Grabbing the best gear from the warehouse, Li Qingyu slowly headed towards the Fertilizer Gang's base.
Upon arriving, he saw that the gang members had already gathered. Over a thousand people were crammed into a room, barely cleared of chemical equipment.
A burly man stood on a raised platform: one eye was real, and the other was a red mechanical prosthesis. It seemed he was the leader of the Fertilizer Gang.
The leader was shouting himself hoarse at his subordinates standing below. He demanded they go and finish off the Chem-Gang bastards, sparing neither themselves nor others, and promised titles, money, and a full set of entertainment with girls to those who distinguished themselves.
The crowd roared, waving melee weapons, and impatiently waited for the chance to spill the blood of the chemical freaks.
Behind the one-eyed brute stood several senior officers, among whom was the Black Merchant Nepal.
Nepal surveyed the crowd below. His eye was sharp – he immediately noticed Li Qingyu in the gray-green SIT armor, which stood out sharply against the local rabble in patched-up scrap metal.
The merchant beckoned one of the guys, whispered something quickly to him, and slipped a small item into his hand.
The guy nodded, disappeared from the platform, and weaving through the crowd, found himself next to Li Qingyu.
"Mr. Scavenger, Boss Nepal sends his regards."
The guy handed over a pack of fertilizer coupons.
"This is your fee for participating. We're moving out soon – please join the attack on the Chem-Gang."
Li Qingyu counted the coupons – five thousand, no more, no less. He hid them in his pockets with satisfaction.
"Mr. Scavenger," the guy added, "from now on, I'm your assistant. I'll help in combat."
"So, a spy from the merchant," Li Qingyu noted to himself. "They don't give five grand for nothing. They need control, so I don't run off after a couple of shots."
He took out cigarettes and offered one.
"What's your name?"
The guy took a cigarette.
"Call me Knife."
"Alright, Knife. Stay behind me and help count the kills. Your boss promised me three hundred for every chem-dog and three thousand for every chem-pig. So keep your eyes peeled – don't mix them up."
Knife nodded.
"Boss Nepal sent me precisely for that. I've got sharp eyes, I won't miss a single corpse."
As they spoke, Cyclops on the platform roared, and the crowd responded with a unified bellow. The whole mess surged forward, with no semblance of order.
Li Qinyu and Knife positioned themselves at the tail of the column.
"How many people did you bring out?" Li Qinyu asked. "And how many do the 'chemics' have?"
"We have over a thousand," Knife replied. "Plus we hired about five hundred for money. The 'chemics' have more; they control their junkies with syringes. But our gear is better, we have more shooters, and boss Cyclops has a secret weapon. Heh-heh – that'll be enough to make those bastards shit themselves."
Li Qinyu just grunted, offering no comment.
Fifteen hundred fighters had been moving through the ceramic passages of the underground hive for over half an hour.
The crowd was noisy, boisterous. Some were yelling, some were banging their weapons against pipes – discipline was an alien concept here.
Finally, they emerged into a vast hall… probably a former storage facility of the Lower Hive, comparable in size to a dozen football fields.
Metal columns rose around them, like titans holding up the ceiling. The place was a mess: piles of metal, collapsed trusses, ceramic ruins, dimly lit by rare emergency lamps.
Strategic Warehouse S65. Abandoned a hundred and twenty years ago. After approval from the Department of Justice, it became an arena for showdowns between the Lower Hive gangs. The locals simply called it the Arena.
Fifteen hundred fighters from the Fertilizer Gang entered the Arena and fell silent, awaiting their opponents. The chemics were due to appear soon to settle, in a fair fight, who would get the reactor.
While the others were chattering, Li Qinyu was looking for a firing position.
There was plenty of space, but it wasn't empty: piles of junk, containers, and remnants of metal structures turned the hall into a labyrinth.
He spotted a broken crane, about ten meters high, with an operator's cabin at the top.
Patting Knife on the shoulder, he said, "After me."
Knife didn't ask questions and followed him. Together, they climbed the crane and got into the cabin.
The glass-and-bronze cockpit offered good cover and an excellent view.
Li Qinyu smashed the glass with his rifle butt, set the semi-automatic rifle on its bipod, and aimed. The long barrel allowed for sniper-like shooting.
He took out a magazine of third-class cartridges and a handful of loose rounds, handing them to Knife.
"Can you load?"
Knife nodded.
"Excellent. I shoot, you load the magazines and count the corpses. Got it?"
"Understood, Mr. Scavenger."
A heavy wait ensued. Li Qinyu even managed to eat, consuming a couple of potatoes, washing them down with water, and then, cradling his rifle, dozed off right in the cabin, telling Knife to wake him if anything started.
After some time, Knife shook him: "Mr. Scavenger, the chemical bastards are here!"
Li Qinyu jumped up, loaded his weapon, chambered a round, and released the safety.
From the darkness ahead came a growing rumble: thousands of footsteps, the clanging of pipes, the screams of maddened warriors.
The Chem Gang had arrived.
More than five thousand people. Most were emaciated junkies in rags, pumped up to madness, armed with pipes and machetes. Real cannon fodder.
The core of the gang consisted of brutes in armor and with homemade firearms. Their bodies looked unnaturally swollen – likely the result of the "Strength of Nine Dragons" drug. But whether such muscles were useful in real combat was an open question.
The leader of the "fertilizers," Cyclops, and the leader of the "chemics," a woman nicknamed Mama, hurled insults at each other across the wasteland.
Mama looked like a vampire: deathly pale skin, a black cloak, a shaved head with a thin braid. On the back of her head was a device with vials of different colors, ready for injection.
A couple of minutes of shouting – and the negotiations ended with mutual curses. The slaughter began.