//------------------------------//
// Sprawl: Government Sector 
// Story: Dead Space: Deep Space Terror 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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Isaac and Chrysalis sighed as they reengaged their helmets and continued walking down the path that was in front of them, which brought them to the elevator that Ellie must have used to get to this area, though before either of them could actually open the elevator and walk into it their video links opened again. At first they thought that maybe Ellie was calling to curse them out for thinking about her safety more than their own, but as the link was established they noticed that it wasn't Ellie that had contacted them, rather it was Tiedemann, and he looked pissed off.

"I don't know what Providence protects you two, but this game ends here!" Tiedemann stated, though what the man didn't understand was that this was never a game, as both Isaac and Chrysalis knew they were going to reach the Marker and destroy it before it had a chance to reach Convergence, "I have two hundred armed security personal... EVERY entrance is covered. Even if you two find a way inside, you won't be getting back out."

Neither of the duo said anything as Tiedemann disconnected the link between them, to which they headed over to the store that happened to be near the elevator and sold off a few of their worthless ammunition types, before buying anything that they might need. The moment they were ready the duo walked into the elevator that was to their right and headed down to the level that Ellie had been on earlier, though as they headed out of it a few moments later Chrysalis opened fire on the slasher that jumped into the area and dismembered it. That was when the duo realized that the Necromorphs must have been right behind the drill, as now they were starting to slowly pour into the entrance of the Government Sector and were coming for either the two of them or were heading for the Marker. Isaac immediately headed towards the door and found a panel that he could hack into, so while he removed the cover and started doing that Chrysalis opened fire on the pukers, lurkers, slashers, and exploders that wanted to kill them.

Fortunately because she was able to protect Isaac, and prevent him from being harmed, he was able to complete his hacking and open the door that was near them, though once it was open the two of them rushed through it and watched as it slammed shut behind them... but they kept moving, as there was no telling how long the door was going to last before something smashed it's way through it and let the Necromorphs into the area. That luck then turned sideways as they followed the path downwards and soon found an armed group of soldiers standing in their way, though they were at a distance where it was the surrender procedure, meaning they were going to try and force the duo to surrender before killing them, or just kill them anyway. Isaac noticed a bathroom off to their right and immediately ran towards it as the security personal asked that they surrender, though as Chrysalis followed him she noticed a grenade being thrown through the air and used a small barrier behind her to protect them from damage... while at the same time the door locked behind them, meaning the only way forward was for them to walk through the door at the end of the room and access the engineer's vent that they discovered.

That vent allowed them to access a new room that had some stairs heading upwards, though as they walked Chrysalis found it funny that none of the security personal realized that they had entered the bathroom and that they were now above the area that they were all gathered in. As they came to the control room for this part of the area Chrysalis looked out over the entrance and thought about what was going to happen next, though as she nodded Isaac tore off the cover for the power cell and pulled the cell out of it's receptacle. The consequence of that was immediate, as the lights went out and the soldiers called for the auxiliary power to be turned on, though that was followed by the sound of the large door the duo had passed through opening and the sounds of Necromorphs coming towards the open area. Sure enough some Necromorphs appeared at the end of the area that the security personal's flashlights could see, though the odd thing was that they had paused for a moment and caused the soldiers to do the same thing.

Chrysalis glared down at the line of Necromorphs as her mother stepped forward, the undead parting as if she was now their ruler, before she grinned at the soldiers that seemed to be shocked by what they were seeing, though whether that was because of the Necromorphs, Queen Crudelis, or both Chrysalis had no idea.

"Go ahead, my pets," Crudelis said, a hint of joy to her voice, as if she loved being in command of an army again, especially one that wouldn't fight back this time around, "tear them apart!"

