Dead Effect

Dead Effect

Chapter Seven


Isaac couldn't help but smile as he watched Tali toying with the plasma cutter. It had only taken a minute at best to run her through a crash course on how it worked. And surprisingly she'd grasped the concept easily enough. He had a feeling she'd still have problems, after all the weapon had a bit of a kick behind it, something he rationalized her shotgun would have been an equal to.

"Just don't shoot me." He finished, before carefully checking his own weapon. Under normal circumstances he'd probably have been less then enthusiastic about handing over something as dangerous as a cutter to an alien he'd only met an hour ago at best. But considering they were relying on each other to stay alive, he was willing to take a chance.

Now came the rather problematic situation, how exactly were they going to get through the barricade and get into the medical labs? Hammond would have probably had a solution but with the comms not working it made things difficult.

As skilled as he was, making explosives out of medical supplies wasn't exactly part of his training. Pushing the thought aside, he spared a glance over his shoulder, Tali was still distracted by the tool turned weapon.

He really hoped he wasn't making a mistake, the cutters weren't meant to be used as weapons, but all things considered they did the job just fine, putting his doubts aside for the time being, he set off once again, the quarian close behind.

"If you have any suggestions on how to make explosives, I'm all ears." Isaac finally commented as the corridor led, unsurprisingly into another corridor.

"I could…Probably make something with the right tools. But I'm not sure if we'll find it here." The engineer nodded slightly, it was better then nothing at least.

The rest of their explorations continued in silence, or rather with them listening to the various noises of the ship around them. Occasionally they'd hear the thudding of something in the air vents, or the clang as something ripped a grate off and threw it against a wall. Though with each sound that seemed to be growing steadily closer, they never encountered one of the creatures making the noise, and it was growing nerve wracking.

Isaac had grown used to the sounds by now. It didn't mean he didn't react of course, each time he heard something his grip tightened on his cutter as he waited for something to leap out of the shadows. Tali on the other hand he could hear her breathing growing faster and more panicked, and each time he spared a glance he could see the silver lights behind her visor darting this way and that. She was scared, and there was nothing he could do about it…

The corridors finally gave way to another open room. Unlike the operating theatre they'd passed through before however, this one was full of, what appeared to be glass tanks.

Isaac knew the ship had doubled as a research facility, but as he examined one of the tanks he had an uneasy feeling that something else was at work here. The tank was misted and the interior hard to see, but the shape floating in the, water or whatever fluid was, appeared to be humanoid, if a lot bigger.

The engineer was by no means short, but that thing looked easily twice his size, and probably the same across the shoulders. As he ran a hand along the glass and removed the condensation he noted it's arms had been replaced by the same blade like hands he'd seen the majority of the necromorphs using.

"Keelah…" He slowly backed away from the tank and spared a glance towards Tali, whom had found a computer terminal nestled in a far corner.

"What?" Isaac didn't dare look at the other tanks; chances are he'd find much the same thing. Instead he carefully peered over her shoulder while she tapped away at the keys.

"I'm not sure exactly. But it looks like someone has been…Experimenting on the, necromorphs. There are a few mentions of evolution in these files, but most of it's corrupted, and I can't tell what exactly that means."

The engineer spared another glance towards the tanks. "Could they have known about these things before they attacked the ship?"

"Hard to say. There isn't enough data here to judge."

"Beautiful, aren't they?" Isaac and Tali both whipped around as a third voice suddenly joined the conversation, both raising their weapons as they scanned the room. Finally the pair located the source, namely someone staring at them through a observation window.

The engineer finally lowered his weapon upon realizing the man wasn't armed, and didn't look like one of the creatures they'd faced so far. "A survivor?" He heard Tali ask, though the man didn't respond, Isaac noted he was staring intently at the tank behind them, what appeared to be awe evident in his expression.

"My finest work!" He suddenly proclaimed a hand gesturing towards the tank. "Amazing, isn't it?"

"You…Created that thing?" Isaac asked, his gaze snapping to the tank before returning. "You made those things out there!" He nodded towards the door, indicating the ship.

"Not all of them, no." The man began to pace back and forth as he spoke. He continued speaking, though most of it was either in whispers to low for them to hear or was almost incoherent.

A few words did make it through though as he rambled. And Isaac felt his apprehension growing. "Those things are killing everyone! Why the hell are you doing experiments on them?"

"Their not killing! Don't you see? Their our future!"

"You're insane! These monsters have slaughtered everyone aboard, and you act like it's a miracle!" Tali objected. Resulting in the man sighing heavily as he began tapping away at a keyboard.

"It's a shame you cannot embrace the truth. You'll learn in time however…If you live long enough to see it." Isaac heard a barely audible gulp from the quarian. And he knew she had the same fear he did.

As if on cue, a loud thud drew their attention back to the tank, followed by another as the creature within began to squirm and twitch, it's head firmly focused on them, it's eyes blazing with hunger as it bashed against the glass and tried to get out.

"What the he-" Isaac spun around to demand an explanation from the man, but he was gone, obviously having run off during the distraction.

