Finally losing his temper, Mack slammed the bottom of his fist against the transparent plasteel wall of the cell. "Shut up!" he yelled at the man on the other side. "I told you to stop calling me that!"
Kevin Thompson's eyes grew wide at the display, and he held his hands up in surrender. "Sorry, bro! Didn't mean to bother you, bro! You okay, bro? Are we cool?"
Mack fumed impotently as he clenched and unclenched his hands. It was bad enough that he had to share a cell with his ball-busting wife, but he figured for what he had been a party to, he deserved it. But there was no way in hell he felt he deserved having Thompson and his brain-dead girlfriend as neighbors. The walking dead shambling around just outside the detention area was just shit icing on the rotting cake that had become his life.
"Yah," he forced himself to say. "Sure. Whatever. What do you want this time, Kevin?"
"Awesome!" All of the shock and worry that had been on Kevin's flexible features washed away as if it had never been there. "Well, I was just thinkin', bro, that you and me . . . we were both football players, right? I mean, don't get me wrong, there's not much comparison between us or anything. Sure, you mighta played pro for a couple of years or whatever, but I was a quarterback, dude! Anyway, since we got that football thing and all, I was thinking maybe we could meet up after we get outta here, and maybe you could get me a job or somethin'?"
"Kevin? I want you to listen very carefully to me. Are you listening very carefully, Kevin?"
The man-child nodded vigorously.
"Right now, I am standing in a federal holding cell. You may not have noticed, but so are you. You they may only be holding as part of the evidence against me, but I am going to be in here for a very, very long time. And even when I do get out, I will not be a vice president of Landon Enterprises anymore, nor will I ever be again. In fact, I will most likely never be vice president of anything anywhere ever again. I will be stocking shelves at a grocery store somewhere or flipping burgers and asking people if they want fries with that. And that's even if we manage to get out of here alive at all, since there seems to be an army of the undead running around the building killing everything in their path. Do you understand what I'm saying to you, Kevin?"
"Ummmmmm . . . " Kevin scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment, then brightened as a thought went careening through the few brain cells he had rattling around in his skull. "Oh! You're saying you can get me a job at a burger place? That'd be sweet!"
Shock numbed Mack from his head to his feet. He stared at Kevin in abject horror. His muscles went taut and he felt himself start to vibrate from the sheer frustration coursing through him.
"SHUT UP!" he bellowed, banging the wall with each syllable. "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! SHUT! UP!"
"Um, maybe you'd better come sit over here, babe," Brittany Taylor whispered. She lightly gripped Kevin by the arm and then dug her nails in.
"Ow, babe! Okay, okay already!" Kevin plopped down onto the bench next to Brittany, completely perplexed as to what he did wrong but unwilling to add her squeaky wrath to Mack's thunderous rage by asking.
Mack turned away from the wall and tugged at his dreadlocks. He turned back when he heard the sound of soft laughter coming from further down the line. "And you shut up, too, old man!" he yelled, pointing his finger for emphasis.
The old man in question just shrugged, shook his head, and pulled his hat down over his eyes. His disdainful smile was still visible in the gloom just underneath the brim. Mack threw his hand up in dismissal and walked over to the other side of his cell.
Jodie was there waiting for him, propped back against their bench with her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. "And they think I'm the volatile one," she mocked.
"Ugh, don't you start, too," Mack said wearily. "Is it too much to ask that we just sit and wait to get eaten in silence?"
"Sitting next to those two numbskulls? I'd have to say so."
Mack and Jodie turned to the front of their cell in surprise at the monotone voice. Jodie immediately jumped to her feet and stalked over to stare hatefully at the newcomer on the other side of the door.
"Daria Morgendorffer!" she snarled. "I've been wanting to get my claws into you. Thank God the zombies didn't get you so I could!"
The edges of Daria's mouth twitched upward. She turned and paced slowly back and forth in front of the cell as she talked. "Well now," she said, "that hardly seems like a fitting greeting for someone who's come all the way down from the fifth floor just to rescue you."
"We don't need rescuing, bitch!"
"Yes!" Mack shouted desperately over her. "Yes we do!"
"It's funny," Daria continued, ignoring them. "All of the other cells are either empty or have chewed up corpses in them. Only the ones down this far have living occupants and power. Why is that?"
"If you let us out, we'll tell you," Jodie promised, her voice laced with venom that belied her words.
"Hey . . . hey, is that the cop lady that caught us?" Kevin called out as he and Brittany jumped up and ran to the exit of their own cell. "Hey! Let us out, cop lady! Come on! We'll tell you stuff, too!"
"I'm going to let you out either way," Daria told the Landons off-handedly. "We've got someone working on it right now. But it would be quite helpful if you answered a few questions while we were waiting. Why do these cells have power while the others do not?"
"Hey, you found 'em!" Jane said as she and a blonde woman came strolling up. "And hey, look who it is!"
Mack and Jodie recognized the other bounty hunter from the pictures DENA had shown them, just as they had Daria, but the third woman was unfamiliar to them. Mack didn't like the look of her in any case, especially not the way she was gripping the makeshift slingshot she was holding as if she were ready to use it at any moment.
He shook his head and turned his attention back to Daria. "When everything went crazy, all the power in this section went down and all of the doors opened on their own," he said. "Most of the other prisoners were trying to get out of the area when the zombies attacked. A few tried to get back in their cells, but they wouldn't lock again, so the monsters got inside and killed them there.
"We figured it was the doctor's doing, so we stayed in here 'cause we thought it might be a trap for us. After a few minutes, the power in these three cells came back on and we were locked away again, so maybe we're in the trap now because we didn't leave."
