Operation Start
The operation kicked off. The door, sealed tight since the infection outbreak, swung open for the first time.
> Follow the displayed path.
Artemis's guidance continued through the comms device clipped to my ear. Right now, I was in the Central Facilities District square—the very spot I'd overlooked from the control room balcony. It was called a square, but there were no fountains, benches for resting, or patches of grass where residents might spread out picnic blankets. True to its name, the facilities district was more like an industrial zone for loading, assembling, and repairing all sorts of materials and equipment. I slipped into the maintenance shop—my first waypoint—using the scattered forklifts and trucks as cover. There were some movements visible far across the square, but they were few in number and hadn't spotted me yet. The emergency lockdown had hit in the dead of night right after the outbreak, so only a handful of overnight workers had been inside.
The first thing I approached inside the maintenance shop was the fire alarm relay. "Artemis."
> I'm listening.
"Even back in my army days when I was flying high, I wouldn't bet on lasting long with just a shotgun. Especially in close-quarters combat where anything could pop out from a few meters away."
From this maintenance shop to the Central District control room, I'd have to weave through the twisting interior of the buildings for at least 400 meters.
"No matter how I slice it, pushing through without a map hack is straight-up insane."
> Using the surveillance cameras is impossible.
Artemis replied immediately. This was exactly why she made for such a prickly but solid conversation partner. The moment I dropped "map hack," she'd already pieced together everything related: dictionary definitions, technical workings, countermeasures—the works. She could handle any topic more fluently than the person bringing it up, even if it was brand-new to her (not that it'd ever be).
Crack. I wedged the axe's blade into the gap of the fire alarm relay box and pried it open like a lever. The lock shattered. Flipping up the lid revealed wires and comm lines snaking out from the relay device, climbing the walls to link with countless detectors.
"Can't use the cameras, but what about the fire detectors?"
A quick glance at the ceiling showed three silver fire detectors, each fist-sized, in my immediate view alone.
"As you know, all fire detectors are networked through relays like this one at each station."
I pulled out my hacking tool.
"And these are the new models. Unlike the old ones that just sit there waiting for smoke particles to drift inside, these actively snag airborne particles."
If old models were spiderwebs, the new ones were radar. The old type might miss a sloppy newbie worker sneaking a smoke in the warehouse corner, stamping out the butt half-assed before bailing—only blaring when the wind carried the ember to a stack of boxes and they went up in flames. By then, it was too late. The new ones? They'd ping the second the newbie took a drag. By the time he finished, he'd see the PDA warning and come face-to-face with the foreman coming to kick his ass.
"You get what I'm driving at, right?"
She didn't just get it—she'd already whipped up the program on the fly. As the hacking tool's blue light burrowed into the relay, she chimed in.
> Updated all fire detectors to track and transmit particles from the infected's breath. Their positions will stream to your PDA in real-time now.
Movements popped up on the minimap on my wrist PDA.
> Red dots for confirmed infected, yellow for ambiguous. Stay sharp.
Not bad for detectors never meant for this. It was a godsend already.
"Plenty perfect. You nailed it. You're the best."
> "Sufficient" and "perfect" don't coexist. My touch brings only perfection. Pity the detectors' lowly performance.
But I caught the faint glee in her voice.
"Any survivors?"
> CO2 output estimates no living humans.
"......"
After that, things got smoother. The central district had few people inside to begin with, so few infected—and I could dodge most of them. Though there were occasional hiccups.
> Kill it.
"Yes, ma'am."
The fire axe sliced the air, plunging straight down. Splat. The infected sprawled on the floor had its skull cleaved clean open. Its eyes flashed hatred right before the blade hit, but that was the extent of its defiance. Even as brains oozed from the shattered cranium, its mouth kept chewing at nothing—some nerve cluster still firing, maybe replaying the last command etched in its brain. The segmented, cricket-like mandibles sprouting teeth two to three centimeters long. One bite, and it wouldn't end in a scratch.
"Who knew those ambiguous yellow dots were playing dead."
> Less "playing dead," more hibernation. No food or hosts left here.
"Barely breathing, so particle detection was fuzzy."
Near-hibernation with minimal respiration, but reactivation could be instant—no room for slacking. Spot one close, smash it flat. Luckily, every ex-soldier was a master of entrenching tool work. We were pros at slamming weight down on something. Especially me, with six years as a combat engineer officer.
That way, we skirted active ones, sticking to empty paths or hibernation spots.
> Open the door ahead. One more at 3 meters right.
Screech. Thud.
"Starting to like this hand-feel."
> Keep that morale up.
To boost my spirits, Artemis even added a kill counter to my PDA. True to a tech-heavy shop, barricades blocked passages and welded doors showed resistance efforts everywhere. But most were smashed or breached by infected. Clearing intact obstacles was no sweat.
> Step back.
She hacked and commandeered forklifts and loader cranes to shove them aside. The precise calculations accounting for barricade weights and angles made the forklifts dance like a surgeon wielding a scalpel. Amid the tangled steel plates, pallets, and lockers peeling away one by one, the noise was minimal. Awe-inspiring.
Welded doors were my gig—easy pickings. Especially with all the cutters lying around in a shop like this. I cracked open a cutter case, tweaked it for overclocking, and it chewed through with way more bite. Sure, it'd burn out fast, but who cared?
"Brings back active duty days. Cutting all sorts of shit left and right."
> Weren't you an officer? Wouldn't grunts handle the grunt work?
"In combat engineers, 'officer' also means the squad's top tech. In the field, finishing a job one second faster can decide the survival of dozens—or whole units."
No hanging back saying "I'm an officer."
"Plus, my specialty was facility seizure."
> Facility Seizure. Specialty code 165. Elite unit for hacking and capturing automated software-controlled facilities.
She rattled off the details flawlessly.
"Spot on. Elite sabotage unit specialized in covert ops, not frontline warfare."
Only the best officers could lead the charge. Not just anyone could hack. Just two companies in all of Korea—elite of the elite. I commanded one.
The brass didn't hire me for nothing.
> Your record shows general by your 40s. Why switch careers?
"Pins and glory in an honorable military life? Tempting. First scout offer, I planned to snap, 'Trying to buy me off? Insulting me?!'"
> ...Too much money to scold over?
"Offer was massive. Turned out to be my life insurance. Done!"
I propped aside the door, neatly sliced just at the welds.
> Not bad for a meat lump on a bone shard. Good job.
Rare praise from her spurred me onward. The Central Facilities District control room was just ahead.