Young Jubilation Lee had never quite grasped the concept of personal space, or, at the very least, had decided it was over rated.

It wasn't early, the morning hours coming to an end, the midday sunlight peeking through the windows and washing the wood panelled corridor in an orange glow. No, it wasn't early, but nor was it late, not as far as Jubilation was concerned, the young woman with raven hair pacing down the hallway in her tiger slippers while Molly’s mutt, the German Shepherd pup known as Chase, was nipping at the coattails of her dressing gown.

There was, however, something wrong, something that Jubilation had detected with her keen, detective mind. Something that was missing from the morning routine, something that was annoying and that never failed to wake her, something she had detested while the two of them had been classmates. It was something she had come to dearly miss.

A painful hole in the routine.

The absence of a friend.

That hole had once again been filled, this last week, if only due to an unforeseen set of circumstances. The workouts at the break of dawn, the running in the morning hours, Paige Guthrie’s insane need to greet each day from the moment that it dawned.

Jubilation cursed it!!

…Jubilation loved it.

Only today it hadn't happened.

Something was wrong, and young Jubilation Lee was totally up to fixing other peoples problems. Granted, the breakfast tray was somewhat lighter than when she had first started the pilgrimage upstairs, half the food mysteriously disappearing from the plate, but such details could be ignored. It was only a pretence anyways.

After pausing briefly outside the guest room, she kicked in way of knocking, the door opening purely by coincidence. Not one to turn down opportunity, young Jubilation Lee let herself inside, grinning widely while presenting the pretence shaped as food with a dramatic flourish.

"What's up Hayseed, early bird sleeping in or what?"

Paige Guthrie looked up from the bed, her mind and soul within the body of Jonathon Starsmore. It was serial in every way, her lost friend, thought dead and gone, operating within the frame of someone else. The body language was out of whack, sat as she was upon the bed, legs crossed and moving to sweep away a trailing thread of hair that wasn't there.

Paige smiled a little in return, but it wasn't real, highlighted by the morning glow pouring in through the open window, those eyes were ringed with shadow. She had several pads laid out before her, one clutched between her fingers, digital recorders of the recent past.

"Ah guess..." Paige Guthrie shrugged, uncomfortable with the gesture; her shoulders to heavy from her memory "...ah haven't been asleep".

"What gives?" Jubilation queried, plodding herself down on the bed beside the amalgam of two friends. She set the tray aside, absently swiping a slice of toast, and helped herself to some of Paige’s reading.

"Little late for cramming isn't it? School was out, like, for-ever ago!"

"Its not, it's just..." she hesitated, Paige uncertain of what to say "...it's everything that happened while...since I’ve been gone".

"Oh..." Jubilation faltered, immediately uncomfortable "...right…I hope you're not looking for some happy endings".

"Jubilee..."

"It's ok..." young Ms. Lee waved her hand to resist the coming protests. She didn't like this, even now; she didn't want to talk about it. Past was past and shit happens.

“Really…”

"Ah'm sorry, ah just..."

"It's fine!" Jubilation snapped a little sharply and Paige Guthrie faltered, her soul behind the eyes of Jonathon Starsmore. Jubilation was uncomfortable, sitting on her hands before she ventured. She didn't want this, to remember what had happened.

She didn't need this, to remember and to feel.

She didn't…

"It's fine…really!" she lied, breathing deeply and forcing herself to smile, "Ok, so most of it sorta sucked...but past is prologue right?"

She smiled a little more, fooling no-one but herself.

"Everything is going to be fine..."

The Byron Trust, Level 1, Transportation and Storage, Now…

Her shirt was covered in blood; most of which wasn’t hers, so Karen Barnes didn’t much care. What she did care about was the shit storm that was erupting somewhere beneath her feet, and that half of her staff were dead.

Much to her growing irritation, it seemed to be the half that was capable of defending themselves.

She was surrounded by personnel, the entire hanger bay awash with bodies and frenzied chaos, a rolling sea of barely controlled activity. It was incredible, it was sickening, how quickly the Facility had been lost, only the very tip of the underground installation still under some moderation of control. Those that had survived the initial outbreak had fallen back as far as possible before reaching open air. She doubted any of them would live to see it.