Isaac and Chrysalis watched as Necromorphs, consisting of every type they had seen on the Ishimura and the new ones from the Sprawl, surged towards the soldiers and started hacking them apart, while at the same time the soldiers opened fire and tried to stop the undead from killing them. Chrysalis glared down at the sight as a Hunter type enemy, this one possessing a body that was similar to a slasher with some resemblance to the Hive Mind of Aegis VII, but appeared to walk slowly and deliberately for some reason. Crudelis seemed to enjoy the Ubermorph, Chrysalis' name for the regenerating monster, around and even gave it a grin as it walked by her, meaning that she must have found the best of the bunch and brought it with her. Isaac and Chrysalis remained still for a few moments, letting the worst of the large undead force pass by the area they needed to walk through, before Crudelis started to follow after her army, though before she vanished completely she glanced right up at the duo for a moment and grinned in their direction... before following the Necromorphs into the sector.

During that period of time, where they were watching the Necromorphs, Tiedemann connected to them and informed them that they were idiots and stated to say something about the creatures reaching the Marker, before calling his soldiers to pull back to the Marker Chamber and disconnected the line.

Once the majority of the Necromorphs had gone through where the soldiers had been, and the ones that had fallen behind were bringing up the rear, Isaac and Chrysalis headed through the door they had walked through a few minutes ago, headed back down the stairs, and approached a new door that let them enter the carnage filled area that some infectors were working in. Chrysalis opened fire on the infectors immediately, preventing them from turning more of the soldiers into Necromorphs, while at the same time Isaac dismembered the slashers that were in the area, though once those foes were taken care of they headed through the ruined metal detectors and followed the blood trail. Of course there was an exploder and some swarm members in front of them, but a well placed shot eliminated all of them and allowed the duo to enter a chamber that had a number of dead bodies, which made them thankful that the infectors had been taken out already, or at least for the moment since more were likely coming their way.

When they carefully explored the area Nicole appeared before them once more, asking if Isaac even knew where he was going and got an 'I don't know' in return, where the hallucination somehow messed with his navigation unit and gave them the directions that they needed, before disappearing as quickly as she came.

The duo then headed through the only unlocked door in the area and approached another station that scanned them to be sure they were who they said they were, where the two of them picked up one of the nearby corpses and walked forward, gaining the access they needed to progress onward. They headed through the door and entered the labs that were in front of them, though as Chrysalis stared at the pair of tubes that were in front of them, which contained spirals that resembled the Marker, Isaac found an audio log that spoke of one of Patient Four's sessions and the information that was gleamed from his mind. The last part of that was that they planned on growing the Marker from some mineral baths, though both Isaac and Chrysalis knew that if one had been made in such a manner, successfully, more would be made in due time until the outbreak happened all across the area of space that humanity controlled. When the log was over the duo headed into the area in front of them and used the right passage for a moment, though they came to a dead end and were attacked by a slasher and a puker... which stood no chance against the duo, who dismembered them before heading down the other path and using that doorway to enter a lab room of some kind.

The first thing they did was target and destroy the infector that was racing towards a nearby corpse, before they separated from each other and started firing at the slashers, pukers, and exploders that were coming at them in groups, which made perfect sense considering the amount of Necromorphs they saw earlier. With the two of them each taking a side of the room, and focusing on that side for a few moments, Isaac and Chrysalis were able to clear the room of enemies and headed through the door that was off to the right of the one they used to enter the room. That, of course, allowed them to walk down a ramp that had some blood on it and enter a new chamber, one that had a supply room that Isaac used a Power Node to access and salvaged everything he could find, including the gold and ruby semiconductors that happened to be in there. With those in hand, and he didn't bother stopping at the Bench to upgrade anything, the two of them turned around and had to dismember a divider that dropped into the room, along with the fragments that split off from the creature when they dealt enough damage to it.

With another gold semiconductor, dropped from the divider, in their possession the duo moved through the door that was nearby and headed to the next chamber, though along the way they noticed that the organic growth was spreading faster than it had when they were on the Ishimura, as it was already starting to grow in the Government Sector.

