Apocalypse 2020: A Wasteland LitRPG
Page 12
“It’s not Bernie!” the man yelled, then turned and called out “We’ve got intruders on the lift!”
“Great,” Scarlett said.
They were still two floors from the top when the blonde man leaned over again and swung a knife at the rope that held the lift up. The blade bit into the hemp and the lift wobbled precariously.
“We have to get off now!” Boothe said.
The lift still moved up slowly, but Boothe could see the rope fraying. It could snap at any moment, dumping all three of them into empty air, until they hit the ground twenty stories below.
“I’ll get him,” Cthulwho said.
When the blonde man reached out again to slash at the rope, Cthulwho shot a blast of air from his throat. It hit the man directly in the face, and caused every muscle to go limp. His eyes opened wide in fear before he toppled forward into the elevator shaft and tumbled down towards the lift.
“Move!” Scarlett said, shoving Boothe towards the open door of the 21st floor. His foot caught the lip of the doorframe and he sprawled out into a tile hallway. Scarlett dove after him, landing on his legs.
Then the bandit’s body crashed into the lift, and with a snap of rope and wood, the lift broke and fell into the abyss.
“Paul?” Boothe called, scrambling towards the elevator shaft.
“It’s Cthulwho,” he replied. He hung by his fingers on the edge of the doorway, trying not to look at the drop below him. “Mind giving me a hand?”
Boothe reached down and grabbed his friend by the wrists, pulling him up into the hallway of the 21st floor.
Then the shooting began.
The first bullet hit only a foot away from Boothe’s head, slamming into the wall and sending shards of plaster flying through the air.
Boothe dashed around the corner, pulling Cthulwho behind him to take cover. Scarlett was already there, her back to the wall, shotgun ready.
Boothe sent his drone around the corner to take a peek.
“Three bandits with assault rifles coming down the stairs,” he said.
The enemies rushed into the hall and took cover in the doorways to offices on both sides.
“Go,” Cthulwho said to Scarlett. “I’ll cover you.”
“You want me to just run down the hallway?”
“Yeah, but I’ll cover you,” he said, as if it were the obvious thing to do.
“Fine,” Scarlett said, shrugging. “You better do your part.”
With that, she spun around the corner and ran straight down the hall toward the bandits. Cthulwho stepped out, watching Scarlett’s back. Boothe didn’t know what to do. His skills did not lend themselves to this kind of straightforward fight. He watched on his drone’s camera feed as Scarlett charged at the bandits.
One of the men popped out of the doorway and fired a shot at Scarlett. As soon as the gun fired, Cthulwho launched a burst of air from his throat, the air pocket caught the bullet in midair, pushing it to the side and causing it to miss Scarlett and slam uselessly into the wall. She ran up to the bandit then and blasted her shotgun into his chest – the force powerful enough to send him flying several yards backwards. With the bandit dead, she took cover behind the doorway he had been standing in.
The other bandits popped out of their cover and let out a few shots, but Cthulwho and Scarlett were both already hidden behind walls, and the bullets exploded into plaster and sheetrock.
Boothe pressed a couple of buttons on the side of his goggles to bring up the map of the floor. Then he whispered instructions to the drone, telling it to hover near Scarlett so that he could speak to her through the drone’s speakers.
“There’s a break room behind the office you’re in,” he said. “It connects to the other offices as well. You could get behind them.”
“Awesome,” Scarlett said. “Good idea.”
She moved quietly, staying low. The whole place had been torn apart, holes creating doorways in walls that weren’t supposed to be there. Scarlett used these to move further down the hall into the office where another bandit hid. She crept behind him, freeing her hatchet from its loop on her belt. He peeked around the corner, looking for a target in the hallway to shoot. When he saw nothing and ducked back in, Scarlett slammed her hatchet blade into his head, killing him before he even knew she was there.
