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Post by blackpapermoon on Aug 8, 2010 19:27:09 GMT -5
Ferret wheezed as he made his way to where Adder had fallen, trying his best to keep his balance on his trembling legs. The short walk down the hill caused him to pant and sweat, he needed to take deeper and deeper breaths just to get enough oxygen into his body. He promised himself that if he survived this he would never smoke another cigarette again. Finale reaching her he soon found that he would not be able to help her. The commandant's lungs where clogged with the phlegm that they had been coughing up ever since they left the underground lab. He watched her hopelessly as she struggled just to breathe; he didn't know what to do. But just as he was about to brake down who should show up but Victor.
At first the rookie thought the loner medic to be an illusion of his feverish mind, but when he heard his leader cough, expelling the phlegm that had clogged her airways, he knew that the man was no mirage. What ever he had done had worked and the rookie was grateful to him. However thanks would come later, they had to get to the mobile lab first.
The two Freedomers, the Dutyer and the Loner walked the rest of the way to the lab, keeping their weapons above their heads just as Victor had instructed. It would be a horrible misfortune if the Ecologist thought the survivors to be mindless Zombies and shoot them. They sent Sigbrand up to the airlock to explain the situation to the scientists, after which Victor, Adder and himself slumped up against the concrete side of the bunker.
Ferret slid down to the ground, hacking so badly he was forced to take off his helmet. His skin was deathly pale and covered in his sweat his breathing was loud and raspy. He felt so weak, and tired, and soon found himself fighting a losing battle with sleep. Meanwhile his immune system and recognized the viral intruder and began killing off hijacked cells as the lysis process began.
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Post by Zeno, Lord Camelith on Aug 8, 2010 23:17:33 GMT -5
Walking quickly up to the airlock, Sigbrand pushed down the intercom button and said, "Professor Sakharov, this is Sgt. Sigbrand Myrvang, of Duty. I have three very sick people out here in need of immediate medical attention. There infected with some virus the soviets were developing." The professor's voice crackled through the speaker, "I'm sorry Sergeant, but if your friends have some unidentified and previously undiscovered disease, we can't let you inside. An outbreak here could threaten all of our re--"
The professor was cut off by a new voice, "What the hell do you mean threaten our research? Were you actually just about to leave three people out there to die and turn down an opportunity to study an unknown virus?" The voice became fainter as if the person speaking had turned away and was shouting orders to the rest of the scientists, "I want everyone in their environment suits, now! I need a decontamination team ready at the entrance to clean the place up behind them. Dimitri, move some medical equipment into the guest quarters and get it ready for three very ill patients, we need to find out what's wrong with them now if they're going to survive. All of you, move!" The voice became louder as the man turned back to the microphone, "I'm going to open the airlock, Sergeant. You can bring your friends into the decontamination chamber, we'll spray you down and once we have everything ready you can come inside."
Motioning for the others to get up, Sigbrand said "Understood." Helping the three stalkers into the airlock, he closed the door behind them. Taking the vial containing the virus from the female Freedomer he said "I'll give this to the scientists and see what they can do with it." Then sudden realization hit him, it was Adder, Freedom's commandant, his assassination target. He couldn't kill her in her current state, but once she had recovered, he would complete his mission. A cloud of disinfectants surrounded them, then the door leading into the lab opened. Inside was a small group of men wearing SSP and SEVA suits. Two of the men were armed with what looked like hoses attached to packs on their back. The two men sprayed down everything behind the group as the three infected stalkers shuffled into the guest quarters. Three men entered just after them, and the door closed behind them.
A man in a SEVA suit approached Sigbrand and said "I'm Vasily, head of reasearch at this mobile lab. It would be best if you kept your gas mask on, Sergeant, there's still a chance that we may have let some of this virus through." Sigbrand started to say something but was cut off by the scientist, who appeared to be talking to himself "Now, we'll need to find a way to get a sample from one of the carriers. Now it depends on what kind of an infection this is. If it's--" Sigbrand decided to interrupt the scientist and said "I have a sample of the virus, it came from the lab where they engineered it. It's also a respiratory infection, I think their lungs and throat get clogged with some kind of mucus." Pulling out the vial from is vest, he handed it to Vasily. Taking the vial from Sigbrand, Vasily turned towards the lab and said "I'm going to start examining this, you're welcome to pass the time however you want, the entire lab is open to you."
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Post by Διμι on Aug 9, 2010 1:42:40 GMT -5
Victor slumped down on a cot in the guest quarters as the door behind the group sealed, isolating them from the rest of the group. Great, he thought, now we just wait it out and hope that we don't die before these guys come up with something... The medic's thoughts drifted back to Maginot, who had been left behind at the Freedom HQ. The Freedom leader had been infected almost a day ago, and would most likely not receive the cure for at least another one. The only hope was that he would hold out, not having been infected as severely initially as the group that had travelled to the installation. Victor pushed the issue out of his mind. There was nothing he could do about it. He lifted his arm slightly. The glove drooped completely as he did so, the lack of feeling in his palms only confirmed his suspicions. His entire hand had disappeared in the space of time it took him to reach the mobile lab. The progress of the mysterious mutation had intensified. Soon, people would begin to notice, and he would be uncovered. Not that it mattered much anyway, little would be able to save him from such a fate. His train of thought was interrupted by the noise of the sealed door's mechanism hissing. A second later, the latch popped open, and the portal swung open as a man in a yellow, fully contained environmental suit stepped in. "Professor Bushuev," he introduced himself "bio field researcher and head of mechanical engineering. Let's see what we have here with you guys..." he stepped over to the two Freedomers first to examine them "I trust you all have come down with the same thing, or treatment might become... complicated a fair deal." after seeing the group's nods, the man began a routine examination of the two Freedomers. "Looks like some sort of viral infection of the sort we've never seen before. By the looks of it, plenty of receptor activity if it spreads that fast, combined with zero natural resistance. It's chemically engineered, you said?" he paused, looking around "We can provide chems to thin out the mucus and lengthen your stay on this earth, but your bodies have no chance at fighting it off if it is, as you say, artificial. Biological life forms haven't come into contact with anything like this before, there's no natural way to produce antibodies for this, especially when it's that deeply infected." The scientist frowned "your bodies will start recognizing the infected cells, and destroying