The vents, yet again.

Enzo followed Stern down yet another stretch of bland, crimson-lit metal. They were dropping back down to the research level. He'd popped a handful of painkillers before crawling back into the vents and they were barely doing anything for him. He focused on their plan. Originally, he wanted to know why Eve couldn't just free them from their tubes the same way she'd done for him. She explained to him that that was no longer an option, as Dark Ops had been working steadily to cut her out of the operations of the installation. She could still do a few things, but it wouldn't be long before she was cut out completely.

As it was, they'd be lucky to get away with all the data.

So Enzo and Stern had to do it manually. Climb back down, navigate the dark, bloody corridors, fight the Altered and probably Dark Ops. Though another BioScan had shown a retreat. Dark Ops were leaving that level, bypassing the Military HQ level entirely. They were using a series of maintenance hatches and ventilation grids to get up. But where were they going now? Wherever they were going, it was clear the war wasn't over.

Enzo still wasn't sure what they were going to do with these people once they rescued them from the cramped hell they were locked into.

"Hey, Rains," Stern said.

"Yeah?" Enzo replied.

"What happened with Spec Ops?"

Enzo sighed softly. He was wondering when this was going to come up. For a moment, he considered ignoring the question, but then he figured, why not? Maybe his story would actually get the Sergeant to cut him some fucking slack.

"Politics. Bureaucracy. Bullshit. Also, I'd like to preface this by saying that I did four years as a Marine before Spec Ops," Enzo began.

"I call bullshit, you need a minimum of five years in any branch to be considered for Spec Ops," Stern said, then paused, hesitating, as if remembering something, "unless-"

"Unless you are really good at your job. And I was. I was a Sergeant when they yanked me from the Marines. I'd been in Spec Ops for five years. For most of it, I thought we were doing the good work. We tended to cut through all the red tape and political bullshit that keeps us from getting the job done, it was great. Lots of rescue ops, demolitions, the occasional assassinations. We were killing guys that'd gladly blow up a starport or a schoolyard, then claim it was in the name of some cause or another. I had a squad, eventually became the leader of it when our commander got killed. We were doing a lot of good out there in the galaxy," Enzo said, trailing off, remembering.

"So what went wrong?" Stern asked.

"Like I said, politics. I'd been running into more and more political BS, the politicians sticking their fucking noses in our business, questioning fucking everything, when they didn't know what the hell was going on out in the galaxy. My last mission...me and my squad were running exfil for a recon team. Their job was to infiltrate a facility, gather some data and get out without anyone the wiser. Unfortunately, their cover was blown and they ended up having to shoot their way out. We were sent in to get them out of there."

"Seems like a direct mission," Stern murmured.

"You'd think, only there was a big problem. The base they were investigating was a Russian base. The Galactic Alliance plays like they're one big happy family, but it's all the same bullshit. The Russians are spying on the Chinese, who are running illegal deals with the Norwegians, who are lobbying against the Brazilians because they staked a claim to what was supposed to be their asteroid belt...shit, you get the idea. Obviously, if the Russians found out it was an American Spec Ops team who infiltrated their base, had to shoot their way out...well, that wouldn't look good. And as it was, we weren't on too friendly terms with the Russians just then anyway."

"What was the other squad looking for?"

"We thought that the Russians were harboring American criminals. Really sick bastards that might have some knowledge they weren't supposed to, I think it might've been secret missile production sites. We never got the data, but the recon team did find something out. The Russians had intercepted a secret communique that a squad of slavers was going to hit a Japanese colony. The Russians passed it along to the Japanese, but both of them decided not to do anything about it because the colony was technically outside their jurisdiction. When we pulled the squad out, I presented the data to my superiors, told them we should defend them, or, for fuck's sake, at least send them some kind of warning." Here, Enzo paused, as he'd heard something.

Stern froze up as well. They waited, positioned on either side of a grille that overlooked a main corridor. They were now in hostile territory, well, it was all hostile at this point, but the research labs were extremely hostile.

The sound went away and, after a moment, they kept going.

"And they didn't send a warning?" Stern asked.

"No. They felt that doing so might tip their hand to the fact that they were the ones that had pulled the black op. See, we'd already pissed off Russian by grabbing some of their mining operations via dubious legal loopholes, as well as the fact that there was a big scandal going on at the that time. An American corporation had sold faulty parts to a Russian medical organization and, as a result, a bunch of civilians died...they felt that we couldn't afford another 'scandal'. To be honest, I think they were just pissed off at the colonists."

"Why?"

