An Outsider's Perspective Ch 3
Not even the maintenance tunnels had been spared.
I had to navigate my way around anomalies, hiccups in reality, molten asphalt, and temporally locked grains of sand that were anchored to the planet’s gravitational center so they advanced with it rather than be left behind as particularly inviolable space dust.
Out of all the dangers, the worst one were the gravitational shifts. Those were the hardest to see if your attention strayed, or there wasn’t obvious damage that would inform you of the changed gravitational direction.
Such as loose wires ‘laying down on the roof’ or concrete chips ‘stuck’ to the wall.
Sure, the ones where gravity went ‘sideways’ were more of an annoyance, but being dropped two feet into the top of my head could end up with me having a broken neck, and I didn’t survive a fistfight with a fucking Predator to die in a fucking maintenance corridor of a place I despised.
I found plenty of maintenance techs who had attempted to find safety in these oft forgotten back-ways. Judging by the pained expressions, those who still had a mostly intact face anyway, not a single one of them died quickly or painlessly.
Once again, I begrudgingly thanked Other Me for trapping me in a time bubble for several hours.
That in no way diminished my depthless envy, why does he get to be some fuckin’ multiversal superhero whereas I get stuck working maintenance for horny slavers for fifteen fucking years?
No fucking fair.
Then again, the multiverse wasn’t fair.
“Oh thank God!”
I aimed the barrel of the shotgun at the source of the voice, the attached flashlight illuminating the face of a young man.
“Woah woah!” Said a man, his name tag read ‘Roman’. “Don’t shoot! I’m friendly!”
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked.
“R-Roman. I work here. Wait, Alex? Alex is that you?” Roman said, his eyes going wide. “I thought you went to become a full Agent.”
I didn’t recognize him. Which meant he was either psychic and had lifted the information from my mind, or he had met and befriended another Me who, like me, had been serving out his work term.
Brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, nondescript face. ‘Everyman’ voice. Slightly above average height. Paunch denoting a lack of exercise, musculature of arms showing he did blue collar work.
I squeezed the trigger, the shotgun punched my shoulder and the #00 buckshot pellets took a fist-sized chunk of his face and head and spattered it on the wall and floor.
The body seized up and fell to the ground like a dropped sack of potatoes, it made a ‘splat’ sound as it fell. The only reason I could hear the meat sounds it made was my implants safeguarding my hearing from the percussion of my gun.
As I backed away, I kept aim at the body in case its twitching turned into it standing up.
Better safe than sorry.
A short while later I’d finally made it to one of the building’s armories. The door was locked, but I’d pulled more than enough shifts doing weapon maintenance, and my previous supervisor’s passcodes still worked.
The door unlocked, but I had to muscle the iris hatch open manually, not every panel opened more than halfway, but it did open enough to allow me to crawl through.
My first sight of the armory was disappointing.
For one, it had quite a few corpses. None of those corpses still had a weapon on them.
The plasma weapons section had been exploded, the flame weapons section was empty, the laser weapons (my favorites) were largely slagged.
Of the railguns and other infantry-sized mass drivers, nothing remained, what assault rifles and carbines weren’t taken had been likewise destroyed.
Whoever had sabotaged the armory had been thorough. Out of enough weapons to outfit an entire infantry regiment with weapons from Tech Level 3 all the way through 9. The only thing I was able to salvage was an M1 Garand.
Which, okay, better than nothing. But they could have at least left me a Kalash.
Or an emotional support Grease Gun.
No explosives on display, but I was able to nab more en bloc clips than I’d ever know what to do with, more magazines that fit into my shotgun, speed loaders for my revolver, a sling for my shotgun and Garand, a proper holster for my revolver, two bayonets, a bandoleer for clips, and all the ammo boxes I could carry.
Which, thanks to the duffel bag being bigger on the inside as well as definitely having an enchantment to reduce weight. Was a surprising amount.
The very last thing I picked up was a mask, it was meant to integrate into power armor, but it was the work of a few minutes so it could integrate with my helmet. It connected to my HUD and provided further elements such as motion detection, low-light, thermal sight, minor LIDAR elements, a scanning suite, and it used van der waals forces to fuse to my skin, it also used gravimetrics to filter air, allowing me to breathe without obstruction while safe from any pathogen or particulate. So long as where I went had air, I would be able to breathe.
Having spent more time than I was comfortable with filling magazines, clips, and speed loaders, I slung my new rifle at my back and dove back into the maintenance tunnels.
While I had worked, I’d thought through my situation. I had two choices, I could curse the Legion of Cucked Heroes, find some way to get in contact with the Company, wait for rescue which would come. After a fiasco of this magnitude, the regional supervisor would salivate at the prospect of a full Agent who they could send into the multiverse to mitigate some of the losses incurred.
Or I could make use of this opportunity. And sever myself from the Company.
So I brought up a map of the maintenance tunnels and began making my way to the Pocket Dimensions Manufacturing Center.
Fuck the Company.
=][=
“Hello? Anyone?” Asked the voice of a young woman, panting with pain. “Can you please help me? I’m, I’m hurt.”
