Story Seed - The Lab

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"I can't stand watching him do that," Phil said turning away as Jack's flesh writhed and shifted, mutating him into something else.  "Hell I can barely look in a mirror over here. It's like some kind of Giger painting come to life."

"Quit complaining Phil, unless you'd prefer to muscle through that blockage the hard way." Liz has the fortunate luck to retain her human appearance, almost identical to her Earth form in fact, save a few ports and plugs.  She also had a major crush on Jack that somehow managed to survive even when the skinny kid morphed into some kind of horrible chrysalid.

"I take it back," Phil said peering back over his shoulder for a moment, "More like something out of Lovecraft.  Remind me not to go to Innsmouth with him."

Liz rolled her eyes and waited, ignoring Phil's bellyaching, and the sound of the Jack thing munching away at bedrock.  With a sigh she sat down in the dusty passage.  Their bio-lum lanterns cast blue-green shadows.

Phil fell silent after a while and the two waited with nothing but the sound of chewing and cracking rock.  After some time Phil looked over to Liz, "What do you think is through there? By the looks of the place it's been empty since Ruk crashed."

Liz shrugged, "Something we can trade. Something we can use. I dunno, maybe we'll find a perfect copy of the true code."

Phil opened his mouth to speak but was drown out by the crash of rock tumbling.  They both looked and saw the Jack-thing crashing through the blockage into a open room beyond.  Jack howled as he turned human once more regaining something close to a human appearance covered in dust and monster spittle.

Liz and Phil scrambled to their feet and picked their way through the remaining rubble. "You OK Jack?" Phil asked.

Jack looked up and belched. "No," he said simply, "I've got heartburn like you wouldn't believe.  Hand me my pack, I think I have something like an antacid in there." Liz fetched his pack and crouched next to him as he munched on something blue and purple.

"Guys," Phil said from further inside, "You have to come see this. I think we hit the jackpot."

The others quickly caught up to him, standing in the same silent awe as they looked around the ancient lab.  Row upon row of cloning chambers filled two long walls, and other equipment filled the middle of the room, some broken by rampant growth from something on the surface. "I don't think anybody has been here in years, decades, maybe longer. Those fanatics at the Church of Embodiment will make us rich to get their hands on this place."