Memory Retrieval…

Date: 10/23/2437

Time: 20:59:23

It was always like a dad to come home late at night, long after the other dads in our sector had come home and played with their children and eaten together with their families. But mom always had dinner ready at just the right time, in just the right way, and as a kid, all you could do is to just get used to it. He always walked in the door to our apartment at exactly 21:00 hours (9 pm), in a suit and a tie, gruff and tired from the day. You could never talk to him, and he never really played with me on the weekends when he was off from work because he was in the gym training with his work buddies. His life revolved around that job and he never told me why, until one day he came home early and I found out what he does firsthand…

It was a Tuesday afternoon; a thin cloud layer had covered the sky giving a hazy look to the scenery outside. I had been home not even fifteen minutes, when the steel doors slid open with screeching speed and my father stepped through at a hasty pace, and a grave look on his face. Sweat beaded on his neck as he tried to loosen his tie and discard his business attire as he ran towards his room in the back of the apartment. I got up from the dark gray couch and started after my dad, by following his discarded clothes along the ground, I got to the door to his office, which had been left ajar in his haste. I stole a look inside, only to see my father step into a metal closet and emerge covered in armor plates. The plates seemed to absorb the light around him, making it darker and I could see scars from all kinds of weapons I did not know of. He turned towards the door as if knowing my presence and rushed to find me, I tried to run back towards the living room but he caught my arm and held me close, something he did not do often, and I could feel his chest heave as if he was trying to say something he could not hold himself to do. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he tried to speak but the doors burst open and three large men dressed in black clothing stood in the broken doorway. My dad rose, his muscles tightening and flexing as if in anger. The three men charged him, as shiny metal shapes fell out of their robes and moved to strike my father. He moved, as they went to strike as if he knew what they were doing before they did. As one of them went to strike at his head, he caught them by the neck and slammed them to the ground, and then dropped his heel into their skull. Before he could recover, one of the men drew a blade and went to stab my father; I could not stand by and let it happen so I dropped my shoulder and tackled the man. Throwing him to the ground and I began to beat his face to the floor, I saw the man’s arms move as if to stab me with the blade still in his hand and I waited for the pain to sear through my veins. The pain did not come through, I looked towards the blade and my father had caught it with his hand and forced it back into the man’s neck. He helped me get myself off the ground, and I saw behind him the last of the large men charge him with knives. I tried to yell, but my voice could not escape, then I tried to push him out of the way but before I could even take a step, a gunshot rang through the apartment. I looked towards the sound and it was my mother standing outside the kitchen door, with a shotgun on her hip and a casing on the floor. My father drew my eyes away from the destroyed carcass of the man and drew my mother and I close as if he knew he was dying soon. He looked at me and told me to pack lightly and go out the window and get to the transit hub, a man named Alfred would meet me there and take me to a safe house away from the recent threat. He tried to get my mother to go with me but she said that she would not leave his side, he hugged us both and kissed my head, and sent me to my room to prepare myself to leave. I grabbed my clothes, equipment, and anything else I would need to get to the transit hub. I threw the pack on my shoulder and went back out to the living room with my parents. They hugged me and told me that they loved me and they didn’t want this to happen to me, as I went to go towards the window my father stopped me and gave me a velvet-wrapped object and told me that it was a piece of him and he would never leave me as long as I had it. I went to unwrap it but a loud noise caught my attention, before I could look up and see what it was my mother shoved me towards the window as the clashing of steel resounded through the apartment. I hit the emergency release on the window and rappelled down to the wall, but before I took the first step, I caught a glimpse of a large man in shiny red armor followed by twenty or more of those black-robed soldiers rushing into the room where both my parents stood. My father turned his head towards the window and nodded, as if he was telling me that it was going to be all right, I tried to hold back the tears but I couldn’t as the rope went between my hands and I climbed down the steel wall of the complex into the alley below. I had to drop the last few feet and my boots crunched against the dried scum that lined the ground. I retrieved my rope and looked around, checking my corners and making sure it was safe to move on. I started my way down the alley towards the streets, which would lead me to the hub. As I got closer to the mouth of the alley, a large man in a police officer’s uniform stepped in front of me. I looked up at the man’s face but could not make it out due to the low light on the street. He held out his hand, assuring me that it is safe and that he would bring me to safety. I went to reach for the hand but then I noticed something, I have seen a lot of policemen before, coming around asking us about noises or complaints but I have not seen an officer wear his badge upside down. I withdrew my hand, as the man’s face changed from kind, to angry. The man began to chase me, his steps thundering down the alley, echoing against his heaving breaths. The thunderous noise of trashcans and metal plates being tossed around filled the alley; I kept running until I hit a wall of another complex. I turned to see the large man still running towards me, and as if by second nature, pulled my father’s gift out of my pack and drew a long blade from the velvet wrapping. The blade shined in the yellow after the light of the street, I looked up from the blade, and with a loss of fear I charged the man. I jumped with what strength I had left in my legs and an awe-inspiring arc, slammed the blade into the chest of the man, dropping him to the ground with a loud thump. I sat on the man trying to regain my breath and looked up towards the mouth of the alley to see another man, in what looked like the same plating my father wore, I drew the now red blade from the dead man’s chest and brought the blade up to my face in a fighter’s stance. The man took a step towards me and tried to speak something but it was drowned out by the sound of a gunshot, I looked up to see what has caused that noise and heard a man fall behind me. I turned to see a large, thin man with a revolver lying on the ground in a pool of his blood. I turned back towards the armored man and saw the smoke from a gun swirl around him; he began to take a step toward me and this time his words were not interrupted. “Drake! Are you all, right? It’s Al!” The man spoke in a familiar voice, but I could not think of who it was. I walked towards him, keeping the blade in striking position, and as I got closer, I could see he had the same marking on his suit as my father and I dropped my stance and ran towards the man. He greeted me with open arms and spoke in a warm voice, “Thank God, you are all right… look at how you have grown Drake, the last time I saw you were still small enough for me to hold.” At that point I knew who this man was; he was my father’s ‘lost’ brother. I remember hearing how he was on the killed list after the transit ship he was working on as an engineer was attacked by Dredge. He is a lot tougher than his father gave him credit for. He gave me a shroud to wear so that any assassins in the crowd could not make out my face. We finally made it to the hub after what seemed like hours of walking through City 13’s forgotten streets, Al walked up to the booth and the man gave him some keys and pointed towards a door down the hall a bit from him. Al kept me close as we neared the door and got me inside first, and then he fired a flare down the hall towards the doors of transport so that the distraction would keep anyone from seeing us go through the door. Once we got inside, the rusted steel changed for white ceramic and concrete floors, as we went further into the complex, another transit hub sat in front of us. Rows of small blue transit ships sat in tubes, ready for departure at a key turn notice. Al pointed towards a ship with large white numbers on it; the numbers read 116 on the rear of the ship. Al said that every associate gets their transit ship; this one was my father’s and will soon become mine when I come of age. We loaded into Al’s pod-ship as he placed the key into the ignition and the engine awakened with a thunderous roar, the flame turning from a raging orange to a neurotic blue. We both fastened the harnesses and then Al pinned the throttle and the ship kicked off the landing pad and into the tube in front of it. The titanium ribs of the tube flew by until they were a shiny blur and then they stopped as the tube ended and the ship entered the cramped skies above the city. I have only been above the city once and it was with my father, I had already begun to miss him. Al then took the ship for a drastic turn and brought it into a dive through the swarming streets and the tiniest of passages. Finally, the lights of the city faded, and the remains of an abandoned hub lay in front of me, I finally realize Al had brought us to the dead sector of the city; he slowed down the ship and brought us into one of the broken and destroyed tubes. We continued down the tube until a large door blocked our way, Al parked the ship and stepped towards the door, and placed his hand on the scanner and with a large creak and with a succession of thinks the door finally opens to reveal a large hallway. Al leads me down the hallway and on both sides of the hall a large banner reads ‘Demon Security’. I stare in awe at the immensity of the building thinking about how big it must be if it is this immense on its inside, finally, we reach two large glass doors, I push one open and it glides across the floor opening up to a lobby filled with people. As we enter, they all look at me and start to whisper among themselves, Al puts his hand on my shoulder and tells me not to worry about them. We keep walking and finally make it to a room filled with pictures, papers, broken armor pieces, weapons, targets, and all the tools I would ever need. I looked at the door, and it read 116 just like the ship I saw on our way in. It must be my father’s and the solemn look on Al’s face told me it was. He told me to leave my stuff here and follow him; it was time for my briefing. We walked down the corridor, passing numbered door after numbered door until it opened into a large spherical room with a large holographic table in the center. As I walked in, I saw that we were not alone, I counted five additional people standing near the table discussing subjects and problems I could only imagine. As I got closer to the table, their heads began to turn and look at me with disbelief and I could hear their whispers talking about my father and how could Al have brought a child here. Then the whispering abruptly stopped, I looked to see why and all I could see was a short woman with silver hair walking through the doorway behind us. She stepped up to the table and slammed a large stack of files into the center, leaving an echo to break the silence. I looked at the strangers surrounding the table and saw that none of them were more than fifteen years old, making me the youngest at eleven. The silver-haired woman then spoke with a gentle voice that could stand a wall straight, but still resounded with a feeling of wisdom.