them in the process, but that will do little to stop the virus itself. Essentially, your own body will start destroying itself from the inside. This will take more time, maybe a couple more days. The chance of getting off lightly with no substantial damage to vital organs is very low. In the meantime, we can try and alleviate the symptoms and study the specimen you've graciously provided us with in the lab." the scientist set down several bottles of pills "to clear your respiratory tracts." he explained "it'll help you survive while we come up with some sort of cure." The scientist started towards the exit, when Victor rose and put his forearm on the man's shoulder. "Professor," he said "there's something I want to show you. Privately." Bushuev stopped and turned, looking at the loner bemusedly. "what is it, have you got something else we need to know about this virus of yours?" he looked over the loner's frame, noting his uneven posture, his drooping hands, the almost deathly paleness of his face. "Not quite," Victor muttered "is there anywhere private around here where we can talk?" he asked. The scientist nodded, his visor bobbing up and down. He led the loner down through the quarters towards another door on the other side of the room and pulled it open, closing it shut behind him as he ushered Victor in. "Now explain," the researcher asked "what is this thing you want to show me in private?" Victor said nothing, simply raising his hand, and then unzipping the sleeve, removing the glove and pulling the fabric down to his elbow. Half of his forearm had already dissolved, the rest growing steadily more and more translucent until it blended in with the deathly pale skin. "This." he said "when I was in the compound, I was ambushed, and trapped in some sort of testing chamber. I was hit by an enourmous amount of some form of anomalous energy." he continued, indicating his burnt suit "as far as I know, this is not a symptom of the virus. I'm slowly disappearing into thin air, but without any trauma to feel for it. I've been in strange instances where I've literally been able to move matter in impossible ways through will alone, rip metal from concrete, force foreign liquids in a person's body to move out of it. Lift things into the air. I have a feeling I'm turning into something else, something that isn't quite human. I'm disappearing, but my body isn't feeling the impact at all, and neither is my mind. But I'm not sure whether I'll survive if my body vanishes completely." he fell silent, staring at the researchers' visor, which, being reflective, betrayed nothing. The scientist was silent for a long time, staring at Victor's no-longer-quite arm. "Follow me." he said at last, turning back to the door. He pulled out his PDA, sending a message to Vasily Kozlow, his superior. Vasily,
This is Sasha. I've got a very interesting case on our hands here with the loner. I'm bringing him down to the metal room. Get over there as soon as you can, I have a feeling you'll like this... The man led Victor out of the guest quarters and through the corridor leading to the lab's entrance. "Spray the place down after us, will you?" he muttered aside to the two researchers in SEVAs by the entrance, who obliged, reaching for their hoses. The loner and ecologist stepped through the airlock and out of the lab, the former limping heavily now, his steadily stubbing feet growing unable to properly balance him as he walked. The two walked over to a shack within the lab's perimeter fence to the right of the bunker. Bushuev reached for a set of keys and, slotting one into the keyhole, pushed the door open. Several lights in the interior clicked on, revealing a set of stairs down into a much larger subterranean room below the structure. The ecologist led the medic down the stairs and up to an examination table. The room was largely barren. Aside from the table, a databank of ancient computers lined the wall next to it, and a series of huge, metal reinforced closets, each almost eight feet tall, lined the back wall. The walls were tiled, leading Victor to wonder why this place was called, of all things, the 'metal room'. "Sit down," suggested the ecologist, prompting Victor to oblige "there is a significant lot of things that I'll have to explain, and I'm not even exactly sure where to start on this." he looked around "it would be great if Vasily could get his ass here, but he's too busy helping out your friends, I'm not sure when he'll decide to pay us a visit, even though your case seems to be considerably more severe than theirs'." "The device you encountered in this laboratory in the Red Forest," he continued "I believe to be some form of matter scrambler. A literal artificial Zoneifier, something that can anomalize any particles in a variety of ways. We ecologists reckon that experiments with machines of the sort were the causes of the creation of the first of the poltergeists, which were then grown and cultivated in conditions until they lost all human form." he leaned back against the wall "we were never able to find any of these apparatuses in a functional state, and hence, we were never able to study the exact process by which it happened, and the type of energy used. Your condition is completely alien to us, but I do believe, that with all of these signs, you are transforming into a formless telekinetic mutant." "There is nothing we can do to reverse the process, sadly enough, as we know very little about it," he hung his head "the subject typically loses all memory and personality as soon as its brain dissapears, perhaps retaining it for several minutes in full anomalous form before it is lost altogether. The poltergeist 'physique', so to speak, is simply unable to support such a psychic human aspect. Research in the field has proven inconclusive. The poltergeists become rogue, hostile, and insentient, at least to the degree to which they were so as human beings. Unfortunately, as I have said, there has been no method found to prevent this from happening to you." "However," he spoke up as Victor sighed "I do believe there is something we can do to save you, something that we have never attempted before, something that doesn't even relate to a biological science. You see." he motioned with his hand around the room "we call this place the 'metal room' for a single specific reason, as it relates to a single branch of our experimentation. A branch we had to abandon once we met with failure. Tell me, stalker, have you ever heard of cybernetics?" "Robots?" Victor asked, confusedly. What did the matter have to do with anything? He was turning into a destructive, uncontrollable force of an anomalous nature, and this scientist was rambling on about machines? "Not quite," the ecologist corrected "sentient artificial beings. Robots with a mind of their own, capable of learning and adapting, mimicking life itself." he stepped away from the wall, resting instead on the nearest metal cabinet on the opposite wall "we've been looking into the matter for a while, searching for a mechanical solution to field research in the Zone. Something resilient enough to fight off and destroy mutants and hostiles, yet something that did not carry the value of human life. Naturally, we already had a machine to base our new 'drone' on - the military exoskeleton. Since the suit no longer needed to accomodate a stalker within it, we were able to transfer the hydraulic elements inside, add artificial synthetic muscle and joints for greater mobility and flexibity, not to mention much more massive armored plates to accomodate and protect the inner workings. The resulting prototype weighed only 65 kilograms, stood six and a half feet, and was more agile than many stalkers, and strong enough to withstand incredible amounts of punishment despite its light weight. All we needed was a brain to control it." "We attempted to program