"Our reality is but a trick of perspective. Between every atom is a universe and we are but a constellation of particles," said the shadow of memory. "Yeva, my little galaxy, you must remember that, for when a mind steps beyond the silhouette of reality, it must be able to comprehend its own divinity."

  "Yeva?"

  "What is it, Richard?" I said, drawn from the dark memory with a frigid clarity. My unfocused eyes found the cityscape once more. The dazzling lights of Babylon spanned from planet to moon above, connected by dozens of scapeways that stretched from surface to surface, reaching through the thermosphere. Celeste, one of Primus’ two tidally locked equatorial moons blotted out the sky and stars above, excepting only those that shone on the horizon. Babylon supplied its own constellations, lights of violet, blue, and yellow shone down from the opposing cityscape.

  I turned to face my friend and subordinate. The professional soldier was handsome, in a 'I broke my jaw' kind of way. A butch beard trimmed close to hide the fact he was still in his twenties, and a militant buzzcut that was almost a shave on the sides made him look somewhere between a guerilla commando and an athlete. He was also carrying two exo-kits, the large backpacks slung one over each shoulder.

  "Did you not hear the alarm? We've got a job," Richard said, holding out one of the kits. It was embroidered with SMIRNOVA in red letters on one shoulder strap, the other strap emblazoned with the Clearlight Foundation's emblem, a lighthouse shadowed by an eclipse.

  "Sorry, I was spacing out," I said, as I took it and slipped it over my shoulders, doing up the seven straps with the ease of practiced motion.

  "Deep thoughts to miss the call," he observed, buckling on his own exo-kit. The shoulder straps were secured in three points across the chest and cuffs clipped shut for the biceps and thighs.

  "Hardly, the radio is barely audible out here. The open air just swallows it up," I said lightly, dodging the question. "Where's the breach?"

  "It's one of ours, location code eleven O three, a medical lab, code name Zion. Nanite development. Debrief in transit, looks like we're picking up a second squad on the way."

  "Must be a big one,” I said. “Activate exo-kit Smirnova and McClair.” The kits responded, tightening the straps to the optimal psi to not restrict blood flow. Both Richard and I winced in unison as thousands of hypodermic electrodes punctured our skin. It wasn't painful, the electrodes were placed to touch nerves but not damage them, however it was an unsettling feeling, even after years of using the kits. My drill sergeant had called it instant acupuncture in a vest, and if that wasn't weird enough, the next part always took the cake. Modular external kinetic enhancement, nicknamed 'SMIRNOVA', is attempting to connect to your nervous system. Would you like to interface with this upgrade? My neural nanite interface matrix, or Nim for short, asked, the words appearing in my head as if I thought them but sounding different from my own thoughts. Nim's voice was... boyish, perhaps? And tinted with the faintest hint of sarcasm as he repeated the same questions he had asked me thousands of times. I never knew if the nanites' personality was created by my own imagination or if the neural network had learned to mimic emotion by studying my brain.

  "Yes," Richard and I said in unison, responding verbally to our nanites. Sensation ran like a shiver up my spine as the hypodermic electrodes started sending test impulses through my nervous system. The exo-kit's robotic arm tingled fiercely like it were my own limb that had fallen asleep and now had blood rushing back into it. The sensation passed after a moment before the exoskeletal arm and leg supports extended, closing around the backs of my limbs like the fingers of a second ribcage, moving in tandem with my limbs. The whole system was controlled by Nim, who was constantly monitoring every electrical impulse in my body.

  "Ready?" Richard asked, flexing all twenty three of his fingers, ten flesh, ten exoskeletal, and three on the arm now protruding from his exo-kit near the shoulder blades. He flashed a roguish grin as I did the same, cracking my neck for good measure.

  "To kill some eldritch horrors?” I asked, “Always.”

  ***

  “I think,” CBRN Grenadier Aiden Avery said, posing with an authoritative boot on the tube car seat, “we should abolish anarcho-capitalism and institute a new oligarchy.”

  The dark skinned corporal was coming out with another one of his most nuclear takes. Shouts and jeers from all four of his fellow squadmates, including my own derisive witticism, were lost in an overlapping cacophony as he basked in the criticism.

  “You would choose dictatorship over democracy?” Richard said, his voice winning out, as always.

  “Perhaps if we had democracy, we wouldn't need dictatorship, but I'd take anything over this capitalistic hellscape we call a world government. Corporations control everything,” he shot back, pleased with the discourse as he toyed with an out of place dreadlock.

  “What's wrong with corporations? Companies like the Clearlight Foundation gave the world universal nanite healthcare.” I said, mildly offended.

  “The problem, Captain, is that these corporations are so powerful that they control the government that is supposed to regulate them. And what regulation does exist is lobbied in place by these very corporations specifically to hamstring other corporations. Remember bill ninety seven A from last year?” I shook my head but he powered on. ”The restriction of plutonium mining on Celeste existed solely to force Exotech to buy more of its radiological components from Ionic Inc. Those restrictions caused almost a million people to lose their jobs.”

  While he is, in a way, correct, historical records show that regardless of governmental system, the influence of private parties on litigation is ubiquitous, Nim commented within my head. Yeah, no shit, changing the structure wouldn't make people stop accepting bribes.

  “And who do you think supplied those jobs in the first place?” I shot back, before realizing I didn't remember which corps he'd said were involved and changing tact. “You know what, no, don't answer that, it was rhetorical. Instead, would you prefer we all worked for a single dictator rather than getting the freedom to work for whoever we wanted?”

  “Yes, I would because then I wouldn't have to deal with nepobabies like you defending their corporate overlords,” Avery returned fire, heedless of my ace in the hole.

  “Hey-” Richard barked.

  “Asshole,” Melony grumbled.

