"We really just want to help you, Doctor Milloy. Please, open the door. I will send in one man, unarmed, to escort you out. On my honor."

Director Holmes' voiced crackled from the loudspeakers. He'd orchestrated a goddamned insurrection of the facility. Surely to secure the Hominid for himself. I saw the bodies of my peers. Brilliant and beautiful minds, extinguished.

"Doctor Milloy just let me in." Thomas, head of security, called from behind the door. "I'm your friend, right? I would never hurt you, or anyone else in this building. It's my job to protect all of you, that's what I do."

He was right. Thomas was my friend, along with many others on the security team. Why were they going along with this?

"Thomas...what's going on? Why are you killing us?" I called back.

"Debra, I'm not killing anyone. There was an accident, some people got hurt. It's okay, just trust me and open up the door."

"Debra?" I yelled back.

"Yes...Debra Milloy is in there...right?" The voice behind the door replied. It seemed unsure.

Whatever was speaking to me was not Thomas. It did not know me. I prayed it wasn't the Hominid attempting to lure me out.

"My name is not Debra!" I yelled.

The door exploded open. Dust and blood and sparking metal everywhere.

When it was over I found myself in a hallway, ten security lay dead around me, one bearing Thomas' face. My shirt had been ripped where several bullets had glanced me. A pistol in my hand.

I navigated down the hall, caught one by surprise and got him between the ribs, a knife in my hand. Two more spot me, they fire. My tie is cut in two by the hail of bullets. I roll behind a vending machine, return two controlled bursts and they fall, a rifle in my arms.

A shotgun on my back, I draw it and engage the offices in close quarters. A grenade on my belt, I take out four men on the stairway.

The violence terrified me. I did not know how I still lived. I had to stop Holmes from releasing the Hominid. I took the shuttle down to it's containment chamber.

As the doors opened, all strength left my body. I fell to the floor. I could only move my eyes. I was lifted into a chair, my head rolling on my shoulders. Across from me Director Holmes sat in an office chair.

"You really don't know?" He said.

I could only utter a moan from my slackened jaw.

"I will lower the energy level." He turned to a control panel then looked back at me. "Really, it's hurting me more than you."

I watched him lower the rare ambient field to 90 percent. I'd never seen it over 40. I regained little motor function. I could close my mouth, move my tongue. A knife was not on my hip. A pistol was not in my hand. No matter how hard I tried.

He swiveled his chair to face me, wiping some blood from his nose. "So, you are Doctor Milloy, hm? But not Debra?" He studied me. "A research fellow here at Almera, I'm assuming."

I nodded reluctantly.

"You seem to be quite the combat specialist. Twenty five killed in the last half hour."

I blinked slowly.

"Although.." He poked at a large hole in my shirt. "Being bulletproof certainly helps with that, no?"

I looked down at my clothing. Riddled with holes, partially burnt.

"I have a question for you, Milloy. What was your theory on the Hominid? You pursued it for quite some time, you should remember."

I shook my head. I could not think.

"I will give you a hint, then. Our higher-ups assumed it was a weapon. Sent to infiltrate humanity, impersonate leaders, collect intelligence. But you, Debra, you were an optimist. You understood that when the Hominid absorbs a person, it copies more than just the face."

"Aninismind" I mumbled through numb lips.

"Exactly!" he laughed "Any 'intelligence' needed would already be in it's mind! Why then, would it continue the impersonation?" He leaned back and looked into his lap. "They wouldn't hear any of it, would they? So frightened of the unknown that they obscured it even further."

A muffled explosion went off somewhere above us.

"That's the big guns." Holmes sighed. "They'll kill me for what I've done here." He stared at a blister forming on his palm. "Probably won't have the chance."

He reached behind and turned off the field. In a moment my body returned to me. I aimed at my captor, a pistol in my hand.

"You can only create weapons, then?" He let out a pained laugh. "No, you're not the anthropologist she imagined. "

"You fed me to it." I said.

"I fed her to you, yes!" Holmes cried out. "I just...I thought if you were given the right person then perhaps--"

Two blasts at the door of the chamber. It warped slightly. Radio chatter and equipment whirring outside.

Holmes stood up. "That is not the security team. They won't be shooting bullets at you." He frowned at me. "You're quite fucked, I'm afraid."

The poor fellow dissolved rather slowly. The team of HUGO thugs were already cutting through the door. I should've never taken the damn job. They always blame the director for these things.

I hurried out the auxiliary entrance toward my escape tunnel, a keycard in my hand.