“Got that.”
Danny and Zach started down the corridor. There was an opened door to their right about ten paces down.
“Nora and I will cover,” Danny said.
Zach nodded and signaled Gavin. He went in first, scanning the room for any threats. There were none. The room looked like it was sleeping quarters. A dozen bunks were lined up in neat rows.
“Anything?” Selene asked over the radio.
“Not unless you want a nap,” Gavin said.
Searching the room lead to nothing of value. Gavin and Zach rejoined the rest of the team in the corridor. They made their way forward, searching room after room. Time after time, they found nothing. The corridor turned right, then right again. Still nothing. The team found themselves back where they started.
“Well, that sucked,” Gavin said.
“I guess we go right, then,” Xavier said.
They pushed on ahead. This corridor was different. The floor looked to be a bit more worn. And the lights were starting to become more and more faded.
“We're going to need to use our torches soon,” Danny said.
Nora suddenly tapped him on the shoulder. “Do you hear that?”
Zach stopped. “Hear what?”
“A scratching noise.”
Black Wolf went completely silent. Zach could hear nothing at first. Then it started. A rapid sound, like fingernails scratching against a rough surface. It was faint, but...
“Oh, no,” Danny said, reaching to activate his light. The sound was getting closer and closer. The corridor lit up as the flashlight turned on. And the source of the noise became horrifyingly apparent.
A long shape rose in front of them. It looked like a centipede, but it was huge and mutated. The thing was at least six feet long, covered in a tough-looking chitinous shell. It flexed its mandibles at them with an audible clank. Zach was pretty sure that it could chop any one of them in half if it got close enough.
“Oh, heck no,” Danny said. He opened up with a long burst from his machine gun. Nora and Gavin joined in on full auto as well.
The creature reeled backward, hurt by the storm of bullets. But it didn't die. The centipede let out an audible hiss and slunk back into the shadows.
Danny looked as his gun. “Fifty bullets, and it's not dead. That's not counting all of the ones they fired.”
“Everyone turn on your lights, and keep an eye out everywhere. That includes the ceilings,” Selene said.
“Great. Why did it have to be giant bugs?” Nora muttered as she switched on her light. “Why couldn't it be something furry, at least? I'd even take rats.”
“Speak for yourself,” Miko said.
“Let's keep moving,” Zach said.
His fireteam advanced skittishly, still rattled from their encounter with the monster.
“So, there's got to be only one of them, then? Maybe this is a boss battle?” Danny suggested.
“Or we could have stumbled across a dungeon that's way too high for our level,” Xavier said over the open channel.
“That's really not a comforting thought,” Danny said.
“Sorry for dragging you all into this mess,” Javy said.
“Hey, we're the ones who wanted to go,” Danny said.
“We haven't even been hurt yet. It's a little too premature for apologies,” Selene said.
Zach thought that too, but the banter was helping to calm their nerves. He couldn't hear any scratching, at least. That was comforting. His light saw nothing ahead of them. He chanced a glance at the ceiling. Still nothing. But then there was movement...
“Above!” Nora shouted from behind him as the beam suddenly illuminated the form of the mutant centipede. It hissed and dropped down in front of them, mandibles clanking together like giant shears.
More as a reflex than anything else, Zach pulled the trigger of the flamethrower. A stream of fire leaped out of the nozzle and engulfed the centipede. The creature lit up like a torch. It let out a high-pitched shriek and thrashed about, burning all the while. With one last spasm, the thing curled up and died. The corridor was suddenly deathly silent.
“Well, now we know what the flamethrower was for,” Xavier said.
“I think you owe me a beer,” Selene said.
“We still have time,” Danny said.
“Do you want to get attacked by a swarm of those things?” Gavin asked incredulously.
Zach knelt by the charred corpse of the monster and opened his menu. He turned on the scanner and swept it over the body.
Chilus, the codex entry read. Mutated from the centipedes of the pre-disaster world. Lived in caves and other underground locations. Were capable of tunneling. They could grow up to ten feet long, and they were extremely strong. They had a venomous bite, and their mandibles could cut a steel beam in half. Chilus were also heavily armored, and their chitin was resistant to bullets.
“Find out anything?” Selene asked.
Zach shared the codex entry with the rest of them. “See for yourself.”
“OK, that's not good,” Xavier said as he looked it over.
“Is fire the only way to kill it?” Miko asked.
“I'm thinking that armor piercing bullets will also do the trick,” Danny said.
She made a face. “Great. I have a grand total of six of them.”
Gavin stood up and drew his knife. “I wonder, though...”
He walked over to the dead body and prodded it with his knife. The metal clinked against the chilus's natural armor. Gavin started poking at what looked to be random spots. Then his knife sunk in.
“There we go,” Gavin smiled. He ripped through the flesh underneath with surprising precision. “It feels like you cooked it inside.”
“Uh, are you a serial killer or something?” Danny asked. “You're awfully good with a knife.”
“I'm a biology major,” Gavin said. “Or was. Graduated in the spring.”
“Oh, good,” Danny said.
“What exactly are you looking for?” Nora asked him.
