Hey, everybody! Sorry this took so long. There've been so many issues with my college housing I almost would have preferred a Necromorph invasion at times… not that that would surprise me in 2020. It was nice to unwind with a fun, popcorn-munching fight scene instead of something longer and dramatic. This is the shortest chapter in a while.

Speaking of word count, I have surpassed 500,000 words across all my stories on this account. This is small fry compared to some authors who have logged much higher numbers, but it's more than I ever thought myself capable of. It's been an absolute pleasure writing for you all, and I earnestly hope that I'll one day reach 1,000,000.

Special thanks to TheRocketeurE, JasonVUK, oblivionknight7, Accelerator7460, RabidPanzer, CelfwrDderwydd, derpysauce, Obol and AncientOfDayz for dropping reviews. They always add spice to my day.

16 Hours, 15 Minutes Post-Outbreak

Curtis descended from the high of his kiss with Nicole into a bottomless pit. This was more than a metaphor; the darkness engulfing Food Storage rivaled a black hole. Only fragments of light poured from the aperture behind them, as well as another on the ceiling, with a figure silhouetted against it!

He almost had a heart attack until he noted the floating globs of flesh. They hardly calmed him, but he realized this was a zero-gravity room rather than paranormal activity. OK, good, Isaac was around, though he couldn't gauge how far. 100 yards, maybe. Big place. Had to be to store months of rations for thousands of people.

Automatic systems detected life within. The lights – translucent plates in the curved floor – revealed the room. He really wished they hadn't. The bulbs threw images of pulsating veins and muscles like demented shadow puppets, for they shone through layers of unliving flesh.

The chamber was a standard cylindrical area, albeit completely disgusting. Nothing surprising about that. Like the mining bay, such environments maximized space and work efficiency when unhindered by the good old 9.81 meters per second squared. Average enough in that department. The standard array of body parts and miscellanea bumped and spun around. One very large detail made this particular compartment of Hell stand out, however.

The far wall was no longer a barrier at all, but a massive, eldritch horror, spanning from one end of the expanse to the other. 100 yards, Curtis was increasingly sure. It was equally long, judging from his trek through its guts. Reminded him of a corpulent tapeworm wedged tight into an intestine. Nothing he'd ever faced approached its mass. "Leviathan" was the only word to do it justice.

Thousands of appendages – arms, legs, even heads – hung from its exposed flank like tiny cilia. These were dwarfed by three enormous tentacles which lazily drifted around. These in turn ringed the center of its mass: a mouth/rectum with countless tiny teeth made from bony fragments. Reminded him of a certain monster from that ancient vid he quoted to Nathan.

Altogether, it relegated the Graverobber and the Spider to the relative danger of house pets. This was the very creature whose name it bore, and it put the fear of God in Curtis. How fitting that he had another deity on his side (metaphorically; the Black Marker made no claim to divinity). That was only fair, but he still trembled.

Curtis expected it to promptly swat them like gnats, but nothing happened.

It's unconscious, Nicole told him. He noted something about the words, and not the actually important aspect. "It". Nicole surreptitiously assigned genders to her "siblings", even when composed of multiple people. The Leviathan must have transcended sex by basis of its enormity. The poison wasn't strong enough to kill it, but it disrupted neurological functions; its mind is gone for the moment, merely echoes. Very good. Ideal, in fact! His brain hopped from terror to crunching abstract numbers. His girlfriend helped immensely.

Probably not the time to stake such romantic claims, though. OK, maybe we can ambush it while it's down. What if we try –

A single gunshot, and his plans went to pieces like glass punctured by a speeding bullet. Isaac fired his weapon from on high, poking the Leviathan with the comparative might of a ballpoint pen. A distant peal of thunder followed a few seconds later once sound caught up to light.

Curtis hoped the attack was so pathetic the great beast would even notice. It's not like humans descried every time a mosquito bit them. But it squirmed, flailing its tendrils and pursing its massive chops. Curtis' knees gave out, though that didn't really matter in zero-g; his feet remained anchored to the floor by grav-boots while his upper half jiggled about. Maybe he also pissed himself. Difficult to discern. Even without eyes, its protruding, meaty maw pointed toward them; the whole room was a gigantic sensory organ.

Damn it, Isaac.

