Necropolis 2 (7 page)

“A pistol?”

“
Yes. Count yourself lucky you get that,” Greg replied.

Campbell sighed, but said nothing else, fixing the holster to his uniform and pocketing the magazines. Greg led his group back through the center.

“I guess we can abandon the idea of using this as a command center.” He shook his head. This was a disappointment.

“
You were going try and set up shop here? In the
prison
?” Campbell asked.

“
Yes, dipshit,” Kyra snapped.

“
You guys have gotta work on your manners. I haven't actually done anything to any of you, you know?”

“
You worked for Dark Ops. That's enough,” Billings replied.

“
You guys straight up kidnapped and imprisoned me,” Holt threw in.

Campbell heaved a weary sigh. “All right, fine, I'm
so
sorry on behalf on all of this Dark Ops cell.”

“
Okay, we've found a secure channel.”
Cage's voice suddenly sounded in Greg's ear. He paused where he was. They had just come into the antechamber. Greg waved his hand to quiet the others, who, after a few seconds, fell silent.

“
So, what's happening?”

“
Nothing good. Dark Ops and the Undead are really going at it. We're finally at the data network center. It's like a big security station. It should take you a lot less time to get here. We've managed to find a maintenance tunnel that will take you about three quarters of the way without much trouble.”

“
Good. We've found another two survivors. One is a miner from the planet, another is Campbell. As in Starck's lackey. He was in prison.”

“
I resent that,” Campbell murmured.

“
Shut up,” Kyra advised.

“
Fantastic. And you're taking him with us? I can hear it in your voice. Fine. Get to our position, quick as you can, Powell's got a plan together.”

Cage fed him the instructions, and then logged off, leaving Greg alone with his thoughts.

He turned to face the others. “All right, Cage just called. Gave me instructions. We're going to meet up with him and Powell and figure out our next step.”

“
Who's Cage?” Campbell asked. “Or Powell, for that matter?”

“
Shut up,” Kyra said.

* * * * *

They found the entrance to the maintenance tunnel five minutes later, one by one plunging into the narrow metal shaft that would take them to meet with Powell and Cage. Greg went first, making his way as quickly as he could down the ladder. Campbell was above him, as he was his responsibility. Billings followed Campbell. Greg knew the others were concerned. Campbell might be a lot of things...a liar he was not.

Greg felt certain he wouldn't betray them.

Even if he did, Greg would make sure he died.

Reaching the end of the shaft, Greg hopped off and spun around, raising his weapon. There was nothing in the maintenance tunnel with him, at least as far as he could see. It stretched away from him for several dozen meters and inter-cut with other tunnels. The light was good, but still this was a shitty place to be.

“Hey, move it, huh?” Campbell asked.

“
Yeah, yeah, quit bitching.” Greg moved out of the way.

He moved down the maintenance tunnel a few paces, listening for signs of life. Nothing but the quiet respiration of oxygen filtration and the soft hum of power. It would have to do. Greg glanced behind him. Everyone was down now.

“All right, keep your eyes open, there could be anything down here,” he murmured.

There was a general affirmative response and they set off, keeping up a brisk pace, eager to be free of the squalid confinement. Greg tossed quick glances down the other tunnels that intersected with his, trying to spy a hint of movement. Nothing. He swallowed, keeping his shotgun at ready, finger inside the trigger guard. Stupid, especially when one was nervous, but Greg needed to be able to react in half a second.

They kept going. How long did Cage say it was? Something like seventy meters. How big
was
this ship?

“
Hey, Campbell, what can you tell us about the ship we're on?” Greg asked.

“
Well, it's called the
Anubis
and it's the flagship. Williams runs the whole thing. Graves is his...bodyguard? Cleaner? Shit, I don't know. He's not number two, because he doesn't seem to make any decisions, he's just...always there. Starck is head of security. She's a bit of a whack job. I've seen her torture lots of guys, personally. I think she has some kind of thing against men. Probably why she had me around, always screaming at me...”

Greg could tell he was losing focus. “What about the Undead? What's the point of all this?
The experiments, the prisoners, all of it.”

Campbell scoffed. “You kidding me? You ever hear that old saying, 'He who has the gold makes the rules?' It's the Golden Rule, right? Only now, it's not gold or money, anymore. To be sure, money still talks, a lot, but at the end of the day, all that really matters is who's swinging the biggest fucking stick. You feel me?”

“I guess so...so, what, Dark Ops is trying to make an Undead army to make sure that no one ever threatens the Galactic Alliance ever again?” Greg replied.

“
That's ridiculous,” Billings muttered.

“
Look around you, man. Ridiculous my ass, but I don't know the plan, really. All I know is that they were trying to control them. They didn't really tell me anything. I spent enough time in the labs. Starck liked to watch all that shit and I think she knew I
didn't
, and so she made me accompany her. Fuck, I hate that bitch.”

Greg froze, he thought he heard something, a footstep maybe, echoing through the maintenance tunnels. The others bunched up behind him, all listening for themselves, but there was nothing. Greg let out a long breath. He kept going, but didn't really feel like talking anymore. At least not until they were out of the tunnels.

The opposite ladder was in sight now. Greg felt better about his chances for getting out of these narrow confines without running into anything. He pressed on, picking up the pace, snatching views down identical passageways, some of which were noticeably darker. There might have been things in that darkness.

