-Advance Wars 2
--Death Array
---Chapter 7: RC Demolition Automatons
I woke up in a really clean cell with a pair of cots. Everything was hazy, then I remembered what had happened. Oh god... I had been caught and all my stuff was gone. I tried to stand up as fast as I could, as if to defend myself from some attack that I felt was imminent. I think it was my delayed reaction to getting hit by Cyanide's tranquilizer rounds.
"Oh damn..." I moaned, feeling my head.
"Tee hee hee..." A familiar laugh echoed out.
Lash. Oh hell no... please... not her... not now! My mind spun as I looked around the room trying to find out it's origin and was relieved to find it was an intercom with a camera attached to it. I stared up at it, really, really disoriented.
"My little pet..." It was definitely Lash's voice. "What a great present Cyanide has brought me!"
"Stay away from me!" I moaned, and moved to a corner.
I felt like crap. I really did. I don't know what she shot me with, but it must have been some funky chemical concoction. You see, I had training centered around dealing with getting hit by sedatives. You know, like trying to resist capture. But that stuff was something else. It wasn't your normal knockout rounds, it could only be made by Lash... or now Cyanide for that matter, since she was passing her sick mind on to someone else.
It was then I realized that two of the walls were glass and I thought about breaking them open and I wanted to flip up a cot to bash them in. But the cots, both of them, were bolted to the floor. It would take me fifty years to pry them off of the ground.
"No no, no escaping this time Heckler! Even if you did get the cots out of the ground, the glass you see is double pane bullet proof glass. You couldn't break it with a shotgun!"
That voice... no... all kinds of memories came back. Stuff I didn't even want to think about it.
"Lash! Let me out!" I moaned.
"Tee hee hee. Cyanide, you need to pack your knockout rounds with more stuff next time... Heckler is still feeling frisky."
"I'm terribly sorry mistress." It was Cyanide's voice now. "But I didn't want to kill him. After all... he's your experiment."
There was a long and an eerie pause as my eyes adjusted to the bright lights they had hanging from the ceiling. When I looked out through the glass, I could see a lab... But it wasn't the lab I had found downstairs in the barracks. I was somewhere else... in a large open labratory, with a control room seperate from the rest of the lab. In that control room, I could see Lash and Cyanide looking at me. Both of them looked as if they had found a lost puppy or something.
"No," Lash said after a time. "He's not my experiment anymore. He's my toy!"
"Oh god..." I moaned.
Frantically, I began to pound on the glass. Again and again and again.
"Let me the hell out! Now!"
I probably could have pounded the glass until my fists started to bleed, but a third figure entered the room. It was Adder. He was still wearing his big overcoat, except I could see when he turned to his right, that his arm was in a sling. The same arm that Groling had shot when he saved me on the heliport. He was really worked up about something...
"Lash! What are you doing!?" Adder demanded, his voice coming in over the intercom. "Why haven't you executed him yet?"
"Hm? What ever do you mean?" She responded with a smile.
"That worm killed Winchester! He shouldn't even be in one piece at this rate! He should be-"
"Angry as ever, eh Adder?" Cyanide interrupted him. "I caught him, so he's under my jurisdiction. Shouldn't you be checking for that Green Earth soldier anyway? I hear he's still running around, and you can't count on Flak to take care of that."
"Groling..." I muttered. "Thank god they haven't found you yet..."
"I know you had a certain admiration for Winchester. But I've handed the prisoner over to Mistress Lash at this point." She made a gesture to Lash who smiled with childish pride.
"I swear." Adder growled. "If you don't kill him now, I'll go through both of you to do it myself!"
"That's enough Adder, get back to your position." A cold voice soon ordered him.
I watched as he was about to reach for his gun, but when he heard that voice, he stopped instantly. The owner of the voice... was Hawke. I could see his face... unmistakable as he entered the control room.
Man, he had given his outfit a full overhaul for his new position as supreme commander. He lost his gloves and trench coat, and now looked like some sort of general with an officers uniform. There was this hat on his head... which took me awhile to place. But it was Sturm's cap. I could tell because there was some areas that were burned from when he shoved Black Storm down his old boss's throat.
Hawke was downright ruthless, only he could go around wearing a reminder that he's bigger and better than who used to run the show for Black Hole. You can understand why Adder backed down as fast as he could, and soon left without another word.
