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Igor Matokovich - 'The People's Doctor'
- Thread starter Rat King
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MarvGaming
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eliasssss siemnesss
DoodleDude
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Wanna add Ted Kowacks
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Add Karl Haussen
Lucaa
Certified Italian man
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Add Lucaaa
MCG
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Ayyy. Also, damn, he can't remember Grant. Agh.
D
Deleted member 3180
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I didn't realize you added me to your bio... but does he know?
DoodleDude
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Update to Ted Kowacks perhaps, if you desire.
Rat King
Willard Martyr
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- Thread Author
- #116
This is the final update to Hugh/Igor's bio for the time being, though i might bring him back for an expedition set in the outlands or if the server ever transitions from city rp! was a delight playing him.
“I can’t legally treat you-…“ Igor looked up momentarily at the spinning combine camera installed in the corner of the general ward. Its lens was currently focused on one of the burn victims he had grafted. He was overdue for a change of bandaging he couldn’t think about that right now.
“The fuck—”
SLAM!
The door flung shut with surprising force, nearly causing the grey armband-clad man that Hugh had shoved to fall over the surgery bench. There were no cameras in the OR, though there were doubtless microphones. The doctor was already hunched over the bench, writing on a bit of paper. He looked back at the confused slummer, bringing an index to his lips in the universal sign of ‘Shut the fuck up.’
‘I can't legally treat you, but that’s only if I’m caught. Sit down.’
It took his patient a moment to read the writing in permanent marker that was thrust in front of his face, but once he did, his annoyed expression melted, and he gave the aging Russian an understanding nod. He sat back up onto the operating bench, crumpling the fresh paper beneath his ass. He motioned to Igor for the paper and pen; it was relinquished.
‘Thanks. Would have bled out there. Hurts every time I breathe deep. I’m Wes.’
Igor took the paper back from the man who offered it. Assumedly an alias. Wes had risked it all coming here; it took guts. Guts that Igor increasingly felt he lacked lately, his eyes instinctively drifted towards the vomit-green traitor’s sash wrapped tightly around his right arm. Wes followed it with his gaze and gave him a shrug, forcing Igor in turn to smile meekly. This was all well and good, but while they were exchanging notes like schoolgirls, the small red blotch on the man’s frayed shirt was growing deeper in shade, saturating the fabric. Igor snatched the paper up and shoved it into his mouth. His stomach instinctively burned from the ulcers eating hastily scrawled notes had given him even before he swallowed, blinking back tears. Wes watched with an unusual calmness about him. That was probably the hypovolemic shock setting in.
Click. The door to the operating theater was locked. The tap squeaked as Igor washed his hands, retrieving the equipment he needed moments later. A cannula that slid into Wes’ arm, a blood bag, a catheter, a drip chamber, luer lock, spike, it was assembled faster than it took him to wash his hands, and by the time Igor was getting around to the actual surgery, the slummer was already getting universal blood filtering in through his median antecubital. The door tried and jammed against the deadbolt.
“Uh… That you, Hugh?” A familiar voice came through.
“All good, tending to a patient—don't need help. Thanks Randal.”
“…Right…” Footsteps receded from the door. Thank God it was Cole. At least he either didn’t notice or turned a blind eye to Igor’s ‘unannounced operations’.
The thin drywall of the clinic barely muffled the sound of short, sharp pops. Igor held his breath as a single monotone screech filled the air for all of two seconds.
The sterilized voice of the artificial intelligence was clear enough, even coming from the alley behind them. Despite it being where Igor walked to work each morning, he couldn’t hide the grin on his face. Wes, now with some colour returning to his once-pallid features, noticed and whispered, and with the ongoing firefight outside, it forced Igor to lean down to hear him.
“Gotta.. -Hch-.. Work on your poker face, doc.” Igor’s grin stiffened, and heat flushed into his face. Idiot. If he had been working on one of the bootlicks right now... It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Spasiba. You’re correct. It seems your friends got payback, hm?” He responded, deeming the constant popping of firearms ample background noise to drown out whatever bugs had been hidden here. He moved onto sutures, having just filled the wound with haemostats. Lead poisoning wasn’t likely with the way the bullet had embedded, meaning it would just cause more damage to remove it. It was probably not the first bit of scrap Wes had in him. He turned on the tap as the shots began to fade. They needed *some* background cacophony for protection against bugs.
“Nah. ‘Prolly not..” Wes whispered back, eyes fixed on his own stomach, as the skin around the rift in his abdomen was pulled into place with thin plastic thread, wincing at each pinch. "There is no point in getting a couple pigs unless it seriously destabilizes or radicalizes. ‘least, that’s what the bossman said."
Igor had just finished cutting the last suture thread. All the while, he was counting down in his head. Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen. He walked towards a green curtain usually used for dividing beds, pulling it aside to reveal a window. He clicked the latch, pulling it open as wide as he could. The smell of garbage from the dumpster adjacent to the window wafted through, with undercurrents of industrial smog not far behind it. Igor returned to Wes’ side, leaning down and whispering.
“I cannot risk you being seen exiting the treatment room.” He began as he retrieved some fresh rolls of bandage, wrapping them around Wes’ midsection. Seven. Six. “This window exits out onto an alleyway opposite the terminal hotel. Climb the dumpsters and hop the fence, and you’re on the road where that shootout happened. Straight shot to the slums from there.” Two. One.
All too familiar klaxons echoed out from high, high above them. Three blares before the slick voice of the city announcer began in earnest.
“Attention, Industrial 24. Unrest procedures are now in effect. All residents in local block, assume your inspection positions.”
“Think you can stand?” Igor whispered. Wes nodded with a pained grimace, clinging onto the doctor’s labcoat momentarily in order to right himself. He took unbalanced, stumbling steps towards the windowsill, gripping it and hooking one leg over. He fell to the ground out of the window. Igor made to help him back onto his feet, but before he could, the door rattled with a loud knock. A new voice coming through.
“Hugh? Inspection.” Walker said. Igor slammed the window shut and pulled the curtain back across it, obscuring the view of the man sprawled across the pavement.
“Coming!”
People weren’t sure whether to run or not, but Igor always resolved to walk calmly; it’s not like the pigs grilled green bands too hard anyway. He half-jogged up the steps of the terminal hotel to see a long line of sullen faces. He looked down at the surgical mask banded around his nose and pulled it off, tucking it into his bag. He saw familiar faces here. Too many. Agatha, the marked one. Felix, perpetually distraught. Ophelie, fiddling with her hair and nervously clearing her throat every few seconds. He entered the line-up at the first available space, already hearing the clicking of boots against cobbled steps.
