The miniguns spun down, but not for want of ammunition. Rose red-riddled bodies had piled up and variously been left sprawled all over the road and gutter. Even with the few of the Bio-Police who were present, they were compelled to move the bodies themselves—from the asphalt to the gutter, and from the gutter to the sidewalk.

Another van arrived soon after. Its technicians, in grey jumpsuits and submachine guns hanging by their sides, piled out of the back and drew out four human-sized trays from a machine in the back of the van. A pair of commandos came by, handling a corpse that was swinging between them. They loaded it into one of the trays, and a technician pushed it in.

After all four trays were loaded, the incinerator burned.

“Mr. Castellano!”

Coronel knocked on the door as loud as he could. Did zombies somehow infiltrate the hardware store? Were all the scouts dead? It’d be unbelievable.

G-0: [Sir. No visual of human survivors through the shutters.]

The report came in through Coronel’s receiver. His retinal display showed who was speaking, so there was no need for anyone to identify themselves over the comms net—a waste of time that anyone would do without.

“Gold Element, got it. Red Element, breach the door and force negotiations.”

In fifteen seconds, five men arrived with carbines and a battering ram.

After three slams of the battering ram, they only managed to dent the door. With two applications of breaching charges, however—one for each hinge—the door flew open and pivoted by the chains that used to lock it.

They went in, flashlights blaring faster than shadows could be perceived.

R-0: [Sir, no survivors in the area. Confirmed a likely escape route. Sending visuals, please confirm.]

Coronel accepted the visual prompt, and he got a live feed from member R-3 of a 2x2-foot hole in the foot of the wall, blocked from the other side by sheet metal of some sort.

“Acknowledged. Cease pursuit.”

Other things grabbed Coronel’s attention. He went inside the store, stepping into a short corridor. Straight ahead would have been the store proper, but midway was an opened door to the right. That was where the trail led him.

Inside, his visuals highlighted the room red. The table in the middle, the chairs on either side, the footsteps on the floor—all red.

Traces of what should have been a potent, nigh-unstoppable killer were all around, but the patterns were inconsistent. The footsteps paced around, and fingerprints were left on the heads of chairs and the edges of the table. If this were a monster, it would have to be a monster with etiquette and habit. Inconsistent.

Cain: [… To all units, confirmed Gamma presence moving south-southwest. Commence pur—] “—suit. Coronel, let’s go.”

Cain was standing in the doorway behind him. He turned around and, with a sigh that Cain didn’t fail to pick up on, followed him out of the store.

***

Karlson lowered the traffic cone from his ear. The wide of its base had been pressed against the wall, while the narrow had been cut to allow an ear to fit.

“They’re gone,” he said.

The scouts were just on the other side of the wall as the evacuating Red Element. The Bio-Police were attracting a lot of attention with their firepower, and so the surrounding streets would remain hot for a while. Escaping under such circumstances would be riskier than simply re-encountering the Bio Police, with whom they could actually talk.

But they shouldn’t encounter them. Not for what they were about to do.

They were inside a laundry shop for the moment. Michael and Tali were slumped side-by-side against a washing machine.

“D-do you think we’ll be okay?” Tali asked.

“I forget you’re just a kid sometimes… We’ll have to make things work, some way or another,” Michael replied.

Tali bit her lip. She joined the Scouts because she felt useless—no, she was useless. She was alone in the world, and was left even more alone when the apocalypse came. It took from her whatever family she had, and suddenly, there was nothing for her to do in life.

From the corner of her eye, James’s figure hopped down to the front of the entrance. He reached out to her back then. “Good talent shouldn’t waste away” he told her. He was cheerful when he said that.

That man wasn’t here. He looked the same as before, but something in his step was off. He approached the two.

“Aurelia’s in trouble. Sounds like they’re headed a bit south. If it’s not too far, we can rush there in an hour.”

Michael and Tali said nothing, though they weren’t aware their lips had pulled into a frown.

“I’m not forcing you to go.”

James eyed Karlson, who just nodded. He’d follow him anywhere. It was a blind loyalty that James disliked, but a friend was a friend, even if a bit messed in the head. Perhaps Karl would become a person someday—but may that be a day where Aurelia was still with them.

Karlson often saw them together in the past. Jealous he might have been at their closeness, he learned something of the flow of emotions as James told him, “You’re helped by me, who’s helped by Oreo.”

—Then am I just a drain?

When he said that, James tapped him in the head with a frying pan. “Close the loop, dumbass.”

—To become Oreo’s friend—no, to be the one to help her, how can I do that?

