“Are you in love or anything?”
“.....I don’t know. She’s not very nice, you know... but...”
“But she’s hot? Is that it?”
“Well, yes, she is, but...”
“How am I supposed to give you good leader-like advice when you don’t even know what you want?”
“Major?” The General’s voice popped into her comm, interrupting the conversation.
“Yes General?”
“I’ve just been talking with the lab boys. Put the unit on active standby. We have some interesting news. Can I see you in my office?”
“On my way.”
~~~~~
Chapter 40: A Rat in a Hole
~~~~~
The airlimb quickly approached an abandoned-looking complex of warehouses, once used to process and store fish. Brock’s lab traced many of the parts of the mobile nanite server, and other departments ran down recent shipment records.
The various components had all been shipped in proportional quantities to this remote, seaside facility. Whoever made the mobile server was a whiz at electronics, but no criminal mastermind. Kris brought their attention to a modern communications array which looked very out of place among the rest of the older, weathered structures.
As the airlimb made a slow circle around the shoddy complex, Alisia spotted some damage while watching out the bay door.
“Hey guys, look at this.” She placed a VTag marker on a large hole in one wall. “Looks like it was bombed or something.”
“Nah.” Kris said, “The debris pattern suggests some kind of missile. From the air, probably.”
Regan looked on quietly while Alisia closed the bay door half way. “Zombies using missiles and aircraft?” Regan said with cynicism.
“Well, if this Erebus guy controlled a zombie into doing it, it would be possible I suppose, but that doesn’t make sense. For one thing, it doesn’t seem to be his style. And if this is his base of operations… why attack it?”
“Maybe he left,” Parker reasoned. “Used it to build what he needed, left, and blew it up to cover his tracks.”
“Hmm. But the wall... it’s part of a large warehouse, but the damage isn’t near anything important looking.” Alisia observed.
“It’s an entry point for a ground based attack?”
“Yeah.”
“So he forcibly invaded an abandoned fish warehouse?”
“Nope” Kris said, “This is fresh. Not more than a few days.”
“Someone else got here before us.” Alisia mumbled to herself. “Well, now I’m curious. Kris, bring us in.”
The airlimb set down near the damaged wall in such a way as to provide the most cover from all sides when Alisia and Regan got out. Silently, they crept to the edge of the hole, and Alisia peered in. The warehouse looked a lot bigger from the ground. Three stories high, and about two blocks in area. Thin metal support pillars broke the expanse of the interior, as well as the occasional pile of abandoned forklift palettes and crates.
The smell of death was in the air, but was it zombie flesh or merely the legacy of billions of fish who passed through? They stepped through the hole and hugged the wall inside. They were both a little confused what to be more worried about; zombies busting through walls and grabbing them, or Erebus controlling a zombie with a gun and spotting them if they walked in the open.
The charred ground was still dry and powdery, confirming Kris’s opinion about the damage being fresh, but more telling were the clean areas.
“Looks like someone swept up here.” Alisia said.
“Janitorial zombie?” Regan joked. Then she spotted a glint of metal, just to the side of the swept area. “There was a gunfight here.” It was a fragment of a hollow point bullet. “I can’t tell what kind of round it was, or the cal, but it’s not a P90 round.”
“That confirms it. Someone else got here first. Hey Kris-“
“Yeah.” Kris said through the comm, “I had the same thought. I called around though, no one we know has been here. The General was quite firm in that notion.”
“Great. Terrorists or something? That’s not my department.” Alisia sighed.
“We’re not leaving, are we?” Regan said, scanning her surroundings.
“No. Not yet. Kris, take the limb up and keep Parker in a good support fire position. We’re gonna take a walk.”
“Roger.”
Alisia and Regan stepped farther into the warehouse, following the wall to the left. The sound of the airlimb faded as it rose and its shadow passed across the floor. They headed slowly towards a door that led towards the newer communications array. They stood to either side of the door and Alisia tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. She pushed the door in and peeked in quickly before backing off around the doorway again.
“Looked clear. Dark, but clear.”
