New Note at bottom.
200 miles away from Zootopia in Bunny Burrow Nick was pushing a dopey Judy through the corridors of Bunny Burrow General. After being severely injured in Raya's attack Judy was put into an induced coma to allow her to try and heal better, but the outlook was far from promising. With the doctors prognosis being that she may die Nick reluctantly agreed with Stu and Bonnie to have her transported to Bunny Burrow to be closer to the rest of her family in case the worst should happen, but after nearly 3 weeks she had recovered enough to be brought out of the coma and now nearly 4 weeks later she was well enough to be allowed to see visitors. Still weak from her medication and the toll the injury had taken on her she was unable to walk and so Nick was dutifully wheeling her around on a wheelchair that had been covered in stickers that her many nieces and nephews had sent her with anticipation for today. As Nick rolled her into the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor Judy couldn't help but laugh at Nick's reflection in the mirror like metal wall of the elevator.
"Those glasses make you look like a mad scientist"
"Oh? I'll have to ask Madge to get you a pair as well, I can't be the only one sporting the latest fashion"
A warm smile spread over Nicks face as he took in his dorky reflection, it had been the hardest month of his life seeing Judy suffer like she had, just hearing her laugh again helped to lift his spirits drastically. Madge's glasses looked more like a pair of swimming goggles with extra attachments but they had made him feel like he wasn't worthless during their stay, although he still couldn't stand bright lights it did allow him to lead a moderately normal life while his eyes continued to heal and it meant he could keep himself busy and not fall apart completely. Now that Judy was awake he felt like everything would get back to normal, slowly, but it was within reach, and as the the elevator doors opened and he heard the playful sounds of several younger mammals playing in the visitor area he was filled with relief for them both. Judy shifted in her seat and something about it looked off,
"You alright?"
"yeah, just don't let them jump on me, I don't feel like being at the bottom of a dog pile"
"Don't worry, everyone is going to be on their best behaviour"
Judy sarcastically replied
"Coming from you that worries me"
This time it was his turn to laugh and he did so warmly, he wheeled her through the open double doors to the visitor room and she gasped as she saw everyone who had come to visit. The room was incredibly large, given that bunnies were notorious for having large families the hospital had constructed a special wing with halls and garden large enough to accommodate most large families, but the Hopps family was so large it was pushed to capacity as it seemed that every member of the family that could be there was there from the oldest generation to some of the youngest. An almost deafening chorus of surprise rang out from everyone that completely drowned out the almost cinema sized TV that was on the wall playing re-runs of kids shows as Nick brought her to a stop next to Bonnie, Stu and some of the older members who had gathered in a group as they waited for her arrival, Judy couldn't help but notice the tables lining the wall filled with party food, the smell of which made her stomach growl but nobody seemed to have noticed over the chorus.
"Oh guys you shouldn't have"
"Nonsense"
Nick gathered a chair and sat down next to Judy,
"We have a lot of celebrating to do"
"But I'm not out of here yet"
"We aren't just here for that, what month is it?"
"um... May?"
"Yup, which means this is a belated birthday party"
Out of nowhere she found herself bombarded with kits holding presents eager for them to be the first to have their opened as adults watched in amusement.
A few hours later with the party having run down with many of the guests having left it was now mostly the more direct Hopps family members who were left in the hall enjoying the peace that it brought. As Judy, Nick, Stu, Bonnie and Marian were deciding on what they should all do together to celebrate when Judy would be discharged from the hospital they were interrupted by disappointed grumblings from Bonnie's father, a very old rabbit who was very vocal about his opinions and usually when he started grumbling it led to one of his episodes that the family liked to avoid. Judy mouthed oh boy sarcastically to Nick as she turned around to ask what had gotten the old rabbit wound up, Judy seemed to be one of the few mammals that could get through to him when he started acting up. The TV that had been showing a cooking program that pop-pop, as Judy called him, was an avid fan of was now only displaying a colour test page with a message in the middle saying that they would be right back.
"Blasted technology"
"It's probably just the signal pop-pop, it'll be back in a minute you'll see"
"In my day things were made to last, not like this cheep junk nowadays"
Not one to pass up on an opportunity Nick asked with a smile on his face,
"Did they even have TV's in your day?"
