survivors_of_new_york | For The Lost

For The Lost

[You don't last long as a cop if you can't keep your head, can't spot a liar, can't notice patterns. Not anywhere, especially not where Benitez cut his teeth in Manhattan South, which - before the flu came - had the highest per-capita crime rate and third-highest per-capita homicide rate in the city.

Benitez has noticed a pattern, buried in the reports before him. Working a desk isn't the same as working the street, but feelings come back to him all the same. The numbers, the reports - something creeps up in his throat. The words come off the page and take on a life of their own, like a newly broken lock on a tenement door - a warning of horrors and dangers behind.

He pauses as he reads one sentence, ruffling a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. He re-reads it - then takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.

They're losing people. Not to the flu, that's a given - even though Kandel says she'll have a vaccine out soon - but in the sense that they just...disappear. Here one moment, gone the next. Not at the rate that would create a panic - maybe a half-dozen a month - and most of them are civilians by the outposts, but some have been right out of the BoO. Some bodies turn up, but not nearly enough to account for even a fraction of the lost.

It's too steady. Too consistent. People don't disappear like this unless someone makes them disappear.

He hesitates - then snaps a rubber band around the report and heads off, looking for Lindianne.]

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[Something inside her breaks. Lindianne clings back for a moment as fiercely as she dares. Her shoulders shake in the darkness. No sound escapes her lips. Whatever fear and terror this woman faced is echoed back twofold. Both of them are survivors of Hell; surely this moment can be spared for comfort's sake.]

[Surely this can be enough. It has to be. It will be.]

[Lindianne shushes her as quietly as she dares. One wrong sound and the entire mission could go wrong. She won't have Neptune's blood on her hands. Not if she can help it. She pulls back to arms length after a moment, blinking furiously. Her eyes sting. Her voice, thank God, is steady.]

I won't. But you can't come with me. If things go wrong, I'm not letting you get shot. We're going to get you out here. I promise.

[She pulls away. But she leaves the jacket behind. It's a shabby thing after months of wear, but it'll keep her safe and warm. The game face breaks for a moment into a pained smile.]

Keep the jacket for now, okay? For luck.

[When she turns back to Rabbit, Lindianne drops the smile. Go time.]

Neptune One, Wraith. Second story. Civilians present. Watch your fire.

[The woman breaks her grip piece by piece, trembling as she watches Lindianne go. Rabbit gives Lindianne the slightest of nods as they get back to work, going out into the hallway to clear the rest of the floor.]

One copies.

[A trio of sharp thwock-thwocks comes from where Preacher and Mother are. Death moans come through the wall, the sound of lungs shot full of holes and filling with blood still trying to work.]

Two EKIA.

[Suddenly, a shout from upstairs.]

Hey, Esco!

[By the stairwell, Voodoo tenses.]

Esco, you down there? What's going on?

[Dusty's smooth drawl comes over the net.] Mother, Dusty. Movement second deck, moving black side to white. No shot.

Yo, Esco! Fuckin' respond!

[Lindianne's feet feel like they barely touch the ground. She's on Voodoo's six after what feels like a split-second. She pauses there, one hand braced against his shoulder. The only response Dusty gets is a silent key of the radio from her.]

[Even kneeling, Voodoo's definitely got her beat on the muscle front. Most of the SEALs do; the SHD didn't pick her because she lifted weights in her civilian life. Lindianne is a greyhound, all coiled energy waiting for an outlet. She hesitates for a moment there. then, as if deciding something, she yanks her sleeve down. The ISAC beacon on her wrist vanishes. The light goes out.]

[The look she gives him is answer enough: do I have permission to go up there? And even if the answer is no, she's going anyway. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. The first step on the staircase is dead silent; walking next to the wall keeps the rotted stairs from creaking in protest.]

[She peers up into the second floor with her MP5 already raised. Esco is already as good as dead. His buddy isn't going to be any luckier. None of these assholes are.]

[They've seen their last day on this earth. They just don't know it yet.]

[Voodoo shakes his head when she asks - wait for the team is his unspoken reply - but he doesn't stop her when she starts to go up. His laser traces the edge of the staircase as he adjusts his position to better cover Lindianne's ascent.]

