The trio of landing pads they had to cross were, thankfully, not crawling with demons. Although some Cacodemons drifted lazily overhead, they were too far off to notice the trio of lone survivors picking their way across the metal pads. Which was fine for Jack, because he was too busy trying not to lose his footing.
There were corpses.
A lot of corpses.
Judging by the smoldering parts and scorched panels, and the sheer amount of corpses, the more intact of which had on almost exclusively civilian clothing, he had the notion that a ship had been trying to take off when it had been destroyed mid-flight just overhead. He tried not to think about it. A billion tragedies had already occurred, a billion more were right this very moment, and billions more were yet to pass. He couldn't let it get to him or he'd lose his mind, and he fully intended to stay alive long enough to kill demons for decades, if that's what it took. Neither Nelson nor Cortez spoke as they crossed the pads.
Finally, after what seemed like ages of moving beneath that ruddy light that beamed down from high overhead thanks to the Firewall, they made it to the opposite side. There a door awaited them, and as soon as they got the door open, Jack heard the refreshing sound of gunfire. Purposeful gunfire, not the random potshots of zombies. Although he'd have to amend that. Zombies were apparently smart enough to have chainguns welded onto their fucking arms, and he could also run into more Z-Sec type bastards.
Jack opened up his radio as he came into a long corridor. "This is Sergeant Ward of the United Marine Corps to any friendly forces, do you copy?!"
Through a haze of static, a vaguely familiar voice called back. "This is Sergeant Nichols! We are in Security Node Seventeen and need assistance on the fucking double!"
"On the way! Coming in from the south entrance!" Jack snapped as he took off running.
"Calvary's on the way, Nichols!" Cortez called.
"Cortez! Shit, it's good to hear you!" Nichols replied. Jack recognized the voice as belonging to one of the men he'd fought in the city with, which made him another part of the squad. Thank fucking God, he was getting some real backup, and from the sound of a few other voices on that end of the radio, and the multiple guns firing, it sounded like Nichols wasn't alone. Of course, that could change very quickly.
Jack ran as hard as he could and almost ran smack into the door at the other end. It was partially open, the kind that slid into the ceiling, and just a few inches off the floor. Jack hit the button but the door refused to budge.
"Fuck!" he snarled. "Help me!"
Letting his shotgun hang by its shoulder strap, he dropped into a crouch with Cortez beside him. Both men grabbed the base of the door and began forcing it upwards. It was nearly impossible the first few inches, but something inside of it gave and it suddenly jerked up the rest of the way, letting them in. Jack immediately snatched his shotgun and brought it back into play as he took in the area beyond. It was a large, hexagonal room. Taking up the center of the room was a massive hexagonal desk, where Nichols and three other men, one of which was a Marine, the other two wearing the yellow of local security forces, were hunched down.
There were doors in each of the eight walls of the room. Besides the one they'd just come in through, three were open.
"Cortez, Nelson, left side! I've got right!" Jack snapped as he shouldered his shotgun and blew the head off an Imp coming in through the open door there.
Both men shouted off responses and hustled up to the left side of the huge desk, while Jack got over to the right, blasting off another shell and punching a huge hole in the chest of a second Imp. He put them down as fast as they came in, mostly Imps surging in through the open door but twice a zombie stumbled in. It was almost like they were lining up for their daily recommended dosages of lead. And Jack was more than happy to deliver it unto them. He emptied his shotgun and switched to his pistol, then burned through a magazine putting down the rest.
"Secure that door!" he heard Nichols shout. "It's clear!"
Jack sprinted off, trusting the man would cover him while he did, and managed to make it to the door he'd been covering. He was given a second's glimpse down a short corridor bathed in blood, before kicking an Imp corpse out of the way and shutting, then locking the door. He twisted to cover the door that was in front of the desk, what the survivors they'd initially found in the room had been covering, and saw a Demon go down under a hail of fire.
