For Tomorrow

The King Raven whirled as it landed in front of the hospital. Anya and Cole ran in with the wounded that they had acquired during the course of the mission. Clay hopped off the Raven and walked over to the new version of the Rusty Nail that had been built on Azura. It helped people with a sense of familiarity that was ever so exceedingly rare these days.

The few people who had been trying to grab a bite to eat or a quick drink before heading back to their new lives on the facility site greeted him as he pushed open the doors crafted like an old saloon from the fictional cowboy movies that had been popular when he was little. He walked up to the bar, heavy boots thudding on the hardwood floor, and pulled out a barstool to sit down on.

Sam Malone the bartender stood while he wiped the bar down with a rag that looked as greasy as his hamburgers. Sam stood at around six feet tall; he was a lean man, someone who looked like he ate maybe once a day. He had hair that would have been outdated ten years ago if it had been worn by anyone else, one of those hairdos that was poofy that had been popular twenty to thirty years ago. His appearance would make one guess he was in his late twenties to early thirties when in fact he was closer to fifty.

"The usual Clay?" Sam asked as he pulled out a bottle of rum.

"Make it a double." Clay told him as he pulled his helmet off and placed it off to the side of him.

"Bad day?"

"Not a great one so far."

"I hear ya." Sam told him as he placed Clay's rum in front of him. Clay took the glass and took a sip of the vanilla flavored liquid. After taking a sip his face scrunched up, he never could quite get over the kick of rum even if he liked the flavor.

"God how I miss Mr. Salt for a chaser." Clay told him as he took another sip and made his rum face again.

"Yeah, we have water or water for a chaser now."

"I'll pass."

The doors to the bar opened behind Clay, the sound of heavy Gear boots thudded over the ground. However Clay didn't need to turn to see who it was before the few members of the bar all chanted, 'Dizzy!'

"Howdy y'all!" Dizzy roared in his thick southern accent. He walked over to the bar and sat down next to Clay. Dizzy looked at Sam and gave him a quick nod. "So, got my moonshine Sam? Made it real smooth for me and everyone else."

"Dizzy I don't know how you drink that stuff, it would kill almost anyone else." Clay told him as he took another sip of his rum.

"Don't know son, guess my liver just doesn't want to quit out on me. Drinkin' rum I see?" Dizzy asked him with a smile.

"Yeah, drink of choice. How you doing Dizzy?"

"Been a rough day, had to drop the twins off at B.T."

"Wait, they're becoming Gears?"

"Yep, believe me I tried talking them out of it. But like their ma, their head is thicker as a bull's noggin. Once they set their minds to doin' somethin' they do it."

"Did you pull the I fought so you don't have to card?"

"Ya darn right I did."

"Damn. Hope they do all right, I mean they're a little quiet. I've never seen anyone who confused us on who we were supposed to sing happy birthday to."

"I know, seemed just yesterday they were being born…then I was fighting off Locust with a hunting rifle. Sheeeit, I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."

"Hey, no one is good with guns on their first go around."

"Well hurry on up, we gots to go in an hour."
"What?"

"What you didn't hear? You, Duke, Baird, that new girl, and me are headin' out to a vehicle graveyard scouts found out west. We're goin' in and see if we can't find ourselves a few new beautiful ladies to give us all a ride here and there."

"Why me? I'm not a mechanic guy."

"I'll give ya the whole rundown, Duke has been hangin' around Baird more and picked up a little about machines, the new girl is fresh out of Baird's engineering class, and well ya know how smooth I am with the women folk. You come in handy in case somethin' goes bump and gives us all a little fright."

"So I'm a watch dog."

"Little bit. Come one let's finish that up so we can meet up."

"Fuck, fine." Clay grumbled as he finished the rest of his rum and got up to follow Dizzy.

"Buck up, we'll find ya a nice motorcycle and once you hear her purring you won't wait to get on top and give 'er a little ride." Dizzy told Clay as he patted him on his armored back.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Clay told him as he walked out of the bar to the new command center. Today was going to go shitter than a dog after he was neutered.

#####
Baird walked into his workshop, it was the last place people knew not to bug him, even if it was the first place everyone knew to look if they needed him. When they had landed Cole had given him the briefcase and Baird had been curious, Cole knew exactly what started turning his mental gears.

