It is in darkness, that one finds the light

It was finally time to leave this mudball.

The Invader had been waiting for her, right where she'd left it, but Cindi still wept with relief as they walked up the ramp, it almost felt like coming home. Kat and Sam had settled in where they could, each woman still processing what they'd all been through. That had been days ago. Sam had wanted to leave right away, Kat had demanded they wait; Worried that the commando ship was going to blow them out of the sky. In the end, there hadn't been much of a choice, the water had fouled two of the engines and it had taken most of her time for Cindi to figure out just how to get them working again. Adam probably could have done it in an hour. She felt like she could still feel him, somehow, tucked into some forgotten corner or her brain. It was just the first stage of grief, but it felt good, so Cindi didn't fight it.

They'd finally made it into orbit, Cindi figured she'd earned a break. She fired a short burst on the main drive, then set the autopilot to thrusters only, the AI would let her know if anything nasty came their way, but if nobody caught that burn, then they were probably as good as invisible. She headed back to the mess, throwing a ration bag into the cooker. Something smelled ripe. Cindi rolled her eyes, it was her. She made her way to the to head, screaming at frustration when she found a bag of Sam's weapons in the shower. 'There's that stage two anger, right on time'. Cindi dragged her cousin's shit out into the hall and left it there. Those two bitches hadn't even come out of their rooms, much less crawled into the turbines to scrub the disgusting muck out. Cindi **** the feelings down. This wasn't helping. And Adam wasn't gone. No grief. No stages. Not yet. She rinsed off briefly trying not to wince whenever she touched a bruise. That serum made her feel invincible, but she'd been anything but. Hair still wet, she picked up her food on the way back.

Sam was in the Invader's cockpit when Cindi walked back in. Her cousin was curled up in the co-pilot's seat, knees tucked up to her chin, staring out into the void, seemingly adrift in her own thoughts. Cindi wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not. Sam had been hysterical ever since Adam got taken off that pad. She'd locked herself in her room, screaming and crying loud enough to to be heard down the hall. Kat had been the opposite, her normal charisma faded and lifeless, like a picture with all the color drained away. She'd spoken up only once, to forbid Cindi from trying to follow that stealth ship, 'we've lost enough family today'. She'd spent all her time locked in her room.

“Hey Sam.” No response.

Cindi dropped into the pilot's seat, nearly taking a bath in her lunch. Today's meal brought to you by, Beet-O's! Beet-O's, now containing 6% actual beets! The food was tasteless, but it kept a body going. That was their life now. Keeping going. For a while actually. Probably since Dad died. Funny how long ago that seemed, she remembered him swinging her around like it was yesterday; laughing and screaming in his arms, her mother smiling as she watched. She didn't much since the funeral.

“Do you want some food?” She asked Sam.

Sam grunted in reply.

“We'll be out of the system soon, back to civilization. Then we can get some help for Adam. GalSec will find him. We'll let them know what happened here.” Cindi was sure Adam was still alive. He had to be, he just had to. And why else would they specifically take him prisoner, and kill everyone else?

“Do you even care that we just left him behind?” Sam finally asked.

“We didn't leave him, Sam. He got captured." Kidnapped? Adultnapped?

“I left him.” She finally turned to face Cindi, eyes strangely hollow. “I didn't jump. It would have been insane. It would have been suicide, so I didn't jump.”

"You mean onto their ship? Yeah, no one did. Not even me and I was so blitzed out of my mind!"

Sam swallowed, working some thought through her head. “You remember that first time we all went to the lake?”

“The time Adam almost drowned? I remember.” Cindi recalled. “He went cliff jumping and broke his leg. Mom was so mad, I thought she would bring it up at his wedding.”

Sam wasn't listening. Her eyes were closed, remembering. “Neither of us knew how to swim. It wasn't supposed to matter. They told us there was a spot in the center of the water, deep enough to jump in to, but everything around it was shallow. You just … climbed out after. We didn't want to look like pussies in front of our new 'friends'. I jumped first.”

Cindi leaned forward, she'd never heard this story, she'd never even guessed there was a story to hear.