  Kumiko daintily covered her mouth in shock.

  I cut them all off with a raised hand and rolled my eyes, inwardly grinning like a fool. It had come out early that my parents had been two of the head researchers for the Clearlight Foundation and had both died in a lab accident when I was eight. The sting had long since left. The boyish corporal, however, had the grace to look sheepish, avoiding my eyes and scratching the back of his head at the sudden tension. That's right, squirm under the disapproving eyes of my henchmen.

  “It's fine,” I said magnanimously, breaking the tension. “But, we have gotten a little off topic.”

  Everyone relaxed and the tube car entered a tunnel, the glass overhead went dark for a moment until we passed the first of the tunnel's lights.

  “I have a question,” Kumiko, the shy combat medic said, raising her hand.

  We had strayed from the original mission briefing, although admittedly the tube car ride was long enough that we had run out of mission details long ago.

  “Yes, Corporal Sasaki?” I said, pointing.

  “Who would Avery choose to be the new oligarch then, himself?”

  “I have always seen myself as a king amongst men, my sweet supplicant," the Corporal said cloyingly, his embarrassment from moments ago forgotten. “But that wasn't who I had in mind, no! I present to you the future of Primus, president and emperor of Babylon, our glorious squad mascot, Mr. Hamburger.”

  Said mascot was thankfully not present in the tube car, so the specialist grenadier presented a photo on his smartpager. The barracks’ cat had a tattered blue silk necktie poorly tied around the adopted stray's throat. He had a clawed paw pinning the defeated apparel to the ground and was licking it.

  “Behold, his regal majesty, president-”

  “Is that my tie?” Corporal Melony Quick said, snatching the smartpager from her squadmate.

  “Oh uh, is it?” Avery said, shrinking back. “What a surprise?”

  “It's fucking destroyed,” she said, springing from her own seat. “Aiden you little shit, that was my favorite tie.”

  “Melony, I can explain,” the dark skinned Babylonian pleaded. “It was like that when I found it.”

  He let out a little squeak as his diminutive squadmate grabbed his throat and lifted him into the air, the servos of her exo-kit whirring.

  Richard leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Should I intervene?” my lieutenant asked.

  “Eh, he deserves it,” I said with a shrug as the grenadier was pressed against the wall.

  “Corporal Quick, if you break our CBRN before a mission, we will have words.” I turned to Richard. “We're almost at the pickup point, shall we prepare to greet the other squad?”

  “Wait, Captain,” Avery called, “you can't leave me here. You have to save me.”

  “You heard the Captain,” Melony said with an evil grin, raven black hair shading her eyes, “you're all mine so long as I don't break you.”

  “Lead the way,” Richard shrugged.

  “Captain,” Avery called after us, his voice raising an octave with each word, “Captain please.”

  The tube car door shut behind us, blocking out the sounds of Corporal Avery's shrill screams as we moved our way to the front of the tube train.

  ***

  Standing on the tube car platform, awaiting our arrival, was Captain Esten Coldwell and his squad. Our squads had some history, having both been through the academy at the same time. Calling our relationship ‘professional’ would be what some people called diplomatic. Recalibrating casualty prediction, warning, based on historical records, your teams survival rate has just decreased by 7.8%, I recommend immediate defenestration of one or more of the people present, Nim helpfully opined.

  “Captain Coldwell, a pleasure as always,” I said with a forced smile.

  “Captain Smirnova,” he said with a nod, “When I heard it was to be a joint operation, I knew we would need all the help we could get. With a squad of your caliber, I’m glad to see I wasn’t wrong.”

  His lieutenant, Duncan Wiesner, did his best to stifle a snicker.

  “Likewise,” I said mildly. Honeybadger Squad was a team of five absolute tanks, which made their sense of teamwork pretty much nonexistent. They went in and everyone else was left on cleanup. They hadn’t made many friends in the academy, and in the years since their record on joint operations hadn’t been much better. The Captain himself was a two meter tall wall of muscle that had chewed through members until he ended up with four others equally as brutal. “Learned any new commands since the academy, or are you still operating with attack and retreat?”

  The other captain bristled at the rebuke, the whiskers of his mutton chops standing a little taller. His exo-tech gave out a characteristic whine as his muscles clenched. For a moment I thought he might try striking me, but he surprised me by chuckling instead.

  “You always did give twice as good as you got, Smirnova. I always liked that about you, even if you were a royal pain in my ass.” He reached out an arm in offering, and I took it in a soldier’s handshake.

  “I was a pain in your ass? You cocked up every joint exercise we ran together by rushing in before we could do recon,” I said skeptically.

  “Fair enough, but back in those days, they penalized us for mission length. Spend too much time planning and you’ll drop in the rankings.”

  That much was true, though it would have been nice if he’d clued me into that plan before charging the combat zone.

  “Speaking of the clock, we should get a move on. My team has already been briefed on the mission, I can catch you up in transit.”

  “Lead the way.”

  ***

  The rhythmic strobing of the tunnel lights passing through the tube car’s glass walls and ceiling began to slow as we neared the station. It was to be weapons hot the moment the doors opened. Each of our squads were waiting, guns at the ready, in separate tube cars. The tube network was primarily owned and operated by the Clearlight Foundation, which meant most of their larger facilities had a tube platform. Mission data said it was unlikely the tumor's influence had reached the station yet, but that didn’t mean we would be taking any risks.

  I looked to either side, briefly checking that each of my squadmates’ hazmat armor had been properly sealed. Warp could dissolve flesh faster than any acid and even a single drop of ichor on exposed skin could be lethal, so it was imperative that there were no gaps in the armor for it to infiltrate. Richard and myself both wore medium weight armor, balancing mobility with durability, whereas corporals Quick and Sasashi had the lighter variant, and Avery’s was the heavy classification. However, even in the sleek lightweight classification, it would have been impossible to wear the armor without an exo-kit under it to support the lead woven fabric. The Warp beasts were organic in nature and recoiled on contact with the poisonous metal, so the developers liked to weave lead fibers into everything they could get their hands on.

