Children of the Night - Chapter 4: No Way Out

"This is ridiculous, 'Tiss!" Stechkin muttered as she scanned her surroundings, desperately trying to look through the darkness that enveloped the building's front lobby. She found her eyes repeatedly drawn towards the small windows beside the front entrance. The pale faint moonlight seeped into the lobby before quickly giving way to the darkness within.

"'Tiss?" Stechkin quietly asked again.

"Hm?" OTs-12 replied, "What's up?"

"What's up?" Stechkin incredulously asked, "We're all gonna die, that's what's up!"

"Don't worry, you have an amazing secret weapon like me by your side," OTs-12 calmly replied, trying to mask the fact that she was just as terrified as Stechkin was.

"You're crazy, you know that?" Stechkin said, "You really wanna go up against that… thing inside the building?"

OTs-12 didn't reply.

"Look, listen to me, 'Tiss," Stechkin began as she eyed the windows by the front entrance again, "We gotta get outta here."

"What?" OTs-12 questioned, turning her head to look at her teammate. "But what about the mission? We have to-"

"Do you have a death wish?!" Stechkin hissed underneath her breath, "I for one don't want to wake up in a repair bay again, with no memory of what happened and all my pocket change missing!"

"But-"

The dull boom of an explosion deep within the building complex cut off OTs-12.

"Look, if you wanna die here tonight, be my guest," Stechkin said with a sigh, "But I'm not staying here any longer!"

"All units, this is Sabre 3," Dazzle calmly announced through her communications channel, "Two targets exiting the facility front entrance. Engaging."

A cool breeze washed over Setchkin's body as she opened the building's front doors, as if the wind itself had arrived to take her away from the nightmare behind her. She quickly looked around; the coast was clear.

"Come on, 'Tiss," Stechkin beckoned OTs-12 with an eager smile, pointing towards the treeline at the edge of the property. "Run!"

But before Stechkin could take more than a handful of steps forward, she noticed a light appear at the corner of her vision. She turned her head to look at it, but in a blink of the eye it grew to a blinding brightness, completely engulfing her dark-adapted vision.

"Ah!" Stechkin shouted as she squeezed her eyes shut, disorientated by the sudden sensory overload. She realized she had fallen to the ground, but her body wouldn't let her get back up. As she slowly came to her senses, she noticed the all-too-familiar sound of bullets rapidly striking the ground around her. The supersonic cracks of bullets zipping past her and the whistle as they ricocheted off the ground combined to form a cacophonous noise. She tried to open her eyes again, only to be assaulted by countless blinding flashes streaking across her vision.

"My god!" Stechkin yelped, instinctively holding a hand up to her eyes to shield them from the violent onslaught. She had seen tracer rounds streaking through the night before, but this was on a whole other level; each individual bullet seemed as a bright as a flare to her. Squinting her eyes, she looked down at her stomach, which had a smouldering hole at its centre. As she finally noticed the acrid burning smell, she also registered a sharp pain where the hole was—she had been shot.

A wave of heat washed over her face as one of the flares ignited a patch of grass beside her. Fighting against the overwhelming flickering of brightness, Stechkin could just about make out OTs-12 lying on the ground beside her, surrounded by blinding light and fire. A second bullet struck her upper chest, causing her to fall back onto the ground. Stechkin stared at the entrance to the building, unable to move her head. The suffocating smoke and relentless noise rose to unbearable levels. She watched as stray flares ignited the furniture within the lobby, the darkness within erupting into red and orange much like the ground around her. She felt the searing heat as the flames climbed onto her legs, yet she could do nothing as it slowly crawled up her body and clothes.

"If hell was real," Stechkin thought to herself as her consciousness began slipping, "then this must be what it's like."

Hidden within the woods on the other side of the building complex, Sapphire silently tracked a target as it made its way along the road. It was an ordinary pickup truck, and its heat signature stood out like a sore thumb through the infrared image on the scope of Sapphire's rifle. She had initially hoped it was just a random truck making its way across the Carpathian mountainside, but alas, a random truck would not be racing down a dead-end dirt road towards a Griffin supply depot in the dead of night.

Switching back to the night vision mode on her scope, Sapphire examined the doll in the driver's seat as she waited for the truck to get within range. Referencing her copy of Griffin's dossier, Sapphire tentatively identified the driver as M21. She shook her head, returning her focus to the task at hand; perhaps it was unwise for her to get too attached to her victim.

Sapphire squeezed the trigger. A single bullet exited her rifle's barrel, slicing through the silent night sky towards its destined target. Compared to Dazzle's flamboyant display, Sapphire's shot seemed to simply disappear into the darkness. Nothing happened at first, but as the truck entered a bend in the road, it continued as if nothing had changed. It smashed through the flimsy guardrail and into the trees, erupting into a fireball.

Sapphire raised her head slightly, peering over her rifle scope at the wreck. It was so far away, no larger than a tiny speck, its carnage silenced by the distance. As quickly as the fireball emerged, it began to die out, slowly fading from Sapphire's vision. Like an ephemeral ripple from a single raindrop falling into a lake, the night returned to its peaceful serenity.

