AZU-1: Lifehack Read online

  “Well, if there were a nuke plant in here we’d have specific locations for where dangerous parts are and stuff. It would makes sense to not allow explosion near those areas, but why the entire city?”

  “I don’t know, why?”

  Alisia looked at Tracy with a bit of irritation. “I don’t know, Kensington. Why is the sky blue? Where do little zombies come from? What’s the square root of infinity? Is Parker still looking at my ass?”

  “Yes.” Parker replied over the comm.

  “Oh.” Tracy said, “I’m sorry if I’m being annoying.”

  “Eh, don’t sweat it,” Alisia sighed, “You gotta learn somehow. But the bottom line is, there’s some things I just don’t know about this place.”

  Tracy nodded.

  The rest of the trip to the ‘FW’ VTag was fairly quiet. They came across a skull with just an arm attached, dragging itself down the street. They ignored it and it ignored them. It seemed to be very intent on going nowhere in particular. Alisia had to fight the urge to do a ‘hammer throw’ with it.

  They arrived at a building crowded between other buildings. The entrance was basically at the end of a short alley. As they walked towards it Parker piped up. “Ladies, I can’t see you anymore. I’ll keep track with IR, but I won’t see anything sneaking up on you.”

  “No biggie,” Alisia replied, “we’re not that deep.”

  They looked at the three story building. It had large windows, most of which were broken, and a doorway with no door. It was plain that the ‘FW’ VTag was on the second or third floor. Alisia scanned around.

  “This should be pretty easy to guard. Kensington, stay here and watch for anything coming towards the building. I regret not killing that skull-arm thing. It might bring trouble. I’ll go in, check out the VTag, and be right out. Anything comes, double check to see that it’s a zombie then fire away. I’ll come running.”

  “Right.” Tracy was proud that she was trusted on her own, and after proving herself against the group earlier she felt very ready for a five minute guard duty.

  Alisia went in, checking her corners. The bottom floor was just two rooms. Just a small reception area and a main storage room towards the back. The stairs on the far side were easy to get to, and there was little to no risk of ambush along the way. She approached the stairs and checked upwards. All clear.

  As she climbed the stairs, it quickly became apparent that the VTag was on the third floor. After a quick glance down the hallway of the second floor she kept going up. The top floor was an array of cubicles. Some partitions were knocked over but all in all, this floor was looking pretty good for being abandoned two years. The VTag glowed from a cubicle off to the left.

  “Okay. What have we here?” Alisia made her way to it and saw five water cooler bottles, all full, and two cardboard boxes. She tapped the nearest one with the muzzle of her P-90. Nothing moved back so she unfolded the top flaps.

  Canned food, junk food... beef jerky... non-perishables. “FW. Food and water. Well guys. Zombies don’t need to keep track of food and water. It’s starting to look more and more like our IR signature is a human.”

  “Where did they come from?” Tracy asked through the comm.

  “Good question.”

  “A thrill seeker maybe?” Parker suggested. “Broke in, and looking for something to br-“

  Just then, a shrill scream sounded across the comm. It was the kind of scream that gives you nightmares, ending with a rasp and a small gurgle on blood. The comm exploded into urgent questions from the many people who had been listening in.

  “Kensinton!” Alisia ran to the nearby broken window, which overlooked the entryway.

  In the corner, Alisia could just barely see Tracy’s legs jerking as her body was forcibly yanked through a new hole in the press-wood fence.

  “Fuck!” Alisia spat. She ran franticly down to the bottom floor, bumping the odd doorframe as she rushed. She burst out the front doorway.

  Tracy’s body lay in the corner with her upper half pulled through the hole. Alisia put together what happened. Tracy had sat down by the corner forgetting that she should stay in the open, and a zombie had tore through the fence. She didn’t even get a shot off. Presently, the zombie kneeled contentedly on the other side of the fence, gnawing on Tracy’s neck and shoulder.

  “Oh my god...” Alisia breathed hard, drawing her P90 and looking at the red, runny mess that had been her subordinate.

