AntiBio 2: The Control War

by Jake Bible

  “Yes, Captain,” they both reply.

  Wallace looks at Lewis and he shrugs. “I don’t have anyone living in CC. An ex-boyfriend that works in personnel in GenSOF tower is all. He’s a piece of shit cheating son of a bitch, so he can fucking die for all I care.”

  “What are we going to do with Marco?” Collette asks. “We can’t just leave him.”

  “We have to,” Red says, his face stone. “Can’t bring him with and we can’t call medical to come get him.”

  “We could take him back to the transport,” Paulo suggests. “Worm can patch him up with one of the med pods. Or at least stabilize him enough that he doesn’t die.”

  “No going back,” Red says. “You saw what happened to us just getting this far. We made a lot of noise, there will be more coming.”

  “Not just gangs or cooties,” Jersey says. “We have to see all the civvies as threats now. Whatever this Sicklands strain is, it grows fast. The cooties have been spreading the cultures through the city for what? Days? Unless people have self-quarantined then we have to assume anyone we come in contact with is compromised.”

  “Jesus, Jersey,” Blaze says. “You sound like GenSOF.”

  “I sound like someone that has been studying bacteria for most of her adult life,” Jersey says. “I may be great with tech, but I know my bugs too.”

  “We can’t just go through the city killing civvies,” Wallace says. “Our mission may be to get to GenSOF, but if the civvies are our enemies then what’s the point? Might as well get to the power plant and set the place to blow. Cleanse Caldicott City from the Clean Nation map.”

  Red turns and looks at Wallace. “Just like you’d wipe the Sicklands free of cooties and GenWrecks, if you could. The answer isn’t always to cleanse. That’s what got us in this mess to begin with. Cleansing the world of bacteria created the Strains.”

  “I don’t need a history lesson,” Wallace grumbles. “I know what caused the Strains.”

  “Ton? What about Marco?” Paulo asks.

  “We get to the tower and then we assess from there,” Ton says to Wallace and Red. “No blowing the city. No more arguing about shit we can’t control.” He looks at Paulo. “We have to leave him. We don’t have a choice.”

  “I’m staying with,” Collette says. “No way I’m ditching him to die here alone.”

  “We need every operator we have,” Wallace says.

  “She stays,” Red counters.

  “You don’t make that call, GenWreck,” Wallace growls.

  “She’s my operator, from my squad, so yeah, I kinda do make that call,” Red says.

  “We’re all Coffin Squad now,” Ton says. “Whether GenWrecks or GenSOF, we don’t leave an operator behind. So Collette stays with him. We help them into this building and get them locked down. We send medical to their location once we get to the tower.”

  “And if medical can’t come get to us in time?” Collette asks, looking down at Marco’s pale face.

  “Then you come to us when he’s gone,” Red says. “You move slow and silent like you’re sneaking past a cootie nest.”

  “Got it,” Collette says. She picks up his static baton and slips it into her belt. “I may need both.”

  “Understood,” Ton says. “Blaze and Paulo, you help get them into the building and secure. We’re going to wait two blocks up. We’ve been here too long as it is. Go out the back of the building and use the alleyways as far as you can.” He looks at Jersey for confirmation and she nods. “Twenty minutes is all you have. We leave our position after that and then it’s on you to catch up.”

  “You going to be okay?” Blaze asks Jersey.

  “I’m already a long way from okay,” Jersey says. “But, yeah, I’ll be fine.”

  Blaze hesitates and Jersey makes the decision for him, grabbing him by the armor and kissing him hard before shoving him away. Blaze smiles then helps Paulo and Collette lift Marco and get him up the steps and inside the brick building they’re standing by.

  “Move out,” Ton says. “Nick, you have point.”

  “On it,” Nick nods and moves to the head of the squad.

  Jersey looks back over her shoulder at the brick building.

  “They’ll be fine,” Red says. “They’ll catch up.”

  “I know,” Jersey says. “But that doesn’t mean we’ll be fine by the time they reach us. I have a very bad felling about all of this, Red. This isn’t as chaotic as it seems. There’s order in this madness.”

