Chapter 22 Hunting Shadows.
The remainder of the day and night passed without incident, on the recommendation of the group as a whole T'Sall had let Whisper be so that she cooled down, as much as every fibre of his being ached for him to go and try and apologise for putting her on the spot, all the remainder of the day and even through the night he couldn't get her out of his head and as much as his instincts yearned for it, he resisted the urge to reach out with his mind and feel for her thoughts.
Without her permission he didn't wasn't to walk through her mind as much as he ached to truely know how she felt he would never force that on her, her mind was her own private space, though he utterly felt like a nervous teenage ooman who had just found himself the object of a beautiful huntresses ooman hunt, both scared out of his pauking mind and excited as all hell.
But in order to clear his mind and to try and get himself ready for battle he went to his room and put himself into a deep mediation that aloud him to walk through the spirit realm, it also worked like a very long range communication system between Dream Warrior as you often found others here doing the same, so it was like a giant information sharing hub, plus they could receive both guidance and warnings from friendly sprits here.
Zachee on the other hand had overwhelmed with curiosity on what Picasso was doing, so she had headed down to the car park where he was working with both Ice and Paul Twenty, what she found made her mouth fall open.
As it turned out they had found a delivery truck of some kind, though it was hard to tell now who it belonged to as they had also found a full set of welding and cutting tools from somewhere, the rest of the cars in the car park had been canablised to create a kind of make shift armor, not to mention a kind of ran scoop on the front the kinda looked like a giant plough, it also appeared to have razor sharp blades made from welded together panels on the sides, all the windows had been covered over with only small slits to see out of and the doors were now reinforced.
It was a square truck that you would normally associate with parcel dilivery, but now it looked like a cobbled together armored car, it even had a hatch cut on the top to act as a firing turret and escape hatch.
It made her feel better about their chances of living through the day, at least they could outrun pretty much any undead in that thing and if not then they could just run right through them, though if what Reaper had seen was about they'd have to be careful, running over undead Xeno's would be a big mistake, if their blood was still acidic then it would eat through the armor like wet toilet paper.
But seeing that the three were hard at work making the vehicle run she felt it would be a mistake to disturb them and instead after watching for a while she returned back upstairs to the relative safety of her room, but only twenty minutes later Picasso turned up, "Alright doc, we got the vehicle running and everything is sound so we're good to go, all we need to do now is get you rated on a gun and we are golden" he said confidently, she looked at him nervously as he took his side arm out of a holster on his thigh, it was a fairly large looking black hand gun that she wondered if it would even fit into her hands, "Don't have a spare rifle yet but we can make do with this, this bad girl packs quite a punch and I've un-keyed it so anyone can use it, now all we have to do is teach you how to shoot it.
"What about ammunition? Won't that waste it?" she asked and he grinned.
"Nah, this bad girl uses cycler cells, they can be recharged while plugged into our armor, it's fine for the low velocity projectiles these weapons use, ok lets get you rated on these so you won't end up shooting me or worse yourself, I'd really hate to see you accidently shoot that cute tail of yours off" he said with a wink that made her feel hot and made her tail give an involuntary swish, he truely was a pretty pretty male this human.
He took her down to one of the small dining halls were somehow he had found the time to set up a firing range with all of the plates from the kitchens, he'd drawn a verity of faces on them as well, she could swear some of them looked like Spike.
Picasso was an incredible trainer, which she was not that surprised a given that he was a member of the most elite military regiment to exist, in only two short hours he had her shooting targets perfectly like she handled a weapon every day of her life, plus she couldn't help loving how close he got while showing her proper shooting stances, the way he wrapped his arms around her and while placing his head into her shoulder he lifted her arms and hands to refine her grip and aim, it took all her strength to stop her tail swishing and taking him off his feet.
She couldn't believe just how easily he fired up all of her carefully hidden instincts, it had taken years for her to learn to hide them in order to become a medical professional, to detach herself from her emotions to some degree or another so she could properly treat patients, plus it helped when she was dealing with a rather handsome male patient to not try and force him onto a examination bed pin him down and have her way with him, you know medical rules and it being against the law to rape patients, or anyone really.
