Necropolis 2 (16 page)

He realized he was crying.

“I think you might find that difficult alone, weaponless, and nearly naked,”
Erebus replied calmly.

Greg bit back a sob and an acid response. He risked a glance down at his hand again, clenched it into a fist and looked away. He could do this. He
had
to do this. There was nothing else to do. Greg walked down the corridor, stumbling occasionally, slamming his hand into the wall again and again as he steadied himself.

Finally, he found a door and went through it. Greg
lurched into a break room. He looked around, saw a discarded pistol in a pool of blood and walked over to it. Retrieving it, Greg checked the magazine, found it mostly full and slapped it back in.

“
I'm coming for you, motherfucker,” Greg snarled, his voice low.

Greg looked around and found a ventilation grate in the floor. He walked over, knelt, opened it, and dropped in. If Erebus had anything to say about this, he kept it to himself. As Greg began crawling through the vent shafts, a flicker of fear shot through his head: what if there were Creepers in here with him?

Greg found, suddenly, that he no longer gave a flying fuck.

It was stupid thinking, of course, but it was also important. He found that the fact he had absolutely run out of fucks to give helped focus him and kept him from some great, internal collapse over the loss of his arm.

He kept crawling through the vents for a long time, his hand banging repeatedly. He climbed three stories and finally came back out in someone's bedroom. Cold, he was starting to get cold. His movements were short and sharp. Anger boiled like liquid fire through his veins. He cleared the apartment, and then raided the dresser he found in the bedroom.

Luckily, whoever lived here was a man. Greg dressed himself in a black uniform. Occasionally, he would look at his metal arm and he would freeze. Horror and misery overtook him. He would begin to crumble, but something kept him from curling into a ball and crying himself into oblivion. He finished dressing and kept hunting.

After another five minutes, Greg managed to locate a hidden stash of magazines for the pistol and a small, earpiece radio. He fitted it into his ear and tuned it to the team's last known frequency. Greg hit the activation button.

“
This is Bishop, anyone left out there?” His voice was raw from screaming.

“
Greg? Oh, my God, where are you? What happened? What's wrong with your voice?”
Kyra cried.

“
I don't want to talk about it. Where are you?”

“
We're still on the
Anubis
. Currently hiding out in one of many maintenance bays this damned ship has.”

“
Is everyone still alive?”

“
Yes. We're all still here. Currently just kind of waiting out the chaos. Dark Ops showed up in force, all of a sudden, and all three sides have really been going at it. Where are you? Are you okay?”
Kyra sounded both extremely concerned and very relieved.

“
Living quarters deck.”

“
Alright, let's meet up.”

* * * * *

Greg no longer cared if Erebus overheard him. He coordinated with Kyra and headed back into the vents, climbing and crawling his way to them. Eventually, he heard their voices, somewhere ahead of him, quietly echoing.

“
I'm here,” he murmured into the radio, breathing hard.

“
Okay. Hurry up,”
Kyra replied.

He kept going and came to the next grate in the shaft. Peering through the holes in the grate, he saw them taking refuge in a locker room that had seen its fair share of combat. He hit the access button and lowered himself.

“Oh, Greg, it's so good to see you,” Kyra said, crossing the room and wrapping him in her arms. He hugged her back.

“
What's on your hand?” Campbell asked.

“
Is that-what the fuck?” Billings murmured.

“
What? What's wrong?” Kyra released him and stepped back. She looked down. “Greg...what...your hand, what's...what
is
that?”

Greg raised his hand and pulled the sleeve up.

“Erebus,” he said quietly. “He cut my fucking arm off and gave me
this
fucking thing.”

Nobody seemed to know what to say. For a moment, Greg felt alone. He stared down at his metal arm, and let his gaze slide up the gleaming steel to the seam where it had been fitted onto the end of where his real arm terminated.

He felt in danger of dry heaving again, so he slid the sleeve back down.

“
Oh, Greg,” Kyra moaned, reaching out.

He pulled his hand back. “Don't touch it...I don't want you to touch it.”

Kyra grabbed his shoulders, held his eyes with hers. “I'm so sorry, Greg, but listen, honey, listen to me, we can fix it, okay? I promise. We can get you to a hospital when we get out of here. They can grow you a new arm, clone it, or...or get you a prosthetic maybe, you won't be able to tell the difference...”