The last bandit was in an office across the hall. Boothe tried to find some way that Scarlett could get to him without putting herself in the open, but there was only one entrance into the office, and the bandit was standing in it. They needed a distraction.
“Wait here,” Boothe said, through the drone. “I’m moving down the hall.”
He spun around the corner, leaving Cthulwho behind, and ran towards where the bandit was hiding. The bandit peeked out at him and lifted his gun to fire a shot, but Boothe ducked behind the nearest doorway, taking cover until the shooting stopped.
“What are you doing Boothe?” Scarlett asked. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Next time he pops out to fire at me, blow his head off.”
“You got it.”
Boothe took a deep breath, held his pistol ready and stuck his head out of cover. He fired a shot at where the bandit was hiding, then ran forward to duck into the next office. Moments later, he heard the bang of the bandit’s pistol, then the much louder boom of Scarlett’s shotgun. The bandit screamed, and then with another boom was silenced.
Cthulwho caught up to them then, and they all three stood together at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the 22nd floor.
“I’ll send the drone first,” Boothe said.
The little robot flew up the stairwell and through the open doorway to the floor above. Unlike the 21st floor with its hallway and offices, the 22nd floor was a huge open space. The walls had been torn away, leaving only the bare columns that held up the roof. Among another group of three bandits, there were two robots with machine gun arms, and another with what looked like a flamethrower. They were all facing the stairwell, waiting, ready to fire.
“I’m going to try to hack one of these robot guards,” Boothe said. Cthulwho and Scarlett stood next to him, waiting for him to finish his recon.
“Go for it,” Scarlett said.
Boothe instructed his drone to approach the back of one of the machinegun robots. He took it slow, expecting them to start firing on the little robot at any moment, but they didn’t seem to notice at all. Once the drone was a few inches from the back of the robot’s head, it jabbed its probes into the back of the robot’s head. Immediately, the drone’s camera feed changed to a green screen with white text that scrolled rapidly past.
Hacking (65%) – SUCCESS!
The electronics inside the robot whined down and the lights behind its eyes dimmed to a pinpoint before turning off entirely.
“One down,” Boothe said.
“What?” Cthulwho asked. “You killed it with your drone?”
“Disabled it,” Boothe said. “They haven’t even realized what’s happening yet.”
“You can’t reprogram them to attack the bandits?”
“Not yet. When I get to a higher level maybe.”
“See if you can take out another,” Scarlett said.
“Okay.”
Boothe guided the drone over to the other machinegun bot and did the same thing again, jamming the probes into the back of its head and attempting to disable the robot through the console.
Hacking (65%) - SUCCESS!
“Two down,” Boothe said.
“Alright!” Scarlett cheered.
“Last one.” Boothe moved the drone over to the robot with the flamethrower and attempted to hack it as well.
Hacking - (65%) - FAILED!
The console disappeared from the camera feed and the robot sounded a high-pitched wailing alarm.
“Well,” Boothe said. “I got two at least.”
The bandits noticed the drone then, as if it had been invisible until the alarms went off.
“Let’s go,” Scarlett said and swiftly climbed the stairs, her feet falling softly on every step. When she reached the top, she peeked out onto the 22nd floor and immediately fired her shotgun.
The bandits were still distracted by the drone and had gathered near the broken windows. Scarlett blasted the one in the middle directly in the back, launching him forward through window frame and into the open air outside of the building. He let out a high-pitched scream that dwindled away to nothing as he fell.
The two remaining bandits ran to find cover, but before they could reach anything to hide behind, Scarlett pumped and shot again, shredding one of their legs in a blast of pellets. The bandit fell forward onto his face and crawled behind an overturned file cabinet, leaving a streak of blood on the floor.
Cthulwho ran past Boothe and positioned himself on the opposite side of the doorway from Scarlett. Bullets flew through the doorway, tearing into the wall on the other side of the small landing at the top of the stairs. The remaining, unharmed bandit had an assault rifle, and the other one was still firing his pistol, despite Scarlett’s practically blowing his legs off. Over the gunfire, Boothe could hear the stomping of the remaining robot as it moved towards the doorway.
