|
Post by NotAvailable on Aug 24, 2012 9:19:50 GMT -5
Anna shuffled through the cans, scoring a can of shredded pork in barbecue sauce and taking a can of pineapple rings for herself. She'd looked the can over, ensuring it was in it's own natural syrup and the artificial sugar. Of course, it was. 'Ah well...can't complain, it's pineapple.'
Walking over to some bare seats, there'd been a few other soldiers from other units talking. Lieutenant Chase was among the herd, chowing down on some chili.
"Hey Gary, didn't you say you were in Raccoon City?" a man asked.
Another man, one with a heavily scarred face and forearms, had been sitting across from him, almost startled by the question.
"Why do you care? Eat your f*ckin' beans, man," he said. The other men and women went back to eating, leaving a short silence between them.
Anna sighed as she sat down, popping the can of pork open and taking a water bottle from the tub being passed around. There were a handful of Raccoon City vets here at the outpost. The B.S.A.A. had single handedly picked the survivors that they knew of. Those they didn't, usually came looking for them.
"How's the baked beans?" she asked, wrinkling her nose at the smell.
|
|
|
Post by Caliber on Aug 24, 2012 9:39:10 GMT -5
Phoenix began clawing at the can of beans, which lacked a pull-tab to open it. As she did so, someone addressed a man on the other side of the camp fire. The mood instantly turned hostile when another man effectively told him to shut up. Phoenix grew slightly irritated with the remark, which stacked with the irritation arising from not being able to open her can.
"F*ck it, anybody got a can opener?" Phoenix asked, addressing the group. Most of them looked up from their food. There was a brief silence while Phoenix scanned the faces of the men sitting across from her, making eye contact with each of them.
"The f**k is this?" one of the younger agents spoke up in a disrespectful tone, breaking the silence.
Another man immediately smacked the younger agent on the back of the head for his utter lack of manners.
Phoenix had forgotten that she'd taken her trench coat off, and was now just wearing her Sweeper suit, which made it easy to recognize that she didn't belong in the crowd. She didn't make a habit of doing this, as blending in was one of her main objectives inside work and out.
"I'm the one your boss calls in when youguys can't do your job," Phoenix replied, keeping steady eye contact with the younger man. As she did so, she unsheathed her combat knife from her leg holster and plunged the blade through the top of the baked beans can. She gave it a strong twist, creating an opening, then pulled it out.
An older man, looking to be in his sixties, spoke up this time. "I'll be damned if I'm gonna take that from some little b*tch in a fancy suit, eating up all our food."
"Well then, I guess you're damned, since you're gonna sit there and endure it like a big boy, aren't you?" Phoenix rebutted dully, as she raised the can of beans to her lips and shook it, allowing a few beans to drop onto her tongue.
The man grumbled and went back to eating. After a few moments of silence, the group began to idly chatter amongst themselves. No war stories yet, but it was bound to begin sometime soon. Anna spoke up, asking Phoenix about the beans.
"They're not bad-- a little better than the pork 'n beans, I can tell you that," Phoenix replied, chomping down on another mouthful. She turned the can around and looked over the front. "Maple and brown sugar. Fancy."
Phoenix noticed Anna had taken the small aluminum can, which was label-less, aside from black lettering on the side. She recognized it as the shredded pork that she had seen. "How's the pork? It's a shame I dropped that bread earlier, you might've been able to make a sandwich," Phoenix grinned.
|
|
|
Post by NotAvailable on Aug 24, 2012 9:57:33 GMT -5
When some of the men of the bunch began to ruffle their feathers at Phoenix's presence, Anna had looked up from her food and shot them a warning glance. Phoenix, however, stood up for herself before anyone else had the chance. Using her swiss army knife to open her can of pork, she'd dug into it, listening to Phoenix joke about the bread incident.
"Yeah, that woulda been some good eatin' there. I don't get to eat this alot at home. Rich an' Lucy aren't into barbecue sauce and my other daughter is a vegetarian," she explained, taking a bite. "This is pretty good actually."
The older gentleman that'd commented before, had kept staring at Phoenix, however, his ego obviously bruised. Anna managed to take notice and chuckled.
"Hurt your pride there, Simmons?" she said.