"We stayed 'cause we're buds with the Landons now!" Kevin shouted happily.
"No you're not!" Jodie and Mack yelled back in unison.
"Three cells?" Jane asked as she moved further down the line. "Who's in the thi- oh no. No no no no no."
"Oh YES, my little Miss Lane!" Anthony DeMartino said, pressing his grinning skull-like face up against the clear plasteel of his cell. "Yes yes yes yes YES!"
"Huh. So they finally caught you, did they?" Daria asked as she approached DeMartino.
"Ah. Yes. Quite humorous, Daria," the trapped bounty hunter returned. "Very humorous indeed. But no, I was actually bringing a FELON of my OWN down to federal lockup for later shipping. Except it turned out the BUILDING to which I was DIRECTED was in some sort of lockdown, so I was REDIRECTED to DENA instead."
"Redirected by who?" Jane asked skeptically. "I mean, if the building you were trying to get into was shut down, then obviously-"
"Daria, your little SIDEKICK is talking to me again as if I give ONE SINGLE DAMN ABOUT WHAT SHE HAS TO SAY!"
Jane's jaw dropped. "Amazing! We're in the middle of a deadly situation, he's stuck in a cell and we're the only ones who can get him out, and he's still picking on me!"
"Hey, you," Daria told DeMartino, "stop picking on my sidekick."
As DeMartino's face split into a wide grin, Jane fixed her partner with a steely glare. "You are so not helping things," she said.
"Okay, seriously, who redirected you?"
"A police officer," he replied. "Officer MANDEZ, I believe, badge number 714."
Daria's gaze went distant as she scanned text flitting across her glasses. "He's not on the list. Dirty."
"DIRTY?" DeMartino repeated, suddenly concerned. "Dirty how, exactly? And how would you KNOW, anyway?"
Mack cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Dirty as in he used to work for me and my wife, and apparently he's still working with the same guy we were working with. The doctor."
"The guy from the old television show over in ENGLAND?"
Everyone stared quizzically at the old man for a few seconds, then they jumped slightly when the doors on the cells unlocked with a series of heavy ka-thunks! The prisoners cheered and immediately rushed out into the hallway, exulting in finally being free. The celebration was short-lived, however, as Jodie suddenly turned and rushed Daria, her fingers outstretched.
"Wait, there's something wrong- dammit!" Daria swore as she stepped aside, gripped Jodie at the wrist with her good hand, and twirled her around until she landed flat on her back a few feet away. The ex-VP tried to get up, but the air had been knocked out of her and she found herself staring up at Jane's pistols and Burnout's slingshot.
"I think you'd better listen to the lady, Mrs. Landon," Jane said evenly. "Axl said it would take at least five more minutes to get those doors open without the proper codes. Now if you'll just stand up slowly . . . "
"Axl is here, too?" Mack asked, apparently unable to decide if he were pleased or dismayed at the news. "He's got a head full of the doctor's tech, so surely he'd be able hack through this easy, right?"
Daria eyed Jodie warily as the other woman was helped back up to her feet. "Maybe," she said. "But under the circumstances, I don't think we should take any chances. Let's move back to the control station carefully."
"Excellent idea!" a familiar voice echoed through the corridor. "Except maybe here's a better one . . . why don't we all just stay right where we are, shall we?"
Axl's robot whirred itself their way, arms outstretched and guns slowly rotating, but it was no longer Axl's face on the flexscreen in the head. The pierced countenance of the British tattoo artist and hacker had been replaced by a youngish blonde man with a small set of glasses perched on his aquiline nose. Those features were contorted in malicious mirth as his vicious laughter filled their ears.
Most of the group looked at this new face in confusion or worry, but Daria was struck numb with disbelief.
"Ted?"
"What a gloomy bunch!" Ted said disapprovingly as he rolled the robot to a stop in front of them. "And not a single raised gun to meet yours truly? I'm sorely disappointed! C'mon, get those weapons up! No, seriously, it's okay, I don't mind! Let's get a good old fashioned Mexican showdown going here!"
After a few moments of everyone glancing back and forth, unsure of what to make of the situation, Jane shrugged and leveled her pistols at the 'bot. When it didn't fire back, DeMartino unslung his weapon from his back, stepped to the front of the group, and aimed the domed bristle tip at the machine's torso.
Ted grinned at it gleefully. "Oh, wow!" he exclaimed. "The coherent light shotgun! How delightfully primitive! I love it!"
"Primitive it may BE, son, but-"
"Ted, what the hell is going on here?" Daria interrupted angrily. She pulled her pistol from its holster with her right hand and switched it over to her left to join the others in covering the drone. "What kind of game are you playing?"
"I'm sorry, what?" Ted's face scrunched in confusion, then suddenly cleared. "Oh, right! The face thing! Sorry, I was trying to make you more comfortable, but I can see you're a little put out instead, and that may put a damper on the conversation. How's this?"
The image faded for a second, then Ted was replaced by Tom Sloane, Jane and Daria's boss. Though he had all the right features, the vicious grin and wild look in the eyes was the same as Ted's before.
"Is that better?" he asked in a perfect simulation of Tom's voice before morphing into Daria's sister, Quinn. "Or this?" Agent Bealer. "How about this?" Agent Moore. "And this is a classic." Trent. "Or maybe someone closer to both of my favorite girls."
Daria grunted in surprise as Jane had to force herself not to go ahead and pull the triggers. Trent laughed at their reaction, then said, "Maybe you'd like something a little more familiar?" and morphed into Jane's face then Daria's in quick succession before changing to Tommy Sherman's.
