ICC- Kilrick Salvage Chapter 3- Manhattan Story

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Rama had to give Terra credit, she had spunk and guts. New York didn't make you soft. No, it made you sharp and wise. "It is unwise to laugh at our guide Deeds. She knows the city... you don't. Besides, I'd rather her leading us than you. Of course, I am not paid for my opinions." Stryfe said coldly. He could see Deeds face brighten. Again, the upstart who had given him a shove forward when he was trying to make it plain that Stryfe was beneath him. It seemed the Ranger didn't seem to heed that warning. Stryfe merely stared back at Deeds, his gaze and Deeds gaze could have frozen the air with the degree of cold wills.

Stryfe could probably kill Deeds without skipping a beat, of course, that would be wasting man power and perhaps Deeds wasn't sure if he should start something. Stryfe wasn't like Logan who he could just shove around. No, Stryfe would take a shove and end up shoving a twelve inch blade in his guts and spreading the gore on the dirt.

Stryfe decided to break the temporary battle of wills with Deeds and moved his gesture towards Terra whom he regarded with a rare smile, one that almost made him look as if he was human.

"Care to lead the way, Terra. Safe or semi safe. I guess its a start. Besides, I known one thing about New York and that the machines don't bargin." He gestured his arm towards the path way.
 
Deeds watched Strife. He thought for a moment, That man might have to be put down.

Jasmin watched Deeds. She had been with the sergeant for a long time and the two had shared many battles. Comrades but not friends. She also knew that Deeds knew more about the mission than she did. Was Deeds losing it? Perhaps. Her loyalty to the Greens and to her comrade was questioned by her own judgments and doubts. Something else. Though she didn't show it and none of the others had recognized it, Jasmin was afraid of this mission.

Stokes was used to this. The will of hard men in conflict often turned violent. A pissing contest. He merely smiled.

Stowe and Edwards both watched the exchange with growing fear. A conflict among the fighers could jeopardize their mission. For Edwards this would mean failure, but for Stowe it meant relief from a burden she was tired of carrying.

Jake didn't like it. He would have to speak to Kilrick. It would be a problem if the job went bust.

Kilrick didn't seem to pay attention, sighed and asked the girl to continue. Rama wanted to kill Deeds perhaps, over little. But that was the way of things. But if that was so, he would have to wait in line. For now, Deeds was essential. For now.

Eric, cut in half by .50 cal bullets, didn't think at all. Nor would he until the scavenger bots began to tinker with his body.

Somewhere in a dark tunnel, a creature with tentacles was suddenly, and for the first time, afraid.

Three artificial life forms, independent but of one mind, realized that their prey had changed course and communicated that information, as with all information to their master as well as what they learned about another creature of NY's underworld.

Somewhere further away Daemonicus was enraged and howled fury.

Meanwhile the Authority calculated new probabilities and alternative strategies for it's survival.

Logan didn't seem to think much of the Rama and Deeds dispute. He had seen it manifesting and while Rama looked a dangerous man, Deeds was more lethal.

Logan knew something else. Rama was wrong about one thing. The machines did bargain.
 
Ram broke the gaze, he could feel the tension from Jasmin and Stokes as well as the rest, and the sudden drop in mood. It would be foolish to idle in chit chat and pissing off the other. Stryfe knew this would make Deeds more crictial of him, and though Stryfe could see he was a bully, he was a pro. Like him. So to let the peace be for, Stryfe would back down -

For now.

"I am not threatening you Deeds. Threats are for idle men, not warriors such as ourselves. I am just saying, calm down a bit and don't push us around like cattle. Especially me. Apart from that, whats the next move, 'Sir'? I can imagine the more we linger, the closer the trio will get to us. And they have been following us without fail."
 
As the group made their way through the conduit, Logan started to lag behind a bit. He had seen the distrust in Kilricks eyes when he had started to talk to the girl and he had no interest in hearing Deeds and Stryfe having a dispute anyway. Pointless & noisy.

As the others slowly passed Logans eyes met with Stowes. Both were thinking the same, it was almost time for shock therapy again. Best to do it early than to wait for too long and end up being a homing beacon for the bots. Logan hoped they would soon reach the lair the girl had spoken off.
 