After his training she felt confident that if need be she could defend herself and him if need be, but she couldn't help be fascinated by the massive gun that he kept on a hip swivel mount that was locked up over his shoulder against his back, he called it a Smartgun but she had no idea was was so smart about it untill he brought it down and with a single burst that lasted two seconds took out a room filled with thirty plates without missing a single one or hitting anything else.
She couldn't help but find his confidence and his easy manner infectious, the way he spoke and the way he moved were calm, relaxed, confident and graceful despite the hell that awaited them outside these walls, she'd give anything to be like him, but then she supposed it came from the way he lived his life, she spent her life trying to find ways to save people from the deadliest viruses known to exist and trying to save lives, he spent his rescuing people and killing bad guys, that's when a thought drifted through her mind, she couldn't help but wonder just how many people he had killed, because he really didn't have the manner of a professional killer, not that she had actually really met one before, but he certainly wasn't what she had imagined, he was just so nice and easy to get along with and just so god damn handsome!
She actually felt very disappointed when they headed back upstairs and he announced that he was going to bed to get some sleep, she actually wondered if she would get away with inviting herself to his room? That's when that train of thought suddenly really caught her attention, just by the great tree did she get like this!? She had never thought of chasing a male before why did her mind lock on to him so easily and so readily? It was like she was drawn to him just like the bee that Moodstone had described, but as a female Scalathor it was he job and role to be the trapper plant, she needed to figure out how to be his trapper plant and then she'd have a tasty tasty bee to eat, god that felt weird to think, but she became determined to figure him out, so with that she turned to her own bedroom where her dreams would be filled with dragons being conquered by mighty knights who chose to lay rather than slay them and also bees, lots and lots of bees.
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First thing in the morning the whole group reassembled into the main room, Aiden looked around at tall the faces around him and he couldn't help but notice a bit of a rainbow of emotions being projected, from the quietness and uncomfortable air of Whisper and T'Sell who both looked utterly desperate to talk to one another but both were unwilling to be first to break the silence, therefore creating even more silence, to the heart warming and pure devotion and closeness of Tank and Moodstone who were utterly attached together.
There was also something odd going on between Spike and T'Kell, he seemed to be standing proud now and all traces of the submissive and down trodden man of yesterday had seemingly vanished, similarity the overwhelming power and dominating personality of T'Kell had vanished as well, now she seemed a lot more calm and controlled, plus the way she was so utterly tenderly touching him and the way she seemed to actually seek his permission through subtle visual cues before doing so and he was doing the same with her, it was obvious that a romance had sprung up between the two, but Aiden's keep eyes had noticed something else that he couldn't shake, he felt like something much more powerful had happened between the two breaking down a barrier between them.
He also noticed that even Zachee was more confident, she was wearing Picasso's pistol on her thigh and was standing directly next to him, it somehow felt like a whole shift in the team had happened seemingly over night.
"Ok people we all know what's happening today, chances are we're going to be out a few days, this isn't going to be an over in a day deal, so make sure you take enough supplies, I want everyone on comms at all times, each of you has been sent a grid to search by me yesterday so try to stick to it, if you do have to leave it call it in, ok the first team out will be Zachee and Picasso in the battle bus, that will hopefully draw off any undead lurking near the hotel entrance, next up will be Spike's team as I want you guys to make the most of the distraction to gain as much distance as you can, my team will be last, so gear up people, we're going into the breach, oh and one last thing, I want everyone on the look out for survivors at all times" Aiden said, all the Spirts slammed a salute against their chests and spilt up to get ready to move.
Aiden, T'Shara and Macha said a bit of a tearful goodbye to Missy who clung to Macha and litteraly begged the three of them not to leave her behind, "We cannot take you with us my adoptive hatchling, what kind of queen would I be if I willingly put you in danger, my goal is to protect you and raise you so that you can become the wonderful and beautiful woman you are destined to be and I will not risk that, not for anything, we will be ok my sweet one, I have my two beloved ones at my sides and I am at theirs" she had said and then Missy had made them both swear to protect her which they did whole heartedly.
