Halvorson shook his head at Baz.  "Sorry, fella," he apologized.  "It's not a code.  All we were told when we got our radios was to destroy them if they were gonna fall into enemy hands.  So I'm guessing it's something inside the radio that does the scrambling."  He put his radio away.  "Just pulse to her that we're here."  He gently squeezed past the place where Baz had cut the tripwire, carefully negotiating the severed leads, and looking up at the grate in the ceiling.  "Obviously this is gonna be welded shut," he mumbled, reaching up.<br/><br/>But as he pushed, the grate creaked and lifted upwards, into the dimly-lit room above.  Halvorson froze a moment in surprise.  Then, gently, he lifted the grate entirely out of its seating and slid it aside.  He looked over at his friends.  "Something's weird about this," he remarked.  "Seems like we got in almost too easily."<br/><br/>"That was EASY?!  Don't jinx us, L-T," chided O'Toole.<br/><br/>Halvorson grinned and winked at her, then put his hands on either side of the opening above him, pulling himself up using only his arms.  He lifted himself until his head was through the opening, which was going to be a tight squeeze for the rest of him.<br/><br/>The space above was a wide corridor of gray, sparkling stone.  Torches sat in sconces every few feet along the walls, but they were not lit.  The dim light of the room was coming from something behind his head.<br/><br/>Something close.  He heard it shuffle ever so slightly.  His head whipped around.<br/><br/>A very, very large, ugly-as-hell spider was there, its exoskeleton giving off a sickly blue glow.  It started skittering forward.  With a shout, Halvorson let his fingers release and he dropped down into the tunnel again.  He stumbled and fell, soaking his pants with sewer liquid.  The glowing mass of chitin above quickly skittered away from the opening, out of sight.<br/><br/>Halvorson scrambled to his feet, shaking out his pants.  "Son-of-a-bitch," he muttered.  "I KNEW it was too easy."<br/><br/>"What the hell WAS that?" asked O'Toole, her quarterstaff drawn and ready.<br/><br/>"Big fuckin' spider," said Halvorson.  "Big as me, maybe bigger."  He looked up.  The spider's telltale glow was still there.  It was waiting for them.  "We can't shoot the damn thing, or we'll let everyone know we're here.  And I wouldn't recommend going through that hole again."  He pulled his sword from its sheath, contemplating their options.  The spider was too big to come down into the tunnel after them, that much he had seen.  "It's probably smart enough to come after us, no matter which grate we use," he said to the others.  "I guess here's good a place as any to take care of it.  Question is how."<br/><br/>And then, a quiet hiss drifted down into the tunnel from the hole, its light whisper forming into words - slurred speech.  "Come up... Seth not hurt you..."<br/><br/>Halvorson's eyes widened.  He lifted his sword beside his head.  "What the fuck...?"<br/><br/>"Seth sorry... Scare you... Not looking now..."<br/><br/>With an expression of mixed dismay and shock, Halvorson eyed his comrades, his face lit by the dim blue glow.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The ragged whisper in Karogen's cell shuddered again.  "Not... much... longer..." it said.  "So dry... water..."<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Lanner's teeth gnashed at the interruption of his<span style="font-style: italic">coitus crucius</span>and stood up, pulling his pants up over his blood-bathed member with his left hand, the right one still aiming the gun at Dreamer.  "Shark said she could be mine!" he growled, his voice like hissing sandpaper.  He looked around in indignation at the five other men, all of them with their weapons still readied, looking warily back at him.<br/><br/>Maeve's lips and tongue barely moved as Dreamer injected the survival serum into her.  The healing process began, but slowly, only scabbing over the lightest of her wounds.  Her eyes began to roll, and a brief low moan escaped her lips.<br/><br/>Lanner's eyes alighted on Dreamer and Maeve, and with every passing second slow, wicked realization crept into them more and more.  