by Ben Ormstad
Killed 2 Daemonorg Troopers – Level 3
+60 XP
Troopers, eh? I reloaded the gun while sprinting toward the double doors. Even if the notification popped up, I didn’t feel safe the battle was truly over.
One does not simply kill a couple of guards and get the secret stash, I thought and almost laughed out loud. Especially since a red light on the panel by the doors blinked erratically. I’d be surprised if it didn’t mean they’d called for backup.
The smell of gunpowder, sweat and iron surrounded the bodies. I holstered the handgun and picked up one of the discarded rifles.
+1 Weapon – Daemonorg ‘Rap-Attack’ Automatic Rifle (req. 2 Item Slots)
30 bullets per magazine.
The Rapid Attack – better known as ‘Rap-Attack’ – is the Daemonorg infantry’s standard assault rifle. Steady, reliable and effective. Won’t jam. Almost impossible to break. Enjoy!
A relatively light-weight assault rifle, I turned the Rap-Attack around to take it in from different angles. Heat from being fired still emanated from the metal parts. Black, solid and cool. Reminiscent of the 989, only more compact and with a row of light blue, luminescent lights down the barrel.
I swung the attached leather strap over my shoulder and lifted the weapon with both hands, aligning it to examine the sight. Straight as a ruler. It felt good. It really did. Providing a sense of power the other weapons I’d picked up lacked. About fuckin’ time. A satisfying clack as I released the curved magazine to check the number of remaining bullets. 30. Full. Nice. The magazine slid easily back in with an equally satisfactory sound.
“Nice,” I whispered. “I’ll keep ya.” Unfortunately, the only free remaining item slots were the ammo-only in the ammunition belt, hence useless for weapons. Requiring two slots just for the Rap-Attack, I threw out my old, trusty Makeshift Dagger and one of the three machetes stored in the backpack.
Red, blinking reflections from the light on the wall-mounted communication panel fluttered across the rifle’s smooth surface as I let it hang loose in the shoulder strap. I inspected it up close and realized the strange symbols on the buttons made little sense. However, seeing the perforated speaker grill, there was no doubt the first trooper had called for backup.
“Yeah, whatever,” I said and ignored the panel and the annoying, ever watching camera. Paid attention to the bodies instead. Tipped both troopers over with my foot. They landed on their backs, gaping up at me. Yellow eyes open, but the glow gone. I searched them and found some goodies.
+96 Ammo – Daemonorg ‘Rap-Attack’ Automatic Rifle (req. 1 Item Slot per 300 rounds)
+10 Consumables
+25 Cash
About to get back behind cover, I stopped. On second thought, I snatched the other Rap-Attack rifle as well. A guaranteed higher market value than machetes, and so I exchanged the last two machetes in my backpack to make room for it.
+1 Weapon – Daemonorg ‘Rap-Attack’ Automatic Rifle (req. 2 Item Slots)
I probably only have a few moments before the doors open and–
And the doors slid open with a mechanical dzzzzd.
“Fuck,” I hissed through gritted teeth, moved a step back as the opening grew wider and exposed four uniformed patrols. Approaching, behind them, I heard more footsteps from booted feet. Impossible to estimate how many, but too many to count by the sound alone.
Ready to test my newest arsenal addition, I squeezed the Rap-Attack’s trigger and held it tight while the rifle shot a stream of bullets at them. The rapid firing enclosed in this narrow hallway made my ears ache, and the thundering kickback reverberated through me like a massive Playstation 4-controller vibration-frenzy. I swiped the sight from side to side until all four troopers dropped. It took half a second, while I still stood pressing in the trigger, before I noticed no more bullets came – the mag was empty. Smoke curled from the barrel.
“Draz de’kah!” a voice yelled as the footstep sounds turned into shadows across the floor on the other side of the doorway and finally became visible enemies. They entered from both sides. Three bastards from each angle. Assault rifles, grim expressions and horned chins under black helmets.