Picasso and Zachee took off in the hover truck with her driving and him manning the turret with his smartgun, no sooner had they pulled out of the garage with it despite the fact the engine was not loud the simple movement pulled wave after wave of them away like a a kinda fucked up post apocalyptic ice cream van, all it was missing was a little chime playing.
Next up was Tank, Moodstone, Spike and T'Kell, the group moved with precision and refined movement that you would expect of professional soldiers, T'Kell didn't deploy her cloak just yet but her plasma casters were on the swivel as she moved standing second in the stack with Spike third and Tank with his fucking massive mini gun bringing up the rear, but Moodstone ran point.
"Ok guys we're up, comms check please Ice" Aiden said.
"Loud and clear boss and your locator beacons are coming in clear as day light, good luck out there and good hunting" Ice said.
"Roger that Ice and thanks, we'll see you soon" Aiden said and with that he made a rotating hand gesture for the team to move out, he was on point so they would follow his lead, second in the stack was T'Shara now fully in Inferno mode with her armor and hunting mask on and her plasma casters on the swivel, T'Sell was next up and he was dressed the same as T'Shara preferring the Yautja tech to human but he did carry a pretty mean looking pair of plasma pistols, last in the Stack was the very very quiet Whisper carrying her sniper rifle at full extension, Macha was running parallel to Aiden so she could guide the team as they headed for the lab.
Stopping at the entrance to the car park Macha looked left and Aiden looked right checking both directions at the same time, "Clear my love" Macha called silently to him and he gave a thumbs up and signaled them to move on Macha's mark, she moved off slightly ahead of him and he followed keeping his rifle up and swiveling inline with his eyes as he moved.
Moving through a city centre like this especially a mega city like this one when it was empty like this felt utterly wrong and more than a little creepy, sounds all around them seemed magnified and they seemed to echo off every single surface and come from every direction all at once, even the wind sounded like voices whispering all around them, it really didn't help when T'Sall would say shit like, "I hear the voices of the dead all around us here" either, it was definitely hitting an 11/10 on the creepy shit-o-meter.
They were only six blocks from the hotel when they began to encounter them, just one or two at first that had obviously fallen behind the rest from trying to follow the van, but thankfully Macha's sense of direction was flawless and with only minimal prompting she would locate her bearings and move off keeping the team on the move with Aiden in her wake, suddenly she stopped and her head came up like she was scenting the air, "What's wrong?" Aiden asked.
"I think I smell fire, it's not close to us, but it's definitely fire, could mean there are other people alive" Macha hissed into their heads.
Aiden nodded, "Ok eyes up people" he said and the team nodded and they began moving at a slower pace, they cam out of an alleyway onto a main road littered with broken and abandoned vehicles not to mention trash, there were quite a few of them lingering around further down the street to their left, the right side was empty, then there was the alleyway they had just come from, "How far to the lab?" Aiden asked, Macha looked around.
"Not far, about three blocks from here, that way" Macha said pointing towards the crowd and Aiden sighed, of course, it couldn't be down the empty street could it? He lifted his PIMP and switched it to sniper mode, he took a rough count and he counted about thirty of them that were visible.
"Ok we're going down the right side of the street, everyone watch the doorways I don't want any surprises, I'm going to clear us a path" Aiden said and Whisper came on his side signaling to him that she would assist him, he nodded, "Ok you start left I got right, sick to the right side only don't waste ammo on the rest, only take the ones directly in our path" he said and she nodded, both chose their targets, Aiden a Yautja male and Whisper a Scalathor female, both dropped at exactly the same time and with every shot fired they moved forwards while the remainder of the team watched their backs, suddenly something that made their blood run as cold as ice tore down the street and rolled over them like a wave of death given voice, "Oh fuck! New plan! Fucking run!" Reaper yelled as he turned and saw aa tidal wave of black rolled into the street from the high sides of the buildings.