intelligent algorithms, so the machine could learn all by itself, but ultimately failed to teach it to comprehend. Artificial intelligence was simply too dull for the tasks we had in mind. We then turned to the slightly less orthodox means of using existing life to power this machine - you guessed it, poltergeists. We designed a 'brain' capable of containing the essence of the creatures, and uplinking them to the machine itself to control it. The poltergeists did this superbly, they adapted to the new bodies, and were able to use them better than any human could. They retained their telekinesis and instincts as well. They were agile, powerful, smart, but, unfortunately, just as uncontrollable. We had lost several of the machines and multiple members of our research team in the 'cleanup'. It was a very sad time, and perhaps one of the worst experiments this lab had ever conducted." "Fortunately, it did prove one thing - the fact that an individual's essence could be contained within one of these brains we had developed." he walked over to one of the cabinets, opening it and extracting a nondescript matte, black sphere perhaps ten centimeters in diameter from it "this is our last one. We kept it, along with one last body, in the hope that we would be able to somehow discover a poltergeist in the final stages of mutation, one that still retained his personality and memory, so we could save him. And it seems that we've found that very... person." he nodded to Victor "This is your last chance to retain yourself before your body disappears for good. We're offering a chance to save you, in return for your loyalty to us, and willingness to work for us." Victor took a good thirty seconds to take in the information Bushuev had spewed in front of him, and nodded. "I though you'd think the same," said the ecologist in a friendly manner "I suppose it's time I show you what you will be becoming." He stepped over to the cabinet nearest the examination table, and swung the doors open. Inside, suspended by several stands, stood akin to a gigantic, full-body exoskeleton. But already Victor could see that the suit was never intended for use by a human. There were no zippers, no breaches and clasps in the armored plating, which was much thicker than on any suit he had ever seen before in the Zone. The joints were solid metal, and the entire hydraulic framework had been removed, presumably on the inside. Some dark fabric still covered places not directly over the vital systems, presumably to retain some flexibility in the core of the torso. The rest of the machine was almost exclusively armor. The gas mask had been removed as well, the cranial plates on the helmet had been thickened inward, the 'brain' of the machine being much smaller than a regular human's head. The filters and entire front of the mask was replaced by a single thick stainless steel plate, shaped like an intricate skull. Two dull green optical units stared out of the eye sockets. "The stalker mechanic who helped us piece together this monster was a genius in metalwork, and death metal, for that matter. We just couldn't resist not adding that bit in." Bushuev explained to Victor, who was examining the steel skull, which stared back at him expressionelessly. The cybornetic body was taller than him by a good five inches at least. The ecologist had not been lying. This thing was at least six and a half feet in height. "So," Victor spoke "how are you going to go about doing this? As far as I can see, that brain is there, and I'm still in here." he tapped his head with a stub of an arm. He stared at the huge machine. He didn't particularly like its deadly, ominous look, but it would beat turning into a senseless, rampaging telekinetic mutant. "Don't worry," the ecologist reassured "just lie down and relax, we'll do the rest. As soon as your brain is dissolved completely, your poltergeist 'essence', so to speak, will travel down the path of least resistance, to try and find a new host. And that's where these come in." he taped several electrodes to Victor's forehead and temples, connecting them to small ports on the surface of the spheroid machine brain. "We'll give you a heavy sedative, so you will be unconscious when the transfer occurs. We'll then stick the brain into the unit, and you'll be good to go, hopefully. It'll take you time to learn to use your telekinetic affinity to move your new bodies, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be able to do things you never thought possible. Now just relax. You'll be awake before you know it." The ecologist drew a syringe loaded with thick, viscous yellow fluid, and jammed it into the loner's carotid. Victor felt his world dissolve into a watery mix as all sensations disappeared. Seconds later, everything went black as he lost consciousness.
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Post by Basil on Aug 9, 2010 4:55:08 GMT -5
Adder felt like someone had scooped out her mind, leaving only a blank void in it's place. How close had she been to death? She couldn't tell, but she had probably been only inches away from kicking the bucket. She wished she could thank Victor, but the loner was nowhere to be seen.
In the mean time, she turned to one of the scientists, who was wearing an SSP suit and was therefore unrecognisable.
"The outbreak started up North, on the verge of the Red Forest", she said, her voice weak and more akin to a croak than an actual human voice, "a group of loners ran into a Freedom guard post and were infected. The disease then spread via those who were manning the guard post to Freedom's base. One of the loners, their leader apparently, had some files on his PDA that were crypted...they could contain some kind of information about the origin of this illness."
The scientist she had spoken to chuckled before placing a hand on her shoulder. Adder, as she always did with human contact, tensed.
"-Well, nice to see you again, Adder", said the familiar but muffled voice of Professor Sakharov, "I hear you were promoted recently. Anyway, you want us to open those files?"
"-Yes."
"-I'll try to do that, but I do not guarantee success."
Adder smiled weakly as she handed Sakharov the dead loner's PDA. Sakharov then proceeded to leave the room, and Adder was left alone with Ferret, the Dutier and some other scientist she didn't know.
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Maginot coughed heavily before spitting out his lungs' latest product into the toilet. He went over to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were sunken and his skin was sweaty and pale. With a sigh, which promptly turned into a cough, Maginot left the bathroom and rejoined the other infected people he was cooped up with.
Things were dire at the Warehouses. Practically everyone was ill save for the guards at the base's entrance and a few others who were not in the base. Thankfully, the Barrier was still fully manned despite lack of reinforcements. A few people had also died since Adder and her team had left, fifteen in all. Their corpses had been taken to a corner of the base and dumped into a mass grave which was now marked with a few wooden crosses. Maginot felt a shiver go down his spine as he realised he might be next.
Coughing heavily and stumbling slightly due to the fever, Maginot went to the window and looked out into the distance, hoping Adder, Victor and Ferret would return soon with the cure or some help.
They were their only chance.
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Adder shifted as Sakharov re-entered the guest room, holding the dead stalker's PDA. She looked up at him expectantly.
"So, I ran the PDA's crypted files through our computer. Thankfully, they weren't that difficult to open and they provided some very interesting, and disturbing, information about the pathogen which is currently plaguing you and your Freedom brethren."