Judy was going to say something to him when the TV screen flashed, but it didn't show the program any more, instead there was a black screen. It emitted three quavering tones before letting out a continuous high pitched one that made everyone's fur stand on end and send shiver down their spines as everyone sat in silence, a few passing nurses heard the sounds and came rushing in but nobody said anything as white text began to appear on the screen as a computerized voice read out,
"This is an Emergency Action Notification. All broadcast stations and cable systems shall transmit this Emergency Action Notification Message. This station has interrupted its regular programming at the request of the White House to participate in the Emergency Alert System. During this emergency, most stations will remain on the air providing news and information to the public in assigned areas. This is Burrow News Network. We will continue to serve the Tri-Burrow area. If you are not in this Local Area, you should tune to stations providing news and information for your Local Area. You are listening to the Emergency Alert System serving the Tri-Burrow area. Do not use your telephone. The telephone lines should be kept open for emergency use."
One of the nurses had dashed out of the room as it had started and now there were several medical staff in the room, everyone was hushing each other to hear what was about to be said,
"This afternoon at 4 PM Eastern Standard Time an unknown enemy force launched a large scale attack originating in Zootopia and A National State of Emergency has now been declared. All citizens within the Bunny Burrow and Deerbrooke County areas are to remain inside, lock all doors and windows and follow the instruction of law enforcement and military personnel If possible ensure that a supply of water and food for 3 days is available as well as a radio for alert updates".
A roaring noise from outside that had slowly been building now rapidly increased in volume culminating in a loud bang that shattered the windows, this was quickly followed by a second, third and fourth boom as four jet fighters blasted overhead in the direction of Zootopia.
"Do not exit your vehicles. It is not safe to be on the streets. Keep your doors and windows locked".
It was the same message being repeated over and over through mobile public address speakers that the military had brought in as part of their martial law equipment, now it was being used to issue instructions to the millions of mammals desperately trying to escape the spreading attack on the city. The military, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that the easiest way to detect any possible threats entering the city in their search for Sokolov was to seal all ways in and out except for 3, the airport, the Zootopia rail line leading to Bunny Burrow and the Rhodes suspension bridge in south east Savanna Central that connected to the mainland. Now however their decision was hampering their evacuation efforts with traffic stretching back as far as the eye could see, and coming from every street, all slowed to a stop by a mangled overturned heavy truck caused by someone trying to force their way through as armoured reinforcements tried to enter the city. As the military desperately tried to clear the way once more the driver of a ZNN van stuck two hundred meters from the bridge was hopping through the radio channels in frustration searching for any updates, every channel was playing a computerised emergency message that had been periodically updated to keep the citizens informed of evacuation routes and make shift landing zones for helicopters to pick up those that had become stranded. He rubbed his large bear claw over his snout and let out a sigh, from the compartment in the back where the broadcast equipment was housed popped the head of a female german Sheppard,
"Any news?"
He shook his head, the distant sounds of explosions as the air force dropped bombs on the enemy could still be heard over everything.
"None, it hasn't updated in over an hour"
"I hope that means they finally have it contained"
"You and me both. How is she?"
The german Sheppard looked back behind her for a moment at the smaller figure sitting at the desk computer console that took up most of the back of the van, the little figure was Marigold and she was tapping away and looked completely engrossed in what she was doing. The german Sheppard turned back round and said in a quiet voice,
"I'm worried about her, god knows what it was like inside the studio"
"She was lucky we were coming back at the time"
They sat quiet for a moment, it had been a rough day for everyone but they had definitely been some of the luckiest until now, they had been bringing their van back from its yearly maintenance when the emergency alert system had activated, by the time they had made it to the ZNN studios it was being overrun and staff were running out of the huge building in terror. They hadn't even made it into the studios parking lot when Marigold dove through the open passenger window and yelled at them to drive as fast as they could, she was covered in blood and they almost stopped instead of doing as she was demanding, that was until they heard something roaring over the peoples screams, after that he put his foot down and they didn't stop until they reached the bridge.
The bear leant over and opened the glove compartment, grabbed a small brown paper bag and took a candy bar out of it before passing it to the german Sheppard,
"Here, make sure she eats something too"
The german Sheppard gave the bear a quick peck on the cheek,
"Thank you Zack"
She disappeared into the back as he tried the radio again and sat down next to Marigold. The trembling rabbits usually yellow fur was matted with dried blood that wasn't hers and the left sleeve of her jacket had been torn off when they had found her, but she didn't seem to notice as she flicked between her cellphone and the computer which she had linked together, she didn't even notice the german Sheppard until she put the bag in front of her making Marigold jump.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you"
"It's OK Rosa"
"When was the last time you ate?"
"Um, this morning. I was going to grab lunch when..."
She shook her head to clear the thoughts of the studio and got back to what she was doing, Rosa didn't want to press her for details yet.
"Any luck?"
"I think so. The military shut down the cell network and blocked most lines but I think i've found a work around that they missed, just a couple more clicks and...there we go"
"How do you know how to do this?"
