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CURRENT EQUIPMENT
Hive Revolver
Status: Equipped
Condition: Functional
Ammunition:
6 / 6 Loaded
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Stub Rounds
Status: Carried
Quantity:
51
Condition:
Mixed Quality
Source:
Looted
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ARS Accelerator Module
Status:
Installed
Condition:
Stable
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Turbine-77 Utility Knife
Status:
Equipped
Condition:
Worn
Description:
A common hive-made fighting knife.
Sharp enough.
Usually.
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Autopistol
Status:
Looted
Condition:
Poor
Magazine:
5 / 12
Reliability:
Questionable
Previous owner:
Deceased
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Autopistol Ammunition
Status:
Carried
Quantity:
17 Rounds
Condition:
Functional
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Autogun
Status:
Looted
Condition:
Used
Magazine:
18 / 30
Reliability:
Acceptable
Description:
A battered hive-made autogun.
The stock is cracked.
Several parts do not appear original.
It still shoots.
That is apparently enough.
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Autogun Ammunition
Status:
Carried
Quantity:
74 Rounds
Condition:
Mixed Quality
Source:
Looted
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Reinforced Ganger Coat
Status:
Looted
Condition:
Damaged
Protection:
Minimal
Current Benefit:
Less naked.
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Turbine-77 Gang Tokens
Status:
Carried
Quantity:
3
Description:
Identification markers used by members.
Potential Uses:
Disguise
• Deception
• Terrible decisions
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Thrones
Status:
Carried
Quantity:
46
Description:
Local currency.
Current Wealth:
Technically exists.
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Supply Satchel
Status:
Looted
Condition:
Functional
Contents:
Nutrient bars ×4
• Water purifier tablets ×7
• Lho-sticks ×9
• Cheap stim injector ×1
Recommendation:
Consume selectively.
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Assorted Salvage
Status:
Looted
Contents:
Scrap wiring
• Mechanical parts
• Weapon maintenance tools
• Miscellaneous hive junk
Ownership Status:
Disputed.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
I took status of what I had looted, a nutrient bar on hand. I took note of the words like auto gun and stub rounds. Making us of the local vocab. The wrapper fought me harder than most of the gangers had. Not that I'd know how they fought, blacked out before I'd see their combat strength.
I tore it open with my teeth. The bar itself looked like compressed sawdust that had lost a fight against grease. Gray-brown, real dense. Probably made decades ago.
I didn't want to take a bite. It looked like decade old shit. But my stomach was displeased with my wants. It enforced what I needed.
So I took a bite— and immediately regretted it.
"Fucking hell..." I muttered.
The taste somehow managed to be both salty and flavorless. Still, my stomach hungered. Within seconds half the thing disappeared. Starvation was willing to negotiate standards.
My thoughts briefly led to the prisoners I left behind, then to the woman I tossed the keys too.
Briefly they came to mind, quickly did my attention change.
The corridor remained quiet around me but never silent. Distant gunfire echoed through the sprawling industrial labyrinth. Heavy weapons somewhere far away. Occasional explosions followed. The sounds rolled through rusted tunnels and ancient machinery like distant thunder.
"Old as hell, this place is," I gave my two-cents.
The statement felt inadequate. Rust allover— the walls, the pipes, the doors. The massive machines that occupied rooms for purposes I couldn't even begin to guess. Some looked dead. Others groaned and rattled somewhere beyond my sight, still functioning despite appearances.
I couldn't decide which possibilities disturbed me more.
The second half of the nutrient bar vanished. Did not feel full. At least it held me over.
My eyes drifted toward a panel that listed my inventory that I didn't dismissed. My eyes drifted towards the weapons I'd looted. A revolver, an autogun, a knife...
Further ahead— eyes up— toward the dark corridor. Answers: maybe. Trouble: certainly.
An underlying chance for it to be both.
My hands clinched, hard enough to feel air popping in my knuckles. Something was waiting for me. Judging by everything I'd seen so far—
— it probably wasn't friendly.
I continued the walk in silence. The corridor narrowed as I moved deeper into the rusted maze. Every few steps I passed signs of people having lived here. Makeshift sleeping areas, empty cans, and discarded clothing. Crude markings spray-painted onto walls.
A lot of it looked abandoned. I noticed some looked abandoned recently. That was an important distinction. A distant explosion rattled the ceiling. Dust drifted from overhead pipes. I glanced upward— an immediate bad idea. The pipes looked held together by faith and corrosion.
I increased my pace. Not long after I found the fist body. Firstly, it didn't look like a ganger. I didn't think so at least.
The corpse wore darker clothing than the others I have seen. Better equipment too— of which I took since they weren't bolted down— only after I studied the body further. Hard armor plates covered his chest and shoulders. A shattered visor hit most of his face.
