@auroraloon probably would have mocked me for screaming bananas if we didn't have to immediately defend ourselves. There wasn't much she could do. I was glad she had her shiny suit, but it would have been much better if she had found a weapon. Instead, she shoved up against our barricade to hold it in place as mass of overtaken formed on the other side.

"I'll scream for help if it starts to go," she barked, wincing in pain. "Clear the room."

I mildly noted the location of @pixel_princess and @astrowave as I picked my route around the server tomb, following my ears. They hadn't left their secured room yet. I didn't blame them. Who would want to leave the relative safety to face the prospect of death or worse - being overtaken?

I wondered if @photon_binary's memories or other information had been transferred out when he was overtaken. I suspected that was the end game, but with the remote location, power shifts, jamming signals, my hope was that only he himself had been compromised. Sucks for him, but better for us.

My enhanced ears and sensors gave me a decent view of what I expected to find around the server room. Stragglers walked down three of the rows of pillars, ambling in and out as they wandered around the servers toward our location. I knew that I could just wait with @auroraloon and eventually they'd all find me, but that would take too long, and I wasn't sure exactly how long @auroraloon could hold out before the overtaken overtook'er.

The first overtaken I found was a female technician in a green jumpsuit, a badge proudly displaying her name and station, "Dani, Data Technician IV." Two loose wires protruded from the back of her head, poking out through medium length, brown hair that she had put in a bun. The bun surprisingly still held her hair partially together, except the frazzled spot where the wires were, making it look like she had been electrocuted. One of her eyes was missing. Another wire was jutting out of her eye, dangling. It swayed as she staggered toward me.

"You look like Arial font that someone decided to turn into Comic Sans," I said, tilting my head at her sadly. "I'm sorry they Comic Sansed you."

I shot her in the forehead.

Three more names later (Alfonso, Brad, and Randy), I was getting close to the spot I wanted to investigate. It was a far corner, putting me a little farther from @auroraloon than I liked, but my sensors showed a heap of bodies and activity.

kittyboy: "Checking out what looks like the main spot."

... @auroraloon liked that.

I did not like that, however. In fact, I puked a little in my mouth when I saw what was there.

@cyberneticflare must have put up quite the fight before he blew himself up. Not uncommon for Thunder Ops, but still a last resort. His remains were pinned, arms and legs outstretched in an x shape, against what looked to be the power station for the starlab. There would normally be several of these stations with battery storage, but given the size of the compound and their desire to remain undetected, this had the makings of a shielded independent unit. But they wouldn't have just had one, not for a lab like this.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I looked around.

There. Thirty paces away were the remains of another power station. @cyberneticflare knew what he was doing. The trail through the pillars showed signs of explosions. He'd blasted his way to the power station, taken out the first, and then used his own self destruct for his final act.

Heroic.

I'm glad one of us was.

Goop dripped out of @cyberneticflare's body. I took out two more zombies as I approached his corpse. They weren't much of a threat because they were already severely wounded, with missing limbs and massive head injuries. I was surprised they were still walking, but they were, with those hands stretched out toward me, wires at the ready, wanted nothing more than to grab me and plug into my brain.

I ignored their names. I tried to erase the thought of them, as I focused on @cyberneticflare.

"You did good, buddy," I said, patting him on part the skin and uniform where his shoulder would have been. I pulled a woman's limp body off the side of him where it was impossible to know whose blood was whose, and once again it was my task to go digging into a brain.

I held what was left of his head in one hand, rummaging through the exterior of his brain down toward the cerebellum with my other. But I couldn't find anything. No memoryshard.

Well, that sucked. And I could dawdle because we still weren't alone.

"I'll just have to remember you myself," I said, and I headed back to the barricade.

Martha was my next victim. She had managed to get a hand on me before I put a slug through her head. That's only because I was trying to conserve bullets. She seemed nice. She had an awkward smile on her face, and long black curly hair with bangs, brown sullen eyes staring out. She was hunched over a little, probably had taken impact to her lower back when @cyberneticflare exploded.

In my mind, we would have met at the library and read a book on Earth history while joking about how corny social media videos were. Oh, poor Martha.

A ping caught my attention on my hud, breaking me from my daydream.

@pixel_princess and @astrowave were on the move. I could feel the shot of adrenaline in me. And I snapped back into awareness.

"Hey!" I heard through the dark pillars. "Hey!"

It was @auroraloon.

"Here, kitty kitty!"

She really knew how to make an impression.

I ran back to find her still holding the barricade, but it was starting to give, and the flow of blood from the pressed bodies being squeezed was making it hard for her, the slickness making everything slippery.

I started shooting, loading my final clip into the glen10, trying to get the ones closest to us so that I could create some separation. I took down four. At the same time, the fresh bodies helped us extend the barricade. But I knew it wasn't going to hold.

The hall on the other side was full of overtaken. I couldn't count how many. I estimated 114 that I could partially see. They were trampling over each other, doing whatever they could to reach us. Our paltry little pile of bodies was the only thing keeping us safe, and I could hardly believe it had held this long.

"We're fucked," I said.

"I know," she replied, looking over at me. "What do you want us to do? Give up?" Then she slipped to the ground, her bloody sparkly suit splatting on top of the mess of ooze around us. She held up a bloody hand to me, shaking her half bald head at me. I grabbed her hand and pulled her back up.

"Not my fault you fell," I complained.

"I didn't say it was," she replied, throwing herself back into pushing on our heap of bodies.

"You implied it," I stated.

She groaned at me. "Well, I hadn't fallen until you got here."

"So what? I distract you?"

We pushed together as a body on top started to fall. I reached up to keep it in place.

"Sure, I guess. Fine. You distract me."

"In a good way?" I asked, giving up on the body above me. I secured its weight and dropped it behind us.

"Just shut up."

That was a fine response.

Then we heard gunfire. I exchanged a glance with her, smiling. They were here.