Saturday, January 18, 2014

Dead Man Walking

((This came about when, half-asleep, I started to wonder what sort of character Hadeon would be if he were not tied to the WoW universe. Then Captain Deon Smith walked up and slapped a mission report into my hands, metaphorically speaking. I've also echoed a friend's character as a main face here, with her permission. Yes, if Hadeon were human, he'd be played by Idris Elba, black armor from Pacific Rim and all.))


Written while listening to Dead Enough for Life by Icon of Coil.

Chicago, Downtown Elevated; UCAS – November 14th, 2072
. . . . . Bullets whizzed past and struck the wall three feet above and to the left of his head. Captain Deon “Hades” Smith squinted as the shower of sparks from said bullets striking the smooth metal of the wall momentarily overloaded the night vision on his goggles. What the hell were the bastards using - stick-n-shock rounds? Despite the black gloves on his hands, he had no trouble manipulating the tiny button controls on the side of the goggles and turning on the flare compensation; when the damn eff-comp decided to respond, however, was up to the finicky old piece of junk on his head.
. . . . . “Cap, we've been made!” came a voice in his headset.
. . . . . “No shit,” Deon muttered as another set of sparks set his eyes watering under the goggles. He moved his hand to the sub-vocal mic on his throat and activated transmission. “Copy that. Keep your heads low and fall back to the north stairwell as planned. No heroics.” There would be more cursing, but with the mic hot, he'd keep that to himself. His soldiers had long since learned to stop giving their captain a ribbing about his aversion to public profanity.
. . . . . Flare compensation finally kicked in on the ancient relic he was wearing and he carefully dropped to his belly behind the terminal stand he was using for cover. God bless paranoid corps that chained their worker drones to desks even though interface terminals could be wireless; they were even more of a relic than the decade-old goggles on his face. His team kept the chatter to a minimum while he peeked out at ground level towards the elevators which had seemingly brought half the twenty-two story building's security up at once. Deon hoped it was because they were busy concentrating on getting their asses out of the fire.  
. . . . . When he pulled his head back, the man crouched behind the terminal parallel with him raised one shoulder in something between a shrug and a question. The Cajun had always had a way with body language. “Eleven at the elevators, including a troll with what looks like a shoulder-mounted RPG,” Deon reported over the line. “And they're using electrics, so don't go trusting too heavily on those ballistic vests, aye?”
. . . . . Lieutenant Remy “Shark” LeChay chuckled, “Like we'd be testin' 'em 'gainst grenades otherwise?”
. . . . . Another voice cut in, suddenly loud in his ear through the headset, “North wall breached! We've got-” 
. . . . . A low rumble followed by a deafening bang, then static made Deon's heart stutter in his chest. “Tina? Tee, report! Tee!”
. . . . . “They're swarming, Cap,” came an unusually quiet, sober response from PFC Renner. “We're humped.”