Protocol 1481

The Doctor’s smug, evil laugh echoed from the speakers, a sound that grated on Aki’s soul.

Then the screen went black. Silence.

The only sounds were the wind howling over the desolate island and the gentle lapping of the sea against the battered hull of the Sea Serpent.

Kiro let out a low whistle from the ship, his voice cutting through the Silence.

"Well, fuck me." he said with a relief.

He looked from the smoking wreckage of the turrets to the imposing black tower.

"Are you fucking insane, kid? You can't go in there alone! That place is a hellhole! It's a goddamn tomb!"

Aki didn't turn. His eyes were locked on the single, ominous cave opening at the base of the cliff.

"This is my fight," Aki said. His voice was flat, absolute. "Not yours."

"Like hell it is!" Kiro spat, grabbing a harpoon from the deck. "Kid, I've bled too much to let you play hero. If you're going into the grinder then, I’m driving in first."

"No." The word was cold. Final.

"He is not alone," Shika's voice echoed in both their minds, sharp and fiercely loyal. "He has me."

Kiro froze, his eyes wide as he stared at the small white creature on Aki's shoulder.

"Did... did that little fur ball just talk in my head?"

"I am not a fur ball, you old sea bastard!"

Aki almost smiled. "Stay with the ship, Kiro. If I'm not back by sunrise, leave."

"Leave?... Just leave you to rot in that shithole?"

"Yes," Aki said. He finally turned to look at the old captain, his eyes like chips of ice. "You got me here. Your job is done."

Kiro stared at him for a long, hard moment, at the unyielding resolve in the young man's eyes. He saw a kid marching to his own execution. He let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his gray hair.

"Fine," he growled. "Fine! Go get yourself killed."

He unstrapped a small, leather-bound flare gun from his belt and tossed it to Aki.

"But if you're not back by sunrise, You are firing this goddamn flare, and I'm coming in after you. And I'm adding it to your fucking bill."

Aki gave a single, curt nod. He turned and, with Shika on his shoulder, walked toward the dark, humming entrance of the laboratory.

The inside of the tunnel was not rock, but cold, seamless metal. The air was sterile, smelling of ozone and a faint, chemical tang that reminded Aki of the cave. The only light came from glowing strips that ran along the floor.

It was silent. Too silent.

"Aki, this place feels dead," Shika whispered in his mind. "But I can feel... things. Wires in the walls. Like a spider's web."

"Stay alert." Aki whispered.

They walked deeper. The tunnel opened into a single, impossibly long, dark corridor. The walls were not bare metal. They were lined with massive, floor to ceiling glass tubes, each one filled with a murky, yellow fluid.

It was a museum of horrors.

Inside the tubes were the Doctor's failed experiments.

A wolflike beast with spider legs fused to its back, its mouth frozen in a silent snarl.

A creature that might have once been a man, its limbs elongated and twisted into grotesque, useless shapes. It floated motionlessly in the yellow liquid.

Another tube held a dozen malformed creatures, all arms and eyes, huddled together in the bottom. One of them, still alive, looked up as Aki passed. It pressed a three fingered hand against the glass, its large, black eye pleading.

"Aki... what are these things?" Shika's thought was a tremor of pure horror. "They feel... sad. So much pain."

Aki's jaw tightened, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He kept walking, his eyes fixed forward, refusing to look at the individual horrors.

This is what the Doctor does, he thought, his rage a cold, hard knot in his gut. "He makes monsters and calls it progress."

He saw dozens more tubes, each containing a unique, terrible failure. The sheer scale of the cruelty was staggering.

This wasn't a laboratory. It was a mass grave.

A sound echoed from the far end of the long hall.

CLANK. CLANK. CLANK.

The heavy, rhythmic sound of metal feet.

A figure emerged from the darkness. It was massive, easily eight feet tall, a hulking fusion of scarred flesh and black metal. Its head was encased in a metallic shell with a single, glowing red optic. One arm was a massive pincer, the other a multi barreled cannon.

It was the guardian of this gallery of the damned.

"Aki, it's huge!"

The guardian stopped, its red eye fixing on Aki. A cold, robotic voice broadcast from a speaker on its chest.

"Unidentified biological entity detected. Threat level: high. Please surrender for immediate termination."

"Fuck you," Aki whispered.

The guardian's cannon arm whirred to life. It fired a volley of high explosive rounds.

Aki was a blur. He moved with his agility mode, a grey streak flowing between the projectiles. The wall behind him erupted in a series of concussive blasts, shattering several of the glass tubes. The yellow fluid and their gruesome contents spilled onto the floor with a wet slap.

Aki closed the distance in a second, his hand forming a heavy battle axe. He swung at the guardian's leg.

CLANG!

The axe bounced off the thick armor, creating a shower of sparks but leaving barely a scratch.

"Target's weapon is composed of an unknown, morphable alloy," the robot droned, its pincer arm snapping at Aki's head. "Adapting combat protocols."

Aki ducked under the pincer and swung again, this time at the joint. Another clang.

"Its armor is too thick," Shika cried in his mind.

"Then I won't hit the armor," Aki said back.