  “Order? Like what?” red asks.

  “I don’t know,” Jersey says, shaking her head.

  “Let me know when you do,” Red says. “Because as much as I hate the Clean Nation for what they did to me and the other GenWrecks, I still don’t want everything to turn into the Sicklands.”

  “Me neither,” Jersey says. “Me neither.”

  24

  The stairwell is pitch black, but to the operators it is nothing. Their visors light their way easily, turning the blackness into a greenish twilight.

  “One more,” Blaze whispers. “Let’s get to the third floor. That way Collette will have some options if she needs to make a break for it. Too low and they’ll overwhelm her before she can react.”

  “Too high and the jump will kill me,” Collette smirks. “We’re all operators here, Blaze. I know the drill.”

  “Sorry,” Blaze smiles. “Just thinking out loud.”

  There’s a scratching sound from the landing above and the three stop, Marco sagging in their grips. They stand and wait, each cycling through their visor scans, checking for thermal readings, movement, anything to let them know they have company.

  Nothing.

  “Keep going,” Blaze whispers.

  Paulo gives him an “are you sure?” look and Blaze nods. They keep going.

  Once up the next flight of stairs, the three carry Marco down an equally pitch black hallway. They get three doors along before Collette stops and motions for them to put Marco down. They ease him onto the floor and Blaze moves towards the doorway next to Collette. She holds out her hand, stopping him.

  “You two watch Marco,” Collette says. “If I’m going to hole up here then I want to go in first.”

  Blaze shrugs and backs away. Collette puts her rifle to her shoulder then slowly presses her hand against the panel by the door. Nothing happens. She sighs and nods her head at the panel. Blaze smiles and sets his rifle against the wall. He pops open the panel and uses the manual release catch in the wall to unlock the door.

  The door pops open a crack and Collette uses the barrel of her rifle to shove it all the way open, stepping back quickly as it noisily slides into the wall. She waits a couple of seconds then takes her first step into the apartment beyond.

  Blaze grabs up his rifle and takes his position to the right of the doorway, his eyes watching the stairwell. Paulo is on the left and watching the rest of the doors that line the hallway, ready and waiting for any Burn resident to get curious and come have a look.

  “You hear that?” Paulo asks.

  “No,” Blaze replies.

  “Exactly,” Paulo says. “There should be some sounds. A baby crying, people talking in hushed whispers, doors opening. Even if people are scared and don’t want to come out of their apartments, there should still be noise.”

  “They may have evacuated,” Blaze says. “Gone to some shelter the city set up when the siege started.”

  “You believe that?” Paulo asks.

  “No,” Blaze says.

  “Then why is it so quiet?” Paulo asks. “I am not happy about this.”

  The scratching noise comes again, but not from the stairwell landing. This time from down the hallway.

  “I should have kept my mouth shut,” Paulo says quietly.

  “Just keep your eyes open,” Blaze says. He looks over his shoulder at the open apartment door, his ears straining to hear Collette moving around inside.

  The scratching noise gets closer and Paulo looks up at the ceiling
. He reaches out and taps Blaze on the shoulder then points up. Blaze looks at the tarnished metal panels that make up the ceiling, knowing they are only for show, only there to hide the lengths of pipes and cables that keep the static systems running in the building.

  Blaze watches the panels and sees one shudder slightly just before he hears the scratching noise a fourth time. He switches to thermal imaging, but the metal of the panels warps his readings and he switches back to night vision quickly.

  “It’s clear,” Collette says as she appears at the doorway. “Let’s get him inside and settled on one of the beds. I found a—”

  She doesn’t have time to finish as the ceiling panels fall to the ground and several dark shapes leap down into the hallway. Blaze opens fire as three shapes come at him fast. He drops one and wings a second before the third shape gets in close and rams a shoulder into his gut, knocking him up against the wall.

  The hallway is lit up by static blasts as Paulo and Collette open fire as well. Paulo kneels next to Marco’s body, shielding him from the attackers, taking careful aim and firing deliberate shots.