…

Nicole careened through the air while Curtis limply held onto her ankle. They sailed through a sea of dust and metal and carnage stirred up when the Leviathan smashed its tentacles across the chamber. It was a scene from myth – bursts of lightning from Isaac's Plasma Cutter (and he must have found a cache of power cells during his half of Wheezer extermination, for they kept coming) split the miasma, allowing brief glimpses through the green fog of tendrils and teeth.

Its mind was even worse; incomprehensible and rabid because of its mass and the fact it was an amalgamation of plant and animal tissue rather than human. The mixture created a maddening consciousness as deep and wide as the ocean they crossed. To get lost in it would be to drown.

She saw a couple of good points and many bad ones about their situation. At least they had a better grasp of their enemy, how monstrous and primeval it was. However, they possessed no means of hurting, much less destroying, the monster. Isaac also disappeared into the storm, and Curtis was in no position to contact him! The best they could do was try to trace his "bullets" to the source.

Many other negative factors, but she lacked the time to consider them as her cranium smashed into the bulkhead. It would have crumpled if not designed to take hits, but it still sounded like a bomb detonated in her skull. Her body vibrated like a gong, and it took Curtis' hands to steady her, though he hardly did much better.

"W-what are we going to do?!" he stammered. Less than a minute since the Leviathan woke and they already scrambled to stay afloat in a sea of grime and ghosts.

"I don't know!" she shouted over ear-splitting roars. This was one of those times their normal internal dialogue didn't quite cut it. Their options were horribly limited. Leaving would seal Hammond and Kendra's demise; they needed to improvise here and now! No ammunition, no cover, and no way to take it down. The three primary appendages were 20 feet in diameter! They couldn't be severed, and the old "blow it up from within" trick wouldn't work because they didn't have explosives!

They reached the end of their rope, but something had to be done! Surely there was a trick to kill this thing! Right? There had always been something before, some clever way to remove these obstacles.

A limb with the girth of an ancient redwood tree impacted to their left. Thick fistulas squirmed beneath the surface, practically popping through. The action gave her pause but not panic. Not until it swept toward them, creating a wake of gas and dust.

She snapped from watching the wave just soon enough for her and Curtis to ascend the crest without being splattered by 1,000 tons of muscles. Vertigo set in as she spiraled out of control, and she became convinced disequilibrium would kill her before any being of flesh. Metal and crud whirled around.

The Leviathan's mouth loomed large in the center, framed by the halo of kicked up debris – the hurricane's eye and hurricane proper rolled into one as Isaac loosed lightning. The Red God may have been divine in the mind's eye, but not the eye itself. Leviathan was just that – the unbridled destructive capacity of a god without the intelligence or charisma to match. Two halves of the same coin.

Having regained his capacity for movement, Curtis grabbed her shoulder and braked hard with his thrusters, spinning them to a halt in the void. They circled each other, hands clasped, like a dream within a nightmare.

This was their one area of relative safety. The Corruption couldn't signal its master where they were, and its blind slapping was unlikely to hurt them based on the room's sheer volume. That hardly meant it was good to linger, especially with her boyfriend's squishy, fragile form.

Curtis' air dipped with each breath. Though the room had been flushed of toxins immediately before they entered, she underestimated how quickly it would refill. It made sense, though; altering the atmosphere of a ship as big as the Ishimura so quickly meant transmuting at an incredible rate. It probably poisoned the room again within seconds, pumping venom from its pores. Must have been a Wheezer on steroids, with chemical reactions within converting oxygen into toxins like reverse photosynthesis. Ironic, considering it was mostly made of plants.

She scanned the room, desperately searching for unconventional solutions, but it'd be useless unless the Leviathan was weak to random shit being flung at it with kinesis! Nothing sparked her inspiration.

Spark… Her eyes flew from fulminating bolts to Curtis to the Leviathan to the very air around them, choked with smog. It clicked.

I know a way to beat it, she thought, at which point her boyfriend practically smashed his mind into hers to get it.

Methanol was flammable, as she taught Curtis, and the entire room swam in it. They could use the tube as a makeshift filtration chamber, the same kind in which they danced through fire. A single spark, and Food Storage would conflagrate into a titanic fireball, possibly taking out all of Hydroponics. Goodbye Leviathan… and all of them. A horrendous sacrifice, yet that barely registered.

