Revision Sept 07, 2009 - Changed a few spelling errors and added a bit more detail.
Barracks, 0700 hours (6 years post-Emergence Day)
Baird didn't even glance up from the Lancer when Redshirt came by to stand uncertainly in front of him in full armor. "What is it now?" he asked, scraping out connective muscle tissue from his chainsaw bayonet with an old toothbrush.
Redshirt was nineteen years old, though you probably couldn't tell. He was small, pale, and frail-looking. He hadn't built up the muscle all the others had in Basic, and it showed on the way his armor fit just too loose to notice. "Gus and I are heading out for a patrol," he said hesitantly. "You... you want to come?"
Baird fixed his best 'what-the-hell-do-you-think' expression on the green recruit, who shied away visibly. "Okay, okay, just asking," Redshirt muttered. He turned around and left leaving Baird to his own. He began to brush more vigorously, but muscle tissue was hard to get out.
It was only a few minutes later when Augustus Cole entered. Baird set his jaw angrily and brushed harder, then gave up on it and picked it out of the wiring with his fingers. "What is it, Cole?" he asked.
"Yo man, just chill out, 'kay?" Cole was built like a brick shithouse, a sharp contrast to Redshirt. He held up his hands in a placating manner. "I know how much you wanna play with your toys, baby, but we need the extra guns."
"What about Rojas?" Baird asked, naming another man in their squad. Anybody but me. I'm not going with Red.
"Sick in the toilet, man. Pukin' all over the place."
That got Baird's attention. Rojas was a friend from a previous squad. "He going to be alright?"
"Doc says it's the flu, gave him some meds. You probably don't want to catch it anyway."
Baird sighed and revved the chainsaw experimentally. The rest of the tissue dislodged and fell on to the table. Well, there went that excuse. Every Gear was expected to pull their own weight, anyway, so there wasn't really anything Baird ould do to get out of it that wouldn't get him in trouble."Fine, fine, I'll come. Give me ten to check on Rojas."
With a promise that he'd meet Cole at the entryway with Redshirt, Baird attached his armor plates with a morbidity that surprised even him. I've been doing the same thing for six years, he thought. Isn't there more to life than this?
It was a question he asked himself every day. And each day he got no answer.
He checked and double-checked all his weapons, attached them to their corresponding places, and went to check on Rojas as he said he would. He gave the other Gears a nod as he passed them, and ducked into the bathrooms a short walk away. "Yo, Rojas, you okay in here?"
Rojas--tall, tan-skinned, with a black mullet—was sitting next to the sinks, his head between his knees. The smell of bile hung around him like a cloud. "What is it, Baird?" he asked monotonously.
"Just coming to check up on you, man," Baird replied, patting him on the shoulder. An asshole though he was, he still cared about his comrades. "You doin' okay in here?"
Rojas sighed and leaned his cheek against the cool granite countertops. "Having a blast." He noted the sweat on his forehead, and pursed his lips. "Naw, really. I love having days off. When I'm done in here I might go see the missus…"
"You look bad," Baird stated. He sat down across from him and took a swig from his canteen. "Hey, at least you have enough water in here."
"Not thirsty," he muttered. "Hell, don't even know what I am."
Baird nodded. He'd never had the flu before, but he knew Rojas probably would've felt a lot better seven years ago when there were still real medications on the assembly line. The best they could do now was morphine.
Fuck, we're running low on everything. And we're not winning.
"Doc's letting you stay in here?"
"Says it can't get worse… and it's better than puking in her room."
"She'd hate you for life," he said. He stood up, wondering why he sat down in the first place, and pat his shoulder. "Mike knows the situation?"
Rojas nodded. "Yeah—yep. Came in right before you did. Something about rounding you up to do babysitting duty with the rook."
Baird's face clouded over. "Oh, he did now, did he?" he asked evenly. "News to me, since I'm actually going out on patrol with Cole and Red now."
Rojas smiled. "Sarge knew you wouldn't want to go alone."
"If you see him, tell him to shove it up his ass," Baird said roughly, holding back his tone for the man's condition. He turned to go. "And drink some water, will you? You need fucking fluids…"
He left, and heard Rojas mutter something about sticking the fluids up his ass.
