Chapter 2

He tumbled roughly down the stone incline, hitting a ledge before sailing through the darkness somersaulting multiple times before crashing face down into the water. Dakota pulled himself up from the water heaving for air as a pair of strong hands gripped his shoulders and brought him back to his feet, once his ears stopped ringing, he could hear Rae's internal Geiger crackling loudly. He whipped his head around and looked up in utter confusion, as far as he could see there was nowhere, he could have fallen in from not even any source or form of light. Just crushing darkness. His eyes, after some time of looking around, locked onto two glowing aquamarine orbs in the darkness. The eyes brightened just enough to illuminate both Dakota and Rae's faces in the oppressing darkness, she flashed him a smile and his rage rose over his confusion.

"Fancy meeting you down- "

The moment he recovered from his dazed state the hyena's fist shot out and rocked the synth as his eyes began to adjust to the darkness. Her head snapped back in pain from the sudden impact as she nearly toppled over into the water, "What's your major malfunction? The hell were you thinking?! You drag us through a damn warzone and now we're stuck in wherever this is!"

"If you shut the hell up a minute, I'd tell you." He could faintly make out the wolf massaging her jaw, "Although that didn't go as planned, thanks to you rushing my explosive work... We're right were the Minimap says we should be. Though... This place isn't on any maps almost like this underground passage doesn't exist, well it wouldn't exist on Imperial maps at least. I know this place, old Hellfire smuggling route. We used to run data chips and guns through here. They just stopped using it a few years back though, always wondered why."

His rage slowly ebbed as he took a few deep breaths.

"So, then this is what that AI intended to happen?"

"Looks like it." She sounded quite annoyed now and pointed off in the dark, "I came down the same alley, took the same tumble you did. If we fast march due about... say that way, we can easily get ourselves outta here."

"This place is also flooded with radioactive water and we're about waist-deep in it. I'd rather not die in an irradiated hole."

There was something that both could come to an agreement on. They began to trudge through the water in silence, Dakota up front leading with the flashlight on the barrel of his gun and Rae on his tail monitoring her motion tracker. The combined echoes of the churning water and the Geiger began to make the cavern seem to stretch endlessly. The hyena wanted nothing but to fill the permeable silence with some kind of conversation, but something didn't quite sit right with him, the cave was devoid of life as far as he could tell but he felt the glare of something watching the both of them and if it lived down in the dank hole they were in it couldn't be friendly. The cavern seemed alive, the darkness breathing, it made Kota's skin crawl. They could both feel the unnatural silence. It felt alive, moving just beyond their vision and slowly constricting them. Oddly enough, Dakota noticed his flashlight seemingly becoming dimmer, yet he kept this to himself as Rae had no need for a flashlight.

"Wait!" Rae hissed sounding on edge, "You hear that? Like someone's- "

"Using the cover of our movement to converge on us? I had a suspicion." At this point, the hyena was already getting slightly nauseous, but the feeling evaporated when he heard the movement this time.

They both halted simultaneously. "This can't be right, it says... We're surrounded?"

They both looked around but saw nothing in the limited light, the place was quieter than a crypt. The place was barren, but Dakota picked up the pace. All he could feel was an immense sense of dread as if he should be running for his life, whatever was down here he knew for certain he didn't want to come face to face with it.

"Something's interfering with your motion tracker, a jammer hopefully. Whatever it is wants us to stay down here and that's not gonna happen. Turn off the tracker, we can follow the current it'll lead us out."

After what felt like hours of slow trudging Dakota spotted a glint of light not too far off from where they stood. The water level had significantly lowered to shin level. The sense of dread was now a pounding headache, something was trying to get his attention.

Dakota grabbed Rae's shoulder, stopping in his tracks before dropping his voice down to a whisper. "There's the way out. Rae, I think I figured out why they stopped using this route. Wait for my 'go'."

He felt every instinct screaming in protest as he turned off his flashlight, this could be a mistake.

They stood perfectly still, in absolute silence. That's when they heard it. Something, or rather multiple things, dragged through the water. With it now in proximity they could both hear the sickening cracks and pops from what they could only imagine was its twisted form, a low gurgle following said noise. As slowly as he could the hyena reached for his belt and almost sighed in relief as his hand made contact with a cylindrical object on his hip, he winced as the pin jingled slightly as it was removed from his side and his breath hitched as he realized just how quiet it was all of a sudden. No pops, no cracks, no horrendous noise.

Dead silence.

Patient silence.

Dakota yanked the pin before launching the tube in the air, "Go, GO!"

The creatures shrieked in agony as the flashbang repeatedly fired off its payload, meanwhile, the two had shouldered their weapons making a mad dash for the light. The flow of water grew stronger with every step. Rae led by a few feet.

Dakota cried out as his legs were pulled from under him and he was submerged, his hand shot down to the sidearm and he blindly squeezed off two rounds. The creature that had grabbed him staggered back and the hyena shot to his feet, pelting after his partner. He didn't dare slow down. Sewage drain, I wonder where it-

He had no time to finish his thought as something in his mind screamed for him to jump and he complied. Blood roared in his ears as he leapt into the air, and that was when he got a good look at where he was. There was a thick forest just outside of the outer zone of the helix and as luck would have it, they managed to get outside the helix limits.

Dakota hit the ground, rolled and spun on a knee with his gun trained on the drainage pipe. But nothing followed, no angry monster, nothing. Just the silent flow of water.

Rae dropped down from a nearby tree, her gun was drawn.

"Thought I lost you there brother."

Dakota didn't take his eyes off the drain, "Takes a lot more than a bit of radiation and some freaks to kill me."

He finally looked Rae in her eye and she flinched.

"Dakota, you didn't fall in that shit did you?"

"Why," He noticed it how oddly bright it seemed outside as if it were daylight. "I fell in twice. Once when we first got here and we escaped I got pulled under by whatever those things were."

"It might be a stretch but you might be incredibly susceptible to radioactive mutation- your eyes are glowing. Like- I mean like, really glowing like mine. Like, pew pew laser- Uh- I mean- I guess you should consider yourself lucky, most would die from the sheer amount of radiation we were just exposed to. I wasn't thinking about it at the time but, you should've been baking under all those rads. I think our AI friend knows more than he let on."

Dakota nodded. At this point they needed to find whatever the AI was leading them to, he wanted answers and that damn AI was going to give them to him.