This time, Jack was the last one to teleport in.
As he stepped aboard the strange square of red and his vision went green, he was then stepping off of another identical square into a room that was filled with the sounds of battle. Though, he noted as he raised his shotgun, the battle was mostly over. Jennifer, Green, and Stratton had made quick work of the handful of Demons that had apparently been stomping around the room before they'd snapped in. He turned, aimed, and fired, pounding a slug shell into the gaping maw of a Demon coming right towards him.
The back of its head opened up in a plume of dark gore as he cocked the shotgun, turned and fired a second time. This shell tore away a solid chunk of the next Demon's skull, exposing some of its brain and causing it to stumble and growl furiously. He fired a second time into the exposed brain and splattered the dark matter all over the place. As it fell, he turned to check out the rest of the room and found that all the other Demons were dead. As he fed a few more shells into his shotgun, he studied the environment.
It was that same gray, pockmarked stonework that so much of this awful realm seemed to be made of. As he looked around, spying only a single door in the whole room, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. It had been dully throbbing for a little while now, but the pain was starting to come back. He tried to push it from his mind. He was going to have a wicked scar from that damned ball of green energy the Baron of Hell had smacked him with. He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, trying to get his head back in the game.
They were so close.
Just this and the Tower.
"We all ready to proceed?" Green called. She had moved over to the door and found a way to open it. The other three joined her and indicated that they were indeed ready to pump a lot more monsters full of bullets.
She opened the door.
On the one hand, Jack thought as he stepped through and secured the area, there weren't any hostiles in the immediate area. So that was good. On the other hand, there was a shitload of acid, a sea of it, immediately in front of them. That was bad. And then there was just the flat out fucking annoying part: he could presently see the teleport out of this place. And they couldn't get to it. Immediately, he began surveying the area, looking for some way out of this situation. They were in a huge rounded room, the walls more of that gray stonework. They were standing on an asphalt path that ran around the perimeter of the room.
It was maybe six feet wide.
Not a lot of room to work with.
Within that asphalt ring was a sea of bubbling green acid, and in the exact center of that acid was an island that held the teleport.
And there was apparently no way to get to it. He could also see three other exits, one directly across from where he stood, then one to the left and one to the right. Jack growled in frustration and took a moment to check over his ammo. His SMG was dead, his pistol had one mag left to it, and his shotgun had enough shells to be full. He still had his plasma rifle. It was full up as well, but he really didn't want to use it.
"Sergeant?" Jack asked.
"Ugh, let's check out these doors. Gotta be a way of getting over there," Green replied. He could tell her temper was getting shorter. He didn't blame her, all their nerves were becoming frayed at this point, so close to the damned end.
Provided it was the end, and not a shitty ending at that.
Jack shook his head, didn't want to think about any of that now. Just focus on the right here, the present. One boot in front of the other. One demon at a time. He held his shotgun at ready as he and the others followed after Green. She'd decided to head left. They moved over to another large, wooden door that slid up into the ceiling when the big red button next to it was pressed. Immediately, they were thrown into the shit again.
A dozen Demons stood along the length of a gray stone hallway, human arms sticking out of the wall every couple of feet, their fingernails burning a smoldering yellow. Jack ignored the decorum as he shouldered his shotgun once more and opened fire. The others joined him. A chorus of roars was met with a symphony of gunfire. The blasts of shotgun discharges and the chattering of SMGs rattling through their magazines fought for dominance over the screams of the monstrous Demons. One dropped, two dropped, three…
The gray walls ran red with blood.
When it was all over, not a single Demon had managed to reach them, although one of them had gotten within a few feet. Jack's shotgun was spent and he was reduced to his pistol, although it was tempting as hell to pull out that plasma rifle. But no, not yet. Although damn, he was going to be forced to pretty soon if they didn't find more ammo. He moved with the other three slowly down the corridor, trying to keep his mind focused, but that was getting harder and harder as time went on. He was thinking about ducks.
Talking about that park, about his dark years, had kind of opened the vault. There were a lot of memories there. He'd downplayed it a little, but he'd been devastated when he'd walked in on Laurie cheating on him. Sometimes, he thought that was his worst memory, and maybe one of the worst things you could possibly experience: seeing the person you loved fucking someone else behind your back. It was one thing if it was an open relationship. He'd actually done that before once with mild success. And it wasn't the same as swapping partners.
There was permission then, there was knowledge and trust.
He really would have gone to prison for murder if he hadn't walked out, gotten into his car, and just gotten the hell out of there.
When was the last time he had seen a duck in real life?
He couldn't remember.
