BOOM!
The earth shook as the buses began to explode, sending smoke and shockwaves tearing through the air and crowd around her. Women and children screamed as they began to flee, the men not far behind as bullets began zipping through the air.
16 wasted no time, dashing into cover behind a smoldering, but solid Tigr.
The soldiers that had been inside were fried. Their comrades were fighting valiantly, putting themselves between the fleeing civilians and the unknown, largely unseen attackers. However, they stood little chance. Every burst of fire brought another to the ground.
Flames rose up around the vehicles, with glass shattering from the heat and the stench of burning flesh filling and mixing in the air with the gunpowder.
Beside her a soldier collapsed, writhing in pain as flames licked his jacket and body.
Eyes wide, 16 scrambled over and tried in vain to douse him, but the screaming grew hoarse and ragged as the flames grew.
She met his pain filled, pleading eyes.
She grabbed the rifle beside him, unhooked the strap from his body, and put a bullet into his forehead.
Breathless, she was left staring at him for a moment longer.
Then a bullet pinged the asphalt beside her.
Immediately she scurried into cover and pointed the weapon up and towards the windows that could see her, her eye scanning.
Thermals were obscured by the flames, nothing else told her if something or someone was in any of those windows.
Then at the end of the street, four police cars roared down the street, carefully weaving through the panicked civilians.
She peeled out of cover, and found the window that had all started from empty.
Gritting her teeth she sprang forward, running off the street and into the building.
Her body took over from there, moving her forward, the AK in her hand tracking to each corner, the unfamiliar weight and shape making her movements more awkward than usual.
She didn't care. She had a target: the shuffling footsteps descending the back stairway.
She came upon a hall, and was greeted with bullets.
They had security at the foot of the stairs. In the quick glance she got, she saw two camouflaged men watching the hall, each with the Latin letters "USEC" splashed across their chests.
She reached into her jacket, grasping for a flashbang to give her a chance to clear them, only to find nothing.
It was then that her brain caught up. The hell was she doing?
"Hey fuck you bro!" One of them shouted in English.
"Fuck you!" She replied.
"Yo it's a chick," she heard muttered from down the hall.
"Crazy bitch."
"Fuck off lady! You don't want any of this!"
"Tch," she grunted.
The footsteps upstairs had stopped. The cops would be coming shortly and have questions, or worse.
Then a small object clattered against the hall floor, and she watched in muted horror as a grenade rolled into view.
She got about half a second to scramble before it went off.
Shrapnel peppered her back as she was tossed across the room. Her internal armor kept her alive, but she found getting to her feet difficult as her back synth muscles were shredded.
"C'mon, we gotta go!" She heard the men shout.
She tried to get to her feet as several people began storming down the concrete stairs back down the hall.
By the time she got up, and limped to the corner, they were gone.
"Fuck you…" she sighed, letting the rifle in her hand fall away as she began to limp away.
She got back out onto the streets not long after, the cops rushing past in the direction of the firefight and paying her no mind. Many civilians were fleeing as well, rushing or limping in all directions.
Somehow, she'd gotten back to the hotel room. There hadn't been people in the lobby, not even staff. It was a ghost town, even compared to just that morning. Outside a few more panicked groups had run back and forth, shouting that there had been several attacks all at once.
Many checkpoints were hit, and police were starting to move people into the metro or ordering them to shelter in place.
For all the good that'd do.
Turns out the attackers were a PMC, "United Security", or USEC. According to the internet, they were western based and about 20 years old. They were experienced fighters drawn from western militaries, and backed by their parent company: Terragroup.
It seemed that information out of Tarkov was heavily restricted right now, as there were scant reports of fighting on the broader internet and only rumors that USEC was involved. The relevant companies were denying responsibility and knowledge, and the UN was a shit show.
Well, at least some things never change.
M16 shifted uncomfortably in her chair, looking at the glowing screen of her 'borrowed' laptop.
