Prototype. (1)
Just looking at it was enough to make him want to vomit — and yet Sang-goo bent down anyway, reaching out with a gloved hand to poke and prod at the things' remains. Rotten flesh sagged under his fingers, and decayed brain matter and bodily fluids squelched with a grotesque sound, but he paid it no mind.
Squelch—
He pried the shattered back of a skull wide open. He did the same to all three of them.
'Pried open by force. Not clean work.'
The force behind it had been enough to fracture the occipital bone. Brains, eyeballs, and chunks of both facial and skull bone were simply missing. Inside the cracked-open skulls, all that remained was dark-red flesh, rotted muscle, and a little residual brain matter, giving off a foul stench.
Something had eaten it. Whatever this thing was, it had disgusting taste.
Sang-goo's eyes flicked across the floor. Not a single fragment of brain to be found — the meal had been finished off with remarkable thoroughness.
'A thing that eats only the brains.'
It had left every other part untouched and extracted the brain alone. Another filthy variant had been born, it seemed. Perhaps because the bodies had already been decomposing, he could find no signs of struggle or petechial hemorrhaging on the faces or throats. Still, Sang-goo surmised they had been transformed while they were still human.
His route was urgent, yet there was a clear reason he was examining things this carefully: what he and old man Hwang Sang-chul had experienced in Daejeon. The incidents they suspected Holton's handiwork was behind.
Zombies forming swarms. Hunting down weaker specimens. And beyond that, there had been the ones that acted like they were cockroaches, endlessly devouring rotting corpses and vomiting them back up. When winter ended, a plague from the sheer volume of dead would hardly be a surprise — and yet the zombies fought each other and shredded the bodies down to size, which was a blessing for the living, if you could call it that.
The important thing was… he'd always assumed such things only happened on land. If Holton's reach hadn't extended here as well, then everything he'd been suspicious about might just be a natural(?) phenomenon after all.
It needed checking. Sang-goo pressed his earpiece.
"Team Leader Baek."
―Oh, hey! Sang-goo! What's up?! You need backup?
"Not yet. But… this submersible. Was it really docked here from the very first day of the Break?"
―September 3rd? 4th? Busan went insane when the zombies had that random seizure spree, right? We got reports this place went the same way around then.
"……I see."
―Why? What is it? Something wrong?
"Nothing. I'll brief you in detail later. We're entering the fourth floor shortly. Over."
For some time now, when Hwang Sang-chul or Sang-goo said over, it meant focus up and keep your mouth shut. Team Leader Baek, reading between the lines, fell silent.
"We'll know once we're in."
It wasn't as if he could take the skull-split corpses with him. He snapped a few photos, then shoved the half-closed door open with brute force.
Gruuunk—
He'd tested his strength before bothering with any equipment. The door gave without resistance.
Vmmmning—
As Sang-goo crossed the threshold first, two figures behind him announced their presence.
"Let's go."
Chek-chek-chek-chek— toto-toto-tot—
The two came scrambling after him, taking up positions in front of and behind Sang-goo just as they had at the start. Before long, they reached the fourth floor. This time, nothing blocked the way.
They pressed on — fifth floor, sixth floor, straight down. Entering each floor's corridor meant risking whatever might come leaping out, but there was no need to court danger unnecessarily. Sang-goo descended to the sixth floor without pausing.
'So many zombies. Good thing I came alone.'
From the fourth floor through the sixth alone, there had to be around five hundred. Infesting a cramped space like that, it would have been a private hell for regular soldiers.
The things never registered Sang-goo's presence. Now and then a few zombies stationed near the stairwell would turn their heads at the footsteps of Little and Big —
Crack! Chok!
— and Sang-goo would finish them with the axe, saving his bullets. And so the three advanced at a double-time pace.
They were already at the seventh floor. Sang-goo paused a beat to resupply — drinking water, checking the battery on his oxygen pack — then pulled out the tablet and brought up the interior map.
