Chapter VI: Family Rescue

AN:
Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Sorry for the radio silence. Something truly terrible happened and it's taken me awhile to adjust to this sad new world I find myself in. I found out that... that... I'm a Hufflepuff! Oh the shame! The ignominy! The mortification! I kid. Hufflepuff fo' Lyfe, bruv. Actually, things have been pretty good recently. I've been planning fics out like crazy and now I've got a pretty detailed idea of where each of the fifteen (fifteen! when did that happen, jeez?) uploaded fics I have are going and how long it'll take to get there. Also been doing uni work and starting my final year psych study (I came up with an idea to pilot study my big idea so I can use it for a masters or doctorate later on and use the pilot study as a 'look! it works, okay? you gotta let me do it, you mean 'ole ethics board!' point when I finally get there). Unfortunately, all that has meant a serious lack of time to write until about two weeks ago. I was gonna upload last weekend, but I decided I'd try write four chapters for this update and took another week instead.

My current plan for this month is to get as many of my uploaded stories as possible to the end of 'Act I' (turns out actually planning and structuring things properly helps; who'd've thunk it?), and maybe start putting together an advance timetable so y'all know which stories you'll be getting uploads for in advance rather than leaving them on hold for literal months (sometimes in excess of a year). It's not a concrete plan, but it might work better than what I'm doing now so it's what I'm going with for the moment.

Also, while rereading the Blackwell Job, I realised that really kind of suck at writing David. So, I fixed that problem by making him even gruffer and more monosyllabic than in canon. He's a cranky old desk-job-cop husband with a cane, so it seemed fitting to have him be a little more... terse. If he speaks less, I don't have to write him as much, right? :)

See if ya can guess who 'Mac' is supposed to be. The first name and the whole engineer thing is a big clue. :)

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review

Mac gestures to the mass of crazy people with somehow laid-back astonishment. "Now that is a lot of folks right there."

I raise an eyebrow and stare at her guileless, serene face. "Yes. Yes it is."

Nobody notices the sarcasm.

Copse was also staring at the Unitologists, who seem to be... chatting. Well. That's uncomfortable to see. Fanatic lunatics babysitting literal monsters from your nightmares shouldn't make chitchat.

I carefully concentrate on not freaking out as I catch sight of the monsters again; . "So, what are we going to do about them?"

I start to wave a hand to the Unitologists, but stop myself mid-swing as I realise I'm mimicking Mac's movement from earlier and whip my hand back to my side. "And can you even use a gun?"

Mac just shrugs. "Never really needed to. Problems usually just provide their own solutions."

I swallow my scowl and give an open smile. "Well, okay. What solution do you have in mind here?"

She stares off at the Unitologists for a few moments, then promptly turns and strides into a nearby building without saying another word.

We all blink mutely (both at the door and at each other) as she disappears, then returns a few uncomfortably long minutes later (just after a worryingly loud crash came from inside the building) with an armful of random stuff that seems to have been duct-taped and welded together into a half dozen spheres. She slouches back over to us, and very, very carefully places them on the ground next to us. "So, which of you is the best shot?"

Copse and Chloe both speak up at the same time. "I am."

I sigh.

"What do you need to shoot?"

She drops a hand to rest on the weird sphere things. "These're explosive, but I couldn't find a trigger assembly. I need someone to shoot 'em to make 'em, y'know..," She spreads her hands wide to emphasise her last word. "boom."

"So take both of them. Chloe will shoot three, Copse will shoot three." I grumble irritably.

Mac just shrugs. "Fine by me. Get ready." She picks up the spheres and starts to move closer. Copse and I share a look, and he shrugs. So, we move forward after Chloe and Mac and take up positions.

Mac made to throw immediately, but I stop her with a hand on the shoulder. "I'll count you all down." I mouth.

She shrugs again, still unbothered by it all. So, fuck it. I count down from three, and she starts throwing sphere after sphere into the crowd. It's almost rhythmic: throw, land, roll, throw, land, roll, throw, land - Boom.

Copse's shot gets the first sphere and the thing just sort of... explodes, sending shards of random objects flying in every direction that just... tear into the flesh of whatever had the misfortune to get in their way: Three Unitologists and one of the monsters. Suddenly, all the shards of whatever she'd used in the bomb suddenly dragged all the things they'd hit back to where the sphere landed and then it all just... disappeared into itself.

There's a brief delay as we process what happened, everything around us going quiet as Unitologist and Engineer alike just stare.