“I never found out if they were lying or not. But they took off when my head went under the water. And there we were, two kids who couldn't swim, with no one around to help. Adam couldn't even get to me. I was drowning in the one safe spot to land.”

“What happened?”

“He jumped into the shallows.” Sam shot open. “I heard his leg snap, even through the water. He should have died. Been paralyzed. I dunno. It was insane even to try. It should never never have worked. But it did. Somehow, it always did with him.” Sam bit her lip before continuing. “He grabbed me, dragged me to shore, broken leg and all, then collapsed. I ran and got help.”

“He never told any of us. Mom, she thought he was just being...well... Adam.” Cindi wondered how many stories were like this. How many times had her brother done the right thing and then kept his mouth shut? She turned back to Sam, but the older woman was staring at the stars again.

“He's all I have.” She admitted, voice cracking.

“That's not true!” Cindi grabbed her hand. “You have me and your mom. We love you!”

“My mom loves everyone, Cindi. It's not.... It's different when you know your birth was ...”

“An accident?”

“A mistake.” Sam said the word with such venom, Cindi flinched. “My dad, whoever he was, he didn't want me. My mom was your age when she had me. Hell, your parents raised me more than she ever did. Mom does love me, but I wasn't part of her plan. I was one bad day from being erased, before I was ever even born.”

Sam squeezed her hand, her eyes shockingly ****. “I am scared he'll chose you. I'm fucking terrified. I NEED him, Cindi. He's the only person my whole life who ever wanted me.”

Cindi couldn't make the words come. What could she say to that? I don't care, I want him for myself? 'I need him too', sounded pathetic. She went for a joke instead. “We could always share him!”

Sam laughed. “He'd love that. Horny bastard.” She grinned, the first smile she'd had in days, but Cindi thought she caught a hint of consideration. Was Sam actually willing to....? And what would that even mean? Was he both of their boyfriends, or were they some sort of throuple? What exactly was she hiding behind that smile? Just the idea of it was scandalous, she felt her cheeks turn pink with heat. This was crazy, right? Crazier than fucking your own brother?

Cindi steered the conversation to relatively safer waters. “So your mom told me not to follow the ship, but let's say hypothetically, our course was a similar trajectory and maybe someone even looked at your ECD data and figured out their probable destination in the asteroid belt. It would be crazy to try and get him back from those guys, right?”

“Suicide.” Sam confirmed, but she had a decidedly interested look in her eyes.

Cindi laid the last two vials of serum on the console in front of them.

“What would you say to doing something really, really stupid Samara?”

Sam picked up one of the vials, gently, so as not to risk breaking it and losing the precious contents within. “You had me at 'Hey Sam'.”

---

Adam jerked awake. He was in a glass cell, identical to one he'd found on Gorgo. Naked as the day he was born. Around him were dozens wide-eyed science-types in white lab coats. And one black armored commando farther back. When they saw that he was awake, they stopped what they were doing and clapped, hungry eyes devouring every inch of him. Adam's natural impulse kicked in, he covered himself as best he could, trying to preserve his dignity. A nearby nurse smiled and pointed to a sterile white shirt and pants on a cot nearby. It was then Adam realized, he was just an animal to them. An animal they respected, maybe even liked, but ultimately didn't see as human. Adam dropped his hands and stood, proudly defiant in his nakedness. It didn't make any difference of course, it may have even made it worse. Now a look of knowing condescension passed between the white-coated sociopaths. Adam told himself he didn't care.

You shouldn't care.

Adam nearly jumped out of his skin. Was the Instinct TALKING to him now? Not just random words and warnings, but trying to hold an independent conversation? That was a whole new level of weird.

Hello? Adam thought. Are you there?

No answer. Great, now he really was crazy.

A gentle rapping at the edge of the cage caught Adam's attention. A kindly looking man, maybe someone's relatively young grandfather waved him over. He didn't care about Adam's nakedness either. Adam wasn't fooled, there were no good people on this station, himself included. Still, it wasn't like there was anything else to do. Adam tried to **** himself to relax as he walked over, kind of an oxymoron, but he'd need to get used to the stares.

