"Oh my god." Simmons lurched to a stop, hand coming up to cover his mouth. He was glad he hadn't eaten yet today because he was sure he'd be seeing it a second time if he did.

Blood. There was so much blood.

There were no bodies, yet, but that was a small mercy. There were just...smears everywhere. Different bits of matter that was so mangled and mushed together it was hard to tell what it had originated from, but it was hard to believe that whatever it did come from was still walking around. Oh god, was it still walking around?

"What the hell happened in here?" Doc mumbled, stooping down to scrutinize the bloody contents of the floor in a way only someone trained in medicine could do. Donut looked like he was valiantly trying not to throw up from where he was standing behind Doc's crouched form. Simmons, however, tried not to focus on anything for too long, letting his eyes dart around searchingly. His hands clenched uselessly at his sides. There was so much wrong with their situation that he couldn't pick one to focus on. He knew one thing though, he sure as hell wasn't staying here.

Walking swiftly to where Doc was crouched, he grabbed at his arm, tugging at him until he rose from the floor. "When need to find help, so quit dicking around and come on."

"Right, right." Doc said, straightening out his glasses. "Uh, I think there's a security station around here somewhere."

Donut perked up at that, grabbing both of their arms like they were going for a stroll in the park and not circumnavigating their way past enough broken glass and bits of flesh to look like it got chewed up and spit out of a bloody maw. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Donut smiled, though it was seemed strained at the edges.

The three of them made their way down the last length of the hall, carefully watching their steps. They walked past what used to be a small row of windows placed near the ceiling. The glass may have been broken, but the bars seemed to be fully intact. Simmons remembered Grif telling him how much he hated the bars, said it was like they were in prison, but the guards were quick to tell them it was for their own protection. Simmons wanted to laugh at the irony of that now, but didn't want to break the silence just yet. The bars were supposed to keep them safe, little good that did them now.

It was still dark out, the alarm having first gone off a few hours ago. It must have been after midnight, but Simmons had no way to tell the exact time. The moon wasn't full and he didn't know whether to be relieved of having been spared the Hollywood cliché, or disappointed it wasn't there to provide more light. The back up generators might have kicked in, but they didn't do much good when most of the bulbs were shattered.

Somehow Donut got in the lead, and Simmons was about to point out that Donut didn't know where he was going, but snapped his mouth shut with a click, furrowing his brows when he remembered that he didn't know where they were going either, so what the fuck did it matter who led? Doc had said the security room was 'around here somewhere' and that could either mean around the next corner, on the other side of the base, or on the fucking moon.

Simmons wasn't used to not having someone around to tell him orders. Even when he was split off from Sarge there were always people of a higher rank around to defer to. 'What were they going to do? What the fuck was happening? Where was everybody?' Simmons didn't have any of the answers, didn't have anyone to tell him the answers, and he hated not having the answers. Simmons was a smart guy, could put two and two together, but without all the variables it was like asking him for statistics while giving him an unreliable data set, possible, but in the end inaccurate and more trouble than it was worth.

Simmons huffed in silent irritation and was just about to suggest they stop and get their barrings when the sound of gunfire reached them. Doc reached passed Simmons and grabbed Donut's arm. Donut's mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but Doc shook his head, then gestured to a small hallway they were about to pass with urgency. It didn't look like anyone had been down there yet, and right now Simmons was all for not running into whatever created that bloodbath, so it was a relief that once they entered the room it was as deserted as the empty hallway suggested.

Once the door was firmly latched behind them, they all sagged, releasing a collective sigh. Donut was the first to stand, "Well, that was way too close for comfort," then quickly went about gathering crates that were stacked in the corner, pushing past Simmons and Doc, and making a barricade against themselves and the shitstorm going on outside.

While Donut was in the middle of redecorating, Simmons finally took in the room they had launched themselves in. Huh, looks like Doc was right, security actually was around there somewhere. The room they were in looked like it had housed a solitary guard given the cramped quarters. Several security monitors were set up in a way that made it easy for a singular person to watch each monitor without too much of a strain, unfortunately most of them were blue screened, having been shut down improperly when the power went out.

Simmons sat at the desk chair and cracked his knuckles. At least here there was something he could do. It didn't take him long to get the screens back online, a brief flash of satisfaction rushed through him as he was waiting for them to go through the reboot sequence.