<:: ALRIGHT! You know the drill! ::> A harsh vo-coded voice boomed above the hushed chatter of the citizens corralled into the lobby. The doors swung open, allowing a hovering drone to bob and float above the unit’s heads, circling the lobby. Its aperture clicked several times, shifting from face to face. Igor tensed as its single mechanical eye focused on him momentarily before continuing on. Without having to be told, people were already spinning around to face the wall. He did a mental check to ensure he wasn’t about to get pulled for having contraband on him, and then did the same. He placed his hands against the defaced wall, having become intimately familiar with the texture of the cracked brick.
Igor could immediately tell something was off when the cops that walked in did so, not with their batons in hand but with their guns.
<:: Today I’m going to be talking to you about civil infection. About how it festers like an infected wound, and that ignoring it, like you all have today, is as good as encouraging it. ::> A voice barked above the others. Igor caught a glance over his shoulder. Red epaulette. He had treated enough of them to realise how important they supposedly were. There was an electronic muttering between the piglets, crowded around the king hog.
<:: When you see us, laying down our fucking lives for you, and you fail to do so much as diligently report sightings that could endanger us, how is that supposed to be taken as anything other than open sedition? ::>
Igor could hear the ragged breathing of a woman next to him. She sounded like she was trying her hardest not to cry.
<:: Today we’re going to show you a fraction of the hardship and suffering you’d be experiencing without us. ::>
Wes was pulled through the double doors and thrown onto the ground like a sack of potatoes.
<:: TURN AROUND! ::> The sudden ferocity of the command caused all who weren’t facing him to spin. A collective gaze fell upon the man, who was now freshly bleeding from the hole Igor had sutured.
<:: This rat of a man was tagged by one of our men and caught attempting to evade inspection. ::> A hard steel-toed kick was delivered straight into Wes’ ribs, causing him to roll onto his back, clutching his side, and wheezing hard. Igor’s hand instinctively moved to his own side, clutching it. His respiration was hard and ragged; the smell of rusty metal and gunpowder had filled the room, but Igor knew it as blood. A lot of it. The thick carmine fluid was seeping through Wes’ shirt into the carpet below, exacerbated by the organ-crushing blow delivered into his side. The bobbing, swaying drone had slowed and was now rising and falling in the same spot, lens tilted down, panels splayed forward, as it joined the crowd in silent observation.
<:: Chance after chance has been afforded to each and every one of you. By all rights, we should be bringing you all in for conspiracy and charging you. But that isn’t going to instill in all of you the real consequences of disobedience, is it? ::> Igor’s stomach was falling through the floor of his pelvis; his eyes briefly met the delirious, Desperate gaze of his patient, and all he could think in that moment was, ‘Don’t reach for me.’ Followed by the worst flush of shame he had ever felt in his life. Bile rose in his throat. Bitter, acrid, and stinging. His face was flushed, and it took all he had to not let his hands curl into fists. One of the lackeys lowered his weapon so he was aiming at the ground. At Wes’ head. <:: Prosecute. ::>
There was an ear-ringing pop. A thousand images flashed through his mind like a runaway film reel of all of the varied and excruciating reprisals he wanted to visit on this gaggle of bacon. They weren’t human. No human could splatter a stranger’s brain across the carpet, much less chuckle after it.
“Prrro-tect-orrrr.” Began the din of a Vortigaunt on the other side of the room. He didn’t have a chance to get to the second word.
<:: Insolent as ever, frog. Re-educate them all, no exemptions. ::> Igor’s spine chilled as the red-shouldered hog glanced his way at that. <:: Start with the frog. ::> Then he turned heel, and walked straight out the way he had arrived.
“But… wait..! Pro-tec-torr..!” What exactly had Igor done here, since arriving in City 24? He had been cowed. He watched as two of the not-humans ignited their stun sticks and advanced on the shackled alien, who was already lifting his arms in the earthen sign of surrender. He could step out of line right now. Say something to draw attention off the Vortigaunt, but instead he stood there like a wooden toy soldier, obedient as the rest, eyes fixed on the crackling bulb as one of the pigs chuckled with the intonation of a child playing with a magnifying glass near an ant hill.
<:: Surely.. it don’t need all ‘dem eyes… Haha. ::>
“Cease, this one begs!” His two-clawed hands were already lifted up to cover his face as an electrified baton was stabbed like a cattle prod into the Vortigaunt's belly, causing it to immediately seize, muscles spasming in unnatural ways while current sparked against hide, steam—no, smoke—rising from the growing burn. Just how high was his baton’s voltage?
And what had Igor, the great infiltrator done? The thought bubbled back up to the surface, pressing at the back of his throat like some bad lunch. He had made entire robotic limbs so that these creatures, these complicit men, could go on to kill another innocent. To blind another alien. He hadn’t just ignored the cause he admired; he had hurt it. He didn’t look away as the baton was pushed straight into the retina of one of the Vortigaunts tertiary eyes, eliciting a howl of agony from the poor creature.
He had come away from the inspection with some fresh scorch marks along his lab coat’s shoulders, but that didn’t matter. None of it did. He grabbed his radio with a trembling hand, speaking through the microphone. “Sam? Could I speak with you briefly in my office?” he said. After a moment of silence, a quick "sure" rang through the line.
Igor wasn’t kept waiting long. When Sam pushed through into the top-floor office, he noticed that the blinds had been drawn across the ceiling-to-floor windows that lined the eastern wall of the laboratory’s administrative offices. Furniture had been toppled, and the nearly constantly-on terminal that Igor was often found typing away on was offline. An audio recorder had been set to play taped static, loud enough to drown out the recording capacity of bugs, and even so, he gestured Sam close until he was standing over the stout researcher.
“You’ll need to extend my apologies to the broodmother." Igor whispered.
“What? Why?” Alarm visibly crept into Sam’s face.
“I can’t do this. I can’t sit by and watch the slow tide of the fascist wash over humanity.”
“You’re not. There’re groups..."
“The Nachtigallen are cowards, cowards like myself, who sit on their innumerable resources so they can pamphlet and propagandize to a system that will never hear their voice without the use of force. The Wardens died in a suicide attack that accomplished nothing.”
“So what. You head out to the outlands and die to a patrol?” Some scepticism crept into Sam’s tone.
“I’ll talk to Ozymandias. He’s made the trip before; he knows when to run and when to hide.”
“And go where?”
“I’ll start simple. Work with groups in and around 24.” Igor walked over to a thick stack of papers and blueprints on his desk, placing a hand on them. “This is all of my collated research. All of the technical know-how, techniques, and materials needed for any layman engineer to make what I’ve made. I’m going to distribute it freely to those who stand to benefit most. Starting with my prosthetics.”
“Alright, and then...?”