“For those of you that do not know, I am E, your supervisor, and commander and these other young people around you are your teammates. For the next few years, you all train together, live together and fight together. When you reach the age of eighteen or after three years you will graduate and then be assigned to a senior associate who will prepare you for the rest of your career here at Demon Security.” We all looked at each other as the E picked up the files in the middle of the table, “before I read these files off, your parents left names for you to take on when you left to join the corporation.” E pressed a button on the dashboard of the table and a name appeared in front of each of the new associates, except for me. E looked at me in surprise and told me that my father did not leave me a name and that I would have to make my own. I thought deeply, thinking back to what my father used to say, how he used to say that he always had a Grim on his shoulder instead of an angel. I looked at E with solemn eyes and spoke the word that will shape the rest of my life… Grim. She nodded in approval and the name appeared before me, I looked at the others surrounding the table their names in bright blue holographs in front of them. REX, FROST, DEMON, GREMLIN, BISHOP, and myself GRIM. We were sent to our rooms after our files had been read off and the introductions were finished. Al brought me back and helped me set up my room and get used to the life I am now taking on. He told me that he had to go deal with some issues and he will be back in the morning. After the door closed and I was left alone, I brought out the bloodied knife and laid it on the workbench next to my bed, the blade still half wrapped in its velvet cloak. I closed my eyes, listening ever closer to the creaks and whispers of the metal walls, underneath the generations of stone. Finally, after what seemed like ages, the darkness settles in.

