Crysis: The Guardian Prophecy

The elevator slammed into the ground a few minutes later. Alcatraz opened the doors and stepped out, Psycho close behind.

“Cloak and survey the area,” Alcatraz ordered. They both scanned the area, Alcatraz using his tactical visor and Psycho with his integrated binoculars. They both found no threats, and decloaked.

Alcatraz drew his Grendel and Psycho readied his Mk 60. They advanced along the deserted outskirts of the Undercity, scanning for zombies. That still struck them as odd, insane actually, the idea that they were in a zombie-infested city, something they’d seen in movies and games, but never expected in real life.

After several minutes of walking, they came to the dig site. It was surrounded by a hastily erected chain-link fence, which had several holes in it. Inside were a dozen or so tents, each torn and tattered.

“Switch up,” Alcatraz ordered. He switched to his Jackal and Psycho switched to his SCARAB. One by one they searched the tents, finding nothing but dead bodies in them. None had anything of note other than the corpses.

Finally, they came to a large tent, which they assumed to be the heart of the camp. Outside were dozens of bodies, mangled and in varying states of decay. Some belonged to guards and archaeologists, but many more to the zombies.

“All grunts,” Psycho commented. “Wait never mind. Dead bull.”

“I hate Red Bull. And Monster, and Rockstar, and energy drinks. Yes, I know what you said, I was just putting that out there. Looks like there aren’t any griffons, our girl didn’t die here at least.” Alcatraz moved to the side of the tent’s entrance. He could tell just by looking that the fabric it was made of was very durable, and after testing it with his knife, he concluded that was true; that meant that it hadn’t been penetrated forcefully. “Stack up.”

Psycho took position on the other side of the tent’s entrance. Alcatraz counted down with his fingers, and upon making a fist, he and Psycho stormed into the tent.

They looked everywhere, and found no bodies save for a unicorn mare that had a hole in her chest. The bones were shattered and they could see straight inside her. Red-gray organs glistened, still wet.

“You think we’ve got Xenomorphs down here too?” Psycho asked after staring at the body for a few minutes alongside his companion. “Looks like a Chestburster.”

“Nah. Bones’d be broken outward, a few chunks hanging on. I think she got impaled.” A quick scan confirmed it. “Yup, impaled.”

The two of them began to search the room for anything that’d give them a clue as to where Gilda, or the other guards and diggers were. There was a single filing cabinet, but the way it was organized put the newest papers in it at two weeks prior. Most desks were empty or full of blank papers, with a few packs of cigarettes, flasks of booze, and snacks on them. The computers were all trashed or otherwise inoperable.

Alcatraz moved to a corner desk and checked the top of it. Some papers, pencils, and a leather-bound journal. He opened the journal to find it was hollowed-out, and a small transparent DVD-ROM case fell out. Inside was a disk with the words “FINAL REPORT; 00:12:36” scribbled on it in blue marker. A laptop was also on the desk, his tactical visor telling him it had a few minutes charge left.

“Yo, Psycho. Got something.” He turned on the computer, slid the disk in, and recognized the Apple logo, or a pony equivalent. It took several minutes before the rainbow wheel stopped spinning and he could actually use the computer. “I hate Apple.” He moved the mouse over to the disk drive and double clicked. Psycho was standing next to him, occasionally glancing at the entrance, their only exit.

A window opened, and the video began to play. The length read as twelve minutes and thirty-six seconds.

On the screen, a sandy-brown young pegasus mare with a black and grey mane and red eyes, resembling Rainbow Dash, appeared on-screen. She wore a Pith helmet and had an olive drab shirt. She looked somber, as though she had just finished mourning a friend. Judging by the body in the background, which looked fresher that the one still in the tent, she had been. A few guards and archaeologists were in the background, Gilda among them.

“There’s our girl,” Psycho muttered.

The mare checked to make sure the camera was on.

“My name is Daring Do. I’ve been leading a dig in the Undercity, searching for the tomb of the first alicorn. Legend held that he had his most prized possession buried with him; a fire-ruby, known today as “The Alicorn’s Heart”, he’d found as a colt, which had grown with him and acquired the size and shape of a dragon’s egg by the time he died. Some legends also held that the wielder would bring about the end of an era for Equestria.”

