10 – DEATH AGENT
Lemon Squadron hurried as fast as they could on a fleet of Mongooses. But as hurried as they were, it took them nearly four hours to reach their destination. The Yellow base supposedly under attack had inconveniently placed itself in the center of a nearly impassable forest of small mountains. Time and time again, the path they were on became too steep for them to drive on, and they had to find another one. And none of the maps they could pull up on their HUDs were of any use: it seemed that even the mapmakers hated the area, because none of the satellite feeds could make any sense of it either. Nor could they call in the Falcon from the Yellow Base in the canyon, because they were far enough away that the VTOL would take way too long to reach them (as slowly as they were making progress, they were still technically on a clock). Long shadows were beginning to grow upon the ground by the time Lemon finally spotted clouds of smoke rising into the air off in the distance.
"At last!" Hearts exclaimed. "I can't believe this place is so hard to find. How did the Reds find it? Well, I just hope there's still something left to defend at this point."
"Stay sharp, everyone!" Hester advised.
The group pulled out their weapons, got off their vehicles, and cautiously made their way towards the towers of smoke on foot. Nestled within the labyrinth of small mountains was a valley, and this was where the base was located. It comprised a series of very short structures connected by low sky bridges, forming a network of connections that looked somewhat like a very large circuit board. Many of the buildings were in a destroyed state, with metal and stone pieces everywhere. Some were even still on fire, which was the source of the smoke towers. Though it was only 1600 hours in the afternoon, the base was already cast into darkness, because the sun had sunk behind the tips of the mountains on the base's western side. The base in an eerie pall, because the blue-reddish light from the sky made the buildings glow with strange luminescence. But no friendlies nor enemies could be seen.
Wren opened her tacpad. "This is Lemon Squadron, calling to any Yellow soldier still alive in the base. We have come to reinforce you. Repeat, we are here to help. If anyone on our side is still alive, please respond." She waited for two full minutes, but no response came.
"It doesn't look like there are any survivors left," said Tom. "We're too late."
Hester pounded her fist on a rock. "Damn it!"
"I'm not seeing any enemies either," said Hearts as he peeked through the scope of his rifle. "Just lots and lots of bodies…from both armies."
"I think we should still explore the base," said Tom. "There might be freindlies still trapped here who are unable to communicate for whatever reason. Not to mention that we've come all this way, might as well do something while we're here."
"Might be some enemies left over too," said Patton as he massaged his shotgun. "Lucy is hungry."
"Alright," said Hester. "But let's try to make it quick. There's something wrong about this place…I can just feel it. Everyone should be on their guard."
The group headed down from the mountain slope and walked cautiously into the base. The fires had begun to die out, and now all that was left was a terrible silence. The sky continued to cast the metal walls of the structures in a pallid glow. Searching primarily for survivors, they first headed to the barracks. Along the way, the streets were just filled with bodies, and the dirt underneath had turned a darker shade of brown from all the blood. Watching their step, Lemon walked up to the door of the barracks and pried it open. An unsettlingly complete blackness greeted them. Wren tried the lights, but the building was out of power. Everyone activated the night vision in their HUDs so that they could see.
"We need to get the power back on," said Hester.
"I'll get it done," said Hearts. "Anyone have any idea where the engineering building is?"
"I think I saw it down that way," Wren pointed.
"Thanks," said Hearts. He turned and jogged off. Wren had been almost right: the engineering building turned out to be at a corner of the base, a bit north of where she had pointed. Hearts sprinted into it, eager to get the lights back on as soon as possible. There were quite a few bodies inside. The entrance hall held six at a quick count. He didn't want to know just what kind of slaughter had gone on here: it seemed to have been very brutal for the Yellows, since nearly all of the corpses he had seen were Yellow. It was as if the reds had just trounced over the base without a care, ruining everything in their wake.