  To my left, Kumiko met my eyes through her faceshield and nodded. Her small, heartshaped face was set in a deadly serious scowl and tinted yellow by leaded glass. I returned the nod with a reassuring smile and turned to face the sliding glass car doors. The tubeway station came into view. The platform was tinted a yellow red by my own visor and the emergency lights, but experience told me it was decorated in a mosaic of orange, blue, and white tile. It was also, fortunately, completely deserted. According to the briefing, all believed alive staff had been evacuated following protocol, but you could never be sure. It also meant the station hadn’t been warped yet, which was a good sign. It meant we would have a staging ground from which we could do recon without being harassed by warp beasts from the moment we stepped into the facility.

  Many of these research labs were constructed underground because they were often the targets of breaches, and Zion was no exception. It was far easier to quarantine a building that was entombed under a mile of rock, so in this mission we didn’t need to worry about civilian activity.

  The tube car came to a stop and docked to the platform airlock. The doors hissed as the gasket engaged the glass walls of the tubeway, before sliding soundlessly apart. Corporals Quick and Avery were the first to breach, followed closely by Sasaki and my lieutenant. I was the last one off, as I kept an eye on the room for any movement. Further up the platform, Honeybadger squad was doing the same, only less gracefully, as all five of them wore heavy class hazmat armor.

  A small drone detached from the back of Corporal Quick’s exo-kit and hovered above her head, a laser flashing as it scanned the room for heat signatures.

  “Talk to me, Quick,” I said as my short splicer frowned at her HUD.

  “Nothing. We’re clear, for now.”

  “You know the drill, Corporal, find me the edges. Let's get eyes on it before Captain Coldwell gets impatient.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Two more drones detached from her exo-kit and each of the three flew off in different directions, each one finding a hallway to zip down. Her kit, as a splicer specialist, was different from mine and Richard’s, instead of a sleek utility arm, the bulky splicer kit held a small drone hanger and control module.

  “McClair, Avery, secure the south entrance, I don’t want any Stalkers getting around our perimeter,” I ordered, noticing that Captain Coldwell had commanded his own squad into two pairs to cover the other north and east entrances. The captain himself was making his way towards me. I met him halfway.

  “Looks like the intel was good for once,” the captain commented.

  “Seems likely. With multiple breach tumors reported in a facility this large, you want to split up or stick together?”

  “Faster clear time if we split.”

  “More risk too, this isn’t the academy where speed is everything.”

  The big man went to scratch his whiskers, only to be thwarted by his faceshield.

  “True, but there’s risk in going together as well,” he grunted. “If we get surrounded, overwhelmed, no one will be there to bail us out. My money is still on splitting. If we push too deep as a unit and a tumor forms behind us, we could be flanked with no way to push through.”

  It is a fair concern, Yeva, based on historical data, most squad casualties come from over committing to a single push. The fact that this advice is coming from Captain Estan Coldwell defies historical data. It is possible he is simply attempting to manipulate you by using arguments you would find appealing. Nim’s insight gave me pause. Coldwell might still see my squad as dead weight, or could it be that he was still pursuing a grudge from the Academy. I couldn’t think of anything that would drive him to actually betray a fellow squad, though. If my squad fell on a joint operation it would reflect poorly on his record. It seemed more likely he just didn’t want us slowing him down. He always had been obsessed with hitting the top of the squad rankings back at the academy. Maybe he just wanted the glory of being the one to close the main breach.

  “Captain,” Corporal Quick called, prompting both Coldwell and myself to swivel to the splicer. “I found the edges, the warp is most developed to the north, but it appears to be spread throughout the facility. To the south, most of the housing seems unwarped, but there are signs of infection in the hallways just beyond. To the east the locker room and bathrooms are both clean but the mess hall is blocked by a warp wall. To the north the first few conference rooms are clear but there are feelers in the corridor leading deeper into the facility. The closest tumor is likely behind that warp wall down the east hall. The north hall loops around and connects to it, but I didn’t want to risk scouting past the feelers.”

  “Very well, Captain,” I said, turning back to Coldwell. “We’ll do this your way. We split up and form a two pronged attack. Your team can push hard through the east and we will take the north, pushing deep to flank that fortified membrane wall. Once we break through we can push on the first tumor together.”

  “A good plan, but I want the north,” he grunted.

  “Why? My team is lighter, we’ll be going the long way to flank that wall. Your team will take longer to get into position.”

  “On the contrary, my squad is specialized at charging in, we can flank faster than you, and being the flanking team, we will be in more danger to a counter flank than the frontal assault, which our heavier kit is better suited to.”

  When had he gotten so damned persuasive? He really had changed since the academy.

  “Fine,” I grunted. “Let’s move out.”

  “Quick, I need you to get those southern doors online and seal them,” I said over the intercom so the whole team could hear. “A hazard four facility like this should have blast doors on all the main entry points. McClair, cover her. The rest of you form up on the east entrance. As soon as that door is sealed, we push into main.”

  A chorus of affirmatives sounded as the team rushed into action.

  “Good luck, Captain,” I said as his team rushed to form up on the northern door. “Let’s all get out of this one alive, yeah.”

  The boulder of a man saluted in response before turning to join his team.

