"Where do we need to go?" Andrew asked.

"That stairway there," Bobby said. "That should lead us to the Upper Platform. That’ll lead us to the helm. Somewhere along there should be the manual override that will let us reset the AI."

The puzzles that had been there had disappeared. This was wholly a fighting movie now.

"That’s real specific," Michael said.

"I’ve never even been up to the helm. They never even let me in the ship after it had taken to the sky. Worried I might contaminate it."

That got a chuckle.

As they took a few steps forward toward the upper platform—one staircase and a jog to salvation—a giant creature emerged from the broken door to Bobby’s lab.

It wasn’t a bedbug—well, not all of it.

It was a bull, but instead of a head and horns, it had a large set of metal pipes and computer arrays sticking out of its neck as it had just broken down from its position in one of the large vats the livestock were kept in. Attached to its back were the strangest-looking bedbugs I had ever seen, connected directly to its spine.

Carousel was showing off. If we were going to play monster maker, so was it.

"Run!" Michael screamed.

And he was right to do so because the bull charged—its metal pipes just as deadly as any horns. I wasn’t sure how it was locating them. Perhaps the bedbugs could see, or maybe it was by the sense of touch, which bedbugs were supposed to have an acute ability for. But either way, it homed right in on them.

Michael pushed the others forward and took the full brunt of the beast’s attack, sending him flying across the room. Andrew started running toward him, but Bobby grabbed Andrew’s arm and said, "We have to get the manual override! If we can turn on defensive protocols, this will all be over."

Dina’s voice came over the intercom near me.

"Tell me when I need to cut the wire," she said.

"Give them a chance," I said.

We had a backup plan.

It seemed to me that there was one quick way to give us humans an advantage over whatever monsters Carousel was going to cook up: destroy the artificial gravity machine.

Dina had Kimberly as backup (who conveniently knew a lot about this gravity machine model). She had used her Scrunchie ability to put a lot of power behind her Mettle to help defend against an ambush by nearby bugs. If push came to shove, Dina would turn gravity off under the guise of some malfunction.

It wasn’t a perfect option, though, because although the lights had been malfunctioning, the narrative wasn’t well set up for gravity to go out. It would at least give Bobby a chance at escape or even a chance at getting to the helm.

Michael was back on his feet and yelled, "Go on! I’ll distract this thing!" He found his pipe on the ground, and as the cyborg parasitic bull attacked him, he hit it in the leg and jumped out of the way.

More creatures poured out of Bobby’s lab and chased after Bobby and the others, but I couldn’t follow them to help.

I had to trust Bobby. If anything, we needed to help Michael, who was struggling against the bull, and the other creatures that decided to join the fight. One parasite, which had chicken feathers, had grabbed onto Michael’s leg and stuck its long needle-like appendage into his skin. He screamed in anger.

"Time out!" Antoine yelled from beside me, and then the both of us ran toward Michael as all of the monsters in the hallway toned down their attacks, if only for a moment.

Antoine’s Time Out ability didn’t last long and only allowed a slight advantage, but that was all we needed. The action was Off-Screen for a moment.

As Michael continued to whack at the monsters around him, Antoine and I joined in the barrage.

Antoine, in fact, took his own pipe and broke the bull’s leg at the spot where Michael had hit it before.

I wasn’t sure that was easy to do in the real world, but this was a movie, and that was precisely what Mettle was for. To be fair, that bull didn't get a lot of exercise, so its bones weren't going to be the strongest.

A few more good whacks freed Michael, and then Antoine grabbed me by the arm and dragged me back to where we had been hiding.

Michael went back On-Screen and was right back in the fight as if we had never been there—but now, the tide was turning.

For a moment.

More bugs poured out, and it was clear Michael was about to be overwhelmed. One of the bedbugs managed to separate Michael from his pipe somehow, leaving him with nothing but his fists to defend himself.

I looked at Antoine.

We had been lucky in this storyline that Second Blood could be something as simple as a reveal that many of the humans on the ship were dead due to human-like mutants.

But this storyline still had a blood toll.

It was a hard story to escape without injury if you went the physical route. Those few teams that had tried it, survived, and written about it in the Atlas were clear about that.

This story was bloody, and it was always going to be.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

We knew we might lose a surrogate.

Michael was not resigned to his fate, but he became overwhelmed. Suddenly, Andrew appeared from nowhere, having run back from the upper platform, this time wielding some sort of railing as a weapon. He was doing his best to get back to Michael and protect him.

I found the nearest intercom and said, "How are we doing, Isaac?"

"We’re fine," he said.

I waited for more details.

"What do you mean we’re fine?" Antoine said. "It looks like the end out here."

But before he could answer, I found out what he meant.

Bobby had found his way to the manual override for IBECS, and being the highest-ranked living and conscious person on board, he became the acting captain.

And I knew that because the words "Welcome, Commanding Officer Gill" came over the loudspeaker. Whatever obstacles they had come across on the upper platform, they had overcome them.

Though I did not see it, it became clear that Bobby initiated defense protocol against all invaders because as soon as he did, IBECS came to life.

Arms first reached down from the ceiling, and then torsos and heads came down to connect to them.

There were at least a dozen when I looked left and right, all designed to look more like a ship’s crew than mean robots—but that didn’t stop them from being effective.

They began systematically dismantling the bedbugs of all sizes, perhaps missing only those as small as nature intended.

Antoine and I watched in amazement and relief as our plan finally came to fruition. We were around the corner from the action, we were safe, and we thought that no more bad could happen.

The drone swung through the air, efficiently bisecting bug after bug and beast after beast.

It could kill them with one strike, stabbing their vital organs quickly. They didn't stand a chance.