The question was how to start the fire. They racked their collective brain space, one tentacle brushing too close for comfort and shoving them with the air it displaced. The plasma Isaac dispatched wasn't flame itself, but the superheated material should have broached methanol's autoignition temperature. Maybe it travelled too quickly to have an effect. Curtis could abuse his weapon and hoped it shorted, but that was their lifeline. Was there any other way?!

Think! Nicole demanded of herself over internal gibbering and external thunder. In her mind's eye, the Red God eclipsed all that was or ever would be. It should have made her cower in fear, the human part of her knew, but it was a completely average sight for a Necromorph. She'd never quite reconciled those worlds, but she needed to for both herself and Curtis. They couldn't build a good future until she discerned who she was as a person.

A living stone ringed by metal walls and flesh. If nothing else, it would be a killer cover for a death metal album.

That's it! Curtis exclaimed from beside her, seeing what burned into her mind from a different angle. He was horrified, of course, but more than that, he had a plan. Rock and metal? Don't you get sparks if you hit those together?

She stared at his softly glowing visor, imagining the eyes beyond, and felt her mouth splay into a smile. You're smarter than you give yourself credit for. A bolt of plasma whizzed feet away, casting heat on the side of her face; Isaac was getting sloppy. But what will you use? They didn't have any stone on them, and every metal surface was engulfed with undead, pulsating meat.

Do you remember what's in my pocket? Nicole pondered for a moment before nodding. There were no more appropriate fire starters. Only one problem remained. One needed oxygen to form a spark, and there was none left in the room. Not enough for their needs, anyway.

There was only one source large enough to be viable, and she didn't want to say it. She couldn't. If she did, Curtis would be irrevocably lost to her forever. Forever. She understood a thing or two about "forever" being a child of infinity. Whatever lived behind the Markers was eternal; it or they would exist long after both of them turned to dust. Ergo, she remained mum.

…

"You know something," Curtis demanded. Nicole's energies hummed and rattled, marking her deceit as the Leviathan whipped up miniature tornados. Their connection made it nearly impossible to lie or withhold information. The fact she did it regardless meant it came with a great and terrible price.

"I can't tell you. You'll die." He didn't care. At least, he didn't want to! He wasn't suicidal – not with her protection. More than anything, he wanted to live, to go home, to sleep in his bed and shower and spend all the money he had on ice cream and real meat and eat until he was stuffed. He wanted to forget all of this except Nicole and for people to treat her like a normal human being and to live a happy life!

But that was a fantasy akin to a child wishing for a pet unicorn. Less probable, in fact. A unicorn could probably be genetically engineered with horse and narwhal DNA as a designer pet. Money couldn't buy happiness or social acceptance or convince the Necromorphs to let them go.

He had to be realistic. Little chance they could all escape. He wanted to live, but dying to save others… that would be an even greater prize. It was all he had left.

"Come on, Nicole! You have to!" Would have been down on his knees if that were physically possible. More lightning, more roars! The mental strain made their psychic barriers begin to crumble, and hallucinations seeped through the cracks, inundating him with whispers suddenly begging for him to live. Funny how they turned on a dime.

"I don't want to lose you," she pleaded, already knowing it was for naught. "You're my everything. You're literally the only thing in the universe I have left!"

"I don't have anything, either. But other people do. Isaac has a mother, I heard him say. I don't know Kendra and Hammond well, but they must have more than me." He was nothing. It was as Kyne said hours or lifetimes ago – being able to die without responsibilities was a glorious thing. But it also meant he had to be the one to make that kind of sacrifice. Would've done so without hesitation were it not for the woman in front of him.

"Your air," she choked out. "You'll need to vent whatever oxygen is left in your RIG to make a spark." OK, so he really was going to die. Surviving immolation was slim, but doing the same while also suffocating would be next to impossible.

Nevertheless, he scrambled for his flint and steel while Nicole remained, wanting to stand by him until the end. He had to squint to avoid meeting her liquid gaze.

