"God"

The bones were marked, as if a thousand deep cuts had been made into each bone, some at angles from one another.  To do it by hand would have required wire to get into the crevices, and it would have required a hundred years.  There was no flesh to draw tight against these bones, for it had been burned thoroughly.  Quarantine chemicals had been thrown over it and catalyzed.  If anything had remained alive and functional, trapped within char and gristle, it had been sealed away from the world by the clear crystalline growths that had resulted.  A bug trapped in amber.

> >

The creation had been injured enough that it could be made to stay still while it burned.  The burning had been followed with chemicals, which formed a solid and clear binding chemical.  After the binding chemical, walls had been erected with the creature at the center.

All Mauer’s work.  To do anything less would have been tempting fate.

Enemy 18a