by S. A. Lusher
“I'm impressed, but I'm afraid you've got some more impressing to do, we're about to make our first big move,” Lynch replied.
Greg shifted in next to Kyra and leaned up against a sturdy stack of crates. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay, what?”
“We're pretty secure here, and we've gathered up all the spare parts for the bomb and the ship as we can without actually leaving the installation, which means we're going to have to raid the former Dark Ops labs for parts. So, this is how it’s going to happen. The building we're heading to is largely storage and the headquarters for the miners. We have three objectives to complete there. Bishop, Mercer, Campbell, and Mike are going to lead a team underground, via the tunnels that connect our two structures. You'll come up right into a primary lab where they did a lot of their research. We need dirt on Dark Ops if we expect to survive past this system.
“I’ll lead a team across the surface. My team will go for the armory and gather up as many guns and ammo as we can. Greg, once you and your team complete your task you’ll head for a storage compartment and grab another critical piece for our EMP bomb. Once we've got these things, we'll haul ass back here.
“Anyone got any questions?”
Lynch smoked a cigar now, and grinned around it.
There were no questions.
“Good. Then let's gear up and get to it.”
* * * * *
Besides Kyra, Campbell, and Mike, Lynch had been kind enough to supply them with two extra security personnel and one technician. Carter was among the two security members. The second one was a bug-eyed man who never seemed to stop sweating or looking around, named Thompson. The technician wore a stained, torn, blue jumpsuit and looked as though he might be shell-shocked. He said nothing and watched the shadows intently. His nametag gave his name simply as Reed. Lynch assured them he was still all there and could do the job.
This time, they were descending into the actual tunnel network that connected the three main structures, as well as the mines themselves. There was a large, solidly built tunnel that directly connected the starport to the mining headquarters. Greg remembered the scans they'd originally taken from the jump ship.
The tunnels had been alight with undead signatures.
Their excursions down below hadn't been all that pleasant so far. Greg prepared himself for the worst. They took a stairwell that would drop them off directly in the main tunnel. The map said it was a hundred meter walk.
The group made their way down the stairwell in silence, the only sound the humming of the power and their echoing footfalls. Greg led the way with Campbell. Nobody seemed willing or able to say anything. He reached the bottom and frowned as he saw the door had no window built into it. He'd have to open it blind.
He reached over, hesitated, and then hit the access button.
The door slid open.
A rocky, starkly-lit tunnel awaited his inspection. It was noticeably colder down there. Greg stepped out and tossed a quick gaze right, then left. He couldn't see anything, but the light wasn't as good in other areas of the tunnel.
“Looks clear,” he said.
“A ringing endorsement,” Campbell replied.
Greg chuckled and they stepped out. He shivered as the cold really hit him. He could see his breath forming on the air.
“Damn,” he muttered. “Really freaking cold down here.”
“It's like that. We heat it as best we can, but, well, you know how it is, this being an airless moon and all.” Mike shrugged.
Greg turned, did a head count and, satisfied with the results, turned back and made the long, cold trek. The stimulant was still pumping through his system. He wanted this to be over. He wanted out of this godforsaken system. His thoughts kept turning to the star that was beginning to go supernova.
The pressure was on, more than it had ever been before, and he just wanted it to stop. Some small part of him asked, reasonably enough, just what it was he planned to do when he escaped the system. As usual, he didn't have an answer, but tided himself over with the knowledge that it wouldn't matter if he didn't escape.
They'd made it about halfway down the lengthy tunnel, heading towards darker territory, when Greg noticed it. It was a sound, a rapid noise that grew louder. It sounded almost like someone had taken a recording of someone walking and sped it up to ridiculous speeds. He frowned and stopped, making the others do so as well.
“Do you hear that?” he asked.
“I do,” Campbell murmured.
Greg glanced back and his eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. He spun fully around and raised his shotgun.
“Move!” he screamed.
Something raced towards them so fast that it was a blur. His eyes had a hard time keeping up with it. The others got out of his way, spun around, and raised their own weapons. Those with rifles took potshots at it, but it was so fast. As it came within a few meters of their position, Greg finally fired his shotgun. The blast clipped it and sent it spinning. It hit the ground and was met with a hail of gunfire.
When it finally stopped moving, Greg and Kyra moved forward cautiously. He studied this strange, new thing with unbelieving eyes.
“Holy God,” Kyra whispered.
“What the fuck is this thing?” Campbell asked.
It was tall and lean. It was a new kind of Undead. The skin had taken on a darker quality, an, Greg realized with growing horror, vaguely resembled the rock walls that surrounded them. Its face had taken on an angular, almost reptilian quality.
Its fingers ended in narrow, razor-sharp claws.
“It's a new one,” Greg murmured. “Must have changed to match the environment down here...what do we call it?”
“Speed Demon,” Campbell replied after a long moment.
“Hey, not bad,” Greg said. He looked at Kyra. “Any complaints?”
“No...I actually like it,” she replied.
“Then it's settled. This is a Speed Demon,” Greg said.
“You guys are nuts,” Carter muttered.
“I dunno, I think it's a good idea. I'll let Melissa know,” Mike said.
