March 24, 2050 - 06:45
Outskirts of Da Nang, Vietnam
"Đụ má nó…Why do we have to be the ones to respond to this call all the way outside of the city?"
Giang, a recent addition to the city's police force, complained as he was staring at the passing houses and vehicles from the shotgun seat.
"Watch your language, rookie. Your bodycam's always on." Second Lieutenant Nguyen reminded. His eyes were still focused on the road, and his hands were still on the steering wheel.
"Ah… Sorry, sir."
"Just be more careful next time." Nguyen's tone softened. "Besides, we're the closest to respond to the call."
"I know, sir, but if I remember correctly, we haven't had any call in the outskirt area for a while, right?"
"Yep!"
"So… why now, all of a sudden?"
"No clue. That's why we're here to find out."
Nguyen slowed the cruiser down and veered to the right, stopping the cruiser next to the sidewalk and out of the regular traffic's way. He picked up the long-range radio and contacted the station.
"Station, this is Second Lieutenant Nguyen. We've arrived at the location of the report."
The radio buzzed and let out a signature beep when someone activated the radio.
"Second lieutenant, this is Station. Copy that, just go and investigate that disturbance."
"Copy that!"
He put the radio back, turned off his car, and stepped out; his second followed suit.
It was a relatively empty suburban area on the outskirts of the tourist city. Most of the residents have already gone to work, and the only ones who remained were the young, the old, and the unemployed. It was casual and mundane, just everyday life for the people who lived here.
So it was an unusual sight when a police patrol car entered the area and stopped on the side of the road. People were curious just for a moment before resuming what they were doing, since the light and siren were off, signifying that there wasn't an emergency
"Sir, what was the disturbance report here?" Giang asked.
"Did you not pay attention when we were talking earlier?" Nguyen asked, staring daggers at his charge.
Giang could only offer a pathetic smile back at his senior. Nguyen sighed and walked ahead.
"Someone reported a loud noise from one of the abandoned warehouses early this morning. Said something about it sounding like a firework that went off." Giang decided to just answer his question rather than leaving him in the dark.
"Firework? Huh, probably some dumb kids getting a hold of an illegal pop somewhere and decided to have fun."
"Maybe, but either way, let's just investigate it and get out."
It took five minutes for the officers to get to the warehouse from the main street. It was a tall, dilapidated building with brick walls and a rusted-metal roof. It used to be a warehouse to store materials for a construction company, before the company went bankrupt.
As soon as both officers got close to the warehouse, they were assaulted with an intense and extremely foul stench. They coughed and gagged from the smell, unable to handle the horrendous smell. Nguyen pulled out a cloth, one that he always kept on himself, to cover his nose and mouth. Giang, on the other hand, did not have anything to cover himself with, so he made do with his own undershirt.
"Áh đụ… what the fuck is that smell?" Giang blurted out to no one in particular.
He looked back at his senior only to find the man with a serious face. Giang had only been assigned to Nguyen for a while now, but during all that time, Nguyen had never shown him this face before, even when they had been chasing thugs and criminals around.
"It's the smell of decaying corpses," Nguyen answered bluntly.
Giang's face flashed with a brief look of surprise before he steeled his nerves. Both officers pulled out their SN9 Makarovs before entering the building
The building was mostly empty, rows upon rows of empty shelves and a few containers that seemed out of place. They looked at each other for a brief moment before coming to an understanding without speaking. They decided to approach the containers, their senses on high alert, and their guns on the ready.
Giang was the first one to approach the seemingly out of place container, with Nguyen right behind him.
"Open the door," Nguyen commanded, pointing his gun at the container doors.
Giang cursed himself but followed Nguyen's command. He unlatched the bolt holding the door locked and pulled the door open.
They were both greeted with an unimaginable sight.
Rotten bodies. Lots of them. Bodies of both genders, in different states of decay. The ones further in the containers were almost fully rotten, while the ones near the open door were more recent.
The most notable one was the body of a man in a leather jacket nearest to the door. It seemed like he was assaulted and tortured horrendously before being executed recently, as evidenced by the various injuries on his limbs and a clear bullet hole to his forehead.
"Holy f…" Giang couldn't finish his sentence before he looked away, vomiting his breakfast contents out.
Nguyen wasn't much different from his junior, but he had a better grip on himself. He dialed the radio back to the station.
"Station… this is second lieutenant Nguyen. Send backups, we have a situation."
March 25, 2050 - 13:32
West of Da Nang, Vietnam - Black Angels Division Training Facility
"Man down! Man down! Enemy fire from one o'clock, return fire!" Peter commanded everyone in Whiskey team.
"Copy that! Suppressing fire!" Edric replied as he mounted his M249 SAW against the corner and started ripping away his belt at the supposed enemy position. A few other members of the Whiskey team also returned fire, creating a strong suppression against the enemy's direction.
Since it was just a medical emergency drill and not a kill house drill, all trainees were using blanks instead of live rounds. There were a lot of bangs from the guns, but no lead was actually spent.
"Enzi, put some forty mike mike on target, smoke rounds. Chisato, Luis, smoke on our friendly position."
