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Kingdom Come – The Ashes of Paradise

Chapter 9

"All evils are equal when they are extreme."

-Pierre Corneille

July 22nd, 6:45 PM

The garage was full of gunfire, the muzzle flashes casting strange shadows on the walls and floor, as Rebecca and Carlos systematically mowed down the zombies that were shambling towards them. The security camera had only shown the doorway to the room, and Rebecca had foolishly assumed that it was as clear as the rest of the lab. Luckily, Carlos had insisted they still be armed when they came down here.

The zombies were dressed in the black Kevlar of a SWAT team, which made it all the harder to put them down, but after a minute or two the last one collapsed to the ground, blood seeping out of a hole just above its left eye. Rebecca and Carlos stopped firing, neither saying a word, just listening to the room…for a break in the stillness that meant more of the carriers were around.

But there was nothing.

"Told you," Carlos finally said, with a bit of a grin, as he dropped the clip out of his rifle and slapped a new one in.

"Yeah, yeah…" Rebecca sighed, holstering her pistol as she looked around the garage. "Why would a SWAT team have been here, anyway? I thought almost everyone had been up in the lobby where they'd killed themselves."

"No idea." Carlos shook his head, walking over towards the zombies, training his rifle on them again until he was sure they weren't getting up again. "Maybe everyone thought that they had already left…or maybe the infection started here too."

"Maybe," Rebecca didn't sound convinced, and she followed Carlos past the zombies, to the front of the van. They came around to the front, and the door suddenly sprung open, a zombie tumbling out towards Carlos.

"Woah!" The Hispanic man leapt backwards, narrowly avoiding being bitten, and the zombie hit the floor, its head smacking against the concrete with a nerve-wrenching crack. It didn't move, but Carlos tilted his rifle down and fired two shots into its head and neck, just to be safe. "I guess they were going somewhere." He said once he had caught his breath.

"Yeah," Rebecca carefully stepped over the corpse and leaned into the cabin of the van, searching amongst the seats. She emerged a moment later, holding a scrap of paper in her left hand. "Here, look at this."

To: Commander Jackson

Something is going wrong. We arrived about an hour ago and were bundled into some new facility…I do not know what is going to happen, but I have a very bad feeling about it. Please, go and retrieve my daughter. We had expected to return before she would have gotten home from school, but I do not believe that is going to happen.

Find Anna, Daniel. Please! I have a bad feeling about this.

- Samuel Fernando

Rebecca read through the note twice, then handed it to Carlos. "They were probably infected before they even came down here. They were down here when everyone else was upstairs realizing what had happened…probably getting ready to leave…and they changed." She shook her head.

"Anna's parents weren't here," Carlos pointed out suddenly, a faint smile on his face as he folded the paper up and tucked it in his pocket. "When the outbreak happened, I mean. So they might not be dead."

"Yeah…yeah!" Rebecca couldn't resist the grin that appeared on her face. It was always nice to find some little tidbit of good news, even in a sea of horrible news. "We'll have to tell her when we get back topside.

"Right. Now, where's this truck you were talking about?"

"I'm not sure. The computer said it's down here, but I'm not even sure what it looks like," Rebecca, wary again, pulled her pistol out as she walked around the van and surveyed the garage. There were a number of vehicles scattered throughout the room, some regular cars, others swat vans, and one that seemed to be a large solid black square with a semi-front. "It's probably that thing."

The two made their way next to the vehicle without incident, and Rebecca holstered her pistol, reaching her hand out to run across the side. "Not sure what it's made of…but it has to be the right thing." The back of the vehicle did not seem to have any features at all. It was perfectly black, with smooth sides and no cracks. Rebecca would've sworn it was a large stone with wheels, if it hadn't been attacked to the truck.

She reached into her hip-pouch and tugged out another sheet of paper, unfolding it. "I have an access code, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere to put it. Check the other side." She started over the front of the vehicle and tugged the door open, sliding into the seat. Inside, it would've been a perfectly normal semi, if not for the large computer panel buried into the passenger side dash.

Rebecca slid across the seat into the passenger side and turned on the console, holding up her piece of paper as the system asked for a password. She punched in the code, and a moment later the entire system beeped twice, and the screen was full of buttons.

