"Here, I hear gunfire!" Jack said, racing off down the darkened corridor, flashlights bobbing wildly in the gloom. Jennifer followed after him.
Past the bleacher room was a maze of dark, narrow corridors that, mercifully, had only contained a handful of tired zombies that weren't all that interested in putting up a fight. If anything, they seemed grateful each time Jack put a round between their eyes.
Hollenshead hadn't provided any further transmissions since his initial one and the tension had grown to an ache in Jack's chest as they raced around, both terrified of what each next turn might bring, and that something had happened to the man. If there was ever a time when they needed the help of the big guy, it was now.
The sound of a chaingun chattering away wildly grew louder.
"Hollenshead, can you hear me?!" Jack snapped.
"Hell yeah, I hear you!" he replied, finally coming in over the radio.
"We're coming out of a door somewhere near your position now so check your fire!"
"Consider it checked! Oh you want some motherfucker!?" he screamed and a new burst of gunfire sounded.
There was the door! The hallway finally terminated in a simple steel door and as they opened it up, they found the man himself standing on a platform of dull brown rock, firing away at a flotilla of Cacodemons and Lost Souls with a chaingun. The pair rushed out, joining him in opening fire, and wiped out the incoming demons. As the last Cacodemon popped, Hollenshead let out a warcry. "That's right motherfuckers! Drown in it!"
"You okay?" Jack asked, looking the man over. His armor looked about as chewed up and bloodied as the rest of theirs did, maybe even more so.
"Fine," Hollenshead replied. "Got a bitch of a headache but whatever. How about you two?"
"The initial trip into Hell fucked me up," Jack replied, rolling his shoulders and wincing. "I'm all ache-y, like recovering from a brutal workout. And yeah, I've got a headache too."
"Same," Jennifer said. "I don't think we were supposed to go through that one."
"Well, we survived," Hollenshead said.
"We did...now what?" Jack asked, looking around.
They had come to an enormous room that gave him the impression of a vast underground cavern. They stood along not a platform, exactly, but a pathway that extended to the left and the right, curving out of sight in both directions, though it came back into view before long to the left. The edge of this path, a few feet ahead of him, terminated in a huge drop, easily seventy or eighty feet down, letting into what appeared to be bubbling toxic acid. Overhead, he could just make out a rocky ceiling. Ahead of them, with seemingly no way to get to it, was an island that looked important. He could see a metal door in the front of the structure built onto it stamped with the UAC logo.
"I was trying to figure out how to get over there," Hollenshead replied, indicating the island.
"You checked any of this place out yet?" Jennifer asked.
"No. I was in another place and took one of those teleport pads, appeared in those dark halls back there, stumbled out here into this mess," he replied. "Haven't seen anyone else."
"Us either," Jack said. He heaved a sigh. "Well...let's investigate."
He picked the right pathway at random and the three of them began moving down it.
"So this is Hell, huh?" Hollenshead asked.
"Apparently," Jack replied. "Place sucks."
"Yeah. I guess I'm glad we got a taste of it back in Haydenfield. Shit, though, this whole place just feels wrong. Like everything. The vibe is all fucked. I wanna go home. I'm all for a good fight, and I'll stomp any demon into the mud that we find, but like...I thought I'd like it here."
"You thought you would like this place?" Jennifer asked. They curved slowly around a wall, following the path ever forward.
"Yeah, I know it sound nuts, but my thought was: I get to go to where there's just thousands of demons that need murdering? Nothing to stop me, nothing to get in my way? Just me and killing, killing, killing the baddest of the bad shit suckers? Sign me up. But now that I'm here it's...wrong. Like a nightmare. Or a bad trip."
"You tripped before?" Jack asked.
"Man, shit. What Marine hasn't?" he replied, laughing.
"I'll admit to it: I haven't," Jack said.
"Wow...I guess there's a first time for everything. Yeah. It was awhile ago. I was a lot younger. Got off the base over in Syria, hit the local black market with eight of my buddies, we found some good shit. Too good. It was that synthetic toad shit? But like mixed with something else, XXM is what they called it."
"Whew wow, I remember hearing about Double X Em," Jennifer said. "Some guys died from doing that shit."
Hollenshead laughed. "Yeah, it hit hard. Motherfucker hit like Rocky Balboa. It was sick at first, then it was weird, then it was real bad, like I saw crazy shit. Like my dead grandma trying to eat my eyeballs and at one point I thought flowers were growing out of my mouth and I kept trying to pull them off my tongue I guess...shit. Next thing I knew I was back at base in the infirmary and my CO couldn't decide what to do with me."
