AZU-1: Lifehack (12 page)

Alisia discreetly flipped the bird over
her shoulder.

“
Anytime, Sir.” Parker
replied.

“
In your dreams,
Corporal.”

“
Aw, can’t a guy dream,
Captain? Hey Kensington, you’re a Private, wanna fraternize
later?”

Tracy turned around sharply, and made
the rudest face she could think of, which in all reality just came
out ‘cute’. Parker remained silent, and smiled softly to himself.
It might be worth making a point to talk to her later.

When Tracy turned around again, the
city seemed suddenly closer. The sky seemed darker. It was not long
before they reached the first of the buildings, which were in
various states of disrepair. On the outskirts it was mostly
factories, warehouses, and things of that nature. Instinctively,
Tracy walked closer to the nearest building to not be out in the
open.

Alisia continued down the middle of the
street and noticed Tracy. Alisia whistled as if to call a dog, and
pointed at the ground near her. Tracy understood and got back into
formation.

“
Hey Parker.” Alisia asked,
fiddling with her visor. “You still see that heat signature moving?
My IR at this angle isn’t really much help.” While she did see many
heat signatures, they all seemed still. Machinery and such still
gave off heat, many still running on their own after all this
time.

“
No Captain. It’s either
gotten under some cover, stopped moving, or cooled off.” Parker
replied. “Most of the boys have their eyes peeled, so we’ll
probably see it if it pops up again.”

“
I hope we’re not going in
here for nuthin’. Hey, where’s the nearest mystery VTag? Maybe if I
looked around, I could get a clue..”

Parker was quiet for a moment before
Alisia’s visor showed a new VTag, flashing to draw her attention.
“Over there,” Parker’s voice said. Right next to Parker’s new VTag
was one of the unknown ones. It was labeled simply “FW”.

“
Hey, Parker. Make things
simple for me. Let me see just the unknown VTags, and the IR
signature’s last position.”

“
Right. Jussec.” Soon, all
the other VTags that the zipper snipers had marked disappeared from
Alisia’s view. There were about a dozen of the unknown tags. Most
were labeled either ‘FW’ or ‘GA’.

“
Somehow they don’t seem
very random.” Alisia observed.

“
Captain!” Tracy called
out.

“
What?”

“
I see dead people!” Indeed,
Tracy had spotted a small grouping of zombies coming out from a
hole in the wall of a nearby building. They were still fairly far
off, so Alisia told Tracy to calm down. Tracy had heard that the
zombies of Autar had a strange sense of style, and here was the
proof. One sported bermuda shorts with black socks pulled up high
by those little sock garters. His abdomen was nearly all gone, and
as Tracy looked on, a small rodent poked its head up from inside
and ran out, down the zombie’s leg, and scurried off.

One zombie wore a bowler hat with a
dead rose sticking out of the top. Another sported fashionable
football padding.

All in all, once the group had cleared
the hole there were six of them, one of which was swinging his
detached arm in his other hand as a club.

“
A nice warm-up for ya,
Kensinton,” Alisia said, “Go ahead, hose em.”

Tracy aimed her P90 and let out a
couple controlled bursts at them. Three of the zombies took chest
wounds and staggered, but kept coming.

“
C’mon. I thought I told you
about this. Chest wounds don’t matter to them. Try
legs.”

Tracy lowered her aim, and blew off a
few legs. Soon enough all of the zombies were on the ground,
crawling towards them.

“
Nice shootin’. Normally I
don’t worry about ammo conservation, but today we might need it. We
can leave em like this. They won’t be a threat to us.”

“
But... Captain, they’re in
pain. Shouldn’t we finish them?”

“
Pain? I don’t think they
know what that is. Besides, look at em. If they were in pain, would
they still be so eager to get at us?”

Alisia walked up to the nearest
debilitated zombie, and kicked its head off with a hollow crunch.
Its arms groped about blindly.

“
Besides, I don’t know if
they ever truly die. They just stop moving and then
rot.”

Tracy looked down at the writhing mob
of bones and flesh with pity, but she understood. “It’s... like
killing robots.”

“
Exactly,” Alisia said,
glancing back again as she moved on, “No soul, no feelings, no
guilt, no problem. Some say that you’re freeing their souls by
‘killing’ them. But who knows if there’s anything to
that.”

Tracy seemed to like that idea so she
ran up and cautiously kicked the head off one before catching up to
Alisia.

Alisia smirked at the warrior mouse
Tracy. “Don’t get overconfident on me now. I have lots of
experience at this. I can afford to be a bit cocky.”

Amused mumblings from Corporal Parker
could be heard through the comm.

“
Pervert.” Tracy said with a
smile.

The two continued on into denser
groupings of buildings. Tracy felt the streets were a little
narrower. She looked around, and spotted several small lights, here
and there. Was it was getting dark early?

“
Captain, why is the power
still going?” Tracy asked, “Why wasn’t it cut off?”

“
Autar’s power comes from a
generator plant somewhere inside the city. When humans evacuated,
no one shut it down, and I guess the zombies haven’t bothered to
damage it.”

“
What kind of generator is
it?”

Alisia shrugged “I don’t
know.”

“
There’s no river for a dam
and no windmills or solar cells. Is it nuke? They wouldn’t build a
city around a nuclear plant, would they?”

“
I don’t know. I asked, but
it’s classified for whatever reason. It would go a long way to
explaining why we’re not allowed to use explosives in here, but it
doesn’t entirely add up.”

“
How’s that?” Tracy’s
interest was really piqued now.

“
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,