The old man dropped the food out of his hands and shot up out of his chair. "F*ck you, McGraw!" he yelled.
"In your wildest dreams, old man," Anna laughed.
Simmons curled his fists up and was prepared to shoot another comment at her when he was interrupted.
"Sit your old ass down, Simmons, that's an order," Chase barked, still in his seat, calmly eating.
The old man turned to look at his Lieutenant. "She provoked me, you expect me to take that?!" he griped.
"No, we expect you to shut the hell up and let us all eat in peace! Sit down, old man!"
"C'mon SImmons, let it go!"
"Beat it, Simmons. Now," Chase warned one last time.
The old man grunted and walked away from the pit, slamming his chair onto the ground and walking little ways away from the firepit. He stopped to look back at Phoenix, obviously enraged.
Anna watched the man go and looked back at the woman. "Quite the conversation piece that suit is, hahaha!"
|
|
|
Post by Caliber on Aug 24, 2012 10:17:38 GMT -5
Phoenix sat and continued to nonchalantly eat her food as the situation played out. She made eye contact with the old man a few times as he displayed hostility toward the group. After the man left, things calmed down a bit, and Anna mentioned that Phoenix's suit made for interesting conversation.
"I didn't expect more than a little gawking. Couldn't have imagined it would have provoked hostility," Phoenix grinned. "Still, definitely made this much more interesting than usual."
Phoenix finished off her can of beans, then cracked open the can of pineapple rings. This can had a pull tab for ease of opening. She immediately removed a ring from the can and began to enjoy it.
Some time passed as Phoenix and Anna finished up their meal. The group continued to chatter idly, and the war stories eventually came, as expected. The story-telling and ranting continued for about twenty minutes. Several men had passed out in their chairs. Phoenix didn't really like sleeping in the barracks, as it was a little cramped, so she had planned to catch some shut eye by the fire.
Phoenix yawned as the group's idle chatter slowly faded to hushed tones and whispering.
|
|
|
Post by NotAvailable on Aug 24, 2012 10:38:18 GMT -5
After dinner, Anna had looked at the time, it was pushing eleven now, the evening had sped by quickly than she anticipated. Getting up out of her chair, she'd wandered a little ways away and shuffled through her belongings to find her phone again. Checking her messages, the entire inbox was full of old texts, nothing new.
She was supposed to get off work in the next hour or so, but considering the much needed money, she'd decided to stay overnight to fill out some papers with Chase. She wasn't really upto it but what could she do.
Dialing Rich's number, she'd listened to the phone ring and ring until finally, he'd answered.
"Hey...what're ya upto? ...Gross," she said, smirking. "Yeah, I'm fine...uhh about that...I'm gonna work until 10 AM, Chase said he could give me a little extra on my paycheck for it," she explained, rubbing the back of her neck and taking small steps forward and the backward.
"How're the girls? Is Lucy asleep already?" she asked in a hushed tone. There'd been a slight pause when she'd smiled a little. "She did...? That's good...I'm glad."
"Hey McGraw, Chuck wants to see you, said something about some papers that need to be done by 1 o'clock!" an officer said, walking passed her and handing her some manilla folders.
Anna took them and sighed. "I have to go, I'll see ya in the morn, Rich...love you, bye," she said before hanging up.
"F****ckin' b*tch...." she groaned, looking at the pile of work.
|
|
|
Post by Caliber on Aug 24, 2012 11:23:35 GMT -5
At some point, Phoenix had dozed off in her chair by the fire, along with six other agents. Anna had gotten up and left for the camp's main building shortly after. Phoenix managed to sleep for roughly an hour before her sleep was interrupted.
KA-CRACK!
Phoenix and half the camp jolted awake as a gunshot pierced the nighttime silence. As Phoenix clawed her way into consciousness, she immediately sat up in her chair, then leapt out of it. She looked around in confusion, trying to determine the source of the sound. She was sure it was a gunshot, but didn't have the slightest clue of its origin. The other agents that had fallen sleep around the camp's firepits were now awake and standing, loudly inquiring to eachother where the sound came from.
A bloodied man-- hunched over, arm against his stomach-- wandered straight through the center of camp. Nobody seemed to notice amongst the panic that slowly began to arise throughout the area.
