Time we got back to the big man himself. Without further ado, let's get into the meat of the story:
Darkness. It was all he could see. Stretching out until eternity. And silence.
The last thing he remembered was the ringing in his head... Jin's screams as she saw and heard what he did. Holiday's cursing and gunfire. And the pilot, Bremmer, shouting for everyone to hold on, as the helicopter went into a tailspin. His hands reaching for Jin, to pull her away from the... thing... climbing aboard inexorably. The mushroom cloud of the Origin Facility over its shoulder, framing the thing's grotesque visage. He remembered the impact. Lying among the wreckage with a blurred face and muffled familiar voice hovering over him, trying to remove his mask. Now, nothing. No... not quite nothing. He found himself standing on his feet again... looked back and watched as the wreckage of the helicopter dissolved into ashes, with Jin and Bremmer still unconscious inside it. All the surrounding buildings, those standing and those ruined, faded away into nothingness with it, along with sickly orange skies. He walked... he could do nothing but walk. He saw himself, inside his body and somehow out, walking down a road, following her bloody bare footsteps... a light... beckoning somewhere in the distance. A void... a sphere of blue light... from which a slow, haunting melody emanated. Music, inviting him to the blue light. He ran towards it... hearing his own breaths, and the tapping of his boots on a ground he couldn't see.
There were two figures within the light, silhouettes... one pressed against it, beckoning to him, the other seated... both of them watching him. He ran towards the light, but everything was slow, no matter how fast he tried to run. He didn't know how long he ran... time and gravity had no meaning in this place. Howling wind rang in his ears... and then he saw it, in the distance beyond and above the blue light. Appearing... steadily expanding. A crimson sky, with rolling black clouds rushing past it... a dark tower rising high above an island, into its pitiless red depths. He saw the shape of a gnarled tree on a hillside over a sea of red, a rope swing with a shadow sitting upon it. She came to him, then... again. As she had many times. A monstrous, naked and emaciated pale woman with wet tangled black hair. She flickered on and off rapidly like a light mere feet from him, drawing closer, opening her gangly arms to try and seize him. Perhaps to pull him into the darkness with her. His hand snapped down to his holster to draw his sidearm, to find it empty, in whatever unnatural world existed around them. He tried to back away from it, but he remained slow, while it moved normally, both thin, bony arms outstretched. Before it could seize him, before she could... he felt a tiny hand clasp around his larger one, emanating power to rival even the Hag's, pulling him backwards away from the inhuman corpse woman. The world flew around him, rushing, as he was drawn away from the blue sphere, red skies, and back into the darkness.
"I know who you are."
A girl's whisper echoed around him, through him, as in the distance the emaciated being stood still, hundreds... thousands of pairs of glowing red and yellow eyes swirling around it, belonging to other beings lurking in the dark. Nightmares, Shades and Spectres belonging to her. Worse things than them. Fires ignited around them all, down there, burning in mid air, above and below... long, coiling root-like tendrils swirled in the darkness... but by now they were too far away for him to glimpse properly. Too far away for them to reach him. The hand didn't leave his... and he knew it was shielding him from it all. And from something far worse. Taking him somewhere else away from the monsters, human and otherwise that were pursuing him. Taking him somewhere safe. Away from the crimson sky, and what it might represent. What might lie beneath it inside that sphere of blue light.
"My baby. Give him back to me."
He heard a girl's high distorted scream... and an enraged woman's inhuman howl. The silky, familiar, knowing whispering of a man as joined to them as he was. Further still beyond them all... there was a pained woman's scream, emanating from the sphere of blue light... and there were words, but he couldn't make them out. All of them familiar. All of them known to him. Or nearly all of them. There was a second man's voice, speaking more words he could not decipher from the distance. But he heard the two fluctuating tones emanating from him, in conflict with one another. All of it vanished as a pair of red metal doors rose up and formed in front of them... a cold concrete corridor, lined with blue metal doors on either side. All of them locked... each with closed observation hatches on them. Lights flickering and shifting overhead. The moment the strange corridor appeared in front of him, around him... all the sounds and monsters past those locked double doors were sealed in a world beyond. Somehow, holding her hand... he knew it wasn't their only way into the world. It bought them some time though.