"Are those..." T'Shara began,
"Undead Xenos! Run! Just fucking run!" Aiden yelled grabbing her arm while ripping some shots past her and into the oncoming wave of screeching death, Macha got infront of them and like a living battering ram she litraly bulldozed the undead out of the way on the pavement they were on, a sudden yell caught Reaper's attention and he turned just in time to see a huge Yautja male grab Whisper as he lunged out of a shadow filled doorway and hoisted her off her feet, without even breaking his stride T'Sall full on body checked the big male sending him sprawling and dropping her.
"You will not have her!" he bellowed and at slammed his wrist blades through the male's face shattering the glass of the window behind him as the blades emerged through the back f his skull, then like he was dancing he span on the spot pulling the blades free and retracting them while using the same hand to hoist the fallen Whisper onto her feet and push her ahead of him as he ran, during the entire move he didn't falter or hesitate, it was like he had choreographed it ahead of time.
With each and every step they took the wave of Xeno death got closer and closer, it didn't help that the street was getting more and more crowded, they were shooting, punching, kicking and battling their way through, "Right!" Macha yelled dashing into an alleyway and like a Xeno battering ram smashing right through the six undead that lurked there, using her tail and claws to shred the corpses on the move, infact if they weren't running for their live Aiden might have thought it pretty funny the way she impaled three of them on her tail like an undead kebab before whipping her tail and sending the three bodies spinning like human shaped projectiles into the group that they nearly ran smack into as they emerged out into the street.
"There! The big white building! That's it!" Macha yelled pointing as they ran, the Xeno's didn't even bother to run down the alleyway, they just poured over the top of the buildings like giant spiders on the war path.
The building she indicated was like a large mansion house, it had huge marble columns at the front and wall surrounding the place, that would keep out the human undead, but the Xeno's wouldn't even bat and eye lid at it, if they had eyes that was, they needed t get heavy steel or rock between them and the Xeno's and fast, "Inferno, T'Sall clear the path!" Aiden yelled and the pair accelerated ahead running far faster then the others before in a show of true Yautja grace and power leaping the ten foot walls like the were jumping hurdles, they could hear the plasma casters ripping off even as they were in the air.
There was a massive heavy looking gate that was sealed shut and through the bars Aiden saw plasma bolts ripped through the air as the two Yautja cleared them a path into the building, "Macha throw us over!" Aiden yelled.
"What!?" she exclaimed.
"No time to argue my love fucking throw us!" he yelled and with a show of truely incredible strength Macha hoisted both Whisper and himself and launched them into the air before coiling up and joining them in a huge bounding jump that caused the three of them to his the ground on the other side of the wall rolling across the ground, though while both Macha and the supremely nimble Whisper both landed on their feet and rolled forwards into stances, Aiden kinda ended up in a crumpled heap.
Macha grabbed him and yanked him up to his feet, "I'm sorry my love" she exclaimed but he just responded with a quick stroke to her face.
'I'm good, which way?" he said and she nodded turning and running towards the house, the grounds were already littered with undead corpses all smoking and burnt from Yautja plasma casters, T'Shara and T'Sall had shot their way into the building and were still shooting inside from the sound of it.
Macha, Aiden and Whisper ran in through some huge blown open bay like doors and into a huge open plan lobby that was made to look like a nice friendly clinic, lots of comfy looking seats, big pictures of pretty human woman smiling holding up various products of some kind or another, there were even a few of other species too, Aiden noticed one of a Scalathor advertising scale wax and to be fair her scales did look very very shiny.
"Fuck Weyland-Yutani! I might have fucking known! Why whenever we find shit like this its always them! Why has no one shut these fuckers down!?" Aiden yelled as he shouldered his PIMP and began picking off the undead that T'Shara and T'Sell had missed, "Which way!?" Aiden yelled as he began hearing Xeno screeches outside, Macha pointed towards what looked like a bank of elevators straight away he saw a set of pried open doors, "Ok go!" he yelled running over and dropping to a knee facing back the way they'd come to cover his team.
