CHAPTER 6: They Can Evolve?

A24 and his crew entered into the room containing the door to the connection halls. On each side of A24 stood 2 or more people, pointing their guns into the darkness which filled the room.

A24 squinted his eyes: "Any signs of life?"

"Nothing sir." One of them answered, "This room is abnormally clean. Lina seemed to have avoided this room completely up to this point."

"It has been over a year since we woke up in the citadel, that is not possible." A24 muttered, "How— Why would it do that?" He adjusted his gun, putting it closer to his eyes. His squinted gaze turned through the room, scanning for any movement not made by his crew. 

It was quiet, too quiet for them to feel comfortable. This just had to be a trap.

The crew surrounded A24 and H49 and another crewmate, the three of them stood in front of a keypad, trying to enter the correct code to open the connection hall. A24's fingers were typing with record speed, every second in there could mean death.

H49 interrupted his typing: "If it has the same code as the top codes, type M0Erd3r. I know, it's stupid!"

A24 looked at him for a short moment, then typed in the code with haste.

Bing!

It was the correct code, the keypad glowed green for a second before turning off. The door opened slowly, in dramatic fashion, just like everything in this world. A24 peeked through the little slit while it was still opening.

He could not see anything in the darkness. He turned away from the gap as it widened and spoke: "I think it's emp—" He dropped to the ground after something hit the side of his head and his legs, "—ty."

Before he noticed what happened he was dragged out of the way by his crew and the rest started shooting into the darkness. "What the frick happened?" He cursed and stood up, "Why did you trip me?"

"Something struck at your head, sir!" He said, helping A24 up. 

The door was now fully open and whatever was inside jumped out. It did not look like the Lina of their citadel, it did not possess any tentacles and was way smaller. But this one was faster, had claws and was shaped like a mix out of a horse and a dog.

"It seems like the others got a different kind of ugly creature." He said and jumped out of the way of the Lina which launched at him. He looked at H49 and got an idea: "H49! Into the entrance of the room, as far away as possible from the connection hall, but Stay. In. The. Room!"

H49 ripped himself out of the grip of the man holding him and ran towards the entrance. The hound-like Lina jumped towards him and H49 duck down, rolling back into the room towards A24 and his crew.

"You tried to kill me!" H49 screamed running back. All of them backed into the connection hall as tentacles extended from the door into the room attacking the hound.

"We didn't. Just used you as bait." Someone whispered, it was not clear who, due to the voices and being the same and the darkness.

"You guys are so fricking compassionate."

"We are the same person, H49. You would have done the exact same." A24 muttered, walking backwards with his back turned towards his crew, who looked down the hall.

They could only hear growls and screams coming from the hound. 

"Shield!" A24 commanded. The same second a small grenade shot past him he turned around, his back to the entrance of the connection halls. The grenade did not explode, it extended and wrapped around the floor and walls and met at the ceiling. This circle, almost instantly, filled with a smile-like fluid. It was a purple laser shield, stronger than steel.

The connection halls were not very long, they quickly checked all four of them. 3 were still closed, but were scratched and damaged heavily. The fourth one, the second they checked, was open. It was not ripped open, just open, like, someone had opened it on purpose.

 After resting a bit, the crew reloaded their guns and continued into the citadel which was open. 

***

The giant bear-head looking citadel was flying through the vast emptiness towards a small star on the western edge of the universe. It was orbited by 5 planets. Some are made from ice, water or gases, others were made from stone and fire.

The citadel stopped just short of the star, ejecting building ships towards it. They, without a moment of hesitation, started building multiple plates(?) around the sun, pointing with solar panels and thermo-electric generators towards it.

The supreme king was standing on the bridge, looking at the star. "What a magnificent sight." Then he turned to one of the consoles to his right, "Why is no power coming through?"

"My liege, we have yet to connect the cables. We don't wish to use electricity the way Tesla did, it would kill all life between the star and the batteries." Someone replied.

"I do not care about other life, we are not going to die, so do it!" After screaming at the Geddos he turned his gaze back to the star. It was being reflected in his eyes, making for a beautiful sight to behold.

There were some noises behind him for a moment before the power started increasing, loading the ship with almost endless energy.

"There just came a building request for weapon and armor factories on the solid planets. Shall we permit it?"

"Permit all of them!" He chuckled, "More war potential!"

Covering half the console were papers, documents to be exact. Each had a different title, but all of them hinted towards the same goal. The supreme king planned to incorporate the star into his citadel and enlarge it to produce more war capable citadels.