The satisfaction quickly turned to lead in his stomach.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." Simmons chanted like it was the only word he knew, fingers gliding shakily across the keyboard. "We have got to find the others, shit."

The quality of the video feed was grainy, covered in static. Some screens were still blank, presumably from the cameras having been blow out, but what he could see made his blood run cold, the ice prickling his skin.

There were bodies everywhere. Most seemed to be concentrated near the entrance of the complex, but there was evidence of fighting dotted around the rest of the grounds. He couldn't tell who they were, couldn't tell who was their unknown enemy and who was the security that usually patrolled the place like so many well trained ants. He had eyes out there now but still no answers.

There were different feeds he could toggle between. This feed held all the cameras that were still functional outside. He caught a spit second of someone soaring past one of the cameras, taking the head off what he hoped was the enemy with what would have been a sickening crunch had the cameras been equipped with audio, right before a bullet shattered the screen into static.

Doc had been standing motionless behind Simmons ever since his exclamation. Simmons could see Doc's expression in one of the blackened computer screens and it was such a grim look of horror that Simmons had to force himself to look away from the reflection. Doc was a gentle guy by nature, a pacifist. Simmons had no idea what the guy was doing in the army, but he had no time to think about it or spare the guy his feelings as he switched to the next feed. It was a hall he didn't recognize, but that was no big surprise since it wasn't like they got to roam the place freely any time they wanted. He brought up the control menu and scanned where it was highlighted. Huh, so this was what 'Blue Base' looked like. Same shit hole, different location. The body count appeared to be significantly higher over there than it was from what they had seen on there way to the security room, but he wouldn't know what the real damage was until he found the feed for their building.

He needed to find Grif and Sarge. Sarge was still his commanding officer despite their situation and, in a desperate way that Grif always made fun of, kind of a the father figure Simmons was lacking in his life. Simmons recognized how pathetic that was, but didn't want to think about it too much. He settled on thinking about Grif as he scanned the feeds, hoping he didn't catch sight of either of their bodies. Grif might have been a lazy pain-in-the-ass, but he was still his friend even though Grif seemed to take pleasure in finding all of Simmons' buttons and pushing them, repeatedly, with glee. But, despite how backward it seemed, Grif was still his best friend and if you didn't save your best friend from becoming a bullet riddled pincushion then what good were you?

He pulled up the menu, about to selected the conveniently labeled 'Red Base' feed when he paused, mouse hovering over the selection.

'Research Lab'. There it was, there were the answers. Well, not all of the answers, but at least it was something.

Simmons noticed that Doc had walked away at one point, he could hear the shuffling of papers as Doc went looking through a desk drawer. Hopefully he found something useful. He was about to click on 'Research Lab' when Donut's voice hit him from where he was still by the door. Simmons nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected voice. Donut had been unnaturally quiet while they were in there. He had been expecting some sort of quip to make him uncomfortable minutes ago.

"As much fun as I'm having playing house with you guys-" 'Ah, there it was.' "-I thought I should tell you that the bullets have stopped." Donut said casually, tilting back precariously on the crate he was sitting on like it was a kitchen chair.

The sound of Doc shuffling papers stopped and Simmons lifted his hand off the mouse. It was quiet. Simmons hadn't noticed that the constant bang, bang, bang was gone until he let himself adjust to the quiet. 'What was going on out there?'

Doc stood to go stand where Donut was, quietly slipping a piece of paper in his pocket as he did so. Simmons was going to question him about it, but they didn't have time. "Okay," Simmons said, clicking on the 'Red Base' option, "You guys start moving the crates back so we can get out while those cocksuckers out there are gone. I'm going to see if I can find Sarge and Grif's room from here so that maybe we can find them quickly before something else happens." He was just getting the screens to load when he heard a squawk and a sharp 'ow!' as a crate was dropped.

"What? We have to get out of here!" Doc was looking at him like Simmons had grown two heads and started making out with himself. He could practically hear Donut's 'and didn't invite me' tacked onto then end of that thought. However, Donut was just muttering to himself as he leaned against the wall, holding his foot from where Doc dropped a crate on it.

Simmons sighed, but didn't stop his task of searching through the endless number of halls that were starting to blend together into one giant, unidentifiable mass. "As much as I would like to get the hell out of here then shoot the place up with a rocket launcher, we can't leave the others."

