(General Fiction) UHC: Foundation -- Season 2 "GAME"; Episode 6 -- "Shots Fired"

[halcyonlioness]

[Notice: If you are reading this more than a week out past the original posting date of this entry, be aware that this is an older iteration of the story.  It's highly recommended that you read the googledoc as that is the most recent and most updated version of the series.]




Okay.  We're a couple days late.  Sorry about the wait.  We had run into a serious snag while this chaptersode was in production and we needed a day or so to really polish it up for you guys.

Just FYI, we do try to post every Tuesday, so tune in then for the next episode.

Now the housekeeping: as a refresher for long-time followers of the series and a reference for those who are new, "UHC: Foundation" is a long-running series set in the expansive 'Severance' alternate universe and follows the fates of that universe's incarnations of the Minecrafters we've come to love and respect. As per protocol, for further information and reading, refer to the World Dossier (here) and the compiled story/serial document (here; alternatively, one can follow the story through here.)

"Look before you leap.  Leap before you look. ... same difference."

=====

 

Shots Fired

==Game Time Elapsed: 125 minutes==

It was supposed to be quiet.  It was supposed to go smooth.  It was supposed to be deserted.

The extraction team, five of the most cutting-edge remaining warriors from both the Mindcrack and Hermitage protectorates, had successfully reached the outer rim of the expansive main campus of the SBK Foundation, the once-benevolent neutral organisation that had now been exposed—to these men, at least—as the villains behind the recent, chaotic chain of events that had thrown all of Minecraftia into a state of tension not seen for several years.

It was supposed to be easy.

Vechs, the most infamous and (up until now) ruthless business man and engineer on the face of this mystical world, had graciously suggested this supply entrance (literally at the last moment) to infiltrate the Foundation’s blackened guts and, hopefully, disembowel the ongoing public deathmatch event before needless blood would be spilt.  In a display of conspicuous cooperation, the man had straight up informed them, assured them even, that this particular area was a safe entrypoint; no guards or surveillance, all of it disabled by him personally—as he had made his “glorious” getaway to keep his own smarmy self from falling victim to the Foundation’s darkening policies.

But it just couldn’t be that simple.

She was there.

Dr. Diana Isis.

That witch.  She had to be a witch.  Here the honest-to-Madre-Maria woman that had vilified an entire protectorate in front of the world was right smack dab in front of them.  Standing there, right in the middle of an underground loading bay the size of three football pitches, smug as a cat that just stole a freshly-cooked fish dinner.  Confident, composed, seemingly unarmed, and unassumingly demure under the one lone floodlight still active, smiling an infuriating smile as if though she were expecting them, ready to greet the five interlopers who were cautiously advancing towards her.

In fact, that’s exactly what she told them:

“Hello, gentlemen.  We have been expecting you.”

Not a heartbeat after that vexingly polite greeting, glowing seams and the glint of flawlessly reflecting dark armor materialized out of thin air.

All five of the extraction team members felt themselves freeze in place in various awkward poses by some imperceptible force; followed by a crackling chorus of electric rifles activating.  And then the platoon of shimmering shadows opened fire.

Just in time, Generik regained his motor functions and threw himself back around a support beam, little more than a square column of pock-marked, paint-flaking concrete running from floor to towering ceiling.  Nebris was a heartbeat behind him, bodily diving back alongside the bony Hermit as electrically charged bolts of pure energy lanced overhead while the raggedy General searched around frantically for the positions of the rest of his men.

Damn that woman to hell.

Damn that green-goggled monkey to hell, too.

Pyrao, the Irish berserker, could of course not be expected to react quite as sensibly as the others.  Roaring a deafening Gaelic battlecry, the dragon-skulled warrior charged head-over-heels into the dark-armored soldiers arrayed before him, brandishing his barbarian’s axe in one hand and a pistol in the other.  The soldiers immediately took aim at Pyrao’s onrushing gestalt; in the split-second they fired, he leapt spectacularly into the air, firing off a spray of bullets as he soared over their heads with blade poised—and crashed face-first into an invisible forcefield surrounding the eternally calm Dr. Isis where she stood in the guardsmen’s midst.

