Resilient - Evolution

Chapter 2: Cleaning House

In their meeting about the creatures that had taken over the medical labs, Drake was leading the conversation. Most of the group were off doing other projects, but this was something that weighed heavily on their minds. He said, "I don't know about you, but I don't want a pocket of these things right in the middle of us. All it takes is for the door to get open, and we've got a real mess on our hands."

Danny said, "Right now, we don't have any way to see where they are, and we don't know how many of them there are ... it's suicide for somebody to go out in the middle of all that."

Manuel put in his two cents, too, "Dude, that's like a maze in there. Here's the layout," pointing at the screen where he was showing three different levels of interconnecting corridors and rooms. "There's multiple places where they can come out at you down there, and we don't even have a way to see what's going on. Anybody that goes in is pretty much on their own."

"What about that elevator?" Ben said. "It's showing that it goes to the Administration level. Can we control it, lock all the doors except the ones that we're dealing with, and take it all in smaller bites?"

It was back to Drake again, and he said, "What about a team? We send in three, maybe four people, armed to the teeth. They kill everything they see and just go slow and clean the place out." He looked at the rest of them and said, "Look, they're not going to be shooting back. How many of them can there be anyway?"

"I'll go," Vin said. He was probably one of their best killers now ... besides Nina. Amanda nudged Wes and said, "We'll go too."

"All right, then," Danny said. "I'll work the doors, but that's really all I can do. I don't have any video feed, and Ram can't pick out how many there are or even where they are without the sensors. All we know for sure is that there is a large concentration of them somewhere in the morgue area, but they're showing to be all over, too. It's like a nest down there."

Ben said, "We need to have access to the equipment in there. We need a way to get rid of our waste, and we need to have access to the recycling system ... and we need that Bio Scanner. I don't really see any way around it."

"Ram," Drake said, "Do you have any input on any of this?"

"Danny's right," Ram said. "Without any sensors in that area, I'm afraid I'm just as blind as you are."

"Ram, where's Nina?" Drake asked.

Ram said, "She's still on the surface. They're putting several of the drones out to watch all the surrounding terrain, and they are setting up a Transport as an overwatch. Eric is with her, and Duke is with them, too. Tanika, Gloria, and Davis are helping get the farm going."

"What about Mark and Joanne?" Drake asked.

"They're still working on the apartments," Ram said. "They've got Destiny, Tammy, and Jennifer with them. Roger and Simon are in the warehouse checking out the new ships. I think that accounts for just about everybody."

Drake said, "I'd sure like to have a backup before trying something like this." He didn't like the idea of being scattered so thin. They were just so limited on people right now, and until their numbers increased, it would probably be like this. "You really think you can do this?" he asked the three.

Vin nodded, and Amanda said, "I've been running the patrols with Wes at the park for a while now. This is a little tighter space, but a Zombie is a Zombie ... and we've got these new guns and armor now, too."

"Ram, let Nina and Mark know what's going on. They may need to come down here if something goes wrong," Drake said. "Okay, get your gear ... we're going in."