The Butterfly Effect
Two days later Hans and Paul were on a rooftop a few blocks away from the Fernsehturm plaza, watching over the place. The NDM had reinforced the fence around the plaza and had guards and Panzerbots out on the grounds, patrolling. The remains of the tower stood over the grounds, looking so much like a bone that had been broken in two. Even now, four years later, the plaza bore the signs of the battle he and his friend Walter Steinbatz had waged to kick the communists out of the plaza.
'What's your name and what are you doing here?' Hans asked the woman in the cell.
'Hilda...'
'Did you read that book? Are you a communist?'
The woman huffed. 'I don't even know what that word means! I didn't read their dumb book, I... I can't even read at all.'
Hans frowned at the memory. He didn't want to be here. Still, there was work to be done, and it had to be him. Someone else might get it wrong. He raised his binoculars to his eyes and peered through the dusty and scratched glass. He and Paul had chosen a rooftop that would put the sun at their back, to eliminate the chance of the binoculars catching glare and giving them away.
"So what are we looking at?" Paul said.
"They've got about a dozen soldiers outside, plus three Panzerbots. No idea what kind of forces they've got inside but we'll find out. This place was a tourist attraction before The Bomb, so the halls inside are wide. Wide enough to support Panzerbots, so keep your eyes open," Hans said.
"They're not exactly stealthy."
Hans lowered the binoculars. "With the tower destroyed we at least don't have to worry about there being any snipers or lookouts up there, so that's good. We'll clear the outside and then move in and sweep the place out, same as any other job."
"The brilliance of your strategies impresses me," Paul quipped. The two of them joined the ten Fieldmen assigned to the mission, caught them up to speed, and then they were moving. The squad split up into two teams, crossing the street and heading for the fence. They picked an area of the plaza that had good cover in the form of dozens of dead trees, a square-shaped building to the right. They climbed the fence one after the other and spread out, scurrying to cover. Once again Hans was the only person with a suppressed weapon, so it was up to him to start picking off monarchists. The nearest guard had his back to the team and was seconds away from turning a corner and disappearing from sight when Hans shot him twice. He toppled to the ground, dead.
He and the rest of the team moved up, two at a time, towards the plaza's main building. Hans paused a moment to look up at the tower, his mind wandering back to the last time he was here.
'You...can't read?' Hans asked.
'That's what I said,' the woman said with a huff. 'I came here looking for a place to stay, but these idiots couldn't even grow a carrot. I was going to ask if I could be their doctor, but they threw me in here. That idiot said my spiritual connection to my fellow man was damaged, whatever the Hell that means.'
Hans shared a look with Walter. 'You have medical skills?'
Hans crouched behind a round concrete planter, home to the corpse of a once-beautiful oak tree, and watched as an NDM guard rounded a nearby corner. He saw Hans and the others and tried to react, only to get three rounds of 8mm Mauser in his chest. He toppled over and then the team was moving again, crouching behind benches and planters. Hans moved up to the corner and peeked it, taking in the expanse of the plaza at a glance.
He was about to slide around the corner when a Panzerbot I came grinding into view, turret turning. Hans shouldered the FG42 and fired; his rounds punched through the machine's chassis and smashed its mechanical guts. It stopped in place, dead. He moved up to the edge of the door it had come out from and the rest of the team followed suit, keeping close to him.
*Whooo-BOOM!*
The shriek of a missile gave way to the thunder of its explosion as it slammed into one of the benches, killing three of the Enclave soldiers. Hans turned his head and saw a Panzerbot I*, a modified design that had a rack of Nebelwerfer rockets in place of its bubble turret MG34. The machine's main turret rotated, bringing the rocket tubes to bear on the rest of the assault force.
"SCATTER!"
Hans rushed sight-unseen into the open door with Paul hot on his heels. The two of them quickly cleared the lobby and then took up positions at the windows, firing on the Panzerbot as the rest of the team followed them into the building. They proceeded down the lobby's sole hall, quickly engaging the NDM forces responding to the battle.
Hans put the FG42 on the window sill and opened up on the Panzerbot, punching through its light armor. He hit the rocket tubes and one of the rockets suddenly went off, blasting the machine into scrap. Across the plaza he could see monarchists rushing towards the main building. He and Paul waited until they were in range before opening fire, cutting them down. They waited a moment to see if anyone else was coming before pulling back from the windows and joining the Enclave in the hall.
The battle here was pitched, with the majority of the NDM in cover in doorways or behind couches. At the end of the hall, lying prone, was a man with an MG42, the ripping roar of the buzzsaw overwhelmingly deafening in the enclosed space. "That's gonna be a problem!" Paul yelled.
