Hey everyone! Welcome back to another chapter of Reduced Mass! Things got intense last chapter as things in the warehouse went completely haywire. Benji and David now find themselves in the middle of the warehouse right in the heart of enemy territory with no real way of getting out. They managed to destroy the Flex but that's just given them bigger problems now that they need to escape with their lives.
On another note, Reduced Mass has surpassed the 100 follower mark! I can't thank you guys enough for all your support! When I posted this story, I didn't really expect it to even reach a large audience, I just expected it to fall flat on its face, as I've mentioned before that I usually don't approve of what I write. You guys have shown me that I am capable of writing a good story! I couldn't have done it without you!
This A/N is going to be short, as I want to get right back into the action, and I'm thinking you do as well! Let's stop messing around then!
P.S.: I'm also going to do what Herr Wozzeck did in his Mass Vexations series, and that's giving you guys a song to listen to while you read the chapter. I hope you enjoy!
Winterspell - Two Steps from Hell
"Benji, come on."
It's been two minutes, and Benji still hasn't moved. If I wait any longer, one of the hundreds of guards will stumble across the both of us, and with Benji being unconscious and me basically being a walking corpse, that doesn't bode well for us.
Saying that destroying the tower caused a commotion in the warehouse is an absolute understatement. Its absolute hell in here, at least it sounds like absolute hell. Secondary explosions are going off above us, the sirens blaring, people yelling and screaming and the sound of a large fire crackling. To be honest, I don't want to go up there. I'm getting a relative feeling of safety in the tunnels of the vehicle bay, but now's the best time to get out of here. The chaos and carnage up there will help us in getting out somewhat unnoticed. I still can't believe that the platform we rode down on smashed its way through the entire tower! I mean, the tower itself was made of metal and it just got crushed like it was paper!
I definitely have a story to tell the people I meet in the future if I get out of here alive. That reminds me, I really hope Benji isn't dead. He's the only person that I remotely consider a friend in this place. Tarvus is too professional to make friends on Chalkhos, Torben is genetically unable to make friends and I rarely talk to Garret. Benji and he seem to get along pretty well, so he can't be all that bad.
"Benji please don't do this now," I plead while shaking him again. He doesn't stir or move a muscle. Three minutes without air, I need to get him breathing quick or I won't have an ally in this mess anymore. Benji is lying on his stomach, so I open his back and begin rummaging through it. I don't need explosive charges, neither do I need painkillers… not now anyway. There's got to be something in this pack that'll make Benji regain consciousness. Ah, this might help.
I take out another syringe and begin to look at it more closely. It's a different color than the one that's got the painkillers in them. This one is a bright yellow and green capital letters adorn the side of it.
'Epinephrine.'
If my very, very limited medical expertise is correct, and by that I mean DayZ mechanics, an Epi-pen should make an unconscious person conscious. Don't ask me how though, because I have absolutely no Idea.
Right, I'm desperate here so I'm just going to try it.
I kneel down beside Benji and press the button that releases the helmet from the rest of the armor. With a quiet 'hiss', I can easily pull the helmet off and I set it down beside Benji's head. The yelling is getting louder up top, staying here any longer than I need to will only make this harder.
I take the syringe and stick it into Benji's neck, pressing the epinephrine through the opening and into his body. I don't know how the hell this is supposed to get somebody conscious again but hey, if it works I'm sure as hell not going to complain. Now the only thing left to do is wait. I take the assault rifle I've been carrying off of my back and begin scanning the area. I have a really bad feeling about staying here, but if Benji doesn't wake up in a few minutes, I'm going to have to leave him if I want to have a chance of even escaping the tunnels of the vehicle bay.
I look to Benji and see him begin to stir, and I let out a sigh of relief. He isn't dead, and we haven't been spotted yet.
"Benji, can you hear me?" I ask while looking down the hall we landed in.
Benji grumbles something inaudibly in response.
"Glad to hear that you're okay," I say.
He slowly gets on his knees and looks around.
"Frosty? How long was I out for?" he asks with a shaky voice while rubbing his head.
"One or two minutes at most," I shrug. "Good thing you had an Epi-pen on you, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten you awake."
