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That night was spent relatively sleepless. Allen and I were on edge the whole night, listening for the sounds of any more Ghouls or a possible assault from Martin's security forces, which I honestly was surprised hadn't happened yet. The man was playing a game with us, trying to stall us out just long enough for him to reach whatever his goal might be. I'd been throwing around everything I could think of inside my head for at least a week, trying to figure out what hi game was, what he was up to, but the best that I could come up with was either A, a computer more advanced, more powerful and much smaller than the Cluster 300, or b, a new model of Synthetic more advanced than Matt. For now, I was keeping my thoughts locked inside my head and on my PDA. When the next morning finally rolled around, Mike and I geared up.

"Remember", James said, "this is a recon mission, just go, look around, come back and tell me what you saw, bring back anything that presents itself, otherwise keep your heads down. What little bit of processing power our little operation has says that there's no activity, human, modified human or synthetic activity to speak of, that scares me."

"Will do boss man", Mike said, "got your gear Sky?"

I charged the FAL, "hell yes, let's get."

"Here's a map", Allen said handing me a small piece of folded paper, "stay off your PDAs if you can help it, I have a bad feeling about what you might find up there."

I nodded and placed the map into my pants pocket. Allen let us out into the dark hallway and Mike pulled his night vision down while my eyes adjusted to the low light level. Holding my FAL out in front of me, I took the map from my front pocket and unfolded it against my chest. From where we were, we would head down towards the cafeteria, through it and towards a medical wing. We would then head for an elevator that would take us to the upper most level of the labs where they researched cybernetics.

"Back through the cafeteria where all those undead fuckers were", I sighed, "I bet you 50 bullets that their still fighting that steel pipe I tied around the door."

"I don't use .308", Mike said, "if you were running .223 that would be a different story."

"Either way we should get going", I said, "be ready for a fight, even the High-Power had trouble knocking those things down."

Mike and I started down the hall, pretty much tip toeing to avoid detection as best we could. We came on the double doors that led into the stair well and I went in first with my strobe light on while Mike brought up the rear. We slowly climbed the stair case and came on the door that I had barricaded. The steel pipe was still there, seeming to be holding strong. When I tried it, I had to muscle it just to get it to make a sound against the stair well railing.

"Well at least I tied it tightly", I said slinging my rifle over my back and crouching down by the pipe, "see any of those undead flesh addicts out there?"

Mike peered through the small window in the door, "I see one, looks like she's not paying attention though."

Mike pulled a suppressor out of his vest and screwed it onto the end of his rifle, "got a suppressor?"

"Yeah", I said as I untwisted the pipe from the guard railing, "gimme a second."

"Doubt we have a second", Mike said, "that damn thing is coming this way."

I quickly reached into my vest and screwed the can to the barrel of my gun, "let's retreat up stairs aways so we have some aim room", I whispered, "these things won't go down unless we shoot them in the head."

Mike nodded to me and we hiked a few feet up the stair case. Mike crouched behind me as I trained my rifle at the door. Slowly, the Skin pushed it open and stood in the doorway as if a statue. Her clothes were completely torn form her body and it was filled with deep lacerations that were clogged with dry blood. Her fangs were sticking out of her mouth and her skin was the same sick yellow as the male Skin I had killed with the High-Power about a week ago. I raised my rifle up to head level and steadied my breathing, the cross hair of my scope settling right between the creature's eyes. I squeezed off the round and a hollow thunk rolled through the quiet, steel stairwell as the bullet burred itself deep into the Skin's forehead. She fell to her knees, and then to her stomach, motionless.

"Kill shot?", Mike whispered.

"I dunno", I answered as I pulled my sword from my back and approached the skin. I flipped it around in my hand and drove it deep into the Skin's head, twisting it and pulling it out, "if it wasn't dead, it is now, you take point, I'mma try a little something."

"Now's a hell of a time to be experimenting with shit Sky", Mike said, "I'm in no mood to die today."

"If what I have in mind fails to protect your life", I said, "I'll give you a full refund, now let's go."

Mike sighed and took point as I sheathed my sword and curled my left hand into a fist. The cold flowed through my arm and soon it was shrouded in a thin layer of Ice with the spikes jutting a good three inches from my hand. My Automag rested in my right hand on top of my left arm with a suppressor screwed to the barrel brake. Mike glanced back at me and asked.

"Wow. Since when are you packing that?"

"Since Martin kidnapped me", I answered, "let's go."