"My room-mate, she's a conspiracy theorist and tech whiz, always paranoid but really knows her stuff"
There was a quiet beep as her cellphone got a signal, which was quickly followed by a barrage of alerts of worried texts and missed calls from her family that were being sent one after another for hours. She hadn't even begun reading the first text when the phone began to ring again showing a picture of Bonnie on the muzzle-time app. Answering the call and hearing her mothers voice cracked what was left of Marigolds shell and she started to sob as they talked. Rosa thought it best to leave her alone for a moment and slipped into the front of the van and sat down next to Zack who was pointing to the 1 free lane of the bridge, a column of tanks was finally rolling into the city as more jets flew overhead.
"Bridge must be cleared"
"Yup, maybe half an hour and we'll be over on the other side"
The rumbling of the tanks was intimidating, but it made them feel safer at the same time knowing that there was something between them and the chaos in the rest of the city. Once the tanks had passed they could hear Marigold in the back, her voice was still breaking but she sounded better than when they had found her. Zack was staring at the traffic, looking to see if there was any movement, without looking at Rosa he asked,
"Heard from your brother?"
"Not for a week. I know he was stationed here"
"Think he got out?"
"Knowing Frank he's probably got his claws stuck into this rather than getting out, it'll take a lot to stop him though"
"Your brother ain't normal, but he is tough I'll give him that. Looks like we're out of here"
Zack turned the ignition and began crawling forward with the traffic as it began to move once again, they hadn't got 20 feet however when the engine cut out and the van came to a stop.
"God dammit not now"
Zack turned the key again and again but nothing happened,
"What the fuck"
"Hey look, nobody else is moving"
He looked up and saw that Rosa was right, everyone had come to a stop, not only that he noticed that the public address system had gone quiet as well, street lamps that had come on not long ago as night was beginning to set in had also turned off.
"What the hell is going on?"
"Power cut?"
"That wont affect the vehicles"
Marigold crawled through into the front with a worried look on her face,
"Everything's turned off, my cell the computer, everything"
Rosa's attention was drawn by a group of soldiers had been in a truck heading into the city when everything stopped, now the soldiers were grabbing heavy gear out of the back and something about it put her on alert.
"Get out we're going now"
Neither Zack or Marigold argued, as they got out of the van and started heading towards the bridge every other motorist seemed to have the same idea and were following suit, but all began to run towards the bridge when the sound of heavy machine gun fire and yelling of soldiers erupted from behind them. Panic instantly set in as everyone pushed forward, fighting to get between or over the vehicles stuck in the road as unearthly roars and screeches began to drown out the gunfire. Zack grabbed Marigold and put her on his shoulder as she nearly got crushed by a rhino that wasn't looking where he was going as everyone ran for the bridge. From where she was Marigold had a clear view over the crowd, thousands of puppets and huge black creatures on all fours she had never seen before were pouring from every street like a river and washing over the soldiers and anyone else too slow to escape them. Bullets cracked over their heads as the soldiers on the bridge itself fired everything they had at the mass of creatures but it did nothing to stop them advancing faster than a cheetah could run. Zack wasn't going to stop though and barrelled through the first military checkpoint with Rosa keeping close behind him, the screams echoing in their ears making them run faster than they knew they could. They were about a quarter of the way over and Marigold watched as a tank shell hurtled past them and cut through an unlucky elephant who was climbing over a car as it fired before the shell slammed into a pickup and flipping it onto one of the creatures, in no time at all the creature pushed it off and was back onto its massive claws charging forwards straight at them.
"Zack look out!"
The creature leaped forward swinging its claw in a haymaker just as Zack twisted around to see. The claw tore through the bear like a hot knife through butter, missing Marigold by inches, the force sending her flying off the side of the bridge into the water bellow. The water was ice cold and black as the ace of spades and her eyes stung as she opened them enough to see light above her, she kicked hard against her body wanting to tense up to try and keep her warm, when she broke through to the surface she gasped, bright flashes from explosions illuminated the bridge and river front as mammals trying to escape and parts of killed mammals fell into the river around her. The river bank of the mainland was nearly a mile from where she was but she didn't care about the distance, desperately she fought against the cold and swam hard for it as the battle raged above her, until she heard the roaring of an engine. Two jets were approaching fast and she knew what was going to happen, she quickly changed direction and began to swim out into the bay away from the bridge as fast as she could but it was too late. She saw the light from the jets missiles launch and seconds later huge explosions tore into the support towers of the bridge, whining and creaking metal followed before the entire bridge collapsed in sections as the concrete tower bases were vaporised in the explosions. Massive support cables swung through the air like cheese wire as debris rained down on everything bellow, the last thing she saw was the shadow of a car cast by the moonlight as it descended upon her.