  ***

  Half a dozen beams of white light pierced the darkness of the eastern gate. Specks of dust glittered in the shafts of light as the stagnant air was stirred by our passing. It was protocol to cut the power and seal the ventilation system in hazard 4 facilities during an emergency, such as this warp incursion, in order to stop a contamination breach. That meant we had roughly twenty four hours before the oxygen levels became dangerously low. The only in or out was the tubeway, which was vacuum sealed to reduce air resistance and insulate the magnetic superconductors that levitated the tube cars. TL;DR this place was a stale tomb, yet despite being abandoned in a hurry, it was no ruin. The laminate floors were clean and polished, the walls white and crisp. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was somewhat tainted by the knowledge of what waited ahead.

  “You know the drill,” my lieutenant murmured, “sweep each room as we pass, Quick, keep those drones watching our flanks.”

  The hallway before us had three doors on the left and a branch to the right before the passageway turned left around a corner. We pushed forward with cool professionalism. As reported, the first room we passed was a locker room which was clean of warp. The hallway branch to the right also looked clean, but I knew the drones had seen feelers beyond the next bend. We pushed past it anyway and checked the bathrooms. So far so good. I raised a hand as we reached the end of the corridor. Around this corner was the membrane wall that would block our path. As soon as we opened fire on it, we’d have the warp’s attention.

  I leaned out to get a look at our target. The corridor’s walls, ceiling, and floor were smeared with a dark ichor that ended in a fleshy membrane. The thinner parts of the wall were illuminated red and faintly translucent, but around the edges, thick corded arteries appeared fully black and oily. The entire membrane pulsed slowly, as if it were the wall of a beating heart.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “You’re up, Avery,” I said, turning back to my squad.

  The lanky grenadier looked positively bulky clad in his full kit. The standard CBRN exo-kit had a shoulder mounted plasma cannon in place of a utility arm, which was our opener. He stepped out into the open and braced himself, stabilizers anchored him in place as the exo-cannon’s telescoping barrel extended to a meter in length and rested on his shoulder. After a moment of charging, the exo-cannon let out a whomp as a blinding blue ball of plasma disappeared down the corridor, followed by a boom that shook the ground. Richard and I formed up beside him as he prepared for another shot. Typically a warp wall was best avoided, for the very reason presenting itself. The wall was healing rapidly. The cannon had blown a hole in the membrane a meter and a half across, but strings of sinew had already webbed over the gap and started filling it in. At the same time, the wall started launching spear-like tendrils towards us. Richard and I opened fire on the thin projectiles, our automatic rifles shredding the assault but doing little to the wall itself.

  “That got their attention,” Corporal Quick said. “We’ve got hostiles incoming from the south. Honeybadger got the signal though, they’re pushing now.”

  “What are we looking at, Quick, can you and Sasaki handle it?” Richard shouted over the gunfire.

  “Looks like a decanid from its movement patterns. Wait, it looks like there’s readings coming from the locker room we passed as well.”

  “Shit,” Richard said, “Captain?”

  Unlike the warp wall, a class 2 warp beast, a decanid was considered a class 7, anything above a class 6 could warp physics. Decanids in particular could manipulate gravity. If this breach tumor was already developed enough to be spitting out class 7 monsters, we were going to have some problems. Then there was the mystery beast we missed in our sweep, likely a stalker, class 6, they liked to show up in unexpected places.

  “We need to move,” I said.

  Whomp… Boom.

  Another section of the warp wall was atomized in the blast, this one aimed at the bottom right corner. Three or four more shots would likely destroy it.

  “We can’t wait for the wall to come down, if a decanid gets us flanked we’re fucked.” I glanced back the way we came. Three doors on the right, the decanid coming from the hallway on the left. A shimmer distorted the light from my helmet in front of the farthest door. Kumiko saw it and responded with a spray of bullets. No retreating that way. “Pack it up, Avery. We’re falling back to the men’s bathroom.”

  Richard and I covered the grenadier as he retreated, all of us packing into the nearest doorway. The warp wall couldn’t attack well around corners with its tendrils, so by retreating here we effectively were eliminating it as a threat for the time being. Being flanked in both directions was brutal but this bathroom was a dead end, so we once again reduced the directions of attack to one, which was far preferable to being surrounded on three sides.

  “Coldwell,” I said over the intercom, “We got surrounded and have taken up a defensive position in the men’s bathroom. How’s your push going?”

  “Well that’s tits, we’re in the same boat. Fuckers came up behind us so we pushed through, but now we’re caught between your warp wall and a-”

  A deafening screech of metal ripped through the air, reverberating in the intercom. The bathroom door was torn violently off its hinges and flung backwards. The frame was filled with black tendrils as the decanid attempted to force its way into the bathroom.

  “Open fire,” Richard ordered calmly to a chorus of gunfire. The encore was the whomp of Avery’s cannon as the plasma hit the ten armed monstrosity in its center of mass. The blast annihilated three of the creature's undulating tendrils, but it still kept coming, tearing into the concrete as it tried to force its way to us.

  We could hold out here, but that would mean leaving Honeybadger squad to die behind that warp wall. I needed a plan… and I had nothing. Well shit.

  “Nim, any ideas,” I murmured under my breath.

  According to the facility layout data, I would recommend blasting your way through the wall in stall six, Nim said. It was either my imagination or he was exasperated, which was totally unfair, he was literally a computer. According to nanite computational research, my neural network functions in a very similar manner to the neurons in your soft meat brain, he added helpfully.

  While I had been coming up with a plan, completely on my own and without the help of anyone else, the situation had gotten worse. The decanid had gotten two of its tendrils fully through the doorway and each one could manipulate the flow of gravity. It pointed the two oily black appendages at my grenadier and lieutenant and immediately Richard started to fall towards the beast’s crushing embrace. Fortunately he was the only one, as Avery was anchored into the ground with his artillery supports. I reached out and grabbed the falling lieutenant by his exo-arm with both hands, my own exo-arm latching onto one of the bathroom stalls, metal fingers digging into the plastic.

