I could no longer felt the faint smell of air on a sunny summer day as we were right in front of the opened access to the fourth area. Somehow it also felt a little bit colder once we had just entered it, to which I quickly found out the possible reason.
Unlike the previous three areas, the fourth one did not have a decent lighting, thus forcing the three of us to proceed slowly in order not to bump into something or worse, to trip and fall to the floor. Just as we had taken few steps away from the opened access, I heard some voices in the distance. I could not pinpoint for sure where the voices came from since it was quite dark, however I was positive that they originated from inside the same area.
Then, as we were about to continue walking, several things suddenly got turned on. They were the very similar hologram screens that we had seen before from inside the second area, but the difference was, instead of showing the similar rows unfamiliar alphabetical characters, they seemed to be showing some sort of video footages.
There were exactly four screens there, with each showing different videos. The first and second screens were lined up perhaps several feet away from the opened access. The third and the fourth screen apparently were also placed in a similar manner like the first and the second screens from the next opened access.
The unusual thing was, between the second and the third screen, there seemed to be some sort of a tall octagonal tube structure standing straight there, containing something that looked like a huge living organism, although I supposed that I had to be closer in order to determine what it was since I was still just beside the first screen. The octagonal tube structure itself seemed to be around sixteen feet in height, with perhaps the width of around seven to eight feet.
"I hate to say it, but we do need to move closer…" Captain Quentin whispered.
I did not respond his words by saying something, but that also did not mean that I did not agree with him. As we proceeded to walk again, the two screens near us continued to show various video footages which apparently was recorded through the aliens' aircrafts, as I noticed that they showed what seemed to be their recordings in the destroying and obliterating of many parts of the town during the first night. Nothing really put me to the point of shock, until the second screen showed the video footage of Jonathan.
It was the recording of him shooting down a couple of the T-shaped aircrafts during the night where we lured countless of the aliens inside the concrete jungle filled with booby traps. Just then, I also remembered that we did indeed not take down most of the aircrafts that were rushing towards the buildings back then. It just had not occurred to me that the aliens had in fact made a recording of their battles.
Very shortly after, the first screen also showed the video footage of Jonathan, but it was a completely different one. It showed the recordings of Jonathan, Captain Quentin, and me inside the narwhal aircraft when we were hiding behind the pillars inside it and attempting to approach its cockpit. The video was apparently taken from the ceilings near the stairs to the cockpit, and yet again the video seemed to be focusing on Jonathan, especially whenever he was aiming his rifle towards the aliens.
With that in mind, I was expecting if the next video on either of the screens would show Ryan, Kyle, and me next snooping around inside the narwhal aircraft during the morning. However, pretty much to my surprise, it showed back few of previous footages that had been played earlier.
There were still two other screens on the other side of the octagonal tube structure, and so I assumed that the expected footage might be shown there instead. It also made me wonder, if Jonathan had also at least somehow guessed that he was being recorded inside, and thus that made him decided to just guard the three of us from outside back then, instead of also joining us inside for the second time.
"So, it appears that each of us have bounties on our heads, huh…" Captain Quentin said, whisperingly.
"Three of us, yes. But we still have yet to determine about the rest of the others too…" I responded to him.
We then decided to first approach the octagonal tube structure in order to find out what was inside it, just to hear several faint footsteps approaching our way all of a sudden. As the remaining time seemed to be very slim for us to hide before we would get caught, I forced both Captain Quentin and Kyle to hide behind at what seemed to be a curved wall right behind us, and to try to not moving at all.
At first, there seemed to be nothing at all but the same faint footsteps. However, shortly after that, four tall figures appeared. All of them had the very same appearances, with the height of roughly a bit above seven feet, and somehow I believed the most proportional build for the aliens that I had seen thus far. Unfortunately, those were the only things that I could notice immediately since it was rather difficult to determine their other physical traits in more details with such a poor lighting. If I were to assume, perhaps they were the aliens that specializes in non-combatant maintenance activities.
The aliens then approached the octagonal tube and started to speak to each other in a language that obviously none among the three of us understood with low voices. They talked for a while, before they began to stare at the large thing that was stored inside the tube. Things around the three of us began to become tense, as the aliens did not seem to show any signs of stopping their stares and moved somewhere else.
"Great… how long are they going to take…" Kyle said, obviously with a strong sign of annoyed in her voice.
"Travis?" Captain Quentin asked me, giving a sign that he needed my suggestion about what to do next.
Still, I could not think of anything that would at least help us get away from the wall, or to not expose ourselves to the aliens if we were to force ourselves to get out from the area. Instead, the aliens even seemed to have their feet completely locked right in front of the tube, making me wonder on what could possibly steal their attentions like that.
