The Z Directive (Book 2): Mutation

by Thompson, Chris

  “Do it slowly!” Maxwell responded, standing and raising his weapon in the direction of the voice. He saw an assault rifle held aloft by a man near the driver’s seat before it was tossed towards the storefront. This was followed a few seconds later by a pistol, then a knife.

  “My buddy needs a medic! Your sniper got him in the shoulder!” the soldier responded, standing with his hands in the air. He moved around the vehicle and took a few steps towards Maxwell, who had mimicked his movements. They were standing a little more than ten feet apart, and Maxwell had his gun pointed straight at his head. Still holding the weapon in one hand, Maxwell reached behind him and retrieved the small radio he had brought, bringing it up to his mouth.

  “Good work, Jose,” Maxwell declared.

  “I prefer Rodriguez, sir.”

  “As you wish. Get on the horn to the bird, have them come on back. Looks like we’ll be bringing two extra prisoners—” Maxwell was saying when the man in front of him was suddenly gunned down, a gory expulsion from the front of his head. He slumped forward, revealing that his ‘buddy’ had crawled out with his sidearm and executed him rather than allow him to surrender. Maxwell wasted no time in executing the wounded man, a quick series of precise shots that ended his already floundering life.

  “Scratch that, Rodriguez. Just the one prisoner,” Maxwell stated as he lowered his weapon.

  He felt a sense of relief that his plan had come together so well. Truthfully, he hadn’t believed that Haddenfield himself would show up, but he thought there would at least be a valuable underling. Rodriguez had been posted on that building for nearly twenty four hours, the order given in person to prevent there being any kind of trail that might expose his plan. Still, it seemed a little easy, he supposed. Was it possible whoever was behind the shadowy group had allowed it to happen? Maxwell wasn’t sure, but he knew he’d have to be prepared for anything. Returning to his unconscious prisoner, Maxwell smirked. He hoped to have some real answers sooner rather than later.

  EMMA HOVERED OVER BRIDGES’ shoulder. The download had come to a stop at ninety five percent, and they’d been kicked out of the system by whoever had established remote control over the facility.

  “If you can’t get back in then what are you going to do?” she asked, turning to look all around her.

  “I’ll trash the computers to make sure they’re as useless to them as they are to us,” he responded irritably.

  “How are we going to re-establish communication with Jack?”

  “We’re probably not, at least not right away,” Bridges told her, grabbing the cable connecting his hard drive to the computer system and pulling it with a small sigh of frustration.

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “Well, they’ve gotta still be securing the first floor, but it won’t be long now until they’re ready to head on down. We need to take out the other elevator.”

  “But that’s going to trap Jack down on the fifth level too, right?”

  “Yep, but we need to slow down whoever it is for as long as possible.”

  “Okay,” Emma said, nodding. She understood his logic, though she did have a multitude of questions about how they would accomplish such a task, and what they’d do after. “So, what can I do?”

  Bridges looked at her, seemingly confused at first.

  “I don’t think Bossman—”

  “I’m as deeply in the shit as you. You’re more technical than me when it comes to computers, so you can trash them and I’ll take out the elevator.”

  “And how do you intend to do that?” Bridges asked her as he stuffed the hard drive back into the pocket of his uniform. Emma’s eyes drifted to his assault rifle.

  “I’m thinking about shooting shit until something happens,” she declared. He smiled at her.

  “Man, if I were single I think I’d be falling in love,” Bridges said as he slipped the rifle strap off over his head. “Give me your axe in case I need a mechanical solution to the computer problems.”

  They traded weapons then Emma turned to leave the lab.

  “Be careful!” he added as she closed the door behind her. She jogged back to the elevator lobby and went straight to the door of the elevator on the right - while slinging the strap of the rifle over her head. She attempted to use the keycard to unlock the door, but it didn’t work, either because the access had been rescinded remotely by the people invading the facility or because it wouldn’t operate with the elevator in a state of dysfunction. Turning, she went over to the security room, unlocked the door with her keycard and looked for the security guard.

