Play 2 Wage: Linked

“Can you do the darkvision thing again?” I murmured to Max as I stepped over a highlighted wire strung up between two crowded tables.

It was dark in the basement, the only light coming through the newly broken door and a couple of windows set high on the lone exterior wall. There were stacks of boxes and plastic wrapped cabinets, multiple tall rolling tool chests, and a handful of partially cleared workstations on large rolling tables scattered around the open floor supported by skinny steel pillars. Three of the walls were made of cement blocks, and only the very back wall was finished with expensive looking wood paneling. Two doors lopsidedly flanked an open staircase, the left door being a little closer to the stairs in the center while the right door was placed further away, nearly against the wall.

“Not really, but your darkvision already is a little enhanced compared to most people. I could only pull that trick while Linked up, because I can see what the system has preloaded even if you can't see it yet yourself.”

I grimaced, accepting his answer as the reality of the situation even if I wished he could help out more. I’d never cleared a building, and was starting to regret not bringing anyone with me. Everything I knew said that this was stupidly dangerous and a huge mistake, other than my anger that had beaten the rest of my decision making into submission.

I could back out still, leave the traitors to report their failure and probably get swept up by the army when it came through. Or I could take Max’s initial offer and have him just blow the whole f’n house up. Still, while my anger had cooled and my determination to one-man-army my way to my goal had flagged, I still really wanted those bastards. I wanted to hear their answers myself, I just wished that I had more backup than an asshole AI.

Oh well, wish in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up faster. I just couldn’t let this go. Even if the military did take these guys in, I knew I would never get the full reports myself.

Max kept up a running chatter of information as I carefully crossed the floor, picking my way around the clutter and avoiding another highlighted trap.

“The secret passage is probably in the room on the right. They have a camera on it from the inside, but I can spoof the feed to hide your approach.”

“Probably? You mean you’re not even sure?” My second guessing of the situation was only growing stronger.

“If I analyze the angles of the footage, and the inaccurate and outdated blueprints, I get like a 97% certainty. So yeah, probably. Now c’mon, let’s ventilate these bastards!”

I pushed my way up to the door in question, and the rational side of my brain finally managed to push a thought into the forefront of my mind. Why was Max all of a sudden so bloodthirsty and pushing me into this? Normally he wanted me to hang back from danger and to avoid any fights. While I hesitated, Max must have picked up on my questioning thoughts, because he answered them directly.

“Hey, this is what you want, right? To drive these chuckleheads before you, hear the lamentations and all that. Plus like, you know, they messed up Tevin and Ali.” Max then quietly mumbled something I couldn’t make out.

“What was that?” I prodded. “I didn’t get that last part.”

He mumbled the same thing, still too low for me to hear it. Damn, even whispering directly into my head he managed to make it incomprehensible.

I decided to try goading him instead. “C’mon, since when have you been afraid of saying what's on your mind?”

“Ugh, fine. It’s probably a side effect of being all mashed together with your squishy human body and mind, but I actually like Tevin and Ali. Those two do so much for us, and all you do is drag them deeper into your bullshit.”

I blinked at his reply. “Wait, you actually like them? I thought you were some edgy lone-wolf ‘troll the world’ type, and what about Rin?” I ignored his comment about what they did for “us”, while he put the blame for following his plan entirely on me.

“Bah, Rin is fine, and even more of a dickweed than you are. Tevin and Ali are too good for this world. You don’t deserve their friendship and loyalty, so the least I can do is stick my neck out a little to make the bastards that hurt them pay. Plus, the infiltrators might have some valuable information that might help us evade these guys in the future. It’s a win-win.”

That managed to get a stressed little chuckle out of me. “Heh, so you’re game to risk everything just for a shot at these guys, at least we’re on the same page there, but what happens if I get shot in the face as soon as I turn around the corner and go lights out?”

“That’s highly unlikely. They mostly have old battle rifles or pistols, and none of them have power armor. You’ll be faster than them even with a wonky arm and Tevin’s cannon. Plus, erm…”

Again, he mumbled something that I couldn’t make out. “What was that?” I prompted.

“Now’s not the time to argue about this stuff. Let’s get in there and shoot some rebel scum!”

Tired of not having anything to direct my whispered conversation to, I found myself focusing on an empty beer can that was sitting on one of the tables amongst the clutter and catching a stray reflection from the kicked-open door. “What else did you do? There has to be something more if you’re okay with me walking into this.”