Between hallucinatory flashes of words and faces and bouts of pain from his organs, Curtis was an utter mess. His hands spasmed as he yanked the Enigma mask and Sam's miniature Marker necklace from their pouches. Shocking that he found a solution in them, but his mind was never far from the trinkets and their significance. The Markers were his hopes and fears compressed into two diametrically opposed twins at war – from his perspective good and evil, but he suspected their morality was more orange and blue than black and white, based on parameters inconceivable to him.

The mask was more enigmatic (ha!), the manifestation of a group he knew nothing about. However, its significance was not lost on him. An organization the Black Marker warned him to beware must have been deadly, indeed. Even Nicole flinched when she spotted the stoic, empty gaze of its tiny, not-quite-human eyes. It had that effect whenever her kind spotted it. Maybe there some sort of Necromorph racial animus or trauma about the institution, some terrible event that hid in their Jungian collective unconscious.

His only guess was that they had some history with the Marker, probably when it was dredged up from the seafloor 300 years prior. Possibly related to Unitologists, at least high-level ones. But why? Convergence was what the Church wanted to bring about. Shouldn't they have been allies? None of it made sense, though he supposed the truth would unravel if he lived long enough to see it.

Another deafening scream slackened his grip on the artifacts. They careened into the mist, and Curtis nearly wept… until his remembered his kinesis. Oh, yeah. He didn't get as many chances to use that as he expected. His right hand whipped around, and he simultaneously snagged both items in his phantom clutch before they dissolved into discolored darkness.

His oxygen dipped by the second, and his heart rate only made it burn faster. The bar in his HUD dropped from green to yellow, the same as his "health". He forced his lungs to pump to slower to ensure enough catalyst for his makeshift bomb. Finally, he turned his attention to Nicole, ringed in smoke and illusory hands grappling her, ripping her face apart. It hurt so much to see, even though he knew it a lie. The Marker's sentiment still pained him.

"Nicole… you have to get out of here." He spoke quietly, the Leviathan having ceased its tantrum for a moment.

"I'm not leaving. I already said I'm not going to lose you." God, he was in such a bind. Though he wanted to shove her toward the exit, the desire made him such a hypocrite. If their roles were reversed, he would've wanted to face death head-on with her. "If this actually works, you'll suffocate! You'll be the one who needs help!" That assumed he wasn't incinerated in the blast, which he certainly hoped to be. Nothing would be left of him to come back. He wanted to remain in her recollections as more than a shambling, charred husk of brittle meat.

"We'll never really be apart," he said, tapping his temple, though Nicole remained unimpressed. It didn't comfort him much, either. The good thing was that some of his memories lived in her, having flowed from him across their link. "It's better than nothing. Plus, Isaac needs you. He's not gonna jump ship because I yell at him." He let out a forced bitter laugh which tasted of venom and ire. Humor didn't help the situation, so he tossed it away entirely.

He placed his hands on her shoulders and stared deep into her eyes, trying not to be hypnotized by the beautiful golden dots. Her mandibles fluttered in time with her soul.

"I need you to survive Nicole." Heh. "Survive". The word must have held such cruel irony for her. Really, though. He would have loved for her to stand by him to the end. "None of this is fair. I wish we could have gotten more than a few hours together, but staying behind won't help anyone." He closed his eyes to hide from hers, and he was back in one of his many childhood homes. Distant thunder drummed on the tin can roof, booms from nearby heavy industry, too. A rainy day in the North Carolina Hubs, but he had shelter, at least. She was his safeguard now, and it made what he said next all the more painful.

"I need you to leave because I love you."

Tears floated in his helmet, bursting against the HUD and his face as he silently wept until jarred to reality by suction on the outer metal. His eyes flew open, though he already knew the cause; Nicole did it, after all. Her face was buried in his mask in the most charming pantomime of affection one could make at such a time.

"I love you, too," she replied while drawing back. Her fears hadn't been assuaged, but she understood why this needed to happen. "Now kick its ass."

"You bet," he replied, still sniffling, before giving her a shove in roughly Isaac's direction. They gave each other a long look before she faded away, and Curtis nearly screamed. All alone now, just thoughts, memories, the ever-encroaching madness and impending death. One minute of air left in the can. He hoped that would be enough.