“
I don't fucking care about that right now.” Greg turned abruptly to Campbell. He pointed a metal finger in the man's face. Campbell took an involuntary step back. “I'm blowing this fucking ship up, and
you're
going to help me. Billings, Kyra, you two are leaving.”

“
What
?” Kyra replied.

“
I'd like to have a say in this,” Campbell murmured.

“
Where's the part?” Greg asked suddenly.

“
Still got it,” Billings replied. “Took it out of the crate, though. Hauling around a crate is a bitch. It's small, came in a shock-proof holder.” He patted his chest. “Inner pocket.”

“
Good. Fine. Take it back to Powell. Both of you.”

“
Greg, I am
not
leaving you again,” Kyra said.

“
Kyra-”

“
No, Greg. Goddamnit, fucking listen to me for once. If you're doing this, I'm not fucking leaving you,” Kyra snapped.

“
I'm afraid I've got to agree with Kyra. I'm not going anywhere,” Billings added.

“
Hey, I'll go, if you want,” Campbell said.

“
Shut up,” Kyra replied.

Greg licked his lips, considering the situation. For a moment, he was suddenly uncertain. It was like a cold wind across the flames of his fury.

“Blowing this place up
could
solve a few of our bigger problems,” Billings said.

“
Yeah...all right. Fine.” He turned back to Campbell. “Tell me the best way to blow this fucking ship to hell.”

“
I...well...the engines. There's this sort of self-destruct built in. We have to go to the engine room to initiate it, though.”

“
Fine. We're
all
going then. Let's do this,” Greg replied.

Chapter 16

–
Final Run
–

Some semblance of logic returned to Greg. When it did, he demanded that everyone hand over their earpiece radios. Once they had, he threw them on the ground and stomped on them several times, until he was sure they were broken.

“What was that for?” Campbell cried.

“
Erebus may be distracted, but it's still capable. The less ability it has to track us, the better,” Greg replied.

“
Fine. But you know the damn thing can still listen and watch us through the intricate, extensive network of cameras we have on the
Anubis
, right?” Campbell asked.

Greg twisted his lips into a frown. Suddenly, he smiled. “So we take it out. We'll go back to the security network center.”

“And what? Shoot it up? That'll take ages, it's huge,” Billings said.

Greg shrugged. “So we visit an armory along the way. You guys must have bombs or explosives onboard, right?”

Campbell thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Yeah, we do. There's a few armories in between here and there.”

“
Fine, then gear the fuck up and let's go.” Greg turned to Kyra. “Sure I can't talk you into-”

“
No, Greg. And stop being a selfish bastard. You get to play dice with your life, you have no right to tell me not to,” Kyra replied.

Greg nodded reluctantly. “You're right. I'm sorry.”

Kyra laughed, grabbed him and kissed him. “Damn straight I'm right. Now, come on, we've got a ship to blow up.”

They gathered their gear from the maintenance area. Greg felt naked with just a pistol and no armor. Unfortunately, nobody had any spare weapons for him. As they prepared themselves to head back into the bloody chaos, Greg caught sight of his arm and felt his stomach twitch. It was insane, he realized, how much his brain was trying to make him forget about it. It was as if whenever he didn't look at it long enough, his mind gently erased from his memories the fact that he had a metal fucking arm.

Was this some strange side effect of the memory loss? No, he decided after a moment. This was just human nature. Slowly, he clenched his gleaming metal hand into a fist. It was eerie, downright
creepy
how he couldn't feel it.

“
Greg...are you okay?” Kyra asked softly.

“
No,” he replied, still staring down at his metal fist. “I'm not, but doing this will go a long way towards my recover. It's not a nice thing to watch someone cut your arm off.”

Nobody seemed to have anything to say to that. They finished up and gathered at the door. Campbell promised that he knew the best route there. For once, Greg found that he didn't care where Campbell's allegiances lay.

If he showed any signs of betrayal, Greg would kill him.

It was that simple.

Greg opened the door. The corridor beyond was quiet. The
Anubis
was in worse shape than ever. Everything looked dark, broken, and bloodied. The absence of bodies persisted. Erebus and his Augmented had been hard at work.

“
Clear,” Greg murmured, slipping out into the dim corridor.