Cursing loudly enough for everyone to hear across the length and breadth of the humongous shipping bay, the young Irishman was flung back several meters from sheer kinetic recoil, ploughing a path through the dark-armored bodyguard all around him.  By some miracle, Pyrao was able to catch his momentum, flipping over and skidding backwards on the soles of his combat boots, leaving tall marks in the pavement until he was able to regain his footing.  Without a moment’s pause, he moved, ready to attack Dr. Isis again—only this time he was met by a nova of bone-numbing frost that enveloped him like a vicious snow flurry … and froze his feet to the ground, icy manacles shackling him up to his knees.

Generik heard the gyros firing up within Pungence’s armortech before the young Assyrian moved, and desperately grappled for the supersoldier’s arm before he too would fling himself into the fray.  Surprisingly enough, it was Nebris who suddenly burst from cover, narrowly cutting in front of Punge at the last moment and gesturing frantically, a fierce orange glow springing up around the mage-warrior’s hands and lashing out like an enraged serpent on fire.  The spell locked itself around Pyrao’s form, momentarily enshrouding his flailing, drake-scaled gestalt with livid elemental power.

The energies dissipated within the next heartbeat, leaving a rather soot-blackened Pyrao standing in a puddle of meltwater—into which the Irishman immediately threw himself to evade the barrage of ice-blue bolts of coruscating energy that launched out from Diana’s curved figure.

Nebris immediately teleported backwards, leaving Pungence to take the brunt of the arcane assault … and the young Moderan expatriate clamped his feet onto the floor, a gold-patterned bubble of protective energy expanding out around him.  The magical fusillade impacted onto him with great explosions of mystical force, he swayed in place … but stood firm, barely.

The most infuriating part was how Dr. Isis never so much as moved a muscle throughout that prodigious, multi-faceted display of power.  No shift in stance, nor any change in posture.  She was still standing there, shoulders down and relaxed, both hands folded neatly behind her back, and smiling confidently beneath the floodlight as if it were a halo of innocence.

Pyrao didn’t get a third chance at striking at the Foundation’s vaunted leader, as the dark-armored soldiers closed in around him.  The dragon-skulled berserk let out a feral growl and flung himself into close combat, whirling like a blood-mad dervish with his axe and firing his pistol at point-blank range.

“Care to hold that position, Pungence?” Shreeyam quipped suddenly, peeking out from the service tunnel exit with an unslung and primed sniper rifle in hand.  The Assyrian didn’t reply, but his stance shifted slightly, bracing himself for further incoming fire.  The young Nepalese man promptly dashed into cover behind Punge’s comparatively broad, armored frame, and immediately took aim towards the swirling melee ahead.

Generik finally seized the opportunity to put one hand to his headset, activating the long-range comms in the midst of the battle’s din.  It was time to radio in some backup strategy.  “Mission Control!  Are you there?  Over!”

Only loud static answered him.

An annoyed grimace flew across the Hermit’s face.  For pecker’s sake, this wasn’t the time for the comm line to fritz out!  “Mission Control!?  Do you copy!?!”

“Don’t sprain yourself,” came a terse snap from an intensely focused Nebris, now once again securely ensconced behind the same support pillar as Generik.  The Hermitage leader glanced over one shoulder hurriedly, and caught sight of the dark, purplish aura flickering strangely around the mage-warrior’s fingers.

“Jamming field,” Generik grumbled crossly under his breath.  “‘Course they’d have something like that in here.  Y’ gonna do sum’thing about it?”

“I felt it as soon as we got inside.”  The eldritch energies built gradually, forming peculiar runes and scripts into the air.  “It’s her.  I don’t know where she learned a spell like that … but I recognize the structure.”  The constant purple glow in Nebris’s eyes slowly flared to an alarming brightness, and a triumphant little smirk showed on his face.  “Just gotta apply the right kind of force … in the right spots … at the right moment.”

