Sub-standard

"Don't shoot! I'm on your side!"

Parker figured that if he had a dollar for every time he'd heard an Ultor lacky say that, he'd be rich enough to buy his way off Mars. Provided that Ultor would even let him live at this point, but having killed dozens of security guards and mercs, maybe they'd just be glad to see him go. He could grab a shuttle, go back to Earth, make up with mom and dad, and spend the rest of his life in quiet comfort. After all, it wasn't as if he'd wanted to join this crazy rebellion. Wasn't as if he asked to be Eos's "go to" guy after her Red Faction forces apparently failed at accomplishing anything by themselves.

Still, he was here. An underground dock with one security point, one dead guard, and one sub hanging from above that he'd have to lower into the water. So, all he had to do was to get the Ultor employee cowering in said security point to get it to descend.

"Hey. Buddy."

Provided he could stop cowering like a little bitch.

"Hey!" Parker yelled, tapping his hand against the glass.

The grunt looked up at him, tears pouring out of his eyes. "Please, don't kill me. I have a family."

"Yeah, groovy pal. Just need you to-"

"Some of my best friends are miners!"

Parker couldn't help but smirk. "Okay. Sure. Who are they?"

"Um…there's John. And Jim. And another guy…um…began with k…"

"Don't suppose you know their last names."

"Kenneth? Kwame?"

"Yeah, great," Parker said. "Listen, just need you to lower the sub so I can get on with my work."

"John…no, it was…I think…"

"You even listening?!"

The grunt let out a whimper and began cowering again. Sighing, Parker tried to open the security point door – it was locked.

"Listen, pal," Parker said. "I can talk about Johns, and Jims, and Jeromes, and all that crap, but here's how this works. You lower the sub, I get in the sub, I drive off in the sub, and I leave you to keep peeing your pants."

"Please. Don't kill me."

"Open the door and I won't have to."

The grunt went back to whimpering.

"Okay," Parker said. "I need to get in there. And I've got these." He picked up one of his remote explosives – originally used for his work in the mines, now used to wreck all kinds of havoc against Ultor. "So, option one – you lower the sub, and you don't have to see me again. Option two – I blow my way in, lower it myself, and murmur 'you had it coming' after I leave your charred corpse."

"Please, don't kill me."

Oh for God's sake! Parker, scowling under his helmet, set the explosive at the door. In spite of everything, he didn't want to kill the grovelling weasel behind the checkpoint. He hadn't wanted to kill anyone, despite how hard Ultor was putting its boot on the faces of its miners. Still, needs must, and all that. So he finished setting the explosive, got a safe distance away, and gave one last look at the grunt, cowering behind the glass.

"Last chance," Parker called out.

The guard didn't say anything.

"Alright, fine. Just remember – this is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you."

A lie, but one he could live with right now. Whether the employee could survive wasn't something he was sure about. Still…

"Three. Two. One…"

The explosive detonated. The door was blown off its hinges, the glass shattered, and a significant portion of the security point's wall crumbled as well. Parker pocketed the detonator and drew out his pistol, before gingerly walking up to the security point.

"Buddy?" he called out, as the dust and smoke cleared. "You still alive?"

"Buddy," as he'd called him, was indeed still alive. Currently laying against the far wall of the security point, staring at Parker with a look of horror.

"Oh hey, you are alive. That's neat. I guess."

The man just remained there, trembling.

"Yeah, sure pal, give me the silent treatment. It's what I do when Eos contacts me, telling me what to do and how to do it like I'm her damn servant."

"Eos?" the man whispered.

"Oh yeah, she's a little voice inside my head. She's totally got the hots for me, even if she's hiding it. I mean, I am her go to miner, a.k.a. rebel, a.k.a. guerrilla, a.k.a. marauder, a.k.a…." He trailed off. He wanted to mention something about Armageddon, but a gut instinct told him not to. For whatever reason.

"Anyway," Parker said, as he went to the (thankfully still intact) control console. "Don't mind me. I've just got to get this sub in the water since you wouldn't."

"I…I could've…"

"What? Opened the door? Yeah, sorry pal, but had to make my own way in since you wouldn't."

