Somewhere in Atlanta, two men met in a dimly lit alley.
"Do you have the drive and sample?" one man asked.
"Calm down, Steven. I have them," the other replied.
"Then hand them over already," Steven said, slight agitation in his voice.
"Here you slimy bastard," the other man said, handing over a briefcase to Steven.
"That's funny coming from you, zero" Steven said.
The two men parted ways. A little down the road, Steven got into a car. As the car took off and headed down the road, Steven pulled out a flip phone and called a number.
"Do you have it?" the voice asked over the phone.
"I do, and I'm already on the move," Steven replied.
"You understand that you are holding one of, if not the most, dangerous things in this world. You cannot let that get out of your hands," the man over the phone warned.
"Yes, sir, I understa—" Steven was cut off as a car slammed into his, cutting him off and disconnecting the phone call.
The briefcase exploded open, but luckily the reinforced tube held. Steven, slowly coming to, realized what had happened, adrenaline pumping through his body. Seeing that the tube was still intact, he sighed in relief. His relief was short-lived as a man ripped open the car door. Panic set in, but only for a second before a bullet found its way into his head. He was dead before the shell hit the floor, and the man disappeared with the sample a second later.
Somewhere under a mountain, a man sat in a chair, looking at the disconnected phone. He pressed a button on his desk and said calmly, "We have a potential breach in Atlanta. Start the prep for lockdown and get someone to locate that car."
"Understood, sir," came the response over the intercom.
A man received a phone call and picked it up. "Zero, the package has been compromised not too far from you," the voice said. "You are to make sure nothing gets out."
"Understood," Zero replied and hung up the phone.
Zero looked at the phone and laughed before dropping it into a storm drain and disappearing into the crowd.
________________________________________
"I retrieved the sample and released RTV-1. Be there in 10," a man said into his phone.
"Understood," the voice on the other end replied.
Sometime later, police and first responders arrived at the accident scene. The area was desolate, with only the dead remaining. As EMTs rushed to the car and pulled out Steven, they noticed the bullet hole. It was now clear that this was a murder.
"Shit, this dude's been shot!" one EMT yelled.
A cop ran over, inspected the body, and said, "No one touches this body. This is a crime scene."
It had been a late night for Detective Roger. So much paperwork had to be done. He made it home sometime around 2:30 a.m. So when he got a call at 4:20 a.m., he was not happy.
"What?" Roger answered with an undertone of anger and maybe a little bit of hatred.
"Sir, we have a murder," an officer said.
"Okay, call the CSI. I'll be in tomorrow at 8," Roger replied.
"No, sir, you don’t understand. This isn’t a normal killing—it was planned," the officer insisted.
Roger sighed. "Who's the victim?"
"One male, white, about 5 foot 8, around 170 pounds, well-built, blonde hair, brown eyes. He has a name tag—Steven Dodger, CDC—but his license says Steven Backer, so we don’t know who he is," the officer explained.
"Understood. I’m on my way," Roger said, hanging up the phone. He sighed and got up with a grunt, thinking, "I'm too old for this shit." But he knew deep down that he could never give this up. He washed his face in the sink, pulled out his gun and badge from the drawer, and grabbed his keys from the wall. He got into his old Ford Runner—he always liked the old stuff, none of that new garbage.
It took him 20 minutes to get to the crime scene, and the whole time he had a weird feeling in his gut. His gut had never failed him once. He didn’t know what was wrong, but something was, and it was his job to fix it, as he had done time and time again
_______________________________
"So you want me to find James, and all you're giving me are three grainy photos taken from a satellite?" Hound asked, incredulous.
"I know it's a long shot, but we need to find him," Malery replied.
"But why? What does he have?" Hound pressed.
"That's above your pay grade, Hound. Just find where he was taken," Malery said with frustration.
"Fine, but it may take a while," Hound replied and left the tent with the scant information they had on James and his attackers.
Sometime later, Hound returned to his safe house, a small cabin in the woods. He chose this location because it was hard to reach and easy to secure, crucial for his line of work. Once home, he got to work immediately. He set down the folder he had on James and a name of his assumed attacker: John Macinta, a name he knew well.
"This is going to be a pain in the ass," he muttered to himself. Logging into his computer, he started searching through files and old CCTV footage. Hours passed, but he finally found something that might be a lead.
