# Bethlehem Steel Plant
Friday, 13 August 1999,12:47 AM Bethlehen Steel Plant Buffalo, New York Hell, Baughman decided, was built entirely out of abandoned steel plants. And the one at the very heart of the whole thing was clearly modeled after the monstrosity he was currently wriggling through.
Bethlehem had abandoned the place years ago, but it was simply too big to tear down. They’d left it sitting there, an open invitation to kids looking for trouble, gangs, dealers and of course, vampires.
Baughman had, like every other Anarchwannabe Buffalo had ever spawned, havened in the plant at one point. This was before he realized that Prince Lladislas and his advisors kept the place standing as somewhere the rebellious teens of the Camarilla could go to perform the vampiric equivalent of smoking dope behind the garage before coming home, growing up and getting a respectable job manipulating the local media or some such.
However, at the moment it was a deathtrap.
Baughman was sure of it. He’d been suckered-How exactly did I get talked into this again? he found himself wondering-into remaining behind with the skeleton force that was to hold the city after Lladislas and the big guns pulled out. In other words, he was there to get killed noisily and take out as many of the enemy as possible in the process, just to keep the Sabbat from realizing that they’d been had.
The situation, he concluded after due reflection, profoundly sucked.
Unfortunately, it was too late now to do anything about it. He’d heard the others enter the building a few minutes ago, and that meant that there wasn’t any way out any longer. He’d also heard a few of his so-called support troops going down noisily and quickly, and that didn’t exactly help his mood either.
Instead, he wriggled closer to the edge of the platform he was on and carefully got his AK-47 in line to cover the entrance to the room. The gun was a Chinese-made piece of shit, but it was all he’d been able to get his hands on when the orders came down. It was about as accurate as the local weather forecast, but once he hit someone with it, they tended to stay down, at least long enough for him to make sure of the job. He was positive he didn’t have the personal firepower to handle one Sabbat badass, let alone a whole pack, but a really big gun, as his sire had been fond of saying, was a hell of a way to even the odds.
The room itself was a jumble of catwalks, walkways, abandoned blast furnaces and other, less identifiable things. Once upon a time this room had housed planning meetings, parties and the like for Baughman and his friends; now he’d come back to it because it had more potential escape routes than anywhere else in the building.
Voices in the next room snapped Baughman out of his reverie. Someone, no, two someones were coming, and they were arguing.
“...Could have sworn I saw him duck in here,” came a male voice, damaged by cigarettes and whiskey.
“You’d better be right. We’re behind schedule as is, and there aren’t enough of us on this ride to afford unexpected delays.” The response caught Baughman by surprise. He’d been told that the city was going to be swamped by waves of Sabbat. If what he’d just heard was true, then there weren’t that many Sabbat in the city. In that case, there might actually a chance of holding them off.
More to the point, the fact that there weren’t that many in place for a supposedly major offensive against a big target was a sign that someone’s intelligence wires had gotten crossed somewhere. Either the council advising Lladislas had vastly overestimated the force lined up against him.. .
“
Or we’ve been sold out. Son of a bitch.” He cursed himself for speaking as he heard a scramble down on the floor. While he’d been lost in reverie, the Sabbat vampires had entered the room and crossed out of his field of fire. And now they’d heard him speak and knew where he was.
Well, the hell with it. What he’d figured out was more important than taking one or two shovelheads with him as he went. His first order of business was to escape; his second to bring word to someone, anyone higher up in the Camarilla to let them know that the whole operation had been compromised. He eased to his feet silently while his pursuers stomped about, backing toward a patch of darkness that he knew concealed a fire door to a stairwell with an outside exit. If he made it to the stairs and out the back, he could find a car to steal and run like hell. Quietly thanking God that he didn’t have to breathe any longer, he silently lifted one foot, then the other, taking minuscule steps to avoid making any further noise.
The two downstairs sounded like they were still bickering. Perfect. The door was only a few feet behind him, hidden in the shadow behind a massive column of machinery. For the first time since he’d been thrown to the wolves, he dared to hope.
And that’s when the shadow Baughman had been easing into decided to expedite the process, and swallowed him whole.
“
Oh, fu-”-was all he had time to say before it was over. The AK-47 clattered to the metal of the walkway, alerting the two vampires down below. They looked up, laughed, and walked out.
MacEllen was right on schedule, and so were they.