Teaser
Hans reached for the flashlight clipped to his shirt and flicked it on, a yellow beam slashing through the dust-filled blackness and bathing the walls in pale light. Hilda turned on the flashlight attached to her MP5, a much brighter white light filling the room they'd ended up in. A workman's entrance, from the look of the dust waging a ceaseless war on the quietly rusting tools.
"You're hurt, you're hurt," Hilda said, and slung her MP5, the flashlight aimed at the ceiling and lighting the entire room. "Hold on." Hans stood there patiently, gun in hand, as his wife looked at his left arm. It looked to him like a piece of shrapnel had cut him as they'd crossed the street; not a serious wound, unless he got seriously unlucky and developed tetanus. If that was the case then he was pretty well screwed.
"Doesn't look bad," Hans said, and Hilda nodded.
"Just a small gash," she said. She disinfected and wrapped it, tying the bandage extra tight. "You'll be fine." There was a lockbar on the door, which Hilda secured to prevent the Sturmers from following them, and they relaxed. "Think they saw where we went?" she asked.
"Well, when they don't find our bodies in that other building, they'll know we escaped. I'm sure they'll search some of the buildings, but I can't imagine they'll search for very long. Unless they got a good look at you; if you are the person they're looking for, then they probably won't give up until they're dead," Hans said.
Hilda scoffed. "What's the deal with that, anyway?" she asked as Hans pushed the room's other door open, checking the hall outside for any threats. "What makes me so damn special?"
"Well," Hans said as they moved out into the hall. "I can think of plenty of things that make you special, but none that a Sturmutant would care about."
"Well, aren't you a flatterer."
The two of them fell silent as they moved down the nondescript hall, keeping their eyes on the few doors and checking them as they passed. Offices, mostly, though for which company Hans couldn't tell. There was a staircase at the end of the hall, which they followed up to the third floor. For whatever reason, the staircase skipped the second.
The third floor was home to more offices, themselves home to old RobCo terminals and desks. Hans moved in to one of the offices, Hilda right behind him. The office ran alongside an outside wall of the building, the windows mostly intact. Hans eased up to one and saw the Sturmutants outside, the red one gesturing to the others. The four of them (Hans guessed the fifth was dead) then proceeded down the street, towards the collapsed bridge, and around a corner.
"Trouble?"
Hans looked at Hilda. "Either they just entered the front door, or they're high-tailing it back to the park. We'd best not linger." The two of them went back out into the hall and toward the staircase, crouching by the corner and listening. So far, there was no sign of the Sturmers, but Hans didn't want to go down into the long hallway until he was absolutely certain.
*Crack!*
Hans peered around the corner, down the stairs, and saw a gray Sturmer enter an office. One of his comrades kicked a door, *crack!*, and disappeared from sight. He frowned and pulled back from the corner. "Trouble. They're looking for us."
"Fucking abominations. C'mon, let's keep going up. Maybe there'll be an elevator," Hilda said, and Hans nodded. Together the two of them went back up to the third floor, quietly traipsing down its length. They'd just reached the end of the hall and were about to head up the stairs to the fourth floor when they heard gunfire on the first floor, plus return fire.
"...Are they shooting at each other?" Hans asked, and Hilda shrugged. The gunfire lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to pique Hans' curiosity. They proceeded up the stairs to the fourth floor, the second to last, staying close to the walls, ready to duck into one of the offices if they needed to.
Halfway down the hall, from around the corner of a T-junction, a Sturmutant appeared, FG-42 at the ready. It saw them, they saw it, and then both parties were ducking into cover. "They're here!" the Sturmer shouted. "Let us bring Her Majesty their heads!"
"Damn it," Hans said, and leaned out the door to watch the junction. The Sturmer peeked him and he fired, buckshot tearing apart the corner of the wall in a cloud of stucco and dust. The mutant pushed its rifle around the corner and blind-fired, spraying the hall in a storm of 8mm Mauser. Hans scrambled back from the door just as the frame was shredded into toothpicks.
The thunder of the FG-42 was joined by the chatter of Hilda's MP5, and then suddenly ceased. He cast a glance at her and found her crouched by another door, the window on it missing. "It's dead, let's keep going!" she shouted, and Hans nodded. Up the stairs they went again, the Sturmutants only seconds behind. Hans stopped at the top of the steps, turned, and removed the face of the first Sturmer to round the landing.
The top floor was just a single hall, leading to a pair of heavy-looking double doors. Hans backed away from the stairs, never once taking his eyes off them, until he and Hilda passed through the doors. They pushed them closed and locked them.