Date: the year 2452

Time: 23:16:01

The feeling of reaching terminal velocity brought me back to reality as the ground continued to race towards me with ferocity. I brought my body around and fired my grappler rig at the building’s structure and gently touched the ground as I retracted the cord and its attachment into my arm plate. As I refocused my view, I found myself now on the corrupted streets of City 13, the next step was to follow the spilled blood.

I started my desperate search a couple of blocks down the walk, looking for any signs of a struggle that were fresh, blood on the ground or holes in the wall, or even a moving garbage can. As I stalked the walls and alleys for signs of REX’s presence, a glint of brass caught my eye; I looked down to see a casing from a 10mm pistol on the ground. I picked it up and on the back were an R and an X imprinted by the firing pin where it hit the primer. REX’s calling card, I placed the casing in one of my pouches and started down the alleyway where more casings could be found as the passageway led on. Turn by turn, the alley started to shorten until the sound of combat broke the silence. The shuffling of feet and landing of blows caused my attention to flick towards the mass of dark robes pummeling and surrounding a silhouette. I drew my dual .45s and fired both 10-round magazines into the mass of robes dropping all but three of them. I emptied the magazines and slammed two fresh ones into the hungry magwells of my pistols and focused my sights on one of the robed men that began to charge me with a machete, only to take a round to the neck and drop. The second turned to see the wounded man and looked towards me in shock and dropped the dagger in his hand and started to run, I decided to not waste the rounds and let him live. The last robed man stood there, dumbfounded at the death that surrounded him, and began to shake violently. I sprinted towards him, realizing that he showed signs of being poisoned, and tried to remove the pill from his mouth but he was dead before I could reach him. I turned my eyes towards the silhouette at the end of the alley, and my eyes fell upon REX as he lay on the ground, his helmet broken and removed, his face bruised and bleeding with multiple gunshots and stab wounds in his torso. I picked him up into my arms and held him like a father would hold a dying son and listened to his final words. “G-g-grim, we’re in deep shit brother, I am sorry I ever doubted you. Y-y-you deserved to be with us, they think you are still dead, so you may still have a chance. F-f-frost, they have FROST… here, go, now…” As life left his eyes, he placed a micro memory card in my hands and held it until he left this world. I closed my brother’s eyes and laid his head down; I said a prayer over his body as I stood and placed the card into my helmet’s respectful slot and a following set of coordinates popped up in my HUD. The numbers seemed familiar but I could not place them from where it was, I looked up towards the darkened sky and launched my hook towards the endless skyscrapers, and began my ascent. As the ground disappeared, and the wind whips past my body, I think of how I am going to win this fight and why I must keep FROST alive.

