The Rapid Response Tactical Squad plunged into the dank, dripping sewers of the Olduvai Research Facility, hunting the grotesque monster that had ripped through a grate.
Sarge, all business, barked, "Destroyer, guard the exit—nothing gets out!" The hulking marine nodded, planting himself like a tank.
The team swept the tunnels, guns hot, nerves frayed, every shadow a potential nightmare. Portman, true to form, blundered into a sludge-filled hole, flailing like a drunk toddler.
Reaper and Goat hauled him out, Portman’s curses echoing.
Sarge roared, "Check the damn path before you step, idiot!"
Portman, dripping and humiliated, muttered, "Yeah, yeah, boss."
After slogging through the maze, the team hit a crossroads of tunnels.
Sarge split them up: "Cover more ground—stay sharp!"
Goat ventured solo into a dark tunnel, his gun’s flashlight flickering like a dying firefly. He pressed on, guts outweighing sense.
Kid, paired with Reaper in another tunnel, froze, whispering, "Sothing’s tailing us."
Reaper, sensing a presence, hissed, "Get down!" Kid hesitated, but Reaper’s fierce glare dropped him to the muck.
A monster—hulking, clawed—lurched past, bolting toward Goat’s tunnel. "Goat, incoming!" Reaper radioed.
Goat, flashlight now dead, fumbled in the dark. The beast pounced, sinking teeth into his neck, infecting him.
Reaper arrived, unloading rounds into the creature, dropping it in a bloody heap.
They dragged Goat, bleeding and fading, to the atrium near the infirmary.
Sarge, spotting the chaos, yelled at Hunegs, the security manager, "Move the quarantine zone! Evacuate everyone to the goddamn ARK—now!"
The team burst into the infirmary, Goat’s pulse weak, Reaper frantically trying to stabilize him.
Sarge glared at the empty stretcher where Cormack had been. "Chaos, where’s Cormack?"
Raja, leaning casually against a wall, shrugged. "Poof, gone, Sarge. One second he’s half-dead, the next he’s a ghost—slipped out while we checked his blood."
Reaper, cursing, couldn’t save Goat; his pulse flatlined. Enraged, he kicked a chair across the room, denting the wall.
MAYA: "Master, this place is a circus, and you’re the ringmaster!"
Sarge, livid, rounded on Samantha. "Doctor, tell what the fuck is going on here!" He shoved the mutated beast’s corpse—shot by Reaper—into her view.
Samantha scread, horrified, her hands shaking.
Sarge grilled her. "This look like your archeological finds?"
She shook her head, stamring, "No!"
He pressed, "Is this thing from outside of planet?"
Samantha snapped, "Mars is dead—nothing lives here!"
Portman, jumpy, yelled, "It ca from sowhere!"
Samantha snorted, "What, like an alien?"
Portman shouted, "It looks like one!"
Sarge’s glare silenced him.
Reaper, voice low, added, "That’s not what Goat and I saw in genetics lab."
The team, grim, concluded more monsters road the facility.
Their mission: clear the freaks out.
Raja, smirking, piped up, "Guys, I know what they are."
All eyes snapped to him.
Sarge growled, "Spill, Raja."
Raja’s grin was pure mischief. "Mutated humans. Right, Dr. Samantha?"
She froze, confusion, fear, and guilt warring on her face.
Reaper, staring at his sister, demanded, "What’s this an, Raja? These things are human?"
Raja nodded, cool as ice. "Rember the lab? Synthetic 24th chromoso? Mad scientists cooked it up and injected it into humans."
Portman, pale, stamred, "Goat and I saw an electrified cage near Cormack’s office." Curses erupted.
Sarge’s eyes bored into Raja. "Keep talking."
Raja smiled, unfazed. "They tested the chromoso on prisoners, turned them into these freaks. The virus spreads—check the bite marks on Cormack and Goat. We can’t leave until every beast is toast."
Sarge, jaw tight, turned to Samantha. "Surface entry points?"
She swallowed, "Pressure door, north corridor."
Sarge barked, "Destroyer, Kid, Portman—guard it, double-ti!"
Samantha added, "Another door at the archeological dig entrance."
Sarge radioed Mac, "Give Pinky a gun and ST grenades. Seal the ARK door."
He assigned Raja and Duke to guard Samantha, then led the team back to the sealed facility, ignoring Portman’s whiny "No backup?" A fierce Sarge stare shut him up.
In the infirmary, the lights flickered, setting Raja and Samantha—dissecting the beast’s corpse—on edge.
Duke, sent for a bone saw, hadn’t returned.
Raja, gun raised, edged toward the corner. "Gonna check on Duke."
Samantha followed him called out, "Duke?"
Duke popped out, startling them, grinning sheepishly. "Whoa, relax!" He asked Samantha about her and Reaper’s age gap.
She smirked, "Identical twins—I’m two minutes older." The lights cut out, a growl echoing. Samantha yelped, but Raja shielded her, gun sweeping for the source.
A bulldog—sohow loose—snarled, baring teeth.
"Back to the infirmary, Doc," Raja urged, he and Duke retreating to the nano-mirror door.
A monster lunged from the shadows, slashing Duke’s arm. Raja kicked it back, dragging Duke toward safety.
The beast charged; Raja unloaded his Chaos gun, bullets ripping through it.
He shoved Duke through the door, Samantha yanking Raja inside as the nano-wall solidified, trapping the monster’s upper half, its snarls fading.
Samantha, freaking out, tripped into Raja’s arms, both crashing to the floor.
Raja, grinning, kissed her, purring, "My heroine, thanks for saving from that freak." Samantha, stunned, snorted, blushing furiously.
Samantha, with Duke’s help, sliced into the corpse, confirming Raja’s mutant theory, though guilt gnawed at her.
Raja, unnoticed, used his Chaos Watch to copy all chromoso 24 experintal files and pocketed drug samples for Elysium’s labs.
anwhile, Sarge, Reaper, and Mac hit the dig site, finding dead scientists—Mac got mauled by a monster, killed before they could react.
They chased the beast into the lab complex. At the airlock, Sarge ordered Destroyer and Portman to lock it down, sending Reaper and Kid to sweep.
"Pinky, anything cos your way, blow the ARK Transport," Sarge radioed.
Portman, fuming about being stranded, got another Sarge death glare and clamd up.
Sarge stord off to grab the BFG.
In the infirmary, Raja stared at Goat’s corpse, now standing, muttering, "Guys, I’m hallucinating."
Samantha and Duke turned, gasping as Goat, mutated, made a cross sign, eyes glowing.
Raja chuckled, "Oh, thank God, you see it too—not just !"
Duke, panicking, slamd his head into the bulletproof glass door, cracking his skull and collapsing, dead—again.
Raja sighed, "Now you believe your scientists played Frankenstein, Samantha."
She stood, shocked, guilt and anger mixing as she cursed the research team’s human experints.
At the airlock, Portman, irritated by the "suicide policy," ditched Destroyer to "take a dump." Alone, he sent an SOS to RRTS HQ via transponder.
Destroyer, hearing a growl, investigated, reaching the electrified cage. A monster ambushed him, tossing him into the cage. He fought hard, fists flying, but the beast overwheld him, leaving him dead.
Pinky, watching via cams, scread over comms. The team raced over, finding Destroyer’s body, blood pooling.
Portman, in the bathroom, got jumped, the monster dangling him from the ceiling like a piñata.
Sarge arrived, BFG in hand, and fired, blasting a massive hole in the ceiling, missing the monster, debris raining down.
To Be Continued...
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