A/N: I'm not clear whether Charon's combat shotgun is actually supposed to be firing buckshot of some kind or just large bullets in the game. There are no "wounds" to judge from, just blood splatter and/or the same dismemberment that happens with every game weapon. Despite the drum on the barrel and the name, in gameplay he doesn't seem to fire it on automatic at all, nor does he have any white phosphorus (or, as my Dad called them when consulted on this point, 'Willy Peter') or other special rounds. So, if I'm being inaccurate, hopefully it's on top of Bethsoft's own inaccuracies and I can be excused.
There's no way I can actually replicate Bell's thought processes, which would probably look to you or me like a stream of numbers, but I wanted to give some idea of what it's like to be inside her head under the circumstances.
Chapter 35
The hunter sprinted down the zigzag hallway, listening to the running footsteps that were close – but not close enough – behind him. He knew from the sound of air movement up ahead that the next room would be large, so he was prepared when he burst into the two-story storage area with its workbench and stairwell. He rejected the stairs at once, squinting into the dim; his enemy was too close. Instead he leaped for a barrel and bounced from the top of it to the top of a tall shelf, and from there he hurled himself over the railing of the next floor's balcony just in time to avoid being shot. Chips of plaster rained from the ceiling over his head as he returned fire. He missed, but the Ghoul had to take cover for long enough that he was able to gain the doorway.
He frowned slightly at the closed security doors. The terminal was showing an error screen. A couple of wads of plasma took care of that problem, and he kicked the half-melted doors the rest of the way open easily. The glow of hot metal lit the next corridor a little, enough that he didn't trip over the skeleton in the hall. He heard the machine-gun rattle of the other man's footsteps on the stairs very clearly. The Ghoul was making no attempt at stealth now.
Whoever had built this building had built hardly any long, straight hallways, almost as if they had fields of fire in mind. The hunter was out of sight around a jag in the corridor long before the Ghoul gained the hallway. He pulled up sharply at the closed door, firing the plasma rifle again; there wasn't time to check whether it was truly locked or not. Another moment, and he was through and looking ahead to the long catwalk.
Interesting. He moved to one side of the door and took a half-second to survey the room full of power generators, brushing off irritation at the background noise. A dead sentry bot blocked the central walkway, a black silhouette against gray distance, but that would leave him too exposed in any case. He turned and took the leftmost catwalk, close to the wall of the room. Here he slowed, watching his footing in the intermittent lighting. He could afford to be careful. With all of the beams and cylinders, there was at least some cover between him and the -
The shotgun boomed. The hunter flung himself forward with reflexes that were better than human. That was why he caught four pellets in his right shoulder instead of all of them in his skull. He turned his stumble into a dive roll, came up behind a support beam, and immediately turned to seek a target. At last he caught the Ghoul completely stationary, standing in the doorway and taking aim -
They fired at almost the same time. The hunter, whose ability to process and endure pain was almost certainly better than an ordinary man's, had the satisfaction of knowing he had pulled the trigger first. The Ghoul's shot went wide as the plasma charge hit him in the right side of the chest, and the hunter ducked back before he could fire again. The shot pinged and rattled from the beam and the wall, but this time the hunter escaped without harm.
It was over, must be over. In a couple of seconds the Ghoul would lose consciousness, a completely uncontrollable response to the pain and the violation of an important body cavity. The plasma would be spreading as well, burning through muscle and bone and destroying much of his right lung as it scorched its way toward his heart -
The Ghoul rocked back on his heels, took a half-step back, and stopped. The hunter watched in something approaching shock as the wounded man reached behind himself with his right arm, drew a stimpak from his belt, and calmly injected it into the growing hole in his chest.
Then he leveled the shotgun left-handed. The hunter, rapidly reevaluating once again, turned and ran.
Even over the generators he heard the heavy footsteps behind him. They were slow now, but there was no hesitation in the sound.
