Back at Wan’s I once again ditched the outfit and went upstairs. The client had already left when we accepted his job, and Wan was there cleaning equipment; unusual equipment that looked like it belonged in a kung fu movie more than in a battlefield. There was an ancient Chinese sword, half a dozen kunai, homemade clay smokebombs, and several vials of poisons. The only thing I saw there that looked like a proper weapon was an old Thompson submachine gun. Wan was also dressed head to toe in black leather armor, a black mask, and sandals. “Are you a shonen protagonist?” I asked.
“Hey, you get to pretend to be a super hero, so why can’t I? Besides, this just adds to the mystery. If a Ninja accompanies a superhero on a mission, people will be wondering why. If a private investigator does so, they will ask questions.”
“Fine,” I said, accepting the argument. “But won’t the Tommy gun ruin the look?”
“I was going to bring a bow, but I specialized in rifles in my earlier career and didn’t have a bow, so I pulled it out of storage. Sure, I could use one of my more modern guns, but it was my Great Grandfather’s in WWII, and 45 ACP is easy to find, so I figured I would bring it out for one last battle. Besides, it’s a classic.”
“Whatever.” I said. “We’ll need at least one more person, and I’d prefer to have a healer just in case.”
“Trying to build D&D party?”
“Just trying to be prepared. I don’t exactly know what I’m doing here, and don’t want to take any chances.”
“That’s obvious. But fine. You are our resident expert as far as Cedar Park is concerned, so you lead the mission. Any ideas who else we can bring along?”
“A few.” I said, and sent a message to Tim. “You should probably contact agent Harkness and get official permission to do this. Even with society starting to collapse, I don’t want to risk angering the FBI. Especially since the fact that they are on the system will mean they are immune to the outbreak.”
Wan nodded and I started to walk out. Unfortunately, Tim sent me a message containing bad news. He was way too busy at work to leave right now so he couldn’t come along as medical backup. I called the only other person I knew that might be help in that field.
Father Smith picked up immediately and, while he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of fighting zombies, he realized that we would probably need some backup and agreed to come. He even had a suggestion for a fourth team member. He asked that I come by the church and meet the guy to see if I was willing to give him the role.
I put on my costume again and made my way over there before once again ditching it, this time under a pew inside the church. The nun recognized me from the last time I was here, and I was allowed to go back to the office.
In the seat in front of the desk sat a massive six foot four inch black man. With as much muscle as he had, I was pretty sure that he could win a bodybuilding competition. I tried to use Appraisal on him, but all I got back was
“The Army Colonel with 613 confirmed kills?” I asked as I shook his hand.
“Six hundred and fourteen if you count the guy that tried to mug me two days ago. Punk gangsta wannabe.”
“Right.” I said. At least I held back when dealing with them. Still, it was probably in self defense, so I was just going to ignore that fact.
“So, Jacob says you have a zombie problem?” he asked, completely seriously.
“Surprised you believed him.” I said. “But yes. Underground base as far as I can tell. The room in front of the door had seven of them, and I don’t know how many more are inside the base, or the layout.”
“Oh, I’ve dealt with a lot of weird shit, I mean stuff,” he looked at Father Smith apolagetically, “while I was in the military. Most of it’s classified so don’t ask about it. This sounds like a standard infiltration mission.”
“As far as I can tell, it is. Not sure if there are humans inside that are still alive or not. Obviously if there are we’ll need to get them out of there. I’d also like to connect to their computer system, see if I can get any data from it. We’re contacting someone in the government to get clearance right now.”
“In that case, I’m in. I can’t let some kid be the only hero this city has right now, especially with the apocalypse starting.”
“Right, about that...” I explained to both of them how I had been going around helping people out and stopping crime while wearing a costume.
“So you’re that Masked Healer that I’ve been hearing about?” asked Paul. “In that case, good job. Too many people sit around hoping things get better. You actually did something to help, and who knows how many hundreds or thousands of lives you’ve save in the last week?”
I could probably have Vera go through my memories and count them, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t doing it to meet some goal, I was doing it to make a difference. “In that case, would you two mind wearing a disguise when we go in? Some sort of costume that made us look like a super hero team should confuse anyone that sees us long enough that we can finish the job before anyone interferes.”
“So I’m supposed to wear a halloween outfit when fighting zombies?” asked the Father.
“Lighten up, Jake. You take things too seriously.” Paul looked back at me. “Sure, I got just the thing. And I’ll make sure he has a decent outfit too.”