  She fired a controlled burst right into the forehead of the zombie, knocking it on its back. Alisia ran up over Tracy and kicked down the chunk of fence so that it fell on the zombie. She jumped on it, crushing the zombie below. It punched through, splitting the board in half. Alisia stood atop it and watched it fumble to grab at her legs.

  “....you bastard.”

  She held the trigger down and the P90 sang the only song it knew, flooding its fragmenting rounds into the pitiful monster. Chunks of the offending zombie ripped off, ending its ability to fight back. ‘click.’ Empty clip. Alisia stared down at her decimated foe, silently catching her breath.

  She spat at what was left of its face and went to Tracy to look her over. “Major? You there?”

  “Yes, Captain. Report.”

  “Kensington’s dead. She was taken by surprise. Looks like the first strike was a claw to the throat. It was quick. Fairly quick.” Alisia’s voice sounded tired suddenly. A mix of sadness and anger.

  “Any bites?”

  “Yes Sir. I’ll burn them now.”

  “Proceed.”

  Alisia took out a small bottle of oil and splashed it onto Tracy’s wounds. Poor cute little, mousey Kennsington. She then lit the oil on fire and couldn’t look away as her hair, shoulder and face burned. The oil burnt out while Alisia tried not to cry, or be ill. The stench of the burning was just an extra insult to the way Tracy Kennsington’s body was ruined. At least now, hopefully, the saliva wouldn’t infect her.

  Alisia did her best to sound alright. “Sir, can you send an extraction team? I want to proceed.”

  “Captain, you’re alone now. I don’t recommend it.”

  “Sir, if it is a human I’m tracking, then they could be in danger. I know my way around, Sir. I’m not in any real danger.”

  There was a long pause before the Major’s voice came back. “Very well. Corporal, take care of Captain Terone.”

  “........”

  “Corporal? .... Corporal Parker!”

  “Uh! Yes Sir, Parker here.” His voice was shaky. Tracy’s scream was still resonating in everyone’s minds,

  The Major excused himself and logged off the comm.

  Alisia’s eyes fixed on Tracy’s wound while she talked to her comm, “Parker, I’m going for the nearest ‘GA’ VTag. I want to know what they are.” The nearest was on one of the bridges. Luckily, she wasn’t far from a building that could get her up there.

  It had a working elevator, with a (broken) window facing Parker’s section of the wall. The zipper gunners liked to be able to see her as much as possible, for safety reasons.

  Alisia took one last look at Kensington, and headed for the tower.

  ~~~~~

  Chapter 17: A Visitor

  ~~~~~

  Regan watched the little clip of video repeatedly. Someone in uniform had messed with one of her stashes. They didn’t notice the visor duct taped to the ceiling, which alerted Regan immediately when motion was detected in its field of vision. The visor didn’t get a terribly good look. The legs, even through the cammo pants, looked female and there was a glimpse of what looked like a P90. If the stupid duct tape hadn’t slipped, she could have seen this person’s face. In any event, they didn’t take anything, but they ran off in a hurry, yelling.

  This needed investigating. Regan knew the army had the city surrounded, but this was the first time she’d noticed any of them actually in Autar. Well, since the evacuation, anyway.

  Regan headed out and made her way through her own little shortcuts and paths. A singl
e scrawny zombie got in the way and she shot it once in the neck. The head fell off and the body groped around blindly. Normally she’d disassemble it a bit more, but she didn’t want to waste time.

  She made it to a rooftop and pulled out her favorite salvaged visor. She looked down to the FW VTag that had been violated. In hindsight she realized that she neglected to erase access to the army network from a visor she recently found, and this was what got her noticed.

  Guessing the plan of her prey, she looked around through her visor for the next nearest tag to it. Looking around the space between the two VTags, she spotted some motion. The elevator in that building was moving!

  Regan zoomed in, doing her best to keep a steady hand. Aha. Same cammo, same weapon. But this was the first Regan saw of Alisia’s red mane. Alisia was sitting on her knees in the slow elevator, staring down out the window. She looked sad. This was the first live human Regan had seen in ages aside from tiny glimpses of the wall snipers.

