28 Catastrophe

"Where's sector 2B?" I asked, already moving. The sergeant glanced up, even as he reached for his rifle and rallied his men.

"Sending you the schematics," he said, waving his hand through the air and swiping a blue tinted window. The hologram was transmitted to my smartphone, which in turn projected it onto the lenses of my glasses. My squad mates were similarly finding the holographic map in their smartphones and were studying it as they followed me.

I could see the angry red icons marking the zombies. No mutants…yet. But that could change. We had to seal the breach in the wall. But to do so, we had to stem the flood of zombies rushing into the corridor.

"The other option is to seal off the entire area, but we've been continually ceding territory to the zombies." The sergeant sounded frustrated. "At this rate, we won't have any space left in the facility."

"I understand." Inhabitable space was becoming a premium. However, we might as well just evacuate the facility. It sounded more practical than attempting to hold a dwindling territory. "You should prepare to evacuate."

"We're afraid of what will happen if the zombies and mutants break out of the facility. Particularly the ones the eggheads experimented on."

"How different are they from other mutants? And what will happen if they escape into the wasteland?" Honestly, I couldn't imagine how they would make the world worse than it already was. The place was already populated by countless mutants. What was a few more? Leave it to the higher ranked evolvers to take them out.

"This is our responsibility." The sergeant clenched his fists as he hastened his pace. The evolvers were rushing ahead of the regular people of the security guards, as it should be, but the guards were keeping pace. Impressive. Not winded at all, the sergeant continued. "We should be the ones to deal with our own mess. We can't just leave it to others…it's just…irresponsible."

"This isn't even your mess. It was caused by the researchers."

"We signed up to ensure the researchers' experiments didn't go out of control, and also to maintain the security of this facility. We failed."

The guy and his team had to be really naïve. They couldn't do anything without evolvers – even now, they were relying on our help. I wondered how they contained the threat before we arrived. Oh, right, by closing off sections and sacrificing entire sectors of the facility.

Now that we evolvers had finally arrived, the security guards were finally seeing some hope of fighting back and even pushing the mutants back to the containment labs.

They were putting an awful amount of faith in us…especially since we were nothing more than young, relatively inexperienced cadets. We didn't ask for this. Our mission was to escort the researchers back to District 4 safely.

After this battle, I was going to insist on that course of action. However, the opportunity to add to my Kill Count tally was too good to pass up. Not only that, given the researchers' state of mind, I didn't want a horde of zombies at our back while we evacuated. That would make things a lot more stressful. The less enemies we had pursuing us, the better.

So my squad struck the zombies in sector 2B like a cannonball.

Lou Qian's scythe took the zombies' heads off in a single stroke. Skidding to a stop, she reversed the swing of her scythe and reaped another bloody harvest, sending heads and body parts streaming into the air. beside her, Lei Shu's sword struck and impaled the undead before discharging lethal lightning that sent them convulsing and charring. Nian Qing's spear obliterated mobs of zombies while branches and wood impeded their movements. Wind blades from Pang Fei cleaved through the zombies, cutting them apart.

I joined them, drawing both pistols and firing. In such close quarters, my rifles would be too unwieldy, so I relied on my sidearm instead. Spinning about, I kicked a zombie down before blowing its head off. Ducking under the grasping lunges of another zombie, I shot it at pointblank range and whirled around to kick another before it could grab me. Ramming the barrel of my right pistol into its jaw, I pulled the trigger and was rewarded with a muffled detonation. Smacking the hands of another zombie aside, I blasted it with my left pistol, the plasma discharged right into its chin and exiting through the top of its head.

Then I rammed a knee into the gut of a zombie, causing it to fold before I shot it in the head.

It was almost like a waltz, with me spinning gracefully amidst the zombies. My movements were becoming methodical and almost precise. I would evade the zombies' claws and lunges by a hair's breadth, bringing my pistols up and firing single shots into their heads. Most of the times, anyway. Once, a zombie got too close, so I kicked it at the knee and fired once into its chest. The impact caused it to stumble backward, even though it wouldn't die from a normally fatal blow.

That was enough for me. Without hesitation, I whipped my pistol up, cracking it in the jaw and then blowing a hole in its skull. In the same motion, I spun around to kick a zombie trying to ensnare me from behind. While it staggered, I fired into its face.

The pistols might not need ammunition, relying on my evolution energy to supply their rounds, but even so I remained efficient with my shots, firing as if each shot counted. My Kill Count surged, but I was barely keeping track of it. My priority was to stay alive, so each movement was economical, each shot was precise, and each strike was measured.

Whirling around, my arms and legs lashed out in blurs. Jumping up above a mass of zombies, I stepped on the scalp of one of them before propelling myself upward. Sliding my arm through a tangle of cables hanging overhead, I spun myself in midair and fired a couple of shots too take down the tallest zombies. Then I used my momentum to spring myself at one of them, smacking my shoes against its head and shattering its skull from the impact. Even as it fell, I was already leaping to my next target. Twisting my body in midair, I kicked another zombie, snapping its neck, and then fired in opposite directions to blow the heads of a couple of zombies.