Fear tightened in my chest. I backtracked to what was left of the crates, equipped a Ball-Buster grenade, bit off the pin, threw the little devil at them and jumped for cover. Sliding in behind the boxes, I crawled up in a ball and braced myself by using my hands to shield my head and neck. Yelling and weapon clatter came from the doorway as they tried to get away – to no avail.
KA-BLOOSH
The shockwave sent shit flying all over the place. Pieces of metal and wood splinters ricocheted between the walls of the narrow corridor. Stone fragments ripped loose from the ceiling all the way out here and rained down on me.
During the aftermath, a high-pitched tone caused by the explosion shrieked in my ears. Someone coughed in the background. I pushed aside rubble and debris to carve out enough space around me to reload the Rap-Attack.
I loved and hated those grenades. Loved because they’d saved my ass multiple times now and hated because they had no dependable amount of power.
An angry voice shouted after a series of coughs. Another one answered hoarsely. What I heard next felt like a jab to the solar plexus.
Propellers.
In here, really?
I sunk deeper until I lay flat, turned and peeked past the smashed crates. Through whirling smoke and flashing sparks from the electrical system, I saw the two surviving troopers help each other back up, now bathed in multiple bright columns of light from sources I could not yet see.
I pulled the trigger and let the Rap-Attack thunder. The troopers died, and out of the shadows flew three… three, what?
I couldn’t believe my own eyes.
What disgusting, twisted monstrosities were those? The three things flying toward me weren’t drones, per se, neither were they human heads… or, shit… it was too strange. I reflexively turned away in disgust.
The top part looked like a regular drone with tiny propellers flapping. Then the metallic material merged into flesh, as if the robotic part grew out of the living tissue that had been the forehead and crown. From there a human face, almost buddha-like in its smoothness, with empty eyes shining beams of bright, white light, morbidly mixed with a bull terrier-looking snout where the nose and mouth should be. Rather than a throat and neck, the head fused back into metal, resembling a drone’s landing gear and robotic spider legs half the size of the head.
The nightmarish drone-heads glided through the air with a bizarre graciousness, while the eye-light beams swiped across broken walls and shattered crates, until they finally reached me.
“What in the holy name of fuck?” I gasped, barely able to move due to the numbing dread throbbing inside. Forcing myself out of the frozen state, I stumbled to my feet. Shuffled backwards until my back hit the wall. Palms wet with sweat, I fumbled to get a decent grip on the Rap-Attack.
I emptied the entire magazine at the flying heads as they hovered a few meters above me. Nothing happened. The bullets seemed to get trapped in a sort of wind-barrier and just missed every time, slipping past and crashing into the walls.
All the eye-light beams gathered around me when the heads positioned themselves in a straight line. White electrical currents crackled about their ears as the light beams intensified. Their dog-like mouths in a wide snarl, bearing sharp fangs and a black oral cavity with no tongue. I watched in terror as electrical clusters of energy appeared inside their mouths.
It might have been the strangeness of it all, but I didn’t realize what was about to happen until they all forced shut their mouths around the crackling energy – a certain sign they were getting ready to release it.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said and sprinted toward the doorway leading into the biotech lab. They tried stopping me from passing by flying lower and blocking the passageway, but I crouched and slid underneath them. Passing, I felt the hair on my neck and forearms rise from th
e built-up energy.
Just as I reached the door that was badly broken from the Ball-Buster grenade, I heard a deep vocal sound from the drone-heads now behind me. It increased in volume until all I heard was a throaty “AAAAAH” like someone singing the bass part in a choir. The sound vibrations shook my bones and made the skin tremble all over my body. I bolted into the new area, turned to snatch a look at them before finding cover, only to see energy clusters spew out of their mouths like ball lightning crackling with electrical, spinning tentacles.
