The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 33: Downtown

The mood was decidedly more somber as they rolled deeper into the city.

After collecting Wells's supplies and gear, Jack returned to his APC as it trundled to a stop within the walls of the factory lot. He and the others got back onboard their designated vehicles and then the slow crawl into the burning city resumed. Jack sat heavily in one of the chairs, feeling weariness creeping in, as though it was seeping in through cracks and crevices in his armor. Sapping him of his strength, physically, mentally, and spiritually. They just kept coming. Not numbers, but in type. He remembered, somewhere, a million years ago back on Phobos perhaps, wondering to himself just how strange the new demonic things could get.

That last one was horrifying.

"You doing okay?"

Jack looked up, saw Diaz standing over him, gripping the ladder that led up to the chaingun where Cortez had taken up post.

"Tired," Jack replied, "of losing people."

"I feel you," she said, sitting next to him. "What's that?"

For a moment, he didn't know what she was talking about, but then he looked down and realized that he'd taken the little wooden duck out of his pocket. It looked absurdly tiny in his armor-gauntleted hand. "Nothing," he replied.

"Lemme see it."

He sighed and passed it to her. She studied it, bringing it up to her faceplate, holding it carefully between the tips of her finger and thumb. "It's cute. Something special?"

"Not really," Jack replied. "When we hit dirt, we found a farmhouse and holed up for the night before hauling ass to...well, here. This city. I found that at the farmhouse. I like ducks. I kept it. I don't really know why, I've never kept anything like it before. It's kinda stupid."

"No, it's cute," she said, passing it back. "Don't worry, it doesn't have to be weird. Lots of people got keepsakes."

"Do you?" he asked, putting it away.

"Yeah. Something a little more traditional. Locket with a picture of my mom inside. And to save you the awkward trouble of asking: yeah, she's dead. A long time ago. I was sixteen. She died from the Ebola Epsilon Outbreak."

"I'm sorry."

She sighed heavily. "Me too. It was pretty bad all around. Bad way to go, bad time to go, for her and for us. Debt. I had to drop out of school. Jumped through some legal hoops so that I could raise my thirteen year old brother. There was no one else, just me and him. We lived in a shitty party of Arizona. I don't even know how I did it, but I held down three jobs, got my GED, got the goddamned debt paid off..."

"Why do you sound guilty?" he asked.

"When he turned eighteen I signed on with a private military contractor. I'd been preparing to for years at that point, I knew what I wanted to do. Blow shit up. See the world. Get actual money. They make a lot of promises. Delivered on some of them, too. I knew it was a way to get out and also keep supporting my brother. He didn't want me to go, I couldn't stay. I just couldn't. I'd lose my fucking mind. Signed up a few days after he turned eighteen, right after we had a huge fight about it. He said I was abandoning him..."

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"Yeah. We patched it up, eventually. Took a few years. But he finally got it. Hell, he even got out. Did it right, though. Went off to Switzerland on some kind of scholarship, a technical degree. He's smart as hell. This was about the time I got sick of getting backstabbed by the PMCs. They'd drop you the second they thought they could cut a corner and save some credits, or they didn't want to get their ass legally burned by being somewhere they weren't supposed to be. Finally decided to do it proper, signed up with the Marines. And here I am."