Memory Retrieval…

Date: 10/19/2447

Location: Demon Securities, Training Facilities

Another restless night, the visions of my parents flashing through my head and giving me no peace despite it being almost ten years since I got placed into the Demon Security program. The sweat drenched my pillow and blankets as I tossed and turned as the screaming death filled my head continuously as I tried to purge the memory from my eyes. I woke with my hands wrenched around the pillow, choking the imaginary life out of the linen. The drowning white light seeped in through the opening doorway, causing me to cover my eyes and wake with haste as the whooping of the morning alarm filled the small steel room with noise. I shuffled to the closet to put on the day’s combat fatigues, throwing on the fabric as I ran towards the open hatch. I jumped into my boots, the auto laces going tight, tightened my rigger’s belt, and tucked in my black shirt, jogging towards the mess hall for breakfast. Before I had even gotten ten steps down the hall I immediately doubled back and grabbed my father’s dagger off of the nightstand and attached it next to my bowie knife on my belt. Over the past few years, I had modified the dagger to fit in a nylon sheath and I carried it ever since it saved my life in that alleyway ten years ago. I resumed my jog, my boot’s metal heels clacking against the floor plates as the doors made their trademark hiss as the plates unlocked and slid into the walls. For years I have lived in this place, and I know every inch and every noise this sanctuary has to offer. The mess hall is filled with operators, ranging from the grizzled veterans to the greenhorns, all sitting at their tables and talking in their jargon. I jumped in the line to get my morning slop and walked my tray towards the polished table where the rest of my team sat. Rex looked up from his food and raised his fist to bump mine as I sat down on the chair next to his, we had become brothers over the past four years seeing that I was the youngest by at least four years in the squad but I had earned my stripes like any other soldier. Especially since cadets are supposed to graduate at eighteen and I would be the youngest cadet to graduate at sixteen, alongside the rest of my squad. We had one month left until the final day, the day when we will become full-fledged DS members. As we sat there eating the morning grub, a fresh new line of cadets entered the hall, all in a straight line, in perfect cadence, same haircut, everything straight and starched. We glare at them for a time starting to recall the times when we were that young, but instead of enjoying the moment, Gremlin and Demon the twins of debauchery, stood up and ran towards the group of cadets with bad intentions. As the twins started mocking and annoying the new cadets, the rest of us sat back and started to remember the past four years and how our rag-tag squad became one of the best units to make it through the program. The flashbacks were interrupted by the squealing of the intercom turning on and announcing that the selected squads should move towards the Great Hall for review. We all stood up and shifted our trays towards the end of the table and the clacking of our boots echoed within the commons as all eyes fell on our squad. Our reputation had even shaken the foundation of the veterans who were here before our time, for we were the youngest squad to attain a perfect score on the Gauntlet. We started our walk towards our rooms, for we needed to get into our ‘formal’ wear if we wanted to cross the stage and earn the right to become special operators. I returned to my room and walked up to the cylindrical cabinet that had my emblem painted on the front, a bone white skull with a blood red scythe marking the resting place of my armor. I plugged in the code and the doors slid open with a loud hiss and a clunk as the doors disappeared. My armor lay magnetically locked against the wall, the blackened plates shining against the artificial lights in the room. My trademark trick-blade scythe lay braced next to the armor, yearning for the fights that lay ahead. I stepped towards the cabinet as the doors closed behind me and the machines started to separate the plates and began attaching the armor to my bodyshell where the metal attachments jutted out, when the whirring stopped and the arms retracted, I exited the cabinet and adjusted the fitting. I reached back and snatched the scythe off of the wall and stepped towards the door, I operated the hatch and stepped through into the hall where the rest of my squad stood. My blackened armor stood out from the bright metallics of the rest. My plates were broader and bent instead of contoured, it was heavier than the new models but protected like a stack of phonebooks. My helmet was crafted to have a globe visor instead of a goggle system so that I could have multiple interfaces run at once on my HUD, I did have one thing that my squad mates did not, my armor was made to hold a Virtual Intelligence capable of running the secondary systems and any other applications needed during a mission, its name is “Angel”. We all stood together, taking in the fact that we were about to become official operators and go on our first mission together. As we walked towards the hall the lights became brighter and brighter, until a white light blinded me as I passed through the threshold.

Returning Operator Systems…

Date: the year 2452

Time: 01:12:05

The light leaves my eyes as the helicopter lazily hovers away in its pre-planned route back towards whatever building it had spawned from. I breathed slowly, the air exiting through the filters in my visor and further into the night air. A beeping tone alerts me to a small voice in my earpiece, a holographic image of a blue-screened woman becomes opaque in the corner of my visor; she looks at me with eyes of urgency, as if V.I.s can feel the urgency. “Drake, I am having trouble locating Frost’s neural tracker, the ping is showing her location on the eastern side of the city. There is significant interference, meaning she must be under heavy security and/or surveillance.” I looked toward the hologram and replied sternly, “If I can get closer, could you refine the location? Maybe strip out the interference?” “Of course, but we would have to get extremely close, their jammers are highly effective.” As I planned out the route, the winds began to pick up the soot from the rooftops creating tiny clouds that floated across the stream lights along the rooftops, I stepped off the ledge and grabbed onto a steel cable line traveling underneath me, bringing me quickly onto the main tram line towards the eastern half of the city.