What the f*ck!" a young-sounding man shouted in the distance. It sounded as though it had come from one of the sniper towers by the main gate.
Another voice, this one much quieter, spoke out behind phoenix. She recognized it as that of the old man that had caused trouble earlier, Simmons.
"Holy sh*t, John, are you okay?" He spoke softly, walking straight past Phoenix and over toward the bloodied man that had stumbled into camp.
As Simmons reached out the put his hand on the bloodied man's shoulder, he immediately whipped around and lunged for the old man, opening his jaw and clamping down on Simmons' neck.
Phoenix ripped her pistol from her holster. "Infected!" she shouted as loud as she could.
She immediately charged for Simmons and the infected man. She ripped the zombie from Simmons' neck and shoved it, sending it tumbling to the ground. Phoenix moved in closer to the downed walking corpse, raised her pistol, and fired a single shot between its eyes. She turned toward Simmons and rushed to his aid. He was lying on the ground, grasping at his throat, which was lacking a very large chunk, and was bleeding profusely. The old man was choking on his own blood, making small gargling sounds as he tried to call for help. Phoenix stood over him. The old man looked up at her pistol, then right into her eyes. He nodded.
Phoenix knew what he wanted.
"Okay. I'm sorry."
Raising her pistol once more, frowning, Phoenix squeezed the trigger, ending the man's suffering.
One moment of silence ensued, and eyes were on Phoenix, and a moment later the camp exploded into full-blown panic and shouting. Agents scurried around, gathering their gear and trying to find their friends. Phoenix took a long, hard look at the crowd. She could see several other bloodied figures amongst them. The infected were scattered throughout camp, making meals out of distracted agents, one at a time. Dozens of gunshots began to ring out, deafening everyone near by.
Phoenix planned out her path, then made a bee-line for the camp's main building. She stormed through the main doors and into the front lobby, slamming them behind her.
Someone at the front desk immediately shouted questions at Phoenix. "The f*ck is going on out there?!"
"Infected!" Phoenix shouted for the second time. She backed away from the front doors, pistol in hand.
|
|
|
Post by NotAvailable on Aug 24, 2012 11:49:34 GMT -5
Everything had happened so fast. One moment Anna was sitting at a desk, filing papers about supplies and ammunition, the next someone had burst into the offices with another soldier atop of them, tearing away at their face. Gunshots began to ring outside of their walls and a loud, wailing, alarm sounded throughout the base.
Anna had unholstered her sidearm and took a potshot at the encrouching soldier without any hesitance. She'd seen this too many times before to not know what was going on. Infected.
She'd looked down at the woman missing half of her face. She stared widely up at the ceiling, in shock as she bled out. Agent McGraw then looked over to see men and women making makeshift barricades, some putting down another two and others rushing to get upstairs to the helipad.
"Sorry, kid," she said softly, before pushing the barrel of her gun upto the woman's temple and ending her suffering. After pushing the woman's lids over her eyes, she'd kicked passed the infected body and running out to the nearest desk barricade. "What the hell's going on? How'd they get into the base?" she asked as calmly as she could.
Another fellow agent had been holding up a thick piece of wood infront of a window, looking back at the redhead, oddly. "I don't know. It was so..so sudden, I...Jackson he..." she stammered.
"Hey, look at this sh*t!" a man called, hushing everyone long enough to look at the tv they wheeled in on a stand. The news was on screen, broadcasting another part of the city that was in much more chaos.
"Christ...not now..." Anna breathed, reaching for her cellphone. Much to her dismay, it wasn't on her. She'd ran over to her office, digging through the desk contents and atop of it, but it was nowhere to be found. Had she dropped it?
Grabbing for a landphone, she'd found no dial tone. "Hey, the phones are out already?!" she griped.
"All the lines are disengaged! It's like some emergency shutdown!" a man said from the other room. Anna shook her head and ripped her jacket from her chair, throwing it on despite it's dampness.
"I gotta get home. Open that barricade!" she demanded, quickly moving through the room. This entire section of the outpost was filled with paper pushers, it was no wonder why they weren't taking it so well.