“I’m thinking of moving east. I’m not sure if the merchant union’s still operating, but if I could hitch onto one of their caravans, finding other settlements isn’t out of the question. Maybe I’ll even end up stumbling on a cause that has their shit together.”
“Fuck. You’re serious, aren’t you?” Sam sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Hugh. You know there isn’t coming back from this, right? Once you go, you’re marked as a BOL by them. All your position and privilege are gone.”
“It was always just a farce, comrade. It was how I was able to get what I needed from them. Getting out again was always going to be the tricky bit. And call me Igor. Hugh’s a cover name.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Your help making a clean split. You’ll be questioned about where I’ve gone, and it’s imperative you don’t answer truthfully. I could also use your help as a lookout.”
Igor walked to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, parting the blinds just a crack to gesture to Sam at a locker near the intersection.
“That is where I keep the gear I use for operations. A gun, smuggled medicine, and a bullet-proof vest. Stuff that will get me killed if I’m found with it. I need you to let me know when the coast is clear to make a break for the slums.”
“How will I signal you?”
“We use coded messages on the CMRU radio.” Igor explained. “If it’s not clear, you start talking about the weather through the frequency. If it is clear, you ask if anybody’s seen your lab coat.”
Sam swallowed hard, and he nodded once. He looked up at Igor momentarily, causing him to smile down. “I’ll owe you one, if we ever meet again.” Igor said.
“Damn right you will."
Igor felt the weight of the stacks upon stacks of documents and blueprints in the bottom of his bag already. It was early in the morning, and only a couple squads of goons were making their patrols. The knot that had been tightening in Igor’s chest was growing terser, making his breathing shallow, his head light. This is where he could die.
Ozymandias was already waiting by the entrance to the sewers. Through the drainage system, they’d come out onto the outskirts of the industrial sector, past the primary city walls. All he needed to do was get there.
Sam was standing in Igor’s office. One hand on the window, eyeing the street carefully. He had his radio in hand, waiting.
The old Russian was sitting on a bench opposite the locker, his knee bopping up and down, nervously jilting every few seconds. He watched fervently as a pair of pigs passed him, only offering him a cursory glance before seeing his green band and continuing without interrupting the strange old man.
Igor counted the steps receding. They had come through this lane twice; they’d soon turn, and-… Now. He couldn’t hear them. He stood up quickly, walking over and peering around the corner at their backs. Then, he jogged towards the locker and ripped it open, unzipping his bag and pulling item after item into it.
Helmet, Vest, Gun, Meds, and Rations.
“So uh—About this smog, huh?” crackled through the radio. Igor slammed his bag shut and bolted upright. He turned, beginning to casually walk in the direction of the labs.
He turned a corner to see that the two patrolmen had almost turned the corner themselves.
<:: Hey. ::> Fuck.
“Yes, officers?” Igor asked with his flowery demeanour, assuming the mask of Hugh and hoping to God they didn’t notice a now-empty locker still ajar behind him.
<:: You seen Walker? We need to talk to him. ::>
Walker was asleep currently, but that didn’t matter. He just needed them away.
“Oh, sure—he’s in the Terminal Hotel. He said he was going to get some rest, so I assume he’s in his housing block.” Hugh said
<:: Right, got it. ::>
The other cop was looking at Hugh even as the questioner turned to walk off. His buddy noticed this and turned around.
<:: Come on, ::> the cop said to the lingerer, forcing him to break eye contact with Hugh and follow the head of the patrol.
Igor took a casual pace, following them on their route. He’d break off near the intersection to the laboratories, turn left, and run. He listed the steps down in his mind on repeat, approaching one of the blue metal hardpoints.
“Yeeeeah… Sooo smoggy.”
“Sam, are you on something?” The sharp voice of Fujimori cut through the radio.
“No, uh. Just doing some air quality indexing...”
“Can you do it silently?”
Igor stopped short of the point, sneaking a peek to see the back of another cop; this one seemed to be stopping people for inspection. Fuck.
Sam stood there, noticing the head of Igor peeking through the doorway leading to the cop. Cursing under his breath, he hurried down the steps and through the sterile corridors, pressing his card momentarily against one of the locks leading to the high-security laboratory and watching it unlock. He emerged from the laboratory, walking up to the cop.
<:: What. ::> The unit asked, looking at the lab-coated scientist, mask expressionless as ever.
“This bio lock – In the lab. It’s not letting me lock it. Could you help?”
<:: Fine, but make it quick. It’s inside? ::> He asked, gesturing for Sam to walk ahead.
“Y-Yeah, in here...” he nodded, opening the front door to the lab and letting the cop enter ahead of him so he could lock it up behind them.
Igor had been pressed against the wall until he heard something crackle through his radio.
“Has anyone seen my lab coat?”
“Sam, I swear to Christ.” Fujimori said, sounding increasingly irritated.
Igor pushed off the wall, keeled around the corner, and began power walking through the inspection point, banking left. Once he was by the slums housing his power walk became a full on sprint, through the forcefield. The moment he was through, he dropped down onto the gravel of the construction site and ripped his armband off, shoving it into his bag. He pulled his lab coat off too, leaving him in a simple jumpsuit.
“Was starting to wonder if you were coming.” Ozymandias said, emerging from the open sewer grate. He pushed his cap up his head slightly, appraising Igor.
“Sorry. Got caught up.”
“Shall we?”
Igor took his gas mask and pulled the strap around his head, attaching a half-used filter to the intake valve. He nodded. “Let’s.”
The two were trekking through ankle-high septic water. They’d need to rinse their boots before continuing, Igor thought. His flashlight cast a bright glare against the brickwork of the subterranean sewage system; the stink was indescribable; the air was hot and simmering with disease and waste; and this was with a fully filtered gas mask. It was clear to him why every couple of hallways, they came across a new corpse floating face-down in the muddy shitwater. The latest one had the telltale scorch marks of pulse rounds splattered across his back, the Russian had treated enough of them to know them at a glance. He kept close to his guide. Ozymandias’ weapon required two hands, so Igor was his light.
“You know. If you’re planning on leaving the city for good, maybe you should be going ahead. Get some good practice in.” Oz said.
“You’re probably right, but I’m taking advantage of you while I still can.” Igor said with a wry smile, eliciting a chuckle from his comrade.
“Got it.” Ozymandias pushed one of the floating corpses to the side with his ankle, allowing a clearer path through.
They waded in silence for a bit, each careful not to breathe the acrid air too deeply. Igor’s flashlight was angled over Ozymandias’ shoulder. Each had their ears peeled for the telltale electronic clicking of vo-coded drones. Soldiers weren’t unknown around these tunnels.
“Sam filled me in on the ‘why.’” Oz said after a while. “How many copies do you have?”
“Of the research? Two. One for distribution and another to copy by hand. Most I could fit in my bag alongside my gear.”
