Heavy Metal Thunder (53 page)

If you just want to leave before she pulls some kind
of emotional trick like she did to that laborer (bless his heart), turn to
section
254
.

For several days you pore over the pages, drawing in
the distracting delights. The pages freeze hard in the cold of space as you
memorize every line of text and illustration. Then, in a fit of disgust, you
toss the stuff into the dark of space. Your eyes were not made for reading -
they were made to stand witness to acts of mayhem and destruction in the name
of justice!

Erase every book and magazine from your inventory.

The days come and go, but the boredom remains,
unrelenting.

If you have a
Locket and
Holophoto
,
turn to section
142
.

If you do not have such a trifling item, turn to
section
36
.

Pain shoots through your body and you hear something
like the howl of a demon in your mind. You grip the sides of your head; it
feels as if you are going to crush your own skull like a melon in a steel vice.
You fall to the ground, kicking uncontrollably. The beast inside is
unimaginably powerful. You are able to force it back into its lair, but only at
the cost of losing
3 Blood.
However, you may subtract your
Will
score from this amount.

Finally, your muscles relax. You lie exhausted. You
hear the men talking over you and realize that they have been talking for a
long time; you can only just now make out their words.

“Black Lance
Legion,
is
it?” says the manager. “I think they must have turned this young man into a
monster.”

“I wonder, that a harmless old man was able to set
him off so,” says the doctor.

“Well, he’s chilled out now,” says the guard.
“Could probably use a stiff drink.
I
knows
I could.”

You rise painfully and glare at the old laborer. You
will him to keep his vile mouth shut with your stare.

Turn to section
19
.

The guard seems to fly down the hall faster than you
can aim. You shoot, but miss. The guard is upon you, swinging his thick pipe
before you can get off another shot. You must kill him the old-fashioned way if
you want to survive.

If you use a...

Mace
- section
498
,
Spear
- section
160
,
Blade
- section
252
.

Otherwise, you must fight him with your bare hands
by turning to section
23
.

“Surely you need your papers,” he says coldly.
“Aren’t they a comfort to your kind?”

“They won’t help me kill aliens,” you say. “No alien
is going to stop and ask about some bureaucratic nonsense.”

A pause, then the Commander smiles wickedly. “No
amount of bureaucratic wrangling, no law or series of laws, can prove that you
are human. What you will earn today, no amount of money can buy. Come with us,
if you think you’ve got what it takes.”

“SIR!” you shout. “YES SIR!”

Turn to section
58
.

You pull yourself over the steel box. Death hisses
in your ears. Then the horned monster peers over the edge, gun extended. As you
pull the trigger, you see the flash of
his own
gun.
Just as your bullet slams into his mouthpiece, shattering teeth and tongue and
blowing out the back of his head in a spray that paints the far wall, your own
gun jerks in your hand. The front end falls off the hand grip, and you realize
in horror that both your bullets must have been millimeters from one another in
the air. Had you held the gun a little differently, you would have been shot in
the face.

Be sure to erase the gun from your inventory, as
well as the amount of ammunition that you used.

Turn to section
520
.

One, two, three whacks from the wrench
breaks
the lock. You find the following items in the locker.

Clopadropin
(bulk 1)
(This prescription painkiller heals
1 Blood
when taken. There is enough for
2 doses.
)

Worker’s Coveralls (bulk 3)

“Mike, Leon, Don,
Ralph: Getting In Touch With Your Personality Type and Your Mutant Spirit
Animal” (bulk 2)
(This book promises to help the reader
gain a personality if he or she does not already have one.)

Wakem
Pills (bulk 1)
(This
guarana
-derivative
is common among laborers. When wounded, you may use this item to restore
1
Blood.
There is enough for
1 dose.
)

“Guide to STELLAR CORP
Infotech
” (bulk 2)
(This manual contains
information about the computer systems used by the
Stellar
mining corporation.)

Your body cries out for oxygen.

If you have a
Dexterity
score of 2 or more,
turn to section
86
.

If not, turn to section
64
.

You must now compute a number that determines the
result of your fire. If you are skilled in
Weapon Proficiency: Ranged
,
and it is with the gun you are using, add 3. Add 1 for every
2 Rifle
bullets
or every
4 Handgun bullets
you fire. Add your
Dexterity.

If the number is 6 or more, turn to section
182
.

If the number is 5 or less, turn to section
482
.

You are able to find a status log of all the
stations and the ships they have in port. As for the stations, their status is
either black, which means that they are completely without power, or they have
a jumble of flashing red-flag systems alerts: Massive hull breaches, oxygen
leaking out of control, water conduits emptied out. More alerts pop up all the
time as the deconstructors continue their work.

You check the logs for the ships and your heart
sinks, for there are no ships listed as functional. Every last ship has been
destroyed. Even this station lists its ship bay as nonexistent, a ruin. Furthermore,
none of the long-range communication arrays have been left standing. Things
look grim.