Then, all hell breaks loose again.

The remaining Unitologists dart outwards, getting behind whatever cover was nearest to them, and start shooting at us. Copse and Chloe shoot back, and shoot another two of the spheres that devour another four Unitologists and two of the monsters between them. The next few minutes fly by as we exchange shots back and forth. A wayward dying shot from a Unitologist that Chloe took out grazed Copse, but other than that we were doing pretty well. None of us were dead or (seriously) injured and we'd taken out a full third of the Unitologist horde.

Good going, right? Copse seemed to think so. Without taking his eyes off the enemy, he waved a hand for us to move forward. I think. Honestly, the military action movies were more Chloe's thing than mine, but from the 'are you fucking crazy?' look she was giving him, that's probably what it meant. Copse spared a look over to us when we didn't move, and glared at Chloe. "If we wait here, they'll swarm us and we'll die. We have to move."

So, we tried for the door.

The front entrance to the building was at the top of a short flight of thin stairs. Between us and the door was a small garden that was entirely destroyed, aside from a few still-standing metal fences that lined the paths through the greenery. They were supposed to stop people running on the grass, but I guess they never accounted for monsters. We picked a path and sprinted as fast as we could.

Unfortunately, it was too open, and we were quickly forced to dive behind whatever we could as the twenty-ish Unitologists left began shooting at all of us. Copse and Chloe tried to shoot back, but ten rounds of plasma is hard to dodge, so we were stuck.

I yelled back at Copse. "What do we do?"

He gave me an agonised look and resorted to blind-firing over the fence. I peeked around my fence. Wowzers, he didn't hit anything. Another round of plasma forced him back behind his fence before he could shoot again, and thus we were all stuck cowering behind some flimsy sheets of metal.

The Unitologists seemed angry we weren't making better targets and began to focus their fire on our flimsy cover. Copse had to fall back behind stronger cover as the metal fence he was hiding behind began to melt until the barrage of so much plasma. Mac tried to throw another of her weird spheres, but a hail of plasma fire forced her to retake cover. Chloe stayed shooting the longest, taking out three or four of them, but she quickly got overwhelmed by shots and was forced back as well.

Wowzers, this is going even worse than we thought it would the first time. Why didn't we get more help than just one lone asshole engineer?

I dart over to Chloe, keeping my head low and trying to keep my breathing steady as people shoot at me. It's not easy, but I make it and duck behind her into the alley at the side of Joyce and David's building. I think Copse and Mac had made it to the alley on the opposite side, but they were getting pushed back harder than we were. I guess they thought the woman with the disintegrating sphere bomb things was more dangerous than one woman with a gun and me, who couldn't shoot at all.

There were over a dozen of them closing in on them and the monsters were charging and screaming and honestly - and I feel so ashamed that I even thought this - but I considered leaving them and just running for the door with Chloe.

But I couldn't, even if we'd decided to.

The rest of them were coming for us.

Faces started appearing at the end of the alley, joyous, almost beatific faces staring at us down the barrels of their guns. They started to shoot, forcing us back down the alley.

I'd seen the rest when I ran in, and it was a dead end. Without a miracle, we'd be dead too. And I didn't believe in those. It felt like there was a swarm of them flooding into the alley, even though it was only eight or so. We could barely see the other end now, which was lucky, since two of the monsters were currently looming there.

"Max? What do we do, Max?" Chloe was taking desperate potshots down the alley, dodging behind some kind of trashbin.

I... I had no idea. Wait, the bin! "Shove the bin forward. Maybe we can block them off for a while?"

She scoffs, but still grabs it. "Until what? Someone comes past and gets shot? Hella unlikely, Maxie. We gotta face it, we're-"

Several small shapes woosh overhead, firing into the horde. They all quickly disappear from the alley, retreating back from these flying shooting things...

"Well. That was... good timing?"

Chloe pokes her head over the bin. "They're fucking gone. What even were those things?"

"I have-"

There's a familiar scream from one of the monsters, followed by a rattling hail of gunfire.

"We should probably get inside."

"Yep."

We dash out of the alley, coming face to face with Copse and Mac. She looks just as unfazed as she always did. Copse was just as confused as we were. "What was-"

I shrug, keeping my hand on Chloe's shoulder as she surveys the alarmingly empty area. "We have no idea. Just get inside before they come back."