The sparks fly from the plated fingers of my gauntlet as I fly down the tram line like a flaming shade straight outta hell. The steel pillars fly past me like dark metal creatures screeching through the air, I arm the grappling rig on my other plate and fire the magnetic grappler into the skyline waiting for the solid thud that tells me to let go of the tram. My momentum carries me high above the skyline allowing me to make adjustments and land swiftly and silently on my feet, soot flying into the air where I had landed on the rooftop. I stood against the skyline, my visor being the only thing seen by the hovering cameras around the buildings as their red strobe lights temporarily lit up the area around their lenses. As I stood upon the eroded edge of the building, the lights shining into my tinted visor, I could see movement along the streets leading towards a large structure in the center of the district. The building looked older than the rest of the district, with a neon sign standing on top of it reading “McGale’s Self-Storage”, some of the letters have burned out leaving dark holes in the bright horizon above the warehouse. I kneeled, flipping down my rangefinder in the process, and began to scope out the four-story behemoth, tagging both soldiers and civilians alike. “What I am looking at Angel?” After a few moments, the voice picks back up on my earpiece “24 soldiers, 54 civilians, 5 snipers, 2 captains, and a single IR tag signal. There still seems to be a lot of interference around the building, I cannot pinpoint the location of the soldiers or Frost until we take down the jammer.” A smirk comes across my face as I draw one of the .45’s and twist a suppressor onto it, “well, we have the mission let’s wreak some havoc.” I hook my line into the ledge and begin to rappel down the building towards the ground where two guards stood; I slowly descend until I am right on top of them, detach the line from my harness and loop it to form a makeshift noose. As soon as the guards had turned their backs to me, I slip the loop over the first guard’s neck hauling him into the air killing him instantly, I then drew my blade and thrust it through the carotid artery of the second dropping him like a sack of hammers. Now that the start was clear, it was just a matter of time before I found the jammer. But as soon as I had begun my search, a startled yelp came from above on the catwalks of the buildings, an unmarked sniper had discovered the hanging body and was about to sound the alarm, when his head blew open from a pistol round fired from my hand, the gun smoke swirling around the barrel. Knowing that I was now in a short time, I had to move quickly before anyone else decided to be a hero. I moved through the crowds using them to break the line of sight the sentries would have on me, my overlaid trench coat allowing me to blend in swiftly and turned on the millimeter scanner attached to my helmet and began to look for the source of the jammer.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The screen illuminates in an orange glow as small diamonds begin to pop up, showing me every weapon and metallic object in a 75-degree field of vision. I can see everything from weapon specs to how much change is in the sentry’s pocket. I duck behind a rolling cargo truck and swing my view onto the main building in the center of the square. I increase the zoom on the visor, bringing the images closer and allowing me to see through the walls and into the guts of the cement obelisk. The diamonds begin to fuzz in and out, unable to lock on to any object within the walls reminding me that the jammer is still operational. I move past the truck and into an alley beside the building, looking for any kind of the epicenter of the interference. I scan the sides until I come across a large panel in the ground, made of metal and etched with diamond plating, it seemed to be the very center of the jammer signal. I checked the area and pulled the plasma cutter torch from my belt and burnt through the lock, giving me access to a ladder and the room beneath it. I locked my boots onto the ladder and slid the thirty feet into the darkness, landing at the bottom of the dusty shaft with my back towards a locked door that hid a humming secret.

The door is large, approximately seven feet high, and about six inches thick, it is made of petrified dogwood which is nearly impervious, and to make the matter worse there is a tri-bolt lock system on the door as well, whatever is behind it must be extremely important. Seeing that my torch could not cut through the bolts without disturbing the vibration alarm hooked onto the edge of the door. I decided to take the brasher route and make use of the thermite charges on my belt and simply melt the bolts while simultaneously blasting the door off its hinges. After carefully placing the charges, I made my way up the shaft enough so that the blast would not affect me and waited for the noise to begin. I could feel the heat starting to concentrate in the corridor below, as their travel made the air have a heat that swatted at my helmet and tore at the filters. The concussion from the blast shook the foundation of the facility itself and the heat from the eruption of pure thermal energy screamed up the shaft and threw itself into the night sky taking the metal hatch with it. As the dust started to settle, I knew I had very little time to waste and began to make my way towards the jammer, as I reentered the corridor and walked through the now devastated and scorched doorway the jammer’s location became obvious through the dust. The machine lay inside a room about twenty feet wide by thirty feet long, set in the back corner along a wall covered in network servers connected to the steel foundation of the house above, I would have cared more for the servers if I was not so pressed for time. Voices began to echo down the shaft and were matched by the quickening pace of boots on steel rungs, so I dismantled the jammer and began to find my way out of the room. Seeing as there was no actual doorway leading out, I knew I was going to have to make my own, so I flipped on my scanner and searched for vulnerability in the cement wall next to the jammer. As the sound of boots came closer, the seconds ticking away in my head, I finally found an old duct that would give me entrance into the house and safety from the excited guards. As I began my hurried breaking of the wall the first of the guards came around the corner wiping his dusty face and blinking in disbelief at the armored man, he saw in front of him. I turned as the shaking guard raised his gun and tried to put his bead on my chest, I stood there chuckling as I stomped my boot at him causing the guard to flinch and fire too quickly and miss his mark by a few inches. I laugh again at the guard as I jump into the large duct; once I was inside, I pulled a grenade from my belt and threw it back towards the dumbfounded guard and the others sure to follow. As I made my way up the duct the familiar tingle of ions and buildup of heat told me to hang on to something, and a moment later dust filled the duct followed by the smell of burning rubber boots. Now that the jammer was gone my visor was able to find Frost’s location again and highlight her coordinates inside the beast I had just crawled into. I crawled into a dark basement, my infrared vision whining to life covering the scenery in a sickly white and green, I knew I was close and I was not going to leave this goddamn place without saving Frost first, so I opened up a channel to see if she could hear me and as the static dissipated a scared woman’s voice came through my headset followed by the echoed laughter and taunts of the armed men up the very stairs I was climbing. Knowing that she could hear me and that she was still alive meant that I wasn’t too late, that maybe I could save this one, “don’t worry Frost, I’m coming…”