"M14? M14! What happened?!" RFB shouted into the radio as she ran through the corridors of the building complex. Seemingly out of nowhere earlier, M14's team managed to break through the radio interference and contact RFB while they were on their way to reinforce the depot garrison. Unfortunately, no matter what RFB tried to do, she couldn't seem to reach M14's team anymore.

"M14…?" RFB asked once again as she felt her heart sink, fearing the worst. "Please… Talk to me…"

RFB knew she had to get out of the building as soon as possible, not just for her sake, but also for the dolls whose neural backups were stored in the device she was still clutching against her chest. She could smell the smoke before she saw it, but she still let out an involuntary gasp as she rounded the corner and saw the inferno the front lobby had become. As she turned around to find another exit, a fuel tank in the adjacent garage exploded, setting off a chain reaction that turned the entire part of the building into a sea of fire.

"RFB! What the hell just happened?" Glock 17's voice asked over the radio, "Are you alright?"

"The garage just fucking exploded!" RFB replied, terrified. "I- I don't know, man, I don't know what's going on right now!"

"Where are our reinforcements?" Glock 17 asked.

"I… I don't know!" RFB cried out, breaking down into tears. "I was just talking to M14, and they were coming, but then-"

"Ok, RFB, deep breaths now," Glock 17 firmly instructed, "Link up with me on the lower level, we'll take it from there."

"Y-yeah, good idea," RFB said with a sniffle as she started sprinting down the hallway again, "…How are you two holding up?"

"We're fine here," Glock 17 replied, "T65 and I are- Wait…"

"G17?" RFB nervously asked.

"Where's T65?" Glock 17 incredulously demanded, "She was just beside me a minute ago!"

"What?" RFB asked, "What do you mean?"

"G17…?" RFB asked again after a few seconds, "G17?!"

Down in the basement floor of the depot complex, RFB ran as fast as she could towards Glock 17's last known position. The place was utterly deserted, her footsteps being the only things echoing throughout the darkness. Though the fire and ensuing carnage had spread to much of the ground floor, it had not spread down here for the time being.

"Ow!" RFB yelped as she ran into a wall. It was not easy navigating the hallways without any light source, but she quickly dusted herself off and continued running without hesitation.

As RFB rounded a corner, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. There was a flashlight lying on the floor, its light still shining. Like a spotlight illuminating an actress in a tragic opera, its light shone on Glock 17's body, which was lying motionless on the floor.

"No, no, no, NO!" RFB shouted as she rushed over to her friend's body, unable to suppress the emotions welling inside of her. "Please! G17, say something!"

But RFB knew all too well that Glock 17 was already gone. Her eyes were closed, her face seemed almost peaceful, as if she was simply sleeping. RFB pounded the floor with a fist; Glock 17 was alive just a moment ago, but now she was gone, just like T65, just like M14's team, and Stechkin and OTs-12, and wz.29 and MP41 and M60 and everyone else around her. And now, she was the only one left.

RFB lowered her forehead, touching it against Glock 17's. She was truly alone now, surrounded by the lifeless, unsympathetic darkness and concrete walls of this underground labyrinth. As RFB knelt before Glock 17, there was no movement, no sound; it was as if time itself had stopped in mourning.

Suddenly, RFB thought she heard a faint noise coming from behind her. She swung her head around, peering into the darkness. She couldn't see anything; perhaps it had been her imagination? But RFB remembered that she wasn't alone after all. There was another doll in the building along with RFB, and she was out to get her.

Suddenly, RFB felt very exposed. She glanced at the flashlight lying on the ground, its light shining against her body, like a searchlight locked in on its target. RFB felt an intense fear grip her neural cloud, not daring to move a muscle lest it triggered the monster waiting in the dark to attack. RFB moved her eyes around, trying to find the assassin that was surely waiting for her next move. She closed her eyes, visualizing the path to the security room—a straight line just down the hallway.

Suddenly, RFB sprang into a mad dash into the darkness towards the security room. If she could just make her way inside and activate the metal doors… She sprinted into the room at breakneck speed, tripping over a chair in the process. She stumbled over to the control desk and slammed her palm down on the button for the door. She was awarded by the shrill sound of sliding metal and a loud boom as the metal door firmly slid into place, sealing the security room from the hallway.

RFB froze, listening to the door's echos slowly fade into nothingness. Then, everything returned to pitch-black silence. She stood there, not daring to move as her mind continued to race.

"Haha…" RFB abruptly began to laugh, "Ahaha…"

RFB fell to her knees, suddenly feeling exhausted after everything that had happened. She pulled out the data drive wz.29 had entrusted her with, staring at its solitary indicator light. RFB lowered her head to the data drive, unable to contain her relief.

"I… I did it…" RFB absentmindedly muttered to herself as tears began uncontrollably streaming down her face, "I… I survived!"

Everything she had gone through, all of her friends who have died defending the place… Perhaps it would all be worth it if she and the data drive could survive. Perhaps their sacrifices haven't been in vain all along.

After a moment, RFB raised her head back up, breathing a sigh of relief. As she straightened her back, she felt the back of her head bump against a small metallic object.

RFB froze instantly. The smile on her face quickly faded as she felt her heart shatter into a million of pieces. She didn't dare turn her head to look back, but she already knew what was happening.

After what seemed to RFB like an eternity, a soft voice finally spoke from behind her back.

"Game over."