, Jonathan hurried briskly into the open room. Asides the 8 feet vertical Internal System Analyzer (IS Analyzer) which had a body laying inside it, there were a handful of people present in the room. The green figures spinning in semicircles at opposite directions on the display screen of the analyzer caught Jonathan's attention, making him squint in disbelief.

"Why do we have those figures?" Jonathan walked up behind Lucien who had all his attention focused on interpreting the backflow of instructions behind sent by the machine.

"We can't tell for sure. His body systems show basal activities but his brain's response is spiking up and it's just so hard keeping him alive."

"Any luck accessing his Matrix?"

"No." Lucien's eyes reflected the uncertainty Jonathan felt. "It's either he's a humanoid or he's all wrecked up and won't make it out alive."

"We'll just have to keep him breathing until we're certain for sure," Jonathan said, glancing over at the bare-chested body in the machine.

"Hopefully he doesn't destroy the Analyzer," Lucien replied, signaling to the other two persons to carry on from where he stopped. "He's been rebouncing cryptic instructions to the machine."

"That's impossible."

"We got ourselves a rare one here."

They stepped out of the room into the hallway. Their body had gotten used to the freezing cols temperature always present in the hallways with solid ice creeping about the black metal walls like spider webs. Instead of using the stairs, they two men took the elevator which drifted upwards rather too slowly before finally coming to a halt. They pushed the door which had jammed halfway through sliding open and entered a large, brightly illuminated open space with three columns of metal cages all of which were filled with battered gadgets and spare parts of various machines. There was a heap at the feet of one of the cages, looking like a dystopian wasteland of mechanical parts.

"The door's still messed up," a lady seated at the work bench called out to them. She rose from where she sat and packed here auburn hair into a bun. The wrinkles on her face told of her advancement in age despite how energetic she carried her self. "Your guests come around yet?"

"Long story," Lucien scoffed, beating Jonathan to it. "Only one's back to life. The others are pretty torn up but should be fine in a couple of hours-hopefully." He picked up one of the gadgets on her work bench.

"I assume Zee and his team's back," Jonathan said more as a question than an affirmation.

"Uh-Hun," the lady replied, throwing her arms into her side pocket. "Came in an hour-ish ago. Still trynna match stuff up and see wha's useful. Think he still got a few more hikes though."

"Hmm," Jonathan muttered to himself while his eyes scanned both the work space and the slush pile she still had to go through. "How soon?"

"Dunnuh, the boy looked outta breath and I bet he prolly chilling up at service station."

"G'job Rogue," Lucien said to her in an attempt to imitate her style of talk.

"'Ready told ya boy, giving me complements won't win my heart." She downed the content of the can she'd had on the table. Jonathan chuckled at Rogue's usual assumption that Lucien had a thing for her-which could been true.

"I might hike out with Zee tomorrow, just to see things for myself," he said, turning towards the exit.

"Hopefully, you don't experience the same thing I did last time I was out there," Lucien called out behind his friend as he stepped out of the room.

Systems: Check. Upgrade: 27%. Synchronization: Checking. Compatibility: Good.

The screams got louder with the trembling becoming more fierce. Hands latched on to whatever they could for support, holding on for dear lives as their eyes flooded with tears and the fear glowed in them. The red lights flickered with the alarm blaring like a chorus of a thousand elephants.

"We're not making it out of this," a voice thundered amidst the chaos.

"We can only try!" a second voice answered.

The look on his face portrayed helplessness and the fear of the inevitable in his eyes was glaring obvious. His hands grasped firmly to the gears as adrenaline rushed through his body.

The cries for help got louder as the ship felt a sharp jerk. The engines stopped working. The lights went out. The passengers tumbled helplessly on each other as the ship spun upside down and with one massive impact, a dark void enveloped them.

The inner lights of the IS Analyzer turned green, catching Lucien's attention. The others who had been standing by backed off at the sight of it. Rapid instructions ran over the display screen of the machine, spinning the figures faster in two semicircles.

"Load his up with two doses of Netrac," Lucien ordered.

"What?! You're going to kill him," he replied in shock.

"Do it!" Lucien thundered as the machine started vibrating. He's as good as dead already.

He did as was told, hitting the 'release' button on the remote control which he held and then watched as the digitalized display of two 50cl of Netrac was infused into the man's body though the Analyzer.

The Netrac kicked in 30seconds later. The spinning figures slowed down, the rebound of instructions stopped and the green lighting within the hollow chamber of the machine changed returned to it normal white, followed by a temporary power outage in the room. Needless to say, Lucien's heart pounded against his chest and same could be said of his fellow colleagues who had become stiffened by what they'd just witnessed.

"What're you fellas up to down there? You're wrecking power supply across the camp," said a voice over the communicator in Lucien's gloves. Lucien remained silent and only watched as the body got ejected from the machine after power came on again.

He stepped over to the side of the body whose eye flickered open. His pupils blazed a shiny sky blue like it had just been heated over fire before fading off to a normal black with a blue ring.

"Where am I?" Bishop muttered, trying to feel his body. His heart beat remained steady and the pattern on his entrée glowed.

"Far from your cozy bed," Lucien replied, staring in wonder at Bishop. He still couldn't fathom how he'd done whatever that was. At least to the best of Lucien's knowledge, only humanoids could've been able to reject instructions. Not only had Bishop's brain done that, he'd also rebounded instructions on how to revive him.

"I've got pods to decrypt and-" Bishop groaned at the pain of sitting up which shot through his body. For a moment there, it felt like he'd been dropped in a pond of needles.

"Take it easy boy," Lucien's arm supported Bishop while he gestured to his other two colleagues to help him out. Bishop accepted their help, standing to his feet. The sensation of his feet having to carry his body's weight felt alien to him once he'd gained his stance.

"Where's Joleen?" he asked between breaths.

"They're good, they're good," Lucien assured him. "For now, I need you to chill. Upshots are always shattering."

A scream emanated from down the hall. Lucien and Bishop's eye met momentarily, both expressing similar emotion. Lucien instructed his colleagues not to let Bishop leave before hurrying out of the room towards the sound of the scream.

Lucien's jaw dropped when he burst through the door only to see one of the men who had been attending to Bishop's crew mates being held hostage in the muscular arms of Ramon whose eyes darted in anxiety about the room.

"Ramon, stand down!" Joleen ordered. Lucien remained dumbfounded with the whole situation. "I said stand down!"