W.A.R.S. Tournament Ch. 03

She looked at her watch, the only thing she hadn't taken off. She exclaimed with a gasp that she had stayed too long. The barrier was opened at three in the morning to switch shifts. The gate was on a timed lock and wouldn't open again until later in the morning. She raced to get dressed; it was fifteen till. She left her bra off, no time to deal with those ladies. She shoved her feet into her boots without her socks. She got her gun, cuffs and ID and hit the door.

"See you around I hope," she said smiling back at him.

"Not much chance of that I'm afraid but maybe; who knows?" he told her truthfully.

"Oohhhh, then it was good to meet you Max. Keep that thing safe out there. By the way, how long is that wonderful thing?" she said, knowing where he was heading.

"Thirteen inches last time I checked," he told her. He heard her moan wildly as she shut and locked the door.

The doctor showed up at Max's door the next morning, if you could call the guy a doctor. He examined Max's hip and other wounds. They were superficial wounds, nothing to worry about. There were several abrasions on his face from running through the trees and his ankle seemed slightly swollen. The doctor gave him a two-day reprieve from action. Max was free to wander the camp after this group was sent on their way. He took walks around the parameter looking out into the distance. It was pretty barren. He didn't see Reny again. He hoped she hadn't gotten into trouble. He didn't know she was leaving for a three-day weekend after she left him the other night. He didn't need any more sexual attention anyway; she had left him satisfied completely.

It was his third day there and the doctor informed him he would be shipping out tomorrow. Other combatants had been filtering in the whole time. Max was restricted to his dome when they began to show up. They did bring him a last meal with his usual fatigues and boots and stuff. He ate and tried to get his mind ready...ready for what? No one ever told him where they were going. He heard the choppers coming. His door was opened and the bustle outside was turbulent. He was rushed outside and lined up with the others. There were four choppers sitting in the open end of the camp. The prisoners were soon pushed through the line to be activated like cattle going to slaughter. Max thought the cattle might have it better.

The senior officer called the men to line up facing the barrier. The guards surrounded them taking aim at the group. There were about forty men. The senior officer began to speak.

"For those of you who know about barriers this will be old hat to you. For those of you who don't know about them this demonstration will be quiet effective I am sure," he said, motioning to the guard at the gate, the barriers shut down. Max thought the silence was deafening.

"See they are perfectly harmless," the officer said stepping outside the barriers and back into the compound. He motioned again and the barriers fired back up and their dull hum again filled the air.

"Nothing to worry about," he said and motioned to two guards near him.

The huge guards grabbed a small prisoner in the front close to the barriers. They took hold of him and tossed him through the barriers. He let out a fierce scream and fell silent as the barrier exploded and buzzed like crazy. The man dropped into several pieces on the outside the parameter. Blood was everywhere. Max stood watching in amazement. The barriers settled back into their dull hum.

"Well, I am sure you all have a new respect for these things now. Have fun out there," the officer said, he motioned to the guards and they were herded to the helicopters.

When the group of four choppers carrying Max and the others reached their destination there were already three other helicopters waiting on them. They were sitting down in an abandoned warehouse complex. The barriers were there, waiting to be turned on.

There was a more orderly landing this trip in. They were marched out of the copters and lined up around the boundary and held there. Max saw at least three women down the line standing there, waiting. He figured there must be at least seventy combatants all together. When the senior officer in the group saw that everyone was ready he blew a whistle and the other guards released them to enter the arena. The scramble was crazy, guys were hitting each other and jockeying for the best position, Max wondered what the best position could possibly be. He watched as the idiots ran over each other, he ignored their gender, he couldn't help anyone this time, he thought about the chip implanted in his chest. He heard the barriers buzz loudly and settle into their monotonous hum. He heard a scream behind him. He looked back to see one guy that had stumbled just as he passed the barrier. One leg was severed just below the knee; his other foot lay on the other side of the lasers. He was scooting away from the barrier on his back screaming his lungs out. An officer leaned over and said something in a guard's ear. The guard shot the man where he lay.