Hawke put a hand over the microphone that Lash and Cyanide were using to communicate with me and whispered something to them. He was looking away from me, so reading lips was out. After awhile, all three of them stepped out of the control room and began to approach me.
"Are you completely clear?" Hawke asked looking toward the two psychopaths who I guessed were about to dispose of me.
"Yes sir." Lash groaned. "But he's mine! I want to-"
Hawke cut her off with a wave of his hand and a voice filled with finality.
"Absolutely not. We're running on a tight schedule here. There's no time for any of your antics Lash. Now move... that's an order."
There was no arguing with Hawke. It was one of those relationships where his word was final, and anyone protesting was going to regret it. Lash knew this, and she shut up immediately. They waited for him to leave before turning back toward me. At the same time, I knew that they operated on a "won't know, won't hurt" mind set.
"Alright Heckler, I gotta go. But before I leave, I want to show you something." Lash began, picking up a radio controller of some kind. "I want to show you this!"
I watched as some remote control car rolled out from behind a desk full of computers and moved toward Lash and Cyanide. It looked harmless enough, until I noticed a light flashing on the back of it. It was packed full of C4! Probably enough to blow a tank in half. She had turned a remote control car into a moving bomb. I wasn't really surprised, it was so her style anyway.
Once, I heard a story where she took a whole regiment of Black Hole soldiers and made them play bomb tag. One of her sick little games when Sturm thought he was winning. She wiped out all but two after the game was done. It was called on account of Blue Moon attacking. Stories like that only convinced me further she was too deep in her own little world to save with any sort of reform or therapy.
"Check this out! It's my Remote Control Demolition Automaton (RCDA)!" She announced.
Cyanide nodded with a smile, as if admiring Lash's work. I just looked at them both like they were pink elephants.
"It's an RC car with a bomb strapped to it." I told her.
"You can't call things what they are! That's like me calling you a nosy brat trying to ruin our Death Ray firing! Instead, I just call you an 'intruder'! And I call my device here a 'RC Demolition Automaton'! Tee hee hee!"
She handed the controller off to Cyanide who took it with great care and looked toward me maliciously. They stood there like that for a couple of seconds, and then Lash took off. What the hell were they going to do to me...
"Hawke told us to do no interrogation and move to execution. We don't need to know what you know. Because you don't know anything." Cyanide explained. "I'm just to kill you the way Mistress Lash ordered. With her clever device."
"You worship her so much that you don't even see how stupid it all is. I'd rather be shot!"
"Exactly Wolf. That's why we're going to run you to death, and then blow you up." She laughed. "The last thing we'll do to you... is give you an honorable death. It's going to be as humiliating as possible."
She snapped her fingers, and two alien grunts approached her. They stood at attention and saluted.
"Take our prisoner to the second basement and make him run." She told them flatly. "We're going to have such fun, you and I. Lash's toy."
The two grunts opened up the door to my cell and held their gun arms out. I should have fought, but strangely I was scared of dying right there. They clocked me pretty good and then began to haul me off god knows where. A call began to come in and I had to answer it. I had to talk to someone other than my executioners. Just someone to get my mind off of what was going on right then.
"Wolf? Where have you been! You've been silent way too long!"
"Sorry ma'am... I've... blown the mission... They uh... they got me." I choked out.
I could hear her gasp, and Sonja was next on the line.
"What do you mean by that? You aren't... captured are you?"
"I just said... they got me."
I must have sounded beaten, cause Sami went into this whole new mode. It was kinda like when the mission was getting close, and she wanted us to break out that last ounce of energy to get the mission done. Or Victory March... Yeah, that's what it was called.
"Get a hold of yourself. Look at your situation, you have to escape. That's an order! Not a suggestion!"
"Uh... I feel kind of faint."
At that point, I wasn't trying to weasel my way out of talking with my CO. I just really felt bad. They must have given me some crap while I was out to make me passive.
"Don't worry Wolf. You've made it this far. I know you'll think of something." Sonja told me, obviously trying to keep my spirits up. "Giving up is the cowards way out. I don't think you want to be remembered as a coward."
"I'm not from your country Sonja... I don't have that sense of honor your guys do." I told her. "I'm just a grunt with a gun who shoots things. No real place, no real identity. I just do what I'm told."
"That's not true!" Sami yelled at me. "We sent you on this mission because you're capable, because you get the job done. Because you're a soldier in Orange Star! You have to understand what that means."
"I can't... stay awake... Hopefully... I'll uh... contact you later..."
