Monika's eyes widened. "Doyoung, wait... what do you know about membrane fusion, little boy?"
"I know that you've perfected it. I know that you've managed to create a rapid fuse virion that apparently infects the brain tissue in under an hour— "
"In under ten minutes," Hyeopil inserted.
Monika, her whole demeanor changing from that of a smiling old woman to that of a fanatic, her gaze narrowing with a dangerously brilliant intensity, her lips drawing tight over clenched teeth.
"These stupid, stupid animals with their ridiculous A-Virus! V. may have a mind, but the rest of them and fools, playing with war games while I've created a miracle!"
He turned, gesturing at a row of shining oxygen tanks next to the lab's entrance. "Do you know what that is, do you know what I've managed to synthesize? Peace! Peace and the freedom from choice for all of mankind!"
Sungjoon felt his heart start to pound viciously, his entire body breaking out in a cold sweat.
Monika was pacing in front of them now, her eyes burning with mad genius.
"There's enough of my strain, of my creation in those tanks to infect a billion people in less than
twenty-four hours! I've managed to find the answer, the answer to the pitiful, selfish, and self-important breed that the human race has become... when I give my gift to the wind, the world will become free again, it will be reborn, a simple and beautiful place for every creature, great and small, surviving on instinct alone!"
"You're insane," Sungjoon breathed, knowing that Monika could kill them, was going to kill them, but unable to stop himself from saying it. "You're out of your bloody mind!"
This is his my team is dead, why all those people are dead. He wants to turn the world into things like Eunsuk. Like Doyoung.
Monika snarled at her, flecks of spittle flying from her lips. "And you're dead. You're not going to be here when my miracle graces this earth, I, I- deprive you of my gift, three of you! When the sun comes up tomorrow, there will be peace, and neither of you will ever know a second of it!"
She whirled around, pointing at Doyoung. "Put them in the airlock, now!"
Doyoung raised the gun again, motioning toward the opened hatch, where Serra's lifeless body lay
slumped and bloody on the floor.
He's out of reach, can't grab the weapon in time-
"Steve, now! Kill them if they won't go!"
Sungjoon, Sunoo and Hyeopil stepped into the lock, Sungjoon's body cold, tensed, he had to do something or the world would be infected by this maniac's psychotic dream-
Doyoung slammed the lock closed.
They were trapped.

Monika was furious, shaking with anger as the airlock door slammed closed. Didn't they see, didn't they understand anything but their own petty, stupid lives?
She stared at the young Doyoung, the rage spilling out, threatening to drive her insane, to make her vomit, to kill-
Her eyed darted to Hyeopil. Such a waste creature, she can't make him one of hers since he was already the X0-virus. He can produce stronger creatures but still- it's useless. She doesn't have the X-virus sample or people who have it.
It's better to kill him.
Eyes turn to Doyoung.
"Put that gun in your ugly face and pull the trigger, die, die, just die!"
Doyoung raised the weapon.
Sunoo screamed, beating his fists helplessly against the thick metal door.
"No no no no no- "
The thunder of the shot cut his screams off.
Doyoung fell against the base of the hatch, mercifully out of sight.
Already dead, he was already dead, it wasn't Doyoung anymore-
"No... " Sungjoon whispered, and Sunoo looked up while Hyeopil looked straight into Monika's wildly petulant gaze through the window and Monika smiled suddenly, a beaming, triumphant grin of accomplishment and malicious spite.
The raging loss and terror he felt were transformed by the sight of that smile.
Hyeopil stared into those raving dark eyes and realized that he'd never truly felt hate before.
She had told them of her plan, but at that second, the thought was too big for him to fathom, too vast and insane a tragedy for him to fit his mind around.
All he could think of was that she'd killed Serra and Sicheng, she'd killed Steve and he wanted nothing more than to destroy her, to see her lose, to see her suffer and feel pain.
"If we don't do something her madness will be fully realized and we have to stop it, to stop her
from dancing on the grave of the world." He said darkly.
Monika moved to a control panel next to the door and started to press buttons, still smiling.
There was a heavy clanking from the grated floor and water started to gurgle in, drawn from the icy black waters of the cove that pressed against the.outer hatch.
The airlock was just big enough for them not to
have to stand on Serra's bloody, twisted body, and already the water was turning red, foaming up from an unseen vent and lapping at their feet, covering Serra's white eyes fingers.
A minute, maybe less....
In the lab, Monika was leaning against a desk across from them, arms folded smugly, watching. Behind her, a backdrop of death Eunsuk, Sicheng, and the gleaming steel cylinders filled with Monika's evil genius.
