by S. A. Lusher
The door opened to a bloody infirmary. It was empty. He locked the door behind him, as well as the other primary entryway into the room, then retreated back to a smaller supply closet along the back. It was vaguely hidden, out of the way, a place to crash for a bit. He opened the door, looked around. There was a stack of crates near the back of the room. He moved towards them, around them, found a little niche in between the crates and the wall.
This would do.
His last thoughts as he collapsed to the ground, putting his back against the wall, was that this was becoming too commonplace.
Then the darkness took him.
* * * * *
Enzo didn't know how much time had passed when he finally woke back up, only that he was in a lot of pain, very hungry and thirsty as hell. He was still alive, still alone, so that was something at least. Standing, he groaned, popping his neck, back and shoulders. His right shoulder was still giving him hell, but with the topography of pain his whole body had become, it had been mercifully reduced to barely tolerable. He moved slowly, more out of pain than caution, and come out of the storage room to find the infirmary unchanged.
He hobbled over to the main door, gently massaging his shoulder, more out of habit than anything else, and checked that the lock he'd activated was still intact. It was, same with the other one. And the vents all looked good, too. Which meant that he had found a moment of relative peace, another eye in the storm. As he made for the shower stalls in the back corner of the room, Enzo couldn't help but notice that history was repeating itself. At least he was better off this time...sort of. He'd gotten a lot of shit done.
Enzo stripped down, turned up the water in the nearest stall to as high a temperature as he could stand it and stepped in. He kept the door open so that he could see out into the infirmary. At one point in his life, it might have made him nervous, even if there was no one around to see him, but he'd long ago gotten over any weird feelings of exposure people normally felt when naked. He showered off all the blood and sweat and dirt he'd accumulated over the past...however long he'd been down in this godforsaken hellhole.
When he'd gotten all he could out of the shower, Enzo stepped out and toweled off. He grabbed a full medical kit from a cabinet and spent ten minutes going over his body, cleansing and bandaging all the wounds, cuts, scrapes and burns he'd earned during the fighting. He finished the job by injecting himself with a universal anti-viral/anti-bacterial syringe that also acted as a painkiller, then dosing himself with a stimulant and finally, just for the hell of it, dosed his shoulder with half an injector of good old morphine.
His uniform was in crap shape. As it was, his luck held out and he located another one stashed away in the myriad of cabinets occupying the perimeter of the room. He dressed, pulled his boots and security vest into place, then considered his situation. He was still alive, but he wasn't very well off in the way of supplies and weapons. That thought really seemed to strike home. These things must have taken his gear, even his radio.
Were they that smart?
What had Eve said? That there was some giant monster controlling them all telepathically? The Alpha? He wondered where it was, if it'd be harder to kill than the Beta had been. Not that it mattered too much. He'd kill it or it would kill him...or maybe he'd find a ship and just take off before some kind of confrontation was forced.
Enzo felt about as good as he was going to and had likely gotten everything out of this infirmary that he could. He considered grabbing another scalpel, on top of the full medkit he'd clipped to his belt, but that thought seemed to surface another one. For some reason, he wanted to search Stern's body. Unsure of why, Enzo unlocked the side door and moved back into the bathroom, finding it still clear. He knelt at Stern's body.
A pat-down revealed what he realized his brain had remembered without directly telling him: Stern had a knife hidden on his body. Enzo realized he must've seen it at some point...and the Altered had apparently overlooked it.
“Thanks, Staff Sergeant,” Enzo muttered as he took it and the sheath for it. He attached it to his left hip and then began hunting through the bathroom for anything useful. The Altered were thorough, though not that thorough, apparently.
Five minutes later, he was rewarded. Someone had stashed a little cache of supplies. He recovered a fully loaded pistol and three magazines to spare. He pocketed the magazines and kept the pistol in his hands for the moment.
It was time to get back on track, figure out what had happened while he and Stern had been down here wasting time trying to rescue the dead. Enzo spent a moment trying to remember where a spare radio might be. The security center, there had been several of them on this level, provided he was still on Level Five. He walked over to the other door and poked his head out into the corridor beyond, looking around. It had to be, he surmised. This wasn't the grim, industrial center of the first three levels, nor the cavernous rock-walled holding area of Level Six, nor the large, circular corridor of the Level Four and the military sector.
He supposed it was possible that this was one of the levels above that, but that didn't really make sense. Why would they drag him so far up? That, combined with the absolutely wrecked look and feel of the place decided him. He was in Research, and he'd memorized at least some of the schematics. If he could find somewhere familiar, he could get to one of the security centers, grab a radio or get into the network, figure out what to do next, who was still alive up there. And maybe he could grab a few guns along the way.
Enzo set off.
* * * * *
He'd had to spend all but one of his magazines and bloodied his knife getting to the security center, but he'd gotten there. There were more Mutants patrolling the corridors now, actually patrolling them. On the lookout for other survivors. Harvesters sometimes accompanied them, and Enzo felt an eerie shiver as he connected them to hunting parties of old Earth antiquity. They didn't have guns though, not that they seemed to need them. He'd avoided as many of them as he could, sticking to back corridors and storerooms.
