Chapter 25, part 5
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She inhaled deeply as he stepped up next to her, activated the hololock and stepped into the Engineering bay. Still terrified but not wanting to refuse him she followed behind, listening with grim despondency as the doors closed behind her, and she wondered with heart stopping trepidation if she might ever step out through those doors again. Still, she remained silent and resolved next to him as they approached the elevator, and they both soundlessly stepped in. The elevator started its slow descent into the bottom of the ship, and Nicole just stood quietly next to Isaac, filled with anxiety and watching the walls as they slowly crept upwards all around her, reading the deteriorated numbers painted across the concrete frame of each level as they passed. She occasionally gave a side glance Isaac's way, wondering what he was thinking, but unable to penetrate his cold defenses she returned her hysterical, wandering eyes to the movement of the elevator.
They eventually arrived on the lowest floor, and Isaac stepped out immediately as the doors opened. Though he never turned back to look at her, she could feel his angst-laden words from somewhere inside her head.
Follow me.
Perturbed but again not wanting to deny his request, she trailed out behind him, again glancing around at the Engineering Deck. They were now in the bowels of the ship near the engine rooms, and the sudden rise in temperature was very apparent to her, almost unbearable as she felt it lightly sear her skin. She also again saw the various human and humanoid crew alike at work, all toiling away at their duties. She noticed as they receded from Isaac's approach in a manner very much like the necromorphs had in the main control room, and the striking resemblance was very alarming to her. She began to wonder if somehow they were all related, and her heart sank as the suspicion grew upon her mind, overwhelming her with the confirmation that there were things going on aboard the Ishimura spanning a depth that she was highly unaware of. She began to feel even more afraid, as she now considered her dangerous situation didn't manifest just from the single point of Isaac, but that the entire environment around her posed as her nemesis.
Isaac paid no mind to the hellish surroundings, made no attempt at communication with the inhabitants of the ship, and just kept a steady pace forward as he led her around the outlying maintenance rooms surrounding the engine chambers. As she followed, Nicole's undaunted fear of Isaac wrestled with her rising apprehension of the others, and while she maintained a steady distance from him, she would occasionally close the gap as she felt the angry stares of the humanoid monsters passing them. They eventually drifted from the hottest part of the ship near the engine fires and soon found themselves in a darkened corridor that was much cooler, dimly illuminated with wall lights and the blue, candescent glow of battery mounts lining the length of the way. He turned a small corner, and she followed, Her heart instantly skipped a beat in panic as she noticed he was leading her towards a dead end with a single door - a small, nondescript storage room. She swallowed hard and looked around, fought back an urge to run as he opened the door and turned to look at her. He made no movement, but his suggestion was very clearly written on his face.
Get in.
Compelled to obey, she slowly walked towards the room and stepped in, looking warily at Isaac as she passed him. He returned the stare with one of his own that set her spine tingling. He followed in directly behind her and closed the door, watching Nicole silently as she stood in the center of the room with her back to him. She was reluctant to turn around, but eventually did as she considered he would surely have coerced her into it anyway, and she was met with his menacing figure at the door. Though he seemed somewhat weak on his knees his stature was still very oppressive, and all of the surfaces of his suit appeared to absorb the light from around rather than reflect it as a result of the carved pits of Marker messages cast across them. The sides of his head were laden with sweated blood, running in small lines down his neck and tracing red streaks across his chest plate and shoulder armor. Again, she saw the vibrancy of his eyes, the darkened retinas filled with an endless energy abound within that astonishingly offset his morbid appearance, and he just stared with an unreadable expression that truly discomforted her. She had never seen such an incomprehensible look, and she briefly wondered if she was actually seeing any part of him at all. He slowly stepped towards her, coming into the dim beam of the ceiling light above, and Nicole noticed how it eerily enhanced his deteriorated condition, making him appear as ominous and alien as any of those strange creatures wandering about the ship.
He eventually came directly before her, looking down at her, taking note of her frightened aire and reading her thoughts.
"There is something you can do for me, Nicole. I need your help. There's something happening here, and it needs to be stopped. Because its what's causing all of these problems around here."
Nicole blinked and looked at him queerly, not quite understanding his subversive demeanor.
"Well... what is it? What's happening here, Isaac? How is the ship working? How is this all happening?"
"The ship is fine, Nicole. There's nothing wrong with it. That's not what I'm talking about."
Nicole looked down, her apprehension steadily on the rise.
"Wha.... is it the Marker? Is that it?"
Isaac raised an eyebrow at her, smiled slightly to the side.
"Not exactly. It's in trouble right now, but I'll fix it."
Agitated by the claustrophobia of her ever rising fear within and sensing that he was toying with her, Nicole began to get very frustrated with his elusive responses. She eventually just huffed with a shaken breath, and looked dead at him.
"Well, what is it, Isaac? Are you gonna tell me, or are we going to play twenty questions about it?"
Again Isaac smiled, delighting in her rising animosity interspersed with tremendous fright. It was something he had never really seen in her calm, collected demeanor before, and while it had never in the past been a desire of his to see it, he now found himself very much endeared by this new side of her personality. He wished very much to see more of it. He snickered to himself, glancing down momentarily from her.
"Well, to put it very simply Nicole - you are the problem."
He looked back up at her with a cold, hard smile, and noticed her face had almost instantly shattered its shield of heated anger to reveal the now exposed terror beneath. She began to lean back instinctively as she again felt his provocative mood rise to the surface.
"Isaac... what...?"
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