Then, suddenly the area experienced a blackout. All of the screens there had suddenly gone off, except for the octagonal tube which seemed to be radiating a transparent purple glow instead. It was also at that moment that the aliens no longer stared at the tube and began to rush towards the previous area, perhaps to take some of their weapons. I then signaled both Captain Quentin and Kyle to follow right behind them just as they had rushed passed us.
Once we caught up to the aliens, we realized that they were just about to take some of the charged beam rifles with them when they also came to notice our presence. Captain Quentin quickly shot two of the beam rifles that were already held by the aliens, and exploding them, while I also shot the other two of them.
Our actions resulted in the almost instant deaths of the aliens, except for one, that somehow still managed to be able to rush towards another opened access despite its body had completely been engulfed in raging flame. Kyle then proceeded to shot three rounds towards its head, taking it down for good.
As that last alien had been taken down, I just realized that it was attempting to escape through the other opened access which was connected to the large spiral staircase. Apparently that opened access was the one that we did not take earlier as it was considerably much further from where we were back when we had just arrived at the second floor.
"This blackout… it is Jon's work…" I muttered as I looked at the burning lifeless alien body.
"You bet… but now we are going to have to expect that this mothership will float a little more violently." Captain Quentin responded.
"Because by losing the whole power, the gravity balancer will also not be functioning?" Kyle asked, making sure.
"Exactly…" I responded to her, as I nodded.
We then rushed back to the fourth area, to see what the aliens had been staring at for a considerably quite long time. Just as both Captain Quentin and I had expected, the mothership began to become a little bit unstable when we arrived at the access to the fourth area. I was relieved to know that it would mean the whole system of the mothership had most probably gone down, however it also came with a consequence that we could not move as swiftly inside as before. Fortunately, it did not take that long before we could see for sure what was inside the octagonal tube structure.
First of all, I was not sure if the thing inside the octagonal tube was alive or not, but if it was indeed the former, then we would be all definitely in deep trouble. I had my eyes locked at the sight of the largest and most likely the strongest variant of the aliens. It must had a height of no less than ten feet, with overall physical features very similar to the regular variants, but seemed to be with additions of armored scaly skins all around its torso up to its neck, at the very least.
Its facial features however, were significantly different compared to the regular ones. Instead of a large nostril holes on its forehead, it really had a large, wide and pointed nose. Also, even though it had the similar fin-ears, they were still much thicker compared to the regular ones'. Aside from that, it had a stronger jaw and much wider mouth, but the most important thing to note was that it had both of its arm ended with a perfect hand and with perfect five fingers, indicating that it would be able to adapt very quickly in chaotic battles. The only things that remained the same were its skin and eyes.
"Let us just hope that this blackout will be able to take it down from the inside." Captain Quentin said, as he stared at the dormant behemoth rather nervously, an expression that I had never seen before.
Apparently, Kyle was not even brave enough to glance at it, as she was looking away on quite some distance away from both Captain Quentin and I. Since there was nothing left to do there, I suggested to both of them if we were to go to the next area through the opened access right away, to which they immediately agreed.
We then proceeded through the next opened access, which turned out to be the first area all along, and with that we had actually went inside every areas on the second floor. However, just as we had started to approach the access to the corridor outside and headed back to the staircase, I suddenly heard several other footsteps coming from the direction of the corridor, and in a quick pace. The three of us immediately hid behind the wall, and as the footsteps were getting louder very quickly we pointed our firearms at the figures that burst out from the access just when they went inside the area.
"Whoa, easy…" said a very familiar light voice, which turned out to be none other than Ryan who was carrying his flashlight, standing right in front of my gunpoint.
It turned out that they were Jonathan, Ryan, and Della, who had gone back in a rush from the second basement floor of the mothership. I immediately asked him if it was them who had shut down its entire power system from the second basement floor, to which they confirmed it.
Based on how Ryan told us, the first basement floor was consisted of two main areas – the aliens' resting chambers, as well as what seemed to be their feeding chambers. They had not gone to the feeding chambers as Jonathan believed it would only result in waste of time, but they did spend a considerable amount of time inside the resting chambers since Jonathan insisted to take the rest of the aliens there when they were most vulnerable. Ryan mentioned that they had at least taken out no less than thirty aliens, by literally cutting off their air supplies.
When they had finished at the first basement floor, they continued to go down to the next lower level, only to find out that most of the whole second basement floor was basically everything needed for the gravity balancer to keep on working. There was also an unusually smaller and thinner alien there, to which they took down quickly and easily. I asked if the physical features of the smaller alien was similar to the ones that the three of us had taken down at their weapon storage area, to which he confirmed it.
Even though Ryan did not take a rough calculation on the size of the whole gravity balancer machine, he was pretty sure that it had diameter of around the length of three passenger busses, which would mean that it was roughly 110 feet in diameter. From what they had seen, the gravity balancer was shaped like a giant half dome with several layers of spinning rotor blades inside. He admitted that he could tell that much since the dome was transparent that they could see up to the third layer of the rotor blades.
