(Due to a character-count restriction, Chapter 4 is in two parts. Take a look around for Part 1 if you haven't read it yet!)

This time, there was no convincing herself that it wasn’t real.

Her breath stoppered in her throat. Every single hair on the back of her neck rose up at once.

It looked human, or human-ish at least. It had the appropriate amount of arms and legs, and, unlike the last one, this one's head showed a better approximation of a human’s, size-wise. But even the most imaginative, determined mind couldn't have convinced itself that this was a human wearing a weird, dark projection suit.

This was a thing straight out of nightmares.

No features met her gaze. The being was so dark that it appeared depthless to her eyes, like the trick they’d played to cover stealth ships back in the day, using a paint so black it appeared as an absence on traditional surveillance systems. For most of it, she couldn't tell if it were three-dimensional space or not. Adrenaline poured into her system as she kept looking, her gaze going up and up to where its head sat more than a meter and a half above her. Its featureless face was turned toward her and staring—somehow, despite the lack of eyes, she could feel it, its attention boring into her brain like a wood wyrm through elm. The parts around its edges blurred, hard to look at, like watching someone press their finger into the surface of a lit plasma screen. A rising panic clamored within her, screaming at her to move, to yell, to run, to fight, to take a breath.

One of its arms detached from where it had rested near its sides. It rose over the surface of the counter, reaching for her.

That broke her paralysis.

A small, mewling sound squeezed from her throat. The office chair rocketed back as she shot to her feet, and she tripped over its leg as she made to scramble away. The world did a slow rotation around her, then the floor came up to meet her with a solid whumph. The impact jammed straight through her shoulder. Pain flashed through her wrist, quickly followed by a tingling sensation that turned into a numb, painful throb. Part of her knee burned, too. She scraped at the cold tiles, the wind knocked out of her, gasping for breath as she flipped back around to face the front desk—and the thing behind it.

Like a crude facsimile of her actions only a minute ago, the Shadow-man took one step to the side and dipped around the corner of the desk and into the workspace toward her. Its arm no longer reached out, but, as it walked toward her, its steps too-long, too-fast, its intention was clear.

"No, no, no, no—" She scrambled away, kicking against the floor. Numb fingers brushed against the leg of another chair and she grabbed it, attempting to swing it around and at the creature. It rattled weakly across the floor in a slow spin. The Shadow-man easily sidestepped, closing in on her with a few long, silent strides.

"Help! Help!" Her breath rasped in her throat. Again, its arm reached out to her, long and terrifying. Its fingers looked more like jagged cuts of cloth that anything flesh or bone. They were so close she could see that warping effect at the borders between where it ended and the rest of the space began. It towered over her, blocking out most of her sight. Her breath caught in her throat as she leaned back, trying to get away.

Two cracks sounded, deafening her. As if in a daze, she sensed the room’s light undulate—then the blaster shots burned into the Shadow-man’s chest like hot embers.

It stopped, suspended. A third and fourth round slammed into it, but the fifth passed right through. It hit the wall close to the door with a shower of sparks.

The Shadow-man began to fade.

Movement swarmed around her. Soldiers, rifles up and drawn, moving around the low walls and into the workspace. Preston, in charge, shouting orders, coordinating. Others talking. She didn’t care. All of her attention was on the Shadow-man. It burst into wisps, like fragments of black fog that slowly ebbed away into the air. Within ten seconds, it was gone. Only the burned smell of the air, the pain in her shoulder, and the still-glowing scorch mark next to the door were evidence that it had been there.

A hand came down on her shoulder. One of the men knelt down next to her, his rifle slung on his back and his shield set aside. "Are you okay?"

She flinched, more from shock than any actual pain. She'd rammed her shoulder pretty good during her fall to the floor, but she doubted it was anything serious. "Yeah. I think so."

"Are you sure? You're bleeding."

She followed his gaze down to her hand. Sure enough, a smudge of blood darkened the skin of her knuckles. Now that she was aware of it, she could feel the corresponding throb. She gave it a quick assessment, flexing it, then turned it to test the wrist.

"It's fine," she said, "just banged it on the floor." But, as he helped her to her feet, she staggered. Strong arms grabbed her, holding her up as her knees threatened to buckle further.

"There's a medical station not far down the path,” the soldier said. “We can get you checked out."

Of course there was. She knew that. In fact, they even had an above-average medical supply in the company.

"No, it's okay, I didn't sleep last night, so that's why…" She trailed off, suddenly aware of the rest of the soldiers. At some point while they'd been talking, Preston had stopped. Everyone was staring at them.

"Actually, we may insist on a checkup," Preston said.

She frowned. "Why?"

"We didn’t just come here on a rescue mission. It may seem quiet down here, but there are over five-hundred e-calls lighting up all across the station, and we can't answer them all. You said you were interning here?"

It seemed like a good moment to separate herself from the soldier who'd helped her up. She cleared her throat as she rebalanced yourself, taking a pointed step away from him and rubbing her wrist. "Yeah?"

"What do you do?"

"I'm an engineer. Like everyone else in here, I work on circuits."

"You any good?"

She paused. This conversation had taken a turn she hadn't quite expected. Her eyes sharpened on Sergeant Preston. "I'm excellent. Why?"

"We've got malfunctioning security circuits on Harbin level. Curlew holds the contract. Can you fix them?"

"It might be better to call in a more senior engineer on this. My field experience is somewhat limited. If you want, I could—"

"There's no time. We have to get down there now. Can you fix them?"

This, thought a small, selfish voice in her head,would be an excellent opportunity.

But she was smarter than that, and so were the military. If they were asking her, an intern, to do the work, that meant…

She frowned. "Where is Yamaguchi?"

As if on cue, he moved into view in the corner of her eye. Escorted by one of the soldiers, he walked with an uncharacteristic hunch, his shoulders curling in over his chest and his hands clutched in front of him. His hair, soft and normally combed into the short, traditional style, stuck out at odd angles from his head, catching at the lights as he walked, and his eyes moved as in a daze, his attention shifting around and devoid of the usual bright, gruff spark of intelligence that she expected to see in his face.

He acted just like Kapil had back in his room–dull and unfocused. Absent.

Her stomach tensed into a tight knot.

"Taken," Preston confirmed.

Her hand trembled. It was all she could do not to be sick. "What you mean, taken? What does that mean? Is it the Shadow-men? What do they do? What are they?"

Sergeant Preston gave her a long, sad look.

"We have no idea."