The option of evacuation had occurred to her, but it simply wasn’t going to happen. If this ship was going down, then everyone was going with it. Agent Barnes wasn’t about to break quarantine, not with the tenth level of hell just itching to break outside.

“YOU TOLD ME THEY WERE DEAD!!” Karen was snapping harshly as she wiped the blood from her ears, her bloodshot eyes zeroing in on the closest idiot she could find.

“They should be…” one man stammered, his own clothes suspiciously clean and pressed while many of his co-workers were lying, bleeding and dying in their own collective waste. Few of the survivors had made it this far without leaving something behind, vital body parts appeared to be the theme.

“SHOULD BE!?!” Karen grabbed him by the collar and almost hurled him head first into a monitor display that was, even at that moment, still being jury rigged into the wall. The man seemed to be at a loss at first, caught between blind panic and surprise, unsure if he should turn his eyes to the growing carnage of the lower levels, or remain fixated upon the furious features of the bloodied women holding him by the neck.

In the end, the carnage seemed to be the safer option.

“They were inert, they weren’t even real…” the man with crisp, white shirt tried hurriedly to explain “…the Byron Agency manufactured them in a lab!! The Phalanx Cells were used as a template, but that was all!! These were just machines…enhancements…they shouldn’t be able to do this!!”

With her boundless irritation reaching new, cataclysmic levels, Agent Karen Barnes all but hurled her least favourite person aside and almost instantly disregarded his existence. She glared at the monitors before her, a patchwork of screens that had been hastily thrown together by the few, competent engineers she still had left, hacking into the security network and showing her what she already knew.

It was a horrific sight, the corridors of the nine levels beneath her feet awash with blood and overwhelmed by the swarms of twisted bodies. It was a swarm of otherworldly creatures, each a jagged, screeching mass of twisted metal and stolen flesh, each and every one a perversion of life. Almost every inch of the info structure had been infected by the alien virus, the very foundations infested with its presence.

Even the walls were screaming.

All this from just a handful of cells welded into mutant flesh.

Dormant cells.

“LOCKE!” she shouted harshly, removing her loose fitting tie with a sharp tug and disregarding it without a care. She was almost instantly rewarded by the presence of the Guardsmen, the highest ranking soldier she had left. Finally, someone competent to talk to.

“This is everyone…” he reported dutifully, saluting crisply despite the barely contained panic of near enough everyone around them “…we’re locked down the Level but, well…if I may be frank sir, it won’t count for dick”.

“I know” Agent Karen Barnes agreed tersely, wishing someone would hurry up and inject a few hundred pounds of concentrated caffeine directly into her bloodstream. The Phalanx didn’t give a crap about doors and bulkheads, they were in the walls, it was a miracle that they hadn’t been breeched already.

A miracle, or they just weren’t bothered, not yet.

She followed their movements as best she could, her overview of the lower levels woefully lacking, but she could tell that the Phalanx were in no hurry to advance. They wanted something, they needed something, and for right now, it simply wasn’t up here...

“What the f*&$ are they looking for!?!”

The Byron Trust, Level 7, R&D.4, Genetic Storage…

Paige Guthrie released a startled yelp and pulled back her fingers as the control panel exploded with a violent spark of frenzied lightning. It spit and spat at her, the exposed wiring crackling and sparking, angrily insisting that she prod no further. It settled down at last, with a fizzling and a spitting, falling silent and unresponsive.

The bulkhead doors did not open.

With a frown she looked upon her fingers, the tips of which were singed and looking entirely unhealthy. She did not like this, the resistance to her efforts, she did not enjoy failing to succeed. The fingers she had been gifted with were not helping.

Perhaps because they were not her own.

Even now, after a week of practice, they felt unwieldy. They were too big and heavy, too wide and stubborn, they did not respond in the ways that she wanted. Nothing about this body felt right, try as she might, Paige Guthrie could not grow accustomed to the form of Jonathon Starsmore.

The body her soul was still residing in.