Esco! Fuckin' power's out, what's going-

[There's two of them coming around a blind corner from Lindianne's left as she ascends the stairwell. They're fit guys. That, plus their skivvy shirts, snow camo fatigues, and combat boots gives them away - off-duty LMB.]

-holy fu-!

[There's a soft puff as Voodoo puts two rounds through the leader's head, dropping him like a sack of potatoes and painting the wall opposite with his brains. The one following ducks as Voodoo shoots off more rounds. He unholsters a pistol almost inhumanly fast, squeezes off three rounds blamblamblam at Lindianne-]

Wraith's in contact, Wraith's in contact!

Edited 2022-09-21 07:29 (UTC)

[-before he even raises the pistol, Lindianne is already on the move for cover-]

Contact. Second floor, one EKIA.

[Her MP5 is more of a polite cough than a teeth-rattling burst of fire as she leans from cover. Most people would panic under such circumstances. Lindianne, however, sounds almost bored by the entire thing. Whatever fear she might feel has been swallowed up by the memories of everything that's come to this point. Nothing else matters but seeing this done.]

[She presses her back to the door jamb, ducking as a few shots pockmark the drywall over her head. No time to lose. No chance to escape.]

Wolfpack, do you have visual?

[Dusty comes over the radio again.] Yeah, we got him.

[The suppressed cough of Deuce's marksman rifle comes a microsecond before the deafening crash of a nearby window shattering from the 7.62 millimeter projectile and the thud of a body dropping to the floor. Then - silence.]

Bug food. You're clear, Wraith.

[From behind her, stacked up on the stairwell with the other SEALs, Mother lets out a soft sigh - making a mental note to chew Parker out later for trying to go it alone, perhaps. But for now, they've got a job.]

Neptune's taking the second deck.

[The SEALs advance up behind Lindianne, IR lasers covering every visible angle as they take the stairs one step at a time. As Voodoo moves to hold the stairway leading up, Preacher and Mother split off to clear the far half of the rooms, leaving the closer half to Lindianne and Rabbit.]

Hey! Hey, what's this about, eh?!

[The voice is coming from upstairs, tinged with an Eastern European accent. Rabbit doesn't acknowledge it as he moves to try the lock.]

Talk to me, druzi, and we can work this out, eh?! What you want - money? Guns? Girls?

[Locked. His mouth drops in a slight grimace as he slings his carbine off to the side and gets out his Halligan bar, fitting the flat end of it between the door and the frame next to the lock.]

Fucking say something, you assholes!

[It's funny how something so innocuous as a door can be so terrifying. There's no way to tell what horrors hide behind it. The fear can paralyze you, if you let it. Best not to let it.

Rabbit nods to Lindianne. On your go.]

Edited 2022-09-22 04:41 (UTC)

[She steps over the bodies with all the grace of a ballet dancer. She doesn't look at either one as the rest of Neptune catches up. LMB soldiers don't really factor into the equation for her right now. What does factor in is the terrified young woman downstairs with her jacket. A mountain of corpses mean nothing compared to that.]

[ISAC is still humming away, a steady orange glow in the edges of Lindianne's contact lenses. She glances at Rabbit as the rest of Neptune spreads out. She just as quickly jerks her head in the direction of the yelling. She cocks her head. Listens. Shakes her head.]

[He'll get his shortly. This comes first.]

[The darkness is suffocating. The air is rank and stale. The building groans faintly like a wounded animal. But Rabbit is a solid presence as he gets set. She rolls her firing shoulder and grimaces as it pops. Then, posting up, she glances at him across the door and nods once.]

[The instant he pops the door, she's through without missing a step.]

[The shotgun blast is like a cannon going off in the room as she moves past the threshold and out of the fatal funnel.

Later, when she's not fighting for her life, these are the things Lindianne will notice - an unconscious and bloodied teenaged boy handcuffed to the bed in the far corner, peeling paint on the walls, a bookshelf someone emptied and stripped for kindling and firewood long ago, turned over chairs and tables - behind one of which is a thug with an Ithaca 37. He's panicking, slam-firing double-aught buckshot in Lindianne's general direction - kaBLAMkaBLAMkaBLAM - and although Rabbit's coming through the door with his carbine raised, he still won't be on target fast enough if Lindianne isn't quick enough on the draw.]