  Collette backs into the apartment, using the narrow entryway to head off any attacks from her sides. She fires over and over, ripping into the attackers as they come at Paulo and Marco. Paulo doesn’t even flinch as static blast after static blast flies over his head.

  Blaze struggles with the attacker that has him pinned against the wall. The man, he assumes it’s a man, isn’t very big, but he keeps ramming Blaze in the midsection with a ferocity that Blaze has trouble countering. Until he decides to snap his rifle into a pistol and places the muzzle against the attacker’s neck and fires twice.

  The attacker crumples at Blaze’s feet and he kicks the man over to reveal an older woman, most of her face covered in sores and boils.

  “Oh, shit,” Blaze says. “What the fuck is this shit?”

  There is no time for an answer as two more come at him. He raises his pistol, firing a shot point blank into a young woman’s maligned face, sending half of her head splattering out behind her then he snaps the pistol into a baton and jams it into the next attacker’s eye. The man, at least in his late fifties, if not older, screams as Blaze sends thousands of volts of static into his skull.

  Smoking and certainly dead, the man crumples to the hallway floor.

  “Down!” Paulo yells.

  Blaze drops quickly, snapping his baton back into a rifle and taking aim as Paulo fires over him, killing four attackers as they rush out of an apartment five doors down. Blaze takes a bead on the apartment doorway and picks of three more before they can even get a couple steps into the hallway. When no more come, he rolls onto his back and looks down the other way, firing again and again, assisting Paulo in keeping another wave of attackers from coming out of a different apartment.

  The two operators stop firing as no more attackers come at them, but they don’t hesitate for a second, both getting to their feet and dragging Marco into the apartment next to them.

  “You hear them?” Paulo asks as they get inside and Collette slams and locks the door.

  “Yeah,” Blaze says. “Stairwell. At least a dozen maybe more.”

  “I’m betting on the more,” Paulo says. “How many people reside in this apartment building, do you think?”

  “It’s the Burn,” Blaze says. “So more than legally allowed.”

  “A hundred?” Paulo asks.

  “More,” Blaze says. “Probably double that.”

  “Two hundred people in one building?” Collette asks. “What is this city thinking? That’s just asking for a bacterial outbreak. The static systems in this shithole can’t be up to handling those numbers.”

  “Which is why we have the neighborhood watch pounding at the door,” Paulo says as the apartment fills with the echoes of attackers slamming their fists against the only way in or out. “Where should we put him?”

  “On the couch,” Blaze says. “We’re going to need the beds.”

  “For what?” Collette asks.

  “Blocking the door,” Blaze says. “The mattresses are made of spun glass fibers. Easy to clean and keep sterile. Standard issue.”

  “I lived in a city, you know,” Collette says. “I wasn’t GenWreck my whole life. I know what standard issue is.”

  “Then you know that glass fibers can be fused together,” Blaze says. “We shove the mattresses into the entryway and fire at them until there’s one heavy hunk of glass blocking the door.”

  “Then what?” Paulo asks as they set Marco down on the couch. He moves over to a window and looks for the latch, but doesn’t find one. “Not going out this way. And I don’t see a fire escape.”

  “Check the bedroom windows,” Blaze says then nods at Collette. “You help me with the mattresses.”

  “What the hell?” Marco whispers. “Where the fuck am I?”

  “Dying on a couch in a Burn apartment,” Collette replies. “It’s your dream come true.”

  “Is there any booze?” Marco asks. “My gut fucking hurts.”

  “We’ll find you some as soon as we take care of a couple of things,” Blaze says.

  He and Collette hurry into the first bedroom and yank the mattress off the frame. They drag it across the floor, out of the room, and shove it up against the front door, wedging it in the entryway. They move to the second bedroom and do the same with that mattress. Once both are wedged firmly against the front door they fire their rifles until all that’s left is one lump of fused glass.

  “Paulo? What have you found?” Blaze calls out.

  “A fire escape,” Paulo says. “But it only goes up.”