There was a distant hum, then, a buzzing in his ears. A throbbing in his temple. A heartbeat. Pain spiking. Sensation returning. Her voice, whispering in his ear again as she released his wrist.
"You are not alone. Please... make us one again."
He was turned around by an invisible force to find himself staring back into the Child's porcelain white, still face and black eyes... eyes seeing into his soul... her red form wreathed in flame and shadow. Her hand rose and tiny index finger tapped him gently but purposefully between the eyes. A sharp and sudden pain in his skull blinded him... the ringing in his skull worsening... but as suddenly as it had affected him it was gone. The Child was gone... all of it was.
The Point Man came to consciousness with a start in a dark place... but not as dark as before. He breathed deeply and heavily, heart racing in his ears, as his surroundings came gradually back into focus. As reality returned. At least a slightly less horrific one. Something flashed on in his vision... as the heads up display of his goggles returned. Detailing the the status of his health monitor, and the condition of his armor... along with some weapon slots. The third was empty, while the first two were designated with an AT-14 sidearm and an RPL. His gloved hands rose, as though of their own accord, one touching the pistol in its holster on his side, fastened around his thigh, the other settling on the strap holding the submachine gun against himself. Beyond the glowing vision of his goggles, there were sickly rusted lights running up and down the long underground corridor around him. Token slots. Employee booths. Railings. Illuminated displays behind glass on the walls, including various advertisements and maps. An automatic security camera, whirring faintly as it aimed in his direction, and then back off in the distance. Stairs, running up and down the path at different sections. A damaged vending machine, with some kind of purple soda called Soda Bliss visible on the front.
A subway station.
He lay back upon a bench, trying to get a hold of himself... but he wasn't alone there... not entirely. A middle aged man's corpse sat upright on the other end of the bench, mouth open slightly and eyes shut tight. Oddly tranquil, in spite of his appearance... his weathered face and blue dress shirt, dark tie and pants soaked through in blood. Unrecognizable to him. A civilian, from his attire. He looked on at last... expecting to find more bodies around the subway... and was surprised to find the opposite true. His was the only corpse in the place, though there was scattered debris along the ground, tickets and newspapers strewn all over the place. He looked off to the side, beside him, closest to him between the bench and the soda machine was a newspaper vending machine and a post office box. Sitting perched atop the newspaper machine was a red soda can... its inviting lettering visible upon it.
Fizzy Kola.
He reached out for the can instinctively, mouth parched, but his arm was heavy, unsteady, and he accidentally knocked it over to the ground. It hit the pavement audibly and rolled... its contents already empty. He breathed a low, annoyed breath, glove tightening into a fist. With some concerted effort, he stood at last, pain and stiffness swelling through his form... he nearly fell back against the bench, as a wave of dizziness swept over him. He held fast to his spot near the bench, shutting his eyes tightly, getting himself back under control. Gradually, the haze in his vision lifted, and he opened them again. Looking down at himself, he studied the covered limbs of the full body covering heavy armor he wore... the assorted pouches and slots and straps. The white and dark grey armored uniform was battered and dusty, burned in a few small places, pock marked with bullet impacts... but intact... the black lettering of D-12 still standing out defiantly on the thick chest. Kevlar and titanium fiber weaving, joined with a ballistic vest beneath. As well as an insulated, fire resistant, armored full body suit beneath the outer body armor. F.E.A.R. only chose the best in equipment and weaponry, as they did their operatives.
He reached up to his head lamp, adjusting it, and activating it, turning it on and off, to be sure. It remained intact as well...and he switched it off. Raising his hands again, he adjusted the balaclava he wore, pulling it down a bit further... whatever had happened, it remained snug against his face. He peered ahead, studying the icons on his goggles heads up display. A long but thin crack ran across the visor across his vision... nothing major, he only noticed it if he was focused upon it. Everything he had gone through... within only a couple days... what he could remember, anyways. He wasn't sure if the armor and equipment had helped him, or something more. He looked about the desolate, abandoned subway... it was the emptiness that made it so eerie. It was still and silent as a grave. Where undoubtedly not long ago many people had passed through here, coming and going about the city.