  “Jeff!” she called as she laid eyes on him. “Do you have one of those tools for manually opening elevator doors?”

  “Uh, yeah, I think so,” he responded, patting down the pockets of his vest until he found one. It was a narrow piece of L-shaped metal that he handed off quickly. Emma didn’t thank him, instead she simply nudged the door to a close and ran back to the elevator. She peered up and spotted the access point she needed to insert the rod while using her other hand to put her fingers in the gap and pull the doors apart. When it clicked and separated a little, she moved her other hand to the second door and heaved them apart as quickly as she could before pocketing the tool. Peering out into the dark elevator shaft, she glanced down and saw the yawning chasm that would be an undoubtedly fatal fall if she lost her balance. Looking across to the left side of the shaft, she could see the cables of the remaining car. They weren’t overly large and she wasn’t a great shot, but she thought she might be able to hit them.

  Emma was mentally debating the best course of action when she heard an almost imperceptible, indeterminate noise behind her. Turning to look, she saw Alex lunging at her and realised she had failed to close the door all the way so it would relock itself. He slammed into her, sending her stumbling with a frightened cry backwards - barely grabbing the right elevator door to anchor herself in time. Instead of going straight out, she swung out, able to keep one foot on the very edge of the floor while the other hung precariously over the abyss. Alex had retreated a couple of paces, panic clearly etched on his face as his initial gambit failed. Trying not to panic, Emma started to haul herself forward to secure a better foothold, but her eyes widened in horror as her fingers started to slip. She doubted that she was going to make it and terrifying images of falling to her death flitted through her mind, but then she felt the toe of her left boot land on the firmness of the metal floor and felt a surge of relief sweep through her. In the same instant however, it appeared Alex’s nerves had settled enough for him to make another attempt at murder and he started forward, the narrow space between them leaving Emma with only seconds to advance further into the elevator lobby or she’d be unable to prevent a fatal fall a second time.

  Emma flung herself forward, the propelling motion causing her to move to the right. She passed by the second attempt to shove her to her death, landing flat on the floor. Urgently, she rolled onto her back and attempted to bring up the assault rifle, but Alex came at her before she could do more than close her hand around the stock. He dropped down on her, his heavier frame weighing her down and preventing Emma from aiming the gun - then his hands were around her throat. The effect was immediate: pain and a burning sensation as she tried to draw in a breath but found her throat closed. Emma attempted first to push him off, to no avail, and then she attempted to crawl out from beneath him, but Alex was straddling her and she couldn’t move no matter how hard she pushed with her feet against the floor. Emma choked and she began to feel a little lightheaded, bringing with it a fresh surge of panic - no, more than that, she began to feel blind terror! She’d endured so much and survived and it was about to be undone by one man, it seemed unbelievable. What fleeting thoughts she could manage as she drifted towards the shadowy depths of unconsciousness, were of rage and indignity, but amongst them were scant moments of coherent thought which tapped into her emotions and caused a desperate reaction, one she didn’t know for certain would work.
Emma shifted her finger to the trigger of the rifle. It was held against her body, pointed down towards both his and her legs. When she squeezed, she’d either shoot herself or shoot him. Either way, she thought, it might give her a second of leverage. Emma pulled on the trigger. The sound of the rifle was subdued, but when she felt no stabbing pain and Alex let out an agonized cry, Emma fired again and again, and after the fourth shot Alex released her and scrambled away. She could feel the warm wetness of his blood on her own legs as she kicked to move further away; drawing ragged breaths and recovering from her near strangulation. Emma, her mind a little foggy from the pain and oxygen starvation, still managed to level the blood-coated weapon at Alex. He was seated on the floor, clutching his leg as blood spurted between his fingers.

  “H-Help!” he exclaimed. “You shot my f-femoral artery!”

  “Good,” Emma returned, her voice rough as she breathed hard.