"Babysitting duty, huh?" Baird asked, his finger to his earpiece. "Nice, real nice, Mike. Asshole. Seriously. But there's something you gotta do for me."
"You aren't getting a pay raise, Damon," Mike said, his rough voice dripping with an accent he couldn't identify. "Except that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you help your Sergeant out, I mean."
"Fuck that. I meant Rojas."
"Yeah. Miserable, isn't he?"
"Babysit him for me."
"And do what? Hold his head while he gets rid of whatever's in there? I can't do anything for him, man."
Baird glanced back down the hall, towards the bathrooms. The faint sound of retching could be heard. "Get him some fluids. I don't care if he can't keep it down, but if he doesn't stay hydrated it'll only get worse."
"Got it, Doc. Anything else?"
"Not yet, but I'll let you know, won't I?"
"You always do. Mike out."
Baird yawned, stretching his legs out in the APC a good forty miles away from their starting point. He and Cole had switched out a good ten minutes ago, leaving him free to just rest and observe. He tried not to observe Redshirt too much.
"Yo, man, don't get too cozy back there," Cole warned, maneuvering the APC over the unused streets and freeways. "Control just sent out a warnin' about shakes in the area."
Baird straightened up. "Well let's head to it, then. What are we waiting for?"
"Traffic," Cole said. There was no car in sight. "It's always that damn five o'clock traffic that bogs you down…"
"Or the flu," Redshirt piped up.
"Or the flu," Cole allowed.
"Hey, where's the shakes at?" Baird asked, leaning foreword to see out of the windshield.
"Up near that Stranded Camp, Lemonade."
Baird winced. "Hate that name. Just because their water's yellow—"
"They could've called it Camp Piss," Redshirt offered, and threw in a weak little 'he-he-he' that grated on his nerves every time. Don't say anything, it'll only encourage him.
Cole disregarded this thought that Baird had plastered so perfectly on his face. "Yeah, baby, that could be it, too."
They drove on in silence, with Redshirt on guns and Cole at the wheel, but at least now they had a destination and Cole had pressed the pedal down harder. Baird reloaded the Lancer, not because he was missing any but because it gave him a modicum of comfort to do so. He hated fighting the damn grubs.
Six years is long enough. I want to go home.
But he couldn't go home ever again. There'd be no smiles waiting for him at the doorway, so relieved that he'd made it through another tour of duty alive… no, home was just ashes, buried alongside the bones that had made it. Life, it seemed, was a bitch like that.
Lemonade got it's name from the yellow water that ran through the Camp's galvanized, rusted pipes. City repairmen came far and in-between, and never had they reached this particular camp. The water was apparently safe to drink, but that didn't mean Baird wanted to—he'd seen the yellow tint it had given the Stranded's clothes, hair, and teeth.
And it smelled fucking nasty, too.
Cole took a deep whiff. "Yup, we're here all right."
Redshirt, who'd probably never been outside of his own little suburban until he'd decided to enlist, said knowingly, "They need to clear out those pipes."
Yeah, no shit, dumbass.
Baird bit his tongue, squinting out the windshield for any sign of Locust activity. "Control, are we close?" he asked, opening the link with a quick touch to his earpiece.
"The seismic activity is getting fainter," Stroud reported. She sounded chagrined. "It might've just been a false alarm, Alpha."
"No such thing as a false alarm," Baird muttered through his teeth. "Cole, take it slow. I'm gonna walk out and see if I get anything."
Theoretically speaking, the Locust couldn't penetrate Jacinto's granite terrain—that's what had kept them safe over the years, after all—but the further you got some the center of the city and the harder the Locusts pushed, sometimes they were able to punch through. Forty percent of the time, which was close enough to fifty percent that he had to take every little nudge for granted. It wasn't fun, even if he was wrong. That just meant they were about to attack somewhere else.
He popped the passenger's side door and hopped out, hitting the ground with a thud he could feel up to his knees. Tired, wan faces of Stranded were looking up at the APC and at him with something resembling resigned frustration. Baird, his Lancer held loosely in his hands, followed the APC slowly on foot, trying not to notice.