The wooden steps creaked as my boots ascended towards the door with a bright light leaking from underneath it. As I reached the passageway and my hand moved for the knob as the sudden sound of the boot falls moving towards the door made me freeze where I stood. Voices picked up and began to speak of the disturbance I had created earlier and increased in volume as more people joined the discussion, then a sudden silence fell across the group as whispers began to replace the general banter an eerie feeling crept into my stomach. No sooner had I begun to move away from the wooden door, did gunshots erupt through the barrier followed by a steel-plated boot that began chasing me down the wooden steps. As I ducked under the shrapnel and turned on the aggressors, their faces changed from that of confidence to those of fear as I released hellfire from my hands into their bodies. The air went silent, as the heat from my weapons dissipated, the only noises being the slumping of the limp bodies and the sizzling of gunshot wounds. The magazines dropped from my pistols, clacking against the cement floor and ringing in the still air, the click of the fresh rounds resounded as the thump of my boots echoed against the strewn corpses upon the now bloodied steps. I emerged into a corridor lined with small folded aluminum doors with matching padlocks, thinking to myself that this must be one of the original storage floors before they remodeled the building for their headquarters. Curious, I cut the lock off one of the doors and lifted the panels, and inside laid boxes of ammo and weapons, OD green and marked with white paint. I looked towards the corner and their laid boxes of fresh gunpowder, primers, and casings ready for use. I placed a charge in the furthest box and replaced its cover in its original corner and linked the charge to my HUD. I reviewed the layout of the floor above me once more and began my ascent up the steel stairwell leading to the next fight waiting for me. The ominous feeling inside my gut grew to exponential size as the steps fell behind me, and the thumping of my shifted weight on the steel steps echoed within the corridor as the rusted door moved into arm’s reach. As the final step fell under my boot the lights became dimmer and shadows fell within the next room as well as the empty corridor that I stood in. I reached for the door handle and felt nothing but the cold air flowing through the hole where a handle used to be. The rusted door moved slightly as the air pushed against the aged gate, making a metallic shriek whenever the door returned to rest as an eerie light flooded through the hole and into the dimmed corridor. I looked closer at the hinges and drew my knife, knowing that the door would give away my entry I used the blade to wedge the hinges up slightly so that no resistance would be given by the rusted edges and pushed ever so slightly letting the door swing into the poorly lighted hallway. As I stepped onto the poorly redone floors, the sounds of movement and enemies began to fill my ears, the shuffle of feet and the coughing of someone choking on sawdust, showed me just how many I would have to deal with. I slink into the room next to me and listen ever closer, slowly counting the footsteps of the targets, four gunmen, one civilian, and a soldier in riot gear, fantastic. If I alert them, they would run up the stairs making my presence known, and I can’t sneak past due to all of the construction work leaving too many holes in the walls and ceiling. So, I am going to have to deal with them, I ask Angel to light up the wiring and supports within the walls so I can begin to think of a way to eliminate these bastards. As I start to scan the walls, one of the soldiers becomes curious and had started to move towards the room I am currently hiding in, I creep towards a group of barrels in the corner and wait to ambush the unsuspecting soldier. As he enters the room, I unhook some of my grappling wire and create an improvised garrote and I wait for him to fully enter the room, as soon as he stepped towards the corner, he sealed his fate. I emerged from my spot and threw the garrote around his neck and began to tension the wire immediately catching him by surprise and silencing his screams. As soon as the body went limp, I catch him and his rifle and lay the body in the corner, I looked up from the corpse and an idea sprung from my head. I redrew my knife and cut through the drywall revealing a large electrical supply cable, I ripped the cable from its setting and wrapped it carefully around the dead man at my feet. To test my theory, I took a metal rod and touched the body, the connection created a large spark, fantastic. I carefully moved to the room across the hall and began to prep myself to spring a very excellent trap; I threw a stone into the room attracting one of the sentries to the trigger of my death trap. The soldier became startled as he found his partner dead, and when he went to touch him a large amount of current surged through him and threw him across the small room spazzing. The commotion drew the attention of the others and after they all entered the room and helped the shocked man up, did their fuss become more of a worried banter? The sergeant, who I assumed was the one in riot gear, told one of the grunts to cut the power and to drop their NVGs, the bastards had fallen right into my trap. The lights went dark and they were all huddled in the small tight room, I switched my visor to night vision and walked up behind the grunt that stayed outside of the room, he did not even realize that I was not one of his comrades even with his NVGs. I continued down the hall past the idiot guard and towards the door, as I reached for the handle a shout from the guard caused me to stop, the soldier started to approach me and yell for me not to move. As I turned to face the guard, I lifted my right hand swinging three grenade pins on my index finger. The guard saw the pins and began to frantically pat his chest checking for the armed grenades, only to find that the pins were not his, he sighed in relief but then realized that the pins were not his. He ran back into the room going to warn the others but as soon as he stepped inside the grenade belt attached to the dead man in the corner erupted into fire and flames that devoured the ignorant soldiers within the small room. I look back at the carnage that had erupted and saw that one of the grunts was still alive staring at me past a burned gasmask and a bleeding face, so I stared back as the white light from the stairwell reflected off my visor and onto the poor man. I walked towards him and kicked a fallen pistol towards the broken man, then simply turned and walked away waiting for him to try and take a shot at me. As I reentered the stairwell and the weighted door slowly swung shut behind me, I watched as the man did not turn the gun on me but on himself. As the steps began to fall beneath my feet, and my ascent began, a gunshot echoed in the air and my head shook with shame as another coward took the easy way out. Now that the enemy knew I was here, it was time that I properly introduced myself.