Doc shook his head. "Finding you two alive was a miracle! Besides, they should have left the building when the evacuation siren went off."

"Doc, our door was locked when you found us, remember? The same thing probably happened to Sarge and Grif."

Donut extended his foot from where he had been holding it and nudged Doc's hip, "Come on Doc-y Doc, Simmons is right. Besides, what if they're hurt?"

"I'm a medic, not a doctor, Donut."

"Same thing."

"No, it really isn't."

'Oh no, not this argument again.' "Look, Doc. We'll be safer as a group and if they're hurt, could you really live with yourself if you walked away?" It was a cheap shot and Simmons knew it, but doctor or not they were safer together.

Doc let out a long suffering sigh. "Fine, but I'm not shooting anybody."

"Doubt it." Simmons muttered to himself, then addressed the others, "Okay, you guys move the boxes aside so we can rush the door and get out of here with our asses all in one piece."

He heard mumbles of agreement and one 'but I just moved them there' then nothing other than the sound of crates being lifted a dumped unceremoniously back in the corner. Simmons switched views between the virtually dozens of cameras in their building, searching for the one he wanted. "Hey, Doc? Any idea where they are?" Doesn't hurt to ask. He clicked a camera that looked like it was set up in a supply closet. The fuck? How was that useful?

"Um I th-think it's in the West Wing, a c-couple floors above us maybe?" He answered, dropping a particularly heavy box on the growing stack in the corner, teetering to the side before Donut steadied him with a hand to the shoulder.

"Well, that narrows it down a bit at least." The West Wing was a building connected to the East Wing via an enclosed catwalk. They were currently on the third floor and the catwalk was on the fifth. The only way to tell if there were occupants in a room was to look above the door for a plaque and if there was a plaque then that meant that the room was being occupied. If it was an office then the plaque was on the door, typically with a name inscribed. Now if only he could find their room...aha! There it was and, oh shit fuck that was bad. Subject plaques had their identification numbers and Simmons could see theirs, well, he could see half of theirs, but the rest was obscured given that it had a bullet hole in it and the reason for the bullet hole was splattered across the floor. He could see at least two bodies and almost had a heart attack before he could see that the bodies weren't dressed in their standard issue gray sweats and t-shirt with plain white sneakers. The corpses he saw were wearing clothes too dark to be them. It couldn't be them...right?

Simmons stood quickly, the office chair he had been sitting in sliding back with enough force to hit the wall behind it. He was just about to shut off the computers when movement from one of the monitors caught his eye. There were people walking past his and Donut's room, pausing long enough to see if anyone was inside before moving on.

"Shit, Doc!" Simmons called, deciding to say fuck it to the computer shut down and get the hell out of there. "You know how to get to the catwalk from here?"

"Um, maybe?"

"That'll have to do. Donut, is the coast clear?"

Donut peeked behind the blind that covered the glass window in the door. "Um, there's some broken ceiling tiles on the floor and I think some light bulbs."

"What? No, no, are there any people?"

"Ah, in that case, yeah."

"What?!" Simmons' screech turned into a strangled whisper at the end as he pushed past Donut to check.

There was no one in the hall.

"What the fuck?" He turned back to Donut who looked all for the world just as confused as Simmons did, the bastard. "Donut! I thought you said there were people out there!"

Donut tilted his head. "Out there? I thought you just meant in general."

Simmons was going to kill him, he really was, but for right now he settled for kicking him in the shin.

"Ow! Fuck, you know I bruise like a peach!"

Simmons didn't know that, didn't want to know that, and decided to ignore that comment before his mind went somewhere he really, really didn't want it to go.

"We don't have time for this. I saw some people on the security feeds and they're coming this way."

"That's great, let's go see if they know the way out of here!" Simmons should have punched Donut in the head, it might have helped his brain.

"We can't, we don't even know who they are! They could be the ones that started this mess in the first place."

"Or they could help us!"

"Or they could shoot us in the head!"

Doc stepped in between them, putting his hands out to gently push at their chests until they stepped back from where they had inadvertently gotten up in each others' faces. "Enough, nothing comes from fighting. Let's just go find the others and avoid getting shot, agreed?"

Simmons and Donut were still glaring at each other, but nodded their agreement to Doc as they left their temporary sanctuary behind.