Something stirred in the darkness, then. His heads up display began to crackle with life in his ears, every icon flickering in his vision, redirecting his focus. The heads up display flashed an audio symbol along with the words Incoming... *Unknown Origin* in the top left corner of his vision. It continued to flicker, and the audio receiver crackled louder with static. It wasn't the only sound. A distant ringing, emanating within his ears... his temple. It wasn't painful... never was, but it grew louder and stronger, as time went on. Reverberating. One after another, the lights overhead began to flicker and break, plunging the section of the subway he stood at in partial darkness. A diminutive shadow darted somewhere in front of him, running towards the stairs while giggling. A child's laughter. His head snapped sharply in its direction, heartbeat quickening suddenly. Upon reaching the stairs, the shadow flickered, suddenly appearing half way up the stairwell... and in another blink, standing upon the very top. It giggled again, rose a small limb and beckoned to him. The light up there caught features... of a bare footed child in a red dress, deathly pale and still features framed by long black hair.
It continued to beckon down to him, before it dissolved into ash that scattered upon the air. A little girl's voice whispered around him, echoing through the subway station... but a grown woman's cryptic words echoed through his mind. He looked up and down the subway again, but there was no sign of its owner.
"You're not safe staying in one place. You must keep moving. Three and their puppets pursue you. One is distracted, but not forever. He isn't far behind you. She isn't far behind him."
The whisper evaporated of into the distance, into nothingness. Almost as if it had never been. The ringing in his skull quieting. He pondered her enigmatic warning... but only a moment, setting it aside. There was a light at the top of the first flight of stairs... flickering periodically, beckoning to him... as she had. At last, hands moving almost of their own accord, he unslung the RPL and took it up in both hands. He took the time to examine it for any damage, peering through the red chevron reflex optic sights, making sure they were properly aligned. Then he checked his ammunition, for it and the sidearm. Not much ammunition... a couple magazines for the submachine gun, and a few for the pistol. It would do for the moment. He started forward, was going to head for the first flight of stairs rising out of the subway... but something held him fast.
A vice grip enclosed around his arm as he started to pass, taking him off guard, and he turned at once to find himself peering down into the dead man's face. The man's eyes opened suddenly, and his mouth parted, gurgling sounds erupting from within. More blood poured freely from his mouth, and with a surprising strength the civilian pulled the Point Man in closer. His eyes were wild, insane with terror. His mind broken. The bloody man drew close enough to lean his mouth near his ear. Voice struggling to breath, and to use those last breaths to speak them as clearly as possible. Rasping with agony.
"Death... outside. In the streets. Consuming Auburn. Fairport. The world, next. War and retaliation, reborn. The skies... burning with her unending fury... the rain, bringing her nightmares. Hell follows... with her. With the mother. What grows in her. It's all... in your hands..."
With those final near incomprehensible words, the man's grip grew slack and fell from the Point Man's arm... and he slumped back against the bench. His head propped back, staring up with the same insane fear in his open eyes. More blood rushed out of his gaping mouth, and gurgling as the last of his air left him. In that instant, he was truly gone. Still and silent. The Point Man studied the civilian for a long moment... considered the strange warning... and at last drew a bit closer again. Raising a gloved hand, he pressed them to the man's eyelids, taking the time to close them, before drawing back. The dead civilian looked again as he had before, when he had woken. Peaceful in death as he hadn't been in his final moments.
He didn't know who the man was. What he was doing here... how he had been killed. How he had got here... any more than he himself knew how he had got here. He remembered a massive explosion. The swishing rotors of a helicopter... and not much else. He didn't know how to feel about it. What to feel about it. Had the man been maddened, broken by the explosion? Or had he known more than someone should? He could only keep moving... like before. He stood over the man's corpse for a long moment, before taking another step backwards. He looked down in the opposite direction of the subway... to where he might have come from at some point. It was eerie and still... some of the distant lights flickering... illuminating crates and a distant closed gate to another section of the subway. Neon light illuminated billboard advertisement posters along the walls, sealed behind glass. Silent as a tomb.
Or almost.