Claire coughed and waved her paw in front of her face as she stood in the communications room of the ZBI HQ, a thick cloud of cheap cigarette smoke hung in the air and a stream of fresh smoke rose from two lit cigarettes laid on the side of an ash tray that was overflowing with cigarette butts. They were on a desk next to a capybara who was talking into radio as he intently listened for a response into his headset,
"Sunray this is Baseplate, come in... Any stations this net come in"
"Anything?"
He sighed and sat back in his chair, took one cup of the headphones off and took a deep drag from the two cigarettes.
"Nothing, i've tried every frequency I know off and i've got absolutely zip off any of them"
"maybe the networks down"
"No the networks up, i've pinged it enough times to check that"
He spun his chair around to look at her,
"There's 3 options far as I can tell. One, they've blocked our access. Two, they're ignoring us or three, everyone's dead. None of these are good for us."
"Keep at it, right now getting through to someone's our best chance of getting out of here"
"Will do"
He spun around and started playing with the radio again as she left the room. She looked at her watch as she walked towards the mezzanine that ran the full height of the five storey building and saw that it was 2 am, she ran a paw over her face and muttered,
"10 hours, that's all it fucking took to lose the city"
The radio on her belt crackled to life just as she reached the mezzanine, a huge symbol of the ZBI shield hung from the ceiling over the lobby bellow where a handful of mammals were busy welding shut metal security shutters that had dropped over the doors and windows to stop the puppets that were banging on the glass from getting inside.
"Claire it's Alex, you read me?"
"Loud and clear, what you got for me?"
"I got good news and bad news. Good news is that we found a way to get to the reserve weapons cache, the bad news is that somebody else got here first, the rifles are gone and all that's left are a few pistols and a couple of boxes of bullets"
Claire hit her prosthetic arm against the metal paw-rail she was stood next to and swore under her breath, with the speed of the spread of infection through the city they had lost most of their agents and equipment, several sections of the building had also been overrun and the automatic interior security shutters had been the only thing stopping the entire building from being lost, but this had cut them off from most of the hidden cache's that Claire had placed throughout the building in case of a direct attack on the building from Sokolov.
"Alright grab whatever you can and get back here in one piece"
"Got it, we aggravated some of the infected as we passed through so we're going to take a longer way round, we'll go quiet till we're back"
"understood"
Claire walked over to an open elevator and pressed the button for the lobby, five hours ago something knocked out the power to the entire city and knocked out any electronics that weren't protected, luckily the ZBI HQ had it's own backup generator and the building was protected from electro magnetic weapons, now it was one of only a small few government buildings that had any power at all and it stood as a beacon for anyone looking for help. It wouldn't last much longer however as they only had enough fuel left to run the generators for 3 more hours and Claire was struggling to come up with a plan for when the power did run out.
The elevator pinged as it reached the lobby which was the busiest part of the building right now with eight staff and civilians working under the instruction of Senior Agent Gerald, the old rhino was working everyone hard and shouting at anyone who wasn't doing as he had instructed. Gerald's firm demeanour relaxed a little as Claire walked over to him, he didn't look angry just frustrated but he was still intimidating to those that didn't know him well.
"Hows it going down here?"
"We're almost finished here, after this I'm going to check in with the guys in the motor pool to make sure that's sealed too"
"Good"
He could see the distant expression on her face that he knew well from working with her and Liam for years,
"I take it things haven't turned out well your end?"
She shook her head,
"Shaun thinks we're being ignored by the military"
"hmm. Can't say I blame them for leaving us to be honest"
"Why do you say that?
"Look at what happened here in what, 9 or 10 hours? Zootopia's an island, If this got out of the city I don't know if the military would be able to contain it, at least here they have a chance of stopping it"
"And sacrifice everyone still inside?"
"Sometimes it's the only way. I don't like being here on this side of the water, but I see why they're doing it"
she sighed again,
"Then I suppose it's up to us to find a way out of the city, any ideas?"
"There's a maintenance access shaft a few blocks from here that leads to the tunnel, if it hasn't been sealed then it could bring us out behind the military's barricades, I would be very surprised if it isn't crammed with booby-traps though"
"I'll get some of the others preparing a distraction for us then so we can slip out if necessary, I'll give Shaun a couple more hours to get through before we"
"Get your fucking paws in the air now!"