"Yeah, you big bulldog bitch, suck me!" one of the men, the other Marine, shouted.
"Secure that one, too!" Nichols yelled.
"No way, man! Let more come! This is a fucking shooting gallery man!" the second Marine complained.
Jack ignored him and hurried over. He slapped the button and the door closed, then sealed it. Looking over, he saw Cortez sealing the third door.
"Thank fucking God," Nichols muttered.
"What the fuck, man?! We've got an all-you-can-shoot buffet here and you just shut it off!?" the other Marine declared.
"Watson, shut the fuck up," Nichols replied with the tone of voice reserved for those who have had to repeat something far, far too often. "Is that door broken?" he asked, looking at Jack and pointing to the door they'd come in through.
"I think so," Jack replied.
"Watson, go check that door, try to close it, if you can't close it, guard it," Nichols said.
"Aw, come on, Sarge-" Watson began.
"Watson! How many times do I have to fucking tell you!? We aren't in the fucking Army! We're fucking Marines! Don't fucking call me Sarge! Now do as you're fucking told!" Nichols screamed at the younger Marine.
"Yes, Sergeant," he muttered, and left the desk, marching irritably over to the broken door. Jack, Cortez, and Nelson joined Nichols.
"Thank you for the assistance," he said.
"Glad to help," Jack replied, studying the man. Sergeant Nichols looked like a man old before his time. He looked like he was on the plus side of forty, but was probably over a decade younger than that. He had heavy bags under his eyes and his skin was unhealthily pale. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then moved over to the biggest screen available among the dozen or so that ringed the interior of the desk. "This is where they control everything in the Node," he said. "Watson, what's the story on that door?"
"Fragged, Sarge...ent," Watson replied.
"Fuck," Nichols muttered.
"Make sure the other doors are secure and search the dead for ammo," Jack said to Cortez and Nelson. They both nodded and went about their business.
"Yeah, what he said," Nichols said to the two base security personnel, a dark-skinned man and a pale woman who looked hell-shocked and dazed. Jack joined Nichols at the screen. He had a map of the Node up, a more detailed map than they could pull up from their own internal databases. "Thank fucking God you're here, Ward. With you and Cortez, we might actually be able to make this work. You make it through all right?"
"Yeah. Haven't seen anyone else yet. You hear from Taylor? See her at all?"
"No, sorry," he replied, still studying the screen. "No one but this idiot."
"What's his deal?" Jack asked. "His nameplate says Lance Corporal? How do you get to be Lance without knowing the difference between Sarge and Sergeant?"
Nichols heaved a world weary sigh. "He's an idiot who happens to be an excellent shot and usually decent enough at following orders to get by, but his dad's a Colonel who's friends with some Senators and some bigshot at UAC. Unfortunately he's what we've got to work with right now and we're going to need every last one of us to even have a shot at pulling this off. This Node is in shit shape and we need to act fast if we're going to turn it into a safe house."
"What's first?" Jack asked.
"First is just getting the goddamned thing secured. We need the demons out and no more demons to get in. Okay, those eight doors. One of them is just the back entrance, which normally is very secure, but obviously is the opposite now. We'll deal with that later. There's four other entrances. One of those doors leads to an armory, one to a public bathroom, and one to an auxiliary control room. We'll want to get those opened up and cleared out first, but I can handle that. The other four doors lead to a medical wing, a dorms complex, storage, and a mess and training area."
"Shit, how many people's this place supposed to hold?" Jack asked.
"In a pinch? Two hundred. It's supposed to be an emergency refugee shelter. Now, each of those sections has a primary entrance that needs to be locked down. The place is already built to withstand bomb blasts, got its own self-contained atmosphere and water system, tons of food, guns, ammo, medical supplies, shit like that. We need to get it secure so we can start moving civilians here and keep them alive until we can break the Firewall and really regain control of this place. So that's the first plan: seal those doors, and kill everything in here." Nichols looked up with his bloodshot eyes. He looked regretful. "I have a favor to ask."