We had been walking down the sewer passageway for awhile now and were about to reach the trouble which I had spoken of earlier, the monsters in the sewers. In order to get to Fanum, we had to pass through the monsters’ nesting grounds which sucked, but hey, it was better than going through a high risk area, tripping an alarm, and having an army of bots on top of us. I had only seen the monsters on a few occasions as I usually sneaked passed them and avoided waking them from the sort of half slumber state they were in most of the time.

From what I had seen of them, the monsters were long and somewhat flat with bulky bodies. They had long mouths full of jagged teeth and strange bulging eyes. A text in one of the libraries I had found had some pictures of something called an Alligator that resembled the sewer monsters.

“Keep quiet, our friend’s nest is in the next passage. My suggestion is to run if they wake up. If you go in a darting, zigzagging pattern they will have a hard time following your moments. We need to get to that door.” I pointed to a dim light about 200 meters ahead. “That’s the way into Fanum, but like I said we need to be mindful of the watchdogs out here to get through.”

I slowly walked forward keeping to the dry embankment of concrete to the sides of the nearly still cesspool that flowed in between. The whole passage way about 8 meters wide and gave us some room to maneuver around.

“Let’s go,” I said.
 
occ- pictures! I saw these and thought- wonderful!


IC-
We had followed Terra through the dark, noisome sewers. Up ladders into unknown darkness.
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I was learning to trust her. I was even getting used to the smell.

sewer.jpg


Sewergators. But at least they were sleeping. I had seen them before in working in Phili and in the sewers on the Jersey side of the river. THey were usually slow moving at distances. But in short cramped spaces they could move lighening fast, powered by massive muscles. Also they weren't very smart and their natural armor had evolved in this toxic sludge to become harder to penetrate while their minds failed to register pain.

Gators would grab a man, whip him about, attempt to break his back, and drag him drowning into the filthy waters. An ugly way to die.

sewer.jpg


There were sleeping, but probably a few had enough wakefulness to try to snap. Worse, in the darkness of the tunnels they had the advantage of surprise.

monsterfest_3_th.gif


I let Terra go ahead but when she saw I wasn't following she paused. I but stopped Deeds with my hands.

"Enough with this pissing contest. And enough with this talking. We can settle our difference after we get paid. Before then, we have a job to do." I said.

Deeds smirked, but didn't say anything.

"Move quietly. If you wake them up, this can quickly turn into a feeding frenzy."

Then I nodded to Terra and we continued.
 
Didn't expect to see another Gator. After Louisiana, Reik had vowed never to tangle with their reptilian kind again. He had almost died between those immensly powerful jaws. A young hugely built medic had been on hand and had broken the beast's neck. Reik had never seen anything like it before or since. The young man had patched him up and that was supposed to be the end of Reik's interaction with gators.

Oh well, enough self pity and regret. Suck it up, soldier, he told himself.

The tall merc, hefted his weapon and took a shallow breath of the fetid air and focused. He was going to get through this and god help any beast that tried to stop him.

Just keep it stealthy, his mind reminded him.

He exhaled slowly and followed Deeds, moving as silently as he could.
 
Sewergators, natures living blenders. They weren't beings to be trifled with. The toxic waste bellow had sped up the evolutionary cycle of self defense, hardening the scales into plates of reinforced steel that anything short of depeleted uranium couldn't punch through.

Stryfe followed, suit, his breathing so low, you'd think he was holding his breath. He had snuck past similar creatures before in his lone travels across the cursed earth.

He moved without a sound, his mind and everything clear of Deeds and death. His boots didn't even make a sound as he crossed with Reik.
 
The death of two friends is nothing to snicker at.

Friends… that was what Wolf thought of Edden and Eric: two new friends that accompanied him in this journey. And to a man who hadn’t had anyone he could call friend in 15 years, well, except for his whiskey flask that is… the loss of their lives in such small fraction of time was not easy to bear.

And those thoughts didn’t help one bit when trying to sneak through monsters who could rip you to shreds…

He looked at the dimmed light on a distant: the way out.
He looked around at his “partners” and he though he didn’t really knew who he trusted.

Through his time with this people he kept himself pretty much to himself, and didn’t draw that much attention from the others also. Edden was the first to make contact… he even started to felt something for the crazy girl… and now she was gone.
Eric started some conversations with him, sometimes. He was a nervous kid, but a good one, Wolf though… and he was gone too.

« Bugger it! » - He whispered.
 
