This level of the cellblock looked about as appealing as the previous one.
He came to the bottom of the stairs, his stance defensive, ready for anything. What he found was more of the same: freshly spilled blood, broken bodies, sparking machinery. Utter chaos. Only this time he found a man inside a cell who wasn't either dead or dying.
"Hey! Over here, bruv!" he called, sticking an arm out between the bars and gesturing urgently. Jacob jogged over, his mind still settling into place, (he was sure that it wouldn't fully settle as long as he was in this kind of environment, which was not a bad thing). "Yo, what the fuck is going on!?" the inmate demanded as soon as Jacob was closer.
"I have no goddamned clue!" Jacob replied, then coughed a few times and took a quick look around, paranoid suddenly that this might be some kind of a trap. Maybe there was another inmate or, shit, even a crazed guard somewhere nearby, using this guy as bait, even if he didn't realize it.
But they remained alone, the shadows held nothing. For now.
"My fucking ship crashed," he continued, "I got captured, put through fucking wringer, and thrown in here! I literally just woke up in my cell two minutes ago!"
"Aw shit," the man replied, for a moment losing his focus and looking past Jacob anxiously. Almost as quickly, his resolve returned and he looked Jacob squarely in the eye. "Okay look man, I've been in this place half my goddamn life. You're the pilot they fished out of the snow and brought in, yeah?"
"Yeah, I'm a pilot," Jacob grunted.
Like that fucking mattered anymore. His ship was gone, his best friend was dead, his life was–
"Don't get lost, bruv!" the man said urgently. "Look, I can get us out of here. I know this place like the back of my hand. I've been working on a plan to get out for years now." He spoke quickly, concisely. Jacob felt a bolt of fear shoot through him as the man reached behind himself suddenly. His hand came back with a wrench, the end of which had been sharpened to a fine point. "You help me, I help you, yeah?" he asked, offering the shiv through the bars to Jacob.
He studied it for just a moment, then studied the man in question. He had a head of short, dark hair that was staring to go gray in some places. He was a few inches shorter than Jacob and a lot leaner, his body hard and trim beneath his jumpsuit. His skin was dark brown and scarred in several places. His accent put him as growing up in one of the British colonies. Not Earth though, he had that spaceborn aura that people born on stations or moons seemed to have, some indefinable thing that they couldn't seem to shake.
By his own admission, he'd been in the hardest prison in the solar system for half his life, and it seemed like it had been a long life. Could he trust this guy? Did it matter? Jacob didn't know jack from shit in this place. Did he really have a choice?
He took the shiv. "Okay," he said.
"You can use this to get inside the control room in the tower there," the man replied, releasing it reluctantly. "But don't lose it, might save your life."
"Got it," he replied, studying the shiv for a moment. It was a good, solid tool. He wasn't happy about the fact that he knew for sure he could, and would, kill a man easily with it. "What's the actual plan?"
"I can get us a ship but it'll take a bit to explain and this place is falling apart," he replied. "For now, go over to that gate right there," he said, pointing to his left. Jacob turned and looked, spying a metal dividing wall that cut off access from this part of the cellblock to the next just across the from the base of the stairwell he'd traversed. "Get through it, and then immediately to the right is a walkway to the control tower. It's open, I been looking at it for a fucking hour now. Get in the tower, find the control panel, open my cell. Then we can meet up and get the fuck outta this place."
"Check," Jacob replied. "Be right back."
"Name's Elias, by the way," the inmate called after him.
"Jacob," he replied, jogging over to a junction box on the wall beside the divider.
He could hear one of those robots nearby, stuttering brokenly, and prayed it remained that way. He did not want to deal with one of them, they looked horrifying, and that was based on their sheer strength alone. God knew what other nightmares they had tucked up their metal sleeves. He got to the junction box, studied it for a few seconds, then jammed the tip of the shiv into it and cracked it open. The box's face fell forward, revealing a strip of technology, a flat, inch-wide pale gray ribbon.
He'd seen these before and knew exactly what to do. Grasping the ribbon, he slit it easily with the shiv. It came apart in a brief spat of sparks, then the door in the divider popped open halfway. Perfect. He took a moment to fit the shiv into his left sleeve, grinning when he found that it had actually been designed for it.
It was the little things in life.
Once he was sure it wasn't going to fall out of his sleeve and it was hooked appropriately into place in the fabric, he walked up to the divider door and tried opening it farther. It gave another inch or so, then stopped entirely. Jacob sighed, then plunged on. It was wide enough to admit him. Probably. He turned sideways and began shoving his way through, all the while his mind screaming at him that this thing could slam shut with enough force to crush his ribcage to pieces and embed all manner of bone fragments into his heart and lungs.
He was halfway through when he felt the door suddenly twitch, closing a fraction of an inch.
"Oh fuck me," he whispered, hurrying the rest of the way through.
Jacob felt it begin to go as he finished getting through and as he yanked his right arm through it, the thing clanged closed with a horrifying sound.
"Too close," he muttered, and then headed onto the catwalk.
