BANG!!!! Everything goes white, about thirty seconds later you regain your vision. Looking around, you see that all of the officers are laying on the ground. Amongst the bodies stands a tall, heavily armored man with a head of steel and a pistol in his left hand. He walks around the corpse, kicking them and and firing his pistol at the ground. Beside him stands a short, AK geist. The tall man continues to kick and shoot, kick and shoot, kick and shoot until he has run out of ammo for his gun. He reloads his pistol and walks towards you, with the AK following behind. As the man approaches, you begin to see more details of your mysterious savior. The heavy, bullet resistant armor he wore, making him look bloated. A dozen smoke and stun grenades on his vest. His pistol is unlike anything you’ve seen before. Made of polymer, like the glocks the officers used, but with a large beaver-tail. The slide is shaped like a Jericho 941, but with larger rear site. As for the AK following him, it wore a cameo field jacket and dark green cargo pants with a hole in the back for it’s tale. On its head, it had a red beret with the and a long, brunette braid hanging out the back. Short AK, you’ve ones overheard an officer mention something about them. What did he call it. You feel something cold on your forehead, interrupting you train of thought. “You’ve got exactly one minute, to convince me to not turn you into a unrecognizable heap of polymer and aluminum.” the tall man said “Krinkov!!” you blurt out. “What did you just call me, bitch?” The Krinkov said with furiously. “Krinkov?” “That’s what i thought” it says. Rushing forward, it grabs you by the throat and pushes you to the ground. “I am NOT, a FUCKING KRINKOV.” “Sara, that enough” the tall man grabs the not krinkov by the neck and in his hands appears a AK with an under folding stock. “I'm doing the interrogation hear” With his foot on your chest, and AK pointed at you, he repeats his question. You explain everything to him. After he hears your story, the metal faced man says to you. “Ether your telling the truth, or the gestapo thinks that we’re a bunch of babbling idiots” “So ,do you trust me?” “No, but you’ve made me curious. How about you hand over that radio, then we’ll talk more. ” You unclip the radio from you belt and pass it to the man. He takes it, and begins to roll it around in his hands, inspecting every detail. After what felt like an eternity, He removes the batteries from the back and drops the radio on the ground. he then smashes it with a large stick. He begins shifting through the pieces, searching for something. After half a minuet He stops, and lifts his thick metal mask revealing a pale, heavily scarred face. Now looking directly into your eyes, He says in a monotone “You better hope, for your sake cyka, that this is the real deal” “Sukka? What's that” “It’s what you are.” After reaching into his pocket and removing a box of cigarettes. he offers one to Chris who has been standing behind you, bewildered. “N..no thanks, I don’t smoke” Chris says “Shoot yourself then” With a lit cigarette in hand, your rescuer addresses the small group. “We’ve already stuck around here for to long. If we move quickly then, we should be able to reach a truck I've got hidden before the gestapo realize what's going on. I’ve got a truck parked a mile and a half away. O, and does anyone here speak Kraut.” “I can” Eirn said “Good, i’ve got a slight problem I think you can help me with.” now addressing the group your rescuer says “ok, now everyone follow me. We’re going to be moving quickly so make sure you don’t get lost, we’re not coming back if anyone get separated from the group. The two love birds and detector stay close to me, i’ve still got some questions that need to be answered.” The tall man finishes his cigarette and begins to walk quickly. You have to start jog to keep up. “Ok, first thing first, love birds. What’s your names?” “Chris” “Eirn” They say respectively. “Ok, I’m Taraquan, the carbine’s Sara and the pistol’s lori. So, what made you think that crossing the border at a checkpoint, not even trying to conceal what Eirn is from the gestapo, was a good idea?” “I panicked when one of our neighbors found out what Eirn is. I needed to make it out of here and onto a free state, as soon as possible. You know what, I’ll take that cigarette now.” “Sure thing, just don’t leave the but behind” Taraquan takes two cigarettes and a lighter from his pockets. He passes one of them and the lighter to Chris, and the other he light with the remains of he’s other cigarette. “Chris, Eirn, I’m going to be honest with you, thing don’t look good for you two. If everything you’ve told me is true, than you’ve got two options. Option one, I could call in a few favors and get you sent down to Texas with some forged documents. You two could lay Lowe their and hope that no one finds out that out that you killed a officer. Now option two, you and Eirn come and join the Railroad. We are always looking for good people to come and join the good fight. I know this is a big decision and I don’t expect you two to have an answer immediately. Give it a few days to