David Robbins - New York Run

Blade frowned. This was easy. Too easy. Almost as if it was a trap. But that would mean the Zombies were behind them—

“Look out!” Geronimo shouted in warning.

Blade crouched and whirled, the Dakon II at hip level, and the movement saved his life. Zombies were pouring in the doorway, and one of them had clawed at the Warrior’s neck even as he ducked. Blade let the mutation have it, blowing its face off.

The Technics were firing with total abandon, shooting as quickly as Zombies appeared at the opening or the doorway.

Geronimo, unarmed and feeling utterly helpless, stayed close to Blade.

The Warriors and Technics held their own for a while, downing Zombies until bodies were stacked on both sides of the room.

But then the tide turned.

Blade felt something strike his left shoulder, then his back, and he glanced up at the ceiling in time to see a slavering Zombie plummet through a narrow aperture. “They’re above us!” he cried.

Private Kimper was standing three feet from Blade, and he turned to confront this new menace.

Too late.

The Zombie landed between the two men, and with an agility belied by its emaciated appearance, it coiled and pounced, hurtling at Private Kimper, brushing the Technic’s Dakon II aside, and fastening its fingers in his throat.

Blade held his fire, concerned he would hit Kimper.

Kimper screamed as he was knocked to the floor, ineffectively flailing at the Zombie with his fists.

Blade closed in and hammered his stock onto the Zombie’s head. Once.

Twice. Three times, and the Zombie released Kimper and rose, its eyes gleaming savagely. Blade shot it at point-blank range, and his arms and face were pelted with more green gore.

Kimper, gagging, stumbled to his feet and grabbed for his Dakon II.

Three Zombies came through the doorway, and one of them reached Kimper in one mighty bound. The Technic was lifted from his feet and his head was brutally wrenched to the right.

Blade heard the snap of Kimper’s vertebra even as he shot the Zombie in the forehead.

Geronimo saw his opportunity. He darted forward and grasped Kimper’s Dakon II, then spun, firing, decimating the other two Zombies.

The attack unexpectedly ceased. Dust floated in the air. A preternatural quiet gripped the underground tunnels.

“Blade!” someone gasped.

Blade turned.

Captain Wargo was on his back, a dead Zombie straddling his legs.

Four more of the mutations lay near his boots. The Technic was staring at the giant Warrior with a resigned expression, a fatalistic acceptance of his impending demise. “I blew it,” he said softly.

Wargo’s left arm was gone, missing, severed from his body, no doubt taken by a Zombie intent on consuming the limb as a tasty snack.

“Where’s the last commando?” Geronimo asked Blade.

The two Warriors were the only ones standing.

Blade moved to Wargo and knelt next to the officer. He cradled Wargo’s head in his left hand, watching the blood pump from the ragged stump where once the left arm had been.

“I’ve bought it,” Wargo stated in a strained whisper.

“We’ll get you out of here,” Blade told him. “I’ll carry you.”

Wargo’s brow furrowed. “You’d do that for me? After what I’ve done? After the way I’ve treated you?”

Blade glanced at the Zombie on Wargo’s legs. “We can’t let them have you.”

Wargo moaned and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were rimmed with tears. “I want you to know I was only following orders.”

Is that any excuse? Blade wanted to retort. Instead, he smiled and nodded. “I know.”

Captain Wargo shuddered. “I’m so cold.” He groaned. “I wish… I wish…” His head sagged and his eyes shut again.

Geronimo was keeping them covered. “What are we going to do?” he inquired. “Get out of here, I hope.”

“We’re going after the Genesis Seeds,” Blade said.

“But why?” Geronimo rejoined. “You said you doubted they even exist.”

“But if they do,” Blade explained, “we owe it to our family, to the entire Civilized Zone, to do our best to retrieve them.”

Captain Wargo trembled and coughed, blood appearing at the corners of his mouth. He opened his ayes, which looked haunted. “Don’t,” he croaked.

Blade leaned closer. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t go after the seeds.” Wargo coughed some more. “They don’t exist.”

“Then why did your Minister go to so much trouble?” Blade asked.

“Why lure us to Technic City and force us to come here? Why?”

“The mind-control gas,” Captain Wargo disclosed as a crimson streak gushed from his right nostril.

Blade and Geronimo exchanged astonished looks.

“The gas was developed by the Institute of Advanced Technology for the Defense Department at the outset of World War Three,” Captain Wargo elaborated painfully, wheezing between words. “They planned to use it on the Soviets, but New York was hit before they could transfer the canisters of the gas from here to a military installation.” He paused, gathering his breath. “The New York branch wired the Chicago branch of the shipment’s readiness minutes before New York was hit. The canisters have been in the underground vault since.”

“What does this gas do?” Blade probed.

“Makes a person susceptible to any command they’re given,” Captain Wargo said. “The Minister… intends to make more of it. Use it on the Freedom Federation and the Soviets.”

“He wants to conquer the world,” Blade observed.

“For the greater glory of the Technics,” Wargo stated. “Needs samples to duplicate, like your SEAL.”

Blade placed his right hand on Wargo’s chest. “The SEAL? What does the SEAL have to do with it?”

Wargo was slipping fast. “Make… machines… tanks… from the same substance…”

“Why are you telling us this?” Geronimo asked.

Wargo’s eyes fluttered. “Least I could do.” His eyes widened, and for a moment he was mentally alert and in full possession of his faculties. He stared at Blade and, unbelievably, laughed, a hard, brittle tittering.

“Besides… doesn’t matter anymore… does it?” His body straightened and fluttered, he gasped once, and died.

“I can’t say as I’ll miss him,” Geronimo remarked.

“Me neither,” Blade confessed. “But we owe him for telling us about the mind-control gas.”

“So what do we do now?” Geronimo questioned.

Blade stood. “We get out of here.”

“ Now you’re talking!”

“Go through Kimper’s clothes and gear,” Blade directed. “We’ll need all the spare magazines and ammunition for these Dakon IIs we can find.”

“Got you.”

The two Warriors searched Wargo and Kimper and found a total of six spare magazines and four boxes of ammunition.

“We’ll each take three magazines and two boxes,” Blade told Geronimo as he crammed one of the magazines into his right front pocket. He loaded his pockets, then crossed to Private Kimper and crouched next to his body.

“What are you doing?” Geronimo asked.

Blade unfastened the pulse scanner from Kimper’s right wrist. “It looks like this gizmo is still on,” he said. The screen contained a network of black lines.

“Do you know how to read it?” Geronimo queried hopefully.

“Not really,” Blade admitted. “But…” He paused. Small, white blips had sprouted on the screen along its outer edge. They were swiftly converging inward the center. “I think company is coming.”

“Zombies?”

“Who else?” Blade rose and hurried to the large hole in the wall.

Geronimo followed. “We don’t want a canister as a keepsake?”

“The stairs may well be intact on the lower levels,” Blade said, “but we’re not going to bother finding out. We’re going up. And fast.”