Bob brings up the operations screen, frantically types in commands. A digital representation of the Suit appears on the monitor, a 3-D control panel along with a scrolling list of its current operations. Fingers working the keys, he brings up the menu for the armor coolant.

The computer thinks, then flashes: Command Failed.

“The hell?”

Bob closes out the menu, reloads it. Types in the command once more.

Command Failed.Command Failed. Command Failed.

“Okay, guys? What the hell’s going on? I’m not …” He taps in the command again. And again. “The suit’s not activating, the suit’s not ….”

“Do not be afraid.”

The blood pumping through Bob’s veins seems to freeze … then stop. His hands begin to shake inside the armored gloves, and his jaw clenches. Quick, hard breaths are forced through his nose as he fights off panic.

It’s a computerized voice. The translation software. And it’s coming through the internal speaker.

“There will be no pain. No feeding.”

The creature. The fucking blob … is talking to him.

“Please relax. Do not panic. This is … difficult for me. Do you understand?”

No! No … it’s not possible. It can’t be. If this thing can think … if it can communicate? It’s far more dangerous than we could ever have imagined.

Bob checks his monitor, sees the communications line is open and active. The external microphones are also active. Quickly, he types in the commands to close the mic, to shut down all communications.

The Suit ignores the commands.

Come on, come on. Get me out of here.

There’s a soft beep in Bob’s ear, and he watches as one of the control panel’s green integrity sensors … turns red.

Oh no. Please God, no.

“Um, Joanne? I … uh … I have a breach here. Joanne, please … please copy.”

“The others are not … hearing you. Is that correct? Hearing?”

Bob swallows as two more green sensors flick to red. The beeping in his ears gets faster, louder. Fear swarms in his chest like angry hornets, rushes to his brain. When he speaks again, his teeth chatter, his voice trembles.

“Yeah, that’s correct,” he says.

“Good. I’m happy you are responding. It’s been … difficult … frustrating. But now we are speaking. Is it clear? What I am speaking … you understand?”

“Yes,” Bob says, eyes darting from the red lights to the unresponsive monitor. It’s taken control of the Suit. Somehow, it’s taken control and now there are several breaches and it can get inside. God help me.

“I have discovered … weakness … in you. In your shell. Do you understand?”

Bob wills himself to stop shaking, to get a grip on the situation. If the thing can talk, it can reason. It could kill him … absorb him … but it hasn’t. He can get out of this. He can get out of this and get out of this goddamned suit and catch the first plane to Hawaii and retire and live a long, pension-fueled life on a beach. He just needs to reason with it. Convince it to let him go. Let him out.

He takes a steadying breath, closes his eyes. “I understand.”

“Good, Bob. Good. We have much to … talk of.”

“THIS IS INSANE!” ROBBIE YELLS—as much to himself as to the rest of them—for what feels like the hundredth time. “We’ve got to do something!”

It’s been two days since Bob was consumed by the Specimen. The team inside the control room hasn’t bathed, has hardly eaten or slept. They’re tired, bedraggled; pushing the limits of what the body and mind can endure.

Approximately 48 hours prior the team watched helplessly as readouts from the Suit went down, one-by-one, only minutes after the insertion of their team leader. After 48 hours of frantically trying to problem-solve, they’d exhausted every technical failure possibility, but found nothing that needed correction. Nothing that could be fixed.

They know that anything they do to the Specimen, they’d be doing to Bob.

Freeze it, and you freeze Bob. His body stuck inside the mass like a fly in a popsicle.

They also know that things like electrocution, bursts of radiation, or other “pain” stimulants do little to harm the creature, but the risk to Bob would be immense.

The only thing that keeps the team from more extreme courses of action (such as entering the Aquarium with coiled tubes that blasted CO2), and putting other lives at risk, is the fact that Bob’s vitals continue to scan as having no ill effects. From what they can tell his heart rate, temperature and other biological readings are stable. Of course, by this point, he’ll be dangerously dehydrated, but his regulated breathing and the Suit’s ability to convert carbon dioxide to fresh oxygen keep him from any over-exertions that would expedite his body’s need for fluids.

All other data had been cut off. They aren’t sure if the Suit has been breached, or simply malfunctioned. It’s telling them just enough to hold their ground, but not enough to know what’s happening to their friend.

“I agree,” Joanne says, raising her face from where it had rested in her open hands, eyes heavy with exhaustion and worry. “I say we go ahead with the military solution. Let’s get people in there with CO2 hoses, see if we can push it back, away from … from Bob.”

There is more agreement this time than previously. Even Marisha, who seemed the most resistant to exposing more people to the specimen, knows now they have to at least try. Another twelve hours could be too late, despite what the readouts tell them. “Let’s call Major Millgate,” she says, concurring. “Tell him to ready the soldiers.”

The others nod their agreement, and Joanne has just lifted the black handset mounted into her console, the one giving her a direct line to their neighbors in Hangar Delta, when Daniel starts to yell.

“It’s moving! I mean, he’s moving! Look!”

Joanne drops the phone, not noticing when it misses the cradle, dangles like a hanged man by the stretched cord. She doesn’t hear the distant voice from the other end saying: Go ahead Foxtrot. Foxtrot? This is Delta … do you copy? Hey, you guys okay?

Because they’re all yelling now.

From inside the bright, red-jellied texture of the Specimen, a dark human-shaped shadow moves slowly toward the edge of the great mass, as if it is being squeezed out. Pushed away.

“Maybe he got the Suit to freeze?” someone says, but no one responds because they’re all watching, rapt, the obscene delivery of their leader.

Like the birth of a metal baby, the head of the Suit breaks free from the gelatinous body, a gooey pink film covering it like embryonic fluid. The shoulders come next and then, more quickly, the rest of Bob’s suit emerges, dropping awkwardly to the floor with a heavy clunk, but seemingly intact.

“All readouts are coming back online!” Jim shouts as the monitors filling the control room spring to life, showing the full array of the Suit’s sensors, along with an audible crackle of the comms.

Joanne depresses the button for her microphone, doing her best not to scream into the mouthpiece. “Bob, can you hear me? Do you copy?”

“Get the medical team in there,” Marisha barks, and another phone is picked up, a hurried voice asking for help. Robbie is already out the door, bolting down the metal steps. Daniel, slumped in his chair, muttering to himself like a madman, stares at a swarm of data filling his screen. “Holy shit … holy shit …. ” he mumbles, eyes tracking the insane amounts of data flooding through his monitor. “It’s been talking” he says, then sits bolt upright. He spins to face the room, his exhaustion erased by a look of terror. “It’s been …. Guys! Damn it, listen to me!”

Daniel stands fast enough to knock his chair over. It clatters hard to the floor, and the general chaos of the room quiets as all eyes turn to face him.