The next thing they did was to figure out which lever to pull and what button to push on its control panel located at the same floor. Apparently, Jonathan originally only planned to turn off the gravity balancer. However, he accidentally shut down the whole power system right after he randomly pulled three different levers and pushed four buttons from countless others on the control panel. I nodded as a response when Ryan finished explaining, before Captain Quentin commented on their actions.
"Well it worked either way…" he said, with a satisfaction tone in his voice.
Della then asked about what we had found out on the second floor, to which both me and Kyle explained the events that had taken place from the first to the fourth area. Apparently, Jonathan picked some sort of interest at the part where we mentioned about the hologram screen in the area that housed the strongest alien as he asked for more details about it. When we had completely answered all of his questions, he revealed something that put much of a surprise to all of us.
"So that was why…" Jonathan muttered, as he seemed to have been surprised by an unexpected revelation.
Jonathan then explained, that since the very beginning where he had stepped his foot on the mothership, he had some trouble focusing his eyes due to an unusual amount of purple light. It became worse when we had reached the large staircase because he felt that the purple light there became more extreme. Both Ryan and Della also recalled that back when they were in the first basement floor, Jonathan seemed to always look away whenever they talked to him.
Apparently, the aliens were focusing to exploit Jonathan's possible weaknesses by studying their previous encounters with him. Even though Jonathan might not want to explain further than what he had told us, I could imagine if during the footage viewing the aliens might pick up something unusual on Jonathan's eyesight towards their dominant purple colored light, and therefore decided to use it against him.
With his words finally spoken, it became clear to all of us then that Jonathan did not mean to glare at Kyle earlier. He just had to look at her that way in order for him to be able to see her properly. Yet another thing revealed about Jonathan which was his eyes' sensitivity to intense purple lights.
"I… suppose I owe you an apology…" Jonathan said to Kyle, with a low voice and looked down.
���Oh… that is… okay…" Kyle responded to him, a bit nervously and perhaps also blushed a little.
Since each of us had caught with our progresses so far, I quickly straightened up the atmosphere to determine the next step that we had to take. Captain Quentin was the one who immediately responded by saying that it would be better for us to completely sabotage all of the aliens' possible remaining weapons and the rest of the equipment, which would mean that we would have to destroy all of their weapons inside the weapon storage area, as well as to break any other equipment at the remaining floors above.
The rest of us did not seem to mind his suggestion, and so we had to split up again in order to make every preparation faster. However unlike before, Captain Quentin also insisted that he was to group with Kyle and Della, while I was to group with Jonathan and Ryan. Actually, no one objected about his special request, except for Jonathan who seemed to be somehow uncomfortable about it.
"A little bit of improper timing, is not it?" Jonathan said, somewhat with an irritated tone.
"Jon, look we need the fastest persons to go to the upper levels, while the rest should just-" Captain Quentin responded to him, before his sentences was cut off by him.
"That is not why I am asking." Jonathan replied, with almost the same glare he gave to Kyle earlier.
All of a sudden, the atmosphere between them two seemed to grow tense. Somehow, Captain Quentin also immediately responded Jonathan's glare with his own intimidating expression, another thing that I had not seen before.
"Is that so…" Captain Quentin said, "I wonder what you mean by that, then…" suddenly in a whole different and intimidating tone.
"You know exactly what I meant, Gabe…" Jonathan responded, finally giving out the same glare and with a more pressured tone.
Apparently, none among the four of us had the courage to break the sudden tension between them. If I had the slightest idea on what they seemed to be talking about, I might be able to do it myself. However, since that was not the case I could only just stare and signaled the rest of the three others to back away from them. Finally, Captain Quentin decided upon something.
"Fine… here… take this shotgun and handgun…" he said, as he handed them both to Ryan and I, "You are worried that these… boys… cannot keep up on their own, are not you?"
Ryan then just stared at me, apparently not sure on what to do, to which I signaled him to just take the firearms that Captain Quentin had just handed to us. I wished that it would dissolve the tension between them. However, Jonathan seemed to still not get satisfied and looked like he was getting more irritated instead. Fortunately, another wave of what seemed to be a tidal turbulence from outside immediately broke the tension, as both Kyle and Della nearly fell to the floor if it were not for me and Captain Quentin to hold them.
"Alright, enough!" I said, spontaneously screaming to both of them while helping Kyle to get back on her feet, "We should just go and concern about our lives for now!"
The two of them immediately looked away from each other, just as he had gently helped Della to stand up again. Without saying anymore words, both of them started to head for the designated locations, rather very awkwardly.
Also, another thing that occurred in my mind was about my watch. I looked at it, and found out that it had been working properly again, although I still could not determine the real time in the first place, and thus I ended up just leaving my watch as it was…
"Not everything seemed to return to the way it should be, does it?" Kyle asked me.
"Well… it will, eventually…" I said as I began to proceed to the third floor together with Ryan.