Suddenly, the entity turns towards Munru and 
Nanku and opens a single white eye, which is 
immediately processed and blocked by the 
SCRAMBLE units. The entity begins to move very 
quickly down the hallway, changing dramatically as 
it moves; the entity becomes considerably larger, 
and its long robe flares out to either side, exposing 
additional hazards that are blocked by the 
SCRAMBLE units. Munru and Nanku raise their 
weapons and fire. The creature reels backwards as 
it is struck by bullets, with large holes opening 
across its flesh. Munru reloads, loading incendiary 
rounds, and fires again, setting the creature on fire. 
As it staggers backwards, the entity begins to 
scratch madly against the wall to the right, 
seemingly attempting to dig through the wall away 
from the gunfire. Nanku takes one more shot, 
striking the entity in its eye and causing it to 
collapse onto the ground. 


T-5 Irantu: Is everything alright? 
T-5 Munru: It appears so. We— 


Suddenly, the hallway shakes violently. The floor 
beneath the collapsed humanoid entity crumbles 
and falls away, revealing a large hole beneath the 
floor. Within the hole is a long, slick, black creature 
covered in blood red eyes with a mouth full of 
many rows of long, sharp teeth. As it bursts 
through the floor, a cascade of small leeches are 
propelled into the hallway. The humanoid entity 
slips through the destroyed floor and falls into the 
mouth of the large creature, which lets out a loud 
scream as it devours the entity. Long, wet 
appendages snake into the hallway as Nanku and 
Munru begin to retreat. Nanku opens her 
flamethrower again, warding off the approaching 
smaller leeches. 


Z-9 Hollis: What’s going on? 


T-5 Nanku: We will need to find a different route, 
quickly. 


T-5 Irantu: Follow me. 


The group moves past the collapsed hallway as 
Munru and Nanku provide cover fire. They pass 
through a custodial dormitory and exit into a 
maintenance area behind it. 


T-5 Onru: Over there. We can take this path 
towards the machine. 


T-5 Munru: We are right behind you, but | am 
beginning to think this creature is far larger than we 
anticipated. (Gunfire) 


T-5 Irantu: Onru, take the point. We will move 
now. 


Team moves down the long maintenance hallway. 
The hallway curves to the left, opening out into a 
large space full of loading equipment and 
machines. Several large loading docks are visible 
in the back of the room, though each one is 
collapsed and destroyed. 


Z-9 Hollis: lrantu, the walls in here are seeping. 
We can't stay here long. 


T-5 lrantu: One moment. Munru, Nanku, how far 
back are you? 


Silence. 
T-5 lrantu: Munru, Nanku, please report. 


T-5 Munru: lrantu, Nanku is damaged. We are not 
going to be able to (gunfire) rendezvous with you 
immediately. Onru, do keep us updated on your 
position, and | will let you know when we can 
regroup. 


T-5 Irantu: Understood. 


The group moves to the far end of the 
maintenance warehouse, exiting through a pair of 
doors leading into a staff break room. Black fluid 
seeps through the walls. The group has to stop 
briefly to bandage up a survivor whose wound had 
begun bleeding again. A loud screeching sound is 
heard nearby, and the group begins moving again. 


They enter into another hallway leading in the 
direction of the Thresher wing. As they move 
through the hall, Onru hears a distinct sound. 


T-5 Onru: lrantu. Wings. 
T-5 Irantu: How many? 


T-5 Onru: (Pauses) Many. More than | can count. 


They are... very small, but there is a great 
multitude of them. 


Z-9 Hollis: You got anything else useful, power 
girl? 


T-5 Onru: A tinkling sound. Like crystal on crystal. 


AP-3 Ross: Fuck. Crystal butterflies. It has to be 
that. We'll get shredded. 


T-5 lrantu: Unlikely. 


The group moves towards the sound, which 
continues to grow louder until it becomes a 
cacophonous sound that seems to be right above 
them. 


AP-3 Houston: God, where’s that coming from? 
AP-3 Ross: Steady now, stead— 
T-5 Onru: Irantu, the vent. 


In front of them, a grate on a ceiling vent falls to 
the floor, and a cloud of sparkling crystal butterflies 
begins to fill the hallway. Irantu sees the butterflies, 
and turns back to the group. 


T-5 Irantu: Everybody down, please. 


As the group drops to the ground, Irantu runs 
towards the cloud of butterflies. He disappears 
briefly. After a short moment, there is a burst of 
flame that arcs upwards into the vent, and the 
sound of shattering crystal can be heard above 
them. As the smoke clears, lrantu becomes visible 
again. The majority of his flesh has been shredded 
by the wings of the butterflies, and his entire body 
is scorched. Significant amounts of flesh hang 
loose from his body. The skin on his back is 
blackened and blistered, and a thick metal 


implement is now visible through the scorched 
flesh. Onru stands and approaches him. 


T-5 Onru: Are you able to continue? 
T-5 Irantu: Of course. 


AP-3 Houston: Jesus fucking Christ, man, are you 
alright? 


T-5 Irantu: Yes. Why wouldn't | be? 