Gavin grunted as he shifted the knife. “Their exoskeleton is pretty tough. I'm wondering if its possible to fabricate some sort of armor out of it. Plus, you said that they were venomous, right? That means we should be able to extract some of the venom if we can find the sacks.”
“What the heck are we going to use venom for?” Nora asked. “I'm thinking that coating bullets isn't going to be effective.”
“It could be worth a try,” Danny shrugged.
“Except the fact that the poison will get burned away by the explosion of the gunpowder,” Xavier said. “It would have to be for knives, or maybe if there are bows.”
“There has to be,” Javy spoke up. He had been silent for quite a while. “I mean, there's a specific skill track for me that deals with toxins and poisons.”
“At the very least, it could be worth a good chunk of cash,” Gavin said. He yanked and managed to pull off a section of the centipede's armor. “Yeah, if there's a way to shape this, then it'll be good armor. Better protection than our flak vests.”
There probably was. World at War's crafting system was unique in that it had both structured and free crafting. Structured crafting required a specific set of materials and equipment and led to a known and specified product. In contrast, free crafting only took into account the materials used and how they were shaped, as well as the producing player's skills. You had no way to know what you were making unless you had done it before, and there were always new combinations to discover.
“Should we strip the rest of it?” Danny asked. “Or are there more ahead?”
“Only one way to find out. Let's keep moving,” Selene said.
Zach checked his flamethrower before he continued. The burst had drained about a tenth of the tank. He was going to have to be very careful.
The corridor opened up about thirty paces further down. There were two doorways; one looked like a stairwell, and the other one was an elevator. There was a key card slot on
the elevator's console.
“Do we want to try it?” Zach asked.
“It will save time,” Danny said.
“Are you going to be able to use the flamethrower in there without frying the rest of us?” Xavier asked.
“If we have to fight many more of those things, I'm going to run out of fuel. If this can get us to the bottom faster, then it's worth the risk,” Zach answered.
“I'm going to trigger the door,” Selene said. “Be ready.”
“Something bad is coming up that elevator,” Xavier said as Black Wolf formed a semi-circle around the elevator door, guns at the ready.
“Alright. Now!”
The light on the console switched from green to red. The machinery in the elevator started to hum. It sounded rough, but that was probably to be expected from something so old. The elevator doors opened to total blackness. The elevator was not in the shaft.
“Oh crap,” Miko said. She fired a shot. Something in the elevator shaft shrieked and fell.
The rest of Black Wolf opened fire. Dozens upon dozens of bullets filled the air in front of them. Anything short of a tank would be shredded by the massed firepower, but in effect, that was what a chilus was; a walking, biological tank.
Miko fired again. “There's three more of them, but I'm going to run out of armor piercing bullets. I've already used two.”
Hurriedly, Zach crept closer to the shaft. He brought up the flamethrower and shot off a long burst into the elevator shaft. The chilus inside thrashed and shrieked as they were cooked inside their shells. They fell down the shaft, but Zach wasn't going to take any chances. He walked up to the elevator doors and shot a gout of flame down as far as it could reach.
“Shut the door!” he yelled.
Selene swiped the card key again.
“Okay, bad idea,” Zach said as the door closed. He looked at the tank. Down to a quarter, he saw.
“Then we try the stairs,” Selene said.
“Are we going to have enough ammo to do this?” Gavin asked. “I mean, the rest of us might as well be throwing rocks at them.”
“There's been nothing on this level. There has to be something down below,” Danny said. “Maybe there's more fuel tanks, or something.”
Black Wolf formed up and started down the stairwell.
“Would launched grenades work on them?” Xavier suggested.
“Again, I think we'd need armor piercing rounds, and I don't have any,” Zach said. “Not to mention the fact that my launcher is attached to my gun, and that's sitting back at the entrance to this place.”
“What about hand grenades, then?”
“I just shot fifty rounds into one of those things. I don't think anything short of an anti-tank grenade is going to do anything,” Danny said. “Which, of course, we don't have, and we would have to get close enough to attach one anyhow.”
“I might be able to knife one,” Gavin said.
“Before or after it sliced you in half?” Selene said.
“Hey, just a suggestion.”
Danny and Zach peered around the turn in the stairwell. “Any insight you can provide?” Danny asked.
Zach shook his head. “Unless its about the communication systems, no.”
They made their way down the second set of stairs to the open doorway below. Ahead of them was another corridor much like the last one, made of steel and concrete and illuminated by dimming lights. There was faded paint on one of the walls.
“B2, Labs,” Gavin read as he shined his light. “Don't tell me this is one of those bioweapon facilities that let the test subjects get loose.”
“You'd think that they would have some sort of suppression system,” Nora said.
“If they do, the chilus probably destroyed it”
“We might be able to salvage some of it,” she suggested.
“Or we could end up tripping part of the system,” Danny said.
“Same patrol file as normal?” Selene asked from the stairwell.
“Yeah. Let's go.”
They pushed forward. This corridor was straight, with no branches like the previous level. Fifty paces down the corridor was a doorway. Zach gave a signal to Danny. With one quick practiced motion, they stormed into the room.
