Saint Michael's

"Nice job clearing the ghouls out of the museum, Herr Eckhart. I'm afraid I don't know much about the museum's administration or its affairs, being that it's been abandoned since the war, but if we get the safe open I'll let you know what we find. More accounting papers, if I had to guess."

The three of them had returned to the DHM station without incident and reported straight to Assistant Councilor Ademar. He'd brought them into the room behind the counter, which looked to be a sort of meeting room for the station's councilors, and sat them all down.

The councilor produced a small locked box from under his seat and set it on the table. "300 tokens, as agreed upon" he said, and opened the box. He retrieved three canvas pouches from within and pushed them towards and Hans and his friends, who took them.

"Thank you, councilor. Will there be anything else?" Hans asked, and Friedrich nodded.

"I'm afraid so. The station at Saint Michael's Church has gone silent. There's been no traffic from there in days, and those sent to investigate have not returned. When the security of one station is threatened, we are all threatened, Herr Eckhart. A reduction in traffic would not be cause for alarm, but the fact that none of our guards have returned spells grave danger. I will pay you and your team a minimum of 500 tokens for this job. More, if the station needs to be retaken."

Hans nodded. "Ghouls are unlikely, so I suspect it's raiders. In any event we'll head over and take a look."

"Thank you, Herr Eckhart."

St. Michael's was a little over a mile away. A thirty minute walk, in better times. Today it'd been an hour, the team taking it slow through Berlin's streets to the cathedral. They'd made good time, in all honesty, and were standing outside the church checking their weapons. Across the street was Engelbecken, a rather nice pond before the war. It still would be, if it weren't for the body of a scavver floating in the water.

"Down we go" Hans said, and the three of them moved towards the subway entrance. The view down to the station lobby looked clear, so Hans moved ahead. He slowed down near the bottom of the steps and crouched, rifle at the ready. Walter and Hilda entered the lobby and spread out, Walter behind a Nuka machine and Hilda in the center, behind a support column.

Even on the second floor stations would be fairly busy, and if they weren't, then the sounds of chatter from the platforms below would still be audible. Today there was nothing, just dead silence. Hans moved up, keeping right, and came to a stop by the A-side staircase. He picked up a piece of rubble and tossed it down the steps, trying to elicit a response.

Nothing.

"Something's wrong" Walter said, and Hans nodded. He stood and peeked into the nearby bathroom, converted to a dining room. It was as empty as the rest of the station, it seemed.

"Walter, check the rest of the lobby. Hilda and I will check the platforms."

The team split and Hans jogged down the stairs to the platforms, the shanties and stands all still in place, untouched. It was as if the whole population of the station had just decided to leave. There were no signs of a struggle anywhere; no blood, no shell casings, no bodies. Some things were missing, like bedspreads, pillows, the station's food, medicine, etc.

"No forwarding address, either" Hans said to himself.

"What's a forwarding address?" Hilda asked.

"Pre-War thing. Let's go back up and let Walter know what's going on, then we can decide what to do from here."

Back up the stairs they went, Walter waiting for them by the subway entrance. He jerked his head towards the gate and the two of them kept near the wall, recognizing his signal. "Gunfire from the surface, close. Automatic. Didn't hear return fire" he said. Thousands of people lived in the Berlin Odland, the wasteland, so it could be anyone. Raiders, scavengers, settlers, U-Bahners, strays. Once, on a mission in Stuttgart, Hans had rescued a group of Frenchmen from a pack of Rovers, mutated German Shepherds, on their way to one of the Low Countries. A family member in Albania had sent a letter talking of the country's allegedly burgeoning fishing industry, according to the bilingual guide. A strange affair, that.