The demanding voice came from one of the corridors and was quickly followed by lots more shouting, Claire and Gerald dashed towards the voices with their guns drawn to find german Sheppard in black military uniform pointing a rifle at two of her agents who were guarding a door to the motor pool beneath the building which was now half open, they were all yelling at each other to drop each others weapons while a deer in a black suit and labcoat that looked familiar was sprawled on the floor shaking in fear. Gunfire erupted from behind the door which was flung open and a wolf with a nasty wound on its left eye barrelled into the corridor in the same uniform as the dog before slamming it shut, Claire's eyes widened and she yelled at her agents,
"Hold your fire they're friendlies"
"They're behind us!"
The agents froze for a moment but Gerald moved forward quickly pushing them aside, the wolf held the door handle and pulled on it as hard as he could as be braced his feet against the wall. Screeching and snarling noises accompanied the banging of the door as things that shouldn't be tried to force it open. Gerald grabbed a metal bar that was protruding from a slot in the ceiling and pulled hard on it as he grabbed the wolf by it's vest and pulled him back, a roller bar shutter slid down from the ceiling and slammed into the locking latch in the floor just as a a group of puppets burst through the door, their arms flailing through the bars trying to grab any of the mammals there as their teeth snapped at them will snarling, their eyes yellow and black gunk dripping from their mouths. The wolf tapped Gerald's chest and let out a heavy breath of relief as he turned away from the shutter,
"Thanks big guy"
He went to grab the the deer by the collar but was stopped by Claire who gave him a hug without warning which caught him by surprise, it didn't last long though as Claire stood back and cleared her throat after realising what she had done.
"I'm glad you made it Max"
"It's good to see you too Claire"
The Shepard stepped up next to them so that he couldn't be missed,
"Sorry to interrupt but are you in charge ma'am?"
"I am"
"This is Claire Schwartzpelz ZBI Director, Claire this is Frank he's leading the quick reaction force for the Camarilla"
"Nice to meet you"
She held her paw out for him and he shook it briefly before pressing on, his voice had urgency in it.
"Director we need a working radio ASAP, do you have on here that I can use?"
"Ours works but we can't get hold of anyone, they aren't answering our calls"
"I can change that, where is it?"
"fifth floor just follow the signs"
Frank nodded in thanks and grabbed the deer by the collar before marching it unceremoniously out of the corridor towards the elevator, as he passed by Claire got a good look at his face, his fur soaking wet from tears.
"Isn't that Doctor Jenner? He left hours ago with an escort to evacuate from the city"
"It is, we found him in a destroyed mobile lab, he'd locked himself in one of the containment cells to protect himself from the puppets, the rest of the team was dead or missing"
"Christ"
"Sorry to interrupt but how did you get in here Max?"
"The motor pool gate was open"
"We locked that hours ago, there were four people in there to weld it shut"
"Sorry Gerald, there was nobody there when we arrived, just some tools on the floor"
"Dammit. We'll have to secure this gate Claire, I don't know how it will hold compared to the other one though"
"Just do what you can for now. C'mon Max lets get your eye sorted"
"I'll be fine"
"That's an order"
He smirked and followed her, Gerald called for one of the others to bring a welder over as Claire and Max stepped out of the corridor and into the lobby where they waited for the elevator to come back down. As they stood waiting Claire let her head fall against his shoulder for a moment,
"Where were you Max?"
"It's a long story, I'll tell you when we get out of here"
She looked up at him and said said seriously,
"When we get out of here i'm gonna need a drink"
He smiled warmly, something he felt like he hadn't done in a long time.
"Then we can talk over drinks, God knows I need one"
They road the elevator in silence, something Max was glad to have again compared to the chaos on the streets, to the third floor which held the cafeteria and was where those who weren't able to help were staying as it was a large hall with plenty of space. As they walked in many of the mammals stopped what they were doing to see who had entered and some of them seemed relieved to see someone in a military uniform enter as if it meant that everything would be over soon. Claire lead him to a large table off to the side which was stacked with white carry cases and called for one of the mammals, a lioness in doctors scrub, to come over. Following her gesture Max sat down on one side as the lioness got to them,
"Kate this is Max, can you take a look at his eye please"
"Sure"
As Kate put on some latex gloves and rummaged through on of the cases Max turned his head towards Claire and said
"I'm telling you Claire I'm fine, you worry too much sometimes. Hey ow"
Kate was dabbing some disinfectant on the wound and it was burning,
"Hold still...That's pretty deep I'm going to have to put some stitches on it. Important question though, were you bitten?"
Max hesitated but Claire answered for him,
"He's immune"
"Immune?"
