AZU-1: Lifehack (18 page)

Parker blinked. And blinked. And
blinked. “....comes on...? Uh, are you two....?”

“
God no!” Alisia exploded,
quickly restraining herself. She could just see Parker’s
imagination running full steam. “No, no.. she wants to, but I don’t
play that way.”

“
I see. So uh....” Parker
struggled against his dominant thoughts to find something helpful
or appropriate to say. “So... has she... uh.. then
what...”

Alisia looked at the poor male with
pity. “Soldier, you’ve seen far too much porn for me to have this
discussion with you.”

“
Yes Sir, uh, Captain.”
Parker stood there still a little stunned.

“
..... Dismissed?” Alisia
said. Finally Parker snapped back to reality, and wandered off
blushing.

Regan sat, holding the guitar,
imagining if Alisia had approached. Maybe put her hand on her
shoulder again. That was nice. Regan felt the need to relieve some
tension and headed back towards her quarters. On the way she ran
into Parker, who seemed unusually distracted to talk to her. He did
prove useful however, in that he revealed Alisia’s location. Regan
thought for a moment about the effects of alcohol and decided that
Alisia plus alcohol equaled hope abundant.

Regan found Alisia and sat down next to
her with a confident smile and bedroom eyes. “Hey ‘leesha. How’s it
goin’?”

Alisia’s face looked a bit nervous, but
if she knew the extent of what was going on in Regan’s head she
would have fled outright. The bartender came over and Alisia said
she was buying for Regan. Regan took this as a great sign until
Alisia mentioned “You can pay me back when your first cheque
comes.”

“
Huh? Oh, I have money. You
think I only ever scavenged bare necessities in Autar? There was a
lot of money lying around. I popped a few safes out of boredom, not
to mention cash registers, so I’m pretty well off
financially.”

“
What? You looted safes and
tills?”

“
No one complained.” Regan
said, bringing her beer bottle to her lips.

Alisia couldn’t argue the logic, but it
still seemed wrong. About an hour passed by while Alisia asked
about Regan’s survival tactics and useful experiences with the
zombies. Regan downed beer after beer, and looked for some key of
wisdom that would help her win Alisia. Regan failed to notice that
while she had drunk quite a bit, Alisia was still at the top of her
second glass of wine.

Alisia was talking about the uses of
her “bad mojo” gun when Regan lost all interest in talk.

“
Yew drunk enough yet?”
Regan slurred.

“
Drunk... enough for what?”
Alisia asked, still innocent of Regan’s intent.

“
So’s I ken getcha inna my
room, an’ MUUaaaaaahhhhh.....”

“
...... no, I’d have to be a
lot drunker.”

Regan looked up at Alisia, (since Regan
was slowly slumping over against Alisia’s shoulder), and eventually
mumbled “Hm. Keep drinkin.” She rested against Alisia fully,
wondering how much they’d both had to drink. “Wine’s more powerful
th’n beer,” Regan falsely thought to herself, “She’s gotta be
plashtered!”

Regan snuggled into Alisia’s side a bit
more. “Hey! I know what. I’m gonna drink yew under the table......
yesh! Great idea. I’ll get under th’ table, an’ yew get yer pantsh
off!” With that, Regan fell asleep.

Alisia sighed and stared into her wine
for a few moments, as if it would tell her how to handle
Regan.

With patience and time, Alisia finally
guided Regan back to her quarters. Alisia slumped Regan down onto
her bed to find that Regan wasn’t letting go of her arm.

“
Jush shtay a minnit, k,
‘leesha?” Regan’s eyes were glazed over in a mixture of
drunkenness, sleepiness, and tears. Alisia knelt down beside the
bed and Regan held her forearm like a teddy bear. “Thanksh,
‘leesh.” Regan mumbled, squeezing Alisia’s arm.

It wasn’t long before Regan was passed
right out. Alisia carefully removed her arm, careful beyond fear,
not to graze Regan’s chest with her hand. She headed back to her
own room and went to sleep.