I double-checked my magazines, my spare ammo, my visor, as well as Frost’s location. They all checked out, and her locator was telling me that she was on this floor in the far western corner. I stepped up to the platform and set a breaching charge on the door, drew my pistols, and waited for the fun to begin. As the timer in my visor counted down to zero my grip on the pistol handles tightened in preparation for the fight, as the door erupted into shards and the dust and the shockwave charged into the room, I faced twenty to thirty soldiers all with their sights on my chest. As their rifles reached their shoulders, my fingers tightened on the triggers and released express deliveries of pain to the bodies of the idiotic soldiers trying to kill what is untouchable. As they began to fire back their rounds missed their mark and bit into the wood walls and floor as their numbers were cut in half before their chambers could reload. As I stepped closer, fire erupted from my hands, their fear grew and some of them began to run from my fury only to be shot in the back. As my chambers ran dry, I holstered my pistols and began to finish off the enemy by hand. I drew my knife and my scythe and went to work, slashing, stabbing, and throwing the bodies of the traumatized grunts that stood in my way. As the final soldier fell and the air fell silent, the air fell still but was broken as the doors upon the stairs in front of me burst open with a large man standing there, covered in ceramic plating and Kevlar weaves. The man also carried a large steel riot shield stained with blood and graffiti from years of conflict. I assumed that this man was the leader of these pathetic soldiers, his shouts of anger and boasts of past achievement confirmed my suspicions. His large form thumped down the stairs as his weight battered the wood and shook the attachments, he had placed all over his armor. A largely faded tag on his chest read what was imagined to be ‘Briar’ at one point, but has been worn and partially removed from its fabric. When he finally reached the ground level, he raised his shield and began to charge me, his speed was pitiful as his movement showed past injuries and his agility has lessened because of it, I simply sidestepped his charge and tripped his overconfident mass into the ground. As he flips himself over, he comes face to face with my hand cannon and a question, ‘Where is she?’, the man laughs at me and mocks my attempt to save my friend, his laughter stops as I pull back the hammer and press the muzzle against his forehead of his helmet. He tells me that she is behind the locked doors in the upper room and that I could just take her and that she wasn’t worth the credits after what I had done to his mercs. As I stared into his face, I pulled out my second pistol and fired it into his leg between the plates, he let out a violent grunt as he shook his head trying to convince me that he wasn’t the one behind this. He stammered through the pain that he didn’t know who hired him, all he knew was that some guys in black robes dropped off Frost and paid his group 5 million credits to make sure she does not fall into the hands of Demon Security operatives. I froze in anger, my fingers on the triggers, I replaced my visor and asked the man one final question, ‘where are the black robes…’, he started freaking out that if he told me that the men would come back and kill him since most of his mercs are now dead. I pressed the burning muzzle into his skin and asked him ‘who said that I wouldn’t?’ his voice trailed off, he didn’t plead with me that I spare him unlike other people before. I stepped back away from the injured man, seeing that his pride was hurt worse than his body, replaced one of the pistols, and walked towards the bottom of the steps. The man started moving and grunting in the process, I stopped and turned as I fired one round that meet its mark beside the head of the leader, causing him to stop moving and bring his bruised eyes to mine. His voice was low and gruff as he brought his shoulders to bear, ‘I am just trying to do things right by this city and those before me, I have lost so many men that I have lost count and I was hoping that this would pull us out of the pits we have dug.’ He paused, ‘Briar, my name is Briar, I was given a chance and I blew it. Just kill me you goddamn monster, go ahead and end my existence you have seen that my body has started to deteriorate, I can barely walk let alone fight, the virus has already taken hold and I would rather die with some honor than in a bed!’ I lowered my arm away from the soldier, pity flowing through my face but then evaporating in an instance, ‘I know who you were Briar, and I refuse to end the life of a man who has fallen but still holds a shred of dignity. If you want to die, do it yourself, I have a family to save.’

I holster the pistol and begin my ascendance of the staircase; each step feels heavier than the last as I pass all the blood and brass along the floor soaking in all the pain and death that has followed me to this place. The echo of my boots floats in the air for what seems like an eternity, with no other noise within the broken room to counteract it. I finally reach the braced doorway, forcing the door open and making my way into what looked like the main holding cell where those who knew too much met their unfortunate end. The floor is stained with what looked like weeks of blood and fluids, and tools of destruction and pain are strewn across tables and shelves all around the room. Scattered amongst the walls are large locked steel doors covered with dents emerging from the inside of the cells, I began to look for the cell that held Frost, inspecting each darkened corner of the cells closely as I moved closer towards the far corner of the room. Each cell seemed to hold at one time a broken and decaying body, the smell of bleach leaked through the filters of my visor telling me that whoever was kept here is long gone. I make it to the last room, the door seemed newer than the others but has a larger number of dents in it showing that whoever was kept here was not happy to be a prisoner. A dark figure sat in the corner, barely moving except for the chest falls showing that whoever it was; was still alive for the time being.