"No, here we go, I think this will work just nicely," he said, the dead mercenary's jerk-jock voice stretching oddly with the cadence of the hacker's voice. "After all, he doesn't really need this face anymore."
"Fine, whatever," Daria said through her teeth. "Just who are you?"
"Oh, I thought you'd have guessed by now," the fake Tommy said airily. "I'm the one you people keep referring to as 'the doctor'. So inaccurate really. My various doctorates don't really mean much around here, and I suppose that legally speaking, I haven't been a doctor for quite some time. How about . . . the Engineer, instead? With a capital 'E', if you would, please. Yes, Engineer. I build things, so that should fit quite nicely. What do you think?"
"I think it sounds like some sort of stupid supervillain name," Jodie spat at him.
"Well it should," the Engineer told her good-naturedly. "I am some sort of supervillain, in a way. Not stupid, though. My, no. Definitely not. In fact, I'm quite brilliant if I do say so myself. I brought all of you together here, after all, didn't I?"
"But you haven't killed us," Jane pointed out. "Seems like a real brain woulda been able to handle that."
The Engineer looked affronted. "Killed you? As in, just out and out killed you? Goodness, no, what fun would that have been? No, what we're going to do now is continue the scenario I've already set in place. You're all going to be players in my very own real live zombie movie!"
"Okay, hate to burst your bubble, pal, but we cut through two patrols on our way down here like scissors through paper," Jane said. "Send everything you've got. We can handle it."
"Hmm, yes," he mused. "Even without the help of Axl and his favorite little toy, your guns do give you a bit of an advantage. So let's just fix that, shall we?"
The subtle whine of primed laser weapons made its presence known by disappearing, leaving only silence behind. Jane checked the safety on her pistols, tried to reprime them, and then clicked the triggers furiously at the robot to no effect. Daria and DeMartino checked their own weapons to find them shut down as well.
"Awwww, too bad, so sad." The Engineer pretended to wipe a tear away from the gelscreen. "Funny thing about modern technology that most people tend to forget, almost everything with electronic parts has at least some form of basic wireless functionality. And hacking your weapons is so laughably easy for me that I almost feel filthy having done it. But oh, well, I guess I'll just have to suffer and shut down all other neat little gadgets you brought with you as well."
Daria and Jane frantically grabbed for the packs of supplies they had brought with them, opened them up, and started trying to activate one dead machine after another.
"Digipads, gone," said the Engineer. "Autodocs, inoperative. Guess you'll have to just bandage all your zombie bites without any expert computer advice, hmm? And let's see, your commlinks are already dead, but we'll need to do something about those pesky AR lenses you're all wearing."
Jane cried out in surprise as her vision went dark. She angrily tore her sunglasses from her face while Burnout calmly removed the DENA-supplied pair she had been wearing. Daria stared back at the Engineer defiantly through her own circle-rimmed specs.
"Oh, come on, my dear," he sniffed. "It's not like you even need them or anything. You haven't required corrective lenses since you got the surgery done when you were eight. Really? Still going to wear them? Oh, very well, be that way. But we will be doing without the lights."
Power in the entire section went down, plunging the detention area from a dim twilight to perfect darkness. Four beams of light immediately flashed on, projecting from Daria's, Jane's, Burnout's, and DeMartino's lapels.
The Engineer laughed happily at the sight. "Flashlights!" he said. "I love it! You can keep those, they're perfect!"
"Now you listen HERE, you MOUTHY little junk heap!" DeMartino yelled as she stepped up and shook his dead shotgun at the glowing countenance on the drone's screen. "I can underSTAND if you have some kind of a grudge against the rest of these people. I'm not too FOND of them myself. Hell, I've only spent a few HOURS with the LANDONS and their two brain-dead FRIENDS, and I already hate them. A LOT. But WHY in the NAME of all that's holy would you drag ME into this?"
The Engineer leaned forward to put his screen directly in DeMartino's face. "Dude, seriously," he said. "Laser shotgun. I'm seriously looking forward to taking it back to my lab after you're dead and fiddling around with it. Seriously.
"Plus, come on, you've got the perfect antagonistic relationship with Jane and Daria!" he continued, backing up to cover everyone with his guns again. "I mean, that's what zombie flicks are all about, right? Small groups of people who hate each other but have to band together to succeed against impossible odds? This is scriptwriting 101 here, people! Get with the program!
"When I saw you show up outside just when my plan was really getting underway . . . well, how was I supposed to ignore a coincidence like that? I mean, what a perfect setup, right? Ri-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-YITE!"
The Engineer's projected face shifted through several forms all at once, then settled on Tom. "Sorry about that," he said, "My little chess match with Axl seems to be-"
The screen went electric blue as the robot's body froze in place. There was silence for a few moments as the group held their collective breath. Just as Kevin seemed about to open his mouth and spew forth some of his unique wisdom, the screen went live again, displaying Axl's piercing-laden head.
"Gerroutta there!" he yelled at them. "I'm tryin' ta get control uvva system, but gonna be a bugger of a ride! Jus' find an exit and wait there!"
"Axl, what-"
"DO IT!" he yelled almost loud enough to bust the speakers, then turned the 'bot's arms in at its torso, spun the lasers, and opened fire, tearing its insides apart. The screen went dark and the burnt husk of the drone toppled over on its side, emitting a thin stream of black smoke.
"You heard the man," Jane said as she started to marshal the others forward. "Let's go!"
As everyone else started making their way out, Jodie and Mack hung back. "Now hold on just a minute!" said Jodie. "How do we know that wasn't just another trick? Maybe getting near an exit is just what the doctor or the Engineer or whatever the hell he is wants us to do!"