Stryfe gave a hold signal to Wolf as they came across a junction that was far too close to the sewergators. When he looked at the gargantution reptile. asleep in the pond of swill it lived in, Rama was reminded of a holotape he had seen as a child.

Sewergator: Education and Violent. But mostly violent. YAY, Violence.

He remembered seeing that with his father. It was an educational program to let Americans to deal with the influx of sewergators. Of course, the people who created the tape were smart enough to leave out the fact the reason why the alligators got so huge and so hungry was due to some chemical biproduct that the pharmacuticals dumped into the sewers to cover evidence of illegal drug production. It was a niffy fasting growing drug that was introduced into animal feed to force growth on cattle and also to produce richer and juicer meat.
 
Something brushed Reik's leg and he looked down, biting down a cry of surprise.

It was rat.

Reik was surprised there were any left down here with all the gators. The big rat paused and looked up at the merc and gave a squeek.

Reik raised a finger to his lips and the rat cocked its head and gave another rodent cry.

If this rat woke up the gators and got the team eaten, Reik would not be impressed. Moving slowly, he drew his combat knife and skewered the beast.

Deeds looked back and whispered,

"Hungry?" he grinned sarcastically.

'Fuck you', Reik mouthed back in reply. Easing the rodent off the knife, the mercenary continued on, thinking, not for the first time, that Deeds was a real prick.
 
It was less then 50 meters before the exit, just a few more steps and they would crawl out of this monster infested stink-hole.

Terra was leading the way. Curious how such a young girl could handle herself so well. Guess that’s what New York City does to you.

Wolf’s mind was somewhere else. He was thinking of Edden, Eric, the suspicion on everyone’s mind, looking for this “spy”. He was thinking he really needed a hard drink.

Then something crawled.

It was probably another rat. But somehow it seemed different...longer...darker. But he couldn’t say for sure, since he only got a glimpse of it from the corner of his left eye. He look forward and noticed Stryfe was looking around, concentrated. Perhaps he had seen it too. He noticed the same expression on the Logan fellow.

He continued, this time even slower. If something attacked him he was a goner for sure, since he chose not to wear those big, and clumsy, protective armor. He thought best to leave them to the front-line fighters.

They were almost at the exit and he hadn’t seen anything else move. His mind drifted again to other thoughts... to the deaths, the killings, the suspicions... and for a moment he felt very old...too old even.

Then suddenly he couldn’t think anything else. He could only feel pain.
 
The pain was excruciating. Nothing like he ever felt before. He screamed at the top of his lungs.

His companions looked at him and freeze in shock. They could see the cause of Wolfs’ pain: A monster, huge but flat with an enormous mouth filled with sharp teeth sank part of its mouth on Wolf’s left arm.

It was all so sudden; the quickness of such strange and seemingly awkward beast was uncanny.

All of them took out their weapons but none fired: some because they could hit their companion but most because they were still in shock.

The monster shook his enormous head and the pain Wolf felt grew even bigger.... Then his instincts, his survival instints kicked in. He tried to remove his left arm from the monsters mouth, but it didn’t move an inch, the only thing it did was to increase the pain.

But Wolf couldn’t feel the pain anymore. He couldn’t feel anything. His body was full of adrenaline and something inside him knew that he would die if he didn’t act.

«KNIFE» - He yield at his companions. - «THROW ME A BLOODY KNIFE AND RUN! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. »


The shock had passed and it was time to move. Everybody knew that they had to get out of there. Rama took out a big combat knife an threw it at Wolf.

Then the others came. Maybe five or six, they couldn’t tell for sure how many, but they were there, the monsters, in the darkness, attracted by the screams and the smell of blood.

Kilrick commanded: «We must go, now! »

Wolf grabbed the knife that landed on the ground near him. He felt as he would pass out soon, but had to do something, had to survive somehow.

He grabbed the knife, blade down, and stabbed the gator with all of his strength.

Nothing. The blade didn’t go through. Years of mutation made this already tough skin into an impenetrable one.

What could he do know? He had to act in seconds before the gator got tired of chewing on his arm and go for the whole thing...

His arm... That was it, he had to do it...

He lifted his right arm high, holding Ramas' big combat knife and with a quick, swift movement, it went down.

Almost. He almost had it. The pain was incredible, he was on the edge of passing out, or even dying just from sheer pain. But he had to do it one more time.
Again he lifted his right arm and again it went down, this time even harder.