An exited look appeared on her face
"We need to get you out of the city and to a medical facility as soon as possible then, if you're immune then we could make a cure"
"We've already found one"
"Max?"
"Jenner found out how to stop it, it wont do anything for those already gone but it would stop you catching it or from it advancing any further, that's why Frank and I went searching for Jenner"
"Does the military know? That could be our ticket out of here"
"There's a complication, we're running out of time"
Claire looked Max in the eyes, he had a most dire expression that put her on edge. He took a small voice recorder out of his pocket that had a set of headphones plugged into it.
"We got this from the lab Jenner was in. Don't listen without the headphones"
She took it and put one in and began to play it as Max told Kate to continue with his stitches, Claire turned and took a few steps away before playing the recording. There were a few seconds of silence before she heard a male voice,
"Attention all personnel, the evacuation mission has been suspended, all forces proceed to their designated extraction points immediately, extractions will continue every 15 minutes until 23:00 hours, command out"
It looked like Gerald was right, they had been abandoned to their fate, as she considered whether or not to wait to see if having Jenner would get the military to send help for them a second recording began to play.
"Attention all supervisors, the order to put operation landslide into effect has been issued, all personnel within the target area must evacuate immediately, I repeat, the order to put operation landslide into effect has been issued, all personnel within the target area must evacuate immediately. Operation will commence at 02:30 hours"
She looked at her watch, it was ten passed two now, she pulled the headphone out and turned to Max.
"This is only twenty minutes away, what's operation landslide?"
"I don't know, but if their pulling their high level guys out it only mean something bad for us"
"Gerald knows of a way to get to the Hawken Tunnel that avoids the military blockade a few blocks from here, we need to get everyone together fast"
"we can't get out, the streets are filled with those things"
"You and Frank got through"
"We're two people, how many do you have here?"
"thirty nine"
"There's no way in hell we could all get there in one piece"
"We can't just sit here and do nothing"
The door to the cafeteria swung open and Frank dashed in and over to them with a very serious look on his face,
"We need everyone onto the roof now, there's two choppers coming in 10 minutes to pulls us out but we have to go now they can't wait"
"Claire get everyone moving"
Max grabbed the thread that Kate had been sewing the gash above his eye with and yanked it snapping off what was left. Claire got Kate to usher everyone to the stairwell leading to the roof as Frank grabbed Max by the arm and pulled him out of the room and off to the side, Claire quickly caught up to them as people filled out of the cafeteria and called into her radio,
"Everyone drop what you're doing and get to the roof now we're getting picked up"
Gerald acknowledged her but she got no response from Alex,
"Alex did you copy that?"
"Frank what's going on?"
"Marchenko's sending the last two choppers to get us out, he's been forced out of operational control"
"So who's in charge"
"He doesn't know but that's not important. The government knows they can't contain this so their going to sanitize the city, that's what operation landslide is they aren't risking this getting out"
"Do we have enough time?"
"It's going to be tight as hell"
A loud bang and screeching metal interrupted them, all three of them ran to the mezzanine and looked down to the lobby, a huge dent as large as an elephant had been made in one of the security shutters. Some of the people who had been welding had stopped and were staring at the huge bulge in the metal as a second bang made it even bigger and tore a small hole in the top, Max yelled at the top of his voice to them,
"Get out of there now!"
A third bang tore through the metal as a huge claw swung at one of the closer workers just missing them, and as the claw withdrew a huge horde of puppets began to pore through the large gap flooding the lobby in seconds with infected. Everyone who had a gun began firing on the horde as some of the workers unable to escape screamed in pain as they were caught and pulled into the mass. The blast of a grenade going off in the stairwell nearest the shutters was quickly followed by Gerald appearing in the door well firing his rifle in full auto down the stairs, he turned to run towards them but was jumped on by a small group of infected who came from one of the corridors leading to another wing of the building, the same wing that Alex would have been returning from. Max and Claire tried to shoot them off of Gerald as frank tried to slow the tide coming through the hole but they were biting him all over and they couldn't get a clear shot. Gerald dropped his rifle and grabbed hold of one of the larger infected that had grabbed him as he put a hoof to his chest and charged into the stairwell as he shouted in anger forcing the horde back through the door before a loud and dull thud of several grenades detonating turned the stairwell into red mist. Claire screamed and fired wildly at the remaining infected in the stairwell after seeing Gerald die but was pulled back my Max as more poured over the corpses, he lifted her up and ran to the stairwell on the other side while Frank covered them before turning and firing at them himself only to see Frank wrapping the strap of a satchel to the handrail.
"Frank get over here now!"