  Regan felt the need to go be sociable. This lovely redhead looked like she needed some cheering up, and Regan had many, many ideas on how this could be accomplished.

  ~~~

  Alisia reloaded her P90 and sorted her equipment. She was having a bit of trouble finding good ways to carry the ammo she took off Kensington, and the effort only made her feel like more of a vulture. Some commander she was. She shouldn’t have left such a raw rookie alone, even for a minute.

  The elevator finally reached the top and eased to a stop. Alisia waved in the general direction of Parker and walked off into the building. She passed through the sullen quiet of its lobby and stepped out into one of the bridge’s streets.

  The limited, three-block width of the bridges left a bit more room for light to come in between buildings, and fewer nooks and crannies for the zombies to hide in. The daylight was still pretty good. No zombies were immediately apparent in the area. The bridges were higher than the zipper guns though. Only zombies that wandered to the outside edge needed to worry about being gunned down.

  The GA VTag was about two blocks away. Alisia took her time. She hoped for something to pop out and start a fight, to get her mind off Kensington’s bleeding throat. Did she burn the wound enough? Or was Kensington now a puppet, wandering about moaning? Would the extraction team have to shoot her to chunks to take her out?

  How do you tell the family that? “Mr. and Mrs. Kensington? Yes, I was your daughter’s commanding officer and I left her alone in a dark alley in Autar city, where a zombie ripped her fucking throat out, while I listened to her gurgling scream. Oh, and I left her body there and it came to un-life, so if you want the body for burial, we’re sending it to you in forty-seven plastic containers.”

  Great. And just you watch, they’re gonna outright disband the unit. Disband? What’s to disband? There’s only one surviving member! Why the hell don’t they just nuke this damned place?

  Alisia came to a strip-mall. The VTag was just inside the main doors. This would have been ideal, but in front of the doors was a gaping hole in the ground, with a view down to the lower street. A hundred stories down? Eep.

  Edging sideways along the wall, Alisia tried to get to the doors. In places where the ragged edge of the hole was under the wall, it left only chunks of protruding metal to step on.

  As she neared the doors, she saw the source of the VTag through a small clean spot in the otherwise blackened window. A handful of medium sized crates. One had a few P90 clips sticking out. “GA”.... Guns and ammo? She kept going towards the door. It was opaque and had an auto-open feature. Unfortunately, since she had approached by the side and was so close, the sensor couldn’t see her to trigger the door to open.

  The trick now was to reach out and trigger the sensor above the door frame without losing grip and falling backwards through the hole. To extend her reach she waved her P90 out as best she could.

  Finally she heard the door motors start. As the door opened, Alisia was treated to an up-close view of a dense mob of zombies. She panicked, and slipped.

  Her P90 went tumbling just before she did. She screamed, desperately grabbing at anything but the outstretched hand of a zombie. She caught a chunk of the wreckage around the edge of the hole, but only for a split second.

  Her other hand found a chunk of cable. Loose cable. She continued falling, dragging meter after meter worth of cable out of the bridge’s innards.

  An overzealous zombie stumbled forward trying to reach her, and fell forward, passing Alisia. She was at least being slowed by the cable. She watched the zombie plummet. Why the hell hadn’t she just found a different ‘GA’ VTag?

  Frantic hollering came though over her comm as she slipped down the cable, but she was too preoccupied to listen to it. The cable was also pulling other loops of cable out with it. The cable she was hanging onto finally ran out of slack, jolting her arm. Wrist, elbow, shoulder... none of them were happy at all, but at least she kept her grip.

  She was now dangling, but not falling. Other cable that had been yanked free by the first one dangled and swayed around her.

  “Captain!” Parker’s voice came through the comm, cutting through the frantic mumbling of all the other gunners, most of which could see her dangling under the bridge. “Captain, what the hell are you doing?!”

  Alisia looked down and up. She was more than half way to the ground. Still plenty to distance to get a person killed. She was suddenly very aware of her own breathing as she tightened her grip. The world felt light, and meaningless. Mortal fear has a way of being very clarifying. Suddenly, all the little unimportant things disappear. You’re left with one simple, but huge, problem. The lack of control is almost liberating. You either survive somehow, and go back to the complicated mess of little problems… or you die, and have no problems.

  She was snapped back to focused thought by the sound of a P90. Not close, but not far. “Parker! What’s going on?”

  “Captain, you’re aware you’re hanging from-“

  “I know, I know! I think I might be able go down safely from here.”

  “We can get people there to-“

  “Not before my fucking arm breaks off, you can’t!” Alisia reached for a looped dangling cable with her free hand and pulled on it. One end was giving more slack, still feeding more cable from the bridge’s insides. The other end seemed secure.

  “Okay. Okay. The cable I’m on is out of length, but I think this other one can get me down. The loose end goes all the way to the top. By the time it comes out I’ll have more than enough.”

  She wrapped the second cable around the wrist that wasn’t screaming at her, and held her weight on it to give her sore arm a break. Cautiously, she released the first cable.

  She pulled the loose side of the second cable until she had about ten meters more of cable to climb down. “See, Parker? I planned this all along. While I was brushing my teeth this morning.”

  “Sure, Cap.”

  Alisia chuckled nervously and made herself busy with climbing down, pulling more cable free as she needed it.

  Then the secure end decided to come loose. “Oh shit.”

  Suddenly she felt weightless and sickly. Down, down, down. How far did she have left when she started falling? Why was she still gripping the damned cable?

  After a second or two that felt like forever, she felt herself impact in some shallow water, and the world seemed to bob up and down. Cabling continued to land around her, so she tried to guard her face while losing consciousness. The water lapped up against her face, getting deeper. She knew that if she passed out with her face underwater, it wouldn’t matter that she’s survived the fall.

  The world went black.

