Here's the next section. This one and the couple after it are a little
bloodier, but things calm back down for a while afterwards.
Hope you enjoy.
I pulled my snubber and screwed the silencer in place as I looked around. I always prefer the Blitzer, but couldn't fire it without everyone within a city block hearing it. K'rth kept his disk out and took a position on the opposite side of the doorway. After we had checked our hands-off mikes, we were ready to go. He counted down on his fingers and I got ready to open the door. Three…Two…
Suddenly the door banged open and a head poked out. I lashed out and grabbed it by the throat with my off hand and saw a young girl's face, probably no more than seven staring up at me. Her eyes were wide with fear as she fought for air and when I let her go, she dived back into the building. I heard a commotion followed by scampering feet and yelling. I'm not prepared to kill a child, no matter what Slayer says and the alarm might have just gotten us killed. K'rth regarded me for a moment and nodded as I threw open the door. So much for the stealthy entry. We both pulled our Blitzers and lunged into the hall.
A couple of people were in the narrow corridor to investigate the sounds and either stared wide-mouthed or held their hands up as we went past. I didn't see "the look" on anyone's face to indicate a threat but kept my eyes on the open doorways as we separated. We both took a stairway to the second floor since we had to cut off any escape. I hoped we wouldn't run into anything that we couldn't handle alone.
The stairway was covered in a stained layer of trash that rasped under my feet until I hit the first landing. From there on, the trash looked different almost like it hadn't seen as much wear and an alarm went off in my head. K'rth must have run into something similar since he hailed me on the mike. Another good thing about these prefabs is that the materials aren't dense enough to interfere with radio communications.
"This stairway doesn't show any traffic beyond the first landing so use care. There are going to be traps of some sort."
I pulled my flashlight and crouched, finding the threat right away. There were two thin fibers running just above the top of two stairs. I traced them and found a couple modified C-3s hooked into the railing aimed at about waist level, more than enough to chop an intruder into pieces.
"I found 'em. Two Boomers along the railing." I said across the mike as I carefully stepped over them. Since I didn't see any damage on the walls, I figured that they had never been triggered before and moved carefully upward. I didn't think we had a lot of time.
The second level was sealed with a heavy fire door that was locked from the other side. Glancing through the thin window, I couldn't see any movement, but then my mike hissed with static. This cheap replacement I had picked up wasn't working any better than the ones Nix picked up. Maybe it wasn't an anti-human conspiracy after all.
"Got a locked firedoor, you?" I asked.
"Same. Movement on the other side, will get back to you." He whispered.
I considered doubling back to cover him, but that would both insult him and leave this one uncovered. A moment later I heard a crackle from my mike. We were going live.
"Got company." he whispered and I heard gunfire echoing through the walls. I aimed the Blitzer at the lock on the door, but before I could fire there was movement on the other side. More gunfire ripped in the distance and it sounded like automatic weapons. I had to hurry before they overwhelmed him.
The door swung open and a man wearing a DN logo flak vest ran out holding a Dino 100. I stepped forward and fired point blank, blasting apart the front of his armor and sending him reeling backwards. Hopping over the body, I swung the door open and cleared my end of the corridor. There were a group of men firing at the other door from the other end and an apartment door opened about fifteen feet away from me. We had hostiles everywhere and I really didn't like the odds.
Since the Blitzer has only six shots, I crouched and cradled it across my leg then pulled the suppressed snubber. Two men in coveralls stepped into the hall, but since they weren't Bayer, I didn't concern myself. I sighted in on the back of the closer one's head and squeezed the trigger. A crimson smear hit the back of the other man who yelped and spun. I put a double tap into center of mass and changed targets to the end of the hall as he fell out of my line of fire. There were at least half a dozen men at the other end, so I chose one and braced my arm on the doorjamb.
I put two rounds into the side of his chest, but he only winced and swiveled to cover the corridor. The bastard must have been wearing a DN bodysuit under his jacket and the suppressed round wasn't going to cut it. I leaned back out of sight, holstered the snubber, and cocked the handcannon. That would punch through him and any two of his friends with the HEAP rounds I was using. Two of the shooters were already down, but the remaining four were probably enough to pin K'rth on the landing.
