Tommy:
"Oh Jesus." Toby said breathlessly as Tommy slowed the cop cruiser to a halt just inside of the dock entrance.
Bodies of mobsters and Triad soldiers littered the pavement, an ocean of blood flooding from the corpses and mixing in the rain.
"Come on kid, this is Liberty, you've seen worse." Tommy grunted as he got out of the car, pistol in hand.
Claude was here, somewhere, the body count alone was enough to make Tommy certain of this. Probably with the package too.
"Y-Yeah." Toby stammered, getting out of the car.
"Let's go." Tommy said, rushing towards the sound of gunfire. A group of mobsters were gathered around a warehouse door, beating on it futilely.
"Freeze!" Toby yelled, much to Tommy's chagrin. The mobsters turned and Tommy noticed they were all toting one type of gun or another.
"Police!" Toby growled, holding his pistol in both hands. "Drop your wea-" the mobsters raised their guns.
In the blink of an eye Tommy's gun was up and firing while he took a few steps back. Four shots, one in the ground, the other in the gut of a mobster, the last two hit the warehouse.
"Lance!" Toby yelled, and for a minute Tommy wasn't sure what the kid was yelling about, until he remembered that was the name he had told him back at the police station. "Look o-" a shotgun blast to the chest ended his sentence early.
"Shit!" Tommy fired twice more before leaping over the hood of a mafia sentinel parked nearby and ducking down to reload his pistol.
Gunshots smacked into the sentinel, making Tommy cringe every time. How had he gotten into this shit? Why was he running around aimlessly looking for packages? Too busy wondering what he'd done in a past life to end up in this situation, he didn't notice that the gunshots had stopped.
"Claude, let's go, he can't have gotten far!" a deep voice yelled.
Peering over the hood Tommy sneered. "Claude!" he yelled, aiming the pistol over the hood of the sentinel and firing three quick shots.
Claude:
"I think something's going on out there." 8-Ball said, listening to the mobsters outside of the warehouse.
"Freeze!" a muffled voice yelled outside. "Police! Drop your wea-" the voice was cut off by a shotgun blast.
Claude and 8-Ball exchanged glances as more gunfire sounded up. "What do you think?" 8-Ball asked, looking from Claude to the door.
Claude only smirked and raised his uzi, motioning for 8-Ball to unlock the warehouse door.
"On three..." 8-Ball said, holding his AK in one hand while resting the other on the lock of the door. "One...two..." Claude gripped his Uzi tight as he moved closer to the door.
"Three!" 8-ball flipped open the lock and Claude kicked open the door.
A trio of mobsters were firing at somone taking cover behind a mafia sentinel. Easy picking for Claude. One squeeze of the trigger and the Uzi tore through their bodies, coupled with 8-Ball's AK, the men were dead and on the ground in a matter of seconds. None of them even had a chance to turn around and face their attackers.
Claude bent down to grab one of the dead mobster's pistols, figuring he'd need a new weapon sooner or later.
"Claude, let's go, he can't have gotten far!" 8-Ball yelled, referring to Cipriani, a split second before a gunshot cut him down.
"Claude!" someone yelled from behind.
Claude looked from his dead friend over to the mafia sentinel, and the grinning Tommy Vercetti taking cover behind it.
There was a brief moment where the two stood in the rain, staring at one another while 8-Ball bled to death on the wet pavement.
A flash of lightning and Claude started running, ducking his head down as Tommy let off several shots.
"Quit running, you're only going to die tired!" Tommy yelled, feet slapping on the pavement not far behind Claude.
For an old man, Vercetti was fast. Fast enough to keep up with Claude as he sped through the docks, hopping fences, weaving around trucks, killing the occasional Triad (There was still a turf war going on after all).
The chase ended abruptly as Toni Cipriani appeared from around the corner of a building, bleeding his heart out onto the rain slick pavement of the dock. In his bloody hands was a red and white package, similar to the one Claude had found in Sex Club Seven.
"Ma..." Toni moaned as he stumbled toward the stunned duo. "I'm...sorry..." he fell to his knees and looked up, only now seeming to notice that he had an audience for his final moments of life. "He...has my ma...said...not to let you...have...this..." the package fell from his hand. "...I'm..." he fell onto his face.
"Who, who told you to do this!." Tommy knelt down next to Cipriani. If he could get some answers, find out who'd done all of this, maybe he could get to the antidote all the more quickly.
Using Tommy's momentary distraction, Claude grabbed the package from the ground. The paper was wet and bloody...but something definitely inside this time. Without another second's wait, Claude ripped the paper off. A clue?
There was locker key with a little paper attached. 'Staunton Subway Station. Locker number seventeen.'
Claude dropped the paper and started off. Three steps and a sharp pain burst in the back of his head, driving him to the ground.
"I'll be taking this, thank you very much." Tommy's voice fell on deaf ears, Claude was already unconscious.
Carl:
Carl's eyes popped open to a bright light. "Damn," he moaned weakly. "Not again..." he moved his hand up to rub his eyes, noticing instantly he had a needle in his arm and a clip attached to a heart monitor on his finger. "What the hell?"
The day's events started to flood back. Waking up in a dark warehouse with Tommy...fighting Tommy after being informed he was poisoned...getting shot...being in the ambulance...then things started to go grey.
Someone must have taken him to the hospital after the ambulance was hit. Looking around he decided this had to be true, this was definitely a hospital room.
"Fuck..." suddenly he remembered the most important thing about today. Yes he was poisoned, but there was a way out. Somewhere was an antidote, hidden in a package in the city.
Slowly, Carl sat up. His stomach hurt like hell, but he'd fight through the pain, he had to. No way was he going to lie here in this hospital waiting for whatever was in his system to run its course.
"Damn." Carl grunted as he pulled the needle out of his arm and got to his feet.
The heart monitor started blaring as he peeled off the clip from his finger and started out into the hall. The hospital was in an uproar about something, but it wasn't him.
"...nickname...eight ball..." a doctor said hurriedly while he and a couple paramedics pushed a bloody black man past Carl. "Gunshot wound to the back...this whole day is a mess..." they rolled right out of earshot.
Carl moved back into his room and started searching the drawers of the stand next to the hospital bed. He need his beeper, without it he wouldn't know where the next package was.
"Thank god." he breathed a sigh of relief when he found the beeper along with his bloody clothing.