Berlin 2100

*Clink*

Hans Eckhart set down the ceramic cup containing his tea and leaned back in his chair, gazing out across the surface of the lake as it reflected the glow of the setting sun. Next to him, on a small table, was a book, which he picked up. As he stared out across the surface of the lake and focused on the breeze he could almost shut out the sound of distant gunfire.

Berlin was home to dozens of ponds and lakes, all feeding into the river Spree, but none had been as pleasant (or clean) as Grosser Muggelsee, where he now sat. A small cabin, a modest collection of books and pre-war magazines, and some fishing rods were enough to make it home for him.

And a well-fought home at that, he thought. He'd discovered the abandoned cabin on the lake after two months of wandering Berlin, looking for a new home away from all the violence and bloodshed of his past. After clearing out the radroaches squatting on the property and cleaning it up a bit it had become exactly the kind of home he wanted: safe, quiet, and peaceful. On a good day, like today, the lake's waters were even still blue.

Sometimes the guilt still lingered, but he told himself that everyone he'd left behind, both living and dead, would understand. That they would want this for him. Besides, it wasn't as if he'd left in the middle of anything important. With Queen Ilse dead the U-Bahn stations were safe again. Or, at least as safe as they could be.

Hans turned the page and frowned, unable to focus. He set the book down and peered out across the lake again. It was late in the morning, almost lunchtime. Not that he was hungry. He'd eaten well enough that morning and had enough food for a few more days. After that he'd have to either do some fishing or scavenging, and in his experience it was best to restock before one ran out of food. Water wasn't exactly a concern, so long as he didn't run out of purification tablets, and those were easy enough to come by so long as one knew where to look.

He sighed, stood, and went inside. He'd found a holotape player at a music shop recently but hadn't been able to get it working. If he couldn't focus on reading then trying to fix the tape player would be more than enough to keep him occupied. He walked across his single-room cabin to the desk beside his bed and looked the little machine over. There really wasn't much to it; a play button, a stop button, an eject button, and a record button. Inside were the mounts for the tape, the laser readers, and some wiring for power. The spools turned when the machine was hooked up to some imported Wattz fusion batteries but none of his tapes worked.

Hans didn't consider himself a tech guy but something like this was simple enough to fix. It's either the rollers or the laser readers, he thought. He lifted the top off the player, having already removed the screws the day before, and looked inside. He powered the machine on, inserted a holotape, and hit play. The tape was an older metal-case tape with two spools, and he watched as they began to turn. The laser reader automatically scrolled down its track but stopped about three-quarters of the way to the end, turning slightly up. He pressed stop, removed the tape and rewound it, reinserted it, and pressed play. Again the tape spun but the reader stopped three-quarters down the length of its track.

Hans frowned, removed the tape, reset the reader, and inspected the track. As he expected the metal track was slightly bent, which was stopping up the reader and putting it out of alignment. He rubbed his chin and decided to just try bending it back into place. He picked up a pair of pliers and gently bent the thin steel back into place, running his finger up and down the track after. Just for good measure he decided to lubricate the track as well, making sure to clean his hands before reinserting the tape and pressing play. The spools spun, the reader scrolled, and a second later music began to fill the air.

"Hast du etwas Zeit für mich? Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich..."

Hans smiled, hit stop, and removed the tape. A few minutes later he had the player reassembled and put the tape back in, keeping the volume low so he could listen for anyone coming up to the cabin. He took a few sips of water and rearranged his tapes, intending on labeling them later. He stopped when he came across one of the small plastic orange tapes. It didn't have visible spools, so it wouldn't work in his current player, but he decided to hold onto it and any others he found in case he ended up finding a player that would take the plastic tapes.

He let the tape play as he went over to his bookshelf, looking for something else to read. He'd read everything on it at least twice already, which meant it was time to go on a foraging run for more books, magazines, and now that he had the player fixed, holotapes. He glanced at the desk and wondered if it was time to hunt down a working RobCo terminal, assuming he could lug something that heavy back to the cabin without throwing out his back. Being able to write things and play holotape games would certainly help ease his boredom between bouts of fishing and foraging.

Hans was about to shut the player off and grab his gear when he heard a woman screaming down the street, followed by gunshots. He grabbed his shotgun, an H&K CAWS, made sure it was loaded, and ran out of the cabin. The rusting hulk of an electric Volkswagen sat outside, giving him cover. He crouched behind the car and looked, not surprised to see that it was a couple of feral Rotters accosting the woman. She'd shot the one in the leg, shattering its fragile bones, and it was crawling towards her as she wrestled with the other.

Hans moved down the street to get a closer shot. He crouched, aimed, and blew away the crawler with nine pellets of copper 00 buck from a 3-inch shell of solid brass. The empty clattered loudly against the pavement and the woman stumbled back, falling straight on her ass with the feral on top of her. She had it by the wrists, preventing it from grabbing her, but still it bit at her, trying to sink its teeth into her throat or face. Hans rushed up, pulled his Mars Automatic from its holster, yanked the Rotter up by its throat, and pressed the gun to the back of its head. The creature's face and entire front end of its skull exploded outward as the .45 slug blasted through it, rendering the creature limp. He dumped its decaying corpse onto the street and helped the woman to her feet. She was bruised and scratched, but otherwise unharmed.

