Search And Rescue

[t_00]

The time between deployments was quiet. Constricting. Soothing. Unending. It was stripped down to its limiters, cleaned, and replaced in its container, locked into place. Its eyes stayed open, but all was dark. Almost silent. The only thing it felt was the pulse of the implant in its head, and its heartbeat falling into line with that demand. It could leave if it pushed hard enough, but didn't. Over time, it lost all sense of direction. Weightless. Waiting.

Then it heard the alarm, muffled, in the outside. Its fingers twitched, curled, clenched. Waited for instructions.

The sound of bolts unsealing on the container were like gunshots, followed immediately by more snapping of its restraints.

And it finally heard the torrent of voices. Humans shouting, too many, too much to comprehend. It stepped out of its container and stared down at them, waiting for orders.

Kill the infected. Kill all of them.

No, protect the researchers.

No. Tyrant Unit: Prioritize destroying the Hunter pack, then protect the uninfected.

Destroy Hunters. Hunters were fast. Too fast for it to catch them when they were chasing prey. They avoided it, focused on the uninfected. It had to catch them when they were feeding.

They finally reacted to its presence when it punched a deep hole into one of them, shattering its head.

Several minutes later, it straightened up. Listened. No more sounds of claws and snapping teeth. Just the zombies.

It started to search for uninfected.

It couldn't find any.

It kept searching.

Comments

[zeusincarnate]

If Marcus had known how this little side trip was going to go, he would have thought a lot harder about coming to do it. Not that he would've sent any of their group in his place. Ideally, none of them would be here for this.

It was just his bad luck that he was the one stuck playing fake cop when the cops were needed to deal with zombies of all things. And this was how he came to be alone, close to what the suspected source was. Once all the other cops were dead there was really no reason to continue, except that he didn't want anyone else to have to deal with this.

But now he was out of ammo, his lungs felt like they were on fire, and he was lost in this maze running away from the undead while looking for something long enough to hit them with that wouldn't get him bitten.

[t_00]

The humans that had clustered around its storage container were not there. All that was a pile of gore, and three zombies. It crushed one that was close to them, but did not bother with the others. Prioritize searching for uninfected.

More rooms. More infected. Some that thought they weren't, but it could smell their bites. Those ones tried to follow it. They were a danger to the uninfected. It killed them too.

It kept moving, opening doors it had access to, stopping at doors that it didn't to listen closely. Nothing. The implant in its head kept pulsing, and it kept searching.

It didn't know how long it had searched, but it had passed through the sterilization hall three times before it heard the gunshots, echoing from far above.

It walked faster, tracking the sounds through the corridors. Every surface reflected sound, confused the location of the noises, but it knew this facility. It had been ordered to memorize its layout.

The gunfire eventually stopped, and its fists clenched. It hadn't heard any screams, but the silence sounded like failure.

Small, running feet. Target. It moved to intercept.

There. A human. And an zombie between them, rising from its post-infection stupor.

It advanced toward the zombie, bringing a foot down on its back and forcing it back to the floor.

The sound of its spine snapping was satisfying. A sign it was still working correctly.

[zeusincarnate]

Marcus could hear the heavy stomping foot prints over the sound of his own heartbeat, the dead, and his frequent coughing. He went past a zombie that was on the floor and rising, getting ever slower as he struggled to get enough air into his lungs.

He glanced back when the source of the stomping foot falls came into view. Tall. Inhuman. And pausing to crush the zombie Marcus had been fleeing from.

The door was locked. Marcus didn't have a key for it. There was no other way out of this hall except past the giant who... wasn't moving towards him with any kind of hostility. Marcus leaned heavily against the door to catch his breath, watching the grey-skinned man carefully.

[t_00]

It crushed until the neck snapped and the jaw broke against the ground. Threat neutralized.

It stopped, examining the human. He seemed uninfected. It couldn't see any bites or smell the fever from here, but that did not mean it was a certainty. It had heard him coughing. He might be sick. Or injured. This had to be rectified. Humans never seemed to heal without assistance.

There was a first aid station a few meters back up the hallway. It turned, removed the kit from its case, then advanced toward the human.

[zeusincarnate]

The giant man thoroughly stomped the zombie, and then started to turn away. Marcus' relief was short lived, though, when he turned back towards him. At least, until he noticed that he was carrying a first aid kit.

