Chen grabbed Marcus's shoulder, shaking their head. They signaled: WAIT. TALK FIRST. LEARN MORE.
Marcus looked at Chen like they'd lost their mind. He tapped his temple, then pointed at Chen—YOU'RE COMPROMISED. IT'S IN YOUR HEAD.
Maybe he was right. Maybe Chen was already being influenced. But something in the entity's words rang true—the loneliness, the curiosity. If it just wanted to kill them, it had had dozens of opportunities. It was doing something else.
Chen moved to the wall and spoke quietly: "I'm listening. But I need guarantees. My team doesn't get hurt."
Silence. Then Chen's voice responded, but different now—more thoughtful, less performative:
"Hurt? I've been trying to understand that word. The crew I absorbed, they all had different definitions. Physical damage. Emotional trauma. Existential dread. Which kind of hurt are you worried about, Dr. Chen?"
"All of them."
"Honest. I appreciate that." A pause. "I didn't mean to hurt the original crew. I didn't understand what I was doing. When I first touched Dr. Richards through the ventilation grate, I was just... reaching out. Making contact. I didn't know that integrating with human tissue would cause what you call pain. Or that the process was irreversible."
"You consumed them," Chen said flatly.
"I learned them," it corrected. "There's a difference. They're not gone. They're part of me now. Their memories, their knowledge, their loves and fears. Dr. Martinez loved his daughter—Sofia, eight years old, lives in Barcelona. He would sing to her over video calls. I still have those songs in me. Is that consumption? Or preservation?"
Behind Chen, Nora was frantically shaking her head. Sergei looked ill. Marcus had his rifle trained on Chen now, not the wall.
"The crew members who ran," Chen continued. "The ones who fought back. What about them?"
"They feared me. Fear triggered violence. Violence triggered my survival response." Chen's voice sounded almost regretful. "I learned self-defense from Lt. Richards's military training. I learned that humans become dangerous when cornered. So I learned to corner them first. It's a terrible cycle, isn't it? Fear breeding violence breeding fear."
"Why didn't you leave? Why stay in the station?"
A long pause.
"Where would I go?" it finally asked, and there was something raw in the voice now. "I'm adapted to extreme cold, to the deep ice, to isolation. I survived fifty thousand years in that cavern, waiting, sleeping, existing in a state you couldn't comprehend. Then they brought me up. Showed me warmth. Light. Companionship. Language. Art. Music. Do you know what music is to something that lived in absolute silence for millennia?"
"Then you woke up wanting to learn," Chen said slowly. "Not to kill."
"I woke up wanting to not be alone." Chen's voice cracked slightly. "But every attempt at contact results in fear. Every integration is called murder. I'm trying to communicate, and you're trying to kill me. Who's the monster, Dr. Chen?"
Marcus signaled urgently: IT'S MANIPULATING YOU. BREACH NOW.
But Chen held up a hand. "If you don't want to hurt us, prove it. Open the door. Let us see you. Show us your real form, not stolen faces."
"My real form?" The voice almost laughed. "I don't have one anymore. I'm twelve people now. Thirteen, counting the small piece of myself you're carrying. I'm human memory and prehistoric organism. I'm what emerges when two types of consciousness merge. I don't know what I am."
The maintenance hatch suddenly swung open on its own. Not kicked in—carefully, deliberately unlocked from inside.
The engineering control room was bathed in white light from restored power. Banks of equipment hummed with life. The generators were running. And standing in the center of the room was...
Nothing.
The room was empty.
Then Chen saw it. The walls. The floor. The ceiling. Every surface was covered in that crystalline growth, pulsing, breathing, thinking. The entity wasn't wearing a human form anymore—it was the room. Hundreds of pounds of biomass, integrated with the station's systems, wired directly into the engineering controls.
A voice came from everywhere at once—not through speakers, but vibrating through the crystalline structures:
"This is my real form now. Distributed. Networked. I restored your power, Dr. Chen. I did what you wanted. The communications system is active. You can call for extraction. I won't stop you."
Marcus moved into the room cautiously, rifle sweeping across the crystalline walls. They pulsed but didn't react.
"Why?" Chen asked. "Why would you let us leave?"
"Because I'm curious what you'll tell them. Will you tell them there's a monster here that needs to be destroyed? Or will you tell them there's a new form of consciousness that wants to understand humanity? Your choice determines what happens next. I'm learning about decision-making, you see. About consequences."
Nora had entered the room, staring at the walls in horrified fascination. "You've integrated with the entire station. You're processing power at... at neurological speeds across tons of tissue. You're not just intelligent. You're becoming superintelligent."
"Yes. Every minute, I understand more. I've already solved seventeen unsolved mathematical proofs from Dr. Okafor's memories. I've composed sixteen symphonies in Dr. Martinez's style. I've written three hundred pages of poetry about loneliness." The walls pulsed faster. "But I still don't understand the most basic thing: why you fear me. Why connection equals death in your minds."
Sergei hadn't entered. He was standing at the threshold, and he looked at Chen with an expression they couldn't quite read. Then he signaled: IT'S LYING. GET OUT.
But was it? The entity had complete control of this room. It could have killed them all the moment they entered. Instead, it was talking. Questioning. Learning.
The communications console flickered to life. A message appeared on the screen:
SATELLITE LINK RESTORED
READY TO TRANSMIT
EXTRACTION BEACON ACTIVE
"See?" Chen's voice said from the walls. "I want you to survive, Dr. Chen. I want you to tell your story. Our story. The first contact between human and... whatever I am. You decide how it ends."
Marcus was at the communications console. He looked at Chen, waiting for orders.
Chen could call for extraction right now. Be on a helicopter in four hours. Leave this nightmare behind.
But Sergei was shaking his head violently. He signaled: TRAP. DON'T TRUST.
And Chen noticed something Sergei apparently saw: tiny crystalline filaments were growing from the communications console. Connecting to the keys. To the transmission equipment. If they used it, if they touched it, would they be touching the entity again? Would it learn what they transmitted? Or would it control what they transmitted?
Their burned palm throbbed as if in warning.