"We have to do something!" Sunoo said as he turned desperately to Sungjoon and Hyeopil, praying that they had some brilliant plan and saw only resignation and sorrow in their eyes as Sungjoon stared down at Serra's corpse, his shoulders slumped with defeat.
While Hyeopil frantically starting to looked around.
"Sungjoon- "
He looked up at his bleakly, hopelessly. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "All my fault... "
Serra's hands were already floating, tendrils of short dark hair haloing around her pitiful face.
Sunoo grabbed at the latch of the door uselessly, felt its unmoving strength, sealed by Monika's controls.
Cold water seeped through the canvas of his shoes, over his ankles, the rising smells of salt and darkness and blood frightening him as badly as Sungjoon's hopeless whispering drone.
"If I hadn't been so selfish... Sunoo, I'm so sorry, you have to believe that I never meant- "
Terrified, on the edge of hysteria, Sunoo grabbed his shoulders roughly, shouting. "Okay, fine, you're an asshole, but if Monika releases that virus, millions of people are gonna die!"
For a second, Sunoo didn't think he'd heard him and he felt the water rising, inching up his calves, his heart pounding wildly and then his dark eyes sharpened, losing their glassy sheen.
He looked quickly around the tight compartment, and Sunoo could see his mind working, see the sharp gaze taking in all of the details.
Steel, watertight hatches; a mesh enclosure over the outer door, like a thin shark cage, two feet
deep; cold water bubbling, over his knees now,
Serra's arms and head lifting, floating...
"Doors are steel, the window's two inches of plexi- once the outer hatch pops, there's the cage- " Hyeopil said, holding the canvas.
Sungjoon looked into Sunoo's eyes, his own filled with frustrated anger, with shock and apology and shook his head.
Sunoo dropped his hands, his body starting to shiver from the cold, his thoughts delving into black despair.
Sungjoon sloshed closer and put his arms around his. "Just your luck to meet me," he said softly, rubbing his upper arms as his teeth started to chatter, as the water swirled up around his hips, as Serra's lifeless hand brushed his leg-
Hyeopil suddenly freezes, eyes widening. "Luck. Serra." He mumbled, heart seemed to stop in mid-beat.
He looked at them; Sungjoon held Sunoo tightly, wishing a million things, knowing that it was too late for any of them.
He glanced into the lab and saw that Monika was still watching them, still smiling. He looked away, filled with a useless, dismal hatred as the icy water slopped against his hips.
"Murdering bloody bastard."
Hyeopil held Sunoo and Sungjoon's shoulder as the youngest tensed against his chest suddenly. He depart them away from each other in the way and grabbed at Serra's body, his fingers searching frantically through the dead woman's vest.
He jerked a dark, round object from one of Serra's pockets. Sungjoon and Sunoo saw what it was and felt pure amazement sweep through him.
"She carried it for luck," Sunoo chattered out quickly. "It's live."
Sungjoon took the grenade and held it behind his back, his thoughts racing again, assessing, the water to his waist.
"Outer door pops, pull the pin and get in the cage, hold the hatch closed... "
They'd probably still die.
But if they could pull it off, they wouldn't go out alone.
Monika watched the water rise, watched the three run through a stereotypical melodrama almost absently- her thoughts had already turned to the coming dawn, and the problem of getting the heavy canisters upstairs.
She supposed it served her right, losing her temper that way.
The pair except the other one were putting on quite a show. The young boy, angry at the his apathy; the quick, desperate look for a way out of then- predicament.
The final embrace, then the creature pulled them apart- panic- the creature clutching at the A-Virus drone, the young lad talking at them, frowning, worried for his sanity even as the dark water rose over his young bosom.
Sad, so sad.
"They should never have come, never have tried to, to get at me."
Now the man was holding him up, pathetically working to postpone the inevitable as the water spun up across the glass.
Once they were dead, she'd pop the cage, give the Leviathans a treat before setting them free again, free to swim in unmanned seas and live out their days in peace.
Ocean and land as one, his mind murmured dreamily. Mirrors of simplicity, instinct. The drone body fluttered lazily past the window, and he saw that the three invaders had propped themselves between the hatches, struggling to hold on to the last bit of air.
A determined trio, if thick-headed. It occurred to her suddenly that she'd never bothered to find out who they were, who had sent them and it doesn't matter now, does it?
The lock had filled.
The light on the control panel indicated that the outer door had unlatched.
It was over except they were scrambling to get out, kicking through into the cage, and something small dropped past the window as they pushed the door closed behind them.
Monika frowned and...