Macha was the first through the doors followed by T'Sall and then Whisper, T'Shara hesitated as she saw Aiden firing at the Xeno's now coming over the wall, "Go!" he yelled and she turned and jumped into the elevator shaft, Aiden knew that an elevator shaft wouldn't stop Xeno's at all, even undead ones seemed to retain the knowlage of how to move like Xeno's every wall and ceiling was a path to them, Aiden dove into the elevator shaft and grabbed the cables and using his cybernetic arm he slid down the cable untill he saw the open doors below him and applying the right amount of pressure he slowed down and swung himself through the open doorway which had no doors on it as they appeared to have been peeled off.
No sooner had he cleared it then T'Sall and T'Shara both jammed two small objects against the walls either side of the doorway and triggered them, red laser beams sprung up creating a net of red light over the doorway, "That will not hold them for long, we need to put a blast door between us and them" T'Sall said as the screeches began to echo down the elevator shaft and instantly a couple of flailing bodies rocketed past the doorway making huge dull and wet sounding thuds as they hit concrete below them.
That's when the first one dove through the laser grid and was instantly cut into meaty chunks which set a set spray of acid blood in every direction hitting both Aiden and T'Sall with a fine spray, "Whoa fuck!" Aiden exclaimed as some of the acid got him in the chest and the face, "My love!" Macha exclaimed reaching out for him but Aiden waved her away, "It's good my love Spirit armor is resistant to the stuff" he said.
"As is mine" T'Sall said looking as thankful as Aiden as the acid smoked and evaporated off them both but it ate the concrete away and blew out one of the laser emitters, "Ok we gotta move like right fucking now!" Aiden said backing down the corridor facing the doorway.
"I know the way, there's heavy doors that we could get closed but there are undead in there" Macha said and Aiden nodded.
"Better them than your infected kin my beauty queen" he said and as another screeching Xeno dove through the grid and was turned into hissing fizzing chunks that ate into the concrete, Macha nodded and gestured for everyone to follow her, both Whisper and T'Shara moved to the front to cover her as she moved, Whisper now had her rifle slung to her shoulder being that it was utterly useless in close confines like this, so she was running on her pistol.
Aiden and T'Sall walked backwards down the corridor keeping their weapons trained on the doorway to the elevator as Xeno's began to stream through it and were cut to pieces by the high intensity beams which sent a cascade of acid blood onto the floor and the walls around it blowing out all of the emitters and eating the floor away, both Aiden and T'Sall opened fire on the coming wave "Move!" Aiden yelled and the group began to run.
The corridors were narrow and winding and filled with undead, they didn't have time to stop and pick them off so it was a case of knock them on their arses or just ground them as they ran past, Macha lead them down through the rabbit hole like maze of corridors till they reached a set of heavy metal doors that stood open, "There! That's where they kept us queens, it leads to all the labs" Macha said pointing, above the door it said 'Bio Labs'.
"Ok it's not like we got much choice go!"Aiden yelled and the group rushed in through the doors and Aiden looked for a closing mechanism and found a panel to the left of the large airtight door, running over to it he could see that it was code locked, "Hold the line! I gotta hack it!" he yelled pulling a small circular device off his wrist comp and attaching it to the keypad, the other formed up on the door and began firing down the corridor while Macha prevented any undead from attacking them in the rear, Aiden fired up the Spike written program which instantly began running incredibly complex algorithms which he had absolutely zero chance of understanding, but he knew one thing it worked and it worked fucking fast.
In his HUD white numbers began scrolling faster than even his cybernetic eye could read, the sounds of gun fire and Xeno screeches filled the air echoing off every surface, "Hurry up Reaper they're getting closer!" Whisper yelled which sent a jolt of adrenaline through his body as he heard the fear in her unendingly calm voice, a sharp bleep issued in his ear as the code breaker beat the pass code and input it, there was a grinding screeching noise the door began to close so painfully slowly, the team moved with it narrowing their field of fire.
Aiden joined the firing line and instantly saw the pile of bodies creating a hissing smoking fleshy barricade, there were human corpses mixed in with the Xenos and the blood was melting their flesh and bones into a foul smelling chemical goo, god he wished he had his bloody helmet..