"One sec"
A burst of bullets cracked past his head as Max fired the last of the bullets in his magazine, as he slammed a new one in Frank pulled a tab from the bag and ran as fast as he could towards them,
"Go get up there now"
"What did you?"
"Satchel"
"Oh shit"
They ran up the stairs and got to the fourth floor door when a deafening blast tour through the third floor mezzanine and sent a plume of burning smoke up the stairwell singeing some of their fur. They didn't stop and ran hard up the stairs and onto the fifth flour where halfway down the corridor they could see an agent firing a shotgun towards the other stairwell as another yelled at them to hurry up.
"Where's Jenner?"
"Radio Room"
Max burst through the door to the radio room as Claire ran up the last set of stairs to the roof with the two agents. Sat next to the radio in a near catatonic state was Jenner, he had a pistol in his hoof and Shaun was lying dead on the floor with a bullet hole in his chest, his service pistol missing form its holster.
"The hell did you do?"
"He...He..."
Max knocked the gun out of Jenner's Hoof and grabbed him roughly, yanking him to his feat just as he heard a snarl behind him. He spun round just in time to catch Shaun as he jumped to his feat snarling and snapping at him, his eyes a solid yellow. Max kicked his legs out and slammed his head into the radio console before letting go and shooting him point blank in the head.
"Max we need to go now!"
Frank yelled from outside as more gunfire echoed through the building, he waisted no more time and hauled Jenner out of the room and shoved him up the stairs to the other agents before opening fire at a group of infected that had followed them up the stairs.
"Frank"
"One sec"
"Now Frank!"
Frank loaded a grenade into his under barrel launcher and fired it at the giant ZBI shield hanging over the lobby, the blast tore through most of the support cables while the others snapped under its weight sending the heavy metal decoration plummeting to the floor crushing any infected who were under it to paste.
"I don't know if that'll slow em down"
They each pulled out a grenade and lobbed one at each stairwell where they were pouring from before climbing the last few steps onto the roof, the screeching from behind them stopped for a few seconds when the grenades went off but there were so many of them that the reprieve was short lived. They got onto the roof and the door was slammed shut behind them and people started piling anything they could find against the door to stop it from opening as Max, Frank and other agents fired through the small window at the top of the door, arms flailed through the small gap as bullets slammed into them knocking them back only for others to fill the space almost as fast.
Time seemed to drag by before they heard the sweet distinctive sound of helicopter blades cutting through the air and they could just make out the pulsing lights beneath 2 helicopters flying nearby.
"Frank I need another mag"
"Here, its my last one"
He tossed the mag to Max who caught it and slammed it in as he called over to Claire.
"Take this, pop it and wave it so they know where to land"
She ran over to the helipad and lit the flare, it was a bright green and was visible for miles as she waved it over her head and prayed that the helicopters could see her. She stared at them and her heart sank as they went past the building, but then slowly they begun to turn and headed their way. She threw the flare on the ground and ran down the ramp to the crowd of civilians who were huddled with Kate, there had been thirty nine of them but now there were less than twenty. Her fur started to flail around wildly as the strong downdraught from the landing helicopters rotors kicked up anything not bolted down, it was far larger than any helicopter that the ZBI had access to and it barely fit on the landing pad.
As the rear ramp lowered down a crew member waved frantically at them to board as the second helicopter flew overhead in a guard position, Claire hurried everyone along pushing some of those that were hesitating up the ramp herself. She was the last of the group to get on and she dragged Jenner up and handed him to the crew member,
"Are you the last one?"
"No we have more over there"
The crew member called something into their radio and the second helicopter shone a spotlight onto Max's little group before a speaker came one.
"Get aboard now we don't have time, we'll cover you"
The three agents who had been with Max and Frank ran from the door towards the ramp before Frank and Max followed. They were fast and had almost caught up with the agents when the door was smashed open and a horde poured through the door, but they barely made it ten feet before being shredded by the mini gun in the second helicopter that kept firing until the first helicopter started to take off.
Max followed Frank through the helicopter to empty seats next to Claire by the cockpit and strapped in and put on the seats headphones as the helicopter dove until it was just above the roofs of the other buildings, the co-pilot called over the headset,
"It's going to be a bumpy ride hold on"
Frank looked at his watch but it had broken during the fighting,
"What's the time?"
"2:28"
"shit this is going to be close"
The choppers flew the shortest point to the mainland which took them over what was left of the Rhodes bridge, most of it now lay at the bottom of the river with what was left burning as creatures ran amuck through the streets hunting whoever was left.