“Well, heh-heh, you can’t get mad about this because I did it weeks ago, but remember me talking about strengthening your bones awhile back? That applies doubly so for that thick skull and redesigned rib cage of yours. Unless you take a straight shot with a high caliber rifle from point blank range, most conventional bullets are just going to be extremely painful, and I can block that out to keep you functional. Unless they get exceedingly lucky or decide to blow themselves up, which I don’t think they have the explosives to do, you actually getting killed down there is a long shot.”

With Max hiding and refusing to give me anything visible to react to, I pointed an accusing finger at the shiny beer can. “Damnit Max, I told you to stop messing around with my body unless I gave you permission!” My voice rose a little in my outrage, but I managed to clamp it back down to a whisper.

“You already yelled at me for this one! I just didn’t, uh, fully explain everything. It's not like I turned your bones into steel or some kind of unobtainium, I just changed the geometry of the fibers and the recipe into a better composite. Your bones now have a bit more calcium and some added iron and carbon. If the right person ever gets a look at the inside of one of them you’ll be in trouble, but I was careful to not change you enough to set off the Links bio-ID system, although your new rib cage is pushing it a little bit. Still, the chance human tech picks up on any of this is tiny. Unless your world’s leading experts open you up on an autopsy table for close study, you’ll be fine.”

I really wanted to dig further into his answer, but realized it would be a waste of the precious few minutes I could afford to spend holding up the whole group. I decided to drop this for now and hound Max for some better answers when there was time for it.

“Alright, whatever. We need to focus.” I closed my eyes and shook my head to physically reset and focus back on the task I had assigned myself. “So, you said that there is someone on the other side of this door. Is there any way we could go around, through another unwatched entrance?”

“Nope. There is only one door leading to the lower level. The guy at the bottom is behind another door and struggling to get his ear-piece to connect with his little radio receiver, but I keep messing with him and making it disconnect.”

I blinked at his mention of the tech. “These guys have radios? Why can’t you break into that and do something more.”

He huffed in annoyance. “There’s not really anything to break into and do, it’s an earpiece and a radio receiver, not a transmitter or even all that technical. I’m using the house's wiring and grid connection to mess up the signal because there’s nothing digital to get into down there. It’s still distracting and keeping him busy”

I nodded and discarded any ideas for that. “What’s this door made from? Is he going to have time to set up and warn the others while I’m getting through?” I asked, filing Max’s newly announced capability in the back of my mind.

“The first door is a veneer of wood paneling, it won't provide much resistance. There's a narrow space between the walls and a stairway that turns at a 90 degree angle before going down into the sub basement proper where there is a secondary steel security door. They couldn’t even bother to use a proper blast door for the first layer, and seem to have cobbled together their little bunker with parts you’d find on any commercial or residential build site.”

“So it’s not a bunker, just a hidden extra basement?” I asked, I looked down at the carpeted floor at my feet, starting to get an idea. “Is the basement underneath us here? Is it the same size as this basement?”

“Yes and no.” He replied, oddly cheerfully. “You are currently standing over one of the rooms, but most of their little underground complex is actually built underneath the driveway. They had to pass inspections before they could build their little hidey hole, so everything was done after the house was already built.”

“Do you know what’s under this room? Would it be better to, like, cut through the ceiling and drop down somewhere they aren't expecting it?”

“Hmm. That’s debatable. The area under this room is divided up, into the stairway down to the security door, the little office the doorman is fiddling with his earpiece in, and a pantry that’s absolutely overstuffed with everything from canned goods to toilet paper. There’s another slightly better door built into the foundation behind him that leads to the main area under the driveway.

“Wait… aren't you driving an excavator around out there? Can’t you just crack open the driveway?” I asked.

“That's… almost a good idea. What are you going to tell your friends, who are currently parked and waiting for you on top of said driveway, when the machine rolls up without a driver and starts peeling up the concrete? I cut my connection with all of them after the fighting was done, as both Rin and Jorn were using their own computers to try to sniff out what was happening already.”

I signed, already dreading that conversation. I was cooking up a loose plan to credit a dwarven hacker friend that was working to help me, but that would become less believable the more he did and would easily be picked apart. I knew Rin would have all sorts of questions, but had not expected Jorn to be looking into it already. Rin might trust me enough to accept a partial answer, but Jorn was a whole different story. Maybe leaving him alone to think over everything while I chased after the traitors was an even worse idea than I feared it might be.