"I don't need that." He gasped out. "I'm not injured."

It wouldn't help at all with his lungs. Whatever or whoever this giant was, he was at least not hostile, and apparently even helpful. Some anti-zombie creation to keep an outbreak like this from getting out of control? They were a little late on that front of that was the case, but Marcus wasn't going to question his unusual help when he had no other options at the moment.

For now he just needed to catch his breath. Which he sank to the floor to sit and make it a little easier on himself.

[t_00]

Not injured. It were uncertain. The human sounded injured.

It continued forward toward the human, kneeling to set down the kit. It leaned in. Took in a deep breath.

It smelled a little infected blood, but none uninfected. No bites. Just coughing.

It straightened up, watching him. Either the human would get up soon, or it would have to manage that too.

[zeusincarnate]

There was nowhere to lean back, but Marcus did a little bit when the giant kneeled and leaned in. And then after a moment just stood up and watched him.

"Not the talkative type, are you?" Marcus panted out as he started to get his breathing under control.

"That's okay. Stefan says I'm too talkative."

Not much later than that, he felt like he'd caught his breath enough to stand up. "I don't suppose you know where I can find more ammo, or another gun?" Since the grey giant was being helpful.

[t_00]

No. It did not talk. Humans talked. They talked constantly, as if that was easy. Their faces and heads moved constantly. The muscles twitched and stretched, and its face did much less. Humans gestured constantly with their hands, and it found that difficult too.

It had just been about to pick the human up and carry him when he finally stood.

Ammunition. Would that help protect the human? Maybe. It didn't recognize his clothes. A guest. Client. Words Umbrella used for high-priority humans. Or an unknown intruder.

He was uninfected. That was the only status that mattered for now. it managed to nod, after a long moment. Then it turned and began walking in the direction of a guard station, keeping its pace slow.

[zeusincarnate]

Marcus stopped to grab the first aid kit just in case it became necessary later, and tucked it into an empty hip pouch. Just because he didn't need it now didn't mean he wouldn't need it later.

A nod. So far that was the only indication of communication he'd received, but that was fine. Fine in comparison to the alternative was having not been rescued and being eaten alive by a zombie. By normal standards none of this was fine at all.

He was just glad he'd told Stefan to keep everyone away. And also glad that his new large friend was moving slowly enough for him to keep up.

[t_00]

The first two hallways were on the path it had recently taken, and the results of their work were plain to see. Zombies slumped against the walls with broken skulls, eyes bulging from their heads. One still twitched, and it reached down to break its neck.

Then to rip the pocketed vest off the corpse's torso, holding it out to the human. This one had been a guard. The infected had lost its gun, but it still held things a similar human could use.

It could not. It had been trained to understand them, how to use objects in its environment to defend and hunt and destroy. But human weapons were made for human hands and human arms and human muscles. They were too small. Too short. Too delicate. And in their small buildings, it was easier to simply grab and punch and snap than to use a weapon.

Especially human guns. Their tiny fingers worked well with them. Its fingers did not. It had been trained, but the guns Umbrella made for Tyrants were not for use when protecting a human. And they had not been granted access.

[zeusincarnate]

It looked like his new friend had been busy. Zombie counter-measure was looking more and more likely, because the giant definitely didn't seem human, even if he wore a human shape.

Marcus paused when the giant stopped to finish off a zombie, and winced a little at the sounds made when he ripped a tactical vest off a corpse.

Ah. That was his ammo, then. Marcus carefully grabbed the least bloody part of the vest and checked through the pockets, pleased to find some ammo, and surprised to find live grenades. "You're the helpful sort, aren't you. And you've taken down a number of these zombies too. We need to take them all down and stop this from spreading. I don't suppose you know an easy way to do that, do you?"

Unlikely, but possible. This wasn't some kind of dooms day machine with a big 'abort' button carefully labeled, but a full on zombie outbreak. "Or a vaccine or antidote or something."

[t_00]

It stopped, calculating. It had been ordered to protect uninfected. It was doing so. But it had not been given a limit on the number of uninfected to protect, or a radius for their search.

It assumed there were humans outside of the facility, even though it had never seen them. New humans came from somewhere. Protecting them was therefore consistent with their orders.

The facility could be purged. It knew that. It did not know how it was done.

