Jack was glad that he was no longer in charge of things.
Instead of leading, he was now following Corporal McGee as she led the way slowly up the spiraling staircase that led to the top of the control room. He was sure that it wasn't an accident that the control center of Command Control had been placed high up, above all else, to maintain that control over all of Phobos Base. After Blackmore's command, they'd promptly left the infirmary and quickly made it the rest of the way there to the control tower, only having to put down a few zombies and an Imp in passing.
Now he was wondering what was going to happen.
When he'd set out three and a half hours ago, (he was shocked to find that's how long it had been, though he honestly couldn't decide if it seemed too short or too long), taking Stanmore into the forsaken Hangar, he'd only had a vague idea of what to do. Finding survivors, hopefully finding Blackmore, and not a lot else. Fight, survive, kill bad guys if necessary. He'd kicked his way through the blood and the gunsmoke and now here he was. So now what? Well, obviously, follow the orders of the Sergeant.
But what would they do?
They seemed stuck here.
He hoped that Blackmore had a good plan.
They reached the top of the control tower and was both relieved and a little disappointed to see Sergeant Blackmore and PFC Baker waiting for them. He was glad to see them, but sad to see that Thompson wasn't with them.
"Ah, the gang's all here," Blackmore said, turning away from a screen to stare at them. Then he frowned. "I guess not. Report, Corporal."
Jack walked over to one of the windows while he listened to Corporal McGee run through a truncated version of recent events. From this high up and this far into the dual craters, Jack could now see the rest of Phobos Base. He ignored the Hangar, Nuclear Plant, and Toxin Refinery. Instead, he turned his attention to the buildings he hadn't seen. This time around, he had a helpful map of the base at large tacked to the wall.
The structure in the middle, built into the wall where the two craters met and bridging them, was indeed Phobos Labs. It was a curious gray-green structure with four outer sections and one central, raised area, complete with weird yellow windows. It reminded him a little of a four-leaf clover. He could see three structures in a rough row in the next crater. The one to the far left was a strange construction of shapes that were stacked atop each other, forming a weird kind of tower with all sorts of attachments sticking out of it.
This was, apparently, the Computer Station.
The one in the middle was a bland, inert, gunmetal gray brick of a structure. Jack didn't need a map to tell him this was the Military Base. To the right was a broad platform that was mostly taken up by a few squat, square structures. The map labeled this as Central Processing, whatever the hell that meant. Finally, beyond all this, built partially into the crater wall itself, was a mostly obscured building that was simply called Phobos Anomaly.
What did that mean?
Jack heard McGee reporting Stanmore and Peterson as dead. At this final bit of information, Blackmore turned to face him.
"Ward, you brought our pilot in here?" he asked.
"Yes, Sergeant," Jack replied, turning to face the man, ready to defend his decision if need be.
Blackmore, looking as tall and imposing as ever, scrutinized him for a moment, then nodded. "Well, that makes enough sense. No point in leaving him out there to take off on us and leave us stranded here," he said.
Jack felt relieved. When it came to men in control, there tended to be two types. The first were jacked up jackasses who were more obsessed with power than doing a good job. The second were good, decent men, brave men, who knew what the fuck they were doing. It was looking like Blackmore was that second variety.
"Now, McGee mentioned some kind of problem with the ship. Can you elaborate on that?" Blackmore asked.
"Not very much, I'm afraid, Sergeant. When I got to the ship, the engines were flaring, and it seemed like Stanmore had already tried to take off. But the ship wasn't going anywhere." He then related his theory that whatever strange field was interfering with the radios could possibly be screwing with the ships, too, backed up by the idea that the previous pilots hadn't left, even with something ripping its way into their ships.
"Hmm," Blackmore grumbled, turning slowly back to the screen he'd been studying earlier. "Well, I think this is as good as it's going to get. Thompson is missing. We haven't heard a peep on the radio from him and we haven't found a body. I've been looking through some cameras from all over the base. A lot of them are out but one of them was intact enough to show that, unfortunately, our own ship has been damaged as well. By what, I'm not sure. Now, before we go any further, we need to share some intel. I need a complete list from all of you, an account as to the various...creatures, for want of a better word, you have encountered."
