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."
"Your brother?"
"Far as I know he's still there in Switzerland..." She paused suddenly, as though something had occurred to her all of a sudden. "When you hit dirt, was it you and Taylor and Morgan?"
"Yeah. We were all on the same ship," he replied.
She smiled at him suddenly. "So all three of you bunked down for the night at that farmhouse. Did you bunk down or did you bunk down?" she asked.
"Uh...I plead the Fifth," he replied.
She laughed. "I knew it. Morgan looks like a fucking savage in bed. I bet you fucking tore it up all night with them...you're blushing! Ha!"
"I am not," Jack muttered, sighing.
"Oh yeah, you and me and Taylor are gonna have a lot of fun when this is over. I think we can leverage all this kickass shit we're doing into a hotel room with a hot tub and a lot of wine. Just you and me and her and no clothes for a week."
"You are really something else," Jack said, staring at her.
"You have no idea."
Jack began to respond, but something chimed in his suit. He sighed and checked his HUD. Then grunted as he stood up. "We're nearing the first secondary objective."
"Great," Diaz muttered.
"Find the comm booster and make sure it's ready to be deployed."
"Yes, Sergeant."
Jack headed forward and came into the driver's compartment. "How's it looking, Spencer?"
"So far so good, but I'm seeing a lot more Cacos and Skulls flying around," the Private replied.
"Great," Jack muttered, looking up through the glass canopy. There were indeed a dozen Cacodemons and a hornet's nest of Lost Souls buzzing around high overhead. High enough that they shouldn't be an immediate problem. He took a moment to check the data packet that had been uploaded and determined that they wanted him to plant it on top of an office building. Made enough sense. He looked up again.
Yep, there it was.
"Pull up in front of that office building there, the one with the black glass windows. We're getting out for a bit," Jack said.
"Yes, Sergeant," Spencer replied.
Jack opened up the team's comm channel. "All right Death Squad, listen up. We're taking a quick detour to plant a communications booster on top of that office building up ahead, with the black windows. Abrash, you're staying with the APCs, as are Spencer and Rhodes. Diaz, Cortez, Holtz, you're coming with me. We're getting to the top of that building, planting the booster, seeing if we can get in touch with anyone, and then coming back down and resuming our journey. Does anyone have any questions?"
Jack waited, but there were none. He received a string of affirmative replies.
Slipping back into the main hold, he found that Diaz had located the comms booster. She was crouched over a sleek black case of polished metal. It was cracked open on the floor of the APC and within lay several pieces of expensive-looking high-tech gear, disassembled and cradled tightly within black foam.
"How's it looking?" he asked.
"It all looks here and like it's supposed to, but we should really have Holtz give it a once-over since he's the tech," she replied.
"Good idea." As he said it, they came to a halt. "Cortez, how we looking?"
"So far, so good Sergeant," Cortez replied from the chaingunner's nest.
"Perfect. Cover me, I'm heading out," he said, walking to the rear exit. "Cortez? All clear?"
"Looks to be, Sergeant."
"Opening exit." He hit the button and shouldered the double-barrel, expecting the worst. From his perch in the nest, Cortez wouldn't have a perfect view. Something might have slunk up quickly and pressed itself right up against the vehicle, laying in wait. Jack didn't see anything. He cleared the immediate area, stepping out while Diaz took his place and watched his six. He saw Abrash coming out of the other vehicle, doing the same thing.
They performed a perimeter sweep and found nothing but corpses.
"All right, Abrash, set up down here. Holtz, come here," Jack said.
The young technician jogged over. "Yes, Sergeant?"
"Go inside my vehicle and check the communications booster. If it's fucked up somehow, I want to know that now instead of later, when we're ass-deep in demons. If it's fine, then I want you to close it up and bring it out. You will be responsible for its transportation, understood?"
"Understood, Sergeant," Holtz replied, and headed into Grim, slipping past Diaz.
"Spencer, take over for Cortez. Cortez, get down here and prep for a walk," Jack said. He began checking over his gear once more. As he finished that up and waited for the others to do their things, he looked up at the building. It was a weird damned building. It basically looked like a giant black glass cube. Across the front of it was a massive neon sign, presently unlit and damaged in several places, that said simply ID. "The fuck is this place?" he muttered.
"Identification building?" Diaz posited.
"No, I think it's commercial. Look at the stylized logo, it's a bit too 'fuck you, I'll design my logo how I want to design my logo', you know? Government or military wouldn't put up with that. Gotta be private sector...wonder what they do here," he muttered.
A moment later, his team was assembled.
All lights were green.
It was time to hit this objective.
* * *
It was obvious that the place had been hit hard.
