eyes were locked dead upon him, enchanted even as the subzero grip of panic immobilized all of her outer senses, and some small part within her felt fully secure in his austere stare. Her tone calmed as she again pressed him.

"... Jake... why? Why are you doing this?"

Jacob slowly reached up and retracted his helmet. Upon the exposure of his face she saw it was red, wet with tears, and he was bitterly swallowing back his grief like bile in his throat.

"I... I didn't mean for this to happen... I didn't know it would turn out like this. I wasn't... trying to hurt it. All I wanted... was to see you again. Just one more time. I know I, I have to let go, but... it's just, so goddamn hard..."

The corners of Nicole's eyes and lips dropped more the further she listened to his sad, heartfelt words.

"Jake, please... don't do this. You _can't_ do this. You can't kill all of these people. Whatever it is, it doesn't have to be this way."

Jacob paused and Nicole tensed, sincerely hoping that he would reconsider his course of action. After a long moment of silence between them, he finally shook his head.

"Don't worry, baby. This will all be over soon."

He quickly turned back around and Nicole, shocked to see that she had not deterred him, again jumped towards him with the intent to stop him now by force. However he resisted her like a brick wall, and as she failed to land a solid grasp she resorted to balling her fists and pounding upon his back and shoulders with all of her strength. Though she had little impact upon him at first, adrenaline boiled over into outright rage and her persistence quickly took its toll. He lost his footing as she finally managed to yank him back, but in his infuriated desire to finish his task Jacob whirled around and with a vicious sneer clenched her solidly by the arms. Immobilized in his grasp Nicole could only stare into his eyes like trapped game, and in his anger Jacob shoved her as hard as could to get some distance between them. Nicole stumbled backwards several feet and tripped, pitching back against and slamming into a nearby wall as Jacob growled at her.

"I said _get away!"_

To Jacob, the entire scenario was an instantaneous blur of catastrophe within the span of a few fractured seconds. The spurt of blood, along with the piercing scream of pain she emitted as she fell, immediately seized all of his attention away from what he was doing. As he stared at her body angled awkwardly against the wall, he realized - much to his great horror - that in her fall Nicole had landed on a sharp, metal grounding rod that was protruding from the base of the navigation console. Sharp as it was it had stabbed through her shoulder like a blade, then tore through part of her upper chest as her weight fell against it in the fall. Jacob's heart stopped as he saw what had transpired, and seeking to aid her he ran to her side and wrapped his arms around her.

"Liz! Shit... Oh god, I'm so... oh, _**FUCK!**_"

Nicole darted her hot, tear-stricken eyes around frantically as she tried not to scream. He nervously but carefully pulled her off of the metal rod, curling his lip at the sound of her flesh in the friction of extraction, and he laid her down onto the floor. Heartbroken, he ran his hands over her face, brushing her hair and blood away and looking into her eyes through the tears of his own unbearable remorse. He then turned to the gaping wound in her chest and shoulder, watching with horror as it bled profusely all over the floor. Nicole's condition rapidly weakened, her panicked cries dwindled into soft whimpering. Absolutely terrified all Jacob could do was helplessly witness the life drain from her eyes, and looking to console her in any way he could he squeezed her hands lovingly with his own.

"Please, I'm so sorry, Liz. I love you. I've always loved you. I don't want it anymore... It's okay... I'm here with you now. Just let me just finish this. Let me get rid of this thing, once and for all. Then we can be together. Forever."

As Jacob looked into her eyes, a deep inner voice suddenly pulled his attention to the Pilot's Nest doors.

_Sacrifice is inevitable._

Just seconds later they slid open and an intimidatingly dark figure strode wildly into the room, staring directly at Jacob through a blackened, titanium visor ominously illuminated by white hot light traces. Nearly blinded by it Jacob leaned back at the man's approach, and feeling threatened he sealed his own visor, raised his hands and began to step back from Nicole's body. The figure stopped upon Jacob, staring him down like a savage black dragon poised to attack, but instead he lowered his head to look at Nicole. As the bright illumination of his visor cast harshly across her bloodied features, her eyes widened in fearful but loving recognition.

"Oh... Is... Isaac..."

Stunned by Nicole's response Jacob looked up nervously at the dark, metal shielded man.

"_Isaac?_ That you? What the hell?"

Isaac just stood completely still, ignoring Jacob for the moment as he couldn't bring himself to break eye contact with Nicole. The pace of his breathing hastened in anger as he came to realize that not only had Nicole been mortally wounded, but as he sensed the energy upon the air between himself and Jacob, he now also knew that this man was the gnawing presence he had been feeling the entire time. Still, Nicole's condition far outweighed the obsession Isaac carried to confront this presence, and turned his attention to helping her. He saw the injury inflicted to her arm and the pool of blood expanding from beneath it, and as he stared deep into her eyes and she into his, with her last, waning breath her glossy, bloodshot spheres suddenly went dim.

Witnessing her death, Isaac was devastated. As he fell to his knees he retracted his visor, then gently lifted her into his lap and pressed his forehead to hers.

"Baby... wake up. Please, wake up."

However, Isaac received no response from her. As he held her limp body in his arms he swayed repetitively back and forth with rising tempest, becoming more heartbroken and agitated with each passing second, and he began to moan in sorrow. He gripped the back of his head tightly with his twisted, inhuman hand, venting his anger and mortification in small, furious gasps. After several long, tense moments, he lifted his head and roared in agony.

"Why? Why, **_fucking why_?"**

Jacob was absolutely appalled by the scene; he had never seen an outburst so horrifying, so lamentable... nor had he ever seen anyone so frightening as Isaac was in his moment of grief. His eyes shot to the mutated extension of Isaac's hand, and becoming even more fearful of what he was seeing he just watched as Isaac adoringly petted the side of Nicole's face with soft, gentle strokes. He begged for her to come back to him, smearing blood across her face from his fingertips, unable to tear himself away from her body and all along sorely wishing she would simply sit up and start arguing with him. But as the time progressed and Nicole remained lifeless in his grasp, Isaac finally came to understand that she really was dead. In that brief period of revelation, Isaac's energy became catatonically withdrawn and he appeared lifeless along with her.

When Isaac finally moved again, it was to turn his burning red eyes upon Jacob. As Isaac sealed himself once again behind his faceless helmet, Jacob suddenly felt the heat of his incinerating stare even through the solid, metal plating of it. His spine ran cold, he swallowed hard against a lump in his throat and he put his hands up, instinctively feeling the need to retreat from this wild man who stared upon him aggressively. Jacob immediately tried to explain himself, stuttering with fear.

"I, Isaac... It, it was an, an accident... Listen to me... We, we started... we started fighting... She fell. I didn't mean to hurt her. I swear to you. Y... you, you know I wouldn't do that. I would... I could never do that."

Isaac didn't even hear Jacob's pleas. All he could hear was the man's blood as it coursed through his veins, accompanied by the maddening Red Marker's choir of voices as they screamed at Isaac from deep within his head.

**_make us whole sacrifice is inevitable keep us whole safekeeper he by whom we live lord of the near and nigh we are his slaves_**

Isaac gently laid Nicole's limp, lifeless body back down and he stood to his feet. Turning around to face Jacob his eyes fell upon the damaged control kiosk, and his voice, dark and eerily degenerated by the baffling effect of his helmet, resounded through the air.

_"...What do you think you're doing, Jake?"_

Jacob stammered. Sidetracked by Nicole's tragedy he had forgotten about his attempt to sabotage the ship, and reminded of it now by Isaac's threatening tone, he became even more terrified. Still, he knew now, with Nicole dead, that he was the only one who might be able to talk some logical sense into Isaac.

"... Something... something's wrong... The Marker... we... we have to... destroy it."

Isaac stepped forward towards Jacob. He balled his fists, becoming lost upon a rapidly rising tide of rage. Jacob backed away, inching towards the pilot's control kiosk.

"We have to stop this. I'm stopping this. This... has to end, Isaac. There is no other way! You have to listen to me."

They both paused, frozen in a second of time as Jacob darted his eyes to the control kiosk. He moved to take a step towards it, but before the impulse even completed its process Isaac was already charging for him. In the span of a quick, short breath Isaac closed the gap between them, collided directly into Jacob's chest with his shoulder and slammed him violently to the ground. Startled but determined to defend himself Jacob now turned on Isaac, quickly sealing his visor for protection and raising his hands to hold him at bay. However Isaac's strength was irrefutable, and as he tackled Jacob he quickly overpowered the man. Isaac raised his fist and with several strong swings connected with the side of Jacob's helmet, rattling it and his head inside so hard that he became severely disoriented. Isaac stared down at Jacob, who was now aimlessly tossing his hands about in a fevered attempt to regain his ground.

Seeing as Jacob was incapacitated for the time being, Isaac turned his focus to the navigation control kiosk. He stepped up to it, glanced down at the screen and read the warning messages. His eyes then fell to the metal panel upon the kiosk's base, and seeing that it wasn't properly bolted into place he swiftly kicked it, watching as it tumbled over to expose the access hole. Isaac examined the torn wiring, reaching his hand in and pulling them out one by one to see which ones Jacob had disconnected. Then he returned to the terminal's holoscreen and keypad, and he began to deprogram all of Jacob's shutdown attempts. After a few minutes of analyzing the computer's responses, Isaac smiled evilly from beneath his visor.

_"Impressive. Those are some clever back door reroutes you've got there. I see you've learned a thing or two from me."_

His amusement quickly vanished and he again stepped in towards Jacob with returning hatred. Gripping him by the collar of his RIG Isaac lifted him with a strength that was surprising. Unhindered by Jacob's feeble attempts to break free as he dangled helplessly in his grip, Isaac dragged him back to the control kiosk.

_"But now, you've overstepped your boundaries."_

Isaac reached to the keypad, punched in a few more codes, and the navigation system finally normalized; the warning alarms fell silent, and the holoscreens ceased their angry red flashing. As Isaac held him firmly in his grasp, he somehow managed to access Jacob's RIG through his own in order to permanently deactivate the man's helmet, depriving him of its protection. He then droppd him, and Jacob quickly pulled himself away as soon as he hit the floor, gasping for air.

"No... you're making... a mistake, Isaac!... Don't... do this!"

_"Jacob, you are misled. You need to get with the fucking program around here."_

Jacob only shook his head even more intensely.

"You don't understand! It... it's controlling you. It's manipulating you, don't you see that? If you seal the bond..."

Isaac's mind began to drift from Jacob's pleas to the baneful cries of the Marker emanating in deafening frequency from the back of his skull. He could again taste that rancorous presence, like blood that sent his tongue salivating, as Jacob begged with wide, orbicular eyes. He continued to stare at Jacob without falter, examining the turbulent movements of his pupils, the hairline cracks of his face, his sweating, blistered skin, all until he finally pinned down what it was that he was sensing, who it was Isaac actually saw behind Jacob's dull, puppeted, crimson red eyes. He knew one thing - this was not Jacob.

"It will never let you go, no matter what you do!"

_It was not Jacob Temple. _

"She isn't real, Isaac. None of this is. Only the Marker is real... and it has to be destroyed!"

_It was himself._

While unable to believe what he was seeing, Isaac found himself just as incapable of denying the recognition of his own dark, consuming energy, like an indelible thumbprint, somehow concealed behind the empty eyes of Jacob Temple's infected bodily vessel. Stunned by this, Isaac suddenly lost the verve to continue terrorizing the man and instead turned back to Nicole's body. He became enraged as his eyes fell upon her dead figure, seeing that Jacob's being responsible for her death was even more abominable now that Isaac came to understand that perhaps it never really was Jacob Temple's doing at all.

_What... ungodly evil was this Marker?_

Isaac continued to stare at Nicole, finally retracting his visor. His face became streaked in blood red tears as the impact of her suffering now began to bloom upon him with devastating effect. Bewildered by his sadness and the insufferable desire for vengeance, Isaac whirled back around and glared at this man who, regardless of the identity that haunted him from within, he now saw only as his enemy. Without a word he stepped forth, steadily heading right for Jacob as the man now began to back away in fear. Isaac closed in, Jacob raised his arms in frightened defense, and he cried out.

**"Isaac!"**

Isaac stepped in and swung out viciously with his left arm, catching the angle of his elbow around Jacob's neck. He wrapped the rest of his arm tightly about Jacob's head, clutching his skull so tightly with his powerful, mutated fingers that he tore into the flesh of his scalp and face down to the bone, and as Jacob screamed and flailed in desperation, Isaac snapped his neck with the force of his bare hand. He heard the loud, sharp crack of Jacob's vertebrae, followed by a very brief gurgling in his throat and the sudden dead weight of his body as his life force vanished and he collapsed against Isaac's side. Isaac continued to hold Jacob's head with an ever tightening grip until, with a quick, violent thrust, he tore it clear from Jacob's neck. The headless, convulsing frame of his body balanced precariously on its knees for a few seconds before it finally toppled over backwards and fell to the floor just underneath the pilot's chair. Isaac looked at the bloody mess at his feet, then angrily lobbed Jacob's disconnected head at the wall, watching the fleshy remains explode violently upon impact to leave a long, thick, dark trail of splattered blood behind.

_Whoever you are... you won't be causing any more problems. Friend._

As his rage subsided and he came to the realization of what he had just done, Isaac stood silently in the center of the room in complete shock. He blinked his eyes and shook his head as if having been released from a trance, and he now looked down with horror at his chest and forearms to find himself covered with blood. He glanced nervously back down to Jacob's headless corpse, then over to Nicole. Plagued by remorse for her pitiful death he walked over to her, fell to his knees and picked her up in his arms. He failed to detect any signs of life in her, and his heart slowly collapsed as he stared into her glassy, blank eyes, frozen open in a peaceful, dead stare at the ceiling. He leaned in over her, burying his face into her neck and streaking her skin with his own bloody tears, gently stroking the soft curves of her body with shaking hands. After he had had enough, concluding that there was nothing further he could do, Isaac lowered his head and closed his eyes.

"... Isaac...?"

He was startled to hear Nicole's voice. Isaac quickly opened his eyes and looked down into his lap to see Nicole staring back up at him with round, glimmering eyes, her face drawn tight with fear and disorientation. Her glance shot wildly around the room, she immediately bolted upright, and Isaac was shocked to see her come back to life with virtually no effort. Upon the recognition of him her crazed, frightened expression softened with sweet relief, she straightened herself until she was directly facing him upon her knees, and looked deeply into his dark, inverted eyes.

"Oh god..."

She slowly pulled her hand to her shoulder, which much to Isaac's complete astonishment appeared to no longer be bleeding. She clutched at it and stared off distantly into the darkness.

"Jake... he... he attacked me! He went crazy... was trying to... to kill us, Isaac! Can you believe that?"

As she spoke, she suddenly saw the dead body of Jacob sprawled beneath the pilot's seat, and her eyes flooded over with moisture that shimmered against the titian illumination of the room. Tears quickly spilled forth down her face, and she now turned to Isaac with an even more petrified look.

"What... what happened to him? Oh no, what happened to him, Isaac? You didn't... hurt him, did you?"

He neglected to answer her, and he just stared silently into her eyes, counteracting the terror in her with his own solid, immovable gravity. Her lips trembled, and unable to continue looking at the macabre sight of Jacob's decapitated body she reached out with her arms and wrapped them around Isaac's waist, pressing her face into his abdomen and hugging him tightly. She could barely get the words out as her voice collapsed.

"I knew... I knew you'd come... I should have never..."

Isaac returned her embrace without a word, so grateful to have her with him again despite the illogicality it posed. He glanced down to her chest and shoulder, and saw that while her clothing was torn and red with blood he could no longer see a wound of any kind. Though there appeared to be no further need for worry, still seeing her before him finally broke his catatonic trance of amazement. With ever mounting concern he panicked nonetheless, gripping her head between his hands, looking into her eyes and frantically prompting her to respond.

"Are you ok?... Are you ok? Oh, Nicki... _are you ok?"_

She nodded tearfully and the expression upon her face sagged heavy as she tried to avoid his eyes, ashamed that he had to find her in such a pathetic condition. Isaac was moved by her modesty and humiliation, he leaned in and kissed her gently as he wrapped his arms around her. Holding her in his embrace he continued to probe her mind, to discern her thoughts until he came across a deep, inner fear she was attempting with great effort to conceal. He was immediately reminded of his gross mistreatment of her, and overcome by guilt he looked down.

"I'm so sorry, Nicki. Please... You have to forgive me. I don't know what I was thinking... I... I love you. I love you with all my heart. I would give anything for you. And I would never hurt you. Ever."

Upon the final word Isaac raised a hand to his face in shame. Hiding within the darkened shadow of his palm proved to be of little comfort, and he felt as Nicole reached up, grabbed his hand and pulled it back until he could see her again. He was at least pleased to see a warm, albeit exhausted smile upon her face, and it instantly rekindled the flame of hope within him.

"It's okay. You don't ever have to apologize for anything. This... everything is my fault. It's all my fault... I made a mistake. I know that. I love you, Isaac."

Tucked lovingly in each others' arms, they both very briefly forgot just how miserable they were. However, their solace was soon shattered by an incoming call on Isaac's RIG. The portable holmonitor's blaring light invaded their space with Hammond's imagery, and the hiss of monotone static cut through the air.

_"Isaac? Isaac... Are you alright?"_

Isaac winced, sensitive to the light, and looked into the holomonitor.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

_"Everything seems to be back online. Is everything ok in there?"_

"Everything's fine. I... fixed it."

Hammond nodded, and his concerned expression began to fade.

_"... Alright. Good. Let us know if you need anything, Sir."_

The imagery abruptly fell away as the signal ended, and once again they were left in the gently lit Pilot's Nest. Isaac sighed, then glanced down... and saw that Nicole was gone. In her place was the body of someone who, though he faintly recognized, was clearly not her.

"What the..."

His mood shifted from inconsolable despair to equivocal puzzlement the instant it dawned upon him that it wasn't Nicole. The tears immediately evaporated, his brows lifted with confusion, and the tide of grief that he had been drowning in instantly receded at this unexpected variable tossed into the equation.

_This... was not Nicole. But, he did remember her._

He delved into the furthest recesses of his brain, searching for a name to apply to this distantly familiar face. After some silent deliberation, he recalled the woman he had once met back at the Hydroponics Lab.

_Elizabeth Cross._

Isaac looked over Elizabeth's body and saw the same gaping wound in her shoulder and chest that he had initially seen upon Nicole. He stared into her glazed, dead eyes, scanning to see if there was any consciousness left, and upon the confirmation that this infected vessel was empty he lowered it to the floor and slowly rose to his feet. The fact that he had practically no attachment to this stranger had changed the gruesome scenario entirely to Isaac; he was no longer debilitated by his emotions, but his sorrow had now been replaced with great concern and as to where Nicole actually was, or where she had gone to... or how she had ended up trading places with Elizabeth.

Upon this strange revelation Isaac turned right away to Jacob's body beneath the pilot's chair. As he saw how it was positioned upon the floor, Isaac thought back upon the horrifying vision he had seen in the Pilot's Nest and slowly, carefully approached the headless body. As he came close enough he glanced down to look at the chest - specifically, the CEC company tag.

**[J. TEMPLE _ 2nd. Eng., Mining Operations]  
[CONCORDANCE EXTRACTION CORPORATION]**

With his back towards the Pilot's Nest doors and his brain lost deep in serious thought over the death of his friend, Isaac did not right away notice as a slender, vile figure slipped silently into the room. She snuck up behind him as discreetly as possible, but just a few feet shy of being right on top of him Isaac immediately detected her scent upon the air - along with her foul snicker of disdain. Feeling violated all over again, Isaac refused to respond to her as her voice sliced through his head.

_How so very clever. You're a quick study, you know that? Still... you forget the most important rule. _

Though he had no desire to engage her, Isaac eventually turned around and saw Kendra standing right behind him. Her dark, ominous eyes jumped back and forth between the dead bodies on the floor with demonic glee, and as she recognized the female she tilted her head.

_Did you really think you were going to be able to stop me... by destroying the Marker? _

Isaac's eyes shot up at her with alarm.

_Destroy the Marker? What are you talking about? I wasn't trying..._

_C'mon, Isaac. I know what you were up to. But it's okay. I forgive you. Eventually, you'll come to terms with the fact that I'm not the bad guy here. I'm just trying to keep it together for the both of us. _

Again she examined the body of Elizabeth upon the floor. With a disapproving cluck of her tongue and shake of her head, Kendra looked back at Isaac.

_You're not saving Nicole from anyone but yourself. _

Kendra was still met with silence, and she pressed her hands to her hips.

_So, just where did your little girlfriend go, anyway? Huh? Do you know that?_

Isaac just stared at the floor, not wanting to look at any part of her, and trying desperately to deduce some logical conclusion that didn't involve admitting he had completely lost his mind.

_... She's... she just got scared, that's all. You probably fucking scared her, being the bitch that you are. I'll find her._

Kendra smirked at him.

_You're not gonna find shit. We've been over this. You're just making things worse. _

She gently placed her hands upon his shoulders and he shriveled at her touch, but she remained undeviating in her determination.

_I don't care what it takes, Isaac. I'm going to get through to you... one way or another. We're in this together... and no matter what you think you can do, there's no turning back._


	28. Surveying The Damage

**Chapter 28  
Surveying The Damage**

**_"That determination which cannot go beyond dreaming, fearfulness, lamentation, moroseness, and illusion-such unintelligent determination is in the mode of darkness."_  
- B.G., 18.35**

* * *

_A young, wily woman opens her eyes for what feels like the first time, even while knowing this scene intimately like clockwork. She runs her fingers through hair as dark as her eyes and she deeply exhales, seemingly a virgin act of release she has never before experienced in such a way. As she does so she can see a large, obsidian rock, glowing a faint red and taller than she, is emerging from the darkness in front of her, and it is the only solid thing in an otherwise endless void of blackness. Seeking to be in its light, no matter how meager, she throws herself at the rock, grabbing for it, scaling its side and pulling herself up onto it. Finally, clinging to the thin spire of its peak with arms and legs wrapped about, she raises wild, restless eyes toward the indiscernible space above where the sky should be. _

_In this direction as well, she can see nothing. Nothing, except for what appears to be a very faint pinprick of flickering, inconstant light, fluttering above like a dying flame seen from miles away. As dim as it is, she almost doubts it is even real until it twinkles again with momentarily peaked brightness that recaptures her attention. She now becomes focused upon it, trying to discern it's obscured details through the darkness until she realizes that, judging by its size, it isn't something small and near; it is instead something distant, very large, and approaching at a rapid speed. The closer it becomes the easier it is to see, and she folds an eyebrow as she sees trails of light sputtering out from beneath it. After a few minutes of watching in utter perplexity, as she finally comes to recognize what it is, her blood runs cold._

The planetcork. Falling from the sky, and about to destroy everything.

_She now knows that she, and every other living thing else upon Aegis7, is about to die. Realizing that her __time is very limited, she finds it in herself to cry to the heavens._

Where are you? Why did you leave me here?

_She falls silent and waits, hoping that someone, if not the faint stars or even the rapidly disintegrating mass of rock descending from above, might respond. But she is met only with silence. __Again, she raises her voice._

What are you trying to tell me?

_Still, there is no reply._

How many times must we go through this?

_Once more, she pauses and waits. And once more, she is disappointed with no return. Hopeless to think that she'll ever be heard, she hangs her head and wonders if she should simply vanish back into the darkness, to become obscured and forgotten along with the rest of time's passing._

**... help**

_She stops as she instantly recognizes the voice that suddenly pounds through her head, and her heart skips a beat. Though it is an intimately familar voice to her, she can sense right away that something is wrong in its quivering, unevenly paced tone, like the gasping breaths of someone trapped and freezing beneath ice._

What is it? Tell me. I am here.

_Even the ether seems to stop all around her, and after a break of silence that seems to last an eternity she hears the whispering evolve into a cold, steady voice.  
_

**help me.**

_Once again her eyes drift to the sky to catch a glimpse of the falling planetcork, large as an asteroid in her vision and glowing white-hot beneath the force of its apocalyptic descent. In the few seconds before the blackness all around her is lost to complete annihilation, she speaks her last words._

This isn't over, Isaac. I'm coming for you.

* * *

The old Counselor's eyes flew open and she bolted up to find herself panicked, in a cold sweat, and upon the threshold of having screamed out in her sleep. Even upon opening her eyes she was not sure if she had entirely eluded the grasp of the chaotic nightmare that had awakened her so, and they darted nervously around her darkened chamber aboard the Sprawl in some effort to confirm the reality of her surroundings. She realized by the burning in her withered, old chest that she had been holding her breath, and she immediately released it, closing her eyes again. In the intermission of silence that followed she turned to the holodisplay upon her nightstand and read the time, noting it to be in the early morning hours, and saw that once again she had not been able to sleep through an entire night.

_Sleep. The concept had become so foreign to her lately._

Though she had indeed become rather estranged to sleep, it wasn't difficult to understand why. The waking nightmares had been a routine experience for the Counselor; dire visions of the Marker and Aegis7 whose frequency of recurrence was only increasing as time progressed, and with it the exhausting effect it was all having upon the haggard, old woman. Her constant concerns over the Marker extraction project, and the clandestine secret she was fighting to keep of her hand in Isaac's escape and interjection, had become intrinsic points of anxiety that afforded her little time nowadays to even consider the luxury of rest. In addition to her own battle to keep things in order, the dark, suffocating turn her foretelling dreams had taken in recent weeks did nothing but add to the burden she carried by suggesting that the very pivotal point upon which her entire operation balanced was an inconceivably unpredicable madman, infected by the Marker beyond control and running loose upon a cursed, abandoned planet light years away with the very source of its evil at his unlimited disposal.

_What had she done? Had she made yet another mistake?_

Lost in her troubled thoughts, it hadn't immediately dawned upon the Counselor that something was wrong. Though it was a rather insignificant piece of data to be easily overlooked considering the weight upon her already overtaxed mind, as her tired eyes gazed upon the soft, alluring glow of the holodisplay, that otherwise negligible discrepancy suddenly stood out to her like a candle in the dark.

_The date was wrong. The hackneyed network on this station couldn't stay properly synced for five goddamn minutes. _

She pulled the sheets off of herself and sat up, turning her cold, slate eyes out her bedroom window to the dark expanse of space outside, which in its impenetrable blackness offered her no method to gauge any sort of time's passing. Feeling a strange sense of urgency within she reached for her robe, turned to the communications panel and dialed in on the holopad. The static imagery flickered for a few seconds, and the Counselor tapped nervous nails against the hard, oak paneling of her nightstand as she awaited a response.

_Come on, you bastard. _

The screen's display tuned in to a view of the Overseer's office, and she was greeted with the ancient, wrinkled face of the old man as he approached the device on his end. Recognizing who it was his stiff, cinereal stare hovered and he quietly waited for the Counselor to initiate the conversation, but when he saw her deeply troubled expression accompanied with no standard greeting, he knew it was something urgent.

_"Madam... what's going on? What do you need?"_

The Counselor looked down from his glare.

"... I've received another message. Yes. I'm sure of it."

_"... A message?"_

She hesitated.

"... It... it's different. Different from the last one, the way as I explained it."

_"... Again? Do you think it means anything?"_

"I don't know. I _do_ know that it won't be much longer. It can't be."

The Overseer, not entirely sure of her intent, merely bent a brow at the distance he saw in her eyes and smirked.

_"Well, you couldn't have had more impeccable timing, my dear. I've just received word that they're in the process of retrieving an encrypted broadcast from one of our scout ships."_

The Counselor looked up.

"... What?"

_"The USM Credence. It's been homing in on a distress signal coming from somewhere just within Aegis7's space. It may be one of the escape shuttles you had predicted."_

The Counselor shot an instinctive sideglance back at the time display on the communications panel.

"The Credence? But -"

Her voice choked short, and in fear of displaying any further surprise that the Overseer might construe as some weakness in her character, she immediately sought to end their conversation.

"I, I have to go."

Before he could even respond the screen went dark, and she could only stare in dumbfounded amazement at the dim, ghostly glow of the holopad at her fingertips.

_Something was wrong. Something had happened. But, what? When? _

With a driving impetus to understand what was happening the Counselor returned to the holopad and quickly dialed into Medical. She stared with hard, focused eyes upon the strands of transient digital snow rolling across the screen just seconds before one of the administrative nurses answered her call.

_"Medical... Oh, oh what can I do for you, Madam?"_

The Counselor inhaled to calm herself, and she glared coldly upon the nurse. Though she had an inherent doubt, the Counselor was pressed to try nonetheless.

"... Dr. Werren, please."

The nurse on the other end paused, then nodded.

_"I'll transfer you, hold please..."_

The image of the nurse was tossed aside, and a few seconds later despite the Counselor's utter disbelief, Dr. Alex Werren's face was staring into the monitor. He examined her for a moment.

_"Counselor, you look afright. Is everything alright?"_

The Counselor remained speechless. After a long, silent pause she again hung up the line.

_How could this be? Isaac had already been found. She had already had Werren incarcerated. The Overseer was in her hand. Now, all she had to do was wait for the message. But what was this? Werren there now, in his office as if nothing had ever happened? The Overseer speaking of finding the lame escape vessel, all as if nothing had ever happened!_

Once again she glanced at the time display. In that moment, it occurred to her that the date perfectly coincided with the USM's discovery of Isaac's shuttle to the day, limp and floating just beyond Aegis7 after his escape from the red planet - an event which, from her personal experience, had happened a little over 3 years prior. Coming to recall what she herself had learned about the power of the Markers through extensive research alongside Challus Mercer, and corroborating it now with the evidence before her, she fully understood that they had all just experienced one of the Red Marker's most phenomenal capabilities. Though she had no idea how or when it had happened, or why she and everyone one else failed to notice its occurrence, she was most certain that they all had been brought back in time in a way that was completely transparent to their awareness. Even more disturbing than this was the fact that the Counselor herself seemed to be the only one around her who retained any memory of it, and therefore carried the discretion to comprehend what had happened rather than taking the present moment for granted as did everyone else. However, for reasons that dwelled only deep and unseen within her character, the Counselor still, somehow, failed to be wholly impressed by the miraculous occurrence; as amazing as it was, it was something she had come to anticipate to some degree as a result of her understanding of the Marker's workings. Her smoky grey eyebrows, having been pulled taut by surprise the entire time, now loosened and fell as astonishment slowly decayed into a calculating, pessimistic outlook calloused by personal animosity.

_The Marker was trying to reset itself. All this time he had been out there, and he still had not completed the bond. Fool... All this time, wasted! It should have been hers._

* * *

"USM Creedence, this is CEC Central Dispatch. We have a lock on your transponder signal; you have approximately five minutes before blackout to transmit your message."

A tired, overworked dispatcher of the Sprawl's central communications fought off a long and winded yawn as he leaned against his hand, lazily rubbing his left eye with his pinky and readjusting his headset as it began to slip off his head. He stared with fading interest at the holomonitor before him, responding to the incoming transmission of the USM Credence which was in orbit over Aegis7, and as the encrypted lines of data scrolled endlessly across the screen he had to fight off the desire to fall asleep, baited in by the tranquil, repetitive flashing of the status alerts. He was finding it difficult to keep his eyelids open - that is, until he was startled by a hard hitting hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, you're not off the clock just yet. Keep your eyes on that and make sure its secured."

The jostled dispatcher prepared to curse under his breath until he realized it was his superior, so instead sighed with a restrained roll of his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm on it. Sir."

The dispatcher leaned back in his seat and eyed his superior as he walked away until the man rounded the corner of the hall. The dispatcher then returned his eyes to the screen before him, and started picking absently at his fingernails in an attempt to stave off his boredom. After several more long minutes with nothing but the soft, digital bleeping of the console to keep him company, the incoming message finally completed the security watermark scans and prompted the dispatcher to play it back on-screen. He initiated the video with a grave lack of interest at first, but as the message progressed and he realized what it contained, the disenchanted man's eye's slowly opened a bit further and he became aroused from fatigue. He straightened his back and blinked with utter astonishment as the message completed and began to loop.

"... Holy shit. They found one. They actually found a survivor. Altman be praised."

* * *

The blinding halogens of the loading dock along the outside of the station spilled in through the windows of the Counselor's otherwise lightless quarters. She sat in a large, decorative chair angled just off in the shadows beyond the light's reach, watching with the anciently framed eyes of an eagle as the Sprawl's crew toiled ceaselessly along the decks like a colony of ants, with no regard for time or tide. Deep space had no tolerance for night or day; in this place, the value of such measurements was null and void.

_To her, it was always night._

The old woman sat silently, thinking constantly within upon her dreaded realization. If it were true - which, the reality so far could suggest no other alternative - that somehow she and everyone else around her had in fact been brought back in time by some enigmatic event related to the Red Marker without their even knowing it, then it also had to be true that somehow she was just moments from learning that the shuttle containing the Ishimura's one known survivor had been discovered.

_Why? Why couldn't he just finish this? It could all be finished. They could all finally be at peace. _

Her eyes darted with premonitory instinct to the communication device upon the nearby table just seconds before the interface lit up with an incoming call. She stretched out her hand to activate it, and in a subconscious action she traced the outline of a Marker symbol with her finger across the keypad. She then tersely tapped the key to activate it, and as the screen came to life the image of a CEC dispatcher flashed on screen.

"Good morning, Counselor. We've just received word from the USM Creedence."

Though the Counselor was emotionally stirred deep within, she gave no physical indication of her inner struggle to the dispatcher. She merely stared into the imagery with cold, grey eyes devoid of any feeling.

"... Patch it through."

While the dispatcher seemed a bit disappointed that she had not given him the opportunity to explain it personally, he nodded nonetheless, and the screen fell blank until replaced with the visual waveform monitor representing the encrypted message from the USM Credence. The Counselor leaned forward eagerly, leering like a jackal with loosely folded hands.

_"Central Dispatch, this is Lieutenant Iben of the USM Creedence. This message is being broadcast on secure subcarrier frequency 352 and deemed red in priority. Transmitting separate decoding key... This is to confirm that we have located and retrieved a stranded within Aegis7 airspace. We have found the boarding vessel USG-CV4 - I repeat - we have found Ishimura auxillary boarding vessel USG-CV4. We have established contact with its cargo and have it in our possession. ETA to return to the Spraw with acquisition, 53 hours." _

The Counselor looked down in shock, devastated by the confirmation of her suspicion.

_"... We still have not been able to establish contact with the USM Valor. We suspect terrorist activity may be involved. We've__ also picked up an additional signal that we can't identify originating from Aegis7, but confirmation of the Valor at this time is negative."_

The Counselor continued to stare in disbelief at the screen. She remembered having seen in her dreams the destruction of Aegis7 caused by the falling planetcork, but the direction the Lieutenant's report was heading did not substantiate this same scenario. While her clairvoyance was something that, in the past, she could thoroughly depend upon as far as accuracy in revealing the course of near-future events was concerned, this random hiccup in the Marker's expenditure of its precious energy only hinted at the unpredictability of the anomalous error that was Isaac, and at the effects his defection was having upon the Marker. The dire urgency of their situation - how she would have to intervene directly - now became fully apparent to her, and the anxiety of it caused her blood to speed through her veins until she was fearful of fainting.

_"We'll report anything further we find. Lieutenant Iben out."_

The holomonitor flashed off and she sat in the darkness for several minutes before she finally redirected her eyes out the windows, searching for that single star she knew - the distant body of Aegis7. She tucked her elbow beneath her arm, retrieved a cigarette from her desk, pressed it to her brittle lips and ignited it, inhaling stiffly.

"What are you thinking, Mr. Clarke?"

Her moment of contemplation was interrupted as another incoming call flashed upon the holomonitor device. Irritated by the disturbance she quickly turned to it and slapped the holopad tersely to activate it, only to be met with the Overseer.

_"Have you seen it, Madam? Did you receive the transmission?"_

The Counselor drew a long, deep breath in order to stabilize her composure before him. She ran her fossilized hand along the side of her face to sweep back the stray strands of her mottled, silver hair, tucking it behind her ear.

"Yes, I've seen it... but let's not talk online. I'll meet you in your quarters."

The Overseer, with gnarled, root like hands clasped together upon the desk in front of him, nodded solemnly.

_"Call Werren. I want Medical ready to go when he arrives. No slip-ups on this. We cannot have an outbreak here. No one must know about the infection."_

She responded only with a wordless nod, then switched channels and again dialed in to Medical. And again she was greeted by Werren, who this time answered a bit more tenaciously as her earlier behavior had concerned him.

_"Madam? What's going on?"_

The Counselor sighed quietly. Though she could remember her exact words to Werren on this very same occassion, having done it all once before, still she knew she had to carry out her role.

"I've just received word that they've picked up a stranded."

_"A stranded?"_

"From the Ishimura."

Werren's voice briefly flatlined over the compressed audio broadcast, a clear indication of his shock.

_"A... a stranded? An honest to god stranded? Alive?"_

"Yes."

Again, his silence was absorbing, and the thick hairs of his beard slowly parted with a ever increasing smile.

_"It's true. Altman be praised." _

She nodded, never breaking more than a lackluster grin.

"Get the lab ready. They'll be back in two days. I want to start immediately."

Werren nodded and inhaled to speak, but was quickly interrupted by the Counselor's hand as she swept it across the screen.

"Ahh - we'll be trying a modified suppression serum with this case."

Werren now looked surprised as he pulled back.

_"... But, I thought we agreed that if we want these tests to be representative -"_

"I understand and appreciate your attention to the details, Alex. But you have to trust me on this. I have a case of the exact dosages you are to use. You'll come by my office, and pick it up."

Again Werren drew breath as if to interject, but seeing the harsh stare in her eyes boring into him like drill bits and hearing the demanding tone of her voice, he disappointedly knew that to resist her was futile. He looked down, and the smile faded from his face until his lips once again became lost beneath the curtain of his beard.

_"Yes. I understand."_

He fell quiet as a brief intermission surcharged with friction passed between them. Eventually, she old woman dismissed him with an absent wave of her hand, and with a sigh that almost seemed to vent something aggressive, Werren disconnected. The screen of her holodisplay fell dark and she drummed the chiseled tips of her nails upon the edge of her desk in heated contemplation, then rose to her feet and left her quarters for the Overseer's office. She arrived right on cue as the door slid open at her approach, and she strode in like a cloud and found the old man sitting at his desk, in the exact same posture he was in while speaking over the line. It was obvious he was expecting her arrival, and was not about to let anything else distract him until they had finished their business. As she neared his desk, he arrogantly raised his chin to her and folded his hands like the wings of a wasp before him.

"Well, Madam. It looks like I owe you an apology."

She continued to stare at him, slowly taking a seat in the chair before his desk. The Overseer slowly shook his head.

"I admit... I'm not much of one for the black arts, Counselor."

"The black arts, Sir?"

"I deal in scientific rationality, not mystical, untouchable, ethereal nonsense. When they told me about you, about what you knew, and especially that you were in line with that Mercer maniac - I wasn't so keen. I've always said that logic trumps magic. However, being a man of logic... I cannot deny the fact that you have given me tangible results through your work. I'm not even about to begin understanding how you do it, or what driving forces are at work, here - all I know is that out of all of the people I have worked with, you are the only one who has delivered exactly what you have promised. This survivor is exactly what we need to successfully finish this project."

He fell silent, still nodding his approval, and the Counselor leaned back with a tired but beaming sneer of victory. She knew she need say nothing, as the Overseer had already said it all through his tiny, piggish eyes. He finally loosened his posture and rested back in his seat.

"Have you heard from Mercer at all?"

The Counselor looked down, shook her head.

"I received my last message from him about three weeks ago. But it doesn't matter. I have enough information from him to carry this on alone."

The Overseer nodded again at her words, but his expression dropped into one of ripe concern.

"But we have a problem, you realize."

The Counselor looked back up to him as he continued on.

"The disappearance of the Valor, Madam. It's already raised some very influential heads. They're saying it appears now that it was some sort of a, a terrorist attack."

"Hmm. Yes, so I heard. It could be any number of -"

The Overseer tensed.

"They believe the attack came from another ship within Aegis7's orbit. There was no other ship out there in that sector, except for the Ishimura."

The Counselor just smiled, and shook her head to reassure him.

"Oh, I hardly think the Ishimura had anything to do with it."

"Why didn't you tell me about this?"

The old woman now darted her eyes, feeling slightly defensive.

"I honestly didn't know about the Valor. I... didn't think it would pose a threat. This is not how I had seen it. Of course my visions are not always the most consistent, they're merely, suggestive."

"Well Madam, unfortunately this is a very big detail that you have missed. The USM is viewing this as an attack, and they're giving me serious heat about this. I'll be holding an emergency caucus this week, but I can't make any guarantees that they won't just declare martial law over the entire planet at this point. We may very well lose our control in this matter."

Sensing his anger, she conceded.

"I understand, Sir."

"Your job, Counselor, from this point on will be to see to it that this stranded gets taken care of properly. I want this immaculate. So far, no one but us knows this is a live case, and I want it to remain that way. Without this, we have nothing."

Feeling that she had had enough of his beratement, the Counselor rose to her feet in preparation to exit.

"You can trust me, Sir. You know this."

While it was obvious that the Overseer was still somewhat distraught, the old crone's confidence was comforting enough to put him at ease - for the moment.

"And Counselor, please... if anything else comes to mind... I trust you'll be as forthcoming as you have in the past."

The Overseer immediately waved his hand, cuing her dismissal, and she breathlessly stalked out of his office. Once she was clear of his room and out of his sight she dropped her tranquil facade, hastened her pace, and stormed down the hall. As she headed down one of the galleria walkways she looked out the windows that gave view to the endless black ocean of space beyond the Sprawl. She paused and turned to rake a caliginous glare across each and every star she saw as she came to realize that the events surrounding the Red Marker were starting to shake the Overseer's already fragile faith in the project, and she muttered to herself between between clenched teeth.

"Come to your senses, Isaac! Don't fuck this all up for me. I've waited too long to fail now."


	29. Psychology of the Relationship

**Chapter 29  
Psychology of the Relationship**

**_"You should understand that I am also the knower in all bodies, and to understand this body and its owner is called knowledge."_  
- B.G., 13.3**

* * *

_So. You finally show me where your loyalties lie._

The darkness of the Pilot's Nest was no opposition to the absorbing black void of Kendra's eyes as she glared upon Isaac, who was doing his best to avoid acknowlegding her frustration. He failed to meet eye contact with her or even look upon her, and he slowly rose to his feet, began to head past her toward the door as if she weren't even there. However, Kendra was not deterred; she clenched her fists, fully intent on seeing to it that he clearly understood the rules of their game. She had tolerated his ignorance out of compassion for his condition for long enough; to her, it was far time that Isaac accept the responsibility he carried to the Marker.

_I just don't understand it. Why are you doing this? What's wrong with you? How could you put us in danger like this?_

Isaac, who had done well to ignore her to this point, finally stopped just before the door and turned around to face her.

_What am I doing that's putting you in danger?_

While her ravenous stare remained locked upon him, the lines of her face began to subtly depart from anger and into a far graver sense of worry. She shook her head.

_Do do you still not see that you are the only thing that is standing in the way of us becoming whole?_

Isaac bent an eyebrow.

_...Us?_

She huffed indignantly.

_... And that you would try to destroy it, Isaac... _

Something struck him as very odd about what Kendra was saying, as he didn't quite understand why she would be so concerned about the Marker. He glared upon her as she turned away, seeking to provoke her.

_I'm just doing what needs to be done. So we can all go to heaven... or, what do you people call it... converge._

_You're a fool. Do you have any idea how much of our time you've wasted? How much damage you could cause?_

Isaac could feel her burning annoyance, and it began to secretly amuse him. He examined her body language, listened to the sharpened edge of her voice, saw as she emphatically gestured between her words with her hands. Most importantly, he could see that her furious front was unable to conceal the underlying fear she carried for the Marker's well being, and the more he stared at her the more this suddenly visible flaw in her character became apparent to him. Suspicion began to mount in the back of his mind.

_What was it with her? Ok, maybe she'd wanted the Marker from the start, but this was something else. And what was all this 'me', 'we', 'us' stuff?_

He thought back upon all of the previous encounters they had had with each other up to this point; upon her wild, unpredictable behavior, upon the inexplicable knowledge she carried about the Marker, and her same unrelenting drive to survive here upon Aegis7 he had sensed in himself.

_It all seemed so excessive... for just another infected body of the Marker_.

Almost as if in direct response to the silent deliberations within his mind Kendra suddenly whirled about, stormed up to him and pointed her finger in his face. Her lips folded down into a faultline of anger, and she exhaled through her nostrils fiercely like some undulating dragon.

_That's it. I'm through playing games with you! I can't believe... how... fucking dense you are! I think I should just kill you right here and put you out of your fucking misery!_

Just then, everything about her that had been eluding him suddenly fell into place... and he finally raised his eyes to her.

_You know what, Kendra? I think I call your bluff._

_What? What are you talking about?_

A grin began to creep across his face.

_I don't think you can kill me._

Her eyes narrowed, and she took a step closer to him.

_What... you think I don't have the guts to do it, Isaac? If I can hurt you... I can definitely kill you._

Isaac shook his head and again smiled at her, confident in his foothold.

_I dare to say that's not the case. You see... I don't think it was you who cut my fingers off back in the hangar._

She rolled her eyes and shifted her weight.

_Oh, yeah? Then who was it, Isaac? Who did it, huh? You?_

He shrugged his shoulders.

_...Maybe._

Kendra stopped, and unable to counter him wisely she only became angrier. However, Isaac was no longer intimidated by her threatening posture, which now upon his expanding revelation about who she was seemed hollow and meaningless. The more she tried to conceal her weakness and control the situation, the more Isaac began to realize that she was quickly losing. Isaac glanced down in brief consideration of his next words, and when he looked back up at her, she could see a beaming, victorious smile stretched darkly across his face.

_I'd say we're at a stalemate here, because I know who you are. And you're definitely not Kendra Daniels. That's for goddamn sure._

Kendra was totally arrested with astonishment. She watched breathlessly as Isaac raised his hands and crossed them before his chest, folding them in upon each other to form the outline of the Marker - the Unitologist prayer gesture.

_So... what do I call you? Do you even have a name? Or are you just... 3A?_

She remained speechless until Isaac was almost certain that she was not going to answer him at all. She finally raised her head and glared down her nose upon him.

_I don't have a name. The Red Marker belongs to me. To us. That's all we need to know._

Though she was still very cross with him, she was at the very least relieved to know that Isaac finally recognized her for who she truly was; the Hive Mind, masquerading within the projected form of the young woman he had once known. She slowly relaxed her defenses and he began to examine her again, watching the movements of her body, this time with a very different set of eyes.

_You're not even real, are ya? All this time... You've been a hallucination. Just like everything else on this fucking planet. _

She loosened the knot of her locked arms, and slowly dropped them to her sides.

_Well, technically I'm not a hallucination. A hallucination isn't real. But I am real. I may not be in a tangible body.. well, outside of yours, that is... and only you can see me... but I am most certainly real. _

She again fell briefly silent, watching him for a moment before raising her voice in query.

_...So... what was it? What was it that finally clicked in that little head of yours? What made you finally wake up, Isaac?_

He slyly sideglanced her.

_I just made an educated guess._

He then bore a large, childishly derisive grin that sparked her sense of insult. She sensed his lack of appreciation for the depth of her position, and she now shook her finger at him with a vile, inhuman emphasis that frightened him. As she did so he suddenly heard the screaming of the Marker's voices as they sliced through the back of his mind like a knife, and he shut his eyes as the pain tore through the fragile tissue of his brain. When he opened them again, he saw that Kendra was still staring at him with a expression darker and more foreboding than that of any necromorph he could ever remember.

_Don't __fuck__ with me, Isaac. You think I can't kill you? That's bullshit. I don't want to, because it does no good for either of us, but that doesn't mean I can't. _

Isaac subconsciously glanced down to the floor in that moment, forced to swallow the bitter pill of comprehension that chances were, she was right. Catching the hairline crack in his confidence, Kendra sighed.

_Now, do you see what I've been telling you? I have given myself to you - unconditionally - over and over again. I have given you all of my power, everything that I am... and what do you do? You take from me, you give me nothing back and then treat me like I am your enemy, with no appreciation for my endless patience with you. Is this what being human is all about, Isaac? Or are you just some anomalous oddity of your kind?_

Isaac was still at a loss as he listened to her brazen honesty that up to this point he had failed to truly understand. Though he now knew exactly who she was, and it had briefly brightened his spirits to suspect how this might have given him some advantage over her, her berating words began to take root in the back of his mind. The intent of her threats shook him to the very core with blood curdling revelation that while he might have been housing the Hive Mind in a far greter capacity than any other necromorph, he was ultimately at her mercy, lik the rest of them. She merely gave him the freedom to act as he did, but he was her slave, her holy vessel within which she dwelled. He now saw that any possible advantage he thought he had over her, even if successfully realized, would prove to be nothing more than a devastating blow to himself; and he fearfully began to understand just how serious she was when she had called him a dead man back in the Flight Hangar.

_I made you who you are today, Isaac. I gave you everything you desire. All I've ever wanted was to bond with you, to be whole with you. I want you to be happy. But now, you want what I have, without giving something back. You abuse me to fulfill your own selfish desires__, and then you reject me altogether. Honestly, I have no idea how you do it, but I've never had an Ipalnemoani as defiant as you are. I've never, ever had a Maker that I could not fully control, and it fucking mystifies me beyond all belief._

Kendra's burning, crimson eyes sliced into Isaac, and a long period of dead silence passed between them. Isaac stared upon her in return and sensed that while she was clearly very cross with him, her anger was slowly being extinguished by a deeply concealed awe and veneration just beginning to bloom. She finally lowered her eyes and looked away.

_You have no idea how fortunate you are to be who you are... to know what you know. Isaac, I admire you beyond anything in all creation, beyond any other Maker I have ever come into contact with. When you set me free from that monster, you opened up a whole new way of life for me. I could do so many new things. And I could feel, Isaac. Through you. Not just basic, primordial instinct like an animal, but I could really feel what it's like to have infinitely complex thoughts, processes, such multiplexed intelligence and emotions, just the way you do. I saw so many things that I couldn't even comprehend, it overwhelmed me. _

As her eyes remained steadily focused upon the floor at her feet, her mental voice began to waver with the weight of tears.

_Your beautiful body and consciousness is pure ecstasy to me. I just... can't let you go. I can see inside of you, I can feel everything about your nature. I can explore your deepest desires and proclivities, and I know that you are such a good soul. You are a bright light like I've never seen. I adore you, and I don't want to live without you. I just wish you had even a fraction of the affection for me that you have for her._

The more he listened to this extravagant yet pitiful creature, the more Isaac's heart grew heavy with self reproach. He began to truly understand the dynamic of their relationship, who she really was to him. He saw the mutual gravity of their interactions, how deeply affected she was by her experience, and how as he Maker he had been directly responsible for it in every way. The tone of her mental projection, so lost and seeking the acknowledgement of the one she loved, the one she had become so attached to, was saturated in a profound longing and sadness that hauntingly reminded Isaac of himself, and of his own desperate struggle to connect with his ever increasingly estranged Nicole.

_I... I love you, Isaac. God, how I love you. For better or for worse, you are my last, great link to humanity. You truly stand at the threshold of heaven. Know that._

Isaac recalled Dr. Terrence Kyne's rather dactylic explanation of the Hive Mind's tendency to reflect the emotions and personality of the host within which it lived. He could understand her true nature as a sentient, alien lifeform whose interactive performance before him was simply a mirroring of his own deeply binding love, his unsatisfied loneliness, and his madly intense, perhaps even insane obsession for the woman he had loved and lost - all of which perfectly matched the same unreciprocated adoration and subsequent rejection the Hive Mind felt. This raised the question in his head as to why the Hive Mind was instead displaying itself to him in the form of Kendra, with whom Isaac had, in opposition, no such intimate connection with. _He didn't love her. He didn't. He didn't._ Suddenly feeling very exposed as she read his thoughts, Kendra clasped her hands in front of her, blanking the expression upon her face and raising her eyebrows.

_There is a reason for all of this, the way things turned out to be between us. The answers will come in time. You're not entirely ready for all of it, yet. _

She turned around, crossing her arms again and shifting her focus to the black, star specked void of space just outside the Pilot's Nest window. Isaac took the opportunity he had in the intermission of silence to digest her explanation, and he watched her from behind with tired, haggard eyes as she slowly increased the distance between them. He felt utterly embarrassed by his ignorance of just how vast the uncharted ocean of knowledge about the Marker really was, despite the unentitled pride he had carried for being directly connected with it as a Maker, and her words had paralyzed him. Kendra noticed his withdrawal, so she slowly turned back around to face him. She saw how hopelessly lost he appeared to be, and she bit her lip in a vain effort fight back a wave of compassion. With eyes of clemency she stared upon him, and again she deeply sighed, shaking her head in despair.

_I... I c__an't bring her back. I know that's what you want... I know that's what would make you happy... and if I could, I would give her to you. But I just can't do that._

He stared her down.

_You can't... or you won't?_

_There are limits to what I can do. I can't circumvent death. _

_Circumvent death? That's what you do, isn't it? I've watched you bring a thousand people back to life!_

She again shook her head, and her voice darkened.

_I take control of infected bodies. I don't raise the dead. You're misunderstanding what you see. _

_... What?_

_I can only simulate those whom I infect, prior to their death. It is only while they are alive that I can generate an imprint of their personality. Unfortunately, Nicole had committed suicide before I could reach her. If a person dies before I infect them, all I can do at that point is rebuild their bodies from what I have already assimilated from others._

She looked up, and the soft, dim light of the distant stars glimmered upon her blackened eyes.

_She was long gone before I ever touched her. You've been chasing a ghost all this time. The Nicole you know is nothing more than a malignant emotional memory that is disrupting our bonding process. Because you can't let go of her, you can't properly focus upon me. __She is the one thing about you that is locking me out. _

She took another deep, expanding breath that shook the delicate frame of her chest, and Isaac finally looked down, mortified by the terminal confirmation of Nicole's fate. Though her final transmission to him - the raw, physical recording of her last moments of life - had seemed real enough in itself the first time he had watched it all the way through so long ago back upon the Aegis7 colony, still he did not ever want to believe it. He had fought against all odds that somehow, somewhere, she was still alive. When he had first realized that he harbored the Hive Mind, and that he could even bend the forces of time at his will, he had been so confident that great fortune had finally rained down upon him in a providential flood to fulfill his desire to get Nicole back. But as his delusional idea crumbled upon the Hive Mind's harsh unveling of the truth to him, he began to sorrowfully realize that the hope he had carried all this time was truly becoming vanquished. The corners of Kendra's face slackened, and Isaac detected a very faint hint of compunction behind her facade.

_You're ill, Isaac. You're not... mentally healthy. I didn't know this about you, when I found you. I didn't realize that in your condition you would not be able to handle our bonding correctly. My power, it just... exacerbated your sickness._

Isaac furrowed his brow, becoming irritated with her.

_Sickness? But, I'm not sick... am I?_

_Your obsession for her... It all stems from some anomalous memory within your brain, a disorder that you have carried all of your life. It is something I cannot counter, and I didn't think that it would be able to overcome my influence over you. But, somehow, it did. T__hat's when this all started. _

Isaac was still lost in ponderance over her previous suggestion.

_Sick? He wasn't sick..._

_Once you initially discovered __what you could actually do with my energy, you began using it against my will. You started controlling my hallucinatory expansions, creating visions of Nicole from your own memories, when what you should have been doing was focusing on sealing our bond with me, with the Marker. I tried to intervene, to set you straight, but in your madness you started eluding me. The more erratic you became until the only way I could stop you was by trying to reset the Marker. I jumped back in time, trying to pinpoint a moment before your obsession took over... but I very quickly realized that there was no point before your obsession took over. That's when I understood that your mental instability had been an inherent flaw in your personality all along, before you even came to Aegis7, and it had long preceded the inception of your original infection. Therefore, it was something that I could not stop. And you only got worse. Your gross misuse of the Marker is what is slowly killing you, Isaac. You are dying, you are falling apart because our bond is not complete. This puts us both in a dangerously exposed position. _

Still, Isaac hardly heard her.

_He wasn't sick. There was nothing wrong with him. He loved her. He was... perfectly sane. Perfectly sane._

She again paused briefly, forcing a small, sad smile.

_If it's of any consolation to you... because it sure was a pretty big surprise to me... I've discovered that your anomaly is paradoxically the source of your genius. For whatever reason, it is what gives you the ability to perform the complex mathematical calculations that are required in order to build the Machines. This is a trait that we have been seeking in all of our Ipalnemoanis._

Isaac's eyes froze upon her, and his distraught expression slowly faded in the wake of complete ambiguity.

_... Machines?_

However, Kendra failed to divulge anything further in that regard. She fell silent and slowly pitched forward, and bracing her hands upon her knees she stared down at the floor.

_I've finally come to the conclusion that no matter how hard I try, until you make the choice to accept me there is nothing I can do to stop any of this. As much as I am in love with you, I realize that I made a mistake by trying to converge with you. But how was I to know you were mentally ill? Once I took root within you, there was no turning back. I cannot separate myself from you, Isaac. Not without destroying you. And I don't want to do that. The__ only option we have left now is to convince you of my perspective, to prove to you that your undivided devotion will be repaid in ways more fantastic than you can imagine, only if you just accept me. I'm willing to do whatever it takes. Whatever I can do. __You have to accept me. You have to, or you're dead, and I'm fucked. _

As she continued to stare down to the floor, Isaac watched as a small, dark tear of blood fell from her eye and splashed against the metal grating.

_I don't want to be forced back into that Marker, Isaac. If you die... I have no choice but to return to the Marker. It's so cold in there. I can't go back. I won't._

Kendra slowly, calmly raised a hand and covered her face. She was unable to continue for a few moments as she desperately fought back the urge to break down, but once she had regained her composure she finally raised her eyes to again meet Isaac's. He saw now that they were filled with dark, crimson tears of sadness, and the expression of her face was drawn tightly with the unspeakable fear of his rejection. She tilted her head and in one last, desperate attempt to plead with him, she peered into his eyes with a fantically obsessive countenance that before this moment Isaac had recognized solely in himself. Her sweetly tragic, tonal reverberations gently trespassed the back of his skull.

_Isaac... oh, Isaac... I'm going to ask you one last time. Please. I love you. I would be forever lost without you. I'm begging you, please! I fall at your feet for your mercy... it's time you made good on your promise to me. Even if you don't truly love me... make us whole. At least... give us that._

The Hive Mind's piteous, heartwrenching posture before him, compacted by the truth which was now unavoidable and all around him, totally isolated Isaac from everything he ever thought he understood about anything. In light of his understanding the truth about Nicole's having been a hallucination the entire time, that there never really was any possibility of his rescuing her in the first place, Isaac now understood that he was standing at a preeminent crossroad in his existence. Though he was still reluctant to embrace the idea of surrendering himself to the whims of this ethereal creature whom he came to realize he really knew nothing about, the fact that his whole point for coming to Aegis7 at all was entwined in illusion sent Isaac into a spiral of hopelessness that began to shine an ever increasingly attractive light upon the Hive Mind's offer. Surely he did stand upon the threshold of an ascension of the likes that no person, Unitologist or no, could have ever dreamed of. Surely, he was being offered now an opportunity to live and play amongst the stars forever as someone far greater than anything imaginable... but to accept her offer, to actually submit to her will and officially sign his mind and body over to her in completion, would mean that a very deep and cherished part of everything he was would have to be sacrificed beyond retrieval. However, should he refuse her in order to preserve his so-called identity and freedom as a human being, to keep intact his loving memory of her... not only would this unfathomable opportunity no longer he his to grasp, but his mortal fate would be swiftly assured and he would be left to die without a fraction of grace or honor.

_... What else was there to do?_

Kendra poised silently before him and stared into his eyes, examining as every last one of his final defenses inexorably fell in the wake of his decision. As patiently as she awaited his response, within she was screaming in prolonged agony to receive the answer, and unable to contain herself any longer she swiftly stepped towards him and placed her hand upon his shoulder.

_... Isaac._

Lost again in some catatonic trance, it took Isaac a moment before his eyes slowly shifted focus to her hand upon him, and he very faintly turned his head to look at it. Kendra kept her hand and eyes upon him, rapt in anxiety as he glanced over her with little emotion.

_What do you want to do, Isaac? You must tell me. _

Isaac finally blinked his eyes, and unable to resist her any longer, he finally lowered his head. She immediately detected as his inner despair conceded to compliance, and a smile spread wide and quickly across her lips. She leaned in and planted her lips against the side of his face, which to him were far more warm and inviting than he remembered them to be. Sad as he was to know that the soft, silken flesh of those lips was not that of the woman he had loved so dearly, the fact that she received him so affectionately and with such compassion dampened the pain of that fact enough to bear; and while he still found it difficult to accept the despicable veil of Kendra Daniels that the Hive Mind had for whatever reason chosen to display before him, he took comfort in the idea that he could always shut his eyes and dream.

The Hive Mind, on the other hand, was thoroughly elated to see how Isaac no longer held such reservation against her, and how he began to positively respond to her lovesick eagerness with unabated return. He reached up and gently framed his hands around her face, and as he peered into the depths of her recondite spirit he kissed her with a subdued sense of arousal. Immersed in a preternatural joy she could not remember having ever felt before, she relished in the glory of her triumph as he now favorably received her. She closed her eyes, and with a passionate kiss upon his lips, she began the process of sealing his fate.

_Thank you. Oh, god... thank you._

Upon her contact Isaac began to feel strength return to his body. The longer they remained embraced the more his constant plague of sickness subsided until his bodily pain vanished along with his constant bewilderment, his blurred, hazy vision returned to crystal clarity and he was now able to breathe properly and without painful labor. Kendra pulled back to look at him as she heard and felt a soft, physical vibration arise from his throat, and seeing he was becoming lost in the ecstasy of budding excitement her darkened retinas glimmered playfully, filled with vibrant, mischievous love. When he finally opened his eyes again she gave him a warm smile, one that was surprisingly devoid of the malevolent cruelty he had grown so accustomed to seeing from her, and encouraged by her genuinely amorous mien Isaac smiled back.

Being so close to her face Isaac couldn't help but take in the details of it, and his focus fell to her cracked jaw. At the recollection of how she had acquired such an injury he instantly became regretful, and he gently traced the fingers of his hand across the small, creased dent, following it down the side of her face to where it ended beneath her chin. Enraptured by the spell she was placing upon his consciousness, Isaac became very sickened to the core by the realization of his shameless act against her, and he began to plead in heartfelt repentance.

_I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I... I didn't mean it. I don't want to hurt you._

She just smiled and brushed his cheek with the back of her hand. Isaac reveled at the unbelievably refreshing sensation her celestial contact invoked, like the cooling touch of ice, and though ancient as he knew he was, Isaac no longer felt that way. Kendra smiled again, closed her eyes and slowly buried her face into his neck as they stood embracing one another.

_I forgive you, Isaac. Let's start fresh from this moment on. You now know what you have to do. Make us whole, and I promise you all the stars will be ours._


	30. Reinforcing The Bond

**Chapter 30  
Reinforcing The Bond**

_**"O conqueror of the foe, all living entities are born into delusion, bewildered by dualities arisen from desire and hate."**_**  
- B.G., 7.27**

* * *

_After some time has passed, Isaac awakens to a quiet sound coming from somewhere nearby. It is a peculiar sound, like that of muted, static white noise lapsing between rounds of silence. He knows he has heard it before, but feeling somewhat disconnected after such a length of dormancy, it takes him some time to recognize the call of a gentle, rolling tide._

Water.

_Isaac opens his eyes to __darkness so thick that he is unable to see anything. He right away fears he has somehow gone blind, until the twinkling of a dim, faded light far above his head catches his eye. As it is the only thing he can see he stares at it, wondering if it might be a star or a planet that is light years away._

Maybe it's home.

_However, as his eyes acclimate and details begin to materialize out of the darkness, he can tell that it isn't a star but a mottled beam of sunlight, streaking in through an opening far overhead. The light illuminates the radius of the opening, but the darkness beneath is so impenetrable that it readily swallows any of the light just beyond, making it impossible for Isaac to discern anything visually about the environment. He only knows that is cold, damp and stifling as a tomb or a deep well. He can also hear the sound of flowing water much more clearly now as it's echoes cascade down through the opening, which he figures must be the way out of here.  
_

But where is 'here'?

_Isaac's next thought is that he should find a way up to the opening, and he slowly, cautiously reaches his arms out to his sides in order to examine what's around him. He feels only empty space with the palms of his hands up until his arms are almost fully outstretched, whereupon they both suddenly come into contact with a hard, rocky surface. He stops and immediately investigates, running his arms up and down what he feels are walls riddled with jagged pieces of rock. _

What the hell...

_Able to feel such detail, Isaac then realizes that his gloves are missing - so is his entire suit, and he is down to the trousers and __undershirt he has been wearing underneath it. He can also feel sand beneath the bare soles of his feet. With no recollection of having shed the protection of his suit and RIG, Isaac begins to fear what else might have transpired without his knowing. _

Shit... it's happening again. Losing track of time.

_Suddenly, an in__tense burning sensation ____grips his left arm, causing his body to tense and his teeth to clench shut. He grabs his throbbing hand, which suddenly feels as if it has burst into flames, and right away he can tell _that the surface flesh has solidified into a shell-type substance. Trapped in pitch blackness he can't see what's wrong, which drives his desperation to get out of this place.  