They obviously agree with our plans, turning and sprinting for the front door with us. It's unlocked, bizarrely, sliding open as we approach.

We run through the door with less care than we probably should, splitting off immediately for any cover from the outside. Fortunately for us, the lobby was empty. Apparently none of the monsters had bothered with this building yet, it still looked exactly like it did before all this happened. Neat, orderly, utterly devoid of personality, and filled with far too many announcements from the busybodies that lived in the building. Seriously, Janine, nobody gives a crap about your petunias, okay? Jeez.

"I... I don't think anyone's coming after us." Chloe pokes her head out from behind the row of mailboxes she'd hidden behind (fallen over) and squinted towards the door.

Copse stands, holstering his gun. "We should keep moving either way. Where do your parents live, Chloe?"

"Uh," Chloe dragged her eyes away from the door with a visible exertion of willpower. "Fifth floor. Apartment six, I think. Could be seven. Is it seven? Or eight?"

I walk up and lay a hand on her shoulder. I feel her quivering under my hand for a few seconds before she sighs and her body relaxes. "It's six, Copse."

He nods, and heads for the stairs. Chloe immediately baulks. "Dude, the fucking elevator's literally just over there, why-"

"Because it's a choke-point. If any of those things are up there, we'll be trapped in the box."

"So, we just close the door, right?"

He snorts at Chloe's question. "If you want to try close an elevator door faster than one of those damn things can run, you're welcome to try. I'm taking the stairs."

Mac nods, and moves to follow. I squeeze Chloe's shoulder and remove my hand. "He's right, Chloe. Come on, the quicker we start, the quicker it'll be over."

With one last longing look at the elevator, Chloe follows us up to the stairs.

"Fuckin' A, we finally- haaaaah, jeez - We finally made it!"

"This is the third floor, Chloe."

"Fuuuuuuu-

"Sixth floor!"

"Fifth floor, so you were closer this time!"

"Damnit!"

"Okay, now we've gotta be-"

"Seventh floor. How did we end up on the seventh floor?"

"Shit, I think we missed a turn."

"What the fuck, guys, are you-"

"We're kidding, Chloe. Yeah, we're here."

"Fuck you guys."

We all chortle, even Copse, at Chloe's irritation. I tap her shoulder. "Don't worry, Chlo'. We're here now. It'll be okay, we just need to find that apartment." I feel kind of bad for teasing her, but hey. The world is over, we need to get smiles where we can.

Copse takes the lead, heading down and counting the numbers of the doors lining both sides of the sixth floor corridor. The corridor we were on only had apartments seven to ten, and if I hadn't have been apologising quietly to Chloe for the teasing one of us would've been able to tell him that. Instead, he takes us down the corridor, then pokes around the corners at the end. After a second, he raises his gun and quickly steps out into corridor. "Identify yourself."

Whoever he's aimed at give a few muffled squawks of complaint at having a weapon aimed at them and his eyes narrow. Chloe and I poke our heads around the corner just in time to hear a gruff voice mutter something about "Presumptuous punks trying to-"

"Mom!"

Chloe dashes forward and wraps her arms around the familiar shape of Joyce Madsen. The woman, though taken aback at first, hugs back with a warm smile. "Hi Chloe. I'm so glad you're okay."

David simply gave a gruff nod, not moving to hug either of us. He and Chloe had gotten better, but they still weren't hugging-close. He continued his conversation with the third member of their little group. I took a quick look; she was an older woman, maybe sixty or seventy by her weathered looking skin, standing slightly within her doorway. Her hawkish, vaguely piercing gaze was locked onto David, never leaving him once despite our... interruption.

I wave awkwardly from my position back at the corner. "Hi Joyce."

"It's good to see you too, Max." She smiles, then releases Chloe. My wife shuffles her feet sheepishly on the ground, filling the corridor with a painful skreek sound as her boots scrape on the floor.

I chuckle, and start to listen into David's conversation. Chloe and Joyce were talking, it seemed polite to give them some privacy. Well, as much privacy as you can get in a corridor full of people.

"You got what I said now? You be sure to-"

"I know, I know, Mr Madsen." The woman wafts a dismissive hand. "Board up my windows and lock all my doors and stay away from the vents and do this and that and the other or the monsters will kill me. I appreciate your concern, young man," What is it about hitting sixty that seems to make more and more people call others by their age? We don't call them 'old person' in casual conversation. Plus, David was approaching sixty years old himself, so the young man moniker was a little... patronising. David didn't seem to mind though, but I guess if she was a neighbour he'd probably heard it enough to become inured to it. "but I will not let some upstart loonies and their freakish pets scare me out of my home. It's rent controlled, you know. My late husband got the deal for us."