"Okay. See ya!" Jane waved quickly at the Landons, then turned to continue on as most of the others followed her. Kevin looked back at them for a second, but snapped around when Brittany grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him forward.
DeMartino was the only one left after a few seconds. "Look," he said quietly. "I don't really KNOW you two. I have NO IDEA what's even going on. But I DO know Morgendorffer and Lane. There have been RUMORS that they've been doing exactly this kind of thing for a WHILE now, and I for one am WILLING to give them the benefit of the doubt."
As the old man turned to go, Mack called out, "But I thought you didn't even like them!"
"Son, I don't like ANYBODY," the bounty hunter answered without looking back. "It doesn't mean they aren't good people."
After a few moment, the Landons were matching strides with him. Jodie scowled when she saw him looking over and smiling serenely.
"Oh, please," she sneered. "You were taking the last of the light with you."
"No no no no no no no no no!"
Artie paced back and forth. He clawed at the sides of his head, fingernails scraping against the cloth of his cap before leaving red trails on the skin of his cheeks and moving back up to start again. His eyes never stopped moving, flitting here and there in a desperate attempt to see something that wasn't there yet.
Every once in a while he would glance nervously over at Axl, but the hacker was deep in his own mental world, a place where Artie couldn't go. Trying to access the mental link to the computer even through the most basic electrode crown gave him incredible headaches. The doctors at DENA had said something about how his brain was wired up differently from other people's, so that reaction was normal amongst psychics, but then they started going into all the technical details and Artie's eyes had started to glaze over. He didn't remember a whole lot of the conversation after that.
A phantom sound caused Artie to whirl around on the spot. His pudgy yet gangly physique caused his arms and legs to keep spinning while the rest of his body tried to stop, resulting in him almost throwing himself to the ground. He desperately searched the dim room around him, but saw nothing, sensed nothing.
Agents Bealer and Moore entered the room and called his name, making him jump in surprise. As soon as he saw who it was, he ran toward them, grabbed Agent Moore by the suit jacket, and started jumping up and down.
"He's coming! He's coming!" he screeched at them. "I don't know where, I don't know how, but he's gonna be here and everything's gonna go wrong, oh so wrong!"
Moore grasped the young man by the shoulders and attempted to settle him down. "Artie, take a second to breathe," he said. "Remember the training. Connect to my mind. Feel the calm I feel. Bring that calm into yourself. Okay?"
Artie began to take deep, cleansing breaths and reached out with his mind to brush against Moore's. Thanks to the dampening circuits in his hat, he was able to just touch instead of hitting the other man's brain like a freight train. Moore was indeed calm, at that same exact level that all DENA agents seemed to possess, covering their emotions like the flat surface of a placid lake.
Swallowing hard enough to make his over-sized Adam's apple bobble even more than usual, Artie looked up at the agents more lucidly and said, "The doctor is coming. He's been in the building already, he brought the disease, injected it personally, then erased the videos and the memories of it happening. And he's still here, his presence crawling in the walls. But now he's really on his way, a force as big as a building. A force as big as this building."
Axl screamed, startling the agents before they could fully assimilate what Artie had said. The hacker reached up and snatched the plugs from his head and threw them to the sides before rolling his wheelchair back half a meter and grabbing his temples.
"SON OVVA BITCH SHIT CUNT!" he yelled out, his voice twisted in pain. "AH! AAAAAGH!"
"Mr. Morrison," Agent Bealer called out as they gathered around him. "Are you-"
With a cry of outrage, Axl shoved them away and rolled back up to his workstation. "The bitch cut me out ovva system wif a chisel anna sledge'ammah!" he snarled, sounding almost as offended as angry. Quick fingers worked across the flexboard and mouse, pulling up window after window on the computer screen, rapid firing a series of quick instructions across the network. After a few moments, he turned to Agent Bealer.
"I need root access, luv," he said. "Immediately."
"We are not authorized to-"
"Don't give me that bloody bullshit!"
She stared at him impassively for several seconds, then reached down to turn the flexboard her way and started typing. Axl chewed distractedly on his thumbnail as she pulled up the access lists and began to modify them and Axl's own profile.
"Hello, everyone," a soft voice said behind them. Agent Moore and Artie turned to see Ted standing there, looking around in faint interest. "I was just doing a few more scans of the nano-virus when my workstation shut down. Would any of you have a clue why that would-"
He stopped short when Artie suddenly jumped up into his face and started peering intently at his eyes. The psychic moved his hands around, almost but not quite touching Ted's arms and chest, then began to make small sniffing noises, like a bloodhound on a trail.
"Oh, hello, Arthur," Ted said, only slightly perturbed by the strange behavior. "I'm afraid I don't have any gum right on hand today, but I could go see if there's any in my office if you would like."
Artie stopped, appearing to be as frozen as a statue, then stepped back and quietly said, "The Engineer . . . "
Axl's head whipped around. "The Engineer?" he repeated. "The . . . that was her name . . . his name! The doctor was a bloke! How could I 'ave forgotten . . . ?"
"Because he erased most of your memories of him through select nanobot injections," Agent Bealer reminded him as she straightened up. "Access granted, Mr. Morrison. You now have root control. Please keep us informed if there are any more changes or if you remember any more about our enemy."
As Axl thanked her and then rapidly shoved the leads back into his head sockets, Moore carefully watched Artie as Artie stared intently at Ted and Ted looked around, bewildered.
"I'm sorry, I think I may have stepped into the middle of something," the doctor said. "Who is the Engineer?"