“Boss, maybe you should focus on recent history?” Gilda suggested, still standing guard in the background. She looked unhurt.

“My crew was able to hold off the zombies for a while. We finally reached the tomb, and decoded the glyphs; the Alicorn’s Heart was moved to a second tomb, located underneath the Alicorn’s Obelisk, located in the heart of the city. There was a trinket that would fit perfectly into the Obelisk, and we think it’ll open a door into it. Just after we told everypony in the crew, they came. A horde of them, all at once, out of nowhere. They tore through our defenses, and killed most of us. Those of us who are still alive are headed to the Obelisk. Our anonymous benefactor is paying us a lot to get this thing, and now I think the best thing to do is keep them from getting it.”

“C’mon, boss. We gotta go before the next horde gets here.” The speaker was an earth pony stallion, brown coat and a chocolate mane. He wore a dusty vest and seemed to have been a scientist or techie judging from the way he was watching a seismometer and a few other sensors, which were gone now.

“If anypony finds this, try to contact us by radio. We have a few weeks of supplies with us; crappy rations, rechargeable batteries. We don’t have much ammunition though, and our medical supplies are low. The frequency is FM 140.15, contact us as soon as you can! Okay, how do I stop the recor-”

The video cut out as the laptop ran out of power.

“Fuck!” Alcatraz exclaimed. “Okay, get ready to head out, Psycho. I’m gonna try the frequency.”

Wait a minute, that’s Meryl’s frequency in MGS. Hope that isn’t an omen.

He activated his radio and selected the frequency he was told to use. It rang twice before someone picked up.

“Hello? Who is this?” A female voice asked. It matched Daring Do’s voice on the video.

“This is Theodore Alcatraz. I’ve been hired by Gallant Grimwing to rescue Gilda. I have a partner with me, Michael Sykes.” He and Psycho walked outside and switched back to their original weapons.

“Buck! Two more amateur mercs comin’ to save ya Gilda, I guess your dad got ones that could make it to the camp this time!”

“Ma’am, we’re many things, but ‘amateurs’ is not one of them. What’s your position?”

A sigh came over the radio. “I’m in an apartment building on the south side of town; corner of Elm and Silver. Sixth floor, we’ve barricaded ourselves in but we’re stuck now. Low on food and ammo. It’s just me and Gilda, and we’re both fine except for a few bruises. The Doctor is in another one several blocks east of ours, on Oak and Cherry; he’s got something we need. His frequency is 141.12. Our buildings shouldn’t be hard to find, they’re a lot higher than the other buildings in the area. Try not to die, alright?”

“Will do.” The link cut out. “Psycho, we’re splitting up. I need you to get the apartment building on Oak and Cherry, south side of town, a few blocks east of my objective. They just call him ‘the Doctor’. He has something they need, and you can get to him while I work on getting to our paid objective.”

“Why don’t we just get the cunt we’re supposed to rescue and ditch?” Psycho demanded, using a word less offensive in Britain than in America.

“Because if we help them do their jobs, we could probably get even more cash. If we find that fire-ruby they were talking about, that means good publicity for our group. Maybe we could get them onto our side and start something up.”

“Fine.” He relented. “Wait, did you say the bloke I’m supposed to rescue is called ‘the Doctor’?”

“Yeah, why?”

Psycho sounded amused. “You’ve never watched ‘Doctor Who’, have you?”

Alcatraz shook his head. “No. I watched like, two episodes and I didn’t have a fucking clue what was happening, so I just decided it was something I wouldn’t get. We can discuss this later. For now, let’s do our fucking jobs, okay?”

Psycho nodded and ran off with his Mk 60 at the ready. Alcatraz likewise ran to the city, which was north of them. That meant that it would be a shorter trip to their objectives.

***

“So Gilda, what’re you betting these mercs fail to rescue us?” Daring Do asked, slumped against a wall.