Perhaps this was it. He’d help Aurelia for James’s sake—no, that’s not what he meant.

Help Aurelia for Aurelia’s sake.

His admiration for his friend only grew. He saw James as humanity’s closest approximation to omniscience, but even his delusion couldn’t stave off the fact that James was human—selfish, and only willing to die for the things and people important to him, and him only.

But instead of suppressing his delusion, James’s humanity acted like salt to sweeten it.

—To be powerful and to use it for one’s own interests, interests which are immaterial, profound, truly meaningful.

The man was his personal ideal—the man himself wouldn’t wish it had he known.

Diliman be damned, James’s burden wasn’t to support it. His burden was to keep his life meaningful—to keep the people he loved alive and happy, and to meaningfully struggle with them until water fills their lungs, until they meet with oblivion.

For struggle to be meaningful, they needed a fighting chance. Struggling without a chance is meaningless—useless. Thus there are useless deaths, and useless lives—and he would rather see neither.

Thus, with two of them, perhaps they had a fighting chance.

***

The cleanup crew had been made to stay, and the Bio-Police left with two armored vans, carrying a total of 21 personnel.

Cain and Coronel rode together in the rear van. They would be yet to see action.

The stars of this pursuit were the technical specialists—the TS1’s—who were driving the vans, operating the drones, and sorting information.

Skeye-1: [Gamma heading southwest, 300 meters, 5-point-5 going 8 per second.]

Assessor: [Acknowledged. Commander, we’re too slow. Advising to execute drone-hounding maneuvers.]

Cain: [Accepted.]

Assessor: [Acknowledged. All Hound operators, there is only one target. Launch immediately.]

Hound-1: [Wilco.]

Hound-2: [Wilco.]

The backs of the vans opened, and operators angled the drone launchers skywards. Triggers clicked and they loosed the rubber slings. Wings unfolded to a half-meter wingspan. The drones soared, and their operators got to work.

Each drone carried radio disruption equipment.

“The fuck’s this feeling!?”

A wave of pressure pushed and pulled at Aurelia’s senses, like having one’s sense of gravity gone askew. It wasn’t anything that could harm her, but the wrongness worried her. Maybe should would slip and fall just from the slight disorientation.

Arguably, even falling from a skyscraper wouldn’t kill her. However, it might kill the person under her arms. Tristan was crying. His sense of gravity was well and truly gone.

“Please! Make it stop!”

“We’re being chased, dumbass!”

Well and truly pissed at the situation, Aurelia spotted one of the Bio-Police’s drones. She landed on a roof and found a small stock of building material—just bits of plywood and lumber, really. It would be enough.

“FUCK! OFF!”

Aurelia tossed a two-by-four in the general direction of the drone.

Assessor: [All be advised, drone-hounding maneuver is effective—correction, adjustments required. Please stand by.]

Hound-1: [My feed’s gone. I’m not sure what happened. Hound-2, did you have visual?]

Hound-2: [Affirmative, probable uh—projectile strike.]

Hound-1: [Come again?]

Hound-2: [We appear to be taking aimed surface-to-air fire.]

As the operator said that, he performed a barrel roll to dodge a blur on his screen. It reminded him a lot of a certain video game he played when he was a kid.

Hound-2: [Assessor, please be advised. The enemy has damn-scary aim, I can’t get into effective disruption range.]

Assessor: [A-acknowledged. All operators, maximize standoff distance.]

The Assessor’s job was to assess and adjust the current tactical policy to any sudden developments in the situation. It’s a job full of first times.

This was one of those times.

But anyway, he was good at this.

Assessor: [All units, be advised. There is a highly-vertical zone 400 meters south-southeast. Commander, advising to set the killzone there and to expect significant Hound losses.]

Cain: [All accepted.]

Assessor: [Acknowledged. All Hound units, resume effective standoff distance with evasive maneuvers; risk of loss acceptable; relaunch permitted; divert the Gamma for ten minutes along this designated route. Armadillo-1, move ahead to the killzone and drop shock troopers at this designated location. Armadillo-2, drop off snipers at these designated locations. All execute and stand by for developments.]

The assessor smiled under his mask. His fingers tapped away at the laptop’s keyboard. In the time it took for him to come up with his orders, he had carried out an analysis of the terrain, determined optimal routes to minimize contact with zombies, and packaged and sent pieces of this information to the relevant teams and elements.

All without touching the trackpad.

The lead vehicle peeled off. Pairs of commandos jumped out of the moving van at far-spaced intervals. Cain and Coronel considered raising their assessor’s paygrade.