Generik was about to quip something in return, when lances of electric power came soaring across the still-darkened expanse of the launch bay.  Pungence pushed one foot back and around, catching the bolts against his energy shield while the Hermit shoved himself back behind the concrete support beam.

The legendary Hermitage leader wasn’t the type to be caught on his back foot for long, however.  “Shreeyam!  Enemy snipers!  Suppress ‘em!”

“On it.”  Shree shifted his position into the additional cover offered by Punge, and fired precise rounds into the darkness; some ricocheting off the launch bay’s interior, others pinging off of dark armor or subsuming into protective forcefields.  The Mindcrack marksman’s aim and shrewdness held true, reducing the incoming crossfire, even though stray bolts continued to arc towards the extraction team’s beleaguered position.  Generik in turn brandished his repurposed mining laser rifle on the close combat ahead, zapping select patches of glowing armortech wherever he could get a clear shot.

Nebris’s eldritch incantation increased in volume; Generik could feel the eerie crackle of the mage-warrior’s dark magic latching itself onto invisible strands of force in the air, purple-glowing runes hanging suspended for a split second before blazing with a sudden brightness and pops of air being lit aflame.

“Now, Generik!  We’re clear!”

The bony Hermit felt more than heard the static subside in his comm set.  He drew a deep breath and set the mouthpiece close.

“Uh … Houston?  We got a problem.”

He allowed himself a quirky little grin.  That oughta get their attention.

His relief shone through in his wrinkled, weathered features when a crisp English accent responded.  “Generik!  What the devil is going on over there?!”

Even now, the Hermit couldn’t rein in his sarcasm.  “Where the freakin’ hell do I begin, Bajerino?”  He yanked himself back around his improvised cover as a bolt of weaponized electricity speared towards him, nearly hitting him squarely in the head and leaving a deep, dark score in the concrete, laying bare blackened metal rebars.  “We ain’t got time for that now, anyhow!”

Pyrao was still a dozen meters ahead of the group, standing quite literally shoulder deep in the midst of combat, and showed no signs of relenting.  Nebris muttered eldritch words from his own personal shadows as he wove magic between his fingers, preparing to fire off a volley of unearthly projectiles to suppress Pyrao’s opponents further.  Shreeyam likewise stayed put behind Pungence, the majority of the enemy’s fire that went the shielded supersoldier’s way either being deflected entirely or causing only light harm.  The crafty young sniper continued to fire his heavily customized rifle around the Assyrian’s powerful frame, both at the swirling melee in front and at select targets far across the cavernous space that Generik couldn’t make out, but the Hermitage General had no doubt that Shree knew what he was doing.

Right now, though, Generik sorely wished that he knew what to do.  That Diana Isis wasn’t budging an inch, and she and her platoon of bodyguards had five of the VPF’s finest pinned like rats.

Baj barked back over the radio: “For the love of St. George, Hermit!  What sort of trouble did you idiots get yourselves into this time?!”

Generik pushed the headset to one ear, well near hollering into the mouthpiece: “It’s an ambush, Mission Control!   A freakin’ ambush!  They knew we were coming!”

Another voice cut into the long-range argument, one that sounded uncharacteristically devoid of its usual smarm and catty confidence.  “Ambush?!  That entire sector should be completely unsupervised!  I told you I disabled the security myself!”

“Well—”  The bony Hermit dodged another lance of electricity.  The enemy snipers were growing wise of Shree’s aim.  “—looks like you missed a few spots, Vechs!”  Further arcs streaked past, glancing off of Pungence’s energy shield.  “Now give us a hand an’ some pointers on how to get outta this mess with our skins in one piece!”

On the other end of the line, the burly English Colonel’s tone shifted into a calm, if somewhat pointed observationalism.  “Incredible.  Someone was actually a step ahead of you for once.”

A little fainter, as if remarking from a safe distance in the background, a surly Paul Soares could be heard.  “… that almost seems too convenient …”

Generik was about ready to pop a gasket.  “Can we smacktalk over this some oth’r time, guys?!  We need an out.  Fast!”

The Hermit’s headset crackled suddenly; then the usually ever-present static died away completely and a new voice cut in, perfectly clear if laden with a particular accent all its own.