She just had time to register disbelief before the hatch slammed into her body and the screaming torrent of liquid ice took her breath away.

When the grendade exploded, everything happened too fast for Sunoo to think about.
There were only sensations, terror reigning over all.
Brilliant light and explosive movement as the door blew outward, hardness against his back that gave way in an instant, lungs screaming, a billion bubbles like bullets, and incredible, impossible pressure that seemed to go on and on in shades of cold and black.
Faster than fast, movement and muffled, strange sound.
Dark shapes moved over his feeling mind, blotting out everything in growing flickers of dizziness and his chest was imploding, his lungs eating themselves.
Until he felt something slimy wrapped over his waist and he felt himself being pulled up. In panic, he started to and kicked and kicked and as his legs started to weaken, the dark flickers swallowing him up but the strong pull still continue.

Air, sweet, wonderful air slapped across Sunoo's dying face. He drank convulsively, gasping in great, heaving gulps of the stuff, still not thinking at all.
His body thought instead, greedily swallowing life, the spray and sting of salt, the warmer, rocking waves, a high, reedy buzz-
A massive wave of pressure pushed him forward, driving water up his nose as buckets of it suddenly rained down on top of him.
Sunoo gasped air, spinning, his mind connected to his body again.
"You okay," the voice behind him said and Sunoo sigh in relief after hearing Hyeopil. He was holding him with what?
The thing wrapped over his torso felt slimy- felt like snake.
"Sunoo, Hyeopil!"
A choked cry, from somewhere in the buzzing dark. The buzz was clearer now, it was-

Another surging wave, another torrent pouring over them, seeking to drown them as Monika had been unable to do, and as the rain fell away, he saw light- thick beams of it piercing the dark, wild surface of the cove.
A boat.
An engine's powerful, deepening thrum as it sped toward them over the thrashing sea.
"Sunoo, Hyeopil!" Sungjoon's desperate call, from their left.
"We're here- "
They could see the explosion this time, see the giant column of water silhouetted against the searching beams of light before the debris-encrusted wave knocked them back, blinding Sunoo with a vicious slap of foam.
He managed to take a quick gulp of air before the column came down, crashing over them, spattering loudly against the choppy surface.
Depth charges, they're firing depth charges-
G. Inc.?
The boat was less than thirty meters away when the engine suddenly cut out, the lights playing across the water in front of them. There was a splashing movement nearby and the lights moved, one of the blindingly bright beams finding Sungjoon's exhausted, dripping face a short distance away.
A man's voice, coming from the boat now moving slowly toward them.
"This is Captain Jiyeon of the Philadelphia A. T. P. D.! Identify yourself!"
A. T. P. D.?
Jiyeon went on, her shout louder as the boat came closer. "The water's not safe! We're coming to get you out!"
Sungjoon called back, his voice clogged and cracking. "Park, Park Sungjoon, Exeters, Lee Sunie, and Hwang Hyeopil- "
When Jiyeon shouted again, she said the most wonderful, most beautiful words that Sunoo had ever heard.
"Yeonjun sent us to find you! Hang on!"
"Yeonjun. Oh, thank God, Yeonjun!"
As drained as Sunoo was, as spiritually wasted, torn by loss and fear from the long, terrible night, Sunoo had just enough strength to smile.
That's when they heard the choking groan behind them. There was darkness, tinged with red and an echo of pain.
In that darkness, there was no self and no peace; he was alone and engaged in battle, a furious struggle to find the end to that absence of light.
He knew that finding the end quickly was important, but a maze of strange and somehow frightening images blocked his way, insisting that he didn't need to hurry.
A ghost, a soldier, a rage.
The ringing laugh of a woman he had known who was no more... and the terrible dead eyes that had taken away the light in an explosion of fire and sound.
Eyes that he knew but was afraid to remember.
The maze beckoned him, called to him to explore deeper and give up his search for the end of darkness- that the path would only lead to greater pain- and he'd almost decided to stop fighting, to let the shadows take over when the light found him in an explosive blast of deafeningthunder.
Then he was being shot through ice and liquid black, pounded to consciousness by pain and it was the pain that he focused on in that screaming, terrible ride, the pain that drove him to fight the darkness.
His awareness spun away as the air curdled in his lungs and the raging cold numbed the pain but then he could breathe, and the jagged piece of bobbing wood beneath his clawed fingers told him that there was, in fact, light.
He wasn't dead, although he almost wished he were- he could still hardly breathe, and the
pain in his back was exquisite- and then he heard the sound of Sungjoon's voice amidst the sloshing cold and felt that life might be worth living, after all.