Benji groans. He sounds absolutely exhausted. "Where are we?" he asks while looking around.
"Tunnels of the vehicle bay. We're right where the tower used to be," I answer.
Benji chuckles. "Right, now I remember."
"You alright on your own, or do you need assistance?"
Benji stands up with helmet in hand and stretches his back, which emits a satisfying cracking sound. He looks to me and puts his helmet on.
"I'm ready to get the fuck out of here Frosty. And the sooner we do that, the better."
"I gotta warn you, it's absolute chaos up there, and I doubt they're going to let the two people that did this just walk out the front door." I say.
"We'll have an easier time getting around unnoticed in the warehouse, but I'm betting that the exits are more than heavily guarded," Benji agrees.
"YMIR mechs?" I ask as I pass Benji, effectively taking point.
"You bet your ass Frosty. Don't worry though, we'll worry about that when the time comes."
"Whatever you say," I shrug. "Let's just get out of the tunnels first, we're right at the impact site, and my guess is that traffic is heaviest here."
"Less talk, more escape," Benji says and slaps me on the back. I begin walking down the hallway and start listening to the commotion up top again. The screaming and yelling is only getting louder and it seems like more and more people are arriving by the second. But why does the screaming sound so feminine? I sure as hell hope that we didn't kill any of the warehouse workers.
I sigh internally.
Who am I kidding, of course we managed to kill some innocent bystanders. Nothing ever happens on Chalkhos without collateral damage. I don't even want to know how many people Benji and I just killed by crushing the tower under us.
"I didn't expect you to be this fit Benji," I begin to say. "I mean, you were just knocked out, and you're already on your feet again, acting like nothing's happened to you at all."
"I've had worse things happen to me, like exponentially worse," Benji says. "I welcome a little involuntary downtime from time to time."
"Do you mind me asking what is exponentially worse than being knocked out because we dropped over hundred meters and the only way to brake was the ground?" I ask while raising an eyebrow under my facemask.
"You'd be surprised. Tell you what, I'll tell you some stories over a couple of drinks once we're out of here."
"Deal," I smile. "If we even get out of here."
Benji lets out a quiet laugh. "Are you doubting my skills Frosty?"
"Of course not!" I say in mock hurt. "But you have to admit that this situation is beyond our control now."
"That might be, but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve," Benji says.
"Well, I hope that you'll be able to use them productively."
I never expected to be able to have a nice conversation with Benji in a situation like this. It feels… weird. We're in mortal danger, have a ninety-nine percent chance of death and are both probably heavily wounded, and here we are talking like we're sitting in a booth at the Irish pub, not having a care in the world. I guess it's my coping mechanism. If I had a pack of cigarettes on me right now, it'd probably be empty.
Benji chuckles quietly and we fall into a comfortable silence walking through the corridors of the vehicle bay looking for a way out. Debris and rubble block nearly every path of the tunnels and Benji and I had to squeeze through openings between rubble on a few occasions. I don't even want to know how fucked up it looks topside. If the small, narrow tunnels of the vehicle bay are already FUBAR, the warehouse must look absolutely horrible.
After a few minutes of walking, squeezing through cracks and searching for a way up, we find one. It's a ladder going up to the ground floor of the warehouse, but it leads into a room.
"Looks like this is our way out of here," Benji says as he puts his first foot on the ladder. He turns to me.
"I go up first. I'll tell you if the coast is clear, then you follow me."
"Got it," I nod. This is only one step in getting out of here, the hardest part is yet to come.
Benji climbs up the few meter high ladder. I'm still surprised he's back on his feet so quickly, because I sure as hell wouldn't be up and about this cheerily if I was knocked out.
"It's clear," Benji says from up top and I begin to climb up the ladder as well. The climb up isn't that high, only about seven meters. I'm happy about that too, seeing as I don't want to find myself in a three hundred meter deep elevator shaft again.
As I climb up, the sound of the blaring alarm gets louder, and I manage to listen to it for a good five seconds. I blocked it out until now. It sounds like the alarm that you can wake up to when you own an Apple product, but every few seconds, a voice rings out over the speakers saying 'please evacuate this building'. The alarm in combination with the voice actually sounds pretty awry because thanks to the huge scale of the warehouse, all the sounds reverberate, giving every loud sound an otherworldly echo.