think it over.” “No” Chris said. “I’ve already made up my mind. I can not allow what happened to me and Eirn to happen to anyone else. We’re going to stay here and fight.” “What” Eirn said shocked. “We barely managed to make it out of that god forsaken place and you plan on sticking around. We just got back together and you want to through it all away. Do you remember, the day after you bought me? What you tried to do?” “Of course I remember that day, how could I forget. It’s the reason why I can’t just sit around praying that no one recognises my face from a wanted poster. My decision is final, there's nothing you can do to change it.” “are you two are done with your little lover's quarrel, if so I need to know if your are serious about joining.” “We are” Chris said “Good, were always looking for good people. Now detector, time for us to talk. If even half the rumors I’ve heard about the training that the gestapo have put you thru is true. Then I should just take your bolt now and throw it into a river.” “Then why haven’t you?” “well, there aren't any rivers near by and you had ten marked geists with you. We’re lucky to get that may unmarked geists across the border in a month, let alone marked ones. You were also able to sense me following your group. though, I am wearing thirty pounds more equipment than I usually do. Also if this turns out to be legit” Taraquan reaches into his pockets and removes something. He rolled it around in his hand, inspecting it for several seconds. Now with his treasure being held still between two fingers you can make out what it is, a SD card. “than you might just saved millions.” Taraquan stop and gestures for the rest of the group to as well. “Ok everybody, we are about five minutes away from my truck. It’s important for you all to know, that you are not the only geists that I have rescued today. A few hours ago I rescued twenty-seven geists from a ‘art exhibit’. All these geist have some degree of damage. several of them were forced to stay in the same, painful, position while in geist form for three months. They may look like they've been to hell and back, but whatever you do, don’t stare. It makes them uncomfortable.” After Taraquan finished talking he gestured for everyone to resume walking. After five minutes had passed you and your group reached a gravel road with a small, white truck parked on it. “Stay here for a minute” Taraquan said. He walks over to the truck and bangs on the driver side door. A light turns on in the cabin and the door opens to reveal the silhouette of a man. Taraquan and the man begin a conversation though they are to far away for you to hear. The conversation go's on for several minutes and the two men’s body language begins to shift from civil discussion, to argumentative. Thair voices grow louder to the point you were able to hear some of what the two were saying. thought it was all incomprehensible gibberish. Advisably the unknown man yelled “srat’ tebe v rot” and returned to the cabin of the truck, slamming the door. Taraquan walks back to the group, murdering nonsense under his breath. “Follow me” Taraquan says with a noticeable amount of bitterness. He leads your group to the back of the truck. He opens the door, letting loose a torrent of bright, synthetic light. Your eyes take half a minute to adjust, to the sudden exposure. a few moments pass and you can see again. you notice half the group the group is already in the truck and that Taraquan has his hand outstretched. “Hurry up, we don’t have all night.” he says. Now in the cargo hold, you look around. You see that besides the ten geists you rescued, seven other lay on the the floor, either naked, blind or both. Except one, a pistol geist wearing a gray, wool uniform and with eye as bright as the LED lights on the wall. You recognize it as one of the geists that you saw on the news a lifetime ago. Smiling, it runs to Taraquan and wrapping its arms around his legs. It says “Kommandant, du bist zurückgekehrt. Ich begann müde zu werden, dass du von den Ivens gefangen genommen wurdest.” “Everyone fined something to hold onto, it’s going to be bum...” the truck starts to move. Everyone standing topples onto the floor. Egypt Taraquan, who was holding onto a handle riveted to the wall. “Eirn what did she say?” Taraquan asked Eirn, who was try to avoid starting at geists on the ground, or the three half opened, duffel bags filled with damaged guns. “I couldn't quite tell, i’m going to ask Her to repeat it. Kannst du wiederholen, was du gesagt hast?” “du sprichst Deutsch. Haben wir Berlin zurückerobert? Das letzte, was ich hörte, bevor ich von den Amerikanern gefangen genommen wurde, war, dass Berlin von den Ivans erobert wurde.” “So, what is she saying?” Taraquan asked “She thinks that world war two is still going on, and wants to know if the nazi’s have retaken Berlin.” “That's what I was afraid of. Looks like you’re going to have to break the news to her.” “Es gibt kein Berlin mehr. Die Stadt wurde nach der Gründung der Europäischen Föderation in "neues Mekka" umbenannt.” “Lügen, das Reich soll tausend Jahre dauern.” “Es gibt kein Reich mehr, und seit achtzig Jahren