Within minutes more, privately owned, building ships left the citadel and flew towards the only solid planet and the solid moons of the gas planet. While it would take weeks for the production facilities to start the production, they were far enough away and already strong enough to be a dangerous threat to the other citadels.

After only two weeks the first weapons were being produced. Giant space-ships carrying lasers and teleporter-ships. "Beautifull!" The supreme king said to himself silently. 

***

A24 slowly walked through one of the lower floors of the new citadel which they entered. It was not quiet, like their citadel, it was loud and filled with groans, which meant there were at least a few hundred undead. 

He seemed to be alone, H49 and his crew were nowhere to be found. His armor was drenched in blood on certain parts and scratched on his helmet and shoulders. A24's breath was heavy, sweat running down his forehead.

"God fricking damn it!" He muttered to himself, "How could this happen? We planned for this crap and—" He clenched his fists around his gun and also clenched his teeth. He started whisper-screaming and tried banging against the walls but stopped only centimetres away. 

He closed his eyes and tried to relax his heart which he could feel in his throat.

"Breath slowly." He muttered and opened his eyes. He pressed his gun to the ground and used it to stand up.

A heavy noise, or, to be more precise, a grunt came from the room he had left a few moments ago. A24 picked up his gun and pointed towards the entrance. The grunt grew louder and A24 started counting down:

"3…"

"2…"

"1…" Then he started shooting. Over a dozen undead stormed into the room and tried to attack him. He stormed backwards through multiple rooms and kept shooting at them. "Seven." He said as the seventh undead dropped to the ground and the tentacle visibly retracted from the back of the corpse's head.

A24 ran around a lot of corners and tried to block the entrances, but there were no doors nor any furniture for him to use: "Who designed these citadels? Why in my name are the upper floors so developed and high-tech but the lower ones so empty and outdated? That is such an annoying design choice!" He already put his gun back into his holster and started ignoring the undead to be able to run faster.

He sprinted through a large and open room. It was 6 metres from floor to ceiling. The room was shaped like a rectangle, the walls from entrance to exit were double the length of the other walls( 20 metres). The walls were decorated like a mix out of a factory and a throne room.

The room after this one was even bigger. It was indeed a factory. "Why do they have a factory?" He muttered walking deeper.

"So many useless machines."

The factory was filled with machines, some broken, others turned on and working, but all of them had nothing to do with each other. Just random machines which looked good together. "Are those—" He walked across a glass floor, a bubbling liquid beneath the glass, "acid… vats?"

Beneath the glass were conveyor belts dropping corpses into the acid. Hound corpses. Which meant— "the hound wasn't their Lina!" His brain-gears started turning, "But then how does it exist? Do they have more than just that one?"

He continued his way through the factory, deeper into it with every step. The only reason he and his crew had not found the exit already, was that the citadels, while looking the same and having the same core function on the same floors, the layout was completely different. It was rather hard for him to navigate the lower floors of other citadels, due to the darkness, different layout and undead roaming around.

"Why do they even have undead? With the amount I already murdered, at least a thousand people came down here! These idiots!" His voice was ruff and full of exhaustion and pain."2 fricking weeks and I am still stuck down here! My armor will run out of power soon if I don't find any powersource to reload the battery."

He ignored the working machines, he had no idea how he could get the electricity into his battery without dismantling them and possibly alerting the undead of his presence. And dealing with undead would require more power than he had left.

An hour later he had stripped the suit of the non necessary parts which wasted too much electricity and had ventured a few dozen rooms deeper into the factory. His armor was now lighter and his gun was turned off and he donned a small dagger as new primary weapon.

While the factory seemed clear of undead at the beginning, these deeper rooms were flooded with them and he was able to find loose tentacles drinking the acid and pumping it to their main body inside the factory. Yes, the Lina was in the factory.

While the undead should have killed him already, they were not able to. The undead were writhing on the ground in pain while their body slowly and painfully transformed and morphed into something else. Of course, there had been some that had not yet started the transformation process which A24 had to kill with his dagger, but they were no threat for a seasoned warrior.

A24 followed the tentacles, pumping acid to the main body below the glass, in hope it would be weaker in close combat and without the undead. If he could kill it, he would be a hero.

He slowly lowered himself to one of the undead in a rather empty room compared to the others. It was growing dog-like features and he could hear the bones ripping and tearing apart. "Disgusting."

"Are the hounds the… undead?" It was gruesome to think about. People were controlled by tentacles which turned off and replaced all life supporting organs, rendering them dead the moment the tentacle was cut off and then they would be painfully turned into ravenous hounds, hunting for the Lina and feeding it.