"What?" Jack replied.
"Will you take Watson and secure the medical wing and the storage wing? Cortez can take your other man and secure dorms, and I'll try and handle the mess," Nichols asked.
"Why not take one of the others to go with you?" he asked, looking at the two other yellow-suited security personnel.
"I don't want to risk losing this center and they know more about these Nodes than we do. I want them trying to get that armory open and also seeing if there's anything we missed," Nichols replied. Jack considered it for a moment, then nodded tightly. "Thanks," Nichols murmured. "Gather 'round, everyone! Briefing time!" he called.
The others gathered in the desk area and he began laying it out for them.
"So you were really up in space?" Watson asked.
"Yep," Jack replied, trying not to encourage conversation. He wasn't in the mood to talk, and he especially wasn't in the mood to talk with Watson. He'd wanted to try and plug into the Node's comms hub to see if he could contact Jennifer, but there simply wasn't time for that. The mission came first. Didn't mean he had to like it.
He and Watson were currently making their way down a lengthy hallway, stopping every few meters to check out the dozen doors they shared the hallway with. This was the storage wing, and it seemed like nothing was alive. But that might not stay true.
"Okay, stop," Jack said as they reached the next set of doors, one to either side. They all led to storage bays that contained shelves packed with crates, no doubt weeks or months worth of food, water, filters, clothes, medicine, parts and tools, everything to keep a shelter running and the people inside of it alive. It was untouched, thankfully like all the others, and so was the one across from it. They were nearly to the end at this point.
Jack had the idea that this part was going to be the easy one. He could hear gunshots elsewhere in the Node and had to fight not to rush off and offer backup. As it was, he really wanted to get this portion wrapped up.
"So, like, what happened?" Watson asked.
Jack tried not to sigh. He'd met guys like Watson before. They were actually half-decent at being a Marine, but a shit attitude and maybe a low IQ got in the way of it all too often. It usually resulted in an over-inflated ego and in a situation like that, it could get you killed. Honestly, a lot could get you killed nowadays.
"The UAC tore a hole into another dimension and these assholes spilled out," Jack replied. They came to the next pair of storage rooms and he began checking them out.
"Another dimension? What the fuck? So are they aliens? Or demons? What are they?"
"I honestly can't say. Probably aliens," Jack replied.
"Whatever they are I'm going to personally make them regret ever coming to Earth."
"I'm sure you are," Jack muttered as he finished his search.
The storage rooms ended up being clear, and the final door at the end was luckily easy enough to lock down firmly, though he was admittedly slightly reluctant to do so. What if friendlies showed up? Or civilians? All the more reason to hurry the hell up and get this place secure so they could be ready to act if and when that happened.
"Okay, first one done, come on," Jack said, turning and jogging back down the corridor. He could hear gunfire elsewhere in the Node, but it didn't sound particularly frantic, and he hoped that if things got really screwed up they would be able to reach out over the radio. Speaking of which, he activated his. "Storage Entrance secured," he reported.
"Copy that," Nichols replied, but even inside the Node the transmission was still laced with an uncomfortable haze of static.
They came back into the main room and he saw one of the security personnel, the woman, was in the hexagonal desk, working the controls, while the other stood guard at the back door.
"Have you seen anything?" Jack asked.
"Negative," the woman replied.
"We're heading to secure the next exit."
"Understood."
"And if you see any of them, just give us a shout and the real warriors will come and save the day," Watson said, grinning at the woman behind the desk.
She ignored him.
"Watson, focus up!" Jack snapped as he headed for the medical wing. Jack expected some kind of complaint or retort, but maybe Watson thought better of it because he just silently followed after him. Jack hit the access button, unlocking the door, and a zombie stumbled out. Putting his pistol to the thing's skull, he squeezed the trigger and sprayed its rotted brains all over the door frame. He looked through the door, seeing a short corridor leading into an antechamber, and saw that it was clear. Glancing down, he saw that the zombie was an unarmed civilian, so not much need to search the corpse. He stepped over it and proceeded.
