The thing was not a spider.

It was gargantuan, its body the size of the settlement it had displaced to emerge. Its hard carapace was so pitch-black that it seemed to absorb the lights around it, to make them lesser. Though it roared and howled, it had no mouth.

As it crawled out of the ravine, chunks of earth slipping off its back as it did so, its bizarre body came into view. Four great legs on the front, one greater leg at the back. No eyes, no ears -- only armour. This was a thing made to destroy, made from flesh remembered.

A huge fleshy rope, like a tail, stretched from the beast's underside and back down into the bowels of the earth it had emerged from. It pulsed laboriously. The end of it was not visible.

The ExoCorp building glinted in the distance -- and the beast wasted no time.

In heresy against gravity, the four front legs of the monster rose high into the air and came down again some distance up ahead, the body pulling the strong back leg behind it and leaving a noticeable groove in the landscape. Immense amounts of heat evacuated the body through vents between the joints, rising up into the sky like the child of a thousand chimneys. Again, it roared -- and a living moat of flesh poured out from the ruins of White Village in response.

Like a great, dead hand, the beast dragged itself onwards.

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Muzazi held one hand to his bandaged side in discomfort as they ran, ignoring the disapproving glance Marie sent his way.

"I told you to stay put," she snapped, skidding to a halt. "What part of that didn't you understand?"

Muzazi quickly moved his hand away from his injury, putting on the bravest face he had. "The stimulants have helped heal much of the damage," he said unconvincingly. "I can hardly lay there while the enemy is at the gates."

Catching up with the two of them, Hadrien spoke up. "She's right," he said, hands on his knees as he caught his breath. "Going around like you are now, you're at most going to be running at about seventy percent of your strength -- and that's a very generous estimate."

"Seventy percent?" Muzazi mused, pulling Luminescence free from its sheath with a screech of metal. "Then it seems I'm in fine form."

Hadrien rolled his eyes. "I said at most seventy --"

Before the disagreement could escalate into an argument, Marie put a finger to her communicator. "We need the window open here -- give us eyes on what's going on." It seemed that, while Muzazi was out, she'd managed to acquit herself quite admirably with the security personnel.

The shutters over the windows -- which had been sealed at the beginning of the incident to prevent sniper fire -- rumbled open, the glass behind them slowly being revealed. The orange permanence of the desert landscape quickly became visible… as did the massive black shape across it.

Despite everything he'd seen so far, Muzazi couldn't help but gasp. Marie just stayed still, finger still frozen on her communicator as she saw the colossus on the other side of the desert.

The colossus that was slowly making its way towards them.

Beside him, he heard Hadrien whisper: "What… is that?"

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"Monster, dead boy," Pan replied, her tone infuriatingly carefree as she sat cross-legged on the carpet between Hazzard and Muzazi. "Big monster."

Well, I can see that, Dragan angrily thought. But what is it? I assume the other Panacea did this?

Pan nodded. "Probably. Other me made something new -- very difficult. Very angry, I think, when it gets here."

Dragan paled. What'll it do when it gets here?

"Kill you, dead boy. You said it -- the other me needs you deader than anyone."

I didn't say that, Dragan glared. I thought it. You were listening in?

"Always, dead boy."

Enough of that. He didn't have time to play twenty-questions with Pan, not with that thing coming their way. It was slow -- he could see that as it dragged itself over the dunes -- but it was big, and that always won out in the end.

He stepped forward. "It's after me."

Muzazi shot him a strange look. "What? For what reason?"

"Like I said," Dragan replied grimly. "I have the benign Panacea in my head --"

"Who is Ben Ine, dead boy?"

"-- I have the benign Panacea in my head, and the other Panacea wants to stop her from taking back over. Easiest way to do that, now, is to kill me. So I'm guessing it's coming over to crush the building and step on me."

Muzazi looked from Dragan to the beast in the distance, his hand worriedly squeezing the handle of his sword. Dragan didn't care how many cars Muzazi could throw around: he wasn't taking on a monster the size of a mountain.