After traversing few more hallways, Hearts finally found the generator room. A series of giant metal cylinders stared back at him. He hoped that all he had to do was just hit a few buttons. With any luck, he wouldn't have to radio Wren to come in and help him. He checked his COM for just in case. To his dismay, he discovered that something was interfering with long-range communications: his tacpad couldn't tell him what it was, but it permeated the entire base and was making it so that he could only use COMs to contact the others when he was standing very close to them. He had better do this job right then, he decided, since it would be a complicated effort to call for help. He approached the control panel, on the wall near the door. A big green button on it looked like the right thing to hit. He punched it. A loud whirring sound started up behind him, and in the next moment he was showered in light from the overheads. "Yes," he said to himself. Then he went back into the hallways to leave and find the rest of his team. He jogged back to the entry hallway…and stopped dead.
The bodies in the hallway had all disappeared. The blood stains on the floor remained, but not their sources. Hearts froze where he stood. What…the…fuck… Then he considered the possibility that maybe those bodies hadn't actually been dead. Maybe, somehow, they had just been wounded, and even now were seeking help. But then he had to dismiss that thought, because he had briefly scanned the bodies with his HUD when he had first gone through the hallway. All of the bodies would have emitted a signal, but they had not. So what then? Had Hearts somehow imagined all of those bodies being there? The sniper shook his helmet, trying to come up with an explanation but not succeeding. He had to leave the building now, his team was probably waiting on him.
But then a crashing sound came from one of the rooms off to the left of the hallway.
Hearts froze again. Maybe someone really was alive! Maybe they were in that room, trying to get help! Hearts busted down the door with a solid kick. The metal slab fell to the floor grating with a crash, causing dust to fill the air. The place looked to be a small medical room. Several metal tables on wheels held various solutions, along with tools like syringes and band-aids. Also, medical kits lay all along the walls, and a chest of medication chemicals sat in a corner. And standing in the center of the room was a Yellow soldier with their armor covered in blood.
Hearts quickly lowered his rifle and slowly approached the soldier. The soldier was simply staring off to the side of the room for some reason. "Hello?" Hearts called out. The soldier didn't move. Hearts called out again. Slowly, the soldier turned their helmet. Hearts gasped in surprise and disgust as he glimpsed the sight of the soldier's visor: it was almost entirely coated in blood, and he could see a very large bullet hole in the center of the visor, a hole through which he could see the back wall of the room. Hearts had his rifle aimed back up in the next heartbeat. "Ohmygod, whatthefuck?" He didn't believe what his eyes were telling him. But at the same time, he initiated another scan with his HUD.
The soldier had NO life signs.
Hearts began to back up slowly. This is impossible. This can't be happening. It's a zombie, a fucking zombie! At the same time, the dead soldier began to regard Hearts with a bit more interest. It turned to fully face the sniper, then took a very stiff, somewhat robotic, step in Hearts' direction. "Stay the hell away from me," Hearts threatened. The dead soldier took another step. Hearts instinctively opened fire with his battle rifle. The shots went straight into the dead soldier's visor, causing the walking horror to stumble back slightly.
But then it kept coming.
The zombie seemed to enjoy a rather leisurely walking pace. It took about one step per second, each time making a very stiff outreach with one of its legs. Hearts kept firing, this time aiming for the zombie's midsection. But this did even less to stop the dead soldier. The soldier seemed to be behaving more like a robot of some kind than a zombie, because all of its movements were jerky and clumsy but extremely stiff. The soldier raised a hand with a pistol in it. The aiming motion was very slow, as though the soldier had never picked up a gun before. Then it fired, and the shots hit the wall behind Hearts, all completely missing him. The soldier tried to do better, but its aiming was so terrible that it could not land a single shot with Hearts constantly moving from one side of the wall to the other and ducking. Watching the dead soldier's behavior gave Hearts an idea.
Hearts quickly strafed around the soldier, taking slight pains to avoid its phenomenally bad aim, and within seconds was able to get a glimpse of the zombie's back. Light bulbs clicked on in Hearts' brain. Held on the back of the dead soldier's helmet was a virillium data chip. They were often used for the transport of extremely large amounts of digital data, in particular artificial intelligences. And the virillium data chip on the dead soldier's back was socketed into a data feed which connected directly into its armor. Yellow armor was designed so that it was impossible for an AI to have motor influence, but only when the armor was rated ACTIVE. And ACTIVE meant the armor had to have life signs inside of it. But when there were no life signs, all bets were off, and Hearts was willing to guess that an AI was the source of the armor's activity. There was some kind of AI inside the data chip, and it was controlling the soldier's armor, in much the same way that a computer might manage a fork lift. This explained both the dead soldier's terrible aim and its jerky yet stiff motor functions. The body inside the armor had nothing to do with what was going on: the enemy was really some kind of AI which was driving the suit of armor like a vehicle.