I climb into the small room with Benji and take the AR off of my back, quickly scanning the area for anything unusual. I know Benji already secured the area, but I'm paranoid and I'm not going to take any chances whatsoever.
"Now what's the next step in your master plan?" I say to Benji in a hushed tone.
"We open the door and head to one of the evac points," he says off-handedly.
"How the hell do you suggest we do that?" I ask disbelievingly. There's no way Benji is taking all of this on without any doubts.
"Simple," he chuckles. "We-"
"Stop," I say flatly. "Stop treating this like a fucking game."
Benji crosses his arms, probably frowning at me. "Enlighten me Frosty, how am I treating this like a game?"
"By acting like nothing is fucking wrong! We're in constant mortal danger here, have about a ten percent chance of survival and you're throwing the both of us into deadly situation after deadly situation and all you can do is laugh it off afterwards!" I exclaim loudly, but not loudly enough for it to be heard anywhere else other than this room.
"If you didn't notice, I'm the one that's gotten us through this thing," Benji says with an angry edge slowly becoming visible in his voice. "If I wasn't here, you'd have been dead."
"And I thank you for that Benji, I honestly do," I begin to say. "But this isn't a fucking game, if we keep doing what we're doing, which is basically going all in and playing poker with death, we're going to run out of luck at some point."
"I know that this isn't a game."
"Then begin to act like you know it isn't! You don't have to prove anything to me!"
"What exactly am I trying to prove?" Benji says angrily.
"To me it looks like you're trying to prove that you aren't afraid of anything, and that danger means nothing to you."
Benji walks up to me and before I can react, he puts his right arm on my neck and slams me against the wall.
"I am afraid!" he shouts at me. "You don't think that I'm scared out of my mind like you are?"
I want to answer but can't. He's cutting off my air flow.
"If I truly was treating this like a game, then we'd both be dead. I'm well fucking aware of the situation, I don't need some rookie to tell me what I'm doing wrong or right."
I begin clutching at my neck. The lack of airflow is making me feel dizzy already.
"Do I make myself clear?" he snarls, and I manage to nod weakly. Benji lets go of my neck and I'm sent falling to my knees.
"Now, follow my lead or I'll leave you here to die."
I get pick up my AR off the ground and slowly get up on my feet. I didn't expect Benji to become this defensive, but it doesn't matter now, I'll try and talk to him when all of this is over. I'm not gonna dwell on it now anyway. I never really ever was a person to hold grudges against somebody.
"Yes boss," I deadpan and begin to aim my rifle at the door.
"Just because I'm pissed at you doesn't mean that we're not friends anymore Frosty," Benji says while hacking into the door controls. "Just don't accuse me of any kind of shit again. I tolerate enough shit and that just so happens to be one of the things I don't tolerate."
"Understood," I say as Benji opens the door in front of us. I can understand Benji. Tensions are running extremely high here and I would probably blow a gasket too if someone began accusing me of something.
The door whooshes open and instantly, the smell of fire enters my nose. The alarm has gotten louder by a tenfold and the screams and shouts of the people are just a loud as the alarm is now.
"Jesus H. Christ."
Benji and I walk out slowly and are met with a sight that none of us expected to see. While the lighting in the warehouse is still a dark shade of red thanks to the facility wide lockdown we caused, it only adds to the hellish scene that is unfolding right around us.
Fires have broken out everywhere we look and parts of the walkway, some big some small are strewn all over the warehouse, lodging themselves into shipping containers, knocking over vehicles and giant towers of boxes and just generally leaving a path of destruction in its wake. The tower itself basically never existed when looking at it now. The six story high structure completely gave way to the old mining elevator and all that's left is a small, few meter high pile of rubble surrounding the mining elevator which we crashed down on. The elevator looks unscathed surprisingly enough.
What surprises me the most though is the fact that large chunks of the roof itself have come tumbling down onto the warehouse floor. It looks like a war broke out in here, but only two people caused it. This feels absolutely surreal.
"Damn," Benji mutters as we walk out of the door and into a large clearing of the warehouse.
"We did that," I say in awe.
