"We need to find a way out of this mess," Jack said as he surveyed the passageway ahead, considering the situation. With how many jump-scares he'd had recently, how many ambushes he'd walked into, he wanted to take the situation slowly. Finally, he looked back at the other three Marines. "Jennifer, Harper, stay here and cover our asses. Wells and I will scout ahead and try to find a way up," he said.
"Understood," Jennifer replied.
"Come on," Jack said, shouldering his shotgun and beginning a slow, steady walk down the stonework corridor.
"On your six," Wells replied tightly.
They passed a curious brass torch, mounted on a small platform of tiny skulls, that burned with a strange, deeply blue light. It cast a shifting, unnerving haze of shadows across the area. Just beyond it was an alcove to the left that terminated in a metal, high-tech door, completely inharmonious with the stonework masonry around it. Beside it was a platform of what might have been granite and a simple staircase leading up to it. It didn't seem to have any obvious meaning, just a raised section that took up half the space in the alcove, about six feet off the floor.
Jack ignored it for now and continued on. The area terminated ahead, with just another alcove to the right, no door this time. Some dead Imps were the only company they had for now. He found more anomalies there in his investigation. Another platform, this one embedded halfway into the wall at the far end of the central corridor, made entirely of high-tech silver and gray metal with several implications of technology embedded in its surface. Jack frowned as he got closer to it, ignoring the Imp blood that had sprayed across it.
"What's wrong?" Wells murmured behind him.
"This. What the fuck is this?" he replied. "It looks like it's part of Haydenfield, but I don't think it is. It looks like..." he hesitated, searching for the right words, "like it's trying to imitate the technology and aesthetic of Haydenfield without actually understanding it. This stuff here, it looks kind of like circuitry and motherboards and chip-sets, but it's not. It's all...off. I think the demons put this here," he muttered.
"What, like, the fire-throwers?" Wells asked uncertainly.
"No, not them personally, but like their forces."
"You think they installed it?"
He shook his head. "No, I don't think so. I don't know how, but this looks like imitation technology, not actual technology. Or maybe it's their technology? Shit, I don't know. This is all so weird, but..." He looked around. Behind him, off to the end of the alcove was one of those big silver plates with a switch. It was in the OFF position, the top glass square burning red, the bottom one dark and dead. He backed up a step and looked up over the lip of the platform, just catching sight of another one up there. "But I think it works, at least. Lemme try something."
Jack walked over to the switch on the ground level and flipped it. His heart leaped into his throat as he heard a grinding sound behind him. Spinning as he heard Wells curse sharply, he saw that a section of the floor, specifically the way they'd come into the alcove, was rising up.
"Shit!" he snapped, reaching out and trying to flip it back. But it was stuck. He turned around, prepared to do something crazy and desperate to not be trapped in here, as he could easily envision that section of floor continue raising up into the ceiling, but when it got about five feet up, it abruptly stopped. They both moved up to it and mantled it, hauling themselves upon onto it. Jack looked around for some change, prepared to throw himself off in case it suddenly kept grinding up, but nothing happened.
"We good back there?!" Jennifer called from the head of the corridor.
"Fine!" Jack called back. He looked around. "What the fuck is this for? Why did that button do that? Why is any of this here?"
"I don't know, can we flip the other switch and get out of here?" Wells replied.
"Yeah, hold on." He moved over, hopping to the technological platform, then prepared to flip the switch there. "Get ready. I'm doing it."
"Ready," Wells confirmed.
He flipped the switch. There came the sound of a door opening somewhere nearby, and he figured it had to be that door at the end of the original alcove. Rejoining Wells, Jack led her off the freshly raised section, back down a little ways, and into the left alcove. He took the lead again, shotgun at the ready, and moved towards the now open doorway. All he could see was a wall of dirty tan-brown rock to his left and a room that opened up broadly ahead and to the right. Cautiously, he slid up to the threshold and looked around.