I nodded. “Thanks for that, guys. I’ll send you the meeting location and time once we get approval.” I then looked at the Father. “Honestly, I’m surprised you aren’t busier.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Well, anyone that’s devout has already come in for Faith Healing. It was weird lying about the source of the power the cured them, but I realize why I had to. As for the people needing counseling, I’ve been doing groups every night this week. If this mission of yours disrupts that, I’ll have Sister Mary-Joann cover for me. Otherwise I’ll keep doing them until the crisis is over.”
I nodded. That sounds about right. Many people who have lost loved ones will be coming to him, looking for answers.
With that, I asked Paul to send me a friend request, as his hidden status prevented me from sending him one, and once I accepted his request, I left.
A few hours later I was watching a group of protesters in front of city hall from the rooftops, hoping that they wouldn’t turn their demonstration into a riot when I got a simple video file from Wan. I opened it and saw Agent Harkess’s face. “You are hereby authorized to enter that facility, neutralize any non-human threats you come across, and retrieve any intelligence you can gather. You are also ordered to do so immediately, as the situation is highly time critical. Once you complete the mission your reward will be calculated and sent to the one who made us aware of this mission via a dead-drop location of our choosing. Welcome to the world of secret ops, Agent.” The video closed, and I was left there in surprise. Great. Now the FBI considered me an official asset and would be sending me on missions. I guess it could be worse, though. At least we had a common goal here.
I sent Wan back a message asking when and where we should meet, and he sent me the GPS coordinates to an emergency subway access near the tunnel entrance, one that hopefully wouldn’t be watched, as well as “8pm”. It was currently 7:13pm. He must have heard Harkness say “immediately” as well.
I sent the GPS coordinates and “8pm” to Paul and Father Smith, and they both responded that they would be there. I watched the situation below for a few more minutes before leaving. As I was already in costume I didn’t have to get ready, and the meetup location was only a fifteen minute run from here, so I had a little bit of time. I swung by a nearby military surplus store and grabbed a backpack, a first aid kit and some MREs. The man behind the counter was surprised that a supposed superhero had come in just before closing time, but he played it cool and threw in a few bottles of water as well. I paid cash and ran off towards the meeting spot, only being delayed slightly by how the backpack threw off my balance.
I watched the area to see a black cargo van pull up and two people step out. One of them looked like something out of a medieval storybook, and I was pretty sure the other was just wearing his Halloween costume of a famous B-rank superhero. The first man wore a strip of leather with two holes in it across his face, the kind of thing you would expect a medieval bandit to wear, only to pair it with a Friar Tuck outfit and a fake santa beard. He even carried a bow staff for some reason. The other guy wore a black kevlar vest with a skull drawn on it and had drawn a skull on his own face with white facepaint. On his back sat a pump action 12 gauge shotgun and he carried an M60 machine gun, with multiple box magazines hanging from his belt. He was also wearing a M1911 in a holster under each arm.
I dropped beside them. “I wasn’t expecting Friar Tuck and Frank Rook to join us.” I said jokingly.
“Well, we didn’t have that much time to suit up, so we picked a character we liked.” ‘Frank’ said.
A minute later, and ninja stepped out of the shadows nearby. “Well, looks like the crew is all here.” I said, and they all nodded. I handed the backpack to Friar Tuck. “I got us some food, water, and a first air kit, in case we need it. As you’ll be the least likely to enter combat, do you mind carrying it?”
The friar shook his head and took the bag. “So, I’m going to be recording everything for future reference, so we should use code names in case anyone else sees the video. I’ll go by “Mask”. What about you guys?” Wan chose the name “Ninja”, the Father chose the name “Friar”, and Paul chose the name “Sentencer”, all of them being named after their costume.
With that, we opened the sewer style hatch and climbed down. We made our way down the tracks until we came to the tunnel. A repair crew had tied emergency tape across the entrance, and when I approached to tear it down one of them that was wearing a Foreman badge ran over. “Hey, you can’t be here. This area is under construction.” It was then that he got a good look at us. “What the hell?” he asked. “Hey aren’t you that Masked Healer guy that came through here around lunch? What are you doing? You can’t bring a bunch of comic-con rejects down here. We’re working here.”
I was used to carrying around large amounts of cash so I tossed him two thousand dollars. “Isn’t it time for a supper break? Take the whole crew somewhere nice.”
