It’s Not Easy Making Money In The Apocalypse

The woman in the cage had only given us five minutes, so we didn’t have time to pick around this area at our leisure. Although the beasts had never managed to break into this area, that didn’t mean I would call it safe. They weren’t very bright, and so they probably never noticed the door at the end of the grate pathway, nor realized they could use that to get into this otherwise locked guardhouse. I did not doubt that if this woman wanted to, she could direct them to rip up one of those grates and jump down, and then they’d be on the same level as us.

After reading the letting and putting the token away in my digitizer, and continued to search, eventually finding a metal spiral staircase that lead to the upper floor. While doing my best to mitigate the noise, I crept up the stairway as quickly as possible, coming out on a new level that was just as dark as the first.

“It’s strange.” A voice spoke into my Bluetooth earpiece.

“Cecelia?”

“This entire guardhouse is off the mainframe. It’s like a ghost.”

“This isn’t where the power headed?” I asked quietly as I heard Raven climbing up behind me. “I guess the mutants cut the line…”

“No, the power distribution I saw wasn’t the line the beastkin cut into. There is another area being powered. As for this place, they went to great lengths to make everything here run mechanically.” Cecelia sounded like she was taking it personally.

“Why would they do that?” I asked.

“It’s not that surprising. Electricity can fail no matter how many fail-safes you include. The nuclear fallout following the apocalypse is more than enough proof of that. When something inevitably fails, mechanical security is all you have left.”

“You mean that this guardhouse is protecting something that absolutely can’t get out?”

“Hmph, I said no such thing. Aren’t you just letting your imagination run away with you?”

“The difference between those that survive and those that die is imagination.” I had no clue if that was a quote or not, but I just felt like saying it.

More surprising, the words seemed to catch Cecelia up. “Just… keep your eyes open.”

As Raven made it to our floor, I looked around silently. I identified three skeletons on this floor. So, there had been four people in this guardhouse when… whatever happened, happened. The man below had a hole in his skull that looked like he had been shot, but there was no gun near his skeleton. Either someone had picked up the gun, or he wasn’t the one who shot himself.

I had thought the general in the letter had killed him for his betrayal, but he hadn’t seemed to recover the token. Furthermore, the bodies up here also had bullet holes in them. The three skeletons were each sitting in a chair. None of them had guns either. Someone had walked up and shot each of the dead, and either he posed the bodies when he was done, or they hadn’t gotten up to resist at all.

I started looking for some kind of entrance to a hidden base when Raven spoke up. “The window is there.”

She had her own light source, although it wasn’t as strong as my Perco. That was a good thing, as my Perco might have been seen through those windows. I quickly turned it off, looking up at the window. Up here, there was at least a little bit of starlight entering through that window. It also made it easy to find in this otherwise dark room.

I had wanted to find out more about this power source. After all, we had originally gone there for the sole purpose of finding some kind of treasure. Although I experience a few setbacks, I was still hoping to find something. As for what that something was, I was looking for either cash of more drug ingredients or perhaps more drug recipes. Jeri was only as skilled as the recipes she had at her disposal. The Allco enhancement recipes were all priceless in this world and finding a chemist who even knew one of them was already a lucky feat. At least, that’s what Jeri had told me.

Unfortunately, with us on the clock, I couldn’t waste any more time. We were already nearing the end of that five-minute time limit, and if she started revealing our position, never mind some kind of hidden treasure, I’d be doing my best just to stay alive. Since that was the case, carefully grabbed one of the chairs that did not have a skeleton in it and placed it under the window. Raven walked over and helped hold it as I stepped up and peaked out the window.

The view over the cage wasn’t particularly good. Not only was it dark, but the view was narrow and mostly blocked by the bars. I couldn’t see any beasts at all, but that didn’t mean anything. My only choice was to exit the window and hope for the best. I looked down at Raven. Even in the dim light, I could see the anxiousness on her face.

“I’ll be right ba-“ I started to say only to stop myself. “If something comes up, don’t wait for me. Return to the hospital.”

In this world, optimism got you killed. The best way for me to survive was to prepare for the worst. Raven seemed to understand, as she gave a little nod, her face otherwise expressionless. I accessed the Perco manually, and then initiated the Stealthco injection. As my body started to shimmer and disappear, Raven eye’s widened. She had never seen me use this mod before, so it had to be an interesting sight for her.

I took a deep breath and then turned to the window. Carefully opening it up, making sure to do so as quietly as possible, I pushed my way carefully up. I felt Raven grab my feet as they started to flail, giving me something to push off of as I pushed my way through. This window was very narrow, and in a very rare instance, I was glad that I was such a small guy. Then again, if I was a bit taller, I probably wouldn’t have needed her help, even after using the chair.

With a bit of wiggling, I finally came out onto the top of the bars which sat just under the window. I glance down immediately, looking for the girl who had helped me earlier. If she suddenly called out to the beasts while I was in the middle of trying to save her, it’d be regrettable, so I needed to get her attention. Yet, when I looked down into the cage, I found that I could see her. In my current form, I didn’t cast much of a shadow. Light sources had a way of being distorted around me. Even though it was dark in the cage, after scanning it a few times I was certain that the girl was gone.

When she had shouted to get the beast’s attention, they must have grabbed her and removed her from the cage. I could even see now that the cage door was left slightly ajar. They might have already killed her! If that was the case, then I didn’t need to do anything, right? I could just return to the guardhouse. My mission was complete.

Although, as soon as I thought about it, I knew there was no way I was going to leave things like that. It would never settle well with me if I left someone to die such a horrible death. She had helped us get through the door. She was in this situation because she had chosen to help me. Even the pragmatic part of my brain could come up with a proper excuse. Unless I confirmed she was dead, she could still potentially tell them we were there.

With an irritated sigh, I carefully climbed down from the cage as I kept an eye open for the beasts. The area immediately around the cage had seemingly cleared out, but I would have been deaf if I didn’t know where they had congregated. As I walked around, I started to realize that we were in a courtyard that was behind the main hospital complex. They had occupied the courtyard and part of the hospital. Collapsed hallways and stairs segregated this part of the hospital from the part we occupied.

There was another building on the far side of the courtyard that might have once been a place for doctor’s offices. I glanced around carefully before making my way there. I didn’t want to be reckless, but I also didn’t to waste all of my time and have my Stealthco run out. Thus, I moved with a brisk space. The bottom floor of the doctor’s building might have once been a lobby, but it was hard to say now. The entire floor had been ripped out. Only the bare scaffolding which held the multiple floors above it remained.

It was complete night now, which gave me a reassuring amount of cover, but the sight I was looking at still made me feel like it wasn’t enough. There was a giant bond fire, I could see that the entire building had collapsed down the middle, creating a sort of chimney for the bonfire, and as it burned, the beastkin danced and shouted around it. The part that gave me chills was the dozens of bodies that looked to once be human with giant skewers in them, tilted toward the fire and cooking like human shish kabobs.

Just as I was about to turn away, I saw a burlap back moving slightly. It was in the hands of one of the beasts, being dragged across the floor. When they moved too must, the beast grunted and kicked the bag. If I had to guess, the girl was inside that bag. Was it too late to save her?