"Major you should hear this"
The co-pilot flicked some switches and a radio broadcast came in, it was a female voice slowly counting backwards from fifty which was being intermittently called over by other people.
"Fucking hell their early, get this thing going now"
"She's already going as fast as she can"
They were just passing over a corn field that marked the one mile marker outside the city limits when he heard something that made his blood go cold,
"27, 26, weapon free, 24, 23"
"Buckle up and brace yourselves"
Everyone grabbed their harnesses, some were praying while others cried, Max sat calmly holding Claire's paw with a firm grip as she closed her eyes and waited, they were both listening in as well. He felt her grip tighten as the radio continued,
"17, 16, trigger armed, 14, 13"
A small river inlet let the pilots know they were nearly 3 miles from the city.
There was a collective holding of breath as the voice counted the last few seconds.
"3, 2, 1"
A blinding flash illuminated the inside of the helicopter and made it seem like daylight and for a second everything seemed to stop, but as the flash faded it became apparent that something was very wrong as the helicopter began to shudder violently. Frank ripped his headset off as he saw the pilots struggling with the controls, they were trying as hard as they could to save the chopper
"EMP's knocked out the engines"
"Still have hydraulics, got shake in the pedals"
"fuck cant get her started, auto rotate"
"we're too low and heavy"
The pilot yelled back through the cabin,
"Hold on to something!"
Franks gripped the chair hard and closed his eyes, seconds later there was a violent thud as the helicopter hit the ground, he didn't see most of it as something loose flew through the cabin and hit him in the head knocking him out.
Max blinked a couple of times as he waited for the world to stop spinning and come into focus as he felt pain all over his body, slowly as he grit his teeth against the pain he managed to push the mangled metal and dirt debris off his chest enough for him roll over. The helicopter was completely destroyed and looked like it had been cut in half on impact with chairs and bodies scattered just outside the wreck as the soil it had slammed into had mostly filled the cabin space, the cockpit was completely buried with no sign of the pilots. Pulling himself to his feet he saw the chair where Claire had been sitting was empty, its harness snapped and missing. He looked around in the darkness and saw something glint in the soil, he dropped to his knees and dug at it, which quickly became a fever pace as he recognised it as Claire's prosthetic arm. An eternity went by for him until he dug through enough dirt to pull her out but it was obvious there was nothing he could do for her, she was dead. He held her close to him and whispered over and over how he was sorry he couldn't get her out.
He didn't know how much time had passed but he began to hear something in the cabin, someone struggling. He gently laid Claire's body down and went over to the sound to find Frank buried up to his chest in earth with folded metal covering the rest of his body, the impact had torn his chair from where it was and hurled him to the other end of the wreckage. Max pulled the metal off of Frank and rolled it to the side. Frank had a huge cut running down his face and multiple other cuts over him, not that Max got off any easier as he looked like he had taken a diver head first through a paper shredder. Max quickly dug away at the earth with Frank helping him the best he could,
"Where's...Where's everyone else?"
"Dead, I think. You're the only one i've heard"
"There has to be someone else"
He yelled in agony as Max drag him out from where he was, his legs were broken with one of them having a bone sticking out, Max searched through what gear of his had survived and did the best he could to bind and protect his wounds.
"Wait here, I'll see if I can find anything else"
"Sure, it's not like I can do anything else"
Max worked his way to the back of the cabin and had to crawl through the gap at the back as it was mostly buried, the wreckage was scattered everywhere and he wasn't sure how he or Frank had survived or how anyone else possibly could of. As he stumbled to the section that had snapped off on impact he ducked under what was left of the tail as he looked for a way in but stopped in his tracks as he looked at the sky in the distance. Hanging above Zootopia, illuminated by the moon, was a giant mushroom cloud.
Authors Note.
I apologise for the severe delay with releasing this. In January my father collapsed at home and was rushed into hospital, after lots of testing they discovered that he has a degenerative condition that affects his nerves that has meant that my mother and I have had to give him 24 hour care for the last few months until the doctors could find something that could alleviate his symptoms that he wasn't allergic too or triggered his already sever asthma. This obviously has left me with not time to do any writing with me working full time as well. Thankfully they have found something that slows down the disease and has meant that he can live a more normal life for now which has given me back some of my time.
On a happier note this story will continue with a new arc starting next chapter but as I am sure you understand I wont be able to give a structured release schedule and so they will be up as and when I finish them. Hope you enjoy.
AN2
Extremely sorry about the delay to the story, things have been rather hectic lately between looking after my father and being trained for a promotion in work but i think i have things organised now and i'm working on getting the next chapter out in a week or two. Just didn't want everyone to think i'd dropped the story is all.