“What the heck?” Danny wondered aloud.
It looked like a research lab, but the computers and other equipment were strewn about. Mangled bones lay in haphazard heaps. There were blood stains on the floor. Most were old, but some of them looked relatively fresh. There were random clumps of earth around the room as well.
“Is this a nest?” Danny asked.
“Could be.”
“If this is-”
Zach saw Danny suddenly whip his gun around. He heard a burst of gunfire, then a loud, high-pitched shriek.
“Gavin, Nora, get in here, and stay on guard,” Danny said.
“What's going on,” Gavin asked as he entered the lab.
Danny shifted his light to illuminate the thing he had just shot. It looked like a chilus, but it was only two feet long and much thinner. Apparently bullets were effective against it; Danny's machine gun had shredded a large portion of its body.
“I think there might be more of them.”
Zach triggered his radio. “Selene? Hold the corridor. We might need to clear this room of hostiles.”
“Do you need any backup?” she asked.
“No, we should be fine.”
Zach's fireteam crept around the ruined lab. Zach had drawn his pistol and stowed the flamethrower on his back. There was no point in wasting ammunition.
“Well, this isn't a bio lab,” Gavin said.
“How can you tell?” Zach asked.
“They're clearly researching something here, but there's nothing the would be in a normal bio lab. No centrifuges, no microscopes. It looks like it's mechanical.”
“Weaponry, then? Transport?”
“I have no idea.”
Zach heard Nora shriek, then a burst of gunfire. “Sorry,” she said. “Bugs aren't really my thing.”
Gavin fired off a quick burst with his submachine gun. “Boy, this is sure a lot more fun than the big guys.”
They cleared the room without any further incident. Gavin knelt by the one he had killed and scanned it then sent the information to them. Chilus larvae, the codex entry read. Grows between one and three feet tall. Much smaller and weaker than the adult form, Extremely venomous, but its carapace lacks the resistance to bullets that an adult chilus possesses.
Zach frowned. “So if they weren't in here originally, how did they get in here?”
“Did they come in through the door?” Gavin said.
“Maybe they tunneled in somewhere else in the bunker?” Nora suggested.
Shots suddenly rang out in the corridor. Then silence.
“What happened?” Zach asked.
“Miko just shot a chilus,” Selene answered back. “I think there were some baby ones with it as well.”
“Yeah, we found some of the larvae in here.”
“Hey guys, come look at this,” Danny said.
The rest of the fireteam joined him. He was looking at a poster of some sort hanging up against the wall. No, it was a map, Zach saw upon closer inspection. It looked like a fire escape plan of some sort.
“So we're here,” Danny said, pointing to a faded spot in the middle of the map. “Looks like there's one more room on this level, and then there's one large room on the bottom level. That screams boss fight.”
“That seems rather small,” Zach said.
“Maybe that ventilation pipe went to another bunker?” Nora said.
“So there could be more of these places around this area? Think they're worth exploring?” Gavin said.
“That depends what we get at the end. If it isn't good, then this entire place has been one big death trap,” Zach said.
“Yeah, but you have to admit, it's been fun.”
Zach could agree with that. Sometimes he forgot that this was a
ll just a game. It was very easy to do when everything around him felt so real.
“Let's clear this bunker first. Ready to go?”
“I need to reload. Put someone else up in front,” Danny said.
“Right. Gavin, up front with me.”
The fireteam exited the room. “Anything good?” Selene asked.
“We found a map. There's one more floor and one more room on this level,” Danny told her as he tried to reload as quickly as possible.
Zach and Gavin made their way to the second doorway. Zach could hear scratching coming from behind it as they approached.
“Great,” Gavin said.
“Can you open the door?”
“I shove it open from one side, and you blast the room with flames? Let's do it.”
Zach nodded. “Count of three. One. Two. THREE!”
Gavin flipped the door handle and shoved it open with a quick push. Zach had time to see a room crawling with chilus larvae and adults before he pulled the trigger. The monsters shrieked and squirmed as he washed the nest with flames. And then the flamethrower coughed and died.
“Crap. Crap, crap, crap!” Zach said as he tried to switch fuel tanks on the fly. He pulled the hose out of the empty tank and tried to fix it to the other, but it slipped out of his hands. He grabbed it again and tried to turn it. Most of the chilus had been killed by the initial blast, but one was still on its feet, even though it was burning. This one was bigger than most of the other ones he had seen.
“We need backup!” Gavin yelled into his radio. He opened up, even though his submachine guns wasn't going to do anything.
To their surprise, the chilus reeled backward, hurt by the stream of bullets. Gavin kept firing until his gun clicked empty. By that time, the chilus had died.
Nora and Danny came rushing up, followed by Selene's squad. “Ran out of fuel at the worst time,” Zach said sheepishly.
“How the heck did I kill it?” Gavin said.
“Well, the codex said they were resistant to bullets. It never said that they were immune. Plus, it was probably weakened by the flamethrower,” Zach said.
“Anything of use?” Selene asked.
“Doesn't look like it, and I really have no desire to find out,” Zach said. “You're welcome to search, if you want to.”
Black Wolf Page 4