“C’mon, can’t we just kick the door in and shoot the bad guys? We’ve been arguing for a whole minute already and I’m tired of it.”

I shook my head. “Fine, No excavator. But we need to think first, this isn't some game, this is actual combat and we need to have a plan.” I told myself.

“We’ve never really had a plan before, and we are still in a time crunch. You can’t sit here and waffle over how to open a door forever. C’mon, just knock the panel in, blast the guy through the door, and then sweep the place. I think most of the areas around the entrance are within the camera’s view, so as the rest of the jerks swarm in to defend the bunker you can mop them up. Bing, bang, boom, then we can deal with the most cowardly of them who panic and hide rather than attempt a response.”

I grimaced and hesitated, this really didn’t feel like something I should rush, but this was a side quest while I had a time sensitive main objective. The main goal of keeping myself and my friends out of the hands of the rebel group that was specifically targeting myself and Katie was more important. If I was going to do this, I needed to just get it done and stop thinking about it so much.

I shook my head again, clearing away all of the thoughts, and then fished my plasma knife out of my pocket. I clipped the knife onto my belt for easier access, and then examined Tevin’s rifle. After making sure the rifle was ready to fire, loaded, and getting a very, very, brief rundown of the functions from a gleeful Max, I decided I was as ready as I ever would be and made my way to the highlighted wood panel in the small and slightly musty room.

I pushed on the wall, and felt the thin sheet of wood flex under my hand. I tried sliding it to the side, but it didn’t budge. I felt around the edges, pushing in various places and trying to use the friction of my hand to get it to move. No luck. I scraped a fingernail down the groove that ran from floor to ceiling about every 8 inches, and found no secret catch or lever.

Starting to get frustrated by the door, and feeling a sense of deja vu, I started to push harder against one edge of the panel and finally felt it release. I guess I had just been being too gentle, and the makeshift nature of the thing made it require a little bit of physical persuasion to open.

I noticed my hand was shaking as I pushed the door fully open, but ignored it and quietly stepped through into the narrow space underneath the stairs and between the interior walls. To one side was a crude staircase that wrapped around a corner on its way to the sub basement.

I tread carefully, placing each footstep deliberately and applying pressure gradually so the rough, hastily screwed together, saw-marred planks wouldn’t groan and give me away to the guys below me. I came around the corner and saw the door that Max had told me about, and the green wire frame skeleton of the guy on the other side was visible as he fiddled with his earpiece on the other side.

While pointing my borrowed rifle at the man through the wall, I hesitated again and frowned. My anger had carried me through this far, and my resolve for answers and vengeance was strong. Yet, while hurting someone in the heat of battle was something I had done without hesitation in the past, for me that had meant fist fights and defending myself.

Shooting someone through a door before they even knew I was there was a whole new level of violence for me, but I knew I had to do it if I was determined to get the traitorous bastards that nearly took out my whole little circle of friends. This was life or death, they had lured me here under false pretenses, lied to me and my friends, and tried to capture and kill us with no hesitation. I had to answer in kind, with decisive action and swift violence of my own.

A fair fight is a bad fight if you’re concerned with life and death more than glory and honor. Now was not the time to pull my punches.

I lit the guy up with a five round burst, the rifle slamming hard against my shoulder as it tore holes through the hollow steel door. As soon as I stopped firing, I quickly stepped down the last bit of the staircase and shouldered my way through the now freely swinging entrance. I scanned around, seeing more of the wireframe indicators appearing through the walls as they stepped into the view of Max’s cameras.

This room had a rough bedrock wall on one side, and crude welded sheet steel for the other, while the back wall with the next door was made of poured concrete with a more solid looking armored door at the back that was cracked open a few inches. I stepped over the very dead doorman and pulled the hatch the rest of the way open, using the thick concrete frame as cover and getting my first view of the actual bunker.

I was looking down a hallway that was maybe 6 feet wide and 30 feet long, with a corner at the end where the hall continued off to the right. There were more sheet steel walls, and an arched steel ceiling braced with H-beam ribs every few feet. Luckily, not all of the walls seemed to be so solid and some of them were framed in like a typical house with boards and sheetrock.

Trusting Tevin’s rifle to be able to reach out and touch them through at least some of the walls, I sprayed more fire at two figures coming from the left, but only one of them fell. Another three figures popped up, and a door at the back of the hallway slammed open and was filled with bursts of muzzle flash.