He heard the sudden distant ringing of payphones... all going off together. Part of him was tempted to go down that way... backtrack, perhaps... but he remained where he was. Instead, he looked back to the stairwell rising up towards the surface of the subway... where the little girl in the red dress had stood. On some level, he knew he had to follow her. First, he turned to the wall opposite the bench, and moved over slowly towards it... looking over what stood out in front of him. A map, of the entire Fairport, along with the metro system, the various subway lines. He didn't know what his objective was... his mission. It always seemed he had one... now he was stranded in this city, alone... or at least, mostly alone.
Again he was tempted to go down into the train station, find a subway car and take it to the outskirts of the city if he could... escape... but he knew there was no escape from this nightmare. He could only step further into it... and he would not do so blindly. Drawing back a gloved fist, he slammed it into the glass, shattering it, shards raining on to the cement floor. He took the time to examine the map, figure out where he was... the subway station was at the edge of the Auburn District... not far from the explosion, but far enough. He removed the various tacks holding up the map, took it down and carefully folded it up, tucking it away in one of his spare pouches. Satisfied he at least had some direction, he turned from the billboard and began to move again, leaving behind the bench and the man's body, making for the stairs.
He moved down the mostly barren corridor, white tile walls on either side of him, graffiti littering them... there were no sign of more bodies down here, but there was more debris like further back in the station. His boots crunched along broken glass and tiles, pressed against strewn newspapers from turned over bins. He kept his head lamp deactivated... it wasn't necessary, with the abundance of lights. Reaching the first set of stairs he began to climb them, raising his submachine gun in both hands and ascending all the way to the top of them, where a couple of ventilation fans lazily spun situated within a metal section of the right hand wall, while on the left a sign hung, denoting some rules of the subway.
NO Skateboarding, Bicycle Riding, Rollerblading.
His gaze drifted on and he proceeded to the second set of stairs, moving to the top and pausing again, glimpsing the corridor down to a third and final set of stairs reaching the surface. Some piping ran along the left hand wall, there was another automated security camera close to it, shifting its gaze back and forth, while he stood in its field of view. And on either side of the hall before the stairs there were two illuminated signs hanging from the wall, beckoning to him.
SUBWAY
He reached the final set of stairs and looked up them, to the open metal gate at the top. Wasting no time, he continued up them, reaching the top and stepping through the open gate, stepping outside of the subway station, boots meeting the curb of the pavement... and finally he stopped again... slowly lowering his RPL. A battle torn street stood before him, lined with scattered mangled and blood soaked corpses belonging to a couple small squads of Delta Force operators, ATC security forces and Replicas. All the shredded uniforms and body armors, helmets and masks were familiar... bringing back memories from before... when he had engaged the ATC and Replicas. The battle had been fierce, shell casings littering the streets and rounds that had torn up the pavement and shredded a number of derelict cars and trucks littered around the area. Pools of blood had collected all over the streets, dripping and running into the drains on either side of the road. He took it all in, before raising his gaze up to the skies.
It was night... blinking stars filled the entire sky and the moon looked unnaturally large, its ghostly white light pouring through a passing mist overhead. Something about it wasn't right... he remembered it had been daytime... morning, when he had last remembered seeing the outside. He knew it was cold out... but it wasn't coldness he felt through his thick layers and body armor. He felt a sweltering heat, enough to form some perspiration beneath his balaclava. The light around him shimmered along the sidewalk and entrance of the subway, danced back and forth, and he slowly turned away from the war torn streets and back towards the subway. His heart seemed to freeze in his chest when he saw what was looming before him. The massive nose of a Lockheed C-130 Hercules, crashed on top of the subway station, mere feet from reaching the entrance he stood before and breaking it apart. The wreckage of the plane's hull burned fiercely... but with nothing but broken concrete around it to spread to, it was isolated from the other tightly packed buildings on the street.
No wonder there was so much debris below in the station.
He could make out the windows of the plane through the haze of the smoke and the inferno... along with the right wing, where a rotor continued to spin uselessly. Now and again there was the creaking of steel. Blood was smeared all over one of the windows of the plane... while most of them were shattered. His eyes beneath the goggles returned to the hull of the plane, where solid black lettering was defiantly etched.