'We have to cross a corridor.'
From the fourth floor to the seventh, the route had run in one straight line. Getting from the seventh to the eighth, though, meant passing through a corridor. It looked like a machinery-room corridor led partway down before opening into the entrance to the eighth floor's hangar. According to the last radio call, the eighth-floor door had sealed automatically and trapped the survivors inside — which meant the hangar door would have to be opened by operating the equipment in the seventh-floor machinery room.
They'd made it here faster and more cleanly than he'd expected. 'Almost there.' Leaving the robots behind, Sang-goo opened the iron door to the seventh floor.
―Graaaaakh!
―Krrrrrk!
The moment the door swung open, the welcome party was a chorus of guttural howls. Heads cocked. Nostrils flared. Teeth clacked together as the things glared at the robots behind Sang-goo.
Tak! Tak! Tak!
Three subsonic rounds from the high-performance suppressor blew out three skulls in quick succession. The thud of bodies collapsing echoed once through the space. The gazes of the zombies scattered down the long corridor swarmed toward the noise all at once — but as expected, none of them came at Sang-goo.
"Whew… I'll have to clear them all out. You two, fall back."
Little and Big retreated swiftly. Sang-goo surveyed the area ahead. Over fifty, even by a rough count. If the things swarmed over Little and Big mid-passage and wrecked them, that would be an unforgivable waste. Who knew how good the robots in the container he'd be getting after rescuing Colonel Oh might be — but either way, he couldn't just let these two get trashed.
Sang-goo smacked the wall with the butt of his rifle.
Vuuuum—
The steel plate rang out, the low thrum spreading fast through the corridor.
―Grrrrr…
―Kwak! Kkak!
The zombies scattered here and there shook their heads, clacked their teeth, and began converging, step by careful step. Sang-goo struck the wall again, and the things started to clump together.
A moment later.
Tatatak—! Tatatak—! Tatatak—!
He aimed at the clumped mass of heads and fired three-round bursts.
Pubbebek—! Pupupuk!
Rotten brain matter and flesh-flecked bone shards spun through the air, and the loathsome things dropped, one after another, like felled sacks. The sight of their heads bursting was deeply satisfying.
Even an elite special forces unit would have scratched its head over fifty-odd zombies in a confined space. For Sang-goo, it was simple: aim, and shoot.
Of course—
"Whew… this is no joke."
The scene was like some grotesque horror game, and adapting to it never quite got easier. But there was no stopping here. Sang-goo called in Little Dog.
Chulbuk— cheobuk—
The three made their way quickly across a floor smeared with rotten blood and filth, and finally arrived at their first destination: the central door of the machinery room. He connected power to the card reader slot and pressed the tablet he'd brought against it. One of Team Leader Baek's operators had pre-configured everything, so the security released on its own, and with a hiss of releasing hydraulics, the machinery room door opened.
Chiiiii—
The instant the door parted, lights bloomed — not from the ceiling, but along the walls. Emergency power kicking in. The pale yellow wall lamps lit the vast, labyrinthine machinery room well enough to navigate.
Vmm— toto-tot.
Little Dog sensibly advanced a few paces ahead. Time to spread some scanner light, apparently.
"Begin."
The moment the word left Sang-goo's mouth, a green laser swept down from the ceiling, across the machines, and down to the floor. Big Cow did the same. The place was vast and tangled, so the scan would take a while — Sang-goo turned his gaze to the tablet for a moment.
That was when it happened.
Thoom—
A sound from far off — from a section so cluttered with obstacles that neither robot's laser had reached it yet. Had it caught Little Dog's sound sensors too? The robot bolted toward the noise.
"Wait!"
A bad feeling made Sang-goo call the thing to a halt.
Jjijik—
The robot braked hard mid-sprint. Even its laser scanner froze at the command. And just as Sang-goo, rifle raised, arrived at its side—
'A shadow?!'