It did not inspire confidence.
It was indeed open and could be walked across, but it had seen some serious damage. A collection of trash was burning about halfway down its length and a few of its segments were badly dented and looked like they might collapse into the shadowed depths if walked on.
"Don't think about it," Jacob said quietly to himself as he pressed on.
He'd had to do stuff like this a million times already and, while he had some scars and nightmares, he was still basically intact. Risking his life had become worryingly common over the past few decades, but it had at least helped him build up something of an immunity to the terror doing such a thing provoked.
Getting up to the most twisted of the panels, he cautiously put his foot on it and applied some weight. It groaned and shuddered, just a little, but otherwise held. He pretty much hopped across it and then kept going until he reached the tower side of the catwalk. Amidst all the smoke and his own sweat, he suddenly caught a strong whiff of freshly spilled blood and bowels. Wrinkling his nose up, he looked around and spied another corpse.
This time it was a young pale man in a guard's uniform. He had the jarhead haircut and wide eyes full of the vacancy only death brought on.
Both of his arms had been ripped off just above the elbow. A little bit of blood still leaked out of the mess of raw meat.
"Jesus," Jacob whispered. Something caught his eye and he looked up. Back in the cellblock, he saw one man running from another, both prisoners. The first one tripped and the second leaped onto him and began smashing him with his fists, screaming in maddened rage. Something about the scene disturbed Jacob on a deep, primal level.
It wasn't so much what was happening as it was the disposition of the attacker. He didn't seem human, he seemed closer to an animal. And while Jacob had personally seen motherfuckers go feral before, attacking other humans like the cavemen of old, bare fists and face splashed with blood, this wasn't that.
This looked like something else. Something worse.
Jacob shook his head, realizing he was getting lost. That was good advice: don't get lost. If he didn't kept his eye on the prize, he was going to wind up as dead as this poor bastard at his feet. He moved on, going around the curved section of walkway that terminated in a heavy, closed door. He studied it for a moment. It was the kind that split down the middle and he knew from experience you could override those with enough muscle, provided you could get about an inch opened to get a grasp on.
There was another junction box to the left. Grabbing his shiv again, he pried it open and cut the ribbon. The door popped open, though only a little. Immediately he became aware of voices inside, people arguing about something. Someone begging. Someone coughing. The scene quickly resolved into something obvious as he peered inside through the gap. A man in a prison jumpsuit was mercilessly beating a man in a guard's uniform with a what looked like a heavy crowbar. Beside the two men Jacob spied a third, another prisoner, sitting against the wall, groaning, injured or sick.
Well, this was great. Maybe he could let the situation resolve itself, or maybe he could cut a deal with the asshole with the crowbar, live and let live, or–
The door suddenly snapped open all the way and a previously hidden fourth man, another bulky inmate with a shaved head and a cruel smile, struck. He smashed his fist down onto Jacob's wrist, causing the shiv to go flying from his grasp.
"Got another one!" he snarled, grasping Jacob and yanking him into the room.
Or maybe he'd have to kill them.
The next few seconds passed in a blur.
The man with the cruel smile hurled him around and slammed him into a nearby wall. Jacob grunted as the bastard landed a punch to his face, and then his instincts really kicked in. He dodged the next punch, and the one after that. The inmate immediately lost his smile and became enraged, grasping Jacob by the collar of his jumpsuit.
Jacob smashed his fists down on the guy's wrists, then headbutted him. Something cracked, likely his nose, and he stumbled away, cursing. Right then, the original inmate with the crowbar came at him, screaming as he raised the weapon and prepared to crack Jacob's skull open with it. Dodging, he managed to get his hands on the big weapon and rip it free of the inmate's grasp while at the same time twisting away and using his momentum to put the inmate into his own previous position while gaining some distance in the opposite direction.
He swung the crowbar directly into the man's chest. He screamed in pain as he was sent stumbling back into the wall. Right into a damaged piece of tech mounted there. It was big enough and damaged enough that when he hit it, it broke further and immediately began electrocuting the poor bastard. Jacob barely managed to dodge as the cruel man came back at him again, blood leaking from his ruined nose, smearing across his face as he attacked.
Jacob cracked him across the face with the crowbar, sending him stumbling towards a big gap in the wall. In a flash, a plan formed. He could see that the gap let onto a deep drop. He had no idea why it was there and didn't give a single shit.
"Stop!" the inmate cried as he realized how close he was to falling off.
Jacob raised the tail end of the crowbar and tried to bring down on his face. The man threw his hands up in front of it and the crowbar's pointed end punched through, but got caught up on the bone and muscle.
"Stop, please!" he screamed, pushing the crowbar back with a surprising strength.
Jacob struggled to keep pushing, for a moment locked into a simple struggle of muscle, and then he switched gears. Giving that up, he yanked the crowbar back, making the man scream, then punched him twice in the stomach and shoved him bodily into the gap. The man screamed as he plummeted into the deep drop.
"Sorry man," Jacob panted, catching his breath, "it was you or me. And it wasn't gonna be me."
