Truly the franchise has reached a new low. All the kills are so gratuitous that it stops being terrifying and starts being funny. Either the script was written by AI, or the vegetable brained executives who greenlit this project sanded away every bit of human spark and nuance until it resembled watery gruel more than a screenplay. It’s a miracle this got to screens in the state it did, and I would be surprised if a fifth entry ever got past conception.

  With that said, the actress who plays Dr. Dagger is still sex on legs, so I’ll give it an eight.

  - Anonymous review of “Seven 4: Lethal Variant”. Current aggregate score: 3.5/10

  Our clearing strategy made itself known once we started our descent into the bowels of the Institute. I’d lead the charge and take care of whatever bigger Models decided to rear their head, including the Fourteen, and the other two would serve as supporting fire. They were to shred anything squishier than a Model Six, and if they ran out of ammo, they could either give me a shout or run like hell. Whichever was safer at the time.

  I also had the foresight to purchase a few sets of modular armor; boxes each with a dozen odd pieces of weirdly shaped metal, all of which constricted into a form-fitting protective getup once pressed into its respective spot. It was far from comprehensive in its protection and far from the most impressive option I could have bought, only adding up to four hundred points for the catalog, two sets for the boys, and a reinforced set for myself, but would reasonably suffice for any single digits we face. Only the centipede would prove a risk to it, and who knows what state it would be in once we track it down.

  Creeping through the facility in lockdown was a completely different experience from earlier. During the tour, I could at least equate the halls to other bureaucratic places I had been, like Orson’s Murdock building, or those dingy offices that the suits of the fight rings used to love to spout quotas inside. They all held that specific type of clean, inoffensive vibe, one offputting, but all-encompassing. While it had a more hectic environment, what with the machines and researchers and laboratories, this institute still held that same sort of genetic code.

  Now? It was as if we had walked onto the set of a thriller. Those white halls once blatant and visible were now uncomfortably dark, only illuminated by the blood red backup lighting. It was far from sufficient, leaving vast swathes of pitch black shadow all across the area. Several times we found ourselves jumping at nothing, even resulting in a panicked misfire from the doctor. Considering how much that gunshot cracked through the air echoed farther down into the darkness, that had us stiff as gazelles for a hot minute.

  The mood was, as expected, dire, so I did my best to hopefully break through some of that ice. “I didn’t expect a bodyguard to be so chill with one of the researchers choosing to try and fight the aliens.”

  The bodyguard in question shrugged. “Elliot was quite a spitfire in high school. Weirdly, this isn’t the craziest thing I’ve seen him do.”

  “Hey, Henry,” Dr. Winslow asked. “Remember that time we took your dad’s hovertruck out for a spin and somehow crashed it right in the middle of that gang war in the undercity.”

  A grim chuckle. “We were grounded for months.”

  So the bodyguard did have a name. A good one, at that. “Are you guys, like, childhood friends?”

  “Oh yeah, me and Henry go way back. Essentially since…what, second grade?”

  “Mmm. It’s the main reason why we room together, aside from helping with rent. Get him the stuff, and Elliot makes a mean scone.”

  “Roommates, you say?”

  “Just roommates," both said at once, with a concerning level of synchronicity.

  Our conversation continued on for a little while after, but came to a screeching halt by what forced us on this journey in the first place: a shutter. Though this time, I was quick to recognize a key difference in its makeup. “ What’s with the red handle?”

  Henry was quick to give an answer. “The shutters are one way. Able to be opened from the outside, but not from the inside.”

  “Reinforcements can get in, but the baddies can’t get out, I presume.” A firm nod was all the confirmation I needed. “Sounds more like a coffin for the trapped to me, but I guess if it works, it works.”

  As an additional layer of security, raising of shutters also requires authorization from a Vanguard or Protector AI. Considering that Vanguard Eye Spy is not present, that authority falls to you.

  Makes sense, even if adding another nail into the ‘death trap for non-Sams’ coffin. I bent down and reached for the handle, but halted when something on the other side slammed into the shutter, causing the entire wall to wobble ominously. That noise didn’t sound like a desperate survivor.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Weapons up,” I ordered, and the other two complied without a word. Several agonizing seconds of anticipation passed while my hand rested on the grip. I desperately hoped that it wasn’t a whole pack of Antithesis on the other side, but…who was I kidding?

  In a big motion I forced the shutter up, and immediately was complimented by the sound of gunfire in both left and right ears. The trio of Model Three who had been waiting for us barely had a second to lunge at us before those bullets shredded right through their bodies, leaving only disfigured corpses.

  Just barely I made out a large, unclear shadow in the opposing doorway, and I took no chance. I launched a straight and the silver slag from the JAB followed, careening into the open door and colliding into something with a nasty, organic squelch. A second later the figure collapsed forward, revealing the spiny back of a Model Five now dead on the floor.