"Roger!" Enzi confirmed, loading a forty-millimeter shell with a white tip into the underbarrel grenade launcher. He aimed at building, and launched the grenade, and watched it burst into a bloom of smoke and dust. He did it a few more times, making sure the building was encased in a thick layer of smoke
Chisato and Luis pulled out their M28s, an improved version of M18 grenades with longer duration and bigger spread, and threw them at the My, who was lying on the dirt ground. Chisato's grenade landed a bit further ahead of My, while Luis, being a bit more accurate than he'd hoped for, accidentally hit My with his grenade.
"Ouch, you fucking dickhead!" My stopped pretending to be incapacitated to hold her head in pain. She coughed as the smoke filled the vicinity, so she quickly grabbed the active grenades and threw them further away.
"Sorry, My," Luis yelled out from behind the corner
"You owe me something for that!" Her voice was half angry, half pained.
"STOP DEVIATING FROM THE DRILL, WHISKEY TEAM!" A drill instructor yelled into his speaker at the team.
"Need I remind you guys, we're in a fucking drill! Stop messing about!" Peter reminded everyone.
Everyone in the squad agreed to let it go for now, focusing on their task of extracting My out of the active fire zone and treating her. The smoke grenades already filled the area with a huge whitish bloom of magnesium carbonate, enough for them to extract My safely. Peter turned to his squad and made the call.
"Long, Luis, go drag her ass back here," Peter ordered.
Without another word, Long and Luis departed from their positions in the squad and ran into the open field, all while gunshots were echoing behind them. Passing the short thirty-meter distance, Luis reached to My first, who was lying on the dirty ground with a grimace on her face and a bump on her forehead. Long arrived immediately after and fired his gun, providing cover for Luis.
"Alright, sorry about your forehead, mi amiga. Let's get your booty outta here, ay?" Luis flashed a grin at her as he lifted her back up slightly to grab the pull strap on the back of her plate carrier.
"Yeah, yeah, just drag me back. Pretty sure I breathed in enough to give me lung cancer." My quipped back.
"Don't be such a baby. Alright, three, two, one. hyup." Luis grunted as he began pulling My back toward the friendly line. Long accompanied the duo, emptying his magazine and reloading for more cover fire.
Once they got My back to safety, Luis immediately handed her back to Chisato, who was the squad's combat lifesaver. Chisato quickly assessed her patient and instantly found the red-painted area on My's left thigh. She grabbed a pair of scissors in her medical kit and cut open My's pants, exposing My's leg and her theoretical wound, which was just a red marker scribbled onto her skin.
"Oooh, you're getting handsy today. You should definitely give me mouth-to-mouth CPR," My's voice chimed in, temporarily taking Chisato out of her concentration. She looked up to see the usual grin on her girlfriend.
"Shut up, you're supposed to be knocked out." Chisato retorted
"Oh, right, I'm knocked out… well, you can knock me out later if you get what I…"
"Shut up, you goofy creature, save the dirty talk for later."
"Yes ma'am, whatever you say." My even gave Chisato a salute before lying back down.
Chisato regained her focus and turned back to her medical bag, grabbing a cylindrical device that looked like a thinner and elongated grenade, even with its safety lever and pin. The device was a single-use medical foam dispenser — better known as medfoam — given to lifesavers and medics to stop heavy bleeding, disinfect wounds, and also act as a painkiller.
She pulled out the pin and heard the device let out a soft hiss, then pointed the nozzle at the "wound" on My's thigh. She sprayed the medfoam at the wound, which seemed like watery mist at first, until the liquid was exposed to air and solidified into foamy clumps on My's skin.
"Hehe, you came quite a lot."
Chisato actively ignored My's comment and giggle and continued with her work.
Once the foam covered the entire wound area, Chisato discarded the used biofoam and grabbed a fake stimulant injector from her medbag. The injector that she grabbed was an artificial blood booster, filled with universal artificial blood and nanobots that help the victim's motor function until they could be evacuated to a proper medical unit.
She placed the injector onto My's thigh, right above the "wound", and pressed the button on the other end of the injector. That button would activate a needle to inject the liquid; however, since it was a fake prop, all the injector did was let out a beeping noise to signify that it had been used.
"It's so big, oh my god." My let out an unnecessary comment.
"My, you are the freakiest woman I've ever encountered." Long finally said something after being right next to Chisato and My all this time.
"She is, indeed, the freakiest creature I've ever seen." Chisato flashed a smile at Long.
"And you're dating that creature." Long quipped. "What does that say about you, hmmm?" He emphasized the last part with a wink.
"You're just jealous that she's dating me and not you, haha." My entered the conversation.
"Not true at all," he replied with no hesitation.
"You know, if Chisato was fine with it, we could be a throuple, if it puts your mood up," My continued her teasing.
"If anyone was in a relationship with you, they're either fucked up, or fucked up… No offense, Chisato."
"Full offense taken. Also, a throuple, really My?" Chisato replied
"Yeah… well I forgot to mention to you that I'm bi and poly, but only if you agree. If you don't agree, then it's just us, no one else."
There was a moment of silence between all of them. As silent as a simulated battlefield with blanks firing nonstop. Chisato thought about it briefly before replying.
"Hmm… I suppose that I'm not entirely opposed to the idea. But let's talk more when the time comes."
"Wow… you two are freaks… a match made in heaven, I have to say." Long commented.
"Lads, lasses, need I remind you that your comms are not private and are recorded?" Harrison's voice suddenly chimed in, all business with his tone. "You three will be facing disciplinary action after this drill.
…
"Oh…fuck." All three of them blurted.