Chapter 9: The Gravedigger in the Shadows
The fragile, unspoken alliance was sealed. The two men—the disgraced brothers Klaus had chosen not to kill—turned and disappeared toward the main avenue, destined to become bait for bigger fish. Klaus felt no remorse. They were adults; they had made their choice. In the economy of Necropolis-7, hope was the most inflated and dangerous currency.
He, on the other hand, had invested in pragmatism.
With the Thermal Vision Goggles [RARE] firmly on his face, the world shrank into a strategic game of light and shadow. He skirted the pump room, finding a service passage leading into the bowels of the laboratory complex. The air shifted, from mold and rust to the sterile scent of cleaning agents and technological decay. The walls were dirty white, marred by plasma burns and dark splatters.
His HUD mapped the structure. He was in the utility levels, beneath the main entrance. The group controlling access was directly above him.
Climbing an emergency metal staircase that groaned under his weight, he paused at the door leading to the loading hall—the "point of blockade." Through the concrete wall, his thermal visor revealed the scene with terrifying clarity.
Four heat signatures. Four recruits.
Two guarded the main loading door, a partially open steel roller door. They crouched behind barricades of tables and equipment, their vibrant orange outlines betraying contained tension. One held a hunting rifle, the other a shotgun similar to Klaus's.
The third patrolled an office area overlooking the hall, a heat signature moving back and forth with the tedious regularity of a Bot. He had a long gun, likely a bolt-action rifle.
The fourth was the problem. The coldest, most contained signature. He didn't move much. Positioned at a high point—a control room with bulletproof glass—he dominated the entire hall. A sniper. And he wasn't looking out; he was scanning inside, sweeping the hall and its entrances. This group was disciplined.
Klaus crouched, his mind working fast. The distraction of the two men out front would be useless if this sniper could relocate and eliminate them before they even got close. And he, Klaus, could not simply enter the hall. He would be a target for the sniper and the other three.
He needed a different entry. An angle the sniper wouldn't expect.
His eyes scanned the thermal visor, studying the ceiling and walls. Then he saw it. A large ventilation duct, just wide enough for a man to crawl through, running along the ceiling of the corridor he was in and entering the wall of the hall, probably emerging at a high point, perhaps near the control room.
It was risky. Noisy. Claustrophobic. But it was the only move.
With the tip of his M1911, he pushed aside the duct grate. The noise seemed explosive in the corridor's silence. He froze, looking through the thermal visor. None of the heat signatures in the hall moved. No one had heard.
He slipped into the duct. A dark, dusty metal tunnel, forcing him to crawl on his stomach, pushing the backpack and shotgun ahead. The air was hot and stale. His elbows and knees ached with every movement. The thermal goggles were cumbersome in the tight space, but he didn't dare remove them.
He crawled for what felt like an eternity, guided only by the HUD map and the muffled voices he could now hear coming from the hall.
"…nothing yet. Maybe we killed them all," said one voice.
"Calm down. The System hasn't announced victory. They're still out there, rats hiding," replied another, deeper. The leader's voice, perhaps.
Finally, he saw an exit. A ventilation grate. He crawled to it and peered through the slats.
He was on a high wall of the hall, at the far corner opposite the main door. Below him, the two guards at the barricade. To his right, at ground level, the office area where the patroller moved back and forth. To his left, at the same level, but across the hall, was the glassed-in control room. Through the bulletproof glass, he could see the sniper, lying prone, the long shape of his rifle aimed at the main door.
Klaus was behind all the lines of defense. He was a ghost inside their fortress.
Then the sound began. First, distant shouts. Then, gunfire. The two men from the main avenue had started their suicide attack.
Immediately, the hall went into full alert.
"Contact! Front!" shouted one of the barricade guards.
The office patroller ran to a window, adding his bolt-action rifle to the fire.
Klaus focused on the sniper. His heat signature remained steady, focused. The control room window was slightly open for ventilation. Klaus heard the dry crack of the sniper rifle. Crack!
One of the attackers outside must have fallen. The sniper was good.
It was time.
Klaus showed no mercy. He was the Gravedigger.
He kicked the duct grate out. It crashed onto the hall floor with a metallic thud. Four pairs of eyes, including the sniper's, turned to the sound, to the shadow now emerging from the wall.
But Klaus was already moving. As he dropped to the floor, he didn't aim at the guards. He aimed at the control room. At the sniper.
The Winchester Shotgun roared in his hands. Boom!
The lead load didn't penetrate the bulletproof glass but covered it in a web of white cracks, obliterating the sniper's view. The man inside the room screamed in surprise and threw himself to the side.
Klaus was already moving, rolling behind a stack of boxes. The barricade guards now had an enemy behind them. They spun, disoriented.
The office patroller opened fire in Klaus's direction, but his shots were blind, hitting the boxes.
Klaus swapped the shotgun for the M1911. Precision mattered now. He peeked through a slit, the world in shades of gray and orange. The patroller was repositioning, his heat signature clear against the cold wall.
Klaus took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. Two shots. Pap! Pap!
The patroller's heat signature staggered and collapsed, extinguishing.
>> ENEMY RECRUIT ELIMINATED. +50 EXP. <<
One of the barricade guards, the one with the shotgun, screamed and charged Klaus, panicked. Amateur mistake.
Klaus stood, M1911 firm. Pap! The man took a shot to the chest; his ballistic vest saved him, but the impact knocked him down. Klaus aimed for the head. Pap! The heat signature vanished.
>> ENEMY RECRUIT ELIMINATED. +50 EXP. <<
The second guard, smarter, retreated, firing to cover his escape toward the offices. Across the hall, the sniper, now blind and powerless in his broken glass box, fired randomly.
Then Klaus heard the shouts of his "allies" outside. They were pouring in, taking advantage of the chaos he had created.
The loading hall, once a fortress, was now a killing field. And Klaus, the ghost, had dug the first and most crucial grave. The battle for the complex had begun, and he was at its center. The smell of gunpowder and blood was the perfume of his survival.