The room was a good twenty feet tall and maybe a hundred feet across. It didn't seem to have any particular shape or function to it, mostly just made of that same coarse tan-brown rock, and–
An enraged roar ripped across the area, shattering Jack's concentration and sending a shock of frozen black terror shooting straight to his very core.
He'd taken a single step into the room and now he spun to the right, catching sight of the Baron of Hell that had issued the trumpeting roar of dismal doom.
"Get reinforcements!" Jack screamed as he instantly switched to his plasma gun.
The Baron hurled a ball of glowing green plasma his way and he barely managed to avoid it, jumping to the left, deeper into the room. The ball smacked into the wall behind him with a solid impact. His right shoulder throbbed as he took aim and unwillingly recalled the direct hit he'd taken from a Baron back during his original campaign across Hell. It was impossible to believe that had occurred less than a week ago. The wound wasn't even fully healed yet. As he heard Wells shouting for backup, Jack strafed and fired, moving both deeper into the room and closer to the Baron as he let out a string of blue-white balls of energy.
The Baron of Hell roared its fury as the balls of energy smacked into its broad, well-muscled chest. Flesh burned and sizzled, blackening and crisping away as the plasma ate into it. The pain only seemed to enrage the thing further. It was on a raised platform, maybe six feet off the floor, and stomped forward, its hooves crashing into the rocky material as it started coming for Jack. He felt real panic set in as the stream of plasma abruptly shut off and the gun let out a short, angry chirp. He let out his own short, angry sound and pulled the trigger again.
The chirp was repeated. The gun was dead.
"Fuck me!" he snapped, letting it hang and pulling out his shotgun. As he did, the Baron hurled another green energy ball his way and he was forced to throw himself to the side. It was descending some stone steps now, coming down off its platform for him, its polished hooves smashing into the rock, sending up fragments with each impact. That was when he heard gunfire, an assault rifle and a chaingun began chattering away. Bullets began chewing into the Baron and it stumbled, then roared again, turned, and tossed another ball of energy their way. Jennifer was a few steps into the room with her big chaingun and Wells was in the doorway, firing off bursts from her assault rifle. Jack finally found his footing again and opened up with his shotgun.
Given the damage it had taken from the plasma rifle, it didn't take long to finish the giant bastard off. It staggered under the combined assault, then went down to its knees. It tried to get back up, getting one cloven hoof beneath it, hand raised to throw another ball of energy, and then it collapsed. Jack sighed in relief as it died, then quickly surveyed the area around them once more. Nothing else had shown up during the firefight.
"Goddamn I hate these fuckers!" he snapped as he quickly fed more shells into his shotgun.
"You okay?" Wells asked uncertainly as the other three slowly moved into the room to join him.
"Yeah, why?"
"You just...freaked out."
"That thing doesn't freak you out?" he asked, nodding to the corpse.
"I mean yeah, when it screamed it scared the shit out of me. I just thought–" she hesitated, "you've been through so much, I guess I thought nothing would freak you out like that."
He laughed and glanced at the dead Baron again. "I'll give you that. The Imps, the zombies, the Demons, they don't really freak me out too much anymore. Startle me is more like it. But the Barons...I dunno, something about them stuck with me. They fucking scare me. So do some of the others. I think the Lost Souls scare me the most."
"They should," Harper said firmly, and they glanced at him. "I saw a guy get taken over by one on my way in. It was..." he shuddered, "it was really bad."
"Yes," Jack agreed. "Now, let's keep looking."
It didn't take them too long to locate another switch up on the platform the Baron had been guarding. They flipped it and a section of the wall slid down, revealing an impromptu elevator. It slid back up after a bit and after getting the timing down, Jack had the others go wait by it. They stepped aboard as it came down and as soon as he flipped it he sprinted across the room. There was just enough time to get aboard.
"Some day," Jack said as they headed up, "I am going to find out why this shit is happening."
"The invasion?" Harper asked.