"We'll have to admire our work later, we need to make it to the evac point," Benji says.
"Lead the way," I say as I scan the area with my rifle raised up.
"Front entrance it is," Benji says quietly as he looks at a map of the facility on his omni-tool.
"What the hell do you mean, front entrance?" I gawp at him.
"By front entrance I mean front entrance," Benji says off-handedly. "It's the closest way out of here."
I groan. "Whatever."
"Follow me and stay low, we don't want the entire warehouse chasing after us. They probably think that we died in the crash."
"Quick question. What exactly are we going to do once we reach the main entrance? I mean, they're not going to let us walk out are they?"
"They'll have vehicles there, we'll take one."
I shrug as I look back to see if anyone is behind us. Surprisingly enough, the part of the warehouse we're at is completely empty. Well, I did see a squad of merc's on the other end of the clearing, but they were running in the opposite direction. Not to mention the fact that they didn't notice Benji and I.
We begin walking through the maze like corridors of the warehouse in a comfortable silence. I've began blocking out the alarm again as it would've driven me crazy otherwise. The time it takes to get to the main entrance is exponentially longer than it should be. Almost every path we take is blocked off by rubble and containers that have collapsed together. Sure, we could squeeze through, but that would mean that we'd open ourselves to enemy fire if we get spotted. The same applies to climbing over the mountainous wreckage, a sniper could just pick us off.
"Stop," Benji orders suddenly as he's about to round a corner. "Security mech's down the hall. A lot of them."
"Do we go past them?" I ask as I stand behind Benji, looking down the other direction of the hallway.
"Can't this is the only way to get to the main entrance."
"Seriously? There's no other way?"
"There probably is, but we don't have time to go sneaking around a fucking huge warehouse, we'd be here for days."
I sigh internally. Sometimes I still wonder why I signed up for a job like this.
"Alright, how many mech's can you count?" I ask.
Benji doesn't reply for a minute. He's probably counting in his head.
"Fifteen LOKI mech's, one YMIR."
"How the hell are we going to get past that?"
"We're not going to bog down and fight, we're going to take out as many as we can before reinforcements arrive. While we're doing that, we make our way across the hall and into the next one that'll be on our left side."
"Do we have any way of taking out the big daddy mech?" I ask.
"I still have explosive charges in my pack, we could use one to at least put him out of commission."
"Lead the way," I say as I turn my attention to the way Benji is facing.
"Just do what I do and you'll survive," Benji says. "Ready?"
I give Benji a nod. I'm not ready at all, but here goes nothing once again.
"Go."
Benji whips around the corner and I follow him. He fires his pistol at one of the LOKI mech's, hitting it right in its neck. The mech's head leaves its shoulders in a shower of sparks and it topples to the floor like a ragdoll. I look to my left and see the hallway that Benji was talking about. It's about fifty meters down the way we're currently sprinting.
I aim in the general direction of the mech's and squeeze the trigger of my AR, releasing a short burst of mass effect rounds down the hall. Five of the rounds miss and go wide but one connects with a mech's right arm, causing it to fall limply to its side. I need to better my aim while moving.
Luckily enough, there's rubble in the middle of the hallway that's at about chest high level. If I didn't know any better, it's like we were supposed to come here. Chest high walls always indicate a firefight when it comes to the Mass Effect universe. Benji is already crouching behind the rubble and I dive behind it just before the mech's start firing. The sound of hundreds of bullets behind ejected simultaneously and whipping over my head is terrifying and I'm lucky enough to just have gotten behind cover.
I flop onto my stomach and instantly roll over on my back and sit up against the wall. My heart could generate electricity of Istanbul at the rate that it's pumping.
"Now what?" I yell over deafening sound of the gunfire that is whooshing over our heads.
Benji says nothing, but he holds up an explosive charge. If he didn't have his helmet on, he'd be grinning from ear to ear. I hold my gun over the debris shielding us from imminent death and begin to blind fire over it. Maybe I'll hit something. I'm sure as hell not going to stick my body out into the open, I'm already a walking corpse as it is. I need to get to Garrett quickly, I don't want to bleed to death internally.
