AZU-1: Lifehack (28 page)

Parker, on the other hand, took it
differently. “Oh, Major, don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything
to endanger the unit or anything!”

“
No, no, no. I’m not worried
about that. Stupid, I’m worried about you. Are you...” she pointed
at him and jabbed his chest with her index finger,
“alright?”

At that moment there was the sound of a
door opening down the hall. Parker was immediately alarmed that he
would have to face Kris, and forgot the obvious; that Kris’s door
was right across from him and still closed. He yanked Alisia by the
jacket and pulled her in, closing the door. He rested his back
against the door with an expression of fear. He then realized what
he’d just done, and looked over to Alisia.

She looked furious, but somehow calm.
“Parker. Robert. What the fuck is going on?”

“
Oh shit.. sorry Sir!...
ah....”

“
Sit down,
stupid.”

Parker obeyed, and sat on the corner of
his bed, head in his hands. “It’s Kris.”

“
What, she’s hunting you
through the ship with a harpoon?”

“
Damn, for all I know, she
is.” He took a breath and began to spill his guts. “We... uh..
slept together a couple times, and she wants to hurt Regan, and she
thinks I wanna marry her or something, and she’s kinda scary when
she talks to me now, and Regan warned me, and-“

“
Hold the hell on.” Alisia
needed to absorb a bit. “Ok, first, she wants to hurt
Regan?”

“
Yeah. She wanted me to
seduce you and take you away from Regan, just to hurt
her.”

“
You? Seduce me?” Granted,
Parker was attractive enough, but even ignoring the whole rank
thing, she and he had a very smoothly running platonic working
relationship, which neither of them would want to
change.

“
Yeah, that was her plan.
She tried to trick me into it, but I called her on it, and now
she’s mad or something, and things are ugly.”

“
So... now you’re avoiding
her. I noticed she was acting funny too. It explains a lot... I
can’t believe all this happened under my nose...!” She just now
began to absorb the part about the Captain and the Sergeant
sleeping together.

“
Er....
sorry...?”

“
Ugh. You’ve gotten yourself
into a mess, Parker. So, what happens now?”

“
You court marshal me and
have me shot?” Parker joked, but he was worried about official
ramifications.

“
Relax. I’m not a stickler
for those kinds of rules. What are you going to do about
Kris?”

“
I don’t
know....”

“
Are you in love or
anything?”

“
.....I don’t know. She’s
not very nice, you know... but...”

“
But she’s hot? Is that
it?”

“
Well, yes, she is,
but...”

“
How am I supposed to give
you good leader-like advice when you don’t even know what you
want?”

“
Major?” The General’s voice
popped into her comm, interrupting the conversation.

“
Yes General?”

“
I’ve just been talking with
the lab boys. Put the unit on active standby. We have some
interesting news. Can I see you in my office?”

“
On my way.”

~~~~~

Chapter 40: A Rat in a Hole

~~~~~

The airlimb quickly approached an
abandoned-looking complex of warehouses, once used to process and
store fish. Brock’s lab traced many of the parts of the mobile
nanite server, and other departments ran down recent shipment
records.

The various components had all been
shipped in proportional quantities to this remote, seaside
facility. Whoever made the mobile server was a whiz at electronics,
but no criminal mastermind. Kris brought their attention to a
modern communications array which looked very out of place among
the rest of the older, weathered structures.

As the airlimb made a slow circle
around the shoddy complex, Alisia spotted some damage while
watching out the bay door.

“
Hey guys, look at this.”
She placed a VTag marker on a large hole in one wall. “Looks like
it was bombed or something.”

“
Nah.” Kris said, “The
debris pattern suggests some kind of missile. From the air,
probably.”

Regan looked on quietly while Alisia
closed the bay door half way. “Zombies using missiles and
aircraft?” Regan said with cynicism.

“
Well, if this Erebus guy
controlled a zombie into doing it, it would be possible I suppose,
but that doesn’t make sense. For one thing, it doesn’t seem to be
his style. And if this is his base of operations… why attack
it?”

“
Maybe he left,” Parker
reasoned. “Used it to build what he needed, left, and blew it up to
cover his tracks.”

“
Hmm. But the wall... it’s
part of a large warehouse, but the damage isn’t near anything
important looking.” Alisia observed.

“
It’s an entry point for a
ground based attack?”

“
Yeah.”

“
So he forcibly invaded an
abandoned fish warehouse?”

“
Nope” Kris said, “This is
fresh. Not more than a few days.”

“
Someone else got here
before us.” Alisia mumbled to herself. “Well, now I’m curious.
Kris, bring us in.”

The airlimb set down near the damaged
wall in such a way as to provide the most cover from all sides when
Alisia and Regan got out. Silently, they crept to the edge of the
hole, and Alisia peered in. The warehouse looked a lot bigger from
the ground. Three stories high, and about two blocks in area. Thin
metal support pillars broke the expanse of the interior, as well as
the occasional pile of abandoned forklift palettes and
crates.

The smell of death was in the air, but
was it zombie flesh or merely the legacy of billions of fish who
passed through? They stepped through the hole and hugged the wall
inside. They were both a little confused what to be more worried
about; zombies busting through walls and grabbing them, or Erebus
controlling a zombie with a gun and spotting them if they walked in
the open.

The charred ground was still dry and
powdery, confirming Kris’s opinion about the damage being fresh,
but more telling were the clean areas.

“
Looks like someone swept up
here.” Alisia said.

“
Janitorial zombie?” Regan
joked. Then she spotted a glint of metal, just to the side of the
swept area. “There was a gunfight here.” It was a fragment of a
hollow point bullet. “I can’t tell what kind of round it was, or
the cal, but it’s not a P90 round.”

