Surviving the Apocalypse

Data retrieval

It only took them a few minutes to get to the building Crystal had indicated, few zombies in front of the doors were trying to escape as they had heard the sounds of living humans just outside of their reach. When they were about 50 feet Hanna stopped the Squads and group accompanying them.

"We do this our way from here on out. You will make as little noise as possible, and will not use those weapons unless I order it. If you can find something suitable to use inside, please do so. Any questions?" she demanded glaring at the people they had rescued. A few of them having already found suitable weapons they could use on the zombies.

"No, we will follow your lead." Crystal said as she pulled a sword of her own from her personal storage as well as three others she handed to those who hadn't found something yet.

"Excellent, I assume you have keys?" Hanna asked her.

Crystal nodded. "I will be keeping those myself until we retrieve what we came for. After that you can do whatever you want with this place. We certainly don't have the ability to secure and maintain it." she answered as Hanna nodded.

"Fair enough. 3 and 4, take point. Ms. Johnson will unlock the doors for us, you will lead the way into the lobby." she said as the 10 men readied their weapons and began leading the way to the building.

Crystal was true to her word, swallowing her fear as she slid the key into the lock and turned it before she opened the door for the two squads to enter the building, quickly killing the 5 zombies immediately in front of the doors before the rest of them entered. "This way." she said with fear evident in her voice.

"Hold." Hanna whispered. "Party popper." she said as one of the men from squad 3 pulled out what looked like a flash bang. Instead of a blinding light and loud bang, it was just made to make several controlled level bangs that would draw any zombies within 100 feet to them. The squads she was in command of fanned out as dozens of zombies began rushing at them, the scent driving them wild as they rushed to the sound. Hanna stood by Crystal with her sword at her side as 10 of Crystals team joined the front line and destroyed the zombies that were rushing them.

For them it was a thrill to be in such close quarters combat, using their own skills and abilities to ensure they remained untouched by the zombies. None of them once dreamed of reaching for their weapons as it was apparent their melee weapons and abilities would be more than enough to quell the swarm the had drawn to them from the first and second level. The zombies from the second level falling over the railings to get to the first, the fall shattering their legs and forcing them to drag themselves towards their prey. It only made them easier to kill before they moved on.

They methodically cleared the first floor offices, leaving no room unsearched before Hanna quietly took every last piece of equipment into her storage space. Crystal knew exactly what she was doing, absolutely amazed at how much she could store as she took every desk, computer and piece of hardware that was in the building. When they had cleared the floor of zombies and equipment, Crystal opened the door to the stairs with a key.

"We need to be head down." she said barely above a whisper.

"Squads 3, 4, 5 and 6 will clear the upper levels. 1 and 2 will go down with Camp Epsilon to secure the data." Hanna ordered as the 4 squads went up the stairs without another word.

"We will likely need their help. We have to essentially clear two floors to get to the server." Crystal told her as her fear level increased.

"Relax, we know what we are doing. Besides, that many people will just get in the way of each other if things begin going sideways. Let's go." Hanna said as Lucas took the lead with Squad 1.

The lower level doors required a key that Crystal nervously walked forward and slid into the lock before turning it as the men prepared to rush inside. As soon as it opened Lucas used his lightning to blast 3 zombies at once, the heat valorizing their brains in an instant before they stepped over the corpses so everyone else could enter quickly.

By the time Crystal and Hanna entered the 1st basement level, the Squads had killed another dozen zombies without bothering to collect the Heart Crystals as the ones they killed were automatically looted. The men from Camp Epsilon collected the ones from their kills, the Squads pretending to do the same so as not to raise suspicion among the people they were with. They all knew once they secured the building the other teams would come in and dispose of the corpses, as they never left them behind as they knew the corpses could still spread the virus as well as other diseases if they were left to just rot.

2 hours later they finally entered the encrypted storage room, this one powered by solar panels on the roof and battery backups that still supplied power to the server banks. Crystal didn't waste any time as she plugged 2 external drives into a port before she used the credentials she had been given to unlock the decryption before she copied the full data set onto both drives. Hanna looked at the servers, knowing they would significantly improve their ability to monitor the area they had cleared, as well as allow them to finally deploy the artificial intelligence program that would be able to automate the drones that they used for surveillance operations. It took half an hour before the transfer was complete, Hanna knowing that the encrypted drives that had just been copied would now wipe themselves as part of the security protocol.

