Undead

by Ryan W. Aslesen

  “Yeah, no shit, Heinz,” Max said. “You seem pretty blithe about all this. How much did your fuck buddy tell you about her other objective?”

  “You better leave off right there, Ahlgren, or shit’s gonna get ugly real fast.”

  “No, I won’t leave off. I’m tired of getting fucked over. If you knew about this, you’d better come clean. I know where everyone else stands.”

  “Don’t answer to him, Heinz,” Zuckerberg said.

  “Said snake number two,” Max responded.

  Zuckerberg sighed. “And there are only two of us, Max. Heinz didn’t need to know, same as you. Our orders came straight from the top.”

  Max nodded. “Savor the stink on your nose, bitch.”

  “Last warning, Ahlgren,” Heinz growled.

  Max turned and got in his face. “Don’t die for her honor. She isn’t fucking worth it.”

  Zuckerberg laughed. “I tried to tell him that.”

  Heinz forgot all about Max. “Trisha, what the fuck? You can’t mean—”

  “That’s exactly what she means, dumbass!” West said. “Savor the flavor, pal, because you’ve been had too. Now can we get this the fuck over with already?”

  “Splendid idea,” Juno said. “So nice to see we’re all on the same page again.”

  From somewhere came a single frantic shout in Korean. Max didn’t need to understand the language to recognize a leader commanding his troops.

  “Shit, we better boogie,” West said.

  Juno’s half of the team was already halfway up the steps. Max brought his men up behind them, and both teams turned left into the hallway, back in the direction they’d come from. Booted footfalls sounded behind them. Max turned, heard more shouted commands in Korean.

  Two soldiers in green uniforms and body armor rounded the corner and opened fire with assault rifles. West and Heinz returned the favor. Both were pissed for different reasons, but anger seemed to improve their already-deadly accuracy. Heinz took out his rancor by blasting a soldier into three pieces with the explosive rounds. West was more surgical—he decapitated the other with a single shot to the throat.

  When those soldiers dropped, two more men fired at them blindly from around the corner. West and Max kept up suppressive fire while Heinz reloaded, their bullets tearing apart the wall that shielded the soldiers. After laying down a burst of rifle fire, Max unclipped a M67 hand grenade from his duty belt and threw it hard toward the corner. The grenade hit the tile floor with a heavy thud and bounced off the opposing wall and around the corner before exploding.

  Instead of orders, he heard only the cries of broken and dying men.

  “Let’s move!” Max shouted.

  Juno’s team ran about thirty feet ahead; they had nearly reached the intersection where they would turn right for the elevator up to biogenetics. She had paused, however, and stood next to the control panel for the sliding security door. Max and Koontz, who ran next to him, had almost reached safety on the other side of the door when Juno punched in a code. An alarm sounded from the tiny speaker beneath the keypad, and a red strobe light on the ceiling started to revolve and flash.

  Max left Koontz behind and sprinted for the sliding door, though he knew he wouldn’t make it in time to get through. As the door—heavy steel below with a thick window of bulletproof glass above—slid closed the last few inches, Max reached out and attempted to jam his rifle butt in the narrowing crack, hoping the door might reopen as an elevator door would if something got jammed in it. Alas, he never had a chance to test his theory. The butt of his rifle clanked against the door, which had beaten his thrust by a couple hundredths of a second.

  “Fuck!” Max shouted, unable to accept and yet all too willing to believe that Juno had left half her team behind to die. The proof stood right in front of him, albeit behind a couple inches of glass. Juno Rey shot him the textbook gotcha look of a sociopath who had gotten what she wanted and was ready to part ways forever—a sneer he couldn’t quite call malicious because the malice resided specifically in her eyes. She shrugged and raised her hands in mock apology, as though she’d tried to stop the door from closing instead of activating it.

  “Bitch!” West cried as he ran forward and pounded a fist on the glass. Had the window not been there he would have smashed Juno’s face. “Stand back, we can blow this glass.” He took several backward steps and raised his rifle. They would finally learn if bulletproof glass could stop explosive rounds.