"I've noticed a kind of 'they made their bed, let them sleep in it' policy that the governments have towards those colonists that want to strike out on their own, free of government rule. All of the governments have that policy, it seems. It's so fucking high school...so, I walked. I was so pissed, so sick of it all. I even tried to make a deal, let me and my crew go on 'leave' and deal with the problem on our own time. They told us no, flat out. Me and about three quarters of my squad just straight-up walked the fuck out of Spec Ops."

"That seems a bit rash for a little colony," Stern said after a moment.

"Maybe it was, but it was everything. The way they were questioning everything, the way it became less about doing some real good in the galaxy and more about covering the government's ass. The way the megacorps seemed to be having their fingers in fucking all of it. We walked, went and protected the colony. Gave them warning, helped them set up defenses. We fucking broke those slavers, sent them all to hell."

"And you never went back."

"Yeah. We struck a deal with Spec Ops, they let us go, we don't say shit about their operations. Obviously we didn't trust them, we all got new names, new IDs, new faces. And that's the story of why I'm a fucking bitter mercenary," Enzo said.

"How'd you get the arm? Lee mentioned you were hitting the morphine pretty hard," Stern said after a long moment.

"That's an entirely different story. That is the reason I'm a bitter human being," Enzo replied.

They both fell silent as they turned a corner in the vent shaft and spied something up ahead. Whatever it was, it seemed to fill the vent, top to bottom, side to side. Enzo was in the lead and he felt terror shudder through him at the idea of being trapped in a vent with...whatever the fuck it was. He knew it was alive, the dim light that played across what might have been a face gave that much away. And...it began moving.

"Shit, we need to get out, now," he said, hunting for an exit.

"But we aren't there yet!" Stern replied.

Enzo glanced down, realizing that they were both on a large grille. The thing in the vent was coming closer now.

"Too bad!" Enzo said, then hit the access button.

The grille opened beneath them, depositing them both into the room below, into the waiting arms of whatever might be down there. They both cried out in pain as they hit the floor. Enzo scrambled back to his feet, spying a nearby crate and standing up on it. The vent was rattling. He reached up and slapped the close button.

"Whew! Close one," he said, hopping back down.

"Rains..."

Enzo looked around. "Oh, you are shitting me up the dick," he muttered.

"Don't think I've ever heard that one before," Stern whispered back.

They'd dropped right into a storage bay where what seemed to be happening was the construction of a new Nest. The storage bay they'd dropped into was huge, more a warehouse than a bay, the stacks of crates towering over them. Spread out across the open floor in between the crate walls were close to two dozen Mutants and Harvesters, and, what's worse, Enzo saw, a pair of Ires. Okay, so maybe staying in the vents might not have been so bad.

"We have to get to the exit. Get ready to punch a hole," Stern said under his breath.

All the Altered seemed to be still getting used to their presence, turning to face them, readying themselves for combat. Enzo was glad for his shotgun, he'd be needing every shell. He tucked it into his shoulder as he began slowly moving towards the nearest exit that, unfortunately, a dozen Mutants and an Ire were blocking.

One of the Ires let loose with a marrow-freezing roar.

The Mutants began to charge.

"Go!" Enzo snapped.

He took aim and fired, blowing a fist-sized hole through the chest of the nearest Mutant, sending it flying back into the others. He raced to the right, trying to get around them, racking the slide and blasting the head off of a second Mutant as it charged for him. Behind him, he could hear Stern opening up with his rifle. The battle kicked into gear, lead and blood flying. Enzo continued pumping out shells, focusing them on the Ire now.

The big brute was making for him and, he noted with some approval, it wouldn't let anything get in its way. There were a pair of Mutants in between it and Enzo. The big thing smashed them both aside with a sweep of its arm. Enzo fired the last shot, directly into its chest, and began feeding shells into the shotgun.

"We need to get out of here!" Stern called.

"On it!" Enzo replied.

He finished reloading, barely had time to bring the barrel up directly into the face of the Ire, which was bearing down on him now, and fire off two quick shots. Both of them blew the thing's malformed head off. While it was still standing, wobbling, Enzo put another two powerful slug shells into its chest, sending it flying onto its back. He turned and blew apart the skull of an approaching Harvester and called for Stern to follow him.

They beat a hasty retreat across the room, moving backwards now that Enzo had, for the most part, cleared out his side of the room, putting down the creatures as they raced for them. Before long, the pair had made it to the door. Enzo hit the open button with his elbow and turned around, securing the next room while Stern kept covering them. It was a smaller storage bay and it seemed empty. He patted Stern on the back as he turned around and helped him blast back the creatures. They'd put down a dozen of the things so far, but that second Ire was still in the game, and so were half a dozen Mutants and Harvesters.

They closed the door.

"That probably won't hold them," Stern said as they made their way across the room.