“Nothing. If I bet against them I either die and win for nothing, or I live and lose money. I can only lose by betting against,” Gilda replied, looking down at her weapon as she cleaned it.

“I guess that makes sense. But there’re only two of ‘em, and I don’t think that’s enough to make it through thousands of zombies.”

“Well, when dad said they were coming, he said they were humans. Don’t know how they’ll fight, but maybe they could make it. Always a possibility.” Gilda raised her brows as she said the last sentence, indicating she did believe it was possible, if improbable.

“What’ll you do if you get out alive? Me, I’m gonna take a break from adventuring and digging shit up. I’ll probably find a place to stay here and just watch some movies, eat junk food.” Daring placed hoer hooves behind her head.

“Heh. My place is always available. As for what I’d do? There’s an old friend of mine I haven’t talked to in a while, lives near Ponyville. I’ll probably write her a letter or something, apologize for how I was such a bitch when I was there.”

Daring cracked up after stifling a laugh. “I can just imagine you being all sensitive and shit, writing some teary letter to your marefriend. ‘I long for your touch, my love! It has been too long since we’ve felt each other’s embrace, and I yearn for our reunion.’” She resumed laughing at Gilda’s expense.

“Hey, she wasn’t my marefriend! Jeez. And I can be sincere, for your information. I just choose to be sarcastic instead. Let’s assume these guys get through to us. What do we have?”

Daring walked over to the duffel bag and searched it. She made a face that suggested a rotten stench, or an unpleasant reality. “Besides your Grendel and the 120 rounds you got? We’ve got my Majestic, 24 rounds of .50 Compact, another 6 loaded, a pair of M17 frags, and a few days of crappy MREs. We’re not much use unless they have ammo to spare.”

“Then let’s just hope they get here without using a lot of ammo.”

***

Psycho sprayed his Mk 60 into a horde of zombies. He’d almost been gored by a few slashers earlier, but he’d jumped to higher ground and had begun firing into the group, mowing them down in seconds.

“Twenty-two rounds, eighteen kills. Not too bad.”

He resumed trying to find a fire escape to the apartment complex, and eventually decided he’d have to go inside. He didn’t like doing that, getting close to the infected, but he didn’t have a choice. He switched to his SCARAB and readied the underslung shotgun.

He needed it. When he opened the door to the lobby, he found several brawlers ready to engage him. The first took two shells to fell, the first tearing out its intestines, and the second blowing away its head. The second got two shells as well; it charged at him and he sidestepped it, following by putting two shells into its back. With that, his underslung shotgun was empty.

He began firing bursts into the remaining brawler, each one weakening it as it sprayed 4mm sabot rounds in a drum roll of death. Finally, after emptying the magazine, Psycho drew his Majestic and fired all six shots into the brute, finally dropping it.

That concluded the battle, and Psycho reloaded his weapons. First he inserted a new cylinder into his Majestic, then he reloaded his SCARAB, and finally he put four shells into his underslung shotgun. He began to advance up the stairs, and he contacted the Doctor for the second time.

“Doc, I’m at the stairs. What floor are you on? Room number?”

“Eighth floor, room 842. How exactly do you plan on getting me out?”

“I thought I’d shoot my way out, mix things up a bit.”

“Uhhhhh. Okay, better idea. There’s a clothesline leading to an adjacent, albeit lower roof, accessible from room 808. If we can get into that wanker’s room, we can zipline out of here. All we need is something to hold onto it with.”

Psycho liked this pony’s thinking. “I can take care of that. How much can that line hold?”

“It’s rated for half a ton, why?”

“Between my Nanosuit and my gear, I might weigh a bit more than a normal person.”

“Wait, you have a working Nanosuit?”

“Talk to you soon, doc.”

“Wait! I have to know how th-”

Psycho disconnected and began to climb the staircases.

***

Alcatraz ran across rooftops, using the enhanced abilities his Nanosuit 2 gave him to jump between them with ease. It was quite fun actually, or at least for him it was. He would sprint across a building, jump into a window on an adjacent building, and run to the roof of that building as he continued his journey.