It seemed Terra Group had a history of not playing nice with the RUAF. There were public reports of failed raids on different headquarters of their child companies, legal battles, and general corruption.
Just like the rest of Russia. Honestly nothing here suggested more than a base level of corruption and corporate greed. Her manufacturer, IOP, had a similar record.
Their ownership of USEC wasn't even all that weird to her, though on delving a bit further it seemed that truly was an unusual occurrence in this world. Still, there was no indication as to why USEC was blowing the city to hell.
"So why the hell…" she muttered, glancing out the window towards the smoke plumes that were rising all across the city.
The streets were mostly empty, only the occasional group of civilians scurried across the street, or a lone car driving up the road. Gunshots still rattled on occasion, explosions often following.
Despite an apparent effort at censorship, some things still made it online. They showed one clear thing: no one was making it out anymore. Cars were stopped, searched, and destroyed. USECs took out anyone trying to travel the main roads.
Videos of the military fighting and retreating were here and there. Tanks burning, convoys turned back. Whatever was going on before had just been a prelude, it seemed that today the main event began.
16 shut the laptop.
"Hell…" she sighed, "now what?"
She wasn't leaving, that was clear. No way she could fight her way out, not in her condition, even walking that far was questionable.
Shelter in place wasn't ideal, but neither was making for a metro station. Too many people in one place, too much of a target.
She mulled it over for a while, unconsciously rubbing the band on her finger.
She decided to wait until sunset, figuring that it would be slightly safer than daytime to make a move.
Limping out onto the streets, peering into the ghostly green IR light, and carefully moving from cover to cover while trying not to look too suspicious, she began.
She didn't have any real plans in mind, instead, she was looking for an opportunity.
The city was relatively quiet now, few to no gunshots sounded in the distance. It was almost peaceful walking the streets.
On a very rare occasion, 16 spotted people. Most scurried around like her, hiding in the shadows, but some were a little braver. Or perhaps overconfident.
Suddenly a woman's shriek pierced the night. 16's head snapped towards its source, and quickly she found her body stumbling along towards it as a second and third sounded.
"Shut the hell up!" A gruff man demanded as she grew close.
"Please, we- we'll do anything!" A man replied.
16 rounded the next corner, and found the scene. A family, with one small child clinging to their mothers leg, held up at knifepoint.
The robber waved his knife, " Money, now!"
As the father began to pull out his wallet, over his wifes stifled tears, 16 crept closer in the shadows. The robber's back was to her, and no one had noticed her.
"Hurry the fuck up!"
16 took a slow step forward, and cringed as her foot crunched against a stone.
"The fuck!?" The Robber demanded, whirling around.
She was close enough. She sprang forward as he turned, and got a hand on his wrist.
With a wrenching motion that would threaten to break his wrist if he clung to it, M16 ripped the knife from him. Then, as the man stared stunned at her, she smashed his nose in with her fist.
He stumbled back, through the family who parted like the sea in his wake, before tripping over and collapsing to the ground. Must've hit his head on the way down, as he didn't move after that.
"Scumbag," she scoffed before glancing up at the family," you good?"
The father nodded quickly.
"Where are you going? What are you doing out here at night?"
"M-metro," he stammered, the adrenaline still hitting hard clearly," Nikitsaya station."
"Getting to safety…That's the closest one?"
He nodded, "The closest underground… at least."
They might make it, the station was a couple blocks away. But they were slow, and the kid was certainly not helping.
16 nodded, then turned around.
For a moment, she considered walking off into the night. She had no real reason to do anything else for them.
Behind her, the mother began to sob quietly.
"Tch, come with me, I'll get you there," she grunted, waving to them to follow.
"Th-thank you," the wife sniffled.
"Yeah…" 16 grunted.
They got there not too long after.
M16 slipped her 'borrowed' blade into her boot as they approached, as she could see that outside there were a few guards stationed, as well as a pair of men with blue hats adorned with 'EMERCOM'. They were hidden behind sandbags and a hastily prepared MG nest. Their cards and ids were all quickly checked, and the four of them were ushered inside after a quick pat down search.