He'd also managed to avoid a pair of Ires and a Guardian protecting a nest. But he had run into enough of the other bastards to warrant a few fights. The security center he found was damaged and bloody, but operational. Locking the door behind him, Enzo crossed the room and began hunting through the lockers and racks occupying two of the walls. They were almost totally depleted, but he did manage to find a few magazines for his pistol and...
A radio. Finally.
Securing the magazines, he turned on the radio and sat down at a desk, staring up at a bank of mostly broken security monitors.
“Brooks? Lee? Anyone still out there? Beam? This is Enzo, and-”
A burst of static interrupted him. He felt a bit of hope in his heart. Despite his loner nature, his almost total inability to truly trust anyone, he didn't want to be alone in this nightmare anymore than he had to.
Then his hopes died. “Ah, Mr. Rains, I was hoping to hear from you. I've been looking for someone to test my new...abilities against.” It was the Director, Fielding.
Enzo frowned. “Abilities?”
“Yes. I've mastered control over the Altered within my own body. It's a very...liberating experience. We have your friends, and we're up in the abandoned mines. If you can make it up here through all that this facility has to offer...then I look forward to killing you.”
The connection was cut. Enzo felt a cold stone settle into his stomach. So Dietz's insane rants hadn't been so insane after all? Fielding had found some way to implant herself with a Slug and control it? He took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. This was getting better and better. Enzo looked down at the pistol in his hand.
If he was going to fight this war, he'd need bigger and better guns. The only place left that might have them was on the next level up.
Slowly, he stood, and began his ascension.
Chapter 13
–Locked In–
The Military Headquarters Level was a wreck.
It seemed as though Dark Ops had swept right on through, carving straight through the entire level. There were fresh corpses, mostly Altered, Mutants and Harvesters, and a few Guardians. Occasionally, he'd find a Dark Ops troop, someone who'd fallen in battle. Usually the corpse was picked clean, but every now and then he'd come across a spare magazine or leftover weapon. He was making his way first towards the armory where they'd scavenged the rocket launcher to kill the Beta. There was a good chance something was leftover there.
Enzo's thoughts were racing. There was still a part of him that wanted to just push on through to the other side, get to the surface, hot-wire a vehicle and burn sky until he was somewhere a lot more pleasant. Another part of him argued that the only way out was through, there was a more than decent chance that any method of escape would be covered by something mean and nasty. So why not just kill the Dark Ops troops and get it over with? Put a bullet in Fielding's head and move on? There was another part, though.
A part he didn't really like.
Something he thought he'd burned and buried long ago, back from his Spec Ops days. Some of him wanted to rescue the others. There was undoubtedly a thrill from being the hero, kicking in doors and rescuing the hostages, the victims, the helpless. But below that, more important, was the foundation of human civilization. The ability to help your fellow human for nothing more than the fact that it was the right thing to do.
There was an old, old saying that a good deed was its own reward. For the past half decade or so, Enzo had taken on the newer saying that no good deed goes unpunished, but he'd be lying to himself if he said he didn't believe that the original saying was still true. So, with a quiet sigh as he came close to the armory, he knew that he would gear up, make a plan and kick in a few doors to rescue Eve, Lee and Beam. Because it was the right thing to do.
Enzo frowned as he came to the armory. He still only had his pistol and combat knife, and it didn't look like he'd be getting much else. The room was large, stuffed full of foldout tables, crates, lockers, racks and shelves. They were all cleared out, propped opened and emptied. Despite this, Enzo knew he had to check, because what was the alternative? So he hurried through the ruined, derelict armory, checking inside, beneath and behind everything he could find. Occasionally, he'd find a spare magazine or a few scattered shells.
By the end of it, he managed to make at least a small score. He snagged a rifle that had been somehow thrown behind a stack of crates and managed to grab two flash-bangs and two fragmentation grenades scattered throughout the room. It wasn't exactly what he'd been hoping for when he raided the high-tech armory of a top-secret military complex, but it would do. Between the Altered and Dark Ops, there wasn't much left behind.
Before leaving this level, Enzo made a quick stop by the Control Room. It looked like it had seen some sustained gunfire, and four Dark Ops corpses were spread around the entrance. Good to know that the others hadn't gone down without a fight, though Enzo wondered what Fielding wanted with prisoners. Maybe just to taunt him? Or for their own twisted reasons? Likely both. All the more reason to get them out.
As he stepped out of the Control Room, a bullet whizzed by his head. Enzo ducked instinctively, raising his rifle and taking aim. He spied a pair of dark-armored troops further down the hall, lining up their shots to take him down.
“He's on Level Four!” one of them said, presumably into his radio.
Enzo sighted the man who'd spoken, the one on the right, and blew out his faceplate with a well placed three-round burst. Glass and blood flew as the man let out a short cry, flying onto his back. Enzo grunted as a bullet grazed his shoulder, another flying past his ear. He dropped to one knee, aimed and fired, repeating the process. The second man fell. Silence reigned in the corridor. Enzo let out his breath in a long sigh, standing back up. It had been his left shoulder, at least. He retreated back into the Control Room and took a moment to patch himself up, grunting at the torn fabric of the uniform. If only they'd shot him in the vest.