He has to get out of here at any cost.

_Again Isaac runs his hand across the wall in front of him, deciding to utilize the wall's exposed shafts of rock as hand and foot holds in order to climb his way up._

_This proves to be far more daunting than anticipated; not only do the rocks cut into his skin as he climbs, but the pain of his infected arm makes it difficult to support his weight, forcing him to carry most of the burden on his other arm. Only after a very taxing effort and a fair amount of blood lost does he finally reach the opening above. _

Ah... thank god.

_Clinging to the wall he reaches out through the opening, and __drives the thick, bladelike nails of his mutated hand into the ground just on the other side of it. Grappling with his other hand he painstakingly hoists himself up through the hole, and once outside of it on solid ground Isaac __looks around to find that he is stranded in the middle of a vast expanse of Aegis7's desert. The hole he has just emerged from appears to be the entrance to a burrow that runs deep within the sand.  
_

How did he get here?

_Again the sound of a rolling tide captures his attention, which is coming from behind him. He turns around to see the sun at twilight, painted across a swiftly darkening canvas as night approaches, and descending into the horizon beyond something Isaac has never known to exist on Aegis7.  
_

An ocean.

_Another painful spasm strikes his arm and he clutches at it, falling back. With the aid of the sunlight he can now see that his arm is covered in swollen, blistering papules, some of which have hardened into scales, and the remaining skin is scarred with deep, bloody fissures. The infection has consumed his entire arm up to his elbow, turning it into a grotesque display of ichthyosis so acute that it no longer even appears to be human.  
_

What is happening to him?

_Frightened as he is, Isaac feels very exposed out on the open desert and desires strongly to return to the Colony. But he cannot see the complex anywhere - all he can see is the ocean on one side, the desert on the other, and the nearly perfect line where they meet. With no idea where to go or what to do, against his better judgement Isaac decides to head toward the beach. _

_As he approaches the shoreline, he sees that the harsh, granulated desert sand has been replaced by a fine, dark red powder like soot that sticks tenaciously to his feet. He also can't help but notice the unnaturally crimson sheen the water has to it as it meets with the sand, but attracted by the sounds of its gentle, rolling waves he feels compelled to step out into it anyway. Almost immediately upon contact with it he can tell that whatever this is, it isn't water - it is thick and oily. It is also very warm to the touch, and when disturbed by Isaac's footsteps it releases a very distinct scent of copper, like that of blood._

Oh... There you are.

_Isaac is startled by the sound of a voice coming from behind him, and he stiffens when he unexpectedly feels a pair of arms wrap softly around his waist from behind. However it doesn't take him very long to recognize it is Nicole, and liberated from his fear he finally relaxes in her grasp, feeling safe. It's rather surprising to him that despite her obviously having seen it Nicole doesn't seem fazed at all by his grotesquely malformed arm, though Isaac doesn't dare mention it or anything else that might break this moment. He just gives her a weakened smile and slides his other arm around her shoulder, trying to act normally as possible, and together they watch the dying rays of the sun dancing frenetically across the calm, glassy surface of the ocean. The longer he stands there with her the more lost he becomes in the pleasure of her presence, beginning to forget about the mysterious situation before him and the throbbing pain of his infected, rotting arm. _

Yeah. Here we are.

_The bloody ocean water laps at Isaac's ankles, and the warmth of it compels him to take a step out deeper, despite the inherent danger. He releases his arm from Nicole's shoulder, and as he steps forward he feels her tug at him.  
_

You don't have to do this.

_With his attention on Nicole Isaac hasn't noticed that dozens of living, mutated strands of the necromorph virus have emerged silently from the water and wrapped themselves around him until they have him nearly incapacitated. His heart beats a little faster as his fear begins to rise, but morbidly fascinated he cannot stop himself from stepping out even deeper into the water._

There's another way. There always is.

_The increasing weight of the mutant tentacles wrapping around him becomes too cumbersome; unable to resist Isaac pitches forward and begins to sink into the water. Yet, even as he struggles frantically to keep his head above water the expression on Nicole's face remains gentle and reassuring, unmoved by the danger of what is happening. With the smile never leaving her lips, she calmly steps forward to take his hand as he reaches for her.  
_

The choice is yours, love.

_Though still fearing that he is about to die, her words calm him sufficiently and he stops struggling. As his muscles go limp he suddenly feels the tension wrapped around his body slacken, and with his chest finally free and his hands pressed to his knees, he tries desperately to catch his breath. As he stares dazedly down into the water, he sees his own reflection upon the surface... but he doesn't recognize the face.  
_

_He sees only a horrifying creature staring back at him, its face black and vacuous. An array of metal plates encase its face and body, and its flesh is covered in freshly shed blood, scarred with deep tracings of the Marker's symbols that glow with a ghostly light, and Isaac is spellbound by this entity. Unable to turn away from the horrifying reflection he sees, his concentration is broken only by a voice he hears inside his head._

**twinkle twinkle little star how I wonder what you are**

_By now the sun has set, save for a few quickly waning strokes of orange still straddling the horizon. Isaac shakes his head, fighting to come to his senses, and as he looks around he suddenly realizes that he has wandered several dozen feet out into the ocean without even realizing it and is now in up to his chest. Fearing that he has again come under the control of the Marker, Isaac immediately turns back around to head back toward the beach. His heart sinks to see how far away it is, and even moreso that Nicole is nowhere to be found along the stretch sand. _

**up above the world so high like a diamond in the sky**

_Isaac turns back to look upon the large, black object floating on the water, which is now close enough to tell that it is the remains of a very great ship, just before it disappears into the backdrop of impending night.  
_

**when the blazing sun is gone when the nothing shines upon**

_Isaac's eyes are drawn to the water in front of him as a very faint glow starts to become prominent upon the surface. He then sees another glowing spot, then another, more and more spots of light ascending to the surface from deep underwater, spreading larger as they get closer to the surface.  
_

**then you show your little light twinkle twinkle all the night**

_Finally the sources of light reach the surface, and the bloody red water parts over each to reveal the bodies of several gargantuan necromorphs emerging from the water. The monstrous creatures are all chanting in the ancient tongue as they rise higher and higher, __all of them far greater in size and stature than any of their kind he has ever laid eyes upon. They quickly tower _over Isaac like giants, raining torrents of blood from their bodies. 

**then the traveler in the dark thanks you for your little spark**

_Isaac holds out his hands to warn them, and as they come within a certain distance they stop dead in their tracks. Even while they pose menacingly like monolithic soldiers of the demigods before him, they seem to mean him no harm. Realizing this Isaac releases his tense posture, and takes the brief moment to dart a nervous glance back to the shoreline in the hopes that he might find Nicole. But he is disheartened to find no one, still. _

**he could not see which way to go **

_Unable to ignore it any longer he turns his concentration to the familiar voice he is hearing inside his head, and Isaac is sure that he recognizes it. Again he looks down into the water at his reflection, which in grave contrast he fails to recognize at all. Feeling very disturbed by this, he immediately reaches up and attempts to remove the embedded metal plates that cover his face, but the effort is both painful and fruitless; they have become a part of him. He grunts in frustration and drops his hands, but he has little time to lament before becoming distracted by the fact that the bloody tide at his feet has grown black as the nighttime sky above. _

**if you did not twinkle so**

_Before he can respond, another necromorph begins to rise from the depths directly in front of him. This surfacing entity captures all of Isaac's attention, luring everything within him towards it. Because it is coated in a solid layer of blood, it's identity is virtually impossible to discern; however, as gravity begins to take its hold and the blood begins to drain, the details eventually manifest to reveal the graceful, alluring form of a naked woman. Her eyes are filled with an unearthly darkness that dwarfs even all space above as she looks dead upon him, and she stops just feet from his position. She parts her blood stained lips and pours forth the poison of her enchanting, melodious voice, which roots Isaac to the spot._

**when the blazing sun is gone when the nothing shines upon**

_Isaac is powerless to even breathe as she steps up to him, and he becomes hopelessly lost within the raging blaze of her eyes. This woman before him emanates a pure evil that is utterly revolting; it is an unseen, violently opposing energy that threatens every fiber of his living being, but trapped in her enigmatic hold he has all but the resistance of a moth to a flame against her no matter how sick it physically makes him. Her wide, dark set eyes bounce about wildly, conflicting iniquitously with her softened facial expression, and as Isaac peers beyond the slick trails of corrupt, bodily matter layering her face, he recognizes the dangerously magnetic and irresistible gaze of the Hive Mind._

**though I know not what you are**

_He can exercise nothing more than obsessed fixation upon her as she raises her arms, wraps them around his neck, and presses her body up against him. She rains drops of warm, bloody carnage across his shoulders as she closes her embrace, and pausing just a finger's distance from his face to slip through the hole in his psychic defenses, her lips slowly meet with the plates encasing his mouth. At the contact of her tongue he immediately tastes blood, even through the metal plates, and its bitter, acrid flavor is somehow giving rise to an addictive craving he cannot control. He shivers involuntarily, moved with sensory anticipation as every pore across his skin stands erect beneath his metal plating, and he leans into her in an attempt to kiss her back with growing anxiety. As if in response to his desire the plates surrounding his jaw slowly begin to retract into his neck like quills to expose the jet black skin of his lips, which he parts to accept her tongue between rows of savage, razor sharp teeth. He extends his tongue to lick her mouth clean, and becoming enraptured by the hematic taste of her saliva he reciprocates her animalistic passion. _

_Isaac embraces her, and the Hive Mind welcomes the groping of his infectious extensions upon her naked, blood drenched body. In pure, carnal madness he begins to run the tips of his fingers down the moist, slippery skin of her shoulders, tracing out the symbols of her native argot, and he chuckles hysterically with delight as the patches of thick, mucilaginous claret part to leave small lines of exposed skin in the wake of his trails. As his olfactory senses ignite from the scent of rancid, rotting cruor across her skin, he is driven mad with lascivious aggression. He clutches her tightly so she cannot escape, he leans into her, inhales deeply of her. He presses his forehead against hers and stares into her eyes, inebriated with exigent blood lust as she further incites him by running her hands along the most intimate parts of his body. _

**twinkle twinkle... little... star...**

* * *

Isaac opened his eyes sometime later and realized that he had apparently been sitting in the Pilot's Nest, motionless and deep in trance, driven to outer consciousness now by the terrifying events of his vision. He sat up, shot a glance down to his arm, then across the rest of his body, fearing to see the horrific effects of his infection having absorbed him entirely. However, as his eyes fell upon his suit, solid flesh and human features, it appeared that the experience had been nothing more than pure phantasmagoria. He raised his left hand to look closer at it, and he was very much relieved to see that while it was still mangled and suffering necrosis, the embedded metal plates and monstrously altered growth he had seen in his daydream was absent. In reality, he was still human.

_For the most part._

He looked around and saw that Kendra was gone, and that he was now all alone with the stiff, dead bodies of Jacob Temple and Elizabeth Cross. Remembering what had transpired in this place before his blackout and unable to bear the sight of these unwelcome corpses any longer, Isaac closed his eyes and sighed exhaustively, pushed himself to his feet and headed for the elevator. However, as he reached for the panel to open the doors, the hololock was unexpectedly activated from the other side. He immediately stepped back, a bit on edge as to who might be coming to meet him now, and he instinctively grabbed for his cutter. But as the doors slid open, he found himself met with two blank faced medical assistants, one male and one female, staring back at him from the inside of the elevator.

Isaac glanced them over curiously as they both casually stepped into the room without a word. The male, a young, raven haired, beady-eyed fellow toting alongside him a small, portable medical cabinet on wheels, turned briefly to Isaac and lowered his head in a speechless, submissive gesture of formal greeting. He then briskly crossed the room, wheeling the cabinet up to Elizabeth's body on the floor. As it came to a stop he very calmly opened the cabinet doors and reached inside to retrieve several medical clean-up tools and a roll of plastic hazardous waste bags. The nurse's female partner, who was pale skinned, mousy and small in stature, slowly walked up to Isaac and stopped directly in front of him, staring with the emptiness of an unmanned puppet into his eyes.

"Evening, Mr. Clarke. We came to assist you."

Isaac could do nothing but return her glassy-eyed stare. While he mentally probed her, suspicious of an ulterior motive on her part, the nurse glanced down and opened up a small medical kit she had been carrying beneath her arm. She reached into it, pulled out a small, clean hand towel made of gauze, and began to blot at the layer of blood and sweat that covered Isaac's forehead. When she was finished, the female nurse nodded approvingly, tucked the gauze back into her bag and walked around him, heading towards Jacob's body under the pilots' seats.

Isaac turned and watched as both medical aides carefully collected the bodies and their loose parts, and dropped them into the bags piece by piece, totally oblivious to the gruesome mess as it stained them all over their arms, legs, and chests. A point of interest to Isaac was that they were very meticulous and apt at their jobs, working under fully controlled composure even in the wake of such a horrifying scene as if it were nothing, and in a very copacetic manner they aligned the portions of flesh and bone with calculated precision in order to maximize the utilized space within the bags down to the centimeter. Cautiously and with their bare hands they swept up the coagulated entrails that had been dragged across the floor by Isaac's thick boots, and still they reacted with nothing more than sterilized professionalism.

They toiled relentlessly, leaving virtually nothing behind to tell the tale of what had happened in this room, all within a matter of minutes, and their immaculate, unhindered actions were incredibly baffling to Isaac. Knowing time was short, he eventually wrenched himself away from this morbidly entertaining, perfectly executed opera and headed for the elevator. Though neither nurse said anything the entire time they worked, just as Isaac stepped into the elevator he heard their voices chime in unison from behind him.

"We'll take care of it, Mr. Clarke. Please don't worry about it."

He stared at them as the elevator doors closed, and it quickly descended to Control Central. The lift reached its destination and Isaac strode out, and as he rounded the corner he was suddenly confronted by Dr. Challus Mercer, who appeared to have been waiting for him. Isaac slowed and then stopped upon Mercer's troubled, introspective expression, and with crossed arms the Doctor raised his eyes to him.

_We hope that this has been an educational experience for you. _

Isaac was silent. Mercer shifted his weight and he glanced up again from behind thick, wiry brows. Though his expression remained cold and impassive, the concerns he carried were obvious enough upon his face.

_We are glad to know that you decided to reconsider your course of action. Your decision to destroy the Marker would not have yielded desirable results._

Isaac finally sighed. Though at this point he knew that Mercer was no longer a threat to him, and that he was merely trying to help as a subservient vessel, the impinging memories Isaac carried of this homicidal madman had left an indelible black mark upon him, nonetheless.

_Yes... we're clear on that, Doctor. _

Mercer remained tight-lipped and pensive, suppressing a desire to say something as he detected the friction in Isaac's tone. Isaac could sense Mercer's reluctance, and glaring sharply upon him he silently demanded that he speak. Mercer looked up.

_... We hope we're not overstepping our boundaries. We're just... eager to see this finished. There is much work to be done in the days ahead, and we've no time left to waste._

Isaac tilted his head and tongued the inside of his cheek. The hungry glimmer in the Doctor's eye seemed to defy any fear he may have had of imposing.

_Yes, I've been meaning to ask you about that. What was she talking about? Machines? Calculations? What does any of this have to do with the Marker?_

_'She', sir?_

Isaac tossed his hand.

_Yeah. Kend... the uhh, the Hive Mind. _

Mercer paused, and briefly glanced down in thought.

_Interesting... so, you do see a physical manifestation that we do not._

The piqued interest Isaac carried for Mercer's enigmatic interjections was all that kept him from angrily expressing the discomfort he felt in his presence.

_Well, yeah... I, I suppose. She did mention something like that. She says a lot of things that don't make sense._

Mercer's face sharpened, irked in some way by Isaac's remark.

_... How? How did you inherit the privilege of your position, Isaac Clarke? Even after all of this, you understand so little about it. Hardly what was anticipated._

Isaac narrowed his eyes.

_Excuse me?_

_You are still showing symptoms of fragmentation. It is clear that you have not yet fully made your choice._

As Mercer fell silent Isaac suddenly became very much aware of returning sickness, welling up from the pit of his rotting belly. He withered and sank a little upon his knees, inhaling slow, deliberate breaths in an effort to suppress his rising nausea. Mercer continued to look upon him, watching with a fraction of hostility.

_You **must** make us whole. You **must** do it._

The bitter taste of bile crept up the back of Isaac's tongue. The loud, cantillating voices of the Marker dug deep into his brain, leaving him unbalanced and unable to cope any longer. Desiring to be totally isolated, Isaac decided that it was time to return to the Hangar.

_Leave me alone. Just... fucking leave me alone. _

Mercer's demeanor changed diametrically in an instant. Upon Isaac's ignited glare his eager expression fell blank as if he had been reset from the inside, he nodded obediently without a sound, and ceasing his harassment retreated into the shadows. The others, including Captain Hammond and the immediate flight staff at the controls around them, also responded with the same yielding assent, shriveling from Isaac's focus as they concentrated on their duties. Isaac uncomfortably glanced from one person to the next.

… _Everybody just, shut the fuck up._

Feeling disoriented and becoming sicker with every passing moment, Isaac staggered back through the Bridge. Those he passed along the way turned to him with trepidation written upon their pale, ghostly complexions, but held at bay by his threatening behavior towards them they all refrained from approaching him or interfering in any way with his miserable migration towards the Flight Hangar. He pondered sadly over Mercer's strange warnings, which had struck a chord in his memory and sparked his curiosity. He wondered how Mercer might have had any understanding of his relationship with the Hive Mind, which up to this point had appeared to be sessions shared intimately between only their two awareness, but as he thought about it the reality became apparent to him in a very troubling way. He realized that Mercer's performance was actually just one of many reflections of Isaac's own knowledge, physically enacted through those the Hive Mind controlled and driven by some deeply rooted part of his consciousness that was attempting to rectify his grave mistake. This disturbed Isaac, as it made him realize all the more that apart from the Hive Mind, he truly was alone aboard the Ishimura.

Engrossed in anxiety, Isaac was hardly aware of anything happening around him. He had receded from his outer senses, carrying forth merely by the memorized reflexes of his body while immersed in misery within, listening to the distant, soft spoken chanting of the Red Marker in the back of his head. He traveled, crippled in this manner for quite a while, as the distraction of his bodily pains and panicked, overwrought brain running in circles kept him from readily noticing that his sickness was gradually becoming replaced with a boundless and totally negating sense of euphoria. However, the rising perspicuity of this sensual experience imminently broke the threshold of his subconscious awareness. It drew Isaac's attention away from his suffering, and as it advanced beyond his mind to a very physical level throughout his body, it began to seriously alarm him.

_Wha... what's... happening to... me?_

The surface of his skin began to tingle, succumbing to a ravaging fever that forced sweat from every pore of his body. He twisted uncomfortably within the airtight confines of his suit and his heart began to pound, sending his blood to course through his veins with the driving intensity of a stroke as he felt suffocated. Still, these symptoms, as remarkable and distressing as they were, were very far removed from the agonizing, deathlike paralysis he had learned to tolerate of his infection. At first the fluttering sensations he could feel just behind the flesh of his abdomen prompted him to suspect that he had been poisoned, perhaps by the medical aide somehow, but the odds of this seemed scarce as the ecstatic feelings washing over his senses grew to surpass even the purest grades of intoxication he had ever before experienced. In this state of heightened awareness, Isaac understood that he need not fear what was happening to him, only endure it. He chuckled insanely to himself as his eyes gently rolled back in his head.

"Heh. Wait. I see. Where you're... going. With... this."

As he spoke out loud in his madness, the euphoric bliss dampened his motor skills and the articulation of his speech until it became difficult for him to move or speak. His whole body became affected as if having been taken under the influence of some powerful tranquilizer, and his pace slowed to a short, uneven dragging of his feet across the ground. A deep pressure began to build at the base of his skull and he had to fight on so many levels to keep his head upright, his eyes open. When physical vision failed completely, Isaac turned to inner perception and communication.

**i am here do not fear me**

_I knew it was you. It's been a long time... but I remember those days, too, sweetheart._

Again finding the strength, Isaac opened his eyes. He looked around and discovered that somehow he had drifted far from the Bridge Deck, and was now wandering solo down one of the Ishimura's countless, isolated maintenance shafts. He was unable to recall anything about how he had ended up there, but he found little time to debate it as he was overcome by another wave of inebriating, euphoric bliss. He froze upon his feet, unable to move as he felt his entire consciousness jarred sharply by a presence entwining itself around his brain relentlessly like a vine.

**i am waiting**

The weight upon his skull took hold, completely incapacitating him and sending him into a moment of deeply frightening inner reflection. The bonding attempts of the Hive Mind began to have a very profound effect upon him, and every nerve cell within his body was shocked into a microscopic supernova of receptivity. Everything he felt, everything he saw, everything he heard simply buried him beneath intense revolutions of pain and bliss, and inundated him with an extraordinary perception that stretched far beyond his means to process. As it had blossomed into a harrowing, sensual pleasure he could not resist, the euphoric catalepsy Isaac was experiencing continued to intensify until the insane grin started to fade from his face.

_Oh... hey... stop..._

Isaac relinquished all control and he fell to the ground. His insides burned like fire while his body became drenched in freezing sweat, and he stared deep into himself even as his wide, bloodshot eyes remained locked upon the floor.

**come to me**

All Isaac could see was the naked Hive Mind wrapped around him, attempting to exact her supremacy through amative provocation and sortilege upon his psyche. The more he remained open to her corruption the more anxious he became as she emotionally manipulated his senses, scalding him with the warmth of her ethereal insides and divulging her true, ontological nature by way of an infinite display of gruesome and enchanting forms that were all designed to intimidate him into complicity. She smiled malevolently as he gaped at the horrible complexity of her countless manifestations with the riveted awe of a defenseless child.

_What are you...? What, what the fuck **are** you?_

The Hive Mind felt Isaac's heart pounding heavily within his chest. She could taste the pure, unrefined terror as it overpowered him, and smiling from behind the pale, paper-thin veneer of her human facade, she swept in to take advantage of his vulnerable state by filling his mind with darkly concupiscent thoughts, digging deep into the recesses of his brain to exploit the most intimately driven memories Isaac carried. Again, single one rose above the rest.

**i still love you even if you don't**

Bereft of the will to resist, Isaac began to obey her commands, fully unabated. She slid fingers coated with blood into his mouth, teasing his crazed, drunken desire with the promise of bounty, and Isaac relished the taste of it with an ominous smile.

_I... I didn't mean..._

As the obscenity of her enchantment poisoned him even further, he faltered and embraced the unbearable ecstasy he felt with rapid, labored breathing. Unable to surmount the voracity of her influence, Isaac suddenly became very much afraid and he immediately began to plead to her.

_P... please... stop, stop this... stop!... What... what are you..._

Her grip upon him was exact and irrefutable. Every point of contact she made with him agitated the flame of his unbridled senses, sending him deeper into maddened, psychological stimulation until he could no longer stand to be within his own body, beneath the gravity of her wanton presence. He raised a weak, trembling hand, tossed it about aimlessly as all of his coordination and balance became lost beneath a cloud of near death hysteria, and shedding torrents of heated, ecstatic tears from his eyes he begged for his life.

_Please! Please, stop... I can't take it...  
_

She wrapped herself even tighter around his brain with the asphyxiating twist of a python, and he watched in fully aroused terror as she gently braced his chin and leaned in closer, dragging the soft, blood moistened plains of her lips across his ear.

**it's just a side effect don't fight it let me do my work**

She watched the lifeless stare spread upon his face then kissed him, filling his mouth with blood from her own to fuel the burning fire of his sacrifice. Isaac physically relented, slumping against the wall.

_You better... know... what..._

He stopped, frozen in time upon the vast ocean within his mind. The strange vision he had witnessed earlier in unconsciousness now became all too real in the face of his celestial experience, and lost to what was illusion all Isaac knew of the world around him was the blood red tide stretching out in every direction. He was deep into the mire up to his thighs, and as he looked up he saw Kendra's bloody figure standing before him, beckoning him forward.

**know me**

She grabbed him by his waist and began to pull him down with a strength he was powerless to refute. As they fell in he took a deep, frightened breath, and they both disappeared into the darkness below.

**... no fear**

* * *

Isaac had no idea how much time had passed before he again heard a voice. This time it was calm and isolated, distinct from the oscillating frequencies of the Marker's chanting choir, accompanied only by a muffled, rhythmic pounding coming from somewhere below him.

_Rest, safekeeper._

The effects of Isaac's incapacitating euphoria had rendered what little he could see blurry, indiscernible. His eyes were useless, he could make nothing of detail, only dark shadows contrasting against blotches of pale, artificial light fluttering up and down past his vision, and as he began to come to he felt a fluctuating pressure upon his spine that seemed to be in perfect tandem with the heavy pounding sound he was barely able to hear. His tactile awareness sharpened in time to feel the ripple of muscular movement beneath him, and the patterned sound he was hearing he eventually concluded to be the steps of large, clawed feet, dragging and clashing against the metal floorboards.

Isaac groaned, unable to physically speak and feeling highly sedated. Again he had to fight to keep awake, and unable to control the muscles of his face his jaw hung loosely open, drooling trails of dark blood and saliva down the support he was resting upon. He strained his eyes to focus upon what was beneath him, and he saw the translucent, grey flesh of a necromorph.

_... Wha...?_

As lucidity returned Isaac eventually recognized the Hunter, carrying his paralyzed body draped over its massive shoulder, which in the wake of size comparison held little more for the monster than the effort required to tote a small length of rope. Isaac continued to moan, disturbed by the pangs of his otherworldly inebriation and he clutched feebly at the air with hands he could not properly control, until he was silenced by the Hunter's deep, reverberating dialogue.

_Do not expend needlessly. The bonding process is taking longer than expected. You are in a very delicate state. We will get you to the Marker._

Understanding that physical speech was not an option, Isaac attempted to reply mentally. However, it appeared that even his psychic abilities had been severely disrupted.

_Where... can't... far, it's... too far, need... sorry, I... _

The Hunter again silenced him with a pacifying tone that vibrated through Isaac's body.

_Rest._

Isaac fell limp in the Hunter's grasp. He closed his eyes and withdrew, listening as the necromorph absently whispered in cadence while it walked.

_evanescent wave you will travel the ends of our universe you will make us whole you are lord of the near and nigh we are your slaves he by whom we live red ascendant _

Isaac could hear the fractured multitude of frequencies emanating from the Marker, all through this beast's very soul. As each new voice arose to resonate along with the others, developing into a deafening blanket of solid, steady sound, the simultaneous streams of data merged into countless and overlapping patterns of misaligned, incongruous phrases that Isaac couldn't distinctly separate.

_our hands coupling to exact the life unity fractal and fitness heuristic to all purpose replicating will amplitude from a traveling wave crystal become paths lead to hole sympathetic the machines home now is less the time alpha wave to grow sacrifice finish attenuation rising and falling than exponential in the hole lead us is to all other holy zero grounds it is safe make us whole safekeeper inevitable in the hole is the force of perpetuation _

To Isaac, it was as if as if the valve to a mighty flow of knowledge had been opened, one whose force now, by pure momentum alone, was unstoppable by any means. The vibrations increased in volume and penetrated through the meat of his body, and the pain of it in his fragile state forced Isaac back into unconsciousness.

_you will make us whole again_

* * *

The soft, pulsating crimson glow of the Red Marker was visible even through Isaac's eyelids, and he slowly opened them. He found that he was lying upon his stomach on the floor of the Ishimura Flight Hangar, his line of vision directly aimed at the base of the Marker. All he could see was the twisting, radial spires towering above and swallowing his vision like a black hole punched through the environment. Isaac managed to lift himself up from the ground by his trembling arms, leaning in towards the Marker to revel in it's warm, radiating heat as it seared the outer layer of his body. Suddenly recalling his encounter with the Hunter he looked around to locate it, but neither it nor anyone else was to be found. He briefly found the strength to speak, and he called out softly into the darkness of the hangar.

"... Where are you?"

His distorted vision had previously prevented him from making heads or tails of anything, but now that the effects of his intoxication had now worn off to a some degree, awarding him the return of sufficient clarity, the first thing he noticed - was that _everything_ he noticed - was much different. Initially, he thought that his sensitivity to the vibrancy of color and complexity of detail in his surroundings were merely hallucinatory residuals of his experience, but he very quickly realized this was not the case as time progressed. While the more adverse of his symptoms declined, the intensity of this rebarbative new vision was only increasing.

Isaac was now able to see everything within his vision with a clarity he had never known even in his youth, and deep into the energy of its very existence. Neither light nor the absence of it served a hindrance to him any longer, and infinite networks of luminescent, hairline traces pulsing with ethereal electricity covered the outer surfaces of everything in his vision. These strange, shimmering lines of pure light were interleaved among each other to form intricate patterns with quantum mathematical perfection, delineating every atom of space and matter both within and without like a metaphysical roadmap. Though the effulgence of these threads burned brightly in his eyes, the surrounding environment did not seem to reflect any of this amazing brilliance, as the walls and ceiling remained dim even in the presence of its unparalleled glow, suggesting that what Isaac was seeing was through a fortified sense of perception that only he could comprehend. It was so appalling and extreme that he was almost unable to psychophysically process it, and it terrified him. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to run from it.

_Open your eyes._

Though hesitant with fear, he obeyed her command and opened them. Once again he could not escape his overwhelmingly enhanced vision, nor the malevolent red glow of the Marker absorbing his attention, and his dark, piercing eyes darted about the base of it in an attempt to seek out the source of the voice.

"I know you're there."

He heard a sound from beneath the nearby bay bridge, and his eyes shot toward it. At first all he saw was darkness, but the longer he kept his eyes upon it the more he could see as one by one, twinkling pinpoints of light began to evolve from the blanket of blackness, becoming more apparent as time passed like tiny bubbles rising to the surface of water. He concentrated upon these scintillating stars until he realized that they were the illuminated life threads of several necromorphs, silhouetting their hulking, alien figures like holographic projections as they clung to the darkness. He detected the Hunter as one among them, whose signature upon the stagnant ship air was as recognizable to Isaac as family blood, and he felt their eyes upon him in reverence.

He was about to say something when he recognized another identity emerging from the center of the concealed horde, a distinct, individual network of energetic threads that obviously did not belong to one like them. This unique entity slowly stepped out into the light, and Isaac instantly recognized the Hive Mind as she surfaced with all of the ecliptic ambiguity of the Marker itself.

_Take it easy, Isaac. We haven't finished yet._

Isaac saw right away that her appearance had dramatically changed. Her previously beaten, bruised skin was immaculate against the Marker's blood red glow, devoid of the deathly pale scars that had plagued her once blanched, emaciated features. Her hair, previously pulled back into bloody, matted tangles, was now clean, smooth and pouring down her shoulders on either side to form a nebulous storm front of dark, undulating brown curls about her face. His eyes fell to her exposed shoulders and arms, and saw that the carved marks upon the flesh of her arms that she had shown him back int he Morgue had vanished. They were now replaced by sleek, symmetrical symbols tattooed into her skin with ink black as her eyes, wrapping the circumference of her soft, flawless arms to form permanent bands of Marker runes. Her uniform and RIG had also changed, replaced now with a long, delicately strapped evening gown of onyx that shimmered, perfectly hugging the graceful angles of her figure down to her bare feet.

In the moment he had to gaze upon her, Isaac was floored by the stunning beauty of her rejuvenated presence. It had been so long since he had seen her in such high spirits, and the positive excitement he felt as a result of the strengthening of their bond became directly reflected in the Hive Mind's semblance of a young, freshly exuberant Kendra, perfectly reconstructed from Isaac's most fond memories of her. Having nearly forgotten how enchanting she had once been to him, Isaac could not turn away even as his eyes burned with tears of pained affection. She stepped up on silent feet next to him, and with a soft, inviting smile she lowered herself to her knees until her eyes were level to his. His eyes dropped to follow the floating, gossamer-thin fabric of her dress as it gently traced the curves of her legs beneath until it settled upon her feet, and she placed a warm hand against the side of his neck.

_So... Do we feel better?_

He responded with only a faint smile, almost paralyzed by the impact of her beauty, and slowly lowered his head against her chest and stared quietly into the shadow of her bosom. As she stroked the hairs upon the back of his neck, she could still barely detect a subtle hint of dissension - the distant glimmer of hope, the stubborn anomaly that still somehow continued to outsmart the Marker.

_There's, still a problem, it seems.  
_

A moment of uncomfortable silence passed between them, then she patted him reassuringly on the shoulder.

_All great things take time. I understand. __Tonight, you've opened up to me more than you have in a long time. That's a very big step forward for us, at least. Maybe we can avoid ending this badly, after all.  
_

Suddenly, just as quickly and unspoken as a cloud she ascended to her feet and backed away, retreating to the shadows beneath the bay bridge. Isaac watched her as she pranced about the darkness playfully like a child, reaching out to make gentle, loving contact with the necromorphs hovering just beyond the illuminated perimeter of the Marker's glow. He could hear her as she whispered things that were inaudible to him, and as he became distracted in his efforts to decipher her enigmatic words she scanned his thoughts. In response to what she found she raised her dark, inverted eyes to him, which he could see through the darkness as two shining beacons of reflected light bearing down upon him like the glare of a nocturnal predator.

_You have to remember that sacrifice is a necessary step to new life, Isaac._

This only crushed him even further.

"… I'm... I'm not ready to die."

Moved by his sadness the arrogance seemingly welded into her features softened and her eyes widened with concern, but she instead forced another smile.

_You're not going to. I've already told you how I expand your life cycle. You will live longer than you can imagine. _

Isaac did not seem encouraged by her promise of immortality.

"No, that's that's not what I mean."

Recalling from his dream the few moments of isolated sanctity he shared with Nicole upon the blood stained beach, Isaac turned back to the Marker.

"This, 'becoming whole' thing. This sounds like a great deal for you. If what you say is true, then I can see why you would want this. This isn't your fault. I can't blame you for following your nature, and I understand that now. But..."

His words broke off into a frustrated sigh as he stared intently upon the Marker.

"... What does this mean for me? What's going to happen, to who I am? To _my_ desires? Does that all just... go away, like it did for everyone else you've taken?"

_Look at it as a symbiotic relationship. We're friends. Friends help each other. _

Isaac scowled at her. He knew her words were intended with sincerity and compassion, but that even when trying to be benevolent she still could not conceal her instinctive willingness to prioritize the Marker over all other concerns, including his own, only reminded him of her true position as the alien parasite dominating his mind and body from whom he could not escape, and the endless servitude on his part this relationship would ultimately culminate in. Even as he looked upon her beautiful figure standing several yards away and off in the dark, he knew that her image was merely a visual concoction of his mind, designed to bewilder him into accepting a reality that did not exist; her true nature was buried deep inside him, a cancerous infection spilling forth the poison of its presence from within the very center of his being in a constant, steady flow of paralyzing inebriation, and nourishing itself upon his very identity. Understanding his resistance, the Hive Mind tightened her hold in an attempt to subdue him. But Isaac could not be so easily moved, even as her influence dampened the strength of his muscles and deafened his ears, he scoffed at her through clenched teeth he could barely feel.

"'Friends', you say. 'Symbiotic relationship'. I'm just not... sure about that."

_This isn't fair. You're not even giving me a chance._

"All I can see is that I am losing everything I am to this. How can I... I can _never_ go back to the life I lived before you, don't you see what you've done to me? To all of us?"

He turned his wild eyes to the necromorphs still hiding under the cover of the bay bridge's darkness, all of whom were staring back at him with deeply implanted reverence.

"I'm just, one of... _them_ now."

Kendra stood before him with her arms crossed, examining his posture as it declined under the burden of his sadness. Perfectly able to discern what he was feeling, she understood with much dismay the impact her presence was having upon him, but she kept her defenses up - there were more important factors at stake than Isaac's identity crisis.

_I can give you a better life, Isaac. I can show you things that no human will ever be able to know.  
_

Completely averse to her placation, Isaac grew increasingly irate.

"I don't... Why? Why does it have to... to be this way? What are you? I don't understand a goddamn thing about you!"

He choked, and he felt heated, bloody tears slide down his cheeks as Nicole's sweetly spoken caveats haunted him.

"I just... want to be made whole, too."

Again, silence commanded the conversation as they simply gazed upon one another. Sensing that Isaac was desperate for physical contact, Kendra slowly came forth from the darkness until she again stood before him, placing a gentle, heartfelt hand upon his shoulder. Her lips curved into a smile that deeply contrasted with her dolefully folded eyebrows.

_We will be. Together, you and I will be the greatest thing in all God's creation. You will soon forget all about these inferior desires.  
_

Isaac stared at her, his eyes slowly drifting up and down her figure. He watched how the Hive Mind reproduced the most stunning features of the Kendra he once remembered, mimicked the girl's staunch, confidant demeanor with immaculate precision, and he realized with a due amount of secretive respect that this creature was far more deceptive and charismatic than he had initially given it credit for. However, he also saw how its flawless performance also stirred the most unpleasant memories he carried of Kendra's treachery in the hours preceding her death.

"Why Kendra?"

She darted a sharp sideglance at him, but remained quiet as he continued.

"... I mean, it just doesn't make sense to me. According to you, you could take on any form you've seen in my head. Why did you choose her?"

The Hive Mind's face remained totally blank.

_You love Kendra. That's a fact, I have seen it._

Isaac's face twisted angrily.

"No, I don't."

_I'm sorry about Nicole. I really am. But I had to do what I did, because you would not accept me any other way._

"Wh, what?"

_You couldn't take to me, because you are so attached to her. Usually, you can't tell my hallucinatory iterations from real people; but somehow, you were always able to tell that my projection of her was not real. When I tried to approach you in her form, you rejected her._

"I... rejected her?"

_Yes... back in the cabin of the escape shuttle, remember? When you attacked me, you tried to kill me. That's when I knew that it was not going to be as easy as I thought to complete our bond. I realized that I had to find a more compatible persona through which to reach you. I need to appeal to you in a form that would more accurately depict the way you feel about me, about the Marker - someone who would make the reality more palatable for you.  
_

Isaac tilted his head, thoroughly baffled by her inference to the incident with the stowaway necromprh in the escape shuttle. His mind sped over the recollection of his encounter, his blood running cold as he came to realize that his perspective of that experience was vastly different. He shook his head in disbelief.

"No... no! She attacked me! She was in the cabin... She... _you_ lunged at _me!"_ _The memories of your past do not lie, Isaac. I have seen them all. You may have concocted many interpretations in your time, but there is no doubt that __this is how you see me. This is the most compatible form I can give to you, because you feel the exact same way about her as you do about me. Isaac shook hs head. "Who? Kendra?" __Yes. You are refusing to acknowledge that you love her in a way that violates your bond with Nicole. That secretive relationship you've carried on with her for years is paralleled by the way you feel about your having become my Maker. Your guilt, your resulting hostility towards Kendra, along with your recollection of her responses to that hostility, are what fuels our behavior towards each other. You and I are merely dancing around old memories in your head. _

She slowly sighed, then shrugged her shoulders.

_Basically, it is the most logical depiction I can afford for you that you won't psychologically reject. I guess that, in some way, you still see me as the bad guy, and that's the only level upon which you'll interact with me._

Isaac's dark, iridescent eyes darted up in sudden alarm. Before this moment it had not really occurred to him whether or not the real Kendra had ever been infected like the rest of those who had come into contact with the Marker, and this suggested a whole new chain of possibilities that he had not taken into account.

"Where is she? Why isn't she here, like the others?"

_She's gone._

"She's dead, you mean."

She slowly shook her head.

_She's gone. _

Isaac paused and held his breath, holding back the words on the tip of his tongue as he attempted to decipher her cryptic brevity. She twisted her lip and glared coldly at him.

_Together, we can do a lot of amazing things. _

The idea of revisiting Isaac's suppressed, illicit fascination with the beautiful yet dangerously clandestine malefactor who had caused so much grief gave rise to a desperate need for aversion, and he turned away. He felt torn between two distinct frequencies battling each other for control of his mental reception, trapped between them like a lone soldier descended upon by phalanxes of opposing force from all sides. The Hive Mind's overtures made pristine sense to him and began to sprout with appeal, and he was uncertain of his ability to withstand resisting her much longer, but no volume of her diabolical psychic trickery upon him could drown out the tiny, almost inaudible voice he heard constantly calling to him, begging him to reject her propositions. He had little desire to expend any more of his precious energy upon the subject.

"I've had enough. Please."

She was hardly moved to concur, as she deemed he had not heard everything he needed to hear. She drifted from the bitter subject of Kendra at hand, returning to the innocuous veneration she carried for her host.

_Every living thing has that little black dot inside, Isaac. That one, pivotal point of dead space. You can choose to define it - or it to define you. That is your freedom. _

She looked up, her eyes glimmering like shark skin in black moonlight.

_And I have been there all this time. I have seen everything there is to find in that brain of yours. Nicole isn't what you really want. I know what you want._

Isaac now stiffened with a sense of challenge, bruised by her hint.

"Oh... and, what do I want, huh?"

_You're perceiving yourself as something different than you are. You've forgotten all of that, all because you have been led astray by your own personal desires. You're clinging to this idea of leading a normal life, all while ignoring the little black dot we've created together inside you, Isaac. __We're the same, you and I. We are the same. That's why we belong together. I embrace who you really are._

Isaac stared at her, uncomfortably moved by her words.

_Was she really able to read his deepest desires, even those he himself was not consciously aware of, or was she merely trying to bluff him, cheat him with lies into surrendering without total disclosure of the consequences? What was he to do?_

She stood patiently before him, sensing his struggle as he attempted to navigate the depths of her intent, and a small, sharp grin stretched across her face.

_It's time to forget the past. We didn't come here to save Aegis7. We came here to claim it._

He looked back up at her with eyes glazed over with anxiety.

"We? To claim it...?"

She leaned over and placed a gentle hand upon the side of his neck, giving him a warm, sincere smile.

_It's time. They're coming._

Isaac twisted his brow, but before he could question her they were interrupted by an incoming transmission from Isaac's communications device.

_"Isaac... It's Hammond. Are you there?"_

Kendra shifted a blank gaze to the device upon Isaac's sleeve. He looked down at it, and with a terse tap of his finger he activated the device.

"What do you want?"

Hammond's voice paused upon the airwaves, growing hesitant as he sensed Isaac's agitation.

_"I'm... sorry, Mr. Clarke. I don't mean to intrude... but we've just received an incoming transmission that I think you need to hear. It's from the USM Creedence."_

Isaac's eyes widened at the mention of the USM warship that had intercepted his shuttle and rescued him, returned him to the Sprawl so long ago. It dawned upon him the reality of his timeslip, and that he and everyone aboard the Ishimura were reliving the period of time following his escape from Aegis7 all over again. And if his understanding was correct, it also meant that no one aboard the USM Credence was aware of the dangers surrounding Aegis7 and the Red Marker. They knew even less about the danger their most recent aquisition posed to them - the only known survivor of the USG Ishimura.

"... Show it to me."

Hammond patched the message through Isaa'cs RIG - a pre-recorded message bearing the static, monotone imagery of a USM Security Officer glaring into the camera.

_"USG Ishimura, this is Communications Dispatch of the USM Creedence. We are currently en route to your position; you are hereby placed under detainment for inquest by the executive order of the USM, and you are prohibited from leaving Aegis7 airspace. You are to maintain position until we establish contact, ETA thirty six hours. Under Galactic Unified Regulations we have permission to appropriate your vessel by any and all means necessary should you flee or otherwise fail to comply. This message will repeat indefinitely every five minutes until you respond. USM Ceedence out."_

The message ended and Isaac looked up at Kendra in astonishment, who returned his stare with a smile.

_I think it's time we send a message that we are here... and we are ready for them. Let's go, Isaac._


	31. Aboard The USM Credence

**Chapter 31**  
**Aboard The USM Credence**

**_"Time I am, destroyer of the worlds, and I have come to engage all people."_  
- B.G., 11.32**

* * *

_The Credence._

Isaac shook his head in disbelief. The USM Credence, very much like the USM Valor, had little if any understanding of what exactly they had gotten into by interjecting into the affairs at play over Aegis7 and the Red Marker. Though Isaac was beginning to succumb to the Hive Mind's influence and understand her perspective, the nagging little voice inside his head that he had come to consider some sort of residual conscience was all that kept him from blindly accepting her proposition to engage the USM warship. His waning humanity still had far too many questions about the Hive Mind's true intent, and knowing that this bizarre, ethereal creature held no partiality towards anyone or anything but the Marker itself, he came to suspect that her plans involved a lot more than the rather innocent and straightforward task of finding a way to return the Marker to the planet.

"Why the hell would you want to send a message to the Credence?"

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled darkly.

_There are no more shuttles aboard, that's why. Right now, we have no way of getting the Marker back to Aegis7. We need to enlist the Credence's assistance._

Isaac stared sharply upon her, chilled to the core by her double bladed words. He had suspected, judging by what he had come to learn of the ever expanding necromorph virus during his time, that while returning the Marker to its rightful position seemed to be a high priority to her, ultimately at the very heart of everything that she was lie her true, destined purpose... to _spread._ Some very deeply human part of him refused to let that happen, at any expense.

"That's insane. Why would we do that? Knowing what we can do... Why lure more in, cause even more damage than we already have? We can return the Marker ourselves. We don't need their... 'assistance'."

_How do you expect to do that? Thanks to your last attempt to fuck us over, we're no longer on the planet. We can't just drop it out the ass-end of the Ishimura. The Credence is the only other ship for parsecs around. They're our only option. _

"We have enough active crew on board. We can land the ship. Yes. We'll just... land the Ishimura, and we'll get it out that way. We can do it. I can do it."

_We can't do that, Isaac. The Ishimura is too big... It wasn't designed to be planetbound. The sheer gravity of it entering the atmosphere would decay our line of flight so quickly, that there's no way we would be able to land it without crashing. Why do you think it has a docking bay? The Ishimura is a station. At least, the physics of it are as such, and it was never meant to return to the surface in one piece. After your little exercise earlier, I figured you would have come to see that already._

Isaac scratched his head irritably. Everything she said was true; trying to land such a massive ship like the Ishimura on the surface of Aegis7 would not be possible without destroying it. Still, Isaac knew she was trying to herd his judgment through logic, wielding explicitly pristine counterstrikes of the likes that even he might have posed to himself, all in an effort to dissuade him from any solution other than what she recommended he do. He tried his best from every angle to avoid her, to get around her, to do anything he could to keep from contacting the Credence.

"How about we just... Go back? Let's use the Marker to... to go back, to the first time. The first time the Marker was brought back, before Kendra tried to steal it. We'll just... just, we'll just stop her from leaving with it. That's what we'll do."

The Hive Mind snapped her head up, locking wide, glaring eyes upon him as a fire ignited within.

_The Marker isn't meant to be used that way. That's not what it's for. Every time you invoke the Marker's time slip, we lose energy - precious energy which, until the Marker is returned and the bond is complete, we cannot afford to waste. In your condition, you're very fortunate to have lived through the last one. No, we have to solve this ourselves, in **this** time._

He uncomfortably cleared his throat, and though he still desired to argue the matter, seeking to drive her into admitting her truth, he just nodded reluctantly.

"... Then, what do you suggest we do?"

She gestured up towards the hangar's ceiling high above, out the massive bay windows and to the stars beyond.

_That's where the Credence comes in. We'll take one of their shuttles. _

Isaac eyed the stars rotating in the black field of space, feeling crushed beneath their cosmic weight and sickened by her placid, joyless suggestion that they somehow infect the crew aboard the USM Credence. This realization forced him to revisit the terrifying memories of his journey through the hell that was the cursed Ishimura, and to think that a tragedy of even greater magnitude would be spread aboard a fully populated USM military vessel caused all of the most critical warning alarms to go off in the back of Isaac's mind. He took a deep, tense breath.

"I... I know what you're up to. This isn't about about returning the Marker, is it? I mean, not entirely... we don't need the Credence. And you know it."

_Yes we do, Isaac. We need them more than you understand.  
_

"... You _want_ to infect that ship... don't you?"

Kendra licked the inside of her cheek and gave him a wry smile.

_It's all about numbers. The more we have on our side, the better off we'll be when we begin our real work._

Isaac tilted his head.

"Our real work?"

Her attention was suddenly drawn away by something Isaac could not detect, and she regressed into a temporary, meditative state for a few moments of silence. She finally looked back up.

_Send them our message._

Isaac refused to obey her - at least, until she tightened the pressure at the base of his skull and exacted her coercion over him. He fell to one knee, vainly fighting against her as she stimulated his senses into full compliance.

_Do it.  
_

Isaac's expression fell blank. Directly manipulated by the Hive Mind as she twisted the blade of her hold upon his brain, he turned his attention to the communications device on his sleeve and patched into the Ishimura's satellite array.

* * *

"Captain, we're picking up a transmission."

Captain Ravi Sarius of the USM Credence, instructing his crew aboard the Bridge, was interrupted by the Corporal at the communications. He looked up in his direction.

"The Valor?"

The Corporal grazed the monitor for a few seconds, then shook his head.

"No, Sir. It's not the Valor... its encrypted with a CEC header."

"...The Ishimura."

Sarius turned to face the Corporal.

"On-screen. Let's see it."

The Corporal nodded obediently and returned to the controls, queuing up the message on his holomonitor. Every pair of eyes present turned to the video as it played back across the wide, panoramic mainframe display at the front of the bridge. The lines of distortion flickered in and out as the signal sought to establish itself upon the dead airwaves of space, until they flattened to reveal what appeared to be a dark, empty room with no one present. The audio accompanying the video playback was silent save for the ambient hum of static, and after several seconds of no activity Sarius began to eye it with suspicion.

_Obviously, this was not a standard protocol broadcast._

Sarius was about to cue the Corporal to cut the playback when the silence finally broke with the soft, quiet sounds of scuffling in the background. Suddenly, the angle of the camera's view rotated and filled with the shadows of fingers pressed against the lens, jostling as the broadcasting device was manually repositioned by someone's hand. The camera settled upon its target - a blurred figure, visible only through random bursts of aqueous blue light projected from a chest plate holomonitor that periodically illuminated the throat and underside of the figure's chin, and a soft, crimson halo that outlined its tall, solid silhouette from somewhere behind it. The Captain and his soldiers watched with stark, eager eyes as the heavily compressed transmission paused flat for a few seconds during static breakup, and was followed by a deep, deadpan voice rising from the silence.

_"USM Credence... This is the USG Ishimura."_

The display briefly bloomed in a pattern of flashes as the speaker's chest plate holomonitor lit up with incoming status responses, revealing in its quick bursts of light the gaunt, sunken features of the man peering into the recording device. He had a tight, ravenous smirk striped across his lips, and he was dressed in a heavily scarred engineer's work suit covered in handwritten scrawl of a strange, runic language that Sarius distantly recognized. Everyone watching the broadcast noticed that while the speaker appeared to be human, though a bit deranged, the man's eyes appeared to them as windows into something from far beyond that of their own kind. These eyes were inverted, pure, solid black spheres crowned by pupils of ivory iridescence, radiating against the recording device's infrared sensor. While none of the Bridge crew recognized the identity of the speaker due to the darkness and low resolution of the video, Sarius himself swallowed against a developing lump in his throat as he felt a faint spark of recognition.

_"Your invitation is attached. See you. Soon."_

The transmission abruptly cut short following the man's final word, and the imagery tore into millions of shifting static threads as the signal became lost. A second later, the screen suddenly blinked to a system command prompt, and began to fill with strings of code that the Corporal recognized as encoded coordinates.

"Based on triangulation of signal origin, these appear to be accurate... and very specific. Whoever they are, they want us to find them."

Sarius hardly heard the Corporal's report as he pondered over the ominous message from the Ishimura, and what it could mean to them. Like most involved, Sarius knew that this planetcracker should not have been in this restricted star system, and he suspected that the Valor's unexplained disappearance over Aegis7 would prove to be only one link in a chain of disaster binding this place. That a ship the Valor's size could have vanished with no distress signal or even a trace was, to Sarius, a foul omen of things to come - and all of these dire events seemed to be precipitated by the Ishimura's violating presence in the Cygnus system.

"... What the hell is this shit? They're fucking with us."

The deepening of his voice put the Corporal on alarm, who returned a nervous glance.

"Captain, you suppose... they were right? I mean, about what's been going on out here?"

"I don't give a shit one way or the other about this operation anymore. Something's definitely not right here. As far as I'm concerned, those fucking CEC pirates have signed their own death warrants when the Valor disappeared."

Sarius darted a furious glare at the Corporal.

"Lock those coordinates. We're stopping that goddamn planetcracker."

The Corporal nodded silently and programmed in the coordinates, sending the Credence underway for the boundary of Aegis7. After a short period of travel the Credence finally arrived within the planet's outer orbit, just beyond the asteroid field. As the ship halted its forward approach, the crew on the Bridge scanned the skies for any sign of the Ishimura. After a response, one of the nearby control operators looked up and pointed out the front window, just off towards the eastern face of the planet.

"I've got the Ishimura coming up on the tracker, Captain. There it is, dead ahead."

Sarius turned to follow the operator's direction, and saw floating just above the glowing outer perimeter of Aegis7's atmospheric layer was the USG Ishimura. The entire ship was lit up all around to full capacity and its massive, black silhouette became clearly obvious against the crimson planet backdrop. A quiet, deferential gasp was shared throughout the room by those who had never actually seen this legendary starship personally, and they were awed by its presence which was gargantuan even at its current distance from the Credence. Sarius stared at the ship, hauntingly eclipsed by the glowing red disc of Aegis7 behind it, with the most avid eyes of them all. He took a deep breath, licked his lips in an attempt to conceal his anxiety and side glanced the Corporal.

"Run a scan for life signs. Search for any identification... all known types, including Alpha subchips. I want to know exactly who is on that ship."

The Corporal glanced up at the Captain, stricken with surprise.

"Subchips, Captain? But aren't those only used on Ch -"

Sarius immediately silenced him with a piercing glare.

"Scan for _everything, _Corporal."

Hearing the Captain's demand, the Corporal held his tongue and activated the scanners. After a few moments he nodded.

"Sir... I'm picking up one life sign."

He paused and slowly turned back to Sarius, his expression wide eyed with astonishment.

"It _is_ a subchip signal, Sir. But, how? There were two of those... things out here?"

Sarius failed to respond. The Corporal turned back to the monitor.

"I can't lock it down - I'm having trouble reading the identification code. Something's blocking the signal."

The Captain's solemn eyes never moved from the looming plume of shadow that was the USG Ishimura.

"Take us in, Corporal."

* * *

_That will do, Isaac. It won't be long, now.  
_

Isaac failed to return a smile, or even a response to Kendra as she beamed coldly at him. It was obvious that she was pleased, but Isaac was clearly in opposition. He slowly retreated from her and slipped into the shadows of the Flight Hangar, sitting in long, contemplative silence for what might have been hours as his mind reeled over the possible outcomes that might follow what had just occurred.

Through the Marker's poisoning influence Isaac had, to some degree, begun to feel satisfied in his taunting communications with the Credence. However, despite becoming increasingly attracted to her perspective as her stronghold solidified over time, the remaining fraction of his conscience that still resisted her simply could not deny the possibility that this one, small interaction could have initiated an unstoppable plague of extinction that would expand beyond Aegis7 to devour everything it came into contact with. Becoming hopelessly conflicted between a growing appreciation for the Hive Mind's lust for biological imperialism and the sickened abhorrence his humane side tasted at the thought of such massive scale, extraterrestrial terrorism, Isaac began to have very serious doubts about his chances of escaping the destiny she seemed so intent on handing to him. Exhausted on ideas, he began to see that the only real option he had had all along was to simply follow her lead.

"I don't see what this is going to do for us. What are we going to do when they get here? They're not just gonna hand us a shuttle now, are they?"

While his argument would seem sound to any logical mind, Kendra hardly seemed moved to agree.

_Oh, Isaac... in spite of everything you've learned, still you underestimate us so much. We won't even have to leave this hangar. We're going to bring the shuttle to us. _

Isaac bent a brow and nervously scratched at his chin as he stared out the Flight Hangar windows, wondering for the life of him what she meant. Kendra just watched him with her ever-present grin of full confidence.

_You want to know how, do you, Isaac? Well, I'll show you. It's time you see what we can really do.  
_

Isaac was faltering. The dense fog of her poison spreading within him further sullied his sense of reason, awakening a devious longing to see the power of this creature unleashed upon their unsuspecting target in all its glory. He glanced wildly to the side as a brief pang of repentance crossed his mind.

"What we can... really do, huh? And what is that, exactly?"

_How to control our vessels. Not just the surface-level mental projection you're familiar with, but full telepathy. Transmigration, if you will. _

She stepped up next to him and placed her hand on his shoulder, and upon her contact Isaac slowly closed his eyes. He felt her presence within him, invading his mind and injecting her knowledge directly into his awareness, taking control of his faculties the further he surrendered to her until his perception began to expand beyond his own body and out for miles beyond the Ishimura. Isaac was rendered breathless by the experience; he froze, unable to move or outwardly express anything, and all he could see, hear and feel around him was the energy of every star, every planet, every cosmic molecule in existence, every oscillation of it captured upon the hypersensitive webbing of his expanding consciousness. The Hive Mind kept her hand and her eye upon him, holding him under control as he fought desperately within to come to terms with this inconceivable new vision.

_Now... see what I see, Isaac. _

She peered deeper into his brain and fine tuned the clarity of his reception until Isaac was able to detect upon the telepathic waves the energy of the USM Credence hovering just beyond the planet's border. Having never before been able to experience such a out-of-body phenomenon, Isaac was shocked into complete trance and merely gaped out the window with dead eyes that had by now already gone physically blind. However, this posed no difficulty; through his radically enhanced inner vision not only was Isaac able to see everything within his standard purview perfectly, but now also many things beyond the realm of normal human perception were now fully within his grasp - including the explicative detail of the vision of the Credence, standing out clear as day within his mind's eye.

_This is just the start of it. We can go even deeper._

Isaac, now fully tantalized beyond any sense of fear by this strange new perception, concentrated his full attention upon the hulking mass of the Credence. Following the Hive Mind's instruction he attempted to fold the distance of time and space between the Ishimura and the USM ship, permeating his telepathic vision throughout the entire vessel as if he were standing right inside it. Slowly, one by one like stars emerging at twilight, he saw the illuminating life threads of every crew member aboard the Credence rise to the surface of his vision. As the engineer he was, Isaac could not resist compiling the preliminary calculations of what he saw.

_Full ship. At least a quarter of a legion, not counting the citizen class crew._

Encouraged Isaac now began to delve further into his abstract vision, reaching into each inhabitant he came across as the Hive Mind imbued him with the knowledge of transplanting his consciousness alongside those he came into contact with in the same surrogate manner she shared with him. However, he quickly found that unlike the already infected crew of the Ishimura, the Credence crew seemed to repel his attempts to invade their bodies, and they appeared to him as nothing more than unreadable, corrupted black boxes. Every attempt he made to enter their minds was rebuked by some unseen force that he could not penetrate, and put off by the unanticipated resistance he opened his eyes.

"... Lot of good this does me. Why are you showing me this?"

_For instructional purposes. To show you that we can't control them until they've been exposed to the infection._

"Then what's the point? We can't infect them from here, so what can we do?"

Kendra looked directly at Isaac with a cold, hard stare.

_Look a little deeper, Isaac. Tell me what you find._

At first Isaac didn't know what else he could possibly achieve at this point. He began to feel frustrated, but at her suggestion he was suddenly met with another point of energy being broadcast from somewhere deep within the ship. He focused upon it, and realized much to his astonishment that this single, unique identity was different from the rest - and much more familiar.

_An infected body. A necromorph._

Intrigued, Isaac began to consider how the Credence could have an infected person aboard their ship... when it struck him with the force of a freight train.

_When he had escaped Aegis7, the Credence had been the ship that had rescued him. And __now, if calculations were correct, he - at least, a repeated interation of himself in time - was aboard that ship, carrying the virus with him. _

He slowly turned back around to be faced with her beguiling grin.

_It couldn't have turned out any better. Your're obviously the most compatible, and the least taxing. Perfect training ground. Who knows, perhaps you knew what you were doing, after all. Perhaps, just maybe you knew that your help would be needed in the future. I've always said you were resourceful, Isaac._

Isaac feared that the process of possession as she suggested would prove to be a highly awkward situation from all sides, and his inability to anticipate what his reaction might be to facing the metaphysical playing field of his own self's mind made this proposition just too strange and alienating of a concept. Unfortunately, he had no other alternative than to follow the Hive Mind's lead - though by some, very fractional means he was also beginning to develop a budding curiosity for the experience. She beckoned Isaac onward, and he reluctantly entered into the one point of infectious black space that stood out in his telepathic vision aboard the Credence.

* * *

_Awaken._

Sudden, startling consciousness swarmed in upon the comatose brain of a patient quarantined in the Credence Medical Infirmary. Electrically charged the man's eyes flew open and he immediately bolted upright, inadvertently slamming his forehead into a thick, glass panel posted just feet above him in the process, which knocked him into a brief daze. He cried out at the harsh impact against his skull and fell back, clutching his head and griping between tightly locked teeth as he felt the warmth of blood and a small laceration caused by the blow. Taking another moment to recover with a few deep breaths, the man again opened his eyes and this time tactfully looked around while restricting his body movement, perceiving that he was sealed inside what appeared to be a medical resuscitation chamber.

"What... where... am I..."

Beginning to suffer a very deep, claustrophobic fright he immediately began to seek out a means of release from the small, cramped space. He ran his hands along every edge he could find, desperately searching for anything that might provide him with leverage to force it open, but he came to realize that the entire chamber was completely smooth and featureless. During this period he also became aware of feeling highly sedated, sluggish and disoriented, and this seriously alarmed him as to what was happening. His muffled, throbbing senses could barely detect stabbing pains across his arms and legs, and with some difficulty he managed to look down at himself. To his shock he discovered that he was bound by a variety of intravenous devices injected into all of his limbs. Suspecting that these needles were the source of his sedation he swiped out, yanking at the tubes and needles to remove them, but his impaired condition made the task very difficult. After several long moments of aggravating struggle the man finally freed himself of his intravenous bondage, and returning to solving the mystery of his escape he suddenly heard an impassive whisper coming from somewhere he could not distinctly place.

**center is the weak spot Isaac**

He was both startled and threatened by the commanding presence of this voice. Suddenly, a strange force beyond his control seized his right hand against his will, clenched it into a tightly balled fist, and forcefully struck it several times upon the center of the glass panel with an unrealized strength. Upon the final blow the glass cracked into shards and shattered. The moment the glass broke, Isaac somehow regained control of his hand and he quickly raised his arms to cover his face as the glass showered down into the chamber. Once the razor sharp dust settled, he slowly pulled himself up and glanced down with wild, panicked eyes at the bloody knuckles of his hand, which had been gouged by several small shards of loose glass. Again, the untraceable voice came at him from somewhere unseen.

**get up**

His head jerked nervously at the sound of the voice and he looked around, shaken with uncertainty, trying to suppress the nauseating effects of sedation and desperately wondering if this voice was merely a hallucination spawned from it. Shaking uncontrollably with some difficulty, he climbed out of the chamber, carefully balanced his weight upon his weakened knees and braced himself against it, looking around him in all directions. The chill in the air shot straight through his body like an icy wind, and this prompted him to realize with great dismay that he was barefoot and dressed in nothing more than a scant medical garment that offered insufficient shielding against the very cold ambient temperature. As he looked around and took in the sterilized details of his surroundings he understood that he was in some sort of infirmary, but this particular place was not familiar to him - it wasn't the Ishimura or the Aegis7 Colony, and he was pretty sure it wasn't the Sprawl.

As his wily eyes bounced around the room in search of anything familiar, they suddenly fell upon a large framed poster hanging on the wall off to his left. Its imagery depicted a staunch and intimidating USM soldier holding one thick gloved hand over his heart in pledge while wielding a large, menacing pulse rifle in the other, and standing in front of a torn, red battle flag symbolizing the imperial reign of the USM. The caption above the epic composition caught Isaac's attention, and he perceived the irony of the advertisement's bellicose propaganda to be mocking his efforts.

**SEIZE YOUR GLORY**

As he read the words several times he suddenly realized that he was aboard a USM ship. However, he knew it couldn't have been the Valor, because it had more than likely been destroyed along with the Ishimura during the cataclysmic devastation he had witnessed of Aegis7 upon his escape. During the time they had been aboard the Ishimura, neither Kendra nor Hammond had picked up any other signals responding to their distress beacon, and he simply couldn't imagine who might have been close enough to come to his rescue.

_Where the fuck was he? Was he... at least away from that place?_

His maddened deliberations were suddenly interrupted by the sound of a hololock, activated from somewhere behind him. Isaac darted his exhausted eyes back over his shoulder just as a door on the far side of the room slid open and a medical orderly walked in, looking around solicitously. As the orderly caught sight of the shattered resuscitation chamber, he stiffened and shot his glance again around the room until they met those of the escaped patient across the way.

"Hey, what the hell are you - how'd you get out of there?"

Still inebriated and confused, Isaac pressed his back up against the wall and locked his gaze upon the orderly as he began to make his way across the room. Isaac sidled down the wall in a vain attempt to escape, struggling to focus his eyes upon the man, and he responded aggressively.

"Stay away from me... Stay the fuck away..."

The orderly, realizing how unstable and imbalanced Isaac was, put his hands up in a gesture of pacification.

"Look, just relax. You're safe here. No one's gonna hurt you, Isaac."