Jack took point, moving in through the shattered remains of the front entrance. Both doors had been obliterated by whatever it was had broken them down. Glass crunched under his boots as Jack walked slowly into the lobby. The demons had come and gone by now, but even with all the slaughter and destruction, he could tell that the place had once been both fancy and awesome. A bank of old-school arcade games sat against the far left wall, and one whole corner to the right seemed to be dedicated to a massive L-shaped couch and a huge TV hung on the wall. Bodies from both sides of the war were strewn about.
"Clear," Jack said after coming into the center of the large lobby. "Let's see if we can find an elevator."
They pressed on into the lobby, checking a few hiding places, and then hit the large corridor that led deeper into the cube building. Most of the doors had been bashed in as well. He checked each of them in passing, ensuring nothing was going to sneak up on them. He saw a few smashed up offices and boardrooms, a bathroom, a couple of storage rooms. They were all in equal states of destruction and decay.
It struck Jack then that this would be a thing he would almost certainly see no matter where he was, no matter what country, what part of the world he was in. They were everywhere. He felt that lethargy threatening to come back again and shook it off with some effort. There was still such a long way to go. Shit, he didn't even know when he was going to next be able to take a nap, let alone get a full night's sleep. Didn't matter. He could do this.
He had to.
The occasional zombie was still lingering along the first floor. Jack and the others put them down with quick headshots and pressed on until they found a cargo elevator tucked away in the back of the building.
"What do you think are the chances of it actually working?" Diaz asked.
"Literally any percentage," Jack muttered as he stared at the thing. Shit was so absolutely fucked right now that he figured the elevator could be anywhere from completely functional to full of acid. He had the others get into position and then approached the large silver door. Reaching out, he punched the call button.
He heard a hum somewhere above. Well, that was a good sign. He backed up, bringing his double-barrel into play, and waited.
After a bit, the elevator settled into place and the door slipped open.
A bloody but otherwise empty interior was revealed.
Jack cautiously stepped in, checking out the corners and the ceiling, and found nothing waiting for him. He breathed a small sigh of relief.
"All right, let's go," he said.
The others hustled on and he punched ROOF as soon as they were in place. The door closed and the cargo elevator began ascending.
Several seconds passed. It wasn't as fast as he would've liked, but it seemed to be working and not trying to kill him, and that was basically winning the lottery nowadays. And as he was thinking this, he heard something pop loudly overhead and suddenly the elevator stopped moving.
"Oh come on!" Diaz snapped.
"Shit," Jack muttered, looking around. "Holtz, can you fix this?"
"No idea, but it sounded like it came from above, so I need to get up there and check it out...bingo," he replied, looking up. Moving over to the back right corner of the lift, he reached up and hit the release for an emergency hatch. It slipped open, looking just barely big enough for him to get through. "Be back in a minute."
"Make sure there's nothing in the shaft with you," Jack replied.
"Yep," he muttered, hauling himself up through the opening. Jack looked around at Diaz and Cortez. Diaz was scowling, staring at the door, clearly unhappy, her weapon firmly in hand. Cortez, for once, looked a bit on edge.
Jack was right there with him. He could hear something moving out there, beyond the shut door. According to the little screen, they'd stopped on the sixth floor. And whatever was out there sounded bigger than an errant zombie or two.
They waited.
Seconds ticked by.
Something grunted and banged heavily against the door.
"How we looking, Holtz?" Jack asked over the radio.
"Think I found the problem. At some point some poor idiot fell from a great height onto the top of this elevator. It's a mess. Hmm. Maybe this?"
The elevator door snapped open to reveal a trio of massive, pink-skinned Demons. Their golden eyes blazed as they roared.
"Close it! Close it!" Jack screamed as he aimed and fired.
The shotgun might as well have been a cannon at this distance. It absolutely eviscerated the big bull-like skull of the center Demon, blowing its head clean off its shoulders into an eruption of pulpy demonic goo, the force of which sent it stumbling backwards and then crashing heavily to the floor. As he cracked open the shotgun and rapidly reloaded, Cortez and Diaz opened fire. Diaz immediately began doing the most damage and held the other Demons at bay with her chaingun. But Jack could see more Demons, and some Imps and zombies, further down the corridor, rushing towards the fresh meat that had just been revealed to them.
"Any fucking day now, Holtz!" Jack yelled as he shoved two more shells in.
"I'm trying!"
"Just make it go up if you can't fix the doors!"
"Okay!"
