They found refuge in a tall building meant to oversee control of that particular section of the dockyards. After securing the interior and locking all the doors, the survivors began tending to their wounds, grabbing a bite to eat and brooding bleakly on their future. Which was, Jared felt, measured in hours.
He sat on the floor of a storage room, the door locked, with his pants around his ankles and considered asking Megan for a Yeheyuan. She was laying against him, her pants up but still unbelted, resting her head on his shoulder, smoking quietly.
"Good quickie," she murmured sleepily. Jared chuckled quietly. Night had found them. His stomach rumbled, causing Megan's to do so in turn.
"I agree," Jared replied, reaching for his discarded duffel bag. He grabbed it and zipped it open, fishing out a pair of MREs and a canteen he'd filled with soda before he'd left Rat's Nest. The two of them tore open the MREs and ate quietly, passing the canteen back and forth. They emptied the MREs and drained the canteen in a few moments.
"I'm tired," Megan said after several more moments of silence. Jared realized that he'd begun nodding off.
"This is no place to sleep," he grunted in reply, but a yawn interrupted the end of his sentence. A second one from Megan quickly followed.
"Hell with it," she said. "We're mud-sloggers. We can sleep anywhere." Jared laughed briefly, then pulled his pants up and set the duffel bag up against the wall like a pillow. They both laid down on the cold, hard floor of the storage room on their sides, Jared pressed tightly up against Megan's back. He threw an arm over her and knew that she was right.
They fell asleep almost immediately.
When Jared woke up, it was to his radio. Someone was talking over it. The voice sounded excited. Feeling very groggy and now heavy some aches and pains, Jared groaned and sat up. His head ached dully and his vision was somewhat blurry. He rubbed his eyes and grabbed for his helmet, fitting it into place.
"What's going on?" he mumbled.
"West, where the hell you been?" Scott sounded vaguely agitated.
"Caught some Zs, sir. Megan's with me, uh, Corporal Jones," he replied. Megan stirred, rolling over and looking up at him silently.
"Well come out to the control room atop the tower. Got some very interesting news." Scott wouldn't say anything further, so Jared gave up and slowly rose to his feet. He popped his back, neck and shoulders, then rooted around in the duffel bag for painkillers. By the time Megan was on her feet, he had a bottle out and dry swallowed a trio of small white tablets. He passed the bottle to her and watched her do the same.
"What's up?" she asked, pulling out a fresh cigarette and lighting up.
"Scott's excited about something, won't say what, so it might be good."
They left the storage room, making their way slowly through the control tower, feeling the fast-acting painkillers go to work and soothe the various small aches that assaulted their bodies. They rode an elevator through the steel confines of the tower and found everyone else gathered in the control room, standing before a fiery-eyed Staff Sergeant Scott.
"Ah, you're all here! I've got some very interesting news," he said, grinning grimly. Jared and Megan came to stand with the others. Scott continued. "I was scanning radio transmissions, hunting for other survivors, when I happened across a stray transmission. I listened in and it turns out that there's someone studying the effect of the undead on us. How we react to it. I traced the signal. It's coming from an island not far from here...and we happen to have this Pelican on hand. And it's not like we've got anything else to do, so I figured it's high time we go and have a chat with whoever the hell is watching us die."
Scott was right, it was very interesting. There was a general growl of agreement from the others, and they all began shuffling to the door. After a brief interim of fifteen minutes, with everyone gathering up supplies and checking out guns, they left the safety of the control tower. The vacant lot they had once made a last stand in was still mostly vacant, only a few zombies had wandered in. They were put down with quick proficiency.
The ten survivors loaded up into the Pelican. Smith ran through the warm-up procedures and had them off the ground in five minutes. They flew across the midnight water in silence. Jared found that he and Megan had slept for little more than three hours. It was pushing two in the morning now. He was sleepy, but focused.
Jared found himself suddenly, abruptly, angry. The past few days felt muted and pale by comparison. Jared was a reserved man by nature, quiet and laid back, at least generally. And the sudden appearance of the undead had shocked him perhaps much more than he realized. He hadn't felt much since waking from that coma, save some fear and a fair amount of lust for Megan, but even that paled in comparison to the sudden anger that shot through him. Millions of people were dead. Worse than dead, really.
And it seemed very highly probably that someone had caused it. Someone human. Jared tried not to jump to conclusions. It was always possible that there was a reasonable explanation for this. But...he had too little faith in his own species, to be honest.
Jared made himself sit back and wait as the Pelican came closer to the island.
Rain seemed to follow Jared around, at this point.
It had started up again by the time they found the island. It was small, a mostly rocky thing dotted with the occasional cluster of trees. A quick scan of the area reveal nothing, save for a minor anomaly near the center of the island. They landed after scanning for frequencies again and finding that the waves had gone dead.