A quick scan revealed the "Open Seal" section…and Rebecca pursed her lips for a moment, then reached out and tapped the screen. Another beep, a "confirm release" and then nothing. Outside, Rebecca suddenly heard a loud hissing, followed by a shout of surprise from Carlos.

Rebecca yanked out her pistol, shoving the passenger side door open and leaping out, her gun ready to fire at whatever monster had leapt out at her companion…only to find him sprawled out on the floor against the nearby wall, laughing. "What the hell are you doing?"

He took a couple quick breaths and pointed at the black section of the vehicle. The perfectly smooth sides had split down the center and the sides, and the top half was unfolding outwards in both directions, steam hissing out of every various opening. "It startled me."

As the two watched, the back of the vehicle finished opening, the metal sides settling into the floor. The walls of the vehicle were a foot and a half thick of what appeared to be solid metal. In the middle sat a large storage cradle, designed to hold something at least ten feet tall and cylindrical, and two small, round manhole-covered shapes. Monitoring equipment lined the lower half of both walls.

Rebecca stuck her gun back into her holster and walked over next to the truck, peering at the empty cradle. It looked to be about the right size, and judging from the equipment…

"Looks like you were right," Carlos said, coming up behind her, his rifle resting on his shoulder again. "This is a tyrant transport truck."

July 22nd, 7:15 PM

Some quick searching of the garage revealed a massive service elevator that could be used to bring the tyrant containment from the other floor, and the strangely shaped fork-life that would be used to carry it. Rebecca and Carlos piled into the elevator and headed to the tyrant floor. The only sound was the constant, irritated tapping of the toe of Carlos' boot.

Carlos suddenly spun around to face Rebecca, a puzzled expression on his face. "Why do we want to take it with us? We could just kill it, or leave it here."

"If we try to kill it, we might just send it on an instinctual rampage…" Rebecca shook her head. She remembered the proto-tyrant she'd fought in the tunnels beneath Raccoon…and had no desire to repeat the experience. "The paperwork said it was a clean tyrant. No programming, no memories, which means we might be able to study it without any real danger. I can't pass up a chance like that, Carlos."

"We're taking a major risk." He said, frowning. "I'm not sure it's worth it." The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. Rebecca started out, then paused just inside the hallway and stuck her foot out to keep the door from closing.

"Well, I am. Besides, you saw that truck…it's designed to keep the creature under control. I don't think it will be too dangerous. And I bet there's a way to blow the truck up, a fail-safe or something, if the creature tries to escape." She shrugged. "It's worth it." She released her foot and turned away, and the elevator doors started to close.

Carlos darted through them and sighed, following after the woman. "Fine. But if you're going to take this risk, I can't tell anyone else to work on it with you. If anyone wants to, they can, but…"

"I know, I know. If the fail safe goes off, I'll blow up alone," Carlos was almost sure Rebecca was going to laugh. "Relax. It'll be fine. Go get the others and we'll see about getting the tyrant down to the vehicle."

July 22nd, 8:30 PM

Anna watched the sun set from her perch on top of Rebecca's RV, her legs folded, drawing absently on a notebook she'd found in the grocery store. One the adults had gotten rid of all the zombies, they'd been allowed to come in and take what they needed or wanted. Anna wasn't sure how comfortable she was about that, but it was pretty obvious they weren't going to be able to pay anyone.

Carlos had come up a little while ago, and told her that they hadn't found any trace of her parents. Which wasn't good, but was certainly far from bad, since if their hadn't been any trace of them in the lab, or in the town, they might not be dead. She suspected that the Hispanic mercenary had been leaving something out, but she had decided not to push. He'd seemed upset about something.

Tandy was asleep, as she seemed to be a lot lately…they hadn't found her parents either, but they both worked in the next town over, so it could have just been that they were…well, dead over there. And sleeping seemed to be the only way the other girl knew how to cope.

So Anna had decided to draw, something that she'd done at school when class had gotten boring, and it was keeping her occupied. She'd probably end up going to watch TV in the trailer…the local cable seemed to be out, but the satellite feed that Rebecca's camper was connected to was still running, even if all the news channels were on emergency feeds.

"Alright, keep her steady!" From the small garage next to the bank, Rebecca's voice could be heard, and Anna looked up in time to see the young scientist backing out of the open garage door, waving both her hands in the air like flags. "A little to the left!"

