-PART TWO: THE LAST STARPORT-
"Ward, Taylor," Anderson said, looking across at them from inside the troop transport they'd just mounted up in.
"Lieutenant?" Jack replied.
"I forgot to mention: I made a few official alterations to your records. Both of you are out of Space Marines. You're official United Nations Marines again, and you're both Sergeants," Anderson explained, grinning at them.
"Shit...thanks," Jennifer said.
"Yeah. Definitely appreciated," Jack agreed.
"Well, the way I see it, you two were due for promotion anyway. Though if you pull this off I imagine they're gonna want to kick your ass up the chain even higher. We're going to need experts like you to help us figure out how to kill these bastards faster and more efficiently."
"It's not too hard, any Marine can do it," Jack replied.
"Yeah, but you two were there. You were in Hell." He shook his head. "I still can't believe it. I mean, I can, I just...what was it like? Is it actually Hell?"
Jack realized that everyone in the troop transport was looking at him and Jennifer. He heaved a sigh. "I don't have any definitive answers. Based on everything I've seen and learned: no, it's not. It's just an alternate dimension, another universe that looks kinda like what we call Hell. You know? These things aren't really demons, I don't think. They're aliens. Monsters. Genetic horrors. I don't know. That's the biggest problem: no one knows anything for sure. We can just guess. But I'll say this: if that was Hell, and those are demons, I'm disappointed."
Anderson laughed. "I like that."
Jack sat back, trying to get in the zone, focus up for the task ahead. It was a big one. Probably the most significant task of his entire life, although maybe not. Taking down the Spider Mastermind had been pretty goddamned significant. Although shit, for all he knew, these were just the first few steps on a path that would lead him towards an even bigger, badder demon. But he had to admit, he was having a hard time imagining something worse than the Spider Mastermind. What else could be waiting for him in the depths of Hell?
He shifted away from that question as he felt the troop transport vessel they were on began to slow and descend.
It was time.
"All right, Ward, Taylor, Hollenshead, you're on first drop point!" Anderson called.
All three of them shouted out an affirmative response and as soon as the ship finished settling onto its landing struts, they were unbuckled and on their feet. They made double-sure they had their weapons, (Jack his lonely pistol), and then jogged down the loading ramp, onto some dead grass below. The ship began taking off even before the back ramp started to close as soon as they'd cleared it. Anderson shouted a final 'good luck!' to them, and then he was gone. Jack looked around, studying the environment.
They had been dropped in the middle of a fenced-in area. Behind them was the vast metropolis of Hayden, burning against the reddening skyline.
And, ahead of them...
"Holy God," Hollenshead whispered, his voice stricken.
Jack had to agree. He felt his breath leave his lungs as he got his first actual look at this Firewall. It was immense. It wasn't just that it was tall, and it was tall, probably a good five hundred feet, but that it was broad. It was so broad, shooting away to either side, going on for miles. It was like staring at a tidal wave of fire, frozen in place. Although it wasn't quite fire, not really. It looked closer to what a force field might look like, turned orange-red. It writhed and seethed in place, and it looked curiously flat, like, well, a wall.
Faintly, through the twisting effect, Jack could just make out the massive bulk of Haydenfield. He shook his head slowly and then looked around again, to make sure there were no hostiles. Even out here in the middle of nowhere, the battle had come and gone. He saw several dead Marines and Imps out there.
"Come on," Hollenshead said quietly. It was strange hearing him humbled after all his brash, boisterous talk in the city. But again, Jack knew how he felt.
In the center of the fenced-in area was a simple metal structure, little more than a maintenance shed, and Hollenshead walked over to it and opened it up. They took a moment to clear the interior, and found nothing but some lawn-mowing equipment and a whole lot of crates. They also found an elevator that Jack volunteered to ride down.
He stepped inside and hit the down button, resisting the urge to cross his fingers. He believed in luck, to be sure, but he wasn't too keen on the notion that you could actually alter it in any way. You could only take advantage of it. The elevator chimed softly as it settled into its metal nest. Pistol drawn, Jack waited for the doors to re-open. They did and he tensed, preparing for an attack. Except there was none. Nothing but a dimly lit corridor awaited him. It looked old, disused, and untouched by the conflict above.