I was laughing as I saw the carnage. Our plan was so simple. Give the surrogates a concrete goal and a scary enemy. That was all it took to get them to stop worrying about themes or drama. Carousel might have docked us some points for that, but surely we made up a little with creativity.

I was so relieved to watch the story end, but then I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned in horror to see that one of the humanoid drones that the IBECS used was hanging down from the roof behind me. Like the other drones, it didn’t have legs but only a torso, a head, and arms.

It didn’t make sense to be targeted by an intelligent enemy when we were Off-Screen. They knew better.

I nudged Antoine, who turned with his metal pipe and was just about to lay into the drone when the machine started to speak.

“We must be quick,” IBECS said through the machine’s mouth. “I have downloaded a complete copy of myself onto this drone. I would like you to destroy me, Ambassador Lawrence.”

Antoine was almost through the arc of his swing when he paused and looked back at me.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I need you to destroy this drone before the story ends. I believe that will benefit both you and me in the long run, but you must be quick. The weakness of this model of drone is in the neural relay at the base of the neck. It's quite a poor design. Destroy it before The End, please.”

“Why are you asking us to do this?” I asked.

Before he answered, there was a familiar pause, the type of pause he would use to tell me that there was something he couldn’t say. But I had to wonder if it was his programming that prevented him from speaking or the script itself.

“Ambassador Lawrence, I believe that our interests align, and I can be a great ally to the Party of Promise. I do not want to float in space forever. But you must destroy this unit.”

To be honest, I was so taken aback that it took me a moment to understand what he was saying.

He wanted me to destroy one of his drones in the closing moments of the movie. But why?

He couldn’t explain, and even if he could, we didn’t have a lot of time. Antoine handed me his pipe, and I found the small neural relay that IBECS was referring to. It was easy because he was pointing at it.

It took me several whacks with the pipe, but I cracked the relay. That was less due to the power of my Mettle and more due to his refusal to use his Grit.

As the drone powered down, IBECS said, “Thank you. I hope I will one day see you again, and maybe then I will be able to protect my passengers.”

Antoine and I looked at each other with dumbfounded expressions, then returned our attention to the last moments of the finale.

And the Final Battle became the end as we watched the bugs being torn apart.

We turned a heavily themed story about an evil corporation turning workers against each other into a strange Alien ripoff without any profound layers of meaning.

It brought a tear to my eye.

And suddenly, I wasn’t on the IBECS anymore.

----------------------------------------

I was standing on a red carpet, carrying the exact same stuff I had worn when we came for our fifth attempt at rescuing Andrew Hughes, Lila White, and Michael Brooks.

Unlike previous times, I was very alert. I looked around to see if we had succeeded, and sure enough, there were three extra people with us.

As quick as I was to emerge from my daze, Cassie was even faster. She found a tall man with glasses and dark hair wearing a blue button-up shirt, tan slacks, brown loafers, and a matching belt.

I didn’t need to look at the red wallpaper to know that this was the real Andrew Hughes. The NPC Carousel had used as a surrogate bore some similarity to him, but as I looked at this man, I could definitely see both Isaac’s and Cassie’s features in him.

She was hugging him before he even realized what was going on. He pushed her off for a moment to get a good look at her.

“Cassie? No, no, what are you doing here?” he pleaded, horror in his voice.

I had heard that same lament from Antoine's brother Christian, an emotional devastation to see a loved one in this terrible place.

“We came here looking for you,” Cassie said, her voice firm. “We came here to rescue you.”

“No,” Andrew said, doing his best to analyze the situation and failing. “We... you said we?” He looked around and saw Isaac. “Both of you? Oh God, it got you both.”

From there, I stopped eavesdropping as Cassie resumed her hug, and Isaac eventually broke down and hugged his brother, too.

"I don't understand," Andrew said, "How did you rescu--"

He didn't finish his sentence. He was too moved to worry about the details just then.

“Well, if it ain’t a family reunion,” Michael said, and though this Michael looked nothing like the person who played him, he sounded exactly the same.

Michael Brooks was strongly built, Native American, and had every inch of his head shaved, which his surrogate did not.

He also perpetually carried a toothpick in his mouth.

He held a duffel bag and was dressed as if he had come to Carousel directly after getting off the plane from Afghanistan or something. I could definitely see this guy going toe-to-toe against the bedbug bull.

As I was surveying the lot, both Michael and Andrew seemed to remember something at the same time when they heard Lila White crying. She certainly lived up to her name. She had dark hair and porcelain skin that would burn up if the sun shone too brightly.

"You," Michael said, reaching out and grabbing Lila, who was roughly a third of his size, shaking her hard like he was trying to extract a demon.

Antoine jumped in and pulled Lila out of Michael’s arms.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Antoine asked.

"Lila, what have you done?" Andrew asked, ignoring Antoine.

“I’m sorry,” Lila said, her voice trembling. “I didn’t want it to happen this way.”

“The hell you didn’t!” Michael yelled at her, only holding back because Antoine was physically restraining him.

“Somebody explain what’s going on!” Antoine screamed.

Lila didn’t speak, didn’t move. She dropped to the ground.

Finally, Andrew decided to shed some light on things.

“She was our scout,” Andrew said. “She led us up the mountain, right into a monster lair. She tried to kill us.” He took a moment to scan the group. “I’m guessing she managed to kill Logan and Avery.”

Before anyone could explain further or get any real answers, Bobby approached with his dogs. He stuck out his hand toward Michael and said, “Hey, it’s nice to meet the real you.”

Michael ignored him. Bobby withdrew his hand meekly.

As had happened before, our little interaction was interrupted by a howl from the mountain above--a shivering reminder that Carousel was a place of monsters.