Gathering Darkness✔️

Chapter 08: Blackout

Lara got up from the workstation and joined him. They left the control room and slipped back into the armory. "Can you start the generator?" he asked. She nodded. "Okay, take care of it. I'll see what I can find here," he said. She went through a door at the back. He didn't have much luck, sorting through the gun lockers and cases, until a moment later when the generator snapped online and the lights flickered to life. He'd thought they'd be weak or flickering, but they were strong and steady. The lights and the hum of electricity went a long way towards soothing his frayed nerves. Lara reemerged from the generator room and helped him search.

They managed to find a shotgun and a battle rifle. Lara ended up taking the battle rifle, since it was more suited to her abilities: elegant, graceful and accurate, and he took the shotgun since it was more suited to his: blunt, forceful and very primitive. They managed to find some ammo for their respective weapons, and then returned to the main hall. Kane was glad to see that the corridor and the rooms they'd previously cleared were well-lit now. But he was less than thrilled to see that everything else wasn't.

"Guess it's just one wing to a generator," Lara murmured.

He grunted. "Come on, let's get this over with."

They opted to go down into the garage first. They moved ahead into the darkness once more, Kane playing his light over the barren walls. There were more signs of destruction and chaos revealed as they checked the area. A pair of large storage bays full of inert stacks of crates flanked the hallway on either side. They only managed a cursory inspection of each. Kane spotted a bright red pool of blood and some shell casings on the floor.

They investigated a pair of maintenance bays, really just glorified repair rooms of workbenches and tables scattered with oily rags, spare parts and dented, well-used tools, some lockers and a few pieces of equipment.

Nothing there, either, but Kane felt they were getting close to something.

They moved into the garage. He saw light coming in, but it was very faint. Glancing to the left, he realized that the main door had been forcefully ripped open in the same way the front gate had. More crates, some broken open, supplies scattered everywhere. A Warthog, another carrier class, this one just as broken and useless as the other two. Tables, chairs, all sorts of crap. Nothing of any real use, no clues to this growing mystery.

They moved across the garage, their footsteps echoing, and came to the power center at the back of the room. They quickly cleared it, and Lara set to work reactivating the generator. Kane moved back to the door leading into the garage, as it was the only way into the room, and stood guard. His mind was wandering, he was thinking of Hux. Where the hell was the man? What had happened to him? He couldn't keep the worry at bay.

In the garage, something shifted.

Kane jerked his SMG to the right and felt a bolt of icy fear shoot through him as he spied a dark figure lurching towards him.

"Shit-" he snapped and squeezed the trigger.

It was a good shot, three good shots actually, and if it was a normal person, they would have been dead, or at least dropped, as they'd gone right through the chest. The person coming towards him, the Proxy, was a former female Marine. She was still wearing her fatigues. Her eyes had that same shadowy effect.

He remembered something, suddenly, and aimed the flashlight up, at her face. She hissed in agony, throwing her hands up in front of her face, stumbling back. Light in their eyes hurt them. He filed that away for later. As soon as she lowered her hands, he squeezed the trigger. The round went into her forehead, above her right eye, and blew out the back of her head in a spray of black gore. She hit the floor like a sack of bricks.