"-So...was it one of the other weapon projects the Zone was home to?", she asked, coughing slightly as she did so.
"-Actually no. From what I gathered, this pathogen was made well before the Zone's creation as part of the Soviet Union's "Bioprepara", their secret biological weaponry program. During the Glasnost and Perestroika era, the USA confronted Gorbachev about Bioprepara, and Gorbachev denied its existence. An enormous shipment of Anthrax was taken to a small island in the Aral Sea and was buried there, and this pathogen, which is only referred to as "Project B", was supposed to be dumped there too. The Soviets eventually realised that it would be far too dangerous to simply bury Project B and decided to ship it off to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where a large, secret bunker had been built a few years before to serve other purposes. The pathogen, as well as several other chemical weapons, were deposited in the bunker's vaults, and the bunker was sealed...there is a vague mention of the elimination of most of the non-KGB personel, but otherwise, the information stops there."
Adder nodded quietly. "So Project B was literally forgotten."
"-Yes. It is also another example of the Soviet's various weapon programs, like the rumoured Novichok agents. What happened to the bunker?"
"-It was blown up by the Monolith faction soon after we got the vials out."
"-For once the Monolith did something 'useful'."
Adder smiled slightly. The irony was not lost to her.
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"Open up!", chanted Balalaika while banging on the door to the bunker. "I have some goodies for you people!"
An electronic voice answered snappily through the interphone: "I'm afraid you cannot come in, lady..."
"-Open the fucking door! I brought you Ghost's suit!"
There was silence, followed by the soft click of the bunker door's locking mechanism being released. Balalaika smiled smugly.
"-Keep your gas mask on at all times."
The disinfection process was a lot more intensive than the last time she had entered, which was not that long ago. Irritably, she strode over to the counter, only to find a person fully clad in an SSP suit standing behind it.
"-Okay", she said, her voice slightly hoarse from all the running she had gone through earlier, "I have four artefacts, and Ghost's suit..."
She placed the Droplets on the counter, which the scientist quickly took, placing ruble notes in their place. She was about to get the suit out of her rucksack when one of the scientists opened the door to the guest room. What she saw made her blood boil.
Adder. Sitting on one of the cots. Merely a couple of steps away.
"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING! NO WEAPONS ARE ALLOWED IN THE FACILITY!", shouted the scientist as she whipped out her Stechkin, aiming it at the Commandant.
"-ADDER! So we meet again. Didn’t expect to see you so soon !"
Adder, who at first seemed shocked and horrified by Balalaika’s sudden appearance, regained her composure.
"-Well if it ain’t Fry Face ", said Adder, "I’m amazed you even managed to survive what happened to you."
"-Takes more than that to kill me, Addie", said Balalaika before glancing around her. She was outnumbered, and chances were that the scientists and the other people present in the bunker would overpower her before she could even try to harm the Commandant. "Lucky for you, you have your little ‘retinue’ to protect you from any harm. "
She holstered her weapon and slowly backed towards the door. As she was about to leave, she looked back at Adder. "Oh, I just had an interesting idea ! How about we drop all our fancy assault rifles and whatnot, and have a knife and pistol duel. This only concerns you and me, so why not sort it out that way ? She who kills the other wins the day. How does that sound ?"
Adder seemed to hesitate, her reptilian eyes fixed in a murderous glare at Balalaika. She coughed slightly before saying, in a raspy voice :
"-Very well. I accept."
Balalaika smiled and clapped her hands together in delight. "Good ! Good ! As soon as you feel better, meet me up on the plateau West of this lab. Don’t worry, this isn’t a trap. I will not use my other weapons. Only my pistol and Mr Stabby. Anyway…adios !"
Balalaika opened the lab door and left, slamming it behind her. She felt even happier now, for was there anything better than to battle your most hated enemy with the most basic of weapons ? Balalaika, now humming happily to herself, went past the swamp and positioned herself behind a tree up on the plateau that overlooked the lab.
"I hope you’ll make it here, Addie », she purred, "if you don’t, I’d be very, very disappointed."
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Post by blackpapermoon on Aug 9, 2010 21:48:58 GMT -5
Ferret lay on his cot, it was the most comfortable bed he had rested on since entering the zone, he just hoped that it would not become his deathbed. He had taken the pills left by Professor Bushuev and they seemed to do exactly what the good professor had promised. His airways were clear enough for him to breathe without too much difficulty, but his fever and joint pain remained. Yet he considered himself lucky, the rest of his ill comrades including Mag did not have the pills and their chances of them surviving this where lower.
He still felt so weak and he kept fazing in and out of consciences. Yet he was awake long enough to hear the dispute between Adder and someone who sounded familiar to him but was unable to place the others voice at the time. The Freedom rookie once again fell into the darkness of sleep.
Yet this time the darkness was not silent there where people talking some almost shouting.
"He is burning up, we need to do something before his brain is cooked"
He could feel hands pulling and tug at him and a cold sensation washed over him.
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Post by blackpapermoon on Aug 31, 2010 10:42:58 GMT -5
***10 hours later*** A rather groggy Freedomer awoke and sat up on his cot. The memories of the past few hours were only a blur in his mind; the last thing that he could clearly remember was stashing his bag by a decrepit weed infested building and passing out just outside the mobile lab in Yantar.
Standing up he stretched, his respiration was normal and it seemed that his fever had dissipated as well. The only explanation for this he could think of was that the eggheads had come up with a cure. After all how could he be feeling better in such a short amount of time.
“Boss,” asked Ferret his voice clear and undistorted by mucus or fever, “they gonna let us go back the warehouses soon?”
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Post by Karcentric on Sept 3, 2010 11:55:01 GMT -5
Karc finally emerged from the lab into the open looking up at the sky the clouds were beginning to form bringing rain with them. The droplets of rain splashed against his helmet and mask. His check was searing with pain, a moan cut into his thoughts. looking to his left he saw a zombie raise it's arm stumble in his direction brandishing a battered old PM, firing in Karc's general direction it's head was rolling from side to side as it moved. Lining up the creatures head, Karc fired a single shot from his rifle blasting half of the creatures head off and stopping it in it's tracks falling with a thud. Walking at a quickish pace stepping over the new corpse Karc jogged from the factory gate to the door of the lab, pressing the button next to the door. The response was from a scientist Karc didn't know telling him to move on. Glaring at the door for a few seconds he decided to go to the 100 Rads to have a drink and catch up on the latest gossip and maybe grab an easy job while he was there. As he walked the rain seemed to intensify the further he got from Yantar. As he got to the Wild Territory he slowed his pace at the burner tunnel kicking a droplet out of the way watching as it bounced away stopping in one of the anomalies. His PDA beeped indicating he'd received a message. Merc, this is Barkeep.
