Chapter 6. Tunnels – The Circles of Hell

"Stand back everybody, weapons at ready!" – Lt. Twynce shouted.

A metallic clung was heard, the gate hissed and slowly opened up. Everybody had their helmets on. They expected the worst and yet no Arachnids were there. But what the most strangest thing was, there were no dead bodies.

"Sparco, Peterson! Move out! See what's down there and report!" – the Lt. commanded.

Amy lent to the wall and sighted. The worst was yet to come. Suddenly a shadow fell on her, blocking the faint light. She looked up. It was Carl.

"I need to talk to you Amy right now. You most know this before we go in."

"Tell me!"

"Remember your previous squad, the Delta?"

"Yes of course." – she whispered – "What do ya want with them? They're all dead."

"That's what you've been told."

"Ya know somethin' I don't?" – she looked at him suspiciously.

"Well yes. You were not the only survivor."

"What the?"

"Calm down. Seward, Craft and van Dayle are still alive. They have been mind-wiped."

Amy looked at him with terrified eyes, full of tears and sadness. Carl hugged her, well understanding her mixed-up feelings, even though their bulky powersuits made this embrace harder as it was ment to be.

"And you're just telling me this now? Why Carl?"

"If it were up to SICON or Intel or the hospital, you may never had a clue. We discussed it with Helen yesterday. She warned me not to tell you this. She said, if I do so, I would break the rules of secrecy about Section-8, and that she would report it to High Command if I do so. But the hell, I didn't care. You must know this, even if it's hard to cope with. But you have all the rights to know this and I don't give a damn for the SICON rules. They can punish me, but I'm too much worthy to be hardly judged. And besides that, I hate SICON for what they've done to me, I hate them for creating a weapon out of me, so I don't give a fuck about those rules." – he then stopped talking and looked at Amy. Her eyes were glancing reassuringly at him. Her looks had so much strenght in them, that Carl truly admired her at that moment. She was about to say something when Sparco and Peterson returned with a heavily wounded man.

"Two dead bodies found Sir! One of them is Maj. Garret and the other is a nurse. And we found him." – he pointed at the man. The survivor, streched on the floor, looked up, blood covered his face. He had awful scares on his chest and his ears and nose were bleeding. He had a scar on his head, not big but deep, pierced into his scull. There was no sign of life or brain activity in his bloody eyes. It took several minutes for the troopers to realise that the wounded man was Intel Col. Carl Feders. His lips parted and a deadly whisper left his troat: "Jenkins".

Carl knelt down next to him with a lump in his troat. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the headwound. He could see Feders' brain through the hole on the top of his head. Carl knew what it was that did this to Feders. He knew that the man was dying. But Feders had something left to say before he passed away, something important. Carl put his hands on Feders' forehead and closed his eyes.

The silence was touchable in the corridor. Minutes passed slowly by. Then Carl opened his eyes, fighting for air.

He closed Feders' eyes finally and carefully put his head back down to the floor. He stood up and looked at Lt. Twynce. His eyes were dark and his look was almost piercing. He walked over to the Lt. and announced:

"Col. Feders is dead. He was attacked by the Brain Bug I was talking about. He was let go only to inform us about the others' terrible death. He has been followed by Warriors. We must be careful in these Arachnid-built tunnels. They're waiting to capture us."

After a few silent minutes, Lt. Twynce grabbed his weapon and started off down the corridor which soon changed into a tunnel: a long, deep one. His squad followed him close behind.

A half an hour has passed when suddently Carl stopped, closed his eyes and said "Bugs". Everybody reached for his/her weapon, but the attack came from an unawaited place: underground.

The floor cracked open, they fell down into another system of tunnels, encircled by hundreds of Warriors screamind at them.

"What are they waiting for?" – asked T'ezdra.

"The Brain needs us alive." – said Carl.

Just then a Warrior jumped at him, stabbing his right arm and so pinning him to the floor.

The sudden pain rushed through his body and he could only witness how the others were dragged away by the Bugs, uselessly trying to fight back. The last thing he heard was Amy screaming his name and trying to turn lose from the Arachnid's grip on her.

Carl blacked out.

The Warrior screached and pulled back it's leg from Jenkins' wound, leaving him there with a bleeding and open-rippedarm in an open-ripped powersuit, which was quicly leting all his oxygen out.

The tunnels were left empty and only Carl was there, lying in the ever - growing pile of his own blood, with a growing lack of oxygen, slowly drifting to death.

My first cliffhanger!

What will happen to Carl? Will he die? And will the Brain Bug have the others? And what's with Rico's Roughnecks? Are they coming to rescue them?

Maybe, maybe not. Stay tuned for Chapter 7!