They continued their journey, keeping an extra wary eye out. They managed to reach the end of the tunnel without another incident. Greg found another stairwell, cleared it, and led the way up. Thoughts drifted through his mind, and this time they were bleak. They were interesting thoughts, potentially progressive once.
This was a Dark Ops lab, an abandoned one. What had they left behind? What secrets of their research unlocked? What might he discover here? He led them up the stairwell and crested the final rise. Another moment of blindness, no window in the door. Greg paused, tried to listen, but couldn't hear anything. He opened the door, leveled his shotgun and squeezed the trigger. Blood, brains and bone fragments flew as a zombie's face was turned to flying debris. There were more zombies in the area beyond.
Greg moved out, taking them down, Campbell at his back, moving out and in the opposite direction. Kyra joined them, standing in the doorway. They each covered a portion of the room, which was a huge, massive, open area, most of which was taken up by stacks of what appeared to be glass cages.
Guns fired, muzzles flared, and bullets flooded. Blood sprayed equipment, cages, and a dimly lit steel environment alike. Finally, the last zombie fell.
“Clear!” Greg called.
The others emerged from the stairwell.
“You sure about that?” Thompson asked.
“No, but we're going to secure the area and-HOLY SHIT!”
“What? What is it?”
“What's going on?”
Greg had turned to look deeper into the area and found himself staring up at a Berserker, which bore down on him, arms raised, malformed hands clenched into fists, eyes full of inhuman fury...and it began to beat helplessly and soundlessly against a glass wall.
“False alarm. Sorry, everyone. This thing just scared the shit out of me,” Greg said.
Everyone looked over at him, then at the Berserker.
“Shit, man, I almost shit my pants. I mean, literally, I almost shit my pants.” Campbell shouted unhappily. Mike started laughing. “Yeah, man, you think it's funny now, but then you'd have to be hanging around with a guy wearing loaded pants.”
“No way in hell I'd be anywhere near you,” Mike replied.
“Let's get to it. Reed, come on,” Greg said.
He and Kyra led the tech through what appeared to be a central thoroughfare, towards a terminal at the base of a large pair of databanks. The others split up, checking out the vault-like warehouse they found themselves in.
Greg watched Reed settle in and boot up the terminal.
“You okay?” he asked.
Reed nodded. “Just watch my back.”
“Got it.”
Seconds ticked by, morphing into minutes in the dim, bloody environment. Greg really started to look around, taking it all in. There were rows upon rows of square, glass and steel cages stacked nearly to the ceiling, forming an alcove leading from the doorway to the terminal and mainframes. They ended a few meters short of the terminal, offering access deeper into the room, where the others had wandered, investigating.
Some of the cages were larger, two squares stacked into one rectangle, obviously meant to hold Berserkers, like the one that had almost literally scared the shit out of Campbell. Greg began counting how many cages still held live specimens and frowned at the number he came up with. Most of those remaining were just plain zombies, but three of the larger cages still held live Berserkers. Greg began to get very uncomfortable.
“Hey, uh, how much longer?” he asked.
“Just a few more minutes. I'm downloading all this data here into my infoclip,” Reed replied.
“You mean infopad?”
“No. Infoclip. One of these.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slim piece of black metal. “They're like infopads, only they hold raw data, they don't display anything. They hook into terminals or infopads to display the data. I'm going to give everyone two of these, each holding a copy of the data here. There's a lot in here, but I've found something that is specifically relating to you, Greg.”
That caught his attention. “What?”
He stepped closer. Reed shifted. “It says here that you were instrumental in the making of the Cure, somehow.”
“I...it's complicated.”
“Apparently. However, what they talk about here is that the Cure doesn't work, at least not the way they intended.”
“What was going wrong?”
“It causes total memory loss.”
Greg blinked in shock. It made such perfect, simple sense. This was why they were so desperately hunting him. This was why he was so important. He remembered thinking that the Cure might not work, but to know that it had such a deep flaw...he wondered if it was something to do with the fact that it obviously hadn't been made with humans in mind. He thought about the Cyr for the first time in a long while.
“That's crazy,” he said finally.
“Yes. Quite a flaw.” Reed agreed.
He copied the data to more of the infoclips. When two of them were filled, he slipped them into his inner pocket. When two more were filled, he passed them off to Greg, who mimicked the action.
“Hey guys, anything?” He called.
Everyone reported back negative and began to drift back to the central area. Reed continued filling and passing out infoclips.
“So, what were they actually doing here?” Campbell asked.
“It looked like they were purposefully infecting the miners and then running all sorts of tests on them. I think they were trying to find a new cure, as well as a method of control, over their rapid evolution and on a more basic level,” Reed replied.
“Sick shit,” Kyra muttered.
Thompson accepted his infoclips and walked cautiously over to a nearby cage holding a Berserker. He reached out and tapped on the glass.
Inside, the Berserker raged.
“Man, these things are ugly, huh?” he asked.
“Done,” Reed said. “Now we can go get that part.”
“Thompson,” Carter called. “Get away from that.”
