James stepped forward, and looked back to Aurelia. She nodded and followed. C4T went back inside, allowing the door to swing wide open for the two survivors.

The inside was just an old pharmacy. Its shelves were empty, and the counter, dusty. The door quietly closed with a click behind them, and that’s when they noticed how it was all-black—alien to their eyes.

Aurelia yelped as pain spread from her arm, her body’s natural painkillers wearing away. James caught her, helping her down to a bench near the shuttered window. The only light was from the little cut-outs in the shutters.

A soft beam illuminated them, and the silhouette of C4T trotted towards them, sitting on the floor before them. James stared at it, Aurelia’s cry snapping him out of the momentary distraction.

…But, he really couldn’t help but stare at C4T. There was just something wrong with it. It wasn’t a cat. It couldn’t be a cat.

The light source behind it lifted off and clung to the ceiling. It wasn’t blinding anymore. James finally got a good look at what C4T actually was.

“That’s not a cat,” he muttered.

“Fucking hell! Why’s a cat more important than me right now, huh?!” Aurelia slapped his arm with her good one. It felt like the skin around her wound was melting off.

James tried to help her, redressing the wound, but he just couldn’t put his spirit into it when a featureless face was peering at him with little red eyes.

C4T assessed the female survivor. The Kartesian viralites in her blood were almost done taking away her freedom. Receptor organs were already starting to form in a Gamma pattern, and the core was already forming in her mind. She needed to be killed soon.

She transmitted all this through the tac link. Coronel gave it the order to euthanize the female survivor, but C4T disagreed. The two had come in with a decent amount of equipment, including handheld radios, evidencing their membership in a larger group. Immediately euthanizing the female survivor would antagonize their first potential allies.

Coronel grumbled. “Eliso, assist Saito with the mop-up. I’ll deal with the locals.”

He surveyed the battlefield one last time. The asphalt couldn’t be seen under all the corpses. Pops of gunfire echoed here and there as Alphas stood tall from the mounds, only to be cut down by Wolfbots’ guns. Fab-bots chipped away at the edge of the graveyard, turning the bodies into nanostuff—redusting them for future processing.

From dust to dust, after all.

***

Aurelia was heaving. That was when the door opened, and Coronel marched in. James’s hand had moved to his handgun before he knew it.

“Technical Lieutenant Coronel,” the blood-showered cyborg carrying a laser rifle introduced himself.

“Uh. James.” He slowly slid has hand away from his gun. “Can—can you help her?”

Coronel glanced one second towards Aurelia. “No.”

“No?”

“Impossible.”

James gritted his teeth. “Figures.”

Coronel marched closer to Aurelia, producing a syringe gun from one of his many compartments.

“W-wait, what’s that?” James asked.

“Painkillers,” Coronel said, shooting a whole vial of the stuff into Aurelia’s neck. She cried out at that, but her voice died down after a moment.

“What a fucking ass,” she said.

“How you doing?” James asked.

“Better…ish.” She labored to breathe. “Worst flu of the century. I…I can’t see.”

James took out a small flashlight and flashed it on her face. Her eyes didn’t respond. He stashed it away.

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“This is it,” Aurelia said. “Hey. At least you’ll have a body, right?”

James wiped his face and sniffled. Aurelia chuckled. “You crying?”

“Damn right.”

“There’s a box under my bed. The combination’s 1235.”

“That’s only 1 better than 1234, you idiot. It’s like we’ve never talked about OPSEC at all!”

Aurelia laughed, weakly. “All my heart’s in there. Take it with you.”

James grasped her hand. “Sure thing.”

“Mister James, you’ll need to kill her in the next 20 seconds or the thing she’ll become will kill all of us,” Coronel said. James looked to him, and his comically oversized rifle was already pointing at Aurelia. James’s hand went straight for his handgun. “If you don’t,” Coronel continued, “I’ll do it myself.”

He knew what Coronel was talking about. The normal zombies were easy pickings, and the Rams could still go down with enough bullets or duct tape and a good beating. There was one variant, however, that they would rather not deal with. It couldn’t be killed—the stuff of horror. Two of his fellow scouts died to just stall one of them, and that was by exploding a propane tank in its face.