“Paige…”

“Ah can do this!” she snapped a little testily, eyes entirely intent upon the stubborn wiring exposed before her. It was a lock that she could not open; their only means to pry apart the heavy bulkhead doors that had them locked inside this horrid room. She could smell it, even in the dark, the taint of blood from over a dozen corpses, her corpses, the obliterated remains of her clone copies. It was sickening, it was nauseating, it was all that she could do to ignore it.

“Paige…”

“WHAT!” she snapped harshly, spinning around and regretting so within an instant. There he was, Jonathon Starsmore, trapped with her sole remaining body in the same manner that she was trapped in his. He was freezing; they both were, sealed within the walls of the cryogenic chamber with nothing for warmth but a leather jacket that she herself had given to him. He did not look best pleased, but then, he rarely did.

He looked confused, he looked angry; he looked scattered and lost, falling to a bullet to the head, only to wake up in a body that wasn’t his. He looked like she did one week ago.

“Ah’m sorry…” Paige sighed sincerely “…ah’m just, it’s not easy to adapt”.

“I can imagine…” Jonathon agreed somewhat sourly, still adjusting to the fact that he was speaking to his own body, let alone being trapped within the shivering form of his dead girlfriend.

“Ah can do this…” Paige Guthrie promised, a familiar sight of confidence etched within her borrowed features “…ah just need some more time”.

“I know…” Jono nodded before continuing, his teeth clicking together in a painful manner “...but Paige…” he looked to his own, borrowed fingers, slender and petite “…I have an idea”.

The Byron Trust, Level 8, Imprisonment and Confinement.1…

His birthday was tomorrow, Guardsman Phillip Welsh would not live to see it.

He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking, even as he pulled the trigger, the high impact rifle unleashing a stream of ammo at a frenzied rate, the bullets ricocheting randomly down the corridor. There was no light, nothing but the flashes of a dozen muzzles, each one blazing wildly as the desperate barricade of armoured bodies retreated backwards down the hallway. He was panicking, desperate to turn and run, his breathing uncontrolled within the confines of his helmet.

His clip ran dry and Phillip Welsh was desperate to replace it, fumbling for several moments, several precious heartbeats, before slamming the replacement home and unleashing a fresh outburst of frenzied fire. The line was faltering; one man plucked out screaming from amongst their ranks, torn in two by the savage light, serrated in half by the golden steel.

They just kept coming, in the face of constant fire, clawing through the darkness, the endless hoards of screeching vermin, of twisted beasts, of demons fused with both bone and steel. They were inhuman, monstrous in their creation, twisted and malformed, insidious and tormenting, scuttling on many limbs, tearing with many claws. It was an endless sea of chaos, a unrelenting tide of teeth and iron, of gears and talons.

It was the reeking scent of death that scrambled down towards them.

There was another scream, a panicked cry as a spitting creature erupted from the darkness, a contorted bundle of razor steel bound in flesh, a clawing fiend that leapt on one mans torso and snapped down savagely upon his head. There was a spray of blood and random gunfire, panic and confusion, more Guardsmen fell and were dragged off into the consuming darkness.

Four men left, retreating rapidly into the darkness, moving backwards and spraying gunfire at the nightmares that pursued them. All of them were armoured, wrapped in black and grey and solid helmets, all of them were identical, all of them were far too fragile in the face of these demented hybrids. All of then too human in the face darkness.

Welsh was forced to change his clip for a second time, barely able to reload his weapon, unable to believe that Collins to the side of him was still standing. The man was standing to his right, calm and persistent in his firing, his armoured breastplate split apart across his torso. Welsh could see the blood, the armour spattered with Collins own crimson juices, but the Guardsmen would not falter, his face behind a helmet, his every action drilled and focused.

Regardless of the example, young Phillip Welsh could not slow his breathing, three men left and quickly falling. Richards had been separated from the hip and cleanly to his shoulder; his legs had yet to topple. Three men left and quickly falling, retreating into the darkness.

His birthday was tomorrow, he would be spending it with his parents.