Benji tosses the explosive charge over the wall and detonates it as soon as it hits the ground. I hear the sound of at least three LOKI mech's getting shredded to pieces by the charge, but before I can peek over the wall, the YMIR mech winds up his machine gun and begins firing at us again.
"We're going to need more than that!" I shout over to Benji as he tosses another explosive charge over the wall."
"I know!" he yells back. "We just need a window of opportunity to get to that hallway!"
"Suggestions?!"
"We throw every explosive thing we have!" Benji responds as he tosses me two more explosive charges from his pack.
"And then?"
"Then we run!"
"Fuck!" I shout as I get myself into a crouching position which I can start sprinting from.
Benji tosses his charges one by one to where he thinks the mech's are located and I do the same with the two charges he's given me.
Just as we're about to run, two human mercs round the corner and see us. Benji detonates all the charges and they explode with such force that I'm knocked on my ass.
The two mercs that rounded the corner behind us are knocked slightly off balance, but they regain their footing quickly and immediately open fire.
"Benji!" I shout to him and his shields begin to flare as he takes off in a run towards the hallway. I vault myself over the wall as my shields begin to flare and I look towards Benji and my heart stops beating. The YMIR mech is still standing. It might be missing an arm, but his other arm aims towards Benji and fires my worst nightmare towards him.
A rocket.
Just before the rocket hits, Benji's shields die and he hurls himself forward. The rocket goes off about two meters behind him and he is sent flying forward and into the hallway. I don't waste any more time and launch myself off of my feet and I begin to sprint for the hallway. Within a few seconds my shields die down and I feel the impact of at least four bullets punch themselves into my body. I am now literally a dead man walking.
I dive just like Benji did right out of the line of fire and into the hallway. I pick myself up off the ground and see Benji crumpled against a wall. He's missing an arm.
"Benji!" I yell as I run over to him.
"Hey Frosty," he coughs. "Looks like we're having a bad day."
"We need to get out of here, now," I say as I open Benji's pack, taking out a carbon ziptie. I loop it around the open wound where his arm is supposed to be and pull it together tightly, causing Benji to cry out in pain. I then take out a syringe that contains painkillers and take of his helmet, after which I ram it into his neck.
Two of the four bullets that hit me landed in my upper left arm. One hit me in the chest and I instantly began bleeding out of the mouth while the other lodged itself in my left thigh.
"Frosty," Benji begins. "I don't know if we're going to make it."
"Of course we are Benji, don't talk like that," I say reassuringly. I know that he knows that I'm lying. We're probably going to die here. "You just need to get up man."
The two mercs come around the corner and begin firing again. I don't hesitate a second and pull my pistol as well as my AR and begin to fire at both of the mercs. They're only about fifteen meters away and I manage to drop one before he can react properly. I drop the other ones shields and finish him with two shots to the head with my pistol. My shields are at ten percent and I look to my left and see the YMIR mech lumbering towards me. I waste no time and sprint back to Benji who's gotten to his feet carefully. He's lost a lot of blood.
"We need to go," I say hurriedly.
"Lead the way Frosty," Benji says weakly as he begins to stumble after me. Sure, the painkillers might kill the pain outright like it did with me, but it doesn't refill a bodies blood levels, and Benji has lost a ton of it.
The YMIR turns the corner and fires another rocket, but it misses us for the sole fact that we rounded another corner. For the next minute or so, Benji and I keep running and turning corners to lose the YMIR mech that's tailing us.
Right as we round the last corner, Benji collapses again. I run over to him and get him back on his feet.
"Benji, are you alright?" I ask, knowing full well that he isn't.
"I'm fine," he tries to say resolutely, but he sounds exhausted. "Just a little tired is all."
"Look, we just need to go a little longer, then we'll be out of here, but you have to promise me that you aren't going to fall over again."
"I'll try my best Frosty," Benji says. "Whatever happens I want you to know that you've been a good friend to me."
"Don't talk like that man, we're both going to make it out of here," I say as I we start walking down a narrower hallway now.
Benji chuckles mirthlessly. "Yeah, we wouldn't want you to lose your favorite drinking buddy, now would we?"
I genuinely laugh at Benji's remark. Whatever he situation, he can always crack a joke.