A second later a loud smash drew him back to the situation at hand. Water began to flood the room as the glass cracked and finally shattered under the creatures assault, and with a loud snarl it shoved its way through the remains of the tank, several jagged shards bit into its flesh and drew blood, but it didn't seem to notice, or care.

With another snarl the necromorph suddenly leapt towards them.


Another necromorph collapsed to the deck as a shotgun blast severed its leg. And silence consumed the bridge, save the rapid breathing of the two surviving soldiers.

Hammond quietly reloaded his rifle as the lights returned to normal. That was becoming a rather annoying, but regular occurrence on the ship. Why exactly the ship could recognize the things as dangerous and activate a quarantine, but not contain them on a different deck was beyond him.

"We can't just stand here killing these things all fucking day! I'm almost out of clips." Jack growled as she reloaded her shotgun. "I hope you've got a plan? Preferably one that doesn't involve us dying?"

He was silent for a moment as he considered their options. The bridge was to open, and with the main doors ripped apart there was no way to seal it. But with Shepard still down and out, there wasn't anywhere they could go. They still didn't know her condition and it would be impossible to move her safely to another part of the ship.

Unless…

He spared a glance towards the elevator he'd come up previously. There wasn't anything down there save a few escape pods and one of the ships ADS cannons. But the corridors were narrow, and there was a few doors they could override and lockdown in-between them and the bridge. The problem was, if they went down, they'd be locking themselves in a one way corridor, the only way out being to fight through whatever came looking for them.

"It's better then nothing." He finally conceded. "Come on, we need to get Shepard to the elevator."


"Come on, come on…Yes!" Miranda allowed herself a triumphant smile as she finally bested whoever was screwing with there communications. It wouldn't last forever, but at leas they had their comm. channel back for a while.

"Garrus, Thane…Jack, anyone still out there?" It had been a while since she'd heard from anyone else, and even with the comms fixed she was nervous about what she'd discover. Was anyone still alive?

Finally a voice broke the tense silence. "Miranda? Damn it's good to hear from you. What happened?" Jacob's voice answered her, and the Cerberus agent breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm not sure, a lockdown or something kicked in and separated me and the others. Even after it lifted they were gone, I haven't seen them since…Plus someone's been jamming our communications."

"I noticed. Do you have any idea where you are? Were still in one piece, so far we've gotten lucky and avoided whatever attacked you and Shepard's team." Miranda hesitated for a moment as she did a mental checklist of the squads.

Shepard, Jack and Tali had been the first team, her, Garrus and Thane had been the second. And Mordin, Jacob and Zaeed had been the third. The rest were on standby to join the fight at a moments notice, but with everything that had happened, even Miranda was reluctant to call for help.

"I'm not sure, not far from where we split up I think. I'll see if I can locate a map or something." She responded, before drawing her pistol. She had a feeling that she wouldn't last long on her own, so the sooner she got moving the better.

"Any word from Shepard's team?"

The agent paused for a long moment. When she finally summed up the nerve to answer, she was painfully aware at how weak her voice sounded. "I managed to contact Jack briefly…She said Shepard was…" She trailed off, luckily she didn't need to elaborate further.

"Damn it. Tali, Shepard, Garrus and Thane too probably…This mission is going to hell, and fast."


Tali flinched as she brought the plasma cutter up and fired her first shot, the recoil was worse then she'd anticipated. And she almost jarred her shoulder from the recoil. She briefly wondered how the hell Isaac could use it without hassles.

A quick glance confirmed her thoughts though, he was wearing some form of advanced armour plating, the armour was probably padded and absorbed it better then her suit.

Gritting her teeth, she fired again as the engineer joined in. The creature stumbled and finally collapsed as she adjusted her arm and severed one of its arms at the shoulder. It didn't even acknowledge the wound as it staggered back to its feet and leapt at her again.

Isaac was faster however and managed to fire again, this round cutting it's leg off at the knee and sending it face first into the deck. Tali didn't bother aiming and simply fired another three rounds into it, before moving back to avoid retaliation, even from its position on the ground it still had one bladed arm it could use. Another shot from Isaac removed that threat and finally the creature, with a loud howl, stopped moving.

"Who was that?" Tali managed to ask between gasps as she fought to catch her breath. She spared a glance towards the observation window, the man was long gone, not that she was surprised.

"Don't know. But I'm guessing he had something to do with this mess." The quarian nodded slightly as she spared the corpse at her feet another glance.

"There's nothing we can use in here. Lets keep moving." She nodded again as he led the way to the door. It only took a moment to override the lockdown and open it.

Tali was almost out the door, when a loud crack made her jump, the sound was followed by another and she slowly turned to face the room once again, clearly another one of those things was waking up.

The sound, she realized with a gasp was coming from the one they'd already killed, and with a loud snapping of bones, a scythe like arm suddenly burst out of the shattered remains of it's shoulder, a second later it's newly replaced limb slammed into the ground and it slowly stood, it's missing leg getting the same treatment as it righted itself.

"Isaac…" She hissed, causing the engineer to turn around as well.

As it finished regenerating and turned to face them, he said the one word that was on both there minds. "Run!"