The grandpa with liar's eyes tried to speak to him, it was muffled by the glass. He threw up his hands, as if too say, 'I'm such an idiot', then thumbed a nearby panel, the speakers kicked on with a hiss. "Can you hear me now, Adam?"

Ok, that was good. He thought Adam was just another meathead idiot ready to fall for the bumbling scientist routine. Adam decided play along.

"Yes. Where the hell am I?"

"You are on a space station. We **** you off Thiidian. Along with your family."

Uhhhh. What? He was going a little off script here. Shouldn't he be trying to convince Adam this was all for his own good? And his family? They were here? It made sense, the last thing Adam remembered before he had woken up was them being captured.

"You are probably wondering what we have done to you. What we are going to do. Experiments and tests and things of that nature." He smiled that kindly smile.

A chill ran up his spine. This wasn't an act. This guy was an actual sociopath. It was like looking at a giant spider, pretending to be human. Disgusting, terrifying. Adam's mouth dried out in revulsion, but he couldn't keep the look of horror off his face. The doctor's smile didn't slip one bit.

"It is all right, do not worry." Adam had a feeling he got that reaction a LOT. "I am Dr. Murphy. Let us start at the beginning. Welcome to Project Adonis. We are studying Typhons." He paused, expecting a shocked gasp or exclamation, no doubt. It felt good not to give him one. "At any rate, we have had mixed results with our hybridization attempts so far. But we are very hopeful you might be the breakthrough we have been looking for."

"Hybridization?" Adam repeated. Was that what he was? Some kind of cross between human and monster. He looked back at the commandos. "Is that what they are?"

"Hardly." Murphy dismissed the man with a shake of the head. Careless of the **** they radiated, even just standing there. "Crisis team is an offshoot of an earlier attempt to weaponize the samples. A dead end, I am afraid. Non-viable." He turned back. "Crisis-3 would you kindly?"

Crisis-3 stepped forward, his armored boots barely even clicking on the floor. Quiet. Definitely not the one who'd fought Adam. He reached them and stood ramrod straight and whisper quiet in his dark armor. How many of these Crisis guys were there? Were they buying them in bulk?

He's weak. They're all weak.

Murphy reached into a pouch on the man's arm and drew out a tiny vial full of dark silver. "The serum. You may have noticed a similar effect to your own venom." Adam hadn't actually. That fight had been a blur, but he nodded anyway. "The side effects, however are perhaps even more dangerous. Addiction. Albinism. Alopecia. Genetic drift. Uncontrollable aggression." He looked at Adam meaningfully for a moment. "Sterility." That explained the chipmunk voices.

"Ultimately that is what it all comes back to, Adam." Murphy dismissed Crisis-3 with a wave. "Reproduction."

"A Typhon is a parasite, it cannot reproduce without another species to use as a host. The creature you encountered on Gorgo, was grown from a sample we recovered years ago."

"The Typhon on Thiidian."

Murphy looked surprised, but pleased. "You discovered Subject Alpha?"

"That's one word for it. I smeared him into a paste." Murphy's smile faltered for the first time since he started speaking. "No more samples. Great on toast."

"You destroyed it? Why would you do that?"

"That's what you do to monsters, Doc. You put them down." Adam took great satisfaction in every flinch of discomfort Murphy gave as he spoke. "Step inside. I'll give you a practical demonstration."

Murphy paused before continuing, no smiles now, just his weird approximation of hatred. Even that was creepy. "The Typhons you have encountered, even Subject Alpha, all contain human DNA from their 'mothers'." He snapped his fingers demandingly at one of the nurses, who ran to a nearby console. "You think I am a monster, Adam. Let me show you who the real monster is."

The nearby wall, faded into a familiar face, trapped inside a familiar glass cage. McKenzie McGillis. Adam realized. He looked around the room, every wall had become a screen, she was all around him. Laying on a gurney, her face rapt with fear, soaked in sweat, her stomach was gravid with child. His child. Only something was wrong. The flesh beneath her belly writhed and wiggled like snakes in the shell. And then came the blood.

