Infected Codex: The Dissolver
Dusk in the mountains. A dark blue-skinned variant Walker stood right in front of me. Pus oozed from every inch of its body, and its skin was a festering mess without a single intact patch. Its movements were feeble and staggering, likely due to severe muscle damage.
"Grrrrowl—."
And instead of the usual guttural roars like 'Kieeeek!' or 'Grrrh—,' this one let out a purring sound like a feline. It didn't look dangerous at all—in fact, it seemed pretty harmless—but that didn't mean I could take it lightly. That purring meant it had loaded up its ultra-potent corrosive fluid.
These things had mutated internal organs and a lower jaw adapted to fire the fluid at range. The purr came from expelling air to build pressure. A fist-sized blob of blue liquid shot out silently. I twisted aside, and it flew past me, hitting a tree. Sizzle. The 50cm-thick pine trunk melted away in seconds and began to topple. Thud. It took less than five seconds to fall, showing just how vicious the corrosion was. Even a security robot would be crippled by a direct hit. The main frames might hold, but everything else would be trashed—like a tank hitting an anti-tank mine and getting immobilized. In a way, it made them the most dangerous foes. As the saying goes, heroes fall to a single blind arrow on the battlefield.
Chaotic Infected waves. Frenzied firefights. Miss that one shot from a blind spot amid the chaos, and you're dead.
Sizzle—. Another shot grazed past me. It melted everything it touched—trees, dirt, rocks. The rocks bubbled and deformed, enough to send chills down your spine.
Tat-tat-tang! Before it could fire again, I unleashed my rifle. The 5.56mm rounds tore into its gut, ending it right there. A balloon-pop sound rang out, and blue liquid gushed from the bullet holes in its belly.
The sac holding the corrosive fluid, from the mouth area onward, was made of highly chemical-resistant material. But the rest was relatively fragile. No muscle could withstand that acid while maintaining mobility. That's why its skin and muscles gradually melted from exposure, filling its body with pus.
The leaked fluid dissolved its guts, pierced the peritoneum below, and poured out through a hole in its pelvic center. "Grraaaah—!" Crash! With its pelvis, femur, and connecting joints melted away, it couldn't even stand. Splat! As it flailed on the ground, a bullet hole appeared in its forehead, smashing its face into the dirt.
I'd named these Dissolvers. Their overwhelming corrosive power always carried the risk of self-destruction. One solid hit to the fluid sac near the solar plexus with a bullet, and they collapsed on their own. Glass cannons—devastating offense, but fragile durability. Spot them early, and neutralizing them is a breeze.
"Grrrrowl—."
A growl came from behind me—another Dissolver. I spun reflexively, but it was already primed to fire. My mouth opened first, though. "Freeze!"
It halted instantly at my command. I approached for a closer look.
"Alright, show me." It gaped its mouth wide. No teeth inside. Dissolvers lost their teeth for smooth firing, with their tongues and lower jaws reshaped for the purpose.
"Spawning one behind me out of nowhere is cheating."
It's to remind you not to get complacent.
The world shifted like time had sped up thousands of times over. The dark mountains lit up in an instant. I was jacked into the Infected Bestiary on the VR machine. It cataloged every Infected I'd encountered or observed with my robots and drones. Captured specimens had been dragged to the outdoor lab and dissected down to the last detail—appearance, combat tactics, durability, agility, reflexes, vision, hearing range, cries, weight, solo behavior, even breeding for those that laid eggs or birthed live young. We could model them with incredible precision.
"Next." The background blurred to Blood Pack Technology's underground. A Lamprey Mother appeared before me. The ET-like swollen uterus and elongated, snake-like vaginal walls were as repulsive as ever. I tapped my wrist PDA, switching it to X-ray view. Inside the womb, at least ten lamprey eels writhed.
Thud! A bullet to the forehead sent it toppling backward. After five seconds, the lampreys inside went berserk.
As you can see, killing the mother doesn't mean you're safe. They detect her death in seconds at best, a minute at worst.
