Flying high over the ruined city of Perth in an old Hercules carrier jet, the men sat in their heavy duty rad suits. The Graphene suits had been looted from an old atomic power plant nearly 20 years prior and retrofitted with heavy duty seals to protect against new aggressive forms of foreign bacteria. Requiring a constant power source the suits were manufactured at the atomic scale to trap invading radioactive particles and then using tiny controlled electro-magnetic pulses to ablatively bleed the radiation into a heavily shielded vial of heavy water, held on the right hip of each suit, each man was equipped with seven vials that would ejected and replaced as needed, depending on when the Geiger counter within the hip device would register them as harmfully saturated. “Ten Seconds until drop” said pilots voice over the P.A. “Remember to set up a flair when you land so I can drop the buggy near your location, otherwise you’ve got a one hundred mile trek in the fucked up waste” The Sergeant tactfully responded with an affirmative call sign on his wrist mounted computer and then hastily cut of communications with the cabin before Ignacio could respond. “Fuckin asshole” said Iggs disgustedly over their suit com, his eyes ringed with darkness due to lack of sleep as he looked out at the rubble they were about to leap head long into. No one had anything comforting to respond. Theo simply sat there and waited for the pounding in his eyes to subside. He was a salvage tech and he was being flung into this box of shit with only his wits and his side arm. The other two men would have their heavy duty weapons, Ignacio with his Assault Rifle and the older Sergeant with his Sniper. Provided that they were able to land safely on the outskirts of this death trap of a city they would have to navigate their way through the alleys and broken building until they found a space clear enough to light a flair to receive their small buggy, a lightweight solar powered vehicle that would be there only transport in this place as all other machinery would have been fried by the initial EMP of the Nuke. A harsh siren sounded and a green light appeared over the open back of the ancient Hercules. There was little time for a few half hearted “good lucks” between the three men but they did so anyway as they flung themselves into the open air and trusted in their parachutes now to fail them as the fell from over a mile above the broke world below. Having agreed to find different areas to land in the hope of at least one of the squad finding a safe point of ingress, Theo watched carefully as his other teammates' coms slowly drifted into the red on his heads up display, both times this was accompanied with a high pitched mechanical whine from in his ear that he heard over the roar of the wind as the computer in his headset seemed to protest the plan. Landing was simple enough, Theo found that he was able to navigate his decent in his parachute with surprising ease, landing in a street that seemed to be less filled wrecked vehicles. Once on the ground he began to hear the steady whine of his Geiger counter increase in pitch. He checked the vial of heavy water on his hip and saw that it was undamaged and that the small display on the device registered it as working and slowly collected the already assembled background radiation.

He scanned the street for alley ways that would lead him further into the city. They had agreed to assemble together at the ‘North Inch’ which was once a scenic park and by far most devoid of rubble, making it an ideal spot to drop the buggy. Once there, Theo would use several remote detonators that he carried in his pack to clear a large area of debris, which they hoped would just be trees and await the arrival of their transportation. Theo pulled out his side-arm and slowly made his way through the alleys. Theo checked his compass but found that it was malfunctioning, the needle going haywire “Residual magnetic disturbance” he mumbled quietly before carrying on. He would have to find a point to get a bird’s eye view otherwise he would wandering aimlessly. The only thing that could track something in all the radioactive chaos was the Ariadne, which could keep in contact with an area the size of a couple molecules through the heart of a star and it was safely held in the buggy that they had to find a space for, meaning that if Theo and his group didn’t survive they could always try again from this point.

“Clever tactic you old bastard” Theo mused under his breath. He began to jog quickly among the ruined buildings looking desperately for a possible point to climb and see his position. Finally after nearly an hour of frantic searching among the rubble he came across an old apartment building that looked structurally sound. After a minute he found what looked like a fire-escape at the side of the building that seemed to have stood the test of time. Theo found himself begrudgingly thanking Hagiel for the lightweight rad suit as he easily hoisted himself up onto the rickety metal, which squealed ominously underfoot but held for his ascent. By the time he reached the top of the fire escape, Theo was out of breath and sweating profusely in the bio suit that allowed neither breeze nor un-recycled air inside. He looked out over the sullen vista and then to the un-breaking clouds above and fancied he could see the faces of smiling devils held within the vapours, blocking out most of the sunlight over this region and most of the Earth for many years. Shaking himself from his reverie, he looked back out at the city scape and almost at once saw the direction he needed to go, the North Inch was only a few streets away, he could see the mottled wood of a hundred dead trees, many of whom were still standing despite life leaving them to long ago. Sheepishly, Theo slowly climbed down the fire-escape, gritting his teeth at every moan of metal, before reaching the relative safety of the street below and heading in the direction of the Park. As turned down the nearest street heading in the direction of the park, Theo heard something, a scratching noise that echoed from an alley nearby, Theo ducked down low pulled his side-arm from his holster only to turn and see the massive unfolding shadow of a creature in the alley standing up unsteadily on two unnaturally large legs. Theo’s moth went dry and his heart began to race. If it was what he hoped it wasn’t then he was in trouble, the only possible inhabitants of this ruined city besides himself and his team mates would be the afflicted and of those, the only ones that would have survived until now would be the Minotaurs, rampant creatures that attacked and devoured any possible source of food they came across and if it was one of them, he was already in its sights, their hearing was unnaturally good as their pituitary gland not only caused their bodies to grow as a whole but also their ear drums and vocal cords to the point where these massive creatures were capable of finding prey by sound alone and only capable of a malevolent bovine wail, however the effect of this also produced a swelling in the ocular canal of the afflicted, and in most cases, rendered them blind.