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New Loot:
Helmet: damaged
Combat boots
Utility belt
Identification badge
Restraint manacles
Data-slate (containing orders)
Enforcer armor (carapace armor)
Ration Bars: x5
Water purification tabs: x3
Flashlight
Grenades: smoke (x2), stun (x1)
Shotgun: well maintained
Loose shells: x34
Basic medkit
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
He'd been dead awhile. The man had clutched something in his hand. The reason it's 'had' was because I looted it before even reading it. I brought it out from the inventory, in phased in like becoming one with reality.
The inventory read it as dataslate. It's no weapon, but something more valuable. This tablet was more likely designed by someone who hated comfort. The screen was cracked. Luckily it was still functional... mostly. A blinking icon occupied the center.
A holographic map displaying a route in three dimensions. The route cut through this facility in a straight line. It ignored gang territory, supply caches, defensive positions, everything. The path led toward a single destination buried far beneath the structure.
I stared at it, making sense of the info I just gathered. A simple gaze up from the tablet toward the distant gunfire then back at the map. A realization hit: the people shooting each other weren't fighting over territory. Neither loot or— more importantly— me.
Something down here was important enough that armed men were willing to die for it.
I found myself staring deeper into the darkness.
"...well," I sighed, "That's probably where I need to go."
Seeing the route, the dataslate agreed.
Beckoned me really. The blue route pulsed once, then twice. The glow reflected across my face before I dismissed the thought. Electronics did weird things. It wasn't like I understood half the technology around me anyway. I put the dataslate back into my inventory. It fade out of existence like it's reality being severed. I did it for use later, maybe down the road I'd get a skill that made me turn useless junk into something else.
'A crafting skill would be nice,' I mused, thinking about long term abilities.
I started walking again, left the body naked of nearly all of it's possessions.
Disgraceful: surely.
Did I care: nah.
Not since the slaughter— not since the first blood.
The further I followed the route, the less signs of habitation I found. Graffities disappeared first. Then the sleeping areas. Then the scattered trash and evidence of human occupation.
The deeper levels felt abandoned. This time, not recently.
'Try Forgotten.'
The walls changed too. The rust remained, but beneath it I noticed something else. An Older metal, thicker than the ones I saw back down the road. Construction that looked deliberate rather than patched together over decades.
Whoever built this section hadn't expected it to survive. It endured— and the ones to whom built it knew it would.
"What kind of gang would build their base here?" I questioned them. "This looks like something that had status. No wonder they're getting attacked."
The distant gunfire continued. Closer now; so much closer.
Every so often a burst echoed through the tunnels. Controlled and disciplined. Nothing like the panicked firing from the gangers I'd hear occasionally.
The dead armored man flashed briefly in mind. Then the route. Then the shit I took... reallocated from him. I had a thought provoking thing in my head.
If one of them died trying to reach this place: how many more were still alive?
The answer arrived several minutes later.
I froze, not in fear— but in preparations. Voices ahead. My flashlight remained off as I crouched low beside a rusted support column. The voices echoed from a connecting passage. They were calm and professional— and if the dead man back then wore any warning label— they sounded armed.
I could make out their words; though only in fragments.
"...advance team failed..."
"...containment seal..."
"...priority retrieval..."
"...authorization confirmed..."
Unfortunately, completely incomprehensible. The language sounded human enough. Harsh syllables, short clipped words. Orders, probably.
A paused followed, then a different voice occupied the space. Sharper— yet feminine.
"Forget the gangs."
Silenced answered her.
She continued, "mission objective remain unchanged."
The others stopped speaking the moment she did. Whatever she said wasn't long but held enough authority that nobody interrupted. A few replies followed.
Bootsteps, several pairs like percussion instruments.
Then silence.
I waited another minute before moving. The last thing I want is to be spotted.
'And risk another black out,' my mind more in fear of losing myself than death.
I glimpsed at the dataslate again from my inventory. The route on the dataslate continued downward. Straight through a maintenance hatch partially concealed behind a collapsed section of wall.
I returned the dataslate. The hatch should have been impossible to notice. Instead my eyes found it immediately. A strange sensation crawled through my chest. Nothing like familiarity Nothing like a memory.
Recognition, a strange and older sensation that was more recognition than anything.
The feeling lasted less than a second. Yet my hand was already reaching toward the hatch wheel.
I stopped. My pulse quickened. For the briefest moment— I knew this place. Not the tunnels nor the facility. The door... its shape. The locking mechanism. The symbols etched along its frame beneath centuries of grime.
I shouldn't... but I knew them.
The realization vanished before I could grasp it. Leaving only unease and confusion. A single uncomfortable thought: This wasn't my memory.
Yet somehow— it felt like it belonged to me.
Far below, beyond countless layers of metal and darkness, something vibrated.
Nothing physical. Something deeper, a sensation, a calling. The dataslate route terminated there from recollection. The armored men, that woman, they were heading there.