Then you notice a recorded visual log. Your pulse
races as you realize you can now see the event that led to your abandonment
here on the ghost station.

You gain
1 XP
for the successful use of your
skill. Turn to section
152
.

You swing out over the side. Smoke rolls about in
front of you, casting deep shadows throughout the hellish red chamber. Two
horned heads rise into view. You fire at one, who jerks and slides along the
ground, dead, but the other gets off a shot before you can move. Your helm is
blasted sideways and pain rings throughout your skull as you crash into the
ground. As you reach up to adjust your helm you feel a great dent that presses
against your battered head. You struggle to rise once more, though your vision
shakes sickeningly.

You lose
7 Blood
, though you may subtract
your
Will
stat
from this amount. Be sure to
erase the amount of ammunition that you used.

If you die, then it turns out there are two large
dents in your helm - one where the bullet went in, and another where it came
out again. No amount of
Will
can overcome that. You may
Regenerate
by turning back to section
161
.

If you survive, then you hear the last guard blast
away at your cover as you crawl back onto your knees. You glance over at
Marcus. A pile of alien dead are scattered about the narrow doorway, the stairwell,
and beneath the stairs themselves. The walls run thick with blood as Marcus
reloads once more. Behind you, you see Commander Uther throw the last of his
alien guns away. Sybel hands him one of his handguns and a clip of ammunition.
When Sybel swings out of the doorway to fire at the oncoming stream of
reinforcements, he takes single, controlled shots.

Your head rings and the constant battering of
gunfire
is
maddening. You can feel your sanity
drifting away, drowning in a tide of brutality. There is not much time left,
and everyone is running low on ammunition. You must hold together and kill the
last guard quickly.

You must now compute a number that will determine
the accuracy of your third shot. This number is your
Dexterity
added to
your
Will
. If you are trained in
Weapon Proficiency: Ranged
, and
it is with the weapon you are using, add 3 to this number. If you are using a
Rifle
,
add 2. If you are using a
Shotgun
, add 1. For every
3 Handgun bullets
you fire, add 1. For every
2 Rifle
bullets
you fire, add 1. For
every
Shotgun
shell
you fire, add 1. Furthermore, if you have
Sixth
Sense
, add 2 to this number.

If you are out of ammunition, or have so little that
you do not think you can make an accurate shot, turn to section
73
.

If the number is 8 or less, turn to section
185
.

If the number is between 9 and 14, turn to section
208
.

If the number is 15 or more, turn to section
484
.

In one terrible instant the room erupts in gunfire.
Thunder in your skull, flashes of light,
the
storm of
the gods of war. Time slows down as you dive for cover amidst a spray of shards
from the wall as bullets fly around you.

If your Dexterity is 4 or more, turn to section
50
.

If your Dexterity is 3 or less, turn to section
380
.

With a hellish
battlecry
you run at the thing. It whips about you, arc-fires blazing. Your awareness
sharpens and you make out every detail of the shrieking steel coil. You leap to
your left, bounce off the wall, and roll away. The thing hisses in frustration:
Gain
1 XP.

You run to the end of the hall and turn a corner. A
door lies there. You enter it and leave behind the mist of destruction: Gain
1
XP.

Turn to section
223
.

You pull the trigger. The gun jerks like lightning
in your hand. The flash of the shotgun blast blinds you for an instant,
then
shards of the wall behind you cover you in a violent
cloud. As you blink the debris away you see the smiling revolutionary spinning
on his feet, blood dribbling from his chest in a long line. The other fires
over and over, his eyes nearly shut, and then two things happen at once: You
feel a sharp tearing sting along the fat of your left arm, and as the smiling
revolutionary falls he fires into the ground, spraying his comrade’s foot. As
you instinctively huddle into yourself, holding your arm close, the scared
revolutionary yelps and drops his gun, eyes wide and white with shock.

It seems one of the wild bullets of the scared
revolutionary has punched through your space suit and torn your arm: Lose
4
Blood.
If you have any
Sticky
Fix
, you must use one dose to fix
your suit; if you do not have this item, make a note that
your suit has been
damaged.

If you have died in a hail of gunfire, you may
Regenerate
by turning back to section
312
, or, if you want to go back further, turn back to
section
179
.

Be sure to erase the amount of ammunition that you
used.

If you survive, then as you slowly rise to your feet
the other revolutionary gives vent to a mucus-curdling scream and dashes from
the room. “Looks like I’m the last man standing,” you mutter, leaning against a
wall, bloody and exhausted. “Too bad survival hurts so
bad
.”

You search the bodies of the dead and find the
following gear, which you may take with you.

Krieger-Colt Pump-Action Shotgun
(Shotgun, bulk 3)

4 Shotgun Shells (bulk 1)

Enforcer Automatic (Handgun, bulk 2)

Cold Cock Auto (Handgun, bulk 2)
(The
serial number has been scratched off.)

7 Handgun Bullets (bulk 1)

Stellar Corp Law
Enforcement Uniform (bulk 2)
(Damaged and bloody.)