"If we get far enough away, maybe they'll lose interest," Enzo replied.

"Doubt it. There aren't too many living people left alive in this place and they seem to be drawn to us like magnets. By the way, good call dropping out of the vents like that, it was way better than hanging out up there."

Enzo laughed. "You sure do bitch a lot for a Marine."

Stern looked at him for a moment, as though deciding whether or not to take offense to it, then returned the laugh. "It's been a long day."

"Yeah," Enzo replied. "And it's just going to get longer."

With that, they moved across the storage bay. They weren't too far from where they needed to be. As they began navigating the badly damaged, poorly lit corridors once more, Enzo decided it was his turn to get some information.

"So how'd you end up here?" he asked.

"Like all the other grunts, I was pulled here. Stuffed on a transport and sent out. It was very sudden and smelled of bad policy. I think whoever actually got approval to enforce some oversight on what they were doing here was worried they were going to lose it and wanted to get the show on the road before Dark Ops changed their minds. Which is a little scary, considering it's supposed to be the Galactic Alliance that's running Dark Operations...not the other way around. Sergeant Major Freeman was the man in charge.

"He was not happy about it. None of us were. They stuffed us in the Marine HQ and had us patrolling pretty much everywhere except for this level and the one below it, where the spaceship is. It was just a bunch of grunt work, totally pointless. It was a full month before Freeman began getting access to the research level, and even then another month before they apparently let him in on what was going on. Even after that, they never let us in. They had their own security, obviously. It was a power play, and it failed," Stern explained.

"Sounds like a lot more of that political bullshit," Enzo replied.

"Yeah, only this time it got a shitload of people killed."

They both stopped talking as they arrived at their destination. Enzo hit the access button after Stern had gotten into position. The doors slid open. The bay was revealed, still glowing that dim green light. They swept the area with the flashlights attached to their weapons. A lone figure stood in the darkness, across the room, bathed in a dim green glow.

"Who goes there?" Enzo called.

They both centered their flashlights on the figure.

A second later, immense and unthinkable pain exploded across Enzo's midsection. Brilliantly blue-white light engulfed his vision as the pain spread to his limbs and his head, enveloping him. He became aware of screaming, not one but two voices. It took him a second, but he realized that one voice was his own. The other was Stern's.

Suddenly, he was lying on the floor, someone standing over him.

The pain had receded to a slightly more tolerable level, and now that it had, he could think a little more clearly. It took him a moment, but Enzo finally pieced together what had happened: both he and Stern had been hit with energy-based stun rounds. Technically non-lethal, extremely effective. And they must have been overcharged or of some higher capacity, because Enzo was currently clinging grimly to consciousness, barely able to keep it together.

Stern was out completely.

"Ah, my guests have finally arrived."

He realized now who it was. Dr. Dietz. The mad scientist. He was looking significantly madder than usually. Half of what remained of his hair had been burned away. Blood splattered his white uniform and his eyes were wide and wild and almost empty. He was grinning a lot and there was a nasty gash along his right arm.

"They left me to die..." he said, then he laughed uncontrollably for a long moment. Abruptly he stopped and continued as though there had been no pause in his monologue. "Fielding thought she could continue my research herself, could implant herself...could control it herself! Stupid woman. But it doesn't matter, I can continue my own research by myself...which reminds me..." Dietz suddenly turned away.

With an effort, Enzo followed his movements as he walked to a large console. He spent a moment pecking at it and, as one, the green lights went out in all the remaining pods. Dietz laughed as he returned, the sound piercing.

"All inferior subjects," he said, then spat at one of the pods. "Convicts, rent-a-cops, low-level technicians, bah! All useless..." Here, he looked down. "But not like you! Both of you, and the others, who have been through so much. They think it's just meat that you can feed them, no matter the quality, just the quantity! Ha! Shows what they know...what she knows! We can do so much with the Altered, the possibilities are limitless! And I will show them all when I implant you both, guide you with my newest techniques..."

Something was moving, back there in the darkness.

Dietz was oblivious, continuing his insane rant about the future of the Altered. The darkness was beginning to close in on Enzo. He wanted to sleep, to give in to the pain more than anything. Sleep, true sleep, was close, so very close.

But to give in would be to die, very likely.

Whatever it was came closer now, into the light. A Mutant. It was coming up behind Dr. Dietz. He noticed it at the last second, too late. Spinning around, he raised his arms. The Mutant slashed at him, catching the man in the face and chest it seemed. It was sprayed with blood. Dietz fell to the floor, gurgling horribly.

The Mutant began to come for him and Stern.

Enzo lost his fight to stay conscious.

His last thought was: at least my shoulder won't hurt anymore.

Then he was out.