Andy kept Julie trained on the little man’s head and gestured to the stairwell. “After you.”

“Andy,” Clara said. “Put your weapon down.”

Reluctantly, he holstered Julie. It would only take him a split second to draw her again anyway.

“Sax,” his sister continued, getting between him and the little foxy fellow. “He was dead, you know that. Be professional.”

The man chewed his lip, his expression in knots of frustration, but he didn’t reach for his weapon.

“Come,” the muscular mercenary with the spear said. “We should get to the roof.”

Andy followed his sister into the stairwell. The clamour downstairs was getting louder.

“I will hold them off,” the spear-wielding merc said. “Don’t shoot unless you have to. You will only draw more.”

Clara braced beneath a hole in the ceiling to give Andy a leg up. He jumped up and onto the roof, then offered a hand down to Clara. She grabbed his forearm, but he struggled to haul her up. “Damn you weigh a ton.”

“Thanks a lot,” she said, pulling herself through the frame. “You should lift more weights.” She lay flat on the roof, offering her hand down to the other merc. Andy jogged over to the building’s edge above where they’d parked their jeep next to the alleyway. Zombies lined the chain fence, but there were no breaches nearby–the worst of that was in the carpark beyond. There was a fire escape at the rear of the building above where they’d broken in earlier that day. If they went down it, they could get to their jeep without a problem.

Behind him, the last of the warrior merc climbed onto the roof. The tip of her spear was blackened with a chalky residue. Something tickled the back of Andy’s mind like a blinking warning light. Andy turned around just as a lone zombie burst out of the rooftop control room beside the satellite tower and sprinted towards them. Andy wanted to shoot it, but knew it was a bad idea. The sound would only attract more. Staying his hand, he watched as the big woman stepped forward to intercept. She brandished her spear in one arm, her other extended for balance.

The zombie charged, arms outstretched, but before it reached her, the woman pounced. Her arm snapped out like a machine piston, stabbing and obliterating the zombie’s head. Its body skidded forward and crashed into the woman’s legs, shattering on impact. She was unphased by the impact, calmly glancing around for more targets. Andy wondered if he could draw his revolver as fast as she could stab her spear. Probably not. Best he didn’t piss her off in close quarters.

The four of them ran down the fire escape. At the bottom, Clara kicked the ladder down to the ground. Cover me,” she said.

Andy unslung his rifle and trained the ironsights on the fence nearby. The zombies were paying close attention to them now, sticking their arms through the chain link fence, clawing and gnawing on the wires. But the fence looked sturdy, for now. Once Clara reached the bottom, Andy followed after her. As he reached the ground, the sounds of rasping hunger and the jangling fence surrounded him. As the daylight rapidly dimmed, more zombies threw themselves against the chain-link barrier, thankfully lacking the intelligence to climb it. They clawed and writhed, hissing, reaching through holes where the links had snapped and bent. One zombie was crushed against the fence so hard that its face began to grate through the wire link, cracking and crumbling at the joints. Others lay dead at its base where those behind had trampled and smashed their skulls.

The muscular Augmented soldier leapt from the fire escape and landed on the concrete with a thud. Andy raised an eyebrow. He had to admit, that was a little impressive. “Why can’t I do that?” he asked his AI.

The Gunslinger archetype does not specialise in athletics.

“But could it?”

With proper training and precise calibration, theoretically, any experimental ability may be optimised for maximum performance and-

“Ah, never mind,” Andy said. Last thing he needed was the robot pestering him to stick to a workout regime.

Alert: Newly activated capabilities require calibration at the Augmentation Master Console to achieve optimal functionality.

“I’ve got you started now, haven’t I.”

Clara peeked around the corner of the building, then called Andy over. “Get out of the city,” she called to the other mercs as they headed in the opposite direction. “Frequency band six,” she waved her radio at them. “Stay in touch.”

Soulless eyes lit up like stained-glass spotlights as Andy turned his headlamp on the fence, searching for breaches. It was sketchy. They had about a minute to get in their jeep and bail, but a handful of zombie stood in their way. They must have gotten in through the breach in the car park. Andy drew his 9mm sidearm, gifting them each a bullet to the head, clearing a path. With each shot, the horde shook the fence like a crowd of sports fans cheering him on.