The moment my brain understood there was no way out, I freaked out and panicked. Screamed like a little girl and tried to run as fast as possible. Hopeless. Not looking at the ground, I faltered and stumbled on one of the dead troopers laying there. While tripping, as if in slow motion, I felt currents of energy swish behind me, then gripping like fingers through my clothing and armor, zapping me with electrical shocks, burning the skin on my back and crawling up my neck, twirling around my head.
-5 Armor
-10 HP
Electroshocks sparked through my body and caused my arms and legs to spasm. I stared helplessly at the web of electrical strings spreading across the walls and ceiling, buzzing the entire area. The fluorescent fixtures blinked staccato above me, and even the paint on the walls crumbled from the heat.
-3 Armor
-7 HP
For a moment I was stuck in a helplessly twitching body, unable to extend hands or legs. How the hell am I supposed to get away from this? I thought, pushed my attention away from the propeller sounds and forced instead my head to move enough to survey the immediate environment.
With the double doors behind me, the area in front was basically a large corridor split in a T-shape with metallic doors on each end. Signs hung beside them, a single letter in an unknown alphabet.
Are those the biotech labs?
I looked forward and saw a crater caused by my grenade, where what had probably been a stylish island of large, potted plants and statues now lay smashed into a mishmash of stone rubble and ripped plant material. In addition, the energy clusters had set the remains of the plants on fire, pumping black smoke into the air.
Behind all of this destruction, I glimpsed three more doors lined side by side, a few meters apart, on the opposite wall. They also had signs with unknown letters naming them. If these are all laboratories, then where are the locker rooms? Had Ayamii mistaken how the different locations were linked?
My speculation was abruptly cut off by a drone-head’s beam of eye-light strafing me as the flying freakshows entered. I rolled over, snatched the Rap-Attack and reloaded it in one motion while getting back up. Dizziness threatened to bring me to my knees, but the fear of the next electro-attack pushed me forward.
Even though I already tried killing them with bullets, I just couldn’t believe they were indestructible like that. And so, in another attempt to take them down, I turned and pounded the trigger. The Rap-Attack shook between my arms, kickback hammering my shoulder as yet another magazine emptied. Still shocked, but with nothing else to do than accept reality, I felt coldness tingle my spine while witnessing the bullets magically slip past every drone-head.
“How’s it fuckin’ possible, assholes?!” I shouted. In pure frustration I picked up a big piece of stone from one of the statues and threw it at the closest one. Like watching a miracle unfold, my jaw opened as the stone somehow bypassed the strange shield-thing protecting them. It smashed the head’s bull terrier-snout, drawing blood and knocking it back.
I was flabbergasted. How could a mere stone get through their effective protection, but not assault rifle bullets?
White electricity crackled about their ears again, drawing power for their coming energy blast.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I said through shallow breathing, jumped over another guard who lay sprawling on the floor. Not a chance in hell I’d be able to destroy them simply by throwing puny rocks, but at least a weakness had been exposed. In a flash I remembered Ayamii’s ability to cloud enemies’ minds – or whatever it was – and truly wished the little, strange being had been here to lend me a hand.
Rounding the corner of the crater comprising destroyed plants and statues, I aimed for the three doors behind it. One of them had to be unlocked, right?
Daggers of ice pierced through me as I heard the deep voices begin their “AAAAAH”ing again, increasing in volume until it drowned out even the flapping propellers.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I repeated, running like crazy past another dead trooper, sliding by more crushed statue pieces.
Five meters left until the closest door was within touching distance. In the eye-light beams ganging up on me from behind, my shadow stuck out in front of me and stretched almost all the way across the dirty floor to the door.
“AAAAAH,” was all I could hear. My neck hairs stood on end.
“I’m a fucking noob,” I yelled. “I’m not supposed to be here!” I kicked over a crushed vase and hopped like Sonic over a pile of bricks. The second my fingers curled around the closest door’s handle, the voices stopped and I knew they had just spit out the energy clusters from their beastly mouths.