“Not too dark, we can adjust.” Regan said, looking in from the side. They burst in and checked all the corners. Nothing moving. Alisia found a light switch by the door and flipped it on. The fluorescent lights flickered hesitantly to life, some of them burnt out. They saw an empty desk, a chair, and a pull-out sofa. Empty boxes of various non-perishable foods were stacked sloppily in the corner. It was a big room, but largely empty.
Alisia looked closer at the floor beside the desk. Dust and grime revealed that there was once something on it with round pads. “Another desk here.” she assumed. “Wow. I guess whoever came, they took Erebus, and all his toys.”
Regan found another bullet fragment under the sofa. “Yeah, with force.”
A ‘thump’ sound came from across the room. Instantly, the two girls had their P90’s aimed at it. A roughly square ring of dust was rising from the floor. The girls made eye contact with each other, and nodded.
With the dust now freshly disturbed, a hatch in the floor planks could now be clearly seen. Alisia walked up to it carefully. She knocked three times with the front grip of her P90, and hopped back.
“Who’s there?” A familiar voice came from below the hatch.
“Erebus?” Alisia called out, “Get the hell up here, and keep your hands where I can see them!”
The hatch raised, eight fingers grasping onto the edge of the floor. In the darkness under the semi-opened hatch, two frantic eyes darted back and forth. “Hmm, it is you.”
Regan stepped up to the hatch, and brutally kicked the hatch cover across the room. The wiry, grungy man inside cringed down in his dirty little hiding hole. His messy hair was white, but he couldn’t have been older than thirty.
He hissed, squinting against the light. “Blah! Light! Who is it? One! One gun-toting bimbo! Ah, ha ha ha ha. Two! Two gun-toting bimbos! Ah, ha ha ha ha!” He tried poorly to contain his self-amused snickering.
Regan imagined what would happen to his stupid little grin with a few good solid kicks from her boot.
“Kris?” Alisia spoke into her comm, “Feed me the procedure for making an arrest or something. I’ve never had to read a zombie its rights.”
~~~~~
Chapter 41: Dangerous Civilians
~~~~~
When they arrived back at Yute base, ‘Erebus’ was escorted by soldiers from the airlimb to a holding cell. Alisia left the others on the airlimb, and went to deal with the reports and talk with the General.
After some time, Alisia returned to the airlimb and called a meeting for the unit. They met in the airlimb mess as usual.
Alisia stood up once the others had settled. “Well, ‘Erebus’ was less than forthcoming, as expected, but his prints, DNA and dental records confirm him to be one ‘Jonathan Coll’. Interestingly, he used to work at AutarLabs.”
Regan made a sour face. “Ugh. He might have even worked alongside my brother.” Regan had actually seen Coll before, but the encounter wasn’t memorable enough for Regan to remember from before Autar went to hell.
“Possibly. But shortly after arriving there, he started his own projects on the side. It seems no one at AutarLabs gave it much thought.
Rumor implies he was being paid for these projects by an outside organization.” Alisia said, thumbing through various printouts.
Parker spoke up. “Fuck, you’re kidding. Does this mean the fall of Autar...?”
“Oh, hold on, there’s more,” Alisia said, “There’s hints about this organization, who somehow got Coll extra freedoms in AutarLabs, but this group is not named in any records, and no one seems to know what it is.”
“So what does that all mean?” Regan asked.
“Well... it means it’s almost certain that this mystery group and Erebus were responsible for the fall of Autar. Conventional weapons development divisions may have had a hand in it, whether they intended to or not. Same goes for AutarLabs.”
“What the hell? So the fall was what... a field test of a bio-weapon made by some black-ops research unit?” Parker asked.
“I asked the General about this mystery group. He was as surprised as I was, and seemed determined to question the weapons dev. people about it, and their own sealed files.”
“You trust him?” Regan asked grimly.
The others suddenly felt a little shaken by the thought that their General could have had something to do with Autar’s fall. Alisia thought about it objectively for a moment before responding. “Yeah, I do.”
“Alright.”