Eternity finally passed and he hit the opposite end of the tunnel. Glancing up, he saw nothing in the ladder shaft above and began climbing. Good, he'd made it. He thought of Cage's route as he ascended. They'd have to cross a few corridors and it'd likely be through Undead territory, but that shouldn't be a problem, not with the five of them. Greg hit the hatch at the top, opened it up, and popped his head out.

Nothing he could see in the storage room they'd emerged in. Yeah, not a problem, they all had guns and training. He pulled himself up and out, and then they'd meet up with Cage and-something whizzed by his head at an alarming speed and
pinged
off the wall behind him. He'd been in the process of helping Campbell up and promptly let go of him.

“
What the hell?” Campbell cried, falling back into the shaft, barely managing to retain his hold on the ladder.

Greg brought his shotgun into play, looking for whoever it was had shot at him. Only it didn't quite feel like a gunshot, more like a...well, he wasn't sure
what
it seemed like. Something shifted behind a stack of crates at the far side of the room. Half the lights were out, casting it in shadows. Greg frowned, aiming his shotgun.

“
Who goes there?” He hoped it might just be a survivor or something, maybe a startled technician with a bolt gun.

That's when it stepped out into the light.

A gasp tore from Greg's lungs.

It was a zombie, an Undead, to be sure, only not like any he had seen so far. It was still in the shape of a man, it still had all the distinguishing features of a
zombie: pallid skin, blackened veins, eyes of oil or tar, claws and teeth, but its
chest
...it had been split or torn open, as though someone had cut its ribcage and opened it like a purse. Amid a sea of slick, glistening, black and red muscle were a trio of black holes, arranged in a triangular formation. From one of these holes came a black spike, shot like a bullet.

Greg screamed and threw himself to the ground, feeling it whiz by him. He landed and rolled best he could, bringing his shotgun back up. He squeezed the trigger once the thing pointed in the direction of the creature. There was a wretched, wet explosion of black blood and shredded, pale flesh, and the thing crashed into the crates.

“What the
fuck
was that?” Campbell cried.

“
Greg, you okay?” Kyra called up.

“
Fine,” Greg replied breathlessly, slowly standing up.

Campbell had pulled himself up from the hole, followed shortly by Billings and then the others. They all approached the newest addition to the Undead army. Campbell poked at it with his boot. He made a face.

“Christ, it's ugly.”

“
Great, I was wondering when we'd see a new one...and this one
shoots shit
,” Greg muttered.

“
What do we call it?” Billings asked.

They stood around for a long moment.

“Lancer,” Greg said, finally. They all looked at him. “What?”

“
Fine name,” Kyra replied.

“
You name them?” Holt asked.

“
Better way to identify them quickly. I mean, imagine running into one of these and you're trying to convey what it is you see. 'Oh, it's that one that shoots things from its chest' takes too long to say. Lancer sums it all up nicely,” Greg replied in defense.

Holt shrugged. “Okay, fine. Good idea. It figures, you naming it.”

“Why's that?” Greg asked, turning to face him.

“
Always had your head in an infopad, you know? Books, always with the books, with you. Heavy reader. Hell, you'd read on duty, when things were particularly dull. They didn't like that.” Holt chuckled.

“
Huh,” was all Greg could think to say.

“
This is fun and all, but could we get going?” Campbell shifted with impatience.

“
Yeah, yeah, come on,” Greg muttered.

They left the storage room and found a corridor liberally sprayed with blood. A handful of corpses
were spread out along the floor like speed bumps. Greg led the group out into the passageway, hurrying down it.

“
We're near,” he reported.

“
Good. We'll be waiting.”

“
And bad news. There's a new sub-species.” He spent a few moments describing the Lancer.

“
Fantastic,”
was all Cage had to say to that.

They turned a corner, and headed down another passageway. Not too far away, Greg could hear gunshots, screams, the occasional explosion. They didn't speak as they came to the end of the corridor, to a large pair of double doors.

“Weapons ready,” Greg murmured.

Rarely was there something good behind a huge set of closed doors. Kyra hit the activation button. Greg found himself wondering where all the Undead or Dark Ops were. Had Cage cleared a path? Had they all killed each other or moved on? The doors split at the center, slid into the walls. Greg scanned the immediate area beyond.

A room stood between them and the area that Cage and Powell occupied. It was large, dark, and reminded Greg of a vault. Big, blocky devices that must have been the databanks themselves studded the floor, spread across it in a grid-work pattern. Greg had a clear view of the actual data network center. The doors were open over there and he could see Cage standing in the doorway, Powell behind him, sitting in a chair.

So why was he hesitating?

Something was wrong. Greg kept scanning the area.

“
What is it?” Campbell whispered.

“
Dunno...feel like something's kinda-”

Greg grunted and flew backwards as a bullet punched him straight in the chest, knocking him off his feet. The breath left his lungs and he heard an explosion of activity around him. Screaming, gunfire, chaos. He focused on getting his breath back, and then scrambled to his feet. Inside the data vault, anarchy boiled.

A squad of black-armored soldiers took on Greg's rag-tag squad of survivors.

“
I fucking said
not
to kill Bishop! Who the fuck fired that shot?” an unfortunately familiar voice screamed.

“
He had on a bulletproof vest,” someone called back.

Greg stumbled to his feet, leveled his shotgun at a black-armored trooper that had the misfortune of poking his head out from behind cover at that exact moment, and squeezed the trigger. The man's faceplate shattered in a spray of blood and glass. He flew back, skidding across the floor, his armor making a horrible squealing sound.