"What did he do?" Jack asked.
"Same thing they always do: put me on shit duty for the next three months. Sometimes literally. I cleaned a lot of shit. Sucked. But yeah, I still have nightmares about the bad part of that. This place feels like that, but actually living it and being sane during it. I can feel it on my skin, you know? Even with the armor. Like the molecules are tainted."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Jack muttered.
The vast acid pool was now to their left, and there were some pillars made of bright red brick stuck in a row coming out of it, for whatever fucking reason, and beyond them, farther down the way, he saw another island, this one smaller and with a path to it.
And also it was packed with Imps. Fifteen or twenty of the bastards all stood on the island and they all screamed as they caught sight of the trio and began hurling fireballs.
"Lemme handle this," Hollenshead said, and took several steps forward. He fired up his chaingun and emptied a whole box of ammo into the shrieking, screaming Imps. When the bullets ran out, there was nothing left on that island but shredded meat and pulped gore. He laughed loudly. "Chopped and screwed, motherfuckers!"
"Damn I love chainguns," Jack said as Hollenshead reloaded and they resumed their journey.
"Same."
The pathway terminated not far from the smaller path that led out to the island, and as they got up to it, Jack saw just how small it was. It was barely wide enough to walk across.
"You gotta be shitting me," Jennifer muttered.
"We gotta go out there, don't we?" Hollenshead asked.
"Maybe not," Jack said, turning around. There was a door waiting for them, broad and made of dull tan metal. It was old and scratched, but it opened easily enough when Jack hit the button next to it. It let out onto another path that curved along the wall to the left, coming to another room that was basically a smaller version of the previous one. It was just another acid pit, the walls and ceiling all rock now. "Wait here."
Shotgun in hand, he followed the path in here to its end and then stopped, frowning. There was something there, and it was useful, but a check of the area revealed nothing else. Just an assault rifle, fully loaded, with two magazines to spare.
"What the hell? Why is this here?" Jack muttered as he grabbed it and pocketed the magazines.
"Everything okay?" Jennifer asked.
"Fine," he replied, coming back. "Found something useful, but it just dead-ends."
"Of course it does," Hollenshead muttered. "Meaning we gotta go out there."
"Only one of us should," Jack replied, coming to stand at the foot of the narrow path. "And I'll do it. It's my job."
"Why's it your job?" Hollenshead asked.
"Because I'm the one in charge," he replied. "Unless you want to lead this particular expedition."
"Hell no," he replied, "have fun."
"Please be careful," Jennifer said, looking nervously at the massive drop.
"Oh believe me, I fucking will. I'd rather face down a dozen Demons than this shit."
He stood there for a moment, and then finally made himself take the first step. Then the next one. And the one after that. Step by step, he took the path over to the island, all the while having to look down at his feet and see the acid bubbling some seventy feet below. Finally, the next step took him onto the island, where a shredded mess of Imps remained. With a sigh, he began hunting around among their corpses.
What felt like an eternity passed as he pushed their dead bodies over the sides, into the acid, trying to see if there was anything, but he was finally forced to admit that there was nothing among the bloody bodies.
"There's nothing here!" he snapped, standing back up.
"So now what?" Jennifer replied.
He looked around and his eyes fell on that string of pillars he'd noticed earlier. He realized that the nearest one was theoretically within jumping distance. In fact, they all were, each lower than the last. And the final one led over to an indent in the wall that held two teleports.
"Aw fuck," he muttered.
"What?" Hollenshead asked.
"There's some teleports down there."
"...shit. Are we really gonna jump those?" Jennifer asked.
"No, not without going back and trying the other pathway first," he replied. "We're not dealing with that unless we have to." He started making his way back.
Ten minutes later, he knew that they had to, and was back at the island. They walked all the way back along the path, followed it to its other end, and discovered a door. A locked door. And, after a brief argument that Jack didn't even really fully agree with, even though he was making it, he ended up with the task of soloing the jumping platforms while Jennifer and Hollenshead waited back by the island. He made sure all his gear was where it was supposed to be, then limbered up a bit, (or as much as he could in a full suit of power armor), and then made the first jump.
He nearly shit himself.
