immobile corpse, he turned and made his way over to it. It took a little bit, but the workstation booted up, though it was running on reserve power. He only needed it for a moment though. After a little bit, he had what he was looking for.
A map of the area, though only of this level. One thing that made him balk slightly at the reality of getting to the surface of whatever planet he was on, he was convinced he was on a planet, and getting the hell out of here was the fact that this was marked as Level Nine. That must mean he was pretty far down. Who knew what was waiting for him on those other eight levels? Or topside? His experiences thus far didn't inspire confidence.
He took a moment to study the layout on the screen, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the body. It still hadn't moved. He finally got a good idea of the area. The good news was that he wasn't far from the auxiliary generator. The bad news was, well...pretty much everything else. Enzo sighed, frustrated at his situation and the way his shoulder throbbed on a low frequency of pain, buried deep in the muscle.
Busy, he needed to keep busy, keep going.
He turned from the workstation and moved back to the corpse he'd produced. It hadn't moved an inch. Which meant that he must have succeeded in his attempted goal: kill the Slug within the body. Unless, of course, this hadn't been a Mutant...Enzo bit his lip. He hadn't actually got a look at the guy. Although everything from his torn jumpsuit to his posture to the way he smelled had said he was a Mutant. Not to mention that shriek.
Reaching out, he grabbed the corpse by the shoulder and rolled it onto his back. He felt some relief as he spied the already immediately obvious telltales of the mutation: claws, red lines, creepy eyes. Good. He spent a moment checking over the corpse, hunting its pockets, hoping to find something useful, but there was nothing. He stood and moved down the length of the huge room he'd come to. The auxiliary generator area was just beyond it, through another antechamber that could be accessed along the right side of the room. Which was good, Enzo was getting tired of this ugly place. He hoped that whatever the hell Level Eight had was at least brighter.
He finished crossing what must have been the monitoring room for the refinery, came to the appropriate door and opened it up. Beyond...the blessed auxiliary generator bay. He passed through a small transitional room, peered down a dark side corridor that, according to map, led to a small room he didn't know the purpose of, and approached the generator itself. It was a dim assemblage of technology and equipment, silent and inert. As he came to stand before it, Enzo realized that he didn't really know how to turn it on.
Frowning, he began to study the exterior of the generator in the dim light. Before long, he'd discovered instructions printed on the side, right next to the control panel. He read step one and then heaved a world-weary sigh. The generator couldn't just be turned on, it had to be primed...which was apparently the reason for the existence of the smaller room he'd passed earlier. Enzo about-faced and hurried to the primer room.
As he came to the door at the end, which was partially opened, he hesitated. Partially opened doors were never a good thing, especially in an age where that was difficult to do due to the fact that doors slid into the walls and basically only had two comfortable positions: open or close. Something seemed to move beyond the half-open door and a curiously bright light was spilling out of it. Enzo held his knife in a defensive stance, readying himself.
He peered in through the open space and spied a pair of Mutants shuffling around inside. One of them must have dropped the flashlight that was turned on, lying on the ground and facing the doorway, providing the odd light. Enzo let out a short whistle, garnering their attention. The pair of evil things turned to face him and, letting out their