The antechamber opened up into five different areas: an emergency surgical bay, patient rooms, an ER, a medical storage area with an office, and the way out. Jack realized at once that the doors were all open, and as he saw an Imp step out of the patient rooms, he shouldered his shotgun and blew its head off. All around them, a cacophonous shrieking chorus arose and suddenly enemies were pouring out of every door.
Behind them, the door back into the central nexus of the Node slammed shut.
"Fuck!" Jack shouted, firing again and blowing a zombie's head off. "Kill them fast!"
There were zombies and Imps streaming into the room, too many of them, and he knew he'd have to be quick on his feet to get out of this one alive. Sidestepping a fireball, he blew an Imp's chest out, pumped the shotgun, shifted aim, and put a shell through a zombie's neck, nearly tearing its head clean off. He fired again, hitting a zombie's shoulder and blowing its arm off, sending it flipping through the air where it slapped an Imp in passing. Laughing madly, especially when the Imp shrieked in rage and leaped onto another nearby Imp, he kept firing.
His shotgun ran dry far too quickly, and something caught his eye as he switched to his pistol. Something gleaming and crucial behind the shifting sea of dead flesh that was coming towards him from the patient rooms.
Then he realized what it was: a chaingun.
Jack surged forward, shoving the nearest zombie away, and popping two more in the face with quick headshots from his pistol. He ducked an Imp's swipe at him, stuck the business end of the sidearm in its mouth, and squeezed the trigger. Its ruby blood and brain matter sprayed out the back of its skull. Shouldering his way past another zombie, he shot a second one twice in the chest in passing, then dove, tucked, and rolled. He crashed into the hallway that granted access to half a dozen patient rooms, snatched the chaingun, and checked it over as he surged to his feet. It was fully loaded, by some miracle.
"Watson!" he screamed as he moved back up to the door and began spinning the barrels.
"What?!"
"Hit the fucking deck!"
He just caught sight of the other Marine dropping, thankfully he didn't feel the need to argue with that, and then Jack unleashed a torrent of pure metal death on the hordes of Hell. The Imps shrieked and the zombies roared as the life was knocked right out of them, the blood along with it. The barrage of lead shredded their corpses to so much free-flying pulp as he hosed the room down, swinging the chaingun back and forth, getting all the bastards he could. He kept it up, laughing and screaming, not even able to hear himself over the roar of the weapon, until he'd drained every last shot. He dropped the weapon when it was spent and pulled out his pistol, putting down a handful of stragglers that had managed to avoid the array of death.
"Holy shit!" Watson cried as he hopped to his feet. "That was fucking nuts!" He looked at the chaingun. "Can I have it?"
"No," Jack replied as he picked it back up and slung it to hang with the shotgun. Not the most reasonable situation, but he wasn't letting this thing go, even if it was dead for now. No, he'd find more ammo for it to be sure. "Get the door open. See if you can figure out why it shut." As he said that, the door suddenly opened and one of the security guards hurried in, shotgun at ready. He looked around uncertainly.
"What happened?" he asked. "Why'd you close the door?"
"We didn't, it shut behind us," Jack replied. "Do you know why?"
The man shook his head. "No, no idea. It shouldn't have."
"Great. We're fine in here, about to lockdown the next exit, back to your post," Jack said. The man nodded and disappeared into the nexus room.
"Secure the area," Jack said as he hurried off towards the exit.
Watson gave a halfhearted reply, clearly dejected that he wouldn't get to lay his hands on the chaingun, and set to work. God, but he was an emotional bastard. Jack hurried over to the exit and locked it down, then breathed a sigh of relief. He opened his radio. "Ward to Cortez, how's it going on your end?"
"We've just finished securing the area. It's locked down. You?" Cortez replied.