He placed the briefcase on his workbench and then started to fiddle around with the lock. He tried picking it, reworking the lock, and even tried blow torching it open. Didn't even pucker the leather lining.

This was starting to piss Baird off, he tried hitting it with a wrench, followed by hammers that slowly started to get bigger for every hit that didn't work, and for giggles he even tried cutting it open with his Lancer bayonet. Nothing worked.

Baird had wasted half an hour and was about to give up and grab some food before he noticed something on the end of the suitcase. Baird turned the briefcase around and looked at it, it was a small square that was about three inches long and two inches wide. It appeared to be a piece of tape that was about to come off from all the punishment that Baird had inflicted upon the briefcase. Baird looked carefully at first to make sure he wouldn't rip anything if he removed the tape, observing it revealed nothing that was weakened, he slowly began to peel the tape back. His hand was sweating with nervous tension, if he screwed this up the briefcase might not open because he botched the only way to open it.

After peeling the rest of it off the briefcase he looked at the spot where the tape used to be: nothing was there. Baird fumed, his only shot had gone down the crapper. He went to throw the piece of tape away it was useless now. Right before he did though something caught his eye. Flipping the tape over he saw something written on the piece of tape: it was a name, Natasha.

"Natasha?" Baird said out loud in confusion. As soon as the last syllable left his mouth the lock on the briefcase opened with a click behind him. Baird turned around and walked back over to the briefcase, placing the tape on the edge of the table. Baird pulled up his stool for when he was cooped up fixing a busted engine or something that required him to attend to for longer than an hour.

Baird opened the briefcase fully and found a bunch of file folders; some of them had words such as benign, harmful, dangerous, and malignant. Baird picked up a folder marked dangerous in curiosity. He flipped open the first page to see a picture of something he hadn't seen in several months, a picture of a Locust. Baird turned his workbench light on and bent over the folder and began to read.

The Locust are an anthropomorphic race that resulted as a consequence to the gold rush during the beginning years of the Immulsion Conflict that would later lead to mutations resulting in the birth of Sires (see file 22D). Despite knowledge of their origins not much data was recorded until Probe 19D-23 discovered the Locust Horde at what later is noted to be the apex of their maturity as a species.

Five years before the event known as "E-Day" Probe 19D-23 had detoured around a cave in restricting access to a new species later found out to be a large non-anthropod invertebrate animal made of rock. Probe 19D-23 came across a building that has later speculated to be a building of worship headed by beings known as Kantus (see file 30E). The Kantus was hostile towards the probe once it had been discovered and discharged what appeared to be a burst-fire pistol, narrowly missing Probe 19D-23.

Right, cause back then the Locust still had those burst fire Gorgon pistols. Baird thought as he flipped the page.

The Kantus appeared to lead the Locust in their strange worship rituals. Probe 19D-23 was sent further into the Hollow and continued its observation. Several weeks passed by with nothing of note beyond initial discoveries of Locust culture (see addendum 19-E), however three weeks, two days, four hours, and twenty-seven minutes after initial contact a new species was introduced to Sera: The Lambent (see file 50A). A Drone (see file 30B) accidentally walking in Immulsion mutated, causing it to become aggressive towards everything including its own species. The Locust took it upon them to fire and kill the Lambent Drone causing it to combust upon death. In the weeks that followed more Lambent started to emerge causing the event later referred to as the Locust Civil War.

Shit! These guys were there for the Lambent emergence. Who the fuck are these people? Baird pondered as he continued to study the folder.

The Locust would begin a war in which they were steadily losing. It seems almost reasonable, the foundation of the Lambent army were made up of Locust that had been mutated due to exposure to Immulsion. The infection rate seemed higher than the Locust could repopulate or kill the Lambent.

Six weeks after the end of the conflict known to the humans as "the Pendulum War" (see file 4A) the Locust emerged from the Hollow in an attempt to rid the surface of the human race in an attempt to separate themselves from the Lambent.