As Rebecca stepped out into the street, a large black truck backed out after her, the rear blinking and beeping as a handful of warning lights went off. Anna could see Carlos in the driver's seat, half-twisted around as he drove the vehicle. She'd never seen a truck quite like it…it was a trailer, like the MAC trucks she'd seen on the highway, but it was matte black, without any logo's or variations. It also looked like one solid piece of metal, without any doors or windows.

As Carlos backed the truck completely out onto the street, following the shouted directions from Rebecca, Anna closed her notebook and slid down onto the hood of the RV, and then down onto the ground with a little grunt. She tucked her things back into the RV and then ran over to where the truck, Rebecca and Carlos were now stopped. "What's that?"

Rebecca twisted around in surprise, then paused, eyes darting from the child to the truck and back. "It's…sort of a mobile laboratory. We found it down in the lab." She glanced over at Carlos for a moment, shrugging her shoulders.

"Rebecca is going to use it to study what is going on." Carlos came to the rescue, that pleasant grin on his face. "It's a lot better than the one in the camper."

"Oh." Anna turned to look at the black truck, then reached out and ran her hand over the side. It felt perfectly smooth, more like stone than metal…and it wasn't as cold as she had expected. "Can I see it?"

Rebecca frowned and shook her head. "Maybe later. Why don't we eat first, I'm starving." The young woman slipped past Anna and Carlos and started back towards the RV, and Carlos followed after, herding Anna along. The young girl couldn't help but sigh.

'Maybe later' usually meant 'no' in adult-speak.

July 22nd, 11:30 PM

"This could've waited until the morning, you know."

Rebecca rolled her eyes, trying to decide between ignoring Carlos or not, and finally settled for talking without looking up from the panel inside the truck cab. "I can't sleep, and if I figure everything out tonight we can get an earlier start in the morning. Besides, you weren't sleeping either."

"…that's beside the point. I might have fallen asleep soon." Carlos stepped back as the rear of the truck burst open again, steam shooting out in all directions. As the two sides hit the ground with solid 'thuds', a set of lights came to life inside the truck bed.

Sitting inside the center, carefully held inside the containment base, was the Tyrant. Still asleep. Carlos shivered as he looked at the beast. "That thing gives me the willy's."

"Relax. It's not going to wake up and eat you." Rebecca dropped out of the truck cab and made her way around to the back of the truck, where a small set of stairs granted access to the lab and containment area in the center. "Well, I don't think it is, anyway…"

"You're the most unreassuring person ever," Carlos stated as he followed her up into the lab. The tyrant containment tube was in the dead center, three feet wide and ten feet deep. On either side was a walkway about two feet wide, and then the various terminals and computer consoles. Behind the tyrant was a flat area with the two manhole-shaped metal cylinders. "Did you ever figure out what those are?" Carlos said, pointing at the Cylinders.

"No…I did, however, find some instructions." Rebecca held out a packet of papers that she had dug up from under the computer panel in the front of the truck. She leaned her hip against a bare space of wall and flipped through the papers quickly, skimming the pages looking for some reference to the manhole-shaped things.

"Here it is," she folded a page over and read silently for several seconds. "They're twin storage containers for a…B.O.W. 122R series." Rebecca frowned for a moment, running the number through her head. It was familiar, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. "I think that's a hunter series…"

"You mean those things hold hunters?" Carlos asked, bringing his rifle up to point at them nervously. "Does it have any in there now?"

"Not sure," Rebecca sat the pack of papers down on top of the tyrant tube and twisted around to one of the computer consoles, tapping at a few keys. Several screens flicked into view for a second a piece, and Rebecca shook her head. "The system doesn't say. We could just open one and look…" she twisted back around. "They should be in stasis, just like the tyrant. If there are any, I mean."

Carlos frowned, staring at the small round metal lids, but finally nodded his head. "Alright, open one up."

Rebecca slipped past him, staying out of his line of fire, and tapped several keys on a small panel next to the left circle. After a few moments and several beeps, the console began to rise up, emitting a burst of steam just like the rest of the truck had earlier.

And then from behind them, came a quiet, surprised voice. "This is so cool!"