Something dark swept over Little Dog. Sang-goo's eyes lifted — a massive ventilation duct was creaking. He snapped his head up in time to see something scuttle away to a new position.
That was absolutely not the movement of a human being.
'A variant!'
What the hell? Why hadn't he detected it?
Every variant up to now had tripped his biosensor, no exceptions. Hiding in darkness, hiding behind obstacles — anything within a twenty-meter radius had shown up on Sang-goo's radar. But this thing had slipped past him completely.
Vmung—
Bibibik— bibibit—
The two robots' alarms shrieked a beat too late, green and red lasers swinging in unison toward a single point: behind a motor the size of a one-ton truck, roughly ten meters dead ahead.
"Fall back, both of you."
Sang-goo locked the rifle firmly into his shoulder and advanced toward the back of the huge motor, killing his footsteps one by one.
He knew it was there. It knew he was there. Each knew the other was the enemy — and that a fight for their lives was about to begin.
'One? Or two?'
All he'd confirmed was movement behind the motor; he hadn't laid eyes on the thing's actual shape. The distance was down to five meters. It would show itself soon. The fact that it wasn't running meant it was waiting for its own chance to counterattack. It clearly knew what the rifle could do.
'A variant I've never faced before.'
Even with his heart about to burst from his chest, Sang-goo ran simulations in his head.
Tik—
He switched the selector from three-round burst to full auto. He had no idea how fast the thing was, so he'd have to anticipate its head line and rake it. Would it flatten itself to the floor and slide in low? Or launch straight up and come down at him from above? Or somewhere in between? Even a moment's thought split the likely head line into three points. The answer made itself: no single angle would kill it outright — not with an obstacle between them. Of course, that was just a prediction. They'd have to collide to find out.
Pabak!
Before he could even finish the thought, the floor erupted with the sound of a launching body.
'Right side!'
Tatatatatatak—!
The variant burst out toward Sang-goo's right like a bolt of lightning.
Pubebeuk—!
'Hit it!'
He heard the sound he was growing far too used to by now — the sound of flesh bursting.
"Lights!!"
Fwaaaaak—!
Two powerful searchlights lanced out — precisely along the thing's escape route.
―Kwaaaaaak!
The variant recoiled in blind panic at the sudden blaze of light, and in doing so gave itself away completely: it had scrambled up onto an overhead structure and was shielding both its eyes with two long, spindly arms.
"Damn it."
Sang-goo, moving straight into his next attack, was forced to stop. Of all places, the thing had climbed onto a giant cable tray. Even without any knowledge of electrical systems, anyone could see how dangerous that was. Even a rough look showed a tray packed with dozens of cables each as thick as a grown man's forearm — and with the eighth-floor hangar door still to open, he couldn't risk blowing them to pieces. One careless hit, and the circuit breakers might cut power to the entire facility.
―Krrrrr…
Did the thing know it too, and climb up there anyway? It snarled in frustration, hunching and twisting its body this way and that to escape the light.
Sang-goo kept the thing in his sights as he moved out into the open.
―Kwaak! Kwak!
"Crafty bastard."
And it was clever. Every time Sang-goo tried to line up a shot, it would crawl along the top of the tray, hunting for a blind spot.
Tatatatatak—!
He fired warning bursts to drive it down. He even deliberately showed an opening — dumping the rest of his magazine and fumbling the replacement slow — but the thing merely weaved back and forth. It never came down.
'That's no coincidence. It understands exactly what's happening.'
Bik—
Just then, Little Dog sent over a captured frame. On the tablet, the thing's form rendered in 3D.
A shape so horrifying that merely looking at it made bile rise in the throat. A torso the size of an ordinary adult man — and arms and legs that were disgustingly, impossibly long. But the truly unbelievable part was—
"How…."
It had two heads.
And what staggered him most: one of them appeared to be an adult's. The other, a boy's.