Ignavus : City of Blood

Act 34 : Another Threat to Come By

Gads Gilmore dissected his required sample off the four corpses prudently within the portable pods they had installed. He took them from their stomach and a little bit over the throat. Being the assistant of his accidental research, Shanice supported his ongoing experiment by cutting off the center of each corpse to take its internal organs separately.

“Uhm, I need a pincer. Natasha, please find one for me at the toolbox.”

The bearded man ordered his idle teammates at the corner. Natasha Gastano was afraid to cut open the corpses, so the auburn-haired woman waiting for various small-time errands the siblings wants her to do instead,”Here, Gads. Do I have to bring the whole box for you, too?” teased her jokingly, from which responded with none by their gadgeteer as the bearded man utterly focused on the specimens before him.

Substituted his voice, the leader smiles wide and displays her left palm upwards, pointing at the former seating that Natasha Gastano was occupied earlier,”I’m apologize for his rude inaction, Natasha. It’s always like this when my brother engrossed with experiments.” She pressed both fingers up front,” I’ll give you another command if my brother needs it. For now, please make time for yourself there, okay?”

“If that’s what you two wanted, I can’t deny them, can I?”

In a little close to two hours use of numerous operation utensils, Gads Gilmore has overviewed loads of speciments on the table. He has written annotations resulted of continuous replay over the palate with some circled in red for further note. The surveillance drone now acted as the medical partner to determine substances within its organ for their final deduction, that is one of what the bearded man wanted to inform at the moment.

He stands at the front.

Eyes wandering to the small audience before him, the bearded man channels his emphatetic figure to the masses in spite of its tiny-sized crowd. Gads Gilmore coughed a little as the nervousness struck within his veins,”Sorry, my bad. There’s a butterfly in my stomach.” He reasoned before the unsettled gathering at the front, then fixing his stance upright and glances upon his leader with ease,”In short, I’ll wanna tell you details pertaining my small research on the zombified corpse before us.” He started them all in utmost confidence.

“In regards of the creature, its host were leaving their body two days before our encounter. We’ve had been fought against a true zombie two hours ago.” He scrubbed his chin whilst flipping upon the notes on his hand. After a few minutes elapsed, the bearded man finds it a little difficult to read them all properly due to his own scrappy writing on the paper. He paused his reading in rather longer period because of that and created impatience upon his peers up front,

”Technical problem, it’s my fault again. I’ll use my drones to read them for me, then.” Uttered Gads Gilmore towards the two persons ahead. His observation aligned to the leader’s pouting lips which brought himself to be flustered against,” Don’t look at me that way, Shanice. It made me anxious for some reason.”

Before his pleading face, the leader smirked,” It’s not my problem that you’re getting hiccups, Gads.” She curled her lips forward, mocking the bearded man even more as its results.

~beep-beep~

The surveillance drone scanned the paper in profound. Its red light sequence merely took a second for the automated system to capture the meanings by the bad writings that the bearded man has inferred . Beeping sounds emerges from the drone’s processing minds as it conducts a complete impression over such inscription, then working on continuous scanning procedure to ensure the correct spelling of most words at a glance.

“Ahahaha, your bot sounds like having a hard time to read your minds, Gads.” Shanice giggled. Her messy humor hits the mind of Natasha Gastano, as well, for the auburn-haired woman to laugh hysterically over the joke,”Yeah, that’s kinda too long for a bot to rewrite your words, hahahaha!” She mocked.

~beep-beep~

Before Gads Gilmore could defend himself against their deride, the surveillance drone talks.

‘It’s the parasitic spores that affects most unfortunate participants across the city. When its host died, their dormant status wears off and exchanged with its active sense, immediately hijacked the entire body to control them on their will.’

~beep-beep~

Its switched off immediately once finishing the task implied. After that, the surveillance drone reverted back to its normal function as a supporting medical bot for the bearded man,”See? I’ve concluded those report because of the abnormal state of their bodies. Inwards, the internal organs have been started to decompose despite their living activity earlier.”

Gads Gilmore glances towards the leader. His eyebrows jointed at the bridge of his nose during the meeting of their gaze, displaying a smudge of constrained minds within,”And we’ll having those spores within us, too. It will be active seconds after our brain died out.” He wrinkled his nose under mild duress of such trouble.

---

~tap-tap-tap~

An hour later, they continued their stroll across the east. Shanice has had her weapon before the chest this time around. She wanted none of undesirable trespasser to take their life by surprise, for her F-2000 to set up in six bullets burst mode. Gads Gilmore has increased the minimum radius of his surveillance drone into one kilometer distance from their position. To mitigate against the zombified corpse, the bearded man has also attuned its spores into the automated detection system, that the surveillance drone will become aware of their presence at the same rate to its other active feature on board.

“These goggles pressured my eye socket too much, it hurts.” Natasha Gastano grumbled,”How’s to loosen them up, Gads? I can’t see anything!” She rattled afterwards. Gads Gilmore immediately approached her to minimise the damage taken because of the gadget he had invented. No wonder, it would ruin his reputation as a talented engineer at the most if the bearded man taken the problem away for granted.

“You only have to push on the rear side button near the lock. It’s pretty simple and will fit automatically to the contour of your head.”