Adam tried to look away, tried to escape the gruesome scene they were showing him, but he couldn't. It was all around him, even when he closed his eyes, and covered his ears, curled into a ball on the floor, he could still her McKenzie's dying screams. And then it was over. Murphy was waiting, without a hint of satisfaction or impatience. He nodded to an orderly who had just finished pushing a dolly with a massive cube forward, the contents under a white sheet. Adam didn't want to look. Didn't want to see. It didn't matter. He knew what was waiting in there.

"Say hello to your children." Murphy said as he pulled back the sheet.

It was Adam who was screaming now.

---

"Are you sure she's gonna be okay in there for a week?" Sam asked.

"It's the captain's suite. It's got a bathroom and food, she's not gonna be happy, but she'll live." Cindi wouldn't meet her eyes. "Do you want me to do it?"

They were in the hall just outside aforementioned suite, fingers hovering over a pad, neither one of them eager to push the bottom and lock Aunt Kat inside. It had to be done though. She'd made her position clear. She wasn't going to help them, she might even try and stop them.

"No. No it should be me." Sam swallowed. "My mom's like wicked smart. Like you smart. How does this work again?"

"I dropped a worm into the ship's AI, once you push the button, the door will think the rest of the ship is venting atmosphere, and so it seals of the room. Even if Aunt Kat figures it out, it will take her days to dig out the bug, or rip out the hardware."

Sam nodded. This was gonna cost her some birthday presents. The good ones. She hesitated. "And it won't actually vent the atmosphere or make the ship explode or anything like that, right?"

Sam could see the effort Cindi put into not rolling her eyes. Cocky little squirt. "No, Sam. It will not make the ship spontaneously vent atmosphere or explode or anything like that. I spent three hours writing the code, and another hour checking the hardware. I even ran a simulation with the AI on a different room already. It's safe. Look if you don't wanna do it-

She reached for the button. Sam grimaced and pushed it first. The panel chimed twice, flashed red and went silent. "It's done?" Sam asked.

"It's done. Now we get to work." Cindi told Sam with a sigh of relief.

"You girls really are terrible about not being overheard."

They whipped around to find Sam's mother standing at the end of the hall, head tilted, with a wry expression write large on her face. She had a pulse rifle tucked under her arm. Sam turned back to Cindi.

"All that, and you didn't even check to make sure she was still in the fucking room?"San said, while Cindi flushed pink, mouth gaping like a fish.

"Can I help you ladies?" Her mom cut in.

She walked over to them, Sam noted the rifle was set to stun. That was good, not that her mom was gonna shoot her, right? Right? "Were you looking for me, hun?" Her mom's gaze was not kind.

"We were-

"Stop. Just stop." Kat cut Cindi off with a hand. She looked at both of them. Her bright eyes took in everything. Measured their worth. Sam had spent her entire life hoping to find approval, find understanding in those big brown orbs. She was still looking. Kat hefted her rifle onto her shoulder. "I'll need this for when we get there." She offered them a pair of syrettes. "These are for you. They're antivirals. They should flush your body clean after you've got Adam back."

They gaped at her. Sam found her words first.

"Mom, we didn't want..." She trailed off. What could she even say?

"We can talk about it later. I don't like that we're going to this place on our own. I don't like that you're taking that horrible poison." She took a breath. Let it out slowly. "But you're all grown up. Women, now. Women have to make their own choices in this world. Just promise me you'll take these as soon as you can." She shook the syrettes meaningfully. "Promise me!"

"I promise mom."

Her mother turned to Cindi. Still pink and unsure of the rapid turn of events.

"Me too."

"Okay then, lets go get your cousin back."

---

Adam had first imagined what being a father the day he lost his own. It had seemed like an impossible task. You had to be patient but firm, be a leader and a listener, and it wasn't a small commitment, it was a 24 hour a day, for the rest of your life job. No one was ever really ready. The good ones did their best and just kept showing up. He always hoped he could be that someday. He imagined what it must feel like to bring new life into the universe.

Not like this.