Even though he stuck the landing, knowing there was a drop deep enough to just outright kill him was a bit much. In a way, it was funny. He'd faced down so many threats, fought through so much insane shit over the past week, let alone during his career as Marine before all this, and he was still genuinely freaking out at least somewhat. He would've thought that his fear would have been burned out of him at this point. Probably it was a good thing, but he hated the feeling. Jack took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then made the next jump.
It felt like roughly three hours passed, but finally he made the final jump and landed between the two teleports. After thinking about it for a bit, he chose the right one for no particular reason. In a flash, he was somewhere else. He'd come to an enclosed space that let out into a hallway where the walls were made of surprisingly human-looking plate metal. They even had a few decals and insignia that he recognized.
What the shit did that mean?
The left dead-ended but the right continued on for a ways. He followed it until it terminated in a sharp left turn, assault rifle in hand. It was dead silent and he was tempted to reach out over the radio to the others for reassurance, but as he thought that all the lights cut out. He was plunged into darkness and somewhere nearby, he heard something grind open, followed immediately by heavy footfalls. Jack froze up, the fear returning in waves, tidal waves at this point. Something big and dangerous was now nearby and he couldn't see shit.
He was reluctant to turn on his flashlight, but he made himself do it, activating the lights on his suit and re-illuminating the area. Nothing around him had changed, but he was sure that whatever it was now awaited him around the next corner. Slowly, Jack peered around it into the next hallway. His light made the shadows shift and twist and bend, and then they revealed-
"Oh shit!" he screamed.
The Baron of Hell screamed back with a roar that shattered bone. It immediately began stomping towards him, cloven hooves smashing into the floor, whirling up for a pitch of green energy. Jack aimed his shotgun and blasted, letting the big thing have both barrels. He saw it stagger as it took both shells across its broad, iron-muscled chest, and then he was pulling back, fast, and hastily reloading. This was exactly the kind of thing he'd been terrified of. The beast roared again as it stomped closer, coming faster than he'd hoped.
Shoving the shells in and snapping the shotgun closed, Jack stopped and took aim. Right as the Baron came around the corner after him he lit up the whole hallway with another blast, this one to the face. As he began reloading, Jack started in absolute shock as the Baron of Hell righted itself yet again. He'd expected that to take its head off, but it had survived. Most of the skin on its face was blown off and one of its horns was missing, but a bloody, grinning skull now sneered at him. The beast roared once more, a spray of blood and gristle coming off of it, and in a flash it reached forward and snatched him up in one huge hand.
Panicking as his shotgun was thrown from his grasp, Jack went for his pistol. The Baron raised him up single-handedly and pulled its other hand back, making a fist that began to glow with green energy. Jack yanked the pistol out and stuck the end in its face, then emptied the magazine. More bellows of agony and fury escaped the creature as it began squeezing him, but finally one of the bullets hit something crucial and it released him. Groaning and coughing as he collapsed to the floor, he scrambled to get out of the way as the beast toppled over. He snatched up his shotgun just before the huge demon fell on it.
"Fuck," he whispered, coughed again, then got back to his feet and quickly reloaded. Once he was sure he was alone again, he followed the hallway to its end, where he found a button and a teleport pad. With a sigh, he pressed the button and stepped aboard the teleport. It brought him back to the initial area he'd jumped to, more specifically the initial pad he'd stepped on. He saw Jennifer and Hollenshead still waiting for him up above.
"You okay?" Jennifer asked over the radio.
"Fine," he replied. "Gimme a minute."
Not seeing any other choice, he stepped onto the next teleport and reappeared not far from Jennifer and Hollenshead.
"What the hell?" Jennifer asked as they both reacted instinctively to his sudden appearance.
"Yeah, what?" Jack asked, looking around. "There isn't even a corresponding pad...fuck it, who cares. Let's go see what happened. I pushed a button."
"We heard a grinding sound," Hollenshead replied.
They headed back the way they'd come and found that, sure enough, there was now a pathway that led to the little UAC island outpost. And it was reasonably sized, too. They made their way across it, wary of threats, and when they reached the door, opened it without a problem.
"Okay...what?" Hollenshead asked as they looked inside.
"Great," Jack muttered.
The door led to a room where the walls were absolutely covered with continually flowing toxic waste. The strange green liquid drizzled down apparently forever, disappearing into the floor and, thankfully, not flooding the area. The effect was strangely hypnotic. There was another doorway at the back of the room, so they walked over carefully and opened it up. As they did, Jack heard a startled shout and saw an armored figure whirl around, shotgun raised.
"Holy shit!" the figure cried, lowering it. "You made it!"