"Yes ma'am," one person said, opening it for her. Anna jogged out, her .45 in hand as she'd moved swiftly between the number of agents and soldiers defending the outpost.
As she did, she'd took a couple of stray shots at two staggering corpses going after an injured officer. Only one of them went down, the other kept moving forward. Taking another shot, carefully this time, she'd struck it in it's cheek and then another shot struck in it's brow, killing it instantly.
"C'mon, get up!" Anna yelled, reaching down to grab the wounded woman. She was holding onto her leg, sweating profusely and breathing heavily. Anna wrapped the woman's arm around her neck, trying to carry her over to the building when she'd noticed the wound was actually a bite.
"You're infected!" she yelled, trying to talk over the gunshots and screaming. The woman suddenly became dead weight in the agent's arms, causing Anna to stumble back with her.
"Sh*t, I don't have time for this...f*ck!" she said, dropping the woman and running off to find her cellphone.
|
|
|
Post by Caliber on Aug 25, 2012 8:04:04 GMT -5
Phoenix backed into the front lobby of the camp's main building, looking around frantically, trying to figure out what to do. She was hesitant to block off the front doors, in case living agents from outside needed to take shelter, but the risk of the infected breaching and flooding the building was too great.
The young man behind the front desk continued to bark nervously half-thought questions at Phoenix, but she ignored him.
"Move," she said bluntly, walking around to the other side of the desk.
The man stood, confused, still shocked by the situation. Phoenix grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him out of the way. She gripped the underside edges of the desk and heaved, flipping it over onto its side, sending an array of folders and papers scattering across the floor, as well as bits of glass from a lamp that shattered against the ground.
"Get over here and help me push this," Phoenix told the man calmly, as gunshots continued to go off from outside.
The man didn't budge.
"Right now!" Phoenix shouted this time.
"O-okay, okay!" the young agent said nervously, immediately leaping into action.
With the help of the man, Phoenix shoved the front desk all the way to the front doors, barricading the entrance. It would hold against one or two infected, but if several pushed against it, they were screwed.
"I need you to gather your friends and pile everything you can lift against this door, and I need you to do it right now," Phoenix said to the man, putting both of her hands onto his shoulders, attempting to get through to him and calm him down. He was a young agent, and had obviously not seen much action. He couldn't have been older than early twenties.
As the man scurried off down one of the buildings hallways, presumably to find friends to help, Phoenix walked back to the center of the lobby, where the desk had been. As she did so, a loud crash came from inside of the building, immediately followed by a woman's scream, then a gunshot. Phoenix's eyes were drawn in the direction of the noises, down a hallway on the opposite side of the room from which the man at the front desk had ran.
A man dressed in an all-black BDU, completely devoid of any markings, emerged from a door down the hallway. He had a pistol in his right hand, and was hugging a shiny metallic briefcase to his chest with his left arm. He looked toward Phoenix, and suddenly the two were locked into eye-contact. Phoenix recognized the man as one of the young agents around the camp-fire from earlier in the night-- the one who had rudely inquired who Phoenix was-- and he recognized her. After a moment of silent staring, the man quickly raised his pistol toward Phoenix. She did the same to him, and they fired at each-other simultaneously.
The man fired two shots at Phoenix, and she fired once at him. Phoenix managed to hit the man center-of-mass, but the steel briefcase took the impact instead, sending it flying out of the man's hand. The first of the man's shots missed, and the second found its home in Phoenix's torso, beneath her left breast. Phoenix immediately went down, falling backward to the room's cold tile floor, her pistol sliding out of reach. The assailant took the opportunity to escape. He ran into another office, slamming the door behind him. The sound of a window shattering was heard soon after.
Phoenix turned onto her side and coughed several times, gripping her chest. Luckily, the bullet didn't manage to penetrate, thanks to the combined efforts of the thin Kevlar vest that Phoenix wore of her suit, and the suit's Kevlar-Nomex bi-weave and carbon-nanotube-reinforced polymer plating that protected her vital organs.
"Ugh, that felt like a broken rib," Phoenix grunted.
The desk worker immediately returned to the room, accompanied by two other workers of about the same age.
"My god, are you okay?!" the man shouted, crouching next to Phoenix, offering his arm to her.
