Dan’s eyes darted from building to building, looking for any ideal positions he and his team could move to. His eyes rested on a blank billboard resting on top of a three story building that displayed bright neon text through the fog that simply read, “Please wait for other contestants.”

Li was also checking out the buildings in the area. “Urban environments are always a nightmare. Too much clutter and visual noise. It doesn’t help that in this simulated environment, every building looks copy and pasted from the last.”

“Isn’t that how real life cities are built?” Angie said.

“That’s true, but it’s made even more blatantly obvious in this town,” Li said. He squinted hard in a particular direction.

Dan put his had on Li’s shoulder. “Something wrong?”

“Our HUD constriction seems to also apply to my x-ray eyes. I can’t see through walls or detect heat signatures through them anymore.”

“I guess they weren’t joking about how much these constrictions could influence the rounds,” Dan said.

Numerous agents stepped through alleyways. Dan assumed at least some emerged from the blur barriers and onto the main roads from further away. The poor visibility prevented him from seeing any further than twenty meters ahead of him. In his immediate vicinity, Dan lost count past fifty.

“All contestants accounted for,” the announcer boomed. “The zombie apocalypse officially begins now.”

Dan observed the neon billboard as it began counting down from five minutes. A few seconds passed.

“We’re getting to higher ground,” Li said sternly. “Staying on the road with visibility this poor is a sure way to get ambushed by zombies. I got a building in mind.”

Li began moving and without hesitation, Dan followed him. Angie was right behind him as well. The stealth specialist made a beeline toward an unassuming two story building. Using their enhanced athletics, all three grabbed on to the dge of the window frames and climbed the front of the establishment until they reached the roof. Li was the first to reach the rooftop and he turned around and crouched down.

“Here,” Li said, extending his hand out to Dan.

Dan grabbed his teammate’s hand and pulled himself up. In turn, Dan did the same for Angie.

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“So what? We’re just going to chill up here?” Angie said.

“No, we’re going to adapt as needed depending on changes to the situation,” Li responded.

“I wonder how they’ll choose the zombie,” Angie muttered. Then her answer came.

Sudden staccatos in the air reached all of their ears. The thwacks of shotgun blasts and the rapid firing of handgun rounds began echoing in the streets.

Dan saw a short line of yellow text pop up in his vision.

A zombie has been selected. Cursed zombie constriction now in effect.

Through the fog, Dan saw flashes within the white clouds along the streets. He held onto his shotgun tightly as his ears could pick up the rapidly declining rate of fire from the agents still on the street. The gunfire dwindled down to an eerie silence and the streets were quiet again.

“I don’t like this,” Li said, holding both the shotgun and pistol in each hand.

Through the fog, Dan saw a few agents emerge and run towards the building his team stood on. Dan’s initial reaction was to reach out and help them, but as he watched their figures running toward him, each of them became highlighted in a red outline before the red disappeared. All of them seemingly had dropped their shotguns and postils for some reason.

Li pulled the trigger and shot a handgun round at one of the charging agents, hitting him in the neck.

“Woah what the hell?” Dan shouted.

“They’re not survivors,” Li stated. “They’re coming after us as newly infected zombies.”

Dan immediately swapped to his pistol and opened fire on the advancing zombies. His rounds hit the torso of one agent while another agent dropped dead after Dan scored a headshot.

His eyes darted towards a zombie agent that Li had killed earlier with a shot through the neck. Somehow, the agent began moving again and slowly stood back up.

“As I suspected,” Li said. “These weapons we were given are equipped with stun rounds. The zombies we ‘kill’ are only stunned and will get back up.”

Dan felt marginally better about not killing a fellow Alpha agent. But his mood quickly shifted when he saw the agent he shot in the chest get back on his knees and slowly rise back up from the ground. The zombies would simply get back up and continue chasing after them.

The same agent who Dan shot resumed his beeline straight toward their building, but was shot numerous times and collapsed. Dan jerked his head to his side and saw it was Angie who “killed” him.

“If this keeps up, they’ll continue to come at us and we’ll run out of ammo,” Li said.

“How about we help with that?” An unknown voice said. “Angie, over here!”

Both Dan and Li jerked their heads in the direction of the voice. In the window in the building next to them, Dan spotted a lone agent with half his body through the window looking down on them from three meters above. He wore the same basic Alpha uniform.

“I can help you guys up, just grab on!” he said.

“I don’t know if we can trust him,” Li said coldly.

But Angie had different plans as she brushed past both of them. “It’s alright guys. I know him.”