“If they were designed to hunt humans exclusively,” Jeff said in a speculative tone. “That would explain a lot.”
“But it’s a virus infecting the person,” Ryan objected. “Could you design a trait like that into a virus?”
“I couldn’t,” Jeff said with a laugh. “But I wouldn’t put it past some brilliant alien madman scientist to try. How much further to the base?”
“Twenty minutes,” Cody said, closing the park holo and redirecting the drone. He sent it to the zoo for his own satisfaction, to check the enclosures and verify the animals were no longer there. As the APC proceeded through the devastated city, he gave part of his attention to driving, more to the intel from the other drones and a sliver of his bandwidth to the zoo. There were a few carcasses here and there across the zoo grounds but it did appear most had been set free at some point. He looked forward to reporting the news to Tamsyn—and Melly and Mike of course. It was so rare these days to have any good news to share and he knew Tamsyn worried about her own livestock, so she’d surely be pleased to hear the zoo animals were living life large in the Randal Four countryside.
The road to the base’s gates was crowded with abandoned civilian vehicles, which the doughty APC knocked out of the way. Eventually they came to a barricade of military vehicles which had blocked desperate civilians from reaching the dubious safety of the base itself on whatever fateful day these events had occurred. Judging from the state of the few bodies Cody saw, the base had fallen weeks ago. He had to break down part of the physical fence to gain entry to the base—the force barrier had fallen a long time ago but the barricade blocked the road forward effectively.
“Straight to the motor pool?” he asked Jeff as he guided the APC along the base’s main road, passing the headquarters building, partially burned with decaying bodies on the steps. “What about checking out the armory?”
“We’ll hit the armory later, if we have enough time before any infected swarms wander by,” The captain answered. “You know where you’re going?”
“Had my drones check out the base an hour ago,” Cody replied, making a left turn into a side road. A few minutes later he was pulling up in front of the base’s focal point for motorized support. Partially repaired trucks and other vehicles were parked in the bays of the massive garage. Cody had expected to see more units but he guessed most had gone out to the barricades and perhaps on patrol when the base was still active.
“Park over there, next to the building,” Jeff said, pointing to a space marked ‘Commanding General’.
“Gave yourself a promotion, sir?” Ryan asked with a chuckle. “What’s our plan here?”
“First we’ll clear the building so there aren’t any nasty surprises and then it’s Cody’s time to shine,” Jeff said, checking over his blast rifle. “Hack into the parts database and find what we need for APC2.”
“No problem.” He was confident of his abilities. Turning off the APC’s engine, he left the driver’s chair and went to his gear. “I’ve got the portable power brick right here in case the auxiliary is dead.”
When the team was ready, they deployed from the vehicle, Jeff in the lead, rifles armed and ready. There was a mild breeze which stirred the leaves of the tree next to the parking lot but otherwise there was silence.
“Drones are showing all clear for two miles out,” Cody reported. “We’re good to go.”
The three men moved in a stack up the stairs and through the open, half destroyed door. Cody’s nerves were sharp as they made their way to the third floor, checking every room, finding nothing, not even any trapped infected. There was a big office in the corner and Jeff said, “Once we’ve located the part, Ryan and I’ll go for it and you can come up here and do a deep dive for what I need to know.”
“Got it.” Cody was sure he could hack the system from anywhere on the base but it made sense to start here.
They found a pair of infected on the second floor, locked in a conference room and dispatched them with knives to the head, not wanting the sound of the blasters to alert any other infected nearby. Once the team re-entered the ground floor from the emergency stairwell, it was clear the building was deserted. Jeff led his men to the actual mechanics’ work area at the rear of the building and paused.
“Quite a battle here,” Ryan said. “Somebody’s last stand.”
Jeff surveyed the vehicles drawn into a protective formation, the corpses and the decaying infected lying in dried pools of ichor. “Yeah, stinks too. Let’s find what we need and move out.”
Cody proceeded to the office, where the door was closed. As he walked up to it, he heard thumping and the moaning of an infected. Drawing his knife, he gestured to the others to wait and kicked the door open. What had been a woman leaped at him, matted blonde hair streaming down her back, eyes nothing but pools of red, blazing hatred. He met her with a thrust of his knife, right through the eye and she fell at his feet. Gently he nudged the corpse aside.
“Cody!”
Ducking, he evaded a blaster beam going right over his head and another infected fell, clawed arms outstretched. Right, never underestimate the infected’s capacity for surprise attacks. Two more of the creatures fought each other to get out the door in their mindless fashion and Cody stayed low as blaster bolts from his teammates buzzed over him and took out the threats. He had to roll and rise in a hurry to avoid any part of the bodies falling on him. Kicking the late infected out of the way he entered the office cautiously, weapon at the ready. It seemed the four his team had killed were all there were trapped in their old workplace. He crossed the space to a second office, whose door stood open, and cleared it, to be sure there wasn’t another infected under the desk.
Jeff stood in the doorway. “All right?”
“Clear here,” he said, setting his weapon aside but close at hand and seating himself at the battered metal desk. “Give me a minute to attach the power brick.”
The captain stood with his back to Cody, watching the outer office and the parking lot beyond.
All clear out here, Ryan said through their subaural com. Cody find the part yet? This place makes me twitchy.
Working on it, he snapped. The computer system came to life as the power brick did its thing, and he began his efforts to hack into the parts database. The previous occupant of the office had left the system wide open and Cody felt a little chagrined not having a chance to flex his hacker skills. He dismissed the annoyance as he got to the right section of the extensive database. “The parts we want are in building seven, section A, sublevel 3, shelf 2, bin 14,” he said to Jeff.
“Sublevel, huh?” the captain said. “I don’t much like the sound of that. It is what it is though and we need the damn parts. We’ll take off and see what we can find. Updates on the subaural. Your drones still reporting clear perimeters?”
Cody diverted a bit of his attention. “All clear, no infected within two miles, sir.” He set an alarm on the drones to alert him if any groups of infected crossed the line.
Jeff nodded and left the office. Cody knew the captain was reluctant to leave him here alone, as one was none without any backup, but they had no choice. Maybe the captain should have brought Trent or Zach instead of leaving them at the ranch, but he didn’t blame the man for wanting to protect the woman he loved. And Mike and Tamsyn too of course. Well, the quicker they got this set of tasks done the sooner they could get back to the ranch. He diverted 95% of his attention to the system he was hacking.