"We've secured both exits. Nichols?" he asked.
Nichols's voice suddenly came through a burst of static. "I need backup! I'm by the mess entrance! Got way too many hostiles!"
"Cortez, Nelson, go! I'm on my way!" Jack replied, already taking off. "Watson! Finish securing this area!"
Watson said something that sounded like a rebuttal, but Jack ignored him and took off towards the mess wing.
Jack managed to make it to the entryway lobby, which apparently was at the end of the mess halls and training areas and where the Node was meant to be properly entered from, before the others. He heard the gunfire as he sprinted down the lengthy corridor to get there, and saw the flashes of muzzle flare through the open door at the end of the chromed passageway. Pushing himself hard, he sprinted the rest of the way, leaping over a few corpses and trying not to slip on the blood. He crashed into the entryway just in time to see Nichols get knocked on his ass by a fireball. Cursing that he didn't have more ammo, Jack began firing off shots from his pistol.
The entryway was a medium-sized square with a utilitarian setup with a few solidly built metal desks that were not just bolted to the floor, but actually part of it, making perfect places for cover. Jack ran towards one of these desks as he emptied his pistol into the mass of Imps that were pouring in through the front doors.
"We gotta shut those doors!" Nichols yelled as he got behind another piece of cover.
"Got any chaingun ammo!?" Jack called back, hastily reloading.
"Negative!"
"Shit!"
He was down to his pistol now, and ammo wasn't exactly plentiful. Jack finished reloading and popped up again, firing off his shots as quickly and accurately as he could manage. One shot blasted the eye of the nearest Imp into ruby gore, two more shots punched into the misshapen dome of a second Imp, another shot took a third Imp in the throat, sending it staggering away, clutching at the wound that sprayed yet more blood. He emptied the pistol again and slammed in his last reserve magazine. This wasn't going as he had hoped.
As he opened fire again, casting glances all about for another weapon, anything else, two things happened at once. The first was that he heard running footsteps behind him, the cavalry charging in, and the second was that he spotted a goddamned motherfucking assault rifle. Finally! He emptied his pistol as Cortez and Nelson rushed into the room and took up defensive positions, hosing down the approaching Imp horde with their own weapons, and Jack made a dive for the rifle. He felt something hot smack painfully into his thigh as he snatched up the rifle, ignored it, and rolled back behind cover. He looked over his prize.
The DX-41 Taskmaster had a thirty-round mag of 5.56mm bullets just thirsty for blood, and this one was fully loaded. He switched it to single-shot, popped up from behind the desk, and started taking out Imps. It was headshots all around, spraying that pulpy red gore across the walls and dropping demonic fuckers as fast as his reflexes would allow. With the help of Cortez and Nelson, he and Nichols managed to put down the small army of Imps.
"Secure that door!" Nichols said, panting.
"On it!" Nelson shouted. He hopped up over the desk he was hunkered down behind and began running for the door.
He made it halfway there when something Jack had never seen before suddenly stepped through the door and into the room.
It was a skeleton, but by no means a human one. It was tall, a good seven feet, maybe seven and a half feet in height, and its bones were a strange, tawny golden-brown. Sealed over its chest was a shiny silver piece of body armor, and mounted on the shoulders of that armor, like wicket epaulets, were fucking rocket launchers. Shredded skin and blood clung to its stomach and upper legs, like some sort of sick uniform.
The thing issued an otherworldly shriek and clenched its bony hands.
"Nelson! Move!" Jack screamed as he stared on in horror at this nightmarish new entry conjured from the depths of hell.
This visage of terror.
This…
Revenant.
The thing jerked back suddenly as Nelson started running, he ran to the left in blind terror, and a pair of rockets fired out of the dark nests of the launchers sitting atop its shoulders. Jack watched with an even greater sense of fear as the rockets began to rapidly home in on him.
"Nelson! Drop!" Jack roared as he shouldered the rifle.