They pressed on through the area, finding themselves in another maze of stone and asphalt. He kept a sharp eye out for hostiles and ammo. There were just a few more Demons to contend with, and they did manage to find some ammo. Enough for him to top off his shotgun and reload his SMG. The maze eventually led to another wooden doorway. Jack hit the button this time as they readied themselves for whatever lay beyond. Given the way this place had the feel of a funhouse from hell, there was definitely something waiting.
And he was right.
As he opened the door, he found himself looking into a large room that was almost empty. He saw something across the way, on the far wall, and there was also a small armada of Cacodemons hovering overhead. He counted five in all. Green gave the order to open fire and Jack sprayed one of them down with fire from his SMG, throwing out short bursts as not to waste any ammo. He ended up trading a magazine of bullets for a dead Cacodemon. Letting the gun hang, he switched to his shotgun and put two shells into one that Stratton had been focusing on and then it splattered its strange, alien guts all over the place.
Cacodemons looked weird on the inside.
Jennifer got smacked in the chestplate with a fireball, but it didn't do nearly so much damage as the Baron of Hell's green balls of plasma did. It just sent her stumbling back a few steps and made her armor tick and hiss as it cooled rapidly. Stratton almost took a fireball to the face, but managed to dodge at the last moment.
They managed to put down the Cacodemons without too much trouble.
"Okay, let's see what this is all about," Green said once they had fully secured the area. The quartet of hell-stricken survivors moved across the room, through the mess they'd created. There was a big silver switch embedded in the wall and a PDA affixed to the wall beside it. Green read it over and nodded slowly to herself. She flipped the switch. Somewhere distantly, Jack could hear grinding. "So," she explained as she began leading them back through the maze. "Apparently, there are three of those switches. Each one raises a portion of a pathway that will lead across the acid bath and will lead us to the exit."
"Great," Jack muttered.
When they got back to the main room, Jack saw that an asphalt segment had risen out of the acid. It was about ten feet long, covering just a third of the distance, directly in front of the original doorway they'd come through.
Well...at least they were a third done.
They made their way back across the asphalt walkway to the right doorway. They came into another broad room, this one constructed of fiery red brick. The floor was cut in half about midway across the room. A trench about ten feet wide was clearly visible, although thankfully there was a bridge across it. Jack was just wondering what was in it when he heard a sharp hissing sound and cried out in response to the sound, fear flooding him. He spun to the right and looked up. There were squares cut out of the walls right up at the ceiling level, squares of space that seemed to be full of flickering hellfire.
And out of these squares came hissing Cacodemons.
"Shit!" Green snapped, raising her weapon and opening fire. Jack immediately joined in with her, as did the others. He emptied his shotgun, putting down two of the things before it ran dry and he was reduced to his pistol once more. He ducked a fireball and opened fire on a third one, hearing the others blasting away behind him. He had to deal with this last damned Cacodemon. He kept firing, popping off shots, aiming for its big headlight eye and its huge maw. The thing was bleeding now, dripping dark red blood.
As he squeezed the trigger on the last round, the Cacodemon belched out another fireball. He jumped back but it crashed into his right leg and he yelled in surprised pain. He fell backwards, and suddenly Stratton was standing over him, shotgun in hand. The man fired and finished off the Cacodemon, then pulled Jack to his feet. As he looked around, grabbing his plasma rifle (it was now his only loaded weapon), he saw that they'd finished off the Cacodemons. What was it with this place and Cacodemons?
They crossed the bridge and found nothing on the other side save for a stairwell that led down. Jack wanted to take point, but Green told him to hold back in the middle, try to keep as much of the plasma ammo as possible. He was reluctant to do so, but not for any good reasons. He wanted to fight, he sure as hell wanted to fight if other people's lives were on the line, but he knew she was right. So he followed after her, Jennifer and Stratton behind him. As they headed down, they found a second maze waiting for them.
This one was definitely worse.
The walls were made of deeply red brick, the floor was covered in about three inches of blood, and the corridors were narrow. And there were a lot of openings. They began to make their way through the maze, hunting for the second switch.
"What do you think they'll do with us when we get back?" Stratton asked suddenly.
Jack didn't want to think about any farther in the future than five minutes from now, mainly out of a need to help him preserve his sanity, and yet he felt that if he didn't do some kind of speculation and allow himself some small ration of hope that this was going to work out, then he would be sacrificing a portion of his sanity anyway.
"I fucking want hazard pay out the ass for this," he replied.
Green and Jennifer laughed. "I'm planning on raiding the armory and the mess and then locking myself in some living quarters for like three weeks. With you," she said to Stratton. "'Cause I'm not going to want anything but baths, sex, and food after this."
"And sleep," Stratton muttered. "I could sleep for a fucking year."