It was a black truck, too clean to have been in that city since the outbreak. He followed its trail to the docks and saw a group of men carrying something into a small boat, which then took off out of the harbor, heading towards a larger boat in the distance. Zooming in, he could make out the name "Traph" on the side of the ship. A quick search revealed that the ship docked at a port in Maine.
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With this information, his part was done. Hound pulled out a phone and made a call.
"Your man was taken to Maine. I'll send you the port they used. It's on you from here on out," Hound said.
"Good job. The money will be sent once we have him back," Malery replied.
"Goodbye," Hound said and hung up.
_________________________
The detective saw the crash site: a black SUV had collided with a construction truck, which had smashed into the back right side of the car, forcing it to spin out of control and crash into a building, bringing it to a quick and sudden stop. He pulled his car to a halt and got out. Almost immediately, he heard coughing. He looked toward the sound and saw Officer Miller. He walked over but didn’t get too close.
"Miller, you okay?" Roger asked, concerned.
"I’m fine. It must be something in the car I’m allergic to. I’ve been feeling like garbage after searching the car," Miller replied.
More coughing could be heard all around them. The worry on Roger’s face was evident to Miller.
"It must be something in the car that everyone’s allergic to. It’s only affecting the people who went to or were in the car. Don’t worry, I made sure nothing is left in there, so you don’t have to go in. I got plenty of pictures," Miller said.
"Hmm, good. I don’t want any of that near me. Just tell me where you left the evidence, take the pictures to the station, and then go home until you feel better," Roger replied.
"Alright, it’s over in Max’s cruiser. Have a good morning, Roger," Miller said as he walked away, still coughing.
Roger headed over to Max’s cruiser. Inside, he could see Max leaning on his door, not moving.
"Shit," Roger muttered and opened the door, causing Max to fall out.
"Get me a medic! We have a man down!" Roger yelled.
An EMT came running over and checked on the officer.
"He’s still alive," the EMT said as another one brought a gurney. They loaded Max onto it and into the ambulance, which left a moment later.
Roger stood up, worry coursing through him. He saw what he was looking for and took the baggie, then looked up at another officer.
"I’m taking this back to my house to start looking into it," he said. Although it wasn’t really allowed, being head detective gave him some leeway.
"Understood," came the reply.
Roger got into his car and didn’t stick around long. However, if he had, he would have seen one of the coroners inspecting the body get up and rip out the throat of his coworker.
_____________________________
In a dark room, two men sat in silence. The door opened, allowing light to flood in, revealing the annoyed faces of the men inside. The tense atmosphere lingered until someone broke the silence.
"Took you long enough, Luke," one of them said.
"I was held up. Things are moving fast," Luke answered.
Luke went to the front of the table, turned on the TV, and brought up a map of the city of Atlanta. He began his briefing. "The virus known as RCT-1 was released here," he said, circling the crash site. "We had one of our agents bringing in data and a biological sample. It is believed that the sample is still intact, or we’d have a bigger problem. Our current theory is that our agent was attacked and killed for what he was carrying and then released RCT-1 to cover their tracks. From the small police report, we know that the drive was on-site, though we don't know where it is now. It was taken as evidence, so it is presumed to be at the local police station. One team will go and locate the drive. The other team will go to the crash site and look for anything that points to who caused this and took our sample, with a secondary mission to head over to the head detective’s home, our secondary location for the drive."
Luke paused, allowing the gravity of the situation to sink in. "We are expecting heavy resistance from both infected and uninfected. Remember, they will be terrified, and you will look like the military. You are to show them with force that they are not to approach you. Your R.O.E. is to give them one warning to stay back, and if they do not comply, you are permitted to open fire. You will be dropped off on the roof of the station and a nearby building to the crash site. You will have five hours to get here," Luke circled a building in the middle of all three spots. "A Blackhawk will arrive at 1:30 AM. If you miss this extraction, you have until 3:00 AM before a containment wall is put up, and you're stuck. You are to wear full gear and armor along with a filtration mask, as we believe the airborne virus is still active. That’s all. So, who wants which mission?"
"My team will take the station," one man said.
"Understood, Captain Henry," Luke said. "Then that leaves the crash site and the detective to you, Captain Logan."
"Understood," Logan replied with a sigh.