Then I blacked again out with those words in mind. I think they must have still tried to talk to me, because I could remember all kinds of voices going on in the background. Suddenly I hit something hard, and opened my eyes to see that I had been dropped on the ground face first, and the two alien soldiers were standing over me with their guns up against my forehead.
"Get up worm!" One of them told me.
"Start walking." The other demanded.
Damn, I had to fight to get on my legs. I mean I really felt flattened. Not quite drunk, but not quiet sober you know? That crap they had pumped into me was really messing with my mind. I could vaguely make out a hallway and some pipes along the ceiling, it had that unfinished basement look with the concrete walls n' stuff. And it was really cold. I think I was back in the basement of the barracks.
The two aliens retreated through a door and I could hear it locking. I shouldn't have, but I couldn't help but look behind me and I could see a whole line of those RC Demolition Automatons... I can't believe I just called them that. They were all making squeals as their electric motors revved up and readied to take off. I have no idea why, but I just stood there as if debating if I should run or not.
Then they started moving, and I instantly began to run. There was an intersection and I took a right, they followed. It was like a loud droning noise after me. Then there was another intersection and I took a left this time. I don't know when I stopped to rest and see if I was still being chased. It seemed I had escaped... until a lone RCDA turned the corner and headed toward me.
The little car was after me. I tried to run as fast as I could. But the funky sedative that they had injected into me kicked into high gear. My eyes blurred, my legs hardly worked, and I was stumbling down the hallway like some wounded animal. My body began to sting as I went smack dab right into the wall as the hallway curved. I just realized I had no depth perception either.
Whiiirrrrrrrr. The little electric hum of the motor to the remote control car was getting louder. I had to move, if that thing caught up to me... It was all over. I used to like remote control cars too. They were so much fun... but now they had explosives strapped to them. Enough to bury this whole hallway. I spun off the wall and ran. This was never going to work... and I froze. I think it just bumped my foot...
Without a second thought, I turned and kicked it back down the hall. It must have had a delayed timer, cause it went off after bouncing a couple of times. The way I had come soon collapsed and a huge amount of debris rained down. I didn't watch to much of it before running again.
"Oh hell!" I yelled while stumbling upon a stairwell and went down it head first.
Man, I hit the bottom, and I really hit the bottom. I fought back unconsciousness as I heard that stupid electric whine again. The other cars had caught up! I stood up and quickly opened up a channel to Sonja.
"Sonja!" I called out while stumbling down another pathway. "I... need to get the hell out of here!"
"Where are you!?" She asked quickly.
"They said second basement... but I stumbled down some steps... I think I might be on the third..."
I was running out of breath, I had to rest. But I couldn't. Those things probably wouldn't delay like the last one now. Cyanide is playing with me after all. I'm sure that close call before was just to get me moving. Hell, it worked though. I could just imagine, a soldier running down a hallway with an RC car after him. He's screaming for his life, and it's only an RC car. Well, that was me.
"Wolf! Look above you, do you see any pipes?"
"Of course I do! There's lots of them!" I moaned.
"Follow the red one!"
"Oh thank you." I responded sarcastically. "The 'red' one. That's so helpful."
"Don't worry Wolf, I know that's the sedatives talking. I'm still going to stay with you."
Somehow I fought my drowsiness to see a multitude of multicolored pipes. I picked what I thought was red, and ran with it. It might have been purple for all I knew, I was just that out of it.
"Red red red red red." I sang to myself trying to remember what pipe to follow.
I ran out into an open area with a ladder leading upwards. Holy fuggin' hell... I had to climb a ladder? In this state? That's like trying to disarm a nuclear weapon without passing grade school. Where do you even start?
"I can't... I'm too... out of it..." I gasped.
"Heckler!" Sami broke calling me my code name. "Grab the first wrung and climb! Do it! Or I swear, you'll do so many pushups, your arms will fall off!"
"First wrung..." I muttered half dazed.
I was a parrot at that point. I had to repeat everything I was told, just to get it through my thick skull and all the crap they pumped me full of. Maybe I was half way up... maybe I was two feet up. I don't completely remember. But I could hear a loud series of bangs below me as the RCDA's rammed the wall and blew up. The ladder began to shake, but somehow I hung on and kept climbing until reaching a ledge and collapsed at the top.
"I........... made it." I barely said.
"Sonja! Where is he?" I remember Sami asking.
"He's in good hands. Just stay calm."
