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Mike laughed at my comment as I helped him up.

"That was too close", Allen said, "there were at least four dozen of those things."

"Seemed like there were more", Mike said wiping dirty, bloody sweat off his forehead, "is there a working shower here?"

"In the lounge", Allen said, "have Sarah take a look at your wounds once your clean, I can see the bone in your arms."

Mike laughed and slung his AR over his shoulder before walking towards the lounge. Now that the power was on, I had a good look at the lab where we were hiding. The hallway was about 50 or so feet long and about 10 or 15 feet wide. The walls were painted a grey color and the floor was polished, bare steel while the walls were actually heavy iron and concrete, rather than the plate steel I had originally mistaken it for. The lights were set a ways into the ceiling and their position just barely cast the shadows of their fixtures. There were two computer terminals that had signs above them that read "Lab Network Access" and the computers were currently offline. The entire building had a weird, military like vibe to it strange when you thought about it. Ios was in the middle of Confederate Space, light years from any border and even then the Confederates had next to no military to speak of, plus, since when to research lab workers carry handguns? Not to mention having a small arsenal in a random security room and a chief armed with an M240 Bravo?

"Why are you guys so heavily armed?", I asked picking up the ammo boxes, "you and Mike alone have the firepower to win a small war. Even with what you do here it seems like a couple of Ar-15s and a few shotguns with exploding shells would solve any problem that happens to spring up. Slavers don't come out here either."

"It became lab protocol in 2068 after a single mutant nearly killed everyone and everything here for all researchers and guards to be armed with Military Grade weaponry", Allen said, "there were four survivors of that escape out of the 5K people that worked here."

I whistled, "your saying one creature killed 4,996 people?"

Allen shook his head, "I remember that day all too well. I was only 2, but the image is seared into my brain. We didn't have the firepower or the ammo to punch through the creatures armor. What ever it was. It was luck that my Dad's friend James managed to get it to swallow an live Willy Pete."

"Ouch", I said laughing a bit, "I know what that shit feels like."

Allen looked at me curiously. Crap, that was supposed to stay in a thought bubble!

"You know what White Phosphorous feels like?", he asked, "how?"

I winced, "because I've been fraged with it before, let's leave it at that."

"You don't seem interested about opening up about your past", Allen said as we walked into the lounge and back into the security room.

"Because I don't want too", I answered, "please can we just leave it there?"

Allen sat down in the chair and spun around to face me, "yeah. Leave it there."

"Thank you", I said, "now, what's next on my hit list?"

"Nothing for the time being", Allen said, "now that we have power back I want you to see what you can do to help the others try and improve our situation."

"What about you?", I asked.

"I'll try and send a signal to the rest of the lab to check for other survivors, I'll tell you if any answer back, but for now try and unwind a bit, the basement generators are next."

I nodded and left the room. I peeled off my vest and set it on the couch next to my pack with the guns. None of the others, except for Mike, were anywhere to be seen so I assumed that they were roaming the halls, looking for anything that we could use. I stepped outside of the lounge and peered down the hallways, I could see Tyler working on the big door at the end of the hallway and he had bottles of what I assumed was hydraulic fluid around him. Since I was really only competent with a wrench around a High Compression A-Class engine, I opted to avoid getting in Ty's way and went looking for the others.

There was a lot more to the lab than I had originally thought. All of the labs that lined the main hallway had more than a few research stations and creature cages in the back, many of which were empty, or had their contents removed. At the end of the corridor there was what looked like a medical type facility that was complete with the hanging lights, IV stands, bio hazard bin and a washing station with an operating table. Sarah was inside going through various cupboards and drawers, looking for medical supplies by my guess. I walked over to the open door and tapped on it, she turned around and lightly smiled when she saw me.

"You busy?", I asked, "the door was open...but I wasn't sure so I'm kind of knocking."

"Just going through some drawers", she replied, "if there's one thing Fallout 4 taught me it was always search everywhere and pick up everything."

I laughed, "I always argued that some games drilled...less common forms of common sense into people. Like reload between gunfights and to shoot zombies in the head."

She laughed, "well they don't make any games or offer any college courses on how to" take care of the creatures in the lab when they hurt themselves."

"Like a vet?", I asked.

"Something like that", Sarah said pulling a defibrillator out of a cabinet and checking it's charge level, "except when patients come to me their creator would rather have them killed than saved."

I tilted my head, "do they really hurt themselves that bad?"