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Theo’s only chance was to soundlessly move away from this monstrosity and meet up with his team mates. Slowly, ever so slowly Theo began to move down the down the street and away from the beast, his gun levelled at all times in its direction. As he was rounding the corner and no longer directly in the creatures line of sight he slowly relaxed and stood up straight, intent on jogging quickly and quietly to the park and finding his team mates, who would most likely have made it their by now. As he turned around his foot accidentally collided with a fallen piece of rebar that clanged against his metal clad foot and scraped noisily across the ground.

For moment there was nothing and then there was a noise like a fleshy foghorn only one street away from the terrified Theo. From around the corner came the monster. Standing at 8ft tall its vacant eyes unnaturally centred on Theo’s lone and shocked form as it barrelled towards him. There was no time to think, Theo was already running when he fired the first round the clipped the side of the beast, barely making it dent in the thick and callused hide, by the time Theo fired the second he could see the thickened maze pustules that ran along the bare and muscular arms of his attacker, his round his the monster square in the shoulder, causing the monster to change momentum and collide with a nearby car for a moment before it as up again and coming at him with renewed speed. By This time Theo could see the edge of the park, but it was to far to reach in time. The Minotaur was within 50 metres of him and gaining speed so Theo did the only thing he could do, he fired jumped to the side of the road behind cover and took careful aim at the creature. It was 30 metres away now as Theo levelled his weapon, naturally aiming at the head before rethinking at the sight of the thick, almost Neanderthal skull. Instead he took a precious second to think. The creature was 20 metres away, Theo’s mind was unnaturally calm as he felt adrenaline and fear crystallise his focus. The Snorting monstrosity was 15 meters from Theo as he took aim. Ten metres away, Theo would have be able to see the jagged teeth on the gaping maw if that’s where he was looking. 5 meters, Theo fired and jumped into the middle of the road. The bullet passed straight threw the creature left knee, shattering the knee cap with the residual shock cracking thigh bone which was then broken in 6 places as the beast collided with the car at nearly 30 miles an hour that would have also caused the car to smash into Theo had he not jumped out of the way at the last desperate second. Theo stood and stretched his bruised arm before walking carefully up to the dazed creature and firing 3 bullets, point blank into the creature’s skull. The 1st 2 merely bounced of the thick skull, but the 3rd found its mark, driving itself into the centre of the brain and silencing the poor unfortunate forever.

Dazed, Theo walked slowly towards the park and seeing that the rest of his squad had not made it yet sat at a decrepit park bench, waiting for his team. They arrived roughly an hour later, Theo’s reckoning, having landed relatively close to each other, Ignacio and the Sergeant had been able to establish radio contact quickly and met up before moving towards the park. Ignacio looked relieved to see Theo and clapped the boy on the back before noticing his pale face. “Don’t be going wandering man. It’s just trouble” He said through a forced smile. Theo responded with a quiet nod.

They managed to find a mostly clear area, and Theo was able to take down most of the surrounding trees with a series of small scale explosion, but his eyes always darted around, looking any more monster-men that might be in this decimated city. After their work was finished they signalled the Hercules that was still circling the city to drop the buggy and the precious Ariadne Device. After all that had happened it struck Theo as oddly anti-climactic as he saw the small fold out buggy float almost silently into the clearing as the Hercules disappeared over the Horizon.

“It’ll be smooth sailing now, boys” said the relieved sergeant as he climbed into the buggy and acquainted himself with the odd control.

Theo just sat in the back with Ignacio, looking out at the dark clouds above and thought about the sharp sound of a bullet breaking through bone and dull smack as it lodge itself in brain tissue.

“Maybe.” He said, to no- one in particular as the drove silently out of the park and onto the highway ‘60’ that would lead them along the coast to Lake Macleod

“Maybe.”