U.S. Air Force
Though it was of the same make, it wasn't Commissioner Betters' plane... he was sure of it. None of the markings were the same. It belonged to the primary military, not to F.E.A.R. What the hell was it doing here and how had it crashed? He studied the wreckage for a time... before turning at last and stepping away from it, stepping off the curb of the subway station and on to the road, moving out among the bodies littering it. He took the time to carefully examine the carnage, jaw tightening beneath the mask. Everything was fresh... whenever this had happened, it hadn't been long ago. He looked among the assorted uniforms of the Replicas and ATC forces... some of them torn to pieces in the midst of the battle. The Armacham forces consisted of Security Guards with their Kevlar vests and simple blue caps, as well as better armored Riot Security Guards, helmeted and concealed... armored enough to go toe to toe with most Replicas. At least where protection was concerned.
There were small craters in the road where grenades had gone off... and some of the vehicles that had been used for cover were on fire, smoke billowing into the night along with the C-130, bullet holes riddled in the sides of doors. He spotted a couple fallen pieces of Replica Heavy Armor units, their thick power armor torn apart at various points by bullets and shrapnel, near one of the fallen Delta Force squads. The five blue ocular lenses on the helmet of the Heavy Armor continued to shine, even as the occupants blood and gore spilled out from between the cracks in the thick plating. Depleted HV Penetrator weapons close at hand. It was a testament to Delta Force that they had managed to take down such Replicas... a type that had given him nothing but trouble, before.
Still... the kills had been mutual.
He spotted the corpse of one Delta Force operative pinned upright to the side of a blood soaked truck by the Penetrators impaling rounds, shot through his limbs and body, hanging like a scarecrow, head slumped down against his body armor. Blood still dripping freely from each round, a puddle beneath his boots. The Point Man examined the familiar patches on each shoulder of the fallen operator. On the left, the eagle of the United States Department of Defense. On the right, the Airborne USASOC logo, consisting of the black Fairbairne-Sykes fighting knife on its red background... red lettering. And the American Flag patches, on the chests of their body armor. Some of the corpses had been outright liquefied... only their skeletons remaining in a pool of their own blood... and he had more than an idea what had been the cause of it.
Who.
The Point Man couldn't find any signs of dead civilians along the street... they had probably been evacuated from the area at some point, before or after the... explosion. Only the sounds of the wind carried around him... and the crackling of the assorted fires. It was too quiet... too empty to be natural. He wished he had been here to turn the tide for Delta Force... but he wasn't about to let their weaponry go to waste. He would salvage what he could, was liable to need it all. He made his way over to a pair of the dark grey uniformed operatives and knelt among them on the street. His hands moved to the holster on the side of the closest one, retrieving his sidearm... a spare AT-14 like his own. He checked the magazine, cocked it and tucked it away into his second empty holster attached on the opposite thigh, satisfied. Then he began to retrieve extra magazines from their bodies for his sidearms and submachine gun... there was no telling when it would all come in handy, what was waiting out there, and it would be foolish to pass up extra resources. There was a sudden shock of static filtering into his ears, causing him to start with surprise as he tucked away the spare magazines into his own pouches.
"Come in! Repeat, come in! Hey man, are you picking this up?"
The icon in the corner of his heads up display flashed a familiar man's ID image, along with the words Incoming... Sergeant Major Douglas Holiday - 1st SFOD-D Unit Leader. In turn, The Point Man keyed his acknowledgement button on his comm link in response. He remained kneeling where he was, focusing as a relieved, welcome, familiar voice began to speak again.
"Thank Christ. Been trying to raise you and Jin for hours now. Your suit's tracker went down, just kicked in and started working on my datapad. What are you doing way out at the subway station? Thought I told you to stay with her and Bremmer at the crash site until I found help? Are they with you, or did you get separated somehow?"
The Point Man nodded to himself, but was silent... going back to collecting ammunition and supplies. He retrieved a few N6A3 Fragmentation Grenades, tucking them into a few available slots. Holiday went on as before, clearly not expecting an answer, his questions rhetorical when directed at him. Jin or Betters had probably told him at some point why.
