Walking With the Dead (The Walking Dead, SI/Proteus System)
- Thread starter Zaion
- Start date
Shouldn't it be 565/2000? You did say it was the start of a new day, and the last snippet said 515/2000.
- Location
- Merica
^Second this.
Really like where this story is going so far. The Proteus System has made the Walking Dead universe seem slightly less hopeless.
Zaion
Writer, Sci-fi Addict, Phoenix's Chosen
- Location
- San Diego
I'll run a quick check in case I made a mistake about energy acquisition rates. If I missed a generation in there I'll correct it.
Apologies for the cliffhanger, but it was basically a case of give you the cliffhanger or make you wait for this chapter until chapter 10 was also completed and post both simultaneously.
Apologies for the cliffhanger, but it was basically a case of give you the cliffhanger or make you wait for this chapter until chapter 10 was also completed and post both simultaneously.
Zaion
Writer, Sci-fi Addict, Phoenix's Chosen
- Location
- San Diego
Oh it's going to be REALLY fun.Nice update. Don't forget to threadmark.
It's going to be fun, explaining Cortana to survivors.
- Location
- lost
Tell them your an alien, and you know of worse versions of the virus.Nice update. Don't forget to threadmark.
It's going to be fun, explaining Cortana to survivors.
Zaion
Writer, Sci-fi Addict, Phoenix's Chosen
- Location
- San Diego
Wrote the first 1300 words for chapter 10 today. it's going to be a shorter relative chapter because the interlude is coming up, and is going to showcase a big part of the action from another perspective rather than the SI's.
It'll also be the most indepth view of another survivors glimpsed to this point.
It'll also be the most indepth view of another survivors glimpsed to this point.
Zaion
Writer, Sci-fi Addict, Phoenix's Chosen
- Location
- San Diego
Sooo...would you guys prefer te nearly 3.5k chapter 10 (it turned out over a k larger than I had predicted it would) that ends in a cliffhanger, or would you prefer I wait until I have the interlude showing the rest of the action to follow from another perspective completed?
The interlude.
- Location
- Somewhere on the flat earth
I can wait.
Zaion
Writer, Sci-fi Addict, Phoenix's Chosen
- Location
- San Diego
The interludes have it. It will take a few days possibly, as I just got my new motherboard in the mail yesterday and that means today is going to be spent guts deep in a coolermaster HAF 932 case assembling my 100% brand new gaming rig. If I can get that done before i crash today, then I can write on my laptop tonight while all sorts of installing and stuff gets done on the software side of this behemoth.
I'm going to really try to make the interlude work well, and if the reaction to it is poor or people think its off then I may consider pulling and rewriting it because, well, this is going to introduce the first long term other characters, and I want to actually try to get it right.
The person who's perspective it is from is someone who has survived the first month of the apocalypse, only to end up in a very bad situation. And when she regains consciousness, the first thing she encounters is someone offering her a chance to save her friends.
As the amazing River Song would say, Spoilers.
I'm going to really try to make the interlude work well, and if the reaction to it is poor or people think its off then I may consider pulling and rewriting it because, well, this is going to introduce the first long term other characters, and I want to actually try to get it right.
The person who's perspective it is from is someone who has survived the first month of the apocalypse, only to end up in a very bad situation. And when she regains consciousness, the first thing she encounters is someone offering her a chance to save her friends.
As the amazing River Song would say, Spoilers.
Zaion
Writer, Sci-fi Addict, Phoenix's Chosen
- Location
- San Diego
Update: Gaming rig is gonna have to wait til next week. Total facepalm moment when I realized I ordered everything EXCEPT the processor for the thing. So two day shipping form new egg, will get here some time early next week.
Means I'm gonna work hard on the interlude tonight.
Means I'm gonna work hard on the interlude tonight.
Chapter 1.10
Zaion
Writer, Sci-fi Addict, Phoenix's Chosen
- Location
- San Diego
Arc 1: Arrival
Part 10: Tracker
XxXxXxX
I moved as quickly as I could while maintaining stealth with Cortana providing feedback via my helmet. I could see a tall play structure in the back of the nearest house, and so based on Cortana's estimated distance to the targets I made for that backyard. A quick jump over the back fence and a scramble up a rope net had me high enough to see down the length of the block.
I almost immediately dropped down, pulling the sniper rifle from my back and sliding the barrel between two of the bars around the 'crow's nest' of the structure. While being a more primitive, and ammunition limited, weapon than my pistol it had the benefit of a more powerful scope and accuracy at a greater distance.
"Vocal analysis indicates three females, and at least six distinct male voices with at least three to six more extrapolated from the less distinct noise." Cortana's voice said in my ear as I sighted across the row of backyards to where I could see the activity.
Several backyards further into the neighborhood three dirty looking men were manhandling a young girl down the back steps out of a house. I could see a side gate that had probably been barred prior to this but was now swinging open and, through it, one of those heavy duty pickup trucks with the extra set of wheels. At least two men were already at the truck, and the sound of shots indicated that they were firing at either other survivors, or more likely some zombies.
"Forwarding discrete audio to you, Chief." Cortana said as I panned my scope back and forth, trying to get a feel for the terrain and locations of all targets.
"Come on, you little cunt." One of the men was saying, dragging the struggling girl by her arm. "We're gonna have some fun with you."
I had to remove my finger from the trigger of my rifle lest I react out of anger as I saw the man reach a hand down, groping between the girl's jean clad legs.
One of the other men pulled her away from the first man, turning her around in the process. The girl couldn't have been older than fourteen. My heart went cold. It didn't matter if these were the same bastards as that previous group I had eliminated. They were clearly of the same strain and were going to die.
"None of that, Butch. You know the rules. The chief gets first dibs on all the women we bring in." That was the second man, who was brandishing a large knife towards the aforenamed Butch while his other hand held the girl's arm tightly in its grasp.
"Ah, come on, Jameson, just a little taste? We don't have to tell the boss. Or we could do her like those tasty things we found a few weeks ago. Boss doesn't have to know we found some tail today."
I almost shot the bastard then and there, but Cortana had said there were three distinct female voices. I could only see one. And if there were at least six guys, unless they were all in the open and I could take them out fast enough, the girls were at risk.
"No way, Butch, I'm not risking his wrath a second time. You don't believe that story about Henry being stupid and getting bit, do you? No one was there 'cept the boss, no one to corroborate the story. Do you think he really wouldn't find out? Besides, he's the one who sent us here to retrieve these ones. Said he remembered seeing them holing up during the chaos."
"Let me go, you bastard!"
That was a new female voice, followed closely by a cry of "Chrissy!"
Two more men had exited the house, one bleeding from the side of his face. They were forcing a brunette girl, probably somewhere in her late teens or early twenties, out of the house. She was the one speaking, and her struggles increased in strength when she caught sight of the younger girl.
"Looks like a pair of sisters or at most cousins." I said to Cortana as I watched the action.
Six men so far, and I still hadn't caught sight of the third female. Was she already in the truck? No, the audio sensors on the APC would be picking her up from there, surely.
A crashing sound drew my attention back to the house, just in time to watch a large man come flying out through a bay window on the third story of the home. The man landed on his head and didn't move. It wasn't hard to tell that he was dead.
"Jesus Christ!" Butch said. "That last cunt's a fucking fighter, ain't she? Hope the chief lets us teach her a lesson."
Jameson just spat to the side and continued to drag the struggling teenager towards the truck. The two men behind him also dragged along the older teenager, both girls in a state of fear and shock after seeing the man fall off the roof.
Screams came from inside the house, shouting and more crashing noises before it went silent. I watched as the men loaded the first two girls into the back of the truck. A few minutes later, four more men came out of the house. One was carrying a tall, leggy blonde girl hung over his shoulder. She wasn't struggling, most likely unconscious. Given the fight she had given them, she was probably going to feel horrible when she regained consciousness.
"So ten men, not counting the deceased." Cortana tallied for me as I focused on considering my options.
"I could strike now." I said. "I can see them getting into the truck and two nearby cars. I could hit the engine blocks, taking the cars out of commission and forcing them to go for cover. Afterwards, I could snipe a few more if I had the shots, then abandon my rifle, drop to the ground and move around to flank them. Problem is, I can't guarantee that they will simply abandon the girls. They could even use them as shields."
I took a deep breath.
"And that doesn't solve the bigger problem. That there is a group within a day's drive of our camp doing this kind of thing. Sooner or later we are going to cross paths with them, possibly when we aren't prepared. But if I can follow them back to their camp, then I can hopefully sneak in and rescue the girls, before killing the fucking murdering rapist bastards."
"Are you sure you can track them, Chief?" Cortana asked as I shimmied down to the ground.
"Your audio sensors could pick out the voices and individualize them at this distance. Surely, you can track vehicle audio in this otherwise empty space at a distance great enough for us to follow without being seen, or at least noticed."