They all listed everything and Jenkins even piped up that Jack had started naming them. Much to his surprise, Blackmore accepted the names without hesitation, although Jack pointed out that Jennifer had named the Spectres. In the end, none of them had encountered anything new. They had their zombies, Imps, Demons, Lost Souls, and Spectres now. Even as they listed them off, Jack wondered what other horrors awaited them on the dead moon.
"Okay, now that we've got that settled," Blackmore said, "we need a plan of action. I think the first, most rational course of action, is to call for help. It's a long shot, and I've already confirmed that the radio in Command Control is dead. But Phobos Labs has its own, self-contained, backup communications system. I figure that we should either confirm or eliminate this as a possibility before moving on to more desperate measures."
"Desperate measures?" Jack asked.
"It seems obvious that they were doing something shady up here, and I've been doing some digging around in the files here. All I've found so far is a lot of references to the Phobos Anomaly and experiments. So I'd say it's a safe bet that whatever the hell they were doing, it was over there. And I think it's also a safe bet that whatever this strange interference is, that's where it's coming from. So the next course of action would be to go there and disable it."
Jack nodded. It was a good plan. A rough, simple plan, but a good one. Complicated plans had a way of blowing up in your face. The simpler a plan was, the more likely it was to succeed. Mainly just because there were fewer things that could go wrong.
"Now," Blackmore said, calling up a map of Command Control on one of the larger, intact screens nearby. "While I dig around up here, I have jobs for you all. Baker, I want you to go with Jenkins to this infirmary and collect whatever medical supplies you can. Ward, Taylor, hit up this armory and grab whatever guns, ammo, grenades or explosives you can find and bring them back here. Grab whatever you can, I imagine it's going to get worse before it gets better."
If it gets better, Jack thought morosely.
"Corporal, you're going to be staying here and watching my ass so it doesn't get eaten while I dig out the UAC's godforsaken fucking secrets. I don't give a shit about classified and top secret anymore, I want to know what the fuck they were doing up here and what got so many goddamned good Marines killed."
There were a string of affirmative replies and they headed out.
Jack was probably feeling the best he'd felt since he had found out he was getting shipped up to Mars as he and Jennifer made their way down an anonymous chromed corridor. He was liking Blackmore even more now. He had backup, he had guns and ammo, he had a clear mission. This was a great way to operate. Plus, he had Jennifer around him again. Jack hadn't exactly done well for relationships for a few years…
Okay, that was a lie.
Jack had never done well for relationships. He'd gotten kind of decent at flings and fuck buddies, but that wasn't the same. In the Marines, he'd at least been around the kind of women he tended to like: tough, assertive, independent. Plus, they were all fit and a lot of them had tattoos. Tats were fucking hot for some reason.
But it was those same qualities, combined with their job as Marines in a world that was basically constantly at war with itself now, that made them not interested in long term relationships. Not to mention, having a long term relationship was basically impossible nowadays. He was never anywhere for more than three months.
Jennifer seemed to be something else. In their short time together, he'd pieced together that she was smart, strong, brave, humble. Sure, she'd made a mistake and the consequences had been dire, but everyone made mistakes and sometimes they blew up spectacularly. He didn't think she'd made the wrong call. He'd never know for sure, because he hadn't been there, but his instincts told him that Jennifer was a good Marine.
It was just bad luck, not necessarily a bad call.
Somewhere up ahead, a zombie groaned. Jack came out of his head, pistol in hand, ready for action. He and Jennifer moved slowly down the corridor they were in, coming up to a corner where the hallway terminated in a T-junction. The sounds were coming from the left. Jack put his back to the wall and waited, listening, trying to judge their distance. They didn't sound too close...he peered cautiously around the corner.
Three zombies were strung out along the next corridor. He indicated as much to Jennifer, then stepped out and took aim. The first one was facing away from him and he watched the back of its head cave in as his well-aimed pistol round punched through it. The thing went down like a bag of bricks. The next one was facing to the right and its head snapped away as a second round zipped straight through its temple.