"Something's wrong with the long range comlink frequencies and our mobile radar equipment devices and motion trackers, a lot of goddamn static all over Fairport. I still can't reach Den Mother or Tomcat. Contact anyone on the outside. I'm picking up scattered frequencies of the FPD, among others. I'm gettin' reports from all over the city. There's still pockets of Delta Force out there. We're trying to set up an extraction point at the hospital a couple miles from here. Auburn Memorial. Ran into a squad here when I went looking for some help. I'm held up at a pawn shop a couple klicks south of your position, at the edge of Auburn, we set up a temporary outpost while we figure all this shit out. Find who we can. All civilians and military units who can make it. Might explain why the districts I passed through are looking so empty... but no mass evacuation ever happens this fast. City's damn near empty of civvies. Nothing about this is right. When you get here, we'll figure out where Jin and Bremmer are, get together as many people here as possible, then head to the extraction point."
"From what I can gather, there's a shortcut we can take to avoid most of the fighting in the neighboring districts, through the Old Underground Metro Area. We can double back around and reach the opposite side of the subway system you're close to, find a train and make a departure closest to the hospital. Get locked and loaded and meet us down here, on the double. Shouldn't be too much resistance along the way, the remaining test tube motherfuckers from Fettel's Auburn troops are still down, deactivated. Kill them if you find them, the last thing we need is them ever waking up again. Take no chances."
"Also, keep your eyes open for the ATC. From what I've heard from the men here their security forces are still active, and they've even sent in some more conventional troops and heavy duty machinery to Fairport. Trying to get the situation under their control, before the government can. If you wanted more bad news, apparently a second battalion of Replicas was also activated somehow and have gone rogue. They're engaging ATC forces at ground zero of the blast site, downtown and on the other side of the city. A lot of shit has been hitting the fan since we were out of the picture, I'm still trying to find the answers. Playing catch up. Though it's not the Replica or ATC I'm worried about... it's the things outside going bump in the night. All that spook house shit you guys are used to. Heard some stories I sure as hell hope don't get verified."
Memories of the creatures stirring in the darkness returned to him. The vicious Nightmares that had intensified, since she had been released from the Vault. Pouring from their voids to chase him into reality. They were only getting worse... changing, mutating, as her power grew. Holiday was right. Things of flesh and blood could be fought and killed... but the otherworldly beings were never ending, and powerful. Would require something more.
Like their source.
"Your comlink puts you not too far from the street we're on. Keep going down the road you're on, past the warehouse district, cut through the alleys and an abandoned train yard and you'll come to the main road, outside an abandoned apartment complex. There's a church somewhere around there that you can cut through to reach the shop on the opposite side. Get here as fast as you can, and watch your ass. If you find anyone else out there, bring them with you if you can. Nobody should be left behind in the middle of this shit show. I'll keep trying to raise your girlfriend on the comm channel in the meantime, as well as any other Delta units and keep you updated. If we get out of this, I'll never be unappreciative of Den Mother or Tomcat... they're a hell of a lot better with coordinating this mess. Holiday, over and out."
The line went dead again, and Holiday's communication link and icon flashed off from his heads up display. He considered the information he had been provided with for a time, then turned his attention to one of the other fallen Delta Force operators... taking note of the backpack, sheathed combat knife, ballistic helmet and gas mask he wore, all of it was intact while his vest had been shot to pieces. He wouldn't need any of it any longer, but the Point Man could make use of it all. Firmly but as respectfully as he could be, he unclipped the chin strap of the the man's helmet and removed it, setting it aside on the pavement for a moment.
Then he did the same for the man's military grade gas mask, setting it next to the helmet. Carefully, he turned the fallen operative on his side, and removed the dark backpack he wore, before turning him back again to lay on his back. Point Man took a moment to study his pale features beneath the helmet and mask he had worn. His dead eyes stared back up at the night sky from behind his clear goggles... and as he had with the civilian, the Point Man took the time to close his eyes. He unbuckled the Delta Force operator's combat knife last, removing it from the sheath for a moment to turn it over carefully. It was razor sharp, the steel teeth glinting in the moonlight and the raging fires along the street and subway. He tucked it back away and clipped it on to his side securely. Then he took the time to unzip the backpack and look inside. He found a full canteen, a medkit and rations, among other supplies.