Mike nodded and we slowly stepped out into the medical room that was adjacent to the cafeteria. The lights were 100 percent out this go around and it was eerily quiet, so quiet it hurt my ears. The light level was so low that I was only making out the outlines of the walls and a few pieces of knocked over lab equipment, never had a 20 foot room been so dangerous.

"It's way to quiet for comfort", Mike said, "my NV is barely registering anything and it's saying "Danger", Light level below 5."

"I can hardly see past the barrel of my gun", I whispered back, "keep your ears primed, try and hear them before they hear us."

If I hadn't had a gun in my hand, I would have been on all fours crossing that room, it was so dark and so quiet that any kind of noise would have made the hardest demon hunter jump out of his skin. Every inch seemed like a mile and Mike and I were literally crawling across the room at a snail's pace, trying to keep from making any noise at all. I could barely hear the sound of my boots on the carpet and felt like I may as well have been shouting "Here I am. Eat me!" I could just barely pick out the out line of the door when my tail brushed against someone's half lab coated back and I stopped, frozen in my tracks as I listened for any kind of noise, but heard none. Seeing as how I had locked almost 50 of these things in this lab, I was certain that there were more near by. This one seemed to be sleeping, and I knew if I woke it up, it would be the death of Mike and I both. I carefully pulled my tail away, got rid of my icy hand and set my guns down on the ground, turning to the direction of the mutant and sniffing the air, catching four distinct scents, my own, Mikes, the skin we'd just killed and the one I had just found. Using my sense of smell, I pinpointed the Skin and pounced, pinning it to the ground with all of my quarter ton and startling it awake. I stared it right in the face, opened my jaw wide and clamped down on it's skull, feeling the bone crack under my bite and a liquid consistent with jelly filled my mouth. I bit clean through it's brain and yanked it almost completely free from it's spine before I spit it out and wiped the shit off my mouth. I turned around to see Mike looking like he had crapped himself.

"What the fuck was that?", he whispered.

"There was a Skin sleeping right here", I said clicking on my flash light and shining it onto the dead mutant, finding it was a rather large one, not a walking bone sack like the others were, "jeez it it's a big one too."

Mike pulled up his night vision and clicked on his own light, bending down and inspecting the large chunk out of it's skull, "remind me never to piss you off Sky. Biting through skin is one thing, but when you can clamp through bone and brain in one go?"

"I'm flattered", I smiled, "let's keep going, I'll take point again."

Mike and I used our lights to cover the rest of the room before coming to the double wide doors that lead into the Cafeteria. I peered through the windows, but didn't see anything.

"Looks empty", I said, "stay on your toes, only fire if necessary."

Mike nodded as I slowly pushed the door open. I could hear the same eating sounds coming from inside the kitchen as I could when I first came here looking for all that food, which lead me to assume that the Feeders had gotten into the meat locker looking for food and had found it. Mike and I gave the kitchen a wide berth as we cleared the cafeteria and came upon another hallway. I checked the map again. Judging from where we were, the hallway we needed was about a 50 foot walk and a left turn from our current position, but as it was going with this, there could be any manner of monster or corrupted security guard between here and there. Mike and I continued down the hallway and eventually we came to the medical wing.

The first thing that showed up as a broken glass door with a man who'd been torn to pieces laying in it. The ground around him was soaked with blood and there were more MG placements with twisted barrels and shattered shields. There were a couple of men wearing Exo suits that were pushed into the wall, their own blood acting as the glue which held them there. Mike and I cautiously approached the wing and peered inside. There were more slaughtered, butchered and half eaten security guards, Exo troopers, two dismembered Xenomorphs and a juggernaut along with ten or twenty scientists, the medical wing had been a colony of survivors. Mike and I stepped inside and my boots found a puddle of blood, this had been recent. I could smell the gunpowder hanging over the air. The wing had been so thoroughly trashed that it was almost impossible to make out where the individual rooms had been, only a few twisted pieces of steel to mark doorways or what were once glass walls. I saw mike walk up to a younger looking guy who appeared to be a few years older than Matt who looked like he had died trying to hold his insides in, his eyes were frozen in fear, much like the one man I'd found on my way in.

"What could have done this?", Mike asked as he closed the man's eyes.

'Skins?", I asked.

"Not possible", Mike said, "skins are tough to kill, but they'd be lucky to put a crack in one of these windows. What ever did this was fucking huge."