The third zombie, however, wore fatigues and was holding a pistol. It was facing him. In the time he'd been taking to put down the other two, this one had time to aim and fire. Jack grunted and groaned in pain as he felt the round punch him right in the chestplate. Jennifer took the opportunity to aim and fire, putting a round through its eye.
"You okay?" she asked, scanning the immediate area while he cautiously probed the site of the bullet impact.
"Fine," he replied. "Gonna have a big damned bruise, though." He was glad to see that the armor was worth its weight, though he knew that much from when he'd taken a fireball to the chest, but he didn't want to keep testing it. Eventually, it would fail the test. Again, he lamented that he didn't have some of that sweet blue combat armor. But beggars couldn't be choosers. He was just glad to have any armor right now.
The pair of them made their way down the corridor, ignoring the corpses for the moment. No need to scrounge around in the mud and blood for dirty bullets if there was a whole armory waiting for them. Although Jack had his doubts about just how much of that armory was actually left. If it turned out to be a bust, they could snag the ammo in passing. If there even was any. He was hating having to search all these ugly, smelly corpses.
As they approached the security checkpoint that would grant them access to the armory, Jack heard something new. A crackling sound, like an open flame. Frowning, the sound set off alarm bells in his head and he stopped, holstering his pistol and switching over to his shotgun. He didn't know why that sound freaked him out so much but every nerve ending in his body was screaming at him. He looked nervously at Jennifer.
"Where's that coming from?" he whispered.
"Somewhere up ahead," she replied, seeming uncomfortable with his reaction. "It's just a fire...right?"
"I'm not sure. Stay here."
He moved forward before she could respond, coming up to another junction, this one a four-way intersection that sported a water cooler, some couches, and a few tables and potted plants. Jack quickly checked the other corridors. The sound was closer now. As he was looking down the left corridor, his heart leaped into his throat.
A Lost Soul!
It had floated out into the corridor from a nearby room and was just turning and noticing him. That's why he'd freaked the fuck out. As soon as it saw him, the thing let out a strange shrieking hiss and began coming right for him. Letting out a startled shout, Jack snapped the shotgun up and fired before he was even consciously aware of having done so. The slug shell hit it dead on and popped it like a malignant balloon, spraying the corridor in a rain of tinkling bone fragments. He quickly checked his six and three o'clocks, but nothing else waited for him. He turned and quickly made his way back to Jennifer, who was waiting impatiently for him in front of the security checkpoint that would grant them access to the armory.
"Lost Soul," he explained.
Jennifer shuddered. "Still haven't seen any of the nasty things," she replied.
"You don't want to."
He tried the door and was grateful to find it open. Blackmore said he'd unlock the rooms they were going to and the man had come through. Stepping into the office area beyond, he did a quick sweep of the area, saw only a single corpse laid up beneath a desk and moved to the door at the back of the room. The armory.
It wasn't as big as he had hoped, but it also wasn't as empty as he had feared.
"Jackpot," Jennifer said, grinning broadly.
They each found a backpack and began stuffing it with magazines and shotgun shells. They were those big, military grade, fuck-off kind of backpacks with lots of pockets and a huge carrying capacity. Jack thought he was in love. This was going to be very helpful. Although there weren't any grenades, explosives, or heavy weapons, he did manage to locate himself a brand new weapon. One of those beautiful DX-33 'Raptor' Submachine Guns. They packed thirty round magazines of nine millimeter ammo and came with a neat little digital scope. Their inability to be silenced or switch forms of fire left something to be desired, but they were more than suitable for the kind of work that Jack was finding himself doing.
He finished stuffing bullets and shells into his pack and between him and Jennifer, they cleared that damned armory out, managing to find a few more pistols to boot. As Jack turned to leave while Jennifer did one last sweep of the area, he let out a startled shout and snapped his SMG up. A zombie was stumbling into the room, reaching for him. He realized that it was the same corpse he'd seen up under the desk.
Squeezing the trigger, Jack stitched a bloody line of holes up the thing's torso to its head, practically splitting its skull in half. The zombie crashed to the floor and Jack caught his breath. "Goddamn...that thing scared the shit outta me," he whispered.
"I didn't hear it," Jennifer muttered. "Is it just me or are they getting smarter?"