“General!”

“Who—?”

“Dhere will be time to explain later.  Dhere is a ventilation shaft in dhe corner of dhat bay bearing Sierra-Echo.  Get everyone trough dhere, and quickly.”

Generik did not forsake the opportunity.  He yanked the mouthpiece away from his frizzy beard and shouted to the others: “We got ourselves an out, men!  Ready to move on my mark!”

Nebris gestured quickly, activating crackling wards around himself; Shreeyam kneeled to attention with his sniper rifle to one shoulder, flipping a few switches and levers; Pungence shifted his weight into a sprint-ready stance.  Pyrao, expectedly, was still stuck in his own berserker’s frenzy and didn’t give the slightest hint that he had heard the order at all.

Generik allowed a crazed grin to overtake his geriatric, bearded face as he plucked a small, curiously buzzing obsidian box from his toolbelt and grasped it tightly in one hand much like one would hold a square-shaped grenade.  He drew a deep breath into his lungs and shouted at the top of his voice: “Bearing Sierra-Echo!  Punch it!”

Pungence exploded into a heavy-armored run, adjusting his augmented speed to allow Shree and Nebris to keep pace with him and his shimmering bubble.  Shree raised his gun like an assault rifle as he sprinted along, firing at full automatic toward the shaded sections of the launch bay.

Generik pulled his bony arm back as far as he could and then whipped it forward, sending the ‘buzz box’ sailing through the air at a precise trajectory.

“Fly my pretties!  Ueheheheheh!”

The box struck the floor in a shower of sparks right at the edge of Dr. Isis’s protective forcefield, its lid flew open with a click and a poof … and a swarm of irate flying insects surged out of it.

Bees.

Killer bees the size of hornets that immediately crowded onto the invisible barrier, covering its reactive surface in an undulating layer of wings and yellow-black bodies, hammering at it to reach their designated target.  The shield held; but in the instant before she was completely eclipsed by the swarm, Diana’s face could be glimpsed, frozen in an expression of enraged horror.

Some of the bees peeled off the unyielding forcefield and attacked the dark-armored soldiers instead, covering their heads and shoulders in firecracker sparks.  The soldiers held their ground, neither of them so much as swatting at the sudden insectoid onslaught, but the bees served their purpose—outlining the swirling combat in stark, blazing silhouette.

Within the next instant, Nebris came teleporting into the soldiers’ midst and unleashed a shockwave of lilac energy that separated the armored men somewhat, opening up a path to a still-whirling Pyrao.  Nebris lunged at the dragon-hooded Irishman, seized him around his midriff, and then both of them were gone in a shower of purple pyreflies.

The two warriors reappeared nearly abreast with Pungence and the others, stumbling momentarily before they managed to catch their momentum and join the rest of the team in their hasty retreat.  Pungence skidded to a stop when he reached the grated ventilation shaft, and spun back around, planting himself firmly with his shield projector back to maximum to offer a measure of protection while the team made their escape.

Generik grabbed onto the grate and—with a strength wholly belied by his wasted physiology—ripped it clean from its hinges, tossing it aside like a wooden slab.  He gestured frantically to the other three barreling into the Assyrian supersoldier’s cover.  “Everybody through!!  Go go go go!”

Shreeyam leapt inside first, closely followed by a loudly cursing Pyrao being shoved into the passage by a businesslike Nebris; Generik jumped along after them, with the rear brought up by Pungence who wriggled backwards into the improvised exit with surprising agility, given the armor that he wore from scalp to footblade.  Grasping the sides of the square metal opening with either hand, the young augmented expatriate pulled the ventilation shaft walls together with a shriek of distorting steel, wringing the outlet closed much like an ordinary man might close up a giant canvas sack from the inside.  Then he, too, dove into the air duct’s interior.

They kept going at a joint, crouched scramble until they reached a bisection.  They then finally allowed themselves to collapse in a collective huddle and catch a breather.

“Well,” Nebris remarked in a conversational tone.  “That was fun.”

“‘Fun’ my fire-scorched arse,” Pyrao snarled, brushing soot off his dragonscale cloak.