July 22nd, 11:36 PM

Anna awoke to a loud hissing noise and a bright light outside her window, and tried to reach out and close the curtains, but they were several feet to far away. She sighed, standing up and sliding over to the window, about to close the curtains when she saw Carlos and Rebecca outside, standing in the middle of that strange black truck.

Which had opened up like a pair of wings. "Wow."

She grabbed her socks and pulled them on, then ran outside…they couldn't get angry at her if she just went over to look, right? Besides, it was their fault for waking her up in the first place. And there was no way she was going to pass up what was probably her only chance to see the lab at all.

She stepped outside, leaving the RV door open just a crack behind her, uncertain if it was going to lock behind her, and made her way towards the nearby lab. "You mean those things hold hunters? Does it have any in there now?" She could hear the two talking as she snuck up to the side of the truck and peered up the stairs. She'd never visited where her parents worked, but she had seen pictures, and this looked like a tiny version of the labs they had worked in.

She waited until Rebecca and Carlos had turned away, half-listening to them discussing whatever it was…she didn't know what a hunter was, but Carlos sounded afraid of them. Rebecca didn't though, so she wasn't really worried. She quietly stepped up into the lab, looking around. There was a massive tube in the center that she couldn't see into, and computer panels lined all the walls, blinking various status readings and the occasional screen saver. It looked like something out of a spaceship.

"This is so cool!" She said, and then blinked realizing she had spoken out loud, slapping her hands over her face. But the damage was already done, as Rebecca and Carlos spun around to face her.

"Anna! What are you doing here?" Rebecca nearly shouted, taking several steps towards her. "It might not be safe!"

"I…I'm sorry," the young girl took a half-step backwards, slipping her hands before her back. "The light and the noise woke me up and you did say I could see this later, so…so I came out to see." Both adults were staring at her now, and Anna was definitely beginning to wish she'd just gone back to bed. "I'm not going to touch anything.

"That's not the point, Anna!" Rebecca shook her head. "It's dangerous, we have no idea if we might have somehow missed a zombie, and there's-" Rebecca kept talking, but Anna stopped hearing her. Behind Carlos a tube was raising out of the truck, and in the tube was one of the most horrifying creatures Anna had ever seen. It almost looked like a frog, if a frog was humanoid with long, horrible claws. It was held in place by a series of plastic tubing, and it was blinking. "Anna, are you listening to me?" Rebecca crouched down in front of her, narrowing her eyes. "You can't just run around and…"

"There's a monster behind you," Anna finally managed to say, pointing over Rebecca's shoulder at the creature.

"What?" Carlos whirled around, just in time to see the hunter lean forward and snap it's plastic restraints around it's right arm like so much twine. "Oh shi-" It swung, hard and fast, and Carlos managed to turn just enough that his face connected with the wrist instead of the claw…and he went twirling over the side of the truck, into the darkness.

"Anna, run." Rebecca pulled out her handgun from its holster, pointing it at the creature as it leaned forward and snapped the bond holding its chest in place. Pinned by just its left arm, it let out a terrible screech, a noise like Anna had never heard, and she felt rooted to the spot. "RUN!"

The gunshots, more than the shout, snapped Anna out of her daze. She saw a bullet smack into the creature's chest, another in its arm, and then twisted around and leapt down the steps, running back towards the RV.

Throughout the caravan, lights were beginning to come on, and Anna could hear footsteps from off in the distance, the night watch running towards the gunshots, most likely.

Behind her, she heard Rebecca scream, and spun around in time to see the young medic tumble backwards down the lab steps, blood coursing down her left arm. She hit the ground and lay still. "Rebecca!" The creature, Carlos called it a hunter, was standing at the top of the steps, blood pouring out of half a dozen gunshot wounds, its breathing heavy and

Anna didn't know what to do, she knew she couldn't help but she couldn't just run away. And the creature just seemed to be staring at her, a view made gruesome by the blood pouring out a hole just above its left eye.

She gave in, twisting around and running, and the air was filled with the terrible screeching again. It was suddenly all around her, and she felt something heavy slam into her back, driving her to the pavement.

She skidded away from the weight, crashing into the front tire of the RV, pain lancing up her chest and shoulder. The creature was right there, a foot away, she could see it through the haze of red. She heard a gun shot, then another, trying desperately to keep her eyes open as the creature stepped towards her…and then everything went black.

To be continued.