Jack aimed and fired again. Part of his blast took off a good section of a Demon's skull, another absolutely decapitated an Imp that had rushed up to get a crack at them. Diaz was screaming like an archangel as she hosed everything down, standing in the center of the elevator and shifting the chaingun back and forth in an arc. A horde of demonic entities were chewed up into bloody carnage as the big gun churned out a solid wave of lead death.
But nothing lasted forever.
She ran dry, and began the process of reloading, and Jack and Cortez immediately took up the slack. They'd killed half a dozen Demons so far, over twice that number in the lesser things trying to claw their way inside, but there were more still coming.
"Holtz!" Jack screamed as another Demon stepped inside. It slipped on the blood and fell heavily onto its chest.
"Got it!"
The door didn't shut, but the elevator began to ascend.
The Demon squealed as it became caught between the roof of the hallway and the elevator floor it was laying on. The elevator crashed to a halt once more.
"What's happening!? Everything looks fine up here!" Holtz snapped.
"Override the safeties! Demon's stuck in the door!" Jack yelled back.
Holtz didn't respond. Jack finished reloading and stuck the shotgun in the thrashing Demon's face. It roared and he squeezed the trigger. Its head detonated and covered them all with blood, brains, and bone fragments. And then, abruptly, there was a sickening crunch and the elevator began to ascend again. The bottom half of the Demon was left behind while the top half, what was left of it, now occupied the lift with them.
"Aw God, that's sick," Holtz said as he dropped back in through the hatch.
"Good work," Jack muttered as he reloaded.
"Sorry about the door. It was all kind of fucked up there."
"We survived, that's what matters," Jack replied. "Now everyone get ready. We might have to do that again."
They all finished reloading their varied weapons and prepared themselves for another assault. The elevator kept going up, floor after floor, until it suddenly stopped. The doors opened again and revealed...nothing. Just a rooftop studded with air conditioner units and solar panels, covered in a haze of smoke.
"All right, minimal movement and sound," Jack said as he slowly stepped up to the edge and peered up. "Cacos and skulls everywhere around here. How long for setup?"
"Maybe five minutes," Holtz replied.
"All right. Do it fast but do it right. We need to find somewhere a little out of the way," Jack said. "Let's go, nice and easy."
They walked out onto the roof. Through the pall of smoke that covered the city like a malignant atmosphere, he could see the uncertain shapes of Cacodemons and Lost Skulls buzzing around. They were higher up, for the moment. This was going to be extremely dangerous. The quartet of Marines began a slow search of the rooftop. Thankfully, for this part of their journey, luck was on their side. Holtz located a nice little niche among a collection of air conditioning units that would keep the comms booster decently protected in case anything decided to have a battle around here. It wasn't perfect, but what was?
"Beginning setup," he said quietly as he crouched down onto one knee, set the case on the rooftop, and cracked it open. He repeated the action with a much smaller case, his own personal toolkit, and then began pulling out parts and tools.
"Everyone maintain overwatch," Jack said, switching to his assault rifle.
He settled in and waited, taking up a position behind a power node that looked pretty dead. It seemed as though it had overloaded at some point. It looked solid enough. He had a decent view of the city from up here, not that he particularly wanted one. It was a plane of sheer chaos, absolute screaming, blood-fueled madness. He'd had nightmares about stuff like this when he was younger, about world-consuming warfare, about hellish creatures, about apocalypse. Now he was living it. As mind-shreddingly brutal as it was, though, Jack found himself grateful. If it was going to happen, then he was at least glad that it was something they could fight against, maybe even something they could win against.
Still, every human alive would be scarred for the rest of their lives as a result of this. Traumatized didn't even begin to touch how fucked up most people were going to come out of this godforsaken nightmare storm.
He wondered, suddenly, where Jennifer was. How she was faring. If she was even still alive. Or Kyra. They were both pretty hardcore, but these enemies were insane. It was a miracle that he wasn't dead yet.
Jack quickly checked his chronometer. It had been about two minutes. God, not even halfway yet. This was taking forever. It was insane how long five minutes could seem under the right, or strictly speaking wrong, circumstances. It was right around the time they hit the halfway mark in Holtz's rough estimation that Cortez whispered out: "Contact. East side."
Orienting himself with his HUD compass, Jack looked to his right and saw a little collection of Lost Souls sailing through the air. One of them had either taken a mild interest in them or just wasn't paying attention. It was straying off course with the others, coming right for them.
"Hold fire," Jack whispered. He took another quick look around. He could see about a dozen Cacodemons and twice that many Lost Souls in earshot. Very bad place to be. "Holtz, where are we at with that installation?"
"I need at least two more minutes," he replied quietly.
"Keep working, fast as you can. Everyone else, get ready. If this turns hot, focus on the Lost Souls first. Keep it tight."