Isaac locked his glazed eyes upon the orderly, furiously wondering how this stranger knew his name, and continued to retreat. He snarled under his breath with animosity that increased the closer the man got.

"You're on the Credence, under the protection of the United Space Military. We picked up the distress signal of your shuttle, and we're bringing you back to the Sprawl. You're going home."

At the mention of the word 'home', Isaac suddenly felt a very odd, almost saddening sentiment come over him, accompanied by an unbearable sickness rising within his stomach. He stumbled backwards from the pain, squeezed his eyes shut and reached up to wipe the perspiration from his forehead as he began to feel faint. He shook it off, slightly twisted his head and stared upon the orderly, trying through clouded vision and mind to anticipate the man's intentions. Unaware of the severe emotional and physical distress Isaac was experiencing the orderly continued to close in, reaching for something in his front pocket with slow, discreet fingers.

"It's okay, Isaac. Just... take it easy. You'll be okay..."

Just as the orderly retrieved a small hypodermic needle and leaned forward to grab a hold of his wrist, Isaac pulled away. Atop his overwhelming sickness Isaac again felt the influence of some strange presence seize him, and the lines of his face deepened to trace out an unexplained hatred for this orderly whom he did not even know. With no warning and fighting now to break the grip of this coercing presence inside him, Isaac flashed the dark, jade shards of his eyes and bared his teeth.

"I said... _stay the fuck away__!"_

Isaac viciously lashed out, slashing the orderly's forearm with a piece of glass he had hidden within his palm. As the man reeled back, driven by an unstoppable wave of nausea Isaac suddenly lurched forward, forced his mouth wide open and proceeded to vomit upon him with projectile force. Covered in the bloody, condensed excrement the orderly fell backwards screaming, clutching at the gaping wound upon his arm and trying desperately to wipe away the discharge as it began to burn away his clothing and skin upon contact, all while Isaac watched in helpless, paralyzed terror. It quickly ate away the orderly's flesh like highly corrosive acid, and the smoking, liquefying skin brought forth a layer of tiny white specks that clung to the exposed muscles in gatherings of froth like blood red sea foam. As his face continued to melt the orderly screamed hysterically, wide eyed and grasping at the frothing flesh as it fell to the floor in thick, clotted clumps.

"Oh, god, oh god! _HELP ME! HEL M..."_

Isaac stumbled back in shock and pain, unable to believe what he had just seen come forth from himself, and he just stared as the man's face fell away until he could no longer speak. Writing in agony, the man emitted his last few gurgles and doubled over as Isaac began to retreat, having no idea what was happening to this poor fellow. Isaac nervously wiped his lips with the back of his hand and noticed that the discharge failed to affect him as it had this man before him, but driven by his inner guiding voice he continued to add distance between himself and the dying man. This unexplained intuition assimilating his consciousness began to terrorize him more than the debasement of the orderly's plight itself.

The orderly finally collapsed upon the ground, the skin of his head, neck and chest burned away until there was nothing left of his upper torso save for the smoldering, dissolved stump that remained of his spinal column. His convulsions ceased, and after a few moments of perfect stillness the white speckled wounds began to birth countless, tiny infantile larvae, writhing like maggots. Isaac realized as the spawning horde began to fill the floor at his feet that they were replicating at a rate that seemed far too voluminous to be contained within the body of this dead man - they were actually being generated from the flesh before his eyes, and their ghastly profligation was showing no signs of stopping or even slowing. With tears in his eyes he pressed a hand to his mouth, choking back a second desire to gag out of panic as he continued to watch the impending infestation multiply with the speed and virility of some incomprehensible virus.

_The necromorph virus._

Despite that he had seen more than his share of death in his short time aboard the Ishimura, Isaac found that he was still far from prepared to again face such unfathomable atrocity, violence and struggle for survival. Unable to pull his eyes away from the gruesome sight Isaac stepped gingerly around the orderly's body, nearly slipping upon the thick, dark puddle of blood that had pooled across the floor, and he headed for the door with an urgent desire to get out of this place before the larvae became aware enough of his proximity to attack. He felt the presence deep inside as it now filled him with a sense of purpose that attracted him like a magnet towards a single destination within the ship. Feeling as the oppressive grip of this unknown energy tightened its hold upon him, Isaac's anxious breathing increased until he could no longer stand it and he cried out.

"What do you want? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?"

His words thundered off the cold, sterile walls and back upon him like knives, ringing painfully in his ears and forcing him back into silence. As his eyes bounced wildly around the room he shriveled in upon himself, wrapping his arms around his chest in an effort to subdue his shivering, and as the compelling ghost inside his head drew his attention towards it like a magnet, all of his outer perception suddenly went dark. Forced to turn inward, Isaac fell silent and listened to it.

**isaac**

A pernicious, demonic silhouette stepped forward from the obscured darkness of his mind like a spectre, blinding him to all but its towering shadow as it draped over his consciousness. Everything about this unholy creature swallowed the world around Isaac like a void in space, with the exception of its three burning eyes like fault lines etched across a featureless face encased in smooth, black metal.

******hear us **

The crimson luminescence radiating from its blackened figure gathered in beams to slice through the shadows, and it emanated an aura that stirred the gut wrenching sickness Isaac was experiencing. Feeling threatened by the malevolence issuing forth from this phantom but having no way to escape from it, all Isaac could do was weakly raise his hands above his head in defense, growling between angry, frightened sobs as he recognized the enemy he knew... the one that had once lured him along through the Colony, enchanting him with the illusory promise of being made whole through its soft, chanting vocals. The enemy that now existed only in his head.

"I... I don't, I don't know what you, what you want... Can't you just... leave me the fuck alone? I can't... I can't _help _you anymore, don't you understand that? I tried... just, let me go."

But the monster remained unabated, stepped up directly behind him with loud, resounding thuds of its titanium clad feet. Isaac gasped as a pair of ice cold hands, plated in pure black metal and coated in blood, grabbed him by his shoulders in a gesture of amity. The grip of this creature was beyond frigid, clinging to Isaac's skin like dry ice, and all sensation beneath the area fell numb at its touch. Still, Isaac could feel the warm, thick blood as it dripped down his shoulders and arms, and formed a solid layer that seemed to attach Isaac to this presence like an assimilating adhesive. Terrified as he was, Isaac could do nothing but abide as the creature emitted its mental inflections.

**we did not finish our work the marker is in danger **

Isaac's eyes widened.

"... The Marker? But, but Aegis7 was, was destroyed! How..."

******the marker is here with us **

Isaac paused, becoming mesmerized by the orphic tones of its vocals as it spoke. He clearly detected in the waveform two separate frequencies mimicking each other - one of them being a dominant pattern, resoundingly deep and interleaved inseparably with the other, which was a slightly more delicate and muted tone. Though the speech of this shadowy presence was affable and artfully spoken, its dark, physical nature hinted at a morbid brutality that, despite the outwardly expressed aire of humble request, sternly demanded Isaac's full and unrelenting compliance.

**we would be very grateful for the assistance and will safeguard your way**

Isaac clearly felt the weight of the creature's hands bearing down upon his shoulders until it forced him to his knees. Powerless to refute he collapsed beneath the weight as the creature wrapped its hands around his head to cover his eyes and ears. The gelid, burning sensation of the creature's contact sent his heart racing, and he found himself entirely blind and deaf to everything in existence save for the commands of this demon vibrating throughout his head with jarring impact.

**we are waiting for you now you must go**

Isaac physically opened his eyes, and discovered that full strength and faculty had returned to his outer body. Though still dragged a bit by the effects of his sedation, the somehow familiar apparition inside his head drove him forth with impetus. As he looked around, through a now strangely altered vision he was able to discern an illuminated route through the ship - a pulsating thread of energy, like a trail of lightning frozen in time tracing along the floor. He could follow it all the way, even through the walls and objects standing between him and his destination as it projected a clear path through the Credence with the precision a RIG's locator beacon.

"Holy sh... What the hell is going on...?"

Isaac was sparked from within to get moving, and lured towards it like prey to an angler's hook he started to follow the ghostly, ethereal line tracing the floorboards at his feet. He stopped half way to the door as he heard a sudden scuffling sound coming from behind him, and he turned around just in time to see the decapitated body of the orderly slowly rising up off the floor until it was fully erect upon shaking knees. It rotated around until the headless torso was directly facing Isaac, and as it stood at full attention the true inefficacy of its wound in the face of the necromorph infection became poignantly obvious. The crisped, melted skin of its chest began to mutate into thick, solid strands of muscle, growing longer and spreading out into veiny red flesh that thickened into pure live tissue that beagn to seal the wounds at a rapid rate. Though the corpse was unable to speak, this failed to dampen its efforts to communicate, and Isaac heard a strange voice slip through the back his mind with crystal clarity.

_It is an honor to see you, Isaac Clarke. Make us whole._

Isaac simply stared at the bloody abomination as it wobbled on it's legs, and he continued to back away until he felt the exit door at his back. He reached up to activate the hololock, keeping his eyes upon the orderly's freshly risen body until the door opened behind him, and he quickly slipped out.

Isaac turned around and found that he was standing in an unpopulated, dimly lit hallway that stretched into darkness in both directions. He had no way of figuring which was the best way to go, and had to resign himself to following the luminescent trail mapping the way. He stumbled down the hallway upon heavy feet, still trying to fend off the remaining effects of sedation and occasionally having to reach out to brace himself against the walls in order to catch his breath, and he dismally realized that the hallway was unfortunately no less chilling in temperature than was the infirmary. However, the driving impetus and rise in adrenaline had warmed his blood substantially by this point, making the cold little more than an inconvenience.

He eyed the hallways anxiously as he drifted through the halls, keeping as quiet and alert as possible to avoid being discovered. He suspected it wouldn't be long before someone found the dead - or rather the undead - body of the orderly, and shortly after that the entire ship would be crawling with soldiers searching for him. In his weakened condition, Isaac was not desirous of running into anyone else. He took a defensive posture, turning his head observantly at every sound, but as time progressed he began to pay more attention to the incoherent whispering coming from inside his head. Persuaded to place his faith in the ancient, incoherent messages, he directed his focus solely towards following the spectral white light trailing the ground at his feet.

However, in spite of all the encouraging promises, the odds were not in his favor to remain alone. His uneventful, isolated trek through the Credence was brought to an abrupt end when he rounded a corner and ran into a small pod of soldiers coming from the opposite direction. As their eyes fell upon him and they realized who he was, all of them immediately tensed and barked like dogs through their helmets.

"Hey, you! Stop!"

The head soldier immediately radioed back to control as the others raised their rifles. Seeing the blunt, dark silhouettes of their guns aimed directly at him Isaac froze, the pounding of his heart in his ears rendering him deaf to their directives. The soldiers aggressively charged forth, ordering him to submit, but all Isaac could hear was the voice.

**the corridor to your right turn now**

Isaac instinctively turned to his right and saw a small, nondescript ingress just across the way. Without hesitation he limped towards it, breaking into as quick of a run as he could with legs losing nerve as the metal floorboards began to vibrate under the hard, thumping strides of his pursuers. Isaac kept his eyes dead ahead and prayed to his inner voice that they not get to him, and he continued to run even as he felt his chest about to collapse and he panicked into faltering. About to give in to the inevitable fear that he was trapped, he again heard the voice rising with forceful reprimand upon him.

**STOP**

Without deliberation he immediately obeyed, slid to a halt on his bare feet and stared down the hall ahead of him. Right away he noticed that the floor had ceased vibrating and he no longer sensed the solders at his back. He curiously turned around, looked down the hall behind him and saw now that the soldiers had fallen back, their retreat followed seconds later by the loud, resounding echo of weapon fire. Isaac saw bright, repetitive flashes of light and he dropped to the floor to avoid being hit, but he quickly realized that it wasn't him they were firing at. Isaac opened his eyes and looked down the way to find out why, and saw that the soldiers were now violently engaged with another combatant that was much larger than any of them.

"What the hell...?"

One of the soldiers was struck down as the other two frantically unloaded round after round at their opponent, but the large figure they were facing seemed incredibly aggressive and formidable, proving the USM watchdogs to be of little match as it absorbed the bullets of their rifles into its skin with little to no damage. In retaliation it swiped out with large, powerful fists to dispatch the soldiers like weeds, crushing in their helmets and their heads effortlessly. The soldiers' bodies collapsed upon the bone crushing impact, and once the melee settled Isaac saw their aggressor had now turned its attention directly to him. Isaac paused, reminded of his gruesome necromorph encounters of the past and considering the possibility that this one might be a brute or something even more capable of charging him, but it did not resort to such actions. It slowly stood at attention, and as Isaac closely examined the figure, he saw its headless, bloody torso and recognized it.

_The orderly?_

Nervous but intrigued, Isaac watched as it slowly stalked down the hall towards him, until it came close enough to confirm his suspicion. The body had become drastically mutated in the relatively short period of time since he had last seen it, a trait that was indicative of the more dominant strains of the necromorph virus despite some very striking differences from what he had come to know of their kind. It had elongated, grown taller, thinner and sharper at some of its angles, and this had caused the uniform it had been wearing to tear and hang unevenly upon its frame. The surface of its skin caught Isaac's attention, for it was not coated in blood, bile or exposed organs like a necromorph, but was now a soft, smooth grey like stone, and had the translucent delicacy of paper saturated in oil. The dissolved skin of its torso had regrown and spread, having regenerated prominently enough to form a chest, neck and partial skull.

_It was a necromorph, but... _

Having never seen such radical evolution in the necromorphs aboard the Ishimura, for some strange reason Isaac couldn't help but smile at it.

_A step to new life._

Isaac had not even noticed as the dead soldiers down the hall slowly began to rise to their feet, stretch their limbs and calmly readjust their damaged, disheveled armor. He finally saw them as they turned the burning hot pinpoints of their eyes upon him and stepped into the light, limping slightly upon uneven, malformed legs and approaching just feet behind the orderly. Although partially concealed by their armored military suits, Isaac saw right away that they had fully succumbed to the necromorph virus, and at a rate beyond what he had previously known it was capable of. Their bodies had become distorted and asymmetrical, breaking free of their suits as their strangely shifting figures grew into shapes unsupported by the military gear designed with human application in mind. The latches and seams split, separating the sectioned divisions of metal as their bodies continued to morph and stretch until they had all grown taller, similarly shaped like the orderly. Blank, emotionless and with undivided attention the soldiers all locked their stares upon Isaac, holding the weapons they had been wielding at their sides and standing stiff with a sense of discipline and submission. As they streamlined into perfectly synchronous formation, the necromorph soldier at the forefront of the group nodded silently to Isaac.

_It is an honor to see you, Isaac Clarke._

Their rapid evolutionary sentience achieved in such a short period of time made Isaac fear that his struggle to escape the Marker had not ended with his fleeing the planet or with its perceived cataclysmic destruction, but was only just beginning. He said nothing to them, failing to understand what it was that kept them from savagely attacking him, and hoping that he might take the very awkward moment to disappear from their sight he turned around without a word to locate the luminescent guide line that he had been following. He was just about to step forward when he detected one of the necromorphs as they closed in behind him, and he immediately paused.

_..._

He turned around - not without a partial expectation that he might need to defend himself - and was met with one of the mutated soldiers staring at him reverently. Isaac met eye contact with it through the soft, emerald glowing visor lights of its helmet, and after a silent moment of communion between them the soldier wordlessly lifted its long, gangly arms, hardly contained within the now inadequately ill-fitted sleeves of its suit, and held up the rifle it was carrying as an offering. At first Isaac looked at it with caution, still not entirely trusting the creature, but as it failed to make any challenging movements, Isaac quickly snatched the rifle out of its malformed claws. He briefly examined the weapon, reloaded it and checked the gauges; seeing it was in good repair and nearly fully loaded, he glanced up to the necromorph and nodded.

"... Thanks."

Upon his word the soldier backed away and cleared the path. Isaac tucked the rifle against his side, broke a small, wry grin and took off down the hall.

* * *

"Captain! We've got weapons discharge on Medical Deck C. Flatlines on all three in Pod 203."

The Corporal stared at the holomonitor as the reports flooded the array. The Captain swiftly stepped up behind him, eagerly watching over his shoulder as the Corporal attempted to establish connection with the RIGs of Pod 203.

"Who's firing? What's going on down there?"

The Corporal's fingers danced restlessly over the controls, pulling up as much data as possible.

"Not sure, Captain... I'm getting to the bottom of it."

Sarius fumed impatiently as the Corporal called up dozens of data screens to secure information on what was unfolding aboard the ship. Several soldiers' RIGs were reporting offline status warnings, and Sarius began to absently fidget at a small, silver broach bearing the insignia of the Marker that was clasped to his collar. His fearful sense of premonition, he knew, would not go unfounded; as one of the few Unitologists who had expressed strong disagreement with the Aegis7 agenda and the Church's motives to utilize the Marker's 'divine power', and also as one who knew of the potential threat the fruit of their rescue mission carried, Sarius understood with a sinking heart that his most dreaded concerns were becoming realized.

_They should have never gotten involved here. They were carrying a volatile plague, and it was only a matter of time before... _

The Corporal lifted his head, face filled with distress.

"Jesus... I'm picking up another flatline, in the infirmary."

Sarius locked his eyes upon the holomonitor.

"Is it him? ... Is it Isaac?"

The Corporal slowly shook his head.

"... No, sir. It's a crew member. But Clarke's subchip has moved from ICU."

The Captain scowled and clenched his fists. The unfortunate fates that awaited them were on the horizon.

"Seal that goddamn Medical Bay! I want the entire level locked down _now_. Run a trace on Clarke, make sure he's still in there. If he isn't, dispatch every soldier we've got in the area to find his ass."

Sarius's eyebrows dipped sharply.

"... Kill him if we have to."

The Corporal looked up, a bit dumbstruck, and he blinked.

"But Captain, it was specifically requested that he be returned alive."

Sarius shot a fierce glare at him. He realized as he stared into the dull, heifer eyes of the Corporal that no one here understood the gravity of the situation as he did.

"Fuck their request. I gave you a direct order. Do it now."

Feeling Sarius's heated irascibility, the Corporal immediately sealed the Medical Deck and access points. The control monitors lit up with red warnings as the quarantine went into effect, and he shocked directly into the RIG of every soldier aboard the Credence.

"Attention all units, this is the Bridge - we have an unauthorized runagate loose on Level 3. Target is Alpha ID 1544C, the Ishimura survivor - lock your channels. Current position reads forty meters west of Medical Deck C. Level Red priority lockdown is in effect, and all available hands are ordered to secure the target. Use of firearms is authorized only with necessity and upon confirmation of the target ID. I repeat - open fire is authorized only with necessity and upon confirmation of the target ID by direct order of Captain Sarius."

The Corporal wiped his brow and leaned into his hand.

"Units, we've also lost contact with Pod 203. Keep your eyes open and report anything you find. All sectors, check in."

The Corporal waited. A few seconds later, the responses began to flood in.

_"Flight Deck - we are all clear. No sign of Pod 203 or runagate."_

_"Crew Deck. No contact with Pod 203 or runagate. We're clear."_

_"Operations. We read you, Control. No signs of Pod 203 or runagate."_

The final sector then reported in, and the voice of the man on the other end sounded oddly inconsistent with the others; this one was hushed, punctured by thick, audible breaths, and extremely nervous.

_"Control, this is Medical... runagate has escaped and is heading southbound through Corridor M3b... No sign of 203... and we've lost contact with one of the staff... They were all in the vicinity... They've got to be here somewhere."_

The Corporal stared wide eyed at the audio waveform playback.

"Maintain lockdown throughout the sector. No one in or out. We've got teams on the way."

The shaken man on the other end did not seem the least bit eased by the Corporal's offering. In fact, it seemed as if he hadn't even heard the Corporal at all.

_"It's... It's a fucking mess down here... Clarke's gone, somehow he just... walked out... and, something... exploded all over down here... it's... it's..."_

Sarius pushed the Corporal aside, sparked to intervene by the sheer desperation he sensed in the man's voice.

"Medical, keep that room sealed, do you hear me?"

The man on the other end failed to respond, being distracted by rancorous flashbacks of what he had just witnessed in the infirmary - vile, bloody membranes and muscular structures spreading across the walls like vines composed of living flesh, and swarming with legions of deadly white pests that had multiplied into overwhelming numbers.

_"We're in deep shit down here. I think they're eating through the walls. Please... you gotta hurry!"_

* * *

By this point, Isaac's sedation had all but worn off. As the voice inside his head cleared his mind and set further precedence over his lucidity, his mood intensified into a nocuous, aggressive desire for confrontation and he scanned the halls with hungry eyes, hoping albeit very remotely, that he might run into someone. He clutched the pulse rifle a little tighter.

_C'mon, you fuckers.  
_

Just then the quarantine alarms sounded overhead. The air filled with bright red flashes of light and a deep, artificially synthesized voice, as the hololocks upon the doors all around simultaneously activated to seal him into the Medical Deck and cut him off from any means of escape.

**"Quarantine Active on Level 3. All anomalies contained. Access restricted until further notice. Please stand by." **

Isaac felt as the grip of the demonic presence penetrated deeper into his consciousness.

**move faster they are on to you**_  
_

Spurred by its grim warning, Isaac picked up his pace. On his way he passed a lavatory, and while he had no intentions of his own to visit it, the driving force within prompted the detour.

**they are watching**

Isaac deftly slipped into the room, unhindered as if his body were running on some autopilot function. The lavatory he entered was small, cramped and just as sterile in design as those aboard the Ishimura, and the entire area was illuminated by a single, intermittently flickering fluorescent overhead. Isaac approached the sink and stood before it, then carefully placed the rifle up against the wall in order to free his hands. Though he himself had no idea why it was this presence desired to be here, his body stood at perfect attention before the mirror, his own eyes staring turbidly at his reflection. He saw himself clearly for what was the first time since he could remember, and his face slackened in shock at a sight he had previously known only of those ungodly monsters aboard the Ishimura - gaunt, emaciated facial features like a ghost, barely covered by the dying flesh that stretched across the protruding, visible bones of his skull. The shape and appearance of his body had become grossly altered by the effects of his virus-fueled evolution, covered in blood and thick, black scales that radiated an eerie glow from their edges, all of which spoke nothing of the human in him at all. His eyes had changed in color, having become inverted, black spheres sharply contrasted by iridescent pupils, and only hinted at the ominous energy that had seized control of his bodily machine. Terrified by the unspeakable horror he saw staring back at him, Isaac quickly turned away.

**be steady do not see it**

After a few long moments of staring down at the floor and mentally preparing himself, Isaac finally glanced back up into the mirror. Though he was on guard to meet again with a monster, this time it was only his own, recognizable face. He saw no signs of necromorph mutation or bodily decay, and the reflection he saw - though understandably appearing a bit old, pale and worn from such a tiresome journey at his age - was unmistakably human. He forced a sigh of relief.

_Just a... a hallucination. Not... real. _

An odd tingling in his hands suddenly diverted his attention to them. He looked down and saw as they began to operate autonomously and without his consent, driven by the besetting forces inside him to engage in some work that he himself was unaware of. He watched helplessly as his fist slammed into the mirror in front of him, in a way very similar to his breaking out of the resuscitation chamber. As the mirror splintered and broke into a multitude of shards, his hand reached up and carefully pulled one free of the metal frame. Though frightened and had no idea what was happening to him Isaac was unable to stop himself, and the muscles of his arm simply wouldn't respond to his attempts to reign them in. Completely under the hold of this nightmarish presence that possessed him, he was forced to witness the precision and dexterity at which his limbs now worked, clutching the glass shard tightly in his right hand and with quick, flawless movements suddenly running the blade's edge steadily across the flesh of his left forearm. It had happened so quickly that Isaac hadn't fully realized what he was doing until he felt the icy cold tip of the shard pressed tight enough against his skin to draw a pinpoint of blood.

"Hey -_ hey, what the** fuck**? ? ?"_

**they have implanted a subchip in your body  
**

He cocked his head slightly, a little confused.

"A... subchip? What are you talking about, I don't have a, a..."

At this thought Isaac immediately began to look over his arm, trying to find any fresh stitches or scars that might indicate the insertion of something into it. He found nothing, and this signified that whatever had been implanted into him, had not been done during his time aboard the Credence. Confused, he shook his head.

"Who did this?... When?"

**your benefactors**

"... Benefactors? Who... who the fuck are my_ benefactors?"_

The voice inside his head had no intent on satisfying his questions any further. As far as it was concerned, only the information pertinent to keep Isaac on track to fulfilling its desire was required.

**we have to get rid of it **

Isaac gaped in horror as his hand drove the shard's tip deeper into his arm, cutting the flesh and sinking about three inches in. Blood rushed vigorously to the surface, and despite the excruciating pain Isaac felt at the invasion of the blade, the presence controlling his mind and bodily functions continued on mercilessly in its task. Isaac's hand continued to trace his arm with the shard, penetrating the length of it until he had created a deep incision from the base of his wrist to the middle of his forearm. The skin split and pulled away from the pressure, and within a matter of seconds Isaac's entire left forearm was heavily coated in blood. Though he had every desire to scream out in fright and agony, the coercive demon refused to afford him any such luxury, keeping him silent and steady.

**we are almost done stay calm  
**

Upon completion of the incision Isaac's hand pulled back and the fingers loosened, dropping the bloody piece of glass to the floor. It fell and hit the metal grating with a resounding, crystalline crack as it shattered upon impact, and with no clue as to why, Isaac wiped the blood on his fingers across the chest of his gown and delicately reached into the wound. The pain was unbearably intense as his fingers slid beneath the surface and came into contact with the muscle, which in turn triggered his left hand to twitch reflexively. He clenched his teeth to suppress the urge to cry out, sliding his fingers along the gelatinous sinew of his insides until they detected the edge of something tiny, solid and sharp embedded in the muscle.

**pull it out**

Driven beyond any hesitation Isaac pinched the foreign object between his thumb and forefinger, and slowly, steadily withdrew it. He writhed as it tore his muscle upon extraction, but he pulled until the object came clear of the incision. He raised it up to eye level between nerveless, shaking fingers and peered hard at it, noticing that the subchip was a very minuscule square of wrapped silicon no bigger than a few centimeters, and highly transparent against his hand save for the blood that streaked its surface. Isaac stared at it for a few moments, trying to take in the details of the tiny object with his frantic, darting focus before he finally succumbed to the throbbing pain of his incision.

**eliminate it**

Inspired from within, Isaac opened his fingers and dropped the bloody chip down the drain of the sink. As his adrenaline decreased the pain of his arm became far more obvious, and the sweat covering Isaac's body from the tortuous effort he had just put forth caused him to shiver uncontrollably. He pitched forward, blinded by the pain and he dropped his heavy head into his right hand, taking the opportunity to compose himself. Following several deep, gasping breaths Isaac's vision returned, and as his eyes fell to the deep, open incision of his left arm and the thick trail of blood that now covered the left side of his body, he suddenly realized how life threatening of a wound it was. Sparked to react he quickly reached up, grabbed for a small towel upon the nearby rack and with some difficulty crudely tied it around is arm, fumbling at several attempts to make an adequate tourniquet like Nicole had shown him so long ago.

**that will buy us some time move on**

* * *

"353-B Landon, this is the Bridge, please respond..."

The Corporal leaned in closer to the holomonitors, staring intently upon them as a bead of nervous sweat ran down the side of his face. He eagerly awaited the soldier's response. None came.

"Goddammit... Pod 353, what is your status? I've got no response from Landon, what's going on?"

The Corporal glanced to the navigation radar, tracking Pod 353's location several meters outside the medical infirmary. His wide eyed stare was interrupted by the broken static of an audio broadcast wrought with interference shocking in. Though severely distorted, it was clear that the soldier reporting back from the other end was screaming over clamorous turmoil happening all around him.

_"Bridge, this is Hunter! We have... board... I rep... been boarded... alien... forms are extremely hostile! Seal... areas, cut life support... burrowing through the walls! We n... fucking backup now!"_

The Corporal's heart pounded as he listened to the desperate broadcast, able to hear the shouts of other soldiers behind the squad leader's and peppered by the resounding echoes of weapon fire.

_"We've gotta... the fuck outta here!... Holy... ther of god.. what the fuck... these things? What..."_

"Hang on, Hunter - we've got -"

The Corporal's eyes jumped back to the status monitors just as two more RIGs flatlined simultaneously. Captain Sarius, who had been keenly watching over the Corporal's shoulder the entire time, now had had enough as the broadcast became inundated with wild screams erupting from the soldiers in the background. He could sense the jaws of death opening beneath the steel belly of their ship, but still clinging to some shred of hope for survival he pulled the Corporal back from the controls and pointed a long, gnarled finger in his face.

"You keep that fucking area sealed. No backup. We can't risk losing more to this."

Sarius turned away, leaving the Corporal stunned by the orders to abandon the endangered soldiers. Still, not wanting to refute his Captain the Corporal rolled away from the communications array. Sarius stepped up to it, activated the public intercom and spoke into it with calm, low-keyed, and deliberate words to keep the remaining unknowing crew under his thumb.

"USM Credence, this is the Captain speaking. Please be aware that there has been a localized accident on Level 3 of Medical, and at this time a mandatory ship-wide quarantine is in effect. Though the accident is minor and does not pose a threat, as a standard precautionary measure, access to the Medical Deck has been restricted until further notice. All operations class personnel are to remain at their current stations and await further instructions. All military class personnel are to keep their channels open. Please remain calm. Thank you for your cooperation."

Sarius cut the broadcast, slowly hung his head and looked down.

_Our time... our time to ascend has come._

The Corporal noticed the Captain's grave silence. Sarius again raised his head, staring solemnly at the holomonitors before him, activated the intercom and addressed the military personnel directly on a discreet channel. This time, he spoke with a far more serious inflection in his tone.

"All units... this is the Captain. We have a full fledged alien hostile situation on Medical Deck C - _this is not a drill_. Units outside the quarantine zone are to remain clear of the affected area, and to apprehend any military AND non-military personnel trying to get in our out. Units within the quarantine are to clear the area and secure the target. If you run into any resistance... you are ordered to fire at will."

The Corporal, who by this point had turned his attention to the other control kiosks alongside the Captain, sighed at a warning message flashing upon the tracking screen.

"Shit..."

Sarius's eyes darted to the Corporal.

"Whaddya mean 'shit'?"

"... I've just lost Clarke's signal."

Feeling the Captain's glare upon him the Corporal tossed up his hands, shaking his head nervously as he watched the scanners.

"I don't know... he... he was about 100 meters from Medical. Then he stopped in the secondary hall washroom... and then he disappeared. Something may be interfering with the chip."

Sarius crossed his arms, and scowling under his breath returned to the controls.

"Units, we are uploading the target's last known coordinates now. I want the nearest squad on it. They're to spread and search."

The Corporal scanned the monitors for a few seconds, and patched into the channel.

"Pod 165, this is the Bridge, come in."

* * *

Lieutenant Iben, plodding his way down the main atrium of Medical Deck C alongside five other soldiers trapped within the quarantine, responded to the call.

"This is 165, we read you Bridge. Go ahead."

_"We've lost signal on the target and need you to report immediately to those uploaded coordinates. Start there and spread out, scan the area. We've lost another pod, so keep an eye out for both 203 and 353. All their RIGs are offline."_

Iben glanced at his RIG, disturbed by the close proximity of the coordinates to their location.

"Yeah... you got it. 165 out."

He turned to the soldiers stalking behind him.

"Alright guys, look alive. The target's in our area, and we've just been ordered to go get him. Let's put this fucking thing to bed."

The soldiers shook their rifles with aggressive enthusiasm at the idea of getting into some action, even if it was only a single target. Iben immediately noted their hostile appetites as they joked crudely amongst each other, and with a detestable frown he shook his head.

"Relax, ladies. Fire only if you need to. I mean it th-"

Iben's voice cut short at the sudden, sharp sound of glass breaking from just off to his left. He quickly turned around, and his eyes fell upon the open doorway of a nearby lavatory. Deducing that this is where the sound had come from, he stiffened, gripped his rifle and activated the shielding plates of his helmet, whispering faintly over his RIG to the troopers in line behind him.

_"Shh... This might be it."_

* * *

Isaac suddenly lifted his head as he heard voices echoing from down the hall. He immediately grabbed the pulse rifle and slid into the shadows of the doorway, waiting anxiously for advice from his inner counsel. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, listening to their footsteps and feeling the heat of their presence as they came closer. With a cold, hard smile spreading slowly across his face he lifted the rifle, completely absent to the searing pain of his left arm, unable to feel it in the face of a sudden, inexplicable urge for homicidal lust.

**here they come  
**

Isaac's eye caught the tip of someone's shadow as it entered his line of sight from around the doorway, and aiming the pulse rifle directly out in front of him, he casually stepped out in front of the approaching squad. As quiet as he was, only the soldier at the head of the pack noticed him at first and immediately paused, surprised by his unremarkable appearance. A second later, the remaining soldiers came to a halt and instinctively raised their guns like robotic watchdogs as they too saw what had gained the attention of their lead. However, Isaac didn't seem to be the least bit fazed as he looked down the barrels of their rifles, completely fearless even in the line of fire. The soldier at the head of the squad suddenly realized that Isaac was armed, and he called out raucously from behind his helmet.

_"Drop it! Drop it now!"_

Isaac smiled wickedly, and he swiftly retreated around the corner. As he did so, he saw that he had just barely missed the impacts of several pulse rounds as they thundered their way into the metal wall. Isaac disappeared, and the squad leader whirled around furiously as the air fell quiet.

_"Goddamnit, Roorbach, you trigger-happy motherfucker!"_

The soldier behind him shrugged and looked down at the floor dubiously.

_"I... I swear to Christ it wasn't me, Lieutenant!"_

Iben grunted, ready to argue with the soldier just as the group was interrupted by several more pulse rounds being fired at them from behind. They then realized that they were actually being targeted by someone else, so they quickly took cover around the corner and returned fire. The soldiers angrily shouted over the echoes of their bullets.

_"What the hell? Who's firing at us?"_

As their opposition neared, they all stared with shock at what appeared to be three of their own soldiers... but that quickly proved otherwise. Though they were dressed in the remnants of standard USM military armor, the bodies within were no longer their fellow comrades, but had become drastically altered beyond recognition. Their elongated bodies towered over Iben's squad, their heads had grown too large and angular to fit within their helmets and they no longer wore them, and what little remained of their ill fitted military suits clung uselessly to the glossy, translucent flesh of their torsos and limbs. Their facial features had vanished beneath smooth, tightly drawn complexions, and they now stood before Iben and his team like terrifying creatures from another world.

Iben saw RIGs hanging from their backs and he quickly scanned them, discovering that all three were offline save for basic signature output.

_Halsa, Pugh, Rodriguez... Pod 203...? _

Roorbach stepped forward, mesmerized along with the others. He stared at their stretched, torn uniforms, trying to figure out who or what they were, but his efforts were abruptly terminated as the forefront soldier lifted the muzzle of its rifle and fired directly into Roorbach's chest at point blank range. The soldier's entire torso exploded in a shower of blood and shrapnel from the force and he tumbled backwards to the ground, sparking the remainder of Iben's group to open fire upon the monsters. They littered them with dozens of rounds, but were horrifyingly awed by the lack of effect their firepower had upon the creatures as their skin simply absorbed their bullets. Iben and the rest of his squad began to retreat at his command, frightened and keeping aim upon the seemingly impervious soldiers.

_"Bridge, come in! This is 165, we are engaged with 203! They're firing at us... Roorbach's down..."_

Loud, grinding sounds began to emanate from the walls all around them. Iben's team slowly came together to form a defensive circle, aiming their rifles in a radial formation as they now turned their attention from the towering creatures to the walls and ceilings. The sounds became louder, burrowing through the metal until long, razor-sharp appendages suddenly punctured through the walls from the opposite side, boring several large access holes throughout the immediate vicinity. Once the holes were wide enough, a flood of savage, insect-like creatures bearing sharp fangs and a variety of other vicious manus poured through, heading directly towards Iben's team in an almost seamless wave of carnal ferocity.

_"Holy shit! Open fire!"_

For the moment, the soldiers failed to heed Iben's command. All were lost in horrified amazement upon the horde as they continued to spread, until the entire team was nearly surrounded by them. As the floor, walls and ceiling became inundated by a blanket of chattering, larval movement, Iben and the other soldiers noticed how these creatures, while harboring no reluctance towards consuming everything that stood in their path, for some reason refrained from making any sort of contact with the transformed soldiers of Pod 203. Rather, they diverted themselves directly around the creatures' feet like magnets repelled by some unseen force. Caught in the grip of fear along with the rest of his team, Iben was briefly rendered deaf to the static-laden response of the Corporal over his RIG.

_"Lieutenant Iben, this is the Bridge... do you copy?"_

As the swarm continued to flood the area Iben and the others also noticed that they were rapidly growing from small larvae into slender, nascent creatures whose innocent, almost childlike appearances served as a dangerous distraction from the threat their increasingly coordinated sentience and territorial behavior truly posed. Countless hands, mouths and burning, red eyes became prominent as the swarm evolved, and Iben's jaw dropped at the collective locked upon he and his team. Suddenly hearing the Corporal's desperate cackling over his RIG and coming to realize that time was running out, he energetically motioned to his soldiers.

_"We've gotta get the fuck outta here! Let's go, let's go!"_

Iben made a mad dash down the hall, charging forth to make it out of clutches of this ungodly plague that had come from virtually nowhere. The soldiers followed closely behind him, but unable to outrun their pursuers almost all of the soldiers were hopelessly overrun by the voracious, predatory tide of teeth and blood. The soldiers released deafening screams that were quickly concealed beneath the piercing chattering of the horde, and they were eaten alive within a matter of moments. Tears of rage and panic filled Iben's eyes, and his heart pounded heavily in his chest as he ran. Still, even as he heard the cries of his fallen comrades, he did not look back.

_"Goddamnit... I knew it... Fuck this place! I knew I should have never let her come out here..."_

He shot a split second glance at his RIG, checking the status of his teammates, only to find that one other than himself made it. He looked back over his shoulder, and saw that soldier still limping along behind him, fighting to remain aloof of the creatures' claws. Iben swatted his hand, urging him on.

_"Claren! Come on! !"_

Just then, Iben caught in his eye as a group of the creatures descended upon one of the fallen bodies, surrounding it and staring upon it with piqued interest. One of the larger, more mature ones, which to Iben appeared to be a rather cherubic, young toddler, entered the center of the gathering and leaned in over the body. Iben was utterly astounded by what he was seeing, and his pace slowed a bit as he watched the little monster seemingly engage in the act of kissing the forehead with an eerily childish delight. However, this superficial display of affection, upon closer inspection, proved to be something far more sinister as the creature parted its lips and extended a sharp, needle-tipped barb from inside its mouth. In a single, swift motion the barb punched through the skin and skull of the body like an intravenous device, planting the seed of infection within its brain, and just as quickly as it had appeared the ominous youngster retracted its ominous appendage and vanished back into the crowd of its brethren. Iben's eyes widened in shock, unable to turn away until he felt as Claren grabbed him roughly by the shoulder.

"_Hey, Iben!"_

Shaken back to awareness Iben looked down and saw the swarm was practically at his feet, then saw as Claren rushed past him, trying to pull him along. He turned and followed, and neither soldier saw as the dead bodies of the fallen soldiers, within moments of having been infected, began to rise to their feet. One by one, the soldiers came back to life and stood at attention, readjusting their dented armor and turning around to silently acknowledge the soldiers of Pod 203 as they approached from behind. As Iben and Claren charged down the hall for their lives, the team of necromorph soldiers all swiveled their heads synchronously and turned glowing, crimson eyes upon them down the way.

The two standing soldiers kept running until they could see no more signs of the horde behind them, nor hear their screeching calls. They finally slowed to a defensive trot, and once Iben caught his breath he finally radioed back in to the Bridge.

_"Bridge... this is Iben... we've lost the target... and, I think we ran into that infestation reported in the infirmary. I don't know what the hell they are, but those fucking things just killed four of my team."_

Tacky radio silence was all that he heard for several long moments until the voice of Sarius boomed over the channel.

_"Stay away from those things, Lieutenant. We can't stop them. We have to stop **him**."_

_...Sir?"_

_"We've lost the ability to track the target. I'm sorry about your men, Iben. But, you and whoever is left are gonna have to flush him out. He must be stopped... at all costs."_

Iben nodded silently, catching the Captain's subtle cue to eliminate their target.

_"... Yes, Sir. Last we saw of him, he was headed toward the Flight Bay. He won't be able cross the quarantine. We'll take him down there." _

Sarius closed his eyes and sighed on the other end.

_"Make it happen, Lieutenant."_

* * *

**very close now**

Isaac ran nonstop through the Credence, twisting and turning through its many passages and all the while following the luminescent line upon the floor that beckoned him onward with the temptation of success in his mission.

**yes keep going isaac  
**

As he padded barefoot down the corridors, he could hear the random blasts of gunfire and the shouting of soldiers coming from all around. He knew that something chaotic was unfolding aboard this ship... something that, despite his lack of immediate knowledge as to what it was, he couldn't help but feel in some way responsible for. This, combined with the reassuring comments of his inner presence, left him feeling indifferent to the danger of the situation that he was involved in. He felt detached and isolated, taking on a fearless and liberated attitude that stood apart from the dubious perspective he had once held upon the infested USG Ishimura.

**do not be concerned their fates have been sealed**

Isaac continued to move quickly, trailing the guide line upon the floor without slowing until he arrived at the annex that he was certain connected to the Flight Bay. He slowed and stopped before the hololock, eyeing the ethereal guide line as it ran directly underneath the door's threshold. He attempted to access it, but was met with the stern denial of the Credence security system in response to the quarantine restrictions.

**"Quarantine active. Access denied. Please contact your supervisor."**

Isaac continued to prod at it for a few more minutes, determined not to give up, but was ultimately frustrated in all of his attempts as the door simply refused to budge. He frowned as he realized that, without any keys, tools or override commands to get around it, the odds of his getting through this door had dropped to virtually zero. He also knew that the crude subchip extraction he had performed on himself, though hindering his enemies' ability to track his location, would not provide much reprieve before the searching soldiers inevitably found him one way or the other. Reminded of the painful experience Isaac looked down at his wounded left arm and examined the makeshift towel tourniquet he had fashioned. It was soaked through, heavy with blood and the knot was loose, and seeing it required some maintenance he gently lifted the fabric and glanced at the wounded skin beneath - which, he had begun to notice at this point, was tingling uncomfortably. Unable to see much in the dimly lit hallway, Isaac sighed and re-tightened the knot, shaking off the trails of fresh blood still running down his arm.

While lost in deliberation over how to get inside the Flight Bay, Isaac did not at first notice as a single USM soldier emerged from the shadows down the hall, calmly walking towards him. In fact, the soldier managed to get as close as just a few yards away before Isaac became aware of it's presence, who darted a glare at it and froze solid. Isaac's finger tapped the trigger of the rifle tucked under his arm, but as he stared upon the approaching soldier he sensed something familiar about it that put him at ease. Lowering the rifle a little, Isaac inhaled quietly and loosened his posture. The soldier stopped several feet from Isaac's position and stood at attention, then raised it's hand in a submissive gesture.

_It is an honor to see you, Isaac Clarke._

Isaac looked oddly at the soldier, having heard the telepathic greeting and recognized that same, strange reception from the infected orderly in the infirmary. Making the correlation between the two, he realized that whoever this soldier had once been, was now an ally to his cause for whatever reason. Isaac furrowed his brow, contemplating whether it was worth to ask if the soldier could gain access through the quarantine, but before he even had the chance to speak the soldier stepped expediently toward the door, reaching for his RIG to remotely access the controls. Isaac stepped out of its way, and as the soldier passed within inches of him he could immediately detect the warm, stagnant scent of the soldier's infected flesh beneath its armor. As it struck his olfactory senses Isaac closed his eyes, lulled into a trance by it's bittersweet redolence. When he again opened them, the soldier had already stepped back and the Flight Bay access door stood wide open. Again, he felt as the dark presence motivated him from within, urging him on with all astringency.

**move on**

Nodding with gratitude to the soldier, Isaac stepped through the doors and headed into the Flight Bay. As soon as he entered the main atrium, Isaac immediately saw off to his right a long row of docked military cargo cruisers nearly filling the hangar. He eyed the shuttle closest to the launch doors, and broke into a run towards it, but as he stepped out into the light he heard behind him the strict demands of several soldiers as they entered the Flight Bay from the second floor's control station. Though he didn't turn back to look at them, somehow Isaac knew exactly how many soldiers there were, and he could feel the heated sights of their rifles targeted directly upon him.

_"Freeze! Drop your weapon or we will open fire!"_

Isaac pushed their meaningless threats from his mind. He kept running, and gauging the positions of each and every soldier in his head with the assistance of his mental companion he raised his rifle, twisted around in mid run and proceeded to unload several pulse shots at the soldiers with surprisingly accurate aim that found most of the targets. Several soldiers collapsed as they were struck, and the remainder ducked for cover the air became littered with Isaac's pulse rounds. Growling between lips pressed firmly in anger, they lifted their own rifles and fired back in the brief pause Isaac took to reload his weapon. The soldiers' shots ricocheted off the metal bellies of the ships in gallant sparks as Isaac took cover within the fleet of shuttles, and paused to catch his breath, desperately trying to plan his next move. He peered out from his cover at the shuttle he was aiming to reach, which was still several hundred feet away, and though he knew that it was too much open ground to cover without running the risk of getting shot, he was going to have to make a break for it.

_... Fuck._

Nervous and adrenaline flowing, Isaac bit his lip and took a long, deep breath. He waited until the soldiers ceased fire and the air fell quiet, and at the prompt of his inner presence he pushed off the side of the shuttle and ran for the end of the hangar bay.

**now come to us**

As soon as Isaac emerged from his hiding spot and became visible beneath the intense floodlights of the hangar bay, the soldiers immediately opened fire and showered the entire deck with ammunition. Isaac ran as fast as he could, wincing at the deafening sounds of the bullets as they landed all around him, sinking into the metal chassis of the docked ships and piercing through the metal floorboards at his feet. Isaac paid them no heed and pressed onward, running at top speed across the open floor of the hangar and just barely snaking his way through the labyrinth of deadly firepower. At the rate he was going, it took Isaac far less time to reach the opposite end of the hangar than he had originally estimated, and beginning to feel more confident in his position he slowed his pace just enough to catch his breath and subdue to burning of his lungs within his chest. The voice inside his head suddenly gripped the back of his skull with fierce intensity.

**no isaac do not**

Right at that moment, a soldier on the second floor, having gained a steadier vantage point of Isaac as he slowed down, took aim at his left calf and fired off a barrage of bullets. Isaac's brief communion with his inner guide was abruptly broken by a sharp, searing pain straight through his leg, and before he had the time to process the pain of the first impact his entire calf was riddled with pulse rounds. The bullets, white hot like magma, incinerated the flesh and bone, and tore through the thickest, weight-bearing sections of his muscles until he could no longer balance upon it. He sank to his other knee and screamed out in agony, clutching at his wounded leg as it began to shed blood profusely through the steaming, gaping holes in his skin. As he watched Isaac go down, the soldier upon the balcony nodded, propped his rifle against his shoulder and flashed a wicked grimace.

_"Got you now, you son of a bi -"_

These became the soldier's final words as he and the remainder of his company on the second level were mortally assaulted from behind by shadowy, inhuman assailants they never had the chance to see. Isaac, who had partially collapsed upon the floor, became distantly aware of the fact that his opposition had ceased to fire upon him - at least, for the moment. This very brief intermission of peace within the hangar afforded Isaac the time he needed to reach the escape shuttle safely, and though the unconscionable pain of his casualty filled his eyes with hot tears he could still barely see through blurred vision as the the figures of several soldiers rose from their fallen spots around the room, commandeered by the necromorph virus, until they all stood at attention, staring down upon Isaac. They stood swaying from side to side, scanning the deck meticulously and holding their pulse rifles aimed and ready to defend.

**this place is safe **

Isaac again felt the dark apparition clinging to the back of his mind as it seized direct control of his body, forcing him up off the ground despite the excruciating pain of his now immobile leg. The poorly bandaged incision upon his left arm, coupled with the gunshot wounds to his leg, all served to derive a great deal of blood loss over time, and as his stamina continued to decline his body fought to stay alive.

**come now you are in danger**

Exasperated but unable to refute it, Isaac shook his head to chase away the desire to slip into unconsciousness and lumbered with much difficulty towards the shuttle. The pain of his wounds scalded his skin and forced a bead of ice cold sweat from every pore of his body, and having been robbed of all breath by the demands of this unsavory doppleganger he panted laborously between strides, trying to gain distance with his good leg while dragging the other behind him. His concentration was shattered by the booming voices of several more troops from all around, including those of Iben and Claren, as they stormed their way into the Flight Bay through several access doors on deck level. As Iben saw Isaac making a mad dash for the shuttle, leaving a long, ghastly trail of dark blood behind him, he raised his head and shouted out.

_"Isaac! Stop! ! There's no way out for you! Stop, NOW!" _

Isaac's heart was racing, and the pounding of blood in his ears blocked him from the sounds of their pulse rifles as the soldiers opened fire upon him. Isaac closed his eyes and ran on sheer faith alone, and as he sped towards the shuttle it seemed in that very brief, fragile moment, time seemed almost suspended all around him. Split seconds stretched into observable moments as he tracked the positions of each and every airborne bullet with his mind, and with a speed that surpassed human capability he slipped around their trajectories, deftly avoiding being hit by any of them. Though what seemed to be a fold in very fabric of time and space itself, Isaac found himself standing before the target shuttle before he even realized how far he had come. Fortunately, the hatch to the shuttle was already open and he quickly jumped inside.

Isaac clamored his way towards the pilot's nest, frantically jumping into the chair and activating the controls as fast as possible. Thick drops of blood rained from his wrist as he reached across the panels, obscuring some of the controls, and he scowled as he heard the soldiers still barking orders from outside the shuttle. He turned back and sealed the hatch just in time to hear his aggressors cry out as they were ambushed by the infected soldiers defending the hangar, and as the door sealed shut the chaotic sounds became muted behind several feet of thick steel. Now able to concentrate on the task at hand, Isaac turned back to the controls, fired up the shuttle and accessed the hangar's electromagnetic gate. Making a final, quick scan of the systems, his eyes fell upon the automatic recall function installed just off to his left. Spurred by a strange sense of deja vu he could not explain, Isaac reached out and jerked the module out of its socket, deactivating it.

In the wake of Isaac's work the hangar gate warnings sounded off, indicating that they were about to be deactivated. The soldiers still inside the hangar on deck level began to scatter, running back to the access doors to get out before the gates opened and the entire hangar depressurized. However, only a few made it in time as the electromagnetic gate was breached, and a massive, inescapable draft of escaping air swept through the deck with the force of a hurricane. Several soldiers were sucked from their positions upon the deck and ejected out into the black void of deep space, spinning helplessly upon the solar winds and carried off to their imminent deaths. Isaac paid no mind to the cascade of floating bodies as they collided against the side of the shuttle and slid past the cockpit window, but he immediately set the engines to full and lifted up off the deck. As the ship accelerated and shot through the electromagnetic gate, he could hear the clangs of pulse shots striking the shuttle with total inefficacy as the few remaining soldiers who had managed to activate life support and anchor themselves to the now gravity-free deck opened fire upon the craft in a failed attempt to disable it.

Isaac's shuttle quickly cleared the Credence, and as he curved around the belly of the warship, he watched as some unseen force activated the control panel and input the Ishimura's docking coordinates.

**take rest we will see you soon**_  
_


	32. Winter On The Horizon

**Chapter 32  
Winter On The Horizon  
**

**_"Some look on the soul as amazing, some describe him as amazing, and some hear of him as amazing, while others, even after hearing about him, cannot understand him at all."_  
- B.G., 2.29**

* * *

Back upon the USG Ishimura, the Hive Mind sharply eyed through the Flight Hangar observation windows the stolen USM Credence cargo cruiser on its way to them. While all she could think about was the mouth watering bounty of fresh vessels at their disposal upon the Credence as they fell one by one to her plague, Isaac's focus was centered squarely upon their current acquisition of interest.

"He's hurt, Kendra. Bad. I can feel it."

The Hive Mind glanced up at Isaac's rueful tone, who was perched upon his knees before the Marker and staring blankly down to the floor. She sensed that in spite of his expanding fondness for sharing in her ways of manipulating the infected, he was conscientiously very troubled by what they had started aboard the Credence. His disagreement with her ambiguous agenda was still evident in his withdrawal as he avoided eye contact with her, and he offered her little acknowledgment as he turned to the Marker for its warmth. His silent, condescending tenor spoke more than words and this irked her, knowing that the source of energy he was so desperately seeking to share in was ironically the same as that whom he was now flatly refusing to dignify in any way. She pressed her hands to her hips and narrowed her eyes upon him.

_You've got some nerve, don't you. _

She paused and waited, but Isaac only rubbed the back of his head in frustration, trying to ignore her. Deciding to test the waters of compassion instead, she softened and lowered her glare.

_It doesn't matter, Isaac. He belongs to us. They all will. Soon. _

At this he finally looked up to her. He found no comfort in her words, nor any reconciliation in the rather awkward experience he had had with his own self. He had been unable to anticipate the effects of bodily transmigration to begin with, let alone prepare himself for them, and the sudden, full-on telepathic omnipresence spawned from his direct contact with what was apparently his own body simply couldn't have further estranged Isaac from what he thought he had known of his own identity. It was as if the Isaac Clarke he had possessed aboard the Credence wasn't really him at all - just an artificial, blank operating system like the others, manipulated by the virus to systematically reflect everything about him down faithfully to the micron through a facade that was more real than the situation itself. However, the convincing ruse was betrayed by a lack of emotional independence that made this clone more like a faceless necromorph than Isaac was able to empathize with.

"I just don't understand."

Isaac had perceived the extent of injury caused by the pulse rifle wounds, and how much blood the body of their host had lost. This inspired a conflicting sorrow for this man who seemed so helplessly lost, the standing personification of his own failure, coerced beyond will to serve as a catalyst to the grueling, obsessive crusade set forth by the Hive Mind. After a few minutes of solemn contemplation upon this, Isaac sighed and briefly withdrew from the mind of his iteration, who was still drifting in and out of consciousness upon the USM cargo shuttle en route to the Ishimura.

"This... I mean, is this what happens? Is this... what waits for them?"

Her brows descended over her eyes like storm clouds, and again she sought to head off his very human sense of doubt and concern.

_It's all a natural part of the process. There's nothing wrong about what we are doing here. It must be done. _

Again, Isaac failed to respond. Initially, the Hive Mind's influence had praised the prospect of infecting the Credence, but as he experienced his host's traumatic journey first hand - his pain, fear and utter demoralization as an indentured slave to the Marker's desires, and having directly perceived the reactions to such appalling stimuli through the reflection of his own self, enslaved like a necromorph - Isaac began to understand the true impact the Marker had upon all of those it possessed. He had keenly felt the change occurring within the bodies of the infected through his connection with the Hive Mind, saw how their identities, as well as that of his own unfortunate self, became dissolved by the Hive Mind's imposing imprint.

_Was he now no better than this destructive parasite? Had he allowed himself to fall prey to the temptation of control, with no regard for the consequences of these peoples' altered destinies?_

He glanced up at the Marker as he turned his thoughts to the remaining population of the Credence. No doubt they were being inevitably overrun by the virus, and having established connections with a large portion of the crew through the infectious bond of the Marker, he could feel the agonizing passing of each and every one only further humiliate his ethical quandary. Having been encouraged by the Hive Mind's attractive talk and lured by how easily and seemingly without incident it all appeared, Isaac had not even considered whether or not their work went beyond harmless, playful executions of transcendent power. But in the wake of what was now happening, the evidence made obvious the countless, unwarranted acts of suffering enacted upon everyone within the Marker's field, leaving a distinct, black mark upon everyone he touched. Again, he was miserably forced to concede to the Hive Mind's guidance as he clearly knew nothing about this curse he had inherited, and even less about the burden of responsibility it carried.

_Hey... Isaac. You okay over there?_

Isaac pressed his fingertips to his forehead, feeling himself slipping even further from what little he could remember of sanity. Then, in a sudden, diametrically opposed attitude, he turned his love starved eyes upon the Hive Mind, becoming lost in his memories of Kendra against all better judgment, enchanted by her slender figure cast in red by the Marker's ghostly glow. She smiled as she watched how easily his weakness overcame him in his moonstruck state, and seeking to exploit him she stared into his eyes and enacted graceful, suggestive bodily movements that served to arouse him, all like the courting displays of some elegantly bizarre creature aiming to please.

_You shouldn't worry so much. You're entitled to enjoy this too, you know. It doesn't always have to be so serious._

Still, even in the face of his crazed, blossoming lust, Isaac remained reluctant to open himself up to her. He knew that she was acting from behind veils of deceit, pacifying him with superficial adoration while trying to set the stage in a light that best suited her purpose to manipulate him, and something deep inside him begged him to fight it at all costs. He kept his eyes upon her as she slowly approached, keeping his defenses up.

"What's going to happen? To them?"

_What has already happened. They are becoming whole with us. _

"With _you_."

_There is no difference._

Isaac scowled and tossed a quick, angered glance out the observation window at the pinprick of titian light that was growing larger.

"Is that what we're going to tell him when he gets here? Is that the explanation we're going to give him?"

_He is owed no explanation. His reality no longer exists. From now on, his purpose is our purpose. And that goes for everyone we lay our eyes upon. _

* * *

Aboard the USM Credence, complete chaos had erupted beyond remedy. Within the span of just a few hours, nearly every sector of the ship had become overwhelmed by the necromorph horde and lost to the infection.

Locked within the Bridge, one of the only sectors still not having been compromised by the virus, Sarius and his morose team surveyed the destruction. They could only watch through the holomonitors in helpless, horrified grief as the majority of their fleet was consumed by the invasion one by one, and they were all exhausted from hours of endless, intense overwatch that seemed to yield them no gain in their struggle for survival. As the necromorphs effortlessly moved beyond the quarantine, it quickly became obvious that despite its impressive profile as a USM military ship, the Credence was not by any means prepared to deal with such an unpredictable form of warfare. To make matters worse, Isaac's escape had been witnessed through the monitoring system within the Flight Bay, and Sarius was infuriated to know that in the midst of their calamity they had also lost their precious cargo, which now undermined the entire goal of their reason for being there.

With the Captain screaming at his back, the Corporal made a frantic attempt to track the stolen ship.

"Goddamnit... the fucking recall function is offline. How the hell...?"

"Where is it going, Corporal? _Where?_"

The Corporal stiffened in his seat like an iron rod, trying not to panic.

"... S... Seeing the path of... their course, my guess would... would be the Ishimura, Sir."

Sarius closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hand, trying desperately to formulate a strategy. He knew that at the rate the infestation was advancing it wouldn't be long before it breached the Bridge.

"Why? Why did they come here? Why couldn't they have... just, left that goddamn Marker alone? They made a big mistake."

The Corporal twisted his face at the Captain, not privy to his meaning, and he simply turned to the tracking systems.

"I'm still only picking up one life sign aboard the Ishimura at this time. There's some kind of interference, I still can't lock down an ID on it. But we are picking up broadcasts between their array and the cruiser."

Sarius immediately looked back up.

"... What is he doing?"

* * *

_The population of the Credence is a starting point, Isaac. The opportunity for us to begin our real work._

The Hive Mind crossed her arms, watching Isaac through occasional glances as she circled the Marker's perimeter through the shadows. She noticed how his eyes never left her body, latched on to the flowing trail of her gown as it gently wrapped around her legs like silk between her steps.

_For what we need to do... for what we really need to do... we need numbers. _

She closed in upon him, stopping just before him and lithely draping her hands across his chest. Her blackened eyes fell with deep adoration to the crudely carved runes of the Marker's messages upon his suit, and as she looked closer she realized there were several long, red marks etched across the skin of his neck, fresh with blood and following the same symbolic scrawl. She smiled darkly, delighted to see that somewhere along their journey, the wide array of surfaces upon which Isaac chose to utilize for his compulsive habit of transcribing the Marker's whispers had now come to include the flesh of his own body. She saw this as a positive sign of his turning towards her, even in spite of the uphill battle his retaliatory nature posed, and absently fidgeting at the metal ribs of his RIG in delight, she spoke to him in a much lighter and more spirited tone.

_The Ishimura population is valuable, but the Credence is even more so, don't you see? It is a chance to truly flourish, to capture the hearts and minds of a legion of worthy soldiers, ready to fight to the death for our cause. They won't be wandering aimlessly, like they did on the Valor - no, this time, once we put the Marker back, they will be put into real service... service to us, Isaac.  
_

Thoughts poured into his head, one by one in a steady flow of blood chilling comprehension of this dangerously demented creature's true intentions. His deadlocked stare caught between her legs finally broke, and he looked up.

"The virus. The infection. The collective. So, what? You're, building an army? A... uhh, a hive, is it?"

She shook her head, perturbed by the repudiation she sensed inside his words.

_No, Isaac - **we **__are__ creating a new civilization. Together. By using the populations of the Credence, the Valor, __the Colony, __and the Ishimura as seeds... and you as_ _the substratum.  
_

"But... the Valor is gone..."

Isaac suddenly blinked in shock, as it had not previously occurred to him that Aegis7 and the Ishimura's reestablished existence due to their time travel was a fate that was shared among _all_ things within the Marker's field, including the USM Valor.

"Holy shit. It is here, isn't it? But where?"

The Hive Mind did not provide him an answer to its whereabouts, only a highly esoteric response that disturbed him.

"It doesn't matter. They belong to us. The Valor is wherever we desire it to be."

As Isaac listened to her, he became suddenly inundated by a wave of recollections, all of distant memories from his own past. For some reason, the shrill, unfeeling voice of his mother, who had haunted him much during the earlier years of his life, was leering in the back of his mind. He shook his head to clear it.

"The fucking Church. I knew it. This whole thing never _was_ about the planetcrack... was it?"

_To most, it was. Only a very rare few know why we're really here.  
_

"So this is some big fucking secret? These people... all of these people... they all died for nothing... because of this secret... they all died because of you!"

_Their change has not gone in vain, nor outside the jurisdiction of our control. They have been directed to a greater cause._

His eyes darkened and he sneered angrily at her, driven to madness by words of hers that struck chords hauntingly similar to the Unitologist propaganda he once endured from the mouth of his own mother.

"Cut the shit. I want to know... What is the goddamn Church doing here? I want to know the fucking _truth_."

The Hive Mind raised an eyebrow.

_Isaac, the only truth is you._

He simply stared at her, until she diverted his focus with a soft gesture towards the Flight Lounge doors.

_He's almost here. Let us introduce ourselves._

* * *

Just beyond the boundary of the Credence Flight Deck, Lieutenant Iben and Private Claren had both barely managed to escape before Isaac's departure, and now held position in one of the access hallways along with a cluster of remaining soldiers. Iben, frustrated, grumbled at the RIG upon his sleeve.

"Bridge, this is Iben... The target has escaped. I repeat - the target has escaped in one of our cruisers docked in the Flight Deck. We lost some in the hangar."

The Corporal on the other end heard the defeat in Iben's voice.

_"Copy that, 165. We're tracking it. There are major engagements occurring on all levels of the ship. We need you to collect as many men as you can find. We're gonna lift the quarantine so you can proceed."_

"What? Bridge, I don't think that's a good idea, there's something serious going on down here."

The Corporal failed to reply, as he sadly rested his head against his palm. After a moment, Iben could hear his fatigued sigh over the line.

_"It doesn't matter, Lieutenant. It's gotten into every part of the ship. At this point... Fuck it. Do what you can to stop it."_

Considering the Corporal's order to be a death sentence, Iben had to fight the urge to disobey. Several soldiers within earshot of his RIG's audio turned eyes slightly widened with similar concern upon Iben as he cleared his throat.

"... Copy that, Bridge. We're heading out."

Before the connection fell silent, Sarius's stern bark commandeered the airwaves.

_"165... 165, hold on that order. Change of plans."_

Iben, immediately upon the voice of his Captain, shocked back in with an unsettling curiosity.

"Yes sir... what do you need?"

_"I want you to prep one of those cruisers. Gather a team. We're going to the Ishimura. Maybe we can get him back. Maybe we can somehow stop this."_

Iben blinked in disbelief at his RIG, but there was a strong sense of urgency in Sarius's underlying tone. In addition to the irrefutable persuasion of his Captain, Iben also saw an opportunity that, despite his inexplicable fear of this planet and the Ishimura, he might not get again.

_She was there, somewhere. They were last reported to be in this zone. Maybe they knew where. He had to find her. He had to save her from this horrible place._

Iben slowly looked back down at his RIG.

"Sir... what about the Valor? We need to find the Valor, Captain."

Iben paused, but was met only with Sarius's grave lack of response on the other end.

"... Aye, sir. Give us five minutes. We'll be ready."

_"You've got thirty seconds, Lieutenant."_

* * *

In the chaos of his frenzied escape from the Credence, Isaac's iteration had become all but oblivious to the fact that he was dying. But now, as his adrenaline levels finally dipped in the isolated cabin of the stolen cruiser, the effects of his extensive blood loss began to take a heavy toll. Weak and unable to hold himself upright he slumped in the pilot's seat, and he stared distantly out the front window through half closed eyes, fighting to remain conscious as a faraway, melodious voice kept him company.