Two men left and quickly falling…

The Byron Trust, Level 9, Imprisonment and Confinement.2, East Wing…

Jubilation Lee gasped wet spittle as the needle of golden light and jagged steel was yanked out from her forehead.

Her eyes rolled back as she gurgled a heavy breadth, slumping limply forwards, her body shuddering as her mind was tearing itself to pieces. The memories were frantic and insane, horrid visions that tumbled forward and obliterated their way throughout a shattered cortex. She lay there, still and silent, unable to comprehend the world she lived in, twitching in the darkness and lost beneath the flickering lights.

Blood oozed out slowly from the open wound, a hole buried in her forehead, a crack at the centre of her skull. It was a wound that would soon be fatal.

She was not alone, the savage beast of primal fury towering down across her crumbled form, a needle of golden light stained with blood sliding smoothly back into its jagged paw. It was a construct of both flesh and bone, of steel and iron, a massive beast who stalked on every limb, supported by a jagged spine and driven by its massive jaws, its blood red eyes peering outwards from its inhuman skull.

It reared its body backwards, with a clanking and an awful cracking, heavy gears twisting down on broken bones, awkward pistons working beneath wet flesh. The head twisted this way and that, a keen malevolence beneath its beady eyes, an unchecked fury in its beating heart. It paused and twisted its unnatural form, its mockery of evolution, processing the information it had just absorbed, struggling to comprehend the slab of meat whose knowledge it had digested.

Its head pushed forward, a bloody snout snorting some foul poison as it nudged the limp posture of young Ms. Lee. She did not stir, the slab of meat unresponsive as it, the creature of flesh and steel, remembered the weeks of torture that it had endured, the weeks of memories they now shared.

In this place, this hated place!!

The creature paused and spat some dry spittle, an empty grunt, a hollow sound from its inhuman chest. The creatures that surrounded it, the tiny balls of twisted bodies, the screeching spiders with savage pincers and angry shrieks, scuttled about its clenching paws and towards the inactive slab of meat.

One reached out towards her forehead and unleashed some spiteful cry, standing between her empty eyes and digging its pincers into her clammy skin. Slowly it worked, with furious indignation, resealing broken bone and knitting together shredded flesh. On the whim of its larger master, the beast with bear trap jaws and jagged paws, the spiteful spider saved the life of young Ms. Lee…

The Byron Trust, Level 7, R&D.4, Genetic Storage…

Paige had never been a telepath, so her current experiences could only be described as novel. Jonathon was stood before her, his soul trapped inside her body, while she was busy making use of his. She reached out with her mind, now augmented by the astral plane, peering into the thoughts of Starsmore and manipulating the body that would have once been hers, a body she was more familiar with.

She had become the puppeteer, operating her clone body from afar and manipulating those slender fingers. It felt so strange and yet so familiar, closing one pair of eyes and yet seeing through another. They breathed as one, in time with her concentration, her every thought mimicked by his actions.

“Ah could get used to this!” she admitted with a smile.

“Paige…”

“Ah’m just sayin’” the oldest of the Guthrie sisters shrugged, a gesture that was inadvertently mimicked by both parties.

“Paige…” Jonathon tried his best to keep her in the here and now, feeling less than safe as his borrowed digits were buried knuckle deep in the exposed wiring, angry sparks reminding him of the very real possibility of electrocution.

“Ah almost got it…” she promised before a massive spark and an angry burst of light erupted from the console.

Jonathon pulled back his fingers and cursed with such a venom that it was unbefitting the body of Paige Guthrie, his borrowed digits both singed and burnt, stinging like the devils fury. Before he could further vocalise his displeasure, there was a sound that was sent from heaven, one that rang the bells of freedom.

There was a clanking a creaking, a grinding and a breaking as the gears that held the bulkhead shut slowly rumbled open. There was a tidal wave of air that rushed into the room, a monsoon of swift relief, the first flicker of salvation.

Warmth, life saving heat.

It was short lived. Even as it dawned on them that their death would not come from freezing, the crimson tint of copper did not falter, the stench of corpses did not die.

“Mah God…” Paige Guthrie breathed in sharply, staring down the corridor and deep into the Devils Playpen, the walls screaming and stained with blood. Someone had unleashed the hounds of Hell while she had been sleeping.