"And if they do realize they are being followed?" Cortana asked as I sprinted back down the road towards the APC, the sound of cars starting up coming faintly from behind me.
"Then I pray they don't have anything heavy enough to pierce my kinetic barriers and we take them out."
I ran to the back of the APC and climbed in, rather than the cab.
"Go, Cortana, don't lose them. I've got some gear to prepare."
I opened one of the crates and began preparing weapons.
I just hoped the preparation distracted me from the fact that my decision here, while better in the long run for everyone, was putting those young women in greater danger in the short term.
I could only pray that I managed to save them in the end.
XxXxXxX
I followed the bastards for hours, always staying just far enough back to avoid notice, relying on Cortana's sensors to track them. Night was starting to fall when they turned into a high school of all places. This was either their camp, a safe haven along the way to their camp, or simply some place they had decided to hole up for the night.
I decided I needed more intelligence on the situation and left the APC parked hidden behind a gas station up the road. Cortana was of course still linked into my suit, and ready to bring the APC when it became required.
I hated leaving Shep, my almost constant companion, behind but I really had no other choice.
Slowly and quietly I made my way through the woods nearby, eliminating a few curious zombies I found stuck in the mud or just wandering around. The noise from my weapon didn't travel very far, so I wasn't worried that it would warn the people in the camp.
My destination was not the high school itself but rather a house I could see over the woods, situated on top of a nearby rise that looked out over the school. That would give me my best vantage point for both observation and sniping.
The house turned out to be a two story farmhouse, older but in good condition. The backside of the ridge led down to some wide gentle pastures, one of which had some living cows in it. That had made me blink a couple of times, and it was only as an afterthought that I asked Cortana to mark the location on our map.
Cows could be really useful for the future and it might be a good idea to return here and gather a few if they were still alive. The fresh milk alone would be a godsend. I wonder if I can find some books on making cheese?
I took up a perch in a window on the second story and watched. I needed to get the lay of the land, and I had nothing but time. Haste would ruin this. My best chance was the wee hours of the night, after I'd observed their patterns and when the most of them would be asleep and their sentries groggy.
With a little luck and some guidance from above, I could do this without any of the girls getting hurt. Without any alarm raising the bulk of these bastards from their slumber until I had executed each and every one of them.
Because that's what I was going to do. I couldn't think of it as murder. The Old World was gone. Due process and trial by a jury of one's peers was no more. These bastards were rapists and murders at worst, simply accessories at best. The worst of humanity brought out by the end of days.
I had to think about it as execution or I was sure my will to perform the act would falter. The fight at the mall had been because of fear, an emotional response to Early's story. Afterwards I had wondered how I would handle in a situation where I had to consciously make the decision to kill another human being. I could wrap it up however I wanted. Call it execution, righteous vengeance, justifiable homicide in the defense of innocents.
What I was about to do would change me, I knew it. I was being forced to confront the fact that I had been treating everything so far like a video game. It made me wonder why I hadn't just named Shep Dogmeat when I found her. I guess maybe I saw Mass Effect as representing hope against great terror, while I always saw the Fallout games as a desperate struggle to survive when the world had collapsed.
It made me wonder why I didn't just abuse the technologies I could see in the Proteus System already, turn something into an impenetrable vehicular bunker, ignore the rest of the world until the system had enough energy to build something bigger and better. That was the 'safe' choice where survival was concerned. I had no emotional ties to anyone. I had no reason to rescue these girls except for holdovers from who I used to be.
All it led up to was that I had to stop treating this all like a videogame and take that one, hard step forward.
I returned my focus to the school below me and began to study it using a pair of night vision goggles.
I had plans to make.
XxXxXxX
It turned out that the situation was more complicated than I had previously thought. The main body of these bastards' camp was situated in the large football stadium the school had. The stadium was shaped like a concrete 'U' with stands ringing three sides. Two chain link fences closed off the open end of the 'U' and led into the main body of the school's parking lot. From my vantage point I could see the refreshment stand at one end of the 'U'. It and several nearby barbecues were apparently serving as the cook stations for the group. Assuming the water was still working, then the locker rooms probably served for bathrooms and washing. If not then there was a lake a bit larger than the one I now thought of as mine only a few miles away.
Vehicles and tents were set up at one end of the U and around the track encircling the field in a large oval. Very little was set on the field itself and after some thought I decided that was probably because it was an actual grass field. Probably someone there was smart enough to realize its potential as field space for crops. Even if they didn't need to do so yet, they were eventually going to run out of salvageable food supplies.
There were at least fifty or sixty people in the main camp and, surprisingly, they weren't all male or even appeared to be bastards. I saw a fair number of women and children doing various tasks around the camp. Most, but not all, of the men seemed to be gathered around the grills chatting and drinking.
The presence of the women and kids, who appeared to be part of the camp and not prisoners, made me hesitate. Perhaps they simply didn't know what these men were up to? There was no sign that the girls I had seen being taken had been brought to the stadium.
That started me looking over the rest of the school more thoroughly.
I eventually identified watch points around the school. One person appeared to be keeping a watch from the far side of the U relative to my current position. He also appeared to be focused on looking out over the school towards the road.
Another was keeping watch over the vehicles they had in the parking lot, while a third appeared to be keeping watch over the gymnasium on the other end of the school.
It was about the time that I noted the man keeping watch near the gymnasium that I became suspicious. Sure, the stadium had a field that could be largely protected and used for farming. But wouldn't the gym or hell any classroom have made a better and more secure residence to sleep and hide out from the zombies as well as the elements?
Shortly after that I noted a smaller grouping, originally hidden from my perch on the other side of a building close to the gymnasium. A taller, burly man who seemed to be in charge walked into view, flanked by two other men. I recognized one as being Butch, one of the bastards from the house.
I contemplated using the sniper rifle, but then decided that I was too close. The sound would warn everyone, and my chances of saving the girls would go down.
No, I had to do this more stealthily, and more directly.
My priority had to be saving those girls, not killing each and every one of these bastards. The fact that part of their group may not be aware of, or may be choosing to ignore, their bestial actions was enough.
Even if it wasn't, the innocent children in the camp told me that my best option would be a quick hit and run. Sneak up to the gymnasium, eliminate any and all guards, arm the girls and then call in Cortana with the APC.
If there were more girls than I could cram into it then we'd have to hijack some other vehicles in from the parking lot, and I couldn't do that alone.
I looked down at the pack I had brought with me.
Good thing I had brought more pistols than just my Suppressor.
XxXxXxX
Sneaking up to the school proved childishly easy. Only the occasional distant echo of a sound from the school broke the silence and I didn't encountered any roving patrols.
I decided that these bastards were so confident that they weren't even keeping any real watch out, even though they had to know the potential threats out there given they WERE one of those threats.
Ultimately, it was just making my job easier.
By the time I reached the gymnasium, the apparent leader and his cronies had disappeared. Maybe back to wherever they hung their hats. Maybe into the gymnasium.
That last made me shudder and I had to fight down the urge to move more urgently. It was dark out but not impossible to see me. My armor was helping with that a bit, the black coating practically disappearing into the night. I couldn't afford to alert any potential witnesses or threats until I was right up next to them.
I took a few minutes to carefully circle the gymnasium. I found three guards, two who I hadn't been able to spot from my earlier perch.
The first one I tested the twist-the-neck method. With the enhanced strength of my suit, it proved to be terrifyingly easy to do. I took it as a warning about remembering my strength and dragged the body behind a nearby wall.
The second one I took with an omni-blade to the back of the neck, severing his spinal column and preventing him from making any noise. Again, I quickly concealed the body from immediate discovery before continuing on.
The third guard turned and caught sight of me just as I was coming up on him. I was faster than the bastard was to react. He went down with a shot between the eyes before his cigarette had even left his mouth.
With three for three, I moved to a nearby fire escape and climbed to the roof of the gymnasium. Breaking in via a door on the roof was childishly easy and soon enough, I was looking down into the dimly lit gym from the upper set of bleachers.
There were at least six men in the building, at least that was how many were in the chamber.
Two of them had their pants around their ankles and were forcing a pair of women, girls really I suspected, to suck them off with guns placed to their heads.
The remaining three were surrounding two young girls who I recognized from the house earlier, the two who had been conscious when they were kidnapped. All four men had weapons that I could see, but none of them were actually in hand.
So, six to one odds then with two potential hostages. Even if I tried out some two-gun mojo, that wasn't good odds in a hostage situation.
I looked over the entire situation. There were at least six other women and girls curled up near the base of the bleachers on my side of the gym. Examining via my helmet's low light mode revealed that they were chained up, mostly using handcuffs.
Most of the active occupants were towards the far end of the gym right now, looking away from my direction.
