Jason Luthor - Floor 21

Outside of that, there’s not much to do except for sleeping. The only thing you can’t forget to do before going to sleep is to set up the particle sensor, which detects changes in the air related to Creep growth. If it detects rapid growth, well, it does exactly what it’s supposed to and blares alive to get us all on our feet. Most of the time, it doesn’t go off.

Most of the time.

We lost Goodrich today.

In general, things have been intense since we made our way into Polar North. Even though the access tunnels didn’t take us straight to the power plants like we’d hoped, they at least got us far enough north that we’ve easily been covering more uncharted territory for the last five days than we have in the last year of scavenging.

As I’ve said in my previous reports, the Creep is at a level you never see unless you’re closing in on Floor 50. There are times when it’s so thick along the walls that you’re scared you’re going to brush up alongside it and it’s going to grab you. So, to prevent that, we’ve been following the Demidov Protocol whenever things have gotten particularly intense. That is, two Scavengers at a time with a distance of about ten yards between each team. Point team’s got it worst, having to take corners and be the first into rooms, but that’s the reason we rotate.

Anyway, I tell the guys all the time not to be greedy, but human nature never changes. In Goodrich’s defense, I don’t think he was trying to be too impulsive. He just saw something he thought he could get to.

He couldn’t.

We’ve been noticing a trend, and it follows Mike’s original assumption. The closer we move to where he suspects Polar North’s heart to be, the more we’re finding random, massive outgrowths of Creep. Our working theory is that it fed off the power reactors when it originally spread and then possessed the rest of the Tower that way. No way to be sure, but what I am certain of is that the Creep isn’t evenly spread out, even here in the north wing. It definitely starts to intensify as we move toward where Mike suspects the power reactors are. He’s doing his best to lead, but even with his superior sense of direction, the infestation is really making it difficult to make steady progress north without getting diverted.

Another change we’ve noticed is that we left the typical apartments of the Tower behind and entered… something else. It’s hard to be sure, but there aren’t any beds or drawers here. Well, there are, but they’re not like apartment beds. They’re more like cheap bunk beds designed for people working here, as if they were set up for a quick nap if people got tired. We’ve been using them. It’s a big relief since I’d hate to have to sleep on the ground under these conditions.

It’s pretty obvious that this was some sort of working space, either a lab or mechanical area. We don’t really know what the tower was used for before the Before so it’s quite possible the area we now call Polar North was some sort of workshop. I can back up that observation with the types of materials we’ve been scavenging, which are mostly of the tools and materials variety. The Pocket Space generators in this part of the Tower are all full of the stuff.

Which brings us to the loss of Goodrich. We made our way into what was beyond question a former lab of some sort, but the overgrowth there was intense. Immediately I wanted to back out, but Goodrich argued back. You have his profile, so you’ll know that he was always one of the headstrong ones, a natural Floor Niner. They’re almost always that way. Plus, you know these guys really do get off on being heroes back home. So on our way out, Goodrich spots a Pocket Space generator just a bit exposed from the rest of the Creep. I guess he must have thought it was far enough out that he could access it without any risk, but as we’re all aware, the Creep doesn’t react very well to Pocket Space activation. In a confined space, it’s best to activate the generator from a distance, and, well, Goodrich didn’t. I didn’t realize what he was doing until the blue glare from a portal opening up reflected inside my visor. The team spun around at once as Goodrich was working his trigger unit, trying to draw out the materials inside the portal.

The instant we turned, we saw the Creep hanging above starting to shiver, and you don’t need an alarm to tell you what that means. I began to order Goodrich back, but before I could, a stalk of the Creep whipped downward. Goodrich kind of caught sight of it in time and jumped away, but the fleshy appendage shattered the floor underneath him. A dozen cracks splintered out and the team leaped away, scrambling for the door. I turned around to see Goodrich, who began to rush away from the Pocket Space portal. The floor must have really been corrupted by Creep, though, because he’d barely taken a step before it gave way, shattering into a dozen chunks. The last I saw was him reaching out for me, and I could only stare as a mammoth part of the wall collapsed around him. Creep and concrete plunged down into the darkness as I jumped out of the room, barking at the team to haul off. We were barely down the corridor before parts of the hall began to sink into the floor beneath us.

I’m not sure how long we ran, but we didn’t stop moving until the sounds stopped. By then we were deep inside Polar North, with no immediate path back the way we’d come. One man down and now cut off from any part of the Tower we were familiar with, I had no choice but to order the team deeper. We’d just have to try and carve a way out.

Two more gone late yesterday.

Nwosu got taken by the Creep. She was supposed to be following the Demidov Protocol and sticking close to her teammate, but I don’t know, I guess she panicked. Of any of us, she’d always had one of the worst problems with claustrophobia. It isn’t something that will get you knocked out of the Scavengers if you can learn how to control it, which she normally does. I guess the losses we’ve experienced over the last few days just had her on edge, because she broke rank with her partner and started to sprint to the end of a particularly infested hall. I could see the Creep reacting to her panic, which it’s known to do, especially in congested parts of the Deep Creep. It whipped her with so much force that she was dead on impact. Then it did the gruesome work of absorbing her into its mass.

A lot of things could have happened at that moment, but any more panic would have just agitated the Creep even further. I looked ahead and behind me, motioning for everyone to keep calm. I could see the fear in their eyes, but any sudden actions would have meant our doom. Once everyone was settled, I gave the command to keep moving ahead. It might sound cold, but at that second, we had to forget about the loss and keep going. There just wasn’t any chance to mourn or, at least, not at that moment. At the time I hoped that would be the only death we saw that day.

It wouldn’t be. Lopez was the next to go, but we wouldn’t realize it until morning. She’d been complaining of particularly strong sightings of Demons. At one point she turned to me and said she could see one standing behind me as we talked. That’s not a normal experience. When the Demons do linger, they normally stand at a distance. They might approach you, but they’ll vanish long before they get to you.

In six years I’ve never been told that one was standing over my shoulder.

I guess that Nwosu’s death must have affected her even more than the rest of us. With all the signs of fear and paranoia she was expressing, it’s not entirely surprising that she went the way she went. We were able to secure a room by using light heating to clear some sleeping space. It was a long and tense process, but we had to clear at least just enough of the Creep to settle on some beds. Before bedding down I tried to get everyone’s spirits up and reminded them that, at least if Mike’s estimates were right, we were closing in on the power plants. From there we’d have to be able to get some answers and devise a way out. All the layouts we’re familiar with indicated that an additional stairwell had to be against the far northern walls of this wing.