City 45 - Chapter 5
Rust stared for what seemed like ages at the vort. S’kraun had to be joking. He couldn’t be serious about this, there was no way he could expect Rust to go back to that place. He might as well have asked him to go ahead and casually walk up to the Sectorial, the head CP, the “dictator” of City 45, so to speak. But Rust could see in the S’kraun’s eyes that he meant what he said, the solemn, perfectly serious glare he was giving the human left no room for any possibly of him declaring that this was a joke. Shaking his head, Rust took a step back, a look of fear in his eyes. S’kraun matter-of-factly stated “While we completely understand the Rust’s motives for his attempts to refuse, never did this one state that we were giving you an option.” Rust glanced towards the door to the shipping container, and S’kraun added. “This one would advise against attempting escape, as the Rust would not travel very far.” The vort took a step closer, to accommodate for Rust’s step backwards. “It is not without a steadily growing feeling of annoyance that we must advise the Rust to make haste. The amount of time the Combine forces are occupied with the task of forcing labor upon their city’s inhabitants is quite finite indeed.” Rust stared at S’kraun, who didn’t break eye contact. It was obvious that there was no changing his mind. Slowly, he let his eyes droop closed, knowing that he had no other choice. He slowly nodded his head. At this, S’kraun seemed to lighten up a bit, but it was barely noticeable. He reverted from the threatening posture, back to his normal, hunched over stance. “We will not travel by the tunnels from which they emerged, as there would surely be forces guarding the other end.” When Rust didn’t give any reaction, S’kraun continued. “We will, instead, travel by the sewers.” S’kraun started out of the shipping container, and forcefully stated “Follow.” And so, they took the sewers. It was just as dark as ever, and Rust, for a little while, actually had to hold on to S’kraun’s shoulder and depend on him to walk him through the pitch black tunnels, until his eyes adjusted. When they finally did, he could let go, which he did quickly; it seemed like S’kraun didn’t really enjoy Rust touching him. They came to a ledge, which presumably led to a higher up level of the sewer, as it had a stream of water going over the edge, not much water, but enough to make it a bit more difficult to get up. In actuality, it was already pretty difficult for Rust to get over the ledge, as he had never really had a reason to go up ledges before this. He eventually got up, exhausted, and he wasn’t very surprised when he saw S’kraun looking down at him smugly. After this, they walked a few more paces before S’kraun stopped. “We have arrived.” He said, focusing up at what looked to be the bottom of a manhole cover. “We will ascend out of this vile place, and then it will the Rust’s job to lead us to the hole in the Nexus’s security from which he escaped.” Then the vort began to climb up the rusty ladder, while his companion watched, uneasily. It seemed as though the ladder would break at any moment. Yet, S’kraun made it to the top of the ladder quite easily. After cautiously peeking out of the manhole’s lid, he quietly lifted the lid off, and set it down beside the manhole itself. Then without saying a word to Rust, he climbed out and disappeared out of sight. Rust waited a few seconds for some sort of go-ahead for him to climb out as well, but nothing came. Frustrated with S’kraun, he walked up to the rusty ladder, the sense of unease returning. He slowly mounted the ladder, and his feelings of unease grew as he could easily feel that the ladder was rickety and in a state of disrepair. After building up a bit of courage, he ascended as S’kraun had done. He neared the top, and had his upper body out of the manhole. He could see a dark alley, which looked to be the one which he dropped down into when escaping the Nexus. He didn’t see S’kraun however. Then the rung off the ladder he was standing on broke beneath his feet, which fell down as the rung gave way. The force of his feet impacting with the rung beneath the broken one was enough to break it as well, and the this went on until four rungs were broken and Rust was hanging on to the concrete ground, struggling not to fall back down through the manhole. Before Rust had time to even attempt to pull himself up, he felt arms roughly pulling him out of the hole and a hand clasp over where his mouth would be. He was violently pulled down behind a dumpster, and was about to throw a punch at the owner of the pair of arms before he realized that the owner was in fact S’kraun. The vort held his hand over Rust’s mouth, or rather, his surgical mask, for a few more seconds until he was certain that the human was going to be quiet, and peeked out from behind the dumpster. Rust did the same, and a wave of nausea came over him as he saw the gasmasked CPs that were facing away from them, guarding the tunnels from the looks of it. There were about 6 of them, and they were about 30 away; they would’ve been able to hear Rust if he had cried out when the ladder broke. S’kraun tightly grabbed Rust by the back of his neck, and kept him low and quiet as the two crept to the back of the alley and turned right, disappearing behind the corner. Rust was still in a panicked state, but S’kraun seemed completely at ease. The vort stood and looked around, before explaining “Our sources have claimed that one would be able to access whichever room from which the Rust escaped, from the roof.” Rust looked up and saw the roof S’kraun was talking about. The same roof which he had indeed ran along after climbing out the window of the operating room. But something was off. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It all seemed so surreal, like he was in a dream. The panic he felt turned into confusion. When he observed it, he could see that the building was very obviously only two stories tall, but as he and S’kraun climbed the fire escape, it was as if there was no value that one could put on the height of the building. It was simply… a building. He reached the ledge from which the window into the operation room could be access. A pins and needles feeling surged over his body. It hurt to walk but at the same time, it didn’t. He began to feel dizzy. The ringing in his ears harmonized with his own heartbeat. The panic returned, this time increased tenfold. He was going to die, he just knew it. He was alone, where the hell was S’kraun!? Where… where was anything. The building was gone, the alley below was gone, even the sun was gone. It was just dark, dark and loud, so very loud. There wasn’t even a definite sound that Rust could identify as being loud. It was just thunderous, booming, and it gave him a horrid sensation in his skull. He felt as though his head was being crushed, and yet he could register no pressure that would be doing the crushing. Something tightened around his wrist, and tugged him, gently at first, then faster, and faster, until he was sprinting just to keep up with whatever was pulling him. And then he was back, back into reality. S’kraun was the one holding his wrist. With them, there were two men he had never seen before. The first was tall, about six feet and four inches. He had short black hair, a goatee, and he looked significantly out of place with what he was wearing. Rust had no idea where this guy had gotten a formal vest, a black tie, and other garb that made him look like he had come straight from a funeral, but he assumed that this guy had gone through a lot of trouble to get it. What surprised him more was that this guy had an MP7 submachine gun slung over his back. The second guy was not dressed nearly as formally as his companion. He wore a light grey sweatshirt under his dark green insulated vest, blue jeans that looked a bit too long on him, brown hiking shoes, and a flat cap. He was about 5 feet and 9 inches tall, rather skinny, and looked terrified. All four of them were sprinting, though Rust did not know why. He looked around, and saw that they were on a rooftop. The two strangers were helping each other carry a black body bag. S’kraun has a similar bag hoisted over his shoulder. As the ringing in his ears died down, Rust could hear the shorter man repeating the phrase “Oh my god” in a panic. He could also hear the reason why they were running: gunshots, and the vocoded voices of combine police, were audible, close behind them. Without warning, the roof gave way, causing Rust and the shorter man to fall to the second story of the building they were in. The tall man tugged the body over the edge of the hole, and peered down at the two, who were both aching on the ground. He shouted down to them, masking the panic in his voice, but unable to hide the worried expression on his face. “You two okay?” The shorter man sat up, groaning and rubbing his head. “Yeah, we’re fine Redd. Just fell through the fucking ceiling is all.” S’kraun picked up the second both from the ground and hoisted it over his other shoulder. “Will the Mealy be so kind as to escort our companion?” “No need buddy.” Said the man they called Redd, as Rust got up and looked at him, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Looks like Scary Larry over here’s finally come to.” “While that is convenient, there is still danger in our vicinity.” The vort replied. Redd unslung his MP7. “You two keep going in the same direction. Zero says there’s a-“ He was cut off by a bullet whizzing past him. Redd and S’kraun ducked back and continued running in the same direction they had been going. Another bullet shattered the window to the left of Rust and Mealy, and embedded itself in the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. “Come on!” Mealy shrieked, roughly tugging him along. Multiple bullets flew past them as they ran along the hallway. After running about 50 feet, the bullets stopped, as did Rust and Mealy when they came to a crossing of two hallways and heard the boots of metropolice running down the intersecting hall. Five gasmasked figures appeared in front of them, and aimed their guns at the two. Before they had a chance to shoot, however, the skylight above them shattered, and their bodies were riddled with bullets, blood splattering across the floor. They collapsed, red puddles beginning to form underneath them. Redd, with his gun unslung, and S’kraun, holding the two body bags, dropped through where the skylight once was. Redd took the magazine out of his gun and put it in his pocket, slinging the gun over his shoulder. “I hope you two are happy that I wasted half of my ammo saving your asses.” Before motioning for them to keep moving, Redd glanced at both Rust and S’kraun. “Diana is going to be pissed when she sees you…”