Maybe, if I could do it fast enough and keep them quiet, I could free and arm a few of these girls. If I was quick, I could eliminate the two bastards getting sucked off before turning my aim on the technically unarmed bastards cornering their two newest victims.
Below me, laid out on one of the benches, the blonde who had been brought out of the house that afternoon stirred.
I had to act. Waiting would only get some of these girls killed.
Silently, I made my way down the bleachers, checking my weapon as I went.
No more waiting.
XxXxXxX
Part 10: Tracker
XxXxXxX
I moved as quickly as I could while maintaining stealth with Cortana providing feedback via my helmet. I could see a tall play structure in the back of the nearest house, and so based on Cortana's estimated distance to the targets I made for that backyard. A quick jump over the back fence and a scramble up a rope net had me high enough to see down the length of the block.
I almost immediately dropped down, pulling the sniper rifle from my back and sliding the barrel between two of the bars around the 'crow's nest' of the structure. While being a more primitive, and ammunition limited, weapon than my pistol it had the benefit of a more powerful scope and accuracy at a greater distance.
"Vocal analysis indicates three females, and at least six distinct male voices with at least three to six more extrapolated from the less distinct noise." Cortana's voice said in my ear as I sighted across the row of backyards to where I could see the activity.
Several backyards further into the neighborhood three dirty looking men were manhandling a young girl down the back steps out of a house. I could see a side gate that had probably been barred prior to this but was now swinging open and, through it, one of those heavy duty pickup trucks with the extra set of wheels. At least two men were already at the truck, and the sound of shots indicated that they were firing at either other survivors, or more likely some zombies.
"Forwarding discrete audio to you, Chief." Cortana said as I panned my scope back and forth, trying to get a feel for the terrain and locations of all targets.
"Come on, you little cunt." One of the men was saying, dragging the struggling girl by her arm. "We're gonna have some fun with you."
I had to remove my finger from the trigger of my rifle lest I react out of anger as I saw the man reach a hand down, groping between the girl's jean clad legs.
One of the other men pulled her away from the first man, turning her around in the process. The girl couldn't have been older than fourteen. My heart went cold. It didn't matter if these were the same bastards as that previous group I had eliminated. They were clearly of the same strain and were going to die.
"None of that, Butch. You know the rules. The chief gets first dibs on all the women we bring in." That was the second man, who was brandishing a large knife towards the aforenamed Butch while his other hand held the girl's arm tightly in its grasp.
"Ah, come on, Jameson, just a little taste? We don't have to tell the boss. Or we could do her like those tasty things we found a few weeks ago. Boss doesn't have to know we found some tail today."
I almost shot the bastard then and there, but Cortana had said there were three distinct female voices. I could only see one. And if there were at least six guys, unless they were all in the open and I could take them out fast enough, the girls were at risk.
"No way, Butch, I'm not risking his wrath a second time. You don't believe that story about Henry being stupid and getting bit, do you? No one was there 'cept the boss, no one to corroborate the story. Do you think he really wouldn't find out? Besides, he's the one who sent us here to retrieve these ones. Said he remembered seeing them holing up during the chaos."
"Let me go, you bastard!"
That was a new female voice, followed closely by a cry of "Chrissy!"
Two more men had exited the house, one bleeding from the side of his face. They were forcing a brunette girl, probably somewhere in her late teens or early twenties, out of the house. She was the one speaking, and her struggles increased in strength when she caught sight of the younger girl.
"Looks like a pair of sisters or at most cousins." I said to Cortana as I watched the action.
Six men so far, and I still hadn't caught sight of the third female. Was she already in the truck? No, the audio sensors on the APC would be picking her up from there, surely.
A crashing sound drew my attention back to the house, just in time to watch a large man come flying out through a bay window on the third story of the home. The man landed on his head and didn't move. It wasn't hard to tell that he was dead.
"Jesus Christ!" Butch said. "That last cunt's a fucking fighter, ain't she? Hope the chief lets us teach her a lesson."
Jameson just spat to the side and continued to drag the struggling teenager towards the truck. The two men behind him also dragged along the older teenager, both girls in a state of fear and shock after seeing the man fall off the roof.
Screams came from inside the house, shouting and more crashing noises before it went silent. I watched as the men loaded the first two girls into the back of the truck. A few minutes later, four more men came out of the house. One was carrying a tall, leggy blonde girl hung over his shoulder. She wasn't struggling, most likely unconscious. Given the fight she had given them, she was probably going to feel horrible when she regained consciousness.
"So ten men, not counting the deceased." Cortana tallied for me as I focused on considering my options.
"I could strike now." I said. "I can see them getting into the truck and two nearby cars. I could hit the engine blocks, taking the cars out of commission and forcing them to go for cover. Afterwards, I could snipe a few more if I had the shots, then abandon my rifle, drop to the ground and move around to flank them. Problem is, I can't guarantee that they will simply abandon the girls. They could even use them as shields."
I took a deep breath.
"And that doesn't solve the bigger problem. That there is a group within a day's drive of our camp doing this kind of thing. Sooner or later we are going to cross paths with them, possibly when we aren't prepared. But if I can follow them back to their camp, then I can hopefully sneak in and rescue the girls, before killing the fucking murdering rapist bastards."
"Are you sure you can track them, Chief?" Cortana asked as I shimmied down to the ground.
"Your audio sensors could pick out the voices and individualize them at this distance. Surely, you can track vehicle audio in this otherwise empty space at a distance great enough for us to follow without being seen, or at least noticed."
"And if they do realize they are being followed?" Cortana asked as I sprinted back down the road towards the APC, the sound of cars starting up coming faintly from behind me.
"Then I pray they don't have anything heavy enough to pierce my kinetic barriers and we take them out."
I ran to the back of the APC and climbed in, rather than the cab.
"Go, Cortana, don't lose them. I've got some gear to prepare."
I opened one of the crates and began preparing weapons.
I just hoped the preparation distracted me from the fact that my decision here, while better in the long run for everyone, was putting those young women in greater danger in the short term.
I could only pray that I managed to save them in the end.
XxXxXxX
I followed the bastards for hours, always staying just far enough back to avoid notice, relying on Cortana's sensors to track them. Night was starting to fall when they turned into a high school of all places. This was either their camp, a safe haven along the way to their camp, or simply some place they had decided to hole up for the night.
I decided I needed more intelligence on the situation and left the APC parked hidden behind a gas station up the road. Cortana was of course still linked into my suit, and ready to bring the APC when it became required.
I hated leaving Shep, my almost constant companion, behind but I really had no other choice.
Slowly and quietly I made my way through the woods nearby, eliminating a few curious zombies I found stuck in the mud or just wandering around. The noise from my weapon didn't travel very far, so I wasn't worried that it would warn the people in the camp.
My destination was not the high school itself but rather a house I could see over the woods, situated on top of a nearby rise that looked out over the school. That would give me my best vantage point for both observation and sniping.
The house turned out to be a two story farmhouse, older but in good condition. The backside of the ridge led down to some wide gentle pastures, one of which had some living cows in it. That had made me blink a couple of times, and it was only as an afterthought that I asked Cortana to mark the location on our map.
Cows could be really useful for the future and it might be a good idea to return here and gather a few if they were still alive. The fresh milk alone would be a godsend. I wonder if I can find some books on making cheese?
I took up a perch in a window on the second story and watched. I needed to get the lay of the land, and I had nothing but time. Haste would ruin this. My best chance was the wee hours of the night, after I'd observed their patterns and when the most of them would be asleep and their sentries groggy.
With a little luck and some guidance from above, I could do this without any of the girls getting hurt. Without any alarm raising the bulk of these bastards from their slumber until I had executed each and every one of them.
Because that's what I was going to do. I couldn't think of it as murder. The Old World was gone. Due process and trial by a jury of one's peers was no more. These bastards were rapists and murders at worst, simply accessories at best. The worst of humanity brought out by the end of days.
I had to think about it as execution or I was sure my will to perform the act would falter. The fight at the mall had been because of fear, an emotional response to Early's story. Afterwards I had wondered how I would handle in a situation where I had to consciously make the decision to kill another human being. I could wrap it up however I wanted. Call it execution, righteous vengeance, justifiable homicide in the defense of innocents.
What I was about to do would change me, I knew it. I was being forced to confront the fact that I had been treating everything so far like a video game. It made me wonder why I hadn't just named Shep Dogmeat when I found her. I guess maybe I saw Mass Effect as representing hope against great terror, while I always saw the Fallout games as a desperate struggle to survive when the world had collapsed.
It made me wonder why I didn't just abuse the technologies I could see in the Proteus System already, turn something into an impenetrable vehicular bunker, ignore the rest of the world until the system had enough energy to build something bigger and better. That was the 'safe' choice where survival was concerned. I had no emotional ties to anyone. I had no reason to rescue these girls except for holdovers from who I used to be.
All it led up to was that I had to stop treating this all like a videogame and take that one, hard step forward.