"Cortez!" Hollenshead shouted, laughing. "Good to see you."
"Oh man, you too. I thought it was just me." He let out a relieved laugh.
"Have you seen anyone else?" Jack asked as he looked around the room they'd come to. It was a UAC outpost all right, a central control area with a few doors leading off to other rooms, all of it pretty thoroughly trashed.
"No. Just me. I was wandering around for a long time in this maze, finally got to these dark hallways, came to this place, got jumped by some of those floating grinning bastards and all I had was my pistol, so I ran in here. Been searching the place ever since." He pointed to a table where some guns and ammo lay set out. "I put what I found there, help yourself."
"Much obliged," Jennifer said, walking over.
Jack and Hollenshead joined her and they split what they found. Mostly Jack just got ammo for the weapons he already had. He joined Cortez as soon as he'd grabbed his portion. "What have you found?" he asked.
Cortez was crouched before the exposed guts of a workstation, what appeared to be the only one left intact. "Communications," he replied. "If I can get this console running, I think we can plug into some sort of comms network that the UAC set up here in this dimension before everything went crazy. If we can do that, maybe we can somehow get in touch with this Staff Sergeant we're looking for. Or anyone else nuts enough to be here."
"None of us are technicians," Jack muttered.
"Yeah but I know some stuff and the damage isn't too bad. Really, I just need parts." He stood up suddenly and walked over to a map printed out and attached to a wall. After a moment of studying it, Jack realized he was looking at a map of the immediate area. There seemed to be a large, open space beyond the final door they had yet to go through, the one to the left. Cortez pointed there, to a room marked STORAGE. "Here. It's where I was planning on going just when you all showed up. Really glad I waited."
"So we go to storage, get whatever parts we can find, fix this thing, and try to link up with Kyra, or anyone else," Jack said, studying the map. "Anyone got any questions or disagreements?"
"Hey, as long as I get to fuck shit up, I'm good," Hollenshead replied.
"I'm ready," Jennifer said.
"Same," Cortez agreed.
Jack looked at the map for a moment longer. For a reason he couldn't put his finger on, he had a bad feeling about this.
"You have got to be shitting me," Hollenshead said.
"There's absolutely no way it was like this before," Jack muttered. "No fucking way they put a storage room on the other side of all this."
The room they had come to was immense, its ceiling lost to shadows, and it was probably the worst thing Jack had encountered so far on either side of Hell. The floor...almost didn't exist. There were pathways, somehow even more narrow than the one he had navigated to get to that island, crisscrossing the area in a grid pattern that wasn't a grid pattern, it was more random than that. To either side of each path?
A fifty foot drop into acid.
"How in the holy fuck are we doing this?" Jennifer asked.
Jack sighed. "Gimme a minute."
He spent more than a minute looking around. The room was essentially a big L shape, and they were at the bottom right corner of the L. The storage room was all the way on the other side, up at the top of the vertical section, so basically as far away as possible. From the platform that the door let out onto, he could just barely see the door that led to storage, on another platform, and the pathways did lead there.
So walking the paths and making it there, and back, was theoretically possible.
He looked for any other way to do it, some secret button or hidden door or mechanism or anything to do it in a different way.
But he came up with nothing.
"God fucking dammit," he growled, stepping up to the first path. "This is not going to be fun."
After another minute or so of waffling, he finally set to it. "All right, who's got the worst balance?" he asked.
"Me," Hollenshead said. "I'm a bull in a china shop. I've tripped over my feet often enough."
"Fine then. Stay here and provide overwatch. Jennifer and Cortez, let's go. Super fucking careful. We'll get to that storage room, grab what we can, and get back. I'll lead the way."
He took a few breaths, then stepped out onto the path, although it could hardly be called such. It was just about big enough for a single armored foot to stand on. Arms out to his side for balance, he began walking. It was a real pain in the ass to split his attention between his feet and his surroundings. Step by step, he walked out, making for the first cross-path. He'd already mapped it in his head. He had to get out to the first path crossing the one he was on now, make a right-hand turn, follow it to its end, turn left and follow the next path, then turn right again and follow that path to the storage room. Yeah, easy. Really easy.
Jack was sweating by the time he reached the first junction. He was preparing to make the turn when he caught movement to his left.
"Oh fuck!" he cried as he grabbed for his double-barrel. Beyond the first cross-path, hidden, hovering over the acid, a Cacodemon was rising to meet him. Grinning that big, shit-eating grin, its eye glowing, the strange demon was preparing to launch a fireball his way. Jack twisted to face it and fired. Both shells took it right in the face and popped it, but he lost his balance. Splitting his legs open, he managed to fall right onto the narrow path.