[If her ears weren't ringing before, they are now.]

[The room is a blur of sensory information: bed, blood, decay, smashed furniture, cordite, hostile, shotgun-]

[The shotgun registers before the rest of it. Lindianne jukes left like a prizefighter ducking a haymaker and closes the distance. Her vest won't be worth a hill of beans at this range; one lucky shot and the only thing left of her ribcage will be roadkill. Her enemy isn't going to get the chance to put that theory to the test. She front-kicks the table into him to act as a distraction. It's all she needs.]

[The MP5 goes slack on its strap as she spear-tackles him to the floor. She doesn't wait before punching at his throat. Rage is one hell of a motivator. And right now?]

[Right now the only thing she feels is rage.]

[The thug's got thirty pounds on her, but Lindianne is still able to slam into him like a speeding bullet and knock him off his feet. His attempts to stop the blows Lindianne rains down onto him are futile - he was unprepared for her to close the distance that fast, and he's equally unprepared for the ferocity of the assault. The blows come heavy and fast, one slamming full-force into his Adam's apple-]

Parker-

[-the man gurgles underneath her, pupils dilating in the darkness as his windpipe closes, as he chokes to death underneath her as the blows continue to rain down-]

Parker-

[-whack. whack. WHACK. WHA-]

Parker, stop.

[-that'd be Rabbit wrapping his arms around her midsection and bodily pulling her off the thug, pushing her down into a corner before he turns back to the boy on the bed. He lays two fingers on the carotid, searching for a pulse.]

Postman, Neptune Two. We have one unconscious civilian. Notify the EMTs.

Copy, Two.

[A few doors down, there's a shot from what sounds like an AK and the precisely-machined thwock-thwock-thwock replies from the suppressed M4s. Rabbit turns back to Lindianne. The quad-NODs hide his eyes, but his mouth is drawn into a thin, solid line as he offers a hand up to Lindianne.]

Get it together.

[There's blood on her hands, cast-off speckling the front of her shirt as the blows rain down. She's down to shirtsleeves and thermal layer but the cold might as well not exist. Every blow is methodical. Robotic. The look on her face is blank. No emotion shows. There's no glimmer of humanity in her eyes.]

[WHA-]

[She rears back when someone grabs her from behind. The fist raised for the next strike doesn't come down. She turns, lips peeling back into a snarl, before Rabbit's presence registers. Instantly, the blank expression returns. She pauses. The fist remains hanging in air before she drops it to her side. It takes a moment.]

[Lindianne blinks at Rabbit. She opens her mouth to say something before snapping it shut. It's cold. The only warmth is from the blood on her hands. She broke the guy's nose with the second punch.]

[There's blood everywhere.]

...Shit.

[Her face screws up into something just this side of horrified before she ducks her head and takes his hand.]

...Neptune One, Parker. ...Sorry.

[There's no response from Mother. Or anyone else on the net, for that matter. Rabbit looks like he's about to say more - like he wants to say more - but, ever the professional, he swallows the words and heads back out into the hall. There's a few more thwock-thwocks from where Preacher and Mother are still clearing rooms.

Yep, Lindianne's definitely getting chewed out after this, chain of command or no.]

Postman, Neptune One, second deck secured. Five EKIA.

Copy, One.

[The SEALs assemble by the stairwell, Voodoo still holding point as he waits for the go to ascend. From upstairs comes the sound of heavy breathing, someone crying, the creak of aging wooden floorboards, the pump of a shotgun being racked-]

[A year and a half from now, drowning in the sweltering heat of a DC summer, Lindianne will watch Andre Larson vanish into the Dark Zone and understand just what can make an agent of the Division crack.]

[-she doesn't move this time. No reckless headlong charge into the killzone. No cheating death. She stacks up behind Voodoo, MP5 trained up the stairwell alongside the others. Dried blood flakes from her knuckles as she shifts her grip. She glances askance at Mother. Then, just as quickly, her eyes dart forward.]