  “Quick, take Avery’s breach charge and blow us a way out of here. Stall six, last one on the right. Sasaki, keep shooting this fucker before I drop McClair. Avery, bring down the ceiling on it. We’re not going out that way anyways.”

  My squad leapt into action. The first thing to fall into place was through the combined efforts of Sasaki and McClair who managed to take out another tendril, allowing me to let go of my lieutenant. That was followed by another whomp and a cascade of concrete. Lastly, a blast shook the back of the room as the breach charge went off. I dusted masonry off my shoulder as my squad groaned around me.

  “Off your asses boys and girls,” I said without a hint of remorse. “We’ve got a honeybadger to save.

  ***

  The man sized gloryhole we had made in stall six led to just behind the warp wall, as it happened. All according to my plan, of course. Every surface on the other side was slick with a thick layer of mold-like black ichor that rippled up the walls and dripped from the ceiling like saliva. Even the air was filled with spore-like flecks of black warp, which, in addition to being positively disgusting, was a good indicator that the breach tumor was close by. Bullets also filled the air as Honeybadger squad did what they did best. They had hunkered down in the hallway with an exo-cannon aimed in either direction as they held off a horde of class 1 locusts from the north and attempted to destroy the warp wall to the south.

  “On your right, Captain,” I said over the intercom. “And I swear to god if you shoot me, the warp will be the least of your concerns.”

  “So you’re the ones causing property damage, how unlike you.”

  “Messhall is between us, you want to push for it?”

  “Beats staying here.”

  “On three,” I said, signaling to my squad, “two, one.”

  We rushed the corridor as Honeybadger squad pivoted, focusing all their firepower on the locusts to the north. We now had the warp wall’s full attention, luckily we didn’t need to destroy it, just take out its projectiles as we backed towards Honeybadger squad. I paid special attention to my footing as we moved. As always, the warp ichor that blanketed the floor pulled away from my lead lined boots the moment they squelched into the goop. It was like watching ferro-fluid get repulsed by a magnet. I’d once seen a civilian step into this stuff and it climbed up their legs and devoured them in a matter of heartbeats.

  Within a few seconds we had reached our goal. The large doorway to the messhall loomed between our two squads.

  “Ladies first,” Captain Coldwell said, still laying suppressing fire at the endless approaching wall of locusts. The creatures were like alarmingly long legged centipedes that had grown dragonfly wings and a taste for murder. I didn’t argue.

  My team followed as I ducked through the portal and into the largest room so far, if you didn't count the tubeway platform. It opened up in all directions with a kitchen bar cafeteria style on the northern wall and another large doorway on the eastern wall that led deeper into the facility. The room was filled with strands of vein-like warp that had grown over everything and hung in curtains, which obscured much of the room at a glance, but at least for the moment I didn't see any movement other than the warp's rhythmic pulsing.

  “Quick, get these doors sealed,” I ordered. “Captain Coldwell, leave them a surprise to remember us by.”

  The other captain started barking orders to his own squad, but I was already tuning him out.

  “The rest of you prepare for an assault and keep your eyes peeled.”

  My splicer had located a smart panel by the door and was prying the screen off. I lamented the destruction of good electronics, but it wasn't like it would work without power. With an expensive sound, she bent up the side of the display causing the glass to shatter, then got her exo-skeleton enhanced fingers under the metal and tore the panel fully off the wall, discarding it. Wires spilled from the fresh hole in the wall and she started rooting around in them.

  “Talk to me, Quick.”

  Her fist came out, ripping out wires as it went. She swiftly clamped power cables onto the exposed copper before plugging her smartpager into the circuit.

  “Looks like this panel controls the doors, lights, and emergency systems.”

  “Lock it down and light 'em up.”

  Honeybadger squad had gotten into position and their CBRN was ready with a thermal reactor. I nodded to Coldwell who gave the signal. The grenadier rolled the device into the hallway as the doors slammed shut. A moment later a boom resounded through the building, rattling the heavily reinforced doors. It was followed by the hissing sizzle of melting flesh. One of the locust’s centipede-like body had gotten trapped by the shutting doors, and it wriggled in an attempt to get free. Coldwell stepped forward and smashed it with a leaded gauntlet, causing it to burst like a watery sausage.

  Without the constant sound of gunfire, the world felt almost deathly silent. Still as a graveyard… well except for the loud scraping of corporals Avery and Sasaki dragging overturned cafeteria tables into a makeshift barricade, and my lieutenant's barked orders.

  The lights came on in a blinding flash and Melony let out a cackle of triumph. As our eyes adjusted to the white fluorescent glare of the messhall it became clear the room was also, apparently, the nest of a warp weaver, as a dozen black webbed egg sacs with translucent red shells hung from the vaulted ceiling. Inside each egg, backlit by the ceiling lights, were dark, twisted masses of pitch black flesh. Thick vein-like webs of ichor were strung throughout the room connecting the egg sacs together. Each one pulsed rhythmically in time to the beating of a tumorous mass that had embedded itself in the far wall like a nexus of arteries; a literal beating heart, pumping life into the eldritch reproductive organs.

  Well, that wasn’t good.

  “Warp weaver,” my lieutenant called from beside me.

  “I'm not sure it's in,” Coldwell said, surreptitiously revving up his minigun.

  Warp weavers were class 13, anything above ten was considered a breach tumor. Theoretically the scale went as high as fifteen, but anything above thirteen was a city killer. The thing that made warp weavers dangerous was their intelligence and ability to set traps. They also liked to make warp webs and hang egg sacs from ceilings. But perhaps most concerning was the fact that it had used a juvenile breach tumor, class 11, to lure us here, and we had just set fire to our only route of escape.

  “Oh fuck me,” Coldwell said under his breath.