No one else had shown in up the interval of time that had passed. He moved over to the corpses, patting them down, relieving them of their spare ammo. They didn't have much. Either they'd run into a lot of Altered on the way down or Fielding didn't like them very much. Either way, it told Enzo one thing: the trip up to the abandoned mines wouldn't be as simple as he'd originally hoped. There was a good chance he'd have to fight both Altered and Dark Ops troops. Enzo slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle.
Either way, he'd pushed through.
He always did.
* * * * *
Enzo decided to avoid taking the main entrance up to the next level, which the map marked as 'Level Three: Scientific & Support Staff Living Quarters'. It was little more than a big collection of bedrooms, a few recreational areas and places to eat with a pair of security stations and emergency infirmaries thrown in for good measure. So he climbed up through a maintenance shaft that allowed the technicians access to the more behind the scenes areas. As he climbed, his shoulder began to throb with that low frequency of burning pain.
He kept going, hand over hand, foot over foot.
He thought about what he was going to do when this nightmare was over. It tended to help on particularly long or dangerous missions. There was a big and flashy pleasure planet called Paradice. If they thought they could have gotten away with it, they would've called the place Pair-of-Dice, given that it was basically one giant city of casinos in all their various forms. You went there to lose money in exchange for absurd amounts of pampering. Given the level of relaxation, and the women, Enzo thought it was a very fair deal.
Upon escaping this hellhole, he planned go directly to Paradice, check into the most lavish five star hotel they had, eat a big meal, get drunk, get laid, soak in a hot tub and then pass out for fifteen hours, followed by a dozen more rotations of the same thing, with the occasional gambling session and, for good measure, bar fight.
He thought about this as he came to the next maintenance hatch. It would be wonderful. Enzo hauled himself up and out, coming into a darkened, mostly empty storage bay. There were a few blood stains on the floor, but it seemed as though the Altered had already been through and removed all the bodies for re-purposing. Enzo cleared the room, finding nothing deadly or useful in it and made his way over to the only door in the area.
As soon as he opened it, the majority of the lights immediately went out. He dropped into a crouch, still not quite out of the doorway yet. As his eyes adjusted the gloom, he looked around, attempting to discern if there was anything deadly coming for him. As far as he could tell, he'd come to a locker room. He took a step out.
His radio crackled to life. “Mr. Rains. In the spirit of good fun and to keep you on your toes, I've sent my best man down to Level Three. You and he are now locked in that level, as well as whatever Altered might have been in the area at the time. The only way out is through. I'd wish you luck, but we both know that doesn't apply here,” Fielding said.
Enzo sighed. Fantastic. He considered whether or not to use the flashlight, then decided against it. There was enough light left to see by...sort of. He began moving through the room, past the rows of silent and shut lockers. A few of them hung open, ominous in the gloom. He didn't sense anyone or anything else in the room with him, so he hurried on. After a moment, he'd located one of the exits and passed through it.
In his memory of the map of this level, he knew that there was a primary security center on, of course, the opposite side of the structure. If he could get there, he could hopefully figure out what kind of lockout this was and if he'd need to blast through a few doors to escape. And, of course, he'd need to dodge this would-be assassin and the Altered on the way there. Or kill them. The room beyond was a large pool.
In the faded light, he could see massive clouds of blood in the water. Creeping along the slick tiled floor, Enzo wondered if Fielding was bullshitting him or not. With people like this, it was hard to tell. She could just be playing psychological warfare and have
locked him in with only altered, hoping he'd believe her about sending her 'best' down here to deal with him. Or, inversely, she could have sent an entire squad to kill him.
Or maybe she was telling the truth.
Enzo reached the far side of the pool room and passed through the door there. His memory of the layout of this level was, unfortunately, imperfect. He wanted another look at a map. While that might not be possible with this level of power, it wasn't entirely out of the question, and he knew there was a terminal nearby with that data. The next area was a corridor that granted access to more of this portion of the facility.
Across the hall was a cafeteria.
And in there was a terminal. Still no one in the corridor, though he could hear something big and heavy walking around somewhere nearby. Fantastic. Enzo dashed across the corridor and entered the cafeteria. Immediately it became obvious that the Altered had hit this place hard during a big meal. Plates, silverware, blood and food coated the floor, making the place reek. Still no Altered and no sign of the Dark Ops warrior.
Across the room, Enzo spied the soft glow of the terminal. It was still powered, at least. He hurried across the room, in between tables and chairs, careful not to slip. Once he reached the terminal, he booted it up and accessed the map. Best to do this quick. He memorized the best route from the cafeteria to the primary security center. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be easy. The level was large, with a lot of interconnecting corridors and who knew what in between. Enzo sighed and turned away from the terminal.
Time to get moving-
Something hit him hard in the chest, punching into his security vest, and knocked him on his ass. Even as he fell he spied a dark figure standing across the room. He brought his gun up as he hit the ground, took aim and sent a few three-round volleys towards the figure, who ducked down behind a table. Taking the opportunity to move, Enzo quickly got behind a table as well and scanned the room. He couldn't see anyone else.
