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SIERRA BRAVO
Moys picks his way northward towards the canal, following the tail-lights of WOLFHOUND's truck.
He threads his way around civilian cars, men and women fleeing on foot, and mounds of abandoned possessions littering the road. The cars are packed with people, some hanging half-out of the windows. He brakes and swerves to miss a near-collision between an overloaded car and a duo of fleeing pedestrians running straight down the road-center. The car comes so close that front bumper clips the suitcase the man is carrying. It explodes open in a spray of clothing, papers, and a dozen other unidentified objects that are caught in the claws of the wind as the man loses his footing and falls, miraculously not under the wheels of the passing car. Merril clamps her knees into Moys' sides as he deftly avoids the mess.
A soldier stands on the corner of Canal Street, a megaphone in one hand and in the other an orange flare she waves metronimically over her head, tailing smoke northward in the growing winds.
"Evacuation route!" She says, the megaphone the only thing that makes her hoarse, wind-blown words audible. "Vehicles take bridge to east! Foot traffic use smaller bridges!' She repeats this like a mantra, swaying with exhaustion.
Moys brakes to a halt and she raises her bleary eyes to him.
"We're SCARECROW!" he says, shouting to be heard above the wind and pasing cars. "WOLFHOUND sent us as your relief!" She stares at him with black-rimmed eyes, and then drops her flare-bearing arm.
"Thank god for you," she says, into the megaphone so her ragged voice can be heard. "...How many more evacuees?"
Steven shakes his head. "No idea! We're supposed to keep the bridges open as long as we can and then blow them. You know how the bridges are rigged?"
"I know the... The vehicle bridge is rigged already. Don't know about the others but I think there were problems. ...Talk to Escobar, across the vehicle bridge."
"Okay! Thank you. We're taking it from here."
The soldier bends like an old woman to retrieve her rifle from where it lays propped against her foot, though she can't be more than a year or two older than Moys himself, who turned twenty a month ago. "Thank god for you," she says again, straightening up.
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VICTOR CHARLIE
Tobias' fingers tap softly on the steering wheel. The pat-pat-pat of his drumming fingertips on the textured rubber is just barely audible over the deep rumble of the engine beneath him, but seem roughly in time with the beating of his heart, which is hammering.
"Do you see anything?" He asks, for the third time in under a minute.
"You'll know the second I do, believe me." Darnell May's deep voice comes through his earpiece, patched through the vehicle's Intercom. "I'm not even wasting time calling a contact, I'm just gonna light that fucker up." The turret ring squeaks as he shifts it a few degrees through it's arc.
"I can't see shit in here." Tobias leans forward nervously and gets his face as close as he can to the narrow windshield. The view is the same, a long stretch of city asphalt. The glow from the burning gives the left side a macabre glow. To the right he can just barely make out Bats, with her weapon deployed across the truck's grill.
A ragged band of exhausted-looking men and women stagger across the street at the intersection. They have been passing in clumps since the Buffalo first arrived, little groups, alike only in desperation. Tobias has noticed the groups getting smaller, faster, carrying less. Now he sees a man running, one side of his shirt stained red. His fingers stop their drumming on the steering wheel and squeeze it tight.
"Steady guys." Bats' voice comes over the squad comms.
Tobias suddenly feels sick. A deep churning in his gut, almost an ache. It makes him want to open the door and puke down into the street, but he knows that if he does the feeling will only get worse. He knows what that feeling means, he learned at The Box. Instead he swallows and gasps, lets the Haze slosh through him. And in the next moment Bats' voice on the comms says exactly what it is he's feeling.
"...They're almost here."
High above, the wind raked clouds open up and it begins to rain.
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VICTOR BRAVO
Grey-black droplets, gorged on soot from the smoke-laden air, patter down onto Malcolm's head and the shoulders of his uniform. After a second a drop runs down his forehead and stings his eye. He wipes at it furiously with the back of his hand, swearing, and then laughs. Things just keep getting worse.
He pulls his dust goggles up and over his face. They are immediately streaked with grey/black lines as the wind-driven drops start to fall on them, but they'll have to do.
He scans the street with his eyes rifle at the ready. He knows by the mounting pressure in his head that his first real action is only moments away. But he doesn't see anything. Just red buildings and running civvies, dropping their things as they flee, pale faces streaked with fright and now black rain.
He wipes at his goggles and from the corner of his eye catches two civvies headed his way along the cross-street, one almost carrying the other, both hobbling like contestants in a sack race. Malcolm stifles a laugh, and turns his attention back to the south. But the two do not pass by his truck like the others.