I could see a shadow approach and someone picked me up off the ground.
"Groling...." I asked in a barely audible tone.
I don't think it was him, cause there wasn't any response afterward. I was just carried into a dark musty area. There were pipes jutting out everywhere as the figure dropped me up against the wall and let me drift off into sleep. Man, it was warm in that room. I don't know where it was... but all I remember was it being really warm. I must have sat there forever until the sedatives wore off.
"Wolf? Are you alright?" I remember Sami asking me.
I shook my head and looked around to see that I was in some sort of boiler room. That's why it was so warm.
"Uh... I guess. I'm feeling a whole lot better.
"And a lot less mouthier." Sonja laughed.
"Was I... saying stuff I'll regret or something? Ma'am?"
I really didn't remember at that point.
"Nope, just being difficult. That's all." Sami explained, completely relieved that I was ok. "Good to see you back in order. You had us worried there for a minute."
"Oh man, I don't even remember being brought here. I'm in some sort of boiler room..."
It was at that point, some shadowy figure leapt from the ceiling and landed in front of me. I was really freaked out by it, it was so sudden, and I had just recovered from Cyanide's sedatives. My gasp must have alerted Sami cause she was soon asking me to respond, and tell her what the hell was going on.
"Uh... I think I'm in trouble."
The figure who had just appeared had a sword... and a long one at that.
-To be continued...
--Next Chapter: Mess Hall
-----------------------------------------
Andy was tied up pretty tightly in some folding chair, facing away from us, and all alone in the mess hall. Well... I wonder if it's a trap or not? Actually, I was wondering if this was Flak's idea. His tank wasn't in the garage, and the mess hall was a room that he could drive his tank into. But Flak probably wanted us to step out into the open before rushing the area with soldiers.
"What do you think?" I asked Groling, looking to each side of the hall for alien grunts lying in wait.
"I think we might as well get in there and get this over with. We know they're waiting for us."
Good enough for me. I got my gun ready as he did his and we slowly entered the room. It seemed like we must have tripped every alarm in the base. Cause alien soldiers began to rush out onto the upper level and point their weapons down at us. A couple more rushed in through the door we had just used, and a quick count had them at ten or so. Groling and I raised our guns and looked around. Well, as he said, let's get this over with
-----------------------------------------
--Death Array
---Chapter 7: RC Demolition Automatons
I woke up in a really clean cell with a pair of cots. Everything was hazy, then I remembered what had happened. Oh god... I had been caught and all my stuff was gone. I tried to stand up as fast as I could, as if to defend myself from some attack that I felt was imminent. I think it was my delayed reaction to getting hit by Cyanide's tranquilizer rounds.
"Oh damn..." I moaned, feeling my head.
"Tee hee hee..." A familiar laugh echoed out.
Lash. Oh hell no... please... not her... not now! My mind spun as I looked around the room trying to find out it's origin and was relieved to find it was an intercom with a camera attached to it. I stared up at it, really, really disoriented.
"My little pet..." It was definitely Lash's voice. "What a great present Cyanide has brought me!"
"Stay away from me!" I moaned, and moved to a corner.
I felt like crap. I really did. I don't know what she shot me with, but it must have been some funky chemical concoction. You see, I had training centered around dealing with getting hit by sedatives. You know, like trying to resist capture. But that stuff was something else. It wasn't your normal knockout rounds, it could only be made by Lash... or now Cyanide for that matter, since she was passing her sick mind on to someone else.
It was then I realized that two of the walls were glass and I thought about breaking them open and I wanted to flip up a cot to bash them in. But the cots, both of them, were bolted to the floor. It would take me fifty years to pry them off of the ground.
"No no, no escaping this time Heckler! Even if you did get the cots out of the ground, the glass you see is double pane bullet proof glass. You couldn't break it with a shotgun!"
That voice... no... all kinds of memories came back. Stuff I didn't even want to think about it.
"Lash! Let me out!" I moaned.
"Tee hee hee. Cyanide, you need to pack your knockout rounds with more stuff next time... Heckler is still feeling frisky."
"I'm terribly sorry mistress." It was Cyanide's voice now. "But I didn't want to kill him. After all... he's your experiment."
There was a long and an eerie pause as my eyes adjusted to the bright lights they had hanging from the ceiling. When I looked out through the glass, I could see a lab... But it wasn't the lab I had found downstairs in the barracks. I was somewhere else... in a large open labratory, with a control room seperate from the rest of the lab. In that control room, I could see Lash and Cyanide looking at me. Both of them looked as if they had found a lost puppy or something.