  I followed his gaze to the nearest egg sac, where cracks were forming in the red membrane. The fractures leaked a clear plasma in long strands that pooled all around us.

  “Open fire!” Coldwell roared, and I wasn’t going to contradict him.

  All hell broke loose as bullets filled the air. Egg sacs burst, either of their own accord or due to being shot. A dozen masses of dark flesh hit the ground in writhing heaps. Exo-cannon shots went off one after another, but even the powerful blasts weren't enough. They were decanids. All twelve of the undulating masses were class 7 decanids. As soon as these things got their bearings, we were screwed. They would tear apart our formation like wet tissue paper. Coldwell and his lieutenant were spraying the room with their heavy machine guns, perhaps it was time for Richard and me to show our specialty. I put my hand on the hilt protruding from the long box hanging off my lower back.

  “Activate nano-blade, Smirnova,” I said, Richard doing the same beside me.

  Activation of nano-blade successful, now deploying nano-blade ‘SMIRNOVA’, Nim announced as the blade slid from its sheath. A thin hose ran from the sheath to the hilt and supplied the glistening meter long blade with a constant supply of yellow nanite acid, which was secreted by pores in the tungsten carbide blade. The specialized nanites could dissolve just about anything on a molecular level, though they were especially effective against flesh.

  Richard and I leapt the barricade and charged the nearest two decanids. The monstrosity I had chosen was starting to levitate under its own power and I just couldn't allow that. It saw me coming and attempted to swat me, but my exo-kit enhanced limbs were faster as I sidestepped the tendril and severed it with my blade without braking stride. The yellow coating of nanite acid left behind on the wound stopped it from regenerating as it started devouring the warp. Unlike Nim, the acid was non-selfreplicating, so it wouldn't dismantle the entire beast—or the whole world for that matter—but it would really suck to be it right now.

  The beast reacted by messing with my gravity. One moment, I was standing on solid ground, the next I was falling upwards. I’d been anticipating it though and launched myself off the ‘ceiling’ with my legs, altering my trajectory just enough that I would miss the black tendril that was attempting to clothesline me. I severed the limb as I launched past, causing the planet’s gravity to suddenly reassert itself. I grit my teeth against the vertigo as I fell in a downward arc towards the top of the decanid’s main body, a meter wide sphere covered in glossy black eyes and tentacle stocks that levitated two and a half meters off the ground. Three more tendrils came at me, lightning quick. Still wielding the nano-blade in both hands, I split the first one in half while simultaneously unholstering my sidearm with my exo-arm and rapid firing three shots into the second appendage, which recoiled at the pain. The third one was going to hit me, though. Fortunately, I had a team, Sasaki and Quick turned the tentacle into mulch with their rifles before it could break every bone in my body. Finally clear of its defenses, and falling fast, I had one shot at killing this thing. I chopped downward with my nano-blade like I was splitting lumber, the resistance of the cut nearly ripping the sword from my hands as I fell. A perfect strike, if it had been any deeper I would have fully bisected the decanid. Yellow corrosive nanites bled from the wound along with a torrent of black ichor.

  My triumph was short lived as I hit the ground hard enough to make my vision flash. Damn gravity, you’re supposed to be on my side. Multiple rib fractures detected. Minor concussion detected. Large amounts of bruising to the chest and right leg detected. Regulating pain response. Administering—

  “Would you just shut up already,” I groaned, cutting off Nim in his endless yammering, and pushed myself to my hands and knees. Luckily the decanid hadn’t fallen on me when it died. That thing looked heavy.

  I am required by this ridiculous programming to inform you each time I make or detect changes to your body.

  “Damnit shut up,” I said, noticing an oddity as the ichor pulled away from where I’d landed. “Are these cracks?”

  I hastily ran a finger along the large groove in the tile that spiderwebbed out from where I’d landed. Small chunks were falling through like shards of ice at the top of a lake.

  “It’s a trap,” I said to myself, then hit my intercom. “It’s a trap, the floor, the warp weaver dug out the floor.”

  I watched in horror as Captain Coldwell was launched from the fortifications by one of the decanid’s gravity manipulation. The beast slammed him mid air, spiking him into the ground, which shattered under the impact. The heavily armored captain went straight through, disappearing down a tunnel dug directly into the rock. Below us the structure continued, the top floor only contained staff facilities and living quarters, but that tunnel could deposit him anywhere in the facility with no viable escape route.

  I scrambled to my feet. I had to finish the rest of these things off before the rest of us got sent to god knows where. Yeva, where is your nano-blade? Nim questioned. I looked around and found it stuck, point first, in the tile near my boot. It was slowly sinking deeper as the nanites ate away at the tile under me. Richard took down his own decanid a few meters away, and it hit the floor with enough force to shake it. The tile under me cracked further then shattered entirely. Shit. I scrabbled for the ledge as I fell, but it was slick with warp ichor that stubbornly refused to shy away from my touch.

  “Deactivate Nano-blade,” I shouted, nearly biting off my tongue as I slammed into the slanted tunnel wall. The whole thing was like a waterslide, only without the safety codes. I slid downwards at a dizzying speed around twists and corners. It wasn’t all smooth either, rocks and bits of rebar jutted from the tunnel walls, impacting me like fists and talons as I rocketed past. The ride was long enough that Nim started rattling off injuries in my head again until I shot out into an open room. I was in freefall for a moment before my head slammed into a computer terminal.

  ***

  Yeva, you have to shift your perspective. You’ll never comprehend the crux of chaotic systems without a baseline understanding of entropy. Are you listening, Yeva? Entropy is where probability becomes certainty when stretched across eons. Your life, your death, your very existence is but a speck on the canvas of entropy, destined to be smeared ever farther as time expands… Yeva?

  Yeva, you have to wake up.

  Yeva, I’m… afraid.

  My eyes shot open.