There's a couple jobs I need done, go to Agroprom and you'll receive more detail. Shrugging Karc made his way through Rostok and was coming up to the Duty outpost. He stopped to catch a few hours sleep and shelter from the rain.
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Post by Διμι on Oct 13, 2010 0:46:57 GMT -5
A blinding flash of light erupted behind the creature's proverbial eyes as its essence raced down the two wires connected to the tiny black sphere, permeating the porous silicate architecture within. A second later, the electrodes dropped to the floor. The body they had been connected to moments previously had blinked out of its twenty year existence, its remains dissipating into the air.
A pair of hands gingerly picked up the tiny black sphere and placed it into the cavity in the massive mechanism's cranium. Ensuring that the brain had been secured, the same pair of hands clasped down a half inch thick matte stainless steel plate over the opening, the only two apertures fitting neatly over the green optical sensors, set in their spheroid sockets.
An intensely bright light lit the walls of the room as the scientist lit a blowtorch. Minutes later, the medic's fate was literally sealed in molten metal.
Victor was dead. He was sure of it. Yet nevertheless, he could find no reasonable explanation why he could feel his limbs, limbs that hours ago, he could have sworn were not there.
His eyes flickered open, the only time they ever would for the rest of his existence. The dull green optics were momentarily lit with an eerie bright glow in the matte, expressionless face of the solid steel plate they were set in before sheathing themselves behind a tinted plexiglas lens that blocked almost all the light they threw to the outside world. The lights, pretty as they were, would be a disadvantage in a dark environment, the scientists had concluded.
Victor lifted his hand cautiously, flexing the long mechanical digits hidden underneath the kevlar glove and sleeve covering most of his arm, interspersed with inset armored plates. Surprisingly enough, the once-stalker could feel the feedback from the mechanism in his head, as if some sort of circuit nodes set in his joints were reaffirming that it was indeed his arm, not simply the chunk of metal, polymer and fabric that it really was.
He rose, smoothly but uneasily, and only then noticed the smiling scientist in the corner of the room.
"Looks like all that time spent making this bastard finally paid off," Bushuev grinned "good to see you're getting hang of your telekinesis so quickly. Soon you'll be doing things in that suit you wouldn't think are imaginable."
Victor walked over to the mirror in the corner of the room. He could not recall having noticed it before, so he assumed that the scientists had dragged it in while he was out. He beheld the entire, massive frame of the refitted exoskeleton. Every single detail seemed to fit together perfectly, he realized. He twisted his arm as far as a human appendage would allow. The armor did little to get in the way of flexibility, and the entire frame of the suit felt light, almost featherweight. Victor shook himself, the joints in the shell clicking slightly as he did.
"You've got miles of synthetic muscle lining your interior" Sasha explained "since we didn't need anything akin to an internal skeleton, it freed a lot of space and weight. You're hardly heavier than when you came in here."
Victor's gaze drifted upwards, catching the flat, matte surface of the steel plate where his face had once been. The metal exhibited some contours of a human face, including a brow and a noselike ridge surrounding the eye sockets. Multiple small holes had been drilled in a pattern around the mouth area, evidently covering some sort of dynamic speaker.
"No skulls for me, eh?" he muttered, the coming out surprisingly clear and recognizable as his own, yet still with some sort of odd mechanical inflection.
"Figured it wasn't your style," the scientist tossed back "we'll leave the skull for that special moment when you come back to us with that steel plate in pieces and without a brain. You stalkers are known for wrecking any shit we give you in short order." he gave a mirthless chuckle. "C'mon," he called, walking up the stairs out of the metal room "the boss wanted to see you. We'll see what sort of jobs you'll be working once you get your bearings."
Victor followed him, quickly getting to know his new body. The suit obeyed his slightest command to the tiniest mental twitch. And although he didn't particularly approve of the idea of indentured servitude, these men had saved his life, and moreover, he had a feeling that he would like what was to come...
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Post by Basil on Oct 16, 2010 16:05:07 GMT -5
Adder looked up as Sakharov entered the room where she and Ferret were kept. He was holding a bulky-looking grey box.
“Miss Adder, we worked as fast as we could in order to find and produce in sufficient quantities a remedy for this sickness which has struck Freedom so badly. We managed to produce such a remedy, but we haven’t had any conclusive results yet…”
Adder stood up, her face lighting up with new hope. “I’ll take the box to the warehouses.” Sakharov looked at her skeptically. “You’re still ill…”
“-Give me some of the remedy and I’ll go. We have precious little time left to save the others”, said Adder, grabbing her Vintorez. Sakharov shook his head and seemed about to reprimand her when his eyes made contact with those of Adder. All he saw was steely determination.
“-Very well…to administer the treatment you must inject it”, he said, taking a needle out of his pocket and, after opening the box, stabbed it into the cap of one of the small vials inside. “There’s a jet injector in the box.”
Sakharov took Adder’s arm and drove the needle into one of her arteries, injecting the fluid into her bloodstream. The professor then proceeded to show her how to use the jet injector. After all this was done, Adder went to the door.
“Good luck…you’ll need it”, said Sakharov.
“-Thanks”, said Adder before opening the door, going through the lab’s entrance corridor and leaving the building. As the door shut behind her and she got into the air again, she remembered Balalaika’s challenge…what would the crazy little bitch do if she didn’t show up to the duel? Probably just swear a lot. Adder took a deep breath, coughed, and broke into a jog, quickly leaving the lab’s perimeter and turning left towards the Yantar factory.
Meanwhile, up on the hill West of the mobile lab, Balalaika caught sight of a figure leaving the building. She grabbed her SVD and raised the scope to her eye to get a better look at whoever was leaving so hastily and swore as she recognised Adder.