And it was done. He had cut part of his left arm off, by his elbow. The gator had now half of Wolf left arm on his mouth, detached form his body.

Wolf acted quickly. He dropped the knife and went for his jacket. He grabbed a grenade, took its pin out and quickly threw it at the semi-opened mouth of the monster...


OCC: It’s up to you now, people! You can run or you can fight the rest of the gators, but I’m loosing a lot of blood here!
Oh, and take cover... the grenade is about to blow...
 
“Oh my friggin’ hell,” was all that I could think. Normally, I wouldn’t swear but when Gators attack, it’s always time do something out of the ordinary. I guess that swearing was that for me. Dad never approved of swearing, he even washed my mouth out with the dirty bar of soup we used to wash up for dinner when I swore as I kid, so I never ever did it.

But back the sewers. The monsters were coming out their sleep and that wasn’t a good thing. In all the years I’ve been alive I have only heard of one man who came out of a Sewer monster fight alive. He used to travel with my dad and me. Paul O’ Garrison was his name, I think, and even he lost three fingers to the monsters.

Fighting the monsters was a total suicide idea. But there was this feeling that everyone had, at least that was what dad always said. He called it Fight or Flight. I guess it meant that everyone had a choice to make when a problems came around to fight ‘em or run away from ‘em. I was ready to fly. I turned back towards the door and saw that the path was still clear.

“Okay, Okay, I need to a few second to open the door, make sure that nothing gets me, please.” I made a sprint down the little remaining path to the door and opened up the COM panel for the door and as I did I heard loud muffled sound, maybe an explosion.

“Okay, let’s see…. Ummmmm. Initial access variant…. 3… alpha… no, no, no, bypass initial variant for backdoor… and calculate….”

“Dammit, Terra hurry up.” It was Kilrick.

I looked back a moment to see the group slowly edging back towards me and door. The gators were hoping to drive them back against the wall, an easy meal.

“I’m trying, hang on.” I tried to hurry as retrieved the new pass code. That was the problem with this route. You had to know how to access the pass code as it changed every time the door was closed.

“Okay, got it.” As type the code, a green light came on above the door. I swung it open and called back, “We need to hurry. The door is on a time release and will close on us. We have thirty-seconds.”
 
(Behind Terra and closer to teh gators when it all went down)

Well, that's torn it.

Reik cursed under his breath as he watched Wolf sever his arm to escape the gator's merciless jaws.

That took balls, he thought.

Knowing life was measured in seconds, Reik reacted. He passed his plasma rifle to Deeds, then moved forward, grabbing Wolf and began dragging him away from the imminent explosion.

Everyone else was sensibly diving for what limited cover there was among the sewage and refuse littering the tunnel.

The grenade exploded, knocking Reik to the floor. He lost his grip on Wolf who on grunted in pain. Reik was impressed; he was pretty sure that he would have been screaming like a girl if had been in Wolf's place.

Gator flesh rained down on the team and as they began picking themselves up, the sound of angry reptiles being jerked from a pleasant slumber started filling the tunnel.

"We're fucked." Reik breathed, reaching for his semi-automatic, gripping Wolf's collar with the other hand. He passed the pistol to Wolf, who took it in his single surviving fist and started dragging him back towards the team and hopefully some covering fire. He drew his 10 gauge with his other hand and watched as the gators gave pursuit.

I'm glad Kilrick's in charge, Reik thought. I never was great at escape plans.

Reik looked up ahead and saw the girl fiddling with the door. At least there may be a way of here, thought the merc as he dragged his comrade with him.
 
Well, this should be interesting... Logan thought.

Deeds was busy spraying everything in sight, but even with his heavy weapon, he did fairly negligable damage. Logan quickly understood that his 9mm Scorpio would be useless & that his Gauss pistol would penetrate the shell, but do extremely little damage to the hulking beasts.

As he saw most gators headed for the bleeding teammate, Logan though of something: smell. These beasts were driven by the smell of blood.

"This will hurt them more than it will hurt us, take a deep breath!" Logan yelled.

Quickly he pulled the pin on one of his teargas grenades & dropped it between the group & the storming gators. In such a small & enclosed area, the teargas would spread equally to both sides, effecting the team as well. But if Logan was correct, the gators would be in such extreme pain in their delicate nose, that they would turn tail & run. If not, Logan had just killed the entire team...

A second later a cloud of gass errupted from the grenade and started to fill the cramped sewer.
 