He issued a series of commands on his holo-screen. It needed to be triple checked so the system knew he was serious instead of joking or inputting the wrong directives. Eventually, though, he got it. Taking a final deep breath, he pressed a button. The remaining 30 seconds of oxygen were vented out through ports near the spine, making his eyes water, while a benign blend of nitrogen and argon was pumped in as a last resort. Common spacer knowledge held that one could stay conscious and without brain damage for approximately three minutes after losing oxygen. The N/Ar combination boosted that to maybe four, since he wouldn't be suffocating on carbon dioxide.

He tapped the symbols together, hoping his iconoclasm would literally burn down the world. Nothing happened. A little harder, and still no dice. Hmm, maybe he was supposed to scrape or rub them instead of going head-on. It's not like he'd ever lit a fire before. Nobody he'd ever met probably had! "C'mon," he muttered, trying to conserve every molecule of oxygen left.

Don't do this, a voice whispered in mind. Curtis knew who – what – it was without the benefit of sight, not that he particularly wanted to spin around and face it. Confront his fears, yadda yadda, but that wasted time. He didn't have to worry about that, though, for the phantom drifted into view, anyway.

"Nicole's" skin was bloodied and burned. Glowing, hollow eyes spilled their optic nerves out, and they listlessly dangled. Her medical RIG was torn, revealing her rib cage and whatever organs – no, he wasn't going to indulge this nonsense. He'd seen enough gore that he could comfortably stroll through a slaughterhouse. He wouldn't give this thing the time of day. There's still time to escape. Tell my body you changed your mind. That you want to live and spend the rest of your life with her. Me.

Oh, she tried to be sympathetic after countless hours of haranguing, serenading him with "her" love. Should've shot her in the face for implying she and the real Nicole had anything in common beyond being, well, dead. Still, he sensed she couldn't manipulate his body as she had in the past. There was enough of a bond left still between him and the real Nicole. Accordingly, it needed to butter him up for anything to really stick, and that wouldn't happen.

He struck his tools together, already feeling tendrils of heavy, eternal sleep wrap around his brain. In that sense, engaging with the phantasm was a boon. Kept him aware, at least.

You're the avatar of a giant rock, not real yourself, he replied without a second thought. Another close call with one of the massive limbs, which gently propelled him into the aether. Hey, Marker? Why don't you fuck off while I blow up your favorite kid? It felt fantastic to taunt the monstrous effigy, and he felt its mind seethe behind the curtain of civility.

You're wrong, fake Nicole lied, stalking him as a ghost. I am real. Strange how well a psychopathic elder evil could imitate a woman, regardless. Her mannerisms were pretty spot-on, and he should know. While he didn't want to call her "the love of his life", he'd become intimate with Nicole and recognized her various tics and quirks. You're going to leave me alone if you do this! Leave me with that bastard Isaac. I want you, not him!

He would have spat at her if not for the visor. The Red Marker could be a terrifying force in the correct circumstances, but it was now often a sniveling nuisance. When beaten at its own game again and again, it could do nothing but plead. He didn't even need the Black Marker's assistance (though he sensed its mirth and sadness deep in the background).

His hands jittered as he scraped, struck, shaved and chiseled the mementos into each other. Shards of stone and steel glinted in the half-light and swirling shadows, which encompassed more space as his body begged for oxygen. He needed to light this now, before the catalyst dissipated.

Knew I should've looked for a flamethrower! Steel and stone smacked together again, and his ears rang as the apparition shrieked directly into his fried brain. Yeah, now it was back to being a bitch! He could work with this!

You can't do this, Curtis! she screeched, pressing her decaying face into his own. You're too stupid and too slow! Yeah, but his head was thick as an anvil, and he'd had a modicum of success with that. If Nicole solved problems by smashing her skull into them, then so could he.

"Light!" he screamed, taking the toxins into his lungs while slamming the tools together one last time with all his strength, pulling muscles all along his arms. That was the end of the Marker necklace, the last gasp of a tenuous faith. Already riddled with cracks, it crumbled into a million pieces. His iconoclasm was not in vain, however; a single spark hung in the remains of a broken body.

"It's about – " The world went bright, and then all too dark.

…

Nicole finally found Isaac. She veered through the maelstrom, unhindered by gravity yet inextricably bound by time. She'd never forgive herself if Curtis died because of the knowledge she imparted. Still, she was so proud of him. There had never been anyone so brave. Curtis would sacrifice his life for those he barely knew. That kind of courage was supposed to be dead, yet it survived in this one man. That's one reason she loved him.