_Twinkle twinkle, little star..._

Isaac could just barely make out the black silhouette of the Ishimura looming over the cruiser like a cloud filled with heavy rain. His eyes finally fell closed as the cruiser was swallowed in the shadow of the planetcracker, and he slipped into the darkness along with it.

_Up above the world so high..._

When he again opened his eyes, Isaac saw several status lights blinking across the holopanels of the controls, and it took him a moment before he realized that the ship was no longer moving. He lifted his head, pushed himself up in the seat, and examined the controls to find that the autodock had already been engaged, and the engines had been cut. Again he became very much aware of the cold, clotting blood covering his body and the painful hemorrhaging of his leg; confused and frustrated, he struggled to recognize where it was he had arrived until he was halted by the voice inside his mind.

**come inside**

Isaac suddenly felt his body run deathly cold as the presence finally released its control over his physical body. Shaken by this, Isaac turned inward to see as the dark creature pulled back and retreated into the nothing with thunderous, metal footsteps echoing into obscurity, and leaving Isaac alone once again within the somber, grey chamber of his own mind. Complete silence enveloped him, and despite the relief in knowing that he was no longer under the mystifying influence of that fearful presence, Isaac realized that with its exodus so followed the supernatural abilities he had developed aboard the Credence. His enhanced vision and senses vanished, returning him to normal capacity, and he was no longer able to detect and draw from the enlivening energy that emanated from everything around him. His confident desire for confrontation was sapped along with all of his strength, and he now had to fight even harder to stay awake. Isaac was devastated, as the sudden reprise of his mediocrity only served as a terrifying reminder of just how frail and vulnerable he, as a human, really was.

**you are safe**

Isaac began to realize that the voice he was hearing was familiar to him, though he couldn't quite place it, and he was certain that whoever it was, was somewhere on the Ishimura. Though reluctant to move his injured leg again, he knew that departing the cruiser was inevitable, as it wouldn't be long before someone or some_thing _came looking for him. He braced himself and slowly limped towards the exit hatch, clenching his teeth against the burning of his wounds. He reached up and activated the lock with a bloody, sweaty palm, and squeezed his eyes shut as the door slid open. Taking a deep, shaking breath he then leaned out of the doorway, and carefully scanned the area. He recognized the Ishimura Flight hangar, a sight that he had previously hoped he would never have to face ever again, and a shiver ran down his spine as he thought back upon his very first arrival aboard the Kellion, whose entire mission had seemed riddled with misfortune from the very start.

_Why did it seem like he could not escape this place? How was it that he could still feel the fresh heat of his own footsteps over every floorboard of this ship? As frightening as it was, why did the USG Ishimura feel like home to him?_

The Flight Hangar appeared empty, devoid of any life other than himself, but knowing the necromorphs' ways he was not so daft as think that was the case as he slowly disembarked the cruiser. He headed down the bay bridge towards the Flight Lounge, glancing back with growing concern at the crimson trail of blood his leg left behind, and he desperately hoped that the scent of it would not lure any necromorphs that might be lurking. Having left the pulse rifle behind in the cruiser, Isaac was now entirely defenseless and certain that he would have no chance against even the weakest of them as he was not protected in any way, and he prayed that the stranger had been honest in assuring his safety.

As he looked up he saw the massive, softly illuminated ship label spanning the side of the USG Ishimura's flank, spelling out its namesake in huge white letters. Upon his painstaking approach to the Flight Lounge doors, the entire hangar suddenly echoed with the familiar voice of the Ishimura's onboard computer as it began to recite its standard welcome loop in an elegantly spirited female voice.

**_"Welcome, CEC employees, to the USG Ishimura. The Ishimura is a planetcracker class vessel, and now the oldest serving with 62 years of continuous service. It holds the record for the highest number of planet cracks, with 34 to date and the highest dead weight of refined product at 14 trillion kilotons and counting..."_**

As the soothing, artificial vocals billowed gently throughout the hangar and clung like fine dust to his aural receptors, Isaac slowed then stopped in his tracks, deeply moved by the seraphic melancholy in the sound of it. He looked up to the massive bay windows overhead and stared out into space, feeling a very paralyzing disclosure of death's proximity, and could not escape the fear that perhaps this digitally synthesized anecdote just might be the very last words he would ever hear in this life. Tears of despair fell from his eyes as he gazed sadly upon the stars.

"Oh, god... Nicole... where are you?... I just want to see you, just... one more time..."

After a long, morose moment spent in silence, Isaac finally lowered his head and continued on until he felt the base of his skull begin to vibrate. His saddened thoughts were overwritten by the harsh interruption of a number of voices, collectively chanting and luring his attention away from all other trains of thought. His eyes shot around the hangar in alarm, and as he did so he caught a glimpse of blood red light blooming off a reflective metal panel upon the wall to his left. He turned to it and followed where it was coming from, approached the bay bridge railing and peered over the side down to the maintenance floor below. Just then, he saw the Red Marker, and was taken by the sight of it. He couldn't understand how the Marker had returned to the Ishimura, knowing in his heart that he had left it upon the Aegis7 Colony.

_Aegis7!_

Isaac now looked back up and out the observation windows, frantically trying to find any trace of Aegis7. However, at the current angle of the Ishimura he was not able to see the planet's location, and with no way to verify anything he began to wonder if the destruction he had witnessed of the planet just before blacking out after his escape had actually been real. He wondered if perhaps he was still asleep within the resuscitation chamber aboard the USM Credence, or perhaps locked away in some box within the medical labs of the Sprawl, but Isaac was far too dispirited to debate it at any great length. Seeing no other option, he resumed his arduous trek towards the Flight Lounge, all the while listening to the voices that faded the further he drifted from the Marker.

**tezcatlipoca we are your slaves ipal ne moani you are our slave titlacauan **

He slowly reached up to disengage the hololock as he closed in upon the Flight Lounge doors, but was startled to see as it sprung to life before he could touch it. The doors slid open to reveal a desolate Flight Lounge, and Isaac took a cautious step in, looking around in shock at the inexplicably pristine, untouched condition of the room, which was devoid of any chaotic turnover or even a single ounce of blood despite how he had remembered leaving it. As he glanced around he noticed that everything, including all of the surrounding computers and holomonitors lining the walls, was undamaged and operating at full capacity. This prompted him to consider that something miraculous had happened aboard the Ishimura in his brief time away from it, and as his heart pounded in his chest, he felt his consciousness beginning to slip again.

_If you did not twinkle so..._

Isaac forced his eyes open and shot an alarmed glance at the double doors against the far wall to his left upon hearing the hololock disengage. The doors opened and a tall, dark figure slowly stepped through, pausing just beyond the threshold. In the dim lighting this intimidating figure appeared to Isaac as little more than a solid black apparition save for delicate, bioluminescent traces running the length of its body, and a blinding display of white light from its face.

The figure slowly turned to look directly at Isaac across the way, and as its glowing gaze fell upon him it stepped forward, scraping its metal boots across the floorboards. Frozen in fear Isaac could only stare at it, trying to discern if it was a necromorph as it continued to approach. His fear began to shift into a sense of wonder as he saw that this figure was far too articulate and coordinated to be one of them, and it seemed to pose no ill intent but pure exploratory curiosity. It simply stood before him, silent and calm, slightly wavering on its feet with a languid and loose bodily carriage, all in a manner that seemed to suggest a state of inebriety. Still, despite all of these characteristics not exactly being what Isaac expected of an enemy, this person's presence did not fail to boast the obvious of being a very formidable opponent.

_We took the liberty of cleaning up for you._

Isaac heard it speak, but he realized that the voice was still coming from inside his head, not through his ears. Again there were two distinct tones wrapped around each other, and though there was only one figure standing before him, Isaac knew that somehow both were originating from the same source.

"...We?"

The figure stepped forward into the light cast down by a light panel above, making it possible for Isaac to pick out the finer details. He saw it's ambiguous, almost robotic appearance was actually that of a heavily modified engineer's suit, black as midnight and heavy worn. Isaac recognized the trademark CEC design of this gear - thick, sharp titanium plates lining the torso, arms and legs, the chest ablaze in aqueous blue light cast from the display of a chest plate holomonitor, and the patterned, steel brows and illuminated glass eyes of a mining engineer's helmet. But, apart from these familiar aspects, this suit was otherwise extrinsic, sinister like the skin of a great white shark hunting through deep waters, and he wondered why he had not run into such a strikingly outstanding character aboard the Ishimura during his previous time aboard it. In spite of its human semblance, the aura Isaac felt emanating from this person offended him to the point of rekindling his sickness. As the figure stepped closer to him, Isaac slowly pitched forward and raised a weak, shivering hand to shield his eyes from the blaring effulgence coming from its visor.

_We are your humble patrons._

The figure was now standing just feet from him, glaring down upon him, and another ominous trait of this person came to the surface in the light - countless gouges across every inch of the titanium plating of the suit, a network of carved lines and incisions linked together to form a cluttered display of Marker runes, each bleeding into the next. Though Isaac was petrified with fear, he could do nothing but stare in wide eyed apprehension at this dark, mysterious stranger.

_You've done us a great service. Now, we can finish our work. _

The anxiety Isaac was experiencing wreaked havoc upon him. His heart beat painfully as it strained to support the demands of his collapse, and he fell back against the wall, gasping for air, but unable to turn away.

"How... how did the Marker... get back here? How is this... how is this happening? What are you doing here?"

_We made a mistake. We weren't thinking clearly. We will be whole again. Soon._

"You... It was you... you were the one... In my head... You, and..."

The figure cut him off with a gentle gesture of its hand.

_You look tired. We know exactly how you feel, Isaac. We've all seen far better days._

"How do you know who I am?... Who the fuck are you?"

Isaac glanced the figure up and down with sinking panic, eying its intoxicated waver and the plasma cutter upon its belt. He was reminded of the insanely violent infected he had come across on the Ishimura, those who shared their last moments of humanity with him, no matter how debased and unholy, before succumbing to the suicidal tendencies of the necromorph virus.

"Are you... one of them?"

_You are one of us. You share in our gift. You are very fortunate. We are only half so lucky as you._

Isaac chuckled hysterically to stave off a much deeper desire to cry out in his fear and sorrow.

"... That's too bad... Then you really have... no luck at all."

His voice trailed off as he shed a few tears, some forced out by his pain, some out of sheer desperation to see the end to his suffering. He had failed miserably in every way in his goal, his only reason for coming to this floating graveyard in the first place, to find _her_... but all of his efforts up to this point had proven to be no less than disastrous. And now, with his body clearly on the verge of death and with no hope of ever seeing the light of the sun again, he knew that he was standing helplessly at the threshold of an evil that expanded beyond his capacity to understand it, that it was something from which he would never escape. The figure stared at Isaac, watching as his condition continued to decline, reading his frantic, disarrayed thoughts. Understanding that he had lost enough blood to push him beyond the possibility of recovery, the menacing figure took a slow, cautious step closer.

"It's alright... Isaac. You have nothing to fear. Die freely. I won't put you through this."

Isaac immediately glanced up and met the stranger's gaze through its helmet, shocked to realize that this time, he heard a physical voice. This voice was much different - a deep, tranquil tone, devoid of the second frequency that had up to this point been an integral part of it. It was almost as if the stranger's real persona had, for just a brief moment, broken the surface of its otherwise dark, foreboding facade. Isaac stared in amazement as the figure fell silent save for a single, deep breath that echoed from its helmet, the retracted the visor to reveal its identity.

Isaac was crushed by what he saw, almost convinced that he was reliving yet another hallucination. He recognized in the face of this stranger his own disconsolate eyes staring back at him, vacuous as space and shimmering against the artificial light, and the lines of age riddling his skin spoke of countless experiences both terrifying and exhilarating beyond any form of measure. His countenance was solid, cold and burdened with the premonitory awareness of a prophet having lived through aeons of self discovery, and his deep, caliginous eyes, burning wild with pure madness, rolled softly in their sockets as he hovered upon a plane of intense, undulating bodily ecstasy induced by the Marker's influence over him. He was coated in ancient stains of blood and desert dust, variegated enough in color and wear to suggest that this man had spent a much greater deal of time out here than seemed possible. Indeed, much about this man seemed impossible to accept, but the geminate identity was exact and irrefutable. Even with several marked differences between them, there was no doubt in Isaac's mind that somehow, by some mystifying phenomenon, he was now staring at his own reflection - a much darker and corrupted one.

"One of us is damned enough."

Terrified as he was, having lost too much blood to continue on, Isaac could not react upon it. His body slackened, he rested his head against against the wall, feeling his mortality coming to fruition, and he now knew for certain that he was going to die. His vision gave out completely while his dark counterpart served as final visual through eyes in this lifetime, and as Isaac's lungs filled with blood he suddenly felt as a pair of arms delicately wrapped themselves around his neck. Though he could no longer see or hear anything, Isaac knew instantly who it was, feeling her fingers brush daintily across his blood stained cheek with heartfelt affection.

_I love you, Isaac. I've always loved you._

He drifted back to consciousness one last time, and as a final thought traversed his mind he looked up at the stranger through black, glassy eyes.

"Don't... forget her. That's why... you're... here..."

The dark figure twisted his head upon Isaac's plea, nodding solemnly in response. Isaac's voice then choked as his throat flooded, and his face tensed under the pressure of total asphyxiation. He gagged briefly and blood poured through his lips, running down the sides of his face as he began to undergo a mild seizure. He lay convulsing on the floor, still feeling the soft, graceful embrace of his love as she accompanied him on his frightening journey, and his useless eyes again met with those of the stranger. Though Isaac was physically blind to it, a long, unnerving stare passed between them, unhindered nonetheless until the final moment. As his consciousness finally parted from his body, the ominous, red glow illuminating Isaac's eyes slowly extinguished and vanished like snuffed candlelight.

* * *

"Captain, we're picking up a trace."

Sarius lifted his head and stared at the status screen over the Corporal's shoulder.

"... The subchip?"

"Yes. It's the first time the signal's come back since it went offline earlier. It's out of sync. The timestamp's corrupted. But, it's clearly coming from the Ishimura, now. It's probably just the interference."

Sarius stared at the screen with a sharply bent brow, running a nervous hand through his thinning, jet black hair.

"... Let's not jump to conclusions, Corporal. what about the other signal?"

The Corporal blinked, appearing to be taken aback a bit.

"The other signal, Captain?"

Sarius glared sternly upon him.

"Yes. The original signal we picked up from the Ishimura. Before. Have you been keeping an eye on it?"

The Corporal just stared back at Sarius as he realized that it had completely slipped his mind.

"N... no, Captain. I... I couldn't, I couldn't get an ID on it, and then all this started happening..."

The Captain sighed, frustrated but also sympathetic towards the distraught soldier who had gone into a panic, beginning to frantically access the tracking systems.

"Nevermind. It... it doesn't matter. There's only one way for all of this to end, anyway."

Sarius turned away stiffly and headed towards the Bridge doors. He activated the hololock and stepped into the elevator upon its arrival, whirling around to point a long, gnarled finger at the Corporal.

"You have the Bridge, Corporal. Stay here and wait for our signal. If we don't return by 8:00 hours... evacuate who you can and get the hell out of here. Forget the Valor, and the Colony. You're to tell them what's happened here. You're to tell them that they are not to come back."

The Corporal stared solemnly along with the others within the Bridge as they all turned to convey silent farewells through their eyes.

"... Yes, Sir. God be with you."

Sarius remained tight lipped and unresponsive. Somehow he knew, despite his convincing downplay in front of the others, the life altering fate that awaited them.

"Yes. May God be with us all, soldier."

* * *

The dark stranger stood in silence in the Ishimura's Flight Lounge, alone with the corpse of who once was Isaac Clarke. He had no idea what to feel, for his primordial compassion upon the sight of another living being having to suffer such an unduly passing was conflicted by the awkwardness of knowing that it was he himself having to suffer in such a way, but the experience was too great a deviation from any standard emotional protocol to appropriately respond to it.

He slowly approached the body and kneeled down beside it, examining the crudely bandaged left arm, loosely knotted in a blood soaked hand towel. He carefully pulled the cloth back, revealing the gaping, open incision, and he shuddered at the recollection of Isaac's traumatizing, coerced self-extraction of the implanted subchip. He had himself known in the past of such devices, although very little and certainly not including that he, or at least this iteration of himself, was a recipient of one of them. This fact concerned him; subcutaneous microchips of this sort were generally only of government origin... or a sector far more private.

_Like his benefactors._

The dark stranger now looked down at his own arm as the possibility registered that this iteration might not have been the only one affected by subchip tracking. He started to pull at the straps of his suit to unfasten the communication device and sleeve, to see if a similar scar existed on himself, but he very quickly learned that the integrated infection was now a seamless addition to his suit, making it impossible to get to the skin beneath. He sighed angrily, having no recourse now but to return to his own memories of escaping Aegis7, and he tried to recall what he could of his drugged, blurred haze back aboard the Sprawl. He tried to remember every place he had been... where he was _sure _he had been... until his maddened deliberations were interrupted by the icy cold touch of the Hive Mind's hand upon the back of his neck.

_Of course you have one. You always have.  
_

Isaac felt threatened by her words, not sure whether she had meant since returning to the Sprawl, or perhaps even before. But beyond the possible issue that he might he under someone's surveillance, Isaac was even more disturbed by having witnessed Nicole's taking the time to embrace the dead man lying at his feet. Though her illusory manifestation's intention was to comfort the dying vessel during his passing, Isaac could not help but feel an inflamed sense of rejection all the same, having longed for Nicole's returned affection in the same exact way. He had prayed to see her sweet, angelic face, to be given a single opportunity to make up for all of his grievances by fulfilling his promise to protect her, only after so such strife to be insulted by the possibility that above all else, she probably did not even exist. Therefore it was no wonder that now, after having witnessed Nicole gently kiss the body with the genuine, loving attraction that had in recent times become so scarce in his own interactions with her, his seething jealousy bubbled to the surface. Even as illogical as it was, considering the target of her intentions was literally nondifferent from himself, Isaac found his sorrow melting away quickly into hatred.

"... Motherfucker."

Isaac snatched his plasma cutter, took aim at the body and fired several rounds into it, dissolving the limbs and head. The air fell silent following the echo of the final shot, and Isaac eyed the smoke rising from the cutter's edge as it twisted through the air before he returned the tool to his belt. He stood before the dismembered body, rolling his head upon his neck in crazed ecstasy as the Hive Mind tightened her intoxicating touch, and he laughed madly under his breath. However, she realized that his actions had rendered the body useless to any further possession, and her smile dropped into a sharp frown of disappointment.

_What the... Isaac, why the hell did you do that? We could have used him, you fool.  
_

Isaac darted a filthy glare at her, bruised by her verve.

"You... you haven't taken enough from me? Still, you want more?"

She merely stood and blinked large, undignified eyes at him.

_I'm stating a logical fact. Your feelings have no place here. We need everyone we can get. As resourceful as you are, especially.  
_

Isaac sneered as he again glanced down at the body.

"I can't handle dealing with myself for eternity. The few hours aboard the Credence were disheartening enough."

The Hive Mind saw as her attempts to convince him floundered, at least for the moment. She stamped her foot impatiently.

_Fuck... whatever. It is just like you to burn your own fucking bridges, isn't it, sweetheart?  
_

Her lips split into a grimace and she flashed her teeth, tossing her hands as she turned to walk away. Isaac slowly returned his gaze to the dead body upon the floor and sighed heavily in disgust.

"... You're a real cunt, Kendra."_  
_

* * *

Sarius and his team of soldiers from the Credence finally arrived in the Ishimura Flight Hangar. As they docked with the Bridge, they saw the stolen Credence cruiser similarly docked across the way, silent and dark. The Captain turned to his men.

"Iben, you take the backside. Rickson, you and yours are with me. We're going to see who else is aboard this fucking ship."

Sarius quickly withdrew his divet, verified the cartridge and returned it to his belt.

"Pilot, you hold the shuttle. Keep her ready to fly on a moment's notice, and keep an eye on the scanners. Let me know the instant you see anything."

The pilot pointed to the tracking controls.

"Careful, Captain. I'm picking up signs of the subchip, less than a hundred meters from our position right now."

Sarius nodded silently, and upon his gesture the soldiers prepped their gear and lined up at the exit doors. The pilot opened the doors and the crew stepped out onto the hangar bridge, trailing their way towards the Flight Lounge like a line of incorrigible ants and clutching their weapons defensively as they scouted the area. Seeing the surroundings remained rather uneventful and quiet save for the standard Ishimura recorded greeting, they slackened a bit and continued on until they approached the Flight Lounge doors. Out of the corner of Sarius's eye he caught a glimpse of pulsating, blood red light coming from somewhere below them, and intrigued, the Captain walked up to the bridge's railing to lean over it.

"My god..."

Sarius had never before seen the Red Marker with his own eyes, but he knew right away what it was. He recognized its radiating energy, and he stepped back from the railing as a fear mixed with inexplicable admiration crept up his spine.

"... Altman be praised."

Sarius's gaze clung to the Marker's blackened, radiant surfaces, mesmerized until he suddenly noticed something else upon the hangar floor - a dark figure, standing off in the shadows behind the Marker. Though difficult to discern, lost in the haze of the artifact's ceaseless glow, Sarius could strongly detect this presence's penetrating glare upon him. The figure stepped out into the light, and Sarius saw as a wide, contemptuously wicked smile spread across the face of this presence like an expanding fault line.

"You there!"

Upon Sarius's outcry, the other soldiers immediately met his back and looked over the railing alongside him. However, before they could do anything else, the man had retreated into the shadows and vanished. They directed the beams of their flashlights to the floor below and scoured the area, trying to track their target, but found no one.

"Welcome aboard, gentlemen."

Startled, they all whirled around at the sound of a voice and found the same dark, indiscernible man, who now had somehow come to be standing directly behind them on the bridge. The unsettled soldiers aimed their rifles directly at him in preparation to open fire, but but Sarius waved his hand dismissively, ordering them back, and they reluctantly lowered their weapons. Sarius stepped forward with eyes locked dead upon the dark, shadowy man hovering just across from them on the opposite side of the bay bridge.

"You're not the Captain of this ship. Where is Benjamin Matthius?"

The air vibrated with the heat of Sarius's agitated inquiry, but the stranger did not seem moved to respond. The soldiers waited intensely in the brief silence that followed up until his deep, captivating voice finally arose from the darkness.

"The Captain is currently tending to other matters. Is there anything we can do for you?"

Sarius's brows fell and his lips tightened against his teeth. He knew that Benjamin Matthius was not the kind to send others to handle his business - certainly not meeting the arrival of military personnel aboard his lawbreaking planetcracker. However, what truly captured Sarius's attention was the intimidating, almost unearthly stare of this stranger upon him.

_Something was definitely wrong here._

He drew a deep, chest expanding breath, and cleared his throat.

"_I_... am Ravi Sarius, Captain of the USM Credence. We are the ones who intercepted your signal."

His eyes darted across the shadow of the strange man before him.

"... You're not supposed to be here. This zone if restricted. I must speak with the Captain. He must answer to this transgression."

The man tilted his head.

"Duly noted. The Captain is busy at the moment."

Sarius's eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms, speaking with a tinge of growing sarcasm.

"We were originally dispatched to investigate the disappearance of the USM Valor. I don't suppose you know anything about what happened to it."

The man slowly nodded, and leaned back on the railing.

"From what we saw, it was suffering a few... mechanical issues."

The group of soldiers, standing behind Sarius and agitated by this man's scathing tone, were finding it difficult to believe him and began whispering dire opposition into Sarius's ears. Still, he merely silenced them and turned back to the man across the way.

"So, you _have_ seen it, then."

"... Briefly. Yes."

Sarius also picked up on the same subtle aura of acrimony in this man's words as did his fellow soldiers. His pretentious, defiant attitude executed through perfectly calm eloquence heightened Sarius's suspicions even further about the Ishimura's clandestine involvement in the tragedies at play here in the Cygnus system, but not wanting to provoke any hostility he remained composed. Now seeking directly what he had come for, he sighed and again raised his voice.

"Well... if you aren't insofar inclined to put this before your Captain, in light of all this... we are here for something else."

Sarius turned around and pointed at the stolen Credence cruiser parked against the hangar bay bridge.

"That cruiser is ours. We know he's here. He belongs in our custody, and I demand his immediate return."

After a long moment, the man failed to reply with anything more than a condescending chuckle. Sarius carried on, now with a stronger sense of urgency in his voice as he realized that his words appeared to be falling upon deaf ears.

"This is ridiculous. Where is everyone, damnit? What is this shit?"

He now eyed the dark stranger over with suspicion. Despite the darkened hangar interior providing virtually no identifiable details, the man's large, bulky silhouette clearly stood out against the lesser surrounding darkness, and suggested some sort of heavy work suit that encased him in layers of tempered metal across his entire body save for his head. Though none of the soldiers present were able to recognize the dark figure due to the absence of proper light, Sarius himself was on the contrary plagued by a haunting familiarity about this man, like that of an unforgettable, recurring dream. Sarius caught a glimpse as the man's iridescent pupils momentarily radiated from beneath tense, dark brows, and the imagery sparked him to recall the outlandish transmission they had received aboard the Credence just a couple of days prior.

"You... I know you."

The man failed to acknowledge Sarius's expanding fascination.

"The man you're looking for is here, but he didn't make it. Seems the stress of his arrival was too much."

"... It was you. You're the one who sent that message."

It dawned upon Sarius that the man appeared to be heavily intoxicated, his speech slow and slurred as he continued on his tangent.

"You can have him if you want, but I doubt he'll be of any use to you, now. He's dead."

Sarius was too stunned to respond before the man raised his dark glare and stared directly into the Captain's soul.

"It was a shame, really. He had such potential."

Sarius glanced down at his RIG's scanning device, and ran a bioscan in an attempt to identify this person. However, he was surprisingly confronted by the signal of Isaac Clarke's subchip, coming from directly in front of him_._

"Wha... it's - detain him, _now_!"

Upon his word the soldiers salivating at Sarius's heels like anxious dogs sprung forth into action, ready to take the stranger down. But the moment they stepped toward him, they were all violently forced backwards by a sudden, unseen blast of energy like a penetrating wave of ultrasonic sound. It seemed to originate from Isaac's position, and the force of it displaced the men with the impact of a battering ram, temporarily disabling their advancement. Lieutenant Iben, at the forefront of the team and bearing the brunt of the force, was slammed back against his teammates and they toppled to the ground like dominoes, left breathless by the unanticipated attack. Strangely enough, however, this force seemed to affect everyone present save for Captain Sarius and Isaac himself. Seeing the inexplicable oddity in this, Sarius became distraught, and concerned for his own safety he drew his divet in defense. Tightening his grip upon it Sarius glanced up, only to be met with Isaac's dark, inverted glare upon him as he watched the Captain's every movement.

"Please. There is no reason we can't be civil about this, Captain... Ravi Sarius."

The man took a small step forward, finally entering the light. Sarius's men were dumbfounded by whom they recognized to be and had no reason to doubt was Isaac Clarke, the Ishimura survivor who had escaped their custody, but somehow his physical appearance had been radically altered in the short time since departing the Credence. Sarius gauged Isaac's combative, black eyed stare upon them like a wolf before a veritable flock, and he saw on the metal braces of his suit the deeply etched Marker runes that traced every surface, emicating with the red light of the Marker. In turn, Isaac examined the Captain, whose focus had become drawn entirely to the runes upon his suit, and he smiled darkly.

"This is not the real reason you came."

His eyes fell upon the small, silver double helix broach clasped to Sarius's collar.

"You're a Unitologist."

The Captain's expression sank as Isaac reached directly into him, infecting him through the telepathic conduit of the Hive Mind. Sarius absorbed the psychic messages, and his chest began to rise and fall in steadily increasing breaths, drawn in by the mesmerizing beauty of the voices gathering within the nest of his mind. A soft, quiet whisper escaped the Captain's lips.

"... Altman be praised..."

The soldiers all turned their eyes to Sarius as they heard his sacerdotal whisper, and rising concern gripped them all as a strange shift began to dominate the Captain's behavior. Sarius was quickly losing in his battle against the infectious hold of the Marker.

_We know you're a true believer, Sarius. Your faith, your sacrifice, will not go unrewarded._

Sarius slowly dropped to his knees, his eyes threatening tears. The soldiers behind him had no idea what it was that possessed their Captain, but afraid to confront the unapproachable, supernatural force that had rebuffed them earlier, none was brazen enough to try to come near him. Sarius paid no heed to his men, for lost in the Marker's entrancing hold over him he was no longer even aware of their existence. All of his anxiety had melted away into a mood of complete disconnection from his surroundings, he looked up to Isaac as tears slid down his face. As he spoke, the inflection of his voice changed dramatically.

"It... it is an honor to see you, Isaac Clarke. Please... forgive me for my ignorance. I now see who you really are. You are the safekeeper of this holy vessel. I now know the truth, by your causeless mercy. Please, forgive me. Less than zero, I am your vessel."

Sarius sighed deeply with repentance for his aggressive behavior previously, his eyes slowly widening into pure white discs as he stared blankly ahead into nothing. Isaac shook his head gently with a small, cold smile.

_It's quite alright. We're all on the same page now. _

Sarius remained silent as Isaac spoke to him from within. The soldiers, unable to hear Isaac's telepathic discourse and having no idea of what was transpiring, remained frozen in their stances and watched in fear as it appeared to them that the Captain had now taken to talking madly out loud to himself.

"Yes, yes of course. Tell me. What can I do for you, Sir? What can I offer, to help you finish this? I beg you."

Isaac gestured silently to him, and Sarius rose to his feet as he then turned around to open the Flight Lounge doors.

_First, allow me to put your concerns to rest. _

The doors slid open and the first thing that Sarius saw was the bloodied, mutilated body of Isaac Clarke upon the floor in the center of the Flight Lounge. He paused in his tracks upon the sight of it, thoroughly disturbed by the fact that this one single point of pure morbidity was a complete contrast to the otherwise spotless surroundings, and this cast the entire ship in the light of a mausoleum. He walked up to the body, still not sure if he could trust it as reality, and stooped down beside it to get a closer view of what remained of the head. As he looked at it, unable to deny the unmistakable identity, he slowly turned back to the Isaac Clarke that was watching silently from behind.

"But... how can this be...?"

_Trust us, Captain. We're more sorry that this happened than you will ever know._

The Captain was utterly baffled by the circumstances that seemed to defy all logic as he glanced back and forth between them, wondering how it was that two simultaneous instances of the same man could exist. However, his questions remained unanswered as Isaac interrupted his thoughts.

_We'll take you to the Bridge, if you would still like to speak with Matthius. Perhaps the two of you can work something out._

Sarius nodded in concurrence, much to the dismay of his fellow soldiers who desired nothing more than to leave this rather unwelcoming place. He eyed them over and motioned to Lieutenant Iben, who immediately stepped up next to him and locked a fierce, antagonizing glare upon Isaac. Sarius took no notice of Iben's discontent and turned to address the remaining soldiers.

"Hold the shuttle. We'll be back shortly."

Having not been privy to their conversation, none of the soldiers knew what Sarius's intentions were, nor were they in agreement with the proposal of his leaving them behind. Still, with no other alternative than to abide by their Captain's order, they withdrew to the shuttle as Sarius and Iben both disappeared beyond the Flight Lounge doors, along with their dark escort.

Isaac led them down the hallways of the Ishimura, silent-lipped as he engaged in conversation with the Hive Mind inside himself. They could both sense the anxiety emanating from their guests, especially from Iben, whom Isaac had figured to be rather young for someone having to walk into such a nightmare as what awaited them. On the other hand, the Hive Mind took devilish pleasure in their ascending heart rates, their salty, alkaline sweat heavy with fear, and her sadistic bemusement bubbled to the surface in the form of the occasional menacing chuckle from Isaac. He would periodically glance back at them as they traversed through the ship and he grinned, mad as a march hare and ravenous as a tiger, as he watched them looking around with cautious yet eager eyes to take in every detail of their surroundings.

As the halls opened up, Sarius and Iben were shocked to see massive muscular structures, covered in smooth, translucent integument and spreading along the walls, forming a blanket of fleshy threads like plant roots that fully integrated into the metal grates and ventilation pathways as if perfectly part of the ship itself. The two of them slowed their pace a bit as they passed through a thicket of living, breathing tendrils, pausing to take notice of how each and every visible inch of these bizarre lifeforms pulsated with life and carried a dim, red bioluminescent glow in perfect tandem with the light traces of Isaac's suit. Iben was highly uncomfortable the entire way, all the while unable to avoid the suspicious notion that they were walking into some sort of trap, but Sarius was experiencing a diametrically opposed sense of ataraxis in the face of their unknown fate.

Apart from Isaac and the frighteningly alien biomatter clinging to the walls, they came across no one else along the vast, expansive corridors of the ship for quite some time. Sarius began to wonder if perhaps the Corporal had been correct about there being only one life sign detected within the Ishimura, after all. But the Captain's musings were very quickly invalidated as he became increasingly aware of burning, crimson points of light from all around, bearing down on them from the concealing darkness of the walls and ceilings. With the gradual emergence of stars through twilight, more and more the tiny lights emerged in pairs, until Sarius came to the realization that they were actually eyes, watching from every dark corner of the ship. Becoming afraid, Sarius ran another bioscan to analyze the immediate area, but was surprised to see that it failed to register any of their lifesigns.

_Were they alive, or dead? Or were they perhaps something more? _

Terrified within but becoming overwhelmed by a thirst to understand what was going on here, Sarius softly raised his voice. This startled Iben, who was by this point spooked like wild game.

"Who are these... people?"

Isaac sublimely responded with a glance over his shoulder.

_Meet the crew of the USG Ishimura.  
_

Isaac turned to Sarius with a mysterious smile. Iben shot a look of vile disbelief at his Captain, refusing to acknowledge anything in this place as human, let alone the authorized crew members of the Ishimura. He stared at the strange creatures that began to materialize from the shadows with placid postures and sleek, glowing skin, and unwilling to engage them he began to feel quite grim. Sarius, however, had become so enamored by the Marker's influence that he now very zealously traveled alongside Isaac, losing track of everything else as the ship continued to unveil its otherworldly wonders. Iben quickly approached him from behind, sensing Sarius's wandering sense of duty, and worried that his Captain was being manipulated by the inconceivable forces at work all around them, he gripped his shoulder with mindful conveyance. Sarius did little more than turn to look at Iben's hand upon his shoulder, and nod with distant awareness of his concerns.

"It's alright, Lieutenant."

Though still resistant to Sarius's confidence in Isaac, he did his best to put faith in the Captain. He sighed and stepped back, eying Isaac dubiously.

They approached the Tram Deck, and as they stepped out into the much more brightly illuminated area, they both could now clearly see their host in entirety. They saw the blood drenched, deathly emaciated features of his face, the mutilated, scarred skin of his neck and jawline, and most poignantly, the elongated, barblike blades of his mutated left hand. He stared at them through the black, glossy spheres of his eyes as they began to slowly back away from him, and beginning to feel sensitive to the intensity of the deck lighting - if not slightly abashed by their gaping, revolted stares upon him - Isaac tapped his RIG to reengage the shielding plates of his visor. Once sealed within the comforting confines of his helmet, Isaac motioned towards the empty, idle tram shuttle parked upon the loading deck.

_Your destiny awaits, gentlemen._

He stood to the side and watched as Sarius entered the tram, followed closely behind by Iben. Once they were boarded, Isaac glanced back at some of the necromorphs who stood in the Tram Deck doorway, watching with curiously like children, and he smiled with friendly, almost parental affirmation to them. The tram roared to life, and he jumped aboard just before the doors slid shut as the tram took off on its way for the Bridge.

As the tram skidded along through the tunnel, Sarius wondered just what it was that awaited them on the other end. He briefly glanced around the inside of the tram shuttle, inevitably meeting with Isaac, who was standing in the rear of the cabin and returning the stare without deviation. As Sarius stared upon him, arrested with astonishment by the energy he felt emanating from this darkly ordained shepherd overseeing their way, he muttered the prayerful words repeatedly looping in his mind.

"Altman be praised. Altman be praised. Altman be praised."


	33. Learning The Curve

**Chapter 33**  
**Learning The Curve  
**

**"Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be."  
- B.G., 2.12**

* * *

The tram arrived at the Bridge a short time after the trio's departure from the Flight Deck. Once it braked at the station and the doors slid open, Sarius and Iben stepped out onto the deck and were followed shortly after by Isaac, who motioned towards the Bridge entrance. After a quick visual scan of the area, Sarius and Iben turned to the slightly recessed doorway Isaac had pointed out, and were met with even more of the horrifyingly outlandish inhabitants aboard the Ishimura. Sarius and Iben both gaped in wonder at the sight.

"Oh... my god..."

Hanging upon the walls on both sides of the doorway were two very large masses of smooth, burnished flesh, suspended by strapping barbed tendrils entangled in the steel paneling. Each mass was shielded, encircled by long, hard, needle-tipped appendages that extended from and tightly wrapped around them to form several immense, plated pairs of interlocked arms. The dark, translucent skin upon them carried the same ambient glow as did the other inhabitants of the ship, as if surcharged with energy, and their virtually flawless skeletal structures, like the illuminated schematics of some bionic amalgamation, were visible from beneath.

Sarius and Iben paused with palpitating hearts as they gazed upon the life forms, noting that they seemed to be in some sort of dormant state as they remained motionless upon the group's approach. Though neither had any clue as to what to make of these things, Isaac, on the other hand, smiled with recognition; he had not yet again encountered this particularly abstract breed of necromorph since his return to the Ishimura, and now presented with the first opportunity to reacquaint himself, he was pleasantly astounded by the results of their evolution.

_Guardians._

At their approach the creatures suddenly sprung to life in instinctive defense of the Bridge. The shield of their numerous appendages unlocked and receded from their figures, uncoiling into eight powerful limbs upon each creature with the fluent, synchronized operation of mechanical apertures. Their protected interiors were revealed as sharply angled torsos, converging to a point and ending where their waists would be, anchored to the wall by adhesive, plated spines. Deep, rumbling vocals arose from them, and the glossy black skin at the base of their highest pair of shoulders split to birth forth long, protracted heads that housed skulls almost as sharp and incisive as the edge of axe blades. The lucid skin of their faces gave glimpse beneath of deep, red eyes burning with unfathomable fury, and rows of sharp teeth tucked behind transparent lips, precisely arranged within their jaws to bear menacing, carnal grimaces. In deep contrast to what Isaac remembered of their kind, these Guardians no longer resembled horribly twisted, mutated prisoners enslaved to the Marker's will, nor did they cry out in the agony as did those unfortunate ones who underwent the process of such assimilation. Now, they were immaculate, sleek and formidable specimens, lightweight and silent in their every movement, spread defensively with the calculated predation of spiders perched within their webs and wielding their limbs with threatening vigilance.

Sarius and Iben halted at the seemingly dangerous response of these monsters, but they were surprised to see as Isaac casually continued past and approached the fearsome beasts. Out of a mutual respect he had come to develop for these creatures, Isaac retracted his visor in front of the Guardians to give them direct eye contact despite his sensitivity to the Tram Deck lighting. The Guardians dropped their heated glares from the two soldiers and turned to look at Isaac with eyes bathed in the same reverence that Sarius and Iben had witnessed from all of the others along the way. Their agitation seemed to decrease and they lowered their defenses, reaching out to touch Isaac with their many articulate arms and Isaac reciprocated, watching as the Guardians' bloodthirsty anger subsided at the relishing touch of his hands against their bodies. A long intermission of silent communion passed until the Guardians withdrew their arms around them to initial shielding posture, and as they both fell dormant once again, Isaac opened the way to the Bridge.

Without a second glance, Isaac stepped through the door as it slid open and he vanished into the darkness beyond them. Sarius and Iben, still hesitant to pass between the breathtakingly diabolical creatures but not wanting to lose track of Isaac, cautiously stepped through the doors after him, never once removing their wary stares from the hibernating sacs of flesh as they slipped by. The moment they passed through and into the hall on the other side, they realized that despite only having been separated from Isaac by no more than a few seconds, he had somehow managed to completely disappear. Baffled, they both looked up and down the hall with wide, anxious eyes.

"Mr... Mr. Clarke?"

Not wanting to remain still they continued forth on their own, searching for Isaac as they followed the way to the Ishimura's central control within the Bridge. It wasn't long before they found themselves at the entrance, and as the doors opened automatically at their approach, they assumed that Isaac was on the other side of it. However, when the doors split and the bright illumination of the USG Ishimura's fully functioning Bridge spilled through to flood their vision, they still saw no sign of him. What they did see, however, was a sight that neither the Captain nor his disturbed Lieutenant could have anticipated, nor accept as reality.

The entire Bridge was alive and crowded with a vast gathering of operators, coordinators, engineers and P-Sec personnel from various levels of administration, all hurrying around the deck with dutiful ambition in their strides and carrying out the plethora of constant, complex tasks required to keep a ship like the Ishimura operating. Sarius and Iben again hesitated upon the threshold, though their reasons for doing so now vastly differed from each other. While Iben was submerged in the anxiety of fear of the unnatural energy he felt within this ship, Sarius was riding the crest of a much different wave of emotion, one of complete wonder, admiration and respect for the activity happening all around them. He was utterly amazed by everyone's actions and reactions, all integrating seamlessly with one another in between infinite levels of consciousness both physical and beyond, and he quickly forgot in his amazement that not one of these people were human.

"Well, then... come on, Lieutenant."

He started to stroll slowly through the Bridge, listening to the electronic hum of the holosystems, examining the stern, focused looks upon the faces of the crew, and peering curiously over their shoulders as he passed to see what they were doing. Iben lingered just feet behind, having no desire to be on the Ishimura any longer, but bound by the will of his Captain he restrained himself with an ever present finger perched upon the trigger of the rifle at his side.

"I'm tellin' ya, Sir. I don't trust them. Not at all."

"I said it's alright, Lieutenant."

They made their way through the crowd to the front of the Bridge, enclosed in the colossal, panoramic windows that overlooked the asteroid field beyond Aegis7's boundary. As they approached, Sarius suddenly recognized a very familiar man standing near one of the stations, surrounded by an entourage of executive administrators with whom he was engaged in conversation.

_Benjamin Matthius. _

Sarius blinked as he saw the tapered, snow white hair and deep, embodied eyes of his old friend and colleague. Though it should have been expected to find him here, considering he was the Captain of the USG Ishimura, somehow Sarius still found it hard to believe. The closer he and Iben approached the small, tightly knit group, the more they became aware of the strange tones in their conversation, a slow, repetitive and almost poetic droning that seemed very much like chanting. Matthius looked up as he saw Sarius approaching out of the corner of his eye, breaking in his dialogue towards his entourage, and he smiled darkly.

"Ravi... Ravi Sarius. Well, of all the stars out there in the universe."

Matthius broke from the group and stepped forward, holding out his hand to Sarius in a fashion that seemed more harsh and calloused than he remembered of his fellow Captain. Still, though he knew he had originally come to the Ishimura under unpleasant circumstances, the unexplained rise of positivity Sarius felt was all that kept him from expressing his disappointment for the moment.

"Benjamin. It's great to see you."

Matthius smiled again, albeit coldly, he put a hand to his chin. He then turned back to his group behind him, and with a snap of his fingers they disbanded.

"Don't mind them. Let's go somewhere a little more private."

He casually walked them to the elevator, and the three of them embarked for the navigation chamber below. As the elevator slowly descended, Iben took the opportunity to look Captain Matthius over for himself. He frowned at the man's stiff, prickly posture as he stood silent as a statue beside Sarius, saw how the man's piercing stare never once deviated from the elevator doors in front of him, and in Iben's state of rising paranoia, he thought he had detected something subversive at work behind this elderly man's expressionless, unspoken front.

As the elevator finally came to rest at the bottom of the shaft and the doors opened, Matthius stepped out, walked soundlessly around the center console and took a seat, beckoning to Sarius and Iben to come in. Sarius obliged, ordering Iben to remain by the door and he walked in, glanced around at the illuminated interior of the small chamber bathed in soft, titian light, and smiled congenially to Matthius despite the tension he was under. Matthius easily sensed Sarius's anxiety, and he leaned forward in his seat, gently clasping his hands before him.

"So, Sarius. We weren't aware that the Credence would be in these parts. What brings you here, what can we do for you?"

Sarius rested his arm upon the navigation console, gripping the edge of it tensely with his fingers as he carefully chose his words, trying not to offend Matthius. He decided the direct, honest approach was the most appropriate measure.

"Well, Ben... Unfortunately my arrival here is not on the best of terms."

The expression upon Matthius's face remained solid and unmoved.

"... Oh?"

"Those back home know what's been going on out here."

Matthius's brows fell at the distinct, hard edge Sarius voiced.

"You've been misinformed."

"Why are you here, Benjamin? You know this zone is restricted. You'll most likely face discharge for this."

"There's nothing wrong here, Ravi. You know we run a tight ship here. Don't you trust us?"

Sarius shook his head. Under the influence of the strange forces surrounding this place, his perspective on the mission he had been tasked to undertake began to change dramatically; his confidence in his orders to seize the Ishimura, which had at the time seemed the perfectly logical solution, was now being shaken by a far greater underlying destiny that he could not identify. However, still driven in vain by his dying militant loyalty to the USM, Sarius continued the execution of his meaningless routine to the bitter end.

"There is a _great _deal wrong here. Putting aside that the Ishimura doesn't belong here, _and _that this is a unauthorized planetcrack... there is the matter of the USM Valor."

"The Valor?"

Sarius stiffened.

"Yes. The Valor's last known coordinates were in this sector, Ben. We know you know about it. We have records - intercepted transmissions between the Valor and this ship. We know they established contact with you... and we also know that someone from this ship made contact with their vessel. We lost them after that. You know what happened to them - and if you don't, you at the very least know that they were here in this system because of _you."_

Matthius, who up to this point had focused intently upon Sarius, finally softened and released a smile of admonishment from behind his tented fingers.

"Ravi... why do you come here to insult us?"

Sarius merely stared into the cold, slate shards of Matthius's eyes, at a complete loss for words.

"What's happening here has absolutely nothing to do with the USM, the CEC, or even the Church. The Marker does not belong to us; we belong to the Marker. And we are staying true to that vision, Ravi. This is your opportunity to join the right side."

Matthius pointed out the window of the small room, directing Sarius's attention to the distant, looming mass of the USM Credence.

"The Credence belongs to the Marker now. So does her Captain, and her crew."

Matthius stopped, watching Sarius's face as the words became impressed upon his mind. Sarius's long, despondent stare suddenly lifted as his inevitable submission to his fate birthed a sudden realization from within, and he turned back to Matthius with an entirely different expression cast across his face.

"... You're right, Ben. You're right. I... I don't know what I was thinking."

Matthius flashed a small, dry smile of amnesty, satisfied that they had come to an unspoken understanding. Just then, he suddenly shot a glance towards the door of the room as he heard the hololock disengage, and he immediately rose to his feet in such a way that inspired Sarius to turn about and see what had so captured the Captain's attention. Sarius then saw the mysterious, dark figure of Isaac standing in the doorway. Matthius cleared his throat, the smile upon his face slipping away.

"Mr. Clarke... We were almost finished."

Isaac raised his hand to motion them at ease, and he stalked into the room with the slow, threatening swagger of an elephant about to trample them. As he neared them, Sarius felt the need to rise to his feet alongside Matthius, and they both stood at attention, unable to remove their eyes from Isaac's inverted, light absorbing glare upon them.

"Captain Sarius... we hope we have been sufficiently hospitable towards your needs."

Sarius smiled vaguely and nodded, shooting a glance at Matthius.

"Yes, everything's fine. We were just... catching up on things here. I... don't foresee a problem here."

Isaac continued to bore an ice cold stare directly into Sarius.

"Are you ready?"

Sarius blinked.

"For what?"

Isaac tilted his head.

"Your Ascension."

Sarius shivered and felt his heart grow cold just moments before a hand gripped him firmly by his shoulder. He turned around and saw that Matthius was glancing upon him with a warm smile, while reaching into his vest to retrieve a small, shiny object, which he then raised to meet with Sarius's temple. Sarius remained unmoved, inwardly captivated by the chanting of the Red Marker he could still hear in the back of his skull.

_Whole we become, reborn as one.  
_

Over the cloud of oscillating voices, he suddenly heard Matthius speak.

"The fruits of your Vestment are at hand, Ravi Sarius. Today, you will be the next to Ascend, and to become a part of our new order."

Isaac turned around and silently exited the Navigation chamber, leaving them to their business. Lieutenant Iben, who had been standing outside the door the entire time in heart pounding anxiety as he waited for his Captain, now locked his eyes upon Isaac as he stepped out of the door, realizing that Sarius did not follow him. The door closed quickly behind Isaac, but Iben looked past him just in time to catch a final, very brief glimpse of the two Captains. He saw they were solemnly facing each other as Matthius held the glimmering object in his hand against Sarius's head - an object that Iben had alarmingly concluded was a small, steel blade - and then the door slid shut.

Iben stared at the sealed door, distraught and concerned for the Captain's safety, and he turned back to Isaac. He right away noticed that Isaac was looking him over with an almost predatory intensity, and he became quite uncomfortable under his penetrating stare. In an effort to avoid it, Iben returned his attention to what might have been transpiring within the Navigation chamber. A moment of silence passed before he was startled by the sound of Isaac's voice.

"Take off your helmet, soldier."

Iben couldn't understand what was happening to himself. He owed no military allegiance to this dark stranger, and considering that his Captain might be under the influence of something inexplicable and very dangerous, there certainly was no military law barring him from killing Isaac and everyone else aboard the Ishimura who stood in the way of retreating to the Credence safely. Furthermore, he could always call for the rest of his team, who would be there in seconds to tear the place up. By all reasonable accounts, Iben knew that the USM was in control here. Still, even with full confidence and all the numbers in his favor, Lieutenant Iben simply could not respond to Isaac's apparently overextended command with anything less than total complicity. He reached up, deactivated his helmet and pulled it off.

Isaac turned his obsidian eyes upon Iben's naked face, examining his features with keen interest. Dark haired, staunch and with wide, alert eyes, the soldier's appearance hinted that he was nearly half as young as Isaac himself was. Perhaps it was just the idiosyncratic gallantry that was shared among youth in their prime that he saw in Iben, but Isaac was astonished by how much the man's invincible spark reminded him of himself at such an age. This prompted Isaac to revisit those youthful years of his own life, to remember the same energetic spark that had once burned so brightly within him like a fire kindled by the hands of gods. Understanding how many years had passed since then, the memory briefly saddened him.

"Let's take a walk."

Despite his placating tone, Isaac strongly conveyed through his eyes that this was an order, not a suggestion. Iben nodded and turned to follow him just as they both heard an unexpected outcry from behind the door of the Navigation chamber. Iben immediately recognized Sarius's voice and seized with concern he started back, but Isaac swiftly stepped in to block his path. He grabbed Iben and pushed him back, herding the soldier towards the elevator, grinning madly as his threadbare senses became inundated by another flood of intense, rapturous ecstasy.

_Playing cat-and-mouse games now, are we?_

Within the playing field of his head, the Hive Mind was all over Isaac; taunting him, seducing him with dark, alluring glances, running her hands across him and disappearing among the shadows to sportively coax him into seeking her out, only in the end to ambush him with lascivious stimulation. While she psychologically distracted him she invaded his inner thoughts, spreading her poison ever further, and smiling at the corrupted intentions of his that rose to the surface.

_It's nice to see you getting into the spirit. Let's see where you take this. _

The elevator arrived at their destination and Isaac led Iben back towards the Tram Deck without a further word. Ths soldier examined Isaac nervously along the way, watching the man's crazed, introverted expression, his wandering eyes as they danced about in madness beneath half fallen lids, and the small, immersed smile upon his face. To Iben it seemed that he was highly inebriated, transfixed upon something he was physically and mentally experiencing, and therefore it was astonishing that he was still so cognizant of his surroundings without the slightest falter in his stride. However, as he happened to catch a long, solid glance at Isaac's hand still resting upon his shoulder, seeing it so close now for the first time, Iben was very disruptively forced to recognize that Isaac's behavior was not his most bizarre, frightening or dangerous characteristic.

The soldier recoiled in horror as he now saw in extremely revealing detail how the flesh across the fingers and knuckles of Isaac's left hand, smooth and transparent, gave a very clear glimpse unto the muscles and skeletal structure like some macabre display case. He saw how long tendrils of this strange, mutated skin weaved in and out of his own body up the length of his arm, deeply entwined in the composition of the suit he was wearing to the point of bodily augmentation, and the fingers themselves had evolved into slender, elongated digits tipped by retractable talons that were visible through the transparent flesh. Iben's panicked, awestruck thoughts as he gaped at this sight were interrupted when Isaac again spoke up beside him.

"What's your name, son?"

Still entranced by the horrifying evolution of Isaac's hand, Iben fumbled.

"Uh... it's uh, it's... it's Evan, sir. Actually... it's... it's Evander, after my grandfather - but... Evan's fine."

Isaac nodded, taking note of the familial affection that Iben's voice carried.

"Was he a soldier like you?"

"Yes, and so was my father. My sister, too. Rooted in a long line of jarheads, so I'm told."

Iben felt that an aimless interlude of conversation would make for a perfect distraction from his constant, lurking sense that something was very wrong. Isaac displayed a great deal of interest in Iben's responses, all the while recalling the few scant memories he had of his own father.

"Our roots give us a glimpse of the paths that we have walked in the past, Evander. We ourselves come from a long line of... wandering souls, I suppose."

The air fell deathly silent, and Iben stared apprehensively down the corridor ahead of them. Not only did Isaac's strange discourse make little sense to him, but he seemed to become distant as he spoke, and this made Iben wonder if Isaac was actually in a sound state of mind. However, just as the concern began to plague Iben's thoughts, Isaac opened his eyes and looked directly at him.

"So... how long have you been a soldier... Evander?"

"... Just shy of, uhh, eight years, sir."

"Eight years. That's a long time for a soldier as young as you."

Iben felt intimidated by Isaac's unearthly stare upon him, and he noticed how even within these dimly lit surroundings the iridescent pupils of his eyes remained brightly luminous with a snakelike semblance. This perturbing correlation left Iben feeling he couldn't escape the role of a field mouse thrust upon him, becoming enamored by the display of this serpent's resplendently decorated hood, only to be lured towards a dark and uncertain future.

"Well, I... I, joined the USM when I was fifteen."

"An early starter. Good for you. How much weapons experience do you have?"

Iben stiffened with alarm at the sudden shift in direction. His eyes darted back and forth as he wondered what possible motive Isaac might have for inquiring upon such a subject.

"Hmm... well, I'm... pretty well rounded, I guess you could say. I've been trained under most types of hand held weapons, some short range artillery. I'm not a super crackshot or anything, but..."

Isaac smiled brightly; he knew every word Iben was going to say before he even said them, and he sensed how easy it was to invade his thoughts. As he peered deeper, Isaac saw the illuminated web of infinite life threads pulsing like a network of pure energy through the existential planes of Iben's body, and he now began to also recognize something else - a small, black void expanding within the man's heart that seemed to spread faster the more he kept in physical contact with Iben. Picking up on Isaac's curiosity, the Hive Mind responded with delight.

_You don't require infectors, Isaac. You __**are**__ the infection._

Isaac smiled to himself as he detoured their path down a smaller, isolated hallway, one that Iben had not previously noticed upon his arrival to the Bridge.

"Have you ever fired an ADS cannon before, Evander?"

"No sir... I don't believe I have."

Isaac glanced down the hall before them as they continued to walk, eying something within the darkness ahead that Iben couldn't see.

"You know, an ADS cannon is clearly a superior piece of machinery, beyond any doubt. They're mind blowing and there is almost nothing that can compare to the feeling of straddling one of these fuckers, fully loaded and open in manual mode. They really are quite a landmark of human ingenuity. Very exciting. Very... fucking exciting, you know."

While Isaac remained calm and quite cordial, the subtle language of his body was growing ripe with violent emphasis. This created an unpleasant dissonance with his soft spoken speech, and convinced Iben that Isaac was concealing a deep sense of hostility behind his articulation and gently clenched teeth. Isaac clutched Iben's shoulder a little tighter with the extensions of his hand, and Iben felt an unexpected wave of sickness rise from within him as he did so. Isaac, however, paid no mind to the soldier's withering composure.

"There are so many ways to die, in vast, endless space. Over, and over, and over again. I think I've lost count."

Iben doubled over slightly, frightened by Isaac's dark posture and rambling that became less cogent the more he talked. Iben did not appreciate the grim turn this conversation had taken, and he began to fear that Isaac was very seriously disturbed. He took a step backwards as the friendly, amicable expression immediately vanished from Isaac's features like smoke dissipated upon a strong wind, and he now glared directly at Iben, growling with pure, unrefined animus through the tightly drawn line of his mouth.

"You are all dead, young soldier. Just like your friends on the USM Valor."

Iben stopped in his tracks. He looked into Isaac's eyes and saw a storm gathering upon his face, and sparked by a rapidly ascending fear combined with concern for the intonated fates of the Valor's crew, Iben now stepped back out of Isaac's reach and hardened his stance defensively.

"What... what the fuck did you just say?"

Isaac scanned the depths of Iben's consciousness, stopping upon a particular point of interest among the frequently accessed synapses of his brain. Coming to realize what was so avidly on the soldier's mind, Isaac lowered his gaze with a very weak sense of sympathy, momentarily reminded of his own frantic concern for Nicole.

"So, your sister was on the Valor. Yes... we understand the fear of losing the ones we love."

Iben's fear turned into aggression at the mention of his missing kin, and he was baffled by Isaac's ability to understand his personal attachment to the Credence's mission, despite being a complete stranger to him.

_The whole reason he had signed on with the Credence was to find her. _

Iben now turned to directly face Isaac, his hands slowly, instinctively aligning in preparation to grab for his weapon, and he responded combatively.

"You... how do you know about my sister? How the fuck do you know Jeanna, man? Where is she?"

Isaac chuckled darkly.

"She has been blessed. Just like you. You can join her, if you like."

As furious as Iben was, Isaac's suppressing glare upon him was all that held him back from declaring war.

"We are not your enemy, young soldier. Let's begin again. Allow us to lay your most prominent concerns to rest."

Isaac then pointed down the hallway. As Iben followed his direction he saw far down the way a small, slender figure emerging from the shadows, pale and fragile against the swallowing darkness. The figure continued to walk towards them, slowly growing larger until Iben recognized his sister beyond any doubt.

"Jeanna?"

He was utterly confounded as to how or why Jeanna was present aboard the Ishimura, but far too elated to debate it. In his joy he completely forgot all about Isaac behind him, and he broke out into a fast trot towards her. As he came closer he smiled upon the vision of her familiar jet black hair, her soft skinned, expressive face and smile, and Iben couldn't help but widen his eyes with loving relief. With the wide open arms of her heroic protector he ran toward her, watching her wave a tiny hand at him.

"Jeanna! It's me!"

She turned around and retreated back into the darkness behind her. Seeing her disappear, Iben waved wildly and ran faster.

"No, wait! Wait, Jeanna! JEANNA!"

However, Jeanna had disappeared completely. Iben finally closed in on where he had seen her last, and he continued to search for her until his eyes caught sight of something that stood out in sharp, alarming contrast to the surrounding environment - a very large, round hole, torn straight through the thick metal wall with irreparable destruction, and littered all around with damaged metal paneling, severed wires, twisted rods and other debris.

Iben approached the hole, and he fearfully began to wonder if Jeanna had gone inside of it. It seemed unlikely, considering that the hall appeared to have otherwise been, before the advent of this catastrophic damage, a dead end. He stepped up just a few feet from the hole and stooped to his knees, peering into the impenetrable blackness inside of it. The air around him had by this point fallen disturbingly quiet, and all Iben could detect was a faint draft of wind that flowed from the tunnel's entrance. As the emerging air drifted past, Iben immediately and with great disgust noticed that it carried the very recognizable scent of rotting, dead flesh. His stomach turned upon detection of the rancid smell and he gagged, and not wanting his dearly beloved sister to be subjected to this damned ship any longer, he called out to her.

"Jeanna? You in there? Where'd you..."

Iben was met by an unanticipated blast of loud, jarring sound; a deep, monstrous roar that emanated from the tunnel, vibrated the floorboards and knocked him off his feet. Iben fell flat on his back, shook his head to clear his senses, and at that moment, remembered Isaac. Iben forced himself to his feet and turned around to look at him, who was now strolling forward with an ominous, beguiling smile plastered across his gaunt and blood smeared face. A second heart shattering vibration resounded from the tunnel, and Iben gripped the sides of his head in panic.

"No! What... what the hell is happening here? What are you motherfuckers _doing out here?"_

Without warning, a powerful, extensive length of sleek, black mutated muscle and flesh sprung forth from the tunnel, exploding from the entrance like a gigantic snake, wrapped itself around Iben's waist and dragged him to the floor, all within seconds. Caught completely off guard by the attack Iben screamed out, tearing at the metal floor grids in a frenzy of pure confusion and terror, trying to hold his ground, to no avail. The monstrosity flipped him over and began to reel him in like a fish, drawing him closer and closer to the hole in the wall that clearly spelled his doom. Though in a daze Iben knew himself to be losing, and he fumbled for his pulse rifle still strapped against his leg. He grabbed it, took shaky aim at the thick, sinewy arm of flesh that was wrapped around him and he fired.

"Die, you son of a..."

Though Iben landed several rounds at point-blank range, the bullets were absorbed harmlessly into the soft, smooth layer of flesh without effect. Horrified, Iben lost his grip on the rifle, dropping it behind. Now with no means to defend himself or see to some kind of escape from this, the poor, unfortunate soldier watched through wide, hysterical eyes filled with tears as he realized that this creature's intention was a drag him down into the depths of its home.

_To die. Like all of the others._

The faceless monster's grip continued to tighten upon Iben until he could no longer breathe and his lungs inhaled only blood, he screamed until his throat collapsed and all he could see of himself and the world around him was red. His final moments were spent in futile resistance, and his heart finally stopped as the alien appendage slammed him full force into the wall just above the tunnel's opening. It then attempted to retreat with it's catch back into the hole, but Iben proved to be slightly too tall to fit through the opening, causing his body to jam momentarily as the creature pulled with all of its might to dislodge him. In that last, final second Iben still had the ability to see, his upside-down perspective gave him a ghastly upended image of Isaac, waving his fingers derisively at him with a broad, antagonizing smile.

"See you, little mouse."

Iben's spine finally broke under the pressure, and in an instantaneous shower of blood both the monster and Iben's limp, contorted body disappeared into the tunnel. The air gradually fell silent in between the creature's heart shattering cries, resounding more as faint bellows far below as it retreated into the bowels of the ship. Isaac watched the tiny, microscopic particles of skin and dust dancing upon the turbulent blasts of air expelled from the hole by the force of the monster's movements, and the Hive Mind's voice slowly rose as curt laughter from the mist within his brain.

_Shit. Isaac. That was fucking hard core. You're an ugly son of a bitch, you know that? You've earned a nice, black mark for that one._

Isaac paused. Though he knew she had meant it innocently as a compliment, it did not feel that way to him. Once again he was compelled to submit to the remorse of his waning humanity for the insidious acts of violence he was responsible for, but even this realization did nothing to reign in his seemingly expanding desire for carnage. He continued to stare at the hole in the wall, becoming more and more aware of the reality of what it was that had just transpired, trapped in his own madness. His chest became constricted, and breathing became difficult.

_He.. he was drowning._

Trying to drive the suffocating thoughts from his mind, Isaac turned around and sought to get out of this place. He started forth quickly through the darkness, trying to increase the distance between himself and these horrifying slaughter grounds, and as he walked along the way he sensed within the shadows off to his right side a small presence following him. He slowed and turned his eyes to it, recognizing the lost, disoriented figure of Iben's sister Jeanna, her back pressed tightly to the wall and her eyes locked upon the dark hole through which she had just witnessed the foul demise of her brother. Isaac saw the pensive, teary look upon her face, and felt a hint of empathy for this sheltered, naive girl who was so helplessly trapped within a nightmare from which she could never awaken, or even hope to understand. Jeanna's attention was so fixated upon the tunnel that she didn't even notice Isaac's slow, stalking approach until she felt the chilling cold of his shadow cast across her body, and upon realizing it she darted her large, amber eyes upon him.

The fear of Jeanna's experience was suddenly trumped by the terror of Isaac's presence upon her, and though she wished only to get away from him she was rooted to the spot, unable to do anything other than return his stare with blank, submissive emptiness. Isaac peered into her, violating the sanctity of her inner thoughts and snaring her in his web of telepathic control until she was totally mesmerized. With an increasing sensitivity in his actions, Isaac slowly reached up, gripped her gently by the chin, and tilted her head up until she was forced to look directly into his eyes.

_Are you afraid of me?_

Isaac was well aware of the fact that the body of this girl was merely that of another necromorph, some unknown stranger whose familiarity and detail had been derived from the memories of Lieutenant Iben upon his assimilation as well as her own upon the USM Valor, but as he looked into her dark, wild pupils all he could see was the Hive Mind, responding directly to him through Jeanna's body. Who this woman outwardly was made no difference to either of them; to the Hive Mind, she was just another faceless, voiceless, hopelessly lost number to seize for her purposes. To Isaac, she was a beautifully crafted concubinal memento - one whose body, along with those of every infected female possessed by the Marker, presented him the opportunity to reciprocate the Hive Mind's affection outside the walls of his mind and beyond the limitations of mental hallucination.