David's long-suffering sigh was visible on his face, even if it didn't actually escape him. "Yes, Maureen. I know. But please, make sure you stay inside."

With a last grumble, the woman disappeared back into her apartment. David had to quick-step backward to avoid being crushed in the door as the two halves slid closed. A moment later, the blue open button flashed orange.

David scowls, muttering to himself. "At least she locked the damn door, like I told her to."

He swivels about-face on his cane until he's angled towards us, his eyes immediately flickering over each of us the moment we get into his vision. Some habits never change. His eyes linger suspiciously on Copse even as he smiles at me. "Hello, Max. Good to see you're alive."

Heh. More than a few things, I guess.

"Hi, David. You too."

We both go quiet and wait for Joyce and Chloe's hugging and mutual grateful-to-be-alive conversation to finish. David and I always were the quiet partners. We'd found out we had a lot in common over the years, but being two quiet people married to loud, talkative ones was definitely the main thing. Copse has no such patience. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but we need to get you two out of here."

Joyce bristles. "Now, hold your horses there. We're not leaving. There are still people in here who need help."

"And there will be four more if we don't get out of here now. The Unitologists outside are gone, but they will be back soon and then we'll be trapped in here."

She glares at him. "These people are our neighbours, our friends. We ain't going to just abandon them. We're going to stay with them."

"Then you will die with them!"

That conversation really does sound better in Elvish... David strides over to stand by his wife, framed on the opposite side with Chloe. The three of them glare Copse down. He doesn't back down, insisting "We have to leave. There's a safe place nearby, your daughter-"

"Yeah, I found it, dude. Let me tell them." Chloe interrupts Copse before he can steal her thunder. He steps back with a 'by all means' gesture.

"The douchebag is right. We gotta get out, and we gotta get out now. We've got a place to hide that's hella safe. You're gonna come with." Chloe crossed her arms, glaring harshly between her mom and step-father. Everything in her stance was just daring them to disagree.

Her parents seemed to be slightly taken aback by the intensity. I wasn't surprised by it. Chloe always did try to protect her loved ones from whatever danger was out there. Something she and David had found they had in common, especially that they both did it in the worst freaking ways possible.

Joyce and David share a look, communicating whatever arguments they had in a glance. David shrugged, Joyce nodded. I swallow a sigh of relief "Okay, Chloe. We'll leave. Hopefully the rest of the building will stay outta sight."

David strode up to Copse, clapping one hand on the man's shoulder and leading on his cane with the other. "You're the one with the gun. You lead."

Copse nodded in acknowledgement, not speaking up. Apparently the man had at least some sense of diplomacy, he'd gotten his way now and he wasn't going to say anything to make them change their minds. Honestly, it was kind of confusing. He'd seemed far more... tactful and funny when we'd first met him. He'd certainly poked fun at us more then than now. Maybe the stress was getting to him? I know it was getting to me, and no EarthGov military training could really prepare you for seeing... what we'd seen.

I was pulled out of my mulling as my face clunked against the hard metal ridging of Chloe's RIG. My hand immediately reached up to my face and I grimace as my head pangs with pain. "Ow."

Chloe tilts her head to look back at me and smirks. Dog, I've missed being able to see her face. "Forgot to watch where you were going, Maxie? Or did you just get distracted staring at my amff-"

I also missed being able to clap my hand over her mouth when she started saying things like that. Her eyes narrow above my hand and there's a sudden wet sensation on my fingers as she freaking licks me. I immediately whip my hand away and wipe it on her suit. "Ew, Chloe!"

She laughs, and pulls me into a hug, muttering something in my ear that doesn't bear repeating. My face was red when she finished though. She let me go and stepped back, laughing again at the thoroughly distracted look on my face.

I look up to her face, pushing away the embarrassment. "I'm glad we found them."

She smiles. "Yeah, me too, Maxie." Her face takes on a distant look, and she mutters. "I was hella fucking worried."

I smile back at her a few moments, then I take her hand and lead her to catch up with the others. Her happy expression immediately disappears when she sees the stairs.

The street outside was disturbingly empty. "Those things still aren't back..."

"Isn't that a good thing, Maxie?" Chloe chuckles. "You really wanna complain that the monsters aren't back again?"

