Part II: Concrete Phoenix

- November 8, 2186 Three days later…

Storm clouds rolled over the smoking ruins of once proud London. Its streets, crowded with debris and ash, were almost unnavigable. All around, fallen buildings created a chaotic maze of dead ends and impassable terrain. The skeletal remains of the city painted a portrait of cacophonic destruction to serve as the backdrop for the absolute despair that seemed to stagnate the air. There were no civilians, no refugees here; London had been culled, completely. The Resistance had put up their final fight in these desolate streets, led by the brave men and women who had bled their lives out here to stop the Reapers. For them, it was a welcomed death while paving the final bricks on the road to victory.

The clouds split open and rain fell like curtains across the ruined city, sweeping the dust and ash away but not the great pain that permeated the land. A cleansing rain though it was, a beautiful washing of the signs of conflict, the wounds felt by the people who lived, fought, and died there were unalleviated by the dismal downpour. Every street corner bore the scars of conflict, and each building told the tale of a makeshift bunker or rushed fortification overrun by Reaper minions. The emptiness of the battlefield was perhaps the most unsettling, as the Reapers had bolstered their numbers with each new corpse that fell against them.

Though rampant devastation lingered over its once recognizable neighborhoods and districts, the Alliance had wasted no time in dispatching search and rescue teams through London to comb the ruins for survivors, and help clear roads for reconstruction crews later on. Humanity would rebuild, and London would be first, as a symbol to the human race and the rest of the galaxy that everything the Reapers destroyed could be rebuilt. With determination to inspire others, humanity would prove it. At first, the giant reaper ships were avoided for fear of indoctrination. However, after preliminary tests, many scientists had concluded that there was no longer a residual "presence" in the reaper constructs; most believed the source of this cessation of residual brainwashing was a result of the Crucible, and so it was deemed safe to search the areas around the mechanical behemoths without fear of indoctrination. In the coming months, restoration efforts would disassemble and remove the wreckage of all reaper ships remaining planet side.

One reconstruction and recovery crew, designated "ARRC 091" was tasked with the cleanup of the Citadel gate area, and in that murky rain, they toiled to rebuild their home. Two reaper ships had collapsed there, one of which was Harbinger itself, and the crew had their hands full just trying to clear a path for traversable roads. One of the engineers, a volunteer named Johnathan T. Rousseau, was cautiously sifting through the wreckage of a clock tower that had been vaporized down to the smoldering support structure. He had a hard time of trying to keep his balance on the slick wreckage in the pouring rain whilst digging through the debris for any signs of survivors before they brought in the wrecking trucks to demolish what was left. The volunteer crewmember had managed to scamper up a slippery slope of rubble some thirty feet high to stand at the remaining "top" of the tower's support pylons, attempting to get a better view of the area he was searching through.

His eyes went wide as he felt the perch beneath his feet give way and he began to tumble down the mound. Failing to grab onto any support and catch himself, Rousseau followed the rolling scrap and rubble down towards the cluttered street square. He managed to roll onto his stomach and slow himself down enough to find purchase on a piece of concrete jutting out of one of the lower floors of the tower. With a grunt of effort he ceased his downward descent and pulled himself up onto the small overhanging shelf still some fifteen feet above the street.

With a sincere sigh of relief, he glanced around to survey his surroundings. A couple of his crewmembers on the ground called up to him when they took notice of his fall, "Hey rookie, you alright?" one called up to him. Matthews, if Rousseau recalled correctly. Fresh off the boat from volunteering at a refugee camp in Rouen, Johnathan still hadn't had time to learn the names of many of his crewmates. It didn't help that his division was comprised of over forty members, one of the bigger ARRC crews.

"Yeah, I'm alright. I lost my footing on the weather paneling up there!" Johnathan rested his hands on his knees and caught his breath. Matthews waved a hand of relieved dismissal and returned to moving the rubble out of the street. Satisfied that his moment of peril was over, Rousseau turned and began to inspect the opened floor of the clock tower he had managed to fall onto. He noted it must've served as an office of sorts, for there were signs of what once must have been desks and shelves serving as work space for a company of some sorts, even a cracked computer screen lay on the floor resting on its side. Johnathan carefully picked his way through the wreckage of several crumbling floors.

As he wound through the mess of cave-ins and debris, he passed two large staff areas filled with cubicles. Around the corner, there seemed to be painful reminders of how normal things used to be: shattered bits of a gag coffee mug, a filing cabinet filled with documents, a small framed picture of a man kneeling next to two small girls in party hats. Johnathan tried to imagine life going back to the way it was before the Reapers, and couldn't even fathom it. After navigating the maze of compartments, he came to the other side of the floor where the wall used to be. It had been knocked out when a shuttle or fighter, or maybe one of those harvester things had crashed into it, or at least it seemed like a good guess. The smell of dust surrounded him and a bitter loneliness permeating his senses. Everything here felt so… broken.

He glanced to his right as he heard some rubble shift and put a hand to his gun, ready. However, what he saw made him freeze and then gasp with a look of surprise. There, in a heap of soot-covered debris laid an exposed chest plate of black neocarbon-fiber. On it sat a pair of dog tags with the Alliance "A" symbol.

Rousseau started when the charred armor heaved upward, as the man inside inhaled sharply. The volunteer rushed over to the brick heap and looked at the face staring haggardly not so much at, but past him. "Are you alright? I'm going to get you out of here," He said matter-of-factly. The buried soldier's eyes never met his, and his pupils were dilated. Johnathan looked him over briefly and noted the soldier's body below the waist was trapped under a slab of concrete too heavy for him to lift alone. "I need help to move this chunk of stone; I swear to God I'll be right back!" He nodded energetically as if to accentuate his point. He sprinted back through the dilapidated offices to return to the balcony overlooking his crew's operating site. "Hey! I've got a survivor! I need some help, hurry!"

A cluster of men rushed up the drenched debris to get to their crewmate. The possibility of a survivor brought the fire of hope to the crew's eyes. If they could save one person from this hell, then they knew they could find more.

As the ARRC crew was in an uproar with toting lifting equipment and rescue supplies up the wet rubble, the buried soldier's labored breathing flipped his dog tags over the side of his chest plate, showing the "N 7" engraving on the other side. Briefly, the soldier was able to focus and see several figures rushing towards him, cradling his body while they wedged industrial jacks into the concrete to free him. Then his world was dark again.