Resistance and its universe are copyrighted to Insomniac Games. This story is a work of fanfiction, and all original characters are property of the author.
September 1930
"In election news, the SDP-led coalition have boosted their majority in the Reichstag, bolstered by recent economic growth and reforms under the Müller administration. The SDP alone took twice as many seats as the conservative National People's Party. The ultra-nationalist Socialist Worker's Party, an underdog early on in the campaign despite its extremist rhetoric, took no seats after the Harzburger scandal involving prominent Nazis and several DNVP members scuttled both parties' chances for success.
The SDP-DDP coalition has also managed to wear down the DNVP's presence in the Free City Legislature. This is expected to ease tensions between the Legislature and the ETO, as the DNVP has consistently pushed for closer ties between the city and the German province of East Prussia... "
"MENSCH! Is there nothing sacred anymore?!"
"Darling, please, calm down."
"Listen to that rubbish, dear! All it takes is a few bad apples to bring down an entire bushel of good, decent people!"
"Please, darling, they're just rabble-rousing extremists. Let's not argue-"
"Rabble-rousers just for pointing out what's happened? Maybe it was good that we recovered from the hyperinflation to prosperity...but all at the cost of our identity?"
"Not this again! Remember when we went to the cinema last month, and they had the newsreel of the Nazis? Those were DRONES!"
"Don't shove military men into that category- we are uniformed and we fight, but we are not DRONES. We are not monstrous vermin in some gigantic beehive."
"You fought the Russians tooth and nail...you risked your life for your country and the people you loved. I was so afraid to answer the doorbell for fear I would get that telegraph-"
"But we LOST. The way those French-run Treaties castrated our army afterward for this United European Defense malarkey...the Russians might as well leap over that wall they built and run us all down!"
"Mama! Papa! I'm home!"
"Oh! Welcome home! How was your day!"
"It was nice...why were you arguing with Papa?"
"It's nothing, dear...he's just worried is all..."
"Yes, mama..."
"I'm sorry...I know I shouldn't be yelling in front of him. I just him to grow up as someone proud of who he is...and the country he comes from, not just another 'good citizen in this great federation.'"
"I'm sure our little angel will grow up to be someone special, dear."
Autumn 1951
Somewhere in Central Europe
I gasp for breath as the smell of charred textile causes my eyes to spring open...and gasp again as I realize from my position on the floor that what happened could not possibly have been a dream. I recognize my bunker, still smoky from the flamethrower but I do not know where the hell I am at the moment, hell or otherwise. All I know is that I am hearing things. The language is none I'd heard previously - and through my father I had met people even from Russia - and yet I can understand it as if it were my mother tongue.
"Raid complete. Gather-5-2 Sections 0-9-1-2 and 5-6-6-1 inbound for collection."
I know they are coming to finish me off, or worse, have me converted to their own ranks. I grab onto a table to help me get up...but I only feel as groggy as if I'd woken from a good night's sleep rather than a lengthy coma. It happens to be the table where I had piled up a number of artifacts and implements looted from invaders, and I realize that I can identify each and every one of them and their purpose.
"Checking upper floors now..."
I frantically sweep aside the objects on the table, grabbing a cylinder that is slightly larger than a standard-issue hand grenade. There are several other cylinders like it as well.
"No potentials confirmed. Clearing lower floors."
The cylinder glows a faint yellow, a shade strangely similar to the eyes of the invaders. And for some reason, I remember exactly how it works as I rotate its top cap and plunge the other end into my abdomen. My eyes almost bug out and I gasp as what feels like liquid nitrogen courses through my arteries.
I can hear footsteps coming downstairs toward the slightly-ajar bunker door. I push against the edge of the table to help propel my dizzy steps in the direction of the shelf where I keep my spare weaponry.
I pull a rather large rifle from the bottom shelf. It feels a lot lighter than even the sniper rifle, despite the fact that it appeared to weigh twice as much.
"Hostile! Hosti-"
The "bullets" that burst out of this gun's barrel appear to stick to the door before disappearing through it. Muffled cries of pain and the clattering of weapons and equipment on the stairs follow.
"0-9-1-2 report...section 5-6-6-1 clarify..."
Their panicked "voices" fade, and I am back in my bunker, wearing Sergeant F. Viola's uniform, trying to catch my breath through the acrid odor of the smoke.
Once again, relief escapes my grasp.
The flash that burst out of the rifle barrel suddenly appears through the door before it blazes toward me. I try to sidestep it, and manage to escape. Mostly. The "bullet" sears through my uniform AND the upper layers of skin on my left shoulder, causing me to drop the rifle sending me stumbling toward the wall next to the junk table, screaming in pain.
Yet in what almost seems like reflex, I grab what appears to be a yellow-spotted ball from off the table and lunge back at the door at about the same time that one of the invading soldiers tries to push it open. I can't close the door, as that soldier has already wedged his gun in the doorway, but they can't get in either.