"Rhino?", I asked.

"Nope", Mike said, "it would have brought the entire lab down by now, plus the one's we had here were all but tame, getting one of them mad was one step above impossible for God."

"Then what did it?", I asked bending down to inspect the Juggernaut, whose heart had been ripped from her body.

"Over here!"

"What?", I asked walking over to him.

"I didn't say anything", Mike said.

"You didn't just call me over?", I asked.

"No", Mike said.

"Then that means", I started and then turned to the mass of bodies, "whoever you are shine a light, raise a hand, do something."

A single, dim light came on. I picked out it's source, which was a Female Xenomorph in an Exo suit and Mike and I went over to her. Her tail was missing, she had a chunk pulled out of her chest and the only reason her legs were still attached was because of her Exo.

"Prince Iemse", she half coughed, half laughed, "didn't think I rated that much of a rescue."

"Who did this?", I asked reaching into my medical kit for some morphine.

She coughed up some more blood which sizzled when it hit the floor, "Dr. Cain. He came in....I've never seen anything like it. He was like a...one man army. I...I...never saw...anything so...horrifying."

She coughed one last time before dying in my arms. I closed my eyes and lay her down before getting onto the radio to James.

"James", I said, "it's Skyline, I found something you need to hear."

"What is it boys?", James asked.

"We came across another survivor colony", I said, "bad news is that it was wiped out, some 100 or so people."

"What caused it?", James asked after a few minutes, his voice low.

"One of the security guards said it was a man named Dr Cain, but she bleed to death in my arms before she could say anything else."

James sighed, "just what I need right now, keep with the mission boys, you find anything else you radio me right then."

"Will do", I said as I shut off the radio.

I clicked the current magazine out of my rifle and stuck a fresh one in, putting the former back into my vest, "let's go ahead and take our suppressors off, I have a feeling that the power drop off will be the death of us if we meet this Cain bastard."

Mike nodded and unscrewed the silencer from his Ar as I called the elevator. There was a small delay before the doors came open and we stepped inside. The elevator was mostly plain, with simple wooden walls and a thin carpet on the ground. The buttons on the dial read, "Ground Floor, Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, Level 5, Level 6 and then Treetop Labs." I punched the button and the elevator gave a jerk before going up. After a few clicks and boring elevator music, the machine stopped and the doors opened, revealing a small, concrete structure that was housing it. In front of us was a glass window that extended to a small, lunchroom, Cafe like area covered by a glass roof that had the sweet, sweet sunlight pouring through it. There was a small kitchen built out of Jafu wood planks with a grass roof on it that was supervising several steel tables with two to four chairs each shaded by red umbrellas and decorated with napkin holders, salt and pepper shakers and condiment bottles. I'd never thought I'd be so happy to see the sun or hot concrete. I could feet the heat on my exo, through my vest and clothes as well as through the soles of my boots. The Cafe over looked the huge Jafu trees that small, single lab buildings were sitting in with steel wire and titanium planks serving as bridges. There wasn't a single cloud in the blue sky and there was a very nice breeze blowing.

"Never thought I'd be so happy to see the sun!", I laughed as I pulled open a metal grate that lead to the Cafe area, "and this is coming from a creature known for liking it dark, cold and wet!"

Mike laughed, "no shit brother! We should order a burger while were up here."

"Doubt there's service at the kitchen but okay", I smiled.

Mike and I were starting for one of the bridges when the ground started shaking. I could hear low, rabid growls as well as what sounded like the squeaking of metal wheels.

"What the hell is that?", Mike asked as we turned around.

I stood and watched as a giant, four to six foot wide, pale skinned eyeless monster with what looked like a wheelchair for back legs jumped up on top of the elevator and opened it's maw wide. From the depths of it's throat came the loudest, most blood curdling roar I'd ever heard. I saw the color drain out of Mike's face as the monster looked, or more turned it's head, in our direction and let off another roar.

"What the fuck is that thing!", I yelped.

"Does it matter!?", Mike replied, "let him have it!"

Mike and I raised our rifles and let fifty five total rounds of 5.56x45 and 7.62x54 NATO ammunition fly at the creature, barely managing to keep our guns on target. It absorbed our rounds like a sponge and as Mike went for another magazine, I let my rifle fall to my side and reached onto my back for the High-Power. The creature was in midair as I shouldered the rifle to let off a shot, but it pinned me before I could pull the full weight of the 15 pound triggers. The massive double barrel tank stopper flew from my hands and came to a rest dangerously close to the edge of the 6 story lab, if it went over, Mike and I were as good as dead.