_Soon, you won't be._

Fueled by his lustful infatuation with the Hive Mind's mystic power over him and unable to see anyone but her, Isaac leaned in and planted a sweet, compassionate, blood stained kiss upon Jeanna's lips. Jeanna tensed at his touch, but as the Hive Mind quickly displaced her consciousness, the poor girl was simply unable to resist Isaac's intimacy. Her body gradually slackened, she rested the weight of her head within his hand and relented to the taste of the blood upon Isaac's tongue as it filled her mouth, returning the act of debased affection with an increasing vigor until he finally concluded their arousing engagement with a small, tugging bite of her lip. He pulled back and noticed with crude pleasure the corners of her mouth were now framed in dark streaks of blood, and her eyes were staring right through him, lost in trance. He endearingly patted the side of her cheek, reveling in the blissful, long forgotten sensation of loving, physical contact with another, and as he stepped away he suddenly felt her pull at his arm. He turned back to her to see she was hanging upon him, pleading to him through a freshly versed, mentally projected voice.

_No... please... don't leave me here. Please. Please, let me come with you, safekeeper. I am your slave._

Isaac, surprised to see the attractive effect his actions had had over this girl, gently gripped her hand and pulled it loose from his arm.

_Another time, maybe. But not now.  
_

Isaac finally lowered his gaze and released her, turning around and refusing her any more attention. Jeanna stood in place, watching him with heated awe and reverence, starving for his energy and wavering back and forth eagerly upon her feet like an anxious child in waiting. She remained there for some time, watching long into the darkness until Isaac had disappeared and the elating influence he had over her finally subsided, and she returned to a normal, functioning state of mind. As her bewilderment declined and she forgot all about her sensual experience with Isaac, it occurred to her that she was not on the USM Valor, where she had last remembered being stationed. She darted her head back and forth, trying to figure out where she was or how she managed to end up there, until her thoughts became overwhelmed by another jarring realization.

_What the hell was she standing around for? There was much work to be done. Sprawl was waiting to be sanctified._

With that, Jeanna nodded positively to herself and wandered off, searching out other parts of the Ishimura that might benefit from an extra pair of hands.

* * *

"This is fucking _bullshit_."

Private Rickson leaned against the side of the Credence cruiser back in the Ishimura's Flight Hangar, nervously fidgeting with the loading mechanism on his rifle. He, along with the others, repeatedly darted eyes around with alarm at the dim, eerie surroundings, awaiting the return of Captain Sarius and Lieutenant Iben, all the while completely unaware of what had happened to them both. Private Claren, standing next to Rickson against the cruiser's hull, nodded in agreement as he briefly deactivated his helmet and spat over the railing of the bridge in an attempt to entertain himself.

"You really think these fuckers are gonna cooperate, huh?"

Rickson sneered and licked the backside of his teeth. As he again glanced around, he found himself thinking more than once that he had heard an odd sound, like a very quiet, contained scratching, echoing faintly through the hangar. However, seeing nothing of interest by either eye or scanner, he felt conflicted and clutched his rifle.

"Well, looks lik_e _they don't have a fucking choice now, do they?"

Claren sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He also was certain that he had been hearing something, but so far, he kept it to himself.

"This fucking ship gives me the creeps. I dunno why. I just wanna get the hell outta here."

"Yeah, you and me both. Where the fuck are Iben and Sarius?"

"I tried their channels... goddamn interference is wreaking havoc all over the place. No wonder these idiots lost communications out here."

The frustration in his comment was duly acknowledged with the grunts of several other soldiers who were within earshot of their conversation. They all had found the Ishimura to be carrying a very grim, suppressing aura about it like a black cloud of pestilence hanging over them, especially in light of the rumors going around about the happenings surrounding Aegis7 and the very dire occurrences of both the missing Valor and the infested Credence. Though they did their best to carry on as the soldiers they were, at the core of each and every one of them was the virtually unavoidable absolution that they would never see their home again. Claren, who was the first to break, looked up with the disparaged expression of a cow being led to slaughter.

"... We ain't goin' back... are we?"

Rickson and the others glanced up at him.

"Shut the fuck up, Claren."

"We... we _can't_ go back. They're probably all dead already."

"Goddamnit, shut up!"

"We can't go back... and we can't stay here! This place... it's... it's it's, it's fucking evil! And we're... we're all as good as dead!"

Rickson could stand it no longer; he clenched his teeth and swiftly stepped up to Claren, grabbed him by the collar and shook him violently even as tears of hysteria streamed down Claren's face.

"Claren, so fucking help me - if you don't shut up right now, I'm gonna plant a fucking bullet between your eyes, you hear me, you chicken shit!"

Rickson tossed him back with a reviled growl, eying him aggressively as the distraught soldier fell over and fought to regain both his ground and his composure. The other soldiers grew restless in the wake of their cowarding teammate, and they began to grumble angrily amongst each other, debating what should be done. Suddenly one of the soldiers standing near the railing of the bridge whistled to catch their attention.

"Hey, hey, guys... you fuckin' hear that, or what?"

They all stopped their bickering and listened to the silence within the hangar - which they now realized, was not silence at all.

"Yeah, I hear it. I hear it."

"What _is _that?"

Rickson cocked his head as the repetitive, scraping sound came back upon him again, and finally able to narrow down its source, he approached the bridge and pointed over the railing.

"Wait - I think it's coming from down there."

He inched his way towards the edge and slowly, cautiously peered over it, casting his glance down to the maintenance floor below. This side of the bridge was opposite from the Marker and it's light, and with the floor completely obscured in darkness below, Rickson couldn't see farther than a few yards and therefore found nothing that might prove to be the source of the sound. Determined to find out what it was, Rickson activated his shoulder-mounted flashlight, and aimed it down at the floor. The other soldiers watched him eagerly.

"What is it?"

Rickson failed to respond, and they noticed that his posture had frozen solid. His eyes were locked dead upon what it was that had seized his attention, and the other soldiers now began to approach him out of curiosity and concern.

"Rickson..."

Feeling the intensity rise though not quite understanding why, all of the soldiers now instinctively sealed their helmets. They all approached the railing and peered over it - and they all froze right alongside Rickson.

_"What the..."_

At first, all they could see was a small patch of movement quivering in the beams of their flashlights, but as they frantically panned around the rest of the floor, it became very obvious that practically every square inch of the ground from wall to wall was occupied by a vast horde of creatures, identical in appearance and behavior to the alien outbreak aboard the Credence. They were innumerable, sweeping across every direction in a living, writhing wave, but these creatures were much bigger than they had previously encountered - at least two to three feet tall and almost human in appearance, like small, naked children. Their constant, vicious interaction with each other seemed beautifully synchronous, if not terrifying, as if a storehouse of energy within the ship was uniting these creatures into a single collective of perpetual, symbiotic motion.

_"...Holy shit, they're here too!"_

The soldiers panicked and reached for their rifles. Recognizing the vile pests, a few of the soldiers darted to the other side of the bridge near the Marker, and looked over to find that this side was also fully infested, seeing the same wave of insectan malevolence bathed in the Marker's sanguine glow as the monsters crawled around it's base in a wide perimeter, avoiding direct contact with it.

The paces of the soldiers' hearts all began to quicken as they now realized that the Ishimura had somehow also come to be invaded by this ominous alien infestation. Considering the level of devastation they had seen these creatures inflict upon the Credence in so short a period of time, they all dismally concluded that Claren had been right about there not being any ship to go back to. Many of them had already planned for the scenario of remaining on board the Ishimura and transmitting a distress signal from there, but this horrifying new discovery only further demonstrated the futility of their efforts and just how doomed they all really were. Rickson, becoming as visibly affected as Claren, clutched his pulse rifle against his chest so tightly that his knuckles flushed pale and the tips of his nails indented the aluminum siding along the barrel.

_"Oh, shit... oh shit... oh god..."_

One of the soldiers quickly pulled him back from the railing.

_"Shut the fuck up, man! If they don't hear us..."_

Suddenly, all of the soldiers turned to the Flight Lounge doors as the hololock sprung to life and opened. They all aimed their rifles to greet whoever or whatever it was - and were met with the sight of Lieutenant Evander Iben. He stepped into the Hangar with a casual gait, slowly glancing from one soldier to the next through his helmet as he approached them, and he calmly saluted them with standard USM etiquette.

_"At ease, men. The Captain is coming."_

They all stared at him, at first relieved to finally see him after such a long and suspenseful waiting period, but it became quickly apparent that something about him was different. His armor now had a small collection of scuffs and dents cast across it, and there was a deviation in his posture that carried a tranquil, almost blank-minded serenity. Still, little else seemed out of place about him, and without any solid reason to refute or doubt his authority, they felt his orders were firm enough. The soldiers all lowered their rifles, and Rickson stepped forward.

_"Is everything allright, Sir? We lost your signals for a while."_

Iben paused and looked at Claren, who was still visibly shaking. Iben slowly nodded.

_"Everything is fine. There is nothing to be concerned about. We will be whole again."_

The soldiers darted nervous glances at each other, fear mounting as they picked up on the spine tingling vibrations in his words. They couldn't explain it, but they didn't like it.

_"Sir? What are you -"_

Just then, another shadow poured through the open doorway from behind Iben, followed by Captain Sarius as he stepped swiftly into the room. He stopped before the soldiers, and they all immediately took the moment to examine him; again, they saw in his outer expression the same artificial sense of tranquility, and they also noticed that he appeared to be bleeding from the side of his head. Rickson, Claren and the others gazed apprehensively upon the Captain's freshly acquired wound, and he strangely enough denied any assistance as a couple of the soldiers stepped forward to approach him out of concern for his welfare. Still, none were bold enough to ask how this had happened, and Sarius merely stared at them with a mysterious smile.

"We're done here. Prepare the shuttle, we're going back."

They all stared at him in shock. Rickson shook his head with frustration, and looked up to Sarius.

_"Permission to speak freely, Sir."_

Sarius nodded, and Rickson drew a deep breath, feeling the frightened energy of his comrades behind him.

_"Sir, with all due respect, we disagree. We can't go back there. We need to think about evacuating this place altogether... this ship's infested, too!" _

He pointed anxiously over the railing but Sarius, without bothering to see for himself, paid Rickson's plea little interest.

"Soldier, we _will_ return to the Credence. I assure you that we are safe, now. We've come to an understanding... a partnership, you see."

_"Sir, a partnership?"_

"Yes. We have come to fulfill our part of the alignment, alongside the Valor."

Rickson widened his eyes.

_"The Valor? They're alive?"_

"Oh yes, soldier. They are all a part of his plan now, just as we are."

The soldiers were baffled, speechless. None of them had any idea of what Sarius was talking about, and they began to feel a very life threatening aura, something unseen that was closing in upon them. Again they returned their attention to the constant, strident sounds of the horde of creatures upon the hangar floor, not knowing what else to do. Ultimately desiring to get away from this star system and everything in it as soon as possible, they reluctantly decided to take their chances and obey Sarius's order. Just as they turned to head for the cruiser however, they froze in their tracks at the astonishing and terrifying sight of several very large monsters blocking their path.

These highly intimidating monsters were a very far cry from any other life form they had yet encountered; gigantic powerhouses, standing several yard tall, covered in smooth, transparent black flesh and protected by layers of deadly sharp plates. Their arms were thick as the trunks of ancient trees and ended in massive, fused fists, their lucid, angular faces were organic glass cases housing honed skulls and rows of long, serrated fangs each an arm's length, and energy radiated with the fury of miniature suns from their glowing, crimson eyes.

The breath was robbed from the chest of every soldier save for Sarius and Iben, and none noticed as another figure slipped into the hangar. He remained out of their sights and minds until he brushed past the soldiers, and as they laid eyes upon him they realized that it was their enigmatic host - the unknown engineer who apparently harbored no fear at all for any of these tyrant creatures. They stepped back out of surprise and apprehension, mesmerized as Isaac approached the pack of monsters and stopped just inches from their claws. Much to their amazement, they watched as the pack appeared to submit to him, responding to his presence with a benign behavior and failing to pose any opposition as Isaac glanced upon them. He smiled as as he now recognized the pack of brutes he had encountered here in this very same hangar so long ago. Isaac realized that they had evolved a great deal since those days, and their sleek, unearthly figures now appealed to him as resplendent examples of raw, unrefined power and intelligence personified. The monsters seemed drawn to Isaac like moths to a flame, shaking their gargantuan fists like boulders in the hands of golems, and upon his silent, unseen command they slowly backed away into the darkness, clearing the path and vanishing from sight. Isaac turned back around to face the soldiers.

"You are free to depart, gentlemen. Safe journey."

The soldiers looked at each other in silent concurrence, and without a word they immediately headed for the shuttle. They passed Isaac warily and with deadlocked stares upon him, quickening their pace as they left him behind. Iben and Sarius closed in last, and as Iben followed the soldiers calmly up into the ship, Sarius stopped before Isaac, holding out an open hand as a sign of respect. He took the moment to convey his farewell through his eyes, which had now begun to take on a much darker color. Isaac nodded darkly.

"It's almost time to return, Captain. It's time to take the knowledge we have learned here... and to spread it._"  
_

Sarius nodded silently.

"Yes, Sir. We will await your signal. May you remain safe from those who seek to destroy us."_  
_

Isaac slowly stepped out of Sarius's path, allowing the Captain to board the cruiser. The hatch was sealed and the engines fired up just as the hangar gates began to open like titanic, metal curtains. Isaac eyed the stars through the protective environmental shielding that isolated the hangar interior from the vacuum of space, watching as the cruiser sailed out of the hangar in a beeline for the USM Credence. Within moments the ship was gone and silence gradually returned in the wake of the cruiser's departure, leaving Isaac at peace with the Ishimura's inhabitants. Taking refuge in his isolation, the vision of the Hive Mind emerged from the shadows, prancing toward Isaac on tiny, bare feet.

_You handled all of that very nicely, Isaac. You've done a wonderful job. Of course, I expect nothing less.  
_

Isaac drew a deep sigh, beginning to feel the grip of exhaustion upon him. He felt his energy being drained, spread thin across the ever expanding network of acquired life forms which had now come to include those of Sarius's entire team. He was plagued by the fear of the seeds he had inadvertently planted within them all, and once again, their burden became his own. Once again, he could hear a faint, distant voice calling to him from somewhere hidden inside his mind, constantly intercepted by the Hive Mind's attempts to quell it.

_What's the matter? _

His breathing became constricted, and Isaac was driven into a panic with the need to escape. He stumbled backwards, feeling sick and he tried to locate the way out, but all he could see was the pulsating, blood red glow of the Marker off to his left, emanating from the hangar floor below. Crazed in his sickness and yearning for the Marker's radiating warmth to help him, Isaac ran up to the railing and thoughtlessly jumped over it, falling to the hangar floor far below. He dropped far below and landed upon the thick metal soles of his boots with a heavy thud, cushioned very slightly by the bodies of several necromorph creatures that became crushed beneath him, but the pain of his fall did nothing to hinder his maddened desire to approach the Marker. Isaac limped up to it and fell to his knees, focusing every last ounce of his failing attention and focus upon the Marker's carved onyx planes, completely oblivious to the swarm of countless insectan necromorphs writhing all around him. He pitched forward upon his arms, feeling the burn of the Marker's fire, and he closed his eyes - much to the rising chagrin of the Hive Mind.

_Oh, Isaac - you're not gonna pass out on me, are you? I hate it when you do that. I can never find where it is that you go.  
_


	34. Agony, Ecstasy, And Everything Between

**Chapter 34**  
**Agony, Ecstasy And Everything Between  
**

**_"Thus the wise living entity's pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire."_**

**- B.G., 3.39**

* * *

_Nothing exists save for endless blackness. Neither sight nor sound hold any meaning in this place. Olfactory and tactile senses are all but useless. As time progresses, the need to breathe becomes more and more a reality._

_Trapped, immobilized and blind, Isaac is helpless in the dark before feeling a very tight pressure upon his RIG, then the grip of hands as they begin to pull him backwards with immense strength. All of existence rushes past him in a furious current as he now finds himself on a swift, upward ascent through the depths of something oppressive and warm that seems to go on for miles. Just as his lungs threaten to collapse from the lack of oxygen, Isaac at last breaks the surface of his blinding imprisonment - a deep, crimson ocean, spreading out into infinity all around him._

_Lost in the panic of trying to breathe for what feels like the first time in centuries, Isaac flounders upon the waves, desperately fighting to stay afloat. The ocean surface glistens almost black against a moonless sky, and his eyes fall upon the shadow of a long stretch of sand, far away upon the horizon. While he struggles to survive he faintly recalls the same isolated beach that he has been to before - though what he can remember of himself in that memory is far different. _

_Isaac slowly becomes aware of the same hands gripping his RIG, straining to pull him out of the water, and having reached the beach surprisingly quickly. Isaac attempts to turn his head in order to see who is rescuer is, but his exhaustion prevents him. He falls limp, allowing whoever it is to keep tugging him along._

_Finally, Isaac is pulled up the bank until several feet clear of the tide. He is now stretched across the sand, hardly moved by the uncomfortable arch in his back caused by the bulk of his RIG beneath him, and he is breathing heavily upon the arid, desert air in a desperate attempt to catch his breath. All of this lasts for several long minutes before he finally calms into silent examination of the stars above. Despite the inescapable darkness of oncoming night creeping across the palette of his vision like ebony inkspill, he can feel that the sand remains penetratingly warm upon his back with midday heat, and the sensation temporarily distracts him from the fact that he is not alone. _

_All this time Isaac's rescuer sits patiently next to him, never once falling slack in watchful duty over him as he recovers from the trauma of his return to this place. After a while, Isaac turns his head to see who it is sitting next to him. Before he can say anything, she intercepts him first.  
_

It's ok, Isaac. It's just me.

_He is pleasantly startled by the touch of a gentle and familiar hand against the side of his cheek. Upon the contact, he does his best to smile with loving recognition._

Hi.

Hey, Bear. I'm so happy to see you. You've been gone for so long, I've been worried...

_He looks up at Nicole with an unreadable face, and stares into her. After a long, suspenseful moment that does not afford her the opportunity to breathe, Isaac's eyes begin to fill with tears and he slowly turns away._

... Please... just, go away.

_Nicole's eyes widen a bit at his words, not having anticipated such a rejecting response._

W... what?

You're not real.

_She shakes her head._

Isaac, what are you saying? Don't say that!

She's told me everything, Nicole. I know who you are... who you aren't.

_He sighs, almost unable to continue as he watches her heartbreak manifest externally upon her face._

...I know now that, that you're just something I created... you're not real. You don't exist anymore... I'm not working right... I'm, sick. And you're what's... making me sick.

_Nicole looks him over with eyes heavy with anguish as his voice fades, so full of love for him but feeling incompetent to help him in any way._

Oh, god... what has she been putting in your head? You can't listen to her, goddammit! She will lie to you, tell you anything - _anything_ to get you to surrender to her, don't you see that?

_She grips his hands firmly, and stares pleadingly into his eyes._

You can't give up on me, Isaac! On us! If you do... we are both finished. Everything is over, and you truly become one of _them_. You can't let that happen!

_She stops, frustrated by the despondency and complete apathy in his expression as he stares right through her. Sensing he is not hearing her, her saddened eyes fall to the suit he is wearing, which is now thoroughly consumed and entangled in necrotic integument. Desiring to get him away from what she considers to be an unstoppable curse, she begins to tear at the shoulder belts of his RIG. At first she is hesitant, concerned that he might not agree to her proposal, but in his catatonic disconnection he poses her no opposition. She continues on with increasing vigor, ripping away the necromorph flesh that is bonding the suit to his body, disengaging and removing the RIG unit, and pausing to gaze mournfully upon the long, red, bloody scars that mark him all over as she exposes his rotting, infected skin.  
_

_After much effort she has finally extracted him down to the torso, which she sees is garbed only in a torn and blood soaked t-back undershirt that has become virtually assimilated into his own body, much like everything else he is wearing. As she lays eyes upon his deathly emaciated, tortuously twisted figure she becomes nauseous with fear, pressing a hand to her mouth, and tears slide from her eyes. She can now plainly see that every visible inch of his skin up to his jawline is mercilessly butchered with scars that run deep, constantly exuding dark, infectious blood and arranged into what she horrifying recognizes as the vile, insidious messages of the Marker.  
_

What has she done to you?

_She musters up the nerve to further examine his obscenely mutilated condition, glancing over his chest and neckline again and again. The tone of her voice grows frightened and urgent, and she angrily prompts him to respond_.

This is fucking insane! Why would you let her do this to you? Why, Isaac? ... Oh god, why?

_As Isaac finally finds it in him to look up into her eyes again, he suddenly sees in their hopeless glaze the true deplorability of his situation. It crushes him, and he responds only by slowly, sadly sinking his head into her chest, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing her close. They stay there, entwined in love and fear for several moments in silence, until Nicole can feel the heat of his tears against her chest as they soak through the fabric of her vest. _

I can't stop her... I need help.

_Nicole's heart takes on the weight of a rock as she listens to his heartrending plea, but she knows it will serve of no use to show weakness now. Instead she remains silent, comforting him with soft strokes to his head, and as destined for failure as they are, she is determined to stay positive._

Isaac, I know that things just happen sometimes. I forgive you for everything that happened between us. We were both angry, and we both made some bad decisions. But... I know that you still love me. You're so strong, Isaac. You just don't realize how powerful you are. She can't stop us.

_Isaac finds bliss in the sweetly simplistic and affirmative way of thinking he has come to know and love about Nicole Brennan. However, the rather less than applauding value he holds over himself quickly stifles those fragile, emotional flames, and he looks down._

I failed you. I've always been a failure, Nicki. I can't stop thinking about you... about what happened to you. I just don't think I can go on like this, knowing the truth. Knowing that you're not real is something that I can't bring myself to accept. I should just... give up, and let her take me. Then it wouldn't matter anymore.

_Nicole hugs him tighter, glancing away in fear as she understands now that she and Isaac both are in very serious danger. Still, she continues to reassure him, to remain staunch by his side._

Isaac, you don't have to do this. I am as real for you as you want me to be. My physical lack of body is of no consequence, because you can give me any number of bodies, just like the necromorphs. They're all the same to you. The Marker may not have access to my memories as I was, but what's important is how _you remember me_. That's what matters. That is who _I_ am.

_Her expression slightly lifts into a weak, albeit visible smile of hope._

And what we've got is even better than any necromorph, because the Hive Mind can't put her hands on me. She cannot control me, and that means that she cannot control you. But she's banking on the fact that she can dissuade you from finding that out. If you just... believe in _me_, Isaac, believe in _us,_ together we can control the Marker. We can be free of her rules. _You_ are the chosen one. Not her.

_Isaac now raises an eyebrow, the very first expressive gesture of his that shares in a rising hope_.

How do you know all of this?

_Nicole pauses, shrugs her shoulders._

Dunno. Experience, maybe.

_Again, she flashes a small smile._

But if we are to have any chance at this at all, you're going to have to clear your mind - and let go.

Let go of what?

Of what happened between us. You didn't mean to hurt me. I know that. You have nothing more to prove to me.

_Though Isaac knows in the back of his mind that he is merely talking to a fragmented part of himself, still he is impelled to extract the answers surrounding her unfortunate circumstances._

Why did you do it, Nicki? Why didn't you wait for me? If you would have just waited for me, everything would be so different.

You and I have died so many times, Isaac. And we have been reborn so many times. So many times.

_She now clasps her hand atop his, and speaks with loving admiration in her voice._

I had a dream about you one night. Not too long after everything started happening here, when they found the Marker.

_She pauses, clearly overcome by the recollection of what be for her a profoundly miserable memory, but she tries to play it off._

It was all about that fight we had... what was that, like a year ago or something?

_Despite the bitter recollection of the landmark event that had driven the initial spike between them, Nicole brushes it off even still, and turns back to him with a warm, loving smile._

Anyway... you were right there, by my side, just like I remember. You were trying to help me stop the bleeding, right before you took me to the hospital. Just like I remember.

_Isaac glances down wildly at the unpleasant memory of the argument that had become the starting point of their bond's disintegration. As calm and collected as his demeanor often appeared at first glance, Isaac was no less susceptible to the throes of passion and it's energetic - if not at times violent - expressions of emotion than anyone else, especially when it came to the most intimate and delicate matters he so treasured with Nicole; and this particular flaw in his character had proven the greatest test of her patience time and time again. The argument that she alludes to now, however - the event that despite her extroverted expressions of clemency and desire to work things through in the past - is a memory that Isaac knows was his life's gravest mistake. It is the one, the only time he had ever physically put his hands on her, carried out in a moment of anger and miscalculated strength on his part which resulted in the inadvertent injury of her shoulder, and in the months ahead the permanent damage that his assault had caused to their relationship became more obvious and unavoidable despite attempts by both parties to simply overlook it and carry on. Knowing this, Isaac has carried the burden of her blood on his hands, feeling his actions toward her to have been the impetus for her to seek avenues of emotional independence such as deployment to such a far-reaching ship as the USG Ishimura. His frantic drive to be absolved is the one thing that he has had no opportunity to rectify... until now, through the agency of the Marker's power. _

_Nicole is too engrossed in her own memory to notice the heartbroken look on his face._

That was when you just... just...

She shrugged with a sense of abashment.

... Slipped your finger right under the skin of my arm, just like a needle. It was then that I knew what you were trying to tell me - you were trying to warn me. You were trying to influence me. Somehow, you knew what was going to happen.

_The shining smile upon her face begins to fade._

When I woke up, I knew exactly what I needed to do. I went to the medical lab, procured what I needed, returned to my office, prepared the needle... and recorded the message. My message to you. I did what you asked. I did it for you. Because you loved me so much, you would rather have me die freely than see me subjected to her, even if it meant that you would never see me again. It was such a beautiful gesture, Isaac. What else can I do? I am bound to you. I am forever in your debt. I forgive you, Isaac.

_She looks away._

So, you know why you had never watched the end of the my message before Kendra showed it to you that day on the Colony. After the Marker reset and everything started over again, you knew what was going to happen. You had already known from the start. You induced me to take my own life, so that she couldn't get to me - so you could keep me safely in the one place you knew she couldn't find me.

_Nicole lifts her hand and points a tiny, slender finger to his temple._

In your head.

_Isaac smiles upon her touch, but still disturbed he finds it difficult to maintain. They again fall quiet for a brief moment, before she leans into him a little coyly, thoughtfully speaks up._

But seriously, Isaac... You really need to think about it. The things we we can do together, here. Starting with the Red Marker. We can make it ours. Do you understand?

_His conscience is heavy. He still feels the pangs of hopelessness, but the reality of Nicole's words only intrigue him, and he cannot keep his mind from revisiting her very artful, if not indirect suggestion that he somehow outsmart the Hive Mind. But how? All of his attempts to overcome her have failed. What could he do?  
_

Look Isaac, it's raining.

_They both look up to the moonless sky above and see that, for the first time that they are aware of, the darkness suspended within the stormy upper atmosphere of this place has begun to shed a light shower of rain. The water that falls, though dark and red as blood, is relieving as it splashes against their skin, a refreshing sensation that they have both long forgotten. Nicole smiles, and rising to her feet, she takes his hand._

C'mon. You'll feel much better.

_Isaac accepts her grip and rises alongside her, turning his head to the sky as drops of rain collide with his skin, cooling his constant, ravaging fever. Relief evolves into intense deliverance from his suffering, even if only for a brief moment, and he closes his eyes, tugs at his shirt to tear what remains of it from his chest. Realizing how long it has been since he has felt anything even so remotely human, Isaac smiles wearily to Nicole, who is grinning in jest as she collects small handfuls of the rain and playfully flicks it at him. He knows that somehow she is responsible for this merciful phenomenon upon this otherwise barren place, and it is a peace, tranquility and cleansing that has eluded him for so long. She truly is his last, final link to humanity._

_The rain picks up to a moderate downpour that soaks the both of them as they embrace each other, and as Isaac lovingly runs his fingers through her drenched hair Nicole gently rubs her hands across the skin of his chest and arms, wiping away the ancient blood of his wounds with the water of the falling rain. She pouts as she notices her efforts are being quickly defeated by the fresh blood still seeping from his scars, spreading across his body with aggressive tenacity for undoing her work. After several attempts, she finally relents and looks back to Isaac with a hint of sadness in her eyes._

She's looking for you.

_Feeling the impending pressure again closing in upon him, Isaac sighs._

I know.

_Isaac forces himself to his feet. Nicole stands next to him, pointing down to the parts of his suit that she has managed to remove, which are now strewn across the sand._

I'm... sorry. I didn't mean to damage it... maybe you can put it back together. You're so good at that.

_Isaac looks at the damaged pieces of his suit with consideration. He recalls how heavy the suit feels. How confining it is. How it suffocates him. He shakes his head._

I don't need it.

_Nicole blinks at him._

Are you sure?

Yeah. You hold onto it here. In case I do later, ok?

_She forces a smile, biting her lip in an effort to keep from spilling her tears._

... Yes.

_Again they embrace, this time for a much longer period as they lovingly press foreheads, then lips, before reluctantly separating. Isaac finally pulls away, casting his glance out across the ocean, and unable to keep her eyes upon him any longer Nicole lowers her head. As she looks down through blurred, watery eyes, she sees several small red rocks partially buried in the sand just a few feet from her. This momentarily diverts her attention, and she leans over to grab one of them. She holds the small rock up to eye level, noticing now upon closer inspection that it appears to be not merely a rock, but a shard of something much larger than itself. She twists it with her fingers, closely examining the rough, jagged edges that are sharp and glistening like glass, and hauntingly reminded of the Marker, she frowns._

A fragment. A tiny, red fragment. But of what?

_She glances back up to where Isaac had been standing, only to find that he is gone._

Isaac?

_The only evidence of his exit are the large, patterned trenches in the sand his gravity boots have left behind, carving a path directly into the black, bloody ocean. Nicole sighs and sinks to her knees, wiping tears from her eyes as once again she succumbs to the loneliness that only intensifies her aching affection and longing for him. This begins to fuel an even deeper resentment against the Marker inside of her. Searching for some way to distract herself and clutching the rock tightly in her hand, Nicole begins to rub it back and forth across the metal plates of Isaac's suit, attempting to polish away the carved Marker symbols. She toils away upon the beach, grazing the rock across the titanium surfaces until all of her fingers bleed. Still, seeing positive progress she continues on, determined to finish before sunrise, whenever it may come. _

I love you, Isaac. I'll see you later, I guess.

* * *

Challus Mercer anxiously paced the interior of his office, pensively deliberating the Marker's situation.

"We must make contact with those back on the Sprawl. We cannot afford to wait any longer."

Dr. Mercer's office was a small, nondescript square in the center of the Medical Deck; a cold, steel enclosure decorated by hard, sterile angles, ghastly preserved remains sealed in medical jars and a plethora of red, velvet bunting, strung all across the ceilings in grand, arching patterns and adorned with aged CEC embroidery. Every square inch of floor space was marked and scuffed with madly scrawled messages and littered with paper. The perimeter of the entire room was surrounded by hundreds of candles, burning brightly within delicate glass lanterns, bathing everything in their warm, titian glow. The recycled air circulating the room was stale and heavy, empty to the ears save for the hollow steps of Mercer's feet as he meandered back and forth.

Dr. Terrence Kyne was also present, silently observing Mercer's pacing from the shadows of a black leather couch along the far wall. His head was propped against his arm and his stare was distant as he sincerely shared in some of Mercer's concerns, though from a much less pessimistic perspective. His eyes occasionally shifted between the floor and Mercer's taut expression as the man repeatedly wandered in circles around his book and paper inundated desk, and Kyne stuttered in an attempt to sway his colleague.

"I, I, I just don't know... he, he's done everything according to plan, for the most part. I, I don't see why we need to, to involve them. They'll only complicate things. I admit, he's wasted a lot of time, but he seems to be back on track now. I say we let him finish this on his own. He could still serve as the Ascendant."

Mercer shook his head.

"Our duty lies with the Marker. Isaac is not excluded from that. No one is."

He slowed his pace, pressing a hand to his chin.

"The actions he has taken up to this point stand as proof that he is still not wholly acting for the welfare of the collective. He is still breaking the rule, driven by personal motivation. Besides, even if I was inclined to agree with you, I doubt that our plea to the Church would be the final, deciding factor. They are all well aware of what happened to the Valor, and I imagine they aren't far from knowing about the Credence, as well. Not to mention those who still believe that Aegis7 and the Marker were not destroyed. Their arrival here is imminent in any case, Kyne. Isaac will have to answer for his transgressions, no matter what."

While Mercer's elucidations seemed convincing enough, Kyne still had his doubts about what was to be done about Isaac Clarke. Both Kyne and Mercer had served as silent witnesses to all that had transpired up to this point in time, including the incident involving Jacob Temple and Elizabeth Cross in the Pilot's Nest, the enigmatic induction of the USM Credence's crew into the Hive Mind's enslavement, and the grueling possession and subsequent demise of Isaac's infected, time-displaced iteration. Kyne and Mercer had also, to a degree, come to understand Isaac's battle with accepting the Hive Mind, and how his resistance was beginning to affect everything including the necromorphs themselves. Having personally detected the vibrations of all this energy, and being the analytical observer that he was, Kyne had always carried a compassion and loyalty for Isaac as their Hive Mind and alpha vessel, all the while trying to overlook his faults and see to it that he emerge victorious as an ordained Ascendant. However, it seemed that despite Mercer's previous enthusiasm , he was now condoning an extremely opposite idea - an idea that involved undermining their own Hive Mind's alpha vessel, a concept that should have been nonexistent to an inducted believer like Challus Mercer.

Still, Mercer had come to bear mercy upon Kyne's viewpoint, to an extent. As a self-proclaimed believer in the Unitologist movement, more specifically in the powers of the Marker, Dr. Mercer been one of the most eager to see the extraordinary results of transmigration between a Hive Mind and a human vessel despite the contention he had received from all sides. However, as he now saw the unpredictable reality of Isaac's work upon their entire field of existence and how the Marker was suffering because of it, the overzealous Doctor finally began to consider the possibility that perhaps the carefully laid plans of their Unitologist predecessors were not so sure of a thing as they had all come to depend upon. As a veteran necromorph like Kyne, Mercer had begun to truly comprehend the extensive physical and mental damage that had been inflicted upon Isaac, and the more familiar he became to them through his bond as their alpha vessel, the more alarming the details became. They both saw now that Isaac paradoxically posed a serious threat to the Marker, but with no other suitable living human present that the Hive Mind would be apt to accept as another host, it would not be possible to separate him from the Marker safely and in a way that would not destroy them all.

These frightening revelations deeply clouded the minds of both scientists. While they initially had such high hopes for Isaac's potential, it seemed that his increasingly erratic, self destructive behavior, the malignant disintegration of his body, and the tendency to become distracted from protecting the Marker all pointed to complete psychological breakdown, the most prominent symptom of rejecting the Hive Mind's bond.

"Well... what do you suggest we do then, Challus?"

"We _must_ contact them. We need a fresh slate."

Kyne scratched his chin, twisting his lip as he scanned the deepest recesses of his mind to find some other logical solution in order to refute Mercer's seemingly senseless proposal; but he was met only with failure. Even the Marker's steady, constant whispering was failing to enlighten them at this point, the once harmonious choir of voices resounding in the backs of their heads now beginning to sound more like incoherent garbling. Both Kyne and Mercer suspected that Isaac's conflict was the cause of this, corrupting even the Marker's transmissions they had all come to live by.

"I just, I can't really say anymore. I mean, he was a planned insertion from the start, wasn't he? I don't understand it. That's why I decided long ago to work only on faith, what Altman and the Marker have taught us, and not to take things so readily into our own hands. Maybe all of this is supposed to happen. Maybe his instability isn't an anomaly at all. It has always been said that God works in mysterious ways, so maybe Mr. Clarke's behavior is a direct reflection of this mystery."

Mercer appeared to listen to Kyne intently, but shook his head and stared into Kyne's lightless eyes.

"If our faith is to be tested, then so be it. If God has truly deemed Isaac fit to serve, then our opposition will fail, and we will be rectified by his hand. If he is rejected, then he is the who will be forced to atone, and we will usher in the next host. Either way, only God knows what will happen here."

As influenced and impressionable as Kyne always was by Mercer, he still resisted.

"What you're speaking of is outright betrayal, Challus!"

"This is not betrayal, Terrence."

Kyne clenched his fists and teeth.

"He is a _safekeeper_, for god's sake! We do _not_ turn on our safekeeper, ever!"

Mercer took on a more compassionate stance and slowly approached Kyne, placing a friendly, reassuring hand upon his shoulder.

"Terrence. We are not betraying anyone. You know just as well as I do that we are not the causes of our actions. We are merely the surrogates through which he acts. I understand your role as to provide the insight for both sides of the argument, a sort of devil's advocate, if you will - but I have also received my orders. We are only performing our duty, as his vessels. You should know this, already."

Mercer smiled, and a dark split folded his black, wiry beard.

"However, as I see you are still coming to terms with all of this, I forgive you, old friend. As for the Marker... Well, you and I both know that sensibly, it belongs in the hands of the Church. Despite the lobbying power of his mother, it is most certainly possible that Isaac simply is not ready for this. Many of us have known for a long time the resistance that he has given the Church, and therefore I see all of this as little cause for surprise."

"Mr. Clarke's not in a sound state of mind right now, Challus. He won't be until the Marker is returned. That is a perfectly normal side effect, and it can't be contributed solely to his lack of enthusiasm for Unitology. You can't take his messages serious, right now. Just listen to them! He probably doesn't even realize what he is doing."

"Does that alone not give you cause for concern, Dr. Kyne? Can you not see past your blinding loyalty to him because he had once helped you in your goals, and gain sight of your true loyalty to Michael Altman's vision?"

Kyne sighed, once again finding it difficult to refute his highly convincing colleague. He simply tossed his hand out in reluctant concession.

"It's not that, I just... this all seems to be counter productive. But, I do admit that you seem to have a much tighter-knit perception of these kinds of matters, as well as higher guidance than I. So, I suppose I should just trust in you to handle it."

Mercer smiled victoriously, and right away strode across the room to the communications panel upon his desk. As he dialed up the Communications dispatcher, he heard Kyne's voice echo within his mind.

_Just don't say I didn't warn you when your plan fails, Challus._

* * *

Startled from sleep by the alarm of her communications device, the old, haggard Counselor bolted up in her bed, breathing heavily and shooting wide eyes around her darkened bedroom interior. Realizing what had awakened her so disruptively, she turned her attention to the device upon her nightstand and angrily depressed the activation switch. She was immediately met with the square jawed face of a CEC operator staring back at her, and she barked irritably at the holomonitor.

"Yes, what is it, then?"

_"I'm sorry to disturb you, Madam, but we've just received an incoming message addressed to you. It's encrypted, but it appears to be a live feed. You want me to patch it through?"_

The Counselor sat quietly for a moment, still rubbing the sleep from her ancient eyes, then curtly nodded. The imagery immediately flickered into static lines before breaking to reveal to her a very familiar face; one pale and dark, wrought with exhaustion, sickness and hysteria - all characteristics that were disturbingly out of character for this familiar man. For a brief moment, the old woman thought she had sensed, for the very first time, a true fear tucked beneath Challus Mercer's countenance.

"Challus! Challus... where are you?"

Upon her frantic whisper, Mercer broke a small smile.

_"Altman be Praised, Counselor. So much has happened here. I suspect that this may be our final message to you."_

The Counselor froze, shocked by the severity of his words and his tone, then slowly reached with nervous hands towards her nightstand, procured a cigarette and ignited it with an angered inhalation upon the filter. She snorted at Mercer's Unitologist greeting with hidden contempt tucked beneath her aging features.

"Talk to me, Challus."

_"I know you have been waiting to hear about the Ishimura's downfall. But, knowing your sharp intuition, I'm also sure that by now, you know things have changed again. The Credence is gone, Counselor. It has become a hecatomb, a sacrificial offering tossed into the flames of this holy war, along with the Valor. I have seen into his thoughts. He is rebuilding, Madam. And he is coming for Earth. He is coming for the -."_

Static briefly scrambled the video and audio feed, interrupting his speech for several seconds. As the Counselor stared in shock into the holomonitor, Mercer's face and voice returned, his burning eyes crushed beneath thick, slanted brows.

_"- Madam, the time to act is now. It is my highest concern that you depart for Aegis7 as soon as possible. We can no longer accurately premise the direction of his path, or that of our own course. It's apparent that he now has decided to work without our council. It seems his interests have diverted from ours."_

Mercer turned away, anxiety spreading across his face.

_"I don't know what's happening... Isaac... something is wrong with him. He is still rejecting it. I thought it might have been a temporary infraction due to the sudden impact of his transmigration, something to be balanced over time, but this emotional issue of his seems to be rooted far deeper than we realized. Even right now, as he performs in the act of returning the Marker to the planet, he is making countless attempts throughout this entire sphere to alter our course even further in ways that serve no purpose to anyone but himself. Oddly enough, due to its symbiotic nature the Hive Mind has adapted to this discrepancy in his character. His unbalanced state of mind is causing the Hive Mind to act accordingly, and thus is providing him with the means to act out in a very dangerous way - a way that threatens all of us. Even I have begun to feel his wrath, as we all have here... as his children."_

Mercer turned cold, unfeeling eyes to the holomonitor that seemed almost devoid of life, and he stared directly into the Counselor's soul through the static broadcast.

_"Do you feel it Counselor? Do you feel it like the rest of us? Or does he have different plans for you, my dear? He must hold you in very high regard."_

Mercer now relinquished his direct stare into the recording device. As he began to drift madly back and forth in an attempt to keep up with his racing thoughts, the Counselor caught a quick glimpse of Dr. Terrence Kyne in the background, who was staring into the recording device with a long, forlorn facial expression. She returned her focus to Mercer.

"Is he returning the Marker?"

_"Yes, Madam. He has made some rather brazen attempts to destroy it, but I think he has come to learn his lesson."_

She nodded coldly.

"Good. Do whatever you can to facilitate him. Assist him in getting the Marker back to the Colony, as close to the Pedestal as possible - but do _not _under any circumstances allow him to complete the bond. He must remain vulnerable."

_"Yes. You must hurry, Counselor. Before it is too late. If you do not set things right, I fear we may all be shattered to pieces."_

She nodded a few times, clinging to the moment with a final inhalation of her cigarette.

"You have my word, Dr. Mercer. Do your part, and I will do mine. Altman be praised."

Mercer fell silent with a solemn stare, until he broke the silence with his last words to her.

_"Godspeed to you, Counselor. May your flesh be altered and your soul be freed."_

He placed a hand over his chest just seconds before complete static overtook the imagery and the broadcast ended. She stared long and hard at the blank screen for several moments thereafter, noting that just before the screen fell blank she saw that Kyne's saddened expression behind Mercer had remained unchanged, even to the very last moment as his black, inverted pupils lifted to meet with hers through the broadcast. She extinguished the smoldering end of her cigarette in a small, decorative ashtray upon her nightstand, a little unsettled by the penetratingly despondent and heartbroken stare she had seen upon Kyne's face, for she had seen that same look of sorrow before. It had been quite a long time since then, but she remembered his distinctive, brooding pout all the same. Shooting her eyes through the darkened interior of her bedroom, a small, wry smile crept across her face.

"It's time to finish this, Isaac. It's time that you give me what is rightfully mine."

* * *

_Well. look at this. Nice to have you back with us, Isaac._

The voice of the Hive Mind drove Isaac awake from his unconscious state and he found he was lying upon the floor at the base of the Marker, surrounded by the endless swarm of infectors writhing all around him. He sat up and warily looked around, trying to remember what he was doing before having blacked out, but his mind was drawing a blank. He scowled and slowly pushed himself to his feet, turning dark, glimmering eyes to the vision of the Hive Mind, staring at him from the darkness. As he recognized her tense, hostile expression, he nervously rubbed the back of his neck; he had no idea how much time had passed, and he knew now that it had clearly been enough to chip away at her patience, judging by the fire he saw burning in her eyes.

_Since you decided to go limp on me, I took care of a few things in the meantime. But now that you're back, we can carry on as planned. Correct?_

Her words immediately stirred Isaac in a way that alarmed him, and he shot his eyes up at her. He saw that she was sitting off in the shadows, atop some scattered crates with her legs crossed, and fidgeting anxiously. The thick, stagnant dust clung to the air like a dark cloud, swirling about with pearlescent radiation in the dim hangar light as her slow, graceful movements gently displaced it all around her. His eyes became imminently drawn to her soft, slender figure and he said nothing to her, disturbed by her rather frightening suggestion that in his unconscious state she might be using his body for purposes he was unaware of. He closed his eyes, silent and concerned.

_Gee... I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on you. I know you're trying_.

Though she had not mentioned it, she was highly aware all along of a radical change in Isaac's appearance. She examined his torso, which was now fully exposed down to the bare skin, and anger gripped her as she realized that she had no knowledge of how or when Isaac had managed to shed over half of his suit. She looked around and saw that the remaining pieces of it were no where to be found, and it both puzzled and frightened her to understand that even now, she had no control over him. Still, out of a desire not to upset him she remained silent on the matter, scraping her icy cold glare over him.

As she looked him over, she was ghoulishly enamored by how the pale, matured skin of his upper body stood out aggressively against the midnight black shade of his suit's pants and gravity boots. This visual contradiction seemed to metaphorically outline the poetic tragedy of his circumstances, how everything about him, now even including his physical appearance, directly personified his endless, paradoxical conflict with himself. The lightless shards of her eyes traced the infected scars of Marker runes all across his skin, noting the wounds that constantly wept blood, in thick, morbid streaks of deathly crimson down his body that never seemed to dry.

While she was charmed by the vile corruption of her influence as it decorated his body in such ghastly ways, the fact that he had done something so outlandish and dangerous as to remove himself from the protection of his suit without her knowledge sparked her to turn a scrutinizing eye upon him.

_So... what happened to you, huh? When did you decide to get so cheeky?_

Still disoriented, Isaac was not fully following her meaning. He glanced down upon her gesture, and was very much surprised to see that his suit from the waist up was indeed missing. His eyes widened and his blood ran cold, having no recollection as to how this might have happened, and he suddenly felt very much exposed by the absence of it. In a panic he ran his hands across his chest and glossed over his arms, then turned his frantic, scattered attention to the immediate area around him in an attempt to locate his discarded gear. He found nothing and he sighed with aggravation, trying to avoid meeting the fiery blaze of the Hive Mind's glare upon him.

"I uhh, I just, needed to breathe. I don't know what uhh, what I did with it."

The Hive Mind's eye twitched at his words. His deception was obvious, and a small fire ignited within her. She stiffened her posture, locked her teeth and sneered at him, restraining an unholy desire to see him dead in his own blood.

_Where is she, Isaac?_

In an instant, Isaac shot wild, defensive eyes at her, and his heart began to pound in his chest.

"... Where's who?"

The Hive Mind could smell his fear as it spilled across his face like the expression of a child who has been caught in the act of some mischief. She neglected to respond, and instead bore a solid, hypnotic glare into him, seizing him with a reprise of violent sickness. The pain enveloped Isaac almost instantly and his vision dimmed, he fought to breathe and remain upright. She held her asphyxiating grip upon him just long enough to bring tears to his eyes and then suddenly released him, and the insane grimace of rage seemed to revolve instantaneously into a warm, loving smile. Her eyes softened and she turned away, all as if the entire scenario had somehow completely slipped her mind.

_I'm glad to see that you're making yourself more comfortable here. That's good. I want you to be comfortable, Isaac. You work best when you feel natural, I suppose._

Isaac was unable to answer her as he took the moment to recover from his sickness, but she continued to look upon him with a bright smile of amnesty. Still, even as her anger vanished inexplicably, he did not feel safe in her presence; to him it seemed that the more she tried her hand at any sort of compassion or friendliness, the more the beautiful human mask of her face began to crack and shed glimpses of the maleficent black demon that was tucked just underneath.

In that moment, Isaac recalled another poignant term he had once heard from her mouth; one that perfectly described their conundrum as they ceaselessly fed upon each other, regurgitating from shared memory cesspools and feasting upon the rotting remains over and over until nothing was left, perpetuating each other's starving insanity until their spiral towards complete breakdown could be neither stopped nor slowed by either one of them. He remembered the word very distinctly... _Ouroboros_.

_Hey... Isaac. Look at this._

The sound of her voice slowly drew Isaac's attention away and he turned to look in her direction, cracking a dry, cynical smirk.

"Yes, love."

_Do you want to know what you have been working on all this time?_

Isaac's eyes followed her fingers as she pointed to a nearby wall, and he saw several lengthy Marker messages scrawled across the stainless steel surface. He squinted his eyes and examined it a little closer, realizing that it was scribbled in his own handwriting - and blood. He staggered up to the wall upon heavy, sedated feet and ran shaking hands along the lines of symbols. As he tried to focus upon each one, he was suddenly surprised to see that they now made perfect sense to him, and he was able to understand them. Becoming intrigued by his new found ability to read the Marker's language, he ran his eyes down the wall and mentally began to assemble what he read.

**THE MARKER WILL SET US FREE**

His eyes jumped to the next set of symbols he saw.

**MAKE US WHOLE**

He moved on to a small group of symbols that appeared to be formed into a longer paragraph just below.

**HUMANS WILL LEARN THAT**

**BY DEATH OF THEIR WORLDLY SPIRIT THEY WILL BE REBORN**

Isaac hardly heard the Hive Mind as she closed in behind him as he continued on.

_Isaac..._

**IN UNITY AS A STRONGER COMMUNITY UNENDING - THE MESSAGE FROM OUR CREATORS**

Now feeling her presence upon him, Isaac turned back to look at her.

"The message from our creators? Who are they?"

He blinked in puzzlement, then looked again at the wall. He glanced over another line of his writing, and noticed that between a set of familiar symbols, a smaller subset of marks diverged down from the main set, referenced by an insert.

**^ CLASS C OVERFLOW**

He bent an eyebrow.

"Huh?"

**- I.E. (M(X) = V(X) − E) [DIA. 3B] -)**

Isaac blinked, perplexed by something that seemed out of context among the grave, rhetorical evangelism of Unitology that he was already familiar with. He read the strange line again, noting that it seemed reminiscent of an equation rather than jumbled words, and he followed a long, crudely drawn arrow that ran for several meters along the wall until it reached another patch of Marker scrawl. Again, Isaac began to recognize what appeared to be mathematical representations, and he scratched his head, eager to decipher it. He took another analyzing look and concluded that some executed calculations, as well as a proper drafting surface, were in order. He glanced wildly around the area, and eyed several sacks of absorbing silicone dust reserved for oil spill cleanup that was piled on a nearby equipment rack. The Hive Mind giggled, thoroughly amused as she watched him in action.

_You're a good thinker, Isaac. You'll figure it out._

She eyed him with childish delight as he darted back and forth to grab several bags of the dust and empty their contents out upon the floor. He then dropped to his knees and began smoothing the dust out with his hands to form a flat, solid layer, and by the time he had finished some time later he had covered a large portion of the floor for several square meters. The Hive Mind had been pacing around him the entire time in excitement, and as she danced about in small circles through the shadows, she absently recited some ancient prose Isaac had tucked away within his memory banks, something he had once read somewhere long ago.

_'The living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard.' _

Isaac paid little conscious attention to her and continued on uninterrupted, running his fingers along the wall as he deciphered the Marker writing. He quickly returned to the dust strewn floor and again sank to his knees, and dragging the tip of his finger across the sand, he began to physically transcribe upon it what he had read. He frantically sped across the surface of fine dust particles to carve lines, patterns, diagrams, plot points...

_'There was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him.'_

As Isaac finished each section of writing he immediately moved on to the next set without pause, continuing in his deciphering efforts with an enthusiasm that overjoyed the Hive Mind.

_'Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself.'_

Isaac blinked as he suddenly remembered the familiar prose.

"... Plato?"

Kendra glanced to the side in thought, then nodded.

_Yes, from 'Timaeus', I believe._

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, yeah. Now I remember."

She smiled and he returned to his task, continuing his deciphering for what might have been several hours. Isaac finally stepped back and glossed over the floor when he finished, coming to understand now as he ran his eyes over each and every drawn line that he was looking at clearly defined, precisely calculated...

"... Schematics?"

Isaac looked them over again, and there was no doubt - his transcribing efforts had clearly resulted in the blueprints of several incomprehensibly massive and complex machines, all of a highly superior construction and design that he did not recognize at all to be of human origin. He examined the countless marks as they crossed each other, forming streamlined shapes honed to structural perfection, and as the millions of measurements, equations and arguments scrawled across the sand began to add up, he was able to visualize their beautifully flawless designs from all angles through ethereally exploded views in his transcendent vision, and he saw their seamless integration into life from every perspective of his own mind and body.

"Living machines."

Overcome with wonder by the mechanical machinations emerging from the scribbles slashed across the dust, Isaac turned to the Hive Mind and emitted a quiet chuckle that very quickly evolved into maddened laughter.

"Oh! These are absolutely wonderful! Are these yours?"

The Hive Mind latched her eyes sharply onto his, and with a large, beaming grin that spilled forth glimpses of her ivory teeth and soft, pink tongue she placed a gentle hand upon his shoulder.

_No, Isaac. These are yours. You've been working on these for years. I've given you a little help here and there, of course... But the concepts, the designs... they all came from you.  
_

He glanced back at the floor, shaking his head in disbelief as he had no recollection of such monumental undertaking.

"... You're fucking kidding me. Years? When the hell have I had time to do all of this?"

_You've had all the time you've needed._

Isaac stopped, stunned by her directness._  
_

_Isaac, your interpretation, your watermark as an alpha vessel, is inevitably branded upon everything we do. That's who you are, Tezcatlipoca. Ipal ne moani - Architect and Safekeeper of this holy vessel, Red Ascendant. As the Architect, you will build the Machines. I will show you everything you need to know to build them. And not just these Machines, but I will also show you how to build and travel through other Markers.  
_

He glanced up at her through blackened eyes filled with a sense of ominous wonder.

"Other Markers?"

_Of course. You know I'm not the only one. _

Isaac's heart skipped a beat as her words unlocked a floodgate of terrifying possibilities that there were more Markers out there, somewhere. Naturally, this sparked him to recall the legends of the Black Marker, which was rumored to still be in existence somewhere on Earth, though it was assumed that no one knew where. The Hive Mind read every one of his wild thoughts.

_Yes, Isaac. Eventually, you will see the Black Marker one day. And there are others out there. Other Markers, and other Hive Minds that those of your kind have yet to see._

Seeing he was becoming lost in the intrigue of her words, she raised her hand and shook it at him.

_But that's not what's important right now. The first thing we need to do is see to it that the Red Marker is returned and protected. Which means that right now, we need to focus on getting it onto that cruiser and back down to the Colony. _

She whirled around and immediately stormed off towards the Marker, getting out of earshot of Isaac and affording him no opportunity to respond or resist. He started after her, paying no mind to the squirming infectors swarming about his feet as they tried to avoid being crushed beneath his solid, metal boots, and he finally caught up to her a few feet from the Marker. He stopped next to her and they both look up at the Marker's sharp spires, and Isaac shook his head as a realization dawned upon him.

"Wait - fuck! How the hell am I gonna move this thing? I need the kinesis module from my suit."

She chortled at him.

_You don't need that thing, Isaac. You have the power of a million of those modules, all inside your head._

Isaac turned around and looked at her quizzically, and she waved her hand toward the Marker.

Wh_en we are whole, you will be able to move all of time and space around you, and you will never have to take another physical step for the remainder of your existence. You will become a truly liberated spaceman. You think moving this rock poses any more of a challenge for you?_

He remained silent and looked back up at the Marker, deeply considering her words as he gazed over the softly pulsating, spiraled tips.

"I don't know. Let's find out."

Isaac drew a deep breath and stepped back, closing his eyes and focusing all of his attention on the Marker. The Hive Mind slipped in behind his concentration as he raised his right hand and spread his fingers, inspired from within to mimic a grip of his hand around the Marker, and slowly, hesitantly began to slide his hand towards his right. Though he half expected it, he still found himself shocked to hear the screeching, grinding sound of the Marker's cargo transport cage across the magnetic tracks, and he quickly opened his eyes to see that the entire structure had moved several feet.

"Fucking _a!_"

Bewildered by this Isaac lost his concentration, and the moment he did so his hold upon it broke and the structure immediately slid to a halt. He was totally dumbstruck by what he had just seen, unable to believe it even as he saw the evidence before him, and the Hive Mind gently nudged him.

_C'mon, Isaac. Don't get caught on the details. We have work to do._

He knew their time was short, but Isaac could not help but begin to wonder to himself what else it was that he had the power to do. He had seen and done so many strange things so far, and it seemed that the more he relented to the Hive Mind's guidance, the more interesting feats he found himself able to perform. Again he turned his eyes upon her, and raked them up and down her figure.

"I have to set the loading mechanism on the cruiser."

_Allright then, hurry up. I'll be waiting here._

He had to fight to take his eyes off of her, mesmerized and finding himself desiring to merely continue staring upon her dark, seductive figure, and slowly wandered away towards the end of the bay bridge. He opened the main Flight Hangar doors and started to head towards the upper level control room, but as he turned his head, Isaac started feeling a very strange heat emanating from behind the Flight lounge entrance. Isaac diverted his direction to follow it, opening the Flight Lounge doors and stepping inside, and he distinctly sensed that Dr. Challus Mercer had very recently passed this way... and with a very heavy load upon his mind.

Isaac narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists as he recognized the residual trails of Mercer's presence. Something about him had always deeply irritated Isaac, despite knowing that now he was merely a necromorph under his control. His increasing dislike for the fanatical Unitologist Doctor sparked Isaac to find out what it was he was up to, and in an angry mood he followed the faintly heated trails of Mercer's footsteps traced upon the floorboards. The path led him towards the Tram Deck, and he knew that Mercer had departed aboard the tram system.

"Damnit."

At this point, Isaac became agitated. Desiring to search out Mercer's signal he raised his arm to access his RIG, but was instead met the bare skin of his forearm. He scowled, embarrassed by the idea of having remained so dependent upon these extraneous devices rather than resorting to his own superior abilities, and he glared darkly down the length of the tram tunnel. He closed his eyes and expanded his vision throughout the ship, seeking out the life threads of everyone aboard until he found the sign he was searching for, traveling quickly at a rate that confirmed it was aboard a moving tram shuttle. As he further examined the residual trails that remained of Mercer's passing, Isaac realized that the Doctor had also very recently been near the Communications Array. Isaac called the tram, and trapped in the rancor of his inner contemplations he barely took note of just how rapidly the next one arrived. The doors slid open and he jumped in, headed towards the Communications Array in a now bloodthirsty mood to uncover Mercer's covert doings.

As soon as he arrived, Isaac picked up Mercer's trail leading directly towards the control room of the satellite array. He trampled down the hall, brooding within his poisoned, intoxicated mind the entire way, and he threw his arms angrily out before him as he approached the control room doors. They suddenly burst open, impacted by the invisible waves of his pure, dark energy, and he stepped in through the wreckage like an inundated storm cloud. He stopped in the dead center of the room, glaring at everyone present, and shocked by his stunningly unannounced arrival the control room staff all instantly jumped to their feet. A young female communications operator looked around nervously at her colleagues; seeing that she was the closest to Isaac's position and no one else dared to approach him, she hesitantly cleared her throat.

"Mr. Clarke! We weren't expecting you. Sorry about the door."

Isaac directed his glare upon her, and he ran his eyes up and down her figure in a way that chiseled at her confidence, forcing her to cower slightly.

_Challus Mercer came this way. What was he doing here?_

The woman's eyes darted back and forth a few times, then she pointed gingerly towards the door on the opposite end of the room that led to the Satellite Array chamber.

"Oh... well, he, he said he had some messages, some reports to send out."

_Who cleared it?_

Her eyes darted about, and she appeared to be confused.

"Why... you did, Sir...?"

Isaac's lips tightened into an angry grimace.

_What? I didn't clear **shit** with that man... what the hell is going on here? _

Just as the nervous young woman opened her mouth to give a reply, Isaac was suddenly startled by the sound of the Hive Mind's voice coming very loudly from directly behind him.

_I could ask you the very same thing, Isaac! You're supposed to be prepping the goddamn cruiser! Why are you fucking around here?_

He felt her upon his shoulder and he turned around to see her aggravated expression and pink, heated skin. Again, he was enigmatically being drawn to her, finding her physical beauty harder to resist, and with his eyes locked upon her partially exposed breast line he tried to keep his scattered thoughts straight.

"I uhh... I, think that, Mercer is, ... I think that he's up to something. He's, up to no good."

The staff members present in the room all heard Isaac as he responded to the Hive Mind; however, they were unable to see her for themselves, nor understand that she was present. They began to wonder if Isaac was talking to them or perhaps to himself, and they all gave confused, baffled looks at each other, back to the communications operator. She looked Isaac over for a long, hesitant moment.

"... Sir? Are you ok?"

Isaac completely ignored her, caught between his desire to stay atop Mercer's agenda and to remain mesmerized entirely by the Hive Mind's illusion as she stood before him.

_It's not important what he does, Isaac. Only the Marker matters. Only us._

Isaac glanced at her and tilted his head.

"That guy has been trouble from the start. You're not the least bit concerned about what he might have been doing?"

The Hive Mind gently gripped him by the arm and began to pull him backwards towards the doors.

_If we return the Marker, none of this will matter. We will change everything. Nothing will be able to stop us. But we have to get the Marker back first!_

She stamped her foot with emphasis upon the deathly cold, metal floorboard, filling Isaac with the awareness of her desperation to return the Marker to its pedestal. Isaac sighed and nodded, conceding to her view that their time should not be wasted, and he staggered back out of the Communications Control with a renewed sense of focus. The crew looked on with concern and curiosity, noting that he appeared the be very disoriented and heavy footed; the communications operator, seeing Isaac stumble against the wall as he attempted to round the corner, followed him out.

"Mr. Clarke... Mr. Clarke? Are you ok?"

Isaac hardly heard her while under the deafening influence of the Hive Mind's euphoric toxins in his blood, and he simply drifted on towards the Tram Deck with no regard or acknowledgment of her. Still, the operator continued to trail him for several minutes, finally stepping up next to him and trying to help him to his feet.

"Are you sure you're ok? Can I help you?"

As she placed her hand upon his arm he suddenly became aware of her touch, and overwhelmed by the sensory experience that flooded his wide-open gates he turned to stare at her small, soft hand in what appeared to be pure amazement. The operator just stared back at him as he began to run his hands over hers with a sense of exploratory wonder, and a dark, mysterious grin crept across his face as he glanced upon her attractive, feminine features - a face soft and very slightly rounded at the jawbone, eyes delicately drawn like the petals of lotuses and black as night with infection; tense, pursed lips tinged red by the fear he felt inside her. Her most striking feature was a long, dark brown cascade of hair that spilled over her shoulders and matched the alien sheen of her eyes, and Isaac was bewildered in his madness by how close a resemblance the young lady bore to Kendra Daniels.

"Hey... are you... playing games..."

It was becoming more and more difficult to speak, and Isaac's words slurred to the point of incoherence until he fell silent, realizing the futility of his efforts. He stared in an intoxicated daze upon the girl, and she became rather frightened of his clouded, unpredictable state, though unable to turn away from him. She cowered like a sheep having strayed from the path, and taking in the vibrant, dark beauty of her features, Isaac became lost in his most fond, intimate and secluded memories of Kendra. He stared upon the operator, rooting her to the spot and taking in the scent of her skin and hair.

_Son of a bitch... what do I have to do to keep your ass on track, huh?_

Isaac immediately recognized the voice of the Hive Mind sweeping in upon him, but he ignored her in an attempt to maintain his grip upon the operator. The Hive Mind stopped and glared at him, watching him with an expression of miffed incredulity as he began to shamelessly place his hands upon the young woman's breasts, and she scanned his thoughts until she realized which memories he was actively accessing within his crazed, infected mind. She smiled with excitement to see a golden opportunity to strengthen her bond through the association of his rarely outwardly displayed affection for Kendra, no matter how out of his mind and inculpable he might have been in the moment, and utilizing her transmigratory abilities she wasted no time in slipping into the psyche of the young operator. _  
_

Isaac watched the woman's struggle with the Hive Mind's invading presence upon her, witnessing as the experience forced her face into a variety of expressions that ranged wildly from lustful excitement to agonizing distress, until ultimately the woman's face fell blank altogether. Isaac could feel the Hive Mind's presence filling the young woman's body and consciousness, and as the possessed woman was forced to come to terms with her situation, she lowered her head with fearful submission to the Hive Mind's centralized control. Isaac watched as the tiny, fragile personality of this woman came to be fully overwritten by the Hive Mind's signature, and with dark, obsidian eyes glimmering like ultraviolet she finally looked up to Isaac, and her fearful frown suddenly flipped around into a small, inviting grin.

_I know what you're looking for._

Isaac could only stare at her, ravenous and starving for her contact as the Hive Mind enveloped his mind with her seraphic vocals, and right away he detected the physical transformation in the operator's character. Previously having been timid as a mouse, she was now very outgoing and displaying a wanton longing upon her face, her eyes burned with alluring intent and her lips were pulled into a beguiling smile, all of which he knew was not inherent to the operator who had just moments before appeared rather terrified of him. Her eyes, devoid of color and iniquitous against the artificial lighting of the Communications Control room, shone with a seething desire to connect with him. Her focus then fell to the scars of his chest, and with a curious finger she reached up to touch one of them.