"Is there any other way around?!" the squad leader asked Hans. The hall was L-shaped, with the gunner at the corner, which meant they could flank him if they could get around to the other side of the hall. Or go through one of the adjacent rooms.
"Wait here!" Hans told the Enclave soldiers. "Paul, with me!"
The two of them headed back outside, keeping low and looking out for any NDM soldiers still in the plaza. Hans left the lobby and hooked right, sticking close to the building's wall. There was a large cafeteria on the right side of the main building, which had large windows looking out on the plaza. Hans carefully climbed through one with Paul and they made a beeline for the nearest door. Hans peeked it, confirming it fed back into the hall. The gunner was practically right in front of them, just a few feet away. Hans shouldered the FG42 and filled him with lead, silencing the MG42. A few NDM soldiers looked back, wondering why their machine gunner stopped, and saw Hans and Paul leaning out of the door. The two of them shot down the ones in the open and that's when the monarchists realized they'd been sandwiched.
"SMOKE 'EM!"
Hans and Paul pulled back from the door as the Enclave filled the hallway with bullets, cutting down the NDM troops. They waited for a lull in the shooting before poking their guns back out, blasting a few stragglers as they tried to make a break for it.
With the hall clear the Enclave soldiers were free to link up with Hans and Paul, joining them at the corner of the hall. With three dead already they were down to seven, plus the two freelancers. Not good odds in Hans' mind. "Where to from here?" the leader asked Hans.
'Yes,' the woman said. 'I used to work with a doctor. He's dead now, but he taught me everything he knew.'
'No shit?' Walter said. 'What are you doing here then, if you don't like the communists?'
'Can't live in the street. Too many mutants and rapists.'
"Upstairs," Hans said. "The tower's been destroyed, but the upper floors still offer a good view of the surrounding area. They'll have more soldiers up there for sure."
The squad leader nodded. "Let's go." The team got moving again, heading for the nearest stairwell and slowly proceeding up it. The stairs ended in the middle of a hall, stretching left and right. The monarchists were waiting for them there, opening fire on the stairwell and forcing the EAE soldiers back. The squad leader threw a grenade, shaking the walls with the blast and shrouding the right-side of the hall in dust and smoke.
Obscured by the smoke two of the Enclave soldiers moved up into the hall and into rooms, quickly clearing them before taking cover in the open doorways. Hans and Paul followed and went left, keeping their eyes on the unsecured section of the hall. As expected it was also crawling with the monarchists, who were holding their fire to avoid creating a crossfire and hitting their buddies. With Hans, Paul, and a few of the other Enclave soldiers moving into position in adjacent rooms they no longer had that problem, leaving them free to join the fight.
Hans pulled back from the door frame as a smattering of bullets slammed into it, turning the impact sites into toothpicks. He glanced around the room he'd ended up in, some kind of breakroom, trying to come up with a plan. They couldn't stay in the rooms, they were basically killboxes. He looked at Paul and yelled "COVER ME!" as he got up and ran to the wall separating the breakroom from the office next to it. With Paul watching the door Hans slung his FG42, yanked the cord of a grenade, and wedged it between a picture frame and the wall it was mounted to.
"GET DOWN!"
He and Paul dropped to the floor, hands over their heads, and the grenade went off. The blast had blown out the aging and decaying wall, creating a hole to the next room. He grabbed Paul and the two of them went through, gunning down the monarchists in the room. The door to the office was open, an identical office on the opposite side of the hall with its door also open. Hans went prone, deployed the paratrooper rifle's bipod, and opened fire. His first burst caught a monarchist in her chest and neck, sending her to the floor bleeding profusely, and her buddy pulled back into cover.
"MOVING!" Paul yelled, advancing across the hall into the room and catching the enemy soldier unaware. Paul sent him on to his next experience with a burst from his STG and crouched by the open door, covering the hall as two Enclave soldiers moved up. The one on the left was ambushed by a soldier hiding in one of the rooms, bashing his head in before Hans shot him down. The one on the right ducked into the open door of a janitor's closet, followed by a burst of fire that blasted apart the boxes of Abraxo Cleaner inside.
'No need to tell me twice,' Walter said.
'Still,' Hans said, 'medical knowledge is useful. Why don't you come with us? We can get you into one of the U-Bahn stations.'
'Fine, but there's something we need to do first.'
