CHAPTER 1: STATIC WAKE

Rane blinked herself awake to its soft yellow glow piercing and bleeding through the slats of her run down ceilling. Her room is small, built from welded scap metals and insulated with synthetic grey tarps, the standard living scenario for anybody unfortunate enough to reside in Sector-A's underbelly. Her breath lingered, even with her heat unit constantly whining next to her. Power is never consistent anymore, especially living this close to the outter walls of Craton.

Rane rolled herself out of bed, her bare feet pressing against the chilling metal fooring. Her limbs ached from her lust salvage deployment and her arms ached from having to hold that stupid support beam so her team could escape that old compound without the exit collapsing onto everyone. She pulled her scavenger tag from under her dirty pillow made from different sown peices of clothing from the days before the war. She looked down at her rusted tag with her name branded into the metal

RANE NOX.

ID#33422

Scavenger 

Her tags small light blinked once. Red to green.

Scavenger Mission Assigned

THE LABRYNTH STRATA-1 DEPLOYMENT MOVING INTO STRATA-2

Rendezvous: 09:00AM. Dockline Scavenger Hub, Sector-A

Team Dispatch: 5 members

Crew Name: Black Echo Unit 9 Salvage Squad

Retrieval Objective: Explained Upon Arrival

Threat Level: Minimal

Seeing this mission assignment immediately threw Rane into a state of fear. She knew about the enourmous fight and effort that it took for Virex to recapture The Labrynth's STRATA-1, So many perished fighting the Reminant's and other creatures formed in the wastland. There's no way this is a Threat Level Minimal assignment, as far as she knows nobody has yet to step foot into The Labrynth's STRATA-2, Thing's must be getting urgent. Something's being covered up.

The city or Craton was a dying mess, held together with raggedy steel bones, rusted scaffolding and the classic Virex corporate denial.

Rane walked with her hands in her green overcoat pockets, her mid length strawberry-blonde hair tied at the back into 2 pig tail's, and her gas mask strapped securely to her face. She never used to have to wear one but recently the cities air has become more unsafe to breathe in naturally. The cold wind whistled between the leaning towers, carrying with it dust and ash. She passed by the repurposed LED sign, originally used in the days before the war as a tramline display. Now it only flickers with a looping Virex Corp slogan.

"HOPE. IS. ENGINEERED."

Rane smirked bitterly and kept on moving 

Turning the corner a repungent smell of melted plastic and old smoke and ash rippled throughout the street, Just the average morning scent to those living in Sector-A's underbelly. Morning meant absolutely nothing here, just a dimmer hue of yellow and red blazing over the metal skyline and burn barrels crackling off in the distance. A woman pushing a cart loaded to the the brim with recently salvaged data cores shouted at herself

"Scav unit just went missing! Ugh!, Missing in the Blitzer Tunnels, 3 tags recovered!, no bodys!"

No one batted an eye.

Moving into a shortcut building rane moved quickly up the stairwell, she knew from prior experience that not only is it quicker to get to the Scavenger Hub by taking the decrepped manmade bridges that act as a walkway between building to building, its also safer. 

Passing the first bridge she focused, it shook under her, a 30 floor drop just for one slip up, reaching the other building a sharp whistle stopped her just as she went to cross the second bridge. Rane looked around noticing a small child wearing a gasmask sitting on the edge of the building she just crossed.

"You headed to the hub?" He shouted across the building.

"That obvious?" Rane replied.

The child grinned "Only Scavengers look that pissed off this early."

She gave him a half smile "Keep your head down."

 

He smiled back before getting up and vanishing back into the building.

Finshing the heartracing rooftop shortcut she slid her way down through the stairwell and out the door, immediately being pased by a man in an all black Virex Militia outfit. He walked straight by her with his 2 drones flanking his sides. His eyes didnt notice her, they didnt even move. But she felt the drones targeting systems automatically track on to her. 

Nobody stayed around the streets surrounding the docks, it wasnt a place for people like her. It was only a place for the ones who gave orders but where too cowardly to see the consequences.

She finally turned off the street and arrived at the dockline seeing the Scavenger Hub just a block away.

The Scavenger Hub hunched low against the city's edge, its walls were thick yet had craters in them from past riots. It's walls were surrounded and lined with rusted lights and a large Virex logo that sat directly in the centre of the building obove the main entrance. 

To Rane it always looked more like a glorified bunker than a Scavenger Hub

Walking inside she passed armoured guards, half-asleep due to the grueling shifts Virex had them on, Rane understood, she was once in that exact same position. The inside smelled of oil, sweat, and the air was thick and musty. Walking up to the checkin desk. The woman didnt even bother lifting her head.

"Nox."

Rane slid her tag across the rusted countertop.

The woman sighed grabbed the tag and scanned it.

"You're 5 minutes late." the woman begrunginly replied 

"Still Alive." Rane wittingly responded.

The woman looked up at Rane, her eyes sunken in casting a shadow down across her eyebags from not getting any sleep.

"Level-2, Bay-9. Theyre Waiting."

Entering bay-9 Rane immediately recognized the humming noise from the old lights.

4 figures stood around a projection table. The map projection displaying the layout of STRATA-1.

Korrin turned first, older, scarred.

"Nox? Right?"

"Right." Rane nodded walking over to the crew 

"Meet our crew"

Sil leaned againt the table, a RE4 riffle strapped to her back, her mouth chewing on a wire, her fingers flicking through a datapad going over thermal scans and status feed's.

Juno stood still, his hands looking as if they were hovering over his akimbo EE-12 pistols, he was quiet, almost too quiet. Rane immediately got an off feeling about him.

Eren looked up and gave a slight smile, his medpack looked as if it weighed more than he did, he was armed only with a FRE22 pump-action shotgun.

and Korrin, he looked tired but focused.

"You know why were here?" asked Korrin

Rane raised an eyebrow.

"Besides being disposable?" quipped Sil.

Eren smirking at her witty response.

Korrin tapped the table. A second scan opened up. A half completed map illuminated through the room. It looked as if it were spiderweb of tunnes and spirals.

"They've deployed us to collect and shut down something in STRATA-2, They wont tell us what." 

Rane's heart began to race staring at the map of spiralling tunnels and missing sections. It felt....alive, somehow. It was almost as if it felt like it knew they were coming.

"When do we deploy onto STRATA-1?" Rane asked her heart almost bursting through her chest.

"Tonight. Our drop ship leaves in 20 minutes." Korrin Responded.

"Grab your gear." Korrin said.

Rane tightened her grip on the table even more, her eyes locked onto the map.

Sha had no clue what they were walking into.