I press one of the yellow circles on the ball and stick it through the gap before recoiling back and pushing against it with all my weight. I wince as the sudden sound of spikes ricocheting off the metal door pierces through my ears...though it is not just sound piercing through whoever waits outside.
After a few seconds, silence returns save for the occasional death gargle from the invaders outside. Not even communication calling for reinforcements, but I decide not to stay for seconds.
I pull out three cartridges for their standard energy rifle, extra ammo for my sidearms, and a couple of yellow "life canisters" that can fit where I would normally have grenades. I pick up the rifle for these respective cartridges off of the footsoldier that tried to push the door open.
I have to tread carefully across the bodies to avoid the spikes that the grenade shot out when it detonated. They stick out of the bodies sprawled across the stairway and the wall - but thankfully, not out of the rifle - as if I am walking through a medieval torture chamber. It almost seems appropriate that I step into the doorway only to see what appear to be ropes coiling and uncoiling before me...before I remember that they are attached to the living "carriers" they use to transport their "potentials" to the centers.
The sun shines off-white through the dull, gray sky, its metallic flawlessness tainted with the jellyfish-like silhouette of the occasional carrier. It is not snowing now, yet even though their weather control machines have made even the summers colder than winter, I feel like it's spring. And it is out on the street that I notice that my seared arm feels as only as if I've bumped it against a door. It aches only slightly when I move it, otherwise it is more than capable of supporting the rifle.
Not that it has anything to fire at right now, as I appear to be completely alone on these streets or at least on the ground.
Many of the buildings still intact have been augmented with extra structures used by invading snipers, but these artificial balconies stand mostly empty. It does not mean that I do not try to avoid them, however, as a figure occasionally bolts across the conduits that cross the streets. Other buildings are mainly used as load-bearing blocks for the massive conduits that run above and below ground to places near and far.
At this point, I am fleeing almost aimlessly. I know I have to head toward help but I do not want to lead the invaders directly to the outposts, and my boots are leaving tracks. Despite the emptiness of the streets, I would not be off to assume the entire city's invader force are now alerted to my actions. And even though I know this city like the back of my hand, I am too engaged in an adrenalin rush to pull up my mental maps.
It isn't long before a structure I lean against to catch my breath gives me focus. It is a large warehouse - a cannery, from the signage, and I can hear machinery running. That is nowhere near a good sign. Industry in this city has all but ground to a halt since the invasion.
I hope for the best-case scenario...that I have happened on an armory where they refuel and rearm the walking tanks that prowl the highways in and out of the city.
The only other scenario I can think of at the moment is that this warehouse is a garage for the much larger walking tanks - the ones that shoot missiles loaded with the roaches that nearly killed me. Either way I could sneak out and lose the armor across the alleyways.
I duck into the cannery and head up a flight of stairs to a balcony where I can oversee the goings-on in the warehouse proper. It is then that my knowledge of the area finally catches up with me, and it fills me with a sense of dread.
It is almost tragically ironic that I have ended up in the very facility that the invaders use to reinforce their ranks - by the conversion of the "potentials" they recover.
There is an aura of utter desolation here, much more so than any other part of the city.
I remember that I have managed to studiously avoid this facility due to its proximity to my bunker. With "potentials" getting ever more scarce across the city, the invaders began shelling further outward from the center rather than brushing inward. The roaches that attacked me might as well have been leftovers or a fresh batch that escaped while they were deconstructing other facilities.
It is due to this avoidance that this is actually the first time that I have actually ever entered this facility.
It has been a long time since the invaders overran Europe. In a city that bore the brunt of their early invasion, the only ones left now are the ones picking the scraps and sinews from the bones, while they reorganize their occupation to cities of higher importance like Warsaw and Konigsberg. They intend to leave nothing - or at least, nothing they believe what few survivors are left to try to reorganize upon.
If I were here but a few months ago I would have felt a greater sense of urgency to escape this place, especially since it would have been busier. Instead I feel more compelled to observe the goings on as I duck behind an old crate and peer below. There seems almost no harm in doing so at this point.
Their laborers - barely altered from their original forms - trudge about in a zombielike fashion, slow, steady and utterly soulless. They shuffle into the room and work on removing the structures piece by piece before marching out in the same funeral pace whence they came. There is a hole in the roof where a carrier would presumably lower the bodies down for conversion.
Compared to the few footsoldiers standing guard over them, the laborers hardly seem like a threat. Not that any of them would be worried about anything other than a desperate, gung-ho survivor with a rusting carbine and messianic delusions.
They still keep one chute fully operational just for people like him.
It is easy to pick the menials off even with a sidearm from a small room's length, but an ambush would leave one with little time to react before they grab their victim and take a hearty bite out of their tender jugular.
I click open my rifle's safety lock. There is another way out that bypasses the guards in this room, at least, and if I could get out without causing too much of a stir.
At least not as much of a stir as the breath I suddenly feel on the back of my head.
I hardly have time to figure out if I've tuned back into their transmissions, let alone pull the trigger when a pair of cold arms suddenly wrap around my neck and torso...
TO BE CONTINUED