You didn't need telling twice, the gate swung open with your newly-hacked credentials and you high-tailed it as fast as you could up the stairway and onto the wide esplanade that surrounded the harbour area.
Dunk propped Mantis up and helped him up the long stairway, grunting with the awkward load.
The town had begun to awaken from its sleep and an auto-bus trundled down the main road ahead towards the port, ready to pick up the morning shift workers for their daily commute. It was still quiet outside, no-one had yet braved the cold, not even a dog-walker. It would be another hour or so before the town sprung fully to life and you knew you didn't have long to find the pub.
A swift location search plotted you the route in your AR feed, a glowing dashed green line guiding you the 0.4 miles to the Artillery Arms.
heading away from the harbour and across the esplanade, you headed up Liverpool Lawn road, hobbling past the quaint old terraced houses that had obviously stood there for well over 2 centuries. Many had been turned into cheap B&B's, Vacancy signs in most showing that business in the town was less than brisk now the summer trade had ended. The gradient took its toll on your tired frames and you stopped outside the gardens to get your breath back for a minute, looking at the lightening sky with concern. Daylight was still a while away but time was not on your side.
Pressing on up Hertford street, the steady climb uphill away from sea-level made carrying Mantis's awkward load even more of an arduous task, by the time you'd reached West Cliffe Road you were panting and the crappy masks Knive's had cut were beginning to slide and slip away under your own sweat.
The odd light on in the houses either side of you meant it was only a matter of time before you had to take them off for fear of drawing more attention so you stuffed them into your pockets and hit the high-street.
Rows of glistening shop fronts lay empty, for-sale and for-rent signs displaying yet another failed seaside-town regeneration project. Charity shops filled the spaces in between empty retail units, the odd Polish food shop or cheap chinese clothes shop the only rent paying inhabitants of the project.
The slight climb continued, but you could see the AR logo of the naval gun emplacement of the Pub's namesake up ahead.
A noisy and ancient battered white van passed you without slowing, Its occupant too busy stuffing breakfast down his neck as he navigated the speed bumps put in to retard old manual vehicle's speed.
Its common-rail diesel engine rattled and echoed off the shop fronts as it tailed off downhill towards the old centre but all you could think of was the pub. You'd never been so happy to reach such an old and worn out pub before, but you knocked and waited by the old hand-carved wooden door, paint flecks peeling off with neglect to reveal the previous 3 or four colour iterations it had seen over the decades.
A light clicked on upstairs as a mainly empty bus rolled past, bleary eyed commuters staring at their e-paper magazines and comm displays, or so you hoped.
After what seemed like an age, a dirty and unshaven bloke unbolted the door, waving you in with a gesture.
The main room of the pub stank of stale beer, cigarettes and fart. The faint light of the beer taps was all that illuminated the room from the inside, the street lights from the main drag caught the upturned stool legs on the tables and cast long shadows over the cold tiling under-foot.
Bunk down in the cellar lads, oi've left some kit down there for you. It ain't much but your lads didn't gi' me much notice now di' they?. {he leads you over to the bar and lifts the hatch to the barrel cellar}
Oi've left a flask O' tea down there and a couple packs O' biscuits roight. I ant got nowt more substantial Oi'm afraid.
His lilting south-west accent was reassuring and his pitted and weathered face cracked a smile.
You two head down and get some kip. Oi'll look after the wounded one in the back room. Come on lad
___Lumen___
He helps Mantis through a door at the back of the bar and into a darkened room. You hear him grunt with pain as he limps heavily away from you and you feel relieved at finally getting back into your comfort zone.
Doing as the old bloke had said, you descended into the beer cellar as directed. A naked bulb hung from the low ceiling, rows and rows of beer barrels were hooked up to a series of pipes that trailed off into pressure gauges and Nitrogen tanks built into the crumbling brick wall.
It smelled damp and you saw three rolled out mats with heavily patterned blankets strewn over them positioned between crates of bottles and the row of barrels.
True to his word, a large thermos stood in the centre of the mats amid a menagerie of different brands of biscuit and plastic cups made for camping trips.
It wasn't much but your throat rasped for a cup of tea and your stomach rumbled for something resembling a proper breakfast.
Dunk followed behind you and immediately banged his head against the low beams supporting the ceiling.
Fuck! ow...Pour us a wee cuppa will ye pal? I'm gagging fer a brew.
___Scawire___
The old chap didn't have anywhere near the same level of strength as Dunk did and you felt bad for putting your weight on him, instead trusting more weight onto your wounded leg.
You grunted against the pain as he led you into a darkened room, a large wooden cover had been put over the pool table that stood in the centre and some solutions and bandages stood to one side.
Hop up there pal he directed, flicking the lights on.
The room was similar to the first one you came in by, a smaller bar area on this side and carpets under-foot showing that this room probably saw less use though.
Pushing yourself back onto the wooden table-protector, the old man grabbed a bottle of whisky, some towels and a small plastic kit from under the bar and headed over to you, popping on a set of old optical magnifying glasses with a built in torch.
How'd ye get this then? he said gesturing at your leg wound.
He took a pair of scissors and cut the trouser leg off well above the wound, giving you the whisky to glug to help against the pain.
Sorry lad but this is gonna hurt loik fuck. Brace yourself.
He yanked the severed trouser leg off, dislodging the congealed blood from your leg hair and the scabbed over wound.
You screamed, spraying un-swallowed whisky over his back.
There now, that's that. Oim gonna clean this down and see what oi can dig out of it before sealing it. You'll need to see a proper doc soon though, don't wanna get a nasty infection in it, or you'll need summat a lot stronger than that bottle o'whisky. He smiled at you and encouraged you to take another good swig before pouring half a bottle of fluid onto your leg, its chemical smell tanging the back of your nose. It stung against your wound, a low background niggle that let you know it was doing its thing, hopefully killing all those nasty bacteria that had gotten into your system.
He poked and prodded at the wound, making you groan and shout in protest, fresh blood trickling from the disturbances he made looking for fragments.
Eventually he left you alone, spraying a sealant on the wound and dressing it with the bandages.
That'll do ya. Get some kip with the others. Your lads will be here around lunch time.