Hearts took care of the situation by blowing the crap out of the exposed part of the data chip with his battle rifle while the soldier was still turning back around. The chip exploded with the first burst, and instantly the soldier froze and tensed madly, as though it was being electrocuted. And then it fell like a ragdoll to the ground, unmoving. Hearts continued to shoot the data chip until it was virtually unrecognizable: completely FUBAR. Once the current clip had been expended, Hearts finally straightened up, his pulse returning back to normal once again. It was time to get back to the rest of his team. He had to tell them what had just happened and also warn them, because this soldier was only one of the bodies Hearts had seen in the hallway. There were still several others, not to mention the hundreds outside.
Hearts ran back through the remaining hallways and burst outside. An army of more AIs in armor were waiting to greet him. All of the bodies that had been just lying on the ground when Lemon had first arrived had now stood back up. And as Hearts was the only living person still outside, all of the enemies turned to face him. "Of, fuck me," said Hearts. He was very fortunate that the AIs had terrible aim, because the air was quickly filled with flying bullets which went in all directions. A few came in contact with Heart's energy shield, but none of the hits did enough damage to get through it, so he was safe. He ran faster than he had ever run before, legging it straight for the barracks he had last seen the rest of his team in. He made it there in the next moment.
The door was closed and sealed shut. The rest of Lemon must have encountered the AIs and sealed themselves inside for protection, Hearts reasoned. With the enemies still in awkward pursuit, the sniper sprinted into an alleyway. He spotted a rather large metal panel lying discarded on the ground and heaved it into place to block the alleyway's entrance. A thunderstorm of pounding rang from the panel just a few seconds after it had been set up, but it stayed in place because the AIs were apparently not smart enough to know how to move something out of the way with their arms. Hearts left the reanimated suits of armor to shoot futilely at the panel while he continued down the alleyway.
The narrow passage ended rather soon, and Hearts emerged into another street. He heard some sounds, and looked upwards to a nearby sky bridge, which connected the barracks to some other structure. And there he saw Patton, having lots of fun with his shotgun. Patton was facing down a row of AIs, which had pursued him from the barracks. And he was in the middle of a battle cry at the top of his lungs while swiftly taking down the suits of armor with Lucy. As each AI lunged for him, Patton fired off Lucy point blank into the armor's visor, taking out everything on the helmet, including the virillium data chip, in the process. "Yeaaaah!" Patton roared. "BEHOLD THE WRATH OF LUCY! AHAHAHA!" This Hearts heard over the very loud series of bangs which accompanied Patton's outburst. A pile of suits of armor was quickly piling up around Patton. Hearts just watched was Patton and Lucy did their work.
After maybe two minutes longer, the stream of AIs finally ran out. This was when Hearts opened his COM and yelled "Pinkie!" as loud as he could, while at the same time waving so that Patton would see where he was.
Patton, winding down from his energy state during the battle, turned and noticed Hearts. "Hearts! There you are! Look, this whole place is a trap! The suits of armor lying around everywhere, with dead soldiers, have had virillium chips put in them with an AI that reanimates the armor. The Hollows have been after us since you left for the generator!"
"Yes, I know! I just escaped from a swarm of them," said Hearts. "Wait…Hollows?"
"That's what we're calling these things," said Patton. "It's Wren's idea. Because, see, the armor isn't being controlled by its occupant. So it's technically 'hollow', hence the name."
Hearts nodded. "I see, clever. So then, what's the quickest way for me to get to you? And where is everyone else?"
Patton sighed. "We got fucking separated when the first wave of Hollows attacked." He pointed at the building on the opposite end of the sky bridge from the barracks. "Last I heard, they're in there. You should find a way in from ground level, then we can meet up when we're both inside."