Of course as they entered the next chamber they heard the sounds of stalkers in the area, and confirmed when one ran for cover, to which both Isaac and Chrysalis remained on their guard as they pressed onward, where they opened fire on the stalkers that dared to show their faces and made sure to focus down the ones that charged at them. Along the way Chrysalis spotted a power cell hanging in the air above them and grabbed onto it with her magic, liberating it from it's container as she and Isaac made their way to the other side of the room they were in. They also found an audio log that revealed that the Marker signal carried both the blueprints to create more Markers and dementia, as it was the people the signal affected that were different, telling Chrysalis that the smarter people, like Isaac, received the blueprints while people like Stross eventually went insane. At least that was what the audio log made it seem like, though she knew that Equestrians couldn't be immune to the Marker since she was affected by the signal to some degree, but she said nothing about that as she and Isaac replaced the shorted out power cell with the new one she had grabbed earlier.

As they walked into the passage that the power cell unlocked, and started walking down the ramp, both Isaac and Chrysalis felt the Marker's influence again, only this time it was even stronger than before, meaning that they had to be getting closer to their target.

That was followed by them entering the Reconstruction Room, where they found a circular chamber with beams firing at something in the middle of the room, something that looked like a Marker that was halfway built, meaning that Isaac's Marker had been completed and more were in the process of being made, which wasn't a good sign. From there things got tricky, as they had to first fight off Necromorphs that were coming towards the room they were in, with their enemies consisting of a leaper and a group of crawlers, before they used a Stasis blast to slow the the machinery so they could access the next room. After that it was a matter of repeating the motions a few more times, where each time they moved around the circle of rooms they had to deal with the undead that had been resting there before pausing for the lasers to move so they could use a Stasis charge on them, where the motion repeated once more. When they did that the fourth time they found a lift that allowed them to ride to the level above the area that the lasers were in, though when they arrived on the upper level Isaac moved forward and turned the laser system off... allowing him and Chrysalis to pulled down sections of a walkway after the incomplete Marker was covered by a cylinder.

On the other side of the room they were assaulted by two slashers, which easily fell to their bullets, before they moved through the door and headed down the ramp that was on the other side, which brought them to a ruined monitoring area of some kind... but with the store destroyed, and not much else to do, the duo continued the path they had been following and entered the Thermal Conduit area.

Isaac and Chrysalis were then forced to take up positions on one side of the large walkway they had discovered, as Necromorphs of all types came running from both directions and having someone watching over each side made it possible for them to prevent themselves from being overrun. It took them a minute or two to finish off those enemies before they were allowed to use the nearby door and access the ramp down to the next floor, though as they did that Isaac dismembered the slasher and puker that dropped down in front of them. When they reached the second floor it was the same routine as the first one, two duo separated so they could cover both sides of the floor and opened fire on all the Necromorphs that started rushing them, before the way was clear and they were allowed to access a ramp that took them to the lowest floor in this area. As they walked out into the open, and headed over towards the large circular door, Isaac found an audio log revealing that the person who had been working on the code necessary to make more Markers had succeeded in making a small miniature one... and that was likely when they started building whatever Marker that Isaac had helped them create.

When they approached the door, however, a blackened and empowered brute jumped down into the area and roared at them, just like the ordinary brutes would do, but neither of them were intimidated by that, especially when the Stasis canisters that were laying around were strong enough to freeze the creature long enough for Isaac and Chrysalis to dismember both of it's arms and kill it... allowing Isaac to hack into the panel behind them while Chrysalis covered his rear, in case more foes showed up.

A few moments later, when Isaac finished hacking into the panel, he opened the circular door in front of them and they headed into the tunnel that brought them to a second circular door, which they expected since these types of doors were never built with one in an single place. From there they walked out onto a walkway that was open and had no railings between the building they had just come from and the one that they happened to be heading towards, which meant that they had to be careful as they crossed the gap. While they did that both of them noticed that there were more than one walkway like their's in the area, where they actually paused for a few seconds and watched some Necromorphs shuffle over the walkway that they were on, heading into the same building that Isaac and Chrysalis happened to be heading to, where the duo realized that maybe allowing the Necromorphs a straight path into the sector had been a bad idea... to which they sighed and walked through the door that was in front of them.

