Undead

by Ryan W. Aslesen

  14

  Max and Delorn entered the elevator last.

  “Yeah, I think you’ll live,” West said to Zuckerberg when he stood after examining her shrapnel wound.

  “Yeah, I think that’s what I said,” she responded.

  “Anybody else fucked up?” West asked.

  “Getting there quick,” Delorn responded as the elevator door closed. He had very limited combat experience and had never seen anything like what they’d just been through. He’s truly blooded now. And it showed—he now possessed the vacant, impassive stare of a soldier who had killed too many men at too early an age, a haunting visage as old as war itself.

  “Keep it together, Delorn,” Max said. “We’re first out the door. Take it to ’em one more time.” If they were going to get jumped coming out of an elevator, it would be on this level.

  Delorn frowned, nodded, stared at the closed elevator door as they descended. “I can do that.”

  Yes, you will. Delorn’s weary voice and jaded countenance were enough to convince Max.

  “Long ride,” Koontz observed.

  “It is taking a hell of a long time,” West said.

  “We’re moving as fast as before,” Juno said. “The lab is deep. The creatures are down here, along with Dr. Park.”

  The elevator slowed.

  “Try not to burn us alive,” Heinz said to Delorn.

  Max scowled. “He’ll manage. Worry about yourself.”

  “I am.”

  Max didn’t answer Heinz. The elevator stopped, and the doors opened on one end of an empty hallway. This is getting all too familiar. The vermillion hallway resembled the others on the subterranean levels and ran about sixty feet before coming to a T-intersection. Two doors faced one another from opposite walls about thirty feet down the hall. Max and Delorn led the team forward. The doors led to a pharmacy and a medical supply room according to Juno, who ordered that they move on to the intersection ahead.

  The right hallway ran straight to a pair of distant double doors, with two other closed doors situated in the right wall. Floor-to-ceiling two-way mirrors made up the entire right wall down the left passage, which turned hard left about fifty meters down. Computer monitors glowed in the dark lab behind the glass. Further along, however, the lab appeared brighter, as if someone might be working despite the ungodly hour. Yoon and Park... Or the long-awaited trap.

  Max didn’t wait for an order; he turned left and moved out at a quick walk. After a few steps he halted upon seeing a small number keypad embedded in the wall next to a vertical slit two inches wide running floor to ceiling. “Security doors. They can cordon off this place in sections if they have to.”

  “Then we need to move faster,” Juno said.

  Max peered through the lab’s mirrored glass door, shielding his eyes with one hand to get a better look. No personnel, only more monitors and some large mainframe computers in green steel cabinets.

  “What is this place?” Max asked as he glanced at the Korean characters on the plaque next to the door.

  “Observation lab,” Juno said.

  He nodded. “Looks clear, but be ready,” he said to Delorn, who did not respond.

  Max tried the door, found it unlocked, and entered. A short flight of stairs led down to the computer lab floor. The space spread left and right for about fifty feet, with a sliding glass door at either end. Thirty feet away across the room, a line of computer workstations overlooked another space through another lengthy two-way mirror. The team spread out to secure the room. Max and Delorn moved to the line of monitors fronting the mirror.

  One dozen of the twenty monitors glowed black and white as they ran live observation video of animal and human test subjects in cages and padded cells. Two rhesus monkeys occupied the screen before Max—one dead in a pool of blood on the floor, its arm ripped off and cast aside in a corner; the other, twice the size of a normal monkey, slowly circling its victim over and over. Its tail had elongated and grown something resembling a stinger at the end. Tufts of its fallen hair littered the cell floor like ghost turds beneath a bed, fluttering about whenever the monkey shuffled past. It stopped above its fallen mate and started licking blood from the severed stump.

  “Check this out, Max,” Delorn said as he stared down at another monitor. “Is that even human?”