I returned my focus to the school below me and began to study it using a pair of night vision goggles.
I had plans to make.
XxXxXxX
It turned out that the situation was more complicated than I had previously thought. The main body of these bastards' camp was situated in the large football stadium the school had. The stadium was shaped like a concrete 'U' with stands ringing three sides. Two chain link fences closed off the open end of the 'U' and led into the main body of the school's parking lot. From my vantage point I could see the refreshment stand at one end of the 'U'. It and several nearby barbecues were apparently serving as the cook stations for the group. Assuming the water was still working, then the locker rooms probably served for bathrooms and washing. If not then there was a lake a bit larger than the one I now thought of as mine only a few miles away.
Vehicles and tents were set up at one end of the U and around the track encircling the field in a large oval. Very little was set on the field itself and after some thought I decided that was probably because it was an actual grass field. Probably someone there was smart enough to realize its potential as field space for crops. Even if they didn't need to do so yet, they were eventually going to run out of salvageable food supplies.
There were at least fifty or sixty people in the main camp and, surprisingly, they weren't all male or even appeared to be bastards. I saw a fair number of women and children doing various tasks around the camp. Most, but not all, of the men seemed to be gathered around the grills chatting and drinking.
The presence of the women and kids, who appeared to be part of the camp and not prisoners, made me hesitate. Perhaps they simply didn't know what these men were up to? There was no sign that the girls I had seen being taken had been brought to the stadium.
That started me looking over the rest of the school more thoroughly.
I eventually identified watch points around the school. One person appeared to be keeping a watch from the far side of the U relative to my current position. He also appeared to be focused on looking out over the school towards the road.
Another was keeping watch over the vehicles they had in the parking lot, while a third appeared to be keeping watch over the gymnasium on the other end of the school.
It was about the time that I noted the man keeping watch near the gymnasium that I became suspicious. Sure, the stadium had a field that could be largely protected and used for farming. But wouldn't the gym or hell any classroom have made a better and more secure residence to sleep and hide out from the zombies as well as the elements?
Shortly after that I noted a smaller grouping, originally hidden from my perch on the other side of a building close to the gymnasium. A taller, burly man who seemed to be in charge walked into view, flanked by two other men. I recognized one as being Butch, one of the bastards from the house.
I contemplated using the sniper rifle, but then decided that I was too close. The sound would warn everyone, and my chances of saving the girls would go down.
No, I had to do this more stealthily, and more directly.
My priority had to be saving those girls, not killing each and every one of these bastards. The fact that part of their group may not be aware of, or may be choosing to ignore, their bestial actions was enough.
Even if it wasn't, the innocent children in the camp told me that my best option would be a quick hit and run. Sneak up to the gymnasium, eliminate any and all guards, arm the girls and then call in Cortana with the APC.
If there were more girls than I could cram into it then we'd have to hijack some other vehicles in from the parking lot, and I couldn't do that alone.
I looked down at the pack I had brought with me.
Good thing I had brought more pistols than just my Suppressor.
XxXxXxX
Sneaking up to the school proved childishly easy. Only the occasional distant echo of a sound from the school broke the silence and I didn't encountered any roving patrols.
I decided that these bastards were so confident that they weren't even keeping any real watch out, even though they had to know the potential threats out there given they WERE one of those threats.
Ultimately, it was just making my job easier.
By the time I reached the gymnasium, the apparent leader and his cronies had disappeared. Maybe back to wherever they hung their hats. Maybe into the gymnasium.
That last made me shudder and I had to fight down the urge to move more urgently. It was dark out but not impossible to see me. My armor was helping with that a bit, the black coating practically disappearing into the night. I couldn't afford to alert any potential witnesses or threats until I was right up next to them.
I took a few minutes to carefully circle the gymnasium. I found three guards, two who I hadn't been able to spot from my earlier perch.
The first one I tested the twist-the-neck method. With the enhanced strength of my suit, it proved to be terrifyingly easy to do. I took it as a warning about remembering my strength and dragged the body behind a nearby wall.
The second one I took with an omni-blade to the back of the neck, severing his spinal column and preventing him from making any noise. Again, I quickly concealed the body from immediate discovery before continuing on.
The third guard turned and caught sight of me just as I was coming up on him. I was faster than the bastard was to react. He went down with a shot between the eyes before his cigarette had even left his mouth.
With three for three, I moved to a nearby fire escape and climbed to the roof of the gymnasium. Breaking in via a door on the roof was childishly easy and soon enough, I was looking down into the dimly lit gym from the upper set of bleachers.
There were at least six men in the building, at least that was how many were in the chamber.
Two of them had their pants around their ankles and were forcing a pair of women, girls really I suspected, to suck them off with guns placed to their heads.
The remaining three were surrounding two young girls who I recognized from the house earlier, the two who had been conscious when they were kidnapped. All four men had weapons that I could see, but none of them were actually in hand.
So, six to one odds then with two potential hostages. Even if I tried out some two-gun mojo, that wasn't good odds in a hostage situation.
I looked over the entire situation. There were at least six other women and girls curled up near the base of the bleachers on my side of the gym. Examining via my helmet's low light mode revealed that they were chained up, mostly using handcuffs.
Most of the active occupants were towards the far end of the gym right now, looking away from my direction.
Maybe, if I could do it fast enough and keep them quiet, I could free and arm a few of these girls. If I was quick, I could eliminate the two bastards getting sucked off before turning my aim on the technically unarmed bastards cornering their two newest victims.
Below me, laid out on one of the benches, the blonde who had been brought out of the house that afternoon stirred.
I had to act. Waiting would only get some of these girls killed.
Silently, I made my way down the bleachers, checking my weapon as I went.
No more waiting.
XxXxXxX
Interlude #1: Gabrielle Durand
Zaion
Writer, Sci-fi Addict, Phoenix's Chosen
- Location
- San Diego
Arc 1: Arrival
Interlude #1: Gabrielle Durand
XxXxXxX
Gabrielle Durand's last memory before waking up in the dark with an aching skull and the feeling of metal around her wrists, had been a hulking brute of a man slamming her head against a wall.
As she lay in the dark, unable and unwilling to move thanks to the pain in her skull, Gabrielle tried to focus. Her thoughts were disjointed, fluid. She kept losing momentary track of her train of thought. In an attempt to regain her focus, she grasped a thread of thought and hung on tight.
Gabrielle was twenty years old, a student of sociology at Harvard University in her third year. Gabrielle's mother had met her father there a little over twenty years earlier. He had been a visiting lecturer on international politics, she the bright eyed student lapping up his words and charismatic smile.
Their romance was quick in true whirlwind fashion. As soon as her mother had graduated that spring she had moved to France with her lover, and been married before the summer was out.
Gabrielle was born a little over six months after the wedding, but friends and family were polite enough not to comment on that fact.
Thus, when Gabrielle was growing up she was told the stories of her mother's experience in college and of her romance with Gabrielle's father. Her parents were always so very much in love to Gabrielle's eyes and, as a little girl, she began to dream and hope for that same sort of experience.
So far, love had been hard to find on account of her mostly being approached by stupid drunk frat boys, but she had found friendship. Chief amongst those friends was Arendsen Landon, her roommate freshman year. Where Gabrielle's passion was sociology and how people interacted, Arendsen, or Aren to her friends, was destined for medical school from day one. With as many college prep and credit courses as she could manage in high school and a part time internship at the university hospital, Aren was on the fast track as a pre-med.
Her extracurricular medical studies and lessons from her doctor parents had just reinforced that fact.
When it came to career goals, the two couldn't have been more different. Aren wanted to be a skilled and famous physician. Gabrielle's dream was to be primarily a stay at home mom once she got married. But the pair shared three very important things.
First was a love for cheesy horror and survival movies. The cheesier the better. Vampires, werewolves, aliens from the fifth dimension. The pair had spent many a night together watching those sorts of movies over a bowl of popcorn to destress after exams.
Second was a secret love of videogames, which they kept secret for different reasons. In Aren's case, it was simply that her parents thought they were a frivolous waste of time; in Gabrielle's, that she had been raised with the idea that videogames were a boy's thing and would detract from her image as a young up and coming socialite. She never said she agreed with all parts of her mother's ideas.
The third and final important shared thing was a preference for older, more experienced men. For some complex reasons, both college students were disappointed by boys their own age. Both of their parents had an age gap with the father being the elder. Both of them found men older than them to be sexier. And both of them enjoyed to some degree the idea of being led, guided and controlled by such a man.
But not like this!
Gabrielle's thoughts had allowed her to fight through the haze of her concussion and focus on the here and now.
She had been spending part of the summer in Georgia visiting with Aren's parents and her teenage sister Chrissy when the first reports began to come in. It started as an upswing in police related shooting deaths in a number of cities. The social outcry led to protests, which devolved into rioting. By the time the public was informed of what was really going on, it was apparently too late, the disease had spread everywhere.
