With their positions decided Raethor signaled the order to move. For the near term it would be at once, but as they closed the distance to Central Command it was likely he would first shift to a staggered movement strategy, and then a full tactical clear with each member of the formation taking an angle and moving in a pre-designated pattern that would maximize coverage and attention to any given hostile space over their current emphasis on speed. For now there was no sign of danger and Melissa was in a known hostile space, making it important for them to close the distance as fast as possible given the circumstances.

But the pit in Anya’s stomach continued to grow. The fluorescent lights from above shone down on her ratty skirt and quickly-marching feet, imbuing them with the sickly pale glow of a body only rarely graced with the sun. She had seen its dull orange glow today, but the sky had been swallowed by clouds long before she had her fill of it. And now the doors were shut and the base on alert. Now they marched on their central point of command while assuming it hostile. Now they marched with fourteen soldiers on a point that ordinarily housed none. The pale glow from above swallowed her thoughts as though already broken by teeth and traveling into the maw of a beast fully prepared to devour her. All that was left were the dull sensations of dread and rising panic that would give rise to nothing but ill-fated thoughts. She knew it wasn’t befitting of a soldier to question her orders. She knew that the existence of this base was on a need-to-know basis. Why, then, would she dare think about its purpose? It wasn’t a question posed in words, because there were none left to be had at this point in her mind.

There was only the dull ache of her feet and body in its lack of coordination and the destroyed mind brought far past the point of breaking in controlling the entire base alone. And yet it could keep driving her on. The legs moved far slower than maximum pace, and the mind, though exhausted, had more than enough bandwidth to carry worry in dull aching flashes of anxiety produced by an eternity spent behind the same concrete walls and far-away glow of lights that never tired or changed.

But through it all the same thought kept rising, unable to be suppressed. What is it she was doing here? Why would they station sixteen soldiers on a base easily capable of housing ten-thousand? A hundred-thousand? More? She didn’t even know. It could have been far less, but that didn’t answer the question. They had so many arms and so much funding. Peter was involved with the development of the necrosis bomb that had decided the outcome of the Third Tribulation War, but now he was here. Lululu was a specialist marksman capable of shots more than what the average human should have been capable of making. And the others.. all so varied and talented. Will should have been an officer by now, and Dio felt like he was already up the ranks. Anya herself was augmented, but Yuna… Yuna had been reborn of the new flesh. So many questions, all spinning around her head, and yet no answers arrived by the time the walls changed color.

Red, red and flashes of red. Streaks and splotches all along the walls of all different shades. Crimson and sanguine blood and inverse-cyan mucus. Black and putrid and corrupted. Brown and decayed and stained with the oxidation of time. All overpowered by so much freshly-pouring RED and RED and RED. So much it became meaningless, as though the walls themselves had changed color rather than some other thing being there to drip down their sides. White and dull fluorescence had been replaced by RED and RED and RED as though the organs of this place had been exposed to the outside of their inner walls and destroyed in this process of inversion. Raethor put up his fist without speaking, a clear order to stop moving in response to his troops’ rising panic. Jessica’s legs bowed inward, trembling. Alissa gripped Alex’s arm tightly, even as he gestured with his head against the rifle-stock for her to get back in position on hers. But there was no movement. As the party’s legs stopped there was only the drip-dripping of blood against the walls down onto the floor as the first gunshots and screams rang out from behind as Anya whirled to get a vantage on the exploding hole in the center of David’s chest. A donut with the glaze of pain running all along the walls as it shot out in the depressurization of a too-forceful bite. A sad smile was on the bloodstained face situated above his human and exploding torso.

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Anya blinked.

Once.

Twice.

And he was gone. She looked to the walls, and their RED and inhuman texture of mucus and all the other fun things you get when a party balloon of gore is at last opened for the celebration time were gone. Once again replaced by the white and gray and empty texture of smooth walls and their typical viscera at the corners and their typical fluorescence from above. Bluish light and no sun shone on white-gray walls and gray-brown concrete with not the faintest sight of an exploding corpse. Anya then looked to Jesús, but he gave her a look like “What? Too scared for this? Do you need to go back to the kitchen?” which was quite impressive given how many words were written on his face. He was truly masterful at conveying information when he wanted to. As was Will, whose face was an open book of conveyed stupidity. Or, well, unconcern with the situation.

So she looked to Peter, who raised an eyebrow, and Lulululu, who clearly saw the same thing she had. They were both facing her direction, motionless, as was Alissa, still gripping Alex’s hand, and Chris, who did not speak or react.

“What, did my pants ride up again?” Raethor asked, despite not wearing pants.

“It would seem the enemy is within.” Henry said calmly.

“Did you see that too?” Alissa asked him.

“See what?”

“The blood and gore and the exploding body?!” Her voice was cracking under pressure and she wasn’t keeping it together at all.

“Why didn’t you shoot?” Dio asked in a firm voice.

“Shoot David? He’s already dead.” Anya chimed in.

“David? That was clearly Will!” Alissa near-screamed, doing a double take when the man himself calmly asserted that he was, in fact, still alive and all his organs were very much still on the inside.

“How is he alive!?” she screamed.

“How are you a soldier?” Jesús asked, contempt plain in his voice.

“Why didn’t anyone shoot the hostile?” Dio asked the room again, this time in a louder voice.

“Maybe I should have!” Alissa quickly retorted.

“Maybe you should consider that we saw each other, not hostiles.” Peter suggested.

“Did everyone see it?” Lulululu tried to confirm.

“No.” Raethor confirmed.

“How many of us saw it?”

Raethor held up a hand.

“It isn’t the time to ask those sorts of questions. We need to extract Melissa and it’s clear the enemy has us on a clock.” He paused before continuing in a louder, more commanding voice.

“Everyone who hasn’t already, take an augmentation pill. ”

There was a quiet murmuring, but all complied. It would sharpen their senses and lock in their hardware. Now wasn’t the time to consider any future costs. One by one their sense of dread vanished as it was replaced by the whirling of blood through the ears and a very present sense of the firearm’s weight in their hands. There would be no need for hesitation with the brain operating on all its cylinders. They would decide and shoot in the same instant, and the consequences of this action would be for the future to determine. Now was the time to fire and to let the body fall.