Isaac stood anchored to the living ground, his muscles so taut they practically bulged through layers of metal and fabric. His snarling visor was like the head of a beast as he pelted the Leviathan with petty attacks.

There was no doubt in her mind Isaac finally succumbed to dementia, wilting before her. His own "Nicole" probably tormented him into burning through the hundreds of rounds he must have stumbled across on his own quest. Utterly devious. Even if the Red God's stranglehold wasn't strong enough to make him kill himself, it decimated valuable resources! Fuck this thing!

Space rumbled as the Leviathan thrust a tipped tentacle toward them. It barreled from the right, ready to splatter or perhaps impale him depending on its rigidity. She neither waved her arms nor shouted to warn him. It would confuse him, and he might turn the Cutter on a flying Necromorph. Both her and the appendage rushed forward, breaking the clouds and spiraling, spiraling. She chomped down on her tongue to not yell.

An impact, then a freight train of brown, pink and black flashing in the corner of her four eyes. She got to him first. The tension in her stomach remained; there were seconds left until Curtis lit the fuse. Isaac kept shooting until she clamped a claw over the gun to break his cycle of chaos.

"You aren't helping!" she finally bellowed into his face, at which he was cowed into submission.

Curtis' bond became fuzzy. He choked on nitrogen/argon soup, so at least he wouldn't be poisoned. Not that it mattered. Anything at point-blank of the subsequent explosion would be singed to a crisp, and he'd probably be torn limb from limb. Her only comfort, no matter how small, was that it would be instantaneous. Didn't prevent her teeth from gnashing in despair.

She reached the edge of the room, opened the door with a gnarled hand and dove through, turning back as a rumbling fireball engulfed the room. Sort of.

The conflagration started as a candle, slowly expanding from the center; a blossoming flower turned to molasses from her perception. Moments like these, where time dragged, were reactions to impending doom so that one could fight or flee. Neither could be done here – her only choice was to watch as the sphere of white and blue expanded.

Slowly. Too slowly.

That's when Nicole realized the sluggishness wasn't in her head at all. Somehow, the miniature sun really did broaden with the pace of a sloth. And why was it cerulean? Methanol didn't burn hot enough to – oh.

I used stasis, Curtis thought back just as she discerned it herself. His consciousness was a blurry tapestry from the dearth of breathable atmosphere and prior blood loss. Just as a test, and it worked. She said… "you're too slow". I didn't know you could do that to air…

"Isaac!" she screamed, practically throttling him. "Use your stasis on that thing right now!" He flinched but made no other response, either dazed or generally confused. The light quickly became blinding. Seething, she dragged him by the neck, gripped his left hand, pointed it at the azure sphere (which quickly turned from blue to yellow) and commanded him again, at which he complied. The ball of tachyons blazed into the miniature star, altering its brightening hue back to deep azure.

Now all she could do was watch as the shimmering, blinding orb pulsated in the "sky". There was nothing she could do but hope he came back to her. None of Curtis' mind reached her from beyond the veil of unconsciousness. The sphere's diameter was now half that of the cylindrical chamber: a supernova. It occluded the Leviathan, and the heat seared Nicole's face. She waited… and her prayers were answered.

Her dead heart leapt as a shadow arced down, blown by stellar wind. Curtis. His arms hung loosely, hands barely clinging to the Line Gun as he listlessly drifted. "Get him down here."

She would have strangled her former boyfriend if he was too lethargic to get him. However, Isaac had enough wits about him to yank Curtis down with kinesis (fairly easy with none of his flesh exposed). It made him a puppet jerking forward as the chromatic orb once again shifted hues, and Nicole was on pins and needles.

But he did it. Curtis fell into her arms, and she bailed, dragging him across her shoulders and Isaac by the wrist. They dove through the threshold while the fireball snapped back into normal spacetime. The metal sprang shut right before it reached them.

The last thing she heard, even as the door slammed shut, was a massive and terrible death rattle, both within her head and outside it.

…

Curtis thought he was dead. The sun's flames engulfed him, leaving him a skeleton in a suit of armor as cleansing radiance consumed his flesh. The death throes of a god, and all fell silent as he passed. A good way to die, though it broke his heart to leave her behind.