The walkway brought them to a room where they sold off what they didn't need at the store, purchased what they might need, and upgrade their weapons or RIGs with some Power Nodes if they wanted, before they accessed the elevator and rode it to their destination... though when it arrived, and they stepped out of the elevator, both Isaac and Chrysalis disengaged their helmets as they approached the glass in front of them, where they stared up at the massive Marker that was already pulsing with energy.

"Oh my god." Chrysalis said, as she had seen the size of the Red Marker of Aegis VII, and realized that the copies of the Black Marker had to have been the same size as the original Marker, but this was something different and seemed to be even stronger than the Aegis VII Marker, "Isaac... you helped build this?!"

"I... I guess so." Isaac replied, as he was having trouble accepting that he could have helped anyone build something on this scale, as this Marker was massive, before he glanced down into the area below them, at the base of the Titan Marker, and stared at all the Necromorphs that seemed to be worshiping the Marker, "Wh... what are they doing?"

"They're all coming to the Marker," the duo heard Nicole tell them, though this time around she didn't bother to make an appearance, as her voice alone seemed to be enough for the two of them, "Convergence is at hand..."

"Clarke!" a voice said, to which Tiedemann appeared on a video link, looking as pissed off as they had seen him earlier, which he called them idiots, though they stared at him and he continued speaking, "I knew that you, and your damned friend, were nothing but trouble from the start. But they told me that you, Clarke, were necessary. That your mind was the purest. I spent three years sifting through your demented brain, while your companion denied me at every turn. This wasn't the way this was supposed to happen!"

"Oh really?" Chrysalis asked, as she was getting rather annoyed with Tiedemann and hoped that something got rid of him soon enough, though whether that was her and Isaac or a Necromorph she didn't care, so long as he met his end she would be happy, "Then tell us, Tiedemann, how was this 'supposed to happen'?"

"We had it under control!" Tiedemann shouted, as if shouting would make things better for him and for everyone else that was still alive, if anyone else had actually survived the Necromorphs sweeping into this sector, "Clarke, Chrysalis, this isn't our fault! We were so close to understanding it!"

That was immediately followed by the Marker's energy surging to life as the air around it shifted all of a sudden, while at the same time the Necromorphs started to slowly fly into the air and started to gather at a single point, though based on what they were just told Isaac and Chrysalis knew what was coming... Convergence.

"What? It's all those bodies!" Tiedemann said, though this time his tone shifted to one of horror, as if he knew something that neither of them knew, but at the moment Chrysalis honestly didn't care what the director knew because she figured he'd never tell them everything, "All those bodies that you two let in here! It's triggered a Convergence event! But, we never... expected... this many bodies..."

As Tiedemann was cut off Nicole appeared once more and pulled Isaac towards the room that was off on their right, drawing him away from the scene that was playing before their eyes, and Chrysalis followed since she didn't like the sight of what was happening at the moment. When they entered the next room, however, Chrysalis' eyes widened as she gazed upon the NoonTech Diagnostic Machine, the very one Foster had tried to force her to use and had been unable to do so thanks to Wildfire manipulating the world around her. It was then that she understood the 'Steps' that Stross had been telling them about the entire time he had been alive, they were really the instructions on how to use the machine to gain the knowledge that the Marker implanted in their minds, meaning that Isaac literally possessed the key to destroying the Titan Marker inside his brain.

Even as she made the connection to the machine, and stared at it for a few seconds, Isaac seemed to recognize it as well, as he tapped a command and part of it retracted, though while all this happened he stared at the device as Nicole appeared near him.