“Would you rather have taken that arcane barrage standing up?”

The Gaelic berserker muttered crossly under his breath, before falling silent.

“So,” Shree quipped quietly.  “Where to now?”

“Gonna have think on our feet from here on out, boys,” Generik replied in a low, furtive voice.  “For whatever reas’n, these Foundation folks had a bead on us.  Gotta stay downwind an’ move quickly, before they close off this whole ventilation system with soldiers waitin’ around ev’ry corner.”

“We can help with dhat too, General.”

The Hermit put a hand to his headset.  “Well if it isn’t our anonymous benefactor again.  Got time ta intr’duce yaself now?”

“Arkas Tijmen, sir.”

Pungence perked up noticeably.  “Karlas!”

Generik glanced at the Assyrian with an eyebrow arched.  “You know this guy, Joe?”

“Yeah!  Arkas hangs out with me and John a lot.  He taught Johnny how to build and he and I mix music together on weekends.”

“You still up for dhat when dhis is all over, Joe?”

Pungence sagged again.  “Hell yeah … anything to forget this mess …”

Generik patted the morose supersoldier on an armored shoulder, and then popped the waiting question.  “So … Arkas.  How do you know so much about this place, an’ why’re you helpin’ us?”

“I’ll give it to you straight, General—”
“Jus’ call me Generik, son.”

A sheepish smile could be heard briefly in Arkas’s voice.  “Generik.  Ahem.  … I helped build dhe SBK Foundation’s campus.  Myself, and two odhers, drew up dhe plans and oversaw dhe entire construction effort.”

There was a beat of silence as the five extraction team members glanced curiously among each other.

“And we still have all the blueprints!” another, noticeably more upbeat voice chimed in over the comm link.

“As for why we’re helping you …” a slightly more sinister voice followed.  “… let’s just say we have some unfinished business with the Foundation.”

“And Guude isn’t dhe only one who feels dhey owe Joe and his brother a debt.”

There was quiet muttering from the extraction team’s mage through this entire exchange. “I know those voices… and they said they worked on this headquarters but… then that means...” A revelatory pause. “The Architects,” Nebris breathed, his eyes widening.  “You’re the Architects.  Holy hell.”

Generik was visibly taken aback at the news, too.  “Arkas, Adlington, and theJims … damn.  Can’t believe I didn’ connect th’ dots mahself at first.”

Arkas reply bore a hint of a slight smile.  “We try not to come off as celebrities.”

Adlington chimed in again: “We kind of turned out that way, though.”

Jim’s chilling tone sobered the mood instantly.  “Back to the topic at hand … you should have reached an intersection of three air ducts by now, including the one you came out of.  Correct?”

Generik nodded to no-one in particular.  “Yeup.”

“Take the one to the right from the direction you came.  Move quickly, and hold your breath when you reach the next grate.  There’s going to be a lot of dust, and you’re not in the open for sneezing just yet.”

Generik nodded again.  “Copy that.”  He let a gnarled hand drop into his lap and glanced at the others.  “Let’s get going, boys.”

~||~

Dr. Diana Isis, still stood in that floodlight’s blinding cone, glared with unmitigated disgust at the ten scores of mindless facet-eyes that stared back at her while the specially-groomed bees continued to pound against the walls of her arcane sanctuary.

She pursed her lips; her eyes narrowed as she finally brought up one hand, fingers flexing into claws as power surged through her.  The magical forcefield surrounding her buckled, shimmered and vanished—and the bees catapulted themselves towards her.

They never reached their target.

A perfect sphere of white-hot flame expanded outward from her, searing each and every offending insect to a crisp and sending crackling arcs of feedback across her soldiers’ armor.  The final threat eliminated, all of them turned like automatons to face her where she stood in a single, untouched patch of grey concrete, surrounded by a blackened sun painted in soot.

She simply glanced back at them, collected as always.  “Attention!”

They stepped into formation and snapped to attention as one.