  Seeing what West had in mind, Juno turned and fled down the hallway.

  Max stepped back from the door. “Take it out!” He raised his rifle to fire into the glass.

  Juno was still in range...

  Rifles popped behind him—Heinz and Koontz on their knees firing at more troops coming up behind them. Max and West turned to join them, shooting over their heads. North Korean bodies—holes blown clean through them, limbs blasted off—were piling up quickly down at the corner, yet still more soldiers came. No time to think about Juno screwing him over. He needed to kill these bastards and then find a way down to the confinement level.

  Two soldiers remained, each firing his rifle blindly around the corner.

  “Grapeshot,” Max shouted to West.

  They loaded the grenades into their M203s and fired at the corner, then dropped to the floor for cover. Two concussions and a few hundred pellets silenced the enemy guns. One of the Korean soldiers whined with every excruciating exhalation as he took his final breaths. A couple of the pellets ricocheted and came back at them, though not at high enough velocity to cause serious injury.

  More soldiers would soon arrive; they’d won a reprieve at best.

  “Back to the lab,” Max ordered. “Through the door Park used.” He hoped that egress would somehow lead them to the lowest level. Unlike Juno Rey, he still intended to accomplish his assigned objective. First the bomb, he thought as they sprinted back to the lab, and then the data.

  No one was leaving with that.

  * * *

  “Status report!” General Moon demanded into Colonel Jung’s ear via the phone in the guardroom on sub level 1.

  As if you don’t already know. Moon could monitor any security camera in the complex from the computers in his office and quarters. Jung knew he’d been watching the CIA team for at least as long as they’d been underground, perhaps from the moment they’d landed. At least he has witnessed the truth for himself.

  “General, we have engaged the enemy on sub levels three and four, but they have evaded us so far despite our superior numbers. They are armed with extraordinary firepower—a flamethrower and bullets that explode an instant after penetrating flesh. We have nothing in our arsenal capable of countering such weapons.”

  Moon grunted. “You should be prepared for any eventuality, Colonel. I am most disappointed with your efforts thus far.”

  “My apologies, general. But we have not lost control of the situation. Their team has split in half. I’ll task my best men with securing the device, and I shall lead the effort personally.”

  The line went silent for several seconds before Jung heard a faint, grating chortle that grew slowly in sound and intensity. Jung froze into gooseflesh. During their days on the border, the two officers had often played chess to pass the time. Moon would laugh in such fashion when he sprung a clever trap into which Jung had unwittingly moved his pieces. He’d chuckled the same way when they spotted the ROK Marines infiltrating their sector and then again while they tortured the only survivor. Moon’s face had been slashed open at the time, his mouth full of blood, but his laugh never faltered.

  “Leave one squad of your best men on sub level two, Colonel. Position the rest of your forces in and around the main building. The commandos must not escape.”

  “But what of the bomb, general? They mustn’t arm the device—”

  “They will be dead long before that oppo
rtunity arises. When your men are clear of the lower levels, I shall release our test subjects upon them. They will not stand a chance, so few men against such furious beasts.”

  Do not do this, I beg of you! “General, this... this is an incredible stroke of genius on your part, but—”

  “But what?”

  Jung almost stammered yet managed to speak cogently. “How will we recapture the test subjects once they have eliminated the commandos?”

  “We have manpower and time on our side, colonel, and we also possess heavy weapons, just not on the premises. I shall submit an emergency requisition to the Supreme Leader himself. The weapons will arrive by noon, mark my words. The test subjects will need to be burned, of course, but the collected data is all in the mainframe computer. When the situation is under control we shall begin again.”

  “Understood, general. I shall carry out your plan immediately.” At least he doesn’t expect my men to fight alongside the monsters.

  “Excellent. Atone for your strategic miscues, and they will not be mentioned in my report to the Supreme Leader.”

  “Thank you, general.”