I had not seen the gator snatch at Wolf's arm, nor did I see Logan's grenade go off. But a wiff of the air told me that his move would either kill us or save us.

30 seconds wasn't much time.

I pushed Terra forward through the door. To Jake, "Try to keep it open." Then went back.

I heard myself yelling, "Everyone through the door!"

Both Stowe and Edwards went through next, Edwards needing a push.

Grabbed Deeds by the shoulder and pushed him back. "Protect the doctors!" I yelled and didn't wait for a reply. Jasmin nodded behind the helmet.

Rama was firing off rounds as Logan ran for the door, a moment behind Deeds. His eyes half closed. I doubted he could see anything.

That's when I saw Reik covered with blood and arterial blood spurting from Wolf's severed arm. Reik had breathed in a big gulp of air and was starting to gag. I pulled him back and pushed him in the direction of the door as I went for Wolf.

But I could barely see now, my eyes burning, the air in my lungs hot and poisonous. I grabbed at Wolf and tried to lift him to my shoulder.

His weight made me stumble, and I could barely get my bearings. I heard someone ahead begin to retch violently.

I felt something hard run against my leg, nearly knocking me over. Gator. I imagined it's jaws around my legs and thrashing me about.

But the stinging of my eyes wouldn't let up. I could barely see. The wet, slime covered floor and walls of the sewer seemed to get even more slippery.

The door would be closing any moment.

Then I felt someone grab me around my arm and under my shoulder, pushing me in a direction. Too blinded to see, I could only be carried away, out of the water and up a slope, then a light, and a heave.

Dizzy and confused I knew I was falling and hit the floor hard, unsure of what happened to Wolf.

I heard someone say, "Someone hold up the arm as I apply a tournaquet." I think it was Stowe.

I tried to breath but the tear gas agent made breathing difficult and I could still not see. But I was aware that the person who had dragged me in was lieing next to me.

"How's Kilrick?" I heard someone say.

"Got a bad dose of CS but the gators didn't get to him." Said Deeds. "Nice work Jasmin."

Of course, the greens had adapted their helmets for gas warfare. They were equipped with both air filters and eye protection.

I felt Jasmin's hands on my shoulder. "You'll be ok. Just take it easy. Can't have you eaten by no gator when you still have a contract to fulfill, now can we?"
 
Later he would remember getting picked up and dragged.

He would remember grabbing a gun and shooting.

He would remember the smoke and the feeling his lungs would burst and his eyes were on fire.

He would even remember someone examining him and saying something about a tourniquet.

But then he wouldn’t remember much more: The loss of blood, the pain, and the shock were too much. When the smoke cleared Wolf was laying unconscious on the floor.
 
Logan had forgotten how much CS gas hurt... Luckily he had been able to get to the door without breathing, but his eyes were on fire.

He tilted his head backwards and sprinkled some water into his open eyes to wash out the CS. It helped, but the burning feeling would remain for a while.

As the docs were taking care of Wolf's arm, Logan washed Wolf's eyes. If unproperly washed, eye damage could result. While pooring the water into Wolf's eyes, Logan tried to hide his slightly shaking hand, but Stowe noticed it & both knew that shocktherapy would have to be applied shortly.

Logan probably didn't make any friends by throwing the grenade, but it seemed like it had worked just fine. Everyone got through & Logan hadn't seen a single gator after the CS grenade had exploded.
 
Stryfe had escaped with the group into Terra's haven, traversing the avarious gators. Laser bolts seared the giants reptiles, causing them to recoil in pain as they felt the focused beam of light drill into their flesh, leaving cauterized scorch marks that reminded him of fried meat.

Reik had made the run to get Wolf, and Stryfe watched in half horror as the man had severed his own arm to get free. Not that Wolf had much of a choice. The arm would never had been the same, since the gator's jaws and teeth either curshed or snapped connective tissue.

Stryfe stood sentry, the Greens Deeds and Jasmin not far behind. Rama was just like them, he kept the air filter on his gas masks. You never knew what you were walking into till it ripped your flesh off. Wolf was being worked on now, the wounds being binded and the bleeding halted. Wolf lost a lot of blood, but he looked like he'd pull through. And Rama hoped he did. Losing three good comrades in one day would be bad. Aside from Reik and Kilrick, Wolf was also one of those he trusted to watch his ass if ever the greens got hot.
 
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