---
Xen listened to the sound of more shots being fired. They were surely past the second door, now, somewhere in that nightmare of dizzy depths and lightning. She was glad she was lying down. She wasn't sure she could stand up. There was an odd, pulsing feeling between her ears, not quite a pain, but it swam up and threatened to swallow her vision if she moved too sharply.
"I remind you that I carry two Stealth Boy units," said Changeling.
"Use one yourself," said Xen from under the table. "If he can see me here, in a dark spot in a dark room, he can see infrared and it's no good anyway."
"Acknowledged," said Changeling. "I will be able to move faster without the cargo net."
"Leave it in the pit," Xen said. The packbot glided over to the shaft and sank down out of sight. Xen tracked the warm flare of her rockets down and back up again, though she was invisible to ordinary vision on the return trip. The packbot hovered over toward the left, between Xen and the door but out of her line of fire across the pit.
---
AUDITORY STIMULUS DETECTED.
Range +/- 100 m no exact data possible.
Identify: combat shotgun, model unknown. Probable wielder Ghoul male ID Charon.
HEAT SIGNATURE CONFIRMED.
Identify: plasma rifle, model Nemesis 39D. Probable wielder unidentified A3 unit.
HEAT SIGNATURE CONFIRMED.
(I know who they are, dammit.)
WARNING! DISCHARGE OF LETHAL WEAPONS IN NEAR VICINITY!
PLEASE NOTIFY A SUPERVISOR.
-ERROR-
No supervisor found.
Locate cover to avoid possible damage to this unit.
(I guess there's nothing else to do.)
Identify: deactivated Robco Mark V turret unit x2. Probable fit this unit to recess 99.92%.
Identify: ammunition boxes, brand unknown, open.
XENOORGANIC ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED. SOURCE: EMPTY BOXES.
WARNING: THIS SIGNATURE PREVIOUSLY ASSOCIATED WITH AREAS OF HIGH RADIATION.
-ERROR-
-CONFLICT WITH PREVIOUS INSTRUCTIONS-
Protocol deleted.
(How about that. Xen actually did find something. I hope she's found a better hiding place than this one.)
Auditory stimulus and approaching biosignature detected.
Identify: Running biped.
Recognize: unidentified A3 unit.
Visual confirmation.
Visual contact lost.
(Whew. I don't think he saw me back here.)
Auditory stimulus and approaching biosignature detected.
Identify: Walking biped.
Recognize: Ghoul male ID Charon.
Visual confirmation.
WARNING: Unexpected aperture in right anterior thorax.
Arterial bleed: negative.
Venous and capillary bleeds: multiple, small.
Negative for symptoms of shock. Circulation otherwise normal.
Air escape: positive (auditory confirmation).
(Oh, no.)
Probable cause: plasma rifle fire.
Indication: Immediate sedation, application of multiple stimpaks and evaluation for surgery.
ERROR: No medical supply station found.
Prognosis: poor. High probability of fatality. Time to collapse: insufficient data.
Initialize first aid protocol Y/N?
(There's nothing to initialize it with, you stupid subroutine.)
Initialize first aid protocol Y/N?
Initialize first aid protocol Y/N?
/N (Shut the fuck up, will you?)
Verbal communication initialized. "Charon? Are you out of stims?"
Auditory stimulus detected.
Identify: human voice. Irregularity consistent with long-term vocal cord damage and acute loss of right lung function.
Recognize: Ghoul male ID Charon.
"Glk. Kff kffYeah. Stay dere. Kff."
Verbal communication initialized. "What are you going to do?"
Auditory stimulus detected.
-Indistinguishable-
Verbal communication initialized. "What?"
Auditory stimulus detected.
"Gonna kill him."
Visual contact lost.
---
Xen heard the running footsteps, very quick and much too light to be Charon's. She grabbed the epi pen with her left hand.
Better not hit it too close to the heart or brain, not if Changeling was right about the cardiac arrest risk. She shoved the pen against the inner elbow of her jacket sleeve and depressed the button. The sharp sting told her it had worked, and then she dropped it and devoted her full attention to the door. The handle of the alien blaster seemed to conform more closely ever second to the fingers of her right hand. She was no longer sure the weapon and her hand were separable.
