Benjamin Wray - Acid Reign - Genesis

Ripp gathered his guns, and checked them for damage. He had never used the arc before, but knew he couldn’t have picked a better time to test it.

Ripp scanned the room one last time to make sure he wasn’t ignoring anything, then made his way back through the hallway. He wanted to know why Nucrean soldiers were roaming around the Fringe and why they would go after a runner. Something wasn’t adding up.

Ripp kneeled next to the soldier he had shot in the neck and pulled the bloody magnetic name badge from the soldier’s uniform. Bettis. He looked at it for a moment then let it disappear into a puddle of blood. He unlatched the soldier’s pistol and put it in is pack. “Thank you for your service,” he said patting the man on the chest. “And all of the new toys.”

He unlatched the soldier’s armored vest.

Ripp had always felt deeply intertwined with the energies in the Fringe, mostly because he felt truly free outside the city, but another part of him knew there was much more to it than that. He longed for the old world, a world he only knew through the fragments left behind, but one that seemed more familiar and much more a part of him than this one.

Ripp shivered as the cold winds of the Fringe cut through his clothes, waking him from his reverie. He threw the rest of the newly acquired gear in the cargo hold of his transport and climbed in.

On the horizon, Nucrea’s lights cut through the overwhelming darkness, disappearing into a starless abyss. From a broken building, a shadow watched as Ripp drove into the void.

Red and green moss covered the stone and brick walls of the old tavern’s cellar. Pools of brackish water reflected what little light shone through the top of a rounded door, silhouetting the old, empty wine racks that filled the room. Small lights on sleeping monitors and computers blinked. Containers of all shapes and sizes covered the floor.

At the top of the stone stairwell, light flickered around the edge of the thick metal door. Heavy footsteps and anxious chatter grew as the door flew open, flooding the room with light and chaos.

Two men carried in a man covered in blood. Another man rushed in from behind them and pushed one of the tables out of the way.

“Lay him down here.”

The injured man groaned as they laid him on the floor.

“Hang in there, Lev,” Nam encouraged.

Craig pulled his boot knife out and started cutting away at Lev’s tattered shirt. He pulled the sticky fabric free revealing a vest riddled with bullets. Two rounds had broken through on one side, splaying metal into jagged edges that had made the bullet wounds worse. He unlatched the vest and carefully slid it off the man’s chest, revealing more bruises and damaged skin.

“Get a kit,” Craig ordered, struggling to maintain composure.

Nam looked at all of the containers that Craig had just shoved out of the way, then back at Craig.

“Red box, white cross.”

Craig folded a towel he pulled from the table behind him. He pressed hard against the two holes. Lev arched his back, groaning and grinding his teeth.

“It’s bad isn’t it?” Lev whispered through a bloody mouth.

“You’re gonna be fine. Hurry with that kit!”

“Did we get the weapons?” Lev, asked.

Craig wanted to lie to him and say everything went as planned. He wanted to tell him that the pain he was going through was worth the victory and this would change the odds.

“No.”

Lev let that set in, and smiled painfully.

“We tried,” Lev said.

“We did, but you need to shut up now.”

Lev nodded and winced in pain.

Nam found a red box with a faded white cross on it. He dumped its contents on one of the tables and found a large syringe full of white pellets.

“Bite on this.”

Craig twisted a thick strip of cloth and shoved it in Lev’s mouth. Lev bit down and nodded, letting them know he was ready. Craig looked over at Nam, and then at Jesse who braced to hold Lev down.

Nam knelt down, broke the cap off the big syringe, and handed it to Craig. Nam pulled the cloth away from Lev’s side, revealing two shredded holes that for a moment were just holes, but then suddenly began to overflow with blood.

Craig jammed the needle into the first hole and squeezed, causing Lev to cry out. Jesse struggled to hold him down.

“That’s the first one. You’re doing great Lev. One more,” Craig encouraged. “Can’t see the hole,” he said to Nam.

Nam wiped the wounds one more time with the blood soaked towel, then Craig jammed the syringe into the other hole and pushed what was left of the pellets out.

Lev didn’t move this time. He chewed the cloth hard but the local anesthetic in the pellets started to work its magic. Everyone let out their own sighs of relief when they saw that the blood stopped.

“Alright, brother, alright,” Jesse said, as he hugged Lev’s neck.

Nam dropped the towel and patted Lev’s leg as he sat back.

“Grab a couple of fluids and the scope.”

Nam jumped up, went to the back of the room where there were more containers and started searching through the medical supplies for IV bags and the scope.

Jesse winced as he sat down next to Craig and closed his eyes.

“That was a disaster.”

“Yeah,” Craig answered.

“There weren’t supposed to be any Nucrean Elites around.”

“Well there were. We can’t worry about what should have happened or what shouldn’t have. The only thing we need to focus on is finding those rounds and getting them scoped before Lev dies.”

Craig put his hand on Jesse’s shoulder, stood without saying anything else, then went to help Nam look through the containers.

“Got ’em,” Nam said.

Nam rushed over with the two IVs and prepped the first one. Craig activated a monitor that he attached to a small brace made of smooth fabric and light metal. He inserted one of the IVs in a vein and put the brace on Lev’s arm. It compressed automatically. Craig watched closely as the monitor showed Lev’s veins fill with fluid.

Craig opened the scope’s box. The scope was a small wire that he connected to the monitor and a small panel of controls and buttons. He moved the controls, making sure that the scope worked.

“The anesthesia should be working by now,” Craig said, for the benefit of the rest of the group.

Craig cut a small incision just above the higher wound and inserted the wire. Craig expected Lev to move but looked up and saw he was sleeping.

The screen showed, in a fish-eye view, the inside of Lev’s body: organs, yellow fat, internal bleeding, and finally a bullet. He found the first bullet near a lower vertebra about an inch from the spinal column. He connected the edge of the splayed metal with the end of the wire and hit a sequence of buttons on the control panel. Watching the monitor, he saw the bullet dissolve as an electronic pulse broke it into dust. He quickly found the second one lodged in Lev’s pelvic bone and repeated the procedure. Craig used the scope to cauterize a couple of large bleeding areas, and then pulled the wire out.

“Thank the god who has forsaken us all, for the man, or woman, that created this wonderfully awesome tech.”

Craig stood, put his bloody hands on his hips, and hung his head for a moment. He was grateful that Lev now had a good chance to live, but that was a small victory compared to the huge disaster of the armory. He looked at Jesse who laid his head back and closed his eyes, then at Nam who paced nervously.

Footsteps echoed through the hall. Craig, covered in Lev’s blood, grabbed his rifle and aimed it at the metal door. Jesse opened his eyes and stared at his pistol he had pushed away, and closed his eyes again. Nam quickly pulled his sidearm and steadied it on one of the tables.