I left the Cyberman locked in the quarantined lab, and raced to the stairwell to defend deeper into this facility. It was only a matter of time before the metallic monster broke out, so I had to make full use of my advantage. I pounded down the concrete steps, footsteps echoing in the enclosed space, until I'd reached the bottom level. I emerged from the stairwell into a corridor similar in layout to the floors above. It was a long, narrow space with what seemed to be a medical area at the far end and with three corridors branching off at each side. The Cyberman had been entombed beneath this place, and woken up because of its activity. Thus, I reasoned it must have entered the facility after burrowing its way in somehow. This would most likely have happened on the lowest floor, but I didn't have time to search every lab on this level. I needed some clue, some guiding light, which came in the form of another dead scientist.
This one was female, and was lying at the entrance of on of the side paths. She was facing the main corridor, one hand extended forward, with fingers curled, claw like. She had been trying to pull herself forward, away from something father down that side passage. I approached her, both to examine the manner of her passing and to make sure she was, in fact, fully deceased. As I neared the body, her cause of death was most apparent. She'd been one of the researchers chosen for Cyber conversion. One of the failed attempts. Her face was a mask of horror, a look I was sharing. The body was grotesquely mutilated. One eye was missing, replaced by a cylindrical implement like a camera lens. Her jaw was covered in metal playing, crudely screwed into bone to hold it in place. A section of steel ran along the left side of her head, covering the ear and capped off with a metal bar jutting vertically upward. One of her arms was encased in a gauntlet, which spread out across part of her torso. Where it ended, I could see that her ribcage had been torn open, and her organs augmented with various devices and wires.
I'd seen enough. I reeled backwards from the corpse, reaching out to brace myself against the wall. I turned away from her, struggling to resist the urge to vomit. I retched, considering the pure agony she had to endure. The Cyberman claimed the process would remove pain. Clearly, it augments the body before it affects the brain. This poor girl felt every agonizing moment of the conversion, as she was brutalized. Perhaps unspeakable pain helps break down the victim's mind, making them more susceptible to mental conversion. I was dealing with a race of psychopaths. All of that didn't even kill her outright. For some reason, she was deemed unworthy, or a failure, and was tossed aside mid conversion. Still she clung to life, slowly crawling to get away, get anywhere, as long as it was away from the cybernetic devil. I steeled myself to continue. There'd be time enough to grieve when it was all over. For now, I had to soldier on. Empathy was of no use right now.
I pressed on, stepping carefully around the body, and entered the lab at the end of the hall. It was clear that this room was different to the labs above. Not in terms of furnishings or size, but because of a hole about 4 feet wide sloping downwards in the corner of the room. I peered closer into the abyss. It was a shallow enough slope and seemed to only stretching down about 50 feet. It'd be easy enough to crawl along it in either direction. If Susan was anywhere, I knew it'd be at the end of this tunnel. There was nothing for it but to jump in. I slid down the passage easily, feet first, using my soles and raised arms to control the speed of my dissent.
The shaft opened into a room architecturally at odds with anything that was above it. I found myself inside the Cyber-Ship, or at least what was left of it. It was illuminated by a dim, green glow, whichever served only to highlight how run down the place was. The walls were stressed and buckled, the floor and ceilings a mess of debris, loose panels and snaking wires. Occasional sparks and bursts of smoke would emanate from these damaged areas, making me jump with anxiety. There was a doorway leading out of the room, but it was mostly blocked by bent steelwork, meaning this was the end of the line for me. There did seem to be enough space for a small person, or torso, to squeeze through however.
One side of the room contained a large bank of machinery and computer terminals, surrounding a gap that looked big enough for a humanoid figure. It was exactly big enough, in fact, because there was a person standing within. The male student who had gone missing. I checked his vitals, but he had already passed away. He too had been operated on by the conversion chamber he was trapped in, but he had suffered nowhere near as much as the woman above. Mercifully, it seems he succumbed to the pain much sooner than her. The fact I could take that as a mercy was of no comfort to me at all.
The other side of the room had been turned into a ramshackle prison, with a number of people chained to the wall. I counted three bodies: one was a researcher who had seemingly slit his own throat with a concealed scalpel rather than endure the same fate as the converted, one was the other missing student, also deceased. The third body was in a seated position, slumped forward, her hair hanging over her face like a curtain. Even so, I could recognize her. I'd know her anywhere. Susan! I'd found her, but was she injured? Dead? A part of me didn't want to find out. Until I checked to be sure, I could consider her alive and dead simultaneously. But Schrodinger couldn't save me now. I had to know. I had to rescue her, if that were even possible. With great trepidation, I reached for a parting in her hanging hair, and drew it to the side. As I did so, I gasped loudly.
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