"No, it's just... worrying." You couldn't be sure to take the right picture if you couldn't see the things that were out of the frame. I notice Copse out the corner of my eye giving me an approving look. I guess he mistook my terror for wariness.

I wasn't sure who gave the order to move forward, but the whole group of us quickly edged out of the building, down the stairs, and into the garden. It was thoroughly destroyed now. What few fences were still up when we entered were gone and what few plants were still alive were torn to pieces. There were also... "Do Unitologists have some kind of... funeral belief?"

Copse shakes his head. "Not really. They believe in more of a rebirth thing, if I remember right. Something to do with us all joining together as one after we go. Really freaky-kumbaya kind of deal. Why?"

"You guys killed some Unitologists while we were trying to break in here, right?"

Copse started looking around the garden. "Right..." He clearly still wasn't getting what I was intimating.
"Where are the bodies? I know some of them would've been got by Mac's freaking strange," The engineer flashes a smart grin. "bombs, but there should still be a few around. Especially after those flying things came."

"What flying things-" David started, but Chloe quickly interrupted and gave him the cliff's notes of our rescue attempts. He, uh... he didn't seem happy at the fact that Chloe had killed people, but he shook his head before speaking. Clearly a topic for later when said people who we'd shot at weren't in danger of coming back for a third go.

Everyone started looking far more intently at the space around us, searching for any sign of moved bodies, or anything, really. There wasn't a sign of anything. He and Copse began pointing out various clues to what happened that didn't seem to be really clues to what happened. Like, the pools of blood were smeared, but none of them had the telltale tracks of a dragged body. They looked more like somebody had slipped in them. Copse had scowled dismissively at the failed investigation and turned away to keep watch, but David had kept staring intently at that stain. "It almost looks like..." He shakes his head. "No, that can't be right." He straightens up and looks away. "Nevermind."

Copse tilts his head back, trying to keep all of us, and our surroundings, in view at all times. He seemed to be managing it too, which was impressive. "If you're done poking uselessly about, we should get moving. Staying out here is even worse than staying in there."

Even David couldn't disagree with that one.

We got moving, heading back down the road we'd came from. Mac was eyeing David like she expected him to slow us down, but the old guy was damn quick on his feet with that cane. If he wasn't deliberately staying behind the armed Copse, he'd probably be leading the group.

Unlike the way here, we were sticking to the middle of the roads. I wasn't sure why, it seemed stupid to not be hiding like we knew worked, but I wasn't going to question the people with training. Maybe they knew something I didn't. I slow a little as we reached the intersection of another T-Junction, just appreciating the silence around us. Wowzers, it's so quiet out here. You could almost hear a-

Almost in unison, we all look down the other street.

Oh.

Shit.

The entire area was suddenly filled with screams and howls, screeching sounds of rage and hunger, as the horde of monsters milling about the other street all focus on us with laser-intensity. The next moment felt like it lasted for hours, just us staring at them and them staring at us, but the moment finished and they charged. The screaming intensified. I could feel my heart wrench in my chest as Chloe and Copse stepped forward slightly, blasting away at the approaching horde. There were no Unitologists here, but there were far more monsters. Too many for the two of them to take.

As they closed, a wing of those strange flying things that saved us before - are they following us? - swooped down in front of us and we finally got a decent look at them. They were little spheres set into the bottom of what looked like beetle carapaces. Each one had a bright light on top and a large gun on the bottom. The monsters didn't stop their charge, so the flying machines began to shoot.

The hail of bullets was astonishing. Whatever these machines were, they'd fired more shots in a few minutes than I'd ever seen in my life. The creatures finally broke under fire. Physically, not mentally. For psychotic killing machines, these monsters sure were fragile. Most of them were ripped to pieces and the third that remained were quickly lured off by the brightly glowing machines flying at and past them.

One of the machines doubles back and settles, floating about two feet above and in front of us. "You should probably get moving. They're gone for now, but they'll be back soon." The light on top flickers with each word. The voice sounded... alarmingly human.

We stare for a few moments before the flying thing coughs awkwardly. "Um. Hello? Could you, y'know, get on that? With the running? Seriously, my- oh, there goes Huey. Damn. Poor little guy. Oscar's going to miss him."

"What are-"

"Seriously, more of them are coming and they are coming back right now and they are going to rip your arms off or something equally horrible. Run already!"

We run like hell.

[END OF ACT I]