Lifting his PIMP he fired off round after after round not even trying to kill the fast moving creatures, just trying to give them enough bodies to keep falling over and tripping up on, it worked because not a second too soon the door slammed shut with a loud series of clicks and a hiss to indicate it was pressurizing, no sooner had it closed then there were a series of muted howls of anger and frustration as well as deep booming thuds of fists and claws on the metal.
The group as one span and began helping Macha clean up the undead coming at them from the rear, but these were the human verity who while they could move kinda fast when they were locked onto a target were no where near what an undead Xeno could pull off, the firing line turned on its axis and began firing at the undead coming up from the labs, they were dressed in a mixture of lab coats and hazmat suits, some of them trailing air hoses obviously ripped from their ceiling mounts behind them.
Aiden noticed that pretty much all of them were wearing Weyland-Yutani name tags on their chests, he also noticed a color variation on some of them, a black skinned woman broke through the pack and lunged at him screeching and to his left he saw both Macha and T'Shara flinch and begin to turn, but they neededn't have worried, he lashed out with his cybernetic arm and caught her under the chin with an uppercut that had enough power and force behind it that it litraly tore her head and spine out of her body and set it sailing backwards bouncing it off the ceiling behind her and dropping it onto the on-coming undead.
There just didn't seem to be an end to them, he didn't know how many staff a place like this would need but it seemed like a hell of a lot, but eventually the last one fell into a heap with a plasma caster hole drilled where it's head used to be thanks to a shot from T'Sell's casters, "Sweet Jesus Christ I thought they'd never fucking end" Aiden said checking the clip on his PIMP, he was down to quarter left on this battery, he ejected it and swapped it fro a fresh one, they were all doing the same, only Yautja plasma casters didn't need reloading as they ran on a very different type of powercell that recharged itself.
T'Shara removed her disc from a wall to their left where it had embedded itself and she hefted one of the bodies before cleaning it on their coat, Macha was looking at them closely, "Something wrong my beauty queen?" T'Shara asked noticing, Macha looked up at her.
"I remember some of them, they hurt me, did things to me, a lot of them were bad, but not all, I saw a great many of their minds, some of them were good, I saw beautiful things in their minds, they were scared, by the things they saw and did, I didn't delve into their bad memories because I had too many of my own, but now I wish I had, it might have given us a place to start" she said.
T'Sall shook his head as he looked around the narrow corridor of the entrance to the labs, "No Macha, you have done us a tremendous favor here, it has cut down my search time tremendously and that of the Spirit team as well, if we are going to find answers I believe it will be here, I can feel the pain an the misery in this place, like it has seeped into the very foundations of the building, they did terrible things here and I can feel it, but you know that better than I" he said patting her shoulder as T'Shara stepped forwards and embraced her emotional queen and just held her tightly and protectively, Aiden stepped forwards and stroked her face gently with his cybernetic hand.
"No fear my love, we're right here with you, if it overwhelms you hide in my mind, seek out my memories of you both and hide there among the joy he said softly and she leaned down ad nuzzled his face tenderly.
"Ok lets move deeper, keep tight I don't want them surprising us, Macha you stay in the middle as your the only one not in armor" Aiden said and she nodded, the group formed up int a tight X shape with T'Sall and Aiden at the front and T'Shara and and Whisper at the rear, the corridor was wide enough for them to move and for their footsteps to echo as they moved forwards, they found the labs very quickly, huge glass walls the ran from floor to ceiling as the corridor opened out into an absolutely massive rectangular room that looked like an underground hanger of some kind and it sort of reminded Aiden of a giant glass bee hive with the smaller labs being the honey comb, everything was decorated in pure white and air brushed silver.
"Oh this could take a while" Aiden said looking around the multitude of glass labs, T'Sall glanced around.
"There must be a control room, or a data Hub in here somewhere, a place where all their data is stored and correlated, otherwise whats the point in all this?" he said, Aiden nodded in agreement, that's when something caught his eye above them.
"I think that would be a good place to start" he said pointing, they all looked up and saw a room filled with screens and consoles not to mention server racks.
