A few tense minutes of silence passed. While Adrian wasn’t entirely calm on the inside, he decided to keep his stone-cold facade going.

‘Showing weakness now would only make them lose cautiousness of me. While maybe not bad in the long game, I would have to first survive until then.’

Unbeknownst to him, his fears were unfounded. Now that the initial shock wore off, none of the men would act rash, regardless of what Adrian did or said now.

Clank!

Clank!

Clank!

Breaking the deafening silence between the two parties, a myriad of heavy steps filled the room.

A stern looking woman wearing a fashionable, yet militaristic uniform appeared from behind, escorted by tens of heavily armed soldiers. Each of them wore steel suits of mechanized armour, supporting a deep blue color scheme and a radiant star on their chest.

Their surroundings being metal plated, the steps of these hulking steel giants rang especially loud, obnoxious and ear screeching to all.

Immediately, the initial brigade of men parted before her, but didn’t dare salute or look away from the enemy, still standing menacingly at their doorstep. They didn’t leave the monster out of their sight, and none would. Why give it any funny ideas by looking elsewhere?

Major Christina didn’t even take note of the lack of a salute. She was solely focused at the Husk in front of her, just like the rest present.

‘Caucasian, blonde hair, big scar on his cheek, ragged clothing… and an injured hand.’ She calmly took note of its appearance, not recognizing it as one of her soldiers.

Most likely, it was as the report stated. It had come from the outside.

Seeing the new arrivals, Adrian became a little flustered. The woman in front of him was a high-ranking officer, sporting the badge and decor to show it. He had expected to be taken into custody, where he’d have a chance to calmly explain his situation. But this… why had a Major come here to directly talk with him?

Taking him out of his thoughts, Christina spoke firmly.

“State why you’re here, parasite.” she asked, coldness emanating from her voice.

Immediately, Adrian frowned, stressing everyone present, including the Major.

‘I get that she’s of high ranking, but why insult me by calling me a parasite?’

Taking a moment to think about the actual question asked, everyone grew even more nervous.

Even the Major started regretting her choice of words.

‘Did I misspeak? Did it not want its identity exposed? No, no way! It would have infiltrated covertly if it cared for such things.’

Suddenly, everyone stopped and listened as the silence broke, and the Husk spoke for the first time.

With a raggedy voice, Adrian answered with the truth.

“I’ve been here from the start.”

After a moment to process its words, everyone’s eyes nearly popped out of their heads. Was the base already compromised? How many of their friends were secretly dead, their bodies controlled like puppets?

Many nervously shifted around, some with their heads now someplace else thinking of family and friends, while others gripping their rifles even tighter, their sights firmly placed on the enemy’s head.

That wasn’t all that the Husk had to say, continuing after a short pause.

“I woke up from cryo-sleep in the room behind me some time ago. Not sure how much time has passed.” Adrian said clearly, making sure not to stutter.

Yet again, the room was thrown in a deafening silence.

“…”

‘What’s happening? Why are they just staring at me?’ Adrian’s mind panicked, but still made sure not to show it.

“…”

“…What?” Accidentally blurted one of the soldiers, the entire room throwing short glances at him.

While by accident, it nonetheless encapsulated everyone’s feelings.

What the hell was going on?

Was it lying?

Christina remembered that the airlock the parasite had come from had been an old cryogenic storage, and she promptly fell into thought.

‘There’s no way, it’s lying. This entire place has been scoured from top to bottom. We wouldn’t miss something like an occupied cryo-pod.’

Nothing made any sense.

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Staring at the ‘man’ with even more intensity, she would continue with the interrogation.

“Can you give an approximation of how long you spent in that room?” she asked sternly while pointing behind Adrian.

“A few hours at least.” He calculated from just the time spent adjusting his eyes. In all honesty, it was probably way longer than just ‘a few hours’. Back when still defrosting from cryo-sleep, everything felt incredibly slow. While he couldn’t accurately say how long it all took because of his fogged state of mind, it was probably longer than all his other happenings up until now.

‘He says he’s been in there for hours?’

Frowning at the slightly unexpected answer, Christina silently ordered one of her personal guards to check the temperature of the airlock.

Inside a three-meter-tall metal behemoth, a man quickly fiddled with the settings before her order. Pointing his helmet mounted thermal camera at the doorway behind the Husk, the soldier inside looked wide-eyed at the system message.

[Atmospheric temperature reading: -27.3°C]

Struck by curiosity, he next pointed it at the Husk.

[Surface temperature reading of lifeform: 8.8°C]

[Compiling an estimative internal temperature reading: ~57°C]

Reading the rest of the system logs, he quickly relayed his findings and concerns to the Major.

Upon receiving them, Major Christina’s fears came to life. She shared the same concerns as the guard.

‘Spending hours in a room at -27°C while loosely clothed without entering hypothermia. That alone would have been odd for a normal human being. But with the other readings, it’s conclusive evidence of it being a husk.’

Some Husk species evolved to have the ability to control things like the autonomic nervous systems of hosts.

‘Quite a common adaptation. Controlling the body’s core temperature through burning more calories.’