People were getting sick and dying, only they didn't stay dead. Their corpses would begin to move again, driven by some primal instinct to attack and bite and eat anything living, even while their bodies seemed to continue decaying.
And the people who were bit would eventually die, killed by the same disease, and become these rotting monsters as well.
Aren's family lived in a small community northeast of Atlanta, near Dawson. When the chaos started, Aren's father had instructed the two older girls to head to the store, buy as much food and as many supplies as they could get and bunker down in their house. Then he and Aren's mother had headed off to the hospital to help, leaving fourteen year old Chrissy in their care.
That had been over a month before. Neither had been heard from since.
The community had quickly devolved into chaos. Many people piled into cars and made towards advertised 'safe zones' and evacuation points in Atlanta. Others went to join family in more distant locales, hoping this plague would be more confined to large cities.
Still others had bunkered down like Gabrielle, Aren and Chrissy. Not all were successful though.
Then the bastards had come. They were loud, noisy, attracting what zombies were nearby towards them and using them to assault houses where survivors had holed up.
They had spent three days doing this, disappearing at night only to return the following day, until Chrissy made the mistake of watching them from a third story window. Her movements had caught the attention of one of the men and focused their attention on the Landon's house.
Within minutes, they had surrounded the house and begun breaking down the back door.
Chrissy was the first to be grabbed, easily overpowered by the large men and dragged out of the house. Aren had attempted to hold them off, bluffing with an unloaded replica pistol, but that hadn't lasted long either.
Gabrielle had held them off the longest, using the small amount of savate her mother had insisted she learn. She managed to put one of the bastards out through some windows on an upper story, and possibly given another a concussion. Sadly in the end, she just wasn't strong enough to hold off a determined enemy like these bastards.
Which brought her to the here and now.
Blinking her eyes open, she found she was in a large, dimly lit room. Glancing around her revealed bleachers, so maybe a gym of some sort? There was a pair of lanterns in the distance casting what little light filled the chamber. Nearby, she could hear various shuffling and snuffling, and a little further away the echoes of familiar sounds, Wet slurping sounds, men's taunting laughter.
She heard a sharp cry of pain and realized the voice was Aren's. Gabrielle tensed and tried to sit up, but found that her wrists were handcuffed around part of the bleachers she was laying on, preventing her from rising from her prone position.
She heard another cry from Aren and almost closed her eyes in attempt to fight the forming tears. However just before she did so she caught sight of movement up in the shadows near the top of the bleachers. The position of the lanterns meant the bleachers were almost entirely in shadow, and whatever figure was approaching appeared to be wearing black as well.
Slowly it resolved itself into a man wearing some black protective covering. His face was obscured behind a vaguely familiar helmet and she could tell he was aware of her regard because he raised his unoccupied hand in a shushing motion. His right hand held some sort of gun, which was trained in the general direction of the sounds coming from behind her.
As he approached Gabrielle felt a flicker of hope well up inside her chest. Could he be here to help, an enemy of the bastards who had kidnapped her and were currently doing something unthinkable to Aren. When he reached her he crouched down beside her, and after a moment she heard a slightly digitized voice coming softly from his helmet.
"Are you alright?" A man's voice, sounding like he was in his twenties or thirties but made unclear by the distortion.
Gabrielle nodded her head fractionally, her eyes focused on the opaque visor of the helmet.
"The others?" She asked.
"Your friends are fine for the moment." The figure replied.
Gabrielle tensed. She had heard Aren let out a cry of pain so how could they be okay? Was this just another of these bastards, perhaps one who wasn't supposed to be here and was sneaking because he didn't want to get caught playing with the girls?
"Chrissy and the other one are the focus of some of these bastards, but they don't have their weapons out and they haven't started doing anything to them except examining them. Two of the other women they captured are being forced to give blowjobs. Those men ARE armed. There are some other girls chained up along these bleachers as well."
The figure looked over her for a moment, probably calculating the odds or a strategy Gabrielle figured.
"Do you know how to shoot a gun?" He asked as his focus returned to her face.
"Yes." Gabrielle whispered. "My father's bodyguard gave me lessons after a kidnapping attempt."
"Good man." The figure replied.
Gabrielle liked to imagine that he was smiling at her. It was a brief distraction from this situation but it was worth it.
The figure reached to its waist and retrieved an object, setting it on the bench beside Gabrielle. It was a pistol, a model she wasn't familiar with.
"Hold still, I'm going to get you free. I need to keep low here and keep the gun trained on these bastards while I free the others. I have to act quick, so don't move quickly or make any noise."
With that said the man reached both hands down and grabbed the chain of her handcuffs. To her surprise, with a sharp tug he broke the chain apart, leaving her with some stylish wrist jewelry but freedom of movement.
Gabrielle watched the figure as he moved off silently and approached the next girl. He moved smoothly, like some night-stalking predator, always keeping his gun angled towards where he had indicated the two bastards getting blown were.
Slowly, Gabrielle rolled off her side onto her stomach and then off and behind the bench. This allowed her a small amount of room to move into a crouch, carefully lifting and aiming the pistol towards one of the bastards, drawing a bead right on his head.
She had to fight to not attack one of these bastards as she saw the more distant group surrounding her best friend and her sister. One of the bastards was holding Aren with her arms twisted behind her back while another ran his hands over her body.
A shimmer of movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention a few minutes later, causing her to turn her head slightly. The black figure was beside her once more, his own pistol trained on the bastards.
"We are only going to have one shot at this, and we have to act quickly. Those far doors lead out straight to the parking lot. There are vehicles there, and I have my partner bringing an APC in for pickup. This group is far larger than just the bastards in here, so we need to take care of these ones and get out of here fast."
Gabrielle nodded, her grip around the pistol tightening.
"On my mark, I want you to step away from the bleachers, keeping your pistol focused on the guy on the left. As soon as we are close enough, I'll give the signal and I want you to fire. One shot. Eliminate him before he can react. I'll take out the other. As soon as that is done, turn and focus on the others, approaching only as fast as you can while still maintaining your aim. The others are going to advance and keep line of fire on them, but we'll have to act fast."
Gabrielle could feel the figure sigh.
"The bastards don't have their weapons out, but they will probably try to use Chrissy and your friend as hostages. We can't give them that opportunity. One of the girls is the daughter of a marine. She's going to eliminate one of the bastards nearest to your friend. The others are going to focus on the outlier."
Gabrielle waited for him to continue, tensing as she did. She was about to kill somebody. This wasn't a videogame and she could already feel a bit of bile rising at the thought, but she had to do it.
The man stepped forward, standing fully upright and aiming his gun towards the head of the right bastard.
Please let them come out of this okay, Gabrielle prayed as she stepped forward as well, flanking him. The soft rustle of movement and faint footsteps told her the other girls were moving as well.
Four seconds to get close enough. Another two waiting for the man's signal.
The man raised his left hand.
There was a moment of silence before Gabrielle pulled the trigger.
A loud gunshot echoed through the gym, and both bastards getting blown dropped with their brains blown out of their skull. The girls who had been forced to blow them let out shrieks of panic.
Gabrielle fought down her revulsion as she turned and moved towards the other group of men, flanked by her mysterious savior.
A second shot and then a third rang out. The man who had been holding onto Chrissy and the one who had been standing slightly off watching went down, one with a bullet through the head and another with a sucking chest wound.
The other two bastards had spun, releasing Aren in their surprise. One, the one who had been holding her, stepped back and reached for a gun holstered at his hip.
Another gunshot, this one nearly silent, came from Gabrielle's left. It was from the pistol of her savior. So, silenced weapon then.
The man who was trying to arm himself jerked back, a bloody hole in the middle of his face where his nose used to be.
This left Aren scrambling away from the last of the bastards, grabbing Chrissy and ducking away desperately in an attempt to get away from their captor and out of the line of fire.
"What the fuck!?" The man yelled, stepping back in panic but not daring to reach from his gun. "Where the fuck did you cunts get weapons?"
Gabrielle's savior stepped up, the lantern light glinting off his armor and visor. He moved in a controlled manner, his pistol held in a two handed grip and aimed center of mass.
"You are a bastard." The man said, his projected voice much louder now, almost echoing in the large gym. "You kill people, kidnap and rape women, and all while pretending to be civilized on the other end of this camp. You are disgusting, and there is no room for people like you in the New World."
One more silent shot and the last bastard collapsed.
Silence reigned save for the sniffling of the four recently freed girls.
"What do we do now?" One of the girls asked.
Gabrielle looked more closely at her. She had tanned skin and dark hair in a short cut. She wasn't wearing much, just some shorts and a tank top, which revealed her well muscled body. She looked young, probably not even out of high school yet.