"Amen," Jennifer muttered. "I feel about the same way. And a nightlight. I'm sleeping with a nightlight from now on, I don't give a shit what anyone says. I fucking earned it." She glanced at Jack. "Okay, well, I guess since you'll be sleeping with me on a regular basis you get a say in the whole nightlight thing."
"I'm totally cool with that," he replied. "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to be in a completely dark room anymore."
They fell silent and spent the next few moments putting down a handful of Imps that were apparently roaming the tight blood-red corridors. When they had another quiet moment, Jack spoke up again. "I hate to kill the mood, but...how are we going to handle this?" he asked. "I mean, consider everything we know. Even if we play dumb and pretend we know none of their secrets, we know about all of this."
"Yeah," Green muttered. "I doubt the UAC is going to let us just walk." She was silent for a moment longer. "Shit, I dunno. But don't give them anything. We'll play it by ear when we come out of the gateway on Mars. Hell, who knows, maybe they'll be so impressed with the fact that we survived all this bullshit that they'll promote us as experts on hell."
"Wouldn't that be nice," Stratton said. "Not sure if I could live with it, though."
"I don't think I could either," Green murmured. "Not after knowing they knew about all this, and they didn't care. They just did it anyway."
"We'll figure something out," Jack said. "I guess all that matters right now is living long enough to be able to figure it out."
"Good point," Jennifer replied.
Jack heard a slew of gunshots from up ahead and saw that Green was facing a turn in the tight network of corridors. The way she lowered her weapon and moved forward meant that it wasn't all that serious, whatever it had been. He followed and found one, long corridor. No other alcoves snaked away to the left or right. It was very appealing. More appealing was the fact that there were zombie corpses strewn along it.
And most appealing of all was the way it ended maybe fifty feet ahead. Green was approaching the second switch they needed to hit. Jack took a moment to rifle through their pockets and check their weapons. There were three technicians. One had been a Space Marine and she had been the only one holding a weapon, a shotgun. There were just a few shells in it. He took what he could and no one asked him to share. He seemed to be the one who was always on the precipice of running completely out of ammo.
As it was, he managed to reload his pistol and shotgun. It would have to do. Didn't it always? Green flipped the switch and they traced their way back through the maze, managing to get back to the central area with a minimum of fuss. This time, the pathway that extended across the acid lake now spanned twenty feet of it. He briefly entertained the idea of just running and jumping, but...no. Ten feet was too much for someone in armor. And while he might risk his own life doing it, he wouldn't risk the others by suggesting it.
And so they went into the third and final door.
This one led to a simple square room of tan brick that made him think vaguely of desert camo. Nothing in there, just another door directly across from them, this one made of silver steel. There seemed to be no real rhyme or reason to these buildings, to this region, hell, probably to the entirety of this other universe.
It was crazy, incomprehensible chaos.
The next room was bigger and had several UAC-stamped silver crates along the walls that had been ripped open and emptied out, debris scattered across the floor. Jack kept a sharp eye out, as he kept expecting to see something lurking nearby, an Imp, a Demon, a Lost Soul. But the next two rooms, which were larger than the previous two, were just as empty. Almost without thinking about it, as they approached the next door, Jack swapped out his weapons. He held the plasma rifle tightly in his grip now. He readied himself.
Green opened the next door.
She let out a scream of terrified shock and stumbled backwards. Overriding her own scream was a furious roar culled from the deepest depths of Hell. A brilliant green light streaked out of the door and barely avoided hitting her as she jerked away from it. A Baron of Hell stormed out of the doorway like a juggernaut and almost casually backhanded Stratton. He shouted as he flew backwards, sailing across the room.
Jack was intensely grateful that he'd saved up his plasma rifle ammo, or energy, or whatever it was this thing took. He leveled it at the huge awful beast, towering over the rest of them, and squeezed the trigger. As brilliant blue-white bursts of energy sailed out of the strange muzzle, he moved the weapon up and down, hosing the monster with as much as he could. The Baron roared and tried to throw another ball of energy, but the barrage overwhelmed it. In the end, Jack traded a fully charged plasma rifle for one very dead Baron of Hell.
"Damn," he whispered in the immense silence that fell following its final, ear-shattering roar of death. He blinked several times, his vision screwy because of all the flashing, and took a quick look around as he switched back to his shotgun. It would be all too easy for something to sneak up on them during that exchange.
But they were alone.
"I'm okay," Stratton said, rejoining them.
As there didn't seem to be anything to say, they located the final switch, flipped it, and headed back to the main room. The pathway was complete. Jack kept expecting something to happen as he led the way across the asphalt walkway, but nothing did, even as he stepped up to the teleport pad. Well, he thought, almost done.
He stepped onto the pad.