The group moves through another hall seeping 
with black fluid, and then another, but the third 
hallway ts clean and relatively untouched. They 
ascend a short staircase before coming to a stop 
before a thick, vault door. 


Z-9 Hollis: The machine is behind this door. | 
came out this way, but the door sealed behind me. 
| don’t know how to unlock it. 


T-5 Irantu: Dr. Scott, do you know how to open 
this door? 


Dr. Mohammad Scott: (Audible through Z-9 Hollis’ 
mic) No, | never had access to this chamber. 


T-5 Onru: | was hoping Munru would be here. | do 
not think | can open this door. 


Suddenly, there is a resounding click, and the door 
in front of them slowly opens. A monitor next to the 
door illuminates, and a dark room is visible on it. In 
the back of the room, hidden in shadows, an 
indistinct humanoid entity waves. A harsh, 
electronic static sound, vaguely reminiscent of 
laughter, can be heard through an unseen 
loudspeaker. The screen powers off. 


AP-3 Ross: That’s a pretty fucked up clown. 


T-5 Irantu: Come. Hurry. 


The group enters the chamber beyond. The room 
is very dark, with a multitude of dim, green lights 
visible on the walls of the room. Based on the 
luminescence of the lights and the apparent 
distance of them from each other, the room 
appears to be several hundred meters in diameter. 
Near the back of the room, a tower of circling 
green lights is visible. 


Z-9 Hollis: Hey, power rangers. Can you see 
anything in here? You have dark vision or 
something, yeah? My visor is shot. 


T-5 Irantu: Onru and | were forced to eject our 
implants after they were damaged by a powerful 
memetic entity. 


AP-3 Ross: My visor works. Hang on. (Pauses) 
Alright. So there’s a... some kind of machine near 
the back of the room, under those lights. | can’t 
really make any of it out from here, but it’s there. | 
don’t see— oh shit, yeah | do. On the ceiling, there 
are... fuck, there are a lot of those things. 


Z-9 Hollis: What are they? 


AP-3 Ross: (Whispering) | honestly don’t know, | 
can’t make them out. They’re definitely fucking with 
perception. | don’t... | don’t think they've seen us. 
Seriously though, there might be five hundred of 
these things. 


T-5 lrantu: That would be more than Onru and 
myself can deal with. (Pauses) We need to make a 
decision; either attempt to disable the machine 
without attracting their attention, or find a way to 
dispatch the creatures. (Pauses) | am, of course, 
willing to accept ideas. 


AP-3 Vigo: | mean... we could blow them up. 
Houston has explosives. (Pauses) That’s a lot of 
them to try and get all at once, though. 


Z9-Moros: Hang on. They’re feeding on the power 
from this thing, aren’t they? Why don’t we try and 
get that machine to draw a lot of power to some 
unnecessary system first, and shock them. Like 
flexing when a mosquito bites you. 


T-5 Onru: Maybe, but it is more likely that— 


Suddenly, there is a massive disturbance beneath 
the chamber. To the left of a group, roughly 100m 
away, there is an explosion and the wall falls away. 
From within the wall emerges a long, slick, black 
appendage, covered in red eyes. The eyes open 
simultaneously. 


AP-3 Houston: Fuck. 


There is a screeching sound, and from above them 
many hundreds of short, imperceptible entities fall 
from the ceiling. The black entity in the wall begins 
to lash out at the smaller entities, attempting to pull 
them in towards a mouth that has appeared on its 
front. The creatures fly towards the larger creature 
and begin to tear at it with claws, though many are 
shoveled into the open mouth of the creature. 


T-5 Irantu: Huh. (Pauses) That works as well. 
Onru, get to the machine. The rest of you, get back 
to the hallway. We will not have much time. 


The group retreats into the hallway outside of the 
large room. Onru sprints across the chamber as 
more and more of the smaller entities fall from the 
ceiling and attack the black creature. Several of 
them begin to move towards Onru, only to be 
dispatched by weapon fire from Irantu. As she 
reaches the manual control panel of the machine, 


Onru inputs the information provided to her by 
members of Dr. Scott’s team. Lights around the 
room illuminate, exposing an enormous, vastly 
complicated machine that encompases the entire 
back wall of the room. More and more of the 
hostile entities peel off towards Onru, who pauses 
to open fire on those who come too close. 


From beneath the room there is another 
disturbance, and the floor in the middle of the room 
falls away. Another long, black entity emerges from 
the hole in the floor and long tendrils snake out 
towards Onru. From behind Irantu comes gunfire, 
and the entire AP-3 team has emerged from the 
door and begun firing at the entity. The creature 
recoils, black fluid spilling from gunshot wounds. 
The tendrils whip around towards them, gripping 
AP-3 Vigo and tossing him into the air. He strikes 
the wall and his body falls to the ground, where the 
first black entity grabs it with a tendril and pulls it 
into the mouth. 


Suddenly, small black leeches begin to pour from 
the hole in the floor, and move quickly towards 
lrantu. Houston and Ohalo open fire on the 
leeches, and Ross moves to pull lrantu away from 
the hole. As he does, he tosses an incendiary 
grenade into the hole and pulls Irantu to the 
ground. There is an explosion, and flame erupts 
around the black entity, which rears back and flails 
before collapsing into the hole. 


