They crept up the staircase leading from the tunnel to the platform and followed it into the facility in single file. Every footstep sounded like a miniature earthquake in the narrow hallway.

The noise echoed in Overton’s helmet. Stealth was the only advantage he had on the Organics; without it he knew he wouldn’t be able to protect what was left of their group.

An image of Finley’s headless body slipped into his mind. He gritted his teeth and forced it into the vault where he stored all of the other horrible things he’d seen. There was no hiding it forever—the image would reappear, more than likely on some dark night when sleep wouldn’t come. But he had to put it away for now and focus on his current objective.

Get inside the facility. Secure it and find the rest of the team.

He repeated the mission over and over. It helped him focus. Finally, they passed a briefing room and a set of offices. He halted outside the entrance to the cleansing chamber. Taking one knee, he peeked around the corner.

His eyes fell upon the thing he’d been dreading to find. The aliens had already penetrated the facility, more than likely in search of the pond. On the ground were a thousand tiny pieces of shattered glass, spread across the floor like candy from a broken piñata. Mixed throughout were gooey remnants of the same material he had seen gushing out of the monster’s skull in the tunnel.

Fuck.

The word escaped his mouth and sounded over the com.

“What is it?” Bouma replied, his voice tight with fear.

Overton responded by slipping into the darkness of Biome 1. He shouldered his rifle, grimacing from the growing pain in his arm.

A faint red signature glowed to life on his HUD. He knelt and zoomed in. Whatever it was, it appeared to be inside the wall.

“Contact,” he whispered. “Check it out, Bouma.”

Bouma hesitated at the opening of the cleansing chamber and then jumped onto the dirt of the garden, crushing several plants that had already sprouted. He walked at a steady pace, his weapon trained on the wall.

About one hundred yards out he stopped. He blinked to enhance the image on his HUD. The contact was curled up inside a closet. At first glance it reminded him of the ultrasound image he had seen of his nephew a few months earlier. But this was no baby. This was something else.

He pressed on cautiously, his boots crushing plants beneath their tread. When he got to the platform, he put one hand on the metal and pulled himself up, keeping his rifle trained on the closet.