"Yes, Sergeant," both Cortez and Diaz said.
"Do you need backup, Ward?" Abrash asked.
"Negative. By the time you guys got up here, it'd be over one way or another. Hold your position," Jack replied.
"Understood. Good luck."
Jack kept waiting, trying to divide his attention between his own area of watch and the Lost Soul that was drifting closer and closer with each passing second. He felt himself tensing more and more. The damned flying skull was actually over the building when it stopped suddenly. Jack tensed even more, staring, not blinking, feeling sweat on his face as he waited. This was it, the make or break moment. Either it would decide to leave or it would-
The Lost Soul let out a howling shriek and began diving right towards Cortez.
Or it would do that.
"Open fire!" Jack shouted at the same time Cortez let off a burst and popped the bastard skull. Immediately, a cacophony of roars and shrieks and hisses sounded as all the flying sons of bitches in the immediate area became aware that there were humans that had the audacity to be alive in their midst. They began to swarm.
Jack focused on his section of the overwatch. He'd already flipped his rifle to burst mode and he got to work, moving fast and smooth, making clean kill after clean kill. He popped the first skull in a rain of bleached bone, shifted, repeated the action again. And again. And times three more. One after the other the Lost Souls died off in puffs of smoke and sprays of bone. Right as he was mopping up the last of the ones he could see, a fireball slapped him in the chest and sent him stumbling back. He cursed, readjusted his aim, and killed the last two skulls, emptying his rifle. Five Cacodemons were coming his way, already too close.
He cursed and quick-drew his shotgun. Taking two steps forward, he stuck the business end in the lead Cacodemon's mouth and pulled the trigger. The back of its grotesque red body blew out in a spray of foamy blue-red gore, spraying the others and momentarily stunning or confusing them. He hastily backpeddled, first reloading the shotgun, then holstering it and rapidly ejecting the spent mag from the rifle and slapping a fresh one in.
Switching it to full auto, he began hosing them down. He could hear Diaz's chaingun roaring and Cortez's assault rifle firing off again and again beneath that. So far, this wasn't going terribly. He emptied the rifle and slapped a fresh magazine in while dodging another pair of fireballs. He'd brought down another Cacodemon and severely wounded a third. Shouldering the rifle again, he finished it off and then hosed down the remaining pair of them. The fourth one shredded under the onslaught of the bullets, wounds opening up on its awful red body and leaking hot blood everywhere. It finally went down and Jack ended up repeating his initial trick with the final remaining balloon bastard: he blew it to bits with his double-barrel.
As he reloaded again and turned around, he came dangerously close to dying as another Lost Soul flew by him. He blew it apart with a burst from his rifle, and then heard a strange, hauntingly familiar croaking sound.
Sure enough, looking around, he saw that a Pain Elemental had floated into their midst. And it was doing what it apparently did best: spawning more Lost Souls. He fired two more bursts, killing two of the skulls that had floated out of its mouth, but he knew more would come. For how long? How was it making them? Was it actually making them, or did it have some sort of portal in its mouth that they were simply flying through?
Jack was suddenly struck by inspiration. He began running forward, reaching down and grabbing one of his grenades. He pulled the pin and hurled it as he got within range of the Pain Elemental. His aim was spot-on: the grenade went right into its gaping maw. Two seconds later, it exploded into a rain of demonic ichor.
"Holtz!?" he called.
"Almost!" Holtz called back.
There were more Lost Souls and Cacodemons coming their way. Jack ran through another pair of magazines before Holtz shouted that he was finished.
"Back to the elevator!" Jack snapped. They beat a hasty retreat, putting down as many of the flying things as they could before they finally got inside. Jack ended up tripping over the remains of the Demon as he backed into the lift. He fired off a few more shots as he saw some more Lost Souls coming their way. The last thing he saw before the lift began to descend was the big, stupid, grinning face of a Cacodemon preparing to launch another ball of fire their way. He even heard it hit somewhere inside the shaft above them.
And then they were free of the demons.
Jack got to his feet and for a moment, all he could hear was the sound of reloading.
"Well that sucked," Diaz muttered.
"Tell me you got it right," Jack said.
"Checking now," Holtz replied, his voice trembling a little as he tapped at his wristpad. "Uh...yeah. It's functional and powered on. Provided nothing fucks with it, it's good. I'm not sure if it actually works though..." He hesitated as they reached the ground floor again.
"What?" Jack asked.
"I'm picking up something. Hold on."
They stepped out of the lift and began walking back towards the APCs as Holtz got it sorted out. He muttered to himself for a moment.
"Okay, got it...it's a distress call. An automated one, Marine frequency. It's not too far from here."