"I remember this machine." Isaac stated, confirming Chrysalis' suspicions on the manner, though at the same time she walked over to the window and stared out at the bodies that were flying towards the top of the massive Marker, "This machine activates the parts of our brain where the Marker codes are stored. But how does that threaten the Marker? What could they be afraid of?"

"Me. Us. Working together." Nicole replied, as if it was the simplest answer in the world, and yet for some reason Chrysalis realized something about what she had said earlier, about Isaac being ready to finish this.

"Step Four." Isaac said, knowing exactly what the hallucination of Nicole was talking about, before he chuckled for a few seconds, as he recalled what Stross had done to Ellie and knew what he had to do next, "This is going to hurt."

Chrysalis turned away from the window for a moment and watched as Isaac climbed into the machine, where he laid down and the machine came to life, where it stated that Step One was Isaac crawling inside the machine, while Step Two was the screws go tight all around. It was at that point that Chrysalis looked away from the machine as it started the needle up and heard Isaac's moans a few moments later, when the needle reached it's destination and did what it was supposed to do. She then stood beside the machine as Isaac was allowed out, gently helping him back onto his feet as he stared at the area that was in front of the doorway to their left, where only he could see Nicole she guessed, before he was able to stand alone and he reengaged his helmet, which she did a few seconds later. That was followed by the auxiliary power coming online and powering the terminal next to the door, though as Isaac walked over to it Chrysalis heard the sounds of the Ubermorph and turned towards the vent on the other side of the room, which was where the creature came from and stared at them.

As Isaac hacked into the terminal Chrysalis opened fire on the Ubermorph and dismembered it's arms and legs, as she recalled that the Hunter had that type of weakness and needed a few seconds to regenerate it's missing limbs, though as it hit the ground she hurled a Stasis canister at it and slowed it down... giving Isaac the time to finish hacking into the terminal, before the two of them headed through the now unlocked door and left the Ubermorph behind.

The duo followed the path that was behind the door and turned the corner, finding an audio log that revealed that Tiedemann had launched an illegal evacuation when they were breached, no doubt to save what he could, but they paid little attention to it as they continued along the hallway and walked through another door. The short passage in front of them allowed the duo another glimpse of the massive Marker and what it was doing, before they entered a room with a slasher and the Ubermorph. As such the duo opened fire on their targets and made sure to use a Stasis charge on the true threat, though once that was done Isaac grabbed a nearby corpse and used it to bypass the security scan that was in front of them, allowing them to get further away from the Ubermorph. As they headed down the ramp that was in front of them they noticed that pukers were now coming in behind them and were firing their spit at the two of them, intending to slow them down so the larger Necromorph could get them, but Isaac and Chrysalis grabbed onto the projectiles with their Kinesis Module and magic respectively and hurled them back towards their owners.

After that they eventually reached what appeared to be a dead end, though since there happened to be a path on the right side of the hallway they decided to backtrack and found the Ubermorph waiting for them, but that was exactly what Chrysalis was hoping would happen. She and Isaac pulled the Necromorph away from the hallway they wanted to go down and dismembered it, though after they used a Stasis charge on it they headed down the path they had opened up, but that also required they take out three slashers and a swarm before they could reach the elevator that would take them down into the depths of the area they were in. The room the elevator brought them to had a panel they had to remove so they could smash a power tube that was locking the door, though as they did that the two of them discovered two infectors creating more Necromorphs, to which they headed inside the room and dismembered the creatures that were waiting for them before they could be hurt.

As they entered the room that the infectors had been in, and tried to relax for a few seconds, they heard a familiar growl and turned around, where they noticed the Ubermorph, with all it's limbs intact, started walking towards them, to which they quickly removed it's arms and legs again, before loosing another Stasis blast on it and headed through the circular door in front of them.