"You are!" Artie exclaimed, then punched the side of his own head. "No, the doctor is the Engineer, and the Engineer is you, but only for now! He'll be someone else soon. And then someone else. And someone else. The man of a thousand faces!"
The two agents frowned at each other. "Artie," Bealer said slowly, "you are beginning to babble again. Remember your training."
The psychic groaned and shook his hands in frustration. "That's when he said he was pretending! Pretending to be this man! What is the Engineer? A miserable pile of people! He wants to take your face . . . " He moved his hand over his face in a circle, then pulled it away and finished, " . . . off!"
"Disguise!" Ted exclaimed brightly. "He's saying this Engineer fellow is disguising himself somehow! I think."
"He's a boss man now," Artie said distantly. "Reporter lady. You," he said, pointing at Agent Bealer, then Agent Moore. "You. Boyfriend brother. Good girls . . . the hunter!"
"Sherman?" Moore asked, eyebrow quirked. "What reason would there be for pretending to be a dead man?"
Axl's screen lit up, showing his digital face. "Oi! You lot!," he called out. "I've almost got my 'bot back from this wanker, but there's something queer going on wif tha rest of tha system! Give a look, see what's what!"
Axl disappeared back into the system as Moore and Bealer moved to the workstations on either side of his body. After waiting a moment for the computers to activate, they activated system scans for unusual activity. While they worked, Artie continued looking at Ted oddly, with an expression as if he'd misplaced something and was trying to retrace his steps to find it.
Ted, meanwhile, watched the others work, his pleasant features betraying no signs of worry whatsoever. He looked over the programs running and the directories being searched through and seemed to find the entire process more fascinating than anything else, even though he knew quite well that everyone's lives could hang in the balance.
A gasp of surprise came from Agent Bealer and Artie at the exact same time. "He was right," she said, "the system-"
Before she could finish, the workstations she and Moore were working at shut down. The lights on Axl's computer seemed to flicker for a second, but stayed strong. The agents tapped furiously on their flexboards, but to no effect.
"Guns," Artie said nervously. "Computers. Communications." He looked at Agent Moore. "Augmented Reality lenses."
Moore blinked rapidly as everything in his line of vision went dark. He removed his shades and looked over to see Bealer doing the same. They pulled out their pistols and tried to prime them, but no matter how many times they pulled the switch back, there was no familiar whine of energy collecting.
Artie looked up at the ceiling. "Lights."
Everything except Axl's computer shut down, plunging the room into almost total darkness. The agents activated their lapel lights.
"This Engineer certainly is a thorough sort of fellow," Ted said as he shined a small penlight around.
Ignoring his comment, Agent Bealer worked on pulling a status report out of the one working machine. Before she could finish, a window popped up on the screen, demanding her attention.
"Mr. Morrison says that there is a war going on inside the system," she said flatly. "And right now, we're losing. He is trying to free Miss Morgendorffer and the others from the Engineer, but we all need to gather everyone together and prepare to evacuate the building. He is attempting to open an exit for us."
"Evacuate? I'm not certain that's the best idea," Ted told her. "With as few people as there are in this structure, relatively speaking, the nano-virus is more or less contained, and we can wait out its cycle in due time. If it is allowed to enter the rest of the city, we may be looking at an epidemic."
"If we don't leave, we may all die," said Moore.
"If we do leave, everyone in Lawndale City may die," Ted countered. "I don't know if we'll be able to stop this from spreading in time, especially with communications to the outside disabled. There may already be an army of police, firemen, federal agents, or anything else outside to help us, or there may be no one."
Three agents appeared at the door to the room and called out to them. "Gather everyone together. Meeting in five," Agent Moore told them, then turned back to Ted. "We have precious little time to debate this issue, Dr. DeWitt-Clinton. Our automated sentries are almost certainly offline, which means the altered humanoids will be upon us any moment."
"What about Axl?" Artie asked. "Artie likes Axl!"
"He has given instructions to leave him behind," said Agent Bealer. She looked at the screen, then added, "And it would appear he is becoming more insistent that we depart. Doctor?"
"It would seem we have little choice," Ted said with a shrug. "Once again, the Engineer makes fools of us all."
"Okay, no weapons, no nightvision, and almost no gear," Jane said as they walked through the corridors, checking every nook and cranny in case of surprise attack as they passed. "What's the plan?"
"The closest exit is the way we came in, the front doors," Daria replied, "so we go straight there. The Engineer will be expecting that, of course, so there will probably be a trap laid out for us. We'll just have to be smarter than the trap. And as luck would have it, we actually do have a few weapons at our disposal."
Pulling back the sleeve on her left arm, Daria carefully worked her blade harness off and handed it to Jane. "The automatic deploy doesn't work now, but the manual release should. We'll lose most of the use of the hands they're over," she said, hitting the release on her remaining blade, "but in my case I can't do much with my right at the moment anyway. Burnout?"
The blonde jogged forward as Jane adjusted the straps of the blade harness onto her thinner arm.
"Will that slingshot of yours actually do anything?" Daria asked.
"Probably," Burnout returned. "Won't know until I try it out."
"Okay, take point. Jane, drop to the back and watch our rear. I'll catch everyone else up to speed."
After nodding their understanding, the three women took their positions. Daria was heartened to see that the Landons had decided to join them after all. Despite Jodie's continued animosity toward her, she still didn't want to see them or any of the others dead. She quickly laid out a short version of all the events that had led up to their current predicament, causing DeMartino to look like the smuggest canary-eating cat in the world.