  “The Americans have a saying for situations like this: make or break. We’ve made it before, you and I. And we shall not break on this occasion.”

  Yes, we heroically slew a few compromised ROK Marines who never stood a chance. Now we’re the ones who are compromised. Whether they faced the enraged test subjects or the commando team’s tremendous firepower, Jung knew they hardly stood a chance.

  “Yes, general! I’ll begin strategic withdrawal and inform you when we are in position.”

  “Very good. We will be national heroes, untouchable, after we present our prize to the Supreme Leader. Now carry out the plan.” The line went dead.

  Jung hung up and almost made the mistake of wearily shaking his head before the camera watching from a ceiling corner. Had Moon visually monitored their conversation? Jung wouldn’t have put it past him. The man trusted no one.

  He stood and exited the office to relay his orders. He pondered Moon’s final words to him. National heroes. That is assuming we survive, which is assuming quite a bit.

  15

  Juno didn’t give Max a second glance. Trapping him behind the security door hadn’t been her plan but a necessary improvisation. Max had to die sometime during the mission—the final piece of mission-critical information she’d withheld from him—for his research on the late Peter Banner had piqued the interest of a certain VIP back in Langley, perhaps one of the men Max sought. Juno didn’t know and didn’t care—she had her orders. She would certainly have preferred to keep Max and the others around a while longer to take advantage of their firepower, but the situation had changed and forced her to adapt. She would press on and seize her objective. If Max made it to the extraction point, she would simply deal with him then.

  Deal with this first. After abandoning Max she’d expected to see the rear ends of her team rounding the corner as they ran for the elevator; instead she saw Delorn and Yoon crouched behind Trisha as she fired her SAW around the corner. The soldiers occupying the hallway returned fire, their bullets striking the glass wall and ricocheting all over the place. Shit, bulletproof glass. They could hide around the corner all they wanted, but the bullets popping and zinging about the hallway would take them down regardless. They had to move.

  “How many?” Juno shouted as she crouched next to Delorn.

  “Eight moving up!” Trisha responded before unleashing more machine gun fire. “Correction, seven!”

  A bullet rebounded off the glass wall and found Yoon, grazing his left shoulder. His cry of pain seemed more like a rodent’s pathetic squeak. He can’t die yet. Do something!

  Juno tossed two smoke grenades down the hallway in rapid succession. “Straight, move!” She sprinted across the intersection through a hail of blind fire from the soldiers, bullets snapping past her as she ran. The others followed: Trisha firing as she went, Delorn urging the injured Yoon to keep up with him. He’s slowing us down. But she had to wait on him; she needed directions to the mainframe computer upstairs and his assistance in downloading the data. She thought of West’s earlier comment about elevators not stopping at every floor. Is that the only elevator down here? She certainly hoped not.

  Trisha came abreast of her, and Juno waved her past toward the double doors at the end of the long hallway. Delorn and Yoon weren’t too far behind her. Yoon’s instinct to survive had trumped his penchant for being a pantywaist. Running for one’s life usually had that effect.

  Still, he needed a little extra motivation. “Run faster, or I’ll leave you to die,” she said to Yoon in Korean as he passed. To her satisfaction, the rhythm of his footfalls doubled.

  She dropped another smoke grenade behind her to cover their escape, then ran. They have numbers. You have superior weapons. She figured they might be able to eliminate the squad of tailing soldiers if they could locate a suitable ambush point.

  OPERATING THEATER read the characters printed on the steel double doors ahead. Blind gunfire caught up with them as Delorn pushed Yoon through the doors. Juno lowered her head and sprinted the last few feet. Delorn scowled at her as he stood in the doorway; then he allowed the doors to close behind him. She thought of him locking her out. Don’t you fucking dare!

  Delorn did not dare. Juno grabbed a handle, flung one of the doors open and darted inside as bullets pinged off the metal.