"Where's an army of Facehuggers when you need them!", I hissed as I grabbed the creature's powerful jaws in my own grip, trying to keep him from crunching down on my skull. Mike dumped another magazine into the creatures back in an attempt to make it let me go, but it either didn't know it was being filled with lead, or just didn't give two shits.

"Get off of me!", I snarled as I sank my claws as deep into the creatures neck as I could, it's recoil at my intrusion gave the two second window that I needed to lunge forward and take it's jaws in my own. I bit through it's ridiculously strong jaw bone and just barely managed to yank it free, braking the joint to pieces and rendering it's mouth completely useless. Putting every ounce of strength I had in my body into my legs, I kicked the creature off me and stunned it just long enough to get up and get another magazine into my FAL. The creature was now between Mike and I, and the High-Power.

"I don't believe I just lost that rifle!", I shouted, "of everything Karma could possibly throw at me!"

"Neither can I", Mike said reaching into his vest for a 203 round.

"You can't shoot that up here!", I said, "at these ranges it wont have enough punch, save your shot! Our only hope is the High-Power!"

"It can only attack one of us!", Mike said as we leaped out of the way of a multi clawed charging attack, "whoever isn't being chased by big ugly here goes for the God Rifle!"

"Works for me", I said as Mike and I split up. I threw my FAL over my back and drew my sword and Flash Freeze waving my arms at the creature and shouting, "over hear you disabled freak of science! You know you want payback for me fucking up your shit!"

The creature howled at me and lunged. I waited until the very last second to put both of my arms behind the hardest swing of my life which cleaved one of the creature's arms right off it's body, leaving a thick, fleshly log that was pouring blood just feet from the edge of the building. Goliath took no time at all to recover from the roll from the force of the swing and I could already see that it's arm was rapidly regrowing.

"Any time for the High-Power Mike!", I shouted as I twirled the sword in my fingers, trying to taunt Goliath to keep his attention off my weaker, human friend.

"The hammers are bent!", Mike shouted from across the Cafe, "one of them so badly I can't pull the trigger or I'll risk braking the entire action!"

"What do you mean the hammers are bent!", I shouted as I turned back to face Goliath, who was now pounding on the concrete ground, shaking the entire building and roaring at the top of his lungs, call me crazy, but I was sure I was looking at what I was hired to kill in the first place. Somehow I didn't think that a Samurai Sword and a fist full of liquid nitrogen was going to stop this fleshy monster. I quickly sheathed my sword and drew my Raging Bull and my Automag V. Without much delay, there were 15, .50 Action rounds down range and the sounds of empty cases and pistol magazines hitting the ground as the two oversized handguns went in to their holsters for more ammo. Goliath didn't seem to mind the big, cut up BMG rounds too much, all they seemed to compare ti was getting bit my a mosquito. I managed to reload my handguns and put them back on target just in time for two over sized fists to come slamming down on the concrete, knocking me on my ass.

"ANYTIME MICHAEL!", I shouted as I shoved my handguns up underneath Goliath's chin and hammered the triggers as fast as their mechanics would allow. The bullets tore through Goliath's skull and sent bits of bone and brain everywhere, but goddamn was this fucker though! He acted like the 15 rounds that just ripped through his head never happened and tried to crush me underneath his massive arms. I pulled an old Xenomorph trick and collapsed my internal skeleton just in time to slip out of his vise like grip and avoid becoming an acid, puke green stain on the concrete. I realized that the handguns and hand to hand weren't going to cut it and exchanged my handguns for my FAL and dumped the entire 25 round magazine into Goliath's torso, but it was like the hollow point rounds were fading away before they even touched the thing. I was leaving gaping holes where my rounds were impacting, but they were healing in less than 2 seconds flat and otherwise just pissing it off.

"MICHAEL!", I shouted as side stepped around it and reached for another magazine.

"Got it!", Mike said as he jumped up, "eat this bitch!"

Without hesitation, Mike pulled both triggers and the huge .950 TREX bored straight through the creature's hide, came out and dug into me. The force of the impact took me flat to my back and left me winded, but somehow, they had punched through my body armor, but hadn't made it through my Exo. I smiled at myself and lay my head back as Mike came running over.

"Oh shit, shit, shit, shit, shit", he said, "Sky!"