"No, I'm not f*cking okay, one of your agents just shot me," Phoenix shouted, pushing the man away, then pulling herself to her feet.
She pressed her palm against her ribs, then quickly pulled away as she winced in pain. Her vest may have stopped the bullet from penetrating, but it certainly didn't reduce the impact much. If she didn't have a fractured rib or two, she would certainly at least have one hell of a bruise.
Phoenix retrieved her pistol from beneath the debris that had covered the floor when she flipped the desk. Before she had time to think, an infected woman dressed in B.S.A.A. attire stumbled out from one of the offices. Phoenix raised her pistol, took aim, and fired, sending a two-fifty-grain slug through the infected's eye socket, causing it to go limp and fall to the ground.
"They're already inside," Phoenix said to nobody in particular, then walked off to where the rogue B.S.A.A. agent had dropped the steel briefcase.
The lock had been compromised by Phoenix's bullet, and the top half of the briefcase simply fell off, exposing its contents. Three vials filled with green liquid were inside, accompanied by two fancy syringes. It was obvious what they were for. This sudden outbreak was no accident.
Phoenix took the briefcase under her arm and walked off down the hallway, turning into an adjacent one. Agents had began to barricade off the hallway-- a smart idea. Before Phoenix could ask anybody where their commanding officer was, the red-haired woman, Anna, that Phoenix had met earlier emerged from the main barricade. Phoenix flagged her down.
"We have a huge problem," Phoenix stated as she approached Agent McGraw, holding out the briefcase.
Gunshots began to go off from inside the building, and shouts could now be heard all around.
|
|
|
Post by NotAvailable on Aug 25, 2012 8:37:34 GMT -5
Anna had just put down a fellow agent with infection when Phoenix had caught her attention. Under arm was a beat up metal briefcase with a compromised lock.
"We have a huge problem," Phoenix told her. Anna had taken notice of the bullets embedded in her suit, she seemed relatively unscathed but there was always a chance of internal damage.
"Well yeah, you've been shot to high hell, are you alright?" she asked, looking over her shoulder then back at the Contractor to ensure their safety from infected. Those shots couldn't have been accidental, which meant there was some hostility nearby.
"This entire outbreak just came from nowhere, there's no f*ckin' way in hell it was coincidental. It's reached the rest of D.C. and with the immense force of security here, a terrorist attack is suicidal...unless this was an inside job." she explained. From the looks on Phoenix's face, she may have been right.
|
|
|
Post by Caliber on Aug 25, 2012 8:52:23 GMT -5
Anna referenced the bullet hole in Phoenix's vest when she stated they had a huge problem. It wasn't the problem Phoenix was referencing, although it was still a problem.
"I'm fine. Pretty sure I cracked a rib, but it's better than being dead," Phoenix assured Anna. "This is a bigger problem," she added.
Phoenix held out the briefcase, showing Anna its contents.
"One of the agents from the campfire last night dropped this. He shot at me, I shot at him, then he escaped," she explained. "Wait, what do you mean it's reached the rest of DC? How is that even possible?"
|
|
|
Post by NotAvailable on Aug 25, 2012 8:58:49 GMT -5
Anna took a look at the vials and syringes and removed one of them to get a better look. Whatever was in it was a green liquid and considering there were two of them with syringes she was wondering if it was a cure or some sort of anti-virus.
"Or maybe a vial of lies. Heh." she thought to herself before safely putting them back in it's case. One of the agents had defected, if there were two vials, then maybe there was another one somewhere.
When Phoenix had asked about the DC outbreak everywhere else, Anna sighed. "Yeah, Mitchells turned the TV on and the news was airing uptown DC, it was in complete chaos. It looks like it happened a little before it struck us. Think it was planned?" she asked, furrowing her brow.
|
|
|
Post by Caliber on Aug 25, 2012 9:18:26 GMT -5
"This doesn't make sense," Phoenix stated, continuing to voice her skeptic nature. "For the virus to be spread so rapidly over such a large area, completely without a sound, there must have at least two dozen people doing the spreading. It doesn't sound like we're dealing with a few rogue agents. This reeks of an organization."
