Isolation-#Wattys2015

Excerpt 4-Chemical 240

Sarah set to work on cooking some of the Alfredo while Jacob and Tyler pulled out beds from the two sofa's in the back room and the little boy grabbed the bean bags from the front room and moved them into the back by the counters. I unpacked the sleeping pad and my blanket from my backpack Tyler gave me a few of the blankets off the back of the couch and I set them up on my pad, which was in the corner opposite to the little boy.

Call me crazy, but that little kid seemed to think of me as his Father, or at least a father figure. I don't know why I did, but it seemed like that he didn't care that I was Xenomorph, he felt safe around me.

Dinner didn't take that long to prepare. Sarah made three of the bags of Alfredo that I'd found and mixed it in with just a bit of curry powder, garlic and black pepper, the resulting dish was actually quite hunger satisfying. Once everyone had eaten I helped Sarah clean up and then I went to the bathroom to check on my shoulder. I pulled off my, vest, multi cam and undershirt and looked at myself in the mirror. There was a cracked crater in my shoulder that was about a centimeter deep. It wasn't as bad as it felt, but it was still an infection waiting to happen. Sighing, I stepped into the shower. I assumed since the power was out in most of the facility, all I had was the cold, so that's what I used. Surprisingly though, the cold water wasn't at that cold of a temperature, in fact, it was pretty pleasant. I didn't have a lot of dirt on me, and since I didn't sweat, there wasn't any real need to shower, but I did anyway because it gave me a refreshed feeling and Chitin really glows if you wet it down. Once I was done, I stepped out and dried off. I pulled my medical bag out of my backpack, taking a gauze pad, cotton roll and a bottle of ointment that was specially made for Xenos. I soaked the roll with the ointment, took a deep breath and placed it in the hole in my shoulder. It stung like a bitch! Wincing, I tapped the gauze pad to it and pulled on a fresh shirt. I slipped out of my boots and pants and put on a pair of boxer shorts and flannel pants.

Once I was done in the bathroom I stuffed my medical kit back into my backpack and walked into the security room where Allen was fooling around with some dials.

“Well looks like you cleaned up”, he told me.

“Hey after what that Skin thing did to me I deserve a little R&R”, I answered with a laugh.

“So did you like the High-Power?”, Allen asked messing with more dials.

“I like it”, I said, “has a ton of punch to it. I mean, it's not at all practical, it's loud, heavy and...punches holes in my shoulder a lot.”

“It cracked your exoskeleton?”, Allen asked laughing a little.

I tugged on my shirt, showing him the bandage, “it stings.”

“I bet”, Allen said turning back to the console.

“Do you have any kind of a plan?”, I asked.

“To get out of here we'll have to kick start the main generator and get the quarantine protocols to disengage.”

“How do we do that?”, I asked.

“For starters we need the Master Password”, Allen said, “which is kept on the other side of the compound in the Biome Labs. Then we have to see what's wrong with the generator, which by the way is in the basement, where the feeders have taken up residence. We need to get everyone armed and we still have the matter of water.”

“Back up a minute”, I said, “feeders?”

“A group of people whose genes got blended with a parasite at the beginning of the outbreak. They use a set of tentacles that release a powerful muscle relaxant to snare their prey and another specialized set to suck the blood out of it.”