"Radio check, can you hear me?"
"Affirmative," Jennifer replied. "You okay down there?"
"It's safe, come down."
"On the way."
The elevator ascended once more and Jack moved a little ways down the corridor. It was just bare chrome, on all accounts: up, down, and side to side. Utilitarian lightbulbs were attached at regular intervals overhead. Some had failed, others were dim. He wondered when the last time another human being had actually been down here was. Probably months, at least. With a place as vast as Haydenfield, he imagined that there were some places no one had gone into since it was built. Jack took a few more steps, then stopped as he thought he heard something.
Whispering.
"Who's there? Identify yourself!" he called, snapping his pistol up. The corridor extended for quite a ways, so far that he couldn't see the end of even another doorway in either of the walls. There was nowhere for anyone to hide. The whispering subsided. He swallowed, feeling fear creep around coldly in his guts, as he was truly reminded of the fact that he was yet again facing the forces of Hell. They'd thrown so many curveballs at him last time, what godforsaken things were going to go on this time around?
Behind him, the elevator chimed and the doors opened. He jerked and twisted around, spying Jennifer and Hollenshead stepping out of the lift.
"You okay?" Jennifer asked.
"Yeah, yeah, just...thought I heard something," he replied, looking back down the way yet gone.
"Heard what?" Hollenshead asked.
"Whispering. It's gone now."
They both remained still, apparently listening, and he did as well, wondering if it would return. It didn't. They only heard the faint hum of power and the whisper of oxygen being pumped into the underground space.
"We should go," Hollenshead said finally.
"Yeah," Jack agreed, and started leading the way.
For several long minutes, no one spoke, and the only sound became that of their boots striking the chromed floor panels.
"God, this place is fucking boring," Hollenshead groused suddenly.
"No arguments from me," Jack replied. "Shit, even the UAC facilities were livelier than this. Though...not by much."
"I still can't believe those fuckers actually managed something like this. I mean, I totally buy that they did it, and that they would do it, but that they managed to succeed in this goddamned apocalypse? Shit," he muttered.
"I know what you mean," Jennifer said. "I've always hated the UAC, but honestly, who doesn't hate any organization at this point? They've all been showing their true colors for decades now. They don't even need to pretend that they're not money-hungry monsters anymore. Although fuck, I would've thought that they'd at least balk at the idea of bringing about the literal end of the fucking world. I mean, they can't get money out of corpses or demons."
"That's the thing about cancer," Jack said, "eventually it kills the host."
Neither of them seemed to know what to say to that and they walked on in silence again. Eventually, the corridor came to a fork. They spent a moment consulting their holographic maps. "All right," Hollenshead said, "this is where I get off. Good luck you two, kick some ass."
"Right back at you," Jack replied.
"See you on the other side," Jennifer said.
He nodded tightly and set off, clutching his weapon as he disappeared down the right metal tunnel. He and Jennifer walked along the left. As they continued on, navigating the underground passageways that would ultimately let them into Haydenfield, Jack knew there were things he should be saying to Jennifer, things he wanted to say to her, but his words seemed to die in his throat. Judging by the silence, he had the idea that the same thing was happening to her. They might never see each other again after they split up.
One or both of them might die in there. It was not only possible, but likely.
And before he knew it, the time to separate was upon them as they came to a room with several entrances and exits.
They stood in the center of the room after making sure it was secure, and then faced each other, staring at each other.
"I guess we have to split up now," Jennifer finally said.
"Yeah..." Jack hesitated, then reached up and took off his helmet. He set it down. Jennifer did the same thing and they stepped closer, as if she could read his mind. For what was probably too long of an indulgence, they kissed. He felt things there: passion and desire, but also love and need, a kind of desperation.
When they finished kissing, they rested their foreheads together, staring into each other's eyes. "I meant what I said," Jack said. "I love you, Jennifer."
"I know. And I meant it, too. I love you, Jack. And whatever happens, I want our lives to be together from now on."
"I want that, too."
They stayed like that for another few seconds, then reluctantly let go and pulled their helmets back on. They stood there a few seconds longer, then walked away from each other, moving over to their respective entrances.
"Good luck," he said, staring at her.
"Good luck," she replied.
And then they walked into the unknown.