"I KNEW those rumors were true!" he crowed. "And you were HOLDING OUT on me this entire time! For SHAME, Miss Morgendorffer! For SHAME!"
"Yes, yes," Daria said with sarcastic long-suffering, "I'm extremely sorry we didn't let you know we were secret agents. I'm a horrible person."
Burnout called back to the group that she had reached the door to the stairs. They all stood around as she opened it, tensed and ready for an attack, but the only thing on the other side was the pitch black stairwell. They moved in slowly, checking either side of the door and then up and down the shaft. Confident that nothing was going to jump out at them unexpectedly, they began their decent to the level below them.
They were halfway down when Burnout called for a stop and pointed. Daria and Jane leaned over the rail and peered down to see a red light emanating from the floor. They moved their lapel lights over it to reveal the utility access hatch they had noticed earlier. As they watched, the light turned green and the door slid to the side with a heavy klank!
The stench of rotten meat was the first thing to hit them. The second was the sight of a writhing mass of arms and heads as a pack of zombies pushed up through the hole to land sprawled across the floor. As the first batch got to their feet, even more were coming out after them, pouring out like toothpaste getting squeezed from a tube. The humans stared down in horror.
"We're screwed, aren't we?" Daria asked.
Jane nodded. "Oh so very screwed," she verified.
Daria started slapping shoulders and yelled, "New plan! New plan! Go up! Up! Fast as you can! Jane, you're on point! Burnout, time to earn your keep!"
As the group started scrambling up the stairs, pushed along by Daria in the back, Burnout followed them more slowly, walking backwards with her slingshot up and ready. One of the glittery balls of gelscreen sat in the pocket, which she held with only just enough pressure to keep it between her fingers.
Most of the ghouls seemed to be of the slow type, but a few fast movers deftly took the steps two at a time. When the first turned the nearest corner, Burnout let her projectile fly. It zipped through the air and hit the monster in the shoulder, breaking its hard outer shell in the process. The gel on the inside was still sticky, gluing itself to the creature's clothing. The small battery in the middle, jolted by the impact, dispersed its entire payload into the gel, causing its surface to explode into inch long spikes all around with enough force to embed a few of them into the ghoul's skin.
The energy coursed through those spikes and into the ghoul's body, causing him to shudder for a second then drop backward down the stairs and into his brethren. Pulling two more of the stun balls in succession from her hard-lined hip pouch, Burnout downed another two ghouls, further slowing the horde down. Figuring she'd done enough damage, she turned around and ran up the stairs to catch back up to the group.
Daria looked back to see Burnout giving her a thumbs up. She nodded once and started pushing the others even faster, the risk of letting the monsters catch up outweighing the risk of a twisted ankle.
"Not to question your plan, Daria," Jane yelled over her shoulder, "but just where the hell am I going?"
"Fifth floor!" Daria yelled back. "Here!"
The doorway was still open from their last trip through the area, and they stepped out into the blood-stained corridor. Once everyone was through, DeMartino and Mack grabbed the edge of the door and pulled then pushed it shut.
"Is that gonna stop 'em?" Kevin asked as they all stopped to catch their breaths.
"It should," reasoned Daria. "These things aren't very intelligent. Seems they just go where the meat is."
Brittany looked at the door uncertainly. "What about the Engy guy? He opened that other door, right?"
Jane shook her head. "The other door had power. This one doesn't. As long as it stays that way, we're good. Just everyone rest, then we get back to the safe area."
"Shit!"
DeMartino, who had been looking around through the small window in the stairwell door, jumped back, causing everyone else to jump in surprise. His light illuminated the half of a ghoul's face that could be seen through the window. It looked back and forth at them, baring its teeth. A hollow thumping came from its side of the door as it beat ineffectually on the plasteel.
"It can't get through," Jodie said over and over, trying to convince herself as much as anyone else. "It can't get through. It can't get through."
The thumping stopped as the monster glanced to the side. It moved slightly, then there were two light taps followed by the door jerkily moving over an inch.
"Aw, no way!" Kevin exclaimed. "He's cheating!"
The door moved again. Slowly but surely, the ghoul was pulling it open, and through the tiny sliver of space between it and the frame, they could hear the reverberating footsteps of more ghouls coming up the steps. The bounty hunters and Burnout quickly started herding the others down the hallway.
"I thought you said it couldn't get through!" Jodie screeched.
"Apparently I'm a big fat liar!" Daria yelled back.
Burnout took the tail again as Daria took the front and led the group around to Moore and Bealer's office, then followed her memory of Axl's lead to get to the other emergency stairwell. The bodies they had left in their wake before still sat on the ground, unmoving, which gave them some small comfort. The creatures, for whatever other advantages they had, were still vulnerable and could be killed.
Daria and Jodie started pulling open the door to the stairs just a moment too late for the bounty hunter to remember it should have still been open from the last time. Four ghouls reached out, pushed the door all the way open, then poured out into the hallway.
Daria sliced at the creature that ambled her way, cutting into its frontal lobe and sending it to the floor. Jodie was not so lucky as the other three latched onto her and dragged her back toward the stairs. She managed to grab onto the frame of the door, but there was a sickening crunching sound and she began to let out a stream of curses.
Mack leaped forward, grabbing onto Jodie's forearm and pulling. She released the frame and gripped the sleeve of his prison jumpsuit, tearing it before she let go again and got a better hold on his wrist.
"I've got you, honey!" he bellowed. "Just hold on! Somebody fucking help me!"
DeMartino and Kevin jumped in as Jane slipped past and started hacking at the ghouls with her blade. Burnout tried to push through and get a good aim with her slingshot, but the three men blocked her path.