She straightened out her still-immaculate dress suit.  A moment of laxity, nothing more.  The interlopers were where she wanted them now—deep inside her treasured stronghold.  They were rats, walking straight into their own, meticulously crafted trap … and all she had to do now was to let its jaws slowly clamp shut around them.

~||~

The ventilation drum went on for quite some distance.  The five men crawled along through it in mutual silence, focusing their efforts on moving as quickly and as quietly as possible.  Eventually Shreeyam spotted a grate ahead and sent a gestured signal back along the line.  The Nepalese sniper deftly picked the grate open and let it carefully fall into the room ahead, before nimbly dropping down while the others waited with bated breaths.

They did hear a few cautious coughs from Shree before he furtively called back to them: “It’s clear.  Mind the dust, though, gentlemen.”

One by one, they inched out of the stifling metal passage and into the chamber.  It appeared to have been some kind of smaller seminar or hearing room once, judging by the tangle of chairs and tables that lay haphazardly strewn every which way.

And Minecraftia alive, was it ever dusty.

Pyrao coughed and waved a hand in front of his face.  “Sure hope that fsking bilgerat ‘f an engineer is happy now,” he growled vehemently.

“There’s no telling how many layers of security the SBK had in the past, let alone how many they have now,” Nebris countered, adjusting his dark grey combat vest discreetly.  “For all we know, Vechs might have simply overlooked the privileges he lost when he was demoted from his original rank.”

“Or maybe that sunova—”

“Language, Pyro.”

“I’m just saying, Neebris!”  The temperamental young warrior gestured violently, stirring up more dust in the process.  “That was an awful convenient ambush we just barely got our arses out of!!”

Generik sighed quietly.  “Captain, stand down.  Before ya really bring the whole hornet’s nest down on our behinds here.”

Judging by the incensed flare in his eyes, Pyrao seemed about to turn onto the Hermitage leader next … but he wisely clamped his mouth shut and crossed his arms over his combat-armored chest, glaring disgruntledly into the floor.

“I agree with Nebris, actually.”

The others glanced at Shreeyam, who shrugged offhandedly.  “I heard the man’s voice over the radio when he found out that our entrance area wasn’t quite as secure as he believed he had left it.  He sounded genuine to me, for what it’s worth.”

“Or maybe that fsking weasel is just really good at playing us all for a bunch o’ chumps,” Pyrao hissed, eyes still downcast.

“Buncha’maybe’s ain’t gonna get this mission back off the ground,” Generik quipped with a degree of finality.  He put one hand to his headset again.  “Any last recommendations from headquarters befer we jump outta this frying pan?”

“You should be somewhere in dhe topmost abandoned section,” Arkas replied crisply.  “Dhere isn’t much more dhat any of us can do for you now.”

“‘Topmost abandoned section’ …” Nebris mused aloud.  “That’s comforting.”

“Stay under radio silence as much as you can.”  This came from Jims.  “Both to preserve the powerpack, and to keep your enemies from getting a bead on your position.”

“Hang in there, guys!” Adlington chimed in with jarring optimism.  “We’re counting on you!”

Generik pointedly deactivated the communications device.  “I hate it when people say that last bit,” he mumbled mostly to himself in his quietest, creakiest voice.

He looked up and met the other four men’s eyes, one at a time; even Pyrao raised his head to meet the Hermit’s calm gaze.

“We got a job t’ do, boys.”  The legendary Hermitage leader let show a fierce smile.  “Time t’ boogie.”

~||~

Baj turned off the microphone, leaving the radio humming quietly on all frequencies to catch any and all wayward messages being broadcast—if there was even a single one left that hadn’t been gobbled up by this deathmatch event by now.  The burly Englishman sighed heavily, straightening his back and allowing himself to pop his spine discreetly.

A few steps away, a visibly agitated Vechs was walking back and forth in a tight circle, arguing to himself and gesturing errantly into the air; from what few disjointed lines and words that came floating over to the control group, it was quite clear that the usually so unflappable catty engineer was not taking these most recent series of events lightly.