"You have two choices that I see." Her savior said. "You can flee this place, going wherever you want, finding a way to survive on your terms."
The man ghosted towards the doors he had indicated earlier. Gabrielle took the opportunity to rush forward and hug Chrissy and Aren, pulling them both upright.
"Or?" The well built girl asked.
The man turned his head to look back over his shoulder.
"Or you can come with me. Join me and take advantage of my shelter." He said, cracking the door open and angling his pistol through the gap.
"What do we have to do if we join you?" One of the other girls asked, tentatively holding her gun like it was a wild animal about to bite her.
"Help around the compound. Help with building it and trying to improve life. Fight off any zombies or human attackers."
Gabrielle rolled the unfamiliar word around her tongue. What was a zombie? Was that this man's term for the infected?
"Screw this." One of the girls who had recently been blowing the bastards said, storming past Gabrielle towards the doors. "I'm grabbing a vehicle and getting out of here. I'm not trading one prison for another."
The man shifted, his angle changing and appearing as if he were going to stop her from exiting the gym. The girl froze, glaring at him, but the man wasn't looking at her.
His gaze was on Gabrielle, she was sure of it, and after a moment she nodded at him.
The man nodded back.
"You are all free to do what you like. But I'm getting out of here before reinforcements from the main camp investigate. Anyone who is coming with me better hurry. My ride is almost here."
"Whatever, man." The girl said, storming past him and out of the doors.
Gabrielle focused on quickly explaining things to Aren and Chrissy, but she could hear the hurried conversations behind her. Most of the other girls seemed to be having disagreements about what to do.
"Aren, I think we need to trust him. He knew Chrissy's name, I think he followed those bastards here to rescue us." Gabrielle said hurriedly, huddled with her friend and her sister. "We're miles away from home, with only a single gun and no supplies. He's our best chance for survival, and I have a good feeling about him. You know I'm good at reading people. We can trust him."
Aren looked her best friend straight in the eyes.
"Are you sure about this?" She asked, holding her sister tightly to her chest.
Gabrielle nodded. "Absolutely."
Aren sighed and glanced towards the door. Most of the other girls were already running through it in a clump, ignoring the man who still stood guard watching for any threats.
"Hey, have you guys made a decision?" The built chick asked as she stepped up to Gabrielle's group. She had another girl who looked to be similar in age with her, her features mediterranean beneath what appeared to be red hair.
"We're sticking with our knight in non-reflective armor." Gabrielle said, trying to find a reason to laugh in this fucked up situation. "You?"
"Same." The girl said, holding out free hand. "I'm Sarah. This is Lucia."
"Gabrielle." Gabrielle said, then indicated her friends. "This is Aren and her sister Chrissy."
"Call me Alex." Their mysterious savior said from the doorway, returning from his quick check for more of the bastards. "We need to get moving. Our ride is almost here."
Gabrielle nodded and turned back to the other girls.
"Come on, let's get out of here and try to forget these bastards ever existed."
Gabrielle kicked one of the bastards in his head before turning and heading towards the exit.
XxXxXxX
By the time they reached the parking lot they could hear some noise from the other end of the campus towards the stadium. Gabrielle could see lights flashing and hear shouting.
Nearby an SUV started its engine, peeling out of the parking lot at break neck speed. It was moving so fast it almost collided with the grey APC which came barreling out of the darkness ahead of it, screeching to a stop right in front of Gabrielle's group.
"Everyone in the back." The man said as the rear ramp dropped.
Gabrielle saw that he was running around the front of the vehicle, headed for the driver's seat. Now that she had time to think properly, and see his armor more clearly in the moonlight, she had more questions. Gabrielle pushed Aren and Chrissy towards the back of the vehicle.
"Go, I'll see you when we get to safety." She said before turning back towards the passenger door of the APC.
"Gabrielle, what-" Aren started to ask a question but Gabrielle was already pulling the door open.
"Go!" She yelled back.
Gabrielle blinked as she looked into the cab of the APC. The only occupants were a large german shepard and her mysterious savior, so who had been driving the damn vehicle? Had they gotten out and run to the back when her savior got in? But why didn't they just slide over and take the passenger seat?
Her savior glanced at her.
"Go ahead." He said as he fiddled with something on the dash. "Get in."
Gabrielle slid in and pulled the door shut behind her.
"Cortana, close the back and get us the hell out of here." The man said.
"Aye aye, Chief." A female voice came from the dash, surprising Gabrielle. "Let's move out."
Gabrielle felt the vehicle begin to move, first pulling into a turning reverse and then gunning it forward out of the parking lot.
Gabrielle and her mysterious savior sat in silence for several long minutes as the APC seemed to drive itself along the road. The steering wheel was turning but the man was fiddling with something on the dash, not controlling the wheel.
Gabrielle took the time to calm down and consider things.
First, now that she had gotten a better look at it, she recognized the armor her savior was wearing. It wasn't military issue or some unusual hazardous environment suit. It was something out of a video game. It also looked far more real than any cosplay she had ever witnessed.
Second, the man had not hesitated to kill those bastards. He clearly could have come in, guns blazing, taking them out himself. But that would have increased the chance one or more of their captives would be hurt or killed. Instead, he freed most of them, armed them, and executed a tactic that had the best chance of protecting all the girls. That was part of what was helping with her reading on him.
And now, they were in a car that was apparently driving itself, or being driven remotely. That said high tech. The kind she wasn't aware existed, or at least was in use in the field.
Finally, her curiosity got the best of her.
"So who are you," she asked softly, "really?"
Her savior cocked his head and looked at her, staring at her for a long moment through his opaque visor.
Finally, he reached up and grasped his helmet. It disengaged a moment later and he removed it.
Gabrielle took a moment to study his features in the dim light illuminating the cabin. His skin tone had a faint tan to it, his features solid and a bit handsome. His eyes appeared to be a deep, dark blue underneath a head of short, brown hair. In this light, she couldn't get a good fix on the shade. He looked like he could have been anywhere from his early twenties to his late thirties, a sort of boyishness in place that kept him eternally babyfaced.
"My name is Alex Mercer." He said giving her a faint, exhausted smile. "And I'm a survivor, like you. Only difference is I have had some ridiculous and unbelievably strange luck."
His voice was tired, though clearer now without the distortion of his helmet.
Despite all she had been through, or perhaps merely in reaction to and in an attempt to face it head on, Gabrielle felt a faint thrill at the sound of his voice and the look of his face.
"Gabrielle." She said, introducing herself in return.
She was grateful the low lighting was hiding her blush as the clock on the dash turned to one past midnight.
Alex turned back to look at the road ahead.
"Cortana will get us safely back to what I call home. Everyone can get some sleep, and we can talk as a group in the morning." He said, leaning his seat back and closing his eyes.
Gabrielle cocked her head, examining him as he relaxed.
"Does that mean you and I can't discuss things now?" She asked a minute later.
"Nope." Alex replied, laughing slightly. "Ask away."
XxXxXxX
XxXxXxX
Interlude #1: Gabrielle Durand
XxXxXxX
Gabrielle Durand's last memory before waking up in the dark with an aching skull and the feeling of metal around her wrists, had been a hulking brute of a man slamming her head against a wall.
As she lay in the dark, unable and unwilling to move thanks to the pain in her skull, Gabrielle tried to focus. Her thoughts were disjointed, fluid. She kept losing momentary track of her train of thought. In an attempt to regain her focus, she grasped a thread of thought and hung on tight.
Gabrielle was twenty years old, a student of sociology at Harvard University in her third year. Gabrielle's mother had met her father there a little over twenty years earlier. He had been a visiting lecturer on international politics, she the bright eyed student lapping up his words and charismatic smile.
Their romance was quick in true whirlwind fashion. As soon as her mother had graduated that spring she had moved to France with her lover, and been married before the summer was out.
Gabrielle was born a little over six months after the wedding, but friends and family were polite enough not to comment on that fact.
Thus, when Gabrielle was growing up she was told the stories of her mother's experience in college and of her romance with Gabrielle's father. Her parents were always so very much in love to Gabrielle's eyes and, as a little girl, she began to dream and hope for that same sort of experience.
So far, love had been hard to find on account of her mostly being approached by stupid drunk frat boys, but she had found friendship. Chief amongst those friends was Arendsen Landon, her roommate freshman year. Where Gabrielle's passion was sociology and how people interacted, Arendsen, or Aren to her friends, was destined for medical school from day one. With as many college prep and credit courses as she could manage in high school and a part time internship at the university hospital, Aren was on the fast track as a pre-med.
Her extracurricular medical studies and lessons from her doctor parents had just reinforced that fact.
When it came to career goals, the two couldn't have been more different. Aren wanted to be a skilled and famous physician. Gabrielle's dream was to be primarily a stay at home mom once she got married. But the pair shared three very important things.