The Byron Trust, Level 9, Imprisonment and Confinement.2, East Wing…

The beast with bear trap jaws snapped round its misshapen head with a savage motion, every inch of its jagged form rigidly contorting and ready to explode into violent action. It remained still and poised and ready to launch forwards, snorting wetly as its head leaned sharply backwards, its metallic construction of a snout snorting as it inhaled something poignant from the air.

For several heartbeats it did nothing, its massive frame clicking at the joints, its rippling spine both curved and poised, a silent sentinel of malice within the flickering darkness.

The spiders about its feet screeched and chattered their own annoyance, scratching about the monsters paws and spitting their collective spite towards the universe.

Its pretence of a ribcage shuddered, the hybrid organs of both man and steel beating in rhythm with its inhuman heart, in time with its heavy and hollow breathing. It snorted and snarled some sound of savage glee, quickly followed by a roar of distorted notes and primal need.

With blood red eyes, small and crimson, it craned its head to look upon the fallen slab of meat that was Ms. Lee, the girl lying amongst the remains of those that had fallen. It seemed unsure at first, flexing its massive paws, before leaving the discarded thing to fester. The meat would live, for the moment, its injuries no longer fatal, it would live, and that was all it cared for.

Its head snapped back once more, its crimson eyes peering down the hallway, piercing the darkness and staring deep into its kingdom. Its every joint was bristling, its every motion was excited, its every snort into the air was more insistent than the one before it.

Suddenly it launched forward, its entire misshapen frame exploding into violent action, its twisted and jagged body bounding down the hallway with a single minded purpose. With a howl that was not human, with a power that was not natural, it charged towards its distant prey.

With savage glee, the beast with bear trap jaws had found its purpose…

The Byron Trust, Level 9, Imprisonment and Confinement.2, West Wing…

Moderation wasn’t in the vocabulary of Laura Kinney.

The tiny girl with raven hair launched forwards with blinding fury, spitting with outright malice as she slammed bone claws into the pulsating torso of the monstrosity before her. The creature screamed, the slug like behemoth thrashing its multitude of limbs as it tried to dislodge the spiteful little vicious mammal that latched itself onto its body. Laura held on tightly and shoved her claws in deeper, lashing out with feet and teeth, kicking and biting at the unnatural hybrid of flesh and steel.

The behemoth hurled its bulk forwards, slamming its ungainly weight towards the ground with a high pitched shriek. Laura Kinney was not idle, the tiny girl with raven hair flipping upwards, her claws tearing through the monsters pretence of a ribcage before twisting herself up onto its shoulders.

The creatures impact with the floor was monstrous, its heavy mass and massive strength shaking the foundations, and yet the mutant mammal that had been assaulting it had moved with blinding speed. Laura was free from harm, avoiding the impact and riding upon the behemoths shoulders, her claws slick with blood and foul fluids, the slug like beast screaming in abysmal pain.

Something foul washed outwards from its ruptured torso, splashing across the blood stained floor, parts of its atomy that had once been human, Laura Kinney wrinkling her nose in disgust. The creatures head was hideous and distorted, a thousand eyes and flailing tendrils, the malformed mouth shrieking its displeasure.

Laura Kinney slammed her fists downwards, those claws digging deep into the beasts thick neck and hideously distorting its high pitched cries. With a snap and snarl, the tiny girl with raven hair twisted her wrists and popped a cranium from its shoulders. There was a snap and crunch, a shriek and sickening silence.

Laura stood upon the back of the slug like behemoth, the unnatural amalgam of flesh and steel, a carcass that now reeked of her many sisters. With a final spit she vaulted from its body, disregarding its existence as her bone claws slipped back into her forearms.

Her demeanour shifted within an instant, the tiny girl with raven hair becoming calm and entirely docile, a placid child with an infants mind. She retrieved her puzzle box from the corner, the multicoloured box she had hidden like a treasure, holding it passively between her tiny hands before turning to the woman.