The man looked at the hole Parker had blasted, then back at Parker himself. "Why not just break the window and crawl in?" he asked.

Parker blinked. "Huh. Never thought about that." He nevertheless continued to fiddle with the controls. "This one do it?"

The man nodded.

"Good." Parker pressed the green button, because over the last few hours, he'd learnt that it was always good to press green buttons. He watched as the sub hanging above the dock was carried out over the water via a magnetic clamp.

"Well," Parker said. "This was a pleasure. But now it's time to-"

The sub suddenly exploded, the shockwave sending Parker falling back.

The hell? He got to his feet, finding that there was no sub. Instead, just pieces of sub floating in the water.

"No." He ran over to the edge of the dock, staring in horror at the remnants of his intended ride. "No no no no no no no no!" He collapsed down on his knees and began pounding the dock. "Why? Is? Everything? So? Damn? Hard?!"

He heard the footsteps of the Ultor grunt come near, but only near enough so that he could get to his feet and slam himself into the asshole without giving him time to respond. He slammed him between the dock and the security point, his body over the window sill as Parker put a gun in his face.

"You did this! You son of a bitch, you actually did it!"

"Please…" the man whimpered. He rose his trembling hands and turned his head away from the gun, keeping his eyes closed even as tears ran out of them. "I didn't do it man! You gotta believe me!"

"Oh yeah. Sure. Subs just magically blow up."

"Maybe you pressed the wrong button?"

Parker pressed his pistol against the man's chin even harder.

"Please! Jamie will vouch for me."

"Jamie?"

"Yeah, Jamie. He's a miner."

"Thought you said it was John."

"Um…" The man looked back at Parker, crying less, and squirming more. "Well, I've got a lot of miner friends. Some are called John, some are called Jamie."

"Uh-huh."

"John keeps saying that Jamie knows nothing, and Jamie's always saying that he's going to pay his debts so he can get off Mars, and-"

Parker shoved the man aside and walked back to the dock. He had better things to do than listen to B.S., especially of the kind originating from book series that were finished in the 2060s. Unfortunately, this was the real world, not science fiction or fantasy, so there was no way of putting this sub back together.

"Seriously, what happened?" Parker asked. "Like, what the hell could cause the sub to just detonate?"

"I dunno man," said the grunt as he walked over. "I mean, Ultor's pretty stingy with its equipment and all that. In fact, you might even call it…sub-standard."

Parker looked at the grunt, who was grinning like an idiot. "Please don't make me shoot you."

The man nodded and lost his grin, and Parker looked back at the water. "Well, that's it. Rebellion's over."

"It is?" the man asked, sounding a bit more hopeful than Parker cared for.

"Oh yeah. Sure. I can't use the sub, I can't move on. I can't move on, the Red Faction fails. The Red Faction fails, I don't get to bone…" He shook his head. "Point is, I'm screwed."

"Or you could just swim."

Parker looked back at the man. "What?" he whispered.

"Well, you're in an envirosuit that's designed to function in a zero-oxygen environment, and water's as good as zero-oxygen as far as humans are concerned, and I'm guessing you can swim, so…"

Parker waved his pistol. First at the man, then at the door that led out of the docks.

"…anyway, I'm gonna go," the man said. "I need to help…Jorge."

Yeah. You do that.

Parker waited for the door to hiss shut before he let out a sigh. He wanted to say that he wasn't getting paid enough for this, but it had just occurred to him that as stingy as Ultor was, it had at least paid him a wage. What were the Red Faction paying him exactly?

Damn reds. They give pretty promises, but then the revolution runs out, and then we discover the joys of capitalism, and then we rip up the Earth, come to Mars to keep the resources flowing, and then people like me take a dive for helpless causes.

Taking a breath (despite being in the envirosuit), taking a dive was just what he did.

The sub had been sub-standard.

He just hoped his suit wasn't.

A/N

So I've started playing Red Faction, and I've had the 'joy' of encountering the exploding sub glitch. After 30 minutes of trying to get around said glitch, I said "screw it," typed in the invincibility cheat, swum through the caves, and turned off invincibility once I reached the other side. Call me a cheater if you want, but that's 30 minutes of my life I'm not getting back.

Still, I did end up drabbling this in response, so...yay?