I kept my eyes closed and my breathing even.
“It’s so cold.” The young woman continued. “Yang? Yang, where are you? Yang, is that you?”
I resisted the urge to tighten my grip on my shotgun and this time I managed not to flinch as the thing that had taken Ruby Rose’s voice repeated her last horrified, pained scream, a scream that became a gurgle before falling mercifully silent.
After twenty interminable seconds of merciful silence. It began again, her pained breathing making my heart rate spike. “H-Hello? I need help.”
I continued to do complex math in my head, doing my best to disassociate myself from what was happening.
I was armed, but that thing had killed a Ruby Rose. She was a Tier 5, admittedly, she sounded wounded, probably a Waifu that got free during the chaos, got hurt in a fight, and got ambushed by whatever the hell this thing was before her Aura replenished.
That thing had gotten free from the esoteric wildlife farming and harvesting wing. The only things I knew of from that wing that were farmed for harvesting and used the voice of those they ate to lure others in, were creatures that preyed by awareness.
The only way they could perceive me, was by being perceived by me, it could only see me, if I saw it, it could only know me if I knew it, it could only smell me if I smelled it.
It could only hear me, if I heard it. Which is why I was laying on the floor and minimizing the noise I made.
It knew something was in its general vicinity, but since I knew not exactly what it was, it didn’t know I was ‘human’ and therefore, it wasn’t certain if I was predator, or prey.
Unfortunately, it seemed quite willing to roll those dice.
I cursed their cost efficiency for the components they provided for the creation of Information Defense!
I kept my breaths deep and slow, listening to it mindlessly repeat Ruby Rose’s call for aid as its stolen voice became fainter, until it fell quiet.
I did not move, my HUD’s clock continued, seconds turning into minutes.
My body ached from being forced to stay in a thankfully comfortable position, I was tormented by an itch on my arms, the back of my leg, lip, neck.
I listened to the dripping of water from damaged pipes, to surviving alarms, far off claxons, and the occasional sound of gunfire or explosions as other scattered survivors or attackers who fell behind had their own battles, and still I refused to move or make a sound.
As the time I’d spent lying in place ticked on, one agonizing minute at a time.
After close to an hour, I heard another voice, both familiar and unknown to me. “Ruby!? Ruby can you hear me, Ruby!?”
From somewhere nearby, ten meters away at most, came the call.
“Hello? Anyone? Can you please help me? I’m, I’m hurt.”
“Ruby! Baby sis, I’m coming!”
I kept my eyes closed and my breathing even. Willing my hands to remain still.
“It’s so cold. Yang? Yang, where are you? Yang, is that you?”
“Ruby!”
There was a hiss, a shout of surprised dismay, then shouting and the thuds of fists striking a hard surface with superhuman strength.
I sprang to my feet and bolted. Any notion of joining the fight vanishing, anything that could stand up to a punch from Yang Xiao Lung would barely even notice a .30-06 round, a 12 gauge slug might stagger it but it would do little more than bruise.
The sound of the fight fell away as I forced my complaining body to move, scratching the more annoying itches as I ran.
Thank fuck for paranoia!
I reached the next transfer checkpoint and stared in dismay. The corridor that led directly to the Pocket Dimensions Manufacturing Center was packed full of dazzlingly beautiful flowers. Petals that ranged from the brightest arterial red to Mexican pink, to the blue of summer skies, every color of the rainbow was showcased in an utterly breathtaking display.
The corpses of those who hadn’t realized that beautiful things in nature often could only afford to be so because of their lethality, littered the corridor. Flowers already sprouting from their still forms.
I would be safe from inhaling any toxins…but what if whatever vector they used to attack was absorbed through my skin?
No, I’d have to go around.
I set off toward the security offices, then when the tunnel to security ended up having caved in, cut over to shipping and handling.
Shipping and handling was a mess, the humanoid packaging wing had been turned into volcanic glass, but there weren’t enough corpses to indicate that the product had been burned down along with the establishment.
Doing some scavenging, I was able to find a crate of energy drinks (Bewbs-lite, they were disgusting but each one had four hundred milligrams of caffeine so…), several crates of Associate Pepper, Enhanced Original Recipe Coke that had more cocaine than sugar.
And then I hit the jackpot when I found a crate full of grenades.
Many chemical, incendiary, high explosive, fragmentation, and cluster grenades found their way into my duffel bag alongside the energy drinks, several were clipped onto my jacket. I considered grabbing a few gold bars, but those weighed far too much.
Scavenging done, I put the crowbar I’d been using to open crates into my duffel bag and went into the office. I paid the corpses lined up on the wall full of bullet holes their due consideration, and when none of them twitched or got back up, I went straight for the manager’s office.
The monitor was destroyed, but the computer underneath the desk was untouched, so I scoured the place for a working monitor and plugged it into the computer.
The manager’s computer was locked and I didn’t have his password, a search of the desk showed that whoever had been in charge had been more competent than their usual ilk as they didn’t keep their password on a post-it note hidden on their desk, and not wishing to try my luck looking for a hidden password in the office, I instead went to the Admin login and typed in the standard Company Admin Password: ‘80085.’