Max slipped down a narrow corridor between two smaller tin buildings on the outskirts of the main structure. Max could see that there were several buildings in the complex. He looked for some place up high to get a better advantage point. He saw a catwalk running along the top of one to the larger buildings. He didn't want to go there but there must be a way up higher. He headed that way.

As he passed a dirty window of the building on his left he noticed a blue container. He found the door on the other side and kicked it in. He threw the top off and found an Ultra and a box of shells, no liquid shells thank goodness. He loaded the gun. Once more he breathed easier being armed. There was a canteen of water this time. Max hooked it on his belt and headed out.

Max shot across the open area and rolled through the open door of the large building. He heard shots echo as he came to rest behind an old workbench. The sound of the bullets firing was unmistakable, Ultras. Max noted their unique report, he had hoped somehow he had found the only one; oh well. Bullets were bouncing off the tin walls echoing through the open building. One shell hit above his head and rained plastic shards down on his head. Damn, he thought, liquid! One of his worst fears was realized, liquid shells!

It must have been some sort of factory at one time. It looked like it had been gutted ages ago and left to rust away. Max saw windows going up the front wall on a diagonal. There must be as stairway up. He saw a door at the corner where the front of the building met the wall close to Max. He made his way to it, it opened and he disappeared inside. There was a staircase just ahead of him, it was about four feet wide. Max made his way up. It grew darker as he got higher; the only light was sparse coming in through the windows looking out into the main building. When he got to the top there was a ladder going on out the roof, a closed trap door at the top of the ladder, to the catwalk he assumed. Being up high and standing out like a soar thumb were two different things, Max didn't want to be on the catwalk. He punched the trap door with his gun; it was open. He threw it back thinking that anyone that followed him might go up and hit the catwalk instead of staying with him. He continued through the hallway to the opposite side of the building from where he had come in.

Around the corner was a row of offices or control rooms that ran about half the length of the building. Max noticed a large crane rail that ran the entire length down the middle of the building. There were offshoots of the rail running up to some of the control rooms. There were chains ever so often hanging from the rails to about five feet off the floor. They must have worked on very heavy objects in here. There were no signs of what it had been and Max couldn't care less. He made his way to the first room. He hoped he was the first one up here. He found a blue food container and a long plastic tube about four inches in diameter in an old metal cabinet. The container was full and unopened as far as he could tell. Pretty good evidence that he was the first one here. The gunfire never stopped. He emptied the wafers into his pockets and hooked another canteen on his belt. His attention turned to the tube.

He pulled it out of the cabinet and unscrewed the lid. He knelt down and poured the contents out onto the floor carefully. A sniper's rifle slid out! Max had hit the jackpot. It was if they were rewarding the intelligent. You get up high where you could use a sniper's rifle and wa-la, there it is. A box of shells slide out along with the rifle. He took his loot and headed to the next room, he wasn't staying in any one spot for very long at a time. In the next room he found nothing of use but he pushed an insulated ceiling tile up and found a crawl space above it. He could hide here forever. He popped his head up and looked around. There wasn't much light but that was good. He crawled in and replaced the tile. There was a steel I beam running along the outer wall of the rooms. Max made his way down it toward the middle of the building.

He hadn't gone thirty feet and came upon a hole in the tin wall looking out into the building. He decided this would be a good place to checkout his newfound rifle. It had a silencer on it and a high quality scope. He sat beneath the hole for the small amount of light it provided. He loaded the clip and put it in the gun. He got to his feet. He placed the silencer just up to the wall so that it didn't show to anyone outside. He looked out over the floor, when he saw something he thought might be a combatant he checked it in his scope. He spotted several guys running from spot to spot. The firing still hadn't slowed down. He saw several bodies lying around the open floor. He didn't want to make himself too obvious. He would site out combatants hiding and leave those in the open alone. He would pick them off one by one. He had fifty shells for the rifle. He had to make each one count.