And then he awoke in her arms. Her face was there as she cradled him in her lap, and her mind whispered sweet thoughts that coaxed him back. Welcome to the land of the living. Indeed, they were in the same antechamber where they'd kissed – the most alive he'd been for a long time. Though surprised, he couldn't complain. I missed you.

I missed you, too, he thought back, shaking off the funk of near-death. He'd had dozens of run-ins with the reaper, dodged its scythe, but this was the time he most expected to die. The time when it really mattered. Still, he was glad to remain here, with her.

His ears rang as she helped him up, dizzying him, and he had to brace himself against a bulkhead to keep from keeling over. Isaac was there, too, slumped against one of the walls with a face taut yet twitching. His helmet was off! Curtis wanted to yell at him to put it back on (and because he nearly got them killed), yet Nicole stopped him with a single sentence.

The Leviathan is dead. The words echoed in his head, but he couldn't stop staring at the man opposite him. Isaac just looked… empty. What levers did the Marker do to him? You killed it. Not quite believing, Curtis turned back to the Food Storage door, which he opened with a flourish of phalanges. It was hot to the touch.

The sickly odor of burning rot was the first of it. Amorphous plumes of thick, pitch smoke congealed in the center, remnants of the Corruption, which was now nothing more than a burbling, tar-like paste. Pipes and dead systems still rattled. Nothing compared to the sight on the back wall, though.

The great Leviathan was reduced to maybe half its previous size. Great craters like those of Luna dotted it where the inferno ate through, doubtlessly igniting pockets within it. The whole thing was charred black, and its anal mouth had distended and drifted around, as did the three giant tentacles, now thoroughly severed. The thing of his nightmares had been defeated with a single spark. He took a moment to absorb it all, basking in the glory and exhaustion. Nicole joined him, and they gawked for a minute.

Mercifully, Kendra appeared to break the silence. Her timing was always impeccable, and he directed her gaze toward the great dead being.

"You… you actually did it!" she exclaimed, still hacking from the toxic emissions. "Oxygen levels are rising. Methanol's slowly dropping. It'll take a while for the scrubbers to get it all out, but we're in the clear." A smile tugged at her lips despite herself.

"Hammond, are you hearing this?" Her face shifted from elation to disappointment when he didn't respond. Oh no. The possibility the man was gone forced him away from the flayed husk and back into the other room. "There's no sign of his RIG anywhere, but we've been having a lot of comm trouble..." She trailed off, but he caught her drift. He might not have been dead, only cut off. Curtis found it unlikely given Hammond's previous condition, yet he couldn't surrender faith. It'd gotten him this far. "Let's hope he shows up later. Except for that, I think we're finally out of problems. There's nothing imploding or breaking, no more giant monsters eating the ship. We almost done."

The news took a moment to digest, and he was perversely disappointed when it did. Hard to believe the dawn approached. Nicole felt even more so. The Ishimura was her home now – a terrible home, but leaving the North Carolina Hubs was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. He understood how difficult it would be to leave behind, especially with the question mark of a future looming ahead.

"Are we finally leaving?"

Kendra hesitated. "Not yet. There's one more thing we have to do." She adjusted her hair, gunked with gore and grime. "There's a general distress shockspace beacon in Mining, just like the one that Vincent woman launched earlier. However, that one's so old the signal's either died or it's been pulled in by the planet. We need to send a fresh one for the military. There's no way they'll find us in the asteroid field otherwise."

"Um, why?" What reason did they have to let the military access any of this? The prospect of the government getting their grubby hands on the bane of mankind chilled his bones. He'd rather have been incinerated than let them get the doomsday rock schematics. "What stake do you have in it?"

"I used to be in the USM myself." It was spoken with the casualness of a weather report. Just some idle fact. Curtis disagreed, though – he was floored. This barely five-foot woman used to dress in a military-grade RIG and kill people?! "I know I don't look like the soldier type, because I wasn't one. No, I was a programmer and a hacker." Oh, that made more sense. Also explained why she was so damn good at it. "Still got basic training, though, which is how I've been able to hold out so long."

