Fatal | The Second Life I [COMPLETED]

Chapter 25: Equipment

I step farther into the house, peeking into cupboards and cabinets. With only one flashlight, Eagle had to follow me unless she wanted to trip somewhere in here. This place was old enough that it would be bad to trip and fall. Whoever did would likely fall through the floorboards and make way too much noise.

     We enter a small living room, and it was equipped with a small Tv and one chair. Strangely, nothing else was in that room. Well, almost nothing. There was a wooden rifle sitting on hooks mounted into the wall. It looked like a marksman rifle.

     Blake would like it.

     "These guys liked the basic life." I mutter, taking the gun down. "You want this?" I ask Eagle.

     "Nah. Way too big and loud." She says. "Keep it."

     "I got a better idea." I state, ripping the mag out and raiding the bullets. They weren't the same caliber as my rifle, but they would be useful back home. We were always looking for bullets to stockpile. I open the cupboard under it and.. there was a small box of the stuff. "Hell yeah!" I exclaim.

"I see you got one of Skippy's rifles." Eagle points out, looking at my AR.

     "Yeah." I boast. "Only cost me a couple batteries."

     "Nice price." Eagle responds, looking back at me. "How is Brooklyn doing?" She asks tentatively.

     I tilt my head. "Okay, I guess. I don't really have a frame of reference."

     "Constant raids?" She questions. "Fascist Orion?"

     "Raids, Yeah." I say, looking back at her confused. "What do you mean fascist? I didn't get authoritarian dictator vibes off of him."

     "Oh, he is." She says matter of factly. "Wants total control. Doesn't let us leave for 'safety."

     "I mean.." I start, walking up the stairs. "There was a lot of danger, it looked like."

     "You don't know his backstory." She mutters, following me. "If you knew, you'd hate him."

"Inform me then." I State, opening a door. Just a basic bedroom.

"It's a long story." Eagle says, and I roll my eyes.

"Well I won't take you side if you won't explain it." I say, a little frustrated. I check under the bed, and there's nothing.

"You should trust me." She says, and I turn around, annoyed.

"Why can't you just tell me?" I ask frustratedly. She moves a hand up to her eye, wiping it. I realize she's weeping.

"I.." She stutters, her voice shaky. "Don't like to talk about it."

"Sorry." I say, looking to the floor and then back up. "Let's go downstairs, that should be fun."

"Yeah." She whispers, and we walk down the stairway and down the second one. It was even darker down here than upstairs, with no windows to let in even a bit of moonlight. My flashlight flicks across the wall, examining lots of weird things.

I saw a workbench full of tools and piled to the top with binders full of papers. I walk over and flip one open. They looked like documents, but they were in what I assumed to be Korean. I couldn't read them, and Eagle couldn't either.

My flashlight scrolls to the left, and I see a big hole in the wall. It had a ladder in it, leading down about 20 feet. Underneath the ladder was a giant opening into more blackness, but I could see concrete as the floor.

"What the hell is this place?" I ask, looking around more. Next to the hole was a giant map of New York City, with various X's around the map. I grab it and shove it in my pack, wanting to bring it back to base.

"Some sort of lair." Eagle exclaims, her eyes following the flashlight. I land on a machine of some sort. It looked like a generator. She had a serious point. This was not an average basement. North Korean propaganda leaflets were strewn across the floor, with various portraits of Kim Jong Un on the walls.

A light shines to my left, and I see Eagle picked up a flashlight. Nice.

I walk to the opposite wall, checking out the.. what the hell? This entire wall was composed of labeled cabinets, stashes of paper, and various machines. One looked especially interesting, and more advanced than the rest.

"No." I say aloud. "This is a safehouse."

It was around the same size as a microwave and was littered with buttons. There was a vial inside, with a dark blue liquid encapsulated. The vial was standard size, but had loads of writing on it. Maybe there was someone at base who could read this.

I wrap the vial in some of the papers, and then stick it in a padded part of my bag. I examine the machine next. Lots of Korean text was on this. I decide to scribble this down on another paper, figuring if the vial was significant, than the box it was in is too.

랩 64 복제 장치

I nearly drop the paper as a loud sound fires up behind me. I instinctively reach for my knife as I whip around and see what happened. The Generator was found by Eagle, and she had.. oh no. She started it. Now a combustion engine was running down here.

Too much noise.

"Turn it off!" I yell to Eagle, and she hears me over the noise. She fiddles with the machine, eventually finding the switch she started it with. It turns off, but it's just replaced by a different sound. It was banging from upstairs.

I run to look up the staircase, which gave me a view of the front door. To my horror, Z's were screeching and banging on the door from outside. The metal lock was going to give, and if it didn't they'd just crash through the door. In a split second decision, I run to the hatch that leads downstairs.

"Z's!" I yell to Eagle.

"Fuck!" She screams, following me into the hatch. I begin to climb down, descending the ladder with speed. Whatever was down here was better than being up there with them. Eagle was right above me.

And that's when I hear the lock on the door brake.