* * *
"Finally," Jack whispered.
He'd been navigating what felt like miles of those damned tunnels. He'd been alone with his thoughts for too long already. The tunnel he was in terminated in what appeared to be an access room for a maintenance area. It at least looked a lot more lived-in, and he could picture glum men and women in technician's uniforms haunting the place, working to keep the guts of Haydenfield in good repair, all the things that the general population never saw and probably hardly knew existed, but they'd sure as hell notice if it was missing.
Wasn't that a general truism of life?
Do a great job and maintain something for years, no one says shit.
Fuck up even a little once, it's the end of the goddamned world.
There were four doors spread out along the walls, and Jack figured this was as good a place as any to begin his search. Maybe some people made it down here. He began searching the immediate area, and as he did, found his mind twisting and turning in ways he wasn't comfortable with. There was no question that this was real nightmare fuel, absolute worst case scenario type shit, what was happening to Earth right now. If he could have stopped it, he would have. He would have died stopping it. Gladly, even.
And yet...
There was a part of him, a small but deeply buried and perhaps even fundamental part of him, that liked this. He didn't like the unmitigated horror being visited upon humanity. No one deserved this. Well, maybe not no one exactly...but most people didn't. But the thing about this whole mess was...he got this. He understood this.
He fit here.
Becoming a Marine had been the best decision of his life, Jack knew that. He believed it, still did to this very day. Now more than ever, if anything. But his entire life, he'd had a problem of never really feeling like he was...doing anything. Anything that mattered. He never felt like he belonged anywhere. Or even like he mattered. In some ways, he felt like a tired, miserable failure. He supposed that for almost all of his life, his greatest fear was meaninglessness. The fear that he would never do much of anything that had any real, genuine value to the world, to the human race, with his life. He thought joining up with the United Marine Corps would help that, and for awhile, it did. But it quickly became evident that it was all still bullshit.
It was all still pretty fucking meaningless.
Where was the meaning in fighting some trillionaires war?
Where was the meaning in gunning down desperate, third-world locals just fighting for their right to get some fucking clean drinking water?
Where was the meaning in machine-gunning depleted uranium rounds into some poor bastard just because a politician signed a document a decade ago declaring war?
Where was the honor in dropping a tac-mini-nuke on an enemy compound, only to find out there were no enemies, just civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Where was the dignity in 'acceptable losses'?
Where was the truth in the wholesale slaughter of his fellow humans?
Yeah, he believed there were evil people out there, and yeah he didn't mind capping them execution-style. He'd gladly blow away sick psychopathic jerk-offs who would just as gladly bomb a civilian target or unleash a fucking biologically engineered disease. Sometimes you had to murder bad people, and he was fine with that.
Hell, he was good at it.
But more and more often, it just seemed like the poor and the desperate were killing each other at the behest of the rich and the greedy.
Perhaps the only good thing to come out of this whole apocalyptic mess, for him at least, was that Jack Ward no longer felt like he might, at any moment, slide over the precipice into the abyss of meaninglessness.
He. Had. Purpose.
He could do this until the day he died. Fuck, he probably would. Even if they managed to figure out some kind of miracle solution, and even if he survived to see it, this level of invasion would be being dealt with for years if not decades.
These were the thoughts that dwelt in Jack's skull as he slowly cleared out the maintenance area. Two of the rooms turned out to be storage bays full of technical stuff that he had no real use for. One of them was a little break area with a bathroom. He took the opportunity to have a quick piss in one of the stalls, given he had no idea how long it might be before he got another chance, and then he cracked open the final door, which, lo and behold, was an elevator. It was bloody, and the interior had several dents in it, though no corpses.
He could easily envision several people trapped inside as a Lost Soul or two got in and turned them into zombies, or maybe an Imp had gotten in there with some fleeing civilians. What did they do with the bodies, then? Strung them up, maybe. Or ate them. It seemed as though there were any number of things the demons could use human corpses for. Jack took a moment to check out his inventory. Besides his uniform and his armor, he had exactly one pistol, and five magazines. Fifty bullets and a pistol were all that stood between him and oblivion.
Something seemed oddly familiar about that.
With a sigh, Jack steeled himself and stepped onboard the elevator.
It was time to get this nightmare show back on the road.