"No", Sarah sighed, "I've only seen like two cases in my three years here where the creature was better off dying than being saved. We just get researchers in here that put say male and female Spore Carriers in the same pen, and then want me to cut the female apart when surprise, they find she got pregnant!"

I crossed my arms, "well that's stupid. It seems to me if they were REALLY doing research they would let the babies be born and see how they fared."

"Exactly", Sarah sighed putting the difb and a random assortment of medications and bandages into a black duffel bag, "It would be easier and more humane to allow the creatures here to breed than killing them off and capturing new specimen all the damn time. And don't take this the wrong way, but why are you here?"

"Allen wants me to help out while he figures out what the next move is", I answered, "I would have bothered Tyler, but I have no idea what to do with a wrench around anything but an A Class engine."

"Then start checking those other cabinets for any kind of disinfectant", Sarah said, "Mike's arms are gangrenous and with what's going on we can't afford to lose him."

I nodded and walked to the back of the room, flinging open the cabinets. Inside were boxes of Aspirin, syringes, miscellaneous bandages, vials of radiation drugs and morphine, boxes of rubber gloves and bottles of prophylaxis and isopropyl alcohol and Hydrogen Peroxide.

"Alcohol and Peroxide?", I asked.

"How many bottles?", Sarah asked.

"Two, one of each", I answered.

"Take them", she said, "is there anything like gloves or morphine up there?"

"Plenty of it", I answered.

"Bag it", Sarah said tossing me an empty duffel.

I caught the bag in midair and quickly started packing in everything that was in the cabinet. The cabinet was just about empty when I found a tall, red bottle laying on it's side in the back. The label on it was worn out and faded, rendering the print on it un readable expect for a few numbers, "1945"

"Hey Sarah", I said pulling it out, "what's this?"

She turned around and looked rather surprised, "a bottle of wine? What's that doing here, where did you find that?"

"It was shoved in the back of the cabinet", I answered, "I'm guessing someone stashed it in there and never came back for it."

"Too bad", Sarah said, "ours now. We can have it at dinner tonight."

I smiled as we picked up the bags and walked out of the med bay, "like to drink do you?"

"A little", Sarah said, "mostly because it calms my nerves. You?"

"Never had alcohol in my life", I answered.

She didn't answer. When we got back to the lounge, Allen was hunched over the stove cooking what smelled like mac & cheese, which was one of my personal favorites. Mike was sitting on the couch watching the camera feed on the big TV and the little kid was laying on the bean bags, staring vacantly into space while Jacob and Tyler were no where to be found.

"Where are Jacob and Tyler?", I asked.

"Jacob is trying to block off a few doors", Allen said, "Tyler is still working on the big one that leads to the Biome labs."

"So should I go help Tyler or the angry jerk?", I asked.

"Go help Jacob", Allen said, "the dude may not like you, but he's easier to work with than Tyler."

I nodded. I grabbed my MP3 player and earphones from my backpack and walked back out into the hallway. I peered down the corridor directly in front of me only to see heavy iron bars gating our little safe zone from the rest of the building. I looked down the other hallway that led to the stairwell that had led up to the cafeteria and saw that had already been blocked off by desks and bed frames. I started down the hallway back towards the medical room, putting my ear phones on and setting the song to Slammin' by one of my favorite bands, Dark Matter. I had grown quite fond of the band and their varying types and tones of Instrumental music while I was in captivity. All my captors ever allowed me to have was a bottle of water and an old MP3 player with a battery that lasted for twenty or so minutes and since it was loaded with songs from Dark Matter, well, you tend to imprint on the first thing you see after birth. Just like I'm not supposed to be the first thing a puppy sees or it will think it's a Xenomorph.

I turned the corner by the medical room and walked down the adjacent hallway where I could hear Jacob swearing from what sounded like a combination of annoyance and exhaustion. I turned another corner and saw him trying to haul a huge sofa out of a small door way and add it to the pile of bed frames, chairs and mattresses he had blocking a set of double doors.

"That will work better if you turn it sideways", I said pulling down my ear phones.

"What?", Jacob asked.

"Turn it sideways", I said walking over to him. I grabbed hold of the couch and turned it until it looked like a triangle, after which I was able to slide it through the door without too much trouble.

"Thanks", Jacob said, "you can get lost now."

I sighed and leaned against the wall as he shoved the couch up against the pile of blockage. When he was done, he turned around and flopped down with an exhausted sigh.