First was a love for cheesy horror and survival movies. The cheesier the better. Vampires, werewolves, aliens from the fifth dimension. The pair had spent many a night together watching those sorts of movies over a bowl of popcorn to destress after exams.
Second was a secret love of videogames, which they kept secret for different reasons. In Aren's case, it was simply that her parents thought they were a frivolous waste of time; in Gabrielle's, that she had been raised with the idea that videogames were a boy's thing and would detract from her image as a young up and coming socialite. She never said she agreed with all parts of her mother's ideas.
The third and final important shared thing was a preference for older, more experienced men. For some complex reasons, both college students were disappointed by boys their own age. Both of their parents had an age gap with the father being the elder. Both of them found men older than them to be sexier. And both of them enjoyed to some degree the idea of being led, guided and controlled by such a man.
But not like this!
Gabrielle's thoughts had allowed her to fight through the haze of her concussion and focus on the here and now.
She had been spending part of the summer in Georgia visiting with Aren's parents and her teenage sister Chrissy when the first reports began to come in. It started as an upswing in police related shooting deaths in a number of cities. The social outcry led to protests, which devolved into rioting. By the time the public was informed of what was really going on, it was apparently too late, the disease had spread everywhere.
People were getting sick and dying, only they didn't stay dead. Their corpses would begin to move again, driven by some primal instinct to attack and bite and eat anything living, even while their bodies seemed to continue decaying.
And the people who were bit would eventually die, killed by the same disease, and become these rotting monsters as well.
Aren's family lived in a small community northeast of Atlanta, near Dawson. When the chaos started, Aren's father had instructed the two older girls to head to the store, buy as much food and as many supplies as they could get and bunker down in their house. Then he and Aren's mother had headed off to the hospital to help, leaving fourteen year old Chrissy in their care.
That had been over a month before. Neither had been heard from since.
The community had quickly devolved into chaos. Many people piled into cars and made towards advertised 'safe zones' and evacuation points in Atlanta. Others went to join family in more distant locales, hoping this plague would be more confined to large cities.
Still others had bunkered down like Gabrielle, Aren and Chrissy. Not all were successful though.
Then the bastards had come. They were loud, noisy, attracting what zombies were nearby towards them and using them to assault houses where survivors had holed up.
They had spent three days doing this, disappearing at night only to return the following day, until Chrissy made the mistake of watching them from a third story window. Her movements had caught the attention of one of the men and focused their attention on the Landon's house.
Within minutes, they had surrounded the house and begun breaking down the back door.
Chrissy was the first to be grabbed, easily overpowered by the large men and dragged out of the house. Aren had attempted to hold them off, bluffing with an unloaded replica pistol, but that hadn't lasted long either.
Gabrielle had held them off the longest, using the small amount of savate her mother had insisted she learn. She managed to put one of the bastards out through some windows on an upper story, and possibly given another a concussion. Sadly in the end, she just wasn't strong enough to hold off a determined enemy like these bastards.
Which brought her to the here and now.
Blinking her eyes open, she found she was in a large, dimly lit room. Glancing around her revealed bleachers, so maybe a gym of some sort? There was a pair of lanterns in the distance casting what little light filled the chamber. Nearby, she could hear various shuffling and snuffling, and a little further away the echoes of familiar sounds, Wet slurping sounds, men's taunting laughter.
She heard a sharp cry of pain and realized the voice was Aren's. Gabrielle tensed and tried to sit up, but found that her wrists were handcuffed around part of the bleachers she was laying on, preventing her from rising from her prone position.
She heard another cry from Aren and almost closed her eyes in attempt to fight the forming tears. However just before she did so she caught sight of movement up in the shadows near the top of the bleachers. The position of the lanterns meant the bleachers were almost entirely in shadow, and whatever figure was approaching appeared to be wearing black as well.
Slowly it resolved itself into a man wearing some black protective covering. His face was obscured behind a vaguely familiar helmet and she could tell he was aware of her regard because he raised his unoccupied hand in a shushing motion. His right hand held some sort of gun, which was trained in the general direction of the sounds coming from behind her.
As he approached Gabrielle felt a flicker of hope well up inside her chest. Could he be here to help, an enemy of the bastards who had kidnapped her and were currently doing something unthinkable to Aren. When he reached her he crouched down beside her, and after a moment she heard a slightly digitized voice coming softly from his helmet.
"Are you alright?" A man's voice, sounding like he was in his twenties or thirties but made unclear by the distortion.
Gabrielle nodded her head fractionally, her eyes focused on the opaque visor of the helmet.
"The others?" She asked.
"Your friends are fine for the moment." The figure replied.
Gabrielle tensed. She had heard Aren let out a cry of pain so how could they be okay? Was this just another of these bastards, perhaps one who wasn't supposed to be here and was sneaking because he didn't want to get caught playing with the girls?
"Chrissy and the other one are the focus of some of these bastards, but they don't have their weapons out and they haven't started doing anything to them except examining them. Two of the other women they captured are being forced to give blowjobs. Those men ARE armed. There are some other girls chained up along these bleachers as well."
The figure looked over her for a moment, probably calculating the odds or a strategy Gabrielle figured.
"Do you know how to shoot a gun?" He asked as his focus returned to her face.
"Yes." Gabrielle whispered. "My father's bodyguard gave me lessons after a kidnapping attempt."
"Good man." The figure replied.
Gabrielle liked to imagine that he was smiling at her. It was a brief distraction from this situation but it was worth it.
The figure reached to its waist and retrieved an object, setting it on the bench beside Gabrielle. It was a pistol, a model she wasn't familiar with.
"Hold still, I'm going to get you free. I need to keep low here and keep the gun trained on these bastards while I free the others. I have to act quick, so don't move quickly or make any noise."
With that said the man reached both hands down and grabbed the chain of her handcuffs. To her surprise, with a sharp tug he broke the chain apart, leaving her with some stylish wrist jewelry but freedom of movement.
Gabrielle watched the figure as he moved off silently and approached the next girl. He moved smoothly, like some night-stalking predator, always keeping his gun angled towards where he had indicated the two bastards getting blown were.
Slowly, Gabrielle rolled off her side onto her stomach and then off and behind the bench. This allowed her a small amount of room to move into a crouch, carefully lifting and aiming the pistol towards one of the bastards, drawing a bead right on his head.
She had to fight to not attack one of these bastards as she saw the more distant group surrounding her best friend and her sister. One of the bastards was holding Aren with her arms twisted behind her back while another ran his hands over her body.
A shimmer of movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention a few minutes later, causing her to turn her head slightly. The black figure was beside her once more, his own pistol trained on the bastards.
"We are only going to have one shot at this, and we have to act quickly. Those far doors lead out straight to the parking lot. There are vehicles there, and I have my partner bringing an APC in for pickup. This group is far larger than just the bastards in here, so we need to take care of these ones and get out of here fast."
Gabrielle nodded, her grip around the pistol tightening.
"On my mark, I want you to step away from the bleachers, keeping your pistol focused on the guy on the left. As soon as we are close enough, I'll give the signal and I want you to fire. One shot. Eliminate him before he can react. I'll take out the other. As soon as that is done, turn and focus on the others, approaching only as fast as you can while still maintaining your aim. The others are going to advance and keep line of fire on them, but we'll have to act fast."
Gabrielle could feel the figure sigh.
"The bastards don't have their weapons out, but they will probably try to use Chrissy and your friend as hostages. We can't give them that opportunity. One of the girls is the daughter of a marine. She's going to eliminate one of the bastards nearest to your friend. The others are going to focus on the outlier."
Gabrielle waited for him to continue, tensing as she did. She was about to kill somebody. This wasn't a videogame and she could already feel a bit of bile rising at the thought, but she had to do it.
The man stepped forward, standing fully upright and aiming his gun towards the head of the right bastard.
Please let them come out of this okay, Gabrielle prayed as she stepped forward as well, flanking him. The soft rustle of movement and faint footsteps told her the other girls were moving as well.
Four seconds to get close enough. Another two waiting for the man's signal.
The man raised his left hand.
There was a moment of silence before Gabrielle pulled the trigger.
A loud gunshot echoed through the gym, and both bastards getting blown dropped with their brains blown out of their skull. The girls who had been forced to blow them let out shrieks of panic.
Gabrielle fought down her revulsion as she turned and moved towards the other group of men, flanked by her mysterious savior.
A second shot and then a third rang out. The man who had been holding onto Chrissy and the one who had been standing slightly off watching went down, one with a bullet through the head and another with a sucking chest wound.
The other two bastards had spun, releasing Aren in their surprise. One, the one who had been holding her, stepped back and reached for a gun holstered at his hip.
Another gunshot, this one nearly silent, came from Gabrielle's left. It was from the pistol of her savior. So, silenced weapon then.
The man who was trying to arm himself jerked back, a bloody hole in the middle of his face where his nose used to be.