At the cost of slamming into his nuts so hard he almost puked.
"Oh...my God, Jack," Jennifer said from behind him, "oh shit, are you okay?"
He wheezed in response, unable to move.
"Man, I felt that," Cortez said, pain in his voice.
"I think we all felt that one!" Hollenshead called.
The armor helped, but not enough. Nausea rolled through his stomach as he finally slung his shotgun and began the slow, painful process of getting back into a standing position. No one said anything while he did and, mercifully, no more demons showed up.
"Let's...keep going," he managed, a tremor of pain running through him, and he resumed his horrid journey.
"Holy mother of fucking God fucking finally!" Cortez cried as the workstation flared to life.
Jack just breathed a sigh of relief and shifted again in discomfort. His testicles still ached from the fall, even now, two hours later. Jennifer had been very nice to him after, but he could tell that there were times when she was trying not to laugh, just a little. Part of him was pissed about that, but another part of him had to admit that there still was something funny about a guy getting hit in the nuts. It was probably even funnier if it involved falling down.
Even if it was him.
They'd made it to the storage room, found a little treasure trove of spare parts and tools, loaded up, and made the long journey back.
"So do we have power? Comms?" Jack asked.
"Hold on," Cortez replied, running the workstation. "I think I've got something…"
"This is Staff Sergeant Morgan to anyone, can you hear me? Over."
"Plug me in!" Jack said, excitement overwhelming him. Finally their luck was changing!
Another voice came onto the line as Jack worked to get his suit's radio plugged into the comms network. "This is Linaweaver, I hear you Morgan. What's your condition? Over."
Kyra responded. "I'm fine. Weldon is KIA, though, but I've found Director Carpenter. He's alive and kicking. Otherwise, we haven't seen anyone."
There! "Hey, holy shit, Kyra?!" he asked.
"Jack!? Are you all right? What's happening?"
"We got your message from Taggart! We came into Hell after you!" he replied, excited. "We got scattered but we're reuniting. Do you still have the data?"
"Yes! I have it," she replied.
"Where should we meet? We have to meet up...how are we going to navigate this fucking place?" Jack muttered as he began considering the broader implications of the situation. Before, it had just been: stay alive and kill demons and find people.
Now it was more complicated.
"I have a solution," the second voice said.
"Oh. Sorry. I got a little excited," Jack replied.
"It's fine. I'm at a relatively intact UAC outpost right now. I've got access to a map of the region, or a partial one anyway. The point is, based on your comm signals, I can tell where you both are and where I am. We're a bit spread out, but there's a UAC Command Post in the region. I vote we meet there and figure out the next step. Anyone against this?"
"Sounds perfect to me," Jack replied.
"Yeah, I'm game," Kyra agreed.
"Good. I'm sending over a data packet. Find your way there. Also, I found Falcheck, but there's been no sign of Powell so far. He might be dead, but he seemed pretty capable, so keep an eye out for him," Linaweaver said.
"Understood. We'll meet you there as soon as we can," Kyra replied.
"Yep, we'll be there. Stay safe. And, um, Kyra...I'm glad you're okay," Jack said.
She laughed. "Same to you. Is Jennifer there?"
"She's here, she's fine."
"I'm glad. See you there. Out."
Jack let out a long sigh of relief. She was alive, she had the data, they were going to meet up and kick some serious demon ass.
"Got the data packet," Cortez said.
"Gather round," Jack said, studying the screen. It was a map of a huge region, several locations on it labeled, with three dots, each one also labeled. The dots indicated where the three groups of survivors were. They were spread kind of far apart.
"Hey! I recognize that," Cortez said, excited, pointing at a building that was about halfway between where they were now and where they needed to go. It said The Abandoned Mines. What a great name.
"How? From where?" Jennifer asked.
"Here, follow me," he replied.
Jack made sure that everyone downloaded the data packet, then followed him into one of the side rooms. A teleport pad awaited them, and there was a sign above it, attached to the wall that read To The Abandoned Mines.
"Well...that's convenient," Hollenshead muttered.
"It's a start, at least," Jack replied. He sighed heavily. "Guess we got no choice. Okay, I'm going first. Jennifer, give me a ten second count and then follow. Cortez, Hollenshead, do the same after her. And be ready for anything."