She seemed asleep but also troubled, Laura Kinney kneeling down beside her, the young woman with dark skin and darker hair. She was feverish and fitful, Laura knew what that was like, just as she knew this women. Laura had seen her many times before, someone who would visit and would talk and had promised to take her away from here and out from underground.

Laura had found her, like this, unconscious and bleeding from the nose, almost moments away from becoming one with the monstrosities. The tiny girl with raven hair leaned forward and sniffed the women’s hair, searching for something in particular. She almost immediately jerked backwards, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head in disappointment.

“No!” she decided, clutching her puzzle box possessively.

“Not you!” she shook her head again before leaning her neck backwards, sniffing for a scent.

“You!” she declared excitedly, staring down the hallway and into the deeper darkness, no-one there that she could see. She didn’t care, already running in her new direction, clutching her puzzle box in hand and searching for a lost one.

She was gone within a heartbeat, the tiny girl with raven hair, Monet St. Croix left to linger in her nightmares…

The Byron Trust, Level 1, Transportation and Storage…

From the moment that she had seen that withered corpse, that thing that had been spat out into the world like a festering wound, Karen Barnes had known it would be the death of her. It made her sick, its mind like pestilence, digging into her soul and vomiting in her mind, that thing with shrivelled eyes and a broken heart, the foul stain upon mankind. It had seen her, when it had been born, full of spite and venom and eternal torment, it had seen her, and now it would never let her go.

She cursed and held her screaming head between her hands, sitting amongst the bodies of her dying personal, everyone giving the Director a wide birth. Whatever that cow had started when this outbreak had begun, she hadn’t finished, the mental assault still festering in her memories and slowly eroding away her soul.

She cursed the name of Everett Thomas, and that of Monet St. Croix for bringing him here, most of all, she cursed herself. She should have recognised him from the moment he had entered her facility, the little apprentice of the Byron Agency, the Sleeper Agent who had plunged this entire operation into the tenth level of hell.

“DIRECTOR!”

“WHAT!?!” Karen snapped, her head jerking upwards and eyes a bloodshot crimson. Locke was running over, the new head of her security by process of elimination coming to a stop and saluting crisply before continuing.

“The Hybrids are falling back!”

“WHAT!?!” Director Barnes was on her feet within an instant; life threatening mental illness could go and take a suicidal leap.

“The walls still appear to be infected…” Locke continued to update his Director, the two of them pacing towards the only eyes they had left of the lower levels “…but the Behemoths are defiantly converging on a single point…rapidly…”

“How many?”

“…All of them?”

“Where!?!” Director Barnes demanded to know.

“Our best estimate suggests somewhere on Level 7”

“Cryogenics?”

“Yes sir” the newly drafted chief of security reported dutifully as the two of them came to a stop, Karen Barnes leaning forwards and glaring at the jury rigged monitors before her. The transmission was crap, their coverage was woeful, but Locke was not wrong, they were moving, all of them, and Karen Barnes could only growl her lack of satisfaction.

“Get me a fire team…” Karen Barnes demanded, removing her bloodied jacket and efficiently procuring a bullet proof vest from a wounded trooper “…anyone who can still fire a rifle!”

“Sir…”

“Damn it Locke, do it!!” Karen snapped, her temper reaching boiling point and her brain finally set to explode. That thing was still inside her, ripping apart her mind and tearing away her soul, that thing of twisted malice and blackened eyes that would never leave her be, that thing of ragged flesh and awful sin.

“That bitch is after something!” Karen snapped, the same wounded trooper from before handing her his firearm.

“Like Hell I’m going to let her get it!”

The Byron Trust, Level 8, Imprisonment and Confinement.1…

Collins was locked in, the thick, bulkhead door sealing him off from the Hybrid swarm and leaving him cornered in a prison cell. His body language, however, suggested that he didn’t believe it would do him much good. An impromptu barricade had been set up, the black armoured guardsmen positioning himself behind an upturned desk and bed, his rifle held straight and steady, his eye never wavering from the target.

He was alone within the darkness, the boy beside him now long dead, a youth who had believed himself a man. ‘Welsh’ was printed across his nametag, half his face was missing. Collins had tried to save him, dragging the weeping boy into the room, but it was not enough, his shoulders shifted, it never seemed to be enough.

