(Part 2)
“Well, what else would you call ’em?”
Jared glared at Ed through their sensor bands. Son of a bitch said it, and made his skin crawl. When he saw the infected hugging the walls, it damn near broke out into a run.
“Not zombies, Ed.”
But Ed was right from the very moment the briefing ended; these people would be zombies, infected by a engineered fungus of their own design that, in case you really suck at context clues, turned them into zombies. There were about two dozen people who were down in the labs around the time of the outbreak, being the weekend at all, which made Jared feel a little better about the whole thing. Right there in the immediate room were four people flat against the walls, their limbs and fingers unnaturally extended, their tongues outstretched tongues black and engorged. Some of them were already sprouting stalks out of their eyes and ears.
“Well, that’s fucking unsavory,” said Edward. It was his turn to lead. “Alright, pop them in the head, 25% power.”
They rotated a non-existent knob down a quarter revolution and took aim. The shots popped like tracers and were explosive, which was not necessarily a prized quality when exploding an infected head. Little chunks of bloody flesh and fungal growth went everywhere, naturally clinging to their sensor bands, which were mercifully also nearly frictionless so it slid right off. You can’t wipe your company suit like you would your own skin without possibly breaking and inevitably scratching the surface.
“I’m going to throw up after this is over,” said Jared.
They after they were all popped, the pair pried the infected bodies off the wall, which was harder than it looked. They had fungal suckers coming out of their bodies, adhering them like a shower caddy. They made a sickening squelch when peeled off, and crunched disgustingly when Ed and Jared piled the bodies.
“Just make sure you get into decontamination before you crack out of the suit. Come on, lets move.”
They moved forward into what turned out to be the break room after they’d smashed in most of the furniture and flipped the fridge, checking for infected forms hiding.
“You know, we should probably get the map.”
Jared picked up a personnel list from the check-in station in the lobby, and after some finagling with the security system he got the map, which they hadn’t been given in the pregame breakdown. This wasn’t oversight; they simply hadn’t asked, and it was policy to not give them more than they needed. Damn stupid policy, if you asked Jared, but he got by. It automatically got sent to Ed.
“Alright, we got…what’s twenty seven minus five?”
The number 22 hung ominously before them both.
“Well then, where are they?”
A map appeared between them, a private consensual hallucination, and it designated them as green lights in the breakroom, and it designated the quarantine lab in a blue outline, and the people on the list were red lights. A big blue box glowing red.
“This’ll be easy. Come along, J.”
Panels on their free arm opened up, holding dozens of tiny little metal spheres which they were obliged to drop into every room, taking their time, preparing for the impending slaughter. They weren’t quite sure what they did, but out of sight means out of mind and they didn’t want to forgot to execute every order they were issued. It didn’t take them very long to drop one in every room, with Ed holding the one reserved for the lab. It was a little bit bigger but heavier.
“Ok, on the count of three. Jack it back up to 50%, we’re kicking the door in.”
They kicked the door in and lunged forward, aim at the ready, and stopped. They were all there, all along the walls, looking at them. A woman, naked and bloated all over with stalks sprouting out of her, stood at the salient point of the line. Fully formed queen-type, her eyes remarkably sharp looking for that stage of infection. A few of them were spore-types, the kind that get up on the walls and start spitting shit out. And a full dozen of them were aggression-types, thick mycelium armor along their arms like something you might see on a paranoid football player, with their nails formed into sick looking spikes. The aggro’s had thick helmet heads too, their eyes covered up with that thick fungal shit.
They shot the queen, Ed in the head and Jared in her distended gut. She blew up fantastically, and the rounds were so hot they didn’t even make a lot of nasty chunks. I could get used to this gun, they both thought as they brought them to bear on the aggressors charging at them. To their surprise, their guns overheated after the third consecutive shot.
“Oh fuck!”
They first pair that came at them was clever enough to jump on top of their weapons, but they couldn’t really see, so they fell right on the bayonets and eviscerated themselves on the scalpel-sharp blades. Ed and Jared took the initiative in creating more dead aggressors, and took off their tops like bad barbers. They proceeded to punch through the heads of the remaining spore-types, and made sure that none of the bodies in there were more than a disgusting pulp.
Ed dropped the last metal ball on the smear that had previously been the queen-type’s head. It left a hell of a dent in the floor. He thumbed the way out and they headed towards the broken elevator shaft. It wasn’t a hard jump to manage, and they scaled it in about 10 minutes. Once they were both topside, a button appeared for both of them in the middle of the air. They slapped through it and felt a deep boom beneath them.
“And that was that.”