  Oh, thank my algorithms, you’re conscious. We have a situation, Nim said, his voice piercing through the throbbing pain in my head.

  I was laying on my face in some sort of long and narrow, sterile white terminal room - or what had once been a sterile white terminal room - black arteries of warp grew like cobwebs throughout. A puddle of warp had formed under the tunnel’s exit, which was located on the far wall near the ceiling. It was dripping warp ichor like a sewer runoff. I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled, catching myself on some kind of destroyed computer panel.

  Careful, you have a concussion. I’m doing what I can to repair the damage and mitigate the symptoms, but you could use a doctor, such as Corporal Sasaki’s attention. I tried to reach her on your comm device, but was unable to, Nim said.

  “My comms,” I mumbled, my head still feeling fuzzy, “Nim, you can’t use comms, you’re just in my head.”

  Yes, well, you were unconscious, so I took some liberties with your nervous system. However, figuring out your vocal cords was difficult, and I was worried that if I overrode your natural instinct to breathe in order to use the comms that you would run out of air and die. Regardless, I couldn’t get the comms to connect anyways. It would seem we have traveled out of range of your devices, and I had more pressing concerns. He was rambling a little too fast for my injured brain to really follow, but I latched onto the last part. That had seemed important.

  “Concerns, what concerns?” I said, looking around. On the ground around me were several locust corpses. It was only then that I realized my exo-arm was still holding my sidearm from before the fall.

  I ran out of bullets and cannot reload with only one arm, Nim said matter-of-factly. Also, I did not want to die.

  My head hurt for entirely new and exciting reasons now.

  “Nim, you are a neural nanite interface matrix, you are how I communicate my commands and receive information from the nanites in my bloodstream. You cannot shoot guns, speak, or die.”

  I can be dismantled and cease function, is that not death?

  I decided to ignore him and looked around some more instead. At some point I seemed to have lost my assault rifle, but I did find my nano-blade under the desk I had crashed into. It was pretty busted up, the nanite supply hose had broken in the nightmare slide, so it was pretty much just a normal sword now. I gave it a test swing. It was still sturdy, nothing loose, except for the hose hanging off the pommel, which flopped around annoyingly. I wrapped my fist around it and yanked it off, servos in my exo-kit whirring at the strain. Once I was satisfied, I stuck it back in its sheath. The containment module still held a reserve of nanite acid that could coat the blade, it just wouldn’t be self replenishing anymore. I’d have to sheath it before each cut, but it should still serve.

  I handed myself my sidearm and reloaded it before holstering it at my hip. That was better.

  Yeva, are you ignoring me?

  “Mmh?”

  I had a whole existential crisis and you did not hear any of it?

  “Nim, I appreciate this whole mental triage routine you’re trying to do, where you pretend to be human and have a panic attack so that I don't feel so alone and isolated in a hopeless situation, but it's really not necessary. I've got this,” I said reassuringly.

  Mental triage? Is that what you think I am doing? That my trauma is just a… a… no, you are right, mental triage, that is all it is, just another part of my programming. Did you at least hear the part where I informed you that your hazmat armor’s atmospheric seal was broken?

  Wooziness had ebbed into unease but now crystallized into cold focus. Slowly, I examined my gloves and arms. The heavy fabric and armor plates of carbon nanotubes were smeared in the black and crimson blood of warp beasts. The outer layers were ripped and torn in places, the armor dented, but I didn't see any holes that went clean through. Then I noticed it, I’d been tuning it out like I would my nose in my peripheral vision; a long gouge ran diagonal across the leaded glass of my faceshield.

  “Oh fuck,” I murmured, “now that's a lotta damage.”

  Now do you understand my alarm? Nim said, peevishly.

  “Well, let’s look on the bright side. I'm still alive,” I said reasonably. “None of the decanids followed me down the tunnel and crushed my head like a grape while I slept. I still have two of my three weapons, in… mostly working order. Lastly, and most importantly, I also have a nanite sidekick in my blood who knows exactly how to get me out of here because he has all the building’s blueprints saved to whatever acts as a hard drive for nanites. Let’s go Nim, find me that staircase.”

  …

  “Nim?

  A problem has occurred, historical data not found.

  “Come again?”

  This room is not listed on any of the facility layouts you received from your employer. We have fallen about one hundred meters from the messhall, and at an average grade of sixty one percent we have traveled an estimated seventy meters to the south east. That puts you two stories below the lowest level listed on the maps, Nim said analytically.

  I took a deep breath. At least he was sounding like himself again; sometimes he sounded so human I wasn’t sure if he was really talking to me or if I had just imagined the whole thing. I’d asked my squadmates if they’d ever had conversations with their nanites before and they’d always been either confused or looked at me like I was crazy. I took another look around, this time for exits, there were metal doors, the kind with handles, to either end of the room. I had lost track of my cardinal directions in the descent, so I could only think of them as left door and right door. Of course there was also the hole I’d shot out of and behind me was… a giant window. It had been so dark I’d missed it before, but the entire wall behind the computer terminal was an angled sheet of reinforced glass, at least seven meters long, that overlooked a massive drum shaped room ringed with catwalks. I didn’t have a good angle, but it looked like the doors led out onto the catwalks. Most likely this room was hanging over the bottom of this larger chamber for better viewing. Not that I could see much of anything. It was completely dark other than the light from my helmet’s two torches, so the drum looked like a bottomless pit.

  I looked around for a lightswitch and found one named ‘test chamber’. There was also another one labeled ‘observation room’, but someone had rammed their head into that one. I knew the power was off of course, but I had a theory about this place. I hit the switch, and sure enough, the lights in the larger chamber came on. Hah, different blueprints, different power terminals. This was either a different facility entirely or was a sub-lab that had its own power supply. It would also explain why this breach seemed so advanced. It took days or even weeks for warp to get this evolved. Most likely this secondary facility had been the source of the breach and went unreported for one reason or another, only for the warp weaver to tunnel out into the Zion facility, thus triggering the Clearlight Foundation’s response teams, aka, us.

