Chapter 1067: Unseen Threats

Chapter 1067: Unseen Threats

Clover continued to chase after the first monster, and managed to learn a few things from its performance. First, its primary power was to take control of others and force them to fight it. In order to do this, it needed confirmation of their identity. He confirmed this when he came to a scene of an engineer wielding a large wrench and swinging it at the monster, as opposed to running like everyone else. This engineer, most notably, had a name tag visible on his jacket.

Its secondary power allowed it to take control of attacks that would be fatal to the monster itself from affected targets, turning them back towards the wielder. Earlier, this had caused the rifle fire to turn back in midair, and with the engineer it made his wrench slip out of his hands, almost striking his own head.

Thankfully, Clover reacted in time, throwing out a punch of spatial ki with his shattering intent. This was dangerous to use inside, but he was in a hurry. The wrench was sucked into a shattered space and disappeared, while Clover launched himself forward to the monster, using his claws to tear through its midsection. There was no warning against attacking the monster himself, so he was confident that this would work.

He saw the cartoon figure of the monster fall in two halves, its eyes transformed into x’s, and took a deep breath. This one doesn’t seem to be able to interfere with doors, so that one should be on Lydia’s end. With that thought in mind, it turned to rush towards the area that Lydia had been assigned, but kept in mind to strictly continue to follow the commands that had previously been issued.

Lydia clicked her tongue within her helmet as she arrived at another door that wouldn’t open. The monster that she was currently hunting took the form of an amorphous black blob with a single, red eye at its center. She had only managed to see it twice, both times before it passed through another door to escape from her.

Any door that the creature passed through would no longer open automatically. Lydia didn’t know what would happen if the door was manually opened, but she knew that it wouldn’t be good. Perhaps it would lead to somewhere else, or cause the person passing through to simply disappear. Going by the large number of missing person reports, these two appeared to be the most likely scenarios.

The problem was that every time the monster took a door, she had to find an alternate route to catch up with it. If the monster wasn’t slow to travel in tight spaces, it could have made it through the entire ship by this point.

I could just cut open my own path, if I need to. The thought was certainly tempting, a pair of black blades growing out of the arms of her suit. She just didn’t know if that would count as ‘manually opening a door’ by the monster’s rules.

Gritting her teeth, she turned and ran to the side, knowing that there was another route to the other side of this door only three doors down. Anyone who saw her quickly got out of her way, understanding the urgency of the situation.

After passing through two more doors, she found herself face-to-eye with the monster. The pupil of the creature dilated as it stared at her, seeming surprised that she had cut it off. Lydia didn’t give it a chance to do anything else, slicing vertically through the only solid mass that appeared in its body, the eye.

Seeing the creature falling to the ground with a light thud, Lydia let out a sigh of relief. Turning her head, she prepared to go meet up with Clover and see how his own fight had progressed, only to see him rushing down the hall towards her. She waved at him, but didn’t speak, and neither did he.

“Shall we check out the bridge, Lydia?” Lydia asked Clover, remembering the instruction to only accept communications when using the opposite names. Clover nodded his head, turning to lead the way.

“The manual warned us that this is an infectious creature, so it is possible that any crew member could become a new host. The Code 9 Quarantine, in my opinion, is a hint that this thing can be reborn from memories of those infected. Most likely, the captain saw something like this happening, the security teams fighting an invisible threat, and then one of them dying and disappearing while the battle continued.”

“So, the reason you magnetically sealed all of the doors...” Lydia began, eyes wide as Clover nodded.

“If we kill it, we will likely receive a notification that one of the crew members has died of unknown causes. Since the rooms are magnetically sealed, it shouldn’t be able to escape before we return.” As Clover said that, they received another notification that a hallway door had opened just outside the mess hall.

The two were close, only one door away from that hall. “Stay behind me.” Clover told Lydia as they ran through the final door. Clover didn’t know which side of the door the monster ended on, whether it had passed through or stayed on the original side. Therefore, he had to completely eliminate both possibilities.

Lydia fell back, letting Clover throw out a punch with spatial ki that filled the hallway. The sounds of something shattering and reforming filled their senses. Clover paused, standing and listening, until the computer issued a report. “Agent Freeman has perished within his quarters. Agent Julius has perished within his quarters. Agent Larson has perished within his quarters.”

Clover’s eyes shook beneath his helmet, and he saw Lydia looking at him. “Either there were multiple creatures... or it can multiply itself through rebirth. Either way, there could be more of them by now.”

A pneumatic hiss could be heard behind them, followed by the computer’s voice. “Door 2 of Sector A-4 has been opened without visual cause.”

Before Clover could say anything, Lydia turned, blindly extending her blades into the doorway behind her. Two more reports came in of dead crew members. “I hate this thing.” Lydia muttered, finally understanding why the captain hadn’t hesitated to kill every member of the command staff when he heard that they had been infected, including himself. If he had waited, more than a dozen of these creatures would have been born.”

Unfortunately, the creature wasn’t even visible after its death, and Lydia simply heard the dull thud of a body hitting the ground in front of her. She walked backwards, keeping her eyes on the door that repeatedly tried to close, every time crunching against an unseen object. “Door 2 of Sector A-4 will not close.” The computer reported.

“Let’s go to another room, Lydia.” Lydia herself said, and they made their way to another nearby room, a security office with only one door. Once they were inside, Lydia moved Clover to the far wall, and then slashed at the empty space of the room to ensure that they were alone.

“Now, we just need to wait and see if we hear about any more unwarranted doors opening.” Clover muttered. “Computer, begin Code 9 Quarantine protocols.” He ordered, wanting to make sure that this was carried out before they returned. “Mark all five previously reported deaths as high-priority containment. Furthermore, record the following instructions. No security personnel should be allowed aboard the ship without the aid of Information Bypass devices. All doors must be monitored when passing through. Any door opening without cause must be immediately fired upon.”

“You think that they’ll survive coming back through the barrier?” Lydia asked, though Clover didn’t answer. Partially because she didn’t follow the protocol to use her own name, but more because he didn’t know himself. The barrier could definitely inflict serious harm on the memetic monsters, enough to deter them from entering, and even kill some of them. However, there was still the risk that a monster brought through via a ship would be able to withstand the damage enough to survive. Thus, these rather extensive precautions were necessary.