He shook his head. "No. I imagine they're invading because they're assholes. I mean, I'd like to know, but what I really want to know is why in the fuck this reality-warping shit happens, and more specifically the way in which it happens. I mean, I have seem some weird shit so far. How is it happening, and why? It doesn't make sense. I mean, to me, but I feel like, logically speaking, it's pretty incoherent. What are the instructions being followed when a place is morphed? Are there any instructions? Is it random?"
"I've always thought that if we ever actually encountered aliens, communication might be almost impossible," Wells said, and they looked at her. "Not necessarily because of language barriers, although certainly that would play a huge factor, but because of the potential for vast differences in things like culture and brain structure and evolution. I mean, they could be so different from us that they don't even perceive reality the same fundamental way that we do. It might be like...trying to explain yourself to a spider, you know?"
"That does make sense," Jennifer murmured.
"At least we know how to talk to these fucks," Jack growled as he hefted his shotgun. The lift had settled into place and deposited them in a small antechamber of more gray brickwork. There was nothing and no one around the room, and only one door. Slowly, Jack walked forward and pushed a big red button embedded in a square of silver next to the door, and didn't even quite look like a door. It was more a panel made of dark gray-green rock and embedded in its center was a strange design that reminded him oddly of a lion's face, roaring, though with clear alien features to it. The eyes and mouth glowed emerald.
A lengthy, narrow corridor was revealed. This looked almost like a part of the space station, the floor made of gray hexagons, the walls made of green metal paneling, the ceiling, though, was lit by strips of hellishly red light.
"You've got to be shitting me," Jennifer muttered.
"How much farther do we have to go?" Harper asked.
"Well, based on what we know so far, we need to get up about forty feet. And I'd say we're halfway there as of now. But with no telling how long it's gonna be between elevators, I have no clue," Jack replied. "Wells, with me–"
Jennifer interrupted him. "Let me go with you."
He glanced at her. "Any particular reason?"
"Just a feeling," she replied.
He shrugged. "Okay, Wells, Harper, stay here and watch our six. Let's go."
The pair moved slowly down the narrow, long tunnel. From what he could see, it extended for a good forty or fifty feet and then turned right. He prayed that this would get them out of this nightmare. He just wanted to make the damned repair and then cut the dark heart out of this demonic infestation. As they pressed on, the tension quickly ramped up. He kept expecting the panels to spring open or the floor to drop out from beneath him or some other ungodly thing to happen.
It happened when they were about halfway down the passageway.
The wall to the right snapped up, the entire wall, and not just the one closest to them but that side of the corridor down the right-hand turn up ahead as well, as he could now see through the opening into that section of it. A medium-sized, diamond shaped room of what might have been strangely designed tan metal plating, the floor cut in half by a five-foot wide trench of bubbling green acid, appeared. Across the acid was a clutch of screaming Imps, almost a dozen of them. They all immediately began winding up and hurling fireballs.
Jack and Jennifer stepped away from each other as they returned fire with a vengeance. Jack blew the head off one cleanly with his first shotgun blast and Jennifer began stitching a bloody line of holes across a trio of them as she hosed them down with her chaingun. The things shrieked and raged on the other side of the acid, hurling fireballs at them as quickly as they could. Jack felt a few pelt into his armor and the uncomfortably hot sensation each made, as well as the kick it delivered, as he pumped shells into their ugly hides.
Right as they began to get control of the situation, he heard another whooshing sound behind him and spun around.
The fucking other wall had opened up!
And behind it was a row of a half-dozen Chaingunners.
"OH FUCK!" Jack screamed as he fired off another shell and managed to blow a good-sized hole in a big, ugly skull and dropping one of them.
That was about the time Wells and Harper appeared, not having to come all that deep into the area now that the walls had opened up. All four of them immediately opened fire on the new threat that had manifested. He felt several bullets pelt his armor and a warning light began to flash on his HUD. Jack ignored it as he kept firing and strafing, backing up a few steps while mentally keeping the topography of the area in his head so he didn't back right into some acid. He pumped a few shells into another Chaingunner as Wells or Harper added their own fire to the mix and brought the big ugly bastard down. Jennifer churned a few dozen bullets into another bald fucker and splattered its guts across the wall behind it in a vibrantly gory display.