"Let's have a look" Hans said, and they ascended the steps to the surface. Hans stopped at the top and peeked around the corner of the low wall that surrounded the subway entrance, three men clad in black standing on the front yard of St. Michael's, talking. Nearby lied a pile of dead ghouls, likely ferals. On the street was a vehicle, a halftrack. An SdKfz 251 Hanomag. Pre-War. Painted on the side was a winged Iron Cross with a sword in the middle. The vehicle bore no other marks and was painted a plain slate gray.

The men themselves were nondescript, save for their armor and weapons. On the left sleeve was an armband with the same winged cross logo on it, the men wearing black combat armor and carrying STG-44's. A fourth man emerged from the Hanomag's carrier bay and approached the original group, carrying a G3. Two of the men split and entered the church, and that's when Hans decided they'd seen enough.

"Back to DHM. We'll take the tracks."

The three of them headed back down to the platform and began the long trek back to the DHM station.

"Strange men, clad in black, you say? First I've heard of it" Friedrich Ademar said once they returned and reported the situation at the St. Michael's U-Bahn station. The councilor had their money on the table, ready and willing to pay them, but was still mulling over the information he'd received.

"They didn't see us, so there's no way of knowing if they were hostile or not. I can't say if the stations are in danger or not, councilor, but clearly something compelled the people of the Saint Michael's station to move house. Something clearly offering a very good deal, if the whole station plus your investigators were convinced to just up and leave" Walter said.

"Yes, I see that. Question is, why didn't any of the guards I sent bother to come back and tell us first? It'd have saved a lot of trouble. I do hope this isn't because of those people at Fernsehturm again. Or those folks at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The last thing we need is some nut's army taking over all the churches and bullying the stations" councilor Ademar said.

He pushed the bags containing their money forward. "Your pay. I'll let the other stations know of the sudden vacancy at Saint Michael's and advise them to steer clear for now. I'll ask the next caravan that comes through, maybe they'll know something about your mystery visitors. Caravanners say it's the safest city in the country."

"Thank you, councilor."

"I have no more work for you, so you're all free to go. Give my regards to councilor Edmund when you return to Pariser Platz, hmm?"

They said their goodbyes to the councilor and made their way down to the platform. The handcar was away at Pariser Platz, so all they could do was wait. The three of them took a seat at the station's diner and leaned back, just glad to be off their feet for now.

"Work's been good lately. Almost a thousand tokens between the three of us. Might be time to renovate that room of yours, Hans. Impress Hilda" Walter said. Hilda gave him a look.

"And why would he want to impress me? Furthermore, what girl would be impressed by a subway closet?"

Hans wasn't even paying attention to them. He was sitting by the side, one foot on his knee, idly stroking his chin. Stations went dark all the time, usually from raider attacks, but of course there'd be blood and bodies left after. This was something much different. Hans supposed it could've been something else that drove the station dwellers out, maybe a radiation leak, but if that was the case they'd have sent a messenger, or at least the guards DHM sent to investigate would've returned. The only possibility remaining was that someone was recruiting, or evicting, station dwellers. Question was, why? Who? And for what?

"Still with us, Hans?"

He was knocked from his thoughts from the sudden touch of Hilda's hand on his shoulder, and he looked at her. "Hmm? Oh, the handcar has returned. Everyone ready to go?"

"I just asked you that" Walter said.

"Sorry, I was wondering about our new friends at the church" Hans said, and the three of them got on the handcar. The operator began to work the crank and they slowly moved down the tracks, gaining speed. "We've seen other merc groups in the city, plus little private armies and settlements, but none that have access to vehicles. If those guys got that Hanomag running again, it says something about who they work for. They had some serious firepower, too. I haven't seen a Sturmgewehr in years, and all three of them had one, plus that guy with the G3. Consider the following: they're just a one-off group of guns for hire, the four of them. One of them is a mechanical wizard who discovered a prewar halftrack and got it running, and the four of them broke into an armory for their guns and uniforms, and now they roam the Berlin streets in their armored vehicle, killing and looting like some prewar movie. Absurd."