"Yeah I think you might just be right, lets find a way up there" T'Sall said,
"Or we could ask him" Whisper said softly and they glanced at her an saw her pointing to one of the sealed labs off to their right, or more accurately to the young human male dressed win a white lab suit now peering out through the glass wall.
Instantly every single weapon snapped towards him and the young human male fell backwards over a desk trying to get out of their line of fire, th group moved like a well oiled machine in formation to the lab he was doing a piss poor job of hiding in, though to be fair to him he had managed to survive being locked in here with an undead horde and managed to live, which was more than could be said for the other people they saw that were in the labs.
Aiden had picked up a few of the colored ID cards and now he swiped them against the lock on the door that led in, there were four different colors, green, blue, red and white, this one opened on the blue card.
As the door hissed open the team moved into a small decon chamber beyond and after a quick impromptu gas bath and a shower that smelled of disinfectant the inner door opened and they moved into the small lab.
"Special forces! Down on the ground face first! Arms and legs out to the side! DO NOT MOVE!" Aiden bellowed in his best sargent voice that actually made Macha jump, she hadn't seen this side of the male she loved before, she'd felt this man in his mind when she'd walked there, the part of Aiden that was Reaper, but this was her first time actually seeing him and it both impressed her and actually scared her too.
Don't shoot! Please don't shoot! I'm not armed!" the man yelled sounding terrified, but he did exactly what Aiden said laying out like a starfish, Aiden moved right up to him his weapon never even moved from the guys head.
"You got him?" he said glancing at Whisper and she nodded leveling her pistol on the young man's head, Aiden knelt on the man's back and slinging his weapon over his shoulder he grabbed his hands and cuffed them behind his back and secured his ankles together with the binding strips, "Got anything on you that is going to hurt me guns, knives, hypo sprays, needles, seriously fucked up viral samples that make the dead come back to life?" Aiden asked.
"No sir do not...wait...what?" the young skinned male with dark curly black hair and bright as hell blue eyes that screamed cybernetic to Aiden a fact that his scanner picked up a moment later, he had cybernetic implants in both his hands and eyes, Aiden patted him down to reveal anything the scanner in his eye missed but he was clean.
"The cybernetics, what are they for?" Aiden said flatly, the man looked up at him amazed.
"Wait you can tell!?" he exclaimed,
"That's strike one curly, next time you fail to answer a question asked of you by one of us my friend her will blow off a body part, lose three body parts and my other friend here reaches into your head and tears your mind in two and take the answers, got it?" he said and the man's eyes went as wide as dinner plates as e glance around before locking onto Macha and then his mouth dropped open to match his eyes.
"Oh my god!" he exclaimed trying to move away from her.
"She won't hurt you unless I ask her too, so here the deal, you answer my questions and you get to live, simple right?" Aiden said, the man nodded in utter panic and Aiden patted his shoulder then turned his head, "Hey look at me" Aiden said and the man fought to tear his eyes away from Macha who was now playing the role of pissed queen as she'd heard the silent 'Play along' T'Shara had whispered in her ear, she she leaned in and hissed menacingly making the young man swear and shake.
"What's your name?" Aiden asked.
"D-D-Donny, Donny Marks" the man said in a trembling voice and Aiden nodded.
"Ok Donny Marks, what are the cybernetics for, because I don't see any scars to indicate accident or service" Aiden said.
"M-M-Micro manipulators and high intensity optics, they help me do very fine level work, all the lab techs are given them" he said and Aiden nodded, now they were getting somewhere.
"So your a lab tech?" he asked and Donny nodded.
"Yes, I'm assigned to the advanced combat nanite project, under Professor Swenson, w-w-we were supposed to be making nano tech that would make soldiers who could self regenerate in combat, make them stronger and faster, but it doesn't work, just keeps turning stuff into grey goo" Donny said indicating the work space with his head, Whisper walked over and took a look at a microscope, she lifted her head and nodded.
"So where was this stuff developed?" Aiden asked and Donny paled, his eyes darted around the room.
