We reach the top of the derrick. The central command module looms ahead, a reinforced steel bunker bolted to the platform.
The heavy blast door is sealed, glowing with the faint, sickly violet light of a localized forcefield.
"Morgan," I say into my comms. "We’re at the door. Blow it."
A massive explosion rocks the rig. The shaped C4 charge tears through the hinges, and the heavy steel door flies inward, crashing into the module.
We breach the module, weapons raised, sweeping the room.
It is not a command center. It is a laboratory.
Massive, cylindrical glass vats line the walls, filled with a swirling, bioluminescent violet liquid.
Inside the vats, chunks of Architect slag are shifting, rearranging themselves into complex, cellular structures. They look like tumors made of liquid m