The next morning, Alisia awoke with the
sinking feeling that something was wrong. It only took a glance to
the side to see what had happened. Less than an inch from the side
of her head was the side of Regan’s head, upside down. At some time
during the night, Regan had come into her room and made herself
comfortable on Alisia’s bed. Alisia decided not to blow up. Not
yet.

“
.....Regan?” Alisia looked
around a little more, and saw that the teddy bear that was usually
at the corner of her bed was now under Regan’s arm.

“
Good morning, ‘leesha.”
Regan replied. She was close enough that Alisia could hear the
vibrations of her voice.

“
Yeah, uh, what the hell are
you doing in my bed?”

“
Oh, don’t worry, I was
good. Kept my hands to myself.” Regan innocently
replied.

“
Did... did you miss the
part where I said I wasn’t a lesbian?”

“
Nope!” Regan pecked Alisia
on the cheek and sprung up, headed for the door. “Gotta go get
ready! Big day!”

“
I’m locking my door from
now on!”

Alisia pulled herself together and
stepped out towards the showers. Who should be out in the hall, but
Corporal Parker. He stared wide eyed at Alisia as she came out.
Alisia looked at him with mild irritation and for a moment, there
was silence.

“
She...” Parker stammered,
“...out of your room....”

Alisia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s
right, Corporal. Last night, we got drunk and did it. Yeah. Hot and
slippery all night. I’m kinda surprised you didn’t hear the screams
from your quarters.”

“
You... you’re kidding
me...!”

Alisia narrowed her eyes at Parker.
“Geez, what do you think?” She said, walking off for the
showers.

Parker blinked and turned to yell out
after her. “I think you’re a mean, mean woman, Captain!”

~~~~~

Chapter 27: Pit

~~~~~

By mid morning Alisia and Regan were
deep into Autar. “General? Can we get a VTag on the target?” Alisia
asked into her comm.

“
Well ladies, it looks like
Regan’s already beat me to it.” The General responded.

“
Let me take a wild guess,”
Regan said, “it’s a VTag I set called ‘PIT’.”

“
Bingo.”

“
Ok, I give up you two,
what’s the pit?” Alisia said.

“
It’s the surface access to
the mana core.” The General offered, but was
interrupted.

“
Surface access!? Just how
deep is this thing?” Alisia blurted abruptly, forgetting the
General’s rank.

“
Well, the specs I have show
about six floors.” One could hear a smug grin on the
General.

“
Wonderful.”

“
Oh, at ease Captain. With
cement walls over a meter thick, there won’t be any
surprises.”

“
Have you seen it these
days?” Regan asked.

“
Do enlighten us Ms. Grier.”
The General’s voice mimicked the expression on Alisia’s
face.

“
Well, last time I was
there, it looked a lot like a huge empty swimming pool, with about
fifty zombies mulling about.”

“
Lovely.” Alisia
mumbled.

“
Captain, is this going to
be a problem?”

Alisia thought for a moment. “We’ll see
when we get there, but we can probably handle it.”

As the target VTag got closer, zombie
encounters got heavier and more frequent. Alisia was glad she had
packed extra ammo for this trip.

“
I’ve never seen this many
aberrations at once.” Alisia said, referring to zombies which had
taken on inorganic parts, or whose parts were in the wrong
order.

At that moment, one decided to lunge
out from around a corner. It had a pair of arms in place of a
spine, and two extra arms on top of that. Regan leveled her P90 and
shot its legs out from under it. It collapsed but kept coming,
walking on its four available arms. The girls glanced at each other
and relieved the determined creature of its walking
arms.

“
No worries,” grinned Regan,
“It’s perfectly armless!”

Alisia looked around for immediate
threats. There were several groups visible at the time, but nothing
coming their way at the moment, so she took the chance to
reload.

”
Anyway,” Regan said,
checking her clip, “this area always has all the weird ones. I saw
one once that looked like it was trying to do an imitation of a
squid. A pile of arms, a head, and it was walking on its
elbows.”