He was hungry, and thirsty... but now and here certainly wasn't the time or place to eat. He prioritized. Removing the canteen he attached it to his uniform for later. Then he stowed away the gas mask inside, as well as some more of the magazines he had recovered from the first operative's pockets. Zipping it back up, he put on the backpack, and then looked over to the dark ballistic helmet, taking it up in both hands and pressing it down on to his head. Fortunately it fit snugly enough, even without doing up the chin strap, which he did anyways. It didn't cover his entire head, which allowed him to keep his headlamp where it was, connected to the strap securing his goggles, keeping them in place on his head and taut. He rose up to his feet again... but before unslinging his RPL, he spotted a couple dead Replicas laying close by, over against a car.
A Vollmer VK-12 Combat Shotgun lay across one of their laps, along with a bandolier with a number of shotgun shells still in it. They were both heavily armored, camouflaged and wore a gasmask of their own, of a far different make than the Delta Force operative's mask. It concealed the entire face, where the Delta Force gas mask concealed the nose and mouth. The Point Man walked among the spent assorted shell casings, knocking them aside with each step, and reached the body, kneeling on a knee pad again and retrieving the shotgun, examining it carefully. Checking the ammunition level. It instantly registered on his head's up display, mostly full. Slinging the shotgun, the Point Man retrieved the bandolier next, unclipping it from the Replica soldier and fastening it around his own body. He turned his attention to the other heavily armored fallen Replica trooper close by and went over to him, rummaging through his blood stained uniform's pouches.
This one had been a heavy weapons operator of some kind, based on his armor and what he found in the pouches, to his reserved satisfaction. A trio of AT-5 Deployable Turrets... disc shaped devices he could activate and stick to any surface. Miniature automated machine gun within could be used in defense situations, or to clear the field in a battle. Microcompressed rounds. He remembered his superior, Team Combat Operative First Lieutenant Jankowski, teaching him how to operate them during his explosives training with F.E.A.R... a mere week ago that felt like years. He tucked them away inside the backpack... fully intending not to waste them, as the Replica soldier had. At last, satisfied with his preparations, he stood up over the body and turned back to the street, moving over to the middle of it again, standing among the middle of the desolate warzone.
He took up the RPL in both hands again, and watched the flaming wreck of the C-130, and the devastated entrance and road of the subway. He didn't know what had happened here... but he wished he'd been here earlier. Maybe he could have turned the tide... helped the Delta Force operatives... helped someone. As it stood, nobody had won here. All he could do was recover the supplies he had and put them to use to show his gratitude. And like before, all he could do was keep going forward. He had an objective now... somewhere to go, thanks to Sergeant Major Holiday. People to regroup with. People who were still alive. Allies. It was something, at least. He had a mission. A purpose. He turned his back on the subway station, looked back down the street, illuminated by the street lights. At last, he marched forward down the road, among the bodies and cars, keeping his RPL up as well as his guard.
Passing the buildings along the way. On his left hand side about midway down the road was the warehouse district Holiday had mentioned, with a great deal of industrial equipment set up, fork lifts, trucks and even a massive crane with a wrecking ball. The entrance of the place was blockaded... not that it mattered, it was not his destination. The road ahead was. The large open gate at the far end of it. Proceeding ahead, he left behind the road and cut past a section of the warehouse district, moving towards one of the adjacent alleys. He kept his RPL at the ready, boots tapping along the pavement, and spotted a wooden fence at the far end of the alley blocking it off, as well as a left hand turn section. He moved towards it... and froze where he was, at the scene that greeted him.
A tall Replica soldier stood peering ahead, overseeing two other Replicas... all three were in their stationary mode, still breathing, but standing with their heads slumped down, like puppets on strings. Each of them carried a G2A2 Assault Rifle in their hands, down at their sides. The lead Replica had been observing as the other two were executing several civilians, a couple maintenance workers included, up against a wooden fence. It was soaked in blood, and the blood was pooled down at their feet, beneath a trio of bullet ridden mutilated corpses. The corpses were situated next to a dumpster, and an abandoned couch beside it. Evidently, they had been under orders to execute civilians, witnesses... before their link to their commander had been severed. By that action... their task remained incomplete.