Baj stepped resolutely into Vech’s path, well near eclipsing the thinner man, though their eyes remained roughly on the same level.  Vechs stopped abruptly and stared at the other man for a moment, eyes still wide with fury and disbelief in equal measure, before he shifted over to an air of resigned rascality.

“… I’ll get two guesses what you’re about to say to me, and neither of them is going to count?” the green-goggled man quipped in his usual grating sing-song.

Baj furled his already impressive eyebrows together into a grim expression.  “We just now risked losing our entire extraction team to the Foundation leader herself because of your erroneous guidance,” the Colonel rumbled.  “Give me one reason why I should trust you any further than this.”

“Okay.  One reason.”  Vechs put up his pointer finger in the air quirkily.  “Just one?  Because I have a whole bunch I could—”

The burly colonel cut off the now-less-than-intimidating, yet still composed Vechs with a silent and potent glare.

“... alright.  You win.”  The engineer drew a little breath and stood himself a little straighter, nearly matching Baj’s indomitability with a peculiar determination of his own.  “Remember what I told you guys earlier, when we were still getting all chummy and settled?  I left a lot back there.  A lot of important stuff.  … important to me, at any rate.”  He arched an eyebrow meaningfully.  “Maybe it is as important for me to recover that stuff as it is for you to get your people out of there alive?  Is that a good enough reason for you?”

Baj’s eyes narrowed.  “The only reason I have to trust you—”

“—is my word for it.”  Vechs let show a resentful little smirk.  “I know.”

Baj held his ground for a moment … then he looked past Vechs towards the Mindcrack’s Captain of the Guard.  “Jsano.”

Amazingly, Vechs was able to shift from a ruler-spined stance to a hunched-over petulant pout in the blink of an eye.  “Oh come on!”

“I’m taking precautions, Vechs.”  Baj turned his unyielding gaze back to the protesting engineer.  “Your knowledge of the Foundation campus’s security measures have already proven unreliable, with nearly catastrophic results.  You’re still on this team—but I’m having you put under scrutiny before I’m letting you anywhere near this room again.”  With that, he gestured to the door.

“Fine.  Fine.”  Vechs threw his hands in the air.  “It’s clear my reputation continues to precede me.”  He threw a flourish bow as Jsano came up to the two men.  “After you, my noble escorts.”

Baj simply grasped the thinner man’s shoulder with a strong hand, stood him upright and turned him brusquely around, shoving him lightly towards the exit.  “You first.”

A mildly awkward silence settled into the situation room once the door had slammed closed; after a while, quiet conversation struck up again among those still remaining, either conferring among themselves, waiting to be briefed by Jsano for their emergency tasks, or preparing to head out.

Adlington, in his googly-eyed construction worker’s goggles, dark blue denim overalls and a garishly yellow t-shirt that seemed to bleed into his own skin nuance, stepped over with an encouraging little grin to a quietly sighing Arkas.  “You did great back there.  What’s with that look?”

The dark haired, perpetually grit-stained Arkas flinched slightly and looked back at his fair-headed, giddy companion.  “I … it just feels weird stepping into authority like dhis, you know?”

“Haven’t a clue!” Ads beamed back.  He gave the other man a surprisingly gentle clap on the shoulder.  “Really, you’re doing just fine.  Hang in there, Ark.”

With that, Adlington scooted over to an impassive Jims.  “What about you, glareface?  I haven’t seen you get involved in something like this since forever.  What’s in it for you?”

Jims merely arched an eyebrow at the far more outgoing builder.

“You know.  A reason.  We both know what Arkas’s is, and I got mine too.”

“Do I really need a reason, Adlington?”  The chilling glint in Jims’ eyes behind the orange sunglasses and the pull in his gaunt features would have sent most other men shrinking like wilted flowers.  Ads, however, simply stayed put with his thumbs tucked into his overall’s side pockets and an eyebrow arched in return, curiously eyeing the conspicuously black-haired, pale-skinned man before him.

Jims sighed and looked away.  “Like I told the General … I’m just here to return a favor.”  To an astute observer, one would have noticed the strange, purple glow that seemed to emanate from the corner of Jims’s eye.