"PAUL, COVER ME!" Hans yelled, and exploded out of the office. He rushed up the hall, firing as he went and hitting an NDM soldier leaning out of a doorframe in the head. He cleared the room and took up the monarchist's position, about to lean out and engage the soldiers in the final room when he heard a plasma grenade go off at the other end of the hall, followed by screaming. He glanced down the hall and saw three EAE soldiers melting into carbonized skeletons, their bones and molten equipment falling to the ground and scorching the carpet.
A bullet hit the wall right next to his head and he fell over, using his feet to push himself away from the door. Paul and the other Enclave soldiers returned fire, focusing on the final door at their end of the hall. Hans got back up, primed a grenade, and tossed it in. To his surprise it returned a moment later, bouncing off the doorframe and landing in the middle of the hall. Before he could move it went off, sending him sprawling across the floor. He hit the legs of a coffee table and lied there, writhing and struggling to stand. He moved his toes, fingers, and limbs, surprised to find he still had them all. The explosion had left his ears ringing and head swimming, and there was nothing he could do for the moment but lie on the floor.
"HANS!" Paul screamed, the first thing Hans heard as his hearing slowly returned. His friend rushed into the room, saw him lying on the floor, and hurried over to him. Behind him, out in the hall, another grenade went off. Hans sluggishly rose into a sitting position, breathing deeply. When he saw that Hans was still alive Paul turned around to cover the door, gunning down a monarchist as she rushed into the room.
Hans was about to stand when the wall to their right disintegrated and an NDM Panzertrooper stepped into the room, a YK42B Pulse Rifle in his hands. Paul turned, leveled his gun, but the Panzertrooper was faster. He fired a single shot from the pulse rifle, which hit Paul square in the chest. He dropped his gun and fell to the floor, twitching and convulsing. "PAUL!" Hans screamed, grabbing his FG42 and firing on the Panzertrooper. The rounds shattered against the plates of the man's Semi-Powered Armor Suit, leaving him unharmed. He raised his hand and smacked the paratrooper rifle straight out of Hans' grip, sending it sprawling across the floor. He was about to raise his gun and fire when Hans rushed him, colliding with the solid suit of armor.
Unlike the American power armor, where the user steps into the suit and pilots it, the German SPAS armor was strapped onto the user like the armor of a medieval knight and then the servos of the joints were manually connected to the suit's power pack, leaving them vulnerable to knives, bullets, or shrapnel. The man in the suit brought the butt of his gun down on Hans' back, sending him to the ground but not before Hans pulled his knife and slashed the cables attached to the soldier's left knee servo.
As Hans got to his feet he rushed through the hole in the wall the Panzertrooper had created, pulling his Mars Automatic as he did so. With his left leg servos severed the armor was too heavy for him to move the leg, forcing him to drag it as he sluggishly turned around. Hans crouched, aimed the Mars, and fired. The heavier, slower .45 Mars Long rounds also couldn't penetrate the SPAS armor, but Hans knew not to aim for the armor. Due to its design the joints, waist, hands, and neck were all uncovered save for the user's Sladen suit. Hans aimed low and put two rounds through the back of both soldier's knees, forcing him to the ground. Hans could hear the soldier's groans through the filter of his helmet as he tried to turn and fight back. Hans put the muzzle of the pistol to the back of his neck and fired, severing his spine and killing him instantly.
Hans snatched up the FG42 and rushed over to where Paul was lying. "Paul, Paul, get up. Get up!"
Paul groaned, struggling to move. "Fucking...taser gun," he said. "Guess he had the power set too low."
"You always were lucky," Hans said.
"Says...the guy who survived that...grenade blast. And that Panther," Paul said. He weakly scrabbled at the grip of his STG and rose onto his knees, still struggling to move. Hans was about to help him up when two NDM soldiers rushed into the room, one through the door and the other through the hole in the wall.
"FREEZE!"
Hans was tempted to try taking both of them with him but his desire to protect Paul (and himself) won out. He left the paratrooper rifle on the floor and raised his hands. Paul followed suit, grimacing from the exertion, his muscles no doubt torched after getting basically electrocuted.
The monarchists secured their weapons and then restrained them, hauling them to their feet after they were cuffed. They were then blindfolded, leaving them in darkness. "Well," Paul said, "we're not dead, so they must want something from us."
"The only reason you're not dead is because you're freelancers," one of the monarchists said. "We have standing orders from our betters to flip freelancers. Your fascist buddies, though? They weren't so lucky."
"Your betters," Hans said bitterly. "Do you even hear yourself? Crying about fascism when you follow a guy who wants to drag us all back to the days of kings and queens. Where are you even taking us?"
"Quiet," the soldier said. "You're going to go see the Kaiser."