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Marine Lives: 2: Arthur Ghent and his flood descovery
Posted By: Pandora Tomorrow<Mortified__Penguin@hotmail.com>
Date: 22 August 2005, 2:53 pm
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"Come on Lammy, stop screwing around. Answer me!"
Corporal Arthur Ghent had spent the last ten minutes banging his fist against the wall. His black hands were now covered in scrapes from hitting a sharp point in the in the wall. He was a tall, coloured man, about 6'4, and had black hair. His muscular buildup made him a prime choice for home raids, as he did along with other members of the UNSC, before they all joined up. It was either join or jail. He had already served his compulsory three years in the corp., but it had become… a family to him. After his parents had died in a patrol on reach, he had sworn never to join them. But now, after he had realized his crack shot aiming skills, he had decided that this was the life he was born for. And he stayed for another 2 years before moving up to the Special Forces six months ago. But sadly, on his first undercover operation, the covenant had released some kind of toxic gas, and as he didn't put on his gas mask in time, he was badly affected. He came down with asthma, whish affected his overall stamina. He adopted the role of short scout, and today was in fact his first expedition with less than five men accompanying him since the accident. He was glad at the time, but now he felt very different.
After he had fallen down, or, to be precise, was pushed down by Lambert, as he was scared of heights, the piston that had lowered to the floor had risen up, leaving the original way out screwed. He would have to find another way out.
"Can you hear me Lambert?"
Just as he was about to give up calling him, he heard pistol shots coming from the other side of the wall. Lammy had run into trouble, but he couldn't help him, and he was damned if he was going to do the same as well.
He lent against the wall, took out his inhaler, took a puff, and started moving.
The room he had fallen into was small, yet it had two odd features: one, two extensions in the wall, without the floor, leaving a hole in each one, and; two, a small octagonal box on the side of the wall, with something covering it up, and emitting a loud humming noise.
But more fortunate for him than Lambert, he knew what it was, as he had seen them before. He also knew what came out of it, which was why he readies his battle rifle, and shot a few rounds at the box. It blew up fairly quickly, and destroyed whatever was about to emerge from it.
He walked to the wreckage and looked for the bullets. Damn, he thought. Five of the bullets were within one decimeter of each other, which was actually quite good, but the sixth had missed the box completely. This showed Arthur that his recoil was increasing. He would have to have a firmer grip next time.
He walked up to the holes in the floor. They were about as large as the hole he jumped down before. But these ones were sloping. He could see the top floor sloping down to a drop, with one other floor sloping the opposite direction. It reminded him of a toy he used to have when he was little. Marble Run it was called. The marble would move down in a zigzag on a few of the pieces. He slapped himself. I'm going mad, he thought. I'm not goddamn three, so act your age Ghent.
This seemed to be the only way out. The other one was a vertical drop about fifty feet, which he obviously couldn't take. Yet even a small fall of 10 feet terrified Arthur out of his wits. But there was no other option. He closed his eyes tightly, and jumped down.
Arthur thought his heart was going to give up as he slid down the seemingly endless number of ramps. He was falling, faster than he could stop, and faster than he could turn, so very time he fell down to another slope he would bang against the wall, possibly breaking another bone in his body each time. After about a minute of this torture, and after his head had been cracked as it hit the end of one of the slopes and his arms had been turned black and blue with bruises, he fell down his twentieth slope onto flat ground, flat onto his back. As he hit the floor, his head crashed into the wall beside where he landed and the shock easily knocked him out cold.
He came around about an hour later. When he aroused he found that he couldn't move his head out of the sheer pain that it caused. He looked down. There was blood strewn all over the floor. Anyone looking at him would have thought he wad already dead with the amount of blood there was. He couldn't move. He could only look around him. To start off with, his vision was a complete blur, but as time went on, he could see energy shields, purple ones, that blocked the entrance to the six doorways there were: three to his left, three to his right. There was also another hole in front of him, shielded too, but he wasn't going to take that route anytime soon.
He decided that he should at least try to get himself back on his feet. In his backpack he had two med kits, each containing three large bandages, two syringes to numb the body after serious injuries and two large packets of painkillers. But first he would have to get them off his back.
He started with his fingers, twitching them at first, and gradually moved more and more until he was clenching and unclenching his fist freely. Then the arms. These were much easier, as he always used to warm them up every time he got up in the morning, and he was soon able to try to get the backpack off.
His head was still agony to move so he had to slip the pack off behind him, and then bring around in front of him. He took the left shoulder off first, then used his left arm to help get the right shoulder off as well, and brought it onto his lap. He unzipped the bag and opened it. It was helpful that he had actually had spent more one his bag on earth, so he would have a zip instead of a button, and that would be too fiddly at the moment, as his hands were not strong enough yet. He took out one of the med kits and opened it. He picked up the pack. Neurol, It said. He tried to remember when Neurol tablets had become the UNSC's recommended painkiller. Two thousand and…. ergh, it was too painful to think. He opened the packet. Well, that's a good thing, he thought. He had only used a few.