"Officer Hazzard…" he muttered, thumb tapping against his weapon. "If you have any suggestions?"

Hazzard's hand slowly lowered from her communicator, and she took a deep and shaky breath. It was a surreal thing, to Dragan, to see a Gene Tyrant showing signs of anxiety. Hell, to see a Gene Tyrant period.

If he hadn't known for a fact that Skipper had 'killed' this woman more than once, he'd never have guessed it.

"I think," she said quietly. "That it's time for a group huddle."

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"Aren't you dead?" Skipper asked, sat in the plastic chair backwards.

"Aether," Hazzard lied. "I got better."

A smirk tugged at Skipper's lips. "Such magical stuff, huh?" he shot back, his voice droll.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Ruth, for her part, was more occupied by the ice sculpture that was now the centerpiece of this laboratory. The Gene Tyrant that had taken the place of Titan Hessiah had been frozen mid-transformation, flesh trapped between one grotesque form and the next. The silent roar still warping his face was enough to send chills down your spine -- even without the frost on the glass.

"You guys fought this?" Ruth asked, looking it up and down. "Damn."

"We… survived it," Muzazi replied, wincing as a memory of the battle clearly came back to him.

As he spoke, he was watching Ruth carefully, his hand still on the hilt of his sword. Bruno, for his part, watched Muzazi just as carefully, hand casually close to his holstered pistol. At the first sign of attack from anyone, this place would become a bloodbath.

Disaster had a way of putting powder kegs together like this. Dragan was reasonably sure that every person in this room had tried to kill another person in this room at some time or another.

"Enough chit-chat, people," he called out, sliding his finger across the screen of his script. As he did so, the image displayed on it was projected as a hologram in their midst.

A massive monster, covered in dark plates of armour, dragging itself across the desert -- in their direction. It was the size of White Village, and from the speed it was moving, it was clearly strong enough to demolish the ExoCorp building without much effort.

"Big boy," Skipper whistled.

Hazzard rolled her eyes. "Thank you for the observation." It seemed Dragan had found a kindred spirit.

Marie Hazzard was another thing he found himself hesitating on. When his brain had put together those final connections as to her true identity, he hadn't believed it at first… but when he'd thought about it, really thought about it… it was the only thing that made sense.

The Gene Tyrant that had replaced Titan Hessiah would have been one that had survived the thousand years since the revolution. There was no way, after all that time, that he'd have been sloppy enough to accidentally expose himself to two Special Officers. If he'd been exposed, it would have been intentionally.

And the only person a Gene Tyrant would intentionally reveal themselves to? Another of their own kind.

For once, he had every intention of keeping quiet about it. The last thing he wanted was a pissed off Gene Tyrant coming after him.

His eyes returned to the holographic monster pulling itself across the sands. Ruth had stepped up to it, squatting down so as to look at it from an equal height.

"The hell is it?" she muttered, cocking her head. "Big spider?"

Bruno crossed his arms. "There are vermin that look like that on this planet -- uh, but much smaller. I've seen them in the bathrooms."

Ruth wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Seriously? In the bathrooms?"

Serena's frown spread across Bruno's face. "I know!" she cried. "It's so gross, right?"

"If we could return to the topic at hand," Muzazi cleared his throat, pointing his sword at the hologram. "Judging from its speed and gait, we have around four hours until that beast reaches us. Once that happens, though, it'll be far too late to do anything about it."

"Do anything about it?" Dragan raised an eyebrow. "What exactly were you intending to do about it?"

Muzazi answered it as if it was a serious question. "Intervene."

"How?" Dragan scoffed. "That spider's a little too big for you to cut it up with your sword, isn't it?"

The Special Officer didn't answer straight away. Instead, he exchanged a glance with his partner, took a deep breath -- and only then did he look to Dragan again.

"We were hoping you would have an answer for that."

Dragan blinked. "Huh?"

Hazzard stuffed her hands into her pockets as she sauntered over to Dragan. He did his best to hide it, but his body tensed up as she approached. This was a thing that could probably bite his head off with the barest of efforts, after all.