By doing this, he was able to stay off of the streets, which seemed to be swarming with zombies. Mostly he had to worry about the pegasus scouts and griffon elites knocking him out of the air. For the most part, he was able to dispatch them with a single headshot from his Grendel before and after his jumps.

Picking off zombies from rooftops became easy and enjoyable, as they ran to feast on their dead brethren and got themselves into tighter groups. The tighter groups would often die two at a time from a single bullet, or at least one kill and one disable. The 6.8mm tungsten carbide rounds tore through flesh and bone with equal ease, and often penetrated through multiple zombies, although usually only the first target would die.

Eventually, Alcatraz came to within a block of the apartment complex where Gilda Grimwing and Daring Do were located. It got rather complicated there. Zombies swarmed around the entrance, which was blocked off by rubble from the holes in the side above it. The bottom four floors were completely barricaded off by window, precluding jumping through them to enter the building. Throwing C4 and detonating it to open a hole didn’t seem like the best idea either.

Alcatraz contacted Daring by radio.

“Lemme guess, you’re lost?”

“No, I need a way into your building. The entrance is swarming with zombies and the lower windows are all blocked off. I can’t find a way to get in from the south side. Any suggestions?”

“You can’t fly, can you?”

“I didn’t train to be a pilot.”

“Nothing here, sorry. I guess you’re on your own.”

“Shit. Okay, it won’t be the first time.” Alcatraz let out a sigh.

What this suit really needs is a grappling hook. If I had one of those, I could get around really fucking easy. The N2 is pretty fucking great, but I can’t do shit to get across chasms. With a grappling hook I’d be able to get past anything. Maybe if the suit could shoot sticky nano-fibers, or crawl on walls. Fuck it, I need spider powers. I guess I’ll have to scale the walls the hard way.

“I got an idea. It’s risky, but it’s all I’ve got. Neither me or Gilda are in any shape to fly out into the open and carry you; we’re as grounded as you are. Try to-”

“Climb the walls? Yeah, I just figured it’d come down to that. I know you’re on the sixth floor, but I don’t know what room.”

“688. East side of the building.”

“Got it, I’ll stay on the line.” Alcatraz scanned the horizon for any scouts or elites, and found none. With the airspace secure, he holstered his Grendel and moved back for a running start. “Okay, I’m making the jump.” He began to sprint forward, and power jumped as he reached the edge.

“What? There’s no way you could make a jump from any nearby building!” She shouted while Alcatraz was in midair. He landed as she ended the sentence. His hands dug into the thick plywood boards that covered the window, and he planted his feet firmly on the windowsill.

“I just did. Now I’ve gotta get two floors up and make it to another side of the building.”

“Yeah, about that…”

Alcatraz sighed yet again. “Let me guess. The whole east side is blocked by some hazard?”

“Yeah. It’s turned into a nesting area for scouts. I think you’ll have to enter on the fifth or sixth floor on your side.”

“Well, at least that saves me the problem of trying to figure out a way to pass a corner.” Alcatraz looked up and saw a fire escape he could reach. “Hold on, I think I just found a shortcut.”

He leapt up to grab the bottom step of the fire escape, and gripped it as tight as he could. The metal he held onto seemed sturdy enough to hold him. At least, it did until the stairs bent under his weight.

“God dammit.” He pulled himself up and began to climb the corroded metal as fast as he could. He was fast enough to make it to the top before the metal fell to the ground. He kicked off the stairs and grabbed the ledge.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, just my makeshift ladder falling to the ground and almost taking me with it. No biggie.” He grunted as he pulled himself up and grabbed the inside of a window to pull himself even further up. He looked inside and saw that most of the floor on that level was gone. And so was the floor below it, and the one below that. That meant that even inside the building he was looking at a three-story drop.

“Not sure if I should go inside, or stay out here.” An ear-raping shriek gave him his answer. “Inside it is.” He shimmied inside and drew his M12, screwing on a suppressor and activating the laser sight. He pointed it down the hall, and then downwards so that the laser would illuminate the ledge he shuffled on.