"Mein Gott, danke! Danke schon!"

Hans nodded. "No problem. Gotta be careful with those disgusting things," Hans said. "Scummy creatures can come out from anywhere."

"Oh I know, I know! I just..." she trailed off, brushing her hair back. She was lightly armored and armed, carrying only a Walther P5 pistol. "They can be sneaky too, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Hans said. He kept the CAWS out and at the ready, in case any more showed up. "You need anything? Food? Water? Some bandages, maybe?"

The woman shook her head. "No, thank you, I just want to keep moving. Get out of here. Muggelheim is too dangerous these days, what with those goons running about all the time."

"You mean the Rotters?"

"Heavens no, though if the NDM get their way we'll all be sharing rooms and jobs with those zombies," the woman said. "I want none of that, thank you very much. Too likely to go the way of these beasts." She gestured to the Rotters on the ground.

"What's the NDM?"

Before the woman could answer she looked over Hans' shoulder and gasped, her face going white. Hans spun around, weapon at the ready, and he felt his own blood go cold. The street they were on ran along the edge of a forest, and emerging from the line of dead trees was an adult Rover. The giant, genetically modified dog saw them and growled, baring its teeth.

Christ's sake, Hans thought. It's going to be one of those days.

The Rover hunched down and barked aggressively, ears pinned back. Rovers were like any dog, apart from being as big as trucks. Most were very aggressive, having been modified for war by the fine folks at the Max Planck Institut fur Molekulare Genetik, but if you kept your distance they'd leave you alone. This one was maybe forty feet away and, as Hans knew from experience, running was not an option.

"W-What do we do?" the woman asked.

Hans started backing away slowly and the woman followed suit. The dog growled again and charged at them, barking aggressively the whole way. Hans crouched and opened up with the CAWS, knowing it had the best chance of stopping the hellhound. It bounded towards them with great strides, huge globs of spit flying from its lips as it rushed them down. Hans fired until the CAWS was empty, sending him fumbling for the Mars.

*WHOOOOSH!*

He threw himself to the ground as a missile suddenly screamed overhead, slamming into the Rover and blowing off its front right leg. The giant dog was sent sprawling across the pavement, whining like a puppy as it scrambled onto its remaining three legs. Blood poured from the shredded stump of its missing leg, painting the street red. Hans kept himself down on the ground as the heavy thumping of steel feet came up behind him. A second later he heard an energy gun spool up and then discharge a storm of a hundred red laser bolts into the wounded beast, spearing straight through its body. It dropped to the ground dead, leaving the air stinking heavily of blood and ozone.

"Jesus Christ..." Hans said, and glanced at the woman, who was too stunned to say anything. Hans remained on the ground, deciding not to take any chances. The woman slowly got to her feet and Hans, after a moment, was about to do the same when he was suddenly picked up and lifted into the air like a child.

"Get up, buddy," a man said, his voice heavily filtered. He dropped Hans onto his feet and he turned around, picking up and reloading the CAWS as he did so. Standing before them were three Panzertroopers, their faces concealed beneath helmets that bore single slits for looking through. Two of them had suits painted gray, but the man before Hans was in a suit that had gray limbs and an olive green chestplate. He was hefting a weapon that Hans recognized as a Gatling Laser, an extremely rare gun. His partners were similarly heavily armed, with one bearing a Panzerschreck and the other an M72 Gauss Rifle.

"Thanks," Hans finally said. "What good timing you have."

The lead man shrugged, a gesture heavily exaggerated in his bulky armor suit. "You got lucky. We heard the gunfire, could see the hellhound from down the street, and came to help. You two going to be alright?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Hans said, looking at the woman, who nodded. "Just a regular dust-up, right?"

"Dust-ups don't typically involve mutant killing machines," the man said. "What's your name, buddy?"

Hans rubbed a hand through his hair. Normally he wouldn't be so trusting, but it was hard to be wary of someone who just saved you from a giant aggressive dog. "Hans. Hans Eckhart. Who wants to know?"

The man's partners shared a look and the lead man bristled, turning his head. "Is that so? Well then, how about you come with us, buddy?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No."

Hans laughed, nodded, and rubbed his chin. "You still didn't tell me who you are."

"Let's just say we're with people who...admire your work."

"You know these men?" the woman asked, and Hans shook his head.

"Never seen them before in my life," Hans said with a frown. "Still... What about her?"

"Don't know her, don't need her, don't care."

Hans nodded again. "I see," he said. "Well, seeing as how I don't have a choice, then fine. I'll go."

"You trust these people? You just met them. They might want to kill you," the woman said.

"If we wanted him dead, he'd be dead," the man said, hefting his Gatling Laser for emphasis.

"Fair point."

Hans looked at her again. "They can't be that bad, right? I usually have good luck with going off with strangers, anyway." He slung the CAWS and gestured down the road. "Lead the way."