It was hard to answer the question with a nod or shake, because this was both. It eventually nodded.

But until it found how to purge the facility, it had one human to protect. It picked up the vest again. It would not protect the human from most bites, but the virus had only recently escaped containment. The infection smelled new on many of the corpses. Mutations would eventually begin. Protecting the human would become more difficult.

[zeusincarnate]

Marcus was more than a little surprised when the gray giant eventually nodded in response to his question. That was promising. At least one of them had some idea of what was going on, even if he didn't seem to be able to talk about it.

"I have everything out of the vest. I don't need that." And there was no way he was putting it on, as gory as it was. It might have infected blood on it or something. Marcus was not going to risk turning into a zombie by wearing infected clothing. Touching it had been bad enough.

He brought his arm up to cough at his elbow a few times. Luckily there was no blood. "We need to keep going." Marcus only had so much endurance these days.

[t_00]

It stared. The human was refusing the added protection. This was not ideal. But they were en route to the guard station. It had checked there already on their sweep. Some infected remained there, which it had not killed yet. There was a risk, but not an unacceptable one.

It decided: It would take the human to the guard station and refuse exit until he was sufficiently protected. That would be easy.

The coughing was also a factor. The human was obviously injured, regardless of its statements to the contrary. It did not understand why this was not clear to the human.

It dropped the vest and continued onward.

[zeusincarnate]

At least they weren't going to stand around arguing over an empty vest. Marcus had no idea what was going through the gray giant's head. For now he was willing to continue on behind the giant- not all that different from letting Stefan lead the way, but with less visible anger perhaps.

Marcus had lost track of where he was shortly before the gray giant came to rescue him, and was still not sure exactly where he was because this was not the path he had taken to come here.

Maybe he should ask if there was a map, but he didn't want to irritate his new ally by asking for too much at once.

[t_00]

It walked, taking the most efficient path. Ignoring the infected it saw down other halls. Those were not its highest priority now.

When it approached the armory, it slowed its pace just slightly, so that it could more tactically decide its next moves.

That was the correct decision. Three infected turned, the closest just a few meters inside the door. It bent down to enter.

The closest infected raised its arms, starting towards the human. It reached out, catching the infected by the neck. The infected barely seemed to notice as it was lifted off the floor, still clawing towards its target.

It reached up with its other hand to snap its neck more efficiently, then threw the paralyzed infected at the others, knocking them off their feet and weighing them down. It then proceeded forward, ready to stamp them to pieces.

[zeusincarnate]

Marcus was a little worried about the shambling dead they caught glimpses of in other hallways, worried about leaving enemies at their back, but it wasn't like they could afford to get distracted.

The gray giant apparently wanted to go into a room with some zombies in it, so Marcus remained outside the door with his gun at the ready in case any managed to get past his new ally. That didn't happen, though, the gray giant tossing them around like rag dolls before stepping forward. Marcus turned his attention to making sure nothing came down the halls behind them instead.

[t_00]

It heard the door slide shut behind it, but it was committed to its move to attack. It had targets, and the targets would die. The first was simply crushed underfoot, and the second was punched in the same motion. Destroying the infected was easy--the zombies did not comprehend it.

The third one, however, tried to claw at them as it turned to face it. The infected was losing large, weeping patches of skin, and stood with splayed legs, requiring an adjustment for the next blow to land. An infected in the process of mutating. That was early. Or maybe it wasn't. It did not know how long the infected had been spreading before it heard the alarms from inside its storage container.

The mutants were more capable, but it had been trained for this. It grabbed the infected's head, chunks of bone and brain splitting apart as it pulled. A transforming Licker's skull was soft and vulnerable, and without fully-developed claws, there was little risk yet. Still, as it watched the body fall, it approved of the fact that the human had stayed out of range.

It turned, and did not find the human. Only a closed door.

A level two door.

It crossed back to the doorway, close enough for it to open again.

Hopefully this had not been a serious mistake.

[zeusincarnate]

The downside of Marcus staying outside the door soon became apparent when his large, stomping friend stomped far enough away from the door for it to close automatically. The ID bracelet Marcus had procured must not be high enough to open the door.

But that did mean his new friend could open doors that had stopped him previously. "Think you could open the door again when you're done in there?"