Crystal unplugged the two drives before making one of them disappear as she held the other one out to Hanna. "As agreed, a full copy of the data from the encrypted drives. Feel free to take the servers now, the rest of the data is useless to us now." she said before Hanna smiled and the entire server disappeared all at once because of her increased range at level 4.

"Thanks, now the question remains if you want to participate in the rest of the cleanup, or are you returning to your Camp?" she asked.

"We will be returning to our Camp. Is there any way we can contact you, I am sure our leadership would be interested in a potential alliance with your Camp." Crystal said as Hanna nodded.

"Use frequency 166.666 Mhz. If you want to trade for more of the Evojuice since I assume mine is far purer and more potent, we charge 10 Crystals per dose." Hanna told her as Crystal nodded.

"We have everything we came for, the rest is yours." Crystal said throwing her the key ring. "Not sure what use the data will be to you, but good luck. We are returning to our base. Thank you for saving our asses today, as well as the lesson in properly killing zombies without getting overrun." she said before her team turned and left while Hanna and her two squads followed them out of the basement and back to the lobby.

When they got outside Crystal was amazed to see that they had already loaded three of the trucks from the upper levels of the building, everything from desks to computers and servers stacked neatly inside as the 4th was being filled with chemicals and supplies from the various experiments going on in the building. She shook her head before her team left the way they came, the construction team installing a large gate in the road they had used to access the area.

Her entire team was amazed at the walls they had erected around the entire compound, knowing that the Camp they had just encountered was far more prepared for this than they had been when they started that morning. "Ma'am, why do I get the feeling if not for them we would be dead right now?" Lt. Colonel Dearborn asked.

Crystal just nodded in agreement as they walked through the gate. "Because if they hadn't rescued us, they would have bashed our skulls in or cut our heads off by now. Somehow I think they would have taken their time and not been overwhelmed the way we were this morning." she replied before they walked away.

Hanna had returned to her Camp while the other squads scavenged every single thing from the research lab, Doctor Harrington impressed that the hard drive Crystal had given her did indeed contain 50 terabytes of decrypted data files for all sorts of highly classified projects. He had even found the ones for the virus, learning that it may not have been as accidental as they first believed.

"Ma'am, we found files from the military that indicate that were testing the zombie virus." Doctor Harrington told her in her office.

"Doctor, please don't call me ma'am, my name is Hanna. What kind of testing?" she asked as he nodded.

"So far we have identified they subjected the virus to at least 7 different types of ionizing radiation. They were apparently attempting to make the virus mutate to increase the chances it would create zombies with abilities. From the notes I read, none of them were successful. Each type however did force subtle mutations and were stored in the secure vault that detonated in China a few weeks before the outbreak. I am not sure which of them combined with the Coronavirus, as the combined virus appears very different from either of the originals." he told her as she sighed.

Hanna looked at his summary, showing the 3 of them side by side with the new zombie virus in the center. "We found an additional 32 researchers hidden in the lab we went to, how many of them will be able to assist you?" she asked as he sighed.

"4 of them have experience with viral strains, only 2 have any experience with vaccine development." he answered. "We can perform the work, but I have to tell you it could still take decades to find a vaccine to protect against the virus. Our studies however show that a cure is unlikely, the zombies may be reanimated, but they are essentially brain dead. The only parts of the brain that remain functional deal with movement, smell, hearing, things of that nature."

Hanna nodded as she understood what he was saying. "Than focus on the vaccine, if we can at least protect the remaining population from ever contracting the virus, it would be a benefit." she said as her quest system gave her a quest to do just that.

"We are doing the best we can, but it isn't going to be fast work. It will take us weeks to even get through the data we have, then we need to decide the virus and see if it is still mutating. We will need as many samples from the zombies that are killed as possible. We have found the best source is actually the vitreous humor fluid in the eye. It is what actually causes the blindness." he explained.

"What are the risks?" she asked him.

"If the zombie is killed before it is collected, minimal. The virus is transferred via direct contact. A bite or scratch will cause infection, but so long as the proper precautions are taken, there is almost no risk from collecting the fluids of the eye."

Hanna nodded. "Train 2 of the incinerators to collect the fluid before disposal. That way you can get samples from as many of them as possible. All proper precautions are to be taken with the samples Doctor, any outbreak risk and gathering them will be shut down immediately." she told him.

"We don't need samples from every one of them. In fact, I would only suggest a few samples at a time that we will destroy as soon as our testing is completed."

Hanna nodded before he left as she looked at the map after they had secured the research lab and taken all the equipment that was being setup to increase their own abilities.