Hearts nodded. "Good idea." He ran off, searching for an entrance to the building from the street. Though the sun still had yet to depart the sky entirely, a thick darkness had begun to set over the base, and the pallid glow emanating from all the buildings had hardly lessened at all. The base seemed to be becoming even more ominous as time passed. Searching the unnaturally lit streets, Hearts scoured the perimeter of the building the rest of his team had gone into. He soon came across an entryway on the structure's northern side: a Plexiglas double door. To open on its own, the door needed a keycard that Hearts didn't have. So he fired a sniper round into the control panel. The door admitted him entrance.
The building had a low ceiling but wide hallways. The light fixtures painted the hallways in a sharply bright glow: the voltage to their circuits had probably been offset slightly during the attack on the base, and now the light was almost painful to look at, being was reminiscent of the lights a crazed dentist's office might use. Hearts took the stairs to the second floor, neglecting the elevator in lieu of the power problems the base had proved to contain. He came upon a Hollow standing awkwardly on the second floor landing. Now knowing what these things were and how to deal with them, Hearts picked off the reanimated armor's virillium chip from afar with this battle rifle. That took care of that problem. Then he headed up to the third floor, which was the level Patton's sky bridge had been on and where he hoped they could reunite.
Hearts tuned to the door with a giant number 3 on it and kicked it in. More annoyingly bright ceiling lights glowed over a landscape of small cubicles with data terminals. This was the data processing level, then. Hearts held out his battle rifle in front of him and pressed forward. The normal order of the data processing level and its cubicles had been shattered by the attack: many of the small walls had been shifted dramatically, turning the place into a complicated labyrinth. Several times, Hearts became turned around and had to find his way again. And he couldn't just shoot his way through the walls, because they were made of metal, and also because he just didn't have enough ammo. After wandering around for a few minutes, he suddenly heard the sounds of gunfire in the distance. He could definitely make out Patton's shotgun, but it was mixed in with other weapons, which could only mean that the rest of the team was at that spot as well. Hearts began to walk much more quickly, wanting to catch the rest of the team before they moved on. He tried using his COM, but yet again it would only work for short range, because something was blocking distant frequencies.
With nothing better to do, Hearts began to sprint. To aid this effort he temporarily disabled the motor function safety limiters in his armor, which allowed him to move more freely and agilely. He wouldn't normally have done something like this, since it was a common accident to sprain a tendon by misusing the power of the armor. But Hearts needed to reach his team, and he needed to do it now. He meandered through the maze of cubicles, trying to stay in as straight a path as possible and in the proper direction. Luck was with him, for he could hear the sounds of gunfire slowly growing louder. Then he began to run into more Hollows. He chip-shotted them on the side of the helmet and moved on without hesitation. As he moved forward, the Hollows gradually increased in intensity. Finally, he barged into a clearing in the cubicles, where many of the metal walls had tipped over. The rest of Lemon Squadron, including Patton, had taken cover behind a set of upended walls lined in a row, and were firing over them at a massive horde of Hollows emerging from the other side of the room.
Hearts hastily joined his teammates behind the row of metal walls. "Ah, there you are!" said Hester with mild relief.
Hearts shook his helmet. "I walk off to do something for five minutes, and this entire place gets overrun by zombies. What is this universe coming to?"
"Hollows," said Inez sternly. "Not zombies."
"Yeah, that's right," said Hearts. "Armor puppets being controlled by AIs. But frankly, I don't see much a difference, because when it comes down to it we're fighting possessed dead guys, and if that isn't what zombies are, then I don't know what is."
"That's a good point," said Deryn with her head poked up, as she fired off her DMR and took out several Hollows with a single clip.
"Hey guys!" Wren suddenly exclaimed while typing furiously on her tacpad. "I've been working isolating that signal which is telling all of the Hollows what to do. The Hollows aren't smart enough to coordinate an assault like this by themselves, which means that someone or something has to be controlling them externally. And I think I've just about isolated the vector it has to be coming from. Because it turns out that the thing interfering with our long-range communications is itself a signal, and if I can just back trace it to its source then…aha! I've got, clear as day!"
"Tell us all, sis!" said Hester.
