The Callisto Protocol

CH/\PTER 10: Tension

The second Jacob cracked open the door out of solitary, he knew something was deeply wrong.

The smell was what tipped him off first. It was an acrid reek that was utterly unlike anything he'd ever smelled before. His mind kept slipping and fumbling, trying to connect it to something, anything. But he kept coming up short. The only thing he knew for sure was that it was a bad smell. It was a dangerous smell. He had to resist the urge to back up instinctively and instead peered cautiously through the crack he'd made parting the doors.

"What...the fuck?" he whispered as he saw something on the floor just beyond the opening.

Whatever it was, it immediately made him paranoid all over again. He finished cranking the door open and then he did take a step back. He took two. All the residual anger from his encounter vanished immediately, like someone flipped a switch in his head. Situated on the floor ahead of him, in another small junction room that was little more than rock, metal, and big, industrial sized pipes, there was what could only be described as a growth taking up half the floor.

For several long, ugly minutes he stood there studying it, trying to figure what in the holy hell he was actually seeing.

It was alive, he knew that much. It was green...well, green-brown, but mostly a sickly green. It was wet. It appeared to be a collection of maybe half a dozen...pods? Lumps? Mounds? Eggs? Oh God, could they be eggs? They were placed at random, and were of inconsistent sizing. They had sprouted both tentacles that snaked along the ground like organic cabling and a gooey, veiny mass of what almost resembled moldy jello.

While he was still contemplating this, Jacob very nearly jumped out of his own flesh as he heard a faint crackle inside his head, followed immediately by a familiar voice panting heavily.

"Ah...ah shit, bruv," Elias gasped. He sounded like he'd just got done running a hundred meter dash. "Fuck! One of my mates...known him forever...he tried to kill me! He wasn't-wasn't HIM anymore! He was, like, mutating or something! He was GREEN and one of his fucking eyes was out! Dangling by the goddamned optic nerve and he didn't care! He tried to kill me!"

"I fucking told you something insane was going on!" Jacob snapped. When Elias didn't reply, he felt a little guilty. "...you okay?"

"Fine," Elias replied, sounding a bit more in control. "I got him first, but what the fuck is going on!? I had to fucking kill him! But he wasn't a him he was an IT! Like a goddamned animal or somethin'!"

"I know, they're savage, whatever the fuck they are. But beating their head in seems to work well enough," Jacob replied, sounding more confident than he was. "But listen, I found something else. Something worse."

"Oh God, what?" Elias groaned.

"There's some kind of growth down here in solitary. It's green, it's like...eggs. It looks alien, man. It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before, and I have seem a lot of shit in my time."

A very long pause. "Alien? Are you fucking for real?"

"It looks that way, man. I dunno, could be something in a lab maybe, there were always crazy-ass rumors about Black Iron and the UJC, and some of it was that they were doing wild shit in some secret lab for the military or something."

"Ah fuckin' great, bruv!" Elias snapped. Just as quickly, he seemed to lock down control of himself. "Okay, whatever, it doesn't matter. Just keep going. Are you out of solitary yet?"

"Not yet. Some psycho tried to fucking garrote me, but I put him down. Anyway, uh...I'm going to keep going."

"Roger that. Same. Good luck."