"I'm okay Mike", I said sitting up with a cough, "they didn't make it through my Exo."

"Allen was right", Mike sighed a relived sigh, "this is one hell of a rifle."

I smiled at him as he helped me up and turned my attention to Goliath, who was now pulling himself to his feet, pissed as hell. Some how the point blank .950 hadn't killed him.

"How the fuck is that even possible!", I yelped as Mike handed me the double barrel.

I broke open the action as an earsplittingly loud rifle shot ripped through the air and blew Goliath's wheelchair off his ass. A second round tore through the air and ripped his head off.

"Don't just stand there!", A young sounding voice shouted, "shove that monster down it's throat and pull both triggers!"

Without any wait, I clanked the chamber closed, shoved the Tactical double barrel down Goliath's throat and pulled both triggers, sending him to hell in a cloud of red mist. I broke open the bloody action of the High-Power as Mike pointed out where the two rifle shots had come from. Standing on the grass roof of the Cafe with a Shy Tech 20mm Intervention, was a 15 year old boy in an Exo. From here, I could see he was dressed in a dirty white shirt and torn blue jeans. He had blonde hair and his Exo was surgically implanted like the Ghoul that I'd killed a few days earlier. When he came closer to us, I could see that he had a scar tracing across his right eye, which was now artificial and the areas where the Exo went into his skin to hook to his bones were red and sore.

"I hope you two aren't the only security left", the kid said as he walked up to us, "I can't hold my lab for much longer."

"I'm a guard kid", Mike said, "Sargent Mike Taylor, this is my friend Skyline, he's a bounty hunter who was hired by James to kill off all the mutants and get survivors to safety."

The kid looked at me, "where's your ship? You had to have come from off-world."

"Totaled", I said, "courtesy of Dr Walnuts."

The kid sighed, "I see, I had hopped that nut bag had been eaten by now."

"You said our lab", I said, "are their others with you?"

"There were five of us", the kid sighed, "now it's just me. Two of them fell to the mutants, the other three, including a baby, died when Martin decided he wanted to zero the scope on his 20mm."

Mike sighed and looked at me.

"Show me your holdup", I said, "I think I can solve a few problems here."

The kid nodded and took off down a steel bridge to a large, double wide two story building made almost entirely out of glass and steel. Mike and I followed him down the long bridge to a steel door, which seemed pointless given the building's glass structure. The kid punched a few digits on the door and then we walked in. The former lab was now a small cubby resembling the apartment from I Am Legend, the best movie ever made. There were two bean bags in one corner and a mattress had been set up beside them There was what used to be a pile of food depleted in the corner and only a single first aid kit, two MRE's and a few bottles of water were left. There was a Remington M870 Shotgun in the corner by the bed with a couple boxes of shells and a box of 20mm ammunition next to that. The kid sat his Shy Tech next to his bed and flopped down in the bean bag.

"Guys I feel like I'm about to die", he sighed, "I haven't slept since Martin's little range day."

"How long was that?", I asked.

"Almost a month", the kid said, "two more days and my system is going to force me to shut down and recover and I don't feel like getting shot in my sleep."

'What's your name?", Mike asked.

"Alcatraz", the kid said,.

"Alcatraz?", I asked, "that's your name? Alcatraz. Who gave you that name? I like it."

Alcatraz smiled at me, "my mother."

I smiled back, "fair enough. Listen, I can't in good heart leave you up here. Pack up your stuff and come with us, we can move to someplace safer. Even a 20mm wont go through two stories worth of concrete and steel."

Alcatraz sighed, "I really don't want to go down into that mutant infested hellhole, never to see the light of day again, but if it means I won't get shot in the side of the head like a skeet, I'll go, give me a minute to pack up what I have left."

I nodded and stepped outside, opening the com's to James.

"James", I said, "Skyline, I have something for you."

"What you got?", he asked.

"Mike and I encountered and killed the creature responsible for the slaughter of the survivor pocket", I said, "with the help of a Synthetic named Alcatraz. His supply situation is failing him and he said Martin is responsible for the deaths of three of the five survivors who were with him, the other two fell victim to mutants."

"Bring him on back son", James said, "I may have something else for you and Mike to do before the sun goes down."

"Rodger that", I said, "over and out."

I walked back into the lab where Alky was finishing packing his things, he lifted the pack up to his Exo and strapped it on, "all right, lead the way."

I nodded and we started back for the lounge.