  Alex started to fumble with his belt, his blood slick fingers making it difficult for him to maintain a proper grip. A noise to her right startled Emma; she twisted suddenly with the weapon raised and saw Maria with her hands raised standing in the corridor.

  “Get your ass back in the room!”

  “He said we had to—”

  “Move!” Emma barked, causing Maria to retreat quickly, the door shutting behind her. Looking back to Alex, she saw he was looking pale and weak. He was still attempting to free his belt, but it was clear he was losing the battle. Emma had never taken a life before. She’d killed the infected, a number of them in fact, but this was the first living person she had killed. It was self defense, but still... it troubled her. Emma’s initial thought had been to help Alex with his belt, to make a tourniquet and see if he could be saved, but she knew it was impossible. Alex went limp while she watched, his head rolling to the side and lying against his shoulder before his body flopped backwards onto the floor. Emma felt a sudden sick feeling, a wave of nausea that made her dry heave. She stood and turned away from the man she had just killed. Emma knew it had been her only choice, but it still felt as though she’d done something cruel and immoral.

  A series of clunking sounds followed by a whining escaped from the elevator shaft, alerting her to the need to resume her original task. She moved, shaky and unsteady, to the security door and made certain it was locked before hurrying back to the elevator shaft, doing her best to not look at Alex’s corpse. She leant out and observed that the elevator mechanism was working to bring the left-side car up from the lowest floor. With limited time remaining to consider other options, Emma braced the assault rifle against her shoulder and aimed at the cables. She fired several times, all of her initial barrage missing, so she took a deep breath and steadied herself. The car was now coming up towards the third floor and in no time at all it would rise to the first and the waiting Bolvinox team. She had very little time to stop it. She took a more careful aim, recalling those lessons long ago from her father about pulling the trigger on an exhale of breath... no, squeezing not pulling. With the shot aligned, Emma fired again, the bullet hitting the steel cable but not completely tearing through it. She fired a second time, also hitting her mark, just as each subsequent shot struck its target. Within moments, she heard a metallic twanging as the cable unfurled, the metallic strands fraying and the car tilting as the entire weight shifted to the other cable. Quickly, Emma fired on it, completing her action and causing the both cables to snap. Screeching issued from the elevator as it began to fall, then the emergency brakes kicked in and prevented it from freefalling.

  With a steadying breath, Emma lowered the weapon and turned back towards the security room. She had managed to stop the Bolvinox people from getting down to them as quickly, but it was just a matter of time before they attempted to descend through the shaft, perhaps on ropes. Right at that moment however, she felt that there might be a problem closer to home which needed to be dealt with. She fiddled with the assault rifle and ejected the magazine, checked, and saw she still had a little under half her ammunition remaining. While Emma wasn’t intending to shoot anyone else, she did need to find out what the people in the security room were up to. Fleetingly, she considered going for Bridges, but she knew he was busy destroying the computers. No, Emma could deal with it alone. She started to the security room, unlocked then opened the door carefully. She kept the weapon leveled and looked in. Maria and Jeff stood on the far side of the room, the former with her arms bent at the elbow and raised upwards while the latter had them raised comically high in the air, a fearful look on both their faces.

  “We didn’t help him!” Jeff announced.

  “He said we had to, that you were going to kill us!” Maria supported.

  “Shut the hell up!” Emma snapped at them. “It’s not like you tried to stop him either!”

  “Please...” Maria trailed off.

  “Don’t hurt us!” Jeff pleaded. Suddenly, Emma felt the nausea returning; a sickening feeling that she had done something wrong... and might be about to do something else that was equally terrible. The weapon in her hands became incredibly heavy, and she felt it lowering as though her arms weren’t her own to control any more.

  “Just...” Emma trailed off. “Just stay there,” she instructed as she sidestepped into the corridor and shut the door. Turning, Emma started to walk back to Bridges to see if he needed any help.

