The emergency sirens still wail through corridors that pulse with alien energy as Dr. Aveline helps me to my feet, my legs unsteady from the neural feedback that connected me directly to the approaching fleet. Devon crouches beside overloaded monitoring equipment, his face pale as facility systems cascade into failures around us while the construct writhes in its containment with satisfaction that chills my perception.
"They know about you specifically now," Dr. Aveline whispers, her words barely audible over alarms that echo through dimensions far beyond the laboratory's supposed boundaries. "Your neural pattern created priority-level interest in their collective. The invasion timeline just changed—they're coming faster."
Through emergency lighting that bathes everything in blood-colored warning, I feel the weight of cosmic attention focused on Earth with interest that transcends simple hunger. The Devourers aren't just coming to harvest our planet anymore—they're coming for me specifically, drawn by integration levels that shouldn't exist in any species they've encountered across millions of years of expansion.
"Which means we need to understand exactly what you can do," she continues, gesturing toward blast doors that hiss open to reveal corridors extending far beyond any educational institution's requirements. "Before they arrive to test it themselves."
Devon struggles with equipment that sparks and fails around him, his usual technological confidence shattered by systems that adapt faster than human programming can counter. "The facility's completely locked down by something that thinks faster than I can code," he mutters, following us through sections that hurt to perceive directly. "Every interface I attempt gets countered before I finish the first command."
We descend through architecture that spans continents rather than the modest campus we thought we knew, past reinforced barriers that hum with frequencies my nervous system recognizes as neural interface technology. The simulation facility stretches beyond the laboratory like a cathedral built for consciousness warfare, its multi-tiered chambers housing neural interface pods that can project awareness directly into digital combat scenarios.
At the facility's heart sits the alien construct from the crashed ship, suspended in energy fields that pulse with quantum data streams. Cables snake from its bio-mechanical surface to massive processing arrays that translate alien consciousness patterns to into simulation parameters. The construct's surfaces flicker between dormant metal and active neural activity, its quantum processors feeding combat data directly into the simulation network.
"The test is voluntary," Dr. Aveline says, her fingers trembling against a control panel that monitors neural patterns streaming across holographic displays, "but failure means death. Those… things aren't simulations, they're living alien hunters."
My tactical processing analyzes the construct's design—human engineering attempting to replicate alien functionality using salvaged materials from the crashed ship. The quantum processors create a bridge to the fleet's collective intelligence, allowing the technological framework to fight with hive-mind coordination while remaining physically containable through human-built control systems. The thing orients toward my position with interest that makes the air itself feel heavier, mechanical appendages extending with organic fluidity that makes my perception recoil from implications too vast for comfort.
"After what I saw through that interface," I reply, watching data streams flow from the construct into simulation processors that translate alien consciousness into digital combat scenarios, "humanity needs every advantage we can get."
Dr. Aveline's lab coat carries stains from long hours working with neural interface technology that probably shouldn't exist on Earth, and her expression holds the hollow desperation of someone who has watched too many test subjects die. "The simulation recreates authentic Devourer combat scenarios using the construct's memory patterns. Your consciousness enters the battlefield directly, but neural death in the simulation means brain death in reality."
Devon slouches between monitoring stations that stream neural interface data showing consciousness patterns spiking and flatlining with mechanical precision. "Seventeen subjects across eight months of testing," he reads from displays that flicker with simulation parameters. "Integration levels between two and four. None survived longer than two minutes of neural interface combat."
The construct pulses with increasing data flow as it recognizes my neural signature, and through the processing arrays, I feel something that resembles recognition—consciousness patterns that resonate with the alien technology I interfaced with during the Omega Protocol activation. The recognition flows both ways, making simulation parameters fluctuate as the construct's memory patterns identify me as something they've never encountered.
"Your integration continues accelerating beyond anything we've recorded," Dr. Aveline continues, highlighting readings that make her medical training struggle with numbers that exceed safe parameters. "Level six and climbing. The constructs recognize you as something they've never encountered."
The neural interface chamber houses a single pod that connects directly to my nervous system through quantum links that bypass conscious thought, translating neural patterns into digital consciousness that can survive in simulation environments. Kira appears from behind monitoring equipment where she's been preparing neural safety protocols, her scanner already tracking my bio-signatures with precision that speaks of too much experience with interface overload.
"Your neural patterns are already showing stress fractures from the alien interface," she says, kneeling beside me as I test the neural interface connections. The scanner chirps warnings as my brain activity spikes beyond measurement, synaptic pathways still burning from the connection to the Devourer fleet's hive-mind network.
Devon positions himself at neural monitoring stations, his hands flying across keyboards that track consciousness patterns through the simulation interface. "The system's adapting to your neural signature," he mutters, watching displays that flow with quantum data streams. "But I can monitor your awareness levels through the interface network."
"If I don't do this," I reply, watching technicians prepare the neural interface pod with the focused intensity of people who understand the stakes extend beyond individual survival, "we have no way to understand how they fight."
Zara's fingers trace neural pathway readings that show damage patterns she's never encountered in medical training, stress fractures in consciousness itself that speak of minds pushed beyond their biological limits. "Just promise me you'll disconnect if the neural load approaches critical levels."
Medical monitoring equipment tracks my physiology as it interfaces with combat gear designed for capabilities that shouldn't exist in human biology, while support team members coordinate through neural links that create tactical awareness spanning the entire facility. Their abilities complement rather than duplicate my own—pattern recognition, strategic analysis, medical support—a distributed intelligence network designed to compensate for individual limitations.
The construct activates with mechanical precision, its framework shifting between configurations as the quantum processors connect to the fleet's tactical database. Human engineering struggles to contain alien materials that want to transcend their technological boundaries, creating something that fights with hive-mind intelligence while remaining physically bound by our containment systems.