Her left palm was sweating, and she felt the heat prickle under the hairs on the back of her neck. Her pony tail was coming down. Hair hung to either side of her face as the sweat beaded. Her heart hammered at her ribs as if it would burst out. Then a shadow crossed the threshold, and everything slowed down.
It worked. But something was wrong this time. It was so hard to take aim, as if her arm was mired in mud. The form of the man was low against the doorway as a trench coat swirling about his ankles. He already had the plasma rifle raised, green lights glowing down its barrel, aimed straight at the invisible packbot. Changeling fired before her, the laser tracing a red line in the air, and Xen watched in dreamlike horror as the man ducked easily away. Her own finger on the trigger seemed unnaturally slow as he fired, and she could actually see the glob of plasma travel through the air as she struggled to exert enough pressure. The dim light from the hallway struck highlights from his short, blond hair.
Changeling's heat signature bloomed as the plasma hit. The air rippled with flame and bizarre reflection as the Stealth Boy gave out. Xen could do nothing as the packbot careened sideways, fired once more – the beam never came close to the man – and arced slowly toward the pit.
It has to be now. She managed to fix on the man as he tracked Changeling's agonizing fall with the rifle, and with both her hands mashing down the trigger it finally fired. There was almost no kick to the blaster, but the muzzle flash forced her inner lids shut and she was half-blind for an instant.
As she opened them it all sped up. She struggled desperately to keep that tight focus, to fire once more before the effect was over, but it slid through her fingers and was gone.
The man – the android, he must be an android – staggered back as electricity crackled through his body. He lost his grip on the plasma rifle and it spun away under a table, but when Xen shot desperately at him he dropped to the floor flat on his back and rolled away. Her next shot missed as well, and then he had knocked a table over and was behind it.
Xen wriggled out from under the table and staggered toward the pit, thinking of Changeling. She knew there was a ladder. The android was still behind his table, away from the plasma rifle. Should she try and get the weapon? He was preternaturally fast and she was not, but he must think she could repeat that first shot, or he'd already be trying -
A broad-shouldered form blotted out the light from the hallway.
"Charon, left!" screamed Xen, and then the android launched himself in a near-invisible blur and she half-climbed, half-fell down the ladder and into the pit.
---
The hunter heard the hum of the robot's jets well before he reached the door. He had a positional fix from the moment he reached the threshold, and he was ducking before he was aware that the machine had fired. Their shots crossed. The robot's missed. His did not. He tracked the robot as it staggered in the air and fell into the shaft in the center of the room.
That was when it went wrong.
He heard the fizz of an energy weapon at the exact instant that the charge hit. He jerked as the agony crackled through his body, spending the charge in his nerves and starting to leave burn marks on his innards -
And then it stopped. He had lost the rifle. He was desperately aware of the next shot, but he fell more than dodged, his legs simply unable to hold him. He rolled to one side, knocking over a table, and lay behind it for a second as he tried to collect himself. His limbs were still weak, but with the unique structure of his synapses, he would build back charge faster than an organic. The internal trauma was another thing. He tried not to think about the pellets in his right shoulder. He could smell his own flesh where the metal had burnt it as the charge hit.
Someone was moving, shuffling awkwardly toward the edge of the pit from the other side. It must be the small one whose ragged breathing he heard.
She must be on psycho. That would explain how she had managed to shoot him, and why the big Ghoul kept her around despite her periodic collapses. It made perfect sense, and he should have thought of it earlier. The hunter had never seen much point to swearing. He was tempted to do it now. He'd let her get far enough ahead to shoot up, and that was careless.
Then his hearing cleared sufficiently for him to hear the slow, heavy footsteps approaching the door. He drew his belt knife and gathered himself into a crouch. This was it. He'd only have a second before the little gunnie could take aim again. He dared not let the Ghoul get a bead with the shotgun.