The Pelican landed and the survivors piled out. Smith and Cooper stayed with the ship, just in case. There had been nothing to indicate zombie activity. After several moments of rain-slicked searching, Jared found the 'anomaly'. It was a hatch hidden amongst some bushes. He popped it open and peered down inside, finding a short vertical shaft that led to a room connected to an elevator. Everyone climbed down and piled into the elevator.
Scott hit the down button, and they waited as they plunged into the earth. Time passed in morbid silence. After what felt like an eternity, the lift finally came to a halt. It opened up to an empty steel room, lit in painfully bright light. A pair of corridors led away from the room, showing only more metal and luminescence.
The squad of survivors split up and headed out, making their way through the facility. Before long, they managed to find a terminal and hack into it, discovering that the place wasn't very big at all. It was hardly more than some living quarters built around a powerful communications and monitoring array. They searched the living quarters, finding them empty. They searched the small infirmary and storage area, finding them both equally empty. There were no spent shell casings, no bullet holes, no blood stains or bodies.
The zombie apocalypse hadn't visited this cryptic place, built beneath the earth. They finally found what they were looking for in the main communications bay. Jared and Scott more or less kicked the door in and found a pair of technicians in black jumpsuits seated in front of an enormous bank of monitors and powerful looking equipment. They turned around, jumping and yelling in surprise, and found themselves looking down several barrels.
"Why weren't you watching the internal security cameras?" one of them murmured to the other.
"Why weren't you? You moron," the other grumbled.
"Shut it," Scott growled. He lowered his weapon and walked closer. "I have some questions. Answer them truthfully, you'll live. Lie to me, I have no qualms about killing you. Got it?" Both men nodded. Jared was staring at something, an insignia they both bore on their chests.
"You're...ONI?" he asked. Everyone glanced at Jared, then at the two technicians.
"Ah...yes."
"I don't recognize that branch insignia," Scott said, poking one of them in the chest with the barrel of pistol.
"We're Black Ops," the man murmured.
"Never heard of it. You mean Section Zero?" Scott replied.
The tech shook his head. "No. We're above Section Zero," he said.
The other nudged him. "So what part of 'don't talk to the locals' didn't you get?" he asked. Without taking his eyes off the first man, Scott turned his pistol and shot the second man in the foot. The tech began screaming. Scott pointed the barrel at his face. He passed out.
"Stanton, get that, would you?" he asked.
"On it, Staff Sergeant."
"Now, what was that?" Scott asked. The first tech's eyes were wide and he had paled several shades.
"Uh, uh, uh...Black Ops. We're above Section Zero. Ah, we work on our own authority," he said.
"Keep talking."
"Well, ah, see, it's all compartmentalized. So, I mean, I couldn't tell you anything beyond this particular operation."
"Then tell me about this particular operation."
"All right, well...a few months ago, from what I've heard, a dig team on another planet managed to crack a Forerunner intergalactic map of facilities. One such facility was located here, near the south pole of Xerxes. We came in and dug into the facility and found a unique strain of the Flood. It was a lot different than traditional Flood, as it worked on a cellular level and required no Infection Form. As you can see, it operates like traditional zombies do. See? So, we...kinda...I mean to say, that is, they infected...Xerxes." Silence fell and played out uncomfortably.
"Why?" Megan managed finally.
"Black Ops felt it necessary to test the effects of the Undead Plague on a human colonized world."
"What possible reason would they need to know that for?" Scott asked.
"Well, if you'll recall, rebels and insurgents were a big problem not too long ago, even during the war. And, well, with the absence of the war, it might be possible for rebels to become a problem again..."
"So your bosses thought it necessary to kill millions of people to...what? Save us from rebels? Are you serious?"
"Hey! I'm just a comms tech! I was just listening in on radio frequencies and monitoring the death count!" the tech cried. Scott turned around, away from the man for a moment, thinking. Stanton straightened up from his work on the other tech, having patched his gunshot wound.
"What now, Staff Sergeant?" he asked.
"I've got an idea or two..." Scott turned back around, raised the pistol and began to grill the technician for information. Half an hour passed. When the technician ran out of things to say, Scott knocked him out cold and spent a while hacking into the main database. Finally, he had enough information to be satisfied. He had the others gather up the pair of unconscious comms techs and bring them back to the Pelican with them.
"So, what's the plan?" Jared asked as they settled into their seats once more. Both darkly clad men were in a heap on the deckplates in between the rows of seats.
"We need two things, Corporal. A way past that orbital blockade and definite proof of this crackpot conspiracy. We should find both of them at that south pole installation," Scott explained.
"And that's where we're going now?"
"Not quite. First, we need to make a little detour."
They stopped back by Jackson, briefly, and pushed both men out of the Pelican and onto the top of an empty warehouse in the dockyards. Feeling reasonably sporting, Scott left the unconscious men, soon to wake up, a pair of pistols and a few spare magazines.
Then they were off, making good time towards the frozen southern arctic of Xerxes.