"Who else would I down a bottle of Jameson with?" I smile at him, and he takes off his helmet and smiles at me as well.
"I couldn't breathe in that thing anyway," he says quietly. "Give me a minute, and then I'll be ready to go."
I sigh. "Alright, a minute."
Benji slides down the side of the container and opens his omni-tool, only to close it a second later due to the fact that he can't really use it with only one arm. Benji sighs and puts his head in his hand. Losing and arm must be tough, I hope that I never experience something like that.
I scan the two entrances into the hallway regularly with my assault rifle. I'll give Benji two more minutes.
"Ready to go," a voice says behind me, and I whip around to see Benji standing in front of me.
"Are you sure?" I say while raising an eyebrow. "You took a hell of a hit back there. I can understand if you want a little more time to rest."
"No, I'm fine," Benji reassures me. "I needed the break, but I'm ready to crush some heads now."
I sigh. "Let's go then, keep close to me."
We slowly walk down the hallway to the T-junction that mouths into a large clearing of some sort. I have a bad feeling about this. Clearings are not a good sign.
I turn to Benji and walk up to him.
"There's a clearing up ahead, you wait here while I go check it out."
"No, I'm coming with you," Benji says as he wants to push past me, but I grab him by the shoulders and push him back in front of me.
"You've lost a lot of blood, you're in fighting shape right now and I'm not going to put your life on the line. I said that the two of us are going to get out of here and I mean it alright?"
"I am fine!" Benji says angrily. "Do not treat me like a wounded dog. I can fight!"
"Listen to me!" I exclaim. "I am not letting you get yourself killed just because it'll speed our escape up."
Benji scowls at me. "This is not earth David! This is Chalkhos! Kill or be killed!"
"I understand!" I hiss. "But sometimes you gotta wait until your strike back. Throwing away your life needlessly will not make this situation any better."
Benji scoffs. "Like you know anything about throwing away your life needlessly."
"Benji, I'm begging you, don't go out there."
"You can't stop me."
I ball my fist and hit it against the container angrily. "You know what? You're right, I can't stop you. If you want to get yourself killed, be my guest! But there's one condition. You follow my lead."
Benji waves his arm through the air. "Last time I checked, I was in charge," he says and barrels past me, pushing me to the side. I run after him and put my hand on his shoulder to stop him, only to be met with the barrel of his gun pointing right at my face.
"You touch me one more time, you die."
"Benji please, you're not thinking straight," I say while raising up my hands. I pull down the part of the mask where my eyes are and spit a large glob of blood on the ground. I open my omni-tool and administer a dose of medi-gel, and the cooling sensation puts me somewhat at ease. This punctured lung is giving me a hard time when it comes to breathing.
Benji shakes his head and walks away. I put my hand on his shoulder again and he whips around and slams the gun into my face. I lose my footing somewhat, but feel no pain. Benji then proceeds to slam me against the wall like he did in that small room.
"I warned you Frosty. You know Chalkhos, promises are kept."
"Benji p…please rethink thi… this. I'm your friend."
"You broke the golden rule, I told you that if you touched me one more time, I'll kill you, and now I have to follow through."
"Benji, this i… is different."
Benji seems to come to his senses as he lets me go. Benji groans, and it sounds like he's growing more desperate by the second. He turns to me and sighs.
"No hard feelings," I say. "Tensions are running high, but I promise to get you out of here."
Benji thinks for a second, and he sighs again. He looks absolutely exhausted.
"Let's just get out of he-"
'Crack'
The sound of the shot is heard clearly over the sound of the blaring alarm. It's as if time stands still and I begin to inspect my body for any bullet wound. I don't find any new one and I look to Benji, which makes the hairs on my neck stand on end.
Benji is looking at me with wide eyes, he's clutching his chest and I see his hand begin to turn red. He looks at his own hand and turns pale.
"Frosty, I-"
Another shout rings. The front of his head gives way to the mass effect round that entered the back of his head, and my armor is covered in a red coat of blood. Benji crumples to the floor instantly.
My eyes grow to the size of plates as I look at Benji's lifeless body.
This isn't happening. This is not happening. No, no, no, no, no, please let this be a joke. I don't get another moment to think about the situations as another shot rings out, but I manage to dive out of the way before it can connect with my face.