I began to swing around, but chunks of plaster and compressed wood spat from the wall above me. I jerked back again, waited, and then leaned around lower this time. It took a moment for him pick me up and I put a round in the center of his chest. He flopped backwards and the round shattered a steam pipe behind him, filling that end of the hall in a white cloud. The firing stopped for a moment from that end and I guess they knew they'd been flanked.
One of the men dove for K'rth's stairwell and I fired, but my shot was too low and I nicked him in the upper leg. As he reached the door, something pulled him out of sight and the screaming told me that K'rth was still kicking. The remaining three men plastered themselves against the walls and one used unhinged firedoor as cover. I put the red dot painter a few inches to the inside of his exposed knee and fired. The door's paint exploded as the round went through and he sat down, holding his hip. I put another round through his upper chest and he slumped to the ground.
The other two started to rock and roll on my end of the hall and I dove backwards onto the landing as the cheap 8mm rounds chopped up the walls and doorframe. The barraged didn't seem to be ending and I wondered if there really were more than two guys left out there.
"You still alive, old man?" I asked as I shielded my eyes.
"Of course. It seems you have their attention."
"Had to give you a break." I switched my position and wiggled the stiffness out of my right wrist. "Can you take advantage of it?"
"I'll see. N'tchsdtl!"
I heard a scream and the fire hitting my end of the hall stopped, so I rushed forward and leaned low around the corner. One of the men was face down, torn open by K'rth's power disk and the other was begging for mercy as the Shaktar covered him. I took the opportunity to pop a speed loader and came into the hallway, covering the open space. Nothing moved and K'rth held the doorframe watching.
"I'm going room to room," I said as I angled for the first doorway.
"Make it quick, we're bound to have company." he suggested.
"Ok. Cover the hall while I go in."
The adrenaline made my heart pound as I pulled in my breath and kicked the first door open. Aiming at the corner, I glanced around the doorframe while standing, then crouched and leaned around again. There wasn't any movement so I entered the room with my Blitzer in front, but it was empty. DN had done a little custom renovation and chopped a doorway to the next apartment through the wall with what looked like a chainsaw. I adjusted my grip and quietly advanced on the hole, glancing quickly inside. The next room was empty also and they had knocked out the walls between the next few apartments to form one large work area. Benches and tables filled the place and I carefully circled them as I covered the next door. I could search the room more thoroughly later if I needed to but it looked like a small munitions factory at first glance. Vices, shell casings, and spare materials were everywhere. It looked like we may have interrupted something since tools and parts were everywhere.
The remaining rooms on this side were sleeping quarters, filled with mattresses and were completely unoccupied. The conditions were Spartan at best and reminded me of some of the DN safehouses I'd seen in my first few months as an operative. There was a soiled kid's doll and I almost picked it up before my training kicked in. That sort of move is guaranteed to get you killed and I stepped around it instead.
"What's your status?" K'rth asked.
"Empty so far. Looks like some kind of safehouse and factory. We definitely stumbled onto a permanent cell base. How's the prisoner?"
"Terrified, but he seems to be better now that he has defecated."
I winced and shook my head. A six and a half foot tall alien reptile is pretty intimidating, even without the DN propaganda swearing that Shaktars are abducting Mort's women for experimentation. I could imagine how scared the guy was, but didn't have a lot of sympathy.
"Ok, this side's clear. I'm crossing into the corridor now on your end."
"Alright."
I stepped forward and waved my hand so that he'd see me, then aimed down the length of the corridor as I crossed. He was crouched behind the busted fire door and had already cuffed and gagged the prisoner facedown. The guy was no more than nineteen or so and stared at me with watery eyes. I shook my head and concentrated on the next door. What a waste of a life.
I kicked it in from the side, waited for sound, and then glanced in. No movement and no fire, so I advanced as before and covered the corners. I couldn't help but grin when I thought of the bonus we were about to get. Half the walls on this side had also been knocked out to hold one of the biggest prizes I had seen. My mood was definitely improved.
