The main logistics hangar of Sector 2 had been transformed into an unholy bio-clockwork assembly bay. Spanning over three hundred yards of vaulted concrete beneath the deep-sea rock, the chamber smelled of sulfuric battery acid, machine oil. The sweet, cloying stench of harvested beast amniotic fluid. Steam hissed from overhead pressure valves, wrapping the rusted iron pillars in drifting, ghost-like vapor.
Suspended from overhead monorail gantries hung dozens of half-assembled chimeric war-beasts. Crude amalgams of shark torsos grafted with wired torpedo racks, armored ray-wings tipped with high-hum cutting lasers, and massive squid tentacles wired directly into autonomous firing computers. These creatures hung from meat hooks, their chests twitching in artificial, drug-induced comas as nutrient broth dripped into their neck-artery shunts.
Below the gantries, forty Splicer engineers and heavy combat servitors were wildly attempting to erect an emergency barricade of heavy cargo crates to protect the main elevator shaft leading down to the central archives. Hand-cranked magnetic turrets were being bolted to the floor, their twin barrels swiveling toward the entryway.
“Hold the elevator line!” their chief engineer screamed over the roar of heavy-duty air-flow fans. “If the Vanguard takes the shaft, they can bypass the security quarantine of Vault Zero! Lock the outer edge shields!”