“You like that?” Andy asked the undead, shooting one in the face just for the fun of it. As it collapsed, it was replaced by a child-zombie with thin black hair, wearing a mucky pink dress.

“Cute,” Andy said, aiming his sidearm at the little zombie’s head.

“Andy,” Clara yelled from beside the jeep. “Quit messing-”

With a crash, the fence beside him collapsed. Zombies stampeded through an opening. Andy leapt onto the jeep’s exterior, grabbing the roof brace as Clara started the engine. He jammed the slim sidearm in his mouth and unpinned a frag grenade, throwing it towards the breach. The grenade boomed as Clara slammed the jeep in reverse. Fragments of zombie spattered Andy’s face like a hail of woodchip as a cloud of corpse dust swelled in the alleyway. Andy wiped his eyes, retrieving the pistol from his mouth.

Two more zombies ran ahead of the blast, but Andy put them down with two well placed shots as Clara accelerated out of the alleway. Andy climbed into the backseat as their jeep collided with obstacles in the road. There was quite a carpet of dead around where the battlewagon had been parked. Clara wrenched the wheel under control as Andy leant out of the window, one hand on the roof brace, assault rifle in his other. Clara drove straight for the exit, but zombies still poured in from the road beyond.

Andy fired with one arm, trying to feel out the trajectory of each shot, letting his Augmentation’s Enhanced Precision steer his aim. Behind them, two pickup trucks swerved into view. Clara led the charge out of the car park as Andy fought to clear a path, then he ducked back inside just in time. They collided with a group of zombies at the exit, crunching their bodies on impact.

Clara breaked, and Andy was flung forward into the footwell. Derelict cars dotted the roadside on the outskirts of the industrial district, making it difficult for Clara to pick up any speed. But slower now, Andy’s accuracy was on fire. Leaning back out of the window, his rifle bucked like a mule as he fired it one handed. A grassy verge ran the length of the road leading out of the district. Zombies sprinted across the open fields, leaping over the verge and atop the derelict cars, to get at their jeep. He blasted them with precision-augmented shots, not always killing them, but at least knocking them off their trajectory. It was the most fun he’d had in weeks.

Ahead, a compact horde of undead were gathered on the road. They turned and began to run towards their jeep.

“Must have been chasing the Trojan,” Clara said. “Brace yourself.” She throttled the engine, smashing straight into the tide. Andy grabbed the chair in front of him as he was flung around. The zombies flattened like dry reeds, bursting with plumes of yellowish dust, which stained the windows as though they were driving through a cloud. Suddenly, it was hard to tell how fast they were going, or what they were driving towards. A zombie’s torso smashed into the windscreen, its legs churning under the jeep’s wheels. The corpse pressed its face to the glass, blocking their view even more.

Clara drew her pistol and shot the undead in the head, smashing the glass. As it toppled off the bonnet, she turned on the water-powered wipers, clearing the view. Thankfully, once they regained vision, they were still heading in a straight line.

“Yes!” Clara shouted, patting the dashboard. “Go on girl.”

“Nice driving,” Andy said, replacing his rifle’s magazine with a fresh one.

At a crossroads, Clara turned right away from the city and gathered speed. The roads near the coast were clear of traffic, so they had no trouble evading the roadside zombies. Andy turned around in his seat, keen to see what the size of the horde was following them. Unfortunately, the glare from the two pickup trucks on their tail stopped him from seeing very far.

Grabbing their rations bag out of the boot, Andy climbed over the handbrake into the front passenger seat. “Where we headed?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Clara took a deep breath. “Not sure, I’m kind of making it up as we go.” She checked her wrist terminal, keeping one eye on the road. “I don’t want to go back through the city, not while it’s dark. I’ve got my terminal searching for distress signals. Hopefully, when the scientists evacuated the facility, they headed east too. Hopefully, we’ll find them.”

“Then what?”

“Then we rescue them. Or if they’re dead, find the technology which they took with them… it’s in that metal brief case Linton was holding in the video feed.”

“Lin-what?”

“Never mind.”

“Okay, quick question,” Andy said. “Because this has come up before, and I just need a straight answer.”

“What?”

“Which is more important, the payload or the scientist?”

Clara scowled.

“It’s a valid question. If I had to choose between rescuing the briefcase or the man, then which one?”