The Rabies Babies were monsters. There was no other way to put it. His tiny children were bone white with shockingly black eyes; lips and fingernails as red as blood. All three of them swarmed over each other. Bite marks littering their bodies. They were hungry. Always hungry, just like Agnetti said. Razor sharp fangs jutted crookedly from their mouths. One of his children- his sons, he could see that clearly -suddenly tore into its own hand and swallowed two fingers whole. It's shrill little screams were the stuff of nightmares. Oh God. Were these things growing inside Cindi? Miss Fox? Sam?

"Feeding time." Murphy said. An orderly dropped a few live rabbits inside. His sons tore them apart. It was a small mercy that the spraying blood coated the walls of their glass cage, sparing Adam the sight of their butchery.

"They will eat anything of course. Even each other if we do not feed them. But they prefer live meals." Adam felt like he was going to be sick. These things had torn their way out of their mother, probably eaten her corpse; and he created them, he wondered if they'd have his face when they grew up. Murphy must have read the speculation on Adam's face.

"If they keep eating regularly, they will achieve metamorphosis within six month." Murphy announced it like he was reading the weather report. It will be sunny today and your murderous kids will be up and **** in half a year.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Adam couldn't look away. He had to keep his family safe from this ...madness. Safe from him.

"Because I need your help and honesty really is the best policy. There are certain ...contributions that we just cannot coerce out of subjects, via brute ****. Believe me, we have tried." He nodded meaningfully at the Crisis-3, stoic as ever. Murphy snapped again and the orderlies carted away the monster toddlers, still shrieking as they licked the walls clean. "But that will be for another day. For now it is enough to know there will be tests and experiments and I expect your full cooperation. If I do not receive it. I'll feed your aunt, your cousin and your sister to this creatures. And Adam, it will be piece by piece, limb by limb; it will take you months to watch them die.

---

"Adam didn't tell me much. At least not for layout. They blew up an external generator." Cindi added. Not very helpful in Kat's opinion. They were gathered in a small reception hall, trying to plot out their rescue mission.

"That's not going to work. We can't blow him up!" Sam exclaimed.

"I wasn't saying we blow him up. I was just telling you what I know."

"Which is nothing." Sam dismissed.

"More than you, rockhead." Cindi shot back.

They had been floating towards the asteroid base for three and a half days, most of it spent bickering. It would be three more before they were close enough to see it. Sam, as usual, wanted to go in guns blazing. Cindi hadn't cared as long as she got her brother back, but she didn't have a better idea either as Sam was quick to point out. Kat did, but she wasn't sure she should suggest it. Honestly, she was still more than a little tempted to stun the girls and damn the consequences. They weren't commandos and Sam couldn't fight an entire base by herself. If only she knew who to pilot the ship. She'd burn hard for the edge of the system and drag the nearest GalSec patrol back by the ears if she had to. Adam was either dead or he wasn't. If it was the latter they'd save him, if the former they'd avenge him. But getting themselves killed or worse, 'harvested' wasn't going to accomplish anything. She opened her mouth to be the voice of reason and...

Couldn't. Adam was family. And if there was one thing Carter's cared about, it was family. She slapped her hand down on the table and cut them both off. Cindi actually jumped. Kat stared at her. "I used to go with your father on smugglers runs. Did you know that, sweetie?"

"N-No. Mom always said he was just a trader and occasion privateer before the war."

"He was a smuggler. And, honey you never give that life up, not really. We didn't have any fancy stealth tech, so we had to be clever to make exchanges. One of Francis' favorite tricks, he called the fishing rod." Kat paused, remembering with a great fondness the adventures of her youth. She had been quite taken with her sister's husband, once upon a time. "It will work even better with our setup. What we do is this. Two of us will suit up and float towards the base while the ship slows with thrusters. We'll touch down first, grab Adam before they ever know we're there. One person stays on the ship, in case of emergencies."

Kat could see the numbers running behind her niece's eyes. "That would only give us a few minutes inside at best."

"Not to mention if that other ship is nearby they'll see the Invader when it stops to pick us up." Sam pointed out.

"We won't stop. We run a trailing wire behind the Invader and then we just grab it and hold on for dear life." Kat finished. Dashing from place to place, taking what hadn't belonged to them, it had all been so thrilling in the moment; not so much when the consequences came. Kat pushed aside thoughts of her misspent youth. "The point is, it will work."

