Chapter 24

Priscilla kept watch on the zombies directly underneath them while the group’s fighting leadership of Luke, Tamara, Alex, Ivey and he gathered.

“We need to do this carefully.”

Alex cleared his throat. “I trust you, but are you sure about the ferals?” he hesitated, shot Ivey a glance and then grinned. “I mean zombies. They did not seem that much of a concern when we cleared levels twenty-six and seven.”

Daniel shook his head, amused. “Yes, these are smart. On all the other floors, Priscilla has baited them to attack each other.” He grimaced. “Downstairs it’s completely different. The sentries they’ve posted won’t be provoked. Do you want to know why?” Daniel’s voice was rising despite himself. “Because when she infuriated one of them sufficiently to chase her, the elite one ate it.”

Smack.

Daniel hit the table. “After that, every single one ignored Priscilla. The sentries know what happens if they break, the elite knows it can kill them if they do, they’re trained and smart. That elite I’m sure exists under similar restrictions. They’re an army.”

“I hear you Daniel,” Luke said. “But we have tactics that succeed against ferals. And with the new rockets, they’ll work even better.”

“As I said,” Daniel said surprised at how annoyed Luke’s timidity was making him. Didn’t the man realise that to stay still was death? Unexpected anger frothed in his gut and Daniel suppressed it. Luke was not trying to be difficult he was merely arguing for the pathway that he thought was best. “It won’t work.” He said tiredly. “You were here. That creek of concrete breaking caused a response. There’s no sneaking down. They have the entire floor below us watched. Security, that’s even tighter now because they heard us. Three additional roaming zombies and an extra elite. It’s scary.”

“Maybe we should prepare the battlefield and draw them in.” Luke said quietly. “Trap this floor, drop a stairwell and let them come to us.”

An Awkward silence descended.

Tamara shook her head vigorously. “We can’t do that. It’s sentencing those kids.”

“I agree.” Daniel said hurriedly. “Not for the same reason as Tamara.” He continued quickly to stop both Ivey’s and Luke’s nascent argument before they started. “Baiting them up isn’t going to work. They’re fighting some war of attrition lower down in the tower.”

“So?”

“They’re smart and we’ve already seen that earth armour can negate a trap field. Based on the injuries that I see coming from the front below they’re definitely astute enough to coordinate earth ferals to go through our traps.”

“Can you send Priscilla to confirm that?” Alex interrupted. “It’s a big assumption to rest our strategy on.”

Daniel did not have to answer. He could feel the mouse shaking her head on his shoulder. Image of super-fast spiders reached him. She had obviously seen something that scared her as much as the ferrets.

“It’s too dangerous for her to leave my animal sense range. There is a real risk if we send her too far she’ll get killed and eaten.”

“Then how do we know what’s happening?” Luke snapped apparently responding to Daniel’s defensive tones.

Daniel shrugged. “There’s a continued flow to and from the lower floors. Healthy down, injured up. We need to deal with them while they’re distracted. The stuff we used on the dumb ones up here ain’t going to work. We want to squeeze them between enemies.”

“You could still reinforce a floor enough that they’ll never get through.” Luke continued. “We don’t have to do this now.”

“Rubbish.”

“No!” Luke said loudly over the top of Daniel. “We can turtle.”

Daniel shook his head in exasperation. He sympathised where Luke was coming from. They had fought hard and bought themselves a measure of safety. Everyone wanted a break, an opportunity to feel safe while they recovered from the trauma of the last few days. Daniel truly understood the desire. It was just that his gut told Daniel that such a course would be disastrous. “If we do nothing, we’re sitting up here unable to grow or develop, while they’re getting stronger. If we do that when they’re ready to kill us, there will be nothing we can do. Guaranteed.”

“Unless the moths yield us enough experience so that our growth outpaces there’s.” Alex pointed out. “Not that I believe that’ll work.”

“STOP!” Ivey yelled.

Daniel winced.

Animal Sense.

One feral that had been pacing the corridors had stopped. While Daniel could not tell via Animal Sense, it was almost certainly looking in their direction. Daniel placed a finger against his lips to indicate that they needed to be quiet.

“This debate is stupid.” Ivey whispered angrily. “We have to push. We’re going to attack. Let’s cut out the unnecessary debate.”

“Ivey that’s not decided.” Luke responded intensely. “This is an important conversation.”

“What’s the plan?” Ivey asked, ignoring Luke and looking straight at Daniel.

“We go down the outside of the building using plant ramps. Breach in multiple rooms. Everyone with their standard weapons and the rockets. Simultaneously, I lock down the stairwell to stop reinforcements. We kill all the zombies on the floor and retreat to this floor and see what happens.”

Tamara appeared confused. “Why would we retreat? That doesn’t make sense to me.”

“I don’t want to attack,” Luke said, “but if we do, I agree with Tamara. If we’ve floor, why wouldn’t we reinforce it and push from there. Once twenty is ours, we can trap the access stairwell and then hold it indefinitely.”

“Daniel’s worried they have an ultra.” Alex observed.

“Not worried. They have three. I’m afraid they have something worse.”

Alex grinned wryly. “What Daniel wants to do is to expand their war of attrition, but do it in a way that doesn’t expose us. Kill ten in this fight, ten in the next and wear them down till we can destroy them.” Alex leant back in his chair. “Let’s say we’re doing this. What else can we do to improve our chances?”