  Max watched the screen for several moments before he got a good look at the thing, for it had mostly assumed the off-white color of the padded cell confining it. “Not anymore.” Though stooped and shuffling about, the zombie must have been some eight feet tall. Only a few scattered blotches of black marred its nearly perfect camouflage. Small appendages resembling the barbels on a catfish sprouted around its misshapen mouth. Two legs and one of its arms ended in webbed feet of differing sizes, all of which featured hooked claws.

  “Where are they confined?” Delorn asked.

  Max pointed through the two-way mirror. “Down there from the look of things.” A barren white hallway ran about ten feet below the glass. Ten stout steel doors with tiny observation windows were spaced at regular intervals. “The human zombies are down there. The animals must be someplace else.”

  “We have to plant the bomb down there?” Delorn asked.

  “Yeah. Just concentrate on the job and we’ll be out of here that much sooner.”

  “We’re clear for now,” Heinz announced through the headset.

  Max turned from the mirror as Juno’s voice crackled, “Excellent. Trisha, did you find the drives?”

  “Negative, they could be in any one of these mainframe computers.”

  Zuckerberg kneeled before the switches and blinking lights on one of the green computer cabinets. Juno and Heinz joined her a moment later as Max and Delorn made their way over.

  “Get on a monitor and begin downloading the server information,” Juno said to Zuckerberg.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Delorn asked. “We need to keep moving and plant this bomb and get the fuck out of here.”

  Juno shook her head. “In a few short minutes, right after we download all of the data gathered on the virus.”

  “That’s not a mission objective,” Delorn said.

  “Not of your mission. Trisha and I have our own orders.”

  “Fuck that!” Delorn had the flamethrower pointed at the two women.

  Max hastily intervened with a hand on Delorn’s shoulder. To Juno he said, “Business as usual, I see. Why am I not surprised that you withheld your orders?”

  “Got it. Initiating download,” Zuckerberg announced from a computer terminal.

  “Why do you care, Max?” Juno asked. “You’re going to get what you want, so leave it at that. Now watch our backs while we take care of this.”

  “Nah, I’ll let Heinz take care of that. He doesn’t seem too concerned about your duplicity.”

  “Not our call, Ahlgren,” Heinz said. “You know the drill as well as anyone.”

  “Yeah, I once had to stomach shit like this. Not anymore.”

  Juno leveled a dark stare upon him. “If you decide to interfere—”

  A glass door at one end of the computer lab slid open. Koontz, the only one actually watching their backs at the moment, put his red laser dot on the chest of a young man in a long white lab coat. Behind him stood an older man in white, partially obscured, though the one visible lens of his horn-rimmed glasses identified him as Dr. Park.

  “Don’t shoot!” said the young scientist an accented English, a gawky man with shaggy hair who Max recognized as Yoon, their informant. Both men had stopped in their tracks.

  “Advance slowly,” Juno ordered.

  The scientists came closer. Yoon walked with the shuffling gait of a man who cared nothing for appearances, while Park maintained an erect and dignified bearing. As they neared the group, Dr. Park hesitated for a moment and then continued at a much slower pac
e. Even in combat gear and sweat-smeared streaks of face paint, he recognized his daughter. He had locked eyes with her, and what had been a slight smile on his face faded away as she slung her rifle over her back and now drew her katana.

  Max wasn’t surprised. He’d seen that cold and hungry assassin’s look on many faces in his time. She didn’t come here to rescue him. Quite the opposite.

  “Put the sword away, Juno,” Max said.

  “Stop interrupting, Max. My dear estranged father and I are about to have words for the first time in twenty years.”

  “Father?” West asked. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Max said. “Just another piece of mission-critical information Juno decided not to relate.”

  Juno ignored Max and addressed Dr. Park. “Father. So wonderful to see you again.” She smiled warmly at him.

  Max hoped Dr. Park was a mind reader. Don’t fall for it.

  Despite the sword by Juno’s side, Park took the last few steps and stood before his daughter. His thick spectacles magnified the tears welling in his eyes. “Jin-Seo... I cannot believe this is real, that you are finally here.”