"Fuck you, Daria!" Jodie managed in between full-throated screams. "Fuck you, Jane! And fuck you, Mack!"
Mack, DeMartino, and Kevin stumbled back as Jodie's arm left its socket, the skin, muscles, and other tissues tearing away in a ragged, bloody mess. She gave one last horrified shriek of pain then fell silent. Jane made a final swipe at one of the ghouls that had tried switching its attack to her, then jumped back into the corridor as the monsters retreated down the stairs with their grisly prize.
"What the hell are you doing?" Jane demanded as Daria swept past her and started after the ghouls.
"Keep everyone up here!" was the only answer she received.
Burnout moved to follow her, but Jane put her hand out and shook her head. The blonde frowned, but stayed at the doorway, slingshot at the ready. Jane turned to the rest of the group and noticed a high keening noise. It took her a few seconds to trace the sound to Brittany, who was staring down at Mack and screaming as quietly as she could.
DeMartino and Kevin had picked themselves up off the ground, but Mack sat against the wall, cradling his dead wife's arm. His eyes were wide, his dark skin had gone ashen, and his breathing had turned ragged. Even at a distance and in the poor lighting, Jane could see the perspiration standing out on his forehead. She kneeled down next to him, making sure her blade arm was as far back as she could get it.
"Mack?" she said quietly. "Is it okay if I call you 'Mack'?"
He didn't seem to hear her. "They got her," he whispered, to Jane or to himself she couldn't be sure. "They got her. We . . . we never really got along. We started off good, y'know, but then things went south, but we stayed together because it made good sense. Good business sense. She was always about good business sense. But I . . . I don't know. I don't know if I still felt anything for her. I shoulda. I wanted to. And now . . . "
A few words were lost on Jane with the noise Brittany was still making, so she motioned Kevin to tend to her before turning back to Mack.
"I know this is going to sound harsh," she said, "but she's dead and you're still alive. And we need everyone who's alive if we're going to get out of this. Are you with us?"
He wiped his eyes and looked down at the arm in his lap. Blood had poured from the stump and stained the entire left leg of his jumpsuit red. With exaggerated slowness, he picked the detached limb up and set in on the ground, then stood up and nodded. He looked jittery and seemed to have difficulty focusing his eyes on any one spot for more than a few seconds, but he also appeared more aware of his immediate surroundings than before.
"Good man," Jane said, patting him on the shoulder.
Down in the stairwell, Daria watched the monsters feast.
In her mind, they had definitely made the full switchover to "ghouls". The Engineer's nanobots might have been coursing through their bloodstream and attaching themselves to the muscles and nervous tissue, forcing the beasts into their horrific behavior, but their actions definitely painted them in a ghoulish light.
As she watched, one of the ghouls gnawed a bit off of limp corpse the three held between them. It chewed the flesh thoroughly before tilting its head back and swallowing. Moments later, as it went in for another bite, a series of gashes across the side of its face began to stitch themselves back together to make the skin whole.
Son of a bitch, Daria thought in disgust. She observed the ritual for a few seconds more, then turned and ran back up the steps. She figured there was no point in trying to disguise her presence from the ghouls. They were far too busy with their meal to take any notice of her.
She emerged from the stairs to find the survivors looking back at her wearily. Mack especially appeared to be about to topple over, but he was on his feet, and she figured that had to count for something.
"They're regenerating," she said simply, causing the group to gasp and swear in response.
Jane spat on the ground. "How fast?" she asked.
"Tommy Sherman fast," Daria told her. "They aren't attacking us to infect us. That's just a handy little bonus. They're trying to eat us so they can use the material to heal themselves. Pretty damn ingenious, really. But that's why the ghouls in the office didn't have any wounds on them. They'd just finished dinner."
"Shouldn't we be, like, getting the hell out of here?" Brittany asked.
"Yes," Daria agreed. She looked back at the doorway. "But not this way. There may be more traps for us. We'll find another staircase, then we'll go down to the fourth floor to find an exit to a landing area. We'll just have to hope the others make it out on their own."
As they set out, Burnout took point and Jane took rear guard again. Brittany and Kevin helped Mack along as DeMartino matched pace with Daria.
"Ah, if I MAY, Miss Morgendorffer," he said. "I was just THINKING, perhaps the stairs aren't the best idea. We've been ATTACKED at TWO of them, and the EngiNEER will most like assume we will try them again. Perhaps another approach may be PRUDENT?"
Daria narrowed her eyes at the man. In all the years they had been unofficial rivals in the bounty hunter biz, she had never heard him talk so formally or politely unless he was lulling someone into a false sense of security before bawling them out over some perceived slight.
"Perhaps," she said slowly. "What do you have in mind?"
"The ELEVATOR shafts," he explained. "Even IF the bastards can get in there and CLIMB, Miss Burnout should be able to pick them off quite easily from the doors. Then, when the way is CLEAR, we climb DOWN, open the DOORS, and mission accomplished!"
"Hmm." Daria rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "It sounds suspiciously like a good idea. But we'll try it anyway. Carefully."
She passed the word on to the others, and within just a few moments, Burnout had scouted out a nearby set of lifts. Together, DeMartino and Kevin managed to pull the doors open while Burnout covered them. It took some effort, but finally they were rewarded by an empty shaft.
As DeMartino held the back of her jacket to steady her, Burnout leaned out and shined her light up and then down. The cables hung down as far as she could see, but there was no sign of the elevator itself or any ghouls. The bounty hunter reeled her back in on her signal, then Jane slipped by and slithered down onto the rungs built into the wall below the opening.