“Wait till tomorrow.” Luke suggested immediately. “By then, we’ll have more traps in play and maybe a couple of extra levels.”

“We won’t have any more levels,” Alex disagree. “Everyone’s already at level fifteen from that starting mana storm. That’s a lot of dead moths to raise the entire team by even one level.”

“True.” Luke conceded. “But we’ll at least have better equipment to fight with.”

“Nope, we go today.” Ivy said insistently.

“Why?” Luke snapped. He clearly didn’t understand why everyone was in a rush and it was getting to him.

Ivey hesitated with her eyes, taking on a slightly distant look like she invariably did when interacting with her interface. She frowned. “I’ve always been psychic and I have a gut feeling.” She said with a straight face.

Daniel smirked.

“I’m with Ivey.” Tamara agreed immediately.

Luke sighed in exasperation. “Forget the rescue mission. As far as we know, they might already be dead. We need to strategize logically.”

“It’s not about the kids.” Tamara said firmly.

Luke threw his hands in the air. “Then what is it?”

“I’m psychic too.”

Silence deadened.

Luke shook his head. “There’s absolutely no logical argument I can make against that.”

“Tamara,” Alex leant forward, suddenly interested. “What do you mean?”

She swallowed as she considered how to answer the question. “Is it so hard to believe that someone can see the future?” She clicked her finger and flames rose.

“There’s a big difference between magic which is actually taking advantage of the laws of reality and seeing the god damned future.”

“I don’t know about that.” Tamara looked thoughtful. “Sufficiently advanced technology might as well be magic.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“What would the mongolian empire think of guns? How about an electric torch in mediaeval Europe, or a TV?”

“I get that, according to the text files, that fire you conjured is basically higher technology. Just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean it has a mystical origin. Especially if it’s repeatable.” Alex argued.

“How about predicting the weather?” Tamara asked. “Isn’t that looking into the future?” She mimicked Alex’s voice from earlier.

To the other man’s credit he did not reflectively argue back and instead considered what she had said. “Are you saying that is why we need to go down?”

Tamara shook her head and then shrugged.

“Do you know something? Something more than I’m a Psychic?” Alex pressed. “If this is a class skill, I can understand where you are coming from. Is it?”

“No.”

“A hint?”

Daniel caught Tamara’s glance at Ivey. She had no knowledge of the future and was supporting Ivey because there was something special about her interface and Tamara had worked out that Ivey’s psychic comment actually referred to Ivey covering up the fact her interface was telling her stuff.

“Can’t do it,” Tamara said sadly. “I don’t have anything tangible to point at.”

Alex was now looking almost as frustrated as Luke and Ivey Daniel noticed was deliberately staying silent.

Daniel studied the surrounding group. Tamara wished to go as fast as possible because she was prioritising saving the kids who might or might not exist. He wanted to push because he knew it would be a disaster if they allowed the Zombies to get stronger. Ivey because her interface was telling her to act. Opposing that decision was Luke who’s natural tendency was to advance cautiously, which was an approach Daniel couldn’t fault and then finally Alex who was trying to keep an open mind. The arguments were no longer productive. “Quiet!”

The abrupt silence was shocking. The frustrated questions of the men stopped instantly. “Premonitions or not, we’re doing this. I don’t see any point in delaying. The longer we wait the more dangerous the Zombies are going to get. What happens if the perpetual war is increasing their abilities and power? What do you think the result will be if we hide away up here and then in a month they come and they’re effectively ten levels higher?”

“I’m not sure that feral mutated humans can level.”

Daniel grinned at Ivey’s interruption. For someone who was adamant that she wanted to go quickly, she was willing to sabotage her own side to make sure that all the statements they made were accurate. “They get better at using their skills and if they consume cores, those skills will get stronger and they might even develop new ones. We can’t afford to wait. It’s not like the zombies aren’t aware that we’re here. I’m thinking about the octopod and what would have happened to us if it had gone down instead of up. That would have been a disaster.” Internally, Daniel shuddered just remembering it. If they had waited the night, then the Parkers and Finigan would have been killed and then they wouldn’t have had the power to defeat the octopod as it had taken all their forces working together to do it.

“A day won’t matter and–”

“No Luke. Extra traps won’t make it safer. Or at least not safe enough to delay the attack. We go down on the outside, hurt them and then bait them into following us as. We retreat and hopefully drop the stairs with some zombies on them.”

“Ok.” Alex stood up. “We’re in agreement. Let’s organise everyone.”

“We’re not in agreement.” Luke protested.

“Four to one from where I’m standing, Luke. However, if Daniel was the one, as far as I’m concerned that counts as agreement.” Alex said fiercely. “I’m only alive because of the risks he took. I’m not sure anyone else can claim otherwise.”

“I’ll need a half an hour to finish the stairwells. To help, I need food for me, Trudy and lots of water and then we attack.”

“And may God be with us,” Ivey said quietly.

Daniel looked at her in bewilderment. She was not religious, but to his surprise he saw how both Luke and Alex bowed their heads briefly.

When Luke looked up, the doubts were gone. The decision was made, and he was going to do the best he could to make it successful.