“Just so you know, the floors below us are pretty much collapsed. You won’t have much to walk on.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Alcatraz noted sarcastically. “I’ll be there in a minute.” He terminated the connection

He continued his slow pace until he reached the stairs. Which just happened to be out, leaving the side rails as the only way for him to proceed upwards. So he holstered his pistol and jumped sideways, grabbing onto the bar. He shuffled his hands across the pipe, slowly advancing upwards.

When he reached the top of that bar, he kicked off of the wall, sending him flying across the staircase to the opposite bar. He shimmied up that one, and eventually came to the sixth floor, which didn’t have any holes in the floor.

Alcatraz pulled himself up and planted his boots on the floor, drawing his M12 and cloaking. He slowly proceeded down the hallways, searching for room 688, and found it.

Unfortunately, a pair of scouts had found it first, and were clawing at the door. They smashed it down by the time Alcatraz brought his pistol to bear. He shot the first in the head, splattering its brains over its partner’s face. The second one stumbled but didn’t enter the room.

Alcatraz, still cloaked, holstered his pistol and pinned the exposed pegasus against the wall near the door, out of sight of the occupants. He lifted its head, exposing its neck, and stabbed it in the throat with his knife, causing his cloak to briefly flash.

He reloaded his pistol, switched to his gray Grendel, and strolled in casually, stepping over the broken furniture that had barricaded them in. He decloaked and looked at the mare and griffon in front of him. They were both pointing their guns at him. In response, he activated his suit’s armor mode, spreading a faint blue glow across the nanoweave.

“Hey, you wanna waste ammo, be my guest. Otherwise, you simmer the fuck down, got it?”

Reluctantly, the two of them lowered their weapons.

“Where’re the Doctor and your partner?” Gilda asked. Her talons still gripped her Grendel tightly, showing clear distrust.

“Psycho’s getting the Doc as we speak. We split up before we entered the city, and both headed for separate objectives. I came for you two, and he went for the Doc. Now, how do you propose we get out of here?”

“You didn’t have a plan for that?” Daring Do looked at him harshly.

“Fine. Do you have a rope?”

“No…” Daring looked unsure.

“Yeah, we do. We were gonna use it to scale the inside of the Obelisk. I don’t know if you’re game for a treasure hunt, but we need this rope to make it down and back up, an eighty-hoof wall like the one we need to get down now.”
“How long is the rope?”

“A hundred-twenty, why?”

“I can make that shot. We tie it to something in here, climb down, and I shoot the rope at the point where it caresses the windowsill. You recover the rope, we meet up with Psycho and the Doc, and we go find that Obelisk. Sound good?”

“I don’t think you can pull off a shot like that, and I don’t think the two of you can add enough firepower to get us through the temple.”

Alcatraz chuckled. “I’m full of surprises.”

They tied the rope to a sturdy metal bar, hung it out the window, and climbed down it. Daring first with Gilda covering her, then Gilda with Daring and Alcatraz covering her. Alcatraz removed his left hand from his Grendel and grabbed hold of the rope. He slid down, his weapon ready the whole time. Thankfully, he didn’t need it.

Alcatraz contacted Psycho by radio.

“Psycho, I’ve got Daring and Gilda; they’re both alive and well aside from injured wings. How’re things on your end?”

“Brilliant. I jacked a motorcycle and we’re headed to the Obelisk. We’ll camp out in the nearby store until you get here. The Doctor has a trinket he says should open the Obelisk.”

“Good to hear. Out.” He shot the top end of the rope, severing it and sending it down to the ground. After Gilda rolled the rope back up and put it in the duffel bag, Alcatraz looked at Daring. “How far to the Alicorn’s Obelisk?”

“A few blocks north of here, can’t miss it,” Gilda answered.

A waypoint appeared on Alcatraz’ HUD, his suit's AI having detected it during his earlier trek to the apartments.

“Primary Objective: Reach the Obelisk.”

“Follow me.”

After an hour of traveling and avoiding the hordes, they arrived at the Obelisk and met up with Psycho and the Doctor in the nearby store. They had a dungeon to raid.