"Bingo, got a weapons cache. Looks like our friend Bayer has been doing some serious shopping." I said and headed towards the next doorway. There were waist high stacks of weapon crates with "SLA-MILITIA" or "KACK" stenciled on them in white paint. I also saw a shattered Shiver helmet and figured that they had probably been busy practicing on live targets. Although most of the crates appeared to be empty, it was still a nice catch. I crossed to the next door and kicked it in from the side.
Someone fired at me and the shots bounced off the doorframe and splintered a crate. It came from the right, so I crouched and aimed low, squeezing off a round the moment I acquired the shooter. He was standing behind a table and the round snapped the board in front of him, tearing a hole in the front of his khakis below his blue flak vest. He buckled and slumped to the floor on his side with a whine and I moved forward to clear the room. He wasn't dead, but the round had torn a big enough hole through his abdomen that he soon would be. I shook my head as I kicked his weapon away and got to the side of what should have been the last door on this level. So far, we had only dealt with a skeleton crew and I wondered if the real facility was somewhere in this housing complex.
The door gave way to complete darkness and I waited. Strike teams call doorways vertical coffins for a reason and this was a classic example. A silhouette makes a great target, just like on the firing range and I wanted to live through this. I gingerly flashed my light into the dark, and when no one fired, I jumped in to sweep the room. It was smaller than I thought and clear, but what I saw made me nearly stumbled. The squealing of rats and distant taps of rain were the only sounds and helped to bring me back on focus.
The walls were covered with marks, tiny black etchings that raised the hairs on the back of my next stand. They reminded me of scribbles that I had seen at the St. Charles raid, but there were far more of them this time. I gingerly touched one and found it was written with some sort of black grease paint that smeared when touched and stained my finger. The markings flowed in twisting rows from wall to wall, across the ceiling, and to my surprise across the floor under my feet. I stepped backwards out of the room to avoid damaging them and adjusted my mike.
"You aren't going to believe what I just found." I said.
"What is it?" K'rth asked.
That's when I realized that the rats were fighting over something from an overturned bowl. It was a wad of bloody meat that had been badly shredded. I wondered if Bayer was working with a cult, a serial killer cognate, Dark Night, or some combination of the three. I wonder what kind of monster he had become since Meny.
Since we might be able to get a clue from the DNA of that meat, I pulled my MAC knife and stepped back into the room on my tiptoes. With a quick stab, I skewered each of the rats and tossed them over the threshold. No rodent was going to ruin my investigation.
"Alex, what is it?"
I found myself tracing the lines of runes around the ceiling and following the path as they looped over my head. They seemed to originate near the center of the floor at the bowl and radiated outwards in a twisting pattern up the walls. It was like looking at a basket's weave from the inside and I followed them with my flashlight. They wrapped, tangled, untangled, and seemed to spin backwards and away into space beyond the stained drywall.
"ALEX! ANSWER ME!"
Some lines crossed and weaved closer, while others spun, looped, then dipped into infinity. The areas between the lines seemed to form some sort of image, but it was on the edge of my consciousness and I couldn't make it out. Other characters floated beyond the darker ones and I squinted to bring them into focus. As they moved closer, I could almost make out the words and the message seemed so fam-
K'rth was shaking me and I stared at him for moment or two while the fog retreated. It felt like I had been on a runaway merry-go-round and my head spun from vertigo and nausea. The area behind my eyes pounded, but as I rubbed them the pressure spread to my temples and began to fade. It must have been eyestrain, or perhaps something in the air.
"WHAT?" I yelled at him and he stopped the shaking. I must have looked unsteady and he guided me to a crate to sit.
"Are you ok?" You weren't answering and I found you in that room staring at the walls."
I shook my head again to clear the cobwebs and nodded. My eyes could focus again and the merry-go-round was coming to a stop. The upheaval in my stomach faded and I took in a breath. What in hell had just happened?
"There's something weird about those markings, just like at St. Charles. I don't know what, but something isn't right."
He nodded and handed my flashlight back to me. "I've called for the Shivers but we've got a little time to hold out before they get here. We can interrogate the prisoner if you feel up to it."
I nodded and stood up, reloading my Blitzer.
"He'll keep, but we have to get ready for company."
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