"Damn am I tired", he said.

"Aren't we both?", I replied.

"Thought I told you to get lost."

"Yeah and I ignored you."

"You'd be very wise to listen to your elders boy", Jacob said, "especially being a dome head."

I crossed my arms, "why do you hate me so much?"

He didn't answer, he just looked at me like I was an idiot.

"I said...", I started again but he cut me off.

"I heard what you said", Jacob answered.

"So tell me then. I know it's not something I did to you because I haven't known you long enough to wrong you", I said.

"Your very existence wrongs me", he snuffed, "I'd shoot you right here if it wouldn't cost me my life. As far as I'm concerned, your my pass out of here. Once I'm off world, there's nothing and no one stopping me from popping a cap right in the back of your skull!"

I sighed again. I wondered what could have possibly happened to him to make him think like that.

"Don't act like your human", Jacob said, "your not. You have no place in having human emotions, having human friends or thinking like one of us. I wish all you damn Xenomorphs would just crawl back into your fucking hives and stop trying to be like us! You do nothing but torture and kill!"

In truth, I was beginning to think that there was something else at work that gave Jacob the murderous rage he felt towards me and apparently every other Xeno in existence, so I let him continue yelling at me.

"One of you took my parents away from me", Jacob said, "I watched, from the moment those damn facehuggers showed up, they way the suffered as what ever insect that you fuckers pass off as a baby eat them both from the inside. As far as I'm concerned, you can all die and it will make the universe that much safer."

"Yeah? You think you had it bad? You think that your parents becoming part of a Primal Xenomorph's life cycle was bad?", I asked, "try having your mother die from blood loss as she covers you with her body trying to protect you from the hail of gunfire that's turning your home into nothing but splinters and hot slivers of lead. Try hearing your father scream in agony as a group of slavers burns him to death. Try being sold into slavery at two years old. Try spending seventeen of your 24 years locked in a cage and tortured to the brink of death daily by three humans who had nothing better to do. Try getting poked and prodded by scientists on a daily bases so your owners can make a quick buck for drugs and alcohol. Try having molten silver poured on you, being lashed with a barb wired whip and having people bash at your exoskeleton with a hammer every day for 17 years, then, MAYBE, you and I can talk. Until then stop running your fucking mouth!"

Jacob sat there and looked at me slack jawed, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Honestly I didn't blame him. How many people would believe you if you told something like that? I'm guessing not many. Of course, I had the scars to prove it. I stuffed my earphones into my pocket and took my shirt off, revealing the mass of scaring all over my chest and back.

"Skyline I", Jacob said.

'What?", I hissed.

"I'm sorry", he said, "I didn't know."

I sighed and put my shirt back on, "Look, I'm sorry you lost your parents, I feel your pain brother, really I do, there isn't a night that goes by where I don't see my parents in my dreams, but there comes a time when you just have to move on, even if you'll never be free of it."

Jacob didn't answer me. We walked back to the lounge where the others were gathered around the table eating.

"Did you get the doors blocked off?", Tyler asked as I sat down.

"Like a bad hair clog in the piping in the wall", Jacob said spooning himself out a bowl of Macaroni, "nothing's getting through there unless they tear the wall out."

"Good", Tyler said, "I managed to get the door working right again, so at least next time we need to get access to the Biome's we won't have to fight it."

"Good to hear", Allen said, "though there is still the matter of getting the lab's com systems built back up and getting an SOS out."

"Where would I go for that?", I asked.

"The generator for the com system as well as the mainframe is in the basement", Allen said, "Delfi is detecting a lot of water damage down there though. My guess, when the power kicked off, the flood gate opened when the magnetic locks failed."

"A flood gate?", I asked.

"The labs sit on top of the Kojak Aquifer", Tyler said, "one of the real wonders on Ios. There's so much marine life down there and so much of it is unique to this planet, not found anywhere else in the mapped universe. There's an Eco Lab down there to study it but the problem is from time to time the Kojak floods and pressurizes, so we installed a magnetically locked flood gate to seal off the rest of the lab when it happens as well as turn a hydroelectric generator. But when the power kicked off..."

"The locks gave out", I said as I spooned some lunch out of the pot myself, "and the whole basement became one big pot luck."

"Exactly", Allen said, "the pressure isn't that bad, but I'm worried about what it may have done to all the gasoline and propane equipment and engines we have down there."

"Then I guess the Kojak is next on the hit list", I said as started eating.