There was no answer, but Marcus could vaguely hear the sounds of stomping and flesh hitting flesh and other wet noises he didn't want to think about. Then more stomping towards the door, and the door opened again. Quickly verifying the previous inhabitants were dead, and not undead, Marcus stepped through the door and around his new large friend.

[t_00]

It followed the human further into the room, the door hissing closed again. Good. Now he would have to arm himself properly.

In the meantime, it would look for medical supplies. But its gloves were covered in infected brain. That had been satisfying a moment ago, but now with nothing more to kill, it was an annoyance.

The guards would have sanitation facilities where they stored their equipment, wouldn't they? It knew the facility layout, but not to that level of detail.

And it didn't know how humans did things. Humans made sure it was clean after exercises. They dressed it and sent it to be cleaned.

It assumed humans did that to themselves as well, just smaller.

It began to survey the room, searching.

[zeusincarnate]

Some kind of locker room or armory for the security forces here. Some of the lockers were locked, but they weren't too difficult to break open. Lots of heavy tactical gear, like what SWAT might need and then some.

Marcus found one of the tactical jackets that fit him reasonably well, and proceeded to strip out of the vest and coat he was wearing in favor of putting on the tactical vest and putting the things he'd acquired into place. He was lucky enough to find some heavier weaponry as well, though not much in the way of ammo for it.

[t_00]

Showers in an adjoining room. It recognized those. It bent down one of the shower heads until it creaked menacingly, then turned on the water, holding out their hands, slowly turning them over. It let the water run until it no longer smelled the infection on its gloves, ducking back through into the other room to survey the human's progress.

The vest was good, but not enough. The forearms, calves and neck were especially vulnerable to bites. And the mutants were another matter.

There was more armor available, and it would be needed. It pulled the pieces out of the lockers, holding it out. He would be protected. That was its mission, and it would maximize its chances of success.

Its other option was to lock the human in a secure area, but it did not judge that to be a workable solution. All the other humans had manifestly failed to survive when left on their own. And while it could manually destroy the infected here, the facility purge would be the most efficient and through means of carrying out the order.

Which it did not think it could do without a human. It lacked access. It also could not read. Humans liked to print symbols on everything, and it would not know which one meant 'purge'.

[zeusincarnate]

Marcus heard the shower running, and was a little curious why the giant was running the shower, but didn't care to investigate. His new friend could do what he wanted.

He waited for the giant to return, and to do his own search of the equipment.

And apparently decide Marcus needed more than he was currently wearing. He could refuse, as he had with the vest, but Marcus was beginning to connect his refusal of the vest with being brought here where he had found another vest.

And was currently behind a door he could not open himself. Rather than waste time, Marcus reluctantly accepted the pieces of equipment and moved over to the benches to get changed. It wasn't a bad idea, really. Marcus definitely didn't want to get bitten.

"Fine. I'll get changed. Then we can go back to putting a stop to this."

[t_00]

Good. He was no longer resisting attempts to make him safe. But in the meantime, it would not be still. There was more they could find here.

It continued pulling open lockers. Some of them simply unlatched, others required them to dig their fingers into the soft metal and peel them open.

Mostly it didn't understand or care about the contents. Human objects of no use. But there were some items they found, by sight or by smell. More ammunition. More first aid spray. The human would need those. And the packets that smelled a little like food. It took them out, bending low to place them in orderly piles on a nearby bench.

There was a plastic thing that smelled like medicine. They put that in the appropriate pile, and continued searching, turning their head every so often to monitor the human.

[zeusincarnate]

Getting out of enough of his clothes to get into the more heavily protective and armored gear took Marcus some time, especially since he wasn't familiar with this gear and it took him some time to get things comfortably situated on his body.

While his new friend kept searching, apparently, and was starting to accumulate several piles of useful things.

By the time Marcus was finished getting changed and stretching out to make sure he could comfortably move in his new and expensive looking protective gear, all the lockers had been pulled open and searched. Leaving Marcus with the task of finding pockets and pouches to store everything. Ammo here, medical supplies there. A few snacks in a pocket.

"There. Now let's go, the longer we wait the worst this will get."

[t_00]

It stopped, slowly looking over the human. He was still small. Fragile. But he looked less soft than he had a few minutes ago. That would have to do.