However humanity was not willing to go down without creating conflict against the Locust. At first humanity attempted to match the Locust in strength, but this proved futile as human casualties began to rise higher and higher. Humanity left strength behind to resort to a tactic, which it would continue to use until the detonation of Scientist Adam Fenix (see file 6C) cleansing wave, known as desperation. Chairman Prescott, Adam Fenix, and Colonel Hoffman agreed to use the Weapon of Mass Destruction known as "the Hammer of Dawn" to destroy all cities held by the Locust in a last second scorched sera tactic. As a result 90% of the planet burned causing numerous casualties for the facility, humanity, and Locust kind. This action resulted in a separate faction known as the Stranded (see file 8-D), which would…

"Blah, blah, blah," Baird said as he flipped through the folder, "is there anything in here I wasn't already there for?"

Baird flipped through the folder, not finding anything new he put the folder off to the side and picked a new folder marked harmful and was about to open it before he heard Hoffman's voice yelling at him over his TAC/COM.

"Baird!" Hoffman's signature yell/talk came over the comm piece.

"Ah, Jesus!" Baird screamed before falling backwards on his stool. Narrowly avoiding smacking his head on an APC that he had been saving off to the side when he needed to calm down from a long day of dealing with assholes. "Okay now that I narrowly avoided a concussion what do you want?"

"You were to report for briefing ten minutes ago! Where the hell are you son?"

"Busy in the workshop, fixing the APC." Baird responded with a little white lie.

"Get down to Command now!"

"Fine, fine, whatever old man try not to have an aneurism and die on us." Baird sniped back as he grabbed his Lancer and left his workshop, making sure to lock everything up tight so no one could look at the files before he came back. Once locked up Baird left to go to Command, grumbling at how he hated being interrupted in the middle of things.

#####

Duke stood outside command waiting on Clay, Baird, and Dizzy. Clay had always been known for showing up late, timely arrivals having not been handed on to him like Duke. Duke had always been one to arrive early to a party he was invited to and then help set up. This is what caused him to be promoted to lieutenant a year or so into his service and lead his own squad. However while Duke was better with people, Clay had good enough social skills and the bloodlust that made him the cool older brother. It caused Anthony to follow his older brother around like a puppy dog when he was little. Benjamin had always been a little closer to Duke however, mostly because he wasn't as intimidating as Clay. Clay was the starting Thrashball player, Duke in comparison would be the one play for his club team at college.

Despite all their differences all four brothers were as close as a family could be. The time Benjamin came home with a black eye Anthony, Clay, and him went out and duct taped the bully to the flagpole and warned him what would happen the next time he touched their little brother.

"Duke, get out of memory lane and rejoin the rest of us." Clay told him as he and Dizzy walked up towards him.

"Hey brother, do I smell rum?" Duke asked as he sniffed the air.

"Not if you know what's good for you." Clay joked with him as he patted him on the shoulder. "How you doing little bro?"

"Pretty good, little jumbled from falling out of a helicopter. But other than that ready to go, if we find an old Matzoom off roader I'm calling dibs." Duke told him as his secret passion for cars started to bubble out.

"I know, I remember how much you begged ma and pa to get you one for your sixteenth. Everyone else wanted a nice expensive car, you wanted the piece of shit.

"Remember when we took our girlfriends out into the woods with your car? We got stuck, really dirty, and we still didn't get any. My shitty car would have gotten us there with no problems."

"Whatever little bro."

"Lieutenant Carmine?" a rather feminine voice asked Duke.

Duke turned around to see what was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Beautiful women had been leading because those that could use their beauty to their advantage tended to live longer out there with the Stranded; the others were hard as nails.

The woman was about five feet ten, taller than most women but still tiny compared to the Gears that surrounded her. She had the standard neck length female haircut that was suggested for most female Gears, many had been growing their hair out since they were constantly in a battle for their lives. Her eyes almost seemed to glow and sparkle like a freshly polished jade. Duke was glad he was wearing a helmet or he would have shown that he was blushing. This girl was almost as pretty as Anya was, Anya could stop traffic when she wanted to. She walked over, Lancer in hand and looked at him.

"Lieutenant Carmine?" she asked.

"Ah yes, Private Valeria Bates. Glad to have you on board." Duke responded back, unsure exactly how he was managing to respond anything close to an intelligent human being. He could see Dizzy whispering something to Clay and Clay nodding, Duke just knew that he had stupid smile he got whenever he thought something social was funny.

"Anyway lets move out. The Raven is waiting for us on the beach and we want to see what we can salvage from the vehicle graveyard." Duke ordered as he led the other three out the doors and to the helipad on the beach. Hopefully things would go smoothly this time, much more smoothly.