This left Aren scrambling away from the last of the bastards, grabbing Chrissy and ducking away desperately in an attempt to get away from their captor and out of the line of fire.
"What the fuck!?" The man yelled, stepping back in panic but not daring to reach from his gun. "Where the fuck did you cunts get weapons?"
Gabrielle's savior stepped up, the lantern light glinting off his armor and visor. He moved in a controlled manner, his pistol held in a two handed grip and aimed center of mass.
"You are a bastard." The man said, his projected voice much louder now, almost echoing in the large gym. "You kill people, kidnap and rape women, and all while pretending to be civilized on the other end of this camp. You are disgusting, and there is no room for people like you in the New World."
One more silent shot and the last bastard collapsed.
Silence reigned save for the sniffling of the four recently freed girls.
"What do we do now?" One of the girls asked.
Gabrielle looked more closely at her. She had tanned skin and dark hair in a short cut. She wasn't wearing much, just some shorts and a tank top, which revealed her well muscled body. She looked young, probably not even out of high school yet.
"You have two choices that I see." Her savior said. "You can flee this place, going wherever you want, finding a way to survive on your terms."
The man ghosted towards the doors he had indicated earlier. Gabrielle took the opportunity to rush forward and hug Chrissy and Aren, pulling them both upright.
"Or?" The well built girl asked.
The man turned his head to look back over his shoulder.
"Or you can come with me. Join me and take advantage of my shelter." He said, cracking the door open and angling his pistol through the gap.
"What do we have to do if we join you?" One of the other girls asked, tentatively holding her gun like it was a wild animal about to bite her.
"Help around the compound. Help with building it and trying to improve life. Fight off any zombies or human attackers."
Gabrielle rolled the unfamiliar word around her tongue. What was a zombie? Was that this man's term for the infected?
"Screw this." One of the girls who had recently been blowing the bastards said, storming past Gabrielle towards the doors. "I'm grabbing a vehicle and getting out of here. I'm not trading one prison for another."
The man shifted, his angle changing and appearing as if he were going to stop her from exiting the gym. The girl froze, glaring at him, but the man wasn't looking at her.
His gaze was on Gabrielle, she was sure of it, and after a moment she nodded at him.
The man nodded back.
"You are all free to do what you like. But I'm getting out of here before reinforcements from the main camp investigate. Anyone who is coming with me better hurry. My ride is almost here."
"Whatever, man." The girl said, storming past him and out of the doors.
Gabrielle focused on quickly explaining things to Aren and Chrissy, but she could hear the hurried conversations behind her. Most of the other girls seemed to be having disagreements about what to do.
"Aren, I think we need to trust him. He knew Chrissy's name, I think he followed those bastards here to rescue us." Gabrielle said hurriedly, huddled with her friend and her sister. "We're miles away from home, with only a single gun and no supplies. He's our best chance for survival, and I have a good feeling about him. You know I'm good at reading people. We can trust him."
Aren looked her best friend straight in the eyes.
"Are you sure about this?" She asked, holding her sister tightly to her chest.
Gabrielle nodded. "Absolutely."
Aren sighed and glanced towards the door. Most of the other girls were already running through it in a clump, ignoring the man who still stood guard watching for any threats.
"Hey, have you guys made a decision?" The built chick asked as she stepped up to Gabrielle's group. She had another girl who looked to be similar in age with her, her features mediterranean beneath what appeared to be red hair.
"We're sticking with our knight in non-reflective armor." Gabrielle said, trying to find a reason to laugh in this fucked up situation. "You?"
"Same." The girl said, holding out free hand. "I'm Sarah. This is Lucia."
"Gabrielle." Gabrielle said, then indicated her friends. "This is Aren and her sister Chrissy."
"Call me Alex." Their mysterious savior said from the doorway, returning from his quick check for more of the bastards. "We need to get moving. Our ride is almost here."
Gabrielle nodded and turned back to the other girls.
"Come on, let's get out of here and try to forget these bastards ever existed."
Gabrielle kicked one of the bastards in his head before turning and heading towards the exit.
XxXxXxX
By the time they reached the parking lot they could hear some noise from the other end of the campus towards the stadium. Gabrielle could see lights flashing and hear shouting.
Nearby an SUV started its engine, peeling out of the parking lot at break neck speed. It was moving so fast it almost collided with the grey APC which came barreling out of the darkness ahead of it, screeching to a stop right in front of Gabrielle's group.
"Everyone in the back." The man said as the rear ramp dropped.
Gabrielle saw that he was running around the front of the vehicle, headed for the driver's seat. Now that she had time to think properly, and see his armor more clearly in the moonlight, she had more questions. Gabrielle pushed Aren and Chrissy towards the back of the vehicle.
"Go, I'll see you when we get to safety." She said before turning back towards the passenger door of the APC.
"Gabrielle, what-" Aren started to ask a question but Gabrielle was already pulling the door open.
"Go!" She yelled back.
Gabrielle blinked as she looked into the cab of the APC. The only occupants were a large german shepard and her mysterious savior, so who had been driving the damn vehicle? Had they gotten out and run to the back when her savior got in? But why didn't they just slide over and take the passenger seat?
Her savior glanced at her.
"Go ahead." He said as he fiddled with something on the dash. "Get in."
Gabrielle slid in and pulled the door shut behind her.
"Cortana, close the back and get us the hell out of here." The man said.
"Aye aye, Chief." A female voice came from the dash, surprising Gabrielle. "Let's move out."
Gabrielle felt the vehicle begin to move, first pulling into a turning reverse and then gunning it forward out of the parking lot.
Gabrielle and her mysterious savior sat in silence for several long minutes as the APC seemed to drive itself along the road. The steering wheel was turning but the man was fiddling with something on the dash, not controlling the wheel.
Gabrielle took the time to calm down and consider things.
First, now that she had gotten a better look at it, she recognized the armor her savior was wearing. It wasn't military issue or some unusual hazardous environment suit. It was something out of a video game. It also looked far more real than any cosplay she had ever witnessed.
Second, the man had not hesitated to kill those bastards. He clearly could have come in, guns blazing, taking them out himself. But that would have increased the chance one or more of their captives would be hurt or killed. Instead, he freed most of them, armed them, and executed a tactic that had the best chance of protecting all the girls. That was part of what was helping with her reading on him.
And now, they were in a car that was apparently driving itself, or being driven remotely. That said high tech. The kind she wasn't aware existed, or at least was in use in the field.
Finally, her curiosity got the best of her.
"So who are you," she asked softly, "really?"
Her savior cocked his head and looked at her, staring at her for a long moment through his opaque visor.
Finally, he reached up and grasped his helmet. It disengaged a moment later and he removed it.
Gabrielle took a moment to study his features in the dim light illuminating the cabin. His skin tone had a faint tan to it, his features solid and a bit handsome. His eyes appeared to be a deep, dark blue underneath a head of short, brown hair. In this light, she couldn't get a good fix on the shade. He looked like he could have been anywhere from his early twenties to his late thirties, a sort of boyishness in place that kept him eternally babyfaced.
"My name is Alex Mercer." He said giving her a faint, exhausted smile. "And I'm a survivor, like you. Only difference is I have had some ridiculous and unbelievably strange luck."
His voice was tired, though clearer now without the distortion of his helmet.
Despite all she had been through, or perhaps merely in reaction to and in an attempt to face it head on, Gabrielle felt a faint thrill at the sound of his voice and the look of his face.
"Gabrielle." She said, introducing herself in return.
She was grateful the low lighting was hiding her blush as the clock on the dash turned to one past midnight.
Alex turned back to look at the road ahead.
"Cortana will get us safely back to what I call home. Everyone can get some sleep, and we can talk as a group in the morning." He said, leaning his seat back and closing his eyes.
Gabrielle cocked her head, examining him as he relaxed.
"Does that mean you and I can't discuss things now?" She asked a minute later.
"Nope." Alex replied, laughing slightly. "Ask away."
XxXxXxX
|
Quanta: 615/2000 |
Quanta Regeneration Rate: 50/day |
Quantum Energy Generators: 2 | ||
- Location
- United Kingdom
The massive difference in equipment and the resulting lack of conflict are really hurting the story, if it was one guy with a rifle against the group that would be compelling, but it's one guy with his pet AI, a suit of armour that would stop pretty much all infantry weapons and a magic gun.
Also I don't buy the idea of general societal collapse, I'm not familiar with the specifics of the zombies in the Walking Dead other than everyone turns when they die, but even in World War Z there was still a functional government, certainly some people devolved into this Hobbesian idea you've got, but I think there would be various settlements
Also I don't buy the idea of general societal collapse, I'm not familiar with the specifics of the zombies in the Walking Dead other than everyone turns when they die, but even in World War Z there was still a functional government, certainly some people devolved into this Hobbesian idea you've got, but I think there would be various settlements