_We can be happy together, you and I.  
_

The woman's breath paused as she made contact with the blood saturating one of his wounds, and it began to spread with virile tenacity across her fingertips almost instantly. The lids of her eyes widened as the experience inflamed a very lustful craving within her, and the longer Isaac stared upon her, the less he actually recognized of the communications operator; he was staring past the physical features of her face, now able to see only the Hive Mind in the most memorably captivating form of Kendra he could recall.

"You look good, Isaac. Even through human eyes."

Isaac was surprised at first as the Hive Mind now physically spoke to him through the young woman's body, hearing Kendra's personality interpreted through the voice and mannerisms of the young female operator's body. In his bewildered state he saw only Kendra; having completely forgotten about the operator, the unexpected voice now threw him off. He cocked his head and looked at her oddly, and his questionable look prompted the Hive Mind to smile.

"It's me."

Isaac closed his eyes and breathed a deep sigh of elation, aroused by the idea of engaging the Hive Mind beyond his brain's boundaries. Unable to resist her any longer, he slowly, softly raised his hand and framed the side of the operator's beautiful face. The Hive Mind inhaled upon his contact, moved by the tactile experience through the sense organs of the operator's body, and Isaac began to rake his fingers down the skin of her neck. Stirred at the electric shock of his touch she became fully charged by it, and she turned around, pressing her back up against his chest. Isaac immediately stopped, feeling the warm blood across his skin soak into the back of her vest, and he watched in lustful fascination her chest rise and fall.

_I know what you desire. _

She suddenly felt as his fingers gripped her gently by the chin, tilting her head back until she was looking up into the onyx spheres of his eyes staring down upon her. Without a word, he leaned in and kissed her upon the lips, spreading his infectious blood all over them, and her body temperature ignited upon the taste of it. Overwhelmed by the experience of physical contact the Hive Mind fell deeper into ecstatic trance, bringing Isaac along with her until all of his extremities went numb and all that existed to him was the warm, inviting sensation of her flesh inside his mouth. The Hive Mind eagerly locked her lips to his, and as he wrapped his hands around her waist, she reached up and began to unclasp the buttons of her vest.

_I know what you have been craving for so long. What you can get from no one else but me.  
_

The very moment she pulled the vest open, the soft, supple flesh of her breasts lured Isaac's hands in like nectar. He gently grabbed for them, catching their weight in his fingers and running his thumbs across her nipples until they hardened to full attention. Inebriated by her beauty in his eyes, his playful handling very quickly evolved into a rough, forceful grappling of her curves that thoroughly began to excite her. Her breathing quickened and she began to shiver, becoming increasingly vocal as he began to dig his fingers into her skin. Mad with lust Isaac shoved her back against the wall and closed in upon her, trapping her between his arms, and her smile only grew larger.

_Take what you want. I give myself to you, again and again.  
_

He was delighted by the texture of her smooth skin as it pricked with hypersensitivity, forcing every pore of her body to stand erect and glisten over with a fine veil of sweat. He leaned in and inhaled the alkaline scent of it, then gently slid his lips down her neck and shoulder, collecting small mouthfuls of her bodily water upon his tongue and exchanging it for his own blood in long, dark streaks along her skin.

_All of us do, Isaac._

Dangerously under the spell of his own perverted ecstasy, Isaac became increasingly physical towards her. He reached up and tore the vest from her body with a strong, sharp jerk of arm, and his hands groped eagerly at her naked chest. She taunted him, fueling his lust until they were both biting and grabbing at each other fiercely, fondling each others' warmest places, and he ran his hands across the soft, curving plain of her belly as she playfully attempted to resist him. Eying her waistline he reached down and, with a single twist of his empowered left hand, crushed the buckle of her belt to pieces. The remains of her uniform fell loose, exposing a discreetly accessible trail that ran down the inguen of her naked thigh, and unable to stop himself from exploiting the opportunity, Isaac immediately reached for it.

"Ow! Fuck - "

Isaac was unexpectedly met with a stabbing pain at the tip of every finger of his left hand. He immediately stopped and pulled back in alarm, glancing at it to find that the tips were bloody, punctured through from the inside, and upon closer inspection he suddenly saw why; the talons had now burst forth just half an inch beyond the skin of his fingers into fibrous, underdeveloped blades. Isaac was stunned, noticing how this new organic material had a distinct sheen to it like polished steel, embedded deeply in the keratin as if having been integrated into the composition of his own body. He just stared at the grossly inhuman extensions, dripping with fresh blood and darkening in color before his eyes as they quickly matured into hardened, blade-like barbs.

**isaac**

A shrill, piercing whisper suddenly sliced into Isaac's concentration, and the sound of it dispelled his enchantment long enough to bring him briefly back to his senses. He had recognized the familiar voice, and the feral grin upon his face melted away as he looked down with a slight hint of puzzlement at the sensually aroused woman writhing in his grasp. It was not her that had spoken, of that he was most certain, and as his eyes shot about with rising alarm the split-second glimmer of a shiny metal panel bolted to the wall just across the way caught his attention. The steel was polished smooth enough to cast a recognizable reflection of both he and the Hive Mind, locked in embrace, and at first nothing seemed out of place. But as he continued to stare at their dim reflection, stretching and distorting across its chrome finish, he suddenly realized what it was he actually saw... and his heart stopped inside his chest.

**beware the illusion**

Isaac recognized his own image staring back at him, but that of the woman in his arms was one that completely petrified him - it wasn't the the young, alluring body of the communications operator, but that of a blood drenched, black-skinned, horribly twisted and deformed female slasher entwined around him, severely mutated and covered all over in rotting, necrotic tissue that fell to the floor in clumps of thick, dead weight. The slasher's face was split in half and nearly all of its skull was exposed in an utterly ghastly display of death and decay, and the obtrusive, razor sharp fangs jutting from its jaws posed no hindrance to the long, snakelike tongue that now fully extended from its gaping throat to trail its way around Isaac's collarbone. The slasher had enveloped Isaac with long, scythe-like blades that extended from a pair of distorted limbs growing out of its belly, and the countless tendrils protruding from it's back like the flailing tentacles of an anemone were wrapped all around his chest, arms and thighs, thoroughly binding him to it like the web of a spider to it's prey.

Unable to accept what he was witnessing with his own eyes, Isaac's mind suddenly snapped. He forced his eyes shut, and all he could hear was the same tiny voice in the back of his skull; a voice that the Hive Mind could not hear the same as he.

**we can control her**

Isaac opened his eyes in a panic and now looked at the woman in his arms, then darted back to the reflection on the wall, only to find in either case that the vision of the slasher had vanished. Once again, he barely recognized the communications operator hugging him, and baffled by the discrepancy in his mind's eye he tried frantically to discern what was real, and what wasn't. The Hive Mind, caught up in the moment and having become quite used to Isaac's wild mood swings, smiled and tossed her hair in a flamboyant display of sexual readiness as she thought nothing of his sudden, erratic behavior.

******together **

Praying that what he had seen was only another hallucination, Isaac took a shallow, uncertain breath and closed his eyes. As he opened them he was assured once again by the vision of the seductive, dark haired, woman before him, and as his paranoid fear slowly diminished he again began to desire returning to the task he had before him. He pressed up against the woman's body, initially expressing a genuine compassion as he delicately ran his hands up her sides, but as the influence of this second voice began to take precedence over his mental condition, Isaac's warm, sensitive demeanor quickly began to deteriorate into an inexplicable hostility. This shift in mood began to manifest in his physical actions as a tightening squeeze of his hand upon her neck, and the Hive Mind, who up to this point had seen no reason to suspect anything wrong, perked with a toothy grin as she felt the sudden rush of enthusiasm and strength on his part.

"Heh... hold up, you dumb shit. Not so tight, huh?"

Isaac said nothing, simply bore an increasingly heartless glare through the back of her head as his hand tightened even further.

**control her**

The Hive Mind felt the sharp tips of his talons begin to sink into her flesh and all of her amorous activity ceased. Her smile vanished and she stiffened with a strong sense of alarm.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Isaac's eyes now conveyed a spurning rancor for this sinful, self indulgent creature. His fingers continued to embed themselves deep into her neck until she felt a very real fear of her throat collapsing beneath the pressure, and as she fought to escape his suffocating grip she reached back and gripped his arm with her hand. Putting all of her own strength into trying to break his hold, she screamed out.

"Isaac... Let... go of me... you... motherfucker!"

Shocked and enraged to see his attempt to betray her even now, the Hive Mind wildly flipped around and broke his grasp upon her with a strength he knew came from far beyond the operator's capacity alone. She stared into his eyes evilly and began to strike at him, trying to force him back, and he growled at her, impressed by her defiance even as she had little effect over him. In his state of fury and arousal Isaac had managed to overcome her psychological attacks upon his brain, and the fire in his gut ignited into an anger that sparked him to now physically overpower her. He grabbed her her by the hair and violently slammed her face against the wall with enough strength to break her nose; she screamed and he winced at the sinewy snap of her bridge, watching as she began to cough blood, and in his momentary lapse of sanity Isaac was evilly charmed to see that despite such a damaging blow, she had managed to stay conscious enough to further endure his wrath.

**control her isaac**

The Hive Mind flailed the arms of the communications operator in a frantic but weakening attempt to stop him as the debilitating injury to her vessel was too much to bear. Thick, dark blood dripped down her face and she clawed wildly at Isaac, but he remained out of her reach, deeply inhaling the smoke of his inner rage as he again grabbed her and pulled her back. With burning, wide eyes and a tightly locked jaw, Isaac spat words drenched with unrefined hatred at her.

"You said it yourself, Kendra. 'Take what you want'."

He shoved her against the wall and knocked the wind out of her.

"... You crazy fuck... what... do you want..."

Her voice cut short as he tightened his hold upon her neck, cutting off her oxygen and effectively silencing her. He pressed her face into the metal of the wall hard enough to slice into her lips, and he watched the operator's blood run gracefully down the length of the panel.

"You fucking bitch... You have destroyed my life."

Isaac grinned madly as she gasped desperately for air between the steady streams of blood running down her face. Caught somewhere between total elation and unspeakable repentance for what he witnessed himself doing to this young woman beyond his control, Isaac dragged the sharpened extensions of his left hand deeply across his scalp to wipe the heated, bloody diaphoresis from his head, tearing into his own flesh in the process.

"You crushed everything I have ever loved. Everything I worked so hard for."

Enticed by the soft skin of this body in his grasp, Isaac could not resist bringing the claws of his hand down upon her back, in ruthless incisions upon her flesh.

"Now, I have no choice but to return the favor in the only way I can - by taking something from _you_."

The strength of the communication operator's vessel had by this point been exhausted, and as a result the Hive Mind's resistance to Isaac became weak. He now had her pinned against the wall by her neck, digging the talons of his left hand sharply in between her shoulder blades to immobilize her. He ravenously stared at her, tears of unbearable anger and self-repulsion falling from his eyes as he watched the blood pool out from fresh gashes across her back.

"I loved you once, Kendra. I did. I _did.__"_

Though the Hive Mind did her best to defend herself, she was completely terrified of Isaac in that moment. She had now come to realize that Isaac's distinction between the Hive Mind and who was once Kendra Daniels had become blurred, and sensing his failure to comprehend the difference she knew now that the life threatening animosity he was venting upon her was actually what he harbored for her true, human counterpart. This shed a very jarring light on the severity of Isaac's psychological declination, and the true depths of his loving hatred for this concubine of his former life. The Hive Mind now saw with unsettling clarity how her choice to manifest in Kendra's form had produced a very disastrous formula, and she feared the possibility that as much as she loved him, Isaac might never be stable enough to truly bond with her. Perhaps, Isaac Clarke truly was destined to die, and she was ultimately cursed to eternal seclusion within a vessel of lesser substance... or worse, that hellishly cramped Marker.

"No... Isaac... please... you don't... understand... I'm not..."

Lost in his insanity, Isaac ignored her desperate, sobbing pleas. His eyes fell to her haunches pressed firmly up against his abdomen, and in a fit of lustful anger Isaac ripped at his belt to fully expose himself. Forcing her against the wall and taking greatly wicked delight in her compromising position, he clenched her by the hair and sought to bring their encounter to a much more sinister level.

"Kendra... allow me to introduce you to my dead space."

* * *

Just within the Communications Control room, the remaining staff had been listening to the debased, carnal activities taking place between Isaac and the communications operator just down the hall. Though they were becoming greatly concerned for the both of them, the pure heat of rage they felt emanating from Isaac alone was enough to stop all of them from approaching or even leaving the confines of the Control room to see what was happening. They had heard the young woman cry out several times, but no one even looked up until they suddenly heard a horrendous, blood curdling scream echo violently throughout the entire corridor.

"No, stop!_ STOP! **AHHHHHH..****.!**_"

They all instantly recognized her, screaming steadily in pure terror before being drowned out by a scurrilous barrage of loud, strident sounds resembling that of tearing flesh. Though they all had a very strong suspicion as to what was happening, they were reluctant to disturb Isaac in any way out of both a collective respect and an outright fear. They all stood silently and listened as the sickening sounds of carnage continued to resound from around the corner's bend. After several long minutes, everything suddenly fell silent.

The crew began to glance nervously at each other. After a while, one of the operators finally gathered the nerve to step out and investigate. As he slowly crossed the threshold of the damaged doors and headed down the hallway in tense anticipation, one by one the remaining crew members within the control room followed the man out. The gathering eventually approached the end of the hallway, and they suddenly picked up on a very strange, repetitive sound, like deep, resonating moaning. Puzzled by the sound they glanced around the corner, and were shocked by a sight intense enough to disrupt the composure of even the most indifferent among them.

They all saw Isaac, hunched on his knees over the bloody remains of the operator - rather, a savage female slasher, fully naked, badly beaten, mutilated and destroyed beyond all recognition. Isaac was inhaling large, gasping breaths over her, sweating blood all across his head and chest, and his entire body was bathed in a fine spray of the necromorph's rotten, liquous insides forced from the gaping holes he had punctured through its flesh with the talons of his hand. The trousers of his suit were unfastened and wide open, leaving him grossly exposed from his waist to his knees and revealing his fully erect genitalia, slick with the bloody flesh, gore and seminal fluid that clung to his skin and hair in mucilaginous, crimson threads.

Gripped between Isaac's hands was a large, bloody chunk of the slasher's flesh, which he had crudely eviscerated from the hips of it's body and was now proceeding to defile in a most unspeakable display of sexual depravity. Bloody tears streamed from his eyes, and with an expression of pure terror impressed upon his face he stared at the mass of flesh in his hands, whispering to it in a soft, panicked voice as he penetrated it again and again.

_"Oh, god... I love you... you know I still love you, right? Oh... you're just so much prettier when you... I can't... please, please don't be... don't be angry with me..._"

The observers were far too mortified to respond in any way other than with silent, gaping stares of revolt. They could do or say absolutely nothing, even as Isaac continued on in the act of violating the dead remains, sobbing mournfully beneath his breath as he did so. In his hysterical state he failed to readily notice any of them, but repeated, subliminal glances in their direction eventually gathered enough of his attention to force a surface response; Isaac suddenly stopped over the dead necromorph, withdrew himself from the chunk of flesh and dropped it to the floor. As it landed with a blood splattering thud at his knees, he turned to stare at the petrified crew with eyes that were blacker than the deepest shade of death and the skin of his blood soaked face pulled taut in a scowl of sheer, primeval rage that threatened to dissolve them all in it's intense heat.

_**Get the fuck out of here!  
**_

The crew all winced at the painful inflection of his telepathy, which shook all of their psyches like the roar of a lion, they closed their eyes and quickly retreated to the confinement of the Communications Control room down the hall. Once they were gone, Isaac redirected his infuriated glare back to the Hive Mind, who by this point having been forced out of the communication operator's dismembered body, had again assumed her mental projection as Kendra. Feeling unspeakably betrayed and violated by Isaac's actions against her, she now appeared to be lying next to the body of the dead slasher, sobbing against the wall and feeling faint as she unwillingly shared in the torment endured by this subjugated necromorph.

The Hive Mind's naked body now reflected Isaac's infliction with detail of the most horrendous accuracy - covered all over in blood and bruises, her breasts, hips and thighs raked by deep claw marks, layers of flesh mangled by long, savagely executed rips. Her eyes were frozen into position wide as teacups, pouring forth constant tears of blood as she screamed within of her merciless torture and desecration, and her chest shook with her breaths. Her appearance before him was now stunningly frail and robbed of all strength, and her face was coated in a layer of sanguine blood almost entirely. Her agony extended further into other places, and it was clear that no part of her body escaped the wrath of Isaac's fury.

Feeling obscenely violated on all fronts to a degree of intensity that even she herself could not have anticipated, the Hive Mind cringed at Isaac's feet, lying in a pool of the slasher's blood and staring up at him with the terror and desperation of a severely beaten child filling her expression. Isaac eyed her darkly, and despite his state of hysteria just moments ago, he now failed to display any sort of emotion.

"We're done here."

She responded in a tone that seemed hauntingly familiar to him, though there was no possibility of his placing the memory.

_I thought you loved me, Isaac.  
_

He gave her a cold, heartless stare, and though he began to feel a pang of remorse as he looked at her, his eyes burned with a very ambivalent sense of self satisfaction. Though he still could not place the memory, he distinctly recalled his response to those words.

"I guess I just wasn't myself, sweetheart."

He smiled evilly at her and slowly began to retreat, slipping back around the corner without a word and leaving the Hive Mind in a disgraced, bloody mess upon the floor. She began to breathe heavily like a wounded lion, fighting back a very human sense of demoralizing humiliation that quickly morphed into anger and retaliatory desire against him. She flared her nostrils and tightened her lips into a sharp frown, burning her glare through all she could see until everything within her vision turned red. All the while, Isaac was all too aware of her humiliation and resultant hatred for him in the back of his mind. He felt her grip upon him, squeezing the back of his skull with the throbbing of an aneurysm, yet the threat of its impending, deathlike paralysis did nothing to remove the maniacal smile from his face.

**we can control her**

Completely ignorant to his partial nudity and drenched in the dark, acidic blood of the necromorph's body, Isaac drifted aimlessly down the hallway, oblivious to everyone around him until he bumped into Drs. Kyne and Mercer. So lost in his poisonous intoxication, Isaac hardly realized their presence until he was practically on top of them, and as he lost his balance and fell backwards to the floor, he saw that Mercer was now glaring down upon him with a haughty, contemptuous scowl. His eyes jumped a few times to the unbuttoned trousers of Isaac's suit with a strong disgust in his expression.

"Hmm. See for yourself what I told you, Kyne. Nothing but a common animal. Hardly the material we need for a true Ascendant."

Isaac cocked his head at Mercer and stared at him through the veil of his hysterical, blood soaked face.

"What's that?"

Mercer shot a dark, beady eyed glance back at Isaac.

"Well, Mr. Clarke. If you've finished satisfying your own needs, perhaps you'll be kind enough to return your attention to the Marker."

Isaac bent a puzzled eyebrow at him, shocked and feeling invaded by Mercer's knowledge of his actions, despite not having been physically present to witness it. Though he remained calm on the outside, inside Isaac was burning with the abhorrence he carried for this indignant, disrespectful man; this tainted, traitorous vessel.

"Fucking Unitologist."

Without a word Isaac quickly reached for the plasma cutter still dangling from his loosened belt, aimed it directly at Mercer's head, and unhesitatingly pulled the trigger. Mercer's head exploded in a bloody shower and his body slumped to the floor, shaking convulsively as his arms reached up in an autonomous attempt to locate his missing head. Seeing his body had not quite had enough, Isaac fired off several additional rounds until all of Mercer's limbs had been destroyed, and his corpse finally fell lifeless to the floor. Isaac flashed his blackened eyes all around, as well as his fully charged plasma cutter, taking aim between the eyes of each and every person who was present to bear witness.

"Do we have any other free thinkers aboard this ship?"

As he cast his aim across the entire room, Isaac eventually met eye contact with Dr. Kyne, who was standing straight as an arrow and returning an empty stare. He was utterly lost in incredulity over the sudden, unanticipated loss of his fellow colleague, but more so over the fact that Isaac was so ready and eager to cause such malicious destruction to the Marker's vessels - those whom he was intended to protect. Kyne saw Isaac's growing dissatisfaction with the necromorphs as another unhealthy sign, certainly not the normal course of action for a properly functioning alpha vessel as it defeated the Marker's purpose, and this knowledge only further instilled the fear that, as Mercer had strongly suggested, the Church had indeed made a very big mistake. Isaac raised an eyebrow at him.

"And you, Dr. Kyne? Anything you'd like to share?"

Kyne blinked gracefully, feeling fearful of Isaac's savage, unpredictable behavior. Still, Kyne's faith stayed true to the end, and his continuing loyalty remained evident upon the solemn composure of his face even in the midst of Isaac's homicidal insanity. At first, Kyne wasn't sure how to respond, but deciding it best to simply speak his mind, he sighed and clasped his hands before him.

"I... don't claim to be a man of great universal knowledge, Mr. Clarke. Certainly not one who knows anything about what you are going through. With that said, while I can offer you my empathy, I am simply not confident that I am qualified or capable of dispensing the proper advice to you. All that I can say is that the Marker must be made whole. There is no other way to end this. There is no other way. There is no other cure for you, Mr. Clarke."

Taken by the gravity of Kyne's plea, Isaac quietly looked down in shame. He had peered deep into the heart of this vessel, and saw within him his truly honest and genuine nature - qualities that seemed so contradictory to those of his rank in the Church - certainly nothing like the self-motivated Challus Mercer. Isaac was torn between hope and sadness as some part of him truly understood Kyne's merciful intent to help him.

"I'm... I'm trying to. I think I..."

"... Good luck, Mr. Clarke."

Isaac finally turned away and began to head toward the Tram deck, but he suddenly paused as something came to mind. He turned back around and saw Dr. Kyne was still standing there, staring at him almost expectantly. Seeing the hesitation in Isaac's expression, he blinked.

"Yes, Mr. Clarke?"

Isaac straightened a little.

"Why... why a 'Maker'?"

"'Why', in what sense?"

Isaac rolled his eyes, a little irritably.

"Why am I called a 'Maker'? What does it mean?"

Kyne glanced down in thought, and then straight back up with the same indecipherable half grin that always seemed to accompany his much darker secrets.

"Because you 'make' your world go 'round, Mr. Clarke."


	35. When All Else Fails

**Chapter 35**  
**When All Else Fails**

**_I am now unable to stand here any longer. I am forgetting myself, and my mind is reeling. I see only causes of misfortune, O Krsna, killer of the Kesi demon._  
- B.G., 1.30**

* * *

The Counselor strode rapidly through the Sprawl Administration wing towards the Overseer's office, avid to inform him of her discussion with Challus Mercer. With a zealous bounce in her step she approached his door and walked in to find the ancient Overseer sitting at his desk, reading quietly beneath pale desk light. Upon her entrance he raised the lighting a few degrees on the holopad, and glanced up through cold, slate eyes.

"Well, good morning, Madam. To what do I owe this... unexpected visit?"

Judging by the cynicism dripping from his tone she realized that he had already been there for some time, waiting for her arrival. She stopped directly in front of his desk and stared at him, her face hard and taut as stone as she saw no further reason to evade him.

"Sir, I've heard from Mercer. We need to leave for Aegis7 immediately."

The Overseer lifted a white haired brow.

"Yes, so I've heard. I was monitoring your conversation."

The Counselor did little more than blink in silence at him. She couldn't blame the Overseer's spying on her by this point, considering the dissonance that had arisen between them during these more trying times following the Aegis7 situation, but from her own self righteous perspective she simply felt insulted by his lack of trust in her.

"... So. Well, you know then, do you? Then I've no need to waste time explaining it."

The Overseer declined a reply, and continued to display a lack of empathy that irritated her. He rested his elbows on his desk, and he interlocked the gnarled fingers of his hands.

"You didn't tell me about the Credence."

Brief silence followed.

"... I didn't know about it."

"You had said that only the Valor would be involved. You promised me there would be no more lives lost to this. I wouldn't have let _any_ of those ships out there, had I known you could be wrong."

Right away, the Counselor sensed a volatile hostility about his otherwise calm and collected demeanor. Her clandestine ways had shaken his confidence in her, and her genuine claim to have been unable to predict the USM Credence's tragic involvement now was falsely casting her in the light of crying wolf.

"I swear to you, Sir. I knew nothing of the Credence. Nothing. That was not my doing."

To the Overseer, there was nothing left about her he could confide in.

"Is there not _one_ person in this entire operation that I can trust implicitly? I thought that you were being fully honest and forthcoming with me. I thought that we were in this together, as a _team_."

"We are, Sir! But my visions have been changing. They're not as predictable as they used to be for some reason. It has everything to do with what is happening there, with the Marker, right now. That is why we must go, Sir. We must go there now, before it's too late, and things get any worse."

Much to her dismay, the Overseer remained unstirred by her motivating speech.

"Madam... your unholy visions are no longer what concern me. Mercer is no longer what concerns me. Even Aegis7 and the Marker right now are not what immediately concern me."

He slowly unfolded his hands, flattened his palms upon the desk and leaned forward in his seat, narrowing his eyes into razor sharp blades upon her.

"What concerns me right now, Madam, is you."

He continued to bear his cloudy gaze into her, then slowly relented and cleared his throat.

"I've been going back through some very confidential records of yours, Madam. I have to admit that despite our long working career in close association, still I was not aware of the extent to which you were involved in the Marker extraction project."

"Yes, Sir."

His eyes darkened.

"I also did not know that you once served as Counselor to Octavia Clarke for a number of years... during which time you had a direct hand in Isaac's childhood studies."

"... Temporarily."

Seeing that her usually flawless gift of diplomacy was now failing her as she resorted to simple, lifeless answers, the Overseer sighed angrily.

"Your conversation with Mercer... all that talk about Isaac. None of it makes any sense. He was just a survivor of the outbreak. He was only there a few days, a week, at most - how could Mercer have compiled so much information on a complete stranger in that time?"

She refused to answer him, and he slowly stood to his feet, impatiently driven to pace before his chair.

"And why Isaac, anyway? Is it just coincidence, Madam... or is there some sort of connection?"

He slammed his fist down upon the desk, aggressively seeking to drive an answer out of her that made sense.

"Whatever it is that you're up to, I want to know. I want to know now."

The Counselor turned away, quickly trying to devise a means of pacifying him long enough to secure her way to Aegis7, whilst withholding as much of the information he sought as possible.

"Sir, I cannot divulge everything to you. But, I promise you that this will ultimately end with the Marker under our control. I've always told you that I required your confidence in me, in my ability to reign the Marker in, no matter the cost. I need that confidence from you now, Sir."

The Overseer vehemently shook his head.

"What about Mercer? It was reported that he was dead... was no one else aware that he is still alive? Why does everything point to you operating subversively behind my back?"

The Counselor desperately sought to divert his prying into subject matters she considered to be beyond his need to know.

"Mercer has merely been providing a backup for our research, being he has been so close to the Marker, first-hand. As for Isaac, well... he just makes for a good test case, being a direct exposure."

The Overseer crossed his arms, and looked down.

"Who else knows about what's happened at this point?"

"No one of any real significance to my knowledge, Sir."

"This is a right goddamn mess, Counselor. Two USM ships, lost in the same sector, under our watch and with no reasonable explanation as to why we sent them out there, knowing what happened... we'll be relegated for this."

The Counselor chuckled at his comment.

"Sir, if we leave for Aegis7 right now, I promise you that we will have no need to concern ourselves over such matters. You have to trust me."

"Are you mad, woman? Are you suggesting that we flee?"

"No... I am suggesting that we finish the job that Matthius and the rest of those fools left behind. We are so close, now."

He looked at her and was met with a very reassuring grin strapped to her lips.

"Honestly... to this day, have I ever steered you wrong, Sir, even having failed to be, mmm... forthcoming to your satisfaction at times? Won't you please extend me the courtesy of your faith in my judgment, as you promised you would reserve for me?"

She stared hard at him, anxiously hoping that she had proven convincing enough. The Overseer remained silent for a few moments as he absorbed her speech; while he tried to remain as objective as possible, ultimately his deep seeded sense of greed to control the Marker in the name of the Church was enticed by her talk.

"Well, we certainly can't just, pick up and go, now can we? We have to meet with the Council to get -"

The old woman lashed out with a sharp, stabbing retort and clenched her fist.

"_Damn_ the Council, Overseer! We cannot let them intervene. They don't understand what's going on, they'll simply destroy everything. No - we have to do this ourselves... and we have to do it _now._"

The Overseer withered at her threatening posture, and he slowly sank back down into his seat.

"You really are serious about this... aren't you? You're absolutely out of your mind."

He stared at her, but realizing that she was not going to be the one to relent he drew a deep breath.

"So... I suppose we're simply going to walk on in to the Flight Deck, take a ship and sail off for Aegis7, is that it?"

She sneered pretentiously tossed her hand.

"That's right, Sir. I've already made the arrangements."

The Overseer raised his brows in perplexity.

"You certainly are prepared."

"Trust me, Sir. I've been waiting for this longer than you will ever know."

* * *

_Sacrifice is inevitable. _

The Marker's haunting reminder burned in Isaac's mind as he staggered his way towards the Tram Deck, along with the visions of his violence against the communications operator. The fog of his poisoned mind was briefly parting over a field of clarity like the eye of a hurricane, forcing upon his conscience an intermission of deeply introspective terror as he came to comprehend the reality of what he had done. Disgusted as he was to discover that the human visage of the operator had in fact been only a hallucination, he was very much perplexed with fear and grave concern as to what could have possessed him to act out in such an abominable way towards someone else, be they a defenseless human being or a grueling, malformed monster. Isaac was far more demoralized by this than by any other horrifying incident thus far, as he had no way of explaining himself, no avenue through which to excuse himself, and no means to account for the burden of this poor soul's unfortunate journey having ended with her blood all over him.

The fact that he would force one of the necromorphs through such a cruel and traumatizing experience was not the only realization that plagued him; he was thoroughly appalled to see his projecting these horrendous intentions onto Kendra, and it frightened him to think that his memory of her was so contemptuous that it was capable of driving him to the point of total disconnection from his own morality. The most important point of contention, however, was how all of this might have affected the Hive Mind, who had been forced to experience such fatal abuse vicariously through the operator's body. In his sadistic, Marker-induced madness, Isaac had not taken the time to consider whether the Hive Mind would have found his actions objectionable or not; all he had known was his sickening desire to see Kendra suffer. Now, as he felt the pressure of the Hive Mind's grip upon his brain, the reality of his position, and her ability to physically or mentally punish him in any number of ways, struck him with full force. Robbed of all conviction in his defense, Isaac looked down at his blood drenched hands and over the feral, razor sharp extensions of his fingers. The talons were dark and slightly translucent like tinted quartz, sticky with traces of the necromorph's flesh and blood, and serving as an unmistakable branding of his descent into hell.

"What have you done, you stupid fuck?"

Isaac stopped on the question he imposed upon himself. Overwhelmed by the grief of his realizations, he slowly paced backwards until he felt the wall against his back, and staring blankly into nothing, he sank to his knees. He continued to think about the Hive Mind, who so far had not shown herself to him again since his having left her back in Communications. He had felt the unconscionable pain she had experienced through the body of his violated victim, though in the heat of the moment he had chosen to remain blind to it, and her absence now became a very serious point of concern as he found himself unable to connect with her through any of his senses. She was hiding from him in a way more effectively than before, completely neglecting to respond to any of his telepathic queries or even provide him with the audience of the Marker's endlessly chanting choir of impersonal voices, and her vanishing act generated a suspense that had Isaac perspiring ice cold blood. The idea that he had done such a terrible thing to her out of his deeply twisted love for Nicole only polluted his quandary even further, coming to understand that his one, true object of obsession really was the single anomaly that threatened the Hive Mind in every way. He knew that even now, he could never truly belong to the Marker.

_The sickness was the cure... the cure was the sickness. __The sickness was the cure... the cure was the sickness. __The sickness...was the cure... the cure... was the sickness..._

Upon the recollection of Nicole's melodious, angelic laughter, Isaac closed his eyes in shame. He saw first-hand how his inspiration to avenge her was a dangerous diversion from his duty, one that obstructed him and everyone within the Marker's grasp from progressing towards a higher destination that should have far exceeded the priority of any such personal indulgence on his part. As painfully as he longed to bask in the warmth of Nicole's affection and never again let her out of his sight, he could not escape the devastating certainty the Hive Mind had been trying to impress upon him for so long.

_Return the Marker, complete the bond and sacrifice everything he was to Ascend... into neverending enslavement... or suffer the slow, agonizing torture of complete breakdown, inglorious death and rebirth, over and over, just to keep the memory of the one he loved alive... in neverending enslavement. _

Again, he felt the painful pressure at the base of his skull. The tightening hold began to make him feel somewhat lightheaded, and within a few minutes his neck started to grow numb; but this did little to alarm him at first. Delirious with exhaustion and unable to think clearly, Isaac just sat and brooded in the dark, abandoned hallway, breathing heavily upon the stagnant ship air and hoping that the Hive Mind would come looking for him. He listened intently to the quiet all around him, trying to pick up on any sound other than the vibrations that resonated through the steel skeleton of the Ishimura. He was driven with desperation to see her once more, even if but for a moment, to apologize for his ineffable actions no matter how meaningless the attempt might seem to her. Seeing his outer senses were failing, Isaac turned to his inner perception, expanding his consciousness throughout the ship in an attempt to locate her. Still, he was unable to detect her life traces anywhere upon the ethereal winds of his vision, and his desperation transmogrified into outright paranoia.

_Be mindful of psychological rejection._

At one point he was distracted by the sound of scuffling coming from down the hall to his right, and he darted his blackened eyes to find that a small group of necromorphs were staring at him from their positions several yards down the way. Isaac could not make much of individual characteristics other than their glowing red eyes like pinpoint beacons in the dark and their solid silhouettes, which appeared to his thoroughly expended, hallucinating mind to be as large and captivating as mountains, enveloped in deep mist and drifting fluidly through the air towards him like massive, floating islands. As they closed in on his position and he felt the suppressing weight of their shadows drape across his body, Isaac glanced up and focused upon their glowing life threads, recognizing now the Hunter, this time accompanied by a pair of tall, lanky Dividers.

Isaac sighed, a little disappointed that it wasn't the Hive Mind - but figuring that any sort of companionship was better than none at this point, he pressed his hands to the ground and prepared to rise to his feet.

"Well, what brings -"_  
_

Without warning nearly half of his body gave out to paralysis, and Isaac toppled over like a dead weight. Once down on the floor, he was able to do little more than brace his teeth together to keep from chewing through his own tongue as he endured a sharp, stabbing pain through his head that briefly immobilized him. When he was able to open his eyes again, he glanced down and saw that his body was shaking uncontrollably in a fit of seizure.

_What's wrong?  
_

Isaac turned his head back down the hall and saw the Hive Mind watching him from the shadows, hardly visible save for the illumination of her life threads slicing through the darkness like shimmering, microscopic blades. His eyes widened and he was horrified to see her, despite at first feeling relieved in knowing that she had not abandoned him entirely, and he remained speechless with his face pressed to the floor as she gracefully glided down the hall to approach him. While her immediate expression did not seem to reflect any obvious animus or ill intent, her lifeless, jet black eyes pierced into him like knives, shaking him to his very foundation through their penetrating glare alone and chilling his blood. The closer she came to him the more the fear gripped him like death, and the more the paralyzing dyskinesia took effect until he could no longer move. Having become unable to move his head, Isaac could now only stare at the perfectly polished tips of her bare toes as she stopped just inches from him, glaring down at him with a falsely displayed concern.

_What's got you down, Isaac?  
_

Her voice was slathered in aggression, and he became even more afraid. He wanted to say something to her, but the swelling at the base of his brain stem made the process of speaking far more taxing than he could manage, and unable to utter anything coherent he had to resort to mental telepathy. Still, much to his shock and dismay, his lack of self control extended even to this level, and it was extremely difficult to concentrate on assembling even his mental projections.

_I'm, I just, I'm just, I'm... you... you, stop it... stop it, stop... I can't..._

Isaac rolled his eyes up just far enough to catch a glimpse of her figure in the artificial light cast down from above, and saw that once again she was as flawless in her appearance as she was heartless. She had returned to her sleek, black gown, her body untouched by the marks of insane brutality he had left her with during their earlier encounter. As she glared down upon him with eyes that absorbed all of the light around her, the steel bristles of her voice scraped his mind painfully.

_You. I should have known you'd be prone to do something like this. Foolish, self absorbed... and dangerous. Just like the rest of your kind._

She narrowed her eyes to pinpoints upon him, burning into him with the all wrath in hell beneath her.

_You can't hurt me, Isaac. Your efforts to defeat me will always go in vain, because I only exist in your mind. And your mind exists only in the Marker._

She glared upon his naked skin, saturated in blood and gore, which appeared as a sickening palette of black and red across every visible inch of his body.

_That is, I am safe from any physical harm that you or anyone else can cause me, despite being able to feel it through you. I can't quite say the same for your victim, though._

Her cruel reminder of the Communications operator he had assaulted and destroyed struck Isaac profoundly. Again he struggled to get up, to face the Hive Mind, but his paralysis prevented him from moving in any way save for his eyes.

_I... I... I'm sorry, so... I'm... I didn't mean..._

_You know what really hurts? I've had such hopes for you. I really am in love with you, Isaac. I always have been, and I... I want you to love me, too. But after what just happened, I'm not so sure how this will work out between us._

Isaac simply stared wide-eyed at her feet upon the floor, perturbed by an odd sense of deja vu as he listened to her. Again, everything she said seemed to be a stale, distant reflection of a past memory that he had difficulty placing. As he looked upon her face, into the stunningly beautiful reproduction of his old enemy, it dawned upon him with horrendous impact that the atrocious scenario that had taken place between he and the Hive Mind, along with fragments of their conversation now, was in fact a malevolently distorted reenactment of a long denied memory he carried of Kendra Daniels.

_No hard feelings, my friend. We'll just finish this the hard way. _

His immobilizing terror further impacted his condition as he came to understand that the Hive Mind was not only fully aware of his continued rejection of her, but was fully expressing her awareness through his memories and bewildering him with lifelike, if not grossly excessive and twisted, interpretations of what she saw imprinted in his mind. As he continued to decline physically and mentally, Isaac gradually developed a nervous twitch throughout his body and his throat started closing up. As he began gasping for air, the Hive Mind ducked to her knees, and leaned over him until she was peering dead into his eyes.

_I don't think you understand what it is that you've asked for, yet. I'm trying to show you, Isaac. How sick you have become. Still, no matter how self destructive you are... I have no choice. Your desire is my mantra. _

Isaac could only follow her with his eyes as she rose to her feet and glowered over him.

_I obliged you. No matter the cost... I did it for you. __And for what? So you can vent all over me, and leave me there to lie in my own piss and blood, to not even so much as thank me for my time? I hear your thoughts, how you think of me as a monster... but I wonder, Isaac - just who is the monster here? _

Feeling trapped within his malfunctioning body, he pleaded to her through his eyes.

_P... please, hel - I'm... help m... me... I... I'm... so sorry...  
_

She sneered and grazed the tips of her toes down his side, which he could not feel in his paralyzed state.

_I've warned you about this. This is what happens when you fuck with the Marker, Isaac. The Marker changes all._

As angry as she was with him, the Hive Mind had to stave off an equal desire to bear Isaac some compassion for his saddening declination. She pressed her hands to her hips, and she shook her head.

_You're breaking down. We can no longer avoid it. _

She clasped her hands nervously, agitated as she began to pace back and forth.

_You are the only one who can return the Marker. No other infected vessel can withstand the deadening field long enough to reestablish its connection with the pedestal. If you die before that happens, then everyone here will die along with you, and we'll all have to start over again, somewhere else. You'll forget all over again, and we're back to chapter one of this nightmare. _

Isaac listened to every word she spoke, deep in contemplation as he struggled to regain control of his body. The Hive Mind placed a gentle hand to the side of his face, relieving a major portion of his paralysis with the soothing energy of her touch. Once enough of his strength returned, Isaac pushed himself over and slowly back up onto his feet, balancing precariously upon knees that felt weak and shaken.

_Now Isaac... Go! Go to the Flight Hangar and prepare the cruiser. _

She vanished into the darkness, and Isaac turned his attention to the Hunter and his companions, hovering just off in the shadows exactly where the Hive Mind disappeared. Seeing as he was still fighting to remain balanced upon his feet, the two Dividers stepped forward and offered Isaac their long, gangly limbs to him for support. They stood at his sides, and feeling their presence next to him Isaac grabbed for them, grappling his arms around their appendages like crutches, and they set forth to escort him back to the Flight Hangar. They were followed closely behind by the Hunter, who served as their convoy through the dark halls as they made their way to the Tram Deck. Isaac wrestled with lucidity as he drifted in and out, nearly blind and able to hear only distant, muffled sounds against his swollen eardrums. One of the sounds he was able to hear was the Hunter's thundering steps, accompanied by its deep, resonating breathing and constant, enigmatic chanting.

_xipe totec you are our lord the flayed one your sacrifice of flesh shall dissolve the cage your soul is in and you shall be freed you are the drinker of night the birth the death you are the ouroboros your time has come to ascend o enemy of both sides make us whole and be reborn as one _

With the assistance of the necromorphs, Isaac reached the Tram Deck and they helped him aboard. They were all too big to fit within the limited space of the tram along with Isaac and they instead remained silently on the deck, watching as the doors closed and the tram departed down the track.

Within the tram, Isaac had collapsed upon the bench seat and was staring at the flickering interior lighting above in a daze. He had no concept of time's passing before he felt the tram come to a stop, and then saw the doors open to reveal the Flight Deck. The light pouring in blinded him in his state, and Isaac raised a weary, protective hand as he fought to push himself up. Though it took a great deal of effort and he slipped several times on his own blood that had collected upon the seat and floor beneath him, he finally managed to stand upright and emerge through the tram doors. Even in his daze Isaac was well aware of the fact that the necromorphs did not accompany him on the tram, and the Flight Deck was quite a distance from Communications to be traveled on foot, even for creatures as large as these. Nevertheless, Isaac was astonished to see all three of them standing upon the deck as soon as he exited the tram shuttle.

_How'd... you get... you get here, so... so...?_

The two Dividers immediately came forward to catch Isaac as he stumbled out, taking hold of his weight between them as he became too weak to carry himself properly. They reached the hangar doors, and at Isaac's harsh glare upon the hololock it sprung to life and opened without a single touch. The heavy, pneumatic gates slowly slid open, and the necromorphs ushered Isaac forth into the darkened hangar beyond.

The environment was swallowed in blackness save for the localized pulsating of the Marker refracting off the steel walls from below. As the necromorphs led Isaac towards the stolen cruiser still parked on the track, he could barely hear how the air was filled with the incessant chattering of the infector swarm that covered the hangar floor; it was a sound that was second only to the enigmatic chanting of the Marker that reverberated powerfully through Isaac's body as he came closer to it. He stared over the railing down at the ominous artifact, erected among a sea of violent infectors, and understanding that the necromorphs accompanying him could go no closer to it, he arduously continued forth alone towards the access ladder against the wall and descended to the floor.

_make us whole safekeeper of this holy vessel_

Isaac drifted through the layer of infectors as they scrambled to avoid his heavy, plated feet with the hastened movement of a colony of insects. Though they were physically blind, Isaac's inverted eyes never once fell away from the Marker; through his transcendent vision the Marker appeared more beautiful and full of indescribable mysterion than he could ever recall of its ancient, crimson surfaces. Everything else was ejected from his mind as he proceeded toward it, becoming less and less concerned about his own position as it loomed in his consciousness as all that ever existed. He stopped a few feet from it as the ocean of infectors beneath him parted like a silver tide, and he raised his arms in an attempt to shift the monolithic spire into loading position with what little energy he had left.

_Please... help me now..._

He closed his eyes in deep meditation upon the Marker, and focusing upon nothing else he moved his hands and suddenly heard the screeching grind of the metal track as the cage began to move. However, Isaac very quickly found that maintaining the momentum of something so large was becoming increasingly daunting to him in his weakened state. He started to breathe heavily under the strain as if he were feeling the weight of the Marker upon his own shoulders, and as his stamina gave out he suddenly dropped his arms and slumped to his knees. The transport cage immediately ground to a halt as Isaac's concentration shattered, and he slammed an angered fist into the floor as despair began to overcome him. He frustratingly began to wonder to himself if he might just die right there on the floor, his lifeless body consumed by the cannibalistic creatures that swarmed all around him, all because...

**_I can't move this motherfucking rock!_**

He dropped his head hopelessly into his chest.

_Evanescent wave, you will travel the ends of our universe. Rise._

Isaac heard the Hunter's deep modulations across the back of his throbbing skull, and he looked up to see it was staring down at him from the second floor control room balcony, near the gravity controls. It was motioning with its massive, tusklike appendages for Isaac to stand up, and he unquestioningly obeyed it's commanding gesture just as the Hunter sealed the hangar gates and activated the anti-gravity system. The departure of gravity took hold upon Isaac and he felt the weightlessness upon his body, gently lifting into the air in the brief delay before his gravity boots activated to latch him to the floor. Once he was oriented again Isaac glanced back up at the Hunter, and with a renewed sense of determination inspired by it's burning red eyes upon him he raised his hand and returned his attention to the Marker.

Again with a loud, screeching sound it began to slide along the track, and right way Isaac was relieved to see as it posed far less resistance due to the displacement of its weight in the lack of gravity. Isaac began to stalk his way down the track, following behind the Marker to maneuver it into place, and as he reached the opposite end of the track and neared the loading mechanism on the cruiser, the automatic mechanical lifting arm wrapped its large, metal clamps around the cage and lifted the Marker into the cargo hold. The Marker disappeared into the bowels of the cruiser, Isaac finally released his hold upon it and stumbled backwards, dropping his arms lifelessly at his sides. He listened as the Marker's chanting became slightly muted by the thick, steel doors of the cruiser sealing to contain it.

_Now... that wasn't so bad, was it?_

From out of nowhere the Hive Mind came up behind Isaac, staring up at the cruiser alongside him with a terse smile. He turned to look at her and saw that she was hovering at his shoulder, her entire body slightly suspended above the ground by a few inches in direct response to the zero gravity environment. Though he knew well by now her ethereal nature and that she was not bound by the physical environment as he was, still he found it somewhat charming that she made earnest attempts to play along within the rules of their game to make the hallucination as real to him as possible.

_That's that. Well, let's go._

She nodded and beckoned him back to the bridge access ladder. With a small growl Isaac started for it, climbed back up to the Bridge and stumbled for the cruiser with the Hive Mind close in tow. Just as he reached the base of the ramp, he turned his head in thought as it occurred to him that his impending departure for the Aegis7 Colony might spark the need to impart some last instructions upon the crew of the Ishimura he was leaving behind. Closing his eyes and seeking out the Captain's infected life signature, Isaac telepathically called out for his audience.

_Leave... we're leaving... Matthius. You... you have... you... the ship... now._

Isaac opened his eyes upon feeling the unexpected approach of Captain Matthius at his back, and he shockingly realized that in his travels through the infected bodies at his disposal, Isaac had inadvertently jumped into the consciousness of one of the systems navigators standing post next to Matthius within the Bridge. Through the navigator's eyes Isaac saw as Matthius cocked an eyebrow at him, at first confused by the underling who had without any prior impetus suddenly looked up from the holomonitors before him to address the Captain with such a stern and superior tone. But as the man's darkened eyes burned into Matthius, the Captain immediately recognized the cold, inhuman glare of his safekeeper. He lowered his eyes and head in unhesitating submission.

_As you wish, Mr. Clarke._

The navigator's body language began to reflect Isaac's own inability to function properly. Suddenly developed shaking hands, and he started blinking repetitively.

_We expect... we... we're expecting... someone. Hold... hold, position... May... may call upon... call upon your assistance._

Matthius nodded gravely, eying the man's sudden;y obvious disorder.

_Understood, Sir._

Isaac spoke no further, and he withdrew from the navigator's body. As he returned to his outer senses within the Flight Hangar, he turned to the Hive Mind and point with a tense, agitated finger up the loading ramp.

_After... after, after you... dear._

The Hive Mind grimaced at the sarcasm she sensed slathering his voice, and she turned away to ascend the ramp. As Isaac attempted to follow her he suddenly lost his equilibrium and fell over, tumbling to the ground and roughly knocking his head against the hard, metal grating of the ramp. He gripped his skull and scowled angrily under his breath as a stream of blood trailed from his gash to the floor.

_This... hope... hopeless... can't even get... in the godd... goddamn ship..._

As he leaned forward upon his arms on the ground, recovering from a minor concussion, he heard the Hive Mind's voice.

_You have to stop this. You're better than this, Isaac. Why can't you see that?_

So exhausted, even Isaac's mentally projected voice was panting heavily.

_I... I... I'm... I'm a failure... I... always was... I just... don't know... why you... why you... chose... me..._

He made another attempt to ascend the ramp, having to resort to practically crawling his way up. Taking pity on him, the Hive Mind sighed and crossed her arms.

_Two thousand._

He looked up at her through his dead eyes.

_What?_

_Two thousand people, Isaac. There were over two thousand people on board the Ishimura when the Marker was disturbed, and I was awakened. _

Isaac leaned against the side of the ship as he fought to catch his breath and focus on opening the door. His energy was fading quickly, almost entirely diverted towards reinforcing his breathing and movement, and he groped for the wall, searching for the door. He felt the indent of the opening in the side of the cruiser, he slammed his fist against the hololock and pulled himself into the ship as the door opened.

Isaac felt his way along the interior of the ship, depending upon his ethereal senses to guide him until he sidled his way into the cockpit and located the pilot's chair. He stepped around the seat and collapsed upon it, overtaken by the heat of a scarlet fever, and after wiping the bloody sweat that covered his head with shaking hands that were difficult to control, Isaac leaned forward and began feeling for the controls in front of him. He ran his hands just over the surface of the control panel, and as he detected the dormant current of the ship's electrical system coursing through it beneath his fingers, the entire system lit up and came to life upon his telekinetic bond. The system automatically engaged the initiation sequences in response to his thoughts, and the engines roared to life.

The Hive Mind trailed him all the way to the cockpit, watching as he tumbled awkwardly into the pilot's chair and turned his nerveless attention towards activating the flight controls.

_Out of two thousand people, in the course of just a few weeks, not one of them made it out alive. So many people couldn't stop a single one of us._

Isaac suddenly paused in his routine and lowered his head a bit, bitterly reminded of Nicole's frightening journey.

_... I know._

The Hive Mind sat down beside Isaac in the second pilot's seat as he set the undocking procedures, and she turned her eyes out the front window as the warning strobes lit up all around the hangar.

_Then... you came, Isaac. You came to the Ishimura, and out of ten thousand necromorphs,_ _not one of us could stop a single man._

Isaac failed to respond, trying desperately to ignore her but unable to deny her logic. He felt her hand suddenly grip his shoulder, and she leaned in to whisper to him.

_So tell me, Isaac... are you really just a man? Is that what you are inclined to think?_

Upon this, Isaac turned and looked at her. Unsure of what to draw as a conclusion from her disturbing question, he remained silent. The Hive Mind smiled at his dark, troubled expression as he turned away, which spoke volumes more to her than his words ever could, and she leaned back in the seat until her face became entirely obscured in the shadows of the cockpit cabin. Isaac suspired quietly and slouched back in his seat, taking the intermission in peaceful isolation to recover from his exhaustion as the cruiser lifted off and departed the Ishimura hangar on a beeline course for the Aegis7 Colony.

The cabin fell completely quiet save for the gentle hum of the engines and the faint, resonant chanting in the back of his head, and Isaac looked out the cockpit window to search out the biggest, brightest star he could find impregnated within the vast, black womb of space. Within a few minutes they approached the atmosphere of the planet and he caught sight of Aegis7's red sphere looming into view from below, just as the cruiser began its descent. Isaac finally closed his eyes, carried away upon the transient, static waves of the Marker's chanting emanating steadily from the cargo hold just beneath their feet.

It seemed to Isaac that he had never heard a sweeter sound.


	36. Absolution Is At Hand

**Chapter 36  
Absolution Is At Hand**

**_"From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost one falls down again into the material pool."_  
- B.G., 2.63**

* * *

_Perfect. It's like we never left._

The cruiser descended through the clouds of Aegis7, and as the ground became visible through the cockpit window, Isaac looked out past the massive crater on its opposite side near the jagged stone peaks where he remembered the landlocked Ishimura to have been. As they had just departed from it, it was illogical to think that he might see it there now; however, much to his keen astonishment, he indeed saw that there still appeared to be the very large, looming steel carcass of a crashed ship, jutting partially out of the sand in the same exact location. The Hive Mind watched him, and desiring to put his mind at ease she placed her hand atop his upon the control panel.

_We're rebuilding. Just like before._

_Where'd... they come from? Who is that?_

_It won't be long, now. You're getting quite proficient at what you do here._

Isaac watched the wreckage until he finally lost sight of it to their descent past the stone mountain peaks. As the cruiser approached the Colony Isaac turned his attention to the complex, which once again appeared from the outside to be abandoned by all signs of life; however, just as before, he knew all too well that they were not alone in this place.

Isaac initiated the automatic docking procedures as the landing pad came into view, the cruiser navigated its way into position and set down. The stifling silence of the lonely desert environment invaded the cabin the moment the engines choked, muting Isaac's throbbing eardrums beneath its blanket of impenetrable quiet until all he could hear was ringing, and he looked cautiously out the front window. Feeling dizzy he pressed a hand to his head, and the Hive Mind glossed him over with concern.

_Take it easy. Don't overexert yourself. One step at a time._

Isaac felt her grip upon him now more than ever, tearing at him within. It was obvious that she was so impatient, so desperate and absolutely hellbent on getting the Marker back to its rightful position by this point, that where she once respected the boundaries of authority over his body, she now thought little of imposing her own personal intervention over him. Now, she no longer had any intention of allowing him rest until the Marker's breach was sealed, and her bond was assured. Unable to resist her, Isaac braced himself and stood upon weak, withered leg muscles that burned with exhaustion, and as she pointed to the exit hatch he took a deep breath and stumbled forward, dismayed by just how heavy his body felt to him.

He exited the ship and stepped out into the open air of Aegis7 for the first time in what felt like centuries, and as he came into contact with the dazzling effulgence of the sun, he raised an awkward, defensive hand to protect his eyes. He realized now that it had been quite a while since he had been in the presence of such unprecedented ultraviolet, since he had breathed air that hadn't been artificially recycled millions of times, and upon all of these revelations suddenly assaulting his sick, degenerated senses, Isaac began to seriously regret having left his suit and helmet behind. Bathed by the sun's painfully sterilizing rays, he looked down and saw with magnified clarity just how physically deteriorated his own body had become over his time spent within the mausoleum of the Ishimura; his burning retinas barely perceived the unholy, blood caked scars crossing every inch of his skin like marks of the beast, and he found himself desperately wishing he had his suit back... anything, just to hide from the terrifying reality.

_Ignorance was bliss. Or bliss was ignorant. And relative._

The Hive Mind startled Isaac from behind with a prod of her finger, shattering his concentration. She pointed down the ramp and he gripped the railing with shaking arms, barely able to feel his fingers as he guided his weight down the steep grade. He approached the main deck and dragged himself around the back of the cruiser, reaching for the control panel to unload the Marker, all while occasionally eying the Hive Mind with suspicion as he worked. After several frustratingly disorganized attempts at the controls Isaac finally managed the proper key sequence, and within a few minutes the loading mechanism plucked the giant relic from the bowels of the cruiser and locked its transport cage to the electromagnetic track. When the mechanism completed its task and fell dormant, Isaac slowly collapsed upon the control panel out of exhaustion. But his rest was short-lived as he soon felt the relentless, sharp tipped fingernails of the Hive Mind stabbing into his back.

_You can't fall asleep. We have to move it to the other side of the complex._

Isaac grumbled, forcing his eyes open as he turned back to look at her.

_No, the... pedestal couldn't be right here... That would be too... convenient, wouldn't... it?_

_Hey... you know, this is just as painful for me as it is for you. I've had to chaperon this pathetic shit._

Irritated, Isaac pushed himself off the control panel and started for the Colony complex. He stared blankly ahead, and as he passed the Red Marker he absently raised his hand toward it, beckoning it forth. Upon his will the transport cage set into motion, and it followed behind him on the track with a minor display of sparkling fireworks as the electrified rails made contact with the metal cage. As Isaac toted the massive rock along he felt the weight of it counteracting his own forward momentum, and he discovered much to his relief that this supported him like an anchor, allowing him to pitch forward in his unbalanced state without fear of falling over. Taking advantage of the opportunity he continued to drag himself forward on slow, heavy feet, using the Marker to help carry him, until he felt a drop in temperature across his body cast in the shadow of the towering complex.

He opened his eyes, and looked up to see the familiar steel walls of the Colony, built into the desert rock and vandalized all over by marks and words written in dried blood that had by now come to distinctly identify the aura of agonizing madness and death that surrounded this place. As he neared the massive complex gates and looked around, Isaac thought he saw glimpses of heated, red eyes staring at him from everywhere, conveying their deepest respect and fear, darting about the many hidden pathways and watching with the eagerness of children as he headed inside with his enigmatic payload.

Isaac entered through the doors and dragged the Marker into the secondary access hall, then searched out the faintly glowing holopanel of the gate controls with his hands. He quickly located it and opened the gate, hauled the massive stone structure through to the inside, and once beyond he paused briefly to take in his surroundings. The chanting of the Marker reverberated off the steel walls of the room to capture Isaac's attention, reminding him of the very first time he had ever attempted to cross these very same bridges even as the most chosen among the necromorph elite descended upon him like plagues of demonic locust, each and every one intent on bringing his journey to a bloody standstill. He remembered just how terrifyingly enraptured he had been, how his own wild, restless eyes had darted about nonstop for hours that stretched into days in torturous anticipation of his next bloodthirsty aggressor, each of whom was more foul and depraved than the last. He recalled the overpowering odor of their virulent, decaying flesh, how it had managed to somehow permeate even the multifaceted filtration of his oxygen support system as it emanated ceaselessly like smoke from the curtains of hazardous decomposition hanging all over the walls.

All of this he had come to expect, perhaps to even welcome in some way as he again traversed the very same birthplace of such horror, but as Isaac looked around the inside of the Colony storehouse and saw the miraculous progress that the virus had made since his last visit, it became clear that even with what he he had come to see of the Ishimura's growth, his ability to accurately predict the necromorph virus under his so-called control still failed him to a significant degree.

_Even the Colony... everything. Reborn as one._

The entire complex was thoroughly entangled in the virus's dendroidal, ever-evolving menagerie of living flesh and assimilated materials, and upon first glance the complex resembled the insides of a gigantically wondrous, conglomerative biological entity. Almost every surface point he could see, be it composed of integrated steel, carbon, chrome, blood, tissue or skin, flaunted a deep, brilliant red bioluminescence from deep within that gently pulsated down the lengths of its muscular structures in perfectly synced cycles, like a finely unified network of neural synapses. The air all around was warm and moist, quickly blotting Isaac's skin with blood red condensation, and it was surcharged with the infectious particles exuded by the breathing of this ominous, biomechanical organism. It was distinctly tinged with an attractive, viral scent that influenced Isaac to draw several deep, absorbing breaths of it.

While he had once again come to recognize the undeniable traits of the virus, Isaac was still amazed to see that, just like on the Ishimura, it's slow, steady consummation the Colony had taken on a most phenomenal, symbiotic integration of life and machine towards a single, superior end that made him in that moment both profoundly honored and deeply terrified to be a part of it.

_You are the Architect. Your path is their path._

Isaac tilted his head, perturbed by the Hive Mind's words. She had only hinted at this subject many times now, and as cold and lifeless as her expression appeared to be on the outside, her tone was strained to suppress a sense of idolization as if bearing witness to a most rare and tremendous prestige that he himself did not quite fully understand. Having come to simply accept everything she said - at least superficially - in order to keep the peace and afford him some breathing room, Isaac had been too afraid of her to admit that he still had virtually no grasp on the true nature of his situation, or why she kept referring to him as an architect, but he considered mustering up the courage to question her now. Just as he prepared to speak, she cut him off.

_C'mon, Isaac. They are on their way._

He stiffened in instinctive defense.

_Huh?... Wh... who's on their way?_

_I've already told you. Your benefactors. _

_You mean... from the... from Sprawl? _

Her lips tightened a little.

_Let's keep moving. We have to be prepared to receive them. _

* * *

_"Entering orbit now; contact time, six minutes."_

The Counselor and the Overseer both lifted their heads at the sound of the pilot's voice over the intercom as their shuttle approached Aegis7's outer atmosphere. The Overseer shot his eyes out the window into deep space, anxiously searching for the USG Ishimura, the USM Valor or the USM Credence. He had half hoped that they would have found at least one of the ships reported missing upon their approach, but he saw that the vacant orbit around Aegis7 contained not a single ship in sight other than their own shuttle. Neither the pilot nor any of the other crew had given indication of having picked up the ships' signals on their scanners.

Seeing the odds stacking up against him, the Overseer's heart began to sink with dread. The idea that these three rather well known ships had entirely vanished in the same sector beneath his watch meant that his time, along with the Counselor's, in control over the Marker project was swiftly drawing to an end. It was merely a matter of hours before those above them both would realize that they had fled the Sprawl and returned to Aegis7 in an unauthorized breach of the sector quarantine, and personally sweep in to seize control over the entire planet in what he feared would be no less than a Church-fueled _coup de tat. _He knew that unless they found and secured the Marker as their negotiation piece, he and the Counselor would never leave Aegis7 alive. Their time in which to act was very short.

"My god... beautiful."

His thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the Counselor, who had been contemplating her own weight in personal strife and broke from her inner reflections to remark on the scenery out the side window of the transport shuttle. The sunlight penetrated the thick cloud cover of Aegis7 and bathed their cabin interior in its overpowering orange haze; though it was a vision she could recall having seen many times before throughout her life, she could not remember any one of those times being more poignant than now.

The Overseer, sitting directly across from her on the opposite side of the cabin with arms crossed, had far less interest in their environment, and he neglected to find the same inspiring beauty in it. He simply stared at the Counselor, all the while wondering what it was she knew about this place, and why. His mind was plagued by the fact that despite their close working relationship that spanned several decades, never had there been a time when he did not secretly question her personal motivation and it's inherent effects upon everything she did for the Council, for him, and ultimately, the Church's vested interest. The confirmation of her continued communications with Challus Mercer, whom he had been led to believe by her was already dead, only served to further his suspicions as to her involvement, and why she felt the need to be so deceitful with him. The closer they got to the apparently abandoned Colony, the more the Overseer's fear of her began to evolve into an outright irritation at her intransigence.

_No matter what she had in mind, he would be leaving with the Marker in his possession... otherwise, she wouldn't be. He would personally see to that._

He discreetly fingered the charging switch of the hand divet upon his belt_. _

"Sir."

The Overseer slowly lifted his head to look at Counselor as he heard her voice echo through the cabin.

"...Yes?"

She stared upon him through dark, ancient and deep pitted eyes.

"If my vision serves me correctly, I believe the Marker will be on the opposite side of the complex, near the pedestal. I suggest when we land that we bring some of the soldiers with us."

He considered her suggestion, then nodded dispiritedly.

"You're the one who knows what we're walking into here."

She heard the hesitation in his voice, and she knew that his faith in her was teetering on the brink of collapse.

"Don't worry, Sir. Our purpose will be fulfilled. I promise you."

He had nothing left to say to her, simply stared into her eyes with a distant hope that she was, at the very least, being honest about that. A moment later, the pilot's voice arose on the intercom.

_"We'll be on the ground in two minutes. Masks on."_

The Counselor and the Overseer donned their open-environment oxygen masks at the pilot's command, detecting with their own bodies a slight change in pressure as they finally broke through the last of the cloud layer. The Counselor immediately spotted the Colony complex on the ground far below, and she began to scan the area all around the massive crater pit in search of a sign.

_A sign that he was still there. Somewhere._

She failed to find what she was seeking, but at that moment her eyes suddenly fell upon the distant, knife-edge peaks that ran down the backside of the Colony like a twisting spinal column, and just on the other side of it she was completely astounded to see the jagged, chaotic whorl of what she immediately interpreted to be the crash site of a very large ship. The distance of it from the Colony made it obvious that it was not related to the complex itself, and it was too small to have been the Ishimura. Her eyes widened.

_What was happening here? What had he been doing all this time? _

In a panic she glanced wildly at the Overseer, and seeing that he was unable to observe the wreckage from their angle, she realized that he was unaware of it. She was a bit surprised and wondering how the pilot could have missed it with his scanners or even his own eyes as they descended toward the Colony, but desperately driven by her own Marker-induced sickness to accomplish her mission, she did not want to distract or derail the Overseer in any way. Instead, she looked down and remained silent, hoping that the crash site would somehow continue to remain undetected by the crew. Only when their altitude finally fell below visible eyeshot of the crash site did she finally feel confident enough to breathe again.