  “Glad I caught that,” I muttered. “Those quills ain’t fun.”

  Dr. Winslow took a deep breath and brought his weapon down through staggered motion and trembling hands. “That…that wasn’t so bad–”

  His eyes locked onto something, and immediately he dropped to the floor and started to retch. Watery vomit splashed onto the floor soon after. Both Henry and I turned towards the doctor on reaction to the heaving, and I understood the second I caught glimpse of the perpetrator.

  A leg. A human one. Ripped off the body at the knee, muscle and bone raw and gnarled for the world to see. Blood trickled out onto the tile, developed into a substantial pool by the time we saw it and leaving the leg horribly pale. A shoe and sock somehow clung to it still, although now ruined by the aftermath of its owner’s demise. It was possible they had gotten away after losing this leg, but…I wasn’t counting on it.

  “First dead body,” Henry said, giving an empathetic sigh, but his face softened far less than I expected. “You get used to it after a while.”

  Dr. Winslow turned to his cohort after letting the last bits of vomit out of his stomach. His face was a mixture of pain and disbelief. “Why would you ever want to get used to this? It’s horrible!”

  “I never wanted to, but here we are now. Work for a PMC long enough, and your mind starts checking out all the gore and tragedy. At some point it just becomes a casualty report.”

  I bit my lip.

  “Hey Doc,” I asked, helping him up while keeping a decent berth from the vomit. “If you were the Fourteen, where in the facility would you set up the hive?”

  He wiped his mouth, and I did my best to ignore the tiny bit of puke lingering on the bottom of his minimal stubble. “Umm…Probably the main testing chamber. Big, wide open areas mean minimal terraforming to get optimal pod breeding space, and it's tough to breach. Both inside and out.”

  “Which means we need to go farther down. And since the elevators are probably down due to the outage…” I glanced over to a nearby fire exit door. “That’ll be our way forward.”

  Motioning for my companions to stay back, I slid through the door with as little noise as possible. I was met face to face with exactly the audience I expected: a dozen or so Model Threes planted all across the several flights of winding stairs. They locked onto me the moment the door clicked shut, and the entire horde beelined up the steps to rip me apart.

  What followed was the exact opposite, the entire room becoming an art gallery of meaty pops and gore resulting from my smashing of fists into dumb plant faces. While I was admittedly short my boots, the verticality gave me a chance to experiment with some more… interesting maneuvers. I was particularly proud of a ridiculous stop down on top of a Model Three made from several flights up. Was it less effective than a normal punch from one of the Newtons? Probably. Was it cool? Absolutely.

  “Plants are dead,” I called out, peeking my head out the door once I had wrapped it all up. “Watch your step. It’s pretty slick now.”

  The moment the two stepped foot into the fire escape, Dr. Winslow pinched his nose and resisted the urge to balk. “How do you guys deal with the smell?”

  “You get used to it. And most Sam-tech doesn’t let it through.” Admittedly, right now, I was far from smelling like daisies, especially after my blatantly indulgent bloodbath, but I wasn’t about to drop everything for a shower.

  The ground floor of the stairwell looked like a murder scene, and most of it wasn’t my doing. Blood streaked out the door, or what remained of it; the frame was mangled beyond repair and the respective door was nowhere to be seen, showing indication of being completely sheared off. I took a risk and peeked around the corner of the frame, and what I saw made me click my tongue.

  At the end of a very brief hall was a large, square room, which I assumed to be the testing chamber the doctor had alluded to. I made that assumption not only because of the inability to descend any further, but also because of the concerning amount of plant material sprouting from the room's center, leaves and vines spreading all across the floor. I didn’t see any Antithesis yet, but I thought I could just about make out a few of the birthing pods nested around the main collection. It was very recently started, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t grow into something far more formidable if we gave it the time.

  Worse, I didn’t see that insect bastard from earlier, which meant it was hiding.

  “‘Kay, here’s what we’re going to do,” I said, shifting back to Henry and Dr. Winslow. “While I go and deal with the hive, you two are going to keep your butts right here.”

  “Wait, don’t you need our-”

  I shushed the doctor. “What I need is for you to not die, or for me to die while trying to babysit you in the room. Stay here, keep cover, and put lead in anything that so much as looks at you funny, capisce? Henry, how’s your ammo?”

  For a moment he was caught off guard, as I had yet to refer to him by his actual name, but that dissipated once he began a systematic patdown of his person. “A few mags, not including the one I’ve got in the gun.”

  Dr. Winslow likely had less. Rather fill them up now than have them try and get my attention in a bad spot. “Cal, give their weapons each half a dozen mags worth of reloads.”

  Done.

  I didn’t even look at the notification that popped up in my augs or the boxes that dropped near their feet, and instead strutted directly into the hall.

  Unfortunately, the first thing that happened once I stepped foot in the room was a centipede the size of a train smashing into me head first and knocking me into the air ass over tea kettle.