I fall to the floor and shoot up instantly, breaking out into a full blown sprint now. Adrenaline is numbing all my senses. I only have one thing on my mind now: Survival. I don't care who's going to see me run through the clearing now, I just want to get out of here. It feels like the walls are closing in on me as I barrel into the clearing and into the heart of it. I don't even notice the two mercs that are standing on one end of the clearing as they yell at me to stop, or the fact that they've opened fire.
Luckily, they don't hit me as I disappear into another hallway. I don't stop to think where I'm even going, I just keep running with my pistol in my hand. I feel like crying, but I can't as all the emotions that want to escape bounce off a wall called survival instinct.
After what seems like hours of running and evading bullets, I reach another clearing. I stop running and catch my breath for a second. I look around and spot something that could be my ticket out of here.
I front of me, I see a skycar with that eerily familiar 'H' on the side. I run to the car and look for some way to open it, but I quickly realize that door handles are obsolete in this universe, seeing as everything either slides open or is used in conjunction with an omni-tool.
Just as I'm about to smash the windshield with my pistol, I hear a pair of footsteps coming my way. I quickly disappear behind a large box conveniently situated in the clearing.
After a few seconds, the two mercs that shot at me at the last clearing enter this one.
"We need to report the sighting to the boss, he'll want to know that one of them is still alive," the batarian guard says as he opens the skycar.
"Well why don't we just radio him?" the human merc says. "That's a lot easier than flying all the way to see him."
"Lanzotti, ever since those two terrorists destroyed the tower, communications have been dead."
"Oh," Lanzotti replies. "Well, makes sense I guess."
"Come one, we don't want to waste anymo-"
The batarian doesn't have a chance to react as I whip out from behind the box and pull the trigger. He seemingly doesn't have any shields as it takes only one bullet for him to drop dead to the floor. Lanzotti raises his shotgun, but I shoot him in the leg, which makes his shot go wide as he drops to one knee.
"What the fuck?!" he shouts as I walk up to him. "Who are you?"
"That isn't important," I say as I kick the shotgun out of his and. I spit another large glob of blood out of my mouth and onto the ground. I need medical attention.
"You think you can just come in here and murder innocent people?" Lanzotti snarls at me.
"I don't see anyone innocent here," I say. "Just a bunch of lowlife thugs."
"Coming from the one who just killed everyone's families!"
"What are you talking about?" I say, trying to keep a neutral expression.
"You mean you didn't know?" Lanzotti scowls. "That tower housed the entire science staff and their families! Children, mothers! Innocent. People."
The sentence hits me like a brick. I didn't. I wouldn't.
"You're lying," I say. "You're bullshitting me!"
"Why do you think we're evacuating the building? We're getting the other civilians out of here so we can hunt you down without harming anyone!"
"No, you're lying," I say disbelievingly. "There were no children in there."
My mind can't process this. Every fiber of my body is telling me to snap out of it and wake up now. This can't be happening.
"You really didn't know," Lanzotti scoffs. "Well, I hope the lives of two hundred civilians will have made destroying the tower worth it."
Two hundred. Two. Hundred. I am at a loss for words and I just stare at the wounded merc in front of me. Then I was right all along. Those screams of pain, they were those of innocent people after all. I try to speak, but I can't as I'm left staring at Lanzotti.
He sees this as an opportunity and lunges for his shotgun, but I react automatically and put a bullet in his head. Every move that I make feels robotic, like I've been programmed to do it.
I hollowly walk into the skycar and take a seat in it, pressing a button that closes the doors and leaves me encased. I don't blink as I turn on the engine and while I only got a crash course in flying a skycar once, I robotically lift off and fly towards the giant doors. Nobody seems to notice me as I whoosh by the crowd that has gathered in front of one of the military checkpoints. I fly up a giant tunnel that leads upwards and before I know it, I'm outside and back in the beautiful landscape of Chalkhos.
The red light of the sun shines on my face as I begin to fly a large detour back to Tarvus's shop.
Just then, my omni-tool beeps and I pick it up, only to be met by Tarvus himself.
"David," he says curtly, but I don't respond.