He'd been born with a mild case of ADHD, something that was easy to control when he actually had something to concentrate on like a new piece of machinery or a new book. He'd pretty much grown out of it, but it had never left. He tried to focus on the ground beneath his feet, feeling for any type of shake that would belay an E-hole, but their gazes made him feel naked. Stupid. Ridiculed.
His jaw set in a stubborn frown, he met their gazes with his own. Most had gone inside when they sighted the APC coming with the one Gear behind, but a few brave ones muttered things as he passed. Suddenly he was a schoolboy again, being ridiculed for the toilet paper hanging to his shoe…
He hated this job. Absolutely positively hated it with every ounce of his being, but at least he was doing something. At least he was fighting and still able-bodied enough to complain about it. All the Stranded ever did was complain, talk about their rights…
Well, fuck them, Baird thought, trying to get his anger under control. They can die for all I care.
A younger, inexperienced Damon Baird would've balked from the statement that came to his mind then. He would've thought he could never get that vindictive, that… uncaring. The old Damon Baird would've been a mechanic one day, working on COG-knows-what to stop the Pendulum Wars. The old Damon Baird.
He lived in anger. He stewed in it, and let it boil. He'd take it out on others when, actually, he was just as lost himself. He was bitter, he was sarcastic, and he was gruff—something that seemed so typical of everyday soldiers, only he actually excelled at it.
The Stranded were continuing to look at him, to whisper things behind his back. Suddenly, his earpiece crackled. "Don't let them get you down, Damon," Cole said quietly. "Concentrate."
"Not in the mood today, Cole…"
"I—" Cole broke off suddenly, and the APC halted. "Hold up a moment and look tough—Johnbot picking up some new readings."
"Yeah?" Baird asked curiously, leaning against the vehicle. "Anything that's going to make my fucking day or what?"
The ground under his feet shuddered. "Ah, shit, belay that last comment," Baird snapped. "Incoming!"
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the ground in front of the APC exploded outwards, taking an old mini-van parked on the sidewalk with it. "Get out of the way!" he yelled, waving the Stranded back. No need—they ran for cover and for whatever weapons their sticky little hands could find.
Baird dropped to his knees behind the APC, spitting bullets at the first hand that attempted to claw its way to the surface.
A little boy on the sidewalk began to scream in earnest—maybe it was because of the Locusts, or maybe it was because of the dozen other trembles Baird could feel now, rocking his feet. "Ah, fuck." He hit the earpiece. "Control, we're gonna need backup!"
"Acknowled. I'm rerouting Theta to your position now. ETA ten minutes."
Directly behind him, the ground sunk. He sacrificed his hold on his weapon to drop two grenades in the open crevasse, ducking away when they exploded. A large piece of flying rock found his head, and he leaned against the vehicle for support, blind-firing at the first E-hole while he cleared the stars from his eyes. The steady burst from the APC's cannon was a steady mantra that brought him back around, and he blinked the blood out of his eyes.
Quicker than he would've believed possible, two more Emergence Holes opened up right behind the first, and the little screaming boy toppled into them.
"Backing up, Baird, taking too much fire!" Cole shouted. Baird grabbed hold of the back just in time, and somehow the former thrashball player managed to maneuver the vehicle around the E-hole behind them. Baird jumped off halfway down the road, rolling towards cover behind a smelly dumpster.
"Let's see if you like this, assholes," he muttered. He took off the grenade pin with his teeth and threw, counting the seconds until detonation…
It landed at the feet of four grubs, who saw it and dived for cover. Only one didn't make it, and Baird cursed. He grabbed the Lancer and took aim, firing quick double-taps in the enemies' general direction. He could still hear Redshirt firing that damn gun, but he wasn't hitting anything…
The grubs were getting closer, spitting bullets at running Stranded. A man running by his cover was hit square in the back, his momentum carrying him still farther before he fell to the ground. He attempted to get up only once, then lay still.
"We won't last ten minutes, Stroud!" Baird barked, ducking back behind cover. Even as he said it, he heard the sharp metallic tink of metal-on-metal. His eyes widened in comprehension, and he looked around for the grenade, backing out of cover as fast as possible.