"No," Lash said after a time. "He's not my experiment anymore. He's my toy!"
"Oh god..." I moaned.
Frantically, I began to pound on the glass. Again and again and again.
"Let me the hell out! Now!"
I probably could have pounded the glass until my fists started to bleed, but a third figure entered the room. It was Adder. He was still wearing his big overcoat, except I could see when he turned to his right, that his arm was in a sling. The same arm that Groling had shot when he saved me on the heliport. He was really worked up about something...
"Lash! What are you doing!?" Adder demanded, his voice coming in over the intercom. "Why haven't you executed him yet?"
"Hm? What ever do you mean?" She responded with a smile.
"That worm killed Winchester! He shouldn't even be in one piece at this rate! He should be-"
"Angry as ever, eh Adder?" Cyanide interrupted him. "I caught him, so he's under my jurisdiction. Shouldn't you be checking for that Green Earth soldier anyway? I hear he's still running around, and you can't count on Flak to take care of that."
"Groling..." I muttered. "Thank god they haven't found you yet..."
"I know you had a certain admiration for Winchester. But I've handed the prisoner over to Mistress Lash at this point." She made a gesture to Lash who smiled with childish pride.
"I swear." Adder growled. "If you don't kill him now, I'll go through both of you to do it myself!"
"That's enough Adder, get back to your position." A cold voice soon ordered him.
I watched as he was about to reach for his gun, but when he heard that voice, he stopped instantly. The owner of the voice... was Hawke. I could see his face... unmistakable as he entered the control room.
Man, he had given his outfit a full overhaul for his new position as supreme commander. He lost his gloves and trench coat, and now looked like some sort of general with an officers uniform. There was this hat on his head... which took me awhile to place. But it was Sturm's cap. I could tell because there was some areas that were burned from when he shoved Black Storm down his old boss's throat.
Hawke was downright ruthless, only he could go around wearing a reminder that he's bigger and better than who used to run the show for Black Hole. You can understand why Adder backed down as fast as he could, and soon left without another word.
Hawke put a hand over the microphone that Lash and Cyanide were using to communicate with me and whispered something to them. He was looking away from me, so reading lips was out. After awhile, all three of them stepped out of the control room and began to approach me.
"Are you completely clear?" Hawke asked looking toward the two psychopaths who I guessed were about to dispose of me.
"Yes sir." Lash groaned. "But he's mine! I want to-"
Hawke cut her off with a wave of his hand and a voice filled with finality.
"Absolutely not. We're running on a tight schedule here. There's no time for any of your antics Lash. Now move... that's an order."
There was no arguing with Hawke. It was one of those relationships where his word was final, and anyone protesting was going to regret it. Lash knew this, and she shut up immediately. They waited for him to leave before turning back toward me. At the same time, I knew that they operated on a "won't know, won't hurt" mind set.
"Alright Heckler, I gotta go. But before I leave, I want to show you something." Lash began, picking up a radio controller of some kind. "I want to show you this!"
I watched as some remote control car rolled out from behind a desk full of computers and moved toward Lash and Cyanide. It looked harmless enough, until I noticed a light flashing on the back of it. It was packed full of C4! Probably enough to blow a tank in half. She had turned a remote control car into a moving bomb. I wasn't really surprised, it was so her style anyway.
Once, I heard a story where she took a whole regiment of Black Hole soldiers and made them play bomb tag. One of her sick little games when Sturm thought he was winning. She wiped out all but two after the game was done. It was called on account of Blue Moon attacking. Stories like that only convinced me further she was too deep in her own little world to save with any sort of reform or therapy.
"Check this out! It's my Remote Control Demolition Automaton (RCDA)!" She announced.
Cyanide nodded with a smile, as if admiring Lash's work. I just looked at them both like they were pink elephants.
"It's an RC car with a bomb strapped to it." I told her.
"You can't call things what they are! That's like me calling you a nosy brat trying to ruin our Death Ray firing! Instead, I just call you an 'intruder'! And I call my device here a 'RC Demolition Automaton'! Tee hee hee!"
She handed the controller off to Cyanide who took it with great care and looked toward me maliciously. They stood there like that for a couple of seconds, and then Lash took off. What the hell were they going to do to me...