“There’s something else I haven’t figured out though.” Alisia pondered, “If Autar was a weapons field test... well... why Autar? There was a lot of money and expectations poured into Autar.. wouldn’t it make more sense to attack a less important city... or even one in a non-friendly country or something?”
Everyone was quiet for a moment, considering everything.
“Maybe it was an accident after all.. “ Parker suggested, “Maybe this mystery unit just slipped up and it got loose. Or maybe they were working on it with Erebus, but it was AutarLabs’ fault anyway, as we thought...”
Kris popped in. “That doesn’t totally explain it all. The Autar A.I. was pretty advanced. That kind of behavior doesn’t just evolve on its own, by accident. There had to be some intentional influence.. And if we assume that Autar wasn’t a logical test site for the zombie-nanites....”
“Then whoever triggered it did it as just a plain old attack. It was on purpose.” Parker said.
“Which would mean a hostile country, or terrorists.. the mystery group could be working for... it doesn’t make a lot of sense...”
“They didn’t do it. They maybe developed it, but Erebus was the one who triggered it.” Regan said, staring a hole into the table, grinding her teeth.
Alisia looked at Regan. “But why? What motive?”
Regan looked up at Alisia. “Motive? You saw the mall.. what he did to that person in the warehouse office, controlling that first zombie.. He’s a fucking madman, that’s his motive.”
Erebus sat in his cell, pondering recent events. Somehow, despite his own genius, both Lancer and AZU-1 had found his hideout. He could have stayed hidden from AZU-1 probably, but since Lancer had taken all his toys, boat included, he needed a ride back to mainland. What else was he expected to do, swim?
Fucking Lancer. Sure, he took advantage of the position they put him in, and he essentially ignored the projects they wanted, in favor of his own fun, but they were taking things way too personal. They wouldn’t have hesitated in the slightest to kill him on sight. At least AZU-1 was squeaky clean enough to play by the rules. Still, they could have put him in a nicer room.
Enough of this shit. He groped the inner side of his upper arm gently with his fingers. Where the hell is it? Finally he found the lump he was looking for. He held the lump between finger and thumb, and squeezed. It hurt. He should have put it under tougher skin. The lump popped inside his skin, dumping its payload. The skin still hurt, it was sure to bruise.
“Fly, my pretties, fly!” he whispered to the spot where the lump had been.
“So, you killed my brother.” Regan’s voice came out.
Erebus looked up to see Regan standing on the other side of the bars.
“Hello Miss Grier. I killed a lot of people, so there’s a good chance.”
“Harold Grier. He was in Autar. He worked with nanites in AutarLabs”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“So, he didn’t work with you?”
“I wasn’t there very lo- Oh.. I see.. you want to know if he had anything to do with the fall, right?”
“Well?”
“Not that I know of.”
It was a minor relief to Regan, even if Erebus didn’t seem positive about it. “But the fact still remains,” Regan said, aiming her P90 at him, “You still killed my brother.”
Erebus hadn’t accounted for this. These military folks are trained to follow rules, but Regan was a civilian. “You mean you don’t want to see me go to trial, and all that?”
“Why? So you can become a celebrity on the news? Buy a year or two of time, maybe get acquitted? Maybe thrown in a looney farm and eat free on tax dollars?”
This was not good. Come on, think, Jonathan, think. Leverage. He needed leverage. “News celebrity, hm? Like you?”
Regan narrowed her eyes a bit.
“I caught you on the news just the other day, “ Erebus said, “Coming out of the mall incident. Big hero. It looks like I hurt your feelings.” He paused, but Regan did nothing. “You rely on the Major sometimes, don’t you?” He watched as Regan’s breathing betrayed her. Aha. That hug outside the mall... “You’re.... close to her, aren’t you?”
Regan tensed. “You shut up about her.” Her grip on the P90 tightened, and she adjusted her aim.
Oops, maybe that was the wrong nerve to hit. “Ah, if you blow my head off now, you go to jail instead of me. Murdering a murderer is still murder, hm?”
Regan considered giving him a flesh wound instead, just to make a point. “It’s a small price to pay to see you dead.”