[Oh yeah. She's in the doghouse, all right.]

[Her voice is a barely-perceptible murmur in the rancid air.]

On your go, Mother.

[The chain of command is restored.]

[Mother reaches around Lindianne to squeeze Voodoo on the shoulder, and like that, the team starts to ascend the stairs.]

Neptune taking the third deck.

[Their every step is silent, precise. Their IR lasers dance over every nook and cranny of the tenement as they creep deeper into the belly of the beast. The silence is drawn out, like a steel spring stretched to its breaking point, about to snap.

From behind one of the doors, at the end of the hall, comes the sound of fierce arguing and some muffled crying. Then, as the crying reaches a fever pitch:]

Okay! You wanna be tough guys, druzi? I'll show you what happens to tough guys!

[BLAM - then terrified screams, and the sound of a body hitting the floor like a sack of potatoes. Mother pats Voodoo on the shoulder, as if to say hurry up, and he does.]

You got three seconds to drop your weapons before I pop the next one! One-

[Their stack on the door is imperfect. There's little room to maneuver in these cramped tenement hallways, and so the best they can manage is a single file on the door as Voodoo takes out his Halligan and Mother preps a nine-banger.]

Two-

[Voodoo sticks the pry bar into the doorjamb and looks back at Mother, who nods.]

Three-!

[The door pops open, Mother tosses the nine-banger around Voodoo to bank off the interior wall, and then-]

Edited 2022-10-01 01:33 (UTC)

[There are some days in a person's life that count as "a long dark night of the soul". Lindianne's had far too many of those since Black Friday. No doubt she's going to have more.]

[The bang is teeth-rattling even from outside the room. The screams rise into a new crescendo. There's muffled cursing from the armed asshole in the room. There's no time to hesitate. Lindianne is second in the door, MP5 raised and waiting for targets. Come hell or high water, the assholes responsible for this are dead men. They've seen their last sunrise on Earth.]

["You act one way when Ms. Lau is watching and another way entirely when you're off the leash. That's interesting contradiction."]

[Her voice is barely louder than a hiss of air.]

Go, go, go!

[The SEALs storm into the room, and the next three seconds are controlled chaos. Between the hostages screaming, the aftereffects of the banger playing havoc with their NODs, and the cramped quarters, it's only through their years of training that the SEALs are able to focus on what's important: the assholes with guns.

One of them is in the corner, furiously blinking as he tries to regain his sight.

Another is deeper into the room along the back wall, raising a MAC-10 towards them.

A third - clearly the smartest of the bunch - is tossing his pistol to the ground and getting on his knees with his hands in the air.

Two infrared lasers apiece land on the others moments before they're thoroughly ventilated and crumple to the floor. The smart one - a male in his mid-20s in work pants and a ratty t-shirt - seems to shrink back at this, throwing his hands even higher up as Voodoo and Preacher move to the downed gunmen to put insurance rounds in their heads.]

Hey-hey-hey, don't shoot, don't shoot! I give up!

[His accent and vernacular are American, but even beyond that, there's something familiar about him - in the bridge of his nose, in the cut of his jawline...]

Jesus H. Christ.

[That's Benitez over the com link. Apparently he sees it, too.]

Parker, cuff that prick and keep your feed on him. Straley, get Dr. Kandel down here now.

[Something about him is ringing alarm bells in the back of her head.]

Understood, Benitez, I got him.

[Lindianne's on him in an instant, already digging a pair of zip-ties from her go-pack. He tries to squirm away but the attempt is futile when he's up against an irritated Division agent. It's a moment's work to secure his hands behind his back. Lindianne looks down at him, fingers drumming on the stock of her MP5 as she does so. Something about him... the jawline, the profile when he turns his head... why is he ringing a bell?]

[The voices of the SEALs fade into a background drone. The cold doesn't bother her much now. The goraning protest of the building becomes white noise. All that matters is the man in front of her, Benitez's voice in her ears, and the glint of orange in her contact lenses from ISAC.]

Captain? Mind giving me the sit-rep here?