gibt es kein Reich mehr.” “Lier, Google Translate ist für Homosexuelle.” the pistol geist said right before it launched itself onto Eirn, knocking it onto the floor. “Lügen, Lügen, Lügen, Lügen.” It keeps repeating while slamming Erin's head onto the floor, trying to break it’s bolt. “Enough!” Taraquan said. He then grabbed the pistol geist by the back the neck. Forcing it back to it’s true, a luger with cracked grip. Now with pistol in hand he, separates the upper and lower halves, placing them in one of his pants pockets. “Sorry about that, hearing that the nation you were built to protect, serve and expand no longer exists. it's hard for these old military geist. It’s not easy for them to all of a sudden realize that they no longer have any purpose.” “What's going to happen to her?” Eirn asked. “I’ll have her sent down to Arizona. I’ve got a friend down there, a gunsmith who specializes in lugers” Taraquan then takes off his armor and sits down. He places his pistol and carbine on the floor to his side. An instant later two geist appeared. the short AK from earlier Sarra and the geist from strange pistol. Sarra gives you a disgusted glances, and sulks in a corner, stuffing 5.56mm cartridges into it’s magazine. The pistol however crawls straight towards you on it’s hand and neas. Staring at you intensely, it’s tail swaying ever so slightly. It reaches you and and begins tracing it’s fingers over you're black identification mark. “What are you doing?” you ask it while trying to push it away. “Mne prosto interesno” it says to you, grabbing your arm with a surprising amount of strength for a pistol. “ ostav'te yeye v pokoye ” Taraquan said. the pistol then releases your are and walks over to Taraquan side, pouting. “Sorry, she can be a bit… insistent a time and she's strong enough to be a nuisance to. hell, she’ll eat +p+ all day and ask for seconds.” “So what kind of pistol is it? I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.” “HER, SHE is a HER.” “What? That’s not a gun.” “You referred to lori as an it. She may be many thing. She is strong. She is simple. She is reliable. She is clingy. She is Russian. She is a bitch to strip. She is not a it.” Taraquan say between clenched teeth. “But it's just a gun.” “SHE MAY HAVE BEEN CREATED IN A FACTORY INSTEAD OF A WOMB BUT THAT DOES NOT CHANGE ANYTHING. SHE CAN FEEL HAPPINESS, PAIN, PRIDE, FEAR, REGRET AND EVERYTHING BETWEEN.” Taraquan yells. After taking several, deep breaths he continues in a much calmer voice. “Sorry, it’s just that you’ve struck a nerve. She’s a GSh-18, the current standard issue sidearm of the Russian military.” The truck ride continued in silence but that did nothing to reduce the tension in the room. Everyone was staring at someone else. The geists from the “art gallery”, at least those that could still see, stared at Chris and Eirn. The marked geists you rescued couldn't decide if they were afraid or curias of you. Sara was trying to will your bolt to shatter with it’s anger. lori gave quick glances whenever it thought you weren't paying attention. Taraquan just sang songs with lyrics you couldn't understand. Eventually the truck stopped and engine shuts off. “We’re here” Taraquan says. He gets up and walks to the door and opens it to reveal the early morning sun. “time to get out” he starts to usher blind geist out of the truck and throws several duffle out bags as well. “If you’re strong enough grab a bag. Sara, make sure the blind don’t wander off. Detector, you stay close, Everyone follow me.” with a duffel bag in each hand, Taraquan leads the group to a path that branches off from the road that the truck parked on. You walk for forty-five minutes until the path ends in a small village, made up of a half dozen log cabins. “Welcome to Madsen safe house” Taraquan said after everyone reached the first cabin. Almost immediately a geist with black wolf ears and wear a greatcoat bursts out of a cabin. “What the HELL have you been doing all night. First the thing at the “art exhibit’ and then killing an entire gestapo patrol, on the same night. Are you crazy, do want to make all geist rights activist look like blood thirsty killers.” “ninety days age, 178 geists entered a gallery, when i arrived fifty-three remade and of these less than thirty left. That patrol you mentioned was in the process of capturing ten marked geist, a refuge, and a detector.” Taraquan said. “You… brought a, a detector…. Here?” The geist in the greatcoat said, in a now fearful tone. “You brought one of those gestapo bitches here, one of the most important safe houses on the east coast. That’s whole new level of crazy, even for you.” “She had this with her” Taraquan removes the SD card from earlier and shows it to the geist. Then out of nowhere, a man run up and grabbed your neck, forcing you back into rifle form. Holding you by the barrel, he begins to smash your stock against a tree shouting “this is for Caroline”. He completely destroys your buffer tube and heavy damages your rear sight. he continues until Taraquan manages to knock the man out with his helmet. He picks you up and carries you into a cabin and pleases you in a safe.