"HEY!" DeMartino shouted.
"Ladies first!" Jane yelled back up with a smile and a wink. "Besides, I've got a crunchy outer shell and a knife to wedge the door open. So wait your turn, old man!"
He swore angrily, but refrained from slinging one of his usual insults. Daria leaned out and filled the space with one of her own smart remarks instead.
"If you get yourself killed, Lane, you're out of my will!"
Jane laughed darkly and swung her legs out into the space in front of the fourth floor door. Though her upper body strength wasn't on par with her partner's, she easily lowered herself the rest of the way and then hung onto the bottom rung with one hand while she slid her arm blade between the double doors. After a few moments of wiggling it around and changing the angle of attack, she managed to open the door just a crack.
The flailing arms that exploded from that crack nearly caused her to lose her grip. With a cry of surprise, she grabbed back onto the inset ladder with both hands and started hauling herself up, but the ghouls below quickly got the door all the way open and flung their arms around her legs.
"Gahdammit!"
"Jane!" Daria yelled, her words echoing in the shaft. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, fine and dandy!" the raven-haired hunter shouted back sarcastically. "Minor undeath issue! Be with you in a moment!"
"How's your armor holding up?"
Jane heaved herself up and wrapped one of her arms around a rung, then grabbed onto her wrist with her other hand, careful not to cut herself with the arm blade above it. Her muscles were already straining to their breaking point, but wedging herself into the tight space afforded her a moment to wipe away the sweat dripping into her eyes and take stock of the situation.
She couldn't tell exactly how many ghouls were down below, but she could still see and feel them scrabbling at her legs, trying to tear into them with their fingernails but failing miserably. One even managed to sink its teeth into Jane's knee, but all she felt was a slight pressure.
"Not . . . too bad!" she wheezed. "I think . . . they just- shit!"
"What? What?"
"They're tearing at my boots! And I kinda forgot my armor only goes down to my ankles!"
DeMartino, who had already swung himself out into the shaft, quickened his decent. Burnout leaned over, slingshot out, but once again she found her view blocked. Daria slammed her hand into the wall next to her in frustration, gritting her teeth and feeling completely useless.
With a speed and agility that belied his age, DeMartino swung out around Jane as he came down, latching the toes of his cowboy boots into the smaller, shallower trough of rungs encircling the door frame. With a heavy grunt of exertion, he managed to kick-step his way across the top of the frame and over to the side, then continued down diagonally, reaching around Jane to do so.
"My APOLOGIES, Miss Lane," he said after accidentally jabbing her in the side on his way past.
"Hey, no worries," Jane replied, her voice straining and face turning red as she struggled not to be dragged under. "Get these things offa me . . . and we'll call it even!"
Fully transferred to the side ladder, he grinned toothily and pulled out his shotgun to hold it by the barrel. "I THINK I can arrange THAT!" he snarled, then got the nearest ghoul's attention by slamming the butt of the gun into its face.
It jerked back as blood exploded from its nose, but it retained its hold on Jane's legs, causing her to cry out as she was jerked around. DeMartino followed up his first attack with a second blow expertly delivered to the exact same spot, shooting more blood into the air and collapsing the ghoul's nose into its head. A third shot took it down permanently, shoving the bones of its nose back into its brain.
Two of the monsters lost interest in the unmovable woman and turned to grab at him instead. He beat one back, but the other snatched hold of his weapon and yanked on it. His grip slipped a little, but rather than allow his ghoul-beater to be taken, DeMartino swung around and planted his boot in the ghoul's midsection. It flew backward as he followed it in and jabbed an elbow backward into the one creature still hanging onto Jane's legs.
The ghoul, unprepared for this attack, stumbled out into the elevator shaft and swung for a second. When it reached the apex of its swing, its grasp failed and it slid off to tumble silently down the shaft, hitting the cables with a tight spang every so often on the way.
Jane swung back and hit the wall with the lower part of her torso, knocking the air out of her. Her grip on the arm which was twisted around the rung slipped and she fell as well. For one sickening moment, she thought she was going to join the ghoul, but because her legs and hips had swung out to the other side of the doorway, she hit the floor with the edge of the door frame slamming into the small of her back.
She stretched to reach behind herself and grabbed the top rung of the ladder below so that when she started to slide backward, she merely flipped over and landed with her feet safely on a lower rung. With the last of her strength, she pulled herself onto the fourth floor and collapsed. Looking up, she blearily made out DeMartino swinging his shotgun wildly, shooing the remaining ghouls back, putting them at a stalemate.
Up above, Daria watched the entire show with mounting horror. Every fiber of her being wanted to leap down into the shaft and do something, but she flexed her injured hand and reminded herself that she'd never make it in time, and even if she did there was little she or any of the others could do under the circumstances. When the two other bounty hunters finally disappeared through the opening below, clearing the way, she turned to Burnout, her eyes lit with fire.
"Help them," she commanded.
Without batting an eye, Burnout wedged her slingshot into her belt, put her bullet back in her hip pack, and then hopped out into space. She twisted her body as she moved through the air, fell nearly halfway to the floor below, then reached out and snagged onto the ladder just as easily as if she'd been walking across flat ground. Within moments she, too, had disappeared through the lower opening.
Daria watched after her, straining her ears to listen to the sounds of pitched battle coming up from below, then jerked backward to avoid being cut in half by the suddenly closing doors. She looked back to see Kevin, Brittany, and Mack staring at her in shock, then turned back to the door to see that the panel next to it was lit up. Instead of the usual controls, the screen showed only four words in big block letters.
HA
HA
HA
-E