Neurol tablets were renowned for their near complete and utter elimination of pain, yet still allowed the person to move with very little drowsiness. They were also known as the no-limit tablets, as you could have as many as you needed, even an entire packet, without having any side effects. Their discovery that removing ethanol and replacing it with citric acid neutralized the alkali in the tablet, which was in fact causing the side effects, gave them the chance for a major selling product and an expediential profit of 13 billion Earth dollars. Their discovery also meant that, after Arthur had swallowed thirty odd tablets, he was able to move his head without any pain at all, but he still moved slowly. He didn't want to cause any more damage to himself . The tablets may be good, but it didn't last forever. And when they ran out he would be in agony. He lent forward, using one quick movement as he didn't want to damage his skull any further, and took out two of the bandages. He spent the next two minutes winding the bandages around his head. When he was very young, he used to play a game called doctors. The aim was to roll the bandage around the injured part of the body, which the patient would call out. Arthur was always a master at the game, and many children his age would be in awe at the skill and speed he used to apply the bandage. This skill of his was just what he needed with a cracked skull like his.
"My head hurts, doctor," he said quietly to himself, smiling as he wound the bandages on. When he had finished, he delved his hand into his right pocket and took out his inhaler. He was suprised that he was still able to breathe after what had happened. He took another puff and put it back into his pocket. He then tried to stand up, and promptly fell down again. His legs were a bit weak still, so he would have to wait until they had gotten more strength. When they had, he tried again, and this time he stayed up. He was a bit wobbly, but he was up. As slowly as possible, so as not to stumble he walked over to one of the doorways. They were indeed shielded. He put his hand against it. It felt smooth, yet felt like movement. He started moving his finger around the shield. It was frictionless, he could move his finger as fast as he wanted but he couldn't feel anything. He was about to get out his notebook to keep a note on this kind of energy field, when he saw something inside. It was hard to see through the distorted energy particles, but he could see small green balloon shaped creatures, bunged up in a corner. He could also see three larger creatures. He looked closer, staring as if he couldn't believe what he could see. They were elites, but… their heads had been forced back, and there were stick like tentacles poking out in their place. One was facing a wall, and two were lying on the ground, as if they were dead, but Arthur knew they weren't.
Arthur was one of the few people that made it from the original halo installation. He snuck into one of the very few covenant cruisers that had managed to escape Halo. He hid behind an energy recharge socket for around two days, picking up as much information as he could. He didn't understand much of it, as it was another language, but he had defiantly heard the word "Earth" at one point. So when the cruiser had jumped into slip-space, he knew where they were going. So when they had arrived at earth, shown by the large alien monitor near him, he chanced his luck and ran out of his hiding place, darted into a transport pod, and ejected from the cruiser before any of the covenant knew what was happening. He would have been shot by the Malta, if he had not communicated through his comm. receiver in time.
Yet while he was on halo, he had seen what these creatures could do. These… mutants could take over a human body, and he was as sure as hell against them taking his.
The one standing up turned around and saw him, or at least, sensed him. It turned and faced him directly, and made a gurgling noise. The other two stood up, as if they were awake all the time, and the small things broke up and started crawling towards him, and onto the shield itself.
Suddenly, the three larger ones started running at him. Directly at him, full pelt. Arthur stepped back as the creatures ran straight into the shield, attacking it to try to get through. But they were going no ware, so Arthur walked back to the door. As horrifying as they were, he could not help but be intrigued by them.
He was about to get out his notebook again, when he thought he heard more mutant noises from the other doors. He turned, and he was right. There were more in the others.
He could see more elites and balloon creatures, but he could also see another mutant he had never seen before. From its legs, it looked like a grunt, knees up, but the rest of the body was covered in a bag structure. And there were more things, probably balloon creatures, inside the bag. So that's how they grow, he thought.
He then went over to the hole, which was the same as the one he jumped down before, only steeper. Just great! He had nearly killed himself down the first jump, and now he had to do it again. That is, if he could deactivate the shield, or he would be trapped.
He walked onto the shield, thinking what to do. As he did so, he noticed a red light on the ceiling. It was flashing. Strange. It definitely wasn't on before. He then heard a crackling noise.
It was the shields on the doors. They were deactivating. They turned red, then blue, then white, and then flicked off.
And so, at the same time, did the shield he was standing on.
He could only just get a glimpse of the mutants, emerging from the rooms before they disappeared from view as hell fell down the hole.
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