[The SEALs are moving among the hostages, undoing their blindfolds and tending to their wounds. Their voices are soft as the hostages finally get a chance to breathe easy, even if some of their words are rushed and filled with pain. Their night of torment is over.]

Wait a sec, Parker.

[The world around her seems to buzz with static. Then:]

We've got an ID. Patrick Mackenzie. One of Kandel's head techs. Responsible for mortuary affairs and biohazard disposal - in other words, taking care of people killed by the Green Poison so the rest of us didn't get sick.

[The man on the inside. Even if Lindianne's radio link isn't audible to him, Patrick seems to sense something is up from the way he shifts in her grip and glances over her shoulder at her.]

Bring him in breathing. It's going to be a long few nights for him.

[To the side, one of the hostage is growing more and more inconsolable, even as Rabbit tries to calm her down. Words filter over - words like my sister and basement and please.]

[The word 'basement' makes Lindianne pause from frog-marching Patrick out of the room.]

[She pauses, head cocked in Rabbit's direction as she strains to listen to the words. For a moment, her grip on PAtrick's arm tighten until it's painful. Then, finally, she shoves him roughly towards Mother. The look on her face could stun a black bear from ten feet away.]

Rabbit, with me. Let's check this thing.

[She takes point when the time comes. Whatever's in that basement... whatever comes of Patrick's conspiracy... she'll be the first one to face it. Faye said as much back when they first met: they're connected to this city and its people. She owes them this much.]

[Rabbit nods and stands, exchanging a few words with Mother who, in turn, offers a perfunctory nod. They step over corpses, shell casings, and weapons as they make their way down to the first floor, to where the door to the basement is located behind a staircase.

It's a door like any you'd see in any tenement in the city at this point - slightly splintered, paint slightly peeling, a rusty old doorknob that looks like it needs more than a few cans of WD40...that is, before you take another look and see the thick padlock and chain that's reinforcing the deadbolt.

Rabbit swings the bolt-cutters over his back and puts the teeth on the padlock. As soon as Lindianne gives him an affirmative signal, he breaks it, letting the lock clatter to the floor. The door slowly swings open, seemingly of its own accord, like it's releasing a breath it's been holding for months. Then...silence.

In front of Lindianne is a long stairwell down. Her NODs struggle to amplify the ambient light down there, because there is none to amplify. And - the smell...that sickly sweet smell...]

[There are things that haunt you long after they've taken place. Sensations that linger like ghosts in the mind.]

[They both know what that smell is. Lindianne's caught a whiff of it every day fighting to retake New York. The Dark Zone reeked of it during her desperate trip into it. Anyone that's set foot in the mass graves of Central Park knows what that smell signifies. It's death down there. Death and rot and decay.]

[She hesitates for a moment. The darkness is suffocating. NODs are useless when there's no light. The idea of fighting for a penlight and turning it on makes her stomach twist into knots. Common sense screams that whatever is down there is best left unseen. That's Hell down there. No one sane would willingly face it.]

[But there's no choice.]

[The first step on the stairs falls like a death sentence. The penlight is blinding against the oppressive darkness. When Lindianne strides into the darkness, it is with the grim certainty that whatever is down there will break her.]

[She prays she's wrong.]

[It gets stronger with every step, that smell - as if to say turn back now, now, now.

The staircase creaks beneath her feet, and Rabbit's as he follows behind her. As her penlight darts to and fro, tracing over the corners of the space, the pipes and breaker boxes tell what this place might have been before the poison struck. A utility cellar, maybe, or low-rent apartment space. Water drips from condensation on the pipes, and rats scurry underfoot. The smell is strong enough now to block out conscious thought. And then...

Barrels. Robins-egg blue 55-gallon plastic drums, dozens of them, are stacked floor to ceiling in this basement and duct-taped shut.

It's easy to pick one out for investigation, but it's heavy, and the contents slosh around with any maneuvering Lindianne or Rabbit might undertake to make it easier. The duct tape seal is no match for a knife the kind either of them might have.

Acid isn't the be-all and end-all to body disposal that some might think it is. Even a strong acid like HCl takes several days to dissolve skin and connective tissue, and several more to dissolve bone and teeth. In the meantime, the remains form a kind of biologic sludge, the scent of which is overpowering.