Phoenix looked around. Another barricade further down the hallway was beginning to form, albeit not a very effective one, consisting of office chairs tossed over eachother. Gunshots continued to sound throughout the building, as well as outside. An alarm blaring throughout the base, and shouts of fear and pain could be heard from all directions. It became very clear that the base was compromised, and the casualties would be in very high percentage.
"If we dig in here, we're as good as dead. I've no interest in playing hero, but even if I did, it's not as though we could lead everyone out the door in a single-file line. This is where the hard part comes in-- save ourselves, or die trying to save others, which we'd probably fail at," Phoenix spoke as forwardly and bluntly as possible. This wasn't the first time she'd been tossed into a disaster situation.
Ideas for an escape plan were beginning to brew in Phoenix's head. She could head to the roof, then use the roof to get to the car port, where she could steal a truck and hopefully plow through the chaos. Four or five other people could likely squeeze into the truck alongside Phoenix. She was hoping Anna would be one of them.
|
|
|
Post by NotAvailable on Aug 25, 2012 9:36:44 GMT -5
Anna had agreed, she wasn't going to die trying to save a bunch of a**hole she didn't care much about. Chase, Tits and recently Phoenix were the only people she was interested in helping at the moment.
"Yeah, I need to get home. My family's more important than these d*ckheads," she responded. "But first I need to find Chase and Tits, I can't leave without ensuring they're okay, they're the only other family I have out here," she explained.
With that said, there'd been the sound of shattering glass. A handful of infected had managed to break through the flimsy barricade of the building. Pulling her .45 up, she'd ejected the magazine, to check the amount of shots she had left, she'd already used one up ten minutes ago. Just then, the loud whirring of helicopters had swooped by overhead, some coming from the White House and others, identified as the BSAA's own.
"Guess management's safe and we're all expendable," she commented, pushing the magazine back in the sidearm. "We need a good plan."
|
|
|
Post by Caliber on Aug 25, 2012 9:58:40 GMT -5
"I hope your friends are okay, but we might not be able to ensure that. If they're in the barracks, there's no way we can make it there," Phoenix told Anna, regretfully.
Just as Phoenix had finished speaking, half a dozen zombies broke through the building's main barricade. This was bad news, as it meant the entire building would be fully compromised momentarily. Phoenix kept her handgun at the ready, knowing she still had seven rounds left in the magazine and one in the chamber, having fired the one she had previously in the chamber, then two more so far.
Anna commented as the sound of helicopters could be heard flying overhead, then stated that they needed a good plan. Phoenix thought for a moment, contemplating whether or not her earlier idea was viable.
"Where's the nearest roof access?" Phoenix inquired.
The main building was two stories high. If they could make it to the roof, they should be able to make their way across the metal roofing that covered part of the courtyard. From there, they would be able to leap to the car port, then hop down onto one of the available Humvees.
|
|
|
Post by NotAvailable on Aug 25, 2012 10:15:44 GMT -5
Anna looked down for a moment, silently cursing to herself. She didn't want to leave them behind but Phoenix was right, it'd be both suicide and nigh impossible to find them in this chaos or the barracks. Still, all that drifted through her mind was saving them and saving her family.
When Phoenix had asked about the nearest roof access, Anna shook her head. "There's only two, one of them is an emergency exit in the Barracks and the one is in the main building here, why?" she asked, taking into consideration that the evac choppers were gone.
As she wondered this, the lights had suddenly shut off and the alarm was dead. All that remained was the sound of panic and the eerily familiar groans and grunts of the undead. This wasn't boding well for the two women.
"You can explain while we get up there, let's move out!" she said, moving further through the main building, the barricades were rickety and some of them were even being torn down from outside threats, luckily the remaining agents inside had been taking down the front lines of infected trying to break through. This would buy enough time for Anna and Phoenix to make it upstairs.
Jogging down the main hall, she'd pushed herself through to a wide hallway that took her to bathrooms, the mess hall and a staircase that would take them to management and then the roof. Foot soldiers had come running down the hall with heavier firearms, pushing passed both women and bursting through the doors behind them.
Anna maneuvered around the incoming traffic, taking glances at Phoenix every now and again to ensure she was nearby. "What's your plan?" she asked.
|
|