In all honesty, she didn't really want to go in. But she was curious now, having seen the EMERCOM and RUAF soldier's up top, she wondered if their officer may be below. Perhaps he'd have word on M4.
Descending into the metro station did not feel relieving in the slightest. Within, she immediately saw the damage that had been wrought upon the remaining people of the city.
Children cried, their mothers trying in vain to quiet and calm them in hushed tones. People clinging to the walls, and flinching at every distant pop and crack.
Down in the main entryway, just before the platforms, a medical station had been set up. Dozens of people in army stretchers were tended to by a trio of personnel. Two white coat clad doctors, and one uniformed soldier with a red cross on his shoulder.
At the far end, two more soldiers sat watch by the platform, one watching over them, the other turned to look down the tunnels. M16 wondered if he expected anything to really come from that direction.
In total, there were perhaps a hundred or so total people within the station. No obvious figures of authority.
Nikitskaya station was one of the more central underground stations, one of the few near the city center where the lines moved above ground. It should be one of the more popular choices of refuge.
Yet so few. If the numbers that had been at her checkpoint were at all anything to go by, there should be far more civilians stranded in the city.
"You there!" a woman shouted in her ear, snapping 16 into reality.
"Eh, yes?" she stammered, whirling around to see the woman in question.
She was older, maybe sixty, with brown hair and eyes. Based on her clothes, she was another medic.
"Do you have medical training? "
"I- not really, no. Sorry."
"Mmm, these people need help. You seem steadier than the rest, I assume you've seen some things. Even if it's just how to properly bandage a cut, it would help."
16 pursed her lips, "I don't intend to stay long, I'm sorry, I can't help."
The woman shook her head disapprovingly, "you would be a fool to do so. There is food here, medicine."
"I can't stay," 16 reiterated.
She wasn't going to find a lead on M4 here, she should begin to look elsewhere.
"Tch, fine," the woman grunted, "I'll look for your corpse in the morning then."
As she moved away, there was a sudden commotion from up the stairs that drew the attention of the room. Shouting and cursing, likely from the guard posts, echoing down to them.
A minute later, four men descended the stairs. They held heavily modified AK rifles, wore expensive gear, and each had a baseball cap that bore the word 'Bear' to match the patches on their shoulders.
A wave of unease spread through the crowd. As the men reached the last step, they extended their weapons.
"Alright, listen up!" the first man shouted, "IDs out, and keep quiet!"
"W-who are you?" A man near the front stuttered.
"I said keep quiet! Ids, now!"
The crowd shuffled as hands slipped into bags and pockets, searching for the demanded objects. 16 carefully began to slink deeper into the crowd as she fished her's out.
She noticed she wasn't the only one. The medics had begun backing away too, though their efforts were fairly obvious due to their attire. The armed men didn't seem to care, as they began taking ids.
"Wha-? Hey, what are you doing!" A man yelped as the armed men roughly grabbed him after checking his id. He was dragged up the stairs, his shouts of protest echoing down.
The Bears paid no mind to his protests, ushering more of the crowd forward to be checked.
What were they looking for? Why were the medics backing away?
The regular russian soldiers seemed off put by them too, but didn't speak up.
A lonely gunshot echoed down the stairwell.
16 understood what it meant.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the woman medic, the one that had confronted her before, typing something on a cellphone from the back of the crowd.
The Bears worked their way through the crowd quickly, grabbing two more people and leading them up the stairs, with single shots ringing out not long after.
"No!" A cry went out over the crowd. The mother of the family that 16 had helped here was clinging to her husband as one of the Bears gripped his arm.
"Don't you take him! Please!" She begged them.
One of the Bears marched up to her, and after failing to pry her off, jabbed her in the gut with his rifle butt.
That was the final straw. The Russian soldiers and crowd suddenly came to life around her. The two that had been watching the tunnel pushed through to the front, and the crowd began to slowly creep forward.