Jack prepared to take out one of the remainders, but stumbled forward as a hot wash of pain smacked into his back. Growling, he spun back around and fired the final shell in his shotgun at the single remaining Imp to his back. It took the shell in its gut, spraying ruby gore everywhere, and Wells finished it with a shot from her pistol. Jack hastily reloaded as he returned his attention to the Chaingunners, but before he could get all the shells in, the other three finished them off, and then all became still and silent.
"Now aren't you glad I came?" Jennifer asked as she reloaded her chaingun.
"Yes," Jack replied simply. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
Everyone quickly reloaded and the quartet of battle-weary Marines began hunting for the exit. The two areas that had opened were just dead-ends, more hidey-holes for the demonic beasts to lurk in, and they followed the shape of the initial corridor until it finally terminated in a set of stairs that went up another level, bringing them to just below the surface where they needed to be. Jack led the way, more wary than ever.
That last one had been a bit much.
The doorway that was atop the stairs opened up into…
Darkness.
Jack lamented that the suits they'd been given didn't come with basic light-amp functions. He knew some of them did, but it seemed inconsistent. He turned on the flashlight mounted on the end of his shotgun and the beam of titanium white light punched into the darkness. A large room was shown to him. The only immediately obvious things were a floor made of more of that green brick he'd seen so much of in Hell, and pillars. Rounded pillars of ugly brown stone, with some kind of creeper vines with black thorns snaking up and across them.
"What the fuck is this place?" he muttered. Finally, he took a step into the room. His footstep echoed, making him even more uncomfortable. "Be careful," he said over his shoulder, "I've got no idea what the fuck is in here."
"Holy crap," Jennifer muttered as she came in behind him.
"What are we doing here?" Wells asked quietly.
"I'm not sure...let's try to get across it," Jack replied. "Head on a swivel."
The others turned on their flashlights, which helped push back the darkness, but not by enough. All that was revealed were more pillars. A lot of them. Rows of them. The ceiling appeared ten feet overhead, but he couldn't see any of the walls. Why was this place so damned big? What even was it? As they made it maybe ten meters deep into the room, Jack froze as he heard something. A thump. He stopped, holding up his fist, then waited, listening intently. There it was again, for sure. A heavy footfall, it sounded like. Then another.
Suddenly, there were several of them, coming from the left and the right.
They were getting closer.
"Shit, we got incoming," Jack growled as he aimed between the two pillars nearest to him. He couldn't see anything, though. But they were definitely getting closer. Spectres, he realized suddenly. Had to be.
Sure enough, he caught some shifty, uncertain movement in his flashlight's beam.
"Spectres!" he snapped and fired. His ankle still ached from that one that had snagged him earlier. A roar sounded as a geyser of blood spurt into existence. He didn't sense any of them ahead. "Run!" he shouted as he fired another shell, dropping the Spectre and then taking off. The others raced after them, firing potshots.
He had no idea how many there were, but judging by the roaring and stomping, it sounded like a lot. Maybe a dozen, maybe three times that.
Way, way too many.
Still no wall manifested as they ran on through the pillars. How big was this place? Jack was just beginning to panic when suddenly one appeared in the flashlight's luminosity. And, lo and behold, there was a stairwell, ascending. Their salvation.
"Almost there!" he screamed.
No more potshots rang out as they focused on crossing the final distance. Jack hit the stairs and raced up them, see a door, a normal-looking door at the top. Praying, he hit it and punched the access button. The door slid up and revealed a normal-looking corridor of bland metal plating. There was nothing in the corridor waiting for them, though he did spy four doors, two to either side, but they were closed for the moment.
"Go!" he snapped, spinning around and opening fire into the shifting mass of Spectres just barely visible down below. Wells raced up the stairs and disappeared through the door. Harper was moving more slowly, and as soon as he began making his way up the stairs, Jennifer skidded to a halt at the bottom, about-faced, and then opened fire with her chaingun. She laid waste to the horde of Spectres, sending a cacophony of pained and enraged roars into the air as the chaingun chewed into their invisible bodies.
