Grabbing the guns, so if anyone checked in the room, they wouldn’t know he had been there, he opened the door carefully. The AI had pulled up a map for him to examine, and there were several places he wanted to check out. The first stop was going to be the genetic engineering lab. It wasn’t too far away, only a couple floors, maybe an hour or two?

Dustin knew he was going to get into some fights, but he couldn’t stay here. Entering the hall, he quickly floated up near the ceiling, with the two on his back, and camouflaged. It wasn’t perfect, but maybe it would let someone just glancing down the hall miss him.

“I told ya, I don’t care if they checked. If my PED was broke, I’d go there first.”

The voice was low and gravely. Dustin prepared one of the guns as two figures turned a corner and continued their conversation, without noticing him at all. They didn’t even look up. He took the time to study them, as they headed to the room he had just left. Both were short, probably five foot, and they had scales, like he had before he turned them crystal. One was black and white, like the snakes had been, while the other had a bluish gleam to its scales.

“All I care about is killing him so that we can finally be free,” said the bluish one.

“You think they’re going to actually do that? I bet they throw us down there and go hunting for us again.”

“I’d fry them!” growled the blue one, clenching his fist. Sparks of electricity flashed around his fist, and the white one just shook his head before opening the door.

“Didn’t they say they left a couple guys here?” he said after a few moments with the door still open.

“Yea, why?”

“This place is empty! Either they’re hiding inside, or they’ve just left!”

They both glanced up and down the hall, but didn’t seem to see him. He held still, wondering who they were to be given permission to roam the halls of the station. He might be able to use that.

“Where do you think they went?”

“Hmm, maybe the lab? If their PED’s were damaged and they got parts, I would go to the genetics lab next. It’s the closest to here that would interest me.”

“I suppose…either that, or the specimen lab.”

“If he’s made it this far, with her no less, then it’s probably safe to say he’s going to the genetics lab instead of the specimen lab, he wouldn’t need more genetic material, only the computers to finish fixing his PED.”

“Wish I still had my PED, I’d be out of here in a heartbeat!”

“Hey, remember what they said! If you try to skip out, they’ll blow your brain!”

“Yea, I know. I’ve tried to fry it, but it’s got some kind of special coating over it to prevent that.”

“Want to split up? We could both head in a different direction?”

“No, remember they said they would shoot at any of us that were alone? I may hate this place, but I’m not about to get myself killed, not at this point in the game.”

“Do you think we’ll ever get away from here?” mused the white one, as they still hadn’t moved. Dustin was starting to think they knew he was there after all, and were trying to give him some info and time to kill them.

“No,” whispered the blue one, looking down. “I sometimes think it would be nice to let the last one live. We’ve killed all the others.”

“Well, except for number 15. He’s still locked up in the specimen lab. They’re still not sure how he was able to deactivate the bomb in his head.”

They were quiet for a moment, then they both turned and glanced at him for the briefest moment, and started heading down the hall.

“Let’s check the specimen lab. If he was able to fix his PED, maybe he went to see how 15 deactivated the bomb so he really could escape.”

“It would be nice if someone could. I wish it was me, but I lost my Olivia…”

“Shut it, before they hear you, you sniveling baby!”

Just about then, several Josagn came marching around the corner. They pointed their guns at the two, but didn’t shoot.

“Any reports?” asked the one in the lead.

“We haven’t seen him. We’re still looking.” The white one stepped aside as he answered, to let them go by.

“Any leads or clues?”

“No, sir,” replied the blue one, shaking his head, and joining the white one against the wall.

“Keep looking! Reports say they were last spotted near the locking bays where they entered. They’ve killed a fair number of biobots, but it doesn’t look like they’ve acquired any weapons, so that’s good.”

The rest of the Josagn ignored them, glancing up the hall, but also not noticing him. He said a silent thank you to his PED who responded warmly. He liked the new upgrade.

The two left, turning the corner at the end of the hall, and the Josagn continued their march. They went right under him, and he was sorely tempted to kill them all with his gun, but he didn’t want to risk them setting off an alarm. Plus, he was very interested in what the two lizard men had said.

It sounded like there were clones made, that bombs were planted in their brains, and that they were each ‘given’ an Olivia. He was pretty sure by this point that those two had known he was there, and were intentionally trying to help him. Not one to pass down a good chance, he followed after them once the Josagn were gone.

He followed at a distance for over an hour, pausing to hide whenever Josagn showed up, but his camouflage seemed to work incredibly well. How was it that they couldn’t see him with all of their tech?

The two paused outside of a door, after the second hour, and waited for more Josagn to go by. The Josagn seemed to ignore them on purpose.

“Inside this room is the specimen lab. I’m not sure we won’t get in trouble for going in…” said the white one, holding his hand just over the plate to open the door.

“But we’re doing our job, looking for them. We can’t possibly get in trouble for that!” said the blue one, hitting his hand down, and opening the door.

They entered, leaving the door open, and Dustin swooped inside. The lights were dim, and all around the room, which was pretty large, there were tiny jars. Dustin quickly flew back up near the ceiling, and saw that beyond the rows of tiny jars, there were more containment units of varying size.

“Everything they’ve ever hunted is in here. I wish I had my PED to get some samples of everything. Sure would be helpful.” The white one moved to the end of the room and looked down at a computer terminal.

“No use even messing with it, you can’t hack it anymore.”

“I know. My sample is in the system. If I access the terminal it would show up as a specimen hacking it.”

Dustin waited for them to move off as they checked each row dutifully, in case he was hiding in any of them, and flew down to check the terminal out. He was surprised it didn’t have an encrypted code on it, but was just free to access. Whipping out some cords on his PED, he hooked it up and started downloading data.

(THERE IS A LOT OF DATA HERE, DO YOU WISH TO ATTEMPT ANY EVOLUTIONS AT THIS TIME?)

“No, just get as much data as you can hold, and quick!”

(DOWNLOADING EVERYTHING WILL FILL THE AVAILABLE SPACE TO 95% CAPACITY, ASSUMING YOU DO NOT WISH TO ACQUIRE PLANT GENETIC MATERIAL.)

“No, I don’t want any plant stuff. Though it would be nice to take it, just in case…” he thought hard, but just couldn’t figure out how to save the information. If Olivia’s PED was working, he would save it on hers…

Laying her down, he pulled some wires from her PED, and started to hook it up to the monitor too. Maybe he could use the screen and keypad here to fix her programming while he waited for the download to be complete.

Dustin lost time, as he programmed and downloaded. The other two lizardmen watched him from the shadows off to the side, not bothering him while he worked. As soon as he was done, he finished her PED and disconnected all of the wires, as his PED was done too.

“I miss my Olivia,” sniffed the blue lizardman, as he stepped out of the shadows.

“We can’t officially help you, but we can do what we’ve been doing so far.” The white one stayed in the shadows, as if afraid to come any closer.

“Who are you?” Dustin asked.

“We’re clones, just like you, who were released onto the planet to survive as long as possible. When we managed to get here, we were given the option to survive until you came around, then be freed if we killed you, or be released back onto the planet for another run.”

“One guy went with the second run, convinced he could do it again. They said they would let him go if he could do it again, that was number 15. He’s in a containment pod in the back,” said blue, jerking his thumb behind him.

“His bomb didn’t go off, and they freaked when they found out he had removed it somehow.”