And he was correct. Some of the infected would be mutating by now. Not all of them. But some. And each one would be a significant impediment to its mission.

It turned and opened the door, ducking under the frame. It knew they had to proceed toward the areas that required more access privileges, but it did not know much more. To figure that out, it would need the human.

[zeusincarnate]

Marcus followed behind the giant quickly this time, not wanting the door to close on him again. He was sure he wouldn't be left behind, but having to wait to have a door opened for him was just embarrassing.

"I hope you have some idea where we're going. Or a map. A map would be great." He'd found some incomplete maps of the more easily accessible areas but nothing that had even a slight indication of 'go here to stop zombie apocalypse in progress'.

[t_00]

A map. It kept moving, trying to calculate efficient routes through the facility that might include a map. It would not help them directly: they already knew the layout. But that only meant the shapes, and the specifics that they had been allowed to know. The maps had been covered in symbols they didn't understand.

It paused at an intersection, considering. There could be a map in the offices to the east. It would also be a valid route deeper into the facility. But there were more infected there, that they had not killed. It had not been ordered to seek and destroy, and clearing out all the little cubicles would have taken too much time.

And they had to communicate that somehow. It made a quiet huff of annoyance, trying to think. It had a limited number of signs to work with, most of them completely useless.

There. It pointed toward their objective. Assemble.

There. Map check. Close enough, maybe. There. Danger area. Biological attack.

[zeusincarnate]

Marcus stopped and waited impatiently while the giant hesitated at an intersection. He was about to make a suggestion when his new friend turned towards him and then pointed. And, after a long pause, made a slow but recognizable military signal.

He was more than a little impatient with how slowly the giant was signing, but this was such an improvement over their previous communication mode of Marcus talking and the giant nodding or saying nothing at all that he made himself wait.

Map check, so there was at least a map over there. And danger in the form of a biological attack. Usually not meant to signal zombies, but Marcus had a feeling that this time it was zombies and not something more mundane and expected like weaponized smallpox or anthrax. "Yes. Let's go." Marcus said, triple-checking his recently reloaded gun.

[t_00]

The delay was also annoying it. The implant in its head pulsed insistently. That kept it focused. But when it couldn't complete an objective, it was like an itch. Inside everything. It hated that feeling.

As soon as the human said 'yes', it was moving. Toward the offices, a low, densely packed field of cubicles and dead bodies in conference rooms and infected that had stumbled out to the surrounding corridors to seek more blood. They increased their pace, ranging ahead of the human, hunting. Completing their objective. Making the itching subside.

[zeusincarnate]

Marcus had difficulty keeping up with the gray giant as he picked up his pace with his longer, stronger legs and his much better functioning lungs. In fact, he had to slow down when he started coughing again after struggling to keep up.

At least his new friend made plenty of noise as he stomped down the corridors, and Marcus had his gun to pick off any stragglers or anything that came at him from a different direction.

[t_00]

He was coughing again. More signs of injury. A liability as it tried to keep the infected from reaching it. And the human had denied that it was hurt. This was not true.

When they reached the cubicles, it slowed to let the human catch up, scanning the space beyond them.There were infected here, and they would be lured in by the coughing. It could smell them. See wavering heads turn, over the tops of the low walls.

And there was something rustling in the distance. It couldn't tell if the noise was on a level above them.

[zeusincarnate]

Marcus was grateful his giant friend was slowing down to let him catch up. His lungs burned and he was struggling to keep his coughing under control. The giant had given him an inhaler earlier, as but it wasn't going to help what was wrong with his lungs.

Despite the desire to just open fire on the zombies, Marcus felt he should conserve ammo, since his friend had no trouble dispatching them up close. He'd save his ammo for when anything got too close to him.

His hand holding the gun shook a little from his coughing and trouble breathing.

[t_00]

It took the pause to scan the cubicles, deciding on the most efficient path to dispatch targets. Once the human reached it, it started forward again, breaking the first infected with efficient movements, then the next, then the next, then--

Rustling above. The ceiling tiles were rattling. Unknown bioweapon above, closing in on the human, move to protect--

Something fleshy burst through the tiles, and it could not move fast enough to catch it, only to physically intercept, pain and darkness cutting into its face and scalp as the force staggered it for a moment, dragging the thing with it. It was caught by the head, as something screeched and flexed sharp spines against its flesh.