“Good.” They turned a corner, the evening sun visibly hanging in the air casting orange crepuscular rays across the sky. There was grass, a collection of abandoned port buildings, and even the visible outline of a few individuals running from building to building. Judging by their hurried, hunched stature, they weren’t soldiers.
“Scavenging season.” Ozymandias explained. “Fresh scrap to be had after some vorts destroyed a convoy. If nothing else, it should give us some additional cover.”
Igor turned his flashlight off and grabbed his sub-machine gun from a strap across his back. He held the stock comfortably against his arm as he set off in tow with his guide. There was a sigh of relief as he unclipped the straps of his gasmask and pulled the dew-dropped humid rubber from his face, letting fresh air hit his clammy skin.
“Home stretch, hm?” he asked, eliciting a nod from Ozymandias, who began walking, Igor following behind. The old Russian’s gaze was fixed on those men and women in the far distance, his brow slowly furrowing in concern. “That’s not just scavenging...” he said, hearing the yelling echoing through the vast, empty space.
One of the smaller women in their group split off, running out into the road between two buildings and dropping something on the street. A flash of blue trailed behind her, lodging in her ankle. There was a moment of silence as she stumbled, and then a loud ‘pop!’, her foot splicing off her leg with explosive force. Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump. A large, crystalline blue tripod emerged from where the flechette had been fired, closing the distance between the woman and it in a matter of mere moments. The lady had time to scream and hold up her hands before one of the sharpened feet slammed down through the front of her face. Its eyes turned, and Igor saw the depthless blue.
“Run.”
The two set off behind one of the buildings, legs pumping as hard and as fast as they could. Igor felt his throat sting and his eyes water as lactic acid built in his muscles, causing a deep, intolerable burn. He had been sedentary for far too long; don’t let up. Don’t trip. Don’t look back. Igor’s chest was on fire from gasping breath in through his mouth and out through his nose, but all he could think about at that moment was how that lady’s leg had simply come apart, like it was held together with tissue paper and glue.
Several more pops could be heard behind them now. A mixture of pulse fire and the delayed detonation of flechettes. Igor could hardly see; his vision was tunnelling as oxygen debt caused a roaring crescendo of metabolic failure. His head was light; he was going to faint. He hadn’t even noticed that Oz had turned into a nearby building until he reached out, grabbed Igor’s sleeve, and yanked him inside.
“We won’t be able to outrun that thing.” Ozymandias whispered, gesturing to a large piece of dilapidated concrete on the floor. “Help me lift it. We’re hiding beneath it, waiting for the patrol to pass.”
Igor nodded, though what help he’d be was questionable. He felt like he’d keel over with every step, reaching his guide’s side and grabbing the underside of the concrete. Memories of coordinated lifts of the dying and injured flashed through his mind as they counted, just as the thumping of the hunter’s talons against the ground became audible in the distance. “3.. 2.. 1.. Lift!”
Adrenaline coursed through Igor’s muscles as he strained and heaved. He could feel the muscle sinews tearing and ripping into thick, splotchy purple bruises even as he willed his body to push past the agony. The slab of flat concrete debris lifted just enough. “You first.” Oz said, and Igor dropped to all fours, crawling beneath the slab. He pressed his back against the rock, his hands and knees bracing against the floor. There was a moment when Oz’ support of the debris lifted, and Igor could have sworn he was about to get flattened, but he was soon joined by Ozymandias, who helped support the heavy concrete slab.
Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump. The rhythmic, odd stride of the hunter grew loud enough for its other vocalisations to become audible. Arthropodal chittering, like a hive of angry cicadas. The clacking of its welded-on armour plates rubbing against each other. The flechette launcher embedded in its thorax humming with latent energy, ready to fire.
<:: Overwatch. Lost visual on contaminant. Requesting last known sector. ::>
The sounds of the hunter had been joined by the monotone rattling of the lobotomites. It hardly made a difference, yet Igor could feel himself holding his breath as their voices grew closer, gained the reverb of the interior of a building. Any moment they could sense movement, lift their rifle and they’d both be caught out, defenceless. Cornered like rats in a trap.
Igor listened to rock crunch beneath boot. 2 meters away, then one, and then silence. He clenched his eyes shut, unable to keep a whimper from rising into his throat.
The hunter let out a mechanized rumbling noise, beginning its tricyclic gallop in the direction it had come.
<:: Copy. Realigning to hostile. ::>
The steps turned and receded quickly, and soon the din of pulse rifle fire against conventional firearms broke out again. They had left survivors.
“Should we wait…?” Igor whispered.
“No. If they come back around and find us, we’re as dead as those people are right now.”
“Right.. At least this way, they won’t be dying in vain.” The Russian muttered, getting an odd look from Oz.
“…Sure, if it helps you to think of it like that. Come on.”
The two shuffled, pushing off their heavy cover and pulling themselves upright. Both were coated in the dust of shattered concrete, leaving them a powdery white. Not exactly camouflaged.
Oz poked his head around the corner of the doorway, and as he saw the backs of the soldiers disappearing around a corner, he gestured towards Igor to follow. The two kept low to the ground, jogging from cover to cover. The small period of ‘rest’ had allowed some of the ache in the old man’s joints to lessen. He’d need to work on his physical conditioning.
The air smelled of burning, smoke rose in a thick black plume from behind them. Whatever was happening back there was bigger than just a couple rebels caught in a skirmish.
“Is it cowardly to be running? We could take two down with their backs to us, easy-…”
“And what?” Oz responded levelly. “You said to me that you wanted to make a real change. Those soldiers get churned out at a factory, Hu-.. Igor. Not to mention the tripod that nearly caught us. We give ourselves away and it will for sure.”
Igor shook his head, dismissing the idea. “Right.” But Oz wasn’t finished.
“You’re talking about cowardice, a life worth living, a death not in vain. These are concepts that are afforded to men who have a future to think about. What we’re doing is fighting for survival. For Humanity’s survival. Don’t forget that when stupid prepositions like honour, and worth, and integrity are cast aside, there’s the fittest, and there’s the dead. You think they care about any of that?” Oz pointed with the butt of his gun to the spiring monolith on the horizon behind them.
Igor did not respond for a long time. His head was tilted low, and his face an expression of consternation, walking to the sound of Oz’s footsteps.
“Igor?” Ozymandias asked.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking –”
“We’re here.”
The two stopped by a spiring sewer grate. “Leads right out into the filtration systems along Geneva. Travelling by sewer’s a hell of a lot safer than risking surface patrols. Might even find some merchant union types, that was your first stop, right?” Oz asked.