"You have two hours to brief your team, get geared up, and board the helo. Good luck and Godspeed," Luke said and left the room.
"This is a fucking mess. I thought James's team got rid of everything in Atlantic City. How the hell did it get out?" Logan said.
"I don’t know, but it's our mess to clean up," Henry replied.
The men exchanged a grim look before heading off to prepare for their missions. The stakes were high, and the clock was ticking.
_____________________________
Roger got home and parked his car. He went up to his apartment on the 4th floor. It wasn’t a great place, but it was cheap. The first thing he did was hit the bed, and he was out like a light. When he woke up, it was around 9:40 AM. As he came to, he felt something was wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on it, so he got up and went to work.
At his desk, he looked through the evidence bag. Nothing of note—no shell casing was found; the killer must have taken it with him. Then he found the flash drive. It was the only thing that could provide a major lead as to why this man had been killed. So he grabbed it and went to his old computer, plugging it in. He went to open the drive, and luckily for him, it wasn’t locked. He would later wish it had been. It contained three files: RCT-1, Variants, and Subjects.
"What the hell is this?" he said aloud.
He clicked on RCT-1, but it asked for a password. Moving on, he opened Variants. It was not password-protected and contained multiple files, none of which made immediate sense to him. He decided to click on some.
**Base-Walker:**
Baseline infected are individuals who have been infected with the virus RTV-1. The stages of infection and time until end stage range from 2 minutes up to 38 hours. The stages of infection are as follows:
- **Initial infection:** Slight coughing and mild fever. Still early enough to receive VRTV-1 to halt further infection.
- **Second stage:** Heavy cough, high fever, hallucinations, urge to be near others, constant feeling of being cold. Too late to be helped.
- **Third stage:** Coughing blood, syncope, loss of feeling in the body, organ failure, and death.
- **Fourth stage:** Reanimation.
From there, they turn into Baseline-Walkers. They are no longer contagious from this point. If bitten by one in this stage, the stages of infection can vary. The longest known time to the fourth stage after infection via bite is 2 hours and 32 minutes; the quickest is 22 seconds. Time varies based on the health of the host and the location of the bite. Once bitten, you are not able to stop the infection unless injected with TSVRS-4 prior to the point of infection.
- **Danger rating:** 1/5
- Safe to engage; in large numbers, recommend avoiding.
Roger was in shock at what he was reading. He couldn’t believe this was real. "What the hell is this?" he said unconsciously. He quickly closed the file and clicked on one labeled V28.
**V28-Variant 28-Jumpers:**
These are a subgroup of walkers. It is unknown what makes this walker different from the others. All we know is that it has something to do with how the human body reacts to the virus. There is no way to tell if the infected will evolve into V-28 until stage 4. They will have the same, if not better, abilities as the base human they once were.
- **Danger level:** 3/5
- Safe to engage.
Roger closed the file and opened one labeled V33.
**V33-Variant 33-Hulks:**
For the Variant 33 or Hulk to come about, it takes more than the base virus. It is a naturally mutated version of RTV-1, now named RTV-2. It is not known what caused the mutation to occur, but it causes the infected individual to rapidly grow muscle. As a side effect, it makes them more voracious, to the point where they will consume other infected if left with no alternatives. However, they are a self-eliminating infected as they will continue to grow muscle to the point that they are unable to function.
- **Danger level:** 4/5
- To be avoided unless absolutely necessary.
He closed it and went to open one labeled V83, but as he went to click on it, he heard screaming from the street and then crashing. He rushed outside to see a couple of his neighbors doing the same. Then he saw what caused the crash. People were running everywhere, but what caused the major concern was that over half of them were attacking and biting the others. The blood drained from his face. This couldn’t be real, and he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t just read what he had.
Running back into his apartment, he grabbed his phone and called Miller. It rang over and over, but no one picked up. He then called the station. "Sorry, all lines are busy," came the response. So he called the chief’s personal phone.
"Rogers, now's not the time," came the voice over the phone.
"People are eating each other outside my apartment. I need you to send people here," Roger said bluntly.
"I know," bang, "it’s happening all over the city, including at the station," bang bang, "fuck, there’s not many of us left. Don’t come here," the chief replied.
"What?" Roger asked.
Bang. "Goodbye, Rogers, and good luck," the phone disconnected.