Having to say those words again was like tasting a bitter, old drug that you'd swore you kicked the habit of years ago.
Something was happening behind him.
Turning around as he heard someone gurgling horribly, he found something he was not at all ready to see awaiting him.
The guard was back on his feet. He had the inmate who had been sitting on the floor in his hands now, one arm wrapped around his neck, the other pounding him relentlessly. Something snapped. Something tore. The inmate screamed. Jacob watched with abject horror as the guard tore the inmate's head off.
With his bare hands.
He threw it aside in a torrential spray of blood where it smacked into a nearby wall and bounced off, hitting the floor and rolling a few feet before coming to a halt. The guard continued pummeling the corpse for several long, worrying seconds. Jacob wanted nothing more than to flee. Something really bad was happening, something that made no sense. Something that should be impossible. He'd seen people do some really crazy shit before, but nothing like manual decapitation.
The guard abruptly dropped the corpse and turned to look at Jacob.
Immediately he could tell that something had gone deeply, deeply wrong with the man. He no longer fully resembled a human. His head had begun to bulge in random areas and his eyes had a strange film across them. His mouth was smeared with blood. His skin had an odd texture to it, covered in what looked like boils or bad wounds.
He issued a roar and charged right for Jacob.
Instinct finally reasserted itself and he did the most immediately obvious thing: he took a step to the side.
The mutated guard couldn't stop in time and followed the first inmate down into the hole, roaring and gibbering manically all the way down.
It became quiet in the room after that, save for the call of alarms in the distance. Jacob stood there, thunderstruck, looking at the chaos, not quite seeing it. Some part of him still maintained some measure of control and he found himself checking to make sure he was actually safe. The guy without a head sure wasn't going to cause any problems. He looked over at the first inmate he'd disposed of, just in case, but no, he was completely fried, dead on arrival.
No one stood at the door, and it was the only way in as far as he could tell.
Slowly, he looked around some more. The room was a mess, half bathed in shadow. His eyes eventually came to rest on the disembodied head on the floor.
"Jesus, this is a lot," Jacob muttered.
He finally shook his head and forced himself to come back to reality. Whatever it was that had been, whatever was wrong with that guard...he had to get the cell open. Maybe Elias would know what in the name of God was happening here.
Jacob hurried over to the bank of consoles and monitors across the room. There was a big window looking back onto the cellblock and he could actually see Elias back across the way, waiting at his cell door to be let out. He made himself focus on the controls. At a glance the big workstation looked intimidatingly complex, but it became obvious pretty quickly how to work it. He found Elias's cell and hit the open button.
Across the way, the door opened up and Elias slipped out. Jacob began to leave, then hesitated, looking at the other cells. Most were closed. Some had people in them. He started to open more, but then hesitated. He thought of the guard, then of the inmates he'd passed in getting here, coughing their guts out.
Was there some kind of sickness? Fuck, if there was, it was fast-acting. He felt jittery and overheated and his fucking head and the back of his neck hurt like hell, but he didn't feel sick. What did it feel like?
Ultimately, he walked back out of the control room, pausing to stoop down and snatch up the crowbar. It would make for an excellent weapon. And judging by his interactions with the locals so far, he clearly was going to need it. He also made sure to retrieve his shiv.
It took barely twenty seconds to meet Elias back at the gate that had nearly crushed him. Now it separated them.
"I can't get it open," Elias said as he approached. "We're going to–"
"Wait," Jacob cut in, looking around anxiously, "just hold up. What the fuck is going on in this prison?"
"What do you mean?" Elias replied.
"Back there, in that control room, I saw something. One of the guards, it-he...he didn't seem human."
Elias stared at him blankly, then a look of sudden understanding seemed to dawn on his face. "Look man, the place can mess with you, all right, and–"
"I wasn't hallucinating! I know what I saw!" Jacob snapped.
Elias looked at once both frustrated and worried. He shook his head. "Okay look, bruv, whatever you saw, whatever it was, that's all the more reason to get the fuck outta here. We gotta stay focused man, that's the only way we're gonna escape. I need you on this, Jacob. And you need me. Neither of us can get out of here without the other, so I need you to pay attention."
That reached through the malaise of disbelieving panic that was beginning to settle over Jacob like a wet blanket that reeked of smoke and blood. He had always been a practical man, always been able to cut through the bullshit to what needed to be done and do it. It was why he was still alive. This place was seriously fucking with him, though. He felt off in a way that worried him. It didn't really feel like any kind of state of being he'd had to deal with before.
"Okay, you're right," he made himself say, "what's next?"
"We need to meet at that watchtower," Elias replied, nodding to it.
"How?" Jacob asked.
"Behind you a little ways is an elevator. It'll take you up and you should be able to get into it from there. We need to meet at the top. That's where the controls are. But listen, we gotta keep moving, okay?"
"Understood, I'll meet you there," Jacob replied.
"Good. I'll be in touch," Elias said, then turned and jogged away.
Jacob looked around for a moment, then sighed in frustration and set off deeper into the cellblock.