Nelson dropped, working on automatic it seemed, and apparently prone to listening to commands from someone he trusted while going on autopilot. The small rockets, no larger than civilian batteries, barely missed him, sailing overhead. They crashed into the wall a few feet ahead of him, (he would have bounced off of it if he hadn't dropped), and exploded. The explosion was enough to send him skittering across the floor, back the way he came.
"Dust this bitch!" Jack screamed as he opened fire.
Cortez and Nichols joined in, and three guns opened up at once. Cortez had also found an assault rifle at some point during his time in the Node, and so three of those weapons launched three barrages of bullets directly at the Revenant, hosing it down and sending it staggering backwards. Bits of bone chipped away under the combined assault, and it shrieked and tried to get off more of its rockets, but the bullets were too much for it. A good chunk of its skull was suddenly blown off as Jack's rifle ran dry and it flopped back out the open door.
Before anything else could come through, Jack vaulted over the desk, sprinted across the entryway, and punched the close button. As soon as the door was shut, he locked it and then turned to look at Nelson. The man wasn't moving.
"Shit," he muttered, hurrying over to the fallen security officer. There were scorch marks all down the back of his yellow armor and it had been blown off in places. However, as he rolled him over and got his helmet off, he saw that the man wasn't dead, just knocked cold, and injured. Jack scooped him up in his arms and began making his way back.
Jack came into the nexus and looked at the two security personnel in the room. Watson had at least done as he was told and was still in the room.
"Either of you a medic?" he asked.
"I took advanced courses," the male guard said, stepping forward.
"With me. Watson, take over his post and guard the door," Jack said, heading for the medical wing of the Node.
"What happened? What was that explosion?" Nelson replied as the other guard jogged over to his position.
"Guard the fucking door!" Jack roared as he left the nexus.
A moment later, he ended up in an emergency room, Nelson laid out on an examination table, and the security guard, his nameplate read L. CPL BEKELE, P., was checking him over. He was still breathing and didn't seem terribly injured, so Jack left him to it, knowing that even this was probably an indulgence on his part.
There was so much more to do.
He returned to the nexus and found Watson at the back entrance smoking a cigarette, looking put-upon and frustrated, and Cortez standing with Nichols in the central desk, while the pale-skinned guard crouched by a control panel, apparently trying to get a door open. Jack moved up into the central desk and joined the others.
"What's the word?" he asked.
"We're secure, at least," Nichols replied. He sounded grim and pained. "Right now I'm trying to see exactly what it is we're working with. In just a moment, our friend should have the armory open..." he murmured, looking up at the guard.
"Where are we at with comms?" Jack asked.
"This place has its own comms transmitter and it's working a bit better now, but it'll need some work, I think-"
"Got it," the guard said as one of the side doors opened.
"Okay, I'm going to try and get in touch with someone else from our squad. You two go restock on ammo, I doubt you'll get to hang out for very long," Nichols said.
Jack nodded and he and Cortez joined the guard in the room. He wasn't happy to see that it had definitely been raided at some point, but it wasn't cleaned out. As he hunted around for ammo, he knew he'd have to drop some of the gear he was carrying, and there was no more spare ammo for the chaingun. Reluctantly, he set it aside, (surely Watson would get his hands on it now), and also ended up setting his second pistol aside. No doubt they were going to need all the guns they could pass around as more people came to this place, and even a simple sidearm was worth its weight in gold right now. He restocked on ammo for the remaining sidearm, the shotgun, and the assault rifle.
As he came back out, he heard Nichols wrapping up a conversation. The tired Sergeant looked over at Jack and Cortez. "Need you two for a rescue op. Just got in touch with Lance Corporal Bidwell. He's linked up with a few locals and is protecting a group of civilians in a food court north of here. They're in trouble and need an escort here."
"Tell him we're on the way," Jack replied, heading for the exit with Cortez in tow.