*** 2. The Lost Boys ***
Asscunt, Bucket and Tyrant didn't have room for another on the bike so they walked to the vault with 69. It was reasonably close by, making it strange that no one had noticed it yet.
69 explained that the drug makers must have taken great care hiding the entrance.
It was indeed only a tiny hole in the ground that led to a much bigger opening. Tyrant set his phaser to flashlight. 69 had brought a light source, too.
The three boys and one man made it into the damp tunnel until they met a vault gate. The round, enormously thick metal slab was ajar.
"Looks like they expected camouflage to take care of security," Tyrant whispered. "Do we just go in guns blazin'?"
69 nodded. "Think that's best. We want prisoners, so I'd like to give them a reason to surrender. If we barge in just to have a chat, they'll get time to organize."
"Aight. Bucket, Asscunt, stay behind me."
Asscunt gripped his crowbar tight and followed the two bigger guys into the vault. The metal floor was cold on his feet. As the weakest member of the unit, he stayed out of most battles.
It didn't take long to reach the end of the entrance corridor. Blue light flooded into the hallway from the first chamber where the brewers had set up.
Everyone in the room was nude.
Three man were out on the ground, having apparently sampled the latest batch of product. Two boys were lazily making out in the corner. Asscunt recalled seeing them around Crimson.
Only one man was fully alert, watching over a series of tubes where a colorless substance slowly bubbled through. He had his back to the entrance.
69 fired a shot at the tube construct, making it shatter with a puff of smoke right into the brewer's face.
"Yo, listen up scumbags!" the NewLaw officer shouted at the crowd. "Give up and come with me peacefully. I'll tie you up and you march in a neat row. If you have any other ideas about how it's gonna go, you can say goodbye to your fucking face, aight?"
The two boys in the corner scrambled for their thongs.
"Nope," Tyrant said. "You're comin' with us in the nude. Don't need thongs at court."
"Court?" 69 asked. "I think the chief is just going to flog them in town square. I know their fathers. No idea what we'll do with them after, though."
One of the boys dared to advance.
69 shook his head with a grin. "No clothes though. Need to be naked for flogging anyway. And you," he turned to the recovering brewer, "can help tie up these idiots on the ground. Any chance they'll wake up and make trouble?"
Asscunt and Bucket just watched the events. This had been a lot smoother than expected. If there were more drug brewers, the two boys would probably tell the chief. Getting flogged in public wasn't exactly proper procedure but Crimson wasn't fully under NewLaw rule yet.
"Yo," Bucket said. "Is that door sealed?" He pointed at the gate leading away from the room, deeper into the vault.
The man who had just taken an explosion to the face shrugged. "We never opened it. Only needed a hideout."
"So... there are prolly loads of goodies still here. Fuck, I can't believe I get to explore a sealed vault."
Asscunt chuckled. "Awfully excited, huh? We'll find rations and that's about it."
While 69 moved his prisoners outside, Bucket used his freak powers to freeze the seals until they were brittle enough to be shot off with a single phaser blast.
It was dark inside. Light from the first chamber only reached to the next bend in the hallway.
Tyrant lit the way into the stuffy depths.
"I think we should get more flashlights before- Fuck!"
Something attacked. A rotten green, humanoid creature jumped out of the shadows and clawed at Tyrant's face. Even though he was protected by ultimate armor, the hit made him fall backwards. He lost the phaser and its light went out as it hit the floor.
Asscunt swung his crowbar at the darkness where the creature had just been but hit only air.
The sound of punches and kicks in the darkness made him step back into the lit space of the first chamber.
69 returned and shone into the corridor, letting the unit members see their leader engaged in a struggle with two sickly green creatures.
"Infected!" Bucket yelled.
Was that possible? The infected were supposed to have gone extinct a good decade ago.
The freak slammed his hand forward and shot an ice shard at the clearest target. The projectile got stuck in in infected's chest, which did nothing to deter the creature.
Asscunt jumped forward and grabbed the phaser off the ground, now able to see where it had landed.
One shot and an infected head was separated from the body. Meanwhile Tyrant had gotten on top of the other assaulter and smashed its face to a pulp on the floor.
Once everybody had calmed down, Tyrant rose to his feet. "Well fuck me, there's gotta be a breach somewhere."
"Sure," Asscunt said, "but that doesn't explain how they survived here."
"Don't they hibernate?" 69 asked, back from the entrance.
"But they still gotta eat human flesh every now and then."
69 scratched his angular face. "If it's a danger for Crimson, we gotta have a look."
"Aight," Tyrant said and stepped farther into the dark hallway. "I'll go first. Can't bite through my armor."
The unit and the thug clone made their way through storage facilities and rooms of bunk beds. It seemed like the vault had never been inhabited.
...Until they found the room of cryo-capsules.
"What the fuck is this?" Tyrant asked.
Asscunt took a close look. "People froze themselves in those, so they would survive the end of civilization. Those capsules failed one after another, with no one to wake up the people inside."
"They're empty though." 69 looked around. "But there are bones all over the floor. Looks like the infected lived off the frozen people, eating one every time a capsule failed."
"Um guys?" Bucket said. "This one's still on, I think." He bend over the little view window. "There's a boy inside."
Thawing someone who had been in stasis for an unknown time was probably not a good idea but they could hardly carry the massive capsule outside.
It had taken only a few button presses and the machine woke up its inhabitant like it had been supposed to – a lifetime ago.
69 carried a lamp from the drug lab into the stasis room.
After five minutes of waiting at the open capsule, the boy in a wrinkly whole-body overall began to twitch. He had brown hair that was – unlike any hair Asscunt had ever seen – covering a lot more of his head than just a mohawk. It was strange to look at.
The unknown boy flinched and shot up into a sitting position with a startled scream. "W...wha...?"
He looked around the dim, desolate room with its decayed technology, human skeletons and cracked walls. Eventually his eyes landed on the four people present.
"Yo," Tyrant said. "Welcome to the future. Looks like the ice box didn't wake ya bunch up like planned."
There was no response except a wide eyed stare.
Asscunt waved at the boy. "Yo, don't be scared. We took care of the things that ate your friends."
An even more wide eyed stare.
Asscunt sighed. "Ugh, that sounds bad. I mean... We're lucky to have found you alive. We'll take you back to civilization."
The strange boy slipped out of the capsule and his naked feet hit the floor. "Where am I?" he said. "No, when am I? How much time passed?"
"That depends on when you were frozen." Asscunt shrugged. "Let's get out of here and talk. I'm sure you'll have a lot more questions when we're back at a city. This place is depressing."
The boy took a few hesitant steps. "O-okay?"
69 jumped in. "Might wanna take off that huge pile of clothes on your body, though. Climate's pretty warm in this day and age."
"But... I'm naked underneath."
"So?" 69 frowned. "We can get you a thong in town. Let's see how fuckable you look."
"F-fuck...able? But I'm straight."
69 frowned even harder. "...Straight up what?" He looked at the others for help.
The unknown boy coughed. Blood dripped from his lips.
"Oh shit," Tyrant said. "He prolly got the virus. Or the infected who lived here gave him the retro-virus and he's turnin' into one of them or somethin'."
Asscunt took a step back. "69, we need to bring him to the nearest Big Daddy for disinfection. They'll know what to do. Take the brewers to Crimson and come back with the bike. You need to take this boy to arcology 8."
"Fuck's sake," mumbled the stranger with his eyes on the stasis capsule. "From one crisis to the next."
How will crisis boy fare in a world where no one alive has seen a woman? Find out next time.
Chapter 3: Deep Penetration.