“Right.” The Russian confirmed, bringing one hand to his chin. A sudden sense of loss filling his chest. He turned around to view the horizon behind them. The thick black smoke plume rising up into the air, and beyond that the industrial district he was fleeing, a collection of disparate neon lights casting their glow into the smoggy horizon above. When he looked out, he couldn’t help but think of those who’d be left in his wake, questioning whether their friend had retired, or simply died rotting in some cell. “That’s my first stop, and this is your last.”
“Still got my projects, Iggy.” This caused Igor to visibly wince, causing Oz’s grin to widen. “Won’t be the last time we meet, I feel. But I’m not leaving Geneva yet.” He rested his gun in a sling around his back, opening a utility pouch and from it retrieving a thin bungee cord. He tied it around the railing, throwing it over the edge of the pit, letting the cord unroll until it trailed against the sewage-slicked floor. Ozymandias turned in time to be brought into a full-bodied hug by the old man. His eyebrows raised above his glasses momentarily, before he awkwardly patted Igor on the back, waiting for Igor to pull himself free and right himself.
“Then until the next, Ozzy. Fuck them up.”
Igor pulled on his gasmask, though it felt much more like he had dropped a mask. One that had been chafing against him for years. It was time to fight. His calloused hands gripped tight around the cord, and with one last nod to his comrade, he began to rappel down into the depths that awaited him.
“The fuck—”
SLAM!
The door flung shut with surprising force, nearly causing the grey armband-clad man that Hugh had shoved to fall over the surgery bench. There were no cameras in the OR, though there were doubtless microphones. The doctor was already hunched over the bench, writing on a bit of paper. He looked back at the confused slummer, bringing an index to his lips in the universal sign of ‘Shut the fuck up.’
‘I can't legally treat you, but that’s only if I’m caught. Sit down.’
It took his patient a moment to read the writing in permanent marker that was thrust in front of his face, but once he did, his annoyed expression melted, and he gave the aging Russian an understanding nod. He sat back up onto the operating bench, crumpling the fresh paper beneath his ass. He motioned to Igor for the paper and pen; it was relinquished.
‘Thanks. Would have bled out there. Hurts every time I breathe deep. I’m Wes.’
Igor took the paper back from the man who offered it. Assumedly an alias. Wes had risked it all coming here; it took guts. Guts that Igor increasingly felt he lacked lately, his eyes instinctively drifted towards the vomit-green traitor’s sash wrapped tightly around his right arm. Wes followed it with his gaze and gave him a shrug, forcing Igor in turn to smile meekly. This was all well and good, but while they were exchanging notes like schoolgirls, the small red blotch on the man’s frayed shirt was growing deeper in shade, saturating the fabric. Igor snatched the paper up and shoved it into his mouth. His stomach instinctively burned from the ulcers eating hastily scrawled notes had given him even before he swallowed, blinking back tears. Wes watched with an unusual calmness about him. That was probably the hypovolemic shock setting in.
Click. The door to the operating theater was locked. The tap squeaked as Igor washed his hands, retrieving the equipment he needed moments later. A cannula that slid into Wes’ arm, a blood bag, a catheter, a drip chamber, luer lock, spike, it was assembled faster than it took him to wash his hands, and by the time Igor was getting around to the actual surgery, the slummer was already getting universal blood filtering in through his median antecubital. The door tried and jammed against the deadbolt.
“Uh… That you, Hugh?” A familiar voice came through.
“All good, tending to a patient—don't need help. Thanks Randal.”
“…Right…” Footsteps receded from the door. Thank God it was Cole. At least he either didn’t notice or turned a blind eye to Igor’s ‘unannounced operations’.
The thin drywall of the clinic barely muffled the sound of short, sharp pops. Igor held his breath as a single monotone screech filled the air for all of two seconds.
<:: UNIT DESERVICED. REMAINING UNITS CONTAIN. ::>
The sterilized voice of the artificial intelligence was clear enough, even coming from the alley behind them. Despite it being where Igor walked to work each morning, he couldn’t hide the grin on his face. Wes, now with some colour returning to his once-pallid features, noticed and whispered, and with the ongoing firefight outside, it forced Igor to lean down to hear him.
“Gotta.. -Hch-.. Work on your poker face, doc.” Igor’s grin stiffened, and heat flushed into his face. Idiot. If he had been working on one of the bootlicks right now... It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Spasiba. You’re correct. It seems your friends got payback, hm?” He responded, deeming the constant popping of firearms ample background noise to drown out whatever bugs had been hidden here. He moved onto sutures, having just filled the wound with haemostats. Lead poisoning wasn’t likely with the way the bullet had embedded, meaning it would just cause more damage to remove it. It was probably not the first bit of scrap Wes had in him. He turned on the tap as the shots began to fade. They needed *some* background cacophony for protection against bugs.
“Nah. ‘Prolly not..” Wes whispered back, eyes fixed on his own stomach, as the skin around the rift in his abdomen was pulled into place with thin plastic thread, wincing at each pinch. "There is no point in getting a couple pigs unless it seriously destabilizes or radicalizes. ‘least, that’s what the bossman said."
Igor had just finished cutting the last suture thread. All the while, he was counting down in his head. Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen. He walked towards a green curtain usually used for dividing beds, pulling it aside to reveal a window. He clicked the latch, pulling it open as wide as he could. The smell of garbage from the dumpster adjacent to the window wafted through, with undercurrents of industrial smog not far behind it. Igor returned to Wes’ side, leaning down and whispering.
“I cannot risk you being seen exiting the treatment room.” He began as he retrieved some fresh rolls of bandage, wrapping them around Wes’ midsection. Seven. Six. “This window exits out onto an alleyway opposite the terminal hotel. Climb the dumpsters and hop the fence, and you’re on the road where that shootout happened. Straight shot to the slums from there.” Two. One.
All too familiar klaxons echoed out from high, high above them. Three blares before the slick voice of the city announcer began in earnest.
“Attention, Industrial 24. Unrest procedures are now in effect. All residents in local block, assume your inspection positions.”
“Think you can stand?” Igor whispered. Wes nodded with a pained grimace, clinging onto the doctor’s labcoat momentarily in order to right himself. He took unbalanced, stumbling steps towards the windowsill, gripping it and hooking one leg over. He fell to the ground out of the window. Igor made to help him back onto his feet, but before he could, the door rattled with a loud knock. A new voice coming through.
“Hugh? Inspection.” Walker said. Igor slammed the window shut and pulled the curtain back across it, obscuring the view of the man sprawled across the pavement.
“Coming!”