Harper disappeared through the door after Wells.
"Jennifer!" Jack shouted as he kept firing.
The second her chaingun ran dry, she spun back around and dashed up the steps. He emptied his own weapon giving her cover fire, putting down another trio of Spectres, (he thought, it was honestly hard to tell), and then slipping through the door behind her. Jack smashed the close button and then locked the door as soon as it was shut.
For several seconds, no one spoke, the four Marines simply stood there, getting their breaths back, calming their nerves. Finally, they slowly began to reload. Jack looked around as he finished shoving shells into the shotgun, hunting for some kind of identifying mark to give him a clue as to where in the hell they were. The doors, he realized, all had basic labels stamped above them. The nearest one was marked STORAGE AR-44.
Jack activated his map. "Wells, Jennifer, move further down the corridor and–" He jerked as something banged against the door behind them. Cursing, he spun around, waiting. Several more bangs sounded as a Spectre or two smashed against the door, raging impotently. The door rattled in its frame, but otherwise held. Finally, after another few punches, the Spectre apparently gave up and wandered off, back into the strange, dark room.
Jack sighed and shook his head. "Secure the area. I'll figure out where we are."
"On it," Jennifer said, and headed off, now wielding an assault rifle as, he imagined, her chaingun had to be dead by now.
It took a moment, but he finally zeroed in on the supply section they had emerged into from the reworked hell zone, and then determined where the thing they had to repair was. "Holy shit," he whispered as he figured it out.
"What? Was that good or bad?" Harper replied.
Jack laughed. "We're like fifteen meters from where we need to be."
"Talk about luck," Harper muttered.
"Clear!" Jennifer called.
"Come on."
Jack led Harper down to rejoin the others and once he'd updated them on the latest development, it was a blessedly simple matter to move down another corridor, pass through a simple transitional area, and come into the tech node that housed the part of the vast security network they needed to repair. The place had been shot to hell and back, but Harper immediately located the necessary equipment and set to work on it.
Jack had Jennifer and Wells secure the only two entrances while he patrolled the room. It was relatively small, but he didn't trust anything anymore.
"Give me good news, Harper," he said after five minutes.
"I can fix it, and soon," Harper replied.
"Finally, we needed a damned break," Jack muttered. "How soon?"
"Ten minutes or so."
They ended up locking themselves in the room and having a sit down. Each of them took a long drink from their canteens and caught their breaths.
After almost fifteen minutes, Harper let out a long sigh and stepped back from the equipment after snapping shut a panel.
"It's done," he said, and sat down heavily on a metal crate.
"Take a break, you earned it," Jack replied as he activated his radio. "Lieutenant Anderson, this is Sergeant Ward."
"Ward, I hear you. Just got the call that the security grid is back online. I'm having my technicians starting the search right now. How's your team?"
"Actually pretty good. We took some hits, but we're okay," he replied. He glanced at Harper. "You're okay, right?"
"Yeah...mostly," he replied. He winced. "Think one of my wounds reopened," he amended after a second.
"Wells," Jack said.
"On it," she replied, standing up and pulling out her Medikit.
"Good. I'll get back to you in a moment."
A few moments passed, the only sounds that of the base humming along around them and Wells working on Harper, first getting some of his armor off, then replacing his bandages. Jack felt bad about pushing him as hard as he had but...it wasn't like they exactly had a choice. Not long after Wells had finished patching Harper back up and gotten his armor back on, Anderson returned.
"Okay, good news. The grid turned something up, some kind of strange signal, unlike anything we've ever seen before. It's coming from the core of Haydenfield. I'm going to start preparing rally points and sending out routes to everyone I can find. I'm going to need the four of you there as soon as possible with as many guns and as much ammo as you can muster. We're going to converge on that signal and rip this dark fucking heart out."
"We'll be there, Lieutenant, you can count on it," Jack replied.
"Good. Let's get this done."