Praying to some OVERTAKEN ONLINE god, I pushed down the handle and felt joyous tingles flush through me as the door opened. As quickly as I’d opened no door before it, I flung it up. The hinges creaked as I hurtled myself into the dark room without paying attention to what was inside.
Trailing right after me, one of the crackling balls of white energy fizzed straight above my head. For half a moment the electricity snuck its pointy, zappy fingers down my neck and spine, shooting out in every joint, making my limbs spasm. Agonizing pain seethed through me, bypassing the armor more or less completely.
-3 Armor
-9 HP
I refused to give up control, however, and – as I watched the cluster continue its path through the room, lighting up everything from medical equipment, beds in white sheets, computers and machines – I smacked the door closed. It shook violently, and I was thrown back and fell to the floor from the generated force of the last two clusters colliding with it. Small cracks in the doorframe got illuminated and sent electrical spikes and specks of light into the dark room while the material sparked from the electricity frying the material. I smelled burned wood and heated metal. Far behind me, I heard the first energy ball hit something. Glass smashed and unknown things got destroyed and burned.
Dizzy from being zapped, I crawled back on my feet, squinting around the room. There were no lights, except for the green glow from two – what I assumed to be – Exit signs; one on a door all the way back, and another one behind a stack of shelves on the right wall. The signs covered the interior in green, vague hues.
A heavy bang at the door made me jump. Then another one. Shit, they’re already here. I clearly heard the propellers when yet another slam shook the door. The fucking drone-human-dog-head-bitches tried to bust it open.
“What do I do?” I whispered, feeling my eyeballs roll in their sockets as I looked everywhere. Being a gamer my entire life, I did not want to simply run away. Also, if we were to find the missing parts for the Genetic Re-Assembler, we had to search every nook and cranny of this place. Thus, I thought, these asswipes simply must be dealt with.
Again they slammed into the door. This time, the hinges squeaked and the wood cracked, broke apart in the middle, opening a hole the size of my fist.
First the blindingly bright eye-light beams penetrated the crack, before an ugly snout pressed through. Razor-sharp teeth chewed on the jagged cracks in the material while the other drone-heads kept slamming against it.
I ignored the urge to empty another Rap-Attack mag into them, knowing it would merely shatter the door and make it easier for them. But, if throwing stones worked, then perhaps…
A fraction of hope flashed in me as I equipped the last remaining Ripper Machete. The thick blade reflected both the green hues from the Exit signs and the white eye-light. Beautiful. Deadly.
&n
bsp; Screaming like an enraged viking on fly Amanita mushroom, I stripped myself of fear and jumped toward the snout chewing the door hole to pieces. Slashed and sliced wildly at it with the machete.
It drew blood!
It spews everywhere! I thought, simultaneously ecstatic and disgusted with the morbidity of being ecstatic about blood spewing everywhere. I jabbed the blade into the gaping dog-looking mouth. The eye-light flickered as the drone-head gurgled. The machete got stuck inside its mouth, so I drew it closer, through the hole. The propellers caught in the hole, shattered it even larger before becoming too strained to function, and finally stopped. The enemy coughed blood, the mechanical parts sparked and the light beam from the eyes vanished. Still stuck to my blade, I tossed it on the ground and stomped on it with my boots until nothing remained but metal scrap and organic mush.
The door burst into smithereens as the last two nightmare heads managed to bust through it. Their eyes beamed brighter than ever before and their snarls foamed. Positioning themselves on each side of the door, blocking the passage back out to the hall, electricity crackled about their ears. Clusters of energy light flickered and reflected in my blade. The by now well-known feeling of hairs standing on end across my body didn’t come as a surprise.
“Diiie!” I screamed, plunged toward the one on the left and hacked at it. Not being trapped in the door hole like the first one, it easily flew higher, out of reach. I jumped and sliced again, gracing it. A few drops of blood ripped loose. It moved quicker than they had while chasing me outside.