"Back the fuck off!" One of the soldiers barked, pointing his rifle at the two Bears trying to apprehend the father.
The Bears very quickly brought their own weapons to bear. The crowd held its breath.
"Drop your weapon soldier," one of the Bears growled.
"Let them go you fucker."
"They're traitors."
"Says who? You just hurt his wife, you crazy bitch."
The Bear narrowed his eyes to slits.
It was then that 16 noticed the medics had disappeared.
She began searching the crowd, looking for where they'd gone but couldn't find them anywhere.
Then the gunshots rang out from above. Furious automatic fire that silenced them all. The Bear's then broke away from the crowd, and took up positions around the entrance to the metro.
After a burst of chatter on the soldier's radios, they followed suit.
About a minute later, a ragged voice shouted, " friendlies coming down!"
Three figures appeared a second later, One Bear and two regular soldiers. They fell in with the rest, quickly answering their questions with one grunted word: "Usecs."
M16's eyes narrowed.
Suddenly the lights in the station died. Screams lashed out into the fresh darkness as children began crying.
"Shut Up!" the Bears roared, throwing the crowd into murmured whispers.
16 lit up her passive IR systems, and noted that the BEARs had produced night vision goggles and were lighting up the stairs leading down to their platform with searchlights.
Meanwhile the crowd began backing away, those at the back stumbled clumsily into the tracks and began to spread out as best they could in the darkness. At the front, the wife clung to her husband, who was holding her tightly.
Then the footsteps grew audible from above.
A grenade clattered down the stairs.
Brilliant white light burst into the room. 16's eyes were dazzled as she tried, too late, to shield them. Immediately her ocular system disconnected, leaving her properly blind as she tried to restart them.
Around her the crowd surged in all directions, blind panic taking hold as the civilians tried to flee the oncoming storm. 16 was knocked around, fighting against the damage to her body as much as the shoving bodies around her to stay upright.
Gunshots broke through the noise, whizzing bullets pinging off surfaces unseen all around.
A rush of overstimulation hit M16, her systems trying in vain to compensate for her sightlessness to pinpoint their origins, where the fighting was, but the echoes resulting from fighting in such an enclosed space made it all but impossible.
Someone beside her was hit, hot liquid spraying up against her face as 16 shoved the body away from her.
She just slipped the body off herself, when something struck her on the back of the head.
She dropped.
Do dolls dream?
No.
Well, more like no*.
M4 does, she talks about her dreams sometimes, or did rather. Most were cute and innocent, flowers, gardens, rivers, butterflies. Some were weirder though, abstract. She was never able to really describe them well, a fact that obviously caused some frustration in her whenever she tried to retell a dream to M16.
16 always felt a bit bad she could never quite 'get it', but she made sure to always smile and nod and try to understand anyway.
M16 never dreamed though, nor did any of her other sisters.
And yet, she found herself staring at a blurry image of her creator.
"Why won't she wake up?"
16's lips formed the words with no input from her mind.
Persica's dark ringed eyes tensed at the question as they both stared at the inert M4 before them. Her sister was unmoving, a dozen wires sprouting from her and connected to many of the monitors around them.
"Her neural cloud is damaged, I… I'm not sure why."
"You don't know what's wrong?"
"No, I know what's causing it. Her personality algorithms are shooting every error known to man, stuff that doesn't make sense to me or anyone else I've asked. What I don't know is what's causing them to do that."
"Could they just be corrupted then, Why not remove them?"
Persica pursed her lips, "I did. It was a little better but it's still shooting most of the same errors, somehow."
16 looked at her sister's face.
She knew what was going on, she'd lived this before. Her fingers unconsciously twisted a black lock of hair, wrapping it around the ring on her finger in an unconscious tick.
"What can I do to help?" she asked, looking back towards Persica.
16 came to, groggily feeling around as she felt a cold weight pressing onto her. A sharp pain pricked the back of her skull.