  Chapter Eleven

  GETTING INTO THE ROOM housing the self destruct device had taken a surprisingly short amount of time with Ridgewell and Smith working together. They had managed to deactivate the electronic lock, open the door and get the group inside before the audibly advancing undead reached them. Jack was pleased that his team was doing such an outstanding job, but also concerned about what was happening with Bridges and Emma. There was nothing he could do to help them at that moment - he knew this - but his protective instinct wished very much that there was.

  The room they now found themselves in was large - very large. It was dominated by a large, cylindrical object that appeared to contain a number of coils and had an arrangement of pipes that ran from it into the walls off to the left and right. According to Ridgewell, this was because the machine was also a power generator and capable of detonating the explosives rigged throughout the facility even if there was no power elsewhere. Below the huge cylinder was a console on a metal pedestal, which was also powered by the generator, and this was where Ridgewell set to work while the others checked out the remaining space. There were a few side rooms that were little more than utility closets, as well as panels which, when opened, would allow an engineer to follow the pipes into the walls and access the electrical cabling they contained, perhaps to repair a fault. From what Jack could see, the access became smaller at a certain point, leading him to believe that extensive repair work was likely performed by drones or small robots that could work in the confined space. This made sense to him, as having personnel-sized openings throughout the entire building would have drastically increased the amount of space necessary for the construction of the facility.

  Part-way through their explorations, they heard a heavy thumping as the undead came upon the door. The team, at Jack’s signal, fell silent. His hope was that unless the infected could catch their scent through the steel door, going quiet would cause the infected to lose interest. It did, however, raise the question of another problem they’d need to address sooner rather than later: how they were going to reconnect with Bridges and Emma, and how they would subsequently escape the facility.

  “Smith, keep an eye on the door. If it starts to buckle or it seems like there’s a growing number of them on the other side, come get me,” Jack quietly instructed, going over with Tyrone to hover behind Ridgewell’s shoulders.

  “What's the situation?” Tyrone asked softly.

  “Good news: remote detonation of the device is definitely disabled, and it was disabled at the mechanical level.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Jack wanted to know. Ridgewell stepped around the console, k
nelt down and stood up holding a small metal box, cut and ripped wires coming from it.

  “Because this was the device that controlled it. Now it’s a paperweight,” he said, tossing it to the floor before going back to the front of the console. “I’m not going to lie, this tech is incredibly advanced and there are layers and layers of security that may be beyond my ability to dig through. On top of that, even if I can figure out the security protocols, figuring out how to activate the device on a timer is going to be a challenge.”

  “So what are you saying? You need time? You need Bridges? You can’t do it?” Tyrone questioned in quick succession.

  “All of the above is what I’m saying. If you can get Bridges here then maybe we can brute force through this, figure some way to set it off. There’s also a chance I won’t be able to set a timer, which would mean someone would need to hit the button manually,” Ridgewell told them soberly.

  “So one of us isn’t going home?” Jack questioned.

  “I’m not sure yet, but it’s a possibility.”

  Jack and Tyrone exchanged a serious look. Jack wasn’t about to believe this was the only choice - that there wasn’t another way they hadn’t considered - but he was a soldier, and he knew the risks. This job or the one after might require him to make the ultimate sacrifice, and if this mission needed someone to stay behind then he’d make sure it was him who did.

  “Keep working, Ridgewell. We’ll try to figure out how to get Bridges down here,” Jack said, looking back at the monitor before turning away. He took a few paces and came to a stop. The banging on the door was becoming more subdued, but he knew the infected were likely still there, hanging around waiting for any indication their prey was nearby. Tyrone came to his side and they stood silently together for a few moments.

  “What are we going to do, Jack?”

  “We need to find a way to get Bridges and Emma down here. We also need to secure the route to the mine entrance. I suppose the best way to start with the latter is to find the route to the mine entrance,” Jack declared, shaking his head with a gnawing frustration. “There’re a lot of them between us though.”