With her doubts now vanquished, she decided to push this conversation away from lies and deception. She couldn’t let this man - no, this thing – control the conversation. She would take the lead!

“There is no point in your deceit. Are you going to be cooperative and state what you want, or shall we end this discussion?”

Adrian looked at the Major with newfound frustration.

‘What deceit? What does she find so implausible? Just when I thought the conversation was going on the right track, she relapses into this nonsense.’

Taking a deep breath, he measured his options on how to continue.

‘Fine, I guess I’ll have to play along.’

“I wish for some knowledge of the area and to make my way into a city.” Glancing at the pointed machine guns, he felt a need to clarify some more. “Preferably peacefully.”

While not remembering anything concrete, Adrian nonetheless knew of things such as cities, and what he guessed he was in right now, a militarized encampment of sorts.

The Husk’s answer infuriated Major Christina, but she tried not to show it just yet.

‘It wants access into a city. Not to mention that the nearest is Colseel, of all places. How troublesome.’

Before having the chance to think of an answer, another group of soldiers came rushing from behind.

Adrian raised his brows in surprise at the sight of more armed personnel.

‘This can’t be serious… even more of them?’

Turning her head to look, Christina became slightly confused once seeing the characteristic red-striped uniforms of the newcomers.

‘The Site Director’s personal guards? Why have they come?’

“Squad 1, why have you left your posts? We already have the situation under control.” she asked with slight annoyance.

“We have been ordered by the Site Director to personally escort the Husk for further, private interrogation.” Another woman, belonging to the new arrivals, answered.

“Also, what you’ve been doing here is quite unprofessional. An official, covert interrogation should have been immediately commenced instead of asking it questions in the open, with a public no less.” She ruthlessly continued.

Following the woman’s harsh words, Christina clenched her teeth in annoyance.

‘Is this barracks bunny Eloise really criticizing me? I outrank her by several ranks!’

Deciding not to voice her outrage, she kept a cool mask and complied. Military rank was one thing, but being able to directly act on the orders of the most influential person in the surrounding thousand kilometers represented more than an official rank. If these truly were the Site Director’s orders, which grossly outranked her in authority, there wasn’t much of anything she could do or say about it.

Upon seeing Major Christina’s compliance, Eloise, Squad 1’s commander, began walking towards Adrian.

Observing the lithe young woman coming his way, Adrian couldn’t help but feel she was out of place with the likes of the other soldiers, who all seemed ready and willing to kill him at a moment’s notice.

Even the Major emanated a distinctly cold aura, which was all but absent from Eloise. If anything, she seemed to have the exact opposite aspect to her. One of bright smiles and happiness.

Approaching closer to Adrian with calming eyes and a subtle smile, she asked in a warm tone:

“We wish to speak to you in a more private setting. Would that be alright with you?”

Still upholding his mask of indifference and seriousness, Adrian replied with a nod.

‘If they’re offering to take me deeper into their base, there’s less of a chance I’ll get immediately shot’ he had quickly calculated before giving his nod.

In his head, he made a parallel with telling someone to leave. It would be far less awkward to do so if the person was at the doorstep instead of the living room. Now, if this parallel presented any merit was an entirely different story, one which he assumed he’d find out soon enough.

With Eloise’s smile pronounced, she signaled Adrian to follow, which he did without complaint.

Passing the small army of men, Adrian noticed up close just how nervous some of them appeared. Even more surprisingly, none of them let their eyes off him.

‘There’s no way… are they that unnerved because of me?’ He studied their gazes.

He had noticed their nervousness from the very beginning, but simply thought that was a result of him startling them. However now, I was becoming more apparent that that wasn’t the issue at hand. It felt like his mere presence invoked an air of unrest.

Moving past the expressionless steel giants and the Major, Adrian arrived at the rest of the red-striped soldiers. He found them to be quite peculiar, and not just in uniform. Compared to the other soldiers, they seemed to be a cut above the rest in mental fortitude.

‘Or common sense.’ He half-mused. He was but one man, after all. What could he realistically do in this situation?

All their gazes tracked him, warm and devoid of hate. Without sounding a word, the group silently followed from behind, their squad commander at the front and Adrian sandwiched between.

Walking across many empty corridors, and with some less-than-talkative captors, Adrian was left with nothing else to do than stare at the walls for the next few minutes.

The long corridors looked industrial, uncaring for appearances. Unending pipes and wires traveled across the walls, and the illuminating thread on the ceiling gave off a cold, bright blue light. Each of these never-ending halls always seemed to lead to even more, presumably the same.

‘Not the prettiest sight. Guessing this whole place is like this.’

Something else he had noticed after a few minutes of walking was that they were traveling at a steady, downward angle. While not too steep, it definitely became noticeable.

At some point, after wandering seemingly at random within the titanic sprawls, they arrived at a towering steel gate, on it written in big letters ‘Sector B-5’. Exchanging glances with one of the guards stationed there, the gate slowly opened, revealing a very different scenery from before.

‘Seems I was wrong with my last thought. At last, something better for the eyes.’