The miner came to a conclusion after processing this revelation – he was angry. Residual heat from the conflagration dawdled in his torso, creating a rage similar to a steaming bisque. Or maybe his gnawing hunger got to him.

Now, Curtis didn't have an issue with the military. Well, he did, with their jackbooted reign and tactics against those they deemed "insurrectionists", but the main issue was Kendra lying to them. Hammond had always been honest about his past (though anyone with half a brain would expect a person of his stature and position to be a veteran), but he couldn't abide Kendra keeping quiet about it for so long, especially after they'd already established a modicum of trust.

Then again, I don't think we actually asked her. Yeah, he'd never been curious enough to probe about anyone's past. None of his business, though now he wished to be nosier.

"Look, I don't work for them anymore, all right?" Kendra huffed, sensing his suspicion. "My loyalty is to getting us out of here, not EarthGov or the CEC or Unitology or anything else."

"Then why do you want them to find this?" he demanded, poking a finger at and through the holographic screen, warping her face around it. None of what he'd seen should ever have been beheld by human eyes. He'd only rest easy once the Ishimura dropped into Aegis VII and the tectonic load falling finished it off.

"Economics, mostly." He thought he had rocks in his ears, but she repeated herself. Nicole was similarly curious, though more receptive. Isaac couldn't have cared less, listless. "Think about it like this; there are a few dozen Planet Crackers for hundreds of billions of people." OK, he got back into the community college mindset. Academic and shit. "The Ishimura is the oldest, but it's undoubtedly the best: bigger, tougher and more efficient. The others just had to get the job done, but this ship was the proof of concept – the extras were cheapened because of the economy of scale."

He didn't know what that meant, but Nicole's "aura" hummed as she seemed to already light upon the answer. He felt himself blush. He was never smart, but being around such intelligent people made him jealous. His girlfriend was a certified genius!

"What's your point?"

"I'm saying this ship has kept our species afloat for the past 50 fucking years. Without it and its hauls, we'll eat each other alive. I'm not saying the apocalypse will happen, but EarthGov will completely implode. Of course, they want you to think both those things are one and the same." Her gaze narrowed as Curtis finally caught her drift. "If EarthGov goes, who do you think fills the vacuum?"

His stomach turned from fire to ice. Kendra was right. Only Unitology had the strength to muscle the government out. Not that the Church would take over humanity wholesale, but they'd be the most powerful faction left – maybe a merger of the CEC and Wey-Yu approached it if the former wasn't already compromised. But they'd have more than enough clout to look for more Markers. Markers that very much wanted to be found.

"The Ishimura was slated to be decommissioned after this, of course, but the hull can still be stripped for parts; millions of tons of scrap metal, centrifuges, stasis and kinesis technology. The next flagship Planet Cracker is supposed to be constructed from those components. That would save billions of credits. Even more important without Aegis VII itself. It'll set back production of everything from space stations to shaving cream. If the Ishimura goes, so does the economy, the government and an even shittier future than the one already in front of you."

He met her steely gaze before glowering at the ground. Nicole completely bought it, and it began to make sense to him. The status quo sucked, but at least humanity was still around. The same couldn't be said for a future where Unitology won its shadow war with EarthGov. Not exactly between a rock and a hard place when the rock actively tried to murder him. Still, he felt dirty for the choice. It also left one very big question open.

"What about the Marker? You planning to leave that here?" That was the deal breaker; it needed to go. Sure, whatever government craft arrived would stumble across Necromorph remains among the slag (they'd all die once the Marker was far enough away), but that was far better than the Marker itself. Whatever insight they gained would be limited. Kendra sighed, lips pursed into a grimace.

"I haven't figured that out yet. We don't have a lot of options. We can try to get onto the shuttle and have us dump it into the sun on our way out. Otherwise, it could get vented into space, fall into the planet and get obliterated when the tectonic load comes down. Really, all our choices involve vaporizing the damn thing. None of it can survive." His sentiments exactly. It may not have been a god, but it had the durability of one.

Well, that's where they stood. One man down and with Dr. Mercer still doubtlessly out to get them, but with the biggest Necromorph on the ship dead and no more glaring existential threats.

They roused Isaac and started back to the tram station, and Curtis smiled when he felt the Red Marker practically weeping in his head. The most beautiful music. Let's see how you like it.