Chapter 4

Zylis walks off first. Max smiles, he's glad to have her on his side. Zylis leads them through the jungle like forest to the building they saw before they landed.

"Hexitor Laboratory. It specializes in chemical testing."

"What kind?" Max asks,

"Their purpose was to find a cure for different diseases."

"Well looks like this place has been long abandoned." Max says,

"I don't think so, look."

Max and Kiara follow Zylis's gaze as she crouches down. She rips up a single blade of grass and shows it to them.

"Wet blood." Max mutters

Zylis readies her spider legs, Max his rifle and power, just in case. They slowly creep to the entrance.

"I can hack it open, Max if you touch me to the pad."

Max agrees and touches his arm to the hand scanner. A few seconds pass and it suddenly beeps, the door slides half open and stops. The scanner shows a red bar with the words, 'Error' written across it.

Max looks at Zylis, she mirrors him.

"I can't tell where, but something further in this structure is alive."

"How much further in?"

"I'm not sure, something is blocking the scanner. But it's definitely not waiting at the entrance, at least 70 yards in."

Zylis looks at Max and back into the lab.

"I'll go first." Max says,

He walks through and flicks on the light. He looks around.

"Blood everywhere." he mutters

Zylis looks around, her pistol lowers, aiming at the ground. She stares in horror at the blood splattering just about everything.

"How is there so much?" she asks no one,

Max shakes his head, "Come on."

They keep walking further in, down blacked out halls. Until they start finding bodies.

"Kiara where's the life signal?"

"I think in a room down the hall. It's hard to tell, the scanner keeps glitching."

"What in here could throw it off?" Zylis whispers,

Max shrugs, they keep moving and follow Kara's directions until they get to the room.

Sparks shoot from a large panel on the wall, the light flickers in the small room.

The table is flipped over, laying upside down on two people, a security guard and a woman in a labcoat.

"I believe it's the woman, she's alive."

They walk over as the woman whines softly. They hurry to her side, she has three spikes in her chest and breathes slowly and weakly.

The woman looks at Max. "I'm sorry." Max whispers,

She stretches out her hand and points, Zylis folles her gaze to a mess of scattered papers on the floor. Zylis hurries over and skimmes them as fast as she can.

Her eyes widen, "Genka's."

"What about them?" Max asks,

"I'm not sure yet. They are experimenting. It doesn't say what on. Just, subjects."

"Likely people."

"Faquab." Zylis agrees,

Max looks at the Fros woman, she grips his arm with her three fingers and exhales deep. Her arm falls to the ground.

Max closes his eyes and sighs, regret and grief flow through his body with ease.

He stands and walls over to her. "Can you be more specific? Maybe it'll trigger something if we hear it."

Zylis slowly nods, "Lekat."

She looks at the paper. "Subject 2, terminated today, subject 3, critical condition, being moved to perminate location. That's all, the rest is about the attitude of terminated subjects, willing in the beginning, forced, forced, then they all turn aggressive. Maybe not three, I don't know it doesn't say anything about its attitude. No mention of Atalipi at all."

"Nothing about the race?"

"Nope."

"Alright, we're here for an Atalipi. Let's find them." Kiara chimes in,

"She's right."

Zylis looks at the woman and shakes her head, they walk out of the room and keep exploring. The place seems abandoned, but everything seems so fresh.

Zylis grabs Max's arm, he jolts and looks at her, he then follows her eyes.

The crimson liquid on the floor shines, Zylis soundlessly moves closer, Max checks around them. Zylis touches the blood with her fingers.

Its warm, this happened minutes ago, tops. She looks back at Max. He looks at her and gets the message.

"I can't see anything." Kiara whispers,

Zylis stands and carefully follows the blood with her eyes to the corner. Max carefully, keeps exploring the room with his eyes.

"Ugh!"

Max turns fast and sees Zylis on her back, she rolls backward and stabs her spear legs into the Vijean's limbs. He cries out, she throws him off her.

She gets to his feet and with her hands and spider legs, picks him up and slams him against a wall, pinning him there. Her legs stab again into his limbs to keep them from moving.

"Talk!"

Max cringes at her technique, but doesn't say anything. He just watches the man struggle and moan.

"Scrit ya fortue!" he spits,

She pulls him away from the wall and slams him against it again. "What...happened?" she threatens,

"Ragh! Fine! Alright! It was a Genka lab!"

Zylis brings her face close to the man's. "Something useful. Why did you attack?!"

"Agh! I can't!"

"You're going to die anyway, want it to hurt more?"

"Alright! Shekash xenit cincon-"

"English!" She demands,

He groans and pulls at her hand that holds his throat. "An Atalipi. It was here, it ran! I don't know if it escaped!"

"Where would it have gone?" Max asks,

"I don't know!"

"Who would know?" Zylis asks, looking back at Max,

Max look at the ground, racking his brain.

"Why are you after it?" Zylis asks,

"Do what you want, I won't say anymore!"

She rips her spider legs out at once and simultaneously stabs his chest and pulls them out again.

The man falls to the ground, lifeless. Zylis looks at Max, "Sorry, I hate Vijeans."

"I know. Let's check the area, just make sure he wasn't lying."

"If he wasn't we are screwed."

"Not necessarily."

She tilts her head, silently asking him to elaborate.

"Let's check this place first. Kiara? Any others you can see?"

"No. I don't think it's a jammer, but I still can't see anything."

Max looks at Zylis as Kiara bursts out the same thoughts. "Kodpiaw gas! That's what it has to be!" She shouts,

Zylis looks at them with wide eyes, Max stares back.

"Now would be a good time to run!" Kiara shouts,

They turn and bolt for the exit. They are about to turn the last corner when the floor beneath them explodes and sends Max and Zylis flying into the air.

Max slams against the wall, Zylis tries to brace herself for the wall, but the pipe that broke with the explosion dropped slightly and Zylis headbutts it. She spins backward is thrown violently into the wall and hits the ground with a thump.

Max groans and manages to get to his hands and knees. The world around him spins like crazy.

"Max! come on! You need to grab Zylis! Stay with me here!"

"I'm-I'm good." he mutters,

He looks back at Zylis, lying on the ground. He pushes up to his feet and stumbles over to her he picks her up in his arms and hurries down the hall to the exit doors as fast as he can without falling from slight dizziness.

"Almost there Max!"

He runs out the doors and into the trees before he stops to catch his breath.

He leans against a tree and huffs hard.

"You did good. Im proud of you."

"Heh...thanks...Kiara."

He pushes off the tree and makes it to the ship, he straps Zylis in and sits in the pilot seat.

"Well. So much for checking the rest of the lab."

"They blew it up for a reason. We'll find out why....Zylis doesn't know, does she? That you're not human."

"No. She doesn't. No one does Kiara." he whispers,

"I won't tell. Are you okay?"

"Shouldn't you be able to tell?"

"Of course I can. Doesn't mean I don't care about you."

He smiles, "You're something else Kiara. I'm fine."

He pulls his hood and mask off and lays in the seat for a moment, then he fires up the ship and flies into the air.

"Where are we headed?"

"Earth."

Kiara appears and looks at him in her tiny form. "....I wonder if it's changed. How it's changed."

"Didn't you see the logs I had on my ship? Hopefully no one has stolen it from the docking bay."

"You didn't have any logs of earth."

Max thinks for a moment. "Hm! You're right. Wow I haven't been to earth in a long time."

"I guess it'll be interesting for us both then."

"Yeah. This will be interesting."