<:: ALRIGHT! You know the drill! ::> A harsh vo-coded voice boomed above the hushed chatter of the citizens corralled into the lobby. The doors swung open, allowing a hovering drone to bob and float above the unit’s heads, circling the lobby. Its aperture clicked several times, shifting from face to face. Igor tensed as its single mechanical eye focused on him momentarily before continuing on. Without having to be told, people were already spinning around to face the wall. He did a mental check to ensure he wasn’t about to get pulled for having contraband on him, and then did the same. He placed his hands against the defaced wall, having become intimately familiar with the texture of the cracked brick.
Igor could immediately tell something was off when the cops that walked in did so, not with their batons in hand but with their guns.
<:: Today I’m going to be talking to you about civil infection. About how it festers like an infected wound, and that ignoring it, like you all have today, is as good as encouraging it. ::> A voice barked above the others. Igor caught a glance over his shoulder. Red epaulette. He had treated enough of them to realise how important they supposedly were. There was an electronic muttering between the piglets, crowded around the king hog.
<:: When you see us, laying down our fucking lives for you, and you fail to do so much as diligently report sightings that could endanger us, how is that supposed to be taken as anything other than open sedition? ::>
Igor could hear the ragged breathing of a woman next to him. She sounded like she was trying her hardest not to cry.
<:: Today we’re going to show you a fraction of the hardship and suffering you’d be experiencing without us. ::>
Wes was pulled through the double doors and thrown onto the ground like a sack of potatoes.
<:: TURN AROUND! ::> The sudden ferocity of the command caused all who weren’t facing him to spin. A collective gaze fell upon the man, who was now freshly bleeding from the hole Igor had sutured.
<:: This rat of a man was tagged by one of our men and caught attempting to evade inspection. ::> A hard steel-toed kick was delivered straight into Wes’ ribs, causing him to roll onto his back, clutching his side, and wheezing hard. Igor’s hand instinctively moved to his own side, clutching it. His respiration was hard and ragged; the smell of rusty metal and gunpowder had filled the room, but Igor knew it as blood. A lot of it. The thick carmine fluid was seeping through Wes’ shirt into the carpet below, exacerbated by the organ-crushing blow delivered into his side. The bobbing, swaying drone had slowed and was now rising and falling in the same spot, lens tilted down, panels splayed forward, as it joined the crowd in silent observation.
<:: Chance after chance has been afforded to each and every one of you. By all rights, we should be bringing you all in for conspiracy and charging you. But that isn’t going to instill in all of you the real consequences of disobedience, is it? ::> Igor’s stomach was falling through the floor of his pelvis; his eyes briefly met the delirious, Desperate gaze of his patient, and all he could think in that moment was, ‘Don’t reach for me.’ Followed by the worst flush of shame he had ever felt in his life. Bile rose in his throat. Bitter, acrid, and stinging. His face was flushed, and it took all he had to not let his hands curl into fists. One of the lackeys lowered his weapon so he was aiming at the ground. At Wes’ head. <:: Prosecute. ::>
There was an ear-ringing pop. A thousand images flashed through his mind like a runaway film reel of all of the varied and excruciating reprisals he wanted to visit on this gaggle of bacon. They weren’t human. No human could splatter a stranger’s brain across the carpet, much less chuckle after it.
“Prrro-tect-orrrr.” Began the din of a Vortigaunt on the other side of the room. He didn’t have a chance to get to the second word.
<:: Insolent as ever, frog. Re-educate them all, no exemptions. ::> Igor’s spine chilled as the red-shouldered hog glanced his way at that. <:: Start with the frog. ::> Then he turned heel, and walked straight out the way he had arrived.
“But… wait..! Pro-tec-torr..!” What exactly had Igor done here, since arriving in City 24? He had been cowed. He watched as two of the not-humans ignited their stun sticks and advanced on the shackled alien, who was already lifting his arms in the earthen sign of surrender. He could step out of line right now. Say something to draw attention off the Vortigaunt, but instead he stood there like a wooden toy soldier, obedient as the rest, eyes fixed on the crackling bulb as one of the pigs chuckled with the intonation of a child playing with a magnifying glass near an ant hill.
<:: Surely.. it don’t need all ‘dem eyes… Haha. ::>
“Cease, this one begs!” His two-clawed hands were already lifted up to cover his face as an electrified baton was stabbed like a cattle prod into the Vortigaunt's belly, causing it to immediately seize, muscles spasming in unnatural ways while current sparked against hide, steam—no, smoke—rising from the growing burn. Just how high was his baton’s voltage?
And what had Igor, the great infiltrator done? The thought bubbled back up to the surface, pressing at the back of his throat like some bad lunch. He had made entire robotic limbs so that these creatures, these complicit men, could go on to kill another innocent. To blind another alien. He hadn’t just ignored the cause he admired; he had hurt it. He didn’t look away as the baton was pushed straight into the retina of one of the Vortigaunts tertiary eyes, eliciting a howl of agony from the poor creature.
He had come away from the inspection with some fresh scorch marks along his lab coat’s shoulders, but that didn’t matter. None of it did. He grabbed his radio with a trembling hand, speaking through the microphone. “Sam? Could I speak with you briefly in my office?” he said. After a moment of silence, a quick "sure" rang through the line.
“You’ll need to extend my apologies to the broodmother." Igor whispered.
“What? Why?” Alarm visibly crept into Sam’s face.
“I can’t do this. I can’t sit by and watch the slow tide of the fascist wash over humanity.”
“You’re not. There’re groups..."
“The Nachtigallen are cowards, cowards like myself, who sit on their innumerable resources so they can pamphlet and propagandize to a system that will never hear their voice without the use of force. The Wardens died in a suicide attack that accomplished nothing.”
“So what. You head out to the outlands and die to a patrol?” Some scepticism crept into Sam’s tone.
“I’ll talk to Ozymandias. He’s made the trip before; he knows when to run and when to hide.”
“And go where?”
“I’ll start simple. Work with groups in and around 24.” Igor walked over to a thick stack of papers and blueprints on his desk, placing a hand on them. “This is all of my collated research. All of the technical know-how, techniques, and materials needed for any layman engineer to make what I’ve made. I’m going to distribute it freely to those who stand to benefit most. Starting with my prosthetics.”
“Alright, and then...?”
“I’m thinking of moving east. I’m not sure if the merchant union’s still operating, but if I could hitch onto one of their caravans, finding other settlements isn’t out of the question. Maybe I’ll even end up stumbling on a cause that has their shit together.”
“Fuck. You’re serious, aren’t you?” Sam sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Hugh. You know there isn’t coming back from this, right? Once you go, you’re marked as a BOL by them. All your position and privilege are gone.”
“It was always just a farce, comrade. It was how I was able to get what I needed from them. Getting out again was always going to be the tricky bit. And call me Igor. Hugh’s a cover name.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Your help making a clean split. You’ll be questioned about where I’ve gone, and it’s imperative you don’t answer truthfully. I could also use your help as a lookout.”