“Really? You’re so impatient for an execution that you’d go to jail and be separated from your .... little friend?”
Regan began to hate the manipulative little bastard on a whole new level. In some ways, it just gave her more reason to pull the trigger. So she did. Bits of cement rained down on Erebus’ head from where Regan had fired a single round near the barred window. A guard ran up from around the corner, rifle ready.
“At ease, soldier,” Regan said, “Seems I had a little accidental discharge.” The guard sized up the situation and gave Regan a little nod before leaving. Regan was expecting a little bit of satisfaction, but after she left, it was Erebus who was smiling.
~~~~~
Chapter 42: Stupid Lesbian
~~~~~
Alisia walked out of the Airlmb onto the base’s top deck. It was a warm evening, and the sun was just reaching that part of the sunset which did its best to mimic her hair.
Regan was not far off, sitting on one of the knee-height walls near the edge of the roof. She was facing away, towards the sunset, just enjoying the evening and trying to get Erebus out of her head for a while. A six pack sat nestled in her jacket on the ground, the first of which was now in Regan’s hand.
Alisia felt social, so she wandered over. Before she spoke, Regan picked another can off the pack and held it out for Alisia.
“Hey love. Brew?” Regan’s face was relaxed and happy. It was nice to see.
“Love, huh?” Alisia gave Regan an odd look as she accepted the can and sat down. She matched the softness Regan spoke with, but not the happiness. “You actually love me, don’t you?”
“Yup.” Regan confirmed with gentle cheer.
Alisia looked at Regan with a bit of surprise. “That.. doesn’t bother you?”
“Nope. Why should it? You’re great.”
Alisia chuckled a little “Uh, because I don’t love you?”
“You love me.” Regan said with quiet confidence.
“I do?”
“Yup. You’re just straight is all.”
Alisia sighed. “And that doesn’t b
other you?”
“Hmm,” Regan paused, sounding less happy, but still relaxed. “Nothin’ to be done about that...” She leaned back and looked into the sunset, trying not to look at Alisia.
Alisia felt Regan’s serenity slowly cracking, and felt guilty. “You... you still think I’m gonna give in, dontcha?” She smiled at Regan, who looked up with a little smile. Her eyes were glistening, and it made Alisia think. She looked down into her lap, and the open beer that sat there. “It... “ Alisia took a deep breath. “It hurts me when you cry.”
Regan’s eyes widened a little, and as if by cue, a built up tear escaped. It rolled down the side of Regan’s face away from Alisia’s view. “Cry...?”
Alisia gripped the edge of the wall, and stared hard into the beer can. “I’ve heard you. I... I’ve seen you. And on the beach, I felt you. It feels like hell. I don’t know what to do about it. It just hurts.”
They were quiet for a moment that went on forever, when a footstep was heard from the airlimb. They both knew Parker wasn’t around; it had to be Kris.
“No...” Regan whispered. “I can’t deal with her now. Make her go away, do something.” The whisper trembled. She was terrified.
Alisia did the only and first thing that came to her mind. She leaned over, and kissed Regan.
Regan’s eyes widened again, and as Alisia’s hand touched her cheek. Regan closed her eyes and kissed back. Alisia felt the wetness of the tear on Regan’s cheek. And the warmth and softness of her lips.
Regan’s mind was instantly numb. She was enslaved by blinding bliss. It could have been a second, or an hour, but eventually Alisia’s lips drew away. The cold of the air touching where Alisia’s lips had been felt cruel by comparison.
“She’s gone.” Alisia said quietly.
Regan was still leaned in, eyes closed. “Huh?”
“Kris. She’s gone.”
Regan began to slide back into reality. “Oh....? Oh...” She opened her eyes and was transfixed on Alisia’s lips. Did that really happen? Alisia read Regan’s face and looked away, concentrating very hard on taking a drink of her beer. But that wouldn’t save her for long. She had to think of something to say. Regan was still staring at her, stunned. She put down her beer and stared hard into it.
AZU-1: Lifehack Page 20