"Good job on destroying the Flex, what you and Benji did will put Ukathan out of commission for a long time."
I nod weakly as I keep my eyes planted on the windshield.
"But at what cost," I say on the verge of tears.
"Benji will be honored for his sacrifice, I promise you that. You get the next two days off, not to mention a raise. You don't know how much you've helped me."
"Yes boss," I say weakly.
"See you back at the shop David," Tarvus says and cuts the call afterwards.
I can't keep it in any longer. I release the floodgates and let the tears flow freely. Benji is dead, and I still can't believe it. I couldn't even say goodbye properly, I was forced to leave his body behind.
Not to mention that I killed over two hundred innocent civilians. What the hell is wrong with me? At what cost did I destroy a drug for someone. Was it even fucking worth it? Of course it wasn't
At what cost would anyone ever kill over two hundred civilians only to destroy a tiny sample of a drug. Was it worth losing the only person over that you considered a friend in this place?
No, no it wasn't. Nothing was worth it, nothing is worth it and nothing will ever be worth it. I just want to die. I can't forgive myself for what I did.
I angrily spit a third glob of blood out and it splats onto the windshield in front of me.
Benji, I'm sorry.
The next half hour of the skycar ride I spend in my robotic mode, quietly sobbing to myself. No amount of praise from Torben or Tarvus is going to make me see this mission as a success.
I set down the skycar on a public parking spot by the Aerinus docks. I don't bother to pay for a parking ticket, so the clerk that walked up to me and asked me to pay is now on the floor and unconscious.
I begin my silent walk back to the shop while keeping my mask on, which garners me a lot of sideways glances from the people walking by me. I don't give a shit if I'm covered in blood, or that I have a mask on, or that I have multiple bullet wounds. I see a few people taking pictures with their omni-tools and shooting videos. My guess is that all of that will be posted on the Extranet by the end of the hour. People will do anything to get a good picture that they can post online.
I walk through the doors of the shop and am met by Torben, who smiles at me like I've never seen him before.
"Rookie! You're back!" he says happily as he slaps me on the back. "I am proud of you. You took all my lessons and put them to good use."
I nod weakly and walk by Torben and into Tarvus office.
I see Garrett sitting on one of the chairs in front of Tarvus desk with a sad expression written on his face.
"David, please take a seat," he says kindly. Garrett looks at me and gives me a small nod of acknowledgement."
Before I can take a seat, the reality of the entire situation hits me like a ten thousand ton space ship and all the pain in my body flares up. The adrenaline has seemingly made short work of the pain killers in my body.
My broken arm, sprained ankle, bite wound and multiple gunshot wounds all start to burn in excruciating pain.
I fall to the floor and convulse, only able to let of a blood curdling scream before I pass out from the pain.
I just want to die.
He didn't expect this at all. Something like this shouldn't have worked! This facility was too high of a security level for two people to come in and destroy everything. What would his benefactors have to say about this? He was at a loss for words.
Ukathan only realized something was truly amiss when he got the message that the mining elevator dropped onto the tower, effectively killing everyone inside. He still couldn't believe it, so he had to go see for himself, and what he saw shocked him to the core.
Basically everything he had built up was utterly destroyed.
A mercenary in black armor ran up behind Ukathan.
"Sir, we found a body, the other man got away in one of our skycar's."
"Take me to him, now," Ukathan ordered and began to follow the merc.
It didn't take long for Ukathan to reach the body that was left in one of the hallways of the container maze, and he instantly recognized the grey armor that the dead man wore.
To be perfectly honest, he had always suspected it to be him in the back of his mind, but now that his suspicions were confirmed, it only made his blood boil more. He turned over the body and snarled ferociously.
"Tarvus."
Intense chapter! David is at his emotional end. First, his only friend dies and then he finds out that he inadvertently killed over two hundred innocent civilians. That's enough to make anyone lose it. Leave a review telling me what you thought of this chapter. I'm sorry it took longer than a week to update, the trade I'm learning is taking up more time than I thought.
I hope you liked the chapter and I appreciate any feedback you guys have for me. Also I hope you liked the song I put in for you guys, and I hope it fit into the flow of the chapter.
Anyway, see you guy's next chapter!
Cheers!
David