Just in time. The grenade blew inside the dumpster, and trash rained from the sky like some child's imitation of the well-known idiom. Something dark and slimy trickled down his neck, but Baird couldn't spare a hand to wipe it away—he was running for the next available cover, a car across the street, as fast as his legs would carry him.
He felt a bullet pierce his armor, but it didn't go through. He kept running, then jumped. He landed in a roll, right behind the taillights. He leaned out and returned fire, then had the satisfaction of watching a grub topple back into his hole.
"Fuck. You," he muttered.
A movement next to him caught his eye, right from under the car. He spared only a passing glance—only a Stranded girl, maybe six, huddling under the car.
"He tried to count how long the fight had already been. Five minutes? Seven? He forced his mind to think logically—only two minutes. Fuck, it always felt longer than that.
He leaned out of cover again and fired another salvo. The grubs were gaining on them.
"Hang on, I'm coming." It was Cole's voice in his ear. Baird wanted to tell him to make sure Red didn't do anything stupid, like drive the APC into a building, but he couldn't say it on an open comm. He glanced back to see the driver's side door open, a tall, dark man hopping out. "It's go time, baby."
Baird would've replied, but he noticed a shadow getting close. He twisted around, just in time to see the grub coming at him, gun raised.
Pain ripped into his left shoulder, propelling him backwards. Even as he fell, he fired at the Locust, tearing its' head to shreds. "Ah, fuck," he muttered, flat on his back. He hissed in pain. "Ah, fuck."
He looked underneath the car to see anymore feet approaching, and his eyes met the girl's. Gray met ice, wide and fearful, but she didn't cry and for that he was glad. "There's no more coming," she whispered, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
He let out a breath. "Good—"
"Boom."
The entire top of the car disintegrated in the blast, and the girl screamed, covering her head with her hands. With an effort, Baird rolled over and, with his good arm, grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and pulled her out of the wreckage. He scrambled to his feet and took the girl's hand, running into one of the side buildings.
Outside, the car exploded.
The shockwave broke out the rest of the windows in the small shop, knocking Baird into a dusty counter. "Cole!" he shouted.
"I'm trying to get to you, Baird, sit tight!"
He hit his earpiece. "Control, where are those reinforcements?!"
"Five more minutes, Alpha," Stroud said, exasperated. "I'm trying to find them a faster way to get to you."
"Hey, 'Gus!" Redshirt yelled over the link, his voice cracking over their headpieces. "Baird was hit, I saw it!"
"Keep it down, Red," Baird growled. His accusation had brought the pain to mind again, and suddenly he needed to switch to the back-up pistil. "Yes, I'm hit. Happy now?"
Baird heard the chainsaw on the other end of the line, and supposed the Cole was too busy to respond. He turned to the girl and gestured for her to hide behind the counter. He crouched behind the shattered window, taking a bead on the grubs. He pulled the trigger eight times, pumping round after round into the closest one.
They were only ten meters away. Too damn close for his liking.
He could see the Boomer, lagging behind all the others. "Hey, can somebody take out that Boomer before I have to get up and do it myself?" he asked sarcastically.
"I got it!" Red's too-enthusiastic voice cracked the earpiece again, and the Boomer went down a few seconds later.
"Good. Now keep firing."
He twisted his head to check the streets again, making sure Red was doing exactly what he told him to… then paused. His Lancer was missing.
Fucking kid!
"Kid! Where'd you go?" he bellowed. No answer. "Kid! Ah, shit. Cole, some kid just took my Lancer. Where you at?"
Cole's laugh made the comm crack. "Are you for real, Baird?"
"Shut the fuck up and get over here," Baird snarled, whipping his head around. No sign of the girl. She must've disappeared out the back door.
Fuck. Dammit. Fuck.
"And this is what I get for saving your life, you little thief?" he muttered to himself. He took out another grub with the pistil and ducked underneath cover again when it got too hot. "Fine, then, if that's how you're going to play it…"
Then he noticed the stairs leading up to the second landing, hidden away behind the countertop… and then he realized that the shots he'd assumed to be Cole was coming from above him…
He wasn't in throwing distance of a grenade, so he just kept shooting as he backed up behind the countertop, and stopped when they were out of sight.
Making sure to keep his left arm as still as possible, Baird thundered up the stairs.