His sister shook her head and returned her attention to the road.

“Remember the vineyard?” Andy said. “Remember that shitshow, with the killer bees and the bottle of vintage red, and that Mr Mooney guy?”

“Mr Maney,” Clara corrected. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Well?”

“If you could only save one, then save scientists.”

“Okay, noted.” Andy munched on a ration bar and reclined his seat, watching the sun disappear outside. “Hey, do you think I did the right thing?”

“What?”

“Shooting zombie-Daniel like that.”

Clara paused. “What’s the punchline?”

“There isn’t one. I’m being deadly serious.” Andy sat upright and took a swig from his hipflask to wash the rations down. “Do you think it would have been funnier to let him bite the other merc instead?”

Clara’s expression didn’t change. Andy could tell she was fighting not to give him a reaction.

“Sis, I’m torn. I’m having a moral dilemma.”

“You’re not funny Andy.”

“Oh lighten up. Bloody amateurs. Who carries an infected dude around like that?”

“It probably wasn’t easy for him.” Clara said. “Would you shoot me?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Andy tried to answer, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Because Clara was Clara. It was just different.

“Yeah, I’d blow your brains out,” he said. There was a short silence between them, where Andy wondered if he’d gone too far.

“I’ll blow your brains out if you don’t shut the fuck up,” Clara said.

Andy grinned and lay back, taking another swig. It was his job to keep morale up and stop Clara overthinking things. By the look of the smirk on her face, he reckoned it was mission accomplished.

“So,” Clara said. “How does this new ability of yours work?”

Andy groaned. “I point Julie and shoot, it’s just a feeling.”

“No but, what’s the science behind it?”

“Passion.”

Clara raised an eyebrow.

“Fine, I’ll ask. Hey AI,” Andy tapped his skull. “What’s going on in there?”

What proceeded was two hours of his life Andy would never get back, wherein he relayed Clara’s questions to the voices in his head. The robot described specifics on how to use the Vortex Shot, as it was called, what scenarios it would be useful in, how to train the ability to get stronger… Somehow, it managed to make the moment of ecstasy which he and Julie had shared sound bland and boring.

“So, the gist of it is that you have these extra bits in your bloodstream which unaugmented people don’t have,” Clara lectured. “These extra bits can vibrate in a certain way to build up energy, which you can then channel through your familial weapon, the revolver.”

“Julie,” Andy corrected.

“Yeah, whatever, and the energy you’ve gathered synthesises with the mechanics of the firearm and the chemical reaction of the gunpowder explosion itself to transform into something… well, I don’t know… Something amazing.”

“Exactly,” Andy said, hardly listening as he tried to make out the letters on an old number plate. Did it really spell BUTTS? No… surely not. “Couldn’t have put it better myself. Magic.”

“No, it’s not magic. It’s science.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

Clara chewed her lip. “Anything else?”

Andy rolled his eyes. “You’re pushing it.”

“Oh come on, you never talk about this stuff.”

“That’s cause it’s boring.”

“Andy-” Clara’s wrist terminal beeped, cutting her off. “Got something. Here, take the wheel.”

Andy leant over as she checked her terminal.

“A distress signal about thirty minutes out. I’ll radio the Hogs.”

Once Clara was done relaying the coordinates, Andy refilled his assault rifle’s magazines from a stockpile of rounds in the boot and rearmed his grenades. He brushed the grey dusty remains of exploded zombies off his leather jacket with a rag and cleaned his face with a bottle of water. As they closed on the distress signal, they spotted a horde in their jeep’s beams and slowed to a stop on the roadside. Large isolated buildings rose out of overgrown fields, which surrounded the wide road. A row of trees hung over the pavement, where a pile of leaves and mulch had built up in the drains. One of the pickup trucks rolled up beside them, and the driver rolled his window down.

“You seeing that signal?”

“No,” the man replied. Andy didn’t recognise him.

“It’s coming from in there, where that horde is gathered.”

The mercs in the truck spoke to one another, then the driver turned back. “The scientists?”

“I don’t know,” Clara said. “Maybe.”

“Worth a try,” the merc said. “Lot of zombies though.”

“I’ve got a plan,” Clara said. “One of your vehicles should draw the horde away. We’ll go in afterwards and rescue any survivors. Hopefully, these are our guys, or at least the payload might be in there.”