"Hawke told us to do no interrogation and move to execution. We don't need to know what you know. Because you don't know anything." Cyanide explained. "I'm just to kill you the way Mistress Lash ordered. With her clever device."
"You worship her so much that you don't even see how stupid it all is. I'd rather be shot!"
"Exactly Wolf. That's why we're going to run you to death, and then blow you up." She laughed. "The last thing we'll do to you... is give you an honorable death. It's going to be as humiliating as possible."
She snapped her fingers, and two alien grunts approached her. They stood at attention and saluted.
"Take our prisoner to the second basement and make him run." She told them flatly. "We're going to have such fun, you and I. Lash's toy."
The two grunts opened up the door to my cell and held their gun arms out. I should have fought, but strangely I was scared of dying right there. They clocked me pretty good and then began to haul me off god knows where. A call began to come in and I had to answer it. I had to talk to someone other than my executioners. Just someone to get my mind off of what was going on right then.
"Wolf? Where have you been! You've been silent way too long!"
"Sorry ma'am... I've... blown the mission... They uh... they got me." I choked out.
I could hear her gasp, and Sonja was next on the line.
"What do you mean by that? You aren't... captured are you?"
"I just said... they got me."
I must have sounded beaten, cause Sami went into this whole new mode. It was kinda like when the mission was getting close, and she wanted us to break out that last ounce of energy to get the mission done. Or Victory March... Yeah, that's what it was called.
"Get a hold of yourself. Look at your situation, you have to escape. That's an order! Not a suggestion!"
"Uh... I feel kind of faint."
At that point, I wasn't trying to weasel my way out of talking with my CO. I just really felt bad. They must have given me some crap while I was out to make me passive.
"Don't worry Wolf. You've made it this far. I know you'll think of something." Sonja told me, obviously trying to keep my spirits up. "Giving up is the cowards way out. I don't think you want to be remembered as a coward."
"I'm not from your country Sonja... I don't have that sense of honor your guys do." I told her. "I'm just a grunt with a gun who shoots things. No real place, no real identity. I just do what I'm told."
"That's not true!" Sami yelled at me. "We sent you on this mission because you're capable, because you get the job done. Because you're a soldier in Orange Star! You have to understand what that means."
"I can't... stay awake... Hopefully... I'll uh... contact you later..."
Then I blacked again out with those words in mind. I think they must have still tried to talk to me, because I could remember all kinds of voices going on in the background. Suddenly I hit something hard, and opened my eyes to see that I had been dropped on the ground face first, and the two alien soldiers were standing over me with their guns up against my forehead.
"Get up worm!" One of them told me.
"Start walking." The other demanded.
Damn, I had to fight to get on my legs. I mean I really felt flattened. Not quite drunk, but not quiet sober you know? That crap they had pumped into me was really messing with my mind. I could vaguely make out a hallway and some pipes along the ceiling, it had that unfinished basement look with the concrete walls n' stuff. And it was really cold. I think I was back in the basement of the barracks.
The two aliens retreated through a door and I could hear it locking. I shouldn't have, but I couldn't help but look behind me and I could see a whole line of those RC Demolition Automatons... I can't believe I just called them that. They were all making squeals as their electric motors revved up and readied to take off. I have no idea why, but I just stood there as if debating if I should run or not.
Then they started moving, and I instantly began to run. There was an intersection and I took a right, they followed. It was like a loud droning noise after me. Then there was another intersection and I took a left this time. I don't know when I stopped to rest and see if I was still being chased. It seemed I had escaped... until a lone RCDA turned the corner and headed toward me.
The little car was after me. I tried to run as fast as I could. But the funky sedative that they had injected into me kicked into high gear. My eyes blurred, my legs hardly worked, and I was stumbling down the hallway like some wounded animal. My body began to sting as I went smack dab right into the wall as the hallway curved. I just realized I had no depth perception either.
Whiiirrrrrrrr. The little electric hum of the motor to the remote control car was getting louder. I had to move, if that thing caught up to me... It was all over. I used to like remote control cars too. They were so much fun... but now they had explosives strapped to them. Enough to bury this whole hallway. I spun off the wall and ran. This was never going to work... and I froze. I think it just bumped my foot...
Without a second thought, I turned and kicked it back down the hall. It must have had a delayed timer, cause it went off after bouncing a couple of times. The way I had come soon collapsed and a huge amount of debris rained down. I didn't watch to much of it before running again.
"Oh hell!" I yelled while stumbling upon a stairwell and went down it head first.