For reasons I couldn't explain— I had the distinct impression that whatever waited at the end had been waiting for a very long time.
Before that, another thought surfaced: the language. I hadn't understood a single word— not a one. The realization should've arrived sooner. Everyone I'd met since waking up had either tired killing me, screaming, or both. Actual conversation had been short supply.
The voices ahead erased any remaining doubt. The words were human. At least they sounded human— sharp syllables, short commands, efficiency carried through.
All meant absolutely nothing to me.
i remained crouched behind the rusted support column.
I listened, one voice spoke. Then another responded. A third joined in.
The exchange carried the rhythm of people used to working together. Then a new voice entered.
Female, lower than expected, sharper too. It wasn't loud, she didn't need to be.
The others stopped talking immediately. That did not require any translation. Authority sounded the same in every language.
Whatever her words were wasn't long. A few at most. Yet when she finished, nobody interrupted. Nobody questioned nor argued.
Several seconds passed before responses came.
Short, immediate, and obedient. A chill crawled down my spine. Not because I understood their language, because I understood what she was.
She was in charge
Bootsteps followed, several pairs like before. They moved measured and disciplined. The kind one gets from training rather than instinct. The sound slowly faded into the depths below.
I counted to thirty, then to sixty. Added another thirty for good measure. Only then did I move.
Slowly, I crept toward the passage they'd emerged from. The corridor beyond looked different from the rest of the facility.
Cleaner... not really— just looked less of a ruin than before. Ancient metal panels lined the walls beneath centuries of rust and neglect. Thick cables vanished into the darkness overhead. Dust coated everything untouched by recent movement.
A lot of fresh boot prints crossed the floor. Lots of them. All headed the same direction.
Toward the hatch, towards whatever waited below.
I glanced back once and waited... nothing. No voices, movement, retreat— ahead was darkness— ahead was armed professionals— ahead was almost certainly a terrible decision.
With a deep breath in, I let out a sigh. Then I started walking.
'Unfortunately, terrible decisions had been working out for me lately,' I managed a smirk at the crazed thought.
The corridor descended. Not too steeply, just enough that I noticed after several minutes. The architecture continued changing the deeper I went. Rust remained everywhere, but it looked different down here. Older and untouched. The sort that came from centuries rather than neglect.
The boot prints continued. A dozen at least by the contents. Maybe even more, not like I was exactly a tracker. What I did know was that every print pointed the same direction— down.
I passed another intersection, then another, and another. None of which appeared on the route I have seen earlier.
Something told me not to take them. This certainty of unknown origin arrived before the thought. My legs never slowed.
I frowned because that happened twice now. The hatch... the route... now this. Feelings that vanished before I could examine them.
Leaves me irritated.
I do not understand them, I hated that. Especially when their happening inside my own noggin.
A metallic clang echoed somewhere ahead.
I stopped on my tracks. I let the silence follow. Then a distant voice, too far away to understand— not that I'd understand.
I resumed exploration, slower than the pace before.
A faint glow appeared around the next bend. Not bright enough to be a room. A nano-second of visual allocation, then realization. I crouched the moment I made it.
Flashlights, and several of them.
My heart rate accelerated. Instinct driving the beat, not fear. Fear would've told me to leave like a pussy. Instead, curiosity told me to get closer.
Keeping low, I crept forward until the corridor widened enough to see.
The armored group far ahead, much farther than I expected.
'Eight— no... seven. That's one less than before,' I mentally noted.
Their lights danced across the walls while they moved through a massive chamber. Glimpses were only available between machinery.
They had dark armor like the dead man I saw before. Disciplined formation, weapons held at the ready. They advanced with utmost vigilance, expecting something to attack them at any moment.
The woman was among them. Even from this distance, she stood out. Though she wore a different uniform, it wasn't because of that. Everyone else unconsciously adjusted around her. Each on of them made space, they watched her, and waited upon her decisions.
Authority.
The same thing I'd heard in her voice, now given visual representation.
— BOOM!
Something exploded further into the distance. A violent crack thundered through the chamber. The armored formation immediately halted. Weapons raised like they trained. The light's dance turned from vigil eloquence to an alarmed waltz. They searched and waited. Opting to react than to engaged. Nobody spoke nor panicked.
The silence somehow felt worse.
Several seconds, that's how long time passed. Then— movement. Spotted, one of the armored figures advanced toward whatever caused the disturbance. The others remained behind, covered and watched like professionals.
I subconsciously swallowed. Because a sudden possibility occurred to me. The gangs weren't hunting these people. These ones weren't hunting the gangs. Everyone was heading toward the same destination. Whatever waited down there— might be hunting all of us.
The thought settled heavily in my stomach. Then a new sound drifted through the darkness.
Metal grinded against metal. Ancient and slow. Somewhere far below, it stirred—
— it moved.