“
What? Was it any good in
combat?”

“
Good for me. While it was
trying to get at me it tripped up three other zombies.”

“
They’re not bright...”
Alisia glanced towards the target VTag.

“
Now and then, I see one
doing something a little smart. Like trying to operate an elevator.
I always made sure to nuke those guys fast.”

“
Why?”

“
I was always worried that
one day one would sneak past my alarms, and get me in my
sleep.”

Alisia tried to imagine that
possibility, trying to go to sleep every night. Now and then Alisia
was stunned by the idea that Regan had lived in this mess for two
years. What does that do to a person, being alone and in mortal
danger all the time? What kind of person would choose that? “Well..
we only have another few blocks to go.”

There were a lot of wide open areas.
Expensive corporate buildings wasted a lot of front space, making
the wide downtown streets even wider. They worked at avoiding the
zombies as they went, in an effort to conserve ammo.

They soon came to a block that was
totally surrounded by a cement wall, almost five meters high.
Outside the wall there stood a sparse, wide forest of pink, plastic
flamingos. Regan kicked one up into the air for fun. “Damn crazy
zombies.”

“
Let me unlock the gate.”
The General called in.

“
Why?” Regan said, “There’s
lots of holes in the wall.”

“
Yeah, but look,” Alisia
pointed, “The zombies are using the holes to get in and out. If we
open the gate and charge, they might not be around the gate. We can
meet less resistance.” The gaps in the wall had enough slow,
ambling traffic to make it nearly impossible to peek inside without
attracting attention.

“
I have the commands for the
entrance. It’s in the bottom middle of the pit.” the General said
“So when you’re about three seconds away from it, give me the
word.”

“
Check.”

They walked up to the steel gate as its
red light turned green.

“
Thank you
General.”

“
When you’re ready,
ladies.”

They double checked their rifles and
stared for a moment at the gate. “Alright. Open up.” The metal
doors rumbled to life and began to drag apart.

Before them was the cement yard that
hosted the pit. The pit sat fourteen meters wide, descending in
beveled layers. Alisia mentally prepared a simple course to the
man-hole-like hatch in the center. Forward, down, forward, down,
and so on.

There was a denser concentration of
zombies than they could have expected. The most space between any
zombies was less than an arm’s reach.

“
That’s different.” Regan
said softly. Already, a handful of them had turned their attention
towards Alisia and Regan. “There’s gotta be a thousand of
em...!”

“
Crap! No time to talk about
it” Alisia slung back her P90, and brought the bad mojo forward.
“Charge!”

Alisia fired a first round into the
wall of zombies ahead. The sound was both dull, and sharp. Quiet,
but you felt it through your body. At the same time, a hole
appeared through the mob like a wave of rotting flesh being
splashed out of the way. A dozen zombies went flying and uncounted
numbers fell before them.

“
Holy fuck!” Regan screamed
in delight, “Yes! Harder!”

Regan P90’ed those zombies lucky enough
to be missed but were still in the way. They ran into the mob. The
bad mojo soon beeped, ready to be fired again. At this time, the
horde was all around them except the rear. Alisia took aim and
fired. Again, the sea of death parted before them.

“
Yeah baby!” Regan’s wild
enthusiasm was a stark contrast to Alisia’s silent professionalism.
They ran forward, starting down the first beveled slope into the
pit. They were now below the highest level of zombies and the gap
behind them finally closed up, sealing the easy exit. They now felt
thoroughly surrounded by the mob. Even the sky seemed at risk of
being swallowed up.

They continued forward, blast, charge,
blast, charge. Regan pegged back lucky ones with her P90. Alisia
sometimes joined in with hers while the mojo recharged its
capacitors.

A fallen one grabbed Alisia’s leg as
she took aim, but Regan took care of it before Alisia even noticed.
“Sorry, buddy,” She thought to herself, “She’s mine.”