Hans glanced at the room to make sure it was safe and what he saw made him look again, curious and a little disturbed. The room looked like a small cathedral, with a single row of seven pews set before an altar, the candlesticks on it plastered with dry wax. Behind the altar, catching the sun's light, was a stained-glass window, in the shape of the BMW logo. It cast the room in a mix of blue and white light.
Hans took a moment to push one of the pews up against the doors before taking another look around the room. Candelabras stood in each corner, unlit candles in them. Outside of that the room was non-descript and devoid of any other features. "What the Hell is this?" Hilda asked, and Hans shook his head. He thought back to the BMW building in Munich, where he and her had found the vault door bearing the BMW logo, and reminded himself that the place had brought only misery.
Hans approached the window and Hilda headed towards the altar. The glass was thick and solid, and outside it was a straight five-story drop to concrete. They wouldn't be getting out that way. Not unless there just happened to be a rope somewhere in the makeshift chapel.
"'The Church of the Beam,'" Hilda said behind him, and Hans turned around. She was holding a thin leather-bound book, flipping through its pages. "Reads more like a cult to me. Why were people so tightly-wound before The Bomb?" she asked.
"Remember Munich? These BMW people were really fucked up," Hans said. "I'm really glad we never found a way into their vault; I really don't want to think about what they might have been doing down there, if they worshiped the company like this."
Hilda huffed. "That Wanamingo they sent after us told me everything we needed to know."
There was a sudden *bang* at the door as one of the mutants kicked it, ending their conversation. The two of them moved over to the first pew and flipped it over for cover, guns trained on the doors. "Come out, Monster!" one of the mutants yelled. "If you face trial, your death will be fast and painless!"
"I can't say the same for you, fucking mutant trash!" Hilda yelled back. The Sturmutants responded by opening fire, ventilating the doors. A thunderous din drowned out every other sound as the mutants emptied their mags into the doors, pieces of wood flying across the room. Bits and chunks of the doors began to drop off, exposing the Sturmers and allowing Hans and Hilda the chance to shoot back.
As both sides emptied their guns at each other one of the doors fell off its hinges, the crashing slam audible for only a second over the maelstrom of gunfire. One of the Sturmers was square in the opening and Hans fired twice, killing the mutant. He fired his last shell at another mutant preparing to storm the room and dropped to reload, shakily feeding shells into the shotgun's tube.
He popped up in time to see a Sturmutant rush inside, wielding an MG-34 at its hip. It brought the gun to bear and opened fire, turning the room into ground zero of an earthquake, the thunder shaking every bone in Hans' body. The machine gun turned the pew into toothpicks, sending slivers of oak and clouds of sawdust into the air. Hans scrambled back from the pew and followed Hilda to another one, keeping as low to the ground as possible.
A break in the storm gave Hans a chance to rise into a crouch. The mutant saw him to its left and turned to fire, but Hans was quicker. His first shot caught the abomination her arm, causing her to flinch and nearly drop the MG. His second and third shots found their mark on her torso, punching easily through her armor and dropping her to the floor.
And just like that the chapel fell quiet, the last sound the clink of the empty brass shell as it fell to the floor. Hans topped up the Walther Automatic and slowly stood, Hilda remaining crouched next to him. A thin haze of smoke hung in the air, the room thick with the stench of sulfur and blood.
Hans swallowed, licked his lips, and blew out a breath. It was a strange feeling, surviving such a frenetic gunfight. In the moment it seemed as if it would go on for an eternity; time slowed and the world was washed away in a haze. There was only the enemy and cover, nothing else perceptible. When it ended, everything came rushing back. Color, smell, sound.
"Let's-"
Another Sturmutant walked into the room, and what Hans saw froze him where he stood. The red-skinned mutant was easily a foot taller than him, clad in black armor. Plates were strapped around his biceps, forearms, thighs, and shins. His torso bore an ebony cuirass, dented and scratched and dull, bearing the letters 'VT' in gothic script. On his head was a knight's helmet, adorned by two faux wings, swept back. In both hands were zweihander swords, the blades wavy. Flammenschwerter. Genuine antiques, as far as Hans could tell. Expertly forged and extremely deadly.
The elite Sturmutant turned to face them and smacked his breastplate with both blades. "I've waited a long time for this. Her Majesty has told us to bring you both in alive, but I fully intend to exact the vengeance I've long sought!" the Sturmutant said. He pointed one sword at Hilda and raised the other. "When I return your head to Queen Ilse, my name will enter our hallowed halls as the name of the one who slayed the MONSTER OF MUNICH!"
Fallout Germany 2 premiers on 7/01/2023.