“Scarlett - you have to take out the robot before it gets too close,” Boothe said.
It was too late though. With a burst of heat, the doorway filled with flames. They shot out in a stream and melted the paint from the walls. Boothe yanked Scarlett back away from the door. They couldn’t even see Cthulwho on the other side because of the fire blocking their view.
“Do something you guys!” Cthulwho said. “My powers don’t work well on bots.”
“Why don’t you carry a gun?” Scarlett asked.
“I don’t like guns. They’re so crude. Too impersonal.”
“Well you can’t just blow every enemy,” Scarlett said.
Cthulwho laughed. “Do you want to rephrase that maybe?”
The flames died down for a moment and Scarlett took the opportunity to spin around the corner and fire her shotgun into the flamethrowing robot’s chest. Its metal plating ripped open there, revealing circuit boards and wiring. Boothe took a step behind her and fired into the unguarded electronics. The robot’s chest sparked and exploded and its arms moved in jerky spasms as it clanged to the floor.
As soon as the robot was disabled, Scarlett and Boothe took cover again and Cthulwho stepped out into the doorway. A burst of air unleashed from his throat, knocking away bullets from the bandit’s assault rifle. Then after a quick breath, a second burst of air shot out at the bandit, pushing the file cabinet that he hid behind to the side, leaving him and his injured companion out in the open.
The bandit ran to find cover elsewhere, but before he took a step, Scarlett pumped her shotgun and fired again, a glancing blow that was mostly absorbed by his armor. Boothe took only a moment to aim his pistol, then squeezed the trigger.
The shot hit the bandit directly in the neck, piercing through. A spurt of blood arced through the air. The bandit dropped his gun and fell to the floor holding his neck with both hands, blood seeping through his fingers until every muscle went limp.
The other bandit on the floor, his legs a mangled mess of bone and meat, fired his pistol at Boothe. The shot hit directly in the armor that he wore over his legs, ripping through the fabric and into the meat of his thigh.
Boothe takes 3 DAMAGE!
Boothe HP - 3/6
Cthulwho stepped out then and shot a blast from his throat at the bandit. The pocket of air hit the him like an invisible bullet and all his muscles went slack. He fell onto his back, the pistol in his hand slipping from his fingers.
With all the enemies dead or disabled, they finally moved into the room, checking their sides to make sure that no more bandits were hiding in the corners. Against one wall, a large computer was set up, with a mess of wires behind it creeping up into the ceiling. The green glow of the monitor was just as bright as the fire that burned in a metal barrel nearby.
Boothe rushed over to the computer, recalling his drone as he moved. The robot hovered back into the building and took its position over Boothe’s shoulder. Meanwhile, Scarlett dragged the stunned bandit away from his pistol and towards the window. She lifted him up and pushed him to the ledge. His legs dangled below him, useless bloody strips of flesh hanging from broken bones.
The computer terminal showed a login screen. The username “admin” had already been typed in, but a password was required.
“Don’t kill him yet,” Boothe yelled. “We need a password.”
“You can’t just hack it?” Scarlett asked.
“I might be able to brute force it, but it will take time. If you can get the password from him, it’ll be much faster.”
Cthulwho approached the bandit. “Leave it to me.” He took the bandit by the shirt collar and held him up. Scarlett released her hold on the man and stood back.
The bandit’s eyes widened as Cthulwho leaned in close to him. The tentacles writhing from Cthulwho’s chin reached out and clasped onto the sides of the bandit’s head. As one, both of their eyes rolled back into their skulls.
“Wow, this man is insane,” Cthulwho said. “You should see the thoughts in here. The things he’s thinking about doing to you guys. It’s disgusting.”
“Just get the password,” Scarlett said.
