Chapter 45: Such a Thing as Too Kind

Errorist refused to make eye contact. A bead of sweat escaped from under his helmet and rolled along his eyebrow. He wiped a droplet of snot from his nostril with his sleeve.

Dozer had thought their conspiracy had three conspirators. It seemed it had one less than that.

“Get the fuck in here.” Buttstroke took a step toward the rest of the team.

Dozer rose to his feet. Model slumped his shoulders and sighed. Buttstroke had busted their plan wide open. Errorist slunk between the two, head hung low, and joined his owner in the other room. Acid also stood. He blinked over and over. The poor guy must have been wondering what the hell he just witnessed. Both Dozer and Model plodded the few steps into the next room.

Buttstroke glowered at Dozer. “Try any more shit, and I’ll rip that stupid look off your face.”

More gunfire came from the central hall. The other recruits might have had their hands full. If the Pithites didn’t bother to defend the side door, they must all be behind the last blast doors.

Did he fake hearing the control unit?

Acid tried to follow.

Buttstroke hefted his minigun across the doorway to block the corpsman’s way. “You fuck off.”

“What?” Acid sputtered the word. He narrowed his eyes in the glare of Buttstroke’s headlamp.

Model pushed the minigun down with the stock of his shotgun. “No. He comes with us.”

Buttstroke barred his teeth. “After what you just pulled?”

Model said nothing while they had their staring contest.

“Fuck.” Buttstroke broke eye contact first and took his place at the wall. He hunched his back. “Are we getting out of here or fucking what?”

Acid made a careful step across the threshold of the doorway and joined the tail end of the fireteam. They streamed into the next room. The ruby-red glow of emergency lights painted the wall through the doorway.

Model checked. “Clear. Besides the doorway, we got a closed door with a panel. It might expose our flank.”

Buttstroke groaned. “No time to check. Gotta get to those blast doors.”

Under the dim glow of the emergency lights, the fireteam made their way past the closed door and pressed themselves against the wall. They had one more room before the central hallway. A rumble came from its direction through the floor, and sine waves and gunfire sounded. The blast doors rumbled closed once more.

Model swept the next room with his headlamp. “Clear. I think they’re all defending the blast doors.”

“Do you have line of sight?” Buttstroke rested his minigun on his thigh.

“Nope. They staggered the doorways. Also, the lights are off in the central hallway.”

“Oh, shit.” Errorist rested his helmet on the wall. “That ain’t right.”

Buttstroke wiped some sweat off his cheek with his shoulder. “No matter. Move in.”

With soft footsteps, the fireteam padded up to the last wall. The next move would be into the central hallway.

Model checked and pulled back. There should have been a sine wave or the snap of a grenade. Nothing. He peeked out again and shined the lamp on his rifle around the corner and down the hall.

“They’re gone,” Model casted. “We got a long hallway to our goal. Plenty of doorways on both sides. Bots must have retreated and are setting up an ambush.”

“We stay here for now. Watch our six,” Buttstroke casted over the team channel. He switched over to the team leader one. “Bots have moved further down the hallway. Start your hack.”

Coldcase sent an affirmative. Dozer kept his helmet lamp on the dark doorway they came from. For all he knew, a bot waited just outside the beam’s limits for the chance to tear them all apart. Damned if he would let that happen to his teammates, except for Buttstroke... and maybe Errorist.

That fucking rat.

“Third blast doors have no power,” Coldcase casted over the team leader channel. “That last power node has got to be somewhere else.”

Red illumination popped into Dozer’s mind. “Emergency lights,” he said out loud. “The door back there.”

“No shit. You figure that out all by yourself?” Buttstroke soaked his tone in sarcasm.

***

Errorist squatted by the locked door and buried his head in his tablet, drenched in the red light. The guy hadn’t even looked in Dozer’s direction since he proved himself to be a snitch. No time to deal with him, anyway.

Buttstroke faced the door. Model did the same on the opposite side behind Errorist, his back to the doorway. The layout of the room had both the locked door and the doorway crammed into a corner, and Model took up half the cover the doorway provided. Dozer watched the doorway—and Model’s back—on the other side, with Acid behind.

“Hey,” Dozer said, loud enough for only Acid to hear. “Get up here.”

The guy needed one more kill for his Pass B, and he wouldn’t get it if he always had to flutter around the hind end of the fireteam.

Acid glanced at Buttstroke. “You sure?”

Buttstroke focused all his attention on the locked door, ready in case it opened, oblivious to their exchange.

“Yeah.” Dozer leaned in. “Fuck that guy.” He made space for Acid.

Acid solid along the wall to take Dozer’s place.

Errorist tapped his screen. “Got it.”

The power came on. Blaring white lights dispelled the ruby-red. Illumination supplanted the dark on the far side of the doorway.

Buttstroke snarled. “Some warning would’ve—”

The door opened to reveal a bot, its weapon at the ready. It fired. Model’s left arm dropped limp. Buttstroke pulled the trigger and cut the bot in half.

Behind the deadly scene, something solid flew through Dozer’s doorway, bounced off Model’s back, and landed among the fireteam’s feet. The grenade rolled to a stop. Acid dived to the ground. Dozer reached for the grenade. If he could just get it back through the door—

The grenade snapped. Its components scattered on the floor. All strength in Dozer’s muscles escaped him. He and the rest of his fireteam—Model, Buttstroke, and Errorist—dropped to the floor, marionettes with their strings cut.

Acid sprung upright and launched himself through the open door, away from whatever tossed that grenade. The top half of the Pithite—still alive—reached for its weapon. He danced through the thing’s dismembered legs, pivoted, and sent a burst of rounds through its faceplate. It lay still. His rapid footsteps faded into the distance.

“The fuck was that?” Buttstroke frothed over the dead teammate channel. “We had a Pass B in our hands! A mother fucking Pass B!”

A Pithite foot stepped in front of Dozer’s face. It bent down and peered at him. It had two different colored eyes: yellow and blue.

“One more fail like that,” it cocked its head, “and you’re going to get recycled, prisoner.”