Igor walked to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, parting the blinds just a crack to gesture to Sam at a locker near the intersection.
“That is where I keep the gear I use for operations. A gun, smuggled medicine, and a bullet-proof vest. Stuff that will get me killed if I’m found with it. I need you to let me know when the coast is clear to make a break for the slums.”
“How will I signal you?”
“We use coded messages on the CMRU radio.” Igor explained. “If it’s not clear, you start talking about the weather through the frequency. If it is clear, you ask if anybody’s seen your lab coat.”
Sam swallowed hard, and he nodded once. He looked up at Igor momentarily, causing him to smile down. “I’ll owe you one, if we ever meet again.” Igor said.
“Damn right you will."
Ozymandias was already waiting by the entrance to the sewers. Through the drainage system, they’d come out onto the outskirts of the industrial sector, past the primary city walls. All he needed to do was get there.
Sam was standing in Igor’s office. One hand on the window, eyeing the street carefully. He had his radio in hand, waiting.
The old Russian was sitting on a bench opposite the locker, his knee bopping up and down, nervously jilting every few seconds. He watched fervently as a pair of pigs passed him, only offering him a cursory glance before seeing his green band and continuing without interrupting the strange old man.
Igor counted the steps receding. They had come through this lane twice; they’d soon turn, and-… Now. He couldn’t hear them. He stood up quickly, walking over and peering around the corner at their backs. Then, he jogged towards the locker and ripped it open, unzipping his bag and pulling item after item into it.
Helmet, Vest, Gun, Meds, and Rations.
“So uh—About this smog, huh?” crackled through the radio. Igor slammed his bag shut and bolted upright. He turned, beginning to casually walk in the direction of the labs.
He turned a corner to see that the two patrolmen had almost turned the corner themselves.
<:: Hey. ::> Fuck.
“Yes, officers?” Igor asked with his flowery demeanour, assuming the mask of Hugh and hoping to God they didn’t notice a now-empty locker still ajar behind him.
<:: You seen Walker? We need to talk to him. ::>
Walker was asleep currently, but that didn’t matter. He just needed them away.
“Oh, sure—he’s in the Terminal Hotel. He said he was going to get some rest, so I assume he’s in his housing block.” Hugh said
<:: Right, got it. ::>
The other cop was looking at Hugh even as the questioner turned to walk off. His buddy noticed this and turned around.
<:: Come on, ::> the cop said to the lingerer, forcing him to break eye contact with Hugh and follow the head of the patrol.
Igor took a casual pace, following them on their route. He’d break off near the intersection to the laboratories, turn left, and run. He listed the steps down in his mind on repeat, approaching one of the blue metal hardpoints.
“Yeeeeah… Sooo smoggy.”
“Sam, are you on something?” The sharp voice of Fujimori cut through the radio.
“No, uh. Just doing some air quality indexing...”
“Can you do it silently?”
Igor stopped short of the point, sneaking a peek to see the back of another cop; this one seemed to be stopping people for inspection. Fuck.
Sam stood there, noticing the head of Igor peeking through the doorway leading to the cop. Cursing under his breath, he hurried down the steps and through the sterile corridors, pressing his card momentarily against one of the locks leading to the high-security laboratory and watching it unlock. He emerged from the laboratory, walking up to the cop.
<:: What. ::> The unit asked, looking at the lab-coated scientist, mask expressionless as ever.
“This bio lock – In the lab. It’s not letting me lock it. Could you help?”
<:: Fine, but make it quick. It’s inside? ::> He asked, gesturing for Sam to walk ahead.
“Y-Yeah, in here...” he nodded, opening the front door to the lab and letting the cop enter ahead of him so he could lock it up behind them.
Igor had been pressed against the wall until he heard something crackle through his radio.
“Has anyone seen my lab coat?”
“Sam, I swear to Christ.” Fujimori said, sounding increasingly irritated.
Igor pushed off the wall, keeled around the corner, and began power walking through the inspection point, banking left. Once he was by the slums housing his power walk became a full on sprint, through the forcefield. The moment he was through, he dropped down onto the gravel of the construction site and ripped his armband off, shoving it into his bag. He pulled his lab coat off too, leaving him in a simple jumpsuit.
“Was starting to wonder if you were coming.” Ozymandias said, emerging from the open sewer grate. He pushed his cap up his head slightly, appraising Igor.
“Sorry. Got caught up.”
“Shall we?”
Igor took his gas mask and pulled the strap around his head, attaching a half-used filter to the intake valve. He nodded. “Let’s.”
“You know. If you’re planning on leaving the city for good, maybe you should be going ahead. Get some good practice in.” Oz said.
“You’re probably right, but I’m taking advantage of you while I still can.” Igor said with a wry smile, eliciting a chuckle from his comrade.
“Got it.” Ozymandias pushed one of the floating corpses to the side with his ankle, allowing a clearer path through.
They waded in silence for a bit, each careful not to breathe the acrid air too deeply. Igor’s flashlight was angled over Ozymandias’ shoulder. Each had their ears peeled for the telltale electronic clicking of vo-coded drones. Soldiers weren’t unknown around these tunnels.
“Sam filled me in on the ‘why.’” Oz said after a while. “How many copies do you have?”
“Of the research? Two. One for distribution and another to copy by hand. Most I could fit in my bag alongside my gear.”
“Good.” They turned a corner, the evening sun visibly hanging in the air casting orange crepuscular rays across the sky. There was grass, a collection of abandoned port buildings, and even the visible outline of a few individuals running from building to building. Judging by their hurried, hunched stature, they weren’t soldiers.
“Scavenging season.” Ozymandias explained. “Fresh scrap to be had after some vorts destroyed a convoy. If nothing else, it should give us some additional cover.”
Igor turned his flashlight off and grabbed his sub-machine gun from a strap across his back. He held the stock comfortably against his arm as he set off in tow with his guide. There was a sigh of relief as he unclipped the straps of his gasmask and pulled the dew-dropped humid rubber from his face, letting fresh air hit his clammy skin.
“Home stretch, hm?” he asked, eliciting a nod from Ozymandias, who began walking, Igor following behind. The old Russian’s gaze was fixed on those men and women in the far distance, his brow slowly furrowing in concern. “That’s not just scavenging...” he said, hearing the yelling echoing through the vast, empty space.
One of the smaller women in their group split off, running out into the road between two buildings and dropping something on the street. A flash of blue trailed behind her, lodging in her ankle. There was a moment of silence as she stumbled, and then a loud ‘pop!’, her foot splicing off her leg with explosive force. Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump. A large, crystalline blue tripod emerged from where the flechette had been fired, closing the distance between the woman and it in a matter of mere moments. The lady had time to scream and hold up her hands before one of the sharpened feet slammed down through the front of her face. Its eyes turned, and Igor saw the depthless blue.