  “Believe, Father.” She cranked up the wattage on her smile, moved forward to embrace him. As Dr. Park reached out to hug his daughter, she took a step back and swung a hard left. A young man would have seen the blow coming and easily dodged it, but her punch caught Park full force on the cheek. His glasses went flying, and he collapsed to the floor with a grunt, dazed and bleeding.

  “What are you doing?” Yoon cried.

  “You’ve lost your fucking mind,” Max shouted directly into her face. He stared into her eyes a moment, saw no remorse or empathy, and turned away in disgust.

  Dr. Park refused Max’s assistance when he tried to help him stand. “No. I, I deserve to be treated so.” He shook off Yoon’s helping hand as well and slowly rose to his feet. “Jin-Seo, I can never undo the abominable acts I committed upon you and your mother. I was not in my right mind. The drink... turned me into another person. Unfortunately, he is the one you remember. But that man perished many years ago, never to return.”

  Juno stared at her father as she stood holding the katana at her side, its blade pointed at the floor. “Perished, Father? I think not. His spirit still lives in every bottle of bem ju.”

  “I know this. But he will never be freed to wreak havoc upon my soul again. I have changed as much as you have, and I beg your forgiveness—”

  “For what, exactly?” She took a step closer and raised her voice. “For beating me mercilessly night after night?” She pushed toward him; he surrendered ground before her. “For killing my mother, your wife, the one you constantly accused of adultery in your delusional, drunken rages? She died running from you. Will your act of contrition raise her from the dead?”

  Park shook his head and looked at the floor, unable to meet her gaze. “No,” he sobbed.

  “Then I don’t want your apology, only the rotten fruit of your labor.”

  Max jumped in: “You two can hash this out after we’ve escaped. We don’t have time for this shit right now.” He looked constantly to the exits, expecting troops to barge in at any time.

  “Fruit of my labor?” Park asked Juno in obvious bewilderment.

  “Yes. As a human being you are worthless, as a scientist you are brilliant. And we can’t have your ingenious creation falling into the wrong hands.”

  “Of course not,” Park said. “That’s why we must destroy all data on the virus.”

  Juno shook her head. “No. That’s not what we’re doing. Your government won’t benefit from your research. But ours will.”

  “No!” Park shouted. “Jin-Seo, this cannot be!”

  “Shut up. You should be willing to pay any price for your rescue.”

  “You ask too much.” Park opened a door on a computer cabinet and yanked out a hard drive.

  “Fuck, it’s dead!” Zuckerberg yelled as she punched a computer cabinet next to her.

  Park threw down the drive and stomped his heel on it twice.

  “You old fool,” Juno growled, the words bile from deep in her gut.

  Max knew it was going to happen, yet a tiny portion of his soul hoped that she still possessed at least an inkling of mercy for this man who, though he had committed terrible crimes, was trying his damndest to atone for them. He hesitated until he heard the soft swoosh of Juno’s katana slicing through the air. Blood flew when the sword’s razor edge cut a deep slash into Dr. Park’s abdomen.

  Yoon screamed, an almost feminine sound, and rushed to Dr. Park, who still stood holding his bleeding gut, his intestines pushing out from the deep gash under his hand, as he gazed down dumbfounded at his own death. He then collapsed. Yoon grabbed him under the arms and eased him to the floor, muttering Korean words in frantic sobs.

  Except for the persons responsible for his family’s death—the reason he’d undertaken this fool mission in the first place—Max had never wanted to shoot anyone as much as he did Juno Rey. She embodied everything in himself that he’d come to despise during his time in the CIA, and she sickened him. He’d followed orders to murder helpless people in the name of freedom, nothing to be proud of. Her true nature had revealed itself when she executed the custodian for no good reason, and Max now understood the depths to which she would sink to get what she wanted.

  He could almost understand Juno murdering her father for revenge, as he likewise had a score to settle. But my villains aren’t about to beg forgiveness, and they’re sure as hell not related to me.