The terrific crashing was incessant, the bulkhead shaking on its hinges, some monstrous creation slamming down upon its surface. It never paused, each one more violent than the next, a primal scream of some unholy fury throwing itself towards oblivion, battering itself to death to reach its prey, dying so that others could fulfil their task.

Collins gripped his trigger tightly, barely half a clip left to expend, barely enough to ensure his survival for a scant few second longer. He was having trouble breathing, the armoured breastplate he was wearing, one cracked cleanly down the middle, was too small for his broad shoulders.

There was one final crash, an terrific explosion that seemed to rock the entire wall, a horrific scream accompanying the popping of the hinges. The bulkhead rattled harshly, on the verge of falling inwards, just a few final moments separating Collins from the incoming Hybrid swarm.

And then there was not a sound.

The Guardsmen could not believe it, even as the moments passed, measured by his breathing and his heartbeat, the Hybrids did not advance. The battered bulkhead did not tumble, his sanctuary had not been breathed, he was not yet dead upon the floor.

Standing slowly, the black armoured Guardsman listened with intense interest, listening for any sound of his attackers, finding nothing that would indicate they were still there. The enemy had retreated, one that had him cornered and outmanned. No, he corrected himself, they had withdrawn.

The enemy had found something of greater interest.

“Well…”

The guardsmen muttered as he slowly raised himself to standing, lowering his rifle and yet kept one finger upon the trigger. He reached upwards for his helmet and unlocked the latches about his neck; ones that sealed the headgear to his broken breastplate. With a quite hiss of air it came off, the broad shouldered Irishman feeling immediate relief as he removed the helmet he had borrowed from a corpse.

A suit of armour that had once belonged to a dead man known as Collins, now the prosperity of Sean Cassidy, the former X-Man known as Banshee.

“…this can nae be good…”

The Byron Trust, Level 10, The Cradle, Classified…

The ragged frame of a half dead corpse was hanging limply from its capsule, its twisted limbs and pallid flesh held aloft by the tubes and wires buried beneath its rotten skin. It was barely stirring, a shallow breathing from its ragged ribcage releasing spittle laden hissing from its broken features, the malformed creature missing its lower jaw and possessing only the blackest of shrivelled eyes. It barely hung to life, struggling to draw breadth, only the sheer force of its fury kept it going, its spite towards all natural life.

There was a silent scream, a telepathic maelstrom erupting from its decrypted body, a hurricane of violence that ripped and tore apart the Astral Plane. It was carnivorous, it was cannibalistic, consuming the mental world itself and feeding on the life force of the universe, lashing out at everyone and everything it encountered. It screamed, it would scream until it could scream no more, it would scream until there was no-one left to hear it.

The Cradle had become alive around her, the patchwork of golden light moving throughout the walls, a tapestry of living metal weaving across the floor, a thousand splintered creatures chattering in her presence. The children it had awoken, the Phalanx it had freed, the new life that it had repurposed.

The creatures born of steel and given purpose by its light gathered around the ragged body of the half dead corpse, screeching as they latched onto that withered body. Throughout the entire, fragile frame the former Phalanx spread, infecting the organic tissue with their presence, willed into its fibres, digging into its muscles, fusing with its bones, digging deep into its brain.

A unity was forming, between flesh and steel and the minds of two races, abused and tortured for the purposes of another. The ragged pound of flesh shivered as the corrupted mind of that broken body absorbed new knowledge from the children it had freed, its mental eye flashing out across the many levels above its head, towards the unwitting instigator of creation.

The one from which the seedling of life had spread.

The hybrid creature shook within its restraints, fused with new life and keener purpose, fused with the desire that all children craved, the thing that infants cried for.

“…Mother…”

It hissed through a broken jaw.

“MOTHER!”

TO BE CONTINUED...

NEXT ISSUE: The Byron Agency meddled with affairs that should have been left alone, and now it is the Byron Trust that will pay the price. An infant wants its mother, a species wants its freedom, and the very existence of Generation X may have been responsible for it all...