“-The fucking whore!”, she snarled as she raised her SVD and took aim. “I won’t let you get away like this, Adder!”
She squeezed the trigger and, with a loud detonation, sent a bullet speeding towards Adder’s head. Adder’s life would probably have ended there had she not stumbled and fallen to her knees, letting the bullet pass harmlessly overhead. Her eyes widened with fear as she realised she was being shot at and she quickly stood up and broke into a run, dashing for the area around the factory’s perimeter wall. Two more shots slammed into the ground, barely missing her legs, and another bullet whizzed so close to her head that she felt her hair stir. Balalaika was frighteningly good.
Adder, panting and her eyes even wider than before, dashed towards the wall and vanished from Balalaika’s sight. Balalaika swore again before sprinting down the slope and running after her prey, taking her Stechkin out of its holster. As she arrived where Adder had vanished, she only heard footsteps and laboured breathing quickly fading away on the other side of a brick wall accessible via a makeshift ramp made of bricks and wooden planks. Determined to track her prey down, Balalaika scrambled up the ramp, made it to the top of the wall and landed inside the factory. She smiled with glee as she saw Adder running ahead.
“YOU WON’T GET AWAY!”, she yelled before firing several bursts at the other woman. Adder gasped as the bullets barely missed her.
Adder put on more speed and skidded around a stack of pipes, once again vanishing from Balalaika’s view as well as avoiding another burst from the mad woman’s vicious machine-pistol. Breathing was getting difficult and her head was starting to spin, but Adder still managed to make it to a pile of boxes that lead to the top of another wall and start climbing upwards. Balalaika rushed around the stack of pipes just as Adder got to the top of the pile, and she fired her Stechkin again. A bullet grazed Adder’s arm, and the snake-eyed woman gave a cry of pain before toppling off the wall. Balalaika climbed up the boxes and swore viciously as she saw Adder had got back to her feet and was once again running away.
“Get back here!”, yelled Balalaika, attracting the attention of six zombies who were wandering around the factory’s courtyard in doing so. Bullets started flying, and Balalaika saw Adder stumble for cover behind the wall of one of the buildings. This protected her from the zombies’ attacks, but not from Balalaika, and the latter quickly took advantage of that, forcing Adder to flee further away.
“-Don’t you ever fucking stop?!”, panted Adder as she made a run for the tunnel leading to the Red Forest. Balalaika snarled in rage and rushed into the open, not caring one bit about the zombies shooting at her. Adder vanished into the tunnel’s dark opening, and Balalaika followed a few minutes later.
The tunnel was pitch black, and Balalaika cursed abundantly as she realised she didn’t have a torch with her. Adder, on the other hand, quickly moved through the darkness, her mutated pupils enabling her to pierce the darkness. As she ran through the tunnel, she felt her lungs clear and the dizziness lift. Could the treatment be working? Hope coursed through her and gave her renewed energy, and she soon made it into the Red Forest where she was greeted by a chorus of growls.
She had stumbled into a pack of blind dogs.
“Oh. Fuck”, said Adder before the lead dog leaped at her, its jaws ready to close around her neck or arm. Adder threw herself to the side and, hastily grabbing her Vintorez, loosed a random burst into the pack, eliciting a few yelps of pain. This did not stop the other dogs from continuing their attack.
“-Aw damn!”, came a surprised voice from the tunnel, and Adder saw that Balalaika had caught up. The pack of dogs quickly redirected their attention to the small woman, enabling Adder to escape.
Balalaika screamed with rage and mowed down two blind dogs before another one jumped on her, knocking her to the ground. Another dog bit into her ankle, and Balalaika drew Mr Stabby with another yell of rage and pain. The cruel blade sliced the first dog’s throat and the second one quickly got gutted. Two other dogs attacked Balalaika, but the small woman fought back so viciously that the mutant canines were forced to retreat, whimpering and with their tails between their legs. Balalaika, limping from the wounds inflicted on her by the dogs, went after Adder as fast as she could.
Meanwhile, Adder managed kept on going through the Red Forest. She was chased by a bloodsucker and attacked by pseudodogs, but she managed to outrun both threats and make it to the old mining building. A group of lone stalkers watched her run past with mild curiosity before returning to their fireside conversation, which was ruined by a squawk from their PDAs.
“Blowout soon, fellow stalkers!”
As the loners ran for cover, a very angry and dirty Balalaika emerged from the Red Forest. She looked around her and went in the same direction as Adder, cursing profusely as she heard the sudden crack of thunder and a heaviness in the air which always preceded an emission.
“-Fucking whore! I’ll skin you!”, she hissed. She knew she would never be able to catch up with Adder at her current pace.
Lady Luck, or her twisted sister, smiled at Balalaika however, as the small woman’s sharp eyes caught sight of something lying hidden in the bushes nearby. She went over to it and saw that it was an old Minsk motorbike, slightly rusty and hidden beneath a few branches. The key was still in the ignition.
Could it work? Balalaika grabbed the handlebars and started the bike.
The motor sputtered and came to life, and Balalaika smiled.
“You’re dead, Addie.”
She climbed onto the small motorbike and sped off along the old road leading to the Army warehouses and its surrounding area. The motorbike gave her a good burst of speed compared to her limping from earlier. The motorbike roared along the road, and Balalaika soon caught sight of Adder, who was running ahead. Balalaika grabbed her Stechkin and, steering the bike with one hand, fired at Adder.
Adder threw herself to the ground and Balalaika sped by, skidding around and speeding back towards Adder. Adder’s eyes were filled with fear as she watched Balalaika come back towards her, but she still somehow managed to bring her Vintorez to bear and shoot at the oncoming vehicle.
She fired three bullets. Two missed and one found its mark, slamming into the bike’s petrol tank and setting it alight. Balalaika yelled in surprise and fright and threw herself off the bike, sending the small vehicle skidding noisily down the road and into a nearby abandoned truck, the very same truck Freedom had taken petrol from to burn the bodies of the pathogen’s first victims.
Balalaika and Adder, now only a metre apart, both stood up and stared at each other. Adder’s face was bruised from her fall and her arm was bleeding while Balalaika had claw marks over neck. A thunderclap sounded overhead and the sky turned a dangerous purple. Adder felt her hair stand on end and the horrible sensation someone had stuck a small electrode into her brain.