  His mother flashed to mind. Though she’d never beaten him physically, the scars of the mental wounds she’d inflicted still itched. She’d driven his father to suicide; nevertheless, he wouldn’t have slain her if given the opportunity.

  Startled shouts erupted from the team. West dropped to his knees beside Dr. Park and gently removed his hand from the wound. Dark blood flowed copiously from the ten-inch slash. West shook his head, turned, and looked up at Juno. He looked extremely shaken for a veteran who had survived so much combat. “There’s nothing I can do for him.”

  “That was the idea,” Juno said.

  Max didn’t even want her assistance any longer. He would find his information elsewhere. Or torture it out of her. In that kind of mood, he doubted his newfound feelings for Juno would ever abate. “You’ll pay for that someday.”

  Juno glowered at him. “Really? Is God gonna get me, Max? Are you?”

  Max said nothing.

  “Yeah, I thought so. We have a deal, and you better take damn good care of me to receive your payment.” She turned to Yoon, who sat sobbing on the floor next to Park with his head resting on his knees. “Get up.” She kicked him sharply in the shin.

  He looked up and flinched when he saw her towering over him with the katana in hand. Slowly, he moved to comply.

  “It seems my father has destroyed one of the hard drives, but I’m certain someone had the good sense to back up their data. Where is it?”

  The courage Yoon possessed to reach out to the US for help had vanished. He appeared terrified of Juno.

  He should be.

  Dr. Park began moaning Korean words that sounded slurred. Max understood only the tone: beseeching.

  Juno shouted furiously back at him in Korean and finished her tirade by spitting in her father’s face. She raised her sword and put it to Yoon’s throat, the steel quivering in time with her rage. “Tell me now. Only that data can save you.”

  Yoon breathed heavily, then swallowed. “The missing information is in the mainframe computer on the biogenetics level. It is not accessible from here.”

  “Why not?” Zuckerberg demanded.

  Yoon raised palms in placation. “It-it was backed up here... until today. General Moon ordered me personally to erase the data. It is only in the master computer now.�
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  “Because they knew we were coming,” Juno said. “No doubt due to your bungling incompetence.”

  Dr. Park then received her ultimate insult—she wiped her sword clean on the lapels of his lab coat before sheathing the blade. Wanna stand on his chest while you’re at it? Park muttered words in faint Korean and didn’t appear to notice. The fact that he still lived shocked Max.

  “Your father isn’t dead yet,” Max said.

  Park gasped, groaned once, looked up at Juno, and wheezed the words, “I’m... sorry.”

  Juno snorted derision and regarded him with ruthless eyes.

  “Finish him, Juno,” Max said. “He deserves a better death.”

  “You have no fucking idea what he deserves. Shut your mouth and let him bleed out.” She turned from her father and began issuing orders. “Trisha, Delorn, you will accompany Yoon and me to biogenetics to finish downloading the data. The rest of you will go down to the confinement level to plant and arm the bomb. We rendezvous at the extraction point. Make it happen.”

  “You heard her, let’s get moving,” Heinz said.

  “We can’t leave him like this.” West drew his combat knife and showed it to Park, who regarded the blade a moment before nodding. With a shaking hand, West put the knife to Park’s throat, only to lower it several moments later. “Fuck, I can’t do it.” He shook his head.

  Max motioned for West to rise. “Go on. I’ll take care of it.”

  West gulped, looking sheepish as he got to his feet. Max didn’t disrespect him in the least. He saved lives for a living; euthanasia, even for merciful reasons, proved beyond his capability in this case.

  Max knelt and drew the Bӧker from his boot sheath. He looked into the doctor’s eyes and saw only blank glass. Park had finally bled out.

  “Your father’s dead now,” Max said. “Just thought you’d like to know.”

  She consulted her watch, probably to record his time of death, and prepared to move out with her half of the team.

  “We need to go now,” Heinz said.