Death by Blood

CHAPTER 4: THE GAMBLE

INT. BRIARWOOD RESEARCH COMPLEX

Midnight settles over the ravaged city like a shroud. Buildings cast jagged shadows across deserted streets, the only movement the eerie dance of dust motes caught in the ghostly beams of abandoned headlights. The once vibrant metropolis is a corpse, yet within its rotting heart, a monstrous pulse quickens.  The faint, rhythmic throb of helicopter blades slices through the desolate silence.

Aboard the chopper, four figures huddle. Ace, their leader, sits nearest the open hatchway, his square jaw set in grim determination. Beneath the stoic facade, his mind races faster than the aircraft hurtling them towards the ground zero of this nightmare. It’s more than a mission, it’s a suicide run, and the weight of that knowledge claws at his gut.

He inhales sharply, the chill night air laced with the acrid tang of burning flesh and something darker, a creeping dread echoing the sickly stench of decay.  Anya, beside him, tenses. Her raptor’s gaze never wavers from the approaching target, but the white-knuckled grip on her sniper rifle betrays a flicker of vulnerability beneath that professional mask.

Kai shifts behind them, a soft grunt the only sound from the usually boisterous giant. His calloused hand rests lightly on the demolition pack, not for comfort, but as if preparing his weapon for war against both the monstrous unseen and his own doubts.

Mikko, bathed in the harsh blue glow of his laptop, is their voice of doom. “Confirmed biohazard breach, sector three.  Thermal imaging shows… movement. It’s in the damned ventilation shafts!” His usually calm voice cracks with a terror none of them can fully admit to.

“Thirty seconds to drop,” the pilot’s voice crackles, a grim countdown none of them want to hear.

Ace flashes back to the Oval Office, the President’s haunted eyes, the almost pleading desperation in her voice as she outlined the unthinkable plan.  They’re a surgical strike, a scalpel meant to excise a tumor…but the risk is that they become the spreading infection themselves.

“Orders, sir?” Anya’s voice cuts through his grim reverie.

Ace swallows hard. He knows the orders, knows they’re a death sentence for them all. Yet, hesitation is a death knell for the world. He’s faced monstrous enemies before, but this…this feels different.  An echo of Abby Sinclair’s haunted idealism flickers through him before he can squash it. He can’t afford to think like her, to question, to yearn for another way.  His job isn’t to save the world, it’s to make sure what’s left of it is worth saving.

“We go in hard, we secure the target, and we get the hell out,” he rasps, his voice echoing the finality of their task. “We fail, and the order comes from higher up. You know what that means.”

He doesn't need to spell It out. A tactical nuke to sterilize the area.  Their bodies would be lost along with those of the infected, a horrific price to pay, perhaps in vain.  

“Understood, sir,” comes Mikko’s shaky reply. The tech prodigy isn’t built for this, and they all know it. Ace wonders briefly how a kid who hacks into enemy satellites for fun ended up on the front lines of a world-ending apocalypse.

The chopper banks sharply, the Briarwood Complex looming in the night, its scarred concrete façade like the grotesque smile of hell’s gatekeeper. Ace’s soldiers tense as one; the monster is in its lair, waiting. And,  with a sickening jolt, he realizes they’re the ones who just volunteered to walk directly into its jaws.

Ace nods, his gaze sweeping across his team. They may be the best, but this mission pushes the limits of human capability. He sees a flicker of apprehension in Mikko’s eyes, a grim determination in Anya’s. Kai simply tightens his grip on a weathered good luck charm – a worn seashell necklace, a poignant reminder of the life he left behind.