Adlington let out a brilliant, contagious smile—contagious for everyone else besides the nigh-vampiric man in front of him, that was.  “Well that’s good enough!  Even if it is your usual boring old logic as always.”  He did at least refrain from giving Jims a similar shoulderpat like the one Arkas had gotten mere moments earlier.

“And you, Adlington?”  Jims levered a piercing stare at the other man.  “What’s in this for you.”

“Me?”  Ads didn’t flinch, but his expression smoothed out to a surprisingly sober mien, even though his constant, derpy grin lingered after a fashion.  “Because it matters, Jims.  To all of these people.  And because it matters to them, it matters to me.”

Jims shook his head lightly.  “How you were ever born a Moderan will be an eternal mystery.”

“I know, right?”  Adlington’s eyes twinkled humorously.  “Just like no-one is ever going to figure out how Arkas could be born a Vanali.”  He gave the other man another curious look.  “One of these days you gotta tell us where you’re from, Jims.”

“That is for me to know and for you not to.”  The orange-bespectacled man looked over his shoulder towards the nearby workstation, where a tireless Paul Soares sat poring through the wealth of decrypted material that had been revealed earlier from the invasive broadcast signal.  “Excuse me.”

Without waiting for a reply, he strode over to the still-seated Paul, standing lightly to attention next to the computer table.  The graying hacker jumped slightly and looked up, nodding in respect to the Architect towering over him.

Jims did not waste any time.  “We mentioned to the extraction team that we still have the blueprints for the Foundation campus.”  He produced a USB stick from a pocket in his tall, deep red overcoat.  “I suggest we upload them to your database so we can plot the team’s most likely routes through the complex.”

“O-of course!” Paul stammered, accepting the memory stick a little clumsily and inserting it into the nearby harddrive box.

“Mind if I have a seat?”

“Not at all.”

Jims pulled over a chair and sat down on it, all the while keeping an eye on the computer screen where reams of elaborate construction plans were lining up obediently to Paul Soares’s expert keyboard handling.

“… this place is huge,” the hacker breathed.  “You guys actually designed the whole thing?  What am I talking about, of course you did.  So, this is the main entrance, and …”

“Yes, and the launch bay would be here …”

The two men continued poring through the expansive blueprints, the world soon lost to them.

On the far side of the room, gray-blue eyes watched the scene unfold with startling awareness and clarity. A wolfdog with tattered 3D glasses whimpered nearby, prompting those eyes to turn away from the new guests and back onto the show of insanity still being broadcasted to all corners of human civilization.

“Only a matter ‘f time now.”






=Author's Notes=
*chirp* Damnation, Generik. Epic dramatic action scene, still manages to be a kooky old dork.

~||~

 

 

=====

Author's Box (FAQ):
"What is the Severance Universe?" -- The Severance Universe is the setting for the 'UHC: Foundation' serial. Read all the previous chaptersodes here or here, or if you want more info and lore, click here.

Severance Universe One Shots:
SUOS 001 - Hat
SUOS 002 - Descent and Denial
SUOS 003 - Into This World
SUOS 004 - Hostility

Sentimentality
Behind Worn Bones

We do more than just the SevU. Here are other stories for you happy lot to check out!
Saladcrack :: Kiddycrack Ficsnips

Burning the Phoenix (Ch 1)
Burning the Phoenix (Compiled Fic Google Doc)
(TBA)

[We can has a tumblr nao. Follows us, Precious!]

Comments

[theropod]

Sulky Pyro is the cutest thing to imagine, dangerous as he is.

[(Anonymous)]

You and your plot twists. Though i've got to love nebris showing off. <3

Lovely as always.

[panrhei]

Good work as always. I love the way you write fighting scenes.

[tuan_taureo]

Thank you. :3 Those were mostly written by me this episode. (Copy-editor here.)

[justicetom]

Every chapter, you manage to get better and better. I don't know how. I'm still wondering how you can have such a complex story, it's great.

[tjmachado]

Please. I feel like every new character you introduce/re-introduce you make into an epic one. That is exactly what I would expect from Shree, the perfect form of Nebris... And so on.