“Run.”
The two set off behind one of the buildings, legs pumping as hard and as fast as they could. Igor felt his throat sting and his eyes water as lactic acid built in his muscles, causing a deep, intolerable burn. He had been sedentary for far too long; don’t let up. Don’t trip. Don’t look back. Igor’s chest was on fire from gasping breath in through his mouth and out through his nose, but all he could think about at that moment was how that lady’s leg had simply come apart, like it was held together with tissue paper and glue.
Several more pops could be heard behind them now. A mixture of pulse fire and the delayed detonation of flechettes. Igor could hardly see; his vision was tunnelling as oxygen debt caused a roaring crescendo of metabolic failure. His head was light; he was going to faint. He hadn’t even noticed that Oz had turned into a nearby building until he reached out, grabbed Igor’s sleeve, and yanked him inside.
“We won’t be able to outrun that thing.” Ozymandias whispered, gesturing to a large piece of dilapidated concrete on the floor. “Help me lift it. We’re hiding beneath it, waiting for the patrol to pass.”
Igor nodded, though what help he’d be was questionable. He felt like he’d keel over with every step, reaching his guide’s side and grabbing the underside of the concrete. Memories of coordinated lifts of the dying and injured flashed through his mind as they counted, just as the thumping of the hunter’s talons against the ground became audible in the distance. “3.. 2.. 1.. Lift!”
Adrenaline coursed through Igor’s muscles as he strained and heaved. He could feel the muscle sinews tearing and ripping into thick, splotchy purple bruises even as he willed his body to push past the agony. The slab of flat concrete debris lifted just enough. “You first.” Oz said, and Igor dropped to all fours, crawling beneath the slab. He pressed his back against the rock, his hands and knees bracing against the floor. There was a moment when Oz’ support of the debris lifted, and Igor could have sworn he was about to get flattened, but he was soon joined by Ozymandias, who helped support the heavy concrete slab.
Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump. Thump-thump-thump. The rhythmic, odd stride of the hunter grew loud enough for its other vocalisations to become audible. Arthropodal chittering, like a hive of angry cicadas. The clacking of its welded-on armour plates rubbing against each other. The flechette launcher embedded in its thorax humming with latent energy, ready to fire.
<:: Overwatch. Lost visual on contaminant. Requesting last known sector. ::>
The sounds of the hunter had been joined by the monotone rattling of the lobotomites. It hardly made a difference, yet Igor could feel himself holding his breath as their voices grew closer, gained the reverb of the interior of a building. Any moment they could sense movement, lift their rifle and they’d both be caught out, defenceless. Cornered like rats in a trap.
Igor listened to rock crunch beneath boot. 2 meters away, then one, and then silence. He clenched his eyes shut, unable to keep a whimper from rising into his throat.
The hunter let out a mechanized rumbling noise, beginning its tricyclic gallop in the direction it had come.
<:: Copy. Realigning to hostile. ::>
The steps turned and receded quickly, and soon the din of pulse rifle fire against conventional firearms broke out again. They had left survivors.
“Should we wait…?” Igor whispered.
“No. If they come back around and find us, we’re as dead as those people are right now.”
“Right.. At least this way, they won’t be dying in vain.” The Russian muttered, getting an odd look from Oz.
“…Sure, if it helps you to think of it like that. Come on.”
The two shuffled, pushing off their heavy cover and pulling themselves upright. Both were coated in the dust of shattered concrete, leaving them a powdery white. Not exactly camouflaged.
Oz poked his head around the corner of the doorway, and as he saw the backs of the soldiers disappearing around a corner, he gestured towards Igor to follow. The two kept low to the ground, jogging from cover to cover. The small period of ‘rest’ had allowed some of the ache in the old man’s joints to lessen. He’d need to work on his physical conditioning.
The air smelled of burning, smoke rose in a thick black plume from behind them. Whatever was happening back there was bigger than just a couple rebels caught in a skirmish.
“Is it cowardly to be running? We could take two down with their backs to us, easy-…”
“And what?” Oz responded levelly. “You said to me that you wanted to make a real change. Those soldiers get churned out at a factory, Hu-.. Igor. Not to mention the tripod that nearly caught us. We give ourselves away and it will for sure.”
Igor shook his head, dismissing the idea. “Right.” But Oz wasn’t finished.
“You’re talking about cowardice, a life worth living, a death not in vain. These are concepts that are afforded to men who have a future to think about. What we’re doing is fighting for survival. For Humanity’s survival. Don’t forget that when stupid prepositions like honour, and worth, and integrity are cast aside, there’s the fittest, and there’s the dead. You think they care about any of that?” Oz pointed with the butt of his gun to the spiring monolith on the horizon behind them.
Igor did not respond for a long time. His head was tilted low, and his face an expression of consternation, walking to the sound of Oz’s footsteps.
“Igor?” Ozymandias asked.
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking –”
“We’re here.”
The two stopped by a spiring sewer grate. “Leads right out into the filtration systems along Geneva. Travelling by sewer’s a hell of a lot safer than risking surface patrols. Might even find some merchant union types, that was your first stop, right?” Oz asked.
“Right.” The Russian confirmed, bringing one hand to his chin. A sudden sense of loss filling his chest. He turned around to view the horizon behind them. The thick black smoke plume rising up into the air, and beyond that the industrial district he was fleeing, a collection of disparate neon lights casting their glow into the smoggy horizon above. When he looked out, he couldn’t help but think of those who’d be left in his wake, questioning whether their friend had retired, or simply died rotting in some cell. “That’s my first stop, and this is your last.”
“Still got my projects, Iggy.” This caused Igor to visibly wince, causing Oz’s grin to widen. “Won’t be the last time we meet, I feel. But I’m not leaving Geneva yet.” He rested his gun in a sling around his back, opening a utility pouch and from it retrieving a thin bungee cord. He tied it around the railing, throwing it over the edge of the pit, letting the cord unroll until it trailed against the sewage-slicked floor. Ozymandias turned in time to be brought into a full-bodied hug by the old man. His eyebrows raised above his glasses momentarily, before he awkwardly patted Igor on the back, waiting for Igor to pull himself free and right himself.
“Then until the next, Ozzy. Fuck them up.”
Igor pulled on his gasmask, though it felt much more like he had dropped a mask. One that had been chafing against him for years. It was time to fight. His calloused hands gripped tight around the cord, and with one last nod to his comrade, he began to rappel down into the depths that awaited him.
RileyTheRoomba
Radio Bob Approved
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2021
- Messages
- 582
How am I supposed to interact with the good doctor when he's off in the outlands 
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