It was straight out of Alien. The bloated belly heaved wildly, tearing open with blood pouring out. Lamprey teeth glinted through the ripped abdominal skin—hatchlings gnawing chunks from their mother's flesh.
Then they all burst out at once.
Tat-tat-tat-tang! I hosed its belly with full-auto. Drum-like thuds echoed as the lampreys inside turned to mush. Click!
You must confirm the kill. 'Just blow the head off and move on' doesn't cut it. Without a shotgun or flamethrower, clean removal's tough. In a pinch, you won't have time to check.
Artemis was right. In VR with X-ray vision, it was easy, but in the field? How do you verify every last one? Pass by assuming the belly stopped moving, and a lamprey could nail you in the back of the head. There were plenty more headache variants. Like the recently discovered Death Hug. I summoned it.
"What a grotesque bastard." A 2-meter Walker variant without a jaw. From upper lip to crotch, it split open like a gaping pencil case. Where the zipper should be, dozens of teeth lined both sides. It stared straight at me and slowly crouched.
"Oh, right." I tapped my arm PDA, unchecking 'object' in player options. It froze mid-crouch for two seconds, then stood up, looking around confusedly. Its prey had vanished right in front of it. But moments later, it locked onto a hapless roe deer that appeared. It crouched again. Compared to standard Walkers, its thighs and calves were grotesquely hypertrophied.
Bang! It exploded forward, leaping nearly 10 meters to engulf the deer. It hugged it tight into its chest. Crunching sounds of tearing flesh and snapping bones filled the air. Lying on the ground, it crossed its long legs and arms around the prey—like a lover's embrace. Twisted limbs, hands, feet, ass—all exposed obscenely. Blood from the deer poured over it. Utterly revolting.
With its front wide open, Death Hugs couldn't use abs or pecs for propulsion, so agility sucked. Instead, hyper-developed legs let it pounce from afar. Dodge the initial lunge, and its sluggishness made it easy pickings—but it always ambushed silently, so not that simple.
In this war against the Infected, knowledge trumped field experience. Their habits, anatomy. My PDA's Bestiary had logged up to No. 312. No need to memorize every one—some existed only a handful in Korea.
"Kraaaang—!" Like the gorilla Infected from the contaminated zoo. Or the colossal sea monsters—I'd never run into those. Terrestrial beast Infected mostly relied on brute physicality: clawing, biting, charging straight-line.
"In the end, the real threat is humans?" Humans were numerous and mutated in the most diverse ways—growing huge, birthing things, transforming, spewing acid, even fusing into bigger, stronger forms. Humans. Past or present, the greatest enemy was always human.
After finishing the Bestiary session, I headed to the outdoor lab. Once just flasks, Petri dishes, and precision instruments, now it brimmed with live and dead specimens. Several Infected floated whole in massive preservation tanks.
"Feels straight out of Umbrella Corp."
On the surface, it screamed evil bioweapon lab.
How dare you compare my research to that trash company?
"Ah, sorry. No offense meant."
Fictional or not, Umbrella ran horrific human experiments and terrorism. Comparing it to her dedicated fight against the Infected was insulting.
Amateurs who leak every day and blow up their whole facility!
Huh, her anger was about their incompetence, not the ethics. Half our specimens were cloned embryos from the Seed Vault: lab rats, guinea pigs, fruit flies, white rabbits. We'd even scored horseshoe crab embryos, enabling mass production of their blood—previously absent at Blood Pack Technology. Biology research had exploded post-vault visit. Artemis often dragged me over, beaming like a kid: "Jinsu! Look at this!"
One section held jars of sampled Infected tissues. Lamprey Mother's uterus, ovaries, and vaginal walls—extracted and fixed—grabbed the eye first. Anyone entering would notice. Pure attention-stealer. Dissolver fluid sacs were under analysis too.
It's proving invaluable for chemical-resistant materials.
A Walker stripped to brain and spine—huge for one. Nerve tendrils like plant roots waved in the preservative from the spine. Nearby, ten transparent cases held palm-sized tissue chunks, each with unique color and texture.
"These?"
Assemblers.