From deep below them, the group can hear a very 
loud screaming sound, and suddenly the entire 
room is shaking. The other black entity retracts into 
its hole, collapsing the wall behind it as it does. 
The remaining creatures from the ceiling are 
dispatched by the AP-3 and Z-9 teams. As they do, 
and as the room begins to shake more violently, 
several lights affixed to the machine in the back 


begin to flash and then dim, and the sound of 
something winding down is heard over the gunfire. 


AP-3 Ross: Fuck! Goddammit Vigo. Fuck! 
T-5 Onru approaches from across the room. 


T-5 Onru: The loss of Vigo is disappointing. | am 
sorry. We do not have a substantial amount of time 
to grieve. We must keep moving. 


Onru, Ross, Houston, Ohalo, and Irantu leave from 
the chamber. More rumbling is felt beneath them, 
and occasional loud screeching sounds punctuate 
the machine noise from this section of the facility. 
They reach a stairwell, and Houston throws the 
door open. 


AP-3 Houston: Whoa, fuck! What? 
T-5 Irantu: What is the matter? 


AP-3 Houston: There’s nothing here. The door 
just opens up into... nothing. It’s just dark, as far 
down as | can see. 


T-5 Onru: It is likely that disabling the Thresher 
device has altered our previous escape route. We 
will need to devise another path to the surface. 


T-5 Irantu: Yes. One moment. (Pauses) Munru. 
Where are you? 


T-5 Munru: Difficult to say, unfortunately. Have 
you powered down the machine? 


T-5 Irantu: We just did. 


T-5 Munru: Fine timing, then. We were being 
pursued by a creature and then suddenly there 
was a wall where the creature had been. The local 
topography appears to have reset itself. 


T-5 Irantu: Stay in one place. We will come to find 
you. Our escape begins now. 


T-5 Munru: Fantastic. 


The main group leaves the empty stairwell and 
turns back down the hallway they came through. 
Passing by the Thresher access hallway again, 
they turn and begin to climb another staircase. As 
they reach the top, Irantu pauses. The hallway in 
front of them is covered ankle high in water. As 
they begin to move slowly through the water, one 
of the researchers behind them screams. 


T-5 Irantu: What is it? 
Researcher: Bodies. Look. 


Just below the surface of the water, pale human 
corpses are visible, appearing to be floating 
roughly a half meter down. 


T-5 Onru: Do not attempt to look at them. You do 
not recognize them. Move quickly, come on. 


The team hurries from the hallway towards another 
set of doors at the end, where written on the wall 
are the words “WHAT HAPPENED TO SITE-13” 
with the word “WHAT” covered by the word 
“EMERSON”, and the words “HAVE WE BECOME 
BLASPHEMOUS” beneath that. 


The group proceeds without incident for a short 
while longer, slowly ascending as safe routes 
become available. After roughly eight minutes of 
travel, the group enters a large mechanical garage, 
where several pieces of large machinery sit in 
various states of repair. They pause to secure one 
of the injured survivors, while Onru attempts to 
devise a new route. Suddenly, a loud banging 
sound is heard, and a piece of machinery flies 


across the room, narrowly missing AP-3 Ross, who 
shouts. 


AP-3 Ross: Whoa! Fuck! Where’d that come 
from? 


In the corner of the room, a stack of mechanical 
parts is seen moving, rising up and self-assembling 
into a quasi-humanoid entity. Attached to the top of 
the large mechanical construct is a small, crudely 
constructed, toy robot. The entity begins to move 
towards them, and a voice is heard from an 
unknown source within the entity. 


Mechanical Entity: (Deep /aughter) | am reborn to 
breathe devastation upon this fetid Earth. Pitiful 
humans. You will feel the dark sting of my 
neverending torment. (The small robot on top of 
the construct is seen waving its arms wildly) 


T-5 Irantu: This is... annoying. Onru, get these 
people out. Ross, to me. 


Mechanical Entity: | am the herald of your 
destruction. Embrace death. 


T-5 Irantu, AP-3 Ross, Houston, and Ohalo open 
fire on the entity, to little effect. The entity lifts 
another large piece of equipment and throws it 
towards the group, missing them wide. Ohalo 
throws a fragmentary grenade at the entity, which it 
catches in one of its outstretched hands and grips 
tightly. The grenade explodes, shattering the 
creature’s hand and causing it to stagger 
sideways. 


Mechanical Entity: How dare you. | will tread 
upon you like— 


T-5 Onru is seen sprinting towards the entity. As 
she approaches it, she leaps into the air, sailing 


over the top of it in a tall arc. As she reaches the 
top of the arc, she reaches out and grabs the small 
toy robot on top of the construct, causing it to 
collapse. As she flips towards the ground, she 
tosses the robot towards the wall. 


Robot: No! | am the harbinger! | am— 
The toy robot strikes the wall and is shattered. 


T-5 Munru: lrantu, is that you? We just heard 
something crashing. 


T-5 Irantu: You must be near. Stay where you are, 
we are en route.