"It's coming from the roof of this building," said Wren. "And the structure of the signal looks like something that might originate from a tactical pad, like the one I'm using right now. I think an enemy soldier—a living one—is coordinating all of the Hollows."
"We need to get to him," said Hearts. "So that we can all kick him in the balls for being such a douche."
"Then we need to get past all these Hollows somehow," Deryn muttered.
"I think I might be able to handle that," said Tom. He stood up out of cover and pulled off from his belt the largest looking grenade anyone else in Lemon had ever seen (it was the size of maybe a grapefruit, and at first sight looked more like a straightforward bomb). Tom rolled the throw until he had enough momentum, then muttered softly "fire in the hole" and let his baby loose.
The giant grenade sailed towards the center of the oncoming group of Hollows. Tom didn't see the rest, because he had gotten back into cover by then. But the great earthquake which sent flooring and tiles everywhere said the rest. The members of Lemon waited until stuff had stopped crashing down above them, then slowly and cautiously eased their helmets out to look at the scene. The room was noticeably more of a mess than it had been before. And the giant group of Hollows had been utterly annihilated, for a gaping hole in the floor now existed where they had all been standing.
Tom shrugged. "Eh, I think that took care of it."
"Let's go!" said Hester. "We need to get to the guy on the roof so we can stop the madness with the Hollows." The group eased around the giant hole in the floor, made it slowly to the door to the stairwell, and then began to race up the stairs as high as they would go. More hollows were waiting on the stairs, of course, but this group was nowhere near as large as the one they had encountered on the data processing level, and was also forced into a tight line by the width of the stairwell. This allowed Lemon to easily pick all of them off. Patton and his shotgun led the charge. The Hollows fell like dominoes, and within only a few short moments Lemon emerged onto the rooftop.
The roof was mostly bare and covered with a thin layer of gravel, save for a few ventilation shafts pointing towards the dark sky. The sun had entirely gone behind the mountains by this point, and from the top of the building, Lemon could see that the entire base had fallen into darkness. Its pallid glow had gone, and now the only light from down below were the sparse electronic lights from the building lights down below. Lemon looked around the area of the rooftop, searching for their target. Because the rooftop offered no cover except for the few short ventilation shafts, there was virtually nowhere for the target to hide. The group scoured the flat region, until finally Tom just barely managed to spot him. "There, everyone. I see him."
The figure was standing on the very corner of the rooftop, clad in red armor with a jet black secondary color. His legs set closely together, and his arms were clasped around his chest in an odd embrace. His posture was entirely rigid, like a broad stick. His stature looked like a cross between a curled up bat and a mummy in a coffin. Upon being sighted, the figure's visor turned slowly upward, to look directly at Lemon. They all stood aghast at what they saw in the figures gaze: a cruel human skull grinned out at everyone. At first Lemon thought they might actually be staring at a real zombie. But then they looked more closely, and realized that the image was actually a three dimensional hologram superimposed onto the plane of the figure's visor. It was instantly recognizable as the same visor worn by the two Reds who had taken Amber and Clair captive during Lime Squadron's most recent expedition into the alternate universe. This figure was clearly another member of that same division of the Red Army.
The figure spoke: "You have come." His tone was filled with a cold, compassionless focus that was mixed with malice. Suddenly, Lemon heard movement around them. They looked to the door to the stairs, and saw to their surprise and dismay that it was covered in a layer of Hollows, whom were coating the entrance structure with their own bodies. At the same moment, dozens of Hollows emerged from over the side, having climbed the walls of the building from the street. All of them had no doubt been summoned by the Red figure. The figure stepped off of the corner ledge and approached Lemon very slowly. As he did so, he extended his arms from his chest and held them out as if in greeting. "I have been waiting for this moment. I have been chosen, you see, chosen by Lord Amnion himself to meet you here. After I had my minions destroy this base, I waited for what seemed like an eternity, but then, just as Amnion said you would…you came. So now, as his loyal Death Agent, I can finally complete my mission and make all of you his servants."
"Fat chance of that, buddy," said Hester, her weapon extended towards the figure, whom had just addressed himself as a "Death Agent" which was probably the name of his specialized division.