  ~~~~~

  Chapter 18: Good Morning

  ~~~~~

  Alisia, much to her surprise, awoke.

  She was dry, she was warm, and there was no particular pain. As she awoke, she realized she was having a little trouble breathing. There was some kind of weight on her. And strands of black soft hair laid c
arelessly across her face.

  There was a corpse on top of her. A fresh one. No... it’s warm? This girl’s alive? It’s the IR signature! It is a human. Next question, why is this human on top of her?

  Alisia felt that there was a hand near hers. With as little motion as possible, she felt for a pulse. Yup, she’s alive alright. But, she just woke her up. Alisia went for her gun on instinct, but she was unarmed. Alisia froze in panic.

  The girl on top of her sat up slowly. Her black hair dragged along Alisia’s face as the stranger began to pull herself up. The girl’s hand pushed down on Alisia’s shoulder softly for some support to rise. The stranger’s eyes were closed. She rose up to a straddling position and reached her arms up, up, up.

  Her short tank top slid up as well, threatening to reveal a bit more than Alisia cared to see. As the stranger eased her stretch, she slowly opened her eyes. Regan smiled as seductively as she could.

  “Good moooorning, sweetie.” Regan purred.

  “Who the hell are you?” Alisia asked.

  Regan leaned forward, hovering over the new found object of her affection, running one of her hands up Alisia’s abdomen.

  “I’m your new friend.” Regan smiled sweetly.

  “I’m not this friendly!” Alisia pushed Regan’s hand away and clumsily tried to worm free. Alisia got off the mattress, falling a few centimeters to the tile floor.

  Alisia got a good look at where she was. It was a large public washroom that Regan had converted to a surprisingly welcoming living space. This corner was a little bedroom of sorts. To the left, the wheelchair stall had been converted to a kitchenette, and the other stalls used for storage. One of the sinks had a plant growing out of it. Further down was the entrance to a large shower room, racks of clothing, and beyond that, a barricaded entrance.

  Alisia backed up against the wall. “You- you rescued me?”

  “Yeah. I’d been watching you. When I saw you dangling over my rain-catching pool, I came running. Good thing too. I had to clean out that zombie that fell in before you.”