He saw someone move behind a stack of crates across the building; he scoped in. A guy sat there breathing hard from what Max could see. He didn't look to be hurt just tired and resting. He was loading his Ultra. Max focused the scope, the guy had brown eyes. He put the crosshairs between those brown eyes. He could only hope that it was sited in and ready to go. Max squeezed the trigger. He watched as the man's head jerked in the scope, a trickle of blood ran out about a half inch off of Max's aim. Good enough Max thought. The man moved out of the scope. Max looked out to see a lump piled where the guy had been sitting. Max didn't care much for what he had just done. He had no choice he had to live.

Max sat down on the beam and stretched his legs out on the ceiling tiles. He laid the rifle down on the beam and placed the Ultra on the other side of him. He unzipped his vest and settled back to take a break. He closed his eyes and thought about Gina. Even though he had had great sex with Reny, Gina was the one he wanted in his thoughts.

He wished they were together. Making love...Gina was lying nude in a bed of soft green clover. The mountain air filled their lungs; it felt so good on this beautiful summer day. Max sat down beside her; he was nude too. Her waist long red hair blew in the breeze. He began to massage her back slowly, gently, brushing her hair to one side. She took his hard penis in her hand and gently slipped her lips over the head and kissed him lovingly. He laid his head on the firm twin mounds of her buttocks. He caressed her to him rubbing his face on her soft smooth skin. She lay down on top of him and pressed her firm tender flesh against him, she kissed his lips gently. She laid her head on his neck and screamed...and screamed...Max woke to the sound of a woman screaming nearby. She was in one of the rooms beneath him, but which one?

He listened closely. He moved in the direction of her screams. How did she get up here? Why would anyone be screaming? That would only draw attention. How long had he been asleep? Her next scream came from just below him. Max lifted a ceiling tile. He saw a man on top of a woman; she was on her face, stripped naked from the waist down. She was fighting for all she was worth; he must have outweighed her a hundred pounds. He pulled her up on all fours. Max watched as the guy began taking her. Gunshots from the floor covered her screams from downstairs but Max heard them all too clearly. Soon the guy was groaning and hunching her harder and harder. When he was through with her he stood her up, grabbed her by her vest and threw her headfirst through the plate glass window! Max watched in horror! He couldn't do anything to help her. She was dead the minute this asshole got his hands on her...hell, she was dead the minute she got dropped into this tournament. She had to die anyway. Max worked his way back to the hole in the wall and looked out. He could just see the pool of crimson spreading out on the floor below. There was one of the offshoot rails leading to this room, if she could have just made that she wouldn't...no sense in beating a dead horse, she was gone.

Max eased back above the room. The guy was looking out the broken window toward the floor and her dead body. Max jumped from the beam and crashed through the ceiling. The guy turned startled and looked Max in the eyes. He looked at his Ultra lying behind Max. Max was unarmed, at least as far as this guy could tell. When Max kicked him in the chin with a spinning jump kick his last thought as he flew backwards out the window and dropped the forty feet to the floor was that this guy had all the weapons he had needed.

Max knew the guy's blood was mingling with the woman's by now. But that had been too much attention to his location. He was climbing back up when he heard someone running down the hall headed his way. He dropped back to the floor and grabbed the Ultra. As the footsteps reached the door he let go with the machine gun. A body slammed against the opposite wall of the hall and fell to the floor with a grunt. Max didn't care to see the outcome. He disappeared into the ceiling.

The gunfire was dying in the building. Max would hear an occasional shot in the distance. He sat and thought about that woman's horrible last minutes. When he got out of this thing he would fight to have this abominable organization shutdown. He even had visions of hunting down the leaders of this thing and putting them all in a room with one knife and killing the last one standing himself. He got his rifle and returned to the hole. He didn't see anyone move for almost an hour. Apparently, everyone was out of the building and fighting in the other areas of the complex. The sun was setting and as usual there was no electricity so there were no lights after dark. Soon it was black in his sniper's nest, there were no sounds of any kind.

