As they made their way toward the top-level platform, the intermittent gunfire suddenly stopped.
The entire team froze, a dark sense of foreboding settling over them.
If the shooting had stopped, either the battle was over, or the resistance had ended.
"Move faster!" Calista urged in a low voice, her heart burning with anxiety.
There was no time to hesitate or give in to fear. They climbed through the passage as quickly as they could.
The closer they came to the top level, the stronger the sickeningly sweet odor became.
Large patches of slick chemical secretions began appearing along the inner walls of the pipes. Even brushing against them made their skin crawl.
The Claw mutants, the lower links in the food chain that they had encountered outside the multilevel reactor workshop, had vanished completely from this area.
This was clearly the territory of higher-level Predators, where lesser creatures were not allowed to intrude.
When they finally reached the last connecting corridor leading to the top-level platform, they found that the path ahead had been deliberately destroyed by a powerful explosion.
The walkway was severed.
A section nearly five meters long, once made of sturdy metal grating, had been reduced to a twisted skeleton of steel supports and jagged edges curled outward by the blast.
The walls near the detonation point were embedded with scorching fragments of metal, and the lingering smell of gunpowder hung in the air.
Countless shell casings of mixed calibers littered the floor. There were standard rifle casings as well as large-caliber armor-piercing rounds, evidence of an extremely fierce defensive battle.
Most striking of all were the three enormous bodies sprawled near the edge of the destroyed walkway.
They were Predator corpses, but larger and more heavily armored than any the rescue team had encountered before.
The spindle-shaped tumor of one had been completely blown apart, splattering black-green neural fluid across the area.
Another had a massive, horrifying hole punched straight through its chest, as though it had taken a grenade at point-blank range.
The third was relatively intact, but at least three large-caliber armor-piercing rounds had been precisely driven into the junction between its tumor and its body.
The brutality of the battle was obvious.
Calista pressed a hand against her pounding heart and quickly surveyed the area.
There were no scraps of orange hazmat suits, no splashes of human blood, and no abandoned equipment from the base.
"Leah's team held off the creatures here, blew up the walkway to cut off their pursuit, and killed at least three of them..." Maya said. Her relief only deepened her concern. "But where are they? Did they retreat farther up?"
Honeywell pointed with a pale face toward the faintly visible entrance to the top-level platform across the destroyed walkway.
"This route only leads there, but the walkway's gone.
"I know another way. There's an emergency maintenance shaft that leads directly to a service compartment beneath the side of the platform. It's well hidden, but we'll have to climb, and the exit is very small."
They had no better option.
The gap was five meters wide, and they had entered without climbing equipment.
Even if Calista were willing to risk the jump, the others clearly could not make it.
She immediately gave the order. "Honeywell, lead the way! Everyone, check your equipment and prepare to climb the emergency maintenance shaft. Mikey, Leon, watch the rear."
The emergency shaft was even narrower and steeper than they had expected, and its inner walls were coated in slippery grime.
The cramped spiral ladder groaned beneath their weight. Every tremor sent flakes of rust raining down.
Inside the nearly vertical cylindrical shaft, the rescue team's headlamps could illuminate only the helmets of the teammates below and a small patch of darkness overhead.
They slowly worked their way upward, placing each hand and foot with extreme care to avoid slipping or making too much noise.
Calista led the climb, listening constantly for any sound from above.
Honeywell remained in the middle of the formation, with Ethan and Mikey positioned before and behind him to keep him steady while also watching the shaft below.
"We're almost at the top," Calista whispered after judging the distance to the exit. "It's dark up there, and I can hear something."
Everyone held their breath and climbed a little farther.
Calista slowly pushed the metal access hatch above her open by a crack and peered through the gap with her flashlight.
The space beyond was indeed a maintenance compartment filled with discarded crates of parts and pipes. The sounds they had heard were coming from the top-level platform above it.
Calista drew a deep breath, gently pushed the hatch fully open, and listened for a moment. Then she climbed out first and quickly took cover.
Maya followed closely behind, sweeping the area with her weapon raised while covering the rest of the team as they climbed out.
Once the entire rescue team had entered the maintenance compartment, Calista signaled for them to remain in place.
She climbed a narrow maintenance ladder in the corner, barely wide enough for one person, and silently raised her head through the access opening to inspect the top-level platform.
Even though she had prepared herself for the worst, her breath still caught.
More than seventy percent of the platform was covered in translucent brown crystal. Slick mucus coated its surface, making the entire floor look dangerously slippery.
Horrifying food scraps lay scattered everywhere.
Large numbers of Black Fire mutants had been gnawed almost completely clean. Only their claws and bones remained, discarded like trash.
The remains of ordinary walkers were strewn across the platform as well. Some had been chewed and licked repeatedly until the bones had become unnaturally smooth.
Judging by the state of decay, these ordinary walkers had likely been members of the local gang Lorenzo had locked inside during the early days of the outbreak.
Their remains were not spread evenly across the platform. Instead, they had been thrown into several disordered piles of varying sizes.
The differences in the piles revealed an obvious hierarchy among the Predators. Since their mutations, the weaker ones had probably managed to consume only a few Claw mutants.
There were more than a dozen piles in total, roughly matching the number of people Honeywell had said were trapped in the central control room when the toxin leaked.
The Predators had once been those workers.
Calista's gaze swept across the nightmarish scene before locking onto the opposite side of the platform.
There was a door.
It was a heavy alloy blast door that looked exceptionally sturdy, and it was sealed tight.
The door itself was relatively clean, but the frame and surrounding walls had been engulfed and corroded by thick crystalline growths.
There were no markings on it, only a massive manually operated pressure wheel.
Seven Predators crouched outside the door, loosely arranged in a semicircle.
Their behavior was completely different from the creatures Calista's team had encountered before.
They were not restless. They did not growl, nor did they show any obvious signs of hunting.
Three were enormous, with thick, dark crystalline armor, similar in size to the large Predator the team had killed earlier. Their bodies bore fresh wounds, including charred burns and obvious fractures in their crystalline shells caused by fragmentation grenades.
The other four were slightly smaller, but still far more powerfully built than the scrawny Predator they had killed.
The seven Predators occasionally turned their spindle-shaped tumors to scan the rest of the platform, but their attention always returned to the sealed door.
What was inside?
...
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