  You have about ten seconds to get in position. She examined the room and immediately recognized the stage where her father had administered the virus to test subject six. A half-circular amphitheater with the double doors positioned at the apex of the curved wall, the room featured a high ceiling and plush seating for about eighty people, four rows of ten chairs on either side of a steep center aisle of red-carpeted stairs. Past the front row of seats curved a low wall with a metal railing barring access to the operating stage, situated some eight feet below. A dim exit light burned above the door leading from the operating stage back to the confinement cells; otherwise the theater lay in darkness.

  Taking cover amongst the seating might work, but Juno opted against it—the 7.62mm rounds fired by the Type 58 rifles would easily punch through the seats. And the wall fronting the stage was too high for them to fire over. This isn’t the place.

  “Over the wall, out that exit,” Juno said.

  Trisha vaulted the railing and landed in a crouch. Delorn and Yoon hustled down the aisle and came to the railing, which Yoon looked hesitant to jump. “Just climb over, hang and drop,” Delorn said.

  Juno ran the last few feet to them. As Yoon slowly lifted a leg, she grabbed his ankle and heaved him up and over the railing. He fell the eight feet and landed hard on his wounded left shoulder. The scream he unleashed could have peeled paint from the walls.

  Juno vaulted the railing and landed, light and catlike despite all her gear. She knelt next to Yoon, who whimpered in pain, and said in Korean, “Get up and move, or I’ll blow your balls off.”

  After two frantic, hyperventilating breaths, Yoon started to rise. Juno grabbed his left arm and yanked him up. Delorn landed next to them.

  “Stay with him,” Juno said. “Let’s move.”

  Two soldiers threw open the double doors and immediately opened fire on Juno’s fleeing team. Trisha had departed the theater. Juno got off a shot with her M203 but aimed too high and hit the back wall above the door, close to the ceiling. It fazed the soldiers enough, however; they jumped for cover behind the back row of seats. She ran through the door as more soldiers entered the theater and opened fire.

  A lone shout in English: “Fuck!” Delorn.

  She made the snap decision to leave him and Yoon behind. We can locate the mainframe ourselves. They’re baggage now. She quickly took in the left-right hallway she’d entered. Twenty feet to the left stood an empty glass booth, likely a guard post, that blocked hal
f the hallway. A sliding glass security door sealed off the rest. The confinement area.

  Ten feet to the right, the hallway turned left into unknown territory.

  “That way,” Juno said to Trisha. She broke right.

  Delorn stumbled through the door from the operating stage. Roles had been reversed—Yoon now assisted him.

  “Gonna leave us behind too, Juno?” he shouted at her.

  Juno suppressed a shudder—Delorn wore the same expression of maniacal anger her father had during his drunken rages. Only Delorn was drunk on pain; he’d taken a bullet through his left hamstring. Fresh, shining blood soaked his trouser leg to the knee.

  Limping. He’s finished, leave him. But then she got an idea. “No fucking way, Delorn.” She pointed to the corner. “Post up here with the flamethrower and take them out when they come through the door.”

  “Revenge, baby,” Zuckerberg said with a smile.

  She knows what’s up. Juno and Trisha had forged something of a mind link during their two previous missions. They now worked in unrehearsed synchronicity. Trisha peeked around the corner and pronounced the hallway beyond clear.

  “Let’s get you set up,” Juno said to Delorn. She slapped away Yoon’s helping hand and attempted to assist Delorn to the corner.

  Delorn jerked his arm away from her as if she had leprosy. “Get the fuck off me, bitch. I can still walk.”

  Not fast enough to make it out of here. She raised a hand in placation. “No problem, Ian.” She turned her back on him and moved around the corner. The hallway ahead ran about sixty feet before terminating at a crossing intersection. Several pairs of double doors lined each wall, but she could only read the placard over the first pair: Operating Room 1.

  Delorn finally made it to the corner. Yoon tried to help him sit, but Delorn’s injured leg folded under the strain, and the milquetoast scientist dropped him. Delorn grunted through clenched teeth when he hit the ground.

  “You see?” Juno asked. “Nobody’s getting left behind. Now get ready to fry those fuckers when they come through the door.”