Dropping to a crouch to avoid getting my neck and head grabbed by the circle of zombies closing in on me, I then struck with my leg, knocking their feet out from under them and sending them tumbling over like dominos.

Jolting back to my feet, I spun myself about in a circle, delivering a rapid volley that blasted the zombies' heads off while they were still down. The targeting reticules danced all over my lenses, and I only squeezed the triggers when they turned red, the crosshairs locking onto their specific targets and notifying me the optimal time to strike.

Of course, no matter how fast I was, I couldn't possibly finish of all the zombies before they crawled back to their feet. Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about them. Lei Shu and Lou Qian reached my position, lightning and frost emanating from their evolver weapons to electrify or freeze the downed undead.

"Shouldn't you be staying back?" Lou Qian asked, her voice dripping with disapproval. I shook my head.

"In such narrow confines, it'll be more difficult for me to shoot the zombies without accidentally hitting you guys. I would be more effective getting up close to them."

"Pointblank range, eh?" Lei Shu joked with a grin. He shook his head as he surveyed the devastation I had left behind, whistling in awe. "Not bad, boss. I knew you were strong ever since that day against the grotesque, but I didn't think you were capable of such carnage without any elemental ability."

"I can't imagine how deadly you'll be with an element when you're already this strong without one." Lou Qian sighed. She glanced at my pistols. "Then again, I think you're this good particularly because your ability specializes in those. You're a speed type evolver?"

"No, precision type evolver," I corrected her. Lou Qian nodded.

"I keep forgetting because you wear those glasses. I've to remind myself that you wear your glasses to improve your precision, not that you actually need them to see."

"Yeah, well…" I shifted my glasses subconsciously, and then turned to the security guards who were bringing up the rear. They didn't get a chance to fire, mostly because they didn't want to accidentally hit us my mistake.

Even though their expressions were hidden by their masks and goggles, I could tell that they were in awe. Most regular people couldn't help but be amazed by the feats of evolvers. We weren't gods, but we were still more powerful than the average human.

"Um, so what's next?"

"We seal the breach." The sergeant didn't hesitate, already moving and directing his stunned troops by clapping them on their backs. One of them hooked up a device to a panel, and he sprayed some foam to seal a breach in the wall. The thick liquid hardened quickly, taking on the color of dull gray like the metal around it, making it indistinguishable from the material to which it was welded to. While the guards worked, my squad stood around them, watching for any signs of attacks. We had taken care of the zombies in this area, so there weren't any left for now.

For now.

Aware that there could still be zombies crawling around somewhere and taking us by surprise, I kept my senses peeled for any sign of them. I noted that there weren't any "Sense" or a similar attribute among my stats, which kind of sucked. It would have been useful.

Glancing through my Evolution Tree, I did see a Detect Ability. It would certainly be useful, but at 100 points, it was pretty expensive. And I wanted to invest more in my Hades Ability for now, especially given how life-saving it was.

Then the sergeant jolted in shock, his hand reaching to the com bead in his ear. Similarly, his smartphone, which was attached to his belt, buzzed and a holographic window was projected. One of the guards who he had left in the security room, was gesticulating frantically to something off screen, even picking up his rifle and firing at something unseen.

"Sergeant!" he called out breathlessly, his eyes darting across something in front of him. "There's another breach! Right here in the security room! And there's a mutant! They got the researchers! AH!"

"Fall back!" one of the other guards shouted over the roar of gunfire. "Fall back, damn it! We can't hold this place!"

"Fall back to where?"

"Anywhere that's not here!"

"Hang in there!" the sergeant yelled, already moving. He wasn't alone. The moment we saw the hologram, my squad had leaped into action and were sprinting back toward the way we came from. "We're on our way! We'll be there in five!"

"I don't think we'll be able to survive one minute!" The guard on the other end shouted. There was a bloodcurdling scream off screen and I winced at the pain and horror in the voice.

"Just do your best, damn it!" The sergeant swore under his breath and swiped away the hologram to focus on running. His security team followed, double timing in staggered rows. "We've to hurry!"

"Yes, sergeant!"

"This timing can't be a coincidence," Lou Qian marked, her expression grave. "Of all the time…"

"Of course!" The sergeant murmured, realization in his voice. "This attack was a distraction! To divert the main force away from the security room! Damn it! Those mutant bastards! They've really been learning and figuring out how best to use tactics! They want to decapitate command and take out our most strategic location!"

A chill ran down my back. That couldn't be good. Recalling the words of the security guard still in the command room, I wondered what mutant was leading the attack there.

Something more cunning than any of the mutants I had met in the wasteland so far? What if this wasn't the only trick it had up its sleeve?

Shaking the doubts from my mind, I focused on the task at present. Whatever the case, whoever the enemy, I would deal with them all when they came. I could only fight the foe right in front of me, after all.

And I wasn't without tricks of my own.