There was a gentle bump in the tracks, which caused Hans to slip a little. He scooted back on the bench and put his ankle on his knee again. "Let's consider another possibility, then. Those four men are part of a large organization, an army or movement. This organization, or settlement, is home to hundreds or maybe even thousands of individuals, scouring the country for everything from guns to medicine to halftracks, and they're moving into the cities to clear them of feral ghouls, Rovers, killer robots, and whatever else lurks in the streets. Not likely, but would be nice."

"Wouldn't be the first time someone tried it" Walter said. Soon they were drawing up to Pariser Platz station, the handcar operator gently pulling on the brakes. The handcar slowed and eased into the little dock built on the tracks, and the group stood. They disembarked, thanked the operator, and he began the return trip to DHM.

"Those assholes at Fernsehturm wanted to do something like that, I think. They spent more time looking for photocopiers and printing presses than guns and halftracks, though" Hilda said, and Walter gave her a look.

"I never did ask how the Hell you ended up there as their prisoner, or what they did that was so bad you had to go back with bombs to blow up their tower."

"They were communists, and the communists were the ones who launched all those nukes, right?" she asked.

"It's a bit more complicated than that. And Europe was a hellhole before The Bomb anyway. Only thing that's changed is the rads and the mutants."

Hans turned around and took a deep breath. "Alright folks, I guess that's it for today. I'm going to go see councilor Edmund and let her know what's going on with DHM, and then I'm going to do...something, I don't know. Have a drink, read a book, who cares. You two have fun with whatever and I'll see you in the morning" he said.

"Guess he's not gonna invite you back to his place, then" Walter said, and Hilda huffed. "You should ask him. The second floor's a lot ritzier than you think."

"It's a subway! He lives in a closet, I live in a shanty!"

Hans left them to their bickering and head upstairs to see the councilor. Pariser Platz had the three councilors, but it was Edmund who was kind of the de facto leader. She certainly did the most work. Her door was closed, so Hans knocked. He could hear her walking around, and after a moment the door opened.

"Herr Eckhart, welcome home! Come in, come in. Don't dally, tell me how things went at DHM."

Hans recounted everything that had happened. The museum, the already dead ghouls, the locked safe, the vanishing at St. Michael's, the men in black, everything. She seemed concerned, but apologetic that she couldn't offer any new insight.

"The problems keep mounting, Hans. The raiders are nothing, really. It's the weird stuff that alarms me. Rovers and ghouls and the little creeps who live in the sewers and now subway vanishings. I'm afraid I have another job for you and your team, but you're welcome to turn it down. I assure you the pay will be very generous" Edmund said.

"Tell me."

"While you were gone, a caravan from a settlement on the Havel arrived, after a long journey. When they left Schwanenwerder their security team was eighteen strong. When they arrived here they were down to five. They claimed to have been set upon by Rovers, and something much nastier, while traveling on the A103. They said it was worst around the molecular genetics institute. They asked me if the U-Bahnen could do something about it. DHM is going to be busy with their move into the museum proper, and with Saint Michael's out we're the closest inhabited station" the councilor said.

"The molecular genetics institute? I've never been there, I don't think. Where is it?" Hans asked, and Edmund sighed.

"Dahlem."

It took Hans a moment to process this. "Dahlem... Dahlem is twelve miles away, Fraulein Edmund, and the suburbs there are infested with Rovers. This is a suicide mission."

"As I said, Herr Eckhart, you can turn down the mission. The pay is 1,500 tokens, if that will help. The council is prepared to spare some supplies, free of charge, as well as some weapons and ordnance, if your team's current weapons won't be sufficient. I'm confident you and your team are capable of clearing the institute out, so long as you're packing some extra firepower. It'll at least put some substantial money in your pockets while I put out feelers with the caravans."

Hans took a deep breath and rubbed his chin. "Alright, I'll ask the team, but we better be talking about some serious firepower."

Edmund smiled humorlessly. "It will be very serious firepower, Herr Eckhart."