~click~

It is the first time for Natasha Gastano to use the goggles. Gads Gilmore has created another one during their voyage in his spare time, and now is the chance for the auburn-haired woman to try out the equipment on herself at once,” Whoa! There’s five red dots across the south. Do we have to engage, leader?” she questioned on Shanice after the presence of such menace on the grid. The leader has been sporting the goggles from the moment of their departure, so she has been looking onto the mentioned threat way before her, that the curly-haired woman bobbed her head in confirmation,”It’s moving our way. It’s best to engage against it if that beast tried to mangle us along.” She replied.

“One bogey moving this way!”

Gads Gilmore equipped his machete and trained defensive stance subsequently. He gazed to and fro the barren landscape of the forest, perceiving obscured threat and prepared himself to welcome them gracefully. Natasha Gastano fixed her knife up front to execute counter-actions whenever close combat actions happened on their range. She will m**m them across the head to murder them instantly, or at least making them terrified on the spot if it is failed.

~tang~

“As I have estimated, you choose the one that seemed weaker, huh.”

Natasha Gastano apprehended a smaller figure on her front. A living man with one longsword adorned, that is the current opposing character before her face at the moment. She blocked his backdoor advance with the sharpened rim of her knife and pushed it away in full might. Yet, it takes no longer than a second for her to exert such response, as the leader laid out barrage of her assault rifle onto the head straight after,”You’ll gonna lose with that knife, Natasha. Switch to your MP-5.” She ordered.

The auburn-haired woman heaved a sigh towards the now-headless corpse,”You’re right, I should not underestimate enemies.” Muttered her whilst furnishing both hands with MP-5 sub-machine gun she owned.

~tang~

“You’re gonna die... No!”

The next attacker turns infuriated after spotting his died teammates in front of Natasha Gastano. Her flurry grows more fierce and stronger against defensive posture of the bearded man. Gads Gilmore swiftly dressed his machete to parry her continuous beating-down movement with her scimitar, twirls the steel up and down as the bearded man switching it up diagonally with ease,”Is that how you tried to zombify me? Make the most of it before-“

~ratatata~

Shanice kills her blank onto the temple, leaving no space for the woman to resist,”You’re talking too much, Gads. It’s no surprise for me anymore if you’re still a virgin, literally and theoritically.” She rattled. Against her mockery, however, the bearded man seemed modest and receiving such ridicule in open arms instead,” Yeah, I think it’s the problem I need to solve soon. I can’t really murder woman, you see.”

~struggle-struggle~

Two dead bodies before them begin to struggle on getting up, now that the zombified spores started its activity to replace its former living self of the host. Shanice has eliminated their heads and splatter the brain into bits. Thus, it is difficult for them to properly awaken as a living corpse by nature,” Yup, I thought so. Our estimation proves to be correct, Gads. They wouldn’t be able to walk comfortably if we’ve had their head blasted off.” She concluded.

~beep-beep~

‘Intruders detected. Moving to engage.’

The two surveillance drones above them diving down from the sky to interact against its identified threat. They glide downwards to increase probability of hitting their targets with minimum load of bullets on their path. Gads Gilmore has them armed with two mini-missiles and around 120 shots of nine millimeters caliber bullets within their magazine. For that reason, the drone has to reduce their distance into less than three hundred meters to surely kill them on the spot.

~bam-bam-bam~

It is five zombified corpses that they have to neutralise. Once static and roving the dirt in sluggish motion, the zombie started to run rampant after getting hit by the bullets from the drone above. The drones stopped shooting them after five shots to preserve their stock, killing only one in the process.

“Four nasty zombies out of five, huh. Your technology sucks.” Natasha Gastano poked fun amidst their advance and smirking towards the bearded man on her side,” Just kidding. It’s pretty useful.” She corrected straight after, but still dressing her mocking grin on the face.

Gads Gilmore flustered a bit and rubbed her head whilst moving forward to get better shots at the zombies,” No jokes aside, I do need to enhance its functionality, still. Brace yourself, Natasha!” He shouted afterwards.

~ratatata~

The bearded man aimed his assault rifle towards the four approaching zombies with careful judgement in his mind. He wanted to save them for future clash against many other opponents before reaching Carrel. In his opinion, it should be scarce to find on the agriculture-based area, but hopeful chant within the heart directed him to stay optimistic about the chance.

“Three bullets for the one on the left.”

~bam-bam-bam~

Gads Gilmore pummels three point-blank headshots onto the face of the cornerside humanoid beast. It knocks him away as the next one adjacent maintained their speed forward,”Nice, my first kill! Now, I’ll do the one on the right.”

“I’ll decimate the other using my melee weapon, Gads. Better conserve your ammo when you’ve had the opportunity.”

Shanice run directly towards them with her knife on the front. At first, the bearded man felt slightly afraid on taking them into close-combat demeanor. It would be harmful if he missed an aim to their head. Yet, the auburn-haired woman precedes him and sprinting ahead of the beast in full speed.

“Ah, these two women feared me up, sometimes.” Mumbled the bearded man to himself. Gads Gilmore seemingly forgotten that the radio receiver is on, that his own rattle goes forth to the attention of them both.

~stab~

Shanice slashed the zombie’s throat in blistering pace. Looking dread upon the face as her eyes squinted up alongside the frowning lips down bottom, the leader faced her brother amidst her rampage,” Yo, do this face scary enough for you, Gads?” She taunted a little. Natasha Gastano does the similar and produced her best ugly face she could attain, all in the middle of them marring their foes with ease,” Quit pretending, start bad-face making, huh. Good one, Shanice!” She cheered.