Fortune turned in their favor as they discovered a terminal that allowed them to turn off the gravity in this chamber, where they did so and kicked off the ground before flying through the air and left the Ubermorph in their dust, even though both of them knew that it would find them again soon enough. As they flew through the area they had to avoid the machines that were still working, and the ones that happened to be firing electricity at the other side of the wall from where they were resting, while at the same time taking out one of the nests that happened to be built in the area. Behind the nest rested the other terminal that controlled the gravity in the area, where they carefully landed near it, turned the gravity back on, and headed through the circular door in front of them, where Isaac suffered a bout of Marker influence for a few seconds before he calmed down.

When Isaac recovered from his episode, and Chrysalis once more wondered why she wasn't getting them anymore, the two of them headed through the door in front of them and turned down the path on their left, where they had to pass through yet another door and forced them to walk down the hallway until they arrived at an area that had a store and a Bench for them to use.

Isaac and Chrysalis ignored the two machines, since they were already well prepared for what was ahead of them, and continued through the door that was at the end of the walkway, though as they approached it Nicole informed the two of them that Convergence was almost there and that they were supposed to met her at the base of the Marker. On the other side of the door they found that the path forward meant that they had to go through some of the lower areas that surrounded the base of the Marker and that the Necromorphs definitely didn't want them to be here. Isaac and Chrysalis opened fire on the undead creatures that were blocking their path and continued moving forward at the same time, where they ran into the Ubermorph once more. Chrysalis dismembered it immediately, allowing Isaac to Stasis it seconds later before they continued onward, where they opened fire on the other Necromorphs that were trying to stop them and blew them to pieces as they entered the building in front of them.

Of course as they entered the structure some slashers burst through the vents and tried to attack them like usual, but as that happened Chrysalis realized that they were trying to slow them down so the Ubermorph could kill them, so they mowed their way through their foes and headed out of the structure they were in.

From there they continued onward, where they fired at the Necromorphs that were trying to attack them and made sure to stall the Ubermorph when it appeared behind them again, before fleeing into the interior of the next structure that was along the path they were following. That contained another group of slashers that wanted to stall them, which they removed from existence while using Stasis on the foe that was constantly following them, and headed up the stairs that allowed them to leave the structure. From there they made their way to the next doorway and entered a chamber that contained a cargo lift, one that allowed them to head to the level above them, though as they rode it up to the next level Isaac found a text log from Tiedemann that detailed his decisions to do all of this, as he claimed that they needed the Markers to survive, though the duo still called him insane. When the lift came to a stop they turned towards the left and headed towards the door that was in front of them, where they already knew that their new foe was hunting for them and was waiting to ambush them.

As they walked through the door the Ubermorph dropped down into the area in front of them, where the duo opened fire on it and dismembered all of it's limbs before using another Stasis charge on it, to which they headed towards the door with a power tube blocking the way and smashed what was keeping the door sealed. Fortunately that opened the way for them to move forward and they had to smash another tube on the other side of the path, which opened another door that revealed a walkway that was opposite of the one that the lift was near. As they walked out they heard the familiar sound that they were growing annoyed with and turned towards the closed door for a few seconds, though as they opened it again they found their foe standing in the area, to which they dismembered it and used another Stasic charge on it, before heading through the door on their right and moved out into the area in front of them... which happened to be exactly where the route to the Marker's base was located, though they did nothing as the door closed behind them and seemed to trap the Ubermorph at last.

"Chrysalis, are you ready for this?" Isaac asked, because while he could see the light of Nicole off in the distance he could also see a dark creature standing next to her, one that he hated with a passion.

"No... I'll never be ready to face her," Chrysalis replied, as she knew that if she hadn't been tortured during her younger years she might have been able to do so, but with the power her mother commanded over her she had to test her luck and push forward, "Come on, let's do this."

Isaac nodded and stepped forward with Chrysalis by his side, as he was sure that the two of them would be able to overcome whatever final test this Marker sent their way before they eventually destroyed it... and he was confident that he could help Chrysalis finally put her demons to rest after a thousand years.