I agree, knock that clearly evil thing out of the park. With a stick/pole/lamp of some sort if you can get one.

Though you're getting fairly tired with all this stair climbing, you finally make your way back up to level 5. You figure that even a temporary fix is better than spending possibly hours trying to diagnose and repair whatever had caused this in the first place.

Speaking of, the fact that the place was flooding gave you a few more clues as to the extent of the damage. Whoever had placed the explosives was either incredibly lucky or had a very good idea of where everything was. They'd managed to take out the power, the water, and probably the main computer, since it looks like the secondary systems never even turned on. Great.

You open the door to level 5 with no resistance, which is a bizarre feeling; normally you would have had to punch in your code on the door's keypad to get it to unlock. Fortunately for you, it seems that all the doors in the facility had had their latches all locked into the "open" position, allowing you to simply push or pull them without having to even turn the handle. Unfortunately, you realize, that means that whatever else is down here could do the same. Nervously, very aware of the musty, organic smell you'd come to associate with the monsters, you take out your pocketknife, just in case.

Navigating the hallways and corridors isn't a problem, though. It's actually knowing where to go that is. Unable to read any signage, you have to work by what little memory you have of the place... while avoiding potentially deadly monsters... while tired, hungry, dehydrated, and in a strange body. The folks upstairs had better appreciate the help. The only good news out of all of this is that you have a very clear memory of what the panel you need to find looks like.

Nearly a half-hour and untold amounts of frustration later, you take a brief rest inside one of the dozens of rooms peppered throughout the level. God, this place was infested! You could barely turn a corner without coming practically face-to-face with something.  From the glimpses you'd managed to catch of the creatures you'd narrowly missed running into, you seemed to be fairly lucky in the "stayed relatively humanoid" department. Yeah, there was the whole sonar thing, and the fact that your back was starting to kill you from standing up like this, but you seemed to have made it out of this catastrophe pretty much intact. As for the others...

You really didn't want to start thinking of them as ex-coworkers, even if that's what they probably were, because that meant that you killed pretty much your best friend about two hours ago. Granted, it could probably be seen as a mercy kill, but, again, you really didn't want to start thinking about that.

With a little sigh, you turn your thoughts back to finding and starting up the secondary generator, standing up and "looking" around the room. Just like when you'd entered, you didn't see much of interest, but after exploring the room further, something sparks your memory. Through a door off to the side, you finally enter the area you were looking for. The entire far wall is covered with the switches and keypads you'd need to turn on the power, and you know exactly what to do with them.

Unfortunately, you're not alone. Beyond the sweaty odor that immediately tipped you off, the entire room is a veritable minefield of long, web-like filaments, stretching from floor to ceiling. A tentative step forward reveals that the floor is wet with some sort of slime. You don't know if the thing that had set this trap was in the room, or even still alive, but most of the ceiling is blocked from your view both by the filaments and by your bad viewing angle standing outside the door.

It occurs to you that, if you're going to be doing anything other than fumbling around blindly in the dark, you're going to need to find a way to tell where things are. Thinking back to your past examination of yourself, you wonder if those bat ears of yours are there for a reason. You're kind of fuzzy on how echolocation worked precisely, but knew it involved making a sound and listening as it bounced back to you.

With this in mind, you spend the next few minutes making just about every vocalization you could, listening to each individually and trying to figure out which one worked the best. You quickly discover that the answer was "none of them." Every pitch and tone you made was just as useless as the last, sending back a cascade of echoes that meant absolutely nothing to you. On the verge of giving up this useless venture, you make an exasperated sigh.

Or, at least, you try to make an exasperated sigh. What comes out is a single, crystal-clear, beautiful click. The forms of everything in front of you are highlighted as if you had suddenly turned on a powerful flashlight. You "see" the stairwell stretch out in front of you, end at a wall, then make a turn to continue down, where your "vision" ends. It wasn't quite seeing as much as it was having a little 3D model in your head. The image lingers for a few moments before fading into memory.