"Excuse me. Please. My wife.. She fell, I think her knee dislocated, she can barely walk. Can you help us?"
Malcolm wipes his goggles again and turns to stare at them. The man wears a sweat and soot-soaked button up, and his wife a pained grimace. They look to be close to 30. Firstborns, then.
"Help how?" Malcolm growls, annoyed at the distraction.
"We… Ah…" The man points at the Buffalo. "We could use a ride. Just as far as the bridge. Please."
"This is a combat vehicle, not a fucking taxi." Malcolm says, turning away. "Keep moving, we aren't going anywhere."
"Please, man. She can't walk and I can't carry her any further. Can we just stay in the vehicle? It's got to be safer than the streets. We won't make it to the canal at this ra-."
"No room," Malcolm clips off his words. "Keep moving."
The man looks between Malcolm, and the humming Buffalo a few yards away. The tail is open and he can make out the vacated seats, amidst the piles of stowed gear. Suddenly he digs in his pocket. "Look, I can pay you…"
"Did you not hear me? Those are for us. We got NO. FUCKING. ROOM." Mal thunders, taking a step forward. He is the size of a football lineman, and smiles as his advance has the effect it usually does; the Civvie cringes and backs away, looking more afraid of him than anything that might be in the south.
"Actually… We do have room for one." Kurt Morgan interjects, stepping forward.
The Civvie's eyes light up. "Okay! Okay, just take her, please. I can make my own way."
Mal shoots Kurt a furious glare. "Don't fucking complicate things. If we take one they'll want us to take everybody. We'll get fucking mobbed."
"Come on Mal," Kurt says. "We can help here. Isn't that our job?"
Malcolm stares at him incredulously, momentarily at a loss for words. He wipes his goggles and sputters, "Yeah we got one empty seat, what if we need it for one of our own, huh?"
Kurt shakes his head. "That might not happen, and we can deal with it if it does. We can even unload some of the gear if we need to."
"No! Fucking no! Jesus fucking christ we don't have time for this!" Mal shouts, "The fucking Geist are right over there!" He gestures with his rifle. His head is killing him. Something inside him bursts in a flare of anger, and he swings his rifle to point directly at the Civvie's skull. He shoves the barrel forward, jabbing the man's forehead hard enough to leave a round red circle on his skin. The man is so shocked he can't even move. Much better.
"I swear to fucking christ if you don't clear this truck right now I will blow your fucking brains all over this street for interfering with an NEA operation." Malcolm growls. "And I will be justified in doing it."
"What the fuck, Mal?!" Morgan leaves his position and rushes forward, reaching for Mal's rifle. Mal shoulder-checks him and jerks the weapon out of reach as the Civilian turns to escape. Violet says something neither of the two can hear.
Mal bares his teeth. "Fuck you, Morgan! You want some too?" He turns towards the other soldier with a balled fist as Violet speaks again, the rising pitch in her voice pulling at the corners of his attention. He hesitates.
"What?"
"Contact!" Violet repeats, her voice shaking. "Contact South!"
Mal swivels. Through the intensifying rain he can make out a roil of motion on the street to the south. A crowd is stampeding towards him. At first he sees only men and women, silhouetted with red from the fires and smoke behind them. But the panic he normally sees on their faces has been replaced with naked terror. Their arms and legs pump wildly as they sprint as though from death itself; one trips and is trampled by the rest.
Kurt and the arrogant firstborn civvie and all the rest are forgotten. It takes another second for him to realize that the men and women he sees are a bow wave, running before a horde of Geist. They are grey, to match the city, but the red firelight picks out the edges of their bulbous, misshapen forms as they charge ahead. Their rough skin is mottled and pockmarked with the scars of healed wounds. They overtake the fleeing humans one after another, reaching out to seize them and drag them down, grating them against the asphalt or simply jerking them to a halt, snapping them like twigs. Their hands and feet are stained red.
Rampant. The word sticks singularly in Mal's mind, even as he brings up his heavy rifle and settles his eye behind the sights. They are rampant. Every bit as horrible as he had ever imagined. And here they are. His head is pounding so hard he can barely think. Right in front of him. Finally. Finally. Finally his life will truly begin.
((the circle on the lower left side of the map is a 'blip', which indicates the presence of Geist, though you wont know what kind or how many until you get eyes on them.))
CACHE A[ARC Rifle(x4)] [ARC Ammo(x4)]