In the far left corner of the fence sat a single man in a blood soaked suit, face and dark hair stained with the blood of the victims. His shirt was so soaked it almost looked pink. He sat with his eyes shut tightly, still alive, arms around his knees and rocking back and forth silently. Already worlds away from the horrific incident he had managed to survive purely by chance when the Replica had shut down. The Point Man considered the strange, uncomfortable scene for a time... lowering his RPL and letting it hang from its sling against his chest. He looked to each of the silent and still Replica soldiers... the assault rifle finally dropped from the slackening fingers of the lead Replica, clattering noisily to the ground by his boots. He looked to the murdered civilians, and he saw Alice Wade's face on them, returning to his mind's eye.
He remembered his attempts to protect her through the Armacham Technology Corporation Headquarters... he had wanted to get her extracted out of the city to a safehouse. She had fled alone, instead. Hadn't even waited a few extra moments in that parking garage for him to join her... escort her to the Auburn District. He had tried to rescue her... protect her... but he had been too late when he found her, down in that dark place. Down in the Vault. All he had been able to do was avenge her, in the end. Reaching to his side, the Point Man withdrew his original AT-14, rose it, and fired a single round through the back of the Replica's head. The high powered armor piercing round roared into the night, tearing through the back of its head and out the front. Grey matter, bone and blood spraying all over a nearby side of a building.
The Replica collapsed as unceremoniously as its rifle had... and taking aim again the Point Man coldly repeated the action two more times. The two sleeping executioners pitched head first and impacted against the ground and fence, instantly lying dead among the corpses of their victims. Slowly, the Point Man lowered his smoking sidearm again, grip tightening unconsciously on it. The rounds hadn't shaken the only living man from his shock, and he remained as before. Broken inside. The Point Man started to step past the dead Replica... but paused, looking to its fallen assault rifle. Waste not, want not. He reached down and scooped up the would be executioner's G2A2, looking it over with satisfaction, before slinging it over his shoulder and gathering up some spare ammunition from its pouches, what he could find. He intended to put it to better use than its previous owner would have.
Then he moved down towards and stood over the traumatized survivor for a moment, kneeling down and examining him. There were no signs of any physical injuries, minor or major... none of the blood was his. The Point Man didn't know if his mind was truly gone or not, if he could be helped. Even so, leaving him here as he was now would be less than help... and if he left him alone with a gun to fend for himself, there was no telling what he might do with it. Sergeant Major Holiday had requested he extract any survivors that he could. A distant memory returned to him... with Alice's face. From down beneath Auburn. Beneath the Origin Facility. Down in the Vault. His hand instinctively went to one of his pouches... opening it, and reaching inside... grasping what had remained within and drawing it free. In the overhead light... both the necklace and blue pendant glinted, even stained with her blood... as it had in the depths of the Vault.
Turning over the pendant, the initials remained, blood stained but stubbornly inscribed in the back of it. A.W. He remembered retrieving it from her after he had avenged her... tucking it away, and forcing himself to forget that it was there. Focusing anywhere but on her... in order to have the strength to keep going. To complete his mission after failing her. He had been too late to save Alice from Fettel, or the man on the bench... but maybe the silent man had a chance of meaningful recovery. Jin could tend to him if... when they found her. Make him better. The extraction point was a hospital anyways... maybe some of the staff there had survived. He deserved a chance, however great or slim. Gloved hand tightening around Alice's necklace, he tucked it back into its pouch and closed it up. Still somehow feeling the weight of it.
The Point Man made his decision.
He promptly grasped the man by his blood stained shirt and pulled him to his feet, hoisting him over the shoulder in a fire man's lift, while tucking away his sidearm in its holster. The man spoke no words, and he offered no resistance. Turning towards the couch next to the dumpster, he stepped past the executioners and victims, climbed up on top of it and stepped on to the lid of the dumpster. His gloved hand settled on the top of the tall wooden fence.
Grasping the fence, the traumatized civilian breathing rapidly against him, The Point Man pulled them up and over. Landing solidly in the next alley on the other side of the fence. At once, he drew his sidearm again... keeping it down low, but ready for what might lie ahead. Activating his headlamp to illuminate their way. The blood was so thick it was leaking through to the other side of the fence, his boots nearly slipped in it, and the bullet holes in the fence shone out light. Pin pricks of light in the darkness. Leaving the execution site, war torn street and devastated subway station behind, moving on deeper into the ruined city, he left only a trail of bloody bootprints in their wake.
Now we're underway.