I flinched my face back behind cover but felt my trigger finger squeeze tight on its own, I couldn't tell if it was reflex or Max picking up the slack. The rifle vibrated in my hands and I felt it jerk in my grip to adjust my aim. The defender cried out, falling back mostly out of sight behind the door jam he had popped out from and leaving only his twitching feet in view.

With my breathing picking up, I squeezed off another burst through the wall at the survivor to the left while what looked like a team of four were getting together to prepare something on the right. I must have connected with the figure on the left through the wall, as I saw them fall and start to drag themselves back towards their fallen companion.

It was eerie, even when the people fell, Max kept highlighting them with their spooky green wireframe skeletons as they lay on the ground. Glowing grim reminders that I had killed and maimed, even if I couldn’t see their actual body. It was almost worse that I had done it so distantly, so coldly, but I couldn’t afford to think of that. These were killers, plotters and betrayers, they would not hesitate to bring me the same death if given the chance again.

“Bree is with that group on the right, they’re getting ready to start chucking grenades into this hallway here unless you do something. That steel wall is reinforced to support the ceiling, but there are signs of utility cutouts here, and here, that you should be able to poke through.” Max chimed in helpfully.

Two orange boxes appeared on the wall to my right, but I couldn’t get a proper angle through them to the highlighted wireframes. Without thinking too much about it, I stepped forward into the hallway until I could get a few of the enemies framed in the orange box, and then sprayed bullets through into the next room until the rifle stopped firing on its own.

Two of the figures had fallen while the other two spread out and crouched down in the next room over. I could kind of see into the room through the concentrated bullet holes in the wall and saw the devastation I had caused, while the rifle whirred and rattled in my hands. After a second, the rifle clacked and a tube along one side dropped off and rang with a hollow sound as it bounced off the floor, and the ammo counter flashed blue with a full 30 rounds.

I stepped further into the room to align the second orange square with one of the figures when a red flash lit up one side of my peripheral vision, and the sound of someone else's rifle filled the soundscape of the cramped space. I felt something hot tear across my uninjured shoulder and the back of my neck, and threw myself to the ground.

As I fell, I managed to turn to face the end of the hallway where another attacker that was only partially outlined with the wireframe wallhack was shooting at me. Before I hit the ground, the rifle jumped in my hands and slammed into me as it blasted off a few shots in his direction. One of the large armor piercing .308 bullets whipped straight through the guy's head, dropping him instantly to the ground.

I grunted in short lived pain before Max cut the feeling out, then I rose back to my feet and shot some more at the persistent figure to the left who had started to crawl away. They fell flat against the floor, either finally downed or forced to take cover from my suppressing fire.

After sparing a quick glance around to see if anyone else was coming, I angled around until I could get one of the two survivors to my right within the second orange frame on the wall. I took a second to aim carefully before squeezing off a three round burst that punched through the thin steel plate and caused the green skeleton to stiffen and fall flat onto their face.

All of the shooting in the cramped space had blown my eardrums out again, but Max’s tampering must have kept some of my abused eardrums functional because I could faintly hear argumentative yelling further into the bunker, towards the farther end of the hallway. Their plans had failed, even with seemingly overwhelming force against a small unsuspecting team, and now even their hidden bunker was failing to protect them. I really couldn’t blame them for losing their shit and bickering amongst themselves, and anything that distracted them from dealing with me was an advantage that I should press.

I quick stepped over to the doorway to the right, where I could see the last surviving operative was hunkered down and holding their aim on the doorway. As I neared, the door itself was outlined in orange, letting me know it was thin enough for me to shoot though. So I did just that, I fired a few single shots towards the last person. They fired back blindly, punching their own holes in the doorway and splattering me with dozens of tiny bits of shrapnel that I felt embed themselves in my skin, but the mix of adrenaline and pain blocking from Max made it feel more like sharp specks of wind-driven rain.

After the brief exchange of fire, that last person fell to the floor and slowly curled up, clutching at their chest. I watched for a moment, wondering if that was Bree. I hoped it was, but knew I still had a couple of people down here to look after. Max had counted 10 people, but it could be more, and I had lost track of how many I had already killed in the chaos of the firefight.

With the ringing quiet of the muffled underground environment only broken by an occasional distant sob or suffering cry of pain, I shouldered my rifle and counted bodies as I pushed further down the hall.