"You said it yourself," she said, raising her eyebrows. "More than once. You've got the benign Panacea inside your head, waiting to take back control. Any insight you can give us?"

All eyes were on Dragan, even those of his own crew. Swallowing, he put a hand to his chin.

"Well," he ventured. "Right now, the other Pan wants me dead specifically. I'm guessing she can sense where I am because of the connection she established during the last attack. If we move me somewhere else -- maybe somewhere a little more remote -- this thing might change direction to pursue me? At least that way the ticking clock wouldn't be so bad."

Muzazi clicked his tongue. "That would be difficult." With an extravagant wave of his hand, the hologram zoomed in -- displaying the horde of teeming Repurposed that flowed like an ocean around the monster's feet. "They're considerably faster than the beast itself. If we tried to get you away using the means available to us, it's almost certain they'd catch up to us outside the safety of this building."

Bruno muttered a curse. "So they saw our strategy coming."

"It would appear so."

Another glance was exchanged between Muzazi and Hazzard. He nodded, just slightly, and she began speaking.

"Building on that idea, though," she held up a finger. "My and Officer Muzazi's ship is still intact, as far as we know. If one of us -- not Hadrien -- was to go and retrieve it, bring it back here, we could take him up into space and out of this thing's reach. I mean…" she gestured towards the hologram. "It's not exactly flying, right?"

That did sound like a good idea. Dragan opened his mouth to agree, but was cut off by the voice in his head.

"No, dead boy," Pan frowned, sitting upon a desk. "Will not work."

Dragan sighed. "Pan says it won't work."

Hazzard's raised finger fell limp. "Well, does she say why?" she asked, annoyance obvious in her tone.

"Too far away," Pan answered. "I cannot become if we are in space. We lose our chance. Red me wins if we leave planet."

Dragan was in the middle of relaying that back when Skipper interrupted. He'd been quiet for a while, eyes flicking from one speaker to the next.

"Gotta say, guys," he said, cracking his neck. "All these plans aren't really doing it for me. It's all run away, run away. How come we can't stand and fight?"

Hazzard looked down at him, eyes cold. "You want to fight that thing?" she asked. "We can't fight that. It'd crush us just by accident."

"Nah, nah," Skipper grinned his easy grin. "Of course we can fight it. If we've got a plan."

"And you do?" Muzazi asked.

Skipper stood up from his chair, kicking it out of the way as he strode forward to the hologram. "'Course I do. Tell me what you make of this, guys and gals."

He flicked his fingers, and the angle of the hologram shifted, displaying the strange cord that was protruding from the beast's underside. The fleshy tendril trailed behind the monster, falling into the ravine it had emerged from and leading down into the darkness.

Serena nodded sagely. "That's its dick." She thumped her fist into her palm.

"No. It is not genitalia," Muzazi declared. He turned his gaze to Skipper. "I was wondering about this as well. You've identified it?"

"Maybe." Skipper tapped the holographic cord with his foot, and it fizzled in the air. "I've been thinking: if the Repurposed could bust something out this big, why not do it from the start? Would've saved them a lotta trouble."

The pieces connected in Dragan's head. "Because it's risky."

"Correctamundo, Mr. Hadrien," Skipper waved a metal finger. "The other Repurposed -- apart from the Dead Hand -- operated on instinct, too, while this one’s got an objective in mind. I'm thinking that cord’s some kind of direct connection, letting the Panacea control this body it's created. So…"

Muzazi nodded. "We sever that cord, we disable the beast."

"And correctamundo, Mr. Muzazi," Skipper waved the finger again.

Hazzard bit her lip, looking the hologram up and down. She put a hand on her hip. "You're making it sound easy. That cord's gonna be just as regenerative as the rest of the Repurposed. You'd have to get through the whole thing in one shot. That'd be… difficult."

"Well…" Skipper grinned, cracking his good knuckles. "Lucky for you, I'm a pretty difficult guy."