He looked at the stack of cash in his hand, then back to us. “You know what, we have been a bit overworked and stressed out from all of this outbreak stuff going around. The guys could use a break. We’ll be back by midnight. Make sure you’re out of here by then, ok?” With that he walked back to the other guys and ordered them to pack up their tools and take a break. They were getting salary anyway, so what did they care if the boss told them to take the next four hours or so at an impromptu office party?
With that guy gone, I motioned for everyone to enter. “Nice way to handle it.” said Paul. “I thought things might get serious.”
“Those guys have to repair a subway while the world collapses around them. I doubt any of them are that dedicated to their job at this point.”
Once we were inside the tunnel and out of view of the construction workers I activated Floating light, and lead them to where I killed the last zombie. The body was missing, but the ground where it had been was soaked with blood. “Strange.” I looked at the other three to see if they had any idea what had happened, but Wan and Jacob shrugged and Paul shook his head.
We continued down the tunnel and, when I started seeing the light from the room in front of me I deactivated the light and started sneaking. There were eight of them in their now. I pointed to myself and pointed to the leftmost two. The others nodded and we engaged.
I raised my hand and fired three subsonic rounds each into my two targets. Ninja decapitated one and was already running towards a second. Sentencer was by far the loudest, opening up with his M60 and mowing down the last four. “Careful, they have a tendency to get back up, and this version doesn’t even have a brain for you to destroy to stop them.”
“What?” asked Friar in surprise, as the other two looked at me with confusion.
“I scanned the one I killed earlier. It said that they only had a motor cortex and most of a sensory center, nothing else. No idea why. Maybe someone created them and lobotomized them so they wouldn’t turn on them.”
There were a few looks exchanged between the others before Ninja spoke up. “We should probably check out what is in these crates. Could tell us what was going on here.”
I nodded and went to the nearest crate. It appeared to be closed only with simple latches so I undid them and opened the crate. “Some sort of chemicals.” I said, overlooking the contents. “No idea what kinds.”
“Empty” said Ninja.
“Canned goods, though several have bullet holes in them.” said Friar, looking over at his friend.
“Some sort of lab equipment.” said Sentencer. “But it also got shot up. Maybe I overdid it a bit.” He slung the shotgun off of his back and put the M60 in its place. Ninja looked at him like he was confused by the action. “At least I won’t cause as much damage.” he said.
“Any quieter options?” I asked, putting another round into one of the zombies I noticed starting to stand up.
“I’ve got a combat knife, but I don’t think it will do much against these guys.”
I shrugged and nodded, and then pointed at the door. “Well, they know we’re here now, so let’s forget about it.”
The others agreed, so I checked the card scanner on the door. Thankfully it hadn’t been hit by a stray bullet, so I bypassed the scanner and the door opened. Several zombies were in the hallway, shambling our way, so I fired two dozen rounds down the hallway to neutralize them. Once they were down, we went through the door. The hallway was about fifty meters long, lit by emergency strips, with doors on both sides. I and Ninja started bypassing locks, only to find that for the most part they were either offices or bedrooms, with one bathroom mixed in. Most of the power was off in the facility so none of the office computers would boot up, so we continued to make our way down the hallway. Near the end of the hallway there was a facility map. The “You are here” arrow pointed to an area just before the cafeteria, with another hallway and a gymnasium also being connected to it. This facility appeared to be meant for long term habitation. The other hallway had several other offices on the sides of it, with two important rooms at the sides of the end of the hallway, the generator room and the server room, and an unusual room at the end. That room was only labeled “Object X Facility”.
“That seems promising.” I said, pointing to the Object X Facility. “Must be special.”
“Yeah.” responded Ninja. “But we should probably power up the generator and the server first, if we are going to pull their records.”
“Fair enough.” I responded. I opened up the cafeteria, this door not needing a security card, only to notice that the place was trashed. There were partial corpses of zombies scattered around, the serving area looked like someone had destroyed it, and all of the tables and chairs looked like they had been purposefully knocked towards the walls. I put my finger to my lips to signal the need for silence, and made my way behind the serving table. The door to the walk in freezer had been ripped off of its hinges and all of the stored food inside had been ransacked.
I went back to the others, who were looking into the gym. “Hey, guys, I think..” I began to whisper before Sentencer raised his hand to signal me to be quiet. He pointed towards the door, and I activated Eagle Eyes to look inside.
In the middle of the basketball court lay a massive creature. It was at least three and a half meters tall, and, while it mostly looked like a rhinoceros, it had metallic looking plates down its spine and on its face, with its horn even being replaced by that substance. I could tell that we didn’t want to pick a fight with it. I motioned for us to back up, only to see it open its eyes and look at us.