The others followed. They began their journey into the dead heart of the ship. Around them, the vessel breathed with dark, awful life. Greg tried holding his pistol with two hands, but was forced to hold it with his right hand as his two hands touching was proving to be far too distracting. He made himself focus on his surroundings.

Campbell promised that the way there wouldn't be all that difficult, provided they didn't run into anything really nasty. Greg had lost count of the time's he'd heard that sentiment. They managed to reach the end of the corridor without incident. Looking first left, then right, and finding more lengths of empty, bloody corridor both ways, Greg led them on. He would have liked to use the maintenance lift they'd been near, but apparently it was broken. He couldn't help but wonder if Erebus had anything to do with that.

A headache wormed its way through his skull now. On top of that, his arm hurt. It wouldn't be long before he needed painkillers, but that could wait. For now, he used the slowly building pain as fuel for focus. He was pissed. Cold
and wicked and deadly furious. It boiled around inside of him, setting him ablaze with rage. The image of the spinning bone saw meeting his flesh wouldn't leave his mind's eye.

“
Here, we need to go here.” Campbell halted.

Greg blinked and realized he'd been focused too much on his arm. He stopped and opened the door Campbell had indicated without comment. It led them to what struck Greg as an elevator lobby. There was a small bank of lift doors positioned along the back wall. Otherwise, the room was bare save for a few chairs.

“What's this?” he asked.

“
The main elevators,” Campbell replied.

“
Why haven't we been using these?”

“
They aren't as...secure.”

“
So why are we using them now?”

“
We aren't. We're going to use the stairs.”

Greg sighed, and shrugged. Whatever, it didn't matter. They crossed the lobby and opened a door tucked into the back of the room. A zombie lurched out at them. Greg put it down with a quick shot the skull and went pistol-first into the room beyond, which was small, cramped, deep, and empty. He walked across the small landing in the stairwell he'd come to and glanced up, then down. The stairs went up and down for several stories.

“Down,” Campbell said helpfully.

“
Yeah, yeah,” Greg muttered unhappily.

He walked down, his dark thoughts turning darker as he remembered Erebus' grating voice, calmly inquiring and explaining while he cut Greg's fucking arm off and attached a new, unfeeling, mechanical one. It would be a tool in the bastard's destruction. His mind wandered, briefly, and he thought about getting a new one. A regular arm. How much would it cost? How long was the procedure?

Greg shoved the thoughts aside. He led them down three flights of stairs and opened the corresponding door. A similarly disheveled and wrecked lobby waited for them. A few more zombies milled around. Greg put them down with quick, proficient shots and crossed the room to the door set into the far wall.

As the door opened, it revealed yet another length of corridor. How many miles of hallway had Greg traversed since he'd come to this wretched ship? He stepped out and looked around. As he began to call the all clear, a Creeper suddenly shrieked and leap
ed at him from where it had been hiding in a vent grate overhead.

Greg was so startled he dropped the pistol. Everything seemed to slow down as he stared death in the face once more and, with nothing else to do, he thrust his metal hand out and caught the Creeper's neck in his grasp. The thing began shrieking and scrabbling to get loose. Greg squeezed and his fingers tore through the thing's neck. In a spurt of black blood and a twitch of the thing's entire body, the Creeper died.

“Holy shit,” Billings whispered as he stepped out.

“
I guess it has
some
uses,” Greg grunted as he dropped the body.

He wiped his hand off on his uniform, then knelt and retrieved his pistol.

He glanced at Campbell. “How far are we from the armory?”

“
Just down the corridor,” Campbell replied, now staring at Greg's bloodstained hand.

Greg turned away from them and continued to lead the way. They crossed the length of the corridor and came to the armory. Greg said a small prayer, hoped for the best and then opened the door. He found himself staring at an almost empty room.

“Fantastic,” he mumbled.

“
Don't worry! Chances are the explosives were ignored,” Campbell reassured him.

They entered the armory. Billings stood guard by the door while Greg, Kyra and Campbell hunted through the remains of the room. The walls were occupied by ranked rows of lockers, some of them slim gun lockers, others thicker armor lockers. They were broken up occasionally by benches. Greg pried open one of the larger lockers and found a bulletproof vest. He grabbed it and slipped it on, feeling a little bit better.

