“Expect sunny, 95 degree weather out there on Zintar’s southern coast for all you surfers out there.” the forecast warbled over the radio, a stark contrast to the frigid temperatures the three scientists were currently experiencing even within the armored train as it rumbled away from the remote research base on the edge of the tundra bound for a new facility.

Seeing as most of the carriages on the train containing staff were just as strict on keeping the mobile transport of the closed laboratory's research undisturbed, the three youngest lab techs had retreated to the small balcony on the rear of the train to catch a smoke. All fresh from university, the men pulled the fur lined thermal military coats around them as they struggled to sate their nicotine fix.

“Damn the big wigs for choosing to move in a fucking blizzard.” grumbled one, struggling the strike the light on his flint only for the oldest to hold up his own electronic lighter with a smug smirk.

“You know how paranoid ‘big brother’ can be,” the oldest tech chuckled, puffing lightly on the end of his hand rolled cigarette, leaning back against the steel wall of the swaying carriage. Having been at the remote outpost for four months longer than the other two, he had a bit more knowledge on how their superiors operated. “The motherland’s rivals would love to get their hands on the plagues we carry on this train.”

“Pah!” scoffed the third technician who had remained silent so far, smoke blowing from each of his nostrils. The scathing vocal remarks on their superiors was snuffed out by the coughing fit he descended into, cigarette falling from his puffy lips to be lost amid the snow billowing over the icy tracks. When he did regain composure, his painfully watering eyes caught sight of a light in the distance. Normally he would have dismissed it as another train had it not been for the missile which impacted the tracks with enough force to send all three men airborn mere moments later.

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Chaos erupted all along the train as the convoy ground to a halt with the rear carriages laying on their sides. White camouflaged soldiers assigned to guard the scientists and their work sprang into action, exchanging gunfire against the outside threat as men in lab coats scrambled to prevent cross contamination or leaks of the deathly viruses contained in beakers and glass trays.

One man in particular hobbled his way past soldiers and compatriots alike with a desperate need to lay his tired eyes on the subject of his university thesis from when he was a much younger man back when the motherland had been young, fresh from the wars. Doctor Kristoff Burgess knew more than most the dangers of the pandora’s box they had created, mouth dry with the thought of what might happen should the containment be ruptured.

“Blasted fools...told them to place in center of train.” the old man muttered, brown housecoat threatening to snag on the railings lining the corridor running down the center of the entire train right to the locomotives. Frigid air buffeted his frail frame causing his old bones to throb in pain, eyes squeezed shut against the night air entering the one rear carriage which had remained upright. Heart sinking, he forced himself to look at the overturned carriage containing the corpse he’d deemed Lazarus.

“He-elp me!” croaked the voice of one of Burgess’s underlings where he lay in the snow, stained red from his own essence seeping from a ripped open throat. Hunched over him, a gnarled soldier encrusted in ice with a grey pallor to his skin groaned out having feasted on one whom he was meant to protect.

The containment had been compromised.

Edging his way back away from the open door of the carriage, the good doctor watched as more of those infected by his attempts to play a god began to encircle his train with shuffling, ravenous steps. Gulping, he turned his back on the reanimated corpses to search for one of the satellite phones near the locomotives to warn someone, anyone, of what had been unleashed. Maybe that, he thought, cane thudding on the steel floor with each step giving the beasts crawling up into the carriage his location, would be enough to redeem himself not to be damned to hell.