They quickly approached the landing dock of the Colony, which was partially occupied by what appeared to be a USM military cruiser parked upon it and surrounded by the Colony buildings that emerged from the sand like the bones of a skeleton's hand reaching desperately for the freedom of open sky. A few moments later their shuttle landed upon the dock next to the dormant cruiser, and the pilot radioed back through the intercom.

_"Sir, I've run a scan on this ship. I've confirmed that it's a scouting vessel registered to the USM Credence. But we're not picking up any life signs aboard it, or anywhere here."_

The Overseer drew a breath to respond, but was interrupted by the Counselor.

"Your trackers won't see them, Captain. They're beyond your scope. He's definitely here."

The pilot remained silent over the line, unsure of how to respond to her, until the Overseer finally cut in.

"Deploy the soldiers, Captain."

"_Yes. Sir."_

The Overseer and Counselor both stood and prepared to exit as the remaining crew, a small company of devout soldiers enlisted personally by the Counselor for their mission, disembarked and surrounded the shuttle. The two emerged from the cabin and descended the loading ramp, and upon reaching the dock the Counselor could now plainly recognize everywhere the weathered streaks of blood, traced into the runes of the Marker.

_Just as she had seen once before, here in this place, with her own eyes._

She suddenly experienced a frightening inner vision that twisted her face into an expression of pure distress, and it caught the attention of the Overseer.

"Are you alright, Madam? What is it?"

She heard a voice, echoing like a faraway, foreboding whisper, deep inside her head.

**help me i am here**

The Counselor pressed a hand to her head and she jumped back with a small shriek, trying to escape the delusional imagery of an aphotic black beast, covered in armored plates and capped by a bright, glowing blue face, as it leapt at her from behind then vanished like a ghost. The Overseer remained frozen to the spot as he watched the sudden terror spill across her face, then after a long, suspenseful moment, she finally looked up at him and nodded curtly.

"I'm fine. We have to keep moving."

She motioned authoritatively towards the Colony complex and the soldiers set ahead, carefully securing the area and opening the gates. Leaving a few of them behind to guard the loading dock and their ship, the Overseer and Counselor headed inside in pursuit of the Marker.

They entered the dank, dimly lit complex, and looked around in order to acclimate to the darkness. The moment they stepped into the enclosed area the visors of their oxygen masks were immediately sheeted in a fine layer of blood particles, which in the darkness hampered what little vision they did have with a runny, crimson haze. The Counselor irritably wiped her hand across her mask to clear the visor, and shivering with premonition she strode into the room. The soldiers set to work on patching into the systems, and once they accessed the emergency lighting grid the Counselor, the Overseer and everyone else present were stunned by the reality that was revealed to them in the harsh floodlight.

Almost every inch of the environment from floor to ceiling was overrun by what appeared to be a smooth, seamless covering of integument, blossoming into tough, fibrous structures that grew upon and spread throughout the entire building like colossal vines to dominate everything in its path. The many tendrils that stretched upward into the darkness beyond the floodlights' reach vanished until all that could be seen of them was the faint, crimson luminescence that emanated from inside their semi translucent flesh. But the significance of what they were seeing lay not only in the strange alien biomatter everywhere, but in the fact that this flesh had come to immaculately embrace, consume and assimilate everything, including the present equipment and technology, augmenting into every system until the Colony itself had become a living, breathing part of it.

Despite this grotesquely mesmerizing display of the Marker's dominion over this place, the Counselor failed to be anywhere near as shocked or appalled as the rest of her company. The Overseer himself on the other hand was frightened to the point of swallowing back a dull, numb taste upon his tongue, and as he lost his nerve he retreated backwards a few steps.

"... Holy hell... what... what is..."

His large, terrified eyes darted about from one massive lifeform stretching across the walls to the next, and the more he continued to look upon them the more of it seemed to manifest all around until he realized that the entire complex was engulfed in whatever strange and foreboding curse this was. He then turned a stark face back to the Counselor, becoming even more unnerved to see that she did not share in his level of complete horror and amazement.

"C... Counselor..."

The old woman ignored him and continued to look around with an almost sadistically childish wonder that disturbed the Overseer. She didn't seem to be the least bit threatened by the hazardous environment but rather willingly embracing it, and as he watched her strange behavior he could only again debate the level of her deception, and just how much about what was happening here that she was actually aware of, if not responsible for in some way. He just couldn't understand it; he had heard the talks between Mercer and the others, he had seen the reports of infection, the casualty tallies. He had personally heard some of the horrifying distress broadcasts that had been intercepted during the time of the Ishimura's tragic events. Still, none of these pieces had in themselves previously come together to paint such a dire and malevolent picture of the truth, and he simply was not prepared for any of what he was being forced to witness now as he came to understand that this was not a viral epidemic – it was a hostile, alien invasion that was determined to control everything surrounding the Marker. The indescribable phenomena he saw all around him only hinted at the breadth of his own counsel's subversion, and he couldn't understand why, even after all of his own involvement and sacrifice towards their goal, they had chosen to keep something so vital from him.

_What had he actually been condoning on their behalf? What had they been doing with the executive control he had given to them, and did the Church know about any of it? _

The Counselor stepped up behind him.

"It's evolving. The Marker is awake, for sure."

The old man was unable to reply, baffled by this woman who was becoming more of a stranger to him by the moment. He stared at her, irked by the very sound her her retched voice, saw that her eyes had darkened and her expression was almost ghoulish, outright enthusiastic to explore the many gruesome things surrounding them. Tried as he had to this point to support her having come as far as they did, his continuing paranoia of who his Counselor actually was finally pushed him enough to fully rebuke her.

"What are you _talking_ about? This can't be the work of the Marker! I haven't seen anything like -"

"Shut up, you old fool. You have no idea what we're dealing with here. And neither do those of your precious congregation."

The Overseer recoiled as she hissed at him despite his having authority over her, which at this point seemed completely obsolete. Without any further regard for his concerns she stepped past the shocked Overseer, turning her attention back to the menagerie of mutation spreading out before them like the landscape of a living city cast in crimson moonlight. In gazing upon it, she could not hold back a smile from forming on her face as she recognized the trademark precision of a highly experienced engineer's hands and mind directing the virus's integration into the construction of the complex.

_What meticulous craftsmanship. She had come to expect no less of him and his work. _

* * *

Isaac continued on his arduous trek along with the Hive Mind, who by this point was so anxious to finish their mission that she now lead the way ahead of him through the complex, urging him on mercilessly. As he eyed her dark, alluring visage from behind Isaac was disturbingly reminded more and more of Kendra, along with the misfortune of her betrayal that day so long ago. When he recalled his earlier conversation with the Hive Mind about Kendra's fate, Isaac couldn't help but wonder what she had meant by 'gone', and what had ultimately become of his deceptive former Kellion teammate. The more he looked around the Complex, the more he brooded upon how his last journey through this place had ended in Kendra's attempted abduction of the Marker, her cruel, spiteful unveiling of Nicole's final message to him, and her leaving him trapped in that decontamination chamber just minutes before her own brutal death.

_After everything they had been through... no matter how briefly they had..._

The Hive Mind fell back as she sensed Isaac's desire to be alone, and she concealed herself within the shadows of his mind, listening intently to his mental activity. She perceived as he sadly pondered the animosity between he and the woman he had loved in the shadows of his past, and how due to the tragic circumstances surrounding her demise he had not had the opportunity to make his peace with her. She witnessed his struggle in coming to terms with his predicament; having been so caught up in his obsession to find Nicole, the issue of laying old skeletons to rest with Kendra had occurred to him as little more than an issue of minor importance. But now, in his many long hours spent in isolation with only this empty shell of Kendra's psychic reproduction to accompany him, he felt surprisingly affected by how much he regretted the way things had ended between them.

Seeking to drive away the sadness that threatened to overcome and weaken him, Isaac turned instead to a seething hatred for Kendra's treachery that he found much easier to cope with. The Hive Mind noticed his rising anger as it manifested through the increasing strength in his charge.

_You'll have your closure, Isaac... although, I don't really see what good it's going to do. It's simply going to be another barrier that I'll end up having to clear away._

Isaac turned away, not quite sure what to make of her rhetoric, and returned to moving the Marker. However, as time passed he was becoming more and more aware of another presence that was following him, creeping along through the darkness and drawing no more attention to itself than that of a blind spot. At first he thought it might have simply been the energy of one of the necromorphs keeping constant vigil over his pilgrimage to the pedestal, but when he realized that the Hive Mind was not keen to this presence as he was, he right away came to understand that this was not the case. Suspecting who it was he gave no physical acknowledgment to it in order to avoid drawing the Hive Mind's attention, and he continued on.

Isaac approached another set of double gates, and as he stepped through to get to the other side he suddenly caught a flash of something just across the track on the opposite walkway. He looked up with alarm, then quickly concealed his panic beneath a mask of stone just as the Hive Mind stepped in through the first set of doors behind him. Panicked as he was that the Hive Mind might find this hidden presence, Isaac was secretly elated within to know that his friend had not given up on him. He had to fight the urge to smile.

_Be careful, Nicole, I don't know how much longer I..._

Isaac bolted as the Hive Mind crept up behind him and placed an icy cold hand to his shoulder.

_What's the matter? You seem, distracted._

Trying to ignore her, Isaac pressed on without a word to the next room of the complex. All the while he kept an eye out for Nicole, unable to physically see her, sensing her dejection and fear of being left behind. The closer they got to the other end of the complex and the Marker's pedestal, the more concern he had for Nicole, imagining her tender, defenseless body to be endlessly trapped in this foul place, just like him. He again reflected sadly upon what his actions here would accomplish, what would happen to them all once the Marker's bond was completed, and this filled him with certain doubt about their future.

**it will destroy you**

Isaac paused and glanced up upon hearing Nicole's soft, seraphic whisper inside his head.

**this thing is your true enemy**

Isaac became frantic. Nicole's voice was resonating louder and louder, and he was certain that the Hive Mind would pick up the vibration at one point or another. Still, he continued forward without outwardly expressing any psychological cues and fighting through a layer of ice cold sweat across his entire body.

**you must face your reality**

The nagging, incessant voices of the Marker he had also been hearing the entire time suddenly increased in volume, pounding against the insides of his temples, as if in direct retaliation to Nicole's attempts to communicate with him. Isaac squeezed his eyes shut.

_Shut up... Go away... goddamnit, just go away..._

Isaac approached the final set of gates within the complex, leading outside to the rear bridge and the Marker's pedestal. He opened the gates and stepped out through them, but was forced to pause just beyond the threshold, out of breath and raising his hand in defense against another onslaught of the sun's rays as they seared his skin from nearly a billion miles away. Once having acclimated himself enough to carry on, Isaac struggled to haul the Marker through the open gates.

As Isaac reached the start of the bridge and paused to look around, he became overwhelmed by the memories he carried of this particular place. He recalled the countless necromorphs of all the most violent and frightening persuasions that had descended upon him, all with insidious, twisted bodies black as burning cinder and fast as lightning. He remembered the horde of wild, undulating tentacles that had erupted all around the bridge, covered in their own blood and explosive, infected flesh, swinging recklessly to and fro upon even the slightest approach in defense of the Marker and its pedestal. Upon seeing that the rocky outcropping was now thoroughly devoid of any of their kind, Isaac briefly wondered to himself just where all of these beasts had vanished to in his absence, and whether they had undergone the same form of evolution as those aboard the USG Ishimura.

He glanced ahead of him to the rocky ground at the end of the bridge as it fell away into a steep drop hundreds of meters down into the crater pit, recalling as the once monstrous form of the Hive Mind, imminently devastating and unstoppable like an earthquake, emerged from this very same chasm to defend what, at the time, rightfully belonged to it.

_Had he only known then what terrible fate awaited him... he would have gladly pressed the face of his plasma cutter to his own head and pulled the trigger._

How startled he was to hear Nicole's voice emanate from somewhere behind him.

_Isaac, don't give up on me._

He looked over his shoulder and smiled to see Nicole padding her way toward him on silent feet, her hands clasped before her chest. As she neared he saw how her blood smeared face seemed drained by her sorrow, her usually bright eyes dimmed now by the disheartening realizations she had come to about Isaac's rising sense of defeat and consent to return the Marker.

_You'd better not listen to her._

As painful as it was for him to do so, he refused to embrace her and kept moving forward.

… _I have to. I... have no choice._

Nicole's eyes widened and she closed in, coming short of his position by just a few feet and afraid to get any closer. She eyed the small, rocky catwalk that ran parallel to the bridge he was traversing, and seeing as it placed her safely just of his reach she jumped up onto it and continued to follow alongside him, her pleas becoming more and more adamant.

_Yes you do! You don't have to do this. She'll do anything she can to get that Marker back where she wants it. She doesn't care about you. If you put that Marker back..._

Still, Isaac continued forth.

_We... we can't move on... until I finish what I... started._

_We'll find a way, Isaac! As long as the bond isn't complete, you're still here... we can find a way to outsmart her._

_It won't work. Nothing... seems to work. This is... the only thing... left to... to do._

Seeing that she failed to deter him she faltered, no longer able to hold back her tears, and she pursued him like a sobbing apparition.

_Isaac, please... please... listen to me. You can't do this. I don't want to die. I don't want us to become lost forever. Do you remember what you said to me, Isaac? You always wanted everyone to know we were here._

Isaac growled and glared sharply over his shoulder at her, resorting to his anger in an attempt to scare her off.

_Go the fuck away! You're already... dead, Nicole. Or just a... a fucking... bad memory. I don't know what the... hell you are. Go away! _

Still, she followed him relentlessly.

_Are you completely insane? What do I have to do to show you that I'm real?_

Isaac slowed his pace, then finally stopped and stared at her.

_I don't know... really... don't know what's real... anymore. I... don't know what to do anymore... I don't want to do this, Nicki. But it's... the only way. _

_You know this isn't the only way to end this._

She stared right back at him until her mournful eyes evolved into fiery red lenses.

_Remember how you found the Hive Mind, Isaac. As long as the Marker's bond remains incomplete, it can happen again. _

As they stared deep into each others' eyes, Nicole suddenly smiled.

_They have come to help us. _

* * *

Roughly a couple of hours after arriving on Aegis7, the Overseer, the Counselor, and their company of soldiers reached the opposite end of the complex. The soldiers opened the gates, and the moment they stepped through the large steel doors they immediately saw the giant red Marker, glowing angrily near the end of the bridge, several yards from the base of it's pedestal. Save for the giant obelisk itself, the entire area appeared to be empty with no one in sight. The squad leader of the company ran a scan of the area, then turned to the Overseer with a shake of his helmeted head.

"_No reported lifesigns, Sir."_

The Counselor scowled and took an anxious step forward, glancing all around her with shrewd, discriminating eyes.

_She knew their secretive ways... and of their rather resourceful Convergent._

The Overseer, who before this day had never personally been to Aegis7 or seen the Marker, failed to perceive the hidden dangers that lurked all around them. In his naively moonstruck state as he stood before the massive stone tower, all he could think about was...

_The Marker. _

He stared at it, marveled at it, felt it pulling at him from within. He began to hear countless voices speaking to him, luring him towards it, and all of his fears became lost beneath a wave of unexplained, uncontrollable excitement and desire to make contact with the ancient relic. He flashed a ravenous smile.

"Well... Madam... I say, it looks like the Marker won't be as difficult to retrieve as we... thought."

He waved his hand, and a couple of soldiers set out to secure it the Marker. The Overseer swept another glance across the barren area, encouraged by a boost of confidence that spread into a pretentious grin.

"I have to admit, the virus in there is quite interesting, but the way everyone has been going on about it lately, I suppose I was expecting something a little more... eventful."

The Counselor merely continued looking around, ignoring his comment. Picking up little more than the distant vibrations of the endless desert winds, she shook her head with frustration.

_He simply had to be here. He wouldn't have led her here for nothing, would he? _

As they both stood in complete fascination, both she and the Overseer were suddenly interrupted by a disturbing sound coming from somewhere off to their left. The Counselor, the first to hear it, sharpened her focus and turned towards the sound, coming from the shadows behind a defunct decontamination chamber that was partially constructed into the side of the rock face. The soldiers immediately prepped their rifles and took defensive posture around the Overseer and the Counselor as they subsequently picked up on the repetitive sounds echoing off the rocks – sharp and full of friction like the scraping of a blade across stone. The squad leader shook his head as he looked around dubiously.

"_It's probably just some malfunctioning..."_

The squad leader's voice ceased as the Counselor raised her hand to silence him, and when they listened to the air again they all realized that the sound they were hearing was actually a voice, breathing raucously and emitting thick, phlegm-laden gags between guttural clicks. The Overseer had never heard such a frightfully bizarre intonation before, and with eyebrows folded in apprehension he pointed in its direction.

"You there... Show yourself! This place is surrounded."

The unsteady, strenuous breathing pattern suddenly stopped, followed shortly after by a heavy dragging sound similar to the abrasions of grinding metal and coupled with loud, penetrating thumps that shook the sand beneath their feet. The fear-inspiring sounds came closer and rose louder until they all could see the silhouette of something very large and dark step out into the sunlight.

Everyone present widened their eyes with revolt to find that they were confronted by an unspeakably hellish and inhuman monster, one whose body was grossly deformed and drenched in blood black as midnight oil, covered in hard, razor sharp skin that appeared to be crisped over as if the creature were literally burning from the inside out. The monster slowly lumbered towards them, debilitated by severely uneven and twisted limbs that had become impaired by a highly abnormal form of mutation. The closer the creature came to them the more of it's tortuous, horrifying details became prevalent, right down to the dark, sunken pits of its eyes burning a fierce red, several additional but useless limbs hanging from its body like the shriveled leaves of a tree branch, the rotting flesh receding from it's skull in several places to expose the raw bone, and rows of vicious fangs the lengths of fingers jutting from its sagging, malformed jaws.

Though the creature's body from the waist up was bare to its necrotic skin, the legs and feet were still partially garbed in what appeared to be thick, armor plated pants and scuffed, dented gravity boots bearing notable CEC design. What little remained of its uniform had been thoroughly assimilated into the entanglement of living tissue that clung all over its body, but enough of it was still visible to suggest that this monster was the risen, necromorphic corpse of someone who was once apparently an engineer or deep space technician.

The Overseer, utterly disgusted and petrified by the very presence of whatever abomination this was, raked a sharp, panicked glare over to the old woman at his side.

"Oh, my... holy mother of Altman... _what is this!" _

* * *

All the while, Isaac had been locked in his maddened, obsessive trance over Nicole, and having completely withdrawn from all of his outer senses he was not the least bit aware of what was happening around his physical body. Though it took quite a while for anything to get through to him, Isaac's delusional interaction was eventually disrupted by the sound of what seemed to be another voice coming from somewhere outside of him. This voice was not one he was familiar with, and this immediately set off a subliminal alarm in his mind that served to snap him out of his daze.

With a stiff shake of his head, Isaac blinked his eyes and looked up to find that he had moved from where he could last remember standing, and was now just off in the shadows of a dark, rocky recession carved in one of the rock walls that ran the perimeter of the Marker's pedestal and connecting bridge. His vision had deteriorated to near total blindness, and it was virtually impossible to discern what he did see as anything more than dark, fuzzy blotches, but as his fevered brain raced to assemble the pieces Isaac suddenly became aware that there was a group of people, most of whom he did not recognize, standing just a short distance away from him.

_People...? Alive... here?_

Feeling weak and exposed in his condition Isaac was hesitant to approach these strangers at first, and he strained to peer inside of them in some effort to identify them by their ethereal life threads. However, while he knew that they were in fact living human beings, he could not penetrate any of their psyches save for one of them. They all were fresh, uninfected people that had somehow eluded the virus up to this point, and astonished to see them, Isaac began to make his way toward them out of curiosity to know who they were. He raised his heavy, cumbersome arms, feeling almost too exhausted to keep moving on, and finding that his throat was far too parched to speak properly he resorted to waving his hands to communicate with them instead. His debilitated vision made it difficult to accurately depict the details of their faces or their actions, but still Isaac could sense an overtone of hostility in them that only seemed to increase the closer he came. He was puzzled.

_What was wrong with these people? Surely they recognized him as one of their own._

Isaac finally stopped half way down the bridge as he became very suspicious of their behavior. He opened his mouth and tried to call out to them, despite the intense discomfort it caused him.

"Wh.. what... do you... want?"

* * *

The Overseer pressed a hand to his mouth, stifling the urge to scream as the foul, unbecoming creature continued its slow, arduous approach. As it neared it began to make an aggressive effort to communicate, reaching out with twisted, mangled arms in some sort of beckoning motion, and the Overseer could only watch in sickness as strands of infectious blood clinging from its talons stretched to the floor in thick, malleable threads. The monster then raised it's voice, but it quickly became obvious that deprived of a tongue or working facial muscles the monster could do little more than groan and gag through drooling mouthfuls of its own blood and saliva, practically suffocating on it. The Counselor grappled the Overseer's arm as he started to retreat in fear, and upon her coercing grip to keep him by her side he turned to glare upon her.

"You're insane! All of you..."

The Counselor sharpened her eyes upon the unholy beast that stood there staring them down, swaying upon its rotting, armor plated legs. She unmistakably recalled the ominous, guttural dialect of the Marker as the creature continued to make an earnest effort to speak, for she had, unbenknownst to most who knew her including the Overseer himself, heard these very same sounds from the mouths of such creatures before. She shot a cold side glance at the Overseer, evilly delighted to see that he had no idea that he was face to face with a true child of the Marker. She tightened her grip upon his arm and held her other hand up to all of the highly disturbed soldiers that had been standing at full attention behind them with rifles armed and ready the entire time.

"Stay back! Don't go near it, and hold your fire, dammit!"

The soldiers nervously fell back at her command, expressing an obvious disagreement, but the Counselor merely ignored them and turned back to the necromorph. She recognized in the creature's all too familiar composition many of the common traits that she had come to know about these cursed beasts, but closer inspection made clear to her that this particular necromorph was far different from those that she had encountered in her clandestine past. Apart from the obvious nervous system disorder it was suffering from, this necromorph was far more humanistic, coordinated and articulate, bearing characteristics that set it apart from the rest of its kind; including a flawless set of fine, razor sharp barbs appearing to be composed of a cellular-bonded metallurgic substance that extended from the fingers of its left appendage like long daggers, and glossy, onyx tinted skin tucked beneath its armored plates that was etched deeply with strange, runic scars. The Counselor blinked in amazement.

_They were symbols of the Marker. _

* * *

Isaac was baffled by the behavior of these strangers before him. H_e_ shot his eyes between each figure, but unable to make anything of their blurred, hazy faces he stumbled back, exhausted and desiring nothing more than to collapse upon himself. Just as he started to give in however, Isaac was struck with the familiarity of the one member of their party that stood out in his ethereal vision; one that while he initially sensed upon his approach, had not given much attention to in his discombobulated state. Isaac's eyes now became locked upon this figure, and he watched as it appeared to be swinging its arms and shouting something at the other members of its party. He simply could not avoid its oddly familiar aura, and as he continued to look inside it, he detected deep within it's consciousness the tiny black hole of dead space that confirmed its infected status as a necromorph, despite its outer human appearance.

_Already infected... but how? Did they know?_

Coming to realize that this team of people were being led by one of the Marker's own immediately raised a giant red flag in Isaac's mind. He stepped closer, hissing at them through his teeth and waving with aggravated sweeps of his hands.

"We don't... need your help... we're... under... control... Leave us... alone."

* * *

The Counselor, still watching with a sense of wonder as the monster drew near, saw that it appeared to be on the verge of physical collapse; frail, decomposed and shedding long trails of blood from it's obscenely mutilated body all across the ground in it's wake. The necromorph's twitchy, unstable behavior made it clear that it was undergoing vast physical and psychological trauma; its unintelligible speech was slurred and it's limbs were spastic, shaking uncontrollably in a manner resembling some sort of neurological breakdown. The monster's balance and orientation were all but lost, and it had long since resorted to dragging it's heavy, metal encased feet slowly down a wavering path along the ground, bearing the impression of a highly inexperienced tightrope walker. It was constantly shaking its head as if plagued by some unseen apparition, the decayed muscles of it's jaw rippled beneath the lacerated skin of its cheeks as it tightly ground its teeth, chewing into its flesh to suck upon its own bodily cruor, and the expressions of its charred, partially skinless face shifted wildly as its mind was inundated by countless, insanely disarrayed thoughts.

As the eyes of the Counselor and her gathering fell upon the blade-like extensions of the necromorph's left hand, dripping wet with blood and covered in the same ungodly gore that consumed the rest of its body, the anhydrous cracks in the monster's face began to trace upon its features the hint of a smile, and its glimmering crimson eyes scanned the group until they met with those of the Counselor. The monster stared upon her, reprising it's throaty, resonant gagging with what appeared to be an inspired response.

Disturbed by the striking eyes of this creature upon her the Counselor's blood suddenly ran cold, seeing something... some_one_ very familiar, deep inside. Though the hideous transformation had rendered his former human identity impossible to discern, the old, haggard woman still managed to recognize the saddened, tormented gaze of the man she saw trapped beneath all these layers of dead flesh, imprisoned by the diabolical magic of the Marker. She took a step forward, and while knowing that an attempt to communicate with it would most likely prove to be fruitless between language barriers, still she raised her voice.

"... We have come for the Marker."

* * *

Isaac watched as the infected figure stepped closer to him, apparently the only one of its group to flaunt the nerve for doing so, and held out its hand in a gesture of friendliness. The twilight of the sun illuminated this person as it drew closer, and Isaac could now see that underneath the environmental oxygen mask strapped to it's head was a human female, highly advanced in age judging by its shriveled visage; the haggard, wrinkled lines of her face, the deep crow's feet carved into her skin, the fading, amber voids of her eyes glazed over with caducity. Her mottled, silver striped hair was pinned back atop her head, her posture was withered, and most notably, a cold, arrogant sneer marred her face that finally sparked Isaac to remember the bitter old hag.

_The Administration Counselor from the Sprawl. The one who seemed to have stood at the helm of so much of his suffering there. _

Sickness came over Isaac from out of nowhere as he took in the sight of this woman. There was something about her that was disturbing him intensely, and ambushed by the unforeseen onset of affliction, Isaac lowered his head, and unable to control himself, vomited into his hand.

"Oh... oh, _fuck_..."

Agonized and ashamed by his own degradation Isaac fell to his knees, gagging on the bitter, acidic bile in his mouth as it seemed to burn through his tongue, and staring blankly at the rancid, smoldering blood trailing down his forearm to the ground in front of him. Again he witnessed the repugnant birth of necromorph larvae as they began to expand from the puddle and writhe within it, then he slowly looked back up to those still standing before him, with wide, fearful eyes inundated by blood red tears.

"We're... We're... We're sorry... we don't feel... very well... today."

* * *

The Counselor and her group all glanced nervously at each other as the necromorph's body suddenly started convulsing. It quickly pulled one of its deformed hands over it's mouth, but its attempt to suppress its sickness failed. After several racking heaves that rattled the creature's chest it suddenly expelled a mouthful of vomit and blood, which then dripped slowly to the ground with the viscosity of crude oil from its hand and what remained of it's chin. The very moment the discharge hit the ground, the surface of it hazed over a milky white, and within seconds the puddle had birthed forth a collective of unidentified larvae that rapidly grew to the size of fists. Everyone except the Counselor fearfully backed away as the vile white creatures emerged screaming from from the regurgitated fluid, floundering helplessly like displaced fish at the necromorph's feet. The monster looked down at them with a charred, blackened face that was filled with unimaginably suggestive despair, and it's round, dark eye pits seemed to convey a sense of panic and unconscionable suffering that was nearly intolerable to look upon.

Though all of them were utterly nauseated, frightened and deterred by this necromorph's vile presence as it choked obscenely on it's own blood, only the Counselor found within herself a steadily rising sympathy for it. She nervously rolled her lips as she sensed its staggering pain, and with clenching fists she fought back her desire to express what she was truly feeling before the Overseer. He, on the other hand, had no idea of the conflict that was raging inside of the Counselor, and he could only revisit the appalling scene before them with total incredulity.

"No... I don't believe it. This is impossible... The Marker is a holy relic! No, this has got to be something else."

The Counselor only responded to him with a cold, intimidating voice.

"This is only the beginning. You don't understand now. But in time, you will."

The Overseer, utterly bewildered by her desire to socially engage the creature before them, growled impatiently.

"I swear to you woman, this is the end of your lies. You will tell me everything, right now... or you won't be coming back to the Sprawl."

He frowned sharply, and pointed with a harsh, emaciated finger towards the leering necromorph.

"In fact, you can stay here and keep _that_ thing company, since you seem to have such a repertoire with it."

Thoroughly engrossed in her dealings with the necromorph, the Counselor had by now managed to block out the Overseer's incessant raving entirely. She took another step towards the loathsome beast, and the wrinkled plates of disdain slowly melted off of her face. She stared deeply into the monster's lightless eyes, and parted her wilted lips to call out to it.

"Isaac... Isaac, can you hear me?"

* * *

Isaac was surprised to hear someone was calling his name, but he was so disoriented and sick that he couldn't tell where the voice was coming from. He had to force his heavy eyelids open, and right away he saw the elderly woman still standing in front of him. He caught the dismal look in her eye, how she pulled her hands to her chest with fear and concern, all of which made him lose his resolve; his body slackened, and he hung his head. Isaac simply could not recall ever having felt so miserable, so sick, so contaminated before, and although he had never been very fond of the Counselor, the association of another familiar person that wasn't the Hive Mind briefly relieved him of his neverending sense of isolation.

**a desire for social interaction, physical contact, affection or support may lead you to...**

The Marker's voices again filled Isaac's mind, until the only way he could get them to recede was to viciously shake his head. He noticed as the Counselor and the others stepped back out of his reach as he did so, appearing to be somewhat frightened by his actions, and again he wondered what it was about himself that was traumatizing them so much. Again he heard the Counselor call his name, and he looked right at her.

"Yeah?... What do you want?"

Still, something appeared to be wrong here. He knew what he wanted to say, and he said it the only way he knew how, but the confused look spreading upon the old woman's face hinted that something was somehow getting lost in translation.

_Why didn't she understand him? She did still speak his language... right?_

* * *

The Counselor stepped back as she saw the necromorph's erratic behavior, and the propensity for violence burning in it's eyes. But she also recognized that, unlike others of its kind, this necromorph was in fact making a conscious effort to remain civil, and this suggested to her that this one was operating on a level of cognizance that she might be able to exploit to further an understanding between them. She called out to it a second time.

"Isaac."

The necromorph turned to her and responded only with bloody, deep-throated gurgling. The Overseer, having been shocked into complete catalepsy up to this point, finally managed to break his trance long enough to witness the Counselor step even closer to the menacing beast, trying to speak with it as if it were merely another member of their party. He shook his head frantically upon the name she was uttering.

"Why... you're absolutely mad! That... _thing_ isn't Isaac Clarke! I think that virus has gotten to you, too!"

The Counselor now whirled around and pointed directly at the Overseer, thoroughly agitated by the sound of his voice. Having found whom she had been so desperately seeking, the Counselor knew that she required the Overseer's assistance no longer; subsequently, the fear of her plans being exposed to him waned and disappeared entirely.

"Just as it will all of us, including you, _you fucking heathen_."

Astonished, the Overseer's head shot up at her.

"What... did you just say to me?"

The sharply angled grimace on her face cut even deeper.

"You, and the rest of those misguided Unitologist fools have absolutely no idea what has been happening here. You're simply greedy for the power you think you can take from the Marker. Well, Overseer... today, you are going to learn just how wrong you really are."

The Overseer raised his snow white eyebrows at her, unable to believe the words that were coming out of her mouth.

"You... deceitful bitch! I knew it... you're not even a true affiliate of the Church, are you? Who are you? EarthGov? CEC private sector? Who the fuck are you?"

"Who I am and what I am doing here does not concern you. Just know this - you're not taking the Marker. A very big mistake was made here."

The Overseer was at a complete loss for words. He had no idea how to respond to what he perceived to be the utter lunacy of this woman, who was obviously as insane as any of the other infected cases, and he couldn't take his terrified eyes off the abominable necromorph standing behind her.

"What? Bringing the Marker back was the entire point of all this! The experiments, the Ishimura, the planetcrack... it was _all_ for Altman! We cannot walk away from this now... we're at the finish line, for God's sake!"

The Counselor slowly dropped her hand and raised her voice, which was now filled with a gravity that thoroughly unsettled not just the Overseer, but many of the soldiers behind him as well.

"You have been grossly misled. We are the ones who started this nightmare, by disturbing what we didn't understand. Now, we must be the ones who end it."

* * *

Isaac watched the aggressive, headbutting discourse that was occurring between the Counselor and the old man standing next to her. As he listened to her grueling dialogue, he became quite unsettled by the fact that apart from recognizing her as the Administration Counselor, there was something else that was very familiar about this woman. Though he could not distinctly place what he was feeling, he knew that the chimeric fog of cognition surrounding her ran far deeper than his most recent memories aboard the Sprawl.

_He knew that voice. He knew it so well. _

The suspicion gnawed at him, and all he could think about was trying to remember who she was. But it eluded him, mocked his every effort to unwind the mysteries of the Marker and those enslaved to it, and he began to feel very anxious. Taking a deep, labored sigh that offered little relief, he looked at the two battling figures before him and interrupted them.

"The... Marker."

* * *

The Counselor and the Overseer ceased their bickering and turned their heads the moment the necromorph began to growl. The Counselor tried in earnest to understand what it was saying, but her brows ultimately fell with disappointment.

"We don't understand you."

**the marker**

The Counselor was suddenly startled by a deep, penetrating and intimately familiar voice that sliced right through her head. Her eyes widened, and as she gazed upon the ominous necromorph she felt an odd, tingling sensation throughout her entire body; the longer she stared at it, the deeper she could see beyond the monstrous veil of this creature and unto the true human it once was. The Overseer cocked his head, still totally confused by her outlandish behavior.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

The Counselor no longer saw, heard, nor even acknowledged the Overseer as she became locked in trance upon the infectious creature before her. As they entered each others' souls through their eye contact, the old woman could now hear the necromorph's mental transmissions within her mind flawlessly and free of the Marker's distorting static.

_Thank you... for coming back. I have been waiting a very long time to see you again._

The Counselor paused, swallowed a bit harshly as she eyed the scars across the monster's body with a different set of eyes.

_What happened to you, Isaac? What has the Marker done to you?_

Isaac lowered his head, feeling ashamed. He couldn't understand why the Counselor was staring at him with such dreadful eyes, even after coming to understand who he was, and it puzzled him even further as to why it had taken her so long to recognize him. Just at that moment, however, sunlight from the setting sun refracted off a shiny, reflective metal panel of the bridge construction at his feet. It captured his attention and he turned to look directly at it, and just as he had in so many illusions before, Isaac saw a horrifying, unholy beast beyond the rancor of any necromorph he had ever seen staring back at him.

_No. No._

The utterly unspeakable face Isaac was confronted with blinded him with the glow of its eyes, dwarfed only by the light absorbing gravity of the aphotic skin that covered its body. It returned Isaac's frightened stare through the reflection in the metal panel, penetrating his soul with an aura of pure evil that overpowered his resolve beyond measure. Angered by the vexing, demonic imagery and unable to accept it as truth, Isaac stepped back and pulled his hands to his face just as he recalled Nicole's haunting words.

_**you must face your reality**_

Isaac peeked between his fingers at the malevolent reflection, hoping that she had been wrong and he was merely under another Marker-induced hallucination. But he saw nothing of the human he once was; all he could see now was the hateful, putrefied glare and features of the necromorphic monstrosity he had become staring back at him.

_No! He was infected, but he was still human. He was real. The necromorphs... they were human, just like him. Just like him! He was the Convergent, the safekeeper. He was not a monster.. they were the monsters. Not him. Not him._

The longer he contemplated it, the more his efforts to hide behind the veil of delusion went in vain. He glanced nervously at his hands, and for the very first time he recognized upon himself what he had not seen there ever before – the charred, smoked skin and decaying flesh of the necromorph elite, the tortuously mutated limbs, the exposed bones and inner organs of his own, rotting body... and Isaac became frantic.

_Did Nicole speak the truth? Had everything, including the perception of his own self, been nothing more than an overwhelmingly realistic hallucination? How long had he been a monstrous creation of the Marker, dreaming that he was still a human?_

As Isaac came to understand the sheer depravity of his misfortune, he slowly raised his eyes up to meet the Counselor's. He knew what had to be done to stop all of this.

_... Kill me. _

While she had remained completely aloof from Isaac's affairs up to this point out of sheer spectatorship, the Hive Mind suddenly manifested within his consciousness as his plea struck a very fatal chord with her. Seeing his ploy to free himself of her and seeking to bring him back under her control, the Hive Mind quickly intercepted his thoughts.

_Shut up, Isaac! _

Isaac ignored the Hive Mind. He held his hands out before him, flashing his sharp, incising barbs, and the Counselor's eyes briefly jumped to them with apprehension even as the necromorph continued to beg through bloodstained eyes.

_I... I don't... want it anymore._

The Hive Mind's fear transmogrified into raging anger, and she dug her nails into Isaac's brain.

_So help me, if you don't stop..._

The Counselor was astonished by Isaac's melancholy plea, and at first she could do nothing more than stare blankly at him. But understanding what he was requesting of her, she broke a small, soft smile.

_Don't worry. I have come to relive you of your suffering, but first, there must be no survivors here._

She lifted her hand and motioned towards the Overseer and the soldiers, all of whom were frightened and completely oblivious to the bloody fates that awaited them all.

_They are yours to induct, Isaac. Slaughter them._


	37. Id Est Mihi, Id Non Est Tibi

**Chapter 37**  
**Id Est Mihi, Id Non Est Tibi**

**_"The Personality of Godhead said: Many, many births both you and I have passed. I can remember all of them, but you cannot, O subduer of the enemy!"_  
- B.G., 4.5**

* * *

_Had anything been real?_

Isaac failed to hear the Counselor's morbid invitation as the many incomprehensible realities he was forced to face overwhelmed him.

_Could he have ever trusted his own eyes? His own ears? His own mind?_

His mind reeled, the muscles of his neck burned, his head felt so heavy. It slumped to his chest.

_The Ishimura, her crew... the breathtaking evolution of the virus, even the very human perception of himself... was it all illusion? Had he completely lost his mind on his way to hell?_

Isaac had reached an impass. He was no longer able to tolerate the Hive Mind's presence, and his sickness only intensified the more he resisted. Still, even so, he forced her back with everything he had.

_No... no! I won't do it. I'm not gonna kill these people! This has gone far enough... I can't keep doing this..._

The Hive Mind was not at all sympathetic with him; driven solely by the Marker's fate hanging in the balance, fueled to see to its proper realignment. However, Isaac's despair had by this point rendered him all but completely unresponsive to her, and she sneered at him.

_You _will _help me one way or another, if not by your own free will._

Before Isaac could respond, the Hive Mind reached forth to seize control of his brain. Everything for him went completely black, and he suddenly found himself severed from his outer consciousness, trapped within an airless coffin of rotting filth just barely large enough to contain him. Frightened and becoming highly claustrophobic, Isaac slammed his fists all around and cried out.

"Hey! HEY! Let me the _FUCK OUT OF HERE!"_

He frantically tore at the walls to get out as long, snakelike tentacles emerged from all around to bind him tightly like ropes. Though he screamed for the Hive Mind to free him, he could hear absolutely nothing of his own voice as the vacuous space made sound all but impossible; but he continued to scream in vain until he was finally gagged into silence by slick, oily tendrils as they wrapped themselves around his face, slipped in between his lips and filled his mouth, throat and lungs with the virility of unchecked vines. Yet, despite his inability to see, hear or even feel anything outside of himself, the Hive Mind's voice grazed the back of his mind with crystalline clarity.

_Now, we are going to do things my way. Now, this is the end. _

With Isaac's consciousness blocked she proceeded to seize control of his outer body entirely, diverting all of her energy towards total physical operation of it. As she filled the void within his consciousness and surfaced to the outside world, the necromorph's psychotic behavior sobered almost instantly. His delirium waned, and he straightened his back to stare at the Overseer and his group through inhuman eyes that glowed more fiercely than before. Desiring now to speak to the unwitting group of humans, the Hive Mind tightened herself around Isaac's brain stem, cutting him off from everything save for the poison of her influence.

She raised one of his hands to his neck and wrapped the gnarled, fused mass of fingers around his throat, effectively sealing the holes of decayed flesh that had been preventing him from speaking properly. His chest cavity resonated deeply, and retracting the distorted chunks of his jaw to form the majority of a working mouth, she manipulated Isaac's vocal chords to vent heinous threats at the Overseer and his company.

**"Do you think you have the right to control what you do not understand?"**

Though the voice they heard was dehumanized beyond recognition, the necromorph's speech was perfectly translated, enunciated to project a contempt that was unmistakably perceived by everyone. They all froze in place with shock, including the Counselor, who had never before heard such frighteningly vocal eloquence out of a necromorph.

**"Do you think you can take what is rightfully ours? To turn against us, who have served as the heralds of creation for thousands of eons before you, as you stand now, ever even existed? As the blood of our divine roots flows through even your own degenerate veins? You are the tools, you are not the Makers."**

The Hive Mind paused, glaring at the group through Isaac's burning, diaphanous pupils. She then drove his body forward, ignoring the high pitched screeches of the necromorph larvae still writhing at his feet as they became crushed beneath the heavy weight of his boots. She raised his arm to point at the Overseer with the long, acicular barbs of his left hand, still dripping with blood from his fingertips.

**"And yet you dare have the enterprise to adorn yourself with blasphemous idols, imagining that you have power over us! Human heretic, your imperious sense of entitlement fascinates me."**

The Overseer just stared speechlessly at the fearsome beast as it spoke to him, until he felt a burning sensation upon the side of his neck - and he was startled to discover that the silver Unitology broach clasped to his collar had somehow ignited into flames. He panicked and quickly reached for the burning article, tore it frantically from his collar and tossed it to the ground. All eyes turned to it as it bounced down the bridge, rolling and tumbling like a miniature fireball until the flames' intensity finally liquefied the metal and it extinguished into a pool of melted silver. As they stared at the smoldering remnants of the broach upon the bridge, the Hive Mind leaned in and with Isaac's eyes burned deep into the Overseer's soul.

**"The Marker does not belong to you. You belong **_**to the Marker**_**."**

The soldiers closed in defensively around the Overseer, fearful that the creature might attack. But the flexing of their military prowess did nothing to check the Hive Mind, who relished the taste of their poorly subdued fear, and parting Isaac's lips she extended the black tendril of his tongue to lick at the infectious blood clinging to his fangs. The Overseer, who was at his wit's end with fear, reached wildly for his divet and aimed it directly at the necromorph in an act of pure desperation.

"You... stay back, or I'll shoot you right in the fucking head, you, you _demon!"_

In direct response to the Overseer's rather meaningless threat, the Hive Mind penetrated him with a burning glare that tore all confidence from the old man. Knowing he could not confront the necromorph with such an inefficient weapon, the Overseer slowly lowered it; however, rather than submitting to complete surrender, his desire to exact his anger upon some responsible party instead drove him to seek out a more desirable target – and he coldly turned his divet on the Counselor.

The woman was unfazed by his actions; with a tight, vehement grin she completely disregarded the divet in his hands and scoffed at him.

"This... demon speaks the truth, all right. You certainly are a degenerate."

The Overseer glared at her, all the more astonished by her defiant behavior, but she paid him no mind.

"Even now, as you stand in the presence of that which you seek as a so-called Unitologist... you fail to recognize the majesty of your Enigma before you."

The Overseer was stunned by her words, and the Counselor motioned to the squad leader. The soldier stepped forward, hesitantly taking aim with the steel tipped barrel of his pulse rifle at the Overseer and meeting the old man's eyes with a look of futility.

_"Believe me, Sir... we're outnumbered. Just do what she says."_

The Overseer's eyes jumped frantically between them, shocked to learn that the soldiers' commitment to the Counselor ran much deeper than he initially thought, and he could do nothing else but glare incredulously at them both. The squad leader gently pried the divet from the Overseer's nerveless fingers, who in the face of his own defeat resorted to harsh, bitter chides.

"You're traitors! I'll see to it that the Church burns you all for this!"

The Counselor erupted with dark laughter that made her sound almost as inhuman and frightening as the necromorph standing behind her.

"Overseer, you ought to be more concerned with atoning for your _own_ sins. Now is your chance."

The Overseer, thoroughly incensed by her arrogance, furrowed his thick, silver brows.

"Well, Madam... If you deem me as having acted from a platform of -"

Suddenly and without warning, the Hive Mind lashed out viciously with the razor sharp barbs of Isaac's hand, cutting the Overseer's voice untimely short as the blades effortlessly sliced through the flesh and bone of the man's collar. The Overseer wobbled in shock upon his feet as his brain struggled to process the fatal strike, and as gravity took its hold, dark blood slowly began to languish forth from the deep incision across his chest. A moment later, the completely severed upper portion of his torso then slid from the rest of his frame to the ground with a sickening thud.

The soldiers, startled by the murderous assault, all shouted and readied their weapons in preparation to fire upon Isaac, but the Counselor frantically yanked off her oxygen mask and leapt in front of them, blocking their sights with her own body and grabbing at their guns with wild hands.

"No! NO! Hold your fire! Hold your motherfucking fire!"

The squad leader at first attempted to wrestle the woman off of his company, but the moment he put his hands upon her the necromorph's hostility increased a tenfold. Isaac lurched aggressively towards their group as if about to strike, and out of fear the squad leader released his hold upon the Counselor. He nervously ordered his troops to stand down.

Still imprisoned within his own mind by the Hive Mind's cruel bondage, Isaac was all but oblivious to the sudden chaos that had broken out around him; having no access to his own outer bodily senses, he was not even aware of his being responsible for the death of the Overseer, nor for the subsequent frenzy. He was completely unable to see the old man now massacred at his feet, sliced in half, even as the Hive Mind ran Isaac's eyes hungrily over the corpse with a taste for his blood.

The Counselor, who was watching the necromorph's inquisitive expression, turned to face him as the soldiers stood behind her, and she waved her hand towards them. None of the soldiers could hear her telepathic whisper as she continued to offer them up like sacrificial articles.

_They are all yours. I know that you have been here a long time, without any souls to save._

The Hive Mind darted the pitch black bullets of his eyes at her. Obviously the Counselor was not aware of Isaac's psychological confinement, and while the old woman was confident it was he on the outside she was talking to, she did not understand that she was not actually reaching him at all. Without the ability to perceive the Hive Mind's presence for herself and thinking she was alone with Isaac, the Counselor now liberally conveyed a deeply ingrained sense of adoration that the Hive Mind suspected would never have been expressed, had the Counselor been aware of the actual situation.

_I've waited so long to see you again, I almost can't believe it. But enough. Please, Isaac. Take them. Regain your strength, so that you may rise. _

Despite knowing the Counselor's words were not meant for her, still the Hive Mind embraced her suggestion wholeheartedly. She raised Isaac's eyes to the field of fresh bodies before him, the soldiers all of whom were unable to anticipate their impending death and Convergence with the Marker which was now just moments away, and she parted Isaac's blackened lips to bear a weary, lifeless smile.

"**Your time to Converge is now. Come, embrace your fate."**

The soldiers, even the most devout among them, all felt cornered like terrorized mice as the monster spewed blood and vomit throughout the ghastly, guttural choking of his invitation. The necromorph raised his arms, raining threads of filth and blood in a wet, sickening curtain, and upon this intimidating display a cacophonous roar of hundreds of outcries rose from the rocks all around them. The squad leader and his soldiers waved their weapons about nervously at the sound, having never heard such malevolent chattering before, and as they continued to look about they suddenly saw the rock formations all around begin to shift and morph before their very eyes. The squad leader stumbled backwards upon the sight.

"_Huh? What the, what in all hell..."_

The longer the team watched what was happening, the more they realized that the rocks were not actually rocks – they were in fact very large, vicious creatures, covered in thick, stony hide and barbed thorns that served to perfectly camouflage them among the rocky terrain until now. They manifested before the group to reveal their true forms - swift, powerful alien beasts sporting long appendages laced by delicate membranes like the wings of bats, and they were formidable enough to seriously confront the entire squadron. Their craniums were tipped with long, shaft-like protrusions that the Counselor immediately recognized as the needle sharp proboscis of the Infector species, but right away it was obvious that these infectors were much more advanced than what she had known of their kind. Their astoundingly flawless camouflage adaptation was an evolutionary bound that she was surprised to see, and these strange, new features of an otherwise familiar creature only attracted her to connect with the necromorphs, and their leader, all the more.

The squad leader and his troops came to learn very quickly, however, that these hordelike parasites did not pose the only danger to them - within seconds of their appearance, the infectors were joined by a vast army of twisted, distorted creatures emerging from the desert all around them; all of countless shapes, sizes and varieties, and heart-stopping to look at as they viciously wielded claws, talons, fangs and many other dangerous organic weaponry. Clearly outnumbered and outmatched, the soldiers came closer together to form a tightly-knit circle, surrounded by a sea of teeth and bodily blades that glimmered like daggers in the twilight. As the spitting, growling monsters drew closer, the squad leader was shocked to see the Counselor calmly leave her place next to him to take shelter at Isaac's side, deftly avoiding the onslaught of necromorphs who paid her no heed.

"_Wha... Counselor!"_

He stepped forward to stop her, but the surrounding horde quickly cut him off. The squad leader turned to stare vehemently at the Counselor and her necrotic companion, but he only quivered as the beast roared at them.

"**Embrace us.**_**"**_

The horde closed in upon the soldiers, determined to destroy them. The squad leader, though suspecting the effort to be meaningless, still raised his rifle with a sense of militant duty and ordered his company to do the same. He squeezed his eyes shut, reveling in the purifying sting of his own sweat in his eyes.

"Open fire... Open fire!"

The next several minutes were filled with waves of weapons fire, mixed with the reviling, inhuman screams of the necromorphs and the agonized outcries of the squad leader and his men as death descended upon them like a hellish plague. Their symphony of widespread panic and last-moment prayers murmured from behind shuddering helmets carried loud and far across Aegis7, and as the cataclysmic bloodbath submerged them all in its wake, theirs would surely prove to be the last of any human voices to be heard on this desolate planet.

* * *

Please. I'm... I'm afraid.

_He can see nothing, hear nothing. __She waits until he is frantic to think that she has left him all alone_.

_**... Don't be.**_

No! I'm begging you, I can't do this.

_**Just a little while longer.**_

_He is shaking uncontrollably with fear and repudiation for what he has done. For what he has been forced to do. He tries to fight her._

I can... I can taste... their suffering.

_**What's this... are you crying, Isaac?**_

Fuck... Please, please stop... I can't take it... I can't... have this on my hands...

_**It's too late now.**_

_Though he knows the inefficacy of it, he begs. He knows nothing else._

... Please, please, let me go...

* * *

The Hive Mind opened Isaac's eyes upon a desert field now covered in a veil of bodies and bathed in blood, gradually emptying as the necromorph horde retreated back into the shadows. As she scanned the field the Hive Mind saw the only one who remained standing – Isaac's elderly acquaintance, who was stiff as a metal rod and staring over the bloody battlefield in shock.

The Counselor's heart began to pound with trepidation as she now saw the bodies of the fallen soldiers rising up from the ground, spurred to life by the infection of the Marker. They rose calmly to their feet one by one, all with undisturbed, tranquil mien to straighten their armor and reload their weapons. They appeared to be completely unaffected by their very recent demise and transformation, and as the last soldier came to full attention the sea of eyes converged upon Isaac. Their multitude of chanting voices cascaded one after another in an unbroken ribbon of repetitive sound upon the air that even the Counselor could now hear.

_Less than zero, we are reborn as one. _

Upon concluding their somber hymn, the soldiers began to enter into the darkness along with the other necromorphs, emptying the field until the only ones remaining in plain sight were the Counselor and Isaac. Before they had managed to completely vanish from sight, however, it had not escaped her the eerie familiarity she was seeing in their unearthly crimson stares, the same gravity and depth in their every solid yet gracefully precise movement that she had come to unmistakably identify in the rather uncanny character of Isaac Clarke. Upon seeing this she glanced back at the last standing necromorph, and recalled now the countless hours she had spent in heated debate over the Marker's mysteries with her colleagues back on the Sprawl.

_'Drawn from his image'. Just like the codex's messages had said. So, Mercer had been right._

The Hive Mind, able to hear every thought that traversed the Counselor's enfeebled brain, glanced down at her upon hearing the heartfelt amazement in her deliberations. She scanned the Counselor's inner thoughts, understanding as she listened to them that there was much this woman had to say - but not to her. Sensing her inner desire to connect with the one she had come so very far to find, the Hive Mind closed her eyes, turned inward, and released Isaac from his bondage.

* * *

Desperately awaiting release, Isaac forced his eyelids open the very moment he felt control of his body had been returned to him. He could breathe again, and through deep gasping breaths he was barely able to see through bloodshot eyes that he had apparently fallen over. He could tell by the angle of his vision that his neck had completely given out on him and his head was hanging limply to the side. Isaac darted his eyes around in search of those whom he remembered being in the presence of before falling unconscious, until they fell upon the Counselor standing before him with a look of shock. He saw no one else.

_Where did everyone go? _

Isaac raised his head with his hands until it was properly oriented, straining the muscles of neck to hold it upright. He then looked over the open area surrounding the Marker, and saw the remnants of bloody battle everywhere; the red oxide sand was tainted even redder by the puddles of blood and drag marks where many men had fallen, but the savage imagery was strangely offset by the fact that so much blood was somehow not accompanied by any bodies. This suggested to Isaac that enough time had elapsed in his confined state for all of the soldiers to have been killed, reanimated by the virus and withdrawn from the entire scene – a span of time that was long enough to concern him. He knew nothing of what the Hive Mind might have been doing without his awareness or consent, and such a dramatic change of events that he could not remember anything of only made him realize all the more how out of control he was. Still, as he looked around in his Marker-induced madness, he was on some distant level inexplicably relieved to see that the Counselor herself had survived.

His eyes met the matched ferocity of her own, and they both stood silently for a long moment, glaring at each other while listening to the chanting of the Marker echoing throughout both of their heads. He was still puzzled by the familiarity about this woman he couldn't seem to place, but by now he had become too exhausted to debate it any further; way too many souls had passed through his fingers to keep track of.

Isaac looked up at the Marker, tracing its harsh, blackened edges out against the dark sky, then back to the Counselor with a sense of expectancy.

_...Well?_

The Counselor tilted her head at him.

_'Well' what?_

The necromorph's milky white pupils sharpened to pinpoints.

_If you're going to help me, then do it. Otherwise, please. Leave me the fuck alone._

He turned away and started to head back towards the Marker.

_Isaac, stop._

He slowed upon hearing her cold, authoritative voice, and he turned around to see the old Counselor, now staring him down with a sense of rivalry burning within the scenescent spheres of her eyes. She clenched her fists and stepped toward him, intent to show that she was not afraid.

_After so many years, after so much effort, you still won't spare me even a moment of your time, will you? I came all this way, for you._

Isaac eyed her tight, pretentious grin, and seeing the uncertainty in him the Counselor straightened her back and smiled.

_I know what's happening to you. I understand why you're suffering._

She paused, open mouthed and about to continue, but the sorrow she could see behind his stare upon her simply robbed her of every word she had left. She could see the fire raging within his retinas - two very distinct flames, conflicting wildly with each other in a struggle for control of the same blaze - and the vision made her shiver with both fear and exhilaration to understand that along with Isaac, she was in the presence of the Marker's most divine secret. She had seen that very same energy just one other time in her life, emanating brightly from the yellow ocular masses clinging to the underside of that unspeakable monster that had emerged from the bowels of Aegis7.

_The Hive Mind._

The Counselor, having known all along that Isaac was in fact carrying the Marker's precious cargo inside him, was still amazed by the reality of recognizing it. Though she had been prepared to some degree to be met with it's work upon Isaac given what she had learned about the Marker in her studies alongside Challus Mercer, still, the drastic change Isaac had been forced to undertake, and just how far his departure from humanity had taken him, was overwhelming to her in person. She could only remain silent and roll her tongue within her mouth, watching the necromorph's spastic bodily twitching with a nervous eye.

_She had seen a thousand necromorphs, all at their worst, but not a single one of them had suffered anything like this._

Wanting to say something, she finally raised her voice to speak; but as she did so, it cracked like glass, and her eyebrows fell with remorse.

_I'm so sorry, Isaac. I'm sorry that you had to go through all of this._

Isaac looked her over curiously, stirred by the familiarity he tasted of her on the tip of his tongue. Behind the erosion caused by her advanced age, behind the veil of haggard lines marking her face, her silver streaked hair and the declination of her physical stature, behind all of it he could see the poignant strength and defiance that only one person he knew could postulate so gracefully and with total, unforgiving perfection. She raised her chin to project a hostile smile filled with arrogance and ire at him, and in that moment, as he recognized the woman hidden beneath all of those wrinkles, it dawned upon him that he was face to face with the one piece of this enigmatic puzzle that he had been missing all along; the one he had up until now been unable to account for.

… _Kendra... Kendra, please._

The Counselor's heart stopped; while this was a moment that she had anticipated for what seemed to be eons to her, still it shocked and robbed her of all breath nonetheless to hear him call her by her real name.

_The name that no one had called her by for over half of a century._

Isaac's sense to reach out was inhibited only by confusion of her bewildering circumstances; he couldn't explain how she had managed to survive Aegis7, let alone age so extensively since he had last seen her. But there was no doubt in his mind that this old woman was Kendra Daniels – the same he had once known, had once loved, and had once upon a time sadly failed to come to closure with, even up to their very last moments together. Heartbroken as he was to witness the passage of time having taken such a toll upon her, he was also deeply elated to see her again. It was a priceless opportunity to perhaps set things right between them.

_It's not your fault, Kendra. You did some bad things. But so did I. In the end, I guess we kinda both got what we had coming to us. _

Secretly enlivened by his having remembered her so vividly after such a long time, the lines of Kendra's aged face softened and her eyes glimmered, becoming very reminiscent of the dark, captivating beauty she once flaunted in her youth. But the smile that graced her features vanished just as quickly as she was reminded of the endless, bitter tragedy that she had come to share with Isaac.

_Oh... how I've always adored you. I don't even know if you ever really knew, or cared, but you always meant so much to me._

She stepped towards him, glancing sadly over the trails of blood and vile matter clinging to his degenerating skin.

_That's why I have done everything I can to help you. I have done my best to give you every opportunity you've needed to finish things, to tie up the loose ends that you just couldn't seem to do on your own. _

She paused, reached into her vest pocket and withdrew one of her slender, dark leaved cigarettes as a means to check herself.

_You owe me, Isaac. I know you didn't really love me... I was just your __emotional crutch when she didn't do, and I accept that. __I can be at peace with that if you just give me what is mine, and we call it even._

As she pressed the cigarette between her pale, withered lips, her eyes shot towards Isaac to see him staring at her, examining every aspect of her. Still unable to comprehend how she could be alive, he had hardly heard anything she said; all he could think about was whether this old woman might somehow be another dire, manipulative hallucination of the Marker.

_But you were dead. I saw you myself. You were definitely dead. _

Kendra replied through a thick, undulating puff of smoke clinging to her lips.

_Does it really matter what you think you saw, Isaac? We've played this game so many times, I don't even know what the truth is anymore._

She glanced down.

_There's a lot that I don't know, a lot I cannot remember after all this time. But, there is one thing that I most definitely do remember. It is the one thing that has stood out in my mind for decades, the one thing that totally changed my entire perspective on the Marker, and on you. _

He stared at her.

_What did you see, Kendra? Tell me, what?_

She paused in contemplation, as if becoming lost in the monumental task of assembling her wonder into words.

_It was right after you killed that monster, in the crater. I was still alive... barely... and right before you ran up the ramp to the shuttle, you stopped to check me. I'm sure you thought that I was already dead, or maybe you already knew that it was all inconsequential. But I saw when you looked at me, with those eyes of yours... _

Her glossy, anciently framed eyes briefly fell upon the vibrance of her memory.

_Well, I really don't know if I've ever seen a god, but I am absolutely sure that I did see something very godlike in you that day. _

Kendra pointed her bony fingers at him, the burning cinder of her cigarette dangling between her knuckles.

_Then you went away... and that's when you started all of this. I remember lying there. I knew I was going to die, and I felt the sleep overtake me. But when I opened my eyes again, I saw that I was not dead – instead, I was very much alive, and far away from Aegis7. I was back on Earth._

As amazed to listen to her as he was superficially, Isaac already knew every detail of her journey, somewhere deep inside.

_Of course, it wasn't the first time you've done this. And it was always because you couldn't let go of what had happened here. But this time, Isaac... this time, things were different. Everything went back so far... A few weeks, a few months, even a few years... that, we've done before. But this time, it was a whole fifty years that had separated us._

Isaac looked up.

_Fifty years?_

_Did you not know what you had even done, Isaac?_

Isaac's head angled slightly to the side in thought, just far enough to spill forth from the gaping holes in his exposed, rotting skull tiny, dark streams of the blood contained within it.

_Yes, sort of. I mean, I should have known there was a reason you kept haunting me._

Kendra blinked.

_Haunting you?_

_Yes. The Hive Mind... there had to be a reason she... _

Isaac suddenly paused, and Kendra noticed that even through his impassive, necrotic covering he appeared to be emotionally struggling with himself. It was as if he were trapped in the cage of this decrepit, malformed body that stood pitifully before her like a rotting wooden structure about to collapse, fighting with every last ounce of life he had to break free and surface as the man he once was. As much as she felt for him, her compassion was checked by the outstanding debt she knew stood between them.

_Well, it doesn't really matter. Whatever your circumstances were, I__ was lost. Fifty years ago, I had no way of getting back to Aegis7. The Red Marker had not even been discovered yet. No one could help me, because no one knew what had happened. Only you and I did. And without you, I was completely alone._

Seeking relief from Isaac's glaring red eyes upon her, she looked away to toss the butt of her cigarette to the ground.

_There – rather, then, I was. And as it was apparently your desire, it was then I remained. At first, I thought you had done it just to spite me. I dwelled upon it. Hell, I certainly had the time to. _

Even through the protective veil of her bitterness, the true, underlying hurt she was feeling was becoming obvious.

_But the more I thought about it, the more I knew that there had to be some purpose behind it. I've always known you to be a very meticulous man, Isaac. The kind who leaves no detail astray._

She grinned, even as he could do little more than stare mournfully upon her.

_That's when I began really examining my situation, what I could actually do to find my way back... I had to figure out what you were trying to tell me. And the most obvious choice at the time was to join the Church. Their foothold was a bit softer back then, and eagerly recruiting as they sought to expand; they were my only chance to become associated with the Marker, considering what I already knew about it that they did not. It was the perfect opportunity to find my way back to you, somehow._

Isaac caught the darkened expression spread across her wrinkled features, recognizing in her the same, all-too familiar madness that seemed to follow everyone who stood in the Marker's shadow, projecting shards of its malevolence and wonder.

_At first, I was hoping that there was something they could do to help, to find you right away. But I quickly learned that they had not even established the localized division of the Marker project yet, what to speak of interplanetary travel to that location. I certainly had not anticipated having to wait out the entire fifty years to confront you again, but ironically it took me that long to truly understand my position in all of this. _

She pressed a hand to her hip and looked down, slightly shaking her head.

_For so long, I suffered from the same problem as you, Isaac. I couldn't let go, either. I could not let go of you... of the fact that it had chosen you._

The necromorph shifted on his feet.

_It... didn't choose me, Kendra. I just happened to be there. _

She narrowed her eyes.

_Do you think it was an accident that you just 'happened to be there'? You think that it was some serendipitous event? Stop running from the truth, stop pretending that you're in the dark... that you're some kind of victim._

A deep resonance thundered from the creature's rotting ribcage.

_Stop it, Kendra. I don't know what... what you're talking about. _

_You were meant to be there. Just like me. You, Isaac, are a product of the Church. Just like me._

_Dammit... no._

She chuckled darkly.

_We were always so much alike. I think that's what we had always liked about each other, wouldn't you agree?_

_This is bullshit, Kendra. There's no such thing..._

_I always wanted to share my special gift with you, but I should have known it would have never worked out. Ultimately, what happened here between you, me and the Hive Mind showed me that. It was always going to be only one of us, and apparently, it ended up being you._

She sighed in a vain attempt to conceal her sense of rejection.

_You know, Isaac... when we first started all of this, I remember how much I hated you for that. No matter what actually happened here, you always knew deep down in your heart that I was the better choice. We all did._

_I don't believe that... That can't be. That's not who I am. _

The old woman scoffed at him.

_It sounds like you and your mother have much to discuss. Perhaps you should go speak with her. Or maybe, you already have. Maybe that's why you've chosen to take on this totally blind attitude towards your situation._

Kendra immediately paused, realizing that her words might have been a bit insulting, if not heavy for him to take in all at one time. However, the layers of necrotic flesh encasing his twisted body made him appear so glacial and impassive that deciphering anything out of his countenance was a nearly impossible task.

_But, I have to admit... it seems that sending me back so far might have been the best thing for me. It gave me all the time that I needed to really come to terms with my position, and yours. Though for a long time I was so angry with you, I knew that I, just like you, had made a mistake, too. A mistake that I would have to rectify before we could move on. I would have to let go of everything, and help you finish this._

Isaac shook his head.

_You... can't help me. No one can, it seems. _

Kendra smiled.