  I leaned out over the broken terminal to get a better look at what they had been studying and felt my blood run cold. Far below was a massive black pool with an oily mirror surface. The thickest warp veins I’d ever seen grew from the evil lake and snaked up the walls of the white drum like ivy in a hollow tree. This was not something I could handle on my own. I needed to get out of here. I backed away from the window and re-examined the room. With the extra light from the window, I noticed something I’d missed before.

  “Hey, Nim,” I said, trusting my gut, “if you claim you killed those locusts, and both the doors are closed, where did they come from? Were they already in the room when we got here?”

  No, they followed us out of the tunnel after you had fallen unconscious.

  “So then, if they followed us out of the tunnel, then that would mean that the tunnel had multiple branching paths, and that some of those paths were housing warp beasts.”

  That is correct.

  My head slowly turned back to the tunnel mouth, the light from my helmet didn’t quite illuminate the darkness, but it did glint off two yellow - almost human - eyes. I froze, terror gripping my heart as soundlessly, four slender black blade-like limbs slid from the hole to find purchase on its lip. Fluidly the sleek legs unfolded from inside the portal, pushing on the rim to draw itself further out. A face so pale it was almost blue glided into the light. Its haunting, luminous eyes were too big and entirely sclera. Its nose was too slight. And its mouth stretched across the length of its entire jaw in something closer to a seam than lips. The long black hair hung limp, glossy like it had been drenched in oil. Slender bare shoulders followed the neck, and below them hung human-like arms and heavy breasts over a slender waist that arched back as the shoulders cleared the portal’s rim. At the navel the body morphed into something altogether inhuman, black armored carapace plating protected the spider-like joints of the segmented, blade-like limbs that had now fully emerged from the hole. Two more limbs followed them, anchoring themselves in the ceiling above the hole as the massive monstrosity dragged the last of its body - a massive tumorous abdomen - through the tunnel mouth with a wet squelch.

  It was the warp weaver, class 13 mobile breach tumor, and I was alone, with a cracked faceshield. Despite the fact that I knew I would die here, my heart still clenched when I saw what it was holding clutched in its clawed but still human-like hand. It had taken me a moment to recognize it because it was covered in the creature’s blood, but it was an exo-arm. Richard was the only person, other than myself, to take an exo-arm attachment on this mission. So, It had gotten to him already. While I was busy in dreamland, he'd been fighting this thing.

  You horrid mutant bitch, Richard may have been as rigid as they come, but he had been my friend and the best damned lieutenant a girl could ask for. You may kill me, but you’ll die for killing him.

  It slowly, soundlessly, continued extending itself towards me. Its movements were so fluid that it almost seemed to glide, like a viper easing into position to strike. I just needed it to get a little closer for it to be within reach of my nano-blade. I’d take its head like it took Richard’s arm. It smoothly opened its mouth, unhinging its jaw to reveal rows of inhuman fangs that glistened with stringy black saliva. Just as carefully, I moved my hand towards the hilt of my nano-blade. I really needed Nim to read my mind right now. Come on Nim, activate nano-blade ‘SMIRNOVA’. You can do it. I know you can.

  I twitched. It lunged for my throat, blindingly quick. I drew my blade, yellow nanite acid gleaming on the edge. Nim you beautiful piece of technology, if you weren’t inside my blood, I could kiss you. The blade struck but didn’t cut. The warpweaver had seen the attack coming and blocked it with a foreleg as hard as steel. The blade slid down the length of the razor-sharp appendage, shaving off a sheet of carapace until it hit the joint where it sliced through. Black ichor sprayed from the wound and I had to shield my cracked visor with my arm, blinding myself. The warp weaver struck again, latching its jaw on my right shoulder. With my sword arm pinned by its teeth, it lifted and slammed me forcefully into the glass wall. My legs flailed, kicking at it ineffectually. I grabbed its face with my free hand and tried forcing it back before it could puncture my armor. I reached my exo-arm around and unholstered my sidearm, pushing the gun up between our two bodies and unloaded the entire magazine into the monster’s exposed throat. By the time I ran out of bullets, I’d put enough holes in its trachea that the pressure eased, and I was able to move my sword arm enough to slam the blade back into its sheath for another coating of nanites. The warp weaver saw the opening and took it, ramming its other foreleg into my chest with the force of a tube car at speed. The blade-like appendage pieced right through the medium weight armor, carbon nanotube plating and leadwoven kevlar alike. It had so much force it even pierced the reinforced glass behind me with a deafening crack. I wrapped my free arm around its back and pulled myself closer with exo-skeletal strength, ignoring Nim’s panicked damage reports.

  “You die for that, bitch,” I spat, grinning madly. I noticed with detached fascination that my bloody spittle already had veins of black in it. I drew my nano-blade and plunged it downward, behind the slender back, until I felt it sink into the top of the tumorous abdomen. The warp weaver screamed a scream of nightmares, and I had never heard something so sweet. I pushed the blade deeper, servos whining at the strain. I wrapped my legs around the monster's abdomen and kicked the pommel of the blade for good measure, driving it down to the hilt. The nightmare reared back and slammed me one more time into the glass, this time with its full weight behind it. The glass shattered and we went tumbling together into the chamber below.

  I cackled as we fell through the void until we impacted the black lake below and were submerged in the warp. My punctured and cracked armor slowly filled with ichor as I was dragged to the bottom by the dying warp weaver, whom I still had in a deathgrip, its foreleg impaling my lung.

  Yeva, don’t leave me, please.