"No, it won't." Cindi said glumly. They both looked over at her. "The timing is not bad, but be honest, even if we get onboard, we can't break into a place like this, they'll have defenses, security, those Crisis freaks, maybe." She shuddered. "We need an edge, we need-

"An EMP." Sam snapped her fingers. "We could rig a torpedo, dead fire it now, before we even start to slow."

"Set it to rearm and go off after on a timer. We'll have to shut the ship down completely just before it goes off." Cindi jotted down a few numbers. "I think I got it." She looked around. "This could actually work. Sam could you help me with the hardware?" Her cousin followed her out of the room, both excitedly working out the details.

Kat stared at the two girls' backs as they left. No. She'd had it right before. These were women. And woe betide anyone who stood in their way.

---

"It is time, Adam."

Adam had been on the station for at least a week, and in that time, they'd run every medical test he'd ever heard of and then some. Blood tests, scans, venom and semen samples- the harvesting process was an embarrassing story, but at least they hadn't made him fuck anyone -size measurements, physical and mental assessments. Murphy had been ecstatic about his findings thus far. Adam, less so.

Adam had put the clothes on after the third day. His earlier defiance had seemed pointless, but it pleased or disappointed the peanut gallery of scientist, he really couldn't say. They just loved watching him though. Their favorite test subject had deadlifted a hovercar's worth of weight, held his breath for over an hour, he even let them chop off the tip of his little finger. It was still growing back. The mental tests had been .... less than pleasant.

"Time for what, Doc?" Not that it mattered. He'd been a good lab rat. And his ideas for escape ranged from pointless to idiotic. He was going to be here for a long time.

"Do you remember what I told you was the point of all this? The reason we brought you here? The reason for your existence?" Dr. Murphy had that mad scientist look in his eye again. That only happened on the days with the most horrific of tests. The ones that used other people. In a way, Adam was grateful they hadn't used the other Carters as test subjects, but he still missed them terribly.

"Hey Doc, I've been a good little lab rat. How about you let me see my family today?" Adam asked intead.

"What? No." Murphy seemed to catch himself. "That won't be possible for today's test. Perhaps tomorrow."

Contraction.

What does that mean? Adam probed, but the Instinct was frustratingly silent. It had been a companion of sorts these last few days, if not a helpful one.

"Reproduction. That's what you said." Adam admitted.

Murphy clapped his hands together, so proud of his pet. "Quite right."

"So what? You just want an army of little Adams to unleash on people? More of those guys?" Adam nodded to Crisis-3. The man was a statue. Did he even sleep?

"No." Murphy smiled and stepped closer to the glass. Madness shining in his eyes. "I don't care about supersoldiers, or cellular regeneration; Sex ****, mind control, eternal life perhaps, that's all Venix. They want their products to sell. As if credits were some ultimate aspiration to strive for."

"The anticipation is killing me, Doc." More like the sheer terror, but Adam kept a bored, almost disinterested look on his face.

"I want to find God." Muphy's face was positively rapturous.

That was unexpected. "God?" Adam repeated.

"Or whatever you choose to call it. The Big Bang. Truth. The purpose of our species is not written in the stars, Adam. It is in our very cells. You perhaps more than any of us. I want to uncover it the mystery of creation and life itself. Hold the secret of existence in the palm of my hand." Murphy was nearly shouting by the time he finished his soliloquy, the other scientists looked distinctly uncomfortable. Good, so they knew he was batshit fucking crazy too. Not helpful, but still good.

Murphy composed himself, as the cage containing Adam's rabid children wheeled in again. It had been days since he'd seen them. They were larger, angrier even. Adam hated them, he realized. Hated what he had brought into this world. Hated himself for his weakness.

"Why are they here?" He demanded.

"All in good time." Murphy nodded to another orderly and another case rolled in. It was full of the strand, Adam could see. Not the tiny sample that might still be on the Invader, but a dense webbing large enough to cover him, similar to what he'd found on Gorgo. As the newest cage reached the edge of Adam's own, an invisible seam swung open and the two cages were one.