I eyed the sample. The variant from the Shelter reclamation finale. It could repair most wounds and reshape itself to the battlefield—hard shell to deflect attacks, or soft to squeeze through bars. Sprout blades to shred nets, camouflage like a mimic octopus in forests or deserts.
Our lab's crown jewel. Immense scientific value.
"Like?"
A file hit my PDA: a rugged black full-body suit. The 3D animation showed its surface texture and color shifting under fire, acid, impacts.
Developing a combat suit covering the entire body.
"Like a Nano Suit?" Always gets a guy's blood pumping.
Not exactly. You've got plenty of nanobots already, and future ones will function internally. The suit augments that, shielding your surface from physical and chemical threats.
She continued the tour like a guide, explaining ongoing research and specimens—griping about raider robot losses securing them.
One last thing.
A sealed cage with lab rats, guinea pigs, fruit flies. First, the rat—classic white fur, red eyes, but Infected tissue grafted on made it toad-sized. It sniffed around curiously, tail twitching.
"This one's secure, right?" The transparent case had fine cracks. I rubbed my finger gently—no give. Internal damage.
"Squeak—!" The moment my finger entered its view, its face twisted, baring fangs. Thump! I jolted back, gasping. It body-slammed toward my finger. Unbelievable force from that tiny body. Skreech. It gnashed and scraped the wall, adding new cracks.
Not from impacts—scratches. Don't worry. It's safe.
"Tell me sooner next time." I rubbed my finger, eyeing it warily. No thanks to imagining a bite.
Where's the fun in that?
A snapshot hit my PDA: mouth agape like a manhole, arms flailing pathetically. Artemis's giggles echoed.
The guinea pig hadn't grown but lost all fur, its body a Belgian Blue-like mass of muscle. Its docile eyes burned feral. Vroom—. Pigeon-sized fruit fly wings buzzed like a motorcycle.
Watch this.
Golf-ball-sized white blobs on the cage walls inflated—whoosh!—like airbags, pinning rat, guinea pig, and fly.
"Keeek—." Rat and guinea pig squished against the glass, tongues and eyes bulging. The fly gnawed futilely.
A tiny robot arm injected the rat with bluish fluid. The white blob deflated, releasing it. Enraged, it rampaged, tick-tick! echoing endlessly.
Even with our powerful army, can we really cleanse the world? I say no.
She was spot on. "Globally? They'd outbreed our ammo production."
Human Infected weren't increasing, but wildlife and insects were mutating too. Even reproductive mutant trees.
More scouting and research will yield stronger weapons, robots, vehicles, air assets. But that's not a root solution.
The injected rat convulsed lightly at first, then violently all over—then stilled. The vibrant beast croaked in under ten seconds, tongue lolling, eyes rolled back.
"Poison?"
Not that simple.
The arm swapped syringe for scalpel, slicing into the rat's spine. Blood and spinal fluid gleamed on the blade. Microscope feed hit the monitor—even I could tell: floating cells necrotizing rapidly.
Infected cells carry embedded commands. We've partially decoded one—enough to disrupt with a compound.
"That's huge!"
Not really.
Guinea pig and fly got doses too. The pig convulsed briefly but recovered, limping occasionally. The fly barely reacted.
Genetic codes vary by host—even same lineage spawns variants. We need the common 'root' code across all infections. No trace yet. The rat was just lucky—we hit one lethal individual code.
Luck, huh.
Plus, injecting pure vs. aerosol via respiration? Worlds apart. Can't jab every Infected on Earth.
This was her true endgame: chemical dispersal via atmosphere.
"Fight poison with poison?"
Yes. Infection with infection.
No other way.
The limping guinea pig regained normal gait—it had overcome her injected disruptor program. The rat case was pure fluke. But to me, it felt bigger than Armstrong's moonwalk. Artemis beamed—rare joy.
Exactly. Even rock erodes under dripping water over centuries. Mere blinks to my scientific passion.
Her enthusiasm lifted my spirits too. I hoped it wouldn't take too long. I wanted to see a cleansed Earth in my lifetime—unlike her immortality, I couldn't count on centuries.