As though he were starving and had just ordered an ice cream sundae, the Death Agent shouted to his Hollows: "Kill them!" The lust for violence in his tone carried over to the AIs as a command, and the Hollows instantly began to advance on Lemon from all sides. The fight started up again, and everyone in Lemon opened fire with their weapons. While the others were focused on taking out the Hollows, the Death Agent suddenly approached Wren with an alarming and almost inhuman quickness. The Death Agent reached out to her with an uppercut, but Wren dodged. And then suddenly, she felt his arms around her throat and a sharp metallic instrument behind her neck. His strength was insanely powerful. "I can feel your heartbeat," the Death Agent breather into her helmet's sound receivers. "I think I shall end it now. You will make a wonderful minion, oh yes!" With as much strength as she could muster, Wren instantly punched the Death Agent in the side with her elbow and then heaved her torso forwards, throwing all of her momentum in front of her. The Death Agent was forced to let go or topple over. He let go just as Wren ducked from her lunge, and a ruler-sized razor blade whizzed through the air right above her head, which would have decapitated her had she reacted a split second later. Wren dove into a summersault to put distance between her and the Red. But the Death Agent was much too quick: no sooner had Wren gotten to her feet when the Red was standing in front of her. Again the razor screamed towards her. This time, Wren blocked it with the steel buffer plate on her left forearm. Again and again the razor came towards her. She was able to block the hit each time, but only just barely, for the Death Agent's reflexes were crazily fast.
"Hey you!" a voice suddenly shouted. Hearts came up from behind the Death Agent, lunging forwards with his own pair of knives. But the Red was ready, for he instantly took hold of both Hearts' wrists, flipped the poor Yellow onto his shoulder, and then heaved him across the rooftop. Hearts went sailing through the air and landed near the opposite edge, missing the roof's perimeter by only a meter.
"Hearts!" Wren shouted.
"I'm okay!" he yelled back. He stumbled to his feet in a somewhat dazed manner. "How the hell is he that strong?"
The Death Agent turned back to Wren, giant razor in gauntlet. "Power is the prize of those who serve Amnion!" He lunged at her. But he was interrupted by Hester, who took hold of the Death Agent's wrist before he knew what was going on and at the same time swept out with her foot, knocking the Red off balance.
"Leave my sister alone!" she yelled at him. Then she shoved him into a group of Hollows. The Death Agent was very massive, for he did not push easily. But he went over nonetheless. With his shotgun, Patton was just cleaning up the last of the Hollows that had climbed into the roof. When he saw the Red sail into a pile he was about to destroy, he modified his priorities slightly and moved towards the Death Agent.
The Red was back on his feet in a flash. "Know when Death has come for you, Yellow," he sneered at Patton.
"Likewise," said Patton nonchalantly as he fired Lucy into the Red's chest plate.
The chest plate was filled with layers of electronics, which sparked and sizzled when the shot went off. Stunned, the Death Agent stumbled backwards in a daze. At the same time, all of the remaining Hollows suddenly stopped, seizured violently, and then fell lifeless to the ground. Whatever apparatus had been used to control the Hollows had clearly been in the Death Agent's chestplate, and now that it was finished, so were the Hollows. "My…minions…" the Death Agent exclaimed sadly as he continued to awkwardly backpedal. He reached the perimeter of the rooftop without realizing it, then accidentally stepped off of it and fell backwards out of sight. A slimy thud sounded a second later. Lemon Squadron rushed to the ledge and looked down. The Death Agent had been impaled by a street lamp. The concrete beneath him was quickly turning the same color as his armor's primary hue.
"Ygh," said Hearts. "What a way to go."
"Close fight though," said Hester. "Much too close…"
"How will we report any of this?" Inez asked.
Hester crossed her arms on thought. "What I think we should say is…the Red Army now has a supersoldier division. Which is capable of reanimating the armor of deceased soldiers."
"Sums it up good enough for me," said Patton. "Now let's get back."
With that, Lemon Squadron climbed down from the building and then left the accursed base. After what they had just seen, it would be nice to return to the comforts of the Yellow Base in the canyon.