Roger Berneche
The only light in the cafeteria, besides the shuttered window, came from the flickering marquee of a nearby soda machine. “Relax,” it declared, as if blissfully unaware of the previous half-hour of chaos. Another thing of which the soda machine was not aware was the growing pool of blood spreading from beneath its overturned steel chassis. It did not meet the floor, on account of it currently lying on top of what used to be the Alpha sector’s chief of security.
Roger took a few deep breaths, finally rising to his feet from a pile of vomit that was once his lunch. He shook the chunks of ground beef and partially-digested tortilla from his hands and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his synthetic-fiber coverall. That’s when he noticed that his chest was covered in blood. Roger immediately pressed a hand to where his heart was and found there to be no holes, but even through the thermal padding of the coverall, he could feel his heart pounding as if to escape from his rib cage and run far away from here. Roger did not blame his heart at all. He didn’t have any idea who he’d pissed off to get stuck in the middle of this, but all he wanted was to go home.
Home, it turned out, was several millions of miles away. Roger’s only hope of leaving was if any of the shipping shuttles were still working, and judging from the noise, the crashing, the explosions of the past half hour, it seemed doubtful. Not finding any reason to stay in the cafeteria, Roger stepped closer to the vending machine. With an unusual feat of strength, Roger braced his feet against the metal floor and shoved the machine off of the pulverized corpse of the former chief.
He did not look at all well, to say the least. His face, which Roger half-expected to be twisted into a horrific expression, seemed almost at peace…that was, if he’d ignored the fangs, the gaping head wounds, the protruding bits of bone that seemed like they were growing into horns. The rest of his body had been crushed sideways. Roger turned him over to face upward, hearing many crunching noises as he did so. Now that he had a better vantage point (and the chief wasn’t trying to tear him limb from limb), Roger had a much clearer view of the chief’s torso; specifically, the fact that he was missing a rather vital organ. This man has no heart, Roger mouthed to himself, afraid to use his voice for fear that another monster like the chief might appear. How the hell was he alive? ...Unless he wasn’t.
Roger took another deep breath and held it as he unzipped the chief’s uniform jacket. Underneath, he found a holster with a pistol comfortably tucked inside. It surprised Roger that the gun had never once entered into the skirmish he’d just been a part of, but on the other hand, he thanked his lucky stars that the chief hadn’t realized he’d been carrying one. Whatever the case, though, Roger decided that the gun was far safer in his care than sitting on the corpse in front of him. He had some difficulty detaching the holster, and nearly opted to leave it there if not for the fact that his coverall didn’t have any pockets that would hold a gun like that.
Finally, he had managed to strap the shoulder holster to himself – over his outfit, because concealed carry no longer had any purpose – and carefully pulled the pistol from it. Despite living in Detroit for most of his life, Roger had never carried or fired a pistol in his life. The most he knew about guns came from playing a video game with his nephew, some historical-themed shooting game set during the second Gulf War. He tried to remember how the guns worked in that game. The gun controller he remembered wielding only had one real source of input, and that was the trigger. Roger assumed his best attempt at a firing stance, with both hands on the grip. It’s not that heavy at all, he thought. He pointed it at the closest thing he could find to a target, a UAC recruitment poster across the room. He eyeballed the gun’s sights, trying to align them as best as he could. Now just pull the trigger... Roger squeezed the trigger as hard as he could with his left index finger. It didn’t seem to move. He squeezed harder. Still nothing. Something was wrong with this gun, and Roger didn’t know what.
He pulled the gun closer to look it over. The slide action was engraved with the text, Berducci XP4 Squall, 12x12mm Airsafe. Roger’s first thought was that the gun might not have been cocked. He thought back to the video game and remembered seeing a character grabbing the slide and pulling back. He tried this himself. His first two attempts ended with his hand slipping off the gun and friction-burning his fingers. On his third, he managed to get the slide to move a bit before slipping. Another five attempts, and he finally managed to pull the slide all the way back. He held it there and looked into the ejection port. Some bullets greeted him from within. They looked nice and cozy, stacked into the clip. Clearly, the problem was not that the gun wasn’t loaded.
Roger let go of the slide. It clicked forward, nearly causing the pistol to jump out of his hand. It was time to try it out again. Roger readied the gun, pointed it at the UAC poster again, and squeezed the trigger as hard as he could muster. The trigger moved, just a little. He pulled harder. His finger was really starting to hurt from squeezing the thin trigger. He slipped another finger into the trigger guard to assist the other one and squeezed even harder. His hands shook quite badly; all of his muscle was going into just pulling on the trigger, such that he could barely keep his arms steady.
BAM! The noise was deafening. The hums of the power conduits and the whining motor of the air circulator were all silent for a short while, until they slowly faded back into existence. After shaking his head out, Roger determined a need for earplugs, which he fortunately kept in one of his suit’s tiny pockets. After he situated them into his ears, he observed the result of his one shot. The UAC poster on the wall showed no damage, as did the walls nearby. Roger looked over the entire wall, and eventually found a bullet hole in the floor, several inches below the poster. Damn, he thought. That won’t do at all. He readied the pistol again.