“The password,” Cthulwho repeated, his voice lowering. “Is Greta84. Capital G.”
Boothe typed in the password and a list of logs came up. Flipping through them, he saw that many were messages sent from this computer to Orion. Others seemed to be sent to other bandit outposts. They detailed surveillance that Orion’s men had done on an organization called The Eagles, and contained information about the organization’s structure, members, and plans. Boothe assumed that the Eagles must be who Victor worked for. This seemed to be the information that Victor had sent them to recover, but Boothe was pretty sure he could get even more out of the system.
If the messages were sent by satellite, which seemed to be the case, then he should be able to find the location of the receivers. The coordinates had to be in the system somewhere. He went to work, digging through the code.
Hacking (65%) - SUCCESS!
There it was. A contact list with the names of each recipient along with their coordinates so that the satellite could find the receiver.
“Connect,” Boothe ordered the drone. The little robot inserted a probe into the front of the computer, then Boothe copied all the data over to the drone’s hard drive.
“Got it,” he said.
“Good,” Cthulwho replied and shoved the still-stunned bandit out the window. He started screaming about halfway down, then stopped.
Scarlett sighed. “Let’s get out of here.”
5
“These guys don’t have anything useful,” Cthulwho said.
“What are you talking about?” Scarlett asked. “They have guns, and armor. You could use both of those things.” She and Boothe were gathering all the equipment from the corpses they had left on the 22nd and 21st floor, along with the two dead guards at the bottom of the lift.
“Nah,” Cthulwho replied. “I don’t need guns, and my overcoat is enough.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Scarlett said. “You’re going to get killed, you know. We can’t always be there to protect you.”
“You protect me?” Cthulwho asked with a laugh. “What are you even talking about? I don’t need your protection.”
“Okay,” Scarlett said. “No, you’re right. You did good in that fight, even without the weapons. Do whatever works well for you.”
“Alright then, that’s better.”
“I think I’m going to leave my machete behind,” Boothe said. “I’m not great in melee. No reason to be up close if I can help it, and the pistol works fine for that anyways. I’ll take one of these Assault Rifles instead.”
After they had checked all the bodies and split up the loot, Boothe ended up taking an Assault Rifle, a tactical vest, and 56 dollars.
ITEMS OBTAINED
M4A1 Carbine - 5.56 Assault Rifle - Aim +2 / Damage 5
Range 150yds - Capacity 30
Durability 88% - Value $264
Three Round Burst - Fire three shots in a single action at -2 AIM.
Fully Automatic - Fire 5 shots in a single action at -5 AIM.
A light assault rifle with a high rate of fire. It can fire in single shot, three round burst, or fully automatic. It can also be easily modified with a variety of attachments.
Tactical Vest - Chest Slot - Light Armor
Durability 65% - Value $97
ARMOR +2
This vest has a layer of bulletproof armor that protects your chest and back, along with a row of utility pockets to carry a variety of items in.
Gained $56
Scarlett handed Cthulwho one of the rifles. “Even if you don’t want to use it, you can carry a couple back to town for us to sell. You like money, right?”
“I suppose I can be your pack mule,” Cthulwho agreed.
With their loot in tow, they headed back toward the Civilized Zone of New Wichita. Before they reached the wall, they had to travel through the rubble of the northern half of the city. The air here was deathly quiet, until Boothe heard scampering feet on the ground. He turned towards the noise and spotted a wolf-like creature of some sort. Mutated, all its fur had fallen out, its skin was a splotchy red, its torso had enlarged, and its vertebrae formed spikes that poked through the flesh of its back. It slinked off behind the rubble of another building, likely searching for less formidable targets.
When they reached the wall, the guards opened the gate to allow them in. On the way back to the Eagles’ Nest, they stopped in at a shop, where a huge man with his face covered by a metal hockey mask was buying and selling merchandise from a line of players. The shelves inside were covered in weapons, armor, and other things that had been salvaged from throughout the wasteland.