He feinted another attack at its legs. As the guardian braced for the impact, Aki suddenly changed direction. He used the robot's armored leg as a springboard, launching himself upwards. He twisted in midair, his axe dissolving and reforming into a long, thin, needle sharp rapier in the blink of an eye.

Aki plunged the blade down into the guardian's single red optic.

The robot froze. Its speaker let out a burst of static.

"Critical... system... failure..."

Aki pushed off, landing silently on his feet as the massive guardian crashed to the floor behind him, its red eye flickering and dying.

He had destroyed the lock.

The massive blast door at the end of the hall groaned open. And the entire laboratory screamed.

"ALERT. ALERT. CONTAINMENT BREACH IN SECTOR GAMMA."

"GUARDIAN UNIT DESTROYED."

"INITIATING PROTOCOL 1481."

Red lights began to strobe, casting the hall of horrors in a bloody, hellish light. The wail of sirens echoed through the facility.

Aki stepped through the ruined doorway, his rapier dissolving back into his hand. The air inside was cold, sterile. He could hear the distant sound of heavy, armored footsteps, of soldiers shouting orders.

The entire hive was awake.

"Shika," Aki said, his voice low and urgent. "The alarms are active. They know we're here. We have to split up."

"Split up?! No! It's too dangerous! Not after seeing those… those things!"

“It's the only way,” he insisted. "I can feel a powerful presence ahead. That's my target. The thing that they sent after me. I have to face it alone."

He knelt down, looking the small creature in the eye.

"Listen to me. The reason I came to this gods forsaken place... it was to find out what happened to Mia and Rika."

His voice was quiet, but it held the weight of his entire world.

"I need you to be my eyes and ears. Search this place. Find anything. A data log, a piece of clothing, their names... any sign that they were here. It's the only mission that matters."

Shika looked from his intense eyes to the dark, foreboding corridors. She was terrified, but she saw the desperate plea beneath his cold command.

"But Aki... what if I get lost? What if they catch you?"

"They won't," he said with absolute certainty. He placed a hand on her head. "And we won't be apart. Stay in my head. Talk to me."

"Always," she promised, her voice filled with a fierce determination that mirrored his own.

He nodded once. "Go. Be fast. Be quiet."

Shika gave his hand one last nuzzle, then scurried off his shoulder and into the dark maw of a ventilation shaft. Her small, white form vanished into the darkness.

Aki stood, now truly alone.

"Okay, you fuckers," he thought, his eyes scanning the corridor ahead. "Let's see what you've got."

He began to walk, his footsteps the only sound in the screaming silence of the emergency lights. The feeling of danger was a palpable thing, a pressure building in the air, growing stronger with every step he took.

The corridor opened into a vast, circular chamber.

It was stark white, the walls, floor, and ceiling all made of the same seamless material. The air was cold enough to see his breath. In the very center of the room, under a single, harsh spotlight, a figure stood with its back to him.

The distant sound of running soldiers had stopped. The sirens were silent. There was only the low hum of the station's power core.

Aki felt a primal sense of wrongness. The aura coming from the figure... it was familiar. It felt... like his own.

He readied himself, his hand shimmering. He didn't form his axe. He needed speed and precision for this. His hand morphed into a long, twohanded odachi, a great katana designed for powerful, sweeping strikes.

The figure in the center of the room slowly turned.

Aki's breath caught in his throat. His heart, which he thought had turned to stone, hammered against his ribs.

He was looking at himself.

It was a perfect copy. The same face, the same height, the same dark, worn tunic. The only difference was the eyes. Where Aki's held a storm of grief and rage, the clone's held nothing. A dead, cold, absolute void.

"What the fuck is this?"

The clone didn't speak. It just smiled. It was a cold, empty imitation of his own grim smirk, a gesture devoid of all meaning, and it was the most terrifying thing Aki had ever seen.

Then, it raised its hands.

Aki watched, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.

The clone's left hand twisted and warped, flesh and bone rearranging themselves with a series of wet, sickening cracks. It reformed into a sleek, black curved sword, wickedly sharp.

Its right hand did something else entirely. It contorted, metal plates sliding out from under the skin, a barrel extending from the knuckles, a complex loading mechanism clicking into place where the wrist should be. It morphed into a compact, multi barreled weapon that hummed with a deadly, stored energy. A submachine gun.

It was a perversion of his power. His was organic, an extension of his will. This... this was a manufactured weapon system wearing his face.

Aki was stunned.

He had fought soldiers. He had fought beasts. Furthermore, he had fought a kraken. How was he supposed to fight this? A monster that was him, but better? Faster? Stronger?

The clone raised its gun arm, the barrel aimed squarely at Aki's chest.

Shika's terrified voice echoed in his mind. "Aki! What is that thing?! It feels like you, but... cold! So cold and empty!"

Aki didn't have time to answer. He shifted his stance, his body coiling like a spring, entering the state of hyperawareness he called his agility mode. The world seemed to slow down around him. He could see the dust motes dancing in the spotlight. He could see the faint tremor in the clone's trigger finger.

The clone's empty smile widened.

"Let's see who the real monster is." the clone smiled.

The fight for his life, for his very soul, was about to begin.