Thompson turned around to face them. He laughed nervously. “These cages are like indestructible, right? I mean, they'd have to be actually opened for the thing to get out, right? We're safe.”
“No reason to go taunting the damned thing,” Carter muttered.
A horrible, wretched, godforsaken sound came to Greg's ears then, all of their ears in fact.
It was the sound of a cage door opening.
Then it was followed by two more sounds, signifying the exact same thing.
Thompson turned around, looked up and made a small, terrified sound.
Chapter 05
–Run n' Gun–
Chaos and death was given form as the Berserker brought its hands up, made two fists, and smashed Thompson's skull in between them. Greg let out a small sound of terror as fresh, warm blood sprayed his face and uniform.
“Run!” Carter screamed as he suddenly bolted forward, hand in his pocket.
Greg couldn't believe how fast everything had gone to hell. There were two Berserkers to his right, stepping out of their cages, with Carter racing up to the one directly in front of them that had just murdered Thompson.
Kyra, Campbell, and Reed beat a hasty retreat deeper into the lab, away from the beasts. Greg moved with them, uncomprehending of what Carter might do. The security officer pulled something from his inner pocket, reached the Berserker and leaped into the air. The titanic Undead was in the midst of roaring, its mouth a gaping maw. Carter shoved what Greg finally realized was a grenade into its mouth, landed, turned, and sprinted away.
“I said move!” Carter screamed.
Greg moved. He joined Carter in fleeing the alcove created by the racked cages and just barely managed to clear it when the grenade went off. Greg stopped and peered back around the corner, seeing the huge beast slump to the ground, now headless, its thick neck little more than a smoking crater. He laughed and kept moving.
“Nice one.”
“Yeah, but we've still got two more to deal with, and that was my only grenade,” Carter replied as they raced on.
They caught up with the others deeper in the lab as the Berserkers gained their senses and tore through the cages and equipment to get at them.
“I've never really fought one of these things before,” Carter said. “How in the hell do you kill them?”
“Shoot them in the head, a lot, with big guns. Though I've usually had luck with dispatching them via the environment. Although it doesn't look like there's much in the way of that in this lab,” Greg replied.
The first Berserker rounded the corner, caught sight of them, and roared. It charged for them. The group opened fire, blasting away chunks of flesh and spraying midnight blood across the area. The second one appeared as the first slowed from taking so much gunfire. As everyone emptied their weapons and reloaded, the thing was still stood.
“Shit. Carter, Mike, Kyra, Reed, get out of here. If we all hang around we're just going to get in each others way.”
The quartet must have agreed with Greg, because they beat a hasty retreat. He and Campbell backed away in the opposite direction, opening fire again and leading the creatures deeper into the lab. Greg began to really worry.
“What the fuck are we gonna do man?” Campbell asked.
“Dunno-duck!”
The wounded Berserker charged them and swung. Greg ducked and Campbell dove out of the way, narrowly avoiding the titan's swing. They were recovering when the second beast charged for them. Greg barely tossed himself out of the way and the thing crashed into a tower of equipment, sending it sprawling everywhere.
“Do you hear that?” Campbell asked suddenly.
Recovering, Greg listened, and after a second, he did. It was the odd, almost wave-like sound of raw electricity.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Who cares
? Maybe we can use it,” Campbell replied.
They kept backing up, keeping out of reach of the recovering Berserkers, and found another towering wall of stacked crates. Quickly, the pair moved around it and put it between them and the rampaging Undead.
Greg saw what was making the electrical arcing sound. A whole section of the far wall had been exposed and the inner workings of what he realized must be a generator was visible. Raw electricity arced across the exposed guts of the machinery.
“Now that is what I'm talking about!” Greg cried. “Lead the wounded one away, keep shooting him in the head. I'll deal with the other one.”
“You got it,” Campbell replied.
They both rounded the corner. Campbell screamed at them and opened fire, focusing his attention on the beast that had already taken a lot of damage. It let out a furious roar and made for him. Greg caught the attention of the healthier one with a couple of shotgun blasts to its broad chest. The creature snarled and charged him, building up speed, closing the short distance between the two of them.
At the last second, Greg dove, tucked and rolled, letting his momentum carry him as far as possible. There was a tremendous crash, followed by a jerking, staccato roar of absolute pain and rage. He spun around and stared at the creature, now ensnared in the electrical field, blue-white arcs engulfing its body.
Suddenly, the whole thing overloaded and everything went pitch black for a second before the lights hesitantly flickered back to life as a back-up generator kicked in. The Berserker fell away from the generator, now little more than a huge, burnt-out, crispy mass of blackened flesh. Deeper in the lab, Greg could hear gunfire.
“Little help here!” Campbell shouted.
Greg hurried after him, coming around the stacked-cage wall, and saw the creature advancing slowly on Campbell, who was backed into a corner, reloading. Greg rushed over to it, put the shotgun to the back of its head and fired off a pair of slug shells. The top of the thing's skull blew away in a chunky spray of visceral gore.
The creature toppled over, nearly crushing Campbell in the process.
“Thanks,” he muttered as he finished reloading. “Can we get the fuck out of this place now?”