"They are. When I first encountered them, they couldn't use guns or weapons of any kind. Now they can. One of them fucking shot me..." Before he could ruminate any further on the subject, his radio crackled to life.
"This is Jenkins to anyone...zzt...eed help! Fuckin' things...zzt...fimary!"
"We're on our way, Jenkins!" Jack shouted.
He and Jennifer raced out of the room.
They rushed back through the blood and chrome corridors. Everywhere he looked, Jack could see that damned UAC logo stamped over and over again. He hadn't really thought about it since wandering the halls of Mars City, but now he was noticing them more than ever and it was bugging him. The UAC had fucked up big time here and gotten hundreds of people killed. Maybe more. Jack suddenly wondered what the situation was on Deimos. He kept going, jogging alongside Jennifer, SMG in hand, ready for action.
They heard gunfire as they passed the halfway mark that was the entrance to the control tower and kept on running. Jack heard broken shouting over the radio and he was trying to determine if it was pain or pleasure, agony or the thrill of combat. As the seconds bled by, sometimes he thought one way, sometimes he thought the other. As they rounded another corner, Jack caught sight of a pair of big, dark pink bodies, stomping down the corridor, away from them. Towards the infirmary. The pair opened fire. Jennifer's shotgun boomed and Jack's SMG coughed up round after round, spraying their backs with red hot metal death.
The creatures immediately turned around and Jack felt a jolt of fear startle through him as he found himself once again staring into those golden glowing eyes, into that immense maw. As he emptied the magazine and put down one of the ugly fuckers, spraying the second with gore as its own face was messily disassembled by a pair of well-placed shotgun blasts courtesy Jennifer, Jack thought about something he'd heard once.
There was this theory, he thought it might have something to do with some guy named Jung, (people said it 'Young'), he said that there were certain images that the brain automatically responded to with fear. Images of spiders, for example. Or dark, armless, hooded figures. Or maybe it was all complete crap and he was totally misremembering it. But he thought that those faces, those twisted, animal, cruel, demonic faces called to something deep and primal inside of his brain, something buried in the way down.
A manifestation of pure terror.
Jack ejected the spent magazine and slapped a fresh one in. Those two Demons put down, Jack and Jennifer sprinted the rest of the way. The door to the infirmary was wide open and inside, Jenkins and Baker were fighting for their lives. Half a dozen Imps had invaded and were battering them with fireballs. Jennifer got the first shot off between the two of them and blew the head off of an Imp completely. Jack watched its big, weirdly shaped skull fragment and come apart, turning into a chunky plume of deep red gore.
He turned his own weapon on another one and stitched a bloody line of bullets up its back, sending it toppling forward as he did enough damage and killed the ugly thing. Between the four of them, they managed to put down the rest of the Imps, as well as a pair of zombies and another Demon that had wandered in, drawn by the noise.
After a long moment of silence, Jenkins was the first to speak. "Thanks," he said, the word coming out in a tight breath.
"Happy to help," Jack replied, reloading his last magazine. Well, last one on his person and not in the backpack.
He was really liking this Raptor. It didn't have the power or punch of a shotgun, but it was a lot nicer than the pistol. Being able to throw a wave of bullets at the bad guys was a satisfying luxury, but he knew he had to keep himself under control. He felt like a poor man who'd won the lottery after raiding that armory, but the bullets wouldn't last forever. In fact, he was sure he'd be shocked by how quickly they went.
He and Jennifer helped the other two clear out the infirmary. They only managed to put together a pair of StimPacks and a Medikit from the salvageable supplies leftover in the wrecked, bloody room. Once that was done, they all hurried back to the control tower and regrouped with Blackmore and McGee.
"Good work, Marines," Blackmore said as he looked through the backpacks Jack and Jennifer had recovered. "Let's divvy this up and then we'll head out. Sooner we can get to Phobos Labs, the better," he added quietly.
They spent a few minutes going over all the supplies, dividing it up among themselves. Even with all the ammo they'd found, Jack only managed to get another two magazines for his Raptor, though he did manage to get enough shells to fully load up and another two full loads in reserve. So that felt pretty great.
Once that was all done, Blackmore put Jack on point.
And they headed out, onward to Phobos Labs.