He tried to call out, but all that emerged was an exhausted moan. There was a stab of sharp and blinding light and then darkness again, but there was a flicker of awareness this time that allowed him to understand what was happening.
Pain and movement, a feeling of weightless suspension and then hardness against his cheek.
Chill and more movement, the sound of cloth ripping and paper tearing. Excited voices calling orders, and again, the shriek of torn flesh.
When he came around again, he saw a shadow in a A. T. P. D. vest bending over him with an IV bag in one hand and a needle in the other.
Hope that's morphine, he tried to say, but again, he only groaned.
A split second later, he saw two pale blurs hovering over him as the Alpha force shadow continued to work over him with warm and gentle hands.
The blurs were Sungjoon, Sunoo and Hyeopil, eyes circled with dark, hair dripping, faces tired and lost.
"You're going to be okay, Sicheng," Sungjoon said softly.
"Just rest now. It's all over."
A spreading warmth started to flush through his body, a delicious, sleepy warmth that banished the roar of pain to a distant and faraway land.
Just as a friendly darkness came to claim him, he looked into Sungjoon's eyes and managed to rasp out what he suddenly wanted to say more than anything. It took great effort, but it had to be said.
"You two look like somethin' a coyote ate and shit off a cliff," he mumbled. "Seriously... " Sicheng was followed into the healing blackness by the sweet sound of laughter.
The middle-aged Alpha medic had taken Sicheng inside the small cabin on the thirty-foot boat, coming out only once to tell them that everything looked all right.
Two broken ribs, some deep tissue trauma and
a punctured lung, but they'd managed to patch him up well enough to call him stable and he was resting comfortably.
A medevac helicopter had already been radioed for and would be arriving soon, and the medic seemed confident that Sicheng would manage a full recovery.
Sungjoon had wept a little at the news, and not been a bit ashamed.
They sat in the back of the boat, huddled under a scratchy wool blanket as Jiyeon and her team
continued to set charges, powering easily back and forth across the cove.
The Omega team had already brought up four of the giant creatures before they'd seen the explosive burst of air and debris that had come up from the lab, and it was starting to look as though there weren't any more.
Hyeopil had one arm around Sunoo, the young boy leaning against his chest as the black sky gradually started to shade to a deep, ethereal blue.
Neither of them spoke, too tired to do more than watch the team work, dropping charges and searching the results, back and forth and back again.
Jiyeon had promised to send divers down for Monika's tanks as soon as the cove was clear and Sicheng had been picked up.
There were two wetsuits already laid out on the bow's deck, a young omega, whose name Sungjoon had forgotten, prepping them with studied intensity.
He reminded Sungjoon of Doyoung a little bit- Somehow, the thought of Doyoung didn't bring the kind of pain that Sungjoon expected it would.
It hurt, it hurt like hell- Serra and Doyoung, gone- but when he thought of what they had managed to stop, what they had been a part of it wasn't all for nothing.
"We stopped Monika's insanity, stopped her from effectively killing millions of innocent people. God, they would have been so proud... " Sungjoon mumbled.
The pain was bad, but the guilt wasn't as devastating as he'd feared it would be. His responsibility in their deaths was something he knew he'd have to ponder for a long time to come but he thought that there was a good chance that he'd be able to find a way to come to terms with it eventually.
He wasn't sure how, but the tears he'd been able to shed over Sicheng had struck him as a step in the right direction.
Sungjoon's tired thoughts turned to G. Inc., to what role they'd played in Monika's madness. While they surely hadn't meant for their researcher to go mad, they had created the circumstances that allowed it to happen; their complete disregard for human life could only have been encouragement for someone like Monika. And without G. Inc., the scientist would never have had access to the A-Virus.
Someday soon, they'll be held accountable for what they've done.
Not today or tomorrow, but soon...
Perhaps San would help them again. Perhaps Yeonjun, Jeongsun, Jihae, Minhee, Juyeon, Fin and Bona would uncover more in the city.
Sunoo curled closer against Hyeopil, his breath warm and even against his drying clothes, and Hyeopil let his own thoughts go for the time being, content to simply sit and not think at all.
He was very, very tired. He used his strength a lot- using his creature identity and ability to help them agaisnt the lizard-creatures, help Sunoo to swim up- not that lot but still... and he'll face the consequences later.
As the first rays of the sun slipped over the horizon, Jiyeon pronounced the waters clean, though neither Sungjoon nor Sunoo and Hyeopil heard her; both had fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep beneath the twilight of the coming day.
***
THE END
Next chapter is the Epilogue