There wouldn’t be any point to this if Aurelia just came back to kill them all. He’d rather live a life of wandering and vengeance than not live at all. He’d rather survive for the sake of sustaining her memory in this world, than die and take any evidence of her with him.

“I’ll do it,” James said. He stood up and unholstered his gun, cocking back the hammer all the way and aiming at Aurelia. “Not until the last second.”

Coronel kept his rifle trained at Aurelia. “Ten seconds. On my signal.” He’d shoot if James missed the signal.

James’s aim was steady. Aurelia had a smile on her face. Fucking hell.

“I love you, partner,” she said.

“I love you too, my dearest friend,” he said.

“Fire.”

James pulled the trigger. It was just a loud noise to him, but the blood spatter reached him. He fell to his knees, his lungs refusing to breathe. “I love you too, fucking damn it!”

He punched the floor until his own blood seeped through his gloves.

At least his words reached her.

At least something good reached her in her last breath.

Coronel watched the man sulk and weep. A part of him wondered if that was how he had appeared back then. It’ll all just be a callous memory, he wished to say.

He went behind the counter, where all the different screens and comms equipment were. They were a kilometer from the operation area, outside of the range of their tac links, but the laser relays helped with that.

“Saito, Eliso, give me good news,” Coronel said.

“All enemy forces dispatched, sir,” Saito answered.

“Recon detects no movement,” Eliso answered.

“Good work. The bots should be able to take care of the rest. Both of you, return to base.”

““Yes, sir.””

***

Once Saito and Eliso were within direct tac link range, they connected to the network and received data briefs from C4T. They were sympathetic with the tragedy of the two survivors, but if it was something that happened before they were even aware of them, then it was out of their hands.

They were, in the first place, soldiers, and the two survivors were, in the first place, survivors. Life was hard for all of them. All they could do was follow orders and try to make it through the day with what they’ve got.

They entered the 122 Mercury safehouse, briefly glimpsing James keeping vigil over Aurelia’s body, her head having been cleaned and wrapped with a red cloth with spots of white.

Eliso approached the man. James looked up to see a ration bar offered to him.

“First Lieutenant Cher Eliso. If you need anything, talk to me,” he said. James nodded and took the ration, looking back to Aurelia’s body.

“Saito, Eliso.” Coronel called out from behind the counter. The two quickly rejoined their commander in planning.

***

Troy blinked. That was fast. He’d expected the horde to be destroyed eventually, but to be wiped out in the space of 30 minutes by a bunch of dudes? That was actually impressive. How’d they do it? The Scouts must’ve trapped the horde with nets, that’s why it stopped moving. Then, either the Scouts had found an armory filled to the brim with ammunition and mowed down the horde like that, or the Alliance had a helping hand.

A chorus of gunfire just a few kilometers away would have been heard all the way in Diliman, but there was none of that. The Alliance did have laser weapons, so it must’ve been them.

If the Scouts and the Alliance were working hand-in-hand…that might be bad.

However, he’d considered this possibility, and that was why there were tens of thousands of Alphas converging on Diliman at the moment. It would still take some days for them to get here, as traversing several kilometers of unplanned urban sprawl wasn’t any easier, even in the apocalypse.

Meanwhile, the coup had been suspiciously successful. All of the Groups surrendered without resistance and not a shot fired. Bloodless coups weren’t a total impossibility, as this country had experienced a few in its history, but, really? They didn’t even complain about it?

His second-in-command explained that none of the Groups were seriously armed. At best, they had a few crossbows and fighting staffs for casual self-defense against the occasional Alpha that slipped through the fences. Since they, the Guard Group, had monopolized nearly all of the firearms, and with the Scout Group gone, there was just no way to oppose them.

Troy shrugged. Maybe variables lined up like the stars in his favor, after all.

With this, all he had to do was bring in tens of thousands of Alphas and overrun Diliman’s defenses. A little bit of sabotage by way of “personal inspections” here and there would do the trick.

As for the Alliance and the Scouts, he’d at least narrowed down their location. It was clear, however, that simply tossing Alphas at them wouldn’t do it, and he was only cleared to control Alphas. It was painful, he, by himself, was not enough to deal with them.

He tapped into the Kartesian Ocean, sending ripples—a call for reinforcements, with operational parameters and details of previous engagements attached.

Ripples answered back. It was a Lanan patrol unit—a little excessive.