Speed Run (a X33N and Alien: Isolation fanfiction)

Chapter 7

The song for this chapter is Disturbed's "The Sound of Silence." There is a place to start listening. ;)

The rest of Mission #12 went without incident, and we met up with Samuels in the room adjacent the reformat chamber. This room and the chamber were separated by a wall and large observation window with a door off to one side. This room was crowded with consoles, servers, and large cables running between them, making the floor treacherous. The mist pooling above the metal floor from a coolant leak somewhere only made it harder to cross the space without tripping. The room beyond the door housed a machine reminiscent of an MRI or CT scanner. A narrow table held a sled that could slide forward into the circular opening in the tube-shaped machine—the android formatter.

Everything seemed fine until Samuels stepped into the machine room, and the door slid closed and locked behind him. An all too familiar ripple ran through the world. I tripped over a cable when the vertigo hit. I tried to catch myself, but my left arm collapsed under me as pain shot through it. "Gah!"

When things settled, I cautiously stood. "Meza?" I asked, scanning the room for threats. Gwen had avoided falling by bracing herself against one of the consoles, my arm smarted, but wasn't bleeding, and Samuels was lying down on the reformat table like he was supposed to, the machine humming to life. What did the hacker change?

"I'm looking! I'm look..." There was a moment of static. "Oh...X33N?" Meza said, voice suddenly apprehensive.

"Don't you 'Oh, X33N' me. What did he do?!" I yelled at the ceiling. Gwen shot me a concerned look.

In the background I was aware of the usual console alert sounding. "Warning: APOLLO connection has been initiated." Sparks of electricity danced across the floor as the station ai tried to protect itself from the intruders—us. The first surge barely tickled, but I knew they'd get more dangerous the longer we took to shut the system down. At the same time, white lights on the ceiling started flashing, and a high pitched alarm started blaring.

"He took over another NPC," Meza said, static overlaying his voice.

"Buddy, having a little trouble hearing you. Did you say an NPC? But the only one here is..."

"Samuels," A vaguely familiar voice said over the intercom.

It suddenly occurred to me that Samuels should have been talking to us by now. I whirled around to face the window into the formatting chamber. Samuels was standing on the other side of the glass, smirking. "Who the f*ck are you?!" I demanded, subconsciously shifting into a fighting stance.

The hacker disguised as Samuels let out a gruff laugh and crossed his arms. "The one who's putting an end to this." As he finished his sentence another electrical surge swept across the room, feeling like a bad static shock this time. The faint scents of ozone and burnt metal accompanied it.

My eyes widened in horror as I realized what he was doing. He had no intention of helping us shut off the purge he'd activated. It was only a matter of time before the rising electrical charge depleted what remained of our health bars, killing us. "Meza! Gwen! Make us an exit, now!" I yelled, frantically running to the first system switch we were supposed to disconnect, for all the good it would do. Without Samuels connected to APOLLO I couldn't shut off the purge, but I might buy us some time.

I used my large wrench—which doubled as a door jack—to leverage the first system switch into the offline position. I made a dash for the second switch, all the while aware of the hacker standing idle at the window, enjoying the show. Gwen was busily trying to hack the door, and I saw it flicker briefly as I ran past. "D*mn it! Why isn't this working?" She said in frustration.