Max noticed a red light blinking in the dark where he had laid his rifle. He picked it up to see what it was. He pushed the red light it went off. That was weird he thought. He looked through the scope. It was night vision! He looked through it, he could barely make out the structure of the ceiling. He made his way down the hallway to the catwalk. What seemed to be a bad place in broad daylight became a whole new story now. He poked his head out into the cool night air. It felt good after being in the ceiling. He took a seat scrunching down; making as little of a target as he could just in case someone else had one of these night vision scoped rifles. He began sweeping the area with the scope. It was amazing what he could see. He looked at the barrier, it blazed in the scope. It was much too bright to look at. Finally he found a glowing lump lying lifeless somewhere on the ground. They had to be alive, their body heat had to be the glow. He took aim on what he thought must be the head. He squeezed the trigger. The lump moved several feet then came to rest. Max looked for another one. Ever so often he would look back at the first target. It finally didn't show up. Max decided he must have killed them and their body had cooled down. He didn't know if he could keep this up but how could he have this chance and not take it. Max took out seven before he returned to the ceiling to get some sleep. He was starting to have trouble living with himself. He didn't sleep peacefully.

Max lowered himself quietly down into the room below his sniper hole. He eased into the hall. He looked to his right to see a body lying where he was sure it would be. He got the dead guy's gun. He moved back to his left toward the stairs. It was dark in the hall. Light through the windows lit the stairs. He eased down them. When he got to the door entering the open area of the building he reached for the door handle. It turned before he could touch it. Max jumped back as the door opened. He fired his Ultra running back toward the stairs. He heard the man outside the door let go with his Ultra also. The sound of the other guy's gun raced down the wall passing Max. Max fired at the sound and the other gunfire stopped. Max emptied his clip and reloaded. He had two clips for switching. There were holes in the tin where his bullets had pierced the wall. The other guy's bullets hadn't. Max stuck his head out the door; his heart was pounding like a drum. The man was lying where Max had stopped firing. He scanned the area; he didn't see anyone. He rushed to get the guy's gun. He looked at the wall. Plastic splatters strafed the wall where the man had fired. One strike against liquid shells Max thought. They would penetrate flesh but not much more.

Max worked toward the pile of crates where he had made his first sniper hit. He collected the Ultra. The clip was full. He had two full guns and three empty ones. He took time to fill all the clips and load the other two. He loaded his extra clip and had it ready; he left one gun without its clip. Four guns and one extra clip should be enough. He was out of shells. He had four full guns, one spare clip and his rifle and its shells. Now if he could only live long enough to use them. He was making his way to the huge double sliding doors that stood open. They were the main light source for the building. The sun was close to high noon to Max's best guess. There was an office in the corner of the building on his way to the doors. He stuck his head in. There was a desk and supply cabinet behind. He searched the desk, nothing. In the cabinet he found an almost empty first aid kit and a roll of duct tape. He taped the Ultras together in pairs. He tucked the tape into the large pocket in the front of his pants along with the first aid kit. He continued to the doors, dual Ultras hanging off each shoulder. He needed more shells but he felt like his chances were better than even if he would be careful.

Max crept to the outside corner of the building. There was another large building behind the first one. It was the same size, about fifty feet away. There were piles of rusting steel in the area between them. Great places to hide. There was a ladder just above Max attached to the side of the building, it led up the side and along the roof line to the catwalk where Max had sniped last night. Still not a good place to be he thought. Max crept in and out of piles of steel. His eyes were busy between the piles and the windows of the second building. The barriers were about fifty yards past the second building. Not much space for seventy people. It must be closer to thirty by now, maybe twenty, who could know for sure? Max froze when he heard a piece of steel slide off a pile somewhere ahead of him. He poked his head up to see if he could see anyone there. Suddenly a door of the second building shot open and machinegun fire riddled the pile. Max was watching as a guy dove over the pile. He was hit and bleeding. Max took a bead on the door and let go with one Ultra. He saw the guy fall backward into the building.