2.15 The midnight light show on Hercules Boulevard
You need to get out of here. But how? The Vigiles fire another shot, they mean business. You have an idea, risky but it might work.
The officers try to surround the building. The front entrance to the property is already guarded by them. You and Paul run out to the back of the garden. The magnificently trimmed hedges provide excellent cover from the prying eyes of the native policemen. You pull out your laspistol and cut out a hole in the iron fence with a few long pulses. Quickly you run into the property next door.
The vigiles grunts follow you, bullets fly through the air. One narrowly misses you. Luckily, it is dark and their guns are rather inaccurate. You avoid having to fire back. Soon however it becomes obvious you will only get out of here alive or free if you kill them all.
“The gate!” Paul shouts. “It’s locked!” There is no time to open the large gate surrounded by a tall wall. Unluckily you forgot that the other property with just an iron fence in the front was connected with Salvitto’s on the other side of the garden.
You don’t see any other quick way out, you are trapped. The other group of officers is charging towards the gate from the street. You and Paul try to take cover behind a pair of tall oaks present in the neighbors garden. It is time to make a stand.
When you notice one of them ran out of ammo you fire back. Three pulses are fired at the shadowy figures trying to hide behind the corner of the house. Beams of light burns through the night air. A scream can be heard. You got one.
The other officer tries to help his comrade by dragging him behind cover, a tactical error on his part. You shoot him twice and his wounded comrade just to be sure. Meanwhile somebody has opened the gate, the vigiles storm inside shooting in your direction.
Luckily they miss you. “Scheisse!” Paul screams, it appears they didn’t miss him. He needs to hang on, you just need to kill these two savages. May Hades have mercy upon them for what they did. Bullets keep hitting the tree trunks and the wall behind you. A you think a brick fragment chipped away by one of them hit you in the arm.
One of the officers hides behind a column at the entrance to the villa, the other stays behind the corner of the gate. They’re smarter than the others. When one stop firing to reload the other keeps the pressure by shooting. You force them to take cover with a few blind shots fired in their direction.
You can hear some horses, they appear to be terrified of the laser show you’re displaying here. The officers must have used them to get here. Finally, you notice one of the officers decides to try his luck and pop out of cover. The beam of light hits him in the right leg burning right through it, he starts screaming from the pain as he falls to the ground. You take another shot, this time at his chest and head. His face is now a charred mess, but you doubt he minds that as he is most definitely dead.
The other officer having noticed what happened to his comrade starts panicking. He fires frantically in your direction missing every shot. One, two, three, four, five, and finally the sixth shot. It is time to strike back. You run from behind the tree firing at the direction of the scared savage.
In a way he’s like an animal scared, trapped and terrified. The look of horror upon his face makes you pity him in a way. He’s standing their helpless paralyzed with fear just a few meters in front of you. But what must be done must be done, you end his life with one move of your finger. The savage never stood a chance.
Quickly you rush back to Paul, the bullet hit his left arm. In the commotion he managed to pull out some Reich bandages and stop the bleeding. “I took some pills so it doesn’t hurt as much and I can walk,” he informs you, “but we need to get me out of here fast”.
You run outside of the residence and into the dark back alleys on the other side of the street. Somewhere in the distance you can hear horses running. Probably reinforcements. This night has been far too eventful, but it has not yet ended. You quickly decide where to go now so that Paul’s wound can be examined more closely and he can hopefully be patched up.
*
Paul informed you that if nothing goes wrong within 24 hours he should be okay. Getting the bullet out wasn’t exactly what you were made for. It is a good thing he knew how to do it and that he was conscious enough to guide you through. The bullet damaged a few nerves leaving his left arm paralyzed. Nothing Reich medical science can’t fix, but you’re a long way away from the Reich homeparallel. At least he didn’t bleed to death or get an infection.
It is the morning of the fourth day, the fourth day since you arrived here of course. Today’s edition of the Vox Populi daily has a rather worrying front page.
Well Heracles, you have been in worse situations. These savages won’t find out you were responsible for that massacre. Or will they?
Once you escaped with Paul, you decided to…
A)…stay at the House of Liber until he gets better.
B)…spend the night at the railway station and visit then rent that apartment at Via Galicia.
C)…pay a visit to Bucco and “convince” him to let you and Paul stay at his place until Paul gets better.
D)…find some cheap rooms in the plebian quarter. There had to be something like that available there.
Considering you barely avoided getting shot by the native police force, you will now…
1)...get the container for Bucco. Transit to ββ-17 via αε-13.
2)...get the container for Bucco. Transit to ββ-17 via αδ-37.
3)...try to enter the "Parlor of Prestige". Meeting some of the local tycoons should prove prudent.
4)...visit the Coitus Maximus. Time to see if an expensive whore (or two) is worth the money.
5)...check out the Christian Society of Western Caesarea. Maybe the Christians know something.
6)...try to contact the head of the city's treasury. Ask him if he needs more slaves or knows anything that could be of use to you.
7)...contact the local governor and offering him technology.
8)…visit the Isaac’s Firearms factory and investigate Mr. Salvitto’s disappearance there.
9)…search the area where the pioneer/agent disappeared. He wanted to exit the streetcar there on his own, he had to have some business there.
10)…visit a local gambling hall, search for clues there. Surely Mr. Salvitto had to frequent one of them.
11)...visit the Credito Augustia Bank branch, try to find out something about Mr. Salvitto.
12)…get back to the Reich homeparallel as soon as possible so that Paul can get his arm fixed.
13)…try to enter the Naval Hospital and dispose of the surviving officer. Discretely of course.
Consult the map and info on parallels for details if you need them.
I was very tempted to kill off Paul. But let’s face it, Paul knows medicine well and you were facing a bunch of industrial era roman cops with revolvers. In the middle of the night at that. The odds were in your favor. Although not as much as you thought.
Still, deciding to make your stand at the house and start the fight yourselves would have proven to be a better choice. For one there would be less witnesses and more corpses, as you could pretty much gun them down from a window while they were still on the street before the gate. Not to mention Paul not ending up unable to move his left hand’s fingers.
Hiding inside would steal lead to a firefight, but it would be more lethal at least to Paul.