While Campbell hunted for the bombs, Greg and Kyra looked for an upgraded arsenal. He couldn't find a rifle, but Greg did manage to locate a discarded shotgun that had been shoved up underneath one of the benches. He found a shoulder strap for it, as well as a scattering of fat red shells that he collected and pocketed. The shotgun was still loaded. He flipped the safety off, and then let it hang by the sling.

Another few moments of fervent searching turned up a handful of magazines for the pistol. He pocketed half of them, and passed the rest off to Kyra and Billings.

“Jackpot!” Campbell called from across the room.

They all turned to look at him. He was at a broad locker at the back, hunched on the ground, staring into it. Greg and Kyra joined him. He was carefully handing small yellow squares. As luck would have it, he'd also located a duffel bag.

“These are perfect,” he said, slipping the bricks into the bag. “HE Eight. Beautiful stuff. Here, you take these. They can't be in the bag with the bricks.”

He passed a handful of small, slender metal things to Kyra, who stared at them dubiously. They vaguely resembled stubby bullets.

“What are they?”

“
They're detonator rigs. You shove them into the charges. They're all rigged up to a detonator, which I've got in my pocket. You hit the detonator, they send a small electric charge through the bombs, sets them off. They're harmless, otherwise.”

Campbell fed the last of the explosives into the bag, zipped it up, shrugged it over his neck and stood up. “Ready to go.”

Greg considered making someone else carry the bombs. Then he decided if anyone were to have that unpleasant task, it should be Campbell. He led them back out of the armory, hoping they could press on uninterrupted. The way looked clear.

“
How far now?” Greg asked, although he was beginning to remember this area.

“
Not far,” Campbell promised.

They jogged on through the blood and death, heading through the last few passageways before finally returning to the data network center. The two massive doors that led into the darkened room studded with large nodes of glittering equipment were open. Greg wasn't sure how to feel about that. He led the other three of them cautiously down the length of battered corridor. Apprehension began to ebb the flow with his fury.

No
, he thought
, I'm doing this. No backing down.

He flicked the flashlight mounted at the end of his shotgun on. The pale beam of light cut through the gloom that saturated the data room. Greg frowned intensely. Lots of places to hide, lots of shadows and niches.

“Where do we put them?” he asked quietly.

Campbell shrugged out of his bag and began passing the bricks to people. “Just around, each person take a corner of the room, put them on the mainframes. There's enough here for two per person. Kyra, pass out those things I gave you. Don't stick them in until you've planted your charge. Everyone got that?”

“Yes,” Greg muttered, accepting two of the yellow bricks and two of the detonating pins. “Everyone keep an eye out. If Erebus was going to try and stop us, it would be here.”

They all replied affirmatively and split up. Greg loped off into the darkness, eager to be done with this part of the plan. He couldn't hear or see anything in the gloom. The only sounds that came to him were the quiet movements of the others. Greg reached his corner. He pulled out one of the bricks and planted it on the floor next to one of the mainframes. Then, carefully, he stuck the pin into the brick, burying it halfway in.

Working quickly, he moved a few meters away and then repeated the action. A bit of his tension seemed to lift as he stood, finished with planting his bombs.

“
How are we doing?” he asked, hating how loud his voice sounded.

“
Done!” Campbell called.

“
Me too!” Kyra said.

“
Just finishing now,” Billings replied.

“
Oh, that's too bad, I was hoping to catch you in the act. Oh well, close enough,”
Erebus said suddenly from the ship-wide comms system.

The lights abruptly flared to life, bathing the room in intensely brilliant luminosity. Drones began pouring into the room, firing wildly at the scattered survivors. Greg immediately ducked down behind one of the mainframes. A pair of Drones advanced on him, he whirled around from behind cover, raised the shotgun and blew one of their heads off. The other raised its arm. Instead of a hand, it had a wide-bore gun.

Greg put a fist-sized hole in its chest and prepared for more...then froze when he saw just how many were coming into the room. There had to be a couple of dozen of them. More, even. They were coming in through the
vents
. Greg began to fall back as a hail of gunfire peppered his position. He went the only way he could: towards the back of the room, near the security center where what felt like a million years ago he'd regrouped with Powell and Cage. He could see the others doing the same thing he was.