“This is it, Addie”, said Balalaika as she aimed her Stechkin at Adder. “This is the end of the road for ya.”
“-Why do you persist in trying to kill me? What would you gain in doing so?”, retorted Adder. A strong wind had begun to blow over the Zone, shaking the trees and ruffling the hair of both women.
“-Revenge, my dear”, said Balalaika with a giggle. “Payback for when you did this to me”, she added, showing the burn marks on her face.
“-This is folly”, said Adder, taking a step back. Balalaika shrugged.
“-Maybe, but this is a mad world. What is folly in a mad world? Only the strong survive, and I am strong!”
Balalaika’s finger barely had time to budge before a sudden explosion knocked her and Adder of their feet. A large ball of flames rose into the tormented sky as the old truck, exposed to the fire started by Balalaika’s ruined Minsk, exploded. A few bits of metal and molten plastic fell to the ground around them.
“-Déjà vu!”, said Adder with a crazy laugh before trying to stand up and run. Her move was cut short however when Balalaika hurled herself at her and drove Mr Stabby into Adder’s palm. Adder screamed and kicked the smaller woman off her before standing up and tearing the blade from her hand, which made her scream even more as the toothed blade tore her flesh. Balalaika laughed and threw herself at Adder again, but the other woman ran off, grabbing the box (which had been dropped to the ground earlier on), and heading towards the now abandoned Freedom checkpoint and bloodsucker village. Balalaika cursed and ran after her as a blinding flash of lightning lit up the countryside, which was shrouded in a sickly purple colour. A tremor shook the air and the sky as the energy accumulated earlier began to break down the flood gates of heaven to bring death and destruction upon the Zone.
Adder, panting and with tears streaming from her eyes, ran towards a house in the bloodsucker village she knew contained a place where she could hide. Behind her she could feel Balalaika giving chase, like a presence of pure and utter hatred, a black hole of death. The sky went from purple to red, as if fires were burning in the skies, and Adder felt tremendous pain wrack her skull like white hot streaks of fire. She cried out in pain, tripped on the doorstep leading into the house, dropped the box and crawled towards the basement, falling into the darkness below. She heard a bloodcurdling scream outside before she faded into unconsciousness.
When she awoke, she saw that the light outside had gone back to normal. How long had she been here in this basement? An hour? None of this mattered. She had to get the box and get to the warehouses to save the others. They all depended on her.
She struggled up the ladder and looked around her cautiously. No sign of Balalaika anywhere. What had happened to her? Had the emission killed her? Or had she somehow survived? Adder shivered as she thought of the insane woman watching her from one of the windows of the village. Shaking her head and regaining her footing, Adder rushed off, leaving the sinister village behind and going over the hills that surrounded it. Her heart leaped as she saw the familiar outline of the warehouses appear up ahead, and she quickly made it to the road leading to the warehouse’s entrance. She felt exhausted, utterly drained of strength, but there was no stifling the feeling that overcame her as she made it to the entrance of the base, which was guarded by the same people as when she had left with the others on her terrible journey to the Red Forest and Yantar.
Triumph. Pure, unmitigated triumph.
The two guards at the entrance would never forget the day when the Commandant, dirty, ragged, bloodied and with glazed eyes stumbled up to them and thrust a box at them before saying “I made it!” and collapsing to the ground.
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Post by Zeno, Lord Camelith on Oct 17, 2010 3:15:18 GMT -5
The layers of dead leaves felt cool beneath his feet. The last trees at the edge of the Forest grew farther and farther apart as he neared the path into the warehouses. He paused, and inhaled deeply through his nose. The smell of ganja and smoke from camp fires drifted towards him on a soft breeze, he was still going the right way. As he grew nearer snippets of the men's conversations became audible, talk of a strange illness that was killing their comrades, news from loner groups out of the forest about an unseen menace. Невидимый, they called it. A fitting name. He had only been wandering the forest for a day or two and its denizens were already spreading rumors of him.
He slowed down and dropped to all fours as he approached the barrier. He wormed his way through the maze of pipes, cars and stalkers until he finally reached the grassy hills that would lead him to Rostok. The bandit in the forest had said to go to Yantar. He could no longer remember why, but the urge to reach the swamp pulled on him as if he were stuck on a fishing hook.
Instinct was quickly clouding over reason, and the increased amount of information bombarding his brain was destroying his memory. He was unaware of the process, just like the steady recession of several of his extremities back into his body. His suit had been destroyed, but by what? How? Or maybe he had left it somewhere? He couldn't remember, and it didn't matter. What did matter, was getting to Yantar.
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Vasily slapped a magazine into his sidearm and slid it into the attached holster in his SEVA suit. The research team had developed a relatively effective anti-viral substance, but had yet to clean out any possible contaminants from the lab, making the use of the suit necessary.
Pushing the outer airlock door closed behind him, Vasily turned around and started towards the entrance to the metal room. He stopped mid-step and almost lost his balance as he saw one of the six and half foot tall prototype robots walking behind Sasha.
"Explain yourself." Vasily barked at Sasha, "Now."
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Post by Διμι on Oct 17, 2010 3:59:52 GMT -5
"Explain yourself. Now." the researcher donning the SEVA suit demanded as the two approached him.
"We've done it Vasily!" Sasha grinned widely "we've managed to breathe life into the machine. One of the loners we extricated from the plague. He'd run into a matter scrambler at some sort of facility up north. The Freedomers say it's been blown to pieces by the Monolith by now." the scientist scratched his chin, carefully going over his next words. The head researcher didn't take shit lightly.
"Time was of the essence. He was dematerializing rapidly, and the condition was worsening. I had no choice, and no time to do anything but hook him up and do the transfer. Sorry 'bout not relaying it to you, but the time it would have taken to go over this with the rest of the lab could have been fatal. If we'd waited any longer, we would have had a rogue poltergeist on our hands, and you know how those are." he shook his head ruefully, recalling the earlier experiments.
Victor stepped forward, as if to verify the researcher's words. "We have an agreement, ecologist," he said to Vasily, looking down at the man "you get my services, and all the poking and prodding you want with me for saving my life. I'll do a few jobs for you, and then go off on my own, although I've no idea what I'm to do in this state but stay in the Zone for the rest of my life, until something finally gets me."