“What does the payload look like?” a man asked from the other vehicle.

“A metal briefcase. We saw it in the video feed earlier.”

“Any information on the building?”

“My terminal says it’s a leisure building,” Clara said, holding her wrist up. “I’ve got pre-cat maps on here. But it could be anything, a swimming pool, a cinema. We won’t know until we get there.”

“Alright then,” the merc replied. “I’ll draw them out. You get in afterwards. Abigail and Sax are going in with you. Rendezvous on the motorway north of here. Keep on the radio.”

“Affirmative.”

“Ask him if they have any booze,” Andy said.

Clara ignored him, so Andy leaned over and asked himself.

The man in the truck handed Andy a hip flask. “A little Dutch courage, eh?”

Andy took a swig of the sweet liquor, warming his guts and tingling his cheeks.

“Cheers mate.” Andy said, passing it back.

“It was Robert, right?” Clara asked.

“That’s right,” the merc said. “And…”

“Clara. Good luck.”

The merc winked, swigged his flask and rolled the window up, then drove off ahead of them.

A minute later, gunshots echoed down the road as the truck drew the horde’s attention. Its brake lights were soon blocked from view by the mass of pursuers. After a short time, Clara followed behind the horde, with the second pickup truck in tow. By the time they reached the building’s car park where the distress signal was coming from, only a handful of zombies remained.

Andy turned his headlamp on, but before he could even get his door open, the spear-wielding merc had jumped out of the back of her truck and was darting from one target to the next, stabbing and spinning her spear in a dreadful arc, decapitating and shattering the skulls. Andy climbed out of the jeep after her, but there was very little left to shoot. Following the woman inside, Andy scanned the room for movement. They were in a colourfully painted reception area. Along one wall, shelves bore pairs of tiny shoes and coats, hung on hangers.

Above the reception desk, a sign read: ‘Massive Fun’. Beside it stood a cartoon cutout of a grinning humanoid cat. The cat held out a claw at about Andy’s chest height. A speech bubble read: ‘You must be this tawl to prowl’.

Andy glared at the cartoon cutout for a while longer, just to make sure it wasn’t moving. He’d heard stranger things happen in apocalypse zones around the world.

“I think you’ll just about make it in,” Andy said, nodding at the sign. The massive lady did not react. She just stared at him, gripping her spear, eyes wide and alert.

“Never mind,” he added.

Clara and the scrawny merc came in behind them, shutting the door to the outside, making sure it hadn’t locked. “Massive fun?” Clara asked, reading the sign.

“I dunno,” Andy said. “Let’s find out.”

A door at the back of the lobby was hanging off its hinges. An uncomfortable, shifting sound came from the room beyond, like sand rolling down a bank, skin rubbing against skin, occasionally broken by a clatter. Andy took point, prying the door open with the muzzle of his rifle. A path of white paw prints lily-padded through banks of foam matts, delving into the warehouse. Netting tied to foam-padded poles divided the large space into pens. A blue slide wound like a spring from the ceiling to the floor. Its base was obscured by a maze of padded crawl spaces. In another section, a wide red slide dove into a pit of multicoloured balls. The room had a unique plasticy scent to it which Andy hadn’t smelled since his childhood, yet, with a twist.

Hundreds of desiccated, decaying bodies clung to the netting, lost in the padded mazes. They seemed focussed on something just beyond the ballpit. A horde congregated around a row of slides painted like a rainbow. The slides dipped and flattened at intervals. The red slide only dipped twice along its length while the purple one had bumps all the way down. At the centre of the rainbow on the green slide, a man dressed in a laboratory coat clung to the edges for his life. Zombies scaled the slides to get at the man, but the surface was too slippery. They slipped and smashed their chins, falling down one at a time. Above the scientist, more zombies had figured out the maze of nets and foam barricades to arrive at the top of the slide and throw themselves down. They barrelled past the man like boulders. One tiny zombie, the size of a child, fell upon the man, flailing and snapping its jaws, but he ducked just in time for it to bowl into the horde at the bottom.

Every undead in the room was focussed on the man in the lab coat, until Andy’s headlamp fell upon the nearby group, and they turned in unison, milky dead eyes pits of starvation.

“Cover the exit,” Andy said. “I’ll rescue the chump.”