"And now we come to the moment of your cooperation." Murphy explained. "Typhon's have a parasitic reproduction, this you know." He paused long enough for a few shrieks to cut through. "But the process is flawed, each generation is injected with more and more human DNA, diluting what makes you truly special, Adam. Simply put, there is too much of you, in what you are." Murphy pointed to the Strand; it was already reaching out for Adam. "These fungi are part of the Typhon life cycle. One they have taken great pains to hide from us. In truth, no Subject has ever willingly produced it, not before they seized control of the station and murdered all personnel. This specimen was brought up from Thiidian at great cost. It is the missing piece, the means by which you will further purify your genetic structure. Take one of the samples inside with you. When you emerge, you'll be stronger than ever. And we will be one step closer to the truth of existence."

The room was silent after that, even the shrieking of the Rabies Babies faded away. Was that it? Murphy wanted him to step into that stuff and become even less human? That wasn't going to happen.

"No." Adam replied.

"I understand you may feel some base fear, I assure you, the process-

"I'm not afraid. The answer is no."

"Do you not understand what I am offering you? This is your chance to become even greater than you are now! Since the first Homo Erectus walked upright, this is the path our species has walked. It is your turn now, to take the next step on road of evolution!" Murphy was breathing hard from his rant, bug-eyed and huffing.

Adam just stared at him. How could someone so intelligent, be so ignorant? So unable to understand the revulsion Adam felt for what he was describing? This man was a child, with a mad dream and the terrifying intellect to unleash that dream upon the galaxy. Let him make his playground of nightmares, Adam wanted no part of it.

Murphy still didn't get it. He nodded to himself, rocking forward and back, his reptile brain turning the idea over in his head. "You do not want to be a patricide. I understand." He motioned furiously to Crisis-3. The commando reached into the smaller cage and snapped one of the Rabies Babies' neck. They pushed it through the food slot.

"Subject Alpha-09 will carry the sample into the purification area. The experiment will proceed momentarily." Dr. Murphy spoke into his voice recorder, as if saying it aloud would **** Adam's hand. Nothing happened. Adam just stared at the dead creature. The galaxy was a better place with it gone. If only he could find a way to do that to himself.

"Subject Alpha-09, proceed into the purification area with the sample." Murphy ground the words out.

Adam sat down on his bed instead.

Murphy's eyes got wide. His hand shook with rage. "Bring in the girl!" He screamed. "Now. Bring her in!"

Another commando dragged Cindi in by the arm. She was wearing a sterile white jumpsuit, eyes wide and terrified, but otherwise unharmed. Adam surged into the glass. He smashed and raged.

Not Cindi! The Instinct screamed.

"Let her go! I'll kill you!" Adam screamed. For all his strength, he couldn't even scratch the glass. He was as trapped in this moment as she was.

Murphy's smile was cruel and venomous. A petty thing, like child taking back his ball if the game didn't go his way. "We captured her trying to rescue you. If you'd only cooperate, you'd spare her a great deal of harm."

LIAR!

Adam was paralyzed. He looked back at the disgusting albino freak laying on the floor. Was he really going to let that thing combine with him. Become even more of a monster than he was now? Only, if he didn't... Cindi.

"It would seem you think I am bluffing." Murphy snarled. "I assure you, that is not the case." He grabbed Adam's sister and shoved her arm into the Rabies Babies cage. His children tore it apart before Cindi could even scream, their jaws were strong enough now to pierce the muscle and snap the bone, and they worked their crooked teeth back and forth, sawing at the stubborn ligaments before her arm came off at the shoulder. Cindi fell back to the floor, screaming incoherently at her missing arm; arterial blood spurting her life away before Adam's very eyes.

"I'll do it!" He screamed. He dragged the dead Rabies Baby into his arms.

Don't!

'I don't have any choice.' Adam thought back. Maybe they could still save her if he acted quickly.

"Subject Alpha-09 will proceed into the purification area." Murphy repeated, his eyes radiating anger and eagerness, both.

Don't do this.