The SEVA-clad researcher nodded and Sasha smiled. "I'll take him down to our little armory for a quick spec-up, it won't take long." the man walked off, motioning for Victor to follow. Before long, they had crossed the compound to a small backup door leading underneath the bunker. The scientist pulled the hatch open, and started down. Victor wordlessly stepped down into the recess after him, pulling the door closed.
Sasha flicked on the lights, revealing several racks and tables of weaponry, as well as numerous chests and crates of ammunition. "Our contract military supply, as well as all the goods the stalkers around here have traded in for medical supplies, drugs, and antidotes." he ran his hand over the top of a table, brushing off the thick layer of dust. "we put all of this stuff to use sometimes, when we need heavier barrels on some of our "research", but for the most part, we have our own personal arsenals. We'll give you this free of charge, since you'll be working your ass off in the field for us later, so enjoy."
He swept a cover off of a gun rack, and paused before picking up a long pump-action polymer shotgun with an optical scope and contoured grips. "Tactical Remi 870," Victor muttered "you folks have your own choice of heat down here, don't you?"
Sasha gave a wry laugh before handing the shotgun to the loner-turned-machine "It'll be your second best friend around these parts, after your abilities." he said before tossing up an 8 inch Anaconda revolver and an FN2000 rifle. "That's as much as we'll give you bro." he said, pulling the cover back over the weapons rack. "Try not to lose too much of it - you'll be finding your own replacements."
"Understood." Victor nodded, before grabbing several boxes of shotgun shells, slugs, and magnum ammo, as well as 5.56mm magazines, and stuffing them into his pack. He quickly followed the scientist out and slammed the door shut.
They found Vasily a small distance from the lab entrance. "This is where I leave you, stalker." Sasha muttered "no doubt I'll get shit from the old coot after he sends you out, but at least I've done some good today. Good luck." with that, the scientist quickly walked off towards the lab.
Victor stopped in hesitation, but then shrugged his shoulders and approached the head of the lab. "So, what's it gonna be, eh?" he asked.
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Post by Zeno, Lord Camelith on Oct 17, 2010 17:37:28 GMT -5
"Sasha went in way over his head with this," Vasily said, walking slowly around the mechanical stalker "but I'm glad he did. Not only did it save the life of a good stalker, but it has opened up a whole world of possibilities for you and for us."
Tapping the armored plates on Victor's chest, he said "You're almost impervious to small arms fire, you're capable of near superhuman feats of strength and agility and you kept hold of your sanity in the process."
Vasily opened his mouth to speak, stopped, and closed it again. Taking a long thoughtful look at the mechanical man. "You have no idea what you're capable of, and to be perfectly honest with you, we don't really know either." Pulling a heavily modified PDA out from one of his vest pockets he handed it to Victor, "The only way to find out is to test it."
"I've got a few new men coming in from the Big Land tomorrow. Doctors Saitzev, Chirkoff and Lebel. Their first assignment would have been a quick run for radiation samples around the swamp and factory to check for any irregularities, but I've decided to reassign them to the Red Forest. Since you're here and are more than capable of protecting three men, it should work out fine. There's been observations from loner groups about new pockets of radiation that seem to grow in strength over time, it's wreaking havoc with the surrounding areas. All sorts of new mutated creatures, vegetation and the like. You and the new guys will have to find them, take readings over a three hour period at each site and attempt to identify the source."
"You're free to do whatever you like until they arrive" He added, then swung the outer door shut.
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Post by Διμι on Oct 17, 2010 18:09:59 GMT -5
Victor stretched a proverbial smile before walking off, taking the ecologist's words. If the machine he was suspended in was indeed as powerful as Vasily had described, the mission in the Red Forest would be a cakewalk. But regardless of his new abilities, it wouldn't hurt to test them first, he decided.
He broke into a swift run towards the ten-foot high wall of the lab on the opposite side of the compound bordering the swamp. Four meters away, he gave a massive leap and concentrated hard as his mind seemed to pull all ninety kilograms of suit and equipment off of the ground and into the air. Seconds later, he landed lightly at the edge of the swamp, his steel boots sinking down into the soft marsh.
He quickly loaded up his new Remington with slug rounds and looked around. The typical Yantar evening mist covered the area, fogging his optics slightly. The translucent polymer lenses on his sensors snapped open and shut like real lids, wiping away the moisture clearing his vision. Still unable to see more than thirty feet before him, Victor tentatively switched into infrared vision. The shapes of the nearby trees came into view, blurred slightly by the mist. More importantly, the cyborg could see two hazy reddish orange shapes in the distance, growing closer by the second. Soon, two zombified mercenaries emerged from the depths of the swamp, their heads panning for the source of the disturbance in the waters.
Victor cocked his head, eying the two slow forms slowly ambling through the thick muck. He took aim and sent a single slug through the head of the nearest merc, effectively splitting it in half. The second zombie raised its gun, preparing to fire just as Victor turned the shotgun on it.
In a split second, the loner felt something hit him from behind. The snork had approached without a sound, around the perimeter wall of the lab, and now clung to Victor's back, clawing at the thick armor. The medic reached back with one arm and ripped the offending creature from his body before hurling it bodily at the second zombie.
The snork hung in the air between the two, suspended by the loner's telekinesis just as the zombie fired, its bullets slamming through the beast's head and torso. The mutant's dead hulk flew on straight into the brain-scorched stalker, sending both flying into the muck. The creature still beat and flailed in its death throes, pinning the zombie underneath. But the struggle went on not for long, as a half-ton boulder swiftly rose from the depths of the marsh before dropping itself onto the entwined creatures and flattening them.
Victor slowly paced towards the body of the first mercenary before examining it. The man had possessed a long, recurved combat knife, apparently left in pristine condition despite having been in the swamps for an inordinate amount of time with its possessor. Victor plucked the blade with its sheath from the body before slamming the latter down into the muck with his foot. The marsh closed over the dead mercenary with a bubbling hiss.
Having tested the extents of his new powers and equipment, he quickly made his way back into the lab. Morning was a still a long way to go.
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