She pushed the thing on her off, feeling a body slide off. She then felt around the back of her head, and her fingers grasped a small metal object embedded in her skin.
She flicked on her IR, casting the darkness of the metro station into a dark green. There were bodies everywhere, most unarmed but near the stairwell the bodies of the BEARs and RUAF soldiers were slumped.
16 opened her hand, revealing a bullet that had been half jammed into the armored metal of her skull. 5.56X45, some old type since it didn't get through her armor. Lucky.
Diagnostics flared to life, assessing her injuries. No new musculature damage, just those from the grenade earlier that day, and minimal damage to her skull. Ocular systems were restored.
16 forced herself to her feet, her body aching from each little movement.
But she was alive.
"Hehe, better luck next time boys," she chuckled under her breath.
It hurt to laugh.
Slowly, painfully, she began moving.
Fifteen bodies, near where she'd been hit, probably all from stray bursts between the warring soldiers. A few others dotted the area as well, one or two Bears, and RUAF soldiers, though no USEC corpses.
"Guess I know who one then," she pondered aloud. The USECs would take any of their own who were hit in the fighting had they won, likewise with the BEARs.
16 began to search through the darkness, checking for anything of use figuring that this would not be the last fight she was gonna be in. In fact, she may have to fight to leave.
The soldiers were all clear, everything of value stripped from their bodies and long gone. Many of the civilians were also cleaned out.
16's head snapped upwards. Above, echoing down the stairs, she heard voices.
Immediately she retreated, stumbling over the corpses and towards the only cover not totally blown apart in the station: the rail line.
She hopped down onto the tracks, carefully listening for any sign the voices may be approaching. A sense of unease creeping into her core.
Something was coming, she could hear footsteps.
Her foot brushed against something soft. Glancing down quickly, not wanting to look away from the stairwell for too long, she found the source.
Another body, a civilian, and a man she vaguely recognized from the crowd. He was face up, a round dead center in his chest, and his hand reaching into the depths of his jacket.
It was quiet for a moment, 16 risked it. She quickly snuck her hand into the jacket and found the dead man's hand wrapped out a wooden object. Curious, she pulled it out.
16's face screwed up as she recognized the object.
A mosin obrez, a shortened, sawed off bastardization of the old rifle. Why this man had one, where he got it, she had no clue.
But it was a weapon, if only just. The dead man had some ammo in his pockets too. Nothing fancy, standard rounds you could buy at a store, but it was something.
"Humble beginnings eh?" she muttered.
Noises again, definitely human and there were at least two men up there. It sounded like they were starting to come down.
16 glanced back down at the dead man she'd just disarmed. A question now nagging at her.
How did he get this weapon in? They'd all been searched on entering the metro, they would have found this.
16 knelt down and patted his jacket. It was full of hard objects, the pockets full.
Loot was inside, coins, watches, money, cards, and a flashlight.
16 grabbed the light, and then stared down the long, dark rail tunnel. It came out onto the surface at some point, she knew that. Perhaps that's how this man had gotten in.
Behind her, the noises were growing more distinct, and she was pretty sure they were speaking in English.
Conscious that she was not ready to fight more USECs, she slipped into the dark maw of the tunnel, disappearing into the darkness. She would have to take her chances.
NOTES:
Well Well Well, I am in fact alive. Sorry for the delay, Grad school is hell.
Anyway, heres chapter 2. By popular demand, 16's first gun will be the beloved Mosin Obrez. Its hideous, it sucks, and I love it oh so much. Of course, given 16's canon capabilities I needed to nerf her in some believable way, and I figure keeping kit she can make the most of out of her hands for a while is the best way to keep things interesting as we get into this. She'll get better stuff as we go on, but I'm gonna make her earn it.
Finally, discord. If you're unaware, me and a few other GFL writers have formed a discord for writers, readers, and shitposters alike. If you're interested, please come by and say hi!
Link: /Csab8ZDK