Lanner's mind was swift and calculating.  It was not difficult for him to see through Dreamer's ruse.  His left hand let his pants hang loosely at his waist, moving to brace his grip on the submachine gun.  A cruel smirk curled his lips.<br/><br/>"Shark wants the cow for himself, huh?" His tone showed that he had deciphered the truth.  "Seems more like the fuck-toy has come to rescue his owner," he said slowly, his eyes narrowing with menace.  "I don't care how many lives you've got, fur-lover..." the weapon's barrel swayed slightly, moving to aim at the supine, shackled form of Maeve,  "...she's only got one."<br/><br/>Maeve's eyes focused on Dreamer's face for the first time; it seemed like she recognized him now.  Two of the men - ones with blades - began to close in slowly on Dreamer. The third approached Kitten, and the two men with guns moved to cover each intruder as Lanner spoke again.  "I've got years of being tied to her plow to repay.  Shark promised me I could have my revenge.  He would never go back on that.  Nice try, fuck-toy."  The two men stopped, their blades interdicting his view of Maeve as they threatened his throat.<br/><br/>Her eyes were pleading with him.  Her mouth barely moved, mouthing a simple word - either "go" or "no."<br/><br/>"You have a chance to leave now," said Lanner, his voice malevolently triumphant.  "You and your friend here are men.  Humans.  Shark said to kill anyone that got in our way, but my cock's hard, so I'm in a good mood.  Get the fuck out now.  Trust me, she won't feel anything when it's all over."  His grip on the gun tightened, reinforcing the notion of what would happen if Dreamer tried anything else.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Janus watched as Heretic left him.  He quickly ran back the way he'd come, marveling at the bunches of dead that were around him.  He saw Iln - raised atop a massively bulging stomach - near the rear of the lines.  Merelli and a half-reptilian stranger were rushing in his direction.<br/><br/>"Private!" said Merelli, stopping in front of him.  "Are you all right?"<br/><br/>"Fine, sir," said Janus, in a bit of a disbelieving daze.<br/><br/>"You just walked away from a very intense battle," said Merelli, a bit surprised.  "Where is your friend, the fox?"<br/><br/>Janus paused, then said, "He's gone.  He's fighting on his own."<br/><br/>Merelli's brows knitted, but he nodded and patted Janus on the shoulder, striding past to order a flanking maneuver.  He looked at Raice beside him and asked, "Would you lead the charge with me?"  Soldiers were rapidly redeploying from the rear ranks of those jammed into the alleys, forming in a group around them.  Merelli was leading them all around to the west, intending to come into the Cult's side.<br/><br/>Janus, bewildered, focused on the bloated form of Iln in the park.  Medics were jogging around near her, checking the downed Resistance troops.  Janus heard one shout, "Let's go!  Bring any wounded to the scalie girl!"<br/><br/>Janus stopped in his tracks in puzzled dismay.  What was going on?  As he looked, the medics in the park were picking up wounded from the field and giving them to Iln...<span style="font-style: italic">who swallowed them down.</span>He ran to a medic about to feed a dying sergeant to her, grabbing him roughly by the shoulders and pulling him away.<br/><br/>"What the fuck are you doing?!" he shouted, looking in horror at the medic and Iln.<br/><br/>The medic stumbled but maintained his footing, twisting out of Janus' hands.  "Hey!  Watch it!" he complained.  "This isn't what it looks like!"  He indicated Iln with a bob of his head.  "She can heal anything, man!  She's like a living hospital, only better!  Look!"<br/><br/>As Janus watched, another medic was pulling a soldier out of Iln's mouth.  The man, by looking at his tattered clothes, had been pierced with multiple arrows.  But now the arrows were gone, and the skin showing through the holes in his shirt was clean and whole.<br/><br/>Janus gaped at Iln.  "Can you really heal... anything?"<br/><br/><br/>The First Sergeant saw Marice displaying her gory blades to someone.  He came over to her.  "Hey.  What's been going on outside?" he asked.