"W-W-We didn't make this I..." he began but Aiden lowered himself down so that he was looking right into his eyes.
"That's strike two Donny" Aiden said and he looked at T'Sall who nodded and grabbed the man by the collar hoisted him up right off the floor and grabbed the side of his head, Aiden had heard of Dream Warrior mind invasions but this was his first time seeing one, Donny began to squirm and shake trying to break free.
"No! No! Get out of my head!" he yelled in vain as T'Sall literally tore the memories out of his mind, T'Sall dropped him to the floor with a thump then turned to Aiden.
"It was made here, it was classified as a special project, he saw a few Wayland-Yutani big wigs here a couple of times, they held real hush hush meetings upstairs with a couple of people he didn't know, they made the stuff in lab six B, Dr Webber was the head of the project, he also saw that moment that it got released, he saw two figures, a man and a woman that he didn't recognise, he didn't see them enter but he saw them do it, he was in th corridor when the pair of them just appeared in the lab, they must have been using some sort of active camo tech, they loaded five canisters of the stuff into a brief case and then they injected the six into a series of hypo sprays and injected all the doctors and lab techs in the lab before leaving the doors open and leaving in the security nightmare, he saw the people change into the undead in mere moments before attacking everyone around them, he locked himself in the lab and has been in there ever since" T'Sall said.
Aiden nodded and sighed, "Oh Donny Donny Donny, why did you lie to me I really hate it when people lie to me? All you had to do was tell me the truth, you do realise that even if you got off this world your loyalty to Weyland-Yutani would be a death sentence right?" Aiden said and Donny looked at him questioningly.
"What?" he exclaimed.
"Well think about it Donny, they're running an illegal bio weapons lab under a facility that took them years to get allowed in the first place, the New Britaninains never wanted to have any thing to do with your company, they had to lobby for years to get a chance to make a place like this to sell their products here and what do they do? Make an illegal weapons and bio weapons lab right under a populated fucking city, I'mm honestly surprised that they haven't glassed the place already, not to mention experimenting with Xenomorphs yet again, because that's worked out so well in the past, you honestly think they're going to want you to survive? To be able to tell a single person what happened here?" Aiden said while smiling warmly the whole time, Macha felt utterly creeped out at this.
A light seemed to go on above Donny's head and Aiden saw the understanding light up across his face, "Oh yeah, he's just figured it out" Whisper said and Aiden nodded.
"Yup I see it, so here's the deal Donny, you got exactly one chance, us, that's it, you help us, you live through this and we make sure your not prosecuted for all of this, not to mention you don't have your company hunting your ass, so it's simple really, you help us, we help you, everybody wins, or you take your chances with them" Aiden said pointing to one of the undead bouncing repeatedly off a blood smeared glass pannel over and over again.
"You, definitely you" Donny said and Aiden smiled.
"Good choice Donny, now I'm going to take your restraints off, I would advise against doing stupid shit ok, because not only can she castrate a Kinrath Gnat at two miles and let him go on to live a happy female free life with that gun but you'd have two angry Yautja and an angry Xeno queen hunting you through the city full of dead, on the stupid scale its got to be about an eleven out of ten ok?" Aiden said.
Donny nodded very rapidly, "Good" Aiden said and with that he released the restraints and picked him up, "Ok now first thing your going to lead us to the control room there and help us get in, ok?" he said and Donny nodded silently, the group formed up around him and together they walked back through the decon chamber and out into the labs.
To the left side T'Sall pointed at a very large lab space filled with bio equipment, "That's six B" he said.
"We'll check it out after we get what we need from the control room" Aiden said and T'Sall nodded, suddenly there was an extremely loud and angry sounding screech from above them, but it wasn't a Xeno screech it was different.
"Oh fuck I forgot about them!" Donny exclaimed going white as his lab suit.
"Them? What's them?" T'Shara asked swiveling to try and locate the source of the noise, T'Sall pointed up.
"I'm going to guess he means them" he said and the group all looked up following his finger and Aiden's heart sank.
"Yeah that's definitely a them" he said.