Once in the system, I navigated to the Agri-World Dried Foods™ portal and looked up my account via my Slutlife-Citizen Identification Number.
Once I input my ScIN, I made a fairly brute force alteration to the spreadsheets that kept track of purchases and deliveries so any purchase I made would be delivered to me, but the invoice would mark it as having been made by and delivered to another me across the multiverse.
It was amateurish and any serious scrutiny would see right through it. But due to the work contract granted to my entire Clone Line thanks to our Prime’s negotiations, we could all get as much as we wanted for free.
Free to us, at least, up to and including bringing in enough food to feed a planet. The Company really didn’t bother tracking these when it was done under ‘our’ contract.
Just to test it out, I used my HUD to teleport in a sandwich. It appeared in my hand, and I saw the spreadsheet track it as having been delivered to a me whose ScIN was a few digits off mine.
Perfect.
The sandwich was a grilled cheese. I took off the mask and quickly ate it.
It was perfectly adequate.
Making sure the program was saved and would be uploaded to the greater Company system the moment connection was re-established, I exited, logged off, and swapped the monitors back, then left the working monitor back where I’d found it.
As I was making my way out, I heard voices. Stopping to listen, the voices were speaking a language I didn’t recognize, it sounded like it had Latin roots, and I could make a fair guess as to the meaning of one word in ten. Peeking out, it was a group of men, maybe a dozen, wearing a uniform I didn’t recognize, all of them armed. Several of them spattered with blood that, judging by the otherwise undamaged uniform, wasn’t theirs.
The only way back to the maintenance tunnels was by running past them in the open.
Okay then.
None of them saw the cluster grenade soar through the air as I threw it, some of them heard the thud of it landing. There was a warning that was cut short by an explosion, followed shortly thereafter by at least half a dozen more explosions, bits of shrapnel thudding into the wall I hid behind.
I threw myself out of the office and sprinted for the maintenance tunnels, ignoring the groans and agonized shouts coming from the men I’d ambushed.
Some of them kept their wits enough to shoot at me, bullets whizzed by me, their angry-bee buzz drowned out by the roar of their fire.
I was almost clear when an impact to my lower back made me stumble, I fell into a roll, keeping a death grip on my shotgun, sprang up to a knee and blindly emptied the entire magazine in the direction of the fire.
No idea if it hit anyone, but the full auto buckshot dump accomplished the objective of getting them to lower their damn heads. I resumed running for the maintenance tunnels, throwing my elbow out so I could swap out the magazine.
I was proud of myself for keeping my head enough not to simply discard the mag, instead putting it away in my vest, then slapped in a new one and hit the bolt release.
I emptied that one blindly too. Crawled through the hatch into the maintenance tunnels, then rigged it with a chemical and incendiary grenade before running again, swapping out the magazine in the shotgun once again.
Side objective finished, I tripped on a piece of rubble as I reached an intersection, now to—
I heard a roar to my left as a burst of pellets hit the wall where my head would have been had I not stumbled, spattering my mask with bits of concrete and lead.
I dropped to my knees, turned, and squeezed a burst of three shells in the direction the shot came from. There were two flashes of yellow, followed by the thud of metal striking flesh, nearly drowning out a girlish grunt as a feminine figure was knocked onto her back.
Yang Xiao Lung gasped and gurgled, clutching at her chest, her crop top and jacket quickly becoming sodden with blood.
“Fuck!” I said, rushing to the downed Huntress, kneeling next to her and adding pressure to her wounds with my hands. “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! Why!? Why did you do that!?”
She blinked up at me, confused, either by blood loss or by the fact I was trying to help her.
“Why did you do that!?” I demanded again. “We could have helped each other! Goddamnit! I’m just trying to live!”
She gasped and gurgled, and only then did I see the arterial spurts coming out of her neck, where several of the 9mm bullet sized pellets had torn through her carotid artery and jugular veins.
She tried to speak, but there was little I could do other than hold her, providing what meager comfort I could to the girl I killed after she tried to kill me.
I couldn’t even blame her. I’d been part of the system that potentially took everything from her, or worse, gave her life purely to take everything that she was and put it in control of someone else.
It wasn’t long before the blood stopped flowing, the light leaving her eyes as her body relaxed with her final gurgle.
I took a deep breath and barely resisted the urge to scream.
It might attract predators.
I pushed what I was feeling down, repressing it ruthlessly so I could be functional, and quickly went through the body’s pockets. It had a few 8 gauge shotgun shells which I quickly tossed into my bag, a metal canteen full of water which I clipped onto my belt, and a scrap of red cloth.
I paused, the lid on what I was pushing down threatening to give away.
A muted explosion and agonized screams returned clarity to me.
I took the red cloth, wrapped it around her hand, then put her hands on her chest so she looked like she was resting.
Lastly, I put an incendiary grenade in her palms, removed the safety pin and pressed the striker button. Then trotted away.
It would have to be do for a funeral pyre.
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