I looked for the lock mechanism and found it buried on the right side of the door, closest to the wooden wall, I stepped back and buried my metal boot into the door knocking it off its rusted hinges and into the wall beside it. As I entered the cell, my suspicions were proven correct when I approached the body in the corner and flicked on my RIG light, to reveal a broken, bruised, and bloodied girl trying to hide in the cell’s corner. I reached out my hand and she retreated from it, I had forgotten that it had been years since my old squad had seen me and they had probably forgotten my armor but not my face, so I kneeled and retracted my visor so that my face was in plain view. I moved closer to Frost and let the light fall upon my scarred face, I spoke softly to not startle her, ‘Elizabeth… Lizzie, it’s Drake…’ she looked up at my face with eyes that radiated the pain she had suffered at the hands of these brutes. She seemed to not believe me, but this time when I put out my hand she took it, I helped her up and led her out into the light so I could fix her up for transport. As we walked slowly towards one of the tables, I saw that Frost was hurt worse than I had previously thought; her armor plates were removed and her combat shell was bloodied and damaged and her body was covered in deep lacerations and bruises that were worse than anything I had seen. I broke open the trauma kit I had brought and started to apply the various bandages and salves to try and relieve her of the pain; I gave her a Stim Pack and stood her up so that her body could start healing. As I gave her a final look over, I asked her to enlighten me about what happened to her and how long she had been a prisoner of these mercs. She stood there silent for several moments as if she was frozen in time letting the world pass her by as she reconciled the past events into a manageable answer. After an eternity she turned her head and spoke in a soft tone, a tone that mimicked the noise of the wind against the boards of the building, a noise that carried much power despite its volume. The events that she described, gave me the impression as if stepping into a horror movie, the robes had put her family at gunpoint to lure her into their trap. When she arrived and still submitted to the bastards, they pulled the trigger on her family killing her brothers, her sister, her mother, and her father, then turning and leaving their bodies to rot in the warehouse they had brought them to. She was then drugged, abused, beaten, and bruised as the mercenaries tried to get information out of her on the robe’s instructions; at this point, she seemed to float off in her mind, I tried to bring her back so I could know why she was interrogated so badly. When she came back to reality her silver eyes filled with tears that wiped the dirt from her worn face, she looked back at me on the verge of hysteria and said they were looking for me, for Grim. She tried to string her words together between her sobs that the others on the team had refused to tell the robes anything so they were killed due to ‘accidents’, but they knew that they could get to you if they took me, that’s why Rex was in that alley, he was trying to save me so that you wouldn’t be exposed and fall into their hands. I fell backward catching myself on one of the tables as I realized that the deaths of my squad, of my family, were all because of me… Frost came and sat next to me, wincing as the pain shot through her body, and joined me in silence as the events transpired in my head, connecting the dots that I have waited to piece together for years. After an everlasting silence, she finally asked the question that had been hanging in the air, “Now what?” My visor replaced itself, hissing as the seal completed, the lights flicked on inside my helmet as well as on my RIG. I stood up, shook off the blood and dust, and started walking towards the door, Frost shakenly stood up and limped after me asking me where I was going. I stopped and turned to face the questioning look of my dear friend and simply said, ‘Back to where all this started…’ I started towards the doorway leading to the roof, as Frost grabbed her helmet and chest plate and caught up to me, I kicked the steel door open revealing a black sky lit up with spotlights strafing the damned clouds circling the city. The night air sent a chill down my spine as I searched for a means of transport, luckily for us I did not need to search far because the mercenaries were kind enough to leave a VTOL transport on the building’s landing pad. I helped Frost towards the VTOL, the mercs leftover outside stepping to the side as the instructions coming from their radios told them to stand down, suddenly the pilot jumped out of the side door hands in the air. I moved past him, helping frost into the transport as a shot rang from a weapon behind me, Frost with arm extended past my head had drawn her sidearm and put one center mass on the pilot who had drawn his pistol and was training it on me. She dropped her hand as the man fell to his knees dead, “You can’t kill me, you can’t”, Elizabeth was worse than I had thought and I needed to get her out of here and to safety. I secured her into the co-pilot seat and strapped myself into the pilot’s seat while Angel linked herself into the VTOL’s systems.

Once the engines kicked on and the vehicle lurched off the pad and into the soot-soaked sky, I brought up my HUD and selected the detonator that I had armed before this event had begun and opened my hand, inside the room a slow, dying whirring noise silenced. As the engine went to a full tilt, I disarmed the charges and increased the speed exponentially, my mind began to race as the pieces fell together like a long-forgotten jigsaw puzzle and the events that were about to transpire sprinted through my head as scenarios formed rapidly, then suddenly it all stopped. The sound of silence fell into the cabin, no thoughts, no feelings, no scenarios, the world suddenly just stood still as I turned to look at Elizabeth, her bruises showing through the blanket I had laid on her and the stains left by the tears still on her cheeks and I realized that I am no longer doing this for me because I could have left the city and all of this behind me, no… I came back not for the glory or the jobs or the money but her. Ever since I left, I felt like I had forgotten something in this damned city, and all it took was a single distress signal. She needed my help and I came running; now I realize it with all the pieces lined up together perfectly, that everything I have done so far has been for her, and now I know who is behind this Hell, it is time for them to face Grim.