As the barrel is jostled, a few fragments of bone are stirred up, along with some teeth, and sink down further into the acid.

Now that they're down in the basement proper, the two of them can see a door that wasn't visible from upstairs. It's locked - and, if you squint, you can see a glimmer of red light leaking out from underneath.]

[Lindianne senses something is deeply wrong as soon as the light falls on the first barrel.]

[It isn’t until her knife cracks the seal, that the light falls on the contents, that the truth comes into stark contrast. She lurches backwards away from the sludge, one hand pressed against her nose and mouth. Her eyes dart just as quickly to the mountain of identical containers. It doesn’t take a genius to realize what this basement is: a graveyard.]

[The thought rises unbidden: which one is Sam? Bile rises in the back of her throat. Her nose stings. Training is the only thing that keeps her from throwing up; it’s a close call even with that factored in.]

[Aaron Keener’s voice echoes in the back of her mind: “You haven’t seen the base savagery people are capable of when their backs are to a wall.”]

[She moves for the door before Rabbit has time to stop her. The wait to breach feels like eternity. Time stretches like tree sap. And the dead remain silent.]

Edited (GD ENTER BUTTON) 2022-12-06 18:05 (UTC)

[Rabbit takes the other side of the door, taking out his Halligan and fitting the prybar into the hinge of the door. He looks up at Lindianne, the quad-nods hiding the look in his eyes - but his mouth is grim, drawn into a thin line. He's ready to finish this.

He wrenches the bar, shattering the lock. Metal dents underneath his foot as he donkey-kicks the lock, sending the door flying open.

The inside of the room is bathed in red light from a handful of jerry-rigged bulbs overhead. From the layout, this seems like a combination of darkroom and detention center - a few pens like the kind you might keep a large dog in are in the center of the room. Off to one side, a few exposures of what looks like homemade porn hang from clotheslines, and an exposure bath and some development chemicals lie beneath them.

On one side of the room, a young man stripped down to his underwear is handcuffed to a radiator. His face is bruised and covered in dried blood - he looks more like a tomato than a person. Knots have formed on his cheeks where it looks like someone took a pipe or sock full of batteries to his face.

Rabbit takes a knee to check his pulse.]

Postman, Neptune Two. We have one more for the EMTs. Blunt-force trauma, possible brain damage.

Copy, Two.

[The young man opens his eyes - or, at least, something moves on his face. His shoulders heave with panicked breaths as he squirms, like a caged dog backing away from a man with a whip. Rabbit is gentle as he lays a hand on his shoulder.] Hey, take it easy. We're JTF. You're safe now.

[He takes out his multitool and gets to work on undoing the cuffs.]

What's your name?

[Nothing but whistling air sounds. It takes a few false starts through bruised and swollen lips for anything intelligible to come out.]

S-

S-

S-

[A determined swallow. Then:]

S-S-Sam.

[Sam Yoon. 16 years old. New Yorker born and raised. His mother is alone back at the Base of Operations. He'll survive, but he'll never be the same again.]

[He's luckier than almost everyone else in Benitez's files. There's not enough left of them to give anyone closure. The basement feels too small for so much suffering. the air is thick. Lindianne can't breathe. Can't think. Can't do anything besides put a hand on Sam's shoulder and squeeze it as gently as she dares.]

[They're down there for what feels like an eternity. She fades back up the stairs at some point before the JTF medics arrive. The building will be sealed up, of course. No one else is going to be using this as a base for inflicting human suffering. The perpetrators are either dead or in lock-up. It's over.]

[Try as they might, the JTF never find a sign of Eugene Peterson. They never find his body. The only reminders that he ever lived in an ECHO recording and the watch in Lindianne's hands.]

[Neptune won't have to look hard to find her when they come looking. All they need to do is listen for the inarticulate cry of rage and the sound of metal skidding across the floor. She's sitting halfway up the stairs to the second floor, arms folded over her knees and her head buried inside the protective circle. Her ISAC watch lies at the foot of the stairs. The orange glow feels like a match against a starless night: almost pointless.]

[She says nothing. Merely sits.]

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