Man, I hit the bottom, and I really hit the bottom. I fought back unconsciousness as I heard that stupid electric whine again. The other cars had caught up! I stood up and quickly opened up a channel to Sonja.
"Sonja!" I called out while stumbling down another pathway. "I... need to get the hell out of here!"
"Where are you!?" She asked quickly.
"They said second basement... but I stumbled down some steps... I think I might be on the third..."
I was running out of breath, I had to rest. But I couldn't. Those things probably wouldn't delay like the last one now. Cyanide is playing with me after all. I'm sure that close call before was just to get me moving. Hell, it worked though. I could just imagine, a soldier running down a hallway with an RC car after him. He's screaming for his life, and it's only an RC car. Well, that was me.
"Wolf! Look above you, do you see any pipes?"
"Of course I do! There's lots of them!" I moaned.
"Follow the red one!"
"Oh thank you." I responded sarcastically. "The 'red' one. That's so helpful."
"Don't worry Wolf, I know that's the sedatives talking. I'm still going to stay with you."
Somehow I fought my drowsiness to see a multitude of multicolored pipes. I picked what I thought was red, and ran with it. It might have been purple for all I knew, I was just that out of it.
"Red red red red red." I sang to myself trying to remember what pipe to follow.
I ran out into an open area with a ladder leading upwards. Holy fuggin' hell... I had to climb a ladder? In this state? That's like trying to disarm a nuclear weapon without passing grade school. Where do you even start?
"I can't... I'm too... out of it..." I gasped.
"Heckler!" Sami broke calling me my code name. "Grab the first wrung and climb! Do it! Or I swear, you'll do so many pushups, your arms will fall off!"
"First wrung..." I muttered half dazed.
I was a parrot at that point. I had to repeat everything I was told, just to get it through my thick skull and all the crap they pumped me full of. Maybe I was half way up... maybe I was two feet up. I don't completely remember. But I could hear a loud series of bangs below me as the RCDA's rammed the wall and blew up. The ladder began to shake, but somehow I hung on and kept climbing until reaching a ledge and collapsed at the top.
"I........... made it." I barely said.
"Sonja! Where is he?" I remember Sami asking.
"He's in good hands. Just stay calm."
I could see a shadow approach and someone picked me up off the ground.
"Groling...." I asked in a barely audible tone.
I don't think it was him, cause there wasn't any response afterward. I was just carried into a dark musty area. There were pipes jutting out everywhere as the figure dropped me up against the wall and let me drift off into sleep. Man, it was warm in that room. I don't know where it was... but all I remember was it being really warm. I must have sat there forever until the sedatives wore off.
"Wolf? Are you alright?" I remember Sami asking me.
I shook my head and looked around to see that I was in some sort of boiler room. That's why it was so warm.
"Uh... I guess. I'm feeling a whole lot better.
"And a lot less mouthier." Sonja laughed.
"Was I... saying stuff I'll regret or something? Ma'am?"
I really didn't remember at that point.
"Nope, just being difficult. That's all." Sami explained, completely relieved that I was ok. "Good to see you back in order. You had us worried there for a minute."
"Oh man, I don't even remember being brought here. I'm in some sort of boiler room..."
It was at that point, some shadowy figure leapt from the ceiling and landed in front of me. I was really freaked out by it, it was so sudden, and I had just recovered from Cyanide's sedatives. My gasp must have alerted Sami cause she was soon asking me to respond, and tell her what the hell was going on.
"Uh... I think I'm in trouble."
The figure who had just appeared had a sword... and a long one at that.
-To be continued...
--Next Chapter: Mess Hall
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Andy was tied up pretty tightly in some folding chair, facing away from us, and all alone in the mess hall. Well... I wonder if it's a trap or not? Actually, I was wondering if this was Flak's idea. His tank wasn't in the garage, and the mess hall was a room that he could drive his tank into. But Flak probably wanted us to step out into the open before rushing the area with soldiers.
"What do you think?" I asked Groling, looking to each side of the hall for alien grunts lying in wait.
"I think we might as well get in there and get this over with. We know they're waiting for us."
Good enough for me. I got my gun ready as he did his and we slowly entered the room. It seemed like we must have tripped every alarm in the base. Cause alien soldiers began to rush out onto the upper level and point their weapons down at us. A couple more rushed in through the door we had just used, and a quick count had them at ten or so. Groling and I raised our guns and looked around. Well, as he said, let's get this over with
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