_That's not true, Isaac. I can help you. You knew that from the start._

She gently curtained her grin behind the wrinkles of her face and turned away, taking a few steps towards the Marker and gazing upon it with her eyes. She continued to revisit the memories she carried of her past, the many decades that had led up to her reunion with the majestic yet wholly malevolent artifact that had come to consume as much of her as it had of Isaac.

_I knew that both you and the Marker needed my help, and I had to do whatever I could to see to that. So, I right away established connections with what would become the two most important factors in the Red Marker extraction project – the Church of Unitology, and the Concordance Extraction Corporation. However, doing so was a little tricky._

She finally looked away from the Marker to retrieve another of her clove-wrapped cigarettes, lighting the tip of it with a match and tossing it carelessly to the ground, all with a fluent arrogance in her posture.

_After all, it was fifty years ago... I had not even been born yet. Not by far. So I was completely untraceable. I managed to register a fictitious name with Planetside Immigration, and once all of my paperwork was in order, I doctored up my training credentials and joined the CEC. It was all 'first steps'. _

She smirked darkly.

_Once I was in, __I also realized that I had a great advantage that no one else did. I utilized what I knew about our technology now that didn't exist then, and over the course of my early employment I, 'jumped the gun'... knowing already how they were built, I presented my superiors with the blueprints for many of the tools and systems that we use today. __And I didn't stop there - I made a fortune selling all kinds of patent ideas to the CEC. Seriously, just about every piece of computer and security technology that's used aboard all these ships has got my name on it._

Though is wasn't discernible to Kendra through the thick trails of blood lining his face, Isaac could not hold back a small smile at this clever woman, whose own resourcefulness and ability to turn her situation into everything she needed to succeed definitely rivaled that of his own, if not surpassing it in many ways. It then dawned upon him that he had never really been presented with the old Counselor's name, even during his extended stay aboard the Sprawl. It had been standard practice for security purposes within the circles closest to the Marker Extraction project that Vested Counselors were never referred to by their personal monikers - only by their titles or RIG IDs. He now turned to look at her, scanning her RIG through his psychic capacity in order to see to whom it was registered.

**[G. Schofield _ Senior Administrative Counsel_3A]**

Isaac blinked.

_Schofield? _

He suddenly had a thought, turned to the plasma cutter still attached to his side and pulled it from his belt with one of his mangled limbs. The deformed fingers at the tip of it were incapable of holding the tool properly and it dropped to the ground, skidding a couple of feet across the sand at Isaac's feet. He craned his neck to look down upon it, examining the steel plated manufacturer's label that was bolted to the handle.

**[SCHOFIELD TOOLS]  
[The Extra-Terrestrial Mining Tool Leader]**

Isaac's eyes widened in shock. He looked up to Kendra, and lifted his chin to project a devilish grin through his split jaws.

_Heh... What a... smart girl you are. I am... impressed, my dear._

Kendra smirked to the side, her ruthlessly alluring nature toning her fossilized features as she replied with secretive infatuation.

_I learned from the best, Isaac._

They stared upon one another for a long moment before Kendra's smile finally faded, and she hardened once again as she turned away.

_Through my talent, my affiliation with the Church became inevitable. _

_Your talent?_

_My memories... which, in my situation, was instead perceived as an ability to predict the future. That was the only way I could get close enough to impart unto them what I knew about the Marker. With this 'talent', as they saw it, I was able to rise through the ranks quickly. Since I had no other purpose than to get back to Aegis7 and to you, I gave everything that I had, and everything that I made working for the CEC, directly to the Church. _

Kendra grinned sardonically as she stared upon the Marker's chiseled edges.

_As my 'premonitions' started coming to pass one by one, those devout worms quickly started seeing me as something of a soothsayer. Of course, that's not what I was... I was merely a victim of your circumstances, but no one back then knew anything about that. I was the only one with a secret, and I rode that secret all the way to the top. Eventually, I was promoted to Senior Administrative Counselor right beneath the Overseers, especially those who were tied at the hip to EarthGov, and in time I had the eyes and ears of every influential force within the Church and the USO at the Council's back. _

She began to pace back and forth, and Isaac's blood red eyes followed her eager movements.

_You... you didn't have anything to do with what happened to... to me... being meant to be there, you say... did you?_

Kendra's pacing stopped and she looked at him.

_No, Isaac. Everything that happened with you throughout the years, I remained a silent observer of, and nothing more. I knew it was so important not to interfere with your life as much as possible, except in rare circumstances where I was forced into it. _

_So, you... you did see me, all those years ago?_

Kendra nodded and held her ground as he started toward her. His forward stride seemed almost like the predatory approach of a massive kodiak bear at his size.

_Yes. I was a Counselor to your mother during the period of her later pregnancy, through your birth, and into early childhood. After that, I severed my direct contact with you, leaving to serve abroad for many years. Though I kept tabs on your progress throughout the time, I did not see or speak with you again until decades later - after you were recovered from the Ishimura. _

Isaac looked down, trying so hard to recall having seen this woman in his younger life. Kendra appeared to be suddenly taken over by a sense of grief that became obvious as she glanced down.

_I... I know what happened, Isaac. I was there. I know what those people did to you, when you were just a little boy... what your mother let them do. I know._

Isaac raised his monstrous hands before him, looking down into them as he sadly remembered some of the most dismal moments of his past.

_Why... why didn't you do something? Did you... really hate me that much?_

_There was nothing I could do, Isaac. It was very clear that your fate was established well before any of us. I had no access or control to any of those... 'experiments'. Your mother, as much as she trusted me, saw to that. I'm sorry._

_Kendra's face fell as she watched tears of blood slide from his eyes._

_I was severely limited by her authority. I could only watch you grow from a distance, even as your father disappeared and your crazy mother pissed everything she had away to buy her Ascension to something 'better'. Even after your childhood, even well into your maturity, your mother always made sure that no one had access to you without her direct watch. Sometimes I think she was a bit wary of me. _

She turned away, not wanting to continue to bear witness to the painful sight that was her old friend as he fell apart before her. She crossed her arms over her chest as a stiff desert wind suddenly swept across the field.

_But I tried to learn everything I could about what it was that was so special about you, what it was that your mother was so hellbent on exploiting. I had no idea that it had anything to do with what had made me so special. That was when I really began to understand the secret that you and I share. But it would take me almost an entire lifetime, studying you - and studying my own younger iteration, after I was born - to really understand what was going on._

She slightly glanced back over her shoulder as the wind tossed the silk, charcoal toned sleeves of her uniform about like ocean waves down her arms.

_Turns out that you and I are just two small pieces in a very large puzzle. The man who opened my eyes to a lot about the Marker was Challus Mercer, who, at the time I first met him, was quite an ambitious young man with grandiose ideas of serving the Church. I met him early on in my career, and even then he was already well immersed in his studies on what was then the theoretical Red Marker. With what I knew about it, we naturally became friends, and we engaged in in-depth study of both the Black and Red Markers. _

Kendra shrugged her shoulders.

_All those early years exposed me to a great deal about the Marker's history that I was not aware of... things that a lot of people, including most Unitologists, are not aware of. And one of the things that I learned is that you and I are two of their keys, Isaac._

Isaac tilted his head.

_'Keys'? What do you mean 'keys'?_

_Those who were molded for a specific purpose, by those who raised us, to serve as future Makers. This knowledge was based entirely on the research findings of the Originals._

_Originals?_

Kendra nodded with a small, excited smile.

_Yes – the first scientists who had studied the Black Marker, over 200 years ago. Their founding research came to be considered sacred by the Church after Altman's death, and it became the foundation for the entire faith. This research was handed down through the generations in secrecy, all to one day find what was theorized to be the Red Marker - the artifact that had been rumored to have been reverse-engineered from the Black Marker._

Isaac looked down, as he began to recall small fractions of the knowledge that he himself had at one point in his early life been exposed to, by the nature of his arrangement. Though he had spent many years and great effort into trying to forget the unpleasant memories of his childhood spent in the hands of his mother's ever tightening bond with Unitology, he had to give them credit for their highly effective, if not questionably radical teaching methods. Even now, the extensive knowledge of the Markers they had imprinted upon him so long ago through their exploitative ways was as fresh as the day he had first been forced to memorize it.

_But, the Red Marker was built by them... It's not a divine artifact. It's manmade._

_Yes, but it was built using the instructions and pieces of the Black Marker, which was not of human origin. To the Church, that was all they needed to latch on to._

He shook his head.

_But, what did any of that have to do with me, or with you? I don't see the relevance._

_Those Original scientists knew many things about the Hive Mind. They knew things about its transmigratory nature, and most importantly, they understood the effects of the Marker's broadcast signal upon those who intercepted it. They discovered that a person's intelligence was directly related to how they perceived the signal; while most subjects were unable to understand it and succumbed to the garbled, maddening dementia, there were others who were able to not only block the dementia, but to extract the actual code that was muxed into that signal. That was when they realized that the better the human host, the more cognizant and stable the Hive Mind within it could be. This led them to conclude that the transmigratory process could be controlled, provided they were able to control the host. Seeing the need for a living being with the ability to not only withstand the Marker signal but to properly translate it, this led to the Church's deeply integrated marriage with genetic research and experimentation... which formulated the roots of our current Extraction project. _

Isaac was startled by her words.

_What, you mean they were tweaking with people? _

Kendra glanced down thoughtfully, then nodded.

_Their goal was to create the most compatible human host for the Hive Mind, and the most natural solution was to develop a hybrid – someone who was already, at least to some degree, endowed with the Marker's energy... human DNA was augmented with the DNA patterns they had originally decoded from the Black Marker. The most heavily protected data, from what little Challus and I were able to get our hands on, seemed to suggest that exploiting the Hive Mind's ability to transmigrate from one body to another, as well as that of extracting the virus in order to be introduced arbitrarily into a specific subject, was known even back in the days of the Marker's most intensive research, led by Altman himself. This was how they were able to create the human samples from which to work from. These experimental bloodlines - these human sacrifices, as it were - are in actuality the ancestors of people like you and me, and we have our Unitology connections to thank for that._

Again, Isaac could only shake his head in disbelief as he briefly thought about his crazed, Church-obsessed mother.

_No. I don't believe it. That's impossible. If that were true, then wouldn't that already make us... necromorphs in a way? _

_I'm not sure. It was never directly suggested in the archives we found, but it could be true. Especially knowing that the Black Marker, at least at one point, housed a Hive Mind, too. _

She fell silent for a moment and her brow furrowed into an almost troubled expression as she thought over what she had just said.

_Maybe we really are nothing more than evolved monsters ourselves. __Perhaps the Red Marker really was meant to be another step in our evolution. _

Her words were strangely haunting to Isaac, and he stared upon her until she finally cleared her throat.

_However, something happened with the Red Marker. Something went wrong when it was built. Mercer and I came to understand this, and that everything that happened here – rather, what was going to happen here - the outbreak, the violent necromorph breed, the Hive Mind's erratic behavior, all of it was due to this anomaly... this mistake... that was originally introduced into the Red Marker when the Black Marker's messages were somehow incorrectly decoded by the scientists._ _The Red Marker was, for lack of a better word, 'defective'. _

_Hmm. 'Defective' is too kind of a word, Kendra._

_There were never any reported outbreaks in any of the studies we found on the Black Marker, not like what happened on Aegis7 and the Ishimura. This could only mean that the Black Marker's Hive Mind did not have the same effect upon the people then that the Red Marker did now. The Black Marker somehow integrated itself seamlessly among the humans who were involved with it, including Altman... but the Red Marker is slowly destroying itself, and everything it touches.  
_

Her tone was solemn, grave.

_However, __despite the warnings I gave them, the Church didn't care. They went forth with the plan, anyway._

_The plan?_

_Yes. The plan to capture the Red Marker's Hive Mind into an augmented body of their choosing, someone under their control. Based on my direction they set out to find the Red Marker first, and when they did, they sacrificed the Ishimura and the Colony in order to pave the path for us. Hence, w__hat eventually manifested in the Kellion repair mission. You were chosen, Isaac. Along with me._

_They, they knew what was going to happen? But, I volunteered for that mission!_

She nodded.

_Yes, and that was just a stroke of luck. If __you wouldn't have, they were ready to put you under mandatory transfer. I too, in my younger iteration, was chosen for the same purpose. It was their desire to send us both, to see who would first become the alpha vessel - the Architect, the Maker... the Red Ascendant. _

Her expression pulled back into a small, contentious sneer.

_And, as we all have seen, it turned out that the Hive Mind chose you._

As he sensed the snakelike envy in her voice Isaac couldn't help but feel saddened by it. He now knew that her animosity toward him came not just from the bitter rejection she had to accept from their connection as failed love interests, but also the fact that she had come to feel cheated out of what could have been an opportunity of a lifetime - to serve as the host to something as otherworldly as the Red Marker, despite its flaws. Isaac growled.

_So... even knowing there was something wrong with it, they still... sent us out there._

_Risk is a part of every decision, Isaac._

Isaac pounded his large, bloody fists into the ground at his feet in anger.

_No! Fuck that. They sent us out here to die! They had no idea what this goddamn thing was capable of... but they did it anyway..._

He breathed heavily, sending trails of saliva and blood vibrating through the gaps in his throat, and he looked back at Kendra. For the first time, he saw the crack in her solid veneer, underneath to the crazed, obsessive drive to abscond with the Marker's power that had all the potential to cloud her sense of judgment, and he knew that this might put him into a very compromising position. He was about to question her when she cut him off.

_Isaac... I know you think that I am your enemy. But, you must believe me when I say that I_ _am not._

She was delving into a most sensitive subject, one he had been neglecting to take into account.

_You knew that the Marker was too much for you, Isaac. Despite the assurances of the scientists to your mother and the Council that you were ready for this, in fact you were emotionally defective, incapable of controlling it properly - and somehow, you knew this. You didn't want anything to do with it. And ironically enough, as a defective creation, the Red Marker seemed to share your same fate. As you couldn't handle it, so it couldn't handle you. How tragically poetic that the two of you came together. _

Kendra smiled, holding back tears through a front of ice.

_And that is why I came here. To end this, to set things right. I am ready to fulfill my obligation to you, to resolve my mistake... I don't want to fight with you anymore. I just want to help you. To serve you. To set you free._

She finally stopped and stared at him, shifting her weight upon her hip with a sense of anticipation. She slowly reached to the ground near Isaac's feet, grabbed his plasma cutter and raised it, aiming it directly at him.

_I promise you that this won't hurt... very much._

She stepped forward fearlessly towards Isaac, who did not make any move to stop her. He understood her true motive for coming to Aegis7 to find him – that she was in fact intent on killing him, in order to absorb the Hive Mind and take his place as the alpha vessel. And he didn't care. As tired as he was, he finally welcomed the idea that he might actually be able to rest... to sleep, for a change.

_That's it. Just relax._

Kendra stopped in front of him and Isaac slowly sank to his knees, conceding to her desire and he closed his eyes. As he landed with a heavy thump upon the ground he rained drops of his blood all over her in a display that seemed eerily enchanting, as if she were being showered in a providential downpour by the Red Marker itself towering high above them both.

_Let me take away your burden. Let me show you how much I really love you. _

His exhausted neck muscles finally gave way and his head tumbled over, opening a perfect opportunity to sever it clean off with a well aimed blast of the cutter.

_Whether you leave me brokenhearted or crush me in your embrace, I will always love you, Isaac Clarke._

The old woman finally fell silent as the gravity between them became too great to bear; her voice fell short of choking with tears and her chest rolled like a turbulent ocean tide as she continued to aim the plasma cutter with a shaking hand. Isaac glanced up at her, completely forgetting all of his misgivings with her in that moment, and as he looked deep into her eyes he saw not the old, haggard woman who stood before him. Instead, he saw the beautiful, sweetly alluring, almost celestially youthful image of the girl he once knew; he raised one of his grossly malformed hands and gently braced the side of her face, spattering her cheek with his rancid, black blood.

_I always knew that, Kendra. And I really do love you, too. I'm so sorry I never showed it._

Kendra was completely taken by his act, finding the warm, congealing sensation of his blood upon her skin to speak a million words of clemency. She briefly lowered the plasma cutter, reached up and cradled her hand atop his.

_You did in your own way. That's why no matter what happened, I always had faith in you. _

Isaac was overwhelmed with compassion, and forgetting the barring effects of his transformation in the moment he could only see himself as he once was, back in those days when he shared the most intimate depths of himself with this woman. Continuing to stare into her eyes, he slowly leaned in and attempted to kiss her. Kendra could not resist; equally as lost upon the Marker's illusory playing field as Isaac was, she responded with perfectly unabated compliance. Seeing only the man she loved in her eyes, she embraced the necrotic beast as he leaned in over her, and they both relived a most beautiful memory they shared inside their heads.

**isaac**

All the while, the Hive Mind inside Isaac's head was growing ripe with fury. She understood Kendra's intent to take her on as a host, but having become so attached to Isaac, whom she had come to consider quite superior among his species, the prospect of now being forced into another body other than him was highly unpalatable. Up to now, the tragic little stage play between these two souls had been somewhat amusing to watch; but the Hive Mind had no plans on giving up her precious host any time soon.

Kendra's eyes suddenly widened in shock as she felt something slip into her throat, choking her.

**i chose you**

Kendra had absolutely no time to respond before the sensation she felt began to burn like hot iron_,_ and thousands of tiny barbs from an infectious shaft that extended from Isaac's mouth embedded themselves into the skin of her throat like tiny blades.

**not her**

She began to shake involuntarily as the barbs injected her with necrotic venom, filling her insides with corrosive acid that began to eat her alive from the inside out. She tried to scream but her mouth was entirely filled by his shaft and the burning mixture had already dissolved her vocal chords; she could only spew froth and blood, staring at Isaac in complete terror. He gripped her head in his hands, withdrew his needle-tipped shaft from her throat and unable to stop himself he proceeded to vomit all over her.

_What? No! No, stop!_

Isaac was frantic within to see as once again the Hive Mind coerced him with her influence, forcing him into rendering Kendra's body completely useless and uninhabitable. He went on to devour her entire upper body, her rapidly disintegrating flesh turning to slush in his talons as he chewed upon it. He cried panicked, grieving tears, forced to watch until nothing recognizable of Kendra's' body remained to be seen. Once the Hive Mind released him, Isaac collapsed to the ground.

_No... you can't... you can't do this to me... She was my only chance! Why, why can't you let me go?_

He stared at the bloodied, dissolved stump of Kendra's body, unable to accept what he had just done. Becoming violently ill, he suddenly disgorged what he had just consumed of her corroded flesh and bone upon the ground in front of him. He was overcome with great sorrow and shame for his unspeakable act upon her body; though in the face of all her deception and betrayal he had so many times wished that she meet with tragic circumstances, to actually see her suffer from such a fate as this, especially at his own hands, impacted him harder than he had been prepared for. No matter how much anger and hatred he may have harbored against her in the past, he realized as he stared at the gory mess at his feet that she did not deserve to suffer like this - no one did. He turned away, unable to look at her any longer.

_Because I don't want her, Isaac. I want you. _

He was suddenly started by the sound of the Hive Mind's voice coming from behind him. He turned quickly about to see as she approached him, stepping over Kendra's bloody remains without the slightest regard for them, and as she came close enough she ran a sharp fingernail up the length of his rotting, malformed skull, catching trails of his blood and drool along the way.

_We all have to make choices. I made mine. And I say that no one else will have you... or me._

She walked past him, noting the furious, heartbroken look upon his face with sadistic delight as she came closer to the pulsating Red Marker.

_I always said that I was going to be the one who would stop you in the end. To stop you from yourself. I hope you're beginning to understand that we really do belong together. _

_

* * *

_

_**A/N**_

_**Chapters 38 and 39 have been deleted, due to complete rewrite. Revised chapters will be posted soon.**_


	38. Through Death We Are Reborn As One

**Chapter 38**  
**T****hrough Death We Are Reborn As One**

**_"One who can see that all activities are performed by the body, which is created of material nature, and sees that the self does nothing, actually sees."_  
- B.G., 13.30**

* * *

Isaac was overwhelmed by the painful throbbing inside what remained of his skull. He felt Kendra's blood across his body, still warm and running in thick, heavy trails, and he could think of nothing but the fact that he had just destroyed his only chance to possibly escape the Hive Mind's hold upon him.

_Shit. Oh, shit. Kendra, I'm so sorry._

Though he was not wanting to readily admit it, Isaac had subconsciously been aware of his own intention to draw his adversary back to him in the hopes of unloading his burden upon her. He recalled the many dreams he had had of Kendra, though obscured with age and denial; how he had spoken to her across vast folds of space, folding parsecs between them into inches, how he lured her in by continuously filling her heart and mind with the premonitory awareness she needed to find her way back home to him, all through the agency of the Marker's great power. But now, even after so many years and so much effort on both their parts to bring their dramatic rift to a close, Isaac had completely destroyed within just a few minutes everything they had so methodically planned together.

There truly seemed to be no hope for him now, and the only thing left for him to do was the one thing that he did not want to do. He dragged one of his twisted, mangled feet towards the Marker.

"Isaac."

He looked up as he barely heard Nicole calling out to him from somewhere nearby. Almost unable to hear it against the bawling winds, he at first mistook it for just another one of the strange, whispering voices inside his head and he paid it no heed.

"Isaac... come here."

He suddenly heard her voice more clearly, and he glanced up again. The evening desert heat seared his infected skin and scalded his eyes as he looked head on into the wind, trying to find her.

"… I have something to show you."

Isaac was terrified of arousing the suspicion of the hawk-like Hive Mind, and he did his best to ignore Nicole. However, the Hive Mind apparently had no clue of Nicole's presence – again, the one advantage the poor girl seemed to hold over the Marker. But knowing how perceptive and intelligent the Hive Mind was, this seemed almost too good to be true to Isaac; her capability as a flawless performer made him nervous to think whether she was truly ignorant of Nicole's interference now, or was simply acting as if she was. He thought it best to continue on towards the Marker, uninterrupted.

"Isaac..."

Nicole's trilling, almost playful modulation caught him strongly, and he had to wrestle with himself to keep from going right for her. Instead he focused on the Marker, and the moment he stepped into its deadening field he immediately felt the intolerable heat that emanated from it's every surface. The burning this time was far more intense to him than it had been before, for the degeneration of his body was making him less and less capable of withstanding it. It was literally burning him alive.

_C'mon, hurry up! _

The Hive Mind's voice clubbed Isaac's brain from behind like a splintered wooden plank. It literally shook him, and he stumbled forward out of fear of her, raising one of his long, mutated appendages in a futile effort to shield himself from the Marker's energy as he came closer to it. Breathing became difficult and he started to gasp, frantically searching all around the base of the Marker.

_Where... I can't..._

A very brief glimmer, like the scintillation of incarnadine crystal, caught his eye from the shadows of a small clutch of rocks near the crater pit's edge. He was able to recognize the small, fragile figure of Nicole among the shadows of the rocks, and he saw that the captivating red glimmer was emicating from a small object in her hand.

"You know, Isaac, it really wasn't so bad."

Though he could not see her face within the darkness, the glowing pinpoints of her eyes conveyed everything to him. She tilted her wrist and slightly opened her fingers – revealing the object in her hand to be a long shard made of dark, red stone.

"The needle... it was so cold at first. During those first few seconds, after I actually put it inside me, when I knew for sure that I was going to die... I thought that I had made a mistake. But, in the end... I know that it really turned out for the best."

Isaac stared at the glimmering red shard in her hand, noticing that it appeared to be a very tiny part of something much larger than itself. He could see fractions of familiar runes, chiseled into its smooth polished edge.

_The Marker... But, how did you..._

"You did it, Isaac."

_I did it?_

"Yes. Don't you remember what happened, the very first time?"

Isaac looked down, and suddenly realized that he had grown several additional arms. He glanced over these strange new appendages, each one completely unique from the others like a ghastly conglomeration of different species of necromorph; some of them were bony and bladed like slasher's talons, and others were tipped with awkward digits like the underdeveloped fingers of a premature newborn. He tried to move them, but it took him several concentrated attempts to gather the coordination in order to manipulate one of the fingered appendages properly.

_What're you doing, Isaac?_

Isaac ignored the Hive Mind's berating call, whose interest in his behavior had piqued with ripe concern while she watched him flex the fingers of his newfound hand. He turned around and slowly headed back towards Kendra's partially consumed body on the ground behind them, and the renewed sense of purpose in his stride riled her.

_Hey! Answer me, goddamnit!_

Isaac approached Kendra's remains upon the ground, and he reached for the plasma cutter still at her feet. He gripped it in his gnarled, fused fingers and then turned back around just in time to see the Hive Mind stomping up to him, ready to explode.

_So, what the fuck is this shit?_

As frustrated and angry as she was, the Hive Mind was still very much desirous to see just how far Isaac was prepared to take his fruitless crusade. She stopped just feet from him with arms crossed, seeking to provide him the opportunity to explain himself, and Isaac just stared upon her with the doleful expression of one looking directly into the open mouth of a titan. Nicole's words echoed in the back of his brain.

"Sacrifice is inevitable, Isaac."

Though he had heard those words so many times before, to Isaac they had never seemed more real than now. With no other possible option to turn to and no one compatible left alive to help him, Isaac knew that there would be no end to his suffering unless he saw to it himself. Looking at the plasma cutter in his mutilated hand, Isaac slowly raised it and pressed the firing face of it to the side of his head.

_Sacrifice is inevitable._

Still, even while threatening to take his own life, Isaac perceived little more than unfeeling indifference in the Hive Mind's mocking response.

_You're acting like a fool. Think of the risk._

Isaac would not back down. Recalling what Kendra had said to him earlier, he only shook his head and clutched the trigger a little tighter.

_Risk is a part of every decision. You can't fucking use me if I'm dead..._

His words fell short upon the blade of her chiding, sardonic laughter.

_Killing yourself won't work._

Isaac's finger on the trigger began to hesitate, as the dark, condescending smile chiseled into the Hive Mind's porcelain face was almost frightening to look at.

_I will not let you die, Isaac. I will never let you die. _

She took a step toward him, closing.

_There's nothing you can do. If you kill yourself, I can use the Marker to bring you back. And if you destroy the Marker, well... I can use **you **to bring the Marker back. Either way, your ass is mine._

Isaac tried to remain steady, to convince himself that what she said was all lies, but the Hive Mind had inevitably sowed the seeds of doubt throughout his entire conscience. Seeing them take root upon the expression of his bloody face, her demonic smile spread wider.

_And once I finally have you under my control, the first thing I'm going to do is find that pretty little mindfuck of yours. Then, you will know what it is like to live as my slaves – not from the superior position of a Maker, but just like all the others. Then, you will see the real suffering that I have been so kind to protect you from. Perhaps that's what you need to humble you down._

Isaac finally lost his grip on the trigger, and he dropped his arm.

_Stop! No... Goddamnit._

It was obvious that her patience with him had worn extremely thin, and Isaac fretted to think that Nicole really had no chance of coming out of this intact whether he complied with the Hive Mind's demands or not. Seeking to minimize his loving mental projection's suffering as best he could, Isaac dropped to his knees and raised his talons.

_Ok. You win. I'll finish this. Just, please... don't, you know... hurt her. Please._

The Hive Mind stared deep into Isaac's eyes, searching out his deepest, most intimate thoughts. Seeing his dwindling resolve, the skin of her cheeks flushed pink and she smiled with a loving simper. She completely repealed all of her anger in the swift pace of a breath, and she gently took one of his slimy, disfigured hands in hers as she saw her own victory reflected in his eyes.

_Come on, sweetheart. It's going to be ok. _

Isaac calmly took her hand and she helped him up. She watched the blood cascading down his body as he stood to his feet, and aroused by the gory sight she proceeded to lead him towards the Marker. Again Isaac was forced to cringe at the radiating heat of the Marker's energy, but the Hive Mind prompted him to put his hand upon it.

_Go ahead, Isaac. It won't hurt you. I promise._

Isaac reluctantly raised one of his many hands upon her command, afraid to make contact with the Marker's burning surfaces, but he was compelled by her influence to place the tips of his fingers upon it. Fully expecting the burn, he was surprised to feel cold rock.

_Now... move the Marker. Move it to the pedestal. _

Her touch was so addicting. Becoming absorbed in her healing energy, Isaac began to forget all about his longing to escape this evil creature. Lost in her hypnotic trance with eyes closed and jaw agape, he slowly began to drift autonomously towards the pedestal just down the way. He seized a hold of the Marker through his telekinetic bond, and it's transport cage started to grind along the tracks of the bridge next to him.

"Sacrifice is inevitable."

Isaac thought he heard Nicole's continuing pleas as he weaved in and out of consciousness, but knowing Nicole's existence to be nothing more than a phantom of his own psyche that served only to distract him, he considered it a waste of time to continue dealing with her. The Hive Mind trailed along next to him, doing all she could to keep him alive, and the closer the Marker came to the pedestal the wider her malevolent smile grew.

_Yes. Make us whole. We are so close, now. After all this time.. _

Isaac felt the weight of his feet to be as cumbersome as concrete blocks. Expending the last of his life's energy to move the Marker, he knew that once he reached the pedestal he would not be able to walk away from it. He had already started eying the area surrounding the Marker's final resting place, in search of a desirable spot upon which to die.

_Make us whole, Isaac. The Makers must be absorbed._

In his state of total disconnection, Isaac forgot everything. The pedestal was now just feet away, getting closer with every second, and all he knew was...

_The Marker._

He locked his eyes upon the Marker at his side, convinced that this ominous obelisk was his final destination, the very last thing he would ever see, hear, touch or otherwise experience in any way. It would be forever burned into his memory, his heart, his...

"I can't believe you, Isaac! You stupid shit... how can you just give up like this?"

Isaac was startled by Nicole's intrusive whisper, coming from somewhere very close to him. He opened his eyes and saw that he had come close enough to the cliff edge to see down into the dark, cavernous depths of Aegis7's planetcrack crater.

_Ok, tell me something, then._

He glanced off to his right and suddenly saw Nicole, crouched among the shadows of the nearby rocks and peering down into the crater with burning red eyes. Twisting the long, dark red shard of stone still in her hand, she motioned gracefully towards the crater pit.

"We don't have to stop at the pedestal."

Isaac was speechless, lost upon the heavenly sight of her as the arid desert breeze tossed her hair all about her almost glowing face. Nicole suddenly extended her arm, and dangled the red stone shard over the cliff.

"I have a very good plan. A plan for you, me... and the Marker."

Upon her final word Nicole opened her hand, and the red sliver silently fell from it like a heavy crimson raindrop. It descended rapidly into the darkness far below, and Isaac took a quick, panicked step toward Nicole as he watched it disappear, instinctively driven to protect the Marker and everything about it.

_Hey..!_

He stopped just as chips of rock and sand beneath his feet gave way and spilled over the edge, and he stared down into the pit, trying to find the fallen shard. However, it had disappeared miles below.

The Hive Mind closed the gap behind him as she noticed he had become suddenly distracted by something.

_What are you waiting for, Isaac? _

Isaac turned about and was met by her poisonous, malevolent beauty; a paper thin mask that was just barely enough to conceal the evil seeking to break through from beneath, that only served to unsettle him all the more. He looked back at Nicole – which to the Hive Mind, was nothing but a small, empty spot near the crater's lip.

_We're going to make it through this together, Nicole. _

With the Marker still in his grasp, Isaac pulled it forward until it gently slid into place upon the pedestal.

_That was my promise to you. _

As the Marker connected with the pedestal and established its bond, the Hive Mind inhaled deeply in shock. She had been waiting for this moment for so long, the moment where she and her collective would be made whole – a moment which seemed to be lifetimes in the making.

_And I'm going to keep that promise._

In her shock, she was helpless to comprehend what Isaac's intentions were. Seeing his chance to act beyond her awareness he dragged the Marker even further until it slid off the opposite edge of the pedestal and once again disconnected from its base. The Marker's bond suddenly broke and the Hive Mind fell back, throwing her eyes open in anger. She realized that her communion with it had been severed, and right away knowing who was responsible she bore her rage down upon him.

_You fucker!_

But Isaac no longer feared her, or even heard her. His eyes were focused solely on the one destination he was determined to reach. As he neared the cliff edge, he felt as the Marker slipped entirely off the pedestal and was now grinding over the desert rock. He smiled madly to himself as Nicole whispered into his ear.

"Maybe we can stop her by destroying all of us. Together."

Isaac dug the metallurgic claws of his foot into the dirt and heaved the Marker forward. Just as a portion of it's base slipped out over the edge, he stopped and turned around to meet the Hive Mind with a dark, confident glimmer in his eyes. The Hive Mind sensed his challenging aura, and knowing exactly what he was threatening to do to her she clenched her fists and stepped forward. By this point she was undoubtedly irritated, yet still somehow amused by his relentlessly disobedient nature. The spectral illumination of her eyes intensified as she stared at him.

_Go ahead, Isaac. Toss it right off the edge. Destroy it. That's what you both want, isn't it? _

Isaac kept his grip upon the Marker.

_At this point, what do I have to lose? I'm a dead man no matter what I do. You said so yourself. _

Her curt, heartless laughter chipped at his confidence with the brutal efficacy of an ice pick.

_You just don't get it, do you? You can't defeat me, it's impossible. You can destroy the Marker, but I'll just use **you** as my Marker until you build me a new one._

He shook his head.

_No – there's got to be some way... _

Isaac shot his wide, wild eyes about in search of anything that might help him now – and he suddenly saw the massive gravity tethers that surrounded the crater pit on all sides. He followed the tethers up, which were still active and bound to Aegis7's massive extracted cork floating high above, and he suddenly had an idea. The Hive Mind licked her lips, detecting as he began to cloud his consciousness in an effort to block her.

_It is time for you to die, Isaac. And that's all there is to it._

Isaac stepped back away from her approach, clutching the plasma cutter at his side as he heard Nicole's gentle, tingling laughter in the back of his head encouraging him on.

"Do it, Isaac. You know what to do."

The Hive Mind took another aggressive step toward him, but Isaac remained fearless and resolute in his determination as he stared down at the tool in his hands.

_It... was all my fault. I should have never touched her. I just... I want everything to go back to the way it was. I know I can never save Nicole now... and I'm not running from you any more. _

The Hive Mind stopped her threatening approach and stared at him.

_Isaac..._

_None of us deserve to exist. Let this be done. _

He quickly raised the plasma cutter and took aim at the first gravity tether engine several hundred yards away, firing directly upon it with a long range blast of superheated plasma. The large metal chassis sparked and exploded into flames, immediately cutting the power and shutting down the engine. The long, aqueous span of illumination stretching up into the nighttime sky flickered momentarily and then vanished as the system was brought to its knees, and the sudden loss of support immediately sent the remaining engines around the crater into emergency safe mode. Alarms set off for miles around, carried across the desert wind in latent, dampened echoes, and as Isaac shifted his line of sight to the second gravity tether engine on the opposite side of the crater over a mile away, the Hive Mind screamed at him.

_Have you lost your goddamn mind!_

Isaac put everything he could into keeping her out of his mind as an aggressive tussle over his consciousness ensued between them. She was shocked by his ability to, even now, somehow repel her efforts to fully control him. As they were so close to finishing their mission, to see the inevitable anomaly in their bond rearing its ugly head now was completely unacceptable to her. She exploded with rage, tearing savagely at his mind.

_You, you motherfucker! You really think you can stop me still, do you?_

He completely ignored her and fired upon the next gravity tether engine. As it ignited into flames its tether gave out seconds later, leaving the colossal planetcork hovering just above the atmosphere precariously teetering on the last two tethers still bound to it. He felt the Hive Mind prying her sharp, metal nails deep into his brain, managing to break in through the hairline cracks in his weakening defenses, but he held her at bay long enough to witness as the last two gravity tether engines lost sync and finally collapsed under the suddenly unbalanced burden of the planetcork. Almost immediately, the white hot effulgence of the landmass's descent toward the planet could be seen as it was released from its hold and began to sink back into the atmospheric layer.

The Hive Mind briefly paused and looked up toward the heavens along with Isaac, seeing that he had set the giant landmass free, which now surely doomed Aegis7, the Marker and everything else on it, to imminent destruction.

_The end of all things, just as he had seen once before, so long ago. Only he would not be escaping this time.  
_

Isaac now turned to the Marker at his side. He knew that he had to act quickly, before the Hive Mind could stop him, and drove forth with his final burst of energy, dragging the Marker forward until the sheer weight of the massive red obelisk caused it to topple over the cliff's edge.

The Hive Mind, still unable to intervene due to Isaac's mental block upon her, had to take the moment to register what he had done; the Marker's fate had not become apparent to her until she caught the glimmer of its twisted spires emicating in a streak of crimson red as it disappeared over the edge. Her eyes widened and she dashed toward the cliff.

_No! Oh, you bastard..._

With no other recourse now left, the Hive Mind turned hatefully on Isaac. The thought of having to start everything over yet again with him in his collapsing mental state thoroughly perturbed her, knowing that to invoke the Marker's epochial timeloop would cause everything to become more convoluted, difficult, and dangerous for them both.

_I don't fucking believe you... I mean... is what we had really so bad, that even now you spit in my face?_

Isaac took a single step backwards towards the cliff's edge, and glared deeply into her eyes.

_There was never anything between us. You're just a bad memory. That's all you are.  
_

He pushed the Hive Mind, the Marker, even himself – all out of his head, until the only thing he knew was the only one he ever truly loved. He smiled at Nicole as she stood upon the crater lip's edge next to him, with wide, eager eyes and arms raised in triumph.

"I love you, Isaac. I've always loved you. You stayed with me, to the very end."

Upon her words and compassion Isaac felt complete in his final moment, fully satisfied in knowing that he would now end the Hive Mind's reign of terror by destroying her last and final haven - himself. He relinquished all of his energy and life, and his limp, lifeless body pitched forward over the cliff's edge with the momentum of a boulder. The necromorph quickly descended into the darkness of the crater pit towards his final resting place, to share in the Marker's fate of total annihilation.

The Hive Mind could only watch his suicidal magnum opus in complete astonishment. She looked down the cliff face and searched the crater pit with her eyes, but she could no longer see Isaac. However, she could still feel through her connection with him as his body was dashed to pieces against the sharp, jagged rocks far below, and she cried out in a burst of agony as his consciousness was finally forced from his irreparably damaged body - and herself along with him. For the final few seconds she still had to remain manifest in her naked ethereal state without Isaac's physical body or the Marker to protect her, she stood at the crater's edge next to the barren pedestal and sighed in defeat.

_Stupid fuck. What did he think he would accomplish, anyway? _

She shook her head in disappointment and pressed her hands to her hips, feeling the world around her beginning to slip away. As a sudden, inescapable exhaustion began to overtake her, she stumbled back from the cliff's edge and fell upon the ground, awaiting the inevitable moment of rebirth for them all.

_There was no escape... no matter what._

She happened to glance at the Marker's empty pedestal in that moment, and saw that there was some cryptic, handwritten text smeared in human blood across it's pristine, polished surface. AS she looked at it she right away recognized the handwriting, and a single dark tear fell from her eye as she read the Marker runes. Though the hastily scribbled symbols seemed so small and unassuming, in total they came together with perfection to form the most beautiful poem that she had ever known; one whose very words were filled with a tragic, bittersweet love and devotion that she enviously knew she would never come to know from the object of her own obsession... Isaac Clarke.

**if you are here and you are in love**

**know that i was here**

**come back at night and you will see**

**that love was always there**

* * *

"Isaac... hey, wake up! Time to get up."

Isaac opened his eyes upon the sound of Nicole's melodious call, and was met by blaring overhead artificial lighting as it flooded his vision. He raised a hand to shield himself from it until he could acclimate and he slowly sat up, coming to recognize the cold, stainless steel architecture of the USG Ishimura all around him. He glanced about, still a bit in shock and confused as to how or why he found himself back on this ship, until he saw Nicole standing patiently at his side. Judging by her posture she had apparently been waiting for him for some time, and seeing him come back to life she gave him a warm smile that concealed an underlying concern. Isaac continued to stare upon her for a few moments, taken away by the breathtakingly beautiful sight of her, until it occurred to him that he must have overslept - and fallen victim to one of the most common symptoms of such a condition.

_Wow, what a fucked up dream that was. _

Isaac pressed a hand to his head, wiping a layer of cold sweat away as he recalled the last few moments of the rather disturbing dream he had just awakened from - a flash of the Red Marker disappearing into the darkness, followed by the ice cold, suffocating grip of death. But he was alive and well now, and very glad to see that Nicole was okay. Still, the unshakable visions of such a horribly vivid nightmare kept him from being able to completely relax in her presence, at least for the moment.

Nicole paid no mind to the fear and discomfort that briefly seized his facial features, and she nudged his shoulder.

"C'mon... get up. Some more people just arrived. They're saying that its a repair crew this time. We need to help the others."

Still feeling a bit disoriented and perplexed Isaac did not quite understand what she was talking about, but he complied with her order without question. He felt stronger as he stood up - it was a sense of rejuvenation almost, a feeling that he could not remember having experienced for such a long time. Wondering how long he had been there, he looked down behind him and saw that he had been lying upon a gurney in some familiar room within the Medical Deck. He started looking around in order to figure out where specifically he was, but his wandering eyes eventually met Nicole's and he stopped upon her, breaking a small, elated smile that inspired her to do the same. They gazed upon each other, transmitting amorously admonishing messages silently through their eyes.

_I knew you would come back to me._

_That was a lucky guess, Isaac._

_No, it wasn't. We were meant to be together. Forever.  
_

He briefly recalled the sweet, naive little child he had once fallen in love with... the one he had chosen, marked to be his and his alone, so many forgotten years ago.

___You'll always come back to me. You are my lovely little anomaly._

Nicole responded with cheeky laughter tucked behind her eyes and smile. Isaac wearily smiled along with her, trying to enjoy her presence, all the while making frustrated attempts to recall anything about the dream that kept nagging at him. Though he was certain that his horrifying journey had only been a sinister fabrication of his mind's eye, still the fleeting memories seemed to carry far more weight than that of merely inconsequential hallucinations. He simply couldn't figure it out - why he was there, or how he had managed to even find the time or sanctum to sleep... or why Nicole's words seemed to spark something so hauntingly familiar.

_... A repair crew?_

Isaac felt that something was plugging his brain with a constant, static broadcast of dead space, an intruding chanting that kept breaking his concentration. After a few moments of watching his shifting facial expressions, Nicole started toting him along through the Medical Deck, engaging him in conversation to help put him at ease.

"You looked so peaceful lying there... were you dreaming?_"  
_

Isaac followed along at her side, hugging her closer to him, cradling her hands in his as they walked arm in arm.

"I dunno... It's all a little hazy..."

He stared distantly ahead, trying to find the right words to describe it as Nicole was held rapt in attention.

"I... I... was a Maker._"_

Nicole blinked.

"A Maker?_"  
_

"Yeah."

He fell silent, gradually recalling some of the strange events as they inundated him like ocean waves.

"It was all so real. She taught me how to move through other people's bodies, to control things, to build things, like she does..."_  
_

Nicole listened intently, becoming disturbed the more he described his dream - and the subject of his explanation.

"Who's 'she'?"

Isaac glanced up at her, a little surprised by her question.

"Who do you think? The Hive Mind."

Nicole suddenly started to laugh - a response that puzzled him.

"The Hive Mind? Are you kidding? Riiiiiight. As if we would ever condescend to speak to any of us little underlings."

Isaac flashed her a queer look. He had no idea what she meant by 'underlings'... or 'we', for that matter.

_Had all of it just been a dream?_

The more he tried to reconcile his past memories, the more difficult it became to make any sense of it. Feeling troubled, he hugged Nicole a little closer and took note of how warm and inspiring she was to him.

"It all just gives me a... a bad feeling. I can't help but feel like, like I've forgotten something."

Nicole did not seem to be moved by Isaac's anxiety. She instead remained positive, gently seeking to reassure him.

"Don't worry, dreams don't mean anything. This could be a dream, for all we know."

Her statement struck him profoundly, and he eyed her harshly for a long moment in shock. She paused to return the stare, until she was uncomfortably driven to look away.

"Geez... I was just joking."

THey both fell silent and continued to walk arm in arm for several minutes before Isaac timidly spoke up again.

"I'm... so sorry, Nicki."

"Sorry? Sorry for what?"

The expression upon his face sank with humility.

"I'm sorry about everything. It's all falling apart here. I can't believe what's happening. It's strange... such a... a little thing..."

Pained to see his grief, Nicole gently nudged his chin with her hand and looked into his eyes.

"Stop it. There's no reason to blame anyone. We are together. You're here, with me. Nothing else matters."

He finally looked back up at her, barely able to break a tiny smile.

"You're so right, Nicki. This is the way it always should have been. I love you, you know that? You always know what's best."

Again they paused and gazed into each others' eyes, madly in love, then they leaned in to embrace one another. Just as they did so, Nicole's arm brushed over his shoulder and she felt a small prick against her wrist.

"Oh... oh, no."

She peered down over his back and saw that she had accidentally dislodged one of the poisonous barbs jutting from his skin.

"Damnit, I'm sorry, love. I didn't mean to do that."

Nicole's face folded dolefully as she clutched at the fallen extension with a pair of her own disjointed claws.

"You're just coming apart at the seams, aren't ya, you poor old man?"

Isaac looked up to her with the utmost devotion for her in his burning red stare.

"No worries. It'll grow back."

Their smiles slowly faded and Nicole sighed. Isaac also sighed along with her, becoming depressed by an impending anguish that she seemed oblivious to as he looked her over. He so desperately yearned to kiss her, to hold her, to love her, but cruelly denied the fulfillment of his desire by the wholly unaccommodating formation of his twisted, rotting necromorphic body, he could only swallow back his longing with painful rejection. The only remedy he could resort to in order to relieve his unbearable aching for her was through incessant physical contact with her, and rarely did a moment pass when he was not somehow connected with Nicole - whether touching her, marveling over her, cradling her between his blades, digging into her flesh with his many claws and teeth or wrapping himself around her to absorb every ounce of irresistibly provocative energy she tossed his way. He would do anything that he could to find a means to enter her, to invade her, to devour her, to make her his entirely as he had always dreamed.

_Her touch was so addicting. _

He loved her now more than he ever had, but he was helpless to express his boundless affection no matter how close his depraved, physical condition allowed him to get to her, and the strange irony of his cursed affliction tore him apart inside.

_How did things come to be like this? __Why was the precious fruit of his love kept just barely beyond his reach like the bars of a steel cage holding him back? What had he done to deserve such punishment?_

Sadly, Isaac looked back up at Nicole. But as he looked at her, everything about her appearance suddenly changed without warning. He blinked in disbelief as he saw now someone else entirely - though the mysterious identity eluded him like a vaporous cloud, it was an ecliptic silhouette framed in shadow that now stared at him through luminescent spotlights for eyes and a tight, mocking grin that revealed a line of ivory white teeth.

_No hard feelings. Even after you betrayed me... again... still, I have given you what you have been asking for. Am I not a kind and tolerant friend?_

Isaac could only stare at this alluring but obscured siren before him, barely able to recognize her voice and even less of her face. Still, the bile of fear crept up the back of his throat as she closed in, framing the sides of his skinless face with graceful hands, and he knew right away that this creature was one to be feared. He could feel her contaminating him, poisoning his conscience the longer he stared at her, and he was forced to shut his eyes in outright terror.

_This is what happens when you fuck with the Marker, Isaac._

He was reluctant to respond or even move out of fear of her, but he eventually looked back up - surprised to find Nicole, just as she was, staring at him with a look of puzzlement upon her face.

"Uhh... you okay there? You kinda zoned out on me for a second, sweetie."

Isaac, unable to believe what he was seeing, widened his eyes with suspicion. However, Nicole's serene and peaceful countenance seemed encouraging enough, so he eventually let it go. He was slowly becoming aroused by the erotic spell of her presence, and this made him sick with the craving of unbridled addiction for her touch from which he now desperately sought relief. She raised one of her long, scythe-like talons and he rested his head against it, and he endearingly ran the side of what remained of his face against it.

_How he loved her. He could not live without her._

Isaac cherished the cooling sensation of Nicole's freshly exuded blood as it gathered in layers upon the cheek and forehead of his exposed skull, temporarily quelling his endless, ravaging fever, and tears of steaming blood shed through ecstatic relief and sorrow fell from his dark, sunken eye sockets like trails of heated magma. He extended several bloody tipped tendrils from the barbs lining his spine and wrapped them around Nicole's hips and thighs like countless little arms, holding her hostage in his grasp so that he might seek out her inner warmth. Isaac was driven by an insanely passionate lust that, agonizingly, he could not fully consummate, and in his endless search for distraction from the pain of his plight his eyes fell upon Nicole's right shoulder. He frowned with heartbroken sadness at the sight of it, gashed deeply and seeping thick, black blood.

_How's your arm? Is it okay? _

Nicole just smiled. At least, her brain autonomously acted to trigger the muscles that might have served to execute such a feat, had those muscles still been intact. But with most of her face having decayed and fallen away long ago, leaving nothing but the skull beneath and the split, mutated joints of her fanged jaws, she was unable to express herself through her decomposed features. Still, despite her lifeless, almost mummified appearance, her eyes were always wide and vibrant in contrast, revealing the spirit of life that dwelled delicately within her.

"It's okay. It was one of those goddamn P-Sec fuckers earlier. But I got him back, real good."

Isaac, eager to praise the love of his life, raised his head with a sense of galvanized delight and responded awestruck.

_Yes! Yes, I saw that. You made quite a mess of him. Good girl._

Isaac and Nicole's private moment of communion was interrupted by the sound of someone trampling down the hall towards them, and they both darted their heads up at it. Isaac took a defensive position in front of Nicole, and they both immediately stopped as someone rounded the corner - someone who appeared to be very frightened, confused and hostile. Isaac smiled aggressively as he tasted his own blood seeping from between his bladelike teeth.

_Ahh, chapter one. New arrivals. _

Though unable to determine who this intruder was due to their being concealed behind an armored miner's worksuit, Isaac immediately picked up on a highly familiar aura. He fell back a step in hesitation as the silent, armored figure suddenly lifted a plasma cutter in their hand, taking dead aim right at him.

_No..._

Isaac's eyes instinctively shot towards a nearby open wall vent, then right back at the dark, armored figure. As their opponent tightened the grip upon the plasma cutter and shifted aim at Nicole, Isaac quickly became enraged at the thought of her in danger.

_You fucking lowborn... human!_

Spurred by his anger and desire to protect Nicole, Isaac spread his stance before the armored stranger and extended his claws and talons in a terrifying display. The long, bladelike tusks that encircled his elongated cranium and protected his many eyes glimmered like sharp daggers, and he splayed a menacing array of jagged, acid-injecting barbs all across his body in a perfect wave of synchronicity, like a deadly lionfish on the defense.

**show me how much you love me isaac**

He opened the gaping, centralized hole of his mouth to bare rows of sharp fangs with all the predatory dominance of a great white shark and he roared fiercely, shaking the halls and shattering the heart of the armored stranger. Isaac's snarling warning was followed by the maniacal wielding of his long, talon bladed arms, which he held outstretched like mighty javelins, and he spat noxious, corrosive blood as he ushered Nicole towards the safety of the ventilation system.

**make us whole**

Standing bravely by Isaac's side Nicole flashed her own frightening set of fangs. She then started edging wildly like a hungered coyote towards the open cieling vent, and watched as the armored human desperately fought to avoid Isaac's swift and venomous projectiles. The human fired upon them in an effort to stop their escape, but Isaac and Nicole were far too swift upon their mutated limbs. Within seconds they both disappeared, flawlessly as ghosts, into the ventilation shaft.

As they crawled their way down through the insides of the Ishimura's walls, Isaac kept revisiting the armored stranger they had just encountered. The distinct familiarity he had felt stirred a eerie recollection of his dream, and while he trailed behind Nicole through the darkness of the inner shafts, he couldn't stop puzzling over who it might have been.

Together, Isaac and Nicole traveled for some time before they tired enough to slow their pace. The two necromorphs finally came to rest in a small, dark, angled bend in the shaft. There they nestled together there like wasps, catching their breath and basking in each others' warmth as they realized they were safe again... for the moment. The resonance of Isaac's deep, dehumanized breathing echoed throughout the shaft, and in their peaceful isolation together Nicole finally relaxed enough to stretch herself across his chest. Isaac hugged her close, running the deformed hands that extended from his abdomen across her face and neck with exalted sweeps, and watching as the flakes of her corroded flesh fell between his fingers like the dust of dried leaves.

_Let's just rest a minute, okay? I just... I have to hold you for a little while. It feels like it's been so long._

Nicole smiled warmly and tucked her face deep into his chest.

"I knew you'd keep me safe, Isaac. I'm not afraid of anything when you're around."

He cradled Nicole's head, relishing in her seemingly healing touch. Though her entire body was decayed, dehydrated like crushed tree bark, it felt nothing like that to Isaac. To him, she was as soft, supple and full of life as he had always remembered her, and lost in his fondest memories he gently wiped the bloody, matted hair from her face, staring into the deep, empty sockets of her skull. Nicole lovingly stroked his sides, equally failing to detect his degenerating flesh and seeing him only as the mysteriously handsome man he was once was to her. All she saw, felt and knew of the world in which she lived was her age-old lord and safekeeper, the only one who loved her enough to give himself entirely to her... the one with whom she was damned to eternal Convergence aboard this haunted ship.

"I love you, Isaac. I've always loved you."

Nicole closed her eyelids, and what remained of them disintegrated into ashes. She failed to notice, however, and as she became aroused by his touch she entwined her twisted talons around his neck. Lifting her head and opening her mouth, Nicole sank her teeth deep into the thick plated skin of his chest, drawing his blood and slowly, delicately feasting upon the flesh of his body with ravenous delight.

_I give myself to you again and again._

Isaac reveled in the joy of Nicole's bloodthirsty carousal, so eager to give anything of himself to please her. He began to reciprocate with her, parting his jaws and gently biting into the bloody muscles of her shoulder until he tapped into her bones. Watching his own blood as it spread across her mouth and stained like viscous, black oil, Isaac enveloped her entire body within his array of serpentine tendrils. The words on the tip of his tongue effortlessly slipped out.

_I love you too, Kendra._

Nicole paused, and glanced up in surprise.

"What'd you call me?"

Suddenly realizing what he had just said, Isaac immediately lowered his gaze from hers out of shame. He then felt her tender, reassuring touch, and he looked up to see her smiling at him in a way that drove him mad to consume her entirely. He closed his eyes and began to drive his talons deep into her body in lovesick rapture.

_Nevermind, baby. Nevermind. She was just a bad dream._


	39. Square One

**Chapter 39**  
**Square ****One**

**_"This individiual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same."_  
- B.G., 2.24**

* * *

"Sir, we have visual on USG Executive Shuttle CV4, approaching from the starboard side. Estimated time of contact... 6 minutes."

2nd-In-Command Xander Sklar of the Recovery Patrol X22376 spotted the distant, shadowy mass of a small executive shuttle, inactive and floating listlessly just beyond the border of Aegis7's orbit. Captain Maximilian Reinhardt and his crew listened to the soft klaxon beep of a distress signal sounding through the communications array, growing louder as they drew closer to the incapacitated vessel. Reinhardt looked out the front window, and then turned to address Sklar, who was acting as pilot.

"Hail it."

Sklar immediately punched up a few commands on the control panel, staring intently at the response on screen, and then spoke into the transmitter.

"USG-CV4, this USM Recovery Patrol X22376, responding to your distress signal; please reply."

After a few moments of static silence, he tried again.

"USG-CV4, this is USM Recovery Patrol X22376. We are responding to your distress signal; please reply."

Again, silence. Sklar shrugged and turned to the Captain.

"No response, sir."

Reinhardt nodded, his gaze sternly fixed upon the darkened ship looming larger as they closed in. He felt nervous, but he simply couldn't explain why; this was supposed to be nothing more than a standard rescue mission.

S_omehow, they knew it would be here... that he would be here. Still... it was just, a sandard, out-of-the-box rescue mission_.

"Maybe their comms are down. Run a remote diagnostics scan on their -"

_"... I read you loud and clear, Patrol."_

Reinhardt's eyes, along with all others in the room, darted instantly to the receiver as they heard a deep, vacant voice carried on the incoming airwaves. Sklar, whose emotional response was far different from those of the rest of the crew present, split his lips with a large, excited grin and he rubbed his fingers idyllically across the silver helix Marker broach clasped to his collar.

_A survivor. A living, breathing survivor. If they were lucky enough..._

Sklar seized the communications array in his obvious excitement, and opened the outbound channel.

"CV4... am I speaking with the pilot?"

There was a brief moment of silence, occassionally interrupted by the sound of distorted static.

_"... I'm the guy flying this thing..."_

"Is there anyone else aboard with you?"

Again, a long, agonizing intermission of silence.

_"... No... maybe. I don't know. I don't think so."_

Reinhardt and Sklar both took note of the man's disorientation, clear even through the radio, and as his voice drifted off into incoherent mumbling they began to question his condition. The Captain and Sklar met stern eye contact with each other, and Sklar turned back to the controls.

"We've run a scan on your ship's systems. It appears that you're dead in the water. We're coming to rescue you, just hang tight."

Sklar paused and waited, but the man did not respond. Again, Reinhardt and Sklar hard glanced at each other, their intrigue rising along with an inexplicable fear of the dead, freefloating shuttle that was nearing their starboard side. Suddenly they heard a sound on the other end of the broadcast, like heavy, steadily increasing breathing, which was followed shortly after by a seemingly disturbed and agitated response.

_"Wait... who'd you say you are... Rescue Patrol?"_

Sklar nodded and replied.

"Yes. Your distress signal was first picked up about 3 hours ago. We were dispatched to find you."

Sklar's voice fell silent for a brief moment as Reinhardt tapped his shoulder and whispered discreetely into his ear.

"... We believe you have been a victim of a terrorist attack, CV4. We're here to help you."

They received no reply, and Reinhardt took it as cue to take action. As they were unable to load the executive shuttle due to size, and autodocking capability was offline, he and his team were going to have to climb their way over to the limp shuttle and rescue the stranded man manually.

"Allright - suit up."

The patrol cruiser navigated next to the executive shuttle, and Reinhardt and his crew prepared to disembark. As they lined up, in their suits and ready to take to outer space, the Captain sealed his helmet and muttered from behind it's metal casing.

"_Well... this looks promising."_

The exit hatch opened soundlessly into the vastness of space, and one by one they drifted out onto the side of the ship. Reinhardt came up last, and he motioned toward the darkened executive shuttle, which was now floating directly above their position.

_"OK Sklar - you first, and we'll follow."_

Sklar, though thoroughly delighted by the prospect of getting his hands upon a survivior of the clandestine events surrounding Aegis7, still had to take a deep breath. No matter how many times he had explored the dark vacuum of space on these missions, he never could quite get used to the disorientation of the experience. He shook his head.

_What the hell. Deja vu there, for a sec._

Sklar just ignored the strange feeling he suddenly felt and returned to the task at hand, pushing off the side of the patrol cruiser. Once he had reached the shuttle and established a line for the others, they quickly followed suit and they all made their way into the executive shuttle upon Reinhardt's command.

Once they entered, the first thing they noticed was that the entire ship was completely dark except for the faded, blinking light of the activated distress beacon. As he saw it, Reinhardt again felt a unexplained fear, and he shuddered. He turned on his helmet-mounted flashlight, and prompted the other soldiers to do the same. They peered around the cockpit, the flashlights and the solemn green glow of their helmets' visors cutting through the cloud of suspended dust as they examined the darkened interior. Sklar approached the command center, stopping right behind the back of the pilot's chair and looked at the damage all around.

_"Sir, no one's here…nothing but some damage to the controls..."_

Sklar was suddenly startled by a hand as it lashed out from the pilot's seat. Caught off guard by the offense, Sklar immediately drew his divet and flipped around to face whoever was.

_"Hey, freeze!"_

Sklar aimed his flashlight directly at the pilot's chair, and gasped as the light cut through the darkness to reveal a human man, listless and apparently near death, lying with his arms strewn across the control panel. Sklar quickly eyed the man over - dressed in a weathered, bloodied CEC engineer's uniform, the RIG unit upon his back critically empty and repeatedly blinking with a faint red warning glow. A dangerously damaged helmet was lying against the base of the chair on the floor. The man's fingers twitched intermittently and he was moaning unintelligibly, making little discernible sense as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Sklar's eyes widened, and again, he shook his head.

_What the hell... I remember this._

He took a step back, and turned about nervously to call to Reinhardt.

_"Captain! We've got a survivor over here!"_

Reinhardt turned away from his examination of the database controls and immediately made his way towards the nearly dead man slumped in the seat. He paused thoughtfully as he glanced over the man's features, then reached forward and gently grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him back to get a clear look at his face - along with a CEC company ID tag upon his chest.

**[I. CLARKE _ Sr. Eng., Mining Operations]**

Reinhardt still seemed nervous, but Sklar was nearly ravenous with glee. He did not know this man personally, but he was well aware of the fact that there were many back home very eager to know everything about him.

As the two soldiers stood staring at him in both amazement and awestruck trepidation, Isaac suddenly woke up. He flung his eyes open and sat up, becoming both fully conscious and terrified of these peoples' presence at the same time. With wide, wild eyes Isaac leapt back out of Reinhardt's grasp, almost violently, and in his startlement he slipped out of the pilot's chair and fell over to the floor, shouting.

"What the, get the fuck away from me!"

Seeing Isaac was hysterical as he scrambled across the floor to the safety of the wall, Sklar and Reinhardt immediately backed down, raising their hands and retracting their helmets to reveal ther faces.

"Calm down, relax, relax!... You, are you Isaac Clarke?"

As Isaac realized that he was not actually confronted by a pack of deadly necromorphs, he finally began to calm down; keeping his hands up to his chest defensively and with widened, suspicious eyes, he examined Reinhardt and his crew, glancing harshly from one soldier to the next. He stared especially hard at Reinhardt's and Sklar's faces, almost as if unable to believe who or what he was seeing. After a few seconds of silent, frightened deliberation, Isaac finally spoke up.

"You... you're from the Credence?"

Sklar and Reinhardt glanced at each other in an instant of astonishment as if Isaac's question had been unexpected.

"The Credence?... N, no... not the Credence."

Isaac did not seem to be comforted by their answer, and he shook his head.

"Y, you don't look like Sarius. Where's Ravi Sarius?"

Again, the Captain and his 2nd looked at each other almost incredulously, well knowing what the other was thinking. Reinhardt, noting Isaac's distress, finally turned back to him.

"What makes you think that we're from the Credence, Isaac? And how do you know Ravi Sarius?"

Isaac's eyebrows now folded angrily over his eyes, as these two people seemed to be confusing him more and more. He frowned sharply and barked at them.

"Who the fuck are you? Where am I? Where is the Credence?"

Reinhardt shook his head.

"The Credence has been missing for several weeks. And so has the USM Valor - and both disappeared shortly after coming out here. Have you had, or know of anyone who had, any contact with either of these two ships, Isaac?"

But the Captain's questions fell upon deaf ears. Isaac was shocked by what he was hearing, unable to accept it for himself. Tears of fear and frustration began to fill his eyes as he began to comprehend that still, he somehow he had failed to accomplish his goal.

"No. _No._ I destroyed her. It's gone. It... has to be. But, why am I here?"

Reinhardt and Sklar instinctively stiffened at Isaac's shaken, unintelligible response. They sensed he was becoming unstable, and Sklar stooped to his knee beside Isaac.

"What did you destroy, Isaac? What was it?"

They could barely hear Isaac's sullen response as he buried his face in his arms.

"... The Marker."

Sklar's eyes widened, and he glanced out the cockpit window.

"Wait... so, you're the one... did you have something to do with what happened to Aegis7?"

Isaac suddenly looked up at him.

"What? Aegis7? Is it gone?"

Sklar failed to reply, but he glared hard at Reinhardt and pressed his hands to his hips.

"Shit. Sir..."

Reinhardt returned the stare, but he did not seem to be as pleased as Sklar; he knew just how dangerous their living acquisition truly was.

"... Yes, I know."

Without any further response to Isaac, Reinhardt turned about and motioned to the soldiers.

"Allright, let's get him back to the ship. We're taking him back to Sprawl. Maybe they can fix him."

Upon his command, one of Reinhardt's men swept in upon Isaac and forcibly sedated him with a needle to the back of his neck. Isaac wrestled very briefly before he succumbed to unconsciousness, and the team then bound him in restraining gear and prepped him for transport back to their patrol cruiser. Once they were ready, Reinhardt glanced at Sklar coldly just before reactivating his helmet and saw the bright, inspired look upon the young Unitologist's face. He shook his head dismally.

_"You mark my words, Xander... this isn't the end of it."_

Sklar replied in full confidence as he gazed darkly upon Isaac, being carried between the soldiers towards the exit hatch.

"Unity is forever, Captain. There is no escape."

_**[**__**_end transmission_]**_

* * *

**A/N., 4/24/11**

_This finally concludes Dead Space: Ouroboros._

_I will be making a last minor editing sweep over the entire story in the upcoming days, but that will be mainly to rewrite some poorly written sentences and to correct minor grammar issues. At this point, I don't think I will be developing on this particular story's plot any further. As I write Enigma, however, I may feel the need here and there to come back to this story and add in or change details, so this story, although I am comfortable in calling "Complete", will most likely always remain "Incomplete" in some ways._

_Your feedback will always be welcomed and appreciated. Thank you._


End file.