  “That seems counterproductive,” Blaze says.

  “It used to go down, but we don’t want to go down,” Paulo says as he steps out of one of the bedrooms. “Come see.”

  They follow Paulo back into the bedroom and look out the window. The metal grating of a fire escape is right in front of them. Paulo points down and Blaze presses his forehead against the glass for a better look.

  “Shit,” he says.

  “What?” Collette asks as she pushes past. “Oh, shit.”

  In the alley below lays the bottom half of the fire escape, having snapped off from the weight of the bodies that tried to flee the building before. Down on the wet pavement is a pile of corpses, but not from the fall. Most of them have been torn apart, ripped into hundreds of pieces by the snarling, sore-ridden pack of sick mutts that is busy feasting on the dead.

  “I count ten,” Paulo says. “I’m thinking that’s ten too many.”

  “We can pick off three before they scatter and hide,” Collette says. “They’ll wait out of range and then attack as soon as they think they have a chance. We can make it into the alley, but we may not make it out. Sicklands bug hounds are warped in the brains, but they aren’t stupid. They’ll use the constraints of the buildings against us.”

  There’s a loud crunching from the entryway and the three operators spin about.

  “Hey, guys,” Marco rasps. “Someone’s at the door.”

  “Shit,” Blaze says. “They’re still going to get through.”

  There’s another crunching, but from closer inside the apartment. Paulo looks up and points at the ceiling.

  “It’s predictable, but effective,” Paulo says, his rifle aiming up. “Why change a strategy that works?”

  “They move through the whole building that way,” Blaze says, his rifle aimed at the ceiling as well. “They could have twenty above us before we even know it.”

  There’s a loud groan and then half of the ceiling in the main room gives way, dropping a dozen attackers right next to Marco. He reaches for his belt, but doesn’t find the weapon he’s looking for.

  “Where the fuck is my baton?” Marco yells just before six of the attackers jump on him, their hands tearing at his armor. “Fuckers!”

  “Get off him!” Collette shouts, her rifle blasting at the men and women covering Marco. “YOU GET THE FUCK OFF HIM!”
>
  “Blaze!” Paulo yells as he fires at the other six attackers. “More!”

  “Got them!” Blaze shouts, firing up into the ceiling as more and more show up.

  Bodies drop like roaches, the corpses landing on attackers already in the apartment, making Paulo’s job slightly easier. But only slightly.

  A man grabs a boy by the shoulders and lifts him up as a shield as Paulo fires. The boy’s body shudders and smokes then is tossed aside. The man leaps at Paulo, a heavy wrench in his hand, and swings hard. Paulo dodges to the left and the wrench misses his head by an inch, but the momentum takes it right into Paulo’s shoulder and he screams as his arm goes numb.

  Paulo snaps his rifle into a pistol and jams it into the man’s gut, firing several times, leaving a smoking hole in the man’s belly. He shoves the dead man aside and stumbles back, his shoulder starting to wake up and sing with pain.

  “You good?” Blaze shouts, still firing into the ceiling. “Paulo? Talk to me!”

  “I’m good,” Paulo says, his left arm limp at his side. “I guess GenSOF didn’t think about plumbers’ tools when they designed this armor. My shoulder is fucked.” He fires his pistol at two attackers, ripping one’s face off and opening the second’s throat wide. “Ah, fuck you guys.”

  Collette slams her rifle into the back of a woman that has her hands wrist deep in Marco’s guts. The woman barely flinches so Collette jams the barrel of her rifle up under the woman’s chin and fires. Smoking brains and singed skull splatter up against the wall and window by the couch.

  “Marco!” Collette shouts as she kneels next to the man. “Marco!”

  She pulls off his helmet and is greeted by glassy eyes and a still face.

  “Gone?” Paulo asks, not unkindly.

  “Yeah,” Collette says.

  Noise from above pulls them away from the corpse of their comrade.

  “They’re all coming for us,” Paulo says to Blaze and points at the window. “Fuck the bug hounds, it’s the only way out.”