“
That confirms it. Someone
else got here first. Hey Kris-“

“
Yeah.” Kris said through
the comm, “I had the same thought. I called around though, no one
we know has been here. The General was quite firm in that
notion.”

“
Great. Terrorists or
something? That’s not my department.” Alisia sighed.

“
We’re not leaving, are we?”
Regan said, scanning her surroundings.

“
No. Not yet. Kris, take the
limb up and keep Parker in a good support fire position. We’re
gonna take a walk.”

“
Roger.”

Alisia and Regan stepped farther into
the warehouse, following the wall to the left. The sound of the
airlimb faded as it rose and its shadow passed across the floor.
They headed slowly towards a door that led towards the newer
communications array. They stood to either side of the door and
Alisia tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. She pushed the door in
and peeked in quickly before backing off around the doorway
again.

“
Looked clear. Dark, but
clear.”

“
Not too dark, we can
adjust.” Regan said, looking in from the side. They burst in and
checked all the corners. Nothing moving. Alisia found a light
switch by the door and flipped it on. The fluorescent lights
flickered hesitantly to life, some of them burnt out. They saw an
empty desk, a chair, and a pull-out sofa. Empty boxes of various
non-perishable foods were stacked sloppily in the corner. It was a
big room, but largely empty.

Alisia looked closer at the floor
beside the desk. Dust and grime revealed that there was once
something on it with round pads. “Another desk here.” she assumed.
“Wow. I guess whoever came, they took Erebus, and all his
toys.”

Regan found another bullet fragment
under the sofa. “Yeah, with force.”

A ‘thump’ sound came from across the
room. Instantly, the two girls had their P90’s aimed at it. A
roughly square ring of dust was rising from the floor. The girls
made eye contact with each other, and nodded.

With the dust now freshly disturbed, a
hatch in the floor planks could now be clearly seen. Alisia walked
up to it carefully. She knocked three times with the front grip of
her P90, and hopped back.

“
Who’s there?” A familiar
voice came from below the hatch.

“
Erebus?” Alisia called out,
“Get the hell up here, and keep your hands where I can see
them!”

The hatch raised, eight fingers
grasping onto the edge of the floor. In the darkness under the
semi-opened hatch, two frantic eyes darted back and forth. “Hmm, it
is you.”

Regan stepped up to the hatch, and
brutally kicked the hatch cover across the room. The wiry, grungy
man inside cringed down in his dirty little hiding hole. His messy
hair was white, but he couldn’t have been older than
thirty.

He hissed, squinting against the light.
“Blah! Light! Who is it? One! One gun-toting bimbo! Ah, ha ha ha
ha. Two! Two gun-toting bimbos! Ah, ha ha ha ha!” He tried poorly
to contain his self-amused snickering.

Regan imagined what would happen to his
stupid little grin with a few good solid kicks from her
boot.

“
Kris?” Alisia spoke into
her comm, “Feed me the procedure for making an arrest or something.
I’ve never had to read a zombie its rights.”

~~~~~

Chapter 41: Dangerous
Civilians

~~~~~

When they arrived back at Yute base,
‘Erebus’ was escorted by soldiers from the airlimb to a holding
cell. Alisia left the others on the airlimb, and went to deal with
the reports and talk with the General.

After some time, Alisia returned to the
airlimb and called a meeting for the unit. They met in the airlimb
mess as usual.

Alisia stood up once the others had
settled. “Well, ‘Erebus’ was less than forthcoming, as expected,
but his prints, DNA and dental records confirm him to be one
‘Jonathan Coll’. Interestingly, he used to work at
AutarLabs.”

Regan made a sour face. “Ugh. He might
have even worked alongside my brother.” Regan had actually seen
Coll before, but the encounter wasn’t memorable enough for Regan to
remember from before Autar went to hell.

“
Possibly. But shortly after
arriving there, he started his own projects on the side. It seems
no one at AutarLabs gave it much thought. Rumor implies he was
being paid for these projects by an outside organization.” Alisia
said, thumbing through various printouts.

Parker spoke up. “Fuck, you’re kidding.
Does this mean the fall of Autar...?”

“
Oh, hold on, there’s more,”
Alisia said, “There’s hints about this organization, who somehow
got Coll extra freedoms in AutarLabs, but this group is not named
in any records, and no one seems to know what it is.”

“
So what does that all
mean?” Regan asked.

“
Well... it means it’s
almost certain that this mystery group and Erebus were responsible
for the fall of Autar. Conventional weapons development divisions
may have had a hand in it, whether they intended to or not. Same
goes for AutarLabs.”

“
What the hell? So the fall
was what... a field test of a bio-weapon made by some black-ops
research unit?” Parker asked.

“
I asked the General about
this mystery group. He was as surprised as I was, and seemed
determined to question the weapons dev. people about it, and their
own sealed files.”

“
You trust him?” Regan asked
grimly.

The others suddenly felt a little
shaken by the thought that their General could have had something
to do with Autar’s fall. Alisia thought about it objectively for a
moment before responding. “Yeah, I do.”

“
Alright.”

“
There’s something else I
haven’t figured out though.” Alisia pondered, “If Autar was a
weapons field test... well... why Autar? There was a lot of money
and expectations poured into Autar.. wouldn’t it make more sense to
attack a less important city... or even one in a non-friendly
country or something?”

Everyone was quiet for a moment,
considering everything.

“
Maybe it was an accident
after all.. “ Parker suggested, “Maybe this mystery unit just
slipped up and it got loose. Or maybe they were working on it with
Erebus, but it was AutarLabs’ fault anyway, as we
thought...”

Kris popped in. “That doesn’t totally
explain it all. The Autar A.I. was pretty advanced. That kind of
behavior doesn’t just evolve on its own, by accident. There had to
be some intentional influence.. And if we assume that Autar wasn’t
a logical test site for the zombie-nanites....”