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In the mind, one second can be an eternity, tick, tick....... tick. Midnight, and the screams had suddenly stopped, there Melissa floated, hugging her legs amidst a vast darkness, crying because there was an eternity of nothing. Then there were footstops, as if anyone could walk here, or even make noise. She looked up from her knees. There was a recognizeable voice, yet softer than she had ever heard it before. He stood before her with his usual casual posture, like the real Sallea.

"The things I wanted to do most, I couldn't do, but the things I despised, those things I did. It's from some bible verses I read a long time ago. I allowed myself to become a slave to my own worst nature, and I allowed Ymir to control me. I'm sorry, I thought it would be over when I broke the merger. He managed to thrust me aside and get into you before I could die."

Melissa looked at him innocently, "Sallea, are you okay? Are you going to be alright? Where's Ymir, why isn't he tormenting me anymore?"

Sallea frowned, "I'm fine, don't worry about me, I'm going to a better place. Damn, I don't have a lot of time here. Look, you have to stay strong, kay. Help is on the way. You don't have to kick and scream and thrash, I know the pain is intense but you'll only wear yourself out. The best thing to do is focus your mind and ignore any suggestion that comes into your head that isn't your own. When the pain comes, clench your teeth and tough it out, you'll last longer, kay. Hold out as long as you can, help is on the way."

"What's going to happen me?"

"You're going to take control of this thing, trust me. As much as I hate to admit it. You're a better person than I ever was, much more than I ever deserved, thanks for putting up with me. I........."

"Sallea, don't........."

It was to late, the vision had faded away into a burst of crystal before vanishing, and she was awake in the hospital room once again. A vision, a halucination, a visitation, there was no telling.

"Sallea," she screamed in her delirium, "Sallea don't go, please stay with me."

Melissa whistled through clenched teeth as intense pain swelled within her forehead. She was pale, dripping wet with persperation, eyes bloodshot, brow furrowed.

This is my body, my mind! I'm never going to merge with you, and I'll die before I let you control it.

The fat man wasn't the one to go, as Killer Sumo was still enjoying his snack. The dragon was taken into the stomach of the thing Dr. Iskugawa had helped create from the undead slugs. The thing then left the room quietly, on its way to a secret destination.



"Very Good," Dr. Iskugawa said, "Follow."

Dr. Iskugawa would lead with the preacher at side, still chained to his leg. Chaszmyr would be expected to follow behind, with Killer Sumo, who had taken a full 80 ounce bucket of fried tofu dogs for a snack, at his back. He would have to suffer listening to his lips smack as he took healthy bites from the dogs. Behind KillerSumo, General Bakkar suffered himself to follow and find out what this was all about.

There was a long hall, three security checkpoints were passed without so much as a cursory glance from the guards. Each checkpoint representing a higher level of security. An elevator was accessed with Dr. Ishkugawa's hand print and iris scan. It continued downwards at high speeds to level 11B, and there was a wide hall with a tram in the center. They boarded the tram, passing the C level research labs. C12, C5, C2, all the way into the interior, the center of the megolith complex which was over six kilometers in diameter. On the next elevator, Dr Iskugawa gave his authorization to go below the B and A level labs, directly to the AAA Leviathan Support Construction Lab 30 levels underground. They would find themselves in a short hall with another authorization hatch, once it opened they would walk onto a wide cat walk through the center of a cavernous industrial complex, the ceiling of which was twenty meters above them, the floor of which was twenty meters below. It was a circular structure with a slightly domed ceiling support by multiple heavy support beams.

There were work areas everywhere, built upon buildings within the building, an entire section of the garage was devoted to the testing of steam turbine engines. There were tracked tanker vehicles resembling the rock crawlers used on the mythril mountains parked below. On a man-made obstacle course, one of the tankers actually crawled over rough terrian using their centipede like legs, carrying liquid loads at angles of up to 78 degrees.

There were stacks to the ceiling of odd looking stainless steel rails, each rail beam conected by triangular metal slats pointing upwards into a obtuse triangle welded to the rail.

There were numerous walks that led to hatchs labeled with the standard warning for radiation hazards from uranium storage.

Assemblies were moving newly constructed turrets, computer systems, automated turrets combining mortars and 12.7mm machine guns, and even miniature nuclear reactors. Huge artilary cannons, 275 and 325mm, were hanging from the ceiling by heavy chains, a wench system of sorts. There were openings in the edges of the walls down, presumably the direction in which the cannon's would go to be assembled.

"This is where the seperate componants for the Leviathan's are assembled. Munitions are stored in separate facilities to prevent an accident," Dr. Iskugawa said, "We so keep a small stock here for emergencies, however."

They continued across the walk until they came to an open steel platform with gaurd rails from which most of the production could be veiwed.

"The hell......." General Bakkar muttered as the preacher stared dumb struck. Killer Sumo continued sucking down tofu dogs.

"Well gentlemen," Dr. Iskugawa asked, "Any questions so far."

Below would be Yaits corporate HQ, a two story high pentagon shaped building. Not an extremely high building, but it didn't need to be, as it was sprawled out almost three square kilometers of flatened bedrock. The building was flat, a landscape unto itself. This was more than a corporate HQ, it was a fortress the likes of which the world had never seen. It was amazing the Gaian government approved the construction in the first place.



From the R.I. infiltrater's reports, they would already know that Melissa Faulkner's private room was in the fourth ring, under constant surveillance, the area around her room heavily was gaurded by elite soldiers who had been the body guard of Yaits himself. That there was an automated sentry system that recognized the DNA laser scans of HQ employees and attacked only hostiles when activated. The intruder detection system scanned the halls, these weren't just security camera's, but heat sensors and audio scanners monitered by personel in twelve seperate sections of the building to create intentional overlap of duties.

The ceiling of the squat, wide pentagon was covered with small radar towers, constantly sending signals into the sky in search of hostile aircraft, once they flew over the building, as stealthy as the lonely bird was and as high as the bird was, it was only a matter of time before someone down there figured out something was up there. They'd have to work fast.

The jump was the easy part.

The cement was trenched at regular intervals, each trench was two centimeters deep, about a meter wide, and ran the length of the building. Multiple radar and communications towers were arrayed along trenches, some glowing red in the cloudy night sky. Their metal super structures tall enough to drive a truck through. There were disguised metal hatches blending with the buildings structure, slammed shut with clenched teeth, almost everywhere along the ceiling, but especially towards the interior.

There were no skylights except at the extreme edges of the building, where the reception halls and lobies could be found.

Most of the ventilation shafts were at the sides of the building, at ground level, but there were a few well disguised shafts around ring one, or, they could go for the hole, a heavy ventilation shaft towards the center of the building, exiting ring three. It was divided into intake and extake shafts, disguised by a swiss cement ceiling, grated shut, and was known to be laced with some of the tightest security in the building.

They would have to be careful how they tread, as the cement was laced with pressure sensitive devices capable of detecting the normal pattern of a heavy human footfall, and became ten times more sensitive around the air duct openings, the radar, and the silos. At the secured spots, exact pressure readings and imprint graphs would be sent to the security station. If any alarm sounded, the traps and sentry systems would immediatly activate, and as no one was authorized to be up there tonight, there would be a million ways in which to be detected. Careful.