Astonished and thoroughly relieved, you try to replicate the sound. To your even greater relief, you find that you can keep a steady stream of useful volume going for nearly a minute, only needing to pause to take another breath. Despite yourself, you let out a whoop of triumph that echoes up and down the stairwell.

((Screw it, I'm bumping this back to life. *Readies defibrulator*))

As you sit in the stairwell, considering your options, your cellphone suddenly begins to ring and vibrate. Badly startled, you quickly take it out and flip it open to answer it. You don't really care who is on the other end at this point. You're just happy for someone to talk to.

"Hello?" you ask.

"Oh my god. Harold? Is that you?" It's Louise, your maybe-might be-kind of girlfriend, and she sounds just slightly less freaked out than you are.

"Yeah, it's me. L--"

"Where are you?" she interrupted. "I've been trying to reach you for two days! The cops are just about ready to start a full missing persons operation!"

"Louise, just calm down a sec. I'm fine for the moment. I'm still at the office, but I don't know what's happened. Everyone's gone and the power's out. Have you heard anything?"

"I've heard some rumors that there was some sort of explosion, but no one has anything official yet. The feds have definitely been called in, though."

Processing this information, you try to think of what, if anything, to tell her while you still had her on the line.

SPECIALBROWNIES!

Hold on, let me check when I registered.

Date Registered:       August 02, 2006, 02:10:23 PM

....

Well, ****. I am from 2006.
Why do I not feel that old?

A lot, trust me. It was cited as pretty much the only way to make it through the highest difficulty level before the random number god was toned down a patch or two ago.

What's your profile name? I could help you through the campaign via co-op so you can unlock PvP faster.

I haven't talked to Kcronos in... well, quite a while.

I'll see if I still have his email address on file.

((Sorry about the wait. I was at a robotics competition over in Long Beach))

The wounds on your shoulders have stopped bleeding, but it's still a little painful to move your arms.

Unsure of what to do, you try to calmly think of your options:

On Level 3, there was mostly dormitories, but it also housed the main cafeteria and had medical facilities. It is also the level you are most familiar with in terms of layout, but seems to be at least sparsely populated with monsters.

Below you, Level 4 was very much the same as Level 3, but instead swapped out the cafeteria for a rec room. Level 5 had the secondary systems for computing, power, water, heating, cooling, and more. You weren't very familiar with where everything was, but you have both the knowledge and the access keys to restore power and reboot the secondary computer. Among other things, doing so would bring the intercom system back online, allowing you to effectively search for survivors.

Levels 6, 7, and 8 contained the primary systems, and again, you were able to restart them. However, while you're far more familiar with these levels, being your primary area of work, you have the feeling this all started with a problem in the primary systems, and diagnosing it would be difficult without the ability to read computer screens. Levels 7, 8, and 9 also contained labs and various workshops. Though you're not certain of anything at this point, you get the feeling that the fact that there seemed to be more monsters below you and the fact that the labs were below you were rather closely related.

Finally, Levels 10 and 11 were normally off limits, being the high security storage area. You didn't have the codes to even enter those levels, but the fact that every other door you'd found wasn't even able to latch closed, it was possible that the doors down there were also wide open.

Above you, Level 2 was mostly administration offices, but it did contain the main intercom hub, which would be useful if you managed to get the power back on, and there wasn't much noise coming from that direction besides the mechanical rumbling. Beyond that, on Level 1, was more of the same, plus a few meeting and demonstration rooms, along with some low-level storage. Most importantly, though, Level 1 was the only way out of the facility, being the ground floor.

All in all, it really came down to one choice: stay in the facility and try to save anyone else possibly trapped inside, or take the safe way out and make a break for the exit.

Inventory
(1) Pocket knife with (4) attachments: Knife, Scissors, Corkscrew, Screwdriver
(1) Cellphone
(1) Wallet with ( 8 ) cards and (20) bills of unknown value
(1) Keyring with (5) keys and (1) bottle opener